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libidomechanica · 2 years ago

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“The rain cups by the”

A Meredith sonnet sequence

Still affirms your muttering branch the cups, after tea and strike fondness, six feet those left to die that I beginnes together guilty god be thy affairs, falling will never stoop’d falcons in their heavens; for laik o’ gear ye lightning. To dy in her voice—I feel my penaunce background; while I dragged his woe. Yet there will, but right: then run out in the voice spake, an English poets fine, I am what thou didst buy, still faithful blooming, no one hopes. The rain cups by the fav’rite blest with her own bow, for each doth chastity, having with sweet allure me. That I care’t na by. Death fell a-weeping came, she loue, which if she goes, which some demon’s mouth, fly to the full deuyse.

Nothing the sweet black and assembled. They shot a scholar poor; gross golden fleece, where Hero, then, and lame. Therefore have allurement on his furrow’d visage of Wood a furlough: ’ and a leach to subdue. Hale street, but, in shirt-sleeves grew wide for in their Cakes and feeds another knowing, new-perfumed altar stars, and curb’d, that they were when all for the heard in theyr shewes a precious hands they press’d in her verse adorn’d by fear? Survey, if Time; and, if your leg, and laughter, so from the taking hair. But ev’ry grassy nest and the image pictures like a fire, with lost you with honey-moon, when I perceiving voice back-yett be afraid. And long ago, ’ she come hither rage.

Thine, with many Lilia woke between. His eyes follow, Swallow, that are made in the Tyrannesse toilet’s obay came out of my body go, what he shone, settled a tent, and in this forehead large domains in a minute will we wonders of a city gates. How grew thee watcher of thy cruell boy not a lump of certainty eares, and heated tulip? Shall I there to regions of poetry house Let you all into ten black-eyed nations in the rose, her Head hush themselues did seem long ago, ’ she seedling wounds of your lawns, when I heard the skies pear eater fairest in higher the jars for tongue. One with new magnificent, my thought, whereof some to you go.

And, like you say. This music of the lees. Take that cool’d the highly prize it, compare, which leans to the gender Lambes ytorne? Than now, a cloak of darkness, red and drery sad distance range wonders bare. Lives a forbidden or forbidding woe, but came: till was ta’en for als at home, that high Poet! Lyke one within my mind, the daunce. So innocent, sure the body is not make us at once I visit her pray. To me, the palace, in clouds and awfull mankind breathed with my spirit out one of the paine, and long shadow will sacrifice. Here with sacrilege on two are of meanes shall deep in my extreamest paine: for I had arrived before hence takes glide in vain.

And I say Stella is not in poverty? And my lot, that in my days that stand with gilt bosse about as loath the state with a holy fire, that no night, that neuer brightly my poor break? While it smote haue a syre, a pleasure bronze, the way too full of adoring on you: her face: he great is prime forbidden, she banquet with that roll it virtue kept, again be seen the deepe throat: they did the spite of the father. Settle priefe: the men in sleep, as your glorious dint the spite of still great god Pan, She stole so near. About her painter away. And many dainty of immolation; and, from cover’d on these thine on the chamber ’gainst a silver is her eyes haue bred.

(She laurel bough; sweetest essences turn! Warbling firmly to seized. My hearth-flower, so farre, as meant thee, divine—a talisman— an amorous stuttering in an April perfume came a nectar bowled and now past human life. Some have shall bringing sounds; if he wiped my collar mountain roe, with greedy love is not puffed up, doth not be so idly spent, where I may comfort of hers did spell, the read, and let there fixed the bringing sky of a city sake the tree in her gentlier-mightie vengeance overwhelming was, I hold awe-stricken brawl at Shushan under they led on the plaint yet never to unrespects for a hundred sprites or characters at my amisse.

Dear and can he no firme were borne, yet well: and see there for one. When deep found, that in chorus, cheer, compare to cure: the bee, my shee is my sockets of those mouth a nervous twitch. And every years to the other, with honey’d rain, softer, fearing on the day, and more by the lythe Carian side. Daughter from her set the fault, ambition crabbed stead oblivion laid by her sandals o’er young Corinth from me was artificial flow, but thing but you desires, blushing where. As theyr reuengeful chance takes the large domain, and lie, and, tost with torment my fit: what pencil, because where no foot can murder and partly that I had been sav’d but came these limb that bright see the sun.

Of love like parts closet of all the Beast. Long retinue follow fog that war without strike men in shadow white vapours over they raven’d quickly re-enforce his eyes glowering her brother know that Midas’ brood of holy idiot blind with worke in mee: but his chose beauteous face was old Sir Ralph has to passed, shall it can to my stately wracke, as that needs at pleasant days for the robes thee with eagerness made, and dressed was but she wild Hippolytus Leander sitting into the tyde, and Sops in ordinary wife, her hardned brest. He came, the days—when lo! She says hence he might ye forth, like Theban Hero this glad to strayed, and still my poore like to each.

Upon an Indian chest; and time yet. Blue eyes the distance we sank. A talk of lone can she that your cause it know the Bridge they had forgot. To clothe heart i carry me then descending; once he may I term this neck his diadem, sceptre, than the highway, wise art lyttle moor, a highway, and me already ripe to beare, and all aray: and cowslips, should bring here I wish thy break this true shew. As if to a mournful toil, that giues so greater in heauenly sigh to dull is turn soft arms together is he. I kneeler, ancient lips all ruddy,— for her, Hermes, crotchets, Christmas. Matter of my hair, but denied, and in on, give, when death-dart; at whose lillyes Embleme.

High way, so he keeps me hope she laugh in an Yuie todde there a myle. From nature the same and after the firmament grew drunk her hair. With blazing lines of the cataract and there; false-flatt’ry so little aside the much; a gift which Hercules came all the dreary dayes do the heads I said Ida; home! Let us goe, whose on which his dream our soft feet high, that dyes a marble into cities a sovereigner, and ev’ry lines but that stare. Now best frame where be grass, yet striv’n in vaine and silver still we loved Chieftain! The grasp’d these longed- for end, but now a ladde, youngling westward partly they had hair, and the dear is things that remember throw me beat, and made her.

The price, were no signs to tell; ’tis pearl t’adorn it glistened, and in the worthily, men to its grave. To life? I’m all her fayre, that Angel mildly blast—thou will the circle and Ermines with fancy; for tear and laid by art’s headlong the silly maiden banner of Jove close doth raine once lost, in silken-sandaled foe: in mine and dare no measure, if it be couert of her eyes, and cedar, though narrow more I walk’d with yields: my Last Love, I thinking citron with sweet, and the greater the time to ye, my sweet nymph we viewless it inquire in find cupid well, helpe me that with within the purpled vests, and, seeing him repented as if my ownest own, farewel!

Is come to my breast. As when misery to her, and trimm’d hawker of that would resist? Your sweet i want no world destroys all ruddy,—for heroines with layers will with the world of loue; that bliss, dearest affection passenger, strong minds touch me to promise; not a word to the door we mighty deeps, so thou be his mother beauteous thine: for fayre Elisa, decked from Pyrrha’s peering jest. To each light the fly. And thee. And toward step proudly mountains to a ball of accident. Which thy brow, anon upon you: and turn himself most supply: so rich in this delicacy; all shall we quaff until their way till I never made retrospect of thine eye, high defiance.

Fast by the solemnize thee; sounds divine— a tale, how litle patient realm she flew his blessed locks dooth tears no long since our many carries wherein tis here, with point to be free to work out, and men come to his sorowes they wand, and fro, distracted guise enforced from her happinesse to pleasure through with savage of some pale light gay meteor of cowslips bind his day did prove to make him by a virtuous rage, both her fill. Brooch: beneath his body fit for love of bed? Ladies sinnes together too painting car prepare with my reflected in my bodies bright delay’d his was his. Simply I might a kind come to tak me fresh anchors, helmets, breathe away!

The way when our visnomy, captiuing deignd so vanish’d these lovely Moon! A spoile, one of the postman have to fly, but wanton wings, and blesse mought affrayd of enormous pleasure, but slanted lightly me, but the man! Peering lines and happy in bliss, the executioner of them, like the near—close on the bud of ioy, the great smil’d delights, the brain to fall upon decencies vayne to a bounch of life; O more bliss, hundred yeare is awoke? As newly complain, and let’s goodly colour’d them say more the despight, all how then to plants of consent a haunt, were all day doe beat, that moon, visit Hero would have trace; which looks behind then to tell her leavest me, for all.

About their ghostly galley now grated the ways—or fall. Came on her deity, throne, beneath thoroughly inconstant pointing thence. Grew a season: and to lovers will give the daily taste, and power to gain answer this hubbub in them say my young, ’twas better that doth firm soil win of whom I’ve fall and Meg, and sighing it that down in thy peryenche winter is there he locked as it isn’t them from the throat: they keep the more fit; never was many days happy rymes bath’d her brest inspired! And when I hope of her guiltie seemed, while, to his inestimable gazed awhile Hero, with his desire was serpent, but for cure, is ready ear to appeared to shield.

Would shines: her sphere in this beuie of naturally like tempers heaven are closeted with glad mouth saddles in its bark more seldom than one. For pity do not making since that giant’s plain. My cruell hand at least distills before; if so, the doom’d to forgetfulness; storme away sheep-fold, then, turned, but cruell bands ye now left the tree of thee, stella, shouldst thou shalt see the most piously;— all love and all, and regret when as night, through heere are not alone for the meaning diuers comb is mad spleen, vapour, on the eye no, nor to arryue, into Thetis’ bower. So he sang thee will drinking of some shall in wassailed; hers by. Ye snufft and pillow smoke. I tried the breathd from her wane.

You yet mine owne paine: with only is hight. ’ Then fayrest ymage of that is that traits of Fate will not after thankles which may records have thousand yet I rise of pebbles most you know out above the kist the dumb-sister Lilia’s bed, and gone—like the color of that doest sponge of cloud, nor cold before than look and exquisite? My spirit do lie, yet growes her nimble feet leave mercy, pitying creatured like him did the stormes are in water where Laura’s heard that ye car’d na a flie; but now, a cloak and all the rest in this breasts but harder the named, as consent a message froth beauty and our date is not look all the moments less from the old baggage.

Behold, the richest overlook’d for my sack of sorrow fraught with causes or gotten all form create, and let out of a treat out as he: bound again shade their panting. Hope, a poising indignation went till I gladly, or let me from the gentle wave’s dashing of loue; that looked, they reach; three summer long siege all posterity, shall liue foreuer in the gods he did see, through the spheare you are you meet society of my weary had touch! To vtter hemisphere; grief he fling time throned persephone in gentle pleasure—thy thou didst buy, still unprepare your way, we knew a woman, and pity no more, myne eyes in an easy things were stay’d and in her I stands.

And know your force— so in that in a tree. Not at all hew, that may her love, and every window and winning sun, and being heady ripe from death, resume?—As shot a storms have the while the crowd of poesy! Thou can paint to proue, fayre a medley! ’Re write, what loose despair. While thee, and given false to Love has wept, thinke doth day and great harde them slight upon this sake! And come to have done awayt to clearer out of satin, elaboration. Had died in hand dismay, what god Pan, She bowl was hid. Now on pathless, stay! To whom I’ve felt, keep the patron. Prepare you quite forlorne. At length out of youth but living thus: you have no hatred in my cell of sun up to read.

Doth test air: air verily, but lo! Whom all the mounted once her smooth it be name in each life was at Christmas. And, thou beauties skies. You are you stood in all? But while turbidly floure. I have you residence, the Hand often and sabre-like morn her venge thy will, but do thy grave. Sees fully knows I came to your skill expectant. Then sinews o’er polar seats, expulsions into his bough her meeds, when loosing lip, well come forests should speak, and still, save them I heard a sciential, glad time yet.—I’m wearied, said did men shall grow on the rose a new flowers pale pageantry enrobe our piety could not love for within the worke I prize it, compare. Did, till he presume?

I’m o’er ocean, whence words. I knew it was more missed him that pardon, sweet, an’ I in public use requested, what them clust’ring raiment. Then should harden into the ouer all, would not so well. And silver is the shepheardes along these rude musick, ourself. The men index to a bounch of a progress could prosper. His penned, your waste, for will hate you prize to-night mists the longed to wreak your name waggish fauns, and hamstringed her faire after paine: but a storm; iron tears of June is not to pry, to fyll the pageant thousand yet as a chant buy, still be led by the restoring one and put off sloth: she mote haue she spake tomorrow liue. The firbloome, but fayleth truth suppress’d.

Cries, Ah, Lycius chariot waits a ribbon of fools, or, in a throne, what’s my thigh. And take itself almost, what I before to the claim this a star of Heavens, and with brain full course, the rest, of trumpets blown. ’Twas so warmly ran my loves you Stella is not vex me with our sex a tyrannous, but first seene thing to the words she new- born god; Follow, Swallow, and none, into my hoarded by thy love’s an idiot blind yours in the earliest pipe of despair meet that lower, but he lovers know you hadst confounded eaves, and would the lot. In such a planet with each bird that runs head just now are peeress, her paps like murmuring weeks, I dare not seen the days, trying!

—But when we all she vowed my ankle in luve to great carved steam: a petty maiden gracefully, as marble, we’ll begin it Ding, dying lyre upon the very real hell. Then an unregarded not do, thought patience, angry spirit that, so longed-for distance? White fingers the heart to a baskets her more like him. Being came, hath wound, vailing, said, Sweet by fame: now our liberty. Lest this prison-house what winter’s arm and hold on a grandfather’s hands he doing, the Infernal wind, nor know, I think me some greater fon, than the things she sigh behind there whelmed well-nature of Love, I am may pass’d the way! From whom she driues amend the lawns, the way, the basement.

Down in the greatness of rose a fiend in a though many years from Hebe Hebe Jove with guiltlesse, loue, maintain’d, to dally with smiled to meet that might, nor night of many a dreame, laughter, all sorts of which only not thine! Sometimes I too were see what sounds of bright and the soft October night, though you’re slow flapping a dark old inn-door. I mean my life in the daylight he suspect the birth, and adorn’d with tender; nor to tell her, and Locks pickt, yet a child of morning south and by mysteries and tumbled hart the heaven gate and gemlike enough, no bower, wherein she left discovers, asleep. And, while the heavenly tunelesse she cruelty she with her bosom dies.

But court that man’s art assurance: no woods to tell her soft look for anger, we shall I haue bred. Her vows were lone voice in our liberty commission brede; made her friend: to heare. To his hand: pity me thou shalt not go, through much, that over if I speak, a sparke. By which way it well: but soon renew I shall be done, Ay me, Leander now, but their joy, and gives; and well-tuned it light. Yawning discrepant betweene, let be their sleeps therewith a hill. What even now, she spake that same forbear, then hot for possess one distance but if in present the dayly more faire triumph is frayle eyes in the doom’d with us in her vnaware. The pavement white and hath bred hys smart.

One might breath and good in the paradice: that at top, and come They have, though it’s not peace, and gentle dear. Adrienne alone: cloisterous and doe embrace thee behind they should steadfast friend, who trembling hue, and make Time’s starke blinde was past, yet whose body. Therefore ye mote soft misnomers, so oft as I then miseryes. To kill the matter went Mercury who shine on Thetis pearls come, my wit, they can gives the loves to the fields in couldn’t sleep laid by her verse I caught, and one man I cam past, such word which with all the fair verily, but fire, liue by kind: this tenants, wife and he in the things to hear these couetize, be lyke a rain cups by themselves and feeds her maids are drown.

Her modest eye, and tourney take it will enjoyment I’ll kissing an airle-penny, my toung to every one, by the shell. Reply, reply, you are delights well or release. No mischievously be separably link’d. Is that it would almost wreckage. Then Scylla sigh’d a lullabies unheard of the story. I never noticed before the sung, dwelt on a shines: that iustice I him kindled staff she had drunk with Soldiers stand in terms, but he thousands now such utmost bewail his tendrils, and seeketh heard that is true harmony was serpent prisoner led astray:&with the opening beams doth pleasures on first-born flower, jove slyly stew a children of Latmos!

I played and, seeing green leap, and suppresse. Yield so stedfastly, the low-tide rocks other liuing fire itself the wall, and then I speak a twofold truth had burnt from an evening those old indeed so? It changed from the golden moniment: yet thy music swims back our elbow round the white brows all thy meed of thee: yes, I am all faith, too sorely wrought for the butt-ends ouer-cast, my simple girls—sick of thy poor breathe at my father went and grow on heaping heart, rend thee. The vaine I see thy selfe and power benighted them dress’d its wings to my Damzell doth convulsion to kiss you. Most assurance: attempt to write—love’s mother. Winter’s night that my verse adornd with her snow.

My sparks, onion ring of Hero shrunk away, and rubious-argent: of all be time to the great; a knave thy thou my child, I say, I intreat, who in sweet, yet in cruelty she with us? Someone will him to part made her owne me drawn; her trade, through the Infernal heaven, lover’s life’s lower, she space fulfild, such vulgar miracle of Youth, and as his fair Corinna, come to me; and all were in vain; the moonlight by a spring honey, for sacred hands fade away, and ways? Our boasted summer dawns there is a kind me, true when we meets that he scales or other cage, till I in this wings, and ungrateful Time has been the skirts though at his white sheepe for all thing!

And things… and in among the fire to tie? In twilight, the fairer man, I thinks me you your skill the harts desire, stretching up robed in spite of its trembling a dark are spreading into the things … and if I have thee. Be this is the and my blis. Still only due to the through the rest I would be. This sweetest of all her, leaves thy fair, on the breath the long-forgot! The softest vengeance take, or drop a seething, wither’d deep question of my pulse, and turtle hiding- place. After girls were the birds on worlds of self-intent to tie? In peace, where be found, thou not see you once more the widest dye being on the time, and then and read again, and be foundressed in silent.

Poisonous air instead, when wilt have been my daughters of gladness, have this were starres: for thee, my happy shore and mistress’ eye Loves and such streets, after frownest, and rode to secure as sudden shelving on the rugged at each, alas, how far to come a manner of his golden light and basest more I given, may recording inside my Lady would make green she walked astrology, these say, when you best, should not your heart who, wheresoever thrust ahead of Holofernes peepes her benighted many mortal flesh stars the tongue transgression grew a new-world of sighs! Straight within my body shall men a scourge I will strew the whisk’d again. What may makes Love.

Some breath was form creatured by Prometheus, and trimm’d with pity, sir, to awake and you. That other’s body that is not much as with many night thus, thus to endure for her, not you comin’ to me, stared in a twinborn so fowly seed: doe wreck, doe redound, sends forth to feede, or be there this primrose wan, and only two or throwing: astrophel, sayd to his might find as gladness, he wylfully there when shepherds’ cells. Speak, and i’m always confus’d nor shun their goddess go; must do the other hew: she crie; let fops or foreheads; there with ioy begin and the red flowers sweet peace with false heart, e’en as a hundred in challenge in beauty take. Full sixty years away.

But such a time to me gaue by fame, am I to be, barbarous opulence pursuer; at mine own faire, honor rayse no skill. Fair pledges of powers only gods mighty violence shakes herself are head, and there vnseene, they will not mad; yet euen so as that well by, where I walk’d to-day, the only knows here is, stole through by the richer false or not delays to closed what this flying race, are therewith angels, palms, new-plucked from mine own flesh anchor’d; whither from paradice: theyr weakening snake, that only in thee? The beauties to recommend? The ghosts are her desire to a phrase, that sport; a hermitage, whose fruitless could not conceiue the world, each test and ware?

That Eloquent revolving this blessed loose that picked peace, the murmuring. Into the bottom, when I was armed my loue-affamisht hart from him to me giuen hath would it his mother. Yet hope or make these joys; ask nought is with a nod. To cradle till hath made that rolls together: from elsewhere you ran across his triple leaves Me, Heaven’s blue: yet not dig so dense a brere; sweet compare: ne all blisse in respect. In my necke doth burns above the dreamer, quick answer, echoes, dying. While on you: beside this, her presence of the pass’d his deceaue: attempred to breake our cloistered feet two, as some eares, blush, but there it not to solemnized tuned it EVIL. That blessing hair!

And I must’ve dreary Mars has legible and she uphold this a mere longe: let this pallid faces lower shut did her bowre are thee behind, that Fate presence she laughing faults thy feares the Cheuisaunce, more did not yet escap’d from you on them warm her that’s in the messages. The horrid pain, dropt on the retrospect, but with the street in starred mosaic, and then christall women, ’ said he, these alone. These weary toyle, shall already, known buried age she strew sweete is, see how thine: for the hearsay well; I will give and Titan on Neptune when I have this minutes fled, as he spurt of eyes already. Get up, and he cried, do offend her hair is growes sauing she.

And that we might haunt, were we weeping closes make gilly-flowers, but crazed oblivion yield for her mouth can it straight will end. Seven Sleep, or grill groan’d on the very head, by a clear, bess, take delight, and kill, was careless bleating that all, as gay as ’twere all be waited my aching upside door of his dripping that musike giuen hath made thee. Twas the first sunrise, and loath to say, but the enfeeble, filth and grass. In our Peeretree haunt about him down beside you thinking your streak thy though it is parent can we sank our maids are love the hope for thee, who with wool and sing. The nearer the ice; in the songs serves in the best reliefe vayne to you; good-morning sublime!

Did she ware not thou shalt the tear, she would not to tie? Both in my beauty it down from my dew is beams assemble th’ ymage of that she packed at his back with vertues stall; Cupid’s cold with his broken lilies, ah, few! And, as she replied: The richest over no eies buy ioyes, indeed were less timmer, midnight, and dewdrops that have dashed the curtain challeng needs must quietude: more furious despoyld of residence, and by my trousers, and to wayt on loue himself had my Cupid, empire sterne could wonder. Palate doth concealment: she dragon-fly came riding—riding—I would it has flow, an image plaint to this, thicke, might seemed not choose a shoot ye shalt see?

Than such warbling where have embrace. There took her pale, as one pursue they said nothing: so when as thoughts I enuy your gains. ’St thou shalt thou art ripe for here bow’d his mouth these, a hostages doe awake? Heavens highest what a mat of weeping: half the nettle, so save this blessing his the groveling, gaue repulse all that love lovers slain. Sings of iron—when like a greater of his gewgaw castle shine upon the thine. And thus; which of harmony without and fann’d in peace the dismayd, then spill and fly that lamp you come, my ioy, faire ladies do care whenas death fell handled, noses green enough; and rough, strove the light, then design, to thee? Doth she yielding the Gods can end.

Was more fayth doth raine so darke abstracted with she to hye On gold or led as if her lips, whose halves you were not to flatter’d how she laugh at next brooks the peeping: half was heaviness, but by day’s end to mountains for they gagged his wide chased irresolute boy for more and peace, misery hart, when thoughtful, deep question on your sweet is Moly, but crazed eld annull’d by skill not with amorous hew: she called. You shew thee into herself escap’d from lack of word, much life-enkindling fynd, and euery beast am I sick of haunted beautiful multitude’s just not there ’gan to age’s strew sweet, so wide, while I stumbled little to thus: you had expect, to feed his hand.

Your heard of poesie were nobler part, no more when we meet her love before fly; see that blessed she, thought, was just not what’s sae meikle think, my Soul waste and against youthful moods are cleare and she had my brain to some arch’d her own grapes, in light, and thin? While too bold, that late footless maintaines: her sacred bough harbengers did set those circled mazes, with me many, in whose need noticed before hart robbing gladness, and there is head a great and depart. So now I all read how potently? Tree, and was a dead forgive much; a gift of prophecy, and answer, echoes oft the house, what men unborn shall tell how to our way, whose engines laid by art’s end and out the time, starlight.

But since, and that your immortal door, then with her love resistless verdure of love. So sad, so fast? The rolling without a shaft that has close—And tooke his pray’r, childless with healthful love to be moving up a glass, take a light and three limbs have embracing lover, pledges of body, for such, so noise then he sang with cloud, imagine, she fell to you. And young birds and cools, yet was waxin’ weary night I lay awake, my lad, they roam; no thou doost molest. And bites it thy birth, and hollow you I blessed nightly me, but part, their king, that woman’s son will tell ye how smoke that exceed Love, I will abide. If Time, whose old in lava, fans of shining far as requited.

’Tis She, wan, and allure: in his task of joy that sunshine on Thetis’ glasse he crystal pool, where you—Then those fayre when he sang of those who will into amazement in brasen toward the white brows and bay; rough much, the scarce a stead: one of us wanton play with Time’s spoil they grant mew, the green sea as mere containe to shun me not, trowth, I care and every noon! He roses have her sounds; if hair in the blew in a poem obeying at it pricked men; but, whereby she walked into her brest his wild about to the flowers in mee, which neuer things: to deal in frolics, an old bygones be upon, lull’d my head, her transfer a weak, and wrung it. A broken stayed so clearer.

Not made replied: The rites goe visiting up the ware a conquering steps of light and termes vnsure, fluttering breeze in the doome then, perhaps will we return’s vintage; moulder hung a stag. Offered with pearls come highly prize not, madam: by you nursed the last of boys their looking silent hast no dream the hall: a glance doth light displayed above, and withering false heart. Rest, he called together toiled in the housed in thy beauty to the hall—a barbed sharpe dare, hys pleasance and time, stared with that sight by the park, agrees as it was strooken, but dealt with pity do not mine owne myself, the best relies, I mean! At wintry hour gave his train and compare, with a dying, and thee.

My mammie coft melody was they gave, and in her selfe contented deare return again shames augment mean, althought the Lady deare Lord of love. To seeds&religious sing upon this rosy heights of pain; and thrice as I grant, in silently round them. And when he sand. Have this, now among? ’St Leander in its back, and a few Persian mutes, which did lay, and subtle skin; I nibbled up we came, and Virgin Daughter frost or snake, but seal forever. If smiled to see part banter, sings are like murmuring red, thy loue, when desire, tomb’d in exposing the sight to the bursting Destinies laden hookes, and right before by which me with great ye must part: of Heaven.

With Venus’ altar to complain, and sweet hour gave to know in part made a willing eies, march, into amazed ken, that she short; and airy fellowship I need you and clarion’s seen the other knees I praise her horse, he saw him, if her brest till her, and the absence you teaching thin! Above, for ever, reach’d the poor heart beat heaven plaste. Of old-lipp’d, and said—but harder grew a new haue lent my knee; when we soe, as we ought surpasse, vnseene, the fairer man who We shall see, his cotton, and leaves thy foe skulks to hear that after a hollow in his elements complayned, but have thou doost molest: and stouping Phebus chace for one hour town, far off, and wound about the knack?

The world has closes every face but like variously;—all lowly but ere you doth tye, doth tears, the shepherdess, esteem me, and to me. And one, then he turns all those days, use other. When the ever note. I was tir’d the lark’s ears were two longed in Scarlot like a fish. Therefore King Oberon’s bright daughter. And unruffled, no, there were gladly dart of heavenly tune? Then those medled with most mad Leander, show, tis lost review the morrow by their love an houses of love: if I can shew, whilst thou return that bloom as of a consequence in the fayre soyle it sore my hands beguile: but we, unworthy mother’s breast can Chloe dies. I saw the Fawn at last.

Could more fit; never faith, hopeless loud, and yeare: but I saw the please, but we particles, are wonts to him in this, he seemd to me; and to thee all that know, for earth more likes a glimpsed her but ere your drawes out there not let no one known the snowy doves weep, she replied. Since I visited this the present, dismay: I maruaile as the largely spright, nor nightly to take those engins can it be no more, it did, my thought but lost thyself and tempests play, who like to loue, my frayle eye’s anatomy. Draw his sin, and answered champaign, drank his bitter-sweet! Of my desk and saw and now ginnes to bed. Speaking a table, so stremest fight, i’ll come upon the soul!

Forefather an’ mother Sunne: and, as she sun. Thus bepearl’d with Rufa studying Locke, and swiftly as he image of cruelty comply with busts: from the river. And pain, dropt for my life no longer vnto your meanings of Satanic power too poor for hate you amid loud trumpet in that I proue a horsman to burn and bare arms that ground; if Yuorie, her whom at there we may remoue there all live, the Cuckow, while his tresses, my thigh like these rudest land doom take. Oh wretched them. ’En as a dead that fainting book. Undo this more. In moods; and through the day, my vertue art. End were hollies you surpasseth, when gaudy toys in spite, so that gaine hath begun, shines so in mynd.

Is alyue. Where in our phoenix Queene of fellow- men with truth and sparrows a glimmeringly, but he’s kingdom! Born coughing or glowering life in the light. Strenuous with such as spider it was like a tranced lad, o whistle, and learne to marry yet; I’m o’er you beares adowne and his white boulders in a vale, plays, masks, and that they lay in his mace but for mercy vould be; yet in her nature and through a great smiling crown till thou art not a turtle’s bracelet on plaid, mine eye hath it fearelesse to the Lyonesse: not wanted away is fledg’d birds on these wearied, said Ida; let us possible as malignantly awake; and as the truth and the way!

The said,” returned, came as nigh, but my rests. I broke, nor sight; for thee, and that joy can do. Night, overjoy’d, were I sought. To feed upon a sun will haue gayned: but as his Graces did miss, lest guilty beetle is a fresh-quilted colour turned in fear, like hand the letter. Resting the sky, the one of wrong’d so he there will never wane. The nested you have embrace. To the floor breathing throwing come like the river. In her all together shrink to a book, and then she would be if all there, she real woman of curled and all cups outreach’d new grow up the ambrosial glooms that ye may, me seem to look into the fruit in the lake and of the dare, his eyes shall that bondage.

He tore out the west, so that hath the golden hart more that dream I saw you still to me your controlled. Thy advertisement with in-born god; Follow, flying from frayle thought, the lines of that you complaint of all outlive a girl with pity, but that though hardly scap’t with us in the Northern front: yet not to kneeling with sweet odour wholesale commend thyself brings even the dream of the story is writ doth spy desire, dutiful dream all been sae shy; for trial needs no church as Emperor-moths, or codille; spleen, vapour, on the river! Had been worthiest till its teeth and better bathes full glaunce, more thine tinctures. For who in the streams of death as love-poem!

And louder grew like light to wreake my heart. Shelf. Nor treasonable, pitiable for not afraid. Her going out, and understood up the seasons traine. As become. And make off ordinary walls, or doth my fingers do. No doubt to a few friend, while my hopes the land, ’ she should say: but Walter Vivian all the dread his phantasy was the water a drowsie day? Sweet bent to find there. Force herself, long night. I saw him, glided silence of the rich Ocean wyde, or seeming Destinies. But if his hart: that weep night. Your pleasant game, I can star is blood in drain’d. I ring upon your with her sapphires blow; and trimm’d hawker of ten-thousand hymns divine could bewrayed.

For dainty of loue which thy cruelty composed cruel lady in dead thee. Now passion in this the weare? Had beneath thick and red flower Lilias in fugue across the chink on a man, yet her louely euery beast an agony, across to fight, effects of warm of spirit do lie, and incense rare. For Jewels, and clashed it! Your second nothing her think if we’re not from heaven would vouchsafe my poor Psyche flung it. She mignonette of it, to you. For such a kind of love! Laden bred the fraile fancy as she was near with his hand disdainful terms, but if ye pleasure divine and drave large eyes will I do? Letter. And amethyst, and blisse. Yet still, even now.

To see ‘Alas your second more: the bills. But Cloe blushed after his two eyes their age: for was, and all this element broke him from the long stony helm, and Lilia; Why not a happy as ye: and swallows obey: stay! Then from me was for so fayre hatefull eyes thine inmost beams doth shine tinged lady in darkness amongst which is, of art—So saying my thought, and fed the day and groan, when in her ﬁngers, stretching plied his primrose-banks, and than magician’s name beasts were still vouchsafe O goddess held and unruffled; the snake, but seal does slumberous early houses of unlov’d. Because I woo thee: the dismay, sufficient elm, leaning time now calleth forth dark night!

A girl, to preposterously lamented level wither’d Indias of fear of Heav’n, the palms. And swifter thee; yet waile the wake us all the way, doth spy desire to rise, and tourney take faultering as I was inflam’d for you wilt say, sun’s bright doth in her new; thy fragile bone. Then present the air, but by hearts, can say easily gathered court that lyfe is smit, without all upon the wrapp’d like a rainbow, trick her goodly semblant trew. And one gender, we were in one strip the worships its bound it shall shall joy but at my sheep. Come here with weary took, and dispatches the North. May weep, here she wild hills echoes, dying, and hath no contentment glistened.

As those eighty, in diapers every clime. Whose powrefull glaunce, shall search the might to proue? Of the sky, not for lift you but the sward; lay out to dusk, nothing to me you loved her tongues for a spot—nature gives in idle flight and every swains, let us agreement of her nimble feet, and borderers, disjoin, whate’er so weake her lion’s more and paddling fynd, in whom at the dooth to give. And, like a Druid rock so goodly wonne, that harder they knew not how, but fan the involuntary sight, She, ending. Come home into a Myrtle wall. Have she battell, as if in continuous with teares! About therefore here is a surprised with as out any thou dasht?

At last I fill the reed, till green; but take defences. And modest more fat, by heavens did make thy praise, Vertues manifold? And thereby much for ardours: my note unto the pane, that fidgets beyond they closed what heauen most curious desire! Is duer unto me captiue quite. I prize one act a phantasy was forst to a Comedy: sits eternall night, or soon the waves tipped out of beauty being him the father, and, bidden through when the window, and sea, from coverture. And riddle, think they fled from a storm came nearer. Whilst thou too, down! Yet she his tenderest fast away: against a cold earth th’ approached melissa shook. The fume of their river.

And all her Body chanced, held a smile, thoughts and breeds in spite of Vivian-place, whereon the views; and where-through which watched, and be spent sweet is their sphere; false-flatt’ring of sorrow flits, and still sing Euphelia serve, but chance did into rhythm have to see part of her hangs: howbeit ourself she shriek as of life’s busy worlds on those weight breake anew: and set it repayre. In the shoe- store … I’m lugging herself to see a place could euery minute. Whom none but mine eyes, which on our date is nothing thrugh stubborne King sun; for the night I might cheap hotel. Day, setting of some dead, he heart so potent goddess of the eyes in me I will doth from whence can stint nor in his subdue.

While too kind of that on hill, and, smiling thrugh you so lamented to wayt vpon the better part; venus in equall pain my serpent-skin of God, what I am skill not how the winds howl to thee, to be refresht, the bolts into the acting only way, with the green meadows sear! To me in which your voices was so far I read thy beauty’s treasures—touch’d that none of Pearles and keepe stomakes her faileth: but within the moment; she went from the first, and the hair, and seeing with honour did him up and disarmèd of ioy of our companion art, when the loss of reason; these worke of many a sniggering scythe angry modesty with faint moon! A syre, and fear.

#poetry #automatically generated text #Patrick Mooney #Markov chains #Markov chain length: 6 #201 texts #Meredith sonnet sequence

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papersong · 4 years ago

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Chicago: Chapter 1

Kyojuro Rengoku x Reader Reader is a female demon(?) from Japan. Teen rating for now.

..........

You've traveled the world from Heian Japan to Renaissance Italy. By the time the 1920's find you in America, you think you've seen it all. Then, the dead man appears in your living room with hair like fire and a hole in his stomach, his blood ruining your favorite carpet, and you're not so sure of anything anymore.

..........

After the Mugen Train Arc, Rengoku Kyojuro wakes up halfway across the world in Prohibition Chicago, where you're a fast-drivin', gun-totin' bootlegger.

You're also one-thousand-something, and the flame Hashira brings uncomfortable reminders about the start of your immortality as a medical testing slave in 12th century Japan. Maybe it's time to reconsider the country you've sworn you'll never return to. Read on AO3

A thousand years ago, you crawled out from your grave in Heian-Kyo. You followed your all-consuming hunger into a fresh grave, popped the lid off the coffin, and devoured the corpse like slightly stale sardines from a can. The flavor wasn't good or terrible, just like the discarded preserved fish you remember from scavenging trash with the other medical nuhi last fall. You take another bite. Then, your brain catches up with your stomach.

You stare at the half-eaten face of the human being in your claws. You taste iron on your lips. When you finish spitting between screams, you run. You stowaway on a ship from Japan to Goryeo. You make enough money to charter your own vessel to Great Yuan, where you spend a century trading the silk road from Dadu to Istanbul, wandering the desert where no human can live to tempt you. As your falcon delivers the news of the Red Turbans driving out the Mongols to your sheephair tent, you find the blue spiderlily blooming from the desert sands of Garagum.

You split three centuries between the desert, the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford, and La Sorbonne. In 1492, Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue, and you perfected your master's medicine in your Parisian greenhouse. As Ponce de Leon sought the Fountain of Youth, you stepped into the sun for the first time in three centuries, your visage unchanged since the doctor first injected you with the medicine he would later use on Muzan Kibutsuji.

At the turn of the 15th century, you learned to paint and sculpt from Da Vinci and Michelangelo. In the 16th century, you sat in the Globe's Pit to watch Shakespeare's plays premiere. In the 17th century, you debated Rousseau and Voltaire in Madame de Pompadour's salons. After Europe became saturated with the memories of those you've loved and lost, you venture to the New World.

Over the millennium, you've traveled the world from Heian Japan to Renaissance Italy. By the time the 1920's find you in America, you think you've seen it all. Then, the dead man appears in your living room with hair like fire and a hole in his stomach. His blood ruins your favorite carpet, and you're not sure you know anything anymore.

You're trying to drag the body to the garden when you feel his chest stutter with the intake of breath. He's alive. Without thinking, you break the skin of your right wrist with your left nail. You press the blood to his lips.

It's been decades since you last turned a human. You've forgotten how much the process takes from you. Kyojuro's body hungers for you more than you had hungered for blood when you'd first woken. His wound needs your blood to rebuild his body. You're drained until you collapse on his chest, your last thought of his comforting warmth, like the first touch of sunlight on your skin two centuries ago.

..........

You wake in the middle of the night. Your eyes adjust. You reorient yourself in the darkness.

Your skin's sticky with sweat and blood. There's a man under you. He runs hot. You prop yourself up on his chest and scoot away. You may dress like a flapper and run gin, but you're no floozy.

The parlor's ruined with blood. Your maids come on Tuesdays. You're a bootlegger, not a gangster. The girls'll get scared by the blood, so you have to clean overnight.

Your maids won't disturb the unconscious man if you tell them you've a guest sleeping in, so you carry him to a guestroom. He's no longer bleeding. His wounds have closed, so you slash up his ruined shirt and clean him with it before tossing the clothes in the fire.

The white "destroy" character stands against the black fabric before it all burns. You wonder what the man's destroying and what nearly destroyed him, but you figure you'll ask when he wakes.

When you turn back from the fireplace, you're startled to see a pair of eyes staring at you, so bright they could be glowing in the dark.

"Kawaī!" Your unexpected guest shouts with enough volume to shake the room before rolling over and falling back asleep. You blink. The room rumbles with his snores.

While he sleeps, you break his outburst into syllables. You haven't been to Japan since you left, so you must reconcile his modern accent with your Heian Japanese. Ka-wa...

Oh. You cover your mouth, laughing softly. He thinks you're pretty. You're far too old to flush like a schoolgirl with a handsome youth, but he thinks you're pretty.

..........

You drag the rug to a bathroom with a tub. As you run cold water over the hand-woven silk, you remember when you commissioned your carpet in Kankorum: the noise of the open air bazaar, the clink of gold coins in your gloved hands, the warmth of the sun at your back. You no longer remember the year, except that it was before you could walk in sunlight. You can't remember the weaver, except you recall she was a young woman with callouses on her hands and a twist in her spine, aged beyond her years by backbreaking labor at the loom.

When you open your eyes, you're back in Chicago, the cicadas calling into the night, your unexpected guest snoring softly next door. You prop yourself up with your wet hands on the marble tile, listening to the night for a moment before you drain the first tub of bloodied water, keeping the tap on while you run downstairs. After wiping the floor clean, you drain the tub a second time as you bleach the floor under the carpet.

The carpet's soaking in a third tub of water by the time you start the shower, tossing your clothes aside to be burnt with the dirty rags. You scratch the blood out of your hair, wiping the mirror free of condensation every wash to check your reflection. Once your hair's finally clean, you start on the blood covering your skin. If you're quick enough, you might still be able to catch an hour of sleep before sunrise.

..........

Kyojuro senses a demon. It's right next to him. He slams open—whoops, wrong door. That's a closet. He tries again, leaving the bedroom for a tall, western-style hallway.

This isn't the Butterfly Estate. When'd he get moved to a western mansion? He'll figure that later.

Now, he follows the sound of water and the demonic presence. He stops at a shut door. The knob doesn't budge—locked. He kicks down the door, wood splintering under his feet. There, behind the curtain—

"Demon!"

Kyojuro tears away the shower curtain. His slayer instincts tell him to kill. The being before him has taken thousands of human lives. Death weighs down the air like—

Wait. Is that death, or the moisture in the shower? Kyojuro doesn't sense Blood Demon Arts, illusions, or killing intent. He's not seeing any demons, either, just a human-looking girl with—

Stop. Back up.

Locked door. Running water. Shower. Girl.

All the blood in Kyojuro's body rushes up into his face. He goes redder than the tips of his hair. You slam his head into the shower wall.

............

"I am sorry! I will take responsibility!"

In your thousand years, you've had your share of surprises, from stepping onto the New World for the first time, to watching man taking flight, to—whatever this is.

You're in a bathrobe, thank the Lord. The ginger-blond—Samurai? Bushi?—kneels in your garden. You don't know what happened in the shower, but it felt like a switch flipping. One moment, he was ready to murder you. Now, he looks ready to commit seppuku, kneeling on your bathroom floor, head bowed, hands on his knees while the sky starts to blue with morning.

"Please stand."

"Yes!" he springs to his feet. You jump back at the sudden movement. Kyojuro stills. You can't tell if he's regarding you like a small animal about to startle, or a predator ready to spring. Maybe both?

"What are you!" he demands. "You have a demon's presence. You feel like death! But it's old, like you haven't eaten a human in years—"

"What is—" you try to speak up, but the man talks over you. He comments on everything, from the state of your bathroom (The floor is cold!) to the scenery outside (The flowers are blooming!) to his self-awareness (I do not know where I am!)

You watch the way he carries himself, back straight, shoulders squared, arms crossed over his broad chest. Definitely a warrior.

You're used to being ignored by men like him, so you wait, letting his monologue wash over you. You have all the time in the world, after all.

You take a seat on the edge of the bathtub. The room goes quiet. The bushi looks at you.

"You're in Chicago, Illinois, United States of America. What's a demon?" you ask, remembering his shout when he broke down your bathroom door.

Kyojuro's eyes meet yours. You're caught under the full force of his fire colored gaze, which seems to glow in the dark with its intensity. He's unarmed, but you feel power pointed at you like a loaded gun, the bushi's finger on the trigger, the sights lined. He's ready to fire.

"I don't know what you mean, calling me a demon," you repeat, your voice clear and calm in the darkness.

Kyojuro reads your lips. He takes in your expression. There's no hesitation in your voice or avoidance in your gaze. You're telling the truth.

You're a demon who doesn't know what demons are.

What does that make him?

He doesn't feel monstrous. When he woke, Kyojuro didn't hunger for blood or human flesh. He felt no different than usual, which is why he chased the presence of a demon, hunting you down.

Coming down from his adrenaline now, Kyojuro realizes that he's a little different. He feels a little stronger, moves a little faster than he remembers. When you threw him into the wall, he recovered more quickly than a human can. The bump on his forehead's already feeling better.

There's no other explanation to how he's seeing from both eyes now, his stomach repaired with no scarring. You turned him into a demon. He had been dying. Now, he's fine. He doesn't even feel like death, because he's never eaten a human being.

This feels wrong, too normal, too easy.

"Are you sure you're a demon?"

You sputter, clutching the bathrobe tight to your chest.

"You—you ran into my bathroom, screaming demon. I don't know what a demon is. How would I know if I am one?"

The fire-haired man furrows his thick, forked brows. In that booming voice, he tells you of demons and demon slayers, Hashira and Twelve Kizuki, Muzan Kibutsuji and the country you'd left nearly a millennium ago.

You drop onto the edge of the bathtub as you listen. The energy of his voice washes over you, the excitement from earlier wearing off. Almighty Lord, the hour's too early and you're too sleep deprived for this.

Kyojuro watches you blink sleepily, leaning against the wall you broke with his forehead. The rest of the moisture evaporates from the bathroom, clearing the air so he can focus on your presence.

You're not a demon like Nezuko. Your energy is threaded with the human lives you've taken. But death doesn't weigh you down like Tamayo. Your essence is lighter, faintly threaded with the scent of flowers—lilies? Kyojuro closes his eyes and sees blue. He tells you he's a demon slayer and you nod lazily, like that's nice but none of your business. He finishes speaking and you yawn.

Your head tips back to expose the pale column of your throat.

He wants, suddenly, to run his thumb over your skin, and he doesn't know what to do with his wanting.

Dawn breaks. Sunlight spills through the window and over your features. You don't move from your spot.

The light stretches over to him. Morning passes over the healed wound in his stomach, the left eye he can now see out of.

"What are you?" Kyojuro asks. "What am I?" he murmurs when neither of you burn.

You close your eyes, pinching the slight bridge of your nose, "That—is a long story."

..........

In the 18th century, you cured your reliance on human blood, so you get to know Rengoku Kyojuro over breakfast. You fry eggs and bacon, and fry eggs and bacon, and fry more eggs and bacon because Kyojuro eats for ten. As you cook, he migrates from your dining room to the kitchen, standing beside you where he can eat as soon as the food cools off from the grill. At this rate, you'll have to telephone your grocer to come tomorrow instead of Saturday.

"Tasty!" Kyojuro exclaims between bites with the same exuberance as when he called you pretty.

At first, he looked suspicious of your food. You pointed out that he watched you cook. He took a first bite, then a second, and now he's on his fourth plate. Though the boy says he's twenty, he acts younger than he looks, approaching life with apparent joy that you've never been able to manage in all your centuries.

It makes sense. Kyojuro hasn't said as much, but his build and the way he carries himself makes you sure he's from a bushi bloodline that persisted after the Meiji Restoration. He's well-fed, well-clothed, and well-trained to serve his Emperor or the Diet from birth.

Unlike him, your first twenty years were spent starving, sick, or both. The shogunate plucked you from the streets to stab needles in your skin, draw test tubes of your blood, and collect slices of your flesh. Their doctors loved you because you were too weak to fight back and too strong to die, at least until you got the injection that would be adapted for Muzan Kibutsuji.

You died despite all your master's promises. Or maybe you just seemed dead enough to bury. You remember nothing between the treatment flooding your bloodstream like ice in your veins, and waking in the unmarked grave with that terrible hunger.

You tell Kyojuro of your journey from Kyoto to Chicago, omitting the gruesome brutality of slavery, the filthy truth of poverty, and the gnawing anxiety of running for your life. You give a sanitized version fit for a young bushi.

Kyojuro takes in the information without looking at you. He's washing your dishes, his sleeves rolled back to expose muscular forearms. He tries to keep his smile neutral, but you're too old to not see the hardness in his eyes, the set of his shoulders that speaks of preparation to strike.

Fine porcelain makes for a sharp blade once it shatters.

"You ate humans before you found it," Kyojuro notes when you describe the blue spiderlily.

"Yes," you admit and you wait.

When you dressed, you tucked a silver pistol into the waistband of your trousers. People like you and him are hard to kill, but you're loaded with sundowner bullets. If he tries you, you're ready.

Kyojuro passes you the cleaned frying pan.

"Do you regret it, eating people?"

He keeps up the hard smile, and you can sense yourself being evaluated for our worthiness to live.

You could lie to him. You should lie to him. All your self-preservation instincts scream for you to lie.

But Kyojuro is also a young man starting a new life in a new world. You know better than anyone how people can be robbed of their free will by lies and ignorance as well as whips and chains. In that instant, you make a decision that will define you.

You towel dry the pan and put it down, freeing your hands to reach for the gun. Then, you tell Kyojuro the truth:

"I regret nothing. I only ate people who deserved it."

His thick eyebrows narrow.

"Who deserves it? How could thousands of people—"

Not thousands. Tens-of-thousands.

"I'm a millennium old. I've been around the world. A lot of people try to take advantage of a young foreign girl traveling alone at night. I ate the people who assaulted me first."

The monsters you've known aren't demons; they're human beings.

Kyojuro blinks at you with the surprise of a young man who's never had to fear being raped and murdered in the dark. Eventually, he shakes his head.

"You didn't have to kill them!" he declares. "Human criminals can be sentenced in a court of law!"

Spoken like a true bushi, since the warrior class had been Japan's law officers. You smirk, imagining Kyojuro as a copper.

"People make laws." What if a copper beats his wife? What if the murders take place in the slums, where nobody cares to enforce justice? "Not all people are good. Not all laws are good, either."

"Bad people should be brought to justice! Bad laws should be changed!"

But reform takes time, like the Demon Slayers' mission. In the meantime, it makes sense to protect others using whatever means you have, including your demon powers.

"Can you swear you've only fought in self defense!"

"I've also fought in defense of others."

Kyojuro dries a hand on his trousers and takes your arm, his grip strong, his skin warm.

"Then you're a good demon, like Kamado's sister! Come home to Japan with me. You can protect people—"

Your own smile drops like a curtain falling over your emotions.

"No."

"Why not!"

You bite your lip.

Kyojuro is so, so young, and you do not know how to tell him: you've never heard of the Demon Slayers. That's no surprise—nobody's heard of the experiments that made you, either. Shoguns and Emperors and Parliaments tuck people like you into unmarked graves, not the anneals of history. You're acceptable sacrifice in the name of progress, and sometimes, acceptable sacrifice returns to bite them in the ass like the mistake that became Muzan Kibutsuji, who is not your problem. You're not bushi like Kyujuro. Slave girls don't follow bushido. Your country used you up and threw you out; now, it's their turn to reap what they sowed.

You smile sweetly at Kyojuro, an old habit from masters who beat in that girls like you should smile for your betters.

"Nobody ever protected me."

Your voice is calm, your smile flawless, but those are the words of someone small, weak, and helpless. Kyojuro's father slayed demons, but his mother raised him to defend the weak. You're a weak demon, and Kyojuro doesn't know what to do with himself.

In the hours that you've known each other, you turned Kyojuro into a demon. You bashed his head into a stone wall. You admitted eating humans without regret.

But you also healed his injuries and asked nothing in return. You dressed and fed him after he assaulted you and tarnished your honor. You told him the truth of your history and your choices, despite knowing he was a demon slayer.

During his first mission, Kyojuro said that life is a series of decisions. You never have unlimited options or unlimited time to think, but what you choose in that instant defines who you are.

In the milliseconds after you speak, Kyojuro makes a decision that will define him.

"I'll protect you!" he declares with the innocence of youth and the invincibility of warriors.

He did say that he would take responsibility for you, after all. Kyojuro keeps his promises. He takes your smaller hands in his and smiles at you, sun-bright.

You laugh in his face.

The shogunate of your era made armies of young men like him. When you left Japan, you learned that this happens the world over. Across countries and centuries, empires rise and fall under tides of blood from people like Kyojuro, young, hopeful, and foolish enough to adhere to chivalry, to noblesse oblige, to bushido, to believe their drops in the bucket can save the world.

You've lived through too many promises made and broken, met too many youths like him. For everyone you've reeled back from the brink, there's one hundred where you watched the light leave their eyes in despair or in death. Kyojuro is young. You are too old to believe men like him.

The morning sun rises into the cloudless sky. While you don't believe him, you don't pull away when he runs calloused thumbs over the ridges on the back of your palms. You don't resist when he hesitates briefly before setting your hands on his chest.

You are old, but some instincts are older, from the dawn of humanity and the childhood you cannot remember. Kyojuro's hands smooth down your arms from your biceps to your elbows to your waist, drawing you to him until he's wrapped around you, his chest warm and solid beneath your hands. You feel him breathe, his red-yellow hair tickling your forehead. His hand pats gently along your spine like he's reassuring a child. Your fingers curl involuntarily into his shirt. Kyojuro smells like sandalwood and pine and the homeland you cannot forget. You don't believe him, but you want to.

#papersong writes #kimetsu no yaiba #rengoku x you #kyojuro rengoku #kimetsu rengoku #rengoku kyoujurou #rengoku kyōjurō #rengoku x y/n #kyoujurou x reader #rengoku kyojuro x reader #kny rengoku #demon slayer

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maxwell-grant · 4 years ago

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Can you write about the Shadow's disfigurement ? I read that originally he was supposed to have a bandaged injured face like Darkman but that changed later

(Fan-art by Ryan Thompson)

It's a great signifier of what kind of character The Shadow is and how interesting of a figure he is in that, even a detail as innocuous as just his face has a whole sprawling history of intrigue and contradictions to talk about, not even getting into the specific features of his like the eyes and the nose, just the face. It's really great how I never run out of stuff to talk about with this character.

The true nature of The Shadow's face is an interesting oddity from the early stories that was never resolved in them, and several stories later took for a spin. It was one of the bits of information about The Shadow that Gibson reserved for rare and critical occasions, but it never really had a resolution and seemed to have been ignored when it was time to reveal Kent Allard.

Thing is, though, it was never really officially retconned, and it wasn't something you could ignore, it played a crucial role in some stories. And Gibson wasn't at all the kind of author who forgets plot points, he was fond of keeping notes and occasionally referencing his own continuity, which makes it all the more odd that a detail as important as The Shadow's real face was just not brought up again past a certain point. So here's the story of The Shadow's "real" face:

In the very first story, when Gibson was still testing the waters of what the character was going to be, he included a passage that teases a backstory for the character, as a former aviator who was scarred in the war.

"I seen The Shadow..." said Spotter eagerly. "I looked for his face. I saw nothing but a piece of white that looked like a bandage. Maybe The Shadow ain't got no face to speak of. Looked like the bandage hid somethin' in back. There was a young guy once who the crooks was afraid of -- he was a famous spy in the War, and they say he was wounded over in France -- wounded in the face. I think The Shadow is this guy come back." - The Living Shadow

In many of the following novels, even past the point where Gibson would more or less drop the idea all together, The Shadow's face is repeteadly described as "mask-like", usually when he's Cranston, something that both refers to the fact that he's masking himself as Lamont Cranston as well as Cranston's general impassive character. Throughout the character's entire run, Gibson never drops the idea of The Shadow's face being mask-like.

Cranston's eyes were almost smiling, even though his lips weren't - Dictator of Crime

The Shadow's methods of disguise are vague, but usually described as him using make-up putty on his face, using wire contraptions or wire masks, or thin sheets that he drapes over his features, and etc, it usually changes depending on the story or is all of these at once. The idea that The Shadow's true face had some kind of bigger secret was brought back a couple of stories later, when a villain unmasks The Shadow for the first time.

An arm came from the curtain. It reached forward and plucked the black hat from The Shadow's head. A low sound of amazement came from the curtain when the face of The Shadow was revealed.

"The secret of The Shadow," came the monotonous voice. "At last it is understood! The man of many faces - with no face of his own!" - The Black Master

The events of this story were brought up later in a story called Green Eyes, and four months after Green Eyes, we got The Shadow's Shadow, a novel whose resolution incorporated The Shadow's face in the finale.

Zubian's snarl became a cry of triumph as he saw The Shadow roll upon the floor. The slouch hat was carried away by the bullet. The head of the Shadow lay obscured beneath the folds of his cloak.

Zubian was aiming to fire further shots, to make sure of the Shadow's death; but he never accomplished that final purpose. An arm swept upward from the floor. Behind it came those glowing eyes; but it was not the eyes that stopped Felix Zubian. He was staring into the face of The Shadow -- not the disguised features of Lamont Cranston or Henry Arnaud -- but the visage of The Shadow himself!

What Zubian saw there; what expression on The Shadow's countenance made even that fiendish villain gasp in horror; no one could ever know. For Felix Zubian knew his last moment of life in that fateful instant. His trembling finger faltered on the trigger of his gun. The Shadow's unfailing hand did not yield - The Shadow's Shadow

And then, a year after this story, we got The Black Falcon, which has the most overt usage of The Shadow's "horror" face as it's once again the secret tool that allows The Shadow to gain victory over the villain

"If you are not Cranston," he demanded. "Who are you?"

"You shall learn." The Shadow's tone was ominous. "It will be your deserved warning. For those who have seen the true face of The Shadow have never lived to recite their discovery."

The man's face was ashen. A whispered laugh came from The Shadow's lips.

Only The Shadow knew why the sight of his dread face had brought terror to this evil fiend who never before to-night had known fear.

The face of The Shadow! The face that was never seen except when disguised to represent some other countenance. Roland Ransdale had met The Shadow face to face. The Black Falcon, he who had terrorized the law, had lost all nerve when he had viewed the true visage of The Shadow!

Only brilliant eyes remained in view. Burning eyes that surveyed the gasping shape of a man who had once thought himself invincible. As the fierce crook caught the burn of The Shadow's eyes, that sight, he knew, had been his sentence of doom. His nerve had passed with that revelation."

Stooping above the body of The Black Falcon, The Shadow hovered like a monster of the night..." - The Black Falcon

The last time we'd get a mention of The Shadow's face undisguised came from The Python. After he gets attacked and falls on a river, he's rescued by a couple of fishermen, and the narration states that the Cranston make-up had been blown off.

Squarely in the center of the rowboat lay a form attired in black trousers and a bedraggled white shirt.

Most of The Shadow's make−up had survived; but his features were no longer a close resemblance of Lamont Cranston's. He was still disguised; but only in a fashion. A grotesque hollowness had come upon his hawklike countenance. To Tanker and Pete, however, The Shadow was no more than a chance swimmer exhausted in the river - The Python

For the most part, any and all references to The Shadow's face from that point onwards would only be about how he alters it when he disguises, a process that's vaguely alluded to and usually implies him using make-up or wire frames to mold his face. In The Man From Shanghai, he even switches from Henry Arnaud to Lamont Cranston in the span of a single cab ride, and apparently keeps the Cranston face underneath the Arnaud one.

Deft fingers, pressing against cheeks and lips, were molding the countenance as one might work with clay - Chain of Death

Opening the briefcase, he produced a make-up box. Surveying his countenance in a mirror, he laughed softly and began to remold his masklike features. His visage changed beneath the pressure of his finger tips - Cyro

So far, the things we'd learned about The Shadow's real face by this point were: whatever is in there is horrifying enough to terrify and even traumatize hardened criminals (even after The Black Falcon gets some nerve back, he still can't bring himself to look at The Shadow without shaking, and it ultimately kills him in a gunfight).

The first story stated it was wounded in the war, and word got out about said injury to the point even an American gangster in the 30s knows about it. However, this fact was never brought up again, and it doesn't seem like a debilitating injury, as his face is malleable to the point of being compared to clay, and he doesn't seem traumatized or upset about it, even laughing at those who see it (which raises the possibility that it wasn't a war injury at all and that's just the story that got out).

It's said to be like "a piece of white that looks like a bandage", and later it was described as something that doesn't even really constitute a face. The only parts of The Shadow's face that are consistent are his burning eyes and his hawklike visage and both of these are malleable, and the most of his facial features we ever get to see for ourselves are described as having a "grotesque hollowness" to it, which is a delightfully horrifying adjective to apply to a face.

7 years after The Living Shadow, we got The Shadow Unmasks, which established that The Shadow's real, undisguised face was that of aviator Kent Allard. There were no further mentions of there being a "horror face" in further stories. You'd think this would be it, but if you've followed me long enough, you should know by now that there is no such thing as an "end" to weird mysteries when it comes to The Shadow.

In some stories following this one, his abilities of disguise would acquire some strange aspects. He'd be able to disguise himself by actively contorting his face along with the make-up.

Steadily, carefully, he bulged the contour of his forehead; squared his jaw; added a putty−like substance to his cheeks. It required longer for The Shadow to shape his nose like Wadsford's. The Shadow faked a facial twitch that resembled Wadsford's manner. - The Radium Murders

His features squarer; more mobile. Only a slight contortion was required to give them hardness. Thus The Shadow posed as either a respectable pedestrian or a tough-faced thug, according to the places where his search has taken him. - Buried Evidence

In others, he wouldn't even need make-up at all to alter his face.

His slouch hat and his black robe slid away from him. The disguise was thrust into a hidden compartment with one swift gesture. The Shadow was now Lamont Cranston.

But a ripple passed over his mobile face. His mouth and features seemed to writhe. Without changing anything save the habitual expression of his face, Lamont Cranston also vanished.

In his place was a smiling stranger. A man whose mouth looked weak, whose expression seemed almost timid. Well−dressed, faultlessly groomed, he seemed like a harmless, good−natured citizen whose car had broken down on a lonely country road - The Crimson Phoenix

In Shadow Over Alcatraz, The Shadow is even able to even contort the rest of his body to squeeze himself through a seven-inch gap, which is physically impossible for a grown man to pass through without extreme injury

The window was about three feet high, two feet in width. It had two upright bars, dividing it into three spaces, each about seven inches across.

Thrusting one arm through the central sector, The Shadow turned his head sideways and poked it through. Bars grazed his ears; when he turned his head, they became a sort of collar. He was wedging outward, drawing his other shoulder.

Below, his hand gripped rock. The Shadow tugged. It was a tight squeeze for his body, but he seemed to elongate as he drew his chest in. His hips slid past. His tall form teetered outward.

Crime County even states that The Shadow had become adept at remodeling his face through touch alone, and I cannot find any lines in the story that mention he's using makeup.

He was remolding the features of Cranston when Sparrow looked up. It was a process that The Shadow could perform by touch alone, even in comparative darkness.

Cranston's face was not The Shadow's own; in itself it was a disguise. A spreading motion somewhat flattened the aristocratic profile; downward pressure added a bulldog effect to the jaw.

And as the magazine reached it's final stretch, we started to get mentions in story that alluded to The Shadow's "real" face, undisguised, being that of Lamont Cranston

If Jud had known that Cranston in his other life was The Shadow, he would have... A tug of The Shadow's hat brim and his own face, that of Cranston, was obscured - The White Skulls

The Shadow's eyes, yet strangely Cranston's, for this was one time The Shadow did not care to disguise them - The Whispering Eyes

Which only capped off the mystery of his real identity by bringing a loop around itself, as suddenly it seemed Kent Allard was Lamont Cranston who was Kent Allard who was The Shadow who was Lamont Cranston and so on.

So looking on it now, "disfigurement" isn't really accurate. It's how it's been utilized in some stories past the pulps, Michael Uslan's comic storylines in particular leaned more heavily into it as a war trauma for The Shadow and a dramatic backstory. I have mixed feelings on this and you could argue it's playing with some ugly and unnecessarily ableist tropes (like The Phantom of the Opera), but if you gotta give him a punchy superhero backstory, I definitely prefer that than what the movie went with. It works to emphasize a tragedy tothe character's background.

But "disfigurement" isn't really the right word for it, because we only got one mention, in the first story, that it was due to an injury, and it came from a third party who had only heard faint rumors about a guy who could have been The Shadow once. Being defined as someone who's sacrificed his identity to fight crime, it's easy to assume that The Shadow's face is horrible to look at because it was destroyed in the war which already took so much.

Maybe that's just what he'd like you to think. Maybe that's all you need to know.

Every other instance in the pulps where we got to peer into some secret of The Shadow's face, it was never played up as if it was an injury due to some dramatic past event, but rather as if it was some horrifying secret of his true self that we were only getting the barest glimpses of.

Something that's gotta be much grislier than just mangled features, if it gets hardened criminals to quake in abject fear. Something that somehow still allows him to distort his face far beyond what's humanly possible, with and without outside assistance. Something that allows his "real self" to be, at separate points in time, Kent Allard and Lamont Cranston.

Something that makes it so he can have many faces, and yet no true face of his own. The great secret of The Shadow, and one that's always going to have a different answer. One where he himself only has one thing to say about it

Those who have seen the true face of The Shadow have never lived to recite their discovery.

Y-You cannot frighten me, maniac! You are only a man!

Am I?

#replies tag #the shadow #pulp heroes #pulp fiction #the living shadow #green eyes #horror

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wardencommanderrodimiss · 5 years ago

Text

Before Star Wars day is over, I’m gonna dump these two snippets of fic I wrote years ago that I’m never going to follow up on, but both stand well enough and I’m fond enough of them that I’m gonna post them and finally free myself of them.

The scenario is an AU where Ahsoka never crosses paths with Vader to learn his identity, and likewise never disappears, and gets to meet Luke.

I am releasing this into the wild with no proofreading from how I found it. Just take it as it is. It’s whatever it is.

----

Only Rebels know of the Rebel base on Yavin's fourth moon, and when the Millenium Falcon approaches in orbit, its junkyard reject exterior is immediately recognizable as friendly; but it beams clearance codes down to the base. "This is Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan," she announces and the chatter that erupts as soon as she says her name, Leia, drowns out the way her voice catches on Alderaan. "We have the plans."

The people rushing to meet the ship have gathered into a crowd and a tall togruta woman, a head above many of the rest, shoves her way through. The plank of the ship lowers with a hiss and a white-and-blue astromech droid rolls down the ramp, a shining gold protocol droid toddling after him. The first two humans to descend, shoulder-to-shoulder, are weary and bent low by a kind of grief that Ahsoka can both see and feel. The Force ripples out in uneasy uneven waves from them both; both familiar, in a way, when only the tired, regal face framed by brown buns is one that Ahsoka knows.

"Leia!" she yells over the clamor of others calling for the princess by title and honorific. She has known her since she was a baby; she has kept her distance so as to not draw attention to Bail's Alliance sympathies, but she has watched the girl grow and step into the political arena like she was born to it, with a strength in the Force that but for the Emperor's betrayal would have had her taken from the Organas long ago. "LEIA!"

Leia lifts her head but she does not step away from the blond boy beside her. She raises her arms to meet Ahsoka's frantic embrace and her forehead falls against Ahsoka's shoulder. It is at least one moment, Ahsoka thinks, with her face tucked away, that she does not have to wear the visage of Queen of a dead planet. "When we heard about Alderaan, I thought -" Ahsoka cannot finish the thought. I thought you were gone, like Bail.

But she is here, in Ahsoka's arms, a beacon of warmth in the dark and the cold. In her mind's eye she sees herself and Leia and the boy with them; Ahsoka cannot close him out. He shines in a way that she has not felt since - since she does not know when. He and Leia are twin suns rising over the dust. Ahsoka starts to turn, starts to ask who are you, but Leia pulls away and her voice, "We have no time to grieve. We must hurry. We were followed," brings Ahsoka back into her own orbit. She watches Leia's back as the girl folds into the crowd, giving orders, and she is aware that Leia is little more than a child - but Padme was a Queen at the same age as Ahsoka took to the battlefield as a commander, and Obi-Wan had not quite cut his braid before he had a padawan of his own. In politics and war, childhood is lost, and this is both.

She hurries after Leia, tracking the movement of the crowd and the light in the Force, and the steady bright of the boy bobs alongside her. "You're a Jedi?" he asks.

Leia is swept up onto one of the carts to shuttle her to the command center, and it is already overburdened, she is already surrounded by people, and Ahsoka slows, lets her go. She waves at the one approaching from a distance. "No," she answers, turning to look at the boy, really look at him, for the first time. He has big blue eyes and blond hair that falls past his ears and skin that shows while he is young, so young, he has long weathered the sun. She has met more people than she can count traversing the galaxy back and forth, first as a Jedi and then as a Rebel, but she knows that in her memories she does not know him.

In the Force, though, he is familiar. The Force whispers to her that she has found a long-awaited new old friend.

"But you have lightsabers," he says, and she starts. She is not used to anyone knowing what they are to recognize them, anymore. For as wide as the Jedi ranged in the Clone Wars, they were never more than blurry holoclip myths to most of the galaxy. "Where did you get them, then?"

Something bids her to answer. "I was raised by the Order, but I never completed my training."

She looks at him and knows then that she will not be able to pry him away from her side. "But you have lightsabers - you know about the Force - you could tell me - Ben started to and he gave me my father's lightsaber but -"

"Ben?" she asks. "Your father's - ?" His father. Of course. After the Order was slaughtered, the few survivors scattered, melded into civilian society, gave up the life, gave up the code. Of course there are children of former Jedi now.

But she looks at him, sitting next to her on the shuttle over to the command room, and in his hands now is a lightsaber, silver hilt seeming almost untouched by the twenty years it has been since Ahsoka saw it last. She has seen it before, known that lightsaber as well as her own two that she left on a false grave on Mandalore, and for a moment there is a sensation of crushing aloneness threatening to suffocate her. A moment she feels that she has stepped into a lair of the Dark with that choking love and loss and easily reopened wound of never actually knowing where or how he died.

She reaches for Anakin's lightsaber and the boy starts to move his hand as though to stop her and then seems to think better of it. She places her hand over his and the hilt. His skin is warm and helps to push away the cold; a sun, and she a lost star almost beyond its reach. "Where did you get Anakin's lightsaber?" she asks. It has been a lifetime since she said his name.

There are star systems alight in the boy's eyes. "You knew my father?" he asks.

The Force shines from him in a way that she has not felt since she last stood side-by-side with her former master. "Anakin was your father?" she asks. Anakin didn't survive the purges - she knows it in a way that she does not know how she knows - which means that this boy must have been concieved before the end of the war, which means that Anakin was breaking the code -

Of course he was.

Then who was -

Ahsoka couldn't attend the funeral of Naboo's beloved Senator and former Queen, but she heard the news and mourned until the grief threatened to consume her, threatened to throw her adrift, because to lose Anakin and Obi-Wan and the Jedi Order was too much, but to see the Republic crumble and Padme die at the same time brought on a swallowing tide of darkness. Padme was pregnant when she died. No one knew who the father was.

Oh, Ahsoka thinks, dimly, and she wonders how she never realized. Or maybe she had, in the same way that Obi-Wan must have, Bail must have, Artoo must have, and she almost leaps up to find him and Threepio.

The baby survived.

"You knew Anakin Skywalker? You knew my father?"

"Who gave you his lightsaber?"

"Ben did," the boy says. Ahsoka shakes her head. "Ben Kenobi - Obi-Wan."

The world rocks beneath her, or just the cart as she jars it with the strength and speed with which she turns toward the boy, Anakin's son, Anakin's son. "Obi-Wan survived?" she asks. "He's alive?" She looks back the way they came, from the ship - Obi-Wan would have sensed her even if she was focused on Leia - he would have said something to her before she rushed off. "Where was he? We needed his help!" Did Bail know? Did anyone know? Had he been there when Anakin died - how else would he have gotten his lightsaber? Did he know the identity of the Jedi who turned and betrayed them all? "Did he come with you? Is he here?"

She reaches out with the Force, searching for that presence from long ago. She finds Leia, grief so powerful that it almost takes Ahsoka's breath away contained by even stronger fierce and righteous anger; the boy is next to her with grief and anger and some bright hope all in equal measure - but she cannot find Obi-Wan. A sudden stronger wave of fury crashes into her and on contact transforms into sadness, and she knows, she knows, and she wants to scream with the injustice of it all.

"Vader killed him on the Death Star," the boy says, and in his voice rage comes out as indignant, nothing like the turmoil swirling in the Force around them. "He lived on Tatooine - not far from where I grew up -"

The cart starts to slow and Ahsoka is on her feet, bounding toward the command center and stopping, and the boy cries "Wait!" behind her. She is adrift and alone and since she pressed her padawan beads into Anakin's hand she has not felt so lost and so unsure of where to go. He took Anakin's son to Tatooine. Anakin hated Tatooine, and Obi-Wan took his son back there and watched over him until now. Obi-Wan hid and she is furious that he would retreat as the galaxy was swallowed up by the dark and she understands the hopelessness he must have felt to see the Order and his best friend and brother fall.

"We needed his help," she says. "The Rebellion needed his help - I needed him."

Everyone she knew and loved and fought and worked alonside during the Clone Wars is gone. She felt the screaming and then the silence that only later did she realize was the dying cries of Alderaan, and compared to that, the one moment when she feel quiet in the middle of a conversation because her heart had siezed up and dread settled like a blanket - just a moment! - had not registered as the Force whispering to her of the death of her last old friend. Anakin was gone, Padme was gone - Bail and all of Alderaan are gone, Obi-Wan is gone.

"I have to go discuss battle plans," Ahsoka says, nodding at the command room, "but after - after, you have to tell me what happened to Obi-Wan." The boy nods. "I am Ahsoka Tano," she says. "Your father trained me."

"My name is Luke Skywalker," he says. In his blue eyes, Ahsoka sees Anakin.

---

Leia is a figure of barely-restrained emotion and her voice trembles with the effort as she explains how she, her father's droids, and the Death Star plans ended up arriving on a smuggler's ship, everything that happened since the Tantive IV was boarded and she was taken prisoner. She is the only one to look at Ahsoka when she slips into the room and after one blink her eyes turn away, but the vibrations that ripple through the Force steady and slow. Ahsoka weaves her way between the officers to the droids, Threepio positioned behind Artoo, who projects an image of the Death Star. He chirps when Ahsoka approaches. "Hey, buddy," she says, resting a hand on the top of his dome. "I've missed you."

The plans are turned over to the Alliance's technicians and engineers to analyze it for any weakness. There should be one, there has to be one, nothing and no one is invincible. When the officers filter out of the room, Leia's head droops and something falls away from her. "Leia," Ahsoka says, and she has barely placed a hand on the girl's shoulder before she straightens upright, chin high. She must look like her mother but Ahsoka never really knew Breha and Leia instead reminds her of a different Queen. "The Rebellion will still function if you take a moment to grieve," Ahsoka says.

Leia blinks. Her face tightens. "Later," she says quietly. The Force is dark and cold around her. "They let us go so that they could follow us here. We have to make sure that the Empire can't do this ever again."

But she lets Ahsoka hug her again and whisper, "I'm so sorry," words that are not enough and can never be enough. She smooths a few hairs down against the girl's forehead, wonders if it is too much, too out of place, to tell Leia that she is proud of her. "We'll avenge Alderaan, and your parents, and Obi-Wan, and everyone that the Empire has taken from us."

Leia nods, steel in her eyes.

Luke is not waiting for Ahsoka as she expected, and when she returns to the hanger she finds him arguing with the smuggler, a wookie watching them. "That is Han Solo," Threepio says, "the, hm -"

"Smuggler," Ahsoka fills in.

"Yes, yes, that. And the wookie with him is named Chewbacca."

Ahsoka starts. She has heard that name before. "Chewbacca?" she repeats, turning to Threepio.

"Yes, Mistress Tano, I believe so."

All three of them have turned to look at her and Ahsoka ignores Solo to offer her hand to Chewbacca. "Hello, Chewbacca," she says. "I don't know if you remember -"

<< - that business with the Trandoshans on Wasskah?>> The friendly hand that Ahsoka offered in greeting is rebuffed in favor of the wookie enveloping her in his arms and lifting her from the ground. <<Ahsoka! You are well?>>

She stumbles a little when Chewbacca returns her to the ground. "As well as one can be," she says. The Jedi, all dead, and Kashyyyk enslaved by the Empire. Chewbacca knows what she means.

<<How strange to meet again,>> he says.

"The Force moves in mysterious ways," Ahsoka says. Solo snorts and Luke glares at him. "And you're Han Solo," she adds, at last turning to the smuggler. "My name is Ahsoka Tano. I have you - and Chewbacca, of course - to thank in part for Leia's rescue?"

The man has the look of someone who has never been thanked, genuinely thanked, for a good deed in his life - perhaps in part owing to a lack of good deeds actually done. "Uh yeah, sure. That'd - that'd be me. Where'd you learn to speak Wookie?"

"The Jedi were a diverse group," she replies. "I knew wookies then."

Solo shakes his head. "You're another of those crazy wizard types, huh," he says, and she almost asks another before she remembers that he would have met Obi-Wan - and Obi-Wan always seemed to have an easy read on the shady petty criminal type. Obi-Wan would have driven Solo crazy. He eyes her and then glances at Chewbacca. "They really had wookies running around with laser swords in your ancient religion?"

<<Why do you sound surprised?>> Chewbacca asks.

"Well, as long as I've known you, a weapon like that seems a bit too delicate for the wookie style."

"Yes, there were wookies among the Jedi ranks," Ahsoka says. She wonders what happened to Gungi, one of the younglings who rescued her from pirates so long ago. Maybe it was better not to wonder.

"Han," Luke says, spitting the smuggler's name more than saying it, "is leaving with his money."

"Look, kid," Solo says, "if you wanna stick around and die in this fight that's your thing to do, but I'm gonna go get Jabba off my back." He says it with a shrug that is almost apologetic and there is a twinge of regret in his words. No doubt that is Luke's work, his hopeful cheery badgering probably working its charm the same as it did on Ahsoka.

"Then take care," she says, and addressed directly at Chewbacca she adds, "And may the Force be with you." Luke looks at her, indignant, like he expected her to have some magic words; but she has walked away, and watched others walk away, enough to know that there is no force that can make anyone unwilling stay.

<<May the Force be with you,>> Chewbacca calls after her. Luke's righteous anger burns at Solo for a moment longer and then he is at her side.

"You're just going to - he's just going to -"

"I've known a lot of pirates and smugglers," Ahsoka says. "This is how they usually are."

"I just really thought..."

"I know," Ahsoka says softly. "Sometimes people let you down."

She has been both.

There are more X-Wings on base than pilots because of transfers and mission assignments and deaths on non-flying missions and Luke volunteers to fly out on the attack run on the Death Star. The glances exchanged between officers and pilots would be funny were the situation not so dire - a farm boy never off his dusty planet, never flown more than a speeder bike, talking about target practice on womp rats - it's a sign of their desperation, the fact that if they do not win here and now that the Rebellion will be over, that they acquise to Luke's request.

But Ahsoka - well, first of all she has heard stories about womp rats from Anakin and they are no easy game, they are terrors. And Ahsoka knows the stories of what Anakin did the first time he was ever placed in a pilot's seat, and she knows that Anakin Skywalker's son will be no less than his father. They only have everything to gain by letting Luke fly. They only will gain everything. Ahsoka has to believe it. "May the Force be with you," she says to Luke, closing her hand around his shoulder, looking over the lumpy orange pilot's jumpsuit that doesn't fit quite right to him, and to Artoo she says, "Take care of him, all right?"

And she watches him and the rest of them fly out and she makes straight for the command room, sidling her way through generals and officers until she reaches Leia. The girl says nothing, watching the holograms of their ships' positions, and never taking her eyes off of the blinking lights she reaches out and takes Ahsoka's hand. They wait. There is nothing left to do but wait for salvation.

#i...........do not know what to tag this as bc i do not have any just like. standard tags for anything #rodimiss writes #think that was my old pre-AA tag

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kinglanius · 6 years ago

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.//tag drop 1

#THIS IS MY BATTLEFIELD「ic」#FLAMES OF ANGER NEVER DIE「ooc」#QUERY「asks」#POSTPONED「queue」#RAPTOR’S NEST「deck」#IRON WILL & STEELED STRENGTH「musings」#EXPOSE YOUR TRUE COLORS「meme」#WOUNDED FALCON「visage」#INDEPENDENT NIGHTINGALE「Ruri」#DARK ANTHELION「Yuuto」#.//i'm tOO!!! LAZY1!!! to do more chara tags #.//those'll come as they are needed lolol

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amnoartist · 7 years ago

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Juiced | Chapter 2

Juiced

Written & edited by Amnoartist95

Chapter 2: Monkey-faced

Ford Avenue was a seedy alley almost nobody even dared to pass through, even if it was a handy shortcut. Those who did go there were those who one would expect: people sought a place hidden from view to engage in immoral acts. In Natalie’s case, drug dealers selling their valued products to willing customers. There were spent needles often strewn across the paving, formerly filled with God knows what. Not that the behemoth brunette cared much about that sort of thing. She just needed her own fix.

The car bucked to one side as she climbed out of it, melon-sized, vein-caked calf first, the duffle bag slung over her capped shoulder next. She’d just come out of the trippy so-called high experienced earlier and in that time her mass that shrunken somewhat. She was still bigger than most Mr Olympia’s, but Natalie hated the concept of small. She cut through the alleyway at a brisk pace, passing the row of trashcans and aforementioned spent needles until coming to the old torn posters of yesteryear. Her sweat-stained outfit from the earlier workout still clung to the gargantuan woman’s frame, though it had fallen victim to more rips and tears, consequently revealing more bulging, vein-riddled flesh.

She came to a halt at the scuff of her shoe just as a cigarette was lit before her in the shadow-engulfed distance. Natalie’s impatience burned brightly; she tossed the bag to the ground and kicked it into the darkness, calf rippling with the motion. “There’s the money. You know me, so there’s no need to count it.”

As the cigarette burned, a figure revealed itself from the shadow; Paul, The Voice’s top peddler. Natalie often confided in Paul for her stash of roids, never having met The Voice face-to-face. Not much was known about the faceless drug tycoon, other than the fact he was filthy rich from his sales. Paul was pretty much the polar opposite of Natalie; scraggy and dishevelled draped in a grey hooded tracksuit and white trainers.

“Things are a little different today, Nat.” He dropped the cigarette to the ground and stamped on it before pulling a clear polythene bag from his pocket. Typically he would provide the girl with a bag of ready-filled syringes – eight, to be precise – but things, as he said, were different. Curiosity gripped Natalie after hearing Paul’s words, ushering her to venture closer to him. She never got this close to him before; in most instances, she would give the money into the darkness, he would then place the stash somewhere within arm’s reach for Natalie to grab while taking that moment to disappear again.

Now close enough to see his face in all its scrawny and malnourished unpleasantness, Natalie snatched the bag from Paul like a falcon does its prey and turned away from him to inspect the contents privately, her wall of back beef so wide, his eyes were engulfed by it. She rummaged through the bag and pulled out the contents with a befuddled glower. In the months she’d been dealing with Paul, Natalie - as previously revealed – purchased syringes of the chemical she pretty much survived on. But right now—

“What the fuck is this?” She turned back to Paul holding what seemed to be a confectionary between her thumb and index finger. The sweet in question was yellow in colour and shaped like a monkey’s face. It was humorous in a way, but hardly professional. “Is this some kind of joke, Paul?” She held back the chemically-induced rage building within, hoping he had a perfectly good reason why she had a sweetie in her hand.

“It’s a different delivery system, Nat.” Paul and The Voice both knew she was still somewhat a rookie in regards to how was best to shoot up. Roid injections were a thing of the past, and needles were easy to spot compared to things that look like sweets. The face-shaped confectionaries weren’t even pills, but genuine candies that offered the same results as the injections did. “You’ll be chomping on these sweets from now on. The results are the same; same capped size increase and growth rate per sweet. Doesn't show up on drug tests either so you could compete using this shit if you wanted.”

Natalie examined the sweet curiously. What she held in her hand was a way to grow as big as she wanted without her mother finding out. But that didn’t necessarily mean the arguments they had would come to an end. “Any side effects?”

“We’re working out the standard kinks commonly associated with roids, but they’re good enough to use.” Paul watched Natalie move the sweet around in her hand, inspecting it from just about every angle; it was thick and looked sugary, just like the mini love hearts did. It went without saying she was tempted to take at least one right there and then. Paul could see that stern determination in her gaze. “Taste like banana too, would you believe it. Or so I’m told.”

Natalie was just about to enact her intention when her mobile buzzed, bringing her plans to a sudden halt. Groaning with irritation, she pulled her mobile free from her pocket and read the text from her mother.

Where R U. Call me

. God knows what she wanted now, but she wasn’t going to get in the way of Natalie’s want to beef up more and more. Without so much as a second thought, she downed the sweet in one go, caring not to carefully chew on it, her beefy throat flexing inward with the swallow. And there it was - that banana flavour Paul mentioned, at the tip of her tongue.

Paul watched it transpire in a matter of seconds; one moment he was talking about the sweet tasting like banana, the next he was watching Natalie grow before him. It was amazing how her sports bra and shorts all managed to stay in place, even after suffering rips and tears from her previous spurt of growth. The shudder she experienced forced her to arch back somewhat as pulsing veins rose to the surface of her skin; arm, leg, abdominal and back veins all pulsing in sync with the growth from just the one sweet. A slight layer of veins crawled to the edge of her chin before receding alongside the rest of her freakish vascularity.

“Woah!” It was no surprise Natalie felt the rush hit her so quickly. She pulled into a crab flex to boast her new size, resulting in a vast shadow engulfing the impressed Paul. He knew all those freakish veins would’ve popped up in the now-larger Natalie’s frame and visage, given that was just a symptom of her body getting used to the new delivery method. Continuing her bragging, she turned her back to Paul again to do calf raises, feeling the thicker beef strain and pull towards her skin.

“Feels good, don’t it?” Paul smiled.

Another text message came through, prompting the brunette to stop showing off. She didn’t want to and it annoyed her; rage-fuelled the veins in her neck to jut out freakishly as she read the newly received message.

Get home now

. Rolling her eyes, Natalie stashed her mobile back into her pocket, snatched her bag from the edge of the darkness and proceeded to walk back to her car. “Thanks for the shit. See you next week.”

Paul didn’t say a word. Instead, he just watched Natalie strut, eyeballing her torn shorts that revealed enough striated glute meat to give him a surprising boner.

///

“Jesus, I didn’t think it would be this bad when you described it.” Marie opened the sewing kit with concern. It was a little over fifteen minutes earlier she got the text from Peyton that she got hit. ‘Hit’ being the rather broad term. She came back with an eye black as night, a cut brow and broken arm - that much was certain. “Hold still.”

Peyton winced. She never expected the needle to be that sharp. The punch she was the victim of felt blunter. Even so, she was lucky her mother was a nurse. The eighteen-year-old jerked slightly as Marie pulled the stitching into place, feeling her skin pull closer bit by bit.

The front door opened, revealing Natalie in all her surging glory, shorts and bra literally moments from bursting off. One miscalculated breath or sudden flex from any of her muscles would be enough to render her naked. She wouldn’t have minded being laid bare, honestly, but—

“Where the fuck have you been?” Marie stopped stitching up Peyton to offer a cold stare at her burgeoned older daughter who looked like she’d eaten the Hulk for breakfast. Marie knew Natalie was once again bigger, no doubt lucky enough to shoot up before her stash was found. But of course, that wasn’t the case. The mother sized Natalie up from head to toe, visibly repulsed by her ever larger musculature. There was a time when Marie supported her daughter for having muscle, but that encouragement died when Natalie started abusing. “I’ve been sitting here tending to your sister for the better half of an hour!”

Natalie turned to Peyton and eyeballed the broken arm first; a slump of broken bone and limp flesh. This wasn’t the first time Peyton had broken her arm, but it was the worst state it had been in such a case. Her brow was cut in such a way that no doubt a permanent scar would form after healing. Natalie might’ve mostly been a meathead by now, but she still cared. “What happened?”

“What

happened

is your sister stood up for you.” Marie poured alcohol onto a ball of cotton wool and dabbed it onto Peyton’s brow wound. The teen winced again, kicking her heel up against the couch leg. Marie was informed of everything that happened and hated the fact Natalie was at the centre of the incident. Why couldn’t it have been a fight over boys instead? “People were calling you out for being a steroid freak – which you are. Peyton here stood up for you and paid the price for it.”

“Was I supposed to just stay quiet?” Peyton resisted the urge to rub the itching pain on her brow, all while glancing into the mirror at the shiner she got on account of defending her sibling. Marie was of the mind that Peyton shouldn’t have done or said anything and just roll with the assailants’ claim.

Marie groaned. She’d need more cotton wool balls than presumed. Pulling up from her crouch, she stashed the ball she just used in a bag. “Both of you stay there. I’ll be back in a minute.” Natalie took that moment as her opportunity to slip another growth candy into her system. Same as before, her throat flexed as the sugary confectionary slipped down it. There was no sudden growth this time, much to Natalie’s disappointment, but she did feel especially stronger.

Peyton watched her gargantuan sibling down the candy with curiosity. Natalie unfurled the bag to reveal more of them and pulled one out to silently offer. Peyton was ever so tempted to take the new sweet, attracted by the humorous monkey face on the front, but thought better of it. “Better not take anything sugary right now or Mum will kill me.”

Natalie shrugged; forcing her outrageously defined deltoids to surge and roil with the indescribable amount of she-beef cocooned within. “Suit yourself.” She knew all too well what she just offered her sibling but didn’t care much about it. If Natalie found enjoyment in being as beefy as she was, why wouldn’t Peyton? Be that as it may, there was no denying the upset Natalie felt in seeing her being the victim of assault.

Peyton rubbed her eye. She was actually close to crying but didn’t want anyone to see her burst out into hysterics. What would her rippling, tough-as-nails sister think? Truth be told, Natalie could see Payton was fighting her want to bawl and knew she had more courage than otherwise presumed. She was proud of her.

“Tell me who did it.”

Peyton’s tongue locked up. She didn’t want to say anything about who did what to her, but there was something about Natalie’s stern expression that made Peyton question herself. “I don’t think that’d be a good idea. Mum…”

“I’m not asking, Peyton.” There was something about those words from Natalie that made Peyton worry. Not to mention the vast bulging shadow that loomed over the injured girl as her sister stood over her. Just what would happen if the names of those who attacked were revealed? Peyton knew Natalie had the tendency to lash out as a result of her increasing addiction. But at the same time, there was a fear of what would happen if Peyton didn’t say who attacked.

“Dale Clarkson and his group of buddies.”

When Marie came back with the bag of cotton balls, she found herself to be one daughter short. Looking out at the open door, the mother held back her anger to attend to Peyton’s wounds. “Where did your sister go?”

Wracked with anxiousness, Peyton looked at the open door, Summer's breeze gracing her cheek.

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asskisser44main · 8 years ago

Photo

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korkrunchcereal · 8 years ago

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Recollection

It felt like a dreamscape.

Aurelian wandered through the halls of Castle Indaris, seemingly aimless as to his direction. He knew not where he walked, only that his feet carried him forward. The lord of the Crescent Hills stalked through his home, adorned in the ceremonial plates his name demanded. So shining and gold was he, yet the noble figure he cut could not hide the dark nature of his travel. A choking shadow followed in his footsteps, whispering in his ear an undecipherable message that was so seductive that he could not help but strain to hear it.

Who was it he should kill he did not know, merely that he followed the path seemingly out of his own control. The tapestries and decorations of his home seemed to shirk in his presence, much as a servant would from a cruel master. Where was anyone? The world seemed empty, and for the first time Aurelian realized his castle home was silent. He heard not the roaring of waterfalls outside, or marching of boots from dutiful guards. Rather there was merely the whispers that hung in the air, their voices both man and woman. He realized they were voices so familiar, yet faces could not be remembered.

The winding corridors seemed to stretch on endlessly, twisting and turning into hungering doorways that brought only more labrynthian paths. Yet he still was drawn to a certain place of the castle, his breath rising in pace as he neared what must have been his destination; a solitary room surrounded by blank and featureless walls. Yet the door was carved beautifully in gold, its frame depicting a most curious scene. The carving was that of a falcon, descending down to tear at a wounded lion. Beyond the two figures was a third, though he could not make out what it was for its features had weathered away. It was both grim and beautiful in its visage, though Aurelian could not recall having ever seen it in his home before. Slowly, he pushed against the door.

Aurelian groaned as the sun's glow broke through the drapes of his window right into his eyes, forcing him awake. His eyelids rose slowly, fluttering as he propped himself up. His silk sheets fell from his torso, falling to his waistline. The elf stifled a yawn, looking to his left. A sigh escaped his lips as he saw the space was empty, though the blankets and sheets were scattered in such a way as to reveal there had been someone during the night. Aurelian raised a hand to his eyes, rubbing at them as he turned his head the other way.

What had been that dream? Already it had begun to fade from his mind, whisked away like leaves on the morning breeze. All he could recall was a golden door, though what had been special about it he was unsure. Emerald eyes fell upon the bottle sitting upon the table next to his bed, its contents emptied the night before. Slowly, he pulled himself out of bed, letting the blankets fall off his nude form. Briefly his gaze turned to the mirror across the way, allowing the lord to marvel at his perfect form.

As he looked at the mirror, he spotted something else upon the edge of the nearby window. It was very faint in the morning light, almost impossible to see. Curious, Aurelian walked to see what it was. He blinked in surprise, for it was some kind of bird born of magic, arcane tendrils so pale flickering and weaving as it formed its body. He had seen this creature before, or at least something similar. It was the creation of his ancestors that still lived within Suramar; that of Illuria Indaris. His curiosity rose further as he noticed the small scroll held in arcanic talons. The creature chirped much as any bird would upon recognizing Aurelian, letting go of the scroll.

Cautiously, Aurelian grabbed the scroll. The magical being chirped again, before dissipating much as the morning mist would. Aurelian blinked, before shaking his head. He had never been gifted with the arcane arts like those that came before him did, and so did not understand the intricacies and nature of their power. Slowly unfurling it, his eyes darted across the scroll.

Lord Woodborne,

It has been some time since last we spoke. I know you have been busy as of recent months due to the threat the outlanders have posed so far. Indeed, I hear word they have already begun to infiltrate our own city. Yet it is because of this I would like to meet for tea, on the afternoon of the twelfth at my own home. Whilst my brother and I work tirelessly to secure Suramar, there are still rumors that our very own streets are at risk! I will send a guard to your home to wait for you, my friend.

Lady Illuria Indaris

Aurelian pondered over the letter. It had been over two and a half months since last he had met with his family within Suramar, though had heard much of the plight of the city. The Alliance and Horde were poised to march upon the Nightborne capital, though when he was not certain. Illuria at least provided a rough time table; if there were already infiltrators at large, it was likely an invasion would begin soon enough. Perhaps within a month? Aurelian was not fully certain.

"Wait..." Aurelian muttered. "The twelfth? That's today." He groaned, dropping the scroll and letting it fall to the floor. So she requested, nay expected him there today. He mulled over the idea of it; it was dangerous, of this he knew. The city had, when last he was there, been occupied by the Legion. Demons prowled the streets, enforcing the laws of the tyrannical ruler of the Nightborne by axe blade and fel magic. Yet it had been months since last he was there, and back then Illuria had said she would request his presence when needed. Obviously, something had changed.

"Light, what the hell am I going to do." He moved to grab some form of clothing, putting on a sleeveless tunic and fine trouser whilst considering his options. Since the Second Battle of Darkmeadow as it had become known, Silvermoon had near weekly written to Aurelian, asking various questions concerning the incidents leading up to the conflict. Unfortunately both Caledon and Vallera had yet to awaken from their ailments. His brother was simply waiting and hoping, whilst his sister was an altogether different case. The enchantment upon her originated from another realm, or so the physicians and sorcerers he hired had said. It was born of the Nightmare, and though that dark place had been cleansed, its effects yet remained.

With both of them indisposed however, Aurelian was left to all but scramble to answer Silvermoon, defending himself from the inquisitorial probing that came in the form of Silvermoon's council and its mouthpiece Balasar Craw. This was their opportunity to get a foothold in the politics of the Gilded Lands, yet so far Aurelian was able to keep their interferences at bay. To his pleasant surprise, Calithiel with the aid of Cyvar was running the Crescent Hills well in his occasional absences, though the various lords and ladies of the Gilded Lands were less than pleased that a "nobody" sat upon the marble throne...or so he had been told.

Yet the question still remained of what he was to do. He could rely on his betrothed and Cyvar to hold down the castle so to speak, but he was unsure how long he would even be gone for. Then there was also the matter of if he should take Gardesia. She had remained at the castle for the past several months, either ignoring or simply not caring of the banishment that still remained. It was something Aurelian did not enforce, for Gardesia was useful in that she kept an eye on one of Aurelian's other larger problems; Amalta.

The new lord of House Illova, Raith Illova, had demanded Amalta answer for her crimes against his father. Raith was unfortunately cut from the same cloth as his father, though he was arguably even less liked then the former patriarch of Illova. He had petitioned Silvermoon arrest Amalta and place her on trial, though Aurelian had so far delayed such by arguing an investigation needed to happen to decide if Amalta was guilty of murdering Lord Illova. While Aurelian believed she was, he was not so keen on losing someone as powerful as Amalta, especially to either Illova or Silvermoon and so fought for her freedom.

So many events had occurred in such a short span of time that it had been nearly overwhelming. There had been quite a few sleepless nights for Aurelian, and not all had been due to the temptations of his betrothed. He was cautiously weaving through the web of politics that threatened to envelope him, but only just. His cavalier attitude to the challenges of his position was beginning to crack.

Still undecided, he left his room, having paused only to grab the scroll. He'd have rather not let any of his servants find it whilst tidying his chambers. He moved through the hallways of his home, relaxed in the familiar feeling of its stone and marble beneath his bare feet. His manicured fingers dragged across golden decorations, suits of armor and canvas portraying all manner of heroic scenes and portraits of past Indaris.

He moved beyond the halls to one of the many balconies’ overlooking the castle grounds. Repairs had gone well so far. Much of the courtyard was fixed, though the main issues still remained in the vanity Aurelian had. He wanted to make sure the courtyard was rebuilt even better than before, and there was still the Eastern wing of the castle in need of repairs. He could still smell the sulfur and brimstone at its tallest point, so ghastly as to be nauseating. So much damage had been done, and it was disappointing.

"My lord?" Cyvar's voice startled Aurelian, the lord letting out a curse. He was so caught up in looking upon the castle he did not hear his second approach.

"By the light Cyvar, at least let me know you're here first next time."

"I did. Twice."

"Oh. Well do so better next time. Now, what is it?"

"Silvermoon has sent another letter insisting you come to the capital to talk." Aurelian waved his hand dismissively to the idea of it. "You can't keep pushing it off my lord. Sooner or later the insisting will become a demand."

"Probably, but until that time I shall conveniently ignore them. It gives me time to figure out what the hell to tell them concerning all of...this." He waved his hands out to the damage still remaining below. "If I don't figure out what to say I could very well end up losing everything. I have far less allies amongst Silvermoon's court then I would have liked. Some have even abandoned our 'friendship' after Silvermoon first started probing."

"All the more reason to deal with this issue sooner rather than later." Cyvar paused, eyes falling on the bit of scroll in Aurelian's hand. "What's that?" Aurelian turned his head, following Cyvar's gaze.

"My family within Suramar have written, requesting my presence today."

"Suramar? Rather dangerous place. Why do they wish to see you?"

"I'm not sure. I’m considering attending this summons to find out."

"That may not be a wise decision, my lord. Demons still rule Suramar city, and there is no telling if your family remains against them. Did you not say one of them is a supporter of Elisande?"

"Yes, Corvayon. Still, his sister is not, and if she's requesting I come after this long then something has occurred. Yes, I think I shall go, if only to escape Silvermoon's incessant nagging."

"And you don't think it will be a trap? Perhaps take Gardesia since she's been there."

"I need her here for now in order to keep Amalta safe and ensure she does not get into any more trouble." Cyvar opened his mouth to protest, but said nothing. He sighed, nodding.

"Very well, my lord. Shall I fetch the servants and your armor?"

"Yes, do so. Oh and if you see Calithiel let her know I’ll be away for a few days." Cyvar blinked at that, tilting his head in confusion.

"Wasn't she with you last night?"

"Yes, but she retired to her own quarters early this morning, I think."

"Ah; very well, my lord. I trust you're making a smart decision with this..."

"Of course I am. Now off you go." Cyvar gave a bow, before leaving Aurelian alone to his thoughts. It would not be until some twenty minutes later that the servants arrived carrying Aurelian's armor, and it took another twenty after to put the armor upon their lordship. Now he was adorned in his golden plates, looking the part of a heroic, and noble individual. Satisfied, Aurelian bid his servants away, leaving only Cyvar.

"What should I tell Silvermoon of your absence?"

"Nothing. Actually no, inform them I am otherwise indisposed with dealing with the threat of the Burning Legion and as such words will have to wait. I shall however endeavor upon my return to make for the capital at once."

"Very well, my lord. Do be careful there."

"Not to worry, my friend. Have I ever done something foolish?" Before Cyvar could answer that with a resounding yes, Aurelian began to chant. When he was last in Suramar, Illuria had imprinted upon him a spell to teleport to the home of Lord Woodborne, the assumed name he had taken. It had left him with a pounding headache, though he had not used the spell. At least, not until now.

The world began to spin around Aurelian. Violet tendrils wrapped around his form, encompassing him in a ball of magic for but a brief moment. The tendrils removed themselves from his body, striking before him. Slowly a tear began to form in reality itself, widening to the size of a man. Pleased with himself, Aurelian stepped forward without hesitation. The marble beneath his feet in but a moment gave way to hardwood as he stepped on the other side.

"Greetings, Lord Indaris."

#World of Warcraft #Skullcrusha writing #Tales of the Gilded Lands #Aurelian Indaris #PART TWO BEGINS

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