#🝪 — ‘ WE CONQUERED MAGIC / COUNTED STARS ’ ( drabble. )

[alterstadt]

          the quiet clinking of silver on porcelain — the spoon is resting, now, gently on the gold-leafed side of a decorative saucer. the shadows of a tea set, highlighted by streaks of moonlight through the smudges of dirty windowpanes, grow long and soft, and the table is cast in the stark pattern of velvet blackness and silvered mahogany, all cast in the rich indigo of night. the night is different here from the nights below — more open, more free — and he can see the difference in the slow-relaxing strain of every muscle in the man diagonal.            it is late, now — the summer sun died while there were candles lit in the belly of the castle below, when the screams still rang and the blood was still warm and there was still work to be done. he can count the hour in the darkness pooling beneath the man’s eyes, verdant and hollow, currently preoccupied by the half-empty state of his tea. he abstains, sets down his goblet; tea would be warming, perhaps, now that the august heat has leeched itself out of the stones below, but the night is made for stronger stuff. weaker, perhaps, than the faint acrid miasma that makes him loath to offer a shared bottle. the hour is so that by his patterns, fifteen minutes prior, the englishman should have taken his nightly dosage — as not an hour prior, they’d ascended, and the man made a point to partake immediately after scrubbing the filth of work away, even with how little that laudanum now helped for the insomnia ( though he himself feared any stronger tincture may leave the man comatose ) — which meant there was very, very little time for this to work.            it is only in this window and in his far more manic state that daniel’s mind is wholly unguarded. the baron dares not pry too much when he stands between the man and the blade — not when he has faced sharp, biting retaliation for the slightest of comments amidst sacrifice. he is careful not to push too hard — not in extraction, not in his guidance — and he has kept daniel at the breaking point for weeks. after the fires of hell one must always offer sanctuary, and in the silence of a night just bright enough to stave off the sharpened claws of fear, intends to fully. psychic, extended, he brushes up against an errant thought closer than the agonized white noise of the masses below.          “ i don’t mean to keep you from sleep too long, ” he begins, an answer to a question that hadn’t the chance to leave the englishman’s lips. a minute, private joy blooms unwarranted at the start it gives him, the joy it has given him each time he does this.  “ but i believe taking such time now will help unwind from the stress of the day. ”           the response it warrants is something that he does not deign as a statement, not in what he can hear through the hushed, half-spoken tones that echo from the rim of the teacup. he allows it, focuses more on the web of thoughts laid before him as they sit in amicable silence. the englishman is disjointed: he catches snippets of self-calming; short memories; quiet wants; slivers of hope of the nightmares warded; the faded thought of the day’s work; the growing comfort that he can nearly feel curl in the pit of his stomach and almost see work its way down further with each of the man’s deepening breaths. it’s quaint. the realization of it tastes like tragedy.  it brings him back to himself. the thing which calls itself the baron retreats, eyes trained hawk-sharp and backlit gold against the contours of darkness in his face. upon the stem of his goblet, his fingers play a melody unheard by human ears, silenced as he lifts it. he does not break eye contact when the wine touches his lips. the taste of it lingers on his tongue when he speaks.                “ i’ve intended to kill you from the start. ”

           he drops it as casual conversation, as if the words mean nothing and don’t act as paralytic in the englishman’s blood, as if he doesn’t hear the screeching stop his thoughts grind towards the moment the words fall, soft and clipped, from his wine-stained lips. the silence is deafening. there is something in the curve of his smile, softer than the stain, that speaks of serenity.              “ it’s nothing too personal, daniel. ” the voice that speaks it is low and hushed, whispered velveteen, void of any assurance in the wake of the man’s shock. as if little of it matters, as if little of it is of consequence, as if his words should be punctuated with anything else but the gentleness of his fingers on porcelain, the soft gurgling of poured tea, the refraction of moonlight through liquid that casts the shadow in almost ruby red. only then does it dawn the suspicion, as he passes the cup — perhaps the context of the conversation cast doubt on his attempts to put it lightly.             “ it isn’t poisoned, ” he clarifies, allowing the barest hint of a smirk play upon the shadows of his visage. with almost, almost a chuckle: “after half of the pot drunk, i daresay you’d be dead by now if it were.”  it is met with no welcome, nor is the slightest lingering brush when his fingertips graze the pallor of daniel’s hand, cold and clammy. perhaps it is his own radiating heat that makes daniel flinch back from him as if his touch is burning. in a moment of weakness, the baron allows himself to believe such a delusion even if the clarity gained from contact proves otherwise. he smells the fear coming off the man like blood, breathes in deep on the rim of his goblet to clear is palette. there is something sharp in the way daniel looks at him, verdant as broken bottles and stinging acids and the laudanum that he knows by now is beginning to take its first weary effects.               “ alexander— ” the englishman starts, warning, but the rest of the sentence dies on his lips.           soon, the addling of his mind will make it impossible to predict, impossible to properly track and decipher and scry upon and he will meet daniel, perhaps as the unhinged, the terror, perhaps, if the confession is received poorly, on near-human terms. he must work quickly now.             “ allow me to finish, ” he chides, and receives a flash of memory from the fragmented mind of the mortal before him: his own voice, tone identical; the sharpness of the flame-bladed dagger; ink-dark blood on his shaking hands; the whimpers of the bound man. it comes in vivid, vivid clarity, more vibrant than any of the scraps his prying is usually given, and for a brief moment, a fleeting instant, the baron considers how much his ward has learned from his prying, from his orb. his projection skills are impeccable. it is a terrible waste.             “ i would have sacrificed any man who came here with an orb. it has an affinity for humanity, i believe, or at the very least rejects nonterrestrial interference with it. if given the choice, it will always repel me and cling to you. you must understand this is why it must be done.” alexander takes a minute sip, sucks his lips to his teeth — the pause is minuscule and allows for no interjection. the silvered base of his goblet makes a muffled clunk as it meets the table.              “ were there other options, i would have considered otherwise. we are running out of time, daniel. the shadow draws closer and i cannot unbind it from you. either i must sacrifice you, or the bound beast will consume you. you will realize i brought you here under false pretense, daniel. unless the shade of viscera feels mercy, the moment you stepped foot into that algerian tomb, you were already dead. ” the baron turns, then. the moon overlooks the pines, the forest thick and dark and foreboding. “ it is far better your death means something. i hope you will find some comfort in this. ”             “ why are you telling me this? ” it is the first the englishman has spoken freely in what seems like eternities, but the voice that echoes does not sound like him; it is neither the timid, frightened fawn which whimpers and questions and clings to his side, nor the beast in man-shape that stalks the dungeons below, relishes in the art of suffering — it is between them, and alexander cannot help but smile.             “ i have heard your justifications, daniel. i know you are a christian man. you may see this as a confessional booth if you wish, but i assure you it neither puts weight on my soul nor takes it off. what must happen will happen, my friend, you understand this. it is merely fairness that you will know what sacrifice you are making. ”            the daniel he turns back to is not the one he turned from — the exhausted, rattled mess now steeling with the first blushes of murderous fury, hands ghost-white as he clutches the cup as if to break it. his thoughts are indecipherable, now, lost to the realms of unpredictability and opiate haze. as he stretches across the table, there is chitin in the baron’s touch, fingers elongated and in multiplicity in the pale moonlight, the smallest six of their unglamoured digits brushing few errant locks out of the englishman’s eyes, the other half of them hovering just-so above the pallor of his flesh — the first absolute truth he has told since the man stepped foot onto the stones of brennenburg.              “ i cannot thank you enough for it. ” his touch retreats.              “ how... ” the englishman’s breath catches, accusatory in his throat, and the lingering smell of fear has been replaced with ire, with dust, with the faintest hint of roses. “ how would you plan on killing me if i know? ”             “ oh, daniel. daniel, daniel, daniel, daniel. ” the lilt in the baron’s voice is teasing, each iteration of his name a half-savored roll across the tongue. the smile that distorts his features almost melancholic. “ finish your tea, daniel. worry not about it. i hardly expect you to remember. ”

[alterstadt]

( re- ) tag dump !

🝪 — ‘ OK SO BASICALLY / I’M ERASERHEAD BABY ’ ( ooc. ) 🝪 — ‘ IN ME WHAT LIES BELOW ’ ( hc. ) 🝪 — ‘ CRUCIGER GLOBUS / ORB DISFIGURED  ’ ( meta. ) 🝪 — ‘ O UNHOLY DIMENSION ’ ( species. ) 🝪 — ‘ OUR MOST GENEROUS BENEFACTOR ’ ( promo. ) 🝪 — ‘ TO ORPHEUS /  DESCENDING ’ ( selfpromo. ) 🝪 — ‘ BURIED IN BLOOD-DRENCHED EARTH ’ ( queue. ) 🝪 — ‘ YOU MUSTN’T FORGET ’ ( psa. ) 🝪 — ‘ BLOODIED STONE / BURNING EAGLES ’ ( about. ) 🝪 — ‘ MOONLESS / STARLESS / BIBLE BLACK ’ ( aesthetic. ) 🝪 — ‘ FROM THE HEAVENS / TO THE GROUND ’ ( glamour. ) 🝪 — ‘ A CROOKED RITE ’ ( meme. ) 🝪 — ‘ SACRIFICIAL MIASMA / THE ALTAR BED ’ ( answered. ) 🝪 — ‘ THAT IS NOT TRADITIONAL FIRE ’ ( crack. ) 🝪 — ‘ WE CONQUERED MAGIC / COUNTED STARS ’ ( drabble. ) 🝪 — ‘  LAST IN THE ANCIENT LIGHT ’ ( open. ) 🝪 — ‘ REACH OUT / THE EDGE OF TIME’ ( call. ) 🝪 — ‘ LUX TENEBRAE ’ ( ic. ) 🝪 — ‘ PER ASTRA /  ASPERA / AD INFERNI ’ ( isms. )

✙  — ‘  COLOUR OUT OF SPACE ’ ( v;main. ) ✙  — ‘ WHISPERER IN DARKNESS ’ ( v;modern. ) ✙  — ‘ SHADOW OUT OF TIME ’ ( v;postcanon. ) ✙  — ‘ FROM BEYOND ’ ( v;sci-fi. )