frostkingoftheapocalypse

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Original poster unknown.

PNW, USA

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🌿

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Reblog this if you admire the person who reblogged this before you.

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PSA: Stay out of RP tags for a while.

For the uniformed, over the previous week there have been sock accounts that have indeed been posting shock images of irl gore of a variety of subjects in the tags. Even if that doesn't make you personally squeamish, the clear intent is to expose people to it to potentially trigger / traumatize them. The tags they're spamming with these images range from 'oc rp' to outright '(fandom) rp'. While other blogs have been informing people of these accounts to block, and thankfully tumblr staff appears to be taking the blogs down within a 24 hour timespan, the fact that as of writing this person (or a copycat) is on their third blog and probably won't stop. And if they do, it might just be for a short period of time to get people's guards down. The best way to avoid this is, for the time being, stop browsing rp tags for a while and try to stick with the dashboard. On top of that, while I imagine it is tempting to commentate on these situations, outside of telling people the new URL to block, simply try to continue to use your blog as normal. Don't feed the troll, especially when this is a blatant case of using 'shock images' to elicit a reaction out of a niche community. The 'person' will get bored or realize that their blogs will continue to get banned eventually. PS. If you're concerned that you may get stuff sent directly to you, remind yourself of tumblr's safety features and how if a non-mutual tries to send you an image, it will be blurred out. You are safe as long as you stay out of the tags and avoid the 'for you' page (I'd recommend blacklisting popular rp tags if you feel exceptionally antsy about this situation).

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abadi hair accessory crafted by züchi

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"Sated, are you?"

It was almost a jest. Features had been stolidly bearing for miserable centuries, stiff in their cast, and yet, tone was so close it took a moment to recognise within himself the stranger of his humour's return. Dark fan of re-grown lashes rested as the wind tickled along the relic's cheek, tugging an loose curl from behind his ear to sweep and flutter against his face, the inky spill oiled but unbraided; denying the offering from Eir to be his medical touchstone in this. Haetta had conceeded to the gift of oils however, wakeflower and Chamomaeula seed carried by a neutral scented base. The properties had been so thoughtful, even if he had not the pride to care for meticulous appearances anymore.

He kept the boy within his peripherals, noting the lean, a very specific distance from the ancient so as to remain respectful. One of his fortes, this boy. Neither had forgotten the last time, of touch and near-calls with death.

The thick lilt continued, nigh exaggerating it then, "You are a learned thing now. In no need of mine advice. All this seeking ... choosing ... Ash harvesting ... devouring of ..."

There was a bubbled, crackling murmur, the Jotunn's long spindled hand patting the root by his hip absently, head cocking a little further, voice ripe with interest, if not confusion,

"... Sweetlings?"

[ ϟ ]—– Retort had began to form, however already crafted words were not shaped by prince's mouth just yet. Watching the stillness took precedent, observing the way the guest breathed without effort now, wind folding itself around limbs like it had carried some longing for the giant. As if the world itself had slowed its pace to keep time with... something.

Finally the prince spoke, softly as if addressing the very roots of honored tree, as he had in the past when whispering tales and secrets.

' Milord mistakes choice for a cage,' and note of something fond, unburdened and warm, is found in the god's voice. Weight shifted, shaped and distributed, from shoulders falling into relaxation to the the spine that now curves, frame placed in gentle lean against the bark.

' I have wandered milord, two years, as duty and custom demanded. In service of the Nine I have bled in fields, learned customs, at times a storm at borders, yet most of the time building.'

There was no melancholy present, only pride and certainty, sliver of joy braided through the heir's tone.

' I am choosing where to land these days, and choosing my lessons as well.'

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One had only prayed to know less than a half hand of acts that might bring Thor, the powerful, storm-blooded, capable, and beyond mighty force of legacy for the Aesir dynasty, to his knees.

It was part of the risk. Leaving their realms. Finding limits one never knew existed.

But this one. This time. This posture ---bled worse than them all. Pressure and a burning spreading the sorrow of it behind the bridge of Haetta's nose, stinging his heavy lungs. The reality of what they had confessed here, in every angle, every past mistake and misunderstanding, was a comprehension distantly, as if happening to someone else. It would be dwelled on later. What had lead them here. Why it had taken this long to see it.

Haetta had done this. Cut Thor into a shade-thing kneeling. Haetta was the weapon, double-edged; born to harm and forebear, and taught to deny them both. Failing the latter. Failing Thor. And matter where intentions had been, this deed was done.

It mattered not that Haetta's inner realm had orbited Thor since their first words. A presence in corners of a mind's library, belonging to it, sliding notes softly into every page, felt keenly where Thor wasnt, a strange desire to permiss it all as Thor rifled deeper into the shadows that ought to be kept far from another's eye, and show the As what treasures lingered there. What fragile thoughts had been secreted away since boyhood.

If he, son of Farbauti, was a symbol of a throne and a realm, Thor forgot such a thing with alarming regularity. And Haetta, resonating with rightful feel of that mistake, for as long as he would be allowed to be part of the Aesir's path, unwound into the flow of their making. Blooming. Each dawn was a meditation of connection and content, as if in the process of this, Haetta, the person, were becoming more of himself than he had ever been commencing their journey. He had orbited Thor, with a new definition for happiness. Knowing the taste of that truer than past allowed or wanted. And frustration. And anger. And hope. And gratitude, in this rare blessing from Fate, a connection not just anyone was gifted in their experience upon this Tree.

And above each of those. Love. Friendship or souls journeying as one force of balance, there had been no classification, no guides for what the two of them were. And he had deluded himself that there was no need for bringing such a fickle thing as language to define their beings, their existence together side by side. Haetta loved his Companion with the eternity of the Jotunar. He would love him; forevermore. Even upon seperation. Thor was etched into him. Would always be an echo in who Haetta was.

It was a despairing as much as a joy, shell-shocked and dizzy with Thor's acrid, sweet washes of elation and fear, to see what love, and their Allspeak, and years of conversations, of fascination, of learning, of attempt at understanding, had managed to wrought of Thor.

Stiff-knelt before him. Thor who was a winched binding of his own Self, so cruelly he was visibly falling apart within the suffocating shackles of restraint. Forced into a throne-like posture, burly, mountain-breaking form crying out to collapse. The fists gave it away, the aborted clenches where Haetta had witness and the knowing of their honest first instinct, each and every day. This Thor here; exhausted and bruise-eyed Companion, with ceruleans filled with the kind of hope found hazing across snow at first light; and Haetta had no right to do anything but be witness. To the aftermath of terror. The pale drain of blood from Thor, ghosting him into a forgotten shade of ash. Red-rimmed. Relief-bright, despite this. Their confession spoke of a misunderstanding vast enough to sheer a branch from Yggdrasil herself.

Haetta had only managed to clean so much red from that tender, starving countenance; from the shells of Thor's ears to the saturated ends of that long golden braid, his neckline, his knuckles, his fingernails. Armour still cladding those thighs, bringing dried remains into a space that ought to be sacred. Bringing a wretched, vile Seidr to mock what acts of blood could have replaced this.

Azure nape prickled violently, the dampness upon Haetta's countenance reaching the buffer of his beard, as his body twisting a void of tightness on the inside. As if his flesh felt it wisest to prepare his strength to fight what threatened beloved. As if it was protection Thor needed in this moment.

Thor did not need a vast, unbreakable flesh-made-shield. He needed rest. Permission to let go. Words had no place here, in Thor's wreckage, and yet, they were exactly what Thor needed. This was fear built out of the unknown. Thor needed words as he needed sustenance, and bathing, and contact.

---I have no shape but yours.

Thor was wearing a shape. A Farbautison's shape. As recognition shanked, belly-low, the realisation of what Haetta was seeing in the soft slopes of his friend, the Jotunn stirred. An odd grief holding him captive, even as adoration cleansed the last of warring feelings into something coherent.

Haetta reached up, between them. A bridge. A heartbeat restraining the hovered azure fingertips, millimeters from Thor's cheek - as if a blink might change their trajectory and withdraw. If either dared breathe wrongly. Crimsons seeking ... searching, for refusal in that face. Then it was over.

They had hesitated enough.

Thor's face was velvet soft. Fitting nigh entirely into Haetta's fingers and palm. The shivers of that barely-held together jaw felt under the slide of thumb, near the purpled shadows of Thor's wide gaze. The shaved temple iron and over-hot under the sensitive cradle it found itself in.

There was a huff of dual-tone bass, despite the sadness of understanding, a happy if painful stir of air, "Why do you allow mineself to demand cruel things of you without asking anything in return? You are famished. And battle-empty. I would be capable of confession while you ate, even while you bathed. Well into afterward, if that is what you wished. I am going nowhere but with you."

The Jotunn let the touch fall slightly, something instinctual curling the index finger under Thor's jaw to keep it up, solemn presence yet weighted in that towering, soft look, "I would ... not find mineself above begging for you to rest a little."

[ ϟ ]—– There existed no language in any realm that could express, could convey the magnitude of what had just been offered. A world peeled open and revealed, gifted raw, the very marrow of another. Haetta's being, laid unguarded as a field in bloom, in the season of storm.

And thunderer, the golden, the crowned and revered, had no armor left against it.

Striking through drained form it hits and flares like lightning, the fire he knew so intimately now boring deeper, reaching atoms in his core, the silence after the spoken words heavy. The moment after a blow, where nothing breathes, and the whole of one's life is reckoned in heartbeats. The pitch tremble of vulnerability woven through Haetta's bass had done more than simply answer, it had upended, tears beading in earnest in response to staggering, unexpected emerging of their counterparts.

He did not note the tremor increasing in his limbs, only that he was still standing when he should not have been. That empty hands, now clenched to mallet-like fists near his sides, were aching with the absence of doing, of touching, of comforting. Of laying his whole self down as if his bones might matter more at Haetta's feet than remaining upward.

He did not reach for him, he could not.

All that rose within him, the tide of longing with regained strength, the crack of joy at being chosen - at your side, at your side -, the ancient ache of yearning denied a name receiving one, it was tempered by rising fear.

He had not been built to hold this... Control was learned, sharpened like a blade until it gleamed, he was trained and tutored, and reminded repeatedly to want quietly, to burn languidly and unspoken, lest the fire within would consume and ruin what he loved. Restraint studied and utilized, and iron-bound habit born from a thousand whispered moments, of learning about their kind and how different, how utterly other they were... Learning that reaching, touching, might mean destruction, resentment, or worse...

Every sliver of strength gathered, scraped together to honor their ways, even now.

A breath then, staggering, forced in as if to stitch insides together with the oxygen.

Another, and then, finally, a languid, tentative approach, a careful folding and slow descent of warrior-prince to his knees, in front of Companion. The way one kneels before temples, or beloved dead, before miracles even...

Ceruleans upon crimson undoubtedly swam with gratitude and relief, overflowing as it was, fists placed upon his thighs still white-knuckled from tension. Gaze then drinking in the tear-tracked majesty of Haetta's face, lips parting with a soft exhale.

' I have no shape but yours, so.... whatever you wish to share...'

It was all that could be mustered without voice breaking entirely. In the space between them it hung heavy and unspoken, that he would listen and accept, and cherish what was given.

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We are sun and moon, dear friend; we are sea and land. It is not our purpose to become each other; it is to recognize each other, to learn to see the other and honor him for what he is: each the other's opposite and complement.

Hermann Hesse, Narcissus and Goldmund

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God Bless the Bark Beetle

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Marina Tsvetaeva, tr. by Elaine Feinstein from, “Poem of the End.” [ID in alt text]

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@agntwells

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Ancient Greek Gold Tiara (diadem), 325-330 BC , Demetrias/Thessaly

Stathatos Collection Gallery, National Archaeological Museum, Athens

📸Gary Todd