He has always been pale - blame Garlean genetics or a childhood spent indoors or an adulthood shrouded in monstrous plate, all are equally valid - and so when his skin starts to turn white, he does not notice. It is a very small thing, next to the monstrous wrongness of Venera as a whole. One voice, in a crowd of many.
When a section of hair near the front does likewise the similarity (even passing) between himself and Solus rankles, when, mere hours later, that spreads, the entire once-gold curtain bleached to pale bone, he smashes the first mirrored-surface he catches his reflection in, seeing Varis there instead.
When the first papillae erupt, sending rivulets of watery blood across that too-white skin – along his forearms (almost a parody of bracers, downy crimson-stained fluff where there should be rigid plates), at his neck (mockingly circling that scar that wasn't there, but should have been, when he had His Own Body and not this Construct) - he tears them out. Individually, at first, then by the handful when they replace themselves too quickly for that. They itch. Always, they itch. A maddening distraction.
It is the sitting here, he decides. He has done a passable job, playing at Scholar, but it's not who he is (it could have been, once, but that was another life, wasn't it?). He needs to walk, to clear his head, before he can resume the chase. It does not matter where he walks, as long as it's Away. If he can find something to kill, so much the better.
Perhaps that's why he brings the shard of mirror with him.
For whatever reason, though, when he notices he's got it clasped in his hand still, Away becomes Here, in the Imperial Palace, the ceilings so high they might as well be the white expanse visible through the skylights, the walls and floor a sterile grey save for the flourishes of gold which surround each doorway (and at the top of each arch, the Garlean chain) or spill across the ground. Even the Boy's private chamber has the same severe sterility, save for the books and scrolls that now litter it. In the centre of these discarded tomes – the eye of the storm, as it were – sits the Boy himself. Not yet the giant he will become, but tall for his age – a good height for a full-grown hyur, even. The same spun-gold hair . The same weariness.
- no. Not quite the same weariness. This is not Tedium, but a bone-deep ache. His clothes hide most of the marks, but there's mottled purple-and-yellow visible where the fabric ends (outside this room he would likely think to cover that too, but here, as far as he knows, he is alone).
The Boy sits, and regards the shard of crystal laying in his palm. He knows what he must do, to sate the curiosity that's hounded him this past month.
He also knows the irreparable aetheryic damage he might do himself, regardless of whether the theory is wrong or right.
He inhales, flexes his fingers, and begins to drive the point of the shard down into the meat of his palm and where the Boy's flesh yielded, the Man's does not, a spiderweb of thin cracks splitting the too-white, too-hard surface.
3 – Every Trial Suffered – Infection [Venera / Dreamscape, OTA] – CW: body horror, self injury
When a section of hair near the front does likewise the similarity (even passing) between himself and Solus rankles, when, mere hours later, that spreads, the entire once-gold curtain bleached to pale bone, he smashes the first mirrored-surface he catches his reflection in, seeing Varis there instead.
When the first papillae erupt, sending rivulets of watery blood across that too-white skin – along his forearms (almost a parody of bracers, downy crimson-stained fluff where there should be rigid plates), at his neck (mockingly circling that scar that wasn't there, but should have been, when he had His Own Body and not this Construct) - he tears them out. Individually, at first, then by the handful when they replace themselves too quickly for that. They itch. Always, they itch. A maddening distraction.
It is the sitting here, he decides. He has done a passable job, playing at Scholar, but it's not who he is (it could have been, once, but that was another life, wasn't it?). He needs to walk, to clear his head, before he can resume the chase. It does not matter where he walks, as long as it's Away. If he can find something to kill, so much the better.
Perhaps that's why he brings the shard of mirror with him.
For whatever reason, though, when he notices he's got it clasped in his hand still, Away becomes Here, in the Imperial Palace, the ceilings so high they might as well be the white expanse visible through the skylights, the walls and floor a sterile grey save for the flourishes of gold which surround each doorway (and at the top of each arch, the Garlean chain) or spill across the ground. Even the Boy's private chamber has the same severe sterility, save for the books and scrolls that now litter it. In the centre of these discarded tomes – the eye of the storm, as it were – sits the Boy himself. Not yet the giant he will become, but tall for his age – a good height for a full-grown hyur, even. The same spun-gold hair . The same weariness.
- no. Not quite the same weariness. This is not Tedium, but a bone-deep ache. His clothes hide most of the marks, but there's mottled purple-and-yellow visible where the fabric ends (outside this room he would likely think to cover that too, but here, as far as he knows, he is alone).
The Boy sits, and regards the shard of crystal laying in his palm. He knows what he must do, to sate the curiosity that's hounded him this past month.
He also knows the irreparable aetheryic damage he might do himself, regardless of whether the theory is wrong or right.
He inhales, flexes his fingers, and begins to drive the point of the shard down into the meat of his palm and where the Boy's flesh yielded, the Man's does not, a spiderweb of thin cracks splitting the too-white, too-hard surface.