#(Weird one-sided jealousy and overprotectiveness on Martyn’s side)

[fountainpenguin]

"I have you strung... Strung in my web! Candle burning slowly by the bed..." (x)

The Candles We Light (and Should Regret)

The Pantheon of Silk and Plays AU Guide

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🧡 T - Ongoing multichapter

💙 Blog tag - #Silk Plays AU

💚 More MCYT AUs

“Would you… care to know what clothes I’m wearing?” Cleo turned her head, eyes still squeezed. She didn’t respond, but heard the spirit shift. Metal clicked against metal somewhere out of sight, maybe around his neck or back. “If you will have me, Cleo… take my ties and silks and draw them off. Undress me as you would a mortal man, and I am yours.” “Undress you?” The words left her in a whisper. “Is such a thing sacred?” “Yes,” he breathed, and Cleo shuddered despite herself. He gripped her arm, pulling her in. “To take my silks is to possess my heart and soul, as the skins of seal-folk. You remember, of course, how the god of travel and arts stripped the god of war and sky. Make a mortal thing of me.”

Cleo has never seen her husband; the father of her children. He only visits in the dark.

(And the tales that came before).

A Cupid/Psyche-inspired AU themed around the Limited Life and Double Life SMPs

(First 1,000 words under the cut)

Tsumugi

🐛 🕯️ 🧵

Slippers made poor riding shoes, especially over lava. But they were silk, gifted by the flicking wings of moths without number, and when you know not where you walk, you should always dress in silk. It's good enough for gods.

Scalding. Fierce. Cleo hooked her fingers in crimson neck feathers. She slid forward and back with the steady gait of the long-legged bird she'd mounted with a saddle; she lured it ever forward with a promise of mushrooms in her outstretched hand (taken beneath the sleepy eyes of a mossy-coated god). Stink burned her nostrils, but she had not the words to describe it beyond memories of eggs fallen beneath the henhouses where she'd once changed the straw.

One blemish marred her finger; already, she'd dropped her satchel and watched it burn. There went her offerings… and there went her payment for the trip back across the glittery golden pool. No other mortal creature (if there were any) could carry her across again, for all things died in lava except the long-legged birds sired by the god she'd come to see. They pranced like demigods in their crowns of ivory, wrapped in feathered robes.

Every tread rocked her forward, pressing her head to the back of the bird's rough neck. But halfway across the lava lake, her companion stopped walking. Her gift had reached its end; it would take her no further. It pecked for mushrooms in her hand. Cleo curled her fingers. The bird swayed beneath her, ruffling its wings. It stamped its legs. This blurred her vision, kicking butterflies across her fingertips. If it charged and took flight, would the saddle hold? Buckling a saddle on a bird hadn't been an easy task. She fed it many, many mushrooms; she owed a debt now to the god of sleep and dew.

"Shh, shh… It's all right. Look; here you go." Cleo brought the last bits of fungi to the bird's face, stroking its neck as it settled down again. How curious to be a pair of mortal things tangled in heat and stench. The bird fluttered, disloyal to its own footing, and Cleo pressed her knees against its huffing sides until her thighs ached up the seamlines. The silk slippers debated mutiny on her toes. Lava sizzled and crackled an arm's length away. Did sailors feel like this on sinking ships? Cleo pressed her lips together, swallowing clogged-up air. Then, lifting their head, they looked towards the platform they hadn't reached. Much too far to jump.

If she must be slain for intruding in this temple—for overhearing sacred words of bliss and passion not meant for mortal ears—then let it be on her feet, head tilted back while shadowed implications danced upon the wall. Let it be the night wife and husband called each other Mulberry, after the silk flowing in their veins. They cried that lonely word until they crushed it into dust beneath the weight of expectations. How many centuries did it take the spirits to memorize every thumbprint on each other's skin? Would they know the moth holes marking one another's hearts?

The god who dwelled in this magma-filled temple (made honorary god of hearts and husbandry by his wife) hummed beyond his veil. His wife answered him in whispers. She'd become his mulberry-thing (his blessed and beloved), as he'd become hers.

The beautiful birds were not embarrassed by their mother and father. And if the birds were not embarrassed, neither would she be. They nipped and tore at each other, still squawking at her chosen mount for devouring the mushrooms they'd brought without sharing with the flock. Cleo did what they had to, then, and tossed dirt into the lava before her. As though by miracle, the particles took solid form to shape a little platform. They dismounted the long-legged bird for this makeshift island of exile, and pet its beak until it ambled away. Its footsteps slurped with every stride.

The god of sea and fire had been married many years, rendered mortal and soft in every thread he played across his fingers. Cleo could not see his wife disrobed from her sacred silks and strewn across the loom, guarded as she was by gossamer veil, but their shadows and candles conspired to chase hidden things into light. It was known to Cleo then (in fragmented, unfinished way) how he wove with nimble fingers. He called her name ambrosia and pomegranate and Venus among the fishes, and all the things that get you drunk on life and love. She named him This thing and That thing which cannot be translated, and filthy things that can, which would have ruffled even the real god of hearts and husbandry if they chanced upon his ear. Cleo traced two finger pads across the stitch marks down her cheek. That…

That was mulberry silk, in a way the kind that ran inside her undead veins was not.

Upon the marital loom, the gods weaved a bird into life (which Cleo saw only in its shadow), and love was made. The bird squawked in hunger. Two scraggly wings spread in prayer or plea. The god hummed in pleasure and lifted the little thing in his hands. Its shadow burned imprints in the backs of Cleo's eyes. Newborn things were rarely a mortal's right to see.

On this spot—this tiny island made up of one dirt block—they would make their plea, for all they were worth. Cleo then bore their chin high and called with grand voice into the whispers of the night:

"I leave comment with the god of sea and fire, who bears my heart and leads my trail."

The murmurs stopped. The shadows fidgeted. The new bird croaked, seeking solace at his chest. The shadows slid apart again as the god lifted the candle in its dish.

"Oi! Oh, you're having a-" The spirit thrust the veil aside then, rubbing something akin to exhaustion from his eyes. "What are you on about? I took down my bridge for the night. Why have you set foot in my abode?"

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