#dexterity.

GOLDEN PHEASANT. XI FEI   —   27,  W.

Avoidance: You avoid most attacks on your person. (+) avoid anything that can be used as a weapon including bullets (-) not infallible, you will get hit 5% of the time if their aim is good enough (-) makes you the perfect bait.

HISTORY

cw: death, guns

THIS IS A HELL OF YOUR OWN MAKING. The moon grew pale with envy, the stars dimmed among your hair, and the ocean crawled along the ragged shores all to steal a glimpse of the girl who they might one day die for. Yours was an ephemeral childhood marred only by the Machiavellian subservience in your blood. Your family stood at the side of vicious creatures, more men than monsters, and dedicated their lives to the devotion of another. The treachery of your family was moon-soaked and filled to the brim with understanding of something they could not comprehend. You were naive then believe your beauty as something unassailable, but you were the world in motion and the universe spun along the axis of your want. It was a simple feat for foreign rage to untie the silk wrap in your hands and motion you to fulfill justice’s desire. Too late did you learn the truth. It lingers now, the everlasting ache of regret, the incendiary desire to twist time in on itself and suffocate misery until it cannot feel; because although you were would have been made to spill blood at least it would have never been yours to taste. Perhaps they deserved to burn for all they did, but just as they suffered for their misdeeds, you too paid the price of family.

The past stared not unkindly down the barrel of a gun at a girl with no past and no present to be seen. They wanted you. They pitied you. And in the obsidian glint of your eyes they recognized a danger they could transform, raw material they could shape into something new, something strong, something durable. Your pretty face had no use to them, no effect to their efficiency for they were no stranger to the coy temptation of a woman under duress. No, when you joined them there was an understanding that you must become their equal or you would be left behind. Adapt or die, there was no other choice. In moments of rare silence there is a realization: this is what you asked for but who paid the price for its end? What girl replaced you in the interim of being and self decay? You miss the woman you once were, would betray most anything to become acquainted with its love once more. You understand why your family found solace in the night for being good requires a sort of death most are not willing to pay.

CONNECTIONS

STARLING  ﹒  I CANNOT LET YOU BURN ME UP. I CANNOT 

In the mirror darkly you witness STARLING seated in a chair you once called your own. She dons smiles you taught her how to perfect, eviscerating hearts the way you used to eat them. She is a world away now and you can only watch as she lives a life inversely parallel to your own. It is history moving forward and back — pity as anger as envy for the life you showed her (that you allowed her to steal with such pretty words). A lifetime passes without thought and STARLING has stumbled back into the wasteland of your life. It is a cruel place you have learned to live in, and you watch without amusement as she stumbles over debris as though never have been subject to a life like yours before. You do not question why she has sought you out, you do not give her the time to answer. When she reaches out for you all she can do is grasp at the shadows of her memory. Once, you let her into the depths of your soul, now, you will not make the same mistake.

PEACOCK  ﹒  I WANT TO EAT YOUR ROUGH HAND THAT CARESSES ME

Where did it all begin, when did it all go so wrong? His attention follows like an endless nerve seeking a comfort it can never find. It terrifies you, your willingness to let him document your descent — a slow submission to the power of the world. Beauty was an oppressive force when you had allowed it to control your life, now it is the only thing you can cling onto without fear of suffocation. His camera follows carefully, immortalizing the lucidity of your life; and each time you believe you have found a rope strong enough to pull yourself out, his disinterested gaze makes you falter before you have even begun. You are the last terrible thing on Earth, and PEACOCK wants to make true the rawness of your life. What he wants is not perfection, what he wants you is to see how far you will unravel until you’re completely undone. What scares you the most is how willing you are to abide.

LYREBIRD  ﹒  IT IS LIKE A FLOWER / BLOOMING IN INJURY

What is friendship if not carefully planned costs, an evaluation of needs and wants and desires to the money that procures them? What LYREBIRD is willing to part with is of no small consequence; and although you internally question why they ask of you to befriend NIGHTINGALE, you do not force them to explain their reasoning. You cannot afford this line of inquiry when it is them who provides you with the monetary means to an end. They gift you all the luxuries you can no longer afford to ration, a silk dress, a jeweled earring, these gifts are contingent on the matter of your success. and all for the price of a stranger’s companionship. It is pathetic how far you have fallen, how they take advantage of your wretched self-imposed state, but you understand this arrangement as only temporary and you cannot afford to lose this hope. You reason with yourself that when the world is right again they will be the first to fall. No one may see the darkest parts of you and leave unscathed. This is the promise you make to no one but yourself.

HUMMINGBIRD. LAWRENCE LYKAIOS   —   26,  M.

Speed: Can run to incredible speeds (+) can slow down time for only yourself  (-) physically very weak and slow after using the power (-) time limit of 30 seconds from your perspective.

HISTORY

TWO LIVES DIVERGED ALONG A MOSSY ROAD, only one made it out alive. Born wretched, the second to all things good, you were merely a reflection of what burned bright already. You have never been good enough, and this will never change. The bones in your body weigh more than the purpose you are given, and when you succumb to the infinite, you will take your name down with you. In the forest, what you bargained to ensure your survival was nothing less than the total sum of your parts. It was your hand in his heart, his face accepting of his fate — you could have saved him then for looking so sorrowful (for loving you when you are so unloveable). Had your brother survived, perhaps he could have seen past the trees and into the forest. Perhaps he could have rescued you both, but this plaintive thinking cannot resurrect the dead and so has no use to you. The last kind thing your father does for you is strip you of your name. Yes, you should have died that day, and perhaps in a way you still did, but your brother made the mistake of loving you and that was his fault. 

There are meadows now, and the grass sways in the wind with mournful motions. It conceals the peril within it with venomous precision, but such danger does not matter when they are too slow to catch you. The wind cuts like a knife and makes you bleed in penance. Things matter less now than they did before, you crave no one’s approval but your own — and yet, at times, this too seems an almost impossible task to complete. This is your fate, to hunger and yearn for more than anything anyone is willing to give you. You will never be satisfied, but that has never been your priority, disorder has. You may have found a place to call home within the marrow of another’s fate, but you do not forget the qualities which define you. So, when you hold the skull, as you do everyday  analyzing it for signs of mistreatment, you can only question why such an object holds so much meaning. It is a sadistic thought, a self-important one, and it drives you to understand that if everything matters, nothing does.

CONNECTIONS

FALCONET﹒  I FORGOT SOFTNESS BECAUSE IT DOES NOT SERVE ME

You look at him, ready to sink your teeth into destruction. From the peripherals, you’ve always seen the potential of his unraveling. The edge of chaos is a thin line and he stands at the very edge. A leap of faith for some, an endless abyss for you. A chasm of torment masked by vicious uncontrollable ruthlessness creates a black hole where once existed a heart. But misery is less cruel in company - in another world perhaps you would choose to save him. That’s what a true friend should do. But what good ever came in fleeting goodness? Suffering was inevitable, pain signified reality and the state of the wickedness of the world around you. Its very purpose was to push the limits of all possibilities. You want to show him what it means to embrace the nothingness - it is only then that he will see the world anew. Nothing mattered, nobody cared - be selfish, be greedy, be monstrous. And maybe then, you’d finally find solace in your own reflection.

STARLING﹒ UNZIP MY SKIN TO SEE WHO I TRULY AM

A story of what ifs, that is what you propose to her, together you could end the world - destroy, recreate, reconstruct and then end it all again. STARLING gazes in twisted wonder, a delight sparks through your skin. “Why not”, she taunts. And that is when the dance begins, where you offer your hand, you hold back in anticipation. Greatness comes to those who wait. So you held your breath. Show me your rage, your disgust, every ugly feature that shrieks from within. But she ran and you found yourself back at the very beginning of dawn empty handed. Determination and obsession sets you on a chase to see how she intends to make the world pay. You will stop at nothing to bear witness to her design. Then it’d be your turn to finish with apathetic indifference. “Let me be cruel, let me kill a part of myself to show you how it dies.”

ROBIN﹒ THE RELIEF OF ANNIHILATION 

There is comfort and there is malaise. ROBIN numbs in a manner of anesthetic encouragement, a soothing cold calm voice, she speaks and you hear words of a speaker reciting an insincere eulogy. And yet, you do not mind. Dead or alive, all of your aimless wanderings are machinations of your own device. You can see clearly the fascination and manipulation of every thinly veiled lie. Her desire to touch the very chaos that char the edge of your soul glistens in cold blooded excitement. But she does not understand that what she sees is merely the iron gate. Hell remains beyond the sorrow in your eyes. You give her a promising show to watch, your lips strung into a fabricated smile. FALCONET would be the first to fall into the ravine and then she’d be next. ROBIN beckons your darkness as if she had the power to control your demons but you’d be the one to pull her into the void of your own making. To see clearly, you must first be blind.

BLACK HERON. BADR   —   27,  NB.

Darkness: Create the illusion of darkness. (+) can last an infinite amount of time (+) can vary how strong the darkness is  (-) can only be used on one person at a time (-) must be focused on the power while using it. 

HISTORY

cw: gambling

A QUESTION: WHO BECOMES YOU WHEN NO ONE IS THERE TO WATCH? Who measures the space in-between yourself and yourself? Exhibit A: you are a friend; the night is lonely and they extend their hand toward yours to receive a note. Their palm is soft and warm and you murmur how cruel a person must be to inflict such sadness. You swear to protect them in the same breath you refuse to take their heart. It’s not the right time, but then again it never will be. Exhibit B: you are a swindler; a nouveau riche couple sits at your table and requests of you a favor you cannot oblige. The woman’s eyes glisten in humor, entranced by your dexterous hands, sinful mouth, the way you conduct a symphony of cards and confusion. She learns forward and the pearls around her neck fall like teardrops into your waiting pocket. There are accusations of course, and a person must fall, but no one pins the blame on you for a smile and a nod of the head has the world forgetting your name. Exhibit C: you are a riddle; a fragmented portrait of accolades with no interest in possession. The treasure trove of stolen goods sits at your side as a memento of something other, a trivial pursuit forgotten. There is in everything you are a contradiction: how can something so empty feel so full?

An answer: you don’t feel much of anything. There was a time when reflection meant more than idle melancholy but that time has passed and so too has another version of you disappeared. Nothing but the yellowing paint on your wall is left of your beginning and whether it’s folly or fondness you understand even that as something to overcome. You see this and every part of the riddle so clearly, but still you cannot move within the density of this fog for it too only grows heavier with time. So it becomes a game of push and pull, bend and break; who will succumb first, what thing will invent a new you? The hazard of consequence hangs above you in a tantalizing display of decadence, fashions itself as a daring new enigma. It is a thrill no-one can subdue, and that you will always forgive. Danger is only so alluring as the price you’re willing to pay for it. 

CONNECTIONS

SNOW OWL ﹒  AND ALL MY TOMORROWS ARE YOURS

The beginning feels like a lifetime ago. A delicate girl with eyes too wide to see the sun, and the stranger who pinned her as a target. She was naive then, folding to the contours of some vague silhouette you couldn’t define. In her hands, she gave you the secrets of her world and in the same breath captured you in a game of her own design; prey becoming predator, and shadows melting into light. Time has transformed her, made her cruel, and in this rebirth you have come to realize something important: you have always been playing her game. There was never a moment you weren’t. Now, even with years filling in the space between you, falling next to her feels as natural as the dawn rising in the morning. Like a shadow stuck to the arch of her heel, wherever she goes, you follow, and together you rob the world blind of all they are worth.

CALADRIUS  ﹒  YOU ARE THE KNIFE I TURN INSIDE MYSELF

You can see it so clearly, so plainly, that you feel foolish as to have ever been misled at all. The realization doesn’t come quickly, but with time you understand your infatuation not as love, but as jealousy. A dark unfurling want for his station that you would do most anything to take it away; and had you not seen his mask slip, felt the dark undercurrent that ran though his veins, then perhaps you too would have still been misled by his portrait of solemn duty. But the man behind the facade is less than the thing he expresses and you will expose him for all that he is. There can be no supposed divine being that walks among man without being sacrificed first, the doctor is no exception. So why do you hesitate at the perch? One hand around his neck, the other with a knife to his stomach. It would be easy to let him fall but the fact of the matter is you cannot kill a thing so similar to your own disguise.

SPARROW  ﹒  I HAVE NO HOUSE, ONLY A SHADOW

cw: depression and implied self-harm 

In the summer heat you found them half-alive, sleeping in a river you once called home. Their arms wrapped around you in a haze of dreary thought, sunlight itself weightless in your arms. They were a whisper of a person and looked right through you with such disinterest that you were certain the moon must have already stolen them for themselves. Their head upon your shoulder, they spoke to you of certain fragile things. Love, as you knew and would come to learn, was a creature with no name and no face and a violent thing to endure alone. You knew then that you could not give them the thing they deserved most, but you could provide an alternative. It was a promise, a word with no meaning, and it was the passing of time under the same lonesome stars.

STARLING. SOLÈNE D. HEREMOER  —   26,  W.

Ally Empowerment: You strengthen other people’s power or natural skills (+) works on non-nihilum where the enhancement a person is given is based on their personality e.g. making someone more charismatic, or having them appear scarier than they are — for nihilum, you can make their magic more powerful (+) has control over what trait/skill she enhances (-) must be in proximity of the person for the enhancement to work (-) magic may work on multiple people, but empowerment is lessened (-) passive ability, you must be focused for it to work on a specific person.

HISTORY

cw: implied suicide

THIS STORY IS TOLD IN A THOUSAND DIFFERENT WAYS, in a thousand different songs, by a thousand different people. Still, this story is yours and yours alone to retell. It begins with a girl and a name she sheds like skin. There is little light where she comes from, little pity for girls like her, and darkness swells like a throbbing heart in the marrow of her home. The girl survives not by strength or wit or charm but by the callous hand of luck. It ensnares the lives of those more privileged than she and demands she adore the hand that feeds her. It’s a waste of her potential. The flowers she tends to are not worthy of their beauty or their fortune or their lives — and if violent beginnings require violent ends than she will become the hand that reaps them. But all things soft require a delicate touch and so it is her with open arms bent low in supplication that rotting flowers tend toward. Her hand over theirs they do not take notice of the slow dismembering of their lives. Only when there is very little to survivie on does she reveal the cause of their infection — only then does she take what should have been hers to begin with.

In every death you’ve overcome you leave a piece of yourself behind for the ravenous girls yet to be. They’re minor deaths and the things you lose in the interim are quickly replaced by other golden objects. The latest iteration of the life begins and ends in coincidence; a fated affair that released honorable men and women of their senses. What you offered was nothing short of divine inspiration and in your clever care they transformed into something more than they ever thought to bear. You unnfurled desire like a scroll and became the muse for all things great and powerful. Swathed in gold, you did not want for much. However, familiarity breeds contempt and shortly after your fixation changed from one devastating thing to the next. You live a fine life now, killing every iteration of yourself so that no one knows where you came from, so that no one may understand your desire. You will not allow anyone to lodge a knife in your ribcage, turn the thing so you suffer once again. You will die each day until the sun does not rise and when you finally succumb to death it will be at the hands of yourself and no one else’s.

CONNECTIONS

GOLDEN PHEASANT﹒  THE FLOWERS ALL AROUND ARE SOAKED WITH BLOOD

Is love not synonymous with hate? Envy with pity? Desire with apathy? GOLDEN PHEASANT was spared from the fate you survivied, and in their hesitation you understood that some girls will always be wanted more than others. You recognized early on that she was a doll to be looked at — pretty and useless and completely unaware of the life around her; and you hate how even in her most vile state someone still wants her. You look upon her with hate because even if she is forced to distill herself into something more transparent she is treated with more deference than anything you had previously known before. Fine, so be it then. You’ll come to her with submission in your eyes and your palms turned up. You ask for forgiveness and lay by her feet to weep. This facade will take time to develop, for her to be deceive, but eventually she will be and no matter how much you loved her, you vow it will not be enough to save her.

NIGHTINGALE ﹒ THE MOON SHINES LIKE A LOVER

Even as a child you knew the world was not enough; nothing could ever satiate your hunger, no dream was big enough for you to want. What you desired was for man to give you meaning, but what he failed to supply you pray NIGHTINGALE will do with ease. There is something sacred about her, something you wish to possess. Most people you meet are only worth half the time you spend on them, but not her, never her. You know this to be certain just as you know the moon will rise every morning. She will be the thing to complete you, to make you whole. And by befriending her, allowing your shoulder to be the perch she rests upon, you will one day come to understood her completely. When that time arrives you will then become her.

HUMMINGBIRD﹒  THE GRIT OF LIFE AND THE GRIT OF DEATH ARE EQUIVALENT 

It was a pastime, a hobby that transformed into a terror. HUMMINGBIRD pulled you into the tightly wound dance of his life and left you unable to speak. He wore danger like a cut tie and brought you along as company to the end of the world. “What would you give for its destruction,” he asks, “What would you do for it to end?” This is a story that tells itself without ever being asked, man seeks a way out and asks you to join him. Man offers an apple and forgets it is rotten. HUMMINGBIRD is a beast unto himself and does not inspire the devotion you are accustomed to. So when the spring arrives and brings with it new life you forget about him. You leave his name as a whisper in the wind and you move onto others unlike him. This is the lie you tell yourself to overcome the fear that he may be different — that he might actually do what he says he will.

MALLARD. RACHEL HUANG —   28,  W.

luck manipulation: you may endow others with improbably good or bad luck. (+) whilst someone is negatively affected, probability shifts out of their favour and tasks which would have otherwise succeeded are less likely to (+) no limit to the number of times this may be used (-) not always effective (-) only limits the probability of success, does not make it impossible (-) frequent use is draining for the user

HISTORY

WHEN THEY ASK HOW YOU MAY WISH MISFORTUNE UNTO OTHERS, you will respond simply – misfortune is all you have ever known. You have been marked with a darkness since you were born, difficult to see until it isn’t – until you burn anybody who dares to venture close enough to the fire. You have always been a lost cause, you only live because you are too stubborn to die, clawing at survival with the desperation of somebody who knows what it is to have nothing, to have no one. Even the Beast cannot rid you of your isolation, even the Beast cannot glue back together your broken fragments and create something whole. Work, now, repay your debt. Maybe you will finally heal and move forward when you learn to stop scratching the wounds of the past.

CONNECTIONS

DOVE﹒

He claims the Beast speaks directly to him, and you do not know how to feel. When you first crossed paths with Dove, he had seen himself as a god and you were nothing but a criminal. When you crossed paths again, he had fallen from grace as you had just started to find your footing. The third time, you are finally on equal ground, allies in a fight you don’t quite understand. Your history is complex, but it is freeing to have someone bare witness to your story in the way that Dove has.

SNOW OWL﹒

You see Snow Owl for what she is – host to a corruption which runs just as deeply as your own. Once, your relationship had been symbiotic – a mutual desire to take and to cheat and to never face consequence propelling you to work closely with one another. Once, you would have recognised her anywhere, through any disguise. Now, she exists as just another stranger in a room, witness to your debt.

BLACK HERON﹒

Perhaps, in another lifetime where you learn to become less selfish and more trusting, whatever you had with Black Heron could have been wonderful. There are only two ways the collision of stars can go: a beautiful display of dazzling light, or a destructive explosion of fire. What started as the former quickly became the latter, and whatever existed between you burned brightly but quickly, dimming into nothingness as summer days faded into autumn nights. Black Heron is not the only scorched romance left in your wake, but they are the only one who has managed to be dragged back into your orbit – whether this is for better or worse is yet to be determined.

SHRIKE. ALTHEA EVANGELINE ARANDA   —   29,  W.

Climbing: A quick escape, a shortcut. Something Althea has always searched for, not realizing that life is not made up of crevices to slide into and roofs to perch upon. Life takes effort, a long haul, a dreading sense of unease as each minute passes by in anticipation. Althea had to make something of herself, to make her power make sense. It was also a good way to let out tension, climbing up walls, rock climbing, utilizing her strength to enhance her ability. She was never one to be afraid of heights, especially not as a bird.

HISTORY

WHAT YOU DESIRED CANNOT BE SPOKEN OF AGAIN, instead, it dangles in front of you just out of reach. You, staring the Beast in the face, act as a god; your word bringing life from nothing and those you once held dearest down into the deep earth below. It is not until later, when you try and grasp for any semblance of your past life, that guilt overtakes you. You look a gift horse in the mouth and run away from it, hiding in shame. You try and reconcile to no avail, your life in shambles from a selfish, pleading wish that comes from childhood dreams and fairytales. But love does not work that way. Years after the aftermath of your destruction, you assemble yourself into a human once again. The game the Beast plays is not an easy one and the semblance of a family and love stands in front of you now. You can’t help but wonder if this was divine intervention or the path you were fated to walk from the start.