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SPRING TEST DRIVE MEME
⚰︎ ⍢ ⌲ ⍚ TEST DRIVE MEME:
Welcome to RUBILYKSKOYE — a dark, horror-smut game where player choices will drive a mod-run storyline about the world and its NPCs. This test drive meme provides a medley of prompts evoking the game's general tone.
THESE THREADS CAN BE GAME CANON if both players are accepted into the game and agree to it. However, if players who'd prefer to start fresh are welcome to reuse these prompts in their own personal logs upon acceptance into the communities. Note: the universal test drive arrival prompt will not be repeated on the coming event log, but players are welcome to reuse the prompt.
CONTENT WARNINGS for this game include: monsters, body horror, dub-con, non-con, religion, blood/violence, and marking/branding, loss of autonomy/self, and mental influences. This log additionally has warnings for: murder, bondage, sensory deprivation, aphro, coercion, waxplay, whips, free use, and orgiastic behavior.
If you have QUESTIONS about the test drive prompts, please ask HERE. Questions about the game itself or the general setting should be directed to the FAQ.
FAQ ✧ SETTING ✧ CALENDAR ✧ RESERVES ✧ APPLICATIONS
THESE THREADS CAN BE GAME CANON if both players are accepted into the game and agree to it. However, if players who'd prefer to start fresh are welcome to reuse these prompts in their own personal logs upon acceptance into the communities. Note: the universal test drive arrival prompt will not be repeated on the coming event log, but players are welcome to reuse the prompt.
CONTENT WARNINGS for this game include: monsters, body horror, dub-con, non-con, religion, blood/violence, and marking/branding, loss of autonomy/self, and mental influences. This log additionally has warnings for: murder, bondage, sensory deprivation, aphro, coercion, waxplay, whips, free use, and orgiastic behavior.
If you have QUESTIONS about the test drive prompts, please ask HERE. Questions about the game itself or the general setting should be directed to the FAQ.
SPRING TEST DRIVE MEME
TDMs in Rubi are posted every quarter at the beginning of the season. As such, this TDM is open until the next TDM is posted in July.
Feel free to post on this TDM until the Summer TDM goes up. Please check the Calendar (linked above) for more information on precise dates.
Feel free to post on this TDM until the Summer TDM goes up. Please check the Calendar (linked above) for more information on precise dates.
IN THE WOODS SOMEWHERE
The chirping of partridges in the treetops rouses you. Light barely filters through the canopy, just enough to suggest daylight. By the time it reaches the forest floor, the light has taken on a sickly green. You lie amongst the dewy mosses and ferns, upon cold soil and feeling just a little damp on your bare skin.Wherever you were before this moment, whatever you were doing or wearing, when you awaken in this forest, you find yourself naked and helpless as the day you were born. As you sit up and get your bearings, aside from a brief wave of disoriented nausea, you seem to be no worse for wear than you last remember.
You seem to be alone. The gnarled oaks and moss suggest no sign of civilization or sentient life. Just flickers of movement from curious squirrels or brave lizards emerging to cast a suspicious eye upon this new creature appeared in the woods. With your feet under you, you'll find the wood is filled with berry bushes and nut trees. The freshwater stream that runs north-south, populated by both poisonous toads and delicious crawdads, is running actively again as the weather warms into full spring bloom, a hint of humidity in the air.
As you explore, you may encounter caches of clothing left in painted crates or placed in hollow tree trunks. They contain loose shirts and trousers, perhaps even a moth-eaten coat, along with a note that includes a bare-bones explanation for your arrival and a sketched map toward town. You may also run into others with stories just like yours. Some may have already formed clumsy nudist groups, others may still be processing their confusion, with no memory of how they got here. Now is a good time to overcome any hang-ups you have about modesty; it's going to be a long hike, and the weather isn't quite amenable to your lack of.
Turn your back to the darker, shadowy parts of the forest and eventually the glow of manmade lights and the curve of a dirt road may come into view. At the edge of the wood, you'll find a town surrounded by a fifty-foot wall of beige stone. The only entrance is an iron gate positioned on the southern edge. When you arrive, the gate is already open, welcoming people inside.
This quaint, historic town of a couple thousand has cobbled streets and signs lit by gas lamps. Wooden shutters protect otherwise open-air windows on the buildings, which are all under three stories with gabled roofs. A number of businesses hug the main street – a clockmaker, a cobbler, a grocer – while residential homes sprawl outwards towards the wall. At the far end of the main street, visible about a mile to the north now that the trees and the enormous wall is out of the way, sits a castle with three towers. However, there's a stressed, ramshackle air about the town – multiple buildings in varying stages of disarray or construction, charred edges to wooden walls, as if some local disaster had taken place a few months back, and the townsfolk are still picking up in the aftermath.
When you enter, the streets are full of busy people bustling about, but despite any efforts on your part to hide or make excuses, they don't seem offended by your nakedness. Even families with children don't gawk or look twice. Those determined to find proper clothing regardless will find that modern clothing stores aren't available – the closest this town has is a tailor's shop and a stand in the central marketplace selling scarves and blankets.
breaking and entering
If you intend to have your character break into someone's house or yard to steal some of their clean laundry, please review the info about game laws on the FAQ and give the mods a heads up HERE.
Fortunately, the most of the townspeople are very generous! Anyone who ask the locals will be directed to the boarding house for both clothes and a place to stay. Accessible through an embellished iron garden gate and obscured by hanging plants, trees, and vines, beyond an overgrown yard in the residential sprawl of the town is a bright-red door, which opens to a spacious cottage of several stories. Parts of the house still bear the dust of disuse, gathered on various furnishings – bedding, sofas, curtains, wooden tables. However, it's already full of people! Once inside, you may notice patchwork repairs have been made, some scorch marks still linger from a fire about a year back, and the place seems somewhat in disrepair
Tonight, a few of the townspeople will help out with the new arrivals. They stock the kitchen and prepare a communal dinner: a thin stew of parsnips, pheasant, and squash. During dinner, they (and those outsiders who've already begun to settle) sit down at the enormous wooden dining room table and help orient the newcomers and answer their questions. The town has recently been brought back from the brink of a terrible calamity, newcomers are told, and everyone is doing their part now to restore it to its former glory.
FINDING ROOMMATES
Don't spend too much time in the dining room going for seconds, though. You'll want to claim a bedroom quickly because each one only has two full-size beds, and there aren't enough spaces for everyone. The last people upstairs will need to double up to squeeze in. Roommates will not be mod-assigned; players should coordinate directly with one another to determine their living arrangements.
Get a good night's rest. By the light of day, locals will help get the new arrivals set up on the coal stove with breakfast. You may notice they're dressed in a way you would almost call normal – at least, in a manner befitting 19th century Eastern Europe. As you find your way around town to get your bearings, folks are eager to help you find a place to apply your skills so you can contribute to your new home.
writer's block?
If you're struggling to pick a way to engage the prompts, try: naked hiking, acquiring clothing or other inventory items, asking questions at dinner/orientation, or staking your claim on a bedroom!
SPRINGTIDE FESTIVAL
The flowers are blooming, the birds are chirping, and what better way to ring in spring than with sweet blood sacrifice in its honor?All around town, somewhat macabre decorations have been arranged... with a floral, spring-like twist. Animal skulls adorned with painted red-and-pink flowers hang from doorfronts, streaming flowing trails of woven ribbons and ivy. Garlands of dyed eggs are strung from lamp post to lamp post. Stalls line the streets, offering intricately worked leather masks for festival goers along with decorative bits of neckwear strangely reminiscent of a hangman's noose. In addition to satisfying the needs of the curse marks that afflict the townspeople, the overarching theme of the festival seems to be a celebration of communal endurance and defiance of death.
Festival Entertainment includes, but isn't limited to:
- A wrestling ring in which naked, oiled up combatants are also offered a choice of weapon from a wooden mallet to brass knuckles to a tiny knife barely the length of a pinky. Nothing that's likely to kill anyone outright, of course, just enough to spice up the competition a bit.
- Various competitions of endurance upon the stage, from lying perfectly still as hot wax is dripped over one's naked body to a whipping game where the first to yelp loses, and another where prone volunteers have clamps affixed to nipples and genitals, with increasingly heavy weights attached. Losers are hung upside down for communal use, thighs spread and notched for every person who partakes... but all in good fun and the spirit of shared pleasure.
- A version of blind man's bluff where several kneeling participants are blindfolded and their wrists and ankles hobbled with a knotted length of rope. The first to crawl up to one of the circle of onlookers and bring them to orgasm is deemed the victor and may leave the ring, while the losers may be expected to play another round… and another… until they've succeeded in claiming their own victory.
- A crude public shower and sauna have been set up to rinse off and relax after festival fun. Be careful to stay hydrated, because the temperature inside the sauna is steaming hot. Cups of cold tea are served to all in the sauna, leaving a refreshing tingle in your extremities... and an urge to put your mouth to use upon another person's body.
Almost all of the food and drink present are dosed with the Rubean's usual blend of stimulating aphrodisiac herbs, so common in their cooking as to be totally unremarkable – and not something they would warn anyone about before partaking. And of course, there is the ever-present orgy in the background, taking on a bestial, animalistic edge as festival-goers revel in pain and pleasure alike.
For every shared carnal experience during the Springtide Festival, partners will leave matching marks upon each other – a shared bloody 'X' carved on the left shoulder, a bruised imprint of teeth on the right buttock. These wounds are proudly displayed for all to see, with those who've accumulated many marks being treated like rockstars, adulation and cheers following in their wake, toasts raised in their presence, and people eager to approach and further add to their collection.
And of course, those who bear few-to-no marks are all the more likely to be propositioned by fellow Rubeans, and looked askance if they refuse. Everyone is expected to share in the springtime spirit, after all.
As a general rule, the Rubeans attitude toward the strangers among them, also known as Void-touched, is one of welcome, generosity, and social pressure bearing from gentle encouragement to actively overbearing, with an emphasis on conformity. Now that you're here, of course you'll want to start contributing and acting like a proper member of the community! But beware, for not all of the villagers are open and welcoming to the new Void-touched. Some, known as the Zlatniki, resent the presence of newcomers who don't respect their ways, don't offer proper worship to their Goddess, who flaunt their outsider status and lead members of their community astray. These villagers may resort to trickery, coercion, or even violence to ensure compliance.
WRITER'S BLOCK?
Join a competition on purpose to prove your endurance, or alternately find yourself 'helpfully' shoved into line to go up on stage. Find yourself dodging grabby villagers or swoop in to save someone else from being propositioned. Share awkward eye contact or a cup of tea in the sauna.
VESENYA LOVTI, THE SPRING HUNT
At some point, in the bath, while you undress, or even during the throes of passion, you might find the name of a stranger written somewhere upon your skin.
At some point, you might catch a glimpse of an act of wanton, inexplicable murder. A laundress toppling over with an arrow jutting out of her eye as her fellow washerwomen yelp and hurry to make sure she doesn't fall into the well. A farmer enjoying a pint in the tavern, only to fall out of his chair, coughing up bloodied bits of metal shrapnel while the barkeep looks on with a smile. In the aftermath, a shadowy figure skitters down the rooftops and rips a silver locket from around the laundress' neck, and the barkeep casually cuts the farmer's ear from his head. While most onlookers seem only mildly put out by the inconvenience, some even cheer or egg on the murderer.
At some point, you might hear someone asking around. Does anyone know who this is? With your name upon their lips.
If you ask around, you'll learn of Vesenya Lovti, the Spring Hunt and an annual cultural tradition among the Rubeans. For those not in the know, during Vesenya Lovti, a name of a fellow community member will appear somewhere on each Rubean and Void-touched's body. The Duchess has decreed that the goal over the month's standard festival revelry is to kill that person before getting killed yourself, and a trophy must be taken by the killer from their intended victim and cast into the festival bier in sacrifice. Worry not, for their benevolent Goddess will resurrect all who are killed just in time to catch the festival's closing ceremonies. And of course you'll be participating, right? Wouldn't want to disrespect your generous hosts' local customs, after all...
WRITER'S BLOCK?
Murder and be murdered. :') Or do your best to avoid both. Save a stranger from a knife attack, or whisper a warning into someone's ear about the poison lacing their meal. Ask around to find out about your target (feel free to make up NPCs), while trying to stay discreet. But be careful. Interfering too much in someone else's hunt or being too outspoken about 'barbaric practices' might earn you a trip to the stocks, at least until you've learned to be a little more open-minded about traditions that bring the whole community together.
THE FATHOMLESS DARK
At the outer edges of the forest, shadows grow long and the air grows thick. Though the sun never grows warm red-gold with sunset, the wood darkens. Birdsong is replaced by the click of mandibles and the skitter of many legs. Anyone who ventures out this way will soon find it difficult to see before them, even in the middle of the day – eventually, even the brightest magical light source or darkvision cannot stretch further than a few inches. In the void, the air feels heavy, as if it were not air at all but some more solid mass. Almost like liquid-smoke, it presses down upon you. Slowing your movements. Characters who push too far into the void may stop being able to move at all, and find themselves given over to insanity if they collapse, unable to draw themselves out. This is just one of many dangers.
Monsters thrive this far out. Huge, blood-red spiders the size of hunting dogs drop from the treetops. In addition to their venomous bite, which contains a fast-acting paralytic, these creatures are clever: they attempt to use their webbing to entangle any trespassers, binding limbs together or to trees. If you're unfortunate to become fully cocooned, you don't have long before this forest will be the last thing you see.
In addition to the spiders, you may come across the sharp-toothed furred yetis that emerged during the snowstorm, still looking for a meal. Each one hunts alone, a fifteen-foot-tall shambling creature that drips black ooze and super-chills the air around it until your skin feels tight and icy. If it gets the drop on you, you're likely to be its dinner. It has emerged from a long summer hibernation to enjoy the colder weather, and it's starving.
Those who seem lucky enough not to run afoul of the monsters here are in for a worse fate. The void can play tricks on your senses. As madness sets in and you lose all sense of direction, you may also lose control of your body – what is that steers your hands to turn against your friends? Why does it sound like your own voice whispering?
In the fog, you may also hear the voices of those familiar to you – people you know from the town, or people whom you know with almost perfect certainty aren't here. these figments may recreate unhappy memories or force trespassers to hallucinate their worst nightmares. Nothing is as it seems in the void, and when you swing at these figments, desperate to silence them, it might not be a figment at all, but a friend in the flesh trying to help you. By the time you see their true face, it could be too late to stop yourself.
writer's block?
If you're struggling to pick a way to engage the prompts, try fighting a monster, hallucinating your worst nightmares, and/or attacking a friend or stranger!
RELEASE YOUR INNER BEAST
Something's wrong here.
The marks worn by all residents of Rubilykskoye aren't just cool body art, as it turns out. The town is full of rumors, whispered in shadows and over candles of a starving creature hiding in the dark corners of your chest. Feed your inner beast, they say, before it finds a way to feed itself.
Alas, its emergence is inevitable – sooner or later, the horrible things that happen here pile up and make someone repulsed by the idea of human contact. Someone holds themselves back, bites their tongue, or simply does not believe the stories. Today, for one reason or another, that creature is coming out. Someone hasn't been keeping it sated.
Symptoms escalate over weeks, from monstrous irritability to full-blown body horror transformation, where people physically shed their human forms and evolve into the monsters this place made them. Once a person becomes something more (or less) than human there's only one way to go back – sate the beast.
Abram, the potter, narrowly survives a poisoning attempt during the spring hunt, but the stress of it has sent him over the edge. The salamander shape of his inner beast – duchozweirz, the natives call it – rampages through the stalls of the festival, leaving a trail of char and ruin in its wake and spitting molten rock at those who might attempt to quell him.
(There are other monsters lurking in every townsperson – feel free to invent your own npc monsters and scenarios!)
The marks worn by all residents of Rubilykskoye aren't just cool body art, as it turns out. The town is full of rumors, whispered in shadows and over candles of a starving creature hiding in the dark corners of your chest. Feed your inner beast, they say, before it finds a way to feed itself.
Alas, its emergence is inevitable – sooner or later, the horrible things that happen here pile up and make someone repulsed by the idea of human contact. Someone holds themselves back, bites their tongue, or simply does not believe the stories. Today, for one reason or another, that creature is coming out. Someone hasn't been keeping it sated.
Symptoms escalate over weeks, from monstrous irritability to full-blown body horror transformation, where people physically shed their human forms and evolve into the monsters this place made them. Once a person becomes something more (or less) than human there's only one way to go back – sate the beast.
SOMEONE ELSE TRANSFORMS
Abram, the potter, narrowly survives a poisoning attempt during the spring hunt, but the stress of it has sent him over the edge. The salamander shape of his inner beast – duchozweirz, the natives call it – rampages through the stalls of the festival, leaving a trail of char and ruin in its wake and spitting molten rock at those who might attempt to quell him. (There are other monsters lurking in every townsperson – feel free to invent your own npc monsters and scenarios!)
YOU WAITED TOO LONG
At first, as you hide yourself from your darker impulses, a subtle itch develops under your skin. An irritability that makes you snap at the person who bumps into you on the stairs because all those fleeting emotions that you've been repressing bubble to the surface. Every dark thought you've had about being here, all the fears of never getting home, of being surrounded by ticking time bombs, the anxiety of wondering who you might hurt or what relationships you might betray by doing what you have to do. The anger. Oh, the anger.
Maybe you shut yourself in your room or run into the woods to hide away, but there's only so much you can do to deny the itch that grows into hunger like a spark catching and growing to wildfire. Someone comes to check on you. That knock on the door or crunch of leaves in the wood that fills you with dread at what you might do and hope that you will be sated.
As claws and fangs and scales and spines and fur grow and your body transforms with a sickening crunch of bones and peeling of skin, so do your appetites. If you won't sate them, you'll lose yourself to your beastly impulses sooner or later, mauling friends and taking your fill. Is it better or worse if only your claws get inside of them?
Maybe you shut yourself in your room or run into the woods to hide away, but there's only so much you can do to deny the itch that grows into hunger like a spark catching and growing to wildfire. Someone comes to check on you. That knock on the door or crunch of leaves in the wood that fills you with dread at what you might do and hope that you will be sated.
As claws and fangs and scales and spines and fur grow and your body transforms with a sickening crunch of bones and peeling of skin, so do your appetites. If you won't sate them, you'll lose yourself to your beastly impulses sooner or later, mauling friends and taking your fill. Is it better or worse if only your claws get inside of them?
no subject
Standing, she shuffles back to the kitchen for another bottle.
As she makes her way, she keeps a light patter up.
"Perhaps we should make this something of a habit. Build your tolerance back up—once a week, you drop in for a bottle or two. Vax could join us, if he wants. We can all catch up on gossip."
no subject
But now, there's a bit more breathing room. Somehow, that still applies here, despite everything: He's got more free time than he's had in years.
no subject
Just... far enough.
"There was that night with the Herd, before we brought down Umbrasyl."
Which isn't exactly fresh in her memory, but it wasn't so long before she arrived here. A day.
"For me, that was the last time we all drank together. And Vax didn't drink."
no subject
He leans forward for the new bottle of wine, his balance slightly off. He's not particularly inebriated at this point, but he's got enough of a buzz that he doesn't stop to think before he adds, "We had a glass or two before everyone left - along with the most chicken I've ever seen in one place."
no subject
It's strange that should be what gets Vex's attention. The reminder that the team goes their separate ways is an unpleasant intrusion into the moment, something cold and blunt.
And she's not sure how to respond to it.
Does she have to respond to it?
no subject
Everyone leaving feels less terrible to him than it could - but again, there are missing steps he doesn't currently see. He's done the equivalent of pushing her off a balcony without mentioning the ladder down to the courtyard below.
no subject
It doesn't take a genius to get from chicken to cock.
no subject
A shrug. He's spoiling some of the nice bits, but perhaps she ought to hear some of them. He doesn't want to speak only of the worst moments of their lives.
"Now, we're lucky they had sparkling wine on hand. I wouldn't have liked to see what they would have whipped up on their own."
no subject
Some things are better left for the future.
She'll try turning to other details.
More important, at the moment at least.
"Well. I do enjoy a sparkling wine."
no subject
Immediately after he says it, he realizes just what it is he's alluded to. His mouth goes dry. "My, erm, my point is, there'll be plenty to drink to. You know what? Never mind."
no subject
There's a reference there, she's sure, something else she's missing.
"Sit down with me, darling. I think we're both feeling the booze a little. Should have stocked some bread and cheese."
Or any food, something to suck up the alcohol and keep it from hitting so hard.
no subject
Putting his foot in his mouth is inevitable; he's lucky he hasn't simply had out with the full bloody truth. At this point, he nearly wants to, if only because trying to avoid it is agony. But it still seems like a horrible thing to do to Vex, throwing the future at her and demanding she consider it relevant.
"I'm sorry." He sighs, pushing a hand through his hair. "There are...some things...that are difficult to talk around. Particularly when I'm inebriated, it turns out."
no subject
Very risky.
"Should we find another topic? I suppose drinking would probably remind us of home." She won't reflect on what that says about them. "Or... if there's something you feel I should know...?
no subject
It shouldn't be so damned hard to keep this a secret. Secrets have been his lifeblood before - he kept his past from her for years. But he'd wanted her to know nothing of the Briarwoods, nothing of the horrors he'd survived. And this...loving her has never been something he's wanted to hide.
The only way out is through, in this case - not saying it outright, but explaining the broad strokes of his dilemma. "You're here, and you're...reasonably happy, considering. I don't want to throw a wrench into the life you've built, just because it's inconvenient for me. Perhaps we should talk about something else, but I'm going to be a coward, Vex'ahlia, and I'm going to make you decide. If you tell me now that you don't want to know, that'll be the end of it."
no subject
She doesn't love that answer, but it does seem rational.
"Whatever it is, if it's trouble now, it won't be less trouble later."
no subject
He downs the rest of his glass like he's knocking back a shot and sets it down with a little clink. A little breath, a bit of rearranging so he's angled toward her, looking directly at her - and then there's nowhere to hide. No reason to, really. If he's sent stumbling back into the sunlight towards the boarding house, at least it'll be with the knowledge that he's given her what he could.
"Vex," he begins, reaching for her free hand. "You've...oh, God, I don't even know how to say it. Without spoiling everything good ahead - we're happy, and we're safe, and so is Tal'Dorei. Last I saw you at home, you were falling asleep in my arms, and the only thought in my head was how lucky I was that you looked at me and saw someone worth loving, and that I was still there to love you in return. That for once, everything seemed to be turning out right.
"Which made waking up in the woods...well, a mindfuck, and discovering you've been trapped here, tormented by circumstances I can't even begin to imagine, was my own personal hell. Because I love you, Vex'ahlia, and I wouldn't be alive right now if you didn't love me, too."
There's more, so much more - I'm glad you've found happiness and I'll try not to hate these paramours of yours and But I hate the idea of sharing your affections, among other thoughts - but it already feels like he's swallowed up most of the air in the room. He forces himself to stop, watching her intently in search for an answer.
no subject
And also sometimes shockingly unself-aware when it comes to her own emotions.
Percy had a good reason to be anxious about what would happen when Vex heard the truth.
Her expression clouds as Percy speaks, her brow drawing together, a certain light going out of her playful hazel eyes. She doesn't physically withdraw, but he'll be able to see it; he's seen it before after all.
It's the face of a woman who's very carefully arranged her romantic life, avoiding entanglements, then only grudgingly allowing a few people closer, finding space for them in a heart that's guarded like a sovereign's treasure vault. It would come as no surprise to Percy to learn the word love hasn't come up yet in either of those relationships, nor has Vex allowed herself to use it in the confines of her own mind. Being confronted with it now drains the vitality from her expression and makes her ears droop faintly.
It's as though she can see him smashing though all of her careful work with so many words, upsetting the delicate balance she's created.
"Percival..."
no subject
That doesn't change the twinge of disappointment he feels, of course. It's difficult to push away that awful sense of I knew it, I knew better and I did it anyway, or quiet the little voice that can offer dozens of reasons Vex might look at him and regret the choices she'll make in the future.
(The truth is, she deserves the world, and that inevitably means that the truth is, she could do far better than him. Her insistence that he's all she wants is a miracle he can't expect to hold up in all times and places.)
(He's very glad he isn't sober right now. That seems like the only thing that would make this conversation worse.)
"I don't expect anything from you." That seems paramount, assuring her that she's no more tied down than she was two minutes ago. He gives her hand a little squeeze, then lets go. "Things are different here, and you've found...others. You have my word that I won't interfere with your life here."
no subject
And she'd buried it here. Because she had to. Because how else could she survive? Because she found herself wrangling feelings for others, and while that never took away from her love for Percy, it was too much to hold all of them at once, especially when she had no idea when or if she'd see him again—
"Why did you turn me down, when you got here? If you love me why would you do that?"
no subject
There's no way to say this that won't hurt her, he suspects. Already this discussion has gone pear-shaped, and they've hardly begun to have it. He can see the pain in her expression - and worse, the way she's doing her best to manage it. If it were anything else, he'd be comforting her, but he's caused this. The best he can do is try to soften the blow as best he can.
"It seemed unfair to you," he admits, looking down at his lap. His shoulders slump forward slightly. "And to me, if I'm being entirely honest. You'd just described a place of...of endless violence and coerced orgies, where being together isn't simple, if it's even possible. Asking you to sleep with me solely to keep me from transforming into some hideous creature, acting as though I thought anything that passed between us could be casual - how could I do that to you?"
no subject
"You wouldn't be the first person here to fuck both of us."
It's a cruel thing to say, lashing out.
Vex would generally like to believe she's better than that, but... well, obviously she's not. The reminder stings her, probably as much as Percy. Something she'd vaguely tried to avoid at first.
It hadn't lasted.
"I don't know that anything here can be a betrayal at this point anyway. Certainly nothing you do would break any oaths you've made to me."
no subject
Even if there are no oaths between them. Even if he walks away from her and they avoid each other for the rest of their time here.
There's anger simmering in him as well, petty fury at the circumstances more than at her - for the moment, at least. Embarrassment, too: that he hasn't managed himself effectively enough to keep his secrets from her, that even a shred of him was naive enough to think that confessing the truth to Vex might work out in his favor.
no subject
Somehow, the idea of Percy being here with his younger sister seems so much worse than she and Vax being together. They were twins, and if there are some thing siblings should be spared in each others' lives, that line has always blurred somewhat for them.
The line felt significantly more defined in the De Rolos' case.
"Fuck, darling..." Vex trails off, pours herself more wine and drinks it too fast.
Maybe she won't figure out what to say after all.
"I hate this."
no subject
Cassandra's finally caught a lucky break in her life, inasmuch as she's not among Rubilykskoye's citizenry, and he can't be anything but grateful for that. He feels rather more complicated about the other options; while only the cruelest of gods would have dragged his other younger siblings here, he has to admit that his older brother and sister would technically be fair play. If Vax can be here, dead in all but name, why not Julius or Vesper? Hells, why not his parents? Is this fate worse than the one forced upon his family at home?
Restless nights have given him far too much time to consider, and he's decided that it's for the best that the worst of all the de Rolos is the only one present...but some selfish part of him envies Vex the time she has with her brother. Having the time to say everything that needs saying to someone who'll never come back otherwise - when he's alone and feeling less than optimistic about their chances of escape, it's something he covets impotently.
But he can't think about them now, not when Vex is looking like she might fall to pieces at any moment. She's strong, always strong, and holding herself together as best she can, but even a stranger would see the distress making her gulp her wine.
"I've also had that thought." He might not be good for much right now - breaking her heart has rather colored the afternoon - but he can at least try to comfort her. No more booze for him; he's had enough that he probably can't walk a straight line at the moment anyway. No more self-pity, only reaching over to embrace her, if she'll let him. Into her hair, he murmurs, "I'm a selfish bastard. I like seeing you happy...and having you all to myself."
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This isn't how she wanted to end up in his arms.
"I don't know what to do with any of that," Vex admits. "But I wouldn't call you selfish for wanting to see me happy. I don't—"
She breaks off there, not finding the words. Is it wrong to nestle against Percy's chest and wonder what she's missed?
Apparently what she will miss if she doesn't make it home.
Of course that only stirs up the knowledge of what she'll lose when she leaves.
"Perhaps this is proof that it was bad luck to love me."
It always has been in the past. Why should that change now?
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