#and I'm stopping there

[sarcasticdolphin]

Smrtolf (Canon) "An (Un)welcome visitor"

Taaffe makes his trip to Mayerling. Cut for length and well ... Taaffe's attempts to rationalize the supernatural. Defiantly somewhat dark-cracky. For the amazing @adridoesstuff as all the Smrtolf drabbles are :)

Eduard Taaffe’s ride to Mayerling had been almost entirely silent. Part of him had thought to take an - Meissner knew the recalcitrant Prince’s hunting lodge well while Wiligut tended to understand Eduard’s goals better, but in the end he only takes a single guard, and the man will wait with the horses. Strictly speaking the purpose of the trip isn’t blackmail - for all Rudolf seems childish he can be very subtle when it suits him and if he is indeed keeping a male companion - thought it was clever Meissner had thought that said companion was more a lover than a friend even if he hadn’t been willing to speculate over much - Taaffe knows there is no guarantee he will catch the prince in the act.

And so that isn’t his goal. At least not today. If he does manage to catch the Prince with his companion Taaffe won’t be complaining, but he only wants to startle the Prince. The boy will be more likely to make a mistake if he is thrown off his usual routine, and Eduard appearing at his hunting lodge unannounced certainly counts as a departure from his routine.

The roof doesn’t come into view until they turn the last corner, but Meissner had called the interior of the lodge surprisingly roomy considering how low the ceiling seemed from the outside. Eduard leaves his horse with the guard and brushes by a pair of surprised servants. Meissner had been quite specific as to which room served as the Crown Prince’s bedroom and studio.

—-----------

He’s not sure what he had been expecting when he opened the door, but whatever it had been, the truth is far stranger than all the fictions his mind had concocted.

“Kronprinz Rudolf.” Eduard isn’t sure what else there is to say besides the prince’s name. The boy is at least present, his imperial jacket nowhere to be seen and in a loose white undershirt that is half-undone with green, black, and blue paint on his hands and looking more than a little surprised to see Eduard. But he isn’t alone. Sprawled on his bed is a graceful, black-clad feminine figure with oddly painted eyes that looks more like a deranged cultist - face as white as bone with red eyes, black paint around them, and a dark iridescent cloak that looks more like a pair of wings each passing moment that Smrt watches it. But Rudolf’s demonic mistress isn’t the worst of it.

It seems Meissner had been right, though Eduard now finds the spy’s report entirely lacking - Rudolf’s companion is sprawled in a chair, dressed similarly to the girl on the bed, with the same disturbing eye paint. And to top it all off, he had a live raven sitting on his shoulder. Had Rudolf somehow managed to get himself mixed up in a demonic cult? Before Eduard can even really contemplate the answer there is a noise from a pile of fabric on the floor. The blue-gray fabric must be one of Rudolf’s jackets, though likely an old one by the state of disrepair that is evident. A small crow emerges from beneath the fabric and gives Eduard a look that Eduard for one finds more than a little unnerving.

“What-” Eduard doesn’t know what to say. How does one accuse the Crown Prince of cavorting with a Satanic cult? Even after catching the boy in the act he doesn’t think the Emperor will believe any of it. It is all much too outlandish to be true.

“For shame, Count Taaffe. Even such a - what is it you usually call me? - recalcitrant prince, was it? As I know to knock before I enter the bedchamber of my betters.” The Crown Prince does look offended by the intrusion, and more so than Eduard had really expected.

“What are these-” Eduard eyes the girl, man, and pair of birds once more. “Demons?” Because they must be demons. Or else a pair of witches with familiars. Eduard had never personally believed in any of the drivel that had marked the previous centuries, but he cannot think of anything else that they might be.

“Demon?” The girl seems more unimpressed than offended. “I thought you said Minister-President Taaffe was smart, Rudolf. I suppose that might still be true, but he’s certainly entirely unoriginal.”

Eduard takes a step back. Perhaps some information is simply not worth knowing, and he has the inescapable urge to simply flee the scene and head back to Vienna and never tell the Emperor of his misadventure. But even as he resolves to do so the girl flows from the bed with a grace that is more fitting for a cat than any girl or whatever witch-demon-thing that the girl truly is. She’s between Eduard and the door in moments, and Eduard finds himself stumbling back and tripping on his own feet to land sprawled on the Crown Prince’s bed with the small crow now perched near his hand.

“Do be careful, Herr Minister-President. He bites.” The Crown Prince looks entirely smug about the way this is going, though Eduard cannot help but note the incongruity of the fact that Rudolf still has a paintbrush in his hand. The girl comes closer to Rudolf, nuzzling into his side, and Eduard can see what he had thought and hoped was a cloak cannot be anything other than a magnificent set of dark wings, shining with a blue-green iridescence. What sort of foul demon took the form of this dark angel? Was Rudolf cavorting with a harlot of Satan himself? Eduard was no scholar of demonology the way the Archbishop claimed to be. But what would that make the man still lazing in the chair by the window? Had Rudolf fallen prey to Satan himself? Had Satan sent the succubus that was entirely too close to Rudolf to drain the life from him and the entire Habsburg dynasty? Given the myriad of misfortunes that had befallen the Empresses relations in particular it seemed a more reasonable proposition than it should.

The crow does try to bite, but Eduard manages to snatch his hand back, only for the crow to flutter forward and try and bite his nose as well, though Eduard manages to dodge the crow and it flutters off to a different corner of the room.

But in the time he is totally focused on the crow the girl disappears and Eduard finds himself looking frantically around. Where has she gone? But quickly his eyes come to rest on a large raven that is nestled in the Crown Prince’s arms as he affectionately strokes her feathers and presses a little kiss to her head. Truly, the Crown Prince must be bewitched.

Eduard turns to the man in the chair. All the birds must be his familiars and he must be the witch - or otherwise the demon - that has set upon the Crown Prince. 

Eduard’s eyes flick to the door, but he has no doubt the raven in the Crown Prince’s arms will stop him if he tries to leave.

“Rudolf-” perhaps an appeal to the Crown Prince’s humanity will be of some help. For as much as Eduard’s men rarely call the Crown Prince kind, they all usually agree that he is quite human. “What is this?”

“Well you’ve been putting quite the damper of me making friends in Vienna, Count. What with all the spies and such. So I had to look for other companions. I was lonely, Mein Herr.” Eduard glances at the man by the window again - he looks amused, if anything.

“Rudolf.” The man does finally speak, and his voice is more an intoxicating song than anything else. The Crown Prince hearkens immediately, his face softening and his head bowing in a way that makes Eduard suspect his demon supposition had been correct.

“Rudolf-” Eduard knows he must sound panicked, but from the music and deceptive force in the man’s voice he is more than a little hesitant to listen for long. Or to let the Crown Prince listen for long. Will the man order Rudolf to cut him up so he can feed Eduard’s eyes to his ravens and crow? The thought seems far-fetched, but everything about the entire situation is far-fetched. “I should be heading back to Vienna.”

“Heading back? But Mein Herr, you’ve only just arrived.” Rudolf is enjoying this, that much is clear. Reveling in the fact that Eduard is the one squirming. “Then again, you were so very rude, barging in like that. Run back to Vienna, Count Taaffe. And do try to find some better manners.”

Eduard flees before the man at the window can countermand the prince. He’s pinching himself the whole way back, hoping to wake up in his bed after some foul nightmare. Because this must be a nightmare of some sorts. He had no such luck. To top if all off, Wiligut is waiting for him with a report that he really doesn’t want to read and the unfortunate news that the French Ambassador is causing problems again, and that rather than just offending one other diplomat there is a veritable menagerie of ruffled diplomatic feathers that Eduard will have to smooth over. He makes a mental note to have Meissner poison the French Ambassador the next time the man parties in Vienna. The next one can’t possibly be worse than the current one and right now is the time to do it - there are at least a dozen parties with plenty of motive to do the deed.

[asoftspotforangels]

some of my favorite woven tapestries, by Cecilia Blomberg:

Point Defiance Steps

Mates

Rising Tides

Vashon Steps

[beif0ngs]

Over the Garden Wall 10th Anniversary stop motion short by creator Patrick McHale and Aardman Animations

[soaptaculart]

The cat and the dad she said she "didn't want"

[trainwreck-pumpkin-pie]

Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995-1996) / Mouthwashing (2024)

inspired by this post

[podcastwizard]

cashier: ok that'll be $20

me (visibly sweating): ah, yes, of course! a perfectly reasonable price for a grilled cheese and a small smoothie! that was exactly the price i expected you to say when i ordered a single grilled cheese and a smoothie and my vision is NOT getting blurry as we speak! i am a perfectly normal temperature and my speech patterns are natural and even because this is the countenance of an individual who expected to pay 20 american dollars for a single grilled cheese and a smoothie!

cashier: where's all that blood coming from

[monsoon-of-art]

[lazylittledragon]

can't believe we're all adults being forced into the club penguin level of censorship in 2024

[captainjonnitkessler]

Sometimes I wish we would start calling out the performative radicalism on this site for the poser bullshit it is. "Remember, it's always morally correct to kill a cop!" "Don't forget to firebomb your local government office!" "Wow, it sure would be a shame if these instructions on how to make a molotov cocktail got spread around!"

Okay. But you're not killing cops or firebombing government offices. You are posting on a dying microblogging website to a carefully-curated echo chamber that has radicalized itself into thinking that taking the absolute most extreme position on any subject is praxis but that anyone discussing the most practical way to effect actual change is your sworn enemy. You do not have the street cred OR the activist cred to be talking about killing cops, babe.

[kensatou]

(✿◕‿◕) die (ꈍ ꒳ ꈍ✿)

[canisbeanz]

Silly doodle bc it was the first thing I thought of when I saw Pomni.

[symphonyofsilence]

Let the poor man rest.

[first-ex-wife]

it really is crazyyyyy how much January they managed to fit into this January

[qqueenofhades]

Meanwhile, if you're wondering how things are going in Trumpland (even before they literally played "My Heart Will Go On," famously the theme song about a sinking ship, at his Montana rally last night), it's apparently edging into the realm of possibility that picking JD Vance, senator from the state of Ohio, could cost Trump the state of Ohio.

Delicious.

[arsenicpanda]

FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY'S (2023)

[demigods-posts]

headcanon that percy stays ready to clock the minotaur. this man would pause his lunch break to give this bull it's horn a third time. this man would dehydrate for two days if it meant he could murk this bull at the end of it. this man's beef with this walking beef is so grandeur. it was the first monster he killed the moment the battle of mamhattan began. this is one of percy's consistent bloodlust moments and no one will ever fault him for it.