The Lady from the Lake

[catch]

Remember he is a man? Remember? Bitter hysterics pour from him, this time in the form of laughter - harmless laughter, but insane. "Remember you!" he shouts, by way of an answer, one more tangible that his laughing. The words are half-parroted, and make little enough sense - except, perhaps, in Catch's view. Maybe Cinnabar's, as well. The heavy metal is cold against his hot skin, so cold that it sears, and the whole of the madman drifts down, down - until he is no longer crowding the sky, no longer so dripping or ethereal, save for the faint glimmer of constant moonlight under his skin, the grotesque shifting and suggestion of silver worm-lights lashing, swimming in his veins.

Slowly, he drops his gaze, unable to look any more at the ruinous suggestion of Cinnabar's body, the fright of Maxwell. He stoops, hunkering down once more - and his silver-scarred hands attempt, feebly, to gather the dirty bread, the sharded fragments of tea-pots and cups, the latter of which he begins to, in his clumsy way, put together. He says nothing more, he could say nothing more, except utter a lowing, animal moan under his throat, hardly audible.

[Cinnabar]

Tense, as Catch laughed and ranted, as he seethed and roiled in his madness, watching with eyes that gleamed mirrorsilver as he sank inwards, as the world no longer had to stretch and bow to contain him. As he shrank and crouched amid what he had wrought, and tried to fix it again.

"Remember me." A voice beneath his voice, eyes behind his eyes, slow breaths that steamed in the autumn air.

At last he glanced down, frowning, watching the back of his hand and wrist as the skin slowly smoothed, unfamiliar ridges and contours fading back into the flesh below. His bones creaked and ached, muscles protesting as he moved, looking back to Maxwell with eyes that still gleamed more brightly than they should. The scholar looked hale enough, albeit so confused that at any other time Cinnabar would've laughed. For now, though, he stepped over to kneel by the addled man and help him pick up the fragments of their picnic, heedless of his shredded coat and shirt, disregarding the wider devastation around them. When he spoke again his tone was quiet, apologetic.

"I'm sorry, Catch." Genuine regret in his voice, in the brief glances stolen between moments. There were more questions to be asked, but this was no longer the time.

[Glenn]

"No." It was a whisper, a tiny whisper. He had lived through another failure when it came to Catch, albeit one that wasn't quite as dramatic, and perhaps, in the midst of the chaos and life-threatening powers that had been flying around. He hated being scared for his life. He hated being scared for his life for NOTHING. This was unacceptable! Unacceptable! It was BAD science. Wrong. A faulty experiment.

"We didn't learn anything!" He was going from pale to red very quickly. "All that!" His hand swept about. "All THIS, and we didn't learn ANYTHING at all. It's.. It's reprehensible! It's deplorable! Abhorrent! Opprobrious!" It all happened so quickly. There he was stomping towards Catch, wringing his hands together. "You're terrorizing the land! You're scaring everyone! You ruined our puppet show that we worked so hard on!" He was a scrawny scholar with a big fury currently. "But now, you did ALL THIS, and you won't tell us what you saw! You won't tell us who she was!" Wrung hands swung down wildly at the man's, a double hammer blow from the world's smallest of hammers. "Unacceptable! Tell us who she was! Tell us! Tell us!"

[catch]

Catch turns his head aside, not even wishing to see Cinnabar's hands as they, gently, aided him in picking up the broken pieces. He is sorry. How sorry? Now the flowers had no voices, and the trees have sloughed off their skins - their leaves are red blood, oozing into the wet ground. So focused is he in fitting together the puzzle of the teapot that he does not hear Maxwell, a non-entity, a shadow, until the young man is upon him. Out of pure instinct, the addled man cowers, the pieces slipping from him as his arms lift to protect himself, his mismatched eyes wide in fright, mouth open. It is the cower of a servant, a slave who has, somehow, earned the ire of his Master. It was a safe stance, a safe fear, and it is he who is apologizing, babbling only one - "Sorry!" - a desperate cry uttered before Maxwell's fists came upon him.

They did not hurt. His broad arms have caught most of the twin-blows, shirking things that, most likely, will not leave a bruise. But it has given catch time to think, that part of him that bubbled, lurked. The part that grew cold and distant and quiet at the sight of a necklace, that had warned - warned - Cinnabar about touching. His rage burst through the worm-holes, blood-geysers that filled his eyes, choked his throat and his nostrils. In one powerful thrust, he is once more on his feet, and his steel-like fingers seek the scholar's face. It is there, there, that his temper looses, the Statue and the Face, that beautiful, horrible face, opening her mouth to sing with him the Ending Words. Even if Maxwell is not immediately ensnared, and even if he is, the pores seep and drool those tiny, lashing tendrils, writhing cilia that bursts from his skin like silver pools. They seek Maxwell's face, his nose, his mouth, his eyes - and Cinnabar would know what this is, what they intend to do. Catch, enslaved to his emotions, unable to control even the basic parts of himself, will see Maxwell's face ripped away. As punishment.

[Cinnabar]

They'd learned a little; that the statue was significant, that Catch recognised it, even in facsimile. When a little time had passed, when things had calmed and the memory was not so sharp-edged and painful, they could ask Catch about the statue, about the woman, and sift among his reply for answers.

So for the time being he could pick up the pieces alongside the addled man, a gesture of shared responsibility for the chaos unleashed.

"Maxwell, shush." Quiet but firm, not looking up from his task, but listening well enough. The boy was shaken, agitated, and while that was entirely understandable the way he voiced it put them both at risk.

"Shut up, Maxwell." An edge of warning in his tone, not wanting to look up in case it drew Catch's attention to the scholar. The addled man seemed absorbed in trying to reassemble what was left of that cup, which was probably for the best. But then the researcher's voice rose further, drew nearer, and Calomel's features froze in shock as the young man raised his fists against Catch.

"What are you--"

No. No no no. Maxwell ranted and flailed while Catch cringed and cowered, only for a moment, but already for far too long.

Cinnabar rose to the feet in the same instant as the addled man, his features no less filled with wrath, eyes ablaze with it; he too reached out with grasping hands, seeking to seize Catch's outstretched wrists, to keep him from taking hold of the scholar's worthless skull between those broad paws. Yes, he recognised those tendrils and had known their touch, which was why his face turned away, head lowered behind an upraised shoulder for whatever protection that would afford.

[Glenn]

No, they didn't learn any of that, they basically knew it! None of that was worth the risk! So Maxwell was frustrated and upset and he was going to make it all worth it no matter what! Burnie demanded results. Myrken NEEDED them. Everyone was counting on them and in the time between this and whenever they decided to move again how much destruction would the madman wrought! And it would be on their hands for their failure! No, Maxwell had enough and he had charged forth with PURPOSE!

And then everything went from scary to horrific in a moment. Cinnabar was grasping forth, was trying to shield him but no one could shield those tendrils of energy. Cinnabar knew what they did but did Maxwell? For a few moments no, not at all, but then it hit him like a flash. The former governor was able to save his face from getting fully ripped off and maimed, yes, but his MIND? The thing that Maxwell prized so highly, his treasure?

The haughty scholar gasped and then he screamed and then he screamed more. Louder. More broken. Coughing, hacking, was there blood in there? It was coming down his nose. The noise was a concert of pain and revelation. Answers! Truth! Real truth! How long did he and his cohorts search for that, and there it was, all before him. Tears began to fall from his eyes. Tears of joy and terror, misery and exultation. The concert was reaching a crescendo now, even as the blood poured and poured from his nose and increasingly his eyes, his mouth, though none like his nose. It would end with a shrieking testimony, a proclamation so loud that one might think it could be heard throughout the forest. "I, MAXWELL... KNOW....... EVERYTHING!" As the sound faded, his blood spattered eyes rolled back and his body went utterly limp.

[catch]

Catch's skin was heat, heat incarnate, every word that had ever meant Heat, and Cinnabar's hands were so cold. They gripped him, iron and fingers, with a strength that Catch either could not overcome, or did not wish to, at the mercy of some, small part of him that keened in grief at the rest of him. Yes, yes, everything - the Golden City, the Fall of Moons, Catch in His Glory, Catch in Chains, bound and torn and glorious and real. Cities and seasons and generations of men and beasts. What the Dagger really looked like, full of bloodied, drooling honey and pus, droning with wasps and bees, chairs that must be set just so in the Pattern. Answers, wrought with madness, and scribed in blood.

Catch howls at Cinnabar's touch, and they reach for him, the lewd, ever-shifting grease of Silver and Many-Colors. They reach, and stab uselessly at fingers and shoulders, tickle and writhe under palms, slapping about his head in an effort to find those ears. It is a howl that was not human, that no human had the power to make, an unholy, beautiful mixture of wolf and whale-song. He howls, and there's nothing in his pin-pricked eyes but color and shared madness.

[Cinnabar]

Hunched, straining, he held tight to Catch's wrists as Maxwell shrieked and choked behind him, as awful knowledge flooded into the scholar, as the addled man howled and lashed. His skin thickened and toughened where those tendrils touched, his lips peeling back from too-sharp teeth, blood blazing in his veins for all that Catch felt his touch as a deathly, bitter cold.

That final, terrible cry of exultation from Maxwell, then a more ominous silence where there had been screams. Calomel ducked lower still, booted feet seeking purchase amid shrivelled grass and churned loam; he tugged at those trapped wrists to pull them together, yielding to allow Catch to tower over him; perhaps it seemed that Catch was gaining the upper hand, that his strength and weight and those thrashing tendrils were winning out; but then Calomel thrust abruptly forward with explosive force, straining with every fibre of his arms, back and legs. A fierce shove at the centre of the un-man's chest, seeking to push him away, to grant some desperately-needed distance between himself and the howling madman.

[catch]

Maxwell is down - dead? - down, his blood hot and heavy in Catch's nostrils, the tendrils a sickening suggestion of color that made it appear that that blood was being sucked from the scholar's body, inside air-born rivers. It's not what he wanted. No, no, it was. Maxwell had struck him, had hit him with his fists, and screamed and shouted and Catch was in his right mind, where no-one would ever do that it him again, no one ever.

He does not struggle, now, though Cinnabar's fingers were chains upon his wrists. He is hauled about, quite easily, and the once-Governor would see a brief glimpse of a strained, hopeless face, from a beast that has only done what he must, the dog guilty above the torn body of a master that has struck him, once too-many. Strange, that he would strike at Maxwell for it, and yet, even now, the silver is withdrawing, receding, uttering their own, echoed cries, silver smoke that dissipates, leaving Catch behind and alone, as he is thrust, onto his back, by Cinnabar's sheer force of effort. He is not so docile in landing; almost promptly he flips himself up, on fingers and toes, and he huddles against the ground like a wild beast, lips writhing, a subtle, quite dragon's hiss burbling free form his throat. He watches, he stalks, warily, the stone on his chest swinging free of his body, temporarily forgotten as he creeps in a set, circled distance from Cinnabar and Maxwell, as if waiting for his chance to strike again.

[Cinnabar]

Maxwell was his Cinnabar's concern, the moment Catch was driven back; turning, staring at the mask of smeared blood that cakes the scholar's features, but - somehow - he still draws breath, albeit shallow and unsteady. Only time enough to pull his shoulder, to roll him onto his side so the researcher might not choke on his own blood, before that low and warning hiss drew his attention away again.

Catch circled them; stalking, prowling, glaring, fierce and bestial, lost, unthinking.

"No." The word a rebuke, flung like a stone. Silvered eyes glanced briefly about the clearing until he found - ah, there, pressed up against the fallen trunk. His attention turned back to Catch, but he sidled carefully towards his goal, outstretched hand feeling for that narrow bundle he'd brought here along with the now-scattered picnic and the damned statue.

The strings binding it crumbled at his touch, but the inner layers of the canvas seemed sound enough, the contents more-or-less in tact. He'd brought them almost on a whim, with some vague idea of using them to offer a demonstration of control.

"Stand up." He drew it out smoothly - three and a half slender feet of stripped hazel, a stout wicker cage half-enclosing it a hand's breadth from one end - and tossed it to thump upon the scorched grass before Catch, within his reach. "Stand up."

Was there desperation in this effort, this gamble? If so he showed no sign of it, could afford no sign of it in his gaze, in his voice. His hand closed about the hilt of the second practice blade, empty canvas cover dropped beside him.

"Remember you are a man."

[catch]

"Do you?" Does he remember he is a man? They were words - ah, yes, words. He remembered those, the way they swam through the viscous ruins of his brain, down to his eyes and nose and, finally, mouth. But sometimes they got caught in his throat, as well, and now, Catch had no idea what he was saying. Two words, that is all. He slides back from the thrown-stick. Thrown-stick, and Catch saw a tree, full of phantom leaves and starry-eyed with dancing fire-flies. In a way that is not intended, Catch is captured by it; he reaches out his hand, and grips the practice-sword clumsily in the middle, instead of a proper end. And then he stands, too. He is proper. He is obedient, and human, and he will do this thing, until he is standing, all six-and-six-and-more of him, with the sword gripped like a staff.

"He sh-sh-shouldn't have hit me." More words, even if his eyes were still muddy and beastly and animal, dangerous. "You know. He sh-sh-shouldn't have." Catch shuffles in place a moment, and holds out the practice-stick - with tangled hair for roots sprouting from the hilt, and stick-thin branches and wreathes of buds curling from between his fingers. It was impossible, and yet it was happening, the product of an addled mind so mad, that it became reality. Catch taunts him with it, holding it out, daring him to come close to the tendrils the man knows lies just beneath. Or, perhaps, he doesn't. Another part of him only wants to give the stick back. Say that he is sorry, but Maxwell did hit him.

[Cinnabar]

"Yes. I choose to." Because he must, because the man he is has strong reasons to remember. Every day.

Catch took up the stick, and that was a good start. He rose to stand upright and that was even better, for all that he towered over Calomel.

"No. No, he shouldn't have hit you. It was wrong." Entirely in agreement with the addled man, his glance for the scholar's prone form was scornful, irritated. He'd live, probably. Maybe. He might be damaged, but he'd live.

"He was frightened, and it made him stupid. People shouldn't hit you, no. But they can't hurt you. So you shouldn't hurt them, even if they do hit you." He watched the sprouting stick, warily at first, but with a slow smile after a few moments. A step forward, stooping, reversing his grip on his own practice sword, then holding it with both hands to hack at the withered turf, to dig. A dozen strokes or so were enough to provide a bare patch of loosened dirt maybe the width of his hand, maybe a finger's length deep. He stood again, taking a pace or two back to give the addled man room to approach.

"There. Let it grow."

[catch]

It will be accepted. There is truce. But, ah, Catch still watches Maxwell with the eyes of a predator, cunning eyes that never stop their hate. "It hurts," Catch says, risking the beating he knew would come if he did not utterly comply. Not that he was entirely certain. Not if he could hit Cinnabar with his stick first, like Knights on the field - yes, that was what they were for.

"It hurts," he says again, drawing his tongue along his parched lips, watching Cinnabar as he dug, a few, testing steps taken towards Maxwell, but quickly retreating. "You, you th-th-think, you th-think j-just b-because it goes away quickly th-that it's not so bad. It. Hurts." Both the hitting and the thinking. He spoke the words with a bitter punctuation. Maxwell's blows had not hurt his skin very much, and there would not even be the faint mark of bruises - but his brains wept, fragments spun off by wicked worms that must be hunted down again.

With a wary, hurtful air, the addled man brought forth his stick. At Cinnabar's request, he put it into the ground. But as soon as he drew his hand away, the stick was a war-instrument, and the roots shriveled, the branches dried and cracked; the new-colored leaves quietly folded and fell. Catch watched it, his face hard.

"It f-f-forgets to b-be a tree," he says. He did not mean for it to be so apt. Catch is, after all, not nearly that clever.

[Cinnabar]

"It's bad. He made a mistake, and he hurt you." Ready agreement from the once-Governor, and not without sympathy. "But hurting him doesn't stop your hurt. It makes others afraid. When they're afraid of something, they try to hurt it. Hurt you." Doing his best to explain calmly, patiently, glancing up to see how well the addled man followed his reasoning.

"Them hurting you isn't right. But you hurting them isn't right either. It doesn't go away for them at all; they're too fragile, they don't heal. So hurting them doesn't help anything."

He watched carefully as the sprouting stick was set in the ground, quietly hopeful; but it faded into quiet disappointment as the sapling withered, wasted and died, his gaze resting on the sad thing for long moments.

"Who was she, Catch? The lady."

[catch]

"It m-m-makes them, makes th-them go away," Catch whispers, arguing even when he knows he's lost. Cinnabar will always have reasons, explanations, ways of pointing out the hidden things that Catch had not, nor could ever see. He must take so much on faith, and time and time again, faith has hurt him far more than switches or fists. Yes, it makes them go away - and they come back, with bigger fists and bigger switches. He knows better.

He trickles back, slowly. One sign of it is the way he now stuffs his hands in his pockets, a unique, human gesture, able to look away from the bloodied Maxwell and the fighting-stick, to see the devastation he has wrought, trees and flowers seeping brown, rotten sap, a churned-up mire of loam and filth. He moans, low in his throat, an animal keening at the sorrow of it - but still, he will not cry, and he shoves a fist into his eye, scrubbing angrily, as a child might.

Cinnabar senses this, perhaps. It is why he asks that which Maxwell had turned to violence to receive. Catch turns to him, his wet knuckles thrust back into his pocket. His lip trembles, for a moment, on the edge of Something, yet without the words to say it proper.

"Mommy," is how he answers, clumsily quoting a borrowed word, a child in the market weeping for someone, until a perfumed woman had come and kissed the child and carried her away. It was that feeling.