Mystery Of A Blood-Red Rose

[Ryn]

She relishes this. The simplicity after a night of confusing emotions and hard-fought half-realizations. But also just the purity of Doug's face derailing. Ryn does know how to put on a show, it's just not meant to be enjoyable for anyone but her. "You hurt them." A simple statement of fact as she takes the one stride it takes to stand in front of his desk. "You will stop and I will demonstrate to you why."

She doesn't wait for a response. It will be anger, denial and lies more rank than the smoke that coats the inside of his mouth. There is only one language men like this understand and it is Ryn's native tongue. In one smooth step she's crouched on top of the desk and the letter-opener that had been sitting in a mug along with pens and pencils is in her hand. She slides heel first into Doug's chest, her other foot finding the edge of the desk as she pins Doug and his chair against the wall. When his hand reflexively grab her leg she drives the letter-opener down and through the gap between the two bones of his forearm, right where Cindy's bruises were.

She allows herself a moment to savor the grunt of pain and the welling of blood before she twists the handle and leverages his arm exactly where she wants it to strike her free hand against his arm just so. Both bones snap with a satisfying crunch against the blade wedged between them and she lets the useless arm fall away. Under her foot and beneath the fat and muscles she can feel a ribcage creaking. It's enough to make her forget about the left half of her body screaming in protest.

"Ready?" she asks, apparently all this just to prepare him. She knows it doesn't matter how much she breaks his body, sooner or later his impotent rage would lash out against Cindy and the other dancers again. He might promise otherwise, maybe even believe it himself in the moment, but Ryn knows better. Some lessons need to sink more than skin-deep, more than flesh-deep. Some things need to be driven into the soul like an icicle. She grins and her lips furl back to reveal teeth too broad, too sharp. Then she lifts the sunglasses from her face and all light leaves the room. Her pitch black eyes swallow Doug's world and leave only the pale blue fires dancing within the abyss like ice that burns. There is a truth in them that most humans forget as they grow old but that every child knows. There is a darkness that lives only underneath beds and in closets at night, stands over waking minds gripped by sleep's paralysis, dances in the corners of eyes. He is so small and there is no door out of this room anymore. No weapon stashed in a drawer. Where safety and normalcy once reigned is only the empty dark. Forever.

And then the sunglasses descent again, leaving only the hint of a blue shimmer dancing behind them.

[Narrator]

Doug screams as the letter opener pierces flesh and muscle, embedding itself deep in his forearm. That scream is cut off by a second, louder scream as Ryn cracks the bones, creating permanent damage in the man's arm.

And then that scream falls to just gurgles, incoherent murmurings, just sounds really trying to escape Doug's mouth along with what's left of his sanity. A soul bared clean and scoured under unforgiving darkness.

Even as the glasses come back on, Doug stays staring straight forward, stock-still, bits of drool and spittle and a little blood dribbling out of the corner of his mouth

[Ryn]

Ryn takes her foot off his chest and pulls him up from his chair by the collar of his shirt.

"Never touch them again. Not with your hands, not with your eyes." she hisses and let's go, regardless of whether he's got his legs under him enough to avoid falling back into his chair.

When she leaves his office she doesn't slam the door but pulls the last inch or two decisively so it will make a noticeably loud click as it latches. When she walks out of the backstage area she looks around. It feels odd not to slip back into the shadows, but she wants to look for Cindy to give her a single nod. If it's reassuring is questionable, but somehow she feels it's important the dancer know that Ryn's job is done. Not the one that comes with a badge but that one that is her true purpose.

[Wyll Wyldclay]

Doug fell into his chair, and then fell off of his chair, groaning as he hit the ground on his injured wrist.

The scream had drawn a bit of attention, and various dancers in various states of half-dress were pressed around the door, watching Ryn as she came out. One of them was, in fact, Cindy, who had apparently followed behind Ryn a moment or two later. If Ryn had not been looking to put on a show, she had failed!

Another one of the women in back had green hair, and was watching her with a resigned expression.

[Ryn]

Ryn almost visibly crumples under the attention. Not physically, she doesn't slouch or hunch her shoulders, but she does freeze, head snapping from one face to the next.

"He may need an ambulance." she manages. This is not supposed to be part of what she does. Her justice is karmic more than demonstrative as far as Ryn is concerned. Best to let them decide what to do with this situation and if they want to help him. Ryn certainly wouldn't. "There will be no more touching." She hopes that'll clear things up enough.

[Wyll Wyldclay]

"Pity. That was the most fun part," Wyll said from the back, stretching her arms out above her head.

"What did you..." Cindy started to ask, her voice quavering and dropping off.

[Ryn]

What did she. Ryn had never had to explain her purpose. Sometimes humans came up with that all on their own, depending on the few glimpses they'd seen of her or stories that had been told. Three winged maidens of vengeance incarnate to the Greek. Horned monster of soft fur impaling the corrupt far to the east. Crocodile-headed and inescapable devourer of hearts. Black and white Cadejo. The flying eye Issitoq. Aeshma. Never had she even considered to correct them. Why bother. Why start now? 'Practice.' Wyll's voice echoes in her ears.

"Made him to feel small and weak the way he made you feel small and weak." she tells the floor in front of her. Too many eyes on her, too much attention. It crawls over her skin like bristling caterpillars.

[Wyll Wyldclay]

"Yes, well, ladies," Wyll said, coming to Ryn's rescue. The topless fae walked around behind Ryn, resting one hand on each of the smaller girl's shoulders, and leaning up against her. "It's been absolutely divine being here with you all tonight. But my sister and I had best be going before too many questions are asked, and too many answers are given."

Cindy still looked somewhat slackjawed at Ryn. There certainly was a fair share of fear in her eyes; something Ryn was definitely used to from mortals encountering her. But there was something else, too -- a bit of gratitude, maybe? Some respect? Something underscoring the fear, perhaps cutting through the pain of being seen just a little bit. Unless it was the Wyldclay's breasts pressing into her back which soothed her slightly, though that seemed unlikely.


"Like, ohmygod, Dave!" one of the girls said from the back room, as the group began to break up and see what damage Ryn had wrought.

[Ryn]

It's not like Ryn was going to tell them much more. Certainly not anything supernatural. She takes a couple steps away from Wyll to avoid being pushed and makes her way towards the exit. She's bristly, angry that humans and the Wyldclay managed to complicate something that should be been perfectly clear and simple. But something about the look in Cindy's eyes gave her a strange kind of hope that maybe, maybe Katarina might not utterly despise her for what she truly is.

[Wyll Wyldclay]

Wyll took a few large steps to catch up to Ryn, and put an arm around her shoulder.

"You want to take a bow?" she teased her, slightly. "Or are you going for the international woman of mystery angle?" Unlike the Wyldclay's usual teasing this one seemed...gentler? Like there was little behind it other than the surface-level friendliness, and perhaps - perhaps! - the Wyldclay didn't have a different mode for interacting with people.

"But honestly. I take you out for a lapdance, and you end up stabbing a guy. I thought the night might end with penetration, but you DO surprise me, Ryuunosuke."

[Ryn]

If the man had wanted to remain unstabbed he should not have hurt people. Simple as that. She does not expect the Fae to get it, much less agree.

"I don't perform for anybody. Something needed to be done. I did it. Now they can dance as they please or not." Any witnessing or thankful glances were entirely incidental and Ryn is certainly not going to acknowledge them with a bow. She first and foremost hurt the man for her own satisfaction, not to help anybody.

[Wyll Wyldclay]

"And they won't have to leave their friends behind," Wyll added, for no immediate reason Ryn could see.

"Did you at least enjoy yourself?" she asked, as they returned to the car. "Or learn anything?"

[Ryn]

"I did." she says as she hops over the door into Wyll's convertible. The Wyldclay might be better at twisting words but on very rare occasions, Ryn manages the opening to be cheeky in her own way. She looks over at Wyll with the self-satisfied grin like the cat that got the cream.

[Wyll Wyldclay]

"Care to share with the rest of the class?" Wyll asked. "Or are you hoping to be interrogated a bit, first? Playing hard to get?"

Wyll shrugged her shoulders slightly, finally shifting into a top so she wasn't just hanging out there while driving. Safety first.

[Ryn]

"It was helpful and I did not hate all of it. And I am hard to get." She's almost a little proud she managed to make it through this only injuring a single person. Almost. And she certainly has no interest in letting the Wyldclay try to pick it apart.

"They did not think it odd to find you among them. Even in the confusion. You've danced here." It's not subtle, but as far as conversational finesse goes, changing topics to stop talking about something is downright clever by Ryn's standards. Perhaps some skills of being stealthy and evasive do translate.

[Wyll Wyldclay]

"I have," Wyll acknowledged. "The days where one can find bonfires to prance around have grown thin, and a new form of night sports have replaced them. We must change with the times, or find ourselves rotting away, Rynnusuke."

[Ryn]

"You do." she says, but how true is that really? She's here because she saw the writing on the wall of the wild spaces disappearing little by little. Claimed but not really tamed. Just different and full of people. And like the dancers, it had turned out to not be as dreadful as she'd feared. Present company excluded. "The world changes but not all of it is for the worse." she admits.

[Wyll Wyldclay]

"And that's all I really wanted to show you.

Well, that and some tits. But more the philosophical thing."