#The Protégé ( League of Legends sub-verse )

[withperfecttempo]

Aria

there are wolves gnawing in his throat,  long strewn muzzles pressing up against the fixated angle of his jaw, gnawing and howling and choking.  they consume each other, themselves. you and me. myself. they eat. they burn only to burst into a thousand freckled sunspots, they burst into wild birds that flutter free from his chest. he is the wolf and the bird both, just as she is talon and claw, the song then the scream. she can be as cruel as he is, she would have every right to be, for the sparrow who sits long upon her branch cannot help but be tossed into the sea of her own hunger. they are similar yet so very different, it was a curse and a blessing.

all she smells is blood. how could she not? how could she escape that stench? she smelt it, saw the splatters, counted them as they flew and spurted upright. she smelled only blood that she forgot to smell the roses in full bloom with thorns aplenty. roses grow from her as well, they are a bramble hedge inside her heart where petal and thorn become askew, where there can be no differentiation between neither. cloying. chasing. consuming. again, always consuming. the act of living is just as violent as death itself.

❝ i will not lie to you and say it will get easier. ❞   stop speaking. be silent. stay your tongue before she will cut it clean off, and then what will you do? you will weep, or pity her, or maybe even pity yourself. foolish creature — foolish spectre!    ❝ your heart will feel like lead. ❞  he turns from her, the click of heels prevailing through the already bitten, fraying air. a wind brushes along his side, flourishing his white cape, the sound fluttering in like an echo.  ❝ you will be glass. ❞  the echo doubles, reflecting off the sharp panes of wood and the mirror she sits before. his heavy stare wanders off beyond the window-frame, beyond this place, as does his voice.

the phantom does not speak these things into existence, nor does he say them with spite, he simply is. standing there, letting the wind curdle his frame, swaddle him up and perhaps swallow him whole. what a tempting thought, he must tuck it away for now.  ❝ you have seen first hand how fragile the boundary between life and death is.  you could reach out and pluck it, and make the most profound music. ❞

Khada Jhin ( @necrofntasia )

The crackling flames deliver her into the present, to the stage on which her feet had settled while her eyes bring back the phantom standing before her into view. The smoke, an aroma of burnt sweet roses drifts to her senses and curls its hand under her chin to beckon her face. But the warmth of the scent seems to ebb when icy fingers draw her bare shoulders and back of her neck. The curtain has lifted, the blood begins to race, and the sleeping bud bursts into bloom. 

His voice grasped the air as if siphoning the atmosphere of hell itself into his palms. Yet all the same, he maintains a velvety baritone that wraps around every word and letter that left him. Each delivery timed, paced with the ensemble within the orchestra pit. They lock eyes as angles his head to her direction, his voice lingering on the last note of the line. Then comes her part, her solo. 

Sona is the mask he wears but it is himself they hear.

They had once been staring at one another through a glass; peering through a transparent veil that presented themselves whole and the two had become one. Sona cranes her neck to receive his touch, to drink deep. Her hand finds its way to his face, fingertips meeting with his skin and she cups his masked cheek. Her thumb smoothes the surface offering him the most intimate comfort as she trails the melody with the other hand. It had once been captivation, admiration, then fear, followed by numbness. This, now, is pity. To duck into the shadows and find solace in the cold for a lifetime is built on a deep self-hatred.

Perhaps she still has a chance, this time, to lead him; save him from his solitude.

With the curve of her hand, her fingers grasp onto the edge of his mask. And with a firm tug, he becomes undone. 

They all must see him as they had seen her. Now.

[withperfecttempo]

Aria

Khada Jhin ( @excellnce )

[ Cont. from here ]

The ghosts of the audience who had paid their patronage to the theater to watch her perform, even inverted persons have semblances of themselves after passing through the doors to the other side remain with her, even now when engorged in buried and bitter memories and thoughts. Pained spirits that once knew joy and talk of summertime, they surround her and they still frighten her. 

His voice descends upon her like a veil casted over the peaceful mien of the deceased. No truer words have been said; they stood out amidst tailored poems sewn with sinister undertones. Words and songs woven to be worn with miniscule shards and poison laced within the fibers; tar clinging and eating away the skin. It hurts, it sears. Just as the lingering dissipation of pipe organ notes, his murmur reverberates within hollowed vessels. Yet, he too, speaks as though his metallic tipped fingers lightly walk along the length of her throat as he makes his way to her temple to cage it, grasp it, and force her to look upon them and despair. Him, but never quite. 

By the force of the same statement that stirs another array of ponderings, she lifts her head from her hands and peers into the mirror. Sure to her senses, the Phantom looms over her sitting form. The glass reflects and defines just as well as it blurs, distinguishing his cold shadow with  the warmth radiating from her being. His mask, her face. The demon and his subject of possession; a marionette soon to conclude her long performance before being pierced by spirals of dancing flame past the point of no return.  

But it is not strings that compel her to raise her hand and reach for his visage. A hand rests upon his lower jaw while the fingers of the other brush against the ridge of the other cheek. Mild flesh upon a shade kept by porcelain and rustling robes. The Phantom spoke so plainly, echoing what she could never say herself. 

Two wretched beings they are, death and a maiden.

[withperfecttempo]

@excellnce asked:  ❝ So this is goodbye. ❞ for ... you know :)

[ Prompt list here ]

Her magic, the materialized crescendo rushes at him; an immense and powerful wave that tumbles and crushes the remaining confines of a dam and overruns all in its path. It strikes him as fiercely as he stands and stares, awed by the amalgam of colors that emit from the prevalent core of unyielding white-gold. Her crescendo for this very performance is a relentless mass of arcane energies and sound that inundates all the senses; engulfing, filling, and shredding every fiber of his being. His body convulses as if struck by powerful lightning.

The light never dims upon him as if the gods are willing the apex of his performance, urging it to climb to its peak. The Phantom’s legs scramble about the stage, a stringent movement as his will clashes with her spell that entwines with his limbs like ivy that clings and crushes aged architecture. Yet, too, does her magic’s bolts gallivant in rapid streaks across lengths of his being. His fingers curve inward, clawing at his throat and turning to the open air, towards the light peeking through the high windows and pierce into every and any exposed angle of twisting flesh. Bones crack and blood erupts from newly formed fissures scattering atop the wood like fallen rose petals.

Strained howls surge through taut windpipes, choked and soon cut into a raspy groan as his body freezes. His torso curves backwards  with his arms reaching for the windows as if imploring for heaven to let him ascend; for a choir of angels to welcome him and make himself a new home in their paradise. His form hurls into a misshapen pirouette as his arms and neck flail, torso following suit, and his legs twist into pointed, stiff spirals, no longer serving him. He collapses with a thud; the stage remains beneath him and so does hell.

--------------------------

She kneels over his sprawled frame. Her fingers and eyes descend and skim over his Adam's apple, a wetness becomes more prevalent as she deepens her touch around his neck. Sona lifts her fingers, with a slight turn of her trembling hands she could see the scarlet-tinted tips. His face tucked under the elongated shadow of his crooked mask, a sizable crack runs from the bottom of the open eye through the lips to the brink above his jaw.

She could still hear him. His faltering breaths hushed within the confines, striving to meet the open air.

Curved fingertips move underneath a protruding edge, pushing the mask back into place. Digits linger at the point for a moment before shifting her hand against his cheek, smearing streaks of crimson atop the ivory. She cradles his face, blues meeting the singular framed auburn eye before it flutters to a close. Her lips descend onto the side of his mask, pressing against the cheek’s curve

She pulls away, her eyes encircling the fractured façade as she listens to his breaths slow and silence. Sona’s eyes lock with his, her hand still resting against his face. 

Despite being darkened by waves of  inconsolable losses, she still looks upon him with a semblance of gentleness as when they met, though this time, relaying a different message.

‘Farewell, dear Phantom.’

[withperfecttempo]

Aria

Khada Jhin ( @quartlet )

There is a murkiness within her, dark waters that shift and swirl behind bright blue eyes. Still, she ventures through the endless night, rowing a solitary boat. It drifts across the glassy surface, a barrier which keeps the muddled cacophony below; a sea of strained laughter and harrowing howls that continuously work to stir the waters and shatter the stiff silence. Not once has Sona thought of them to be monsters as she has seen them many times. They had offered her warmth, shared their smiles and their dreams with her, and sought her for comfort. She passes over them, her vessel unswaying and her arms continuing their steady rhythmic pulls. 

Sona sits in front of the mirror but does not see herself; not a face but an amalgam of floating eyes and churning features, guided by a cluster of tendrilled smoke. She senses a worn husk; a beaten spirit who clings onto the fear of being alone finds solace in deep resounding church bells, howling pipe organs, and soft chimes of a grand, hanging crystal chandelier all of which is tied with the rumble of the Phantom’s distinct low hums. It is this moment that she wonders if this is what the Phantom had meant when he sings and whispers into her shoulder and ears of the day she would blossom; that one day, she too, would bloom. Had her mask not split, would there be a day without suffering?

Though convinced that the stars are no more, Sona has yet to realize that is far from the truth; that they are still very much present, glittering specs that dimple the blackness below and above. She may not see them but perhaps someday, she could hear them, be engulfed by them. They are singing and mourning for one another; for the phantom and herself. 

Many arias are resounding.

[withperfecttempo]

Rules : share four songs / pieces of music that represent your muse! repost, don’t reblog.

tagged by: Stolen from @shadowhelmed tagging: @quartlet, @dcvorakk, @rosespun, @carminic, @palevein and anyone else can just swipe. 

Zero no Chouritsu - Tsukiko Amano

A broken machine dreams / Eternally slumbering, playing the keys of time / Just call my name (I wanna be there with you) / So call my name (I wanna be free, so free) / The scattering fragments (After a while, I get worn down down down)  / Please link together / Can I still be myself? / Can you get me out of this cipher?

Aria - Kalafina

These fragments of a dream / That you have given me / Remains dormant in this unending night / While informing of our separation / Let us exchange faint smiles / As the lonely aria accumulates / Hey, humans are always alone / Moving on in search for a companion / The kindness that you know naught of and yet / Imparted in me / Resides within the haven of my chest / Rowing this lonely boat / In this little haven of a world / Multitudes of arias are resounding

The Point of No Return - Andrew Lloyd Webber

You have brought me / To that moment when words run dry / Where speech disappears into silence...silence / When will the blood begin to race? / The sleeping bud burst into bloom? / When will the flames at last consume us?

Epilogue - Yuka Kitamura

[withperfecttempo]

@quartlet asked:  “ If you keep running away, it’ll be too late. You know that. “

[ Prompt list here ]

She has fled from an encroaching blanket of war that ravaged her beloved home of Ionia. As any hopeful and lonely child, she looked up and forward to the open expanse of blue that hovered over her and counted the clouds, thinking they were ships which carried angels to their next destinations. Rather than making home in a new heaven, Sona finds a new hell that breaks and whittles away at the people’s livelihoods and spirits. Founded on a bedrock of phobia, the ground trembles with the voices of the unsung oppressed and the shrieks of those who oppress. Her feet were worn and so is her spirit. In search of a new day, a new beginning of the bright blues and mellowed clouds, she only found nighttime and weeping skies that temporarily scattered the cold and unpromising silence. What else could she do than to talk to the rain? 

Running, hiding, there is little difference when the soul has been stowed away by a veil or constantly diving into the shadows. To maintain it is to dance between phases of the self and void. Under one sky, one moon, both reflect and break. Sona’s feet had carried her to a place of performance where she continues to cast pieces of herself into the void, choosing to don a mask to give her a sense of closure of herself. From ethereal dew drops of strings, the sound transforms into knife-like bellows of a pipe organ that sings the same songs. Still, she dances. She sways to the austere aria that echoes within her mind and thrum within the halls while bearing a mask that the Phantom has carved just for her. However, upon the inevitability of oppositional elements of harmony, discordance, and amassing fear and rejection, it cracks as Sona’s hands raise towards her jaw where the mask ends. The visage splits and shatters, revealing a blossomed visage of swirling eyes and lips; a new face that Sona could scarcely discern even through familiar fragments. 

‘What difference is it, Phantom? To run even when your soles are frayed and bleeding…’

‘Or...to wear a mask and be among people who do not and will never know you?’

Even as she tries, Sona can no longer feel raindrops against her face the same way she used to. The heavens shed its tears for her, she has grown to realize. Perhaps, they too, still weep with her. 

‘It is too late when the soul cedes itself to be sundered.’

[withperfecttempo]

Guide and Guardian

Jhin ( @quartlet )

[ Continued from here ]

Bright eyes shoot open, air rushed from open lips as she prompts herself to sit upright on her bed. Her palms press against flushed cheeks clad with sweat and strands of touseled hair. She massages her face, smoothing up and downward towards her mouth, then brushing away a descending droplet. With a shaky inward inward breath and exhale, she lowers her hands to her lap. The warmth of her overlapping hands affirming that it had all been a dream; that she is currently to her senses and very much awake.

Her mother once spoke of an angel as a child. Sona used to dream he would appear. Yet there were two, one who has provided unparalelled tutelage in music from the shadows and another who presents himself as a closer kin to the devil. Their voices are one, the same that she has known ever since she frequents the theater that resides in the heart of Piltover. Sona's gaze trails to her late mother's photo in a silver frame on her nightstand. Her eyes linger on her mother's face before lowering then to her gradually enclosing arms.

Perhaps it would be best for the Phantom, the secret and strange angel to not be aware of these. With far more pressing works in line, the last thing he would need is to be perturbed by riddling visions of a woman. Yet, no matter how hard she works to conceal her troubles and worries, he, the unseen genius, is quick to detect her agitation. May it be through eyes that reflect the sea and sky, lips that twitch ever so slightly, or her degree of lacking responses as she retracts to her reflections, he is sharp. With no other choice, she just has to keep trying, for he has always been with her, all around her.

He frightens her.

[withperfecttempo]

@quartlet asked:  👟 footsteps creaking on wood

[ Prompt list here ]

He takes Sona’s hand in his as the other arm encircles her back. She takes it, her fingers pulled into his palm and clasped between his fingers. The very same blood-stained hands now grasp hers gently as if aware of its fragility but coaxing. Though interlocked and enveloped, the fairness of her bare hands contrasts with his gloved palms. And yet both match in mild touch. And once again, does dissonance and harmony converge. 

She is here with him. She had come to him from the start. She had decided.

The moon casts its light upon the two and the dust which scatter at each step, like sparse snowfall in a long-abandoned, boreal city. Cool air nips at her shoulders and arms, yet she finds some degree of solace in it. Silence occupies most of the theater, save for shuffling, delicate steps tapping on old, yet well-maintained wood. The phantom’s voice breaks the prominent silence, permeating the space just as a ghost saunters through the halls of its once former home. It wafts through the space, an eerie and alluring entity that is keen of its ownership even in death. 

He hums a tune; one that Sona takes note to be one she has heard before but in a different key, different time signature, perhaps. Similar elements she recognizes despite several additional flourishes with improvisation. His voice glides over each note and rests without hiccup; without unsure pauses or suspensions. She continues to listen, noting every distinction she detects and making brief comparisons to the original piece. 

A finger trails down the length of her hair, extending just enough to delicately graze down her cheek; admiring the gossamer of pale blue and yellow colored strands against the glowing moonlight as they separate, pool, and trickle against his gathering fingers. The phantom follows the curvature of her visage until they dip under her chin. He tips her face upward and their gazes lock. 

He peers down at her, the singular visible eye fixes on hers. The phantom wants to know for certain that she remembers and that she knows. She knows. She must know.

Their passion play has now at last begun.

They both must already know that they are past the point of no return.

[withperfecttempo]

@quartlet asked: “Terror made me cruel …”from phantom!jhin hehehe

[ Prompt list here ]

Sona blinks slowly. The seemingly still image that presents itself in her memory resurfaces again. The one night she had ventured out of her chambers only to stumble upon an unspeakable horror outside the theater. She heard nothing. She saw nothing, only initially. Instead, she felt something flit across her line of vision and splatter onto her cheek. The sights that soon came after had been buried into her mind until this day and will mark her for the remainder of her life. Amidst the familiar moonlight and the late evening haze, lies an indiscernible form. Claw-like protrusions from a heap of bloodied flesh; its broad cavity and far-reaching as if a beast is cursing the heavens for giving birth to it. Her eyes had trailed further down in an attempt to make sense of the scene, she stopped at scarlet tinted, widened eyes. It looked at her, as if begging her to make the pain stop so they could close their eyes again. 

It was the night she felt truly awake, as if stricken with a violent illness that racks her being. Grappling her and keeping her where she is as she desperately tries to process what she had seen as well as collect herself. But she could not do any of it. She was unable to take her eyes off of the scene, unable to move her feet, and quit the place to return to her bed. Sona stood there, that night, eventually crumbling onto the stone and wept through open fingers that cage her eyes. An unrelenting, taut sensation built in her throat as if she wanted to scream. No sound came. None could. 

Yet, despite all, along with her wavering self, therein lies a thin stream of warmth. The same radiance that emanates from her beloved instrument when it comes to her side to comfort and console her. A source of nurture and realization that made her understand that terror made her fearful, as it should. 

For a time, it made her cold, numb; succumbing to a melody that she thought she could call it hers when it is not. It sang, wailed. A lull into an abyss that Sona has come to tread into at chest level. But terror awakens her senses, to remind her to be afraid, and turn back; to follow the thread of warmth, grasp the budding ropes, and return to the shore. 

Despite so, she wonders if there will ever be a sense in her still asking. To still seek the phantom out on her own and unravel the enigma beyond the paper scores he left. She believes she knows better now than to simply ask, for no matter how concise and sincere she had been, he would never respond in kind to her. Always spoken in riddles, in unscrupulous, cryptic words. 

But a certain, different night crosses her when she took his hand in hers. Something else had happened then. 

‘Why do you hate so much?’

She understands now, more than before, that this is not her. This would never be her, she has decided.

And despite so, she still asks.

‘What hurts you so?’

[withperfecttempo]

@quartlet asked: ❛ my beloved student, my anchor, my little dandelion. i envision you draped in a gown of white camellias, your hair free from its clutches, your hands splayed across your stomach. when you breath your final breath it will take wing and scatter across the skies above, and then you will be by my side, in memory. ❜

For death to sound like a dream, a faraway, seemingly still wish that rests on the cusp of impossibility. Sona wonders if dying could truly be as picturesque as clear rivers that stretch through fields of full of blossoms; an endless sea of pastels fluttering to the wind and waving to the passing waters. And as easily as it comes, such imagery can flip upon a waft of words to aural senses. Just as a reflection can be turned, such pure waters can, too, become indistinguishably black. Blue skies can darken at any moment of the day, opening a rainfall of blood, weighing and staining once pristine petals.

The phantom’s hand delves into her hair, digits combing the strands, and letting them slip then fall into place as he speaks in an audible whisper.

Sona could feel the phantom’s gloved palm cups her cheek, curving along her jaw with his fingers trailing down her face. What sweet sadness it was for her to come to him, to stride into his hands that day, unknowing that she would never see the sun again, or so in the same light. His hand is oddly warm, radiating through the eel skin. The unwavering touch indicates full intention, as he carefully maps her face with his fingers in the dark. He is all around her again, his voice drifting, lingering, encasing her like fresh smoke. She dares not to move. Whether it is an inevitable intoxication or buried fear, she could hardly tell a difference. 

She remains still as the pad of his thumb brushes against her lips, applying light pressure against the center as he passes. And she stays until his hand slowly slides against her skin down her neck, where he expands his fingers and lightly grasps her throat.