I Pirouette in the Dark PV Kaegen Locked

@Kaegen Deathmote

If only the clockworks could speak,
I wouldn't be so alone...
We burn every magnet and spring,
And spiral into the Unknown...

There was a sort of chill, almost like a draft that came over the area, and Piérre's brow furrowed as he felt an odd sensation of something near fear. It certainly wasn't full grown, but it wasn't awfully subtle either. It was just... an aura. It was enough to cause him to perk a little, enough to disturb him from his masque collecting. Who else would want to be in this area that was home to such a misfortune? The only reason Piérre himself had returned was because he was partially curious and partially a scavenger.

But you know what they say about curiosity and the cat.

There was a part of the boy's mind that told him to bow out, to just stand up slowly and leave. After all, he probably shouldn't have been there, especially if he was stealing from wreckage for something that could be considered his own gain. If the other person was of an authority, they had every right to get him in trouble and send him to detention.

Piérre slowly got to his feet and was about to mumble a heartfelt apology aloud as he retreated, but just as he opened his mouth, the person spoke before he did.

"You..."

Green eyes widened as cheeks paled. Could Piérre really have been so lucky? The dry, hoarse voice, as if the person hadn't drunk water in forever. A rasp that was as significant as it was quiet, not truly an exclamation, but more of a realization.

Finally bringing himself to look up, Piérre finally witnessed in the sparse and crystalline light of the ballroom, absent of natural daylight, a boy, Piérre's own height, just across from where he now stood in the rubble of a party. The child was almost as if one had taken Piérre's own form and then pulled a reversed greyscale filter across it. Small, lean to the point of wiriness, black hair and shockingly frost eyes, and pale. The boy was paler than what Piérre thought to be possible, even in his own case. The boy's robes, unlike Piérre's bright red and gold, which screamed of viva la vida, were dark and frayed, old and as if they had been well cared for, but worn lovingly until they would fall apart at the threads.

It was unsettlingly like looking in a mirror. A mirror in which Piérre could witness himself, or perhaps, just an alternate version of himself. For a second, the lad was almost foolish enough to raise a hand, as if expecting his 'reflection' to wave back at him in reverse.

Instead, despite the silence and uncomfortableness of the air around him, Piérre's lips parted in a small, almost shocked smile. His eyes were glittering as if he was about to cry or let out a tearful laugh. He was okay! The Dhampire boy from the Masquerade was okay!

Had this been a person that looked even slightly less aloof, Piérre would have leapt into their arms and began crying with joy having known that whatever he had done, he had done it well, but this shock was such a pleasant one, Piérre found himself unable to move, only able to tighten his grip on the silver masque he held in hand.

There was so much the boy wanted to say, to ask, to do... And he hardly knew where to begin... he didn't know if he could speak, let alone begin a conversation.

Fortunately, the reflection spoke first, and Piérre listened attentively.

"Kaegen Deathmote, Fens-Born, shade-beacon, ruler of the silent castle."

Piérre tipped his head in curiosity before suddenly realizing the implications of the title. He was speaking to a monarch. With a small realization and a sharp breath, Piérre entered a waist bow, bringing his right hand to his front and keeping his left to his back in a posture of respect. "Sorry! It's an honor, your majesty of the silent castle!" Piérre began quickly, apologizing for his lack of disrespect before realizing something else. "Is speaking allowed?" Piérre asked softly, apologetic if speaking was not permitted unless he was spoken to.

"Why."

It was a statement, not really a question. It was forceful, pointed and cutting to the chase. It was not outright a threat of answer or be harmed; it was more of a warning not to disappoint or displease and then would come harm. Careful and lightly treading, still assertive. Truth be told, Piérre wondered why as well. Surely Kaegen was speaking of the events of the Masquerade.

Slowly standing upright again, Piérre kicked at the ashes, putting both hands behind his back in shyness. "It was the right thing to do." He spoke softly, remembering the panic and smoke just moments after he had tried to help. When his presence and attempted defense had not been enough to protect entirely. It was a sort of failure, he supposed. A failure that he couldn't have helped someone who needed it the most. In the sense, Kaegan had every right to be mad with the young boy if he was at all, and Piérre completely understood if he was. "Nobody deserves to be harassed, and certainly not like that."

Finally bringing himself to look at his reflection, Piérre let his first genuine smile cross his face. It was a smile of relief and honesty, something that even made Piérre feel good inside. After a beat, Piérre carefully held his hand out. "I'm Piérre, Piérre Marchonné, jester of the Harlequined Hills." It never occurred to Piérre that perhaps by naming himself, even jokingly, that it could make him a sort of target, whether positively or negatively. All he saw was the fun in naming himself, not the danger of it.

"Did she hurt you at all? The girl who bothered you?" Piérre wondered if he could start a conversation, and with secondary instinct, he sat down swiftly, Indian-style, putting his fists under his chin. A concerned expression began to cross his face as he wondered the potential harm that he had been unable to avert.

@Kaegen Deathmote

Somebody shine a light,
I'm frozen by the fear in me,
Somebody make me feel alive,
And Shatter me...

Peculiar. That was how Piérre would have described this interaction. It was as if the two people were together, speaking, interacting, doing for all intensive purposes what would be expected to two people together in a silent room. A silence that would surround the two and engulf them permanently in its silence, muffling and suffocating speech at every turn. Yet, it did not feel like a true interaction. There was something almost like an invisible wall which separated the two from each other, a border, a chasm which didn't allow one to touch the other. Sitting and criss-crossed, Piérre couldn't help but watch as the boy across from him took a step closer, not advancing in brute, but with deep caution, as if expecting the little boy sitting before him to leap up or jump away. Green eyes searched frost, but all they met was a block. Something preventing something else from surfacing. Something veiled, something secretive... Something hidden and hidden deep.

"How many worlds can you touch, from your halls? How long have you seen mine?"

The questions had been poised before Kaegan had stepped towards Piérre, still in the quiet, raspy sound that had been utilized earlier. The sound of a distant ghost, almost. Someone haunting as if nobody else could see them, or even if they wanted to see them, the mists would surely rise to obscure the being. Fantastical worlds, far beyond the eye's perception... was that what this ghost spoke of? Shadows of places that could have been, had been, and are being, all at once? Colliding and tearing at those which surround them?

A disassociation with reality? The ability to perceive those realms which longed to remain hidden, like this ghost? Like the two ghosts in the shadow of a once splendorous room which had been the source of a new destruction. The whispers which beckoned to open the eyes of the non-believer, pushed aside as confusion and illness. The feeling of being tugged to a certain place at a certain time for a certain need... Was there some method to it? Finding oneself in a position that they needed to be in or that others required them to be in. An insight not of your own. An insight placed in you from the beginning.

Why had he come here from the beginning? Why did you want to be here?

"Something... tells me to be here. So I am here." Quietly, brows furrowing as the lad continued to muse to himself of the impossibilities. The chances... The chances of finding one another, hardly days after the event, when neither of them should have had any desire to return. Certainly that was not random chance. "It happens." No clever words, no rebuttal. All that was able to come to him was uncertainty. Thoughts that had never filled his mind before; yet, hadn't they always been there? "It just... happens."

"Can you take others with you, then?"

"Nothing prevents you from going, yourself." The words left Piérre's mouth before he had time to think about it, straightforward and absolute, and certainly not the way that an energetic child would have usually spoken. These words were firm and quiet. "Certainly, you can be taken; but where is the achievement of departing of your own volition?" Poised as a rhetorical thought, an answer, slightly veiled. The lights in the room ceased to cause gloom, the shadows receding. Piérre's fingers toyed with the silver masque, placing it by his side. Something about it wasn't as interesting as it had once been. The ghost opposite turned, looking about the room with tired eyes, witnessing the destruction that Piérre's had been curiously observing at first. The dangers and the destruction that he had been unable to avert, but had escaped from unscathed by the same mysterious force that had brought him back here.

"N-no. This wasn't your fault, I don't think." Piérre's head was spinning, reeling from the odd moment that had filled his mind and caused him to speak without being aware of it. "I heard something about there being an invasion in the ballroom. Two part-giants..." Now more woozy and drained than anxious, Piérre shook his head, clearing himself. "I think that we left right when we should have." Mind humming with curiosity, Piérre slowly got to his feet, dusting himself off. "I actually feel it was more of my fault... being unable to stop it... Though, blaming oneself never really solves a problem or remedies it. All you can do is move forward with the wisdom you gained."

A part of Piérre wanted to reach out and hug Kaegan. If there was anyone who looked like they needed a little cheering up or any caliber of support, it was certainly this boy who seemed so unsure and so willing to blame himself for conditions that were not his doing. Yet, there was the uncertainty that still hung overhead. Something that told Piérre that right now, it would only make the already tenuous interaction more fragile than before. That didn't stop him staying his ground and rocking back and forth, occasionally glancing about the room like Kaegan.

@Kaegen Deathmote

If I break the glass, then I'll have to fly,
There's no one to catch me if I take a dive,
I'm scared of changing, the days stay the same,
The world keeps on spinning, but only in grey.

Moments seemed to span eternity as Piérre spoke with the Dhampire king. Entrapped in brambles of iron, as he put it bluntly and truthfully. Tethers to tie down the soul which should be free; like the Britalian's own.

He had slipped? Was that what Piérre had seen when the older girl had induced a blood frenzy in the Dhampire? That small reaction of nature's blessing and curse, the instinct of survival for a creature shunned and ostracized from society, that was what Kaegan wanted to deny? Even as he opened up, allowed that delicate chitin of his shell to crack, Piérre could see the discomfort, the desire to shrink away into a small puddle and disappear. It was almost as if Piérre was the one that was aggressing, intruding upon the small realm of silence that was between them, and not merely attempting to understand and empathize. This wasn't a sign of a person who wanted nothing but to maim and destroy; this was the mark of a victim, a position that Piérre was intimately familiarized with.

"Then, perhaps... it takes time." Piérre was trying to understand, untangle the words that Kaegan was so clearly set before him, and remembering his ways of coping with the dark; trying so desperately to help, to perhaps ease the tension and the forlornness of a shadowed soul. A thought hit Piérre, and despite himself, he felt his eyebrows raise as a small smile of a sudden thought caused his pointed ears to pique. "Perhaps, it takes guidance." A show of example, to lead others onward. Perhaps it would start with disgust, fear, and hatred, but all things did before they blossomed into success and beauty.

Kaegan's next words, however, somewhat caught Piérre off guard. 'How many died?'

There was much to the small statement that Piérre had to mull over. Certainly surviving was something that he had not thought about in the moment; indeed, he had been in a livid mood when he had watched Kaegan, the boy that he had promised to protect, be torn away without so much as a comforting word that he would be alright and would not be held responsible for his actions; actions inspired by a cruel, older girl. But it was the fact that Kaegan immediately assumed that there had been casualties that had the Jester worried. Had there been others that he had been unable to protect? Should he have stayed behind? The best that he could have done at that time was avoid harm... Piérre highly doubted that he could have been able to prevent harm from coming to others, even though he would have been more likely to take a knife or a stab wound to prevent someone else from being harmed.

"I... I don't think anyone died." Piérre wracked his brain, trying to remember the hearsay and the rumours that he had heard about the fire, the half-giant attack, and the unfortunate event of a student being stabbed by another student. "I heard that a few people got beat up pretty bad... one got stabbed in the back, but he's stable." Even thinking about the possibility of death caused Piérre's eyes to water. Perhaps he was wrong. Maybe if he had stayed, he could have helped. He could have at least been fodder for most of the attacks. "I should have stayed. Maybe I could have helped. I could have prevented some of it."

Guilt was unbecoming of Piérre, and he never tried to think of it often, but in a situation in which he could have done something and instead walked away from it... "If someone had died, I'd blame myself. It would have been my fault, because I had walked away, unharmed."

Refusing to linger on the thought for much longer, Piérre crossed his arms and rubbed them, averting his eyes to the ground as he tried to remain somewhat positive. Nobody had died, though, and that was what counted the most.

"Can you see if it will happen again?"

See if it could happen again? No. No he couldn't. Piérre was not a Seer, blessed with a natural third eye and a penchant for predicting the near, and even far, future. Yet, there was something that was not the third eye that seemed to Piérre to be guiding him. It was more like a sixth sense; not a guidance warning of an intruder... perhaps an Empath was a better name for such a phenomenon. The ability to feel, to sense when conflict was approaching. Numbly, Piérre shook his head in a slow, and then quicker, 'no'. "I'm not a Seer. I just... know. Something bad is happening, even as this attack concludes, the real conflict must only be beginning."