GRAVEYARD

[umbralant]

Graveyard

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GY: FAQ

Gatchapon

Reflexively, you curl tighter. Just another minute. Just another minute of sleep is all you need, but the sun waits for no one. Wait. The sun? After many days and nights with only moonlight to guide you, your eyes snap open and your pupils contract at the light.

It's been a while, hasn't it?

Bask in this euphoria for however long it lasts, until your memory snaps back against your mind like a rubber band. Weren't you dead? No matter how you met your end, you certainly remember dying in vivid detail. The pain that corresponds to the last moment's of your life chooses then to make itself known, trying to wriggle free from your skin almost literally. That mark on your skin wasn't there before either.

Take a moment to breathe and get your bearings, and really take everything into focus. The warm rays of sun that dance upon your skin are colorful and fragmented like a kaleidoscope, the effect of being filtered through stained glass. Of all the places to wake up, it seems you're inside a church that's no stranger to you, St. Mary's Basilica. While the odds are good you've woken up with company somewhere near by, the glint of gold from the altar will likely catch your attention regardless—embedded deep in the altar stands a golden staff, two sculpted wings draped down its sides.

While some things are the same, and some things are different, there are still more questions than answers. But the inscription engraved into the roof of the ceiling of the Church, now visible in proper lighting seems rather apt: Welcome to Krakow (again).

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Comments

[p_q]

And you are indeed no different, but you are correct: Hollows do not possess hearts, for those are thrown away when we cast off our mortal shells -- they are unnecessary, and simply lead to situations such as this, and situations such as the one currently taking place in the Night, where you attempt to rely on nonsensical things to continue living, or to continue acting as yourself.

To throw away the self: that is what it means to become a Hollow, I suppose. And a manifestation as well.

[Shin yelling in his face barely gets him to blink -- he continues to stare at him calmly, the ice behind him a secondary reflection like Shin is yelling into an imperfect mirror.]

How many taunts have you given in to by now, I wonder? Perhaps it's a good thing that soon you may no longer have the ability to do so.

[twoasone]

[That's a very good question. He can't help but think of everything, all those words and thoughts mixing in his head. He wants to lash out. He wants to tear out Ulquiorra's tongue to stop the blunt insults from coming.

And yet, he can't bring himself to act. He can't bear to stare at the faint reflection in the ice. He can't help but imagine the cracks in that face, the body crumbling away at the seams because of those foolish mistakes.]

SHUT UP AND LET ME EXIST!

[He can't. He simply can't-

After a moment's hesitation, he turns on his heel and storms off into the massage room and slams the door. Looks like someone isn't gonna learn whodunnit today.]

[p_q]

[He can almost hear the sound of the gears grinding in Shin's head, what there are of them, clacking and clicking and stuttering and not quite stopping like the clocktower he spends so much time in; Night and Day are both stopped now, after all, and perhaps in the near future Shin's will stop too.

And then his own, and on, and on.

But Ulquiorra has stared death and the void beyond existence in the face more times than he can count, by now, and even if he will do his utmost against it he refuses to run away from it, and he refuses to countenance others trying to do it crawling along in his sight.

It's hard to say whether that's a failing of his, or something else, but regardless in the moment he just watches Shin storm off without any change in expression. This isn't a fight anyone will win, but at least it's quiet again now.]