infireandash

[infireandash]

where: Seattle Hospital who: @deadcfnight​

The first sign things were very much not under control came on the very first day of the year. Although a cooler day, and every window wide open, Mateo woke up covered in sweat, bedsheets soaked. Her head was pounding and every glass of water she drank, and there were many, seemed to evaporate the moment they were consumed. With the dehydration and the headache came the muscle aches, making her body shake like she had a terrible fever. It had taken an army of willpower to get up and stumble her way into the kitchen. Despite the exhaustion, and the heat, there was an uncontrolled rage burning inside of her, one whose origin Mateo was uncertain of. 

The cataclysm of the heat came when Mateo was heading out the door for a run, desperate to burn off this surplus of energy that had festered overnight. She had grabbed the copper door handle, much like she usually did when she left her apartment, and had found herself crippled to the ground by a burning sensation shooting up from her palm and all the way down her arm, unable to control the scream it brought out of her. Only once she had been able to breathe through the pain did Mateo look at the origin of the pain, which seemed to pulsate with every thud of her heart. The inside of her palm had what appeared initially to be very similar to an electricity burn, except it had created a spider web effect that had spread from the center of palm, around her whole hand and shot up through the entirety of her right arm. Her veins were varicose, and her entire arm felt like it had been dipped through a vat of lava. 

Despite the sudden expel of energy brought up by the combustion in her hand, Mateo just felt the flames inside of her swell. Fuck, everything burned, and Mateo felt like she was on the precipice of self-ignition. It was instinct that made her stand up and head out the door, foot closing the door as to avoid direct contact with her hands again. Although a bit of a last resort, though she was unsure what they would be able to do for her given that she felt her condition was less than human, she put one foot in front of the other until the sweet relief of the glowing H came into view. 

Once in an emergency department bed, checked in with an unidentified burn, fever, and severe dehydration, Mateo was offered pain killers. She weighed her options: Although she’d have less control, an opioid would slow down her heart rate, blood pressure, and body temperature, something that was desperately needed right now. So here she was, burning through IV drips with a kick of fentanyl, lying in bed sweating and wondering if maybe this would be where she died, a thought that didn’t seem so bad right now.

[infireandash]

    conallofloinn​:

Listening intently, Conall nodded at the right times to indicate he was giving her his full attention. Funny that her problem struck so close at the heart of his own reasoning for needing a momentary breath of air. He felt it safe to assume, though, that whatever family troubles she was experiencing were more to do with living members than dead ones. The universe was poetic that way at times, though.

Conall threw back the remainder of his drink with ease. Moving around the other side of the bench to take a seat, he said.

“Shame, Gaelic is a mystical sort of language -almost like a song. A bit archaic, though, I guess.”

Then with a little shrug, Conall continued.

“Can’t say much for family, mine hasn’t been round for some time, but it’s often the people closest to us that break our hearts ain’t it?” He sighed, perhaps revealing a little more about himself than intended. “As for me…I felt a strange bout of nostalgia coming on. Just needed a minute to clear my head.�� Deflecting with a light chuckle. “So, when ya say finicky…you mean finicky like a perfectionist or just outright capricious? Because I have this step-sister who’s both and-” He whistled. “She’s a trip.”

-

With every passing second in the cool air Matty felt a little bit better, the flames of rage inside of her subsiding. She hated the way that being in the presence of her mother reverted her to the angsty broken down teenager she used to be. At 28 years of age, the routine was tiresome and quite frankly, unnecessary. “Meh, can’t be as archaic as latin, and I took that for 6 years,” she said adjusting herself on the bench to make a bit more room for the man. She angled her body towards him, propping an elbow up on the bench in an attempt to use her hand to support her head. 

Although she wanted to comment as to how her mother could never break her heart, Mateo chose instead to deflect the conversation back towards the other. “I’m not sure, it’s you that looks like you do the heartbreaking around here,” she stated, a hint of a smile pulling at her lips. The girl averted her eyes back down to her lap before chancing a glance back up. “Nothing like your sister, I would say,” she said softly, biting down on her lip in hesitation. Maybe it was the alcohol talking, but Matty felt like divulging perhaps more than she should when she continued, unprompted, “I’m adopted and, well, my mother has a lot of expectations from me, even now at 28. I just kind of wish she would leave me alone.” 

Matty cleared her throat and then asked, “and how’s that bout of nostalgia now?”

[infireandash]

conallofloinn​:

Conall hummed absently, following her apace back toward the bench where he swiped up his glass before it became a hazard. He watched as she tossed down her jacket and mask, wondering. The party seemed, to him at least, to have been proceeding without a hitch, and yet she appeared disgruntled. Not that he ought be surprised after her comment about a brooding space. Conall kept a schooled expression of geniality on his face despite the fact she was not presently looking at him.

“I’d imagine doppelgänger of me would be quite problematic. Hopefully, I never have to find out.”

His comment was joking, a little off-hand and non-important, but it was his way to say such things anyway. He stayed standing as she took a seat on the bench and introduced herself to him with an extended hand.

“A question we are all eternally searching for the answer to, I expect.” Conall gave her hand a delicate shake, bending to place a light kiss on her knuckles. Her hand was exceptionally warm, a fact he filed away for the time being. “A pleasure.”

Conall had dealt with all sorts in his time, and he had a sneaking suspicion of what the heat radiating from Mateo’s skin meant.

“Irish? Oh, I’m from everywhere and nowhere, ya know? I’m a bit of a wanderer. Though, I have seen the rolling hills of that country. It is beautiful,” Conall responded, making a slight effort to mute the defining features of his native tongue. Pausing a beat, he took a sip from his drink before moving to change the subject. It was so much easier to speak of others than himself. “If it’s not too rude of me, could I ask what’s brought on such self-deprecation? From where I stand…I can’t see any reason for it.”

-

The fresh air was, admittedly, doing her some good. Whereas moments ago Mateo had been on the verge of an unwanted panic attack, she now held a little bit more control over her emotions, though she opted for now to remain static on the bench and avoid sudden movement. Her eyes followed Conall as the man gently shook her hand, cold touch to meet her own warm one with a kiss that was just as cold. Her eyelids fluttered closed at the touch and she took a breath before opening her eyes again. The girl swallowed back the flame of rage that rose as the thought of why she was both inebriated and sulking. It wasn’t after all like it was Conall’s fault that she was so miserable with the direction her life had taken.

“My father and mother are both Irish, though I was brought here much too young to learn the language myself.” Mateo placed her hands together across her lap, learning back into the support of the bench. “I suppose that’s why I’m here,” she breathed out, eye darting around the courtyard only to settle on Conall. She tilted her head and flicked away a speck of dust on her pants. “Family,” she punctuated with a click of her tongue, “they can be such finicky things sometimes. Too bad you really only get one.” Mateo sighed and then averted her eyes as she asked, “What brings you to this courtyard?”

[infireandash]

where: winter solstice ball  who: @anne-dubellay​

There were, of course, good things about having the metabolism of a football player. By design, so it was that possessing fire magic meant that there was constantly a need to burn something. This meant that Matty, although a lightweight, was able to sober up considerably faster than most. This also meant that events such as this, which were as traumatic as they were fun, were dangerous. Unlimited amount of alcohol? No one to keep her in check? Why, it was an alcoholic’s wet dream. In true drunk girl fashion, Mateo sought out a friend to do shots with, as it was never as fun to do it alone. Who more fitting for the task than her literally ‘death day’ buddy? If anyone was worthy of a shot, it was certainly Anne. Her eyes scanned the crowd for the woman and it was by miracle that her eyes caught those of her friend. With the determination of at least a handful of drinks under her belt, though she had honestly lost track at this point, Mateo weaved her way through the crowd, a shot of fireball in each of her hands. 

“Dude, you look hot,” she stated appreciatively as she finally reach her. With one hand extended towards the other woman, she stated, “here, take this, I think we need to celebrate being alive or whatever blah blah we want to celebrate.”

[infireandash]

[infireandash]

conallofloinn​:

Thoughts of his sister did lead him to brood, a pastime he made an effort to avoid ardently. So, his immediate demeanor adjustment, notwithstanding, Conall supposed she had pegged his actions entirely accurately whether she knew it or not. He couldn’t help the small chuckle that escaped him at her words, his previously feigned smile turning more genuine. Casting a look over her appearance, his brow quirked slightly. Even with drink warming their blood, he imagined a human could catch a chill in this weather, and at first glance, she appeared human but Conall decided not to comment on it.  Instead, he chose to dispel her of any concern she was intruding.

“No need to leave on my account, Miss,” Conall spoke smoothly. “Especially if you’re seeing two of me because while I have many talents, duplicating myself is not one of them.”

Conall set his drink on the stone bench and took a few steps toward her, unsure if she might stumble in her state of inebriation or simply slide down the wall. However, he did not come close enough to invade her personal space. A brief moment of envy flitted through his mind as he observed her for how little alcohol humans required to become intoxicated before he spoke again.

“Conall.” His manners called on him to introduce himself. “And you are?”

The comment drew a laugh out of Mateo, the first genuine one of the evening and she looked over to the male, trying her hardest to focus on him. It seemed to be true, in more than one regards, that misery loved company and although his presence did little to quench the flames raging inside her, Mateo certainly didn’t mind a distraction right about now. Though something about his accent was ironically torturing to hear. She threw her blazer and mask down on a nearby bench and then tilted her head back towards the night sky as her laughter died down. “Well, dopplegängers wouldn’t be the weirdest thing I’ve seen this week believe me.”

She swallowed and then moved towards the bench, feeling like maybe sitting down wouldn’t be such a bad idea. “That’s the real question isn’t it,” she let out quietly as she sat down. “Mateo,” she stated, reaching a hand up towards the male as though she felt it was customary to introduce herself formally. “Say, I’ve been feeling particularly self-deprecating tonight so I wouldn’t put it pass me to make this up, but are you Irish?”

[infireandash]

rage on the dawn of misery // self-para

where: winter solstice ball who: mateo duggan + clodagh duggan

Though the night was one she knew many looked forward to, Matty was dreading the inevitable run in with her mother starting weeks back. Sure, the unexpected brush with a canine death had distracted her from the fact that the time around the holiday made Mateo an absolutely miserable being. For one, it made her miss something she knew she had never had. She missed her mom, her real mom, though even the thought of her felt like Mateo’s design at this point. Any memory she had of the woman had to be fabricated, more what Mateo wished she had the pleasure of having in her life rather than a reality. After all, she was just a baby when she was snatched from her mom and the very human normal childhood she could have had. Her father had been no help to her growing up, though she knew not to make the same mistake as her mom and expect love from him, and Mateo had been left to fend for herself against her mother on more than one occasion. Clodagh Duggan, God, even the thought of sharing a last name with her left a bad taste in Mateo’s mouth.

She had thought on more than one occasion that she could come up with a good excuse to miss this ball, but it was hard to let go of expectations that had been beat into you one too many times before. Any seasonal changeovers were important for witches and warlocks, and celebrations were equally as important as they were invigorating, nothing felt quite like the energy in a room full of happy dancing people did. But every year, without fail, her mother was there to suck at Matty’s energy like a proverbial black hole, always causing a cataclysm of self-implosion that resulted in Mateo reverting to a scared little girl. It didn’t help that a main feature of the evenings were the many masks that donned the faces of the party goers. While Clodagh fit in more than ever tonight, Mateo was triggered by the presence of any masks, reminding her much to closely of what she had caused to her mother’s face with her bare hands. After all, the woman had adopted wearing a mask to cover Mateo’s hand print scar, the only one she had received in exchange for the many she had left on Mateo’s own skin over the years. 

So yeah, being present in a room full of people wearing masks, well, that always put Mateo on edge. What’s one night of masochism, Mateo thought as she placed her own facemask on, feet crossing the threshold of the ballroom on their own accord. She made a beeline for the bar, hoping to get a drink or two in her before the unpleasant part of the evening began. Such would have it though that, as always, her mother sensed Matty at her weakest, like a shark in a pool of blood, and her trajectory to the bar was cut by the sight of a familiar pair of eyes. 

“You’re late,” the woman stated matter-of-factly as her eyes looked over Matty. Her lips curled in disgust and she grabbed at Mateo’s blazer as she added, “and what are you wearing? This isn’t very feminine.” 

“Mother, so nice of them to throw an event in your honour, must be nice for everyone to look like you,” Mateo quipped sharply, taking a step back away from the woman and pushing her off of her. Her mother’s perfume was inundating her with unwelcomed memories and Mateo felt that hair on the back of neck raise. The very sight, touch, and smell of the woman was enough to make the flames underneath her skin burn. There was a particular kind of pain that came with those flames, almost like they remembered who put them there, and Mateo clenched her jaw as she looked away. 

“I see you still haven’t learned to control your powers, much less let them merge with you,” her mother replied slyly, one hand reaching to grab onto Mateo’s chin and forcefully turn her head back to face her. Her eyes met Mateo, searching, prodding. “Even now I can see how much it’s taking for you not to strike me. But you won’t, will you? Wouldn’t want to make a scene in public, even you don’t have that much of a death wish.”  The woman released Mateo and clasped her hands together in front of her. Mateo let out a shaky breath, felt hot tears burn at the back of her eyes. 

“My offer still stands,” Clodagh started, “I could teach you how to control them, Mathilda. You could be happier, if you merged them with your energy. It’s in your heart already, in the rest of your body, it’s futile to think you can resist letting the flames into your soul, too. The more you resist, the more you’ll burn in the end.” 

“I’d rather die before I let you turn me into a monster,” Mateo seethed, fists clenching at her side. Control, she needed to control herself, could feel the heat burn at her fingertips. Clodagh stepped into Mateo’s space then, eyes looking up and down Mateo with a smirk on her lips. 

“Don’t you see,” she started, before meeting Mateo’s eyes, “you’re already a monster. The only thing now is whether you want to hurt anyone else. Wouldn’t want to implode and kill your friends now, would you?” 

“I think we’re done here,” Mateo said through clenched teeth, thankful that the mask was hiding the welling tears in her eyes. She made to move past Clodagh but the other woman wrapped a hand around Mateo’s wrist to stop her in her path. The touch brought an icy shot of fear through Mateo’s whole body, stunning her momentarily. 

“I’d be careful if I were you. I know you don’t think so, but I do care about what you become. You’ll see how much you need me, though I fear by then it might be too late.” The woman paused before adding, like an afterthought, “That temper of yours… perhaps we’re more alike than you think.” 

With that Mateo ripped her hand out of the hold and back down at her side, leaning in so her face was inches away from her mother’s. “We are nothing alike,” she seethed, “now get away from me before I decide killing you is worth the risk.” 

Her mother clicked her tongue, “Suit yourself, you know where to find me.” With that she stepped aside and walked away, already striking up a conversation with someone else as though nothing had happened. Mateo hated that. Hated that for her the room was vibrating. Her hands were shaking in anger and she could barely breathe. Drink, she desperately needed one. Finally she let out an exhale as her feet moved from their frozen position and towards the bar. Fuck, she thought, so much for having a good night.

[infireandash]

conallofloinn​:

Five drinks in, with his sixth in hand, Conall headed for a set of doors that appeared to lead out to a courtyard. Navigating his way successfully through the crowd without spilling his drink, he exited through them. Outside, the garden lit up with the same style of tinkling lights he’d seen in the square a few days prior. 

So festive, he thought to himself, smiling wryly.

Inhaling a deep breath, his shoulders relaxed a fraction. The breath cleansed his palate of the heady scent of blood that filled the enclosed ballroom. It wasn’t overwhelming as it had been once, more of a distraction, and Conall didn’t need that. He needed to clear his mind. He needed not to think of her -of Deirdre. He often glimpsed her in crowds, despite his sister being dead for over a hundred years. Conall knew it was the product of the guilty conscience he would likely never shake, but it always gave him pause. 

“Tá brón orm, Deirdre (I’m sorry, Deirdre),” he muttered, not for the first time, knowing she could not hear him.

All he needed was a few moments to center himself again before he could return to the party. Pacing over to one of the stone benches, Conall hovered beside it, debating whether or not to take a seat. The risk of doing so would be to allow himself to become lost in his thoughts. All those revolving around Deirdre were painful and only lead to darker thoughts regarding his bloodline sister. It was not a destination to which Conall had any desire to travel at that moment. Resolving himself, he turned with the intent of heading back to the party only to hesitate at the sight of someone hovering at the door.

On instinct, Conall’s lips lifted into a smile, and he offered a greeting in the way of deflecting from what they could have seen or heard.

@taintedstarters​

-

Matty wished she was having a better night, but between the alcohol and the less than pleasant conversation she had had at the start of the night, she usual dormant spark inside her was raging. As such, Matty found herself desperately needing to cool off. Although the evening in Seattles weren’t nearly cool enough to quell her fire, Matty sought the closest exited she could find. To top the suffocating conversation she just had, Matty felt trapped in her mask, and her blazer, and the crowd, and the room. Once outside, she took her jacket and her mask off, leaving her in a button up shirt to which she promptly proceeded to roll the sleeves up of. Her back hit the cold brick wall and she tilted her head back as she closed her eyes, both to ground herself and also to stop making the world feel like it was spinning. Matty released a breath and then finally opened her eyes to look at her surrounding. She was quick to catch the eyes of perhaps the only other person in this courtyard (though Matty lacked the awareness to properly check right now). 

The girl mustered a smile of her own and then, despite all the social cues that were indicating this was not appropriate, she chuckled. “I guess this brooding space is already taken then?” She leaned her head against the wall again and closed her eyes as she continued to speak, “just give me a moment to catch my breath and then I can leave you to it, cause right now I see two of you when I think really there is only one?”

[infireandash]

who: @remingtondupont​ location: masquerade ball

Mateo had lost tracked of how many glasses she had knocked back tonight. The evening had started with her annual run in with her mother, one that she would argue had been worst than usual. She had been much too sober for such conversation and had quickly sought the bar once it had ended. Fuck that woman for being such a conniving bitch, and for making Mateo what she was now. The memory made her down the last of the drink in her hand and place it into an empty tray as a waiter walked by before leaning up against a wall. Although she avoided large gatherings, making an appearance at these events was one of the few things she still felt was required of her and she would be damn if she let her bitch of a mother ruin the evening for her. It was faith that made it so that when she turned, presumably to go back towards the bar, she physically collided with a familiar body. “Remy,” she let out, both surprised and happy to see the male, “it is you, isn’t it? Under the mask? Oh god, please say it’s you, I could use a friend.”

[infireandash]

Mateo Duggan:  50th Winter Solstice Masquerade look

[infireandash]

no offense but this is one of the best songs from phantom

[infireandash]

Send my muse an icon, and they will…

🎨 tell you a skill or talent few know of that they have

👻 tell a fear they have

🔆 say one of their dreams/aspirations

🎁 show off something they have

🚿 mention one of their shower thoughts.

🎭 say how they are really feeling

📅 speak of a past experience

🐱 talk about their favorite animal/pet

🌙 tell about one of their recent dreams/nightmares

🍀 regale a time when luck was on their side

👪 speak about their thoughts and feelings about someone they know

🔪 talk about a time when they were hurt physically, mentally, or emotionally

👄 whisper a secret no one else knows

🎓 say one thing they are proud of

😳 say one thing they are ashamed of

👀+ a question of your own!

[infireandash]

anne-dubellay​:

By the time the door shut behind them and they were welcomed by the safe space, Anne had no idea how or when they got there. All that matter was that her plan worked and they got rid of the wolf for at least long enough till they can realize what the actual fuck was going on. But then, she was too tired to think. Her steps lead her - almost automatically - to the first peace of furniture that she could sit down on as she exhaled deeply with her eyes closed. She was pretty sure that if Matty’s apartment would be further, the wolf would pick up their scent again after her magic dispersed into the thin air. Her head was pounding and when her eyes opened it felt even worse.

Leaning forward to rest her elbows on her knees she wiped the remaining of her blood from under her nose and looked at her friend. She looked even worse, with blood splattered across her face and hands covered in it. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?” She asked still out of breath, her whole body burning from inside from the stress, her powers and the sprinting. “Who the fuck was that.” No matter her current state, the rage was the  emotion that would always come to the surface first. “We could have fucking died!” The realization just hitting her as she exclaimed furiously, feeling how her blood boiled inside of her. It would soon start to prickle out of her nose once again, if she doesn’t control herself.

-

Although she always tried to keep the apartment at a low temperature, the sudden insertion of powered up witches into the picture made it hot in here. Matty shrugged off her jacket, speckles of blood all over it and tossed it in the laundry hamper. She let her friend talk, felt just as rage-y as the other girl was in regards to the events of the evening, and walked into the kitchen. Her apartment had an open concept living room, kitchen, and dining room and so she could still hear and see Anne while she grabbed both of them a glass of water. Though it was only when she started pouring water that she considered they might need something stronger to drink. She poured the half full cup of water into her cat’s water dish and then poured them both a hefty amount of whiskey. 

Her mind was still racing, trying to reconcile the fact that they had in fact almost died and, although it wasn’t Mateo’s first experience with someone trying to kill her, she too was angry. Handing Anne a drink, she sat down next to the other witch and took a long swig from her drink. “I’m okay,” she breathed out, “are you?”  In the corner of her eyes she caught her cat hesitantly approaching them, scrunching her whiskers when she got too close to the two of them. It was then that Mateo became distinctly aware of how much she smelled like ass. “Urgh, that dead wet dog smell is absolutely horrendous. I think we should shower.” She got up, took another long swig and then put the now empty glass down on the coffee table. “I’ll grab you a towel, and you can go first if you want.”

[infireandash]

remingtondupont​:

- 

The male rolled his eyes at her gesture towards the seatbelt, but Remy decided to comply as the high pitched noise did have the potential to become an annoyance, and he also had no intention of flying through the shield of glass. “ —That would cause a scene, wouldn’t it,” He mused as his eyes glanced out towards the passing traffic, envisioning the attention it would draw if there were to be an accident as he listened to the desire she voiced of avoiding the storm. As she asked for the assistance of his phone, a hand reached into the pocket of his jacket, revealing the phone to show the black scene with a wave. “If you have a charger?” Remy turned his head to eye Mateo curiously, as the device had died long before she arrived, and it had yet to become a habit of his to carry an additional cord. “There is a rumor that wolves are headed our way,” He settled into a comfortable position, before thinking back to how he wasted no time in traveling to the border in search of advice from another head that previously dealt with the spiteful group. Although there was no true guidance to be given, the description, and run down of their behaviors was enough to work with in a city that already housed a pack of territorial wolves. “I have a friend who knew a bit about them,” 

-

“Uh,” she said with uncertainty, her hand reaching around in the console to see if she had a serve for Remy’s phone. She resigned herself to having none that fit his phone type and stated, “sorry, no dice. I’d offer my phone but I left it at home.” She turned her attention back to the road ahead as if somehow a clear path to the nearest gas station would materialize itself before her very eyes. If Mateo was a crazy woman, which come to think of it she was about halfway there, the mention of wolves would have had her slamming on her breaks in the middle of the highway. Instead she turned her head towards Remy with such ferocity that she was certain to have given herself whiplash. “Wolves? Like, other wolves? Shit, what does that look like? What did you friend say?” And then as an after thought, like it would somehow ease the tension she felt in her shoulders, Matty added, “see this is why cats are the superior pet.”

[infireandash]

deadcfnight​:

❦

        Despite the “independent” and “never distressed” damsel definitions Mateo had proclaimed herself to be aligned with once upon an evening, nothing about her current rendition endowed Briar with any reassurance. Apparently more disabled by a spell of shock than had originally met the eye, Briar lacked the patience and sympathy to coddle her back into a state of homeostasis. Sighting a couple of oversized feral dogs was an unreasonable cause to induce intermittent catatonia, even in the unlikely chance Mateo possessed a nasty allergy to fleas. At the back of Briar’s mind, encouraged by time constraints to regress the elaborate rigmarole of her professional practice with cruder methods, she recalled a prompt slap to the face usually did the trick of grounding a malfunctioning soul back into reality. Such an option only became more appealing when Mateo finally met her eyes, clouded by poignancy and panic before abruptly clearing, harnessing Briar with a focus so precise it was borderline stifling. Beneath the artificial gleam of a streetlight, the vampire distantly noted disturbance still plagued her expression to a startlingly unnatural degree — which might have perplexed her more if Mateo’s coinciding name-drop had not served to plummet her concentration elsewhere.

It had been a traditional peasant’s cabin comprised of logs and stone, with a roof covered in moss. Two small glass paned windows had been carved into one side of the structure, opposite the wooden door leading to a half-domesticated garden. The dirt floor was kept insulated beneath layers of handwoven rugs, imported textiles, and a makeshift mattress. Braided bundles of drying fireweed, hypericum, and meadowsweet dangled over the fireplace where an enchanted cauldron perpetually maintained its contents at just below a rolling boil. Upon one of the sole pieces of furniture, a round table, would sit two mugs filled with the golden liquor of long-steeped lingonberry and sea buckthorn tea. Standing in the doorway, Briar could account for every detail of the intertwined lives which occupied the home — an unimpressive collection of simple objects, yet significant enough to mean something to her. To them. On another occasion it became a place to bear witness and seek refuge, unable to move, after each earthenware vessel — the proverbial canaries in the coal mine; accustomed to being fired at temperatures into the thousands during the crafting process — was pulverised into dust by the detonation which engulfed every inch of the space. Sigrid had needed only the kindling of her emotions to have success at ignition. Without a doubt, the indefinite meltdown of a fire witch on a rampage rivalled the volatility of a compromised nuclear reactor.

Before her irreversible turning point, each heatwave had done something different. One made the windows shatter and swallowed their cauldron in a scalding eruption of steam. Two darkened the cabin’s foundations until charcoal scarred the walls like thick veins, expanding and groaning in protest against unbearable pressure. Three sucked all the air from the room, destroying Briar’s ability to yell cautions any longer; each sense sentenced to smoulder without repair. Accelerated healing had been rendered useless alongside Briar’s stubborn insistence she stand too close to the inconsolable pyre which had been Sigrid, repetitively subjecting herself to sear before the blaze’s source until her complexion ranged from raw and shiny reds to purple and blistering. The severity of her burns would take days to heal. Wave five was the most ferocious and irrevocable, exuding a surge of heat so nauseatingly intense it propelled Briar off her feet until she landed outside in the meadow, sizzling in the damp dewdrops of dawn. Pale ashes swirled in the swan song’s air like snowflakes, coating every surface in powder, inundated with evidence of Sigrid’s physical form. At least, when the witch’s body was consumed by an inferno decuple her size, the horrific scent of spoiled flesh stopped with her.

Accordingly, the force of the unseen blow had a knee-jerk effect which echoed beyond the boundaries of the memory’s devastation, sending Briar ( literally ) stumbling back on Seattle’s ground — but instead of the softness of grass, it was hard brick which greeted her back, digging in with enough force to unceremoniously extract her from the paralyzing hold of the past. Or was it a dream? Already rapidly fading to the point of obscurity, Briar’s body sluggishly calibrated to the present, entrapped by a thick fog of disorientation. She knew this place, this girl, this life — yet her head spun and her mouth felt unusably dry. Muscle memory alone guided her back on track, uttering the missing clues beneath her breath on its own volition: “Seattle. Mateo…” Without further ado, bitter recognition seeped back into her bones. Any lingering blankness inhabiting her form was eclipsed by her previous building simmer of frustration; all traces of that vivid mirage burying itself on the fringes of Briar’s awareness as her conscious mind took charge of tidily rehoming its lock of neglect, as if what had happened was no more than a baseless hiccup that perhaps hadn’t happened at all. The last relevant task of concern was all she remembered — and for no valid reason not yet performed. All she knew was that she felt, with every undead fibre of her being, inflamed with an enlivening anger. Without a target to blame for it, she both clung to and unloaded upon the next best avenue.

Roughly pushing herself back into an upright position, asserting her regained power over the invisible resistance which had cast her there, it was without hesitance that she stepped up to invade Mateo’s personal space, “The hell is your problem?” Both of Briar’s hands shot up to cuff the woman’s upper arms in a vice grip, “Did you not hear me? Go the fuck home.” A vehement squeeze of her hands emphasised the expletive, forewarning the spike of energy which unfurled along the lengths of her arms — charged from her shoulders to her fingertips — as Briar at last punctuated the command with a vicious shove.

-

(tw abuse)

What’s in a name? Names identify. Names bind and bound. Names give those that wear them powers. But names also takes them away. A name, unlike any other name, one rarely spoken, well... that kind of name cuts, angers, awakens. Sigrid. So simple of a name, and yet spoken it binds Mateo’s fate to Briar’s past, to Briar herself. The gravitational pull of the universe in full effect, one that had never been before crossed the boundaries of dreams and reality, Mateo searched Briar’s face as the other girl undertook her own cross-reality journey. It was unclear what connected them now, what had brought them together to begin with, all Mateo knew was that she was on fire and Briar was the spark. Despite everything in Briar’s deadly predisposition, Matty’s powers responded to whatever psychic connection their touch had brought to one another and it burned in a desire to consume everything around it.

Just as quickly their connection sprouted, it was severed by Briar’s aggressive touch to Matty’s arms, squeezing and grounding them both momentarily. The touch took her to another much hazier reality, one that Mateo had tried to forget but was cursed to remember.

 “What the hell is your problem, child,”  a voice snapped at her. A shrouded figure materialized in smoke. It startled her and she stepped back, an audible crunch under her feet. Matty looked down and found herself in a familiar room, a broken glass vial at her feet. She looked back up, the black figure moving around coming close. “I... I don’t...” she tried to speak. The figure came into focus, face inches from her, and she saw the face of her mother. “Don’t talk back to me, you sorry excuse for space. Do you have to remind me every day how much you don’t belong in this household. Clean it up. Now Mathilda.” Obediently, and without any control over her body, she kneeled down and grabbed onto a nearby shard of glass. “That’s not my name,” she uttered out, confused as to why she was reliving this. 

Yet she knew what happened next. It’s a dream, Matty, wake up, wake up. You’re not that scared 21 year old anymore. Her thoughts were pierced by a warped disbelieving laugh and when she looked up again she was floating, feet inches above the ground. “You think you get to have an opinion. After I took you in, a bastard child, you think you get to have a say in anything? You don’t even have any magic. The only reason you’re alive is because of me.” Her mother floated around her, a plume of black smoke surrounding her. This isn’t real, you’re not real, you’re not real. Finally, the figure approached her and two hands shot out to wrap around Mateo’s biceps, hard. “You want to pick what it’ll be today? A little water? Maybe some air?”

“Fuck you,” Mateo snarled, spitting on the woman’s face. It earned her another warped laugh. “You want to play with fire, Mateo? Fine. Have it your way.”  With that Matty burned, felt like her blood was boiling. It was a feeling long forgotten, and yet it felt like it had been just yesterday since it had last happened. She screamed, head tilted back in defeat, as she felt her inside erupt in that imaginary pain. “Please,” she sobbed when there was a moment of reprise, “stop, please, please...” The burning started again, and her shrieks with it. Yet in the pit of her stomach, something else was igniting. The longer she screamed, in pain, rage, anger, sadness, the more the pain dissipated, and the bigger the ball of heat in her stomach grew. She brought her head back up, face wet with tears but no longer openly crying. 

Her mother met her eyes just as Mateo felt the hair on her neck rise. “I said, stop.” It was said, almost voiceless, like the silence before a bomb went off. And it did. Her hand shot up, grabbed her mother by the face while the other hand shoved the woman backwards. Both touch held an intense heat, an eruption accompanied by an invisible blast zone that sent them both in opposite directions.. And Matty’s entire body felt on fire the moment she hit the floor. 

Seattle. She was in Seattle. Her back was against a dirty hard cement wall. And Briar, who had been in front of her a moment ago was now ten feet back, knocked down from a blast that she could still feel had come from her fingertips. Matty could feel the flames dancing behind her eyes, under her skin, in every crevice of her body. She was like an addict that had gone months, no... years, without any drug. The rush of magic was exhilarating and she stuttered a gasp of air as she struggled to cope with the intense feeling of the burn.

Like any rush of hard drug, the crash was almost instantaneous and she collapsed onto her knees, suddenly overcome with lightheadedness. She focused on Briar’s form ahead of her and swallowed heavily as she brought her burning hands in front of her eyes. Fuck. 

[infireandash]

matty +august 📱

august: They weren't part of my pack, which probably makes it even worse. Are you two ok?

august: And a compliment, who knew you were capable, I'll mark the date.

matty: Anne took a bit of a beating but she'll be okay, I think. I actually killed one of them, it was a little messed up.

matty: don't get used to it, i'm probably still just in shock

matty: have you been doing okay?