nox (exspiro) wrote in maschinell, @ 2014-12-31 07:14:00 |
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Entry tags: | nox, starke |
the voyeurs.
[ starke + nox ]
Snuff. What a stupid sounding word.
Nox appreciated the meaning, at least. He could see the imagery just fine -- the simple pinch of calloused fingers against a lit match, the smoke that was born of that sudden departure of oxygen, trailing to heavens unknown.
Snuff.
Surely it deserved a better word. Something more suited to the clumsy display of a first time murderer, desperately flailing a blade into the guts of an overdone prostitute. He meant to aim for --- the heart? Nope, missed. This time? No, again. The blade was chipping into the metal and bone of her rib-cage; that faint clank that was so distinct, even when covered in a cushion of flesh.
Nox had to give her credit: she didn't look in the least bit bored. But that's what she was paid for; each moan and wail, the lifted fists --- would she fight it? Just for show. Maybe just to make it go faster.
"Such a mess," he murmured, in his detached sort of way, heavily tattooed fingers lifting a bottle of beer to his lips as he watched the display from behind the glass of his own private Orin; a den of spy-holes and one way mirrors, all for the purpose of watching this business of death and profit. The backrooms of Death's Door.
"But she's good with first-timers. Don't you think?"
"I could show her something that hurts."
Leering words, curled lip snarls and the illusion of skeleton teeth. The dark prophet and his bone body clapped their tormenter hands down on Nox's inked shoulders, congratulatory and perilous as he came to his side. He slid, smooth and unashamed, against the killer creature before he was leaning against him, arm about him as good old friends--
relaxed and ready to strike as good old friends would be.
A swig of beer, a devil's snort as the subject of their jeering dropped his knife, went bare handed for her throat.
Here they were the monsters that lurked behind mirrors, that lived as reflections in darkened windows, waiting for the turn of the back before they struck.
"You do run quite a coterie, Nox, I'll give you that."
The proprietor's pale blue gaze peeled away from the murder scene; accosting the skeletal features of his companion, mercilessly.
"We are but pilgrims marching along the path of suffering, my dear prophet," he confided, with the false humility of a frequent confessor. A tone meant to amuse and entertain, if the slightest of cool smiles breaking his lips was any indication.
"And you are such a penitent worshipper," the prophet exalted, pulling away from the proprieter as he stepped closer to the window. "And as with any loyal pilgrim, perhaps there is a place for you at the sacrificial altar of Va'ronian." Feigned boredom, mocked sadness.
"There's only so many innocents I can offer him before it just becomes a chore."
Nox took the opportunity to down the rest of his bottle, which he sat upon a nearby table, with a faint clink of glass against glass. They could hear him crying now -- that virgin murderer. Most people did their first time; it was an emotionally harrowing experience. Guilt, relief, and a wash of frantic, mottled things.
Things Nox ached to feel, anymore.
"Innocents, you said? Here I thought our god preferred more villainous flesh," he picked up a pipe from the same table, and dug around for a light in his pocket. The last man he'd seen brought to the altar had been a criminal of sorts, he thought. But he had honestly paid less attention to the details of his life, and more to the circumstance of his death, as he was wont to do. Ritual sacrifice wasn't a way he had gone yet; he was eager to try it, eager for the scents of worship, the prophet's hands, so skilled at death, and the invocation of power that his blood would fuel.
"It would be an honor to paint his altar. Though he may tire of my oil-slicked taste after a while."
"Our God is a God of many facets, a deity of many tastes," the prophet said. "Oil and blood are one and the same in this world-- blood from the descendents of Ki'in, oil from the descendents of Ha'tusik. They perform the same function, represent the same thing." He killed his own beer, placing it down next to Nox's.
"And he is always accepting of sacrifice, even if it is fouled flesh, you dirty motherfucker." A laugh echoed in the soundproofed chamber, even as the dull sound of the murderer's sobs filtered in on low volume from the tinny radio. "I could do it for you-- sacrifice you before the fire. Or if you need a pretty face to give you that spark in your balls at the edge of death, I'm sure Raenan's sister would love to torture you."
"Do you think so?" Nox mused, as he stuck the light to his pipe and approached the prophet and the window he had drawn so near to. "I am rather despicable, and I haven't had a good death in a while."
Did it matter that the girl was beautiful? Probably not. It had been a long time since anything but death had moved him. It didn't matter that one of these nights he just wasn't going to wake up again, so long as he got to feel something for a little while if he did.
"...then again, the altar..." Nox went on, as if it were a tough decision! "Dying for a cause... for religious purpose... it makes me feel almost.. young? And idealistic," he cast a smirk at Starke, as if he couldn't quite help it; what a joke.
"Va'ronian sees, my friend-- sees your enduring torture as a sacrifice in pursuit of his blessing." Those bone lips moved in sillhouette, shaded by the darkness of the room. "His suffering is exquisite isn't it. Moreso than hers. Sometimes, I wonder why they come here to kill-- when often, it's the creature that breaks when it becomes a murderer."
A moment, then he turned from the window, almost disgusted by the frailty of the newborn killer, a yearling deer slipping in the blood of the woman he'd destroyed in such amateur fashion.
"I've never known Va'ronian to judge a man who enjoys his sacrifice, Nox. You're welcome to the altar whenever you like. To kill or be killed. My floors need a new layer of stain."
Nox leaned against the glass, the smoke from his pipe obscuring the killer's face as an attendant came in to fetch him. They would take him away to be cleaned up and presentable to the world outside, where no one would know his secret sin. The girl would be attended to as well. He wondered how long it would take her pulse to ignite again. How long until her next client?
"Will there ever be an end to it?" He whispered, after taking the pipe from his mouth. "One day, will it really be forever?"
Nox shuddered. There was nothing more intimate than oblivion.
"Someday you will be called." The prophet's hands came to his friend, his follower's shoulders as he bumped his forehead with his, the sweetness of the pipe pluming under his chin, filtering to the corners of his skeleton mouth. "Everyone is called. None are safe from the culling of Va'ronian's sword. But that day is not today. That day is not tomorrow."
Sometimes, the prophet wondered how Nox would die. If one would need to separate his pieces to eight different corners of the continent-- or if he was like a starfish who would just grow his pieces back. And then there would be eight of him, lamenting his existence, his inability to feel.
"But it will come. Eternity will come, brother."
With a grunt, Nox relented to the prophet's assurances. He took a few moments within his grasp to clear his mind, though he found one little thought nagging at his curiousity.
"Is she really an oracle, do you think? Raenan's sister."
"Their mother was a powerful woman," the prophet said, releasing the master of the house from his masterful hands. "Only time will tell if she inherited her birthright."
Nox was not, had never been Ba'at like so many that ended up in the Cavalcade. He was an old soldier; part machine like the best of them. His own bitter darkness had turned him here. To him, the religion was a deeply personal thing, not a matter of following someone else's potential birthright. So the Ba'at schism, and the followers the siblings had brought with them were beyond the snuff vendor's understanding.
"What does it mean for us, if she has?" He asked, as if sensing a wind of change.
"It means she will be able to kill a man from the inside with only a look." That grin spread across his features so finely. Starke was awaiting the day Irshya displayed her mother's curses with bated breath. "They say the Oracle's curses are powered by the Gods, and if Va'ronian is her God, then it will be his might behind her-- and oh, we will see that dark warrior in her when we take arms against our enemies, when we choose to fight, and when we choose to conquer."
A thoughtful nod was all Nox deigned to reply with, for the length of time it took him to inhale in a deliciously languid suck from his pipe, and then to exhale it again. Finally, he said, very simply and with all the nonchalance in the world, "You really should introduce us, dear prophet. It sounds to me like she'll need some practice."
"A beautiful face is a start but a beautiful death is what ties you in knots," Va'ronian's prophet intoned over the curling smoke of the pipe and the scent of its sweetness. "Come to pray and I will cleanse you in his fire, bathe you in cassia and myrrh and she will meet you there, and I am sure that she will make you hurt."
How he hoped his friend felt something-- feeling nothing for so long was quite the curse.