desanctii - Tumblr blog

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We stan a confused king

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t shirt that says “i used to be worse”

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"I don't know," He said simply, quietly. His hand moved then to gently manipulate the board. A rook on retreat. His head was ringing with other things, accusations of carelessness, of disloyalty. Perhaps it was true. Perhaps whatever Akasha exhumed in her brief and stunted reign of terror, it tilled the soil of Santino's mind just as well. He wondered if all up until now had been nothing but charade. If at the very heart of his being, he was still in those catacombs, praying for something greater to reveal itself. She had. It made no difference. He knew nothing now that he didn't know before, save some details of biography.

"If it is grief I feel, then I don't think it is for her. I feel what I felt when the lighthouse of Pharos sank. I feel what I felt when I realized I'd never know the great libraries of Babylon or Ur. There is something missing from our history now, something that makes perhaps no difference, but that we still had a right to. We were cheated out of an inheritance, useless as it may have been." He took a breath that barely disturbed the air.

"But I don't know."

Armand sat before him in silent affront. It pulsed from his mind in waves. He couldn't tell who was the source of his ire, if he only disturbed it or if he put it there. Santino leaned back, eyes lowered as if in contemplation.

"In a way we stand at a precipice, the few of us that remain. We will have to make sound choices. Not our breed's strongest suit."

A great evil? Armand studied Santino's impassive face, seeing again in his mind's eye how he had looked seated around Maharet's great table, the earnestness in his large eyes, the pain so evident beneath the polished surface. It had been a familiar sight, dredging up memories that were centuries old, muddled by fear and pain.

"You still believe she had something to tell us, then," he said softly, his voice contemplative and almost gentle, though his words were anything but. "After all this time." It was a strange bitterness that made him say it: half of him felt detached, uncaring, but the other half burned. To know, finally, every great secret he hadn't been deemed capable of keeping—to know the shattering scope of it and yet to know that it meant nothing in the end. He had suffered, Marius had suffered, for a pair of cruel relics. No meaning, no guidance, only primordial power and boundless greed. It was a measure of satisfaction to know that Santino had been orphaned anew just as much as he had—more, for he had cared about the legend of Those Who Must Be Kept, cared enough to pull Armand out of the pyre to question him about it.

"She was mad." Armand's voice was clipped, though he still spoke quietly, for Santino's ears only. "You saw her. You heard her. Whatever wisdom she may have once had to impart, there was nothing left. Lamenting her is a waste of time." And yet in defiance of all reason, Lestat was locked in the study at Armand's computer, memorialising her even as the ripples of her wanton destruction still reverberated through the great interconnected web of their kind.

Armand had been solitary for such a long time. He cared little for vampirekind and its business; he knew of no immortals slain by Akasha whom he had loved. Yet now he could not escape the thought that they might have existed out there, continuing on unknown to him, now never to resurface. The blood connection itself, when he had reached for it, had been a mere tattered remnant of what it once was, great swathes of the world laid waste: dark voids which only the most powerful immortal voice could cross, where once had flickered myriad living lights. And yet, Marius grieved—mourning not nearly as much for them as for her, their destroyer.

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Men love me for my cadaver swag. The way my skin is cold like a corpse, my off-putting demeanor, and the way I stand in the threshold of the still-living and the dead.

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Frida Kahlo, from a letter written in 1934, featured in "The Letters of Frida Kahlo,"

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ooc. thank God Santino has Bianca, he's tame as a lamb as soon as she's in his line of sight

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❛    time stops for nobody, not even us.  ❜  

"And yet so many are beholden to the ways of centuries past." Santino glanced up at the sylph-like pianist. He studied briefly her yellow hair, tended to like pale gold, the tendons that stuck out of her thin neck. A miracle, he thought, that it didn't break when Marius went about his gruesome task. Lucky it didn't, he figured. She truly played beautifully. Often he had heard her music through the walls. Now her talent has been cast in amber. Now it shall never wither. Now it shall never grow. No doubt she will perfect her skill in all manners that their unnatural condition allowed, but that was all. How marvelous she might have been, if she had been allowed her mortal turn. Not that Santino dwelled on such matters.

"Such love for tradition is sure to spell nothing but tragedy. I should know." He lowered his gaze again, down to the glossy magazine that bent in his hands. It sported the likenesses of sleek low-slung cars, of suitably severe looking gentlemen in well-tailored suits. He flipped through the ad placements. "But I suppose I am no better still. I am faithful to old virtues, as outdated as they might seem to the young. —I do not believe you have ever addressed me before. Should I be honored or concerned?"

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ooc. i miss when Santino was stuck in a glass cage in an underground facility... that was fun

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❛    i believed you to be my friend.  ❜  - memcirs

@memcirs

"I know." He said, his voice a death knell. He looked at her with a strange distance, an animal understanding. With the human mask removed, Santino's stare became something alien and intrusive, something that ate and ate and ate. He looked at her with black eyes, drilled into his skull like twin wells, from which only blood could pour forth. Eleanor was trapped there, in his gaze, but he never approached.

His palms were still warmed by the memory of a body, a fine woman that lived and died and lived again on his tongue. Her ghost played on his cheeks, pulled through his veins at an unnatural pace. He had to resist the urge to lick his lips. No excess, none. He took as much and as little as he required. He wasn't a glutton. He wasn't cruel. He cut the foul fruits. He pruned the family tree. But that was not what Miss Van Helsing would know him for. He had killed her kind before. There was a tenacity in them that spread like disease. They could only be burned out before they might spread it to their fellows. That was no fate he wished for this woman.

"And I wish to be your friend. But as your friend, I must discourage you from following this lead any further. It is for your own good. Turn back now. Step into the light of day. Don't lose yourself to sordid mysteries."

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let the ancients speak (but only if they’re sexy)

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❛ what a shit show. ❜

Santino stood to the back, his broad shoulders all but pressed flat against the wall as though he might phase through it if only he applied enough pressure. There was a tension to it, stark and driving, inches away from setting his fingers to trembling. He watched the procession before him, his eyes like open wounds, dark and angry in their misery.

When Daniel stepped to him, he made room but not by much. He could not recall exchanging many words with Armand's creation but he'd always considered him with a passive sense of caution. There's one, he thought, that'll cause grief before his first century is done. But given the circumstances, that clearly was no longer the benchmark. Santino stared at Lestat's lifeless body, not asleep and dreaming still. The Veil had been taken but the damage was done. He couldn't find it in himself to pity the Frenchman, destroyer that he was. Nor Marius, who thought himself above all reason and compassion. He pitied Armand, and his new charges, Benji and Sybelle as they were called. Poor misshapen children, all. Repulsion pounded in his chest like a second heart, thick and black.

"When it reaches its inevitable climax, I plan to no longer be part of the ensemble." He remarked in response, humor so dry it chafed his throat. "I did what I came here to do. I saw what I needed to see. This is no longer something I mean to be an accessory to. You will stay, I trust?"

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What is the most precious thing in life?

"I can hardly speak for everyone. In my life? I don't believe I own anything I couldn't stand to lose. I abandon so much. It costs me nothing to discard my belongings, it's even a subtle hidden pleasure. I enjoy the ease of it. What is most precious to me is nothing material."

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goncharov (1973) starters

unrealism tw. quotes taken from fanart and fake screencaps. adjust pronouns as needed.

❛  tell them i send my regards.  ❜  

❛    time stops for nobody, not even us.  ❜  

❛    what you should fear right now is not how much time you have left but how horribly it shall be spent.  ❜  

❛    my people are all dead, but so are those bastards.  ❜  

❛    selfishness is a luxury one can't afford in a position of power.  ❜  

❛    and dark, dark, yet darker it becomes.  ❜  

❛    you of all people should know.  ❜  

❛    you've seen its colors. you've lived it.  ❜  

❛    and yet you run from this simple fact..  ❜  

❛    fairness does not exist in this world.  ❜  

❛    damn them as they would damn you.  ❜  

❛    damn them as they would damn us.  ❜  

❛    what a shit show.  ❜  

❛    does it ever end? it doesn't.  ❜  

❛    they say we should not stop the flow, but it's the highest, most primal of evils.  ❜

❛    and yet we are content with letting it toy with us.  ❜  

❛    we cannot stop the flow, doing so only brings the ruin further.  ❜  

❛    november is the cruelest month of the year.  ❜  

❛    this pain, it follows us everywhere. like our shadows.  ❜  

❛    you got the best of it. and then you got the worst of it.  ❜  

❛    this world is cruel, perhaps too cruel for people like you.  ❜  

❛    the clock will strike for everyone, even for you.  ❜  

❛    they neglect to tell you how dangerous hope can be.  ❜  

❛    call it forgiveness with teeth.  ❜  

❛    i didn't know pain until i met your eyes.  ❜  

❛    you look better in red.  ❜  

❛    you wasted time you never had.  ❜  

❛    i fear someday your faith in yourself will be your end.  ❜  

❛    you never stop being a dog, you only change who you belong to.  ❜  

❛    i believed you to be my friend.  ❜  

❛    oh you poor, naive fool.  ❜  

❛    you will have to tell them i am sorry, for i have no sorrow left.  ❜  

❛    don't waste your time praying for my soul, i am too damned ot be saved.  ❜  

❛    you can't stop time, even if you break the clock.  ❜  

❛    you've taken so much from me, and yet i still can't give a damn about you.  ❜  

❛    of course we're in love, that's why i tried to shoot you.  ❜  

❛    if you loved me, you wouldn't have missed.  ❜  

❛    do you ever think about the past?  ❜  

❛    leave, and never return.  ❜  

❛    i wonder why we always meet on the edge of things.  ❜  

❛    they can't kill me in a way that matters.  ❜  

❛    you will be forced to choose or the choice will be made for you.  ❜  

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true story :(

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Once I finish killing this guy the cycle of violence will be over, trust me guys

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self care checklist

kill

kill

kill

shower

laundry

kill

kill

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Santino closed the door behind him, shutting out the wind. Below, the lights of Navelli glistened like a distant shore. A rough country, his native Abruzzo, but one that still drew him. He did not believe that Armand could surmise the depth of his invasion with his arrival or the skittering of paranoid musings he set in motion; a child spilling marbles across a marble floor. They would spring any which way.

The house itself made for a remarkably domestic setting. Shelves upon shelves lined the walls, overcrowded with books of all ages and makes, in just as many languages. The kitchen was a pro forma installation, likely for the architect's sake, housing nothing but utensils for other tasks. Every light in the home was turned on, gold and gold again shining out of every window. Armand stepped into this world, a warm and private world, clean and orderly even in its appaharent overflow. Artwork, carpets, sound system and flat TV screen. The low table in front of the couch housed a laptop, still opened. Curiously, a pair of sleek reading glasses was set right beside it.

Armand waltzed into this scenery, a commonplace night. And all ground to a halt accordingly. Santino regarded Armand with blank-faced anticipation.

"You have never asked to see me before." He said curtly, not as a reproach. He was stating a fact, and this departure from their pattern seemed to disquieten the older vampire. He studied Armand, searching for signs of unease, of harm dealt, a reason why he might need to call upon his old tutor and tormentor. His mind gently probed, passed over Armand's with a careful touch. An instinct, a simple expansion of his own presence, pressed onto the younger blood drinker, looking for the way in.

"Will you sit then, and tell me why you are here?" He gestured ahead.

Santino, ever the shadowy saint standing beyond the iron bars of that long ago earthen cell edged in the glow of his modern home where once was fire, however significantly less enthused to receive Armand’s company. Armand accepted part of that fault. To appear without word or warning in a location not willingly shared, not explicitly invited to one way or another, proved fatal in some circles (and himself was known to exterminate the vermin venturing too close to his front door), still he chanced trekking through the cold clinging remnants of winter, dying then in spring’s patient embrace, poorly dressed for the occasion and armed with nothing except determination. A fool’s errand. Yet the door opened and graced him with the first glimpse of warmth since stepping onto the mountain, even though what passed between them, teacher and pupil, Master and apprentice, father and son, could not be described as such. Not anymore.

Armand shook himself off. How appropriate Santino should choose to seclude himself there, high above a world formerly dwelled beneath and equally without reach; close, but not quite; remote, but within sight if only one knew where to look, what turn to take at which intersection.

“Is is so strange to think I might want to see you?” Inside the foyer impenetrable to that merciless wind, Armand released the tension scrunching up his shoulders and naked fingers buried in the thin, satin-lines pockets of his short coat. Roses bloomed in both his cheeks, on the tip of his nose, and receded quietly like those of his childhood planted while playing in the snow among siblings and cousins and neighbours. He studied Santino but for a moment; discomfort radiated from his person, oozing out of the collar and sleeves of his shirt, the hem of his black trousers. The boy cast his eyes down. “You would not have answered if I called.”