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[matermali]

( cw; cannabis )

[ There is no softness to the voice that murmurs onto the network in the midst of the night when people should be sleeping. Those sweet souls are not her concern if they don't wish to hear. She offers no comfort, but a reminder of what's been lost—what can still be taken.

In doing so, the woman's raspy words creep out from beneath the shadows with a voice that drags—no, it crawls—over ceaselessly hot coals. In its shudder to whisper out a poem borrowed from home, there is a smolder always bordering on a choked gasp. But no hurry, no hurry. Where do you have to be? ]

Old Yew which graspeth at the stones...that name the under-lying dead; Thy fibres net the dreamless head, thy roots are wrapt about the bones.

[ To that, a pause that looms with omen. ]

The seasons bring the flower again, and bring the firstling to the flock; And in the dusk of thee, the clock beats out the little lives of men.

[ Now, a strange yearning nearly begins to dissipate the smoke that seems to scorch her throat.

Hush, take a moment. Take a breath; hold it. Feel the shiver of a fingernail at the nape of your neck, feel it trace the curve of your ear to borrow your attention. Only just. No, don't turn. Don't touch. Just listen; the whisper can still singe. ]

O not for thee the glow, the bloom...who changest not in any gale, nor branding summer suns avail, to touch thy thousand years of gloom.

And gazing on thee, sullen tree, sick for thy stubborn hardihood; I seem to fail from out my blood...and grow incorporate into thee.

[ For a time, it seems that may be all. Then, in the same hush she speaks with a more particular address: ]

I hear that we have been denied the ephemeral — to exist endlessly within a perverse mirror of God’s image. Here, nature should protest. Instead it menaces with its silence.

[ There is a silence of her own while Vanessa takes a drag to sigh out a thin stream of smoke into the evening air. Her voice now drops so low it grates and pinches too close, like gravel against tender feet. Tickling whispers are gone; they flee the weighted melancholy that persists. ]

We carry on within a dollhouse between worlds. Do not be tempted by its pretty trinkets, lest you truly be cursed to wander the demimonde forevermore.

[ Denial still rules paramount over the rumor of immortality, but the lack of bodies is an...unsettling implication. ]

...The graves lie empty.

Comments

[matermali]

[ Scheming? Noted. Debauchery? Noted. ]

Yes.

I suppose it was too much to wish that the graves could hide away stolen belongings. I have yet to check them all, but I gather it will be the same no matter where I dig.

Was anything taken from you?

[wrenchedup]

you went grave robbing? you really ARE morticia. nothing beyond my mind a few times, unless you're talking about arriving here with a distinct lack of something

[ WHY ARE THE GRAVES EMPTY. ]

[matermali]

My goal was retrieval. An acquaintance lost his weapons, so we looked where others dare not. It served little in the end, save dirty our clothes. I didn't truly expect to find bodies there. There is no sense for the dead anywhere in this city.

[ And yet, expect to find her there again one of these nights, digging away. What else is she supposed to do to keep from losing her own mind in the middle of the night, break some plates? ]

Though I suppose that could also be a distinctive lack of something brought on by our captors. Unfortunately, whatever they have taken from me can't be uncovered with a shovel.

[wrenchedup]

Let me get this right. You thought his weapon would be six feet under ground with some random skeleton. Assuming the graves were full.

[ UHUH. There's like fifty thousand other ways to bide your time!!! Binge drink and go bowling, do the thing with yourself that starts with an m, stalk people on the network???? NORMAL HUMAN THINGS, MORTICIA. ]

Aha.. so you're another one of those people who had "abilities" that were capped or fully stopped, huh?

[matermali]

Is it such an impossible thought? They could be anywhere. You underestimate what a good hiding place that a grave can be.

[ If his reaction is any indication. It's not like the graves are the first place they looked. And drinking also may have been involved.

She can stalk the network while doing other things, and there is still an abundance of time! ]

I have heard others have lost some use of their gifts, yes. This isn't the same.

[wrenchedup]

... You know, valid point.

What's different, if you don't mind me asking?

[matermali]

What has become dim is not a skill that I learned or an ability bestowed upon me.

It is not a piece of me, but everything that is me. It would be as though clawing through my breast and into my heart, past the blood and the bone, through the soul to the roots of my beginning...to then procure a piece of my essence for their own wicked delights.

It cannot be possible. [ Especially not for her to still remain...as she is. ] Something here is twisted beyond even my knowing.

[wrenchedup]

[ Hm, he thinks he gets it. ] We're working on trying to understand it. This place and all the fucking bullshit that comes with it. A lot of bright minds here. Are you ok, though? As okay as someone could be...

[matermali]

I will be when I find the witches responsible for this perverse game.

[ So... no, but maybe once she can enact some violence. ]

And how would this dear Morticia of yours proceed?

[wrenchedup]

[ Uuuuuuuuuuuuuhuh. Of course she would think its witches. That said: ] Morticia? Probably witchcraft and torture.