#mm. i have a thing to say about how Ru'thûn's Knights sing.

[blackwaxidol]

categorically, the Dramaturgy's Deathsongs—

"Elegy of Withering"

Ru'thûn's personal Song, of which she relays to her victims in the slow stalking of prey as is custom of a Darkblade. it immobilises, it cripples, it is an infernal, rotting cadence echoed hauntingly by the grinding of ancient blades against stone floors, like the slow sharpening of an executioner's ax upon a whetstone.

Ru'thûn is ancient, her Deathsong first practiced when she was a subjugated half-shape decaying in the sunless depths of the Sea of Screams. it was her first weapon, and it is a part of her so intrinsic not by the willful reshaping of her larynx but by the manner in which it embodies her so deeply that perhaps it even hides her death, to an extent.

when the first notes reach you, wrap their claws around you, you are struck by a terrible paranoia, a primitive fear of the unknown... you are held by the crushing pressure of an ocean, the unpleasant squeezing of your ribcage. when she draws near, her slow crooning grows more frenzied, growing to a fever-pitch captivated and spurred by pure bloodlust. her blades strike the ground next to you in quick succession, and the interval between blows lessens... perhaps then, you will realise, that your luck was manufactured, her near-misses intentional, a deliberate ploy to add your growing fear to the choir of a thousand dying lungs that whisper between the notes...

"Requiem of Unbinding"

a Song woven together by a full Choir, weaponised to grant ingress into other Throne Worlds. an eerie, reverberant hymn composed of harmonious rounds that lend a maddening, endless quality to the Song.

a sharp, puncturing lance of sorts, it cuts away the Ascendant Plane like piercing the thin membrane beneath an eggshell and letting the yolk slowly drool out...

overhearing it prompts a creeping, unpleasant sense of thick clotting within the sternal blood vessels. excruciating pain that spreads outwards from the core of your chest, like the muscle strands are being slowly pulled apart cell-by-cell.

"Chant of Suppuration"

a sibling-song of the Requiem of Unbinding, perfected by Ru'thûn for schemes of ruination as inspired by Crota [by Her will]—to puncture the Throne World, and bring forth from such wounds the might of the Vex, subjugated and compromised to the very radiozoan core by the viral notes of Ru'thûn's commanding tongue.

performed in tandem with the precision of a needle by the teeth of Ru'thûn's twin blades, she moves and twirls with a speed that belies the mass of her heavy armour as the macabre flurry of soulfire and Darkness energy bleeds and spreads in a dense, coiling vapour. as the song progresses, her voice grows enumerous, and harmonises with a mechanical cadence that could come only from the machines she has called forth...

the Chant is not meant to be heard for the benefit of one's death, it has little effect on meat-things like humans and their starflung cousins. Exo, however, find themselves strangely compelled by the sharp, almost synthetic tones.

"Lament of the Unseen"

a funerary dirge woven by Mazôkar, Hand of Death, Hallowed Celebrant of the Unseen Sister, Master of Ceremonies...

a small, mournful heresy, it binds the permanence of a final death and weaves the last gasp of one's soulfire into a refined obol for the afterlife.

whilst every Guardian-known Deathsong has been performed by a Wizard, the Lament is traditionally a choral hymn performed by Knights and Celebrants.

the Lament is not a Light-draining melody by itself, but it does have a dampening effect on both the senses and one's willingness to call upon such power. it is a neurotoxic sedative, a poison of the kindest potency. interlopers, secretive listeners, to such a venerated hymn often feel a sense of being watched.