InsaneJournal

WHO: Ariel and Calliope
WHAT: Breakage.
WHERE: Calliope's rooms.
WARNINGS: Um. Possible violence, and a decent amount of profanity. And Ariel's an angstmuffin, at least for now, but if you've read anything with him in it, you know that.

It had been a decent amount of time since Ariel had returned to Calliope's flat from his sojourn, and all of it, aside from eating and washing time, had been spent with the Key. He'd worked until his eyes had given out, falling asleep splayed in the middle of a thousand traps, drawn again and again on all the paper he had at hand. His sleep was blank, or something protected him from the dreams that were likely all of Helena in her tiny enclave of hell.

Dante's Inferno speaks of suicides as trees, denied human bodies in hell for their act of self-destruction on Earth. Minos the Judge flings their souls into the Suicide Wood, and they take root where they land. Their leaves are forever picked at and eaten by harpies, and when they bleed, they may speak, but only then.

The devil's trap was not yet complete; Singer and Lebeau had disowned him. His own intellect was exhausted and in a state of constant fury, but he was doing the best he could. He stayed indoors; if he looked at a single gnarled tree, he would cry and never stop.

It was night now, and the rooms were so high up, there would be no branches casting shadows. He shuffled from his room, looking for something to eat.