✓☒✓ Two Truths & A Lie Meme ✓✓☒

[abheirrant]

Two Truths & A Lie

TO PLAY:
1. post your character
2. post some comments that include two truths and one lie about your character! Feel free to make multiple comments under the same toplevel if your character has a lot of lies to tell. :>
3. comment ICly on other threads! Guess which one is the lie, try to weasel the answer out of the poster, call them out, tease, etc.
4. have fun! ♥

Comments

[circumspector]

Jacob! I thought you said people don't use knives as flirting.

1/2

[nothinglikefather]

That's cute Angel.

2/2

[nothinglikefather]

Did I ever tell you about Roth and Pearl?

[circumspector]

No?

[nothinglikefather]

[ He pats the side of the bed, a sign for her to come and join him there. He doesn't much want to shout all this across their shared space.]

Let me... tell you a story about trust.

[circumspector]

[And off she trots, settling down next to him with a lean into his side.

She already doesn't like how this story was going. ]

[nothinglikefather]

[ Jacob gives her a moment to settle next to him, draping his arm around her and find her presence against his side comforting. He needs that, as he tries to gather his thoughts. Oh Pearl. She had been so defiant and brave, independent and intelligent. He had been so drawn to her.

If only everything hadn't gone to hell.]

Pearl Attaway had a omnibus company- a public carriage company- that was in direct competition with the Templar running London, Starrick. I offered to help her even the odds. She was charming and daring, she appreciated what I could do for her. She made me feel... that was valuable.

And I didn't mind helping her. She was beautiful, we drank in the back of her carriage and she told me her plans for the future, what she wanted for her company. I fell for her, for it, hook line and sinker.

It was later I found out she was Starrick's cousin. They were in it together, using me to consolidate their power and bring down every other omnibus company in London.

So I had to kill her.

[circumspector]

[She listens as she ever does, careful, not directly looking at him so he didn't feel put on the spot and could come to it as he felt like it.

But even then...

When it's finished, she does what a friend can do: hugs him tightly. Wrapped both arms around his shoulders and burrows her face against his shoulder.]

What a bitch.

[nothinglikefather]

[ He pulls a quick, fragile grin, a poor facsimile of his usual boyish smile and then takes a breath and continues.]

And a while after that, you'd think I'd learn my lesson, I get a letter from Maxwell Roth. Leader of the other big gang - the Blighters. I've told you about them right?

He wanted us to take down Starrick. Not for any good or noble purpose but because he felt trapped and... well. He said all these wonderful things about freedom and chaos and about me being the bravest man in London... and when we worked together, he made me feel good. About who I was and what I could do. I wasn't a tool he could use but someone he valued.

I spent more and more time helping him out and he would say nicer and nicer things... and I wanted to please him. More than I ever wanted to please Father or Evie or Pearl. I wanted him to approve. You ever feel like that?

[circumspector]

[ That smile isn't right. It isn't Jacob, to be so pained and so strained. His smile should always be bright, be quick and sure as his hand on his blade. She can't hug it better, make something better that clearly hurts him still, but she can silently promise to destroy this... man and woman that were like this to him. ]

Oh, Jacob, I'm so sorry. I do. [ She slows her breath down. Because she knows, and she would never want anyone to feel that betrayal of trust. ] Jack would always spoil me with presents when I did the thing he wanted, he'd spend all day with me. It made the loneliness... bearable. Enough to make it worth it... So that I'd do anything he wanted the next time. Just so he'd come and visit again in my control chamber.

[nothinglikefather]

[ He nods. Of course she knows. Jack and Roth had so much in common. Charismatic men who could spin such stories and make everything they said seem true and fantastic all at once. They were performers, showmen, and cold blooded killers. ]

One day he took me to a house. Starrick was using it as a weapons factory. We were about to blow it sky high when I saw kids in there.

Roth didn't care. Blew it up anyway. I barely got them all out.

[circumspector]

[ It's not that she doesn't know how these stories go, the cruelty, the lack of care for everyone around them except their high and mighty goals. As if any goal, anytime, could ever make up for that suffering.

She understands, and there is nothing else to say but to hold his hand tightly, threading their fingers together and holding it in her lap like she might protect even just this part of him from the delusions that had lead to so much destruction. ]

Jacob...

[nothinglikefather]

[ He's in full flow now. He feels her hand curl around his, warm and soft and comforting, almost alien in the years he has existed. He has been gripped and grabbed and clung to, but this is a very different sort of touch from a woman.

It would distract him far more if he wasn't back in the Alhambra. In his mind's eye watching from the crowded tiers as Roth makes his speech upon the stage. Here to celebrate life... and death.

It echoes in his head. Over and over, like the screams and shouts that would come later, the burning men and women trying desperately to flee.]

He told me to go to the Theatre. It was his cover, really, but he'd grown up in the Theatre, always had a flair for the dramatic. Put on a special show, dedicated just for me. There were a hundred people there, probably more. Told them he had such a splendid show for them, about life and death.

And then he set fire to the Theatre, a final act of chaos. I had to kill him, to end it, to be sure. And as he died, he kissed me. I don't know if he was trying to apologise, or... if he just wanted to. For old times sakes.

[circumspector]

[ There isn't much to say. She knows the type. That kind of Sociopath is dime and dozen. The flair and the drama, it's what made them Bandit Kings, rather than just the common muck. That enthralling charisma that brought people into them, and made them follow them.

She leans her nose against his shoulder to press a comforting kiss. There wasn't really anything else to say about it? I'm sorry, or it's over now, none of that cut it.

So she thinks only of the things that she wished someone had told her. ]

You know... it's not your fault, right?

[nothinglikefather]

No, I know.

[He honestly doesn't believe it is, really. But he does know that maybe he should have seen it coming, should have realised what Roth was doing to him, using him, playing with him like a cat with a bird. First Pearl and then Roth, did he never learn?

He sighs, and shifts, not really to pull away, but to pull into himself a little. He doesn't like talking about things that make him feel, not really, and this is about as much as he's told anyone who wasn't Charles. Not he just wants a stiff drink.]

So now you know. I stab most people I slept with. Charles being the exception.

[circumspector]

[ That's... easier said than done, to say it's not your fault and actually believe it, when they blood feels soaked under your nails. When the sand is stained, and there isn't anything that can wash it clean.

She doesn't push him further, but she doesn't let go, either. Just with a careful touch, she lets him know she isn't going anywhere. Because she wouldn't blame him, not ever. People like that - ? It was a count down to when they pulled a stunt like that. It was just that he fixed on Jacob first. ]

Well, I wouldn't stay you stab most people you sleep with. I say you have had a bad piece of luck with people who betrayed that big heart you have, and that it required you to have to defend yourself.

[nothinglikefather]

I didn't do it for me.

[ Not really. Pearl was a Templar and she was going to cement Starrick's hold on London still further. Roth? He was a loose cannon, likely to destroy whomever he fancied for sheer thrill. ]

Well. Not really. Maybe a little bit for me. But I had to do it anyway. Even if I hadn't gotten in over my head.