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— Brom

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Mia May- MISTRESS OF THE WORLD (1919)

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'Regeneration', 2018 (Thomas Ott)

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Carlos Schwabe (1866–1926) - “Revolte”, c. 1900

illustration for Baudelaire’s ‘Les Fleurs du Mal’

source

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“But you only know the one I’ve been; I’ve shed a thousand skins since then”

“Whispers In the Echo Chamber” by Chelsea Wolfe is so Orin-coded to me

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Send 💿 for my muse to choose a song that matches your muse's vibe

Please specify the muse for multimuse blogs.

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– Matthew Sellers

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Daily Writing Challenge: Day 5 - Restless/Faith

Two people sat.

People was an overstatement for what they could be considered. One a pretty young Arathi with dark hair and violet eyes dressed in a modest gown and looking to have been asleep for days. The other a middle aged elf, one eye dull and grey to match the brightly green of the active one drifting about the still stature of their companion. Both were alive. Both were calm. Both were not what they seemed.

Wolves in sheep clothing.

The elf spoke first, his voice rich with the gentle poetics of being compared to mahogany. His lips parting in a very wide and blinding smile as they broke in the tones of the elder race. "Well, I must say you're looking well."

The young Arathi tilted her head unsure of the measure of the compliment, but despite reservations she was raised in the manner of the well to do. Rudeness was unbecoming. "I would say the same if I knew the mask."

Teeth seemed to grow as the lips pulled back, the grin caught between a gnash and snarl. "Oh you are not so innocent or naive to think me not who I am."

"I am well aware of you, brother." The woman replied, her warrior hands folded before her in her lap as she stared back with calm violet eyes. She had dreamed of this day. Oplisca had sought the day she could find and reunite with her brother once more. The years of searching and aching for the familiarity of blood had lead her down many path ways. Some far less savory than she carried to admit too. But now that she was here, the danger she had always faced in those previous lives had begun to outstrip them in this new life. Doing her best to hide a hard swallow, she would continue with this new voice. "It is the how you are here as you are that is not quite clear."

"You accuse me of wearing masks?" The elf leaned forward, his green eye bright and only seeming to intensify to match his mouth.

"I accuse you of nothing. I'm only hoping to understand."

A snort was given as the elf shook his head and leaned back into his chair, armored arms clinking softly as they folded over his chest. "You are not the only chosen."

Softly the woman would nod. "This gladdens for me to hear you have found purpose, Kino."

"Stop it, don't play your little nicety farce with me. I know you. I made you," Kinowin growled again an erratic cadence beginning to take his behavior, a restlessness in the face of his prey. "I taught you all your tricks, Oplisca."

The name was given a heavy tinge of contempt as he said it, spoken as a tit for tat as they called each other who they really were.

Du'meres. Siblings by the blood of a father, spiraled by tragedy, partnered through hope, and guided by promises.

One for peace.

One for power.

Neither were exclusive to one or the other. They both knew what they wanted and both knew how to get what they needed. The bodies that piled up in the wake were expectedly stepped over.

Oplisca would nod again, her acquiesce to his anger and frustration had always been her shield in their younger days. She doubted he expected it to be as much her sword. "You did and I am in debt to you for them. Your patient guidance has been integral to both my success and survival."

Once again as so many times before she had soothed the mad beast that was her brother, Kinowin Du'mere. His formerly twitching face smoothing softly as she leaned back into his chair with is own hands in his lap, the mad anger in his one green eye softening as he breathed in deeply and let it out with sigh. "Oh sister, my silly little sparrow. Hopping mad all about with the fever of an angry magpie, what are you doing down here?"

An old cut would be split with these of a barber razor at the little pet names. Birds in a cage. Always in a cage. Her new hands would slowly flex and hold tight as she spoke softly despite the need to scream at being treated like the child he always saw her as. "The will as always. I live to learn."

"And you will die to serve, of course as always. The mantra as always," Kino muttered as he waved his hand off to the saying of the Hammer. "But why here? What as he sent you here for? I am certain that the Eye is always on you."

He. Oplisca felt her cheek twitch but kept her mouth flat. Such a pedestrian way to think. But Kinowin was always this way. Always needing labels and titles to understand the great plan that was in motion. Her brother always thought it was about him. All things wanted him and did as he needed. His vision was always so clouded.

Especially now judging by his choices before her.

"The will is always guiding me and I listen," Oplisca replied. "But this time by a personal consult. I was informed of some activities that had brokered an interest to parties much like ourselves."

Now it was Kinowin's turn to look surprised and curious as he felt the brow over this body's dead eye raise. "Personal you say? Here in the depths of Khaz Algar? Now that is interesting. You trying to do something on your own without the lead from the lord. Do tell."

A jug of wine was tilted and poured as fine Arathi glass cradled the homemade wine of the under earth.

Oplisca made no move to the drink, the red carried far more stain to the cup than grapes knew. "All I do is for the will and this will surely be thought well upon. For a house unchecked is a house untethered."

"Ah dabblers," Kinowin muttered with a very clear scent of disdain, his gauntleted hand sweeping up the cup to swirl the contents. The smell of copper in the air was clearer now that the drink had been lifted. "The Order of Night I'm to surmise."

"You are as perceptive as you are clever, dear brother," Oplisca would bow her head to the creature across from her. "I was informed to 'get my house in check' during my recent reverie."

"How long ago was that?" A tentative sip was given by the elf, licking his lips with a indeterminate sigh.

"A few weeks ago."

"Weeks? It sounds as though you are slipping in your growing age, sister." Kinowin's smile was growing again, smug and hungry. The red drink had stained his lips from the first sip and would only grow darker with his next.

A soft rocking of her head was answered. "I am careful in my travels. The path is not the safest nor the steadiest. Care must be given the greater to speed."

The elder Du'mere would snort as he shook his head. Drinking again as he licked a bit from his top lip. "Caution can be such a chain to cowardice. Your ways are mildly impressive but lacking in the speed that which is appropriate to what you have learned."

"I am grateful for what I know and eager to be guided if you can provide such insight," Oplisca fired back with her same docile tone. She could surmise what her brother could do but wasn't sure what he could not. Danger was creeping with every moment they played this dueler's farce. "Could you enlighten me to what brought you here? And thus at it's speed?"

Stemware clinked to wood as the elf would lean forward to peer at the calm Arathi husk before him. "The winding road I traveled to be here hath been fraught with blood and terror I had only ever dreamed of. I had thought fear a thing of my past until I supped from the cup of my deliverance. Such wonders to behold. To touch. To feel."

A gauntlet would clatter to the floor of the inn's room as he raised a hand, his thumb pressed hard into the mass of his index finger that began to dig and tear into the flesh. "Such exhilaration I have not felt so our first steps into the power that was the Old. Do you remember when we stepped foot together on those black sands? The songs hidden within the grains as the whipped by foot and hand to scour away the impurity that was our fragile forms? Damn those days had been something. We were unstoppable you and I. The Du'mere's a whispered caution among the blows of our hammer in the shadow of th unstoppable Empire."

Oplisca looked up into the green eye of her brother again. It was glowing again with a fever that seemed to leak into the grey dead of the other side. The mask was starting to break as he rested his elbow on the table and was rubbing his fingers together so hard. She knew well the resilience of flesh and what it took to break.

A steady madness was growing wider upon the mask of the supposed lamplighter that had been taken by Kinowin Du'mere. The chaos that was writhing beneath the skin of the facade he wore was stretching and breaking at the seems, forgoing any need for subtlety. He didn't care.

It didn't care.

"You can know it too, my pretty bird," Kinowin spoke softer, his finger working faster as he rose to his feet into the lean of a calculating predator. "There is so much power here. You know of it. It's no secret here as to what lies deeper within this island. Haranir whisper it in fear and awe. But we both know what it is."

The skin broke. A droplet oozing to the surface of what should be red only came forth as black. Black, oily, and reflecting none of the mad light cracking along the fissures of Kinowin's face.

Oplisca was curious.

"The Black Blood."

Oplisca was fascinated.

"It is for all to taste."

Oplisca was understanding.

The Arathi rose slowly to her own feet, the small woman's hands folding back behind her as she looked at the feral creature before her. Whatever clever man her bother had been, it was gone now. This was not the Kinowin Du'mere she had known, though it was probably what he had always been.

"You have tasted that which was not meant for you," Oplisca whispered softly. "We are unworthy to know these things."

The black icor had slipped down his thumb and to his wrist as the elf blinked in shock at the rising violet eyed woman before him. He had never been denied by her like this. She was his to command. Oplisca was his and always would be.

"You would dare?"

"You would."

The siblings stood silent for a brief moment, each staring with the out of body eyes of two people ready to admit what they always knew.

They hated each other.

@daily-writing-challenge

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Conjouring

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— 𝘽𝙞𝙡𝙡 𝙎𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙠𝙞𝙚𝙬𝙞𝙘𝙯

Fire and Ice

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Reblog if You're Willing to RP Pre-Established Relationships/Friendships

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— Kelly Freas

Lorelei of the Red Mist

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— Henri Lievens