On the subject of individualism...
Stradivarius: Written for Jenn (cephiedvariable), in response to the drabble meme. Also written compoundingly at work, while listening heavily to Gackt's "Seven", which probably explains why it sucks. ♥ Enjoy, loser.
[EDIT]: This was supposed to be a Lacey/Nell fic, but instead it turned into a generic Illuminati character study. FUCK THIS SHIT.
She harbored a massive dislike for the petty intentions of puppeteers, but above all else, Lacey Watson loathed marionettes, and Neliyah Bentois was the biggest tool she had ever seen. The girl possessed it all - the porcelain permanency of an acquired scowl, the jerky, aggressive movements of utilitarian strings, the absolute conviction and utter lack of common sense brought about vapidity; yes, Neliyah Bentois was a tool: useful at times, but for the most part, almost alarming with her overabundance of inability. A fundamental waste of precious breathing air or, more precedently, the obvious waste of an exemplementary Illuminati mind; those were the sorts of things that Lacey Watson was not inclined to like in a person.
She was no Zachairah - saw the "gift" of being born Illuminati as little more than an ill-cast curse - yet even she could recognize evolutionary fallacy when she saw it, and the girl Nell was hardly more than just that, even when she was being played perfectly by the symbol of her impossible ideal. She was exceptionally bright, for certain, but exceptionally stubborn, as well, with misplaced trust and ignorant pride: those were the things that made humans the most dangerous tools of all, prowling the nightscape, and Lacey made it a point to discriminate against those darkened alleys of I believe.
Zachairah Kline was a strategist, but a poor one at that, and one that wore his heart depressingly on his sleeve. Enigmatic in his own right, with far more secrets than honesties, he seemed to do everything by halves, never trusting anyone - least of all, himself. He was smooth, yet thin: transparent paper soaked through with water, ready to rip in any direction from the slightest tug. His page was not a blank one, yet it was filled glaringly with a single word (or rather, a name): Gareth. Gareth who dominated his life, who shattered his confidence. Lacey didn't care for those types, either - the types who revolved their life around a single person as though they were the sun - and she cared even less for Zachairah's weakness, a sentimentality that seemed to surpass the already-annoying subjectivity of having a heart.
Nell despised him for cooperating with the government, but Lacey found him undesireable for the opposing reason: he sided with the government for the wrong reasons, surrendered under the wrong terms. He depended on the government, sacrificed his freedom to allow others to live in a more comfortable cage, and Lacey was not the sort of girl to depend on anyone, or to assist anyone, save herself. She found his weakness deplorable, and found that what little cunning he may have possessed crumbled neatly under a stronger will or, perhaps, that single name.
Lacey also hated living in the past, which was something that both Zachairah and their newcomer - Dusty Angel - were wont to do. Dusty was a brilliant girl, with an outstanding social status that belied her burning intelligence, but she put too much of her soul on the line when she sang, thought too much of herself to notice what was honestly going on around her. It was true that her sight relied strongly on her feelings, but for a girl who had let the sins of her elders eat away at her until she was what she was called - dust - her feelings were nothing but a ripple in the oncoming onslaught around her.
She was also afraid, which was an emotion that Lacey could only sympathize with, never understand. She feared everything, from the government to Illuminati to mankind. She was the blind mouse from the parable, the country mouse who was forced to scavenge in the city, twitching at her own shadow. She would forever dwell in confusion and darkness, and though Lacey didn't despise her, it was also true that she couldn't help her, either. The Dusty Angel, it seemed, was not much of an angel after all.
The proverbial devil, however, was probably the only one amongst all of them who possessed any sense of clarity at all about the ways of the world. Gareth...in all of his sociopathy, was probably the one Lacey commended the most. His vision was somewhat dramaticized when his brother was within his line of sight, but he spoke clearly and honestly, with none of the delusions of self-importance. For a fact, he shared many of the same nihilistic world views as Lacey herself, and sought only to break the chains of convention that bind him; to be allowed his freedom, at last, in every sense of the word. His time in captivity had bred him again as an animal, and it was that redefinition that spared him the mundacity of human vice: he had more sins under his belt than the common man, yet for all his confused antipathy, his state of being was probably the closest persona among them that could be called paradise.
He lived, breathed, and bled intention, and it was that side of him that Lacey could almost...come to respect. Yet she knew better than to close the gap between she and the boy - a galled horse will kick, as the proverb went, and Gareth had been galled, yes...broken and saddled in so many ways, brought to contempt by the hands that had fed him. Lacey couldn't possibly hope to remain companions with this forfeited genius, and his aimless mind. With any of those forfeited geniuses, and their countless transgressions. She didn't belong with them - whether above or below, she wouldn't say, but certainly not with them - not with their conflict, and pain, and unparaelleled ruination; she had meant to distance herself from them long ago, to spare herself the unneeded strife.
So how was it that they had come to this place; to this time?
A rainy day outside of an abandoned concert hall. Inside, the hum of an ancient generator as it cast it's muted light down upon the cracked stage and cobwebbed seats, bathing the place in an antiquated glow the color of post-modern apocalysm. The stagnant air of overabused innocence remaining in the aisles; the oppressive warmth of forgotten memories, recalled just before sleep, still lingering in the abandoned archways. The melody of cherished instruments lingering in the drafts that blew up through the holes in the walls, spiraling through the emptiness of the eaves.
And the Illuminati, waiting.
Lacey and Nell, lounging in the rafters with a practiced ease they didn't feel. Dusty Angel, perched uncomfortably in a seat that looked as though it cramped her wings, casting her emerald eyes around the hall with wonder and peace. And on the stage, in the center: the immortal Gemini, Zachairah and Gareth, kings of the oblivion, wearing the flickering glow of the central spotlight upon their heads as though they were crowns of gold.
Zachairah had found an old violin from somewhere - he had called it a 'Stradivarius', whatever that meant - and confessed that he had learned how to play, from deep within his broken mind, haunting and slow. He had then offered to demonstrate, covering up their almost-companionship with ominous words - "after all, I've got a feeling that this is the last time we'll be able to gather like this" - and since he had that way of knowing those sorts of things, the others had taken it at face value, and taken their seats to listen.
The Stradivarius needed tuning, and the piece Zachairah had chosen was ill-fited for the acoustics of the aged wood, but he unhunched his shoulders, and straightened his back, and knew the tune, as opposed to remembering it, and it was right and good. It was Dusty, leaning back in her seat and closing her eyes, a peaceful smile on her face that erased the empty nights of a million heartaches; it was Nell, scoffing occassionally and feigning interest in the rain outside, yet always returning to the song in her heart, that urged her to follow whatever path it might choose; it was Gareth, slumped on the stage at his brother's feet, leaning against the other's leg as though in slumber, wearing the placid expression of a beast that has been tamed by temptation.
And there was only Lacey, on the outside, thinking idly that Zachairah had gone a half-step too low there, or bungled the syncopation on the third measure, and wondering, then, just why it was that she cared. Just why it was that she had bothered to understand their moods, their ways of being. Why she thought then that the half-smile of confidence that bloomed on Zachairah's face was a beautiful thing, or that perhaps there was some hope left for the denizens of this thought-forsaken world.
There was something compelling about these four, something almost apocalyptic - they were the horsemen charging gallantly through the night, in shrieks of famine and death and war - and it suddenly made Lacey Watson feel as though she were the one being swept up in something she couldn't control, as though she were the one who would be left standing at the end of it all alone, weak-eyed and bleak. It wasn't the intelligence of Illuminati, it was the power of persona, of individuality and prose, the outward strength of an inner will; those were her own faults, blending into a background of ebony and gray: she could never match up to these four, or to their frightening auras of ever-exceeding light.
Then again...who knew? Even the brightest of flames would burn out, leaving only darkness, and the shadows themselves born from such flames would only grow the brighter everything burned, until they loomed onward into eternity. Passion was temporal. Apathy was everlasting. Yet...
The image wouldn't leave her head; of Nell slung over the splintered rafters as though they were a throne, of Dusty wearing her expressions of fleeting bliss like a mantle, of Gareth, eyes opened again to the light, looking up at his brother as one would the sun after an eternity of rain. And Zachairah himself, and the damned Stradivarius, dipping and flourishing as he played as though he were the matador tempting the bull, shifting his legs on occassion, but not in a way that would disturb his loyal devil, tossing his head back with a fire reserved only for the dying, for once the master of his own destiny, playing out on those brittle strings. The image of Illuminati, as they were meant to be, and Lacey frowned, despite herself, and asked herself again why it was that she cared.
Surreptitiously, beyond the notice of Nell, she reached into her pocket and pulled out her last treasure: a compact mirror. Against the rules. But honestly, what were rules, when faced with the yawning chasm of chaos, when feeling for the first time that such mutual understanding was surely a sign that you were going to die? What were rules when she couldn't get the tune of that half-accidental, half-painful instrumental out of her head?
So she blinked her eyes, once, and turned them slowly in the direction of the mirror.
What she saw amazed her.
AN: *snerk* I like how I can write fanfiction for SOMEONE ELSE'S NOVEL, when I'm supposed to be working on my OWN. *repeated head/laptopkeyboards* Either way...eh, except for the end, I'm happy with how this came out. I'll leave the final judgement up to Jenn, though, seeing as how this is HER UNIVERSE and all.
[EDIT]: This was supposed to be a Lacey/Nell fic, but instead it turned into a generic Illuminati character study. FUCK THIS SHIT.
She harbored a massive dislike for the petty intentions of puppeteers, but above all else, Lacey Watson loathed marionettes, and Neliyah Bentois was the biggest tool she had ever seen. The girl possessed it all - the porcelain permanency of an acquired scowl, the jerky, aggressive movements of utilitarian strings, the absolute conviction and utter lack of common sense brought about vapidity; yes, Neliyah Bentois was a tool: useful at times, but for the most part, almost alarming with her overabundance of inability. A fundamental waste of precious breathing air or, more precedently, the obvious waste of an exemplementary Illuminati mind; those were the sorts of things that Lacey Watson was not inclined to like in a person.
She was no Zachairah - saw the "gift" of being born Illuminati as little more than an ill-cast curse - yet even she could recognize evolutionary fallacy when she saw it, and the girl Nell was hardly more than just that, even when she was being played perfectly by the symbol of her impossible ideal. She was exceptionally bright, for certain, but exceptionally stubborn, as well, with misplaced trust and ignorant pride: those were the things that made humans the most dangerous tools of all, prowling the nightscape, and Lacey made it a point to discriminate against those darkened alleys of I believe.
Zachairah Kline was a strategist, but a poor one at that, and one that wore his heart depressingly on his sleeve. Enigmatic in his own right, with far more secrets than honesties, he seemed to do everything by halves, never trusting anyone - least of all, himself. He was smooth, yet thin: transparent paper soaked through with water, ready to rip in any direction from the slightest tug. His page was not a blank one, yet it was filled glaringly with a single word (or rather, a name): Gareth. Gareth who dominated his life, who shattered his confidence. Lacey didn't care for those types, either - the types who revolved their life around a single person as though they were the sun - and she cared even less for Zachairah's weakness, a sentimentality that seemed to surpass the already-annoying subjectivity of having a heart.
Nell despised him for cooperating with the government, but Lacey found him undesireable for the opposing reason: he sided with the government for the wrong reasons, surrendered under the wrong terms. He depended on the government, sacrificed his freedom to allow others to live in a more comfortable cage, and Lacey was not the sort of girl to depend on anyone, or to assist anyone, save herself. She found his weakness deplorable, and found that what little cunning he may have possessed crumbled neatly under a stronger will or, perhaps, that single name.
Lacey also hated living in the past, which was something that both Zachairah and their newcomer - Dusty Angel - were wont to do. Dusty was a brilliant girl, with an outstanding social status that belied her burning intelligence, but she put too much of her soul on the line when she sang, thought too much of herself to notice what was honestly going on around her. It was true that her sight relied strongly on her feelings, but for a girl who had let the sins of her elders eat away at her until she was what she was called - dust - her feelings were nothing but a ripple in the oncoming onslaught around her.
She was also afraid, which was an emotion that Lacey could only sympathize with, never understand. She feared everything, from the government to Illuminati to mankind. She was the blind mouse from the parable, the country mouse who was forced to scavenge in the city, twitching at her own shadow. She would forever dwell in confusion and darkness, and though Lacey didn't despise her, it was also true that she couldn't help her, either. The Dusty Angel, it seemed, was not much of an angel after all.
The proverbial devil, however, was probably the only one amongst all of them who possessed any sense of clarity at all about the ways of the world. Gareth...in all of his sociopathy, was probably the one Lacey commended the most. His vision was somewhat dramaticized when his brother was within his line of sight, but he spoke clearly and honestly, with none of the delusions of self-importance. For a fact, he shared many of the same nihilistic world views as Lacey herself, and sought only to break the chains of convention that bind him; to be allowed his freedom, at last, in every sense of the word. His time in captivity had bred him again as an animal, and it was that redefinition that spared him the mundacity of human vice: he had more sins under his belt than the common man, yet for all his confused antipathy, his state of being was probably the closest persona among them that could be called paradise.
He lived, breathed, and bled intention, and it was that side of him that Lacey could almost...come to respect. Yet she knew better than to close the gap between she and the boy - a galled horse will kick, as the proverb went, and Gareth had been galled, yes...broken and saddled in so many ways, brought to contempt by the hands that had fed him. Lacey couldn't possibly hope to remain companions with this forfeited genius, and his aimless mind. With any of those forfeited geniuses, and their countless transgressions. She didn't belong with them - whether above or below, she wouldn't say, but certainly not with them - not with their conflict, and pain, and unparaelleled ruination; she had meant to distance herself from them long ago, to spare herself the unneeded strife.
So how was it that they had come to this place; to this time?
A rainy day outside of an abandoned concert hall. Inside, the hum of an ancient generator as it cast it's muted light down upon the cracked stage and cobwebbed seats, bathing the place in an antiquated glow the color of post-modern apocalysm. The stagnant air of overabused innocence remaining in the aisles; the oppressive warmth of forgotten memories, recalled just before sleep, still lingering in the abandoned archways. The melody of cherished instruments lingering in the drafts that blew up through the holes in the walls, spiraling through the emptiness of the eaves.
And the Illuminati, waiting.
Lacey and Nell, lounging in the rafters with a practiced ease they didn't feel. Dusty Angel, perched uncomfortably in a seat that looked as though it cramped her wings, casting her emerald eyes around the hall with wonder and peace. And on the stage, in the center: the immortal Gemini, Zachairah and Gareth, kings of the oblivion, wearing the flickering glow of the central spotlight upon their heads as though they were crowns of gold.
Zachairah had found an old violin from somewhere - he had called it a 'Stradivarius', whatever that meant - and confessed that he had learned how to play, from deep within his broken mind, haunting and slow. He had then offered to demonstrate, covering up their almost-companionship with ominous words - "after all, I've got a feeling that this is the last time we'll be able to gather like this" - and since he had that way of knowing those sorts of things, the others had taken it at face value, and taken their seats to listen.
The Stradivarius needed tuning, and the piece Zachairah had chosen was ill-fited for the acoustics of the aged wood, but he unhunched his shoulders, and straightened his back, and knew the tune, as opposed to remembering it, and it was right and good. It was Dusty, leaning back in her seat and closing her eyes, a peaceful smile on her face that erased the empty nights of a million heartaches; it was Nell, scoffing occassionally and feigning interest in the rain outside, yet always returning to the song in her heart, that urged her to follow whatever path it might choose; it was Gareth, slumped on the stage at his brother's feet, leaning against the other's leg as though in slumber, wearing the placid expression of a beast that has been tamed by temptation.
And there was only Lacey, on the outside, thinking idly that Zachairah had gone a half-step too low there, or bungled the syncopation on the third measure, and wondering, then, just why it was that she cared. Just why it was that she had bothered to understand their moods, their ways of being. Why she thought then that the half-smile of confidence that bloomed on Zachairah's face was a beautiful thing, or that perhaps there was some hope left for the denizens of this thought-forsaken world.
There was something compelling about these four, something almost apocalyptic - they were the horsemen charging gallantly through the night, in shrieks of famine and death and war - and it suddenly made Lacey Watson feel as though she were the one being swept up in something she couldn't control, as though she were the one who would be left standing at the end of it all alone, weak-eyed and bleak. It wasn't the intelligence of Illuminati, it was the power of persona, of individuality and prose, the outward strength of an inner will; those were her own faults, blending into a background of ebony and gray: she could never match up to these four, or to their frightening auras of ever-exceeding light.
Then again...who knew? Even the brightest of flames would burn out, leaving only darkness, and the shadows themselves born from such flames would only grow the brighter everything burned, until they loomed onward into eternity. Passion was temporal. Apathy was everlasting. Yet...
The image wouldn't leave her head; of Nell slung over the splintered rafters as though they were a throne, of Dusty wearing her expressions of fleeting bliss like a mantle, of Gareth, eyes opened again to the light, looking up at his brother as one would the sun after an eternity of rain. And Zachairah himself, and the damned Stradivarius, dipping and flourishing as he played as though he were the matador tempting the bull, shifting his legs on occassion, but not in a way that would disturb his loyal devil, tossing his head back with a fire reserved only for the dying, for once the master of his own destiny, playing out on those brittle strings. The image of Illuminati, as they were meant to be, and Lacey frowned, despite herself, and asked herself again why it was that she cared.
Surreptitiously, beyond the notice of Nell, she reached into her pocket and pulled out her last treasure: a compact mirror. Against the rules. But honestly, what were rules, when faced with the yawning chasm of chaos, when feeling for the first time that such mutual understanding was surely a sign that you were going to die? What were rules when she couldn't get the tune of that half-accidental, half-painful instrumental out of her head?
So she blinked her eyes, once, and turned them slowly in the direction of the mirror.
What she saw amazed her.
AN: *snerk* I like how I can write fanfiction for SOMEONE ELSE'S NOVEL, when I'm supposed to be working on my OWN. *repeated head/laptopkeyboards* Either way...eh, except for the end, I'm happy with how this came out. I'll leave the final judgement up to Jenn, though, seeing as how this is HER UNIVERSE and all.