"Welcome, would you like any assis-" the young man attending to the hotel's entrance asked as I stumbled inside.
"You can get out of my way..." I told him as I left a trail of blood behind me.
"Cleaner! Cleaner!" they repeated again and again as I journeyed to and waited for a lift. And as soon as one of the lift doors opened, I forced my way into it and fell against its interior wall.
"Dammit..." I hissed as I kept myself upright with the bars that lined the walls. Awkwardly, I reached for the buttons on the panel and I impatiently pressed them, nearly breaking it in the process. Then, when a moment of privacy came after the doors closed, I looked at my blood-covered palm. The yellow goop that stained it made me angry, but I was in no position to do anything about it right now.
So I just waited where I was as the lift went up, though, the fact it kept stopping only added to my frustrations. Thankfully, a blood-covered osibindah still made people back off when they saw it. Now if only the rest of the floors knew what was inside this lift, then they would stop pressing that damn button! Larishazza wasn't going anywhere, I understood that, but it changed nothing.
"I swear I'll..." I began to swear before I realised that it was the final floor that I had just arrived at. Still having anger within me, however, I made a point of chittering as loud as I could on my way to the stairs at the end of the brief hallway. I didn't want any more people getting in my way using my osibindah features to put on a display helped. It didn't matter if I resented what I was doing, I just wanted to go and see her already.
Then, after struggling to go up the private staircase, I stumbled out into the finely carpeted hallways of the VIP floor. Various hired hands looked at me cautiously and many of the more uptight, pampered ones even made vocal complaints about it. But I went on and ignored them, and when it came to the cockier ones, I just barged past them with a firm shoulder. Some, on the other hand, demanded a more thorough reaction and I was more than happy to give it to them.
"Back off." I warned one of the witch bodyguards as she flexed her magic about the hallway after she had been rebuffed.
"Or what, Monster?" she asked with a huff as I kept my back to her, yet, as I did so, I took off my mask.
"Do you want to find out?" I asked her in turn as I growled up in her face. With my magic having formed a mane of power around it just to give it that extra oomph.
"Freak..." she rather weakly remarked as she backed off.
"Weakling." I snorted before I hurried along to Larishazza's room. With a sloppy grip, I then opened the door and collapsed on the floor after opening it. Down there, I laid still for a few moments as I tried to build up something resembling the energy to move once again. And with weak, shaky arms, I pushed myself back up to my feet as my ears started to pick up the sound of the machines.
It broke my heart to hear it, that same tune every time I came here, that same, unchanging beat of her heart. I couldn't even deceive myself into thinking that she was slowly waking up as I walked up to her. Because when I got there, it was the same as every other day and she was as still as she ever could be. It made my eyes water and my throat tremble anxiously.
"You shouldn't be like this, Lari..." I tearfully commented as I started to undress, but I did not go through the effort to do anything with my bandages. Instead, I just stood there once the loose stuff was off, and I quietly watched the monitors beep and record. Yet as I couldn't take it, I slowly hobbled off towards the mostly unused table in the middle of the grand apartment. On it was a piece of paper that I had been writing stuff on, and I have not been very mindful of it as of late.
It was meant to be a songsheet, but it might as well have just been a sheet of crude scribbles. It wasn't my idea, it was a suggestion from Lari's upstairs neighbour, and I don't understand why I started doing it. It doesn't make me feel any better about my situation and it doesn't help me end this nightmare. So why I kept going back to it, I did not know, but here I was, preparing to add to it once again.
"Okay, write it honestly and it will come out good." I recited as I pulled out another sheet covered in musical symbols. I had trouble remembering them, even after all these years, so this sheet was very helpful whenever I did start to add to it like I was now. So, slowly and awkwardly, I started to add to the piece I had been writing despite the pain I felt throughout my body. But I was never sure about anything I added to it yet I also couldn't bring myself to take away from it.
It was hard to focus on it as well, with all the beeps and whirs going on behind me and the noise from beyond the open door... It was funny, really, I could hunt that killer with such dedication each night but just getting out my feelings was a horridly slow affair. I was slow and tedious and easily distracted, though, admittedly, it was my own fault for allowing the distractions to be here. I could have closed the door or turned the volume down, but no, I didn't do a thing about it.
I wanted to focus but I made no effort to solve it, it would've made me chuckle if it was any other time...
"Who's there?" I asked when I heard someone come in through the front door unannounced.
"It's me, Nin, Jhurghdak." the famed musician answered as he hobbled into the room.
"Why are you here?" I asked as I put down my tools.
"I heard and felt commotion down a floor, and I assumed it was you. So I popped down to pay you two a visit." he answered as he made himself at home on one of the gilded recliners.
"Well, Lari and I are about the same as every other time you have come here." I explained to him frustratedly. Then, in a brief bout of annoyance, I threw something away and let it snap on the finely polished, stone floor on the other side of the apartment.
"I see, well, has there been anything else?" he asked before he used his magic to snatch up my music sheet.
"What have I told you abo-" I started to say before a piece of furniture from somewhere else in the apartment stopped me.
"It's good, very good." he commented before he returned it to me, and, once it was within reach, I snatched it up.
"Cease it with the buttery remarks." I told him as I sat back down to do nothing with it once again.
"You would think praise from one such as I would be viewed as something other than buttering." he said as he tapped his walking cane.
"I don't need your praise, I don't need it." I say back to him before I rubbed my face with a tired claw.
"Then how about I prove it to you?" he offered as the tapping stopped.
"Prove it to me, how?"
"I could do with a challenge, so, tonight, come to my performance. I shall end it on this piece, anonymously if you don't want public credit." he explained but there was already one slight problem with his proposal... It happened at night.
"No." I firmly answered as I gazed outside to watch as the morning came on through properly.
"Why not?" he asked me, and I found it infuriatingly stupid.
"Have you lost some of your brain since we last spoke!?" I hissed as a fist formed and in response, he raised a palm before his walking cane was pointed upwards.
"Ask yourself that, instead. Remember, Nin, he torments both of us." he rightly explained as I calmed down.
"You think he will delay his arrival just to interrupt your performance should I come?"
"He loves taking you to the site where it all began on the nights I perform, does he not?"
"He does."
"Besides, Nin, you might as well just be there from the get-go, no running, he'll be right there."
"I guess..." I muttered as I dropped back onto the sofa.
"So, again, will you let me perform your piece tonight?" he requested once again.
"Fine, take it, take it and make a fool of me."
"I don't think I will." he explained as he summoned forth the tools I physically struggled to use so he could tidy the sheet up.
"When does your performance start, exactly?"
"Tonight." he answered rather uselessly.
"Guess I will keep a lookout for the excited, cheering crowds, then." I muttered as I walked off to the kitchen to prepare something.
"A hard drink, if you'd please." he called out as I rummaged through the rather pointlessly well-stocked fridges and cupboards.
"The barrel liqueurs are closer to you than they are to me you blighted-liver-carrying alcoholic." I told him as I crudely assembled a collection of sandwiches to sink my teeth into.
"Not an alcoholic, just someone who needs a relaxant to work." he joked as I sensed his magic fill the room once again.
"Lazy and useless cripple." I remarked under my breath before a small collection of ice cubes knocked my head on the way by. And rather than being annoyed by it, I just bit into my first sandwich instead with delightful glee. Food always tasted so good after a long night of being bled dry by that slippery, laughing bastard. Especially the ones that involved lots of meat and fresh fruit and vegetables.
The leftover magic was always strongest in such meals and my body greatly appreciated it. Yet, to its disappointment, I could only eat so much in one sitting, even with my larger-than-usual frame. But, as it was the morning, I made a point of setting aside at least one of the sandwich halves for my guest if he wanted it. Yet, with that alcohol he was sipping on, I doubted he'd be able to even taste the food properly.
"Sandwich?" I offered pointlessly as he was too engrossed in that piece I had been working on. And with how focused he was on it, I couldn't help but feel like he was confused. I have been working on it for years, so I guess it made sense as to why he would be. The inconsistencies alone in the quality would be jarring as he went through it.
"It's quite a... Sad song." he remarked as he put it all down for a moment.
"For five years I have been going out to fight a killer who struck down the woman I love, of course, it is going to be sad."
"I know, I know... I just mean it's a lot rawer than I thought it would've been."
"What does that even mean?"
"It's hard to explain, but, tonight, I think I should be able to make a clearer point of it."
"If you spend that long thinking of an answer it won't even matter because I would have forgotten this whole conversation."
"I doubt you will have, something like this is not something people just let slip their minds." he explained just as he took another sip from the magic-rich liquid. And seeing it, I couldn't help but lick my lips just because it would help a lot right now, it really would. But at the same time, it was still booze, and I wasn't interested in drinking my problems away, even if it was literal for once.
"When I have more to focus on than that, yeah, it does tend to slip my mind." I pointed out to him as I finished off my food before I then got up.
"Take the day off, rest a little." he told me as he worked.
"I can't just stop."
"You won't miss out on anything taking it easy for one day, Nin, besides, it gives you time to build up energy for the performance. I want you to not be so tired that you cannot even pay attention."
"And why should I even take this to heart, like, at all? My goal is-"
"Smiling Jhurack." he finished for me.
"So...?"
"Take the day off." he repeated the tool he held up with his magic suddenly scribbled away.
And, with a sigh, I relented, "Fine."
"I'll tell the theatre staff ahead of time that you will be attending, so don't worry about having to sneak in or gods forbid, force your way in."
"Duly noted, I'll be heading off, then." I told him as I went over and picked up my cloak, mask and hat off of the ground.
"Take care, Nin, and I mean it, rest." he firmly told me before he took the sandwich half I had left him.
"And you can stop resting, for once." I softly told Lari in turn before I got dressed. Quietly, I then left the apartment through the open door and closed it.