commandinglight

[commandinglight]

something holy inside you wants to get out but you can’t let it

[commandinglight]

(     *     BLACK MIRROR PROMPTS   !    

seasons 1-2.   feel free to change pronouns / titles as needed !

❛  i won’t have to do anything.  ❜

❛  everyone’s laughing at us.  ❜

❛  you don’t know that.  ❜

❛  we can’t not laugh.  ❜

❛  nothing is going to happen.  ❜

❛  you’ve got a phenomenal voice.  ❜

❛  you think i’m being cheesy? all right, i am being cheesy.  ❜

❛  i just want something real to happen. just once.  ❜

❛  have you prepared a speech, is that it?  ❜

❛  we’re so out of our minds with desperation, we don’t know any better.  ❜

❛  show us something real and free and beautiful.  ❜

❛  it’s only so much wonder we can bear.  ❜

❛  fuck you, that’s what it boils down to.  ❜

❛  i’m a serial monogamist. i’m staying faithful to my cornflakes right now.  ❜

❛  you lied.  ❜

❛  not everything that isn’t true is a lie.  ❜

❛  you know when you suspect something, it’s always better when it turns out to be true.  ❜

❛  it’s totally batshit crazy i can even talk to you.  ❜

❛  i shouldn’t have drunk last night. next time, ould you try and stop me?  ❜

❛  sorry, hang on. that’s a very difficult sentence to process.  ❜

❛  there’s no history to you.  ❜

❛  you nearly killed us back there.  ❜

❛  yeah, well, i wasn’t expecting you to be there, was i?  ❜

❛  i’ve just saved your lives.  ❜

❛  a wee “thank you” would be nice.  ❜

❛  i should’ve just run you over.  ❜

❛  you’re not going to win.  ❜

❛  why not be honest?  ❜

❛  i was lashing out. i wasn’t even articulate.  ❜

❛  i notice you keep that pretty quiet.  ❜

❛  so i return to my original question, is that really what this is for?  ❜

❛  prove me wrong. hm? speak.  ❜

❛  i’m here to ask you an important favour.  ❜

❛  look, come on, there is a little bit of a conversational drought happening here.  ❜

❛  not big on conversation.  ❜

❛  practice makes perfect.  ❜

❛  maybe i’ll bore you.  ❜

❛  people want to be noticed. they don’t like to be shut out. it makes them feel invisible.  ❜

❛  people just want to be heard.  ❜

❛  you’re a locked box. i mean, that’s a good thing.  ❜

❛  most people are too easy to read, especially if you know minds.  ❜

❛  using party tricks to pick up girls isn’t knowing minds.  ❜

[commandinglight]

lux would never turn down a performance, especially not from one so attuned to chaos. he was the dazzle & the gleam, after all, kin to the toymaker & the maestro, the laughing gods who rearranged reality with flourishes rather than blunt force. he duly took a seat near the poet, bouncing his foot & rubbing his hands in anticipation.

he wasn't disappointed. an electric hum filled the air around them, punctuated by a simple sequence of piano notes, altogether more modern than he was used to & more subtle than he was expecting. & yet, it made the monochrome dream of destruction bloom out from the screen, the light of the bomb making the whole theatre glow. it was exactly as lux pictured it — the first impact would be violent, of course, but as it illuminated the world it would be beautiful. serene, almost.

“ wonderful, ” the little god said, loud enough that the poet would be able to hear it, but not so loud as to interrupt the performance. he was leaned forward in his seat, hands clasped between his knees, his eyes glowing amber & gold with reflections of the fire surrounding his new friend. he was transported, that much was sure — transported to the moment his bright new idea would come true.

The Poet cast a glance over his shoulder at the Mr Pye, grinning from ear to ear and practically buzzing with eagerness.

"Indeed, darling! You will need them!" He called out in an almost sing-song voice.

It had been a very long time since someone had actually requested a performance from him. In recent years, he had asked his eventual Imagining Friends if they wanted to hear one of his songs or he simply caught them in his snare by accident. It was exhilarating to be asked.

Picking up the soda and taking a few sips from the straw, he grinned. He always had some form of carbonated beverage on hand before a show, much to the chagrin of some of his former musician friends. They'd berated him that it wasn't good for his voice, but he'd never found a difference.

"Very well...let's see," he mused thoughtfully as he reviewed the image on the screen. He could hear the melody forming in his mind the more he watched the images. Three notes played on a piano, going up and down in scale, the electronic hum of a guitar to keep the pace. All that remained was the words.

"And you can give me everything I need this way," His voice rang out, smooth as velvet and echoing around the space as if already amplified by a microphone. "We'll be loving till the first light of the day."

The footage on screen seemed to engulf the entire room, sweeping through it like dust in an explosion. In the centre, wreathed in flame, was the Poet himself. The light from the fire caused by the mushroom cloud seemed more like a sunset, enticing, intriguing and almost beautiful.

"Set the world on fire!" He cried, his voice pitching up to the highest note he could accomplish. "With bittersweet desire! To chase away the night, let the whole world burn! Set the world on fire for bliss in sweet denial. Oblivion and peace, will you let me burn?"

[commandinglight]

lux didn't want to know the script. there being a script at all was antithetical to their nature, as gods of chaos — all he needed to know was that this other lux came from another time, knew other things, had different experiences. he didn't feel the need to ask further. the same light. that was a comforting truth. lux imperator, the light that shone magnificently at the heart of the pantheon, was eternal, no matter how many different manifestations of him there were.

it was a lot to take in. the other lux would be able to feel his grip on his legs, tight with wonder & awe & other complicated feelings, as he took a moment to stand & stare. eyes full of moonlight, until he shook it off with a deep, tranquil breath. lux wanted many things — to defeat the doctor when none of his brethren had managed to, to scour the earth with the annihilating light of the bomb — but for now, this was more than enough.

“ that's a wonderful idea, pal, ” he said, a grin in his voice as he finally found it again. “ this-a-way, right? ” he started walking, doing his best to keep the other lux balanced on his shoulders, just hoping that his double was doing his part to not look suspicious up there.

"...yeah." Lux swallowed a bit, answering both questions at once. "But I mean, we're still part of the same light, y'know? Just different experiences. I've gone a little past the script..."

He wasn't in any rush to hurry the other Lux to keep moving. They had all night, after all, and he hardly minded looking up at the sky, either. It was far more clear than it had been the last time he'd managed to step out to see it like this before. Well, outside of the Incident with the sunlight.

It was a lot to take in. Being like a deer in the headlights, the two of them. "Where do you wanna go first? The beach? Neither of us felt sand before, right? And the reflections are real pretty, I bet, from this angle!"

[commandinglight]

definitely not a god, then. the gods didn't harbour such hatred for the ants beneath their feet — they simply didn't care enough for that. the pantheon of discord were unique in the way they liked to play amongst mortals, but that was still all they were. playthings. the malice in his guest's voice, aligned in his admiration of the light of destruction for the sake of destruction itself, intrigued lux — but when he introduced himself as the master, recognition shimmered in the god's eyes. a so-called ‘time lord’, of course. & not just any time lord either.

“ oh, but i've heard of you too, mr. master, ” he assured, taking a few steps closer to the edge of the stage. “ you're the villain, aren'tcha? the black hat to the doctor's white hat. well, you're in luck— you might be aware that he's been a thorn in our side lately, too. ” the toymaker, the maestro, the trickster, sutekh, one by one had the gods of chaos fallen by the doctor's hand. not gone forever, of course, such a thing wasn't possible, but... brought low. inconvenienced, & that was nearly as bad.

“ & there's something that i want from him. something a lot bigger than any light humans could make. so, you're suggesting that we can both get what we want here? ” making this sort of offer to a god was certainly playing with fire. bright enough to blind, & hot enough to burn. but lux certainly wouldn't say no — the master had been right. despite all his grander plans, for right now he was limited by the walls of the palazzo.

"Oh how any other light would shine so brightly." Arms stretch out wide across the row of seats, and the Time Lord laughs with a great level of intrigue. There was a lot of playing with hints and assumptions, playing his little notes from the shadows and filling in all those little gaps of knowledge. Spending some time as a puppet maker's tooth gave insight that others might not have picked up on without the help of a little giggle's hint.

"For me? That, is tat enough. I've had enough of this planet, all of these... little worms wriggling about feeding and festering in their filth." A wrinkle of the nose, and the master, leans his head back. Another little laugh patters from his lips, knowing how dangerously the fire he played with was. Not only as this was the second time he'd done so, but because he was aware that even as a Time Lord, gods were on some different level without any sort of planning.

"I'm called, The Master. Time Lord, I'm sure you've heard of a former acquaintance of mine a time or two. You want to burn out the Earth, I just want the Doctor."

[commandinglight]

listening to him talk, there was a very good reason why the poet had been chosen & marked by the pantheon. not a god, perhaps, but he spoke just like one of them — had the same callous disregard for reality, as it was, that they did. nothing was more changeable than the imagination, boundless possibility without any regard for order or permanence. lux was delighted.

once he was unburdened by his armfuls of concessions, mr. reginald pye shuffled out of the theatre in even more of a hurry than he shuffled into it, not acknowledging the poet with anything more than a terrified little nod. pathetic & desperate, maybe, but... there was a reason why he was still walking & talking & manning the booth, & not trapped inside a strip of film like so many others. if the palazzo had become lux imperator's temple, mr. pye was his high priest. he couldn't have asked for a more loyal devotee to the light.

“ don't forget your earplugs, mr. pye! ” lux called after the poor old man, with a glance & a bounce of his eyebrows at the poet, excited to see what new chaos could be created here. he had already seen, over the course of aeons, what the maestro was capable of — but they used music as a beautifully crafted weapon, tearing minds & hearts apart from the inside out. this was something different. “ would i ever! let's see... as long as we're on the subject, let's give this a soundtrack, huh? ”

he gestured, with a flourish, to the footage of destruction still playing on the screen behind him. dreams of the atom bomb. that had a nice ring to it.

The Poet watched the flickers of amber and gold reflect in the eyes of the cartoon God, the ghost of a smile taunting the corner of his painted lips.

He snorted, waving a dismissive wrist. "No one can own all the music in the world," he mused absentmindedly, smirking. "Unless you've a large room to fit all the records, of course."

As he approached, he rubbed his index finger and thumb together with a soft clink of his metal rings. While his expression remained neutral, his singular blue eye glittered with mischievous excitement. "You read me like a book, darling...and you're correct. All I want is for the world to dream with me. The real world is so delightfully dull. Why live there when you can be wherever you want in your own imagination?"

Hearing a shuffling of feet, the Poet turned around fully and let out a derisive laugh upon seeing the poor projectionist struggling with all of the concessions. He looked terrified. Pathetic. Desperate. All the things the Poet looked for in his Imagining Friends. Lux seemed to even share his taste in followers.

"I wouldn't attempt it without adult supervision," he reassured him teasingly, turning towards the projectionist and smiling as he took some popcorn and soda and placed them in the seat next to him. He turned back to Mr Pye, winking. "Kiitos, kultaseni."

His eyes snapped back to Lux almost immediately, glittering with elation. "You would? Would you like a demonstration, darling?"

[commandinglight]

if there was one thing the god of light couldn't miss, it was the glint in someone's eye. the glint of revelation, of purpose, of malice, of madness. that was his truest domain, really, a reflection of himself in miniature. seeing it in his guest gave him pause, made him put a hand on his hip & a thoughtful finger to his chin as he was made an offer.

“ interesting. interesting! sure you wanna be handing out favours to someone like me, all willy-nilly? we've got rules about that kinda thing, y'know! ” if he knew enough to put the name lux had taken off the silver screen in finger-quotes, he might know that much already. the rules of the pantheon bound the gods to principles of fair play, above & in the absence of any laws of man or reality — but they also bound those who invoked them to the gods, irrevocably. one mr. reginald pye could attest. “ i've got some ideas. new ways to have fun, new & exciting sorts of light! light that could annihilate the whole human world — courtesy of their very own hands. ain't that just the funniest thing? ”

he raised a hand, fingers pressed together to roll one of his favourite films with a click — but instead, his pointer straightened out into a little wag, chidingly. lux imperator had an ego that shone as brightly as a star, but he wasn't that gullible. “ but i'm not playin', until i know what kinda tat you want for your tit. mister...? ”

"There's not much I do for no reason, of that much I assure you, 'Mr. Ring-a-Ding.'" Appropriately the air quotes come when he says the beings taken name. Eyes staring in some fashion to discern more than the surface level information taken from the myriad of sources, oh and everyone thought the Doctor was resourceful, they knew nothing.

"This temple is rather beneath you, don't you agree? Relying on little miscreants to come and do your bidding. But trust me when I say I know what it feels like to be restricted like that." Granted, finding himself as a golden tooth in a mad god's mouth had been delightful for a while, carefree in a way. Such had become tedious after a while. Yet here and now, he had that glint in his eye, that maddened shine that unveiled so much with so little.

Giving his foot the most idle little kick, lips purse tightly. "I want to know what you want, and I want to help you achieve it. A little tit for tat, one could say. I'm a resourceful person all my own, but I'm hardly a god-- Unfortunately."

[commandinglight]

this... person, this fellow adult in the room, was already putting lux imperator on edge. not because he was a threat, not in the slightest — but he moved, & spoke, with such unsettling purpose. that, & the device he had calmly pulled out & shrunken the attendant down with... had the toymaker taken a new face, so soon? no. if this was the toymaker, lux would know it. someone else special, then. some other grand being, who had heard of the havoc he had caused. who wanted to talk.

that little comment about the darkness was already not a start in his favour.

his eyes followed the arc of the young attendant being tossed away. some teenage hoodlum, who had snuck in to see what all the fuss around the palazzo was, soon finding himself pressed into servitude to the cartoon god. lux didn't especially care what happened to that one, but his uninvited guest's disregard for little humans was notable.

“ alright, ” he said, warily, from up on the stage, adjusting his boater as he narrowed his eyes slightly. “ talk, then. you're the one who's come bargin' into my temple — not for no reason, i have to assume! ” very few people approached a god of chaos for no reason. they were more likely to flee, losing whatever reason they had as they went.

@commandinglight from | accepting

“ is this supposed to scare me? ”

"Scare you?"

A beat and a small bark of laughter, suddenly shaking his head, and holding a tight grip upon his Tissue Compression Eliminator, waving it about in that flamboyant way as he takes in the sight of their surrounding. An odd thing, it was, to find deities like this in such meager situations. Made them seem so much smaller than they truly were. This grand pantheon-- Though he supposed he could relate, a Time Lord, slumming it among the mortals.

"No, of course not. Grand being such as yourself, slinking away in the darkness away from the sun, I'd never hope to be able to do much to scare or harm you." Yet, he picks up the young theater attendant that had been shrunk to the size of a little plastic army man, before tossing the miniature man into the rows of seats.

"It was merely meant to get your attention, give us a little privacy to talk like adults, while the little ruts scurry away." Plopping down in one of the seats lined so neatly in rows, he kicks his feet up and grins slyly from ear to ear.

[commandinglight]

🐝  *  ―  𝑺𝑷𝑰𝑹𝑰𝑻𝑬𝑫 𝑨𝑾𝑨𝒀 𝑺𝑬𝑵𝑻𝑬𝑵𝑪𝑬 𝑺𝑻𝑨𝑹𝑻𝑬𝑹𝑺.

❛  we'll just have to make do.  ❜ ❛  come on, it'll be fun.  ❜ ❛  wait, where are we going?  ❜ ❛  you can't be here. go now!  ❜ ❛  it's just a dream, a stupid dream.  ❜ ❛  don't be afraid. i'm a friend.  ❜ ❛  i can't stand up. what should i do?  ❜ ❛  now listen, i'l tell you what to do. if you stay here, they'll find you. i'll distract them while you get away.  ❜ ❛  you have no choice if you want to survive here ... and save your parents, too.  ❜ ❛  why do i need a weakling like you?  ❜ ❛  trembling, aren't you? still, i'm impressed you made it this far.  ❜ ❛  what a pain. you're gonna pay for this.  ❜ ❛  keep your wits about you. if you need anything, ask me.  ❜ ❛  hey, are you okay? don't fall apart on me.  ❜ ❛  listen to me. i'll promise i'll save you.  ❜ ❛  what did you expect after all that rain?  ❜ ❛  i'm gonna get there someday. i'll get out of here for sure.  ❜ ❛  i was just coming to wake you up, look!  ❜ ❛  what should i do? he'll die!  ❜ ❛  what's so funny? wipe off that smile.  ❜ ❛  don't do anything stupid until i get down there.  ❜ ❛  you see, someone i really care about is badly hurt. i've got to go right now.  ❜ ❛  this is our little secret. if you tell anyone ... i'll do the same to you.  ❜ ❛  what are you going to do? he needs help.  ❜ ❛  becoming a sorcerer's apprentice is dangerous business.  ❜ ❛  well, getting there is one thing. getting back's the problem.  ❜ ❛  [name], i promise i'll be back. please don't die.  ❜ ❛  don't you understand? it's love.  ❜ ❛  what took you so long? this is a total disaster!  ❜ ❛  what do you want? you can tell me.  ❜ ❛  what, you're still alive?  ❜ ❛  you still don't see it? she's played a trick on you.  ❜ ❛  since when do you talk that way?  ❜ ❛  you held this, and nothing happened to you?  ❜ ❛  i'd like to help you, but there's nothing i can do. it's one of our rules here.  ❜ ❛  but can't you even give me a hint?  ❜ ❛  everything that happens stays inside you ... even if you can't remember it.  ❜ ❛  see? you have a talent for this.  ❜ ❛  [name], i no longer blame you for what you did. but be sure to protect this girl.  ❜ ❛  will we meet again somewhere?  ❜

[commandinglight]

moving forward could wait. on three, lux took a firm, confident few steps forward... & then stopped, awestruck, as he looked up through the gap in the coat's buttons. miami at night was beautiful, certainly — but his gaze was immediately drawn towards the sky.

there it was. he had spent so many nights, all but twisting reginald's arm to put on scenes of the night sky — standing on the stage, beneath the screen, even running his fingers along the silvered fabric. as if he wanted to reach up between the stars, & touch

moonlight.

“ is it ever, ” lux sighed, almost under his breath. spellbound. “ ... be honest with me. you're a different me than i am, ain'tcha? you've seen it before? ” it didn't make any sense, for the sight of the moon — the real moon, not filtered through glass or projected onto a screen — to make lux imperator feel this way. he was the light. if it weren't for him, the moon would never shine in the first place.

but for this particular incarnation of him, this little cartoon lightning bug, perhaps it was the feeling of missing home. of missing himself.

"Excellent!" Lux rubbed his hands together - the excitement beat quick and fast against his chest, remnants of his experiment with bi-regeneration. If his smile could hurt, it certainly would with how wide it was as the they began to make their way together.

He sucked in a breath, eyes widening when they drew ever closer. One, two... "Three!" Lux's hands pushed against the door to swing them open, the night air outside naturally cooler than the stuffy, humid theatre. He could feel it and the remnants of moonlight brush up against his cheeks. A familiar, soothing feeling, if apprehensive.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?"

All that was left was to keep moving forward.

[commandinglight]

he hardly even wobbled, as the other lux clambered onto his shoulders. as far as lux was concerned, this was a perfect plan — the only question was whether it would actually work. “ all clear on my end, pal! ” he stuck a thumbs-up through the slight gap in the coat's buttons. between the two of them, he was sure they looked perfectly normal. six feet tall, moving unsteadily, with barely any discernible features. who wouldn't want to encounter such a person, on the streets of miami at night?

moment of truth. once they'd gotten settled, lux carefully started taking steps towards the door. light didn't weigh anything, but they still needed to maintain balance... &, admittedly, there was some apprehension affecting his stride. he might actually, finally, get to see it — the outside.

“ ready? ” he asked, once they were within pushing distance of the door, his hands clasped over his double's legs. “ one, two... ”

Lux beamed ever so proudly at his phenomenal performance, giving a comical bow. "Oho, don't mind if I do, buddy!" Wasting no more time, he hopped himself up onto his other self's shoulders, slipping his arms through the oversized sleeves of the coat as he kept balance.

It really was a good thing light weighed nothing at all!

"See, easy peasy!" He helped on closing the trenchcoat and tying it, leaving some buttons open so the other Lux could peer out. "Can ya see okay?" If only there was a mirror - but surely the two of them combined looked like a whole normal human being, right?

Moment of truth, though...those exit doors sure looked far away from there. He swallowed, adjusting the fedora.

[commandinglight]

when the poet spoke again, it was like he snapped lux imperator out of a little reverie. once he'd learned about the bomb, the god had been drawn to it like a moth to a flame — any light needed fuel to shine, & the light of total destruction was the brightest of all. some trace of that mushroom cloud seemed reflected in lux's eyes, as he glanced over to meet his new friend's.

“ oh, i like you, ” was all he said, at first, & to any normal person the approval would be downright sinister. “ the maestro would never agree to help me out like that. so possessive! they think all the music in the world ought to belong to them. but you... you understand. ” a delighted, toothy grin fixed on his face, he approached where the poet had taken his seat. “ all i wanna do is share my light. just like you wanna share your music, don'tcha? share it with the whole world — 'til there's nothing else left. ”

people spoke of the heat death of the universe, the unstoppable, all-consuming expansion of the sun over billions of years. lux liked to think of it more as the light death of the universe. he would be there, at the end of all things — the greatest light ever seen, before an even greater darkness.

he blinked, as reginald pye shuffled into the theatre with armfuls of popcorn, candy, & soda. the poor old man had his eyes down, terrified of what he knew was on the screen. “ so! you already know about the giggle, huh? i'm impressed! i wouldn't try it for yourself, though — that kinda thing has power. ” the poet would have all his concessions politely, but hurriedly, offered to him, as the projectionist didn't want to witness this meeting for a second longer than he had to. he was visibly trembling.

“ your music, on the other hand... ” lux continued, unconcerned with how reginald pye felt. “ that, i would like to hear. the stuff that dreams are made of! ”

Flicking his coattails behind him, the Poet checked a seat in the front row of the theatre and sat back in the plush, red seat. He crossed his legs over, neatly placing his hands over his knee and listened intently to Lux's proposal.

"All Humans are capable of is destruction," he replied, his tone harbouring barbarous malice. "In my experience, at least."

Before he had been blessed by the Pantheon, he had been weak. A pushover. People would walk all over him, taking advantage of his calming and friendly nature. Time and time again, people let him down. He was never the first choice, never the favourite. He was nobody. Never again.

Blinking in surprise as the theatre lights dimmed and a film began playing on the screen, the Poet watched with wide, glittering eyes as the footage of the mushroom cloud played. He turned to the cartoon God, watching the visible, almost playful madness in his round eyes. He was insane; but the Poet liked that. Life needed a bit of insanity or else it failed to progress. Change was needed, especially here on Earth. A new world order, perhaps?

A smirk caught the corner of his lips. "You need a spark of inspiration, darling..." he mused softly. "Or, rather, they need it. I can plant it there with my music. Subliminally at first, perhaps, but there all the same. A bit like your giggle, I suppose?"

[commandinglight]

of course. it was only a matter of time before someone sent in the cavalry. just by looking at her, it was clear to lux that this was no ordinary cop — but, still, if she didn't already know what he was, then she couldn't have been anything special. no harm in playing cute, for as long as he could get away with it.

“ why, don'tcha know your cartoons? i'm mr. ring-a-ding, i make your heart-bells sing—! ♫ ah? ” bouncing a little in place, he waggled his boater hat in his hand like a tambourine. “ i can keep goin'! ” in fact, he felt a strange compulsion to— any time someone asked him who or what he was. “ but what i wanna know is — what exactly are you, miss? ”

 ❝ But that's ....❞ Impossible. Yes. She was actually going to say it. Shame on her. She knew. All these years at UNIT, she should've learnt by now.

Nothing ever is.  ❝ What are you? ❞

@commandinglight / accepting

[commandinglight]

i'm not vain.

➤ plato’s stepchildren. / accepting.

“ y'know, everybody says that. ”

another one of these people out of time. agents of chaos in their own right — the reason, perhaps, that the order of the universe was cracked enough to let the pantheon in, in the first place. lux didn't know. once that fateful beam of moonlight had shone in & pulled mr. ring-a-ding off of the silver screen, he had become the master of his own little world, & that — for now — was enough for him.

“ but what about when somebody else puts you down? or takes credit for your hard work? then it's ‘me, me, me’ 'til you're blue in the face, 'cause that's not fair! luckily, i don't have that problem. ” he preened, tugging at his bowtie. “ i'm mr. ring-a-ding. i'm a gosh-darn celebrity! ”

[commandinglight]

of course — how could he have forgotten the hat? folding the coat loosely over his arm, he snapped his fingers in play-frustration as the other lux invoked ‘the rules’. mortal rules were of no consequence at all, but the rules that the gods of chaos established with each other? those were ironclad.

“ sensational! ” with a bright grin, lux splayed his hands out in appreciation of the other's routine. “ i can hardly even tell that you're three feet tall & blue. alright, get on up here — i'm just glad light weighs nothin'! ” he held the trench out with one hand, patting his own shoulder with the other. would this work? he had no idea. lux had only rarely tried to go outside, only enough to know that he couldn't — whether there was some rule of reality physically binding him, or just some kind of a mental stumbling block, he had always found himself stopped at the palazzo's doors like he was a demon & they were a circle of chalk. gazing, enviously, out at the world outside.

so much brighter, & yet so much darker. a world he wanted to see illuminated.

If Lux spent more time acknowledging that Mr. Reginald Pye was alive here, he didn't have to dwell too much on the unfortunate man's fate. Or that he had any sort of attachment at all. What's a little repression between gods?

He pulled a face after skidding to a halt when the other Lux snatched the trenchcoat before he could. But that meant he got the snazzy hat to go with it! "Well since I got this, that means I'm goin' on your shoulders!" Them's the rules! He put the larger fedora over the tiny floating boater hat, grinning as he struck a pose.

The hat slid over his eyes when he was asked to show his best 'normal' act. "Well, gee, way to put me on the spot, pal!" He cleared his throat and pushed the hat up with a thumb.

"Hmm, alright, howabout this!" Lux snapped his fingers before pretending to slide up to a bar. "Give me some milk on the rocks!" Wink.

[commandinglight]

if reggie was still here. he kept a trench coat — past tense. it wasn't like lux imperator to care about anyone but himself, certainly not one single human, a single mote of dust caught in the overpowering brights of a sunbeam. & yet... once the ghost of the thought was in lux's head, it took up residence at the back. the way the other lux was talking — did that mean reginald pye wasn't much longer for this world?

if nothing else, it would be a shame for him to miss the light show at the end of it all.

“ course — not like he's had much use for it, cooped up in here! ” no time to dwell on that. two pairs of tap shoes clattered through the palazzo theatre, two facets of the same brilliance feeling less lonely than either of them had been in a long time. lux reached the coat hook before his double did, pulling the coat down with a flourish. “ vwah-lah! now, who's getting on whose shoulders? here— gimme your best ‘normal’ act. ”

the whole point was to sneak out subtly. not typically something the god of light was very good at.

Lux's antennae did a happy little wiggle at the sound of that laugh, his own following suit not long after, hands over his stomach. "I know, right? C'mon, if Reggie's still here I think he kept a trenchcoat hangin' up by the coat rack for when it starts raining!"

No time to waste, if they were really going to try this out! He excitedly led the way, the sound of tap dancing shoes echoing throughout the Palazzo. He was just buzzing with energy - if this really worked out, there would be tons of possibilities for him - them -to explore!

[commandinglight]

they have to torture us to convince themselves they’re superior.

➤ plato's stepchildren. / accepting.

superior.

superior to the god of light itself. when daylight was what made the clockwork of society turn. when without him, the universe would be a world of the blind, unable to perceive so much as a shadow or an outline. those who declared themselves to be on the side of ‘order’ played pretend, that they were the superior authority — as if a handful of casualties, a few broken rules, made a difference.

don't make me laugh!

“ let 'em try. try to keep us inside their lines, with their prisms & vaults— bet that makes 'em feel real good about themselves. what their tiny li'l minds don't understand...

is that the abyss is always just a step away. ”

& they could fall into it with lights dancing in their eyes, or in total, suffocating darkness. when all was said & done, when all the scores were tallied— the natural state of the universe was chaos, either way.