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Coming to Realize: Erik's Story
Written by Sailor Dathomir
It was dark and wet, and they were screaming. They were screaming his name and Nicholai was on the street, bleeding through his ears and his nose and oh gods what was wrong with his bones they weren't supposed be poking through his skin...
Chapel had grown up paying attention to the sounds of people at night, because there were never any guarantees that an attack wouldn't come at night. Unfortunately, there was the remnant of a song running through her head and not letting her sleep.
you were humming a song as i listened to you a melody i'd never heard before you were humming a song as i listened to you a melody i'd never heard before...
If this frekin song wasn't out of her head in a nanosecond or less she was going to hunt down that singer and do worse than kill him. She was going to... going to... you were humming a song as i listened to you a melody i'd never heard before you were humming a song as i listened to you a melody i'd never heard before...
"SARAAG!" Her hands grabbed her head and began shaking it, trying to get the song out.
Why was she here? She wasn't supposed to be here, she wasn't. He'd told her to stay at the apartment, he had business with Nicholai. Then he would come back. But she was here and alive instead of him being there and killing her so that she would know what a bad thing it was to try and fool Eriks Chekov.
Chapel was pacing. It was cold on Coruscant this week, which was unusual, but she would live. That was why she was wearing seven tunics, three vests, four pairs of knickers and her favorite red coat.
you were humming a song as i listened to you a melody i'd never heard before you were humming a song as i listened to you a melody i'd never heard before...
"I'm going to be killing soon..." she muttered sing-song fashion under her breath in Dathomiri. It was such a wonderful language to issue threats in.
It wasn't fair! She was his girl! Not Nicholai's! He'd fought for her, with Nicholai standing as his second on the sidelines, he should have known better! His, dammit. He'd broken kneecaps for her! Cracked ribs! Spit on artwork! (The artwork was the big thing, though. People could get healed for busted ribs and kneecaps, but artwork? Priceless!) The whole troupe had acknowledged the win and the prize and Nicholai just tried to steal her? No. That's why he was on the ground bleeding. It was right so and proper to do.
you were humming a song as i listened to you a melody i'd never heard before you were humming a song as i listened to you a melody i'd never heard before...
Chapel had had enough. She glared at the locked door that seperated her room from Eriks, where he was... Hm. He was having a facinating dream. Very facinating. It involved blood and bones and... a girl? What? What was this? This hadn't shown up when she'd scanned him at the beginning. She was pretty though.
you were humming a song as i listened to you a melody i'd never heard before you were humming a song as i listened to you a melody i'd never heard before...
She glared at the door again and with a blue-white flash in her mind, cracked the lock. She checked it, making sure she could repair it if she wanted to and nodded. Not too bad of a job, if she could say so herself. Nobody could ever say that Chapel was inefficent.
Screaming. More screaming why wouldn't they quit screaming at him? The girl was staring at him with the blood on his hands and the blood on his face and they were still screaming his name. He didn't understand why they were screaming his name and wailing - they knew the laws and they knew that Nicholai must die and that Eriks must kill him. The girl was still staring at him but she was smiling and why was she smiling? There was no sense here.
Eriks was hunched on his bed, knees drawn up under his chest with his green cover twisted and wrapped around his hips as though he had been struggling with someone and lost.
you were humming a song as i listened to you a melody i'd never heard before you were humming a song as i listened to you a melody i'd never heard before...
"I am indeed going to find him and destroy him. With bits of him going to his recording company," she muttered, clenching her fists tightly. "Wrapped in a box with a bow and shiny paper, I believe is how presents are sent."
Before she could think of all the lovely shades of metallic paper there were in the stationary shop three levels down and four north, she was distracted by Erik's tattoed back and arms. She hadn't seen them before, since he was usually with Lian on important Senate days or he was asleep when she came in.
most people don't like others who dress in blood of others
She shook her head. Where was that from? At home... Her thought trailed off as she was interrupted - you were humming a song as i listened to you a melody i'd never heard before you were humming a song as i listened to you a melody i'd never heard before...
There was going to be death. Much death and destruction, but first she was curious as to why exactly Eriks was dreaming of a girl. A girl with very black hair and it was shining strangely under the bad lighting of the lower levels, more like blue than black, light brown eyes, a bit tall... she, Chapel thought calmly, looked similar to herself, but it wasn't possible that it was her.
you were humming a song as i listened to you a melody i'd never heard before you were humming a song as i listened to you a melody i'd never heard before...
She was still smiling at him and at the body on the ground. He wanted to move towards her, but his boots were stuck and why were they stuck? Oh yes. The blood pool had reached him and it was mixing with the crud from the unclean street to create sticky paste that held him, keeping him next to his victory, next to his trophy. It was right so and proper because it was not right to leave one's trophy until all had seen the victory and knew, simply knew that one did not despoil Eriks Chekov, not do so and live.
Chapel felt
confusion pride victory is mine mine not his mine
strange, unfamiliar thoughts and emotions emanating from Eriks. It was that they were so unfamilar to her, but that they were unfamiliar coming from Eriks. He wasn't so you were humming a song as i listened to you a melody i'd never heard before you were humming a song as i listened to you a melody i'd never heard before...
She shook her head, gripping full fists of hair in a futile attempt to get rid of that song but it wasn't working. There was, then, a very last resort. One she believed she had told him she would not use but there were times when words were nothing and thoughts were something and his thoughts did not seem his so much as someone else's. Someone like...
There had been a woman on Dathomir in one of the clans there and she was able to cast a spell that allowed her to destroy memory but create it how she wanted it. Chapel had watched her cast the spell once on an escaped slave who was to be returned to Singing River. It had been educational seeing the slave believe that he wanted to be with Singing River.
That was what this felt like - it felt like the delicate facade that the spell had created. But it wasn't from the woman on Dathomir. Perhaps...? No. Her mind would not allow that thought to properly form, but it tried.
perhaps it is someone here who does it and caused it
cannot be cannot be cannot be cannot be cannot be ran through her mind, finally erasing the song that had been slowly eroding her self-control. There was no way She had caused this. It wasn't possible, simply because She was She.
except when She isn't
He couldn't understand her. Her mouth was moving but nothing was coming out no sounds no words nothing and it was mixing with the screams and wailings that had not stopped but it wasn't his fault it was Nicholai's fault.
But if it was Nicholai's fault then why was she leaving?
She was misting into the others, fading like water and work would fade the blood from his boots but -
There Is No Girl.
She sat down carefully, trying to blank the words and emotions and thoughts and raw panic that threatened to engulf her mind and mesh it with Eriks'. He was still humped over his knees with his arms reaching back at his sides to his toes. His muscles tensed and she held her breath, not wanting him to wake up and see that she had broken the lock because it meant safety to him, the lock that was unbroken. The lock that meant that
Ren
She couldn't come in. That meant, for a little while, he was
warm-safe
unavailable to the Senator Inferious.
Chapel had had issues with Eriks and his free thinking. He had told her to never view his mind again, but he left it so open that half of it leaked out. She bit her lip, her hand hesitating over his bare, decorated skin. The back of his neck was tensing and then relaxing, with tiny dimples in the skin where his hair began. His long hair was covering his face, draped over the sides and would probably keep him from seeing her immediately if he woke. Her hand finally came down and gently traced the designs of the exotically colored and patterned tattoos that flowed across his neck and upper shoulders. Her fingers were barely touching, but she could feel the feverish heat from his body and it worried her because how could people be so warm and yet so cold?
He fell backwards, feeling the sharp, bile in his throat pain of landing wrong and the involuntary bitter tears of shock squeezing out from his eyes. She was not there and hadn't ever been there. Nicholai... There was only the frozen shock from his friend - his friend. Eriks' body went limp as his face was buried in the valley between his knees. There was his friend's body, callously staring at him - his friend, his ally, his confidante, his comrade, his familiar. The man who had always been there for him for anything... the man who had come to him lost and confused when Jeoren had repulsed him and Eriks had comforted him with the knowledge that Jeoren was right but that Nicholai should not rush him. He was dead... His body was racked with the sobbing of complete guilt and self-loathing as Nicholai lay at his feet, the expression of shock the last one he would ever face.
Chapel drew her hand back as the body on the bed began to shudder and convulse with soundless fury and uncontrolled, nightmarish horror. She let her mind skim his and nearly recoiled at the hatred and self-loathing that she could sense roiling in his mind. It was too much for the telepath and with a hint of panic, she did the only thing she knew to make someone stop thinking and feeling what she did not like. It was something she had become quite good at, a singular talent.
He opened his mouth and screamed, a raw sound of grief and shock and pain that drove the previously paralyzed onlookers away in a short hurry and that hurt his throat. Within a few seconds he was sobbing again, forcing air into his lungs between the hiccups and panic. "Nicholai..."
And then there was blood, seas of blood too much blood even for her who wore it like the only proper garment for such as she. Leaning back, she fell off of the side of the bed with a soft thump. His mind was going to overwhelm hers if she didn't do something, so she did. She turned it off. Off where the blood didn't overwhelm her and the sounds were dying like his breath and now things were quiet.
"Chapel?" Eriks looked up from his crouch, bleary-eyed and confused to see the tail end of Chapel's red coat fluttering through the door and the sounds of the lock. "Chapel?"
Why was she here? Why was he awake? He had been dreaming... something. Something about Nicholai. And... Jeoren... and a girl. What girl?
"Too confusing. Time to sleep." He rolled over onto his stomach and fell asleep almost instantly.
Chapel lay on her bed, staring at her ceiling.
and slowly you come to realize it's all as it should be you can only do so much if you're game enough you could place your trust in me for the love of life there's a trade off we could lose it all but we'll go down fighting...