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Some more Ms. Romero uwu. 

Yawen belongs to @serpentinebrutality​

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Good tidings to you, my traitorous Rika.

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About, Rules, and Universes/NPCs Pages have all been updated!

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a Look

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Syntherea allowed — no — she merely listened to him talk, offering small nods in his direction, one of them being the one that gave him permission to take his cup. The smell of chamomile tea helped, though it was the reassuring feeling of holding the warm cup between her hands that got rid of her shakiness.

The more Lethros talked, the more it seemed that they had heavily misunderstood each other. His boredom happened to turn into an intense probing, and Therea was around the bottom of the list of demons that should be probed and taunted by a stranger. He couldn’t have possibly known that. As close as he and Ake were, she doubted Ake had told him everything about her — especially her tendency to grow extremely territorial and defensive.

There was a moment of silence once the other’s voice faded, leaving her to take a long sip of her tea before gently clearing her throat. “We definitely did start off on the wrong foot back then. I have no idea how much Akephalos told you about me, so allow me to explain.” The cup was lowered, but remained in her hands. Grounding her, and allowing her gaze to lift from the warm liquid to Lethros. “Such as you are prone to boredom, I am prone to anger and panic. While being in my territory usually helps me relax, your sudden apparition and the fact you seemed to know about my daughter scared me. You haven’t asked for a life story, so I won’t bore you with details, but very long ago my trust was completely shattered.” A fleeting glance towards the gnarly scars around the width of one of her wrists, mirroring the opposite’s, but nothing more. She did not need to remember it. Not then. “I thought you meant harm, and acted on instinct. A cornered snake will hiss and bite,” Therea let out a small laugh before nodding once more, “but they too learn to trust.”

“I haven’t known the Warrens for too long, but they made me part of their family. They are the first people I’ve trusted so deeply in millennia. And given how close you are to Akephalos I suppose that makes you family too.” No hesitation there. She even surprised herself. “I have... a messy schedule, between taking care of my daughter and working. Sometimes I go away to visit a dear friend of mine, someone who is close with the Warrens as well. Most times, I will be painting at home or taking care of my garden. I will ask you to not show up suddenly, but I can’t give you a proper time where I’d be available. Perhaps a message would work? Phones have made communication incredibly easier, even if they’re not to my taste.” In other words, she was useless with technology. “I usually prefer conversations to be set somewhere I know, like my own home or Akephalos’s, or alternatively public parks and such. Though I am assuming you’ll always be the one to visit, aren’t I?”

Finally, the tea cup was set down and Therea managed a deep breath, her embarrassment wiped by a gentle, friendly expression. “Ake is closer than a friend. He’s a brother to me. And I feel like it would make him gleeful for us to get along, so tell me. What would work for you?”

It bordered on impressive, how tightly Leth had his lips pressed together. Despite himself, he’d even opted to dress in a fashion which didn’t illustrate his usual peacock demeanour. The dangerous angle of her eyes reminded Lethros that every motion he made must have meant something to her. And given how they’d parted ways since the Warren’s domain, the existing subtext was not a kind one. “No, I…” … Didn’t think you’d stoop so low. … Never expect intelligent things of you. … Thought you despised me. “… Apologise. I’m aware that our past exchanges have not been very pleasant. To tell you the truth, I was certain my invitation would go unanswered.” He averted his eyes, to avoid staring quite so hard as he had been. She hadn’t liked that last time. “Thank you. Please, join me.” @serpentinebrutality

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Why did she say yes, why did she come, why did she bring tea —

The awkwardness was so heavy in the air it was palpable. Both of their bodies felt frozen solid, apparently. Her lips weren’t the only thing tightly pressed — every single one of her muscles was struggling to relax. Lethros finally talked, a single word, followed by a pause that must have been only a few seconds long but felt like it dragged on for years.

Wait. Apologize?

Don’t smirk, don’t smirk, don’t smirk.

Luckily, for her credibility and his ego, the curve of her lips was soft and friendly, not taunting. That had been close. The smile only lasted so long before it died down, and Therea breathed a heavy sigh.

“I— I am also aware that I might have been too harsh during our first meeting. I was cornered, and thought of you as a threat. And I wasn’t the kindest during that blackout, either. I interpreted your question as a... A provocation.” It was a provocation, she was pretty sure. But if Lethros himself was swallowing his pride, so should she. “I answered as if I am above you—” She was, but the egotistical show of power was reserved for demons she did not mind slaying. “And I shouldn’t have. I am...

I sincerely—

Truly, I,

I apologize. It was never my goal to be so... petty and hateful.”

Well, after that she definitely had to clench his offer and take a seat. Despite freckles covering most of her brown skin, there was a hint of a flustered flush over her face.

“Let us never do this again.” With that, she removed two small plastic cups from her bag to serve the tea from the thermos. There was some shakiness to the motion.

It bordered on impressive, how tightly Leth had his lips pressed together. Despite himself, he’d even opted to dress in a fashion which didn’t illustrate his usual peacock demeanour. The dangerous angle of her eyes reminded Lethros that every motion he made must have meant something to her. And given how they’d parted ways since the Warren’s domain, the existing subtext was not a kind one. “No, I…” … Didn’t think you’d stoop so low. … Never expect intelligent things of you. … Thought you despised me. “… Apologise. I’m aware that our past exchanges have not been very pleasant. To tell you the truth, I was certain my invitation would go unanswered.” He averted his eyes, to avoid staring quite so hard as he had been. She hadn’t liked that last time. “Thank you. Please, join me.” @serpentinebrutality

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Yawen had a secret.

A multitude of them, actually. The most important one was the reason why the mark on the back of her hand was the line between a tattoo and a burn conveniently shaped like a serpent. The woman was no demon — she was merely bound to one out of desperation and convenience. Little did she care what it did to the souls it laid claim to each time she put an end to their lives. Little did she know the gruesome sight it was, to watch someone whose body had been so violently torn apart only get their pain extended as the precise hooks and chains came from a fiery pit that was not in the floor before Sara drew her last breath. Dragged down below, to endure who knows what for eternity. Yawen had no idea that was what happened. But anyone who had been around her at least for a few days would be able to tell she wouldn’t have stopped even if she knew.

Her newest member seemed stunned. She could understand that. No matter what you saw out in the desert, a sight like the one she had made out of the redhead was not easy to stomach. What she couldn’t understand was why Finch stared at her with more than fear in his eyes. As if she was Satan herself, summoned to drag all of the West down to Hell. It drew a dry chuckle from her, one that died at his question. He wasn’t moving. A dangerous gaze fell on him, and for anyone else that gaze might have meant certain death. Yet, somehow, maybe whatever deities existed had favored Finch that night, Yawen looked away, toward the cracked windows and the bright moon outside. Wherever she wanted to go with him, she knew she had the time.

The room smelled like death. Blood made her taste metal on her tongue. With a precise hit from her elbow, the cracked window broke, letting in the cold night air. Yawen then moved, at first seemingly to the bag that had held all of her toys, but instead grabbed the only other chair in that house. Surprisingly enough, she placed it next to the cornered Finch.

“Sit.”

Not a good thing to be told by a seemingly pissed criminal. Instead of tying him to the seat though, Yawen left him to drop onto the chair anytime he wanted and moved toward the first chair they had used. With a slight shove and a gross fleshy noise from the impact and the shifting of exposed organs, Sara was on the ground and her killer had turned the seat around, resting her arms on the back. Given how caked in blood her clothes already were, the extra mess did not seem to bother her.

“Finch, have you ever lost something incredibly dear to you?”

There was an unplaceable softness in those words and her expression, even if both only lasted a few seconds. The sudden lack of a southern drawl, replaced with the lightest hint of a Mexican accent, somehow managed to reveal a lower and almost more threatening voice than the higher-pitched one that she used to yell, order, and threaten. Finch was not expected to answer, and even if he did start talking, she would have interrupted.

“You know that I lost something, very long ago. And what I lost peeled away the layers of my heart,” she illustrated by tapping at her chest, where the heart rested right below, “I’d have thought there was nothing left of it if it wasn’t for the weight. I survived, somehow, to adulthood.” At least, for her, a sixteen-year-old with nothing to live for and who had enough knowledge about how to shoot a gun was an adult. “I didn’t want to, but I did. And I met the right people. Right, at the time. They took me in. Gave me a family. It helped make those fleshy layers grow again, you know? Even if my time was spent reloading and shooting, taking money and lives alike.”

Yawen rested her chin on top of her arm, head slightly tilted, the mismatched eyes of a serpent not leaving Finch. The eyes that everyone in the gang avoided, the gaze that froze their every bone. Staring into them for so long, there was exhaustion amidst the fury and madness. “You see, I’m not incredibly lucky. Good stuff doesn’t last around me.” Almost mockingly, she gestured with her head towards Sara. “The people that made me lose — that stole — the dear things I had were the same people I had found. I wasn’t very smart back then. I showed them my whole hand, let them see that I knew what they had done. It wasn’t too hard of a choice to figure out what to do with me.”

A tilt of the hat and a quick brush of loose, messy black strands was certainly enough to know what she meant when the moonlight licked over the nearly faded burn scars. “Tied and left in a shack. Sara was the last one out, she closed the door. I thought I could make it out. What were some ropes gonna do? There had to be something sharp to cut them. I could try to get up. Then I smelled the smoke.” A small pause, and a barely noticeable tensing of her shoulders. “And I panicked.”

Red Demon did not panic. She barely flinched. But at some point, some day many moons before Finch came to her for a partnership, she too feared death. “I was choking. I prayed for the second and last time in my life. I dragged myself to a corner, and only then did I notice the rotten wood. I could kick it broken.” A humorless laugh fell from dark lips. “Out of a fiery hell into a wet one. The stupid river. I was still tied. And yet, I made it.”

Only after passing out. Only after being reached to by something unnatural. Something that grasped her, stopped her from being dragged deeper in. The ability to live, to avenge, to light the West in infernal fire until every rat that had harmed her was turned to ashes. That was what lacked in her history. The how and why she made it. Finch was not ready to hear it. Maybe he never would be. But his abilities — she did not even know if they only extended to shapeshifting — were needed. He was needed. If not, the conversation would not have happened. She would have made sure he stopped breathing.

And perhaps, part of her did not wish to harm him. A part still so deeply buried in her, that she wasn’t even aware of and could not yet deny its existence.

“I’m not a good person. Some people could have lived the same life as I did and decided to become barmaids. Maybe sheriffs. Not me. These animals,” her boot unceremoniously stepped on what had once been Sara’s perfectly good leg, and the brittle bone snapped under it, “betrayed me. Each of them will have this treatment if I have the time. They deserve every ounce of pain. The people within my own gang — I cannot trust even them. At the slightest fuck up, I make sure it is the last one in their life. I cannot take those risks, Finch. You came to me. I’ve showed you what working with me means.” There could not be a demonstration clearer than Sara’s, after all. Working with her meant leaving behind the regard for other human lives, aside from one’s own and hers. “Now,”

And there, only highlighted by the moonlight, one could swear a darker shadow lurked behind Yawen, with eyes as bright as the flames that engulfed Sara before. A blink, and it was gone, just as it seemed to be slowly gaining a more palpable shape.

“are yuh ready t’ move out?”

He wasn’t sure how much time had passed by the end of Yǎwén’s fun. Finch swore he could still hear the snapping of bone and the wet stretch of muscle as it was pulled further than ever originally intended. It certainly seemed a long, long time to wait around for a spirit. Sara must have died incredibly slowly, and the thought alone made him sick. On pain of his own death, or perhaps something even worse, he didn’t dare pull his eyes off the bloody wreck Romero had made. Not when Yǎwén tore the skin off the poor woman’s thighs. Not when the steady leak of blood reached the tips of his boots. Not when the ethereal fibre of Sara’s essence remodelled itself back into something resembling her fresh corpse. He remained just as stiff when the redhead pointed a gory, broken finger in his direction. Me? He mouthed the question almost imperceptibly. There was no point to feigning ignorance. She knew he could hear crystal clearly, as she screamed to him her final words.

‘Y’VERMIN! AH TRUSTED YUH – !’ Finch instinctively tried to back even further into the corner again, half convinced she’d be the exception to the rule and pluck his heart right out of his chest. But as Sara reached out one phantasmal hand, a menacing curve of steel tore through the back of her neck, yanking the woman down by the very top of her spine - or so it seemed. He didn’t get much time for inspection, as two further hooks pierced and dragged her away. Down, down, into a world no mortal would ever wish to behold, the flicker of otherworldly flames reflected in his panicked eyes. ‘What’s the matter, dahlin’? Saw a ghost?’ He was only vaguely aware of the words which had spilled forth from the demon’s lips. Despite having an average amount of self-preservation, Finch did not stand immediately to heed Yǎwén’s previous order. Slowly, his gaze landed on her form and for the second time, she did not appear even remotely human. Silhouetted by fire and courted by smoke, Red wore the stains of Sara’s blood like the only robe to ever truly fit her.

The act of swallowing felt forced, as if the smoke was still with them, drying out his throat. Quiet as a field mouse, he croaked; “…What- what ‘ave you doone?”

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lotta heat in metalworking

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"What a workout you've made me do, you little bitch"

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So uhm yeah teehee

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I’m sure it gets… pretty warm… up in that factory.. …

He’s trans sorry I don’t make the rules

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Mun’s Aesthetic Game

Rules: Google/search your name + your favorite color + the word ‘aesthetic’. take the first four (non collage) photos and voila you have your aesthetic moodboard! then tag your friends and moots to join.

Tagging: @necroticblonde @wincked

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Kevin Lenaghan, “Stairway”, “Glass Palace”, and “Crystal Stairway” (2021)

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The Strangers (2008)

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She's a Man-Eater

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The Seven Deadly Sins | Wrath

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Nico & V’s Tattoos Appreciation Post