[PRP] Everywhere There's Tithes (Temperance/Rabbit)

[The Semblance of Unity]

Temperance squeaked as the little guy stuck its fist in its mouth. Slowly, she tried to free it. Bread was good to eat, but fists were not. She looked up. "I think.. those feelings are pretty normal. You went through a major life change." She stroked the squeep's head gently.

"Have you considered taking on someone?"

smerdle

 

[Smerdle]

Much as the word Moonwalker never failed to initially conjure images of Michael Jackson in his mind rather than werewolves, Temp's question had him breaking into a-ha's Take On Me for a couple of seconds after she asked it, seconds that were quite a bit happier than the ones that followed the realization that she meant something very different.

"A tithe?" He shook his head as he replied, holding very still once he became aware he was doing so. This all felt very dramatic all of a sudden, like she was announcing she was his long lost sister or actually an alien or something. "I don't think I could kidnap someone." And what he might do after he had them was even more of a mystery. "I don't think I have anything to teach anyone either. It would be like a copy of a copy." Faulty nobles with the power to create cupcake sprinkles with their minds and nothing else.

The squeep allowed its hand to be drawn from its mouth, but only because it was done with its banana bread. It held the spit-covered appendage out for more.

The Semblance of Meow

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

"You don't... you don't have to kidnap anyone, Bennett. People can willingly go; it's different." As in, Temperance would quite willingly go, if anyone would have her. She just wasn't... cut of the correct cloth or something. She swallowed. Looking down, she passed a bit of smushed up bread to the little squeep. A little more wouldn't hurt it.

She looked back up at him. "You have something or they would not have taken you to begin with. Did your patron tell you why?"

smerdle

 

[Smerdle]

"Rabbit," he said. "I'm not Bennett here."

The squeep looked to him before reaching farther, and seeing no signs of disapproval, it took the second bit of food and lipped at it more tentatively than it had the first.

"No one told me anything," he said, once again recalling the less than flattering statement Ezra had made as he'd magicked Rabbit unconscious. "I still don't think I can. Is... this something you want?" His eyes had gone fully white now, and somewhere along the way they'd gained a faint glow.

He sighed. "I guess you can call me Bennett if you want to. Just not Ben." The ick in his voice was more than apparent.

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

"Okay, Rabbit, sorry. I'm not going to just... call you a name you don't like." Her finger rubbed the little squeep's shoulder. It was being so good, not at all as messy as a human child.

She shifted lightly, making sure to steady the little guy. "It's... I've been talking to some people. And you can judge me all you want for this but yes. I want it. More than anything." It felt awful to say it aloud, again.

After a moment, she fished in her purse and handed him a compact mirror.

smerdle

 

[Smerdle]

"I like it more than I did, it's just... they call me that over there," he said, as if that explained everything. He moved the squeep he held deeper into his lap for a second as he took the mirror, squinted into it, and handed it back with a defeated chuckle, as if he'd been told he had a terminal illness.

"I'm not judging," he said, eyes on his knees. "But I don't understand."

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

"Oh, well, I'll just stick to Rabbit then." Such a strange name still suited the man. She'd heard Bennett at the ball and that was why she had called him that, but she knew many didn't like to be reminded of the ball. Herself included. And yet, his inability to understand... her reasons were tied to the ball, in part, and tied to all the other ways she'd failed.

Temperance hesitated, trying to find the words to explain herself without simultaneously cutting herself raw. She opened her mouth, closed it, then sighed softly. "I want to save everyone, Rabbit. And I cannot as I am." And becoming a part of the court seemed the best way to both become more powerful and ensure she'd be around to stop the next tithing. She couldn't save anyone as she was now.

smerdle

 

[Smerdle]

He felt a flash of furious anger, not at Temperance herself, but at the implication that what he had been given was a gift, that it could be used to save anyone, that he was a waste for not trying at all. Rabbit sat up straighter, pressing his lips together and holding his breath as he pushed the flare of pique down as far as it would go. In that moment, with this glut of self loathing and ever present fear moving through him, he could almost see himself instructing, guiding, leading through oppression, discipline, pain, uncertainty... love. Showing someone control and purpose, only to rip his comforting hand away and force them to kill. He could almost see it. And then it was gone.

The squeep she held, bored with grownup conversation and unimpressed with expressions that didn't involve teeth, tried to roll onto its side and burrow into her hand, but it didn't have the strength or coordination to do more than rock rhythmically back and forth. As if it had decided this was better than nothing, it kept moving anyway, while the one on Rabbit's knee flap flap flapped.

"I'll think about it," he murmured, his voice cold and damp. "We should... I'm sorry I can't help."

The Semblance of Unity

emo man

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

His face changed, lips thinning, and she looked down, at the squeep, her words tasting like ashes in her mouth. It was always the same, she thought. The squeep rocked and she pushed it over gently, afraid it might rock right out of her hand. It was so cute, so innocent, so ******** fragile.

"It's okay," she said finally. "You are not... the... first I've asked, and won't be the last." But her voice wavered a little bit. Every no, every not good enough was wearing. Temperance was running out of options. She was no good to anyone if she wasn't strong enough to save them.

She sighed, then abruptly stood, still careful with the squeep. Holding it back out to Rabbit, she spoke. "I should... go."

smerdle

 

[Smerdle]

He scrambled to tuck the flapping squeep away again so that his hands would be free to grab its sibling, and he was scolded with a surprised squawk as he did so. Rabbit stood as he retrieved the creature from her, his boxes of rice temporarily forgotten on the gazebo's bench.

"Okay." The cold and damp of his tone was quickly devolving into soggy and miserable now that his immediate anger had burned away, and he hunched in his hoodie, the glow he had gained nearly gone again. "I hope things work out." He did try, but his words were not at all reassuring.

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

"They probably won't." She smiled wanly. "But thanks." She handed the squeep back, giving it one last stroke. "Let me... let me know what you name them? And if you need a babysitter or anything..." Next to the squeep was a piece of paper with her phone number on it.

smerdle

 

[Smerdle]

"Yeah, okay. I can do that."

He held the squeep and her number away from him slightly, as if unsure what to do with them at the moment.

"Take care."

The Semblance of Unity