#they see the imagery of a snake or some kind of demonic creature and go right to the illuminati and rebuking the devil like oh brother

[tariah23]

[lolabangtan]

the lady with the flaming sword | ksj

Kim Seokjin, crown prince of a flowery and lush southern kingdom, is sent along with his troops to no man’s land in search of a group of grave robbers that had been seen prowling around the sepulchre of King Yong, who was once his father’s greatest ally. However, the prince loses sight of his men and ends up at the gates of a black castle that feels rather familiar.

Word count: 9k

Warnings: BDSM (masochist/sadist dynamics), paranormal, horror, angst (don’t read it if you’re feeling specially sad today lol it ruined me too), emotional manipulation.

# sub!Seokjin, prince!jin, dom!reader, princess!reader, ‘friends’ to ‘enemies’ to ‘lovers’, no the title is not an analogy for dick, vaginal sex, oral sex (both male and female receiving), use of restraints, choking, knife and blood play, seokjin is a painslut.

Blood play is pretty dangerous, even if I ignore any of its risks in this fic for literary purposes. Be careful of major blood vessels and STDs. Summing up, this story does not portray blood play in a realistic way (or in the way that should be in real life, at least). Honestly, i went feral with this one, too.

Those were dangerous lands. Plagued by demons and dark creatures, the road that supposedly led behind the mountains was rocky, and riding his horse was becoming incredibly painful, especially in his buttocks. Seokjin should rush if he didn’t want to end up as some beast’s supper.

“I have to turn left next… And follow the river,” he managed to read, turning the map upside down in an attempt to clarify the drawings. “What river? What road! I can’t even see beyond my own nose!”

The land on which his mare trotted was dry and barren, allowing the silhouettes of its horseshoes to be marked on it, but the wild wind would take only a few seconds to blow them away.

Seokjin had lost his men in the most ridicule of the ways—after ordering them to split so they could explore more of the area at once. The wind, however, blew the sand into the already dusty and dimmed sky, and soon he could no longer see any of the soldiers that were with him roughly a few minutes before. And there was no sound around him, only the mocking whistling of the wind.

The prince wanted to trust them and hoped to reunite with them at some point, even if the Forgotten Lands were elusive in their directions and all the rocks that appeared on the road in front of him looked the same.

The Forgotten Lands were dark and wilted—they had been forgotten for a reason. A place where one had to walk carefully to stay alive, it was a territory surrounding other kingdoms and whose history was no longer known. One could still distinguish roads and ruined houses, burned by the fires of battles led by those who did not want to risk destroying their own land.

As far as Seokjin could remember, the ruins of King Yong’s kingdom had to be near there, on the border with the Led Mountains.

All his father told him before he left was that a handful of robbers had been seen by neighbouring kingdoms prowling the grave of the northern royal family. That, and that he should be careful—after the Great Terror of the warlords who took power after the Revolution, the lands of the late King Yong were infested with outlaws, banshees, succubus, and other creatures from hell.

Fortunately, Seokjin hadn’t encountered any of them yet, and his main worry now was finding his men so he could catch the raiders.

The northern kingdom had never been known for its beauty, he remembered, but he could never have imagined that it could look like this. Dry, infertile, riddled with black ash and a reddish sky. It was truly a heart-breaking landscape when Seokjin recalled what it used to look like.

But his priority now was to find them. He couldn’t waste any more time plainly thinking.

The hours passed and only more arid and ruined land opened up in front of him. Some of the ruined constructions were still burning, probably lit by an assault or encounter between bandits.

Beyond the large pointy stones that pierced the thick clouds of ashes, an esplanade of lava and fire stretched as far as the eye could see. Seokjin gently pulled his mare’s reins to slow the pace and guided the animal through each of the stones after ensuring that they were solid.

He really wanted to take off his helmet, and his cuirass, and practically every single piece of his armour until he was wearing nothing but his aketon and underpants—the heat was barbarous.

However, if he did so, he’d probably get killed, and Seokjin certainly was much keener to keep himself out of the morgue rather than suffering through a bit of sweat and the sweltering feeling of his fringe dampened and pasted to his forehead.

“This map is useless,” he resolved.

The illustrations and patterns were certainly not helping at all. The place where he was probably wasn’t even appearing in the map.

Suddenly, a loud roar made the ground shake.

Seokjin’s mare baulked when he tried to move his legs slightly back, so he pressed softly with both knees to stop her from bolting. “Whoa! Duchess, halt! You’ll make me fall off you!” he exclaimed. Then Seokjin put his hand on her neck. “Lower your head, just like that. Good girl.” He realised he was gasping, too, so the man forced himself to calm down. “Let’s take a deep breath.”

Where could a howl like that have come from? Everyone knew of the beasts that swarmed the Forgotten Lands, all the banshees and sirens and demons, for they were the best place for those vermin to be left alone, but Seokjin knew of no animal that could produce such a sound.

Without looking away from the bright scarlet horizon, he listlessly beckoned Duchess to continue trotting along the side of the esplanade.

The rocks seemed more stable there, and he still did not want to demand much concentration from the mare, so they advanced towards the rocky hills where the noise had come from.

Seokjin soon realised that the growls were not growls per se—instead, they were the sounds made by the black stones of a half-ruined castle crashing as they twined around each other with the quietude of a snake. As crumbling as it seemed, the fortress stood. Barely, in tears, under the terrifying red sky and buried under the thick ash.

But it stood.

The stone walls and ramparts seemed to have come to life, although they were already dying. They writhed like a wounded man, they struggled with death, they moved though they wished to collapse. What kind of heartless desire was keeping them up?

He knocked on the gate and it opened at once.

The wood creaked slowly as it shifted backwards. The gate was scorched in the centre and splintered at the corners, but it moved firmly, as if offering him to enter at will.

Behind the giant gatehouse lay a deserted courtyard of dirt. Banners and flags, whose imagery had been erased by time, still waved in the strong wind. The battlements, on the other hand, had collapsed, and the gaps they left had breached the stones of the wall with their weight.

Seokjin approached the keep despite Duchess’ neighing. Surely she was only frightened by the grunts caused by the stones.

When he reached the entrance to the keep, he got off his mare to inspect the gateway.

“Hello?” The hall behind the half-ruined door was empty. Lamps and curtains flickered with the wind that blew through holes in the walls and whistled through the corridors. A chill ran down Seokjin’s back. “Is anyone here? I come in peace! I’m Kim Seo-”

“I don’t allow just anyone into my castle, Sire,” he heard, the gloomy voice echoing throughout the stone walls, “And I don’t let anyone out of it, either.”

You had waited for him to move into the room, and now you had cornered the man, blocking the exit to the door. Seokjin stared at you as he stepped back, getting deeper and deeper into the bowels of your castle.

“Run.” You could use a hunt, a chase, to entertain yourself today. The days were endless in the lands no one remembered. “Run and get out of this place if you don’t want to be killed.”

“Who are you? What is this place?”

But you raised your sword, and Seokjin flinched, having finally understood that no gallant act would get him out of that situation. He would have time to seek an answer to his questions when he left that castle safe and sound. Only the wind enclosed within the walls and the stone that ringed beneath his running feet would witness his cowardice.

Seokjin ran up the spiral staircase that would likely lead him to the top of the tower. From there, he could jump down the collapsed stones on the battlements and go back to the gateway.

The sound of your footsteps made it clear that you, on the contrary, were not in a hurry.

However, as Seokjin ran, the charred figures around him began to come alive. Suddenly, the statues and paintings pulsed in his memory, regaining their colour. The walls seemed to be reborn in his mind, and he recognized it instantly.

Stopping to catch his breath, he smiled, cheeks aching from the happy grimace.

The sudden life seemed surreal, but they throbbed within his memory, moving, rummaging through the dirt of what he thought was already forgotten, for his own healing, slow as it had been. For the sake of his sanity. The lights and glows of people chatting and walking, and the idle ado of the market outside the keep.

Seokjin approached the statue of a young woman and caressed her chin, feeling warmth under his finger pads.

Your cold fingers appeared as a ghostly presence around his nape, drawing him towards you to whisper in his ear. “I think I’ve had enough of playing cat and mouse. Who are you? I don’t like it when people show up at my castle unannounced—stay still or else I’ll slit your throat.”

“Nice,” he blurted out with an amused grin when you made him hold his hands up to chain him, “I like things like this.”

You scoffed, taking off his helmet and throwing it to the ground. “Freak.”

“So mean. You haven’t changed a bit.”

The way your eyes shone, sharply lit by the orangish candlelight, sent a shiver, both of thrill and the most absolute happiness, down his spine. But you shook your head and hung the chains onto a free wall-candlestick hook.

“I don’t know what could you possibly mean, sire.”

“It’s me,” sobbed Seokjin, pulling the chains to draw your attention towards him with the clinging sound, “It’s me, Y/N. Seokjin. I can’t have aged so much that you can’t recognise me anymore. In that case, consider me deeply aggrieved.”

He was bending his back, offering himself to you. With utter trust. Raising your hands to stare at them for a moment, you realised that only a man who had known you all his life could show himself in such a way and with such a smile. So you looked back at him, frowning upon the sound of his name.

“Seokjin?”

“Y/N,” he breathed.

You cupped his face, drinking from each and every one of his features. His dark hair falling on his forehead. His lips, pillow-like and wet—painfully so, perhaps waiting for a kiss from yours. “Is it really you? Seokjin as in…?”

“Yes, I’m Prince Seokjin. It’s me, Y/N. And this is-this is you! Princess… Y/N, it’s you.” Seokjin sipped his nose as two thick tears rolled down his cheeks. A wide smile, however, decorated his face. “How is it possible? How can you be alive? The king, the queen, your brothers… Are they…?”

Looking down, you shook your head.

“There’s only me left.”

Seokjin’s arrival was definitely a pleasing surprise. It had been so many years since your loneliness began that you didn’t expect to see anyone ever again.

“Please,” you heard, “Take them off.” He was squirming, his arms hanging from the chains and his thighs restless.

You smiled. “It’s been so long… How long already? I can’t remember. But I finally have you all chained up for me, and you want to leave already?” Taking his face in your hands again, your lips hovering over his, you saw a blush taking hold of his neck and creeping up to his cheeks. “Won’t you at least kiss me?”

“That—that wouldn’t be right, Y/N,” he babbled, looking down at your lips either way.

“Let me feed you, then. You’re safe here.”

Once you unchained him, you led him into the Great Hall, where you offered him a feast of which he had no doubt, as he told you that he had come to the Forgotten Lands to capture some grave robbers but had lost sight of his men during the journey.

You were lucky you could take some food from the thoughtless mavericks who wouldn’t blink twice before delving into the Forgotten Lands.

“It would be impossible to bring these lands back to life,” you explained, “Farming was never enough and the mountains have always made trade difficult. King Chong was more enthusiastic about war treaties than-” You looked up to Seokjin, who was devouring the meat as if he had been starving for years. “Is it good? The bath will be ready by the time you finish.”

Sitting in the middle of the deserted hall, with the only company of your presence and the shadows that projected the red light, the man finally looked at you and smiled. “Sounds good. Then… Can I stay a while longer? We have so much to talk about, Y/N… About whether you’ll come back with me.”

“Come back… with you?”

The seconds of silence in which you looked into his eyes passed for him like sharp blades cutting through his chest.

“Let’s not talk about it now, Seokjin,” you continued, “Eat a little more. You must be starving.”

“Why? Do you want to stay here?”

“I like it here. Nobody bothers me, nobody expects me to be anything. It’s so different from the heartless nest of snakes where I grew up,” you mumbled, chin resting on your palm, as you watched him swallow one of the grapes in the bunch, “What did you remember this place to be like?”

“It was so warm,” Seokjin retorted with a frown, “despite being a cold place. Your family was so warm, so… welcoming. It was a place full of life, always. So colourful. I loved coming to visit you.” His gloomy smile broke your heart. “We’d sneak into the kitchens when night fell to steal scones and buns, remember? And I’d take the blame whenever we got caught so you wouldn’t miss any of the balls and dance with me.”

“Deep down, you have always been my knight in shining armour, haven’t you?” you mumbled, caressing his chin to wipe away a drop of wine on his chin.

Seokjin licked the pad of your thumb without hesitation when you offered it to him.

“You never let me.” He was staring at you—challenging you? You weren’t sure. But the way his dark eyes glowed with the dim candlelight made you feel a delicious and exciting knot in your belly. “There was always something stopping you. You never… fully let me into your heart.”

You chuckled. “There are so many things you didn’t know back then.”

“Tell me, then.”

His question was clear. Seokjin wanted to know why his princess, the woman of his life, the one who would have been his future queen, had never been entirely his. You couldn’t blame him, and you were quite eager to understand it yourself. Why things had to turn out to be like that.

“What would be the point now?” you whispered.

“Seokjin.”

The fumes of the bath had left him drowsy, and he seemed to be engrossed in his thoughts, both arms resting on the black marble edge. The man heard your voice echoing through the bath and turned around, catching a glimpse of your figure approaching him from behind the darkness of the large room.

“Wait!” he spluttered. You could hear the sound of water splashing as the man moved nervously to reach for the robe you had given him. “Give me a second. I’m—I’m naked.”

Once you reached the bathtub, you smiled down at him, amused by his sudden embarrassment. “Do you mind if I join you?”

Your question took him by surprise.

Childhood friends as you had been, you were still the daughter of a king, a lady—the lady to whom he was devoted. The thought of seeing you bare was inconceivable to him. It had always been. Yours had been a body for him to admire from the most tender love and to imagine naked only in the solitude of his chamber.

Without a response, you took off your robe and let the thin fabric slip down your shoulders, exposing your breasts. Soon after, it fell to your feet, and the rest of your skin was at the disposal of his intrigued eyes.

“My sweet boy,” you laughed, stepping into the water.

Blushing before your naked figure, Seokjin looked away to stare at his own arms tangling around each other, but you grabbed his chin gently so he would look at you again. “I don’t wish to… spoil your maidenly decency, Y/N,” he managed to explain.

“I have no decency left, Seokjin,” you chuckled as your breath hit his lips, “Nor any desire to have one. Not with you finally here.”

After all those years of grieving and mourning both you and the love he felt towards you, the love that could have grown to be so splendid, had life and fate not been so merciless with you— all of it exploded sweetly when you kissed him, and it spilled over your lips like honey.

His hands travelled to your waist as yours moved to his cheeks, trying to deepen the embrace.

“We would have been so happy together,” he muttered, “If only I had refused to go and fight in Emperor Callas’ crusade… We would have been able to get married in time. You could have come to Orleil and avoided the siege.”

You listened carefully as you nibbled his earlobe. “It wasn’t your fault. I’m here with you—I’m fine.”

“Yes, and I can’t believe it, my love.” And then he looked up at you with the most hopeful and relieved smile that could ever exist.

“The rebels got what they deserved. The Great Terror ended the peace of this kingdom, and it ended them, too. Now oblivion is part of its history. This castle is mine. I am this castle’s. No king thinks his own kingdom will ever be considered a Forgotten Land. It was no one’s fault.”

Seokjin simply kissed you again, deeper, nipping your lips as he tried to swallow you and melt you into his arms. You felt his hardness brush your entrance with its tip, and he whimpered. “Forgive me,” he moaned, “I got carried away with… I’m sorry.”

“Do you still want to preserve my womanly decency, my love? I’d rather take you to my chamber.”

Clumsily and awkwardly, you led him by the hand to the sleeping quarters and slowly opened the door to your chamber, letting the expectation grow inside him as it also grew inside you.

“Earlier, when you were chained up at my mercy, you seemed to be quite fond of the restraints… The bulge in your trousers gave you away.” Seokjin looked up at you, mortified. “The curtain cords on my bed are quite sturdy—just ask me and I’ll have you at my disposal.”

He swallowed hard. “Please.”

“So polite,” you chuckled, pointing to the bed for him to lie on his back.

Once Seokjin got rid of his clothing, trying to escape from your piercing gaze, and lay down as you asked, you straddled him and tied his hands to the wooden headboard. The knot around his hands was not too tight, but it was tight enough to send a sweet chill of helplessness through him when he pulled to free himself.

In case you needed to get him rid of the restraints quickly, you took your dagger and stretched out to leave it close.

At the sight of your silver knife between your fingers, Seokjin trembled underneath you.

The way he did it, though, licking his lips, staring into your eyes, pulling at his restrictions to taste the helplessness, made you turn tilt head to the side and bend over his chest. One of your arms rested next to his head, and the other travelled to his cheek to caress the skin with the blade.

“Aren’t you scared of my little toy, Seokjin?” you purred, amused, and wondered if you could make him come only stroking his tip and putting your knife against his throat.

He rashly shook his head. “I-” But the man choked on his spit, making you pierce his beautiful neck with your eyes. “It makes my… my belly tingle, and feels somewhat… It makes me hot. It makes me-makes me want you to—I don’t know. Sorry.”

“Stop apologising for everything you say. Can’t you see how wet I am?”

He nodded and moved his head upwards until he forced you to push on his neck with your knife. “I have no money with me, my lady. I left my sack of gold with my braies,” he joked.

“Oh?” Licking your lips, you rested your butt on your thighs again. “I don’t believe your word, good sir. Perhaps I’ll have to take your wealth by force. You’re not afraid of my toy? Maybe you’ll be afraid of what I can do to you with it.”

His dick twitched between your butt cheeks, making you grind against his lower belly while losing your balance.

Your jerky move, however, accidentally brushed the blade of your knife against Seokjin’s belly, and a lonely tear of crimson, glossy blood flowed from his skin. As willing as you were to apologise, his sudden moan led you to bend down and lick it clean. It was sweet, just like you had imagined, and had a somewhat honey-like taste that made you drool all over him.

“Y/N,” he suddenly whispered, “I’m so hard. It-it feels good.”

“I see.”

Slowly, you dragged the blade across the skin of his inner thighs, fascinated by the sight of his flushed cock hardening beyond imagination.

You were going to have fun like you haven’t had in decades.

Seokjin’s deep groan encouraged you to bend down between his legs and lick the tear of blood that had spilled from the thin wound. “So good,” he moaned, the feeling of both your lips near his dick and the sting on his leg becoming too much to handle.

Then you sucked into the cut.

“Shit!” His cock twitched next to you. “Stop teasing me, please, Y/N.”

Wishing he could taste his blood on your lips, you reached down to bend over him and kissed him, wrapping your fingers around both sides of his hair.

“As my little prince wishes.”

After amusing yourself for a while with his whimpers, licking his tip with small, short strokes of your tongue, you decided to pull and end to his pleas and took his cock into your mouth, wrapping your lips around it and sucking.

“Mmh-shit! God, so good!”

Tightening his thighs highlighted the pain of the cuts on his inner thighs but, sickly enough, it gave him chills all over his body that built up in his belly. It only made him bend his back, trying to make you swallow more of him.

“Look at you, my prince, so ruined and close,” you whispered against his shaft, pumping it.

Then you travelled back to his legs and reopened the cuts with your fingertips, drawing more blood, to sucked into them without stopping the motion of your other hand.

Seokjin moaned from the depths of his chest and pulled on the restraints. “So close! So, so close!”

“Are you going to give it to me, my love? Give me all your seed, all your blood, all of you. Give it to me, come in my mouth. Don’t you want to fill it with your load, Seokjin? You’ll be doing it in a second if you’re good for me and let me suck your blood. True royal blood for me. All for me.”

“Cum… mouth! Yes! Suck me!” His loud pleas were making the walls tremble. So powerful. You obliged, excited for the upcoming meal. “Faster, please, don’t stop!”

“Did you ever picture me like this when we were younger, Seokjin? Kneeling between your legs and sucking your dripping cock after it got hard because you’re a pain-slut,” you asked against his opened flesh, peppering it with kisses.

When your hand noticed his dick twitching harder, you began to stroke the tip with the pad of your thumb, playing with the slit while your teeth took one last bite at his inner thigh. Then you sat on your knees to watch Seokjin squirming over your sheets.

“I asked you a quest-”

“You-fuck! You know I did! I did! I was so eager for us to get married, Y/N, so eager to take you home and lay you in my bed and bury—burying into your wet, warm cunt and never leave!”

“You earned your treat,” you muttered.

“Yes, please! It feels so-so good!” groaned Seokjin, “Thank you, thank you! Hng, shit, so good!”

With only a couple more strokes of your tongue on his length, you noticed the warm flesh twitching, and his load spurted into your mouth, bubbly and dense. It was full of life, full of him. So, you parsimoniously swallowed down everything you wanted.

“I want to taste you, too,” he groaned, “Please.”

Pursing your lips to hide a smirk, you straddled his head after taking off your robe and let him nuzzle your core and its wetness, hoping it’d drive him crazy. “Why don’t you lick it, my prince? Don’t be shy—I’ve been dwelling on those lusty lips of yours all over my soaked cunt since I first saw you.”

“Mmh-more!” he mumbled against your clit and did as told.

You obliged, burying yourself onto his face to leave him little room to breathe—but he was loving it, the slut, slurping and licking and kissing and fucking your core with his tongue, unravelling on the feeling of the soft flesh of your thighs brushing against his ears and the way his head would hit the pillow every time you rammed into his face.

And hell, you were loving it, too.

“So good, my love, you’re doing so well,” you moaned, throwing back your head, “I’m going to come, prince. See, you’re going to make me come with those sinful lips of yours!”

The anticipated climax finally hit, and you had to stop yourself from pulling his hair harder, or else you’d hurt him in a not so nice way. Seokjin drank any remains of arousal there could be left in your cunt and finally let go of you, allowing your exhausted hips to sit down on his chest.

You felt his hardness against your butt. “My god, Seokjin, I can’t believe you’re ready for more straight away,” you chuckled.

“Ride me.” His whimpered request made your core tingle, and you looked down at him, at his dark, glassy eyes, at his thick lips that still glowed with your arousal. “Please—ride me raw. I can’t believe this-that this is happening but, please, I need to be inside of you.”

Of course he did. He had been waiting for this moment all his life.

You straddled him, teasing your core with his tip until Seokjin was whining beneath you, using the ropes to propel up his hips. The message was clear.

The feeling of someone stretching you was reborn from their ashes. A groan escaped your lips and Seokjin smiled, overjoyed to know that you liked to feel him inside you. And so it was—you would never tire of his cock slowly sinking into your pussy, rubbing your walls until he bottomed out.

“Is it as good as you imagined when we were kids, you naughty boy?” you asked with a grin, nibbling his earlobe.

“Oh, mhf-fuck, it’s even better! You’re so tight, and wet, and warm, and I can feel you all-all around me, god! I can’t-” He began to thrust up into you, chasing his orgasm. “Yes, oh, shit! Ah-ah-mph! Please, please, I need to come, so bad, inside!” When you pushed your hips against his one more time, he hissed as he looked up at you. “Please, Y/N, I’m so close!”

With your hands cupping his face, you kissed him deeply. It ignited a fire within you that forced your body to go feral, to suck him into you completely and scratch his skin until even the tiniest portion of him was printed on your finger pads. The feeling of his cock rubbing on your walls was truly getting the best of you.

He was mesmerised by the picture of your figure straddling him, riding him into oblivion, and you couldn’t help yourself from drinking from his glossy gaze.

“Heavens, Seokjin, you feel so good,” you moaned against his lips.

“P-please,” he insisted out of breath.

Seokjin was noticeably getting harder inside of you, his balls tight and ready to give you all of him. “You’ve been doing so well, prince. Using your cock and your dirty mouth to get me off.”

“I’m close!” Seokjin turned his face to the side, unable to contain the pleasure within his body. “Please, don’t want to come with-without your permission! Please, please, princess, my lady, I’m so close!” he cried. His heels kicked the bedding as he writhed. “I’m-I’m coming!”

In a second—and without your permission—you had him spilling all his cum into you, throwing back his head so his dreamy, swan-like neck was at the disposal of your hungry mouth.

“I’d eat you up if I could, Seokjin, my love,” you growled as your lips sucked and bit into his skin.

Your hips ramming into his helped him ride out his climax, and soon he was begging you to stop and demanding a hug from you, to which you obliged with much enthusiasm. “Goodness, Y/N, I’m-I don’t think I know how to talk anymore.”

“You don’t need to,” you whispered against his lips.

Apart from eliciting an erection and consequently several orgasms from him, the knife you had taken out earlier fulfilled its mission and cut the cords with which you had tied the prince. Shortly after, as you tore yourself away from him, Seokjin stretched out on the sheets, fighting against the urge to sleep that was growing on him by the minute.

“You’re exhausted, my love. Time for bed.”

The fire and lava that surrounded the castle filled the room with violent reddish light. It used to make it difficult for you to sleep—it was terrifying—so you got out of bed and went to the window to draw the curtains while you put out the flame on your candlestick.

“Don’t-” His hand grabbed yours and you look down at him, staring at the way his eyes glowed with the dim candlelight. “I… I’m still afraid of the dark. Don’t blow them out.”

You nodded and put the candlestick back on the table. “As you wish.” After you opened back the curtains, you dipped a cloth in the water of the basin and approached Seokjin. “Spread your legs, love. I have to clean your cuts.”

“In the end, it was me who bled on your sheets.”

You smirked. “And you can’t pretend you didn’t enjoy it as much as I did.”

Seokjin had decided to stay in the castle until his men returned. They would be looking for him, surely, and the place was not difficult to find—there were hardly any buildings left standing in the Forgotten Lands.

When you two were not frolicking in bed, you spent your time around the keep and within the walls. Slowly, the light returned to the dark castle of the king in the north.

Seokjin loved to hear the birds chirping in the morning and to wake up with the woman he loved in his arms. He’d kiss your temple, turn you over to kiss you some more on the lips, whisper sweet nothings in your ear, and nuzzle your neck until you convinced him that both you and he had things to do.

The way he whined made you frown on your way to the bed, and Seokjin hugged you when you sat up next to him.

“What’s the matter?”

“Your cousin was such a brute,” he pouted, “I can still feel the cut on my ankle. He almost made me limp.”

You could only laugh at his complaints, welcoming into your arms as he put one of his legs on top of yours to pull you closer and hug your side. “What can I say—I kept all the wits of my bloodline, love,” you joked against the crown of his head.

“I’m so glad my grandfather banned inbreeding.”

Your breaths began to become even. The morning light was filtering more strongly through the windows, and the sound of the market people outside the keep hummed with mockery that you had to get out of bed.

Seokjin started caressing your bare belly with his finger pads, drawing invisible shapes on the skin while his head rested on your breasts. “What if you become pregnant?”

His question took you by surprise.

“Fortunately, that won’t happen,” you retorted.

Out of the blue, he got on top of you and aligned his dick with your entrance. You felt him slowly stretching you out and, soon after that, he was thrusting into you, pleadingly peppering your cheeks and neck with pecks. The lack of warming up made it take you a little longer to get used to his cock rubbing your walls, so you hissed against his hair.

“Co-come back with me. Be my princess, my queen, Y/N, please, please,” he gasped into the hollow of your neck, “Don’t you know how-how happy will e-everyone be when they find out you survived? My parents will be so… so happy!”

What you wouldn’t do to follow him. To go with him and be his queen, the queen you knew you could become. The life you knew you deserved. Not that black, ashy castle that only stood up because it lived on your famished spirit. Not your rotten, cursed existence.

But you had managed, with his delirious love, to make that dying fortress look a little bit like home. It was like magic.

You wanted your magic prince to stay with you forever.

“I’m the forgotten princess of a forgotten land,” you retorted anyways, breathing hard, “I’m a forgotten soul. There is no room for me in a place where things remain and queens give birth to future kings. This is my place now, Seokjin—I can’t leave.”

Your words were accompanied by a groan as Seokjin lowered his hand to your clit, rubbing it, perhaps hoping that, if he gave you enough pleasure, you would agree to go with him.

As for your hands, they moved to his neck and your thumbs pressed on his trachea. What you wouldn’t do to ruin him, to wreck him with your very hands, to suck him into your own body and see him vanish within you. Perhaps he’d ask for mercy. Perhaps he’d ask for more.

Perhaps, if you snuck into his mind with enough strength, if you pulled his strings and played with him just right, he’d be yours, yours, yours.

Seokjin shivered over you, gasping for air.

His thumb rubbing your clit had begun to take effect on you: your thighs tightened as you felt the knot in your stomach get wider, flooding your whole body with anticipation until it exploded and you shove his dick into your cunt, again and again, to ride out your orgasm.

Seokjin’s hand grabbed yours and it was not until then that you noticed his reddened face.

“I-I’m close,” he babbled, still trying to catch his breath after you let go of him. Once his chest finally began to rise and fall steadily, he looked at you in the eye. “I’m going to cum. Do that again, please.”

You nodded. “Pinch my arm when you want me to stop.”

Silly you. He was already yours—utterly yours. Handing himself over on a platter, you could ask him for his heart, ploughing his own chest open, and Seokjin would give it to you.

He thrust into you slowly, trying to move as evenly as possible not to rush his climax. Whimpers came from his contracted throat, as if they were struggling to surface, soft words of sweet nothings. Seokjin was getting closer and the lack of air was not helping him to hold it.

“You’re so tight,” he managed to say with a wet voice, drool trickling down his wide-open mouth. He was too close, too close, it felt too good. You thrust up to shove him deeper into you, and Seokjin pushed himself harder. If he could talk, he’d ask you to ruin him with your hands right away. Ruin him and keep him on your palms so he could be with you forever. “Shit! I-I’m coming!”

When you felt a pinch on your wrist, the vision above you of his red face contracting through his climax looked divine to you. So much that it took you most of your willpower to let go of his neck. But you did, and Seokjin came instantly as he pushed the remnants of his orgasm into you.

“So good! Y/N, so good, yes, thank you!” he moaned against your chest.

You moved your lips to his ear. “It would’ve been a pity not to put that swan neck of yours to good use… You did so well, my prince. You gave me so much. I can feel your seed dripping out of me.”

Seokjin raised his head to kiss you, and you accepted the gesture with a conciliatory and soothing smile, letting him sink onto you and merging with you in an embrace. However, his tongue slowly began to grow weaker, sleep taking its toll on his body, and he ended up falling asleep next to you while you played with his hair.

He was yours, yours, yours—and yet he was not.

You decided to close your eyes for a while next to him, and you ended up losing track of time until you noticed his stomach roaring next to you. You let out a gentle laugh through your nose.

When you opened your eyes, you saw him sitting on the bed.

Seokjin was rubbing his left ankle with a grimace but turned to look at you as soon as you made it known that you were awake. “Good morning.”

“Morning, my love,” you groaned, “I assume you are hungry. Or is it a beast what you’ve got roaring in there?”

“Do you want to find out?”

With a naughty laugh, you took his foot carefully to lift it and put a cushion under it.

“My cousin was indeed a brute. Heavens, does it still hurt?” you muttered then, grabbing a bandage. Perhaps that way it’d move around less and it wouldn’t hurt so much. “After all this time?”

Seokjin laughed. “It was the other ankle. I just bumped this one earlier.” You let go of his leg with an apology, but Seokjin smiled and turned over to nuzzle into your neck. “That doesn’t mean I don’t like it when you touch me, Y/N.”

“Silly boy… Are you tired?” He nodded, eyes closed and chest rising and falling quietly. “You stay in bed. I’ll take care of breakfast—need you with renewed strength to satiate me, my love. You can’t feed me with those tired little eyes of yours.”

“I need my beauty nap, too,” added the man.

“Nap? You just woke up!”

But Seokjin snorted, turning over once again and tucking himself into the blankets. You told him not to come down too late, or else he’d end up with a sick stomach. However, the concepts of too late and too early did not exist anymore in the castle, so you couldn’t really blame him.

You waited for him in the Great Hall for an hour, but he didn’t show up, so you decided to go back to the sleeping quarters and wake him up.

On the way to your room, you passed by the chapel and saw Seokjin.

Your dry heart stopped in terror.

He was standing in front of a perfectly arranged bunch of bones, still covered by a silk gown and decorated with tons of expensive jewellery, as if time hadn’t passed. A beautiful sword lay embedded in the ground, piercing its chest.

His eyes could not leave the image, however—and you feared that he’d come to the moment when he’d find out everything.

“I told you not to come in here,” you grunted, striding across the room.

Seokjin looked up at you, painfully, avoiding the sight of the bony skeleton lying on the ground. “This sword—this sword is mine. I gave it to you after I won your birthday tournament with it.”

“Yes,” you replied with a forced smile, “I’ve kept it since then.”

“And this was its ultimate role. To kill you.” It felt hard, escaping from his piercing gaze. “I can recognise your clothes and jewellery. That’s your corpse—you can’t fool me any further,” he uttered at your bewildered grimace.

“If you pull out that sword, this whole place will fall apart. It’s been stuck and burning since that day,” you muttered. His intense gaze was still fixed on your eyes.

“If I pull it out, will you fall apart, too?” You nodded absently. “Why?”

“You know why.”

Seokjin looked away from you, pursing his lips. “I’m sorry I couldn’t save you,” he whispered then.

“It doesn’t matter, Seokjin,” you said as a cooing smile stretched your lips, “Your memory has been keeping me here all these years. Alive, in some way. Waiting for you… Waiting for you to stay here—with me.”

Then Seokjin turned to take you in his arms and kiss you. He pressed himself against your chest and kissed you with all his might as you moved your hands to the back of his head, assuring him that you were there with him.

“Is this the reason why you can’t leave? The reason you’re still here?” he asked against your lips.

You chuckled. “I am this castle now. I stand, but at what cost?”

He ended up asking to go somewhere else, for the picture of your corpse was engraved by fire in his mind and he claimed to be feeling weaker and weaker.

“So you can’t—you can’t really come back with me.”

His shivering voice broke the remains of your heart and you raised your hand to cup his sombre face, on the verge of tears.

“Of course,” you whispered, “And I can’t ask you to stay. You’re a prince, a future king. You’ll have to marry a well-bred lady, someone up to the standards and who won’t blink at the thought of being a queen. I can’t be that queen, Seokjin. Not anymore.”

He couldn’t believe he asked you to go to Orleil with him. He could not believe that he had put you through the pain of having to say no to him without explanation, all to prevent him from discovering such a painful truth—that you could never be his queen.

Seokjin grabbed your hands with a jerky move and kissed them a thousand times with a thousand pecks.

“I’ll come back. Whenever I can, I promise. I’ll come back to you,” he mumbled against your skin.

You chuckled, cupping his cheeks to draw him towards your lips. “Will you, my little prince? You’ll come back to feed my famished loneliness?” But a sudden clashing sound of the gate bursting open took you out of your reverie. “What was that?”

“I’ll go see,” said Seokjin, standing up, “You stay here.”

You, however, followed him downstairs quietly. No one would enter your castle without you allowing them to, and in order to do so you would protect it tooth and nail, and keep the shabby thread of your existence safe.

“Your Highness!”

The soldiers entered the fortress looking everywhere and you heard a horse whinnying in desperation.

“Lord Yunghae!” exclaimed the prince as he rushed down the last steps, “I’m here, I’m safe. I didn’t think you were all together. Why did it take you so long…?”

The man in the most ostentatious armour knelt the instant he saw Seokjin, and the others followed suit. “Thank God you’re okay, your Highness! We truly thought you were in danger or, worse, wounded by the raiders. It has been a month since the retinue got lost! What in heaven’s good name has kept you here for so long?”

Seokjin turned around and glimpsed you hidden behind a column, sword in hand.

“I stopped to inspect the place and decided to wait for you here.”

As the soldiers continued to talk, perhaps trying to convince him to resume the search with them, you saw the prince wink at you with complicity, almost oblivious to the pleas of his faithful men, and you winked back at him. A feeling of warm familiarity crept into his stomach.

“I haven’t finished with the castle,” he retorted. Seokjin then gestured you to leave, blowing a kiss when it was safe.

“The king is dying of worry, your Highness, and the raiders probably left after taking everything with them.”

You raised your hand to catch the kiss and pressed it against your lips with a mischievous smile, and turned around before having the chance to notice the way he frowned as the oh-so warm and familiar intimacy in his belly broke into pieces of ice all the way to the ground—at that moment, your face became that of an unknown ghost.

The stone staircase led you to your chamber, where you waited for Seokjin, wondering what he’d do with the soldiers. Would he come back to his kingdom?

The thought made you boil.

After a few minutes, you accepted that Seokjin was nowhere to be seen, but you needed him. Utterly. Your body was aching for him, and you were starting to feel famished and deprived of his touch and essence. A second without feeling him inside of you, or pressed against your skin, giving himself up to you, was a century of starvation.

You heard a sound coming from the chapel, and there you went, curious to know what had happened and, above all, what had taken him so long.

“What are you doing here alone?”

He pursed his lips, looking down. “It’s been a month since I left in search of the robbers, so my sister must have been helping my father in court all this time. I’m sure she’s doing much better than me.”

“I’ve told you so many times, Seokjin. You will make a good king. Just as much or even more than your sister. Wise, merciful, just.” You turned to leave the room with a suggestive smile, expecting him to follow you, and continued talking. “Stop doubting yourself.”

A broken cry brought you back to reality. “Who are you?”

Seokjin was dangerously close to your flaming sword. A single tug, no matter how gentle, would dislodge it slightly, and you would disappear forever.

“What do you mean?” you retorted with a fraught smile, “It’s me, Y/N, my love.”

“I am King Shihyuk’s only child.”

The chapel fell silent. You decided to remain quiet, too, as he tried to cut you open with his eyes. Maybe that way Seokjin could see what you were hiding inside, but he waited for you to say something, anything, and your silence only bled him out.

“Anyone who dares to cross this place ought to be careful,” recited the man with trembling lips. Two lonely tears threatened to spill over his cheeks. “For the Forgotten Lands are infested with sirens and succubi,” he continued, “Who take the form of those who are long gone and lure you into their lairs.”

You stared at him.

“All I want is to feed on your spirit.” Your voice was now cold, no grimace as an act of demeaning deception. “But it will slowly kill you—that is the deal I’m offering you. Seokjin, you wouldn’t have stayed here if you didn’t need me. If you pull out that sword, it’s all gone. Forever.”

His grip on the hilt of the flaming sword tightened as you approached him. His fingers were trembling. “You are a monster.”

“I would never dream of hurting you any more than what you beg me to,” you muttered. Smiling when his hand slowly withdrew from the sword, yours moved to his cheeks and wiped away his tears, whispering against his lips. “You can always come back to her, my love, as long as you come back to me.”

“She’s dead.”

“No, she’s not. Not when you are here,” you insisted.

Your kiss tasted like poison to him. Sweet, agonizing lips against his, teeth nipping them as you stuck your tongue in his mouth and your hands moved to his nape, wondering what he would taste like to you upon his discovery.

It was a salty flavour. Like spilled tears, they danced over your tongue. His pain gave you a feeling of euphoria.

You needed more—more of his sorrow, more of his lips, more of his whole being. Pulling up the skirts of your satin dress, you exposed your thighs and pushed Seokjin to the ground by his shoulders until he was sitting down. Then you straddled his lap without breaking the kiss and undid the laces of his trousers.

Seokjin hugged your waist in desperation as your cunt sucked him in, and he knew he was lost. Whatever sanity could have remained in him, had he pulled out that sword, it was all gone now. Part of his mind vanished like dust as you clenched around him, feeling his dick twitch inside of you, and you groaned and grabbed the hair of his neck to pull him closer, to make him go deeper.

“Tell me you are not ecstatic, my prince,” you whispered against his lips, breathing erratically as you moved up and down, “I dare you. Tell me you’re not elated, flying over the top of joy and buried deep inside of me at the same time.”

He cried against the hollow of your neck. “I miss her.”

“I’m here,” you cooed, “You’re touching me. You’re loving me. I’m here.”

This man had been looking for her all his life. He had longed to find her again and kiss her and love her with his whole being. It was a true pity, such a promising love story thrown away—by the time the rebels reached the castle, decades ago, you had already killed her.

How could have you imagined that your spirit would remain locked under the silly sword that you tore away from the girl’s shivering hands? You wouldn’t have killed her if she hadn’t resisted, but perhaps you’d saved her from a less dignified death.

“I’m close,” moaned Seokjin.

You were attached to that place for all eternity, so you may as well use it to your advantage.

A smirk pressed against his wet cheek and you sank your nails in the flesh of his nape. “Already? Did I not train you well enough, my love?”

“Please. I need you, please, let me-let me come.”

His breathing began to become more irregular as your legs pushed harder against him. You were reaching your climax too, his gasps and groans only pushing you towards it. The way his girth rubbed against your walls, pushing his tip against your cervix, making you clench around him—it was delicious.

“You feel so good, my prince,” you moaned, “So big, stretching me out so well… Come kiss me.”

Seokjin obliged immediately. He let you tilt up his chin so he could look up at you, and welcomed your lips with a soft hum, feeling bad for all those people who didn’t know what it was like to be held by someone who loved you and whom you loved back just as much.

“P-please!” he insisted, dragging his breathy pecks down your chin, neck, and chest.

“Just a little longer. Hold on a little longer, my prince. Just a second and you’ll have me coming around your hard, dripping cock. Can you do that for me, love?”

When you saw him nodding to your words, you threw back your head and unbuttoned your bodice, permitting him to suck one of your nipples into his mouth. Barely a few seconds later, you were reaching your climax, clenching around him and propelling you on your heels to keep both of you attached to the ground.

The urge to swallow him whole with your cunt was too mighty.

Something finally pulled within Seokjin’s body, a wave of warm pleasure that made him thrust up, and he spilled his seed into you, sobbing. “I’m coming! Y/N, you’re making me come! Don’t-don’t stop! I love you! I love you so much, Y/N, so much!” he screamed as you rode off his orgasm, barely feeling your legs yourself, “I love you!”

“And I love you too,” you muttered in his ear.

The crown prince of Orleil was rumoured to have a mistress that did not live at court as any other concubine would. The lady was said to have visited his lover’s palace in the past, to have known the king, to have met the highest ranks of the nobility—but she no longer did.

Forgotten by those who wanted to remember her again, Prince Seokjin’s mistress lived in the Forgotten Lands, a most suitable place for a woman like her.

He visited her as often as he could, either on his way to another kingdom or brazenly enough to gather a few of his men and head straight to the half-ruined castle. The soldiers would wait patiently nearby as their prince entered his mistress’ residence, and would not leave until he came out, which could sometimes take longer than a fortnight.

Even if it rained, thundered, or snowed, Seokjin never missed a day when he knew he could be welcomed into her arms. Even after the years passed, after riding on horseback became more difficult and his sight was not that good, he would always go to her. He did so until the very day of his death, after becoming a husband, after becoming a father, after becoming a king.

Seokjin kept his everlasting promise: to come back to her, always—to keep her alive.

Don’t hesitate to like, reblog, and leave some feedback if you liked it! It’s always good and encouraging to know what you think <3

“THE LADY WITH THE FLAMING SWORD” is copyright ²⁰²¹ Lola Bangtan, all rights reserved.

[chroniclackofselfpreservation]

Creatures of the Night

Chapter 12 - once you say it out loud it can’t be undone

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AO3

Masterlist

(TW: mild graphic imagery)

(The title for this chapter comes from "the fall" by half alive.)

Patton’s throat constricted and his chest felt like someone had wrapped it in barbed wire. He knelt in the middle of a clearing, the tall grass tickling his arms. His eyes were blurry with tears.

Virgil knelt across from him, his face limp with dread. Logan stood a few paces away, something shiny dangling from his clenched, trembling fist. He radiated anger.

Roman lay asleep at his feet.

No… his chest was still; his skin, usually golden tan and vibrant, was pale; his hand, clutched in Patton’s own, was cold and…

And lifeless.

Patton came awake suddenly, but didn’t jolt. He looked around, gradually grounding himself and calming his breathing. Logan was sandwiched between him and the back of the couch, his mouth slightly open and his face pressed into the crook of Patton’s shoulder.

They’d begun the night sitting side by side, watching animal documentaries and eating the pasta they’d made together. Now, the television had shut off after being inactive for too long, and their dishes sat empty on the coffee table.

Patton’s neck was stiff and his arm was going numb, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to move. His dream was a little more than disturbing—Roman was dead, for crying out loud—but Logan’s slow puffs of breath hitting his neck did a good job distracting him.

Logan’s forehead creased and his eyes, though closed, grew troubled. He made soft, whimpering noises of concern, turning his head into Patton’s shirt.

“Looks like we’re both having bad dreams,” he muttered, leaning his head back on the arm of the couch and looking up at the ceiling.

It was torture, lying here with Logan and not doing anything about it. He wished he could run his hands through his hair and kiss his forehead and lie huddled together—not by accident but by choice.

He wished for a lot of things—not only with Logan, but with Roman and Virgil as well. They’d been so close ever since they were young, but never close enough for his liking. He wanted to take all their pain and make them feel wanted.

But he didn’t.

He wouldn’t cross that boundary for fear they’d feel some sort of obligation to make him happy.

As long as they were happy.

But they weren’t. Logan was overstressed, Roman wouldn’t talk to him about whatever strange thing he was going through, and Virgil—

Logan jerked awake, inhaling sharply and clenching Patton’s shirt in his fist. He looked around, confused, then, upon seeing himself lying nearly on top of Patton, sat up quickly.

He cleared his throat. “Apologies, Patton. It was not my intention to, er… fall asleep.”

“Don’t apologize, kiddo. I think we both needed a little cat nap.” He flipped up the hood of his jacket depicting a cat face and ears.

Logan rolled his eyes and opened his mouth to chastise Patton’s choice of pun when his eyes fell on the window to their left, the morning light reflecting in his eyes. His face went slack with a look of fear.

“What time is it?”

Patton craned his head back to glance at the clock on the oven. “Seven-thirty. Wowie, we really zonked out, didn’t—“

Logan shot to his feet. “Roman?” he called, flying up the stairs two at a time. Patton followed, a pit of nerves forming in the bottom of his gut.

“They’re not here. Roman and Virgil aren’t back yet.”

“I don’t know, Logan. We can’t assume the worst. They might’ve been held up—”

“Patton, I—” Logan snapped, but stopped himself, pressing a fist against his mouth. He began again,  “Patton, I can assure you, they are not. This is an incredibly complicated situation with an innumerable amount of unknown variables, and I know you must be confused. Believe me, I understand, but there’s just—Patton I’m sorry, I—I can’t—”

Patton rushed forward, cupping Logan’s face in his hands. “Hey, hey, take a breather, Lo. It’s gonna be okay, yeah?” he said, smiling though he felt as if he’d swallowed glass. Logan knew what was going on. So, did Virgil. Why did everyone know but him?

But he did know—kind of, anyway. Right? The dreams…

He opened his mouth, closed it, then tried again. “This wouldn’t happen to involve a, uh… giant… talking snake… would it?”

Patton felt Logan grow deathly still beneath his hands.

“What did you say?”

Patton lowered his hands, suddenly self-conscious. He shook his head, “Sorry, it’s ridiculous, I know—”

“No! No, Patton, what did you—how did you know?” he breathed.

Patton’s heart stopped in his chest. “I was right?” He tried to swallow past the lump in his throat but he couldn’t. The dreams were true. They always were. But what Roman was dealing with… it wasn’t possible. Was it?

Logan sat down hard on the stairs and put his face in his hands. Patton held out a tentative hand, recoiling a bit when Logan burst into a fit of hysterical laughter.

“Logan?”

He looked up with eyes now red, pressing his hands against his lips and sniffing. “Patton, you have absolutely no idea how relieved I am right now. I’ve been carrying this for Roman on my own for months and I wanted to tell you so bad, but...” his voice broke.

Patton felt everything inside him shatter and it took every ounce of self-control he had to keep from grabbing Logan’s face again, holding his hand, and kissing away all of his pain.

He took a breath, putting on a strong smile. “I don’t know all the details, Lo, but we’re going to figure this out. Okay? Do you know where they are?”

Logan nodded, taking a breath.

“I have a general idea.”

                                                * * * * * * * * * *

...gil…

Virgil…?

What’s going on? Are you dead?

Virgil’s eyes opened slowly. He squinted a little, some sort of bright light shining on his face. His head was pounding. After a few moments, his eyes adjusted and… 

He was outside? Why was he…? Looking up, he found Roman asleep against a tree, his head lolling to the side, and Virgil’s head was in his lap.

Virgil shot upright, ears burning. The quick movement sent his head spinning and the throbbing grew worse. He groaned and pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. 

Hello? Answer me, Virgil.

Virgil stiffened. It was Ursula. No wonder his head felt like it had gone through a meat grinder.

What do you want? he thought back venomously.

He could practically sense her eye roll. Nothing. Our connection wavered a bit and I thought you were dead, or something. I was worried for my little minion.

Why’d you… Virgil trailed off. They were in the forest. The memories of last night came rushing back, hitting him like a tidal wave. Terror ripped through him and he launched to his feet. His head felt like someone was chiseling into it with a pickaxe, but he didn’t care. He turned in circles, scanning the trees for Dorian. 

They were alone. 

What happened? Did my champion figure you out yet?  She laughed through their connection, a strangely melodic sound.  Did he try to kill you or something?

No, Virgil seethed. Go away. He prayed she wouldn’t take his dismissal as a challenge. Virgil wasn’t sure he had the strength to resist her at the moment. 

I have better things to do anyway. Paco’s teaching me how to make sangria, ciao! 

Their connection faded. 

Roman stirred, and Virgil’s unease piqued. He’d have to explain everything now, wouldn’t he? Roman was going to hate him. Then he’d tell Logan and Patton and—and Virgil wasn’t sure if he could handle any  one  of them hating him. 

But he had to own up to what he’d done. It was time. 

“Roman, wake up,” Virgil said, softly shaking his shoulder. His friend blinked a few times, looking around. 

“Where are… wait are we still in the forest?!” he cried, shooting to his feet. He looked down at his arms and felt his face with growing horror, spattered head-to-toe with the tar-like blood, and groaned. 

“Uh, yeah. I’m guessing you fell asleep after…” Virgil paused, recalling as much of last night as he could. “Wait, how am I not dead? Dorian bit me. I should be dead right now.”

“I gave you the antidote, and—hold up, look at your chest!" Roman blurted, rushing forward. Virgil looked down. His shirt was ripped almost completely open, revealing his chest. There was no wound. Not even a scar. 

"How...?"

Roman laughed, "Must be some of that power beyond description Dorian's always going on about."

Virgil's stomach dropped. "Uh, yeah. About that. We probably need to talk. Right?"

Roman looked confused for only a few seconds. His face fell ever so slightly. "Yeah. We do, but not right now."

"What?"

Roman smiled a little guiltily, "I think we should wait until we're all together. I've got some things I need to tell them, too. Besides, Logan's going to murder me himself if we don't get home soon." He started walking, and Virgil followed, trying to decide whether he was relieved or more nervous. It seemed like Roman was in denial instead of actually being fine with the situation. 

"Do they know?"

"Logan does. Patton… I haven’t told him anything. I couldn’t bring myself to. You know how he gets. He’d want to fix everything, lose sleep over it, all that,” Roman said. Virgil could tell he was trying to sound unaffected. He wasn’t doing a very good job. 

Virgil followed Roman through the woods. He didn’t look like he was even paying attention to where he was going, and yet their course never wavered. A product of spending every night in these trees for over a year, now, Virgil surmised. Despite his confidence in his sense of direction, Virgil couldn't get over how unconcerned Roman was out gallivanting around a forest that housed a considerably large demon serpent that, not six hours ago, had nearly killed them both. 

“Aren’t you worried?” he asked. 

Roman stepped over a fallen tree, considering for a moment. “About what?”

Virgil gestured to the emptiness of the woods. “I don’t know, a giant snake popping up out of nowhere and trying to kill us?”

He snorted. “Not particularly. He sleeps during the day.”

“How do you know that?”

“...I don’t,” he said slowly. “I mean, I’ve never seen him during the day, but it isn’t like I spend a lot of time in the forest outside of when I have to. I just sort of figured he hid away somewhere and slept, seeing as we haven’t heard reports of a giant snake eating hikers or terrorizing campsites. When all of this started, I’d hide so deep in the forest I couldn’t find my way back out even after the curse ended. I didn’t find my way out until well past sunrise, and never once saw Dorian slithering around, so we should be safe.”

He sounds so used to it by now, Virgil thought miserably. 

A voice echoed faintly through the trees. It sounded quite a ways away, and Virgil couldn’t quite make out what they’d shouted. Roman instantly went still as a statue and Virgil nearly tripped bumping into him. 

“Did you hear that?” Roman whispered so softly Virgil almost didn’t hear it. 

“Uh, yeah, I heard it.”

“Just checking. Follow me. Watch where you put your feet,” he said, making his way toward a cluster of bushes. Virgil followed, nerves popping like firecrackers inside of him.  They crouched behind the bush and waited. He couldn’t hear Roman breathing beside him despite his back definitely rising and falling. How was he so calm?

“Roman! Virgil!” the voice called again, and Virgil outright gasped. Roman slapped a hand over Virgil’s mouth, his eyes hard and dark, and markedly more wary than before. He held a finger to his lips as he slowly rose to his feet. 

Stay here, Roman mouthed. 

Before Virgil could do anything more, Roman leaped up, grabbed a branch of the tree beside them, and hauled himself up it in less time than it took Virgil to hiss, “What are you doing?!” The trees were sparse enough that he might be able to see who was coming, but it was definitely human. Right? Going by Roman’s reaction, it may not be. 

Was Dorian messing with them? But Roman had said that the snake slept during the day… 

Luckily, Virgil didn’t have to wait long for his answer. 

“Logan! Patton! Over here!” Roman shouted and Virgil nearly had a heart attack. He dropped to the ground at Virgil’s side, a grin stretched across his face. “Come on. They’re not too far.”

“Are you su—” Virgil started, but Roman grabbed his hand and began running. Virgil nearly fell on his face several times trying to keep up. He was far more agile as a cat, that was for sure. Bipeds were so top-heavy it had taken him several days after he first discovered his human form to figure out the whole walking-thing. 

They didn’t have to run far—and Roman ran the whole way— before Virgil spotted them: Logan, who looked so angry his face was red, and Patton, beaming with excitement at seeing his friends. 

Roman let go of Virgil’s hand and slowed to a stop, grabbing the back of his neck. “Now, Logan, don’t be—”

“Roman Nicholas Kingsley, what were you thinking?!” Logan spat, fuming. Virgil noticed Roman looked considerably more scared of the elementary school teacher before him than the demon he’d fought last night. Before Roman could say anything more in his defense, Logan wrapped him in a hug so tight Virgil thought he’d break his ribs. 

“What’s all over you?” Patton asked.

“That’d be demon blood, Padre,” Roman laughed through Logan’s embrace, having the decency to look at least a little bit chastised. Patton paled. “Demon blood that Logan is going to have a hay-day getting out of his shirt.”

“Shut up,” Logan muttered, releasing him. Dark splotches indeed adorned his button up, but he didn’t seem to care. 

“Never thought I’d say a sentence like that in the light of day,” Roman chuckled. 

Logan rounded on Virgil. “And you! You think you can pull a stunt like this after what I went through to save you yesterday?”

Patton and Roman exchanged looks, falling silent. Virgil shrank back. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Logan sighed, stepping toward him. Virgil flinched, but was met with a warm embrace instead. 

“One of these days, you three will give me a heart attack,” he muttered. 

Roman laughed forcibly. “Wow, Specs, never thought I’d see the day you’d be handing out hugs.”

Logan released Virgil, who didn’t feel any less nervous, and straightened his tie. 

“We,” he said, looking pointedly at everyone, “have a lot to talk about.”

                                                * * * * * * * * * *

“Who wants to go first?” Logan asked after they’d all sat through several minutes of awkward silence in the living room. 

Virgil wrung his hands, taking a few shallow breaths before saying, “I should start. This is my fault, anyway.”

Logan sighed, “Virgil, whatever it is, I’m sure—”

“I’m not exaggerating, Logan,” he said, not meeting any of their eyes. “I’ll tell my story, then if… if you want me to leave I—I’ll go, but just let me get it all out, okay?”

“Kiddo, we’d never ask you to leave.” Patton reached toward him, but Virgil recoiled ever so slightly. Logan glanced at Roman, who had grown uncharacteristically quiet the closer they’d drawn to their house. Now, he just stared at his hands and picked at the sticky blood spots he still hadn’t washed off. 

Virgil took a breath, then began. “I’m not human.” 

Patton made a noise of confusion and Logan’s brow knit together. “What do you mean?” he asked. “You’re sitting right there; I can see that you are.”

“No—I mean, I can take the form of a human if I want to, but I wasn’t born a human. I was born a cat.”

“A cat,” Logan echoed skeptically and looked around. Patton seemed as confused as he was, and Roman had grown still as he listened. 

“I know it sounds weird, but trust me, that isn’t the worst of it. There are parts of your world that you couldn’t even imagine existing, so just… trust me, okay? I won’t lie to you.”

“Promise?” Roman muttered softly and Virgil looked like he’d been punched. 

Patton looked between them with concern. “Keep going, bud. We’ll stop interrupting.”

Virgil swallowed. “I’m not just a cat. I mean, that’s kinda obvious. Cats don’t normally turn into people, but, uh—I’m what you’d call a familiar. It means I’m bonded to a witch—we can communicate telepathically, and she can, uh, see through my eyes and stuff like that.”

A muscle in Roman’s jaw tightened. “So what, you’ve been spying on us, then?”

Virgil’s hands shook. “Not anymore, but initially… yeah. She—I wasn’t trying to—” he said, his voice wavering. He stopped, fidgeting endlessly with his jacket sleeves. “It's complicated, I know, but if you just let me explain, it’ll all make sense—”

“Then will you just get on with it?” Roman snapped. 

“Roman, please,” Logan sighed. “We’re all trying to figure out what’s going on together.”

Roman chewed on the inside of his cheek, folding his arms and falling silent once more. Logan looked again to Virgil, who appeared more and more like he was about to bolt. 

“Keep going, Virgil,” he prompted softly. 

He inhaled slowly, closing his eyes for a moment before continuing. “I’m roughly four hundred years old. I’m not entirely sure, but somewhere around there. You stop counting after a while. As a familiar, I’m able to control the age of my human form to meet my needs, which is how I was able to attend school with you all.” Virgil paused and met all their eyes briefly. Logan was having a hard time wrapping his mind around all of this, and frankly, if he hadn’t seen whatever sort of magic Virgil had been attempting yesterday, he would have thought his roommate delusional. 

To further solidify his claim, Virgil stood and—

Logan blinked. Virgil disappeared, clothes and all, replaced by an ordinary black cat. 

Patton made an inarticulate noise and squealed, “Virgil, you’re adorable!”

Before Logan’s brain could register what had actually happened before his eyes, a thirteen-year-old version of Virgil appeared in place of the cat. It was mind-boggling, seeing Virgil as a child, no different from when they’d all been that age.

Another blink, and Virgil was back to normal. Up until yesterday, Logan had only ever heard about all of this magic stuff. He only saw Roman in the aftermath of his battles. When he saved Virgil, he’d been considerably distracted from taking in all of the abnormalities around him. Now, it had just happened. Right there. In plain view. 

Virgil lowered back into his seat, his fear mingled with a sort of sad, apathetic acceptance. He didn’t tremble as he began, “In the beginning, Ursula sent me to find Roman after his mom died. I found him, but the longer I spent with you guys, I started actually liking it. I’d never had real friends before. Halfway through sophomore year, I told Ursula to shove it. I wasn’t going to be her puppet anymore.”

“That’s when your headaches started,” Logan muttered, his mind churning as he worked out the timeline like a puzzle. 

“Yeah. That happens whenever I have to resist our connection.” 

Logan looked to Roman. Virgil had mentioned his mother’s death, but his eyes had only grown slightly sadder than before. Quite the tempered reaction, in Logan’s opinion, but he still had several more questions he needed answered. 

“So, how are you related to Roman’s curse?”

“Curse?” Patton echoed, looking Roman over with a pained expression. Roman didn’t look up. 

“Roman can explain it better than I can,” Virgil admitted, shoulders hunching. “But, I was the one who took him to Ursula in the first place.”

“What happened to not being her puppet?” Roman asked. 

Virgil folded his arms, balling his jacket sleeves in his fists. “Every summer, Ursula made me return to her. She’d attack my mind relentlessly until I did, so it wasn’t much of a choice. She… managed to convince me otherwise, at least for the first few months I was back.” He looked to Logan and Patton. “Do you remember when Roman and I were in that accident on the highway last year?”

Logan nodded. Roman’s shoulder’s tensed. 

“It didn’t happen like you remember, Roman. Ursula wanted me to continue keeping tabs on you even after the curse was in place and... I was scared of you hating me. I erased your memory of what happened and replaced it so I wasn’t part of any of it.”

“You messed with my head?” Roman growled, finally looking up and meeting Virgil’s eye. “You cared more about saving your own skin than keeping me from the literal hell I’ve been living for a year?” He didn’t shout, but he didn’t really have to. Logan had only ever witnessed Roman’s “quiet anger”, as he dubbed it, once before—when his father had made Patton cry during his last attempt to establish any sort of relationship. 

It was terrifying. 

“Yes, I did,” Virgil said, staring into nothing, his face slack with heartache, “and I regret it every single day. I know I’m a coward and a sad excuse for a friend.”

“Vir—” Patton started.

“I am, Patt,” Virgil cut him off. “I’m not going to pretend that I’m a better person than I am.”

Roman pressed his lips into a thin line, inhaling slowly. “Can you bring my memories back?”

Virgil nodded, then reached out and placed his hand across Roman’s forehead. “Mind and matter fuse and mend, let the memory’s slumber end.”

Roman sucked in a sharp breath, going rigid as a board for a moment. As quickly as it had happened, it ended. Roman pulled away, his eyebrows drawn together in what Logan could only assume was a mixture of confusion and frustration. 

Virgil looked markedly paler, almost sickly. He wiped his face with a trembling hand. 

“Virgil? Are you okay?”

“I’ll be good in a few minutes,” he said, taking a breath. “There was a, uh, incident a few hundred years ago that left me magically broken.”

“Broken?” Logan asked. 

Virgil smiled, though it looked more like a grimace. “Plainly speaking, yes. When magical beings experience really traumatic events, sometimes their powers can just… disappear. It took Ursula years to finally take me to another witch who could make me a talisman that would help me use magic again. A few days ago, someone stole it. That’s why the spell yesterday almost killed me.”

Patton clasped his hands in his lap, taking this far better than Logan would have thought. He still wanted to ask about how Patton had found out about Roman’s situation. 

“Why did you try to do it, if you didn’t know it would work?” Patton asked. 

“I decided to stop running away from my problems and actually try to help Roman. I was trying to locate the person who stole my talisman. When that failed, I figured I’d at least try and give the demon a run for his money, but I ended up making things worse.” He opened his eyes, looking at them all in turn, indescribably miserable. He spread his hands dejectedly. “That’s all of it.”

Once again, they sat in silence, though this time it wasn’t nearly as awkward as it was a silence of utter disbelief. 

Patton sniffed. “Okay,” he said shakily, “Does someone want to explain what this curse is to me?”

Roman nodded, then stood and walked away without a word. Logan was about to grab his arm and tell him that if they didn’t get everything out right now, it never would, but Roman stopped him with a look. A look that both reassured him that he was coming back and conveyed such complete exhaustion with life Logan physically recoiled. 

Patton gave Logan a questioning look, and Logan tried to put on a comforting smile, but he was pretty sure all that happened was a quick twitch of the sides of his mouth. 

Roman returned a moment later, a tri-folded piece of paper in his hands. A thumbprint of dried blood stained the paper where a seal would usually go. 

“The witch Ursula gave me this,” Roman started, staring at it, “the night she cursed me. A description of the curse and instructions on how to fulfill it, and this amulet.” He reached inside the neck of his shirt and, after a moment of fiddling, pulled out the ruby pendant. “Every night, I have to go to the forest outside town and battle a demon. This amulet heals any injury or fatigue I sustain, as long as I’m wearing it. It’s been going on for a little over a year now.”

Logan glanced at Patton. He looked like Roman had ripped his heart out of his chest, but he didn’t look surprised. Roman went on to explain his heritage, this so-called Witch’s Inheritance… and what happened to his mother. 

He finished softly, his voice simply going out. 

“So, that’s it?” he asked, looking like he needed to sleep for a week straight. “It’s all out in the open, now? No more secrets?”

“Ah, not quite,” Patton said, lifting a finger. 

Logan leaned back in his chair. “I’ve been wondering how you figured out Roman’s predicament without any of us telling you.” 

Roman choked. “You knew?”

Patton flushed, holding up his hands. “Not until very recently, and I didn’t know a lot of the details, but yes. So, I… uh,” he said, suddenly looking as nervous as Virgil had been when this whole conversation started. Patton didn’t speak for a moment, his brow creasing as if trying to work something out in his head. 

“Is something wrong, Patton?” Logan asked.

He swallowed. “No, it’s just… the last person who knew about… me… left and—and didn’t come back, so...” He took a rattling breath, but put on a smile, shaking his head and squeezing his eyes shut as if trying to get rid of whatever was filling his head. 

“Patton, we,” Logan said, looking pointedly at both Roman and Virgil, “would never abandon you, regardless of whatever it is you need to tell us. In fact,” he said, sitting up straighter and addressing them all, “no one is going to be abandoning anyone today. If you all think that I’m going to sit back and let this family fall apart—because that is what we are—you are gravely mistaken. I shall be the metaphorical duct tape, if you will. A figurative repair man, or a, uh…” he paused, racking his brain for some other analogy he could use to adequately describe his feelings at the moment. 

Roman put a hand on his arm, a soft smile on his lips. “We get it, teach. None of us are going anywhere any time soon.” He met Virgil’s gaze and Logan could sense some sort of silent exchange between them. 

Patton’s shoulders loosened, and a genuine smile of gratitude graced his face. He took a breath. “For as long as I can remember, I’ve had these dreams. I… see things that haven’t happened yet. Sometimes I’m in them, sometimes I see things happening to other people, like Roman. I saw you being chased by that horrible monster, and—and I didn’t believe it at first, but then I heard you and Logan talking about some sort of compromise downstairs.”

Roman ran a hand down his face. “And here I was thinking I was subtle.”

“You were rather excited about your agreement with the serpent,” Logan said. 

“So, you’re a sibyl, then?” Virgil said. 

“What?” Patton breathed.

Roman threw his hands up. “Is no one in this house normal aside from Logan?”

Logan held up a hand, “The concept of normality is quite subjective, I’ll have you know—”

“What’s a sibyl?” Patton asked desperately, grabbing Virgil’s sleeve. He looked on the verge of either relief or horror. 

Logan interjected, unable to constrain himself. “It’s actually quite fascinating. In ancient Greece, women who were believed to receive prophecies and messages from the gods were called sibyls or oracles.”

Roman perked up, “Oh! So, Patton’s like the Oracle of Daphne!”

“It’s the Oracle of Delphi,” Virgil corrected—Logan couldn’t help the flutter of pride that skipped through his chest— “and Patton’s similar, but not exactly the same. He’s probably just descended from an oracle, or something. Did either of your parents have these abilities?”

They all looked at Patton, who suddenly appeared far less intrigued by the conversation. 

“I’m not sure.”

Roman scoffed, “That would explain how your mom always knew when I tried to get you to skip class.”

“We should consult with your mother Patton, she may have some answers or at least a way to help Roman with finding Ursu—”

“She isn’t like me,” Patton said.

“Are you sure? I mean, you were able to hide this ability from us for years. I don’t doubt your relationship, Patton, but I’m merely trying to explore every avenue, here,” Logan said gently. 

Patton shook his head. “No, I mean, I  know  that she isn’t because—well, she isn’t my biological mother.”

The room went silent for a beat. 

Roman’s eyebrows came together in confusion. “Wait, you’re adopted? How did I not know that? Did you guys know that?”

Patton’s smile stretched as he nodded. “Yep, so now that that’s out of the way, we can move on. Right? Besides, I had a pretty spooky dream last night about all of us, except Roman was dead and we were in the forest, and—”

Virgil shot to his feet. “Roman was dead?!”

“Chill, Hot Topic, I think I know what he means,” Roman said. 

Virgil sat slowly, muttering, “What’s Hot Topic?” to himself as he did. 

Roman held up the amulet still held in his fist. 

“We’ve got a little something to take care of tonight.”

[animebw]

Binge-Reading: Fate/Stay Night VN, Heaven’s Feel Day 8

WEEEEEEEEEEE ARE IN FEEEEEEEAAAAAAR

HERE WE ARE IN FEAR AND IT’S AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Stopping Point: Dawn of Day 8

The Nightmare Descends

For these first seven days, Heaven’s Feel has been on a pretty slow burn. We’ve had moments of conflict between Shirou and his enemy masters, and a handful of interludes have touched on battles going on in the background. But most of these skirmishes have been brief, almost pointedly anticlimactic. Dangerous opponents like Rider and Caster are defeated with a single blow, and Lancer is eviscerated without so much as a proper battle. And all the while, whatever malicious... thing is behind so much of these deaths is skulking just out of sight, Shirou none the wiser. In that way, it’s much closer in pacing to the Fate route, slowly building character and detail before exploding into momentous violence, than Unlimited Blade Works’ steady stream of kickass battles. But while the Fate route could often be slow and plodding as a result of how much it was setting up, Heaven’s Feel has been gripping pretty much from the get-go. The experience of this arc has been seeing all the players we’ve become so familiar with over the course of the last two routes corrupted and pulled off course, characters we thought we were ready to face again suddenly wiped off the face of the map by some mysterious force far more dangerous and terrifying than any of them. It’s like a painting we’ve been staring at for days and days has suddenly begun to warp in nightmarish patterns, and the image we thought we knew is becoming something alien, inhuman, incomprehensible, and wrong. That sense of rising tension has made this slow burn such a palpable experience of dread. No matter how light-hearted the current moment may be, you’re always aware of something lurking in the shadows, leering at you with a vicious, hungry maw. Sooner or later, you know, the lights are going to turn off, and the monster will reveal itself just in time to rip you to shreds.

And at long last, that moment has arrived.

Holy fucking shit, it’s here. It’s here. The eldritch shadow demon we barely caught a glimpse of in the aftermath of Caster’s death just made first contact with Shirou and company. And its mere touch sends Shirou into a frenzy of nightmarish imagery that coils around your mind like a carnivorous snake. All the dark moments from routes past, raging souls, deaths, trauma, and finally, the fetus of a shadowy baby in an all-too-human womb, wailing of rabbits rotting, rabbits eating, eating, eating maggots, being eaten by maggots, a feast of pus, all while repeating ”I feel sick it’s wrong i feel sick it’s wrong” over and over again until the madness threatens to swallow you whole. Nasu’s always had a particular mastery over the language of mind-numbing horror, but Jesus Christ did this scare the crap out of me. And it doesn’t even linger that long! It’s yet another momentary encounter that vanishes in a gust of chilling wind before any closure can be found. But even in that brief moment, so many horrifying questions are raised. Why does Shirou recognize this thing from the fire ten years ago? Why is even Zouken surprised to see it here, crawling away from it in disbelief? Is this thing not on his side at all? Then who’s side is it on? Is it even on anyone’s side, or just acting on instinct?

And what about Archer, who seems to be very familiar with exactly what kind of creature this thing is? When have his guardian duties forced him to fight something like this? How much does he know about them? Does he know anything about this specific being? When he says “I may have a chance to stop it this time,” does he mean he’s literally fought this thing before, or is that in a more general sense? Perhaps, is this not his first time through the rail War at all? Is this timeline literally supposed to be a timeline Archer finds himself in after Unlimited Blade Works? Whatever he knows, it’s enough to make him put aside her personal grudge with Shirou and decide to work alongside his hated former self to ensure its destruction. And anything that could make Archer do that must be terrifying indeed. Something horribly, horribly wrong is happening in this city, and we’ve still only gotten our first taste of the true horror lurking within. God help us all.

GET IT OFF GET IT OFF GET IT OFF

But we don’t have time to linger on those questions. Because no sooner do we recover from the shock of Shirou’s gaze into the abyss than we’re treated to possibly the single most horrifying fucking scene I’ve ever read in anything ever. A woman walking home feels something following her. The streets are dark. No one’s visible. It’s nothing she should be able to see. But she’s scared. She runs, fear growing every second, some incomprehensible panic seizing her limbs and forcing her to go faster, faster, faster still, until she finally comes to a stop, fittingly enough, in the spot marking the fire ten years ago, and descends into hopeless, manic laughter as the dread closes over her heart and tells her: there’s nowhere she can run. And just as that realization finally sinks in...

The worms arrive.

And they feast.

I don’t think I can properly describe the kind of visceral impact Nasu’s language achieves her. But somehow, he puts you right in the head of this confused, terrified woman as her mind catches up to the realization that she’s being devoured from the inside out. It pulls you through her trauma-induced denial, her pain, the almost comic absurdity she feels, the rising panic, the dawning horror, the desperation, the screams, the violation, the madness, the rushing and rushing and rushing and rushing and oh god please no more make it stop make it stop make it stop MAKE IT STOP PLEASE GOD JUST MAKE IT STOP. It sucks you up in a storm of horror and refuses to let go until you’ve been stripped clean down to the bones. By the time it was over, I was outright hyperventilating from trying to keep from screaming. Fuck. As if these fucking worms weren’t horrifying enough already. I am legitimately upset every time these things are on screen. I feel an inescapable urge to push the computer away and do something, anything else. You folks weren’t kidding about Heaven’s Feel being the true horror route; this is legitimately some of the best horror I’ve ever seen from something anime-related. It’s spine-crawling and disturbing and legitimately horrifying in visceral, inescapable ways.

And we’re still not done. Because once the worms are done feasting, we finally learn the shocking truth behind their true nature...

These horrendous, despicable beings are nothing other than Zouken Matou himself.

The Undying Worm

Holy. Fucking. SHIT. After all the terror we’ve just been through, this final reveal is enough to make me cackle with sheer madness. Zouken isn’t just master of the worms, he is the worms. His entire goddamn body is the worms. That’s how he’s stayed alive all these centuries: by devouring innocent people, he’s able to constantly restore his body, transferring his soul into the hollow shell they once occupied and filling its cavity with slimy, wriggly mass. But even this isn’t enough to be called immortality, because even now, Zouken is rotting away. Every new body he absorbs takes less and less time to fall apart, leaving him less and less time to transfer his soul to a new one. And it’s not just the bodies; his very soul, the blueprint of who he is that allows him to stay alive so long, is rotting away. No matter how many times he switches bodies, he’s constantly breaking down. He’s constantly suffering the pain of decomposing while still alive. Fucking god, he’s been rotting for centuries. He’s literally experienced the physical torment of dying for hundreds of years as he’s kept himself unnaturally alive. He’s come to loathe himself for choosing to become a monster, and he projects that loathing out on people still living peaceful lives. None of them will ever know his torment. None of them will ever understand his suffering. So he invades them, violates them, consumes them, devours them to keep himself going just a little longer, searching for the Holy Grail so that it can fulfill his wish: true immortality. A life that truly lasts forever, free of this inescapable rot, free of this decomposing mortal shell, free of the centuries of agony he’s suffered in his eternal quest. Only then will Zouken Matou, the undying worm, finally know peace.

I always knew Zouken was going to be a foe to remember. The last lord of the Matous and master of the unspeakable horrors going on under their roof was always going to be a truly incredible villain. And this reveal only confirms how right I was. Zouken Matou is an unspeakable monster in every sense of the word, driven mad by centuries of torment, committing unspeakable acts in pursuit of an impossible goal, frail and pathetic and horrifying. In a franchise famous for its despicable villains, this old man on the verge of death is perhaps the most terrifying entity we’ve faced yet. From here on out, no holds are barred. Shirou and Saber are on a collision course with Hell itself, and there’s no telling how bloody the streets will run before it’s over. Now, at last, the true war of Heaven’s Feel has begun. And I cannot fucking wait for what comes next.

Odds and Ends

-”But her back is harshly scolding me.” Rin, I appreciate you.

-AH FUCK HI SHADOW CASTER

-”I only picked up some trash that is not needed any longer.” I mean, you’re not wrong, per se, but still, what the fuck.

-”Only Tohsaka would slap someone at t time like this.” YOU KNOW WHAT THANK YOU I NEEDED THAT LAUGH!.

-”But isn’t there a better way to go about this?” God, poor Sakura...

-Alright. Okay. Sure. Assassin wants immortality. Cool.

-”Because- and this is just speculation, but Matou Zouken must be insane alraedy.” YEAH SPECULATION LET’S SO WITH THAT

God. I’m not ready. But see you next time!

[magaprima]

Part 3 Episode 3

OMG HARVEY’S DAD TALKING TO HIM ABOUT SEX AND PROTECTION I’M DYING

Nick is having night terrors. Understandably. He’s going all Lady Macbeth trying to scrub himself clean

Zelda sneezed? Witches don’t get colds...

Also I swear I have Sabrina’s shirt in brown.....

Sabrina wants a long day with Nick, but Lilith turns up like ‘oh no. You don’t get to declare a reformation in hell and then leave. demons want some shit’ AND SABRINA WON’T FUCKING GO.

‘i’m not going. i’m spending the day with Nick’.

I swear, Lilith exasperation and frustration is my exasperation and frustration. You can’t just do shit and then leave Sabrina that’s not the way shit works. Also Lilith looks stunning. And I love her rolling her eyes while they kiss.

AH, the slamming of fists on the table from the trailer is now. They’re demanding an audience with Sabrina, and Lilith’s wide eyes in the trailer are her shouting the PG equivalent of SHUT THE FUCK UP

Unholy hell Lilith seems to actually be enjoying shouting at them on Sabrina’s behalf, because it’s like they can’t attack her, she’s only regent acting on behalf of the Queen. 

Lilith’s face when Caliban comes in is fucking priceless. It’s like ‘this fucking idiot again. go away’

Sabrina accepts Caliban’s challenge and Lilith is just like ‘a regent’s work is never done’ Lilith is just having a constant sass vibe

The challenge to the throne, meaning there’s essentially no one on the throne now, means the witches are losing their powers. They’re getting colds and not able to fly...

MRS MEEKS. She excitedly tells Mary about the carnival and Mary says, ‘Adam and I used to go to carnivals together’. OWWWWWWW

Theo getting dating advice from Harvey. I love Theo

Ambrose establishing that Queen of Hell or not, Sabrina will be killed by the Aunts if they find out. True facts

Nick has pretty hair. I wanna run my hands through it. Come here, handsome boy

ALL THE STUDENTS ARE TRASHY WITCHY BODICE RIPPERS. 

OMG IT’S HILDA’S NOVEL. SHE FUCKING WROTE IT OMFG. AND SHE HAS ZELDA IN THE BOOK AS A HAG SPINSTER SISTER OMFG HILDA??

Ooh hilda standing up for herself and getting her own life, identifying that her dreams are different from zelda’s. ‘i have duty to myself to be happy’

Zelda deleted Hilda’s book. Don’t be a meanie Zelda

Nick has serious PTSD and needs help. Sabrina ‘you are so lucky the church of night only has 12 members right now or I would totally smite your asses’. Love it. Nick needs help like I can stress this enough. He’s been through literal hell

Ambrose wants to keep Herod’s Crown. Ambrose....give it back. Drop it. Drooooop it. Drop it.

Oh no, I think they released King Herod from the tree. Like you do. I can just hear Giles’ voice being like ‘don’t free crowns out of trees’

NICK IS TRYING TO CUT OFF HIS OWN FOOT. HELP THE FELLA

Undead King Herod smells of maple syrup because he came out of a maple tree. Yum. 

Roz can see that the carnival people are satyrs and other celtic creatures. Roz is definitely the Phoebe Halliwell of the group

Ah Dr C and Hilda having a romantic walk through the carnival. Aaaaaah

Hilda’s dream: I just want to grow old in a cottage with a fire and the spiders and a dog. Not a stuffed one

Yeah Hilda thinks Vinegar Tom is weird too, I hear you, Hilds. 

DR C PROPOSING TO HILDA SHE DROPPED HER CANDYFLOSS!!!!

SHE SAID YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Is Roz getting entranced by Billy. And I do mean entranced.

Ah Mary walking alone at the carnival. Since finding out she’s an only child I’m extra protective of her, because I am an only child, and only children, we learn to do stuff on our own because we have no siblings to drag along. Mary heads straight for the fortune telling tent. She’s sat so awkwardly while having her palms read.

‘I had a fiancee, Adam. I fear something terrible has befallen him’. 

the reader replies ‘I’m sorry, he is gone forever. But you already know this, because you were there’ and Mary is confused as fuck. ‘I wasn’t. At least I don’t remember’. She looks so upset. The fortune teller than guesses that Mary never had sex with Adam. Mary is rightfully insulted by this prodding into her sex life and leaves.

I feel it’s implied here Mary is a virgin which makes me wonder...fuck do they need a virgin sacrifice?

Harvey wonders into the snake dancer tent. Of course he does. So much Lilith imagery here mixed in with druidic and hindu? Such a mix up. 

Nick and Sabrina go into the tunnel of love, very sweet, come out screaming like a Benny Hill sketch with King Herod behind them. I love this kind of stuff, where something serious is executed with dry humour. It’s why I loved Buffy so much growing up.

Sabrina didn’t grab the fucking crown while Caliban is there. so he gets it. fucking hell Sabrina.

Mary back in her cottage. She’s found Lilith’s box of tricks. i.e dead things and spells.And Adam’s fucking ring. Wait....hasn’t Lilith got that ring? Oh wait, was there a pair?

Either way Mary asks ‘what happened to you Adam? What happened to me?’. Well, Mary you will killed by Lilith, and Adam was killed By Lucifer because Lilith loved him. 

Caliban is crowning himself with Herod’s crown and Lilith is just like thinking this is the worst torture ever. When Sabrina punches the crown off him, Lilith is the one to pick it up and put it away, and she has a very curious look when the demons start chanting Sabrina’s name...?

OMG THE FUCKING CARNIVAL PEOPLE INCLUDE THEO’S LOVE INTEREST (duh robin goodfellow equals puck) BUT THEY WERE LOOKING FOR FUCKING VIRGINS??? which Mary, Harvey and Theo are. Can I just say I love how virgins are not presented with one look or habit in this show, and not shown as less capable or successful people which shows often do.. Virginity means nothing. Except to a bunch of people wanting to sacrifice you to bring forth an old god. 

[lupienne]

Days of his Wives (16)

Negan X Wives (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12) (13) (14) (15) My eternal WIP. LOL.

Chapter 16: Just Another Dead Girl (in which there’s a new walker on the fence)

A/N: This snippet takes place a few days after the last. This is a chapter I wrote early on. (yay for not writing in order...) So it’s in need of rewriting in the final product because some things in it don’t quite work now. But whatever. I don’t think a whole lot of people are reading this anyway.

Note 2: I probably mentioned it already, but wife Jazzi is obsessed with the zombies. She’s kind of like a bird-watcher but with zombies. LOL And as usual, I’m so sorry that cuts don’t always work! I wish they did!

---------------------------

"Shit..." Sherry turned away from the window. "Jazzi's down by the Walkers again. Amber, can you go get her?"

"Um, yeah. Sure." Amber retrieved her fuzzy coat from the bedroom and threw it on over the black bra. Slipping on flats, she made her way down the numerous stairways and through dim passageways, snaked with pipes and long-dead florescent lights.

"Hey baby," came a brash male voice. She turned to see a pock-faced guy, with long brown hair tucked under a filthy woolen cap. "Nice legs."

She made a face and kept walking.

"Hey. Can't you say 'hello'? Don't be rude, doll-face."

She cried out when his hand latched onto her arm, stopping her in her tracks. He pushed her against the wet concrete wall, his lanky body leaning over menacingly.

"Get your hands off me." She frowned and wrenched her arm away. Her attempted sidestep was thwarted when he set both arms onto the wall on either side of her head. Caged, she glared at him. "Get away from me."

"I don't think so. How many points would'ya take for me to see those fine legs spreadin' for me?"

"Keep your points," she said coldly. "I'm not for fucking sale, and if you want to keep breathing, I would back off right now."

"Ladies shouldn't swear," he said, with a leer, and smacked her across the face.

She cringed, but shot her furious gaze back at him, readying her trump card. "I get it from my husband," she said, lip curling. "Maybe you know him...?"

His hand was trying to find the zipper in the fuzziness of her coat, his other pushing up under her mini-skirt. "I don't give a shit who-"

You might know him," she continued, "His name is Negan."

He stopped, eyes shooting momentarily wide. "No fucking way."

"Yes fucking way, and he will cut your balls off and make you eat them, you sorry bastard," she hissed. "But that doesn't have to happen, you piece of crap – if you back off. NOW."

"You skanky bitch. How do I know you're not just sayin' that?"

"You don't." She smiled. "But I guess you'd find out soon enough, wouldn't you? When you're enjoying the taste of your own scrotum..."

He punched the wall next to her head, glaring death at her, and then stepped back. She straightened her clothing, shot him the finger, and continued on her way. Through a rush of adrenaline and tremors, a smile cut across her face.

That had felt good.

Really fucking good.

She understood the seething glares of Savior women, the jealous twitches of lips – they knew she had power on her side, a guardian demon spreading his black wings over her head.

But She told all the women in her head.

There's a price for power -

And Demons only take souls for payment.

--

Outside Sanctuary, Amber was glad for her flats. The ground was littered with concrete debris, twisted scraps of metal, spent bullet casings. She shrank into her coat, cautiously moving past piked Walkers. If they had arms, they reached out for her, their blackened teeth clicking like castanets. Their ever-present groans increased in tempo as they saw her, frenzied moans and cries.

Carefully, she made her way past a burnt-out car. There was a tattered length of fencing, laying flat on the ground – no longer fit to be a barrier. Jazzi stood on the other side, her dark blue eyes fixed on a Walker. The hapless creature was only a torso, strung up between two poles, like a crucifixion gone wrong. A spine curved out like a hook.

"Jazzi!" She called, and brooking no response, "Jasmine! What are you doing out here?"

"I like the look of this one," Jazzi said, tilting her head. "How do you think it moves without a working spinal cord."

The Walker was wiggling, weird twitches of one arm, then the other. Amber supposed after long enough, it would eventually work its arms free of the sockets. She didn't want to be here when that happened.

"I don't know," she said. "That's the question, isn't it? How do they move at all – when they're dead?"

"I wonder if I could bring one upstairs. Then I wouldn't have to come down here. Sherry wouldn't have to get mad."

"Um...heh. I think Sherry would be even madder if you brought home a pet Walker..."

"Yes. I think you're right. They do smell rather bad."

"Come on...let's go back up, ok?"

Jazzi didn't move, continuing to stare at the writhing corpse. Amber's flats crunched over the fallen fence, and she slipped her hand into the girl's bony grasp.

Jazzi turned just her head. Her lips spread with a slight quirk to the corners; her version of a friendly smile. "There's a new one out here. That's why I came out. To see her. I saw her from up there with the binoculars."

Amber looked around uneasily at the snarling, rotting faces. "How do you know it's new?"

"You can tell. And I can tell even better. I know all their faces. I don't know her."

Amber shuddered... the thought of memorizing these faces, these husks of human... cataloging them... keeping the imagery and sound of them inside her brain...

"You need a new hobby," she said.

Jasmine shrugged.

"All right... fine. We can go look at 'her'. But then we're getting out of here, ok? These things give me the creeps."

"Don't be scared." Jazzi pulled her hand free and walked away, moving much too fast for Amber's liking through the rubble and Walker littered landscape. The girl's skinny white limbs flashed through the greyness, passing frighteningly close to the chained and staked Walkers. Amber watched fingers brush Jasmine's arms and ankles on occasion, but the girl didn't seem to notice or care; she merely kept walking.

"Yeah. Don't be scared," Amber muttered. "Right." She followed at a much slower pace, edging past the grabby hands. As they approached the perimeter fence of Sanctuary, Jazzi squealed and pointed towards a staked group of Walkers.

"I see her. She's up there."

"Hey!" Amber screeched, as the girl broke into a run. "Don't run, it's too dangerous!" She ignored her own advice, bolting past an overturned car. Suddenly, she felt the dreaded hand of a Walker closing around her ankle. The hidden dead snarled and growled from inside the busted-out car window, beginning to drag itself out. Amber fell to the ground, screaming.

"NO! Get off!" She kicked frantically at the Walker's wrist, hearing it crack – but the hand didn't release. Now the head was in sight, the blackened teeth snapping. Her hand clawed for anything – it found only dirt and small pebbles. She threw a handful in the Walker's face but it did nothing. "Help!" she screamed, "Help me-"

There was motion in her peripherals. Jasmine was running to her, blond curls snapping back in a cascade. She leapt over Amber, a piece of rebar held in her hand spear-like. There was a horrible crunch as she thrust it downwards. Brains splattered Amber's bare leg. The hand loosened and she kicked free.

Jazzi looked down at the dead Walker. "That one is no good anymore." She kicked it lightly, not assisting as Amber clambered shakily to her feet.

"Thanks."

"Yeah." Jazzi was breathing heavier, her cheeks flushed, but her face perpetually stuck in neutral. She tossed her head to evict the wayward curls.

Amber put a hand to her chest, feeling the palpitations of her frantic heart. "Shit. Let's go back. It's too dangerous out here." The mess on her leg felt gross, filthy, but she didn't want to touch it.

"But we're almost there."

"Ugh... fine..." Amber scowled. "I don't know why you care so much about this 'new' corpse, it's the same as all these others. A dead, nasty body that wants to eat us. They're not interesting, they're just scary and gross."

Jasmine's expression didn't change. She bent down to yank the rebar from the fallen Walker's head. Blood and congealed brains dripped from the tip. "I won't run. I'll protect you. Then we can go back."

Amber didn't answer; she followed the girl's lead with her senses on high alert. There were no more close encounters. Amber tried to figure out which Walker was new as Jasmine scouted the fence. The skinny blond came to a sudden halt.

"Here." Jazzi tilted her head. Amber came alongside her, ready to criticize again... but her words died in her throat.

It was easy to tell the Walker apart from her peers. She was freshly dead. Her pallor was certainly that of the dead, grey and blood-drained, but there was an elasticity to her flesh... her skin hadn't withered on her bones, her hair still shone, flowing like a black waterfall over her shoulders. She growled and strained towards the girls; held to the fence by a thick collar and chain.

"She's very fresh. She must have only died a few days ago," Jasmine mused. Her hand reached out, and Amber shuddered as the Walker reached too; and the fingertips of dead and living brushed... and then Amber hastily grabbed Jazzi's wrist, forcing her hand back to her side.

"She still feels warm..."

"You're just imagining that...it's just the sun warming them up." Her teeth gnawed the succulent flesh of her lip. There was something about the dead woman. Amber's stomach churned, her mind whispered... saying go, don't look, and always, always, her rebellious eyes refused to listen.

The reaching hand. Still stretched out, the fingers flexing. The fingernails smooth and polished, not the cracked and blackened keratin of the long dead. Amber's stomach heaved upwards suddenly, the muscles of her esophagus contracted.

Jazzi stepped back as Amber pivoted sideways and emptied the contents of her gut onto the ground. She coughed and moaned, spitting the acidic bile from her mouth.

Four fingers. Four fingers on the hand, pinkie missing...

She clutched her hand to her mouth, flitting her eyes to the Walker; who seemed agitated by her sudden movements, straining hard against her chain. Her ears were full of piercings, the lobes tattered and torn.

"Crystal," she croaked. "Her name is Crystal."

"Oh." Jasmine did her straight-lipped, corners-quirked smile. "You name them too. Crystal is a nice name. I haven't used that one yet." She glanced down at the puddle of vomit. "Do you have food poisoning."

"No, not food poisoning. Just don't feel good. Might be the smell of these things." She spat a few times. The sour-bitter taste lingered on her tongue.

"Are you pregnant...did you miss the pill again. Negan will be angry."

Amber turned away from Crystal, her puke, all of it, eyebrows slanted fiercely over her gaze. She was sick of being afraid, so she dredged up anger instead, basked in it. "No," she snapped, "I'm not pregnant! And fuck Negan."

Jazzi fell into step alongside her, casting a wistful look back at Crystal – she hadn't gotten her fill of the newest deader. "We're supposed to fuck him."

"That's not what I meant." Alarmingly, Amber found herself imitating Hubby's frequent sign of irritation – her fingers pinching the bridge of her nose.

For a few moments, there was only the sound of their crunching footsteps and the hungry sounds of the dead. As they neared the door to Sanctuary, Jazzi stopped to look at the crucifixion Walker again, like she was paying homage to her decaying gods.

Amber grabbed her wrist and tugged, and Jasmine begrudgingly followed along, but not before stunning Amber with one of her eccentric questions. "What do you think it's like to have sex with one."

"Oh God!" Amber made a face, her eyebrows raising high. "Not very good at all! Why – are you thinking about it?" She found herself dreading the response.

"No. I imagine they would try to eat me. But I overheard Negan and Sherry the other night. He said it felt like he was 'fucking a Walker.'"

Oh dear. Amber's face contorted again. "I guess it's because Sherry wasn't...uh... moving much? She was probably tired." Sick and tired of him...

"I don't fuck like a Walker." One of those sudden, malicious smiles was spreading across the skinny girl's face. "I like to move. But I bite like one."

Well, that explains the scratches and bites on him. She'd always wondered what wife had the feral fingernails and teeth. She snorted and banged on the front door. The old man, Orson, pulled it open and let them in without a word. Amber pulled Jasmine towards the main metal staircase; normally she'd take the back way...it was more private, but she felt audacious. Like she wanted to fight.

"I don't know if Negan likes it," Jazzi mused, ignoring the stares and glares of the Saviors they passed. "He usually yells and swears when I do it."

"Um...it probably hurts..." Amber couldn't help but grin. Hope she bites him harder next time...

"Why don't you get back up to your Penthouse, you little Playboy bitches," a woman hissed in their wake. "Hurry on home to your Pimp."

Amber stopped, eyes narrowed. "You only wish you were pretty enough to get in, you ugly cunt." The woman's eyes went wide. She turned away hurriedly, like she was afraid Amber would memorize her face, report her.

Jazzi looked after the woman impassively, her lips quirked at the corners. "That was mean."

"She started it." Amber was starting to sweat inside the fuzzy coat, and Jazzi's close body heat didn't help. She stepped onto the staircase. Now began the tedious journey of ascending.

On level eight, Jasmine wanted to walk onto the catwalk that spanned across the open space of Sanctuary, looking down onto the factory floor far below. She leaned against the railing, one of her legs leaving the ground. Amber hurried onto the metal walkway, fighting vertigo.

"Get down from there... God, you're like a little kid. Sherry will kill me if you go 'splat'."

Jazzi sighed and put both feet flat on the ground. "You are no fun. I'm not going to fall. I'm not going to get bitten."

"Come on, let's just get back home..." Amber snatched up the girl's bony hand and tugged. At first, Jazzi resisted, but then she fell into step and they continued to the back hallways where the last three flights of stairs led home.

As Amber set her foot on the first step, she noticed a man walking down the hallway. All alone, heading away from them, but she knew... she recognized Mark.

Her eyes shifted to Jazzi and then back to him. She opened her mouth, yelled the first name that came to mind. "Ben! Hey, Ben!"

Mark turned at the sound, eyebrows high in confusion. Amber dragged Jazzi along as she hurried towards him, a fake story tumbling from her mouth. "Oh wow, Ben. Tanya's boyfriend, right? Gosh, I haven't seen her in forever. How are you guys doing?"

Mark stared at her, then Jazzi, and blinked. He smiled, nodded. "Uh... yeah. Yeah..that's right. I'm still with uh... Tanya. She's doing great. We're both doing fine." He scuffed his boot on the floor. "Making pretty good points..."

Jazzi was scrutinizing Mark, prussian blues narrowed, the curious gaze of a cat looking at a wounded bird. He gave her a polite, nervous smile.

Amber pulled her forward. "Jazzi, this is Ben. He's the boyfriend of a girl I was friends with."

She tilted her head.

"Nice to meet you," Mark's smile was becoming apprehensive.

"It's all right to meet you, I suppose. Ben." Jasmine shrugged.

Amber sighed and nudged her. "Why don't you go on ahead? I just want to catch up for a minute."

"All right."

"Go straight up, ok?"

"Yes, mother."

Mark stifled a laugh and they made fake small talk until her footsteps faded away.

"She's kind of odd."

"Tell me about it." Amber scoped out the hallway; they were alone. And then she lunged forward, her arms wrapping him.

"Whoa," he said, and returned the embrace momentarily, before gently shaking her off. "We shouldn't. Anyone could see."

"Sorry..." She clasped her arms around her torso instead, fearful of her desire. She wanted to hug him again. Kiss his mouth, his neck, his chest. She wanted to unzip his pants. The anger she'd dredged was sinking, fear floating to the top like an oil slick. He was right. This was dangerous.

"How have you been?" Despite his warning, he gently touched her, just a lingering brush of fingers on her arm. "I've been worried about you. After the other day..."

"I'm ok..."

His concerned eyes. The fading warmth of the hug. A dead girl, chained to a fence with a collar. Fingers missing. Who needs pinkies anyway...? Her gut clenched, the stifling air of the closet was in her lungs again, the darkness in her eyes.

I'm not ok. I'm so not ok.

A/N: Oh Noes, Amber bumped into her old flame a second time! Are they going to bone? Does she really cheat on Negan? I KNOW WHAT HAPPENS GUYS. But you’ll have to wait. My poor non-existent readers :(

[mancomplanblog]

For Gaikotsuger

Information on Angels, might edit later.

Amanda: Alright, so like different sources, different places people are talking about what the situation is.

Julia: For example, Maimonides in his Mishneh Torah, establishes that there are 10 ranks of angels. So meanwhile, in Christianity, the book of De Coelesti Hierarchia, which is On the Celestial Hierarchy, which is a beautiful title for a book.

Amanda: In Latin?

Julia: Yes.

Amanda: Cool.

Julia: Was written in the fourth or fifth century, and it acts as one of the most influential works defining the angelic hierarchy for Christianity.

Amanda: Wow.

Julia: The angels are later organized into orders that are known as Angelic Choirs.

Amanda: Huh.

Julia: Yeah.

Amanda: I always read Angelic Choir in the Bible as like some nice voices.

Julia: No. It's the literal hierarchal structure of the angels.

Amanda: That is wild.

Julia: Yeah. This whole episode is gonna be like that, where you're like, "That's not what I thought it was." And then you're wrong.

Amanda: Jules, you're such a good friend.

Julia: Using the New Testament, especially Ephesians and Collosians, Thomas Aquinus developed a schema that uses three spheres of angels.

Amanda: Thomas Aquinus, he's like, "How can I make sure motherfuckers 300 years from now are still quoting me every day?"

Julia: He wrote a lot of stuff down!

Amanda: He lived his whole life that way.

Julia: Yeah.

Amanda: It is ...

Julia: Bless him. Literally, bless him.

Amanda: I know, I'm making a lot of noises but his writing is incredible.

Julia: Yeah.

Amanda: And I cannot imagine having that much influence over so many people's lived experiences.

Julia: Yes, absolutely.

Amanda: Amazing.

Julia: So we're going to kind of talk about ... Specifically, what I'm going to talk about are the spheres, as defined by Tomas Aquinus.

Amanda: Alrighty.

Julia: So first thing, we're going to talk about the first sphere, and these are angels who are defined as, "Heavenly Servants to God." Specifically, one on one face time with God Himself.

Amanda: Yeah, like the hand-maiden, right? Or like the attendants, the butlers, the dressers?

Julia: Yeah.

Amanda: I've been watching a lot of The Crown season two. What up? They're right there.

Julia: How's it going? How's The Crown season two going?

Amanda: It's a lot darker.

Julia: Okay.

Amanda: World War Two happens.

Julia: I mean, I understand.

Amanda: Yeah.

Julia: At least they know what World War Two is now, because that was a thing in the first season.

Amanda: This is true.

Julia: Okay. First, on top of the sphere, are the Seraphim, which have references in Christian, Jewish and Islamic texts. Traditionally, they are the highest rank in the Christian hierarchy of angels, but they rank fifth of the 10 in the Jewish angelic hierarchy.

Amanda: Interesting.

Julia: Which I think is cool. I'm just like, "Oh, there's some mix-up here. I'm into it."

Amanda: Yeah, I wonder if it's like the different scholars ordering them on importance, or closest to God? Or is it the same sub-type of angel that is being differently ordered, or is it like the name being assigned to different groups?

Julia: In my mind, I'm thinking of it as like the standard in which the hierarchy is based off of -

Amanda: Yeah.

Julia: - is different. So in Jewish angelic hierarchies, going to be holding different standards than the Christian angelic hierarchy.

Amanda: Yeah, like what makes a good servant?

Julia: Exactly.

Amanda: What is God, and when, and how, and where?

Julia: Yeah. So the Book of Isaiah describes a six-winged being that can fly - obviously, it's got wings - with two of the wings said to cover their faces, another two to cover their feet, and then the last two used to fly.

Amanda: Fascinating.

Julia: Their name literally translates to, "The Burning Ones".

Amanda: Oh man, are they like aflame?

Julia: In some imagery, they're portrayed as flying Asps that also have human characteristics.

Amanda: What is an Asp? I'm forgetting.

Julia: It's a snake.

Amanda: Okay.

Julia: So they're like snakes, but they have human faces.

Amanda: That's in Cleopatra, it's in Cleopatra, and I'm terrified.

Julia: Yep. You should be.

Amanda: Nope.

Julia: Modern Christian theology has developed the idea that Seraphim are beings of pure light that directly communicate with God.

Amanda: I mean, fire? It makes sense.

Julia: Absolutely. So the next that we're going to talk about are the Cherubim.

Amanda: Cherubs!

Julia: Yeah.

Amanda: Yo! Pudgy babies.

Julia: No. Incorrect! So they are said to directly attend to God. They have four faces, one of a man, one of an ox, one of an eagle, and one of a lion, which would later become the symbols of the four evangelists.

Amanda: Whoa.

Julia: Yeah.

Amanda: I didn't know any of that.

Julia: They have four wings that are covered with eyes, they have a lion's body and they have the feet of an ox.

Amanda: Okay, I'm pretty sure this isn't true.

Julia: It's 100% true. Don't doubt me.

Amanda: What?

Julia: So the Cherubim, in modern interpretations, are often conflated with the Putti, which are human baby or toddler-like beings that are depicted with wings. So the Putti come from the Renaissance, basically. They're the classic, modern interpretation of what an angel should look like, this innocent, sweet thing that has little angel wings.

Amanda: Not a freaking Griffin-eagle hybrid.

Julia: I love the Griffin-eagle hybrid, though. It has eyes on its wings, like hundreds of eyes!

Amanda: I was blocking that part out, Jules.

Julia: Yeah.

Amanda: Like a scary, scary butterfly. First you give me snakes with human faces, now you give me should-be-a-baby-actually-a-four-faced-monster?

Julia: This is why we did this episode.

Amanda: And like, listen, I don't want to come down too hard on it. It sounds freaking badass.

Julia: Yeah, it does.

Amanda: But that's just very surprising. Also what are the eyes on the wings for?

Julia: Seeing into your soul.

Amanda: Better to see with, my dear?

Julia: Yeah, basically. So, interestingly, the imagery for this angel is said to come from the Hittite Griffith.

Amanda: Hold on, hold on. Now I'm thinking about the wings are like tiled in the eyes, and for some reason my brain just went to like, "How dope would it be if Baba Yaga's house also had like a tiled roof made of eyes?"

Julia: It would be horrifying.

Amanda: Yeah.

Julia: It would definitely fit into her aesthetic.

Amanda: Thank you for validating my idea.

Julia: She has it on a mood board somewhere.

Amanda: It's in her Pinterest.

Julia: Yes.

Amanda: Please continue.

Julia: So the Hittite Griffin is actually a really interesting character, just in mythology in general, and it definitely pre-dates the idea of the Cherubim. It's said that it was the guardian of holy things, which really fits into the imagery for the Cherubim itself.

Amanda: Yeah. Guardian, fierce protector.

Julia: For sure.

Amanda: And also a watcher, speaking to the eyes.

Julia: Absolutely. So it was said that between the Cherub's heads, glowing coals moved between them, could be seen, and their fire went up and down and lightning burst from it.

Amanda: So like the inside of their head is coals?

Julia: No, like between the heads, so like the body.

Amanda: Oh no, it's all four heads at the same time? Oh, man. Oh, no.

Julia: Oh, yeah.

Amanda: I was picturing a cube-head situation, with like the faces rotating, which, arguably, is scarier.

Julia: That's pretty good, too.

Amanda: Yeah. And so I was picturing magma on the inside, faces kind of like glue-sticked to the outside, and when they turn you can see the coals.

Julia: That's amazing, but no.

Amanda: So all four heads, same time, human ... What are they?

Julia: Human, ox, eagle, lion. Yeah. Cherubim were also said to move like flashes of lightning. Which is really ...

Amanda: That makes me think of the Weeping Angels, and that's terrifying, as always.

Julia: According to Thomas Aquinus - cool, cool dude, love him -

Amanda: And like, listen, I love that you chose him to do this lens as well, because he was obviously such a student of history and theology, and so for him to kind of be like, "This is all the stuff that I think probably it is." He's read everything that there is, he's coming up with his own interpretation, and we get to kind of like live in that head-canon for a minute. I love it.

Julia: Yeah, so according to Thomas Aquinus, who is a real bro, Satan was a fallen Cherub.

Amanda: Huh. That's a pretty satanic image. We were raised, in Catholicism, to think of Satan.

Julia: Definitely.

Amanda: I mean, mostly we think of him as - at least I did - as like a humanoid, in the way that we think of God as a humanoid, but if we're thinking about hellfire and creatures and demons, you know? Look at a Cherub in this sort of body, and that's what you pictured.

Julia: It does kind of mess around with later interpretations, where people are like, "Oh, well Lucifer was the most beautiful of all the angels." But we're not talking about Lucifer, we're talking about Satan. Different person.

Amanda: For our listeners who certainly aren't me, who don't understand the difference, what is the difference?

Julia: So, interestingly, in the Bible, originally, Satan is a title, not a person.

Amanda: Oh. That makes sense.

Julia: Satan, in the literal translation, means, "The Advocate".

Amanda: Huh.

Julia: So he was someone who would put people through trials, in order to text their commitment to God.

Amanda: Wow. Like Lucifer-person, Satan-title, originally?

Julia: Not necessarily ... Lucifer, not necessarily in all contexts, was a Satan.

Amanda: Huh.

Julia: Yeah. Sometimes he just rebelled, sometimes that was just a thing.

Amanda: Fascinating.

Julia: It depends on the source, and Lucifer is ... Supposedly, is probably an Etruscan God. He means, "The Light-bringer".

Amanda: Wow.

Julia: It was probably one of those situations where his name was ...

Amanda: Got adapted into, yeah.

Julia: ...was adapted into Christianity, because they were like, "Well, they can't worship him."

Amanda: Let's make him bad.

Julia: So now he's bad.

Amanda: Huh, I really gotta read Paradise Lost one of these days, huh?

Julia: Yeah. The last type of angel in the first sphere are known as either Thrones or Elders. They're first mentioned by Paul the Apostle in Colossians, and are said to be the living symbols of God's justice and authority.

Amanda: What do they look like?

Julia: So they're referred to as Thrones, because that's one of their symbols.

Amanda: Okay.

Julia: It's just a throne.

Amanda: I was gonna say, it's one of their forms. I was gonna be like, "Wow, very specific."

Julia: Well, they're also depicted as flaming wheels at times, even appearing as a wheel within a wheel, and the rims of those wheels are covered in hundreds of eyes.

Amanda: We keep coming back to the hundreds of eyes.

Julia: There's a lot of eyes.

Amanda: And I cannot emphasize enough, Thomas, how terrifying is this?

Julia: Goddammit, Thomas.

Amanda: Thomas, Thomas, my buddy.

Julia: My dude.

Amanda: My dude.

Julia: My real bro.

Amanda: My friend, my good, good friend. Please stop with the eyes. But also, this version of the Thrones - Julia is crying, laughing on the floor - Reminds me of sick rims.

Julia: Sweet rims, bro.

Amanda: Like Pimp My Ride, style.

Julia: Some real Fast and Furious bullshit, here.

Amanda: I mean, I think that's the conclusive proof we need that the Fast and Furious franchise is, at least, one tier of God's will on Earth.

Julia: Okay.

Amanda: Prove me wrong.

Julia: I can't.

Amanda: Mic drop.

Julia: With all of my background in history and religion, I can't.

Amanda: There's sick rims, there's [imitating Vin Diesel] family.

Julia: No!

Amanda: This is a perfect melding of me having an impression, and also me knowing what happened in a movie, and it just took Julia by surprise.

Julia: Oh, no. This wasn't supposed to happen.

Amanda: And to cap off that sentence, there is also an inexplicable jaunt in Tokyo, so ... Fast and Furious. That's me.

Julia: Did we go to Tokyo yet?

Amanda: No, but like we will.

Julia: Oh, okay. Cool. I mean, eventually, on this podcast again, yeah.

Amanda: Yeah.

Julia: Okay, so hundreds of eyes. In modern Christian theology, they appear as adoring, elderly men, who will listen to the will of God and present the prayers of men to God.

Amanda: Okay, alright.

Julia: They are also said to be the carriers of the throne of God, which is another reason that they have the name Throne.

Amanda: Like the physical carriers?

Julia: Yeah.

Amanda: Alright. Alright. I see the wheel, you know? Makes sense.

Julia: So we're moving on to the second sphere.

Amanda: Alright.

Julia: And the second sphere are specifically known as, "The Heavenly Governors of Creation". They guide and rule spirits.

Amanda: I mean, that's a translation that makes sense.

Julia: Yeah, I believe so. So the first one are Dominions, or Lordships, and they are in charge of watching over the duties of the lower angels, and having very little interaction with actual human beings.

Amanda: They're managers?

Julia: That ... Literally, I wrote, "They are the middle-managers of the angels."

Amanda: Nice.

Julia: I love you. So it's extremely rare that angelic lords make themselves physically known to humans, they are said to look like beautiful humans with a pair of feathered wings, but are also distinguished from other groups of angels by the orbs of light that they wield, which are attached to the heads of their scepters, or the pommels of their swords.

Amanda: Sounds like a Shillelagh in Dungeons and Dragons.

Julia: That's correct.

Amanda: Love it.

Julia: The next group are called Virtues, or Strongholds, and they are angels in charge of making signs and miracles known to the mortal world.

Amanda: So the traditional, sort of like heralding of a Divine Pronouncement?

Julia: Yes.

Amanda: Or like a Divine Interaction with the physical world?

Julia: Here is an actual description of the Virtues from the De Coelesti Hierarchia, which is kind of rambly but here we go. It's like all in Latin, so ...

Amanda: Classic Thomas.

Julia: This wasn't Thomas, but yeah.

Amanda: Classic Thomas.

Julia: The name of the Holy Virtues signifies a certain power and unshakeable virility, welling forth into all of their God-like energies. Not being weak and feeble for any reception of the Divine Illuminations granted to it, mounting upwards in fullness of power to an assimilation of God. Never falling away from the Divine Life through its own weakness, but ascending unwaveringly to the super-essential Virtue, which is the Source of Virtue.

Amanda: Wow. That probably was more poetic in the original.

Julia: Probably.

Amanda: But I do like that idea of whether you're talking about power or holiness or magic or whatever, being so powerful that like a puny, human body can't handle it. You know? Like we talk all the time about Ark, and a love of like physical and grounded magic.

Julia: Hell yeah.

Amanda: And in the Dresden Files, or other books where you get completely worn out after performing big magic, I think that makes total sense. And so, to have these angels sort of praised for their physical fortitude, because they are able to kind of go back and forth between those worlds and hold the fullness of God or whatever in their bodies, that's pretty dope.

Julia: That reminds me of the book that I'm reading right now, which is called Children of Blood and Bone. It is excellent, very, very good book. But in that book series, magic is almost like a muscle that you have to keep working and flex, and if you don't use it for long enough, you basically can't use your magic.

Amanda: Wow.

Julia: And in order to refine your magic, you have to use it more and more and more, and practice to make perfect. Which I like the idea of physical exertion the more it works better.

Amanda: Yeah. It's a good example of practice, right? That's a thing that we try to teach kids, but especially as an adult, where I think either I'm good at it or not, that kind of absolute thinking is very easy to do when you fail at a thing once. Like it's just hard for our brains to grasp the idea that we're gonna try and try and try, and fail and fail and fail, and that helps us succeed more, not to fail more. You know what I mean?

Julia: I know.

Amanda: So it's cool that that's kind of reinforced here.

Julia: I like that, that's a good interpretation. Thank you, friend.

Amanda: Thanks.

Julia: So the next and last group of the second sphere is the Powers, or Authorities, and they were meant to supervise the movements of the heavenly bodies in order to ensure that the Cosmos remain in order.

Amanda: I love it, the air-traffic controllers. I love it.

Julia: It's really, really dope. So they are also warrior angels, and oppose evil spirits, especially those that make use of the matter of the universe, and are often cast evil spirits to detention places of sorts.

Amanda: I love that. They're not just the, "Boring, office types that keep everything running on time." Which is like my job as an actual person, but also they are badass warriors.

Julia: Yeah, and that's usually how they're represented. So they're usually represented as soldiers wearing full armor and a helmet, and they're usually carrying either defensive or offensive weapons, such as shields, spears and chains.

Amanda: Amazing.

Julia: Powers are also said to be the keepers of history, and were completely loyal to God, whereas other spheres of angels could fall from grace, Ephesians says that no Power has ever fallen from Heaven.

Amanda: Incredible, yes. 10 out of 10, I am one of them, they are me.

Julia: Me. Yeah, same. I was gonna be like, "We should tag ourselves at the end." Like, "I pick Powers." So they also oversee the distribution of power among mankind, which I think is so cool!

Amanda: That is, especially if you think of them as like ... Picture like a nuclear power plant or something, where someone is sitting at like a big desk with lots of valves and things that they can adjust, and they're making sure that the Cosmos operate on schedule, you know? And that they are correctly distributing energy in the worlds, of course that will translate to power amongst humans as well, because human actors are like little mistakes waiting to happen, and little balls of chaos that you have to kind of keep contained. I think it's so logical that those things would go together.

Julia: Yeah. This kind of reminds me, and again, I'm gonna go on a little bit of a tangent of a really interesting character, actually one of my favorite minor characters in Our Fair City.

Amanda: Yeah.

Julia: Which, if you've heard our episode with Geoffrey Gardner, you know a little bit about Our Fair City, but post-apocalyptic, basically like a business ... A life insurance company takes over a city, and is running it in sort of this dystopian way, and one of the characters is known as The Switcher. So they're having power outages and stuff like that, and there's a problem, and he's this character that kind of takes over and uses his powers for good because he controls where the power goes. And he's like, "You want to take power away from the hospitals? No, we're not gonna do that, and I'm gonna make sure that people get fed in these times of need."

Julia: And it's like just a really interesting character, and that's kind of how I picture the Powers.

Amanda: Yeah, and if we want to get really big about it, and why not? Big wars are fought in small places, you know?

Julia: Yes.

Amanda: And it's like municipal government, right? And local representation, and advocacy, and door-to-door voter engagement that actually wins elections and changes governments, and like changes the way that a country operates, and so it is super not a sexy thing to work in logistics, or to work in management, or to do these things that we think of as just kind of like taking care of themselves, but that's where true heroism and altruism and advocacy happen. Like yes, you have to have figure-heads, yes you have to have big, daring, heroic acts, but lots and lots more people can and do make a difference on the sort of smaller scale.

Julia: Yeah. I think that's a really, really good point, and I think that the Powers aren't the highest in the spectrum of the hierarchy here, but they play a really important role, and they're also the most badass, I think, on this list, but that's just me.

Amanda: I love it.

Julia: We're gonna get into the third sphere in just a second, you want to get a refill?

[Theme music]

Amanda: Let's do it. Julia, this week we are sponsored by Rx Bar, which several of our listeners tried last time, and said that they absolutely loved it, which I'm so stoked about, because I also love it.

Julia: Yes!

Amanda: Actually, today, going to Easter brunch, I was very hungry and I happened to have a coconut flavored Rx Bar in my backpack, which I ate, I didn't get any weird indigestion, I didn't get a bizarre, unsustainable sugar high, because Rx Bars are super transparent, and they are made of actual ingredients, egg-whites, dates, nuts, etc. Cacao, coconut, whatever the flavor is, they just print it right on the label, that's what's in it. No weird stuff, and they're delicious.

Julia: Yeah, I actually, every time I go to the gym, I like to work out with a little bit of something in my stomach, but not a lot of something in my stomach, otherwise I get all nauseous and stuff, you know what I mean? Rx Bar is the perfect pre and post workout snack for me, I just down those peanut butter flavored ones in a heartbeat, they're my favorite thing in the world.

Julia: And the nice part is it turns out real food is actually good for you, and also tastes good. Shockingly, you can actually ... When you bite into an Rx Bar, taste the cacao, taste the real fruit, taste the spices, and that's because they're not hiding behind all of these ridiculous, fake ingredients, they're real and up front.

Amanda: Yeah, just like us, there is no b.s., there's no added sugar, they are gluten-free and soy-free and dairy-free, which is really nice, because I am lactose-intolerant and there is milk and wey and stuff in pretty much everything. So whether you're into sweet or savory, or like chocolatey stuff, or fruity stuff, there are flavors for you. And Spirits listeners can get 25% off their first order at rxbar.com/spirits with the promo code, "Spirits" at checkout.

Julia: Yeah, get a peanut butter one on me, or get a coconut one on Amanda.

Amanda: Yeah, and tweet us and tell us what flavor is your favorite. Like the texture's great, the flavor's great, I'm honestly such a big fan of these things.

Julia: Yeah, they're awesome and we're so glad that they're sponsoring Spirits.

Amanda: Yeah, so thank you again, that's rxbar.com/spirits, with the promo code, "Spirits", for 25% off your first order. Now, let's get back to the show.

[Theme music]

Julia: So Amanda, we're going into the final sphere, and this is the third sphere. Those members of the third sphere act as heavenly guides, protectors, and messengers to human beings.

Amanda: Alright, so the sorts of angels we probably read about in the New Testament.

Julia: Exactly.

Amanda: Yeah.

Julia: So the first one is the Principalities, or Rulers, and they are angels said to guide and protect nations, groups of people or institutions, such as the church. A single Principality rules over abandoned angels, and is the one that gives them orders in order to have them fulfill the Divine Ministry. Do you know what I mean?

Amanda: Yes, like the person issuing what we're gonna be doing.

Julia: Yes, they're the divine administrators.

Amanda: Hey!

Julia: Which is adorable. So they are the middle-managers of angels.

Amanda: Okay.

Julia: They are shown wearing a crown and hold a scepter, and they also are said to carry out orders given to them by upper-sphere angels, and give blessings to the material world.

Amanda: That is very cool.

Julia: Yeah.

Amanda: You know, Jules, I really want to know where scepters came from, like where did this idea come from, power for people?

Julia: I have no idea.

Amanda: You know? Like between Moses, it has often like a stick as he's leading people through the desert, and like parting the ...

Julia: He has a staff, yeah, but that's like ... He's a poor man.

Amanda: And so I understand, from that perspective, that like a walking stick is useful, and that's probably where that comes from, or like a staff for fighting or herding cattle and stuff.

Julia: Yeah, but a scepter is just like ... It's very ceremonial.

Amanda: Elevated staff, like what is the origin?

Julia: I don't know.

Amanda: People who know more than us about this, please email us, spiritspodcast@gmail.

Julia: Jim probably knows.

Amanda: Jim, let us know.

Julia: So they are the educators and guardians of the Earth, and they inspire living things to create both in the arts and the sciences.

Amanda: Oh, man!

Julia: Yeah!

Amanda: Thanks. I like creating stuff.

Julia: I do like creating stuff, that's why we do this.

Amanda: Hey!

Julia: We have a good Principality looking over us. You just did a fist bump to your chest and then peaced at the sky.

Amanda: I did.

Julia: Just for our listeners' sake.

Amanda: I did, and now when I see football people doing that, players, in fact, I will ...

Julia: I love those football people.

Amanda: I will ... Maybe the coaches, maybe the Gatorade boys and girls, I don't know. But I'll picture them looking up at the sky and thinking of Principality.

Julia: Next are the Archangels.

Amanda: Oh, these guys I've heard of.

Julia: I was gonna say, they're probably the most well-known of the angels, but they're actually only slightly above the common angel.

Amanda: Huh.

Julia: In the Bible, the term, "Archangel" only appears twice, in Theolosians and in Jude, and only one Archangel is given a name in the New Testament, and that is Michael.

Amanda: Yes.

Julia: Yes. You were pointing at me, were you going to interject, and say Michael?

Amanda: I was gonna say Gabriel.

Julia: Nope.

Amanda: But then I recovered.

Julia: So later Christian traditions say that Gabriel was also an Archangel, as was Rafael.

Amanda: Yes. One of the Ninja Turtles.

Julia: Yep, one of the Ninja Turtles.

Amanda: As is commonly known.

Julia: There were said to be ...

Amanda: I'm really sorry about the Gallagher. I really tried to listen at the time.

Julia: There were said to be seven Archangels all together, the others included Uriel, who was never mentioned in the western Christian Bible, but plays a really large role in Anglican and Russian orthodox churches.

Amanda: Huh.

Julia: These seven Archangels are said to be the guardian angels of nations and countries, and are concerned in the politics, military-matters, and commerce and trade.

Amanda: It makes a lot of sense that there would be a smaller group, or like round-table, of these Principalities. Of these Archangels, if they are influencing such huge events.

Julia: I agree, yeah, 100%. I should have probably gone into more, you know, Michael is known as the Angel of Death and stuff like that, and I wish I did but I didn't. Sorry. The next are just angels, just plain angels.

Amanda: Common angels.

Julia: So they are the lowest order of angels.

Amanda: No.

Julia: They are concerned with the affairs of living things, and are primarily just the messengers to humanity, appearing to people with messages from the heavens.

Amanda: But those are the angels that human beings talk about and pray for, you know?

Julia: Yes.

Amanda: And like wear necklaces of?

Julia: Yeah.

Amanda: So I think there's an interesting thing to be said here, too, where if you're running a business, you can be in the board room all you want but the way that people form opinions about your business is the folks that they interact with every single day.

Julia: That's true.

Amanda: The cashiers and the bank-tellers and the gas station attendants, those are the people that represent to the average person the sum-total of your entire organization, it's not the CEO.

Julia: Yeah.

Amanda: It's like who you talk about every single day.

Julia: Right.

Amanda: I think that's a valuable lesson that more people at companies should think about. I don't know, like paying your workers fair wages and ...

Julia: Livable wage.

Amanda: Their benefits, and vacation, and maternity leave, and parental bonding leave.

Julia: No one cares that you flipped over your m's to make w's for women, McDonald's. Just saying, just saying.

Amanda: Capitalism's a lie.

Julia: Capitalism is a lie. Personal guardian angels are probably fairly well-known, at least in western culture, these are not any specific order from the plain angels, but rather are given a specific human to watch over their day-to-day affairs.

Amanda: So it's not like a special kind of angel, it's just like, "Hey angel, this is your person."

Julia: It's just regular angel, and then they're like, "Hey, you watch that guy." It is a common belief that they are assigned to every human being, whether or not they're religious in the Abrahamic sense or not, it is never specified whether or not they guard multiple humans during their existence or just one. Which, you'd have to assume that they're ... If their person dies, it's not just like, "Well, I'm done. I don't have to watch any human being ever again."

Amanda: I mean, population is only growing, so I assume they would be given a newborn babe, but eight billion angels is a lot of angels.

Julia: Yeah, that's a lot of angels.

Amanda: At the same time though, you really want to connect ... What if the angel had a really boring person? That would suck. What if a person had a really bad angel? That would also suck.

Julia: Well, can the angels be bad, though?

Amanda: I suppose you're right, it's the whole Christian ...

Julia: Because that's how, supposedly, we get demons. But I'm like, "Whatevs." It's fine.

Amanda: You better ask Dan Brown about that.

Julia: We should ask Dan Brown about that angels and demons specification?

Amanda: Boom.

Julia: I hate you.

Amanda: I love you.

Julia: In Zoroastrianism, each person has one guardian angel, which is known as a Fravashi, and they manifest God's energy and don't convey messages, specifically, but rather just the energy of Ahura Mazda, which is their God-like figure.

Amanda: That's pretty cool though, like you decide for yourself what you do with that energy? They are here to make sure that you are inspired and connected, sort of like plugged into the bigger source of the universe.

Julia: To the Matrix of the universe? I agree. So that's angels.

Amanda: Wow, angels are a lot more complex in the tradition we were raised in than I realized.

Julia: Yeah.

Amanda: I know, I pictured just kind of like in white robes, blonde, male figure, coming down to herald some kind of pronouncement. But I love this idea of angels having managers and meetings.

Julia: Or being wheels with hundreds of eyes?

Amanda: Again with the hundreds of eyes, I'd forgotten it temporarily.

Julia: It's what we're here for. Nope. I'm here to remind you about the hundreds of eyes.

Amanda: Read The Seventh Tower by Garth Nix, it's very important.

Julia: And remember, stay creepy.

Amanda: Stay cool.

[chroniclackofselfpreservation]

Creatures of the Night

Chapter 13 - gone far away into the silent land

Back to the Beginning   < Previous chapter / Next chapter >   

AO3

Masterlist

(TW: mild graphic imagery, death/dying)

(The title of the chapter comes from “Remember” by Christina Rossetti)

“Patton, really, I’m fine. We don’t have much longer before—”

“Nonsense!” Patton said, brandishing a serving spoon. “If we’re going to be out all night running through the forest, we better not be hungry while we’re doing it!”

Roman sighed, laughing a little as he did. He knew that Patton was freaking out inside. They all were.

Roman was going to die tonight.

And come back—hopefully. If Patton’s dream was anything to go off of, Logan had already removed the amulet and Roman hadn’t woken up. Upon hearing this, Logan had adamantly voted against the excursion, claiming that not only was it dangerous, but they had adequate reason to believe that it wouldn’t work. Roman, on the other hand, was quick to point out the fact that Patton had only seen about ten seconds of what was going to happen. Maybe it took a little longer to come back from death.

Roman would be lying if he wasn’t infinitely more nervous, but he would also be lying if he said he didn’t want to go through with it. This was the only way. If it didn’t work, he’d be dead sooner than later anyway. It was a grim thought, and he figured against mentioning it to Patton, especially when he was already stress-cooking as it was, but he couldn’t deny the truth of it.

The dinner was amazing, as they always were, but Roman couldn’t taste any of it. He smiled and complemented Patton on his cooking. He joked and laughed, but despite his efforts, it was painfully obvious to the rest of the table that he was compensating for the fact that he may not be returning to said table.

Logan spoke softly, occasionally giving into Roman’s baiting remarks and going off on a tangent, but the way he sat and speared leaves of lettuce with his fork as if stabbing something through the heart betrayed his unease.

Virgil was far less subtle about his discomfort. He barely spoke, and when he did he only gave short, one-word answers. He particularly avoided looking at Roman—which Roman went to great lengths to not grow offended at. He'd realized, as Logan had rebuked them all in the living room, that he wasn’t mad a Virgil.

He was mad at the situation. At Ursula. Yes, Virgil might have assisted in getting him his curse, and Dorian might have killed his mother, but ultimately, there was one person behind all of it, forcing everyone else to take the blame.

Roman stared down at his dinner with enough anger burning through him, he was surprised he didn't melt his fork. So, yes, he understood why Virgil might think he was still angry with him. Roman would have to properly forgive him for it later—as he was quite certain the familiar would be beating himself up about it for the rest of his seemingly immortal life unless he did—but for the time being, Roman let it simmer.

                                                * * * * * * * * * *

The walk through nighttime-Wakeby was different with three of Roman's best friends by his side. He was nearly vibrating from a combination of nausea, excitement, and absolute terror. Patton spoke softly with Virgil, wanting to know more about sibyls, and Virgil patiently obliged. Roman watched out of the corner of his eye as they walked down the street, not caring about subtlety at the moment—glad to see Virgil appearing less grief-stricken and back to his normal, albeit tense, self.

Logan stared straight ahead, walking with the seriousness of an army general.

Roman nudged him. “Lighten up, Specs. You look like you’re going to a funeral.”

“If that was an attempt at humor, you will have to try harder,” Logan replied, his expression unchanging.

“Geez. I know I’m dying and all that, but really, Lo.” He sobered a bit. “I’m coming back, aren’t I?”

“Presumably.”

Roman swallowed. “You really aren’t one for cheering a guy up, are you?”

Logan clasped his hands behind his back as they walked, blinking. “No. I’m not.”

                                                * * * * * * * * * *

Patton didn’t like this situation. He didn’t like the dark. He didn’t like the pit growing in his stomach. He didn’t like watching Roman’s back and not having to imagine what he’d look like dead, because he’d already seen it. He hated how comfortable and calm Roman was in the pitch-black forest. Patton found himself walking side by side with Virgil so closely their arms brushed every now and again. There was a sort of silent acknowledgement of their mutual discomfort, and neither of them drew away from the other.

Roman, quite obviously trying to mask his nerves, laughed and joked and gestured grandly, as if showing them around his bedroom. “I broke that branch up there—see? The one that’s snapped off half way? Yeah, Dorian chased me up a tree, and let me tell you, it was not exactly my idea of a fun time. It snapped as I was climbing and, man, you’d have thought he would have swallowed me then and there…” he rambled, like an old man recounting war stories. Virgil grew stiff beside him, his eyes glazing over and his steps becoming halting.

Not wanting to fall behind the other two, Patton ignored the nervous pounding of his own heart and slipped his hand into Virgil’s, hoping to comfort him in some way. The act seemed to snap Virgil out of whatever stupor he'd been in and he shot a grateful, if not slightly flushed, look Patton’s way. The gesture also soothed Patton’s nerves somewhat.

“Oh! Here we are! Dorian!” Roman called, jogging out into a large clearing. Virgil’s grip tightened and Patton looked up, his heart crawling up into his throat and lodging there.

An enormous snake sat in the middle of the clearing—and by enormous, Patton didn’t mean it was just big. It could easily constrict a bus the same way an anaconda would a small animal, if not crush it entirely. How in the world had Roman survived fighting this thing for so long? And why was he running up to it like it was some kind of old friend of his? Logan was in a similar situation, frozen at the edge of the meadow, trying to register what he was seeing.

“Come on, guys. He won’t bite—he promised,” Roman shouted. Patton tugged a little on Virgil’s hand and they both stumbled forward into the clearing. Logan trailed behind them, muttering softly to himself.

The giant serpent inspected them all, his head mere inches from Roman’s side.

“It has been a considerable amount of time since I have been amongst more than two humans at the same time. Although,” he purred, “it seems there are fewer true-blooded mortals here than I expected. You did not tell me you hosted a sibyl in your company, little prince.”

“Yeah, neither did I until about three hours ago,” Roman laughed.

“Um, hello,” Patton managed, giving a small wave. He wasn’t quite sure how he should act. He certainly wasn’t about to be all buddy-buddy with the creature that almost murdered one of his best friends, but from the way Roman was behaving, he wasn’t so sure how to feel. He erred on the side of caution, and went for politeness.

Roman put his hands on his hips. “So, how’re we starting this party, hmm?”

Dorian glanced at him. “I can smell your fear, little prince. Do not play coy with me.”

Roman’s countenance faltered. “Right, well, um, let’s get on with it then, shall we?” He ran a hand through his hair and faced Dorian.

“I cannot simply bite you, little prince. That would constitute fatally injuring you, and exceeds our contract.”  

Roman’s eyebrows knit together in confusion, “But, if you can’t bite me, how—”

“You will have to prick yourself.”

Roman paled.

“This is insane,” Logan breathed, still trailing a few paces behind Patton and Virgil. Patton had to agree with him, though he wouldn’t deny how relieved he was that he wasn’t going to have to watch Dorian actually bite Roman. He probably would have fainted.

“There has to be another way,” he demanded, stepped forward, though still keeping a healthy distance from the demon.

Roman’s shoulders dropped, “Lo, come on. We talked about this.”

“I’m not—I can’t just watch you die, Roman! There has to be some other option we aren’t looking at. I’m sure I can come up with something if you just—”

“There isn’t another way,” Virgil muttered. “Ursula’s isn’t some one-off, throw-away spellcaster. Her curses can only be broken by fulfilling the demands.”

Roman shuffled his feet a little. “If you really don’t want to be here, Logan, I understand. You don’t have to watch.”

Desperately hoping his fear didn’t show on his face, Patton marched up to Roman, coming so close to Dorian he could feel the air whip past him as the serpent’s forked tongue wagged next to him.

“We are not letting you do this alone, Roman.”

Roman looked over Patton’s shoulder at Logan, and from his steadily softening expression, Patton assumed Logan had admitted agreement.

“Fine, but if anything happens to him…” Virgil growled, meeting Dorian’s eye, unwavering.

“I assure you our goals are mutual, familiar, but I’m curious. Please, elaborate on what you’ll do to me exactly,” Dorian rumbled, rising up ever so slightly. Patton stepped behind Roman with a barely contained squeak.

“Dorian, please,” Roman sighed. Virgil and Dorian stared at each other, unblinking. Patton could practically feel the protectiveness wafting off Virgil, though his hands shook. Logan looked nearly as angry, but put a firm hand on Virgil’s shoulder and muttered something in his ear. Patton hoped he could step in with some diplomatic words and ease the situation before it escalated. He wasn’t too keen on getting eaten by a giant serpent tonight.

“I can’t believe I forgot how insufferably arrogant mortals are. You may be a witch’s familiar, but they taint you with their idiocy.”

Virgil pulled against Logan’s hand. “Yeah? Did you also forget that one of those insufferable idiots managed to beat you every single night?”

“Virgil!” Roman barked, and Patton couldn’t tell if he was telling him to stop, or was upset that Virgil called him an insufferable idiot. Probably both.

“Look,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose, and turning to Dorian, “I get it. You don’t like us. We, frankly, don’t like you either, but we had a deal. I’d like to get this whole thing over with before I’m sixty-five, if you don’t mind.”

“Very well,” Dorian grumbled, lowering down. “You are wearing the amulet?”

“Yes.”

In response, Dorian bore his fangs, a chilling hiss leaking from his all-black throat. Now, Patton did let out a small, terrified shriek. Logan and Virgil both inched forward to be closer to Roman.

Trembling, he held out his hand and placed his palm against the bottom of the needle-point fang, right below the thumb.

“Roman,” Patton whimpered softly, more to himself than anyone else. Roman sucked in a sharp breath and his hand jerked upward. The fang sank into the meat of his hand, dark blood seeping sluggishly down his arm.

He pulled away, swallowing thickly. Dorian closed his mouth, the fangs folding back like he was sheathing a sword. Roman opened and closed his fist, looking down at it with an unreadable expression.

“I… need to sit down,” he said, sounding a thousand miles away. He swayed, leaning heavily on Patton.

“Okay—um, let’s see,” Patton said, unsure what to do or how to feel. “Lo, help me sit him down.” Logan responded at once, grabbing Roman under his arms and slowly lowering him down. Patton went down with him, cradling his head in his hands, silently telling them to stop shaking.

Roman winced as his entire arm spasmed, the muscles reacting to the venom.

“Are you in pain?” Logan asked, his hands fretting uselessly about Roman.

“No.”

“Roman—”

“It’s fine, Specs. It’ll be over soon,” he said, waving his hand away. Patton’s chest seized.

Virgil paced furiously through the grass, nibbling on his fist. “This was a bad idea. It isn’t going to work.”

“Verge, please,” Patton managed around the lump in his throat. He really wasn’t helping the situation. Another spasm, this time Roman’s entire shoulder, and a bit of his neck—his head twitching to the side. His breathing picked out a fast rhythm.

“Remember to take the—the amulet off, guys. Okay? Don’t forget. You can’t,” Roman said, squirming in discomfort on the ground.

“We won’t forget, Roman.” Patton said sweetly, running a hand across his hair. Tears welled up in his eyes, blurring the outside world into smears of indigo and green. “We could never forget you.”

“Patton is right. The odds of us forgetting the single most important step of tonight’s escapade is astronomical,” Logan said.

Roman nodded, squeezing his eyes shut. “I’d hold your hand, Padre,” he chuckled, “but I can’t move it anymore.”

Patton cursed himself for shaking. Roman was probably terrified. He shouldn’t be worrying about him right now. Patton felt something cold on his hand and looked down. Tears were streaking down Roman’s face. His breath was slowing, though Patton figured it wasn’t because he was calm. The venom was working through his system.

Dorian had retreated a few feet away, coiled up and watching silently as Roman’s life ebbed away. His reptilian face betrayed no emotion, and yet Patton was sure he felt something when he met the demon’s eyes.

“Hey, Teach?” Roman mumbled.

Logan leaned forward. “Yes?”

Roman’s eyebrows creased as he worked the words out of his mouth. “You know the thing you do with Charlie Frown, over there? The… reading?”

Patton looked to Logan, who seemed to understand what Roman meant. “Of course. Any requests?”

Roman snorted weakly out of his nose, and shook his head.

Logan gave a wet smile. “I built a tiny garden in a corner of my heart. I kept it just for lovely things, and bid all else depart…”

Patton gave up trying to hold himself together, balling gentle fists of Roman’s hair in his hands and bowing over him. Tears plopped from his nose and chin, dotting Roman's still face. Patton bit his lip to keep from outright sobbing so hard he tasted blood.

“And ever was there music, and flowers blossomed fair.”

Roman grew still. His chest rose.

And fell.

“And never was it perfect, until you entered there.”

[chroniclackofselfpreservation]

Creatures of the Night

Chapter 4 - on this earth who was once a star and made the same mistakes as humans 

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(TW: panic attacks, hopelessness, suicidal thoughts, pain, and some graphic imagery.)

(The title of the chapter comes from “A Map to the New World” by Joy Harjo.)

This is completely insane, Roman thought begrudgingly as he slipped between two fences separating backyards. He knew Logan meant well, he really did, but Logan hadn't fought this thing. He'd never even seen it. How could he ask Roman to risk death for a theory he already knew wouldn't work?

A thought in the back of his mind quipped, If you're so sure it won't work, why are you following through with it?

Shut up, he thought back, stretching his sleeves over his hands and shivering. It was the tail end of summer, and the nights were growing chilly. He looked up at the night sky. He couldn't see a single star; the moon was nothing more than a circular patch of light-tinted clouds. Rain clouds as dark as his mood hung low with the weight of the water they carried, blocking out all hope of light and threatening to spill forth their contents. Of course, Roman hadn't thought to bring a jacket. It had rained earlier that evening, and it mostly likely would again. If it did rain while he was out there, hypothermia would kill him far before the serpent got a chance. The wind whipped past him, drawing the heat from his skin and causing a swath of goosebumps to rise on his arms. He cursed under his breath and folded his arms tight against his chest, tucking his chin into the neck of his shirt and plowing on.

Roman stopped.

He was being watched. He just knew. After being hunted for as long as he had, he'd gotten pretty good at noticing and identifying the strange feeling. Sure, he wasn't even halfway to the forest border yet, and the curse prevented the demon from crossing over into Wakeby proper, but Roman was still on edge. Whatever was stalking him was definitely good at it. It hadn't made a noise thus far. Roman's instincts had been hewn down and reshaped into the mindset of prey, always on alert and never trusting the silence. He turned, thanking his lucky star that the streetlights bled far enough in his direction to offer what meager light they could.

His heart crawled up into his throat.

Two silver disks reflected back out at him from the inky darkness. They were small, but fairly high up—far taller than himself. He couldn't make out a body, only the two, unblinking, pupil-less eyes. Roman drew his sword and held it out in front of him, taking a few steps backs in an attempt to draw it out into the light.

"Show yourself," he said, wishing he didn't sound as terrified as he did. No reply. Not even a sound. The eyes turned diagonal, as if the creature were cocking its head to the side. They disappeared for a second; a blink. Suddenly, they dropped to the ground and bobbed toward him. Confused and terrified, Roman watched as slowly, out of the darkness emerged...

A cat.

Roman let out an explosive exhale, placing a hand on his heart and squatting down. "You scared me, buddy." The cat just watched him with its bright amber eyes. It's fur was as pitch black as the shadows clinging to the walls of the houses. Looking down the alley, Roman realized the cat had been following him along the top of the fence. That's why it's eyes had appeared so high up. He held out a hand. The cat looked at it, but didn't make a move to sniff it. It looked back up at him. Roman ran a hand down his face and laughed tiredly.

"You're going to get caught in the rain, kitty."

It made a soft noise in the back of its throat and blinked. Sighing, Roman stood, sheathed his sword, and shoved his hands in his pockets. "See you later, little guy," he muttered, then continued down the street. He'd only traveled a few steps, however, and the feeling of being watched didn't dissipate. Turning, he saw the cat trailing a few feet behind him, paws padding silently down the sidewalk.

He shook his head and smiled, "You can't follow where I'm going, kitty. Run along."

If a cat could have rolled its eyes, this one did. It stopped near his ankles, looking up at him, then down the street expectantly. At last acquiescing, Roman continued walking with the cat at his side. He had to admit, it felt good to have some company, especially the kind that didn't ask questions like why are you sneaking around a night with weapons? The feline followed him the entire way, somewhat settling the nerves churning within him. They stepped off the side of the road and into the tall, yellow grass that proceeded the tree line. It was still damp from the rain earlier that evening. Roman picked up the cat, holding it to his chest.

"You don't want to get soaking wet, do you?" he said, trudging through the meadow. Soon, his pants were soaked up to his knees. The cat purred loudly. Roman found the warm vibrations against his chest quite calming—like lying under a weighted blanket. He stopped just before the forest, staring up at the treetops. He could barely see them in the darkness.

He let out a shaky breath. "Are you afraid of dying?" he asked. The purring stopped. He laughed sadly. "I am. Absolutely terrified of it. You'd think after risking it for as long as I have, I'd be used to it. You have nine lives, right?" He looked down at the cat expectantly. "Can I have some?" Roman laughed wetly at his attempt at a joke. It was a bad idea; the chuckles devolved into tears.

"I'm going to die," he whispered.

The cat was impossibly still, the only sign of life being the soft rise and fall of its chest beneath Roman's hand. His trembling hand. Oh, how he wished there was someone to hold it. To smile at him reassuringly and walk with him into the darkness. Roman stood there, chest rattling in the preamble to a nervous breakdown. He sank to his knees and released the cat, worried if he held onto it any tighter, he might end up hurting it. Mud soaked through the knees of his jeans and he stuffed the side of his fist into his mouth to keep from sobbing. It was pathetic, the shudders that wracked his body as he silently wept, bending over his knees and pressing his forehead into the earth. He took deep gulping breathes, like all the oxygen in the air had disappeared. The curse wreaked havoc within him, furious at his reluctance to fulfill his obligations. Roman relished the pain, finding solace in the blinding, burning clarity it brought his mind. A strangled, choking sound crawled up and out of his throat.

He felt the velvety soft touch of a nose across the backs of his hands, which were currently tangled in and tearing at his hair. The cat began to purr again, coming around and pressing the top of its head against his ear. Roman relaxed, letting the calm rumbling overpower everything else whirling through his mind. It took a few minutes, but he eventually calmed down, his breathing becoming slow and tired. He was exhausted. He felt like he'd already fought the stupid snake for a few hours, and he hadn't even started yet. He sat up, pushing his hair back and out of his face. His face was red and puffy from crying, but he didn't really care. Roman wiped his face and smiled.

"Thanks, buddy."

The cat blinked, then darted off back toward civilization. Roman watched the dark shape streak through the grass for a moment before it disappeared around the corner of a house. He took another deep breath, then stood up and stepped into the forest.

                                                * * * * * * * * * *

Roman's sword remained in its sheath as he trudged through the forest. He didn't bother being quiet, and barely paid attention to his surroundings. He didn't hear anything, but he felt the demon's eyes on him. He didn't care. Perhaps, it was so confused by his odd behavior it assumed he had some sort of trap he was baiting it into. Roman didn't, but was slightly glad that it thought he did. His feet carried him where he wanted to go while his mind, still numb from what had happened outside the forest, wandered through the blurry static that filled his head like cotton. This was his last resort, he decided. If Logan's idea didn't work, he wouldn't fight back. He couldn't do it anymore. Let the demon do what it wanted with him.

He reached the clearing after some number of minutes he couldn't have specified. The space was wide and open, almost a perfect circle among the trees. The grass here was pale green, as if it were the beginning of spring. Small white flowers peppered the meadow, swaying gently in a sweet breeze that teased the coming rain. A nice place to die, Roman thought. He couldn't decide whether he was being sarcastic or not. He found he didn't care either way.

He reached the middle of the clearing, slipped his sheathed sword off of its place on his belt and threw it to the ground. Next came the side holsters with his guns, followed by his dagger and all of his armor. Roman looked at them in the grass for a moment before kicking them a good distance away, out of arms reach.

He took a cross-legged seat, and waited.

And waited.

Several dozen minutes passed without so much as a slither from the surrounding trees. Roman began picking at the grass, braiding it into a crown and interweaving the wildflowers near his feet. It was somewhat nice, just getting to sit and enjoy the night air for once. A cold spot of water plopped on the top of his head, and he paused in his crown-making. He looked up at the sky. It was too dark to make any judgments about how hard it would rain. He'd dealt with the curse during winter before. Sure, snakes were cold-blooded and usually hibernated during cold months, but Roman wasn't exactly fighting a normal snake. No doubt it had some sort of magic keeping it warm through the rain and snow. All snow was good for was making things harder for Roman. Slipping in the middle of a fight with a demon wasn't exactly a good thing.

The rain began as a mist, then a sprinkle, eventually evening out into a light downpour. Enough to keep him wet, but nothing he would consider a storm—yet, at least. He wasn't shivering at the moment, but his fingers were beginning to numb with cold, making his project harder to complete.

He noticed a small plant a few paces to his right. Silkweed. How ironic, he thought, leaning over and plucking the plant. He'd discovered several months ago, quite by accident, that chewing the leaves counteracted the demon-snake's venom. He hadn't been bitten, only lightly grazed. Roman wasn't entirely sure, even now, how he'd singled out the silvery plant. He'd just sort of... known. He turned the leaves over in his fingers. If he placed one under his tongue, he'd have a chance at saving himself.

Roman tossed the plant into the dirt.

The sound of something heavy moving across the ground caught his ear and he looked up. Finally, he thought, setting his flower crown down. At the edge of the clearing, the serpent glided through the grass toward him, moving as slow as a cat stalking a mouse. Closer and closer it came. Roman's hands trembled, but he didn't move. He didn't grab his weapons. The rain intensified. Roman knew he should say something, and fast, before the thing decided to take advantage of his apparent idiocy and strike. His mouth didn't want to move. What was he doing? Sure, this was a last resort, but he actually had to make the effort first before giving up. Right? The demon was only a few dozen feet away now. What would Logan think, if he knew that Roman was throwing away the only possible solution he'd been able to come up with? What would Patton and Virgil do when they found out? How would they react when they found out that their friend was dead? The snake made a slow, circle around him, blocking all possible exits with its long, muscular body. Roman was left with a circle barely ten feet in diameter. His weapons were now pinned beneath a massive serpent.

It reared back its head.

                                                * * * * * * * * * *

Virgil streaked through the neighborhood at top speed. Roman was going to let it kill him. He was going to give up just like that. Roman was going to die. Virgil had to do something, but what could he do? What chance did he have against a two-ton snake-demon whose magical prowess was far and above anything Virgil could ever dream of achieving? Close to none, that's what. He had, however, kept something set aside for emergencies. If anything, this counted as an emergency.

A wave of pain erupted behind his eyes, and he tripped, tumbling ears over tail down the sidewalk.

What's wrong, Virgil? You seem stressed, Ursula's voice crooned inside his mind.

Shut up, he thought back venomously, struggling to his feet. He swayed, stumbling down the street like he was high on catnip.

I hear it's getting cold in Wakeby. What a shame. You should join me in Bermuda, the weather's stunning.

She pressed harder, and Virgil gasped. The pain was blinding. She was half a world away, sure, but the connection between a witch and her familiar is purely magical. It transcends any physical distance.

She sighed, How's my prince doing? I know we've had our differences lately, but really. I'm only looking out for his well being. I want him alive and well just as much as you do.

I said shut up.

Ooh, your core's showing Virgil. Haven't see that in a few decades...

Virgil decided to ignore her and just focus on walking in a straight line. She continued taunting him all the way home, sending wave after wave of debilitating pain through his skull. Eventually, he dragged himself up the driveway and around the side of the house.

Arriving at their house, he pelted into the backyard, tripping over his own feet as he hastily transformed back into his human form. Hopefully, it was dark enough that no one had seen it happen. He could see some lights on inside. Logan was studying, probably. It was a miracle that Roman had managed to sneak in and out of the house every night without anyone else finding out. A sad miracle.

Virgil dropped to his knees near the base of a pine tree in the far corner of the backyard and dug into the dirt, flinging it out of the way with the desperation of someone trying to save their friend. Only a foot or so below the topsoil his now raw fingertips brushed something hard and smooth. His heart in his throat, Virgil dug around the sides and extracted it.

It was a tiny metal container about the size of an old woman's jewelry box.

With trembling hands, he undid the latch.

                                                * * * * * * * * * *

"What are you doing, little prince?" the serpent inquired.

Roman blinked, surprised. Its voice sounded different. It wasn't the harsh, grating sound it usually was whenever they were fighting—though there typically wasn't much conversation during their nightly battles aside from cursing. It was smooth and soft and... almost human sounding. He looked at the serpent for a long moment before finally asking, "Do you have a name?"

"What?"

"A name. You have one, right?"

"...Yes."

"Are you going to tell me?"

The demon shifted in the grass. Everything inside Roman screamed at him to run. "Of course not. Do you know what someone could do with—"

"Roman Nicholas Kingsley. That's my legal name, anyway. Not sure if it counts as a 'true name' or anything, but I'm giving it to you, whatever its worth."

"You mortals are all such idiots," the demon growled. "Why?"

Roman swallowed. "Let's make a deal."

The snake, somehow, made an exasperated noise, "All right, little prince, but only because this is the first interesting thing that's happened to me in a long time." It lowered it's head so close to Roman, he could feel the air puffing out of its nostrils. His heart fluttered with bridled panic. A pure-black forked tongue shot out and wagged in front of Roman's face for a split second before retreating back inside the demon's maw.

"Tell me how to break this curse," Roman said carefully, fully aware of the foot-and-a-half long fangs that could impale him at any moment.

The demon was silent for a moment. "And what will I get in return for this information?"

"Whatever you want. I don't care."

"You don't know what you're agreeing to, little prince." The circle constricted, the creature's cold, smooth scales gliding across Roman's back. "I could have you live in solitude for the rest of your days. I could make you murder your friends and drink their blood. I could curse all of your children to hate you from the moment they were born. Are you prepared to make such a deal?"

Roman paled. He hadn't thought about it like that. Regardless, he wasn't in the best of positions to refuse the deal, now. The demon had him exactly where he wanted him, and could probably kill him in less time than it took to blink. Was he willing to risk living a life worse than death for the possibility of it maybe working out in his favor? The odds were... astronomical. But it was the only other option. Suddenly finding himself staring down the very real possibility of death, he didn't crave it as much as he'd thought. He wanted to stay, to see his friends fulfill their hopes and dreams, to find someone who loved him and have a family, to live.

He wanted to live.

"Decide quickly, little prince, before I lose my patience."

"I am," Roman blurted, glancing nervously at the demon's body, which was close to becoming uncomfortably tight around him. "I'm prepared to make the deal."

                                                * * * * * * * * * *

Deary me, you seem quite upset, kitty, Ursula commented inside his mind. Virgil's heart might as well have frozen solid. He knelt motionless at the base of the tree, staring blankly at the empty metal box in his hands.

This can't be happening, he thought hopelessly. He felt Ursula's playful demeanor intensify.

What have you found, kitty?

He didn't respond. He couldn't wrap his mind around what he was seeing. Or rather, what he wasn't seeing. Had someone stolen it? But who? Ursula was halfway across the world right now, and there were protective runes around Wakeby. Even if she had managed to break through, she couldn't have gotten in without alerting Virgil first. No one else knew about the box... right? But Ursula sounded so confident and smug. She had to have something to do with it.

Where is it?

He could practically feel her mischievous grin through their mental connection. I'm sure I don't know what you—

"Where is it? What have you done with it?! GIVE IT BACK!!!"  he wailed both aloud and in his mind. His voice was deep with overtones of something not quite human. Like Ursula had said, his core was showing. In that same second, a stab of icy hot agony tore through his mind, catching him completely off guard. He didn't stand a chance. Ursula entered and Virgil was immediately shoved to the back corner of his mind, unable to do much of anything aside from ram himself against the insurmountable mental barriers keeping him at bay. It was no use. He could feel his body immediately take on a different posture, its shoulders relaxing and its head cocking to the side curiously as it stared down at the empty box in its hands.

"Well, would you look at that," Ursula commented with Virgil's mouth, quirking it up into a smirk. "It seems you've got some hunting to do, kitty."