❝Are you hitting on me, Doctor?❞ — Jodie Foster as Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs (1991) // One of my favourite 90s films ever made.

a pet project writer/roleplayer site.
penned entirely by pax/paramoral.
established june 2025.

previously known as:
paramour, phantasmagoria, psychomachy, addiecanary, darksidedocs, lamentforjuliet, vladrian, & wild hunt.

click on the butterfly to go back.
hover to focus on a phantasmal object.

❝doctor, our insanity is not that we see people who aren't there; it's that we ignore the ones who are.❞ — A. Gibson, When the Bough Breaks

❝I'm not a germaphobe?!❞ — Jocelin Donahue as Samantha Hughes in The House of the Devil (2009) // My Halloween comfort movie!

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ooc.

Hiya there! Great to meet you. I'm Pax, 21, Filipino, queer female (she/they), located AWST and I've been writing for way longer than I ever thought I would. I've about a decade year of experience under my belt, and cut my teeth in this roleplaying hobby on instant chat apps and forums before moving to 1x1s. My past aliases may crop up from time to time but these are old masks I have done away with, and for those who know... ya know. 💜 I have moved on from the negative thought patterns and emotional baggage that once sapped the better part of me. Now you can call me a faceless kuwentista in the age of digital nudity. ✨I work a relatively monotonous job on top of a good amount of taking care of my family, and live a pretty high-stress, active life with all my neuroses. I am currently diagnosed with MDD, OCD, ADHD, Social Anxiety Disorder and recovering from selective mutism, BPD, and CTPSD. That's just how the life is for me right now. This does mean I can go quiet for long periods at a time. And I trust that you reading this is you acknowledging that you are okay with this coming as part of the territory, as a potential writing partner and/or online friend. Because every day is a battle, yet writing and living all these lives within a safety bubble keeps my world turning! You best believe it. Roleplaying with all its flaws and marvels is one of my downtime hobbies and I absolutely adore it.I'm also the type to spoil our storylines with aesthetics, visuals and music inspo which know no ends. It does mean I've become a lot more picky with whom I write, so please understand that A) I appreciate those who know how hectic life can be and won't ever rush me for a reply, B) I adore those who do not solely keep me for creative writing purposes, I will be that much more engaged to write with you, and C) I keep those who stay on for writing of a lifetime, not just a seasonal fix. Really grateful to say I already have a few long-lived partners I envision writing with even on my deathbed, so I find comfort in the fact that rare ones have to be sifted out from the rest.I talk in walls and tangents a lot because I am somehow physically more exhausted by rapid fire texts, but I will mirror your text talk. Just know my phone will be on silent, and it's nothing against you, if only for my sanity. 😂 Also very much a cinema and book lover. Can't recall every single one of them, but they've made me. Probably going to get a tattoo that of the old adage, "Ars longa, vita brevis" (and mess it up and regret it for life due to my fallible, human brain by adding an e in the wrong place)

activity.

As a Gen Z I am practically (not) married (just feral) to my gadgets, (even though I don't really relate to others my age that often) but whilst I am chronically online it does not mean I am available all the time. Look to me as The Scatterbrained One, who could be shitposting one moment and watching adorable possum videos the next (FYI they're all adorable) and an Online/Idle status on Discord may simply mean I'm up for shooting the shit OOC and not diligently working our storylines. This is a hobby after all. We are all humans, not machines so don't give me the crowd caffeine.I am pretty abysmal with letting my partners know about when my next post is coming in. That's the harsh truth. It really is just an exercise in the discipline I can muster with regards to writing in general. It may get better over time as life is a bit hectic for me right now with my diploma and mental health recovery journey, and ADULTING is still new to me... so please be kind! If you are okay with this fluctuating frequency, all's well that ends well.

writing technicalities.

All my writings are hosted on Discord servers that have a basic template for you to toy around with. Because we are creatures of habit, at least I am, and that is the place I associate with roleplaying/writing/gaming ao you can reach me there the quickest. You are automatically given admin rights because mi casa, su casa, just as the NPCs I create in our stories are yours to use. I use Tupperbox extensively for my muses and enjoy banter, text and meme-y channels as well. P.S. Haven't quite experimented with Tumblr accounts because it seems too time-consuming of an endeavour for me currently, but I could certainly be convinced in the near future!

characters, mains & exclusives.

I will be providing an ever-changing list of my beloved muses, all females, males, and non-binaries alike. They can be viewed under section characters. Exclusives mean they were created from scratch for the particular (beloved) roleplay with my writing partner, and Mains hint they are created for the purpose of suiting many plotlines. Both means I use them a lot. More asterisks mean I have high muse writing them. Anyone can be used however, once you've indicated interest in any of them to me.You can access an exhaustive list of my original characters via this link, tba. By the way I am operating against my logic of keeping it totally for the eyes of current partners, and making them accessible for everyone because I'm an open book and I realised it's plenty more freeing this way. Those who are on the same wavelength, of a similar creative calibre and maturity to not blatantly rip off someone else's character will be more concerned about the potential, the creation. So once the section is done, I'm throwing that net out there and seeing what it catches.By the way I try and not do character biographies or backstories anymore besides simple drafting. Certainly dolled up a LOT of Google Docs before but I just don't have that free time anymore! This is solely lying on the fact that my character exists in the scene, in the world so presently, with everything boiling down to intention and obstacle. I like getting to know them as the story goes along. It leads to many a twists and turns no one foresees, and the substance of their person always changes that they take on new forms.

verses & writing samples.

Same goes for my writing samples. They will comprise of both my own writing and collaborative writing with other partners whose credit and permission will be requested before it's posted.

i love these peeps so much they deserve a whole section!!!

Also just want to share my LOVE OUT LOUD for a couple of friends on here. They are the following pets (jk lol they're amazing human beings who just happened to become my friends. Because out of all the chi-chi, know-it-all possums in the world, they got stuck with me—they know who they are according to the nicknames I've bestowed upon them on knighthood day): Emmy Beanie, Bogan Kiki, Midge Widgey, Geitee Alice, Zain Brain, Celestial Zeal, The Thea, Nater Tots, Farhanite, Christo Wetman, Apateu, and Topher.💜💜💜

writer dossier & requirements.

You can absolutely send me a DM through Discord to chat, I come with some decent humour and brownies, but friend requests are NOT accepted... right away. I do welcome overtures of friendships that form with this hobby, but only once we've conversed for a bit more than a few days would I consider adding anyone to my list. I also only roleplay with people who are 18+. Please do not have the intention of roleplaying with me if you are younger than 18. Quite regularly do I incorporate an array of darker/mature themes in all my stories that I am not comfortable writing with a minor. Capiche?I am a lazy literate/novella writer who errs on the side of verisimilitude. Now, what does that mean? A self-sustaining world that is internally constant. Supernatural, fantasy, modern, slice of life, sci-fi, horror, and all else—I write on the basis of it adhering to its own surrealism and rules, something that buys you into the characters and settings. No matter how high the jeopardy, I assure you I can always make it work. So long as you let me take my time with investing in it as well. I am most engaged when writing long responses in the 500 - 2,000 word range, but do try to match your response length. In general though expect at least two decent paragraphs from me. Please please PLEASE respond with creative, literate and thoughtful writing as I would rather wait for a detailed and thought-out response than receive a rushed, badly-written one. I'm fatally allergic to one-liners.I roleplay in third person and past tense only. With the exemptions of letters and such, I am abso-freaking-lutely not comfortable if you assumed your character's PLACE in writing. They have to be in their own heads, and it's our responsibility as writers to make it seem we are assuming ourselves in their shoes. We shed their skin afterwards, not cling to it. With that said, remember that whilst I may enjoy the exhilarating fast-paced action, violence, sex, carnage and ugliness that happen in stories, I do not necessarily endorse them. Because fiction is fiction and this is a medium for us to explore those psychological structures. As a general rule of thumb we should always separate mun and muse. Yes, I'm aware this is a common sense thing some people royally screw up anyway.

NSFW is welcome in my house, as long as it is part of the plot and not the sole focus. My golden plot to smut ratio is 60:40. BUT I would like ample build-up to any NSFW scenes and thorough discussion with you on your expectations writing any of the scenes beforehand. Of course there's also kinks and limits which we preface with every roleplay partner and I go through mine in the very next section. With regards to dark/mature themes, I have become generally okay with anything but if I feel uncomfortable, I will tell you. I do provide trigger warnings for sensitive topics. Please read the section on my NSFW/Smut Writing guidelines.Also important point, I do not tolerate anyone who brings drama or toxicity in my circle! This has to be said. Leave all-a-that by the door or don't come in at all. It's easy to forget we are all people with a life, feelings and past experiences. BUT LITERALLY REMEMBER IT! Because I would absolutely, positively, one HONDO percent go unperceived than to be met with a bully's bullshit excuse for the rules they choose to live by. I won't play your game and neither should anyone else. I also do not limit myself to interacting with just "aesthetic accounts/blogs" (which is a poor definition of their standards that someone once gave me) because I go beyond the cover and value deep conversations with the time I have on here.My roleplay partners are great at letting me know if they'll be away or need a break; in fact I do most of the vanishing. Sorry by the way, but absence makes the heart grow fonder? nudge nudge poke poke Alas this segues into ghosting/vanishing. Please tell me if you are bored or uninspired by our roleplay. I am more than happy to discuss any changes or begin a different roleplay! Vanishing without a trace will result in unadding and our server being placed on an archived countdown for a set amount of days before deletion. I do not mind at all waiting for responses, but do let me know if you are planning on taking a break from writing for an extended period of time. 🫶 I want to make it a softer world for you.

plotting & musing.

Teamwork and communication are the bones of any collaborative writing project. Creativity and strong interpretation, the lifeblood. Now I could write by myself if I wanted to, I had for years but that's become so boring when I can turn on my brain with someone else's to create an even richer world. I just love the idea and act of writing at each other. Especially with someone you mesh with most creatively, one who is not afraid to use serious elbow grease and hours of musing to escape into this world with you. It's almost like playing barbies with your best friend. You look forward to each meeting at the lines. World's your oyster, history bends to your rules, and you are finally the narrators conditioning the flow and emotion of lives. We look to escape into the story to be terrified by a beautiful retelling of what anything could be. The audience is just collateral damage, bravely so. Use your voice to lend one to a story in waiting, in the dark, a soul whose purpose and memory longs for reclamation.I also assure you originality is not something to worry over in terms of plot, when we have books within us and everywhere else waiting to be used and referenced. Let's you and me use that to our advantage! As long as your character is strong and the script of our story is tight, I will obsess over every detail and imbue my own ideas to elevate yours. I just need me some quid pro quo, bud! My musing happens all the time and nearly on the laptop or on paper, so if you think I'm never singing it silently through my head, you're wrong! A plot's threads has either been ran through music, story boards or artwork that I put aside for every story. Zeroing in on a story is the least ADHD thing about me heh. But when the problem is real, and our metaphor sincere, those old stories are revived again—poured through us like fresh wine in aged bottles.Now hey, if that sounds like your cuppa joe or tea, connect with me. I'll listen to your expectations and guidelines as well and we can find something that not only glues our muses, but breathes life into their individual stories that they could be used for other plots. I know a true long form plot may never be achieved and sparks die off with life and all, but the good thing is that you can always pick it back up after taking a breather, mingling around in the roleplay community sphere. Please understand I do prefer storylines with an overarching plot driven by great twists and turns and will often never do a one-shot unless we have other storylines going on! A palette cleanser is needed from time to time so I always let my partner know to feel free to suggest that!

credits.

E v e r y t h i n g on this page except the Carrd layout (heavily edited from cassialair) and music player (custom made by the amazing and helpful glenthemes) is made by me, unless otherwise stated. That typically includes the background, writings and characters, and clumsily (and hopefully endearing ;w;) try-hard references. That definitely excludes graphic arts, celebrity faceclaims and all media properly credited to the respective owner. The possums can be found all over the interwebs. Specifically the edited possum screaming at ass GIF by the top of this section is by omtay. Jodie Foster and Jocelin Donahue gifs are respectively found here and here. They're my IT girls in Hollywood ✨ Rest of credits will be the last note in each section.

Hats off to you since you've reached the end of this section! Please tell me your favourite food to confirm you have read and understood my rules in its entirety. 💜

Between The Lines.

Lost to the brink
Ever a tragedy

Those words twisted around in Adeline’s head, spiralling over themselves to the point of losing all meaning. The crushing feeling of futility only grew in intensity per day. Six days. Six days spent mulling over a piece of mail not long enough to constitute as a haiku. It felt nearly pathetic at this rate. No. No, it had reached the point of pathetic after the second day. To even imagine there were those looking up to her at this point of time was hard to believe.She pushed the note around on her desk, sighing over the coffee cup which had been newly emptied once again. Was that the fifth? Perhaps I should ask them to pick up some new beans before I run out. The cutout letters mocked her in their simplicity; only two lines. Two lines, cutout from pieces of newspaper, glued to basic pink origami paper. Quite the cliché, honestly. If it weren’t connected to a gruesome series of murders, the women would probably scoff at the sight of it, writing it off as something straight out of a novel.A grumble escaped the detective’s lips. “Is it too much to ask for a clearly laid-out clue nowadays?” With a solemn sigh, Adeline rested her cheek in her palm. She had been chasing this particular thorn in her side for a month now. If it weren’t for her sworn duty, Adeline could almost give kudos to the meticulousness. No, no. Adeline sat up straighter to slap her cheek with the hand it seconds prior rested on. “Now is not the time to start appreciating the methods of a killer giving you one nasty workload and an even greater migraine. Now is the time to actually live up to the ridiculous titles the newspapers give you. Come on, Adeline… Lay out the facts.”This was a cleverly planned series of murders, that was for certain. Each crime occurred 7 days apart. Fuck, that last murder was 6 days ago, wasn’t it? No! No time to think about that. Facts. Each person murdered in work clothes. Each body left with a single note, folded carefully into the shape of a flower. Each flower corresponds with the first letter of the victim’s first name. Each colour of paper corresponds with the last name of the victim. The last victim was Lewis Parkers. Lily flower. Pink paper. Each victim suffered a gunshot through the back of the head. The one connecting line seemed to be that each victim worked an office job, but none at the same company or even the same industry. Each was murdered between the times of 5pm-8pm. Which means…“Ugh!” Adeline threw her forehead into her desk with a resounding thud. What did it mean? Why the notes? Why the flowers? Why did her coffee maker’s decanter have to be empty at this point? The futility weighed heavier. One day to the next incident.

Lost to the brink
Ever a tragedy

The Detective pulled out the other notes, each being comparable in frustration causing nonsense. Perhaps mulling over those would at least change the flavour of frustration she was currently dealing with. There was only so much bitterness even a coffee addict could take. The first murder. Rebecca Boyd. A rose, in the colour blue. She was fresh out of college, and just became the assistant of some communications company that seemed to mainly operate traffic lights remotely. Her note read as such:

Taken far too early
Left alone to rot

The second, a woman by the name of Taylor Osborne. A high-ranking CEO of an agricultural business. An orange tulip. Her note:

Elevated to such a height
All of it for naught

The third, and a change of form. Whilst the previous two murders had been women, this was a man. Larry Reed. Lotus. Red. Did something or other for a construction company. The treasurer? Yeah, that sounded right. As always, another note:

Abandoned without cash
Keep a note of this casualty

Combined with the death of our victim, the manager of a steel manufacturing plant, and his note, you could easily make the shittiest submission for a poetry content Adeline had ever seen. Now, did that mean anything for her case? Well… that was yet to be seen. Or at least figured out. Something within the Detective was gnawing away at her. There was something about the latest note that was different, something that had jumped out to her immediately. If this were just another pathetic wackjob, then that fact would be easily ignored, but with everything else Adeline had seen from this particular case, a detail like this was important to note.

The periods.

The last note ended each line with a period, something that couldn’t be easily overlooked. Or at least, as much as Adeline’s mind was screaming out. Perhaps this was merely a large plot intended to drive her mad. Perhaps this particular thread was just intended to throw the Detective off her case. *Not that I’ve been much of a help to this case to begin with.”Adeline lined up each of the crinkled papers, trying to force her mind to click things together. “Come on Detective, you’re not truly throwing in the towel quite yet, are you? If you don’t figure this out now, then you’re not having another cup of coffee until this case is finished!”Despite being a meaningless threat from herself, something about those particular words did spark something within her, taking effect. Perhaps it was the memories of her mother giving her the same threat when she didn’t finish a school paper.“Right, this is just like those times. You’ve dealt with worse crunches before. This is simply the all-nighter needed before the paper was due. Except… with a bit higher stakes is all.”Papers. Think. Poems. Think. Periods. Think. Letters of flowers, letters of names. Think, think, think. Letters… First letters…“First letters. FIRST LETTERS!” Adeline shot out of her chair, slamming her hands down on the table. She could barely move fast enough to line up each sheet of paper in order to read out each first letter of the lines.

Taken. T. Left. L.
Elevated. E. All. A.
Abandoned. A. Keep. K.
Lost. L. Ever. E.

“Teal Lake…” The words came out as barely a whisper. All of Adeline’s previous outward energy was gone, allocated to the rapid pace of her thoughts. Teal Lake, that’s a location 30 miles from here. If I’m not wrong, there was a dam built there 2 years ago, wasn’t there? The time for self-encouraging words was gone. Adeline pulled out her laptop, typing out ‘Teal Lake Dam’ as quickly as her fingers could slam the keyboard. The crease between her brows only grew as she waited for the web page to load. Her impatience was hardly helped by the numbers staring at her from the corner of the screen. 4:52AM. That hardly gave her more than 12 hours to piece this all together. What a headache.When the page finally loaded, the Detective wasted no time clicking on the first news link to pop up. Four killed in machinery malfunction. Teal Lake Dam construction to be withheld until further notice. “Dated 3 years ago, huh?” The article confirmed what she had already pieced together from the tidbits of information now coming her way. It was almost disappointing, really. A probable revenge story, if she had any say of it. Each of the companies in which a victim came from either in some way benefited from or was involved in the construction of the dam. That only left one real thread hanging.Why tell her? With such a convoluted method of sharing the motive behind the crime, it was hard for Adeline to determine why it was even done in the first place, let alone why that particular method was chosen. That question replaced her earlier frustration with what was certainly a new flavour. Not that this one truly felt any better. The thoughts were still entangled in her mind as she refilled her coffee maker. At least this had to be deserving of some form of reward. At least it kept her hands busy while her mind was pulled every which way.Despite putting together a major clue, that feeling of futility bore its weight down once again. There had to be some reason why this particular method was used. Something that only a detective would pick up on. Something that could only be discovered once mulled over for longer than any sane person would. Adeline stared back at the delicately crafted notes, nothing but the familiar drip of brewing coffee to fill the empty space of sound. Something only a detective would notice…Adeline rolled her chair closer to the laptop. The fact that the light of the screen was combated by the light of the rising sun peeking through her blinds did nothing to quell her bubbling anxiety. There had to be a reason. A serial killer didn’t just target only people connected to a certain incident and leave a note for a detective to find leading them to that incident if there wasn’t something to find. A secret hidden beneath the clear waters of Teal Lake. Something “Lost to the brink.” And she would find it. If she couldn’t, then what was the point of all that training to make her into a detective?And what would’ve been the point of turning on the coffee machine again?...“No goddamn point.” Adeline groaned aloud now, as an afterthought. She moved a hand to fix her glasses before half-throwing, half-placing the article she owned for twelve years now due to her legal blindness on the table. She rubbed at her eyes, barely awake to notice the front door of the station opened. The buzz of the sole light bulb aloft her head was her only white noise for what must be hours now.Addie.Adeline jolted in her chair. “Jesus fuck.” Did she just hear Darren’s voice? Darren Kerber was her superior by a rank and a snarky individual who pushed all the buttons she could possibly have – but he never addressed the girl by her nickname. Despite all his sarcasticness, he was the gem-rare few in the station who made her feel like she was an instrumental being, rather than a stereotyped woman-in-the-workforce person. For him, she mirrored that respect.Adeline Sherback stood from the uncomfortable furniture piece she called her office chair and fought the dizzy, swampy feeling of her vertigo as she made her way to the doorway. She paused. She looked away from the door. Her hand pulled at the blinds of her corner office’s window, the one that faced the rest of the police station in the day and in the night – darkness. Usually.“AH!” A face made extremely pale by flashlight bore into her vision, making her take clumsy steps back. “WHAT IN HELL-FUCKERY WAS—DARREN!”She closed the blinds and just in time saw the flashlight of her lead detective wane off his face, the grin lingering. Seconds later, his figure made its tall and lanky form through her threshold. She rolled her eyes. “Oh baba yaga, don’t mind that, I forgot to sprinkle more salt on the threshold.”Darren smiled sympathetically now, both hands in a prayer gesture to beg whatever wrath she may then incur on him. “So,” his voice was a smooth, honey-coated baritone, “the thing is, I was not invited to the party tonight and I told myself I ought to get a little payback for that.”“Ha-ha. No party here, I thought you were a detective of great stature.” Adeline gestured to the entirety of herself, and then around the cramped office of hers. “See the almost decrepit coffee machine, the sad bags under my eyes, and the smell of said coffee and the burning midnight lamp?”“Seems like a party of epic proportions to me.” He shrugged. His green eyes held the violet undertones of Adeline’s blue ones, before tearing away – and feigning a look of disgust toward her desk, atop which were scrambled papers of the murder and some ongoing smaller case files, but he knew exactly what she was working on tonight. After all, the team had not been making substantial leads and the city people were growing restless and morale, rapidly dropping. Of course she had to be working on that. “Ooh, part of my team actually stayed back to do work. Such enthusiasm is revolting.”In his guise of playing the clown, Adeline noted the chiselled lines of his face, made prominent by new wrinkles that were not there before. She too saw the bags that made a home beneath the man’s eyes. There was always a sense of comfort in colleagues – a ‘given’ understanding when it came to their line of work.

red-headed shenanigans.

He had taken the earlier hissy fit of Étaín in stride, knowing he hadn't done anything to iron out the tensions just as much as Godric was the only probable cause for all this. But he would fix the hot mess, he had promised to — the car, not the girl. He thought he was helping her when he'd told her to breathe, but Will certainly hadn't expected to strike a nerve with the small reminder. He had merely pressed his lips together, eyes widening just a fraction, as his total reaction. Certainly Étaín saw it, whom he knew must've felt bad after the silence had passed them — good, he felt a tinge of vengeance after that and he thoroughly enjoyed leaving her alone out in the cold for a passing moment as he went down into the basement where the Devil almost nicked him.She clearly had been teetering on a panic attack. That was enough then, putting some distance between them. He felt the hot scratch on his back where the wound was. In his head the mechanic was wondering where he went wrong this time he tried to help somebody out without an ulterior motive. Phrasing and timing. He'd have to work on those just a little better.The declaration of fixing her damn car for free would be well said and done and the offer of booking her a room in the motel still stood, that he felt… a little rejected that she was glossing over those solid facts. He was not angry, even if her attitude was something of a wild horse fighting for its freedom as things currently stood. Scratch that cutesy confession he poured from his soul too, like it was nothin’. He knew it wasn’t all his fault, that he was the only repairs shop in the damned town, but he felt a hint of indignation toward the bitchy attitude that suddenly turned on him. He wasn’t blaming Hexy. Oh no, man, everyone turned on the bitch factor every now and then, while cynicism was also a neat way to distance yourself, but he couldn’t help but feel he deserved some leeway to redeem himself in her eyes. He was trying.Customer was always right, Will sighed. He reminded himself about that dumb slogan to just treat her as one for the rest of the night. A non-paying customer, at that. Then she mentioned just throwing in the towel and going back to her place of residence. Fuuuuck, Will thought. How was he going to convince her without telling her his whole deal as Mephisto? He was going to have to stalk after her obviously, unless he could just let the cat out of the bag now? Will closed his eyes for a moment, pinching the bridge of his aquiline nose, massaging the ache away yet only making it worse. His brain hadn’t been strained this much in the longest. No. Nope. Nada. No one knew of his deal as the demonic dealmaker in town, and he preferred it remain so. He didn’t think he’d be seeing Hexy after this night anyway. Might as well go full Maineiac.He opened his eyes, stopping his gaze on the far distance stretching out along the town's end; there was no fog but he could make out tendrils of black air with two red glowing eyes. He felt the demonic corruption overtaking his mind, as it always did, laying a hazy film over everything and everything was all routine except for the reds. Stupid reds. "Could do that, ‘course. A taxi would get ya out of my hands faster,” Will curtly replied, falling lazily back into his drawl, “But as much as I know ya been all set to vamoose, I'll still have to straight out tail ya home to wherever that is, or, er, ya'll find yerself all gummed up to even board the vehicle. Trust me… well, don't. I'll just have to show what I'm talking about, don’t I, bub? It's magic. I am magic. C’mon, Étaín.” To be fair, walking with her anywhere wasn’t abjectly terrible. He just wanted her to not look at him with that hateful glare again.12.05a.m. He walked ahead of her in the dark, knocking Godric on the hood and feeling a little sorry that they were both being abandoned in the long run. The motel was truly a better choice for his end, but also hers; he'd fix the car, she'd get to sleep and have it by morning. And to hell with Shawcross Repairs and his face after that. Not choosing the motel, which was her sound call through and through, meant having to track her down and keep within an arm's reach which basically meant following her like a dog and whatever-monkey-wrench-else might be thrown into the works. That wasn't to say he couldn't just save face and hang back at the shop — Will had enough self-dignity to stay put and let her figure it out for herself. But they were bound to the small, stupid, trivial deal made in passing now, — his fault completely, whatever — him and her, and you couldn't reason with the Devil. He wanted to see it through. Will and Étaín and their fifteen minutes in the ghost town. The wind that came all of a sudden whistled a soft and lonesome tune.He turned around, waiting for the girl. “I wish I was kidding, but yer a witch and ya haven't figured me out.” A smirk curled up the ends of his lips, and Will couldn’t hide the small telltale hint of vindictive challenge in his voice. A wink in his blue eyes directly to her. He was well back playing the game in the field of his expertise, assholery. “I hope ya’ve been enjoying the show. It's about to come to an end soon.” He already predicted the pattern of thoughts forming in her head; *the sooner the better, it couldn’t come faster, and anything to get you out of my sight. Don’t forget the spicy Irish twang.The street on the outskirts of the town was devoid of traffic and human life, but it surged with nature and flickering dim lights of being truly alone. “Got any service yet?” He shouted, referring to the phone she was probably checking behind him. Likely not. The town had no service at the witching hour. Not when Mephisto was making his deals. He donned a knowing smile as he turned to face her, walking backwards in his long-legged strides. Watching her face. He stuffed his hands into his pockets, then remembered about the car keys. Relinquishing already to the idea of booking her a room in the motel, he slowed down his pace, not too close but an inviting distance from the female. He held out a hand and even wagged a finger. “I need the car keys to Godric by the way. I know I’m criminally good-looking, but it’s not like I have a slim jim taped to my leg at all times.”

take the fear in waves.

Judson tasted the blood before the fist had come down on his cheek.He went stumbling backwards—seeing stars and feeling bones dislocate—crashing into the unusually rigid net of the boxing ring. The ring was octagon shaped with a perimeter of cold steel iron, making it easier for either fighter to surrender at any point in time, the most common reason being they'd sustain a loss of blood from careless cuts or straight hard impact. They called them Death Wires. They went hard down here… Now, the air in the underground arena was stained with the smell of sweat, booze, blood of old and new freshness, and a cacophony of appraisal and support erupted from the crowd like a deafening stereo.The audience. They were various flavours of criminals: the hardened and scarred, the dirty bad, low-time kleptos, bloodthirsty lone wolves, ex-offenders fresh off from the penitentiary, gang members that strayed too far from the surface, hell, even high-class cannibals in suits to satiate their daily feening of 'eating the low and poor'; surrounding the match like a flock of vultures. All hungry for the show to continue. Jumping like maniacs or eagerly perched on the edges of their seats, eager to witness whose mind of the two ringsters was more murderously inclined.Both boxers were still in the game. Judd had gotten up before the referee, a measly stature of a man, made it to two counts.And the pain? Judson Ryder felt the pain only after the match — that is, following his victory. The adrenaline that coursed through his veins was what he lived for. His stoner high. He grinned, spat out blood and a likely fragment of back tooth. Bloodied but unbowed. Invicto! Invicto! Invicto! reverberated around the depths of the arena, the perfect nitro to the man's revved up engine."Hear that, Skid?"He grinned wider, reloading his arms ending in fists protected with jet black gloves, two mighty extensions of his limbs. Composure recollected, he'd just called out to his opponent Marvin Hale, whose ring name was Buster. But self-made names never really mattered to the more creative and crude mind. “Should've used your ears in prison school, 'haps then you'd hear whose name they're cheering!"Buster rushed at him without a word, yet the slightly bigger man’s reddening face said plenty emotion. A fit of ungovernable rage to hinge on. . . Judson dodged the attack, and then saw the other man make an unexpected turn, unrelenting in his pursuit like a bull deadset on the bullfighter's muleta. Slow down, Skid, Judd dared mouthing, whilst managing to sidestep the second charge. Turning this to his advantage, Judd launched a punch to the temple and Buster crumbled to the floor in an instant. His impaired opponent by his feet now, the urge to crack down on the scum was imminent but Judd just stepped back, deep heavy pants through his mouth.His pulse was everywhere on his body, his head and ears, and the cries and shouts, boos and cusses, around him compounded it like all hell. The grin still visible for all to see, Judson Ryder bent forward and landed another suckerpunch to the ribs just as Buster inhaled.“Gonna hold up your end of the deal this time, Skid? Are you?” Judson spat, saliva and blood in his general direction. Marvin Hale, the sadistic thorn in his side he was familiar with, flipped Judd the bird in response. Without another word, he received another punch but this time to the face — Judd felt the satisfying succession of impacts ripple through his gloves as he landed punch after punch until his mind went black and the big man was coughing up more blood the next second, half-clutching at his chest and half trying to pull himself up. Now it was Judd who was seeing red. “MOTHER FUCKER! You follow through with the girl’s terms or you’ll need a baggie for all your teeth!”There would come a certain point, that last punch, when it was certain something was hit and broken beyond repair.
Buster rolled over, blood spooled across the Canvas. It leaked from his nose and mouth like a deadbeat father drunk off one too many Budweisers into the night, oblivious to the concept of ceasing their bullshit. “You release her brother.” Judd said again, exhausted. The referee began the ten-count. Judson whipped his head around, meeting eyes with people cut from the same cloth as him. Their faces passed as quick blurs. Nobody, he thought to himself. Nobody was fucking born this way: having to strain their necks looking back or appreciating the fleeting instances their fists needn’t be up. Nobody.Invicto! Invicto! Invicto! and the referee’s spirited voice reached seven. Judd walked to the hunched-over Buster, a wounded cat on the battlefield, who was increasingly cowering as he approached. Once his taller shadow merged with that of the shrivelling man, he felt his legs go out from under him — and soon he was caught in the undertow of heavy punches, vengeful and merciless, the back tooth knocked out completely within seconds. Shock turned into self defence that manifested into a struggle for opportunity and air. Judd’s jaw hardened around the mouth guard — tasted extra metallic because of the blood pooling in his mouth — his head whipped in the receiving direction of the punches. Soon, the numbness took over, the feeling of acceptance not too different from being on the precipice of death washing over him… before he knew it, the tide of cheers fell to the favour of his opponent reminding him of the indifference that came with this stardom. Just another show and this time, he was becoming just a prop…No. That wasn’t quite right.He was the star of this fucking show.Rising from the grave, Invicto would stand back up, sweat and blood glistening off him like a wolf returning from a hunt. The audience would notice the bloodshot eye, the slashes across his back from the Death Wires and the tattoo of an arrow pointing up on his bare left chest which was more of a Tiwaz if you asked him. Invicto fast approached Buster who was looking in a particular direction in a curious way, just before the referee’s voice died down at the count of sixth and Buster finally noticed why. When the bulkier fighter whipped round, he received a clean strike from Judd right in the face and crashed back to the padded floor.Judd whipped his blond hair back, sweat and blood glistening off him like the return of a wolf from a hunt. One eye was bloodshot by this point and it fit him like a glove. He went ham. His punches struck out like lightning bolts without a care in the world, the most dangerous kind that could befall a man on the ground. The referee was yelling and the arena of degenerates worked overtime to have a closer view, voyeuristic masses bypassing each other, itching for a taste of the bloodiest fight yet. And Invicto always brought it. Buster was resembling a crumpled paper more and more by the second.“I’ll do it—” another punch, the result; a busted lip. “I’ll fucking—” another spew of blood across the canvas. Judson only paused to spit on Buster, the world around him drowned out in his head. He continued his punches, the vicious red in him not dying down just yet. Buster lost the chance to speak a while ago but he wasn’t giving up either. “I SAID—”A gunshot rang out, right next to Judson's ear. He recoiled—faster than he could process the situation, but the cold iron grip of the .44 collided with his temple a second too early.Judson landed on the canvas with a heavy thud, a river of blood trailing down the left side of his profile. “Rgh...” His eyes found no steady entity, the whole arena now plunged in a state of chaos, the panicked stampede drumming a hole into his brain. Everything moved and coalesced in no logical order…. All that could be done was to close his eyes and black it out. Rest for a second.Ain't no-fucking-body got to carry a piece around here, he last thought, unless you were…And the last thing he saw? The black studded spike boots, one rushing toward him with enough force to take out an eye.

The gentle zephyr seeped into Lizzie's lungs with an invigorating manner, leaving a tangy leafy taste in her mouth as the wind gust carried along the nightly whisperings of the few palm trees in the vicinity. There were masses of people all around the town and docks that the particular ship chose to take port in that evening. Some fighting and jostling with each other, some dancing through the streets. Others passed out downright drunk in random places in the street. Ladies of the night, of all shapes and sizes, ushering men into alleyways and stairwells with sweetened words and wandering hands....The nearest tavern, a small crowd starts to dispel and amongst them was Lizzie, in her disguise as always, a second nature to her now as breathing and living out the days were. More specifically, she was playing the part of Liam, the spunky young street rat, pocketing several bags of coins and jewels. She had just "won" in a game of poker within the tavern, only lightly sipping her whiskey to keep her wits about her while she got the men around her more drinks, buying strategic rounds with her winnings. Get them more drunk, get more of their gold; rinse and repeat.Brushing shoulders with a taller man that she'd not seen before, on her part, she narrowed her eyes and barked, "Watch it, mate!" in a low tone voice, practised and perfected over the years. No sooner had the words been uttered, a shout came from the bar and a gang of burly men exploded through the doors, slightly stumbling but anger as clear as daylight on their faces."Thar's the plunderin' little rat! Get him!"Before they got any further, Lizzie was running. She cut deftly through the throng of people outside, having bursted through the backdoor in a swift series of leaping over tables and past chairs within the tavern. She took the alleyways and side routes, the gears and cogs in her head turning to bring forth the map of town Nassau stashed away in her mental museum, at the ready and alert as her nerves were. The shouts of her pursuers were ever present, their long blades clanging against walls and waving in the air as they chased her.

Reaching the docks, Li looked quickly for a hiding place but with none in the immediate vicinity, without a hint of hesitation, dived gracefully into the water, submerging herself and cutting through the water as fast as she could. When she surfaced again, the darkness masked her well, her pursuers cursing and pacing where she had been. With a smirk, she kept swimming, choosing the furthest ship on the dock and climbing up the side and through one of the gun holes in the side.There she waited and wandered, drying off and helping herself to some food that had been left out. Coming across a well stocked armoury, chose a single gun that she liked the look and feel of, checked it was loaded and grabbing an extra round of bullets before putting it in her belt. Her curiosity sated and mostly dry, Li started to climb back to the deck, planning to disappear into the rooftops for the night but as she stepped onto the deck, she heard voices and footsteps and before she knew it, there were unfamiliar figures coming up the gang plank and on deck. No doubt the owners or crew of the ship. Cursing, she tried to inch her way back below deck but she'd already been seen. She could've hidden but it would be in vain so instead, she stepped out, doing a mock stumble."Evenin' lads. Mistook this beauty for me own ship. I'll be gettin' out of your way." Her tone could've passed for drunk, the words slurred however her response didn't have the desired effect."Little thief we got 'ere lads. Thought you'd have a looksee? 'Elp yourself boy?"One said, the other two drawing their swords. Reluctantly, she sighed with derision as she drew her own blade, readying her feet. "Honest mistake, boys. No need to get ourselves 'ot and bothered." She held up a hand to show didn't mean any harm, that she didn't want to fight but was ready to do so.A few clangs of the swords went by as they charged towards the intruder and she parried and fought them, exploiting weaknesses in their footwork and using her surroundings before drawing her new gun and loading it, pointing it at a man's head.That was when a fourth man came up onto the deck with a shout, halting proceedings for a moment.

“Avast, Falls!”At the sound of the order, the pirates went still, their heads turning to see who it was. The Quartermaster’s feet slowed down and transitioned into a walk, closing the distance between him and his crowd of fellow swashbuckling buccaneers. His thick eyebrows were corrugated, lips pressed in a tight line, and the boyish, outgoing vibe had dissipated quickly from him.“Edward!” One of them, a boy of his age and his close friend, Ramsay Jack, exclaimed, equal parts shocked and angry. He was the one who had fired his shot, smoke escaping the visible end of his pistol. Always a reckless one, the Quartermaster often had to keep him in check, as a friend and as a crewmate.“Lower yer pistol, Ramsay. I be here now t' settle this.”He reassured him, jumping down from the railings and placing his hand atop his sword’s pommel again, a frequent habit now. Edward blinked, and the next thing his eyes were on was the intruder, an icy stare to freeze his heart—until he saw something... Was that pirate one of the men, or a lassie? Ever so slightly, an eye twitched, an instinctual action only occurring if he was on to something. How strange..“Ed, look at this one,” another crew also around his age, Will, the often composed and laidback one, spat. The other one currently being held hostage was James, who could only keep quiet, but Edward could hear his heart pounding all the same. “Thought he might help hisself to a portion o’ some grub. And he’s plundered a pistol too! Scoundrel thief!”“Lass, you mean?”“What?” Ramsay spoke up this time, quite dumbfounded.“Ah naught. Must be th' ale talkin’.” Edward’s eyes subtly met the proclaimed thief’s, as if saying ‘I know yer secret.’ Although it was anything but a guess. He did have some ale, so it must be that.. His expression slightly darkened, turning his full sight on who he gathered was either a thievin’ mate, or a thievin’ wench.. Or perhaps, both.Damn ale.He eyed the /thief/ up and down, before finally settling on their eyes.“Let go o' me hearty, thief, 'n we'll let ye walk unharmed. Ye can keep th' gun. Fair enough for ye?”

Lizzy stood her ground. The man’s name was Edward, and she gathered the name Ramsey from his communications. That’s when his gaze turned properly on her, a piercing blue that threatened to cut through her deeper than any knife or blade ever could. Instead of shying away, she stood up that bit taller and straighter, dismissing the intimidation method he was trying to pull, a cocky grin on her face as another described her transgressions.“If I may add, if I’d wanted to rob ya, I’d have been here and gone, without so much of a trace or a footstep out of place. And the loot you got down there? I could’ve taken a lot more. I took what I needed. I keep my own head above water.” Li defended herself, in her trained voice once again but as Edward said the few words that threatened to bring her down, her own eye twitched. A single small sign of betrayal that would have been easily overlooked. It was a momentary lapse and she recovered instantly, a scoff and a raised eyebrow at his observation. ‘You know nothing’, her expression seemed to say in return to his silent warning.“Lass? Not the worst thing I been called in my time.” She played it off, a challenge in her eyes, a fire burning just behind them, laughing a little.At the man’s proposal however, she was somewhat confused, as were the men around her by the looks of things, like gawking goldfish, they turned towards the man in charge.“An’ why on earth would you do that? Sounds fair enough but you fly a pirate flag an’ from what I know of pirates, they ain’ exactly fair! I lower this gun and that trigger happy lubber will shoot me dead, no matter what you’ve said. Am I wrong?” Her eyes found Ramsey for a moment in a questioning motion before returning to Edward.The buttermilk moonlight glinted on sharp cheekbones that became even more prominent as a smile crept up on Edward’s face. The Quartermaster found himself challenged by this lassie-turned-lad, in a way he rarely found in his companions. A challenged twinkle in his blue eyes, they were less colder than they had been before, howbeit a steel blue now. His countenance was anything but aggressive, more so sympathetic, a look of commiseration washing over chiselled features normally quite inscrutable. For a thief that came a-running out of nowhere, no less.“As I said, /lad/, Ramsay there won’t try at anythin’ now that I be here. They listen t’ me, considerin’ now our matey’s life be at stake here. One can only hope ye understand that.”At that, Ramsay almost wanted to speak up for himself, but clenching his jaw harder, he just kept a straight face; he was smart enough to know when to take his ego down a notch, especially when a crew had a gun pointed to them. Speaking of pointed firearms, James, on the other hand, was squirming. He never did well in front of loaded guns, not as well as their other hearties to say the least. They either were provoked, or became quiet in sheer fear. Some of his men could not even hurt a person, which would normally be a baggage that came with the life of piracy. The Fortune Falls were occasional robbers, thieves, but never killers by design.“Edward, I say we jus’ shoot the lad here ‘n now, then dump his body into the ocean!” Will interjected acidly, contradicting his very thought, to which the boy dismissed with a wave. James focused on the wooden planks beneath him, staring down at the projecting splinters, while Ramsay growled, ready to launch another shot through the too still night. Sooner or later, Edward expected the rest of the crew would follow—hell, the rest of the people. The intruder-thief, no matter their experience or skillset, could not possibly outrun the would-be concerned throngs of people, unless they had a death wish by drowning.Edward’s gaze switched to his crewman to the perpetrator, to and fro, assessing thesituation. An understated exhale absconded him, then he clicked his tongue.“Me ship’s crew pride ourselves on loot through honour.” As he ignited a discourse, his hands made gestures to accompany his speech. It was his form of weapon, his charisma that was. “Now, I can even read the whole code fer ye, but time is treasure, innit? I was jus’ a landlubber when these scallywags took me in. Hell, I also recall bein’ kidnapped fer ransom—and wha’ did they do? Hell, the cap’n surrendered all thar loot, in exchange for me life! Honourable, aye? It comes once in a blue moon, but I hit the jackpot wit’ these lovely good-fer-nothins.”Mayhap it would call for a very observant eye, but Edward was a lot closer than he had been earlier, to both James and the thief. He cleared his throat, looking down now. His hands moved to his weapon belt and, in quicker time than one can say ‘knife’, had unstrapped it from his body, throwing his only sword and gun aside. He slid them towards his teammates, with Ramsay letting out a frustrated exhale. Will simply stood still, watching everything unfold. Edward outstretched his arms for a moment, taking the tiniest step forward before shoving his hands into his pockets. His eyes glossed over the person before him, scrutinising her/him more than ever now. At the tilt of his head, the shadows momentarily danced on his face.“Nah that I expect ye t’ understand, Spitfire,” he replied softly, testing out a nickname. He placed a hand atop his chest, where his heart was. Edward’s eyes held an unwavering steadiness, as well as his voice. “So take me instead, in place o’ me hearty. No man on deck will blabber so much as a word, nah ‘til you get off this galleon and reach somewhere ye can start running t’. This a better deal than the first? And lookie here, I’ve already done the ‘stripping of weapons’ part fer ye.”

As the moonlight came in and out of the cloud cover that shrouded the sky and thus the deck in patchy light, it glinted off the taller man’s face and the crew mens alike, exposing wrinkles or bright scars that stood out on faces and arms. On the intruder, the hat was enough to shield the face, keeping her in significant darkness. However, her eyes seemed to take on a power of their own, shining as she stared at the man speaking, no fear within them and no sign of backing down.“Honour among pirates wasn’t somethin’ I was expectin’.” Li spoke, truthfully, a slight nod in response to Edward’s reply. She afforded her eyes a quick glance to the rest of the crew, watching her and her gaze shifted to the one she was pointing the gun at, squirming and visibly sweating. She’d clearly picked the right man, who was petrified in place, barely able to look at her. At least she didn’t have to worry about him rushing her.
Her contemplations were interrupted by one of the other crew members, spitting his intentions towards the young thief and his fate and the one named Ramsey seemed to support that decision, raising his own gun again with a growl.“I’d not recommend tha’ lads!” Was all she said, her gaze flitting from the two men together to their Quartermaster, who didn’t seem to share the same thoughts, didn’t even seem to be on the same level of thinking to the men in his company. His eyes were calculating, weighing up the situation.As he spun a tail of honour and the story of how he came to be on the ship they stood on, Lizzy was working out plans herself, playing through situations in her head;
Shoot the man and run but her leverage would be gone and it would be a question of her being faster than the bullets that would surely be fired at her as she ran…Leave the man be, lowering her gun and stepping back but that would present a near unmissable opportunity for the men to follow through with their intentions and shoot her dead. Honour bound as their quartermaster reckoned they were, she couldn’t and wouldn’t be taking that chance.It certainly hadn’t escaped the girl’s notice that her adversary was a lot closer to her. At the time, it wasn’t a concern but even as Edward undid his weapons belt and slid it across the deck, leaving him defenceless apart from his fists (and this was something she wasn’t going to overlook), he was getting a little too close and with his tiniest of steps forward, Lizzy sidestepped slightly, leaving her a little bit more room between them. His gaze was heavy on her and while she still played her part, it was getting clearer that even rum fuelled, he was seeing through her ruse.As he spoke, she pondered for a moment.“I tol’ your men before you arrived, I didn’t mean no trouble or harm. They chose to fight an’ fired the first shot. While you say no man on deck will speak a word, I’d rather they too dropped their weapons and in turn, I’ll sheathe my blade and lower the gun, before your man pisses himself with fright.” A mere tilt of her head towards the shaking man highlighted her point. “We shake hands and part ways, no man worse off than the other.

“Fer months, we been out there in the open seas, further than yer pretty eyes can see. Tonight had been the only time to relax our scheming minds and rest our boots up on the table. But now, we all be on our toes since this lil’ intrusion of yer took advantage of that,” Edward clarified, an edge of annoyance laced in his tone, not only because of his rest disturbed, but on behalf of his crew’s. A true Quartermaster at heart always had his crew’s best interests as well. “Ye can’t blame us fer our way o’ reacting.”“Ye can nah blame me either, Edward, if I put a bullet in his skull right now!”“Back down, Ramsay.” Edward ‘tsk’ed, staring back at the increasingly incensed lad. The pride-scathed pirate held back a snarl, but began raising his pistol ever so slightly, going against the well wishes of his Quartermaster. Catching on to this fast enough, Edward had brandished a knife, a discreetly-hidden one, from his accessible boot. With a smooth flick of the wrist, the lad flung it towards his own crew man at the shockingly fast pace. The blade went nearly slicing his hand off, but merely scratched at the scrap of a weapon as it whizzed past. Thunk—it reached the fore boom of the ship, cutting into the wood which would have been Ramsay’s head. Clearly agitating the would-be harmed male even further, he growled in response.“Mate, ye were a lookout not months ago, and now you got the balls to raise a knife to your hearty, just ‘cause yer the Quartermaster?”“Christ, Ramsay, ye shut up or I’ll make ye!” interjected Will, but to no avail, angering the man even more. The irked one almost spoke up again, before a haltingly loud ‘stop’ came from Edward.“And as far as I remember, ye were just some lookout, and look at this, ye still are. Ye listen to me because I’m the Quartermaster, and this will be on yer hands if our hearty gets shot, ya daft swab!” He had had enough of the man being an impediment to his way of easing the situation. In the background, James’ breathing had hitched, not taking well to the words just said by his own higher-up. A wrong move, and Spitfire might just spill blood and brain on the main deck. A little consideration for that thought? Ramsay clearly and brazenly needed to be told off, once in a while. Edward snarled. “Back. Down. Need I say it a third time, or would ye prefer another knife? I may not miss again.”Ramsay’s eyes were a pair of hazel brown, simple and unassuming in its normalcy, but right then and there, they appeared as two flaming orbs—rivalling that of Edward’s blue, chilly gaze that in turn challenged the nightly air. But the fire in the former’s eyes died down as he stared at his own bucko for what could pass as an eternity; before throwing his tawdry blunderbuss to the side angrily. His anger simmered down in a few seconds, as if mulling over his action like a child would whenever they threw a tantrum. Spinning his head back to Spitfire, Edward realised this was going on for far too long. The longer they continued dawdling, the sooner the Captain and the rest of the Falls would be coming back.What would they all think, then, if resolving a matter of such simplicity had proved to be such a dragging task for the Quartermaster? As simple as getting the attention of a tavern wench, another Quartermaster would have shot the lad, or lass, already. The pirate“Will, ye as well,” he said without looking back, to which the mentioned male obliged, clearly the more accommodating of his two companions. He raised his hands, palm heavenward, in front of him, a gesture to Spitfire as if to say ‘there ye go.’Although he would not express it on his face, nor admit it aloud, Edward was uncertain and anxious. He wanted no bloodshed on anyone, but if it happened, he would not be anything short of hellbent on waging war on this impostor, and on their brothers and sisters. That damned humbug. How long had this façade of his—hers—been going on for? Laughable. A pull on her scruffy hat, and he imagined her hair would cascade down; a closer look at her face, would be the observation of features unbecoming for a man of their age, and finally, a stature so petite under those too loose and baggy chosen pieces of clothing.“Yer end of the deal now, beauty.”

Li’s eyes narrowed and a scoff escaped her lips, but before she could argue back, that she could very well blame them for going for the “guns first, ask questions later” approach, the man Ramsey started shouting again and it made the young intruder skittish, turning back towards the shivering form of James, properly aiming now. Truthfully, she was an advocate for life. She never wanted anyone to get hurt, let alone killed but she’d learned over the years that this was how most men communicate to one another and with the pirate flag being flown above her head, it was even more applicable that these men, bar Edward perhaps, would only listen to actions rather than words.Her plan had been to give them a last chance, even though it was dangerous as something within her told her that if she held up her end of the deal and the action would have been to shoot one of the barrels directly behind her target, showing her accuracy (that she hoped was up to speed as she hadn’t fired a gun for a while) and her willingness to shoot which Ramsey seemed to be doubting or perhaps merely didn’t care for his crew mate over the pursuit of his pride.Before Lizzy could follow through her plan, Edward had moved, quicker than lightning, bringing a knife from his boot and throwing it with precision that she herself was jealous of, almost faster than she could blink. She saw it’s finished path, directly where the man’s head had been and she couldn’t keep the impressed look from her face, a slick smile revealing itself before she reined it back in, still wary of Ramsey’s gun but eager to see the result of this scrap, secretly betting and highly too on Edward. It would certainly be the best outcome for her but she wanted to see him win. He also used the same method as she had been intending and she respected that. No one with a throw that strong and with that accuracy would miss on purpose.After a battle of wills fought before them, the tension threatening to snap the ship in half like the Kraken of old stories, Ramsey finally backed throwing his gun aside. This relaxed Lizzy enough to let her turn her gaze back to Edward, glad when the man Will did his bidding, raising his hands and unless he had a very quick draw and Li’s aim was worse that she wagered, he’d still be injured before he could take a shot.With Edward’s words, her eyebrow cocked. There was little doubt he had worked it out now but his words, his choice of words, allowed the other men to remain unaware. For that she was grateful but equally wary. He had a plan, a motive for not revealing her. Returning her gaze to James, she unloaded the pistol and lowered it, replacing her sword in her scabbard by her waist, squaring her feet off to maintain her boyish posture, the illusion still alive and kicking. Turning her free hand with the palm facing towards the men, she took a step back.“There ye go. I’m a man o’ me word. Now… Gents. I reckon you gots other ‘hings to be gettin’ on with so if you move aside, I’ll be takin’ me leave.” She turned to James, feeling bad, offering him an apologetic smile and a tip of the hat on her head. “And no ‘ard feelings mate? Could’ve been anyone o’ you. Just ‘appened to be you. I’m sorry. If it helps, unless yer man there actually loosed another bullet, I’d no intention o’ shootin’. If I was you, I’d be questionin’ him on he’d rather see ye shot than listen to the man who had your life in the balance.”Clicking her heels together and leaving him with that thought, the stranger turned to the three remaining crew members who were still blocking her way. While her eyes darted briefly to Ramsey and Will's movements, her gaze mostly remained fixed on Edward's strong, staring eyes, refusing to submit to him as Ramsey finally had.

‘Man o’ me word’ as she said. An oddity it was for him to break into a smile out of nowhere, but that spewed phrase did it for the young lad. As it appeared, a little lady in a man’s costume was his sense of humour, but he digressed from that thought, letting slip only the smallest of grin across his face. A sense of relief washed over him similar to how the surrounding tide gradually subsided, sending calmer waves of the sea to lap waves upon waves, creating slow patterns to the eye. Edward gave a sharp nod, a motion for James to take as a gesture to hurry on over; not that he needed any sign for that. The miffed man brisk walked on over, face mayhap a little lighter than what his tanned skin from the sun would normally exude. He only uttered a soft, and quite pitiful, ‘thank you’ to his Quartermaster before rushing past the rest without having said or looked at anything else. Having returned from the tavern a happy man, the events that transpired meant he amply had enough ‘action’ for one night.The oh-so honourable thief’s words softly resounded in his head if not in James’, as he gazed back at her; who was yet to break from her standstill state, at which point the realisation that they were in the way dawned upon him. He broke eye contact, clearing his throat. From the front view, it would appear, as his left hand came up, that he was simply rubbing against his nape. In sooth, it was a signal to the Falls behind, as his thumb repeatedly flicked against his middle finger. Catching on, Will began.“Ahem, so…” Will scratched at his eyebrow with an extended ring finger where a silver ring glinted, making an attempt to salvage anything left to say so as to break the sudden awkward tension. Admittedly, though, this was better than the mood earlier by a long shot. His mind was scattered; in a few months, his wife back in their home country would be giving birth to a child. Their child. Piracy entailed bloodshed, indisputably so, but never hinted that it was welcomed by the totality of swashbuckling, money-grabbing fools. It was in times like these he worried for his life, despite having chosen it of his own accord. “Right, I’ll head on wit’ James, Ed? Ye ye, I’ll… I’ll go check up on ‘im.” He bent down, picked up his gun, then began walking the other direction as he slotted it back into its holster.Poker-faced and still annoyed, Ramsay just stood his ground like a watchful owl, waiting for action to take place. However pissed he might make himself appear to still be, this outcome veritably helped ease the tension he felt within; his shoulders had lightly slumped and his chest lowered following a sigh, releasing the stress. As Edward had said, they partook in no violence unless initiated by the opposing side. As Will strode fully past him, he cocked an eyebrow at the both of them, acidly remarking with, “He better not swipe anything on the way out.”“Go ‘n rest fer the night, Ram Rod. I shall see her out,” Edward reassured, but realised he had just let slip Spitfire’s confidence. Not quite catching on however, the other man turned and stalked off, cracking his knuckles as he did and stifling a tired yawn. The lad let out a brief chuckle. He turned his back and took a few steps from the thief, taking retrieval of his weapons, strapping the belt back on. As he whipped his head back up, his blond locks cascaded messily on to his face, and he stood up straighter than before with one foot more outward than the other. While adjusting the strap around his waist, the Quartermaster’s eyes caught hold of the lassie thief’s again.Edward stared at her as if he had in knowledge her darkest, deepest secret. Well, in a way he did, didn’ he? In the given silence, he examined the face of the gal. His heart longed for adventure and the deep blues, running was a form of catharsis, but interesting companions were always of his interest. Acting as a man could be her sick caper, but he doubted it and went mentally as far as to rule it out. Hiding behind a mask, hiding from her past—was that it? Seen in her eyes as with anyone else’s, she had a story. She was a puzzle to be deciphered... but why did he even give a damn?“So, lassie, before ye shortly depart…” He began, tearing his eyes away momentarily to lock the belt. “How long has this ruse of yers been a-runnin’? /Shoddy/ ruse, I mean. I normally wouldn’ give a rat’s back, but since ya stole from and nigh-on shot me crew, I feel quite obligated t’ ask.”Meanwhile, in the background, he espied the stout figure of Duncan, who finally had caught up. The ageing man slowed down on the dock, stopping when he saw Edward giving him the subtlest wink, making it look like a blink: to give him some time. Edward’s jacket was slung over a hunched shoulder of his wide figure. He would lean against the wooden railing, taking the opportunity to get some rest; which had meant brandishing his flask and taking a long swig.“That be some mighty good rum.”

Lizzy aptly noticed the small grin and the slight tilt of the head that Edward let slip as she spoke but stood strong, watching James sidle past her and escape to the confined safety of below the decks, out of range and sight. She really was sorry to have caused him such upset, astounded that it mattered at all. These were pirates…? Right?As the man named Will began to speak, making some kind of attempt to even the pressure that rested on all of their shoulders, despite the weapons being down, both gun and sword no longer pointed at anyone, Li watched him like a hawk all the same, slightly jumpy as he picked up his own gun before he too left the deck, leaving only three in the shaded moonlight. A calmer but still pissed off Ramsey was close enough to follow and with the words Edward uttered to make him to do, the girl nearly raised the gun again, shooting at them both before taking her leave at a swift pace but it took all over her resolve not to, only a flash of panic and wariness across her eyes as he used the pronoun. He seemed to have realised his action himself but thankfully, it went unnoticed by the liability as Ramsey continued to walk, not catching on.A telling breath of relief left the girl’s chest as it was just the two of them left on the deck of the rocking ship and despite her instincts telling her not to, she relaxed her stance slightly. The man in front of her knew her secret, without a doubt now and she wasn’t going to treat him like he was an oaf. He was clearly smarter than your average buccaneer and she would respect him as such, until he lost that respect.“No tricks now. I can just as easily shoot you if you try anything.”She warned as the man in front of her gathered his belt, in her own voice, her own tongue that she hadn’t used for quite a while, licking her lips and with her words, her features softened ever so slightly however her eyes stayed fixed on him as he fastened the strap and buckle. Li could tell as he looked at her and over her that he was trying to figure her out. To puzzle out why she was dressed and acting like a young man instead of the fair maiden she was.
As Edward spoke, she raised her eyebrows as he insulted her clothing and entire ruse. This pulled a scoff from her lips and she started to pace slightly, shaking her head.“Shoddy? Shoddy enough that you ‘ad to question whether you’d ‘ad too much to drink? Aye, my arse, mate! And it’s worked fer me all these years. Can’t be that shoddy if it’s kept me alive this long, huh?” She folded her arms across her chest before continuing, “An’ I don’t take kindly to the shooting accusation. I never fired, nor did I even cut any of your crewmen, even tho’ they deserved it and I could’a done. Jus’ as you could’ve killed me the second you landed on the deck. Yet you didn’t. You ain’t as quick to let your blade speak fer ye as your crewmates were. I’m grateful, don’t get me wrong but it makes me curious, jus’ as you’re curious about me no doubt.”

SAMPLE2

Bran Castle, Romania. 1631, 17th Century. The origins of Aldous S.The darkness of the land was settling back in, driving away the lingering fog of the rainstorm to reveal the Castle in its grand rising structure. Out of all the four historical provinces Transylvania of Romania was framed by its share of the mountainous Carpathian terrains, and was growing into a serenity of a deeper, darker nature owing to its first ever Vampiric presence. The Castle bordered between Wallachia and Transylvania and was built on the corner of a massive rock, so that on three sides it was quite impregnable, in all its gothic magnificence. The rocky bluff it was perched on rose from its wolf-prowled forest by 200 feet, its imposing round donjons reaching even higher up into the skies. It dominated the village of Brașov below like a watchful eye. It seemed in this cradled part of the world the skies loomed with dark billowing clouds, cleared into crepuscular magical twilight, and dawned with roseate, sanguine charm.Sinister intrigue leaked into every crevice of the gaunt stronghold, from its thick stone walls to the distinctive blood red roofs. The cuticle of the moon, shrouded by clouds lumbering about, peeked out in greeting and was the only source of light barring the fire Dracula had going. The firelight painted the entire study of Dracula in an almost finished fresco, the remains of the day working up to the last touches. Dracula himself was in deep thought, his red, full lips burned sullenly out of the halflight, and he knew it was the golden hour again with all the time in the world to ponder on his life journey thus far, now that he would be confined indoors as all rainy days went. His tall, undying form situated itself at the window, casting shadowy shapes on the cobbled walls. He watched below the lush courtyard he was rather fond of, a wealth of efflorescence growing there.He was holding two manuscripts in his hand, which looked to be the poems Lenore by Gottfried August Bürger and Der Vampir by Heinrich August Ossenfelder. Vampire poetry because the occasion that day was his bicentennial year on Earth. He would find a distaste for the Bram Stoker novel to come where the author would use him to create what the Victorian English audience secretly feared, the sexual depravity and Victorian, Jewish and Romani stereotypes: otherness in short. Humanity’s black and white. He felt isolated by the world enough, like some supernatural outlaw, undeathly and primordial of his kind.When Michael the Brave had attempted to seize and unite Romania from Ottoman rule, some thirty years ago, Dracula had felt a nostalgic pull to travel back to the entrancing hometown of his childhood in Sighișoara. But convinced by his own lonesome, that this was his roots and sense of place now, the baroque and renaissance streets of Brașov weren't so terrible, he thought, and old Monsieur Strand had so kindly overhauled the castle for him. Yes, he would be having that dear friend over for dinner tomorrow so it was best he got this brooding period over and done with. Now where was he? Ah yes. History at the current juncture.The four provinces of Romania were slowly fleeing away from suzerainty and Ottoman power was waning at this time. But Drac could remember a time where the principalities of his home country Wallachia were just being established and his father had assumed leadership of the Wallachian voivodate. He had been there for the rise and fall of his rightful empire, beginning to end. He had been Vlad the III or otherwise known as Vlad Ţepeş, Vlad the Impaler, or Vlad Dracula. To understand Aldous as he would be at Willowridge, one must unravel the origins of his past life, as the aptly named son of the dragon and his chronicles of warfare and bloodshed.Vlad the III had gone down in history as the national warlord, the heroic yet monstrous voivode, second son of Vlad II Dracul, who was once imprisoned alongside his younger brother Radu by enemies in order to secure their father’s loyalty to the Ottoman policies. He had returned a year later to the assassination of his eldest brother Mircea and his king father upon Hungary’s invasion. Revenge became him, and he’d embarked upon a lifelong series of campaigns to regain his father’s seat. The strength of dragons was in their blood and he would be the one to carry on the legacy. While there was a brief brilliant victory that same year, it would be eight more years until Vlad would begin his reign completely, claiming the voivodate as his father once had. In the mission to become the rightful ruler, he also had to end the life of his younger brother Radu, who’d gone against his back with the support of an Ottoman sultan.As the new ruler of Wallachia, Vlad would go on to host an Easter banquet — a tragic event later termed the Easter Massacre or as the one he preferred, Bloody Easter — where he performed a plague amongst his opponents such as the usurping boyars. Just as his father had been killed and his brother Mircea was tortured and buried alive by the boyars, Vlad Dracula was not a madman but just playing politics. Growing into his nickname by impaling the bodies of his foreign and domestic enemies alike, he’d gotten the reputation as “Vlad the Impaler”. Rotting bodies lining the road to Târgoviște. Some were still alive when it happened, being left on the ground to die impaled and left for the birds to slowly pluck away at. This had been a frightening technique for control as well as a defiant and highly personal message to those who may oppose him.Once he left a field filled with thousands of impaled victims as a deterrent to pursuing Ottoman forces. But in the very same year, his order would collapse in 1462, when he escaped Ottoman capture only to be intercepted by Hungarian forces. Soon he was being hunted down, and Vlad would die in the winter of 1476. At least, that was what plagued the Kingdom of Romania at the turn of the era. The cause of his death branched off into many theories and speculations later on. Some would say he was ambushed by enemies patrolling near the marshes of Bucharest. Others would go on about how he was killed by his disloyal boyars or in friendly fire of his own troops. But the general assent was that his head was decapitated from his body and put on display in Constantinople for the sultan; preserved in honey, in the land of blood and honey. As far as the list of historical unknowns go…Decapitation was common in that period of time and unbeknownst to anyone Vlad was beginning to dip his toes in the dark arts nearing the end of his reign. His head, while it was said to have been eventually buried in the city of Constantinople, did not speak of the fate of the body which was less certain. The Comana Monastery was built by Vlad in advance as a monastery-fortress at some point of an attack. He retreated from the battlefield and took refuge there. Vlad was still alive, made possible because, before his death, he’d obtained a great power kings could only dream of. A blessing and a curse. Immortality. The monastery granted him the medium to become a vampire.The prince of darkness, Count Dracula, was reborn. Where Vlad went down as a Romanian folk hero fighting against the encroaching waves of the Ottoman, whom they depicted as strigoi, generally the uglier and undead kindred of vampires, and other evil spirits leading an army of gypsies and angels, Dracula was the very core of nightmares who’d left all that behind. Along with the Bram Stoker novel, he would rise to the Nosferatu legend with the film coming out and German expressionism spreading across Romania, another fear riddling society. But this time, vengeance was not in the cards. Royalty and family were no longer with him. The Hunger and alchemy were the only companions for the rest of his days to come; the latter was the grail quest. To find the recipe for gold in one’s soul. It was as simple as that. The process and goal laid in the central image, the ouroboros — the snake or dragon eating its tail.Alchemy was to be his inner psychic pursuit foreshadowing depth psychology, representing a strange combination of psyche, myth and science. Taking on the name of Aldous Sinclair — yes, as in the renowned Aldous Huxley who wrote Brave New World — later on understand that alchemical images and manuscripts, while still rich and provocative to the imagination and especially rewarding to those who knew its true purpose, would be less common to the modern age people’s consciousness. At a later time, Al would discover the concept of chaos theory from the very novel made by his namesake. In specific, the butterfly effect, where it had been said that something as small as the flutter of a butterfly’s wing could cause a typhoon halfway around the world.It figured into fractal geometry where studies began as early as the 17th century. A fractal meaning fractured or broken — the rough edges of the natural world such as coastlines, clouds, mountain ranges; blood vessels in the heart, eye, and lungs; the distribution of galaxies in the universe. Driven by recursion, that is continually repeating or iterating, one could create fractals that resembled those found in nature — much as an alquemiste worked to improve nature, achieving the ouroboros, the shadow integrating with the ego, through their art. Aldous’ curiosity and knowledge would be expanded when he met the father of fractals and his studies in Paris, a Monsieur Benoit Mandelbrot. The vampire had played chess with the man one late evening and at some point their conversation about chess would turn into less about logic and more about geometry. Mandelbrot also had a fascination with computers.Comparable to his Athanor the modern man depended on the computer to speed up time, and there was a relation between man’s mind and a fractal’s serrated natural imagery which was supported by mathematical formulas, speaking to the 20th and 21st century psyche. Of course all of this would only be revealed in time to Aldous, as he had no soothsayer but his own materials and knowledge at hand. But a valuable lesson, a secret, was that whatever was left, however small it may seem, was just as infinitely complex as the whole was to begin with. The psyche shall speak in paradoxical, metaphorical language of opposites. All mythology followed suit. And in time, so would some branches of science and mathematics, particular chaos theory and fractal geometry.For a while it became the only way to look at things. The only way that was true to reality, at least. The fractal idea of sameness carried within it an aspect of recursion, a kind of doubling back on itself, which meant that events are unpredictable. That they could change suddenly and without warning. Because humans over the rise and fall of civilizations began soothing themselves into imagining sudden change as something that happened outside the normal order of things. An accident like a car crash. Or beyond their control, like a flood or a fatal illness. Sudden, radical and irrational change was built into the very fabric of existence, but humans did not conceive of this. Chaos theory taught them that straight linearity, which was something they have come to take for granted from physics to fiction, simply does not exist.Linearity was an artificial way of viewing the world, in tandem with immortality, Aldous realized. Real life wasn’t a series of interconnected events occurring one after another like beads strung on a necklace measuring out the days. No, life was a series of encounters in which one event may change those that followed in a wholly unpredictable, even devastating way. That was a deep truth about the structure of the universe. But for some reason, humans insisted on behaving as if it were not true. His studies on such topics often took him all over Romania, Poland, France and Germany, Russia and Italy which was now Rome. But he’d always returned to Bran Castle to rest his weary bones. A woman and her two sisters would travel one day and call it their home as well, sharing a bed and his spaces in exchange for their blood. They would be Clara, Emese, and Margit. They had come seeking refuge from their grief stricken household, where all the male relatives had died due to being conscripted into the war, the Battle of Vienna, which saw the defeat of the Ottomans and marked the beginning of their decline in the regions of Romania. Aldous would give them a home and they would speak of him in the village, nothing but good tales about their husband. Mina’s arrival would eventually become his new fixation, a tale for a later time.

you aren't just an afterthought.

The girl’s name is Andrea Gennaro. Andrea Gennaro. The warlock runs it through his head in a merciless cycle, hewing it next to the Latin incantation he is to use next. It must be flawless, as second nature as breathing is. Andrea Gennaro. That was this girl's name.She finds church in the parted ivory flesh of hers now, liquid rubies dribbling down skin in rivers of pure desecration. Solal watches the light in her hazel eyes leave, sputtering out like a guttered candle. Then he felt it. The shimmer of filthy power within the hands. There in his veins, the hungering darkness croons a deceptive music, echoing from the labyrinth of evil and hounding him into the answer. Steal. Eat. Consume. He feels control slipping through the backdoor of his mental prison, and something else takes sentinel. He is now primed to take life, he knows with a helpless anger, and it is never any easier.The man takes off the black gloves and what should be natural limbs — imponderous in that nature — are fists with weights tied to every finger which reveal regret and weariness all in a half-clenched poise. Solal's shocked, dilated eyes move in tandem with his head, back toward the girl when she exhales in a breath, "Do it...!"Her voice is weakening, the last tremors of vitality in it shaking the stale air within the dark rundown shop. His lambent, yellow eyes provide the only illumination. He sees his face, appearing world-weary and alert at once, in the cloudy haze that is death's accelerated onset in her now black orbs. She is well on her way to wherever she will be delivered; the dead giveaway is in the weight of her soul in his hands. They'd found their way to her bosom, above her heart and where the self-inflicted wound lay. In this last, brave act of hers, she'd given Solal an easy passage of Rhiannon's Choice to channel through. He had pressed in against the skin around the blade, and light broke through night.A searing pain erupts behind his eyes, shades of hellfire licking hungrily at flesh but he pulls away quickly. Solal must literally heave his body away, crashing to the ground in his cloaked lithe form with a dazed growl, and so does Andrea's lifeless body; he watches the girl fall inwards, with legs turned jelly, and she settles on the ground in a fetal position. The blood from her wound does not cease, and already he knows he is losing precious time.Andrea thrashes about for a bit and leans into a strange, stilted slowness. Words are tumbling from her that Solal does not grasp. All of it would have been for nothing if he didn't hustle his ass.The heat has died down, replaced by a wintry bundle of fur in his hands... deceivingly cold where truly there was a gentle stoic energy about it. He licks his dry lips and there he feels a slight dithering of teeth, but for all the tension rattling his bones, the refined warlock in him does not hesitate. Fear cannot be given a chance to turn the tide already coming.Solal goes to Andrea in a half crawl, half stumble, his resolve taking strength that instant. What is left of her is a bloody cadaver that, even if he blanks out, will return to him in the labyrinth all in due time. So he mutters an apology, a 'thank you', and lets his tongue run over the spell for the hundredth and fifth time."(Allow me to use your soul, O mortal vessel,)
Permitte mihi uti animae tuae, o vase mortale,(your earthly eyes are flashing with death, put your demons to rest.)
oculi tui terreni micantes mortis, daemones tui sopiantur.(Acknowledge your iniquities and yours alone;)
Agnosce iniquitates tuas et solas tuas;(in a moment, you will enjoy true freedom.)
in momento, vera libertate gaudebis.(I will devour and consume that which consumes you:)
Feram et consumam id quod te consumit:(this is my choice, and my choice alone.)
Haec est electio mea, et solus electio mea."He finishes the spell, looks down blankly, holding his breath.The seed of Solal's fear always begins in the wake of the spell. The silence stretches into the night, and the night painfully lumbers into eternity. It is a great fear hovering in the uncertainty of Andrea's last wish fulfilled. That should his spoken words of conjuration and tools that were his hands failed to have harmonized, to have knitted a special row between his soul and hers... they'd both lose something. Solal has never known that failure, nor does he want to think of it.But the answer comes quickly, far from a remedy at all.A rupture in his chest, and dark matter funneling through in his veins in a quick and quiet violence, brings him to open his mouth and let rip a scream. The warlock trembles in place, all clenched jaw and protruded dark purple veins, his whole body waged an internal war and by the end of it he was shivering to the core. But it's a sign that it has worked, as it always has, when he suffers through this torture.This is the part Solal recalls most in preparation; Rhiannon telling him that it is the purification stage before he can reap another soul, but to a rational mind, it may as well have sounded like a form of penance for harboring such power. To Solal it was, and it still isn't punishment enough for him...He lies down, next to the girl's body. Just as the life is eviscerated from Andrea Gennaro's eyes, so too glows an awakening in Solal's. Visions of a life arise — her life — and it is doled out in peaceful, chronological parts that tells her tale. The images flit through his mind yet, laying his enervated bod there, the warlock takes it all in as if he has experienced her. It is not a vicarious moment of joy and sorrows, it is an absolute shedding of skin and memories until an impure core is all that is left. It is every bit an intrusion as it is an entrustment.Souls came in all shapes and sizes, you see. Hers was nothing short of good. She was no saint as humans were, as it was the nature of humans to fall many times in the brevity of their mortal lives. But the warlock could see she fought in her darkest hours. She took a header into the dim black sea of necessary evil, only if it determined survival. He saw on the ugly figure of overwhelming shame that was once easy guilt. He heard words said to allies and foes alike, hasty actions taken out of self preservation, coalescing into a mass of a negative light painted upon her. She was a reluctant fighter amid the guilt.And as he experiences her first kiss, her first heartbreak, her first broken bone, her first throes of drunken stupor, Solal closes his eyes and all light in the room vanishes. The moon outside is but a witness.He later awakens to the cold light of day streaming down his face.His face is wet, tears dried on almost insentient flesh. It is now numbness Solal feels, like a quivering layer of a spell’s protection, from his head all the way down. Everything throbs with a feverish heat, and the deep gash in his chest - despite its incorporeality - bleeds and seethes around like an infection. When he comes to, the body of Andrea Gennaro has disappeared, only ashes have remained. “We’re nothing but dust and ashes,” Rhiannon's voice once cooed, cynical with a painful ounce of truth. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.Yet Solal knows it will not be the last he’s seen of her. He hears a slight strain in the labyrinth now, a new face among the swarm. It is Andrea, hollowed eyes and chest ripped in a grotesque form. She moans lamentful tunes as black tears fall into the river Cocytus. How long these visions go for, he's not reached a point close enough to an answer. Perhaps it goes sempiternally until he himself turns to dust. Then for certain, what Solal does know is this is far from the end.There will have been many Andrea Gennaros in his lifetime. Names to commit to memory, souls to reap, whatever nature their contract yields, Solal must answer at their doorstep. Solal sees everything. That is his curse.***PRESENT DAYThe Oathbreaker rune on his nape glows a deep lilac and something sings to him certitudes, facts, information to be used. It is a rather late evening that blankets Solal’s surroundings, making the stars and street lamps of the dozy town pale out. The particular street he is on exists adjacent to a playpark, now taken up by a couple of children, not quite ideal for the murder that had just taken place.The voice of Rhiannon tsks paternally, “Murder.. You’ve yet to know. Drawing conclusions already, again, Solal?”Solal clenches his hands subconsciously, and once sure that the gloves are on, he proceeds to walk again. Obviously the warlock ignores the question posed by his spiritual mentor, just a harmless disembodied whisper — like a pest. Throughout the years, he's grown tired of his deceased predecessor intruding on what is rightfully his in the day, when the raging labyrinth cannot take hold of the night's darkness to smother him: the privacies of his mind.And so in his mind's eye, he makes to respond, but at the last second he banishes the voice. "I'll handle this one, Rhiannon."Drawing closer to the crime scene, the man sees yellow tape sealing the area off and thinks humorously to himself, funny, they were quicker on the draw now than last time. He sees the two policemen standing guard, one of which tightens up at seeing him; he appears like a lithe cat draped in shadows of buildings that follow. But it is not his appearance, which is objectively as mundane and unseeming as the next person in town, but his reputation which precedes Solal.What happened last time dances around Solal swooping in to take helm of a police case that was crumbling to utter shit, but was saved by his good grace. He'd caught wind of the cold case, and unpacked it like a brutish private eye. A double homicide case that should've had a dead end, reemerged with the answer being found in new evidence he'd gathered. The Parkers, the murdered newlyweds, simply had their samples — where DNA is considered the ultimate proof against mundie crimes — contaminated. It was a muddle up. No wonder the coppers had difficulty piecing things together, they were seeing things through a shitty lens.He had just been there to put two and two together, right the wrong, but the newspaper was certainly kind on his image... “mystery private eye snags police case” and "James Bond-esque detective for hire", and while as baseless as the tabloids were, Solal had taken a prideful joy in being on the giving end. Power and recognition for once.“No private eyes of the strange allowed,” the burlier one who tensed up earlier says, /like it was a bad thing/, tone inflected with a victory like he'd won a prize by saying it. Fine. Solal is exactly that. He will allow the insinuation... Because what else would be enough to help these grown men sleep better at night without having to worry about the closet boogeyman?The warlock keeps the amusing thought to himself, and gives him a feigned tight-lipped response, laced with low venom."Hello again, Turner. And don't do that. We're old friends... and old friends help each other, don't they?" He smiles then sees the other of the pair, a fresh face, shifting uncomfortably in place. Solal greets him too. "New fish? Then you mustn't have heard about me."Unfortunately for them, as Turner rejoinders and launches into a segment like a live news program on the Parkers case, the warlock doesn't need to be offered a pass into the crime scene to work his magic. Just close enough is all Solal needs to eye the focal point, the area of disturbance, where then he calls upon his power to pick out the discrepancies. The patterns. The splatters of blood around the shrouded corpse, the lingering smell in the air to make the subtlest distinctions.. It is not human. Not at all. No captured vanilla mortal redolence. It smells exactly like the shades of crimson ashes."So. Get off my crime scene, Joel."The name makes him turn, lose focus. For once, Solal is caught off guard... but a cold countenance is recovered, his eyes turning slit like. Nowadays, there is little he is not prepared for, and this mere mention of his former self is only a brush against stone hard exterior. The reply comes quickly. "So you did some snooping, Turner. That name is no longer mine... not since my father wiped me off as company heir." Solal knows he already knows that."Oh I've read! Certainly reasonable." the copper smirks. "No wonder he's CEO of the largest robotics company. You're a long way from home... doing — what is it you really do again?"Solal tires quickly of the teenager banter and brings it to an abrupt close. If only the man had an inkling as to how much older he was, if only. "Your job apparently. See you on the flip side."He turns to leave, tuning out further distractions that includes Turner's loud remarks behind him. Such utter professionalism... unbeknownst to the officers, Solal already got what he came for. A taste of the monster, its scent. He now only needed to peruse the Lesser Key of Solomon for the summoning, and then, whether or not he needed a name or just its distinct smell. And..... crimson ashes only meant a flame of the worst. The pits. Hellfire. Worst comes to worst, that means he needs to jailbreak the demon out of hell first. Now, where was he going to find aid from an imp or a hellhound to accomplish that? They were fickle creatures anyway and he'd never had want of a familiar, always faring better as a lone wolf..."Ready to hear my opinion?" Rhiannon's voice cuts through.Solal stifled a laugh, the kind where he was just about to reach the punchline of his joke only to have been interrupted. "Frankly I was getting to it.." The street is now quiet but for the parents of children leading them away, before innocence is tainted and the changed stale air yells murder itself. The playpark turns vacant stamping ground for the next batch of early risers, just as he turns the corner. Soon he winds up in another area of the town, the heart of it all. Where the denizens never slept."Pay attention to reds. Red lights, red threads, red all." The old warlock's voice is slicked with fluidity, with cool assurance. "I look on that this particular little devil is going to prove a challenge. Your hardest yet - but you might need it, Solal. As much as you should open up to the flame. You're done escaping warmth that may just lend a light in the cave of ours."And for a minute Solal feels small and clueless, a fleeting feeling but part and parcel of the lifestyle of occult practices and Latin curses. In the abstruse world of the supernatural, he cannot know where to place himself if a second of rest eluded him. So he closes his eyes, as his back presses into a brick wall. Behind, he hears the commotion of a bar, likely just opening up, white noise to mind as he mulls over his mentor's words."We're breakers of the oldest oath, but that fails to controvert the need for warmth we may have." Rhiannon's voice twinkles in delivery of this last piece, somewhat.. playfully light in such grave information.Then he sees a flicker of red hair in the distance. He no longer feels his mentor's presence suspended over him, no more does his voice hold authority over the night, and it is Solal and his volition left utterly alone. What was it about the sudden recklessness he is feeling, this renewed energy? Was it the talk about red and all it entails?The night breeze continues a merciless attack upon the approaching redhead, as she saunters along, occupied by her own thoughts... somewhere inside him, the warlock finds no voice from the labyrinth, but his own, telling him that she might just share a world with him.*********************

There is hardly enough time to analyze the entirety of the redhead for the warlock. Time simply does not exist in a moment like this. Still, a life of scrutiny under his belt cuts through the brevity like a specially made tool… and the moment, the moment simmers and holds for as long as Solal needs it to.He notices the patterns. Bags that made a home beneath her eyes, the longsleeved shirt that hugs and hangs from her body like a mask, the way her frame curved inwards like a jaded question mark, and her shoulders angled low that exhaustion is spoken into existence.And then, that strange smell she emanates. Dying embers, wisps of regret and longing.Rhiannon taught Solal how to distinguish countenances from scents, for a form can easily precede or exist without an aura: like petrichor, the name of rain arising, before a downpour. Or winter lacking, where cold is the name of a blanket devoiding the world of all other smells.It is warlock artistry. And mastery of this art makes him far from a hound and much like a live sieve, separating a form into discrete parts... words can be heard, elucidating that which is already there, the face, or that which is not there. A picture is heightened to greater detail or a name for the absence is taken. For demons without trails, it is an entirely different case, but most he tangled with had one, if not a combination. And as such it is the way a warlock functions. Finding names for control, giving names so that a part of something remains.Solal's gaze meets hers for the first time, blue on green. They remind him of machineels which he tastes now in his mouth along with the monster from earlier. "No, my apologies," his voice comes out awake, empathetic, and nothing but kind.Weird odor aside, she is sort of this tired, defensive... tabby. There is also no reason to react to her as he does to snooping vermin like Turner, no past history to hinge on, and certainly no weaknesses that color his perception. Not yet anyway. He only has reason now to wonder at the details in front of him.Striking red hair frames her forehead, tumbling down behind shoulders and some rather prominent collarbones, in silky smooth waves — in that combed, taken care of way, but damned if he knows. It... accentuates her features. They are almost out of this world. And it is easy to see, past the tired lines, the ghost of a woman who likes to laugh. He wonders at her name, the magic that would be unleashed furrther through knowing her name, and whether it is as pretty as her."Yes, a drink sounds nice." Solal steps away, turns around and pulls open the door for her, adding as an afterthought, "after you." He does not bother with a polite title of convention, she seems to him the type who is called either by her name or nothing at all. And as the killer of moments, he hears Rhiannon laughing in the wake of his words.He does not know whether Rhiannon has always been this sadistic, or if his aged old companion has recently taken up the hobby of toying with Solal's thoughts. ("I am not smitten." he mentally notes aloud, "I am following reds, as you've only minutes ago graciously pointed me towards.") When Rhiannon doesn't answer, he is all glad for it.Because Solal has already concluded that the bar is to be his new den of information, the musing of thoughts... having near the redhead's curves wouldn't hurt, not at all. If her presence was to dictate the trajectories of his nights.. then so be it. He'll cross that bridge when he gets to it.So as steadfast as the night grows in around them, Solal waits for red to breeze past him, but he notices two more things. One is of a nature so mundane, the other is terribly grim. They are in how much smaller her frame was that he towered over her, and the dark, deathly mass coalescing around her left ear.

kinks & limits

There are the list of my hard yeses, hard nos and in-betweens. Writing turn-ons and squicks, if you will. You have to read this section fully if we are to establish a NSFW roleplay. I will not entertain those who fail to read this and you will be called out in a very threatening manner. (Just kidding, but ammm I?)Because whilst it really shouldn't be said that boundaries should be respected, past individuals have crossed the line that I had to make a whole bio section for this. Surprise, surprise, common sense isn't as common as one thinks..

ooc.

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activity.

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interactions.

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formatting.

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plotting.

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credits.

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mains & exclusives.

❝Even beasts love in some way; to sit in reverence for the fading of days, or to long for caresses, but leave skin better unkissed, so their wild hearts remain fastened to their armour. Even beasts love this way. Even beasts.*❞ — Yours truly, Wild HuntHats off to you since you've reached the end of this section! Please tell me your favourite food to confirm you have read and understood my rules in its entirety.

❝Who is ever at home in oneself. Land without mercy. What if this darkness is no mirror, no scar. Beyond all urgency, I am listening.❞ — Joanna Klink, NightfieldsHats off to you since you've reached the end of this section! Please tell me your favourite food to confirm you have read and understood my rules in its entirety.

❝Il vaut mieux mourir incompris, que de passer sa vie à s'expliquer.❞ — Shakespeare

❝Ars longa, vita brevis❞ — Hippocrates

origin.

use this section to write about your character's origin story / history, basically anything leading up to the current, present day. briefly talk about their childhood, any developmental arcs, etc.Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Nunc lobortis mattis aliquam faucibus purus in. Proin sed libero enim sed. Sit amet consectetur adipiscing elit duis tristique sollicitudin. Sed id semper risus in hendrerit. Nullam ac tortor vitae purus faucibus ornare. Id volutpat lacus laoreet non curabitur gravida arcu ac. Nunc sed id semper risus in hendrerit gravida rutrum quisque. Cursus mattis molestie a iaculis at erat pellentesque. Volutpat ac tincidunt vitae semper quis lectus nulla at. Praesent elementum facilisis leo vel.Amet cursus sit amet dictum sit amet justo donec. Mauris sit amet massa vitae tortor condimentum lacinia quis. Viverra orci sagittis eu volutpat odio facilisis mauris sit. Urna et pharetra pharetra massa massa ultricies mi quis. Ut placerat orci nulla pellentesque dignissim enim sit. Vitae nunc sed velit dignissim sodales ut eu. Et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas integer eget aliquet nibh. Sed libero enim sed faucibus turpis in eu. Elementum pulvinar etiam non quam lacus suspendisse faucibus. Nibh praesent tristique magna sit amet purus. Volutpat commodo sed egestas egestas fringilla phasellus faucibus. Laoreet id donec ultrices tincidunt arcu non. Rhoncus mattis rhoncus urna neque viverra justo nec. Netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas integer eget. Risus ultricies tristique nulla aliquet enim tortor at. Tempor orci dapibus ultrices in iaculis nunc sed augue. Erat velit scelerisque in dictum non. Congue nisi vitae suscipit tellus mauris a. Id interdum velit laoreet id donec ultrices tincidunt arcu non. Id ornare arcu odio ut sem nulla.

present.

use this section to write about what your character is doing during the present day. what's lead up to it, what they plan to do in the future, anything that's currently important to them or their arc.Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Nunc lobortis mattis aliquam faucibus purus in. Proin sed libero enim sed. Sit amet consectetur adipiscing elit duis tristique sollicitudin. Sed id semper risus in hendrerit. Nullam ac tortor vitae purus faucibus ornare. Id volutpat lacus laoreet non curabitur gravida arcu ac. Nunc sed id semper risus in hendrerit gravida rutrum quisque. Cursus mattis molestie a iaculis at erat pellentesque. Volutpat ac tincidunt vitae semper quis lectus nulla at. Praesent elementum facilisis leo vel.Amet cursus sit amet dictum sit amet justo donec. Mauris sit amet massa vitae tortor condimentum lacinia quis. Viverra orci sagittis eu volutpat odio facilisis mauris sit. Urna et pharetra pharetra massa massa ultricies mi quis. Ut placerat orci nulla pellentesque dignissim enim sit. Vitae nunc sed velit dignissim sodales ut eu. Et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas integer eget aliquet nibh. Sed libero enim sed faucibus turpis in eu. Elementum pulvinar etiam non quam lacus suspendisse faucibus. Nibh praesent tristique magna sit amet purus. Volutpat commodo sed egestas egestas fringilla phasellus faucibus. Laoreet id donec ultrices tincidunt arcu non. Rhoncus mattis rhoncus urna neque viverra justo nec. Netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas integer eget. Risus ultricies tristique nulla aliquet enim tortor at. Tempor orci dapibus ultrices in iaculis nunc sed augue. Erat velit scelerisque in dictum non. Congue nisi vitae suscipit tellus mauris a. Id interdum velit laoreet id donec ultrices tincidunt arcu non. Id ornare arcu odio ut sem nulla.

headcanon one. write out a brief fact / headcanon about your character that you would like people to know about here! could be about their skills, anything!
headcanon two. write out a brief fact / headcanon about your character that you would like people to know about here! could be about their skills, anything!
headcanon three. write out a brief fact / headcanon about your character that you would like people to know about here! could be about their skills, anything!headcanon four. write out a brief fact / headcanon about your character that you would like people to know about here! could be about their skills, anything!
headcanon five. write out a brief fact / headcanon about your character that you would like people to know about here! could be about their skills, anything!
headcanon six. write out a brief fact / headcanon about your character that you would like people to know about here! could be about their skills, anything!

   i'm walkin' on.   

when we were younger, we swore the world was ours. now i'm reachin' for you, feelin' like we're worlds apart.

abilities.

physical combat.

write a little tidbit here if you'd like to elaborate on any of the above bullets in depth.Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Sit amet massa vitae tortor condimentum lacinia quis vel eros.

skills.

write a little tidbit here if you'd like to elaborate on any of the above bullets in depth.Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Sit amet massa vitae tortor condimentum lacinia quis vel eros.

people always change

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& we'll never be like we were before.

try to stay the same, but we're

• Home

bangin' our heads against the wall

verse name.

verse tag name.

write out a short synopsis about your verse. i recommend keeping it to a few sentences! basic details, all that. use the second line to link to a post or the tag archiving every post in your verse!

verse name.

verse tag name.

write out a short synopsis about your verse. i recommend keeping it to a few sentences! basic details, all that. use the second line to link to a post or the tag archiving every post in your verse!

verse name.

verse tag name.

write out a short synopsis about your verse. i recommend keeping it to a few sentences! basic details, all that. use the second line to link to a post or the tag archiving every post in your verse!

verse name.

verse tag name.

write out a short synopsis about your verse. i recommend keeping it to a few sentences! basic details, all that. use the second line to link to a post or the tag archiving every post in your verse!

verse name.

verse tag name.

write out a short synopsis about your verse. i recommend keeping it to a few sentences! basic details, all that. use the second line to link to a post or the tag archiving every post in your verse!

verse name.

verse tag name.

write out a short synopsis about your verse. i recommend keeping it to a few sentences! basic details, all that. use the second line to link to a post or the tag archiving every post in your verse!

verse name.

verse tag name.

write out a short synopsis about your verse. i recommend keeping it to a few sentences! basic details, all that. use the second line to link to a post or the tag archiving every post in your verse!

verse name.

verse tag name.

write out a short synopsis about your verse. i recommend keeping it to a few sentences! basic details, all that. use the second line to link to a post or the tag archiving every post in your verse!

if i let you go, will you

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be able to walk on your own?

hard to say it's so, but i

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think we're better off on our own.

i'm walkin' on . . . i'm walkin' on.

people always change

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& we'll never be like we were before.

try to stay the same, but we're

• Home

bangin' our heads against the wall

Declan Anthonio Trask.

blog name.

  summary.     summary of your character's relationship with this person here.

character name.

blog name.

  summary.     summary of your character's relationship with this person here.

character name.

blog name.

  summary.     summary of your character's relationship with this person here.

character name.

blog name.

  summary.     summary of your character's relationship with this person here.

character name.

blog name.

  summary.     summary of your character's relationship with this person here.

character name.

blog name.

  summary.     summary of your character's relationship with this person here.

character name.

blog name.

  summary.     summary of your character's relationship with this person here.

character name.

blog name.

  summary.     summary of your character's relationship with this person here.

character name.

blog name.

  summary.     summary of your character's relationship with this person here.

character name.

blog name.

  summary.     summary of your character's relationship with this person here.

character name.

blog name.

  summary.     summary of your character's relationship with this person here.

character name.

blog name.

  summary.     summary of your character's relationship with this person here.

if i let you go, will you

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be able to walk on your own?

POETIC

HEARTS