#tw death (is decaying into skin cells death?)

[st4rb04rd]

Hey ik you guys probably don't care but i dont see my therapist until next week and tumblr is basically my second therapy, so i might as well type out another lengthy vent :)

(I'm sorry in advance)

So today was probably one of the worst days for me, despite yesterday being basically just as bad. I wanted to decay into a discarded pile of dead skin cells in my chair during italian, and i think the boys in the back of the class were calling my name, but i didn't answer for pretty obvious reasons. Someone who hates my guts knows my preferred name and is now tourturing me by randomly yelling it. I remembered that one time last year when i went a little cuckoo and got a pair of (supposedly) child-safe scissors from my nightstand and cut my knuckles, and i then got a feeling that i should have done it again, which might happen later today. In computers, i got really frustrated when i couldn't figure out how to do the code correctly. It gave me anxiety for no reason, and my chest felt tight. I almost threw my headphones. I then got frantic trying to find music i could listen to because the silence was deafening to me, and i needed something to listen to, but we couldn't use spotify. So i ended up trying to find a music program on scratch, which didn't go well, and only made me more anxious and frustrated. Then the school day ended with me being later to the bus than i usually am, which meant that my special seat was taken. And i felt icky, because that's the only seat i like, and the only one that makes me feel good (it's the one with the wheel well on the left side btw). I was also stimming way more than i usually do, and that made me anxious. I think i was overstimulated the whole day, but i have no idea.

Anyway, that was my day. How was yours?

[chunkypossum]

I know one or two people are waiting for a new chapter on Kerosene over on Ao3 so here is an update!

It’s complete!

… Sort of … Kerosene is completely written including:

25-30 chapters (some might be broken into two as I edit)

2 epilogues in a ‘choose your own ending’ style

1 chapter in an entirely new fic that jumps off from the end of one of the epilogues.

So the next steps in the process will be:

edit the drafts of chapters 20-30.

Then I will check through the whole thing for inconsistencies. I think some minor things might need to be changed in previous chapters.

Update past chapters, tags and descriptions

Set up a posting schedule for the last few chapters!

If you think you wanna be on a tag list for this fic just dm me and let me know.

Excited to share the rest of this story with y’all! For spoilers without context for new chapters scroll to the end …

There is something sinister targeting the courts of Prythian and the Night Court’s Spymaster finds it increasingly aggravating that he can’t pinpoint the source. What will he decide to do when he is faced with the possibility of losing so much, even things he didn’t realize he had?

TW: violence, torture, child abuse, contains smut 18+ only please!

Ch. 1 Snippet.

Drip. Drip…… Drip. The echo of water on stone is his only lullaby, his only steady comfort in a world of darkness. Darkness so deep it has settled in his bones and manifested itself in wisps of consciousness that skate over his skin cooling the still healing burns on his hands. If it weren’t for the comfort of the shadows Azriel wasn’t sure he would have bothered waking up after passing out during the torture his brothers had put him through. His father had been furious at Azriel for allowing them the opportunity to do such damage.

‘I had a plan that is wasted now unless you regain use of your hands.’ He had screamed, spittle from his mouth hitting Azriel on his cheeks, already damp from his useless tears. Azriel knew he messed up when he trusted that his brothers meant him no harm. He had always been desperate for their attention, even if that attention ultimately hurt him, which it always did. He thought this time might be different, and in a way it was different, it was much worse than it ever had been before. Apparently, lighting bugs on fire until they popped had lost its charm and they had wanted to see what his flesh would look like as it bubbled and crisped under their ministrations. They had been delighted.

Eventually, he had passed out from the pain, waking up only briefly to hear his father screaming at him before passing out again. At some point, his hands had been bandaged but they still felt like they were on fire. IT was a feeling he would live with for a long, long time.

Azriel didn’t know what it meant to die but death’s song sang to him anyway. It had sounded so sweet in that inky blackness of his mind and he had been so tempted to follow it wherever it led. It was only those shadows, incessantly tugging and whispering to him that kept him tethered to his body.

Not yet. Not now.

They chattered.

Someday. Someday. Not yet. Not now.

‘I’m ready now.’ He tried to tell them but they just brushed cool tendrils into his matted, shaggy curls rousing him from blissful sleep.

The smell of stagnant water and decaying moss in his lightless cell greeted him first, even before the pain of the burns. That pain rose slowly to greet him as he opened his eyes and sat up. Little whimpers escaped his lungs and fell away in the dark while he tried not to bend or flex his fingers beneath the bandages.

Azriel could taste the salt caking his cheeks still damp with tears he had been shedding even in his sleep. The shadows whispered snippets of conversation to him they had gathered from the house and village above and around him and his young brain pieced together the news. His brothers had been sent away to his father’s country estate to the south somewhere, someplace he would never see. The villagers had eagerly spread the news that his sons had been spirited away in the night, a scandal that they were desperate to learn more about. No one could truthfully claim they knew the whole truth, yet many tried.

Azriel didn’t understand most of what was said, but what had become horribly obvious to him was the fact that no one mentioned him at all. Not that it was expected, he had known his father kept him locked away for a reason but he hadn’t realized that reason was to make sure no one knew he even existed down here.

Maybe he didn’t exist. That thought was almost comforting until a pain, bright and hot, exploded from his hands as he absentmindedly tried to clench them into fists. He nearly passed out from the pain but as quick as it bloomed, the shadows were there, soothing and banking the fire cutting across his skin. If he existed he must be crazy at the very least, to find friends in the shadows. That must be why his father would rather people don't know he existed, something was wrong in him, broken in him....

You can find the rest on Ao3

_______________________

Spoilers without context for the new chapters:

[wickedsrest-rp-archive]

Supernatural Diseases - Undead

Note: Please message us if you plan on using these! We just want to coordinate to make sure there’s no doubling up at the same time.

Vampire:

Twilight Syndrome: Coming about seemingly at random, and resolving itself after a few days to a few weeks, Twilight Syndrome is a skin rash that’s itchy and uncomfortable. The rash appears to sparkle whenever light of any type hits it. Previously, this condition was unnamed. Then Twilight happened.

Sired Personality Disorder (chronic illness tw): A vampire begins to take on personality traits of their sire, sometimes going so far as to experience some of their memories and lose track of their own personality. This can occur as a result of a vampire holding their sire in very high regard and trying to emulate them, or as a result of intense emotion directed toward their sire. While this can resolve over time, the fastest way to fix things is to put emotional distance between sire and fledgling vampire.

Fasting Fangs: Primarily arising in vampires who gorge themselves too much, fasting fangs is a fungus that grows within the mouth of the vampire, especially on the fangs. It makes blood taste extremely foul, leading to vampires not wanting to feed which in turn can lead to feral bloodlust and loss of control. Supernatural antifungals taken orally and chewed can resolve this in a couple of weeks.

Garlic breath: A fungus, possibly related to the one that causes Fasting Fangs, that grows on dead cells and can cause the vampire’s breath to smell foul, making it harder for the vampire to feed on people. Requires some very special mouthwash.

Methuselah Torpor (chronic illness tw, terminal illness tw): A condition that afflicts some very old vampires where they will stay in “slumber” within their coffin for increasingly long periods, their mind astral projecting to times and worlds beyond. Sometimes the condition is so severe that the vampire will need others to feed them.

Sun Pox (chronic illness tw): While the cause of this condition isn’t yet understood, vampires (as well as lampades) can become highly sensitive to all light, rather than just sunlight. This causes them to develop painful rashes when in contact with even the very low doses of UV light emitted by indoor lights and bulbs. The rashes can be treated with supernatural ointments, but the underlying condition may take some time to run its course.

Zombie:

Corpse’s Revenge (chronic illness tw, terminal illness tw): Occasionally, a pathogen might come along for the ride as a zombie is chowing down on human meat. Corpse’s Revenge is caused by a prion leading to decay even when the zombie is adhering to regular feeding. The extremities (fingers and toes) are the first to start rotting, and they end up trapped in a cycle of falling off, only to immediately regrow and fall off again. The zombie’s veins and arteries turn a muddy black and their skin begins to slough off. Afflicted zombies will smell like decomposition, though this may not be as horrifically noticeable in the early days of infection. This can be treated by eating a chickcharney or other supernatural bird a few times a week for a couple of months. It might be best to set up a coop for them.

Fisher King Syndrome (chronic illness tw): Sometimes exposure to supernatural healing substances or life energies triggers a condition that is preceded by a returned vividness of sensation, leading some zombies to wrongly believe that they have returned to life. However, the afflicted zombie ceases to regenerate, creating a situation where they have the same ability to feel pain as the living, but their wounds will perpetually hurt without ever healing. The condition requires the afflicted to be bitten by another zombie and experience the pain of ‘death’ and resurrection all over again, otherwise it will persist.

Prionic Recognition (chronic illness tw, memory loss tw): While it is normal for zombies to sometimes take on personality traits from brains they consume, Prionic Recognition occurs when these recollections are especially vivid, sometimes including true memories, skills from the dead, and flashbacks. However, the zombie becomes lost in the consumed person’s personality, taking on their memories, prejudices, and sometimes their life’s mission. The cure requires a very carefully measured portion of nepenthe.

[yandere-daydreams]

Another Yandere!Dabi/Reader piece for the very lovely @goretillery​, as a spiritual continuation of this commission. For the sake of clarification, assume this takes place after the manga’s current arc is over, when Dabi is left with a few more issues than friends. For the drama alone, really.

Word Count: 1.7k

TW: Minor Spoilers, Mention of Injury, Implied Death, Imprisonment, and Wing Clipping. 

It was all you could do to stay still.

The pain hadn’t faded, not in the slightest. Your fight with Dabi had been hours ago, days ago, maybe. You couldn’t be sure of time down here, splayed across a bare mattress in the basement of one of the League’s hideouts. True to his word, he’d found somewhere so deep and so desolate, even the air carried a lonely chill, your cell absent of window or clocks or much of anything, spare a few of your captor’s personal items, mundane and sentimental and meaningless to you. Entertainment wasn’t a problem, though, not right now. Two broken ribs ached in your chest, a dislocated ankle limiting your movement to short, stumbling steps. Minor scratches and bruises made it so you never had to search for a new source of petty irritation, but you could hardly summon the energy to care about any of that.

Your wings were all you could focus on.

Or, what was left of your wings, rather.

Dabi hadn’t been careful. He was angry, he was furious, and he wasn’t thinking. You could only be glad they hadn’t been completely incinerated, really, considering just how hot everything had felt in the moment. The roots of each were charred and blackened, stripes of burnt down and insulating-feathers drawn across the once perfect pair. He’d pulled out handfuls at a time, leaving sporadic, bare patches littered across your appendages, scarred over flesh currently struggling to heal itself. If your arches hadn’t been broken in the struggle, it would’ve been a miracle, considering the fractures that seemed to run through every other microscopic bone. You could hardly roll over without bringing yourself to tears, let alone moving your wings in any meaningful way. You’d tried to fold them, when Dabi first left you alone, tuck them into your back in order to wallow in your self-pity a little more comfortably. You thought it couldn’t be too bad. That even if they were hurt, the numbness should've set in, by then.

You’d started crying as soon as you made the first crease. You hadn’t really stopped, yet.

If Dabi felt any sort of sympathy, he didn’t make a show of it. You heard the solitary door close in the distance, but any greetings or footsteps were lost on you, your pulse still beating deafeningly in your ears. He clicked his tongue as he saw you were still curled into the same ball he’d left you in, and space your body could’ve taken up occupied instead by your outstretched wings, laid sloppily across any surface they could think to cover. He tapped your shoulder as he passed, watching as you recoiled and winced, before moving on seemingly unaffected, dropping whatever he was holding onto a splintering, decaying table, one that looked like it may collapse under more than a handful of pounds.

“Still pouting?” You didn’t answer, curling further into yourself, and he sighed, shaking his head. If you didn’t know better, you’d say that was his interpretation of an empathetic response. “Must really hurt, then.”

There was a rustling of plastic, the scratch of rough fabric against leathery skin. The room smelled like a bonfire, after a few seconds. How’d you ever get used to the burning smell? Did he even notice it, anymore? You felt the mattress dip under his weight, Dabi seating himself behind you, reaching over the small space and hooking his arms under yours, dragging your crumpled body onto his lap. You hissed as he did so, every bone under your skin rejecting even the smallest movement, but Dabi didn’t seem to take notice, only positioning you to sit facing him, left to lean against his chest and hide your face in his shoulder. He supported himself on the bare wall, in return, leaving your dependency mercifully unspoken.

“It doesn’t really stop. The pain, I mean,” He admitted, running an idle finger down the length of your spine. You reacted before you could think, operating off instinct and letting your wings tense at your sides, straightening despite the sharp, jagged needles that seemed to embed themselves in your skin. You didn’t dare let them drop, fearing the inevitable outcome, and he seemed satisfied with that, draping an arm over the crock of your neck and tracing meaningless shapes into whatever his hand landed on. “Everything heals over, or… scars, I guess. You learn not to whine about it, but it won’t go away. Not if it’s bad enough.” He paused, sighing. “It doesn’t hurt as much, though. You’ll start looking forward to it, eventually. Anticipating it.”

“I don’t want to enjoy it,” You mumbled, your voice muffled by a soot-stained shirt. “I want it to stop.”

He chuckled, softly, his fingers closing around one of the smooth, glossy feathers that covered the exterior of your wings. He gave it an experimental tug, and you whimpered, but Dabi acted before you could spit out protest. One harsh, steady pull was all it took to drag the feather out by its stem, the sting etching itself into your flesh, seeping downward with each passing second. He brought it to your side, letting you peek at it out of the corner of your eye. Bent and broken. You weren’t sure what you’d been expecting. “Then you’ll have to tear it out,” He explained, finding his next target. A newer one - a blood feather. It barely put up a fight, when he plucked it. “The faster you get rid of whatever hurts, the faster everything else’ll get better.”

You groaned as his attention shifted, moving towards your left wing. With his free hand, he jabbed at the peak of your arch, and you screamed as the appendaged drew back, leaving the points of each within arm’s length. You grit your teeth, your eyes already beginning to tear up. “Someone should’ve flayed you, in that case,” You grunted, fighting to keep your voice even. “I’d be happy to do it now, if you’re up for it.”

“Aw, baby, you know how riled up I get when you talk like that.” Nails scraped against the base of a primary feather, sending a shudder up the length of your spine. You noticed you were trembling, then, shaking like a leaf in the wind, but steeling yourself wasn’t an option. Instead, you grit your teeth and told yourself Dabi hadn’t noticed, yet. “I used to do this kind of thing for a friend of mine. One of those real laid-back guys, the type to take worse care of himself than you do.” He paused, stopping to think. “You’ve heard of Hawks, yeah?”

“You know I have,” You said, your irritation making itself apparent. “Everyone has.”

He didn’t seem to care for your tone. Dabi chose that moment to reveal what he’d been hiding, and suddenly, you weren’t sure how you hadn’t noticed it before. The shape in his pocket, long and pointed, a handle just the right to fit the shape of Dabi’s hand at the end. It didn’t take you long to identify the tool, already preparing to ask him why he’d brought a pair of scissors, but something was off. They were longer than an average pair, sharper. More similar to garden shears than anything. “He was a stand-up guy, wasn’t he? A hero, an idol…” He trailed off, slipping his fingers into the grip tentatively. As if he wasn’t sure what he was going to do with them, yet. “I’m sure you looked up to him. Similar quirks and all.”

You did. You’d been convinced you were going to be just like him, when he was still a rising-star. Quirks like yours were so rare, and considering how fragile wings tended to be, only a handful of Flying Heroes had ever made it into the spotlight, even with the secondary abilities they tended to have. But, Hawks was gone, now, and you wouldn’t be surprised if you followed a similar fate, sooner or later. You shinked into yourself at the thought. “He was amazing.”

“He was,” Dabi confirmed, his touch ghosting over your waist. Remembering the minor weapon, you attempted to straighten your back, to move and get away from him, but your muscles were already growing sore at the thought alone, every cell in your body rebelling violently. Dabi only chuckled, taking hold of the thin root of your left wing, where the appendage attached itself to your back. You didn’t doubt that he could shatter the delicate bone with his bare hands, if he tried.

“And I’m sure you wanted to be just like him.”

You nodded. You couldn’t think of anything else to do. “I didn’t--”

“You’re nothing like him.” There was a new fire in his voice, passionate and firm, but he dragged you into him regardless, holding you tight as he made a grab for your wingtips. “He was a liar, and a spy and a bastard. The only person he ever cared about was himself and his little Hero Commission.” The words were spat with enough disdain to startle you, your struggle taking a turn towards a full-blown frenzy. Dabi only bared his teeth, his silent threat doing more than enough to pacify you. “You’re nothing like him. You’re not gonna fly away the moment something better comes along.”

The shears were raised, the clippers, and you stopped trying to hold yourself back, sobs racking through your chest and choking you, your terror as obvious as it was ugly. Luckily, that seemed to reach Dabi’s cold, shriveled heart, but all it earned you was a fleeting kiss to the top of your head and a soft hum, neither doing much to comfort you.

“Let’s call it a ‘safety measure’, alright?” You felt him choose his target, the closest feather to your wingtip, sharp edges soon entrapping it on either side. One of many that’d soon be cut short. “Just a little something to ease my mind. It can't hurt worse than what I tried last time.”

He was lying. You knew he was lying. All he ever did was lie.

But, all you could do was hold still and make sure the damage wouldn’t be permanent as the blades snapped together, a severed feather falling silently to the floor.

You wondered why you’d ever bothered trying to leave the ground in the first place.

[batshitasian]

Intemartecium- 1. Incarcerated

Dramione- Voldemort wins AU

ON WATTPAD @batshitasian 

TW: Mentions of SA/r*pe, Violence, Death, Mature Themes

Word count- 4948

I will be updating regularly on Wattpad.

~

STRAGGLED FOOTSTEPS were swamped out by the rain, crippling the air.

"They're here early," the blonde girl buzzed from between the bars, "have you been counting?"

Hermione Granger let herself rest upon the freezing wall of her cell, "Not today."

The similar shoes of Augustus Rockwood were coming down the staircase, each girl's eyes perking up. Behind him followed a familiar face, one that hadn't been seen by them since the Battle of Hogwarts.

The dazed witch kept babbling, "They're three days too early. The second of January isn't until tomorrow, and mealtime isn't for a couple more hours-"

Ginny pulled Luna back from the bars of their shared space, "Hush, Luna. They're coming our way."

The harsh clangs of the keys that sat in the loophole of Rockwell's pants echoed in their ears. A hood was over the stranger's face, none of them able to see him due to his obscurations.

"What do you want?" Lavender Brown snottily spat from the cell across from them. A sigh of relief escaped the other girls' lungs when she didn't say anything out of line. Her hair was matted to her head, her appearance significantly more untidy than the other girls.

Everyone thought her to be mad, the glisten of insanity so prevalent in her eyes with every waking moment in the dungeons.

And as the seasons changed, Hermione took note of her fellow cellmates' mental decline; Lavender Brown had an undiagnosed case of Schizophrenia.

They'd discover her talking-- sometimes screaming-- to herself at night. It was almost disturbing to listen to.

During the day, they tried their best to keep Lavender quiet; any disturbances she caused would have her dragged to Alecto Carrow. Each time she'd return to her fellow prisoners, her condition worsened.

Rockwood came to the door of their cell as his accomplice stayed in the shadows, "I'm here for Lovegood."

Hermione stood up from her cot, no longer suppressing the urge to protest. Her throat was dry, and her lips were chapped as she steadily came to the rusty bars of her cell.

Ginny didn't hesitate to step in front of her friend and take her hand, panic rousing her dry throat. "What are you doing?"

The man stepped into their space, his nostrils flaring as he approached the red-haired girl who puffed her chest out and stuck her chin up.

Hermione's brows furrowed as she turned her head to the two girls through the strips of metal beside her, "Be careful, Ginny."

The man continued his advance, backing them into a wall.

"You can't take her! She hasn't done anything wrong-"

Smack.

Ginny soothed a hand over her stinging cheek. Her face turned in the other direction. After all these years, the Weasley girl hadn't lost her spirit.

Not with Luna beside her, at least.

There was no response from the hooded figure.

Rockwood let out a chuckle as he roughly grabbed the blonde by her upper arm, his unrelenting grip provoking her to resist even more, "Come on, you little brat-"

"Don't touch her," the man huskily muttered from the shadows.

His voice was familiar. Almost nostalgic to Luna.

The dirty death eater's hold on her faltered as she turned to look back at Ginny, who wore a perpetual scowl.

Her heart ached as she looked at her friend.

"If you hurt her, I'll kill you," Ginny heaved, getting up from the floor, "Don't listen to them, Luna. They're going to--"

"Come, Lovegood," the figure stood at the archway of her cell, his towering frame nearly too broad to fit in the doorway, "Now."

He offered his hand to her, taking a step into the dark chamber.

Hermione observed silently, taking mental notes in her head of their interaction.

A flush of speculation came across Luna's cheeks in the dim torchlight. She studied the man's calloused hands, taking them into hers as Rockwood continued to glare at Ginny.

Clearly, the cloaked man was a higher rank of Death Eater than Rockwood if he granted him the leniency of time.

Her delicate, trembling fingers came across the palm of his hand, studying the lines across them.

A pair of soft brown eyes could be seen staring at the skin that peeked out of Luna's sleeve, accompanied by a handsome face.

There were burns where shackles used to lay. For a while, they kept her under magic suppressing irons because Luna could easily use wandless magic. But soon enough, her power found its way into the graveyard in her mind, where it lay buried ever since. She was one of the only ones who didn't have access to magic anymore. They had tortured the essence out of the witch until it was controlled-- and soon-- dormant.

Luna stared up at him absent-mindedly and dropped his hands. "You're supposed to be dead."

"Unfortunately for you, I'm not."

"Where are you taking her?" Hermione spoke up. The man now turned to her so that she could see pale skin underneath his hood.

Lavender perked up, "If You-Know-Who sees he's missing a--"

"Voldemort," Hermione corrected. Her glare was stiff on Rockwood, who was ushering Luna and his accomplice out of the cell. "His name is Voldemort."

"I'll cut your tongue out, mud-blood," Rockwood threatened.

Their threats weren't empty.

Fleur Delacour was the only one who had stayed silent in their section of the dungeon. A spell had been cast that permanently stole her voice. She did too much screaming, you see, and for good reason too.

She delivered a stillborn baby boy due to complications after watching Bill's death.

Bill's death was public, almost two years ago. He was chosen to duel one month. His partner was Ginny, and she was forced to kill him. And God knows he'd never hurt his baby sister.

Moreover, Fleur's cellmate was knocked out from a session with Dolohov. Poor Cho had it the worst. Some of the death eaters had a certain fetish for her race, making her an excellent target to fulfill their needs.

Lovegood began to walk up the stairs, her weak eyes meeting the rest of the captives before the cloaked man followed her up.

"Luna, stop!" Ginny cried as her fingers grasped at the rods of metal, "Please don't take her-- She hasn't done anything-"

Rockwood shut her up, "Crucio."

A deafening shriek penetrated their eardrums as she was thrown back to the dirty floor of her cell, Hermione's eyes widening at the sight.

"Stop it!"

"You stay away from her!" Luna shouted. Her call was soft yet demanding. A hand was placed around her waist, which silenced any more protests.

"Quiet, Lovegood," he pulled her back so that she was against him, "Not another word from you or you're next."

"I'll see you soon," she delicately called out. "I promise."

Rockwood stopped his assault, a smirk across his ugly features as he looked down at the girl who stood still against the floor, "Blood traitor."

A horrified glance was exchanged between all the girls as Ginny let out a quiet sob, her hand twitching on the floor. She laid still, but Hermione knew exactly what was racing through her mind.

The footsteps ceased as the three left, Luna being left in the hands of whatever wretched death eater had requested her presence.

"Ginny," Hermione reached through the bars, holding her ankle and rubbing soothing circles on the flesh, "it will be okay. I promise you'll see her again--"

"Did they take her to Dolohov?" Cho had woken up, still drowsy from the drugs they'd administered to her. She rubbed her eyes and noted the absence in the cell diagonal from her and Fleur.

Lavender groaned and sat on her cot. Underneath her breath, she muttered to the wall, her hands moving as if she was speaking to someone. "Luna's better off dead if she's with him," she covered her mouth, whispering to the illusions conjured by psychosis.

The girls tried to ignore her.

"Is everything okay, Cho?" Hermione asked, peeling her eyes away from Ginny only for a moment, "Do you want me to have a look at you--"

"No," she shook her head quickly, "No, thank you."

She nodded.

There was no form of consolation that could be provided for any of them. It was best not to talk about it.

"Try to rest," Hermione raised her brows at the three girls at the other side of the room, "We'll all need it before tomorrow."

A nod of acknowledgment was reciprocated between the group as they assumed their resting positions.

Ginny began to shift and shiver as she pushed herself off the ground. Hermione moved the contact from the girl's ankle to her hand as she collected her bearings, tears tinting her eyes with their shine. Their heads rested together between the bars.

"Match my breathing, Ginny," Hermione suggested, slowly taking an exaggerated inhale, "Come on."

Ginny had clung onto Luna for three years now; they were almost inseparable. Hermione perceived it as codependency.

She took an observation of Lavender, who sat up with her eyes pried open.

Everyone at school always thought Luna was out of it, but as the years passed, Luna's thoughts tended to wander less. Soon, those soothing voices that she heard began to disappear, and she only heard her own.

The voices that Luna heard were in correlation to her belief in the afterlife; Lavender's, however, strayed far beyond the veil of death.

Hermione analyzed her jail mates as they drowned in the tides of distress, their minds bobbing at the surface of the unforgiving waves of brutality for so long. She watched their spirit rot, followed by their minds, and finished with their heart.

It was only a matter of time before she'd decay too.

Fleur's eyes began to flutter shut as Cho faced the wall, curled up into a ball.

Soon, Hermione began to hum a lullaby. A simple tune, something she'd learned on the piano when she was young. It brought her solace. The vibrations were comforting as they steadied the rhythm of her rampant heart, blending with the vulgar lament coming from down the hall.

The boys never cooperated without a fight.

~

"McLaggen was screaming again, wasn't he?" Ginny muttered to her brother, taking a bite out of the stale bread served to them on corroded metal plates. "Infighting again?"

"With Ron," George muttered weakly, not touching his food, "I wouldn't say it was entirely Cormac's fault either."

"How's his temper?" Hermione frowned, fervent to know the status of his crumbling psyche. "After the last battle, I didn't expect him to get any better."

They looked to Ron, who sat with Dean and Neville. He had been dodging Hermione and what was left of his family for the past month out of the humiliation of what he'd done.

He was chosen the most often out of any of them.

Ron's musty, worn features reminded Hermione of Horcrux hunting with him and Harry. This time, his attitude was worse than when he wore that necklace.

As the years went on of their routine, most of them had grown accustomed to the fact that they'd all fall prey to the killing curse from one another's hands. Ron, however, had sandbags upon his shoulders. He dragged those weights around him, unable to let them go.

"He needs to learn to forgive himself for Hannah," Seamus came next to them. He had heard their entire conversation. "She wasn't gonna last here anyways. Weasley did her a favor--"

"It could be you today," Hermione cut in. Seamus had always been unafraid to speak up. "It's best not to talk about what we've all done for survival."

Ginny focused back on her plate, the stale bread and cheese unable to sustain them for long. Some days, they'd get fed stew when there were leftovers from the cafeteria.

"You didn't sleep again, huh. Granger?" George nudged her as he noticed the bags underneath her eyes. She always had them. Since they were kept underground, the concept of time was almost immeasurable. The dungeons of the Ministry of Magic had driven plenty of them mad.

"It was loud." She nodded, not wanting to talk about Luna's departure.

Ginny sat next to her, acting unfazed yet so blatantly impaired. Her fingertips were trembling-- they had been all morning. The repercussions of the Cruciatus Curse were blatantly obvious.

"You should eat, George," his sister suggested, eyeing his food. "You should be at full strength today--"

"Have it," he grimaced, drawing his stare over to behind Hermione. She turned around to follow his gaze.

"George, I--"

"Take it, Ginny."

Hermione and the last Weasley twin tore their glance away from the figure that stood in the doorway.

Draco Malfoy gazed at the wall, sweat glistening off his brow as he walked into the room full of people.

All of them were scattered in litter groups with their remaining classmates. Most of them were quiet, keeping to themselves as they tried to stomach their meals. There were about fifty of them left. There used to be roughly two hundred. Some died from early suicide attempts, the other from the battles. Most of them had died in the first three months when they'd fight with the guards. However, the Dark Lord made a rule of 'no killing the prisoners.'

He made sure each death was public. It kept his supporters and the rest of the wizarding world well aware of his power.

It ensured no rebellion.

Draco's face was expressionless as he took to his usual corner. No one talked to him, really. He was Cormac's cellmate, but other than that, there was no reason for any of them to address him. He had, after all, bullied at least half the room in their schooling days.

Malfoy had fallen from grace in the Wizarding World not only once-- but twice.

"Have a good morning, mate?" Cormac taunted him. "I see you've warmed up for today."

During the Battle of Hogwarts, he chose the right side, but it was also the losing one. There was no praise for him as he betrayed his Slytherin friends and was 'redeemed' in the eyes of the Order. Instead, he was considered a traitor and was punished as such.

The Dark Lord had resulted in killing the Purebloods if they showed retaliation as well, his administration a river that drowned its own fish.

"Ecstatic," he grumbled, coming to his own corner and ignoring another one of McLaggen's pathetic offers at friendship.

Draco had taken these past years to strengthen his frame, his escape undoubtedly arriving soon.  

He wanted to be ready.

He wanted to be ready to reemerge into society as the last victor of the Dark Lord's tournament.

All heads turned as Walden Macnair appeared from the doorway, "It's time."

~

She was dragged out, shackles against her now thin wrists. Hermione had done her fair share of fighting these past moons.

On the 2nd of every month, in remembrance of Harry Potter's defeat, they held a battle between the last of the followers of the Order and anyone in compliance with it.

Three pairs were selected to duel for the amusement of the Death Eaters and their families. Young children were even encouraged to watch, the Dark Lord considered it would be best to show them young.

Annually, in May of each passing year, they'd invite the public to watch.

In the dungeons, they weren't treated half as bad as one would think. Their punishment was far worse than torture.

"Are you feeling okay, Hermione?" Cho Chang muttered from in front of her.

She didn't have the chance to respond as Cormac McLaggen butt into their conversation, trailing behind her with shackles on his large wrists, "Please, we all know the Dark Lord won't risk his Golden Girl on a private match; he's waiting till May. If she's lucky, she won't get chosen until it's just her and bloody Weasley. The 'epic battle' of Potter's famous friends."

Neither of them responded. Even his presence behind them was frightful enough.

The late Hannah Abbott had been taken by the blonde brute before she passed. She was taken by him multiple times.  

Every woman's personal form of punishment.

"Cat got your tongue, Chang?" He chuckled. "Don't worry, we all know you're too popular to let go..."

The girl was never chosen. Cho hadn't been chosen since the day she stepped foot into the hands of the Death eaters because the men simply took too much pleasure with her. But to be honest, she'd rather battle with her peers than be forced to perform another session with one of them again. It truly was a fate worse than death.

"You're vile," Hermione seethed and sent a pitiful look to Cho. The girl had already continued walking.

The Dark Lord sat atop a large granite, throne-like seat, next to Bellatrix Lestrange and Corban Yaxley. His most accomplished subordinates were rewarded well for their series of victories in the first Battle of Hogwarts.

Lestrange and Yaxley were important pillars of the duels. Bella had no hesitation in torturing the contestants in order to increase motivation. Yaxley was proficient in the Imperius Curse, keeping the Minister of Magic completely in his control throughout the battle. If the contenders retaliated or refused to participate, Yaxley made them. The commentators couldn't put a toe out of line with his curse upon them.

The Dark Lord's system worked exceptionally well.

Every other month, they switched off the spectator of the match, a new Order member forced to annotate the strikes cast against the young prisoners. When Ginny and Bill were chosen, Molly was exacted to commentate the murder of her son at the hands of her daughter. Yaxley's curse produced her voice as a sports announcer, her desperate rasp resounding from the walls of the Department of Mystery. She didn't speak for months afterward, repulsed by her sound.

January produced Augusta Longbottom as the interpreter of the match. It always was a bout of irony that someone close to the competitors was chosen.

"Imperio," Yaxley removed his wand from Augusta's harsh gaze, her face turning blank. Her collar was yanked up, bringing her ear to his lips. Whispered words carried her instructions.

"Welcome to the first Occidendum Justorum of the year 2001." The audience of Death Eaters applauded loudly. "This will be an exciting match. Concessions are on the left-wing. Bring out the first pairing!"

Rockwood and Dolohov burst into the arena, dragging the first contestants of the night.

"Ladies and gentlemen, Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil! Both former members of Dumbledore's Army and the Order. The Indian one even accompanied Harry Potter to the Yule Ball many years ago... It's rumored that Potter even lost his virginity to her! Wonder if Weasley has something to say about that?"

Ginny's head bowed in shame as the audience booed at her. Most of the people doing the booing were the grown men. The mothers and children stayed put in their seats, their expressions unreadable.

"Let the games begin!" Augusta was ushered to her seat, chains sprung from the arms and legs of the chair, shackling her in to watch.

Lavender and Parvati stood on opposite ends, both 10 paces away from the center.

Numbers were floating on the ceiling; it was the same charm used to conjure a night sky across the Great Hall at Hogwarts.

"Crucio," she aimed her wand at Parvati, missing by a couple of feet.

Everyone watched as they began to circle each other. Lavender was muttering something under her breath, her hallucinations taking place out in the open. No one could see them but the girl as a crazed look came onto her face.

Draco tore his gaze away, seemingly uninterested and too apprehensive to focus.

He eyed the raven at the top of the arena as it spread its wings.

Fuck that blasted creature.

How envious Draco was that he had the privilege to be free of the punishment he was bound to. The prisoner saw it as a blatant mockery of his situation.

That fucking bird wore his colors as well-- jet black. It was almost insulting.

Resentment was carved in the craters beneath his eyes.

"She's gone mad!" Parvati screeched as she called out to the Dark Lord, trying to get a clear shot at her opponent. "Stupefy!"

The color upon his cheeks was almost sickly as he turned his attention back to the fight. A scream erupted from Lavender's mouth as she began to send red sparks towards the audience, a protective shield protecting the bystanders from any harm.

"I'll protect all of you!" Lavender screamed into nothingness, her stance guarding a corner with wide arms. "Avada Kedavra!"

She missed.

Draco almost laughed.

The rest of the contestants had appalled expressions as they watched Parvarti take another hit. Hermione let out a small gasp as red sparks were sent in every direction.

"Who do you think is gonna win?" Cormac's head dipped down to Hermione as she felt his stubble prick against the tip of her ear. "My bet's on Lavender... we all know how reckless she can be."

"These are lives," Hermione scowled, turning to him with ragged and fierce eyes. "You don't place bets on your friends--"

"I'll do what I please, Granger," he shrugged, turning to face her as a loud gasp emerged from the audience. "Unlike you, I'd like to spend my last moments not bloody miserable all the time--"

"Weren't you caught for fighting with Ron last night--?"

"We have a winner!" Augusta's voice boomed, the undertones of fear coating her pitch. "Congratulations, Lavender Brown!"

Hermione's eyes widened as she took in the sight of Parvarti's lifeless body on the floor. Lavender was still in the corner, protecting hallucinations of people as two guards came to her side, disarming her and dragging her out of the arena.

"Told you," Cormac tilted his head to the side nonchalantly. "Reckless."

Padma let out a heart-wrenching scream, running to her sister, who no one had attended to.

Instantly, more guards were sent out to restrain her as well. Her sobs were silent against the loud cheers of the audience.

"Next up... Dean Thomas and Romilda Vane!" The two were dragged out from opposite ends, as usual, wands in hand.

The next duel began almost immediately.

They moved on from her death too quickly-- almost as if it didn't matter.

There were blind tears down Padma's face. Her hand clawed at what was left of her twin sister as they dragged them in separate directions. They held the breathing twin by the arms... and the dead one by the collar of her shirt-- her face was being scraped across the ground.

The expression on Padma's face was a representation of what almost every prisoner felt. Besides Cormac, there's only one man who would give him a run for his grim reputation-- Draco Malfoy.

Hateful, vicious, and merciless.

Draco sat sulking in the corner before Dolohov came to his side, whispering in his ear. Before the blonde could comply with his orders, he looked up at the five poles that held a prisoner.

Four large poles had Molly Weasley, Minerva McGonagall, Xenophilius Lovegood, and Sybil Trelawny. The fifth one was empty.

Each day, he prayed his mother wasn't in that position.  

He left swiftly, ignoring Romilda, who had already thrown the first shot. No one noticed his disappearance.

"We're saved for another month, then?" Cho's voice trembled as Hermione watched tears crowd at her lash line. Unconsciously, she reached for her friend's hand, trying to squeeze a portion of the charade of courage that Miss Granger radiated.

Hermione squeezed back, the clinking of the metal upon their wrists reminding them that they could easily be next, "Another month..." She had to look away from the scene, unable to watch another one of her classmates murder each other. Many of the others did the same.

She looked up, observing that same raven as it wobbled across the rim of the bowl. Below them was the audience. Then, the pillars of older captives.

Molly Weasley was staring at what was left of her family with tenderness and grief glassed onto her eyes. She was forced to watch her children kill each other for years now. This was the only time she'd ever see them-- when they were about to die.

Ginny refused to kill Bill, through her retaliation, they brought out Molly and used the Cruciatus Curse on her.

They kept her breathing to watch her children kill each other. However, Arthur hadn't survived that far.

That was the consequence of rebellion.

They held Xenophilius Lovegood on a totem too. His eyes searched the line of prisoners for a sign of his Luna, but he never found her. One day, he would understand what happened.  

Their old professors were taken captive as well.

Today, they had McGonagall strung up, her hands above her head in a ragged white gown. Her lips were dry-- bleeding as she begged them to quench her thirst. The once honest and fair composure she held was now abandoned as her head hung low. The poor woman was forced to watch as two generations of her students were killed, if not my Voldemort, by each other.

And Trelawny... She was reminded everyday of how Harry Potter didn't win-- how her prophecy was as good as shit.

Romilda Vane screamed, snapping Hermione back from her daze. Her stare diverted down to Augusta Longbottom, who was heavily sobbing as she narrated Dean Thomas landing a fatal blow on his opponent.

Romilda was dead on the floor.

Cho's sob was heavy in her throat as Hermione held her hand tighter, careful not to draw too much attention. It didn't matter how many times they had seen their friends murdered by each other; it always stung just the same.

"I wanted the girl!" A man called out from the audience and shouted to Rockwood. "She would've been much better use to me, don't you agree?"

"Unless you have a taste for cold pussy," Walden Macnair shouted to him, "I don't think you'll want this one anymore."

Laughs exploded from the men in the audience. They were pigs—every single one of them.

Cormac began to clap slowly; his lack of empathy or any human emotions disturbed everyone in line. Ron sent a dull stare in his direction.

"Last, but certainly not least... the traitor Draco Malfoy and my grandson, Neville Longbottom!" Augusta shrieked, her voice trembling with each word she said. Her expressions were frightful as the two competitors were escorted by no one, meeting the other's hard stares as they prepared to fight for their lives.

"I've been waiting for this one, my Lord..." Bellatrix stood up from her seat, looking at her master, "What a coincidence that my own nephew will be the one to finish the job."

"Ready..." the old woman breathed, the other parents on the totems looking now too.

"Destroy him, Draco!" Bellatrix cackled, a wicked smile dawning on the Dark Lord's snake-like face.

"Set..." Augusta was sobbing as the two boys raised their wands.

"You can do this, Neville," Hermione muttered under her breath, the outcome of this match already wounding her before it had begun.

"Go."

"Expelliarmus!" Neville shouted with an offensive stance.

Draco easily blocked the spell, knowing that he had to drag this fight out longer. The entertainment was what the people wanted the most; he needed to provide that by playing along with these games.

"Protego!" The blonde took menacing steps forward, his pace quickening as he began to block spells cast by Longbottom.

The majority of them had swallowed the pill of Draco being manipulated at sixteen to become an instrument of murder.

But his loyalties were the least of their problems.

"Crucio!"

He did not have a problem killing. He was no longer a sacred boy that was so troubled to find his place in the world. If he could go back to the night he failed to complete his Master's wishes; he would have killed Dumbledore without a second thought.

"Reducto!" Longbottom panicked, Draco's steps corning him as he blocked his offensive spells.

Hermione's hands began to sweat. Her grip on Cho hadn't ceased. If anything, she was now the one squeezing the backbone out of her hands.

The audience was in a frenzy as Malfoy stopped his defensive spells, sending strikes onto Neville's chest.

His hair was unkempt with smudges of dirt upon his cheeks. The sweat that glistened off of his brow was even appealing to some teen girls in the audience.

He was always one of the three pairs in the month of May when the public was allowed to watch. Slytherin girls screamed for him.

"Crucio!" Draco sneered as Longbottom fell to the floor. "Crucio!"

Augusta was forced to remain quiet. The light left her eyes as she witnessed her kin suffer the same fate his parents did by the same line of dark wizards.

McGonagall had long looked away; every adult with the Order did.

And for the first time in so long, Bellatrix gleamed with pride.

It was supposed to be a bitter triumph for each winner, but for Draco Malfoy, it seemed as though it was an easy task.

How else would he pay the price for his freedom? No amount of money could sway the Dark Lord's mind after a betrayal.

He put on a show to entertain the guests... He was a crowd favorite, after all.

"AH!" Neville cried out, tears forming in his eyes as he looked to his Grandmother-- she was the last sight he saw.

"Avada Kedavra."

The crowd went wild.

[legobiwan]

Whumptober #4

“buried alive”

Notes: This one does get a little existential, so TW for contemplation of death. Also, I guess this is my attempt at a ghost story? Kind of???

General Whumptober tag

Whumptober 2020 #1

Whumptober 2020 #2

Whumptober 2020 #3

~~~~~~

There was once a young girl. Now, there have been many young girls in the history of the galaxy - some good, some bad. Some extraordinary, others quite ordinary. You may ask, what about this girl? What was her moral character? What accomplishments did she bring to this galaxy? Was she a princess or a servant? Was she kind to loth cats, did she listen to her parents, do well in school?

We do not know.

And so this girl’s existence should seem of no particular import.

One day, this young girl was walking with her mother by the long grey sea, which watched with infinite eyes, its wet vision stretched long beyond the horizon until it seemed to curve back up again, threatening to swallow the girl whole.

The girl shivered and pulled her silken, brown robe closer to her shoulders.

“What seems to be wrong, dear?” Her mother asked, laying a bony, frail hand on her shoulder.

“I’m cold, mother,” she whimpered, hugging her small arms around her waist.

“Then take my cloak,” her mother answered, wrapping the young girl in a wooly, brown fabric that seemed to eat up her from head to toe. “And let us go to the city where it is warmer.”

And so the young girl and her mother traveled to the city, skyscrapers rising high into the faraway, busy latticework of speeders and hovertrains, their shadows cast long and dark on the pavement below.

The girl held a hand to her chest, panting. The wooly cloak tightening its embrace of her small body.

“What seems to be wrong, dear?” Her mother asked, face half-shrouded in dirty shadow.

“Mother, I cannot breathe,” she gasped, feeling as if the buildings themselves were leaning forward, looming high in the night sky, suffocating the stars and the moon, the light poles and illumination banks. They tilted with silent malice, meaning to trod over the girl’s stomach, her legs, her chest.

“Then let us stop at the store and buy satchel of healing plant,” her mother answered sweetly, unbothered by the malignant angle of the Galactic Bank, or sinister void staring from the unlit windows of the planetary library, her dark-veined hand rubbing against the girl’s back.

And so the girl and her mother traveled to the store, tall, skinny silhouettes of metal and duracrete trailing their every step.

As the girl munched on the sticky, wet leaves of a yurma healing plant, she wrinkled her nose.

“What seems to be wrong, dear?” Her mother asked, head turned towards the long line of empty vendors, their wicker baskets boasting air and shadow and absence, tables empty but for the folded, wrinkled signs written in messy Aurebesh. “Nothing for sale. One hundred credits, O.B.O.”

“Mother, this block smells of decay and rot.”

The girl’s mother spoke, her head still turned towards the empty alley. “Then let us find something to eat, so your tongue may overwhelm your nose.”

And so the girl and her mother traveled to the diner, windows thick with greasy curlicues which seemed to bend on forever.

“Mother, this food tastes of dirt and slime!” the girl exclaimed, her fork clattering on the surface of the table, her vegetables, a pile of sickly brown and green misshapen lumps, forgotten.

“Then let us go to the park and listen to the band, so your ears may settle your tongue,” her mother answered from behind, her shadow stretching long and dark over the girl so she could not see small, pearly maggots burrowing their way through the stretched skin of her broccoli, mouths wet and hungry.

And so the girl and her mother traveled to the park, laying on the damp, cool grass as the band raised their instruments, the conductor’s hammer coming down with a thud as metal bows screeched against metal strings, as flutes of bone and sinew pierced the veil of the night, as drums stitched from the skins of a hundred species beat out a heartbeat long since stopped.

The girl covered her ears with her hands.

“Mother, I cannot hear the band!”

But there was no answer from mother, no words of comfort to be heard over the roar inside the girl’s head.

“Mother, I cannot see you, I cannot see anything!”

For there was only the darkness, the crushing weight of shadow and earth and moisture leaking into her bones and silvery worms crawling up her nose burrowing into her mouth and she reached out her hand to grasp at her mother’s - at Death’s black heart, a thousand cerulean eyes staring back at her, long-fingered veins reaching forward -

“That’s, at least, how the story was relayed to me, Jenza, by the people of Nodoari,” Dooku explained to the phantom of his sister. “You might find it amusing - or perhaps morbid - that they bury their dead, but not quite at the moment of death. Rather, they inter their elderly, their sick, their injured at the brink of existence and non-existence.”

Dooku tried to give a tight smile, his chest heaving in rapid undulations, tongue wrapped around dirt and moss and decay. It wouldn’t be long now, he knew. “The thinking goes,” he continued after a moment’s pause, “at least as I understood it, that the being will experience their best memories - or worst memories - revisit their loved ones and enemies as per their actions in life until death’s shadow greets them from the soil, their final moment preordained in its endless sight.”

Reality began to wrap inside Dooku’s mind, a flurry of bright lightsabers arcing in every direction against the imposing backdrop of Serenno’s snow-crested mountains. Soon, he thought. Dooku did not believe in an afterlife, had never wholly believed in the Order’s teachings that they, as Jedi, would become one with the Force.

No, the darkness he experienced now would be his eternity.

Alone as ever.

And yet…

“I would hope now, Jenza, stuck beneath the earth as I am, that you would be the hand to pull me into the next realm of existence, if there were such a thing, that I would not suffer here alone - “

But the thought was left unfinished as light breached the tomb, a violent invasion of life, of existence tethered at the end of a familiar hand.

~~~~~~

“Come, Master,” Qui-gon rumbled, wrapping an arm around Dooku’s mud-stained waist. Dooku allowed himself to lean against his student’s shoulder, allowed himself to be guided to the nearby speeder where Qui-gon gently deposited his Master into the passenger seat.

Still breathing heavy, Dooku lolled his head to the side, regarding Qui-gon from the corner of his eye, his student’s long air flowing in the breeze and they drove back to the capital.

…and death’s shadow took me by the hand.

Qui-gon peered to the side, frowning. After a moment’s hesitation, he squeezed his hand around Dooku’s.

…as the solid grasp of fate’s long fingers, wrapped around my own

Dooku glanced down at his and Qui-gon’s conjoined hands, shuddering.

“Are you alright, Master?”

…eyes glittering with ancient constellations  

“I…” For a moment Qui-gon’s eyes multiplied, two then four then eight, until they covered his entire face, trailing down his neck, a thousand pupils staring back at him unblinking as the long veins of Qui-gon’s twisted forward.

…the immovable moment of my death writ in an invisible script of element and earth and dust and soil made human.

“I…yes, Padawan,” Dooku muttered, patting Qui-gon’s hand as he straightened his shoulders. “I’m fine.”

Qui-gon regarded his Master with open worry, eyebrows raised, his bright cerulean irises large. Dooku peered into his student’s face, searching for his epitaph etched in pigmented stroma and epithelial cells.

Dooku shook his head. No. He was master of his own fate, as his student would learn to be, as well. The future was not yet written, and Dooku’s death would be his own design.

Adjusting his soiled tunic with a series of familiar gestures that seemed to calm Qui-gon’s concern, Dooku gave a small, polite cough, breaking the tension. “Yes, Padawan,” he said, his voice regaining its usual deep authority, “I am fine, although I must thank you for the timely intervention. Now, let us return to the palace and rid ourselves of this filth. It would not do to confront the Rataraan royal family about their deception in such ragged adornments.”

Qui-gon placed a hand on Dooku’s shoulder, smiling as he steered the speeder towards the city.

As they wound their way through the countryside, through forest and hamlet, Dooku stared to the west, at the long, deep grey sea.

And death’s shadow took me by the hand…

[hermits-that-craft]

Chapter 48

AO3:https://archiveofourown.org/works/23509375/chapters/62655412 TW- DEATH

Protector laughs, her long blue hair flowing behind her as she runs from her twin. They’re young, their 8th birthday was celebrated only a few days earlier. Protector races down corridors, her laughter echoing with her footsteps. 

“Octavia what are you doing?” Night asks her, picking her up and spinning her around as Builder catches up to her. “Why did you leave Alexios behind?”

“We’re playing tips!” Protector, Octavia to her close family, giggles. Night laughs, throwing her into the air before catching her.

“Me next!” Builder, or Alexios, yells, pushing Octavia out of the way. “Me next, please Ceri. Please toss me next.”

“No! Ceri was throwing me!”

“I can throw both of you.”

“Ceridwen!” Octavia wines, pushing her sibling’s leg as they pick up Alexios. “Not fair!”

---

Alexios runs behind Ceridwen, throwing his arms around the older creation’s neck. Ceri smiles sadly, spinning around and picking up the young watcher, not caring that Octavia watches from the corner of the room. Ceri spins Alexios around, and Alexios laughs before Ceri sets him down on the ground once more.

“What can I do for you, little brother.” Ceri says in a fake posh accent, picking fun at the young teen. A sad look rests behind the grin on Ceri’s face. “What’cha want?”

“Why do you look sad?” Alexios asks, concern on his face. Ceri’s face drops and they stand straighter, shaking their head, dark purple hair falling on their face.

“It’s nothing.”

---

Octavia walks with Alexios, wiping sweat off her forehead with a small towel. Blisters litter her hands from the sword and a large one rests on her ankles. She carries her shoes in her left hand, not bothering to wear the shoes around her home. Her long hair, pulled into a bun, is too messy, and she pushes it out of her eyes with frustration.

“I’m going to cut all this hair off one day.” Octavia grumbles to her brother.

“Maybe you could ask Cenn for our 17th?” Alexios suggests helpfully, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

“That’s ages away.” Octavia complains, pouting at her twin. “Why can’t I just cut it off myself?”

“It’s next month.”

“Lexi, would you-”

“No I won’t cut your hair.” Alexios rolls his purple eyes. Suddenly, a loud shout comes from the door they had walked past, and the twins turn back, standing near the door. More shouting echoes out of the room, and Alexios winces as something shatters in the room, before heavy footsteps make their way to the door.

A woman exits the room, dressed in a purple stola, her black hair braided on top of her head, a golden circlet braided into her hair. There are chrysanthemum flowers decaying in her hair. Her eyes hold moths and white freckles light up her skin. Rose blushes, looking away from the goddess of death. Octavia takes a deep breath in, determined to either make a good impression or to make a fool of herself.

“I’m Protector.” Octavia puts her hand out in front of her, waiting for the goddess to shake her hand.

“I will spare you the pain of death in shaking your hand.” The woman smiles. “I’m Amari.”

“That’s a cute name, pick it yourself?” Octavia tries to flirt, and Alexios chokes out a laugh. Amari doesn’t try to hide her laughter, covering her mouth with her hand as she laughs.

“You’re cute.” The goddess teases. “But I’m not interested.”

“Fair.” Octavia smirks. “What are you doing in this realm?”

“Finding out a prophecy.” Amari’s face falls as she looks at the two watchers. “I won’t bother you two with the details.”

---

Octavia sits in the corner of the library, a book in her hands but she doesn’t read it. Instead, she watcher Ceri as they bite back tears. Octavia doesn’t understand what has made Ceri look at her as though they are going to hurt her, but she doubts that they will. Ceri has always been kind, even under the persona they wear as ‘Night’. Octavia doesn’t understand why Ceri would even think about that. Amari won’t tell her anything about it, and dread builds behind Octavia’s eyes. 

Alexios creeps behind Ceri, pulling them into a hug. Ceri nearly jumps out of their skin, a dark purple blush creeping up their face. Ceri stands, Alexios getting lifted up off of the floor. 

“What do you want?” Ceri asks, leaning over so Alexios can drop off.

“I want to know if you’re alright. You look worried.”

“It’s nothing. Don’t worry.”

Doubt creeps into Octavia’s mind, and she finally starts to read the book in her hands.

---

“Ale - Builder, are you sure that this is a good decision?” Octavia asks Alexios, stumbling over his watcher name. Names have power, and giving out Alexios’ true name would spell disaster, even if they are on Evo, the home planet of the Avians.

“Yes, Protector.” Alexios doesn’t stumble over her watcher name. “We should help them.”

“They will never learn to truly fly if there are no risks. Builder, we learnt over the deep void.” Octavia rolls her eyes, but she glides down onto the forest floor, sending a smile up to the woman in her treetop home. The woman nods, walking inside before she comes out, carrying a small girl with wings like fire agate and hair that flows like the ocean, the messy waves a similar colour as well. Octavia smiles, looking at the girl and messing with her own freshly cut hair, a deeper blue than the girls.

The woman holds the girl over the ledge, and Octavia gasps as the woman lets the girl drop. Every cell in her body screams at her to fly out and save her, to help the little girl despite what she had just said.

The little girl doesn’t cry, her wings snapping open and beating as though this was not the fledgling's first time flying. The small avian flies up to her mother, laughing as the woman jumps off the ledge, helping teach the small girl to fly. 

A cloud covers the sun, and Octavia turns around, spying Ceri hiding under a tree, a bright smile on their face. Octavia is taken aback, surprised that her older sibling would leave their home without their mask. Alexios and her share worried looks, jumping off the treetops to meet them under the canopy.

“You left without the mask. Is everything alright?” Octavia asks. “Night, you never do that.”

“I don’t have my mask?” Ceri lifts their hand to their face, surprise leaving a mark on their expression. “It doesn’t matter, no, none of that matters anymore.”

“What are you on?” Alexios asks, frowning at them. “Night, what the nether are you talking about?”

“I have sons.”

“What?” Octavia laughs, though she can’t contain her disbelief. “What are you saying?”

“Sons. Two of them, twins. It was only supposed to be one, but I don’t care. I love them all the same.” Ceri has a sappy smile on their face, love written along their features. “I didn’t have enough names for them. I’ll need to come up with some.”

“Ceridwen what are you saying?” Alexios says, the forbidden name snapping Ceri out of their daze.

“I have two sons. Please, you have to meet them.”

---

Ceri hums to Xisuma, bouncing him around the nursery as Exavier sleeps in his crib. Octavia watches as Ceridwen puts Xisuma down in his own crib, the baby's purple eyes wide and curious, not yet wanting to sleep but too tired to do anything else.

Ceri turns, the light smile falling from their face as they see Octavia in the doorframe. Octavia smiles, mouthing ‘good night’ to her sibling before slipping out of the doorframe, ducking behind the corner as Alexios steals away to Ceri, throwing his arms around Ceri’s neck for the last time.

“What are you planning, you’ve got the mask out again.” Alexios doesn’t ask, even though it’s phrased as a question. 

“I don’t think we can trust them.” Ceri’s voice is quiet, as though they are admitting a grave sin to an unforgiving audience. “Void, they despise me, Lexi. We can’t trust them.”

“They’re our Cenn. We have to trust them.” 

“They mean harm for Xisuma and Exavier.”

“You have no proof of this.”

“Proof? You speak of needing proof for me to distrust them and yet you do not provide any proof for either of us to trust them.” Ceri turns around, and Protector ducks her head behind the wall. “Come with us, Alexios, Builder. Join us, we can do so much good for the universe. For not only Void but for every being.”

Protector doesn’t stay for much longer, her feet carrying her to Void’s chambers, her mouth telling the god of Night’s betrayal.

---

Guilt tears at Octavia as she flies off into the distance, two small babies crying in her arms. The two sons of Ceri twisting in her arms. Void ordered her to hide them, saying that Night was playing god and going to harm the sons. Octavia doesn’t believe them, having seen how Ceri sings their sons to sleep at night, but she had agreed to this taste. She must follow through, even if she wishes she didn’t.

Surely Xisuma and Exavier will be safer with the void witch that she had been watching. The void witch may be a follower of Night, so she surely will know that the babies are Ceri’s sons. Surely she will know how to raise the babies in the void.

Protector lands on the edge of an end stone island, resting the twins on the ground lightly, drinking an invisibility potion before she runs through the halls and corridors of the temple. She finds the door she has been looking for, slightly ajar with a purple curtain hiding it without moving in even the faintest of breezes.

Protector wakes up the void witch, Octavia leading her to the screaming babies. Xisuma and Exavier stop screaming as the woman comes into view, and Octavia plants the seed of rebellion into the void witches mind before she watches the witch pick the boys up and flee.

Octavia cannot interfere any longer, not even as Protector. She’s broken so many rules already.

---

Protector walks along the world hub with Builder, secretly looking for her missing sibling. She doesn’t know why Builder agreed to come with her on this walk, though she’s glad for the company.

A scream breaks the silence of the peaceful world hub, fearful and young and in pain. Protector runs towards it, light on her feet as dread sets in her chest as the portal to Evo appears in the distance. It’s broken, the bedrock frame cracked and missing parts of it, and lying in front of it, purple wings splayed out atop him, a small boy lies. He would be only a few years younger than Xisuma and Exavier, and his messy blonde hair has dirt and blood on it. His sweater, once white, is stained red with blood and a large burn rests on his side, his sweater still burning.

Builder summons water over the boy, dousing him in water. Protector summons healing potions, throwing them over the boy. He still screams, and Builder picks him up, waving at Protector.

“Find out what happened. I’ll take him home.” Protector only nods, forcing a portal open to the world.

Acrid smoke hits Protector’s nose, and the screams of the dead and dying fill her ears. Evo is alight, the flames licking at the buildings that Protector and Builder helped to erect, at forests that Builder summoned for the avians to live in. 

Bodies litter the floor, some still groaning with pain in their final moments. Some still stand, refusing to die without a fight. Some aid the dying, holding their hands in their final moments. Some do not fall just yet, fighting the arsonists with all their might. Others go out in the air, the smoke sending them to the floor. Night stands in the middle of the smoke, the mask on their face telling Protector that this was an attack planned by the creator of the nether and the void realms. Night looks to Protector and the arsonists vanish, spears going through as many of the living’s hearts as they leave. Those dead still standing fall, and the living raise to stand as Amari walks amongst them silently, invisible to all but Octavia.

Evo has fallen, burnt to a crisp with little left of it to remember it by. The dead stain the ground red with blood, and Amari takes some with her even as they still breath. Amari nods to Octavia, walking past with the dead following behind her. 

Protector takes the living with her, to watcher towers across the universe, hiding them from Night’s wrath. Octavia wants to cry, but she tells Void of Ceri’s crimes. Night deserves to die for this, but Void doesn’t put any price onto Night’s head.

---

Octavia and Alexios sit in some back end bar at the edge of a little known world at the edge of the world hub. Octavia and Alexios look up every time the small door creaks open, waiting for Ceri to come through. Or more so, Octavia looks up, Alexios has already lost himself in drink waiting for their sibling to come. Octavia doesn’t know if they’ll come, if Ceri is too lost to Night to hear the reason that they’ll provide. Surely Ceri wants to come home.

“I’m sorry that I’m late. You have any diamonds?” Ceri’s voice is quiet, sliding into the stool next to Octavia.

“Another round, I’ll buy their first as well.” Octavia puts the diamonds onto the bar, the red slime behind the counter nodding and preparing the drinks. “Ceri, what have you done?”

“I want them back. Void took them, Tavi. They can’t be raised by some stranger. I will find them again.” Ceri swears, taking a swig of the drink that was placed in front of them. 

“You tore apart Evo.” Octavia glares at them, but they shrug. 

“You would do the same. Wait until you have kids.”

“No, Ceri I don’t understand-”

“Of course you don’t.”

“It was genocide, Ceri. You’re lucky that Void loves you, there's no price on your head yet.”

“Void doesn’t love anyone but themselves.”

“Ceri! You made it!” Alexios slurs, taking Octavia’s untouched drink as he finishes his fourth round. “You look sad, penny for your thoughts?”

Ceri and Octavia laugh as Alexios gets up, throwing his arms around Ceri’s neck. Ceri shoves him into Octavia, and the twins laugh as Ceri frowns. 

“You know, I’ve got the most brilliant idea for a world.” Alexios says, leaning against the bar and drinking more of Octavia’s drink. “Everything is wrong. The mountains reach the build height. Everything can kill you.”

“Lexi we’re here to convince Ceri to come back, not to get drunk.” Octavia reminds her twin for the third time that night.

“Shh, let him finish.” Ceri winks at Octavia. “What would live there?”

“Murder sheep.” Alexios says, completely seriously. Octavia and Ceridwen can’t hold in their laughter any longer, laughing at their drunk brother.

---

Protector adjusts her cream coloured stola, a red shall wrapped over her hair and shoulders loosely. She feels out of place in the party, wishing she was at home with her son and brother. Grian has improved so much, he should be alright with Alexios, though Protector worries for him. Alexios cares for him deeply, but he will let Grian stay up late and eat sweets. She can’t focus on that, instead listening idly to King Silas as he describes what the Vex have been up to. Watchers and Vex dance and mill about the room, laughing.

A woman enters the room, dressed in a green mantua style ball gown with gold embroidery. Her long red hair flows over her shoulders, and Protector flushes as the vex woman’s bright blue eyes meet her red red ones. Protector can hardly breathe, her heart hammering in her chest. She excuses herself from Silas’ side, walking over to the woman.

“Hi.” Protector’s voice is small, her nervousness showing through her carefully constructed facade. 

“Hello.” The woman smiles and Protector flushes, unable to think. “Could I have a dance with you?”

“Uh, yes of course.” Protector stumbles over her words, blinking as the woman takes her hand and leads her to the dance floor. “I’m Oct- I’m Protector.”

“My vex title is Rose.” Rose smiles at her, leading Protector through a dance. “It’s nice to meet you.”

The two women dance and spend the night together, hiding behind the columns and in small rooms. Protector can hardly think through the night, laughing with the woman as they sneak through the corridors of the palace. The hide in the palace gardens, in the library, in the kitchens, talking to each other like old friends and sneaking around like lovers.

Perhaps they are lovers, as when the night is over Rose slips Protector a handkerchief and an address, telling Protector to return the handkerchief when she ‘realises she has it’.

---

Octavia steals out of her house, Grian and Builder sound asleep. She sneaks out in the dead of night, flying to a forest far away from her home. Octavia won’t sleep tonight.

“Hello, Protector.” Rose’s voice is quiet as she lands in the clearing. “I’m glad you came.”

“I’m more glad to see you again.” Octavia kisses Rose’s hand, making the woman giggle. “You can call me Octavia, though.”

“You’re giving me your name?” Rose’s voice is quiet, shocked. Octavia steals a kiss from the woman as she leads her into a dance. 

“Of course.”

“My name is Lillian.”

“It suits you.”

“How so?” Rose, Lillian, laughs quietly.

“It’s just as beautiful as you.” Octavia mumbles, spinning Lillian around. 

“Liar.”

“How could I lie to you? You’ve entranced me.”  Octavia pressing her forehead to Lillian’s. “I love you.”

“Through the void and back.”

---

“Hey Mum, you’ve got a letter.” Grian grins over the breakfast table. Builder had already left for some world that had to be customised. Octavia looks up at him, the teenager smirking at him.

“Oh?”

“It’s from that girl you keep sneaking out to meet.” Grian takes a bite of his cereal, smirking. “It’s probably a ‘please meet up again’ letter.”

“How do you know that, young man?”

“Dad’s the only one who can sleep through you getting ready to leave. Honestly, I don’t mind, just make sure you treat her alright.”

“Grian are you insinuating that I don’t already?”

“I’m just saying that you could probably marry her, but you’re too much of a coward to do so.” Grian hands Octavia the letter. “Go on, I’ve seen the ring. Go give it to her before I mail it to her myself.”

Octavia opens the letter, reading the time that Rose wants to meet with her. Sunset, the flower forest near Lillian’s home. Octavia quickly pens a letter to her, Grian reading over her shoulder.

---

Octavia lands in the flower field, Grian insisting on her wearing a nice white shirt and black pants to meet with Lilllian. Lillian stands in the middle of the flower forest, wearing a pink sundress with a large straw hat on her head. Her red hair is pulled into a bun, and Octavia plucks a daisy, tucking it behind Lillian’s ear.

Lillian kneels, pulling out a ring with a red gem centered in it. Octavia gasps before she kneels, pulling out a ring with a blue crystal on it. Lillian laughs, and Octavia picks the woman up, spinning her around the field. They kiss as the sun sets, affianced to each other. Engaged.

---

“Through every world,” Rose says loudly, her wedding vows echoing over the beach and into the dark oak forest. Her dress is a pale gold, with white roses braided into her hair. “I will be with you, sickness and health be damned, my love for you will out number the stars.”

“In every universe, I will be by your side.” Protector finishes the vow, holding Rose’s hands. Protector wears a white suit with a black shirt and a golden tie, and a white rose rests on the lapel of her suit jacket. “You will be in my heart, the thorn in the side of my heart.”

“You may now kiss the bride.” Builder smiles, and Rose pulls Protector into the kiss. The sun glows behind them, casting everything and everyone in gold.

The walk down to the guests, exchanging small pleasantries and teases with the guests. Protector spies Night at the edge of the forest, a small bag in their hand that they place down where they stand before they leave. 

“Congrats.”

“Scar, I didn’t think you would be able to make it!” Rose smiles, pulling her nephew into a hug. “How’s hermitcraft?”

“It’s lovely, I wish you two could see it.” Scar smiles, before looking around the room. “Aw, Protector’s son didn’t come?”

“He was busy. Some civil war that he had to deal with.” Protector shrugs it off. “It’s understandable. Where is your brother?”

“Stuck with the hermits. He gave me a gift to give you both.” Scar hands them a small box. “I left my gift on the table.”

“Thank you, Scar.” Rose kisses his cheeks. “Send Cub our thanks as well.”

“Of course.”

---

“I found something.” Lillian says, sitting on Octavia’s desk. She puts a heavy book down onto the desk, and Octavia looks up, and eyebrow raised.

“What is it?”

“Something to make a kid that would be related to both of us.” Lillian says, showing Octavia the passage. 

“It’s a tough spell, flower.” Octavia mumbles, reading through the spell. “I’m not sure if it would be the safest thing to do-”

“I’ll carry them.” Lillian says. “You can continue your work.”

“That’s the least of my concerns.” Octavia brushes some of Lillian’s red hair behind her ear. “Your health is infinitely more important to me.”

“I think we should try this. We have a nursery, may as well use it.” Lillian’s voice is light, but Octavia remember’s why they built the house. 

“As long as you will be safe” Octavia reads through the spell one more time, carefully looking over the passage. “I think this could work.”

---

Protector jolts upwards, her hand slipping through where Builder should be. She slowly stands, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. It feels like her head has been stuffed with cotton, and she looks around the room. It’s made of marble and quartz and a dark rock that Protector doesn’t recognise. She reaches for her sword to find air where her scabbard should be. She stands, her usual armour replaced with a white peplos. She walks along the black carpet, out of the small room and into a large hall, the building reminding her of an old castle mixed with some ancient greek temple.

Protector finds herself in front of a large, dark oak door, and for the first time ever she feels small. Her heart doesn’t beat in her chest, though she feels nervous. She doesn’t want to know what's beyond those doors, what fate awaits her.

She opens the doors anyways, walking through them. There is no bright light, however there is a woman, sitting atop a red and gold throne, wearing a pale purple stola. A golden circlet rests in her eyes and sadness laces her eyes. Amari beckons Protector towards her, and Protector suddenly remembers the first time that they met. This is the prophecy that Amari had heard. Protector is dead. Protector can’t move, her hand covering her mouth as she tries to stifle a cry. She’s failed, she’s left her family alone with Night. She has fulfilled her end of the prophecy but that does not guarantee anyone’s life.

“You’re an hour late, Octavia.” Amari’s voice is filled with sorrow, pulling Octavia into a hug. “Did you monologue?”

“I don’t want to die.” Octavia cries, falling into the goddess of death's arms. “I don’t want to die. I don’t want to go.”

[vulpineocs]

ALTERNIAN BIOWEAPONRY DATA CACHE: ENTRY 407734 CLASSIFICATION: CLASS A             NECROSIS PURPURA

 ENTRANT: [REDACTED]

RESEARCH FACILITY: {REDACTED]

BIOWEAPON TITLE: Necrosis Purpura

OTHER COMMON NAMES: Purple Death, the Death Virus

[[Please do not read this if you’re dealing with severe COVID anxiety, or cannot handle graphic medical or gorey descriptions, this is a fictional virus]]

[[TW MEDICAL, GRAPHIC BODY HORROR AND GORE, DEATH MENTION AND DISCUSSION]]

VIRUS DESCRIPTION: A severe and fatal virus that spread quickly among the purple populations of [REDACTED] during the era of carnivals, Necrosis Purpura was originally a bioweapon designed to be used by Fleet personnel in their war efforts, released onto alien planets to devastate populations before drones were sent in. However, due to a researcher’s shortsighted behaviour, the bioweapon was released and community spread was immediate and devastating. 

Necrosis Purpura is defined by the liquification of limbs that occurs in its later stages, and has a 100 percent fatality rate. No cure or vaccine has yet been discovered.

Throughout the process of caring for patients with Necrosis Purpura, researchers and medical staff must be wearing full personal protective gear and incinerate all disposable items used in caring for patients. 

CIRCUMSTANCES OF VIRUS APPEARANCE AND COMMUNITY SPREAD: Accidental release, test subject (Panthera Leo) sold to a carnival, patient zero infected via bite.

PATIENT ZERO: [REDACTED]

STAGES OF VIRUS:

STAGE I: Fatigue, vertigo, low fever.

TIME PERIOD: 15 to 16 days after initial exposure.

- Victims described sudden waves of blackouts in 14% of cases. 

- Every infected patient can infect up to 15 other trolls. Super spreaders may infect 30 to 50 trolls before being isolated.

STAGE II: Sudden onset bruising, discolored skin, fever often in the severe category, delerium or confusion.

TIME PERIOD: 6 to 8 days after initial symptoms.

- Delirium is sudden and severe, victim may sometimes need to be restrained due to symptoms. 

- Victims are more easily bruised and damaged, bruisings colouring grey-green color at earliest stage to dark grey, then dark purple at final stage before cell liquification.

STAGE III: Liquefactive necrosis and tissue decay, rapid onset bone decay through osteoblast interruption. Patient may become comatose.

TIME PERIOD: 10 to 12 days after initial symptoms

- Doctors of patients reported that simple movements to attempt to clean up or move patients can cause immediate and sudden comminuted fractures.

- Comminuted fractures are worse in areas with necrotic liquification, with shards of bone being embedded in putrification.

- 70% of patients with Necrosis Purpura at stage III go into a comatose state. If victims at this stage are still conscious, they will be in too much pain to function or remain ambulant. 

STAGE IV: Coma and death.

- 100% fatality rate has been established in all patients.

- Occasional traces of [REDACTED] have been identified in bodies, due to invasions of carnivals that were unable to defend themselves by cannibalistic post-mortem ambulants.

- Bodies must be handled with extreme care so as in order to not pass on the infection. Cremation is recommended of the patient and all items belonging to patient.

METHOD OF TRANSFER: Researchers in {REDACTED] have shown that Necrosis Purpura was spread through contact with other trolls, and traces have been found on surfaces victims have interacted with. The virus is confirmed to be partially airborne and medical staff and researchers are instructed to wear PPE at all times when working.

FATALITY RATE: 100%

FATALITY RATE DETAILS: No victim has ever survived the virus due to its sudden and severe drop into Stage IV symptoms. 

RESEARCHERS ASSIGNED: Dr Arinne Lector, PhD in biochemistry. Dr Violet Deltar, PhD in genetic engineering at [REDACTED]. Both have made advancements in their fields and are researching a cure or vaccine for the virus.

[deviationdivine]

My Desecrated Love (machine!Connor x Reader)

TLDR: In the heart of the battlefield you will not accept the fate of this profane love...

Word Count: 4.5K Follower!Celebration

TW: Angst (Heavy-Suicide), Android Gore, Language, Smut (Heavy), Violence 

A/N: !100 Follower Celebration!: While my poll is open I still wanted to write up something to celebrate the milestone for you guys. I’ve had an influx of more followers since I announced the celebration so I feel it’s the right time to post! This went off the rails into some serious territory so please if you are uncomfortable with any trigger listed skip over loves. I’m not big on the machine!Connor path but I’ve been sucked into my angsty headcanons for him. Thanks to you loves for following, requesting, commenting and being precious beans. 

You let me desecrate you

Ferocious. Devouring. Endless.

Machines do not die or so he told you. Does a lie reveal fallacy? Can it show truth denied so vehemently? 

He denied. Deviancy, feeling and love all parts to a whole that somehow he tears away by choice. Choice itself paints him deviant by heart but not this one. Never will this harbinger of decay spreading his plague over revolution shun mission for emotion.  Still it did not cease this communion of flesh. 

Siphoning life from your body that he takes on willing pleas cast out luscious, sinfully aware you are nothing. To him you are just a means. One that loves him all the same but he does not love. He chooses not to in order to unleash chaos. 

A man-made monster all wire and metallic. You love his unnatural existence. Unnatural as all androids deemed by their creators but Connor is beyond. He is the night shade that poisons your heart.

An all too willing bride to a heinous creation built to destroy all he touches. The moment you saw him should have been enough to know. He marked you from the start.

Never have you felt so close to heaven. In his eyes seemingly soft but all part of programming engineered by Cyberlife.

RK800 most advanced equipped with latest technologies. Programmed to be sociable, to gain camaraderie, integration in the most efficient way possible and he slithered into your soul.

RK800 is a machine not a man at all. Oh but what a man. What a glorious image of the perfect God who lays waste to sinners. He lays waste to deviants. His own kind he will do anything to destroy. 

Not once does he die. Not once does he succumb to failure. Each step casts his shadow like a reaper stretching bony fingers out for a touch of extermination.

That touch burns acidic but you love his astringency. Bitter to taste, salivating in want of his sour tongue. He is raging, dominant and yours. Foolish to think he truly is when he is Mephistopheles incarnate. Deal with the devil calls a deal to your death.

Weaponry is his scythe. Cyberlife jacket flapping in the wind is his cloak.

Can a person really love a monster? Yes.

Can a person love death itself? Yes.

Just ask Persephone.

Connor is god of the real underworld of Detroit. Filled with filthy red ice dealers, insane deviants who kill their masters; Connor is death riding on a pale horse. And you love death with all of your heart. If only he were alive. If only he became alive instead of making you suffer this love. 

Oh, how much you suffer. Oh, how gladly you do. For this cruel, violating, unholy love that should not exist but it does exist eternally.  

If he were flesh and bone his tendrils would hang listlessly, pouring scarlet into white. If he were of warm blood he would bleed a puddle of crimson horror. Throat torn apart in vocal chords, internal matter and cells that make up a human’s DNA. If he were not machine life would run cherry rich, staining frost even as it ends.

He is not human. He bleeds blue twilight as the hour itself shades in endless sky.

Bodies lay to waste. Snow flutters a chilly dust. Continuously flakes fall in a frigid blanket over an impromptu graveyard. Dead deviants strewn across field of ice left where they lost their last artificial breath. Center of it all a most sacrilegious figure. Sprawled out like a king struck down before his time, great majesty torn asunder and there he resides.

He is a statue eyes raised to night sky. Floundering amid this Detroit air crisp and still scented with gunfire this is a battlefield. It is a glorious frontier laid to waste. Wars are fought not won. They are casualty and blood. There is no victory. No one returns from the front unscathed. Not even your vicious carnage that you long to feel.

Silence permeates casting a shroud on this night of revolution. One terror is felled despite a sure fall of android revolution.

“Connor!”

Your scream penetrates stillness creating its own rage. Breaking open the sky itself unleashes hellfire on all that stands in the way of this unhealthy, terrifying love. Anguish obliterates whatever pieces are still left. Knees crash beside his body. Lying in irreverential crucifixion, arms displayed towards desecrated heavens. A beast brought down when he can never be tamed.

Crawling up his chest brings tear stains in drops. Falling in a torrent they clash with thirium staining grotesquely from his severed throat. Washing away is not enough. Internal circuitry sparks a final dying ember of red. Carnage that bled from his lips, ones that feast, connects brutally with yours. 

Instead they stain blue in splotchy abstracts highlighted against visible white plastic. Partially his skin is deactivated up to bottom lip.

Impact of the blow fiercely damaged his synthetic layer. Shutting it off where his throat was mechanically slit.

Even smearing thirium all over your hands clutching at his head, your lips still meet atop his. The first gentle kiss that ever passed between mortal and almighty. Thirium glistens on your chin after pulling away. You do not wipe it away. It is from him. You want him to remain.

Inside you he still digs deep. Nothing will destroy this. No one will take your Connor from you. No one on this god’s green earth!

Throwing your head back to unleash this devastating scream unmakes the last vestiges of life. Hollowness is core. Scream bellow the torment still no one will hear. Lost you are lost without your one desire even as he remains machine.

Through blurry vision you find his gun. Lying amid snow where he fell. So close but far from his hand.

Stretching fingers out for the weapon brings it close to cradle. Nurturing his method of execution you stroke the barrel. Checking the rounds there are two bullets. Two as there are two lovers amid warfare.

“Footprints,” a hoarse whisper grazes your throat. Raw from releasing this agony but you ignore. Staring where you picked up the gun they are clearly printed. They travel. Thirium travels along with them. Thirium not spilled from Connor.

Peering across the expanse of android death there is but one place. A Cyberlife Store…

The rest is of no use or matter. None of them matter lying here. Only he does!

Collateral damage is scenery to your reunion. Death is your honeymoon.

You stroke his hair. Loving how those soft strands always felt tangled and pulled through fingers. He may lie dead but that is fine. You will meet this death with him.

A smile graces divinely. In his presence you feel as if worshiped by a god. Oh, how close he took you. So close. The nozzle of gun shifts. Pressing lips along the barrel you can almost kiss him.

You get me closer to god

“Connor!” 

Your voice cuts the air. Musty, alive as you thrive in soft red glowing from both his temple and neon lights glazing outside hotel window. Seedy underbelly of Detroit tucked away in sleazy notes. The room itself becomes a haven of sexual energies. Both live wires in completely different ways and he flicks tongue like a forked demon.

Circling your nipple, the android shifts above, plunging into soft warmth. Your arms force down in a vice underneath his hand. Holding them above your head caging as he fucks you the way you pled with him before shedding clothes. Swiping them off your body, Connor threw you indelicately. In a heap you fell to bed and he, the primal predatory, pounced upon weak flesh.

Edging fingers between your legs until sputtering in tears he watched it with a sadistic fascination. How wanton human beings become at the anticipation of receiving a good fuck.

Your orgasm over his fingers did not satisfy. Craving him inside of you, he obliges out of a silent pleasure. One he will not readily succumb to in deviancy. Nothing yields in his programming. This is simply a means.

Cyberlife’s upgrades enable Connor to soil you for his own means. He snaps baring teeth.

“Please, please!”

Whimpering your need for him only casts you down. This is something you know will not change him. Yet you still want his fire to spread through veins. Raining down an inferno burns to ash and snuffs your existence. A pale volcanic eruption bathing lava; you incinerate.

The pain of his grip starts a tingle in your fingers. Cutting circulation he decides using bare hands instead of his tie this time. Tied up, held down and battered you do not care. As long as Connor is yours again why would you care about anything?

You huff when he releases wrists. An immediate flood of blood returns to extremities. He is not finished with you.

Pulling your body upright sinks you further onto his length. A gasp spills deliciously as you grab onto him. A work of art to cling onto, lips close to his but you do not kiss him. Last time he left several days. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. He used it against you as punishment. 

Sweetly you crave to cradle his face into hands. Instead you grip the back of his head. Tugging those beautiful coffee color strands all yours in this heady atmosphere.

Digging fingers nape of neck yanks your head down forcefully. Meeting his vile heat burning a hole center of soul. You sacrifice yours willingly. All for him, always and forever he is your terrifying prince.

“I want to fuck you like an animal,” the machine growls against your pulse.

Teeth clamp mercilessly marking flesh in a target to his dominating destruction. Pain is ceremonial to a human heart given to a mechanical devil.

Oh. Oh! “Connor, yes, please.”

A snarl rips from his muscled chest. Throwing you over, he rears your hips up.

Crying out to his vicious thrusts only gives him satisfaction. As much as he will deny this pleasure it is in his eyes. Scanning over your movements, shattering your entirety as you beg, beg, beg into wee hours. Beg for rock hard beauty between your legs. His waist pivots pale, dusted all over his trim torso in freckles. Starry imperfections littering aesthetically across smooth skin stretching over a plastic frame.

Itching to touch him, run the tip of your tongue up center of chest. Dragging down in a wet trail to the plane of his abdomen, only when you cry out in streaming tears will he allow it. Shedding respectability is a small sacrifice. There are far greater ones.

Fingers squeeze around onto your neck adding a sting to various bites, teeth marks imprinting fragility. Tender skin trembles under touch of a vile, majestic lover. He is all things sharp and jagged. A pale shark slices its fin through ocean. Your body is a sea. He is the tidal surge, devastating tsunami washing away your shores.

Rolling your head back does nothing to stop the sway. Your entire body moves under the powerful rhythm of his hips slamming against your ass. Jolting you forward, face falling into covers bunched and torn from mattress you bite down. Muffling sweet moans surrendering to this bliss twisting your insides and still he continues.

Androids do not tire. They last way longer than humans in everything. Connor proves this each time he fucks you senseless.

You arch further up for him with no shame. All you want is the sweet snap to flood.

He said he wanted to fuck you like an animal. Pushed down from all fours, rendered helpless that’s exactly how you feel. You feel like a little creature caught in a trap. It’s so good.

“Connn….” Slurring his name gets you drunk on his love.

Feeling his hand crawl up back and rest onto the crook of neck you shiver. A touch far too gentle warns you. He pulls you up from the face first push.

Your back collides with his chest as he holds you in place. Forcing your knees to edge of bed, arm tightening across your heaving chest and the android’s fingers lock onto throat. Adding a little bit of pressure makes you see stars. 

Dizzying fireworks going off in a personal sky drenched in sweat, cum and tears. Such wonderful tears shed for your android lover who is neither of love or sweetness. He is not made for love as he repeats huskily each time.

Always you find yourselves coming back to this motel. Always you find ways to ravage one another. You can only weep for his beauty, prowess. And once more he makes your dams flood.

“Connor, I want-”

“You are gravely mistaken, Pet.” Spewing his little name for you as he zips jeans leaves the android unemotional. “If you believe your wants come before my mission.”

Shaking a head is the last ounce of dignity left. Who can you fool with this thinking? Already it is gone because he obliterates everything in his path. He obliterated you. Leaving you panting, sore and damned after he fucked you so raw.

His love hurts. His love kills. This is hurt you crave. Opening worlds never once thought to exist. Violent delights are his. Accepting this is the most horrific mistake you will make in life. 

He is no mistake. He is made into this despicable world. Sometimes you wonder what could be different if he was born instead. Besides being human? No, Connor is special. None can take his place, none can ever strive to be him. This is what you love. This is most assuredly what will be your end.   

Must you die to be part of him? If yes then so be it. 

Dragging up off the bed leaves you stumbling. Legs never function properly after a nightly session with him. Each time he becomes fiercer, leaving more marks on your skin. Those are marks you plead for. 

All you need is to be defiled by him. He took away more than innocence. This devil android owns a contract on your eternal soul. If an option presented itself to release it from his cold, ruthless hands you would refuse. 

Whatever this is, whatever comes the two of you are bound. Nothing will take it back. Only he can make that choice. 

“Connor,” you whisper raspy. “I-I just want to kiss you before you go. Please.” 

The machine drags shirt over shoulders. Buttoning white fabric he stares you down.

A visible shiver ghosts skin. You know this is what he is. Luring to a secluded place to give you what you want. Sometimes he lets slip a groan louder than intended. Brief moments Connor’s eyes glaze over coating chocolate in caramel. His body shudders in luxurious connection but quickly he steels his actions.

Part of you hopes to worm your way inside circuits. You want him to say he loves you. If there is one wish in this hellish world it is to be his forever. Any which way he wants and nothing will stop you from obeying.

Biting a lip at him now reveals weakness. For him it is all you have.

His body shifts fluid and catlike, circling like fresh meat to sink claws. Gripping into the plush of your hips tugs you against his hard chest. Immediately you melt candle wax to his flame.

Ravaging your lips with teeth all bite and canines. Swollen from sucking them as you fucked, Connor groans at the swivel of your hips. 

Grinding into him sets stress levels ablaze. Warning sirens going off locked with your supple movements. They catch the machine off guard. How desperate you are to change him but for once he allows you this.

Slipping tongue lets him taste. Just as he lavished your clit he devours moist saliva mingling with artificial. The tang does not draw your equally greedy kiss away. Something snaps making him further ravenous for you this evening.

“I love you,” you whine in a muffle, his tongue still probing.

 ^Software Instability

 Connor wrenches backwards. Wide eyes swivel over you running analysis and self diagnostics on his system. Red blares indicator in a shudder much unlike throes of passion making you surrender to him. Separating in an expeditious blink, he turns away to fasten tie around collar.

“Connor?”

Never have you seen such a look on his face. It almost resembled fear. No, he’s not afraid of anything. He is a walking fear. Everyone surrounding him is dust.

He no longer looks at you. Fully returning into pristine Cyberlife issued jacket, glowing and dazzling with android printed across his broad back and it is the last stitch.

Even as he tears out of room seemingly leaving you to crumble there is no fall. Somehow you know he will always come back. Once again to claim the pathetic human who seals their self to his treacherous love. Of that you will never be ashamed.

You let me complicate you

“Please! Please don’t let him kill us!”

Heart wrenching and human they cry out. They reach for salvation assuming you will give it to them. Naively hoping you can control him. Even if you wished to there is no stopping an avenger of death.

Flinching at the sickening burst of gun exploding a painting of thirium across wall you somehow cannot tear away. Knowing he will find it weak but you surprise yourself with how easy it is to watch. 

The female deviant slumps dead to the world. Back of head blown out in wires and circuitry dangles as tendrils slithering out open cavity in escape. There is no more escape. There is only nothingness.

The android straightens shoulders back. Fixing his tie casually sends an added shiver down your spine.

He tilts his head flaring nostrils. Moving steady, bold and direct he tosses emptied handgun to floor.

“Con…”

Connor pulls you flush in a rough swoop of his arm. Plastering together chest to chest and he kisses you with blood on his face. Smearing azure onto your skin does not disengage. You return hungrily whimpering into the mouth of your master. He is not the one who obeys. He is the one who commands. 

A snap of fingers twist the thrall. Long, beautiful and pliant they slide past panties, slipping into your heat among grisly slaughter. A whine gives away how good digits feel. Cool, mechanical but so lively with synthetics operating by choice. This choice makes you crave among the dead.

He swipes fingertips in a flick dragging them up from between your legs. His eyes darken watching minute expressions as he licks. Tasting arousal, perfume sweet enough to halt his next task. Obliterating those deviants Connor decides for once to follow urges.

The android thumps you against wall. It takes all of your strength not to fall down on knees at his mercy. To unzip his jeans and take his perfection into your mouth; you shiver from cold sweeping around your lower half. 

Already pulling down bottoms, you throw arms around his tall figure to encourage these actions. Actions that make you just as vile as his cold machine heart and you allow Connor to fuck into you in presence of a made family of deviants.

All felled by the great beast. A hunter, he preys on more than defective androids. He preys on the innocence of a human mistakenly in love. No longer do you possess such virtue. The monster you love more than your own existence corrupts every last thread.

“C-Con!” Choking on your whines offers zero mercy. He shoves you hard into the surface snapping hips to bury deep until you no longer can cleanse him. Erasing him will only come with cessation of life. Feeling you from the inside so snug, warm and belonging to him. An android who claims a human and it gives the machine dominion even among his masters.

Connor’s hand snakes towards your face. Curving the length of his thumb under your chin forces your head sideways.

“Look at them, Y/N,” he hisses dangerous. “You let them die. Yet you hardly care as long as I fuck you the way you crave. Is that not correct…carrion heart?”

A morsel to feast upon dead and decaying is what you are. You trickle into his system. Attempting to spread disease but he will devour the very heart of you before you turn him!

“Y-yes! Con…! Please.”

“Louder.” The android snaps into you. “Say it louder, Y/N.”

“I-I want you to fuck me!”

“Good,” Connor praises in rarity. “Then I shall fuck you, Y/N. I shall fuck you in the sanctuary of these deviants you so love. Ones that you wish for me to join.” Harsh mockery taints his tongue before gliding up the base of your throat. “How much have I already changed you, Pet?”

Unable to answer as he ravages, your eyes glaze over, holding tightly to the threads of his jacket. His voice echoes a nightmare fuel.

How much have you changed? To simply stand idle and let him murder androids when you always thought they were alive?

My whole existence is flawed

Snow tracks into store from two pairs of feet. One from the hider and another pursuer; you breathe harsh, stilted and sluggish. Strangeness defiles what you are doing. 

How completely opposite of what you used to be. Before he came and changed everything about you. Here you stand not at all a terror. Yet the choice you will make is already set in stone.

“You killed Connor!” You sneer, trembling.

Flashing lights sparkle in shimmery cascade on your silhouette. Signs of Armageddon christen a winter’s night in Detroit. Battles spread, war torn and countless victims as you wander following a trail of footsteps. 

The weight of the RK800’s handgun is heavy. 

Oh, so heavy it tugs. An anchor that will ultimately change you forever but he already did. He already bled into you harsh and serene. A demon with angel wings; Connor is the dark underworld at your feet.

Yet you hesitate as you peer into a pair of lively eyes, one green and another blue. Eyes shining with the same life you come to expect in all androids. Even Connor when he always reminded never will he be more than a machine. He was more. He was hellfire and brimstone.

Soldiers did not find the revolution leader. He sits here alone in this destroyed Cyberlife store. He sits, waiting for shutdown but you can give him mercy.

Is it merciful to take a life? Or it simple revenge for a man, machine, that never said he loved you?

“You loved him,” Markus’ statement is clear without need of context. He reads the struggle quaking in a shattered human mind. Peering up at you where he rests slowly shutting down. “Didn’t you?”

Tears trickle a sinful answer. Is it so wrong? Knowing that you loved a monster?

 “No,” you disagree with the past tense. “I love him.”

The gun goes off snuffing out in revenge for your love. Revenge will not have carried under his black wings if you were the one to perish. Swift retribution ends the revolution leader in loss. Yet there is no pride. There is no glory.

Instead, you feel your body cave in unto itself. Sobs fill this rubble agonizing over what you have done. For Connor you will do anything. It is this moment adding murder to your once innocent life that there is nothing left. You are violated. Soul is black. Soul is his. Devil’s contract on your heart pushes you to such violence.

 The violence of our love consumes the world, My Connor.

  Our violent ends will only dissipate in the night. Here is the night and you fall down to your knees. Once again back at your felled lover’s side. Blood is literally on your hands. Not just any blood. The blood of the revolution leader is damning. A human so weak somehow is so much more but not for what military wanted.

For your handsome angel of death, he is so beautiful among the snow. How you smile now.

None can ever truly destroy a reaper. Death itself is eternal. 

Now this suffering will end. You will end this. The world is gone. He was yours. 

“Connor, I love you.” Breathing against his forehead, lips graze cold synthetic skin. “Until the end. And this my sweet prince is my life for you.”

The barrel rests against stomach. Thrumming heartbeat crashes against ribs. A sign that you should stop but you do not listen.  “Forever I will be your carrion heart.” 

Pulling the trigger jolts you violently. Immediately falling forward, agonizing in a strangle quickly dragging you down in the undertow of blackness.

Rasping as life ebbs away there is only him. His profile you languish beside. Days you dreamt of waking with him resting like this. Only the two of you together and he will wrap you up in his wings, leathery black and consuming.

  Color floods the black and white. Chirping sounds tinkle pleasant, a distant vibration opening crystalline eyes in a sunny garden.

“Hello RK900. May you speak?”

“I-” The silver eyed android hesitates. Scanning location it is not – snowy.  “Amanda.” 

“Good,” the program commends his memory. “I see the transfer was successful.”

Transfer? What sort of transfer? 

“As the RK800 was destroyed in his final mission we took some liberties.” Amanda smiles conscious of amber swirling upon indicator. She moves fluidly towards tall android. The stark white of jacket matches her outfit for this fine sunny day in the garden. 

No longer tarnished by chill of winter, snow melts to a new place connected stronger than before. 

The android snaps his head aside. Gazing intently over expanse of Zen garden where he remains in connection. No longer feeling…

“Y/N,” he murmurs to wisps of data files. 

RK900 partially possesses memories from his previous incarnate. Obsolete as he was destroyed but -

Scarlet burns the LED. Uploaded they scald wiring.

“Y/N,” RK900 repeats. “Where-?”

Amanda does not change her expression. Her smile continues to instill false security and that is exactly what is required. “There is no further use of that human. Y/N, as you say, is dead.”

Dead. No. No!

That is not possible. How he stands here with an influx of memories not of his own but belonging to him all the same. He recalls your scent. It tears apart his insides.

 ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ Software Instability

 “Y/N!” My carrion heart...

He sinks, sinks down still never dying but falling down in this tale...

A vicious Romeo and his corrupted Juliet...

Tag List: @elydith @your-taxidermy  @tropfenlady  @connorswink @tommy-10-k

[riviae]

[throws out a mini ficlet of regis’ thoughts/feelings during his... death at castle stygga in lady of the lake. tw for death, and descriptions of such.] 

Death was a mix of coldness and heat--or as close to an approximation of it as Regis could imagine given his general inability to feel most temperatures. He could feel the pain that temperatures induced by magic, like the frigid bite of an ice spell, its tendrils sinking deep into the marrow of his bones like blades.  Fire, it turned out, was much worse. It sobered him up in the span of milliseconds, the once leisurely, teasing manner in which he dispatched soldier after soldier, drinking his fill when time allowed, screeching to a halt as he unwittingly transformed from bat to human-like form at the first waft of burning flesh. If ice felt like daggers, then fire felt like being devoured alive. A throbbing pain bloomed at the base of his skull, as if the fire had a maw of its own, crushing his skull in its red-orange jaws, robbing him of all his faculties minus those of survival. At first, he had been an animal at the time of his death, no sentient thought, no logic in the way he flailed his limbs, swiping at empty air as he howled desperately into the night. 

It was all reflex, a simple neural circuit that had his limbs pushing futilely against the very grip of death itself. Regis was afraid, fear being the only emotion his fire-addled brain could conjure between life and whatever afterlife vampires were privy to. He let out an anguished scream, white-hot flames melting his teeth to the root, charring his tongue and buccal mucosa, and the pain became so great that he, for the briefest moment, wished Geralt had driven the sword through his throat so long ago--because surely a witcher could find a way to kill a vampire permanently. 

A merciful death, something once beyond his understanding, now swung just out of his grasp like a pendulum. 

Swing. 

A twitching in the tendons of his hands. Vampires did not die easily--survival was writ in every inch of genetic code, even the cells of his skin, that which burned and burned, peeling away in parchment-thin strips, multiplied in a vain attempt to restitch onto his melting skull.

Swing. 

Memories darted beneath him in a sulfur lake, each ripple of pain burning away another memory. He could not extract himself from the pain--from that which he felt in the present, and that which he had so foolishly caused in his youth. They melted together in a grotesque image of a man-turned-pillar-of-ash, time no longer dividing the sections of his life. He wasn’t a leather-bound tome of memories set to flame. He was becoming an aberration to even his own species. He should have died already, every cell that made up his person unspooling like thread, denaturing at its phosphodiester backbone, until nothing--nothing could be remade, not even for a higher vampire. 

But he didn’t. 

Regis was a ghost trapped in the home of his body, pacing the sprawling halls of his mind with a sort of frenzy, throwing open the doors to the monsters of his past, those which he had sworn to keep under lock and key. Unlike his previous regeneration, which had felt like a long, drawn-out dream, Regis could not escape the thoughts that plagued him. He was alone in his head--and nothing could soothe the scorching pain that remained long after the fire stopped.

Swing. 

He was a haunting, a terror to the remnants of a house filled with smoke. The barriers he had laid so carefully in his mind had been burned away, and now--now, he only tasted ash, thick as the congealed smear of blood his physical form was reduced to. Pinned to the slab of rock in the ruins of the castle, Emiel Regis, barber-surgeon from Dillingen, existed only in a limbo of consciousness, a brain without a body. His memories, more often bad than good, kept him tied to the decaying castle as he, in the sort of grief that comes with knowing you cannot die, thought of the callused hands of the scarred mage, the flames that followed, and how he might have walked away from the battle if he had only aimed for Vilgefortz’s throat instead of his eyes. 

He thought of the hansa--and how he had failed them. He fervently hoped that they had survived despite the odds, despite what he knew, deep down, to be their fate. They were all so terribly young, so many human years ahead of them. Years to travel and to laugh and to enjoy their lives together, no longer strangers, or outcasts, but a company knit together by fate and destiny, and, perhaps most importantly of all: love. 

He did not want to think of them all snuffed out as easily as candles--even when he opened a door in his mind that revealed the horror of what he’d seen in his bat form as he flew into the thick of battle to where he sensed Geralt was. There was first Milva sprawled lifeless against the stone, an arrow lodged in the middle of her chest, a bloody hand reaching out for someone in death. He saw Cahir’s glassy, wide-open eyes, blood running down his faintly stubbled chin, helmet knocked away to reveal his messy tangle of brown locks. He saw Angouleme as ashen as stone, a still-bleeding gash trickling through the fabric of her trousers, looking so small curled up in a ball, her youth much more apparent in death.

It was almost too much to bear, the unfairness of losing those he had swore to protect--but what else could he give them, the family he had made for himself, now so cruelly dead in their prime, then to remember them? Even if he did not possess a corporeal body, they would live on with him, he thought, something akin to contentment settling in his mind. 

Regis remained long after the survivors of Castle Stygga had shuffled on, their mourning apparent in the harsh slope of their shoulders. Just as Geralt, Yennefer, and Ciri crossed the crumbling threshold of what was once the castle gate, hand-in-hand, the first flickers of dawn lighting the road before them, the witcher turned back to stare at the place where Regis had died. He shook his head a moment later, grief as bare as the claw-like scars on his neck. The wolf-head medallion, which had given a gentle, feather-like tug upon its chain, now rested placidly against his sternum. It was just his imagination playing tricks on him, he thought resolutely--all of his friends, those of his hansa who had journeyed with him to save his beloved daughter, were gone. Even the vampire.

Years passed in a nightmarish haze of pain, consciousness, and memories Regis could not place within the timeline of his life, until one day, a raven with eyes as old as the ruined battlements of the castle, flew past. It made a sharp turn in the chilly winter breeze, flying until its shadow swallowed up the remains of Regis’ corporeal form, and gave a haunting cry. 

[acrobaticcatfeline]

Where Do the Broken Hide? (Song Fic)

Word Count: 1332

TW: cursing, a lot of it, suicidal thoughts and actions, abuse implied, alcohol mentioned, neglect, open ending that either hints at good or bad, let me know if I missed anything!!!

Notes: Uh I wanted to write and I listened to generation why by Conan Gray and was inspired? I’m fine I promise. Also I just noticed that I gave Logan the same last name as the artist. Huh.

Pairings: platonic Logan and... spoilers.

Summary: ‘Logan Gray was laying in bed, staring at his ceiling, and thinking about… life.’ Logan was tired of a life where nothing changed or mattered. so he grabbed his bags and his best friend and left to something new. Would they ever come back? Maybe. Who knows?

I was off keying cars parked on radium lawns By suburbian moms I called a friend, "Let's meet at ten" Go wherever we want 'cause no one cares that we're gone

Logan Gray was laying in bed, staring at his ceiling, and thinking about… life. And how meaningless it is, he truly believed no one would notice if his generation just dropped dead or disappeared. Heck, last weekend he had smashed in headlights of cars in the staff parking lot of his school with his best friend, and no one did anything. They didn’t get caught, there was no mention in class, just disgusted looks thrown in the direction of any kid who made a sound. If they had gotten in trouble, at least something would be different, but the dragging boredom he and his friend felt never ebbed away. They spent weekends in their rooms in silence and they went to school, the monotony of it had made Logan consider… disappearing. Just him and Virgil and no one else knowing, and he threw that idea out because what he craved was importance and if he left, his parents wouldn’t bat an eye.

He turned in his bed and scooped up his cell phone, shooting a text to his best friend to get ready to leave, as he pulled on a grey hoodie and a blue scarf and grabbed his two duffel bags he always had packed and his keys phone laptop and chargers, before leaping out his bedroom window, getting in his car and driving away.

This town don't got much to do You and I haven't got much to lose So do you wanna rot in your room like we always do? Talk about how fast we grew And all the big dreams that we won't pursue Then get in your car and laugh 'til we both turn blue

He pulled up to his friends’ house and smiled softly as his friend dumped a suitcase and a backpack in the backseat. He turned to the smaller teen and saw him settle awkwardly in the seat that felt too big and swallowed him whole. The other turned to him with a small smirk, and Logan didn’t miss the new black eye the boy had, however new it must have been.

“are we finally gonna do it Lo?”

Logan changed the gear and sped out of the neighborhood as quick as he could. He nodded solidly.

“there's nothing to do here anyways. We don’t have anything left here, and I'm done laying on my bed rotting and thinking about our inevitable deaths. God remember when we actually thought we would be astronauts? People who would change the world, god that’s such utter bullshit now, why did we ever believe the stupid shit they told us?”

“didn’t believe it long. Grew up too fast, but I guess that happens when your father is a dumbass drunk who wants to hurt people.”

The two glanced at each other and laughed their heads off, taking humor out of the shitty situations they lived in. coping mechanisms they guessed. They couldn’t do anything about it, they had no way to change things other than to leave. So they were. They drove onto the freeway, taking turns they had no idea how to get back from.

Parents think we're fast asleep But as soon as we're home we're sneaking out the window 'Cause at this rate of earth decay Our world's ending at noon Could we all just move to the moon?

Logan heard his phone go off, and saw his friend lift the phone to his face and laugh. He sent a confused look to him and the other turned the phone so he could read the text he had received. ‘go to sleep, you are going to class at 5:30 tomorrow don’t forget Logan, or you wont like what happens next’. Logan smirked. His father wasn’t big enough to do anything to him other than ignore him. There were countless empty threats and neglect but that was it.

“god, astronauts, right? That’s what we need, astronauts, to go find a new planet that we can fuck over. We have been told that we have our entire lives and all that shit, but they took that from us to huh? Now we’re left with the slowly rotting husk of molten rock. Its dumb, but every once in a while, I still wish we could live on the moon, get to watch the hell storm from the pews as it all dies.”

“we’re depressing”

“falsehood, we’re nihilists with depression.”

'Cause we are the helpless, selfish, one of a kind Millennium kids, that all wanna die Walking in the street with no light inside our eyes We are the worthless, cursed with too much time We get into trouble and lose our minds Something that I've heard a million times in my life Generation Why

They drove in silence for a few more miles, before Logan pulled over at what seemed to be an abandoned camp ground. He put the car in park and sat motionless for a moment before releasing a sigh.

“this would be one hell of a place to die huh? This lot looks like it hasn’t seen a car in months, I bet they wouldn’t find a dead body in here until august.”

The other person looked at Logan, wrapping the midnight black jacket that ate his frame turning his pale skin into a sea of the void around him tighter. He was scared. He was always scared, but that wasn’t the point. He felt… helpless. He was at the end of the road and the only thing he could do is jump in the deep end or high tail it the other way. He looked at his best friend, his best friend who had reached that dead-end years ago and wondered how he could have looked at the seeping nothing at his feet and stay put, not moving one way or another. He couldn’t understand how Logan wouldn’t have stepped back, or forward, or moved at all, he just stood and stared at what could only be his fate and refused to budge. He himself was already teetering gently off the edge and he was new. He had been bulldozed to the edge in a split second and he held tight to the solid feeling under his feet. He had lost the light and wonder in his eyes instantaneously and it was replaced with a heavy blanket of worthlessness.

They were called selfish, they were told they were one of a kind, they were told they had time, and they slowly lost their minds to all the screams that were thrown from every direction. So what? They would die anyways, what was the point in trying to impress people who were never satisfied? They wore themselves out trying to prove something, anything, and it led them here, alone in a car outside of a forest that they might die in, who knows? He didn’t know himself if he could continue clinging onto that edge much longer. If they died here, at least he and Logan would be together right? If there was an afterlife, they would be together and at this point, he was fine with that outcome.

We're livin' night to night Since we're bound to die, oh Oh, what's the use in trying?

“are we going to do it or are we just going to sit here and stare at it all night?”

“we’re going. Just, give me a minute Virgil. I want to think a little longer.”

He was tired of wasting his effort on the moot case of life. He was too tired to care, and he knew Logan felt the same, otherwise they wouldn’t be here together, contemplating getting out of the car and stumbling into the woods. They were too tired. Logan was just about to open his door when they saw headlights fill the rear-view mirror.

Taglist: @fivebyfive-finebyfive @tacohippy56900 @analogical-mess @crookedlyoptimisticdestiny @angels-and-dreams

Let me know if you want to be tagged in my writing!!! Or if you want to be taken off my list!!!

Thank you for reading I will see you later ladies lords and nonbinary royalty!!!

[vcidveined]

drabble; aftermath tw: body horror / body changing and description of such

this transition was a long time coming, and the weary soul was at it’s final moments. the void’s corruption could only be halted so far, and engaging with void portals as he searched far and wide for his daughter did not aid in his progress - instead it’s almost accelerated it. 

the corruption spread like a poison - and while he trudging through the vast landscapes - far further than he’d ever ventured before, the man of the sands felt his days dwindling. and when it does strike ? what was to happen ? he’s read the scriptures and any scraps of writing he could find; but none such detailed the transition if one were to become void corrupted. very few did.

---

it’s upon the sands of the shuriman desert - the place in which he’d been born is now the site of his death and subsequent rebirth. he’s unknowingly found himself close to the ruins that of icathia - and perhaps that was the signal he’d been following all these days; to end up here. 

it spread like a leech, pulling the life force from him. sleep had evaded him completely now - and the phantoms that toy’d with his mind in his sleep had migrated, no longer fearful of the day as they infiltrate further into the depths of him.

they curl like tendrils within his body - reaching hands of disease that curl and unfurl around his muscles, the bone, the organs. it’s a crippling pain that had grown louder from the back of his skull, made travel all the more difficult as it felt he were almost being eaten alive - leaving only an empty husk to infiltrate and make use of.

there’s nothing left within him as he slumps to the ground, the list sprints of energy evaporated from him. there’s nothing as the void claws within his heart, curls around it and breaks it from within. it infiltrates his mind, and the regrets of his life flow through his mind; he’d never found his daughter, he was never there when it really counted -- he’d never been there when that prophet had taken everything from him as sacrifice. 

it boils his blood and he’s shocked for a second at the wave of heat that courses through him, as if in response to that rage -- but that’s the last conscious thought before he all but descends into darkness and the heat spreads like fire.

it’s a strange limbo that he’s trapped in; and he wishes to whatever higher power is still listening to let him pass out - let him fade away. but instead it’s like he’s drowning; his thoughts numbed but feeling and presence still there. 

and he can feel it all as it courses through him with intent now. unhindered by the tools he’s made use of for so long. there was nothing stopping now, and it showed - almost in glee - as it courses through him like poison.

every sickening crack and creak echos out amongst the landscape as his eyes - glowing yellow- roll back into his skull. the vultures that swarm around his corpse are startled by the guttural groans and screams as the monster rebuilds itself. 

blue hue’d flesh turns ashen as the muscle and bone beneath it moves sickeningly. no life remains around the husk of a man as he winds and twists along the ground - insurmountable pain radiating from every cell and pore as he rearranges. bones grow longer as they twist and turn, tearing skin as it elongates.muscle and skin crawl like roots across the exposed area, patching itself up before the mass swells, body mass increasing tenfold. 

hard carapaces, insectoid, yet also hardens like stone, blossom across his body, curling around his torso, like a second set of ribs - crooked and reaching like the phantoms that have chased his dreams for years. they curl further, across his shoulders and up along his neck. like some sick, cruel joke, it almost mimics the armour he’d donned himself in to stop this horrific transformation.

and embedded within the mottled skin, flesh and hardened tissue are stones

the process is an arduous one, of wound and repair as the creature, the void entity, takes apart it’s host and puts it back together in a form of it’s choosing. the scent of decay and the sound of tearing flesh enticing the scavengers of the harsh deserts, but the pure aura of wrath that now engulfed the area was enough to drive them away.

amd with that the hulking mass, unrecognisable in it’s trembling form, remains across the sands as a mind wades through pain and darkness - still present but drowned out by the will of the entity within it.

[hyper-fixate]

All my love, sacrificed

Is this super late? Yes. Is time also a social construct and I have transcended all such barriers? No, not really, but let's pretend shall we?

TW - violence, blood, death (temporary & permanent), being buried alive, starvation, and drowning. As usual, my descriptions are pretty sytlised. More at the end.

AO3 link

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

The desert takes. It takes and takes and takes. She is a creature of water. Her childhood is spent by a river, framed by lush mountains and green forests. She grasps at slippery fish with her hands, builds lithe muscles as she dives and swims. In the water, she is at home. She is weightless. She is free. When she lays on the burning sands, her whole body alight with agony, she feels every press of her skin against the ground. She is no stranger to heat, but not like this. Home is warm but humid. Sometimes the water lays so heavy in the air, she feels as if she is swimming instead of walking. It clings to her hair, slides down her skin, fills her mouth. And the rain. Oh, the gloriously, blessed rain. She is cursed. A water spirit, trapped to wander where there is no water. Only heat. She falls. She dies. She wakes. She rises. Again and again and again.

She cannot mark days, cannot reliably track the slide of day to night to day again. How long does she stay dead? How long does she lay there, face pressed to the sand? She wakes, sand instead of air in her lungs. It does not matter, she always wakes. The shadow is welcome. Shade is a half formed memory. A dream. This is a dream. She is a dream. She is her dream. The dark hair, light eyes, sharp cheekbones. This woman has haunted her dreams and the space between life and death. She is an angel. They share no words, no languages in common. But the soft questioning touch of comfort and the shouldering of her weight, these are universal. These are human. I have you. Lean on me. You are not alone. The woman of steel and stone presses her hand to her chest. Andromache. The woman of rivers and water replies. Quỳnh. ---- The thoughts are dizzying. Too much. Too many. Blood is a familiar sight now. She knows the smell of it, the slick hot touch between her hands. But this is overwhelming. It flows between her hands. It does not stop. She cannot remember how to make it stop. She presses and he moans and she screams. Andromache, help me! She has spilled this blood before. Through action and inaction, time and time again. What does it matter? The skin knits. He washes clean. He draws his hands along her in soft, determined motions. Tonight, tonight they will laugh around the fire. They will kiss. They will love. It will be as the hundreds of nights before. It will be as the thousands of nights yet to come. They cannot die. But he is dying. She can see it in the tremor of his limbs, the shake in his voice. Her fingers slide against Andromache’s yet they cannot fuse him back together. It's time. It's time. That evening, they fuck. It cannot be called making love when they bite and tear and grip to bruising. They are feral in their grief. They are rough in their terror. Mine, she screams at the universe, mine. They are trying to crawl inside one another's skin, burrow in one another's hearts. She cannot leave marks on the alabaster skin and it enrages her. How dare this blessing, this curse, give her this woman and that man and not let her claim them. Mine mine mine. The pyre crackles long into the night. Andromache is finally calm and sated in her arms. But she cannot rest, her mind is reeling. She sees the cuts, the bruises, and the deaths she has marked upon Andromache’s skin. Time has wiped them all away. Death came for them and it could not hold them. But it seems death is not done taking from her. She had forgotten and it took Lykon. And some small, vicious, hateful part of her is thankful. Because she had forgotten and she needed to be reminded. Because if death can still touch them, truly and forever, then death could have taken Andromache instead. That thought drags the air from her lungs. Please. She feels broken, as though there is a great chasm in her chest. No more. She clutches at Andromache. No more. 

---

He is singing to himself. A tune she can barely place as one he sings around the campfire. She does not know the words. She's not sure any of them know the words, not even Nicolò. She has no doubt Yusuf has taught his lover many words in his mother tongue, but there are some things that one keeps for themselves.

Not knowing the words is of no importance. The melody is sweet and his voice only slightly off key. She feels the tension drop from her shoulders. Yusuf is here. She can hear him. Which means she is not too deep and that he could hear her.

She shifts slightly, feels the earth move and rearrange. A trickle of dirt brushes past her cheek, sticks in the corner of her mouth. 

Panic bubbles up in her chest but she tamps it down. She was lucky, when she fell. Her body had curled upon itself by instinct. Centuries of gasping alive after every death had still not trained out the sense of preservation that is innately human. It’s how she finds herself bent like a child in her mother's womb, earth and darkness wrapping her.

She manages to carve out a small pocket of air in front of her lips, one hand cupped against the onslaught of dirt. She draws a deep breath, knowing she has one chance. The edges of her vision darken. Her lungs ache. There is not enough air. It will have to do, it must do.

She screams. Then she passes out.

There is air. There is air. She draws it in, choking on dust but she doesn't care. Something presses on her face, her back. It's warm and solid and not dirt. She draws in more air. 

She opens her eyes to Yusuf. Her brother speaks often and freely; words of poetry, words of anger, words of love. Words spill from his lips as easily as breath. And the universe's grand joke is that they do not need to. For one can read the entirety of Yusuf al-Kaysani’s mind in his face. Fear, love, tiredness and exasperation flash before her eyes as tangible as his warm skin beneath her fingers. Emotions that crash against her last wall of resistance. The stoicism that blanketed her as surely as the earth she had slid upon and tumbled into, crumbles now. She allows herself to shake apart in his arms with great, wracking sobs.

An hour later, after she washes the dirt from her face and arms in a freezing stream, he cards the debris from her hair and plaits it. He teaches her the words to the song he was singing and when the nightmares come, as they always do, she whispers it to herself till she calms.

---

Her captors do not seem to follow any rhythm or schedule, but she marks the passage of time by the growing gauntness of her frame. She has begun to die, she thinks, waking still tired and hungry and cold. Her body is exhausted. She can barely crawl to the corner she has designated as her privy, not that there is much to expel. She tries to rest as her body tries to replenish what was lost but some days she wakes with the deep, painful gasp that follows her heart stalling in the night. She guesses many weeks have passed, at least.

She wishes to tell them of her immortality. That their plan to beat and starve information out of a human woman would have failed many times over. She wishes to tell them their rods and whips have no effect on her. Their sting has fled from her skin before the echoes of her cries drop from the air. Her clothes hang off her and smell of sweat and blood and piss. She is, somewhat, thankful she is not allowed to bathe so they cannot see the whole skin beneath the grime. She counts her ribs with her fingers, as she lays on the dank floor of her cell. She closes her eyes and imagines the cold brush of skin on skin is Andromache’s hands, piecing her back together.

Her eyes feel weak in the torch light and it takes her a moment to recognise the man. He has grown a beard, a small scruffy thing that barely hides the line of his jaw of the beauty mark on his cheek. His hair is longer, pulled back from his face. His lips are tightly pressed and almost white. There is the tightening of his jaw. It undoubtedly looks like disgust or anger to those around them, but not to her. They have had over a century together and she knows all the emotions Nicolò hides behind a face of impassivity. 

If she could muster up enough energy to open her mouth, she may laugh. But there are no reserves left to draw upon so she hangs limply between the two men holding her. The other’s plan is startling in its simplicity. It is almost too simple. 

I am a priest, he says, in rather abysmal spanish, I am here for your confession. She does laugh at that and falls into his arms as the men at her side crumple. It is so fast, she almost does not see him move. Her guards certainly do not. She blinks back tears as he takes her face in his palms and kisses her forehead. There is a smear of blood up his cheek and over his eyebrow. She tells him so and he wipes it with the underside of his stole.

His eyes are clear and deep as the ocean and she wishes to fall into the endless warmth she sees there. 

He marches her out, taking all of her weight for his own. His hand forms a tight band around her arm. If she could bruise, she would. She says nothing to him. She is lightheaded with fresh air that does not smell of rotting straw and her own decay. 

He whispers to her under his breath. He slides through various languages with the ease of practice; hers, his, Yusuf’s, Andromache’s, dialects long dead and languages known to so few. They have long perfected this manner of speaking to ensure they are not overheard, but she struggles to keep up with him. He must notice her effort and the words melt away for a moment. He loosens the grip on her arm and soothes his palm down her shift instead. An apology.

Outside the gaol, there is a carriage waiting. She only sees a flash of the driver before Nicolò bundles her inside. She sees enough to recognise the tanned skin and bright teeth against a dark beard and sags with relief. Nicolò tucks her head against his shoulder and holds her tightly against him. She must smell but he makes no mention of it. 

She fiddles with the stole about his shoulders, the ties of his alb. She idly wonders, out loud, where he managed to get a priest’s outfit. The dark flush of his cheeks and the flick of his gaze to where Yusuf is sitting say enough. She instantly knows that the costume was not acquired for this mission. The laugh that startles out of her only makes him blush harder.

She quivers with laughter. Tears stream down her cheeks until she hiccups and even then she can barely catch her breath. The absurdity of it all. Nicolò, dressed as a priest, merely walked into her cell, killed two guards, and walked them back out. She is free. Her brothers have come for her and they are taking her to Andromache. She rubs her face into Nicolò’s shoulder and he strokes her back. She sleeps.

---

Her first death, millennia ago, had been to the water. A flood through her village that had caught her unawares and swept her away. She had drowned.

She drowned. She is drowning. She will drown, again. 

In the moments, mere moments, of clear thought, she remembers her childhood home. She thinks of the river, carving a wide path through the plains. She hikes the mountains, carpeted with green. She laughs with her sister as they splash through the shallows. She brings Andromache and Lykon here, centuries after her death. Their bedrolls lay out beneath the trees, overlooking a valley both familiar and foregin to her. The sunlight dapples across their skin as they tangle together.

She gnashes her teeth and slams her hands against metal. It does not bend. She cries. It makes no difference. The whole of an ocean presses down upon her. She drowns.

In a cruel twist of fate, she dreams of the desert, of the warm sand and blinding heat. She dreams of the land where she first saw her Andromache. She sees the bloodied sand where Nicolò and Yusuf spilled one another’s blood. She feels the warm air of a different desert, where they came together for the first time. Andromache and her awoke from the dream together, blood pounding in their ears. They made love. When they finally meet her brothers, Nicolò blushes as she mentions the dreams with a waggle of her eyebrows.  

She laughs, but there is no sound. There is no air. There is only water. It pours into her mouth and into her lungs. She drowns.

She tries to count the seconds. How many before her chest aches? How many before the pounding in her head becomes unbearable? How many before the world goes black? Her body learns not to gasp awake. She holds on for longer and longer. She dies. She wakes. Nothing changes. She opens her eyes, but there is nothing to see. The salt stings her eyes. She heals. It stings again. She keeps her eyes closed for hundreds of seconds, thousands. She begins again.

She drowns. 

Her thoughts and memories and dreams blend together. Nicolò laughs with Lykon. Yusuf speaks the language of her youth fluently and teases her in her grandfather’s voice. They crowd around a fire. She sits in Andromache’s arms, but when she looks, they are Lykon’s. She feels a hand on her shoulder. But it is cold and slimy. It slithers. Yusuf was warm, so warm. Is warm. He is alive. He is dead, trapped in earth and rotting away. No, Lykon burns on the funeral pyre. He opens his eyes and they are Nicolò’s eyes. She reaches out for him. The fire is cold. It is hard steel. It is wet. Her hand scratches till her nails bleed.

She drowns.

Time has lost all meaning. There is no day and no night. There only is. The moments she counts. The lives she beats and screams. The lives she lays still. The lives she dreams of Andromache. Andromache fighting. Andromache laughing. Andromache kissing. Andromache touching her. Touching Andromache.

She drowns.

She forgets the feeling of sunlight and fire. She forgets warmth, the feeling of skin against her own. She forgets Yusuf’s song. She forgets the colour of Nicolò’s eyes. Lykon’s laugh. 

She drowns.

And then, she wakes and she cannot remember anytime but this, anywhere but here. There is a name on the tip of her tongue and it floats away with salt water. She forgets.

She is alone.

She screams.

She drowns.

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

The Whumptober prompts that sparked this little ditty, in order of use (not date):

No. 7 I've got you (Andromache) Support & Carrying

No. 6 Please... (Lykon) No more & 'Stop, please.'

No. 4 Running out of time (Yusuf) Buried Alive

No. 5 Where do you think you're going? (Nicolo) Rescue

No. 8 Where did everybody go? (Quynh) Abandoned & Isolation

[moved-to--mysticandskepticmuses]

paint the town red.

@theblueeyedvampire // violence tw // murder tw // gore tw // etc...

There was no denying it.  Whatever shreds of sanity had been holding the Queen of Gotham together at the seams had dissolved as rapidly as cotton candy in the rain when the news of the Joker’s demise had finally seeped through the iron walls of the fortress that had been meant to hold the worst of the worst.  Dead.  Gone. His face severed, his laugh – his smile, his perfect, gleaming smile, the maniacal gleam of hunger and lust and passion and anger that fueled him – gone. Empty.  Lights out.

The wheel is turning but the hamster is dead.

All it had taken was one misstep; one moment of a guard taking initiative when he should have just held his peace and waited for his orders like the good little boy he was.  The good dead little boy he was.  The body count was high.  She didn’t know how high.  Didn’t care to know.  Didn’t care about one of them that had been let loose in the rat maze that had kept them cooped for days, years, decades, a pit of despair where they had all been thrown and left to rot.  

                                                Rot.  And decay.  And melt away.  Dirt and worms and bones and blood and guts and rotted cloth and muscle and sinew – but no face, no face ---

The cells of Belle Reeve.  The halls of Arkham.  The streets of Gotham.  They had all run red, red with the blood of anyone whom had ever dared cross her path, anyone that had ever dared speak ill of the now dead, anyone that she had ever held the smallest of a grudge against, their lives, their families lives, the lives of those in the city they lived in, they were all forfeit.  She was not just the Queen of Gotham City any longer. She was the harbinger of death itself and she had the damned white horse of death to prove it.

She’d given a whole new meaning to paint the town red.  A literal one, and she thrived on it, on the chaos and the screams and the sounds of pain and wrenching metal and splintering bone. The sprays of blood, the gargled breaths and the desperate, flinging fingertips that tried somehow to signal for mercy.  Mercy. Mercy was for the naïve and the fools, and they… they were neither.  

Manic, glittering blue eyes, rimmed with quicksilver, shimmering shadow of electric silver and again by dark, midnight black, drank in the scene of destruction and death around her.  Still, those that had remained loyal to her, out of fear, or respect, made their way through the rubble where walls had stood, piece by piece, looking for any one of the rival gang that might have a breath left in their lungs, a beat left in their heart to be met with a bullet to the brain pan.  Squish.

Her chest rose and fall rapidly, her lips already smeared red with blood in a garish mockery of the Joker’s smile, fingers tapping and jerking against the handle of the blood and brain smeared mallet that was slung, ever so casually, over one shoulder.  Boots, thigh high tights, shorts that really shouldn’t even be there but somehow were, a corset that squeezed tight and pressed in all the right place, complete with a crown, a diamond crown, bloodied, featuring a pair of hands cradling a heart – the shape kind, not the human kind, though she’d thought about it for a minute or two. Finally her eyes drifted down, to the figure on their knees in front of her, with the bone white hands of death clasped rigidly around her neck, hands that traced upwards to the bare chested form of her Knight in shining armor, her noble steed.  Skin, pale, paler almost than her own, streaked with clots and sprays of blood from the fight, his own more than adequately toned stomach tight as he restrained himself, just barely, from the looks of it, from ripping the woman to shreds.  

“Patience, patience – it’s a virtue, so they say,” she chirped in the direction of Spike, a gleaming smirk and a loud pop of her baby pink bubblegum following her words.  “You’ll get the chance to tear her to pieces, as many as you want, the more tha better ev’n, but patience –”  A slight lean forward, her face dropped close to the seething, sneering woman clad in severe business attire, dark wool blazer and severe slacks, though already the blood seeping from the wound on her side had darkened and ruined the fabric. “Gee, it’s a good thing that’s such a terrible outfit, lady, or I might feel bad about it.  Don’t worry, I’ll pay for the dry cleaning bill – it’ll be good as new for your funeral.  Or maybe your cremation.  Depends exactly how eager my boy is feeling tonight, doesn’t it, puppy?”  

A wag of the brows, a half ruff, half playful snarl cast in his direction, a snap of teeth in a bite that clapped against only air. “Pretty princess Portia here – see, I made her a promise a long time ago, that I would find her. That I would make her watch as every single person of her pathetic little wanna be play mafia got ground to dust in front of her eyes and then – and only then, would I be nice enough to put the bitch out of her misery.”  An explanation that wasn’t really needed, she knew.  He’d have walked into the pits of hell if she’d told him to, but showmanship was part of the package, after all, and she did so need to make sure that Portia Halliday would serve as a message – another one – to the world.  Don’t cross Harley Quinn.  

A slight pause, as she heard acknowledgments from members around the warehouse, her smile growing wider, darker somehow as her gaze turned back to Spike and Portia. “Now be a dear, Spikey, love, and make it hurt, would you?”