[backdated to day 74, late in the day, somewhere on level 2]

[prettygirlsmakegraves]

She doesn't know anything about me.

[the words, uttered with a soft hiss into the dark, aren't meant for anyone's ears but their speaker's for all that she's clearly addressing someone; it's simply a matter of speaking them aloud. she wants to remember she said it. that way maybe some of the tension in her eyes will lessen, the backed-up, cornered feeling will die. she takes a breath. she breathes out. and she walks a little ways back into the dark, just out of sight, ears open. her head tilts to the side, so her good ear faces out.]

[down at her side, her left hand unfurls, a bright flower of imminent violence.]

[she knows she saw someone head in this direction; she didn't see where they went. something keeps knocking into some of these bookcases, moving them around, closing out paths and making new ones. there's no pattern to it; it makes it hard to keep a clear path in her head.]

[... it makes her wonder what could be doing it, too.]

[but she really doesn't want to think about that right now. she wants - she needs to be thinking about a little killing.]

[whoever it was looked like they were wearing Iris.]

Comments

[unexpressive]

[ despite the clock's state, rena doesn't stop her habit of hunting at this hour—rather, it's even more important that she does go out to hunt now. rations run out eventually, and there's little assurance on the clock's speedy revival. the quests are important, but right now it's a matter of who gets the good food first.

she has a few headless hales in hand, as she steps further into the darkness—she's no longer fearful of the creatures on this level, now that she's developed a set pattern and habit. still, she's a bit careless and certainly isn't aware of her stalker; there's hardly been any incident since she's started hunting daily, and surely, there wouldn't be one now... ]

[prettygirlsmakegraves]

[Lace knows the silhouette that appears, once her eyes adjust enough to see the dim outlines of shapes in the darkness. from her vantage point where she walks, beastly on all fours, atop the bookcases, her eyes narrow. it's ... that one Iris that she kissed, once. why is that the part that springs to mind, right now ... the Iris who laughed at her pawing through the scrap heap.]

[she was lucky. whatever crashed through that set of bookcases and knocked them over let her get on top of them without having to leap up the shelves.]

[the anger boils over. now. now. she should strike now. but wait.]

[... this is an Iris, and she has a better idea.]

[slowly, methodically, she sheds her clothes, sheds her person-thinking, steps into the mind of her monster. and when she sets foot on the surface of the bookcase with bare feet, her legs start to twist and warp. feathery cracks sprout in the smooth lines of skin.]

[in the air above Rena's stalking footsteps, a web of violence stretches out between the shelves, its tattered edges hanging down in afterthought.]

[unexpressive]

[she frowns, stepping further and further into level two. it seems, a lot of creatures were already taken ...

then, perhaps she should leave for now, and drop these hales off in iris. at least give this much, and find some more later. the prey won't come out if they know they're being hunted, after all.

but .. maybe a little more. she's pushing her luck by going this far into the darker areas, but she'd like to present more than just a few hales to iris.. although this is dangerous, and she hasn't been out here since she went out with red the other day.

maybe.. just a few more steps..]

[prettygirlsmakegraves]

[the web reaches itself out till it hangs overhead, extended in criss-crossing lines as far as it can go between the shelves -]

[and then lets go, pulling the endmost tendrils in towards the center of its mass with a jerk and a twitch.]

[the web falls down atop her, and those edge tendrils fire themselves out again, punching into the bookshelves and sending the razor-edged mass into a violent, buzzsaw spin.]

[not that most people would think of it this way, but for a creature made of, essentially, organic saw blades - an even more apt description now, with the way they seem made of overlapping feathers - there's few quicker ways to kill than simply shaving off the head. anything else and you're just deliberately going out of your way to torture them.]

[unexpressive]

[well, she's certainly unprepared for.... any of that, all of that. at least, if there was a loud noise before it happened, she might have been fast enough to look above her before she dies.

oop. there she goes.]

[prettygirlsmakegraves]

[she doesn't even bother with returning to the shelves; one moment she lays there like an obscene woven blanket, the equivalent of an intaken breath, the next she is furling herself into something small and pale and fleshy again, the ground cold under her feet.]

No time at all.

[she practically exhales the words, for all that she speaks them clearly or even above the level of an escaped huff. she wavers slightly, rocking back on the balls of her feet. her eyes fix on Rena's stomach and lock there, gone to little pinpricks as she sucks in a breath.]

Let's see how you taste. I've gone ... too long without a taste of guts.

[and she falls upon the head-shorn corpse, fingers ripping at fabric with shoulder-quaking intensity. her teeth follow on bare skin shortly after.]

[were anyone to see her right now, she would certainly look the monster.]

[hadalittle]

[ as Riful devours, the shadows grow a little darker as Mary sinks out of them, watching ]

[prettygirlsmakegraves]

[she is not so unalert (or as unafraid as she might pretend to be, later) that the shift in light surrounding them passes by her notice - her mouth is a gory splat of gruesomeness against the paleness of her skin, eyes like predator's pinpricks in the dark - but she can't immediately make out whose silhouette watches them.]

[only that it is a someone, not a something, and that's all that keeps her from immediate flight.]

Who's there?

[hadalittle]

[ the shadows recede as Mary steps out, not approaching but simply revealing herself ]

Hello again. Uhm . . . please don't let me interrupt.

[prettygirlsmakegraves]

[her hair enlivens itself, growing in length, feathery tendrils stretching down to cover Rena's corpse defensively, as Mary steps out of the shadows; once Mary fully reveals herself, though, their movement stops from recognition, but the tense hunch of her shoulders remains.]

Too late. You're already interrupting. Did you ... want something.

[hadalittle]

The leftovers.

[prettygirlsmakegraves]

[doing some thinking in her head. ... obviously she knows she can't actually stop a portrait from taking what it wants ... but she'll take as much as she can, first.]

How much are you going to need.

[hadalittle]

[ shakes her head ]

Uhm, it's. . . clean up work. If you finish. . . I won't need to.

[prettygirlsmakegraves]

You don't want any of it? I can have it all.

[testing, questioning, verbally circling the edges of her logic. her eyebrows narrow, in thought.]

[hadalittle]

The deed is done. . . if you do or don't, it's too late to do anything about the death. So. . . yes. You can.

[prettygirlsmakegraves]

And what ... you like to watch ...?

[hadalittle]

No. The corpses. . . can't be left out.

[prettygirlsmakegraves]

Because they'll attract something terrible?

[she's seen enough signs there's something else in the dark, besides the things everyone else has seen, to draw that much of a conclusion. it may in this case be the wrong conclusion, but with what she knows the connection isn't hard to make.]

[hadalittle]

Mm. . . not quite. But it's better to come back to a whole body than a half. . . or less.

[prettygirlsmakegraves]

So you're saying, you'd prefer if I didn't eat it all. But you're not going to stop me if I did.

[thinking is confusing.]

[hadalittle]

Yes. That's correct.

[prettygirlsmakegraves]

Why not stop me, if you know I could?

[hadalittle]

It doesn't make a difference now. You already made a victim.

[prettygirlsmakegraves]

"Victim". You make it sound so cruel.

[hadalittle]

Mm. . . I could say "corpse."

[prettygirlsmakegraves]

That's truer. She's hardly innocent. She laughed at me when the other Iris ate my stomach, once.

They all did, really.

[hadalittle]

Uhm.

If you aren't eating her, I would like to take her remains, now.

[prettygirlsmakegraves]

[... sighs.]

[reaching down and carefully ripping away an arm, then backing away from the corpse.]

I'd like to get at her heart and lungs before I finish but it's hard to work up an appetite with you staring. By all means. Go ahead.