Freedom

[Kolava]

NewEyeSight: Deep in the forest a man was passing through, his horse keeping
a steady, slow rhythm as the girl hurried to keep up. Her hands were bound
and the man kept her with the horse and himself by holding the other end of
the rope. She had
NewEyeSight: long ago learned not to run, though the look she gave him was
malicious. Despite prior knowledge learned, she stopped and pulled back with
her body weight to send him tumbling off the horse's back. She herself fell
to her knees
NewEyeSight: along with him and then braces herself. She didn't have to
watch, so she closed her eyes but kept her head high with the first crack of
the whip. Her back was so scarred by that same weapon that it took a few
times to elicit a cry
NewEyeSight: of pain from the girl. Normally he stopped but she'd been
especially spirited today. The whip kept coming down on her, the shirt on her
back getting torn by the repeated licks. She finally screamed, the pain
enough that she grabbed
NewEyeSight: at the whip. Which was immediately pulled away from her grasp,
cutting her palms as he kicked her onto her back and took the whip to her
face. Most of the damage had been done before she had a chance to move her
arm to protect her
NewEyeSight: eyes. He kicked her again and withdrew his dagger, "I do not
need a willful slave. If you will not obey me, then you will not live," he
said, looking from the girl to the dagger. One would expect her to stay down
whimpering or begin
NewEyeSight: to beg for her life. No, instead the girl spit at him, perhaps
a bit more blood than saliva from her busted lip. He roared with anger and
drove the blade into her prone neck, remounting his horse and riding away
without waiting to
NewEyeSight: watch her die. He had errands to run, after all. Deadlines to
see about and now he needed to replace a slave. The girl lay on the ground,
gurgling and pulling the knife from her neck. Which only made the bleeding
worse.
Rob87DM: ::the creature had been watching, frozen in fear for a few seconds
now on a nearby tree; as soon as the man had left he sprinted down to the
girl's side and squeeked hopelessly at her, restlessly padding in place
Rob87DM: as he tried to figure out what to do next. He couldn't do much for
her, but didn't want to just leave her here either::
NewEyeSight: She could only see a little of him, her eyes ruined but still
able to make out some shapes outside of the leaking and the bleeding. She
tried to speak but it barely came out with the gurgling. "I.. I'm free,"
though she was losing
NewEyeSight: consciousness rapidly and knew somewhere in her mind that she
was dying. She would die free, without someone hoping the other end of the
rope that was tied around her wrists. She was her own person and she tried to
laugh at that,
NewEyeSight: but it was becoming increasingly difficult to speak. Her mouth
moved, forming the words 'help' before everything turned black and she felt
herself slipping away. So this was death? This quiet falling from the
world...
Rob87DM: ::that term, "free", brought this to another level. He knew now
that he had to help this girl somehow; he couldn't...wouldn't let her die
without experiencing freedom, not if he wanted to be able to live with
himself::
NewEyeSight: Her breathing was getting shallower and each spurt of blood
from her neck was getting more and more sparse. Her heart was slowing and her
lips and finger tips were starting to get that bluish tint to them. If the
creature wished to
NewEyeSight: save the fair haired girl, it had better be quick. She did not
have much time left. Though every so often the fingers tried to curl, to grab
onto the dirt as though she were trying to cling to this world. Even in
death, she fought.
Rob87DM: ::he moved and leaned against her with his forepaws very lightly,
the blood soon staining the white fur. He whispered something unintelligible,
then bowed his head, his forehead an inch from her cheek. His eyes closed,
and his
Rob87DM: breathing matched hers, reaching into her fading conciousness like
a deep hypnosis that, rather then stopping with surface, sank deeper and
deeper, encompassing every memory and facet of personality::
NewEyeSight: She gasped, her head moving back and she kicked, fighting until
suddenly the blood ceased, her chest grew still and she fell back into the
dirt. She was a pathetic sight, her white blonde hair falling to cover her
blood streaked face
NewEyeSight: . Her entire body beaten, whipped and defeated looking. What
price had she paid for the freedom she sought? The highest.
Rob87DM: ::he frowned and began digging, not even sure what motivated his
actions. Speaking purely from an instinctual point of view, this action made
no sense, but nevertheless he carried it out, eager to sate some strange
embedded desire
Rob87DM: to see the dead respectfully entombed, not simply left for the
elements and the scavengers. In surprising speed he had used his natural
tools to excavate a modest but satisfactory hole::
Rob87DM: ::he paused one last time, gazing with a mix of emotion in the
direction the man had fled, half wanting to track him and half wanting to
flee before he came back. He did niether, just watched the body grow cold,
then buried it::
NewEyeSight: Her body was growing stiff, dirt covering her hair and sticking
to the drying blood. She looked more morbid than pathetic now, the earth
covering her from sight.
Rob87DM: ::done at last, he scurries off the way he had come, not wanting
to risk being spotted and tied to any of this. Even as he ran, though, the
word "Free" rang out in his memory. Was that really what freedom meant?::

[Kolava]

Rob87DM: ::the room had laid unused for a month now, though it didn't much
show it. The ambient light of strange origin still bathed the furniture,
which was scattered in the grass of this small roofed courtyard-like area at
the top
Rob87DM: of the north tower. Kolava sat on a cushion in the center, having
just walked in uneasily and sat down::
NewEyeSight: It was dark, she realized. Not the sort of dark that she
imagined death. More like, well. More like she was in a bottle, if one had
ever been inside a bottle in one's life. Which she most certainly had not.
Now that she thought
NewEyeSight: about it, she really didn't know what a bottle was. So where'd
it come from. She tried moving an arm to knock, though she didn't have legs
or arms but it was the same sensation. She remembered how to knock. So now
Kolava would hear
NewEyeSight: a hollow "bang, bang, whop" in his head. She wasn't sure where
she was now and kicked the door aggravatedly.
Rob87DM: ::his eyes were half shut, his mouth thin with focus, and his chest
puffed out as his four paws settled into the cushion around him, his tail
wrapped around his base::
NewEyeSight: She glared determinedly at the door that wasn't seen. She
couldn't see anything. Standing more than she had been earlier, it was funny
how many different types of standing one realized there were when one had
time to consider the
Rob87DM: ::he frowned at the strange sensation, responding with a breif,
wordless mental query that would be percieved as a dull light in darkness::
NewEyeSight: placement of all the muscles one did not actually have anymore.
She could even feel her hair run against her cheeks as she lowered her head
and then looked up, registering surprised. There wasn't a door at all. I
don't understand.
NewEyeSight: This is death?
Rob87DM: ~Yes, you died~
NewEyeSight: I don't particularly care for this. The doors disappear. She
seemed to toy with the light now, seeming to use it to look at herself. She
was and she wasn't. It seemed everytime she looked at her hands, for example,
they were changed
NewEyeSight: to the hands from a different memory. Callused at one point,
young at another. She seemed to be everything that she was, at all times,
instead of just herself at death. And, sometimes, she wasn't there at all.
Now what?
Rob87DM: ::a long pause, and the light would spread into a small area of
grass with Kolava sitting on it:: ~What do you want?~
Rob87DM: ::outside of that area of grass, there was nothing. It was as
though a single spotlight were illuminating a patch of an otherwise pitch
black, utterly silent field under a starless night sky::
NewEyeSight: Her eyes went to the pitch black, the expression seeming
significant in some way. There was malice, yes, but also love. We love what
is familiar to us. To know what is past the light. To not be caged in just
one place. Her presense
NewEyeSight: took a seat as well. Well, more getting on her hands and knees
and trying to see the grass better. Things should change when you become
free. It doesn't feel like it has.
Rob87DM: ::with a low humming sound, the visual aspect of Kolava shifted
when it wasn't being looked at, suddenly on her other side, close enough to
bend down and look up into her eyes:: ~It's not healthy to be obsessed with
one thing.
Rob87DM: --and how would you know what freedom feels like if you've never felt
it?~
NewEyeSight: I'm not obessessed; freedom isn't just one thing. I want to do
things too. She was more a presense than a person, a bit all over the place while
still seeming
to take a shape. She did have eyes though and those were constant at least. I
wouldn't know
NewEyeSight: what it felt like, true. I would, however, recognize the lack
of it. I lack it. What is beyond the light? She looked back towards the
darkness, whether it up, over or sideways. She did not wish to be in the dark
any longer. To be
NewEyeSight: told where she could and couldn't be. She couldn't be in the
dark, apparently, and she resented it.
Rob87DM: ::the creature back on the cushion stirred, dipping his head::
~So you wish your life hadn't ended? Did you enjoy being with that man?~
Rob87DM: ::the presense of Kolava was elusive of answering the recurring
question of what was beyond the light, and it seemed to agitate him whenever
it was brought up::
NewEyeSight: I don't feel ended. She didn't. She felt alive. She also didn't
particularly care that he was irritated. He hadn't just started to wonder
where his heart beat was. I didn't like the man who... murdered me? No, it
sounded wrong. She
NewEyeSight: wasn't dead! She could not, would not, believe it. Well, she
had believed it but she changed her mind. You ask many questions but you
answer none. What now? That is beyong the light. What deity are you to have
me trapped in this
NewEyeSight: spot of light? You give me a symbolance of freedom but I know
it isn't. It is the same thing I've always had, looking just beyond to
something I cannot see but wish to have.
Rob87DM: I'm no diety, just a shameless interloper. If you want-- ::the
visual shifted again, revealing a path to one side which curled off into the
unseen:: --I can release you to find out what Death originally had planned.
Rob87DM: ::the patch of grass was slowly shrinking away, scattering into
ever smaller particles that fell away into darkness::
NewEyeSight: There was silence a moment as the area seemed to disappear and
the path seemed to be the only option. She had wished freedom, not one way
streets. Or?
Rob87DM: ::as she looked to the path, Kolava had come into being behind her,
sitting in the darkness, though fully illuminated:: ~Or... I don't know. My
conscience was settled the moment I gave you this oppourtunity...what you do
with it
Rob87DM: is not my concern.~ ::he looked upon her indistinct form with a
hint of lonely contemplation, like that of a prisoner who cares for a sick
bird, then holds it to the jail window::
NewEyeSight: She really considered. It was a path and paths had fork in the
roads, right? They change? Her life never had though, she realized, until she
died. Maybe this was her fork in the road. A chance to step from the path and
into the
NewEyeSight: darkness beyond. To be unsure. Wasn't that freedom in itself?
Then, Or. She never even took a step towards that path, part of her always
knowing she wouldn't be able to deny the mistery of this place. It seemed,
complicated. So I
NewEyeSight: wait now? In the dark?
Rob87DM: ::the creature appeared to rub his temples:: ~You're thinking too
hard. Look, your body died. The rest of you was going to die, but I preserved
it, because I'm stupid and don't think things through. Now we're both here,
and you
Rob87DM: need to decide what you want so we can move on. Since getting us in
this situation was my fault, I owe you a favor.~

[Kolava]

Rob87DM: ~I could track down the guy for you and get revenge? Or maybe
deliver a message to a loved one?~ ::he made the suggestions, all the while
considering how much this resembled a ghost possessing someone, but in
reverse::
NewEyeSight: She had never had anyone owe her a favor before. She was going
to point out that he had already repaid her when his suggestions seemed to
make her fade a little. I only wished to be free. He is his own punishment.
There was a
NewEyeSight: sadness now. She'd never be able to find the man who had taught
her that a slave is only a slave so long as they believe it of themselves.
The man who had encouraged her to fight back which had eventually led to her
death. The
NewEyeSight: leader, though he lacked followers who were not chained. I have
nothing to ask for. Save for freedom, but she'd harped on that point enough
by now, surely.
Rob87DM: ::the creature looked up, moving his forepaw away from his face as
he percieved things stirring in his incorporeal passenger's thoughts:: ~So
you're ready for death?~
Rob87DM: ~I must admit, that is among the easiest of the things you could
have requested. Just...if you run into any Authority-looking figures on the
other side who ask what the hold up was...don't mention me. I'm in enough
trouble already.~
NewEyeSight: No! Was anyone ever really ready to die? I wish to have the
chance to have something to ask for. I wish to live, really live, and to make
mistakes.
Rob87DM: ::he sighed, gritting his teeth:: ~I...look...I don't like it
anymore than you do, but the fact remains that you died. I can't change that.
Unless you want to live in my crowded, unstable head for the rest of my
life?~
NewEyeSight: No. She looked around, still not believing he was not a diety.
Who else could hold her here? Half dead. I don't like the darkness and I
doubt you'd let me hang curtains. Please? I don't think it was time to take
that path. There is
NewEyeSight: a reason I'm here. Right? Oh, let there be a reason. She'd
lived an entire life not having a worth besides monetary and even then not
that much.
Rob87DM: ::he turned in place, his paws stepping onto a suddenly visible
surface of rippling black sand, solidified particles of darkness catching the
light of great multi-hued cumulus clouds above which were also suddenly
visible::
Rob87DM: ::the grass was consumed by this sand as the floor fully formed,
creating a work of architecture that was not entirely unlike a balcony.
Behind them was the rest of the obsidian and opal structure, and in every
other direction off
Rob87DM: the edge of the balcony there was a beautiful yet grotesque
infinite landscape of constantly shifting clouds of every color, and even
some colors that didn't exist. The things were all psychotropic, never
looking the same for long::
Rob87DM: ~It's best not to think too hard about predetermination or meaning,
other than that which you give yourself. Fate and Prophecies can only change
your life if you allow them too.~
NewEyeSight: She didn't care about fate or prophecy. It was something
entirely different that she would have to teach the other another time.
Though, planning ahead at this stage was probably ill advised. Fate and
prophecy? You don't understand,
NewEyeSight: she felt the words a little more now, playing again even as she
reached to try to feel the stone of the balcony. There was a dimmed awe in
her. This, she realized, was what she was. She changed but typically she was
just what she
NewEyeSight: was. The sand changed colors, moved and was really quite
impressive. But it was sand. It was no more real than she, which was a
question that was foremost in her mind. Perhaps I mean for them to? I will
this change, good or bad.
Rob87DM: ~Fair enough, fair enough, but you'll need to tell me what "this
change" is, since I'm the only force at work here besides Nature--which wants
you dead--and I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing!~ ::a bit of a
laugh::
Rob87DM: ~You don't want to die, but you can't live without a body, and you
don't want anything else. That's not very decisive.~
NewEyeSight: Then I want a body. She was decisive, just not picky. So long
as Kolava didn't put her in a celery stalk or something with a similiarly
short and immobile life span. Or a child's toy. Creepy. And... I don't wish
to actually harm
NewEyeSight: anyone. I suppose that would be wrong of me. There was a doubt
there. The girl believed she should be allowed to live and narrowing down the
possibilities seemed counter productive. This shouldn't be so hard. I can
wait a while.
NewEyeSight: Just... not too long.
Rob87DM: ::blinks, not having expected that kind of request:: ~....~
Rob87DM: ~I...~
Rob87DM: ~--bodies don't just grow on trees, you know.~
NewEyeSight: I volunteered to be patient, you know. But no more darkness.
Rob87DM: You can stay in Lapizæro for now. ::he nodded to the structure,
which was a more or less permanent feature in this nebulous world:: --but,
again, I don't think I'll be able to find a body you like...
NewEyeSight: Like? Will it have legs? She wasn't looking at anything else
now. Instead, she focused on him. Ways to pick things up and look at them?
Ears? Eyes?? I definitely need eyes to see where I am going. And a good
mouth, to taste with.
NewEyeSight: The rest. There was a ripple through her in place of a shrug.
Shrugging seemed kind of silly. I don't care. So long as I can be free.
Rob87DM: ::he frowned::
NewEyeSight: She mimicked him and then tilted her head to the side.
Rob87DM: Well... ::he rubbed the back of his head:: ...when you put it that
way, I think I might have something in mind.
NewEyeSight: She perked and her presense brightened all the more. It was
going to happen! Really happen! What? Well, she didn't know the specifics.
She did not care about the specifics. Change was starting, things were in
motion and she was
NewEyeSight: along for the ride instead of pedalling madly in from to avoid
being run over. She was free! She didn't have a verbal answer to it though,
she just... sparkled.

[Solace]

Since I know who "NewEyeSight" is... ~not saying anything~ All I can say is WOW!

Reminds me of a movie I saw once that I fell in love with. 'What Dreams May Come' with Robin Williams.

The concept that you two have come up with for this little SL is fabulous. ~huggles them both~ I look forward to reading more and seeing how this whole thing turns out. The roleplay is impressive as hell.