[Majestica/Sascha] - What's your deal

[frombelow]

Who:
Majestica
Sascha
When: Sunday, 5/15
Where: Nerabast, Everea
Before/After: After ~*Majestica turns real*~
Warnings: Some threats of violence and a brief reference to past gruesomeness, nothing graphic

Sascha discovers that Majestica is real.



Sascha had a house to worry about.

Now there was bossing around Alex. And Reilanin. And still being the outsider. Now by rank. Now by style. He was beginning to think the idea of being an outsider wasn't his own, but people just... this felt so simple, but why DIDN'T he want to be alone, when people were both so simultaneously obnoxious and stubborn? Control. Was he a control freak?

Evelyn. Edward.

Perhaps he should ask them to watch each other. Perhaps that should be their first task.

Perhaps, perhaps. Perhaps he'd just kill that bitch.

The thought appeared without volition, without trigger; the silence of Sascha's mind sometimes drove to the darkest places simply by nature of his being (—another gift from "god," he presumed—) and that woman, that Majestica, and her weak little player seemed the only way to draw out the stress of the week.

He chewed on his nail. Cigarettes were such a hassle now. They weren't as strong. Fuck.

He began to track.


Majestica was puzzled. Something about this day seemed...different. It seemed more solid, more real. She seemed more solid. She'd never noticed it before today but her life was just so foggy, all of her memories muddy at best. When she thought back on the things she'd done, none of it seemed to make sense.

She'd wandered before settling in a small town in southwest Everea called Nerabast, known for its orange trees that, through magical intervention, bore fruit year round. She'd been here before, but she could barely remember it. She'd set someone on fire...hadn't she?

There was no fire right now, though. She sat at an outdoor cafe, her chair balanced on two legs, her feet up on the table, sipping one of Nerabast's signature orange drinks. She felt like she'd never tasted anything before. It was sweet and tart--she hated it, she decided, and took another sip.


Why did she insist on making herself obvious?

Sascha did what he did best to announce himself.

He shot an arrow right at her resting glass.


She jumped at the sudden explosion of juice, yanking her feet off the table and staring as the orange liquid dripped down onto the dark skintight silk of her pants. She remained there, frozen, startled, not sure what to make of it.

Rather, not sure how she felt about it.

Angry, she decided finally. She shot up from her chair and turned toward the street, eyes narrowed, as she searched for the culprit. Frost gathered on her fingertips as she channeled a spell in preparation.


He appeared at the end of the pathway, and raised his bow again, eyes locked directly on the bitch at the table. She seemed. Different.

But if she were anything like the first, she'd really just be an easy, slow kill.

"I'd duck if I were you. I'm after your damned head."


That guy. She remembered that guy. She remembered running into him in Enghelab, throwing a fit that in retrospect was embarrassingly stupid, and then following him around like a lost puppy. Her mouth turned down in a sneer at the memory of it.

Rather than answer, she materialized a trio of ice spears above her hand and flung them in his direction. Maybe if she killed him, she could stop being ashamed of the idiotic way she'd acted around him.


Oh well that was competent. Fuck. He rolled to the side of the building after releasing his arrow, and expected, of course, for it to explode upon contact with the spell.

Obviously, she'd learned her lesson about being implacably stupid.


The one that met his arrow shattered in midair. The others knifed into the dirt road where he'd been standing.

She began gathering another spell in her hands, her eyes on the wall he'd ducked behind. "I'm not sure I understand your grievance with me," she called out to him, her voice cold and measured.


"I'm surprised you understand the word grievance." That was... out of character. Sascha rose, back pressed against the wall. If he directed his mana, he could definitely throw a spirit at her... something... hmm. Why'd he leave Kevin at home? Would've been the perfect distraction...


She grimaced. It was true, she'd been woefully stupid in the past.

The truth of it only annoyed her.

"I wasn't aware that was such a severe offense."


Woah, now. This was a different person. Sascha's breath stuck to the inside of his throat, gumming up the works. He clenched his fists, grit his teeth. He slowly exhaled, and it came out as a whistle.

This happened. This continued to happen. He could forget, remember, forget, but.

"You humiliated me thrice in a town square. That's an offense. Stupidity is an offense. Tell me."

He paused.

"Do you remember why you shouldn't be so cavalier?"


Reminding her of it only annoyed her more. The fire spell she had gathered in her hand blazed white as she waited for the opportunity to throw it at him.

"Why don't you tell me," she shouted back, her tone mocking.


He pressed against the wall. If he had to be close, he guessed he might win; maybe just size and speed. Perhaps experience. Her player hadn't taught her much. A mage. Up close. He withdrew a hunting knife from his breast pocket.

"I cut off your face, player."


Nope, she didn't remember that at all, even with the foggy, inconsistent memories swimming around in her head. She looked disgusted by the thought. "If you're trying to rattle me, it won't work."


He frowned.

No memory.

She was real.

What to do. What to do. He could hold up his hands, surrender, and reach out to this annoying sack of shit. He could kill her anyway. He could turn her against Players, against those fucking gods.

"It's important you know it really happened." He called. "I've no way to prove it but to assure you, you're not the only one with missing memory."


Was she interested in listening to him? Her brow knit in a thoughtful frown. She wouldn't mind an explanation for why her memories were so fuzzy and terrible. But coming from some asshole she had embarrassing memories of and who'd shot her drink out from in front of her? Hnn. She could probably find someone else.

The wetness of her orange-soaked pants was beginning to chafe. Another feeling she'd never experienced before. She hated it, she decided.

But maybe she didn't hate this asshole for giving her the chance to decide how she felt about it. "Go on," she said, lowering her hand but not dismissing the spell held in it.


"Tell me."

He paused, bit on the side of his nail.

"Tell me something you haven't been able to find, recently."


"My fucking mind," she shouted in answer.


He clenched his teeth. "Listen, I don't have the function for others. I wasn't built that way." Could he say that and mean it? "You've got to work with me. A thing. An object."


Wasn't built that way? What a strange way to phrase that. She wasn't quite sure what he meant.

She finally dismissed the spell she'd been holding, clenching her fingers down on it and extinguishing it in a puff of magical smoke. It was taking too much effort to hold. "I'm not missing anything physical," she answered. "But nothing seems to be working the way I expect it to."


"I'm coming around the corner. I will kill you first if you try anything." And so Sascha appeared, completely convinced she wouldn't try anything at all.

He slid his shades down his nose, met her eyes, and frowned. "Whatever's not working, try it now."


It wasn't because she believed he'd kill her. She was just more interested in hearing what he had to offer than in hurting him.

Obligingly, she turned away, set both hands under the edge of the cafe table, and heaved. The heavy wrought-iron table came up about two inches and then thumped back down, unaffected. She narrowed her eyes at it. The result she'd come to expect, but not the one she'd have gotten in the past. "It should have gone flying."


Sascha held his breath when she hit the table. He had actually expected it to go flying. When it didn't, he was disappointed as well. Maybe part of the interest of this ludicrous bitch was that she could do such things and was totally incompetent at it. Now she was just cantankerous and useless, it seemed.

And he had to explain it somehow.

"You weren't built that way." He responded, trying to find the words in his mouth. "It's... this is reality, but it was not always reality. At some point, it was solely a digital place." Sascha wasn't even sure he had it right. What if he didn't? "A mirror, a fantasy, for a very sick group of magicians." Magick. That would help a Mage understand? "The peoples who populated their fantasy were of their own devise. Eventually, they became too complicated. The world became too real.

"And this is what's here. Unfortunately, reality requires more rules than their magick understood. I can't say that's for certain why you can no longer with great abandon destroy inanimate objects, but maybe it is.

"Maybe.

"I know myself, I remember my parents, but I don't remember so much until much later. I remember things about Gods and the world, but I don't remember..."

Why would he even tell her?

He paused. There was no reason to continue speaking to her like this. What had come over him?


"Digital," she repeated, not understanding what that meant. She set one hand on the table, leaning her weight on it, her other hand on her hip, and watched him while he spoke.

'Built that way' again. Like he'd been built not to have the function for others? Huh. The way he spoke, it was like they were golems...

Golems who'd somehow broken free and become more than what they were meant to be? Hm.

Maybe it had something to do with the strings she'd seen on certain people walking around.

"Your name," she asked suddenly. She'd never gotten it.


Yes, she didn't remember at all. He coughed into his gloved hand. Should he actually hold out to shake? He didn't care to give her a first name. He didn't care to be familiar. Perhaps he should. Perhaps he could.

But as a Second, did he need to be so identified anymore? Could he continue this world so easily?

"They call me The Holloway."


Her lip curled up in something that was about midway between a smile and a sneer, like she couldn't decide whether to be amused or derisive. What a stupidly dramatic thing to call oneself.

"Majestica," she answered simply in return. "And how is it that you, The so-called Holloway, came to know of all this?"


"I've housed two of the creators in a home for a week now." He met her eye to eye, features calcified, such as his insides. "Reilanin, whom dwells in the Library, has assured me further of its virtue."


Hm. Creators. Not mages, this time. Had he simplified things because it was difficult to explain?

Suddenly, she wasn't sure she cared about this 'creator' nonsense. So what, if she was a golem? She was free from whatever that grip had been now, the answer was to make use of it.

She straightened, her arms sliding folded over her chest, fingers tapping against her bicep. "What do you expect me to do with this information?"


Was 'not suck' an option?

Sascha shrugged and made to turn. "Run, maybe. Kill them, maybe. Ignore them, maybe.

"But if you're no longer connected to a Player, I realize, I've nothing more to say."


'Player' now. The words he used kept changing, why? She was more curious about that than the situation he'd described. "Which are they?" she asked. "Mages, creators, or players?"


"Maybe all of them." He called, before disappearing into the crowd.


She quirked an eyebrow at the infuriatingly uninformative answer. Briefly, she considered chasing him down and demanding more, but in the end decided it was too much effort. Maybe someone else would know what he was talking about. Someone less...ornery.

She turned away, stalking away from the cafe toward the local warp mage, intent on heading into the World Library for information.