Stumbling in the Dark
To taste Darkness is to taste the indescribable. Sweet? Bitter? Sour? It is everything and nothing at once. Needless to say, when housed within the mortal shell of a heart or body, it is diluted, tainted. 'Other flavors trickle in, making it so that each person is distinguishable, at least to a connoisseur. Riku can be bitter or spicy depending on his mood, and that is sour to the point of nausea. As Ienzo slinks throughout James' headmansion and takes yet another deep breath, he can't help but think this is different. that differentiating taste is so minuscule, it almost doesn't exist. Even the lesser Heartless have more than this. What muse could have this...?
His search eventually leads him to a small room set away from the more populous areas of the Headmansion. It's really nothing more than a tiny study, complete with comfortable looking furniture. The source of this enticing Darkness is a youth in a dark bodysuit who lies limp and reclined on the couch. Ienzo can only assume he is asleep from the way his body is; the youth's face is covered by a dark helmet with a reflective surface. For a moment, the Heartless wavers in the doorway. He's trying so hard to remind himself that he's not a mindless monster. The Darkness is... pleasant in the worst way, but he doesn't need it. He... He...
Before he can stop himself- he's uncertain if he even wishes to- Ienzo is quietly slipping through the room and towards the boy with the helmet. He steps behind the couch, the back of which the boy's head rests. He's shaking as he bends down to take in a deep breath fo the boy's Darkness. It's amazing... So few possess such levels of it, such a delicious concentration... Ienzo bites his lower lip. The fluttering, beating energy of hearts are a different thing from this, but there is no denying the powerful attraction of both. He's drawn in even as he tells himself that he needs to leave.
Zila can taste it too. He can tell by how she moves against his body, anxious and constant. He tells himself it is for her that he moves around the couch to get closer. His eyelids flutter as he props his hands on the couch by both sides of the boy's head, drinking in the Darkness...
Everything happens too quickly, too suddenly. there's a hand fisted in his vest and alarming strength slamming him down against the floor. Ienzo snarls, more alarmed than anything. Frantically, he tries to call Zila to action, to tear away and run. Before they can do anything, however, there's a pounding burst of Darkness. With a choked gasp, his vision goes black from the sheer pleasure that floods his body.When he comes to, Zila has lost shape and is simply lying against him, a puddle limp and shivering. Ienzo is blinking away his dizziness when there's a chuckle above him. "How easily you fall at the slightest taste of Darkness..."
Ienzo's face flushes a pale blue-gray at the statement. He glares up at the helmet of the youth who holds him down; his reflection glares right back. "Surely you cannot claim that as a minor show of power!" he hisses as Zila shudders and shrinks into his shadow. "You... You cannot even be..."
"Human?" the youth finishes, shifting his grip on Ienzo's biceps, keeping him pinned there. The action half makes him bristle, half makes him shiver. Damn this feeling... "You could say that. But look at you- now I'm all disappointed." His tone is pointedly mocking as he takes Ienzo's chin in his hand, thumb pressing hard against his bottom lip. "Even the so-called 'Prince of Heartless' is nothing more than a mindless animal when tempted with shadows."
The response is instant. Darkness or no, Ienzo's pride has been hit. With a snarl that fits the 'animalistic' description, he thrashes as hard as he can. Zila rises like his emotions, taking the forms of spikes from the shadows beneath them. "You arrogant and horrible-!" Before he can so much as think of the finish for this insult, there's another burst. Even if it doesn't show, Ienzo can feel his eyes roll into the back of his head, the world once more going black black black. Subconsciously, he hooks one of his legs around the other, arching back just so he can get closer to that pulsating darkness, so powerful and beautiful and delicious and...When it subsides enough, he's left there shuddering just like his poor and precious Zila. All the worse is that he can smell the smugness radiating off of him.
Petulantly and hating himself, Ienzo jerks his head to the side. "Just who are you?" he hisses.
"Me?" He watches in dark amusement as the Heartless beneath reacts to the slowly returning pressure of Darkness: the small choked noises, the shivering, the way his eyelids sink... Ha. This is almost as fun as messing with Niveus. "Call me Vanitas."
Ienzo sniffs disdainfully. "How appropriate."
Vanitas chuckles. "So I've been told." Still, this little princeling could prove to be useful... The Heartless' attraction to the darkness inside him is painfully obvious. Bit by bit, he lets it sink out, manifesting in a twisting aura of purple and black. Ienzo tries to twist away, eyes squeezed tight, but with how he's held, there's no way for him to do so.
Besides... Mmmn. The Darkness tastes so good, and it's been so long. When had he become afraid of it? There's no reason... Darkness is the only thing he can trust. It hides him, shelters him, listens and below, it's so... Desperately, he tries to get closer, barely aware of what he's doing. "I hate you," he whispers, a quiet moan. Vanitas just laughs.
"I kno-"
Before he has a chance to finish, he suddenly flips off at the sound of something whistling through the air. In the blink of an eye, Vanitas has acrobatically made his way all the way to the other side of the room... And there is an enormous scalpel protruding from the couch, sunk halfway through. Dazed, Ienzo can barely push himself up as something bounds over.
Voxden is even more feral than he had been just moments ago as he crouches on the couch, lips pulled back in a snarl, blue eyes intense. With a hard tug, he slides his scalpel out from the couch. Not once do his eyes live the armored youth.
Vanitas doesn't seem too bothered as he crosses his arms and tilts his head to the side. "What a shame," he says, casually and almost as if he's bored. "I was hoping for a bit more fun." There's the twist of a dark corridor and then... gone. His absence leaves nothing but thick silence within the room.
Finally, movement, hands and legs shuffling against carpet. Bringing himself up onto his feet, Ienzo tugs nervously at the neck of his vest. "Voxden." Even such a quiet word sounds too sharp in the silence. He tugs at the tails of his coat.
With a look of utmost poison at the spot where Vanitas disappeared, the Nobody obeys, still holding on tightly to his weapon with one hand. The other he uses to curl about Ienzo, keeping him close. "I despise that person," he snarls. Ienzo closes his eyes and bows his head against Voxden's chest. There is the reassuringly beat of nothing at all.
"Kill him if we ever see him again."
