The day passes quietly for Lauryn. She stays in the room with the fox-soldier, watching as he finishes his -- painting? letter? -- and rolls it up to put in a round tube. He gives the tube to a human, who leaves with it. After that, he shows Lauryn to a rather nice bathing chamber, with hot and cold running water, and leaves her there. When she's finished, another escorts her back to the first one, and he's turned to other papers after that, writing more responses (those strange little ink pictures must be writing, she decides). After about an hour, he leaves again, motioning for her to stay. She passes a couple of hours alone in the room, until he returns. He bows to her when he comes back, then gives her a long, thoughtful look. Then he points to himself. "SKO-toe-nus AHM-eek-eet-os", he says, slowly and carefully. Then he points to her.
Lauryn's eyes widen at the bow, though not because she is unaccustomed to difference. As a noble's child -- even a bastard, as she is -- she recieved some token recognition, at least until her fanily started to hide her away. No, what surprises her is that she hadn't expected to ever see it again after being locked away, more so for ending up in this strange land. It occurs to her that her that she no reason to think these people wouldn't bow, even to her, but a small part of her offers that, well, maybe she just doesn't feel worthy of it anymore.
After the brief surprise, Lauryn tilts her head and regards the man and his gesture. It seems simple enough, she thinks. That must be his name. Responding in kind, she points at herself and says, "Lauryn Eglantine." Then, to further prove she understands, she points back at the man and adds, "Skotonus Ahmeeketos."
"Lah-rehn Eeeg-lehn-teen," he repeats, pointing to her again. His accent makes her name difficult to recognize on his lips. He points to himself and repeats his own name. They go through this a few more times: Lauryn can get pretty close to his name, but her version of "us" sound at the end of his first name is off in a way she can't quite figure out. Her name is even harder for him. He can't seem to manage the vowel sounds of her first name at all: "Lahr-een" or "Lahr-oon" are about as close as he gets.
Demons or the dead have a strange language, Lauryn thinks, though she isn't at all surprised by the fact. But to be honest, she decides, I always thought Kavi and Savanite Sign were strange, too. Still, communication of any kind is welcome to Lauryn; the horrors of earlier are still fresh on her mind. She points at an unused sheet of parchment and says, "Paper."
The soldier nods and points to the same sheet. "Ee-rus."
Skotonys Amikitos spends the next little while trying to teach her his language, with mixed results. He tolerates her repeating things in Rephidim Standard, but he shows no interest in learning it. If she stops repeating his lessons, he looks annoyed. On the other hand, he doesn't seem to mind mistakes and is perfectly willing to repeat the same word several times. But he doesn't seem to have any particular methodology to teaching it, and the task of learning an entire language from someone who doesn't speak her own seems impossibly daunting.
But then again, what else is she going to do?
There's nothing else to do, and I am at their mercy, is Lauryn's thought on the matter. And it's nice to have company. Even this strange man and his frusteration feel good to Lauryn. Though she doesn't like to admit it to anyone, including herself, any company is desperately welcome. For this reason, she decides to play along as best she can. If learning means she won't be alone, then she'll learn. She just hopes she doesn't look as desperate as she feels.
After an hour or so, a sussuration, like shuffling feet, outside the paper door disturbs them. Skotonys goes to the door and slides it open to exchange a few sentances in his tongue with the man outside.
Lauryn doesn't understand even a word of it.
Skotonys nods, then turns to bow to Lauryn and motions for her to remain again. He closes the door and she's once more alone.
Lauryn listens, but effort sadly doesn't equal results. When the man leaves, she breathes a sigh and falls back on to her bed mat. I wonder who he is? He almost seems like some sort of beurocrat, she considers, staring up at the ceiling woodwork.
There's nothing to do in the room. It's a small, plain box of a room, with a wooden floor and wooden ceiling and those thin papery walls. She can hear voices through the walls, but no one is talking to her and she can't tell what they're saying. Her room has the bed mat on a low stand, a table not much higher, mats on both sides of the tables, two trunks, and two wall hangings. The wall hangings are made of long slats of wood maybe two inches thick, connected by thick threads. Patterns are stained onto the wood, to make a kind of tapestry. One shows a fox woman filling a pitcher from a waterfall. The other is something abstract; Lauryn can't really make it resolve into an image of any one thing, although her mind keeps trying to make it into something. A mountain mirrored in a lake? Clouds in a sky? A triangular forest? A fat man?
Having little else to do, Lauryn stares at the painting as if understanding it might reveal the mystery of these strange people. It's a ... sea shore? But those look like clouds, and that a tree. If you squint, it looks like a fat man. Then if I tilt my head, it looks a bit like a mouth or teeth floating. Is it supposed to mean anything? It's like those tests the doctors kept asking me to interpret. She shudders at the memory, though it one most would consider partocularly bad by itself. Any memory of the Asylum is terrible, simply by association with that dread place.
Apart from not looking like anything in particular, it's sort of aesthetically pleasing, in its alternating organic blonde and brown shapes. But the memory of the Asylum tests and doctors has ruined it for her, and she averts her gaze.
Not that there's anything else to look at.
Minutes trickle past. How long has she been here? How late is it? The room seems to be getting darker, and Lauryn feels tired, bone weary. Too tired to sleep. Did he forget about her? Did everyone forget about her? Is there even a world out there, beyond those thin paper walls? She remembers hearing voices earlier, all around her, but she can't hear anything now.
It strikes the young woman that this room could be a cell of a different sort -- a thought she immediatey regrets and tries to cast out. Sitting up, she anxiously climbs to her feet and begins walking around, just to distract herself. I'm sure there's more people, and he'll come back! This room is just one of many, an afterlife or a demon world can't be just one room, can it, she tries to assure herself in her best upbeat inner voice. Like usual, the hurried attempt to calm herself only makes her more anxious.
As she paces around it, the walls seem closer than they did before. The thin pale paper that earlier glowed with sunlight from without and the lights of other rooms is dimmer now. It must be getting later. What time did she wake up? When did she last eat? She can't remember. The walls seem dreary, and the abstract wall hanging looms like a blotch now, an ugly thing she doesn't dare to look at.
Lowering her head, Lauryn quickens her pace, as if by walking faster she could distance herself from her darkening reality. Closer and closer the walls seem, feeding a building anxiety, and like so much steam in a boiler it threatens to erupt in to full blown panic. Unable to just walk it away anymore, the girl starts looking for doors, ways out, something she can open and peek out of to see if there's more to her world than this room.
The room has what she thinks are two windows at the back, behind the table: a wooden latch holds them together, though she has not yet seen them open. There's a similar latch for the sliding door that Skotonys left through earlier, but that one isn't latched. Of course; it's on the inside, she'd have to latch it for it to be shut.
Certainly, the last thing Lauryn wants is to close herself in here further. She hurries over to the unlatched door and pauses at it, even as it seems to grow ever closer to her. I'll just peek -- then I'll see nothing is amiss, and I can return to waiting confident I'm not alone or trapped here, she decides. Reaching out, she carefully begins to push the screen aside ...
The door slides back easily -- but behind it is another door, just like it.
"He's not coming back." The voice makes the fur along her spine stand up: a gravelly, grating, hateful voice. There's something familiar about it, hauntingly and horribly familiar that she doesn't want to identify. "No one's out there. Not for you."
It's coming from the wall with the abstract hanging, and she wants to turn to it and at the same time doesn't want to look, as if looking would make the voice more real, its words more true.
Lauryn says, "The woman's muzzle unhinges -- she certainly wasn't expecting another door. Maybe they're just ... careful of privacy? Certainly, she reassures herself, a people with walls of paper may want to have sturdier doors. All this consideration comes to a crashing halt when Lauryn hears the voice."
Don't look, she advises herself, don't look, or it will see! The hazily recalls this working earlier some how, but hasn't the time nor the steadiness to really consider it. No, she wants to leave. With much more haste, she tries to shove the second door away.
The second door slides open, to reveal a third.
Abandoning her internal dialogue for a loud, vocal one, Lauryn cries, "NO! It can't be! There has to be a way out of here!" She thrusts aside the third door.
The third door reveals a fourth, and a fifth behind it, while the voice screeches on "He won't come back. You drove him away. You stupid, stupid mutt. Why would anyone ever care about you? You're a murderer! They know about you! You killed the only one who ever helped you! Why would anyone help you now? They're all gone now. They left you here to rot, like the vile monster you are."
After the fourteenth door, Lauryn snaps. The berating becomes too much, and in her frenzy to escape and increasing panic, she can't take it any further. She whirls around and screams, with all her strength, "NOOO!!" And then, she's hurling towards the abstract. "NO NO NO! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!!" Her voice, so shrill, it cracks as she has, making her words almost uncomprehensible by the time she crosses the room.
And the wall hanging finally resolves into a shape ....
A shape she knows.
Her own.
A grotesque, twisted parody of herself, muzzle twisted and eyes beady. "YES!" she cries back at herself. "You deserve it! You deserve to be abandoned! Worthless girl!"
"SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP," Lauryn wails. When she finally reaches the painting, she reaches for it, reaching to claw at it and pull its hair, to mangle it and make it silent, to lift it off the wall and hurl it in to oblivion if she could. All the while, she can hear another craked, hateful voice of her's scream in response to the other: "I HATE YOU -- I HATE YOU!!"
When she tries to tear it down, it comes alive, grabbing her hands in its own clawed ones. Lauryn manages to get a fistful of hair, but the apparition only laughs. "Yes! YES! Kill me! Kill yourself! Murderess! I'm the only one you haven't killed yet." Her shadow-self steps down from the wall, holding Lauryn's hands fast above Lauryn's head. It forces her to step backwards as it advances towards her, crooning. "Kill me ... kill me ... "
"I will, I will!" But Lauryn sounds less sure. So much hate and vehemence is draining, and her shadow self stopping her hands has made her pause, breaking her momentum. She still wants to strangle this other Lauryn, but she feels her will begin to ebb. Her arms strain against the restraint as she fights to press on even as her strength drains away.
"Will you? Promise me?" The apparition advances further, backing her towards the bed. It leers at her, then suddenly releases her hands. "Go on, do it."
"I ... " Lauryn, free now, reaches her hands slowly for her double's neck. She really isn't sure how you kill someone, but deep in every person's mind lies the urge and knowledge of how to hurt another. It's only this that guides her, just the simple, primal urge to destroy, fed by hate and fear. She squeezes, staring in to her own twisted face, but even as she does she finds it increasingly hard to maintain pressure. "W-why can't I? Why won't ... why won't you die," she demands as the strength ebbs away. Hate falls to a growing emptiness, a bone-weariness, her mind like a forest after a fire that has swept the land clean and left a silent, blackened desolace. "No, no ... "
"Bah!" Her doppleganger slaps away Lauryn's hand like batting away fly. It shoves at her chest, knocking her to the floor. "Useless! You can't even kill me! I'll just have to kill you!" She raises a clawed foot and kicks Lauryn in the stomach with it.
"Hurk!" Lauryn goes down in a heap, never having been very good at handling pain. Perversely, she finds the kick almost soothing -- as if suffering somehow pardoned her. It still hurts, but the physical pain hurts much less than the mental trama. It's a currency she is willing to pay, if it makes her feel better. With her doppleganger looming over her, she knows that more may come, and soon. Maybe I'll kill me, and it will all be over. Finally, over ... her tired mind speculates.
The apparition takes another step, moving towards Lauryn's head. Its foot rises to kick Lauryn's throat when a sussuration by the door distracts it. It glances over its shoulder.
The end Lauryn expects doesn't come. Just a sound, and nothing. The young woman opens her eyes, head turning. She can't decide if she's relieved or angered by the interuption -- a moment more and it could have all be over!
The sussurration repeats. The doppleganger's nostrils flare, and clawed hands flex against her palms. "Go away," she growls.
Again, the sound. "GO AWAY!"
The fifteenth door slides open. An uncertain-looking human soldier peers inside. He falls back with a gasp, and the doppleganger wails. "I'll DESTROY YOU TOO!" It launches itself at the man.
Pulling herself to her feet, Lauryn stares at the ensuing conflict with numbness, unable to act as she remains stunned from her malestrom of emotions. She wants to die. She wanst to live. She wants to kill her other self, and herself too. She wants her other self to kill her. She wants to kill the man, for interupting her death. She wants to kill her other self, to save the man that saved her. The urge to kill takes little account of competence, though. For all her urges, Lauryn hasn't any real idea how she'd go about any of the multitude of idea -- just hate, and some strange hope her hate will be enough. But even her hate is leaving her, draining away even as she watches.
The man tries to draw his sword against the apparition, but he fumbles the blade and it goes skidding across the hallway beyond. He tries to punch her, but she dodges impossibly to the side, clawing at his face with too many hands. He screams and falls backwards, struggling to avoid her touch, screaming anew when he fails. He scrabbles against the floor, struggling to get away. She hears footsteps coming to investigate, then more footsteps fleeing as the apparition chases them out of sight.
Lauryn is alone again.
Lauryn closes her eyes, head sinking. Now that the nightmare has passed, she feels shameful. Dirty. All the terrible thoughts that passed through her head are gone, but in their place are the lingering wounds of their passage. To a person without her torments, one might wonder why she barely considers the man and the safety of the other people. If she were sure of them, she would. But like her other self, they remain as phantoms, a thing to terrify her and vanish. Unreal, too horrible to be true, too fleeting to be real. She breathes a sigh, then squeezes her hands in to fists and begins to sob.
Her sobs don't go unheard, however. Because she's alone ....
With herself.
"Is that all you're good for?" That voice again, her voice again, breathy and deep and grating. "Are you crying for the men you just killed? Or just crying because you're glad it wasn't you?" When Lauryn's head jerks up, her own eyes meet her in the apparition's parodying, pitiless visage.
"I-I didn't kill him -- y-you did," Lauryn insists, pleadingly. She hiccups from the effort of talking while the tears flow. "Why do you always do this? W-why can't you just leave me alone? I d-don't want this! Why won't you go away?"
The apparition growls. "I can't! You useless monster!" It claws at Lauryn's face, rakes at her hair. "How can I stop when you won't stop me? Stupid cow! KILL ME!" It kicks Lauryn in the stomach again, knocking her flat on the bad. "KILL ME!"
The girl shrinks away at the beating, shifting to dodge blows and to ease the pulling of her hair. When she's kicked down, she wheezes, panting where she fell. Her gaze trails along the floor, looking for something, anything, she might grasp at or cling to, to save her.
There's nothing in the room but the table and a few brushes on top of it, the ink and a glass of water. The cushions and the two trunks.
"What are you looking at?" the doppleganger screeches as Lauryn looks away. "Look at me! LOOK AT ME when I'm killing you!" It grabs a fistful of Lauryn's hair, yanking her head to face the slavering, twisted black muzzle.
The yank jars Lauryn, renewing her focus by pain and the proximity of her other. She can feel her hackles rise. What's more, every thought, every concern she had just experienced comes rushing back to her -- including the man. The poor, poor man! The man ... The man! The girl's eyes widen with sudden revelation -- her other self lied! And if she lied about that, why, so much else seems possible in a fevered way. "You lied, YOU LIED! YOU LIE!" She squirms violently, trying to wrench herself free, flailing and clawing at her other self, repeating, "LIAR!" over and over again.
"I learned from you!" it shrieks back. It grabs at her wrists, trying to pin her again. It's more of a struggle this time, and Lauryn claws at the other canine's face. The doppleganger snarls. "Yes! Yes! Kill me! Little murderer, kill ME now!"
But even as it says the words, it has Lauryn's wrists pinned again. It holds her down on the mat and shoves one hard bony knee into Lauryn's stomach.
The canine heaves at the kick, losing her breath. She has to gulp at air several seconds before she can even wheeze a faint, "I will." She strains against the grasp, clawing at the air. The memory of the man urges her on, because he came to see her, to check on her. She wasn't alone, someone was at leats concerned enought o answer her screams, and now he's dead. "Let ... me ... up!"
"No! You deserve to die! You deserve to be punished!" It claws at her legs with one foot, bites a mouthful of her hair and yanks it up. It is so busy with her it doesn't even notice a shadow falling over the room from the entrance.
And Lauryn is busy with it. Hurting all over, she fights for her life -- in order to kill herself. Her other self. It's a frenized, mad fight, driven by renewed hate and a kind of righteous vigor, with plenty of space for loathing.
Footsteps approach the bed mat, and a new voice barks out strange words. The apparitition shrieks and flings itself off of Lauryn and at the intruder.
Skotonys falls back at the attack -- but not the disorganized retreat of a panicked man. It's the calm, considered manuever of a fighter appraising his foe. He has two swords drawn, one long and one short, and he is circling the apparition. He evades its lunges, which next to him look as clumsy and amateurish as Lauryn's own.
Also different is Lauryn, who has gotten to her feet this time. Sorely remembering what happened previously, what has happened so many times before, the woman find herself moving forward when her every instinct and urge tell her to flee or hide away. Her loathing, her sheer hate of this creature pushes her forward. This man, with his funny name and strange painted words, is all she has now. It's a sad reason to match a sad life, but it is a reason. "I'll kill you," she shrieks, and leaps at her double!
The apparition twists to face Lauryn, its distorted features twisted further with loathing. "NEVER!" it screeches. It throws itself at Skotonys --
-- and the fox cuts it down. Bright steel slashes through its chest and abdomen, and boiling smoke pours from the wounds. It screams and laughs at once as it dies, as it fades. " ... never ... never ... " is the whisper that echoes in Lauryn's ears, and she doesn't know if the fox soldier hears it too. He watches, warily, as the smoke disperses and is gone.
Lauryn stares at the disappearing smoke, and when some trails near her, she stomps at it with more malice than skill. "I hate you," she whispers, her own parting words. When the smoke is gone, ans all that's left is the floor, she suddenly remembers where she is, and who's with her. Looking up, she peers at the man through hair that has fallen infront of her eyes during all the violence. "Thank you," she offers, sounding very tired and hoarse.
Skotonys meets her gaze with an uncomprehending look. 'Please' and 'Thank you' aren't words they covered earlier. Lauryn notices that the room around them has gotten lighter again, too. With the last traces gone, the fox soldier straightens from his martial crouch. He cleans his blades automatically, even though there's nothing on them, then resheathes the weapons and gives her a short, straight-armed bow. They bow here, but not like men on Rephidim bowed.
Having been raised to a degree of propriety, Lauryn reflexively curtsies back. She then recalls her earlier lessons, where he seemed disinterested in her own culture, so she gets another idea. She adds a bow, just like his.
Something in his expression changes when she bows. She's not sure what -- the cant of his whiskers or the tilt of his ears, maybe. He doesn't smile, but there's a lightness in his eyes. She think that maybe, just maybe, she did something that pleased him.
And that, much to Lauryn's surprise, pleases her. She even smiles a little, despite looking quite like she had a run in with a mugger. And, just feeling pleased is rather startling to Lauryn. It makes her feel a little guilty, and she quickly remembers many reasons -- old and new -- as to why. Lifting a hand, she points towards the door, then the man's sword, then t where her other self faded away, before looking at him curiously.
Skotonys shakes his head, not appearing to follow her inquiry. He says a few sentence to her. He probably doesn't expect her to follow what he's saying, because he's speaking at a normal pace, and she doesn't. The fox soldier moves to the door, and he starts to make the "stay here" gesture. Then he stops, and beckons to her instead.
Lauryn hurries along, pushing her hair out of her face and back. In what seems like long, long ago, the young woman used to care a great deal about her appearance. Her encountable nights -- and later days -- of fear and terror eventually left her unkempt. Worse, she had other worries.