period-i-city

When X needed lapdogs, she sent the nameless and the faceless, anti-Ouroboros ogres like L - not just wordless, then, but ugly. The worst and most demonic of their number, because he had no voice to speak of and no appearance for memory's refrain.

Sorry not sorry, L! If all we have is our own vapid opinions, then you've gotta get with the program.

Hypocrites, of course. All hypocrites, surely and lamely entrenched.

X was lazy, but she was also pragmatic; she knew when it was necessary to carry out a job by herself, personally and intimately.

Consequently, little of her time within the theater was spent organizing and ordering other members. She sort of idly watched the sphere of pantomime life, tossed a few chips in when Y required it, faffed around the wings and twiddled the staff of her scythe.

(Oh, right. Gold colonies. When they got there, which was rare without her interference, and as much as culling the cream of the cup could be, it just wasn't worth the effort. It just wasn't...unctuous enough. And that wasn't the way X liked to play with her food.)

While Z was still watching N, biding his time until the fruit was ripe to groom a master knight, X had been reduced to sticking gum under the seats. Oh, sure, it'd gotten O a couple of times, because he always had to be grabbing between his legs to reposition himself, but other than that, zippo.

Zippo. A little bit of lighting her hair on fire, watching the singe ripple toward the butterfly. Lots of lollygagging, eating popcorn in bed.

Zilch and nada. Box crossed out. A useless existence, except that it perpetuated, and that was delicious in its own right.

Did X have patience? Oh, absolutely not. But her lack of it, and anything else redeeming, was rewarded, when N brought his blushing bride to bear. Calmly suggested (which is to say, coerced) by Z to leave her, he abandoned the confines of the theater for a prison of the mind, much smaller and deeper.

M couldn't get that concise. M just stared at the ceiling, open and wide except half-lidded.

M's mopish stride gave X the energy to bob and weave around her, capitalizing on low-tide fluid to make up one whole of a will, or close.

Of a sudden, theatrical - maybe even long-winded. Someday, she'd taunt with the tales of Gamma's all-slaying foible, a reenactment of Omega's explosion, a sour pastiche of Theta's mysterious nostalgae. Now, it was a neck-cracking display of shivering, unwillingly yielded bodily control, inverse-sympathetic repetition of all Mio's old noblest hopes.

How fun! How amusing, to be able to know M so well, and show this to her. One thing Moebius membership sorely lacked was any type of interpersonal collegial camaraderie.

"Oh, bite me, X."

But M's tired tell-off lacks any bite of its own. It's like she's been declawed, except that she didn't care, didn't yowl to have it done. Didn't even so much as notice.

X could hardly care less, if that's the way it went. It's why she's trying so hard to get a reaction out of M right now - not that she'd ever admit that.

Instead, she draws back even farther into her infinite supply of anecdotal knowledge. What makes M tick, since it's not the Flame Clock anymore?

If M really didn't care, she would be like L. But she's not. She's still beautiful, for one thing. Still got something there to suck on.

"Nothing like your mother, are you, M?"

M blinks slowly, chin jutting forward as she swallows something she doesn't know the source of.

"Mother..." she mumbles. Actually, X isn't sure what M knows about Nia, in that way. A rare moment of restraint guides her away from the sound of trickling water.

"Creature comforts!" X replies instead, both continuing and diverting the train of thought. "You don't care about being comfortable, about enjoying yourself. You feel like you've lost everything, so you don't care about anything anymore."

X keeps her hands tied behind her back, playful. M's tongue works over her teeth.

"That's not true. I just..."

But she won't say that she hates X, because that's giving away the farm. If that really is all she has left, or if her love for her Noah yet smolders back in a chilly recess of her unlit mind, she's too smart to let it slip.

She understands, in a way, what Z had done to N. What he continues to do. A shred of self-preservation under that horrible solemnity keeps her cautious.

Not like water, willing to play. Frozen, chattering, invisibly expanded to the extent of her cage.

With M frozen in place, X creeps up behind her and covers one eye. The right eye, of course - she's Moebius, and Moebius need their sclera-sickened irises clear just like anyone else.

Any eye that sees something Moebius can't is an eye that needs to be shut. Come on, now, let's run our panopticon right!

X's hand slides over M's shoulder, slithers beneath the collar of the armor and sends it away.

So tense. And here they'd all thought that M's everything, from resolve to ribcage, had gone limp.

"There, don't you feel better?"

M doesn't speak. Maybe can't.

"Okayyy. If you insist..."