Caught off guard, Kiya jerked upright. “What? No I’m not!”
Reaching forward, Darla went right for Kiya’s neckline. “Yes, you are! Right here, wait, this isn’t yours… Kiyamakami??” At first touch, the little pixie simply pulled away, trying to curl up even smaller in her hiding spot behind Kiya’s neck. The little whimper of fear tugged at everyone’s heart. Discarding the situation completely now in favor for concern for her little familiar, Kiya aided Darla’s attempts to get Kiyamakami to come out. The pixie was crying openly, and there was a painful gash along her right side, across the ribs, slightly pinkish blood dripping from between tiny fingers… Some magical first-aid later, Kiyamakami was curled up on Darla’s shoulder, accepting her comforting touches, still crying softly into her hair.
Kiya sighed, relenting under Anna’s continued glare. “He… didn’t mean it, I’m sure. He just wasn’t… paying attention. I didn’t even know she’d been cut, she shot back there so fast I didn’t see…”
“Master scary… Master throw things… Master hurt…” Kiyamakami sobbed.
“What’s wrong with dad?” Anna asked bluntly.
Kiya sighed. “You’ve heard about the Mark T scandal, right?”
“About the characters that got re-made into avatars? Would be kinda hard not to hear about it”
“He’s… remembering.” It all started coming out. How ‘Landis the Great’ had indeed been the one selected to become Zorlond Jaeger. Selected because, deep down, Landis had shared some of the same perversions. Because, even with the same interests, he had the same lack of opportunity to act upon them. The same lack of desire to inflict those perversions upon the unwilling. Landis never wanted to become a monster, even as he worked at children’s parties, always on best behavior in public, while in solitude remembering certain figures in lurid detail. Never did he touch a girl the ‘wrong way’, wouldn’t let himself… But now, he remembered his life as a character, given the powers of a god, now inflicting his dark desires on other characters, forcing others to be willing participants… “The whole scandal woke up the entire mess, now he can’t deal with being who and what he is…”
“So he thinks its okay to take his frustrations out on the people around him?”
Kiya shook her head. “He didn’t… He didn’t turn violent until after his second bottle of gin…”
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Fri Aug 13 13:31:01 2004
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