changehistory | Entries tagged with comm: mind the muse

[ooc note: Locked/filtered to those who know he did it on purpose, not just suspect. Like, he's confessed to your muse or something. Otherwise, you're not on the filter and mun knowledge only. This is not his grand mea culpa. He might even be lying, who knows? He does that. :-)]

Dropping the vial.

What? Did you think it would be something else? Did you think that I came to that decision easily, either back then or now? Do you think I hold life so lightly that I didn't think about the cost, didn't fully realize what I was doing? Do you think I'm that mad, that blind with power, that overly ambitious, that desperate to be adored that I'd pay any price?

I know some of you do, but if you think so, you'd be wrong.

It was not a decision I made lightly or frivolously. It made me sick to think of it, even, to know the destruction it could wreak across the globe. I could make some choices, yes, save those I loved, save those I could get to in time, but I knew far too well that it would be a catastrophe the likes of which the Earth had never seen. Worse than the Black Plague, and I know that well--I lived through the Great Plague of London which killed over a fifth of London's population. So, you see, I knew what I was doing, what my choice, my decision would mean, and I grieved for it.

( But I did it anyway. )

Prompts Combined:
- Vendetta
- What was your most defining moment in your life?
- Have you ever been betrayed by someone you love dearly? Write about that.

...The most defining moment of my life was the time I was betrayed by someone I love dearly and subsequently launched a vendetta that crossed centuries.

I'm sorry, it had to be said.

Our defining moments often come very young, do they not? There may be others that make their marks upon our soul and shape us in some way or another, but to define who we are, to truly fashion us into something new altogether...we must be malleable, and that malleability is something that we lose as we age. I wish I could say that it was Angelica's love, our marriage, the home we built, but she was a reprieve in a storm. Perhaps it was that first that set the pattern, molding it, for it has repeated itself again and again across time.

I loved them both, for all that I could not define the emotion in his case. They both said they loved me. And yet...the betrayal came. I thought I was invincible, only to find that the physical was merely an illusion, because the emotional wounds are just as damaging and far harder to heal from.

I never thought it possible to be anyone of consequence. I wanted to never be poor, to be hungry again -- and any likeness to Scarlett O'Hara you want to draw from that, you may as she was a character I understood well. I wanted to make my fortune, and I quickly turned and frittered it away on the pleasures of the moment. I had no overweening ambition. I had no need to forge myself into a legend of greatness.

And then he came, and he gave me that dream, and he set that course. He made me believe I could be--should be--so much more. Then he took it all away, casting me down into the depths of meaninglessness which I had lived in for so long. If he had lied about the one thing, then what was there to say he had not lied about the rest? Except I had been touched, you see, by ambition, by desire, by need. It twisted under the lying deceit, the schooling I received in what the face of a hero hides. To be cast aside, yet again, nothing but his pawn...I swore never again. I promised myself I would be all he said and more, whatever it took, and that he would suffer for his betrayal, if I had to wait until the end of time itself.

So I have striven, and that has led me here, to what I am today, to who I am today. It has shaped everything, every goal, every dream, every hope, every fear...and for all the moments that have defined me in other ways, I am not convinced it can truly be changed at this late date.

Nor am I sure I would wish it to be.

[ooc: Cross-verse. Some of these, like #2 and #3, are even mashing up verses in the same one, so if your muse wants to rep, feel free just to pick what applies. This is really almost meta-crack at this point, but. *g*]

1. Not decimating the world's population. Admittedly, I tried to at first, but that was a bit before the words needed to be said anyway, and my continuous refraining from attempting such a feat again says rather a great deal.

2. Adopting cats. I am fond of them, actually, but apparently gifts of cats, going on field trips to get cats, and co-adopting them is something I'm getting fairly good at.

3. Not torturing their parents. I made the kills very quick, very clean. That says something considering what they put me through. ~~[Eden!verse]: Except for Bob which, really, doesn't reflect on my fondness for Elle, but sometimes things just have to be done...right. I didn't make her watch?~~

4. [Eden!verse, only, and locked anyway] Keeping him by my side when it puts absolutely everything I've worked for at risk. Letting him get that close, letting him get inside the defenses...it's the stupidest thing I've ever done.[/locked]

5. Swearing up and down that of course New York pizza is far superior to Chicago's deep dish. Clearly. What is anyone who says anything differently thinking?

6. Letting him tie me up, even in play, after what he did before. Unlike some people, I cannot just phase out of restraints, and the last few times I was restrained were not...so pleasant.

7. Willingly allowing myself to be teleported anywhere by any of them. Can we say "that takes trust", boys and girls? Every time I feel the world shift, I am fairly certain my heart stops.

8. Living in Cardiff. It's in Wales. Wales. Like all good Londoners...well. This speaks for itself.

9. Shopping. Not that I'm adverse to it in principle or anything, but...shopping. For hours. Without alcohol and with a smile on my face.

10. Letting her go.

295 words

Is it completely and utterly vain of me to say the one I'm in? I mean, honestly, I suppose it is, but when you have lived something, you tend to find yourself either attached to it or repulsed by it, or sometimes both. Nothing else can have the same flare of intensity inside of you. How can Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty compare? There's a draw, I'll admit, to Beauty and the Beast, at least occasionally, but even it seems almost too moralistic and rife with patterns and imagery I've never seen truly working in this world, or at least in my life.

But The Legend of Takezo Kensei? There are dragons and sword fights and princesses and mad deeds of strength and daring and boldness in the name of justice and salvation. It's a story to capture any boy's imagination, no matter how old he is.

The truth of it is not so pretty, of course. There was no such man, really, not encompassed in one, alone. There were two, at odds and struggling, one to force fate, the other to resist, then one to give in to it, and the other to destroy. No literal dragon, though hearts were ripped out aplenty. No happy ending for the princess, either, though not as dire a one as the dragon had planned for her, perhaps. It is laced with betrayal that never saw the page, and the fact that frozen waterfalls are a bitch to climb, and that a broken neck, even though it heals, fucking hurts gets conveniently left out. Loss and heartache and shattered illusions get left out, as does the path of redemption followed by a fall. The hero never wavers from his purpose, never doubts, never cries. The princess isn't a false, lying bitch. There is no mention of a boy from the future who nearly wrecks it all and changes the story forever, teaching the rogue to be a hero and inspiring him to heights of villainy unmatched in the prose of fables. The jealousy, the unrequited love, the dark shadows that mingle and mix and stretch out through time are all left out. She'd never tell it so, of course. Never cast herself in any such light, and it is because of her the tale survives at all.

There is no path of grey, no moral questioning in the story. It's all so easy, so well laid out. Trials are overcome, a princess is won, a victory for good is accomplished which is celebrated by all. Japan is saved by Kensei's valor. There is no mention of a burning building, no promise of vengeance whispered. The roles do not reverse, and the heroes do not dance and fall out, split apart by words that cannot be said, sublimated needs and desires.

It is a story, and not even one that reflects real truth. But the seeds are there, as they are in all such tales, and they are the seeds of my life. They are what was planted, the beginnings of what was to come, the heart of so much that grew after.

We killed the King.

The year I was born was the second year of the First English Civil War. Royalists battled Parlimentarians and Puritans, and while much of it likely had to do with a grasping for power and more secular concerns, like so many wars it was couched in terms of religion. I remember hearing of the battles in the uneasy truce that settled over my formative years between the first and second wars. And then the Royalists rose again when I was four. I remember my father--a staunch Puritan--going off to fight. I remember him coming home, scarred but grinning because they had won. The King was secure again, but he was also defiant, refusing to cease to acknowledge his Divine Right to rule. It was but a few months after my fifth birthday that my country killed its King, not for injustice or because the people were poverty stricken and desperate, and not for any democratic ideal but for religion. My father cheered; my mother cried.

( Cut for religious history rambling and doctrinal questioning and snarky commentary on the practice of confession as The Best Thing Ever... )

My take on religion?

It is Royally fucked up, but it binds around our lives and none, truly, can escape it, because the questions will come, and we will always look for answers, and when we think we have them, we will twist them, and someone else will disagree, and it will all start again, and someone else will fall.

Perhaps I'll add that to my prayers tonight, and light a candle for Charles' soul.

[ooc: AU piece based on a "what if" about what might have happened to Adam in "Five Years Gone."]

I believed that it would be better, after. The world was supposed to change, you see, but not like this. They don't know, at least, who I am. Not anymore. She saw to that, sweeping in triumphant and pulling me out of that place, out of the darkness of a cold, cheerless cell, just when everything seemed darkest. Kaito turned, trained my carp well, but she and Daniel won, and with their triumph came the shift in power that sent Kaito falling, his orders nothing but dust. Without Arthur to object, with Charles dead, with Kaito broken, with Bob nothing but their peon again, there was no one to stop her from walking through the door, face alight with triumph and a trembling glee.

"It's done..." she whispered against my lips, an instant before my hand was ready to tighten around her throat for her betrayal.

"The virus?" I didn't want to ask. I shouldn't have paused to ask, to let her kiss me that way, the traitorous bitch, but the words pulled out of me anyway.

"No," she said, voice a bit sharp. "Don't be ridiculous. We'd have been in here with you if we'd done that..."

"Then what?" It occurred to me, of course, that snapping at her wasn't the best way to get out that tantalizingly open door, but after thirty years of the torture and sadism of my friends, I thought I had a right to be a bit cranky.

"If you're going to be like that..." She tried to pull back. I didn't allow it. She was not going out that door without me while I was still breathing.

"A bomb," she said, her eyes glittering strangely. "A person, really, able to go nuclear, able to blow up, and then heal, and he did. In New York. The city is gone, destroyed."

I'd heard the murmurs, the screams, the panic in the halls a few days before, but I thought perhaps someone else had managed an escape I never had. Nothing like this. Bob had been pale, and Elle silent, but no one would tell me. Now I knew why. There was something brittle to her glee, a darker something she wasn't telling me, but the excitement washed over me in response, and I felt my breath catch.

"And now?" I asked, letting my fingers trace skin I remembered too well, finding the places age had changed her by touch, but watching her eyes, that were the same.

"Now I think it's time we get you out of here, Adam," a voice I knew said from the door, and Daniel was there, the same light glittering in his eyes. "It's time for the healing to start, and we need you for that."

( I wanted to kill them both, for turning, but they were like children presenting me with some shiny present as if that made up for every bad thing they'd ever done. )

Any change, any loss, does not make us victims. Others can shake you, surprise you, disappoint you, but they can't prevent you from acting, from taking the situation you're presented with and moving on. No matter where you are in life, no matter what your situation, you can always do something. You always have a choice and the choice can be power. - John Donne

The nightmares still came, but he worked to ignore them as best he could, waking up in a cold sweat, leaving the bed and anyone who happened to be in it. He moved then in silent ritual, through routines, finding comfort in the familiar patterns of various kata. Old habits, old training, some forms lost but for the few who remembered them in muscle and bone and synapses. The sword, an old one if not the sword, flashed when he moved, catching the glint of fire and moon, feet quiet on honey-colored wood floors. Shirtless, heedless of the cold that blew in from empty windows in a semblance of fresh air, sweat glistening despite it, he pushed himself harder, faster, until exhaustion made his arms and legs heavy and the sun rose over brick buildings and fire escapes and glistened on new-fallen snow.

There was coffee and croissants, fresh from the bakery around the corner, buttery, flaky, sometimes filled with chocolate so he could imagine he was back in Paris. Sometimes there was company, warm arms, soft smiles, kisses and laughter, scolding about the open windows and coaxing back to bed. Sometimes the hours stretched, quiet except for the city sounds that rose up as the world came to life, and music pounded and dogs barked and he remembered either way that he wasn't alone, locked away. Not anymore.

Freedom meant more now. Every moment he had was his own, to do with as he pleased. He'd never relished it so before. Not that he hadn't been in jail for this or that in the past, but he'd never been imprisoned so long, so controlled, and by people he couldn't escape by faking his own death. The regimented control had been new. What he ate. What he wore. What he read. When he got to see the sun. Always watched, sleeping, eating, using the rest room even, like a rat in a cage. Pills and knives and electricity and he had no say in it, ever. Not even the British navy had treated him that way, and it snapped at his heels even now.

But he was free, and the scalding heat of coffee over his too cold throat proved that, sweet and bitter and denied him all that time. Every choice he made now, to stay, to go, to love, to hate, to sleep, to rise, to fuck, to read, to watch TV, to run, to go to the park, to go to Europe, to seek revenge, to learn to forgive, to find a compromise--they were all his. His responsibility. His time, his moments, his life, to do with as he willed, to reshape a renewed world from the fragmented pieces of the old, or strike the final match and let it all burn as he walked away and never looked back on the smoldering ashes.

He had the power now. Whatever he chose, he hoped they trembled as they waited. They should.

[OOC: Completely and utterly AU, as most fics for

mind_the_muse are likely to be unless a topic fits a current canon or RP situation perfectly.]

1965

"Don't marry him." He spoke from the shadows, having done the very undignified thing of scrambling up her porch and sliding through her bedroom window. Angela spun, staring at him, eyes wide.

"Adam..."

"Don't marry him," he repeated, moving into the light. It was possible he was drunk, but he was never going to admit it.

"I thought this is what you wanted," she snapped, eyes blazing.

"No. I mean, yes. I thought I did, too. But I don't."

"It's a little late for that now, Adam," she said, still glaring. "The wedding's in the morning."

"So? Tell him you changed your mind."

"The scandal..."

"Since when did you care about scandal?" he asked, incredulous. "That's him talking, not you."

"And then what, Adam? You'll throw me at one of the others? One of your other buddies you deem more useful?"

He shook his head, and a bit clumsily, dropped to one knee. "I promise. Never again."

Angela stared down at him, and he thought she looked a bit horrified. "What are you doing?"

"What I should've done years ago," he said, stubborn and reaching to grab her hand. "Don't marry him, Angela. Marry me."

* * *

1968

( Even three years later, the ruckus hadn't quite settled over their elopement when Angela announced she was pregnant. )