alabasterbride

[alabasterbride]

alexander mcqueen "savage beauty"

[alabasterbride]

“My terror is not secret, but necessary, as the wild must be.”

— Jennifer Chang, from “Freedom in Ohio”, Some Say the Lark

[alabasterbride]

[alabasterbride]

“You, loosened by blood, the blood coursing in & out of your body, your body broken on the wheel of your own passion, your own rage to live so potent you would die for it.”

— Ordinary Miracles, ‘Bloodsong’ by Erica Jong

[alabasterbride]

[alabasterbride]

Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (2005) Dir. Park Chan-wook

[alabasterbride]

She knows, as surely as she knows the beat of her own blood, that he’s come home. Because almost three centuries of marriage — three centuries of their fates intertwined; of spilling blood and sharing blood; of hunter and hunger — have made her attuned to his movements as if they were her own. As if the drum of her pulse is fragmented, insufficient on its own. A question; an echo: I need. I need. I need. 

And the answer: HIS NAME.

Is it so surprising, then, that Rin’s nails dig into the side of the mattress when she catches an unfamiliar scent upon him? That her breath hitches as if on the edge of something sharper — something that seems to have pierced her chest so suddenly that for a second, her flesh doesn’t know to bleed? Call it indignity; call it loathing. Call it marriage.

Still, Rin closes the distance between them when he stops at the doorway. (Out of instinct or devotion, she’s long forgotten the difference). Steps unhurried, sauntering slightly to music only she can hear, humming under her breath. 

“Blood?” There’s laughter in her voice, twined in melody; silvery, glittering. Like the songs of the sea nymphs before a sailor meets his watery death. “But, my beloved, how you wound me, coming home with another’s scent covering your body.” She stops only a scant few inches away. Enough to count his eyelashes were she to rip them out one by one. 

Slowly, she reaches for his hand, placing it upon her chest, though her eyes don’t stray from his. “If you would like blood, perhaps you could reach past my ribcage and tear out my heart instead.” Her gaze moves to his lips, tracing their outline with a patience that doesn’t match the frenzied air between them; with a tenderness that doesn’t match the mockery in her tone. “It would hurt the same, no?” Her voice is lower now — raspy, slightly breathless.

And breathless still is her smile as she uses the full force of her body to slam his injured arm into the wall. 

妻子. 𝙰𝙻𝙰𝙱𝙰𝚂𝚃𝙴𝚁 𝙱𝚁𝙸𝙳𝙴.

ARC: blood brawl (pre-brawl). LOCATION: private residence. WITH:  @alabasterbride

[ tw for bodily harm / injury ] Not for the first time, Zhan Lei comes home late. The aches in his muscles are familiar and welcome, pain that he knew ripped apart at the sinew of his flesh just so his body could work to stitch it all back together again. An endless cycle he subjects himself to every time he comes to train with his mentor, de facto heir to the leadership of his House. The training took hours, and bruises piled upon bruises, broken bones in his arm jutting against the flesh, begging for his attention. It reminded him of his wife.  And speaking of his wife: She’s here. What a fucking miracle.  He enters their home, discarding his coat and his bloodied shirt using his uninjured arm, gently placing them on the back of a chair, all the while comforted by the smell of her. He knew she was inside their room, and that information gave him a great deal of peace. He didn’t even have to tie her up to keep her there, this time.  “Rin,” he calls her name, the hint of desperation almost scrubbed clean from his tone. Almost. “Come here. I need your blood,” he orders, stepping into their room, warm blood from his wound glistening in the dim lights as he paused by the entryway, hungry eyes laid on her.  Zhan Lei grit his teeth, and waited patiently, bracing himself for the inevitable fight. It always was a struggle to devour his own wife. 

[alabasterbride]

Kedi. Dir. Ceyda Torun. 2016.

[alabasterbride]

Comfort. Rin did not know of comfort — not in this landscape of burning. She did not know of mercy, of gentleness, of peace. Tenderness only ever succeeded brutality; kindness was thing to be beaten out of. Yet she stilled when Titus sat down next to her — not her usual stillness; the pause between claps of thunder as the sky holds its breath before a howl — but rather, the aftermath of a storm. Perhaps not quite merciful. Perhaps not quite peaceful. But for a moment, there was no thunder; no screams piercing the air — only a quiet familiarity, a solidity, a voice low but pure enough to hear the blood within it. His.

“Please,” Rin huffed after a moment, her own voice a bit louder than his, though this was nothing new or even surprising. “Combat with my dear husband is a much loved hobby.” An impish smile, a slight tilt of her head. “Are you ready? I will be there.”

Location: Bar (?) Timeline: Blood Brawl (pre-brawl) With: @alabasterbride

“Saw your name on the line up,” he slid into the seat next to Rin, forgoing any sort of customary greeting. Wasted syllables were inefficient, a drain on energy. If words were to communicate, why would one speak in riddles? So even if he was a few minutes late, he spoke nothing of it, instead choosing to make a quick order from the bar.

He turned to his waiting companion, a small, rare smile gracing his lips. Body language often conveyed more than he could (or would) in words, it’s simplicity something he favoured over the layered complexities of spoken word. It transcended even geographical boundaries, leaping over hurdles of different tongues. But perhaps because his voice box was so unused to speech, his voice was low and quiet, almost difficult to hear against the chatter around them. “You ready? Zhan will be there.”

[alabasterbride]

Female Vampire (Jesús Franco, 1973) The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Miss Osbourne (Walerian Borowczyk, 1981)

[alabasterbride]

–but no no no I DON’T WANT TO BE LOVED, I DON’T WANT TO BE FORGIVEN, LET ME REDEFINE GOD INTO SOMETHING I CAN BECOME

from TELL ME WHAT COLOR THE SUN REALLY IS // h. yenna kim (via openlylesbian)

[alabasterbride]

Nezha wasn’t a threat. 

If not for the pale flush eternally painted upon his cheeks from the various spirits he had on hand, then for the abandonment-sized shield she held that reluctantly answered to husband. 

Nezha wasn’t a threat, and she knew this — still, Rin couldn’t help but stiffen at his words as if they were a dull blade held against her throat; unable to breach skin yet its indentation fitting so perfectly into her shallowly hidden insecurities nonetheless. Perhaps this was worse — that the very shape of the weapon confirmed the presence of the wound.

“Perhaps,” was the delayed response, hissed with a violence in its undertones that didn’t quite match the way her lips pulled back from her teeth in a fiendish smile — or was it a snarl? — whichever served as a more apt description of a tempest . “And you? Will you fight your dear brother? Or simply run from him again?”

Location: Jigoku  With: @alabasterbride

It was another day of infinity and Nezha was enjoying himself as per usual, gluttonously drinking yet another fine glass of wine. He swirled the contents in his hand as he eyed his companion. With the news of the Blood Brawl at the cusp of the coming season once more, he knew that she’d be one that’d no doubt, enter and represent the glorious house of Spiders. After all, their matriarch mother dearest made it known that she was a darling favorite. He didn’t get it but nevertheless he bit his tongue. 

“So,” he looked toward Rin. “Will you finally beat Zhan’s ass?” A smirk slowly stretching against his pretty features, a lethal statement disguised as a challenge. 

[alabasterbride]

[alabasterbride]

I vow / a ravenous undoing. / I vow to love the fire always

— Tamiko Beyer, from “I Vow To Be the Small Flame,” Last Days (via lifeinpoetry)

[alabasterbride]

“i was/everywhere, like a god/or a virus & i was everything/required of me & i was anything/but tame/& so, so long from then/i stand in the deepest part of night/singing recklessly, calling/what must feast/ to feast.”

— Danez Smith, from “recklessly,” published in Vinyl 

[alabasterbride]

Yua by Louisa Meng

[alabasterbride]

“They wanted me to be an object. I am an object. An object dirty with blood. Mechanisms make endless demands on my life. But I don’t totally obey: if I have to be an object, let me be an object that screams.”

— Clarice Lispector, Água Viva