moonshadows

The door slams shut behind him and he stalks to his usual chair, fury radiating from him in waves that crash against her lattices. She doesn’t bother to wonder what happened to make him so angry as she uncaps the bottle of oil and pours some into the cloth. Unlike the other times she’s seen him angry, he doesn’t seem inclined to physically lash out with his rage. It seems to be more tightly controlled, somehow, although at the cost of increasing the intensity of the emotion. She supposes it’s progress, but whether he’s controlling his rage or being blinded by it, she still can’t do a thing until he’s relaxed enough to pull the blades back in. Slowly, she runs the oiled cloth up the heavy curves of his horns, admiring the soft luster they’ve acquired and letting the gentle emotion waft over him. The knowledge that she can see his defenses hangs thickly between them. She has armed his mind, and no matter how much he trusts her, he will be watching for any intrusion. He won’t be able to help himself; centuries of abuse have made him hyper-sensitive with regards to anyone having any power over him.

She sings.

Not the usual lullaby or any silly musical fluff, no – she skips straight to the song that she’d used to soothe him gently to sleep last week, and sings to him of self-empowerment and inevitable victory, hoping that the memory of the last time he’d heard the song will relax him. She could kick herself for not setting up something to broadcast reassurance from inside his mind when she had the chance, but the blades start to slow as she finishes the first verse. By the end of the song, they’ve withdrawn and she can touch one of the warded openings in his defenses. It lets her pass, as it was designed to do, and she takes a good look around. The responsibility construct whines with relief from where it stands guard before the pen that holds his rage, and she pets it as she passes. The elastic ties are still working as intended, and some of the broken ends seem to be trying to warp into a configuration that makes the motion of breaking and reconnecting smoother. It’s exactly the kind of unorthodox adaptation she’s coming to expect from him: instead of the ends fusing together so that they don’t break anymore, they’re becoming hinges so that the motion is something deliberate and intended.

As she’s applying oil to the rusted and corroded mental machinery, she notices something unusual. A single tower of broken struts and pistons stands untouched, the area immediately around it clear of debris, but the surrounding structures are cut and charred, and the flesh of his mind is horribly scratched and bloody. Strange as it is, she can’t help but feel that he’s trying to not harm this particular part of himself and instead, is taking the self-destructive urge out on everything around it. The cuts get anesthetic foam, of course, and she can hear him sigh as the pain is dulled. She starts humming the song she’d dung earlier so that the vibrations resonating through his horns distract and soothe him further.

Curious as to what this particular structure is, she slips into the artistic visualization and discovers herself in a small glade, the trees sickly and damaged as though they’d been hacked at. In the center, an elegant gazebo of white marble stands in stained and fractured glory. The domed roof has been shattered, the pieces mixed with the remains of what must have been curved benches and a chipped, round table. One of the four pillars lies in several pieces, while the other three look distinctly abused. In healthier times, it must have been a beautiful place to spend time with friends.

Is he nervous about meeting Grandma and Grandpa? she wonders. Well, whatever this is, he’s trying not to damage it, so fixing it shouldn’t unbalance things. Hopefully. Maybe I’ll just fix it half-way…

The mental marble is much lighter than actual stone would be, and the pillar is easy to re-assemble with the help of some sealant. The benches are trickier, and they still look distinctly battered with only the larger chunks glued together. The table is fine as it is, but the pieces of the dome are hopelessly indistinguishable from the smaller fragments of table, benches, and pillars. It’s nowhere near completely repaired, but it should be enough to ease his anxiety without arousing too much suspicion. Hastily, she switches back and finishes applying oil to his mental machinery. A cursory check shows nothing major that needs attention; what cuts there are, are dabbed with anesthetic, but overall the usual superficial wounding has decreased since the elastic ties started keeping things from staying broken. She pets the sense of responsibility again on her way out.

“I’m going to go get ready, okay?” she says softly, hands leaving his horns.

He frowns briefly, eyes still closed, forehead wrinkling above his blindfold, but then he nods. She caps the bottle of oil and retreats to her bedroom, where it and the cloth are tossed into the travel bag open on her bed. Clothes are quickly stripped off and added to the rest of the wardrobe explosion littering the floor, and she dons her illusions before reaching for the outfit she’s picked out. It’s as concealing as it is conservative: a heavy, dark blue dress with a high neck, full skirts, and sleeves that button snugly at the wrist. Joshua’s mother gave it to her once, and wearing it is the best way she knows to mollify the older woman without saying a word. Her hair doesn’t braid neatly with its artificial curls, but she secures it at the nape of her neck with a thick navy ribbon tied in a bow.

Beneath his seemingly relaxed posture, his mind stirs restlessly. She has numbed him enough that any self-destructive thought more strenuous than vague worry seems like too much effort, although he knows he could tear away this pleasant haze in a heartbeat should he so choose. Lazily, his attention drifts to the monitoring node where his Champion is tying a ribbon around her hair. After last week’s scare, she was wise to make him aware of what she was doing. Guilt twitches somewhere below his heart; she should not have to tiptoe around him like this, although he is grateful that she does. She’s far too good to be tied to someone like him. He does not deserve her. He-

A knock on the door interrupts his train of thought, and absently, he calls for Joshua to enter. Still floating in a pleasant haze, he watches through the monitoring node as his Champion emerges and stops dead at the sight of her uncle. Something doesn’t seem right about that and, mildly annoyed, he opens what passes for his eyes. The thought that occurs to him first is that his Champion looks fetching in long skirts, even if she is disguised as human. On the heels of that are the usual irritation at the need for her to hide what she is, and the amendment that she would hardly be able to fight effectively in a gown like that. Only after those thoughts does it occur to him that she’s giving him an uncertain look, and that Joshua looks as though he were facing certain death.

He frowns. Joshua pales.

“Your illusions,” Tessa says quietly.

Oh. Easily fixed, and a moment later Joshua relaxes visibly. There is an impulse to feel shame or anger at himself for this slip, but somehow all he feels is lazy satisfaction that his servant can be trusted to see his true form and still remain obedient. Bolstered by the good mood that still blankets his mind, he shoves all doubt and anxiety behind a wall and focuses on the way his Champion looks at him in adoration as he stands with a smile, and the fearful submission on her uncle’s face.

He gestures to the door. “Shall we go?”