Vivi Ornitier (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
alreadyhuman) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
datadiving2025-05-11 03:15 pm
alreadyhuman) wrote in datadiving2025-05-11 03:15 pm
???-1: THE AFTERMATH
In the ruins of the city of Lust, a small creature roams the hollow streets. Though the husks of the damned still wander, any seeking easy prey are quickly convinced to seek their sustenance elsewhere by the sting of Hell Energy. Any creature that can hold energy orbs in its palm is a threat to be avoided.
A strange being. It wears concealing clothes, already marking it as an oddity, its face almost entirely concealed save for the two glowing eyes that peek out from under its hat. The style and fashion of them is direly outdated, a human affectation gifted to it long, long ago, even by the standards of Hell.
It's raining again, Vivi thinks to himself, since there's nobody to say it to. His siblings are somewhere else in Lust, if they haven't delved down to the lower levels, seeking their favored prey - machines, husks, anything that they so wish that sates their desire for violence.
Once they were meant to be....he doesn't recall, exactly, what they were meant to be. Were they meant as hope? A tithe to Heaven? A soldier that served the souls of humankind, rather than Hell? Something else altogether?
Minos is dead now, truly so. He had felt the loss in his awakening, that he was not there to greet them.
But still, they were truly free now, with no purpose at all. That meant something, didn't it?
Vivi wanders the empty city, sheltering from the rain under a rotted awning, just watching. Waiting for something interesting to happen. If he strains his senses, though, he almost thinks that he can feel the presence of something that came from Heaven...
Surely, though, that's a mistake. The last time something from Heaven had come down here, the world had ended, at least this small part of it; he had felt the rupture.
But there's nothing left here to end. So he must be imagining it.
A strange being. It wears concealing clothes, already marking it as an oddity, its face almost entirely concealed save for the two glowing eyes that peek out from under its hat. The style and fashion of them is direly outdated, a human affectation gifted to it long, long ago, even by the standards of Hell.
It's raining again, Vivi thinks to himself, since there's nobody to say it to. His siblings are somewhere else in Lust, if they haven't delved down to the lower levels, seeking their favored prey - machines, husks, anything that they so wish that sates their desire for violence.
Once they were meant to be....he doesn't recall, exactly, what they were meant to be. Were they meant as hope? A tithe to Heaven? A soldier that served the souls of humankind, rather than Hell? Something else altogether?
Minos is dead now, truly so. He had felt the loss in his awakening, that he was not there to greet them.
But still, they were truly free now, with no purpose at all. That meant something, didn't it?
Vivi wanders the empty city, sheltering from the rain under a rotted awning, just watching. Waiting for something interesting to happen. If he strains his senses, though, he almost thinks that he can feel the presence of something that came from Heaven...
Surely, though, that's a mistake. The last time something from Heaven had come down here, the world had ended, at least this small part of it; he had felt the rupture.
But there's nothing left here to end. So he must be imagining it.
no subject
"Thank you." Again, and no less genuine as he leaned back in the chair and his shoulders sagged. It'd been eons since he'd last actually bothered to sleep, and he couldn't deny that even in the face of what the need meant, the desire to drift away was no less alluring in the moment...
There he'd remain, motionless, for an hour. He'd simply dropped off within a matter of seconds, but not once did his breathing ever falter, nor did his fingers uncurl from Vivi's hand. And though there was no light that filtered through the helm properly, the fire too dim to achieve this, when he closed his eyes it was so strange that all he could see was red.
It was not an easy sleep. As quickly as he'd dozed off, that meant nothing in regards to the visions that haunted it. Eyes everywhere, dual irises and twin pupils twitching and morphing inside heavily lidded sockets. Garbled, incomplete sentences, muttered and shrieked, filled with malice and mirth in equal degree. Writhing like an insect trapped in a web, clambering to wrench tendrils made of stone and pulsating tissue as they worked their way inside the armor, threatening to consume him from the inside out-
That hour ended and his head jerked, gasping, some dregs of a poorly remembered dream already filtering out of his mind. He should have felt groggy, exhausted. Or perhaps he shouldn't have awakened at all, but...
"... Maybe I needed that." Did Gabriel sound sure of that? Not really! But as the adrenaline faded, the heaviness that had filled him before failed to return. He ached, but maybe that was because he'd fallen asleep in a goddamn chair. It was with little hesitation that Gabriel instantly looked for Vivi, instinctively closing his fingers around where the boy's hand had been.
no subject
Vivi continues to debate whether he should wake Gabriel up long enough that the angel stirs on his own, and by then Vivi is just relieved he doesn't need to make a decision either way.
Gabriel's hand will close around Vivi's; he hasn't left Gabriel's side, or even stopped holding his hand, since the angel fell asleep.
"...Okay." If Gabriel says he's fine then...it's probably fine? He somehow doesn't look as tired as he did before, at least... "You looked like you were having a bad dream, but...maybe that's what happens when you sleep in Hell?"
He can't say he's ever had those kinds of dreams, but he isn't an angel, or a human soul. It's probably different.