Raoul - Conversation with Papa Rose 12-16-11

The same as the two times before, Raoul made the arduous journey out to the bog.  This time was a bit different then the last as he was slightly agitated.  For the first time the eerie, echoing silence seemed to be playing on his nerves.  The familiar rock was still there, just peaking out of the gloom in the deep dark of the night.  Careful Raoul sat down on his spot once again and waited patiently.  As he did so he looked down at his good left hand and allowed his claws to protrude.  The sight of them might unsettle the casual observer beyond the obvious.  As these claws of his seemed so like cat claws as they curved just so.  Only they were clearly longer and thicker and more ferocious than the weapons of any domesticated pet.  They retracted and extended out from between his fingers, the same as a cat, not from the fingers themselves.  This allowed Raoul to maintain some dexterity in his hand even with claws extended.  That was Raoul's left hand as his right was little more then charred ash and wrapped in fur. 

The thing of it was, he had just been attempting to be friendly with Shane.  Only to have the Archon respond by obviously going out of his way to bait and provoke him.  The punches themselves were not painful.  The harm came from the assumption that Raoul would take the challenge without response.  Only because Shane was Shane and Raoul was Raoul.  The hierarchy of the city was nothing he ever intended to deal with.  In Chicago a citizen could harass who he pleased but if a non-citizen tried to defend himself it was viewed as an act of aggression.  So Raoul had sat there and had watched his hand burn to appease the psychopath of a Prince in his pissing contest.  The whole thing was crazy.

It is a long wait.  The bog is a lonely place to be, quiet, still.  Even the cold seems muted here, weak, as if even the seasons were somehow weakened here, bowing before the places terrible entropy.  A single set of glistening stone eyes sights Raoul, watches him.  Hours creep by, each one taking longer than the one before it.  The cold creeps in, sapping any semblance of life or health.  Fresh, pink skin turns first pale then blue then a darkened color nearly black, the darkest shade of a bruise.  The skin becomes thick and heavy, almost becoming an animalistic hide.  There is some pain but it is muted as well, tiny and seemingly insignificant compared to the slow march of time.

When the silence is finally broken it is from behind and a bit of a surprise.  Sallow, walking down from the road, a car idling behind him waiting on the side of the road.  He looks like he sometimes does in the city, dressed as Baron Samedi, his face painted and his head in the tall leather top-hat.  Leaning heavily on his skull tipped coco macque he walks slowly down to the clearing and its stone seat.

"Ai tink jou are not undestan how ze email work.  Jou got te sen me one bak, den I sen one bak te jou.  Is like tat game wit te ball an te lil low net.  Back en forth, ova an ova.  I dunno how te win but I know tey do."  He pauses, leans on the rock, his own fingers curled into vicious claws.  "So, wot jou do?  Soun laik everyone real messed up."

 

"I told him No."  Raoul responded viciously, referring to the Prince.  "I will do it again and again and again until he understands that is all I mean to say."  Raoul stood up slowly.  During his wait he watched the putrefaction of his skin with unease but had refused to move from his spot.  "Any game with those sterilized electronic boxes is not one I care to play.  The natural world is what I understand.  That is where I live, learn and converse."

Slowly he began to walk towards his Sire.  "I'm not here to discuss either of those things."  As he approaches his wounded hand is clutched to his chest.  While his free hand still displays it's impressive claws.  Yet further up on his arm there is a curious manacle in an Egyptian styling.  It is faded and unassuming but without a doubt it's power is very evident.  "There are things I wish to show you." 

Raoul takes a step towards Papa Rose and as he lifts up his foot he leaves green in it's wake.  Green is the strangest color out in this land of no color but there it is.  "I wish you to know that I can take care of myself."  The more steps Raoul takes the more green there is.  It seems to be spreading now, literally infecting the land.  Up through the midst it grows determined and almost hostile.  "You will not be bothered with their petty concerns again."  Now there are flowers and they are flowers.  They can be seen, smelled and heard as the buds burst open in the inky black darkness.  The strangest of all, they are sunflowers, huge and leering and uncomfortably misplaced.  As monstrous as a plant could be that was inexplicably grown out here.  "They will see the mistake in their ways.  I will make them see."

Now Raoul stops as the ground all around him becomes green and lush.  There is mischief on his face as he turns and surveys the growing damage all around.  Suddenly a spark lights up the night a good distance away.  Just a tiny little dot but it seems impossibly bright when everything else is dark.  The determined green catches however and begins to burn, the crackling of the fire deafeningly loud.  The pervasive growth seems to cry out as the fire gains hunger after it's first small taste.  Quickly the burning death spreads with a fury that is as awesome as it is terrible.  Around Raoul's feet and legs the fire continues it's violent destruction and cast light on his face twisting his features as it fought with shadows.  Yet Raoul doesn't seem the least bit concerned with any of it.  The burning continues until every bit of the lingering green is gone.  Then just quickly as it began it fades away.  There is nothing behind, be it smoke or singed ground.  Nothing at all.

"What do you trust when you can't trust your eyes Father?  When all your senses deceive you, what is really true?"

Sallow watches the green spread, studies it.  Clearly he is consumed with a deep curiosity and it burns in his eyes very brightly.  If he hears Raoul talking he gives no sign, intent as he is on the spread of the green around them.  He crouches down, touching the growth, wondering at it.  Burying his hands in it, kneeling and smelling it, tearing it up and checking first the vegetation, then the soil beneath.

So intent is he that he never sees the light until it has landed, and the sudden flames force an immediate reaction.

He vanishes.

The clearing rings with Raoul's words for a moment then returns to silence which rushes in to crush out any sound with a predatory hunger.  All along the edges of the bog, a midst the bowed and bent trees, glistening black stone eyes stare and study and not for the first time, Raoul feels a true sense of danger radiating from the murky darkness.  In a moment, more sets of the eyes appear, lining the edge of the clearing towards the bog.  Silent and still, they none the less stare intently at Raoul, accusingly.

"Challenge tem if you laik.  You'll fail.  Fight tem if you muss, but you'll lose.  But tryin te change dem, dats juss madness."  The voice comes from the muck, Sallow remains unseen, concealed in the undergrowth, his shouted voice muted by the bog and muck.  "We ken only change our selves.  Anyting else, is false.  You wan truth, tere you go."  His voice is bitter, angry.  "Now go.  An do not come back ere.  Whateva it is you have done, I wan noting te do wit it.  You are no fool but you act laik one.  You speak no sense laik it is scripture.  Maybe it is you who needs te tink on te truth some."

He says something and the eyes recede.  There is a moment of his presence before that seems to recede as well.

 

As he stood there after the disembodied voice Raoul's eyes and posture go through a range of emotions.  First shock, then disappointment, crushing hurt and then anger.  "It was just an illusion it's not real.  That's the point!  I can't create life.  I'm death that's all I can do!  I'm sorry about the fire but it was no more real than a picture on a movie screen."

Sitting down on the ground Raoul put his head in his hands.  Even if Sallow Rose was no longer there he continued to talk.  "I thought you would be impressed.  I don't think I can change them.  They deserve their emptiness. I only said I would show them their mistake for my own satisfaction.  I can't make them someone else."

 

"Te damage you do te your self is real.  Te damage you'll cause in tem will be real.  Believe in illusions has always been a fools path.  Stop believin in illusion an make sometin REAL!"

Sallow shouts it from a distance, disgust, anger and resignation all resonate in his voice.

"Stop worryin about otters!  Worry bout yer self."

 

And with that, he is gone.

 

The tone of his Sire's voice convinced him even beyond the silent pervasive judgement from so many ancient eyes.  Raoul stood up to leave.  Behind him grew a single sprout of baby's breath out from the rock where he had sat.  The fragile blue petals moving in a breeze that wasn't there.  Even if the flower wasn't real it certainly was pretty and seemingly fragile in the choking gloom.

Raoul got a whole two steps before stopping and whirling back around.  Come to think of it he didn't exactly feel like walking away with his tail between his legs.

"Real?"  He screamed out into the stillness, into the nothing and throwing his arms out as he did so.  "The only thing Real is the Beast.  There is no other real besides that.  Everything else is only set dressing to disguise that obvious truth.  There is no god, there is only the Beast and us as puppets on his strings.  I know my Beast, I have that strength.  Do you hear me Sire?  I'm strong within myself because I know and accept the truth."

In the black of night Raoul snarled and wrenched his head back to roar at the sky.  It was so quiet around here and it was good to get this out.  Nothing answered him only absolute quiet.  It was as if the entire world consisted of only him and his burning rage and frustration.  That was a very good thing.  "I'm stronger then you know.  Stronger then anyone could ever suspect."  He was quieter now but still passionate, still intense.  "I need to learn from them as I said before.  Now I've learned they are so wrapped up in their illusions of grandeur they have become nothing else.  So they reject me because I see more than they ever will.  I have nothing and nobody but for me that's enough.  That's always been enough."

After saying his peace Raoul felt calm enough to finally leave.