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smolvenger · 2 years

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Stella of Essex or The Vicar's Wife Betrayed Series. Chapter 14- Lemon Blossoms

A Fix-It Fanfiction Series based off of The Essex Serpent

Pairings: Stella Ransome/Male OC: Harry Cavaradossi, some Stella Ransome/William Ransome but focusing on the angst of his cheating and the tragedy of their marriage. Mainly Stella Ransome/Happiness and Will/Facing Consequences for Cheating.

Series Summary: The Essex Serpent is reimagined and told from the perspective of Stella Ransome. And with a new ending. Stella must come to terms with not only her mortality but her husband's heartbreaking affair. A portrait of a woman who became The Ideal Lady her time and marriage required her to be. A picture of a marriage of love and bliss torn apart by a husband's infidelity. And Stella herself in the center of it all, torn between a wife's duty and her own quiet but present rage. Where in the midst of devastating heartbreak she gains her strength, finds her voice, and dares to seek freedom, hope...and even revenge.

Chapter Summary: Stella becomes a widow. She is reunited with her children and then goes to a Sanatorium for her tuberculosis. She is haunted by the memories of her late husband and her dangerous secret concerning his death. Her In-Laws pose her with an impossible ultimatum. And Harry Cavaradossi has a solution for her.

Prologue//One//Two//Three//Four//Five//Six//Seven//Eight//Nine//

Ten//Eleven//Twelve//Thirteen

Warnings: Major Character Death and discussions of it. Discussions of cheating and the trauma it causes, funerals, grief, mourning, families, children, trauma, sex, sex workers, illness, doctors, and a Sanatorium. Mentions of blood. Canon Divergence. Some angst, but lots of fluff ESPECIALLY at the end :) Hurt/Comfort and getting to the comforting and healing section of whump. Being Anti-Will Ransome and Anti-C*ra so if you like the pairing or the characters themselves, you have been warned.

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“Theseus abducted Minos’ daughter (Ariadne) and sailed to Dia, where he cruelly abandoned his companion to her wailing. Bacchus brought love and comfort to the girl, and so that she would shine among the stars, he sent her diadem up into heaven; it flew its precious stones were turned to brilliant fires…”- Ovid, Metamorphoses, Translated by Charles Martin, Book VIII, lines 240-249.

The next day, Dante and Edith returned with a purchase made from the safe money- two black dresses, black gloves, and a veil. They went upstairs to deliver it and Edith helped me change into my first black dress.

“You’re a widow now, you need to wear these for two years and a day…And you must isolate yourself except for church…” she instructed.

“I have been isolating myself since I fell sick. Or trying to. And Edith…”

I felt her help button up the dress from the back.

“Yes?” she added.

I turned around my head to look at her as she finished the last button.

“If anyone asks, I’m not moving back to Aldwinter. I don’t want to go back to the place I fell in love with him. There are too many memories there, happy and sad ones and happy ones made sad after this. also, with the house and William’s property there…I’d like to sell it.”

She looked around at me, nodding. I sat down on the bed, and she sat on a chair.

“The money I’ve been given, and the sale will be given for two things- one, for my children, and second, so I can go to a Sanatorium to stay to recover. But I want the house and property sold and for my children and the dog to reside in London,” I instructed.

“Then we’ll send a telegram, ask the children to pack their things. But Stella, I was thinking…” she began shyly.

“What is it, Edith?” I asked.

She walked around as I adjusted the long sleeves to reach to my wrists. Then she placed her hands in front of her, twiddling her thumbs, glanced down, and then looked at me.

“Stella…Dante’s house only has so much room…could the children stay with me? You can too!” she suggested.

“Why, of course!” I answered.

She smiled and placed her hands on her cheeks. Her eyes darted as her thoughts poured out of her mouth one by one.

“Oh yes! Our own house is big enough for three children and a dog, Stella! After all, I and Edgar have always wanted to have a big family. But…I’ve just had trouble getting pregnant….and at least, Eddie’s fond of dogs!”

“Yes, how wonderful!”

She then took my hands and her eyes looked sincerely into mine.

“And Stella…if you should pass. Edgar and I will adopt the children.…”

“Oh, of course!” I agreed.

We both embraced and then I went over to the looking glass on the desk. I hardly recognized myself not in blue, but in black. My own face looked even paler contrasted with the dark color. Once Edith placed the veil on top of my head and draped the black lace, so it fell long over my face, I wondered if what I saw was even human.

“May I lift the veil if I see my children or someone I love?” I asked.

“I think so,” Edith answered with a shrug. ▬▬ι══════════════ι▬▬ A week passed and I received a telegram saying the children were coming to London. I kept waiting and waiting every day, dressed in my black with a veil behind my face every afternoon. I was waiting to hear those three voices I loved so dearly.

Dante and kindly enough, Harry himself sat by my side each day to talk with me and distract me from my anxiety. I kept wanting to ask those impossible questions: where were they? What were they doing? Did something happen? God forbid, have they been hurt?

Finally, one afternoon I heard a dog bark, and a gaggle of familiar voices at the door. And then a knock. Dante took my hand and squeezed, and Harry went over to open the door.

Turning, there they were with Edith and Edgar in the opening parlor of Dante’s house. They all looked at me and their chatter stopped. Joanna, John, and James were all dressed in black and looked at me like a phantom in my veil. The dog however continued to wag his tail and tugged at the leash eager to greet me.

We stared at each other in our black. Then I threw off my veil to see them clearly.

They all cried “Mama!!” and ran up to me.

There all hugged me, and I even heard some tears. I too was crying despite myself. I said their names and followed each by kissing the tops of their heads. Edgar, keeping the dog on his leash, allowed him up, barking, whining, smiling and I was reacquainted with his cold nose and wet kisses on my cheek.

After this was done, I put a hand on John’s shoulder and another on James, Joanna standing in the middle.

“Darlings, I must tell you. I’ll stay with you for a little while in your Aunt Edith’s house. Then when the funeral is done, I’m going to a Sanitarium. Your aunt and uncle will look after the three of you. once either the money runs out or I have finished my time and declare myself healthy. I will go back to live with all of you with your aunt and be your mother like normal. Please…I’m not abandoning any of you. Please don’t think that…it’s my health…”

Joanna went up and hugged me again, shaking her head.

‘Of course not, Mama!” she insisted.

“It’ll help you feel better!” James said.

John leaned down and petted the dog.

“I just can’t believe Papa’s gone…” he sighed.

“Neither can I…” I agreed soberly. ▬▬ι══════════════ι▬▬ The funeral was a small affair. The veil I wore was able to hide the many tears I cried over William during the service. Crying about what became of him, my Will. The Love of My Life and The Serpent of Aldwinter. Crying from what I had to do. Yet I kept looking around at each corner with my throat tightening and breath hitching. I was watching out for her: Her. Her. Her. Thankfully, I did not see Her in attendance throughout the day.

But then my father and mother-in-law approached me during the reception. Their eyes were red with tears and their faces pale. My Mother-In-Law spoke in a voice low enough that heads wouldn’t turn.

“We hear you’re going to the countryside for your health. Here…take this check to finance your stay. But other than that, don’t expect a penny more from us!” she hissed, practically throwing a check into my hands.

“Thank you, it will be of help to me,” I said with a calm smile. ▬▬ι══════════════ι▬▬ It was hard to leave my children again. But I promised I would write to them every day and they promised they would visit once the train arrived at the station. Harry and Dante helped me up into the car and to our seats. Dante was next to me, and Harry was across from me, I looked out the window and lowered it to listen and say more parting words to James, John, and Joanna. Edith got out handkerchiefs to wave out for me. John practically ran after it until he got to the end of the walkway, waving his arm goodbye and me waving goodbye at the window towards him until he vanished.

“Oh, I have a gift for the two of you…” I began.

Harry jumped in his seat; his hand pulled to his chest.

“Me too? A gift for me!?” he asked.

“Yes, here, in my bag…” I said.

I reached inside the bag I had and got out two pairs of the dark blue gloves I had knitted during my time in London.

“Here for each of you, the first one to shelter me and the first friend I made in London, the first one to help me when Will died. Edith already has hers. I know it’s spring now, but perhaps you can use them next winter,” I reasoned.

Dante smiled, already fitting them onto his hands.

“Why, how kind, Stella! Thank you!” he said.

“I’ll be glad to wear them when it gets colder again. London’s brutal in December,” Harry confirmed.

He placed both into his large hands and held them on his lap, his thumbs feeling the texture.

“Harry,” I started.

He turned his curly head towards me. It was the same color as Will's with Harry's being a little blonder. Also, Harry's wasn't as long as Will's and had a smoothness and shine to it I saw on the top of his head as he took off his hat to be seated beside him.

“I forgot to ask, how is your father now? Wasn’t his health bad?”

“I’ll tell you this. I kept to your word when we parted at your husband’s place. I spoke to my father. I apologized for what I had done in the past. He apologized for making me think he didn’t love me for the times I made mistakes. We cried a lot and then he embraced me, and I called him “papa”- me, a grown man! We speak to each other almost every day and for once not to squabble. As for his health, his heart is weakened, but he seems to be alright for now.”

It was a long, dull train ride. I was grateful for boredom. Fields rolled by us and were replaced by mountains. Mountains so massive they broke through clouds. The train stopped and we took a little carriage to get to the Sanatorium at last.

Nurses and doctors ran out of the entrance to greet us and gather my things. One of the nurses with grey hair and dark eyebrows brought forth a wheelchair.

“Our patients must first and foremost- rest! Sit here, Mrs. Ransome!”

Harry and my brother helped me into the cushioned seat. They walked by me as the nurse wheeled me inside.

“When are visiting days?” I asked.

“Tuesdays and Thursdays. You will meet in the parlor,” she informed me.

I looked over at them.

“Dante, can you visit?”

“Of course, Stella!” he reassured me.

“Write to Aldwinter and tell them they can write to me here for the time being,” I requested.

We heard some giggles from the hallway and a cough from another. I noticed almost every window in the building was open. We paused before a door.

“I’ll go in and make sure your bed is ready- not sure the new girl remembered to make it!” she complained before slipping through the door.

I could feel that the air was crisp, and cooler despite the spring sunshine and being indoors. You could hear some birdsong right on the roof over us. Dante met with another nurse and carried my two bags over to the next room.

Harry looked at me.

“Can I visit you too, Stella?” he asked.

A part of me stuttered out the words. My mouth felt dry.

“Um, yes. I’d like it…”

He smiled as the nurse returned and rolled me on and he followed, hands in pockets.

“Do you remember that joke we managed to pull on Dante those weeks ago? The hat?!” he recalled.

I smiled and nodded, “Yes! I remember! The one with the hole! Switched and he never noticed it! And right when he walked out the rain got right onto his head, and he ran back inside like a cat! I never laughed that hard in ages!”

“I’m glad I could make you laugh, Stella.”

It is a large room filled with beds against white walls. I could place my bags and suitcase beneath it. Nurses and doctors floated by, and patients coughed in their beds, slept, or laid down reading or watching around them. Luckily, my bed was across a large window that overlooked the mountains.

“But you will visit, will you Harry?” I pleaded.

“Yes, whenever I can, Stella, I promise. I’ll even bring the children over with me if I can,” he said. ▬▬ι══════════════ι▬▬ The fresh air was everywhere. It seeped between the windows and through the floors inside. Once you were outside, you could almost drown in it.

For a whole month, doctors in white coats with glasses and pretty nurses of at least eighteen advised me to a rest cure. To have four days of the week where I only lay in bed. As hearty as my meals were, it was awkward drinking and eating the rich food they fed us while lying down. The nurse would tip over a glass of milk from me to drink but was careful not to spill it on me. I became used to the taste of the raw eggs they fed us as a side to our meals. They insisted it was good for tuberculosis. The other three days I was allowed to sit up, I could read or write or sew or knit, but I was not permitted to move a foot from the bed. Sometimes a doctor would only pass me by with a “hmmm, aha…” while observing me and then continue on to the next bed. However, there were days the doctors would look at me carefully for hours and write down notes on what I needed next. The nurses would pass by daily with whatever treatments they had to administer to the others.

Often, I noticed doctors and nurses cleaning up the blood. Sometimes, I would see a dead body- its shape covered by a white sheet on a bed- down the hall or in the room being taken away.

“Please God, I’m so lonely, please let someone visit! Please give me someone to talk to! Please let me get better, please!” I would pray every day.

I didn’t dare ask when I could leave but kept up with the treatments and rested as much as I could.

I could be wheeled outside in the wheelchair to sit outside no matter what the weather was. I had several experiences of staying in a bed that was outside on the yard or balcony on days that were completely clear, the mountain air surrounding me.

I mainly wore white nightgowns when I was in bed. For my hours outside in a wheelchair or rocking chair or seeing visitors, my wardrobe consisted of mourning dresses. As the month of May began, I was sweating profusely beneath it all even in the shade. It was bliss to feel the cool wind.

Sometimes in the distance of nature, the rolling mountains, hills, and forests from my hours sitting outside, I would think of William. I would picture him walking about these valleys and how he would have loved reaching his chin up to look at the mountains. I could see him, hands in his pockets, his long, curly hair flying back with the wind.

To think that I, above all people, could and did end a human life! My husbands!

Sometimes I could still see him, hands in pockets, his long coat, his green scarf, admiring the view in front of him and his lips rounding to the words he’d call me “Stella! Look at the mountain- you could make a sermon out of this!”

Then I’d see a tree and a different picture returned to my eyes. I'd see what I saw that day in Aldwinter. The picture of Will retreating his hand from The Woman’s skirt, placing his fingers to his lips, and licking them. Being with Her. Her. Her. Her.

I would stare at it, into the oblivion of nature so long, that I wouldn’t feel the tears fall quietly from my eyes nor one of the nurses shake me after the air bath was over.

“Mrs. Ransome! Mrs. Ransome! Get out of your head and into the wheelchair! It’s time to go inside!” a sharp, shrill voice would scold me.

I noticed one time as my children were visiting, accompanied by their Uncle Edgar, that Joanna had her hair curled. I told her she looked lovely, and she smiled in admiration of them.

Rarely, the visitor would be an old friend from Aldwinter and I would greet them with happy tears and urges to embrace and we would spend hours talking. I would recall the old church and ask if it was still doing its Woman’s Bible Study. They’d tell me all about the new curate and vicar after William’s passing and what daring thing Martha said about the social classes.

I would spend hours admiring the views from my window on my bed: I could see a large lake and rolling green hills. Even nearby farms let their white sheep graze across it like little white clouds on a green sky.

I could write and read letters. I read whatever books or newspapers or magazines I could to pass the time. Of everyone, I most often got letters from four people: my three children, and Harry.

By June, I became more and more chatty among my fellow patients. With hours of being outside and having tuberculosis, such trials bring people together. I asked who they were and where they came from. I’d tell them that I am Mrs. Stella Ransome, originally from Aldwinter, and I was mourning my late husband, hence my black. There was harmless, fascinating gossip I indulged in hearing and relaying of course. Who was talking with so-and-so, who was sneaking away to drink? What each of my neighbors’ lives was like before this- they were happy to tell me. Who left feeling like new? Who died?

I noticed at the times Harry visited, my mouth would still go dry, and my stomach fluttered. I brushed it off as feeling sick.

In July, I began to speak most often with one woman named Mrs. Elvira Carson. She was a tall woman with chestnut hair and large green eyes that seemed to match the fields and liked to wear pink, soft cotton on hot summer days. Even with the hollowness in her cheeks, she was pretty. We both had an interest in flowers. We discussed what we noticed grew in the gardens, and then what plants and flowers. By August, we remembered our old homes, and then our husbands. Hers was still alive.

“But…I must confess something, Mrs. Ransome…” she said one day, her eyes dripping down.

“What is it?” I asked.

She took out a handkerchief and twisted it in her thin hands.

“I mustn’t complain about you being in mourning,” she muttered.

“No, you can complain to me,” I assured her.

“Part of me is grateful to get away because…years ago…it broke my heart so much but…my-my husband had…had another woman…”

I looked right at her, yet I felt frozen where I sat.

“I did my best to maintain a brave face at home. I bit back everything I felt and let him carry on. Thank God he passed nothing onto me but…I feel so…so hurt…” I reached out a hand.

“Well, I know how it feels. I am so sorry. You must be suffering terribly…"

I looked at her and tried to smile, despite a few tears escaping me.

“I can tell you this…you are not alone,” I promised.

We would spend hours and I’d listen to her, letting her mourn and discuss it. We would cry and then laugh at some foolish business or bit of humor that was picked up. We laughed about how silly men and women can be and the ridiculousness of it all. Of course, I did not discuss my own husband’s affair, much less the truth concerning my husband’s end. I had to be careful about who I confided in. But it felt nice to comfort someone.

“June 1st would have been our fifteenth anniversary,” I recalled sadly.

“I’ve been married to mine for about ten years, our anniversary will be October 10th,” she traded back.

I was then moved to the second class of patients. I could get up but if I promptly returned to bed afterward. I could move and walk around a little bit, but the rest came first no matter what. I was grateful once the air chilled and became Autumn. My mourning and the constant blankets over me made me warm.

In October, Harry came by with Dante. Harry even brought over an open bottle of wine and poured us each a glass. As we all three sat in the parlor and caught up over a cup, I noticed Harry was wearing the gloves I gave him all the way back in April.

I found myself suddenly self-conscious, despite wearing a veil that covered most of my face. Harry’s smile made me hold my breath. I was glad that the veil hid me, so it would hide the fact that my eyes would continually dart back to admire his soft, lovely features. Sometimes he seemed so pretty, it was as if he stole them from the face of a lady. I felt as if lightning struck my stomach whenever he would address me.

“I will write to you shortly,” he promised, gathering the empty glasses.

“You write to me constantly!” I replied.

“Only because I bet you must be bored out of your mind here, Stella!” he joked.

Then I looked at him again. And I froze again, seeing a ghost.

Harry had high cheekbones, curly hair, and blue eyes.

William had high cheekbones, curly hair, and blue eyes.

The nurse brought me to a wheelchair and back to the room where I was sleeping in.

“No, no, no, no!” I thought to myself once I returned to my bed.

You are a complete and utter fool! Haven’t you learned your lesson by now?! No, don’t you dare! I scolded myself. Don’t you know what happened the last time you fell deeply in love with a man? With Will? Can’t you see it shall happen again and again! And you recall how that ended! I scolded myself.

I began to recall and reassess our old interactions and his words as I lay awake on the bed at night. But once I woke up the next morning, I would shake my head and bury myself under the pillow childishly.

If none other than a priest tossed you aside for another woman, then what do you think says how undesirable you are, Stella? You’re making up some silly fantasy and can’t face the real world! Can’t you learn to content yourself with friendships and your children and family and nothing else? Besides, even if he did like you, you’ll be the prisoner of an apprehensible man again!

I kept trying not to think of Harry. But I did. So, I tried to easily swap Harry out with my memories of images of Will in my mind. Then I would let myself cry.

I considered destroying Harry’s letters to not pour over and obsess over every word. But I could never manage to even rip one tear into them. They made me so happy. And I was a sick woman at risk of death. And any happiness I could find was better than none. Even happiness from a silly infatuation.

As November passed by it was starting to snow more often. Despite the chill, I was made to sit outside for hours and hours. I had at least five blankets piled on me, and I was quite grateful to be decked all in black. Although, I did miss my old blue clothes.

In December, one doctor was helping treat my symptoms when he asked about the doctor I had when I was diagnosed. I was moved to another room and had more freedom to stand, move about and walk some, including some walking and exercising outside. I could now be moved up to the third class if there were no relapses.

“When were you first diagnosed, Mrs. Ransome?” he asked kindly at the end of his visit.

“That was all the way back in March. And that doctor said I was dying…” I answered.

He took off his glasses, cleaned them, and returned them to his face.

“Well, although there’s no cure yet, your symptoms seem to be slow, and they seem to have improved since then. Looks like whoever that gentleman was in Aldwinter underestimated how tough you really are, Mrs. Ransome!” he said with a little laugh.

“Yes, I agree. But honestly, I think it’s the air here. The air has helped me,” I replied with a nod.

“Though, you will need a little bit more time before you return to society. But now we can recommend you move far more. We’ll move you to the next quadrants. And more exercise will be recommended. You can stand up for a little bit and walk a little longer and farther- but no running!”

I placed my hands on my lap and looked into him.

“Sir, may I ask, when will I be back to normal? When can I leave?”

He let out a sigh, placed a hand over his mouth, looked at his notes, and then at me.

“Maybe six months. You might relapse, and we can’t risk that,” he answered. ▬▬ι══════════════ι▬▬ In the last week of December, I received two letters. The first one was from Edith which made me gasp aloud reading it.

“Pregnant! Yes, pregnant! Oh, what joy! What relief! I never in a hundred years thought so! But three months along- the doctor confirmed! I know Eddie’s worried now about how to provide for not only a wife but now four children and soon perhaps you, we know we can make it work. We have waited far too long for our own child. But your children are all well and healthy, I assure you! John’s cheeks have grown plumper and redder. His hair is even darkening now to a brown once you look at him. As for James, he has said the funniest things to me this past week, and I must tell you about them. As we were making plans for the nursery for the new baby…”

When I opened the second letter, I saw it was from my in-laws. But the words made the letter shake in my hand.

“Should you prove that you do not have sufficient funds to provide for Joanna, John, and James, we shall gladly take them off your hands. After all, we are concerned since William’s death about your suitability of you to be their mother. They need to grow up in a place beyond your influence- of such a lack of peace in a home that drove William to his death. The girl we agreed for him to marry was a sweet, selfless creature named Stella. Where is she now? Why can’t you become her again? She was the woman we wanted our grandchildren to be raised by. Not this current, selfish woman who drove our son to sin and death by his own hand! If you had made the home peaceful, warm, and loving despite his infidelity, he would not have been driven to kill himself in the first place!”

The letter fell from my hand and the world became foggy with the tears building up in my eyes.

Oh God, either I was going to have to leave the Sanatorium before I was healthy, or they would take them away! Forever! And who knows, I may never see them again. But I knew the doctor would not permit me to leave an inch from the place yet.

What was I to choose- to risk death and head out? Not that I could even sneak out of how strict they were and how there were nurses everywhere. Say I was to die- that would be the best option- Edith could quickly adopt them. But then…the Ransomes were a well-off, influential family. After I was gone, they could out-buy their way to claim the children as theirs.

Either way, I lost.

I told my fellow patients, and together we would cry together. I wrote a telegram to be sent to Dante. I begged the nurses to send it at their soonest convenience.

“MY IN-LAWS WANT MY CHILDREN. STOP.

RUNNING OUT OF MONEY. STOP.

PLEASE SEND HELP. STOP.”

At that point, perhaps I would welcome death. I could maybe make an illusion for myself that my children would be in Edith’s care once I was gone. I would no longer fear being one of the bodies carried out. But so far, each day I opened my eyes. And each day, I knew, the money was slowly running out.

The calendars on our walls shifted. “JANUARY 1894. HAPPY NEW YEAR!” they read cheerfully, filled with images of snow, parties, and celebration. ▬▬ι══════════════ι▬▬

The next Thursday around the evening, a nurse announced that Harry was here to visit me.

“Oh, is he here with the children?” I asked the nurse.

“No, he’s alone! Here Mrs. Ransome…I’ll help you into your mourning dress…and here…here’s your veil,” she offered.

She helped me dress into one of my black dresses and then took the veil and draped it over my face.

“Let me help you into the guest parlor. If you ask for coffee and dessert, we’ll be glad to bring it.”

We walked over to the parlor, she opened the door for me to enter and then closed it, staying right outside.

Harry was sitting in the little chair by the roaring fireplace. He was wearing a new, well-tailored black suit and a black armband around one arm. On the little table were black gloves and a hat with a black ribbon tied around it. He had a little book in his hand that was blue with an illustration of a goat on the cover. Once I walked in, he got up and bowed in greeting.

“Stella!” he greeted.

“Harry!”

“Here…a gift for you. Late Birthday and Late Christmas,” he offered.

He put the book in front of me and I accepted it.

“In your honor, your children and I would find flowers in the park or grow them and press them in a book in your honor. It was a little project for the four of us. and now…now here they are for you…even when it’s winter, you can have flowers.”

Outside I noticed it was snowing heavily, but the paths were cleared out to allow travel for guests and employees of the Sanatorium. You could see the snow as it blanketed the evergreens and kissed the tips of the mountains.

“Why, thank you! How sweet of you and the children!” I replied.

I kept smiling at him, grateful for the veil.

But no…no…no, not again. No, I won’t allow this to myself. I cannot. I cannot. I thought. I made myself frown. Harry swallowed, the lump going down his throat.

“Stella…I’d like to see your face, please…” he requested.

I put the book down on the little table.

“Then remove my veil and look at me…”

He then walked forward and tenderly, gingerly, lifted the veil from my face and over my head. It was a slow, sacred movement- as if he was lifting the lid to the Ark of the Covenant. I looked up at him, my view cleared from the blockage of black lace. His eyes were bright and shiny.

“Soon, you won’t have to wear veils and blacks. You can wear greys and lavenders, I think you’d look nice in grey or lavender,” he commented.

“How is your father?” I asked.

“My father…he passed four days ago from his bad heart.” He gestured to the black armband and then bowed his head. “Oh, Harry, I’m so sorry…” I sighed. “I now am set to own and run a whole bank myself on top of losing him…but enough of my troubles-I was there at Dante’s when your telegram arrived,” he said.

“I’ve paid for this with donations, the sale of the house and the property. Most of the other money I have inherited I have sent to Edith to care for my children. My friends and family and even the one check my in-laws permitted me has been funding my stay.”

From my pocket, I got out the letter from them and gave it to Harry to look over.

“Look here- they’re going to take them the second I run out of money from my stay here. But they’re right on one account…it’s my fault William died,” I explained.

Harry shook his head, setting the letter down.

“He died from his own faults. That’s what always happens in plays. Macbeth died from ambition. Oedipus his stubbornness. Agamemnon his selfishness. Richard the Third, Lear, and Coriolanus are all monsters cruel to others. Now William his lust, indecisiveness, and not acknowledging how his adultery would hurt you. That was what drove him to his death. He made a choice. And suffered the consequences of it. And when there seemed to be no other way-he drank poison.”

“You are right about that…” I nodded.

You heard a patient from outside coughing and a squeaky path of a wheelchair with a doctor chatting. The fire continued to crackle. Outside the sun was setting and the world was turning to a dark grey.

“But I…I’m so worried about losing my children. And the Sanatorium won’t let me leave yet but require money for my stay…” I spoke.

Harry walked over to the fireplace. He leaned against the mantle looking into the flames. It made an orange glow against his handsome face.

“Do you…do you know what you can do about it?” he asked.

“I have two options. I can try to find a way to make money here- sew or clean or cook or garden in the spring to earn my keep. I might be a patient, but they say I can walk, stand, and move some. Second, I can write to my family and friends and hope their donations are enough or in time…” I listed, counting them off with my fingers.

“You have another choice…” he suggested quietly.

His eyes turned from the fire to me. He sat back down on the couch and gestured for me to be next to him. I followed and sat where his hand was. I followed him and sat down.

“What other choice is there?” I asked.

My eyes scattered around, trying to think what he was talking about. He never dropped his eyes on me. Then it struck me what he was talking about. I felt my own heart stop in my chest for a minute. Harry folded his hands together, but his fingers kept twitching. His eyes glanced down.

“Stella…I…I…uhm, I realized. There was a reason why that night I gave you that cup of wine after you cried over The Serpent. Why I offered myself to duel your husband. Why I joined accompanying you to him. Why I followed your advice. Why I sent those bottles to you when you were at William’s place? Why I ran once I heard you scream? Why I offered to bring you home. Why do I keep visiting you? Why do I keep writing to you almost every day.”

“And why do I reply to each,” I blurted in reply.

We looked at each other. I pulled out my handkerchief and put it to my mouth as if to restrain myself from another outburst, not from a cough.

“Stella it’s because…I want you to be happy. I want you to be happy. And I would love it if you could be happy with me…can’t you see? I can’t pretend like I don’t feel anything or feel a little about you, not anymore! I love you, Stella!” he confessed.

I saw Harry was crying a little bit, yet a smile broke on his face.

“Harry, When did you fall in love with me?” I asked quietly.

“I loved you the moment I saw you, I think. Seeing you there…in your blue, your pale face, your hair. I was hungover, I was even questioning if you were real or the fantasy of a drunken man. Yet your image struck me! Yes, you’re beautiful, but I saw something else in you and it chilled and awed me. You were a woman who had seen hell and emerged from it with your heart broken, but not destroyed. You had been to the underworld and emerged changed, but alive. And that amazed me.”

He was sucking in quivering breaths, rambling on.

“Then I found out you were still married. And married to a man who did not hurt your body but broke your heart. I wished I could save you from him then. I knew it would be wrong for me to even speak aloud such things.”

“You’re right- if you even suggested it, it would land me into deep trouble. And an affair on my end would only make things worse” I agreed.

“So, I kept my silence and did what I could to know you were safe, you were alright. But you’re gentle, you’re caring, and you appreciate and look for things no one else does. Even when I was that drunken rake, some overindulged cad, you cared about my well-being and didn’t scoff at me as others would. You gave me wisdom and advice…advice that I followed! It rekindled my father and me before he could die! And it was all thanks to you! Now…now you’re free. You’re free from William…” “So even back then, you still loved me?” I asked.

“Yes, Stella, I love you and I want to marry you!” he declared.

I let out a gasp and put my hand again over my mouth.

“I don’t want to sit to the sides with this through your pain! I will face this as your next of kin! We will brave your consumption together! Plus, once we’re married, the Ransomes will have no claim over the children because I will be their father! I have far more than enough money from the bank and my new position to feed and shelter Joanna, John, James, and you! And you can use my money to stay here and recover if you’d like!”

“I want to, but I…I’m afraid, Harry…” I confessed.

“Do you know what I’m afraid of? I’m afraid of watching you wither and die miserable and alone and without help! I’m afraid of facing this next part of my life alone with no one by my side. Being alone. Then pushed into a loveless marriage for the sake of image- If I don’t marry you, I’ll be forced to marry a wife who just wants to waste money when it could be spent helping someone, someone like you! What lady do I know is Stella Ransome? None!”

He took both of his hands and clutched them gently onto mine. He looked right into my eyes, pleading, promising.

“If you accept my hand, I promise you- I’ll be loyal to you, and I will provide for you and your children. They will want for nothing. So shall you.”

I teared up. Another pair of blue eyes years ago made similar promises that I leaped into eagerly. But I was wiser now.

“But…the thing is Harry…I look at you and sometimes I see Will! I see William’s eyes in your own, looking at me, William’s face smiling at me. I fear…I’m so afraid of marrying another William…of just loving, making myself that open again, and then…” I trailed off.

I pulled out a handkerchief to wipe my tears, not finishing the obvious end of that thought.

“I swear to you, I am not William Ransome- I am Harold Cavaradossi! I am not Will, I am Harry! And Harry will be the most faithful, honest, and loving husband to you…”

I began shaking my head, looking around for Dante or someone to leap out on me in the surprise of this trick.

“You’re…you’re tricking me. This has to be one of your pranks. You just… you want to…want to collect me like one of your courtesans and paint me and leave me for someone else!” I forced myself to say.

He shook his head.

“No, Stella…. I’m not…” he refused.

He reached a hand over to wipe the tears from my face.

“Where were you going before this? Who were you seeing?” I asked angrily.

“Your children, right before I got on the train and left.” He answered.

“And what were you discussing?”

“I was telling them that I was going to propose marriage to you, and they were excited about it! They’ll have me as their stepfather! They want you to be happy too! Here- I have a letter in my pocket from James to you listing all the reasons you should marry me!”

He pulled it out. Sure enough, it was James' childish, loopy handwriting.

“Dear Mama,

Please marry Mr. Harry. For one reason, he tells me all the best stories about the plays he saw. Two, he makes me laugh. Three, he takes me to the park and…”

I let out a little laugh. I kissed the paper from my darling James and pressed it to my heart. And then he laughed too. We caught our breaths, and we went on. The wind whistled and some snow blew with it, creating a wind of dancing snow, and then it stopped.

“When was the last time you saw a lady of the night?” I asked carefully.

“Six months ago! Do you know why? I could pay some poor woman who needed the money and imagine it was you. And because you were in deep mourning and any marriage proposals to a widow within that time were out of the question! But now… I can’t see them. I can’t even step in a brothel anymore because I…I keep thinking of…of what you would think of me. What you would have me be and do…and I thought you would be ashamed of me and now…I can’t anymore…” he answered.

I put the letter from my son into the book. Then I crossed my arms, looking down.

“Harry…I’m not some innocent virgin anymore.”

“Well, neither am I!” he replied.

We both let out another laugh that made my stomach hurt. But once it stopped, I dropped my smile. I felt a little dizzy and I was trying not to shake as the words came out of me, quietly but clearly.

“But you don’t understand…when I was married, I was loved by my husband only for the good parts of me. The sweet, proper lady who thought of others and never herself- a woman who was pure, good, and kind and Harry…I’m not that sweet or kind, not anymore.”

“No! You’re the kindest person I’ve ever met, Stella!”

“I mean it! I’m a monster, a villainess! A sinner!” I protested.

“Who isn’t a sinner!? What is it? Why do you think you’re a monster, Stella?” he asked.

I let out a sigh. I wanted to explode into pieces. I wanted almost to run. The moment had come to tell someone. Finally, finally, tell someone. The secret that could cost me my fragile life. The secret I kept for months and months.

“Well…I shall tell you. Do you swear...swear you will never tell…” I begged.

“Of course, not…”

“Prick your finger on my sewing needle and swear. I am choosing to confide something in you. Something dangerous. If you want to be my fiancée and husband, you must know this about me. You must consider what I really am before you even think of marrying me.” I warned.

“Alright, I will.”

I took out the sewing needle from my pocket and we both pricked our forefingers until a little circle of blood poked out. Then we used our handkerchiefs to press it in to keep the blood from spilling too much anywhere.

I knocked on the door and it opened to the nurse.

“Could we have that coffee and dessert brought to us, please?” I asked.

She nodded and then ran down the hall. Once she was at a safe distance and I was sure no one was around to listen, I closed the door. I leaned in close- his ear to my mouth.

“William’s death was not a suicide…” I whispered.

His eyes went large.

“You mean it was-“

I interrupted him.

“I asked him for a divorce. He said no. I asked him to end things with her. He said no. He was going to make me go back to Aldwinter to die as his angelic wife who would tolerate his betrayal with no thought for her own happiness.”

“I wonder if Will wanted a wife or a martyr!” Harry commented softly.

“I had only one option left…”

“You mean…you…you…”

“So, I put cyanide into his sherry and killed William Ransome myself, Harry. And the police never suspected a thing.”

Harry’s eyes darted around. The corners of his lips curved up to a shaky smile.

“So! The holy man poisoned by his own bloody sherry!” he said.

“Shhhh!” I urged him.

Scurrying back to the entrance, I opened the door again and saw no one was around. Letting out a sigh of relief, I returned to him and kept my voice low.

“Please tell no one!” I begged.

“Of course not!” he promised.

I shook my head and lowered my gaze to the floor.

“What do you think of me now, Harry? Am I…am I a monster to you? I will not hold you back or beg for you. I can understand not wanting to marry an evil woman,” I said.

“You’re not an evil woman, Stella,” he denied.

I blinked. My eyes went up to him. He walked close to me, then opened his arms. I walked into them, accepting the embrace. Warm, soft, gentle- I felt safe. I clutched onto his arms, and I felt him rock me back and forth slightly.

“Even…. even though I…” I was mumbling.

“No, not at all! You tried every other option. You did what you had to. In fact, it makes me admire you.” He whispered.

I paused to look up at his face.

“Admire? Why?” I asked.

“You chose to kill a bad man. When you’re a soldier, as I was, you are required to kill people you are told are bad. You must kill them for the greater good without question. You were a soldier, Stella. You killed for the greater good. Only you tried every option before you had to end a life. Not even soldiers in a battlefield have the luxury of other choices,” He answered quietly, right into my ear.

There was a knock on the door that made me jump and let out a small shriek.

“Here you are- the refreshments!” the nurse announced.

Harry laughed and opened the door, waving his hand to allow it in. The nurse brought coffee and two slices of buttermilk chess pie and set them on the table. We thanked her. Harry gave me my cup and we both took the first sip and then set it down.

“Harry…I cannot tell you how relieved I am that you still like me,” I confessed.

He took another drink with a smile.

“I don’t just like you, Stella, I love you.”

“And I love you too,” I finally said.

Then he got down to the floor on one knee and gently took my two bare hands, kissing them. I smiled as he spoke and had to keep myself from crying again, but tears of happiness this time.

“Stella Ransome…you are a woman as sweet as you are strong, beautiful as you are brave…you could have become a villain yourself from everything you had been forced to endure, but you did not. My Isabella of Valois who needed her deserved happiness. My little fairy, or maybe a little witch who happily put me under her spell. My princess with both a diamond diadem and a sword beneath her silks.”

I let out a little giggle and felt my face become warm, and not just from the comforting crackle of the fire.

“You are an inspiration to me, a comfort, and a constant. I promise and swear to you on my sore, bleeding finger, if you choose to marry me, I will be a faithful husband to you and give you and your children anything you will need.”

A little gasp went out of me in response, and I wiped my tears with my free hand. My heart was beating in my chest.

Maybe, just maybe…I would be stupid to deny the chance to secure my claim over my children as well as support myself. And maybe…just maybe…though I had been hurt by the love from a man, I forgot the joy and bliss of it. Not from bad men, but good men. A good man. A man who knew the worst of me and wanted me anyway. A man who likely- very likely!- would not toss me aside, as Will Ransome, the Vicar of Aldwinter had done.

Yes, there was a risk. That chance I could be proven wrong. But it was one I knew I could take.

“Yes, Harold Cavaradossi, I’ll marry you. But one more thing you must remember…”

I released a hand to gently touch the black cloth tied around his right arm.

“You…you could be a widower in a month, Harry.”

He took my hand in his and kissed it again. He looked at me with the sweetest, the most loving smile I had ever seen, and my heart was filled to the brim as he spoke.

“I would rather have a brief heaven with you than years of the hell I would be in without you.”

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anthonyboordain · 9 months

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florence

“Just believe me when I tell you that the city is beautiful – and not in the oppressive way of, say, Florence, where you’re almost afraid to leave your room because you might break something.” Anthony Bourdain, A Cook's Tour: Global Adventures in Extreme Cuisines

florence... we flew in via another ryan air flight, clapping as we landed. we flew into bologna because there were more flights into that city. after a quick sip of italian coffee out of the vending machine (how i missed you so dearly), we took 1+ hour bus ride down to florence. it started raining. we checked in and walked into the city center and found the city to be draining. crowded with people, umbrellas, puddles of water, crazy traffic pattern. perhaps everything normal about italy, but for some reason that day all these small things got to us. we had decent pizza but left unsatisfied.

fortunately, the second day started off well. we enjoyed italian espresso at a legit local espresso bar. we got a guided tour of the uffizi museum. i'm the type of person that walks through 80% of louvre in an hour. but this tour was different - we took 2-3 hours to really understand the city, its history, renaissance, and the major artists and their master pieces. it was eye opening and mesmerizing - you can see what you understand. my favorite piece was undoubtedly bacchus by caravaggio. god of wine, sitting there half naked, holding onto a flat wine glass, looking tipsy. my type of god.

we walked around florence continuing to understand more of the city. visiting dante's birth place and so on. for me, it was cathedral of santa maria del fiore. the duomo. i was amazed by this architecture while watching money heist. it looks 2d and yet is 3d at its finest with so much detail. everything about the building took my breadth away.

we enjoyed so much bistecca alla fiorentina, pasta with truffle, gelatos, and spritz. oh man, we were doing spritz 24/7 (couldn't handle all the dior and celine visits sober). the weather cooperated and we really got to enjoy the city over the next two days. the morning after we got to climb up to the top of the duomo. i was paranoid by the time i got to the top - my heart wouldn't stop pounding and my cold sweat continued to pour out. so i sat there not really enjoying the view while chinese grandmas were laughing at me. what a moment. what a memory. but man, the older i get the more i get scared of heights.

florence is truly beautiful. it's a walking museum with so many american tourists, but man it's beautiful. as tony pointed out you are almost scared to touch it because you might break it or damage it, and when you understand the history and the magnitude of some of the arts and the architectures, you really really don't want to touch it and rather want to just soak its presence in.

"firenze - the city was draining at first. too many american tourists. but uffizi gallery tour was amazing. actually understanding and appreciating some paintings and sculptures. climbing up the duomo. bisteca alla fiorentina, gelato, and spritz all day, chianti, pasta, and espresso. grazie." - anthony boordain.

#anthonyboordain #eat #drink #travel #anthonybourdain #florence #tuscany #italy #spirtz #pasta #duomo #uffizi

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aureliablr · 2 years

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shiverrinqs · 3 years

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𝙸𝙽𝚃. 𝚆𝙷𝙸𝚃𝙴 𝚂𝚆𝙰𝙻𝙻𝙾𝚆 , 𝙴𝚀𝚄𝙸𝙽𝙾𝚇 𝙵𝙴𝚂𝚃𝙸𝚅𝙰𝙻

status, open — @calamitousstarters

It wasn’t really his scene, Of course, he had every intention of watching his sorceress at the peak of her full power. It was hot who wouldn’t want to witness that. But for the most part, this time of year just left him a little drained as it was ought to do. Given that this was the time of the witch and sorceresses. Didn’t mean that he couldn’t still have some fun. Oh and what fun he would have. The gluttonous fallen leaned back in his seat. Shirtless underneath his purple coat. Cleaning some of the blow that he had just snorted off of a very perky set of tits and etched abs of another. Running what little coated his fingers long his gums licking them clean. Letting his power stretch out to the crowd at the table where they all sat in various stages of undress. The game, Strip poker. what was the fun of partying without a rowdy and randy crowd to join in on the fun? To be gluttons right along with him. “ Alright, Alright now that I had my little snack. “ he grinned laying down his cards revealing the flush in his hand. Dark eyes found the other across the table, “ I do believe its time for you to add to my collection of clothing I’ve accumulated.” he grinned. “ That shirt looks very nice. And I’m freezing my tits off, gimme.”

#calamity.starter #°◦—dante bacchus #tw: drugs #tw: drug use #// just some gluttonous fun with my fallen kiddo #lmaoo

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dante-heller · 4 years

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Cana, about Bacchus: "Fight! Someone avenge me! I don't care who it is!"

Hey, you were into the idea of a drinking contest and he won the challenge. And I have no doubt that you bet your bra on the gamble.

#dante watches fairy tail #juvia lockser #gajeel redfox #laxus dreyar #cana alberona #mirajane strauss #jellal fernandes #bacchus groh

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l0stinadaydream · 3 years

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IWBYS music video | interpretation - pt8/8 ↳the mouth & other symbolic imagery

«The mouth utters the word, the sign, and symbol. If the word is a sign, it means nothing. But if the word is a symbol it means everything.»― Carl Jung

First of all, this is my personal interpretation. I’m not in the director/band minds so these are just the associations I made while watching the video. Secondly, English is not my native language so... sorry for any mistakes.

[1]

The cross necklace coming out Ethan’s mouth could represents the rejection of constricting ways of thinking or being fed them ( if we consider the necklace to go in ) and ,since the cross also stands for ‘redemption’, it could just be about them ‘’repenting’’ ( it is in fact shown during the rewind to try to go back ‘to innocence’ ).

[2]

I know what they were ‘hinting’ at with Thomas bound upside down but I can’t help but also think of the tarot card “the Hanged Man”.

The card symbolizes, among other things, gaining a new perspective.

[3]

Damiano’s choice to pull his mouth on the verse «cause I just wanna amuse ya» creates a ‘grotesque’ imitation of a smile (that fits the horror-ish atmosphere of the scene) and, while he's just miming it, playing with the lyrics as always when he performs, it reminded me of those exaggereted and plastic expressions we can find in gargoyles ( guardians to ‘’ward off ‘evil-forces’’’ according to some and ‘’embodiments of the souls condemned to hell’’ for others or again ‘simple stone monsters’) the so called ‘mouth pullers’, specifically.

[4]

Vic licking the apple can represents a taste of...

- sin (see pt1)

- love & desire ( one of the attributes associated with Venus, the apple is used as a symbol of sensuality and love since time immemorial. To give an apple to another person in the past meant to declare your love - in mytholgy Bacchus, after creating the apple, offered it to Venus to win her heart).

In the Bible it also appears in the Song of Solomon [2:3] symbolizing sensual desires and beautyness “ As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.“ )

- knowledge & freedom ( another symbolic meaning of the apple is knowledge and wisdom. Also, if we cut one orizzontally, we'll see the shape of a five pointed star in its center that is said to represent "the knowledge that makes you free" -- and I can't help but think of the scenes where they play with the white star on the wall, as if it represents what's inside that apple with razors = them just being themselves and having fun - free.)

___

[1] detail from la Primavera by Botticelli - Chloris, with a chain of flowers and plants coming out from her mouth, transforming into Flora .

[4] detail from Venus Verticordia by Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

#måneskin #maneskin #maneskinedit #damiano david #victoria de angelis #ethan torchio #thomas raggi #iwbys video #mine:iwbys interpretation #last one #mine: må #mystuff

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notfeelingthyaster · 4 years

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Imagine (Son of Hades! Percy; Godswapped! Big Three's kids (5/7) or (10/12)

House of Hades AU Pt.1 - Perseus' Journey

Hello! Before reading this, check on the masterpost - it's essential for the understanding of this. Read the warnings before proceeding. Leave reviews, suggestions, and good reading :))

Perseus falls for what it feels like hours - but he counts thirty minutes inside his head - it gives him time to think and plan.

He has his ax - his warhammer left behind in the ship, unfortunately - no food, an empty canteen, his very drained powers, and absolutely no way to get to the Doors. If all the monsters are leaving through the Doors, he could follow them. But how? Would they be able to smell him? How quick would the story of a demigod in Tartarus get to the ears of Gaea's army?

He would be hunted all the way through - and how many obstacles could he really cross?

Nothing in his body was broken - but, every few moments, he could feel himself flicker - absolutely drained. His priority should find somewhere to rest, if he even survives the fall.

Perseus doesn't want to think that way, but he can calculate it: he was falling for about thirty minutes now. 30min x 60 = 1800s; 1800s x 10 m/s² = 18000 m/s. Or 64800 km/h. Simple physics = he shall be a smudge at the bottom of Tartarus.

In fact, the free-fall itself should be enough to at least dislodge his internal organs. Why is Perseus still breathing anyway? Is his godly blood maintaining him alive?

If he survives this nasty fall, he can go to the river of fire - he spent enough time in the Underworld to know that the Phlegethon shall keep him alive - perhaps at a horrible price. It might stop him from ever speaking - the dead keep screaming in the Fields of Punishment forever - but he is not dead is he?

Perseus sees a river approaching - he can't summon the shadows to cushion his fall - these shadows are rebelling and he is too weak. He doesn't want to drown, but between the sharp stones and the water, he chooses the water.

Perseus curves himself into a ball and hopes his heritage will protect him. It still hurts - he probably broke at least five ribs and his right leg feels weird - but he is alive.

The voices in the river are tempting - and Perseus is weak. But his fear of drowning and the sheer willpower of getting the fuck back to his friends is enough. He'll get back to the earth. He will get to his mother. The gods don't get to take this from him.

They took enough.

He goes after the fire river - the Phlegethon is never too far from the Cocytus, Dante was mightily wrong in his self-insert fanfiction - and everything hurts.

Percy cannot walk properly - his right leg is really messed up, all of it - and each breath he takes, he wishes he never fallen down this hole.

A selfish part of his mind wishes he had just... let Annabeth fall. But he knows that his heart wouldn't let it happen - he would die for any of his friends. For any demigods - this was never for the gods.

Everything is trying to kill him. The air is poisonous, the earth is shards of glass, the stones are scaly, the ground is too hot, but he still feels cold - like everything in this place is draining him. There's a giant infinite of nothing stretching over him - no sun, no ceiling, nothing.

The pit feels alive somehow. There's a weird pulsing every time he takes a step, and sometimes he trips on weird purple purulent bubbles. Everything is also so humid and slippery - it's like walking on dead fish.

He shivers - is the beginning of sickness and intoxication settling onto him. Perseus doesn't have the luxury to vomit - not here, not now. He doesn't have nutrients to waste. Perseus stop thinking about the place he is in - the less he knows, the best.

Perseus is half pushing himself through, before getting into the margins of the lava river and just drinking huge mouthfuls. It's awful - it burns his hands, his chapped lips, and all the way down to his stomach. He can feel the taste of ash and blood in his tongue, and wonders if his voice will be the same after this.

It's such a capricious thought that it makes him chuckle mutely. He is lucky if he survives to destroy the doors. It's a miracle if Perseus ever reunites with his friends - he would gladly do it without his voice.

The lava heals most of his injuries - the scars never leave. His leg is still a little wobbly - like he might fall any second.

After he fills his canteen, Arachne appears in all of her dastardly glory - and Perseus hates her. It's her fault he is stuck in this mix between the ninth circle of hell and Mordor. Another immortal being with a sense of superiority and a grudge against the gods. It's her fault, and Perseus wants her to suffer.

She deserves it - Perseus doesn't blame her for her grudge in the gods, but she took it out in them, in the demigods, in his people. At least he could take this opportunity to take this blight from the world for a while.

He kills her - slowly. He starts by cutting her legs - every time one reaches for him, he racks it off. Then, when it tries to run away - or better, roll away - he beheads it.

Because it's not a she. It's not a girl of Athens with a bad case of hubris - it's a monster. A monster created by Athena - and how fitting that the goddess created the monster who stomped her children for centuries in a search the goddess send them in. Wise, indeed.

He keeps limping to safety - is there even safety in this hellhole? Damn Arachne, damn Athena, damn Annabeth for wanting to prove herself to the bitch.

He loves Annabeth - not the way she possibly wants him to, but love nonetheless - but this. This is her fault. If not for her misplaced want for approval and immensurable hubris, they might as well be all in the ship now. But that was always his destiny, wasn't it?

Child of Hades - might as well die in the depths of hell for those ungrateful bastards. Wasn't that what they did to his father? Cast him into hell - and isolate him forever from earth and heaven. They must be so happy, so glad that he is here, again dying for immortal beings that don't care.

He is going to get out. And then, he is going to punch every single god that he ever restrained himself from doing so: Dionysus, Mars Ultor, Venus Verticordia, Aphrodite, Bacchus, Juno, Hera, Ceres, Zeus, Jupiter, his father, Nemesis, Invidia, Athena. Every single one of them. He has a growing list.

He keeps limping - most of the time, he borders the stones that litter the margins of the fire river. Sometimes, he hides in the shadows of the cliffs - Perseus cannot waste his strength, and the more that he stalls the monsters to know he is here, the most he lives.He can't keep hiding for long.

Three cyclops pass through him - the exact ones who tried to kill him in his first quest after the Bolt. They attack him - Perseus kills all three of them. It’s their fault too - they should’ve killed him before.

Ugly #1 tries to attack him alone - his hubris is his downfall. Perseus cuts both his arms before finally spilling his guts on the fiery ground. Ugly #2 and #3 go down together - both with their heads split open under his ax.

Perseus has no need for mercy. He has an objective - and no obstacle will stay in his way. He does meet Bob/Iapetus in the way - and is sad, because he has no space for morals here - righteousness will only get him dead in this wasteland.

The titan wants to join him - after he destroyed his life. He can't remember anything - not even here, on the motherland. How much of a dick can he be?

A big one, apparently, because he decides not to tell Bob anything. He doesn't have the raw strength to fight a Titan. He doesn't have his powers - not even his warhammer. It's just him, his ax, and a lot of firewater. And now, Bob and his war shovel. Perseus is not telling a titan that he helped murder two of his brothers and wiped his memory.

Bob tells him they are far from the Doors - that time passes differently inside Tartarus. When Perseus tells him, in a raspy voice that he barely recognizes, that he's been here for almost a day, the Titan disagrees - he might've been here for an hour or a week, maybe more, maybe less. There's no way to know.

They keep walking. The titan's aura is almost enough to keep them safe, but some monsters don't care. Perseus kills two empousai, four carnivorous sheep, and a spartoi - what wonderful flashbacks. Bob kills thrice as much.

They stop to rest in a cave at a secluded part of a cliff. Perseus is unable to sleep - what if Bob remembers that he is not Bob and decides to kill Percy in his sleep? What if they are attacked? What if this poisonous ground swallows him when he closes his eyes?

So he curls around his ax, with his back to the wall, and keeps his eye on Bob. Bob ends up talking to him - even if Perseus doesn’t think he can talk back - about Persephone's garden and the bloom of pomegranates on the cold of winter nights.

It’s wishful thinking, but Perseus wants to be thirteen again, scrolling through the underworld gardens barefoot, hand in hand with Kore. He remembers the smell of her hair and the curve of her lips, and the way the flowers purred under their joined fingertips. She was the first to touch him - besides his mother - and that he didn’t fear destroying.

The walls are covered with some viscous substance. He doesn't think much about it - the more he thinks, the more he sees. And he doesn't want to see.

They leave when a caravan of monsters pass - and Percy muses if he was able to close his eyes for even ten minutes. They crawl through small passageways and climb walls that feel like ice and fire for what it feels like a week - it's impossible to know.

Perseus is collecting scars - the river of punishment heals him, but he can feel them under the rags he is using to cover himself. A hellhound left a cut across his face, and he wonders if he'll look like Luke now. His right leg is still acting up.

Seconds could be millenniums and centuries could be hours. The two of them rest five times - it’s how Percy is counting the time.

The war hasn't been won. But the monsters keep reforming and walking in the same direction as them, so they also haven't lost yet.

They find a cat - a skeleton saber-tooth tiger, because this is the place for happy memories - and it just keep following them. It reminds him of Blackjack - and he doesn't have the heart to kill it.

Percy wonders if any of his friends are dead. He wonders if he’ll ever be able to fight for his friendship with Annabeth, if he’ll ever joke with Leo, mess Hazel’s curls, get scolded by Will, or teach Piper math.

He wonders if he’ll ever ask Jason to teach him how to swim to get over his fear of drowning, ask Nico the rules of Mythomagic or simply talk quietly with Frank again.

He wonders if he’ll ever get to choose a college, if he’ll ever see his friends and tell them how much he loves them again. Percy wonders if he’ll ever go on a date, see cheesy movies, have his first kiss with a boy.

He wonders if he’ll ever taste his mother’s cookies again. He misses the warm touch of the sun in his skin, and the days he didn’t survive on lava and sheer stubbornness.

They meet the Arai in a cliff - and Perseus cannot stop killing them. The first curse that falls upon him it’s dust, choking and strangling him - like so many enemies that he let the earth devour. Then the blindness - the same he inflicted in Hyperion with his shadows - and his feet turn to lead - Hercules. One after the other, all the monsters that he killed get their comeuppance - Perseus does not regret any of them.

One of the curses, however, doesn’t come from a monster or an enemy - it’s from Lee Fletcher. His heart aches with loss, a suffering Perseus doesn’t feel in a long time - depression, his punishment for killing Michael Yew.

Perseus regrets it - he also regrets Bob, who stands aside and does nothing to interrupt his suffering. Perseus doesn’t blame him - perhaps he would have done the same, have their positions been reversed.

He feels his blood boil - his body hurts with the pains of the injuries he inflicted through the years - and he knows Phineas’ curse will be the one which finally takes him.

Suddenly, Bob helps. It’s Kore who interceded in his name - the only deity who never failed him. But it’s too late - he doesn’t feel pain anymore. It’s a sign - a sign that he is going.

He is glad Bob wiped the Arai - at least now, he can go in peace. In the middle of his haze, he looks around and finally understands what he is blocking and denying since this journey started.

Tartarus is not a place. Tartarus is the personification of everything bad - and it’s horrifying in such a level he closes his eyes - he doesn’t need his last moments to be a nightmarish landscape.

Percy can feel himself flicker. Since coming here, he wasn't able to use his powers well. Now he knows is probably because the "ground" is no ground, and he can't travel in the shadows, because the shadows are corrupted. Because this is beyond his father's domain, beyond the gods.

He closes his eyes and imagines Elysium - the children that fell in the first war. The soldiers of the Twelfth Legion that died to protect their home. Michael Yew, Castor, Silena, Bianca, Ethan, Charles. They are waiting for him on the other side.

If he dies here, does he even get to go there? What happens to demigods that die in the dark lands of monsters? Did he get to die? Or was he a part of this now? Would he reform eventually?

Bob is carrying him somewhere. He tried to force-feed him lava - but Perseus could have told him it wouldn’t work. There’s a limit even to magic rivers.

He must have passed out, because when he opens his eyes, he is in a gigantic bed, in a place he doesn’t recognize. Percy looks through the window. It’s not Camp, not Nova Roma, not Argo II - and definitively not Elysium.

The air is red and green and he can see the fires burning at a distance, the mountains of the body he is walking. He is still stuck in Tartarus.

Did he reform? Was Iapetus able to save him? How much time did he stay asleep? Where are they? Percy is pretty sure a house is not part of the Tartarus package.

The demigod tries to sit up, but something is weird. He looks down, and where his full right leg once was, now lies a half-metal one.

Perseus can see gears turning, the places where the bronze meets black. When he tried to lift it, it answered as if that is his own - even the same weight. His mid-thigh is still meat and bone - but the rest isn’t his.

He touches his knee - knocks into it, twice. It's hollow and clangs like metal, but somehow, he can feel it. Perseus tries to detach it: impossible. Little tubes seen to stick in his upper tight.

Bob is outside - he is talking to someone. He enters the room, but Perseus doesn't see who is.

Bob - or, well, Iapetus - tells him that the weight of his earth-related curses, plus the sheer blood that he lost, was too much for his already damaged leg, the bone broken in at least five or six parts and an infection settling in. He wouldn't survive the fever - so the titan had to cut it off.

"When the Labyrinth fell, it fell here, leaving junkyards everywhere. There's one that is too close to the Mansion of the Night, so almost no monster goes there. Me and our host, we are no monsters - so we go there sometimes. We found a leg for you - from a mechanic body marked as Sextus."

Sextus - where had Perseus heard something similar? Oh, that's right. Quintus. He was wearing the prototype of Daedalus next body, that he never got to use because Percy freed - banished - him to the Underworld.

He says he adapted it a little - it was too short for Perseus, so they needed to bastardize an arm to make the socket a little bigger - and connected into his thigh.

"It was a pretty simple process - this version is advanced enough that the tubes connected themselves, we just had to put a little fuel. It will be like your own leg."

Percy wants to scream. This is not his leg. He wants this leg out, now, and his leg back. It feels wrong. Dead - he can see little tubes not unlike veins, but there's just lava running on them.

So this is what Daedalus used to fuel himself - the waters of Phlegethon, damned waters to fuel his damned life.

This is just a nightmare - how is he going to survive this without a limb? Will he be able to walk? Fight? Run?

But his voice escapes him - Percy is still too damaged from the lava. His scars itch - they are of a pale red, and he has all kinds of them. He must be a terrible person to attract such curses - the weight of Lee's curse was removed from his chest, but not his mind.

The neural connections in this must be pretty good, because he is able to feel when his "foot" touches the ground. It takes him a few minutes to readjust - bit it's just like nothing happened.

But it did. That's not his leg. That's not his limb - that's alien. It feels and it walks and it works even better than his old messed up right leg - but at least the messed up right leg was his.

Perseus has no need for limping now - but as he looks at his first mirror since this started, he staggers.

His whole body is mapped by white and red scars that mix with keloids - a jumbled mess of raised patches and ugly patterns. In his face, there's a scar just like Luke's - from his forehead to his jaw, crossing his left eye.

Perseus puts on his ragged shirt - he hates the scars on his chest - but he looks at his eye, and thinks it suits him - it's a mark of betrayal, of the gods' abandonment.

His hair is no longer the short curls he gained while in Nova Roma - now it's a big dirty mess that Percy can't cut or do anything about, so he just bundles it up on the top of his head, out of the way.

Jeez. He is a mess.

Everytime Percy takes a step, his "foot" clangs against the floor. He tugs his semi-destroyed shoes in, and goes with Iapetus - to meet their misterious host.

It turns out not all giants are bad - of course, Perseus thought that Damasen shouldn't be the only exception - Porphyrion, the one Jason fought, should've been so different. Enceladus too - wasn't Athena a goddess of war?

If they are supposed to be their complete opposite, why Ephialtes and Otis were all for parties? Why was Porphyrion just as arrogant as Zeus, why was Polybotes able to raise tides and shake the ground?

Perseus doesn't trust Damasen. He might be the "gentle" giant. But he could - easily - kill a drakon everyday. Maybe he first killed the drakon to help a girl - Moira was her name - but doesn't change the fact that he is able to kill a drakon.

He is grateful for the leg - grateful, even if a grudge is clawing it's way to his heart with the force of a thousand suns - so Perseus thanks the giant, drinks the broth of drakon meat, and rests.

They stay there for a while - Perseus doesn't count time well. Damasen does not seem really happy to let him stay - but Iapetus has some hold over him. He tries to convince the giant to fight for them, but for no result.

Damasen tells him that, while Gaea locked him here, he would never get accepted by either side - the gods would never let him live between them. He has no reason to pledge his loyalty to anyone.

Iapetus/Bob and him sit together. It doesn't feel like forgiveness when the titan finally talks to him. They talk about Zoe Nightshade and Calypso of Ogygia, and the stars above. The titan tells he misses it - his family, his granddaughters - he calls them little stars, because of their father.

Perseus doesn't talk much about their sorrows - he focuses on the way Zoe was determined on doing everything for what she believed on, and Calypso's cunning mind and sweet words.

Iapetus doesn't forgive him - But he does tell Perseus he has a plan.

Apparently, he cannot cross the army of monsters being a demigod - he would be dead in seconds. He only survived up until this point because of his connection to the Underworld.

So Perseus needs to find Akhlys - the goddess of misery - and get the Death Mist, something to shroud him from everything trying to kill him.

Even Damasen's helpfulness has an ending - when Polybotes comes after vengeance, Iapetus helps Perseus run away - with just his rags, a canteen of firewate, his ax and his new leg.

He hates his leg. It answers almost like it's his, and he can walk almost perfectly with it, and when they had to stop and fight a cyclops, it didn't stop Perseus.

But he hates it. Percy wants himself back. He wants out of this desert and doesn't think there's a single good feeling inside him anymore.

But he has to keep going, keep walking. For Nova Roma. For the Camp. For Reyna, Malcolm, Will, Frank, Jason, Piper, Hazel, Leo, Nico, Connor, Alabaster, Grover, Bob, Clarisse, Paola, Annabeth, Rachel, Persephone, Kore, his mom.

Perseus' stomach rumbles with hunger - he grew too comfortable with the drakon's meat stew in his stomach and the rough blankets beneath him. He got too pampered - time to go back to the hot shards of something beneath his cheek and the taste of fire in his tongue.

Now, at least, he can sleep a little - when he is not plagued by nightmarish visions of what he can now see, or of his friends dying because he is stuck here and unable to help. If Iapetus hasn't killed him until now, it's very improbable that he will.

He keeps muttering to himself - Reyna, Malcolm, Will, Frank, Jason, Piper, Hazel, Leo, Nico, Connor, Alabaster, Grover, Bob, Clarisse, Paola, Annabeth, Rachel, Persephone, Kore, Sally - a chant for hope that never stops. Their names sound bad in his tongue - like he is corrupting them.

The closest they get to the goddess house, the more miserable he gets - Hazel, Leo, Nico, Connor, Alabaster, Grover, Bob, Clarisse, Paola, Annabeth, Rachel, Persephone, Kore, Sally - as if he should just stop hoping, stop yearning.

He'll never leave this Pit - Alabaster, Grover, Clarisse, Paola, Annabeth, Rachel, Persephone, Kore, Sally - he'll die here. If not for the names that keep him going, Percy would just drop down. Stay there, become part of this forest of desolation.

Iapetus can't follow him into misery's lair. The titan has no need for death mist - he can take the direct path to the monsters that wait in the Doors.

So they part ways - Iapetus goes back through the Central Wasteland, and Perseus goes forward - into the Poison Meadows of Akhlys.

Perseus sees the goddess of misery - and thinks she looks the part. She and her shield - Hercules' shield - crying eternally.

She denies his request - but he taunts her. Is she just a minor goddess? Wouldn't she want the Tartarus to be filled with wails of the monsters, unable to go out for decades at a time?

Akhlys agreed - but Perseus wasn't sure. She was a little too eager - not something you want from a primordial goddess based on feelings. Elemental gods are so much easier.

And she was too poison-happy for Percy's liking. The way she smiled, fat tears and snot running down her face didn't impress him though: every time he looks around he sees this convoluted primordial of hell and was two minutes off snapping, so.

Rachel, Persephone, Kore, Sally.

Everything around him was wet and disgusting - like most of Tartarus. Maybe being the habitat for thousands of your children isn't the highest of body care.

They stopped near the void, the emptiness stretching beyond him as sure as nothing was above him. He could feel it pulling at his soul - did he even have a body? Or was he just smoke now?

Somehow, his metal leg clung onto him. His ax didn't fall from his hand, although he felt like the weight of the sky was again in his shoulders - he felt at the same time, eighty years older and as if he was nothing at all.

Death always clung at him - he was a spawn of Hades, a hellish being. Perseus always ran cold - and some people, the ones that thrived on life, couldn't get close to him without shivering. But this - this is what death felt like.

Not being dead - being dead can be either peaceful or eternal torment - this is the permanent state of death. Like he is just about to die, but there wouldn't ever be a release.

Persephone, Kore, Sally

Under him, there was Chaos and Nyx - the two primordials that formed the world. How many of those never leave this pit, never got their cults advanced, and were reborn in between the gods above?

Hecate, Nemesis, Eros, Eris, Morpheus, Hypnos, Geras, the Moirai, all of them, dwindling between the Olympians. Did they laugh at their stupid dominions over physical mattters - while they manipulated the world like puppeteers?

For how many times the arrows of love touched the immortals? How many decisions were made under the influence of dreams or vengeance? How many fates did the Fates decide in the strings of their tapestries?

Erebus - the eternal darkness. That is what is lurking above them. Perseus sneaks a lookup - and he can see curves of a person where should be nothing, the points of sharp teeth - it scares him far more than Tartarus.

Akhlys wants to kill him - Percy is not actually shocked. Everything in this Pit is trying. He tried to slash at her with his ax - but his ax was smoke, and Perseus has a very bad control over spirits, so it's to no surprise he was awful at controlling his own spiritual form.

Akhlys advances on him - and, conveniently, she can hurt him. He dodges as much as he can, but inevitably, she caught up to him.

She gives a swipe at his metal leg, her hands are around his neck - the goddess of misery is trying to suffocate him with her poisonous claws. Perseus hates suffocating.

"Stop... P-Please..."

Kore, Sally.

"Misery doesn't stop, misery is everything you'll ever know"

Perseus can't do much, but as he fights back, he feels it - in the bottom of his stomach, a pulling. The same pulling he uses to open the earth and to summon skeletons, coming from Akhlys.

Then, he touches her.

And Akhlys screams.

Perseus can feel the pulling, the way her immortal life is trying to stay in her body - but he pulls harder and harder.

"Please... Please stop."

She is aging under his eyes - he can take everything from her. Perseus is death - and life has touched him. He wants her to suffer. He wants to see how miserable Misery can be.

"Decay is inevitable, decay is everything you'll ever know."

Around him, the poisonous plants thrive, bloom to full beauty. Under him, Akhlys never dies - she shrivels, wailing as he begs him to stop.

But Perseus is death and life. Perseus is decay - he can take and take and take, and leave only an empty husk behind. He would never stop - he would destroy everything in his path, in this wasteland that he was sent to die by Fate.

Sally.

It's his mom's name that brings him back to reality. He jumps off the shriveled corpse-looking goddess and scrambles backward as she scampers away.

Perseus doesn't know how much time he passes there, in between the garden of poison, looking at his hands and shivering. He became what he feared the most: his touch is poison.

It's been many years, but Percy wants his sweaters and his gloves back. He wants to be covered, so no one will ever touch him again - he wants to cut his hands off. He is dangerous.

A deep, dark part of him wants to kill - what is the difference if he kills them by decay or with a stone spike? They would be dead either way.

Maybe he belongs here - he muses - maybe he became a monster, just like the ones he killed. Maybe he would just die and reform here, eventually.

Is he even a person anymore? With his metal leg and destructive skin - how much of him is god? Can he decide the fate of life - is this his heritage?

He hates himself, this situation, this life. The poisonous flowers flourish under his fingertips - and he wonders if he touches a daisy, it'll shrivel and die just like Akhlys.

But he traded a goddess for another, for who would appear other than Nyx. Perseus tricks her - says that he is making a map of Tartarus, for his father, but that she isn't really in the itinerary.

Nyx doesn't believe in his lie - she is a primordial goddess, not an imbecile. He calls her minor goddess, however, and that's enough to get her mad: hubris is a failing of most deities.

She gets mad, invokes her children to kill him - of which Perseus knows quite a few and would prefer if he didn't. So he starts talking - a way of stalling them - and promptly proceeds to try and make her tell him which one of them is the worst.

The children of Nyx - all with terrifying metaphysical dominions - start an enormous fight - which is enough for him to slip through with closed eyes - one is not supposed to look at the Mansion of Night.

He runs - and he feels them behind him. Their powers can't affect him - he is almost dead after all - but they are gods - stronger and quicker than him.

But Perseus prays and he runs, using the stone under him to propel his feet. He feels like he is running for years when he finally reaches the end of the hallway - finally on the margins of the Acheron.

The son of Hades hates water. But worse of all, he hates water that remembers him of his failures. Michael Yew, Silena, Charles, Ethan, Luke - his fault. Their blood is in his hands. He made Misery miserable - he should jump.

He doesn't. The Nyx cavalry wakes him up from this display of guilt and regret - it's a breakdown he had way too many times in Tartarus, and he is not doing this now.

Perseus uses a stone to propel himself over the River - his adrenaline making him soar through the air. He falls on the other side of the water - and doesn't break anything. He can't - he is made of smoke.

Bob - definitely Iapetus now - has his memories back. When they meet again, it's closer to the doors - who are being watched by glowing Hyperion and Krios - the titan Jason killed.

By the time they reach the Doors, all the Gigantes have returned to the mortal world - or at least, it's what Bob tells him. Even the giants they already killed - here they are again, making a mess.

Perseus tries to be sneaky - but there's no sneaky way to subtly destroy the chains that hold the Doors in hell. The monsters almost don't notice him.

But Tartarus centainly does.

And if he thought seeing Tartarus was bad - well, actually seeing him in his interim is way worse.

Tartarus has the skin he's been walking for who knows how long - slimy and greyish - with red eyes and a vacuum-like face - he seemed to suck the life out of them.

He attacks Perseus - calls him an intruder, tells him that he cannot freely walk him. Perseus wants to scream - He didn't want to be here either! This wasteland took his voice, his leg, his humanity. It took everything from him!

Unexpectedly, Damasen comes to his rescue, having tamed the Maeonian drakon. Bob uses his shovel to do the same - while Small Bob stays around Perseus' heels.

"It's your time to save the world, demigod. This is not the last sacrifice in the war you're raging against Gaea."

Percy enters the elevator. Bob stays to hold the button - he can't take him upside like they talked about. Damasen can't come - they'll die so Perseus can go save the world.

"Twelve minutes. Take Small Bob with you. Don't let them kill him - tell the stars I said hello."

So he starts going up. Perseus holds the Doors firmly shut as he looks at himself - a mechanical leg, a skeleton tiger in his ankles. He wonders if he'll make it upside. If part of him won't ever leave Tartarus - if when he dies, is there he'll appear.

The Elevator shakes - once, twice. Maybe he'll die here. Maybe it's better than what he is going to face when the doors open - it's definitely better than what he left behind.

He doesn't think about Bob and Damasen dying behind him, for him - he doesn't think about it at all.

The doors finally stop. He is not sure twelve minutes have passed - maybe it was less, maybe it was more. Perseus thinks this is it. He is not ever coming out. He walked the whole Tartarus, faced horrors far beyond any mortal ever had to, to now die because of doors.

Then he sees the light, and just let the doors go. Perseus takes one look at them - he can see at least two people and a giant - and takes one step out.

He breathes - ozone, oxygen, pure air - and then passes out, crushed under the sheer pain of life.

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nosferatvpussy · 3 years

Text

@eleusinian-kitten thank you for the tag! Love these things.

We're snooping on your playlist. Put your entire music library on shuffle and list the first ten songs and then choose 10 victims.

1. Only Happy When it Rains - Garbage

2. The Hollow - A Perfect Circle

3. Dante's Inferno - Scepticflesh

4. Du Hast - Rammstein

5. Rev 22-20 - Puscifer

6. In Praise of Bacchus - Type O Negative

7. Of Wolf and Man - Metallica

8. Troy - Sinéad O'Connor

9. You've Seen the Butcher - Deftones

10. Scheiße - Lady Gaga

#not tagging anyone cus I'm 👏🏻lazy👏🏻#personal

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thecalamitytimesarchive · 4 years

Photo

HERE’S THE PUNCH

A plentiful and bountiful Winter Ball, as hosted by local club owners Evanora Bile and Dante Bacchus; spectacular hosts, an event that held true to its word; glorious. Hitch free and one for the history books. It remains to be that the only disappointment that the Nightkeeper themself did not make a personal appearance at their own event – it had been named after them of course. A mystery benefactor that funded every bag of Kochba, but it’s very clear the residents of Calamity are grateful for their silent overseer nonetheless.

A wonderful end to a year that some would rather forget as they start entering one anew.

Some notable reports – from our trusted sources scouted the Nightkeepers Winter Ball for the scoop –

A Matias “Matty” Desoto made quite an introduction up on a stage, a rather enticing offer issued to some of the more bloodthirsty of crowds, though, it appears, not a drop of his had been spilt. Lucky guy.

The grapevine speaks of one Max Roper and her tussle – but no more details were available, we assume she’s alive and in one piece, no?

Along the same thread, a Mer mysteriously vanished, as did another throughout the night – Josiah Maxwell and a Katya Tilka, we wonder what happened there?

Another drama for the Merfolk and their antics, someone’s now wearing an eyepatch – is this purely for a fashion accessory? We’re stumped on this one, reports say Quintus Zander decided to rock a patch, any reason for that?

The High Sage also getting a little close with a certain mortal? Zyler Fane and Rosa Malor, something blossoming? – what a dangerous path, though, one one source confirmed this.

The sweet residents of the State appear to be thriving in their elements, a strange tension that settles and rises in waves – but nothing of import, though, whispers of some problematic letters are going around.

AND THERE’S A KICKER

BREAKING !

Caught late – as we spoke so highly of the Winter Ball and its lavish and enjoyable evening as provided by the Nightkeeper. Later comes the reality; a sickness plagues a select few – an odd new form in a few who wake up the next morning absent their memories – answers seem far and wide.

It’s so little known – under wraps by all sides of the state, no weakness to display, can be assumed?

But some appear cured – by what? Answers don’t come in hard. Nephilims are out in force, blasts of light a little more prominent over in the West side as of later, is this related?

Or is something else happening?

REGAL, RIGHTEOUS AND ROYALLY DEAD.

Congratulations to the new King Andrew and Queen Saylor Zander of the Forgotten, the wedding and coronation filled with something so incredibly dark.

Not only was King Andrew stabbed, twice, may we add.

But our deepest condolences to the Zander family for the unasked for gift of the late Queen Aviana Zander, delivered signed, sealed, delivered on their gift table...

In all her dead glory.

I suppose... it’s one to remember, at least. A whole shutdown of the reception for interrogation that gave the Merfolk free reign to interrogate their guests. Yet, Queen Saylor and King Andrew have not released any formal statements about this potential assassination attempt and slandering of the most awaited day in Merfolk history.

Good luck, King and Queen, we wish you a long rule.

It’s obvious in the way the front page is slammed with article after article about the previous two events; so little time apart, so little recovery, that the residents of the State of Calamity feel overwhelmed; a kind of unease about the civility that remains between the fragile sides of the state.

The next page of the paper, calmer, the updates:

LATEST

There’s been some grand openings this week!

SINSATION is now stocking the most sought after supernatural substance; a high to be bought in rides and enjoyed across the masses. We imagine the owner Zane Saxena is glad for business, considering the rare tree sap can only be harvested three months of every year; once it’s gone, it’s gone for another nine months.

We know we’re going to be stocking up!

AND THERE’S A NEW LGBTQI+ CLUB ABOUT, WHITE SWALLOW opened this week, a wonderful grand opening that was manned by Harley Xhanthi and his absence from Restricted Emporium is already sorely missed, but we’re extremely excited for the newest Eastside Club to thrive in amongst the chaos that usually comes...

Has anyone noticed something different about the owner lately, though?

TIP THE TIPPERS

Did anyone else see King Andrew kissing Harley at the ball? Wonder what other dirty little secrets he has... - sent in by anonymous.

Anyone else see The Commander and the vamp Malcolm sneak off at the wedding? Is that not the second time now? - sent in by anonymous

I didn't think nerd was Axel's type, but bartenders reveal all and he definitely had his tongue down a scientists throat. Using your command to your benefit, are we? - sent in by anonymous

Hang the fuck on, Katya Tílkí and Damien Alanis were spotted?? How many people is this man seeing? Isn’t he supposed to hate anyone not human? - sent in by anonymous

You're telling me no one else saw the Wrathbearer throw a knife at the King? Just me? Aight. - sent in by anonymous.

RUMOURS OF SOME SHIT GOING DOWN NORTHSIDE THIS MONTH, BIG OL’ FUCKING DEMON SHIT - sent in by anonymous

I wonder how Evanora felt about HTN being destroyed by a fight between her favourite Davenport and a demon with an affinity for knives? Then they just fucked on her floor after destroying a wall. I hope she got them to cough up their kochba for the repairs. After they finished their show, of course. - sent in by anonymous.

Are we really just accepting peace like this? East and West are going to implode if the Northside Witch psychos don’t obliterate everyone first, we need a rebellion. - sent in by anonymous

ANY TIPS FOR OUR NEXT ISSUE READERS? WE’LL TRY BE HERE FOR IT.

#calamity.news

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calamitousrpgarchive · 4 years

Photo

WELCOME TO THE NIGHTKEEPERS BALL

The doors of Halfway to Nowhere open, its usual neon and strobes replaced with something a little more appropriate for a Winter Ball; the décor much more fitting, a little on the cooler side – the weather serving as that inspiration. It’s very clear that there’s been no expense spared, Evanora Bile and Dante Bacchus a team that know how to put on an event. Their staff arriving early, following orders – surprisingly compliant to everyone’s growing amusement, a strange air about the place where it feels like tension coils tight in the walls and emanates a thump of a heart beating. Though, it appears to be the bass of music reverberating around HTN with a vengeance.

As soon as creatures file in, the tension slips into something a little more manageable. It’s almost pleasant, liquor and fine wines for all the guests to enjoy. For a moment, if there’s no secret underlying intentions – or strange gazes exchanged in the oddest of places, it could pass as the most normal and peaceful event that Calamity has ever seen.

Nothing but elegance; suited, booted and everyone in their formal attire with glamour that upstages the person beside them. Skin connects when people dance; a myriad of music tastes for all to appreciate. The bar isn’t running out and the servers are keeping up – performances arranged by collaboration with other bars and clubs have gifted all with something memorable. Clothes aren’t entirely necessary for the ones on podiums in the back room of HTN; where the classiness begins to toll. The front is certainly glitz, lowlights keep the essence of what Halfway’s about; a private ravenous and all consuming club that draws its guests in deeper with every minute that passes.

A table stretches along the rear wall, delicacies to every taste – desire and want line it, plates and glasses with every delight available to all those exclusive enough to gain invitation to the Winter Ball.

What isn’t realised is that nobody’s gone straight for the centre of it.

THE PUNCHBOWL

There’s a large fishbowl, filled to the brim with a paling red liquid – almost pink, soaks fruit and other unidentifiable sweets within its tightly packed glass walls. Nobody wants to be the first to touch it, to consume the liquid that not even the organisers present can admit its ingredients. But everyone understands what it represents, and it’s the most consistently glanced at item in the room – second to one another that there’s a little more than just what everyone’s wearing.

The punchbowl, unbeknownst to everyone besides the Nightkeeper, contains the magical equivalent to paint stripper.

Illegal magic that near borders necromancy – a rumoured impossible for the darkest tomes to ever represent. Whoever the Nightkeeper is has some dangerous access to potions that could ruin and change the balance of the world as it is now. If in the hands of the light, they could purge the darkness in days, if it the grips of the dark, they could remove light from ever being.

The punchbowl is the end of magic as the world knows it; removes it from ever being, rips away anything special from anyone with magical properties; wielders of it; those kept alive by it; those cursed by it; blessed even, those who have only ever known magic.

Gone. Just like that. Consider it dead.

Immortals, impossibly mortal; those created by it, cease to be. Can you be considered dead if you never existed to begin with?

Those who survive the harsh qualities of the magic removal, and the mortals that have never had magic affinity; wiped in another way, memory erased of ever knowing that the impossible existed at all. A clean slate, without burdens of abnormalities, without the knowledge of monsters; without magic at all – never able to be afflicted by it, simply, a new mind.

But nobody knows what the punch is. The punchbowl is the punchline; you’ve always been the joke.

Do you walk the line and take a sip; lose everything about yourself, or do you take it from someone else and complete your task?

Take a drink from the punchbowl, huh? If only you knew.

And you’ll know nothing if you do, that’s the punch. But ‘ you can drink from the punchbowl ‘ never specified completely.

Who’s taking that risk?

IT’S COOL AT THE BALL

It’s certainly reflecting winter, the windows from the view of inside begin to end up caked in snow from the bottom up, the never-ending stream of flakes that turn Calamity into a Winter Wonderland only serves as an aesthetic; the inside of HTN thrives with warmth and that growing heat begins to remind the room that it’s not all about self-enjoyment.

There’s things they love on the line. And there’s decisions to make.

Red and white’s the new colours of winter.

ADMIN NOTE: Introducing the Nightkeeper’s Winter Ball, Part One! You’ve already got your invitations and instructions creatures, do with them what you will. You’ve got your outs and your ins and all the options in front of you. WHOLESOME I SAID. HERE WE ARE. As always, pepper us with the questions, I know you’ve got them. Give me your speculations, all your loopholes, I love them.

The Winter Ball as it stands right now, is only two parts. TO ALL YOUR RELIEFS I’M SURE. But it’s very much driven by all of you and your character choices, so, have fun! This will run all week as to have plenty of time to write and plot for you all, and we know this month is a busy one! We’ll also have an vote near the end of the week about whether you want an extension on this due to the potential for plot points in your characters story arch, we’re flexible y’all!

Part one end: 20th December 2020, 22:00GMT/18:00EST

Thank you as always for being so awesome and wonderful guys!

#calamity.event #supernatural rp #oc rp #original rp #dark rp #mature rp #appless rp #pastevent

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sirenxsong · 3 years

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📱Azazel x Dante

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Name

Bacchus

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¥ - Don Broco

Texts

[ ✉️ text ] Finished another successful job, drinks? [ ✉️ text ] Make sure it something dark and strong.

#answers #shiverrinqs

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antinous-posts · 4 years

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The Eleusinian Mysteries

(from Manly P. Halls, the secret Teachings of all Ages)

Γνῶθι σεαυτόν - Gnothi seauton - Know Thyself

THE most famous of the ancient religious Mysteries were the Eleusinian, whose rites were celebrated every five years in the city of Eleusis to honor Ceres (Demeter, Hera, Mary or Isis) and her daughter, Persephone(Proserpine in latin). The initiates of the Eleusinian School were famous throughout Greece for the beauty of their philosophic concepts and the high standards of morality which they demonstrated in their daily lives. Because of their excellence, these Mysteries spread to Rome and Britain, and later the initiations were given in both these countries.

The Eleusinian Mysteries, named for the community in Attica where the sacred dramas were first presented, are generally believed to have been founded by Eumolpos about fourteen hundred years before the birth of Christ, and through the Platonic system of philosophy their principles have been preserved to modern times.

The rites of Eleusis, with their Mystic interpretations of Nature's most precious secrets, overshadowed the civilizations of their time and gradually absorbed many smaller schools, incorporating into their own system whatever valuable information these lesser institutions possessed. Heckethorn sees in the Mysteries of Ceres and Bacchus a metamorphosis of the rites of Isis and Osiris, and there is every reason to believe that all so-called secret schools of the ancient world were branches from one philosophic tree which, with its root in heaven and its branches on the earth, is--like the spirit of man--an invisible but ever-present cause of the objectified vehicles that give it expression.

The Mysteries were the channels through which this one philosophic light was disseminated, and their initiates, resplendent with intellectual and spiritual understanding, were the perfect fruitage of the divine tree, bearing witness before the material world of the recondite source of all Light and Truth.

The rites of Eleusis were divided into what were called the Lesser and the Greater Mysteries. According to James Gardner, the Lesser Mysteries were celebrated in the spring (probably at the time of the vernal equinox) in the town of Agræ, and the Greater, in the fall (the time of the autumnal equinox) at Eleusis or Athens. It is supposed that the former were given annually and the latter every five years. The rituals of the Eleusinians were highly involved, and to understand them required a deep study of Greek mythology, which they interpreted in its esoteric light with the aid of their secret keys.

The Lesser Mysteries were dedicated to Persephone. In his Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries, Thomas Taylor sums up their purpose as follows: "The Lesser Mysteries were designed by the ancient theologists, their founders, to signify occultly the condition of the unpurified soul invested with an earthy body, and enveloped in a material and physical nature."

The legend used in the Lesser rites is that of the abduction of the goddess Persephone, the daughter of Ceres, by Pluto, the lord of the underworld, or Hades. While Persephone is picking flowers in a beautiful meadow, the earth suddenly opens and the gloomy lord of death, riding in a magnificent chariot, emerges from its somber depths and, grasping her in his arms, carries the screaming and struggling goddess to his subterranean palace, where he forces her to become his queen.

It is doubtful whether many of the initiates themselves understood the mystic meaning of this allegory, for most of them apparently believed that it referred solely to the succession of the seasons.

It is difficult to obtain satisfactory information concerning the Mysteries, for the candidates were bound by inviolable oaths never to reveal their inner secrets to the profane. At the beginning of the ceremony of initiation, the candidate stood upon the skins of animals sacrificed for the purpose, and vowed that death should seal his lips before he would divulge the sacred truths which were about to be communicated to him. Through indirect channels, however, some of their secrets have been preserved.

The teachings given to the neophytes were substantially as follows: The soul of man--often called Psyche, and in the Eleusinian Mysteries symbolized by Persephone--is essentially a spiritual thing. Its true home is in the higher worlds, where, free from the bondage of material form and material concepts, it is said to be truly alive and self-expressive. The human, or physical, nature of man, according to this doctrine, is a tomb, a quagmire, a false and impermanent thing, the source of all sorrow and suffering. Plato describes the body as the sepulcher of the soul; and by this he means not only the human form but also the human nature.

The gloom and depression of the Lesser Mysteries represented the agony of the spiritual soul unable to express itself because it has accepted the limitations and illusions of the human environment. The crux of the Eleusinian argument was that man is neither better nor wiser after death than during life. If he does not rise above ignorance during his sojourn here, man goes at death into eternity to wander about forever, making the same mistakes which he made here. If he does not outgrow the desire for material possessions here, he will carry it with him into the invisible world, where, because he can never gratify the desire, he will continue in endless agony. Dante's Inferno is symbolically descriptive of the sufferings of those who never freed their spiritual natures from the cravings, habits, viewpoints, and limitations of their Plutonic personalities.

Those who made no endeavor to improve themselves (whose souls have slept) during their physical lives, passed at death into Hades, where, lying in rows, they slept through all eternity as they had slept through life.

To the Eleusinian philosophers, birch into the physical world was death in the fullest sense of the word, and the only true birth was that of the spiritual soul of man rising out of the womb of his own fleshly nature. "The soul is dead that slumbers," says Longfellow, and in this he strikes the keynote of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Just as Narcissus, gazing at himself in the water (the ancients used this mobile element to symbolize the transitory, illusionary, material universe) lost his life trying to embrace a reflection, so man, gazing into the mirror of Nature and accepting as his real self the senseless clay that he sees reflected, loses the opportunity afforded by physical life to unfold his immortal, invisible Self.

An ancient initiate once said that the living are ruled by the dead. Only those conversant with the Eleusinian concept of life could understand that statement. It means that the majority of people are not ruled by their living spirits but by their senseless (hence dead) animal personalities. Transmigration and reincarnation were taught in these Mysteries, but in a somewhat unusual manner. It was believed that at midnight the invisible worlds were closest to the Terrestrial sphere and that souls coming into material existence slipped in during the midnight hour. For this reason many of the Eleusinian ceremonies were performed at midnight. Some of those sleeping spirits who had failed to awaken their higher natures during the earth life and who now floated around in the invisible worlds, surrounded by a darkness of their own making, occasionally slipped through at this hour and assumed the forms of various creatures.

The mystics of Eleusis also laid stress upon the evil of suicide, explaining that there was a profound mystery concerning this crime of which they could not speak, but warning their disciples that a great sorrow comes to all who take their own lives. This, in substance, constitutes the esoteric doctrine given to the initiates of the Lesser Mysteries. As the degree dealt largely with the miseries of those who failed to make the best use of their philosophic opportunities, the chambers of initiation were subterranean and the horrors of Hades were vividly depicted in a complicated ritualistic drama.

After passing successfully through the tortuous passageways, with their trials and dangers, the candidate received the honorary title of Mystes. This meant one who saw through a veil or had a clouded vision. It also signified that the candidate had been brought up to the veil, which would be torn away in the higher degree. The modern word mystic, as referring to a seeker after truth according to the dictates of the heart along the path of faith, is probably derived from this ancient word, for faith is belief in the reality of things unseen or veiled.

The Greater Mysteries (into which the candidate was admitted only after he had successfully passed through the ordeals of the Lesser, and not always then) were sacred to Ceres, the mother of Persephone, and represent her as wandering through the world in quest of her abducted daughter. Ceres carried two torches, intuition and reason, to aid her in the search for her lost child (the soul). At last she found Persephone not far from Eleusis, and out of gratitude taught the people there to cultivate corn, which is sacred to her.

She also founded the Mysteries. Ceres appeared before Pluto, god of the souls of the dead, and pleaded with him to allow Persephone to return to her home. This the god at first refused to do, because Persephone had eaten of the pomegranate, the fruit of mortality. At last, however, he compromised and agreed to permit Persephone to live in the upper world half of the year if she would stay with him in the darkness of Hades for the remaining half.

The Greeks believed that Persephone was a manifestation of the solar energy, which in the winter months lived under the earth with Pluto, but in the summer returned again with the goddess of productiveness. There is a legend that the flowers loved Persephone and that every year when she left for the dark realms of Pluto, the plants and shrubs would die of grief. While the profane and uninitiated had their own opinions on these subjects, the truths of the Greek allegories remained safely concealed by the priests, who alone recognized the sublimity of these great philosophic and religious parables.

Thomas Taylor epitomizes the doctrines of the Greater Mysteries in the following statement: "The Greater (Mysteries) obscurely intimated, by mystic and splendid visions, the felicity of the soul both here and hereafter when purified from the defilement of a material nature, and constantly elevated to the realities of intellectual (spiritual) vision."

Just as the Lesser Mysteries discussed the prenatal epoch of man when the consciousness in its nine days (embryologically, months) was descending into the realm of illusion and assuming the veil of unreality, so the Greater Mysteries discussed the principles of spiritual regeneration and revealed to initiates not only the simplest but also the most direct and complete method of liberating their higher natures from the bondage of material ignorance.

Like Prometheus chained to the top of Mount Caucasus, man's higher nature is chained to his inadequate personality. The nine days of initiation were also symbolic of the nine spheres through which the human soul descends during the process of assuming a terrestrial form. The secret exercises for spiritual unfoldment given to disciples of the higher degrees are unknown, but there is every reason to believe that they were similar to the Brahmanic Mysteries, since it is known that the Eleusinian ceremonies were closed with the Sanskrit words "KONX OM PAX."

That part of the allegory referring to the two six-month periods during one of which Persephone must remain with Pluto, while during the other she may revisit the upper world, offers material for deep consideration. It is probable that the Eleusinians realized that the soul left the body during steep, or at least was made capable of leaving by the special training which undoubtedly they were in a position to give. Thus Persephone would remain as the queen of Pluto's realm during the waking hours, but would ascend to the spiritual worlds during the periods of sleep. The initiate was taught how to intercede with Pluto to permit Persephone (the initiate's soul) to ascend from the darkness of his material nature into the light of understanding. When thus freed from the shackles of clay and crystallized concepts, the initiate was liberated not only for the period of his life but for all eternity, for never thereafter was he divested of those soul qualities which after death were his vehicles for manifestation and expression in the so-called heaven world.

In contrast to the idea of Hades as a state of darkness below, the gods were said to inhabit the tops of mountains, a well-known example being Mount Olympus, where the twelve deities of the Greek pantheon were said to dwell together. In his initiatory wanderings the neophyte therefore entered chambers of ever-increasing brilliancy to portray the ascent of the spirit from the lower worlds into the realms of bliss. As the climax to such wanderings he entered a great vaulted room, in the center of which stood a brilliantly illumined statue of the goddess Ceres. Here, in the presence of the hierophant and surrounded by priests in magnificent robes, he was instructed in the highest of the secret mysteries of the Eleusis. At the conclusion of this ceremony he was hailed as an Epoptes, which means one who has beheld or seen directly. For this reason also initiation was termed autopsy. The Epoptes was then given certain sacred books, probably written in cipher, together with tablets of stone on which secret instructions were engraved.

In The Obelisk in Freemasonry, John A. Weisse describes the officiating personages of the Eleusinian Mysteries as consisting of a male and a female hierophant who directed the initiations; a male and a female torchbearer; a male herald; and a male and a female altar attendant. There were also numerous minor officials. He states that, according to Porphyry, the hierophant represents Plato's Demiurgus, or Creator of the world; the torch bearer, the Sun; the altar man, the Moon; the herald, Hermes, or Mercury; and the other officials, minor stars.

From the records available, a number of strange and apparently supernatural phenomena accompanied the rituals. Many initiates claim to have actually seen the living gods themselves. Whether this was the result of religious ecstasy or the actual cooperation of invisible powers with the visible priests must remain a mystery.

In The Metamorphosis, or Golden Ass, Apuleius thus describes what in all probability is his initiation into the Eleusinian Mysteries:

"I approached to the confines of death, and having trod on the threshold of Proserpine I, returned from it, being carried through all the elements. At midnight I saw the sun shining with a splendid light; and I manifestly drew near to, the gods beneath, and the gods above, and proximately adored them."

Women and children were admitted to the Eleusinian Mysteries, and at one time there were literally thousands of initiates. Because this vast host was not prepared for the highest spiritual and mystical doctrines, a division necessarily took place within the society itself. The higher teachings were given to only a limited number of initiates who, because of superior mentality, showed a comprehensive grasp of their underlying philosophical concepts.

Socrates refused to be initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries, for knowing its principles without being a member of the order he realized that membership would seal his tongue. That the Mysteries of Eleusis were based upon great and eternal truths is attested by the veneration in which they were held by the great minds of the ancient world. M. Ouvaroff asks, "Would Pindar, Plato, Cicero, Epictetus, have spoken of them with such admiration, if the hierophant had satisfied himself with loudly proclaiming his own opinions, or those of his order?"

The garments in which candidates were initiated were preserved for many years and were believed to possess almost sacred properties. Just as the soul can have no covering save wisdom and virtue, so the candidates--being as yet without true knowledge--were presented to the Mysteries unclothed, being first: given the skin of an animal and later a consecrated robe to symbolize the philosophical teachings received by the initiate.

During the course of initiation the candidate passed through two gates. The first led downward into the lower worlds and symbolized his birth into ignorance. The second led upward into a room brilliantly lighted by unseen lamps, in which was the statue of Ceres and which symbolized the upper world, or the abode of Light and Truth. Strabo states that the great temple of Eleusis would hold between twenty and thirty thousand people. The caves dedicated by Zarathustra also had these two doors, symbolizing the avenues of birth and death.

The following paragraph from Porphyry gives a fairly adequate conception of Eleusinian symbolism: "God being a luminous principle, residing in the midst of the most subtile fire, he remains for ever invisible to the eyes of those who do not elevate themselves above material life: on this account, the sight of transparent bodies, such as crystal, Parian marble, and even ivory, recalls the idea of divine light; as the sight of gold excites an idea of its purity, for gold cannot he sullied.

Some have thought by a black stone was signified the invisibility of the divine essence. To express supreme reason, the Divinity was represented under the human form--and beautiful, for God is the source of beauty; of different ages, and in various attitudes, sitting or upright; of one or the other sex, as a virgin or a young man, a husband or a bride, that all the shades and gradations might be marked.

Every thing luminous was subsequently attributed to the gods; the sphere, and all that is spherical, to the universe, to the sun and the moon--sometimes to Fortune and to Hope. The circle, and all circular figures, to eternity--to the celestial movements; to the circles and zones of the heavens. The section of circles, to the phases of the moon; and pyramids and obelisks, to the igneous principle, and through that to the gods of Heaven. A cone expresses the sun, a cylinder the earth; the phallus and triangle (a symbol of the matrix) designate generation." (From Essay on the Mysteries of Eleusis by M. Ouvaroff.)

The Eleusinian Mysteries, according to Heckethorn, survived all others and did not cease to exist as an institution until nearly four hundred years after Christ, when they were finally suppressed by Theodosius (styled the Great), who cruelly destroyed all who did not accept the Christian faith. Of this greatest of all philosophical institutions Cicero said that it taught men not only how to live but also how to die.

Picture: Oracle of Delphi, John Augustus Knapp

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