InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "F is for Flaying"

rupert "miles" glass (clowning) wrote in bellumlogs,
@ 2010-06-16 13:42:00

Entry tags:

black forest witch, rumplestiltskin

who: miles and OPEN.
what: dreaming, and then exploring.
where: the apartment complex, specifically... that damned elevator that never quite goes to where it's supposed to!
when: late evening.
warnings: probably unnecessary.

It was much in the style of a lions growl having lazily secreted itself in between blades of sallow grass through the savanna floor; although the lightning was cast the thunder was invisible, and therefore could go unnoticed. Most unfortunate. A gallop of it rumbled and trumpeted against the neck of a smooth, dark sky. A snake in a pile of hoses to those who raised their noses. Miles was dreaming of the day he was born. When the sky decided to say hello, and the stars spilled their cups.

The dream shifted, as dreams often do, to another location entirely.

People, as they frantically weaved their ways this way and that through the maze of boxed, evening market streets, did not bother to watch out overhead for the inevitable whip crack line of white lightning. As it streaked its naked slenderness through the clouds, Miles noticed his vision was actually... much lower than usual. He was not standing the sturdy six feet he usually did. Odd. Was he a child in this dream? And where was he? He was thirsty. Maybe this dream had diet coke.

The cobblestone streets were lined with those attempting to sell this mornings bread, this mornings cake, this mornings fruit -- this mornings anything before calling it a night. Drunkards were already swerving out of taverns for a snack, singing songs about the revolution. Singing about the King getting married.

And Miles, although he felt the phantom vibration of the thunder rattling at the bottom of his ribcage, was just like the others. Not paying any attention; his brow was dotted with sequins of sweat, and his eyes narrowed in a secluded brand of determination. What puffy clouds there were, he'd noticed, blocked out the laughter of twinkling stars, and seemed as black seeds in the teeth of a Heaven that didn't exist.

The illumination of lightning once again, as he raised his chin to search for stars, flashed and fled as quickly as it had arrived. A mugshot for Zeus to remember him by. Immortalizing the curious and reverent look on his face, that in that fleeting moment was highlighted almost to a bony reflection of death's iniquity... it was not his face in his mind's eye.

And he awoke with a jolt.

Miles half expected rain with how the smell of the air he took in had an almost refreshing odor, and half yearned for it. The dream had left him longing, as most dreams are wont to do, and of course, curious. His past was a distance memory when awake, and the ghosts there haunting the hallways of his wrathful psyche usually summoned up images of rain. Some of the memories of the circus were pleasurable. Some were painful. Some he wanted to never forget, and some he hoped that one day he would lose with the withering affect that the mind has on remembrance.

Tossing the blankets off of him hurriedly and irate, the way one might if they detected the approach of a spider too small to cause alarm, he ejected himself from bed and was happy that his mind was not bent on being rewound. Instantly, the haze of not having slept quite enough eased and erased the impression of the dream--rubbing his eyes of course helped--helped to rid his confusion, and helped to make his vision even blurrier. He liked to have blurry vision. Seeing clearly was much overrated.

After gathering up his clothes, getting dressed, not checking the time, having a diet coke, and tying up his long hair into a pony tail to which he'd amended the look of with a fedora and feather, he'd decided to investigate the apartment complex further. His associates were likely running errands for him at this hour in some dark corner of the city, of which he'd throw light onto soon. There was no use dilly-dallying for long, since there was much business to attend to tonight. For now, he just wanted to see if the rest of the complex looked the way his did, or if there were better locations to aspire to once he stole that wondrous thing he had his eye on at the jeweler ...

As he entered the elevator, he pressed the button for the 4th floor. The elevator, having a familiarly musty smell, had a minor reflective surface which he was more interested in than the mirror itself, and he was able to see himself partly burnished within the golden trim of it. And having still been half awake, he'd reached for the effaced reflections cheek, elongated as it was and would be in a fun house, as if lifes bones were as misaligned and fattened as the false projection implied.

DING.

And he set out onto the... what floor is this? This isn't the 4th floor. Before he was able to turn around, the elevator had come to a close.

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shebringscurses
2010-06-17 10:03 pm UTC (link)

Silly boy, Bellum was no place for sleeping! Everyone knew that dreams always got the best of you here. They set loose flocks of razor winged butterflies in the pit of your stomach, and made dry men beg for a bottle or a knife. Even the best sleeps teetered precariously on the cliff of nightmares, although it was nightmares that brought you the greatest sense of relief upon waking.. so maybe they were to be held the closest to your chest. One should hope for a nightmare before they laid their head down.

That was Vaughn's manifesto, but she had not been sleeping much lately. She was not herself these days. She was trying to be Jane, and it was making things complicated. She did not know who Jane was, or what Jane did, or what Jane would say.. so Vaughn took it upon herself to make a new Jane. A better Jane, one she could really wrap her head around.

New Jane was about late nights and city streets. Screaming in an empty alley just to hear it echo all the way up to where the bricked rooftops rubbed elbows with the moon. New Jane liked the park, and she liked to be barefoot, but she missed the winter. She could remember a cold that was so deep it went through one's bones, it was a cold that pervaded everything, it took one over, and it was the only thing one could think about. Only how cold it was.. and not the fact that.. she was losing a grip on everything. She was Vaughn, not Jane. She was Vaughn, she was just pretending.. she was supposed to be doing something important.

Vaughn hadn't tried to contact Daniel, she'd barely made him suffer yet. Because that was what she was here for, that's why Jane was back.. to make him suffer. She'd fallen away from that intention sometime between tonight and two weeks ago.. it just became easier to wander the city, to come home while the last of the darkness was leaking away. And then she made some tea, and she smoked at her window, and she thought of the Witch.

What would the Witch do? The Witch would go up to R1, right now, she'd scale the stairs and she'd make that man sorry. After putting out her cigarette, and adopting a methodical, mechanical pace.. she exited her fourth floor apartment, and took to the stairs. Up, and up, and up. Her feet were bare, and she wore a trio of silk slips that barely functioned as casual dress. Layers of silk and lace in odd, alternating colors; magenta and seagreen with an overlay of threadbare black.

Vaughn could remember a time when she'd spend her nights in the stairwell, exhaling smokestacks and watching the strangers. But that had been quite a long time ago, when she'd still been able to be herself here. Before certain misunderstandings.. like the knife, or pushing Boyd down the stairs, or when Sleeping Beauty turned up with all those peony bruises. But really, who was counting?

It was while she was crossing the landing of the eighth floor that the elevator sounded, and perturbed by the invasion of her solitude, Vaughn came to an abrupt halt. The man was no one she had seen before, although she had to admit that she'd hardly been keeping tabs on the new residents these days. It was a touch difficult when one could not even keep track of themselves.

Stepping forward onto the rustic bristle of carpeting, and leaning somewhat against the stairwell's ominous mouth, she surveyed him before speaking. "You look lost.."

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clowning
2010-06-18 06:21 am UTC (link)

"I do," he'd drawled half-heartedly into the voices direction. Though it seemed as if he was otherwise paying no mind to her (more so, it might have seemed he was paying attention mostly to what surrounded him), the very faint movement of his chin into her direction would indicate that, although subtly, he was indeed paying attention to her multi-colored slips, long legs, and dark hair. Oh, and no shoes. Apparently, this must be her floor, or one she's acquainted with. One only walks bare footed where they are comfortable. A magician always inspects minor and major details, to pluck out what is useful and to disqualify the useless. A magician analyzes them within miniature instances most others would use for admiring the lighting. Not the case for our 'lost', or perhaps more accurately misplaced one.

However, an adventurous and fascinated region of his psyche was all too focused on the unique differences of his new surroundings. The other portion, of course, was occupied with those words, where they'd continued to ricochet despite him having bitten their bullet. You look lost. Was he lost? He'd turned around gracefully, his brow furrowed into one smooth node of which no delicate thumb of a future princess could iron out with loves impression, and he stood up straight and tall. It was rude of him not to address her directly and immediately, to be preoccupied with studying the floor he'd known existed, but had failed as of yet to explore. Very rude! But did he care? Not particularly. It would be nice of him to pretend he did, though. And thus, he'd moistened the corner of his mouth with a swift dart of his tongue, and arched his brow.

"I suppose I am. That elevator," he'd motioned to the closed, temperamental box with a gloved hand, "Brought me to the wrong floor. And here I am. A pioneer in a territory unknown to me; a stranger in a strange land... here with a stranger, saying I look lost." Miles grinned then. He grinned in such a luminous and genuine way, that it could either peel the stockings off of the devil's spies, or rival the moon. It's nature was arguable. Entirely subjective.

With the strong voice and sturdy confidence of a performer (hint, hint.), he'd announced: "My name's Miles. Miles Glass." and took a deep and respectful bow. "And you are...?"