The Stained Canvas

[Morgan]

Moniker. That took Morgan a moment. At first, she assumed Peps was talking about a shadowname, just doing so with a dash of subtlety, but "dead by the state" could only mean so many things. Well, really only a few things, and with the other context clues, it was safe to say that her dear sister's father had been a fisher of men.

For a moment, her mind catapulted back to a bar in Detroit. A dark, gloomy place, the tables dusty, the floor covered in rat shit. But, hey, beer came in bottles, and her mentor told her to go there with the veil wrapped around her eyes. She'd seen a man walk in, unassuming, average, and yet he came with company. Hands reached out to grasp at him, rotting, mutilated hands, rising up from the floor, reaching out from the walls, grasping at his clothing, his legs, and yet with each effortless step he dragged them all forward with him...

It had been a serial killer. An aberration her mentor had said. A glitch in the Exarch's failing design. But what was that worth? Especially to Peps?

She wanted to say, "I'm sorry". Something. Anything to address the pain that she knew her sister was going through. To acknowledge that, well, that she should have been there for her sister when she first learned of this. To acknowledge that this shouldn't be news.

"The didn't deserve you," she said finally, knowing it was painfully inadequate, but at least it was something.

"And no, I didn't learn anything down in Mexico. Not about my past, anyways. It was a strange time. In a lot of ways, though, while I'm sorry that I, uh, left the way I did, I'm not sorry I went. I don't think we would be having this conversation if I hadn't gone."

Morgan hung her head, unable to meet her sister's eyes. That night was still fresh in her mind. Broken plates. Throats screamed raw. The stench of burnt rubber filling the night air outside.

She blinked, and looked up again as Peps, or Briar Rose, showed her the tattoos.

"Well, what do you think? Are we strong?"

[Briar Rose]

She knows her words are rolling and roving through Morgan's mind. Pack hunters, snarling and howling after the feathered wing beats of her sister's soul. Briar Rose knows she's an aberration. Stained and shattered, copper Kintsugi joining the broken pieces of her soul.

She knew what she saw and felt and understood, what she was supposed see, and feel and understand. She's never asked a Moros, with their ghostly sight what their views where, if they would see her as whole and hale, if she wasn't an anomaly in the cycle.

But Morgan wasn't just a Moros, she was Arnie, her sister. What did the women who had been a girl sharing threadbare sheets as the winter winds battered against their single pane windows, rad off and teeth chattering.

Briar Rose's left silent besides Morgan as she contends with the hounds and thickets. Fingers moving along the strokes of the hand poked ink. And when her sister speaks, she barks out a laugh.

"I don't think anyone deserves us, but each other." comes her voice, looking now at the women beside her, "And I get it. Some things have to break to be beautiful. To part to join. If we never..." remembering rage and grief and throats screamed raw, "I don't know if we'd be here."

She smiles, then, sharp, fierce, and full of teeth.

"We haven't been eaten."

[Morgan]

Now that was it. That was all she needed to hear to lunge forward and wrap her sister in another unnecessarily fierce hug.

"Goddammit, I've missed you, Peps," Morgan confessed, a small, warm spill of salt leaking from her eyes. There was so much more she wanted to say. So much more about how she'd been afraid she'd broken what they'd shared, broken the only tie that had meant anything to her, or worse yet, broken something in her sister. But those were just selfish thoughts, the bastard spawn of too many hours alone beneath the corpse light of dying stars.

"Aw, shit, I sprung a leak," she added, extracting herself with a small sniffle.

"I missed it when you did that, though. Offered those insights. Can't believe I survived without it, but you're right, we haven't been eaten yet. And now it'll be even harder for them to choke us down, huh?"

[Briar Rose]

"I missed you too." she says, feeling the leather shift and squeak under the pressure, feels the give and pull of the fabric underhand. Briar Rose basks in the closeness and warmth, her own mind following the same trails Morgan's thoughts wander. "Better get some flex tape." she warbles a laugh, pulling away her own eyes wet.

"Of of it I just stole from fortune cookies." She snorts, "But yeah. We have have knives and claws and Truth. We do the eating."

[Morgan]

See the glisten of tears in her sisters eyes was almost too much. She almost sprung a leak again. But they'd already spent so much time apart, so much time that had been filled with tears, whether it was in the dark of a cell, listening to the sounds of a stranger snoring, wondering if she'd even see her sister again, or those quiet moments in the day when she'd visualized her sister's corpse, and dreamt up all the deaths that could have befallen her. But here Peps was.

Alive.

Laughing.

Crying.

Marked in indelible ink.

"So what have you been up to?" Morgan asked, desperate to know a little more, desperate to shut her imagination out with word of the truth.

"At least tell me a little bit more. Aside from learning about your family, what's your life been like?"

[Briar Rose]

"What have I been up to..?" she echos, thoughtful. Pulling away, but not separating. "I've been...living life. I haven't used a drawing table or an easel in years. I stopped hiding behind them. I've....wanted to know you too. I'm not on hard stuff, but not straight edged either." would that shock Arnie to know? Her teacher's pet, club going, geek of a sister. "S'how I found the Wides." she flicks her eyes up a smirk crossing her lips. "Hell of a trip eh?" a laugh.

"I've stopped letting things tie me down. I'm Free. I've seen the Truth of things, and I'll be damned if i'll allow anything to shackle me." a proud, jut of her chin. Arnie'll understand. Briar Rose knows, without having to ask. Her sister, is her sister and she is Awakened. "Been, drifting, really. Nomading it up. Motel to motel, or dirt pile in the woods. Building and their roofs." a careless shrug. Loose and confidant in herself. Her words.

"What about you?" she asks, "I know, Mexico, and stuff. But...." she leaves off, allowing her sister to fill in the silence or not.

We should prolly start warping soon.

[Morgan]

"Well, it's kind of a long story," Morgan replied, abashed, a hand rising to brush the fuzz on the back of her head.

She fell silent then, taking in the woman in front of her again. In so many ways, she was like a stranger. That hair. That jacket. That swagger. That wasn't the Peps that she'd known. She'd undergone a metamorphosis.

Morgan had just gathered more ghosts.

Maybe she'd always misunderstood their dynamic. Maybe Peps had actually been the strong one, all along. Maybe Morgan had just needed to think of her sister as fragile to make her own cracked facade seem more sound.

"I did a nickle in Tejas," she said, giving it the airy pronunciation that was favoured south of the border. "Carswell FMC, in Fort Worth. S'posed to be secure as fuck, but it wasn't just the other inmates that were dangerous. Got my noggin cracked open and floated on down to Stygia. Got out not long after. Wandered back up to Detroit, and, yeah. Things kinda went from there."

Morgan's eyes dropped to the ground, and then slowly rose back up, passing over the field of stars that had been painted on the canvas, though this time, instead of seeing a galaxy birthed from nothingness, she saw it being swallowed by a blank void.

"Let's get the fuck out of here," she said, suppressing a shiver. "Too cramped. Besides, I could use a drink, or maybe some of that weak sauce stuff you were talking about earlier."

Sure, I close after you reply one last time

[Briar Rose]

Briar Rose taps her head against Morgan's shoulder, and loops their arms. "Which are of course the best, hm?" She, like Arnie, stares out at the man made galaxy, seeing the colour and shine. Knowing the strokes and the patience needed for something as compelling as this. Drawing their eye over and over again. Swirls, and whirls and impossibilities.

As she listens, not the length, and breadth and depth, of any epic passes the Morgan's lips. Like she did, allusions to deeper things. Hurts and Truths, and more.

What can be said, inside, observing a galaxy created by man, caught between panes of glass, guarded by simple door latch?

She squeezes the arm and laces their fingers, pulling her along. Offer a smile. Understanding, comfort.

"Hm, ya." she agrees. "Let's blow this Popsicle stand."

This was a fan-tab-u-lus scene! I'm good to close!

[Yumyumcrow]

Over time and no activity for 6 days. Locking into continuity.