I Am You

[Killthorne]

Warning: The following is total meta-info.

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Elleia took leave of her friends as they laid Fox to rest on a bed in the Lordly Bower room of the Golden Oak. He had nearly been cleaved in two by two large stag beetles, his life strands barely tying him to the Material Plane. She was exhausted and emotionally depleted from Wind Rose's dangerous outing in the catacombs. Barely managing in keeping her mind clear of vindictive thoughts, she had to keep pushing the joystealer back for fear that she might seek retribution upon the vermin there.

Purchasing a key from Linda, she went to one of the cheaper rooms at the inn and locked the door behind her. In the small room, a mirror stood in the corner. It had been awhile, she thought. She had never seen her own face while it was in control. She could only wonder.

She grasped the sides of the mirror with both hands and stared intensely at her face. Deep inside the recesses of her conscious thought, she felt it churning and bubbling like a cauldron filled too full and heated to boil over. Elleia let the feelings of fear and sadness wash over her, abstractions of emotion easily grasped with thoughts about Fox's near-death experience. Saltwater pooled at her bottom eyelids and a solid line split across the skin of her forehead. The glossy transparency of her corneas began to flicker like two illuminated rubies, until both of her eyes were sparkling like two glowing jewels.

Elleia strained against the torrent of dark thoughts invading her mind. Dark shapes with cold iron instruments made for pain. Shackles bound at hands and feet that itched and burned like a rash. Fingers deep inside the skulls of different horrified faces. Insidious laughter as a woman stepped off a chair, her legs quivering in the air, sounds of choking. Sweet and rich anguish tasted like candy.

Elleia's slender fingers clenched the frame of the mirror as she tried to keep her head above the waves. The muscles in her neck contracted painfully as her head twisted and contorted against the rush. And then she felt it, her defiance and power rising above the chaos racing through her mind. She felt separated from the darkness, yet still it was there, as if she was standing in front of a great storm.

" Joystealer." Her voice was quiet and serene as she focused in on her own two radiant, vermilion eyes.

"You already knew what I am... you didn't need to search as you did." The face in the mirror sneered at her in response, spitting out words in the tongue of the fey.

She did not believe its words. She spent tendays searching the Vault of the Sages for anything on what it called itself the first time she tried to speak with it like this. Insoril, it called itself. A devourer of meaning. She asserted her will on the image in the mirror, the derisive smile shifting to an tense frown.

" I did not know. I don't know what you're talking about." She took a deep breath, a puzzled look on her face. " I think you should know that I know what you want, what you can't have. What you were and what you are not anymore."

Silence. Elleia waited for what seemed like forever for a response from the joystealer. She was about to assume full control over her mind and body when a lecherous smile formed out of her lips, her brow lowered, darkening the area around her luminescent, scarlet eyes. Elleia then felt like she was shoved against a wall, held firm against the back of her mind. All she could do was watch as sinister-toned, Sylvan words fell from her mouth.

" You think you know so much about me. You don't even know yourself. Let me put it in plain words for you to understand. I know what you want and what you cannot have. I know what you were, but can never hope to ever be again. I may not be able to devour meaning and pain from this world like I once could, but you provide all of that. An endless feast."

"... stop." Elleia winced at the words, barely managing to mutter out her plea. Her facial expression twisted briefly in her protest, but was soon uniformly wicked again.

" You are so convinced that we are inflicted with each other. That you'll keep trust with others... with your lover," her image in the mirror snickered, "by seeking pity for your miserable condition. When are you going to admit that you enjoy your power? When will you admit that you revel in seeing life torn asunder by your will alone? When will you realize that everyone is afraid of you?"

Elleia tightly shut her eyes, concentrating hard on ridding herself of it. She focused on Fox's patience and love for her, on Olaf's friendship and compassion, on anything that kept her in control. It was saying things she did not want to hear. The dark fey, however, did not relent.

" When will you admit the truth about us? When you will acknowledge that truth? You killed her, you know. You probably killed him too. Why do you think he left you behind with complete strangers and just disappeared?" Her own face mocked her with a brief, false sympathetic expression and then returned to its malevolent smile.

She gritted her teeth and shook her head in denial. " No," "I did not," and " I couldn't have," repeated in her mind.

" When will you accept that I am you? "

Elleia's own will suddenly stumbled forward to having control over her body, as if the oppositional weight against her became ether. The red glow in her eyes vanished almost instantly, as she trembled at her knees. Elleia's firm grip on the mirror frame now weakened and freed itself as she slid and crumpled to the wooden floor. The fleeting confusion of thoughts mixed with utter exasperation, the denial and confirmation stirred her slowing thoughts like molasses as small streams of water trickled from the corners of her eyes along paths of least resistance across her cheeks and nose.

She could still hear the echo of her own voice as she succumbed helplessly to much needed sleep.

"...I am you."

[NESchampion]

Very nice.

[Swift]

I'm your truth, telling lies,
I'm your reasoned alibis,
I'm inside, open your eyes,
I'm you.

Sad but true

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pq2OXVuAvQw

[Killthorne]

I was thinking of more the Beatles " I am the Walrus".

~Killy~