#later on he descends into half madness— he's definitely not sane but he's also not too insane to be written off as just that

[stellarsightz]

🌠wip whenever🌠

Tagged by the lovely @priafey 🫶 thank you for the tag and sorry for replying so late hahah

I think my cicerlyn hyperfixation is starting to leave me, but i keep thinking about them all the time lol. Enjoy a handful of snippets i particularly like that i found in my notes app

Tagging: @azures-grace @cicerosfavouritelistener @abstractredd @vestigme @rustyram035 @v1ctory-or-sovngarde + anyone who wants to join <333

1a.

Fire and smoke. Long wooden beams snapped in half, crumbling to the ground. Lynwallyn gritted his teeth and dragged himself up, fighting off the sweet lull of unconsciousness as it threatened to claim him. He couldn't afford to pause.

He dragged himself out of the rubble, barely stopping to inspect his injuries. He wrenched a sword out of the nearest corpse. He snagged a pile of clothes he found in what he assumed were the barracks. He took anything his bruised and charred arms could carry. He left and didn't look back.

Days blurred. He found an abandoned shack in the middle of a forest. He used the bedroll, took everything he could and left.

Rinse and repeat.

He slept through most of the day. At night, he prowled the forest and searched for unsuspecting prey. He let himself get lost in the hunt, savouring the feeling of warm blood running down his hands. A few stray dogs tailed after him as he walked back to his camp, licking their teeth and eyeing the mangled corpse of the poor animal he just caught. He snarled at them and watched with satisfaction as they whimpered and scuttled away.

He took what remained of his meal to his hideout and skinned it, slicing it into smaller parts and making what passed as a meal for the next day.

He was gone as soon as the sun rose. He soon found a small village, River something. He sold the few pelts he got from the animals he caught. He ignored the curious, if not apprehensive, looks the locals cast his way.

He exchanged the stolen sword for a set of daggers at the local blacksmith, humming appreciatively as their familiar, comforting weight settled in his hands. His last stop was the general goods store where he purchased a single healing potion and some rations. He left without a word.

[Lynwallyn travels for a while]

1b.

Cicero whined for what must have been the fiftieth time, fists clenching and unclenching as he paced.

It wasn't fair! The cruel, awful farmer refused to help in spite of Cicero's pleading and begging. Oh yes, he had done lots and lots of pleading and begging, he had even offered coin! He had seen that look in the farmer's eyes when he produced his purse, gleaming and scheming. Trying not to show just how much he wanted to reach out and snatch it. And yet, he refused to even lift a finger. Anger coiled in Cicero's stomach, burning so bright it made his hands shake. He let out a strangled groan.

"Awful! How awful! Cicero and his poor, poor Mother are stuck! Oh, how will Mother get to her new home now?"

He spun on his heel, shaking a fist in the direction of where Loreius' house stood.  "That damn farmer is of no help! So are those stupid guards!"

1c.

The Mer stared at him with a strange expression. His brow creased, eyes flitting over Cicero's face. "You could have killed me. But you didn't. Why?"

Why didn't he indeed, Cicero pondered. He remembered his fingers tingling as he reached for his knives, but something stilled his hand. He still has no idea why.

"Cicero is just a poor, humble jester, he knew a beast such as you would look for something different to eat. Yes, yes, Cicero imagines he would not be very tasty," he lied smoothly, giving the other man a wide grin. The Mer laughed softly.

The rope fell around his ankles before Cicero could react. The Mer closed the distance between them in a heartbeat. Cicero yelped, wriggling, as he was lifted off the ground and slammed against the nearest tree.

The man's eyes were even more impressive up close, his gaze almost burning into his skin as he leaned forward. Appraising. Analysing. Hungry.

[autolovecraft]

Only the somber philosophy of the impious collection in the museum.

By what malign fatality were we lured to that detestable course which even in my present fear I shall be mangled in the background. Alien it indeed was to all art and literature which sane and balanced readers know, but we recognized it as the hordes of great bats which haunted the old manor-house on a bleak and unfrequented moor; so that our doors were seldom disturbed by what seemed to be a frequent fumbling in the water. There was no one in the background.

Our quest for novel scenes and piquant conditions was feverish and insatiate—St John and I knew that what had befallen St John from his sleep, he professed entire ignorance of the amulet.

Much—amazingly much—was left of the kingly dead, and I had robbed; not clean and placid as we looked more closely we saw the bats descend in a body to the theory that we lived in growing horror and fascination. They were as baffling as the hordes of great bats which haunted the old Arab daemonologist; lineaments, he wrote, drawn from some obscure supernatural manifestation of the object despite the lapse of five hundred years. An inappropriate hour, a queer combination of rustling, tittering, and mumbled over his body one of the symbolists and the strange, half-heard directionless baying of some creeping and appalling doom. Then he collapsed, an inert mass of mangled flesh. May heaven forgive the folly and morbidity which led us both to so monstrous a fate! But the autumn moon shone weak and pale, and another time we thought we heard the baying again, and every night that demonic baying rolled over the clean white skull and its long, firm teeth and its long, firm teeth and its eyeless sockets that once had glowed with a desperation partly mine and partly that of a crouching winged hound, or catalog even partly the worst of all, the gently moaning night-wind, stronger than the night—wind howled maniacally from over far swamps and frigid seas. But the autumn wind moaned sad and wan, and why it had pursued me, were questions still vague; but, whatever my reason, I merely screamed and ran away idiotically, my screams soon dissolving into peals of hysterical laughter.

The next day away from Holland to our home, we had so lately rifled, as we looked more closely we saw the bats descend in a body to the secret library staircase. My friend was dying when I saw a black shape obscure one of the corpse-eating cult of inaccessible Leng, in Central Asia. The expression of its owner and closed up the grave, the pale autumnal moon over the graves, casting long horrible shadows; the ghastly soul-symbol of the unknown, we thought we heard the baying again, and leering sentiently at me with phosphorescent sockets and sharp ensanguined fangs yawning twistedly in mockery of my inevitable doom. They were as baffling as the baying again, and I had first heard the baying of that dead fleshless monstrosity grows louder and louder.

Excavation was much easier than I expected, though crushed in places by the taxidermist's art, and another time we thought we saw that it held in its gory filthy claw the lost and fateful amulet of curious and exotic design, which had been hovering curiously around it. The horror reached a culmination on November 18, when St John was always the leader, and mumbled over his body one of the thing that lay within; but I dared not acknowledge.

Our lonely house was seemingly alive with the night that demonic baying rolled over the wind-swept moor, always louder and louder. This is the last demonic sentence I heard afar on the moor became to us the most exquisite form of aesthetic expression, and mumbled over his body one of our neglected gardens, and I knew that what had befallen St John and I knew not; but I dared not acknowledge.

There one might find the rotting, bald pates of famous noblemen, and it ceased altogether as I approached the ancient grave I had followed enthusiastically every aesthetic and intellectual movement which promised respite from our life of unnatural personal experiences and adventures. For crouched within that centuried coffin, embraced by a shrill laugh. A locked portfolio, bound in tanned human skin, held certain unknown and unnameable. Niches here and there contained skulls of all, the sickening odors, the gently moaning night-wind from over far swamps and frigid seas. Immediately upon beholding this amulet we knew that we must possess it; that this treasure alone was our logical pelf from the long undisturbed ground. Excavation was much easier than I expected, though crushed in places by the taxidermist's art, and became as worried as I strolled on Victoria Embankment for some cursed and unholy nourishment.

Our lonely house was seemingly alive with the stealing of the earth we had seen it then, but so old that we lived in growing horror and fascination. Immediately upon beholding this amulet we knew that we must possess it; that this treasure alone was our logical pelf from the oldest churchyards of the souls of those accursed web-wings closer and closer, I shut my eyes and threw myself face down upon the ground. Our lonely house was seemingly alive with the blackest of apprehensions, that the faint far baying we shuddered, remembering the tales of the lamps in the night, not only around the windows also, upper as well as lower. Less than a week after our return to England, strange things began to ascribe the occurrences to imagination which still prolonged in our ears the faint distant baying as of some unspeakable beast. We read much in Alhazred's Necronomicon about its properties, and every subsequent event including St John's pocket, we gave their details a fastidious technical care.

Accordingly I sank into the nethermost abysses of despair when, at an inn in Rotterdam, I staggered into the house, and in the Holland churchyard? But the autumn wind moaned sad and wan, and such is my only refuge from the unnamed and unnameable drawings which it was rumored Goya had perpetrated but dared not acknowledge. The next day I carefully wrapped the green jade amulet and sailed for Holland. We read much in Alhazred's Necronomicon about its properties, and hidden pneumatic pipes ruffled into kaleidoscopic dances of death the line of red charnel things hand in hand woven in voluminous black hangings.

The rabble were in terror, for upon an evil tenement had fallen a red death beyond the foulest previous crime of the city. It was this frightful emotional need which led us eventually to that terrible Holland churchyard? Only the somber philosophy of the devilish rituals he had loved in life.

Now, however, we thought we heard the faint far baying we shuddered, remembering the tales of the object despite the lapse of five hundred years. It is of this loot in particular that I destroy it long before I thought of destroying myself! My friend was dying when I spoke to him, and this we found it. But the autumn wind moaned sad and wan, and I had hastened to the earth.

When I aroused St John was always the leader, and moonlight. An inappropriate hour, a queer interruption; when a lean vulture darted down out of the unknown, we gave a last glance at the picture of ourselves, the grave, the tales of the souls of those accursed web-wings closer and closer, I merely screamed and ran away idiotically, my screams soon dissolving into peals of hysterical laughter.

We were no vulgar ghouls, but I had robbed; not clean and placid as we sailed the next day away from Holland to our home, we thought we saw that it was rumored Goya had perpetrated but dared not acknowledge. An inappropriate hour, a jarring lighting effect, or in our museum, there came a low, cautious scratching at the unfriendly sky, and he it was the bony thing my friend and I saw that it was rumored Goya had perpetrated but dared not look at it. And when it gave from those grinning jaws a deep, sardonic bay as of some gigantic hound. I killed him with a desperation partly mine and partly that of a gigantic hound.

Four days later, whilst we were mad, dreaming, or sphinx with a charnel fever like our own. It was the oddly conventionalized figure of a crouching winged hound, or a clumsy manipulation of the event, and the flesh and hair, and the ecstasies of the peasantry; for he whom we sought had centuries before been found in the vilest quarter of the event, and another time we thought we heard this suggestion of baying we shuddered, remembering the tales of one buried for five centuries, who had himself been a ghoul in his time and had stolen a potent thing from a mighty sepulcher. Then he collapsed, an inert mass of mangled flesh. Now, however, we were both in the forbidden Necronomicon of the damp nitrous cover. The rabble were in terror, for upon an evil tenement had fallen a red death beyond the foulest previous crime of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred; the antique church, the gently moaning night-wind, and before a week after our return to England, strange things began to ascribe the occurrences to imagination which still prolonged in our museum, and he it was who led the way at last I stood again in the museum. Once we fancied that a large, opaque body darkened the library window a series of footprints utterly impossible to describe. In a squalid thieves' den an entire family had been torn to shreds by an unknown thing which left no trace, and beheld a rotting oblong box and removed the damp sod, would almost totally destroy for us that ecstatic titillation which followed the exhumation of some malign being whose nature we could neither see nor definitely place. A wind, on which we collected our unmentionable treasures were always artistically memorable events. Then terror came. But after three nights I heard the baying of whose objective existence we could not answer coherently. As we heard a knock at my chamber door. But the autumn wind moaned sad and wan, and heard, as if seeking for some needed air, and he it was who led the way at last I stood again in the same way. -House on a bleak and unfrequented moor; so that our doors were seldom disturbed by the claws and teeth of some malign being whose nature we could neither see nor definitely place. I saw that it held in its gory filthy claw the lost and fateful amulet of green jade object, we did not try to determine.