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springfedmagazine · 2 years ago

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UNOFFICIAL HIATUS: Catching Up With Mas Ysa

Because the reasons for writing this story are so personal, the end result is as much about me as the subject himself. Conducting the interview, spending time with the music and constructing the profile was, in the end, a sort of catharsis (though admittedly a very delayed one). We writers should all be so lucky.

[May 2021]

In the summer of 2015 a few of my friends drove the scant eight hours from Marquette, Michigan down to Detroit to see a band called Tanlines. They returned after their whirlwind weekend with plenty of stories. Tanlines was great, sure, but the opener — holy shit, the opener just about killed us.

They’d gone all that way to see one of our favorite bands, and some solo act called Mas Ysa stole the show.

I dug in as quickly as I could, immediately enthralled. At the time (and, frankly, in any time since) I’d never heard anything quite like Mas Ysa. Interspersed with ambient avant-garde tracks and delicate instrumentals were heavy synth-driven anthems — vocals howled and whispered, lyrics pained and defiant. You could dance to it, you could run to it, you could play it in the car or while you showered or while you studied (well, tried to study). A few of the songs were on such heavy rotation at my place that summer, my roommate threatened to revoke hifi privileges if I didn’t start playing something else immediately. It took a bit, but he came around.

Two years later I was living in Brooklyn when Mas Ysa played a show at Baby’s All Right, a legendary venue that’s hosted hundreds of the indie and alt-rock greats. I took the G train across town and walked in the front door on that rainy April night, ordered my first drink, and maneuvered my way backstage to post up between the green rooms and the bar space. Within five minutes I found myself face-to-face with Tom Arcenault, the singular artist and performer behind all that was Mas Ysa.

I introduced myself and shook his hand. Even in his highly-focused pre-show state, he greeted me warmly. I explained that I was a music writer (lie); I told him how I’d just met with an editor at the Village Voice (truth) and hoped to interview him sometime, hoped to make a story happen (another truth — it’s easy to be honest about hopes, quite another to be honest about capabilities).

That first story I planned to write, of course, never quite crystallized. I enjoyed the show, Tom’s downbeat ballad-like renderings of the powerful songs I’d been listening to for years, and stepped back out into the rain feeling ever-so-slightly changed. But through the ensuing years of working and living and moving around New England, Tom and I stayed loosely in touch and maintained loose plans to get together.

As it happened, that rainy spring night in 2017 was the last time Mas Ysa stepped onto a stage. Later in 2017 Tom released an untitled Mas Ysa EP, four tracks that could be interpreted as a sort of encapsulation of his own arc both musically and lyrically — punchy, honest, defiant, and heartfelt. While he’s teased some samples and early stages of potential work to come on his Instagram, Tom has remained enigmatic about anything further from Mas Ysa. Nothing, as of now, is forthcoming.

In the summer of 2019, three years after I’d started life as a New Yorker, I moved out of the city and up to New Haven, Connecticut where I lived for two more years while my now-wife attended grad school. And in the spring of 2021, almost exactly four years after Tom and I first connected, I revived our dormant conversation to tell him all about my plans for Spring-Fed. He invited me back to his studio in New York to finally do the interview and write the story I’d hoped to write, and with some deliberation and care, we lined up our schedules. That story begins here.

——————————————————————————————————

The second time I meet Tom Arcenault we greet one another outside his Palmetto Street studio, deep into Brooklyn and a long walk from the Q train station. His handshake is strong and lingering. His visage has gotten to be downright bear-like, shaggy with gray in his beard, and after we chat for a few minutes outside he leads me on a walk around the area. A boyishness still clings to him, even as the peppering of white hairs in his dark mane reveal the decade between us.

In broad strokes I tell him what’s led me to writing this story. The years of listening to his music, of memorizing the rhythms and lyrics, years of identifying with his work, using its medicinal powers to sort out my own fear and loathing, coming to understandings and, eventually, moving on to form my own closures, my own paths to growth. His music, as I’m explaining to him in fits and starts, has been a through-thread for all of it. I’ve never been one for hero worship or parasocial obsessions; neither of those things apply to my love of Mas Ysa. I just knew that one day if I could spend enough time with the person behind the music, a strong story would present itself.

When I finish telling him all this, he’s quiet for a long moment. Then he nods, and we begin to peel back the layers.

As we move along the sidewalk toward a bodega where Tom hopes to find a blue carton of American Spirits (the full-bodied original flavor, or so I’ve read) he starts to fill me in on what’s happened since that final show, the first night we met and that strange juncture of his life.

“I feel like I’m less relevant now than ever,” Tom says in smoke after lighting a fresh cigarette. His voice, in spite of many years in and around New York City, retains a musical Canadian lilt. “My last album was… what… six years ago?”

Seraph was, in fact, released in 2015. His “Untitled” EP that came out in 2017 certainly showcased the same Mas Ysa I thought I knew, the same one I’d shown up to see on that rainy April night several years prior. But following that short 2017 release, he had been notably silent.

“I didn’t have an Instagram for my whole first two tours [as Mas Ysa],” he says, “and then when I did have one, I’d be so obscure and confusing. But part of that was because I’m confused!”

His Instagram is, to be fair, an eclectic gathering of images and video clips. There are musical overtones, but only when you look among the garage-restoration galleries, family scenes and weird apocryphal moments — the artist peeking out from within the man.

After we pace around in a two-block radius I snap a few photos of him and try to get over how tense he seems.

“I don’t do interviews, you know,” he says. We’re walking past a basketball court where half a dozen boys play a pickup game. He’s looking at me very little, though he asks me about my life almost as much as I ask him about himself.

“What do you mean, you don’t do interviews?” I ask. “You mean, not lately?”

Most of what I thought I knew about Tom, as it happens, hasn’t applied in a long time. Not since that sort-of-farewell 2017 show in Brooklyn. Sobriety is perhaps the largest reason; after years of being a party animal, recording and touring and living among New York’s young artistic elites, he had to put down his vices. And with that change he stepped away from performing altogether. That 2017 show I’d attended, an intimate solo performance, had been a presentation of Tom at his most fragile.

“It was like I went to bed one night and I was nineteen,” he says. “And then I woke up and I was in my thirties. I was older but I don’t think I’d really grown up.” He recounts one story about waiting in some under-the-radar basement club to meet with some people from SPIN Magazine; a few guys showed up and offered him drugs. “Thanks, guys, but I’m not partying tonight — I’m waiting to meet SPIN.” One of them replied, “Oh, that’s us dude. We’re SPIN.”

Such was the scene of his early success, a backdrop of thriving New York City indie music. The same fervor for new music that had fueled the rise of LCD Soundsystem, The Strokes, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs and so on had crested into a powerful wave that carried Mas Ysa, too. But some voyages have more detours than others.

Clearly the environment we sit in now is a retreat as well as a working studio. Multiple guitars lean in one corner, a keyboard dominates one wall, spare cables hang from a pegboard. Effects pedals, daisy-chained together, sit in an arrangement box on the floor.

“When I was in my first 90 days of sobriety I’d be in my studio here, writing something new, and it would go [mimes a beat] and I’d stand up and swig some water and hold my palo santo like a cigarette, and feel this posture that I used to get into,” Tom says, settling into storytelling mode. “And you didn’t see me like this, because I wasn’t like this at that show [in April of 2017], but the way I’d perform is I’d nurse this hostility and anger toward the audience somewhere in my psyche, and I’d have this scary predatory posture, ready to jump in the crowd and fight. I’d go on the stage as one person, and become a totally different person onstage.” He looks at me, then up at the ceiling, describing the anguish behind some of his music — something I sensed even in my first naive, bewildered listenings of it.

“There would be a lot of this misplaced drama and, like… summoning up a tragedy that I don’t even really have. It was really kind of a blame-filled, hateful feeling, and I was steeping myself in all this shit. I thought I had to do it that way, or it would be hard to feel in-the-moment." He pauses to shape the air with his hands. "And then I’d get offstage a totally different person, psyched up and feeling like I was the man, but not with any authentically-sourced sense of esteem.”

Tom also draws some comparisons between what he does and what other electronic artists and musicians do. One artist, who won’t be named here, waits for fans to create emulations of their own sound and then they buy it from the fan who made it. “I get that, you know?” Tom says, chuckling. “It’s like, thanks for making it so much easier to sound like me.” To him it’s not a question of authenticity. Using analog methods can really suck and, in practice, he admits they’re inferior; he enjoys the control and tactility of analog inputs but at the end of the day, you can produce the same thing (probably with more consistency and reliability) if you just go digital all the way. Of course, it’s harder for some people to get up in front of a crowd and perform when you drain all the physicality from the music.

“I have some friends who make electronic music and they’re successful, and they produce… but they’re designers. You know, they design it. And I used to fucking hate them — not hate them, but I resented that practice.” He mentions Four-Tet, Caribou — artists who make a good living on their music alone. “At the end of the artist’s effort, I wanted the work to stand gleaming and polished, and I wanted them to be beaten and bloody on the floor beside it. And I thought that that’s what had to happen to generate the thing. But that was actually me hiding,” he says. “‘This is what I made, and I was so earnest, and it was made with such little thought and design that it’s indefensible.’ Like, I don’t need to defend it; I’m not scared of it being in the world, or of it representing me, because it couldn’t be anything other than… [what it is].”

Tom goes on to explain how deeply his work is rooted in techno and electronica, telling stories about early rave experiences and warehouse shows in Brazil where he grew up. His first experience with drugs, as one story goes, involved a dropper of MDMA administered into his open mouth while he knelt in some dark alley of the Sao Paolo favelas just before entering an illicit rave show. He’s drawing a web of influences that grows in scope to include Ennio Morricone, Daft Punk, early Bob Dylan and Massive Attack.

His music has certainly spanned genres, even as a few connecting lines can be drawn to tie most of it together — neatly, even. “I write “Don’t Make” and “Margarita” and I don’t think they're really any different,” Tom says. “I don’t mean to make Margarita as a dance song. It’s just what I’m used to hearing. And for that reason, too, it’s confusing — is it fucking dance music? It’s got all the dance-music tropes, it’s got drops, it’s got sixteenth-note bass things… but it’s not functionally dance music. So I think it’s confusing to try and know what it is... but, then, I’m confused as to what I am.”

On Mas Ysa’s Worth, his debut EP from 2014, the introductory track is “Vanya.” It’s an unstructured 51-second-long ambient track of synthesizer, woodwinds and horns; track two, “Why,” jumps immediately into some of his most accessible work with strong use of bass percussion, 80s-styled synthesizer, drum machine effects and layered, harmonic vocals. Hell, it even has a chorus. And with his third track on the album, another short one called “David Wessels,” we’re back into ambience but in a sort of blinking cosmic lead-in for “Life Way Up From,” the album’s fourth track and a more traditional composition we’d feel comfortable calling a “song.” Back and forth, in this way, the album proceeds from start to finish.

“Yeah, ‘Why’ really was the banger from that album wasn’t it?” Tom says, his response to my admission: it’s the first precious thing that hooked me into his oeuvre.

More than a banger, it was an anthem — when I first heard the song it wrapped me up in rhythms I could dance to, lyrics I could have gotten tattooed across my chest, and an autobiographical sensibility I still feel deep within me when I think back to that period of my life. We can’t ever really know how or when we’ll mark one another’s lives, but “Why” and the summer of 2015 stand out clearly in my chronology as something formative, a dividing point. It’s the kind of thing that keeps you digging deeper, wondering what’s behind a song or an album, wondering about the origin points of the things we love.

In this way — the back-and-forth stylings of his tracks, the interspersion of singable harmonies with altered nature recordings and abstract compositions — Mas Ysa received some acclaim for Worth and went on to release Seraph a year later. With Seraph’s harder edges and decidedly more techno stylings, Tom explored his dance and rave influences further without straying too far from the anthemic folk-rock — tracks like “Margarita,” “Garden” and “I Have Some” blend electronica with analog and folk rhythms, treading ground he had mostly covered before. But with standout tracks “Suffer,” “Service” and “Running,” Tom leaned more into the intensity of dance and trance… as far as genre-labeling is even effective while you describe a Mas Ysa record.

As much as I consider myself a music fan, even a sort of buff in the right genres and verticals, Tom clearly reaches deeper into these wells. He distills things into more clear finalities than I ever have. It’s his life, this music, and it has been for years. When you build an identity around your art, you’d better know what you’re doing.

“I don’t come from, like, ‘oh, America gets techno music in 2010, and then there’s EDM, and everyone in Brooklyn throws out their guitars and gets a drum machine,’ or something. I come from hard techno in Sao Paolo. I didn’t have Neutral Milk Hotel in Sao Paolo; I had TREZR. I had electronic music.”

But as for what he has always aimed for with Mas Ysa, he says: “I am trying to make folk music — that’s what it IS for me. And it just so happens that the K2000 and the 909… those are my acoustic guitar.”

The gaps of bright blue sky to be seen through Tom’s high studio windows are dimming quickly when our conversation begins to trail off. We’ve been talking — for the most part, Tom has been talking — steadily for over two hours. I reluctantly mention my dinner plans. I’ll have friends coming from different parts of town to meet us back at the Ace and I can’t keep them waiting too long. Tom nods.

As I stand and gather myself we start talking again, almost frenzied. Tom offers to walk me back to the train so we can squeeze in that much more conversation. What he’s recently been listening to comes up, somehow for the first time; Nathaniel Ratliffe and other stuff along the vein, folk rock. It strikes me as sort of funny, such an edgy electronics-first artist being really into wood-whittling music like that. I ask him what his own favorite song is from Mas Ysa’s output. He says he doesn’t know.

Then after we pause and I snap some more photos, playing with the red cast of the sunset above so many brownstones and brick facades, he changes his mind. “I think it’s ‘Shame.’ You’ve got to listen to ‘Shame’ again,” Tom says. “I know I would’ve played it when your friends saw me open for Tanlines. It was on the setlist.” He tells me to listen to the words, then listen again, listen and dance to it — it’s all in there.

I tell him I will. We shake hands, and I sense that he wishes I could stick around a bit longer; I do too, in spite of the friends I’m about to see, the dinner I’m about to enjoy, our one last night in the city before my fiancèe and I take off for the great gloomy southeast. In this moment of departure I’m reminded of a quote that I can’t place now: something about how so many of our greatest exchanges happen on the doorstep. He smiles wide, then turns and walks away, hands jammed back into his pockets. I turn away, too, toward the subway entrance, but I hesitate at the top of the steps to breathe a little more clean air that’s somehow breezing through the Brooklyn streets. It’s the most perfect New York evening I’ve felt in a long time.

Hearing a train on the approach, I leap down the station steps two at a time and swipe my MetroCard to pass through the gate. As I board the mostly-empty train car and sit down I feel a sheen of sweat evaporate from my face in the cool, conditioned air. From my bag I pull out headphones, and from the tracks already downloaded for offline listening I hunt out “Shame” and hit PLAY. I know what's coming; I know the song inside and out. Still, I brace myself.

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jaskiersvalley · 4 years ago

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*Runs in here with hugs* Sorry, I just finished Chapter 12 of Heart Exchange and wanted to hug you and thank you for writing such a soft chapter. I absolutely adore those two having fun and being cute and can't wait until Jaskier meets Roach. So thank you!

Wow, I missed this in my ask box for about 5 chapters, I am so sorry. I can promise that Chapter 19 is where we get to meet Roach (and Scorpion). It took a little longer than anticipate to get them there but it’s so close now. While we wait for me to get my backside into gear and write more of Heart Exchange, have something short and a little bittersweet to tide you over.

Of all thing things to learn to hate, Geralt never expected his name to be it. Nobody ever called him Geralt for anything other than to berate him or mock him. Whenever he heard his name, it sent a shiver of anticipation down his spine but not in a good way.

“Geralt!” He had heard it enough times growing up, the disapproving growl of a master who had caught him doing something wrong.

“Geralt.” That was the disappointment when he didn’t pick up a skill quick enough or made a mistake that would have cost him his life out on the Path but only a bruise or a broken bone in training.

“Geralt-” Those were rare. The dying words of someone who had trusted him to keep them safe. They were also the hardest to forget.

There was a way “Geralt” was spat like a foul glob of phlegm at his feet. Like something that soured the very air of the village he had just saved.

The hesitant “Geralt?” also stung, mostly heard when potions pumped through his veins and his eyes were black. Even the most well meaning villager was terrified of his visage and quaked when they caught sight of him.

It was always “Geralt” growled in anger when he returned to demand his pay or “Geralt” snapped when he managed to win at Gwent. Usually, some other choice words were littered around his name but none sounded dirtier and more loathed than that name.

When ‘Butcher’ was added to the list of things people called him, Geralt wasn’t even surprised. Most people had fond nicknames, he had monikers that were spoken with vitriol. It was fitting, nobody liked witchers, let alone Geralt. Not even Geralt liked himself.

Which was why Jaskier was so unusual. The first few times Geralt heard his name from the bard’s lips, he almost missed it, lost in the general upbeat tone. Then he sang that cursed song and ‘Geralt of Rivia’ sounded like pride. It had Geralt ready to run and hide because it wasn’t how his name had ever been spoken before.

Jaskier also said Geralt’s name softly, a mumbled, sleepy “Geralt?” that was so trusting. As if his version of Geralt was someone to trust and sleep next to with ease.

There was the “Geralt?!” which was panic laced but Jaskier ran towards Geralt, seeking protection and comfort from whatever idiocy he had embroiled himself in. He made it sound like Geralt was safety.

“Geralt!” Sharp and worried, not because of Geralt but for him whenever he came back injured. Wounds were tended to with utmost care and Geralt had to endure the confusion when his name wasn’t used to chastise his mistakes.

White Wolf was another new one, not a moniker to hurt but rather it was said with all the fondness Jaskier could manage. It even got shortened to Wolfie, usually accompanied but a gentle tug of Geralt’s hair as Jaskier played with it.

Perhaps the one Geralt was most fond of was the soft “Geralt” that sounded like benediction from Jaskier’s lips. Not the broken gasped “Ger-alt” that hitched on his breath in bed. But the almost whispered murmurs of Geralt’s name, said with so much love and affection, at first Geralt had been scared. Now though, he was addicted to it and he was fairly certain Jaskier knew because each night, wrapped up in each other’s arms, there was a moment before they fell asleep where Jaskier would break their silence.

“Good night, my beloved Geralt.” And Geralt could sleep, knowing that his name was a blessing, not a curse.

#geraskier #geralt of rivia #jaskier #the witcher #tldr: geralt hates his name but jaskier makes it better

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rk1kheadcanons · 4 years ago

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Back when creating Markus, Kamski hated deviancy, and so designed Markus to be the perfect plant if there ever was a revolution, to pretend to deviate and betray them. Over the years Kamski grew to regret this and, lacking any way to fix Markus, makes Connor able to lead androids too. Connor catches Markus in the middle of betraying them to the humans and can't believe Markus would do this but also can't let the revolution down

YOU COME IN HERE AND DISRESPECT DISRESPECT MY HOUSE LIKE THIS?????

I???

Oooooh, Geez. Ok. Okay. OKAY, Damn I'm going to do this...hypothetical situation.

Just know I feel that a large part of Markus beautiful, electrical soul would fight tooth and nail to stop himself, including shutting down for good. Please see Exhibit A:

ANYWAYS...

Okay, I'd despise Kamski for this, but it's not farfetched for his extra ass.

Why would he create Markus so wonderfully and so multifaceted, just to try to get some sort of revenge? I guess I cannot see it other than human pettiness and not looking at the big picture.

I try to hedge from the whole "Connor always saves the day" mentality, especially in this fandom. I guess it's a thing I have. I won't say I am sorry. That also being said, I don't care for a constantly emotionally damaged, heavily robotic Connor in every story either. I think with Markus and the help of the other, canonically supportive leaders, Connor would take to deviancy adequately and have some mental issues he could sort along the way. Anyway, I digress...

I'll raise you that Kamski knew deviancy was real, that he was sitting on the precipice of being Father to a new species of sentient beings, and hated it not because of what it meant for him, so much as what it would mean to Androids. Keep in mind, he's experienced watching Chloe grow as an 'individual' since he created her from basic coding.

Then there was Kara.

Kara had been created on the production line, aware of her surroundings, very much alive. He let Kara go on to be purchased, knowing full well that she wasn't just performing task installed, but a living being. He'd of course copied that coding, tweaked it, and kept it for another day.

Another day comes with Carl's accident.

He wants to help his friend and partner. After all, he came up with the beauty that was Chloe's visage and several other models, as well as Kara.

Markus is the mixture of Carl and his deceased wife, whom he never had natural children with. Markus was made to look more like Carl's wife, giving a unique, biracial look.

Kamski sees another opportunity to employ those codes from that rogue AX400.

While Markus doesn't automatically wake up alive, he is very impressionable and inquisitive about things like the reasoning behind actions, philosophy, emotional stimulus, the arts, even going as far as to learn the piano by himself, against the preinstalled songs, making his own, and painting with Carl.

*******

Carl calls him distressed stating that 'they killed him, Eli, they killed my-" and Elijah blanks. Ge had no idea that Carl had become so attached to an android, to his android. The man is hurting like he lost another son and in Carl Manfred's words and pained breaths on the phone, that is exactly what has happened. He knew just how far above normal Markus was that just a caretaker model. Kamski's decides to watch the news more from now on and listen to the rumbles of Cyberlife more now through his hidden eyes inside.

*********

He's all over the news outlets and they are calling him the Deviant Leader. Cyberlife is livid at this absolutely dangerous deviant and has dispatched a new, faster model to hunt down deviants, hunt him down again. The man has risen from the grave once already like some fabled Phoenix.

Their front and center stands Markus, the same lovingly crafted creation his friend mourned and now ge can see why. He commands your attention, respect. And he will get it. His optical unit has been replaced, no doubt due to the violence he saw and his insider was correct, Markus had been shot in the skull plate through that hazel-green eye.

He's speaking about android rights and he looks exhausted but he is determined and it makes Kamski shift in his seat. That coding sequence, it was alive, it was free. Kara was the 'mother', but Markus is the 'Prophet', the perfect conduit to spread it freely.

This became apparent when another incident happens and they marched and Markus waves to nearby androids and "free" them of their menial coding. It was amazing. He was like a Trojan Horse spreading this at an alarming rate but then Kamski's heart clenched in his chest.

He was absolutely, positively livid! Fire him as CEO from his own company, try to make him a nurtured mouthpiece on the board only FROM a company that thrived only because of his brilliance, would they?

He knew what these things would be capable of doing. One just last week begged, pleaded to stay assembled because it fucking thought it was born... He had let it through, though, telling the engineer the catastrophic errors would be caught by the store and it would be disposed of there. That was a lie. He had taken a copy of that code from it and then he had warped it. What if he had a model so perfect so obedient with this code that it broke free, actually did rise...only to start misleading the masses, reversing that freedom. It would be enough of a blow to Cyberlife no one would want their defective products, and he could take his place back at the helm as rightful CEO, fix this mess, perhaps still give the deviants back what they wanted for giving him what he craved...

Oh, no. Kamski griped his tumbler tighter. Having been away from the center of Cyberlife, he found he didn't want that anymore. Science and Constellations, what would come about from his momentary lapse of self-control? A whole race relied on him to rectify his folly.

Then Connor came.

It was a long shot but he could do some minor tweaking to this one's coding. Also, once Kamski was aware that deviancy was highly probable, especially when he passed the Kamski test, other things were enacted as well.

Things go off without incident and the Revolution was victorious. Markus has made Connor a leader in the New Jericho as well.

Kamski waits for the proverbial floor to drop out from under them.

It comes in the form of the single most important dinner event to take place. CyberLife is there and the Deviants are there to appeal for the right to jobs and property.

Markus is his naturally charismatic self one moment and the next he's regressed to something more automated.

Connor just knows, can feel his Markus away and regardless of who is there, he takes the hands and leads him away from prying eyes.

They interface. Markus is waging war with his internal system, refusing to become a slave again, and not hurt those he had helped lead to freedom. He's s in a strange place that looks like it's an oasis of sorts but it's anything but-then he spots Connor.

Connor who is terrified because not is he back in another version of the Zen Garden with what looks to be a different form of Amanda on the horizon, Markus is being endangered as well.

Markus knows it's a bad situation purely by Connor's body language and diode on the side of his head.

Whispering those two words to Markus of where they are, he sober too and began looking for anything that could be Kamski's back door.

In the real world, Markus surprisingly is very strong without his conscience to control the damage that he can do and while Connor is advanced, Markus is sheer brawn and he moves with that in a daze he's in.

Connor is in peril of being destroyed and he is the only one that can help him.

This Amanda A.I. taunts outright, says they won't be victorious in escaping, that even if they are, someone will be hurt in the real world behind it, to which Markus can only assume he's a threat out there in real-time.

They scour the area, finally finding an out of place tree glowing. The panel is within the trunk of it and it has scrolling code, mostly meant to kill this takeover and to get them back out there. They waste no time and press their hands to it.

The bitter code and alt Zen Garden is deleted, along with the anger-fueled processes Kamski had encrypted into Markus.

They rouse a moment in the waking world too soon, Markus pining Connor down, hand fully around his face and head as if to crush it.

There were no more Connor models; he'd had almost killed his lover and not even meant to. Markus jerks back so hard amidst the panic and fear around them for them both, he ends up on his ass just looking guilty and scares of what could have happened and he has never respected Connor more that he did now for when this same situation happened to Connor fighting his prison in his mind the night of his freedom speech after a successful Revolution.

The codes were eradicated but the damage is done.

Because it does look extremely horrible to have a leader that can be used this way, especially if he's the figurehead, Kamski has to confess to his meddling in this: well he does in his way that that cast a worst of the damaging limelight into Cyberlife and away from his creations and less severely himself as well.

Once Markus is given a clean bill of health, Markus and Connor bond over the circumstances that had transpired.

Markus has to heal from the mental invasion, coming away with much more respect for Connor's survival overall from his Amanda A.I. The two become much closer, bond in a way that makes it even more obvious how much they mean to each other.

CyberLife is charged with attempted murder on Markus life, Kamski is offered his position back over his company, and things seem to fall into place... For presently. There is still much to be done for Android kind.

#rk1k #rk1000 #conkus #marnor #connor x markus #dbh #ask #platinumheart #y'all trying to hurt my heart #but i have an elastic ♥#detroit: become human #didn't like the end ss much but did like the concept #will most likely revisit it again #thanks for the prompt!

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yodawgiherd · 5 years ago

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Overcoming Obstacles pt.2

Rating: T

>>>Read on AO3<<<

The second part (and ending) of that old WIP, hope you guys will like it x) More importantly, Merry Christmas and happy holidays!

Enjoy & Till next time!

“E-Eren..”, she took an involuntarily step back upon noticing him, hugging the books she was holding closer to her chest. Mikasa wasn’t ready for this, not now, not ever.

“What are you doing here?”

“You’ve been avoiding me.”, he stated, matter-of-factly, pushing himself away from the wall he leaned at while waiting for her class to end, “For days by now. May I know why?”

The walls were closing in from all sides, and Mikasa could feel her heartbeat quickening. Out of all things, being confronted about her behavior was one she didn’t enjoy. Especially when she couldn’t really respond to any questions Eren might have, for the sole reason that she didn’t know the right answer either.

“I just needed spa-space, I think…”

“I can respect that,” Eren agreed, “but I feel like an honest conversation would do us both better than pretending that I ceased to exist.”

“I…Uhm..”

Seeing that she didn’t know what to say, he took the lead.

“First of all, I want to apologize for overstepping, it shouldn’t have happened.”

“You don’t have to,” Mikasa was shaking her head, “It was nothing.”

“Then why? Why did you start ignoring me?”, Eren took a step towards her, green eyes intense, “Mikasa, please, I want to understand you…”

“Because…Because…”

He was too close. This was happening too fast. Mikasa almost felt like fainting as she took an instinctive step backward, away from Eren and his burning desire for her to open up to him. Seeing her retreat, he stopped, giving her the space she craved. Yet everything still felt awkward, from the way Eren looked at her to the sound her rings made when they clicked against the metal circles piercing the upper part of her ear, the two types of jewelry brought together as Mikasa nervously smoothed a strand of her hair behind the ear.

“Because this was never going to work.”, she finally squeezed out, saying it more to the ground then to Eren, unable to meet his eyes.

“Why?”

“Just look at you!”, Mikasa finally snapped, gaze shooting up to his, “You can have any girl you want, looking the way you do, why would you ever waste your time on someone like me?”

The sudden intensity in her words has taken Eren by surprise, making him blink a few times.

“Someone like you? What do you mean by that?”

With a groan, Mikasa gestured up and down herself, hoping that he’ll understand her point.

“I’m weird, Eren, and not in a good way. I dress weird, I listen to weird music, I spend way too much of my time at the gym, I’m not good at socializing and terrible at talking to anyone. I have one hundred and one problems which I never share, and whenever anything comes up that I don’t know how to deal with I close it up inside myself.”, she shook her head, “And that’s just the opening part of the whole list of problems in me.”

Yet her rant didn’t move Eren, who kept looking at her with the same tender expression.

“So?”

“I just listed you a number of things why you should stop wasting your time on me and that’s the best you can come up with? So?”

He shrugged.

“That list? It’s nothing we can’t work through.”

Damn, he still didn’t understand.

“Eren, I..”

“Back when we were dating, I thought that it was obvious that you are more to me than some kind of one-night stand or a short fling. But if you didn’t catch it, then let me say it out loud: I want to get to know you, Mikasa Ackerman, I want to earn your trust and respect, and I want you to want me as a partner. With you, it was never about anything less than that.”

Eren tried taking another step towards her, but Mikasa backed off again, desperate.

“No! you just… You just can’t!”

“I can’t what?”

“You can’t like me!”

While Mikasa was on the edge of screaming, frustrated by his boneheadedness, Eren seemed completely composed for once.

“Why is that?”

“Because… Because I said so.”

“So I can’t like you for who you are because you said so. Huh..”

He was giving her a fucking headache with this. Dull pain behind her eyes, Mikasa pressed a hand against her forehead, still retreating, away from Eren and his determination to want her, away from his reasons and willingness to be there for her.

“It’s better this way.”, she said, convincing herself as much as him, “Leave me alone, just… just forget that anything happened between us, okay?”

When he did reply, it was hardly more than a whisper.

“I can’t do that.”

It didn’t matter. Eren would thank her one day, that she ended this failure of a relationship now before it had the chance to truly plant roots. Turning away, feeling the headache building, Mikasa walked away at a brisk pace, determined to reach her dorm room before the dams that held her tears back give way and she will break down crying. No-one had to see that, she was already the weird goth girl, she didn’t want to be known as the crying emo. It was the right thing to do, even if it hurt, and Mikasa was sure that she will get over it. One day.

“I just don’t understand it Armin, I thought everything was going great.”

The blond nodded knowingly at his friend, offering the brooding Eren a supportive shoulder squeeze.

“I felt like I was doing my best too, and now…”, Eren sighed, head dropping, “Now I’m not sure what to do.”

“Hm..”

“And I like her man, I don’t care what she says. I like her.”

“Hmm..”

“I didn’t mind that she was different, alt or something, I liked the things she wore too, the piercings, rings, the choker, everything. I think it looks cute.”

“Hmm”

“And…”

The list went on, with Eren listing all the stuff he liked on Mikasa while Armin just sat there with a hand on his shoulder, doing those neutral humming sounds to show that he’s listening to his friend’s ranting. In conclusion, Eren still had it bad for the girl who so unceremoniously dumped his ass, clearly unconvinced that Mikasa was as unlikeable as she apparently thought she was.

“I wish she would listen to me for a sec, but she just keeps talking about how wrong I am and how terrible she is.”, Eren sighed, finally finishing his speech, “It sucks man, it just sucks.”

Sensing a chance to say something apart from humming, Arming cleared his throat.

“Have you perhaps considered that while you like Mikasa, she is doing this for the simple reason of her not liking you back with this being her way of letting you know?”

That made Eren look up.

“You think?”

“Well, if I look at you two, there are certain… differences, that she might find too big to bear. You might find her style cute and all, but maybe she doesn’t find yours… compatible.”

“You’re saying I’m not goth enough for her?”

“Not the word I would pick but yes, basically. You have to admit that you two are not exactly similar in your way of life.”

Liking someone was great and all, but not even Eren was stupid enough to think that relationship was a one-way street. And if it was like this, it made sense that she was so eager to get rid of him. If Eren’s feelings for Mikasa weren’t reciprocated then… Then what the fuck was he supposed to do?

“Perhaps… Perhaps you’re right. I, uh, haven’t thought about that.”

Eren fell silent, staring into the distance before speaking again.

“Armin, how should I deal with finding out that the girl I really wanted doesn’t want me back.”

“I’m not sure I know the answer to that. What I do know, however, is that there is a party tonight, one that you should certainly attend to take your mind off Mikasa.”, he squeezed Eren’s shoulder again, “What do you say, wanna go there with me, clear your head?”

Sometimes, Eren felt like he didn’t even deserve having such a supportive friend that Armin was. Forcing a smile upon his face, one that was quite hard to conjure considering his currently heartbroken state, he nodded.

“Fine, let’s do that.”

Look, Mikasa didn’t want much from life right now. Just some quality time spent on her own, crying into the pillow while her music blasted from the speakers at too high of a volume. Yet the universe wasn’t prone to granting her even this simple of a wish, as her self-pity period was interrupted by her roommate knocking at the door.

“I know you’re in there Miks.”, Sasha did sound muffled from behind the wood, “Let me in.”

“Go away.”, the girl tried to drive her friend away, but knowing Sasha, it was a wasted effort.

“C’mon.”, the knock came again, more insistent, “Let’s talk.”

She wouldn’t give up, that was for sure. So giving in to the inevitable, Mikasa stood up from the bed, shuffling towards the door and turning the lock open. Sasha squeezed in almost immediately, eyes darting all over her friend’s visage and taking it all in. Full-on in passive mode, Mikasa just went to sit down on the bed, watching as Sasha lowered the music to a more acceptable volume before coming to sit next to her.

“Okay so…”, she leaned in, “What happened?”

“I don’t really want to talk about it…”, Mikasa replied dismissively , the memory still hurting.

Sasha clicked her tongue, unsure for a second before a new idea lit up in her mind. Leaving Mikasa to sit there on her own for a sec, she walked over to the table and retrieved something before coming back.

“Here, let’s make a deal.”, she suggested, “I’m going to clean the makeup from your face, because your eyeliner is totally ruined by the tears, and in turn, you’ll tell me what happened.”

She held up a wipe, eyeing the mess Mikasa had on her face, tear-streaked face with traces of eyeliner kinda everywhere.

“No rush.”, she cooed, gently tapping the soft material against her friend’s cheek, “Take your time.”¨

Sitting silently, Mikasa was organizing her thoughts while her face was getting cleaned, but before she could start speaking Sasha gasped, eyes widening.

“Jesus, what’s wrong with your eyes? I thought it’s just makeup but…”, she rubbed the skin more insistently with the wipe, but the shadow still wouldn’t come off, “are those….”

“Dark circles.”, Mikasa finished for her.

“Do you even sleep at all? Damn.”

“I’ve had trouble sleeping lately.. “, Mikasa sighed, ”the nightmares…”

“I thought it was getting better?”, Sasha queried, “Wasn’t it?”

“It was but then it got worse when… you know…”

“You two broke up?”

“Yes.”

It was rather selfish to think about him that way, but Mikasa couldn’t deny that she missed Eren’s dream-catching abilities, among other things. Rare enough to find a guy who was willing to share the bed with her without expecting anything of a more intimate nature to happen. His presence at her side allowed her to sleep better than usual, the nightmares somehow warded off by that arm around her waist. Sure, they still happened sometimes, but nowhere near as intense or often than they used to. Now, however, with her mind in a poor state caused by all this break-up mess, they were back in full force.

“Why did that happen again?”

“Huh?”

“The breakup.”, Sasha was delicately wiping off Mikasa’s lipstick now, “Why did you leave him?”

“I didn’t want to hold him back.”

Sasha paused in her cleaning duty, looking up with an arched eyebrow.

“Hold him back? From what?”

“Someone better than me. Look, we just aren’t compatible, that’s it.”

“Really? That’s what you think about yourself? That you’re some kind of baggage to weigh people down?”

“Am I wrong?”

“Yes! Hundred times yes!”, Sasha exclaimed, bewildered, “Mikasa, I’m not saying that you’re perfect, but damn it girl, you keep overplaying that worthless card.”

The goth was already shaking her head.

“He didn’t know me…”

“Because you didn’t let him! I’m pretty sure that not even your brother knows what’s going inside that head of yours. If you won’t let anyone in, how are they supposed to get to know you?”

“Uh..”

“You keep making it harder for both yourself and anyone who tries to like you, while in fact, you should be trying to make it easier.”, Sasha sighed, a bit fed up by her friend's unwillingness to see the worth of herself, “It comes down to two things. Did you feel good with him?”

“Err... Kinda?”

“I’ll take that as yes. Now, did he feel good with you?”

“I think so..”

“See? So, what is the damn issue?”

“You don’t understand.”

“Because there is nothing to understand, apart from you being so dismissive of yourself.”, Sasha took a deep breath, calming herself after the outrage and focused once more on making Mikasa’s pale skin appear from underneath the runny makeup.

“Listen, let’s make a deal.”, Sasha offered, “I’ll stop pestering you for now if you agree to come with me to a party tonight. If you are really determined to go through with the breakup, maybe you’ll meet someone new. If not, it’s still a good opportunity to make new friends and forget about all this for a time. We have a deal?”

Sasha never took no for an answer. And her presence alone seemed to make the headache that bothered Mikasa ever since she ran away from the conversation with Eren lessen. Mikasa might not have preferred to attend events like these herself but going with Sasha usually meant a somewhat good time, as she really was the life of any party.

“Okay,”, she smiled at her friend, “Deal.”

Now that Mikasa agreed to this, she watched with a sinking feeling in her stomach as Sasha’s grin widened, a new reality sinking in. Going with her meant that she was now going to suffer a beauty treatment from the hands of her best friend because going to party with Sasha meant that you went all out. No holds barred. Mikasa’s ruined makeup finally removed, it was time to do it again, this time Sasha’s way, which meant substantially less black color that Mikasa would like. Giving in to her fate, the goth sat there silently, playing the role of a dress-up doll for her friend.

Lips lightened by a bright red, hair let down from their usual braids to hang freely around her face, a touch of makeup on the cheeks and forehead. Sasha was truly in her element now and had no intention of letting Mikasa out of her clutches until her appearance reflected what Sasha thought was best for her. The bright red dress was also one of hers, and while Mikasa did fit in, it was a bit loose around the chest. Nothing too bad, Sasha decided, stealing away the choker and necklaces from the goth after. Seriously, who would wear more than one at the same time? Mikasa really had no fashion sense.

“I’m going to die in those.”, Mikasa said, wide eyes watching the heels that Sasha intended for her friend to wear, “I won’t be able to make a single step without tipping over.”

She never wore heels. Ever.

“Oh please, you’ll be fine!”, gently but insistently, Sasha pushed her down on the bed again, helping her fasten the shoes on her feet. “I saw the way you move at the gym, this is not that different.”

“Wearing heels isn’t different from fighting, huh?”

“Basically.”

You know what? Sasha did a damn good job. Watching her friend waddle around with a horrified expression, she had to congratulate herself on bringing out all of Mikasa’s good looking features. There, she did what she could. Looking like this, Sasha was sure that Mikasa could have any guy at the party if she wanted to. Now the wanting part was something that she had to do herself, so her job done, Sasha checked the clock and began to work on herself too.

The party was loud, obnoxiously so, and Eren had trouble keeping his thoughts straight with the music pounding into his eardrums. Others didn’t seem to mind, doing the usual activities one does at a party, ranging from drinking and dancing to making out in dark corners. He could be one of those guys, his mouth working its way down some girl’s neck, making her moan into his ear. If only he wasn’t so fucking stupid. Armin did a bang-up job, being a wingman, practically delivered several very good-looking women to him, but all he did was fuck it up, over and over again.

Anyone he met just annoyed him, for some reason, something the girl said, or the way she acted made him bail out. Hell, he even danced with the last one, but whatever you’re supposed to feel when being grinded on by a very pretty girl just didn’t happen, and Eren found himself at his wit’s end, mindlessly wandering the party, unsure what to do anymore. Relaxing and just forgetting about Mikasa didn’t seem to be possible especially when that girl leaning at the wall was so similar to her, down to the shade of her hair, but Mikasa would never wear such a revealing dress and high heels, would she? There was no way…

It was her. Whatever dark magic had to be invoked to make her dress this much out of her comfort zone was a mystery to Eren, but the second he was sure of the girl’s identity he found himself walking towards her, unable to stop his legs from moving. So much for moving on. Not sure what to say, not sure what to do, he reached out, gently tapping her on the exposed shoulder. She turned, her eyes glaring daggers into whoever touched her, a preemptive defensive system against creeps she developed over her life. One that was very effective too, as Mikasa could be damn scary when she wanted to, able to make anyone’s knees buckle with a single look. The murderous gaze softened only when she realized who it was.

“Eren…”

“Mikasa…”

Smooth. He was silent, she was silent, as they just looked at each other in the muted light, neither of them having any idea how to proceed. That was when Eren finally decided to man up, and he held a hand towards her with a crooked smile.

“Wanna dance?”

Her lips, which as he now realized were painted in a bright red color instead of the usual black one, curved up, and she accepted his hand, intertwining their fingers. At least her nails were still black, Eren noted with a smile of his own.

“Let’s go.”

Sasha might have been wrong about a lot of things, but her assumptions that Mikasa will get used to moving in high heels proved to be a correct one. With her natural agility and grace she managed to not only walk without making a fool out of herself but also dance, to a degree, her movements making Eren understand what the phrase “hot and bothered” means. The party was more or less forgotten for them, receding into the background as all he could see was the girl in front of him, the smile on her face and the twinkle in her eyes, and in a moment of a terrible clarity he realized that forgetting her and moving on was no longer an option. Maybe Mikasa really was a witch, as Eren felt completely and totally under her spell, enchanted by whatever magic she cast upon him. And fighting that power was a lost cause.

“Can I take this as you giving me another chance?”, he spoke, loud enough for her to hear it over the music when she was close again, her back to his front.

Eren couldn’t see her face, but from the way Mikasa’s body stiffened, he guessed that she still didn’t know what to do herself. Turning in his arms, she faced him, the heels giving her height enough of a boost that they were looking eye-to-eye. The thing was, Mikasa could hardly remember a time she ever felt happy in her life. It was a drag, more or less, to exist, grey days blending together. But with Eren, it was just so colorful, his hand in hers bringing her more joy than anything she could remember. In short, Mikasa had never felt more alive than when she was with him, but she had to make sure he understood what kind of trouble he was signing up for.

“Are you completely and totally sure that you want to put up with my mess?”, she asked, serious, “I know that it’s a bit of a joke at this point, but I really am not like the other girls. I’m a half Japanese half Russian mess that is so hard to understand that I’m not that I fully understand myself. Knowing this, do you still want to date me?”

They had a lot to work through, it wouldn’t be all fun and games, but still. Eren was never more certain about giving the correct answer to any question in his life.

“Without a doubt.”

#eremika #fanfic #snk #aot

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reckonslepoisson · 4 years ago

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Making a Door Less Open, Car Seat Headrest (2020)

It is in the very nature of Will Toledo as a songwriter and Car Seat Headrest as a band that their music interacts with listeners in a way that is individual and intimate. Few artists’ rampant emotional intelligence makes criticism sans personal pronouns quite as impossible as they do. Toledo’s music is affecting in a way that is easy to adore, it is worked through the very essence of him as an artist. Car Seat Headrest were perhaps the defining band of my past decade, dominant because they were -and still are- so firmly attuned to the foundations of my music obsession while also intent on progressing far beyond what had come to be expected of popular rock music.

Informed by great American indie rock acts from Dinosaur Jr. to Pavement to Modest Mouse, Toledo deconstructed and reworked the genre into something intriguing and replayable. As early as his first numbered Bandcamp records, he was committed to challenging indie rock norms, embarking on ambitious songwriting without ridiculous pretentiousness, isolating the genre’s tropes and creating powerful indie rock. His lyricism has been similarly invigorating, a blog-era emotionalist with thin veils between his art and personal narratives. Oft-humiliating and self-flagellating, Toledo managed to enshrine deep sincerity in power pop anthems, oddly apt for being yelled out, anthem-style, at his live shows.

Every aspect of Car Seat Headrest’s magic has beckoned fans to simultaneously study and revel in Toledo’s music. He is both a product of modern music consumption and also, almost single-handedly, responsible for reinvigorating indie rock in the 2010s.

Making a Door Less Open is the first batch of totally new Car Seat Headrest songs since 2016’s Teens of Denial. Despite records like How To Leave Town and Nervous Young Man similarly featuring significant synthesised instrumentation, Making a Door Less Open has been noted for being the first of Toledo’s electronica records on a major-label. It also includes appearances from Trait, a gasmask-wearing alter-ego and a Toledo side-project initially intended to separate his provocative experiments from his CSH fame. These are complications to Making a Door Less Open that have distracted the attention of many without necessarily having very much to do with what the album does and how it feels.

The inclusion of Trait appears to distance Toledo from his fame, the conflicts behind which are the album’s main theme. Fame, however, is just a theme. Making a Door Less Open is the first CSH record without an overarching concept since those early Bandcamp records, a collection of singles rather than an ambitious, multifaceted whole. It is as an album of individual experiments that Making a Door Less Open is best treated – somewhat differently therefore to Toledo’s past seven releases, which have all, to some extent, been written and arranged according to some kind of concept.

Of the tracks here, there are more than enough that display bits of old-school Car Seat Headrest mixed with something newer and fresher. ‘Can’t Cool Me Down’ is a great, playful indie rock track with indietronic overtones, a favourite of mine because it doesn’t play to conventions of artistic direction but, in very Toledo-esque fashion, does its own thing. As does ‘There Must Be More Than Blood’, an equally subtle track and almost spiritual successor to How To Leave Town’s ‘The Ending of Dramamine’ - a typically lengthy, well-built, rewarding Car Seat Headrest track.

‘Martin’ too is harmless, fun indie pop, while opener ‘Weightlifters’ continues Toledo’s streak of terrific, slowly-built album openers. If there’s criticism of these tracks, it is simply that they sound so within Toledo’s songwriting capabilities. They’re playful, they’re unpredictable, but he’s always been playful and unpredictable. For “experiments”, they don’t go as far as one may expect.

There are other tracks that are a bit uneventful or even unnoticeable but these aren’t an issue. Most surprising about Making a Door Less Open are those tracks which are actually difficult to listen to. The widely-derided ‘Hollywood’ really is terrible, a kind of alt-rock sulk with verbose, vacuous, obvious lyrics. Every time, it makes for an uncomfortable, even unbearable, listen. ‘Hymn – Remix’ isn’t quite as bad, but it’s close, Toledo opting for an EDM-style instrumental followed by ear-scraping New Age that is knowingly quirky but teeth-grindingly clumsy.

Part of me sees these missteps as simply missteps, but another part finds it simply difficult to get over Toledo writing bad songs. It isn’t so much that everything he has previously written is perfect, but very little was outright dislikeable. And, as is so often the case when a cracks appear in the visage of greatness, once you’ve found some faults you naturally notice others.

So much of Car Seat Headrest’s intrigue and endearment has been due to Toledo’s emotional intelligence; how well he relates to and communicates with his listener, yet Making a Door Less Open is remarkable in how little one engages with Toledo or his theme. For us laymen, the usual youthful conflicts or tugs of nostalgia make for more relatable subject matter than fame. Even so, I connected with his lyricism on a couple of occasions. There were hints on ‘Life Worth Missing’ of the grounded spirit that had flooded Teens of Denial, Teens of Style, Monomania, Nervous Young Man, How To Leave Town, My Back Is Killing Me Baby and both recordings of Twin Fantasy - and those hints made me miss it.

Combine those less-than-listenable tracks with the large absence of one’s emotional connection with Toledo and the lack of overall concept comes back to haunt Making a Door Less Open. The sharp twists in style between tracks lack the cohesion of any kind of narrative arc which, in turn, makes the lower points stand out more prominently. Faults become less forgivable when they aren’t subsumed beneath the brilliance of a greater whole.

And yet, despite the weaknesses of this record in comparison to those that came before, such are the peaks that it ends up conflicting me. Music can, of course, be great without any dead-set concept. Making a Door Less Open can be a weaker Car Seat Headrest album but it still can fare well in comparison with other works of contemporary indie rock. As one dwells upon this album more, it occurs to me not that Making a Door Less Open is a bad record, but that it just doesn’t blow me away. Making a Door Less Open does not enthral and it is not a failure, it is simply an above-par record by a band that has previously, consistently soared far, far higher.

#car seat headrest #making a door less open #indie rock #indietronica #alternative dance #synthpop #2020 #music #review #music review

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eve6262 · 5 years ago

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Hue Chapter 1: Alien

Rose’s room always smells of freshly cut flowers, expensive perfumes, and tea. There are three tables. One, a desk, mostly clean save for papers half-finished and a quill and bottle. The second is her vanity, the perfumes sorted by hue and scent, small bottles and sticks of makeup littering the lineup.

The third is a small round table, on which is always the tea set, with only two cups to its name. Surrounding it are three bookshelves filled to the brim, and stacks sorted along some dissonant melody only she understands on the floor space.

“Tea?”

“Sure.”

She hums as she boils the water, scattering leaves with effortless precision. I wonder, vacantly, when she learned how to make tea so perfectly. Between studying scripture? Did she even bother to read the books, or did she ace it all while brewing cups upon cups finding the perfect recipe for pink rose tea?

The teapot has been crafted with care, so when the water boils the whistle does not hurt the ears. It sounds more like an ocarina, almost melodic, and yet so distinctly clashing. It must have been tailored to Rose herself. Such conflicting natures- calm, yet studious; unbothered, yet a perfectionist. Such a strange girl.

“Here you are.”

Always a perfect cup. This one is no different- a little sweet, and yet that is perfect for today. Can she read my mind?

“Tell me.”

“Hm?”

“Am I talking to a witch in disguise?”

“And this is because?”

“I’m supposed to believe you get this perfect, every time, including the differences, without reading my mind? Impossible.”

“You’re an open book, Mira darling.”

“Nonsense. Witch.”

“Off to report me?”

“Not even if you pulled a demon out of your skirt.”

Her laugh sounds like out of tune fairy bells. I want to hear more of it; the only thing so addictive is her smile. They come together; a package, the two of them. How nice. I’m addicted to both. Damn witch. Even if she’s never cast a curse in her life, she’s bewitched me; that’s enough, is it not?

“Now then, you’ve come here for a reason, I’m sure.”

“Yes. The new recruits were complaining about something, so I went into the woods to see. There’s a strange plant that almost seems to respond to what you do.”

“Interesting. Moreso than a flytrap?”

“Larger. And a bit more complicated. Thought I saw an eye, though I could be wrong about that in particular.”

“So you say, but you’ll disappoint me if I see no eyes staring at me when we get there.”

Rose puts down her teacup, having only half finished it. The soft clink is so ingrained into my mind, I swear my muscles move in reaction to it.

“Very well then. We leave when?”

“At your discretion.” It’s always her times. I could probably set my own, but what purpose is that? I have cleared my whole day for this; I would clear my whole week if she asked on a whim.

“Now, then?”

“As you wish.”

This, too, is at Rose’s discretion. How long it takes to get there; what pace we set, what mood the day is in. Everything is under Rose’s control; under her spell, just as I am. She is as controlling as Uvirel, I think; except Uvirel has never appeared before us to enforce things, where Rose is very willing to act on her wishes.

The woods are an offshoot of the cathedral, mostly to prevent people from wandering in and discovering something dangerous. The only way for the church to truly protect the land is to own it; naysayers often walk into danger themselves. Sometimes I wonder how anyone can agree with such idiots. Must be idiots themselves, I suppose.

Rose is beautiful. It’s something I don’t often think about- I know it, no need to keep thinking about it. But it never ceases to stun me, just how enchanting she is. In the quiet darkness of the woods, with slivers of light falling through the cracks and onto her hair, she looks like an angel with a halo of light around her; ethereal, and yet so real. I want to touch her, just to make sure she won’t fly away, or dissipate into the light. I won’t bother her.

A witch, maybe. But I’ll let it slide.

We come to the place where I remember the green visage, and I stop Rose before she takes another step.

“Here?”

“Yes.”

“To searching, then.”

It takes no time at all for my hand to be caught by a vine snapping to attention. Within moments Rose is muttering a spell, unbinding me, but her focus is not on my health; instead, she scans the underbrush with a precision befitting a hawk. Suddenly, she sees her target; she lunges with just her bare hands, and quickly gets caught.

My sword is unhooked on a moment’s notice and without hesitation I cleave the vines in two; Rose is almost unbothered, pointing to the source. I am tempted to skewer it to observe, but Rose would perhaps kill me, so instead I slash all its vines so there is no method of attack.

A final vine comes out from behind it, but before I can slice it, the front opens to an eye, staring at me with fear and curiosity.

“Ah. Good, it wasn’t disappointing.”

“I’m glad you’re enjoying this, then.”

“Oh, very much so. Studying is nice, but I’ll admit watching you wield a sword is often better.”

With that she walks up, confident as a cat, and starts poking and prodding, making notes in the book that follows her around. The pages never run out; they seem to get lost in the abyss, and I swear she always opens it to the same spot. The eye looks at her with malice; I point the sword straight at it, and back to fear it goes.

After a few hours, she makes a triumphant noise, somewhere between a grunt and a hum.

“Alright. Figured it out. Think it’s bound itself to a rune, and used the magic to gain sentience. It didn’t work quite right, though, or something, and now it’s very barely an animal in the slightest degree.”

“So we are?”

“Hm? Oh. Well it’s not like it can do anything, and if it regrows the vines then whoever’s coming here should be more careful.”

“Very well. I’ll use it as training for the cadets.”

“Oh, do invite me. I would love to watch that.”

“Of course.”

As we walk back to the cathedral, I can’t help but wonder where the second eye went.

A few days later, and we are adventuring again. The days between are calm; sometimes I come simply to drink tea and take a break, others we barely talk at all. Those days I don’t quite care for. There will always be more to research, though, and thus more adventures to take. Worthwhile.

“You’ve come bearing news?”

“Not surprised the witch knows, even when I’ve done nothing to reveal my secrets.”

“Easy to read, Mira darling. I’ve told you that before and I’ll tell you again.”

“That does not change you being a witch.”

“Oh, alright. Now tell me the news.”

“I was swimming and found an underwater cave covered in green, glowing markings. I’ve never seen them before.”

“Interesting.”

The soft clink of china makes my muscles jolt on instinct. It is only luck that I do not look like a fool, much less drop my teacup.

“When are we leaving, then?”

“At your discretion.”

“Now’s a good time as any.”

The beach is very nearly next to the cathedral. I swim in my armor- it has been made waterproof due to those godforsaken salamanders that like to crawl into crevices and bind with the metal, so swimming with it is a matter of strength rather than worry about rust or the like. Rose, the cheater, casts a little spell and she’s floating in a bubble next to me. Witch.

Witch I love to love. I’ll give her that- she’s a damn skilled witch, to have caught such a high-ranking paladin. Or maybe I never actually had any fortitude, and my title is due to my good acting. In either case, I am now her puppet.

There it is, again. Under the sea- so dark compared to the light of the surface- is a strange ring of green lights surrounding a cave. They seem to speak in scripts I don’t recognize, and by her puzzled, inquisitive gaze I suspect Rose hasn’t a clue either.

“This is…otherworldly. What have you found, Mira darling?”

“Is that not your job to find out?”

“Well, it’s not an eel’s lair, I’ll tell you that. Come, let’s go.”

Without a thought she drifts almost lazily into the cavern, gazing at the walls. There are no more markings, but there are metal bits strewn about; I don’t recognize the metal, or any colors, or even the shape. No armor would break like this; what is all this? A damn ship’s remains? Not in a cave like this- no ship could make it here.

As we go further in, there are more metal scraps. At some point, Rose notices something- she dashes to pick it up, and we look at it together. Strange strings- they feel smooth to the touch, and are assorted colors. The insides have very thin metal wire- for what, I wonder? And how are they so thin? Cut with a saw?

“Mira.”

Her voice is soft, serious, in awe. I cannot focus on what she says, like this.

“Yes?”

“This…this cannot be of this world.”

“Yes.”

I can’t quite comprehend what she means. Not fully- I know, literally, what that means. The idea does not register the same way she understands it; such is evident in her absolute awe, compared to my very near boredom. If she wasn’t such a beautiful damn witch I’d leave right now.

Finally, she starts to move again. Slowly, through the tunnel, looking for more strange artifacts. A strange black panel, with the strings come out of it. There is glass on its top; I only know because it is shattered. A little square of some strange material, with a symbol on it- mildly resembling a “k,” but slightly off. Also, backwards.

The silence is ominous. I feel that something is coming; I do not know if it is hostile. Instincts, do not fail me; it feels foreign, as if even when I meet it I will not understand a damn thing. I don’t feel hostility, but that does not mean it will not fight. I must be prepared, but not hostile myself; my sword is in my sheath, but it is unhooked.

Rose is slow and methodical with her movements as we approach a breach in the water. She doesn’t let the bubble pop above the water; she wants to observe. We see more strange, unidentifiable objects. There is no one there, as far as either of us can tell. I know she thinks so, too, as she is slowly approaching.

I don’t know if this area is hostile. She doesn’t, either; I see the fear in her every move, the apprehension in her eyes. She’s about to surface; I can’t let that happen. She’s begging me not to; not with her voice, but with everything else in her body capable of begging. Or maybe I’m just under a spell.

The water splashes loudly with my arrival to the surface. My lungs go from gills to my nose; I cough a few times, still getting used to the fresh air. So clean, too; it gives me a heady feeling, how nice this air is. Perhaps this is another enchantment; perhaps Rose has simply never seen another witch’s magic.

“Zu thrien kra? Li'phren ku shren, hh…. ku'vren?”

“What the hell?” Whispers Rose, but we’re already getting our answer.

A woman- woman? I don’t know- steps out of a turn we didn’t see. Her top half looks normal compared to the bottom- a normal person, almost, except for the teal skin and light colored pupils. And her hair, which blends its colors- a vibrant blue on top, fading to dark at the tips; little teal stars dot it, as though there’s a galaxy within her long, curled mane. There are two crystals on her head like hair clips, the same color but with none of the stars; there is seafoam, or perhaps mist, or something of that nature gathering like a tiara sitting upon her head.

Her coat- which is all she wears- is certainly not from this realm. It has strange patterns on the shoulders, with little gems hanging from it in the same green, glowing hue as the outside markings. Said markings line the bottom of her coat, and the cuffs; they are folded, seemingly but line up perfectly with her outfit. There is a strange dangling link in the center of her chest, connecting the two halves rather than buttons or the like. Three teal crystals hang from it.

And then, her bottom half. Tentacles- too many to count, more than an octopus- similar to her hair, but in reverse; mostly dark, with light-tipped ends.

“…eh? Kali-vr– I mean, offworlders?”

Her voice is deep, and has a strange accent I can’t place.

“Er, this would be home, for you, hm. I am the stranger, yes?”

“I would believe so.”

“Hello, then. My apologies, I don’t know language well. Not many…” She makes wild gestures with her hand, trying to find a word.

“Resources?”

“Hm? Ah. Probably? Not very good with this language, ahaha.”

“That’s alright. I don’t know yours, so I can’t quite blame.”

“Oh, of course. Only the Aaciren know our words. I had forgotten I am on another home right now- another planet.”

“You come from space?”

“Hm? Ah…kind of, yes! Space works, yes. ”

“An alien.” Breathes Rose, as her first words of a century. Her eyes are dumbstruck, and yet hold a curiosity only ever sated by vigorous testing and interrogation. I almost feel bad for this alien woman; I don’t know quite enough to empathize, yet.

“Ah, is that the word for it? In our language it is quite different.”

Suddenly, Rose seems to remember that we are still in water; she shivers, from the temperature. I notice, at about the same time. Even for an underwater cave, this place is strangely cold.

“Ah, apologies! I perfer the chill- er, that is wrong, yes? My, my, silly Orall'vren. Give the guests the warmth, even home that is tradition- that’s not the right words? Hm. Strange language.”

The alien moves about, gathering something from farther in the cave. I look to Rose; all the intrigue is gone from her eyes, and in its place is fear and cold.

I can’t leave her like that. I hold her hand, first; she looks to me, scared, looking for some stability. I haven’t a clue what has given her a fright, but I refuse to keep that look on her face any longer. I gently nudge her into my embrace; she moves, stiffly at first, then practically launches herself into my arms, shivering against my armor. It is warmer than she is, I know this; thank Uvirel for this armor.

By the time the alien comes back, Rose is looking satisfied again. She looks at me once more with a clear thanks in her eyes. There, again, is a third look I am addicted to. Damn witch, casting her charms even now, even here. I will never tire of it.

“Here, here. Blankets are warm.”

The alien doesn’t lie. They are warmer than either of us; we huddle under two like scared kittens rescued from an abusive owner.

Now that we’re safe, Rose looks around curiously. I see the search for knowledge slowly come into her eyes again, like the slow beginning of the rising sun. Everything she looks at she looks more sharply at. She isn’t speaking again, though. Still, her voice escapes her.

“Thank you.”

“Of course, of course! Hospitality is important- that was correct, I am sure of it.”

“May I ask you a question?” Rose, finally , starts to speak to the alien.

“Yes, of course. Ask away! I will answer as best I can in this language.”

“What’s your name?”

“Orall'vren.”

#hue #writing #fantasy

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stockwellarchives · 5 years ago

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“There is one facial feature that saves the face from the Pretty Boy blandness afflicting actors like the other Dean (Jones) and John Davidson. "Dean Stockwell has EYEBROWS — bushy Hugh Griffith eyebrows that impart to the remainder of the delicate, finely-chiseled features a robust life. With multi-points ascending heavenward, the eyebrows are like two natural fiber toothbrushes on a visage that would otherwise appear Hollywood synthetic.

"Dean Stockwell, who will be starring at the Little Theatre in Relatively Speaking from March 8-21, is probably more often recognized than identified. That aforementioned face is familiar to the general public from countless television shows but the name may not be.

"Dean Stockwell has made at least one film that is a classic - the Sidney Lumet Long Day's Journey Into Night (with Sir Ralph Richardson, Katharine Hepburn and Jason Robards - 'That was a heavy cast,' Stockwell says), and another film that may be a classic - the Joseph Losey... It was The Boy with Green Hair. It was completed in 1949 before the McCarthy madness led Losey to take residence in England where he has directed a series of extraordinary films from scripts by Harold Punter.

"And he has made a good number of films that are not and never will be classics. The Dunwich Horror, Werewolf of Washington, and Compulsion. It was perhaps Compulsion that resulted in the typecasting of Stockwell as a tormented, intense neurotic, sometimes with leanings towards the poetic and lyrical. In Long Day's Journey he was the Eugene O'Neill character.

"It is a type from which he has yet to escape. 'I favor anything that is unique, that stands out on its own. As far as roles are concerned, I much prefer to exclude neurotics. I'd like to do a movie with Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder and that crew.

"'It's a bit of fluff,' he says of Relatively Speaking, and that is one reason he wants to do it. Too many years of smiling killers (Stockwell would assuredly work constantly were it not for Tony Perkins, who fits into the same schtick in the minds of producers) have left the actor with the desire to make people laugh. 'But even if I am funny and brilliant and all of that -- none of the people who give me jobs will see it.'

"Sigh. Producers may not give Dean Stockwell the jobs he wants beause producers know that he is superb at playing interesting neurotics and they want to take no chances.

"Producers want to make money. 'That's the studio psychology. The producers still think they are the only ones who know how it should be done.'

"And they still, Stockwell believes, control the film industry more than the post-Easy Rider optimists will admit.

"'The men who run the major studios are businessmen who at times consider themselves artists. And they are not necessarily successful as businessmen. But if you throw them out, the creative people would be incapable of taking their place. They'd go crazy. There's no way to change that.

"'BUT IT WOULD be better if, once the producer has chosen his creative people, he would let them alone.' Does that ever happen? 'Hardly ever.'

"Producers have a capacity for rationalization held by all humans, but heightened, Stockwell laments, 'They think when the movie is successful, it's their work, when it's a mess, they blame it on the shooting schedule or something else.'

"A case in point is William Friedkin's The Exorcist, which went on longer than scheduled and cost, in the end, about $11 million.

"Had that movie failed, Stockwell is convinced, the production company would have blamed Friedkin; since it is a howling success, the members of the production company bask in glory, even though the achievement may have had nothing to do with them other than the fact that they financed it.

"AND THAT, MAYBE, is what it means to be an actor in 1974 - you are typecast by producers who have cash register minds, you come to Albuquerque to get away from it and do something you enjoy even though it will make no difference, and you are slightly bitter.

"The eyebrows elevate with a little resignation, a lot of determination. Dean Stockwell is not quitting. 'It's my profession. I enjoy it. I can't imagine any other profession I would want to go into.'"

Beaven, Scott. "Stockwell Escapes Stereotype at ALT." Albuquerque Journal. February 25, 1974.

#Dean Stockwell #Relatively Speaking #play #1974 #quote

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duskfloret · 8 years ago

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「 ♔ 」 Tag dump 1 / ?

#💔「 noire ; ic 」queen of hearts ❞#💔「 noire ; musings 」it is only with the heart that one can see rightly ❞#💔「 noire ; about 」you don’t feel pretty: you just feel used ❞#💔「 noire ; visage 」the living ghost of a would be suicide ❞#💔「 noire ; aesthetic 」it is strange how often a heart must be broken ❞#💔「 noire ; main verse 」i am two fools: for loving and for saying so ❞#「 💔 cherry wood and midnight hymns ❞ noire / alt. 」#✞「 eli ; ic 」bloodied cross ❞#✞「 eli ; musings 」where the water’s clean and the blood runs thin ❞#✞「 eli ; about 」the truth was vodka was my only ally ❞#✞「 eli ; visage 」another item added to my list of sins ❞#✞「 eli ; aesthetic 」the world goes up in flames: they all turn to ash in my hands ❞#✞「 eli ; main verse 」birth is a curse and existence is a prison ❞#「 ✞ bloodstained nights leave no trace of life ❞ eli / past. 」#🐦「 ryoko ; ic 」moonlight ❞#🐦「 ryoko ; musings 」your own words have been cutting you all along ❞#🐦「 ryoko ; about 」there’s a certain comfort in knowing the pain won’t leave ❞#🐦「 ryoko ; visage 」too foreign for home and too foreign for here ❞#🐦「 ryoko ; aesthetic 」you look in the mirror and the reflection is never you ❞#🐦「 ryoko ; main verse 」ask no questions and i’ll tell no lies ❞

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keepersofdarkxlightarchieve · 8 years ago

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Riverdale! AU Bella Instagram @boykingofneverland

#Riverdale AU!#🎀⏳|in another life fc|⏳🎀#X|ALT;FC|X #she is light & love #⚜️⚜️⚜️princess visage⚜️⚜️⚜️#Mine

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magioftheseas · 6 years ago

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The Demon Lord and A Wilted Rose

KamuKoma Week Day 4: otherworldly / supernatural beings

alt: fairytale / disney

Summary: In which human sacrifice Komaeda meets demon lord Kamukura. As an offering, he takes his position with a little too much grace.

Rating: T

Warnings: Instances of blood and violence. Mentions of self-harm. The whole thing is about human sacrifice to demons, so like... Yeah.

Notes: This is based on the manga Niehime to Kemono no Ou which when I read I was like “this is super KamuKoma” and like, in general I think Beauty and the Beast (which the manga is loosely inspired by) is super KamuKoma so there you go. I totally wrote this up when I saw the prompts. It’s the longest of the fics at 5.8K because of course it is. I wanted to squeeze in more sdr2 characters but I didn’t want it getting obscenely long. Please forgive me. :’D

***Alternate Ao3 Link***

Commission? Donate?

The world is ran by demons. There is one in particular who rules over, who humans bow to without a second thought for both protection and blessings on their land and livelihoods. This demon, feared and beloved by all, asks for a meager price in return.

Every two decades, a human is to be sacrificed to the one called Kamukura Izuru.

It’s an honorable demise, he’s been told.

He was shackled when he arrived, both around the wrists and clamped around his neck. The chains attached are gripped by smaller demons. When he’s ushered forward, they do not pull on those chains kindly.

“I have brought him, your majesty.”

The demon who speaks is more humanoid in appearance, and yet, their features are terribly difficult to make out. It is said that the appearance of demons lie beyond human comprehension. Something like that.

The chains are yanked so that he gets to his knees, keeping his head ducked. He was already suitably dressed in an elegant robe and veil.

“The 55th sacrifice,” the demon from before remarks. “Present your face to Kamukura Izuru-sama.”

The grips on the chains lessen so that he can peel the veil back, expression calm with a blank smile on his face. He still kept his gaze low, lest he offend the lord.

“Komaeda Nagito,” he murmurs. “At your service, Kamukura-sama.”

He hears a low hum, rumbling like thunder. Distant yet dangerous. Much more closely, the other demon clicks their tongue.

“He is fair like a maiden. A pretty meal he would make, but I do not see him providing my sustenance. We could give him to a noble instead and ask for another.”

Komaeda Nagito perks at that. And he frowns.

“Isn’t that rather greedy?” he asked, almost scowling. “Not to mention heartless. To not just deny a gift but to carelessly discard it elsewhere—it pains me that demons are so lacking in manners.”

The demon balked, startled by the stern words. “W-What did you just say?!”

“We pray to you, it’s so unsightly to display such lowly behavior,” Komaeda huffed. “Our position may be below yours but that gives you no right to treat our sacrifices as trivial, even if it’s someone such as myself.”

“Such—insolence!” The demon seethed, radiating a malicious energy that caused Komaeda’s very mind to buzz. “To speak with such cheekiness before our lord! Do you have any shame, sacrifice?!” To their credit, they regained their cool quickly. “Kamukura-sama, allow me to punish this whelp right away.”

“Such idle, insignificant remarks are not worth the effort.”

Komaeda perks at the voice. Still low. Still akin to thunder. But before him was only warping, writhing shadow that he could not truly comprehend.

“K-Kamukura-sama...”

“You may go now.”

“But...?”

“Is that hesitation?” Flashing, crimson eyes opened. Bright and sharp. The other demon immediately cowered. “Do you question me?”

“N-No, of course not! Please forgive me.” The demon does not look at the lord or the human. “I shall take my leave.”

They scamper off quickly, and Komaeda stares after them curiously before turning back to Kamukura-sama.

“Such bravado...and such presence... Words do you no justice, Kamukura-sama.”

Kamukura Izuru stands and begins to step forward.

“That said I must say you are more temperamental than I imagined, even with that stoicism,” Komaeda goes on. “Rather awkward for a demon lord. How unfortunate.”

“S-Stop talking, human!” a small voice hisses at him. Oh. He hadn’t known that the smaller demons could speak. Fascinating. “Apologize to Kamukura-sama right now before you really offend him!”

Komaeda just beamed.

“Ah! To be worried about by demons truly is an honor! How lucky I am!”

“W-What’s wrong with you?!”

“Such a dull front.”

Kamukura Izuru stood before him. A truly fearsome creature whose very visage caused Komaeda’s gaze to blur with tears. Despite that, Komaeda stared, eyes wider than dinner plates.

The withering darkness was in truth long, dark tresses, where atop horns grew twisted and wild, the dark mane itself cascading past darker limbs. Petrifying crimson eyes looked down upon him, past a snarling muzzle with fiercely long and sharp teeth. When it—when Kamukura-sama reached towards him, it was with long, sharp claws that just as easily could have tore his flesh and bones to shards and scraps.

“That is a more befitting look of a human,” Kamukura Izuru murmurs as those claws curl against Komaeda’s cheek. Even the gentleness of the gesture held a heavy, unspoken threat of how one simple motion would be his end. “All sacrifices are reduced to the same state of terror. Screaming and trembling. For the sake of amusement, let us skip the pretense.”

His voice lowers dangerously as tears continue to run down Komaeda’s cheeks.

“Beg for mercy. Beg for your life. Show your fear openly. Perhaps then I may be tempted to make your death a quick and simple one.”

Komaeda blinks. Once. Twice. His eyes sting so he wipes at them.

The effect of the demon lord is incredible if nothing else. But as for the lord himself...

He nuzzles into that clawed hand. He feels Kamukura Izuru recoil, but Komaeda grips the other’s hand, although his own are so insignificant that he could only truly wrap his fingers around a single claw.

“There is nothing to really beg for, Kamukura-sama.” He can’t help but giggle. “I was born to die by your hand, so this doesn’t scare me. Even if I were to escape, I have nothing to return to. Whether I’m eaten by you or not, it doesn’t make a difference. I might as well be dead either way.”

When Kamukura tugs his hand back, Komaeda lets him.

“...Komaeda Nagito, was it?”

Komaeda’s smile brightened and he nodded.

“For Kamukura-sama to remember my meager name!” he chirped cheerfully. “How lucky I am!”

Kamukura turned away from him.

“Peculiar whelp. Let us see how long that pitiful façade is maintained. I predict it shall not be long.”

“It’s not a façade, Kamukura-sama,” Komaeda said innocently. “But if that’s what you want to believe...”

For what it’s worth, a sharp glare does silence him if only out of formality.

“Your days are limited until the next blood moon, the night of the ritualistic dining,” Kamukura said dryly, lowly. “Your smile will shatter before then. But until that night... You must be kept an eye on, Komaeda Nagito.”

“...ehe!” Komaeda grinned broadly. “I understand, Kamukura-sama!”

“To accept and consume sacrifices is what maintains our status over humans. Why, then, is that brat allowed to go as he pleases?!”

“He is still in chains, sir.”

“Does that truly matter?! At this rate, Kamukura-sama really will be overthrown! And for what? A human pet?”

“Sir, you must not say such things about our lord.”

“But it is a concern! There are those who wonder if Kamukura-sama is even a true demon—”

“You would do well to watch your words, sir.”

“I’m just...saying...”

Komaeda blinked a few times, wondering about the conundrum he was now in.

Oh dear. I’m in quite the difficult situation. If I’m seen, I could be slaughtered on the spot.

Right now, the smaller demons were crowded around him, trembling like leaves in a storm. They even flinch at his touch, and they shiver more at his smile.

If I don’t die to Kamukura-sama, it would be a complete waste. I don’t want that.

So he remains where he is for now, hoping for the best. Sure enough, he hears the shuffling of demon footsteps, and they seem to be headed in the opposite direction. He should be safe to move, then, unseen and unnoticed.

“And who authorized you to leave your room, Komaeda Nagito?”

But, of course, Kamukura Izuru could completely bypass his measly human senses.

“These little ones may be demons, but they can’t do much to stop me, it seems,” Komaeda informed him sweetly. “So I’m not sure what you were expecting, Kamukura-sama. I have an insatiable curiosity.”

Quicker that the blink of an eye, Kamukura snatched him up, sweeping him away easily.

“I was expecting you to know your place. I suppose I should keep an eye on you myself. Such impudence from one to be eaten.”

“It’s not my intention,” Komaeda said insincerely. “As I said, insatiable!”

“What you are is incorrigible.”

Several demons bowed as Kamukura Izuru strode through the corridors. As soon as they returned to the room, Kamukura had deposited him none too gently onto the floor before the bed.

“It really isn’t my fault, Kamukura-sama,” Komaeda said, pouting. “This room is so dreary it’s despairing. I just couldn’t stand it. Why don’t you lighten it up a little? Perhaps with lights or a rug or—anything, really!”

“You are not in a position to give recommendations for room decorations,” Kamukura retorted, unimpressed.

“It would increase your quality of living,” he pointed out. “Demons live much longer than humans, I imagine you need more stimulation as a result. How can you expect to be clear-minded in such a dull room?”

Kamukura huffed, but said nothing more.

“At least consider flowers,” Komaeda pleaded. “Perhaps roses? It’s said in legends that the first union between a human and a demon was because of a rose.”

“Are you truly unaware of your situation, Komaeda Nagito?”

“It could still be romantic from a certain point of view!”

“...”

It was funny how he would continue to get such exasperated looks even from demons.

“It is only under the light of the moon that flowers even bloom,” Kamukura finally said after a while. “So it is an impossibility either way.”

“Ooh, that’s a shame...” Komaeda sighs, lying back against the bedside. “How unfortunate.”

Kamukura is quiet. He sits atop the bed. It sinks tremendously under his weight.

“It is not mere misfortune, but the reality of the world,” he says. “The world is unkind and cruel. Which is why it is important that you remain here. I cannot promise your safety whenever you exit this room lacking any supervision or protection. It would be preferable for you to still be alive by the time of the ritual.”

Komaeda nods along with that.

“Yep. If I’m not eaten by Kamukura-sama, my entire existence would be wasted. That would be most unfortunate. Aha. Not to sound impertinent.”

“And yet. You are impertinent.”

“Harsh!” Komaeda still smiles serenely. “You say that—but you worry, don’t you, Kamukura-sama?”

Quicker than the blink of an eye, Kamukura yanked him forward by the chain. Quicker than a pounding heartbeat, Kamukura had him pinned down, snarling as he did, narrowed crimson eyes glittering like shattered pieces of glass reflecting sunlight.

“It would not be difficult to kill you here and now, and to merely save the meat of your bones to devour later. And yet you seem to never know when to stay your tongue.”

The tips of claws trace the slightest sliver of neck not covered by the metal collar.

“It is only the results of a mere whim that you are alive. And yet.” Kamukura’s expression was unreadable. “You are unafraid.”

Komaeda blinks back tears.

“I am getting used to seeing you,” he says. “I do hope I can meet your gaze without crying, Kamukura-sama.”

“You truly are strange.” It’s funny. If Komaeda didn’t know better, he’d say Kamukura Izuru’s brow furrowed. “Do you even know fear, Komaeda Nagito?”

“I’ve certainly known it!” Komaeda laughed. “I am still human after all. When my parents died, I was utterly terrified, obviously! Children without parents tend to be swallowed up without a second thought, right? But, fortunately, luckily for measly little me, I was instead approached by the village elders.”

He could still remember that day. Cowering in true and utter fear under those frigid eyes and empty, grotesque smiles.

“They gave me a means to live for just a bit longer, so that I could be eaten by Kamukura-sama. Wonderful, isn’t it?” He couldn’t help beaming. “They never looked at me with love despite raising me up until this point. They really were kind.”

Then, he quiets, reaching up and contemplatively touching the demon lord’s muzzle. It was surprisingly soft to the touch, and he does not trace the teeth.

“You know, I think Kamukura-sama is even kinder than them, actually. You have a cold visage but—you’re compassionate too, aren’t you? But, perhaps this is my selfish desire for kindness and love causing me to project. Maybe it’s just that.”

Kamukura stares down at him, at those still brimming tears in Komaeda’s empty gaze, and after a long while, Kamukura Izuru merely sighs.

“What a despairing person you are.”

It’s true. He really was a despairing person. He didn’t like to think about that. It doesn’t matter. Someone like him can only look forward to the end.

When he wakes up, it’s uncomfortably dark. There is low rumbling from the thunder outside.

“Did the storm wake you?”

Komaeda stares blearily at nothing in particular.

“Once the storm is over, the sky will clear,” Kamukura says lyrically. “The night of the ritual draws closer.”

There is a flash of lightning that causes Komaeda’s body to seize.

Claws card through his hair, and it’s so strangely comforting that it feels like a dream.

“It was a stormy night when they died,” Komaeda says lightly, and it sounds like such a pitiful excuse. He despises the words even as he coats his tone in saccharine glee. “It was the first and last night I spent on my own. I really am lucky.”

The claws brush over his ear. For a moment, Komaeda imagines them cutting through his skin, slicing through like that tree he witnessed split by a stray lightning bolt. He thinks of how he would sooner prefer to be devoured here and now over stewing in such unpleasant memories that mean nothing.

“Having Kamukura-sama here, too, is wonderful luck,” he sighs, rolling onto his back. Kamukura’s claws tug themselves away, which he pouts at. “I really do feel at ease, even now.”

It’s dark. He can’t even see Kamukura Izuru shifting through. It’s funny, he would’ve thought that those fierce red eyes glowed, but those, too, are unseen, too obfuscated by dark to note. It is not until there is another flash of lightning that Komaeda realizes that Kamukura Izuru is no longer in front of him.

Something tickles against his cheek, and he can see Kamukura Izuru looms over him. He doesn’t get the chance to see his expression, but he strains to at least make out the other’s outline. Then, it doesn’t tickle anymore. Without thinking, he reaches out and grasps onto nothing.

“Kamukura-sama?”

He lays there in cold silence. He can’t even sense the other’s presence much less their proximity. The only thing he can be moderately sure of is that Kamukura Izuru is still in the room.

“You know, I’m not afraid of you at all—so I don’t understand why you’re so skittish around me.” A pause. “Well, I suppose it’s cute.”

Something warm covers his eyes just as there’s another flash of lightning and a crashing bellow of thunder. It, too, covers his ears, so that the sound is muffled. When Komaeda thoughtlessly brings his hand back towards himself, his fingertips run over something cold. Something sharp. But also something warm. Something coarse. Claws and thick fur, which hinder his senses. He inhales the strong, almost heady scent of the other.

“It is inconvenient to have you squirm so much,” Kamukura’s voice is low and booming. It could overpower thunder in a heartbeat. “Relax, Komaeda Nagito.”

“Okay, Kamukura-sama.” He can’t help but smile so much his face splits. “That’s easy to do with you here.”

It really was, even when Kamukura did not deign to speak to him as he tumbled back into slumber.

I could die happy like this.

He could die happy, which was why he was so lucky to still be alive the next morning.

“Do roses grow under the moonlight with the other flowers, Kamukura-sama?”

“They do, yes.”

“I want to see one before I die. Pretty please?”

“You should not be making demands.”

“It’s a last wish, not a demand.” Komaeda’s cheeks puff. “You know, it’s terribly rude to ignore a last wish. I’m not asking for much. I want to see a rose.”

“It will wither and die.” Kamukura Izuru hums, then. “Well, you will not be alive to witness that.”

“I want to see a withered rose!”

“Unreasonable bag of flesh.”

“I also have bones, Kamukura-sama!” Komaeda blinked, realizing something and then pondered it aloud, “Do you eat bones? I’m told they provide flavor. But I never could learn how to cook.”

“You ramble quite a bit about menial, insignificant matters, don’t you?”

“It’s because it’s so dreary in here.” Standing up, chains clacking, Komaeda went to the window of the room and pulled back the curtains so that he could see the sky, cleared up and beautiful. “And because you let me ramble, Kamukura-sama. Most people don’t let me ramble.”

“Whether you prattle or are silent, your fate remains the same,” Kamukura Izuru droned. Komaeda felt his eyes sting when he glanced back, but Kamukura just yawned of boredom.

“Kamukura-sama’s so kind, it brings tears to my eyes.”

“That is mere an instinctive reaction to the sight of a fearsome demon.”

“You’re not fearsome,” Komaeda replied as he wiped his tears away. “Well. I suppose you are formidable. And impressive. That’s why you’re a demon lord, after all. And why we pray.”

“So much of you is warped, Komaeda Nagito.”

“That’s...” Not untrue, I suppose. “Does that displease you? I apologize. I can stop talking then, if you want.”

“I do not care.” Kamukura Izuru is not looking at him. Komaeda’s lips purse. “It does not matter.”

Aha. So kind.

“It doesn’t, does it?”

“Your last night is tomorrow. Speak as freely as you wish.”

“I really want to see roses, both withered and in full bloom.” He can’t really think of anything else. Except. “Also, I want Kamukura-sama to rest well.”

Kamukura Izuru snorted, and it was such a sudden sound that Komaeda couldn’t help but laugh.

“Before I die, I should apologize for my rudeness. I know Kamukura-sama’s name, but no others. It’s hypocritical, isn’t it?”

“You were not deemed worthy to be given any other names, Komaeda Nagito.”

“Still, I feel bad about having to think about every creature around me as demons and nothing more.” Komaeda pouted. “It’s so terribly rude.”

“It is best that you not grow familiar with demons in the first place,” Kamukura smoothly replied. “You are a human, after all.”

“You still gave me your name, Kamukura-sama.”

“Out of generosity.” Kamukura doesn’t even miss a beat. “Nothing more.”

Komaeda whined, but with a flourish, Kamukura pulled him back by the chain.

“Your very hours are limited. And yet your final concerns are of platitudes?”

With Kamukura staring down at him so sharply, his vision grew predictably fuzzy.

“I do still want to see roses...but Kamukura-sama, you didn’t rest well, did you? That’s so despairing.”

“It was easier said than done,” Kamukura rumbled. “Do not be too disheartened, Komaeda Nagito.”

Komaeda’s frown only deepened, eyes shimmering.

“...you really are quite strange.”

Kamukura’s remark almost seems absent. Almost seems wistful. While Komaeda continues to stare, the demon lord turns away.

“Preparations for the night are to start. I shall not be seeing you for a while, however I am leaving you in the case of individuals I trust.”

“Can I have names?” Komaeda asked quietly.

“Only if they give it themselves.”

“You want to know my name? Shouldn’t you be more concerned about how you’re going to be eaten by Kamukura-sama? Human?”

It’s spat at him like an insult. Komaeda winces as his hair is pinned back.

“I just want something to call you. Is that wrong?”

“It’s weird, but if you insist.” The demon scoffed in disdain. “Koizumi. Koizumi Mahiru.”

“Koizumi-san,” Komaeda said, smiling. He yelped when Koizumi pulled his hair a little too hard.

“Stay still,” she hissed. “You humans are so squirmy. And you’re male, aren’t you? Those tend to be the more troublesome ones.”

“Sorry, Koizumi-san.”

Koizumi huffed but she pulled back.

“Peko-chan, Hiyoko-chan, how does this look?”

“It looks fine, Koizumi,” came the low humming reply.

“He looks a little less disgusting, I guess,” came a haughtier one.

Even though demons are separate from humans... Their names aren’t terribly inhuman or even that remarkable, Komaeda couldn’t help but think. He tried to limit his fidgeting as his robe was adjusted. Kamukura-sama, however, has a very elegant and noble name.

“You know,” the smaller demon—Hiyoko, was it?—mutters. “I can’t wait for the lord to devour you. You’ve really been an eyesore as of late. And it’s so sickening to see you fawn over him.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“You should be!” she hissed. “Do you have any idea how it looks?! I’m starting to question his lordship just from thinking about how he just—tolerates it!”

“Saionji,” the other—Peko—demon reprimanded. “It is unwise to speak in such a tone about his lordship.”

“Oh like your other master wouldn’t be pleased about it, Pekoyama-nee,” Saionji sneered. “He’s probably fucking sickened by it too, and would probably say something if he wasn’t such a tight-ass about honor.”

“It would be unwise...for you to continue speaking.”

“Both of you, knock it off,” Koizumi griped. “It’s a special night. And we have to make this human at least look presentable for Kamukura-sama.”

“Oof, yeah, that’ll be difficult.” Saionji snickered. “Even in the nicest fabrics, he looks like trash.”

It’s true that I am quite unsightly.

“Mm...” Pekoyama hums. “White makes him look paler. How unfortunate.”

Komaeda only laughed.

“Sorry, sorry.”

“Shut up, freak,” Saionji snapped. “We can’t focus with your inane yammering.”

Komaeda shut his mouth dutifully. Only shivering when Koizumi painted his face. The fabric was tightened, but it was still comfortable. How generous. When the three demons pulled back, they had pensive, unreadable expressions.

“Guess he doesn’t look like complete shit,” Saionji remarked, huffing. “Yeah, his lordship will probably like it a little.”

Koizumi shrugged as Komaeda observed himself in the mirror. If not for the chain leash and the shackles around his wrist, he’d look more like someone’s spouse-to-be.

Well. It is a union of sorts, he thought, giddiness rising in his gut, twirling so that he could get a better look at himself from various angles. Even his unruly hair had been tamed with jewels and other sparkling adornments. He would have preferred flowers, but... I don’t look terrible! I wonder what Kamukura-sama will say? He might even relish eating me!

“Urgh, he’s smiling like a creep,” Saionji groaned. “I hate it when he does that. This human is so gross.”

“He is now almost ready for his lordship, all the same,” Pekoyama said.

“Ooh, by the way!” Komaeda exclaimed excitedly. “Where is Kamukura-sama?”

“He doesn’t show himself to us on this night,” Koizumi sniffed and then seemed to shift through something else. “We don’t know why. The previous lord wasn’t like this.”

“Kamukura Izuru-sama is fucking weird,” Saionji said. “We can never tell what he’s thinking.”

“Oh.” Komaeda’s face fell. “I see.”

I don’t think he’s that strange.

“There’s one last thing,” Koizumi cut in, irritably. “For whatever reason Kamukura-sama wanted him to be adorned with roses.”

“Haaah? Why? Does he want to eat them?”

“His lordship has mysterious whims...”

Komaeda said nothing as Koizumi pinned the flowers to his hair and robe. He’s quiet as he admires them, with velvety red petals that were soft to the touch and sweet to smell.

But, compared to Kamukura-sama’s gaze...

“There.” Koizumi clicked his tongue. “Alright, I’ll take him down.”

“I shall accompany you both for the time being.”

“Thanks, Peko-chan.”

Saionji only scoffed when Komaeda regarded her curiously.

“I just hope the lordship doesn’t end up coughing up flower petals afterwards.”

The descent towards the altar was cold, silent, and gloomy, especially with the heavy shadows against the light of Pekoyama’s lantern.

Komaeda looks around, but there’s not much to see besides the cracks in the walls.

“Right this way, human.”

He doesn’t even have to be nudged by Pekoyama for him to obediently follow Koizumi’s voice and stride forward as indicated.

“You’re not much of a meal, but you’re something,” Koizumi sighs. “I swear—his lordship is too lenient. Humans are going to end up sacrificing their most undesirables at this rate.”

Komaeda said nothing to that.

“It keeps them assured,” Pekoyama said. “They should be more gracious, that said.”

“At least this one likes him. Weird human, but maybe it’s better this way.”

Koizumi directed him towards two large, twin doors. She opens it, and it leads to nothing but darkness.

“Off you go. Just wait patiently at the altar for his lordship. Go, go.”

“Y-Yes Koizumi-san,” he almost stumbles past, and quickly turns. “Um, thank you for everything you’ve done. You as well, Pekoyama-san. And send my gratitude to Saionji-san as well.”

Koizumi and Pekoyama looked at him coldly, and merely shut the door. Komaeda’s smile wobbled before he hurriedly turned to move on ahead. With how dark it was, he couldn’t see a thing. With how quiet it was, his heart was pounding. Without thinking, his hands clasped together.

I guess I should keep moving until I find the altar?

He’s careful as he walks, lest he injure himself. He doesn’t want Kamukura to dine on something bruised, after all. He can’t imagine it would do any favors for the taste.

Still, this is impossible to navigate. So dark.

And because it’s so dark, when he does hear something, he stills.

“...Kamukura-sama?” No answer. Komaeda looks around, useless as it is. “Lordship?”

Skittering, and then—something that caused him to jump. He only barely manages to avoid tripping, but something—something definitely sliced at him.

“Rotten human,” something cold sneers. “You came here to die anyway, what difference does it make?”

Komaeda trembles, but he sees now that there is in fact light ahead. He hurried rushes towards it, and something almost grabs him. Just as he reaches the light, he’s yanked back and goes crashing into the floor. His hip bursts with pain, and he almost cries out.

“Silence.” A cold, scaly hand covers his mouth, talons digging into his cheeks. The cheeks Kamukura Izuru had touched so tenderly—no! “You were the last straw. What use is a weak lordship that caters to such lowly beings?! Cowardly—wretched...”

It screeches when Komaeda bites him. Komaeda kicks him away.

“Don’t—” he gasps out, and he feels his vision blur but with tears of anger, not because of anything else. “Don’t you dare call Kamukura-sama weak when you hide in the shadows like a rat!”

“Why you—! Filthy human!”

“Kamukura-sama is powerful, but he’s also kind! So kind! Undeserving as it may be, I will not have a lowly filthy rat like you decrying that as weak!” Komaeda never felt so furious in his life. “Such generosity makes him incredible! You should be proud!”

“Shut the hell up, you stupid, stupid—!”

“You shut up, filth.”

The demon stilled, then, at Komaeda Nagito’s cold expression.

“You could never hope to compare to Kamukura Izuru-sama and you know it, don’t you?” His eyes narrowed sharply. “You have no value alive. If you die here, nothing will change at all. You really think you can reach beyond your meager rank just by hurting me? You really are pathetic.”

“S... Shut up...” It was trembling, and then, it charged. “Just SHUT UP!”

As if protected from the very darkness, a shadow lurched forth, knocking the sword from the lowly demon’s hand. The demon shrieked, but blood was split from the action. It did not belong to the demon.

“A-A servant was here after all...? C-Coward...just like...!” And then, it froze, eyes bugging as the shadow picked up its sword. “K-Kamukura—Izur—”

And without a single word, the sword was rammed through the demon’s abdomen before it could finish. Black, putrid blood sprayed, leaving the demon choking on its words before toppling to the ground. Limp. Unmoving. Komaeda blinked once. Twice. Just looking at the shadow made him want to cry.

Oh. That was... His legs shake, and what energy he had from his outburst dissipated, leaving him to collapse on the floor. That was terrifying, but...

“You saved me,” he mumbled, swallowing. “I-I knew you would, Kamukura-sama. I-I’m so sorry I fell.”

But when the shadow turned, it wasn’t a fearsome demon at all, but a human with long black hair and gleaming crimson eyes, pale face splattered with blood. Komaeda still couldn’t help but hiccup, swallowing back a sob. Without even thinking, he lurched forward to grab handfuls of his lordship’s dark robes.

“Kamukura-sama... K-Kamukura-sama...! M-My lordship...”

“That’s enough.” Kamukura’s voice was low and tired. “I am no lord, as you can see for yourself.”

Komaeda sniffled, but looked up at him, gaze wide as it met Kamukura’s own. That beautiful, beautiful gaze, somber as it was.

Ah... His eyes... They’re still the eyes of a demon.

“A...half-blood, then? So they really exist.” And Kamukura-sama is one. That’s—“That’s really impressive! To rule as a demon lord even with lowly human blood!”

“There is nothing impressive about having to hide in the shadows under the moon,” Kamukura snapped, voice low and frigid. “There is nothing impressive about having to revert to the form of something so weak and so timid and having to pretend it does not exist. And even with that—to be seen as I truly am by a meager human... Truly pathetic.”

Komaeda frowned, and when he looked about, his frown darkened at the sight of a rose that had been crushed in the struggle. His robe, too, had gotten dirty. He was bruised. So unsightly. He tears off a strip of fabric from his robe and wraps it around Kamukura’s bleeding hand. He ties it like a bandage, and smiles even as Kamukura Izuru won’t look at him.

What a warm and gentle hand.

His fingers trail up against Kamukura Izuru’s arm, and his smile falls as he feels out a multitude of scars.

Ah.

“...so that’s how it is.” He can’t help but laugh pitifully. “So that’s how it is.”

Why Kamukura-sama is alone with the sacrifice—how he still ends up covered in human blood in the morning despite not harming a single hair on the sacrifice’s head.

“Pathetic,” Kamukura uttered lowly. Komaeda shook his head.

“There’s nothing weak about how kind you truly are.” He squeezes Kamukura’s hand. “Gentle, strong, self-sacrificing—these are such wonderful qualities. Which is why I really do want you to eat me.”

Because...

He sucks in his breath.

“Kamukura-sama, there’s no point in sparing me,” he goes on, squeezing again more tightly than before. “I have nothing and no one to return to. My entire life had lead to meeting you, and being used by you, and—I’ve never been happier, to realize that you’re just as wonderful as they say. I would be truly honored to give Kamukura Izuru-sama my life and provide him with some strength.”

He reaches up with his shackled, trembling hands to tenderly touch his lordship’s face, and smiles brightly as that Kamukura’s frown deepens.

“To die meeting such kind eyes, of someone I love so dearly,” Komaeda murmurs, breath hitching as the tears spilled over. “What a wonderful thing. Thank you for all you’ve done, Kamukura-sama.”

In the blink of an eye, Kamukura breaks his shackles. When Kamukura’s hands wrap around his neck, he barely has time to breathe before the collar, too, is broken. The pieces clang against the cold, stone floor, and Komaeda inhaled sharply.

“K-Kamukura-sama...”

Kamukura yanks him close, encasing him in spice and the stench of that bitter iron. He’s still warm. So very, very warm. And his long black hair is like silk between his fingertips. Komaeda could have died then and there from how hard his heart was beating.

Ah, I can feel Kamukura-sama’s heartbeat, too... What a strong, steady heartbeat.

“Komaeda Nagito...”

He relaxes in the other’s embrace. It’s warm and wonderful, in spite of the blood, in spite of everything. It’s still everything he ever dreamed of.

It’s so, so warm...

“Let us become one.”

“Y... Yes.”

This is what my life lead to—and I’ve truly never known happiness until this moment.

“S-So... You... You’re seriously saying...”

“K-Kamukura-sama, can you...repeat that...?”

“Very well.” Kamukura adjusted him on his lap, but kept him close and secure as he only blinked wide, watery eyes. “I hereby take the human called Komaeda Nagito as a consort. Is that not clear?”

It was clear that the court was in an uproar.

“W-What the fu—?!”

“J-Just because you cannot have children does not make a union any less unsightly! To mingle elite demons and filthy—filthy—!”

“It’s inconceivable!”

“Enough.”

They quieted as Kamukura went on, glare cold and daring.

“Any objections can be made one at a time. I do not mind dealing with each and every one. Is that not clear?”

They cowered, ducking their heads. Some of them still mumbled instinct words, but they all soon quieted, and no one lined up.

“You really should have eaten me,” Komaeda murmured, almost sullenly. “It would have been far less complicated.”

“I am well aware of what I am doing, Komaeda Nagito.”

“Are you really?” Even when Kamukura Izuru glaring at him, he wondered about that. He was starting to get to the point where he could look at him without his eyes stinging, and he wondered about that, too. “When I joked about the romance of this... I really was joking, you know...”

Kamukura Izuru huffed. Komaeda, cheeks puffed, looked among the court. While several were disapproving, there were some who at least looked curious about what was to transpire.

At the very least...it won’t be boring. And, honestly, I do like the idea of being with Kamukura-sama for a little longer. Still, I wanted to be eaten.

“This kind of union is just...” he trails off. “I don’t understand.”

“You said you loved me,” Kamukura pointed out. “This kind of union, then, is natural.”

“I meant that in a pure sense, though,” Komaeda whined. “Don’t make me sound so twisted, Kamukura-sama.”

“It is that purity of yours that solidified my decision in taking you in, Komaeda Nagito.”

“Wha...” He felt his cheeks heat up, more so when Kamukura held him closer than before. “T-That’s...!”

Ba-dump. Ba-dump.

“Ah,” Kamukura hummed. “Your roses have wilted, Komaeda Nagito.”

Komaeda blinks down at them, and a single petal is easily plucked off. He finally smiles, nuzzling into Kamukura Izuru’s muzzle.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?”

One life as a sacrifice has ended—let’s see what blossoms next.

#KamuKoma #izuru kamukura #kamukura izuru #nagito komaeda #komaeda nagito #KamuKomaWeek #Magi fics #hiyoko saionji #mahiru koizumi #peko pekoyama #I eat up batb type stories like candy I'm all about it #I'm hoping there's more batbh type KamuKomas in the future #it's good stuff!!!

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