#altcy

This is what Predicted Unit: Cyborg is wearing to the Blue Moon Ball. Of course she isn’t carrying the sword about with her but she does have food hidden about her person. :P

The decision was made. It had to be. A decision to take the bull by the horns and once again walk a path you thought you'd never pace again. You had to really. Who else would? Sure you could leave it for someone else to find, but who else would know all you did and could connect what it meant? You liked to know and it led to connections in your mind. The memories and the things you had since discovered were beginning to form a clearer picture. The purple trail down the shallow river had caught your eye, leading you to the discovery of the small, purple stained body. You could just about make out it was some black-feathered bird, but that same purple that had infected the field, stained Lore's skin was much worse upon this avian. It'd almost been engulfed, and now it lay dead in the water, legs at odd angles, wings broken and thick blood-filled purple mucus oozing from its lifeless beak. The crows. The crows were spreading the sickness. And this scene told you so much and could probably tell the Castle so much more. You had to warn them. But... Nights said to leave... This was more important though. You didn't have to stay, just deliver the message. The body. You took a glass jar from where someone had left a row to dry outside in the sun in Katton, you used a large piece of flat slate to pull the body towards the shore then lift it from the water and into the jar. You flinched back as the thick mucus seemed to try and strike your hand, almost snake-like... the lid was slammed on and twisted quickly and you sat back to observe the contents from a distance as it lazily travelled the sides seeking an exit that no longer existed. Even the sickness is out to get you... Now you were walking back down that path. Headed towards the gate you were once told to never darken again. "You’re such a brave girl..." Funny, you'd never thought of yourself as 'brave'. You were so scared all the time... Bravery was acting despite the fear and often you ran from it instead of acting. But the fear of seeing others ending up like the crow in the jar far outweighed your fear of Nights' anger now. It was time to do the right thing again.

It's late. Sleep wouldn't come to you, so you were out now pacing Katton in a daze. Too much on your mind to consider, weigh up and try to solve. The world seemed to be turning on you once more, one by one they cut you off and dismissed you. But you tried so hard this time... Maybe it's just the lack of sleep you've gotten in the last few days that's doing it, but your head is aching again. That deep, sharp pain that makes your brain feel as if its throbbing... ... And a voice comes out of nowhere. Quiet and gentle and almost out of earshot, the words indistinct and muted. But from the tones, the sweetness you can tell what it is. A lullaby, the type only sung from a mother to her baby. "She had a lovely voice you know." Now a figure stood on the side of the water, staring out across the water at something you can't make out in the dusk. Not that you remember there being anything there and the figure seems... off. So much brighter than they ought to be in this dim lighting. It's only when you realise there's no shadow cast by him and your visual does a familiar distort that you realise this man is not really there; does not exist in the here and now. "A memory...?" "It was the last thing she did you know, before we... lost her. She sang her heart out to you, so that you might have one good memory of her to keep with you." "She loved me didn't she?" you speak the words in your own voice as you hear your younger self say them too. "She did my girl," he sighed and you realise that you've heard this voice before only echoed as if from the other end of a tunnel. Now he turns to smile in your direction, and you see that warm smile that you remembered. You remember him. "But never doubt that I love you just as much dear." You remember him. "I will stop your pain one day my girl, I promise. Your father promises he shall." You remember him! You reach out, stepping towards the face hiding his sadness behind a smile and a promise. The memory fades out to nothing just as you are seemingly about to touch him. Then, nothing. And again you feel as you did that day at ten years old, when you saw his blood on the stair of the ruin that had been your home... "D-Dad..."

"You need to rest!" No, you needed to know. Even if your vision was hindered and your hearing muffled, even if your still newly-augmented legs felt just as weak as they'd done just after the operation. Young you were, but you could tell from his voice, his expression, what he said and what he didn't say that something had happened. Something he didn't want you to know. Where was...? Why had you come to in the cave? You were going home. "... I'm sorry." The words were meaningless, you barely heard them. Your mind was consumed in such emotion that you'd never known. It couldn't be true, your good eye must be lying to you. But no matter how much you blinked, turned away and back... you couldn't deny what it saw. Your legs had collapsed at some point as you'd accepted the truth of your sight, even as the bandage over your other eye grew sodden in the driving rain and slowly slid away from where the roof timber had pierced your other eye's socket; where debris had as good as cut away one ear. The raindrops slid down the purple lens that filled the broken socket. The aerial on the metallic earcap sprang free from the binding, gently trembling in the breeze that chilled you. The same wind and rain was gently beginning to soak through to the ash that stood in a heap where your home had once been. Only the stone doorstep had survived, and the rain couldn't rinse away the stain of blood already dried upon it. At the young age of ten years old you saw how cruel those who wouldn't understand difference could be. (So, who remembers this piece I did about two months back? Yeah, say hi to the context...)

"Leave!" The voice was filled with rage, with hate. Your recollection of the face seemed to focus only on the man's eyes, blazing with a fury you'd seen before with so many villages before... "Leave us!" the crowd behind him began to demand of you. "You beastly construct! You bringer of ruin!" You tried to stand up for yourself, to protest that you were no threat and to appeal to their humanity but they pushed you backwards, stumbling on your young legs. "What would a mistake like you know of humanity?" they asked... And so as you fled another area with a friend's words ringing in your ears, those words from a painful past finally came back to you. No one was willing to recognise you as an equal after all. I was right...