#slithering sycophant

[roboraindrop]

“The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is to love and be loved in return.” 💕

[senka-mesecine]

Are there any other platoon characters besides Barnes you could see as being yandere-esque?

-

Nearly all of them? In their own way?

― For example, you'd never think someone like, say, O'Neill's possessive or obsessive at first, but he's there yes man-ning your every word and action, humblebragging (or even wildly overexaggerating and lying) around you to impress you with some stolen valor stories, lovebombing you, being wholly biased to all your decisions and pretty much riding your respective coattails to the degree it could almost be considered servile or a little pathetic --- only a little; but see, it's all tactics. Just tactics. Tactics he's entirely sincere about and wholly devoted to which probably makes it worse seeing as how he puts his whole O'Neill heart into this and not one bit of it is fake. A Yandere doesn't need to be dominant to be a Yandere. If he slimes, slithers and acts like enough of a sycophant, he believes, sooner or later, you'll fall for that O'Neill charm because he'll do anything from seamlessly and wordlessly being at your service and disposal at all times to just about being on your ass like an ant until, eventually, you'll fall for it because the man will just about brown-nose you into love like nobody else can or will and irritate and somehow repulse everyone else away from you by default. Ain't stupid. Not if it works. Bootlicking can in fact, pay off.

― Wolfe? Man's a wolf in sheep's clothing and yes, that's an obvious pun. Easy to overlook and he's very unassuming at first, but therein lies the unseen danger of him, because he'll fail, he'll be occasionally incompetent to the degree it'll downright endanger others, cowardly, but perhaps not too cowardly, maybe just the right amount; he'll be sidelined, he'll be wildly in over his head in many situations, he's the guy you never expect to be obsessive (or have the passion, drive or willpower to) and he'll fall short in so many ways and still get the girl because he'll wait it out. Yeah. He'll wait it out. When you're disappointed, heartbroken, lonely, left behind and for the lack of a better word, messed up by everyone else (maybe people he eliminated with his incompetence) Wolfe comes in at the last moment and moves in on the prize and keeps it. He ends up seeming like the hero for it too and all he had to do is be there at the place and at the right time. College boy appeared harmless and even hapless until he wasn't. Unexpectedly dangerous too due to how little recognition he got in the war and my god, now, starved of having control, admiration, respect, authority and praise he could suck you dry of all five until he's sated...which is never.

― Bunny's the most blatantly obvious Yandere of the bunch. Doesn't hide it. Can't hide it. Won't. Puts the 'sick' into lovesick. Doesn't have the capacity for subtlety and decorum to do so. And why would he anyway? He does what he likes when he likes and that's about the whole point of everything for him. That's the sort of thing he relishes in. Sends you something he's bitten into as a token of his affections purely so he could show off his teeth marks embedded, say, into an old can or the tooth that fell out of his mouth after he's bitten into said can or maybe he can in the utmost, almost childlike confidence show you a heart he swears belongs to an animal (but do you have any proof it does?) 'because you ain't ever seen anything like it'. Maybe he tattoos himself. Crudely, admittedly. Uses a needle to pretty much scratch your name somewhere on his body and proudly flaunt it to you even though it's under risk of inflammation and infection and very much wants to do the same with you. What do you mean you wont? He's violent, boyishly unhinged and entirely in your face about it. You'll know his tendencies from day one because he wears everything out in the open. It's impossible to avoid. He'll probably be there doing something morbid to impress from the moment he sets his eyes on you.

― The ways Elias would be possessive go above and beyond the ordinary bunch, see, because he'd be kind. He'd be the voice of reason. One could even say he's noble. But, he still embeds himself so deep into your mind and heart you find yourself thinking about him for most of your waking thoughts, if not all of them and what's that if not possession? Good natured possession, but still. He's on the quest to save your soul, in ways. Love's an enlightenment to him. A rebirth. And you're not sure just what this man does exactly to get so deeply under your skin but he's generally just so good to you that five minutes without him can send you into subtle panic. He doesn't need to do anything bad. Anything controlling. Anything...well...insidious. Quite the contrary. Elias kills you with kindness. One nice gesture at a time. One sweet word after another. One selfless gesture after selfless gesture. Until he makes himself unlike any other presence in your life. Until you're the one obsessed with him. Heck, you'll be here dreaming of him. Can't be without him even in your nighttime reveries. You're hooked. If you ever talk to him about it he might just offer you a blissed out smile and softly say that now you know how he felt, day one. Now you feel it too.

― Taylor's the everyman. The boy next door. The guy. Initially boyish. Puppy-like. Maybe a bit green, wide-eyed and inexperienced. Maybe a lot. He's seemingly all classical love letters and warmest regards but every once in a while, if properly triggered by someone or something, especially after his time in the war, a side so unexpectedly and profoundly dark can rear its ugly head it can downright leave you frightened, barely recognizing him because you'd never guess in a million years he had it in him. See, he doesn't mean to. He left for the war so he wouldn't be this everyman. Live this cookiecutter life his parents lived. He wanted to do something for himself. Be something that wasn't simply handed to him. But, irony of all ironies, with you, the cookiecutter is precisely what he covets and maybe, now, he's earned it. Like a sort of trophy or medal. Heck, fought and bled for it overseas. So now, suddenly, you're bricked in by the very white picket fence, immaculately trimmed lawn, affluent facade home life Taylor went to Vietnam to run away from him. You're his. He's normal. He's good too. But, every once in a while you dread to think what he'd be capable of doing if you ever crossed the white picket fence and ran.

― Yeah. The man of the hour himself; Barnes. A man that seems like he hates you for the longest time and during the good days when he's not actively antagonistic, intimidating, frightening as all hell or shouty, at best, he ignores your existence, but, what he presents on the outside isn't at all what's going on on the inside, even though both are entirely him and entirely genuine, but regardless; he could very well think of you as the only person he loves in the whole world and still actively treat you like you've somehow pissed on his sunshine. And you have, you see. Why? Because now, you're a weakness. He'd be capable of killing for you as well as kill you because you've disrupted the reality of things (or at least the way he sees reality) and gave him another thing to want except warfare. And that's yourself. And when a fighting man craves something other than war? The desire to do combat diminishes by the daily. You're a literal flaw in the grand machine of things and he could pick you apart with his bare hands as well break the hand of anyone who just as much as touches you. It's literally a conflict within his very soul and not just a run of the mill obsession. The type of love that drives him crazy and that's saying a lot for someone already dyed-in-the-bone with various shades of unhinged.

[a-scary-lack-of-common-sense]

Chittering and chuckling, the worlds come collide;

Clinking and swirling, the wine glasses teeter, bona-fide;

Charlatan serpents speak in saccharine tongues;

Lilting and slithering, in sabertoothed songs;

The world burns hot, withering decay;

Honeycomb altars are where the skin flays;

Sacrilegious sanctimony, spat by sycamore sycophants;

Sacrificial saints sabotage ceremonial cynics, sorrows scant;

Slimy satisfaction is what renders them great.

[cassynite]

WIP Wednesday

Me: I don't do emotion super well, I can't present it in a very empathetic way

My brain, with a gun: write Daeran at his mom's funeral. Do it.

--

Mother's funeral has black roses.

They fill the chapel of Iomadae in Kenabres with a sickly-sweet scent, as if trying to imitate Mother's favorite perfume. They bloom under the light streaming in through the stained glass--it's a beautiful, sunny day outside, the kind that would have Daeran traipsing through the gardens or riding his pony. But the grounds are blocked off now, and his pony is dead, along with every other living thing that had been in Heaven's Edge two weeks ago.

The roses would have been what she wanted. At least, that's what everyone says, when they come up to Daeran to commiserate, these adults in their best mourning garb who he's never, not once, met. They all say the same things--rows and rows of people finding him in the main hall before the funeral procession, sailing over to tell him what a wonderful person she was, how kind and noble and gentle and good. Shoving their memory of her, no matter how vague or unwanted, in his face.

None of them talk about how she snorted when she laughed, or hummed when she was concentrating on work, or threw her arms open when she introduced herself at parties as if she wanted to give the entire crowd a hug. None of them knew her songs or her jokes or that she'd decided to save their worthless lives rather than try to get a healer for herself.

Daeran wants, desperately, to not be an aasimar for a single day, so that his hair doesn't reflect the light shining through the stained glass, so that he is not so easy to find in a crowd. He wants, for a moment, to close his eyes and not exist. The gazes of the crowd, hungry to see his reaction, scrape across his body and leave him raw.

It doesn't help that they're not the only eyes he has to deal with. The thing crouched in his head, the thing that he allowed in and saved his life, never leaves him alone. He'd thought that 'being a doorway' meant he'd occasionally have to deal with whatever [spirit nonsense] it needed to enact from time to time, not that he'd have a permanent passenger inside his skull, whispering caustic thoughts from inside his ears, emitting cold and alien pulses of power, threatening his life should he even speak a word of it as if he did not know what he had agreed to when he first made the pact.

And, always, watching. Constant, ceaseless attention--Daeran is the star of a play for one hideous, malevolent audience, and he never gets curtain call. And him breaking down over staring at his mother's coffin, where her desiccated corpse lies inside to be buried beneath the soil, is not something he'll give it or anyone else in the crowd of sycophants.

He nods and thanks each and every mourner--at least they don't expect him to smile--and then takes his place at the front of the chapel, where the clerics had directed the family to sit.

He's the only one in the row. Everyone else had been at his party, celebrating his birthday, choking on poisoned cake or having their heads ripped off by the slithering pustule from another dimension that now grows on his brain.

Then, right before the high priest in his enormous hat (not Nestrin, Nestrin is never going to lead hours-long sermons ever again) walks up the dais to start the funeral proceedings, there's a murmur in the crowd, and someone places a hand on his shoulder. It's gentle--he'd almost call it hesitant but the pressure is firm and steadying.

He looks over to see the pained smile of a woman out of armor, her hair pulled up and away from her ageless face. The only sign of her years are her eyes, deep pits of blue filled with heavy grief.

"Hello," the queen of Mendev whispers. "Do you mind if I sit next to you?"

Daeran doesn't say anything, and after a moment Queen Galfrey lowers herself to his side in the pew. She's close enough to touch, strangely real and human in a stiff black mourning dress. She stares straight ahead, either ignorant of or blithely unconcerned by the whispers and the attention her presence garners: the queen of Mendev, sitting in the family row, next to the last member of house Arendae.

He's seen her before, of course. He's even met her. At the yearly jubilee in Nerosyan, she'd always make a point to spend at least some time with the Arendaes, and she would attend parties every now and then. Mother always--

Mother would--

The priest begins the ceremony. He speaks of loss and grace and pain in a monotone drawl, one that fills the room with even, continuous sound. The words all blur together, and Daeran stares at a spot beyond the priest's shoulder, where sunlight streams in through the stained glass depicting Iomadae rising from her test of the Starstone. The droning suffocates any life in the room, leaches out the feeling in his body, making everything float away, distant. He's counting the seconds until it is over. He is trying not to poke at the Thing in His Head, rotten and slightly painful like a bad tooth. 

"She'd probably make a joke right now," Queen Galfrey murmurs. Daeran almost jerks at the noise, the sudden intrusion against the ever-present hum of the priest's sermon. "The high ceremonial garb always looks a little silly, doesn't it? She'd probably wonder what the fuss is about."

Daeran keeps his attention on the window, but now there is another person in the room, the queen suddenly distinct from the mass of attention around him.  The queen breathes, louder than usual but still only just enough that Daeran can hear it. It shakes with every exhale.

"I know this won't mean much," she says, still in undertone. No one notices the conversation, how she's talking under the rites of ceremony, sending his mother's soul to Pharasma. "Losing everything like this...nothing will mean much for a while. The loneliness is--I understand. So please believe me when I say it's not the end, either."

She places her hand on top of his, another shock of sensation. Her hand is warm, and dry, rough with callouses. "Your mother was..." She stops, as if she understands she can't fit her into words. Her next words are choked out. "She will be missed."

Everything blurs out of focus: the chapel, the monotone voice, the eyes and the whispers. His lungs are too big for his body, his throat too small, and Daeran stays very, very still, because if he moves even a little bit he is going to splinter into a thousand pieces, and there's no one left to pick up after him now. The only thing anchoring him is the warm hand holding his. As everything else waters away and spins out of control, it remains real and present, holding him to this moment. He tries to find the strength to return the grasp, but even moving his hand is too much.

The queen doesn't seem to expect any kind of response. They stay like that, frozen in small and far away except for where their hands connect, the only thing that is real in this entire day, from this entire nightmare.

"I am here, if you ever need anything. You still have your cousin." The hand squeezes his. "I am so, so sorry."

[talentforlying]

@normaltothemax: how about something angsty? something to do with failure or something idk

the ashen taste of failure. novelists love that shit. they'll sit in the dark of their rooms or the gaudy yellow lights of a coffee shop for hours trying to put it in their own words, rolling their tongues along the ridges of their teeth to stir up a taste more poetic than the acid of their own spit, to really feel what they say their protagonists do. prettying up misery to package and sell, because who the fuck would want to read it if they were to come right out and say "some seventy year old git who just boked in the station toilet has been riding a train with no destination for hours, and if you ask him, he's pretty sure he's been on that train his whole fucking life"?

( yeah. he wouldn't read it either. )

if there is someone writing his life, trying to feed 'failure' into the flavor grinder, they don't have to try hard to come up with the 'ashen' part. it clings to him like a lover, like a second skin, like film stretched over leftovers you've already forgotten about and won't find again until the stench of rot starts to leak out the gaps around the door of the fridge. ash on his fingers, on his tongue, on his coat. ash in his wake, a long, slithering trail — bridges and lives and bodies and rules. cigarette stubs in the windowsill. every car's a non-smoking car these days, but since when has that ever stopped a determined enough wheezing working man from lighting up? never stopped him. there's precious little that does.

and that's the fucking problem right there, isn't it? nothing stopping him. people too shit-scared to get in his way. plenty of high-and-mighty fuckers to tell him off after he's done, oh sure; parades of angry scoffs and disapproving looks, fingers stuck in his face and punches to be thrown. but not a single fucker to hold him back when the tide is rising and he's still charging down the beach to kick sand in someone else's face. no one who can change his mind once it's been made up. no one who wants to make the plan, break the rules, take the dive, push the big red button. to fail. fucking sycophants and cowards with 20/20 hindsight, dooming him to lose again and again and again.

( sure, make it about everyone else but you, constantine. make it anyone else's fault but yours.

pretend like the only reason you're still shoveling the shit is because the nasty mean world won't take the spade away from you, pretend like being the only one for the job isn't exactly what you fucking wanted all along.

congratulations, con job: you're special. now fucking live with it. )

the ashen taste of failure. does failure leave the taste behind, or does the ash come first? does fate rub his nose in it once they've learned he's shat the carpet, or does it sprinkle down across his shoulders like powdery snow as soon as he steps outside, marking him for an inevitable fuck-up?

would it be easier to know that there really is someone writing his life, and that every ounce of burning shame sent to sear the back of his throat with each new drag on that ashen taste serves a purpose, eventually? it's all in the plot, you didn't get another friend killed for nothing. just the plot, putting your family into early graves and sinking your mind like a stone down the throat of your own titanic ego, until it chokes on unreality and the new god penance ascends the throne. a mechanism to get you from point A to B with narrative swiftness so the audience won't get fucking bored, so you'll find that next convenient little nugget of resolve and grow up a bit just as you were meant to, just in time to pull yourself together for the next big event.

except, he doesn't know what point B looks like. skipped the briefing, missed the stop. left all the resolve behind. someone else can go pan for it, find him a reason to change, hoard it or sell it or turn it into something worth keeping, something that might change the text on his tombstone from THAT BASTARD CONSTANTINE into SOMEONE WHO HAD SOMETHING TO GIVE, but for now, there's nowhere to go: there's only the act of going. only him and this train, and the fact that inevitably, eventually, it will stop. it has to, right? he can't continue like this forever. like chewing gum, he can't maintain the taste.

( why not? nothing stopping him. )

pull the e-brake. let him off here. something's burning, and he's pretty sure it's his life: going up in smoke, like every good thing he's ever touched. like bridges, and bodies, and rules.

hey, writer up there. do you taste that, when you roll your tongue around, stinging where you cracked open that split lip? tastes like seventy years of salt, doesn't it? when you press your hands to your eyes, can you feel ridges and scars doing the same, squeezing vitreous fluid up against your optic nerve? when you breathe, does your heart beat so fucking fast, so fucking hungry for that stolen air, that it feels like dying? does it feel like you've been losing for decades, yourself and other people, hopes and compassion and desperate fucking dreams clawing up out of your lungs in bits and pieces, and you can never spare the time to pick any of them up because the next one's already on its way?

failure doesn't taste like ash. novelists love that shit because it's easy, pre-packaged. failure tastes like this: salt his pride won't name as tears, and acid spit, and the last gasp of a low-tar cigarette on a train to nowhere, in a life maintained on the knowledge that as sad and sorry as he feels for himself now, he is probably yet to do his worst.

. . . yeah. you're right. he doesn't fucking like that ending either.

( nothing stopping him from changing it. )

[unklear]

TOP    5    SONG    ASSOCIATIONS songs    that    most    inspire    /    represent    my  writing    &    my  muse.    

still  counting  -  volbeat.        counting  all  the  assholes  in  the  room  /  well,  i'm  definitely  not  alone!  /  well,  i'm  not  alone  /  you're  a  liar,  you're  a  cheater,  you're  a  fool  /  well,  that's  just  like  me,  yoo-hoo  /  and  i  know  you,  too  /  "mr.  perfect"  don't  exist,  my  little  friend  /  and  i'll  tell  you  that  again     

pit  of  vipers  -  simon  curtis.        now,  i  must  admit  that  i  have  played  a  part  /  in  the  way  that  things  have  gotten  out  of  hand  /  but  it's  escalated  almost  to  an  art  /  i  wanna  fix  it,  but  i  don't  think  i  can  /  i'm  falling  deep  into  a  pit  of  vipers  /  sliding  over  me,  over  me  and  i  can't  break  free  /  secrets  run  deep  when  you're  in  a  pit  of  vipers  /  slithering,  whispering,  feel  the  venom  poisoning  me     

there's  a  good  reason  (...)  -  panic!  at  the  disco.      i'm  the  new  cancer,  never  looked  better!  /  you  can't  stand  it  /  because  you  say  so  under  your  breath  /  you're  reading  lips:  "when  did  he  get  all  confident?"  /  haven't  you  heard  that  i'm  the  new  cancer?  /  never  looked  better  and  you  can't  stand  it     

wolf  in  sheep's  clothing  -  set  it  off.      aware,  aware,  you  stalk  your  prey  /  with  criminal  mentality  /  you  sink  your  teeth  into  the  people  you  depend  on  /  infecting  everyone,  you're  quite  the  problem  /  fee,  fi,  fo,  fum,  you  better  run  and  hide  /  i  smell  the  blood  of  a  petty  little  coward  /  jack  be  lethal,  jack  be  slick  /  jill  will  leave  you  lonely,  dying  in  a  filthy  ditch     

emperor's  new  clothes  -  panic!  at  the  disco.          sycophants  on  velvet  sofas  /  lavish  mansions,  vintage  wines  /  i  am  so  much  more  than  royal  /  snatch  your  chain  and  mace  your  eyes  /  if  it  feels  good,  tastes  good,  it  must  be  mine  /  heroes  always  get  remembered,  but  you  know  legends  never  die  /  and  if  you  don't  know,  now  you  know  /  i'm  takin'  back  the  crown  /  i'm  all  dressed  up  and  naked  /  i  see  what's  mine  and  take  it  

tagged  by:    stole  it,  in  true  miles  fashion.  tagging:    whoever  wants  to  do  it.  

[mothduchess]

Love is a monster. No amount of chains, nor doctrine, nor cloying sycophants can stop it. The guards were scrambled. "After him!" Pauldrons glinted in the moonlight only for the pale eye to be obscured by a shape moving across it. It was headed in the same direction. Thrumming wings beat the winds into submission propelling the figure forth towards a column of pale smoke. The forest, far from the crystalline palace and yet so frustratingly within view - it was unclear which end disliked the view more. A humble cabin, in which a strapping man of sharp features resided, closed from the roads. Not many came by here. But inside... the cook could only imagine his beloved. On nights such as these just before dawn would break, oh that majestic voice he longed for! The pining song. The melody, crossing between castle keep and cottage meek. It was not long when they met, wasn't it? He met the him... oh that's right, he was in the sheep pen. A joke. A laugh. A flush. Over and over, until this night came. Banging. He froze, pie in hand. Oil lamps flickered low. "Come out! Prince, we know it's you. We saw a shape run this way!" The guards bellowed. Fear. How did they find this place so quickly? He could've sworn that he checked for creeping ears before lying in bed. It was just a - well, perhaps it was more than a quick kiss, but the stars were still out. And the escape rope was pulled back onto the balcony. How-? CRACK! Axes through the door, they weren't taking no for an answer! The marriage had to happen, so demanded the court, the king! No no no, he worked so hard to build this place. A place to escape, to plan to dream! Before the door shattered, his thoughts went to his beloved. ...Silence. The axes stopped coming. A dim fog slithered through splintered cracks, and he lit up. He was here! Weapons were dropped, and the door was swung open. Tall as a shadow, thin like a spear, yet as graceful as any songbird. A seven fingered hand, tipped in ornate silver claws, stretched out to touch the human. He laughed and put his hand over the creature's. "Oh dear, you came?" "I did as I've always done," clicked the monster. The captain of the guard came to the door. Both men turned to look. She flashed a torch to the both- The prince, in his regal might, reached out his seven fingered hand and plunged the cabin once more into darkness as he extinguished the torch in a heartbeat. The wings whipped out. "Lets go!" The peasant called. "I couldn't agree more!" Cried the prince. And the two vanished. To be apart is a terrible thing. To be chained and halted in your pursuit of a connection, barred from seeing those who cherish you most, it is gruesome. It changes you. But so too will love. For love, is a monster.

To prevent the prince from falling in love with a commoner, a decision was made to keep him away from all women until he reached the age to meet his betrothed. However, one day before meeting her, he escaped with an unexpected companion.

[10millionyearsdungeon]

Praesidium

A/N: Back to our regularly scheduled bullshit...We went into this with zero plan, zero ambition, and came out the other end with something resembling a drabble featuring Hitoshi Shinsou as a hot-shit, Kennedy-esque politician trying to escape from the “family business.” I’d like to thank @dymphnasprose​ for the inspiration, the banner, and for putting up with my crazed plot bunny hunting sessions in her DMs. Proudly part of The Smut Pile Mafia Collab-- huge thanks to @pleasantanathema​ and @present-mel​ for organizing it and keeping us degenerates on time for once. You’re the real heroes.

TW: Wax play, orgasm denial, tobacco use, death threats, graphic violence

=====================================================

You were always used to protection. Your family's name and wealth brought its own Kevlar shield; whether it was the broad shouldered bodyguards flanking you and your entourage during every frivolous shopping excursion or impromptu escape to one of the many vacation homes that dotted the globe, or the mere mention of your father and the weight of his near omnipresence in the highest echelons of high society, protection was almost always guaranteed. You could hear it in the hushed voices of the real estate giants and their trophy wives when you made your grand entrance to every socialite gathering. 

"There she is, Yanai's precious pearl…" 

Dripping in envy and awe, it was no surprise to you when you caught his eye. Heir and only daughter of the wealthiest family in the country, you knew your worth among the elite and so did he. You only knew of Shinsou Hitoshi by virtue of his reputation as a newcomer to the world of national-level politics, but his charm and charisma were undersold by every inch devoted to him in the papers. By all accounts, he left you dazzled by his lazy, almost sleepy smile and the low rumble of his succinct one-liners. 

He played the part of the laid-back Playboy to the hilt, and by the night of your first fundraiser gala Shinsou had you practically eating from the palm of his hand like a hungry stray. By your second date, you could practically taste the Harry Winston hiding in his Tom Ford smoking jacket by the time dessert arrived. Back then you never questioned how he managed to afford the heirloom, four carat diamond he slid onto your finger, nor did it occur to you how he managed to slither his way into the House of Councilors. Blinded by the magnetic sway he held over you and your well-paid collection of sycophants, the how and why seemed largely irrelevant so long as he kept you on his arm. In your waking moments, you could almost catch pieces of a broken conversation from your insomniac lover. 

"Find someone else...I'm done being your enforcer. I have an image to maintain now…"

Many a night he'd stumble in reeking of sweat and sulfur, dark liquor still burning on his lips when he pressed a kiss to your warm cheek as you slept in your shared bed. Morning invariably gave way to bruised knuckles and heavy dark circles as Shinsou hid his fading scars under his slate gray Armani suit. Prior to your wedding night, you thought you caught the rip of his silk and gravel voice grunting from a crooked alley. Following those familiar thunderclap grunts was the crunch of something hard and then a pulpy squilch that made your stomach twist in on itself. The begging that followed was unintelligible from your way to the nightclub, but his voice, your Shinsou's voice snarling a loaded promise of breathing tubes and chronic pain if the offending party didn't pay their due stayed with you until your bodyguard ushered you into the safety of your car. 

"Daddy, I can't do this," you cried. Your father dabbed at your eyes and shook his head at your tantrum. He wouldn't be so blasé about the arrangement or your uproar if he was the one who heard your groom's fist shattering bones just the night before. A vision in white brocade, the four carats on your left hand felt like ten tons weighing you down the aisle as your father all but dragged you to meet your husband at the end. As the crowd rose to receive your grand entrance, you couldn't help but stifle a quiet sob at the sight of Shinsou's surrogate fathers standing in the front pew. Yamada couldn't contain his excitement for his boy, but Aizawa glared on coldly when you met his gaze. Your father kissed your cheek and gave your hands a squeeze before abandoning you before your audience. Shinsou held out his hand, and you choked back another hiccuping sob-- how could you hold those hands the same way when they were capable of such senseless violence? Knuckles cracked and discolored with aging bruises, he groped for your hands and pulled you the extra two steps onto the altar, flashing you that same lackadaisical grin. It was a blur, a bad dream you couldn't wake from. Beyond the sporadic flashbulbs blinking in the crowd, you couldn't pull away from him. 

"I do…" Your voice didn't sound like your own, even as you felt it leave your throat. Shinsou pulled closer and rasped against your lips. 

"This is only the beginning, kitten." 

Kitten...

You couldn't deny how his pet name made you shiver. The single word held a scintillating promise of the night to come, yet all you could focus on were those hands and the crunch of anonymous bones under his blows. Would he ever turn those hands on you? As he gently slid his platinum wedding band over your ring finger, the mate to the ostentatious engagement ring occupying the spot, you melted under the tenderness of his touch. Your Hitoshi couldn't be capable of such violence. Your Hitoshi was a man of change, of reform who wanted to help bring his countrymen into a golden age. Your fingers numbly slid your ring onto your husband's hand and with the action sealed your own fate. The world swam out of view when he overtook you with a blistering kiss, hungry and needy against your lips. He didn't taste like smoke and scotch this time, a flavor you had grown to appreciate the longer you entangled yourself with him. He lingered for what felt like an eternity, the roar of applause and shared joy for the union a soundtrack erasing any fears you might have had prior. 

Your bridesmaids swooned over the intensity of Shinsou’s gaze throughout your opulent reception-- your father sparing no expense when giving away his precious pearl. Shinsou’s family kept to themselves mostly, with Aizawa only stepping from their shadowy corner to address your father over travel arrangements. Hitoshi’s eyes narrowed and that same cocksure grin blossomed over his features as you inched closer, hip pulled closer by that massive hand. “Hey,” you breathed with a soft smile. He returned it in kind and squeezed your hip through the eggshell Vera Wang gown and leaned in to whisper in your ear. Hair slicked back, all that tickled you was the heat from his breath as it fanned against your skin. “I can’t wait to get you out of that, kitten. Gorgeous as you are with it on, the thought of you in nothing but your jewelry has my mouth practically watering.” Predatory gaze amplified by that sex and gravel voice had you melting. He took you by the hand and bade you follow him across the floor of the resort ballroom. Cautiously, you glanced around the room, anxious that someone from the party would notice your sudden escape. Before you had a chance to object, Hitoshi held a finger to his lips and pulled you through the crowd and out of the room. “You really think I can wait any longer when you’re looking like that?” The wait staff cast cursory glances at you and your husband as he continued to guide you away from the noise and bodies keeping him from tearing your gown off and claiming you. “Hitoshi…” you whimpered, pinned with your back to the door of your honeymoon suite. He sunk his teeth into your shoulder and nearly purred at the gasp that left your lips. Fumbling for the key, Shinsou held you from falling into the open door and nudged you over the threshold with an eagerness you couldn’t place. Words were swallowed by hungry mouths and replaced with an exchange of passion tempered only by the quiet frustration of fingering over buttons and parting fabric to unwrap the prize of feeling your skin under his fingertips. Once released from your prison of beaded white silk and delicate lace, Hitoshi pulled away, raking his ultraviolet eyes over your nearly bare frame to further appreciate his prize. 

“Just when I thought you couldn’t be any more perfect.” Instead of shying away from his words, you moved with a certainty that was far from your own. Automatically reaching for his tie, you pulled him down to resume your heated devouring, earning a chuckle and a light spank on your lace-covered cheek in reply. “Impatient, kitten?”

Your fingers worked the buttons of his shirt nimbly, practically digging your nails into his chest just to feel him hiss into your mouth. Tongues waged a war to stalemate status as your husband gave your buttocks a squeeze before hoisting you up and wrapping your legs around his hips. Your sex practically drooled against his toned abs through your useless lace panties. The trail of your gyrating on the ridges of washboard muscle pulled wanton moans from your kiss-bruised lips.

“Feels like you are. Drenched for me already. Who knew my heiress was such a needy slut.” You whined under the degradation he heaped on you as he placed you on the pillow-top bed and guided your hands above your head. Shinsou pulled his tie over his head and wrapped it lovingly around your wrists, brushing his lips and teeth along the gently blushing skin along your blue-blood veins as he finished securing you to the headboard. He moved slowly, teasing every inch of exposed skin with languid grace. A panther in human skin, Shinsou sunk his teeth and sucked purple bruises along your ribs and thighs, parting your squirming legs casually. You felt the weight of his wedding band on your inner thigh and wriggled away from the cold of it. Hitoshi tsked from below, grin tugging on his lips as he pulled your panties down with his teeth. Tenderly, he rubbed a sole finger along your drenched folds. You bucked into the sensation and writhed for more, only to have your husband pull away and drag the slick-stained digit along his tongue. 

“Looks like I’m gonna have to teach you a lesson, kitten.” He blew on your clit, earning a choked moan. “You’re on my time now.” He withdrew, leaving you to whine for him to return, only to be answered by the closing of the bathroom door. You stared at the gold leaf ceiling, seconds dragging on like hours until he finally returned holding a candle, lit cigarette caught between his teeth. Hitoshi took a drag and guarded the flame from his dark red candle as he took a seat beside your whimpering form. He set the candle on the headboard and gently held your face in his hand, blowing smoke into your mouth. The intimate gesture, sharing the air in his lungs made you swoon. Distracted, you barely registered him removing your bra or how he grazed your pert nipples with scarred thumbs. You opened and melted into his attention, desperate for more. You caught his gaze, eyes glazed over with unadulterated adoration, and let out a strangled wail when the first drops of scarlet wax dripped over your shivering breasts. 

The shock of sudden warmth encasing your tender flesh in candy apple red kept you reeling into the next pour. Your Hitoshi leered above you, rapt in your reactions as he brought his free hand to rest on your bare mons. His long fingers grazing along your sopping clit and the continued dripping of hot wax on your skin had you writhing in place. His dark, rumbling chuckle made your blood sizzle under your skin as he admired his work. 

"I think she likes it," he purred, now moving with intent. Arching into the duvet, you pouted sweetly at your husband, legs gently rubbing together as if it would further entice him to continue. "Who knew my kitten was such a kinky slut?" 

"'Toshi, touch me more!" 

His eyebrows nearly disappeared into his hairline, and he pulled his hand away from your glistening sex. Frustrated whimpers echoing through the suite, you were cut short by another trail of red wax burning down to your navel. He took another slow drag from his slow-dying cigarette and smirked. If it weren't for his hardening cock poking your hip through his tuxedo pants you would have never known how hopelessly he needed every moan and whine he pulled from your tight body. Past games, he would have blinded you, muffled his voice behind black silk and noise cancelling headphones, but tonight was different. 

"Know your place, kitten. You're in no position to make demands."

You bit your lip and stifled another whine as the wax cooled in the mold of your belly button. Shinsou kept the candle hovering just over your bound body, constantly watching you with the same, slow-simmering lust burning in his deep violet eyes. He stopped short over your dripping pussy and licked the nicotine from his lips. You could see the plan unfold in his head before he had a chance to put it in action. Anticipation had every hair tingling as you waited for his next move. Before he could act, there was a stern rap at the door. With all the petulance and frustration of a child forced to share his favorite toy, Shinsou rose from the bed and trudged to the door. 

"Little busy in here."

"Business waits for no one." The intruder's voice was black ice on a fall morning, cold and sharp as Hitoshi shrank back from the door. His shoulders tensed as he scratched the back of his neck, an anxious tic he couldn't shake from childhood. "You can play with your toy when we're done."

"I told you I've gone straight. No more back alley deals, no more blood on my hands. I'm done."

Your blood ran cold and it crept into your belly to make a new home gnawing through the viscera. Unable to make out much more than the broad back of your husband at the door, you strained to listen to the conversation before the cocking of a gun took your breath away. 

"You're done when I say you're done. Never forget who bought you those votes, how you skated into your parliament chair, high councilor." The voice's tone was harsh, mockingly so with an edge of condescension that earned a defeated growl from your Shinsou. The owner of the voice stepped closer, peering over your husband's shoulder with a frigid smirk that nearly made your heart stop. Aizawa raked his dark, abyssal eyes over your exposed body, resting hungrily on your sex drooling into the plum duvet, and turned back to his surrogate son. "Be a shame if something happened to her. All those billions siphoned away…" From your spot on the bed you could feel the noose tightening around both your necks the longer Boss Aizawa spoke. 

"...all to attend a funeral as the dutiful, lovesick widower with his wife's blood on his hands." 

"Enough! That's enough...you win."

Shinsou buttoned his shirt quickly and cast a longing glance over his shoulder at your quiet sobbing. He never wanted you to know the underworld he clawed out of to finally live in the light. It wasn't enough to want change and leave the bloody past where it belonged. Some ghosts had a way of coming back to their old haunts. Tuxedo jacket slung over his shoulder, Shinsou slicked his hair back and turned his back on you, leaving you bound to the headboard with wax, his own Jackson Pollock masterpiece drying on your skin. You could feel your heart breaking with the gentle closing of the door, and the barely audible, "I'm sorry," whispered ruefully by your retreating husband. Protection was something you used to take for granted, but as you found that night and many after, it was something few in your precarious position could do without. 

[unsoundedcomic]

How common is it for senet beasts to learn human languages? I know the Minnow and Ruck are sort of anomalies among their respective species, but what about cases like Lori's friend? Also, I like your new avatar; Quigs looks like a stony-faced, implacable edgelord.

It’s rare, and most likely to happen when a senet beast lives among or frequently fraternises with humans. Just like us, they can’t learn and retain a language well if they’re not immersed in it, and will begin to forget it if they stop speaking it regularly.

So a few of the stormladies of Litriya have taken interest enough over the years in the girls there to befriend them and gain some proficiency with the Common tongue. The stormfolk forget quickly though, and have to really work to retain individual knowledge that’s not useful to the collective. Human language must be pretty important to Minnow if she’s remembered it for so long.

Efheby don’t have to work nearly so hard if they’re skull pilots; soul-drinkers. They can master their ABCs in cocktail form, and practise conversations on stupefied sycophants. Ruckmearkha’s vocabulary modernised swiftly once he started feasting on Roger. Her Majesty no doubt recognises some of her friend’s speech patterns and favourite words slithering from the snake’s fat, pointed tongue.

[roboraindrop]

I wanted to try new angles! Feels like it looks weird lkslsdkfj

[harpershigh]

Yes, it would have been any other city.

But it was this shithole, the one she had so stubbornly chosen to call home. The city where the most cherished people in her life had made their stand and paid the price for it. The city her children grew up in, and have as their godsdamn home. That Mizora was right only deepened the bitterness clawing at her insides, the frustration hot and unforgiving.

As if the night hadn’t already reached its lowest point — so dire she found herself confiding in a devil — now Gortash strode over, drawn like a vulture to the scent of discord. He spoke to Mizora, their conversation a slick dance of deception, each trying to outwit and out-lie the other. Jaheira could only sneer, her disdain sharpening as she watched them locked in their absurd contest of who could spin the better web of bullshit.

Gortash’s voice slithered into her ears, a velvety drawl laced with practiced charm, and Jaheira felt her stomach churn in protest. It was as if the sound carried a sickness, creeping up her throat and coiling tight, souring the back of her tongue. The more he spoke, the more the bile rose, a wave of nausea threatening to break free. She swallowed hard, fighting the urge to retch.

Her fingers itched with the familiar pulse of magic, the quiet dance of power gathering at her fingertips as she discreetly prepared Wall of Fire. Jaheira’s eyes narrowed as the vision swept over her like a fever dream: flames roaring to life, devouring the velvet curtains and gilded furnishings, licking hungrily at the polished wood until it splintered and cracked. If she timed it right, she could cast Resist Elements in an instant, shielding herself from the inferno. Mizora, as a devil, would stroll out unscathed. Her companions were no longer in the main hall. But Gortash... oh, how the thought of him shrieking amidst the blaze stirred a dark satisfaction in her chest. His smug grin turned to ash, his sycophants scattering like frightened rats. Jaheira could almost smell the smoke, could almost taste the sweet, scorched vengeance. Gods, how she longed to see this place — and everything false within it — reduced to cinders.

"I was about to bring her outside and have a stern talk with her. I can assure you, Lord Gortasch, she won't make that same mistake again."

Yes, right.

Just as quickly as the flames sparkled, her hand clenched into a tight fist, extinguishing the magic. She swallowed hard, eyes darting to Mizora. She hated to agree with a devil, but this... was probably the best course of action. The taste of bile still burned the back of her throat, rage mixing bitterly with helplessness. Without a word, she followed the cambion out of the ballroom. Jaheira bit down on her own pride, muscles taut, eyes smoldering as she stared straight ahead.

She needed some fresh air.

Gods, she needed to get the hell away from all these people.

But as her heels hit the first stone step, the world wavered like an unstable sea. The alcohol she thought that only served to loose her tongue and sour her mood now twisted her balance and made the ground feel like it might drop away beneath her. She grabbed onto Mizora’s arm with a grip just shy of desperation, the thought of tumbling down the stairs in a precarious descent a very unwelcome thrill.

It was time to bid her shoes a hasty farewell. She kicked them off unceremoniously, letting them clatter down the steps ahead of her, a sacrifice to prevent a graceless tumble. Better barefoot and steady than regal and sprawled out — at best — like a fool.

The cool breeze hit Jaheira's flushed skin as they stepped outside, the salt-tinged air from the river mouth below providing a brief reprieve. For a moment, the sounds of the city and the distant roar of the waves calmed the tempest inside her.

"Thank you." She said to Mizora, reluctantly. "I was about to make a grave, grave mistake."

Jaheira's stomach once more twisted with an unforgiving churn. As it seems, It wasn’t just Gortash’s smug, oil-slick voice that had set her insides to roil; the bitter cocktail of way too much wine and rich, oily hors d’oeuvres proved to be an omnious combination. The nausea crept up her throat like a serpent, coiling and tightening until she could no longer ignore it.

She stumbled along the drawbridge, fingers gripping the wood rail so hard her knuckles turned white. Her body lurched, and she bent over, heaving violently. The world tilted as the contents of her stomach met the dark waters below with an unceremonious splash. The acrid taste clung to her tongue, eyes watering as she gasped for breath.

Jaheira flicked her fingers with whatever precision she could muster, conjuring a small stream of cool, fresh water that splashed into her cupped hand. She rinsed her mouth, the taste of bile fading with each spit, though it did very little to dissipate the overall bitterness of the night.

She... Needed to sit down.

The druid leaned back against the stone of the fortress wall, letting herself slide down until she sat on the cobbled ground.

The world swayed around her, the alcohol making her head spin. She pressed her palm to her temple, eyes fluttering shut as she tried to steady her breath. Her mind latched onto the idea, a small spark of hope: Protection from Poison. If anything, it was a desperate move, but technically, alcohol did count as poison. The irony made a bitter smile twist at her lips as she whispered the words, coaxing the spell into form, praying it would clear the haze that dulled her thoughts.

Gods, could the night get any worse?

The spell flickered through her veins, but instead of clarity, a wave of deep, unrelenting drowsiness washed over her. The exhaustion was sudden, making her head droop forward. Her eyelids felt weighted, fluttering as she struggled to keep them open. The world around her blurred slightly at the edges, the cool, damp stone at her back becoming a tempting cradle.

The fortress's distant sounds — muffled laughter, clinking glasses, the occasional footstep — merged into a lullaby that coaxed her further into sleep's grasp. She wanted to fight it, to hold onto whatever fragile composure she had left, but her body was sinking, limbs heavy, thoughts dissolving into fog.

"Just a moment… I only need a moment…." Were the last, sluggish words that bubbled up as she hugged her knees, eyes closing despite her will.

Jaheira swirled the wine in her glass, watching it catch the light of the ballroom before downing it in one swift, bitter gulp. "People see what they want to see, indeed... And knowing those people, I bet half of them really wants a devil in their lives." she muttered, her voice low. A faint smirk tugged at her lips as she stared into her empty glass, too late realizing she'd let her thoughts slip out loud. Damn it. Well, she could always blame the wine. "Saboteur, me?" She almost laughed, but the sound died before it could escape her throat. "No..." Her gaze swept across the room, filled with faces all too eager to bow and scrape before Gortash, the newly crowned tyrant. And yet, not so long ago, some of those very same faces had been steeped in distrust — of Abdel Adrian. The thought made her stomach turn. These nobles, now falling over themselves to flatter Gortash, had once cast suspicion on Abdel, their hero, treating him like an outsider. Now, they groveled like pups. Jaheira’s lips pressed into a thin line, the unfairness of it all gnawing at her. Sarevok had been the same — another power-hungry fool they’d once been all too eager to follow. She’d watched him trip over his own ambition, and she intended to do the same with Gortash. She could see it now, the inevitable crash of arrogance when the weight of the crown bore down too heavily on him. Oh, she would see it through. In a sudden, angry motion, she seized a passing waiter by the arm, snatching another glass of wine from his tray with barely a glance. The man blinked in surprise, but before he could react, Jaheira had already let him go, eyes fixed on the swirling little amass of lapdogs of the ballroom. She took a sip — too harsh, too fast — but it hardly mattered. "Just here to watch Gortash trip over his own damn feet," Jaheira muttered under her breath, her grip tightening around her glass, knuckles white. The wine burned down her throat, but it was nothing compared to the slow, simmering anger roiling in her chest. She glanced around the ballroom, her eyes narrowed in disdain as she watched the nobles fawn over their latest despot, their sycophantic smiles sickeningly familiar. "I'll watch his fall," she continued, her voice dropping into a bitter whisper, "like I watched Sarevok’s. Like I’ve watched every other damn tyrant who’s ever clawed their way to power, thinking they’d be the one to hold it forever." She took another gulp of wine, barely tasting it. Gods, she was tired. Tired of seeing this same story play out, again and again. It didn’t matter how many times they rose to save this cursed city. No matter how many villains were cut down, another would rise in his place — just as hungry, just as corrupt. And each time, people like her, people who fought and bled for Baldur's Gate, were left picking up the pieces, watching as the cycle began anew. "What's the point?" she muttered, more to herself than anyone else. "You save the city, but it never stays saved. It’s like the gods themselves are determined to let it rot." Her eyes flicked back to Gortash, standing there so smug, so sure of his power. She wanted to believe he’d meet the same end as the others. But even if he did, there’d be another behind him. There always was. How many times had she stood here, in this exact moment, watching history repeat itself? Too many. Far too many. "It's exhausting." She lets out a sigh, both frustrated and tired. "To watch the same cycle of greed, of cruelty, of men thinking they could control what no one ever could. It didn’t matter how many would-be-tyrants we defeat — Baldur’s Gate will always find another." And another. And another.

Her gaze shifted to Mizora, and a bitter smirk crept across her face. "You know, I should raise a toast." She lifted her glass, the liquid sloshing slightly as her hand shook with the weight of her fury. "To Abdel Adrian, the man who saved every one of these worthless ingrates more times than they ever deserved." She spat the words like venom, her eyes flashing with anger. There was no joy in that cursed ballroom. Only ghosts. Ghosts of men who deserved better, and the bitter truth that those who remained never would. "When I was young, I used to think that this city was a blight in the land. Perhaps I was right." This damn city didn’t want to stay safe. Maybe it didn’t deserve to. No. No, no, no. What was she thinking? Jaheira’s breath caught in her throat, the bitterness of her own words slamming into her like a wave of cold reality. And to whom she was letting those words spill, of all people. Her hand shot to her temple, pressing hard as if she could push the thoughts away, the sharp sting of regret settling in her chest. Gods, no... How could she even think that? How could she let herself fall so far? This wasn’t her. This wasn’t what she believed, not after all she’d fought for. All those years. All that sacrifice. Her hand trembled against her head, and she let out a shaky breath. "I..." Her voice faltered, suddenly small, as if speaking it aloud would make the shame less crushing. "I guess... I had too much wine." But it wasn’t the wine, was it? It was everything. Everything she’d carried for so long, suddenly too heavy, too much. She was unraveling, and she knew it.

Mizora made no remark as Jaheira so correctly stated how many nobles here would love to have a devil in their lives. This was a gold fish tank, and Mizora was a cat. It would be easy to swipe out fish after fish and gorge herself on the meat. Even now, while holding the conversation with her primary target, Mizora had hashed out simple basic deals with at least three new clients. Easy things: Promises of fortune and fame, all for a measly soul. There had been no real investment in any of those deals. They weren't Jaheira.

Mizora raised her glass of wine to her lips as she fell into silence again, sensing that Jaheira was about to make a mistake. For someone with so much age and experience on her back, the high elf had more than once shown that she could easily be baited to reveal her heart and opinions. It seemed alcohol and the whole event, in general, was doing Mizora's job for her, so why should she intercept?

Jaheira's anger was so thick, it could suffocate the air around you. However, worse than the anger at Gortasch, the wanna-be tyrant, was that frustration, boiling in the druid's gut. Here, her age worked to her detriment. Jaheira had seen the same cycle of violence over and over again. No matter how often she vanquished one power-hungry megalomaniac with dreams of eternal glory and fame, someone else always reared their ugly head just a few years later. Maybe Jaheira should be glad that it wasn't devils who ran the city? Though if Mizora was honest: Without a concept of unfairness or the capability of dreams, mortals would never wander astray. As ugly as this cycle was in all civilisations, devils benefitted too much from it to care about a utopia.

"If it wasn't Baldur's Gate, Jaheira, it would be any other city", Mizora said, "In a way, any town, which becomes a city, has the potential to become 'a blight in the land'. Baldur's Gate is not the first of its kind, nor will it be the last."

She stopped, ignoring Jaheira when the high half-elf worried over having had too much wine. Her ruby eyes flashed in concern as none other than Lord Enver Gortasch approached them. It was hard to pinpoint if he had heard something, however, the Cambion realised that she might have to save poor, old Jaheira from making another mistake.

Giving the freshly crowned archduke her most charismatic grin, Mizora's fingers were briefly surrounded by a faint purple rose flicker as she swiftly placed a pre-emptive Friends cantrip upon the man to make sure they had a bit of an edge when entering this conversation. While Mizora was confident that she could have handled this without the cantrip, given how inebriated Jaheira was, it was for her protection more than the Cambions.

When Mizora spoke, she took a deliberate step towards Enver, putting herself between him and her target. Her voice was smooth, smoky and silken, worming its way into Enver's ears with the full charm a Cambion could lend to itself. Her flattery made the tyrant's chest swell in pride and he laid a hand on his chest as if he were too humble for her words.

"You must be Lord Enver Gortasch. Congratulations on your archdukedome, sir. It is so nice to finally meet you. I heard quite a bit about you. Do tell me, are the rumours true? That you found a way to make this beautiful city safer by installing your own form of security."

Gortasch responded to her words with a flattering smile of his own, yet much like with Mizora, that smile did not reach his eyes. He somehow found a way to speak in the most charming and gaily voice. It almost offset his ageing appearance, the scruff, surrounding his mouth, chin and cheeks, and uncombed, black hair. Mizora could tell just from hearing that voice how Gortasch managed to convince the citizens of Baldur's Gate that they needed these towering iron monstrosities called the Steelwatch for their own protection.

Gortasch said: "Why, thank you for the kind words, milady. I can assure you, that it is all very much true. There is nothing I care more about than Baldur Gate's security. Particularly with those rumours of these Absolute cultists making a march upon the city. I would not be able to sleep if I did not know the city was not guarded by my priced creations."

Mizora did an elegant little courtesy as she said: "And the city thanks you for your valiant service, Sir Duke."

Gortasch nodded pompously. "Yes, safety is my number one priority, which is why I am here. It seems you are in the company of a known terrorist. I am fairly certain that I heard Jaheira spout what amounts to treason. She oughta be arrested for such indignation, if not, at the least, evacuated from the premises."

His tone had shifted. Now, it was low and more dangerous. He stared at the high harper with furious gleaming eyes and a half-raised hand. It seemed he was just about ready to call over the guards and have Jaheira thrown into the nearby prison. Mizora had to come up with an excuse for her target's obviously treasonous blabber - and fast!

"This is all a misunderstanding, Sir Duke", Mizora said solemnly, "Jaheira did not mean to insult you, milord. She merely had a bit too much wine. An unbecoming behaviour on this occasion. Certainly for my escort." - an underhanded casting of Suggestion to make sure Jaheira fell in line with her cover - "I was about to bring her outside and have a stern talk with her. I can assure you, Lord Gortasch, she won't make that same mistake again."

@harpershigh cont. from here.

[curiosity-killed]

Sometimes, little cultivators get bold. They’re never the ones who might have any basis for assuming his confidence, always the ones he didn’t respect in his first life and doesn’t have time for now. They come sidling up to him with sugar-sweet smiles and placations. Wouldn’t it be easier, they coax, if he shared the burden? Wouldn’t the war end so much faster if he taught them this third path?

Silly, stupid sycophants. As if he doesn’t recognize desire, can’t taste ambition coming off them in waves. Hunger is his oldest friend, carved into his bones and engraved in bloody lines across his heart. He turns to them with a grin and lets his brides circle close like a hunting pack.

“Come close,” he coos, “and I’ll tell you the secret.”

The brides lean in, drinking in the scent of human skin, and the cultivator turns tail every time. It’s gotten to be boring, almost, how cowardly they all are. He leans back, and the brides snarl and fidget around him at the missed prey.

“You would tell them.”

It’s not so easy to sneak up on the Yiling Laozu, even for Hanguang-jun. Rolling his head back on his neck, Wei Wuxian grins careless and toothed. Around him, the brides shiver and ache with the loop he tugs tight around their waists. They’re always so eager for Lan Wangji, like his pretty, pure sanctimony would spill as sweetly as pomegranate juice across their lips.

“Of course, Lan-er-gongzi,” Wei Wuxian says sweetly. “Haven’t I always been generous?”

Lan Wangji’s brow furrows, so serious. He’s the worst of them all, so earnest in his efforts to blunt their greatest weapon. He talks about the righteous path, about the damage resentment can do to one’s body, heart, and mind like Wei Wuxian really might listen, like Wei Wuxian isn’t walking damage already. He brings up the cost of such a path near-daily, and Wei Wuxian laughs because he knows the price better than anyone. How many of these stupid little pests would still nag him for instruction if they knew all it took to become like him was tearing their own hearts out of their chests? Hanguang-jun, for all his scholarship and study, doesn’t know shit about paying the price of the ghostly path.

“Why, Lan Wangji?” Wei Wuxian prods, shifting to look him up and down. “Has the honorable Hanguang-jun been tempted down the narrow path?”

A slow grin spreads across his lips and he narrows his eyes as he loosens his hold on the brides. They slither forward, giggling and eager.

“I’m sure Lan-er-gege would find fine instruction from these willing ladies.”

“Wei Wuxian!” Lan Wangji snaps, taking a sharp step back.

He thrusts Bichen in front of himself but doesn’t unsheathe it. Probably, he doesn’t want to risk damaging one of Wei Wuxian’s favored companions: the sects all depend on this cultivation path they so disdain, and if news got around that Hanguang-jun had such a poor handle on his own temper that he insulted the Yiling Laozu so carelessly—well, Lan Zhan has always had such a thin face.

Bored suddenly and vaguely displeased, Wei Wuxian whistles a short, sharp call that has the brides slouching back to his side. He turns his back to the camp and twirls Chenqing carelessly through his fingers.

“Come on, girls,” he says, loud enough for Lan Wangji to hear. “I guess you’ll only be keeping me company tonight.”

sometimes you can’t be an asshole so you gotta make your fave characters be assholes it is The Way

[themugshotofdoriangray]

and it's wiser to be mad (in a world that's gone insane)

I just couldn't wait until the next update that'll take us back to Lanyon Hall, so I wrote something.

Under the cut, you'll find 700+ words of self-indulgent, first person narrative from Mr. Hyde's POV.

Cheers!

I don’t much care for balls and I know you never did. Why, I dare say you might even grow to dislike them after tonight.

“Dr. Jekyll?”

Black shoes and white gloves. Acidic green and prosaic purple. Tailored suits and laced-up corsets. Gentlemen with brutal grips on ladies with broken ribs. Lethargic laughs on painted lips. Seedy smiles behind glass rims. And, of course, eager eyes always ready to scrutinize. Lanyon Hall is full of all the things you despise. Surely, you will grow to dislike ball after tonight.

“Dr. Jekyll?”

“Forgive me, gentlemen. Where were we?”

“We were right here, Doctor. Where were you?”

Sir Danvers asked you a question, Doctor. Are you going to answer? And, when you do, are you going to be truthful? You weren’t here with them after all. You were trapped in a nightmare and you’re still searching for the exist. 

“I, w-well, you see-”

Oh, you’re s-s-stuttering! Dr. Henry Jekyll is choking! Ladies and gentlemen gather around! Stare him down with the weight of social expectations and damn him within the confines of courtesy! Not even Dr. Robert Lanyon and all his daddy’s money can save face this time!

“Henry, are you all right?”

There is a sea of snakes upon the floor! Satanic demons closing in on you! Moreau is grinning at the main entrance door! No, Robert. Henry is most definitely not all right. 

“Henry!”

Now look what you’ve done, Henry! You’ve broken the glass and made a mess! Now my slithering friends are drinking on the job and Robert won’t ever forgive you for getting blood all over the carpet! Now our palm won’t stop bleeding! Please, do make it stop bleeding! I can’t even look at us right now!

“E-excuse me, gentlemen. Ladies.”

You’re still stuttering. And you’re still bleeding. We’re still bleeding, Jekyll! You better keep moving! You better keep chewing through this scenery and these sycophants! Dr. Moreau is waiting for us by the door!

“Henry, where are you going?”

“Home, Robert. I’m going home.”

Yes, Robert. Can’t you see we’re black and blue and red all over? We’re going home, we’re treating our wound, we’re washing the awful afterparty taste down with some HJ-7 and off to the Blackfrog Bazaar we go! Isn't that right, Henry?

“Here. This should help with the bleeding.”

Well, would you take a look at that! I might still have some use for you yet, old friend. How nice of you to fetch us a handkerchief. A temporary treatment, for sure. But it will do for now.

“I called you 'consumptive' in jest earlier. But I see now that you’re not far from it. You wait here and try not to faint. I’ll fetch us a cab.” 

He is right, isn’t he? You’re barely holding on. Your grip on consciousness is loose. Yes, I felt you slipping back there. You smashed your serving of champagne so you wouldn’t smash the prettiest face in Parliament. 

“Doctor?”

Speak of the wolf in sheep’s clothing and he shall appear! 

“How is your hand?”

“Don’t touch me!”

“Well, I never!”

You can almost mistake his canines for the molars of a herbivore. He has been flashing them at the flock in the Hall all night long. He's flashing them at the waitstaff right now as he dismisses them. It's just the three of us now and we see right through him. His helping hand is an insult to our hemorrhagic one. Thank you very much, sir, but if we are to trip over our own feet and the cane stand, then so be it! The floor is lava now and we’re sinking in it! We're melting in it! Oh, Lord, we're melting!

“I didn’t want to believe it, but the rumours are true. Those charity cases of yours have rubbed off on you.”

We’re still bleeding! I’m still bleeding! Everywhere! The lava! It’s melting our skin off! My skin! It’s mine? It is! My skin! Mine!

“Do pull yourself together, man! You’re acting like one of your mad scientists!”

My eyes are still burning, but they are mine. My legs are still shaking, but they're mine! Oh, my right palm is still too painful to pull a punch, but I always prefered my left. And there is a cane to aid me just within its reach. As as I rise from the ashes, I am reborn. 

“Doctor? What in God’s name-”

My ears are still ringing, Sir Danvers! Do try to keep quiet, or I’ll be forced to silence you! A swing is all it takes, but I missed and now he’s wailing. I said be quiet! My head is still spinning  and the world is still bent! I swing once again. 

“We prefer the term rogue scientists!”

[gaasaku-fanfests]

Devil’s Due

Title: Devil’s Due Author: darkcivet Rating: M (just in case) Word Count: 3,313 Summary: They called him a monster. They said he was a demon. So he decided to summon one to kill them all. Warnings: Character death (not Gaara or Sakura). OOC. Author’s Note(s): (The title is a working title and I’ll change it if I think of anything better.) This is a bit of a creepy one-shot I guess: I’m numb to this kind of thing, apparently. Enjoy. ^_^

Trope: Dark Gaara or Dark Sakura

“Don’t touch that!”

Gaara jumped slightly, frozen in place; his arm outstretched and his fingers curled in a coaxing motion. He wanted the cat to come to him. He wanted to touch it. So bad. Just a tiny bit of warmth in this cold, empty house he was forced to live in.

“I said don’t touch that.”

That familiar voice had the gall to repeat itself.

Breaking out of his rigid stance slowly, he forced himself to relax and stood up; Gaara supposed he had looked quite suspicious, positioned like that. He felt it necessary to look like an animal on the hunt. Stretching his muscles in an almost cat like, lazy manner, he turned to face his irate sister.

Since his growth spurt, she hadn’t been able to look down on him in the literal sense, but Temari always maintained a commanding stature compared to him, nonetheless. Even next to Kankuro, who was also taller than her, she was never of lower standing. She was the only one that took after their father in that manner. But right now, she looked extremely nervous; her wide eyes and high pitched voice angered Gaara more than the demand. She was both angered and fearful of him. It annoyed him to no end that his siblings listened to the malicious rumours of his demonic heritage.

‘How else could he have turned out so monstrous?’ People asked. ‘His mother must’ve been taken by the devil to produce a child so vile.’ It was just a silly pack of superstitious lies. But sometimes, when the moon was full and his desire to watch blood drip from an open vein was strong enough, he believed them.

Years of neglect did that to a person. When he was a child, the ignorant villagers in town would pelt him; they took their cue from the great Sabaku clan that the youngest son to Rasa was just a lunatic who would grow up useless and insane. The story that his mother had been raped and gone mad was rampant among the lower class idiots.

Not that he would expect anything else from people who still traded goats for pigs.

Gaara refrained from frowning at his sister; he was used to the backwards superstition from strangers, but for some reason he just couldn’t stomach that his blood family would stoop to such idiocy. If he was indeed related to them at all.

‘We don’t have a lot in common.’

Perhaps he was just adopted? These kinds of questions swirled around in his head for years before he gave up asking them. It was only at times like this, when one of his siblings was glowering at him and telling him to stay away from the household pets (like he was going to kill them, sheesh), that the dissimilarities between them made him question his own parentage.

He was seventeen now, and almost old enough to leave home. If he had been born a peasant, he could’ve done so long ago, but his father would not let him go until it was appropriate.

‘Bastard.’

“Did you hear me, Gaara?” Temari waved a fan toward the cat, scaring it away. “Don’t touch the animals on the compound. You’re not supposed to be near them. You’re just a-”

He was a demon in her eyes, and always would be. The demon that killed her mother.

“Fine!” He screamed, startling Temari almost as much as he startled himself with the outburst; her hand went instinctively to the curved blade she kept hidden at her belt. “You want a demon? I’ll give you one!”

He ignored the sounds of his father and brothers’ approach, mixed in with the harsh whispers of nearby servants. The only silence in the area came from his sister. Their family was rich, renown, and powerful; and even a demon child among the clan couldn’t diminish their reach.

Gaara ran toward the only place he knew could help. The only source he knew of that could help him summon a real demon.

‘And kill them all.’

.:.

There were so many books on the occult in his father’s library that Gaara hadn’t known where to start; he’d been reading about demons for a while now, looking into the fables and folklore, trying to figure out which one the villagers viewed him as. There wasn’t anything in those books that would explain away his lust for violence, his predisposition toward lighting things on fire and fascination with the way blood travelled outside the body.

Rasa had a secret stash of black magic books that Gaara only knew about because he’d followed him that one time, in the middle of the night. Perhaps he’d collected them for the same reason the redhead perused them – to figure out what he was. Perhaps not.

All Gaara knew was the pounding of blood in his ears, the anger, the hate, and the desire to tear something limb from limb to be free of this place. Blood red spots obscured his vision as he rifled through the books as gently as his foul mood would allow him to. There were a number of books he remembered that talked about summoning imps and faeries to do favours, but he didn’t need something so low levelled. He wanted to enter a bargain with something that was dangerous and foul beyond words.

‘It’s not real. It’s all fake.’

His logical mind wouldn’t allow him to entertain the idea that he was just lashing out in vain. That if demons were real and could be summoned so readily, his father would’ve done so and gotten rid of Gaara years ago. His heart just wanted to hurt something.

‘Found it.’

A scroll that felt like leather; old, worn, and yellowed, it hadn’t been maintained well it seemed. But perhaps it was older than it looked, even. Gaara stared at it, unfurling the xuan paper carefully, almost like it could break under his hands.

“How to summon darkness.” He ran a finger over the intricate kanji. The title said it all.

He smiled.

‘I have it.’

“Gaara?”

His head snapped up at the sound of his brother’s voice, echoing through the library hallways. Kankuro couldn’t see him, but he was closing in on his position. Perhaps he’d been followed after all?

“A servant saw you enter here.”

That explained it.

“You know you’re not supposed to-”

Gaara blocked out his voice, feeling a new surge of anger rise with the familiar mantra of what he was and wasn’t allowed to do in this place. He’d contemplated summoning demons before – mostly out of fun – and even cast a few fun spells that were supposed to amplify the bad mood of everyone around him.

It never worked.

But something different was rising up in his throat this time; something far more disgusting than bile. He couldn’t explain it, but this time was going to end better. He was going to get his revenge.

Hugging the scroll to his chest and feeling far more immature than he should about this, Gaara fled the library. There were preparations to make and sacrifices to perform.

Blood to spill.

.:.

‘How did I forget the full moon?’

That was why he felt different. As the sun went down and Gaara found himself mesmerised by the faint light of the moon hanging over the Sabaku compound; a place that overlooked a maze of a town of sycophant peasants. It bathed the area in a soft glow that almost calmed him down enough to knock him out of his desire for blood and revenge.

‘Nothing will come of it; I’m just going to end up having to hand this scroll back and be punished.’

He wanted to avoid the morning, and the pain that would inevitably come with it. He’d snapped. He could feel it like a cord wrapped around his throat that had broken and clung to his skin in desperation. Something inside of him wanted to rip it apart and be done with this world.

But the blood sacrifice had to come first.

Carefully, he made his way to the loafing shed in the back of the estate; all kinds of animals were kept for slaughter or milking on the grounds, to funnel the resources through the pockets of his father. It meant that he controlled even the most domestic income of the region; and fear of him kept the populous from revolting.

Gaara found the goat house quickly, tugging on the hood covering his distinctive red hair, just in case one of those nosy servants spotted him. With the scroll in one hand and a double-edged knife in the other, he coaxed one of the goats forward and grabbed the chain that hung around it’s neck. The sharp sounds of discomfort were momentary; he started reciting the words the scroll dictated, holding the knife to the animals throat as he tried to concentrate on the summons.

With eyes wide open and expectant, Gaara slid the knife across the goat’s throat, making sure to cut across the full breadth of it’s gullet; deep, steady, and clean across. The goat gargled and thrashed for a moment, but he held tightly to the chain, transfixed by the trail of blood as it trailed down the length of the animal’s shoulder, down the brisket, and onto the ground. He watched as the blood began to move against gravity and common sense, slithering along the ground; forming what he couldn’t tell.

It spread out around Gaara, encircling him. He felt panicked, suddenly wary about this new development. Nothing in the scroll had indicated sentient blood.

‘Magic.’

That had to be it. Years of searching for a way out. Months of perusing and playing with low level spells that never worked out. Now it decided to heed his fury and revenge?

Gaara groaned when he realised the blood was forming a seal; it had a shape not dissimilar from the goat he had just killed. But the blood morphed again, leaving his enclosure and coagulating and stilling in a patch of grass, as though it had not been moving under it’s own will seconds before.

“What the hell?” This was getting out of control.

“Is that really a wise mantra, given the situation?”

Gaara dropped the scroll and knife in fright, his eyes blinking heavily. A woman stood before him, seemingly having materialised over the blood, a smile on her face, hands on her hips, and wearing the most strangest of scant clothes; robes made to cover so little, it was giving him ideas.

He cleared his throat. “You’re not the demon I wanted to summon.”

She was more like an angel. With pink hair, bright green eyes, and a smile that lit up her entire face.

“Oh?” His disappointment didn’t seem to bother her. “Who were you trying to summon?”

“The Tanuki.”

“You mean Shukaku?”

Gaara nodded.

She pouted; hands on her hips, lips pursing in what he decided was a very seductive manner.

“That trickster wouldn’t know a good summons if it bit him on the nuts.”

He couldn’t help the small, nervous laugh that bubbled up inside of him. “Who are you?”

“A friend.”

“I don’t have any friends.”

“That’s sad.” She moved slowly toward him and Gaara couldn’t move away. She poked his chest. “A young, strapping lad like you must be a big hit with the ladies at least.”

He shook his head.

The girl giggled. “A virgin? Well, no wonder Shukaku didn’t answer your summons, that rambunctious whore. You’re more my type, anyway.”

This was insane. “Uh...” Gaara realised all the anger and resentment that had been fuelling this encounter, was gone. In it’s place was wonder, bewilderment, and wariness.

‘With a hint of arousal.’

But that wasn’t important.

She chuckled. “Relax. I don’t bite unless you want me to. But I’m no sex demon, so get that lascivious look off your face. I’m joking,” she assured him when started to stutter at her. “Jeez. Kids these days. Alright!” She made a show of swishing her short robes and fixing her hair. “Let’s get this party started. What, mere mortal, is that deep desire that has caused you to summon me?”

Gaara glanced up at the full moon without thinking. This was why he’d summoned her… or at least, tried to summon a demon. Legend had it that Shukaku was the demon to call for a rampage. But, this girl who looked around his age, didn’t look like she was ready to slaughter hundreds of people. Her skin was soft and creamy. Her face was angelic and happy. She even had painted fingernails and toenails to match her outrageous outfit. She might’ve looked more at place in the nobilty – albeit one with a less strict dress code. She was also very beautiful, and delicate looking. Could she even grant this wish?

“Come on, don’t keep a girl waiting.”

He inhaled deeply. “I… wanted Shukaku to, uh… kill everyone.”

She blinked heavily at him. “Kill everyone? Like, your whole family and that little village nearby?”

He nodded.

She didn’t look convinced, and he wasn’t surprised. “Death and destruction? Are you sure?”

Was he, though? This wasn’t a request he could take back.

‘Why am I chickening out?’

The girl sighed. “Look, I am a demon, but I’m not here to carelessly slaughter people. If this is what you really want – to go full dark – then you should know you’ll suffer consequences too.”

“What consequences?”

She shrugged. “Oh, nothing compared to what the humans you want to kill will experience. Their end is nigh and I can help with that, but I need something from you.” She took his hand and held it palm up. “Blood.”

Gaara cried out, not expecting the open slash to his hand; she wasn’t even holding a weapon.

She smiled humourlessly. “Call me when you make up your mind.”

Gaara sighed, rubbing his wounded hand. “What’s your-”

She disappeared; her outline faded and blurred out of existence. Almost like she hadn’t even been there. How was he supposed to call her when he didn’t know her name? And what was this consequence she spoke of?

‘Probably for the best, anyway.’

He felt the sting on his hand as though he’d just awakened from some kind of dream. What had he been thinking, summoning a demon of all things? Even one as beautiful and seemingly harmless as her. He may be odd, and crazy, and a lover of all things macabre, but he was no killer. Not today, anyway.

.:.

The days following his break into Rasa’s library, and Temari once again ratting him out about trying to “commune with the beast”, were torturous. Locked away in one section of the compound, all Gaara could do was try to stave off boredom and hunger by trying to remember what the demon girl had looked like. It seemed the longer he went without seeing her, the less coherent his memory was. The wound on his hand had festered and was clearly infected, but nobody bothered to try to treat it. One servant even gave him a bewildered look when he asked for a healer for his hand. They were idiots, anyway.

Three weeks were all it took to break him.

Deep in the recesses of his mind, tied to the cellar and dankness of his prison, he felt the demon inside cry for release. The small bed in the corner of his new “room” beckoned him and he stayed, wrapped up in the thin blanket, reciting that summons that had infected him so. The call to the demon who had ignored his invocation.

When food came once a day and through the hands of yet another faceless servant, he could barely eat. Images of the townsfolk and his blood family writhing in pain and blood were his fuel now. His desire for retribution sustained him.

Twenty-one days on from his incarceration saw him summoning again; this time using his own blood. It wasn’t enough to sacrifice some insignificant animal. He had to give of himself. As he felt his life beginning to ebb under the cut he couldn’t remember making, Gaara was startled to hear her voice in his head. Out loud.

“You’re a right mess.”

He chuckled, looking up at her from the small comfort of the bed. “And you’re an angel.”

She scoffed. “Hardly. Come.” She leaned down to pull him to his feet. “Your desire for revenge awaits.”

“Hey...”

Seconds passed in which he wasn’t sure if this was a hallucination. It was the pink haired girl again.

“I… called for you?” He hadn’t called for her, had he?

She nodded. “You cried for me in your sleep. You must want me real bad.”

He lowered his eyes to the ground, fighting the blush warming his face. She slid an arm under his to support his weight.

“Don’t go gushing just yet,” she said. “I still have a promise to keep.”

A chill swept through his body; one moment he was in a dank room and the next they stood on the roof of the goat house where he’d performed the first summons.

“Tell me.”

Her voice was just above a whisper, tickling his ear, and slightly desperate. He couldn’t comprehend her urgency.

“Tell me to kill them.”

Ah. She was eager to get with the killing. He’d summoned her to slaughter his family, to kill the townsfolk who tormented him, and leave none alive. His anger had brought him to this moment, where he was bleeding out and only the cold arms of his demonic contractor might give him some reprieve before he died.

“Gaara-”

“Kill them.” His voice was croaky but he no longer cared. Whatever infection was festering in his body, it didn’t matter – the only thing he had left was the darkness in his heart. The evil she wanted to bring out in him. That demonic nature the people in his life were sure had been there all along, waiting for an excuse to butcher them all.

The girl smiled, tilted her head slightly, and pressed her lips to her summoner’s mouth. It wasn’t a kiss, but it sure felt like one – not that he knew what those felt like. As he opened his mouth to let her in, it occurred to him that this was probably how all her deals went.

He didn’t like that.

A foreign feeling of possessive jealousy boiled up inside him; screaming and wailing sounds in the distance couldn’t distract him from the fervour he attacked her mouth with. When she finally pulled away, breaking the contact he longed to prolong, Gaara’s brain began to clear.

Burning flesh, howling dogs, screaming women and children; the pink haired devil paid no attention to any of that. She just stared at him, running her fingers along his cheek. Her nails scratched his forehead and he hissed at the pain.

Was she marking him?

Gaara glanced toward the scene he hadn’t been cognisant enough to acknowledge was his own fault. He could hear his family screaming; there was an inhuman growl echoing throughout the compound. He could see, from afar, the village burning; something born of hellfire was rampaging in the streets tonight.

His heart broke in that moment, with the sounds of innocents. And he realised with clarity, that they had all been wrong about him.

“I was never a demon,” he said, tearing his eyes away from the carnage. He could no longer bear to look upon it. Instead, his naive eyes turned hard and dangerous, staring at the woman who now held him lovingly instead of in support. His body felt invigorated – reborn. He was something else, now.

Sakura smiled, brushing his fringe, and kissing the scar she’d left on his forehead to mark their new partnership. She growled; the sound was otherworldly.

“You are now.”

[cryopathiic-a]

Oh. Oh.

Shoulders sink subtly at that glare; coiling in, head low. He is not here to talk, and she is not here to listen. There is an announcement to make; that the culprit has been spotted and lo-and-behold, it's none other than the gold clad lotus, the holy one marked as sullied with a long and greedy claw. It has been pointing blame for Rui's death left and right, and Dōma has been anticipating his inevitable turn. Not like that, though. What on earth is she talking about?

There's a lingering question on seraphic features as they turn to witness his brethren's arrival. All pots wiggle, sooner or later. He's known Upper Five for over a century now; Gyokko sticks his nose where it's not his business, and their overlord clearly chooses to take advantage of that. Dōma merely watches him for a moment. Boastful. Repeating his achievement, that Upper Two is certain consists of something meager, over and over as if to flaunt it. Disturbing, with his milky skin pouring like liquid from the pot. A sycophant. His words and smiles hide the antagonism he truly feels for them. They got along well; as they spoke the same language.

❝ Hey, Gyokko~ ❞ The amicable smile and cant of his head would have never given away his true disposition. ❝ Although it's nice to see you, I wish it had been for a different reason. ❞ Palms pressed together, then, as if to quickly offer condolences. There was more; there was a bite to those words that Upper Two longed to return tenfold; but that commanding voice slithered like a snake between them and had Dōma bite his tongue. A wise decision.

They were on that mountain...

❝ That's impossible. ❞ It was a quick response; and not that of a cowering dog. No, he was adamant and sharp; an Upper Moon does not offer half-words and uncertainty to their Master. You either do the job, or you don't, and in both cases he had delivered. But her assertive tone... his cut-throat attitude momentarily mellowed as he continued. ❝ I had told you, back when I killed that girl; I did not have time to eat her, because the sun came up. ❞ Regrettable. Even now he looked to the side with a longing sigh, fiddling with his fingers and swaying side to side. ❝ I went back for her the next day, but the body was already gone. She was dead, though. Her heart wasn't beating. I remember, I think— ❞ Eyes rolled to the ceiling as if browsing for an answer. He scratched his temple.

❝ And then, Kotoha Hashibira, was no fighter. She was an abused woman that came to me with her infant son. When she found out that I am a demon she fled from me, so I caught her in the forest and ate her down to the bone. ❞ Coldly, he spoke the words, but under an unfaltering smile. It was eerie, how confident he was talking about something so gruesome.

❝ And to this day she still lives in here... ❞ He put on his darling smile as he placed a palm over his own diaphragm, letting it smooth over the sash around his waist. ❝ ...with all the others. ❞ A soft giggle as he sat up, eyes crinkling. ❝ Master, if you don't trust my word, you have my memories, and my body for proof; I have never allowed a human to walk away from me alive. ❞ A lean back, twirling a strand of platinum around his finger as he bit his lip in a coy fashion. ❝ Would you like to open me up and see? ❞

[heartslogos]

newfragile yellows [812]

“I want you to listen to me very carefully. I have asked you, twice, now, to come with me. I will come one more time to ask you. One final time,” Solas says quietly. But every word drops heavy as though they were boulders from up high on a mountain crashing into the valley below. “There will come a day when the beasts come for you. They will come howling and hounding, frothing and foaming, raging and raving, screaming and snarling, fanged and frightful, slithering and scaled, venomous and vile, wild and wanting. The beasts will come — this is not a question. You know it as well as I. They will come from the sea. They will come from the caves. They will come from the mountains. They will come from the forests. They will come from the sky. And on that day, when they come for you, and there is nowhere for you to turn, I want you to remember that I extended my hand to you — three times. Three times I offered you safe harbor. And three times you refused me.”

This entire time Solas’ face had been polite, solemn, even a bit pitying. But there he lets a slim crack of scorn seep through.

“And for what? For a man.”

Ellana feels her own face split into her own sneer as she spits at Solas’ feet.

“For a man? How reductionist of you,” Ellana snarls. “For a man? As if every single disagreement between us can be boiled down to something so simple? As if I am some unruly child consumed by passions and blinded to reason? How — how very antiquated of you, Solas. I thought it was below you to reduce someone — even someone you were at cross purposes with — to something so low.”

“Every time I have come to ask you to join me you look to him and you refuse,” Solas says. “What else holds you to these people, Ellana? Who else remains that you would choose to stay here and suffering with them as they sit, waiting, for the fate that they have earned for themselves?”

Ellana’s hands curl into fists, nails pressing into her palms.

“Who else? Who else? You took everyone else from me. You and your war. You and your stupid, foolish, misguided war. My mother. My father. My brother, my own soul, the heart that once beat in my breast, the breath in my vey lungs. Gone because of you. You and your mis-placed guilt and your blind hunger to appease it. You and your — your selfish want to have your own past mistakes erased at the cost of everyone else. You took them from me. You took them as fodder for your war, you took them as kindling for your cleansing flame, and you took them to spite me. And still — still you would blame my reluctance to follow you on one living person? When I have mountains of dead that lie at your feet with their blood on your hands?”

Ellana struggles to keep her voice level. She struggles and fights against every urge to howl and scream and rage and rage and rage. Emotional outbursts will get nowhere with Solas. But he very much wants her to give him one, give him any excuse.

“Setting aside the vendetta I have for you — impossibly setting aside all of that, all of my restless dead who scream for retribution every time I close my eyes and seek out some measure of solitude — why the fuck would I join you? Look around you. Look at all of this. All of the suffering, all of this misery.”

“You know as well as I that I am not the cause of it.”

“No, but you certainly aren’t helping to stop it, are you?” Ellana sneers. “No. Your plan is to hide away in your new haven with your chosen — the ones who will drink your words and forgive you and love you and never say a single thing against you — and have the rest of us torn to pieces. Your plan is to awaken all of us, taking what we need to survive this incoming disaster, and wait it out so when all is said and done you and yours can crawl over the bones of who was left behind and feast like parasites.”

The older man barks out a sharp laugh. “You speak to me of parasites? Look to the language you speak in, the letters you write, look to the magic you cast, look to  the pillars of your society. Those are ours. Ours, that were picked over and mutated and bent and renamed so as to erase the hands that made them and the lips that first spoke them into being. Look around you and think about everything taken from us. You speak to me of parasites? Look at what you’d defend first.”

“And I am telling you that I have. I have looked at the world and I have found it wanting, but I am no judge to deem it unworthy of saving,” Ellana snaps. “I am not happy with the world. I am not happy with society. I am not happy with the laws and the people. But I will not raze it down.”

“What change can you possibly bring, Ellana? Even the humans find themselves unworthy of peaceful resolution. Look at their Chantry. Look to Kirkwall. There can be no peace.”

“I am not going to argue with you about this any longer. You will not turn me to your side and I cannot turn you to mine,” Ellana says. “You can come again and ask, and I will deny you as I have denied you twice before.”

Ellana meets Solas’ eyes and draws herself up as tall and as powerful as she can. Ellana’s magic bursts along her veins like she is setting herself on fire.

“And you will remember this. When the beasts come — and I know they will — when the world starts to crack apart and the demons rise and the spirits howl, when the monsters creep out of the darkness. When you are watching from behind your walls. I will be here. Right here. In the center of it all. I will be standing right where I denied you, where you left me, and I will be fighting just as hard as those beasts. I will fight the beast and the darkness and the supposedly inevitable and I am going to win. I am going to win with the man that you scorn at my side because he is the only one I have left and if there’s at least one thing in this world worth protecting its him.” Ellana narrows her eyes.

“And when I am done with that — when I have worn the very last breath from the last beast that comes for me and him and anyone else I can find still living — I am going to turn my teeth onto you. And you will remember that I refused you three times. Which means you refused me three times. And there will be nowhere for you to turn. And I want you to remember Solas, as I come for your city and your sycophants and your head, while one of us lives, there can be no peace..”