Faint x Murphy: Fauxborn, touch
Touch is a complicated subject for the Divine Mother.
Murphy is never touched out of respect for her status, except when she is touched out of that same respect.
She births the fragment of God over and over, God dragging her back, and the touch of that is...never the same. The only thing that is, of course, is the unpleasantness.
Even now, she can feel Him twitching inside of her breast, the Divine Fetus lurching about her heart.
Mythag has claimed that they'll find a way to rid her of her burden, of course. But she knows better than that. The Divine cannot be so simply wiped away, like blood dripped upon a stone floor. No, it lingers more like ink on a blank page. An eternal stain, a forever mark.
Her other self may have been fortunate enough to Awaken after God left her and thus is free of that weight, but herself? No, she remains forever and ever, the Mother of the Divine.
Ugh. Her eyes burn. So does her skull. Murphy reaches up to press a free hand against her forehead, the other adjusting her parasol to catch light that is not there. Useless.
So useless that she brushes into someone else passing by. Someone else floating by, actually.
A girl, a woman about Murphy's own age, a pale stick of a thing, whose eyes are too big and limbs too long to be either human or Seafarer. Someone from elsewhere. In a strange floating chair carrying her about.
They touch. Just enough. That-
The itch, the pain, it...lessens. At that touch. Suddenly Murphy can see once more. Focus.
Murphy raises a hand to her chest, to test, to pry. Nothing. Stillness. No kicks and jitters at her heart, that force her at times to stay and only breath.
"You...what did you do?"
"Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I shouldn't touch you!" The pale girl blabbers. "No one should, I drain, I take-"
So it seems. But only just enough for a God to still. Not dead, she's certain, not dead anymore than she can be, but there's...less. Less than before.
Murphy reaches out to grab at the sleigh, the crib, whatever this carrier is called. To once more brush her hand against another hand, a hand somehow paler than her own with skin thin enough to see strange veins pumping inside.
"-!"
"Stay still," Murphy commands, every inch the queen she is and always will be. "Your touch...what is your name?"
"Faint."
"Faint. Very well." Murphy nods, firm. "We will meet and do this again, in, hm, say, a day. Same time, but come to my rooms."
"To...touch you?" Faint's pale lilac eyes gleam and glow, like jellyfish of the depths.
"Yes. To touch me, skin-to-skin." She taps her parasol against her leg, tentacles creeping about from behind. "I expect you to be on time, or I will seek you out myself, understand?"
"...hnnn."
With that, Murphy turns and leaves. This Faint seems the intelligent sort but also shy. She may have to carry out her threat tomorrow.
~
In the end, Murphy does end up hunting down this Faint, Faint who is is with another girl who appears to float like the pale Faint does, though in much darker shades.
This girl gasps upon hearing who Murphy is here for and even waves Faint off to go with her. Excellent. A possible avenue to find Faint through later on, because Murphy certainly does not intend this to be the only session of theirs.
"Your room is very...dark," Faint offers, once inside.
Murphy glances about at the dark curtains blocking the windows, the gauzy veils hanging about her bed and lamps and so forth. "I suppose it is."
"...is the light hard for your skin and eyes?" Faint drifts slightly closer with her question.
Murphy breathes through her nose. Like she thought, intelligent but shy. "I have...migraines, you might call them. Lower light helps but does not eliminate. What does..."
She reaches out. Skin-to-skin. Again. "Is this."
Again, the pain lessens. Breathing feels less of a luxury and more of a given. Pleasant. Murphy settles down on the edge of her mattress drawing the floating Faint closer as to more fully rest the weight of her arm on her.
Get more skin exposed. Connected.
"So I'm draining what hurts you, instead of you. Oh." Glowing lilac eyes flicker and burn once more.
"You could say that."
"But it is that. That's...good. I don't want to be a burden on you, being useful is good."
Murphy cracks open a drooping eye (when did she get so tired?) to properly give Faint a stately look. "Of course being of use to me is good."
She pats the mattress. "Come, lay next to me."
Faint simply stops. Breathing, moving, she's a statue in her still drifting cradle.
"I mean it. Come here." Murphy tugs at the arm. Sits up to more fully glare.
"...if I hurt you, you'll tell me? Tell me to leave?"
Probably not. "Of course." She tugs again. "So. Come."
And Faint does, leaving her cradle with twig limbs that don't seem ready to quite hold her up, collapsing into the soft materials alongside Murphy.
With her there, Murphy feels...her eyes are closing. Sleepy. Tired. Funny that this would be what would work, after all those incenses Miryam has tried for her, to bring her to sleep.
But perhaps the secret is in simply less pain, less pain from the God whose life Faint seems to draw away.
It's...good.
They'll have to do this again, of course, as she mentioned, Murphy decides. And perhaps have Faint go shopping with her, try a few treats, she really can't let her go unrewarded-
She yawns. She sleeps.
~
Upon hearing little strange hisses and snorts, Faint carefully pushes herself up on her front. Peering at the curious Awakener who demanded she come here. Demanded that she and Faint...she burns at the thought, at the action still happening. Touch.
Her hand is clasped in the other girl's, this Murphy's. The new Murphy, not the red loud one everyone knows already. The paler one, who is much more fierce and angry. More like the other Seafarers already at Mythag.
Even now, Murphy scowls in her sleep, hair tossed about her head in waves.
But when Faint tries to draw her hand back...the scowl deepens. The touch, the grip tightens.
Like she doesn't want Faint to go. Like no one else ever has, except Tinct, except Tinct whose life Faint ruined.
But. She's not ruining Murphy's life now is she? Murphy feels better with her touch. Useful. Helpful.
Maybe, just maybe.
Faint wouldn't mind doing this again.
