roadrcnner

[roadrcnner]

for the wages of sin is death. the universal truth, the indelible fate of man ⸺ death shall come for them all and it would be a kindness. this encounter is merely a dried flower in the aged book of their history. stiff, and swiftling losing its appealing luster. a spectacularly ordinary boredom consumes her. lines converge and blur here: desperation / devotion. how long before death had arrived to leach them of their pride, how long before she welcomed doom. " gotten too slow for the chase, hm? " still, she taunts. digits slacked around the walls of her glass, drink still untouched. " whose hiding now, finn. " she studies him now as he had watched her, makes note of the off-shore rounding of his gaze. they were both elsewhere, just two ghosts in the world together. " it isn't apart of human nature to be contained, it changes us ⸺ " performance halts, a mouthful of liquor drawn. voice lowers, but do not mistake this benignity as softness for it only arises as the absense of such. " makes us eaters. " spine aligns and glass is lifted, not in toast but in censure. a living breathing allegory, she allows the still-full glass to fling from her grasp ⸺ shards scattered at her feet. a challenge prosed, as if to say: annihilate me then. " spill as they may, whatever bedlam you think has been set upon this shithole of a city will remain long after any of us are gone. "

A collection of involuntary habits:      identity,    locate,    terminate.     No such thing of a peace of mind when it came to the CIA,   unfortunately.     Everything came with a price and Finn   —    unlike those who arrived in the world free of guilt    —    had been slotted in for an endless debt.    The kind that stems from the arrogance of grief.     The kind that says if the brother is dead then so is god.     The kind that says success means value.       Not a man of violence,   but he had bent principles.    He knew how to smell blood    —   how to spill it.     Knew a nest of snakes when he saw one too.     How the scales shine in the moonlight,    how the bodies combine in one wriggling mass.       “Rat?”     A heavy scoff,   huff of a breath that conveys his disbelief and his dislike at her acute awareness of the lack of discipline here.    She should have kept her distance.     She should know not to poke and prod at an injured lion.     “Now come on.     We’re too old to be playing this fucking game.”       Hand curled in a fist,    resting atop the bar’s counter.     He’s imagining how much snow would be in Alaska right now.    If the sea is still bringing icebergs from up north to the shores.    Anything to keep his blood pressure low.    Anything to look in control and highly unbothered.      “Can only hide for so long.”    Left shoulder lifting in a shrug,    he watches her from across the rim of his glass,     downs it in one drink.     No need to drag this out any longer.    No need to ask where the wound is blooming and what disinfectant to use to clean it.       “You and those other rats of yours.    They'll get cabin fever by the springtime    [ … ]    they’re all going to spill from the sewers eventually.     You think they won’t?     You think this story ends with you all running free and fucking easy?” 

[roadrcnner]

this man was the wrong type of somebody. the sort of person you knew because even in his anonymity, he could not stand to be unknown. call it the wrath of the american dream, the asteroid that couldn't come hurdling if someone were not firstly looking at him flurry into the atmosphere. the dishonestly gleams from him like a promise, even in the slow dark movement of the crowd. this city had been a knife that cut, and its inhabitants were its forgivers. solomon could tell when something had stepped near enough to draw blood. still, they see eachother from a measureable distance ⸺ that elegant, muted entity, and still she beckons him. siren / lighthouse: both were part warning, part divine messenger. " a shame if we do, " because again, she had no business knowing him & he had none heeding her siren song. " i ain't the kinda card most folks like to keep in their deck. "

* ◟ : @roadrcnner

Had she been a merciful ruler?     Show too much leniency and people begin to question.     They begin to dig through her throat and find something easily swallowed   —    a false god,    a festering loyalty.     Show not enough mercy and one would call her a tyrant.     She’d be evil-blood,    bones of brine and vinegar.      Niko balances,    therefore,    and tries to calm that ambition of hers.      It leads her through the crowd,   regardless    —    this thirst of notoriety.      Neck elegantly poised as though she listens for something,    her dress of silk ripples and parts up one thigh to show her ink of soul-ownership.     The woman out of water,    that monster swimming through a black tunnel of greed.       “I don’t mean to interrupt.”     Below her tongue is a rumble of hunger,    that acidic form of a lie in her spit.     The hotel’s lounge is full,    a pianist performing in the corner amid the glow of yellow lights and artificial starlight upon the ceiling.      This one,   however,   she had her eye on.     Dark eyes.    Fixated with a spark of familiarity,     although not quite ripe.    “Do we know each other?”

[roadrcnner]

what is it to crave to the point of invention? wanting had not been the word for it, no, the only solution had been creation itself. she'll search his dim gaze only to find water sloshing, however corosive in passing: still she aches for this urge to be nourished. that's the word for it: drought, while still being its own antithesis. that is what bound them by blood and sinew, the profound absense and the even grander overflow. " how modest, " that sacred touch, bound hand in unlovable hand. he should learn to savor this tenderness, the next bite of his heart will not go down so easy. in the moment, she indulges the horror of perception, allows him to watch her as if he were the eater and she were the last meal. ( DEAR SINNER, A FEAST AWAITS. ) " you think you could hurt me anyway, hm? " still, she has a face that says: come boy, have me over to dinner. if she were to be devoured it certainly wouldn't have been at the foot of the courthouse, she's a lady afterall. so she leads him carside, " spare me then [ ... ] " she finally nears enough for the fog of their breath in the chilled air to intermingle. digits creep, a dance she's performed before in the lowlight, wonders if he can distinguish it even now as fingers pad along the lower breath of his stubbled jaw. " do it with your mouth. "

somewhere  between  them  is  a  choked  mewl.     blood-wet  like  a  mutual  rebirth.     with  her,   you  forget  futile  greed.     you  remember,   only,   those  dark  eyes  and  her  ripe,   mortal  scent.     you  remember  obsession,   and  its  wounded  devotion.     his  gaze  stoops  to  her  level,   to  the  bleeding  grave  that  whispers  against  his  feet.     curling  his  silhouette  forward  like  a  shoreline’s  call.     (   what  death  will  you  find  on  the  horizon?   )     where  the  dark  clouds  brew  over  the  night  sea.     where  an  abyss  meets  another.     how  will  you  chew  on  that  meat?     a  hum  low  in  his  throat.     he  looks  at  her,   half-lidded,   and  closes  their  gap  with  another  step.     the  fingertip  almost  touches  a  strand  of  her  hair.     you  chew  on  what  you  won’t  give.     ‘   ah,   a  sound  so  sweet  even   you   want  to  beg  for  permission   ( … )   it’s  a  shame  i’m  booked,   kitty,   got  a  ride  to  catch  an’  all.   ’     before  jack  remembers  he  should  sidestep  her,   he  extends  a  hand  to  her  left.     lifts  his  brows;   expectant  and  lewd.     ‘   lead  me  with  a  crawl.     a  taste  can  be  just  as  lovely  as  a  meal,   hmm?   ’

[roadrcnner]

this city could kick you like a stray and that would only give you another reason to love it. the chaos were merely an insurance of two universal laws: you were either born from it or it would be the very thing to kill you. and by god, noor would still call it creation. life and death hold hands, it is only the in between that separates them ⸺ the horrific longing for reinvention. this is a woman struck with the dizziness of a slumber far overdue, lethargy on her tongue like a sultry venom when she speaks. " oh, don't sound so pleased to see me. " there's a quietly drawn breath, prolonged and only severed by his impedement. " i harbor very little, especially unease. " words are a dagger held to his juggular, know that this dismay had been meant for him. there's an all - around pivot, feline from her perch: careful & unrelenting, still curious far beyond the lives she had left. there's a sinking feeling, this was too casual for them both ⸺ she couldn't just leave her divine violence at the door. " asking a rat what she might know of the gutter, " at last a drink is poured, one for the lady & another for the deatheater. she doesn't mind the label on the bottle, anything good enough to be kept on the top shelf would be the very thing to satiate her. bare shoulders slink when she takes a recline against the bartop, forearm rested with the ridges of her knuckles boring an indent into her cheek. short glass is pushed toward the other, " tell me [ ... ] why should i give up all of my hiding places, finn? "

“That’s new.     The concern.       Didn’t think you had it in you    [ … ]     I still don’t.”       The voice is flat,    roughened by exhaustion and a vague notion of disrelish.      Eyes are trained on her with the meticulous attentiveness that one needed to have when around a jittery creature.       Memory is deep in the bone,    buried in the body    —    there are years he often forgets in his mind that are simply ingrained in the marrow.      He understands the feeling of needing to prove he has teeth.       The poison of a dead brother lingers far below the surface and Finn,   while wise in the ways of righteousness and blood,    had little to no knowledge of how brown that water of lineage could become.     Murky and treacherous,    filled with beasts and krakens     —    how it must hurt to wake each morning knowing that immorality was gnawing away at the brainstem.     She’s draped in a mirage.    A snake that has many coats of scales.     A serpent so far from her Snake Den    —    his jaw was aching from clenching it,    a grunted exhale.     He sits,    not out of obedience,   but a morbid desire to watch her do something so mundane.     Keep to the shadows,   he wants to say,    and maybe there won’t be so much blood left on the floor from the rapture.      Had nothing on her to make a case    —   and this made his throat boil up a chortle.      “A poisoned drink would be a fucking delight right now.      City’s in the gutter   [ … ]    you wouldn’t know anything about that now would you?”

[roadrcnner]

they say that first love cannot die. but is it not doom itself to have the memory still throb inside you with its healthy vigor? is it worse to be dead or to still be loved, despite. it's a funny thing how thinking of his sister reminds him to live. only does it become slightly embarrassing when alexei recollects that he shakes with want for a part of himself he lost nearly twenty years ago. it's a wonder they had survived so long in a place that so violently ached to see them both dead, to have them run out of city limits. to love despite all that could be taken from you: that was new york. " couldn't that be the problem? we've suckled poor ol' new york dry ⸺ больше нечего дать. " this is a scene swept from the cutting room floor, all those distorted whirs of memory that web them together now. watch as the seams buckle when you hold them to the light. for a stint, alexei imagines mila in his seat ⸺ knows that she should have been the one sat across from indira. how long until this funeral pyre was set to blaze? " right, you couldn't know me any less. i'll drink just about anything put in front of me, especially if its pink. " it's just the same as saying he would do just about anything to have his sister back, for just a wink of time ⸺ even if he had to drink pink champagne.

here they sit across from one another, as near to strangers as possible without glancing its blind edge. only the dead to knot them together. in her gloriously half-dizzy state, indira can't quite trace their origin to this place, four walls and champagne on the table, where death is conspicuously absent. but there is — there will always be — the impression of long afternoons in mila's sun-warmed apartment, piecing together and packing away the landmarks and accessories to a single incandescent life. learning each other only through the venn diagram lens of someone else, stories offered and questions answered. equal parts escape and agony. too much for one to carry alone.

she shakes her head, " you can't ask a thing for something it doesn't have, can you? and the city hasn't seen a scrap of affection in years. " a hand indicates, a palm up and open, fingers loose: but what can be done? even as the ache of a city swells and softens behind the ladder of her ribcage, tender, twinging as she inhales. sips. allows her mouth to tear open into a broad smile, self-effacing but decidedly thrilled to be called discerning. a forbidden intuition, disobeyed. " well, someone had to take up the mantle. but it's hard work, you know — deciphering you. for example, i'm not sure i could have predicted that such a .. healthy, stoic man would willingly drink pink champagne. "

[roadrcnner]

closing time at the borderline, keeping the bar warm with @gravefed

noor would become many things in her time, death ⸺ barefoot padding in the snow with her mouth split into a mad sneer; she'd always had too many teeth to only be a woman. no, as she saw it, she'd never been meant for just one guise. so let this woman be nebulous, a concept devoid of shape except for just this: darling little she-void. they should have killed her when they had the chance. the watchman and the shadow, that's what they could be boiled down to. especially, in the dark the two cannot be told apart, if not for the draw made between them. damn her for being the first to speak, curse him for not repremanding her sooner. " barkeeping, so analog. i'm sure your knees are killing you [ ... ] just standing there all night. " they meander in the dark, save for the spare ruminations of moody lighting that manages to capture the shimmer of her dress. glinting like stars in a clear, dark night. unusually overdressed and seemingly still on call to clean up someone elses mess. it was beyond her nature to laugh in the face of such pitiful gods, let this be a salve. " come, have a drink with me. i'll try not to poison you with expired cocktail fruit. "

[roadrcnner]

home is ruin, a grave that still gapes for something shaped like her. a new name, a new god: none of which could give you the purity back. this woman drags rage like a limb hung limp, never quite sure where to place it & yet it still bridles. it's always like this when she isn't numb ⸺ all thrown out in the cold, flushed pink & looking for any reason at all to turn the world on it head. to make them see what living had done to her. " would you give a dog a treat for bowing it's head, " she doesn't realize the distance closed between them until only two steps remain. oh, how the little gods flatter themselves with such naivety as choice. " no [ ... ] you make them beg first. " she's like a feline from her perch when the words come purring. even here, still as night, the woman awaits something good. " are you going to make me beg for this, jack? "

the  void,   familiar,   extends  a  pearl-glossed  knob.     nothing  tempts  quite  like  the  charred  dead.     she,   a  purred  hymn  etched  onto  him  from  the  scalloped  crooks  of  her  soul.     only  you  could  find  warmth  in  the  chilled  blanket  of  night.     frost-bitten  to  your  core:   blushed  skin  that  struggles  to  live.     your  assured  gait  persists.     a  bound  to  your  step  that  plays  along  with  the  grin  on  your  lips.     ‘   should  i   reward   you  for  finding  me?   ’     low  and  slow  timbre,   kind  like  the  beckoning  hand  of  a  hunter.     (   why  wouldn’t  we  hunt  for  bloodless  smoke?   )     catch  her  breath  in  your  palm;   refine  its  vapour  into  water.     intertwined  with  an  abyss  until  you  feel  pointed  heels  bite  into  the  back  of  your  thighs.     ‘   i  should,   shouldn’t  i?     it  would  be  remiss  of  me  to  not  give  you  something   ( … )   i  could   carve   your  initials  at  the  bottom.   ’

[roadrcnner]

the living spectacle, this glass tower heralded as one of the many throbbing hearts of opulance within city limits. the neon that reflects from its four corners act as some sort of crude, neo-lighthouse. for from all corners of this city, even from its many cesspools lonely hearts and soon-empty wallets are called to one cause: frivolity. perhaps that was part of the draw: that distant whirring beneath the gold leafing; solomon desperately wanted to see what lingered beneath the hollow gleam. from his seat the man can hardly distinguish which had been louder, the music or the ceiling treatment. " a game is what it is, and we'd both be made fools if you didn't at least have a hand in it. " however estranged the rendition had been from the top 100, the music drew people in and it made them play hard & lose big. " now i love honkey tonk just as much as the rest of your patrons but this [ ... ] this is just downright offensive. " the blaring of music doesn't negate one thing though: they're being watched, and by god does solomon know it. he hadn't stopped scanning the room since they first crossed paths. " nice lil' place you got here though ⸺ i ain't in trouble yet, am i? "

CLOSED FOR : @roadrcnner LOCATION: old world casino

The past week had been an uphill battle against changing the casino's insipid choice of music. She had never much cared as to what the musicians played, but the strange, incessant thumping of house music had propelled her to take a more hands-on approach to its operations. Terrible music, she realized, was now a peculiar though not altogether irrational irritant: certainly there were better ways to engage the crowd than a bunch of discordant tunes.

Tonight the floor's musical rendition was another oddity entirely. Gone was the casino's old-world charm, for which it was best known, to be replaced with some complicated guitar picking and a rather distinctive Southern twang. Had she overextended the reach of the CEO's firm hand? She had not thought it possible. Her head was tilted upward to the speakers installed at the ceiling, which had been surreptitiously painted over with gold wallpaper. The blasted sound still went on, but her sigh punctured the air. Best that they unroll this petty tantrum.

" Whatever this was, it was not my doing, " she pointed, though the sound permeated everywhere, " I would not mind it played on a vinyl record, but this? This is just painful. "

[roadrcnner]

this line of work meant one thing: only those that were taken from were made for taking. had their mouths primed for it since the very start. this wasn't something you could wean yourself off of. these two shadows, as they clung to the wet dark of the alleyway were proof enough. " you're a desk jockey at best, sweetheart. " sol's degloving when he finally turns to face her, even in the lowlight you can still see that wink of guilty wash him over. " and for your information [...] a real job doesn't mean you're domesticated. " how could little miss robinhood fancy herself a hero? these two were one of the same, sol just kept his fangs. " you're out here yowlin' just the same as i am, you've just got a few more lives to ya'. "

𝗌𝗍𝖺𝗋𝗍𝖾𝗋   𝗌𝗍𝖺𝗍𝗎𝗌     PRIVATE,   ONGOING 𝗍𝗂𝗆𝖾𝖿𝗋𝖺𝗆𝖾   +   𝗅𝗈𝖼𝖺𝗍𝗂𝗈𝗇   NIGHT,    SOME ALLEWAY IDK 𝖿𝖾𝖺𝗍𝗎𝗋𝖾𝖽   𝗂𝗇   𝗌𝖼𝖾𝗇𝖾   SABRINA DRAPER   &    SOLOMON RIOS   [    @roadrcnner    ]

 life's   a   bitch   ;    but   so   was   sabrina.   inherently   born   as   a   fighter   sabrina   knew   what   was   within   her   limits.   to   quit   didn't   signify   failure   but   the   much   needed   intelligence   to   know   when   to   stop.   but   god   ,   old   habits   die   hard.   however   in   defense   of   sabrina   draper    her   legacy   was   paved   with   (   what   she   believed   were   )   good   intentions.   only   steal   from   those   who   wouldn't   miss   it   ;   and   nothing   more   than   a   pretty   diamond   .   .   .   or   three.    she   defends   her   case   ;    "i'm   just   a   cat   burglar   solomon   !"   her   hands   fling   in   the   air   "not   even   close   to   the   league   you   and   hanging   man."   sabrina   sighs   in   exhaustion,   "i   shouldn't   even   be   seen   with   you.   i'm   not   apart   of   this   life   anymore.   i've   got   a   job   now,   a   real   one."

[roadrcnner]

it's funny how grief could also turn a trick of fate. the world had offered itself wholly for the imagination to devour and still, they were the ones who dressed its darkest corners; oh how loneliness can bind, if only by way of grief. this ardor is handled in rough palms, clasped tight enough as if to slip through fingers. death has taught alexei to not hold onto things. even those dull slips of joy could not last forever ⸺ even if he had felt they ought to. the loneliness that they share is less of a wanting to be kept company & must more of wanting to be seen by one another. for even in a brief, casual sort of way they couldn't never unknow eachother. especially in this constant state of learning. but that's grief is it not ... it's not about what was lost but those who remain to await death's knock ⸺ grief is only grief when there's someone to remember. that's what you could call this fizzy exchange, one great remembering ⸺ like piecing together something scenic over too many glasses of fruity champagne. perhaps that's the draw, too many holes in this frame to make anything quite succinct. just as alexei lifts the stem of his own glass, part of him wished he'd never stop looking for pieces of mila. she'd been everywhere: and part of her still resided within indira. " i'm sure you've withstood worse in this city, it's so intimate isn't it? " new york had that sort of way about it: it was so large, privacy was the very least you could ask from it; even with it's great potential to be knawed into certain desperation. " perhaps you will, she's here you know ⸺ like she'd never left. " honest palm claps over his chest, a slight unfamiliarity as to where his heart should have been. so long as her name remained in their mouths, even in death mila would never leave. something ernest plumes across visage, " perhaps i'm a fool sure ⸺ but i've never made it my business to fool anyone. especially not when you can see right through me. "

`　　　CLOSED　　▸　　aleksandr‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎/‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎@roadrcnner　.

she raises the coupe to her mouth, and pink champagne bubbles tickle her nose. it's her second; the uncouth, girlish smile can't be helped, all one hundred watts poured into the drink's vibrant surface. here, just dizzy enough to find herself endearing, is where she regains her balance. a heavily swayed balance — the kind that means stability, not composure. she'd shed the grimy sentiment of the authentic self, left it pooled on her closet floor, and slipped into something more comfortable. the veneer. the shine. she's a woman perpetually hung between sparkling for her husband and the public, warmed from the outside; how long has it taken for her to see she can light herself? and now she throws shadows, plays the soundtrack. she's whoever she wants to be.

when indira looks up, she's who he remembers. just a little brighter. she covers his hand with hers, giving it a gentle squeeze. " thank you for coming. really. i couldn't bear to cancel the reservation, but coming alone .. i don't think i was built for it. the loneliness. " she wrinkles her nose and shrugs, smile softening. so she's not herself, not all the way, but how keen she is to tell its quiet truths! a tattle-tale if there ever was one. " sometimes i think that's why mila and i just .. our friendship — i'd have spent the rest of my life with her if she'd have let me, " a short laugh, fingertips shyly touching her mouth; stifling a bubble of grief that doesn't belong in this body. " we're just not the sort. we need a little too much. even you .. " her sparkling gaze travels the map of his face, and she shakes her head. " you talk a good game, honey. and that serious face! my god. but you can't fool me. "

[roadrcnner]

at the foot of the courthouse, on the brink of something terrible with @8blud

this woman was not born but rather a fire that was set. see as she stands at the foot of the court, charmed jester smudged in soot. do they not see the ash too ⸺ must they first be scorched to witness her wrath? noor happens, dark as night and twice the danger when noor first spots him. not waiting, but as if she were a mere shadow he'd left at the door: as all unwanted things were. the fire piques, watch as the smoke catches in her dull gaze. " you're a hard one to track down in a city already brimming with rats, jack. " blatant, a woman wanting to be heard. " you look guilty [ ... ] who have you buried this time? " and by god, he'd better pray she didn't dig them up.

[roadrcnner]

[roadrcnner]

this ship had proven itself lonely. like a house erected out of spite alone, it's walls ached for companionship. alexei allowed himself to consider such a thing an hour prior, just short of when fate had dared him to toss his inhibitions overboard. bebauchery had no other choice but to exist here: it couldn't simply be left alone. as the man would soon come to know, living had been nothing of the likes had it been left up to him. he'd needed something to strive for, like a dog that's lost his owner ⸺ all he knows is this leash. " the ship eh, " he leans, as if to huddle some form of faux disclosure around the following insinuation. chin lifts, something snide luring the dark glint in his eyes, still nursing the finger of whiskey. " come then, have a drink with me. maybe we can learn a bit of ease together. "

Yes,   they had let him in,    hadn’t they?    All toothless-form of him     —    that backbone that dissolves under any weight of attention.     Zekai forms clots where there should be memories.    If he denies the past then he has a chance for revival.   But the body greys,    it is bleached underneath the sun   —    even without the sun.     There’s always something dying in him.      The laugh is quick,    filled with that rumble of thunder.     Joyous almost.      “Keep the pretty words to yourself,     eh?     Or at least until the next round.”      Voice is opaque,    he doesn’t allow the truth of the comment to settle inside him too easily.    The belly rolls over  —   as do the graves.       “Ships make me feel on edge    [ … ]     nervous.”

[roadrcnner]

On female rage

Medea, Euripides//Cassandra, Florence + The Machine//An Oresteia, Anne Carson//Study for Lady Macbeth (1851), Gustave Moreau

[roadrcnner]

*     ◟    :    〔   elodie yung  ,      cis woman    +   she/her pronouns    〕      noor attal ,      some say you’re a  forty two  lost soul among the neon lights.      known for being both  devoted  and  unravelling,  one can’t help but think of  you don't own me  by   leslie gore  when you walk by.    are you still     death, chaotic evil for the snake den / cleaner at the borderline hotel,     even with your reputation as  death?     i think we’ll be seeing more of you and    the abandonment of innocence to hone one’s own depravity; anguish as a knife that you carry, you will use it to flay society from within; never leaving the side of the nothingness that bore you,    although we can’t help but think of  o ren ishii ( killbill vol. 1 ) + beverly ( dead ringers ) + elektra natchios ( marvel comics )    whenever we see you down these rainy streets.

FULL NAME océane semmar noor attal.

AGE forty2.

DATE OF BIRTH november 16th.

PLACE OF BIRTH constantine, algeria.

ETHNICITY algerian-french.

NATIONALITY algerian.

GENDER/PRONOUNS cis woman, she/her.

ORIENTATION ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

LANGUAGES SPOKEN fluent in algerian arabic, beber, & french; conversational german, portugese & vulgar latin.

ACCENT frenchman gone too far abroad with some transatlantic notes; partially americanized, knows too many curse words.

BIOGRAPHY

tl;dr girl turned forgotten sympathy case makes mommy issues everyone elses problem.

cursed little end bringer, or so you've called yourself. let anyone else tell it and your arrival had only meant the end for those around you ⸻ except no one has lived to tell that tale, have they? the first thing you took from this world was your mother's sight: she couldn't look at you without also seeing the man she'd learn to hate most. the very man that in time, you too would come to take after. the first thing you learn however, is to love the ruin. for from even damnation could one be reborn. that's what you were isn't it? crafted anew, turned from the outside in and joined together in all the wrong places. the world has been upside down since you could last remember it.

you're thirteen and too tall for your own age when you matter for the first time. albeit you only matter because of what had happened to you; what little you had left pried from palms still starched with blood. you're face is a bludgeoned cell of pixels when you hit media res. it needn't matter that you're just a girl when it happens, nor how you begged for your mother as she pushed you away even in her last gasping moments. all that mattered was how your story could be sensationalized for those watching from the comfort of their homes. before you knew much of this world you knew how to give a good show.

you become a keen jester of your country's court: all you've allowed them to take from you was your name; the one your father gave you. they allow you to choose another, perhaps as a mercy and send you where all the other forgotten things go: to the bottom of the barrel. darling pawn, what do you do with yourself when no one is looking? as it turns out, you still bend & twist yourself out of shape; just not for them, not anymore. everything you've done since then has been in spite. they should have killed you when they had the chance. sure you've taken but you were just a child then ⸻ it was all you knew. but the world, the world has taken from you & you've been given no other choice but to make everyone else pay for its dues. you could have been good once but the grief hollowed you out and made you its gambit. now, you are death: both lighthouse and the sharp-toothed thing lurching in the dark. part mercy, part agony but all woman. and by god, you'll live the rest of your life ensuring that the world will not escape what it's done to others like you, not again.

HEADCANONS

little miss forgotten first 48 episode. her mother was k*lled and the case made the news the next day, she got a taste of global attention and hasn't lived it down since.

beholds the temperament of a senior-aged chihuahua: all bark & all bite.

works as a cleaner at the borderline partly as an in for recruitment. it's good to know where all of your favorite criminals like to lay their heads, you don't mind fluffing their pillows either.

fueled by vengeance and blinded by rage. at first she was heralded as a great disruptor but her efforts have been clouded since recently coming into any true power.

people took your name,  and more importantly,  your image and made a myth of you.  little had they known that even as you were physically intact,  you had never quite respooled yourself since then.  always a bit on edge,  and looking too guilty for your own good.

[roadrcnner]

easy there, all that talking is gonna get you hurt. there is no appropriate manner in which this binding could be verbalized: the way they keep to themselves and only themselves. this tragedy was a gentle eater, to witness it's devestation you had first been willing enough to look it in the eye. perhaps that had been his tell, something far away in his glance when they finally find eachother in the occassional whirlwind. to minimize the damage, it seems they were best kept apart. but these two tangle so well, see? every misstep and flury of kismet had led them here; the theif and the moon: a befit label for a woman who had been much more than his whole world.

solomon does not question what could have lassoed someone that gleamed even in the low light. no, tonight it only matters that she allows him to hold her in his arms. " well i've never had any complaints. " they're close enough, with far too many cameras in the peripheral for his namesake to matter enough to quench such an implication. it's the crowd that makes him honest, anything that would have been worth taking wasn't a challenge enough. appearances be damned, let this dance be the only thing he takes from another man tonight. " i'll be good, just keep me honest will ya'? "

LEVEL TWO of the faceless ship, buried in the middle of the dance floor ╱ DOVE & POPE ( @roadrcnner )

there are quiet moments and there are safe moments. they had once been one and the same before she'd met him ⸺ a civilian understanding that with no one else around you couldn't be hurt. now dove understood them as what they were: two separate entities with frequent overlap, one misunderstood and the other falsely credited. alone even in the space of her apartment, all they were was something waiting to happen: an unlocked door or disarmed alarm away from tragedy. even without a foreign threat, there was too much unsaid in the silence; too many wide-open spaces for them to trip on and sprawl over. here among the crowd, buffered on all sides by a hundred people living a thousand lives, they were safe. lost in everyone else, away from everything they'd never said.

call it tricks of the trade, call it a weakness. as they turn on the dance floor, dove becomes something more like herself, full up on the feeling of his arms around her. "you know for a thief you're far too recognizable," a defiantly girlish impulse takes her gaze away, over the heads of people ringing around them, occupied, content, full, like so many glasses of champagne tipping together. his gaze, in public, burns her pink. "have you tried looking less dishonest?"

[roadrcnner]

WHAT HAD IT MEANT TO BE FLAYED by all of which you had once believed? as it were, it only made this fable of a man more real. but what had been left of him once the puppet strings were drawn was a different creature entirely. alexei bares the wounds still, a dark red splotch dried on his lip; forgive him for still giving in to the hunger. " and why shouldn't they,  товарищ? they let you in after all, it seems there is no concern with technique. " alexei offers a staunch clap on the shoulder in greeting, something wretched in the smile that blooms. " we're dead men walking, don't you know? i think i like it better down below. "

* ◟ : @roadrcnner

The other’s presence is too close to home,       so to speak.      Too buried underneath the sensitivities of what he’s produced in this world   —      and how damned his perception has become.      Zekai being the root of it,      the cause of his own suffering.     The planter,     the harvester,     the cellar,     the consumer.       The crowd’s chatter on the fourth floor of the ship is drowned out by his greeting,     “Ah,    so they’re letting anyone play a hand,    eh?”      The grin is white-toothed,    devilish and playful.     The poker game in the backrooms of the long hallway is paused for intermission.    Neon blue lighting covers him,       hand outstretched with a glass of scotch for Aleksei.          “Welcome to the land of the living,    soldier.”