[ And, truly, being unable to tap into his powers makes Douman a benign beast, almost-human. This act of Communion may have been disastrous if something weren't walling him in, but mercifullyー
ーhe's largely neutered. Thank god.
His palm is cool to the touch, when their hands meet. There's an air of him humoring her, something patronizing about the curl of his lips where that preternatural smile is stamped over his features, but there's curiosity tooー not just the simple desire to know, but a need to know.
So. He flings the door to his mind open as he closes his long fingers around Gray's, the physical action mirroring the way his subconscious fingers twine into the mental crack she affords him, and peers inwards, inwards, inwards. What he shows as collateral damage is a strange meld of what the Tree wants them to seeー the destruction, the pain, the fire of its pastー and his own void, panoramic glimpses of both carnage and the painfully trite.
(a flash of wide sleeves, and a cadre of whispering Heian noblemen; Douman, head bowed and fingers tearing vertical lines in tatami, gritting his teeth and coughing bile; a full moon over the flat horizon of Heian-kyo; bloodied corpses staining dirt roads, and Douman with the skull of a dead man in his hands.)
Loveless, spite-filled, empty. And above all else, a desire for destruction, turned inwards. He loathes, and he loathes himself. ]
no subject
ーhe's largely neutered. Thank god.
His palm is cool to the touch, when their hands meet. There's an air of him humoring her, something patronizing about the curl of his lips where that preternatural smile is stamped over his features, but there's curiosity tooー not just the simple desire to know, but a need to know.
So. He flings the door to his mind open as he closes his long fingers around Gray's, the physical action mirroring the way his subconscious fingers twine into the mental crack she affords him, and peers inwards, inwards, inwards. What he shows as collateral damage is a strange meld of what the Tree wants them to seeー the destruction, the pain, the fire of its pastー and his own void, panoramic glimpses of both carnage and the painfully trite.
(a flash of wide sleeves, and a cadre of whispering Heian noblemen; Douman, head bowed and fingers tearing vertical lines in tatami, gritting his teeth and coughing bile; a full moon over the flat horizon of Heian-kyo; bloodied corpses staining dirt roads, and Douman with the skull of a dead man in his hands.)
Loveless, spite-filled, empty. And above all else, a desire for destruction, turned inwards. He loathes, and he loathes himself. ]