Down To The Devils Show

[Jiyu Simul Stamus]

Only a mother could love eyes like hers, ones that could not portray the emotions that other's optics wrote clearly to be read. The only thing anyone could see in the orbs of the calico? Was nothingness almost all the time, the eyes were a window to the soul and hers was pretty much in shambles, had been since before she joined the elite. No cat could go through what she had and have their soul entirely intact, fissures and fault lines existed all along her.

"Getting a kitten to trust me." normally something like this would sicken her considering what she had been through she was never one for abusing kits. However, the calico saw this different as the soul already within the body would likely just become a glue of some sort for the daemon, rather to the body or between the soul fissures or whatever kept those things together.  "I can do that easily, and I'll go for as young as I can get one weaned, it's easier to get them to willing follow when they haven't been taught better yet." of course, she had learned better very young considering her upbringing she was too terrified to go with anyone who wasn't one of the two brothers who raised her and they had kept that control over her until she snapped and murdered one of them. Hopefully the other of them wouldn't decide to come back now that the group seemed to be getting back together. "Getting one shortly after birth and muting the nurser, raising one to be the vessel, would be most efficient, but I can't do that." she could never do something so close to what had been done to her, these days she could not even remember if the cat she nursed from had voice. "So we may run into some resistance if the host figures out what's going on, but she shouldn't." it would be unusual, but possibilities always existed. She just needed to secure another kit like Ophelia, one that wouldn't want to go back even if someone came for them.

[heyyew]

“Can’t?” Capone tilted her head in curiosity. It seemed weird that Jiyu was drawing the line there. There was no doubt that Jiyu could do it. “And no… she won’t figure out what’s going to happen. I mean… Who in their right mind would be able to guess this? But she will have to be past weaning. Don't want you to have to deal with the boring part of kits. First two months kits are boring as logs."

Neither of them were in their right mind though. That was the funny part of all this, enough so that Capone was snickering a little.

[Jiyu Simul Stamus]

The question in mother's voice was nearly missed but the subtle bit of it she caught onto was enough to let Jiyu know she had slipped up a little bit, somewhat bared more than what she intended to. Keeping her history secret? Had at one time been how she survived, but now it was how she protected those she cared for from herself. No matter how hard she tried to change, to become someone that truly could fit in with the others around them she was still a monster trained her whole life to do horrible things. She didn't need to forgive herself for what she had done, because she had done her purpose and she didn't need to explain herself either. What she did need to do, was keep her loved ones safe from the monster beneath the sliver of cat she had constructed over the disfigured monster she really was. Jiyu was no fool, she knew by the nature of love they wouldn't stop loving her just because they saw who she was, but once they knew everything it was harder to keep them from hurting her or the other way around. Grim was proof, knowing the secrets she held he loved her so deeply he denied her the chance to live out her reincarnation which had been shaping up to be much more pleasant than her first life, bringing her back when she did not want to return. 

Jiyu loved Capone but she was no fool, mother was a god and capable of much more than her brother if the spirit believed something was for the best. The calico was not going to let someone decide what was best for her ever again, not only because she couldn't stand losing control like that but she never wanted to be that mad at someone she loved ever again. "Won't." empty mismatched optics narrowed slightly, she wouldn't be saying anything more on the matter, at least not without a little bit of prodding. Hopefully, her mother wouldn't be that interested.

"I suppose now would be a good time to mention you have many grandkits, all born from me." expect the few litters she managed to convince herself to let someone else carry, which had been two of them at most. "I always very good at raising them." she was possessive as a queen, brutal in the lengths she would go to in order to protect her children from harm. Of course, eventually all kits grew up and she was only one cat. "But kits grow up and that's the hard part, when they rather come to see a monster in me and choose to leave or they get taken away another way. Very few stay by me, and I don't even know if most of them are still alive." the female shrugged slightly as she sighed softly. It was difficult not knowing what become of almost all of her children, but she couldn't spend her life hunting them down. Jiyu had already done her job, she raised them if they chose to leave her that limited what she could do beyond what she already had.

Jiyu couldn't manage to laugh like her mother could but she was happy even empty as she was, this was enough for the former guard. The grin on her maw looked so out of place and misshapen. "It shouldn't take much to find some kit." if all else failed she was capable of having one for mother, but that would be a last resort, she had enough confusing relations without having a sister-daughter.

[heyyew]

No kidnapping pregnant she-cats and muting them to take their kits at any point. That was an odd place to draw the line. Perhaps because they’d possibly eat their kits rather than have them grow up in The Rosebloods? Capone had seen it a few times. That stuff was grisly, even for her. It was important to make sure that the mothers to be where guarded, particularly near their birthing time.

A smart girl for considering that. Better to have a Roseblood mother anyhow.  Not that Capone knew of any pregnant she-cats in the Rosebloods yet. Which was a shame. Because she really could use one or two of those to follow around.

In hearing Jiyu had many more kits Capone’s smirk turned slightly more genuine. And in hearing that most of them had wandered off she nodded. The Rosebloods had had a bit of a rocky history as of late. Most had scattered to the winds. But people were being drawn back here now. So maybe Capone would be able to see some of her grandchildren… She’d never paid much heed to them.

But maybe it was time to start making some exceptions. “Makes sense… Our family does have an odd history of wandering off. At one point half of Pompeii’s children just up and left with their prison mothers. And one of my siblings as well. My mother did not wish to chase them down to enact the death penalty that was there at the time for leaving.”

Capone had thought that was weakness at the time. But having her own children now she could understand. Even if she had killed more than her own fair share of her own children. “I think they even eventually formed Skyclan.

One piece of advice I can give you from that though. Never have more prisoners than you do members.

Seems obvious looking back, but we didn’t expect them to be broken out by those within our ranks. And she-cats have to be fed well when they were pregnant or nursing kits. Thus why they’d had the strength to flee at all back then. We only kept female prisoners in order to shore up their low numbers in those days. And had lost half their numbers for it. But of course, The Rosebloods lived on. Stronger than ever for only having loyal members.”

[Jiyu Simul Stamus]

Honestly, with how much Jiyu adored children and worshipped her mother, her group, it was indeed a very odd place to draw the line since the kits were not to come to any harm. The real line she drew? Was not with the action of muting the mother, but the flashbacks keeping another queen alive simply to feed the kits would cause. The calico did not go out of her way to forget most of the things she had done, but the way she had been raised and the way she had helped those two raise other kits, she didn't know which she felt worse over. Being a monster was one thing, but making more of them, she probably should go out and kill the ones she had made.

As Capone spoke, she listened to her like the dutiful daughter she was, ears perked on the ghost for the entire time. However, the longer the former leader's speech became the more Jiyu seemed to recede back into her dead persona, every bit of life that had collected draining from her.

"Heh." it wasn't anything near a laugh but instead, that sound someone makes when they've heard something insanely ironic. "Look's like fate wanted to give me a taste of here even when I was separated." she huffed it out, shaking her head slightly and wrapping her tail around to her paws. "Only the ending to my time as a prisoner's kit was much bloodier and ended everything they had been working at." she was clearly in the past an eerily clear chuckle emitting from her maw as she seemed to admire her paw as if something was there. "It was rather fitting that the first beating heart I ever ate belonged to the tom who took me from you." the calico laid down, eyes locked to her paw tips and her mother's transparent ones. Not the past, she had to get out of the past, but for the moment all that came was a weird laugh.

"I guess my loyalty was set from birth, it wasn't but hours after that I found the mansion." it had just taken her a long time to reach home, and that she could accept that was looking back to who she was now even if not much difference existed. "And somehow without even knowing who I was, who you were, I knew, this was where I was meant to be." And it had taken no time for the Simul Stamus to come along, prove to her she was right, this was where she belonged and it always would be even if she was mostly alone now.

[heyyew]

Jiyu’s loyalty and devotion to her kits honestly reminded Capone a bit of her mother. She wondered if Columbine would have liked Jiyu. The thought was cut off in seeing Jiyu’s increasingly dead look. Okay. That was a bit creepy.

Capone took Jiyu’s words in, a look of shock appearing on her face when she heard that Jiyu had apparently been a prisoner’s kit. When she heard about the tom who had taken Jiyu from her she did her best to not react to that.

Did Jiyu not know? Capone couldn’t recall of if she had ever told her of the circumstances of her birth. How she had gone to battle as heavily pregnant as she was… And how disastrously that had ended up when she’d gotten a kick to the belly. Given birth right there on the battlefield. She had thought they were dead. She’d called the retreat. Capone had left their bodies there.

She hadn’t even taken them to be buried. She’d just… Left them there. And here Jiyu was. Alive and kicking. With traumas so deep she had tried to kill herself at one point to escape them. Capone had stopped her. But had never tried to figure out what demons could be so terrifying that Jiyu would try to escape them in that way. “What exactly happened back then, before The Elite... With that... guy?” Capone asked, her voice halting and hesitant as she did her best to conceal the emotions boiling under the surface.

[Jiyu Simul Stamus]

When even one's own mother found them creepy? That was when you easily knew something fundamental inside them was so heavily broken it was likely never getting fixed. Jiyu seemed to survive well enough without whatever she was missing. If she survived well as she seemed to; How bad could that flaw be?

She had wanted to keep all of this from Capone from the moment she found out they were related, her mother was the last cat she wanted to know the truth. Who she was now seemed to make the ghost proud! Jiyu didn't want to ruin that for any reason, letting the other know she hadn't been born this way could ruin everything. However, the way she happened to be raised was often too strong to fight and lying to her parent was not an option, nor was simply saying nothing. Now that the can of worms had been open? Something had to come from it.

"He found me first, I was cold, mostly covered by snow and didn't even seem to be breathing but when he picked me up, he could feel my heart beating even though I was almost frozen, according to his later bragging." she had been cold from the start it was no wonder she had turned out the way she had, even just managing to be upset by so little of it took an entirely frozen heart. "I guess he told them I was dead and he was going to bury me. He wanted me for his own purposes and it wasn't my life he cared about but the strength he swears my beating heart proved." WhiteMoon had never cared about the lives of other's, not once, otherwise, he wouldn't have ever started what he did. She could remember those dens, the rocks they moved over top took two to three cats to move at least most times, so heavy a queen and young kits had no chance of pushing them. "He put me in with one of the queen's himself and his brother had been keeping weakened and trapped in old nearly collapsed dens scattered around for who knows how long." she only knew the curse of time that applied to the ones she had helped catch, the ones she had helped keep when her initiation was over. "He liked working kits in full litters and one of hers had been stillborn, so I guess he found it suiting to put a survivor of a stillborn litter with hers." she could only guess partly, she knew some from when Joya eventually decided to come clean as she could years later. "No matter the litter size though, only one kit from any litter would ever make it out alive and they never had to lay a paw to kill the other kits themselves." it was far from direct or anywhere near the full story, but it was an implication she had killed at least two or three other kits before she was old enough to understand what she was doing. "Once that part was complete, like the other's in my group he placed me with Painted until training was complete, became one of the few to finish alone." she didn't want to give too many details, they just weren't needed, she needed to focus on the future or Capone was going to find her dead again.

Was that enough? It seemed she considered saying nothing else at that point, but that would still be lying to an extent. "Time went on, living helping him continue his operation" a monster helping make more monster's, perfect killers all for whatever purpose he decided. "We didn't really know his goal, just to obey him and complete our task, no matter who he said to kill, what maiming or torture he said to inflict. I don't even think his Clan knew about us, expect the few he decided to have join as bodyguards, he always said I was better suited to murder and torment."  Maybe she had been taking out her rage at what had happened to her all along, simply doing it in the way she knew kept her alive. "Then one night, I don't remember why, I just snapped and turned on him during a mission, slashed his chest open and ate his heart." she may have not even had any reason, what he had made her, what she had been before The Elite, didn't know what love was, only knew what she did, for all Jiyu knew she may have just felt like it and no longer seen any reason not to. However, when his brother had shown up on the scene, she was suddenly a scared kitten again and fled, ending up at the mansion and within the elite before the next sunrise.

That had to be enough right? No details would be required, that was what had happened just leaving out the details, which she didn't really want to discuss. She probably needed a therapist but she didn't want that to be mother and most folk would likely go insane hearing the whole story. Plus it wasn't just her past that got to her, she also had a few incidents like the stunt Grim preformed that tormented her mind.

[heyyew]

The fact that Jiyu was leaving out a lot of details did not evade Capone’s attention whatsoever. This was the same person, she had to remind herself, had tried to kill herself at one point. This… This type of stuff may have been the reason. As much as Capone was interested in learning about what was done and potentially replicating such things if it meant getting someone like Jiyu out of it…

There was a part of her that knew to bite down on that morbid curiosity. This was someone who, like her, was scarred by the events of their past. Someone who was being vague potentially because they weren’t ready to fully divulge all that had happened.

Though Brownie Points was gone, absorbed back into her consciousness, Capone knew the exact thing she would say. Jiyu might not show it, but she was hurting from her past traumas.

Capone could see it because she herself, all this time, had played The Elite into thinking she was above it all. That she never once hurt, ached, or cried over what she had gone through. “Like mother like daughter I guess.” Capone muttered to herself.  ”If you ever want to talk more about it… I’m here.

The silver calico then attempted to pull her daughter into a hug, one she herself had been dying for for awhile now. But her paws went right through Jiyu, and for a split second there was an unmistakable look of shock and hurt on Capone’s face. In an instant it was gone, the silver calico doing her best to hide it. Her predominate expression right now was determination.

”I’m here. And I’m here to stay.”

Because I love you Jiyu. Followed up Capone in her head, words she didn’t have the courage nor the strength to say out loud. The idea of saying something so sentimental, so vulnerable…. She wasn’t sure she could do it.

[Jiyu Simul Stamus]

Apart from having tried to take her own life at one point, Jiyu had met her demise several other times and somehow overcome it each different time. The fact she could pretty much cheat death? Would be important later, but for right now it was forgotten beyond what the one near death meant for the mental state one could imply of her. Currently, it was so easy to forget she had laid down her life several times already without any hesitance, walked death and back, thus was not exactly bound by the laws most normal living felines had to follow. Right now, it wasn't important to remember that, she was too busy hoping her mother would not think or desire to ask further questions.

Hearing the other calico admit they were alike in some way she was confused having never heard any stories of capone going through something like what she had described. Could that be hidden if someone ruled the entire place? She doubted it, at that point, it would become more notable in her opinion.  "Like mother like daughter?" her ears bent back slightly trying to understand what Capone could mean, her lack of social understanding preventing her from seeing that the other was talking about how they hid their emotions from the world, kept the painful truths to themselves.

What she didn't miss was the expression on her mother's face when she failed to embrace her, at least Jiyu guessed that was what Capone was attempting. Mismatched optics blinked slowly as she looked upon the other feline, trying to figure out what was going on, all understanding seemingly lost for the frozen expanse of cluelessness she now displayed. "I don't get it at all." she sighed out the comment like the static on a television, tilting her head down a little bit.

Jiyu could only do one thing, getting up and walking forward seeming as if she was going to walk through Capone, without knowing her powers the other cat likely thought she was done. The former leader would quickly find herself in a very loose and awkward embrace, the benefit of having cheated death, she could change to her spirit form whenever she wanted. "But I can meet you halfway." and that was the best she could offer, she didn't understand any of it, she had shut down completely again, but she could still try to meet her mother halfway.

[heyyew]

Of course she didn’t understand. It wasn’t like Capone had let anyone but her loyal guards know of her suffering. But even they had barely even asked. They hadn’t been there for her like Brae or Theo would have. Like Jiyu might… If Capone was willing to give her that level of trust. To be that vulnerable. She didn’t feel quite ready for that yet.

Capone was stunned as she felt Jiyu actually hug her. How… Oh whatever. It didn’t matter. Capone hugged back tightly, clenching her eyes tight. This meant more to her than Jiyu could possibly imagine. Jiyu didn’t understand. But she had seen Capone’s need and made that effort to reach out. ”There’s a lot I haven’t told you. A lot I haven’t told a lot of people. And maybe one day I’ll be able to share it but right now… Right now I just want to… Be here.”

In this moment. With you.