figlia_morbida | Ryslig

[ Nanami knows the Palazzo well by this point. She knows which window is Trish's, in case she ever wants to visit and has wings.

Today Nanami doesn't have wings, but as a slime they can get pretty much anywhere. A distinctive pink liquid starts to trickle down Trish's window, more and more of it.

Before long, Nanami (sticking to the wall outside), is tap-tapping on Trish's window. They could just let themself in, but - more polite to knock. ]

Edited 2023-06-18 21:36 (UTC)

[There's a burble from somewhere deep within her chest that rouses in the aftermath.

One that says:

This isn't working? Why isn't it working? It should be enough.]

[~~To be the biggest, scariest thing means you control the situation. It means not getting hurt. This power isn't yours but it's part of you anyway, use it.~~]

[But...this has spiraled completely out of her control, and she can't regret any of it because it's her choice, isn't it? But it aches. It aches all over. What does it matter, though?

Fugo didn't trust her to begin with.

Meanwhile, her space was intruded on again and again, and it's nothing in the grand scheme of things that happen here, the many denigrations and brutalities wrought by the fog trumping these little moments utterly...but the consistency of Ianthe's presence and the drip, drip drip of petty frustration between Trish's eyes to run down her jaw, it's been maddening with that self-same oppressive backdrop behind them. There is no relief to be found anywhere.

All Ianthe had to do was simper at her from a few pixels away just one more time, and her brittle patience exploded into many, many pieces.

Maybe it's not even about her. Maybe she's symbolic of how control even at the atomic level isn't possible in this shambling, breathless corpse of a world. How fitting that the devil herself looks like she'd barely survive a particularly harsh bout of rain, not without her skin sloughing off to reveal the still-grinning skull underneath. It just proves being a bear really was immaterial all along, just an excuse to cry wolf.]

[Steve, Max, Maya – were they crying wolf too?

If she's so scary, why has no one said anything until now? Why all at once? She doesn't understand. There's no room for understanding. There's no single reason why they think these things, is there? But something has changed, irrevocably – so suddenly it's jarring.

Is it wrong to be scary without trying? Maybe it's a good thing, and they can't appreciate it because they've chosen to be afraid of someone who's never meant them any harm. She hasn't touched a single one of them, not even Ianthe. Her claws and conscience both, they ought to be clean.]

[And now Ianthe has something that's given her confidence, and Trish can theorize all night and all day on what that might be, but the benefit seems nonexistent. She could plan this perfectly and win soundly and it would do nothing to make Giorno or Fugo happy. She's not sure it would make her happy either, because they would still be miserably upset with her even if she bent Ianthe to her terms. Her acceptance was a pointless gesture made because she'd already fallen too far down, enough that standing doesn't even bring her head up over the mouth of the chasm.

All of this is pointless if happiness is the goal. Indeed, happiness is not the goal. And still, somehow, this is pointless. There is no satisfaction, just a frothing and boiling over of her heart as she bled her anger all over the network. But...maybe Ianthe under her heel will make this numb feeling turn into something worthwhile.]

[When Nanami arrives, Trish's room is dark, and the curtains drawn.

Not that this necessarily means anything. She could be asleep, and Nanami is welcome to let themselves in, they should know. Trish tends to snuffle awake easily, sound the easiest way to rouse her.

And if they do enter the room, they'll find that Trish is awake, in fact, but burrowed under a blanket and entirely distracted. Her curled tail is much smaller this way but still leaves a pronounced and mobile lump under the blanket; meanwhile, her laptop rests in front of her, the skin-changed werebear idly scrolling through the post like looking back on herself would explain anything.

She doesn't see any reason why it turned out like this, still. She hasn't changed in any way since the start. She's the same she's always been.

Wouldn't she feel different if something did change? Wouldn't she feel it in her bones the same way she does when her body is taken from her and molded into something else?

It just doesn't make any sense.]

[ Trish's window is dark. The house is quiet. If Nanami was a werebear like her, maybe they'd be able to tell who's in the house, by sound or by smell, and whether they were stirring. Maybe they'd be more in tune with their senses.

Is Trish?

The window isn't enough to stop her. Nanami slips through the small gap in the window, pools on the ground inside, and then rises back up. It takes a few moments for her eyes to adjust to the darkness of the room. Her core softly glows, illuminating the area just around her with faint pink light.

There's another source of light in the room, Nanami sees soon enough. It's coming from underneath the blankets, along with the soft sound of a keyboard as Trish scrolls. Nanami oozes closer. ]

Trish-san... it's me, it's Nanami.

[ This was the soonest they could come. They were busy, miles away in Flatwoods, when the confrontation had happened; and Nanami had needed time after that to process.

All is not well in the world of Trish Una. But like, more so than usual. ]

[She is, a little. Her senses don't scream of danger, but they are a little slow-drawn to the odd sound of slime sloughing its way between metal and plaster, and then the room alights with a dim, soft pink. Very weak, of course, but not too subtle to someone who's been settled in the darkness for hours now.

This pink, it's sort of like a nightlight, Trish thinks. She had one of a very similar hue when she was small and still scared of the dark.

That thought lingers as Trish peels the blanket off her head, ruffling her short, speckled hair, twisting in her comfy sheets to look at the slime with mild surprise. The smell, sound, and colors could only mean very few monsters, after all, and breathing in Nanami's familiar scent is like breathing in the familiar scents of the palazzo. Her friends, not to be too poetic, may as well be the very air she breathes for how much life they bring to an otherwise dull existence.

As such, she isn't necessarily too upset that Nanami is here, but she is unprepared, the furred girl clutching a fistful of plush comforter to her chest. She's in her nightgown, ma'am...]

Nanami...?

[There's been no messages from the slime at all indicating they were coming. As far as she can remember, anyway...

A lot's happened in what seems like no time at all.]

[ Nanami's scent tends to be sweet, no matter what form she's in. As a slime it's even more so - bubblegum, freshly out of the packaging. ]

Hey. [ Nanami lowers down to Trish's level at the bedside. The werebear looks... rumpled. Has she been sleeping? As if Nanami's worry wasn't already pronounced enough.

The network post is still fresh in their mind - how Trish came after Merlin with more upset than usual, and then Ianthe made things worse, and then things escalated - and now two of Nanami's friends, including one of their closest ones, is going to duel later in the month. ]

Sorry for disturbing you. [ They glance at the laptop - yep, it's That Post. ] I um-- how are you doing?

[It's a nice smell, compared the odor of gum stuck to the field of shoes that make up the city of Bavan. After awhile, gum tends to get acrid to plain in scent, sickly sweet. Gross.

Anyways, Trish sits up more, wrapping the blanket about her shoulders and shifting to face the descending slime. It feels like a fairy tale, sometimes, having monsters for friends. The way they can defy gravity and physicality to appear like magic, normal boundaries be damned. It's an idle thought, and a fanciful one, fading into the brush of waves that ripple out from that observation.

Indeed, she's looking at the post that sparked the chaos, and she reaches out blindly to shut her laptop in one smooth motion. Immediately, the room is darker without the artificial light, but she can still see Nanami as clear as if it were day.]

...I'm fine.

[She's been getting that question a lot lately, hasn't she?

Hm.]

Confused at the pell-mell descent into utter madness, maybe, but fine. [A beat.] Don't tell me you came all this way because you were concerned about my feelings.

[She doubts that. Nanami must have more on their mind if they came all this way from Bavan. If anyone's feeling sore, it ought to be "Merlin", if that is his real name.]

[ Ryslig's always felt a little bit unreal. Maybe that's why Nanami was able to adjust to it as quickly as she did. The strange magic and stranger biologies of themself and their friends are the sorts of things Nanami would expect in games - so living here is just like playing a game. Nanami can cope with that.

But Trish still struggles - maybe that's why she sees herself as a friend to monsters, instead of counting herself as one of their number.

It's harder to see in the dark with the light off, but Nanami can still see their pink color reflected in the eyes of the werebear. ]

I... I did, actually. [ The darkened room and Trish's intense focus on the laptop really add to the ambience of Trish Not Doing Well. Nanami relates, but - girl, touch grass! ]

You didn't sound okay on the network. What's going on?

[Pink tapetum lucidum for a pink bear, courtesy of their pink slime friend...a good complement, isn't it? It probably looks odd on Trish in her most humanlike form, but it also speaks to just how deep the biology of the bear is, even when it's not immediately obvious the way it is with the slight peek of fangs, or the soft film of fur on the backs of her hands.

Anyways, Trish seems bemused at the answer, but it's Nanami...and Nanami can only be honest to a fault.

They're worried, just like Maya was worried, but she feels fine. Annoyed, maybe, but she's laying in her safe space, unharmed and only troubled because of the weird responses she's getting seemingly all of a sudden. That, and the almost certain fallout that's coming now that she's done something against Fugo's express wishes while in Giorno's line of sight to boot.

She doesn't know how to respond to this, basically. As such, Trish mulls this conundrum over while she idly runs her fingers over the fuzz of her other hand's knuckles. The fur there is very soft and pleasing to the touch, for how annoying it is to single accept a positive quality about hairy knuckles.]

I'm not sure what you mean, Nanami.

[Maybe agreeing to a contest with someone is alarming, but does Nanami even know Tridentarius?]

There's not anything going on either. I promise you I wouldn't cavort around the network if something serious were happening.

[She has not considered she is the serious thing that is happening.]

[ Nanami crosses their goopy arms, still troubled. Being tucked away in a safe space, staring at a screen and ignoring the outside world, doesn't actually mean that Trish is doing okay. The number of times that Nanami sat in a dark room and stared at her latest video game in order to forget about what was going on around her... it's too numerous to count. It's a technique she's familiar with. ]

You seem upset. I know you argue on the network - but it's... [ They look away. ] Meaner than usual. Pettier. It doesn't sound like you're doing well. It sounds like you're lashing out.

[ Is that the sort of observation that will cause Trish to lash out at Nanami, they think briefly? Well, so be it if so. There's nothing Trish could do to really hurt them, or even scare them. ]

And then-- dueling the Prince? [ That's Nanami's coworker, thank you very much! ] You really want to fight another monster like that?

[Hell, Trish was there to visit during one of those instances, where Nanami had stayed with the tiny world they could hold in their hands, the tiny world where they could be anything they wanted despite being practically rooted to the spot as a nymph.

Nanami continues to echo Maya in the meantime, insistent that there's some underlying cause to this behavior they can see that Trish has no recollection of. There is not a single thing she'd have said or done differently, and if her patience seems thin, it's because the network is an endless carousel of new and ignorant people and right bastards the peninsula over. That's what she believes wholeheartedly.

That being said, "petty" is not a word Maya dared to use, and Trish sits up straighter at that, frowning deep.]

I'm doing no such thing and you know it. Tone is hard to communicate across text, so I'll say it one more time: I'm perfectly calm and have been throughout all this.

[Which is true, by her estimation. She didn't smash a chair like she had the one time Kaito really got on her nerves. That was the same day she and Max had another bad argument.

This time's different, but only because the ramifications aren't as immediate as a splintered chair.

Trish scoffs at the title for good measure, continuing:]

"Prince", she says.

[The skin-changed werebear pinches her tongue between her teeth with clear disdain.]

There's nothing chivalrous about Tridentarius. For what it's worth, I had no interest in engaging her until she offered. It's less about "want" and more about showing her I'm as serious as she is.

It doesn't matter why she's a Prince, does it? [ Nanami frowns. Trish is changing the subject, diverting - lashing out again. Even if it's not to someone in the room, it's continuing the same trains of thought that Nanami's been reading on the network. Nothing's changed. ]

And aren't princes usually really formal? So a duel makes sense for her... [ Not that this is why Ianthe's a prince! Nanami knows a little of it. But she doesn't know how much of that is known to people generally, so she holds back on details.

Anyway, that's not what's important. What's important is this: Trish is stuck in her room, alone, staring at a computer screen that can't be making her happy. Again: worrying behavior. ]

You don't seem okay now. Come outside with me. [ They go to the light switch, and flick it on. Suddenly the room isn't dark anymore - and some of the light reflects through Nanami's body, so pink light shades the walls. Nanami turns back to their friend, still worried but a bit more insistent. ]

We can go anywhere - I'll even be a bear with you!

A duel only makes sense if you're tied to a school of thought that is extinct in most worlds and for good reason.

Nevertheless, it was her request and my choice to oblige her hasn't got anything behind it beyond what I've already stated.

[She cares not for Ianthe's ideas of formality or any attachment she has to the title of Prince. It does explain her thought process, but in Trish's estimation if she didn't want to be insulted she should be less of a bastard before begging the same of others.

But all thoughts about Ianthe scatter with the darkness when Nanami turns on the lights.

Trish yelps like Nanami stabbed her in both of her eyes, pulling her blanket over her head and glaring at the slime from beneath the shade of it. Normally, she loves to spend time with Nanami, but the insistence that she's not okay, especially in light of what was to her a normal argument, it rankles her fiercely.]

Nanami, stop it...!

I said I'm fine. Why can't you listen to what I'm telling you, instead of fretting over something you've dreamed up from a conversation that's got nothing to do with you?

[ And like that, Nanami's enthusiasm, their hopefulness, their desire to help Trish above all else-- is gone.

Trish doesn't want her help. Doesn't need their help, she insists. Nanami's suddenly doubting everything. Did they misread the situation? Did they not understand the emotions of everyone involved?

Clearly, if Trish is lashing out like that, because Nanami messed up so badly. Nanami's the one making trouble.

Nanami flicks the light off again, casting the room into darkness. But they stay by the light switch, in the dark corner of the room. ]

I'm sorry. I just thought... I'm sorry.

... But you would tell me if you needed something, right?...

[It's not unlike snuffing out a candle.

The motion, even if unintentional in some ways, is still very much total and punitive in its effect.

Trish at least has the sense to consider that might have been too much, even if she's agitated still and feeling no small measure of tension. Because she is keyed up, despite her words, and the idea it bleeds through her text so utterly that multiple people are pointing it out and Nanami has come rushing to her side is...embarrassing.

That's the word she settles on. Deeply embarrassing.

She glowers at Nanami for several beats, and then her expression falls to something neutral. Enough to shut Nanami out.]

If I needed something, I wouldn't shout it on the network for everyone to see.

[lol]

I can handle myself just fine. What I need from you is to listen to me and believe when I say I'm in no distress. If you can do that, you've got nothing to apologize for.

[ Nanami's unsure. Even now, they're worried; Trish is hiding something maybe, or secretly wants Nanami's help, or, or--

Or that isn't really Nanami's business, is it? In no uncertain terms, Trish tells Nanami to back off, to stop interfering, to calm down. Nanami just has to trust their friend. They can do that, right?

Right? ]

All right, Trish-san... [ Nanami's gaze drops, to the puddle of them at the end of their legs. ] I'll leave you be. Please pardon my intrusion.

[ A million other things to say float through Nanami's mind - that she hopes Trish feels better soon, that she hopes the duel goes well - but instead, the slime melts, slipping out under the door into the Palazzo hallway, leaving the room empty again. ]

[Trust is a funny word.

Trust has so much weight behind it, but the weight is the culmination of artifices. Nanami can believe in her all they want, based on nothing, if it suited Trish. When everything is a construct and lies are carefully painted on her lips...

Because she's not fine and part of her knows that. But a bigger, more foolish part of her thinks the agitation is temporary, and that the moment will pass. Oh, but it won't. Soon, very soon, Trish will find everything that's bleeding out hasn't just blurred her edges; rather, it's made her spill out onto the floor for everyone to see, where there isn't any chance it will go ignored any longer.

Nanami is right to worry, then.

But for now, Trish watches them go, words bubbling at the back of her throat, but what can she say? Nanami listened to her. Nanami took her at her word.

This is what she wanted, isn't it? She's getting exactly what she asked for. That thought should be galvanizing, but distressingly...it isn't. It does nothing. It's just an empty feeling, as empty as the spot where Nanami once stood.

So it goes.]

Ryslig | IC inbox

the day after merlin's post

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"That's Nanami's coworker" Nanami u have every job possible Trish could spit and hit a coworker!!

do not spit on Nanami's coworkers!!!

PTOOIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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sorry Nanami she doesnt ask for help ever bc shes stupid

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puts a bow on this

WELCOME TO YOUR PRIVATE CHANNEL, TRISH UNA. FOR SECURE COMMUNICATION, USE 867.53.099.99 * Zigazigah has joined 867.53.099.99 <Zigazigah> Don't talk to me. <Zigazigah>** Thanks.