tragic_mask | (no subject)

"The further you are away from people, and the longer you're away, the more things seem normal that would be horrifying to people who still live in civilization. You tend to forget that there are rules."

Click.

"Like the three-day savage."

"Only more so," he nods. "Because it can go on for years. I've been there--I've done it. So I know. But there's a genius of creation in it, all the same."

"The best artists go mad, it's true."

He gives her a grin at that.

"Lucky me, then. You know I'm the best at what I do."

"But your public persona is so... normal," she says. "What are you really like, hm?"

"Normal, liebchen?" he asks softly. "I'm not so sure you want to know what I'm really like. But I'll show you mine if you show me yours, so to speak."

"It's nothing worth seeing, believe me," she says, hurriedly. But she knows it's only fair.

"I think it would be," he says. "I think it would be very... enlightening. For both of us."

Her hands drop to her sides, and she glances at him, darkly. "No doubt."

"I should like to cherish every part and aspect of you," he murmurs. "And I should like you to know what you're getting involved with. Even if I would never hurt you. It's been so long since I could be honest."

She looks at him quietly, for a long moment, with the shouts of tourists around them and the crashing waterfall as backdrop.

"Not here, but..." She stops, tries again. "You know, there is truly nothing to cherish about who I really am. I was made of darkness, more than any of my sisters."

"And you think it would bother me?" he asks quietly, leaning closer to her. He doesn't really want anyone else to overhear what he has to say, not that they're paying attention to much besides the scenery.

"I am a murderer, you know. A rapist and torturer. I have killed people and used their parts in my work. I'm not afraid of darkness."

Her mouth tautens to hear these confessions, but she forges on-- too late now.

"At least you create something good from it. All I can make are strings of words... and not even my own. And for this, I have... destroyed lives."

She turns away, gazes off. "Anyway, I don't think I could recover this self, if I went back to the old one-- and I enjoy being able to smile, sometimes."

"You do as you were created to do," he says, watching her, expression once more impassive. "And I do what a cruel twist of fate has led me to do. But you know... I think that each of us is exactly what the other needs."

"I guess we'll see," she says, skeptically. "I will want to have the mask and dagger you made for me. It will make things more... as they were, before."

"I could separate you," he says. "Give you control over it, so that you can turn it off and back on. Let you be as at peace as you like. But you would have to trust me."

"I trust you. But... I wouldn't, after the change. Trust is for the weak. The naive."

She sounds doubtful: wanting to know him better (the dark things she can see, despite her efforts-- threads of memory winding through his mind), not wanting to lose herself in the process.

"You know yourself better than I do."

He looks up at the waterfall, around at the other tourists on the boat.

"But whatever you need, whatever you want--I can give you. I know I can."

"Well," she says. "What about a festival, with hundreds of attendants from around Greece?"

She smiles, wryly. "There are some things I think can't be reproduced... which is why my glory is faded."

"We can make new things, my little one," he says. "Let me create, let you refine--we will be unstoppable. And if you want a festival, just give me some time and I will make it happen."

"Well." She looks at him. "We'll do this, then. No holds barred. The gods we were made to be... we will be."

"We will," he agrees, looking into her eyes. "The only question is where."

"Well, not here," she says, with a trace of a smile. "Wouldn't wreak that on these innocent tourists."

"Of course," he says. "It will be completely your decision, when and where it happens..."