#perpetually wounded and unwoundable

[winepresswrath]

One of my favourite things about the locked tomb is the way it depicts love in the context of other people. Harrow loves Alecto loves John who feels some kind of way (tbd) about Gideon who loves Harrow, who is John's favourite. Nonalecto thinks Gideon is overrated but wants to be kissed enough to be kissable and Gideon makes friendship bracelets with Ianthe who wants to marry Harrow and whose sister is the other half of soul and her sickest obsession and her Barbie doll in a tower. Coronabeth is in love with Judith, who went to all their birthday parties. Judith is too sensible to have great loves, but the only people who really get to love in isolation are Gideon and Harrow and they mostly choose not to at the time. They're too busy being choked by trauma and duty and the miserable grind of isolation and loneliness. It's when we see them in the context of other people in Canaan house that the love becomes obvious. Love in the ecosystem of community. Ten thousand years of polycule hell. The most loyal man in the world being constantly torn between his two best friends, only to end up in a love triangle featuring bestie #1 and a woman desperately trying to kill bestie #2. There's no one it's safe to kill because everybody loves somebody. There's no vengeance that only targets the deserving.

[icyowl]

Gojo Soulmate AU

Pairing: Satoru Gojo x reader

Synopsis: angst, soulmates, what more could you want?

A/N: none

——————————

A wave, a flower, clouds, animals, rain, a sun setting over water. Soul marks were natural, tattoo-like birth marks possessed by everyone. It was up to each owner to understand the different forms or phases of their marks and what they meant. A fox chasing a hare might run across the body to convey glee or sorrow, or the fox could slow or change color. Maybe the hare would extend its lead every time the owner became lonely or perhaps a change of direction would indicate the health of the bond. Learning the various were fun but very necessary; bonds needed to cultivated. The repercussions were unsavory, dangerous even.

A tree grew at the base of your back, with boughs spreading across your body, extending down your limbs, and weaving up your neck until the ends just barely poked out from the collar of your shirts. You'd like to call it captivating — after all, not many had a soul mark so large — much like the man who it belonged to.

The mark didn't start so big. At first it was a sapling covering little more than the column of your spine. The branches were short and the whole thing was faint until you met him. When you did, the tingle in your spine turned into a singeing burn. Gojo caught you while you writhed. . . certainly not the best introduction.

Gojo's white beta fish swam up and down his right arm in response to his mood or outside stimuli. When you touched it the first time, it nuzzled and tried to nibble your finger, much to Gojo's embarassment. It was a tender moment that got swiftly interrupted by Gojo's phone. Again.

He had to leave. Some save-the-world mission that only he could handle.

Again.

You'd been shy when you first met him. After all, Satoru was intimidating. Wealth, physical and political power, good looks; you were at first afraid to do anything the might out yourself as someone inferior. Now? Now you probably came across as any other fan, fawning over the scraps of his attention.

Desperate? Sure, yeah, you were desperate, but it had been weeks (maybe months) since you felt normal, let alone good. A perpetual weakness had overcome you as if your blood sugar had plummeted, exhaustion plagued you yet sleep was elusive, migraines turned overhead lights into suns and basic sounds into caterwauls, and a sickly wheeze could be heard when you breathed if one listened closely enough.

Your soul mark was suffering too. The stinging on your back had become unbearable. Such painful burning — plus all the other afflictions — dulled just a little any time you could get him to look at you.

The branches that had once wound heartily around your body now shrunk to half their reach, leaving black shadows in their wake, and the vibrant blue flowers adorning the limbs all but disappeared. Watching them shrivel up or break off the limbs and fall off your body put your stomach in knots that never unwound.

Satoru didn't visit often enough or stick around long enough to pick up on your plight; so much for the Six Eyes. It was easy enough to hide your state for the sparse few minutes you got to be with each other before he teleported off someplace else. He already held up the world. . . how could you make him choose between it and your silly little needs?

Shoko's treatments were beginning to lose their affect; Nanami would have tied you to Gojo himself if Gojo would ever pick up the phone; even Yaga yelled at you to figure it out or risk getting temporarily suspended.

A subtle pang of hunger came from your stomach.

You were impressed a body as sick as yours barely felt anything.

Several seconds passed from the time you stood until the time you made it to the door. If only you knew how close you were to danger.

“Where are you going?”

Satoru. His tone cheeky as always.

You turned to see your soulmate, seemingly non the worse for wear. Had the bond become so distant that he hadn't felt any of your pain? He teleported in and now stood before you without a hint of distress or concern from what you could see of his face. Satoru held the same casual posture he always did. Without worry. Without weakness. You wished you could say the same. Right now all you could comprehend were the the dark spots floating in your eyes and the desolate cold in your core. Finally the breaking point came. Satoru only had time to sense something was wrong — his mouth went slack, his brow line tightened — before he was rushing to catch your fall.

If it were anyone else, they may have failed. You didn't simply fall. You plummeted.

You didn't feel his hands under your body nor did you see his beta fish furiously trying to swim towards you from under Satoru's shirt sleeve. It was probably a good thing — your soul mark, or what was left of it, had begun to bleed, covering Satoru's hands. What would you see in his eyes if you removed the blindfold?

“Not you too.” He whispered.

Even in your delirium the words sunk in. There was someone else. All this time you foolishly, stupidly, blindly believed he was away for work. It all made sense now. Just as scorching hatred churned your blood to fire, the effects of bond abandonment finally consumed you. Your face contorted to one of rage before going slack altogether. Satoru, for all his faults, held your chilled body close to his. Could he salvage a bond on its deathbed?

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

You woke to elephants on your chest and cotton in your head. Some bus had hit you repeatedly. For fun.

“Hey.” Someone said next to you. It was soft, gentle, and would have put you at ease had you not looked up and realized you were sprawled over his naked chest. “You've got some serious bedhead.” Satoru added in jest, lithe knuckles kissing along your cheek.

With what little strength you regained you grabbed the railings of the hospital bed and struggled to pull your body off and away from him. Your feet had hardly touched the ground before you collapsed, and yet still you tried to distance yourself from him. Searing pain erupted from your spine to the point where you cried out at the agony. Your body was trying everything it could to keep you there but you ignored it, crawling towards the door to escape the man you should have felt blessed to be pressed against.

Satoru — rendered immobile by the shameful fact that his own soulmate was trying to escape him — rushed you as soon as your wail reached his ears. One hand around your wrist was all he needed to stop you. You turned to him, gazing at the fingers wrapped deftly around your arm, then onto the glacial eyes opened wide with shame and worry. With a lurch you took your arm back. Satoru seemed possessed; he hardly moved, only continued to stare and gawk. He didn't seem to be looking at you. Through you was more like it.

Cool blood disturbed the hairs on your hand as it dripped freely from a hole left by the I.V. you ripped out in your haste. Both of you watched it hit the ground blip blip blip blip but neither of you moved.

Satoru blinked, coming back to the present, and reached for the wound before you yanked it out of reach. “I know there's someone else. . .”

A full second passed before he reacted. “What?!”

“I don't remember much thanks to the side effects of abandonment, but 'not you too', that I remember. So? Get it over with. Break the bond already. I'm sure you want to move on.”

“You know that's not true.”

“Do I?”

“Yes, because if there was, my mark wouldn't look like this.”

For the first time since you woke you saw his soul mark — the white beta fish with piercing blue eyes. Again and again it attempted to swim to you until it came to the edge of his arm. That's when you began to notice the condition of it, too. Pure snowy white had turned grey and dingy, fins had become tattered, and the entire animal shrunk to barely an inch in size. It seemed the poor fish, in its plight, had begun to turn on its owner: bruises and bite marks from the fish positively covered Satoru's entire arm from shoulder to hand. The untouchable had been harmed.

“I once knew someone who. . . I missed the signs when he was hurting, too. I could have helped him, if I had seen it in time. The same thing almost happened to you. If there was someone else, this damn fish wouldn't have made me bleed every time I left you.”

You froze. All the worry and pain and loneliness had been ricocheting between both ends of the bond all this time. He really had felt everything. “But you didn't react. You acted like you were fine every time. You should have been in pain—”

“The Strongest can't be in pain.” Satoru said. His eyes were powerfully bright. “Or be lonely, or show fear. The Strongest can't show weakness. My emotions would have only added to yours.”

“At least I would have known you felt something!” You yelled hoarsely.

He startled while you continued.

“Did you really think that by closing yourself off, I would have somehow felt better than if you had shared your feelings? Who told you that?”

Again Satoru could do nothing but stare. Some family member said so at some point, right? Maybe? When? Now he wasn't sure. Only your feeble attempt to lift yourself off the ground brought him to the present. The moan of pain you tried to hide made him flinch as if he experiencing it, too. Satoru reached for you but immediately recoiled — what would he do if you pulled away again?

Instead, in a rare moment of maturity, he tried to get you to come to him. How ironic: he'd been doing the opposite while you yearned for his presence and now that he was willing to give it, you might already be gone. “It's really important right now that we touch. The bond could become damaged beyond repair at this point. You could get seriously hurt.”

“I'm already seriously hurt.” You replied. He looked at the concave shape of your cheeks, the pallor in your skin, the wobble in your muscles, and knew time was running out.

“Please.”

You looked deeply into his eyes, saw them wide and glistening, and felt a twinge through what remained of the connection. Maybe it was muscle weakness (after all, you felt like you might hurl or faint) but you relented, all but falling into his arms. He quickly pulled you sideways into his lap. One of his hands rubbed your back to ease the scorching heat in your spine while the other held the bleeding hand without hesitation. Immediately the blood began to ebb. After a few seconds the wound from the I.V. began to bring itself together. His heart, which pounded in your ear, steadied and quieted.

With a conscious effort you forced your body to relax, then sighed when it gave in (gave out, more like it) and sagged against him. Based on your inhale, Satoru knew you were about to speak, and shushed you before you had the chance. “Just breathe. You'll feel better soon.”

“You don't know that,” you quietly tutted, “the bond might already be broken.”

“I have faith. I'm The Strongest, and because of that, so are you.”

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

Satoru wouldn't move for over an hour. The hard floor was probably killing him, yet he remained with you in his lap, coaxing your head under his every time you grew restless. Only when the pain waned did you manage to sleep. Somewhere during that time, he moved the two of you back to your bed. It must have been a struggle to wedge all of himself into the single cot with you too, but when you woke, there you were, back in bed, laying atop your soulmate like he'd fashioned himself into your personal throne.

Shoko's prodding woke you up. “Hun? Just hear to get your blood pressure.”

“Mmm,” you replied noncommittally while she slid the cuff up your arm. Satoru pulled you closer and only when you looked up at him did you realize he did while still sleeping. He looked almost odd now that his visage was so relaxed — mouth barely open, lashes laying across his sharp cheeks . The gentle rises and falls of his chest were something you hadn't seen in a long time.

“You two sure cut it close.” She added.

“Not m' fault.”

“I know. I know he's tough to love, believe me, and I'm sure you couldn't feel much after the bond degraded to this point, but I took his vitals while you were asleep. You might not want to hear this, but he does have you as his emergency contact, so I'll share it since you're bonded.”

Your head lifted. The stiff squeeze of the inflating cuff was forgotten.

“His bloodwork was atrocious and his cursed energy was pitiful. Electrolytes, red blood cells, white blood cells, plasma; I could hardly even find a vein to pull from. If I didn't know better, I'd say he had cancer.” Shoko spoke quietly.

Your face must have given you away — she smoothed out the hair on the top of your head and tapped your nose once she was done examining you.

“He should be okay now. You're recovering slower than he is.”

“How long have we been sleeping?”

“About nine hours.”

You groaned. It felt like years. “How much longer till we're back to normal?”

“Give it time. Your bond took a major beating. If you rush things, you might end up here again.”

Your head slumped against Satoru's chest. “Okay.”

You watched her leave. Only when she was half way out the door did she fix you with a mischievous smirk and a devious wink. “The closer you are, the faster the bond will heal.”

Then Shoko left, with you likely gawking at the door.

“I like the sound of that.”

You whipped over to Satoru. He'd woken up at some point and was now staring at some spot on your neck before flicking his eyes to yours. The pulsing blue peaking out from under his bangs made your spine quake.

“But Shoko said you were sick. How can you—”

“Good. Maybe then I won't be so rough with you.”

[holy-moth]

Midway upon the journey of our life

I find myself on the abyss

This cliff holds both you and me

This cliff is a question:

Don’t you want to softly cradle my lifeless body and whisper secrets into my hair?

Let your atoms mingle with mine, drift together and merge; form another body - an abomination, basking in glory?

Breath holds words unsaid and thoughts unwound, the essence of our song:

Are you holding me or am I holding you, an ouroboros, perpetually heaving.

The point where past and future collide into an explosion of neurons.

Gravity always wins

Two silhouettes intertwined

Two fates, puppet-strings pulled tight

Dancing at terminal velocity

The blood in our ears drowns out the crash, but cold salt laps at our wounds

I feel your ribs, my ribs, the convulsions of impact

Darkness envelopes, pulling downward, singing of eternity and peace

(frag. Of Love And Being Devoured, 2021)

[ingridbgalatea]

ミ✭ dog-eared.

cw; death.

the quiet is sudden.

the air rids itself of forceful screams, and red cords no longer strain and break at the sound of blood spilling through pierced flesh. the otherwise hideous creak and crumple of the beast shreds against metal, reduced to the hum of a disk scratching voice pressed against fabric as snow seeps into ingrid’s ears. calm tide that the moon draws in, and out again— she breathes; her chest weighing of iron as much as her tongue, scarlet angering the bull of her heart. no longer can she hear the distant, murderous intent of the death knell’s crow. an echo repeats itself in it’s memory, but not the bell itself; dull murmur of it’s chime growing flat with every resound. 

snow falls, marble white an unwelcome contrast to the crimson that bloodied her skin; no longer warm and soft, as much as her father might’ve wanted her suitors to see. low, lulling notes of a supposedly happy hymnal play in haunting minor, both meant for the wed and dying. dying. dying. the word begins to lose meaning the more she says it, soundlessly, meant for an audience of no one besides herself. a person with no such companionship dies alone, and that was what she was, right? dying. 

despite everything the stories say, death isn’t at all what they paint it out to be.

—when it ropes you around the waist, (callous touch to bloody wounds,) you’d think you would see your life flash before your eyes. 

she thinks she would see felix, in all his perpetual scowl; once small smile contorted into something she could never understand. his face, worn with battles he both knew how to pick but didn’t anyways. she thinks she would see sylvain, with his carefully painted smile and words that were both ultimately a little reckless and quietly caring, and maybe she wouldn’t feel the need to pick up after him so much. she thinks she would see his highness, in all his polite small talk and tall standing; and she wonders what he would think about what aeschylus had called justice.

was that it? was that what he died for? so chivalry, so honour, so knighthood, so valour, so martyrdom, so justice—

                                                                                               so what? 

                                       she doesn’t see their faces. not anymore. 

eyes press softly close (though they were already shut), the softness of a cruel winter lies on her eyelashes. her flesh, or lack thereof, is tangible as the touch of another wraps around her form. blood drips without distinction between flesh and cloth; dyes the snow as red as strawberries in the summer. everything feels numb in all of her own tragic, human fragility, and fingers thrum in her head but not against the back of the one who’d begun carrying her. a loss for words, and a loss for names… even recognising who had lifted her up in that piteous state was difficult. air travels through her, trudging through the muck of blood and mucus; disquieting smell of metal filling her lungs. she is breathing, yes, yes, but only so; where the thunder of her thoughts meet her lips there is only a drop of rain, scarlet blood. 

ingrid wants to be held a little longer, blink in dream-worthy bleariness; living in the little moments between uneager steps that mark the snow. it’s a little like riding a horse, or a pegasus returning from flight; soft footfalls uneasy against the ground, lifting and falling. gentle light filters through; warmth leaves her embrace unconscientiously, as you might pry a toy from a child. holding, holding— nothing; empty air, an unraised hand closes around itself as her body is lowered to the ground. to the ground… no, deeper than that; a grave, maybe? she can’t tell. it is certainly not a bed; nor as welcoming— the cold stings where the wind bites. 

            she lies, still.

quiet returns, though not for long (but she couldn’t be sure of that fact, for time was no longer as meaningful, nor invaluable). soon(er, or later), the faint buzz of chatter resonates, velvety words against blue lips; the voice quivers in the cold but does not drone itself out in defeat. poetry, was it? the rhythm of the voice is only nervously placed; she hopes she’d gotten at least that bit right. overwrought pauses were scarce, but not absent in his recital. she manages to catch a few words from it— how was she so sure that it was a ‘his’?— but nothing so sharp as to cut through her numbed skin. grievances, promises, memories, whatever poems would say and sing, and…...

‘rest in peace.’

                                                                                                              ...oh. 

for who was that sentiment? 

                                             f o r.. wh o?

    who was r e s tin g in p  e a ce ?

                                            ……………… w  h     o ...

                                                        am   i  

            d

                                   e 

                                                                         a  

                                                                                           d ? 

                                                      -!

—i am certainly breathing and breathing and breathing and i cannot seem to stop and not unless i’ve forgotten how to see (i have) or hear (perhaps) or think (i have not) but until i have forgotten how to breathe then that is territory i will not step. but where is the line and when do i cross it and have i crossed it already? i am certainly breathing and breathing and breathing but what if it is only in my head and only there instead? what then?

see, i’ve never considered myself immune to failure and i never will, but i am only as pained as any other human and therefore i must deal with it as just. i am not immune to failure but i am not immune to not relishing in it, if that makes any sense; but i am barely making (creating, really,) anything. every new word makes me hate the last but that is untrue with stories for i cherish them all. yet, as an artist i must learn to hate my craft. so, as a martyr, must i learn to hate my death?

-and truthfully i am not so earnestly as regretful (to die) as of the thought that there would be nothing to regret but there is and there are lots and things i will never right and things i will never write and that in itself is a despairing thought. what is martyrdom without a god and what is knighthood without a king? likewise, what is idolisation without an idol and what am i without myself? 

              ..

unwound thoughts hover over the precipice; carved deep into the ravine below, indistinct words of a priest. like water that drips between the cracks of ruined earth, it eludes her— no matter how much she would try and fail to hold it in her hands. words were fickle, and they were never as right as ingrid would have hoped them to be, but if she could remember just this— it would be enough. 

( they say faces you see in dreams are only of those you know; but she doesn’t remember this one at all. perhaps it didn’t matter as much as she wanted it to. )

 he opens his mouth— crooked smile, as though the thought seemed almost entertaining. where there is a joy of knowledge and the ability to know and have faith, reflects only voided blankness. 

then, he speaks, and ingrid wonders if it was worth listening.

    “ your fate is already written. ”

                                                                    i          k      n   o     w. 

a maskless shiver lives on her skin. did this moment dictate her fate? or was it every disappointing choice she’d made until then; with the affirmation that she would fix it before… before her death? before that, even? did she have a choice to do so at all? ink stains the page but in all her efforts to wipe it away, it only smudges; leaves otherwise permanent stains on parchment and temporarily on her skin. part of her withers, like rotting paper. she wonders, momentously, if it was her own writing all along, or if it were the goddess’s authorship— that she lived a short life and died an unsatisfying death.

                ‘ unsatisfying. ’ 

                                     goddess, it was. 

ingrid doesn’t see her life flash before her eyes, no.

 it is only an open book, and she has ruined any and all chances to read it. 

               she stops at the last page before the final chapter; finger                                     hanging over the top-right corner. 

the page flips like the snuffing toss of a pegasus’s head; discontent and mild in it’s expression— but it ends only there. 

                                                     she has it dog-eared, for reference. 

 “ ... however, the reason you are here, alive at all, is the question: can you change what you believe is written as ‘fate’?”

                                              .

                                              .

                                              .

something twists inside her.                                                                                   

                                                                          had she changed anything?

her heart screams in her chest. it pounds and tears and shrieks and rips and it beats and beats and beats and beats and beats and beats and beats and beats and beats and beats and beats and beats and beats and beats and beats and beats and beats and beats and beats and beats and beats and beats and beats and beats and  beats and beats and beats and beats and beats and beats and beats and beats and beats—

                                   and then it stops. 

                                                        …

he doesn’t wait, walking away.

                                                                           ingrid doesn’t run to meet him.

                      the world turns, but she has stopped turning with it.

                                                                               …                           

   No, 

                        ( a wan, dying thought. )

                                                                   I haven’t changed anything at all.

[dealbrekker]

Star-struck

My new Lucifer made the stars fic with all that angsty goodness.  I’m now 6 episodes into season 3 for the first time, so anything that seems off in the fic can be attributed to that.

---

It started with a suggestion.

Since her acquaintanceship with Lucifer, Chloe had made many of these.

Why don’t you come to the station to do your weird hypno thing to the perp?

Why don’t you stop with the metaphors and come back down to Earth for a minute?

Why don’t you untangle yourself from the Brittanies and act like an adult for five seconds?

Of course, most of these were more so frustrated demands, and the metaphors weren’t exactly metaphorical anymore.  As their odd relationship wound and unwound like a perpetually disfunction yo-yo, Chloe’s suggestions had slowly unfurled, blush by blush, into more intimate proposals. Most were met with a fair bit of sarcasm and lecherous innuendo, and nearly all of them resulted in Chloe either stalking away in exasperated anger or embarrassment.  The fact that she kept trying really merited a visit to Linda. If anyone understood an obsession with the literal Devil, it was the good doctor.

The most recent suggestion, made with genuine thoughtfulness and the mildly—okay, completely—terrifying hope he’d agree, was of the burning cheeks variety.

I’m taking Trixie to the planetarium to see the new exhibit on constellations tomorrow night. You should come.

Lucifer’s deft and slender fingers crumpled over the piano keys.  Chloe winced at the discordant notes, and turning toward him, she was shocked to see a shuttered, hollow look in his eyes.

“I’ve no wish to view such mockery.”

His fingers returned to their melody, and Chloe blinked in stunned silence.  Normally a response like that would send her eyes rolling and her head shaking at his childishness.  Snobbery was a regular trait with Lucifer Morningstar.  She rather thought Satan shouldn’t have a lot to feel so superior over, but she’d learned to keep that train of thought quiet. He didn’t like answering questions about his time in Hell or anything regarding his old job description at all.  

But his reaction hadn’t just been his usual sneering cynicism.  This had been definitive; an ultimatum.  Do not ask me again.

So, she hadn’t. But she turned his words over and over again, even while her face grew red.  Even after he’d settled, and his fingers eventually drifted elsewhere.

But she did ask Maze.

“Maybe he’s not as fond of Trixie as I thought,” she pondered while stirring the soup on the stove. Maze sat at her customary place opposite; a long-distant look fixed on her face.  Chloe searched for earbuds, but the demon wasn’t wearing any.  She pressed on.  “Maybe he’s not as fond of me as I thought.”

Maze’s focus sharpened, and her slit eyebrow arched neatly.  “Please,” she deadpanned.  Chloe blushed and averted her eyes to the pot in front of her.  “Maybe,” her heart fell and she cursed herself for being so obtuse. She stopped stirring and let the spoon drop.  “Maybe the stars are too…”

She trailed off, not knowing the correct word to use.  Heavenly?  Celestial? She didn’t have to think long, because Maze had gone stiff in her seat, her features hardening into a likeness of cold marble.  Chloe stilled, recognizing the silent rarity of the demon’s true rage.

“Forget it,” she murmured, looking away from those soulless eyes.  “I’m sorry.”

As the broth simmered on, Maze relaxed in her seat, and Chloe felt her own tension melt away. The more she thought about it, the surer she became.  Lucifer’s words played over in her head.  She looked back at Maze.

“What did he mean by that?  A ‘mockery’? A mockery of what?”

Maze regarded her coolly, though most of her initial hostility had vanished.  Chloe knew she’d been on the mark with her conclusion about the stars.  Maze’s eyes slid from hers and the distance returned in them.  Chloe waited.

“I have no right to tell you this,” the demon said, surprising Chloe.  Maze showing reluctance over anything revealed just how serious the matter was.  Chloe merely nodded encouragement.  She desperately wanted to know what had bothered Lucifer so much, and if she could somehow make amends.

Maze’s hands clenched and unclenched.  She didn’t have her knives, or else Chloe knew she’d be twirling them in agitation. The demon’s catlike eyes narrowed and pinned her in place.

“I’m only telling you because I know you actually care about him.  This isn’t for me to say, but I doubt he ever will.”  She took a deep breath.  “Lucifer created the stars.”

Hush descended, save for the ticking of the kitchen clock.

Chloe cleared her throat.  “I’m sorry. The stars?”

Maze tilted her head warningly.  Chloe held up her hands.

“Sorry! But.  You’re saying Lucifer created space?”

“No, I’m saying he made the stars.  Space existed.  Dear old Daddy and Mommy made that and were making plans for what else would be set out all neatly inside it when Lucifer,” she snapped her fingers once, as if to say that was that.  “Bam. Galaxies.  Suns.”  She smirked. “Then God threw up a planet nearby and lo and behold, it prospered under your precious sun.”

The soup was all but forgotten.  Chloe stared at her roommate for a long time.  “Lucifer made the stars,” she repeated, somehow failing to grasp the concept despite coming to terms with a lot of outrageous facts lately.  

“Stop being thick, Decker.  He’s the Lightbringer, after all.  Or did you never learn that?”

The demon pushed herself back from the bar without another word.  Chloe stuttered, wrestling with which question to ask first, but Maze disappeared into her room with a slam of her door.

In the end, Chloe did not push Lucifer into coming to the planetarium.  And while Trixie raced around the rooms, cooing excitedly over the man-made galaxies, Chloe couldn’t help but feel they were nothing short of a knock-off.

 “Were you ever going to tell me you created the stars?”

Lucifer slapped his glass down onto the bar with a crack.  He stared at his demonic bartender as Chloe strode from the elevator.  “Bloody hell, Maze.  What else do you tell her while I’m not around?”

Maze shrugged.  “Thought you didn’t lie.”

Lucifer sneered at her.  “Omissions aren’t lies, especially when they’ve no reason to be mentioned at all.”

He turned to Chloe, plastering a brilliant grin to his face.  “Detective!”

Chloe held up a hand. “The stars, Lucifer.  Is that why you didn’t want to go to the planetarium?”

Lucifer realized what she was doing.  She was being terse, badass Detective Decker.  The one that burst into the interrogation room with quickfire questions that left the perp little room to think.  He’d almost vomited up a “Yes, ma’am, I did, ma’am” before giving himself a mental slap.

“Now, now, Detective. Why don’t you sit and have a drink? What is this codswallop about stars, then?”

Chloe leveled him with eyes nearly as flinty as Maze’s.  He cleared his throat.  “Yes, um. Maze, two martinis, please.  Dry.”

His demon didn’t answer, and when he turned around, she was gone.

“Some help I keep,” he muttered under his breath.

“Lucifer.”

He turned back, another wolfish grin in place.  “You’re so sexy when you interrogate, Chloe.”  He added an extra purr to her name.  Only a slight movement of her lips indicated she’d noticed.

“Why would you keep such a thing from me?  From anyone?”

He exhaled a long, frustrated sigh.  

“Because it isn’t bloody important, Detective.  What difference does it make?  Does it change anything?”

Chloe seemed to ponder this for a second.  “In the grand scheme of things—”

He groaned loudly. “Not the bloody grand scheme of things rhetoric.”  He stood and went behind counter to take a long drag from a random bottle.  He didn’t care which.  Gin, it turned out.  “No holy roller nonsense from you please.  It’s terribly unbecoming.”

She ignored him.

“Lucifer, that you made the stars…it’s amazing!  Why wouldn’t you want to brag about it?  You brag about all your other accomplishments.  Your desire-hypno eyes.  Your deal making.  Your…prowess.”

“Oh, remembered that one did you,” he grinned again and sidled back to her side of the bar.  “Can’t much brag about it anymore seeing as how I’m a one-lover man, now.  All I can do is prove it to her.  Over and over and over and…”

“Lucifer!”

“And over again.”

Chloe looked a little flushed.  Lucifer felt a little pleased.

“Why won’t you even go out to look at the stars then?”

“Enough questions, Detective.  They’re boring me.”

“Think of the implications!  Think what would happen if people knew!”

Lucifer barked a laugh.  “And who is going to tell them?  You? Who is going to go up to Joe Schmoe on the street and say, “Oh, oh!  The Devil made the stars.  Tell him thank you in your prayers tonight!”  I don’t bloody think so, Chloe.”

Chloe looked deflated for a minute, and Lucifer began to relax.  If she’d just drop it…

“But how can you not want to see them?”

Guess not.

“Leave it alone, Chloe.  Why do you think I chose the big city lights?  There are stars everywhere.”  He gestured at the TV with a leer in place.  A famous, very attractive actor was giving an interview on some late-night show.  Chloe rolled her eyes and opened her mouth, but Lucifer cut her off.  “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’m rather put out of my mood.”

He began to stalk off to his piano, leaving her at the bar to go or stay as she chose.

“Don’t you miss them?”

He stopped.

And spun around.

“No.”

He meant it to be dismissive.  Blunt. Final.

But it had come out as a croaking plea.

He cleared his throat. She stood.

“Lucifer if you’d just…”

“I don’t want to bloody see the damned stars, Chloe.  I won’t see them, not for you, not for anyone, so drop it NOW.”

His voice had climbed to the roar that made most people cower before him, apologizing and begging for forgiveness.  But not her. Never her.  He didn’t scare her.  And for that he was eternally thankful.  

He just scared himself.

“Good night, Detective.”  He turned away and vanished into his room.  He didn’t breathe again until he heard the elevator open and close.

 She surprised him one day with a blindfold.

“Why, Detective, I never would have guessed,” he crooned as she slipped it over his eyes.  He laughed silently as she tied it at the back of his head.  He could feel the eye roll she was giving him.  “Very kinky, Lucifer approves wholeheartedly.  Where are we going?”

He practically jumped when her lips pressed against his ear.  “You’ll just have to wait and see.”

His heated skin and pumping heart drowned out all other thought as she guided him into the passenger seat of her car.  If he hadn’t been so gob-smacked, the Devil might have sensed the guilt coming off her in waves.

 An hour or so later, the car stopped.  He heard Chloe take a deep breath before she pulled the blindfold away.

Lucifer blinked warily in the receding sun, taking in the desert landscape.  He turned an appraising eye on her.  

“Are you sure you weren’t the one who reattached my wings?”  It was a stupid question, he knew, since the answer was a partial affirmative.  He knew that now.  Doing multiple good deeds in the name of this human woman and her family had contributed to their reappearance.  And no matter how many times he’d hacked them off, it seemed each new day with Chloe, each new skipping heartbeat he’d felt in her presence, had added a literal feather to his proverbial cap.

Even so, seeing the desert again brought the memory of his wings’ sudden regrowth surging back. His shoulder blades itched, and he cricked his neck, straining to keep the bloody things from popping out and embarrassing him.  He shook himself and turned on a leer.

“Or did you have a sandy twilight tryst in mind, Detective?”  He glanced behind them into the back of the car.  “Shall we share a sleeping bag?”  He waggled his eyebrows at her.

But Chloe wasn’t looking at him.  She was staring ahead, out of the windshield at the oncoming sunset, her face rosy gold. Exquisite, he thought.  And then he realized the late hour.

And anger flared bright in his gut.

“You brought me here to see the bloody damned stars, didn’t you?”

Chloe didn’t answer, but her eyes dropped to the steering wheel.  Her jaw clenched.

“Unbelievable.” Lucifer opened the car door and shoved himself out, slamming it behind him.

The air was cool and he crossed his arms as he stalked several paces from the car.  He heard her get out behind him, but he refused to look back at her.  

Silence rolled across the desert with the light breeze.  His thoughts were wild with anxiety.  How dare she kidnap him and drag him back to this thrice damned sandpit to see them. How dare she presume to know what was best for the Devil?  The King of Hell?  He would not look at them.  He’d close his eyes.  He’d shut them out and imagine the flashing strobes of Lux.  The headlights and spotlights and wonderful, drab boringness of florescent tubing flickering with their soulless utility…

“Take me back to Lux,” he growled as he felt her come to stand beside him.

“Tell me why,” she said lowly, “and I will.”

He snarled, his body tensing, his shoulder blades on fire.  He felt his wings digging at his back.  Eager to burst forward…eager to fly up and away if only to get away from the coming dark…

Chloe did not flinch under his rage, though he knew it was palpable enough for her to feel it. She’d flinched before.  Like when she’d reached out to touch his scars, so long ago now.  He’d snatched her wrist in a painful grasp, and seen her eyes flicker with a moment of real fear before concern had replaced it, and she’d embarrassed him enough to send him scampering from her sympathy.

Or when he’d shown her his true face, finally.  And she’d cut of contact for—a long, long time.

This betrayal felt like a dim shade of that day though.  Because she’d forgiven him eventually.  Eventually they’d found their ways back to each other.  But he didn’t know if he could forgive himself.  

Because now he wanted to shake her.  Hard. Shake her until she understood what she’d done.  Shake her—so maybe he wouldn’t feel so helpless.

He turned his anger toward her, and it died under her eyes.  

He would never lie to her.  And he would never, ever hurt her.  The day he did that, he’d be truly lost.  He’d tear his wings off with his bare hands, plume by plume, before ripping the things out by the root.  Chloe was his friend, his partner, his new and treasured lover.  Innocent down to her perfect, little toes.  He only hurt the guilty.  And if Chloe Decker was truly guilty of anything, it was only of caring about a broken thing like him.

When she didn’t shy away from his rage and apprehension, Lucifer closed his eyes, shoulders drooping.

“I can’t bear to look at them.”

Chloe shifted closer. He could feel the heat of her in the chilly air.  A small hand landed on his forearm.  “Tell me, please.”

A shudder carved its way through him, that had nothing to do with the dropping temperature.  His chest felt tight.  Like his lungs wouldn’t work.  It ached so badly, he felt it behind his eyes.  

“I can’t,” he managed to choke out.  He turned his head away and blinked rapidly.  “Don’t make me.  Please.”

Chloe’s hand went to his shoulder.  She stepped in front of him, and the other hand cupped his cheek.  Gently, she drew his face back around so she could see him. “Okay,” she agreed, nodding.  “Okay.”

And it was like with his scars again.  Somehow, she’d cut through him, through his anger and fear, and soothed him.  It was like the day she’d pulled him into her arms and whispered that she accepted who he was, and that she was there no matter what. Although this time he didn’t run from her kindness.  Lucifer swallowed against the hurt in his throat and heart.  He nodded along with her.

After a moment, where he’d laid his cheek on her head, and stared at the fiery sun still ebbing down the skyline, she spoke.

“Before we leave, can I tell you something?”

Lucifer pulled back from her arms, ready to acquiesce to any compromise, should it make her happy. “Yes.”

She took his hand in hers and they walked back to the car.  From the trunk she removed two folding chairs and two blankets.  They sat beside each other, wrapped in the blankets, the sun to their backs.  A few more cars had arrived, parking a little way away.  Families piled out, and began setting up chairs and small camps of their own, too far away to hear properly.  Lucifer frowned in confusion, but before he could comment Chloe began to speak.

“My father would bring me out here every Summer.”

Lucifer’s eyes snapped to her face, intent now, forgetting about the strangers.

Chloe looked like she was far, far away.  He gripped her hand in his, suddenly unnerved by the thought of her being anywhere but by his side.  A small smile flickered on her lips, and she squeezed his hand, momentarily returned from where ever she’d just been.  He gave a silent sigh, and watched her slowly drift back into the memory.

“Every weekend after school let out, he’d drive us out here for camping.  My mother never came, but I think we all preferred it that way.” Her voice warmed with amusement, and Lucifer grinned at the thought of Penelope Decker roughing it in the desert.  Chloe’s thumb ran absent minded circles over his palm.

“We’d just stay out for a couple days, within range of one of the park centers, but determined to be real pioneers.  You know,” she laughed, back again as she glanced at Lucifer.  “Roasting hotdogs and marshmallows and sleeping in our weather resistant tents with a fully fueled truck at the ready in case of emergencies.”

“A real Annie Oakley you’ve turned out to be,” he couldn’t help but jest.  She chuckled, and gave him a small nudge with her elbow.

“Those days were great,” she continued, nestling back into her chair, pulling the blanket closer. “He’d teach me about the plants and how to identify animal tracks.  We’d hike around the rocks and just talk and talk and talk.  We had no secrets.  No lies.”

She went quiet for a span of minutes, lost in memories Lucifer might never be privy to.  And he found that he was okay with that.  That she had had such a connection with her father used to stir up his own bitterness.  But now he was glad for her.  Glad that she’d had such a figure in her life.  And he found, too, that he was thankful that that man had helped mold her into the person she was today.

Lucifer let her have her memories.  Content to simply watch them in her eyes, a play with multiple acts of fondness, sadness, but mostly of love.

“Our days out here were for talk,” Chloe tilted her head back, eyes lifting to the sky that had begun to purple in the semi-distance.  “The nights were for silence.”  She turned and looked at Lucifer.  “And stars.”

Her thumb had stopped moving across his hand, and now she laced her fingers through his.  When she spoke again, her voice carried a roughness he could tell she was trying to stave off.  He tightened his grip on her.

“He taught me all the constellations.  How to spot the major stars and even the planets when they were close enough to be seen. We’d stare at the sky for hours, watching them move across the sky, hoping for a shooting star so we could make a wish and tell Mom all about it.”  Her voice pitched upward, mimicking a younger Chloe’s enthusiasm.  “We saw a comet, Mom.  We saw a star fly across the sky with fire burning along behind it.”  Her voice caught and she swallowed away the emotion.

“After I knew all the names and facts he could tell me, we just sat and admired it.  I felt like there was nowhere else on Earth so beautiful.  Like there was no other view in the entire universe more captivating.”

Lucifer took in her profile, and the shining of the unshed tears in her eyes as she blinked up at the sky, and thought, You’re wrong.

His partner sucked in a deep breath.  “One year for Christmas Mom got us a telescope.  That June we were nearly ready to launch a complaint with the school system for not ending the year sooner.  When we got out here, we set the telescope up and urged the sun to go away, to give us the night sky.  He let me look first once he got it calibrated.”

She went silent again, and the seconds ticked on.  Lucifer felt a distant hum of anxiety in his chest the further the sun sank down, but he couldn’t leave her side.  Couldn’t let her ride the tide of her emotion alone.

It ran high in her voice now, and he knew the tears were escaping her hold on them.  “I couldn’t believe my eyes, Lucifer.  I couldn’t understand what I was seeing.  I couldn’t breathe for the excitement at seeing the stars so close.  Closer even than they feel out here, away from all the lights of the city.”

He pulled her hand up to his lips and kissed it.  She shifted in her chair as if to press closer to him.  She pulled her gaze from the sky and looked into his eyes.  His breath hitched at the wonder there.  

“It’s the heaven I have trouble believing in.  They’re miracles.”

And something in him woke up.

“Yes,” he wheezed. “Yes.”

She’d seen them. She’d seen the stars and had named their truth.  They were miracles.  His miracles.  Not his Father’s, though he’d stolen the credit.  Not his mother’s, though she’d never been much interested in the first place. The stars were his creation, his ingenuity, his art.  They were the truest expression of himself at the time.  All he’d wanted to do when he brought them to life, was somehow capture the essence of his family.  

The stars were portraits.

And he’d never told a soul.

When he was cast down from Heaven, a blight and a ruin, when he was shut off from his brothers and sisters, from his Mother and from his Father, all the warmth went away.  He made no stars for Hell, because he could not imagine the purity and goodness of those better than him in the bowels of existence.

He didn’t deserve them.

And when he climbed his way out, Mazikeen by his side, the stars on the beach had nearly sent him scurrying back down.  Weak and small as they were with the city blazing behind them, Lucifer could not, would not look up.  He buried his hands in the sand, grit his teeth, and commanded Maze to cut off his wings, as his monuments to his family flickered passively above.

One day, he’d tell Chloe what the stars really were.  Beyond their chaos and his need to one-up his Father in the birth of the universe. Beyond even their reflections of the Heavenly Host.  One day he’d tell her that those were pieces of himself scattered across Creation.

But maybe, he thought, as he caught her staring at him with all the feeling that had accompanied her story, she already knows it.

“Are you ready to go?” She asked, sitting forward, hand unclasping from his.  The sun was touching the horizon now.  His eyes flicked to the darkening sky quickly, and then back to Chloe.

In answer he took her hand back in his, sighed shakily, and shook his head.

Around them, more people had arrived.  Small campfires were going, and they could hear children laughing.  Food smells drifted up on the breeze.  A general air of anticipation floated over them, and Lucifer frowned again.  Why were there so many people out here in the coming dark?

“They came to stargaze,” Chloe said, reading his mind.  

Lucifer’s frown deepened.  “Bloody tourists.”  But he couldn’t tell if he was offended or flattered.  Chloe laughed and got up from her chair.  He grinned at her when she lifted his blanket to sit on his lap and snuggle against him.

“Well, hello, Detective.”

“Hello, Lucifer Morningstar.”

He kissed her because he couldn’t help it.

Soon the sun was nearly below the horizon, and they looked at each other for a long moment.  Lucifer took a deep breath and nodded, and together they lifted their eyes to the sky.

And then came the stars.

Chloe was there, pressing her lips to his temple, when the sight tore a longing sob from his throat.

The silly, feeble scattering of stars that had greeted him on that beach years ago was forgotten the instant the scene above him took hold.  There they were, shot across the night sky in glittering high definition. Waves upon waves of him. So many.  He’d forgotten how many.  

The night was clear. And yet his stars clustered in such a way to appear like clouds.  Dark blue, light blue, almost purple.  The white lights winked and pulsed and thrummed.  Euphoric.  Like heartbeats.  Like souls.

His cheeks were wet.

Chloe’s body pressed against his, and she whispered that they were beautiful.  The night had gone utterly silent.  But he could hear the Silver City and his stars in his head. Faint.  Distant.  But there all the same.

“Lucifer, look.”

He blinked, hardly able to look away from the sight above.  But Chloe was pointing out across the desert, and so he followed the line of her arm.

People were fussing with telescopes.  Children were pointing, whispering excitedly to one another.  Couples were bundled up together under blankets.  And all of them were looking up.

All around him these humans had come to the desert, solely to find joy in his stars.

They didn’t know they were his.  Didn’t know the Devil was real.  Would never associate the two entities in any way.

But the looks on their faces were real enough.  

The awe.  

The rapture.  

The peace.

 Chloe watched Lucifer watching the people.  Watched his eyes return to the sky.  Watched the realization dawn on him.

Watching those sharp, handsome features soften and tremble under the weight of his Creation. A child laughed, and woman sighed.

A star rocketed across the sky, and applause burst from the onlookers.  

Lucifer swallowed unsuccessfully against his tears, and Chloe thumbed them away.  

The stars blazed on and the night shone.

Someone turned on their iPod, soft music swirling upward.  Look at the stars, look how they shine for you…

Lucifer Morningstar laughed and swept his partner into his arms, smiling for the first time that night.

They danced beneath the painted sky, he looking down at her, and she looking up at him.

And stars were in their eyes.

[theonyxpath]

The Lunar Exalted

The Lunar Exalted are Creation’s divine apex predators, monster-heroes chosen by Luna to hunt and prey upon the enemies of the gods in the Divine Revolution. Like their divine patron, the Lunars are puissant shapeshifters, devouring the forms of their human and animal prey and making these a part of their own nature. The Lunar Exalted are creatures of boundaries and transgression — the boundaries between hero and monster, between devil and saint, between civilization and wilderness, between the mortal world and the divine. They stand on whichever side of the boundaries they please, and cross between them with unmatched ease. A Lunar who embraces the power and freedom of becoming an untamed monster need not sacrifice her humanity; a Lunar who devotes herself to living among mortals and protecting them need not abandon the freedom of running wild and untamed.

In the Divine Revolution, the Lunars were monsters that even the most nightmarish among the enemies of the gods learned to fear. They waged war in the shapes of snakes as long as rivers, all-devouring swarms bearing devil-slaying plagues, beast-mothers with tusks like daiklaives and stampedes of murderous children, and countless other wild horrors. Fighting alongside the Solar and Sidereal Exalted, and with Dragon-Blooded armies, they toppled the makers of the universe and stained their fangs red with the blood of slain divinities.

As the First Age’s glories arose from the Exalted’s triumph, the Lunars enjoyed the fruit of the paradise they’d helped to win, and transformed themselves into the Lunar Exalted of an Age of Dreams. Though never forsaking the divine monstrosity at the heart of their Essence, they became guardians, guides, world-walkers, judges, and mystics.

The Usurpation brought an end to the First Age and a new transformation for the Lunar Exalted, the change that made them what they are today. The mass death of the Solar Exalted, and the foul murder of Lunars who fought beside their Solar mates or were deemed too dangerous to the usurpers’ plans to let live, awoke a keening fury in the souls of the Lunar host, a rage that had not been witnessed in Creation since the Lunars first hunted the enemies of the gods. The first Wyld Hunts perpetrated by the nascent Dragon-Blooded Shogunate and its Sidereal benefactors solidified the Lunars’ vendetta, ensuring that the usurpers would never know peace so long as one Lunar yet drew breath.

As the great wonders of the First Age unwound and crumbled into ash, the Lunars chose to remake themselves so that they could survive and thrive in this new Age of Sorrows. Over the course of years, they performed a mystical endeavor unparalleled throughout Creation, dissolving the fivefold castes that dwelt in the very Essence of Lunar Exaltation and creating new castes. Henceforth, the Lunar Exalted would be ferocious warriors slaying the usurpers’ legions, wicked tricksters testing society and plunging it into chaos, wise-eyed witches beckoning forth night’s mysteries.

It was this time that saw the birth of the Silver Pact. Though the Lunars had many different visions of how best to wreak vengeance on the usurpers and make a new place for themselves in the world — and in a few cases, had longstanding grudges against one another — the cruel reality of the Wyld Hunt made internecine strife a luxury they couldn’t afford. The Lunars came together in a loose-knit organization built on mutual aid and a shared vendetta against the usurpers, without any single leader or formal authority.

Throughout its history, the Silver Pact has become the single greatest force arrayed against the Dragon-Blooded and the Sidereal Exalted. The Realm’s borders fall where they do because the Silver Pact has denied them the lands beyond. The Sidereals of the Bronze Faction desperately coordinate the Wyld Hunt, because they know they cannot maintain the status quo they sacrificed so much for if the Lunars are unchecked. In the Time of Tumult, the Pact’s final victory may be at hand… or its best-laid plans might fall apart through the intervention of unforeseen foes.

War Against the Realm

The Silver Pact opposes the Realm for many reasons: as the successor state to the usurping Dragon-Blooded Shogunate, for its subjugation of the Threshold, and for its prosecution of the Wyld Hunt. Other Dragon-Blooded societies suffer the Pact’s wrath to the extent that they share in the Shogunate’s legacy and agenda; this includes Lookshy, Prasad, and the powerful cadet- house-led satrapies around the Inland Sea.

It’s easy for Lunars to find support against Realm aggression. For centuries, satrapies have labored under Imperial yoke. Farmers and merchants alike tighten their belts to pay their share of satrapial taxes, and face starvation or bankruptcy in bad years. Garrisons quarter soldiers in local homes. Threshold aristocrats begrudge their subservience and their own loss of income. Even the gods fume against Immaculate strictures.

The Realm’s power harms even those beyond its borders. Satrapies raid neighboring states and peoples to help pay their tribute, while Dynastic adventurers organize military expeditions to line their own pockets. Realm fiscal policies interfere with trade between satrapies and foreign lands. Immaculate missionaries destabilize traditional societies with their unfamiliar faith. And when the Realm finally conquers a neighbor, the aftereffects of war can be prolonged and devastating.

Blood Moon Rising: Lunar Victories

The Silver Pact doesn’t speak in terms of victory in the field. It’s no rival empire to seize and hold territory from the Realm. Rather, the Pact is a predator running down its prey, bleeding it from a thousand cuts until it’s ready to fall.

Across the Threshold, Lunars strike at Realm interests not to kill, but to wound. Piracy, raiding, rebellion, and civil war turn satrapies from obsequious sources of wealth to thorns in the Realm’s side. Sabotage, theft, and assassination strip away precious assets and undermine efforts at political reform. Harassment exhausts Imperial defenders and their auxiliaries, leaving them all the more vulnerable. Only at critical junctures wherein the Realm is overextended does the Pact strike with overwhelming force.

Where the Realm once spread networks of roads and bridges throughout its satrapies to better move troops and gather tribute, now it struggles to maintain existing infrastructure. Warstriders, First Age manses, and other irreplaceable relics have been sabotaged or destroyed outright, leaving only a small fraction of their previous number in Realm and Lookshyan hands. These strategies also played on the Empress’ conservatism and her obsession with perpetuating her rule. Knowing that overreach would play into Lunar hands, she slowed the Realm’s expansion to a crawl, tolerated greater independence in troublesome satrapies, and grew more reluctant to embark upon grand endeavors — subjugating the Scavenger Lands, reclaiming Prasad, seizing the West.

Centuries of Pact efforts diminished the Realm from unchallengeable hyperpower to “merely” Creation’s sole superpower. This was only the beginning. Running the Realm to ground might take centuries more and require enormous, persistent effort, but the Pact’s elders felt confident that their strategy was the best path to victory.

Now that the Empress is gone and the Solars are returned, everything is in flux. Many Pact elders favor continued adherence to a winning stratagem. Others are swayed toward immediate action, seeing an opportunity to finally go for the throat. Either way, destroying the Realm remains the Lunars’ objective.

Pact Organization

The Silver Pact has no official government. In principle, it’s entirely egalitarian, with no formal hierarchy or positions of authority. But even the Pact knows politics. Collective action requires direction, guidance, and leadership. Pact members align themselves along multiple social and political axes, including their approach to the Realm, their chronological peer group, and their association with the Pact’s shahan-yas.

The Shadow Fang Vanguard

Not all Lunars accepted the nascent Silver Pact’s loose, nonhierarchical nature. Some believed that war against the Shogunate required firm central authority; others sought strong leaders to serve; and still others were driven by ambition and craved the opportunity to command their fellow Lunars. Splitting from the Pact’s mainline, they largely coalesced over centuries into the Shadow Fang Vanguard, a unified authoritarian enclave.

Today, the Vanguard numbers only a score of Lunars, most dwelling in the deep Northeastern forests under the iron rule of the Vanguard’s reigning autarch, the Shogunate-era warlord Tayan Silver-Crowned, who is advised by Feather Drenched in the Blood of the Fallen, a First Age elder. They anticipate new blood, believing the Vanguard’s message will resonate all the more strongly amid the Time of Tumult.

Relations between the Vanguard and the Pact are complex and fraught. Both share the same overarching goals; indeed, many Pact members view the Vanguard as simply another part of the Pact. More than a few Vanguard members attend Pact gatherings, where they find themselves welcome, and while Pact Lunars encounter a cooler reception among the Vanguard, those in need are rarely turned away.

The major point of tension between the Pact and the Vanguard is recruiting new Lunars. Occasional skirmishes have resulted, as recruiters seeking the same young Lunar have squabbled or even come to blows — though both groups severely censure anyone whose squabbling escalates to vendetta, or drives a young Lunar away from Pact and Vanguard alike.

Shahan-ya: Elders and Mentors

Silver Pact elders are called “shahan-ya” — Old Realm for “guide” or “teacher” — and lead coteries of adherents, disciples, and supporters, known as schools. Any member of the Pact who’s accepted as a leader or mentor by a school may take on the mantle of shahan-ya.

The structure of these schools varies. Most often, adherents live apart from the shahan-ya, visiting intermittently to study, discuss strategy and politics, take on new tasks and responsibilities, or simply to socialize with a friend or ally. Such shahan-yas occasionally gather their adherents en masse to discuss matters of mutual import.

Adherents may be loyal or devoted, but never slavish. Each is a Lunar hero and champion, not a servant at her shahan-ya’s beck and call. An adherent may sever her relationship to a shahan-ya at any time, and vice versa. Prestigious shahan-yas can leverage the value of their patronage to demand that adherents toe the line, but even so, most accept varying degrees of dissent lest they drive adherents away.

When Silver Cracks

Shahan-yas are not formal authorities, and so one shahan-ya’s refusal to recognize another’s status matters little to the Pact as a whole. But on rare occasions, a shahan-ya’s extreme views or actions may cause her peers to reject her authority en masse. The Pact’s laissez-faire approach to politics makes it vulnerable to such breakdowns. To combat this tendency, the shahan-yas aggressively police schisms once they form. When a shahan-ya’s behavior threatens Pact stability, her peers address this as a grievance in council (p. XX).

When the Pact has failed to alleviate tensions, consequences have ranged from schools isolating themselves from broader Pact culture, to outright schism. Early examples include Radhika Stormswift’s offensive against the Shogunate and Thousand-Swords Oravan breaking away to form his own kingdom. More recently, Raksi and Ma-Ha-Suchi went to war over the Pact’s future direction; Northern Pact members feuded with the necromancer Smiling Rat over his strategy of bedeviling the Realm by opening shadowlands en masse among its satrapies; and Klesamra Lotus-Seed polarized her Southern peers by courting aid from the Fair Folk.

Part of the purpose of ongoing communication and socialization within the Pact is to gain a sense of one’s neighbors’ inclinations and persuade them to one’s own points of view. A handful of Lunars dedicate sizable amounts of time and effort to such interaction, both on their own behalf and to forestall future rifts.

The Pact’s Endgame

Each individual shahan-ya and her school has her own vision of the future of a Creation without the Realm. Some dream of rebuilding the glories of the Old Realm under a Lunar Deliberative; others wish for a world free from all empires and tyrannies. Many would see the Scarlet Empress’ bloodline extirpated in bloody pogroms, yet some envision the redemption of the Dragon-Blooded as divine soldiers of the Pact. Thus far, the Silver Pact has focused on the destruction of the Realm, not what comes after. For most of its history, the Realm’s downfall has seemed distant enough that it made no sense to invite internal turmoil by squabbling over what to do after. But with the Time of Tumult accelerating the Pact’s timetable, many Lunars believe the the Pact’s endgame must be determined now.

[soabas-world]

Barufel [The Greatest of Families] - Snippet

Episode Three – The Road Goes On

May 19th, 3, Fourth Age – Rivendell

“I rather believed that your husbands were never going to allow you out of their sights again, Gwathelion,” the Lord Elrond remarked wryly, when Bilbo tracked him down inside his uncle’s private library. “Nor were any of your Dwarven Kindred, for that matter.”

Elrond did, in fact, have good reason to believe this, Bilbo acknowledged, as his husbands, nephews, and brothers had been consistently behaving in a manner that one could rightly classify as overprotective since Bilbo had properly reunited with them all. They all seemed to be of the opinion that their Hobbit might vanish into thin air if they did not keep a proper watch of him on a constant basis. Bilbo rather despaired to imagine how much worse they were all going to behave once they were on the road and away from the safety of Rivendell.

“I snuck away while my older faunts were distracting them with their archery lessons. Tauriel and Lindir were ‘not arguing’ about the proper way to wear a quiver – and my children and the Company seemed to find such a conversation exceedingly amusing – when I slipped off the training field,” Bilbo admitted, shrugging. “I needed to talk to you and to give you this,” Bilbo nodded his head toward the grey cloth-wrapped parcel in his arms, “Without an audience.”

“You may always come to me, at any time and for any reason,” Elrond knelt down so that his dusk-silver eyes were level with Bilbo’s own, a tinge of regret in his voice. “I am quite loath to send you so far away from me, nephew mine, even if it is the best way to keep your physical person safe and the only possible means we have of healing the wounds that your soul carries.”

Bilbo smiled at his uncle with gentle affection, “I know, Emelmuindor. I shall miss you so very much after we depart tomorrow. Sometimes, I rather wish that the world were not quite as large as it is. It would have made the journey to Mordor a shade less difficult.”

Elrond chuckled and agreed, “Perhaps a shade.”

“Oh, here,” Bilbo offered the medium-sized bundle in his arms to his uncle, “This is for you.”

Bilbo’s Elven uncle accepted the soft package and deftly unwound the cloth, which was protecting the gift inside of it, in a single, swift motion to expose a tapestry that had been folded ever so carefully. Elrond let it fall open and then gasped in wonder and bittersweet delight as he took in what Bilbo had painstakingly depicted on the shimmering fabric.

It had taken Bilbo two full months to weave, because of both its size and his desire to ensure that it was absolutely perfect before he presented it to his uncle. The tapestry portrayed that which could never again be real – Elrond and his wife, Bilbo’s aunt Celebrían, with their children, Bilbo’s parents, and Bilbo himself in a field of pink verbenas, smiling and carefree. Bilbo had carefully covered the front of the tapestry with a clear polish that would not crack as it dried and had blown a very thin layer of silver dust onto it, giving the scene a hazy quality, as if it were a memory that you could view with your eyes and not just your mind. The border was dark silver with Quenya runes that spoke of family and unyielding love embroidered on it in a lighter shade of the same color.

“Bilbo,” Elrond breathed out, his voice thick in his throat as he spoke, “This is beautiful. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Bilbo replied softly. “I know that the loss of them still affects you greatly during the summer months; I hoped that this might help, a bit.”

“It shall,” Elrond agreed, pulling Bilbo into a warm hug. “And you are right, the summer is when their absence is the hardest to bear – I lost both my wife and my sister during the pinnacle of that season… and then I nearly lost my nephew as well. I cannot tell you how grateful I am that you survived your trials in Mordor, Gwathelion.”

“Because of your tireless efforts,” Bilbo reminded, returning the embrace. “That I lived, despite the thick poison in my lungs and the damage wrought to my soul by the Ring, was because you refused to give up on me, when even the Lady Galadriel feared that I would not survive. You toiled for a solid week without rest to heal me, expending much of your power to do so, Uncle.”

Gandalf and Galadriel had relayed as much, when Bilbo had finally awoken from the unnatural sleep that had claimed him after the Ring had been destroyed. Bilbo could only just remember that choking sleep, the thick black that had done its best to consume him, but what he recalled best about that nightmarish time was the warm light that he clung to, for it made him feel safe and reminded him that he was still loved, and that he had followed back into the realm of life. That light, Bilbo now knew, had been his Elven uncle obstinately refusing to abandon his Hobbit nephew to the clutches of death.

“I would have given it all, had it been necessary,” Elrond insisted seriously, pulling back so that Bilbo could see the resolve writ upon his countenance. Bilbo grinned, his tone as sure as his faith in his favorite uncle, “I know.”

“It truly was that close?” Dwalin’s voice sounded from the doorway, making Bilbo start. He spun around to see Dwalin and Thorin hovering just outside of the room.

Elrond did not react as if he were surprised at all by the sudden presence of Bilbo’s husbands – he probably had known that they were there all along, lurking outside of his private library and listening in on what was supposed to be a private conversation between uncle and nephew – he simply raised an eyebrow at the pair and surreptitiously folded the tapestry over his arm, concealing the image sewn upon it. Bilbo, for his part, had to suppress an exasperated sigh, because he truly had not wanted his husbands to know that the perpetuated fallacy of his death had very nearly not been an erroneous account of those particular events at all. They worried enough about him and as much as Bilbo’s heart and soul sung at the obvious care and concern that they displayed for him, he worried that their overly defensive actions were spurred more by guilt for their mistakes than by anything else.

Bilbo knew that Thorin and Dwalin loved him and that they had missed him terribly, but after that first emotional day of being together again he had started to fear that once their guilt had faded, once their elation at knowing he was alive settled into something more temperate, that they would remember he was the Hobbit whom they had been so unsure about keeping for months, the person whom they had so adamantly wanted to change even after their marriage vows had been uttered. Bilbo could never be a Dwarf, would never value many of the things that Dwarves did, like gold and combat and glory, and once they truly realized that… well, what if they decided that he was not good enough again? What if the proud and suspicious people of Erebor, who already called him Prince Consort with such gladness even in his absence – as Balin had cheerfully reported to him – dismissed him as unworthy because he could not properly relate to them?

As resolute as Bilbo had been when first asked, he now had serious doubts about returning to Erebor. Oh, he still wanted to go – because even the idea of parting from his husbands and brothers and nephews made his soul ache something fierce and wretched – but fear pounded at him incessantly and anxiety gnawed at his heart mercilessly.

It did not help that Thorin and Dwalin had avoided touching him as much as they possibly could over the past week that they had rested in Rivendell. They would hug him and hold him when he asked it of them, but only when he asked and never of their own volition. They refused to kiss him, or sleep with him – innocently or otherwise – and even when they did embrace him, their hands did not wander as they nearly always had before, during the Quest and while they rested in Erebor following Smaug’s very timely demise. They let Bilbo touch them, on their arms and shoulders and backs, as much as he desired to, but they rarely reciprocated and never initiated anything but brief and entirely innocent caresses when they seemed to believe that he needed such from them.

Bilbo’s current misgivings about his place in the Mountain and his husbands’ behavior were, of course, the very subjects that he had wished to converse with his uncle, in the strictest of confidences, about as he hoped that Elrond would provide some measure of reassuring clarity regarding their actions that Bilbo was apparently incapable of perceiving on his own. But he could hardly do so now, not when Dwalin and Thorin had entered the room and were all but hovering over his person.

“It was closer than anyone would have liked,” Elrond tactfully replied a few tense moments later, when it became blatantly obvious that Bilbo was decidedly not going to confirm Dwalin’s all too apprehensive query, would have rather marched back into the heart of Mordor than do anything of the kind, “But Bilbo survived and has recovered well from those wounds. My magic played a part, but his own strength saw to the rest.”

And there it was, the afore mentioned guilt, flashing like lightning across the finely chiseled features of the Dwarrow whom Bilbo loved beyond reason. Sadness lanced through Bilbo’s heart, but he managed to keep it off of his face and hidden from his husbands and uncle with only a little difficulty. He had quite a considerable amount of practice at concealing his true and more unpleasant emotions from others, after all. Hobbits used manners like a mask to obscure what their relatives and neighbors might find disagreeable and Bilbo had been no exception to this rule – what confidence he had gained to bluntly express his feelings and thoughts during the Quest had been stripped away in the aftermath.

“We should have been with you, Khajmel,” Thorin spoke mournfully.

A vision of Thorin and Dwalin shorn and shackled – the prisoners of Orcs – swirled into his mind’s eye. It was but a remnant of a waking dream, one of the many that he had been forced to endure during his journey to Mordor thanks to the thrice-damned and wretched Ring, but the flashing images still horrified him as much now as they had then.

“No,” Bilbo denied emphatically, shaking his head to rid it of the horrible scene. “No, I’m glad you weren’t. That you two, that all of the Company, were safe in Erebor was an immeasurable comfort to me, Fy Alawon. It was one less thing for me to fear as I journeyed South; that Sauron was incapable of harming any of you to punish me for destroying the Ring.”

His husbands, rather unfortunately, did not seem to have been made one whit happier by such a declaration. Perhaps, Bilbo acknowledged, he should refrain from making remarks that even slightly eluded to how frightened he had been while on his own. It would only increase their guilt and that was the last thing that Bilbo wanted.

A soft knock on the open door of the library silenced any reply that Thorin or Dwalin might have had and then an Elf with hair so blonde that it was nearly white glided into the room and inclined her head respectfully, “I beg pardon for my intrusion, my Lord Elrond, but a missive has arrived from Caras Galadhon for Ernil uin Glaur that bears Mithrandir’s mark.”

“Gandalf,” Bilbo murmured, enormously relieved to see the sealed dark green parchment resting on the silver tray in the Elven maiden’s dainty hands. If his Godfather was well enough to write then he could not be too terribly injured.

“Thank you, Vanlanthiriel,” Elrond said as Bilbo accepted the proffered letter eagerly.

“Yes, thank you,” Bilbo agreed, waiting only until the attendant had departed from the room before breaking the letter’s seal and beginning to read.

My Dear Godson,

I can not fully express in a mere letter how glad I was to learn that you are safe and out of Saruman’s tainted reach, for I feared the absolute worst when I discovered his foul plans. I am so grievously sorry for the fate which has befallen the Shire, befallen your gentle people, and regret beyond regret that I was unable to prevent it from happening. The White Council exists to ensure that such things never happen and yet we utterly failed to protect Yavanna’s Light in Arda; I cannot deny that this was almost entirely due to our own collective arrogance and our willful blindness regarding the faults of one of our own. That your people paid the price is a tragedy, a travesty, one that I and the rest of the Council shall grieve for the rest of our lives.

Rest assured, my dear Bilbo, that the fallen Istari shall not remain unpunished for the atrocities which he has committed in his devastating madness. He shall be dealt with, shall be banished from Arda, one way or another, to meet the divine justice of the Valar. I swear it shall be done.

Your uncle, the Lord Elrond, has made known to me and the rest of your kin here, in fair Lothlórien, that your Dwarves have come for you and mean to bear you to the Kingdom of Erebor. If this truly pleases you, then I am pleased as well – I do believe that you will be happiest in Erebor, even if Thorin and Dwalin hardly deserve you. Do inform them, from me, that I can and will turn them into toads, if the need should arise.

May Yavanna ever bless you with love and laughter and Green, dear Bilbo.

Gandalf Greyhame

Post Script: The Lady Galadriel has informed me that I ought to relay my improving health to you. I am perfectly fine and there is no need for you to concern yourself over my person. I have been injured far worse than this, on many occasions.

Bilbo felt himself choking on air in stark incredulity as the final few sentences sunk in and then he thrust the letter toward his uncle unceremoniously, “Read the last bit.”

Elrond took the piece of parchment without question and focused on the bottom of the page, his left eyebrow quirking upward in a combination of disbelief and resigned exasperation. After a long moment, Bilbo’s uncle sighed, “Mithrandir certainly has a way with words.”

“I love him, but sometimes I really do want to hit him over the head with his own staff,” Bilbo muttered. “Honestly, telling someone who is already worried that, ‘I have been injured far worse than this, on many occasions,’ is not at all helpful.”

“Believe me, nephew mine,” Elrond returned the letter to Bilbo, “As tempting as the urge is, it won’t actually help. His skull is simply too thick.”

Thorin snorted in startled amusement at the implied admission, “When?”

“When he marched himself into my home and informed me that he was taking my untrained nephew to face the last of the Great Drakes,” Elrond replied dryly.

Come to think of it, Gandalf had gone to bed early that first night that the Company had been in Rivendell during the Quest, Bilbo recalled, as the Grey Wizard had claimed to be suffering from a minor headache. Bilbo had not thought much of it, at the time, because he had been significantly distracted by his uncle and cousins, whom had tried very, very hard to convince him into not continuing to head eastward with the Dwarves. If the Company had not slipped away like shadows in the night, while Gandalf had kept the White Council busy, then it was very likely that one, if not all four, of Bilbo’s cousins would have chased after him with the intention of dragging him back to the Valley of Imladris.

“I knew how to use a bow,” Bilbo protested. “And I was fairly proficient, even then.”

Elrond shot him an unimpressed look, one that made him feel as if he were once again a wild fauntling with a penchant for getting himself into trouble, “Yes, but you didn’t have one until you got here and by that point you had already encountered Orcs and Wargs and had nearly been eaten alive by three Cave Trolls.”

“He has a natural skill with short-blades, both when it comes to throwin’ knives from a distance and in usin’ daggers in a close-range fight,” Dwalin relayed in Bilbo’s defense, pride ringing in his voice and clearly visible in his countenance. “And his sword work was improvin’, in leaps and bounds, durin’ each trainin’ session that we had on our way to Erebor. Faster than most of the Dwarves that I trained back in Ered Luin and they had years to advance their skills.”

Having pride directed toward him was, Bilbo supposed, much better than the leaden guilt. At least it was not the apathy or the disdain for his person that he secretly dreaded might come. Bilbo was not overly fond of weapons or fighting, quite the opposite in fact, but he knew that as long as he pushed himself to become stronger and faster – less helpless and weak and like a grocer – then he could, at the bare minimum, retain a modicum of his husbands’ respect as their guilt dwindled, day by day. Being esteemed as a capable warrior would be better than them thinking him worth nothing at all.

So, Bilbo did not hesitate in deciding to say, “I’ve hardly mastered any of those skills, though, or any of the others that you wanted me to learn. You said that you wanted to establish regular training sessions once the Mountain was secure. If you’re both still willing to teach me, I enjoyed learning from you.”

Dwalin and Thorin looked immediately pleased by the request, proving that Bilbo had made the right choice in asking. He had not lied to his Melodies, not really. As much as he despised battle, he did understand why having the ability to defend oneself and those whom one loved was such an obligatory and vital skill to hone if one planned to traverse the Wildes of Arda – and he had derived some satisfaction from knowing that he could protect his Kindred, if need be, because of the instruction that he had received during the Quest. He had discovered that the exercise which naturally came with the training was an excellent way to relieve stress and irritation, as well. Plus, having his husbands’ undivided and physical attention was something that he craved rather desperately and he was willing to go to extreme measures to get it.

“Absolutely, Laslel,” Dwalin replied eagerly, his arm and shoulder muscles flexing ever so slightly. It was, Bilbo knew, an inadvertent indication of his excitement for such a scheme; one of the many things that Bilbo had missed so much about his Melodies.

Thorin’s eyes sparkled, as if starlight was reflecting off of twin sapphires, “We can go back down to the training fields now, if you like. There’s time enough until Luncheon for us to run sword drills with you.”

And if Bilbo wished that his husband had been speaking more in the figurative sense than in the literal, well, he kept it to himself and just nodded, managing a small smile, “I would like that very much.”

[de-mentor]

Futurist Manifesto of Lust (1913)

by Valentine de Saint-Point

A reply to those dishonest journalists who twist phrases to make the Idea seem ridiculous; to those women who only think what I have dared to say; to those for whom Lust is still nothing but a sin; to all those who in Lust can only see Vice, just as in Pride they see only vanity.

Lust, when viewed without moral preconceptions and as an essential part of life’s dynamism, is a force.

Lust is not, any more than pride, a mortal sin for the race that is strong. Lust, like pride, is a virtue that urges one on, a powerful source of energy.

Lust is the expression of a being projected beyond itself. It is the painful joy of wounded flesh, the joyous pain of a flowering. And whatever secrets unite these beings, it is a union of flesh. It is the sensory and sensual synthesis that leads to the greatest liberation of spirit. It is the communion of a particle of humanity with all the sensuality of the earth.

LUST IS THE QUEST OF THE FLESH FOR THE UNKNOWN, just as Celebration is the spirit’s quest for the unknown. Lust is the act of creating, it is Creation.

Flesh creates in the way that the spirit creates. In the eyes of the Universe their creation is equal. One is not superior to the other and creation of the spirit depends on that of the flesh.

We possess body and spirit. To curb one and develop the other shows weakness and is wrong. A strong man must realize his full carnal and spiritual potentiality. The satisfaction of their lust is the conquerors’ due. After a battle in which men have died, IT IS NORMAL FOR THE VICTORS, PROVEN IN WAR, TO TURN TO RAPE IN THE CONQUERED LAND, SO THAT LIFE MAY BE RE-CREATED.

When they have fought their battles, soldiers seek sensual pleasures, in which their constantly battling energies can be unwound and renewed. The modern hero, the hero in any field, experiences the same desire and the same pleasure. The artist, that great universal medium, has the same need. And the exaltation of the initiates of those religions still sufficiently new to contain a tempting element of the unknown, is no more than sensuality diverted spiritually towards a sacred female image.

ART AND WAR ARE THE GREAT MANIFESTATIONS OF SENSUALITY; LUST IS THEIR FLOWER. A people exclusively spiritual or a people exclusively carnal would be condemned to the same decadence—sterility.

LUST EXCITES ENERGY AND RELEASES STRENGTH. Pitilessly it drove primitive man to victory, for the pride of bearing back a woman the spoils of the defeated. Today it drives the great men of business who run the banks, the press and international trade to increase their wealth by creating centers, harnessing energies and exalting the crowds, to worship and glorify with it the object of their lust. These men, tired but strong, find time for lust, the principal motive force of their action and of the reactions caused by their actions affecting multitudes and worlds.

Even among the new peoples where sensuality has not yet been released or acknowledged, and who are neither primitive brutes nor the sophisticated representatives of the old civilizations, woman is equally the great galvanizing principle to which all is offered. The secret cult that man has for her is only the unconscious drive of a lust as yet barely woken. Amongst these peoples as amongst the peoples of the north, but for different reasons, lust is almost exclusively concerned with procreation. But lust, under whatever aspects it shows itself, whether they are considered normal or abnormal, is always the supreme spur.

The animal life, the life of energy, the life of the spirit, sometimes demand a respite. And effort for effort’s sake calls inevitably for effort for pleasure’s sake. These efforts are not mutually harmful but complementary, and realize fully the total being.

For heroes, for those who create with the spirit, for dominators of all fields, lust is the magnificent exaltation of their strength. For every being it is a motive to surpass oneself with the simple aim of self-selection, of being noticed, chosen, picked out.

Christian morality alone, following on from pagan morality, was fatally drawn to consider lust as a weakness. Out of the healthy joy which is the flowering of the flesh in all its power it has made something shameful and to be hidden, a vice to be denied. It has covered it with hypocrisy, and this has made a sin of it.

WE MUST STOP DESPISING DESIRE, this attraction at once delicate and brutal between two bodies, of whatever sex, two bodies that want each other, striving for unity. We must stop despising Desire, disguising it in the pitiful clothes of old and sterile sentimentality.

It is not lust that disunites, dissolves and annihilates. It is rather the mesmerizing complications of sentimentality, artificial jealousies, words that inebriate and deceive, the rhetoric of parting and eternal fidelities, literary nostalgia—all the histrionics of love.

WE MUST GET RID OF THE ILL-OMENED DEBRIS OF ROMANTICISM, counting daisy petals, moonlight duets, heavy endearments, false hypocritical modesty. When beings are drawn together by a physical attraction, let them—instead of talking only of the fragility of their hearts—dare to express their desires, the inclinations of their bodies, and to anticipate the possibilities of joy and disappointment in their future carnal union.

Physical modesty, which varies according to time and place, has only the ephemeral value of a social virtue.

WE MUST FACE UP TO LUST IN FULL CONSCIOUSNESS. We must make of it what a sophisticated and intelligent being makes of himself and of his life; WE MUST MAKE LUST INTO A WORK OF ART. To allege unwariness or bewilderment in order to explain an act of love is hypocrisy, weakness and stupidity.

We should desire a body consciously, like any other thing.

Love at first sight, passion or failure to think, must not prompt us to be constantly giving ourselves, nor to take beings, as we are usually inclined to do so due to our inability to see into the future. We must choose intelligently. Directed by our intuition and will, we should compare the feelings and desires of the two partners and avoid uniting and satisfying any that are unable to complement and exalt each other.

Equally consciously and with the same guiding will, the joys of this coupling should lead to the climax, should develop its full potential, and should permit to flower all the seeds sown by the merging of two bodies. Lust should be made into a work of art, formed like every work of art, both instinctively and consciously.

WE MUST STRIP LUST OF ALL THE SENTIMENTAL VEILS THAT DISFIGURE IT. These veils were thrown over it out of mere cowardice, because smug sentimentality is so satisfying. Sentimentality is comfortable and therefore demeaning.

In one who is young and healthy, when lust clashes with sentimentality, lust is victorious. Sentiment is a creature of fashion, lust is eternal. Lust triumphs, because it is the joyous exaltation that drives one beyond oneself, the delight in possession and domination, the perpetual victory from which the perpetual battle is born anew, the headiest and surest intoxication of conquest. And as this certain conquest is temporary, it must be constantly won anew.

Lust is a force, in that it refines the spirit by bringing to white heat the excitement of the flesh. The spirit burns bright and clear from a healthy, strong flesh, purified in the embrace. Only the weak and sick sink into the mire and are diminished. And lust is a force in that it kills the weak and exalts the strong, aiding natural selection.

Lust is a force, finally, in that it never leads to the insipidity of the definite and the secure, doled out by soothing sentimentality. Lust is the eternal battle, never finally won. After the fleeting triumph, even during the ephemeral triumph itself, reawakening dissatisfaction spurs a human being, driven by an orgiastic will, to expand and surpass himself.

Lust is for the body what an ideal is for the spirit—the magnificent Chimaera, that one ever clutches at but never captures, and which the young and the avid, intoxicated with the vision, pursue without rest.

LUST IS A FORCE.

[kindness-ricochets]

AHHH HOW ARE U SO GOOD AT MAKING THESE SNIPPETS WTF??? If wylan is ever able to learn how to fully live with all of the sensory enhancements and not be so effected by them, possibly learning to tune them out like white noise, he would be terrifying cause you could hide nothing from him. If he became multilingual???? Even worse, a absolute info powerhouse. Jesperrrrr, glad to see they’ve kinda bonded and inej here being the sympathy we needed for wy. Amazing writing like god ur just pulling all the creativity out of nowhere!!! Ur hogging the writing talent hand some over please 👋

I do my best! Thank you!

You might have been hoping for Superspy Wylan and this is more... Wesper-y, but I hope you enjoy it! (Plus if you don't, you can always let me know ;) )

Wylan kept a scarf, hat, pair of mittens, and loose coat nearby, along with sturdy boots and special socks without the itch poking at his toes. When he heard Jesper’s voice from the river, he dressed in his soft armor. It was his best effort to keep the world from hurting when the others came for him.

He met them at the kitchen door to the lake house.

“Good evening.”

“Wylan,” Kaz said.

“You don’t have to keep doing this,” said Jesper.

He wore a teal waistcoat shot through with gold. It was new. Sometimes Wylan imagined what Jesper must be up to in the city, imagined him strolling the streets of the Barrel with that easygoing grin on his face. Wylan could picture Jesper spotting the waistcoat and knowing the pattern was just his style, trying it on, checking his reflection. Jesper could be a touch vain—but Wylan didn’t fault him for that!

He wasn’t grinning now.

“I don’t mind,” Wylan said. Starting toward the boat, he asked, “Have you been to see my mother?”

“She’s well.”

Wylan would always be grateful to the man who had found and rescued his mother, even as he could spend precious little time with her. He couldn’t live in the city—the loud city, the grating city. And she seemed to feel more comfortable there. His father’s considerable estate had plenty of resources to provide a comfortable life for Marya, but… he missed her. Even more now.

“She plays the piano,” Jesper offered. “And she paints.”

“She always liked to paint…”

Wylan settled in the boat. That was the other reason he chose to live alone. Something in him was perpetually tense at the possibility of unexpected sounds, sounds that could come from anywhere, any time. Marya would have come to the lake house with him, but she still needed support after all those years, and he couldn’t. He couldn’t have so many people around him.

Even if it was nice to see Jesper again.

The boat creaked. Water sloshed, an oar grated in its rowlock. Wylan kept his eyes down. He focused on the whorls and ridges in the woodwork, tried not to hear the rush of air or smell the tinge of blood and excrement as the falcon swooped up a mouse that messed itself in terror.

“I can row,” Wylan said. He did not want to row because he did not want to touch the rough oar, feel it scour his palm. But he would.

“You’d slow us up,” Jesper said, something soft in it.

Wylan raised his hood and pressed hands to his ears as they rowed toward Ketterdam. The sounds and the scents multiplied the closer they came.

“Saints, Kaz, he can’t do this.”

“He’ll manage.”

Their voices bounced in Wylan’s head, the sounds echoing, loudest among a multitude as he tried to remember these were the ones he needed.

He can’t he’ll manage can’t he can’t he Kaz manage Saints—

It was always like this coming into the city. It was always too much. Even as Wylan adjusted to his country life, began to leave the house sometimes—he didn’t even hide with the pillow pressed to his ears anymore when food was delivered every Sunday—Ketterdam was too much. He felt the smoke of industry choking him, gagged on the glut of blood in the slaughterhouses.

“We’re here,” Kaz announced, louder than the buzz of electric lights and the voices, the ticks of wheels, the slap of cards on tables. The squelching. Wylan tried not to be judgmental of others’ activities, but it seemed like no matter what hour he visited the Barrel, he heard… intimacy.

Kaz grabbed the shoulder of Wylan’s coat, guiding him. Wylan couldn’t have done this without Kaz and Jesper. Couldn’t have come into the city. Already he was half-blind from it, his head spinning, his legs stumbling because it was too much.

This was his new life. This was his life after parem, and it made Wylan sick to his stomach. He tried to focus on the lead from Kaz’s hand and the gentle pressure from Jesper’s.

“It’s okay, Wylan.”

“Thank you.”

Ghezen, he could taste the soot and sweat permeating the city air, but he could smell Jesper, and his presence eased something in Wylan.

He could smell Kaz, too, but that did nothing to soothe his worries.

***

In a way, the ride back to the lake house was easier. Wylan barely heard or felt or saw anything, his mind whited out from exhaustion, from too much, halfway conscious. He was pretty sure he slept on the boat. Or maybe he just drifted.

“Wylan.”

A hand on his shoulder—Jesper.

“Wylan,” Jesper repeated.

He never used to call him that. It was only after he was broken that Jesper started using his name. Not ‘kid’. Not ‘merchling’.

Wylan pushed himself upright and nearly fell.

“Easy!”

Jesper caught him, rocking the boat, sending screams of details—Wylan squeezed his eyes shut.

“It’s okay. You’re home now. Let’s get you inside.”

Wylan did his best to go along, to stand, to walk, to follow. He had to lean on Jesper to keep from falling. Jesper probably thought Wylan couldn’t hear his under-the-breath mumbling, or maybe he didn’t realize he was speaking out loud. But it was nice to hear that the “bastard can’t keep doing this”.

“Jesper?”

“Yeah.”

Wylan breathed a little easier inside the lake house. Here he knew everything he was likely to see, so his brain didn’t struggle to drink in every sight and scent.

“Thanks for helping me,” he said as he slipped off his coat.

“You’re welcome.” Jesper kept his voice low. He more than anyone else remembered that too much, too loud could prod painfully at Wylan’s brain, and that wasn’t easy for Jesper.

“Do you, um—do you want to stay? Tonight?” Wylan asked. He had tugged off his hat and now unwound his scarf, then wound it tidily away. “It’s… it’s a long way back…”

It wasn’t. Not really.

Jesper looked around. Right—why would he want to stay in some boring house on a boring lake? Why should someone who pulsed like the heart of the city see anything of value out here?

“Wait—you know Kaz told me to stay,” Jesper realized.

“Well…” Wylan shrugged. “I thought it might be better if you stayed because I want you to stay.”

He heard the little catch of breath in Jesper’s throat.

“Do you want me to stay?”

“Not to teach me Zemeni,” Wylan said, which was what Kaz had suggested. That Jesper could stay, that Wylan would be even more invaluable to them if he learned another language. Imagine the possibilities. “I mean, unless that’s what you want. I’d like to learn, I just… would like if you stayed.”

He wasn’t sure what had made Jesper decide he liked Wylan, only that he was so glad it happened. He had never really had friends before, any—sure, Jesper wasn’t his friend quite yet, but he seemed fond towards Wylan, and Wylan knew he liked the quick, bright sharpshooter.

“It is a long way,” Jesper agreed, grinning.