mme_jolie

Jolie really did like the girl; she'd become part of the family, having been with them for months before any transgression was noticed. She hadn't thought the girl would be so stupid, to try and Gift without a blessing and think that Mati wouldn't notice, but sometimes people did surprising, foolhardy things. The evidence was right in front of her, and rattling through her perception from the antennae -- the fear of the two in front of her, the anger radiating from Vasumati and running like a current through the Bestowed present.

There was little ceremony, this time. There rarely was.

"They have broken Us. This Piece is no longer functional with the Whole, with the grand design," Jolie said. She was never one for these sorts of things, but it inspired the Bestowed, she knew it did. And she believed the feeling behind it. The words were just vehicles.

She pointed at the girl. "This Piece," she continued, spitting the words out. She wanted to hug the girl, tell her it would be all right, but she'd hurt them. She'd endangered the Whole, endangered them all. She'd put the rest of the family at risk by bringing this other into them, by trying to Gift him with stolen goods. What they were doing was divine, and she had tried to imitate what only Vasumati could do. "This Piece has created an Abomination, and in doing so, has ceased to Function."

The metal was in the girl's thorax, banded and twined between her ribcage. Jolie could feel them, almost see them, like an x-ray in the back of her head; she concentrated, her pointing finger crooking upwards once, as if beckoning. The girl hissed audibly as everything in her jumped a bit.

Jolie reached out another hand -- it was easier to steady her power, channel it, when she could feel as though she was actually touching that which she sensed -- and aimed it toward the smaller boy the girl had brought home. He simply had wires twining through the joints of his shoulders, though how the girl had managed that without complications, she...well, she'd done it before, but it was odd to see such luck go with such heresy. Jolie motioned in the air, twisting her fingers and her power around the wires and giving a little tug. He took a step forward, gasping, eyes wide and scared.

Jolie closed her eyes. "Those that cease to Function must be Removed," she whispered. And then, shutting out the fear she was receiving from the children, focusing on the anger from Mati instead, she gathered her strength, clenched her hands, and pulled.

The boy's shoulders burst open, the skin and muscles lacerating as the wires flew out of them; he screamed. The girl barely had enough time to scream before the metal wrapped around her ribcage ripped through her lungs, snapping bits of bone off in their path through her body. Both crumpled, the boy falling silent into shock and the girl just a pile of flesh and Junk on the floor. Blood spattered across Jolie's face, across the faces of the gathered Bestowed around her, onto Mati. The metal shooting toward Jolie, now that it was out of the bodies and thus out of her power, quickly lost momentum and clattered to the floor.

Jolie dropped her hands with it. Tears were stinging her eyes, even though she knew both of them had just been Junk, even though she knew it was necessary to remove the defective Piece -- she had known and loved the girl. She felt almost betrayed by the transgression, by any transgression a Piece made. And now, the exhaustion and sadness were settling into her chest.

"It is done," she said in the quiet. "We have been Restored. The Denizen is coming."

Surrounded by the murmured response, she turned and walked out of the warehouse, head down.