[Solo] To Become a Thief of Faces
Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2023 2:30 pm
81st of Frost, 4622
Vivian had all of the tools. Discovering the cipher that depicted where the flowers were laid out and how was difficult, but what wasn’t difficult was getting Hakon to ramble on about ciphers. The man liked a good puzzle, and codebreaking was surprisingly one of his talents. Hakon was as clueless as a child when it came to the workings of a human body or the real world in general, but when it came to hunting prey he was a master. Ciphers only fed that instinctual need to hunt a goal, and in that Vivian could hardly blame his enthusiasm. The poor fool would realize what he’d done soon enough.
He did feel a little bad about betraying Hakon’s trust. Though he’d seen a lust for blood in the man’s eyes he wasn’t evil. He was brainwashed, manipulated by people who had taken him in and lied to him. There was sweetness in him still. Vivian risked looking at the piece of paper in his hands. He was doing this without Hakon’s consent, but he needed the man’s face and Hakon needed to be free of his chains. He needed to be free the same way Vivian did.
Vivian was out of time and couldn’t wait any longer. Two days ago the teeth guarding the entrance to his cervix had slid back into their fleshy sheaths, giving him a clear warning about his impending birth. He had been feverish, and ether had slowly been tapering away from the womb as it prepared to expel its occupant. He felt more powerful in his magic, but as weak as a lamb physically. He had to do this before he gave birth and his child was torn away forever. He felt pregnant in another way as he grabbed the translated cipher and crept slowly up to the tower of the Scarlet Watch.
This was the culmination of something even Degare had never managed to do. This was only whispered and spoke of in tremulous terms in all of his books, always with a note of respect and terror. Doppelgänger. The stealer of faces. The creator of monsters. Master of shifting. A lowly whore born in the slums of Daravin and fighting rats for his breakfast was going to become a true master of his art. Everything about the timing was perfect. The transition from man to mother. The transition of the season’s death to life’s new beginning. New life born, impossibly, painfully, from a place never intended for its use. It was chaotic, and strange, and beautiful in ways Vivian could have never foreseen.
Ah, if only Degare could see him now.
Vivian had timed the watch. They switched regularly, with military precision. Hakon’s dedication was echoed in them, and this would be their downfall. They were so regimented they could be timed down to a breath, and Vivian took the opportunity to head upstairs in slow, measured movements that matched them like the alternating ticks of a clock. When they moved, so did he. When they stopped he found safe places in stairwells to hide. Vivian was barely breathing by the time he ascended the final step. Nerves were singing in his blood, and his head was pounding with the weight of what he was about to do. Their arrogance preceded them; the garden was open to him and all he had to do was step inside and become the creature he was meant to be.
The guards had switched out, with an exhausted laziness borne of people who adhered to a non dangerous duty. No one tried to get up here. If Vivian was to escape they’d have expected him to flee outright. They weren’t expecting the Malformist to go into their backyard. Funny enough, guards were the same whether he was choking on their cocks in an alley in Daravin or in a tower of mage hunters, and commanders planned for everything but boredom. Human nature won out against blind duty, as it so often did.
Vivian had a few minutes. The guards were chatting with their replacements a little down the hallway. Still in sight enough to satisfy duty but the greenhouse looked like it had places to hide. Barely enough time. Vivian clenched his teeth, and slid across from the stairwell inside the greenhouse.
There was a large glass dome over the majority of the garden, ribbed with iron. The panels were finely made, with small bits of ornamentation here and there that hinted at the preciousness of the contents. Vivian liked it; the stained glass broke up the light filtering in, and splashed the stone walls in softened tones of amber, red and purple. The flowers themselves were glorious blooms tucked into terracotta pots, glowing softly with reddish light that stained the floor and benches they sat on. They were covered in milky domes of glass, and Vivian lifted the one nearest to him to see the intricate flower underneath. Vivian brushed against it, holding the bloom in his fingers. It was so delicate, but hummed with power. The round room would also do well to hide him, as he could tuck himself up against the shell closest to the guards and wait for another shift to complete. At the moment, they seemed content to chat, and plan what little they could. Perhaps this was the chance for gossip they didn’t normally get.
Vivian set the dome back down carefully, and took out the paper. Thankfully, regimentation also meant they knew exactly who was where. Vivian slowly walked down the rows of pots, looking at them guiltily. So many gifted mages chained here. So many souls that would never know freedom for the innocuous crime of being Marked. He hated thinking so selfishly, but if he could start with Hakon perhaps the entire house of cards could come crashing down one day. He folded the paper carefully and stood before his pot. There it was. A piece of his soul, crafted into a living organism, pulsing softly. Vivian carefully took ahold of its glass cloche and set it aside. He gripped the plant closest to the soil, terrified that if he missed any part of the plant that he would lose pieces of himself forever. He brushed away the soil from the roots.
Vivian bit into it, and felt power flood through his teeth, through his jaws and tongue. It sang through his bones as he chewed and swallowed, his ravenous jaws consuming every leaf and whisper of roots. The flood streamed back into his soul, soothing a wound that had opened up with his imprisonment. He wished he had time to savor the feeling, but there was simply no time. He resented the Scarlet Watch for it; it was like being rushed through sex. Something so beautiful and ethereal was being rushed, and he couldn’t deny he felt cheated. He set the dome back over the empty pot, and hurried toward Hakon’s. Vivian’s fingers brushed over the flower, greeting it like he would an old friend. This was a piece of Hakon. Not just what he was, but who. This was a piece of Hakon that would never return to its master, but would take new life in Vivian.
The taste was so…strange. With his own flower it had felt like restoring a lost part of him. When Hakon’s flower hit his tongue, he felt the man touching his jaws. There were strong fingers in his hair and strength in arms Vivian couldn’t see. Whispers of Hakon’s scent filled his nostrils as he swallowed. Vivian seized another flower, and another. Echoes of the people he consumed vibrated in his bones. He felt taller, shorter, weaker, stronger. Female, male. The bones in his face shifted violently, his cheekbones and teeth seething in his head as different ether streams joined his own. It was like dying fabric, pouring shots of reds, greens and yellows inside of him. Vivian was becoming a kaleidoscope, no longer one man but parts of a whole.
The more he consumed, the more he changed. The less he could think, and the more ether burned through his face and limbs. The bones in his face shifted violently, becoming as strong as Hakon one moment and delicately feminine the next. His limbs lengthened and shortened, hips widened and narrowed. Vivian hurried to pull the cipher paperwork out of his shirt and stuffed the paper into his mouth, chewing and swallowing with a jaw that was rapidly changing size with each clenching movement.
He had to get out. His soul was blending and tearing itself into pieces. Vivian desperately needed somewhere to ground himself, and doing it here was out of the question. Vivian focused his breathing; no matter how his face or his fingers changed, his lungs were the same. Every man shared a heart and lungs, and he focused on the blood pounding in his ears and the wind in his body. Ether was singing, pulsing through him with every breath. It was like a song, every drumbeat, his footsteps and every template a chorus. He peeked out at the exit. If he wanted to escape he had to do it now. Precious seconds were ticking by and any moment the conversation could end. He couldn’t get caught.
Vivian slid out of the greenhouse and made it to the landing of the stairwell. He crawled, step by step downward. Each step was a struggle not to fall forward and roll violently as his arms and legs changed lengths. One level, then two. He felt like the insects his mark called to, crawling forward with his arms and legs crooked to protect the vulnerable life inside of him. His Mark burned, writhing on his skin. He had once thought of ether as a deep well, but now it was hollowing out into an ocean of power.
His body failed him three levels down, and Vivian curled up on the landing. He felt like a maelstrom, swirling around the eye of his storm, his child. He couldn’t feel any distress from it. If anything, his son was anchoring him, giving him something to hold onto that was uniquely his. Vivian put his shaking hands on his stomach as muscles cramped and his hip bones cracked. He clenched his jaws around a scream, his eyes squeezed shut. All of the parts of him were settling. It was indescribable pain that made sparks swirl around the backs of his eyelids and lightning strike in his brain. He sank his fingers into the cracks of the stone underneath his body, clinging to the landing as though he were adrift in a storm.
Just as violently as it began, it was still.
Vivian could hear himself breathing raggedly, and his heartbeat thrumming in his body. Another contraction rippled up his abdomen. Vivian hesitantly touched his face, and felt the last tiny ripples of the ascension settle back. His nose was his own again. Those were his brows, his ears, the lips he was so proud of. As his ether settled, and the other faces faded, another emergency was emerging.
Hot fluid flooded the stone beneath him. No. No no no! Not now. Vivian struggled to sit up, pushing himself away from the mess weakly. He slumped against the wall. The babe was shifting inside of him, readjusting himself to make an exit. Gods. He couldn’t make the stairs down to his room…he couldn’t even crawl anymore. Vivian swore under his breath, tears rolling down his cheeks as the euphoria of ascension faded into the punching agony of birth. Darkness flooded his vision.
Vivian tried to stay awake. He tried to anchor himself to something, anything. Unconsciousness embraced him, and he went limp.
