#ugh i still have a new chapter of trials to write plus ithor

[inscrutable-shadow]

thinking about thanatos peforming edgar allan poe's "the raven"

(ieiunusverse/rendezvous with the vampire meta + an imagine under the cut, long post, thanks for reading!)

i already lean pretty heavily on corvid metaphors for thanatos's story in general, you'll often see him described as a "damp raven" rather than a "wet cat" (though he is both) and his 50-year stint as avrae's "Harbinger of Destruction" (which was the least cringe out of the names I tried) during the culling war hammers that home, he develops a reputation as a dark-haired omen of evil to come to the point where even the sight of him will set a vampire who survived the culling war on edge. he carries himself with suave decorum and an easy smile, but he's aware that there's not very much he can do to make people feel comfortable around him at this point, the only thing he can do is pretend he doesn't notice how much everyone hates him

but as a iuventus he's expected to have some sort of performing arts skill, whether that be song or dance or theater or what have you, and i feel like theater is something he's been doing since he was a young man in ancient greece, one of the only places he felt he could be himself (though he often got shoved into female roles because of his face and figure and that didn't help with feeling that no one saw him as a man). he loves standing on a stage and delivering lines, he excels at soliloquy and capturing the attention of an audience (perhaps because his entire life is a performance)

i've been imagining a scene in which he's asked to perform at some house iuventae event, the house has rather strict guidelines about who's allowed to be given their contracts and maybe his sire is under investigation for making poor choices and all of their scions are asked to prove that they really have the spirit of the house

the poem is probably new at that point, it was published in 1845 and around then than's living in england and teaching philosophy at oxford, he probably gets the letter with the house seal, the lute and the pen surrounded by the ouroboros, on it in green wax and sits in his study to read it, looking around the room trying to figure out what he'd even do. his eyes fall on last week's copy of the new york evening mirror and he recalls what he read in it last week, new work from poe, an author he loves. he fishes the paper out of a stack of similar ones from both england and america, and goes over it a few times, internalizing it, finding what it means to him. it's functionally a soliloquy, and he's been playing the role of hamlet almost since it was created, it's almost as if the poem was made for him to perform. he resolves to memorize it.

the day comes. he's alone on the stage with his props: a chair, a velvet ottoman, a book, and a bust of Lord Iuventus, partially for the comedic effect and partially because it was easy to get. he sits in his chair, book hanging listlessly from his fingers. his eyes, unfocused, gaze into the audience, and he begins to speak.

his audience is enraptured. most of them haven't heard the poem before, they don't know how it ends, they hang on his every word. the man on the stage is no longer thanatos, but the tormented protagonist of the poem, red eyes blazing with fury as he rails against the grief within his heart, the cruel universe that separated him from his love, and the raven that represents them both. thanatos spent weeks learning to produce the bird out of Shadow. his magic gives it form in a way that fully convinces the onlooker that it is a foul prophet of evil deeds.

"and my soul / from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor / shall be lifted..." he pauses. his eyes turn to the audience, seeking the gaze of his sire. his gaze fixes on them. "nevermore."

the room is silent. the audience is holding their breath. he waits for several charged seconds, allowing the grief of the moment to mature. then, he gets to his feet, picks up his book and his bust, and leaves the stage.

no one questions his sire's choice again.

ieiunusverse taglist: @albatris, @milkshakes-lust-and-chiral-dust, @thethistlegirlwrites and @crash-bump-bring-the-whump for being the only person in the world who actually likes thanatos XD