#♞ ┇ ❝ ` thread `

[astarab1aze]

"Yer such an ass'ole, Azar. Why cain't ya give me an 'eart transplant? Could use a new one. I swear, this shit's broken or somethin'. Gabs said m' 'air looked funny an' I ain't felt nothin'. Girly coulda ripped m' 'eart out fer free an' sure, I'd be dead, buh I wouldn've felt it. Is it a money thing? 'ow much I gotta pay? Azar, Azar, Az, Azzy, Azarrrrrr matey, bruh. AZAR--"

@malafxde

[incandescentia]

“…You. Stop looking at that picture. Give it back to me.”

[bloodxhound]

hi ^_^

[longdeadblonde]

@sortilegum cont. from here.

Akephalos smirked back at the face before him. "What astounding awareness you must have." While this one wasn't the first to be able to see him for what he was, that was something very few had managed. He didn't dislike it. It meant there was no need to pretend for this person. This demon appeared and spoke as a modern man would, and while some would stop and stare at his deliberately sculpted beauty, they were hardly ever the wiser.

The veneer was just that. A veneer. This one had recognized that with impressive speed. "It pays to be in tune with the silent chorus. Good for you. And how unfortunate for our friend here."

"You think so? I think I came right on time." Crouching down beside the body, he stuck a finger in one of the wounds with a satisfied grin. Akephalos looked back up at the stranger and asked: "Who was he?"

[wyvern-flames]

The Codex expands with @steed-of-waloed's Harbard

His heart sunk again seeing the ashen-haired take a blow that almost seemed like it would take him out. After taking care of the enemy that had tried to best the Commander, Clive rushed back to him without a thought. Once again, he was decided to heal him up.

Why, though? He asked himself that repeatedly, but there was no real answer... Not one he thought would be logical. So, he just follows his heart without trying to explain it yet.

"You've been quite reckless, as of late." He answers, shaking his head at the next comment of gossip. It didn't really matter, did it? Who would dare speak of the Constant Knight? Surely only fools would try to.

"It's... a little more serious than that. Allow me to give you a hand with it. If not applying ointment, then at least wrapping it up. So, hold still, if you would."

[darkmissionary]

@vialacteus [♞]:

Meteor's weapons rest upon the rack that is set up at the foot of his bed, although his eyes gaze down at it occasionally, and his eyes gaze up towards the window and the stars that seem painfully bright in his eyes, and he finally draws the curtains and douses the room in dark.

For some reason, he doesn't really feel afraid, or nervous, when he feels someone touch him. He feels a touch upon his back, towards the nape of his neck, and finds a touch upon the tattoo he has -- his brand, granted to him by the Twelve.

There is a couple of scars of shrapnel from Dalamud, but they have begun to heal over lately. A scar from Zenos upon his neck. Some marks on his face from intermittent fighting. Part of him remembers something, someone checking to see if he was sleeping, and him pretending he was... The hand that touches his face is cold, it causes him to clench his jaw, and squeeze his eyes shut, before finally opening his eyes.

"Mom?" Meteor asks without thinking.

Silence.

His heart beats. He sees nothing. Faint light between the curtains from the wide and imposing moon.

"Sorry." He murmurs without thinking. "This is your body too, now. You can look if you like."

It was a deal he agreed to after all. Meteor took his sleep shirt off, tossing it on the floor. It was cold tonight but he didn't care, not being able to sleep was common enough for him.

"Did you not like something you saw?" He asked quietly to the air.

He sits up at night, listless, wondering if there will be an answer.

He should have been able to feel it too, that quiet fettering of desire.

Yet Esteem fades into the peripheries when called out to, like the whistling of a distant train barely picked up upon by the ears. The offer emboldens the shade, a threadbare mattress creaking with a phantom shift in weight. Perhaps it was a lingering trick of the mind, perhaps not.

The nature of aether so well understood by scholars and sages, yet the element still continued to surprise those learned minds with rather unexpected results.

Meteor had accepted him in his entirety and while Esteem was familiar with those discolored scars, in both pallid and darker shades than his natural skintone, there was a reverence to the featherlight touches that dragged across flesh.

“Your body is a map that I am most familiar with,” the voice begins, a terse silence following as the clawed finger armor of Esteem’s gauntlet drags over a small divot near the corner of Meteor’s lips, where the bite of a straight razor had sliced into the sensitive skin there some days ago. Facial hair the color of ripe chestnuts had already reclaimed the shorn areas in an even growth, darkening the areas around his mouth and the cleft of his chin.

“There are certain marks that yet freshly ache with the weight of our memories.”

The sound of leather creasing and the gentle weight of a gloved thumb tracing along the edge of Meteor’s right cheekbone, a gesture of quiet affection while the opposite hand remains a ghostly chill along Meteor’s shoulders, the bony landmarks sharp and stark like living blades. It slides and shifts, trailing down the slow rise and fall of a bare chest, ‘till it rests over his heartbeat.

Their heartbeat.

[regisela]

TAG⠀ARCHIVE.

[generalzelgius]

@heartwilled, continued from here:

         Oh, if only remorse was enough to bring about forgiveness, he would've been alleviated long ago from his suffering. Zelgius never excused his actions, nor did he entirely regret them either, but remorse ? He felt that in his weathered, weary bones. He had wished things could've played out differently, but in the same breath, he would've done it all again if it meant meeting Sephiran, if it meant curing his everlasting loneliness, if it meant he could feel wanted, no, needed. Every man needed a purpose to live and his was serving Sephiran, no matter what the outcome would be. Perhaps, that was both his greatest strength and weakness.

         Leanne's words carried the pureness of her heart and it was a nice sentiment, certainly, but was it realistic ? ❛ Do you truly believe things can get better for me, after all I have done ? You may want to forgive and move forward, but others find it much more difficult. I would not even know where to begin, to make amends. What could I possibly do to earn back trust ?   ❜ And did he even deserve it ?  ❛ You waste your time, princess.... not all wounds can be healed.   ❜ He would know. But perhaps, he too, was being stubborn. Did his own master not finally achieve his own personal peace ? But Zelgius was not even half the man he was. Such low self-esteem, he had.

         But he didn't want to be rude. Leanne was only trying to help. ❛ I thank you though, for your kind words. It.... does mean a lot to me that you would even care for... someone like me.   ❜ A monster, a demon, a nightmare, a lost, lonely soul, a broken man, the hated, the used, the abandoned.

[astarab1aze]

continued from here / @vicariousphotographer

He felt like he was losing his grip, known to happen from time to time when the seals in his brain loosened, though the symptoms were primarily memory-related - not that it mattered here, because he was floundering, eyes caught then on a shadows distilled and far away, writhing somewhere far off in, visions retracting like elastic bound to break. Instantaneous, no no, it was the fog of his mind, a terrible daydream where false dark came upon him and whispered the name of a man who was no more. Rewind, fast-forward, and everything's normal. People going about their day, a man in front of him - bewildered, concerned.

And worse still was his own state, anxiously palming now at clammy skin and mussed hair, wildly and unceremoniously smoothing out fabric that felt a little too much like something else. Light flickers, flashes of his face, a world decaying around him- His breathing remained laboured, but he'd realized in truth where he was, situated in some space between, acosting the man, yes. Oh, and how terribly sorry he was with what little congruence he could manage then.

"Sorry, sorry," he mumbled quickly, sloppily- willing his stress away and failing miserably, hands shaking, shoulders trembling, and that damned shadow, the rust, the paint chips- Ashari would not have panicked, he would've adapted, kept calm, breathed. Illusions could flicker and ripple against reality all they liked, one was real and the other wasn't - he just had to figure out which.

Away he stepped, wringing his hands; For the first time, in a long time, unable to articulate much else, wary and conscious that which aimed to swallow him whole. What had he wandered into this time? He wondered if the bile in his throat would ever settle.

[incandescentia]

[ cú, for h.sr killian ] Once all the monsters were defeated, Cú Chulainn swung his spear once to clean the blood off it, his posture finally relaxing. A wide grin adorned his features when he turned to glance at his ally in the fight, thrilled to see that they were uninjured as well. He forgot to count how many enemies he took down, but he’ll make sure to count so they can compare and decide who ‘wins’ next time. “You were able to keep up with me! I can’t remember the last time that happened,” the young man laughed, excitement as clear as water in his ruby-like eyes. In a way, it made sense. Determination and the path of the Hunt aren’t the only things that make a Galaxy Ranger, after all.

The pair of warriors were in no state to enter a bar or restaurant, but Cú still said: “Let me buy you something to drink once we return to the city. I bet you’ve as many interesting stories to share as I.” It was the first time he crossed paths with another Galaxy Ranger, so could anyone blame him for getting excited?

“Really? …It wasn’t all that difficult for me.”

The former knight replied at his comrade’s remarks with cool detachment as remnants of levin sparks crackle over the tip of his weapon. It was an aftereffect of the fatal hit directed at one of the monsters who attempted to maul him from close distance. Fortunately, his well-trained reflexes allowed him to counter the movement almost effortlessly — blast of lightning-aspected mana cartridge fired from the gunblade shocked && burned ‘til its corpse blackened. Likewise, he was lost enough in the thrill of the battle to count how many enemies that he had personally defeated. Being somewhat distracted over splats of a monster’s blood that he had caught on his newly acquired expensive leather boots may had factored into it too — as he simply stomped with enough force over his victim's poor body to pulverize it to death, but sullied his brand new shoes with blood in return.

Similarly his now disordered appearance made him in no state to properly enter any bars for a celebratory drink, yet the blue-haired youth who fought alongside him was cordial enough to make an offer; one that he couldn’t find any reason to refuse. “Hm. I don’t mind.” In a rather fascinating twist of fate, this man was also one of the many Galaxy Rangers spread across the cosmos. How curious.

Sitting the blunt edge of his gunblade across his shoulder, he made his steps forward first to head back over the nearest settlement area. Looking back briefly, he gestured towards the youth with a flick of his head to follow his lead. “Come along then if you wish to keep up with my pace, or do you rather wish to race me to the town?” With his ever-enduring stamina still robust enough to perform a consistent sprint, he'd accept any speed endurance challenge with his own knightly pride at stake.

@caemthe

[gcblinslayer]

[Continued from HERE.]

@hxvemxnd:

Alright... They can no longer keep overlooking this.

So far their own hive had been mostly safe from this strange onslaught. Fringe nests of hives had been hunted, and Zazie wants to brush it off as natural selection. They assaulted the wrong person, and they were killed in spite. Not something they want to let be, but humans will behave as they will.

But the longer this has gone on, the more this feels... targeted. Hunting. And Zazie is not a fan of those who try to wipe out native species on No Man's Land. So, this challenger wanted a fight? Oh, then he would get one.

He seems content to be swallowed which just works all the easier, and Zazie is quick to let their presence be known. Anger seeps even into the way they stand to greet him, shoulders tensed, and hands balled into fists. Angry buzzing, loud and echoing inside their worm, all emanating from the collective themself. They will kill him if they have to. Honestly, they may even if it simply just pleases them at this rate.

"Explain yourself," Zazie commands, crossing their arms over their chest now as they look at this... What was this? Humans didn't dress like this as far as they'd seen. Maybe that meant he was a dangerous evolution of theirs. No bother - Zazie would fix that.

"Why do you continue to harm the planet? You are playing a dangerous game."

“I’m killing worms,” the stranger replies easily enough, unhurried, as though speaking of the weather. 

Is this their Queen? He was expecting something more... No- That isn’t the point. This isn’t time to speculate on what could be. There is only reality.

It’s not a question of if, why, or whether he can do it. He must. He will. 

He will, or he will die. That is reality, too.

“I hunt them down and the planet still spins. So what?”

This does not seem an adequate answer for the small person yelling at them.

“"Think about how it would feel if your home was suddenly attacked by monsters... Yes- If your home was suddenly attacked by monsters one day. They come in and consume everything they can find: Your parents. Your friends. Neighbors. You are hidden somewhere by your elder sister, just in time, but you can do nothing to save her. You must hold your breath, stay hidden, even as they chew through her flesh and eyes, crawl up her nose into her brain to lay more of their brood.”

He takes a step forward, looming over the minute figure staring hatefully up at him through the gaps in his faceplate. The firelight from his handheld torch cast gloomy shadows over the inner walls of the feeder worm, glowing and breathing as it digs it’s way through the sands. 

Somewhere within that metal shell he calls a helmet is still a scared little boy. But he must decide what to do and act, no matter how terrified he is. Because that is how he’ll win.

“There's no way you'd ever forgive them." 

[longdeadblonde]

@twyred cont. from here.

Ruben sighed, rubbing his face with a pale hand. The same hand he'd ripped the poor dead fool's guts apart with. Perhaps he'd gotten a big too. . .excited with his process. A bad habit that he never could seem to kick. "They've got a whole seven or more meters of the damn stuff. Is it really that much of an issue?"

Looking down at the corpse, chest and belly agape, then looked back up at Vasil. Sharp green eyes honing in on his tired face, he briefly felt an ugly urge rise up in his belly, before forcing himself to drop it. He didn't like feeling that his sloppiness was being pointed out, even if he was sloppy. Scoffing, "Sure. I'll do my best to pamper the poor things to their flight to the great operating table in the sky."

". . .What did you intend to do with it, anyways?" He couldn't help wondering what his hard work was contributing to.

[wyvern-flames]

The Codex expands with @phoenix-flamed 's Elwin

He thought him dead. By the flames, he thought his father dead and yet, he stood here and stared back at him as if he were someone completely different. Could his father be blamed, though? Hatred, that darkened desire for vengeance had tainted his soul completely, engulfed it in the darkest night... This was not the First Shield, not the child he raised...

Yet, when meeting with his father, his eyes softened, they watered quietly... Father is right here, in front of me. And yet, the darkness still lingers.

He'd give anything for his father to see a better man, the light that used to cover him. Instead, that fate they had mentioned existing so long ago only brought more misfortune to the Archduke... or ex-Archduke.

"There is nothing to forgive." The words come out heavy, but earnest. He stares over his father, head slightly leaning over to the warm touch of his hand against his cheek. For a second, he forgot he had been branded. And desiring that release once more, Clive has to clench his fists just to prevent himself from crumbling and pulling his father in for a desperate hug. He cannot, he should not... So, he stands like a statue, one that shed gentle tears.

"You're here... You're not a dreaded phantom here to haunt me along with--... It truly is you, is it not, my lord? You... You are alive?"

[darkmissionary]

@voicelesshatred

Death reveals all, our hidden natures- What we would happily sacrifice in order to escape it’s sweet lover’s embrace.

See a man with blood on his hands, how quickly the artifice spins together to protect himself from accountability. Yet there was no fiction to be had, only the rusted coppery scent of spilled blood soaking through wool and growing sticky in the already humid night air. The eyes of a young Hyur’s hunger unchained and slathering for more meat and viscera.

Did the beast inside desire the hot, pounding thrill of vengeance? The dull burning build of lust? Stabbing disgust and violent rage seemed more likely, but he saw Caim in all of his wretched, naked hate. A hatred so deep and rich, it would glut the Abyss until it was bursting at the seams.

“I was full prepared to take this mongrel’s life. I did not expect him to be so popular, otherwise I wouldn’t have wasted the time coming out to this damnable forest.”

There were few places Fray despised more than The Black Shroud. Sanctimonious Padjals feeding the whims of Elementals so divorced from humanity, their ideas of justice and retribution may as well make as much sense as the values of Sylphs.

“A sellsword, eh?” he remarks more than inquires. “You’ve earned your fee, yet a measly bag full of rusted gil hardly seems a fitting reward. You’re after something else, the killing merely bides time and does little to hone your sharper instincts. For neither fame nor glory do I take lives, but because it is necessary. Not simply because this man was deserved worse, not to fool myself into thinking my actions merit Eorzea a safer place, but to enact punishment he escaped. I make no claims to be righteous nor noble, but I have learned how to harness the vitriol and the clawing, aimless rage into power.”

Power was always the shining lure that glinted beneath the bottomless well. It’s siren call was a song that Myste understood intimately, now enthralled by the chokehold of his inner darkness.

The Duskwight’s eyes gleamed crimson in the shadows, a menacing aura pouring from his being. Caim’s aetheric signature was but a weak flame lost in a torrential flood, buried beneath the crushing weight of the ocean of Fray’s malice.

[astarab1aze]

⸻ @melancholymirth

Of all the things, Dex had never expected to be called out to by name, to be asked after with pleasantly smooth tones by a man with feathered silver hair and an...air he couldn't quite place but was murky, dark, and wholly alien moreso than charming. It intimidated him, plucked at sensitive nerves he hadn't yet been able to fully manage, naturally shy and equally as anxious - too...nervous to accept the attention right away, buzzing about behind the bar with a damp rag, cleaning up behind Faith and Saryn's every spill, splash, or forgotten tip. Quick on his feet, ignorant of those scarlet eyes haunting his every step, long fingers slowly yet rythmically tapping against the bartop and louder than everything else-

...Tap! ...Tap! ...Tap!

He swallowed, overlapping sounds isolated and separated to make room for his voice, the sound of his breath, above the rustle and buzz of a half-full bar. It drove Dexter crazy, shrinking into the cash register where the 'Collected Tips' bag was always stashed; That man couldn't stare at him as easily, at least, and for the first time in his life, Dex was glad for his diminutive size. He wet his lips anxiously, shaky fingers tugging on the zipper and stashing the barely organized wad of cash. Easy, simple, auto-pilot taking over and finding comfort in going through the motions, counting down as he put the tip bag away, silently self-soothing.

Front-facing customer service was already difficult for him, ill-suited to contact with most folks. Too...jumpy, awkward, with stutters bad enough to render anything he wanted to say incomprehensible gibberish and hands that never stopped shaking. More than that, he was just a secretary...of sorts, or so he thought; He didn't actually know what his position at the bar really was, made responsible for more than just the phones when Garrett and V were off on another one of their vacations. Too general a station, too easily replaced - just the frightful burden with no special talents and a weak will they happened to bring home. It would've been better if he could've just stayed in the back office, studying, waiting for the phone to ring.

He looked up from the register, feeling those eyes on him, seeing them not a foot away now - and, startled, he nearly leapt right out of his skin, nearly squealed, stumbling a step backward, glasses sliding down his nose at an angle. Had the stranger with silver hair done this on purpose, to rile him, wind him up and watch him go? Or maybe, maybe it was just--

What do I do...? I can't take this anymore.

Dex swallowed thinly and cleared his throat, trying his best to appear...normal, unbothered, like anyone else would be, half-heartedly glancing out around the bar and its patrons, between Saryn and Fait-- And back again, affixing his gaze to a spot just beneath the strange man's eyes, ignoring the foreboding jolt down his spine. Garrett would lecture him if he saw him floundering like this again, wouldn't he? He wrenched his hands.

"C-can I h-help you, s-sir?" he stammered, voice unsteady, fingers rushing to fix his glasses, then to tugging on his collar. "I-I'm new--" A blatant lie. "--s-so I'm not s-sure how much h-help I'll be. But if-if you're l-looking for the managers, they're n-not here right now."

Was that right of him to say? Should he have said so? He couldn't be sure, but at any other place, wouldn't their employees have said the same? Maybe he should've called Fait over, or Saryn - he was scarier, much more volatile, and could probably handle any trouble the Tall Man with Silver Hair had to bring. He'd have to keep that in mind, just in case, but what was the likelihood his voice would be loud enough above the clamour...? Besides, it wasn't as if he and Saryn necessarily got along these days; Would he come to help Dex...?

He kept on-

"F-Fait and Saryn can h-help you with drinks. I'm-I'm just p-probably not who you're l-looking for, sorry..."

[wyvern-flames]

The Codex expands with @steed-of-waloed's Harbard

Yes, superficially, they were enemies. He should've left him there to die, as he had done with many an enemy before... But here he was, after having ran to his aid, a hand on the bleeding chest the other hand trying to slowly sit him up.

Why indeed... He himself had wondered for a bit, but it was clear to him -- Harbard was not his real enemy. He couldn't even be categorized as an enemy at all, Clive thought.

"Because you never really had a choice and I wish to give you one." And as he stops speaking, he pulls the man over to the nearest wall, resting the man's back against it. "Take a deep breath, I have something to mend that wound but I need you to remain steady."