Mind Playin Tricks on Me

[Marcus DuBois]

Malik was a flame, roiling, black smoke billowing out, red and angry. He made to raise a hand, a lance of fire ready to extend from his fingertips and burn the hall of mirrors to the ground, the glass cracking and shattering and melting, a pool of melted glass. He knew the agony such could be, the unending burning, the inability to escape.

But her words stopped him. " “I came because you are familiar. You are Two, like me. Why do you hide your Other face from me?" Another? Like him?

The flame winked out and suddenly, he was in the hall, standing in front of her, separated by glass. His eyes, glowing red, studied the woman who seemed not to care the apparent fate before her. Long curly unbound hair, dark eyes, posture relaxed. His voice was low but firm. "How are you other?" Was she bound in the other world? If he killed Marcus, would he be free?

[Thalia]

For a while, nothing. And then he was there beyond the glass, eyes twinkling like rubies. Older, certainly, and taller than the boy who had snuggled into her stomach. Her eyes travelled up to meet the ferocious flame of his, infinitely curious for this man who dreamed himself twain. Nimeda smiled, as though perhaps she really did consider it a game, and she leaned to cup her hands against the glass and so peer though. Was he so afraid as to need the barrier? She had no power here.

“If you did hurt me, you would hurt my Other also. But I do not really want to die. It’s lonely.” She watched him, sensing that perhaps his patience with her would be fleeting. “Do many strangers visit your dreams?” She laughed, tapping her fingers against the glass. “You seem cautious, but I would not hurt you, even if I could do so here. Perhaps you are used to being bound so. Hidden away.”

She contemplated the question. Likely he would find no pleasure in her answer, but she was guileless with the truth anyway, and clearly curious about him in turn. “If I truly knew the answer to my nature, perhaps it would no longer be so. I am something old and forgotten. But all things are new once, such as you. Why do you chase yourself through this place? He will not let me comfort him. He will not even speak.” Her head tilted. She did not consider him broken, and though she would comfort the fear of a child with natural instinct, she did not look upon his second part with the eyes of a protector. She saw him as whole in his own right.

[Marcus DuBois]

Malik felt irritation prickle across his skin at her attempt at a soothing tone. She would try to elicit an opening, to make an overture to weakness, for him to expose need like a barren patch of earth hungry for rain. He needed nothing- except to feel little Marcus' throat in his hands, crushing the life out of him. Or rather, squeezing the last bit of life from him into himself.

Malik would be free and completely himself, then. And then...he could see it. Ascendancy, eyes wide in shock and surprise, the razor sharp dagger slipped between the fourth and fifth rib to cut through the right and left ventricle in a flash. A lover's stroke, a brother's strike, unexpected and unprotected. His hand sticky with blood spurted, freed from the constrictive pressure of containment, his silk shirt soaking the scarlet black life of the man who though himself a god.

What was that to a Sith?

Somehow he would deal with the repercussions, channeling Marcus with Vladislavovna and Bykov, with that simpering man whose name he always forgot, the one as thick as thieves with those two. If Malik could be touched at need by Marcus, it should go the other way. It had to. The reigns would inevitably come to him. It was the will of the Force, he was sure of it.

He realized a sneer had formed on his lips. "And is your other the weaker or the stronger? The best or the worst of you? A simpering fool or a master of men?" It had to be one or the other. If she was the stronger...it did not speak well of her other. He looked around, bored, eyes shifting, seeking Marcus. It was past time for him to be dealt with.

[Thalia]

Such anger. Nimeda’s eyes widened with the revelation of it, cloying as blood. He didn't answer the question, but his scripted words did. "Ah,” she said slowly. “I see."

His attention began to waver, flushing outwards like she did not exist. Nimeda continued to study him curiously and openly through the glass, her perception altered. There was no power struggle with her Other, because they were the same; the best and worst of their nature shared.

He was single-minded, but not with the kind of passion that might have captured her interest, for there was no such complexity to what she saw. It was a determination that eclipsed everything else because it was the entirety of him. How very strange. She felt no moral judgement. Monsters deserved life as much as any other -- or they deserved the chance at least, and she had always been drawn to the cries of those most outcast. It’s why she spoke to him at all. But all he contemplated was self-demise, whether he understood it or not. A splinter could not survive on its own.

“Are you so afraid that your other must be a little boy for you to crush? It hardly seems worth the effort to me.” She tapped her finger again, seeking his gaze a final time. Her own was still warm, unperturbed by his irritation. “Come then, let us find him. If you let me go ahead, perhaps he will come to me, and then this may be finished.”

[Marcus DuBois]

Marcus' little legs pumped as he ran a fast as he could, bouncing off the mirrors when he wasn't careful. It was then he noticed something. A trick that had come to him after the third or fourth time. He looked at the ground to see where the glass met the ground. There was clear difference between a real mirror base and none at all. By refusing to look at the reflected reality, he could see what was true. It made getting through the maze that much quicker.

Once again, he was outside amid the swirling carnival lights and sounds, ghostly people- families and groups of kids- excitedly moving through park. He didn't even try to dodge them, instead swirling through and on to the center, marked by the grand Ferris Wheel. Not there, though. Some place to hide. The merry go round, in the center booth. He could see the carved wooden horses, lined in gold trim and garish colors.

As he ran, he noticed he was not as low to the ground as he remembered. Just as he jumped on to the base of the ride he passed a paneled mirror and stopped. It was him. But not little Marcus. No. He was in his workout gear, basketball shorts and a tank top, his tattoos on his arms prominent, the goatee on his chin full.

He froze, feeling strength return to him. The wheel continue to go around but the atmosphere of the park had changed. He was no longer out of breath. He realized he was no longer scared. The Fun House in the distance came into view at the next rotation and he stepped off on to the ground, looking at it. He was angry, he realized. His fists were clenched, as was his jaw. Eyes narrows, he started stalking forward, no longer the hunted.

As if the world had bent, he was suddenly at the entrance and without thought stepped in. There, through the glass, he saw him, eyes glowing and red. His companion. His support. His friend. And he felt no fear.

And there she was, the woman from before, looking at both of them.

The world shifted...the smells of cotton candy and pop corn and concrete and sawdust vanishing in a moment, to be replaced by that of flowers, the cool mist of water in the air, and the sounds of a river trickling peacefully bordered by lush verdant grass.

[Thalia]

When next the boy peeked through into the room of mirrors, he was a man. Nimeda’s head tilted in consideration of this change, and she slid her gaze between the red-eyed man behind the glass and his new twin in the frame of the doorway. She was not sure if his new stature spoke of a loss of control, a reaction to the challenge issued, or a new lease of courage, and either way she had little desire to become caught in the middle of their quarrel. At least, not while at the mercy of the dreamer. She had meant to sneak the boy away from the confines of his own skull, anyway, and the intention did not change.

Nimeda hooked, and pulled. It would have been considered the height of rudeness once, though all those who would have been aghast at such poor etiquette were still dust. The experience might not be pleasant; he was not a native of this world, after all, and it had been a long time since she had pulled a stranger from his own dream.

The spinning world repainted in new images. Cold concrete sprouted lush grass that kissed the soles of her feet, and prompted a smile. Discordant music, shrill laughter, and the creak of metal faded to the meander of running waters and fresh breeze. Nimeda’s legs folded to sit where she had been standing, though her wide grey eyes remained upturned to consider the soul she had yanked along with her. A smile welcomed, curious but warm. She could not hold him here indefinitely. “That’s better,” she laughed. “Will you tell me your name, now?”

[Marcus DuBois]

Malik stood there among grasses and trees and a river lazily coursing its way across the land. He felt anger flash its way across his face, his clothing seeming to ripple, one moment his dark Sith robes, fringed in black leather, lightsaber hanging at his waist, the next moment, a dirty green t-shirt, faded blue jeans with tears in the knees. For a moment he stared at the ashy look of the dark skin, dry and weathered. The Lawsons didn't waste money on things like patches, not when the Reverend Bobby Cormady was asking them to 'Sow their Seed' fo fatih to grow into a bumper crop harvest.

His eyes jumped from himself to the woman- was this her doing?- and then...to Marcus. Not a sniveling child. Not anymore. His clothes were identical, hair unkempt and full of naps, lip still split from a blow from Momma's hand. Mirror images of each other, they were, and Malik's lip curled in disgust. He remembered coming to Marcus, a few years earlier. He had been scared and alone and Andre, of course, couldn't protect him. But Malik could. And did. Marcus could smile and laugh and play with Elena, could read and imagine and learn. Of course he could. Malik bore the brunt of it. Always Malik who took the blow, who couldn't breath, who went hungry. It was Malik in that cage, Malik hiding in the bed, raging at the burning pain and humiliation as Farian snuck away.

It had been Malik who had made them all cry too, who had taught the what they had awakened. Malik the one they feared and begged mercy from.

He was stronger than Marcus.

And yet Marcus refused to look away. His eyes were curious and studying him, seeing him clearly for the first time. Despite himself. Malik felt a delicious sense of exposure, one he'd only felt when out executing judgement as an Angel of Death. Marcus could see him. "I am Malik," he said without affectation or title. Those were Marcus' trappings.

At the very same time, as if in tune, Marcus spoke. "I am Marcus." Neither of them looked away from the other.

[Thalia]

Amusement lingered as the two discovered the face of the other, their voices twined in tune to the same question. Though she brought them here, Nimeda did not much care to mediate, and nor did she share her epiphany from the room of mirrors as to the splinter. There was no moral sense of guidance for why she plucked him from his dream, nor for why she had slipped inside its nightmarishness in the first place. MarcusMalik could not continue, not as he was, but for the path he would choose to take she was impartial. She did watch though, leaned back into the dip of a tree, one foot presently slipping from the bank to brush her toes lazily into the water. Flowers shifted like a meadow in the white folds of her lap, and she threaded them idly as she observed. At the silence of their impasse she laughed. “I believe you are well acquainted. Have you nothing to say to the other?”

[Marcus DuBois]

Marcus looked Malik up an down. In one sense, it was like looking in a mirror. But in fact, it was closer to looking at a twin. While a twin might share your DNA, they were not the same person. They had a different personality and outlook. Even their body language was different. A lifetime of different experiences.

And yet, that wasn't really Malik, despite their differences. He was not a fool. Deep down, he knew what Malik was. The experiences he had as a child had left him feeling helpless. And so he had constructed a persona, a part of himself strong enough to not only survive, but to excel. To triumph. He had fed that side of himself, first a small flame, until it had become an inferno.

He studied Malik. For all his strength and fortitude, he was a blunt instrument. Certainly motivating, that was for sure. Marcus' drive and ambition resided in him. All that he considered Sith- the philosophy made flesh- was in Malik. But he possessed non of the charm and foresight. None of the planning and cunning. If Malik's hunger was the drive, Marcus' intellect and foresight caused his plans to come to fruition. It was not enough to hunger for control. This was a game- a long one. Passion might provide the tenacity. But cool calculation made seeds blossom.

He looked at the woman, lounging against a tree that seemed to appear, languorously dipping her toes in the water as if this was her realm. "I know him. He is part of me. And you...", he gestured to their surrounding. "Are you a dream as well? What is this place?"

Malik took a step forward as if angry to be ignored. Marcus looked at him, one corner of his mouth quirked up, fixing him with a cold stare. Despite his rage, he stopped as if frozen. He returned his gaze to the woman.

---

Malik felt darkness coil around him, a cold icy fury, and reached out for the Force...and nothing came. His eyes went wide, and he stopped, trying to understand what was happening. Marcus could not command him! He was the strong one! He...he tried to move and was unable. He didn't understand what was happening here.

[Thalia]

“You are dreaming,” she agreed. “So that seems logical.” An impish smile quirked her lips, and little else in the way of needless explanation. She did not consider such things important, though neither did she mean to vex. Her gaze moved between them, not lingering on the distraction of how they shifted, but it was upon Malik her attention settled. Concern pressed a light frown to her expression. Her diversionary weaving of the flower petals in her lap stilled.

He had spoken of power imbalances; the strong and the weak, the best and the worst: dichotomies ever in the clash of war. Those things were perfectly natural, if they were more definitive lenses than the ones through which Nimeda chose to view the world. She did not condemn the struggle any more than she questioned why he had been so vehemently wedded to his own destruction. A splinter could not survive on its own, though; not whilst maintaining enough humanity to find any sort of peace along the long road of life, and for that she did have an interest. 

They could not continue this battle.

And yet, having already been given the breath of life, neither did Malik deserve to die simply for the crime of his nature. The fertile soil of Nimeda’s empathy did not have much moral instruction, and watching the fury and indignation frozen upon his expression stirred it in her chest. Death would be a kinder choice than the chains imposed now, for Nimeda could not abide a cage. She seemed on the verge of crawling to her feet, urged to intercede on that cruel act of control, though she did not.

“He is not an animal to chain, Marcus,” she said softly. “I think you gave him life. Take it away if you must, but do not make him live like that.”