thearena | With your feet in the air and your head on the ground

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With your feet in the air and your head on the ground

Who| Initiate and Terezi
What| Guess who's not dead. It's this guy. Terezi is going to find this out.
Where| Third floor, near the Alternia store.
When| Forward dated Mid/End of the third week in arena.
WARNINGS| Avoxing/avoxes, references to the conditioning process. Mentions of torture, police brutality. Many instances of altered mental states, guilt/panic. And just for the book, just in case that comes up, all the warnings are here.

The addition of one, then another Kankri Vantas, surprisingly didn't do much to interupt his schedule. He still went back to Kurloz's pile, he still curled up there in silence (after another torturous round 'force the avox to defy his conditioning and learn to sign') at the far corner of it and slept, the woke again to head off into the arena, once again seeking someone to give him something to do. When he's not reading his own future that is.

His ears are still scabbed and shredded. It's clear now, like it wasn't totally obvious before, the one useless fin is completely missing. The other is torn something awful, all the thin membrane for feeling that underwater noise is all gone to shit, some of it hanging off loosely in a way that taunts for the tearing but he firmly avoids touching. His hair ain't grown in such short time of course, so it's still short cropped and curling as ever. He's grey faced, largely. And he's near gotten used to not having a tongue.

With each passing day, he finds he can do a little more than he could before, without the fear swallowing him whole immediate. He finds his shatter cracked self still staying such, but that mysterious third way of being, dragged up through the break line that the Alternian v.s. Avox war got making in him, starts to rise and settle more and more. He still doesn't know what to expect of it, but he's starting to accept it at least, with somewhat less choking terror.

Today, he can almost tell himself he's walking just because he feels like it. Even if just a while ago he got finished helping the other avoxes put food out as he and they always do. He's up on the third floor, passing all the shops. He's passed them enough he recognizes them all, but his eyes mostly got to glazing over. Today though, he decides to actually take a look at one in particular, that one being, the Alternia store.

And then he proceeds to look immediately down because no, he still does not have the capacity to sort through the sight of that shit. And it's just in this short bit of time, he fails to notice the presence of anyone else altogether, where otherwise he'd be all over it.

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She holds his hand firmly, even if he refuses to hold back. She's not letting go, she's not losing him again.

She leads him into the strangely Alternian store. There's all manner of things here, some of them average, some strange, some downright lewd. But she knows what she's searching for, so even if she might find herself a little distracted (It's a shame that she can't take these scalemates back with her...), she doesn't slow her pace for more than a few seconds.

When she comes to a distinctly Indigo portion of the store, she knows that she's on the right track. It doesn't take her long to find what she wants: white paint. A quick sniff confirms that this is the stuff, and she turns back to Fraysong.

"Here, sit on the ground here," she says, gesturing to the floor in front of her. It smells like someone might have tried to paint his markings back on, but they're faint and smudged to boot. Regardless, Terezi remembers well enough what shapes should go where.

"Do you remember this?" she asks, uncapping the paint and holding it out for him to see. She doesn't know how much of his mind or his memory might have been tampered with, but this... This was an important part of him, before the Capitol messed him up. This was something he cared very deeply about. "Do you remember how to put it on?"

He follows her, taking in all that of what Capitol thinks of his homeworld-- their homeworld. It all rings of a sort of uncomfortable and he's not sure if it's because some of it's being incredibly wrong, weird, or right in other ways. He sees her Scalemates, as he recognizes from her little performance before she was arrested, taken from him. That feels so long ago now.

He sits on demand, immediate. His head is down again as is natural for an avox, and more so when under orders.

It's only then, when she speaks, that he realises what she's found and brought him to. Paint is here, real paint, all done as for indigos proper. That's the only thing what slows him down in all getting thought on her actual words.

Does he remember? Of course he does. There's not a part he's forgotten. Ain't nothing he's been as to forget. He wonders why she would think that but... he guesses it wouldn't be so impossible, which in its motherfucking self, is an uncomfortable thought. Memories were what he had best right now. Just because he's all shatteredlike of his selfness ain't mean he don't remember.

He nods, staring at the paint and breathing deep.

Terezi tries not to be unnerved by the quickness and submissiveness in the way that he takes a seat. She does wince a little, though, mostly in retrospect. She'll have to be more careful about her words.

To her question, though, he doesn't even need to answer. She can tell that he knows what it is, that he remembers it, by the way that he looks at it. It's that sort of silent reverence, and even if she doesn't share in the feeling, it still makes Terezi smile.

"Here," she offers, placing the little container into his hands. She waits then to see what he'll do.

The paint is put in his hands. He's got right here more paint than he's ever had in an arena, even what with his necklace what he ain't no longer have. Possibility lay here for him to get a full and proper face, his true self all returned of his outsides. His alternate had fixed him, tried, and it had meant much, but even his alternate's paint thin, pulled off the motherfuckers own face and so sparse, just enough to save from a real blasphemy done.

But the paint just sits there. He doesn't do more than hold it. He stares and his mouth presses to a line, like he's holding his breath. His digits twitch where they're settle on his book. His hand lifts.

Then falls.

He can't. That's too much personhood for an avox, he can't. It's different when Kurloz got to do it, that was by another tribute's will it had gotten done. Even that had been hard with so much touch. This is beyond him. He knows, oh does he motherfucking know, that this will disappoint. She'll be unhappy with him. His ruined ears make all to droop some.

Terezi is disappointed--for a moment. She'd hoped that giving him this would help break whatever hold they had over him. Maybe it would help him feel more like him. But it's obvious that he can't do it. She smells the way his hand lifts, only to fall again. His ears droop.

She's at a loss for a few seconds. It's clear that he wants it; He just can't bring himself to do it. She remembers a time (over a year ago now) when her ancestor had fixed his paint for him in death, and it occurs to her that she could do it for him. That would be allowed, wouldn't it? If Redglare could do it, then Terezi can't think of a reason why not.

She reaches out, and instead of taking the paint away from him, she holds it steady in his hand. There's a slight grimace on her face as she hesitates. The paint is gross, and she's always given him grief in the past for making her touch it... But this is different.

Tentatively, she scoops out a bit of the paint, and it's exactly as gross as she imagined it would be. But she keeps going, touching the paint to his face and going over the faint lines made earlier, fixing the ones that had smudged. Her face is only a few inches from his, as she tries to sniff out the exact shapes that she's making. She doesn't have any practice with making it as pristine as he might be able to do, but after more than a year of smelling his face, she has a good sense of the design of it.

He can hardly believe it when she doesn't just turn around and walk out on him, give up right there and leave. She ain't only not doing that, she's painting him. She who swore never to go near the paint, who would curse on his faith if only she had liked him less.

But here she is, touching it, putting it on him, even when she'd probably like him better without. She doesn't know so clear the heresy it is to be barefaced like Kurloz does. Yet even still, she tends, and more than that, she knows his face as it should be.

The same surge of emotion comes as with how it did last time. That overwhelming knowledge one got chosing to help or giving him a quick cull, that he's being given this gift, being made a person. He's got all to having his soul again properlike. And all the while that same old war wages that he shouldn't be touching and this is wrong and he's not supposed to be a person what's holding no soul, and he doesn't deserve this.

It's a lot. It's a lot more than what he can deal with like this. The intensity of the war in him is enough to hurt.

He can't help the catching of his breath, though he closes his eyes to hide the turmoil under. He can't help but push against her fingertips just that little bit.

If Terezi knew his thoughts, she probably would agree: She does like him better without the paint. His face smells cleaner without it. Softer. And the paint marks him as part of his cult, which... She can't say she hates it so much anymore. But she wouldn't go about saying that she likes it, either.

But what matters most in this moment isn't her own feelings. It's his, and as soon as his breath catches, as soon as he closes his eyes and she feels him lean into her touch, she knows that she made the right choice here.

She paints silently for what seems like a while. It's turned from a gesture to an almost challenge. She has no skill for face-painting, but it's not too much different from painting anything else, and his response to the paint only makes her want to do it right. So she's slow and careful and focused...

And after a while, she finally speaks up: "Your hair hasn't been this short in a while. I'm sorry I can't do anything about that. I remember you telling me that you hated it like this... It made you look too young."

There's a distinct pause, and even her movements slow a bit as she remembers that particular conversation so long ago. "I remember... I got mad at you for this stuff, too. Your faith. I...didn't have the best opinion of it back then. My only exposure to it was nothing short of a tragedy. It hurt... a lot."

"But you..." She puts on the last touches, then drops her hand back down, taking the paint container from his hands. "It was different for you. It...wasn't as vicious and terrible as I had imagined. The celebration thing you had... I have to admit, that was fun. But I never would have known that without you. And... I don't want that to be the last time we get to do that. Okay?"

Edited 2014-09-04 22:27 (UTC)

That feels so long ago. Both by the avoxing between and it truly having been long ago now. His hair is shorter than it had been then, but her point is the same. He had hated it. It does make him look young.

He remembers her response to his faith. He remembers who scathing she was to hear of it, how much the loathing poured that he'd wondered why she'd want to be near him at all when it was all he knew to be. It hadn't be surprising or none, ain't like hate for the church was uncommon. But he can't say it didn't bother none. Even if he stopped the speak of scripture around her after that.

His eyes open as the paint is taken from him. He can feel it's all been done, good and proper is it. It feels better. He feels whole. His gaze falls on her face as she confesses to him. There's a sort of wonder there in him. There's a clench all upon his pusher.

She wants to attend Carnival with him again.

There's not but the faint 'woosh' of breath leaving him. Gone all to wind-ing is he by such a thing. It means a lot. More than he could say if he could say anything. He feels all out of control of himself like this, like somehow they made him fragile and these little things... they are so much.

A day he does that again would be a day he ain't an avox no more. He's not sure if that'll come or not. But she has faith it will and it makes him wish so badly right then that there was being anything what he could do to express. His head bows to her and her graciousness.

She's not honestly sure what he's thinking when she tells him all that. Maybe it feels like a strange thing to confess in this situation, but they aren't thoughts that she's taken lightly. It's something she's turned over in her mind more than once or twice, and having fun with him during his Carnival thing only solidified the idea...even if she was reluctant to admit it at the time.

She can tell that he's shocked, and that's no surprise. His head bows, and she takes that as an opportunity to bump her forehead against his again. She comes away with just a little bit of paint, which is summarily wiped away with the back of her hand and a grimace.

"This paint is still gross, though," she adds lightly, wiping her hands off on the closest bit of cloth she can find: some kind of tapestry supposedly for sale. "Is there anything else you're supposed to do for this? To finish it off?"

Usually up in the arenas he doesn't actually have for more he can do. He could only bring one token and that meant the necklace tube of paint alone. But this is special circumstance. Usually there ain't being no way for proper face.

He rises up to his feet and walks on over in that stiff, silent fashion avoxes tend like to do. He goes to the racks of make up and looks it over, up and down, to see if they might have some setting powder.

In the most distant of senses, an ire churns. They had these all lain out here as such like his faith and the paint ain't weren't being some shit sacred. For a second, his brows furrow, then he finds what he was looking for and walks back, settling to the floor and holding it vaguely out to her.

He places the powder in her hands, but Terezi is a little uncertain how she's supposed to use this. She assumes--correctly--that it's supposed to go on his face somehow, but the intricacies of paint and make-up application are not her forte. She frowns a little at the jar before lifting her attention up to Kurloz.

I don't think I understand... What am I supposed to do with this? I don't want to mess it up." It, being the paint that she's just carefully applied for him. It was pain-staking enough the first time. She really doesn't want to do it over again.

He can't paint himself. It's too hard as all he is. But this is just a second long thing. She doesn't know how to do it and she's asking him what to do.

He can do this.

His eyes close and he breathes deep like he's gathering every part of himself what he can. Like he's preparing to sever a limb and not just do good by his Messiahs and his ownself. (He ain't supposed to have a self, he's supposed to-)

He takes the power from her, opening it up with a face torn between fear, determination, and trying not to have expression up at all. He's not giving personhood to himself, he's just making a tribute's hard work keep. Yeah. His hands tremble but he's going to do it if it kills him. He puts the powder on.

And once it's on, the paint made for staying, he droops like he's been drained of energy entirely. His face goes blank again but his eyes are a little brighter than before.

Edited 2014-09-16 01:22 (UTC)

Terezi honestly expected him to give some sort of demonstration or to mime what she should do. Or simply say nothing at all. So when he begins to apply it himself, Terezi sucks in a quiet breath and holds it.

She almost forgets to breathe during that, and when he finally finished and droops like he's been sucked dry of willpower... That's when she finally exhales in a relieved sort of sigh. He did it. It must have been so difficult, but he did it.

"Thank you," she says, smiling at him and taking the powder from his hands to place the cap back on it. "I'm so proud of you. You did well." She hopes that the encouragement will help to reinforce that this was the right thing to do.

For a long moment, he just sits the numbly un-reactive, too drained to nothing to offer up anything the motherfuck at all. The slowly, in the tiniest increments, his eyes lift up, then his head, until he he can sort of see her there before him.

He did well... she's... proud?

He knows he gave himself personhood when he wasn't supposed to. But did he follow her command, in some sense?

Was he really worth any pride at all even if he had?

He has the strangest urge to simply curl up here and rest. Not touching her, but near, with the warmth of her pride and the weight of his exhaustion. He merely closes his eyes and sighs. His hand goes to his side, feeling the book left there, and he picks it up to draw it close to himself.

It's not the first time that he's touched that book. He's been carrying it around with him since she found him outside the store. Why, she's not sure, but it must be important to him to keep it with him. That's good at least, right?

It feels a little like he's drawing in, so she leans forward to bump her head against his again--leaving it there this time. They'll have to move soon. They can't stay hidden away in this store forever, but it's enough to let him rest a bit after all of that. They can move on when he's ready.

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With your feet in the air and your head on the ground

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