An attempt to thwart Sophie’s MindControl(Ambrose)
Date: 2025-09-11 20:36
(An attempt to thwart Sophie’s MindControl(Ambrose):Ambrose)
[Thu Sep 11 2025]
Haven Lighthouse
It is night, about 68F(20C) degrees, and there are clear skies. The mist is heaviest At Birch and Hart/span>/span There is a waning gibbous moon.
// Will be setting up the room momentarily.
Wonder sits in a flash of colors on Navessa rigid body, an amalgamation of shapes taken by the eyes. It settles in a mist by the feet and cloaks the ground like a carpet. “Not very Wonderful of you.” It declares in a sedate, chorus of voices upon interval eight notes.
Annabelle’s limbs are granted reprieve, but a stumble beyond the mouth of the alley isn’t allowed. “Gag me with a spoon, Wonder! It’s just graffiti!”
“It is representative of that which belongs to me? (belongs to me.)” asks, Wonder/span>/spanes. Molding into the shape o f the words ‘TRUTH IS LOUD.’
“It’s not very well-done graffiti,” Navessa/span>/spanFor the moment, Ambrose busies himself with smearing at one of the graffiti-bits, himself. But it’s clear he’s clocked the presence and been listening, in multiple manners; as he finishes with one swipe of SPEAK YOUR TRUTH, his gaze drifts over. “The one who smeared these is, likewise, hardly wonderful. It is, in fact, a wonder that you put up with her as long as you did.”
The gangly vampire’s attention returns to the graffiti, scraping and scrubbing without issue, stress, or strain. “Those who are not particularly wonderful nor welcome tend to get banished, eventually.”
“I wondered where it would lead.” The eidolon, Wonder/span>colors sedating into a marching arrow that breezes past the the alleyway in a marching Powerpoint wipe-away. “It is her only painting, all fifty seven of these words. It was tiresome.”
“When you present yourself to the world, do you really want people to see this as the first sight in your name? It’s like an auction of pop.” Annabelle/span>/spanAnnabelle says “Er, poop.“
For some, it might be strange. Harrowing, even. But for Navessa it is… just another day. There’s already an entity in her head, a muse, and she has gotten along just fine with that. This is nothing. That could also be the affront to her artistic senses, but, well. She does turn to the walls to work at the scrubbing herself. “She put in some effort and dedication, but… it is just words. Words are so easy, aren’t they? People spout words all the time.”
“So it goes,” Ambrose laments airily of something-or-other, continuing to clean up the aforementioned gal’s mess before it’s marching on to the next slop of graffiti. “She also immediately reached back out to me after, having already burned that bridge. Familiar song-and-dance that I am not stepping to.”
“Gang-gang. Cult girl ghosted, vibe dismissed, Guess what, babes? You wont be missed.” The ethereal, possibly ancient spirit of the concept of Wonder/span>/span like an eldritch prophecy, poisoned by its followers.
“As Cristal would say. Paint something nicer, won’t you. (won’t you?)”
Annabelle watches the colors dissipate, still stuck in the same room. With a sigh, she looks up to the air and mutters a prayer. “Please come back.”
A brief flash of color, and Annabelle/span>/span“Well, I don’t have paint with me right now, but I might be able to do something with what’s here,” Navessa promises after Wonder as she considers the graffiti before them. She’s still in a fair bit of pain, but being able to focus on what *is* her craft (well, sculpting really, but she is a painter as well!) helps. A lot, actually. Especially with her Muse of late.
“Yes. Actually. No, no, don’t apologize… Muses are finicky. Always have been, ask the Greeks.” But she does cast a smile toward Annabelle as she steps forward and does start to work on cleaning the graffiti in such a way to reshape it a bit, to take away the letters and leave at least more visually appealing shapes and designs instead.
Annabelle doesn’t make the calls, doesn’t act like a foreman, but passes Navessa the supplies she needs to facilitate her cleaning work. “Right, a muse.” She sighs somewhat flatly, opening and closing her gauntlet. “I kinda think I’m the muse, really. She’ll remember me when she goes wherever eidolons go, and the memory of me will be how she approaches the world above. I like performance, or- well, I’m getting to like it. It’s kinda my boyfriend’s thing, but the more I live the more I realize that you do have to sorta sell people on stuff.”
Annabelle says “But I’m not gonna worship the concept of business management, right? Just wouldn’t be right.“
Two birds with one stone — the newly-minted graffiti takes on an artful demesne, not a controlling one. There is no secrecy empowering it any longer — it is bold, a statement. Visually appealing, not provocatively crass. Less urgent.
Meanwhile, Ambrose is further down another alley, opting for the old-fashioned method of scrubbing away at a wall, shedding the paint from brick with elbow grease. Or sheer necromantic will over his body.
“I am not terribly keen on the uninvited. Spirits, Eidolons, whichever,” Ambrose answers to Annabelle and Navessa alike, though the former’s likely familiar on his stance already. “Hence my words about the unwanted winding up banished. But where there is not a… stress being placed, there is no need to answer with spiritual violence.”
Spiritual violence, like the sort the three are currently cleaning up.
“Business management is exceedingly dull,” Navessa agrees with Annabelle. “I don’t think I could ever. But she is pretty,” Navessa agrees. “And it does not sound to me-” a look down toward Ambrose, “like Wonder specifically… forced this or yes, violence of a kind. It may have been done in her name? Though by someone who left her, so I doubt she does care much if we change it. But just to ease matters a little-” she steps back to look at her work, considering a line here, a bit of color there, accepting those supplies given her by Annabelle. Better to leave it just one section of graffiti rather than a sweeping display of garish, bold words. “by leaving something pleasant to admire, I think?”
“..I think it’s in this- eugkk-” Annabelle grunts from a particularly difficult tippy-toe alley-oop of paint cleaner. “..I mean, yeah. It’s just convenient, really. It doesn’t have an ounce of humanity, but it’s conceptually this sorta.. Amalgamated consciousness of human awe and creation. I don’t know that it has much incentive to be cruel.”
Navessa does try to (helpfully!) point out some of those higher up bits to Annabelle. Because she is a bit short. So this will be a… somewhat lower (and more eye level!) bit of color on the alley walls.
“I think she’ll like this.” Annabelle offers Navessa with an elbow nudge into an elbow, careful of griffon claws. “I mean, approval nonwithstanding just- well.”
“I am sure she will. They tend to like art in their honor, whether it be ego or… Wonder,” Ambrose agrees as he treks on, finding one of the last remaining large sprawls of graffiti. Vampiric bodies make excellent workhorses, because even injured as he is, there’s no pain to slow him down, and with the sun fully waning, he’s looking more ‘healthy’ and capable than otherwise.
“I’m glad we didn’t have to.. Climb a volcano and cross a mine field to push a mainframe into lava, or trace and counter-politic via shotguns and baseball bats some political agenda.” Annabelle perks without an inch of irony to her words, bobbing along. “I guess we are removing something sorta ugly. I wonder where that line between like ‘awful’ and ‘imaginative’ starts. There’s some creepy paintings out there.”
It’s terribly unfair, really. That Ambrose is looking better than she is, already. But then, she has herself to blame (kinda, sorta) with that aura of hers. And Navessa *did* offer. But it’s more than made up for by the work he’s putting in to clean the bulk of the graffiti while she does the more fine details on leaving behind a section of it, words cleansed away and loops and swirls of color left in its place. “Well, we will leave this behind out of respect for her *in general* because entities of power deserve some level of respect, regardless. Even if it’s just respect that they have power.” There is a smile for Annabelle as well, leaning gamely with the elbow nudge. “I just hope anything I assist with in the future is as much in my wheelhouse as this.”
She knows it won’t be.
“Nnahahah…” Annabelle’s innocent, breezy laugh is just a little menacing in a dusk-lit alleyway at night, responding to Navessa.
For Ambrose’s part, he just smirks a bit. “You would be surprised, often. And… just as often, you would not be.”