A/N: gore warning.
I fell to the floor on my side as I gripped my throat, flushing with brilliant red liquid. I choked, I cried, I gritted my teeth and grinded them so hard they started chipping.
Pain.
Oh– it was so familiar to me, yet it still hurt like it always did.
Come on, Vincent… Stop the bleeding, stop the bleeding, stop the bleeding.
My fingers trembled as I slowly reached for the blade of the knife puncturing my neck.
Lucius got up from his seat at the head of the table, a forlorn look on his old and worn face. He walked over to me and kneeled down, ripping out the knife from the neck and taking ribbons of flesh along with it.
"I'm starting to lose my patience with you, Vincent."
I kicked my legs out like a struggling fish out of water, streaks of thorny lightning coursing through my body as my life trickled away.
"You're foolish in the worst way possible… It seems to me that you love depreciating yourself so much that it makes any progress result in nothing."
He studied the knife, wiped off the blood and stabbed it into my side.
A shrill scream ripped through the air of the lush and cool plain, the clouds swimming through a blue sky.
"This is… nothing, Vincent, get used to it." He put a finger up to his lips glazed with blood. There was a disappointed look in his eyes, "Do you want me to stop?"
I couldn't hear him, instead the pain reeling me through multiple dimensions in my mind overwhelmed my body–it was so much and so little at the same time, the grass pricked my skin and the cool wind fed on my wounds, sending more pain through my body.
One hand on my throat and another on my side as I curled within myself like a shrimp.
"Guess I won't stop." He raised the hand with the knife.
I put a hand up- but the maniac wasn't done.
***
Lucius looked at his handiwork, it was almost worse than what Blair did to Vincent. However, when Blair 'roughed' him up, Vincent wasn't even close to anything human. It was easy for Blair to dissociate what she did to something when it didn't resemble her.
But what Lucius was doing to Vincent was something she couldn't bring herself to do to even nightmare creatures.
Instead of squashing like a blueberry under his foot, Lucius took the more intentional method of creating small 'slots' in Vincent's body, each leaking blood. His human silhouette was very preserved, except the surface of his was turned into a beehive.
Vincent's defying hands that fought Lucius's hands became more useless. Flopping to his sides like eels, they shook with every new stab wound.
'And he's aware of each stab.' Blair hooked one finger around a white tea cup with golden patterns and almost brought it up to her mask. She paused when she realized that she had a mask on, and also because the tea itself wasn't real. The comforting smell and the warmth was all an illusion. She and the others were still in the mirror ballroom, and everything surrounding them now–the flowing green grass, the refreshing blue sky, the wind, the sunlight–was all made from mirrors.
If she drank the tea, she would find her stomach shredded by shards of mirror like termites in a wooden house.
Blair turned her head to look at the black prism containing the figure made of out stars and strings of light. The individual in the prism, like her, was a wielder of a god's legacy. Specifically, Lucius said that the entity in the prism held the War God's legacy.
While Blair couldn't fully understand what the manipulation of mirrors and illusion had to do with the Goddess of Life, but then again, she was the goddess of technology, craft, and progress. Perhaps one of those attributes was the reason why the prism man had abilities related to mirrors.
She set down the cup on a white platter and looked back at Lucius's carnage.
Vincent's eyes were rolled back in his head and the rest of him…Blair couldn't properly describe it. All she could say was that she lost her appetite, even if the food in front of her was real, she wouldn't eat.
'When will Lucius stop?'
Lucius was a confusing individual, he had an aspect and ability that allowed him to look into the future and every single one of his prophecies came true without failure. It was downright terrifying at times, to know that someone knew everything at any point in time including your own death.
…
Blair had long come to terms with the death Lucius said was inevitable for her.
"Stop." Vincent's voice sounded quite normal, casual even.
Lucius did stop and stared at Vincent's dark eye which stared at him. A bright expression creeped up Lucius's face and he smiled, "Oh, wow! Seems I got the best future for this one, now, how do you feel?"
Vincent hissed through his teeth. He looked away from Lucius and stared at the grass scratching his nose. "...I-"
Even Blair had to stop herself from leaning closer to listen in on what Vincent was saying. She had seen his astonishing healing abilities firsthand, yet her mind still couldn't grasp it.
Vincent's stab wounds were already starting to ooze with pink flesh that stitched into itself. His eyes started to gain a little light as he became more and more conscious of himself. He swallowed.
Vincent shook his head and reached for Lucius's neck, and wrapped three fingers around it.
"Die." He whispered, and his hand exploded. A red mist covered the entire dining table, softly painting the place with blood.
'He used his aspect.' Blair thought, looking at Vincent's hand which was nothing but limp pieces of bone and tendon.
Blair turned her head to look at Lucius, his entire face splattered with blood and flesh–yet, he was unscathed.
Blair put one leg over the other, 'This is where it starts.'