#Cardhouse and the Cage

[fidelishaereticus]

started working on a “cardmaster inside a teapot” doodle ive had in mind for a while

[artbyvampiraptor]

I made a lame attempt at doodling @fidelishaereticus 's character LV because I'm a fangirl. I don't know what I'm doing

[thisbackworld]

tagged by @fidelishaereticus​

Rules: post the last sentence you wrote (fanfic/original/anything!) and tag as many people as there are words in the sentence. NEW, AND BETTER RULES BY ME, WESLEY: 1) Post your favorite short excerpt / paragraph / complete thought, 2) it can be any part you like, 3) it does not have to be fiction 4) it does not have to be in English.

From my totally upcoming crossover: Five Ways the Cardhouse Never Touched Avinlor (i.e. crossover of fid’s OCs and mine)

--

'I am not a human! I am Fall.'

The girl's claim was laughable--Belaicy had known, in person or by reputation, Fall, Autumn, Harvest, First Frost, Last Apple, and more Deaths than an army of revenants could shake their bones at--but somehow it was at least partly true. 'I beg your pardon. It has been long since I have had ado with your phase of the year.’ Stupid meadow.

--

p. much everyone I know is already tagged, so.

[cardhouseandthecage]

- you wake up - you’re lying in the yard for some reason but ok - there is no coffee - you try to go inside to get some coffee but all the locks have been changed - also your house has been redecorated using only lisa frank party favours and the tears of the oppressed, you just realized - it’s not a good look - you try to tell your partner this but they won’t answer your messages - :/ - you figure out how to flood the basement

[madgodintherain]

5. Yrgenzol

Series: Five Ways the Cardhouse Never Touched Avinlor - Masterpost Characters:

Cobweb - Maitos (one of mine - Avinlor’s apprentice)

Mustard Seed - Tsefida (also one of mine, although not a part of Avinlor’s story)

Moth - Alice (as herself - the/a central character of Cardhouse and the Cage)

Peaseblossom Flower - Anemone (the bitchiest star)

Yrgenzol - Avinlor (a denizen)

Logus, Jezebel, the Cardmaster (referenced); Oskyod (referenced); two unnamed stars

Notes: see this post for a lot more than you probably want to know about gender and the perception thereof in this fic

-- --

Maitos, known as the Cobweb to the rest of his coterie, turned left as the corridor took yet another corner, and promptly spun up the wall and settled into the fork of one of the lower branches of a leafless tree. He was not altogether certain where the roof had gone, but he was willing to hypothesize that it was at least partly responsible for the floor's decision to forego being a useful structure and relocate to the bottom of a pit—assuming the pits here had bottoms. The rattling of a few last pebbles gave way to a series of small splashes, so the Cobweb supposed there was some kind of liquid not too far down the pit. Yrgenzol had said the labyrinth was old, but when asked to elaborate, he had not said 'ruinously-crumbling old', but merely 'old as balls'. The Cobweb supposed he should have made the logical assumption.

Yrgenzol had also indicated that their task required some degree of haste (though all the more care for that), but had the Cobweb's team all entered the labyrinth at the same point? No, they had not. Now he had to waste precious time finding the rest of his cohort and, apparently, dodging disagreeable pieces of maze. The tree seemed sturdy enough—more dormant than dead—so the Cobweb climbed higher for a better view.

From his new vantage, the Cobweb could see that the stone corridors were mostly subterranean, only appearing here and there, where either the dirt of ages had not yet buried them, or where the ground had partially eroded from them. In one direction lay something like a hedge maze—if the hedges were predominately briars and weeds—and some curious earthworks that overlapped partially with the stone tunnels. Off in another direction stood a grove of trees, gnarled and twisted, but decidedly unspooky. The Cobweb distrusted his instinctive trust of it. Climbing down, the Cobweb set off toward the bramble maze: something in that direction caused his fingertips to tingle in a familiar way that always made him want to sneeze.

He was just skirting the earthworks when the ground gave way beneath him again. He dangled, swinging, from the jutting edge, and then scurried across the ceiling to nest comfortably in a corner of roof and wall. Beneath him, a dense fog drifted about on the floor of the tunnel. Maitos had heard of bad air that sank to the bottom of hollows, but such things were supposed to be invisible. This fog was a sickening orange-black and would probably do something much nastier than merely suffocate him if he got caught in it. As he watched, it stopped billowing to and fro, and began streaming into the shadows down one arm of the corridor. At the same time, something poked the Cobweb in the side, and he looked back to the hole in the tunnel's roof to see the Mustard Seed peering over the rim of the hole, holding a stick in one hand and waving at him with the other.

'You look like you could use a hand up,' the Mustard Seed said, and poked at him again. The Cobweb took the hint and clung onto the stick. With a tug and flick, he was standing once more on solid ground and beside one of his fellow Stars.

'Thanks,' he said, and, 'do you know where the rest of our team are?'

The Mustard Seed shrugged. 'Knowing's not my concern: they'll come to me. You did, after all.'

'I wish them better luck than me. That's the second collapse I've triggered.' He nodded toward the hole, where the vile haze had entirely vanished. 'I wouldn't have thought I was that heavy-footed.'

The Mustard Seed frowned down into the open tunnel. 'I suppose I could have left you after all. Where'd it all go?' A girl stepped into view below them: a girl with feathered antennae, powdery wings, and a grin full of sharp teeth—several of which still had shreds of orange-black mist caught in them. 'Oh, of course.'

'Jezebel's,' the Cobweb muttered.

'Easy enough to see why Yrgenzol took you, Cobweb,' the Moth said. 'They say she was Fall once.'

'Fly up here, Moth, and take that back!'

'I am rubber, you are glue: whatever bounces off of me sticks to you!' the Moth sang back at him. 'You're not catching me today, Cobweb!'

'Stop dawdling, Moth,' came a new voice, and a Flower emerged from the corridor. She looked up at the Cobweb and the Mustard Seed and said, 'Boys,' with such venomous disdain that everyone present could hear the ugh, even though the Flower did not demean herself by uttering it.

Maitos was pretty sure the remark strictly applied only to him, since his teammate seemed to be a girl today as far as he could tell. The Mustard Seed simply flicked a finger at the two stars beneath them and the Moth and the Flower were engulfed in another cloud—dull yellow this time. In a moment, though, that too had disappeared, and the Moth was licking her lips. 'Delicious,' she smirked.

'Vermin,' the Mustard Seed grumbled.

The Flower sniffed. 'Yrgenzol clearly takes any riffraff she happens upon. I wonder what the Cardmaster will say when he hears her team is stealing our assignment?'

'Who's going to tell him, Flower? You?' The Mustard Seed laughed. 'You know better than that. You'll tell Jezebel, we'll tell Yrgenzol, and whoever's team doesn't complete the task will slink around the corners of the Cardhouse, scrounging for scraps of glory until they actually do something right. Come on, Cobweb. Jezebel's flutterbunch can keep their nasty tunnels. Give them a sense of purpose, maybe.' The Mustard Seed led the way toward the meeting of the bramble maze and the earthworks.

'Yrgenzol wouldn't actually steal an assignment though, would he?' the Cobweb asked his companion. 'Not generally, at least, and not from Jezebel since they're . . . well, since they have a loose rapport, I suppose.'

'Not generally, no, but I think she might—yes, alright, he might—if it were important to him. Personally, that is; not necessarily within the Cardhouse. Unless you're suggesting Jezebel stole from Yrgenzol?'

'Actually, I was thinking we'd been double-assigned. Possibly even more so, if a lot of teams really have failed at this before.'

'Hmmmm. I don't like the sound of that. Well, we knew we couldn't go directly (or we should have known), but we'd better pay extra attention to being devious now. We'll come up with something.'

Something turned out to be a sort of tunnel-bridge between the earthworks and the hedge maze that took them over an eerily clear, blue pond and into the grove of gnarled trees. At this point, the team had a very important debate over whether to call the territory the Non-, Un-, or Post- Haunted Forest. The Cobweb's suggestion—Familiarless Familiar Forest—had been eliminated early on. The trees had neither leaves nor needles on them, nor any at their feet, and the ground was bare packed dirt with not a sign of leaf mould or indeed that anything ever had decayed there. For all its unnaturalness, however, it kept reminding the Cobweb of something, though he was sure he had never seen a stand of trees anything like it. Once only did the Cobweb find any kind of foliage as he explored beneath the bare branches: a single leaf of a shape he had never seen—lobed and toothed—rich green in hue, with veins just faintly shading towards teal or turquoise. He watched it for a long moment, and when it seemed to be no more than just a leaf, he picked it up, and placed it gently in a safe pocket. Intellectually, he still did not trust the forest, or anything in it, but he was done with fighting the intuition that assured him there was nothing to fear.

Once the Post-Haunted Forest was appropriately named, the Cobweb and his fellow stars set about coercing its past into existence. This turned out to be a shrine, which made the Mustard Seed pout. 'Shrines in strange forests are just so cliché,' she complained. On further inspection, however, the shrine turned out to be a tomb, and the Mustard Seed brightened up again.

'What? Tombs aren't cliché?' the Cobweb asked.

'They are a logical extension, of course,' she retorted. 'Even so, elaborately crafted burial sites do not actually figure into literature and folklore to remotely the same degree.'

'"Fetch a rock,"' one of their companions grumbled. 'The entire thing is made of rock. There's a dozen fancy rocks inside of it. How do we even begin to test which one's right, if even the Cardmaster hasn't decided how he's going to use it?'

'If you recall, Yrgenzol said we were to fetch a stone,' the Mustard Seed corrected.

'Stone, rock, what difference does it make what he said?'

'Honestly, am I the only person who knows the difference between a stone and a rock? Stone designates a function or a purpose; rock is simply a state of being!'

'Yes, yes,' interrupted the Cobweb, who had learned the distinction from Yrgenzol some time ago, though he suspected that the Mustard Seed had been given the type of education that just taught people those obscure sorts of things. 'But even if we did somehow name-test everything, we still need to know what we're testing for. Even the structural stuff will answer 'stone' if we ask it about building.'

'No good arguing about it until we have a look,' the fourth Star said, which turned out to be the best plan possible. After a thorough investigation, the entire team unanimously agreed that the green disk, with rings like a tree slice and a jagged hole in its center, was the stone they had been sent to find.

'It's odd, though,' the Cobweb remarked. 'I would have thought we'd have run into Jezebel's team again.'

'Flutterbunch,' the Mustard Seed said, and shrugged.

In due course, they presented their stone to Yrgenzol, who congratulated them on having all survived the labyrinth and went to deliver it to the Cardmaster, leaving them to argue over how serious their patron was about their survival. Meanwhile, word filtered through the Cardhouse that Jezebel's team had also returned with a stone, as had Logus' and Oskyod's and—

'Enough already!' the Mustard Seed snapped. 'You were right, Cobweb. We were clearly all sent out, one against another.' The Mustard Seed managed to accept the eventual verdict that their stone was not the right one with minimal bitterness—probably, the Cobweb thought, because Jezebel's had already been declared false as well. Logus began to look more and more smug as time went on and one stone after another was rejected, until, quite suddenly, he was not to be seen around at all.

The Cobweb went in search of the Mustard Seed, and found him lying, belly-down, in the dirt of an unweeded garden. 'I don't think we'll see much of Logus or those stars around for a while,' the Cobweb said. 'Word is, their stone—discovered by the most systematic and precise techniques—blew up at the Cardmaster.'

The Mustard Seed laughed. 'Put a bunch of twigs in the dish of noodles, and what do you expect?' he said. The Cobweb laughed as well, and sat down beside his friend.

It was sometime after that (or, perhaps, not yet so late as Logus' disgrace) that Yrgenzol came to see the Cobweb where the latter hovered amongst the rafters. 'I believe that there is one other thing you found in the labyrinth,' Yrgenzol said.

Maitos started, but nodded, and carefully took out the leaf he had picked up in the Post-Haunted Forest—lobed and toothed, rich green in hue, with veins just faintly shading towards teal or turquoise. Yrgenzol stared at it, tilted his head, and stared at it some more. 'May I?' he asked, and Maitos nodded again.

Yrgenzol picked up the leaf and, holding it in the palm of one hand, traced the veins with the fingers of the other, and smiled at it.

Though wary of interrupting the denizen, Maitos presently gathered the courage to ask, 'This . . . this isn't what the Cardmaster was looking for, is it?'

'Does it look like a stone?'

Maitos knew a stone from a rock. 'It has a function.'

'If everything that had a function were a stone, then everything would be a stone.'

Maitos tried to piece that one out, but gave up and set it aside as a logic puzzle for later.

'Don't worry. This isn't at all what our Lord was looking for in that labyrinth.' Yrgenzol cupped her hands around the leaf and placed it into a safe pocket. 'Thank you, little Cobweb,' he said.

[fidelishaereticus]

first CM sketch i’ve attempted in a while….hes havin a good time

[fidelishaereticus]

somebody get this fairy some french fries

[fidelishaereticus]

the jester and the pearl commission me

[fidelishaereticus]

“...that doesn’t detach?”  commission for @any-shadow in tribute to their surreal airport experience, which i read and immediately imagined happening to mischance for some reason

[fidelishaereticus]

“I’ll place the world at your feet” commission for @katiescarlett29​ <3

[fidelishaereticus]

Nox and Jezebel, pirates of the White Dessert commissioned by the amazing @any-shadow <3

[fidelishaereticus]

Mode 5, Alice asks Jezebel about the Cardmaster: M and R

here is a scene for M. (biases/prejudices): it’s not a comprehensive answer and uhhhh idk if its wat you wanted but it came to me and it’s a plausible scene! Working on R separately.

—

“Will he…”

Alice looked down at her dirt-stained feet. The dust stuck between her toes where they were still wet: she’d tried to wash them, but it was no use. She was filthy—permanently. Even when she manifested in faerie she felt it cling to her.

Jezebel bent over her from where she floated in the air, brushed the hair back behind Alice’s ear and lifted her chin.

“What is it?”

Alice held her eyes only a moment, then looked down.

“I can’t imagine that he’ll want to look at me.”

Jezebel laughed.

“Of course he will! You are his Star. He’s been very impressed with you.”

“But I’m not clean!” 

She pulled her shoulders up around her ears, and wrung her dress with both hands. “I’ve never been clean. Not here, and not there either. Every time I manifest I try to be rid of it, but I can’t. It follows me. Everywhere. Everywhere.” She dropped down and hugged her knees in a tight ball. “I’ve wanted to see him for so long, but now…” She whispered. “He’s so perfect. I’ll never be like that. I’ve never fit into the world i’ve never fit into my clothes I’ve never even fit into my own skin. It just—it hangs on me. I didn’t choose it; I knock around inside and I can’t move—I don’t even recognise it—it’s obscene. Stretched over my bones like I don’t belong. Every movement. Every sound. There’s something wrong with me. I thought it was just here, but I can’t even escape it on the other side. I can’t make myself without it. It’s not my body. It’s not this world. It’s what I am. Why did you choose me?” She drew in a long breath, shuddering, and rocked on her feet. “I am dirt. I am dirt.”

Jezebel alighted on the floor and crouched beside her, hesitating a moment, then placed one arm around her shoulders.

“My darling Star,” she said. “You are all too perceptive. No, you do not fit—but that is precisely why we chose you. It’s a terrible world, and only very terrible people fit into it—people who are of no use to us. It’s them the Cardmaster will never want to see. You, on the other hand…I’ve seen you manifest, Alice. You are very beautiful, and you will only become more beautiful with time.”

Alice shook her head. “Not like Anemone. Not like Syrine. They always look so polished. I don’t know how they maintain it. They don’t spill dust and touch things they don’t mean to and lose control of their shapes. It’s like they can plan everything about how they are and then just be that. But I can’t.”

Jezebel laughed. “I’m noticing you didn’t say Iris.”

“That’s different. She knows her powers and she uses them like she means to. The darkness doesn’t speak to her. She claims what she is; she fits. She’s not…contaminated.”

Jezebel sat back, and smiled oddly. “I suspect, Alice, that you are holding yourself to a double-standard. How do you know that Iris doesn’t feel exactly the same way you do? Believe me…” Her eyes glittered with mischief. “And because I am a wretched gossip, allow me to clear this up for good. Iris is a mess. She hates herself—every bit as much as you do. Anemone is a mess. It’s just mess of a different kind. Even Syrine. So yes, you too, are a mess. You think I don’t know that? You think the Cardmaster doesn’t know that? And yet he loves you. And yet he chose you.” She ran her fingers through Alice’s hair. “And yet I chose you.”

“Why?” Alice furrowed her brow. “I don’t understand. You’ve said it yourself: he hates messes, and he hates the darkness. How is it that he won’t hate me?”

Jezebel looked down her lashes—long and fushia and flecked with stars.

“You do not know him,” she said. “True, he is very ‘perfect.’ He likes things to be ordered, and he despises necromancy and all that tends towards it. He’s very strict about that—and I daresay he can he can be a little overzealous in of his judgement of us when we fail to meet his standards—or when anything prompts him to suspect as much. But it is only because he wants the best for us—for all of us. We live with him. We strive with him for perfection: it is our job. With you, it is very different: he knows you exist also in this place—that you don’t fit—and that it frays you. But you are meant for something better. He wants to give it to you. That is the whole purpose of his enterprise: to help people—to fight the darkness, in all forms. And you admire him. You are no necromancer. You espouse his cause, and you serve him with all your heart. That is quite enough to endear you to him. He will not judge you as the world does. He wants to heal you. He would love to see you, Alice, however you come.”

Now she held Alice’s face lightly between both hands, and wiped one tear from her cheek.

“Won’t you let him?”

[fidelishaereticus]

medium sloppy colour test for photoshop doodle from yesterday god this was a complete hack job i need to learn how to do some very simple things on this program still

[fidelishaereticus]

white weaver, C, H, J?

C - desires/motivations

The White Weaver does not desire much, other than to keep on with her work, which is both what she does and what she is. She doesn’t really have to think about why anymore. She needs her supplies and her trade partners; she needs her tower and her solitude and her repository of memory. She likes to keep in touch (in her slow way) with what’s going on in the world around her: that’s important to her work—that too is a kind of material. She will not keep on forever, of course: the more she weaves, the more she weaves herself into her tower and her works. Some day she will have woven all that she is into all that she has made, and then she will no longer be what she has been. She will be dispelled, and something else. Doubtless, then, she will darken. This she neither fears nor looks forward to.

H - what do they pride themselves on? what are their insecurities?

The Weaver prides herself on her memory, her knowledge, and above all on her creations (macrame and textile and tapestry and items of all kinds in these mediums—clothing and woven walls and cocoons and magic pockets and many other things besides). If she ever had any insecurities, she’s long forgotten them. She is everything that she needs to be.

J - what sets them off?

Bustle and noise and altercation: loud sounds and sudden movement; the clamour and confusion of other people. Especially people who are too quick—in speech or act or thought—people who interrupt and jump to conclusions and don’t leave time for proper meditation. Destruction—she does not love destruction, or rashly destructive people. She does not like it either when people forget or oversimplify things. She doesn’t mind ignorance and stupidity in themselves, but she hates ignorance that blusters—and she hates stupidity that pokes its nose where it has no grounds to do so. Oh, and she hates people who imitate her work and do it badly. Her standards of craftsmanship are very high and very particular: in general she hates badly cast spells and poor craftsmanship of any kind. Loose magic. People who are very powerful and don’t know what they’re doing and make a mess of things. (Stars, for this reason, she often finds very obnoxious. Unfortunately Stars now serve as the primary delivery system her and the Cardhouse, so she has to put up with them.)

[fidelishaereticus]

What's LVs favorite food?

Mischanceso first of all, thANK YOU FOR ASK THIS TRULY KEPT ME AWAKE FOR THE REST OF MY SHIFT. 

as you probably expected, LV does not have one favourite food, she’s old as balls and has eaten,,,,A Lot Of Things. also idek how to translate a lot of what she likes into accessible words and concepts without putting in a lot of poetic effort & im sleepy af rn, so what I did was come up with an incomplete list lot of foods or flavour elements that are evocative of what she’d like (some of which are also evocative of what she is)! smokenectarbogmetalorchid*carrionartichokefish sauceworcestershire saucefigmuscatelstone fruitblackberryaniseallspice coffeetea- puer- keemun- darjeeling (esp autumnal flush)- oolongs- anything mischance blendsocean (raw)- oysters- scallops- tuna- seaweed- low tidespirits- mezcal**- (smooth) bourbon, scotch, rye- absintheand some abstractions (imagine these were foods)- volcanism- sunlight through stained glass window (warm)- soft wind over meadow- pretty colours- long shadows- dark water- thunderclap- nebula- void- ruin- vintage despair - blood-loss vertigo***- dancing flutes & small pipes- deep bells, small bells- drums- viola- other pretty sounds

*especially the way the middle of the flower tastes. it’s….a weird taste. idek how to describe it. **This is my go-to smell/taste-association for LV. it’s both something she would like and evocative of How She Be (for the unfamiliar, it’s like smoky tequila, though that really doesn’t do it justice. it’s fucking,,,,it taste like a swoon or like death if death tasted good idk, if i could fuck one beverage, this would be it. i will drink it straight. i don’t know why i don’t have any on my shelf right now i need more, i crave it always)***you know that feeling right before you pass out from blood-loss? that weird floaty almost-nausea and then suddenly your head is the heaviest thing in the universe and you must set it down, just for a moment, it’s so heavy, and the blackness closes in and it is all velvety and gentle and everything is moving very slow and—and scene? ok yeah so if that sensation were were a food. honestly that’s kind of how mezcal tastes to me.

[fidelishaereticus]