draconecastle

[draconecastle]

Manus...

[draconecastle]

[draconecastle]

[draconecastle]

Flesh

Tw: graphic smut nsfw

Lillandyr did not dream.

But this night, she inexplicably did. She found herself walking the halls of the castle, alone, everything around her covered in thick dust. All was silent, like a tomb and the hallway was endless. Lillandyr could make no progress. It stretched out forever behind her and in front.

She began to run, and every step of her bare foot on the floor brought change. Change in flashes. One beat and she ran down an opulent hall where she heard laughter and voices echoing and plush carpet warm under her feet. Candles and torches burned, casting all in golden glow. Another step and there was screaming, a horrid smell of iron and meat.

Another step and there was…nothing. Just bare stone and dust that was undisturbed, even by the tracks of mice.

Another step and the stone walls had crumbled away, revealing turbulent, roiling gray sky and the sharp stink of ozone.

The faster she ran, the faster the flashes until it snapped and she passed things she’d not seen. Lillandyr dashed into the first open door and found herself in a richly appointed bedroom, a fire roaring in a hearth tall enough for her to walk into, fashioned in the shape of a demon’s wide, open mouth, flames glinting off dark, stone teeth.

Skidding to a halt, she looked around, breathing hard, wide eyed. She knew she was dreaming, but unlike dreams before, she could not change it. She couldn’t pull herself out of it.

The lack of control over her sleeping mind horrified her. Frightened her. There was no sense of presence here, at least, none that she could detect. Lillandyr did not think her mind so troubled that it did this on its own all the same.

The fire roared in the hearth, making the room intensely hot and stifling. Her thin, voluminous silk shift stuck to her sweaty body uncomfortably. Her nape hairs were soaked and plastered against her neck.

She huffed out little pants, the air steamy. It made her heart beat too fast and without thinking, she tugged off her shift, tearing at the silk like it was wet paper and in the dream it shredded easily, disappearing from her fingers, twisting like smoke, becoming ink in water, becoming little clothes moths to flutter away and disappear.

Lillandyr stood in front of the hearth, naked, body shining with sweat. There was an oversized, overstuffed leather chair next to her and she sank into it, the leather hot, almost scalding. Hissing through her teeth from the contact with her tender skin, Lillandyr suddenly felt…not alone.

While she had her suspicions, she said nothing or gave no indication. She didn’t turn to look around. Lillandyr, instead, slowly spread her legs, as if she wanted to splay them lewdly for the demon’s mouth of the hearth.

She hmm’d lightly, sliding a hand down the sweat-slick plane of her belly, lips curling into a vicious smile. “Don’t come any closer,” she hissed to the presence in the room. “You only get to watch.”

Lillandyr knew if she turned to look, she’d see someone there, hands on the back of the chair. She thought she heard the squeak of leather as fingers tightened against it.

With a breathy laugh, she teased her fingers between her legs, pleased to feel how wet she was already. She hooked one leg over the arm of the chair to spread herself wider, parting herself, teasing her finger against her entrance, getting her digits slick with her arousal.

“A pity…you can’t feel how wet I am,” she breathed, her voice barely audible. “Just for you…I can’t stop thinking about fucking you,” she confessed. She could tell the truth in the dream. She could be Anya, not Lillandyr.

So the mask slipped away as she sank two fingers into herself, thumb working her clit in swift, tight circles. A strangled moan left her lips. “Thinking isn’t enough. Dreams aren’t enough,” she managed to whimper and moan. “It’s a tease…you’re a tease,” she told him.

It didn’t matter if the presence was Manus or not, though who…what else could it be? What else could twist her into dreaming?

”Tease me forever,” she gasped, fucking herself faster, harder, almost making it hurt. The wet sounds of her fingers filled the room, somehow louder than the crackle and pop of the flames in the hearth.

The heat was almost unbearable and she felt dizzy as she neared the edge, her other hand tugging her pert, rosy nipple, rolling it between her fingers, being as loud as she wanted. Being herself.

In the dream, she closed her eyes and when she opened them, she was on a marble throne, the cold of it almost hissing against her steaming, fever hot skin. She was outside in a barren, ash-choked wasteland littered with ivory, shattered bone. The ceiling was only the vault of the heavens, black and littered with a million stars. She looked up, panting, as each star was swallowed by the black of the sky. One by one.

As she watched these worlds and far away suns die, hands of moving, smooth marble gripped her thighs, unyielding, cold fingers sinking into pliable, soft flesh, pulling pinching, tugging her legs apart again, holding her open.

Hands moved over her breasts, manacled her slender wrists, and one, colder than the rest, curled around her throat.

Like a feral cat, she writhed and twisted and snarled. Fighting uselessly, her eyes fixed on the death of the stars. The fighting, the death…all of it excited her. She begged to be fucked even as she fought to be set free.

A marble hand rose between her legs, its fingers buried inside her, thrusting with bruising force, making her scream and writhe and soak the throne under her. When the final star winked out…the star that lit this world so she was plunged into eternal darkness, thicker and more insidious than any darkness she had ever seen, she came violently with his name on her lips, like a curse. She spat it, said it with want and hate and other emotions she wouldn’t name and had no use for. That…she knew was a horror. To give her heart to the darkness was opening her throat and damning her wretched soul, consigning it to some unimaginable torment.

Instead, she made a dangling carrot of her heart…an eternal tease and casually dropped promise. Oh…someday. Someday. “It’ll belong just to you,” she said, not lying. But not telling the truth either.

Lillandyr woke with a sharp gasp, drenched in sweat, slick and throbbing still between her legs, her channel clenching around nothing. She felt so…empty. Teased and unsatisfied. Tormented.

She rolled over to glare at Heathcliff’s back. But then…a little smile stole over her lips. “Manus,” she whispered to the dark. Heathcliff slept on, blissfully unaware.

The danger of saying his name out loud, with such breathy want, in this intimate place meant only for Heathcliff and Lillandyr was such a wildly illicit thrill…that she did it again, even as her arm looped around Heathcliff’s middle…her hand sliding down his stomach under the covers. Her nails dragged over him, lightly to tease, until she felt him stiffen under the pads of her fingers.

Only when he was teased to fullness, twitching in her grasp, did she pull her hand away to lave her tongue over her palm, to get it nice and wet. Her fingers curled around his cock again, giving it a very possessive squeeze…but not enough to wake him, though he began to stir, making little sleepy susurrations.

“Manus, a pity you aren’t in this bed,” she whispered, teasing him with something they both knew he could never have.

The rest she told him with pointed, directed thought. *You could make a hundred illusions to fuck me with…you could be every horrid nightmare and dream…but you will never feel this will you? Never have this flesh…never know how hot my cunt is, not really. You’ll never know the feeling of my tongue in your mouth. And you can tell yourself what you offer is better. What you have is MORE…but at the cost of…mmmm. This.”

Heathcliff woke, muttering, but catching on quick enough. She had him weak from deep sleep and sudden, abrupt arousal. So, it was easy to roll him onto his back so she could straddle him, sink down on his blessedly hard cock.

Her head lolled back and she laughed into the soft darkness of the room, rocking her hips with him fully inside her. You’ll never feel what he’s feeling right now. So mixed up. So in love with who I’m not. So in love with that dark haired girl. Gods…he’s tortured and pleasured and brief. And it’s beautiful. She continued to tease. Taunt.

Then she rode Heathcliff like a woman possessed. Nails raked down his chest, her teeth bared, chasing what had been an elusive release, as though she’d been edged for a month.

When Heathcliff tried to speak, to say filthy things, she slid her hand over his mouth. She looked him in the eyes with all her fire and passion and disappointment and accusation…because tonight? He needed to know he was being used. For her pleasure. As if he owed it to her for his transgressions, his filthy thoughts. His inconstant, hidden heart.

Lillandyr did not care how hypocritical it was because she was coming finally. Coming so hard it sparked her vision and made her cry out in a voice broken by delighted laughter and wrecked sobs.

@draconecastle

@wraheathcliff

[draconecastle]

Let Them Eat Cake

TW: teensy bit smutty

response to this post: https://www.tumblr.com/draconecastle/786916000832667648/the-menu-part-5

The way her heart raced when she saw him, the excitement of it, this strange flirt with forces she couldn’t fathom and self destruction that seemed so eminent…it was the headiest wine, and Lillandyr gazed deep into Manus’s eyes as he spoke, knowing before the words fell from his lips that this course was for her. 

Right then, she did not see anyone else. All of her focus speared into the apparition that called itself Manus.  Is this the vehicle of my desire? She wondered, eyes wide with greed and less fear than was prudent. A little smile threatened to tug up the corners of her lips. 

Then the blood on her hands walked into the room. The maid that licked the frosting she’d poisoned at Varistan’s birthday party followed closely by the real Lillandyr Shadowglade. There was no way to hide her horrified shock. These specters smiled at her as the memory of their murder at her hands swam through her mind. 

Manus crouched next to her, all smoldering and suggestive. He nattered on about her necklace, but her ears rang too loud to hear him properly. Her tongue darted out to wet her lips, but she was otherwise still. Only Manus, close as he was, could see the wild jump of her pulse fluttering at the slender column of her throat…the perspiration dotting her brow and upper lip. Her fingers curled into the silk of her skirts, bunching the delicate fabric in her tight fists. 

Before he could utter his magnificent lie, Lillandyr concocted several strategies…none of which involved letting the actual truth be spilled. Tache, at his end of the table was openly staring at Lillandyr, as if to tell her ‘I know your secrets’. She couldn’t even narrow her focus to something so…small and unimportant. 

Manus stood and her gaze moved with him, dragging over him to meet his eyes. How wild she looked, so ready to fly apart at the seams, but waiting, gambling that their accord would hold. Body taut as a bowstring yanked, Lillandyr displayed no readily apparent sign of the clawing desperation under her skin. This, she tamped down. She’d bide her time as all her schemes to get herself out of this hinged on Manus betraying her. 

As he lied smoothly, Manus poured her tea and let it overflow. It sloshed down the side of the tablecloth to spatter onto her skirt. Hot. Wet. She inhaled sharply as his fingers threaded through her hair, arranging it, strands coiling around his fingers as his grip tightened. 

And just for her…he whispered that she didn’t deserve this. Oh…

Oh.

How girlishly she smiled, cheeks pinked. Pleasure filled her. He…KNEW her. 

Recovering as soon as he stopped touching her, Lillandyr tried to look appropriately embarrassed by his story, biting down on her bottom lip. She raised her gaze to Heathcliff and gave him this beautifully little wince and the pink of her cheeks looked bashful, as if this story were just some private thing she’d endured and was now forced to share. She finished this off with a helpless smile that suggested she was glad Heathcliff knew. 

It was such a pretty lie. Such a clever, clever lie. 

With heat and hunger she watched Manus sink his hand into the cake and she felt arousal spill heat prickle up and down her skin to pool low in her belly. She watched him suck the icing off his fingers and fought the shudder that spilled down her entire being. 

As he toweled off his hands, she swiped her finger through the icing. She stared at no one, eyes fluttering half shut as she stuffed her finger into her mouth and slowly sucked it clean.  

@wraheathcliff

@wraaronsen

@draconecastle

[draconecastle]

[draconecastle]

The Menu: Part 5

In Which The Castle Performs a Direct Ripoff of Concepts in the Movie ‘The Menu’

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 @lillandyrshadowglade, @seralahbloodhaven writing in purple.

Lillandyr tensed as the next course was brought out. She’d hoped it would be Tache. That was something she could control with ease. But Manus stood behind Aronsen and she froze, entire body going rigid. Somehow, she hadn’t thought Aronsen would be subjected to this. She wasn’t sure why, though the answer readily supplied itself.

She didn’t want it to happen to him. The thought of it was so repugnant that she hadn’t been able to even think it.

Manus explained the course as her mouth went utterly dry and the backs of her hands tingled. When Manus said her true name, her eyes went wide. Tache dropped his spoon into his bowl with a loud clatter, mouth working, strangled sounds leaving him. His eyes flew to her. Lillandyr was out of her chair so fast it fell to the floor. For one, brief moment, no plan or scheme or truth or lie mattered. “Don’t!” She shouted, her voice anguished, horrified. She didn’t even sound like herself.

As Aronsen picked up the beautiful bottle, Lillandyr whirled to face Tache and there was no hiding what she did had anyone been looking at her. Her hands twisted in the air, shadow curling around splayed fingers as she yanked invisible strings. Tache was out of his seat in less than a breath and he flung himself at Aronsen, over fancy dishes of caviar and carpaccio.

But it was too late. Aronsen would feel her in his mind, wailing in agony. A desperate, animal keening. He could feel the aching crush of her broken heart.

Never take yourself from me. Never! You’re the only one who has ever loved me. We share this pain. Our pain. Together. I share yours. You share mine. I took yours and it was the wrong thing to do. If you love me…stay with me. Trust me. Don’t go where I can’t follow. It was felt ludicrous to say, even if it was only in his head. If you go where I cannot follow, my heart goes with you. It was a horrid threat. Without that one, sliver of a soft spot inside her, she would become…something truly loathsome.

Lillandyr fell heavily into her chair, composing herself. Quickly, deftly, she wiped the tears from her face. From the outside, she looked appropriately rattled, pale and shaken. Her wild gaze found Manus and her head canted to the side slightly, her lips trembling, curling over her teeth. It wasn’t a look of warning. She knew better. It was to tell him without words that it may end her and do her in, but she would leave her teeth in her enemy if it came to it. If she lost? They all lost.

Tache blinked himself out of the mind control, covered in caviar and laying, belly first, on the table, hands outstretched as though he meant to snatch the bottle from Aronsen. He scuttled backwards, awkwardly, knocking cutlery and plates off the table.

He stood and brushed his already filthy clothes off and straightened his cuffs. Then he sat. “Apologies,” he said. “For the mess. I simply…was trying to assist.” But no one was really listening to him and his words came out stilted and wooden.

Tache gazed at Aronsen with a strange, ineffable expression. Bodily shaking himself, he let his attention wander to Lady Seralah who was openly weeping, hands over her mouth.

The next course was especially cruel. Manus wanted to make sure Lillandyr understood what she wasn't, and how he liked her better that way. The masks, the scheming, the teases were nothing to him. There were darker things he knew because she let him deep within her mind. This foolish act enticed by her bold curiosity, thirst for ambition made every part of Manus want to moan with pleasure. How many creatures could exist like her, brewed in the perfect alchemical soup of awful genetics and horrible circumstance, in his presence? Wicked women were not in short supply in the Dracone castle over centuries of noble births but they were dismissed with a wave of his mind as lesser fancies now that were never important compared to this beautiful, wicked woman. Besides, they were all dead. He would have her, in her living glory. But first he wanted her to know she was courting a █ █ █ with great expectations. Would she crack and weep? Beg for mercy, shrink? He thought not. But he was going to make it hurt just a little. He wanted to watch her lie for him. Conspire.

Manus came back out of the kitchen and he was accompanied by several new waiters. They were dressed and behaved as the others before them, with clasped hands and tidy black uniforms. They stood by unbothered as Manus smiled at the traumatized room.

He never came out when minutes earlier Aronsen had enough and tried to escape, realizing with fury he was trapped, that they were all trapped. It was an unfortunate moment of hysteria in the dining room. He calmed at Anya's secret words flowing to his mind, and eventually the room was settled. Heathcliff was the only one not sitting. He was leaning against the wall and smoking angrily, crafting venomous things to do to the Castle and hating his own poor judgement.

Sera's presence was intolerable. She wasn't made for wickedness, Heathcliff didn't like it near her. He decided then and there the minute they would be released from the Castle's sick menu game, he was taking them to Silvermoon City without delay. Everyone. So he could take a moment to think.

"And now, for my personal, favorite course… Lillandyr's truth…" Manus said graciously as two waiters began serving a white-iced birthday cake. It was carved into on a small side table, the red velvet oozing an additional red sauce that looked like blood when sliced and removed. Serving it were two specters from Lillandyr's past.

The maid that tasted the Shadowglade's poisoned cake for Varistan's birthday. And a beautiful young woman still in her teenage years, golden hair tied back neatly in a braided tail. The real Lillandyr.

Manus crouched down by Lillandyr and smiled at her privately like he was being boyishly charming. "I like your necklace." he whispered with a flared tease of his eyes. "I think you're far too modest. I hope to remedy that." he stood abruptly and walked around the diners, projecting his voice.

"Beneath this beguiling goddess of charm that blesses our lives is a heart of pure gold, with love to give far beyond what this world deserves." he said with sincere inflection, making eye contact with everyone at the table. "You may think she's just a clever con, or a tease. But she aches, for her people. Her family. She wants them to thrive and will rise against wickedness wherever it tries to strike." he said, eyes admiring her slowly. He continued the lie:

"So you must know something she has not told anyone. Of that fateful day she had saved her brother by pushing him into his own birthday cake. You see… she saw the vicious little maid poison the icing in the kitchen. She couldn't resist a peek at the cake. A hand was wrapped around her pale small throat as she was threatened to never tell, or she would be eaten alive." Manus opened his eyes wide with effect, in full story-telling mode. He started pouring tea for Lillandyr but it was spilling over the sides, into the saucer, off the table, soaking the tablecloth.

"Lillandyr waited until the cake was served and managed to feign it's untimely toppling. And the viperous maid slithered away. She was never thanked, because it was never known." he walked over to her chair and slipped his hands under Lillandyr's blonde hair, gently gathering it, stroking until every strand was in-place.

"They found the maid, dragged her back far worse than she deserved. But when Lillandyr saw this, she was full of mercy and gave her a kiss. Then she forgave her, because… some people just need it." Manus bent down, his lips on her ears. The breath felt real, his grip on her hair tightening. "Even if they don't deserve it." he whispered just for her.

Aronsen looked murderous, hands clenching the wood on the chair so tight beneath him it was leaving dry cracks and pops. Heathcliff was considering the display with a puzzled frown, glaring with suspicion, his cigarette ash clinging far too long.

Manus released Lillandyr's hair and walked back to the front of the dining room. He tilted his head up in a knowing degree, slicing his gaze to Lillandyr with devastating conviction, his truth a thing not actually spoken that anyone else would understand. To Manus, her needs were a plunging vastness, a challenge he desired to fill. She was endless, and he was an endless thing. If he could ever fill her, ever sate her, it would be over. Her hungers were eternal, just like his.

"Lillandyr loves it all…" his mouth parted open a bit on the last word, emphasizing. "very… very… deeply."

He walked over to the rest of the uncut cake and… clawed it, sunk his fingers in to grasp, ruin a whole side. Then licked it lewdly from his fingers for several moments, bits of it falling off to the floor, making a mess. When he was finished he politely toweled off his hands with a cloth folded at his waist and smiled with grace at everyone before heading back into the kitchen.

"What can I say… I'm a helpless romantic." he pointed to Heathcliff with apology as the door clicked shut.

Red Velvet Cake

https://allhighrecipes.com/how-to-make-red-velvet-cake-a-delicious-recipe-guide/

@lillandyrshadowglade @seralahbloodhaven @trivelino

[draconecastle]

The Menu: Part 4

In Which The Castle Performs a Direct Ripoff of Concepts in the Movie ‘The Menu’

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Heathcliff released Manus with disgust at his mention of their deal.

"How much time." he demanded, an edge of vulnerability in the question. Manus smiled softly with compassion, like he was talking to a small child that required simplification.

"Not much." he answered vaguely. Something akin to fear and deep sadness set Heathcliff's face into stoic repose.

"Years?" Heathcliff asked.

"No."

"Months."

"Yes."

He rubbed the back of his neck and looked off to the side.

"Fuck."

Manus turned and went back to the kitchen, not meeting his eyes. He remained stern, unemotional.

"It's time for the next course." he said flatly.

Heathcliff remembered something. "Who's the Red Harlequin?" Manus froze, then turned to look him in the eyes.

"I'm not sure who he is this time." Manus said quietly. "But I know what he is. For the who, we're about to find out."

Heathcliff came back to the dining room and saw Aronsen comforting Sera. Lillandyr had an unreadable expression on her face. Tache was poking at the soup and making a pissy face about the wine.

He was about to ask Sera if she was ok but the waiters were already moving around them, everyone in the way. Concern furrowed his brow, he regretted gathering them all here for this torture. This was the way of the Castle… bountiful magic and luxury but at a piece of your heart. He swallowed, pushing away the madness to sort out later in a journal.

Platters were served between them. Carpaccio with the usual seasonings of olive oil, parmesan cheese, capers and arugula. Then caviar from the hidden mountain streams, with artful blinis as a base. Manus stood behind Aronsen and smiled. The vampire tensed, bracing himself for whatever was next.

"And what easier Dracone to cook for than our eldest child of gold and ruin, Aronsen, my dear boy." Manus shook his chair a little with vigor, then gestured to the table. "Favorites, of his childhood. And raw enough he could enjoy as… whatever he is now." fingers tapped his bald head. Aronsen shot up a hand to swat but missed. He glared at the food but stabbed a piece of carpaccio onto his plate, then took a heaping spoonful of caviar.

"I don't care, taunt me all you want, I'm eating." he declared, digging in. Manus smiled, pacing around the end of the table, continuing.

"There aren't many truths he doesn't already wear on his sleeves… but there is one very secret, very special truth he won't tell a soul." Manus emphasized like he was telling a tale to children. Aronsen stopped eating and froze. He flashed a look at Lillandyr and then Manus.

"You see, there is someone Aronsen loves that is not here with us tonight. She's hidden, as always. And Aronsen would do anything for her." the room tensed, Manus elegantly gestured to his own heart.

"And I can prove it." He brought out a carved bottle with a woman inside the glass, a golden liquid filling it half-full. It was placed in front of Aronsen gently.

"I have created a wonder of Azeroth. Inside that bottle, I have designed the cure to Anya's pain. All her suffering: the lack of love she was given, the slights, the abandonments, the slow degradations, the despair and the betrayals. This concoction will release her from all these, they will fade into nothing in her mind. I will remove it all, with a gift of love."

Manus whispered this last part right into Aronsen's ear.

"But you, dear boy… will have to die. Right here. Right now. Drink it, and she will never feel anguish again…"

Time did strange things in this moment. Aronsen heard his own blood in his ears. His mind raced as he stared at the bottle in disbelief, then intent. Heathcliff shouted something, he heard Lillandyr also speak but it was all drowned out. The swirl of her memories, her emotions recalled in his mind and it made him want to weep all over again. Would this be possible, to remove her pain? Suddenly his purpose was so clear to him. Love. He was meant to do this. It wasn't redemption but it was meaningful sacrifice. For her. For his Anya.

He was breathing hard, staring at it. Heathcliff punched a waiter restraining him. Sera was trying to offer reason and logic against what he knew he was about to do.

As Aronsen looked at Lillandyr for the last time he snatched the bottle and yanked off the top, arching his head back to drink it all down.

"NOOOO!" Heathcliff shouted. Aronsen opened his eyes to…

A bunch of colorful confetti into his mouth. The liquid wasn't there. Manus burst out laughing, everyone halted a moment in confusion. Aronsen spat out the paper and looked around maniacally, unhinged and confused. The cringy, sad embarrassment of betrayal soaked the room at the cruel joke. Hunched over with his hands on his knees, Manus was hooting and carrying on with laughter, wiping his face.

"Aronsen…" he laughed. "A potion that could cure anguish?" he had difficulty speaking. "What a useless thing! Imagine that… without pain…"

"Nothing can cure pain." Aronsen snapped.

"Quite right, you were always the brightest one!" he kept laughing, wiping his tears.

"Imagine that. I could open the Dracone Castle as a miracle health spa." he snorted at his lame joke. "A potion that can heal all pain. Can you imagine how stupid everyone would be without pain? There would be no empathy at all." he hooted at the thought. "No recognition, my boy…" he looked with pity on Aronsen's wrecked face. "No recognition."

He walked back to the kitchen, pausing, still quivering with laughter. "Aronsen loves Anya." he said with one last snicker as the door closed behind him.

The Origin of Carpaccio

Trim any excess fat or silver skin from the tenderloin before slicing and preparing the carpaccio. The dish, based on the Piedmont speciality Carne cruda alla piemontese, was invented in 1950 by Cipriani, who originally prepared the dish for countess Amalia Nani Mocenigo when he learned that her doctors had recommended that she eat raw meat. The dish was named carpaccio after Vittore Carpaccio, the Venetian painter known for the characteristic red and white tones of his work.

Caviar Processing

Preparation follows a sequence that has not significantly changed over the last century. First, the ovaries are removed from a sedated female sturgeon and passed through a sieve to remove the membrane. Freed roes are rinsed to wash away impurities. Roes are now ready to become caviar by adding a precise amount of salt for taste and preservation. The fresh product is tasted and graded according to quality. Finally, the eggs are packed into lacquer-lined tins that will be further processed or sold directly to customers.

@lillandyrshadowglade @seralahbloodhaven @trivelino

[draconecastle]

@lillandyrshadowglade @seralahbloodhaven @castallinesundrake @wraheathcliff @wraaronsen

[draconecastle]

[draconecastle]

[draconecastle]

Typical Dracone dinner behavior

[draconecastle]

The Menu: Part 3

In Which The Castle Performs a Direct Ripoff of Concepts in the Movie ‘The Menu’

Part 1, Part 2

The candlelight brightened, casting haunting shadows mixed with the crystalline refractions when Manus appeared again, this time his head canting to smile at Sera. He let himself gaze with adoration a few moments as the other guests looked nervous. Heathcliff was continuing his visual assault on the visage with his whole body, tense with warning.

Manus smiled and walked over to Sera, pulled out the spare chair next to her and angled it toward the table, sitting in it convivially. He clasped hands over a crossed knee in repose.

"Did you know that our dear Sera wants to break bread with the dead?" Manus asked the guests, then looked to her.

"She believes that she can negotiate with it. For the family she lost. To undo the pain with the information she has now." Manus shot a look over to Heathcliff. "The yearning from loss… a favorite theme of yours, dear boy."

"Are we going to get something edible tonight or is this just more therapy no one wants?" Heathcliff retorted angrily. Aronsen agreed with Heathcliff in support as he lit a bloodthistle cigarette, sitting back in his chair, watching Manus. He never talked to the Castle in such a form and he wanted to fight him now. For making him feel things about his brother, his past.

"Yes. The living need something to eat. Without tears." Aronsen added at his own expense.

Manus sighed. "Always with the demands, you spoiled children." he said while gesturing to his attendants, serving steaming warm bread to everyone but Aronsen and Heathcliff. Manus turned to them with a smile. "I'm afraid you've already broken bread with the dead, dear Dracones, so this serving is only for your guests."

The oversized rolls smelled delicious, their cheddar insides hidden inside baked crusts that looked like balls of lava, something from deep beneath the earth.

"I baked these myself." Manus smiled. "Family recipe." he whispered as he turned back to Sera. There was a flower between Manus's fingers now, several funnel-shaped bells of pale yellow with dark veins and dark centers.

"But Sera's truth is much deeper than trauma, it has to do with a choice. This choice will reveal her truth." he smiled.

"I will eat this flower and I will channel death within these walls. You will be able to speak to death… sit in it's lap… ask it any question. But if you choose this, Sera, someone living in this room will have to die when you are done. It may be you. It may be Lillandyr or Tache. Death will choose, you cannot predetermine the doom."

"Or you can choose… something else. You can choose to still eat the bread but instruct me back to the kitchen for the next course." @seralahbloodhaven's writing:

Seralah looked at Manus with wide eyes, lips downturned and slightly parted. Her face was splotchy from crying and anger and all that drained away as her brow crinkled.

Though his words to her were mild, much milder than what he’d said to Heathcliff and Aronsen, she flinched all the same and dropped her gaze to her lap, shoulders reflexively hunching in a gesture only Heathcliff would fully understand because he’d witnessed it enough. It was this horrible miasma of embarrassed upset, self reproach, and anxiety.

As Manus went on, she didn’t want to look at anyone else, but felt so compelled to do so, she cast her gaze about the table. Tache was eating his dessert with actual relish because he was famished. He even licked a little chocolate off his thumb. When Sera caught his eye, he looked at her without much care. Her personal tragedies didn’t matter to him. He gave her a little shrug and looked away because the obvious pain in her eyes likely made him uncomfortable. Next, her gaze flicked to Aronsen who was looking at Heathcliff or Manus alternatively. She was not spared a glance. Heathcliff wasn’t looking at her either. Only Lillandyr was.

Lillandyr was smiling as though it were Winterveil morning and every present under the tree was for her. It was a broad, excited sort of smile that told Seralah the other woman enjoyed her suffering immensely. When Lillandyr and Seralah’s eyes met, Lillandyr’s smile became something else though the expression didn’t change. It sharpened predatorily. It was a shark’s grimace when blood was in the water.

Until, that is, Manus said Seralah had a choice and Lillandyr or Tache might die because of it. The smile vanished and was replaced with a terrifying snarl and wide, wild eyes. Lillandyr did NOT look afraid. She looked challenging, as if she was silently daring Sera to DO IT. Seralah recoiled a little and looked away. It was no choice. Seralah didn’t even consider it.

But that it was made was enough. That was the cruelty.

Everyone in the dining hall had someone. A brother, a lover, a friend or associate (she wasn’t sure if Tache and Lillandyr were…friends or not, but they knew each other, that much was obvious).

Everyone except her.

Her chest rose and fell rapidly as she tried to blink away a flood of embarrassed, horrified, heart broken tears. This was, she thought, to remind her she was alone. She had no brother to fight with. She had no lover to console her. She had no friend to support her or even fight with if they’d had a falling out. All she could do was look up at Manus as though he personally had reached into her chest and just tore her heart to ribbons in front of a live audience, one of which was obviously enjoying it.

It was the most heartbroken of expressions.

“You know I would…never harm anyone like that,” she said, barely audible. “It doesn’t matter what I want or how curious I am or…,” she trailed off, face going scarlet.

“You did this to make me feel stupid,” she told Manus. “And I do.” She shakily shrugged one shoulder.

“Stupid and alone.” Perhaps if she’d been sober she would have been more graceful in her refusal. She felt like a woman tied to four different horses and Manus had the whip. Conflicted, horrible emotion made it feel as though she were being torn to pieces.

“And it’s…it’s not like anyone is shocked! Or that anyone even cares! No one cares. They don’t know me to care. They’ll just think I’m strange and morbid. Or pathetic.” That was the only anger he’d get.

The rest drained away and fell into limp, impotent misery. She wiped at her face, lower lip wobbling, tears falling faster than she could whisk them away with trembling fingers. Seralah stopped trying and they just dripped off her chin.

“You don’t want to reveal a truth about me. You want to humiliate me. What truth about me would anyone here even care about? It’s not like I hide anything besides. I can’t keep my mouth shut properly. I never do. I always say too much and…” she trailed off again, shaking her head.

She felt compelled to explain herself. She’d met Death and ever since that last and only encounter had been desperate to again.

“What a cruel enticement,” she murmured, gaze dropping to her lap. She wished she could disappear.

Seralah only wanted to be comforted then. She wanted someone to enfold her in an embrace and smooth a hand down her hair. She wanted to cry on a shoulder. But it wasn’t going to happen and she knew it.

Like a smooshed spider, she curled in on herself, shoulders drawing forward, chin to chest. As if she could make herself smaller and everyone would just ignore her in favor of their own dramas.

“If you were honoring wishes…I would wish that you’d not go back to the kitchen and not do this anymore,” she whispered. “Or…I’d wish you’d explain yourself.”

After a moment, she looked up at Manus again, doe eyes full of…betrayed sadness and sinking disappointment. “You delighted me when I arrived here,” she told him. “It’s a shame you’ve gone and soured that so completely.”

She smiled a little, but it was sad. “But that’s the way of delight. It always sours. I suppose I should be grateful to learn this truth about…you.” Her lips thinned and her jaw tightened. “Thank you. You revealed more about yourself than anyone else thus far.” It carried all the sting and weight of when a mother would inform a child that she was very disappointed and hurt by their actions.

She wouldn’t look at Manus again. She kept her gaze on the table and politely dabbed at her cheeks with her silk napkin. Seralah wouldn’t look at anyone else either. Especially not Heathcliff or Lillandyr.

Familiar jealousy bit into her, though in a less obvious way. When Rhuen Venn’ren had married someone else despite knowing her feelings, that was obvious jealousy. Seralah hadn’t even been angry at this other woman she’d never met and had felt quite guilty for her jealous feelings. But as her own feelings about Heathcliff were strange, it only made them stranger and the jealousy was not understood. Just felt in a vague and aching sort of way.

Sniffling, she made her choice obvious and ate the bread mechanically, trying not to cry thinking of the missed chance. To be taunted with something she’d worked very hard for hurt so badly. So, instead of fixating on the disappointment, Seralah silently resolved to work even harder to achieve it for herself. It was how she always coped with hurt. There was no one else. There was nothing else. But there was always work.

“Back to the kitchen it is,” she said dully to Manus without looking up. “I’ll not harm anyone. For any reason.”

When Manus departed for the kitchen again, there was a bit of a clatter, the shuffle of slippered feet and the chiming of tiny bells. The dining hall was about to receive another guest.

Manus smiled and stood, depositing the henbane flower on a silver tray which a waiter whisked away. More plates were cleared of the cake, wine was brought out, with a tomato bisque for the bread.

He placed his hands on the back of Sera's chair. "You're right, my sweet girl, I am cruel but I have revealed the truth you already express to deaf ears. Perhaps it was for them to hear clearer, now." he paused, looking at Heathcliff, a man about to explode.

"Seralah loves Life." he declared softly as his second truth, leaving the room with a bow and her sniveling, hunched over.

Aronsen placed an arm around the back of her chair and whispered in her ear. "I care. You made the right choice. You're not alone, we're just… fucked. It's going to be ok." his voice was so quiet, just for her, his cool breath soft and sincere. He leaned back again, keeping his arm in place.

Heathcliff had heard enough. He followed Manus through the staging doors of the dining hall to the kitchen to slam him against the wall by his chef's jacket, just the two of them in this transitional room.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Heathcliff growled at him, breathing hard through his nostrils. "Why are you hurting her? Can't you just serve a fucking meal like a normal… can't you just uphold your end of the bargain?!"

Manus looked calm, he didn't fight the grip on his visage, he only stared deeply in Heathcliff's eyes.

"What? Like a normal... what? You don't even know what or who I am, you blind, selfish dreamer. You can't even fathom what I sacrificed."

Heathcliff's grip only tightened. Manus continued.

"Dear boy, I would… but we're running out of time. My friend and oldest enemy has arrived. There are more truths to be served. Unless you want me to call in your end of our bargain now…" he warned. On that, Heathcliff released him with disgust. He pointed at Manus. He didn't understand what he meant about a friend or enemy. He only knew Manus always crafted his responses that kindled more questions.

"This better end soon. These kind of games end tonight. Hold your end of the bargain and you'll get what you want." he said with a wavering voice, starting to lose faith in his plans that were quickly falling apart.

"Patience, Heathcliff." Manus hissed. "The Red Harlequin has arrived. Sit down so I may serve the next course. Your lives depend on me finishing this meal."

How to make Smoked Lava Cheese Buns

Recipe here: https://misswondersmith.com/blog/2021-lavabuns

How to make Warm Blood Bisque (Sera's Choice: Life)

Recipe here: https://ghoulatheart.com/warm-blood-bisque/

@lillandyrshadowglade

@seralahbloodhaven

@trivelino

[draconecastle]

1. e4 c5

Working on The Menu: Part 3... @seralahbloodhaven

[draconecastle]

Dracones, basically ^

therapist: cunt dracula is not real and cannot fuck you.

cunt dracula:

[draconecastle]

“16th C. ring in the form of an armillary (the rings and hoops represent the equator, the tropics, and other celestial circles, able to revolve on its axis)”

[source]

[draconecastle]