WEEK TWO: mettle for metal; a bag of eyes for a prize

[theparasite]

Date & Time: 6/10 -> 6/16
Location: all over
Characters: Nightcap, various
Summary: a scavenger hunt with little sense and less sanity
Warnings: VIOLENCE GUARANTEED



Door, door, door. Fresh door.

Whose head was hacked to offer me a door?

Again and again it posed the question to the women inside, peeking from the cracked and creaking walls of the mind into a world that was not her home. That much was established; the stink of the place too much for any well-to-do Olvoski settlement. Too many beeps and buzzes and bright, stunning lights in the dark to be the world steeled against an onslaught of beasts.

Things like the Nightcap once was. Things like the Nightcap had become, and was still becoming.

And you, too, darling. Wake up! Come and see. We're playing a game. A game to win the door.



A game to win the door. There was now a purpose behind the pillaged, pulverized bodies the Nightcap left carelessly in its passing. Eyes, teeth, jewelry, colorful trinkets and curios just curious enough to be worth taking were collected, inspected, offered...and thrown away. Little piles built up, hoarded like a dragon's den of treasures, and then hastily abandoned to the next prize.

It had to compensate, after all: Some of the targets it had been told to pursue were simply...awful. A city of monsters. Stinking, reeking monsters.

You just watch, brothers and sisters. I'll win.

Comments

6/16: spoiling [CATSOVI]

[theparasite]

"Late. Laaaate."

He is late.

The Nightcap was practically itching with impatience, well on edge from days and days of...activity. And beatings. And now, finally reaching the peak of all that, finally within grasp of that medallion. Martin's. Little brother. So very close.

But he was late. Late!

Fingers curled too tightly around the handles of the overstuffed bag dangling before it. Smelling, soaked through with...something probably best left not known. Heavy. Gifts. Prizes. Prizes in exchange for a real prize.

"Late."

[scornful]

Catsovi had picked a crumbling, abandoned building out at the edge of the city to meet -- and he hated it here already, because he could see the very tiny, very faint silhouette of the misery wheeling out on the horizon, fading in and out of the fog and the rain, aimless and useless and absolutely revolting, even from afar. The very knowledge that every step was taking him a little closer towards it was enough to set Cat on edge.

And Catsovi was still sick, to boot.

So Cat arrived at the meeting spot already in a foul mood, shivering, scowling.

"You're early," Cat snapped, in response to the Nightcap's muttering. He swept past it, kicked at a broken-down chair sitting in the middle of the room, hooked an ankle around one of its leg, and dragged it around to sit upon.

That done, he crossed his legs and folded his hands and looked directly at the Nightcap. His eyes flicked briefly to its bag.

"What do you have?"

[theparasite]

"Trinkets."

There was a loose definition of trinkets at play here: After circling the chair Catsovi had settled in, the Nightcap extended the bag toward him and unceremoniously let it go, letting it drop heavily at his feet. There were various sounds upon impact, and none of it light.

Watches. Necklaces. Bracelets. A shoe with a colorful set of laces. Eyes – green, blue, hazel. Teeth – a crocodile's, a child's, a cat's. Fur. Pages from books with interesting or odd images on them, torn from travel. Silverware. Orange rinds.

It was like a voodoo flea market in a bag. And it stank.

[scornful]

Catsovi's eyes widened, and then he burst out laughing.

"Why, look what the cat dragged in!" he exclaimed, rubbing his hands together. "Everything, it seems. How old are those eyes? How much of this did you pull from the trash?"

He got up to circle the pile, sniffing, not liking the smell at all. He caught one of the torn book pages on the tip of a shoe and, using that as thin protection, nudged at the orange rinds.

He shook his head. Orange rinds. Honestly.

[theparasite]

"Are people trash?"

Silly question. The Nightcap's nose turned up at him, feeling a pulse of indignation at such a reaction. It'd worked quite hard! Much of that was stuff it'd love to keep and hoard for itself...much of it was still hidden away somewhere. It would've stayed that way, but Catsovi didn't look quite as thrilled as it had hoped.

"There's more. Lots. Ears. Fresher eyes. Beads. What do you want."

[scornful]

"Generally," Catsovi replied, still shaking his head. "I want... oh, please. Better than this. Something I wouldn't find from the natives of this world, maybe. Unique things. I don't know."

Cat retired back to his chair, falling back into it with an exaggerated sigh.

"You're going to have to try again, I'm afraid," Cat said. He pulled the medallion out of his sleeve to twirl his fingers in the chain.

[theparasite]

The Nightcap's teeth clicked loudly as its mouth shut tight, sucking on air slowly as it reconsidered its retort. Forgotten, quickly, in the midst of the medallion. It paced around Catsovi, slow, like an animal circling prey, with lips pulled back in a sneering kind of grin instead of a hunter's snarl. It was an expression that was just as quickly abandoned as the words before it, giving up all control as surprise overwhelmed its senses: A flickering thought from the girl became alarm bells.

"Wait."

It stopped, dropping to its knees, and slid up to the chair, grasping at the arm to hold itself up as it stared upward at the jingling chain.

"No! Wait, waitwait–look! No! Is it...not broken?"

[scornful]

Catsovi frowned as the Nightcap suddenly drew near, shifting himself just slightly away from it, heavily favoring the left side of his chair as the Nightcap clung to the right. He drew his arm away from it, too, keeping the medallion close to his chest.

"Is it?" Cat looked down at it, shrugged, frown. "I don't know. Where?"

[theparasite]

It stammered and sputtered, hissing sharply through clenched teeth to stop itself, fingers aching for how hard it gripped that chair's arm.

"Ssstoppit!" it snapped, lips curled into a twitchy snarl. "Let me see. Let me–oh. Hohhhhh, oh, why is that? It's not broken!"

Why? It needled into the girl's memory, trying to reason it out. The boy was dead because the medallion was off his neck. They don't break unless that's so. So...so why?

"Ohhhhh!" It groaned, pawing at Catsovi. "Let me see it, it's strange! That chain should be broken!"

[scornful]

Cat, none too gently, made an attempt to pry the Nightcap off him using his foot. He rolled his eyes away from it, looking both exasperated and disgusted. The medallion was snatched back into his hand, folded back into his sleeve.

"It's not," he said, giving the Nightcap an extra-insistent kick, "and that was exactly the way I found it. What happens if it's broken?"

[theparasite]

"Then it's dead, stupid," snapped the Nightcap, scowling as the medallion vanished. It pushed against the pressure of Catsovi's foot on its chest, gripping the arm of the chair tighter. "Then it's open! And you can get something new!"

Or, perhaps, get something in. That's what it was hungry for. But this new development changed things.

"But it's still shut tight, you dumb thing. That means something's in there." It's mouth split into a wide grin again, giggling. "Too scary for you. Give it to me! I'll protect you!"

[scornful]

"Oh, no... I don't think so." Cat punctuated his answer with yet another shove of his foot. Get off, damn it. "Not yet, at least. Tell me what's inside. It can't be that scary."

He stopped moving suddenly to stare down at the Nightcap, eyes hard and unblinking. He was thinking that whatever could lay behind this 'door', it couldn't be worse than the Nightcap. Or worse than the misery, for that matter.

[theparasite]

"I don't know, stupid!" It pushed back again, sitting upright on its knees. It worked to adjust its grip on the arm of the chair to free up a hand, dragging its knuckles against Catsovi's leg. It ought to just stick it full of little holes, really. But something very important was on the line. It smiled prettily instead.

"But. If you give it to me, we can find out. I kn-now how it works."

[scornful]

"Hmm." Cat was silent for a long while, appearing to give this serious thought. No such thing was happening inside his head, of course. He was wondering something else instead.

"No thank you," he said, idly swinging one leg -- conveniently, the one that the Nightcap was touching -- over the other. "But please, do tell me how you might open this door. Otherwise I might just do it on accident and... I don't know... hurt myself."

Break a nail. Mess up his hair. Something equally horrible.

[theparasite]

Those things and more were on the Nightcap's mind: Would it be easier to just rip the guy to shreds and take what it wanted? Disregarding that ominous stink Catsovi emitted could've been a big mistake. Given the colorful characters in Exsilium? Yes. Big mistake. The medallion was important, but living mattered much, much more.

The notion of telling that stinking, haughty creature how Darkovs worked the doors was...extremely repulsive. There were still too many variables, too many mysteries. Ugh. It hated the urgency the unknown was pressing upon it. It made a rude, unpleasant sound, nose crinkling with its smirk.

"I wouldn't cry," it admitted, yanking its hand out from between those legs, setting it upon his shoe, drumming fingers atop it. "Maybe the thing would punish you. And. My problem is solved! Game over. I win."

[scornful]

Catsovi heaved a sigh.

"It would have a very hard time of punishing me," Catsovi said, "as most things would."

He gave the Nightcap a pointed look. His twisted mind could comprehend its; he was quite certain he knew exactly what the Nightcap was thinking. If they were entering a partnership here, it was a thin one, liable to snap apart at any second.

Then, without cause, Catsovi burst out into laughter.

"Tell me, then." Cat put both hands out, palms-up. "How would I open this door?"

[theparasite]

The Nightcap gave some semblance of a scoff at the question.

"Not with your teeth," it sneered, lifting its chin defiantly. The laughter had rattled it, but damned if it would quiver in fear of such a simpering man...man-thing. Calling him human seemed very wrong.

"No. You can't do it. You're not Darkov." Can't. Won't. There were rules, but all sorts of rules had violently flown out the window since eyes opened to Exsilium, hadn't they? It was an exciting, terrible prospect. This thing with a door...

"You can't do it," it insisted. Not allowed. I won't allow it.

[scornful]

Teeth? Catsovi frowned. He immediately thought of sacrifice and hell if he was going to yank out one of his teeth for anything. Cat was very fond of his teeth. As he was of almost every part of his physical self.

Cat clicked his teeth together anyway. Then he shrugged, and covered up a yawn with the back of his hand.

"If you say so," Catsovi said, as he got to his feet. "I've no interest in opening doors up, anyway. Who knows what could come out? Who knows what might escape?"

[theparasite]

"Exactly."

It appeared to be pleased, grinning back at Cat, as though they had come to some kind of agreement, as though they both knew exactly what was at stake. Of course, the Nightcap was very certain Cat was a buffoon – a potentially hazardous one, but nonetheless, it had no admiration for his cunning or visage or...anything other than what it had tucked away out of sight.

"You're pleased, then? Yes. With my winning. All your prizes. Give me mine. Now."

[scornful]

Cat raised an eyebrow.

"I'm sorry?" he asked, with exaggerated politeness. "No. You have not won yet."

He turned his back on the Nightcap, going for the door.

"You've still got a ways to go, I'm afraid."

[theparasite]

Reeling backward where it knelt, the Nightcap made a long sound, still true to that childish streak its manner was on: It was a kid being denied a treat or some present its heart was set on. It twisted to better climb to its feet, arms swinging dropping heavily at its sides with a huff.

"This better not take long!" it complained. "I don't like it. Be fair!"

[scornful]

"How long it takes is entirely up to you," Catsovi replied, without stopping. It was only after he'd passed through the open door that he turned to face the Nightcap -- hopefully for the last time that night.

He grinned at it and in the dim light his grin was lopsided, his eyes wide and full of wild contempt. His voice hitched, went a half-octave higher than usual.

"I'm as fair as they come, darling."

Cat turned on his heel and strode out. He was done here. He was going to find a shower and stay there for the rest of the goddamn night, lest the smell of the Nightcap haunt him for fucking ever.