#hymns of death rays of might

[thenighteternal]

Lamp Of Murmuur - Hymns of Death, Rays of Might

[wolveria]

The Raven's Hymn - Ch 43

Pairing: SCP-049 x Reader

Series Warnings: Eventual smut, dubcon, slow burn, violence, horror, death, monsters, human experiments, dark with a happy ending

Chapter Summary: “I regret it has come to this, my dear.”

AO3

Perhaps knowing you were “safe” for the remainder of the day, 049 waited to enact his plan. You were grateful to have at least one more night with him. You didn’t know what would happen when it started. You didn’t know what you’d do it if went wrong.

Dread settled in your stomach worse than any time preceding. You’d thought waiting for the humiliation of Leahy’s program was like waiting for an execution. You’d been sorely mistaken. At least you’d had an idea of what he wanted. This was... unknowable. Dangerous. Terrifying.

All you could do was wait for 049 to make the first move. But for now, you laid in bed with him, pressed to his chest and listening to his heartbeat against your ear. It was a steady, soothing rhythm you hoped would continue beyond tomorrow.

Or maybe his plan wouldn’t happen tomorrow. You didn’t know when he would cause the distraction. There was too much you didn’t know, and no way to discuss it with him. There was, of course, the possibility of another shower, but you knew if you held him close like that one more time, you wouldn’t be able to let him go. The thought of what the guards would do to him tomorrow was enough to stir the borderline panic in your veins.

As if sensing your distress, 049 stroked his gloved fingers along your hair. It hadn’t escaped your notice how often he touched you now. Whatever barrier had previously kept him at a polite distance seemed to have vanished. Your own defenses had been brought down, and 049 had always been effective at getting around them anyway.

The morning came too soon from restless sleep. You didn’t move at the slot opening to deliver breakfast, you simply pressed yourself closer, breathing in deep the hollow space between his neck and the edge of his hood.

049 shuddered and wrapped his arm more firmly around your waist. You closed your eyes, taking another breath to steady yourself. It would be so easy to keep going, to surrender to your new normal. You might even have considered it, if not for the whole point of the program. The possibility of a child, and then of letting them be taken by the Foundation, wasn’t something you could accept. Not if there was a chance of escape.

But deciding to escape didn’t mean you wouldn’t miss this part of your captivity. You were too scared to think of the possibilities of “after.” Just surviving and leaving the facility was impossible enough; trying to imagine life afterwards was like trying to imagine what it’s like to live in the aphotic zone. You had no point of reference.

You both remained that way, quiet and secure in each other’s warmth. 049’s fingers caressing slowly up and down your back, your own tracing along the subtle wrinkles that marked his robes. Underneath the layers of hide was a human skeleton, the only marked difference in the skull. His brain casing was larger, but more startling than that was the beak that grew directly over his mouth. His human teeth could even be seen by X-ray, trapped behind the chitinous structure that protruded from his face. It was why no one could figure out how he ate or drank when he chose to, as no one had seen the beak open before. Hell, no one was even sure how he spoke.

Perhaps if you survived, you’d ask him. You didn’t know if he was human once, or if he had always been this way. Had someone given him the name Valens, or had he chosen it himself? There were still so many questions, but despite that, you liked who he was, what he was, and you wouldn’t change anything. Your only regret was that you would never be able to kiss him properly.

The intercom clicked.

“Tonight.”

You winced.

049 drew you closer, which you didn’t think was possible, but he managed it by slipping your leg between his. He didn’t need to say anything. You knew it had to happen today. There would be no tonight.

Unwilling, and after a time, you sat up first, your body sluggish with reluctance. 049 did the same, leaving the bed so you would be able to follow. He always positioned himself between you and the door, and it was probably the reason you slept at all these days.

Going through the motions of breakfast, you kept 049 in the corner of your vision. Not just because you wanted to be ready for his distraction, but... you couldn’t help it. The dreaded sense at the back of your thoughts that told you this would be the last time you ever saw him.

You hit the shower after, half-hopeful you would be joined, but you washed alone. It didn’t take more than a few minutes for you to finish, not wanting 049 to be out of your sight for long. Drying off swiftly, you got dressed in the usual smock and leggings. Most days, you didn’t bother with the bandeau bra, finding it pointless. You wore it today—your laughable attempt at gearing up for war.

By the time you returned to the middle chamber where 049 waited when you needed privacy, something had changed. He paced along the floor in front of the observation window, his head bowed as if in thought, wrists held at the small of his back.

After giving him a worried glance that wasn’t part of the act, you went to the lab counter where you kept your research journal. You had the idea of staying there as a vantage point, your back to the corner that divided the middle and inner chamber. You had a clear view of everything, including the outer containment doors, and the doctor’s bag was...

...missing.

Where was it? It wasn’t on the counter or on the autopsy table. You were sure you’d spotted it just this morning—

“Dalliance!”

You looked up, blinking dumbly at the shouted word.

049 stopped pacing; he stood in front of the window, his shoulders stiff in an intimidating hunch. If you hadn’t known this was the plan, you’d have believed it. He slipped back into form a little too easily for comfort.

“We waste time on the Site Director’s frivolity while the Pestilence continues to thrive amidst your very ranks!” 049 snarled at the darkened glass. “You believe I had forgotten? That I could be preoccupied by a warm body? Your mockery is as offensive as it is pitiable.”

He leaned close to the glass, his voice dropping to a growl.

“I see you, wretch. Beg your Site Director for forgiveness. He will hold you accountable for this.”

049 turned away, strode to the autopsy table, and pulled out the bag from beneath his robes. You’d forgotten he could do that, and your spine shot straight when he reached inside and pulled out a gleaming scalpel.

“Come here, assistant.”

He seethed the words, and for a moment, real fear curled around your neck. You obeyed, moving off the stool with stiff limbs, your heart racing at the appearance of the predator you hadn’t glimpsed in weeks. He placed a hand on the space between your neck and shoulder, squeezing you. Not harshly at all.

His back was to the observation window, and they couldn’t see his face. His eyes shone with urgency and clarity. Your good doctor was still in there, playing the role they expected of him.

“I regret it has come to this, my dear.”

The sharp edge of the scalpel shone within the corner of your vision.

“But nothing can sway me from my duty. Not even you.”

He brought the blade up to your neck.

Dispensers hissed overhead. 049 whirled you around and pulled you close, an arm going around your chest as the scalpel remained pointed at your throat. Even as the lavender mist drifted over you both, he remained upright.

“Old tricks, Director. And not so effective with the aid of my assistant—”

049 went stiff, his limbs frozen, and you were close enough to hear the hum of the contact between the shock collar and his flesh.

He opened his shaking fingers and dropped the scalpel, giving up the instrument so as not to cut you with it as he convulsed. You gripped onto the arm holding you, helpless to do anything to stop his torment.

The containment doors slid open, no less than four guards storming inside with their rifles raised.

049 pushed you away and to the side, giving them a clear shot at him.

“No!” you cried, forgetting you were supposed to play the role as 049’s shaken victim. But the guards didn’t fire; 049 staggered to the autopsy table, and in his weakened attempt to grab onto the edge, sent his bag toppling to the floor.

Instruments, glass jars and beakers, and copper tubing spilled from its depths, creating a chaotic mess of shattered noise and aromatic liquids. Between that, and the shouting men, you ducked down beneath the autopsy table and hunched as if cowering in terror.

With the table blocking the view of the observation window, you scrambled for the lip of the bag now lying on its side. Taking a deep breath, you jammed your arm inside.

Give me what Valens wants me to have.

Something rested atop your palm, lightweight but with a familiar shape. You curled your fingers around it, small enough to fit inside your fist, and quickly pulled it out. Making as if to clutch your chest, you slipped the object down the front of your smock into the depths of your bra.

Peeking over the top of the table, you watched as 049 was dragged half-unconscious from the room. The doors closed and you stood the rest of the way, your fear genuine as you held a hand over your stomach, breathing hard.

You hardly had any time to think before the door opened, Kenneth’s lanky form slipping through the door before it completely opened.

“Hey, you okay?” His eyes were a little too wide, his face pale. “Did he cut you?”

You shook your head, leaning against the autopsy table for support in the haze of post-adrenaline jitters.

“I’m fine, just—"

The door opened a second time, two men stepping through. One you didn’t recognize, an older man in a lab coat and white hair. The second one, you knew very well.

He was fuming.

“What the hell did you do to set it off this time?” Leahy growled, stalking past you as he took in the disaster of the floor. Antiseptic fumes and other odd smells from the spilled liquids made your stomach turn.

You opened your mouth, but no response was forthcoming, caught between confusion and indignity.

“Excuse me?” you finally said.

The doctor began examining you, but you shied away from his touch. Not only had the staff members instilled a sense of aversion in you, but you didn’t want him to find what you’d hidden.

“Did you say something?” Leahy pressed. “Do something?”

“You tell me. You watch everything we do.”

Leahy’s glare turned from the broken beakers to you, his eyes dark behind the rim of his glasses. He moved forward with deliberate steps, and you backed away until you bumped into a warm barrier at your back. You didn’t know who it was, and it forced you to remain in place as the Site Director towered over you.

“I know it was you.”

He gripped your jaw and turned your head upward, forcing you to meet his eye when you looked away.

“And I’ll scour every second of footage to prove it.”

Your chin trembled, but your voice held firm.

“I bet you’d enjoy that.”

His lips curled into a silent snarl, and you thought, this was it. You’d reached the limits of what the Site Director would tolerate, and he would order one of the guards to shoot you.

Instead, he released you with a rough jerk of his hand.

“She can’t stay here. Put her in another room until this shit’s cleaned up.”

He walked past you and out the door without another word, the doctor following after him. That left Kenneth, the person you’d been trapped against when the Site Director had thrown his tantrum.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, as if this was all somehow his fault. He rubbed the back of his neck, taking in the rest of the room. “He is right, though. That’s a lot of glass, and, uh... whatever that green stuff is. I think it’s eating through the tile.”

You nodded, too tired to argue, especially when it would amount to nothing. Something reflective caught your eye; the scalpel 049 had mock-threatened you with was under the autopsy table just of reach. You entertained the idea of grabbing it and smuggling it with you, but hiding a surgical blade in your brassier wouldn’t be one of your better ideas.

Leaving the scalpel was the right choice. As soon as you exited the chamber, two guards were at your flank, one of them patting you down and forcing your arms straight, palms open as he hooked you into shackles.

Kenneth, followed by the two guards, led you a few corridors over to a door that wasn’t the high security mechanism of a containment chamber. It looked closer to a D-Class cell, and you realized that’s exactly what it was, a temporary holding pen for one of the wayward cattle. The guards took off your shackles and ordered you inside. You followed their instructions in silence, glancing blankly at the single bed and toilet melded to the wall.

When you turned, you were surprised to find Kenneth lingering in the doorway.

“Is there anything I can get for you?” he asked. “Not that there’s a whole lot of—"

“Where did they take 049?”

His lips pressed together, and he unhappily glanced at the two guards, but they didn’t seem to be paying any attention to the conversation.

“I don’t know.”

“When will we be returned to his containment chamber?”

“I don’t know that either.” He avoided your eye as he backed out the door, mumbling one last apology, “Sorry.”

The door slid shut, leaving you alone in the small room. You couldn’t remember the last time you’d been truly alone, and you sat on the edge of the thin mattress. Impatience nipped at your thoughts, but you forced yourself to wait until you were sure they wouldn’t come back for you anytime soon.

Once a few minutes had passed, your anticipation got the better of you. You reached down your bra, grateful the guards hadn’t thought to search your cleavage, and retrieved the object you’d smuggled out of the containment chamber.

A USB flash drive. It seemed ordinary on the outside, a matte grey color that didn’t seem particularly special, but it had to be. You refused to believe 049 had risked his limited freedom for you to retrieve something that didn’t matter. He’d said this would help you escape, and it made sense now why he’d wanted you to be taken to an office.

It wouldn’t do any good here. You slipped it back into your bandeau, hoping you would have an opportunity to use it soon.

It wasn’t long before anxiety got the better of you. Pacing the small room, all you could think about was 049 and what they were doing to him. You tried not to imagine the worst-case scenario, but considering Leahy’s threats, there was an endless supply of them, each worse than the ones before.

You alternated between pacing and sitting hunched on the bed, tapping your foot with nervous energy. When was someone going to tell you what was going on? What had happened to 049? Would you ever get to return to the containment chamber?

As if in answer, the door slid open. You froze and eyed the entrance without breathing. No one stepped through.

You waited. And waited. The doorway remained empty, and the hallway beyond was unusually silent.

You slowly rose to your feet and approached the door. You edged past the threshold, expecting a guard to grab you by the scruff of your neck like an unruly kitten, but the corridor remained empty. There was no one here, but the keypad kept a steady green bar to indicate the door was unlocked.

For whatever reason the door had opened, this was your chance, and yet... your feet remained glued to the floor. Your breathing was shallow, confusion turning into fear. As terrible as your life had been the last few months, it had been structured. Controlled. Someone always telling you what to do, even if it would lead to pain and misery.

When you stepped outside the room, there was no guarantee of what you would find. You could be caught. You could be killed. It was enough to leave you frozen, fingers gripping the door frame.

The only thing that shook you free was the knowledge that you weren’t doing this just for you. 049 had no one else. If you surrendered now, there was no hope of rescue for him. He would be at the mercy of Leahy’s punishment, a situation he found himself in only because he wanted to save you.

You didn’t have a plan, but you had a destination. Get to a computer, insert the thumb drive, and the rest would follow.

Steeling yourself, you stepped outside the cell.

Next Chapter

[cipactonalpilli]

Hymns of Death, Rays of Might

[talonabraxas]

AKHENATEN AND THE HYMN TO THE SUN Akhenaten, also known as Amenhotep IV, was a Pharaoh of the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt. He ruled for 17 years and died in 1336 BC or 1334 BC. Akhenaten transformed Egypt when he abandoned traditional Egyptian polytheism religion and introduced a monotheistic religion that centered on the worship of the Aten or the Sun. Akhenaten’ s name means “Effective spirit of Aten” or “Spirit of the Sun”. Thou appearest beautifully on the horizon of heaven, Thou living Aton, the beginning of life! When thou art risen on the eastern horizon, Thou hast filled every land with thy beauty. Thou art gracious, great, glistening, and high over every land; Thy rays encompass the lands to the limit of all that thou hast made: As thou art Re, thou reachest to the end of them; (Thou) subduest them (for) thy beloved son. Though thou art far away, thy rays are on earth; Though thou art in their faces, no one knows thy going. When thou settest in the western horizon, The land is in darkness, in the manner of death. They sleep in a room, with heads wrapped up, Nor sees one eye the other. All their goods which are under their heads might be stolen, (But) they would not perceive (it). Every lion is come forth from his den; All creeping things, they sting. Darkness is a shroud, and the earth is in stillness, For he who made them rests in his horizon. At daybreak, when thou arisest on the horizon, When thou shinest as the Aton by day, Thou drivest away the darkness and givest thy rays. The Two Lands are in festivity every day, Awake and standing upon (their) feet, For thou hast raised them up. Washing their bodies, taking (their) clothing, Their arms are (raised) in praise at thy appearance. All the world, they do their work. All beasts are content with their pasturage; Trees and plants are flourishing. The birds which fly from their nests, Their wings are (stretched out) in praise to thy ka. All beasts spring upon (their) feet. Whatever flies and alights, They live when thou hast risen (for) them. The ships are sailing north and south as well, For every way is open at thy appearance. The fish in the river dart before thy face; Thy rays are in the midst of the great green sea. Creator of seed in women, Thou who makest fluid into man, Who maintainest the son in the womb of his mother, Who soothest him with that which stills his weeping, Thou nurse (even) in the womb, Who givest breath to sustain all that he has made! When he descends from the womb to breathe On the day when he is born, Thou openest his mouth completely, Thou suppliest his necessities. When the chick in the egg speaks within the shell, Thou givest him breath within it to maintain him. When thou hast made him his fulfillment within the egg, to break it, He comes forth from the egg to speak at his completed (time); He walks upon his legs when he comes forth from it. How manifold it is, what thou hast made! They are hidden from the face (of man). O sole god, like whom there is no other! Thou didst create the world according to thy desire, Whilst thou wert alone: All men, cattle, and wild beasts, Whatever is on earth, going upon (its) feet, And what is on high, flying with its wings. The countries of Syria and Nubia, the land of Egypt, Thou settest every man in his place, Thou suppliest their necessities: Everyone has his food, and his time of life is reckoned. Their tongues are separate in speech, And their natures as well; Their skins are distinguished, As thou distinguishest the foreign peoples. Thou makest a Nile in the underworld, Thou bringest forth as thou desirest To maintain the people (of Egypt) According as thou madest them for thyself, The lord of all of them, wearying (himself) with them, The lord of every land, rising for them, The Aton of the day, great of majesty. All distant foreign countries, thou makest their life (also), For thou hast set a Nile in heaven, That it may descend for them and make waves upon the mountains, Like the great green sea, To water their fields in their towns. How effective they are, thy plans, O lord of eternity! The Nile in heaven, it is for the foreign peoples And for the beasts of every desert that go upon (their) feet; (While the true) Nile comes from the underworld for Egypt. Thy rays suckle every meadow. When thou risest, they live, they grow for thee. Thou makest the seasons in order to rear all that thou hast made, The winter to cool them, And the heat that they may taste thee. Thou hast made the distant sky in order to rise therein, In order to see all that thou dost make. Whilst thou wert alone, Rising in thy form as the living Aton, Appearing, shining, withdrawing or aproaching, Thou madest millions of forms of thyself alone. Cities, towns, fields, road, and river — Every eye beholds thee over against them, For thou art the Aton of the day over the earth... Thou are in my heart, And there is no other that knows thee Save thy son Nefer-kheperu-Re Wa-en-Re, For thou hast made him well-versed in thy plans and in thy strength. The world came into being by thy hand, According as thou hast made them. When thou hast risen they live, When thou settest they die. Thou art lifetime thy own self, For one lives (only) through thee. Eyes are (fixed) on beauty until thou settest. All work is laid aside when thou settest in the west. (But) when (thou) risest (again), [Everything is] made to flourish for the king,… Since thou didst found the earth And raise them up for thy son, Who came forth from thy body: the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, … Ak-en-Aton, … and the Chief Wife of the King … Nefert-iti, living and youthful forever and ever.

[ichayalovesyou]

This is my carefully curated playlist based on Tumblr's favorite Mafia movie, Goncharov! It is arranged into story order but you can enjoy it on shuffle as well! Normally I color code which songs are about who, but this time around I wanted to leave it up to interpretation, although I think you might be able to tell who my favorite character is lol!

Winter In Naples

“You Need The Fear of God Put Back Into You Goncharov”

Taikatalvi by Nightwish from Imaginaerum • Ruler of Everything by Tally Hall from Marvin’s Marvelous Mechanical Museum • Birds With Broken Wings by Ben Caplan from Birds With Broken Wings • Istanbul by They Might Be Giants from Flood • The Cat Came Back by The Laurie Berkner Band from Laurie Berkner’s Favorite Kid Songs • Clint Eastwood by Gorillaz from Gorillaz • Champagne Taste by Eartha Kitt from Totally Crazy • Amar y Vivir by Carlos Rivera from Mexicano • Crazy = Genius by Panic! At The Disco from Death of a Bachelor • Farewell Wanderlust by The Amazing Devil from The Horror and the Wild • Time is Running Out by Muse from Absolution • Aha! by Imogen Heap from Ellipse • Modern Day Cain by I DON’T KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME from Modern Day Cain

The Ball

“Your Husband Is As Tasteless As His Counterfeit ‘Boots’, Dear Sister”

Vampire by People In Planes from Beyond the Horizon • Don’t Mess With Me by temposhark from The Invisible Line • There’s A Good Reason These Tables Are Numbered Honey, You Just Haven’t Thought of It Yet by Panic! At The Disco from A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out • Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps by Daniel Boaventura & Carlos Rivera from Your Song • Careless Whisper by George Michael from Ladies & Gentlemen The Best of George Michael • Real Men by Mitski from Lush • As The World Falls Down by David Bowie from Labyrinth • I’m A Funny Dame by Eartha Kitt from The Essential Eartha Kitt • Sin un Amor by Carlos Rivera from Mexicano • Bad Romance by Lady Gaga from The Fame Monster • Señor Amante by Kika Edgar from Señor Amante • Take Me To Church by Hozier from Hozier • Disarm by The Civil Wars from The Civil Wars • Femme Fatale by Coyote Kid from The Skeleton Man • Monkeys Uptown by Iron & Wine from Kiss Each Other Clean

Two Cigarettes, One Flame

“A Perfect Pearl Need Only Circumstance, No?”

Pretty Little Head by Eliza Rickman from O, You Sinners • Runs In The Family by Amanda Palmer from Who Killed Amanda Palmer? • 551 by Dessa from Castor the Twin • Wife by Mitski from Lush • The Bed Song by Amanda Palmer from Piano Is Evil • The Moon Will Sing by The Crane Wives from Coyote Stories • Evening On the Ground (Lilith’s Song) by Iron & Wine from Woman King • Better Love by Hozier from Better Love • Arms of A Thief by Iron & Wine from Around the Well • Where Evil Grows by The Poppy Family, Terry & Susan Jacks from A Good Thing Lost: 1968-1973 • Eric by Mitski from Lush • Angie by Bert Jansch from Bert Jansch • I Want To Be Evil by Eartha Kitt from That Bad Eartha • Don’t Get My Hopes Up by S.J. Tucker from Mischief • You Made Me the Thief of Your Heart by Sinéad O’Connor from So Far: The Best of Sinéad O’Conner • Dulce Mal by The Chamanas from Dulce Mal • Don’t You Dare Forget the Sun by Get Scared from Built For Blame, Laced With Shame

The Clock

“How Can Time Be Still, And Still Running Out?”

Blindness by Metric from Fantasies • Come Away To The Water by Maroon 5 & Rozzi from The Hunger Games: Songs of District 12 And Beyond • Era Escuro by Faun from Luna • Fly Me to The Moon by Melodicka Bros. from Fly Me to the Moon (Space Rock) • Glass Heart Hymn by Paper Route from The Peace of Wild Things • Where Butterflies Never Die by Broken Iris from The Eyes of Tomorrow • I Hope Your World Is Kind by Auri from Auri • Ballad of Jeremiah Peacekeeper by Poets of the Fall from Temple Of Thought • Broken Crown by Mumford & Sons from Babel • Dirt And Roses by Rise Against from Avengers Assemble • Marked Man by Mieka Pauley from The Science of Making Choices • If I Had A Heart by Fever Ray from Fever Ray • I Think I Smell A Rat by The White Stripes from White Blood Cells • Paranoid Android by Radiohead from OK Computer • Cool by Ansel Elgort & Mike Faist from West Side Story • That’s My Boy by Vast from Turquoise & Crimson

Ambrosia, The Blood of The Gods

“I’m Gonna Kill That Mario!”

Familia by Nicki Minaj, Angel AA & Bantu from Spider-Man: Into The Spiderverse • Onward & Upward by Tommee Profitt & Fleurie from Gloria Regali • The Horror and The Wild by The Amazing Devil from The Horror and the Wild • Breaking the Law by Judas Priest from British Steel • I’m Always Walking as Somebody Else from American Murder Song from Murder Ballads of 1816: The Year Without A Summer • The House Of The Dead by NADA5150 & Mr.Kitty from The House Of The Dead • Adore Me by StarKid Productions from Black Friday • Kill My Friends by gP. from Kill My Friends • 7 Rings by ChuggaBoom from 7 Rings • Heavy Rain by Youth Man from New Moons Vol.1 • Loki by The Mechanisms from The Bifrost Incident • Warflower by The Mayan Factor from In Lake Ch’ • Dead Butterflies by Architects from Meteor • Man or a Monster by Sam Tinnesz & Zayde Wolf from Man or a Monster • The Weeping Song by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds from The Good Son

The Bridge

“If We Really Were In Love You Wouldn’t Have Missed”

What Love Can Heartbreak Allow by Ben Caplan from Old Stock • The Wolf by PHILDEL from The Disappearance of the Girl • Animal Impulses by IAMX from The Unified Field • Don’t Make Me by MALINDA from Don’t Make Me • Shout by Tears for Fears from Songs From The Big Chair • Don’t Call Me Angel by Ariana Grander, Miley Cyrus & Lana Del Rey from Charlie’s Angels • Heaven Knows by The Pretty Reckless from Going to Hell • Castle by Halsey from BADLANDS • Mineshaft 2 by Dessa from Castor, the Twin • Die Anywhere Else by Julia Henderson & Lorenzo de Sequera from Dusk • A Death by an Unkindness from 4 Songs • Despedida by Antonio Pinto & Shakira from Love In The Time of Cholera • Daughter of the Sea by Sharm & Alison M. Sparrow from Daughter of The Sea • Jane Doe by Hail The Sun from Wake • Bag of Bones by Mitski from Lush • Girl Into Devil (I Belong to Me) by S.J. Tucker from Stolen Season

The Train

“We Could Burn It All Down”

Panacea For The Poison by Flobots from Survivor Story • Here Come the Ravens by Aviators from Dystopian Fiction • All Night Long by Peter Murphy from Love Hysteria • A Sadness Runs Through Him by The Hoosiers from The Trick To Life • The Deep by PHILDEL from Wave Your Flags • Irish Hour by Saint Sister from Where I Should End • There Is Still Time by Lorn from The Maze to Nowhere • Happy by Mitski from Puberty 2 • Burned Out by dodie from Human • Where To Begin by Adam Watts from When a Heart Wakes Up • Hungry Like the Wolf by Hidden Citizens & Tim Halperin from Reawakenings • Dark Matter by Les Friction from Dark Matter • I Found by Amber Run from 5AM • The Hearse (Stripped) by Matt Maeson from Bank On The Funeral • The Wolf in Your Darkest Room by Matthew Mayfield from Recoil • The Devil Wears A Suit by Kate Miller-Heidke from Nightflight • Sinking Ship by CAKE from Sinking Ship • Lessons by SOHN from Tremors • Black Sun by Death Cab for Cutie from Black Sun • Die Today by The Txlips Band & Guitar Gabby from Queens of A New Age • Blood Moon by Saint Sister from Madrid • Cinder and Smoke by Iron & Wine from Our Endless Numbered Days • Girl With One Eye by Florence + The Machine from Lungs

The Apple

“Tell Them I’m Sorry, For I Have No Sorrow Left to Give”

The Wanting Comes In Waves/Repaid by The Decemberists from Hazards of Love • Conversations at the End of the World by Kishi Bashi from String Quartet Live • My Way by Chase Holfelder from Major to Minor Vol.2 • We Are Your Nightmares by Cast of Nevermore from Nevermore: The Imaginary Life & Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe • Oh Death by Noah Gunderson from Saints & Liars • The Coldest Goodbye by Mary Kate Wiles from Spies Are Forever • Cathedrals by Jump. Little Children from Magazine • Carry Me Out by Mitski from Bury Me At Makeout Creek • Ghosts With Heartbeats by Plastic Patina from Ghosts With Heartbeats • Blood by My Chemical Romance from The Black Parade

“The film is gone, the only proof thereof Upon a boot, a tag mark’d Goncharov...”

Quotes from the movie Goncharov (1973) provided through art by: @theshitpostcalligrapher @when-sanpape-arts @inthefallofasparrow @not-the-blue @cloudmancy

[normal-horoscopes]

I know Akhenaten was a terrible despot but the Great Hymn to the Aten is genuinely beautiful

Thou appearest beautifully on the horizon of heaven, Thou living Aton, the beginning of life! When thou art risen on the eastern horizon, Thou hast filled every land with thy beauty. Thou art gracious, great, glistening, and high over every land; Thy rays encompass the lands to the limit of all that thou hast made: As thou art Re, thou reachest to the end of them; (Thou) subduest them (for) thy beloved son. Though thou art far away, thy rays are on earth; Though thou art in their faces, no one knows thy going.

When thou settest in the western horizon, The land is in darkness, in the manner of death. They sleep in a room, with heads wrapped up, Nor sees one eye the other. All their goods which are under their heads might be stolen, (But) they would not perceive (it). Every lion is come forth from his den; All creeping things, they sting. Darkness is a shroud, and the earth is in stillness, For he who made them rests in his horizon.

At daybreak, when thou arisest on the horizon, When thou shinest as the Aton by day, Thou drivest away the darkness and givest thy rays. The Two Lands are in festivity every day, Awake and standing upon (their) feet, For thou hast raised them up. Washing their bodies, taking (their) clothing, Their arms are (raised) in praise at thy appearance. All the world, they do their work.

All beasts are content with their pasturage; Trees and plants are flourishing. The birds which fly from their nests, Their wings are (stretched out) in praise to thy ka. All beasts spring upon (their) feeet. Whatever flies and alights, They live when thou hast risen (for) them. The ships are sailing north and south as well, For every way is open at thy appearance. The fish in the river dart before thy face; Thy rays are in the midst of the great green sea.

Creator of seed in women, Thou who makest fluid into man, Who maintainest the son in the womb of his mother, Who soothest him with that which stills his weeping, Thou nurse (even) in the womb, Who givest breath to sustain all that he has made! When he descends from the womb to breathe On the day when he is born, Thou openest his mouth completely, Thou suppliest his necessities. When the chick in the egg speaks within the shell, Thou givest him breath within it to maintain him. When thou hast made him his fulfillment within the egg, to break it, He comes forth from the egg to speak at his completed (time); He walks upon his legs when he comes forth from it.

How manifold it is, what thou hast made! They are hidden from the face (of man). O sole god, like whom there is no other! Thou didst create the world according to thy desire, Whilst thou wert alone: All men, cattle, and wild beasts, Whatever is on earth, going upon (its) feet, And what is on high, flying with its wings.

The countries of Syria and Nubia, the land of Egypt, Thou settest every man in his place, Thou suppliest their necessities: Everyone has his food, and his time of life is reckoned. Their tongues are separate in speech, And their natures as well; Their skins are distinguished, As thou distinguishest the foreign peoples. Thou makest a Nile in the underworld, Thou bringest forth as thou desirest To maintain the people (of Egypt) According as thou madest them for thyself, The lord of all of them, wearying (himself) with them, The lord of every land, rising for them, The Aton of the day, great of majesty.

All distant foreign countries, thou makest their life (also), For thou hast set a Nile in heaven, That it may descend for them and make waves upon the mountains, Like the great green sea, To water their fields in their towns. How effective they are, thy plans, O lord of eternity! The Nile in heaven, it is for the foreign peoples And for the beasts of every desert that go upon (their) feet; (While the true) Nile comes from the underworld for Egypt.

Thy rays suckle every meadow. When thou risest, they live, they grow for thee. Thou makest the seasons in order to rear all that thou hast made, The winter to cool them, And the heat that they may taste thee. Thou hast made the distant sky in order to rise therein, In order to see all that thou dost make. Whilst thou wert alone, Rising in thy form as the living Aton, Appearing, shining, withdrawing or aproaching, Thou madest millions of forms of thyself alone. Cities, towns, fields, road, and river -- Every eye beholds thee over against them, For thou art the Aton of the day over the earth....

Thou are in my heart, And there is no other that knows thee Save thy son Nefer-kheperu-Re Wa-en-Re, For thou hast made him well-versed in thy plans and in thy strength.

The world came into being by thy hand, According as thou hast made them. When thou hast risen they live, When thou settest they die. Thou art lifetime thy own self, For one lives (only) through thee. Eyes are (fixed) on beauty until thou settest. All work is laid aside when thou settest in the west. (But) when (thou) risest (again), [Everything is] made to flourish for the king,... Since thou didst found the earth And raise them up for thy son, Who came forth from thy body: the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, ... Ak-en-Aton, ... and the Chief Wife of the King ... Nefert-iti, living and youthful forever and ever.

[yandere-society]

pjm | “carnal lechery”

pairing: yandere! vampire! jimin x novice nun! virgin! fem. reader

rating: M

genre: yandere au, supernatural (vampire) au, smut, angst

word count: 10.5K

Headline: Halloween Night Massacre; Police Baffled By Murdering Spree

warnings: yandere themes, dub con, angst, graphic sexual content, unprotected sex, penetrative sex, oral (m.rec & f.rec), bonding, blindfolding, biting, loss of virginity, virginal blood worship, overstimulation, use of feathers and chains, mentions of blood, graphic descriptions of slaughtering, mentions of religious cults, mentions of christianity, mentions of sacrifices, gore.

synopsis: Attempts to precede his arrival made you ornery as he slipped like thin air from your fingers, even when you’d have him so close. You had almost ultimately fixated in your mind that you’d never know your secret admirer. Meanwhile— mysterious murders, disappearances and uproars about the return of the most fabled coven of vampires: ❛The Rouge❜ leads you to expect your imminent death. However, you do not expect the turn of events and the appearance of the one you’d been seeking for.

admin: @unfurlingtwinklingstar​

It was one of those macabre mornings when you’d find an oh-so-familiar garland at your doorstep.

The very same kind of flowers that you’d prefer for decorating your little reading nook with, would lay wrapped in a delicate paper foil. The dew on its petals would appear golden as it would kiss the ray of dawn streaming through the porch of your fern-scented cottage.

A feverish shiver would run through your spine at the sight of a caramel-colored envelope right underneath the lavender foil in anticipation of what this letter would say about you.

It would be hard to persist the laden need to find the giver first when the lovely pink petals would almost frown at your resistance.

You cherished calla lilies. There wasn’t a day when they’d not sit on your vase with their trimmed stems soaked in lukewarm water, smiling as they bloom.

Every Friday, this was to be expected. Yet, you weren’t fully comfortable with the handwritten cursive that’d make your fingers slack at its message.

The meander cursive masked the obscene descriptions of your curves, the filth in the mind of the writer was impeccably reflected in the flow of the dark ink.

The first time you had gotten such a letter, you had a recurred session reading it with obscure scrutiny, only to find the title ‘Third youngest of the Rouge’ in the sender name column.

The letters had chanted your name like a prayer, it’d beckon for you to have a taste of the kind of pleasure that you were trying to celibate yourself from, the kind that’d be a sin to indulge in.

It made your body thrice warmer, your body blazed into a pretty rouge like the robes you wore during service hours in the church.

Eroticism and romance were taboo subjects to conventuals and canonesses at the convent of Volterra. Being a novice in service to the almighty, you were taught to be a holy carmelite, a slender benedictine, devoted especially to scholarship and liturgical worship.

But the intimate descriptions highlighted the black traces of sin in the depths of your soul as if the devil awaited his chance to stand erect and applaud in sheer satisfaction at the sight of your crumbling control.

Sucking in shaky breaths, you grab hold of the stirrer and kindle the crackling flames dancing in your fireplace.

Without a second thought, you toss the expensive pieces of poetry into the topaz flames and watch as the fire comes to life and blazes the parchment to ashes.

You were considered too much of a vestal to submit to this admirer of yours.

The choirs at the convent church were different compared to other choirs that didn’t sing hymns. Their voices were almost like the angels’, high notes soaring over the clouds, graceful notes dancing on the staves, they sang for the almighty only.

This was halloween at the monestery. Whilst the town wore spooky robes and went around sharing treats in exchange of spared tricks, you sang along with your fellow sisters, honouring the almighty and paying tribute to saint Marcus.

You sang along, keeping a low voice and swaying to the gentlest harmony in devotion. The stanzas are clutched to your heart and you cherish this moment when you feel the string between you and your god. You cannot fathom how satiated you feel. Your mind strays to your past, when you were under foster care.

You were a doting, little child despite how the other girls prayed for a future where they can possess expensive goods and glittery jewelry. You only kept away from their notions of want and sinful desires for pleasure even as you became an adult.

You chose to bake cookies, share blankets, study the Bible, smile and croon at the praises the church would give you, rather than read obscene novels and join the young woman of your age in subjects that were atrocious in the eyes of the holy.

Sister Siena walked you to your dwelling at the convent’s residence while she chattered about her moss garden and herbs that could treat flu. You listened quietly, letting out little nonchalant hums. Gardening wasn’t a subject of your interest and you were much more fatigued to feign enthusiasm.

“The halloween rituals might probably need an addition of prune juice, don’t you think?” she asks while you unlock the latch and walk into your home.

You let out a small smile and usher her in whilst nodding to everything in your surroundings. A little envelope peeks out from the gap between the floor and the hallway door, making your chest tighten at the realisation.

A letter from your mystery admirer was unforeseen and definitely unwelcome, especially in the presence of a fellow nun in your dwelling.

The attention of sister Siena is brought back at the sight of a cream-coloured envelope with a rather unfamiliar stamp on its surface.

Her olive eyes narrow to two slits and makes perspiration bead out and down your clavicle in fear. In the blink of an eye, the envelope’s seal is torn and the letter is perused by the chestnut haired female at once.

Her response however, gives you a cursory shock. Her lips turn into a smile and she stares up at you, eyes in awe as if she had witnessed the grand work of Caravaggio.

“You have an admirer”, she infers and you scour her face for signs of offense only, to find nil. She seems rather, glad.

“I— I usually burn them there” you point to your fireplace and her shoulders buckle in a brief fit of giggles, as if you had shared an anecdote.

“Who would pray to have a vestal nun? It is like counting the stars.” she mumbles into her mug of tea, eyes flickering from your face to the letter, absent-mindedly.

You shrug and get seated opposite to her, straining your eyes on the flickering flames that warms your numb, cold toes. You sigh in bliss at the tranquil frame of your nook and almost the next minute, your eyes flutter shut and you sink into the lulled sounds of the crackling fire.

Unbeknownst to you, the young nun seated at your opposite has her nerves ossified at the glimpse of the sender’s title. Comprehension of ‘third youngest of the rouge’ sends her mind into frenzy. Dismay sinks into her heart and makes it thud and toll like church bells at the realisation of the plight that you have been pulled into and she shudders.

Without so as to even a noise, the letter is slid into her crimson tunic and the envelope is thrown into the fire.

The coolness of the midnight is deceptive; the sun has barely risen and this altitude is always cooler. Siena’s destination is low down and deep into the interior, well away from the onshore winds. When she reaches, the heat of that region makes her compare the temperature to her kitchen’s, on a baking day— like a friendly warmth instead of the inferno it always is.

Her footsteps are ushered as the heels of her moccasins rap against the laid out cream carpet in dull thuds, her breathing is in a frenzy too for, hundreds of thoughts swarm in her head at once.

Siena is cold to the bone despite striding across the blazing heat of the deep, dim chambers of the three elderly canonesses, at the convent. The canonesses— head nuns are rather reserved and hostile about their roles in the society.

Before the 17th century, such chambers were often considered clandestine— precisely, before the battle of Tuscany. The battle held a significant place in history, for how saint Marcus and his veterans fought and impeded entire Tuscany off of sanguinarians— a term used to describe vampires.

The rise and fall of the most fabled coven of vampires was inscribed in the olden scriptures and was forgotten to tell tales about wizards and curses as of the present. Siena had studied about them at school.

The mere image of the counts brings shivers down the woman’s spine and she shudders as she holds onto the letter and walks, toward the canonesses’ chambers.

It is dark when she arrives; gnarled trees hung low over the baronial church, creaking ominously in the howling winds. The heavy oak doors broke open, echoing around the empty church.

The moonlight shone through the heavily cracked stained-glass windows, casting an eerie glow onto the dusty alter. Thick cobwebs hung on every surface and her footsteps sounded deafening on the cold stone floor.

Two elder ladies sit perched on their carpeted thrones with their veils over their heads and backs turned toward Siena. They hold hands in a circle and mutter chants to themselves.

Siena’s eyes capture the silent movements of their fingers and the incessant nods of their heads. She gently walks— almost stalks, until one of the elder canonesses perk at her arrival and seek her to sit with them.

The chamber walls radiate off its warmth and the conversation is lulled as Siena breathes out her concerns with utter respect, her expression remains composed despite her rapid breathing.

The canonesses nod with eyes widened at the size of fire lanterns, their fingers tremble slightly in comprehension of the magnitude of issue that the young nun had brought to them.

In the next hour, right on the death of halloween, nuns and monks are summoned from the monastery and a ceremony is held right in their place to seek peace once again.

The seven Rouge sanguinarians, the fabled coven of vampires have returned to Volterra.

The four canonesses sit in a circle and one of them draws a circled figure at their center. The symbol seems ominous to Siena, it seems almost like a satanic pentagram. A silver crucifix is fixed right at the junction of the chalked lines and the series of chants begin.

For almost a quarter of a hour, Siena sits— rooted and in the careful look-out for queer changes in the surroundings. The next minute, one of the canonesses jerk as if she had felt a foreign presence and collapses on the canoness next to her.

The chamber queerly begins getting chilled as the chants get more louder in unison. Whooshing noises of the wind soon fills the chamber and an eerie figure settles through the open window, making Siena freeze, petrified.

At the end of the hallway stands a slender yet, robust, almost surreal, young-looking man sheathed in a heavy, scarlet cloak. His eyes are shut, as if he is in deep thought, and once they open, they make Siena jump out of her seat in fear.

Skin almost translucent, a bloodless hue, reminiscent of cave dwelling creatures that never saw the light of day, as pale as the living dead, as pale as a corpse. His bleached skin was as white as a sheet of paper next to the sleeve of the black woolen sweater, his orbs seemed bloodshot, yet, they held a life of their own like the burning rouge of a ruby.

“Third youngest of the Rouge”, Siena hears a canoness announce, the latter’s voice seems both startled and in disbelief.

“Ann. Fancy seeing you there, you seem older than in our last meeting, don’t you agree?”, the young count seethes and takes steps toward the eldest of all the canonesses.

Siena stares at the duo, perplexed. The two seem to know each other like old acquaintances yet, their eyes hold an unexpressed rage that she does not fathom.

“I am afraid greetings will have to wait, Park. You and your brothers must be well aware of the treaty you have broken.” Ann almost hisses, stepping in front of the rest as if she is unafraid to emphasize her point.

The ethereal man quirks an eyebrow at Ann’s actions in disapproval yet, curls one side of his mouth in a smirk, eyes reflecting a certain devilish glint.

“Ah. You accursed humans never seem to learn, do you? Fifty years ago, we made a pact. For our coven to never be disturbed by you humans, in exchange for us to move our grounds”, he accentuates the words and sets his eyes on Siena, making the latter freeze.

“Twenty years ago, there was a lovely young woman with round orbs and curves more enrapturing than the meanders of Tuscany’s hills”,

At the mention, something turns in the face of Ann as it hardens like wilted musk. Park further continues walking and retracing his steps, eyes glued shut and jaws clenched in raw rage.

“She was bonded to one of the youngest counts and the war—” he pauses in his steps with his sculpted back turned toward the canonesses, as he stares blankly ahead, grieved.

“The war, it killed her. She lost her life, she died in vain. She was destroyed by her own race. The pact was shattered broken at that moment, that moment when the light left her bewitching eyes.” he croaks a bit, shoulders slacking as if the memory was his venom.

“She was innocent yet, she was killed. By your people.”

There’s a shadow casted in the slender man’s eyes and it was quite clear. The rage for revenge that was cloaked in it.

Even whilst his back was turned, his head seemed calculative of the canonesses’ immediate response. Ofcourse, humans never seemed to learn.

Ann’s eyes reflect death and almost the next second, she strides forward with the silver crucifix in her hand and tosses it at the empty black space where Park stood, moments before.

The next second, a heavy, red, mushy liquid is splattered onto Siena’s face as she screams and crawls toward the exit, horrified for her life.

The canonesses’ throats had been cut and they lay like butchered animals in a waste of blood. One corpse had slipped from the low throne to the right of the door and lay staring up at her, the mouth open, the head almost cleft from the body. She saw again the severed vessels, sticking like corrugated pipes through the clotted blood. The second was propped, ungainly as a rag doll, against the far wall. Her head had drooped forward and over her chest a great mat of blood had spread like a bib.

Tuscany’s most esteemed dignitaries of the church society lay like ghoulish mannequins, the esophagus and arteries sticking out like so much corrugated and rubber tubing. The smell that vapoured from their bodies could only come from slaughtered animals.

Thick, warm blood crawled into Siena’s throat and clawed at her air sacs like muck. Spewing with every glance at the mass slaughter, she struggled to wipe away the splutters of blood stuck to her skin and crawled on her limbs not any different from a five-sensed mutt, heaving and croaking for mercy.

Her pleadings for mercy fell upon deaf ears. When the bone of her ankle was seized to pull her toward the ghoulish young count, Siena thought the night would take away the last of her breath.

Her jaws were clasped in the count’s fingers and her eyes were a hair away from the orbs of death. The young count was sheathed by the moonlight in a silvery halo.

Without the traces of blood on his mouth, skin resembling the late winter and rage on his sculpted visage as red as his name, anyone could mistake the monster to be an angel.

His temper was on a hair-trigger and his eyes were lethal.

“You will run to the town’s mayor. If you want your soul to be spared, you will run there and shout to those mucks that the Rouge have returned”, the count spewed venom with each word.

“You will throw this parchment on their faces and demand that they comply to every syllable that’s scribed in the sheet!” he speaks, spelling out thunder claps and boulders at the poor nun.

“If not, Tuscany will have every breathing and crawling creature slaughtered like its canonesses”. He warns and whooshes away like smoke— ungraspable by bare hands.

Even in the wintry morning when town folks discussed the daily’s headlines with an uneasy settlement in their guts, you pursued boiling tea and folding your blankets neatly, unmindful of their great fear.

The afternoon too was eerily quiet and folks everywhere preferred to speak in a whisper and contain themselves in their abode. It seemed rather dubious and as heedless as you were, you never perceived that your innocence would lead to your downfall.

The sun sank lower in the sky, draining away the golden hue of the warm and gave path to a velvety dark night. The same moment when the crickets came out to chirp, dusky colours subdued in the fading light as shrieks and collective roars were heard at the heart of the town.

You, along with some of your fellow nuns peaked at the commotion and threaded through the crowd that swarmed in front of the Mayor’s office. On the board was a derogatory notice. Although, the crumples and rusty stains gave away the fact that the notice wasn’t pinned by the authorities. Its calligraphy looked eerily familiar to you.

“Tunic as red as our coven’s name, skin shining like beacon, tresses sheeny and burnished, eyes like the forest floor and gentle flowers with mirth, feminine curves softer and untouched like a laden bush of peony,”

The fear is a weight on the Mayor’s ribs and there exists a dull ache in his eyes, an unwillingness for his mouth to lift past neutral, to charge against but, words are lost in the hollow of his throat. Fear stills his lips as he pursues it to read out the rest.

“—The young vestal nun with a name that echoes across valleys of Tuscany, the one who dwells in the only fern-coated cottage near the gates of the lush forest.

Bring her to the place where human ritual pyres blaze, those who dare do otherwise, prepare to meet death as painful as a swine’s.

Against you rise, prepare to pay a deathly price.” he ends and mutters hurriedly in the commissioner’s ear and you notice the skeleton of his wrinkled fingers tremble at the slightest.

There’s a hushed eruption of conversations that bubbles ever so slowly amongst the townfolk at the astonishing notice and you freeze, petrified when eyes stray toward you, almost accusingly. You realise, with horror, they’ve recognised the vestal nun in the description.

You breathe heavily and your gut begins to twist into an uneasy coil when the commissioner’s fingers point directly at you.

Your desire to evaporate heedily rushes into your mind and something akin to being a criminal overwhelms you. When you step away to sprint far, you are seized by heavy men as they haul you off the earth by your limbs.

The thousand pair of ears at the town’s center fall deaf to your scattered pleadings— screams. Heartlessly, they drag you to the threads of your last few breaths and you helplessly submit, falling prey to your fatigue from the endless stream of tears that races down your rosy cheeks.

Your wails are unheard as the elder women of your town shield you from the public view, sit you in a warm creek and wash you in the clear stream, no different from a creature to be sacrificed for their religious rituals.

You croak out the last of your pleadings before the sun sets, and the women only watch you with nothing more than pity in their eyes.

Their hands are hurried as they strip you and dress you in the most rouge of all cloaks in the town, steam your hair dry, stain your lips with sliced beet, trace the lines where your lashes lie with charcoal.

Other than the sizzling charcoal that dries your tresses and your dull sobs, the creek is silent even as the herd of women stand together.

When you are sat and tied to the sacrifice stone, you shriek with more violence than gales. The ties that bound your limbs to the stone would not come loose at the desolate way you cried.

You sobbed and sobbed and sobbed until your throat closed on itself and you felt the heaviness on your eyelids. Fatigue beckoned you and you obeyed, submitting to it unconsciously.

The stillness of the air seemed to suck even the sound of the chain’s clanks when you moved your limbs into the nothingness of the cave. Even the trees seemed not to rustle as if they were tense with nerves for what was to come.

You jostled awake when the trees rustled and a strong wind blew from nowhere, chains rattling at your limbs’ sudden motion.

Trees stood naked as they had before, but their twigs curled in a distorted way, as if the tree itself screamed in pain.

The sky was a mass of grey cloud, again so ordinary for autumn, but instead of letting small shafts of light through they emitted an ethereal glow.

The wind was just as bitter as before, coming straight from the north, but the scent was something else, metallic almost, with a tinge of acrid burning.

The fire that kept you warm flicker, casting an ominous glow throughout the tunnel, causing shivers to ripple across your body. You drag your legs across the surface of the sacrifice stone, gathering yourself into a ball.

Wind streams through the tunnel, waking the bats in the cave, twirling them in the air, only to drop them off into the void. All signs of life vanish from the tunnels that were once so full of warmth and the fire becomes extinguished.

You peer as you stare at the mangled stone beneath you.

A heinous laugh echoes throughout the tunnel, rebounding off the crumpled walls, and you crawl closer to the wall in sorrow. Like the cave, your soul is too abandoned and then all fades to black.

You shut your eyes and sit, quivering in fright as footsteps echoed menacingly. There was a hoarse breathing heard dully and you began to hear your own whimpers.

At an unexpected chime of the hour, through the empty night, a gentle voice calls out your name.

Your arms tighten around your body and the curtain of your hair falls around your face, shielding your view of the silhouette growing in front of you.

“Tuscany’s most loveliest lily”, the voice shallows into a soothing whisper and a woody fragrance tickles your nostrils. Your mind ticks at the familiar syllables uttered out and something blossoms in you besides fear, your features contour into slight puzzlement.

“I climb so high, lost in the sensation, I succumb to the scent of the stream that runs in your veins”, you listen more closely.

“I cry out in pleasure, my body on fire, I cling to your scent, hunger feeding my desire”, by then, you are sure of the stanza. It was what licked your insides, it was what beckoned you to sin. The lines were your admirer’s.

Then, it pauses.

The voice is gone, so is the scent. You push your tresses off your eyes and cautiously look in the dead of the night that seemed alive a few moments prior.

Something creeks and rustles at the faintest— right behind your neck, causing its hair to stand. There’s something behind you. Or rather, someone.

Your eyes shut at the feeling of a cold breath tickling the locks of your hair. When a thick strand is pulled and a deep inhale is heard, you whip to find only emptiness.

There’s a few moments of listening to only your anxious breath and thuds of your breathing heart before a fine piece of silk is wrapped around your eyes.

You let out a startled scream at the sudden hindrance of your sight and the feeling of a glacial pair of brawny arms sheathing around your waist. A set of black dots disperse in your vision and your mind is lulled by a hushed, smooth voice into your ear.

“Found you, my little fawn”.

You regain consciousness in a dimly lit room, on a lush, oak-coloured duvet. With the movement of one leg the tell-tale clink of wine bottles rouses you and one blink of the eye tells you that your head is just as bad. You squint, dry mouth sticky with thick saliva and your legs are immediately pulled to your chest at the queer recognition of the place.

You feel as though you have lived a very long time in this colossal manor.

The Manor grew out of the manicured lawn like an infant castle. It’s nascent stone walls were a pale grey and were barren of the moss or ivy that clung to the walls of the older homes in the village. Its large oak door was double wide and was sheltered under a wide porch supported by stone pillars. The entry way was grandiose, sweeping into a wide circle in front of the dwelling with an ornate fountain in the center.

As seconds advance, your mind harks back to unfamiliar images in the same space— a young woman in an elegant frock chortling as she gets chased by a burly yet, slender man who looked youthful as well.

His laboriously chiseled face, cheekbones that had near pierced his flesh had led to sunken eyes, puddles of avarice set about them.

Dark hair covering his head, long and fragrant with rose thorns.His chin, one such extremity which sought to put his cheekbones to shame, it succeeded in its purchase to pierce its own flesh. A small scab could be seen about it’s exit, to which his hand tended to itch.

A thick, velvety cape traces his sturdy steps— chasing after the woman and you gasp when her face comes into your sight.

It is you.

Only, more alluring in the gown that hugs your— her curves. Her laugh is unceasing and sultry mostly, seductive.

Your eyes dilate when you see her unhitch the ties holding her robe to her curves and like a vixen, she steps out of it, lying back on the duvet, beckoning for the ethereal man to her.

He seemed ravenous, his irises iridescent as they turn from raven to crimson at the sight of the slick between her legs.

She seemed brazen, like a cur in heat, in need of flesh when she crawled upon the alluring man, rolling her hips into the air provocatively, she caused the balls of the man to get filled, none similar to your dainty facet.

She takes his girth into her lips, making the count seethe in pleasure, her tongue wrapping around its head, she makes him bellow like a buzzard when she takes him deep into her throat and teases his balls.

He looks feasted, satiated beyond syllables when she licks every inch of his hard wood and takes him to a state of druken stupor.

Your breathing comes out in strained huffs as you watch him take her— you as he presses his lips against her skin and utters words that make her keen and bawl in pleasure.

You watch as their naked flesh twist gracefully into one and something else begins to unravel in your memories.

Where there should be blank space is blank memories, like a soft beige wall bereft of photographs. It brushes through the subconscious, recalling memories that bring out the deepest spark of nostalgia of the soul.

You recall every single one of it, your eyes shut intuitively and you sink into a rather familiar abyss of lost memories. In it, you hold hands with the same man who appeared moments prior. Only now, you know his name.

The one who loved you past all the years that went like streams to the sea, in all your lives as a mortal.

“Soft. Your hands. Soft and warm - on my face, on my chest, in my dreams, in the umbrella of dawn, under the first streams of morning light. Your hands in the pitch black of night, muscles and tendons dancing between each other in a lover’s dance. Fingertips like matches grazing my skin with flame, our scars being the measure of our love. I bare my scars, because I remember the time when your flame danced on me forever, before your hands turned to ice.”

All of your admirer’s words make sense to you. The lost passion, the lost memories, the lost life of yours as the light left your eyes when humans attacked the manor you had peacefully lived in.

There was a deep cut in the skin of your neck from the shattered pieces of glass and a heavy cry escapes the throat of the man at the dreadful sight— you, on the Jimin’s thighs, in his arms as he cried for you to not leave him.

You had smiled and reached your hand to his cheeks, engulfed his lips in one last passionate kiss before your eyes shut on its own, soul departing your frail body.

You see him, your past lover begging for you to return, you see his brothers lifting you into your grave.

Shudders rack your body and your cheeks are wet when you open your eyes to the present, to find the shadowy, familiar presence sitting right across you, his arms prop his chin upright and his eyes drink you in.

Jimin steps from the shadows, stealing your breath and the heat from your skin. Suddenly your defences are just paper, paper that is being soaked by the rapidly falling briny drops.

Before you can draw in the air your body needs, you have melted into his form. You feel his firm torso and the heart that beats within. His hands fold around your back, drawing you in closer.

You feel your body shake, crying for the missed time the two of you will never make again, crying to release the woe of long years in separation.

He caresses your cheeks and wipes the tears with a calloused finger, even this roughness brings more relief than your heart can hold. He is eating you with his eyes, running his hand through your hair, as if he cannot quite fathom you are not part of an almost forgotten dream.

When he kisses you, it is sweet, gentle, and it tastes of your tears. You want to speak but all you can do is croak,

“Jimin”.

His mouth paints a soft smile and he kissed you once before folding you in his arms again.

“My beautiful peony, my little fawn, my love, my heart, my entire world. It was never your fault”, he mutters and you keen closer to him, pulling his mouth to yours once again. You close your eyes shut at the feeling of his tongue twisting with yours and your knees lose strength, sending you spiralling into his arms.

“Oh, how I missed having you close to me, seeing yet, not being able to ravish is a curse” he whispers and you feel the heat pooling in your core when he noses at your jugular and inhales your scent.

“The scent of your blood remains heavenly through the ages” he sings, arms digging further into the curve of your waist.

“And this musky arousal—”

You gasp when you feel the tips of his nimble fingers brush the crotch of your undergarment, relishing in the heat of your wetness.

“This time, I’ll have you breathing for eternity, little fawn. I’ll turn you into what I am”. He declares with a stern voice, consuming the breaths that escape your lungs.

When you stare into his crimson irises, you pray for his touch, beg for what he promises. “Claim me, my lord. I’ll spend an eternity in your arms. Touch me, make me yours”.

Surely, it would be yes. The count was a notorious rake and libertine. He was called a thorough and absolute rouge, true to his name. How could he possibly turn down the chance to debauch the most delicious little fawn tempting him to revel in her taste?

With one kiss, Jimin swooped you off the floor and completely into his arms, transporting back to the cave you were sacrificed in.

He had planned for the entire town to hear your wails of pleasure. When you felt and heard the rattling of chains around your limbs, you shrieked, startled.

“No need to be afraid, my lovely fawn. I only wish to show these mongrels who you belong to”. Jimin expounds, making your core clench in need.

“Touch me, my lord” you scrounged like a fox, coaxing the ravished count with the tantalizing motions of your hips.

“Disrobe for me, little fawn. Take that sheer robe off, I want your naked flesh”, Jimin snarls and his mouth waters when your dainty fingers scramble to untie your gown. You sputter, your cheeks flush a vivid red at his grimy words.

Fear. Nerves. And illicit, forbidden, wrong physical desire. You felt it all at once.

Jimin bent to you and pressed his lips to your neck. The oddest jolt of fire leapt from there. It rushed through your veins like flames licking at the sky.

His hair tickled the bones of your cheek as he stroked and hollowed his mouth along your throat and reached the rim of your ear. He brushed back your hair. Surprisingly, his breath was cool. Almost icy. You had heard women speak of men blowing their breath by their ears—something that hadn’t sounded at all enticing—but the maids had described warm breath. Jimin’s breath was cold.

Still, the brush of it did feel surprisingly … good.

He nibbled your ear, making shivers tumble down your spine. He stroked the exposed skin at your collarbones. Goodness, how could it feel so hot—like a candle’s flame flickering close to your skin?

He tugged your cowering hands away to expose the swell of your breasts. His body tightened with arousal at the sight of your full, generous curves, erection bucking against his stomach.

Pushing you on the boulder, he ravaged your mouth, letting his hands venture down to the cleft of your arse. You bucked at the foreign feeling, gasping at the feeling of his tongue suckling the soft flesh of your lips into his mouth. His tongue curls around yours and he suckles it too, making you melt into a puddle in his full hold.

His mouth traces your throat and when it ghosts over the curve of your breasts, you shudder and your skin breaks into goosebumps.

He suckled. God, you were delicious. And you were moving beneath him. You arched to press your breast to his mouth.

Your scent reached his nose. And, he was lost. Lost in want. He rolled over you, coaxed your legs apart with his, and settled between, caressing your sweet cunny all the while. You gasped at the feeling of his thumb rolling your pearl and whimpered when his middle finger found your entrance, dipping to revel in your slick insides.

Oh goodness, he had flicked that most sensitive place—the little bump that lay between your nether lips, and you almost rolled her eyes back into your head at the pleasure.

Your hips arched up. He stroked you a little harder, as if he had known the rocking of your hips was a wordless signal that meant: I am begging you for more.

Then he slid his finger inside you. Between your nether lips, parting them gently. Goodness, he was inside you. You were doing the most intimate thing possible. With the man who remained an enigmatic admirer in your mind until the touch of his fingers tainted your soul, with the man who held your heart for eternity.

“Open your eyes.”

The first things you saw were thick, velvet-soft black lashes and gorgeous crimson eyes. Eyes that glittered at you in the firelight. “I want your eyes on me” he ordered huskily.

Then his finger slid deep inside, and you gasped at the sudden sensation—an intense quiver that rushed through you. You heard a shocking wet, sucking sound as his finger thrust in and out. It was the sound of your arousal.

“Let your moans out, little fawn. I wish to hear your sweet voice” he coaxed.

Biting your lower lip, you whimpered. You didn’t want to speak. The pleasure his wizardry brought was fervent, it felt foreign yet, acutely compelling and delicious. It made you drool, you needed him, flesh, bone, heart, soul.

His hand moved and he stopped stroking the little nub that vibrated with such intense feeling. You gasped in frustration.

He wrapped his hand around the shaft of his erection—you could feel the brush of his fingers against your stomach as he took hold of himself. Then, with his hand tight around it, he stroked the head of his erection against your nether lips. They had stuck together, resisting him, but he gently eased them apart.

Your arms were splayed on the mangled boulder beneath you and your eyes appeared to have gotten a taste of heaven, hands clenched in tight fists, toes curled and digging into Jimin’s hips at his ease into you.

Deeper he went, and his manhood stroked a place inside you that made explosions of light in front of your eyes. Then a twinge of pain rushed through you and you gasped in shock.

His fingers traced the curve of your cheek. “Shh, my fawn” he whispered. “Easy. It will hurt when I go past your little maidenhead. But after that it will be very, very good.”

“Jimin—”

He thrust. You squealed. You clenched. You tightened. You wanted to back away. But you couldn’t vanish into the boulder. Nor could you push him off. There was a searing pain that burned the walls of your insides yet, the delicious stretch of his girth brushed the softest tissue that made your mouth open wide, soundlessly and expose your luscious throat for his mouth to marr.

Jimin’s lips suckled every inch the clammy flesh of your shoulders and breasts— until lilac bruises respired in its wake. The perked peaks of your breasts were soft and toothsome in his mouth. And the tiny heels of your palms digging into his chest felt euphoric, he wished for it to caress his veiny member instead.

His nose nudged into your sternum, imbibed the scent of rushing blood to your breasts. His eyes shut as he sniffed deeply, his fangs grew in length and a gravelly groan rumbled from his chest at the redolent aroma of your blood.

“You feel warm and soft, my delicious little fawn. I could forever inhale this toothsome stream running through your veins”.

Without stalling, Jimin enveloped the teat of your breast into his mouth and laved, before piercing his honed fangs into the soft flesh, guzzling at the divine, rouge liquid that leaked onto his pearly teeth and sharp tongue, making you hiss at the feeling.

The feeling was gut-wrenching at the onset, it made you scream into Jimin’s shoulders.

He pressed against you, seating himself all the way inside, and he didn’t move. He stayed motionless, and he rained kisses on your forehead, cheeks, lips. It was hard to feel pain with such glorious kisses stealing your breath. And little by little, the stinging sensation ebbed.

A few moments of incessant suckling and your strained huffs at the strokes of his tongue on your tormented peak unfolded a queer pleasure, obscure to be produced by human males.

Soon, each suckle and lave from Jimin’s mouth pulled you to the white, hazed edge of pleasure and you cried out in ecstasy. Your cheeks were riddled hot, body spasmodic, in graceful waves as you began to roll your hips.

You whispered, “More”, Then you saw his sculpted visage.

He looked starved, ravenous. He looked raw, ravaged, tormented. His eyes were wild. His mouth was a slash, bracketed by harsh lines. He looked as though his control could snap in a heartbeat.

“My lord?” you called for him.

“You are tight, sweet, and perfect, my fawn. So no, I am no longer all right.”

You let your arms slip from his neck, but your legs were still wrapped around him, and his groin, hot and hard, was pressed tight into you. Then came the gratifying wave of pleasure as Jimin rolled his hips into yours, his girth slipping in and out of you, wholly, fulfillingly.

Gods, he was huge. The thick, hot, pulsing hard muscle of his legs throbbed against your thigh. His big manhood twitched inside you— feeling as thick as your arm. He groaned, kissing you fiercely as he moved his hips and nudged his swollen head further inside, almost into your cervix. You cried out, feeling it pulsing into your drooling slit.

With a moan into his lips, you strained your thighs and allowed him to pound in and out of you, the thick, slick shaft of his cock sliding wetly out from between your lips as you groaned throatily.

“Have a screaming orgasm, little fawn.”

He circled his hips as he said it, stroking his long shaft within you. He planted one sweet, sensual kiss after another on your lips, and kept your gaze locked with his.

You watched a smile touch Jimin’s full, handsome mouth. Then groans deepened the lines framing his lips. His eyes glowed as if they were on fire, and his deep, throaty moans … You drink all of them.

You were weak with pleasure, yet driven to rock with him. You clung to him, arching your hips, panting. Your nipples had hardened, and each thrust brushed them against his chest. Lips tingling from kisses, breasts throbbing from swift brushes, your quim pulsed … and fire raged in you, hotter than fire and you screamed as you came, body spasmodic.

He held you as his lips slurped at the slop of blood from the punctured marks on the peaks of your breasts.

It is when he pulls out of your body, he turns. This time, his eyes travel below your navel and licks at your core. There’s a thin stream of his release that flows from within you and there is a whit of warmth that seeps along with it, making his stomach clench with carnal hunger.

Carnal lechery for your blood and the musk of your release, it blows like a breeze over him.

Your fragrance consisted of a scent that represented freshly cut timber, like the damp forest after a rainy day; you smelt heavenly, like fresh-scented pine and honey, he wanted to indulge in the depths of the hint of cinnamon-like musk it produced.

It is the blood that reflected your lost virginity, your lost innocence. You are no more vestal, he has made you sin.

In the depths of night, your eyes were dew, scattering the nascent rays, ever illuminating the dark in his soul and he lusted vigorously for the taste of you, to let him be consumed by everything you offer to give him.

And so, he chains your limbs again, and blinds your vision for the nonce, for your senses to get heightened, for your slick to stream like nectar from ambrosia.

You gasp quietly at the impairment of your vision.

His fingers pluck a pair of pampas grass fluttering in the wind and when you feel it caress the tiny puncture holes at your sensitive nipples, you whimper, your slick caressing Jimin’s chest.

His lips find purchase at your inner thighs, fangs shallowly sinking into the soft flesh. The feeling makes your toes curl and you croak his name out in pure bliss.

“How delicious, your scent is divine, my fawn” he growls and pulls your core to his nose with vigour while you attempt to slither away, shyly.

“Trying to escape my grasp is useless, little fawn” he warns, making you cry out at the feeling of his arctic breaths blowing over your sensitive core.

“I’ll catch you faster than the wind could sheath around you” he gutturally breathes and spreads you beneath him, holding your soft thighs in his metal hold.

He moved lower, his breath teasing over your thigh. And then, you felt it, and the moan of pure ecstasy tore from your lips.

Jimin’s hot, wet tongue delved between your lips, dragging slowly and wetly up every bit of you until it flicked across your aching clit. You moaned in pleasure, crying out as his powerful hands pushed your legs wide apart and his wicked tongue pushed deep between them.

With a moan, your eyes flew open to see his face hovering above your delicate and exposed core. His eyes glinted wickedly at you, and you watched, panting in pleasure as he slowly licked his lips clean.

“Like nectar,” he growled. “Lie back, little fawn. Lie back and let me taste you.”

He moved back in, and suddenly, you moaned loudly. The feeling was like nothing else you had ever felt — this perfect, electric feeling of his icy tongue teased over your lips and clit. His wide, strong tongue dragged up and down your pussy, making your whole body arch and tremble for him. You balled your fists and cried out into the flickering firelight of the cave.

He slid his tongue deep inside, spreading your lips with his fingers, dragging your sticky wetness up from your opening to slide electrically across your aching clit. You arched my back and cried out as his tongue made contact there. It curled at your bud, bringing whimpering mewling sounds to your lips before sliding down through your folds again. You stiffened, and then moaned as you felt that hot, wet tongue slide wickedly against the opening of your arse, making you gasp as it slid over the sensitive ring there.

You couldn’t believe the sensations flooding your body at the touch of this rough, powerful, demanding, gorgeous man — from the rouge who was gentle to a creature with hound-like   lust for your dripping arousal and blood.

His tongue pushed against your opening, pushing in to curl sensually inside of you. His thumb moved to your clit, his growl rumbling through me as he teased your little bud and tongue-fucked your slippery core, making you clench and arch your back off the stone under you.

You screamed as the orgasm exploded through you, hips bucking against Jimin’s perfect mouth. Your core clenched at the invading tongue, spasming around its thick wetness while the orgasm ripped through me. The famished count hungrily growled and pushed his tongue deep inside, tasting all of your virginal blood as the aftershocks exploded through you.

Slowly, he pulled away, his lips trailing over the little seam of your inner thigh as your whole world spun under you.

The feathery leaves of the pampas grass caressed the seams following his mouth and you felt his arms lifting you onto his lap, straddling him. He gently entered you again, mouth tracing the prominent vein at your jugular, tongue teasing it.

You shook and rippled around his thick wood, chains rattling loudly as you bite at every inch of his skin that your mouth could reach.

“I am going to turn you, my sweet fawn. Tonight is perfect, the moon is hidden and the branches sing for us. Let it all out, scream my name” they are incessant breaths against your jugular and you clench around him, hearing him cry out his devotion for you.

“I am ready, my lord. Turn me, I— I belong to you!” you cry out as the tip of his girth brushes your most sensitive spot.

Then the whooshing wind caresses your bare bodies, you feel the chains loosen and fall to the ground while Jimin embraces your shaking body entirely, increasing the pace of his inhuman thrusts.

His mouth takes yours and swallows your pleasured pants, yours tongue mulls his own when he feels your fingers thread through his soft locks and dig into his scalp. His hold on your hips are deathly and when he feels you clench and pant harder, he bites into the inside of his cheeks, closing his eyes as his blood trickles from his mouth, into yours.

Your throat closes at the repulsive, metallic taste and you gag, making Jimin tighten his hold on you. He twists your tongues together and urges you on, making you swallow down the thick drops of his blood.

When you feel his member caressing that sensitive spot of your insides once again, you gulp faster and Jimin smiles blissfully into your mouth as his tongue traces the sharp lines of your protruding canines, they course rapidly into pointy knives and he relishes in the sharpness of your fangs, tongue drinking your breaths in.

There’s an ethereal glow of light sheathing around the two of you. For a nonce, the bright, golden-silvery stratum panelling over you in particular makes the deep, dark abyss of the night seem like day. The round curves of your orbs sparkle an aurish dust and makes you look more beguiling than any other supernatural power to ever exist.

Jimin feels the illuminance and shuts his eyes in ecstasy for the warm streams of your blood chills into familiar ice, the same temperature as his. Your thrusts are gentled and you cry out in a new found lust for Jimin’s blood.

He can feel the urgency in your gulps as you grow more hungry for blood, his blood. He shudders when you sink onto him again, tilting his head to pierce your fangs into his throat.

He groans at the pleasurable feeling of your mouth gulping his blood hungrily and he forces you to pause, for his eyes to drink in the birth of your vampiric form.

The moment you open your eyes and stare into his, his breath catches.

Your orbs are a beautiful, fierce topaz-crimson and there is a bleached tone added to the luscious sheen of your skin, when you lick the drops of his blood from your lips, exposing the knives of your fangs, he feels the carnal lechery for you boil in his heart and stir at his manhood.

You are fully turned, looking like the goddess of death herself, veiled in an ethereal halo in the deep, dark, inked night.

His eyes drink your appearance ravenously and he concludes. Carnal lechery for you, that’s what possessed him all those years ago, that’s what drives him to sink his fangs into your flesh and drink your sweet blood over and over.

You are turned and you are eternally bonded to him, there’ll be no mongrel mortal in this universe to take you away from him.

Autumn days wane toward the inevitable colder weather ahead, each nightfall coming sooner that the one before.

Seven days were gone ever since you were welcomed and brought to the Rouge’s dwelling, the rocky fort miles away from your grim, little mossy town.

Topaz leaves dangled from the shadowy skeletons of trees, each one like as ominous sword of Damocles. The river was almost ice, showing reflections of the heavy, ashy sky so thick. The chill breeze rattling at the closed windows of the fort seemed to cry autumn, the roads were moist with stealthy dew as the season deepens their graceful boughs will be the prettiest of charcoal sketches, drawing themselves tall, reflecting the light of a wintry sun.

You are huddled in the silky red sheets of Jimin’s large duvety mattress, the lines of your naked legs traced by the sheets. You lie fatigued after a thorough session of lovemaking with your mate while he wordlessly caresses your hair, eyeing your curves, breathing the essence of your hair as he licks the remains of your dried blood from your breasts.

The sudden slam of the door came like a punctuation. There were panicked calls all around in the veranda and one of the maids peek their head through the door to the master chamber, her chest rising and falling in urgency.

“Forgive me for barging in, master and mistress”, she breathlessly bows, making you both rise, startled. You scatter to cover your body with the sheets while Jimin groans and ties his night robes to shield his body.

“Master, we seem to have an intruder. The other masters summoned you to the court immediately”, she keeps her eyes low and Jimin barks at her.

“How would we have an intruder? This fort is well protected!” he grunts and turns to you, placing a soft kiss on your lips as you eye the maid scurrying away, bowed.

“I’ll be right back, my love. You might as well get dressed".

You smile and pull on your silky night robes to your body, mindlessly staring at the creaking trees in the wind while Jimin marches to the veranda, his booming commands slowly ebbing away.

For a few ticks of chime, you hear nothing but the rustling leaves, sparrows chirping at a distance and the echoes of voices downstairs. When the door to the chamber you lie in opens on the spur of the serene moment, you fall back and onto your elbows, on the cottony patchwork of the carpeted floor.

A loud gasp knocks your lungs at the sight of the familiar fern-eyed, thick woman looming over you, offering her hand.

Siena. She is puffing out harsh breaths and her legs tremble, hasten. She seems too afraid as her eyes cavort to the door in trepidation and you realise, she is the intruder.

“Y/N! Y/N. You should listen to me, you should run away, the one you are with is a monster!” she hastily whispers, gripping at your arm.

You yawp at her gnawing grip and attempt to pull your arm to yourself and grit your teeth. At the sight of your crimson eyes, Siena’s hold gets loosened.

“H—he turned you, didn’t he?” she utters in shock, something in her eyes clutches at her back again and she pleads you again. You sigh and move to the chamber’s doors, pulling the latch to lock and you turn to face her.

“I am sorry sister Siena, but I must ask you to leave. History does not tell the truth. The Rouge were innocent, it was the people who broke the treaty”.

You eye her pitifully. She had come all the way for vain.

“Jimin is by nature of laws, my soulmate. I cannot live apart from him, I am no longer one of the mortals”. You proclaim, clasping your fingers together.

“Now, please leave—”

“I am afraid you do not know everything” mumbles Siena quietly, her olive eyes swimming in a stream of exigency, her limbs still tremble.

“Who has Park claimed to have murdered you in the past, Y/N?”

The will to not let her affect your resolution faintly faltered at the sight of her tenacity, she shakes similar to a leaf jostled by storm gales yet, her eyes remain adamant.

“Tell me, please”, she begs to the extremity of crumbling, her orbs trembling just as much as her limbs do.

You release the air from your lungs and mutter softly— “Humans. The ancestors of our town. I saw it, the evocation of my past self, I was killed by the town folks”.

Siena shook her head, her face contouring into a brew of disdain as well as pity, you were almost uncertain if it was aimed towards you.

The whooshing gales and Siena’s voice seem the same when she mutters out what earth had not devised itself ready to hear.

“No, my dear. It was not the town folks who had killed you, it was the very man you share this bed with, the most conniving, astute count amongst his brothers— Park Jimin of the Rouge!”

And in that light the carpet of leaves became crooked, and all aurish colours vanished, the wind tumbling around the empty space. Your heart pounded wildly in your chest and your face morphed into one of disdain, you were abhorred yet, shattered to the ground like the dry twigs stepped on by passing carts.

You knew nuns took an oath to preserve and authentic despite the unembellished life they lead because you were one too. Siena was not lying, every single word of hers proves to be true only by the contours of concern etched on her face.

“H-how? I—” you flounder like a fish taken out of the pond.

Siena sighs dismally. “When I went to the elder canonesses on halloween night, the eldest of them apprised a hidden tale of a young town girl and her lover— Hyun woo whose throats were silt by the third youngest of the Rouge”,

“Only sister Ann knew the story behind it”. You listened carefully, feeling prostrated mercilessly.

“Park Jimin had found his consort and by the scent of her blood, he knew she was destined to be bonded to him by nature’s law. But, she was irrevocably in love with another mortal to whom she had been having love affairs with, even as she was taken against her will to the Rouge fort”,

“An infuriated Park had butchered the young woman’s lover in front of her whilst the woman pleaded and cried for the man’s life. As days passed, Jimin’s consort became coldly vacant in grief",

You were turned into stone at her words.

“She had ultimately repudiated to consummate their bond. The same night when Jimin had killed her to erase the memories of her lover, the town folks declared a war to avenge Hyun woo and rescue the young woman. Park Jimin had promulgated to his brothers that the woman was killed by humans, he must have recast your past self’s memories, Y/N! He is not the gentle lover you loyally surmise him to be!”

One time when you were blind in a tree, waiting motionless for wind to wander by, you dozed off and fell ten feet to the ground, landing on your back. It was as if the impact had knocked every wisp of air from your lungs, and you lay there struggling to inhale, to exhale, to do anything.

That was how you felt at the moment, your ribs felt crushed into a mere refuse, fear and disgust of your past killer’s touch burned everywhere, the faded puncture marks on the peaks of your breasts, thighs, neck, shoulders felt as if touched by the flicks of flame, you felt abhorred.

Even the loud rap of knocks and thuds on the door to the chambers were heard, you were frozen into ice. Eyes teary, vision blurred, you fell to the ground, crestfallen.

Siena shakes you harder in panic at the sight of the door’s latch rattling violently, the sundry of voices with Jimin’s voice rack unpleasant shudders through her spine as she attempts to resuscitate you to the present.

A single squawk like a squall causes the doors to shatter as if hurled to the ground by a tempest. Park Jimin stands sited at the other side. There is not a sliver of a plinth to hold his rage in place, he looks irked to the brim of extremes.

“Seize her!” he barks and by the tick of a second, Siena is hefted into the air by a couple guards, their grasps cause her to bawl in pain.

“Y/N! My dear, what did she do to you?“ Jimin’s voice is mellowy as he gathers you into his arms, perusing your form thoroughly.

Like the mountain river under sunlight, like snow melting under the beaming sunlight, like the gentle song of the topaz leaves swaying in the autumn breeze, his voice was pleasant as beautiful as his perfectly sculpted face.

You shake away weakly from his grasp and his face withers, twinging a deep cut into your heart.

“You cold-blooded murderer, let her free”. You mutter, abhorred and stare at him, as empty as the ocean at night.

Jimin peruses Siena and you wordlessly, taken aback by your sudden disgust. When you see his head lift and lips curl to one side, you see the once loving mate of yours turn into the callous, blood-thirsty hound of a creature that slaughtered so many lives for its own illiberal gain.

“I see my little fawn has discovered the truth”, he heinously chuckles, making you swallow down in utter disgust.

“It was worth the effort, was it not?” he perches himself on his lush seater loftily, a wicked grin stretches his lips at Siena’s struggles.

“Now that I have the maiden of my dreams to myself”, he wickedly whispers, his sharp eyes travel down your body as he slips his lower lip into his mouth.

“I can debauch her to my heart’s content” his eyes are demanding as they meet yours, his slender fingers tipping against the mahogany handle of his seater.

“What causes you to think I would submit to you?” you spew the words like venom as the haughty count feigns hurt, crumbling to the ground.

In a blink of an eye, Jimin whooshes at an inhuman pace across the chamber to you, gripping your jaws tight from the behind as he has his own clenched. Your wrists are pressed together at your back and he presses his chest to your back.

You attempt to wriggle away at the bulge pressing into the cleft of your arse and you screech at his hold.

“What can be done by a little fawn like you, against me? There is a reason why I did not wait even for an hour to turn you that night”. He lilts mockingly, lips brushing the lobe of your ear.

“Oh, little fawn. I had become the master of your body, soul and mind duly after turning you. Every single thought that runs in this little head, I can hear it”. He declares, arms slithering around your body in a vice-like grip.

“After decades of longing, I finally had you. Would I not have prepared for the same mistake to never occur again?” he presses his nose to your jugular, breathing your scent. It makes him roll his eyes in pleasure as the heavenly scent tickles his lungs.

Your fighting limbs fall limp as his fangs pierces the skin of your jugular, taking little gulps of your sweet blood.

Siena screams as she realises the actions performed on you by the count. She seethes and cusses, fighting against the guards’ hold on her.

“Forget everything that makes me bad in your eyes, little fawn”,  Jimin whispers pleasantly, making you fall into a lull of sleep with a soft hum.

“Only I am your love, only I am your lord, no other mongrel of a mortal owns you, forget it all, my one and only little fawn”, he sings soothingly, lifting you in his arms more delicate than a priceless treasure, cooing in adoration at the sight of your angelic face in peace and parted lips, memories flitting you away from him washed away profoundly.

In the course of a mo, Siena’s head is snapped and the poor nun’s body is embedded into the fertile earth heedlessly.

A famished count with an endless carnal lechery presses a soft kiss to your lips and envelopes you in a lover’s embrace, waiting for your eyes to open and say his name sweetly, oblivious to events that have unfolded a very few chimes ago.

Carnal lechery, it was what possessed him to possess you.

© unfurlingtwinklingstar 2020 | all rights reserved | do not re-post/translate

[lucienballard]

The Velvet Underground’s 30 greatest songs – ranked!

30. Ride Into the Sun (1969)The Velvets recorded two versions of Ride Into the Sun: a fabulous 1969 instrumental laden with fuzz guitar and a hushed 1970 vocal take backed by organ. Somewhere between the two lies one of their great lost songs; Lou Reed’s disappointingly flat 1972 solo version doesn’t do it justice at all.

29. Run Run Run (1967)For all the shock engendered by the lyrics of Heroin and I’m Waiting for My Man, the most malevolent-sounding track on the debut album might be Run Run Run, a powerful R&B groove lent a gripping darkness by Reed’s noisy guitar playing and the screw-you-I-take-drugs sneer of his vocals.

28. Beginning to See the Light (1969)The title suggests awakening, the melody is bright, but the lyrics are dark and bitter. They may have been directed at John Cale, who played on an initial version of the song, which was subsequently re-recorded after Reed sacked him, against the wishes of his bandmates. A ferocious 1969 live version amps up the tension.

27. Foggy Notion (1969)Reed was a lifelong doo-wop fan. His passion usually found its expression when the Velvet Underground recorded backing vocals for their ballads – as on Candy Says – but the tough, rocking Foggy Notion went a stage further, gleefully stealing a chunk of the Solitaires’ 1955 single Later for You Baby.

26. The Gift (1968)In which the band set a two-chord grind that may, or may not, have been based on their instrumental Booker T in one channel and a blackly comic Reed short story read by Cale in the other. “If you’re a mad fiend like we are, you’ll listen to them both together,” offered the producer, Tom Wilson.

25. Guess I’m Falling in Love (1967)Recorded at the White Light/White Heat sessions, but never completed, the April 1967 live recording of Guess I’m Falling in Love – taped at the Gymnasium in New York – will more than suffice. It boasts three chords, a distinct rhythm and blues influence, Reed in streetwise, so-what punk mode and explosive guitar solos somehow potentiated by the rough sound quality.

24. Temptation Inside Your Heart (1968)“It was not Mein Kampf – my struggle,” the guitarist Sterling Morrison once reflected of the Velvet Underground’s career. “It was fun.” A delightful late Cale-era outtake that inadvertently captured Morrison, Cale and Reed’s giggly backchat as they recorded the backing vocals, Temptation Inside Your Heart bears that assessment out.

23. New Age (1970)New Age comes in two varieties. Take your pick from the world-weary, small-hours rumination found on 1969: The Velvet Underground Live, or the more epic studio version that the Velvets biographer Victor Bockris suggested was “an attempt to present some encouraging statements to a confused audience as the 70s began”. Both are superb.

22. After Hours (1969)The Velvets’ eponymous 1969 album ends, improbably, with the drummer, Moe Tucker, singing a song that could have dated from the pre-rock era. The twist is that her childlike voice and the cute melody conceals an almost unbearably sad song, ostensibly a celebration of small-hours boozing, but filled with longing and regret.

21. I Can’t Stand It (1969)Amid the Velvets’ songs about drugs and drag queens lurked the plaintive sound of Reed pining for his college sweetheart, Shelley Albin, the subject of Pale Blue Eyes, I Found a Reason and I Can’t Stand It. The latter’s cocky strut is disrupted by a desperate lyrical plea: “If Shelley would just come back, it’d be all right.”

20. The Black Angel’s Death Song (1967)There is something folky and vaguely Dylan-esque at the heart of The Black Angel’s Death Song, but by the time Cale had finished with it – alternately strafing it with screeching, insistent viola and hissing into the microphone in lieu of a chorus – it sounded, and still sounds, unique.

19. I Found a Reason (1970)It is one of the ironies of the Velvet Underground that the most forward-thinking, groundbreaking band of their era could occasionally sound like old-fashioned rock’n’roll revivalists. Buried on side two of Loaded was one of the loveliest of Lou Reed’s loving homages to doo-wop, complete with spoken-word section.

18. Some Kinda Love (1969)Musically straightforward, sensual in tone, Some Kinda Love is a complex business, part seduction soundtrack, part refusal to be hemmed in by standard categories of sexuality – “no kinds of love are better than others … the possibilities are endless / and for me to miss one / would seem to be groundless”. Killer line: “Between thought and expression lies a lifetime.”

17. European Son (1967)European Son isn’t a song so much as an eruption. It sounds like a band overturning the established order of rock’n’roll, almost literally: after two brief verses, it bursts into thrilling frantic chaos with a verbatim crash, like the contents of an upended table hitting the floor.

16. Rock & Roll (1970)It is hard to see Loaded’s driving, joyous hymn to music’s redemptive power – “her life was saved by rock and roll” – as anything other than disguised autobiography on the part of Reed. The suggestion that music will endure “despite all the amputations”, meanwhile, seems to look forward to his departure from the Velvet Underground.

15. Candy Says (1969)No one else in 1969 was writing songs remotely like Candy Says, a stunning, tender pen portrait of the transgender Warhol superstar Candy Darling set to a gentle doo-wop inspired backing. Its melancholy seems to presage the note Darling wrote on her deathbed in 1974: “I had no desire for life left … I am just so bored by everything.”

14. Sunday Morning (1967)Sunday Morning was written at the behest of Wilson. He wanted a single that might conceivably get on the radio; he got a haunting, melancholy sigh of a song, its battered wistfulness and undercurrent of paranoia – “watch out, the world’s behind you” – the perfect encapsulation of morning-after regret.

13. What Goes On (1969)Morrison maintained that the studio incarnation of What Goes On wasn’t a patch on the live versions the band performed with Cale on organ. Maybe, but the studio incarnation featuring Cale’s replacement, Doug Yule, is great. It prickles with nervous energy, Reed’s guitar playing is amazing, its churning coda takes up half the song and it still feels too short.

12. Femme Fatale (1967)Apparently provoked by the damaged, doomed Warhol superstar Edie Sedgwick – with whom Cale had a brief affair – Femme Fatale is as beautiful and fragile as its inspiration. The story of a wary, ruined former suitor warning others off the titular anti-heroine is lent a chilly edge by Nico’s delivery.

11. I Heard Her Call My Name (1968)In the Velvets’ early days, Reed purported to be “the fastest guitarist alive”. A berserk claim, but his Ornette Coleman-inspired solos on I Heard Her Call My Name are some of the most extraordinary and viscerally exciting in rock history, frequently atonal, spiked with ear-splitting feedback and pregnant pauses.

10. Ocean (1969)The Velvet Underground recorded Ocean several times – one version is supposed to feature the return of Cale on organ – but never released it in their lifetime, which seems extraordinary. It is among the greatest of their later songs, its atmosphere beautiful, the epic ebb and flow of its sound completely immersive.

9. I’m Waiting for the Man (1967)An unvarnished lyrical depiction of scoring drugs tied to music on which Reed’s rock’n’roll smarts and Cale’s background in minimalist classical music – the pounding, one-chord piano part – meld in a kind of relentless perfection. Amusingly, there is now a pharmacy at the song’s fabled location of Lexington 125.

8. I’ll Be Your Mirror (1967)A song about Reed’s affair with Nico that could just as easily be about Andy Warhol’s approach to art, I’ll Be Your Mirror is one of those Velvet Underground tracks that makes their initial commercial failure seem baffling. How could a pop song as wonderful as this fail to attract attention? Nico and Morrison on stage at the New York Society for Clinical Psychiatry annual dinner in 1966.

7. White Light/White Heat (1968)A delirious paean to amphetamine, its subject reflected in the lyrics – “I surely do love to watch that stuff tip itself in” – and the turbulent, distorted rush of its sound. The band appear to be barely in control as it careers along; the chaotic finale, where Cale finally loses his grip on the bass line, is just fantastic.

6. Heroin (1967)Heroin was the deal-breaker at early Velvets gigs, provoking a “howl of bewilderment and outrage”. The shock of its subject matter has dulled with time, but its surges from folky lament to sonic riot still sound breathtaking. Oddly sweet moment: Reed’s chuckle as Tucker loses her place amid the maelstrom and suddenly stops playing.

5. Pale Blue Eyes (1969)“High energy does not necessarily mean fast,” Reed once argued. “High energy has to do with heart.” Hushed, limpidly beautiful and almost unbearably sad, Pale Blue Eyes’ depiction of a strained, adulterous relationship proves his point. In its own vulnerable way, it is as powerful as anything the Velvet Underground recorded.

4. Sweet Jane (1970)Sweet Jane started life as a ballad – see the versions recorded live at the Matrix in San Francisco in 1969 – but, sped and toughened up, it became as succinct and perfect a rock’n’roll song as has ever been written, based around one of the greatest riffs of all time.

3. Venus in Furs (1967)For a band who inspired so much other music, the Velvet Underground’s catalogue is remarkably rich with songs that still sound like nothing else; they were as inimitable as they were influential. Venus in Furs is a case in point: umpteen artists were galvanised by its dark, austere atmosphere; none succeeded in replicating it.

2. Sister Ray (1968)A monumental journey into hitherto-uncharted musical territory, where a primitive garage-rock riff meets Hubert Selby-inspired lyrics and improvisation that sounds like a psychological drama playing out between Reed and Cale, all at skull-splitting volume. Fifty-three years later, it is without peer for white-knuckle intensity.

1. All Tomorrow’s Parties (1967)Ninety per cent of the Velvet Underground’s oeuvre consists of no-further-questions classics. The astonishingly high standard of almost everything they did makes picking their “best” song a matter of personal preference, rather than qualitative judgment. So let’s go for Warhol’s favourite, on which the sour and sweet aspects of their debut album entwine faultlessly. The melody is exquisite; the music monolithic and unrelenting, powered by Cale’s hammering piano and Tucker’s stately drums; Nico’s performance perfectly inhabits the lyrics, which turn a depiction of a woman choosing what dress to wear into a meditation on emptiness and regret. It is original and utterly masterly: the Velvet Underground in a nutshell.

source

[ivy-kissobryos]

Calming hearts, dulling anger

“Stay, furious contests, and avenging strife, whose works with woe, embitter human life;

To lovely Venus, and to Bacchus yield, to Ceres give the weapons of the field;

Encourage peace, to gentle works inclin'd, and give abundance, with benignant mind.”

- Orphic Hymn to Ares

“Will you dare raise your spear against mighty Zeus?”

PGM IV. 467-68 Charm to restrain anger

“…Shed down a kindly ray from above upon my life…that I may be able to drive away bitter cowardice from my head and crush down the deceitful impulses of my soul. Restrain also the keen fury of my heart which provokes me to tread the ways of blood-curdling strife. Rather, O blessed one, give you me boldness to abide within the harmless laws of peace, avoiding strife and hatred and the violent fiends of death.”

— Homeric Hymn to Ares

“I call upon Bacchos Perikionios, giver of wine; he enveloped all of Kadmos’ house, with his might he harnessed, he calmed the heaving earth, when the blazing thunderbolt, when the raging gale stirred all the land, as everyone’s bonds sprang lose. Blessed reveler, come with joyful heart!”

— To Perikionios

[dustedmagazine]

Dust Volume 7, Number 10

Chillingsworth Surfingham is Dust’s first ever musical teddy bear.

That craptastic summer is done, no more heat dome, or fires, or inland hurricanes and or continual threat of catastrophe, and we greet the change of seasons with a sigh of relief. Now that things have calmed — and cooled — down, we can dig into the piles of new releases in acid folk, jazz, metal, punk, rap and, our favorite, unclassifiable, to find what’s good and what’s not. This month’s sonic explorers include Jennifer Kelly, Bill Meyer, Ray Garraty, Justin Cober-Lake, Ian Mathers, Chris Liberato, Bryon Hayes and Jonathan Shaw.

Adeline Hotel — The Cherries Are Speaking (Ruination)

The Cherries Are Speaking by Adeline Hotel

When we last caught up with Dan Knishkowy, he was mostly concerned with improvised guitar, tracing smoke-wispy blues licks in the ruminative Good Timing from earlier this year. The Cherries Are Speaking deploys a more varied collection of sounds: a jaunty, jazzy saxophone from David Lackner, some lush and evocative strings from Macie Stewart and piano, the instrument that Knishkowy turned to in the long months of the pandemic. The result is a set of songs that veer more towards baroque pop than stripped down country folk. The title track, for instance, swells with lavish sonics, a fluttery flute, some vibrato-laden violins, a blowsy soft-toned saxophone. The piano parts are clear but simple, picking out sparkly counterpoints to Knishkowy’s blues vocals on “Raspberry Stains,” adding arpeggiated flourishes to “We Go Outside.” Knishkowy’s longtime rhythm section of Sean Mullins and Andrew Stocker offers subtle, jazz-infused grounding, while guest vocals including Eric D. Johnson (more in Bonny Light Horseman mode than Fruit Bats), Caitlin Pasko and Vivian McConell (from V.V. Lightbody) fill out his quiet melodies. You might not even realize there’s no guitar at all in The Cherries Are Speaking until you check the credits. You won’t miss it. There’s plenty to hear without it.

Jennifer Kelly

 Robbie Avenaim / Chris Abrahams / Jim Denley—Weft (Relative Pitch)

Weft by Robbie Avenaim, Chris Abrahams, Jim Denley

If I told you that there’s a new record by a trio that includes Chris Abrahams, and it consists of one 45-minute-long track, you might think that you have a pretty good idea how it sounds. And if you said, “it sounds like the Necks,” that would be understandable but also inaccurate. While this trio, does, like the Necks, operate in the zone of long-form, spontaneous music-making, both the instruments used and the personalities wielding them ensure that this sounds different from any trio you have ever heard. Abrahams sticks to synthesizer, with which he cultivates an insectoid environment embedded with quietly glassy interludes. The breathy curlicues, low blows and amplified keypads of Jim Denley’s bass flute lob sounds out of said environment as comfortably as frogs conversing in a country pond. But it is Robbie Avenaim, a frequent associate of Oren Ambarchi, who really sets this session apart. He plays prepared typewriter, running its rustle and clatter through an unidentified chain of preparations that makes one forget where the sounds came from and further focuses the ear upon the way this music establishes its own space for the duration of its existence.

Bill Meyer

Atræ Bilis — Apexapien (20 Buck Spin)

Apexapien by Atræ Bilis

This debut full-length from Canadian filthers Atræ Bilis is quite uneven and unoriginal. The band runs through all possible types of death metal (skipping only grind-infused ones). The lowest point is two tracks with the similar structure. “Open the Effigy” and “By The Hierophant's Maw” both venture too close to deathcore territory. The highest point is probably “Hymn of the Flies”, highly technical with sound signatures and changes in tempo and punchiest riffing. The rest of the CD falls in between and will be rightfully forgotten after a week or two.

Ray Garraty

Bevel — Angler Senses (Astral Editions)

Angler Senses by Bevel

You have to respect a man who tells it like it is. “I love my cat more than I could ever love you,” pledges Via Nuon, who is the singer, guitarist, and “all the other instruments not played by these jazz guys”-ist of Bevel. Many individuals who have sustained long-term relationships with both humans and felines know exactly how he feels. And as you listen to this album, which is confined to the humble realms of the digital and cassette-spheres, you will have other experiences of understanding. For while this album is being released on Astral Editions, which is mostly devoted to stuff too fringy for the Astral Spirits jazz label, a couple decades back this record would probably have gotten released on Secretly Canadian and gotten a high-profile review on Pitchfork. Maybe the latter will still happen, and maybe that imaginary reviewer will tell you the same thing as me — Mr. Nuon knows what he’s doing. His skills as a guitarist and baroque pop arranger are beyond reproach, and the vulnerability imparted by his singing makes up for his challenges at nailing each and every pitch. And when you listen, he speaks truths that are no less true for being as mundane as your life. All respect to his cat, and to him, too.

Bill Meyer

 Cherry Cheeks — S-T (Total Punk)

S/T LP by CHERRY CHEEKS

Cherry Cheeks makes a brash, herky-jerk kind of punk rock, with clanky chunky bitten off bass fighting off brutalist drumming and a guitar crashing through from the floor upstairs. It sounds like a band, but it’s actually the one-person, pandemic project of one Kyle Harms, originally from Orlando, but now relocated to Portland, Oregon. There’s a degree of conflict in these songs that makes the one-person business faintly unbelievable, but if you haven’t had an argument with yourself these long COVID months, you’re probably doing it wrong. In any case, the stop-start aggro of “Go Outside,” will likely sound good to anyone who likes Bodega. The fanciful yet forceful stomp of “Two Bugs,” may call to fans of Terry. In “Boxes,” the bassline banks off walls and caroms off angles, while a firestorm of guitar rips through whatever it leaves standing. The cut, perhaps inspired by Harms’ recent cross-country move, rattles a chorus of “Everything comes in boxes, boxes” that is unnervingly aggressive. There are wild swirl of keyboard and tunefulness pushed to Jay Reatard-esque levels of agitation, and all in all, 25 minutes of pure fun.

Jennifer Kelly

 Chillingsworth Surfingham — Chillingsworth (ATOM)

Every few years we need a surf guitar revival. Usually, it takes a Tarantino movie or some indie-rockers taking a vacation. Probably it's no indication of an imminent revival, but the Bobbleheads' John Ashfield gets to the beach in a new way. He's created a teddy bear alter-ego named Chillingsworth Surfingham, and given him free range of his Dick Dale collection. Were Ashfield simply rehashing the old tropes, this Chillingsworth album could simply slide into your novelty pile and await its time in the cutout bin (or whatever the new version of that old pile is). Ashfield finds more interesting routes, though, adding some psych and some darker material to the sounds. After the first few seconds of opener “Coronado,” he never fully plays to expectations. “Cowboy a Go-Go” toys with the ideas, but undercuts any attempts to enforce solemnity. “I Was There” highlights the shadier side of the genre while adding synth flourishes for a strange sort of experience. Ashfield's joy in the music runs throughout the disc, but that doesn't mean he hasn't worked at crafting something original. Both fun and intriguing, Chillingsworth Surfingham turns out to be a stuffed animal that does more than just play around.

Justin Cober-Lake

 Eluvium — Virga II (Temporary Residence)

Matthew Cooper started his Virga series of ambient albums out of creative restlessness and nostalgia, not the kind of cooped-upedness that’s led to so much similar work (crucially, the first instalment was in late 2019), but the sonic darkness of the first half of Virga II might make listeners wonder if the focus of the project has shifted in the interim. Not that the growling static of “Hallucination I” or the billowing noise of “Scarlet Hunter” are totally new registers for him, it’s just that you might need to go back to debut Lambent Material in 2003 for comparison. In the second half, though, the calmly glowing shoals of “Touch Returned” and the title track get closer to what Virga I was doing; both sides are equally compelling, the storm and the calm after, and it will be interesting to see whether Cooper takes these new generative tools he’s built and goes farther afield with them; there’s clearly fertile territory out there.

Ian Mathers

 Los Esplifs — Estraik Back (Self-Released)

Estraik Back by Los Esplifs

Los Esplifs reinterprets the clip clopping, side-swaying, heavily percussive forms of the cumbia with a lived-in love. The band, mainly a duo of jazz organist and multi-instrumentalist Saul Millan and Afro Cuban All Star Caleb Michel, brings jazz fusion and kraut rock into its fiery interpretation of “Y El Monsoon,” but plays “Otro Pais,” relatively straight, with intricate multi-timbred percussion and languid, ultra-romantic vocals. “Galaxia” puts a psychedelic sheen on cumbia’s off-beat thumping cadences, little frills of organ and swathes of wah wah’d guitar curling out of the steady rhythm. “Tekno Cumbia” pushes the traditional form even further out on a limb, with sing-song-y synths and rave-y four on the floor. The disc closes with an odd “Eskit,” in which gravel-voiced Spanish speakers seem to argue about whether they are Latino or LatinX, but why put things in boxes? Estraik Back certainly doesn’t.

Jennifer Kelly

 Glenn Echo — Fixed Memory (Self-released)

Fixed Memory by Glenn Echo

Glenn Echo, an experimental songwriting project headed by Matt Gaydar, has been around for a little over half a decade, moving steadily during that time from a fairly standard, whispery, guitar-based confessional indie folk towards something odder and more elaborate. Fixed Memory layers scratchy found sounds, electronic elements and unsettling rhythms over its plaintive melodies, landing somewhere in the vast spaces between, say, Iron and Wine and Radiohead. Some of the songs, “Moon and Wine,” for instance, are well-executed but conventional, their feathery picking and soft harmonies needing not much more than a guitar, a mic and a stool to take shape. But “Hearth” is edgier and more remote, powered by chilly synthetic tone-washes and skittering electronic rhythms, and sung in an eerie tenor that evokes Thom Yorke (and it’s perhaps worth mentioning that one of the very earliest items on Glenn Echo’s bandcamp.com page is a Radiohead cover). And yet Gaydar never lets complexity swamp the pensive prettiness of his melodies. “Drink Up This Fire” has a careless, jazzy lilt to it, sung at a murmur and framed by the slightest, most transparent bits of guitar. Solo songwriters are a dime a dozen, but this is more interesting and better.

Jennifer Kelly

 Havukruunu — Kuu Erkylän Yllä (Naturmacht Productions)

These Finnish mutants are usually slotted into the pagan black metal subgenre but only the final track “Talvikuu,” describing an ancient battle, betrays the band’s pagan roots. It’s probably the weakest cut on the whole EP, and who needs another battle hymn in Finnish pagan upholstery anyway? Seven-minute-long “Mustan merkin enteen alla” is another failure, attempting cosmic metal but delivering only clichés, from keyboard to clean vocals. Still, the first three cuts save the day with straight ahead, no-experiments, filthy vomit of black metal at Archgoat-like speed and a no hostages approach to riffing.

Ray Garraty

 Izzy Johnson — earth tones (Driftless)

“If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look about you,” proposes the Michigan state motto. It seems that Izzy Johnson would agree. In a press photo for their debut album, earth tones, the lifelong Michigander sits serenely in a field of spent wheat, soaking up some winter sun. Meanwhile, in the video for “Loving,” Johnson and pup take a walk through the peaceful, snowy forests of the state’s southern nature preserves. But the album’s ethereal soundscapes are elemental in ways not implied by its title: Johnson’s vocals blink to life suddenly like fireflies, casting a warm, blurry aura around them before flickering out again. And their guitar playing has the fluid feel of a warm country breeze, with slow-picked lines that trail off like colorful streamers into the sonic ether, blending with harp, flute, keyboard, and more. It’s a beautiful place to visit, whether you’re just stopping to enjoy the view, or looking for somewhere to go get lost.

Chris Liberato 

 La Luz — S-T (Sub Pop)

La Luz by La Luz

Seattle’s all female surf punk band, La Luz, waited until the fourth full-length to make an eponymous album, but this one is good enough to want your name on. The band, led by Shana Cleveland (who has made some very fine solo albums lately, too), brings a cool, melodic polish to songs that flicker with Nuggets fire. “In the Country,” which circulated as a single earlier in the summer, layers cooing, sighing vocals over a desert dry instrumental that’ll remind you of Ennio Morricone. “The Pines” is even better with sharp, slicing surf licks, tambourine-jangling beats, and an undeniable undercurrent of wistful melancholy. Cleveland is a talented guitarist steeped in surf, soul and freakbeat, but she doesn’t wallow in history, instead bringing these forms cleanly and clearly into the modern day.

Jennifer Kelly

 Sylvin Marc / Del Rabenja — Madagascar Now Maintenant ‘Zao (Souffle Continu)

Madagascar Now by Sylvin Marc / Del Rabenja

The France-based Souffle Continu label has reissued a handful of albums created by or associated with pianist Jef Gilson, and this one is the most exciting of the bunch. Multi-instrumentalists Marc and Rabenja, both from Madagascar, were in the jazz combo Gilson named after the African island nation’s people: Malagasy. On this recording they share bandleader and composer duties, with most of the compositions crafted by Marc. The A side features a modern take on traditional Malagasy song forms. Rabenja’s compositions feature the valiha, a tubular harp that sounds sort of like a zither. Traditional xylophones and tambourine-like instruments provide accompaniment. Marc takes Madagascar into funk territory, aided by the elastic bass of his cousin, Ange “Zizi” Japhet. Japhet and Marc also pull off some seriously bad-assed vocalising; could they just be Madagascar’s answer to James Brown? On the flip the band, which also includes Gerard Rakotoarivony on bass and Frank Raholison on drums, establishes themselves as a force capable of cranking out post-bop and free jazz. Rabenja switches to tenor sax and Fender Rhodes, while Marc takes up the bass. The three Marc-penned pieces swing either jauntily (“Del-Light”) or urgently (“Ô Ambalavoa ‘City’” and “Rotaka”). The latter is a fiery blast that shows off the instrumental prowess of this quintet. Lovingly restored on vinyl, Madagascar Now is an essential artifact for those interested in the Malagasy sounds — both traditional and jazzy — of the 1970s.    

Bryon Hayes 

 MVW — CLASSIC$ (AWAL)

Michael Vincent Waller has so far been known as a composer, and as MVW he’s not so much moving away from that world as applying it to a new context. Specifically rap, and the most striking thing about his inaugural CLASSIC$ EP under the new moniker is just how natural he and fellow producer Lex Luger make all the orchestral elements feel on these tracks. Whether it’s Jaydonclover providing sung interludes (and possibly the de rigeur producer ID at the beginning of many of the tracks) or the way Chicago rapper Valee nimbly darts around and through the beats, strings and other elements, CLASSIC$ makes what you might call orchestral trap and, even more impressively, never makes it sound like a novelty mashup. Among the brief tracks, the Valee showcase “Still Do” and trio cut “Really Wanna Know” stand out, the former for its loveliness cut with Valee’s verbal astringency and the latter for how woozy and off-kilter the looped string figure feels, perfectly underpinning each rapper. The possibilities are, to say the least, intriguing.

Ian Mathers

 Yann Novak — Lifeblood of Light and Rapture (Room40)

Lifeblood of Light and Rapture by Yann Novak

Serial ambient producer Yann Novak’s music is a cathartic exercise for him. Slowly Dismantling, his previous album for Room40, dealt with impermanence and identity; this collection of compositions is meant to overcome a twisted sort of fatalism. Ironically, the actions we take to escape the destructive tendencies of our own species often lead to the destruction of our own minds and bodies. Novak sees the hedonistic escape of his past reflected in humanity’s reliance on technology and its various distractions today. It’s a very salient viewpoint, especially considering that certain social media channels have recently come under fire for poisoning our youth in the name of profit. Sonically, the four extended pieces that Novak offers are far more hopeful. He synthesizes organ-like chords that waft in bright, colorful patterns. This isn’t necessarily cheerful music, but it is the almost sanguine antidote to the gloominess of Ravedeath, 1972-era Tim Hecker. With Lifeblood of Light and Rapture, Novak intended to shine a little light in a time of almost insurmountable negativity, and he has succeeded.

Bryon Hayes

  Offset Jim — Rich Off The Pack (Play Runners Association)

Offset Jim runs out of things to say ridiculously fast – in the first minute of this release. For the next 21 minutes, he strains to find new ways to say the same thing, repeating words in different combinations. Always down to earth, he’s downright pedestrian here. His usual skill with hooks is missing, too. A few guests fill out his uninspired verses, including AllBlack, EST Gee, Babyface Ray and Aitch. It’s hard to believe but they have even less to say than their host. A song called “Make No Sense” says it all: if you are rich off the pack why record such dull music? It makes no sense, really.

Ray Garraty 

 Brigid Mae Power — Burning Your Light (Fire)

Burning Your Light by Brigid Mae Power

Fresh off a string of well-regarded full-lengths, which began with her self-titled Tompkins Square album in 2016 and culminated in last year’s Head Above the Water, the Irish folksinger shows no qualms about taking on the big guns. This six-song covers EP reinterprets canonical material in fragile, idiosyncratic style. What her version of Aretha Franklin’s torch jazz, gospel-choired “It Ain’t Fair” gives up in sheer force and power, it makes up in flickering, soul-searching sensitivity. The manicured, polished twang of Patsy Cline’s “Leavin’ on Your Mind,” gives way to spare, pensive desolation. Dylan may swagger and howl and declaim in his original “One More Cup of Coffee,” but Power asks quietly, gracefully, stoically for a little more time with a lover on his way out. These melancholy songs—rounded out by cuts from Songs:Ohia, Townes Van Zandt and a traditional folk tune—don’t get in your face; they seem instead to ask you to respect the singer’s reticence. She doesn’t need to yell to get your attention.

Jennifer Kelly   

 Sorguinazia — Negation of Delirium (Iron Bonehead Records)

Iron BoneHead Productions · Sorguinazia - Black Spell Of Supremacy

You don’t hear a lot of black metal coming out of Canada — but it’s north and it’s white and it’s really, really cold. Conditions seem propitious. This new LP of kvlty, nasty black metal by Sorguinazia suggests that the Canadian tundra and charnel tar sands can produce music as hopeless and tormented as that which comes from more notorious climes in Scandinavia. Sorguinazia comprises a duo who identify as Xolaryxis and Axczor and make songs that have a sort of tidal action, swirling and churning with vertiginous, weirdly forceful playing. It’s pretty interesting: Xolaryxis’s guitar has the requisite icy brittleness, but his notes also bend and distend. At 42 minutes long, Negation of Delirium makes for a whole lot of bending and distending. Luckily, Sorguinazia saves some of the best stuff for the end of the record. “Saraswati” starts with a field recording of rain, a familiar element of many atmospheric moments on black metal records; eventually a distant drumbeat thrums under the sounds of rainfall, and there’s an occasional metallic jangle, perhaps a tambourine. The band lets that ride for well over three minutes. It’s simultaneously meditative and suspenseful. The sounds fade, there’s a moment of silence, and then “Neuromancy” commences; it’s a particular venomous version of the band’s characteristic black metal chaos. It’s hard to say why Saraswati, Hindu goddess of music, erudition and art, might be invoked just before such a savage sonic experience. Transcendence through decadent musical magic? But why Hinduism? Maybe the band digs the sensory overload of much Hindu iconography and ritual. At their best, Sorguinazia’s songs gesture toward such experiences. They’re a black metal band worth watching.

Jonathan Shaw

Zelma Stone — The Best (Self-Released)

The Best by Zelma Stone

Chloe Studebaker, who records as Zelma Stone, has had a rough few years, losing an older brother, her mom, her grandfather and a close friend in succession. But with this third EP this year, she seems to be gathering her strength and getting on with things, assuring us, on “Money Honey,” that “I’m fine now, I’m fine now, I’m fine.” She is certainly a velvet-voiced singer, murmuring soothingly then kicking it up into a blues-y diva-ish crescendos. And she’s got a way with laid-back rock tunes that simmer until they boil but never lose their tunefulness. A crack band helps her get these songs across, including Tyler English from Everyone Is Dirty, doing some evocative pedal steel and electric guitar, and jazz bassist Jodi Durst, here laying down a soulful underpinning. Studebaker reminds me a whole lot of an artist named Arrica Rose (sometimes heading the Dot Dot Dots). They share a vocal timbre, but it’s more than that. They’re both polished but genuine rock interpreters who can sing and play and lead a band in a rock goddess way that has become far less common than it used to be. I’d say she’s considerably more than fine.

Jennifer Kelly  

 Various Artists — Blackford Hill Transmissions Vol. 1 (Blackford Hill)

Transmissions / Volume One by Various artists

The Scottish experimentalists here run the gamut from unearthly folk to space age electronics and sometimes bring them into alignment. A 31-track compilation curated by Blackford Hill proprietor Simon Levin features a few medium well-known names like King Creosote, whose fragile tenor wafts over the hums and moans of wheezing synths in “Stopping Out (Concrete Antenna Reinterpretation)”, and Richard Youngs in full electronic mode in “Thought Plane 2020” with wobbly beats made of notes that phase in and out of pitch. Many of these artists seek to bridge natural and cyber-derived music, as in the gorgeous “Oxgangs Elegy” from Water of Life, which merges the sound of running water and wildlife with cool, meditative synth sounds and a dopplering siren that comes from far away. Rob St. John of Water of Life makes another rather impressive appearance in “Surface Tension,” which merges piano and autumnal string arrangements and a guitar in a cut that hovers magically about a foot off the ground in meditative tranquility. Classically trained Emily Scott, who sometimes performs with Modern Studies, contributes a serene chamber string-and-voice reverie in “The Garden,” while Mac Tella Nan Creag wreathes a stoic traditional Scots tune with whistling synth tones in “Lament for the Sons of Uislu.” Ultramarine’s “Ebbtide (from Blackwaterside)” is abstract and lyrical along the lines of Jon Hopkins work, while Andrew Wasylyk’s “Adrift Amid a Constellation (Tommy Perman Remix)” sets percolating synth motifs atop a steady four-on-floor dance beat. There’s a lot here, and you will undoubtedly find your own favorites. The search is part of the fun.

Jennifer Kelly

 Various Artists — Tymbal (Fuzzy Panda Recording Company)

Tymbal by Destroyer of Worlds

Depending on the type of news you consume, you may not have heard about Brood X at all, or it might have been practically all you heard about through May and June of this year. One of the many notable things about cicadas, of course, especially en masse, is just how loud they can be. So, DC’s Fuzzy Panda Recording Company provided 25 different musicians with hours of field recordings of Brood X, and then asked them to produce tracks using only those sounds as source samples. Given the number of those trying their hand and the rather singular nature of cicada sounds, it’s not too surprising that a decent number of the resulting tracks on Tymbal sound at least part of the time like anyone who’s lived around cicadas might expect them to sound. That doesn’t mean those more straightforward attempts don’t have their own buzzing, restless energy, though, and the places where contributors do stretch further and turn the cicadas into something more striking (the stuttering computer sound of Chester Hawkins’ “Plague Madrigal,” Small Craft’s luminous “they, like the comets, make but a short stay with us,” and the closing and impressively self-descriptive “Brood X Mechanical Dancebot '38” by Love of Ruins, to take just three examples) make Tymbal something special. 

Ian Mathers 

 Wreche — All My Dreams Came True (I, Voidhanger)

All My Dreams Came True by WRECHE

Surely one of the more bizarre recordings to be issued anywhere this year, Wreche’s All My Dreams Came True is the product of one John Steven Morgan, an Oakland-based composer and keyboard player with a serious love for black metal. So far, so good — but check out the first half of “Mysterium,” a combination of flowing, new-age piano; lush, melodramatic synths; percussion that manages to blast but also to sound jazzy and restrained; and Morgan’s strangled screams. It’s completely bananas, a synthesis of musical styles that have no business being in conversation with one another, much less being in a band together. The song’s second half gives itself over to compositional forms that are recognizably blackened — especially if one has in mind the more performative and epic modes of black metal — but the instrumentation and musicianship retain the stamp of Morgan’s singular hand. And the record only gets more spectacularly strange; see “The Darkling Thrush,” which starts with what feels like a nod to Chopin, and then explodes into operatically scaled intensities. And then the song goes on like that for over nine minutes. The freaks at I, Voidhanger have an ear for this sort of wackiness, and a knack for presenting recordings like All My Dreams Came True without any winking or smirking. The record itself is an undecidable thing, dancing forever on the threshold that separates access to idiosyncratic genius from uncomfortable voyeurism—that feeling you get when you’re prying into someone’s private obsessions, with all the infernal distortions that inform an obsession suddenly on naked display. The more you listen, the more you’re convinced that there’s something profoundly moving about Morgan’s music. He sure can play.

Jonathan Shaw

[randomguywithwords]

The Seraphim (DabiHawks God AU)

O thou shalt not tempt the Seraphim For he sees all with his crimson wings With a hundred eyes lying within  To sense the demons beneath your skin 

O thou shalt not anger the Seraphim He moves at great speeds unseen To meet your death with silent screams And arrive at the gates with butchered limbs

O thou shalt not fear the Seraphim, With a blessed face sung by hymns  Benevolent angel to save all things Those of darkness he brings fates grim 

-Tome Of The Makers, 12:28 

––––––––––

“Oh, where does Ignus go at night, go at night, go at night...” The fire god hummed as he skipped through the cerulean blaze that tore through the town, straight out of a painting of Hades. The screams around him were a delightful choir against the melody of the roaring flames, but good music could only last so long, for there was the interruption of beating wings. 

A violent gust extinguished his song from one flap of his wings, leaving only unsatisfied hisses of the embers. Ignus turned up to see the intruder, two blue eyes gazing upon the hundred amber ones studded on his red wings. 

Another flap, and rays of light burst from his eyes like sunbeams in the darkness, pointing in different directions. As Ignus watched, he saw the remaining few survivors ascending upwards, for another god to retrieve. He made a sound of annoyance, before turning back to face the Seraphim. 

“How good of you to show up, Avem. I’ve not seen you for centuries.” Ignus drawled. 

“And peace was bestowed upon these mortals in those centuries.” Avem descended, wielding his blade, till his bare feet touched the scorched earth. “You’ve risen from the depths to take that peace away. Begone.”

Ignus clucked his tongue. “The sky, Avem. I came from the sky, streaking downwards like a comet, same place you came from. These mortals thought I was a good omen, so I fulfilled their wish.” He kicked a skull aside. 

“If you have a similar wish, I’d be honoured to fulfil yours.” 

“Perhaps it once was, to die a cursed hellspawn of my father. How is he, by the way? Still meting justice like he has any right to?”

“Better than you,” Avem said, his unflinching blank gaze boring deep into Ignus.

“Ah.” A flicker of anger hardened his expression. “I suppose five centuries weren’t enough to bring about change. Immortality does that, does it not? Makes existence...not mortal-like.” The concept was difficult to fathom. 

“Enough words. You’ve been on this earth long enough. You must return to your prison.”

The feathers came at him with blinding speed, along with Avem’s blade. Ignus leapt out of the way.

“Don’t be so rash, Avem. I’m not even using a fraction of my power, and neither are you. You would be unable to stop me if I chose to. Not before I incinerate an entire continent.” 

The first hint of emotion striking his countenance: frustration. Ignus grinned. 

“Let’s talk this out rationally, like well-behaved gods, shall we?” 

“I’ll entertain your antics for a while more.” Hawks rested his sword on the ground, holding it with both of his hands. 

“You entertained it once,” Ignus murmured, the smile sliding off his face for a moment. Even with his vast ocean of memories, the memories of that mortal life he indulged in – briefly, stood out like a fire on a winter’s night. 

His blank eyes became unfocused, glancing elsewhere before they sharpened again. Ignus’ heart beat. Could he possibly still remember...?

“Keigo Takami,” Dabi breathed, hoping, praying it would do – 

“GAH!” Avem’s blade was embedded In his gut in the second he was distracted. Ignus growled as the pain spiked upwards like cracking ice. He pulled it out and dodged another flurry of feathers. 

“Return to your prison.” His voice was colder, like the blizzards that began the age of frost. Holding his hand out, his blade returned to its owner. 

“And what about yours, you insufferable being?” Ignus roared as he coalesced an inferno into one blast, incinerating the swarm. As the dust cleared, he sent a glare at Avem, feeling a mixture of frustration and desperation churn within him. Was their magic that strong? 

Avem was silent as he resummoned his wings and sent a last hurricane of feathers. Ignus looked at him. There was no trace of memories on his face. Did he even remember...

“Touya, it’s Touya, Keigo.” 

SCCHING! It came in a blink of light and accompanied by fury Ignus knew was not the fault of Avem, but his makers. A sharp pain blossomed in his chest. 

Ignus dropped to his knees, the blade running him through. Ichor dripped from the tip. 

“Ah. Guess not.” He blinked. Whatever curse the makers put on him...Maybe he could try again in a few centuries. 

“O thou shalt not love the Seraphim,” Ignus murmured, as he stared up at the night sky. 

“Those eyes hold no emotion within.  White irises that once beheld a dream, A dream lost to angelic shackles and chains.” 

––––––––

I don’t know what this was meant to be. I just wrote the poem first and then the short story came after. In terms of a coherent universe, that might not exist. Same goes for plot. Might edit this some time if the God AU ever becomes something worth exploring. I’m kinda sure people have done this AU to death (ironic)

Also Ignus is fire and Avem is bird, in latin. 

[voidselfshipp]

The Sound Of Kindness

You know when you read a fanfic with great idea but the reader insert is always scared and its frustrated.

Well heres the opposite with me and death meeting based off that fic.

Tw:implications of child abuse

Ok to rb

Ozi has told her Many times,do not bother the dead.

Jerico was a Smart goddess, half human now, but that side of hers couldnt Keep still.

She Walked Into the old manor, the moonlight dripped from the dusty blinds.

Theres something here.

She could feel it,the Mark on her hand shined softly,reminescent of the morning sun.

She kept on waking, the energy was coming from the basement, she was a goddess, one swift move and she Will transform into a big white dragon.

She felt fear before,before she discovered her past life,but her powers gave her bravery,and knowing that the beating of her heart could impulse defeated batallions back to the fight.

Her heartbeat ran like wild horses marching into battle,the anticipation of a misadventure pumped her up, her hands,now claws, softly caressed the handrail as she went down the old stairs.

The door closes, and she jumps.

--Okay....,that was weird--she should have told her aunt at least.

Though ozi wouldnt be fine with it.

Something moved, swiftly.

--I know youre here--she said.

And he knew that.

Death, now in his reaper form hid in the shadows, the ammount of power that poured from that small human, scared Him a little.

He saw her face soften,and her ears perk up,those green eyes met his, and he felt a warm feeling in his empty ribcage.

--Hey there you are--she Walked softly to him, and he wasnt expecting the dragon like wings that came from her back,as she flied right infront of his face.

--....not.....scared??--its all he could muster in that form.

--Ive dealt with scarier things...--she then giggled.

She was tainted with the smell of death too,but not from hers, a fellow reaper...or the goddess of death.

--im jerico--she said.

Thats when his pupils caught the Mark on her right hand.

His long neck spiraled around her back,where he saw her exposed skin,and the bright sun Mark there shining brightly.

--terran.....?--he said again, turning back to meet her face.

-- hir-- she said in clear terran-- homyd geviizalaz-- he tilted his head--Yes,im terran,youre quite observant arent you

--what....are...you?--his raspy voice almost dry,Like its not been used in a while.

--Its a very long story....nor human,nor goddess,nor demigoddess,what I am,not even I know, and if you dont mind me asking, what are you?

--....horseman...

--nice to meet you--jerico said smiling--guess you wouldnt mind me asking your name

The horseman sighed, and looked away, theres no way shed be scared of his name-- d...dea....death

He looked at her, she kept her smile, and nodded, her wings flapped lazily,enough to have her float, she was getting tired.

Death Scooped her around his hands and held her close,she was strangely warm.

Warmer than any human.

Then he felt her heartbeat, it sounded like hymn with no words, but yet he could understand what the song said.

He might have said it was cheesy, but the sudden warmth made him stay quiet, the song seemed personal.

A song of love, loss, grief, and a hymn to pride, discovery, and Curiosity.

His face nuzzled against her chest, where he could hear the hymn better.

--....sing?

--sing what?

The nose of his bone poked her chest.

She seemed puzzled,then it dawned on her-- you can hear it too?

He nodded softly.

--why would you want to hear it?

--know......about...you...

She tilted her head,her hands softly placed themselves on his skull, and caressed it, he caved in and his knees Buckeld, kneeling on the ground slouched.

Whoever death is...or was...it seems like its been a while since he had felt this warmth, this closeness and this tenderness,and jerico came to the relaziation when he felt him grunt with a broken voice.

She cleared her throat,and opened her mouth.

--all I remember--she sang-- its the screams of justice, all I saw, was someone in need of help.

What I was....who I am, didnt seem to matter,as my heart, pumped with desire.

I extended my hand to the human, who had finally gotten justice for her husband.

Then a yelp, a cry of help, and thats when I felt.

The human just smiled--death seemed to calm down and wrap his wings around her--as I heed her...so did she to me...

And soon enough a human id be....--

Deaths face lifted up as she heard her gulp,and tears formed on the corner of her eyes--oh how wrong I was--her voice rised up--when I thought it was all about love, oh how wrong I was, to forget that pain could be inflicted upon Man.

How Greed and narcissim could ruin such thing,as the Bond of a mother and her offspring...

But now I am here,resting in peace, with more knowledge and love that I have ever got before...--at the end her voice cracked as tears rolled down her eyes.

He wiped her tears away with a Giant hand,and pressed her against his chest.

Jerico sniffled, and gripped his cloack.

--Sorry....

She shook her head--dont be...I just get emotional when I sing it

Death Rose her up back to meet his face.

--Lets get out of here okay?,my allergies are kicking in --She chuckled and so does he.

And in a quick dash they were on old library.

The reaper left his companion on one of the tall bookshelves, where she sat

The first morning Rays filtered through the Windows.

Death looked at them and sighed--its....almost time

--hm?

He pointed at the sunrays and then at himself, making a hand gesture of something shrinking-- I....normal again

--ah i see --She jumped off the bookshelves and landed on the floor with no harm done-- maybe we can get out of here, and get you something for that throat,would you like that?

The reaper chuckled and nodded.

Then a shriek ripped from his throat,as his wings enveloped him, and shrank Back to his size.

He was still taller than her, messy and dirty black locks fell astray on the Mask covering his face.

The pale skin,seemed rough to the touch, death dragged himself to her, and hugged her as tight as he could.

Jerico smiled--Morning to you too

He grunted a chuckle, and both Walked out of the old manor.

The streets were empty,and the morning sun made jeri look even more beautiful, her eyes reflected the light and made them seem like two emeralds,he felt his cheeks Run hot.

His hand softly ghosted over her Lower back.

She shivered and looked at him, the chuckled and pulled him closer to her.

--If you need affection dont be afraid to ask, I have much to give--her heart not only poured power,but kindness too.

They finally arrived at jericos house,or more so her aunts.

He felt that energy again,the aura of someone as powerfull, that could only belong to someone such as the goddess of death herself.

She gave him some tea with honey,always keeping a hand on his shoulder.

He then collapsed on the sofá, his whole body ached from the transformation.

She layed ontop of him, the blinds were barely letting the sun come in.

Death cupped her cheeks, and she sleepily smiled to him ,he took off his mask and his chapped lips pressed against hers--thank...you

She kissed him again and he felt her smile against his lips--Dont mention it

[grim-faux]

20 - Shepherd’s Apostle

The world faded into a thick haze, like a memory I wanted to recall but the further I reached for it the harder it was to grasp.  The hard carpet dug into my cheek, it was soothing to lie down like this and just put everything out of thought, out of mind.  It was impossible to describe how tired I was.  But I had to press on.

I couldn’t open my eyes.  Everything had turned dark in an instant and I was alone, in silence.  But for a dull throbbing.  My heart, I decided.  I felt my steady breath, about the most of my movement that I could manage.  Okay, just for a while I’ll lay here, then I’ll be ready.  I couldn’t recall where I was headed initially, but I was standing on the ground floor watching the lobby.

There was a charge in the air.  Palpable thickness as if something was happening or was to happen, I was on edge.  People were presently on their rounds, dressed in clean uniforms, formal.  They looked like normal people. I managed to crack an eye open and gaze blearily into the musty carpet.  The House of God.  That’s what I was looking for.  The dull tingle worked its way through my marrow, it unnerved me.  I closed my eye and returned to the fresh ground floor, just as people were running.  I felt liquid trail across the bridge of my nose and soak into the carpet under my face.  Blood soaked the floors, the desks.  Organs twisted, bodies crumpled, skeletons splint from skin.  The red droplets glistened oddly under the bright lamps. One of Murkoff’s security held a small Beretta between his hands, he turned the gun wildly on the walls and floor.  The glass of the upper hall cracked but held against the bullets.  I’m sure there should be a deafening clamor, but I can only make out muffled voices, sounds you’d pick up on underwater.  He turns his weapon on a colleague as the individual is shredded from the inside out, muscle and lung drench the carpet below his skin.  The panicked man shoots the mist as it evaporates.  I open my eyes and stare at the carpet.  I want to get up, but the pain in my skull refuses to relinquish its hold.  If I lay here in this doorway for too long I will be discovered, and without a doubt, killed. When I shut my eyes, I’m in a white room with the mangled pieces of a body beneath me, wet blood spilling down the drain of a shower.  The water left running swirls the black and reds into anemic pinks. My eyes snap open and I lay for the longest time gazing at the doorframe across from me, my heart beating fast.  What the fuck did that come from?  Reports, files I had read too deep into.  Too deep.  Therapy was going to seem like a vacation. I waited for the throbbing to subside to a tolerable degree, until I felt stable enough to get up on my feet.  I couldn’t afford to lose anymore time.  The sewers, filthy and diseased, the shears Trager used to tear off my fingers.  I had contracted something and it would kill me, unless I got out.  I needed X-rays, antibiotics, I needed some real sleep! Documents flashed through my mind — MKULTRA, the Hypnotic therapy, the Walrider legend, autopsies revealing tumors of lead.  I was feeling sick all over again, but I had to push on.  Take steps.  I was so close, I could feel it! There was still no way through the blockade of furniture crammed throughout the hall.  My hand ached as I recalled the chair that had fallen on it, I learned my lesson.  It was rare when that happened, but sometimes I did.  I was defeated and I admitted it, I wasn’t sure what I was admitting to, but I was done with this bullshit.  I eyed the fracture in the wall on my right, metal sheeting had been torn out of the plaster and left on the floor.  Looked like a path the patients used, due to the blockade.  I squeezed through, first spying the patient, or disciple I should say, bent over a grungy bed and praying.  His head low and hands clasped tightly in silent confession, I couldn’t make out what he was mumbling about.  His lips might’ve been damaged or he had lost his teeth… or his tongue. A shiver trailed up my spine, and I held my face as the wave of pain it brought subsided.  How long could I go on like this? Till I die. I wouldn’t die.  I refused to.  The tangible quality of my old proclamation and what it meant, hit me with such a force that it sent me stumbling back into an empty bookcase.  I froze, fearing the commotion would set the man off.  He made no note of my presence.  I recovered, consciousness whirling.  The camera was between my palms, trained on him.  The room was simple, only the bed and a nightstand, chair, desk on one side, on the other, a lamp cracked on the floor.  What more did he need? These rooms had originally been the residences of the staff before everything turned bad.  Small but cozy, employees provided with everything they would ever need, by the ‘non-profit’ Murkoff cooperation.  Now with the former occupants slaughtered and marinating the halls, the formerly suppressed rise up to take control.  How poetic.  I realize that not all of those affiliated with Murkoff deserved what happened, there had been good souls concerned for the cooperation’s victims.  They simply didn’t want to see what was happening around them.  People were like that.  It was human. The disciples legs were scarred, as were his arms, I imagine that was the least of the damage done.  I crept from the room, shutting the door softly behind me.  I still was wary of them and what intentions they could have.  Trust no one. It looked as though I went ALL the way around, from where I initially came up the stairs, just to get to this side of the hall.  I scoffed, but nothing to do about it.  Just keep my steady pace and try not to falter.  I at least had a small break, though I couldn’t recall what I had eaten ten minutes prior.  I remained famish and the humming grew worse, as though there really was a choir in this hall behind one of the doors.  I stood beneath the bright lamp and swayed.  If I kept my heart pumping, I would be fine. The hall reserved its featureless standard, the walls extending through the shadows that both welcomed and rejected me.  To my left was another lavatory, I poked in and went through the stalls, startling flies from their nest.  As I ventured from the glaring lamps, the little buggers gave up their pursuit, further reinforcement that the light remained my greater foe. One door on my left had a starved and shirtless patient, in prayer as I’d seen the two before.  The room was simple as I’d come to expected, bed, a desk, sometimes chairs.  The room down from his was much the same, aside from rain and thunder pouring through a shattered window.  I gave each room I came upon brief audience, filming the people, before I moved on to the next.   I was shocked by the number of people absorbed in this process.  Was it a mass Hallucination driven by MKULTRA?  I couldn’t tell anymore.  It was clear they had faith in Father Martin and his preaching’s, but why?  Questions buzzed through my thoughts as I tried to piece what I did understand together, but felt I was missing some vital component to the machine.  That eerie trill.  The sound I heard, a choir or was it a hymn?  It didn’t matter, maybe they were hearing it.  I was tempted to ask what it was, but I feared one might answer.  I feared someone would notice me at last, and I would be trapped, lost and confused as they brought about my bloody conclusion.   Aside from the room full of cold rain and thunder, I could see no way out of here.  Let alone, I didn’t know what I was doing here aside from ‘witnessing’ the disciples of Father Martin lost to prayer.  I revisited the rooms, in perpetual fear that the trance would break.  But I had nothing to lose as far as I could see.  One room I stumbled into with its withered disciple, holding his head high as he spoke, had a folder placed on the desk beside the door.  It was filled with pages, most held a handwriting style I was familiar with. “I am an unworthy supplicant, who can serve our lord only by feeding our lord. Please take me, Walrider. Let my shepherd’s Apostle see it and spread it with his lies for a greater truth. Your time upon the world has come. My flesh longs for your beautiful wraith. My blood is filled with you and waiting to be set free. This is my prayer. Write your gospel in my flesh.” For some reason this absolution unsettled me.  What was it he planned to do?  I feared the truth behind these walls. With no other path available, I decided to risk the harsh rain in the window.  The patient remained absorbed in his words, and as expected did not notice me as I climbed onto the soaked bed and stepped out onto the windowsill.  A flash of light cuts the sky, I shut my eyes from the sting and saw images I didn’t want to see.  Everything I wanted to forget.  I placed my hand on the jagged glass and stared down, my footing uneasy. Three stories up.  If I fell from this height I might not die all at once, but I’ll pray for death.  The lightening flashed, brightening the courtyard and thunder clashed against the stone building.  I forced my feet to move and hold my weight as I slipped along the icy wall of the Asylum.  Shapes flashed at the edges of the broken garden, I risked tucking my camera away as a precaution.  Light stretched from the windows at my backside, but there was not enough radiance to brave the merciless storm.  My heel slipped and I stared down, water trickled over my face and damaged hands.  The sky sparked and shrieked,  and below, I thought the skeletal shape of a person was there staring up, waiting for my body to fall and hit the pavement, starved to behold my guts torn loose to wash like crème down the drain.  I squeezed my eyes shut, fighting away my dreams.  I focused on the ledge, on the dark coloration of my coat.  Water splattered my pants and shoulders, but the eaves kept the torrent from soaking me to the bone.   I trembled with something beyond cold and fear when I climbed into the next window.  A lightly decorated room with one bookshelf, a portrait on the wall, and a bed with another of Father Martin’s disciples speaking to the Walrider.  I didn’t want to think of the blessings mad men asked for.  Maybe just the simple relief from living and life, maybe to think as other men do?  Or maybe for the world to be as they are. The door of the room was open wide, encouraging me along.  I kept caution close as I checked around the frame. God hates sickness Was scrawled in blood on the wall in large letters.  Candles lit below flicker calmly, despite the draft on my backside.  The wall flashed with light as another scream of fury came from the storm.   My left was blocked by stacks of metal shelving and chairs, I wiped the water from my hands as I struggled to fix my grip on the camera.  The only relief I could find was that my right hand didn’t seem to be swelling anymore, but the index finger and middle finger were stiff and painful to test.  I considered myself fortunate, despite it all.   More messages and candles awaited on my right, competing with the artificial light of the corridor that refused to diminish.  A cross was drawn on the wall, the blood peeling down appeared fresh.  A plate on the wall read simply Chapel.  That would be a House of God.  The corner bent left and I leaned over to find, yet more candles beside the wall and the message above God hates money I spun back at the door slamming shut, and the firm click of the lock splint my head.  Curious, I returned to try the handle and found that indeed, I was locked on this side.  Away from the ground floor and the elevator.  I sighed.  My luck.  It was a good thing I was never one to buy into stocks. Voices drifted from the hall, and that sharp pain returned to the back of my head causing my vision to blur.  I massaged my brow with my palm and continued, turning the corner and resumed the path now cut cleanly for me.  The soft candle flames became an almost welcome change, compared to the harsh blaze of the NV.  It made the walls and floors look soft and bearable, in spite of everything I knew that was buried in these grounds.  I pause and looked to my left, upon familiar scratching in the plaster.  I recognized the form and some of the words “Rest in peace”  “He did not kill” Father Martin’s preaching?  The camera scolded my hesitance, but I waited it out to gain a clear image.  I was nearly beyond my limit, but I could hold out.  I was good at holding out. God Annoys… I blinked. God always provides a way I looked from the wet message and the cross, to the scarred patient standing before me, blocking my path.  Head bowed and a candle clasped between his hands, he was emaciated to the point I couldn’t believe he was standing.  And the smell.  This… was the first fucker to lunge at me from a wheelchair! “Am I ready?” I stepped away from him and looked over my shoulder, to where the voices echoed from in somber reverence.  A chapel, candles lit and burning above a pristine tile floor, an entrance chamber that led directly into the cathedral.  It didn’t appear very large, with carved beams arched under a plain white ceiling, tinged yellow from age.  It was a simple structure, but ornate and charming in its own way.  I closed one eye and pressed my hand to it, the sound I couldn’t escape.  I had to keep my senses keen.  Beside either stained glass door that opened into the main wing, stood a twin, glowering on me as I gave one a look, then the other.  I straightened myself out to the best of my ability, I couldn’t appear defective to them. “You are.  We will join the Walrider in just a moment.”  That was Father Martin.  I was staring from where I stood, and I think he was nailed to a cross. Holy crap, what was I doing here?  I debated on just leaping from that window now and accept the fate meeting me beneath the rain, then I recalled the door was locked and I was trapped here with these people.  Whatever was to come, I would fight until my heart was ripped from my chest.  Which, given circumstances, could be very likely. I took a deep breath and proceeded into the chapel, directly between the twins as they tracked my slow movement with their hostile stare.  They reserved their right to freely expose themselves, though I kept my gaze forward and my camera close to my side.  My hardcore reporter instincts told me soon I would need it.  The doors gave a firm CLUNKof finality as I approached the podium, and the disciples of Father Martin.  They were disturbed but not aggressive, they, like those I had passed to reach this wing, were wholly oblivious to my presence, or had been requested not to acknowledge it.  Their attention was set on the man nailed to the wooden cross; I don’t doubt they were upset by this revelation.  They spoke and murmured, plead and mourned.  It was all together and all at once, I couldn’t make out a handful of what they were saying.   The crucified man gave a sharp gasp at my approach, the act so sudden I recoiled.  “My job.  You alone shall escape to tell them.”  Father Martin paused to gather his breath, he must have been in a good deal of pain.  “This is your penultimate act of witness.  The promise of the prophets was always the freedom from death,” he groaned.  “And here it is.”  He pulled at his arms, as though trying to relieve the pain, despite there being no escape.  My only response was to blink. The patients clustered about him, and the collection of timber at his toes.  They pray and spoke in soft sentences, some bowed and sobbed.  For the Walrider?  Or for Father Martin’s Gospel?  The accumulated resonance caused the hair to bristle on my neck. I moved to the side into the pews and sat down, making sure the camera was fixed on Martin.  The frail patient from the hall stepped around the podium, to stand near his Prophet and gazed at him with sunken eyes.  Martin whimpered, and resumed speaking, “You will watch and record my death, my resurrection.  And together we will be free.” Martin let his head drop onto his shoulder and took another tight breath.  “You are no longer in any danger.  I’ve fixed the elevator.  It will take you to freedom.  We will all of us be free.”  I had to set my head down on my arm.  That sound….. “Now, my son.” I jerked my head up when Martin’s tormented shrieks echoed off the high ceiling and walls.  The patient that was holding the candle lit the timber beneath his feet and the Priest was on fire, twisting and howling in pain as his robs burnt like dry cotton and his flesh scorched and popped.  I gawked wide eyed trying to hold my camera steady, trying to keep myself from tearing out of that seat and racing away.  My stomach knotted at the harsh sting of burning flesh, reminding me sharply of the scorched bodies burning in the cafeteria.  I clasped my free hand over mouth, it was all I could do to keep from buckling forward.  Not here, not at a time like this. His raving sobs finally died out as he succumb to smoke inhalation, or the heat cooked his brain inside his skull.  He gave an oily groan before he went limp and the flames settled into his bubbling flesh. When I shifted to reach for my notepad, I realized with a start I had bitten into my palm.  Not deep, but the edge of my teeth had cut into my stained flesh and blood seeped from the shallow tears.  I wasn’t sure what to make of that, or the fact I hadn’t noticed before I moved. “I can’t believe Father Martin one-upped Jesus Christ himself in shitty ways to die.  And I don’t believe I’m going to miss him.  A way out.  If he’s telling the truth, now I’ve got a way out.  And a story to tell.  He wants me to spread his gospel.  I’ll tell the whole fucking world.” I sat a moment watching the patients mourn for their Prophet, and weep for his sacrifice.  I didn’t know what they would do now without their Guide in this twisted world, but I didn’t want to hang around and find out.  I gathered myself up and slid out of the pew.  I took up the key gleaming gaily on the red velvet podium.   The twins stood still behind the stained glass doors.  From a safe distance I stopped and observed them.  Would they end it now, with Father Martin gone?  Was this the time they would conclude the chase?  I checked the room over, finding no other windows or doors, aside from the ones they stood behind.  If I could lure them back into this room, I could get around both of them.  If they cornered me, that was it. I walked forward trying not to look at them, I needed to get by and find my way out before I was stabbed in the back. They pulled the double doors open simultaneously to my approach, and I dithered before continuing forward.  I doubt they needed weapons to kill me. The bald one on the right clutched his head, angry or plagued by the sounds.  I stepped between them quickly and got halfway down the hall before I remembered the door was locked.  Or was it?  I passed the final messages of Father Martin only to find the door was still locked tight.  I returned to the chapel, looking to the twins for some sort of guidance but quickly gave that up when I spied the area, beyond where the wheelchair patient had been poised.  A bookshelf, among other furniture pinned in the archway of the hall, encyclopedias and other tomes spilt from the shelves, clearing enough space I could wriggle through.  But above was a vent in the ceiling, its panel off.  I could reach it, and they couldn’t follow. I stuck the camera in its hoister and grabbed the edge and kicked at the wall until I was safe inside and felt around for my path.  The piece of fabric shifted oddly in my gash, I poked around the backside of my shirt and felt only mild dampness but no excessive bleeding.  I squeezed my eyes tightly and crawled along the weak metal.  I was getting out.  Damn Priest guy said I could go, I would not stick around. But damn, I couldn’t believe Martin was gone.  In no way did I feel safer with his suicide, on contrary, it didn’t feel like anything had changed.  What had he been trying to prove?  The only fact I could take comfort in, was that I wasn’t the one nailed to that cross.  Didn’t mean I was no longer in danger, notwithstanding what he proclaimed.  I’ve heard that song and dance before.  Probably why it felt like his death was so unreal, in truth nothing had changed.  The whole event had meant nothing to me. The notion left a sort of emptiness inside me.  I don’t know how to describe it.  The next flue I had to force with my weight, as result I nearly fell through to the floor below.  I managed to clamp my arms over the metal sides, before the rest of me tumbled out in a painful heap.  I dropped and stumbled to my ass, god damnit.  I sat letting my body settle and gave where I was a scan.  The shelves and furniture I bypassed should keep Martin’s disciples from catching up to me anytime soon.  For the moment, it was safe to bide time and plan my direction.  I needed to find that lift and get the fuck out of here.  It was in the other wing of the Asylum, outside the kitchen.  I could reach it through this side, down this hall? I stepped into a patch of light from the lamps gleaming in the hall on the right, and sat down to think.  If I was to reach the elevator, I needed to go through the kitchen, but I couldn’t, that door was locked.  I needed another way around… I could really use a map.   If my sense of direction was right— I looked up as a dark shape began from the opposite end of hall.  I couldn’t make out who it was.  A twin?  How did he find me?  But as I gawked, the figure picked up speed, upon spying me huddled in the sloping light.  I knew who that was. I lunged to my feet taking the bright hall on my right, as he gave a thunderous snarl.  I could feel his steps quake through the floorboards of the Asylum.  His chains churning with his pace, gaining three steps with every one of mine.  Needed a place to hide, needed distance!  The hall was perpetual, same as those never ending roads in your dreams that extended into eternity.  I glanced at the dried blood splattered at my left, staining the upper wall and floor, the hard copper hit me as I gasped.  Above, the lamps flashed against my skull, doors lined the walls every few steps, many nailed with plywood and planks.  He snarled and huffed gaining, his ire snapping at my neck.  I couldn’t bring myself to pause and try doors, I wanted to run forever. When would the big fucker just let up!  It was obvious he wasn’t one of Martin’s followers.  All along, had he been against the Gospel of Sand?  I couldn’t know!  That was not important!  He would kill me regardless my affiliation with the Church of Walrider! The hall came to an abrupt end, reluctantly I tried a plain door on my left expecting it to be locked.  Trapped at long last, after I had succeeded at beating their game.  I barely turned the knob before I shoved the door in, grunting against the sudden lurch in my rib.  I swung the thin barrier shut after me and checked through the nightvision, but saw no worthwhile space to hide.  The room was well lit, particularly on the left side where a flat screen sat on a table.  I could crouch behind the two love seats set to view the screen, but three steps in and Chris would have me. The door cracked in the frame, I was amazed it held when the raw rage slammed into it.  I dashed across the room as the floor and walls shook, my head spinning, bits of light flittered through the cracks in the door as it absorbed another blow.  I curled up in the darkest corner behind a thick armchair and stared through the NV as the visor buzzed.  A final shattering blow and Chris plowed through, tumbling to the floor before climbing to his feet.  I shrank down behind the couch and watched as he scanned the room over, huffing through his teeth he began pacing to the left.  It was my right, the way I was facing him— “On point.” While his back was turned, I crawled towards the gaping portal.  One long step, I set my foot outside the doorframe and slipped out.  I could hear the noise of the big fucker chains as he turned, to check the side of the room I had hidden.  He’ll make the conclusion, I needed to buckle down and think.  Where was it I needed to go?  What doors were open?  I had to rattle handles. The next door I tried was on my right, it opened into a small office with a desk, and the usual dead plant mandatory to Murkoff’s memory.  I entered and listened as the big fucker reentered the hall, grumbling about the pain of living.  I shut the door gently and sat in the dark struggling to gauge his position, as his steps grew louder and heavier.  I flipped the NV off as he continued past my door, and down the hall a ways before his steps halt.  I could hear my breathing, but Chris was as silent as death. I jerked back when the thuds of wood cracking vibrated through the hall.  I braved pulling the door open a crack and let some light in, he was not far, just across the hall.  With a final swing of his fists the pitiful door snapped apart, he kicked the pieces aside as he stepped into the small room.  His backside quivers as he pants, blood leaks from deep cuts that never healed in his broken skin. As before while he’s distracted, I took the chance and slipped out of the room.  He was going to hear me, he would detect my movement, smell me, something.  He would turn around and grab me, and that would be it.  I’ll be pulled apart, my body torn out from under my head like so many of his victims.  My last moments, watching him toss my flailing torso aside. But Chris was still examining the dark cubicle of office before him, and I made it past the doorway without a creak from the floor.  Overhead, before the intersecting hall hung the large, bold red words EXIT.  This was the way.  I was nearly there! Getting away from the patients and their mass congregation had helped to high levels.  My head still throbbed but it wasn’t the twisting pain it had been an hour before.  I wouldn’t be too run down once I returned to civilization, I might be able to get medical attention before I had to start answering questions. All right man, focus.  Pat yourself on the back later, first things first.  Find the way out.  I was still so fucking lost, it was a crime.   I ducked into a doorway on my left when I picked up on Chris’ chains slithering into the hall.  Once I was on the elevator, I was home free.  Warm heater, familiar surroundings, just all around good things.  Keep thinking good, clean, healthy thoughts Miles.  Keep positive. A lavatory, very little to hide in.  Most the stalls were shut, blood on the tile and flies lapped at the sticky mess.  Their wings hummed impossibly loud against the hard walls as I disturbed their perch, I was terrified the sound would give me away.  I ducked into the stall on the far end and climbed onto the toilet.  The lamps blazed down warming the edges of my coat and neck, I didn’t need the camera.  Neither would the big fucker if he decided to roam through. Chains dragged across the tile clinking with each step.  Images of the sewer and bloated bodies became my vision, pellets scuttling through pipes.  Shadows and shapes, faces in static.  I pressed my nose into my bloodied shoulder and tried not to breath.  Stay calm.  Stay.  Calm. “Where?…fuck.”  He sounded dubious.   If he would just leave.  You’re seeing things like the rest of us.  Go look somewhere else, this place is empty. I cringed when the first stall swung open.  Damn.  The next door creaked open, and I situated myself to crouch on the bloody toilet.  One. Two. Three— Chris pulled the door open, seeming genuinely surprised to find me there.  He made a strangled snarl through his mutilated sinuses and lashed out, as I sprang at the top stall and propelled myself over the side to the far end of the bathroom.  I hit the floor and tumbled, searing white pulsed through my eyes and my concern went immediately to the camera even as I shoved my feet under me and charged out the door. “Can’t let contamination reach local town…”  I ducked down as I passed the doorway, barely missing his arm as he tried to swat me.  His wrist struck the tile near my head, dust and brick cracked under the impact. I stumbled out the door, hands clasped over my head fearful he’d knock it off next.  The broken segregation frame swept around me as I breezed through, first turning to the vent I initially dropped down before reminding myself of how bad an idea that was.  I pivoted and dashed into the dark hall.  The big fucker emerged from the lavatory, and snarled my way as we made eye contact. I brought up the NV as I felt myself tilt, I could see light at the halls end but I was having difficulty keeping my balance.  The big fucker was somewhere behind me keeping pace. End of the hall.  End of the hall.  Door.  A door that leads to the cafeteria.  I had no idea where I would wind up.  I needed another lounge, a room with space I could maneuver or hide from Chris.  It could have just been me, but it felt like he was desperate to kill me at this point.  The idea caused my throat to dry out, I gagged as I panted.  But I felt elevated, that perhaps Father Martin had been earnest and that I was now done with this place.  That I was to be free once I stepped out of those doors. Had to reach them first. When I hit the light, I took a sharp left through the last doorway entering into a room full of tables and chairs stacked everywhere, some scattered over the floor.  The cafeteria!  But I was still skidding in the direction towards the windows, my momentum out of control.  The patient that had been here staring out the muggy glass was now absent, or dead.  The rain that once furiously struck the glass had diminished to some degree, the luminous beads of water now less and thin. The door.  There was a door on the left side of the room, across from where I just blazed through.  Something strained in my knee as I twisted, and spun about as the big fucker came charging into the room after me.  Door!  Had to get to the door!  I zipped around tables or chairs, struggling to maneuver anything between us, to slow him down.  The big fucker bellowed, and ripped the obstacles away like weeds in the garden, I heard several crash into the darkest reaches, echoing under the high ceiling.  I was only thankful he hadn’t the presence of mind to throw one my way. I had plenty of distance on him by the time I reached the door.  I twisted the handle— Locked!  Door was locked!  How was I supposed to reach the elevator?! That was to be the least of my concerns.  I cued in on the heavy breath of my pursuer as he sliced through the room, and felt his dead eyes on the back of my head.  I barely whipped aside when he swung out, grazing my back, I lost consciousness for an instant as my brain sputtered out.  The chains stunned my shoulder and I tumbled to my side, my vision blurred as sensation swung back into me at full force.  All I could make of Chris was his shape looming over me snarling, his eyes blazing.  I swore, they burned like fire in the dark. “Get up!”   Fuck you!  I crawled pitifully on my hands and knees across his boots to curl up under the nearest table.  The big fucker took it in his hands and tipped it over, sending chairs crashing across the floor.  I bit the camera strap between my teeth and ripped it off my hand, and scrambled away as fast as I could while he hurried around to intercept me.  If I kept the windows in sight I could see where the table legs barred my way. He couldn’t see where I was exactly, he could only hear my panicked breath as I shuffled in the cramped dark.  In response, the fucker gripped another table and hefted it up then slammed it down over my body.  But the locks where the legs fit in didn’t snap away completely, I lay there for a moment believing I had died and the big fucker might’ve thought the same.  He was panting hard, hissing through his exposed teeth as he wandered around the set of tables seeking to find my broken body. My mind was wracked with questions, my ears buzzed and my bones tingled with that tremendous calamity.  Out?  Where was out? I reached a trembling hand up slowly and took my camera strap from my teeth, I was nearly pinned on my stomach with just enough room to squeeze out.  But the fucker would hear it in the dead silence that consumed the room.  I coughed and tasted copper, I don’t think a lung was punctured, at least I couldn’t feel it yet.  I turned my head scanning the room where the door was locked.  Damn inconsistencies.  A light shone from a square slot in the wall above, where a vent had snapped off.  There.  That was it!  He can’t follow me. The big fucker moved to the other side of the table, ones he hadn’t tipped or slammed down, and began pulling them out and scoping the floor beneath.  I slipped free of the broken table and pulled my body out from under the line of table legs.  The big fucker must’ve seen my shape when I stood, he barked out a cry as I dashed to the fallen vending machine and clambered up.  I was a little tipsy when I stood on the slick plastic cover, but managed to snag the flues edge and haul up into the tight space.  A cold pain dug into my side, but I pushed the sensation away as I paused to gather myself.  I was in one piece, mostly.   Below, Chris snarled his contempt for my success, but I knew deep in me, this would be our last encounter.  I spared him a brief glower, the closets to pity I could express for him, before I turned and crawled along the top of the vents rigged from the ceiling.  The muffled growls faded in my ears, as the familiar tingle resumed residence.  It wouldn’t last, I assured myself. I never thought I’d be so happy to be in a kitchen before.  A revisited and empty kitchen, but it was tame territory.  I carefully climbed off a cabinet and hit the floor, wincing at the pain in my ribs.  It was okay, nothing a little rest and no movement wouldn’t help.  That’s all the doctors ever said, there wasn’t much else that could be done.  I took some slow, easy breaths to acquaint myself with the pain.  I’d feel even better when I was in my jeep with the heat cranked up, and this place far-far behind me. I found the door at the other end of the kitchen and half expected the damn thing to be locked, though it was clearly open and the dark hall visible from where I stood.  Across, at only a few steps, the lift waited, with nothing in sight, no psychotic patients, just the wavering shades that haunted my memories.  I kept shuffling the worst case scenarios to the forefront of my mind, geared for the despair that I was now accustomed to.  What could possibly go wrong now?  Nothing.  Unless the computers had a massive crash in the hours I’d spent lost in this hell of an Asylum, my challenge now would be hacking the security systems. I groaned when I realized, I’d never opened the main doors.  I hadn’t even begun, damn Martin had to drag me off…. It was all behind me now.  Get to the Security room, hack the system, and say sayonara to this fuck awful place. I dithered before entering the welcoming gleam of the lift.  I had bad experiences with elevators.  Bad memories.  Once I was inside, I’d be trapped.  But I was only riding to the ground floor.  Before I could have another thought on the matter I stepped inside, and turned to the panel.  I set the key in the lock and gave the panel a firm punch and let the metal gate shield me in.   No insane doctors to interrupt me this time.  No burning cafeterias, no deformed giants with fuck started faces, shrieking specters, or cannibalistic twins.  I was out.  Done.  Gone.  Bye bye Insane Asylum! The elevator made the short but noisy descent to the ground floor and stopped.  I put the camera in its hoister and tried to pull aside the gate.  It should open, shouldn’t it?  Of course it would.  I peered through the large gaps and saw, indeed those doors were locked.  I was hyped and ready to start this, it wouldn’t be easy, but I would get it done.  Sooner I started the better. The gate should open now.  I poked at the panel and tried turning the key, maybe it unlocked it?  Or maybe I shouldn’t have done that.  The lift shifted and began descending all over again.  I looked up alarmed as the exit, my doors to freedom vanished from sight. No.  No-No-No-NO!  What was this?  The elevator was fixed, I was supposed to get out, up there!  That was my floor!  Stop!  I tried to pull the key from the slot, but it was stuck tight.  Safety precautions and such, I was locked in!  Where the fuck was I going?!  Darkness filled the tiny space I occupied.  The basement!  I could find my way out of the basement easy.  I vaguely remembered the layout, and there would be light too. But I knew I was not going to stop at the basement.  The lift continued to descend, and the air changed. I stepped back and crouched down resting as what seemed like hours passed, but in truth it was only minutes.  I had no idea where I was now and had a feeling I would never know.  It finally ground to a halt and I glanced up as the gate slid back, allowing me to exit FINALLY.  I glared beyond the doors, into a near pristine white brick corridor, above lights flashed and pulsed, a glitch in the wiring.  I shut my eyes against their irritating glare. My lip curled back over my teeth and I pushed myself up to stand, I set a hand to my side where my ribs warned not to push it.  I was hurt, I needed to get out.  What more did this place want from me? A “penultimate act of witness” as ‘Father’ Martin put it.  His last words.  I should have been more keen to pay attention to his speech, he had told me precisely that ‘my job’ was not done with his death.  Idiot!  You walked right into this!  This is all on you Miles!  Walked into Hells Kitchen, and now you’re eating what they’ve served!  If I die—NO!  No.  No.  And NO!  I am not going there!  I will get out of here because I refuse to have endured EVERYTHING these bastards fabricated, and then die at the VERY end of it!  I was getting out!  And I would make sure the world knew what I went through, what they’ve done to all these people, and what they tried to cover up!   But I still had doubt.  I stepped through the doors and gave my new surroundings an indifferent glare.  It was brisk, the air slightly fresher than the upper floors, a lot of tubes and thick cables ran along the walls.  Probably recycled air.  But…it was there.  The old decay, the stale tang of rust and death.  I was not done, not by a long shot. I stumbled and brushed against the wall as I collapsed to my knees and sat there, staring at the two doors before me.  The strobe light overhead flickered but held its illumination. I lowered my head and exhaled a coppery sigh.  Not by a long shot.  I raised my butchered hands to my face and buried my eyes in my palms, seeing only black.  The cool, enveloping black that had been my ally throughout this entire nightmare. Would there be no more shadows for me to hide in?

[theoi-crow]

Hey there! I was wondering if you knew any introduction rituals to Ares. I couldn't find any and you seemed like the right person to ask! thank you heaps!

Hi!

I haven't seen any either but I can give you the formulas I use.

I am a spoony witch and my energy levels are very unpredictable so I have 3 formulas for different energy levels:

1) Low energy/casual

2) Med energy/ semi-formal

3) high energy/ very formal

Before I begin, I want to talk a little bit about Ares and the things he rules and those who fall in his domain: (LINK)

His Symbols and Attributes: (LINK)

His animals are: poisonous snakes, vulture, woodpecker, barn owl, eagle owl, boar, dogs, the horses that pull his chariot, dragons, bronze bulls

His Symbols: Spear, shield, helmet, chariot, Sparti (The Spartoi were armed warriors which sprang fully-grown from the earth, when the teeth of Ares' Guardian Drakones were sown in a field sacred to the god), his iron fortress, weapons of any kind, arrow shooting birds he gave to the Amazons, his daughters the Amazons, etc.

His personality: Ares is passionate and can control chaos. He's a protector and will fight very hard for his children and won't stop (he is the type that will continue to fight until he can't, which is why he gets knocked out in some myths for his own protectection. Hermes does this on a couple of occasions), he is playful when there is no war but will spring into action the moment he smells war coming. He gives passionate speaches to raise the moral of his troops and he does the same for his devotees think Brave Heart:"they may take our lives but they will never take our freedom!"

He is drawn to: potential devotees/followers who need to learn to defend themselves. Those who are treated like doormats, children who need protecting, teenagers and young adults who are battling the world inside (insecurities, motivation, responsibilities) and outside of themselves, anyone who needs to fight for their rights (fighting racism, sexism, LGBT-phobia, disabilities etc.) You don't have to be a good fighter because he will help you become a great warrior.

Low energy/casual

1) Make a playlist of songs that make you think of Ares, songs that you think he would like (but they have to be songs you also enjoy, no point in playing a song you can't stand).

2) Feel his energy all around you and imagine what he looks like to you. Imagine him appearing and let him tell you you're going to be okay.

3) Talk to him: this can be out loud or in your head. Introduce yourself, tell him why you think he's amazing (flattering a god is always a great offering) and why you want to work with him, and take in anything that pops up or if nothing happens that's okay too. He heard you.

4) thank him for listening and give him the option of staying or going. (If this is the first time he's seen you he will stick around and assess you and your environment but chances are he already knows who you are.)

Medium energy/ Semi-Formal:

1) light a candle and offer incense (I usually give him Frankincense, Sandlewood or anything like that or whatever you are drawn to)

2) play music that's a little more relaxed but still songs that would move a warrior's heart to tears or fill it with pride.

3) write a hymn or a poem. Be sure to use his epithets.

4) Talk to him either out loud or in your mind. Introduce yourself, compliment him as an offering and tell him why you want to work with him.

5) thank him and let him go on his way or give him the option of staying if he wants to stay.

High energy/ very formal:

1) Make sure you have a drink to offer or food. He likes red wine (or anything stronger, like whiskey, vodka, any other type of hard liquor), Black coffee, Coca-Cola or any other type of Coke. For food he loves "guy food" like steak, ribs, very spicy food, anything that youd think a typical Hollywood dude-bro guy would like, or Greek food is always a yes. (You can offer the drink OR food, or both if you'd like.)

2) play him instrumental music so you can give him a good vibe but the lyrics won't interrupt your prayer to him.

3) Give him this Homeric Hymn written for him (or find another one you think would be better suited):

Ares, exceeding in strength, chariot-rider, golden-helmed, doughty in heart, shield-bearer, saviour of cities, harnessed in bronze, strong of arm, unwearying, mighty with the spear,

O defence of Olympus, father of warlike Victory, ally of Themis, stern governor of the rebellious, leader of righteous men, sceptred King of manliness, who whirl your fiery sphere among the planets in their sevenfold courses through the aether wherein your blazing steeds ever bear you above the third firmament of heaven;

hear me, helper of men, giver of dauntless youth!Shed down a kindly ray from above upon my life, and strength of war, that I may be able to drive away bitter cowardice from my head and crush down the deceitful impulses of my soul.

Restrain also the keen fury of my heart which provokes me to tread the ways of blood-curdling strife. Rather, O blessed one, give you me boldness to abide within the harmless laws of peace, avoiding strife and hatred and the violent fiends of death.

4) Introduce yourself and compliment him.

5) tell him why you want to work with him.

6) Give him a gift, (it can be a crystal, a necklace, something you made him, something you bought for him, something that made you think of him, or anything you think he might want.)

7) Thank him for coming, allow him to go or stay.

What to do with the food offerings: you can dispose of them in a bio friendly way, I hesitate to say you can bury them because salt is bad for the soil and other ingredients can possibly harm the environment, you can do what I do and eat it (LINK)

After introducing yourself to Ares: if you're a gamer, play a video game (I recommend Assassin's Creed Odyssey but trigger warning: blood), think about something that you're afraid to do, but NEED to do, and make a step by step plan to do it. Write inspirational and encouraging messages to your future self and hide them around your home for you to find later. Watch an underdog movie that inspires you and makes you root for the little guys. Look at a cause that's near and dear to your heart and think about how you can help them like body positivity, fighting racism, helping the #Me Too movement, help save the environment or literally anything that has you joining forces with those who want to make the world a better place because Ares is a warrior who protects or for change, and all of these individuals and groups are fighting for something they are protecting or trying to change.

Or you can relax and focus on yourself and being kind to yourself because you are fighting battles in your life too, protecting people/things/personal philosophies or trying to change your life for a better future so be sure to be kind to yourself because you are doing your best and Ares is proud of you.

I hope this helps.

May Ares forge you into the kind of warrior who will be kind, but fierce, friendly but fair. You are strong, worthy and unstoppable.

[drakrite]

okay so my hand slipped and i wrote a 3,8k drabble for my dragon king verse. so i put it in a google doc for easier reading but i’ll post a good snippet of it here too under the cut.

the link to the full drabble is here please read if ur interested in a glimpse of how their burials and their belief system works -  i spent days on this.

“Aurora,” he calls out, “have you procured their birthstone … ?” This question is asked with a heavy heart, around them buzzed with mournful cries and frustrated sniffles. This was never easy, oh, how Raihan prayed that one day … maybe this would never have to happen again. How the body of the hybrid in his arms slowly began to revert back from their prior draconic form, how he felt the searing heat of their transformation as if it was the last shred of their life finally give way to their frigid touch. 

“Yes, Your Majesty.” She seemed to reply, your majesty, of course his own sister wouldn’t at least provide him the strand of humanity he silently pleaded for in this moment. Of course this was the act of the king, not the young man he was. Another hybrid beyond the point of return, beyond the point of being saved by a mere sedative - no, ballistic and violent in nature - what else was he supposed to do? No hybrid would wish to live after this sort of experience, the utter shame and distraught. They might as well have taken their own life if it meant the lifelong judgement, fear, and shame of their frenzy would disappear. A mercy kill, it always has been that.

But, every time, Raihan is called upon to end these lives himself. His heart weeps and cries, his heart pleads for some other answer different than this, but every sob that tore from his throat told him that this was the only way. Every apology that fell from his lips to the dwindling life before him was another tally on his back, another stain on his hands. It’s the only way, the soft voice in his mind echoed. A voice not his own, nor his sisters - not his aunt or his mother - but of his ancestor, every pleading thought is met with a gentle response but it serves no comfort for him. It merely serves as a reminder to this painful reality of both his role, his roots, this mantle he is forced to carry the burden of while the rest of the world only had to worry about the meals and chores they had to tend to? All of that, while Raihan had to whole all of their lives, their futures in the palms of his hand?

“Rai - Your Majesty .... we must proceed with the preparations …” Aurora coaxes, a moment longer and Raihan would’ve surely shut down - he would’ve locked the world out if it wasn't for her voice pulling him back to their reality. Teal eyes, weak and tired on all levels look towards the woman before him, her eyes say it all, get up and perform the rites, you have a job to do. Feeling heavy and shackled to tradition, Raihan tucks his arms under the body and effortlessly, he rises to his feet, keeping them close. It is a long trek as they return to the castle, the blood seeping into the king's gown and the crevices of silver and gold plated armor.

Even so, the sounds of gentle prayers and hymns ring in his ears from their walk. Tradition amongst hybrids always call for a gentle song of prayer as the king guides their dead up towards the heavens and laid to rest amongst their ancestors. But for once, Raihan did not usher a single hum from full lips. "Raihan, I know this never gets easy for you." Aurora says, "but you have to guard your heart - you've let it grow far too fragile." But when? He wondered, when had his heart grown so weak at the sight of death? "You're their king, falter and you will topple all that you've built. Everything you've put in place - "

"Enough, Aurora." He finally says, his throat dry from the lack of use - "if you have much to say about how a leader should act, then maybe you should not have stepped down from your birthright." Bitter and frigid his words were, and surely, they cut to the bone because Aurora remains silent at these very words. "If you have time to waste lecturing me then be useful and use that energy towards bringing me what I need." He glares over his shoulder and she startles at the sight of sharp teal hues before she's gripping the skirt of her gown to procure the necessary items.