bonmotx

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upboundline​:

your shadow is staring at you expectantly, gawain. he wants something. he wants pats. @bonmotx

Head empty, extending a hand... with a knight medal in it. You foolish king. You negligent pet shadow owner.

your shadow is staring at you expectantly, gawain. he wants something. he wants pats. @bonmotx

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“You fought that... lesser me alongside the great Siegfried, in your first ‘proper’ adventure.” Possibly an odd way to start a conversation, besides sliding into their personal space with a look that is more of an inspection of quality than perhaps standard for one as carefree as the twilight dragon. A doomed jewel- or perhaps one that invokes a miracle? The same thing, really. They’re truly the same thing.

Dooming someone, giving them a miracle... living and dying... they couldn’t be more similar. Or at least, looking upon the atrocities the Grand Order must witness, a dragon would assume.

“Was defeating him a gift? Or would it have been better for him to be an impossible hurdle?”

@lightsvoyage​ - starter

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“Urianger Augurelt.” Almost more automation than person. The Echo should not manifest here, in something without a soul. The statue knows this. But the statue is covered still in dust and with unfinished aspects, cleavage points that have left sharp fractures and missing gaps. “My master’s will bade me to find you, one scholar to another. Pygmalion of Cyprus has left his library to the Scions of the Seventh Dawn. I carried the paperwork in my satchel, but...”

Hm. The marble creaks slightly with her approach, trying to not break the floor below her with the force of her steps. Being made of stone typically does that to a person’s gait. She gives a small bow, then the woman makes a vague gesture with one hand.

...presumably to the entirely missing limb on her right side.

“...it appears to be missing. Some men on the road asked to borrow it to carry their gold. They said they would return it within the hour, but when I went to get it, they held swords. I do not think they intend on returning it.”

A pause.

“Or my arm. When one of their swords hit it, it came off. I tried to use it to entice the return of my property, but then they took that, too. My master then bade I come here to explain the situation.”

How did this turn from a normal transaction to a comedy sketch?!

@minarcana​! - starter

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Idly, he’d hoped not to run into family.  Taking up a western garb helped, keeping his hood carefully down, and surely even his brothers wouldn’t have known that their brother had a different mother- a more... fox wedding sort of mother- if even Ranmaru himself hadn’t, so the odds weren’t too stacked against him, logically, yet...

No. The odds were stacked against him because karma was a bitch.

They would remember him as a sister. They would ask questions. They’d stir up complicated feelings. They might try to argue with his... everything. So, sue him. Ranmaru was a bitchy little coward and he’d admit it. He had wanted to avoid the kind of awkward conversations that would ensue. 

So hurrying down the hall and quite literally stumbling face first into Mori Nagayoshi wasn’t exactly what Ranmaru had hoped for even when he was forced with a confrontation. Stupid brothers, all being bulkier than him...! (Because it can’t be anything but an angry confrontation, can it? They must all hate him. There’s no other option. To be the last, most loyal page, and to have abandoned their lord after death...)

Careful planning especially stood helpless in the way of Nagayoshi.

The little sprite at his shoulder huffs, as if to say I told you so, me.

“Brother. It’s... been a while.” Really? That’s the best he can muster? Maybe he should just start taking advantage of a higher Agility stat and book it like a really laughable fool. It’s not too late to run, right? The dramatic tension of the situation really feels lost in the all-too-familiar sensation of being a younger sibling about to be trouble...!

@homeport​! - starter

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“Shizuka Gozen.” The name falls irritated from her lips. Really... this kind person, having a wife? This sort of ehehe, whoopsie, haha head puns, eager dog kind of person? Medb stands hands on hips, looking over Ushiwakamaru like someone surveying the worth of a property, or appraising a rival. “You never said you had a wife... did you get too much sunshine? Are you delirious?”

How odd. She’s more genuinely irritated than her normal cattiness...

“You better have treated her better than your mentor’s girl, you got it? I can’t believe it. A brat like you, with a shy sort of woman...” Eh? Isn’t that making an assumption, Queen Medb? Really, looking so unimpressed before someone has answered is hardly fair, but Medb has never the kind of person who experienced or gave out ‘fairness’.

“She must have been quiet, to tolerate how loud you are. I’ll pull out Fergus’ sword if you give me the wrong answer, you know.”

starter - @shanaoh​

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like this for a starter as i chug my way back into the blog dimension specify the muse or i will just roll a wheel with everyone on it this is not an exaggeration

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record 2: Perhaps fittingly, she died soon after.

“Your Mystic Code needs to be tuned up, but we don’t have the time before we face Ivan. We can’t send you out like that-”

“It’s fine, I’ve been practically sweating in this.”

“But…!”

“It’s like you said. We don’t have time. Let’s get it done, okay? I promise, I’ll be fine.”

“Mm… if you insist, but…  If something happens, tell us right away, alright? Be careful, Director Sophie!”

She really should have listened.

The cold seeps in through her arm. Which one it is doesn’t matter. It’s just cold. A cold that burns where her own weight pins her arm to the ice.

It’s cold. It’s so cold. It’s so, so cold, and her mouth would crying out in agony if it were not filled solid with snow.

Here there is a piano playing, and nobody has noticed. Nobody is looking at her, so far away right now. They’re looking at the tsar, the mighty tsar, and blurred by the frost she can’t help but think-

The ice covers her lips, encases her nose, and smothers her oxygen away. She tries to take a breath but the creep of ice splinters into her throat.

It hurts. She can’t breathe. It must hurt because she can’t breathe. Isn’t that a clever realization?

She’s blind. She can’t see. All her contracts feel cut off from her, unable to verbalize the command to cry for help, help, help. It stings. The lack of oxygen burns. The piano still manages to cut through her brain, but it’s barely there.

Does it even exist? Even the pain itself doesn’t feel real. Maybe everything around her is nothing but a delusion made of this feeling.

She knows she has never felt this sharp and encompassing of a pain. A certainty of her fate fills the void in the numbness of her thoughts.

She knows it.

She’s dying.

-when did she learn fear? It is here now. She feels fear in her brain, stabbing like a migraine. When did it come in?

Ah. No, she might know.

For the first time, she thinks of the blue sky. Faint, barely there. The grey-white mass of the stormwall, briefly, almost seems to part. She knows it hasn’t. She can’t even see it. After all, she’s staring emptily into her own iced-over retinas.

Sophia has never missed the blue of the sky before. The staff mentioned it. Together, at least once a month, they joined together in the simulator to see it, like needy herbs in a garden reaching for a sunlamp.

A year in, they even brought Sophia into this odd practice. It was Lucille (they were from a minor family in Denmark, they wanted to be a carpenter, they loved their grandparents) who made sure she didn’t push it off with work. Sophia didn’t get it then. She never understood the appeal of the sky. It was nothing more than something above them.

They smiled so brightly the blue was reflected in their eyes. Sophia never understood that joy, only able to link it to her own clawing desire to improve. When the temple fell, the entire staff left together, like those little moments they found together, to see the blue sky they had saved.

Da Vinci didn’t leave with them. She said this was something for those living humans to experience first.

Sophia didn’t understand. That unparalleled joy for the vast sky, the screams and sobs, the way some dropped to their knees and others ran for a short period, as if they could chase and catch the blue so far above them, was inscrutable.

She knows the name of each one of those who fought so hard to help her live past those ordeals.

Meuniere, Tomarin, Octavia. Chin, Kayan, Elron. Kawata, Marcus, Lucille. Adetola, Elijah, Malik. Yara, Aisha, Juan. Caden, Isra, Delilah.

The eighteen staff who she had become responsible for. Those who smiled and made their mission, no matter how hard she made it, "To bring the novice, who cluelessly became master, home safely." Even when they knew she had never had a ‘home’ before, they brought her into their fold, and let Chaldea become a home for them all.

They wanted to share the blue sky with her, despite knowing she would be uncomprehending of the meaning of the act. Yet they brought her along, yet she went anyways, and smiled with them despite not yet knowing what it was supposed to mean.

Now, dying, unable to even flip her body up to die facing it, she understands.

Beyond the stormwall it’s blue. Blue, like the flowers she keeps seeing in servants’ dreams- she’d never dreamed before, yet many a time, it seemed as if something of her was finally leaking in, even though her own dreams were still beyond her.

Beyond the stormwall it’s blue, it’s free.

(Once, twenty-three years ago, there was a baby being born.)

(That baby was doomed to die.)

(She was born with the origin of ‘sea’.)

(Like all life, she would be born of it and be returned to it.)

(It was a fate averted, but a fate stolen from her nonetheless.)

(Now, fate balanced itself out, and this frozen sea would consume her once more-)

She never used to dream. Imagining that blue, so close she might reach it, it feels as good a time as any. Because-

I want to live.

-she’s only feared death, before. But it was never from the way others described it, their hopes and dreams and desires for life making it such a thief of their futures. Sophia knew the shackles around her limbs were immovable.

It was nothing to mourn. She learned to fear death, yet she did not seek out life. It was dragged to her doorstep battered and bitten, like a cat dropping prey at its master’s feet, and she reluctantly accepted it, because it wasn’t her right to have.

Her life was not her own to be missed. It belonged to somebody else.

If it was… would she even be the same person?

Yet now, facing down death, its maw the only warmth she feels in the numbing burn of the immense cold, she wanted not just to escape that fearful death.

I want to live. I want to live. I want to live.

Not just a fear of death. Unanswered desires pile up at the feet of her human life. A fogged lens on her future has no answers as to what would have been past it, yet she wants to take it in her hands and wring the worth from it. Even the painful pieces are here, desirable, tempting.

Inside, she asks, what would she give up to live?

What can take this death with it?

What could be given up to live?

Something warm is pressed into her lips- no it’s not just warm. It’s hot. It melts her frozen lips. Instinctively they part, gasping for breath. But there’s not a chance- the squirming thing is shoved in, wet and hot, and it tastes wonderful, and so familiar-

Sophia chews. She rips and tears at this something and her fingers finally twitch to life, and she feels a pulsing heat fill her body, and her body curls in on itself before spasming into the snow with a heat that melts it around her, and she lays in the slurry of dirt and ice and swallows something, and finally, finally, opens her eyes.

There’s a clump of hair before her, blonde and twisted, and her tongue catches some of it in between her teeth. It doesn’t fit anything here but herself. Her hands are bloody. Her mouth is bloody. There’s nothing here. There is no Ivan, no music, there is no snow.

There is only blood.

And Sophia feels inhumanly alive.

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record 5: The milk calcified the useless lump in her heart.

Something has broken. It’s a loud noise. The world is a blur in her head. It’s all so loud. It’s all so quiet.

Something has broken. It’s a loud noise. Someone is crying. There’s a lukewarm sugar in her brain. 

Something has broken. The world is splintered around her.

Something has broken. Someone is crying.

“My child… my child…”

A dog is barking.

“My wife… she doesn’t remember…”

All the evil things in the world speak. All the dismissed things in the world speak at once, yet she can hear every voice as clear as glass.

Her fingers ache.

Someone too depressed to go to work wails. The prostitute wails. The soldier on the wrong side wails. A child born blind wails.  Every misfortunate soul screams and cries out into the world, Their screaming is thundering, but their surrender is deafening.

Ah. Is that the point?

All these people. These beings. Lost in an empty space. It almost tastes like milk-

Oh. That’s what happened.

She fell.

There was a scream. There was not enough time to respond. The Master is the clearest threat to the one who seeks to keep his position as the final god of this world.

A single lunge. A single swipe.

Sophia Vogel-Westenra stood on the Shadow Border.

Sophia Vogel-Westenra fell off of the Shadow Border.

Sophia Vogel-Westenra reached out her hand.

Sophia Vogel-Westenra locked eyes with her murderer.

Sophia Vogel-Westenra and The Final God’s gaze met.

Sophia Vogel-Westenra reached out her hand.

Sophia Vogel-Westenra plunged into the milk sea.

Everything in the milk sea at the origin of the universe was colorless and inscrutable. The people sang, uncountable. Their songs were filled with grief and rage and yet, their nonexistent emotions were buried away, because they weren’t important. This empty white space was where everything deemed not right for the world was placed. All at once, she was swallowed and embraced by that miserable nothingness.

Perhaps it was fitting that she fell here.

...everyone would be okay…

...so maybe…

She could just…

...close her eyes for a moment…

…and listen to the singing of the sea.

...no. 

...this sea isn’t singing.

It’s screaming, like a child taking its first breath.

The wails become a harmony. Something understandable. The lost flowers, the scattered arms of eaten gods. Every lost life exists here- yet that’s not right.

It wasn’t lost.

It was put here.

It was killed.

It was sacrificed so that a perfect world may exist. It was sacrificed for one person’s own ambitions. Everything here was murdered and put together into one being, and they all occupied this space combined together, individuality lost into the sea. 

That person put them here. Put everything here he didn’t want to look at. This place was made up of everything ungainly and unsightly, everything deemed defective. This sea of sacrifice, of suffering, where she now was placed.

It made her angry.

Who was he to choose? Who was that blue eyed god to choose? (Eyes were more grey, but they’re cold as ice.) Why does this blood that drips from her mouth feel so cold? (The ice killed her. It has taken root in her.) All this screaming has become a beautifully frigid noise, sliced through violin strings, a broken piano. 

(The funeral song of rage and grief played as the Master of Chaldea dies not from a dramatic action but because her suit failed and she froze to death.)

(A death devoid of purpose or meaning, not a murder or a suicide or anything with intent. Just an empty, sad accident.)

Who was he to choose? Who were they to choose?

Ah. The death of her parents, too, was a sacrifice, chosen by her, and her own mortality has become a sacrifice for her life to continue. Every life is just a grain of sand on the scales of a selfish being that wants to mold the word into their shape. Everything has been reduced to nothing but this, this idea of perfection that spat in the face of those who walked and talked and breathed and lived, lived, lived-

It’s all so obvious. 

(Something calcifies in her chest.)

All of this, all of this here, from the first god who reached a hand to a lost son, to the most very recent victims of the cycle, and everyone and everything in between, can all fall under the label of sacrifice.

And that… was something she could reach out to.

Sophia nearly laughed. 

She could grab it, and use it like she was used.

No human could survive this.

But it was fine.

Because she finally realized [                                                        ]-

The world outside continued for the seconds that passed. There was not enough time to respond with anything of value.

But those seconds resulted in something odd.

It was a cough, wet and choking.

The final god’s Arjuna stomach bulges out. Something swallowed up like any other sacrifice presses up to the surface and cuts its way out of him, falling to the ground in a duet with another sickeningly wet noise.

A piece of metal, ragged like a ripped piece of paper, not even a proper blade, a swan song in a solid form.

Something crawls from the milk. 

She could never know the reactions to this rebirth, but she knows that feathers drip from her body like puss, swollen under her skin and pushing through like something unnatural. Her tongue can feel something pushing from her gums before it pierces through, a sudden relief from the pressure that had been mounting. Her hands are twisting. Webbing and patches of fur make her fingers contort into new and fascinating shapes. Yet even as she cannot breathe, and her body erupts into a more violent change with each ragged cough, she grins at a pain she can finally, finally, control.

Sophia Vogel-Westenra tries to grab her chest as she hacks something up, something solid and squirming in her throat, blocking the air from her lungs, and she can’t breathe. It hangs from her mouth and the swirling blur of the lack of air makes her grab it and rip, and she can feel something wet drip from the corner of her mouth as she takes in a pure breath of oxygen and ozone and iron, and when she looks down-

Her own heart has fallen onto the ground, twitching and pulsing as it changes forms around the single, unchanging patch of flesh, where a rune is dug in like a brand. It is still because it is bone and calcified flesh, and without thinking, trembling hands reach out to it.

Every finger is different, and the sharpest two take the firm, boney thing in-between them.

They ask what it felt like. It was pain. It was clarity. It was the way the shards of shattered bone dug into her convulsing hands.

She screamed.

It felt wonderful.

[bonmotx]

your role in the tragic play

bold protagonist

you're the star of the show, baby! and boy does that come with a lot of emotional turmoil. you have a seemingly endless supply of determination. whether you have a lot of goals, or one big one, you're constantly working towards it. you're pretty restless, and struggle with imposter syndrome and generally feeling like you should be doing more. your insecurity might not be immediately obvious to others, however, as you come across as very strong and bold. vulnerability is not your strong suit, and that's likely to be your downfall. if only you had just let people in, and asked for help... well, maybe this was always gonna be a tragedy.

tagged by: nobody tagging: @sinsoko, @originlist, @avlon, @artorily, @nulltune, @tenkoseiensei, @caemthe, @minarcana, @jaakunxkaze​

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sinsoko​!:

        “Of course I believe you,” Amakusa hisses, like the thought of anything else is an insult.  “Douman.  You were right.  I died,” one of his trembling hands pulls away and brushes a strand of hair from Douman’s face.  “Why do you weep so when you weren’t the one to put the blade through my chest?  Dear loyal Douman.”

         Amakusa feels his eyes water and scrubs at his face with his sleeve to try and ease the itching.  “You are my servant, so you should rise with pride,” at that his voice breaks in his throat and he closes his eyes.  He can feel their nails against his skin, their warm breath on his face.

         To him, Douman is home.  Amakusa has been made bereft of many things, but he had felt no other loss so keenly since Shimousa burnt.  Screaming at all hours, scratching his skin until it peeled in long strips, unable to sleep, the loss has made him a madman.  (The proprietress has been suspiciously patient.)  Surely he looks rough to their sensibilities now.

         He presses a single kiss to their forehead, as Douman would do for him late at night.  They don’t look quite the same as when the two of them last met, but that’s alright for now.  He’s eager to understand every inch of Douman that wasn’t there before.

Of course he are. Logically, this notion should be sound. Never has Ashiya Douman doubted so much someone’s words, and yet there is something here that hisses and spits-

once again, worthless. misogi and harae are left away from your grasp. bested by worse at curses. not even a useless thing that can only do kamigakari. because you are worthless, worthless, unable to serve a single person.

unable to love and properly save a single person.

Yet Amakusa Shirou says he died as if it gives them any absolution. They laugh, pained as their eyes burn, burn, burn like their lord’s must have, because this is nothing but fire and pain and salt upon the wound that is their grief. Their hands shake.

“As if you did not die by my own fault... as if I was not the one who failed to stop the blade...” Like a bird in a cage, plucking its own feathers out. Shirasagi-no-mai, the dance of white cranes. Set in April, and would not have their lord died the day after that sunday’s dance to the heavens? Are they not as much a failure as the crane that failed to bring good fortune? 

Amakusa Shirou is a sun that Ashiya Douman should never have been painted alongside.

“If you had less faith in me, you could have used the seals to bring me to your side. If I had not deceived you so, made you think I was able to protect you... you may have lived.” ‘Command seals’. At first, Ashiya Douman could not resist toying with the ideas of how to make them go to waste. Perhaps cut them off in one, clean motion? Gag him and make it slow? Certainly there was the temptation. Whether they bowed willingly or not, it was still folly to think anyone could truly be served by Ashiya Douman.

Yet...

They stay knelt upon the ground. A shikigami falls out of their sleeve, almost limp and dead. But it pulls weakly to life, forming into a far more solid shape in their hand.

A boxwood comb sits in one hand, held by talons that could, so easily, divot the wood. Yet their touch is as delicate to it as it is to their lord. Talons cannot harm him, simply because he is their master, defined and announced as such.

It’s a well-worn box. '四郎’ has been carefully carved onto the outside of the box, and though the honeysuckles have been singed by fire on the left side, the ambrosia blossoms carved onto it seem largely untouched by the flames, rather instead chipped and scratched. It is damaged, charred and with deep gouges.

The damage could not be undone. Their head droops, but they open it instead, a creak of the hinges that have not needed to do so for so long. There is a familiar bundle of fabric, stained in blood and ash, swaddling something far, far more precious. Dried flower petals, swirls of wild angelica pressed flat. Finally their talons still, as they unfold the haori their lord died in.

Inside, as has for so long, sits a hand-carved tsuge comb. Camelias sit opposite of honeysuckle, and it smells of a staleness of a box long closed- very faintly, still, of pine. Not something they made- no, they were utterly incapable of such a thing, that long ago. Incapable of the tenderness required to make a delicate thing. But they commissioned the effort. They found the tree.

Now, they think the camellias were a sour touch. For one so ever-ill. What were they thinking. But their thumb rests over the self-beheading flowers and they must forgive their past self. They must, if they want to move forward.

That was then. This is now.

This was one piece of their life they would never ‘move forward’ from. They would carry it forever.

But they cannot help but reach for him again. They would sooner die, unworthy as they are, but if they... if they would...

“...I should have put edelweiss instead. It must befit my lord better... persisting. Surviving.” Douman holds this, this first gift given, this item so cherished. A long abandoned shrine that slowly became less of a heresy and more of a sense of belonging. Angelica saplings and mountain vegetables. Wards worked on by two. Even the grave left behind. 

“I held onto it so long... because this is all I had left of you. For 1,238 days I have only had this single box.” For 1,238 days, each counted, each recorded. A single piece of sentiment in everything else, all the rage, the venom.

“...if you forgive me... please, take it back. I have held onto it for its proper owner... and if my lord will stand by my side, where I may love him, then...” Ah. Is this what most humans feel like, when they renew vows? “...it was the first action I gave my lord, out of true sentiment, and nothing more. I would have it renew that vow, to my living lord, rather than the grieving memory I held of him. If my lord will wish us... if you want to be side-by-side again.”

It has been so long. They would not blame him. They cannot quite meet his gaze, but they force themselves to do so. What an unchanging fool they are. How perfect still, is the first human they ever loved.

“...I would wish for that. If you will have me.”

[bonmotx]

@brilliantpride​ asked!: snuggles up closer to kama while reading a book. she's sitting, right here, for the next few hours, don't even think about moving ♥

It’s a quiet night, despite the god’s tendencies when it comes to this kind of thing. In spite or because of everything that has happens as of late, there is a sense of inevitability at this time. Something about this moment feels irreplaceable.

...Kama’s body is always in pain. This is not something that will ever change. Kama does not hope for it, does not bend and pray. This is simply the way the world works. She sits and would hiss at most touch, but the approach of the master seems to be accepted.

...perhaps more than that.

Cold arms wrap around Yako’s midsection. Close, closer... there’s a safety here. Something trustworthy. A balm. Her chin rests upon the Yako’s head. It’s soft, and her ears twitch slightly at it, but for once, the mouthy bastard doesn’t say anything.

Not that Kama would have minded. Really... it would have been fine. There’s something about the quips and dumb comments that by now has become rather more a comforting presence. It should be irritating, but at this point, it’s fond rather than truly peeved.

It’s all irritating. But she thinks quietly, for a while, eyes not truly focusing on whatever Yako is reading. Probably the Illiad, or something similar.

A thought comes to mind. Something from Yako’s language, rather than her own. It vaugely reminds her of that boisterous seasonal bunch with the feisty dog. One of them spoke about inevitability, but this is rather more...

“To you... 恋の予感, I guess.”

It doesn’t seem like Yako noticed. Maybe she did and just chose to not probe. But for once (as if it can be said to truly be ‘for once’ at this point), even if she did, maybe Kama wouldn’t mind.

What an irritating fox.

(”Thank you.” It is unsaid. Yet it should be.)

(For so long it was unthinkable.)

(Yet maybe someday, even from a prideful god, for this one person, it will.)

(bloopers:)

“...next time, I’ll give you a crystal in a pleasant wa- DON’T HEADBUTT ME YOU LITTLE SHIT?!”

[bonmotx]

@caemthe​​ asked!: [ conall, for lupin ] The metallic taste of blood was intoxicating. A drug he took with his mouth open, lips smashing together without a care that they could bruise. In fact, he wanted them to bruise, he wanted them to be so utterly ravaged that the product of this heated moment was tattooed on their skin. He wanted the feisty little thief to mewl for him and become pliant in his arms. But his the tip of his tongue stung when he tried to leave them breathless, and he could tell that the taste of iron in his mouth wasn’t just Lupin’s. They looked good squirming on his lap, even better with the color red blooming on their skin, their mouth, on that cheeky grin that deluded themself into thinking they ‘won’. He would let them win a hundred times and more if it meant he could have Lupin like this. One hand held the thief’s wrists together while the other kept their hips in place. It caused a pleasant friction between the two of them that already was becoming uncomfortable. Not enough. The hand on Lupin’s hips moved lower and slid between the thief’s thighs, pressing two fingers on the narrow space between. “Can I take these off? I wanna taste more of you.” / so about that conall/lupin kiss...

The Master Thief was never going to be an easy prize to claim.

There’s a bitter feeling of something like losing in letting somebody hold him at all. To flaunt and tease is one thing, but an untouchable thief is not meant to be held, and in it there is a bit of a bittersweet taste.

Regardless, the sweet friction between their hips and the buzz like whiskey at the back of his throat is enough that Arsène can blot out the distasteful parts of this sort of thing. Each burn of pain is a welcome sting, and a warm hand spreads too far over his hips as he returns each bite in kind. 

Arsène’s grin is soon lost to a look more hungry than anything, as blood smears red across his lips and drips down his chin. A stained tongue swipes it up into the mixture of their blood meeting between their lips. His face shifts between blinks, like a glitching image. Long black hair starts to brush against Conall’s face, but in the next whine something soft and short meets Conall’s lips instead of the thief’s own. Green-blue-hazel-grey-red-brown eyes remain heavy with lust regardless of the color. A retaliatory bite to Conall’s neck leaves a bruised necklace of teeth buried into the skin. Regardless of how quickly it will heal, it’s satisfying enough for Arsène to press down into Conall’s lap as a sort of ‘reward’, a heat from between his legs all but burning.

Unfortunately for Conall, the added attention does nothing to push the thief towards a docile pleasure. Without a proper answer, he rides Conall’s fingers for the added friction, rubbing a damp spot into his hand. Take them off, huh? The thief leans forward for another kiss, needy and sharp with teeth as he presses their bodies as close as can be. His legs wrap around Conall, the heel of the one boot he still hasn’t tossed aside pushing the Berserker closer by the small of his back. Buttons press at rough angles as their chests are pushed closer, closer, closer, as fabric shifts between them like the clutched bedsheets of a shy lover.  The warmth of his lips leave a trail back down to Conall’s neck, a low moan escaping into it as his legs wrap tighter, pushing their bodies as close as can be.

This is, in hindsight, an obvious distraction.

A suddenly tightening grip forms around the wrist of Conall’s hand that holds the thief’s wrists. The thief pulls back, and a black tie is held between those pinned hands, circling Conall’s wrist like a leash as he yanks him forward.

It’s hardly something that is impossible to escape, but the fabric is taut between Arsène’s fingers as he uses the grip to pull Conall’s hand to his cheek in a sort of mock-caress, teeth sharp as he speaks.

“I’m almost offended. What if I wore something nice, kingmaker?” Though what’s really ‘making kings’ is obvious as he rocks against Conall’s cock, trapped beneath clothing still. “I think you’d be so handsome, desperate enough to fuck me that you didn’t even take anything off.”

It’d be a better stepping stone. Regardless of the proximity, there’s a bit of a line being drawn, perhaps most obvious in how the sudden tie came out at the suggestion. Arsène considers it, gaze searing and analyzing, like a cat staring down a potential meal.

“Don’t forget... I’m the one who has the power to give you what you want, here.” For now, it’s said carefree and easy. His legs pull back from wrapping around Conall to instead spread himself open beneath him, hunger in his eyes. There’s a level of flattery in being desired.

The thief’s binding disappears, the warning of its presence temporarily dismissed as Arsène purrs beneath Conall. It’s enough to prove that this can stop when he wants, and one condition is enough to allow for some attention.

“Don’t treat me like I’m fragile. If you don’t, then I’ll let you taste so much you can get drunk off it, o~kay?~”  Arsène licks his lips. “If you’re really good, I might even stay the night... so you can have a taste in the morning, too~”

[bonmotx]

originlist​!:

Is it arrogant? Andrej didn’t feel as such beginning this conversation, but there’s a slight prod of doubt now introduced. Is it simply him? No, it couldn’t be, he generally doesn’t dream of his writings or those around him particularly often. “Perhaps not every night.” But still, Andrej does not entirely believe Oberon’s words.

It’s fine like this, a little back and forth of storytelling. The themes of a story contain truths, even if the words are pure fantasy.

“Really, I’m not that bad. I’ve grown up a little bit.” He doesn’t phrase it as a question because he knows Oberon would scoff at him, if the Pretender believes him or not. Best to keep the statement without requesting rebuttal. (Though Andrej knows he is so desperately far from skilled, he accepts passable for his master’s capabilities.)

The imaginary residences of the autumn court. “I don’t mind if a few of them take up connection with my magecraft. I’m sure the prince is missed, and subjects want for tales of his derring-do. It’s easier to tell stories while I’m aware of what I’m doing.” To wit, if they’d like to appear within his reality marble as something visible. The place is already imaginary, its eternal golden autumn light. There is other subtext to Oberon’s words, but this is what Andrej feels he can extend the most obvious hand over.

“Yes, yes, how dare I exaggerate... what a terrible con-artist I am.” It’s said jokingly, like someone admitting to a lie, yet... well, isn’t that actually the truth...? Still, the edge of dark taunts stays mostly absent, even as a discarded take-away box sits beneath his carapace’s heel, the grease rendering it translucent like morning dew.

“’Grown up a little bit’? Aww~ You sound so proud.” Of growing up? Or is it a lying way of saying ‘you sound pathetic’? The gum (when did it turn to that, rather than delectable pieces of fruit?) snaps between sharp teeth fit, for crunching bone more than this. The concession is accepted, a piece of reality.

“Their prince is dead. You’d have to render them a new one. Is that the kind of author you are, Andrej? Are you to the fae as Andersen is to his mermaid and the cygnet? Shall you write yourself sleeping beauty’s queendom?” Though the reality of sleeping beauty’s life was rather dark and miserable, as the slumber of any sleeping yet not dreaming person would be. Her family of note was absent by the time she woke, alone in a strange world, depended upon still by helpless things despite being so helpless herself.

It might be a bad sign, if Vortigern compares them. Yet it’s not roses with spindle-splinter thorns that bloom upon the terrace. Instead, cheerful chicory and creeping thistle take winding routes around the banisters and form little seats for littler beings.

“The truer question is, will you trust our hungry mouths to not bite your feeding hand?” That... is a line befitting a far different scene and a far less smugly inspired smirk. A blue tongue cleans off his juice covered hand, and then quick as a whip snatches Andrej’s own, pulling it over. It’s a gesture half-between something about to bite and the kiss of a gentleman, with the result of allowing Vortigern to pull it closer unclear as to which possibility his tongue and teeth will take.

“Do you take responsibility, Andrej Appollonovich Zaitsev?”

[bonmotx]

HE’S SAYING HE’S A WHAT?! IN THAT OUTFIT?! BACK OFF! THIS IS HIS FUCKING THING!

“I’LL KILL HIM! I’LL FUCKING KILL HIM! AMAKAUSA SHIROUUUUUUUUUU-”

Wow. That pissed your place got stolen, huh, Arsène Lupin?

[bonmotx]

@sinsoko​ asked: ‘ you look like you just saw a ghost.’ (amakusa ruler for semiramis)

“Perhaps I have. Perhaps I have seen a ghost.”

Semiramis is not truly taller than Amakusa Shirou, but she is mightier, and she stands far taller than a man who runs so far from his past. Her eyes look at him as a lioness does a young gazelle, pathetic and so small, so scarcely a meal.

“I would rather see a ghost, you see. These reanimated, graceless dead? Stripped of their lives lived? They are not even ghosts. Nothing but shallow facsimile. When the living die, when they remember, they become ghosts, and I once knew a living man. I would consider him a ghost, but I see no ghost in front of me.” The hallway is ice cold. There’s a look in the little man’s eyes, unable to fully bury sentimentality even as he hides behind his so blatantly recognizable escapism. It’s cute that he thinks he can escape the humiliation behind being so known. 

By cute, she means infuriating, naturally.

“I suppose I see ghosts quite rarely. If someone rejects a life, then are they a ghost? Would they even be the same?” For a moment she leans closer, as if examining him. Of course two play at such a game. They are so similar, so compatible. What else would make a lost saint who keeps seeing people die for him summon someone from another land and another willpower? 

(The obvious answer is that, of course, Amakusa Shirou could never summon someone who would die (be)for(e) him.)

“Don’t make me waste my breath. If I wanted a fresh start, I would not come to play at life and ambition time and time again.” Her hand waves in a familiar dismissal. Unlike before, however, he is not given any grace. Chains string the false saint up like he sits on the cross, and the rusty gold gags his mouth. 

“As we are strangers, and you are not a ghost, I see no need for your cheap small talk to be held. Seek audience before another, Ruler, if you seek here to be baptized into a new glory.”

So is said- the humiliation of her vulnerability in their last moments will not be reciprocated even to her familiarly distant master unless it is returned in hand.

[bonmotx]

definition: special satellite constellations whose satellites follow the same 3-dimensional space track with respect to assigned rotating reference frame.

It itches. Mash has tried to get them to stop, but their hands are almost glass thin and just as easily bruised, and so each movement reminds them. Even Da Vinci says to stop, yet-

what does she know about this sort of thing to how dare she take it away to they keep staring staring staring staring staring to their pitying eyes to their forced upon mercies to they falsified the records and for what that they would be the only one (theytheythey) would be the only ones to remember not even menial paperwork will remember your sacrifices not even the punch in card will remember your hours- to this anger screaming begging pushing out from beneath the skin

Itch. Itch. Itch. Memories litter their head, happier days, sadder days. Days before they gave up on dreams. Days after. There are far more after, after all.

“Red dwarfs can be quite small, but once they get to a certain size, they can’t become stars. So they’re called brown dwarfs... but also called failed stars. They’re too small so they can’t maintain- ah, you won’t get that part...” It almost sounds like their voice, but when is the last time they had the patience to explain something so meaningless now?

The scars are empty, faint pink lines. Yet even still, the marks are still there, a pale spot where the blood doesn't stain. No matter how much they've washed it, it still itches.

Used up seals, used up as the person losing a job, losing a purpose, everything used up as these seals, used up as this body. The world is silent around them.

(A quiet girl speaks in the silence: "But you'll be okay. You're the ringmaster.")

("Please, wait for me.")

("You'll be okay, don't worry. No matter what happens, you'll be okay.")

("They can weigh down the rest of the world, but not you. You'd never sink, ringmaster.")

The world has reset nineteen times just within this room. It doesn't matter what happens after, because it never lasts long enough to matter. Their hands shake, more and more-

("If it's this kind of situation, Ringmaster-")

"Fukuhara-san." A small voice picks up across the room. It’s so familiar, like the patterns and constellations within their dreams. 

Rito looks up, but there's nobody there. Yet somehow, the window is open.

what window to chaldea doesn’t have windows in here to a lack of caring they finally decided upon.

Beyond it is the wine red sea- no, it’s the dusk reflected upon the water. The sun is beneath the waves, glowing, a lava lamp that illuminates everything as bubbles like oxygen fall upwards towards the true sky.

There are only twelve stars in the sky, yet there are infinite shapes that almost look to be gates, doorways. Rito stares up, as if they are leaning out, reaching out, escaping through the glass-less window, only a sill and latch for a nonexistent barrier from the world.

Their hand reaches out to the stars, the warm and empty air, yet grasps something.

Rito pulls it back, and it drops into their lap. It’s not like they actually stood up. Yet it felt so real they pause at seeing something there after all.

A small vial, like Alice's sought after happiness.

Without even questioning it, they pop the lid back and take a sip as the empty emergency sirens blare in the distant place that isn't their room. The room spins as it always does, nauseating and bright. Too bright, too bright, even as the lights are kept off.

Like a balloon popping in the highest point of the sky, like the snipped tall poppy... like an everyday freak accident, it happens:

Rito Fukuhara dies.

---

The floor is littered with the dusty, rusty steps of someone else. Silently, a young girl walks out of a darker than dark doorway.

"...I guess you’d rather not be a red dwarf after all... but it’s okay. For now, I'll take them away, so stop looking so sad, Ringmaster... you've earned your happy ending already. 

Once upon a time, she was told about the stars by someone who was so full of love for them. So once again, their eyes will be covered by just a little bit more madder red, morbidly hue-filled. The syrupy sleep of death seeps in, heavy and thick.

“You have earned happiness. Even God would agree... even an angel would. I promise, I’ll help you get there. You’ll be able to depend on me this time..."

Once more, another thin line of scarlet is added onto the rest. Heavier than that, her hand smears it kohl thick over the rings of sleeplessness that echo around their features.

“...I’ll protect you, no matter what.”

Yet these words will go lost to the night as smudged like skin over the the marks, she only ever held on the non-dominant side. What should be scars is grown over like a callous- not gone, but hidden away from the human eye.

“So just wait for me, ringmaster.”

So perhaps to a human’s eye, dreaming, they have vanished away. It will be a gift from a girl beyond the stars, still hitching a ride on the moonbeam that bounces off her meteor and into earth’s orbit once more.

“I’ll be there soon.”

---

Once again, Rito Fukuhara awakens the day before the day they died. 

Even so... it must have been a dream after all.

---

(It takes them several hours to be told to rub the makeup from their eyes, and their hands come back as red as blood.)

[bonmotx]

truth serum !

send “ Truth Serum + [ a question ] ” , and my muse has to answer truthfully.