Post by Gavin Sinclair on May 16, 2018 17:29:36 GMT
Gavin had offered Alyssa a chance to explore the place futher. He had his apologies and he had to deal with this issue. Ghosts deat would not just be something that was swept under the rug. It was made to look like an accident and most believed that it was. Poor Ghost. Drunk like usual and unable to pull off the needed steps to escape and 'take down' the cerberous. It was no secret that most of the mutants didn't even like Ghost. He was bossy and rude and he didn't bath. He always smelled like the rankest part of a barn. It was for his talents that Gavin had kept him along. He was telekentic and he was special, though this girl....
Alyssa was also telekentic. And she smelled far nicer. He wanted to get to know more about her. Gavin had no idea what she did, only that she held some power. It was for andromeda to point her out to him specifically so it must've been intersting. Gavin had no idea that he was finding a replacement for Ghost. Ghost, who had become a problem receently with his drinking and his screw ups. It was Ghost who let the boy Warhead get away. It was ghost who alienated most new recruits with not only his borish personality, but also his offensive appearance. No, it was better he was dead. Gavin dealt with the things that had to be dealt with and returned to Alyssa. He was to meet her under the big top tent when the show was closed for the night and everyone was sleeping.
It was a special invitation. He had in fact given her a special ticket. Weaved of fine silk and glowing like some enchanted possessed item. Gavin hoped that she would consider sticking around. He was not going to force her to stay. With most he actually imployed trickery and deciet. He even went as far to kidnap and brainwash, but for this one he was taking a different approach. She reminded him of someone. He could'nt put his finger on it, but it had been bothering him since he met her. Gavin pushed his way into the tent and found the tent empty. Maybe he was early. She hadn't shown up yet.
This was no a private show, but it was a demonstration. Gavin was going to share his power with her and ask that she do the same. Then he could give her the spiel. The pitch that she was like him. She was special and she could stay here with others like her. What Gavin didn't know was she was an immortal Omega mutant. She shared the same level of power as even he. Gavin was a rare monster. His level of power was rarely achieved. He was the pinnacle of evolution and mutation. Gavin Sinclair was perfection. There was a reason Gavin's soliders in his circus were so special. A purposful reason that had to do with his plans for the future of America, though to the untrained eye he seemed as just another circus ringmaster who had an eye for mutant talent.
Alyssa spent the majority of the afternoon walking through the dim shades of sunset drifting over the horizon, she loved it, she always did. the one thing in this world that didn’t change was the elements and she adored every single one. For a long time back in her first life when they worshipped her as the goddess Artemis, the name she was born with, she was associated with the moon and chastity, and the hunt of course. The moon was somewhat understandable, the old fools believed it because of her love of staring at the night sky but chastity was always a little too far-fetched. Alyssa chuckled softly at the idea and pulled the invitation Gavin gave her from the back pocket of her jeans.
It was nice, she hadn’t seen anything like it before. It was almost magical and every fiber of her being begged her to stay for the pure, raw curiosity. If it ended up being a mistake she’d forget it by the next life but for now it was more interesting than lazing away somewhere with the sun spilling over her limbs. Alyssa rubbed her fingers over the unique ticket with a sense of wonder, the idea of finding something still worth her interest in this life was becoming a boring snooze but now she was offered the opportunity to seek it out.
She tied her blonde hair back with resolve and marched all the way back to the carnival. It was much different now, the lively bursts of laughs and cheers were barely imaginable in the thick silence. Everyone was sleeping and while sleep was the one thing she hadn’t mastered in all these lives she found herself yawning just the slightest. Alyssa kicked at a small candy tossed to the ground before stepping into the big top tent. Her ruby lips tilted into a smirk seeing him already waiting for her just inside, she wasn’t particularly adept at showing up on time.
“Been waiting long?”, she ran her fingers along the border of the tent for a second before she stepped closer. There was an almost resonating aura of mischief about her, she was curious and borderline desperate for something to dive right into her sense for anything worth remembering.
“I guess this is the part where you tell me this is no ordinary circus and you’re a very special man”, she chuckled lightly. She’d been in a similar situation a very long time ago but the feel of the situation was eerily familiar. If she remembered correctly it was with a pirate more commonly known as blackbeard, bastard couldn’t even grow a moustache. The thought left a grin on her lips.
Post by Gavin Sinclair on May 17, 2018 18:36:30 GMT
A smile pressed against Gavin's lips. "On the contrary. I was going to say that you are a very special woman. Though, you're right I am a very extraordinary man." There was no modesty to be feigned here. Gavin had no reason too. He slipped his jacket from his shoulders and allowed it to hit the dirt floor. A puff of smoke skirted around his feet as he stared at her. Unblinking his smile slowly disappeared. Reaching up he undid the buttons of his shirt one button at a time. All the while he kept his gaze on hers. He kept her in his focus.
Each button undone revealed a little more of the artwork that covered his body. Gavin was a curious man. He bled tattoos off of his skin when he tired of them and gave himself something new. The stories his skin could tell. The years of retattooing new images where old ones were no longer wanted. He had grown numb to it. Too him the needle of a tattoo gun was nothing. The nerve endings in almost every inch of his skin abused and exploited to the point where he had no real feeling. His receptors to pain in general were all but gone. That made him dangerous. But then again... He had always been dangerous.
Gavin's shirt was completely unbuttoned now. He held his arms out at his sides as if to welcome her. This was a private show. A very special one at that. Gavin didn't haul his mutation out in front of every audiences. It was only very rarely that he preformed at all. Occasionally he would stand in front of the packed crowd and display his talents, but that was all but often. He honestly despised the humans. They were weak and pitiful and they were the thing holding back evolution. Gavin saw mutants as the next step forward in a generation. He saw them as progress and he saw them as the future. A spotlight turned on. It shined on Gavin.
From out of the darkness a mutant who looked a lot like a normal man came from the shadows. He retrieved Gavin's shirt, peeled it off his body ceremoniously and exited quickly. Gavin tilted his head as he looked down each of his arms. Admiring his own art. Each lovingly crafted. Each painstakingly placed. Each representing something he cared about and more importantly something that was uniquely his own. On the palms of his hands were tattooed two glowing orbs of light. They were almost comic book in nature. Like energy beams.
Gavin curled his fingers in his center spotlight. He formed a ball between his two hands. On his left hand a green orb of energy. On the right was a blue orb glowing and radiating almost as if it were a live while still on his skin. The ink began to drip, loosen and flow fluidly through his skin cells. The ink did not run off. If you touched his hand you would not feel wetness of the running ink. It was still in his skin as the pink and green colors bathed in black outline swirled around distorting the image. Gavin's smirk returned.
"See I know you are like me. You are special. You have.... Talents." Gavin said. On his back the ink dripped as well. He could feel the wetness of the ink moving through his skin. It was like standing under a cold shower. With a jerk of his neck to the side there was a loud pop as he cracked the cartilage and loosened up for the big show. The lines in his back dripped and ran as the tattoo on his shoulder blades bled into the real world. There was a flutter.
A massive set of angel wings spread themselves out as the glowing orbs in his hands took shape. He controlled the orbs, manipulating them and swirling them around in the air. Like magnetic fields kept them bouncing closely together but never out of reach of his tight curled grasp. They were much brighter now. Blindingly bright. The green orb and the blue orb swirled around to the beat of his conscious thought. See, Gavin much like Alyssa was god like. He wasn't bound by the laws of man. He wasn't limited by the abilities of a simple ordinary mutant. He could be whatever he wanted to be. His wings flapped harder and he lifted off the ground. Gavin stretched out a hand and the green orb went left and the blue orb went right.
Gavin guided them to sit at the corners of the tent, floating there with purpose. A tattoo of an AK47 bled out of his arms. There was one tattooed on each of his inner forearms. They bled through the skin and dripped their ways down to his finger tips. When they reached his palms Gavin closed his eyes and visualized them appearing. They dripped off his skin and piece by piece drop by drop they formed a pair of full auto weapons. Faster than you'd think. The whole think happened withing seconds.
It was like watching someone pour black water out of a glass, but instead of it splattering like you'd expect it suspended in the air. Stacking on top of itself until it began to take shape and that shape was leathal. Gavin held his arms out to either side. His arms were fully extended. He was flying higher now. Nearly to the top of the tent. He was eye level with the orbs. Gavin squeezed the triggers and the aim was dead on. the balls of light exploded into a a share of tattoo ink. Vibrant green and bold blue showering down over Alyssa in harmless whimsy. "I can do anything. I can be anything." Gavin assured her.
He wasn't so much bragging as showing her what it was he was able to do. She hadn't seen half of it. Gavin lowered himself back to the ground. He stretched out his palms and fine sparkles of white light drew the ink of the orbs back towards him. He was collecting it. The color swam through the air until it found his hands and he willed it back into his skin.
When his eyes opened he raised his palms to show her the orbs were back where they once were. "I would love to see a demonstration." He asked politely. Sitting down, still shirtless; Gavin sat on some bleachers in the tent. He crossed one leg over the other and clutched them anxiously with his clasped hands. "Don't be ashamed. This is a place of wonder and curiosity. Wow me. We may even have a friendly test of skill." He added.
“While I’m not one to ignore a compliment I’m certain you’re very unaware of who I am and if I’m a special as you think I am”, Alyssa watched him closely wondering what the release from his jacket’s restraints would offer. The gnawing feeling burning through her gut begged her to stay and she was absolutely thrilled to oblige. She crossed her slender arms over her chest and watched the buttons pop open one at a time, albeit that was all in her peripheral and the true sights of her gaze was solely focused on him. There was something unique about him, something awfully familiar and foreign at the same time, it was refreshing and terrifying and she loved the mystery of the exchange.
She was intrigued with the intricate lines of seemingly endless ink interlacing with one another like an art work too beautiful for the human eye. Alyssa herself loved the idea of ink tainting her skin in permanent memories but they never lasted. When she inevitably died and woke up in those cold, dark caves the inked memories that made her unique were washed away like the life she lost. Instead she was born anew as someone utterly the same and anew all blended into the same host. So she gave up eventually choosing along her spine. Each scar signifying a life lived and a life lost. In her heart she’d always be Artemis, a goddess but to the new world she was Alyssa albeit named after a young girl who left a permanent touch to her memories. Sadly the original Alyssa died in the early 1800’s due to Scarlett fever. It was horrible but she left those depressing thoughts behind a long time ago.
Instead her sole focus was on Gavin, a man she barely even knew but she could feel the potential radiate off him much like the intense heat of the sun or the draw of the moon. He was powerful and he had no need to hide it from her. Her brow lifted to the almost dramatical entrance and exit of the mutant but she disregarded it quickly and admired the touch of ink on his skin. It truly was intricate and unfathomably interesting.
There was a sense of liveliness to the ink on his skin, it reminded her of the water running through a river without spilling onto the banks and leaving a tainted mark. Instead it was focused, it was ruled by his power and his will and it intrigued her beyond words. “Is that intuition or a lucky guess?”, she asked him with her own lips tilted into a proud smirk, cocky even.
She had to give him credit for the magnificence of the wings spreading forth from his back, they were almost more alluring than the orbs moving into their reality as if they’d been there all this time. Alyssa pulled her sunglasses from her head and set them over her eyes at the brilliant light emanating from the orbs, still, it was absolutely breathtaking. Like the sunset over the savannah, a sight she’d never forget.
Alyssa stepped closer as if the light of his orbs were drawing her in, when each one drifted to opposite ends she found herself anchored to the ground again. Her eyes were focused and she had to remind herself that they were trapped in a century where mutants weren’t seen as the superiors. While she didn’t loathe humans she saw them as lesser beings. Who didn’t want to be at the forefront of evolution? She’d been there since the day she died for the first time.
She held her hands out to the dripping ink with a grin, like a child reaching for snowflakes dripping from the sky. Alyssa found herself half disappointed when he drew the ink back to himself, it was pleasant seeing the sparks of power around her but she was sure it wouldn’t be the last time. She half expected to see his palms vacant of those pretty orbs but when he showed her they were surely there. Alyssa pondered the thought for a second, she wasn’t forthcoming about her abilities but she was almost excited to share them with this extraordinary mutant.
“Better hold on then”, she pulled her own jacket from her shoulders and curled her shoulders under the freedom of the loose straps of her top. Her eyes glowed dimly, a light shade of violet that ignited the power in her veins. She closed her eyes for a second, rubbed her palms together and held them out in front of her, at first the bleachers in the tent rose off the ground with a little resistance and the next they were completely bent under her will. She hoisted the bleachers to the air with her telekinesis, never once forgetting the one Gavin sat on. At first they hovered and then they slowly spun around the open space, slow at first and then almost too fast. When she felt the strain in her shoulders she set them back in place, felt the low violet grow dull in her gaze and she looked to him for a second.
If she was willing to demonstrate her abilities she might very well share the true heritage of her being. Alyssa was almost certain he was the one person interesting enough in this lifetime to divulge some of her secrets. She was born with a sense of shyness but over the centuries she tossed the sentiment aside and forgot about it entirely. Alyssa stepped closer, tucked the straps of her top from her shoulders and turned her back to him, every scar along her back blended into the next and all aligned with the length of her spine. One scar for each life, her intense eyes watched him over her shoulder.
“My real name is Artemis although I prefer Alyssa. I’ve been around for a very, very long time”, she tucked her top back over her shoulders and turned to face him with her hands set on her hips. “You didn’t just invite me here for a show and tell. Please pray tell what exactly I’m here for? So far it’s been worth my time, don’t ruin it now”, her lips slipped into a comfortable smirk as she stared down at him. This might very well be the excitement she’d been waiting for.
Post by Gavin Sinclair on May 17, 2018 23:59:35 GMT
Gavin reacted to the violent shaking and lifting of the bleachers by flying back up in the air. His wings did not rebune to his skin, but instead they curled up and stayed useful. Soaring high above the big top tent Gavin watched the sheer beautiful chaos. It was destruction. It was poetry. Gavin's wings flapped mightily. The fine tipped feathers were slightly dirty. Some were damaged and bent from the many years he had had them. It was only one of two tattoos he always had always kept. Having the ability to soar was so wonderful. Now he had a bird's eye view of everything.
He watched and waited. He saw the strain take hold on her face and flew down for a closer look. After a while the shaking ceased. She was finished. It was truly remarkable. She was much more powerful than Ghost ever was. He could at most manipulate small objects. He had a laser show he used to fire laser pistols all around the tent and direct the beams with his mind. Allow the lasers to nearly strike a fan and send it careening in a different direction at the last moment. When he started showing up for the performances drunk it was just one more reason Gavin had to end him.
Sure he didn't care if a human got a nice new smoking hole in his face, but he also didn't need trouble. Not while he was still building his army. He was building something beautiful. Something remarkable. Reckless fuck ups like that was going to be the thing that toppled his empire. So, no Ghost's accident was no accident indeed. Gavin's wings flapped less furiously as he got closer until finally his feet touched down on the ground. There was a softness in his eyes. A kind of caring and understanding.
His face was that of a worried father. There was genuine concern on his features. His brow furrowed. His lip puckered and he reached out carefully, lovingly to her back when she showed him her scars. His fingers hesitated before touching her skin. As if he was afraid he might break her. Her flesh was warm under his fingertips. He felt her body cringe reactively away from his touch and he wondered how long it had been since anyone had touched her in any way. "Must be difficult." He admitted.
Gavin imagined centuries of pain. Centuries of loss. He didn't fathom how far back her lineage went, but he bet it was quite some time. He recognized the name she gave as her own from mythology. A smile threatened to break across his face but licking his lips quickly he subdued it. His fingers traveled down her spine. Almost daring to explore as far as she would allow. He seemed lost in a trace at the way she was preserved.
He had known only one immortal in his lifetime. She was dead now. Even immortality it seemed couldn't stop a bullet. She lives on only in the cruelest of ways. As a figment of his tormented past. A stain on his tortured skin and a hollow memory played back and controlled by his very thoughts. She was a tattoo on his shoulder. Sometimes when he was sad or lonely he would drip her down into the dirt, watch her be born of the earth and come to life.....
She would say the things that he wanted to hear. That she loved him. That she missed him. It wasn't her fault she was dead. Usually these late night visits were the result of him being drunk in his trailer or having a tough night. They ended in a myriad of ways. Tears, violence, him screaming in her face until she melted away into an oozing puddle of regret. It was eerie how Alyssa even looked a little like his beloved Madison.
He shoved the thought form his mind and drew his fingers away from her skin. She wasn't Madison. He couldn't think like that, and that wasn't why he invited her in the first place. He had to see beyond his own selfish needs to the bigger picture. Gavin cleared his throat and stood up. "I offer a home to those who have no place in the world. The mutants of the world. You could say that I collect strays. Offer them some place to be, but I also find that good company and adventure makes life better. Stay with us a few days. Travel around. I mean I'm sure a woman of your.... Standing has some free time to kill."
It wasn't his best sales pitch, but he was also fighting back urges to bleed his heart out to her and tell her how much he missed her. Gavin blinked and shook his head lightly as he refocused on her eyes. "Besides... I'd love to hear more about your past adventures. It sounds like you have a lot of stories to tell." He smiled. An honest, kind smile, though pain twinkled lonely in his glistening eyes.
Alyssa felt the touch of his fingers to the soft, scarred skin of her back and a shiver ran down the length of her spine. He had no idea how accurate he’d been. Every time she died she relived every single death until she opened her eyes to the dark, rocky wall of the caves in Greece. It was excruciating and while she’d become numb and bored to the pains of the world the reincarnation took her nerve ends to a whole new level of raw agony. “I’m getting used to it”, the lie rolled over her lips with ease as she turned back to look at him.
There was a dark look to his gaze and she wondered just what was rolling around in his mind, it must have been eerily nostalgic but mind reading wasn’t in her resume. Still, she was terribly curious but she attributed her excitement to know everything to her mother’s interests burned into her during that very first life.
Home, the word was foreign to her. The closest she ever felt to home was the warm feeling bubbling inside her heart at the sight of a sunset lingering over the horizon or the constellations in the night sky. And there he was offering a home to lost souls all afflicted or blessed by the unique gene that differentiated the evolved from the mundane. Alyssa was almost certain she was a stray, she’d been on the road for so very long she forgot what it felt like staying in the same place for long.
She looked to Gavin and then to the long edges of her nails as the thought mulled over in her beautifully complex mind. Alyssa considered walking away, she’d just pass on with this life and soon the memory of this encounter wouldn’t be much more than a vague memory hard to recall. But the core of her being begged her to stay, taste the life he offered and perhaps the lust for adventure would be soothed by the promise in his words.
Looking back up to meet his gaze she could see the twinge of something resembling pain in his gaze but she wasn’t intent on digging through his mind to search for reason. Instead she nodded briefly with a playful grin plastered over her red lips. She wanted to stay, she needed to see what he was offering and it left her giddy with excitement.
“Is this the sales pitch for every second lost soul? Or am I just a little special?”, a little chuckle slipped past her lips and she took a measured step towards him. “If you don’t tire or bore easily I’d be more than happy to tell you what a dick Julius Caesar really was, although he was damn good in bed”, she chuckled lightly in aftermath of her joking tone.
“I prefer delving into the past with a drink in hand. I’m guessing you can fix that”, Alyssa reached up in annoyance at the tight pull of her elastic band and felt the touch of her blonde waves trailing over her shoulders. This might very well be the best decision she made in the span of years.
Post by Gavin Sinclair on May 20, 2018 17:07:12 GMT
He tried. Gavin had tried to play the part of honest showmaster, and nothing more but his lips fell apart. His gaze lingered on hers for just a little too long. He kept finding himself entranced with the resemblance. How had he not seen it before? The hairstyle, sure was completely different but the resemblance was uncanny. Gavin smiled at her offer of needing a drink. He stood up. Ink bled away down his calf and rushed down over the edge of his sock and into the dirt.
The tattoo... A couple having dinner for two in a nice italian resturaunt. An old faded tattoo, but the ink worked just the same. The couple did not join them. The couple was him ans his first love, though he could have rid himself of that reminder long ago he kept it. Like so many other things that reminded him of Madison he didn't have the heart to throw out. The ink wet the dirt and it was just part of his tattoo that he bled away.
The table and chairs the couple in the tattoo were sitting at. Gavin kneeled down and pawed at the dirt until he found the edges of what he had created. It was like finding buried treasure. The dirt floor surprisingly soft and packed with loose dirt. Gavin had no trouble pulling the table out of the ground. The chairs he managed to pull up with one hand. They were a little dirty but then again who cared? They were gods among men what was a little dirt?
Gavin smiled. He honestly did enjoy her company. Not only because she looked like the reincarnation of his beloved Madison, but because she had intersting stories. His eyes lit up at the notion of hearing stories of julies ceaser. How intersting. She had dined with wine with kings and men and played with fate for eons. He could learn much from her. She had to be the single oldest mutant here. Gavin did not live forever. He had not experienced many lifetimes. He was only in his thirties.
He could learn about the romans, the greeks. What it was like back then. julius ceaser may have been a dick, but he was a suprem stratigist. Besides..... His plan called for a telekentic participant. it was absolutely vital. Gavin had big plans. Ones that he had not set into motion yet, but he felt the winds of change swiftly blowing in his favor. Gavin wasn't just recruting mutants to his circus because he wanted to be a humanitarian. He had fouler intentions.
Gavin wanted to take his circus to the streets of the world and wipe out humanity one city at a time. They were a traveling circus, and they would continue to travel. Put on a few shows for a few nights and then wipe the city off the face of the earth by morning and leave the next day. He had dreamed about it. Ghost was a talented son of a bitch that was for sure, but Alyessa's power.....It was just truly special. "Yes.. You are, quite special." Gavin admitted when she brought it up.
"What do they call you by the way.... Surely you don't just go by Alyessa. You're human name. My name is Gavin Sinclair. But my mutant name is simply.... Ink. You may call me either. But those who truly know me call me INK." He said humbly with a smile. Gavin sat down at his table and crossed his leg under the table. He snapped his finger and the same human looking man came brandishing a bottle of wine. An excellent vintage. "Don't worry he's not spying on us. His tent is across the circus he has superhearing and he is my personal assistant. Say hello Earshot." The skittish looking man who Ink called Earshot looked at Alyessa with a smile and waved to her. He set the bottle down and disappaered once again. "Good guy.' Gavin said with a smirk.
"I found each and every mutant here. Everyone one of them were once down on their luck and looking for a place to fit in and i built all of this. it's a family now. We look out for each other. I'm the one who brought this family together so naturally they look to me as a leader." Ink said pouring Alyessa a glass of wine. He poured one for himself as well and took a sip as he watched her carefully. Something curious was happening to a tattoo on his arm. The tattoo'ed portrait of his beloved Madison's face had changed. Where it used to be a smile, now her face was sad and there was a tear rolling down her cheek. It was never part of his orginial tattoo..
Alyssa watched, as intrigued as she was the first time his gifts bled to life in front of her and she couldn’t help but grin down at the ink that leaked from his skin. The table and chairs were nothing but ink rippling to life from his beautiful ability, there was no doubt in her mind that she could sense the power dripping off him like the obvious odor off rain begging through thick clouds overhead. She lowered her slim figure onto the hard surface of the chair and crossed her legs over one another with her fingers tapping a silent rhythm on the table in front of her.
She wondered if he had any other tricks up his sleeve, true power was rare and in this era she hadn’t seen anyone like him. quite honestly she hadn’t seen anyone with his unique mutation in the entirety of her life. Although, suspicion gripped her thoughts for a single second. there had to be more to his circus than a simple recruitment of lost souls but she disregarded it as simple paranoia.
Her lips tilted into a proud smirk as the compliment, although she wasn’t a narcissist she knew she wasn’t humble either. Alyssa leaned forward with her elbows pressing into the table, her hair blew into her face in the slightest as it broke free form the elastic’s hold. “I wasn’t always worshipped as a Greek deity, my first name was Artemis Laskaris though. Up until the 1800’s I had dozens of names but Alyssa’s the most recent”, she gently lifted three pebbles from the ground and rolled them into different shapes in the air. A way to keep her fingers busy.
“You’re obviously not a mind reader so how exactly did you know I was here or what I was? Is it another one of your tricks or does the credit go to someone else?”, she spared him a playful wink as a slight breeze blew over her shoulders and welcomed her skin in a tender touch. Alyssa’s mind wandered to his skin and she wondered just what the ink on his body depicted but she looked to the stone pebbles instead in fear of staring for too long.
Post by Gavin Sinclair on May 23, 2018 18:11:21 GMT
"No, I am not psychic." Gavin admitted freely. "I have many that live here who are though. One of my psychics sensed your presence. Sensed that you seemed....Lost and that I should find you. I made my way over immediately." Gavin said all this as if it were obvious. As if it were the simplest thing in the world. Off in the distance the circus music shut down. Only moments before happy, jovial music drifted into the tent from far away. There was the sound of a big level being pulled that echoed in the distance and then quiet.
Gavins solemn face said that she was foolish for asking. He kept his eye on her. She was gorgeous he couldn't deny that, but Gavin made no plays for her affections. He wasn't after her devotion to him as a lover, but as a soldier. As much as he wanted to be selfish here and revel in the beauty of his dear departed Madison, he could not. The only one to ever truly love him was gone and that was something he was going to have to deal with.
Gavin clasped his hands on the table in front of him. "Have you ever killed anyone?" He asked abruptly. His voice was steady, His face was calm. No, he was not joking, he was honestly curious. She didn't seem the type but you couldn't tell by that. He didn't seem like the type. He looked like your friendly, albeit nerdy neighbor. The one who tries to look tougher than he really was by getting a whole lot of tattoos.
Gavin's wings folded in on themselves and melted back into his back. The ink was the same as it ever was only the feathers were ruffled now. They re inked themselves into his back in a totally new position. Some feathers twisted this way or that, it was not a complete picture perfect match to how they looked before. It was a whole new tattoo with feathers that stood out in a unique and beautiful new way.
The same with every tattoo on his body. Some were monstrous, evil. Some were ordinary items. Things that were too heavy to carry, but boundlessly useful to have at all times.... Like a packed refrigerator full of food. Or a canteen of water. Or an AK47. Everything his imagination touched danced and sang with life when he bled into the ink. Gavin shifted in his seat. More levers were pulled. The overhead lights in the carnival were getting shut down. First the Ferriswheel, great and wonderful with it's many lights. It shut down and stopped motionless, singing it's laughter to the world no more. Gavin knew it was getting late. He could sit here and regal in stories all night.
Though his mutants were closing down and gearing up for bed. It didn't mean they had to say goodbye to the conversation or the wine. "Take a walk with me Alyssa." He said simply. Standing up he grabbed the bottle of wine and wandered out of the tent, still shirtless. The moonlight touched the skin of his shoulders. A silver outline moved across the rippling muscles of his back. There on his back were his wings. Tucked in and moving across his shoulder blades and down either side. Gavin took a swig from the bottle and stood at the entrance to the tent.
"I have mutants here that can do many things, but none that can do what you do. It's not glamerous, but it is exciting." He turned to her. His eyes suddenly alight with excitement. The look of pure excitement lasted on his face for a moment until it wavered to crushing sadness. He looked so broken. His arms hung at his sides as the bottle drooped. Gavin's tattoo of Madison moved down his arm and rushed against the skin. "I could have been immortal, like you. I had a love once....She made me untouchable." Gavin's words were low and somber.
The ink dripped off the end of his finger tips and turned into finger tips of their own! The fingers connected to a hand, and then a arm that rose upwards. The ink defied gravity and dripped upwards, forming a human being as they went. A human being that was holding Gavin's hand since the very beginning. Since it's very conception. It was Madison. She looked like Alyssa's mirror image in every way besides the hairstyle. Madison's hair was much more contemporary and modern than Alyssa's style. Madison had short hair, almost shoulder length but not quite.
Gavin brought her hand to his lips and kissed it. Madison smiled softly, though there was sorrow in her eyes too. She wore a white blouse and a elegant pink skirt that touched her ankles. Gavin could not take his eyes off her. He held her hand up and twirled her slowly in the moonlight. "She made me young." He told Alyssa without taking his eyes off of Madison. "She made me thirst for more life." He said as he spun her slowly.
Madison said nothing she only looked at her love with longing eyes. "She was taken from me." He said quietly and blood dripped from a gunshot on Madison's chest. Her face turned to horror as she turned into a puddle of ink and rained into the dirt. In the blink of an eye she liquefied and disintegrated. Gavin looked down at the puddle by his feet. He said nothing. He only turned the bottle up and took several heavy swigs. Gavin put the bottle down on a barrell and stared up at the sky. The moon was full tonight. White and full of pulling, swaying influence. He couldn't feel it. Tears shrink wrapped his eyes as he looked back at Alyssa. "I hope you decide to stay for awhile. It'd be nice to have you." He said quietly. His eyes drifted back to the puddle by his feet. The puddle he was contemplating letting soak into the dirt.
“I’d hate to ruin your psychic’s reputation but I’m not lost”, her tone was almost playful but she knew the truth in her mind, lost was a familiar term to her but she was so used to it that it didn’t feel strange or uncomfortable. She thrived on the chaos of belonging everywhere and nowhere in every era since she’s lived. Her mind belonged to all time and to no time at all, she was meant to die that first time but destiny molded her future and she’s still stuck in a world that didn’t know how she’d progressed. She went from an impulsive noble man’s daughter, became the goddess to the Greeks, fought alongside an Egyptian pharaoh, battled in the first world war, tended to wounds in the second and there she was a traveler with no true cause.
Death was an old friend, being a fully committed soldier for the end of lives over decades of hidden truths and masked agenda’s wasn’t a new idea brewing in her mind. She wasn’t a saint but she wasn’t a devil either. Alyssa’s lips twitched into a nostalgic smirk, “My hands are dripping bloods since the first kings of Egypt. I’ve killed more people than I’d care to admit, some were for my own gain and others were in self defense – it all ended the same though. I live, they die and if it doesn’t take the first time I try again. I’ve never had to try more than twice though”, she had a gnawing feeling in the pit of her mind that he wouldn’t judge her for her blood tinted past. Still, guilt drifted through her mind for some faces she’d never forget, faces she recapped with every death and each awakening.
Alyssa had to hold back from reaching out to touch his wings, they were beautifully intricate and she shook herself out of a steady stare for after a few seconds. The reunion of the feathers with his skin made her wonder just what else lay engraved on his skin. Her chin lifted to glance at the lights of the carnival slowly dying down as people greeted the night’s embrace. It was somber and beautiful to see the transition of something utterly lively to something dull and silent.
“Lead the way”, she shoved her jacket over the back of the chair and followed after Gavin. The cool touch of the breeze to her bare shoulders was comforting and left a happy chill down her spine. Over all the decades she always preferred the winter’s grace over the summer’s relentless heat. “You’re not interested in my abilities because you’re hoarding a bunch of lost souls, I’ve been around long enough to know when there’s more than meets the eye. Tell me what’s really on your mind”, her arms folded comfortably over her chest as she watched him. there was something complex in his gaze, something she wanted to understand or at the very least discover.
She listened to his words but they became something of a white noise as the ink dripping from his fingers turned into something more solid. Someone more real. Her lips hung agape looking at the face in front of her. It felt as if she was staring straight into the glossy touch of a mirror, albeit the minor differences. For a second she wondered if she’d lived a life she forgot about but it was impossible. Every time she was reborn she’d remember, all of it, the pain, the love, the happiness and the agony. It was a blend of painful tugs in her mind to remind her she was still only human with the perk of immortality. Doppelgangers though, that was something she never came across but still, it was almost eerie seeing the visage of a woman he loved.
A soft gasp slipped through her lips as blood dripped from the inked version of his lover, she wanted to reach out and pull Maddison to safety but instead the vision of someone looking much like her ended into a puddle of ink. “I’m sorry, no one deserves to lose the people they love”, she felt numb to the feeling of loss, perhaps because she’s lost so much. At times, when she grew wary of life and begged a new beginning she’d find herself drowning tears on top of a quint waterfall in Italy.
“Are you asking me to stay because I have an eerie resemblance to your dead girlfriend, or are you building an army? If I’m here to play a painful reminder of someone you lost then I’m gone, but if you’re looking for a general to help lead an army then I’m more than willing to spare this life’s time. Besides, the world got boring a long time ago, I’m just trying to find something worth staying for. Besides, even if I was tired of living I couldn’t end it, I don’t know how to make it all stop. Sometimes it’s a blessing but not always.”, the words leaving her lips were somewhat loaded in a passionate tone as she reached out a slender palm and brought the bottle of wine to her lips. It didn’t take too many swigs but she welcomed every last drop with enthusiasm. This was the last route she thought the night would even go.
The moon rained down on her skin and she remembered a time well passed, the offerings from young maidens begging to enroll as her hunters were a common sight among the outskirts of Greece. These days she wasn’t anything worth following, the wars she lead were long forgotten or rewritten by those who dared to deceive the world and the only remembrance of her true self was barely recognizable carvings in ancient blocks of stone and marble. For once she thought someone else craved a cause as much as she did. Maybe that’s why she already thought about staying the moment he shared his unique power with her.
Post by Gavin Sinclair on May 24, 2018 13:04:59 GMT
For the longest time Gavin stood with his back to her. The steady rise and fall of his breathing was even and calm. His shoulders slouched slightly at the ends. His neck was stiff and still. The light of the moon almost made him seem ghostly, ghoulish and all together as dead as his love. He turned slowly to face Alyssa. "Why can't it be both?" He said. And it was that simple. He wanted her here because she reminded him of what he had lost. And because he was building an army. She was perfect. Her homage to his late Madison was just the reminder he needed to fuel the anger and push the tides of war into his favor.
The truth was.... He couldn't get out of his mind how much she reminded him of Madison. She was almost identical in every way. Besides the haircut, but that could be accounted for in the difference of the time periods. Gavin was not truly immortal. He never possessed everlasting life like Madison. She was a woman who lived through the ages like Alyssa. She liked to joke that she had been there for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Though she would never give Gavin a straight answer if there was any credence to that nonsense or not.
Religion was never very high on his list of things he cared deeply about, but he often wondered what kind of god would tear a woman from the arms of someone who loved her that profoundly. He would die for her... And for so long he thought he would die without her. The human soul was a fickle and curious thing. The years had done nothing for him, beside make him bitter towards the hand of man. More than once Gavin had kidnapped a few humans for a side project. Every state they traveled too his circus grew larger.
Not always from the willing or unwilling mutants that joined his ranks, but because he had a habit of kidnapping at least one person from every city. You see Gavin had his own ways of building his army. It wasn't just the willing recruits like Alyssa who offered him their services, but also the unwilling abductees that he held against their will. Andromeda his powerful psychic would scramble their minds and play with their memories. Give them false memories of a home in the circus and a life of a mutant. Gavin had a way of making humans into mutants. He had a secret way of disfigurement and abomination creation that lended talent to his freakshow tent.
Gavin was building an army. He was going to roam from city to city destroying everything in his path. With Andromeda and Alyssa in his ranks things were far more likely to end in bloodbath and ruin. He took another sip of his wine, turning once again away from Alyssa. He stared out over the vast empty quiet of the circus field. Seemingly empty tents tainted with years of stains and dirt from travel; flapped in the breeze. His soldiers slept quietly. Each of them willing to do whatever it took for him. A lot of them saw him as father. Most of them had been in the circus since they were young. Gavin was not above rescuing unloved unappreciated mutant children from abusive homes or taking runaways off the streets.
Gavin turned to Alyssa. "Do you.... Remember every life that you ever lived?" His question spilled out of his mouth slowly... As if he were almost afraid to hear the answer was a resounding yes. Some small part of him wanted to hold out hope that she was Madison. That she was the woman who was stolen from him. Madison had never talked about what happened when she died. Only that it was painful and it was not a pain she wished to share with him. Loving her like he did he accepted that as enough and kissed her gently on the forehead as they curled up together under the stars. Now he wished he had pressed harder for truth. He wished he had more certainty as he turned and stole a glance of her radiant beauty. He didn't want to look at her.... But he couldn't help it.
Dipping his fingers down towards the dirt the ink of Madison's tattoo swam back into his skin. It rushed over the cool reflective muscle and found it's home back where it came. Only now her position had shifted. Instead of standing there staring at the floor her eyes were upward. Pointed in the direction of Gavin's face. Like the tattoo it'self was reaching out for him. Calling to him and longing to return to him. He couldn't look her in the eyes either. Even though she was just a tattoo. He finally found the courage to turn to Alyssa.
He needed to hear her answer.. "For a moment...." Tears shimmered in his eyes. "I allowed myself to hope." His lips parted. He spoke in ancient greek. "αγαπώ για πάντα και πίσω" I love you forever and back. He said. It was something he used to say to Madison all the time. He waited. His heart crunched in his chest under the weight of this moment. He didn't dare breath until he heard her say it back to him. That alone would confirm his suspicions that this truly was Madison. The love of his life brought back to him.
Why can’t it be both? The words tore through her mind in an eerie, strange echo that left her thoughts drifting afar. Her blonde hair blew lightly over her shoulders and met his gaze, she didn’t have words to challenge his. There was nothing arguing the benefits of staying or the cost of leaving. Either way, for the first time in many decades someone had her stunned. The words on her lips met silence and her mind met an empty void with no coherent thoughts. The truth was she was uncertain, she didn’t want to spend her time being a painful reminder of something he’d lost, it wasn’t fair to tear open a wound already healed.
Something felt eerily comfortable in the atmosphere growing between them, she dared to tell him the truth and everything he gave back was truly genuine and left her strangely intrigued. Something truly hard to accomplish when everyone else was mundane and boring to an eternal life greeting every era and every decade, good or bad. She wasn’t sure what his aim was, there was a glint of war dancing in his gaze, she knew what it was because it lived in her. Being a warrior was something she had known for a very long time and the taste for war, for a true cause, was remarkable and obvious. She’d know the taste for war in the eyes of any soul who dared share the truth with her, intentionally or not.
The question dancing off his lips left her mind strangely sharp amidst the fog of uncertainty. She couldn’t truly answer, if she couldn’t recall a previous life she’d be oblivious to the fact. Everything she did remember could be traced over the many decades her life tainted the world but if memories were lost to a void when she met the taste of another life then she was truly and utterly in the dark. “I don’t know. I remember my first life and every life that followed. If there were lives I can’t recall I wouldn’t know”, her words hung heavy in the air. No one ever asked her that and she never considered the cruel possibility. Knowing every life was less a curse than forgetting some. Parts of her would be lost the the void of a life she couldn’t remember and she wouldn’t be able to understand what was missing from her reborn soul.
“It’s not exactly a science. If I die it’s like someone shut off the lights, then, I start remembering the key aspects of every life I lived. Every ounce of happiness and every bit of pain. It doesn’t get easier, every rebirth is more painful than the last. I’ve never come across a life I couldn’t recall” she couldn’t meet his gaze, instead she looked to the stars knowing as much as the world could change the heavens never left her trapped in uncertainty. Every constellation was a companion in every single life. She knew them by heart and she considered them the closest to a home she ever knew.
She glanced down at the ink trailing back onto his skin, the mirror image of herself slowly regained a life in dark engravings tainting his skin. She couldn’t bare to look at the depiction anymore, it felt wrong to look at her own face on the skin of a man she only just met. Perhaps this was just another taunt from the curse that kept her alive for the many years she travelled the earth’s landscape.
Alyssa’s eyes met his, not because of her own will but because of an indescribable need to find some meaning in his words. A meaning to tear through the newfound fog gracing her mind and blinding her gaze. Those solemn words recited to her in Greek, it was impossible and yet there he was reciting something that plagued her dreams. Like the echo of a voice she didn’t know, didn’t recognize. Alyssa clutched her palms to her temples as a searing headache blasted at the confines of her skull.
“Where did you hear that? Is this a trick courtesy of your psychic?” her words were masked in a sneer and she couldn’t help the rude tone slipping off her lips. A painful yell left her parted lips as a seering headache drove her to her knees with both palms clutched to her temples. “What are you doing to me?”, the words that left her ruby lips were coated in pain, she couldn’t face him. in her mind he was busy killing her by some power he hadn’t shared with her. Her head was begging to cave in on itself.
Her own face flashed painfully behind her lips, her slender palm tugged over her belly in the visage of a mirror, Gavin’s face albeit from a time she didn’t know, her short cut locks, a painful tug at her chest, crimson stains on her fingers, tear in her eyes, memories she didn’t know but recalled as if they were the moving silhouettes dancing on a television frame. She was seeing a life she didn’t live, reliving a death she didn’t remember and agonizingly clutching her mind as it threatened to tear in two. Alyssa didn’t understand what was happening, this was a first for her. The pain racking her mind was harsher than the tug of live rebuilding in her dead bones. The feeling tearing through her was far worse than the taste of life as she was reborn countless times.
“Get the fuck away from me!”, her word were still coated in pain but the searing headache was dying down into a low, painful tug behind her lids. She stood to shaky legs, pulled a knife from her belt and held it with grace and poise in an effort to distance herself from the pain of something unknown. Everything was a mess riddled in the fog of pain and despair, all the while it left a taste of nostalgia on her red tinted lips.
Post by Gavin Sinclair on May 24, 2018 18:58:20 GMT
Things turned sour quickly. She hadn't the reaction he was hoping for to his beloved turn of phrase. There was a special place in his heart for that phrase. It had always been their way of saying how much they meant to each other. The words spilled from his lips as lovingly and as careful as if he were saying goodnight to a lover drifting quietly to sleep and yet the reaction was lewd. It was violent and unexpected. He didn't offer her protests to his innocence, he only dropped to his knees with her and pulled her into his arms. Even when she lashed out and struggled he tried to calm her. He knew that if he could look into her eyes he could see, and he could make her see.
She pushed him away violently and stood up with a knife. She accused this of being some trick. Gavin simply smiled. "If this were a trick...... You would have already woken up with new memories binding you too me forever. I am simply helping you discover who you are! You're name was once Madison Townly. We had a live together. On the eastern coast of Maine. The shore crashed out over the rocks and we could see it all from our small house opposite the cliff. We were happy....Once." Gavin's words fell flat as he thought of how much time he had lost with her.
"We even were talking of starting a family until the mutant hating bastards came in and TOOK....EVERYTHING FROM ME!" He was seething with rage. Veins bulged at the slope of his neck and he thought back to a moment when he heard the gunshot echoing in his mind. The thud of her body slumping against the wall. Her blind accusational look staring at the baseboard along the wall as blood showered neatly in fine sprays across the dust covered furniture. They had just gotten back from vacation and stepped back into their home to interrupt a home invasion.
Gavin sat perched on his knees as Alyssa stepped back. He seemed lost in thought. Pulled down the rabit hole only to discover it had no end. She wasn't lying. She wasn't teasing or being coy... Madison was really immortal. It was her. It was truly her. Those terrible nights spent sleeping with emptiness inside him and on the other side of his mattress. Those countless days of drinking himself into a stupor and not giving a damn about life or it's reasonings.
Now he had her, only for her not to recognize him at all. It was almost as bad as loosing her all over again. He stood for a moment. Every second of his life dwindled down to this moment. This horror filled moment he could barely breath in. To be rejected by the thing he had pined and mourned after for so long....He couldn't do it. He turned away. It was better before. He should not have opened this door. Even if it was his Madison she did not know him. She did not feel the same way as he did for her. "If you want to go." He said coldly..
Gavin stood up and turned his back to her. If only to keep her from seeing the pain in his face and the tears beginning to swell in his eyes. "I won't hold you against your will. I lost you once, but I would rather know you are out there, happy and living that wilting and withering in e guilded cage of my design. I love you Madison. But you will not be my captive." His words were harsh and unfeeling and he tried against all hope to keep the stinging sweltering paint out of his throat. It was tense from trying to choke back tears.
Gavin felt the familiar wet feeling of the ink moving through his skin. Traveling down from the roundness of his shoulder and through the length of his arm. His hand cupped as he stormed away. The ink moved into the palm of his hand and he slung it with a careless backhanded motion at the main gate. "You'll find your exit there!" Gavin shouted. He was angry. He was hurt. He was broken and he didn't want her to see it.
Gavin stormed up the steps of his trailer and stepped inside slamming the door shut behind him. He masked his pain with anger because it was the only way for him to save face. The ink he slung landed in the dirt by the gate and rising up like a phoninex from the ashes was a massive hulking behemoth of a viking god man. He bore full armor and a sword and a shield. His name was Ragnarok. He was the coming of the apocalypse in north mythology. He was the ender of all worlds in some scriptors and writings. Gavin had a fascination with mythology.
You could tell by the tattoos he kept. The giant spider. The Cerberus three headed hell hound. The griffinand viking guards. It was a passing fancy. They weren't permanent places in his cast of characters, but for the moment that was just a portion of the ink that imbued him. The viking rose from the soil and crack his neck. He was deathly pale, white as a sheet and towering at a 7'2! His skin was ghostly white and his eyes green as emeralds. His long orange beard vibrant and standout in the clash of dull grey color of his visage. He grunted and stared at Madison. He sheathed his mighty sword and pulled open the gate to allow her to leave.
Alyssa still felt the searing tug of memories she repressed tearing through her mind in a violent rush of agony and despair. His words sounded too loud to her ears, as if he was yelling painfully into her auditory sense with a ferocity she didn’t recognize, she couldn’t forget an entire life. Every time she died she saw the pain and happiness laced in every life as if she was reading a book of every era her soul tasted. Madison Townly. The name echoed in her mind and bounced off her skull, it felt nostalgically familiar and she hated the pain that it brought with. Memories didn’t hurt in the middle of a lifetime, they never did, this was a new feeling leaving her legs numb and her fingers shaking in worry and confusion.
“You’re lying!”, the words sounded strained, like she had to force it out against the rough winds of a hurricane. Her eyes glanced at him in a way that felt familiar, comfortable and she felt guilty for the rage lacing his angry words. It left her feeling horribly dreadful and nauseous, like someone shot her in the chest and blood slowly pooled into her lungs before begging for the sight of her lips. How could she forget every good thing about a man who claimed she loved him beyond compare? What could be so tragic that her mind forced an entire lifetime to a foggy corner she could never recall it from?
The cold tone to his voice left her own blood spilling into a freezing pool of stagnant shock. When he called her Maddison something pierced through her mind like a needle flung at her skin. She wanted to hear the name from his lips but she wanted her mind to reject the idea that it was normal. Her mind didn’t, her mind begged her to remember, forced her skull into a throbbing headache in the hopes that old memories would rip through the foggy surface of amnesia.
Her fingers clutched the hilt of the knife harder, so much that the skin of her knuckles turned a sickly white and she felt the nerves grow numb at the harsh grasp. His angry voice drifting in the air left her shaking even more, she wanted to remember now, if only for the searing pain against her cranium to stop long enough so she could hear herself think.
For a long moment, it felt like an eternity, she looked to the armored Viking leading her way out of the carnival and away from the chaos she practically dived into and stared after Gavin’s storming figure. Another headache drove her to her knees and a painful yell erupted into the night air, she pushed to her feet with newfound determination and faced his trailer. She didn’t care if he saw her but she hoped he did.
“Fine! If you want me to remember then I’ll fucking remember!”, the words that followed were softer and danced on the graceful sway of the wind, “I just have to dig a little deeper”. Alyssa twirled the knife in her palm, in all the lives she lived she never purposefully drew the last ounces of her soul from her body. The blade of the knife looked ominously beautiful and welcoming in the moon’s light.
“I don’t know how much Madison told you but if she and I are one in the same then I’ll be back. Hopefully this isn’t my last life”, a small smile licked her ruby lips and she pulled the knife to both her palms. Alyssa didn’t want to see him, instead she found comfort in the grace of the constellations glaring down on her. Her eyes closed and she bathed in the moonlight, in a fierce tug the dagger’s tip slipped into the tender touch of her skin and delved into the flesh of her chest.
It was painful but she grew numb to the caress of agony a long time ago, blood pooled over the blade’s sharp edges and stained her clothes. Alyssa’s mind slowly grew to admire the darkness begging her brief sleep, a quick escape from the chaos of a life she didn’t choose. Her lids felt heavy as gravity pulled her to her knees, life left her slowly. Every breath she took tore more energy from her veins, she leaned back and allowed her crimson tainted fingers to rest by her side.
The constellations welcomed her as the limp form of her slender figure finally grew victim to the full force of gravity. Her shoulders dug into the dirt and a final breath slipped through her lips. At first her limp body lay strewn by her own design but soon the constellations welcomed her and she felt her spirit drive to the sky. Everything went dark, for a while it felt as if eternity beckoned her home but it all started in one of the most agonizingly painful reincarnations yet.
Water pooled over her skin as a new scar tore into the skin over her spine, it was still fresh and stung as if acid tore through her flesh. Alyssa saw every life, she saw the faces of her parents, her betrothed, Cleopatra, the Egyptian armies she commanded, Julias Caesar in all his glory, more memories spilled through her mind and she drowned in their touch, the good and the bad. And then it happened. The memory she drove from her mind, she remembered Gavin, she remembered the lapping waves from the porch of a home they shared, she remembered using the name Madison after a kind lady who reminded her of her mother, she remembered the life growing in her and she remembered that fateful shot tearing through her chest wall.
Pain erupted in her chest and she knew why she’d shut it out. Alyssa remembered the pain of losing more than another one of her own lives, she remembered losing the growing life building inside of her. A beautiful soul, the first offspring from her genes. Her child, a beautiful baby stolen from her by the human race. The loss of a child was too much to bear, she shut it out. for the first time since she was born to the Laskaris family she woke up in those cold waters littering the caves with tears in her eyes. She sobbed, not because of a life she didn’t remember but because of the loss she refused to remember.
Alyssa stood up from the lapping water caressing her skin, every aspect of her skin met the empty air of the caves. A new scar littered her back and she glanced at the corner where a chest of necessities greeted her. She wasn’t sure where this left her, she wasn’t Madison anymore but she wasn’t entirely the same person she was when she plunged that knife into her chest. Somehow she was the same person but different all the same. All that made sense was getting back to Gavin, he deserved to know why Madison forced herself from Alyssa’s mind, a secret like that wasn’t fair keeping. More than that, an instinct inside her being willed her back, like a compass begging direction. Come hell or high water, she’d find that fucking carnival and she’d recall a life she lost.
Post by Gavin Sinclair on May 24, 2018 23:22:03 GMT
Gavin slammed the door to his trailer and was done with the whole thing. It was foolish of him to even try. To try and reach out to the other side and pull his love back from beyond the grave. She was gone and he fucked with fate. Toyed with the gods and defied them to keep her from him a moment longer. It was selfish and he couldn't help but feel bad for the way he hurt her. He could hear her screaming outside. Crying in fact.
He tried his best to tune it out. She would forget. In time. She would move on and centuries from now his face would be but a vague foggy blur in the recesses of her mind. He could live a thousand years and not forget her haunting beauty. It was driving him mad that he stormed off like that. Part of him wanted to go back outside, to comfort her and force her to see the truth, but a much larger part of him didn't want to twist the dagger.
She was in pain. She had suffered enormous loss. He knew so because Madison told him of how tragic it was to loose someone she loved. He should have believed her. He knew the feeling well now, but before he simply scoffed. She tried to avoid romance and emotional entanglement for this very reason, but Gavin was sweet. He was kind once upon a time. Before the greedy fingers of the human race dipped into his soul and swirled around the hatred that built up inside him for the pain he had suffered. For all his ego. For all his pride.
For all his hatred of humankind. Gavin was just a man who was standing at the edge of a great crevice. Looking down he thought about the despair this life had held for him. The cruel humor of fate and how it brought her back from death only to have her reject him coldly and call him a liar. It was fine. That was okay. She lived. She could get on with her life and he would have been better for knowing her. Inside his small trailer was messy and cluttered. Stacks of papers lined the desk. Designs and ideas for new ink and artwork to line his skin.
Posters featuring acts of the circus were pinned up on the corkboard and clothes littered the floor. A soft yellow light hung above the twin bed. It illuminated his small trailer enough to see beyond the desk, the rest of the room was bathed in shadow. A silver glowing light from the tv cast around the floor at the other end of his small home. A black and white TV show, I love Lucy played in the background. A comedy sitcom about a husband and wife, in which the wife was always getting into trouble the husband had to bail her out of.
The irony was not lost on him here. He barely noticed it though. His eyes flicked to the TV as the TV audience laughed at something absurd. Like a running commentary on the cruel irony at play here in the circus. Something to be laughed at. Gavin collapsed in the chair at his desk. The wooden chair groaned under his weight as he fell hard, frustrated that this was happening. Gavin propped his hand up on the desk and thought.
It was her! It was Madison! All these years i thought i had lost her and she was living a life without me. Unaware that i even existed, but why. Madison told me stories of her former life. She had never shared her time with Julius Ceasar, but that didn't matter. His Madison was never a braggart. Perhaps the life she chose to live that time was a simpler, more humble life. She had always gave him bits and fragments of her past, but Madison never shared the whole picture. She liked to say that the past was the past and it didn't matter anymore. It was a time long ago.
The people she once knew were fine for their time, but it wasn't her life anymore. He was her life and he was all that mattered. Gavin remembered a particularly memorable night when they sat out on the roof of their house under the stars. Passing a bottle of wine between them they stayed out there all night just staring at the stars and talking about what the future held for them. They were young. First time home owners and they had their whole lived ahead of them. It was nice out on the roof. A little window from the upstairs led to the roof and they stepped out to lay out in the moon kissed night from time to time and have a moment of clarity.
Gavin sat there looking at her as she sipped her wine from the glass. Both of them propped up on their elbows lying on a particularly flat portion of roof. He admired her beauty but mostly he admired her candor. She was an honest and straightforward woman. If you asked her a question she told you. If she wished to avoid it she told you not to ask. It wasn't secret keeping, it was shielding him from heartache.
Being a young man with not much in the way of prospects he used to ask her about her time with the roman king. The one time she let it slip that she had met him. He would pester about it off an on over their time together and her answer would always be the same. "Dear the past is the past... Let it rest. You are my future." My future.... He thought about those words. They echoed in his head for a moment and he remembered.
He had a mutant that could see the future here. Ladiania. Wonderful, beautiful Ladainia. He could ask her to look into Alyssa's future and tell him if she would ever be happy again. If she could move on knowing the truth. Gavin stood up from his seat. The Tv in the background still blaring inconsequentially. Standing there he paused. No, he didn't want to know. He would shut her out. He would forget about her the same way that she forgot about him. The buzz of the wine pouring into his senses.... The adrenaline of the moment causing his blood to pump faster. Deliver more of that devilish nector into his bloodstream. Gavin felt a little woozy.
He dripped the ink of Madison down his arm once more. His body covered in a thin sheen of sweat from this anxiety driven moment. The ink swam down his arm and dripped into the creaky wooden floorboards. Gavin grabbed another bottle viciously and roughly pressed it too his lips. His eyes were wild as fire. He chugged the wine heartily as he had to build up courage for what he was about to do next. His creations lived on his skin. They were alive in a way, but destroy them and they were broken. You could never again have it there. You could reink it to your skin but it would remain a tattoo.. Nothing more than body art. Sure he could still drip the ink but it would not come to life. He could not bestow his beautiful mutant magic on it's influence any longer. Destroy it and it was gone forever.
Slowly the ink began to form. It crystallized and melded into shape of lovely ankles. That long flowing pink dress and white blouse, slender shoulders and cute button nose. Those golden locks and those eyes that batted at him lovingly like a hollow mirage. Gavin still clutched the bottle firmly in his hand. Outside the screaming had ceased. Gavin figured she had left. He wasn't paying attention to what his viking was seeing, though they were linked and he could have watched her leave... He had watched her leave this world once and he was about to do it again.
He didn't need to see the third time. "Gavin." Madison said softly. Her fingers danced under his chin and a loving, caressing way. Without warning he broke the bottle over the table and stabbed her in the chest with the broken bits. Blood showered all over his face, only it wasn't blood. It was ink. She bled ink in thick black and white spurting gushes and it painted his face like a manic portrait of a crazy man. A man crazy with grief and heartbreak and little more
He was psychically linked to his ink creations. He felt the pain in his heart as he stabbed his creation in hers. It hurt. It hurt like a son of a bitch, but that was how it was supposed to feel. Gavin's eyes filled with tears as he stumbled back. Her face registered shock and horror and betrayal as she dripped into a puddle and stained the floorboards with irremovable ink. He must have on some level realized Alyssa was dead.
His viking tattoo outside knocked on the door. His eyes shot to the door. A crazy manic look on his face as he stormed over to it, still shirtless... His bare chest covered wit the ink blood of what he had done. He ripped the door open. "WHAT!?!?!?" He screamed. Gavin grew quiet as he saw the viking craddling Alyssa's body. The knife she used to end herself was outside in the dirt. Just another lost relic of this world. Gavin wanted to break down. Tears streamed down his face. "WHAT HAVE I DONE?!?!?" He didn't realize that by killing the art of his skin the real woman would die. He thought he had just murdered his one true love.
"Madison! Alyssa!" He called her by both names. He grabbed her shoulders and gently shook her as the giant stone viking craddled her like a sleeping child on his doorstep. Gavin's eyes washed over the blood and the malice and the pure wrongness of what he had done to her. "I'm.... a monster." He said softly stumbling back have drunk and fully ashamed of himself. Slowly Alyssa's body began to crumble. It turned to ash and was blown away on the wind, bit by bit. Gavin watched the ashes swirl and circle the silhouettes cast by the moon and she was gone forever. He was alone in this world once more and it was by his own prideful hand.
