amberedcorpse

[amberedcorpse]

Everyone is insane on a different level. How insane is Felix? How far is he willing to go? How much is enough to make him care? How twisted is his moral compass (not necessarily in a bad direction)? What is the biggest reason why it was twisted?

🥀🐈‍⬛🍷🥀

– How insane is Felix?

All things considered, I think Felix is one of the most well-adjusted characters I’ve ever made (Ojo! That isn’t saying much! At all!). I don’t say this to downplay the depths of his suffering or the traumatic events he’s forced to endure (, forever)– But as a reflection of his resilience instead. He’s never lost himself completely to despair and madness, only tumbled before getting back up.  It’s true that he’s paranoid, erratic, depressed and hyper-independent to a self-destructive degree. He’s also had his episodes with psychosis, which have had a lasting influence on his behavior and views on trust. However, that’s nothing compared to being wrenched in and out of death, pulled to the center of everything like putty stretched to a fine string, and suddenly flung back to the very fullness of being. In pain and hungry, weeping on an empty and newborn stomach. How does one experience that and not feel so much as an ounce of scorn for the rest of the world? That has to be a testament to some sanity or, at the very least, something that refuses to be conquered. Who can say.  Or, maybe he’s so insane that he’s come all the way around to everlasting forgiveness… 

– How far is he willing to go? 

Willingness is a complicated subject. Felix is, in no vague terms, a puppet. Moved only by the whims of an old and cruel god. He might yearn to “do” something, but he doesn’t “possess” the will to do it. Not without it being disrupted by Mischief. But–  If Felix’s endurance is anything to go by, then he’s willing to go as far as it takes. Whatever that might mean.

– How much is enough to make him care? How twisted is his moral compass (not necessarily in a bad direction)?

Felix tends to put on an act of complete and total indifference when he cares about a person/situation. It’s a barrier he builds by default, and not for his own sake. He fears, and rightly so, that Mischief will purposely target the object of his affections/care if his feelings are discovered. In reality, he’s very quick to sympathize with the people around him. His heart remains tender in spite of it all. : ( Which makes it all the more heartbreaking when tragedy repeatedly strikes. (Or when he’s abandoned/pushed away when Mischief becomes too much to handle.)  As far as his moral compass is concerned, it’s very topsy turvy. He doesn’t believe in absolutes, like ultimate goods or ultimate evils, nor does he believe humanity to be naturally inclined either way. People who divide the world under moral pretenses feel extremely hypocritical to him for that reason. To “be” and “do” good isn’t a matter of common sense, but something you learn the longer you walk the Earth. Time breeds the wisdom, and humans possess so little of it, they can only hope to be good by accident. (He’s also extremely suspicious of those who blindly strive for “justice”, and of those who are quick to self-sacrifice. Who is that really for?-- What is that really for? It’s not something he understands.) More than a moral good, Felix’s heart yearns for truth. No more, no less. Like Diogenes wandering with a lantern in broad daylight, searching for an honest man. 

– What is the biggest reason why it was twisted?

Simply put, his experience with those affected by Mischief. Witnessing ordinary people spiral out of control, and bearing the violent consequences upon his own body. Being prey– being killed– being devoured– and living on…

[amberedcorpse]

*leaves these links to some pinterest moodboards of my favs* Yarik Billie Duke The Sphinx Felix Dilnis

[amberedcorpse]

No one could rightly tell what had killed the man, only that he’d met his end near the gates leading to the empty seedbeds, slumped back against the fence with a bottle of wine clutched tightly to his chest. The first to find him, a group of washerwomen starting for work in the early morn, passed him thinking he was merely sleeping. His countenance too peaceful to be anything but the bleary and easeful stupor of the previous night still weighing heavy over him. Then, as they rounded their way back on the path, and found him just as he was before, they called his name to finally rouse him. But to no avail. 

That same, unsettling quiet they’d been greeted with resumed far into the evening. Confusion and grief meshed together as they hauled his poor remains to the tavern, the only building in the town left standing, and with enough room to house a cadaver before burial. Not that it would be an inconvenience to anyone anymore, as they never counted with customers and, with him dead, there would be less and less of the locals now. 

His friends passed weary looks among themselves, their gaunt and tired faces paled with exhaustion and vice. Bearing the looks of people that searched for the divine in their withdrawals, mercy in the clambering of bones swaddled in too-thin skin, reminding them of days when the bells rang from the chapel and out into the town. Like a voice, like the trilling of a bird which’d flitted through the streets and had at once put their hearts at ease. Back when the soil shone brown and was dappled with seeds– back when the rains quenched instead of puddling and stagnating over dead grass. Happier days spent beneath the auspices of a brilliant sun. Now the silence had gathered all around them, as with the clouds and the poppies, to blot out even the memory of such a time. 

Often questioning what had changed, they turned up their eyes to the tempests, ready to see and hear. But the gods would not speak. Not even in anger. 

Little was said of the man’s life and of his relations to everyone there, each of them tongue-tied by the suddenness of his passing and the mystery surrounding it. The town and its people had long sunken into neglect, but he was still young and hearty in some respects. There were those worse off in that same space who bent over his face, whispering incredulously at what fortune or irony this was. Perhaps they weren’t long for this world either. Soon enough they would be taken in with the rain and spewed out the gutters like crumpled leaves. Carefully, they unfurled his fingers from around the bottleneck of that suspicious wine, wondering how he could ever afford such a nice looking thing. Turning it over and letting its gilded design glimmer in the light, they offered what was left for the soul’s journey onward. 

It was then that the soft trickling of the wine slowly turned to droning, then to humming, then oddly, to singing. A new face peered in from outside the window. No one they knew, but were strangely compelled to welcome inside, as the more they sang the more they vaguely remembered, or thought to remember, a melody pitted deep in their hearts. So much like the fields in the full breadth of the harvest season, or like the blue expanse of the sky, or like the friendly, gaptoothed smile of their dearly departed friend…

Felix wrenched himself away from the party, stumbling out from all the living flesh and into the bare stillness of the rest of the tavern. Quickly, he pulled off one of the tattered cloth coverings from the nearest table and hid his nakedness from the chill. His strings were no longer as taut, spooling loose across the floor as the Shadow amused itself with the small group of mortals. They were few, but scarcity had bred their hunger to a ravenous beast, willing to gorge itself to death if persuaded of the pleasure it could bring. It wouldn’t be long until the laughter and the merrymaking would whirl itself to chaos– Reminded of his own appetite, Felix approached the little bowls of food gathered around the body, filled with mounds of hardened rice and watered-down broths, sparse offerings for the dead, graciously given even in these trying times. A mournful look passed him briefly, before he dug his fingers into the rice.

Suddenly, there came a creak from across the room. The revenant’s head snapped to the door the moment it swung open. A cold and familiar sense of unease quickly traveled up his spine. He let go of the clump of rice in his hand, as the silver tints of the other figure’s eyes and jewelry became an ever clearer sign of doom. The point of recognition struck him fiercely, jabbed him with every flicker of the candlelight, as their face stepped forward from the gloom. Felix knew this man, this witch, and had felt the false moonlight bordering at the edges of their person, the fingertips of a nameless other both there and not. Terrified, he ducked behind the displayed corpse and laid flat on the ground, both arms covering his head as if to protect himself from an oncoming blow. Why had they come? He shut his eyes, hoping he might be able to brace himself against the blaring vision of the moon that way.

                                    › › › @amberedcorpse (for Felix)

Of all the places he could have had chosen...

He wondered what had happened here... Claustrophobic city walls and winding alleys of rugged stone architecture. Narrow, shadowy streets paved the webbed layout of the small, forgotten town. Pumped full with an overwhelming smell of decay due to poor sanitation, the presence of disease-spreading vermin was unavoidable. The few intact buildings that stood close together, their looming dark stone walls tall and crooked, glistening from a substance he knew had been rain pouring down only half an hour ago. Casting most surfaces that were not damp earth and gloom in a glistening shen cast from a bloated silver moon. Flickering lanterns cast dancing, ghostly shadows smelling of burned wood more than they did spread their miserable light. A town so neglected, Alexander was not surprised travelers gave it a wide berth.

The graveyard he had passed on his way to the city gate had been much like the chapel — in ruins. The graves were marked by horizontal slabs of stone with a wall surrounding the area, though a rather large portion of the wall had collapsed along with the ground and fallen off the adjacent cliff and into the nearby sea, looking as though something had reached up from the watery depths and had claimed (torn) a piece of its land to reside with it now.

The noise of people come together got louder the nearer he got to the building with the most light and life inside. Voices of people merged together, incomprehensible in what it was they said. The only safe haven were folk flocked to for the night to escape the dark and foreboding blackness of the other streets, something told the witch that within was not any safer than the outside. The soil acidic, the whole place felt rotten.

Abandoned by the gods. Righteous ones, that was.

The man recalled before his inner eye the sight of the missing chapel wall and the stone statue — or what had been left of it. Nothing but robed legs and bare feet, the stone clean cut in the middle, with torso and arms and head out of sight. The black bird sitting perched on top of the wooden pole, to which the tavern sign measly hung attached to by only one chain anymore, cawed and pulled the man from his thoughts.

They both knew there was no good to find here. Still the man stepped up the steps and pressed both his hands against the wooden door to open it. Causing more of the voices — now turned drunken ramblings and accusations — to spill through the opening and past him into the cold night. The light did not seem to dare follow, did not breach the threshold. The opposite: already could he make out the first tendrils of a living shadow, whose presence a threat enough that caused his heartbeat to quicken. Despite that, his gaze wandered and searched for the one which the raven had followed all the way to this cursed ground.

[amberedcorpse]

head in my hands, I think of Yarik.

[amberedcorpse]

Sniff sniff. He is searching for the wine-kitty.

🌳🪹🌿🐈‍⬛

“No!” 

Felix crawled out of hiding, his hands and knees stained with mud, and with leaves tangled in the dark curls of his hair. He’d waited patiently for the bird to return, tightly wound, and crouched, in the tangled thrush of a bush. If he’d had his way, he would have trapped the animal using its own home, blocking the entryway with both palms. Now the hunt was spoiled. 

Now, he watched as the little brown wren disappeared through the clouds, frightened away by the large beast. 

“Oh, just look at what you’ve done!” 

He rushed to the cavity in the bark, fingers pulling at moss and twigs jutting out from the darkness. Until he’d dislodged enough of the nest to haul it out in a single motion. Quickly, he wrenched the tufted thing apart, splitting the gray fur matted and clumped together like fluff. Only to find it empty in the end.  

“No eggs either…Great! What will I eat now?” He stamped the ground with the soles of his slippers. Then twirled around to pout at the awful, awful Knight. “You want me to starve!”

[amberedcorpse]

Yarik in his mortal disguise.

[amberedcorpse]

The corners of its mouth, the smile blaring out from the facelessness of the Shadow, twitched with a kind of patent delight. Pangs of hunger met with the very food to sate it or, better yet, the kindling for a flame about to putter out in plumes of fine smoke, sparked and born anew as if the dampness of their surroundings held no sway over its light. Mischief had waited in the gloom for this moment, treading in the darkness cast by the clouds and the youngling forest devouring the ruins, as all the while the knight grew more and more used to its living doll. Comforted, perhaps, by the joys of music and prettiness woven so closely together. The fairy voice that sang in tones of late Spring and Summer, flowering vineyards speckled with morning dew. Followed then by soft flesh and softer looks, and the touch of hands which had never held a blade. Sooner or later the spoils of a new and youthful possession, like fruits plucked before the break of the hurricane season, would tempt the hulking beast to some direction. Whatever the nature of this path, affable or sadistic, was of no importance to the god– only that it should amuse itself with the sight…

Felix balked as he felt their fingers grasp around the weak skin of his waist, acutely aware with what ease they could have pried him open and reached for his entrails. Gouged them out, as they once had, before deathlessness sullied the novelty of repeatedly killing him. However long ago it was that boredom dulled Adal’s enjoyment of that first, ceaseless hunt, Felix was sure the willingness to maim him still remained. In the same way a hound would bite off the head of a cat on a full stomach. He shivered briefly, remembering the heavy swings of their sword and the stamping of boots over his sternum. There’d been no mercy afforded to him then, and he doubted any had been gained since. Even a fool such as himself knew better than to presume that much.

All there, and lying in wait, stalking beneath the lining of perfectly carved muscle, were the memories and the death-defying madness of that long run. Yet even as he felt and smelled it for himself, pressed flush upon the monster’s body, his thoughts ultimately wandered to other places. Just as full of blood and war, but which stirred his nerves in less appropriate ways. Felix let out a breath, his vision blurred between the present and the dreams of a distant past, drunk off of the gore of forgotten armies. Entire generations of men fallen nameless before the march of a thing which’d torn up the firmament and left behind a barren and still-burning field. A chain of kingdoms turned up like carcasses, ravaged at the gullet, and later pecked clean by scavengers. He saw the passing of countless seasons and how the soil mounted over the wasteland like a funerary shroud, concealing the skeletons still posed in their final throes. Quietly, the sediment would thin them out to grains of dust, until even their buried, slack-jawed screams would be reduced to blissful nothingness. All of this and more, and more, until a voice finally broke through the stupor.

Come now. It’s rude not to respond.

He shut his eyes just as his hips rolled forward to better make out the shape beneath him. The scent of a scalding, crimson fury was strongest over the other man, but there too was the perfume of the creature-want that would slobber in white foam if treated. The moment he recognized it, his back arched slightly, egged on by jolts of excitement stemming from deep within. He despised himself as much as he loathed to admit the surging of mixed emotions at his core. Truly, he was afraid– and yet, the little space between them became heady with his own fragrance of vintage wine.

“Would you pour me a glass before I die of thirst?”

The revenant’s lips curled to a small growl, sharp at the edges, though not entirely void of humor. The expression was different from all the times he’d hissed and recoiled from Adal like a fretful feline. Almost the ghost of a grin, or as close to one he could give, as subtle playfulness phased through it like blots of sunlight only momentarily staining one’s retinas.

“Hah…Perhaps it would be faster to pour it into me.”

They had made their way onward through hostile terrain, down through a deep gorge and ascending through a thin and winding rocky pass, while lightning had shaped out the distant shivering mountains and while thunder rang the stones about; each time, tufts of blue fire had clung to his horses like incandescent elementals that would not be driven off. Further up, they had found man-made housing and the brute had decided to rest among those ancient ruins. Weather-worn stone pillars standing on uneven ground and surrounded by dead clumps of grass held up what was left of an upper floor. There was no roof above that, only half-crumbling walls made of cracked blocks and stones broken up and held-together again by meandering tree roots.

A deep silence had fallen over the travelers, once camp had been set up and a small fire had been ignited to offer some warmth for the night. Most of his armor taken off and placed to the side for the night, they shared the only makeshift bed the only way they could. Huddled, one on top of the other. With his priced possession taking advantage of his height and size, curling up on him with his feline likeness. The knight did not mind the physical contact as much as he was sure he would. Soothed by a scent that reminded him of home, although he had long forgotten what home was even meant to be like. Pouring from the other as though he were made from it, Adal allowed himself to be lured and soothed by its invisible caress. Almost blind to the cool stone of the wall he was leaning against with his back. His gaze, half-narrowed eyes, in a moment of absolute calm, set upon the fire before them, whose flames sawed through a gust of wind and the embers paled and deepened and paled and deepened, like the bloodbeat of some living thing eviscerate upon the ground.

The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner.

The brute was reminded of a time before he had become a victim to time's passing. When his blackened armor was polished clean and his proud entrance always accompanied by the yowling of hundreds of men. They swung back and forth through villages, and people were running out under their horses' hooves, and the horses were plunging and some of the men were moving on foot among the huts with torches and swords, and dragging the victims out, slathered and dripping with blood, hacking at the dying and decapitating those who knelt for mercy, and he knew then as he knew now, in the days to come, the frail black rebuses of blood in those sands would crack and break and drift away so that in the circle of few suns, all trace of the destruction of these people would be erased. The wind would cut their ruins and there would be nothing, no ghost nor scribe, to tell any pilgrim in their passing how it had come that people had lived in this place and how they had come to die.

Educed focus dragged, watching out of the corners of his eyes and half-there regarding the soft approach of the other man, until enough of his figure came into view and begged his attention. Feeling the lightest of touches of tongue against his lip. Without blinking once, his pupils grew smaller and his gaze overall sharper. The instantaneous awakening of a thing at the first sound of untolled bells snapping violently awake. Nothing of that dreamlike-esque stare, that obvious absence of a mind, left. He was there and he saw and he knew well what had been done, and he stared now, that same, difficult-to-read stare that after trying to decipher reminded anyone: he needed no reason to do as he did.

It was a sin. A transgression. A savagery, to have someone so dainty and breakable find comfort in his lap. And were those eyes not looking at him with appetite? Between the midst of emotion he had long grown blind to see? He wonders for a moment where it came from, because had he not experienced his violence first hand, in their beginning? Had Adal not been cruel to him many a time? The reason why he knew the flesh of the revenant being so tender...

Not feeling a care for the world if he was feared; it was the persistence that held the brute captive and which caused Adal to continue staring back. Slow in putting the pieces together, he felt himself oddly willing to give and ready to offer. Reminded of a hunger stoked but never satisfied, for so long he hardly could make it out as anything other than a rough burnin. Growing warmer now, and unsettingly dulling. Cutting off the tethers to the world that had his nerves always high-strung and his senses vigilant.

It all was reduced to what lay within those ruined walls and all that was touched by the glow of the dying embers of a fire slowly suffocating through not being fed. Its heat now trapped between them and caught in his stare of calm intensity. Hungry yet patient, like a starved hound having the familiar taste of blood return to his dried tongue; reminded of how empty his stomach was. Thawing the tips of his fingers from their stiffness, they twitched once, before unmistakably digging into both his sides, taking firm hold of his waist and positioning Felix until he sat straddling Adal properly, letting him feel all there was to feel now that the only thing concealing him was cloth.

            “What's it you are pleading for? Milk?”

[amberedcorpse]

This is more or less what I think Billie sounds like. Distortions included and necessary.

[amberedcorpse]

Both his anger and jealousy at the mere thought of dispossession were soothed by Alexander’s touch. Deucalión could accept death, and the twisting of the knife that would inevitably take him to the very depths of hell. But he’d never let the darkness dull the star which’d lit his dreams with such soft desires. Try as they might, shadows and spirits both, he would preserve what blessings were left strewn for them in this pitiful, mortal life. Even if he had to sic his teeth onto every omen of ill portent, tear and dismember the oracles ready to word their augurs in tongues. The end would come, and it would indeed be wicked. But not yet– not at that moment. Why waste their precious time fearing it?

Duke closed what little distance remained between them, shielding them away from the speckling of rain which had then reached their embrace. Again, the world was damp and foul, and eager to spoil what should be theirs by right. Yet as long as his lungs drew breath and his heart surged the blood warming his body, he would offer it to his lover in turn. If it only spared them from the cold.

“I would swear myself to you before an altar. I’m nothing more than a liar and a sinner, but you–” Gently, he stroked Alexander’s cheek with the pad of his thumb, drawing circles over plush skin. “You deserve every joy, every grace, a celebration in your honor where you’re finally given your flowers. Pews decorated with white ribbons, a rich carpet to carry your steps over cold and rough stone as you make your way onto the sanctuary floor. Even a dying and delirious Christ, pussing and bleeding over the tabernacle, would see how beautiful you are then.” How terrifyingly good.

“I would take your hands and recite my vows as I had my prayers once. Back when I could count myself a lamb and I’d hurt the bare soles of my feet on the rocky trail to mass. I would reach out and call to you, not only by name, but as my husband. Kiss you before God, and still be damned in the end. All because I dare to say, and believe, that you are greater than any mercy given in Heaven.”

He fell silent for a moment, listening to the roll of thunder over the fields and the pattering of water across the nearby ramshackled roofs. Something remained beyond the deafening silence of the rainfall and, perhaps for the very first time, there was a glint of nervousness in his gaze. There was still so much to say.

“If that were all possible, and I could get on bended knee for you…” His jaw clenched as his eyes trained themselves squarely onto Alexander’s.

“Would you have said yes?”

When his rider and him had arrived, the sun had already dipped past the horizon. With the last weak rays of light they had made their way to the stable. Some lamps had already been lit in preparation, to ward off the dark. One there and a couple scattered throughout windows and the main road of town. With the entrance of the night, the air had gotten fresher and cooler, and the forthcoming breeze that caught up in intensity within mere minutes went by thoroughly disregarded by the Kladruber. Standing still with his head low ready to snooze, he vaguely listened to the sound of low voices seeping from one corner of the stable and the footfalls of an oblivious townsman, walking hastily down the dirt road outside his way to the saloon.

The clouds above them anxiously gathered and weighed upon the land. Distant rolling thunder sounded its approach, promising to defacto-deafen even the most open ear. It was that same whipping crack in the distance that had the black horse look up. What announced itself through the first few sparse droplets of rain. As though unable to hold the weight any longer the clouds above broke. Cold and dewy, a mist was pulled down to earth, cooling the air further and feeding the ground. The wet barely kissed the windows and porches as it speckles across the dry soil. Singles searching for their matches, it soon turned into a monotonous downpour of the most pathetic droplets of wetness falling to the ground — each one more tediously blending into the forming puddles than the last. Shutters closed. Doors met their catch. One could not churlishly tell the sky to recheck the calendar.

Alexander caught none of it. Shielded from all else that lay behind Duke's back, his mind had long wandered off to the pits of himself. Standing silent, listening attentively, he looked up at Duke with a soft expression and sad eyes that slowly closed the nearer Duke leaned, until all he could do was feel.

He was afraid. How could he not be scared with how much he cared? How could he not worry and agonize over the thought of the man he loved to be harmed or forced to lay down his life? How could he not fear it? How could he not be scared? As stern as Duke stood, as firm... He just could not stop the fretful beating of his trembling heart. He could not stop dreading—He could not—He needed to—Stop.

He needed to stop.

Under the fluttering of lashes his eyes opened again and already did his hands reach. His fingers landed on either side of Duke's face, feather-soft in their touch as they traced the bone of his jaw. In an instant his heart had calmed with the coming of that realization. He needed to stop worrying. The longer he did and the more he did of it, the more time was wasted. Time they could spend together being happy. Duke had made more than clear that he understood and that he had known. It would not be fair to further fill his own heart with trepidation. Those strong hands — gentle to him — wrung and throttled the suffocating feeling that had laced over his lungs.

With a low huff his features softened further. Warmed, turned more gentle. One hand reached up, brushing through the dark hair of the other man.

            „Until death do us part...“

[amberedcorpse]

Heyyy :') Gonna be away from home until the start of August <3 I'm gonna be visiting my partner's family and doing some real vacationing aaa

[amberedcorpse]

@oathloathed sent: If Felix had the chance to kiss Adal, would he? Would Mischief let him? What if Adal were the one to lean in and do the kissing?

Mischief kept watch from behind a pillar, deftly avoiding the moonlight pouring in through the arch of a broken window. Thick as sap, the light oozed from the sharp, cut edges of the glass and glazed the room in its bleary cast, tinting everything in a pale, deceptive calm. It waited, claws at the ready on the cross-brace of its marionette, salivating with the anticipation to lure and to tempt. The smell of wine grew stronger as it smiled from the depths of its facelessness, knowing and liking its chances for entertainment. 

Ignoring the god, Felix furled himself tighter, sitting curled-up over the other man’s lap. Tired of the hours that spooled endlessly into the nothing, and of the odd tensing of muscles, his strings pulled taut along the ends of his joints. If only he could sleep without the burden of always being watched in both worlds. He pressed a cheek against Adal, his guard turning lax while his mind sank under the influence of their scent. Finally, Felix closed his eyes, and dreamt as if he were lost in a cloud of poppy smoke…

Images of war soon drifted through the haze, with red skies stretched over a gnarled, blackened earth, quenched by blood and excrement both. The battlefields were hard to parse this far into the chaos, seemingly interminable while the corpses stacked and fused together, their organs writhing like a tangle of snakes in heat. Yet Felix buried his nose deeper, lured then by the perfume notes of baseless vitriol, which he followed almost restlessly up the piles of flesh and putrescence, knowing exactly what he’d see before ever coming to a full stop. 

Rage coalesced to fists, to fingers which tensed around the hilt of a weapon and maimed whatever there was to break. So much like the god that bled, that pussed, that scabbed, and was remade each day through pain. Until the ceaselessness of being, and of being in agony, whirled the grimace of a skull to a warm and welcoming smile. Adal lacked the divinity inherent in the shadow, but moved recklessly as if his name were already written in the stars. Confident in the violence that broke the bed of their own cuticles by the force of their blows alone. It terrified him to the very mettle of his bones, yet he dared not look away, entranced by the horror of sockets popping and gushing like the vesicles of an orange. He felt himself splattered with blood, and the thumping of his prey animal heart climbed up his throat, while another animal, pitted deep in his lower abdomen, stirred in confused excitement. 

A small noise escaped him, noticing he’d unfurled and wandered up their chest to smell the crook of their neck. The moment he came to, he realized they were practically face to face. Felix discerned little as he stared into those dual-colored eyes, half-vacant in their own dreaming. Yet the further he searched, the further he sifted through the vast emptiness where remorse should have been. The depth of such an absence, a fissure which whistled with a lost, crying wind, sent shivers of fear, of thrill, up his spine. There was something about this, about Adal, that had long started to wind him up. Igniting in him a warmth he’d had to stamp out at every turn, avoiding the arousal of interest and suspicion from the artist in its haunt. Only for their sake. And yet- And yet- 

Closer and closer still, strung himself close enough to breathe words over the pad of their tongue. He resisted that strange urge one last time, before he slowly, and gently, licked a line over the purse of their lips. Barely hard enough to leave traces of his saliva, though it carried with it the feeling of a trap sprung shut. 

Blood might as well be wine. How it makes one feel so nice.  

The revenant pulled back slightly, surprised and disappointed by how he’d hungered, and was then helplessly caught between the snare of his want and good reason. Felix should have known better, should have lurched away to save them from the pen and the inkwell of a being starved for inspiration. But he’d gone rigid, simmering under the pressure and the gaze which was pointedly on him. In spite of everything, he was still brave enough to look, hoping that as the brute stared back, they couldn’t, or could, tell that he wanted more. 

[amberedcorpse]

@malefikant : The air was temperate. Overhead, the sky was tearing along the pull of the wind. Big holes were blown into the sky, offering visibility of the moonlight. Sometimes a high moon scudded across a hollow space before it took cover under iridescent cloud edges. Then there was a blot of cloud, then shadow. Then, somewhere in the night, a radiance. Like vapour. A vast disorder of flying shapes and darkness, of ragged fumes of light and a great circling halo. Then, the moon returning liquid-brilliant into the open for a moment, hurting the eyes, before plunging under the cover of clouds yet again. Along it all, stars befrilled the dark blue blanket with their glimmers, so far away and high above, their light never reached the spot they had decided to meet up at and camp for the night. Alexander cared for none of it. For a man so strung-up in existence and removed from humankind, his eyes were — for once — not captivated by the charm of the night. Not to the dance of the clouds or the nakedness of the moon. He was lying, with his long legs crossed and his back pinning the bedroll to the earthy patch of prairie ground. Listening to the cracking of the campfire somewhere to his side, his gaze upwards, what Alexander saw at was not the sky but his left hand. Raised before him, pale and thin and not so naked now, even without the gloves. Adorned by the simple bronze ring that, to him, was not simple at all. That ring — offered to him by Deucalión in a moment of lust and desire, Alexander wondered now with more clear of a mind, whether he truly had understood correctly. Tried making sense of a meaning he did not dare figuring out himself. Was it really as his heart hoped? Were they officially more than just two men that had met on the road, that had kissed, because they liked how the other looked and smelled…? Alexander breathed out. Too deep in his own head and busy turning the ring on his finger, the usually perceptive man did not notice the approaching of the one his heart was so full of. Let alone the springing-to-attention of his steed, or how it slowly trotted away from the shine of the campfire and over to greet the other rider and the other horse.

Deucalión urged his princeling forward, eager to meet the black steed trotting in his direction, a hand at the ready to pat a firm hello over the snout. The tension long worn over his back lessened as Apyr flicked an ear in response, smelling both the stallion and the rider coming to a full stop with its usual, quiet demeanor. Not wanting to interrupt the strange and complicated ritual of horses greeting each other, however, he dismounted on the opposite side and unlatched the pasofino’s bridle. Who, once freed, hurriedly sniffed the other’s face and nipped at its withers. 

“¡Mira! No te ‘esmandes…” 

A lover of animals, he would have naturally taken to petting and conversing with the horses while they settled themselves, aware that Oresteo wasn’t the friendliest of youths,–  if it weren’t for the incessant tugging on his heart, a taut chain that travelled from his ribs to the dark rider on their bedroll. He recklessly slung his pack to the ground and walked faster, when really he wanted to run and rush to his lover.

The closer he came, the less he sensed and heard of the campsite, and of the world chittering with night birds in the thrush. There was nothing but the strong and deafening beat of a drum he’d hardly known existed. It had never before been this intense and this defiant. Duke knelt and reached for their hand, gently caressing the palm with a still-gloved thumb before pulling it to his lips for a kiss. There, he finally noticed the bronze shimmering around Alexander’s pale skin, right where he’d placed it on their night together. The ever-present weight on his brow, his chest, the shadows built upon a foundation of endless nights gambling with misfortune, were instantly lifted from his body. Not by the flames crackling at their side, which only singed the rims of their silhouettes with a greater host of darkness, but a light sparking from deep within. 

Again, he kissed over the peaks and valleys of their knuckles, hard enough to prickle them with his stubble. Then for a third time along the delicate tips of their fingers. Reduced to a base and sinning creature before the image of a saint, he sowed his worship through the fervor of an unworthy mouth. Desperate, he’d quickly shut his eyes, stopping himself from acting upon a whole slew of other wicked wants. How he wished to climb over this beautiful man and pin him in place, rubbing in his scent like an animal marking its territory. Then suck the side of their throat where their heartbeat was clearest until it left behind a dark bruise. There’d be no mistaking it then. No room for doubt. 

This featherless angel was his. 

“Dear God…I missed you.”

[amberedcorpse]

“I bet you are.” 

Already, he felt their voice pouring over his temples like a balm, simmering the wild and whipping flames pitted inside his brain. Only the chilled and staggering touch of the bristles were met with some note of exasperation, a groan stifled at the knot of his throat and just as quickly soothed by the whisking of foam across his jaw. He wasn’t too sick, but he wasn’t made for the cold either, like a frog turned belly-up in the month of December. 

Shoulders relaxed, Duke surrendered to the motions of those skilled hands, their pretty fingers as slender as a fleeting hope. Perfectly elegant as they worked– whether it be on him or on the grip of a pistol–, it didn’t seem to matter. Alexander was everything he wasn’t. Which meant they were as good and beautiful as the dawning of a new day. And just as delicate as they breached the curtains of his person, sifting for the thing which’d lain neglected and unused for too long. Now stirred, he’d felt, perhaps for the first time in years, how his heart raced with something close to youthful anticipation...

He tried to imagine their country for himself. A place as cold as ice, where flowerbeds frosted over with snow, and the skies were shrouded by a mesh of tufted, grey clouds. Well, he tried to at least. Deucalión had only seen and touched snow some five years prior, after abandoning the island and the marshland soon after that. The experience, surreal in every way, had confused him more than it revealed its secrets to his warm-blooded senses. The best he could do at the moment was think of fields and empty stables buried beneath a dangerous and suffocating powder. Like piles of sugar.

People sure lived in strange places. 

“What was it like? I mean– living there.” What were you like during those long and terrible winter seasons? Duke’s visions of the fields changed somewhat, as the garden plots transitioned to snow-laden paths, trailing beyond the farmsteads and into the far off woods. Lush and dark, or sparse perhaps– he couldn’t rightly decide. Only that a dark rider was passing through, mounted on their proud horse, and with a heavy coat swaddling them from the cold. A charcoal sketch over blank parchment, not a blemish over planes of the most pristine white, but the wondrous coexistence of night and day. Breathtaking as they cut between the gnarled, bald trees. A prince, a sorcerer, or both, taken right out of the pages of a fairytale. He half-dreamed the noble rider coming to a stop at the crossroads, where empty landscapes merged at the laylines, the epicenter marked by a stone or a sign. Waiting there instead of choosing a direction, but for what exactly? 

If he knew more of their homeland he could have pictured it with greater clarity. But Alexander rarely spoke of his home, in much the same way Duke was reluctant to share the bare, blue skies of the tropics. It was for the best, he’d thought, not wanting to dull the gift of their company with memories of the near past. Yet, a dark and greedy part of him still wished to possess and know all that he could of his lover. To dig his claws where the meat was soft, and to never let go. 

A hand then reached for the other man, snaking up their side and to the start of their ribs, caressing with an earnest desire to feel. To just feel them there– with him, and only him. His precious angel.

“What’re the people like?” 

            „Hmm...“, he thoughtfully hummed, as though he did not already know the answer but wanted to soothe, to give back a sense of the same warmth that Duke always offered him, through the sound of his soft-toned voice and gentle features of a smiled. Trying to push away the ache of his heart, seeing the man he loved in suffering and instead bask Deucalión in his tender love.

How heavy the world was, seeing its mass made manifest, weighing down on those two broad shoulders of the same man that seemed to carry it all. Then and there and always, ever since Alexander could remember. Doing so ever since they had first met out on the open road and even more clearly the night that had followed after. A strong man with a strong back that Alexander had not known as intimately as he did now As if it was the most normal thing for Deucalión to make himself the mountain that sheltered Alexander from relentless winds and hide him from the eyes that were windows to malicious minds. That same night Duke had raised those arms, not only to carry the weight of the world but catch the brunt force of a falling sky — his Atlas — and with it made himself the carrier of a another burden, ripe and full.

Ever since that moment he had felt much lighter. Ever since that moment, Alexander had felt more aware. Of the world and all around him less so that he did of himself. What he was and what being himself felt like, and what he could feel and certainly did, whenever his eyes traveled and caught so much as a glimpse of the other man. How that tomb he often had laid the flat of his right hand against in wonderment and search for a feeling, had laid silent and empty, had not greeted him with so much as the weakest thud. So sure that it was slumbering or wholly gone, it was Ducalión who gave him space enough to properly breath again and space to stretch out his wings the first time in a long time. The reason why bones popped and muscle throbbed and his head was filled with awe more than it was sorrow. Standing there now, vividly seeing all the weight return and closing in, not on himself but the other man, who carried the burden of two instead of just his own, the heart ached evermore.

            „I put on enough layers, try to move. I sit with the fire whenever I can“, he continued in the same soft, melodic way of talking as he turned towards the dresser again. He came to see the brush was already in a cup filled with water just covering the bristles, allowed to sit for a moment. Figuring it had a good soak, he removed the brush from the cup, trying not to flick too much excess water off.

            „Maybe I am just a little more used to it~“ For a brief moment the smile grew a little wider and his tone was a little playful. Going as far as winking at the other man once, before he continued his tale in a more calm tone again.

            „Russia has really long and harsh winters. Couple years ago there was another famine. Dry autumn delays the seeding of the fields. Winter begins early and is more severe than usual. Light snowfall only.“

Next, he reached for the opened can of shaving soap, which he swirled the end of the brush on in circular motions for around 30 seconds to work the soap in and load up the brush. Careful to apply too much pressure knowing the bristles could be delicate.

            „Heavy snow is meant to protect the seedlings from the cold.“

Turning around again and scooping up a brushful of soap, Alexander took the step closer and leaned a little in, to carefully apply the soap directly onto Duke's face, right where his eyes caught the shadow of a stubble growing. From there he swirled the brush around and worked the lather in circular motions onto the other side of Duke's jaw and down his neck, until there was an even covering.

            „Melting snow and ice cause spring floods of the Volga, which spreads over the plains whose grass is used as feed. Years like those, small amount of snow causes the ground to freeze, which kills the young plants.“

[amberedcorpse]

Yeah, yeah he's experiencing a kind of misery so grand you couldn't fathom it even if you tried, but who's getting into these shenanigans with Felix?

[amberedcorpse]

“Professional help?” The lieutenant’s perfectly crisp, clear voice drew out the words as if they’d just babbled incoherencies at him. 

“Where do you think we are? Cali?” His strained relationship with mental health aside, they weren’t in the middle of a large and sprawling city. The settlements speckled across the Mojave were hardly fitted with enough resources to build a secure and structurally sound perimeter wall. Where was he expected to find a suitable doctor for the task then? The wandering “surgeon” that meandered outside the motel, her singlet stained all the way through with blood, didn’t seem a trustworthy candidate. Nor had she used gloves when touching up his wound earlier.

Well– 

Sure, HQ had been generous enough to transfer counselors after a new wave of complaints had poured in. A major part of which were brought on by food and water scarcity, and allegations of mismanagement over both counts. But faintly, beyond the scripted letter-type of the official reports, like notes smuggled between the pages of a book, were the whisperings of more than a hundred young soldiers beginning to think. To question. Frantic bodies, their nerves shot by the horrors of war, who’d learned what it meant to be expendable once the skirmishes started on the eastern front. 

They’d faced this menace before, but had hardly survived it the first time– and here it came again. Suddenly the cause wasn’t as righteous as it used to be, trampled on by the tireless marching of the Legion’s armies and its equally perpetual outsourcing of men. The bull wasn’t anything like the raiders (or the brotherhood half a decade prior), but a scourge worthy of the same alarms being raised all throughout the desert, as it slowly crests over the mountain like a crimson dawn. 

The NCR, in all of its infinite wisdom, chose to send clean-suited professionals to Camp McCarran in response. As if the troopers could ever trust them with their innermost thoughts. Perfectly trimmed, their nails clean, their faces washed of the sand that permeated the air. They were nothing like the soldiers who dove in and out of the muck just to survive. At all. What would they know of recognizing a comrade’s head mounted on a spike? (They wouldn’t.) What would they know of the fetid stench of infected scars and of the corpses all pummeled to red pulp? (Nothing.) They’d journeyed straight from the comfort of the coastline and were themselves now stricken by the disparity. 

All of this to say, he’d never been submitted to a psychiatric evaluation. As long as one was able to understand and follow orders, one was fine. That was their professional opinion, and why waste time on someone who was rational enough? The same went for rest of them, he reasoned. 

A part of him lamented the future they were hurdling towards, while another part of him relished the change in pressure, the weight mounting over all their heads. The same tangled web of emotions he’d bottled up inside since infiltrating their military and remaining past his obsolescence, now the very thing corroding their resolve– Dilnis could smile if he allowed himself the pleasure. Really, he was becoming a twisted, awful thing.

He looked up, “Not a day goes by where I don’t think of quitting and going somewhere far away.” 

The confession was swift, simple, laden with nothing but the barest of truths, while still concealing a slew of other thoughts yet to be explored. It was the best he could offer, not knowing where this stranger stood in all of this, and not really knowing how to explain the mechanisms wired shut in his brain.  

“But I can’t. It’s not a matter of belief– not even loyalty…” No, maybe it was loyalty to a man that was most likely dead. Subconscious, or planted there, and rooted too deep for him to gnaw off. His leg needlessly stuck to a bear trap. “But I’m waiting for someone.” 

Or a command? 

“So, I’m stuck here. What do you think of that?”

A thoughtful hum joined the chuckle, half-followed it while he considered the situation and what had been said, while trying to read the language of that other body realizing that even if the man was in need of help, how could he trust him? Showing up just like that. The fact that he was hiding in there gave possibility to his troubles reaching far deeper, or at least in directions that did not involve a stranger lending his ear.

            „That depends.“ He continued to hum in a calm tone. When It really did not depend at all. Or did, in a different sense. A complexity within that Alexander did not feel addressing nor opening himself up to, forced to untangle the complication that his inner workings were even to him at times. He was here, expecting. Ready to lend himself if there was a need for his expertise. Not spill himself all over the old, occasionally cracked tiles of the bathroom floor.

In this moment his presence was charity. Wholly without expecting anything in turn and not set up to push or force help upon a man that was not even sure whether he wanted it. Feeling a little bad even for prying he thought he felt tension begin filling the air. To be expected. After all, who was he and what right did he have to pry? He would not. Only be there and offer and leave again, if that was what was wished of him.

            „If someone wants my help, I'll listen to their request. If someone is in need of help... who am I to expect something to be returned to me.“

He sighed and with it, moved his body again until he leaned with his left shoulder against the door frame. Sinking a little against it as though he too was made of mostly tired bones. In turn, creating a bit more space within the opened door. Giving to understand that there was a way out of this get-together, if the soldier should desire to not follow through with his own cry for help.

            „No offence... Hiding in a bathroom in the dark of the night is a little more desperate than someone expecting me to sit down at the same table as them, trying to lure me with whatever currency they are currently using. Would be a little fucked up if I expected you to pay me when I am the one offering.“

Colorless eyes remained on what was visible of the other man, assessing only so much of it still, letting most be and taking it for what it was. At this very moment Alexander felt it was more important to respect boundaries, rather than follow his own curiosity. It was natural that the soldier was reserved or skeptical — he had every right to be. He could read the mood and knew his place. The last thing he wanted to do was make the other feel worse or close off even further, by making him feel like he needed to rebuild the guard which he seemed to allow to slip by settling here and away from the rest of the others. Contemplating on it all for a moment, both hands were retrieved from the pockets of his suit jacket, only for the man to slowly cross his arms before his chest. There was a reason why this man was sitting here and Alexander really did not want to fumble the situation.

            „Of course, I am... not a certified doctor. Should you be needing mental health support, I do implore you to consider professional help. To process any traumatic experience. Same with managing anxiety. Should you desire the presence of someone... impartial, I would happily lend you my ears. Sometimes just letting off some steam can do wonders.“

[amberedcorpse]

Last ooc post of the day because I have to get back to painting. But I do NEED to put this here because it's what I imagine Felix's instincts are as a singer/performer. If it were up to him (and not the shadow pulling his puppet strings) this would be his life's work. (Plus some experimental dance music of course.)

[amberedcorpse]

While I'm here: I don't often write specifics about Felix's mother and of the coven who raised him (that's mostly reserved for private convos or plotting)- to avoid both outright villainizing them or arguing in their favor. They're a complicated group, as horrible as they are wonderful, and powerful when together. But I would like to leave a little something here about what they feel like. They're all very beautiful in their own, distinct ways. Alluring performers with very unique voices. The kind that pull your focus away from the world and onto them, and make you truly listen. Gifted with the ability to dance ( weaving stories with the sole use of their bodies), and when they lay their hands on an instrument you could hardly believe they were of mortal flesh. They've never coveted fame, never felt the need to seek their fortunes by using their talents. Instead, they lurk about the mountains moments after the rainfall, appearing on the roadside or in forgotten bars, luring unsuspecting drunks into the deep wilderness. For fun, for pleasure, for food! They just want you for a laugh and a good time. Once the singing's stopped and the melodies fade, they'll make sure to use every piece of you for something practical. ...When I think of Felix's mother in particular, it reminds me of this performance:

This makeup look especially being a staple of hers, and one Felix inherited and uses in his own way (while never changing that specific shade of red lipstick). There's also that melancholy ambience, the cool-toned backdrops and the stylish ensemble. She really rocked this genre...too bad about her...just too, too bad... Bonus: because I just really like this song.