Big Eyes, Small Mouth (BESM): Nexus Earth - Chapter 9.3d Captive

[z-Skye the Fallen]

"And someday, your fangs will fail you," Skye rejoined, her blue eyes becoming icy. "Unlike you, I don't rejoice in the suffering of others, so I really don't want to see it. But we all fall, Naien, and you had better be ready for that. Just some friendly advice from an enemy."

She turned her back on the bristling fox-girl and focused on her hygiene. Skye did heed Naien's command to hurry; she wanted him eager, not angry and bored. She shoved down thoughts of Lily and what the princess might be doing to escape - since this was the purpose of this entire affair - and instead tried to look forward to getting laid.

Somehow, the thought didn't cheer her much. Takashi reminded her of the demons, and they had never been big on mutual pleasure. She stiffened her resolve. Nothing she hadn't endured before. She'd survived it once and she would survive again.

When she was done, she put on her kimono again and said, "Ready. Take me to your master, Naien."

[Justin OOC]

She smiled and led her through the room back to where she could feel Takashi lounging. He nodded to her as she presented Skye to him. He sat clad in his robe, his missing hand apparent.

"I believe I can handle things Naien, Go, see to our other plans."

Being dismissed, the Hiroga warrior nodded, bowed and left. Takashi looked to Skye, his grey-white eyes assessing her in every way.

"Now Skye, just what can you offer to me, that I do not already have?"

[z-Skye the Fallen]

Skye knelt before Takashi and gave him a smile. Once again, her eyes were focused sharply on him. "Lord Takashi, I don't know what you already have, so I don't know that. I can offer comforts and pleasures you do not appear to have. Beyond that, I am a stanger to your universe, and I don't know much that I'm sure you don't already know."

Skye's smile became coy and inviting. "But I suspect you have something in mind for me, my Lord."

[Justin OOC]

He looked at her, his eyes narrowing. "Oh I do. It will be glorious, but first I'd like to test your creativity."

His tone was almost teasing. Beneath that she could see only one thing, insanity. He nodded. "Kneeling is not necessary. While you have yet to prove my equal, that you stook against Hizashi speaks volumes of your strength."

"Show me what you value as strength, Show me what let you face Death, and not shy away."

[SalmonMax]

Meanwhile, in her cell, Lily groaned and sat up again from where Takeshi's punches had sent her reeling to the floor. She'd experienced more pain in the past, but that didn't make it fun. Instinctively she started to reach up for the collar around her neck...but stopped herself. That wasn't going to do it.

The device was clearly suppressing her spiritual powers, but she wondered just how much it was prepared to suppress. She'd grown exponentially since she'd unlocked her Bankai. Did Takeshi undestand that?

Lily focused her mind and relaxed her body. In a moment of meditation, she attempted to draw deep into herself and call on the forces that raged within her.

[Justin OOC]

The backlash was amazing. It felt like every nerve was firing, and even her soul seemed to recoil as the collar did its work.

In a few moments, The door appeared, and Hizashi appeared.

"You would be wise not to try that again. if you do, you may never access Bankai again."

He offered her a hand. "I see they have beaten you, a crude attempt to break you. I am glad that they didn't succeed."

"Come with me, I will see to your needs."

[SalmonMax]

"I don't need anything from you, Hizashi," Lily replied, glaring up at him coldly.

"And the disposition of my bankai is the least of my concerns, since I am to be executed soon. So what do you want from me?"

[Justin OOC]

"I am against your execution." Stated so matter of factly it had to be true.

"It serves no purpose, save to incense your allies, besides, you have millennia left to live, if not more."

He nodded. "I came here to speak with you, not as an enemy."

He smiled to her, "If you give me your oath that you will do no harm, nor attempt to flee, I will remove the collar from your neck."

He didn't quite smile, though his eyes signified this was a concession.

[z-Skye the Fallen]

Skye rose gracefully, pondering her insights into Takashi and what she needed to tell him. The room was bare and Spartan; no surprise after the other rooms she’d seen on the Macross. There was a table with two chairs, one of which Takashi occupied. The only other thing in the room was a bed, covered in silk sheets. Aside from that bedding, these people seemed to have a personal grudge against interior design and human comforts. It wasn’t much to work with but Skye was pleased to see that there weren’t more things – things designed only for wrangling pain from others. In all honesty, Takashi probably didn’t need tools to elicit pain.

With that cheerful thought, Skye sauntered over the table and hopped up on it, smiling confidently at Takashi. “How can I face Death and not flinch?” Skye repeated the question. She crossed her legs, her eyes on her ‘host’. Sure enough, his eyes flicked down to the sliver of flesh briefly bared by the kimono opening.

“Death is not the worst thing I’ve ever faced,” Skye told him. Her expression became calmer as she stated, “My mother was raped and killed by the demon that later raped me. He spoke to me through her corpse, taunting me. I spent a year being tortured and eaten in Bazaroth. Then I killed my husband with my bare hands when I found out he was a doppelganger.

“Simply put, Takashi, I’ve survived things that would make most people give up and die,” Skye told him. “If Death finally takes me, then all he has done is taken me to rejoin my mother. All he’s done is freed me from the burden of living. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not going to lie down and let him kill me. But I’m not afraid of leaving this place, either.”

[Justin OOC]

"And that dear Preistess is why you live."

He smiled to her and brought his face inches from her. "You already know there's worse things out there than death."

He trailed his hand down her cheek. "When I win,what is it you desire most? Answer me honestly." His tone suggested he would know otherwise.

"Everyone wants something, what is it that you yearn for?"

[z-Skye the Fallen]

"I want to be happy," Skye said without hesitation. She rested her face against his hand, filled with a strange eagerness. He was offering her lies, just like all men had - all men but Kazuo. He'd never lied to her at all. "I want to be happy like I was when I thought my husband was... the man I thought him to be. At that time, I could be happy without sex or drugs or alcohol - just being alive was enough. I want that back."

Best of all, that was true. Skye had been happy, but now she knew it was a lie. He'd lied to her from the day they'd met. "I want to be truly happy, without lies being used to make a fictional happiness," she added quickly. "I want the truth to make me happy."

She tried not to focus on the statement When I win. Takashi wouldn't win - she couldn't let him. She had to come out of this intact. She'd survived Henry; she'd survived Bazaroth. She couldn't lose here.

[Justin OOC]

He looked at her and his gaze didn't falter. "Will it?" In those two words he conjured all her doubts, all the feelings of brokenness from before, The pain and loss she'd felt, Everything she'd experienced.

"I cannot give you that Skye. I can make you think you are happy, and make it a convincing enough lie that you learn to live it. But what you seek, I cannot, will not offer."

Despite all his insanity, here, now, she saw perfect lucidity, and the razorsharp mind he possessed before whatever drove him mad.

"We cannot go back in time. I have tried, and it made no difference for me."

He looked at her. "If you could live with another Skye living the idyllic life you wished for, I could arrange that. I could let you watch, but I know you. In time you would hate that version of you which got to bypass all the pain, all the suffering. Could you honestly live knowing nothing you did would change your lot in life, that the past cannot be changed for you, but for others it is mutable?"

His gaze seemed to engulf her, and pare away all her defenses, leaving only the truth bare between them.

[SalmonMax]

"You betrayed my father, and the Empire, assassinated my older brother and sister, allied with madmen and renegades, and...as far as we can tell...seek to usurp Tsunami herself," Lily lists incredulously, "How could you ever speak to me as anything but an enemy?"

"Look, I took the basic course in interrogation technique. I know the 'good cop, bad cop' thing. Takeshi's bad, you're good. After bad promises me humiliation and death, you come and offer me a way out...as long as I'm good, and cooperate."

Lily shakes her head. "I don't know what you expect from me. I haven't got codes, or keys, or strategic knowledge that will help you. I certainly won't turn and join you. So what is it you want, Hizashi?"

[Justin OOC]

"I already told you, to talk."

He smiled. "You are very much like your mother."

He shrugged. "As far as the rest goes, that was all Takashi's doing. Your true problems are with him, they always have been."

He shook his head. "I met your father once, and would have again, were it not for you. First your mother saved him, then you. Now, he nears the end again, and I am truly saddened for it, because his end isn't a worthy one."

[z-Skye the Fallen]

Skye gasped and hunched under the weight of the despair he was heaping upon her. Lies! she howled to herself. Those are lies! Her fingers curled around the edge of the table and her fingernails bit into the underside of the slab. Its all lies!

The truth helped some.

“I don’t want to be her,” Skye rasped, completely honest. There was no room to lie here, not with fake tears stinging her eyes. “I just want to be happy without being lied to! That girl… the young me… was hateful and mean, proud of the miniscule power she wielded in her school. She was a big fish in a small pond, and thought the pond was the world. She was happy but lying to herself, about who she was, what she wanted and even how happy she was. That girl lied to herself every day just so she could keep smiling.

“I have saved dragons from death. I have fought a lich-king. I have seen foreign stars in an alien sky. I’ve made wishes on those falling stars, and then went and found the stars.” Skye was babbling, but it kept her together. “I am Lady Skye, Defender of BoneGate Citidal!”

Blue eyes, blazing with both despair and pride, met Takashi’s. “I don’t want to be that girl, not anymore. I just want to be happy as I am, without looking for anyone or anything else.” She forced a smile. "I don't know that you can do that for me, either."

[Justin OOC]

"You're wrong you know." He smiled, and it was as though Loki himself was there before her.

"You can make yourself happy, Perhaps you're the only one who can, but first you have to decide what will make you happy, truly happy, then pursue it."

He speared her with the most penetrating stare she'd felt. "That title, is that who you truly are? I can send you back there if you want. I'd even be willing to send your friend with you, provided he doesn't return."

He smiled "For me, it is simple to do so. Kai is not the only Skeleton Key."

He looked at her and fires of madness gleamed in his eyes. "I want it all."

[z-Skye the Fallen]

Skye shook her head. "My life on Ikaris is behind me," she said simply. "I've accepted that its done and I honestly have no desire to go back there at all." She tried to imagine taking Kazuo there; the thought was so painful she stopped. Taking him there would also be embarrassing and there were some pains that Skye wasn't up for handling - or even visualizing.

Oh, now he's telling me what he wants. Yippie! We're bonding. Despite her momentary levity, Skye remained serious. He may have just told her exactly what she needed to do to make sure he didn't win.

He wanted everything; she would just have to hold something back from him. Even if he thought he won, he wouldn't. Skye knew it would be hard; he had no doubt bent everyone else's will to this point. "All what?" she asked, quirking an eyebrow with inquisitiveness. They'd talked about her for a bit; it was his turn to share something.

[Justin OOC]

"All, Skye, simply All."

He nodded. "Considering who my parents are, I'm entitled to it, though my Mother is disinclined to agree."

He shrugged "My father has also proven somewhat reluctant as of late as well."

He reached out and ran his fingers through her hair.

[z-Skye the Fallen]

Skye smiled at his touch. He'd been gentle, so far. She wondered if that would change and hoped so, a little. It would make it easier to remember to be on her guard if he was hurting her.

Her assumption was right; he was a little boy who wanted to have everything. "I don't really know much about your family," she said to deflect the conversation back to him. Rule number one of dating - or any kind of seduction - was to keep them talking about themselves. Most people didn't have a problem with running off at the mouth when the topic is themselves. "Who are your parents?"

[Justin OOC]

"The ones who created everything." He smiled.

"I didn't bring you here to talk about me though, I'd much rather learn more about you."

He traced her jawline and leaned back. "What should I know when considering your life Skye? What knowledge should I be given of you that makes you worth saving?"

[SalmonMax]

Lily clenched her jaw. It was absolutely infuriating to think that THIS monster knew more about her mother than SHE did. That one thing was the only sour spot in the relationship she had with her father, the one pebble in her shoes, and now Hizashi was rolling it around.

"All right, if you want to talk, then talk. But I don't want any favors from you, Hizashi. I don't trust you. You're more powerful by far than Takashi, so you bear responsibility for what he's doing here. Besides, the rebellion started before Takashi ever left Earth. No matter how you try to 'spin' this, as the humans say, you cannot deny that your own hands are dirty too."

[Justin OOC]

"Everything that lives comes to know me eventually Lily," he nodded to her. "Though there have been things done I thought unnecessary."

He looked at her and sighed. "You don't make this easy, you're just like her. She couldn't accept things either."

[z-Skye the Fallen]

She felt his finger after he removed it, a phantom caress that remained on her skin. She tightened her jaw against those feelings and focused on the moment.

The ones who created everything? Skye wasn't sure what he meant by that, beyond the obvious, and she was not yet ready to give him that kind of credit. Sadly, he wasn't willing to talk about himself. Skye decided to come back to the point in another way.

"I don't know," she told him honestly. "What do you think means someone is worth saving? Saving a life? Saving ten lives, a hundred? Or is it living a life without fear? Is it loving your mother enough?"

Skye kicked her feet lightly, making her kimono flutter around her legs. "I don't know what you want," she said, "and I'm not going to start rattling things off in the hope that one of them matches your criteria." She leaned toward him, licking her enticing lips. "So you tell me what makes a woman worth your time?"

[Justin OOC]

Takashi sighed. "Then we're done here for now." He got up abrubptly, pushing her back onto the bed, and suprisingly he moved to the door.

"You can stay here for now. I haven't made up my mind about you yet." With that he left her alone, virtually untouched, with only the words said between them.

[z-Skye the Fallen]

Skye shook her head and situated herself on the bed more comfortably. He really didn't like it when she didn't play by his rules. Of course, she wasn't sure if that was a benefit to her or not yet - only time would tell.

With a sigh, she slumped back on the pillows and settled in for a wait. Fortunately, she had a lot to think about now.

[SalmonMax]

"I'm not here to make it easy," Lily reminded Hizashi. "I'm a prisoner. Your prisoner, to be exact. Would you just say what you came to say? I'm not going to play games with you. If my mother didn't accept you or your way, then that's a good enough reason for me not to as well!"

[Justin OOC]

"Very well granddaughter, i will leave you here for now." With that he left her. "Such a waste, so like her mother."

[SalmonMax]

"Wait! What is that supposed to mean?!" Lily demanded as Hizashi withdrew. "Granddaughter?! Are you trying to tell me you're my mother's father?"

[Justin OOC]

"Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying." the door closed, isolating Lily in white again, leaving her alone.

[Justin OOC]

Skye had been left alone for an hour now, in Takashi's room. The door opened suddenly, to reveal the Form not of Takashi but of Hizashi.

"I see you are well."

[z-Skye the Fallen]

Meditation was something Skye had never been that good at, mostly because she only practiced it in certain situations. Usually, those situations involved confinement and enforced boredom. So when she had to do it, she found that it was difficult. The good part of this was that she found it relieved boredom. The bad part was that it fostered frustration.

The door opening was almost a relief. That relief didn't last long; Takashi was not back. The sight of Hizashi made her tense up. His greeting relaxed her a bit. "Hello," she replied, leaning back into the pillows. "Takashi has been treating me well," she added, determined to be pleasant if he was being pleasant. "I see you're well, as well."

[Justin OOC]

"You are a priestess of tsunami."

"What do you know of her, of other deities?"

[z-Skye the Fallen]

"I was a priestess of Tsunami. Turns out, she really doesn't like you guys - which, if someone could give me the history on that it'd be great, just as a note - so me offering to stand down against Her will kinda pissed her off." Skye shrugged. "I wasn't too fond of Her anyway - She conscripted me from Luna, my true goddess because... I don't know, Tsunami couldn't find one of Her current priestesses who were up to the task.

"And, She compelled me to sign the blue dotted line yesterday and no one's given me the Big Book of All You Didn't Want to Know About Your Goddess But Probably Should yet." Skye crossed her legs on the bed, baring a sliver of pale calf before she tugged the kimono back into place. "The short answer is: almost nothing."

[Justin OOC]

Hizashi shook his head. "You are still her priestess. She doesn't withdraw her patronage so easily."

he smiled. "My daughter is still bound by her nature, the two of you can't fool me."

[z-Skye the Fallen]

Skye raised an eyebrow at Hizashi's statement. "Regardless, that doesn't change what I said. I know nothing about Tsunami, save that she's the Daralaan goddess. She did take me from my goddess, and did so for reasons I'm still not sure of, beyond her needing another hand, I guess. It's a big ficken deal that I can even do it, which is a nice way of saying you're a strong member of your weak race, lucky you."

Skye felt different, sitting here on Takashi's bed, facing Hizashi again. She realized what it was - this time she was in so deep that she wasn't really worried about the outcome anymore. One way or another, she was probably dead so she wasn't going fret about it anymore. She was just going to try to survive and quit worrying about whether she actually did.

"So why are you worried about my relationship with... you daughter?"

[Justin OOC]

"Because she's desperate now. She called in the one favor her brother owed her to get you and your companion. that tells me she thinks very highly of the two of you, as her brother does."

"It makes you very special, and as such I watch what you will do with interest. Takashi s fooled by you, but I am not."

[z-Skye the Fallen]

Skye shrugged, pulling the borrowed kimono back into place when it slipped down her shoulder. "I still think you overestimate me," she replied casually. She didn't like that he was treating her like she was dangerous. "I mean, you're the one that had we dead to rights in the last fight. You had the stroke and it was a killing one. We both know that. If Kai hadn't gotten there, I'd be said. You have my fans, my only way of fighting. Holle, all I've been told since I got here was that I was useless bait. My only contribution, if you ask my allies, is my ability to convince Kazuo to pick sides."

She traced the pattern on her silk over-garment and added, "So are you all hot and bothered about me because Tsunami picked me for kickball, or is there something more?" She smiled, just a little. "Though be careful about what you say - you could swell a girl's ego if you keep talking like that."

[Justin OOC]

"My daughter does nothing without reason."

He smiled. "The reason you're weak is your lack of faith. A priestess who doesn't belive is weak and useless."

He shrugged. "Your fans have power you have never tapped."

[z-Skye the Fallen]

Now that was interesting news. Still, Skye kept her expression bored. No point in cluing him in that she cared. "Doesn't do me a ficken bit of good if I don't have them," she observed, her grin becoming impish. "Unless you want to let me have my fans and a couple of hours of privacy? Maybe I could figure something out."

Hizashi's expression remained unamused and serious. "Didn't think so," Skye observed, letting her head fall back to rest against the wall. "I don't have a lot of faith in Tsunami," Skye said, switching back to the other topic. "I have lots of faith in Luna, but that's not really a concern anymore. I've been stolen like a Monet and dumped like a prom-night baby."

[Justin OOC]

"No you haven't. You are still quite connected to her."

He looked at her for a moment. "Your connection to Luna is strong, just she can't interfere here. That's why you should become acquainted with Tsunami, if you want to prove to everyone you are strong." There was a flash, and her fans appeared on the bed.

"They are merely fans, until you have true faith, or at least an understanding."

He turned to leave. "I wouldn't try to escape, Takashi would hunt you down, and it would be most unpleasant."