#sanguinary waltz

[charmspoint]

Sanguine Friday 2

Time to introduce the protagonist of my og story.

Art has been drawn by @lilleeboi who did such a wonderful job bringing my boy to life and you should go give them lots of love.

Name: Prinnsal

Gender: Agender

Pronouns: He/Him

Age: 280yrs

Height: 179cm

Orientation: Demiromantic Asexual

Affiliation: Rezasel (ex), Duchess Eliza

Belief faction: The hands of the New Brood (eventually and without contact with other members)

Personality: Having a personality is something Prinnsal is still getting used to. Having spent his whole life as a tool of someone else’s will, feelings and opinions are new and strange and not completely defined. To others he comes across as cold and calculated. He finds little merriment in things and a lot of annoyance in them and other people. He is acquainted with a position of a servant and that is about the only way he knows how to relate to people, which no longer works for him because the people left on this earth are those he doesn’t respect. Humans. Vampires. He feels like he is above both of those species and plenty of his own. While most ex-angels mourn their gods and plan on their return, Prinnsal absolutely despises his own. The very first feeling he developed independently was the stark relief of his god’s death. This makes him feel alienated from the others of his kind, so he prefers to avoid their company as well. He is a strict perfectionist and prefers to be self sufficient if he can, but also has a sharp mind for tactics and details. In the end he is a sword learning how to become a human being, cold, sharp, brutal and wrestling every new emotion into understanding and acceptance. There is a sort of stubborn pride to him that keeps him going and a self absorbedness of someone who is only now finding a self to be absorbed in. Despite all that, at his core he’s still an angel meant to serve. Meant to be used. No matter how much he tries for self-sufficiency there will always be a part of him searching for a new ruler. Someone to give his life direction and order, someone he could live and die for. He is far too proud to admit this core need to himself, far too stubborn in trying to fight his own nature and be a fully realized person without the shred of the baggage that comes with his origins. But it’s still a part of him. This growing, hungry, need for obsession. In the end he is angel through and through and he would burn himself inside out if the right person told him to.

Appearance: Prinn cuts a striking, clean figure, as sharp as the sword he carries. He’s meticulous to a fault about the way he presents himself, preferring unobtrusive black and white schematics for his clothes, as well as outfits that look professional and elegant. He cares little for jewellery and fluff and only wears Duchess’ red jewels as the sign of who he belongs to and why he mustn’t be messed with. As all other angels, his skin is pressed with long faded runes binding him to the service of his god. Once upon a time they used to be pure silver like his eyes. Now they are barely visible on his skin. He still prefers to keep his marks covered up and rarely shows more skin than his neck. When he chooses to extend his wings, they are silver with black tips, built more for speed than for power.

Interests: Swords and swordplay, art, architecture, fine food

Fears: Whips, being in another’s complete control again, dying from a blood drain

Habits and quirks: Tends to overly focus on the design of things when panicked as a way to distract himself, prefers the art that is long lasting (architecture) to art that is fickle and changes by the moment (music), genetically talented for all of it though.

Goals: Ensuring his own safety and survival in a world bent to get him killed, being in another’s complete control again

Lines in the sand: While he tries to strictly care for only himself and no one else, willing to sacrifice anything and anyone for his own survival, he does have a soft spot for what remains of his original angel cohort and doesn’t want them to come to harm as a result of his actions.

Nightmare of the body: Like all angels post deaths of the gods, Prinn is only just getting to know what free will is. For his entire existence he had been a little more than a tool and a weapon to be utilized in his god’s agendas and having the ability to make his own decisions is a strange and clumsy process. Like all the angels of Razasel that had been made to populate the city of Brilnant, Prinnsal had been changed from his core the moment his god decided to overturn it from the city of art and beauty into a war factory. It was a shoddy work, as Razasel’s mind had already started fraying, with the aggression and vigilance of a guard being carelessly shoved into flesh of a being made to be a muse and a teacher. It leaves Prinnsal anxious, jumpy and torn between who he used to be and who he’s meant to be now, never able to rightly fulfill one or the other again.  Between his new found free will and the ruined remains of his design, Prinnsal is amidst a struggle to finalize his identity as an independent person. Or to even realize what being an independent person is.

[megabadbunny]

In Lovers’ Meeting (4/?)

“Be careful!” Rose called after him.

He spun round at the door. “If you insist,” he said, offering a cheeky wink before he popped open the door and stepped out into the dark.

A rewrite; dedicated to the absolutely wonderful @davinasgirlfriend​​ . <3

* * *

- Chapter 4 -

Fluttering lids and lashes and fluorescent lights flickered overhead, on, off, on—

“—an emergency, please, open the doors!”

—light, dark—

Voices, some she knew, some she didn’t. The push and pull of a tide. An ocean full of life; bodies, packed together like fish. Murmuring.

“Move—out of the way!”

Scuffling and a whoosh sound, something out of Star Trek (or was it Star Wars?), a brisk breeze or an opening door, and her chest was so full that it ached, pounding like a lorry had hit her full-force, and she couldn’t breathe, and it hurt— 

“Mrs. Tyler?” asked a voice, briskly, and a light shone into Jackie’s eyes from far away, white-hot and bright, slicing through the darkness like a knife. “Mrs. Tyler, can you hear me?”

Mouth opened but nothing emerged except a weak, strained wheeze, like one of those old people with the emphysema and the breathing-machines, and was that her…?

“...patient appears to be suffering from pulmonary edema and acute hypoxia among other—”

“Oxygen, she needs oxygen, now!”

The world tilted on its axis and she was falling—no, she was flying—no, someone or something was lift-lift-lifting her up, and then she was lying down, something soft beneath her, and she blinked and there was something on her face, a nasty plastic thing that smelled of rubber and hospitals, but at least she could breathe again, even if blackness was bleeding back into the corners of her vision.

“Mum!” cried out Rose’s voice over the sounds of frantic beeping and someone muttering “No no no no Jackie, don’t you dare quit on me, don’t you dare—”

Jackie’s eyes rolled back and Rose shouting was the last thing she heard.

***

 For several long and agonizing moments it was far too quiet in the little grey room, the infirmary silent but for the sound of the heart monitor’s chipper little beep-beep beep-beeps. The Doctor listened to Jackie’s breaths and counted down the measures of her pulse and scrutinized her from head to toe as she lay on the cot, sure to hang back at a minimum safe distance while the attending physician checked up on Jackie’s vitals, pressing her stethoscope to Jackie’s sternum and stomach. After double- and triple-checking his observations, running numbers and scenarios in his head rapid-fire, the Doctor allowed himself to relax a little.

“How is she, doctor?” asked Rose, gripping the side of the cot hard enough to turn her knuckles white. 

“Eh, blood pressure’s a little lower than I’d like,” replied the Doctor. “Fever’s coming down thanks to the painkillers, antibiotics should help in the case of infection, but of course she’s still got the fluid in the lungs, sounds like a few microliters more than I’m comfortable with, might have to consider a nitrate treatment, maybe dobutamine if things get dicey, but she’s stable enough for the time-being, or appears to be, anyway.”

Rose and the physician both stared at him.

The Doctor scratched the back of his neck uncomfortably. “Right! Medical doctor, lowercase ‘d’. Of course. Got it. Carry on.”

“As he said, she’s stable for the moment,” the physician explained. “It’s a good thing you got her here when you did—a few minutes later, I’m not sure what I could have done.”

“Rubbish twenty-first century medicine,” laughed the Doctor. “One does what one can.”

The physician frowned at him, blinking uncertainly over her surgeon’s mask. “I’m sorry. Who are you?”

“Right! Didn’t exactly have time for introductions earlier, did we?” The Doctor gave a little wave. “I’m the Doctor. Nice to officially meet you. And you go by...?” 

“Sarah Saito, MBBS. Just call me Saito.” Saito peeled off a glove to shake the Doctor’s hand. “Now. The Doctor. Wouldn’t happen to be the same bloke that helped with the Cyberman outbreak a few years back?”

The Doctor beamed. “Indeed I would be! How’d you know?”

Saito gestured to Rose. “Agent Tyler’s mentioned you a time or a dozen. The Doctor would do this, the Doctor would say that—”

“Has anyone else made it to the infirmary so far?” Rose interrupted. “Anyone else presenting symptoms, I mean?”

“Yes, I’m treating another live patient with this condition.”

“How are they doing?” asked Rose.

Saito hesitated, glancing between Rose and the Doctor. Whatever the answer was, the Doctor knew it could be summarized as Not well.

“Let’s focus on our objectives here,” the Doctor said quickly. “Education, containment, prevention. What are we dealing with, where did it come from, how does it spread, how do we keep it from spreading further?”

Rose nodded. “And how do we cure Mum and anyone else who may be sick?”

“And that’s where education comes in. We learn what this thing is, we learn how to stop it.”

“What do we know about this thing so far?” Rose asked Saito.

“Not much,” Saito admitted. “We’ve got security looking into the situation, trying to suss out whether this is a natural outbreak or the byproduct of biological warfare, and the medical field team is upstairs collecting what samples they can. But the quarantine protocols seem to be interfering with our network connection; we haven’t received any reports or updates for a while now.”

“Probably a couple of reasons for that,” the Doctor muttered darkly.

“Point is, we’re in the dark down here until the connection is restored.”

Rose swore under her breath. “What can we do for Mum in the meantime?”

Saito hesitated once more, removing her glasses in a bid for time. Not a good sign, the Doctor knew.

“Agent Tyler,” said Saito, not unkindly. She tucked her glasses in her labcoat-pocket. “Your mother is very ill—”

“I know. What can we do for her?”

“Run some tests,” Saito replied. “Make her comfortable.”

Rose glared at her, then turned to the Doctor. “What can we do?” she asked.

In other circumstances, the Doctor might have felt inordinately pleased that Rose turned to him for help, but—well, no, there was no but, he was just as pleased as he would be any other time, he just had the good sense to hide it at that moment. “If we’re lucky, the antibiotics will take care of everything, just whoosh the whole nasty thing out of her system and usher her straight into healing, but I don’t particularly feel like banking on luck here, and I’d imagine you don’t either,” he replied. “We really need to figure out a way to reverse or at least halt the contagion’s sanguinary alterations.”

“You mentioned that earlier, that this thing was changing the victims’ blood.”

“Exactly. Deoxygenation is our major concern at the moment. The oxygen mask is helping to prevent oxygen-starvation, but ultimately, it’s a plaster, not a cure.” He considered. “Now, if we could devise a method of speeding up platelet production…”

Saito frowned. “What are you thinking?”

“Oxygen enrichment,” the Doctor murmured thoughtfully. “Replenishing the depleted supply, so to speak. Replacing the damaged cells with healthy ones. The problem is, even though the human body is constantly producing new platelets and plasma, it can only manufacture so much so quickly. But! There were some very promising rapid-platelet-production techniques introduced sometime between the twenty-first and twenty-third centuries—you’ve got access to a somatic 3D printer and hematopoietic printing material, right?”

“What about a transfusion?” asked Rose. “Like a blood transfusion. Would that help?”

“Could do, if you had a ready match.”

“I don’t know if that’s possible,” said Saito. “The blood bank is inaccessible due to quarantine—”

“I’m a match,” Rose replied.

“—and with a direct transfusion, there are too many factors to take into account—”

“How do you know?” asked the Doctor.

“—such as screening for potential disease—”

“Mum’s donated to me a couple times.”

“—which, as you mentioned, we haven’t exactly got the time for—”

Wide-eyed in alarm, the Doctor frowned. “Why?”

“—and I don’t know if I could, in good conscience, endorse or participate in such activity—”

“Occupational hazard. Look, it’s not relevant, all right?” Rose said impatiently. “Do you want my blood or not?”

“Are either of you even remotely listening to me?” asked Saito, exasperated.

“No,” Rose and the Doctor both replied.

Saito huffed. “Of course not. And are either of you licensed medical practitioners, by any chance?”

Fishing out the psychic paper, the Doctor presented it with a flick of the wrist. “Depends. What does this say?”

“It just says you know everything.”

“It’s not wrong,” said the Doctor, pocketing the paper with a grin.

“But you don’t know what this is, what we’re dealing with.”

“Yet,” the Doctor replied cheerfully. “I don’t know yet. But I intend to find out. Hence the aforementioned education. Weren’t you listening?”

Fishing around in his pockets, he found the sandwich generously gifted to him earlier. “You need to eat,” he said, tossing the sandwich Rose’s way.

Rose caught the sandwich, wrinkling her nose. “Did this come from Miranda? Is it safe?”

“It is; the sonic would have picked up on it, otherwise. And you need to eat something if you’re going to give blood.”

“I can’t even begin to list all the ways your proposal violates the Hippocratic Oath,” Saito protested.

“Hippocrates! Great man, decent gambler, still owe him twelve drachma,” said the Doctor, hands in pockets as he waltzed lazily over to the door. “Or is it Euros now? Did they convert in this universe as well? I’ll have to find out. Another opportunity for education!”

“Where are you going?” asked Saito. “You can’t leave the building while we’re under quarantine.”

“Oh don’t worry; I shan’t. Just popping out for a bit of R&R—that’s Research and Reconnaissance, by the way, not Rest and Recuperation, no rest for the wicked, after all—and I’ll be back before you know it. Oh, and you should probably call someone to take care of that little zombie problem up in the cafeteria.”

“Zombies?” Saito asked faintly. “Is that supposed to be some sort of joke?”

The Doctor flashed her a grin. “Nope!”

“Be careful!” Rose called after him.

He spun round at the door. “If you insist,” he said, offering a cheeky wink before he popped open the door and stepped out into the dark.

 **

 Rose’s gaze lingered on the door all through her call with security, her brow furrowed in worry, like if she stared hard enough, the Doctor might waltz back in, smug but safe and sound.

“So,” said Saito, gathering supplies as Rose ended her call. “Still fancy him, then?”

Rose blushed. “Just shut up and take my blood.”

 **

 For some unfathomable reason, for a brief time after she and the Doctor joined company, Donna was obsessed with those ghost-hunting programs, the ones where fellows with tape-recorders and slicked-back hair stroll around empty buildings late at night trying, desperately, to make something out of nothing. Amused to no end, the Doctor would look on and shake his head as Donna watched the programs with rapt attention, her eyes glued to the blokes wandering around onscreen with their green night-vision goggles, playing with tape recorders and radio signals and pulling random words out of the noise and jumping at every little shadow that crossed their path. The Doctor, pages deep in some dusty old tome or days deep into whatever half-constructed project lay strewn about him on the library settee and coffee table, would chuckle and insult the program under his breath, meeting Donna’s protests of Oi, we deal with this sort of thing all the time, don’t we? Who’s to say they’re not every bit as legitimate as we are? with an exaggerated eye-roll and an assertion that no, these programs do not include actually feature any ghosts, at best they’re an incorporeal wavelength lifeform, Donna, terribly common and not at all as exciting as television paints them out to be, and besides, ghosts have much better things to do than make funny noises on radio waves. Sometimes the Doctor would tease Donna dreadfully, trying to convince her with mock-sincerity that that tiny critter on Falbrath IX was actually a paranormal entity or those rattling pipes in that old mansion was actually definitely a ghost, Donna! Quick, let’s take the TARDIS back to 1996 and nab a tape-recorder!

Now, the Doctor suppressed a shudder. Creeping through the darkened halls, he couldn’t shake the feeling that someone lurked over his shoulder at that very moment, that the shadows painting the empty corridor were something more than inky darkness pooling in the dim starlight. He said a silent belated apology to Donna—if ever there was a haunted building, late-night UNIT headquarters would be it.

Soon the sounds of scuffling boots and plasticky crinkles and hushed voices in the stairwells informed the Doctor that UNIT had already dispatched a squadron of HAZMAT-suited agents in response to Rose’s call to take care of their little zombie problem, and blimey, that was fast. The Doctor opted to carry out his reconnaissance mission in a calmer area instead, popping open the door to one of UNIT’s communal office spaces with a furtive glance and a buzz of the sonic. He crept quietly through, cataloging everything around him, from the potted plants to the fluorescent lights flickering overhead, from the hardwood floor to the white-tiled cubicles stretching as far as the eye could see. Just your standard posh office workspace, even if a sense of foreboding lay over the place, settling in the walkways and the empty desks, thick like an autumn fog.

The Doctor picked the first computer that caught his eye and sat down, knocking something off the desk in the process. He plucked the something off the floor and chuckled. It was a Yoda bobble-head figurine, of all things. Hideously ugly and completely tasteless. He loved it.

“You and me, then?” he said. “Yoda and the Doctor. Seems fitting, somehow.”

Setting Yoda back on his rightful perch, the Doctor turned his attention back to the computer, aiming his sonic at the screen and cracking the passcode. He bypassed the firewalls to the secure server within moments, easy as rewiring a verteron resistance accelerator. So this sonic was every bit a magic wand as much as the last one, it would seem. Good to know.

(He refused to think of it as the different sonic or the other sonic; it looked and felt and acted the same as his old one, it was the same as his old one, even down to the funny little dent beneath the atomic accelerator. So it was might as well be the same, might’nt it? He wouldn’t even have known it wasn’t originally his, if Rose hadn’t told him. Though that notion opened up another can of worms entirely.)

“Think I’ll ever hear the rest of that story?” the Doctor asked bobble-head Yoda, whose head shook nonsensically in reply. Hardly a helpful response, but then again, Yoda did always have that annoying habit of speaking in opacities.

Fingers flying over the keyboard and eyes darting over the screen, the Doctor located and scanned over every report he could find, everything the medical team managed to upload before their unfortunate transition into zombie-hood. But so little time had lapsed since the beginning of the outbreak that UNIT hadn’t been able to run but a few tests, and what few tests they had managed to run had generated no concrete theories or results. (And of course, there was no mention of zombies or otherwise reanimated corpses to be found. If only the medical team had thought to document their experiences as they were undergoing them. Though the Doctor imagined the reports would probably just read something along the lines of “I was quite warm, and now I’m a zombie; I don’t care for it; mlaaaarggghhg brains.”) The only helpful tidbit the Doctor could filter from the mush was that one or two of the medical officers suggested the contagion could be extraterrestrial in origin, before they themselves contracted said contagion.

“And in their protective suits, no less,” said the Doctor, frowning. If the medical team had contracted the illness even in their suits, then what guarantee did they have that the security and containment team wouldn’t meet the same fate? But no, the Doctor thought; Rose would have told them everything they needed to know, and they would have responded accordingly, taking additional precautions—whatever additional precautions they could, anyway.

“I have to admit, this has me stymied,” said the Doctor. “A mystery contagion, no idea what it is or where it came from or who might have brought it here or why. Or how it reanimates the dead, for that matter. But they’re not technically zombies, not really, unless Sibelius Crow is hiding somewhere nearby and I just haven’t noticed. Which is highly doubtful, to say the least.”

Bobble-head Yoda did not reply, save to bobble his head unhelpfully when poked. The Doctor sighed in frustration. “The only thing in here that’s even halfway noteworthy is a report on the new paint job and some complaints of mold. These reports are literally as boring as watching paint dry, and just as useless.”

(Except the medical team had said something helpful, hadn’t they? Even if they hadn’t meant to, even if they’d been dead when they said it. Give it to us, they’d hissed at him back in the cafeteria, and they’d indicated that Jackie was what they were after. But why?

And if the medical team truly was dead then who was it, exactly, that had been talking to him?)

“I mean, extraterrestrial in origin hardly narrows things down, does it?” murmured the Doctor.

Yoda nodded sympathetically.

“My thoughts exactly,” the Doctor agreed.

Blinking past the blur that threatened to creep over the edges of his vision, the Doctor squinted at the computer screen for several moments before realizing, with no small amount of disgruntlement, that in this new human body he may actually need reading glasses. Well, wasn’t that just wizard. Donna’s faulty human DNA was clearly to blame.

He clicked through file after file after email after report until finally something interesting piqued his attention. He sat up in his chair, eyebrow arching in surprise.

“Now here’s something,” he murmured. “According to this report, none of the blood samples taken from the victims displayed any presence of antibodies. Strange in its own right; your body’s always got antibodies ready to fight off foreign contaminants, extraterrestrial origins or no. Bodies are sort of handy that way.”

He flashed Yoda a cheeky grin, wriggling the fingers of his good fightin’ hand. “Get it? Handy?”

Bobble-head Yoda did not respond.

“You’re right,” said the Doctor with mock-sternness. “This is no time for puns. Though I’m personally of the opinion that most times are good times for puns.

“So despite the unusually high temperatures of the victims at the time of death, we’re not actually looking at a fever here, because a fever is just the body’s way of fighting back, but whatever we’re dealing with completely dismantles the body’s ability to defend itself,” the Doctor continued, tapping his chin thoughtfully. “Ergo, it’s probably not a virus or disease of any sort. What it is is something that shuts down the body’s defense mechanisms, spreads alarmingly quickly, and appears to be immune to the usual precautions and even extra precautions. However—and this is worth noting,” he offered to Yoda, as an aside, “it only seems to affect certain people. Rose, for instance, hasn’t begun to suffer any ill effects, and presumably there are dozens of others in the building who are uninfected as well. Is it only a matter of time for them, have they simply managed to avoid contamination somehow, or is there some important physiological difference between the healthy and the infected?”

Bobble-head Yoda was, as usual, silent and withholding.

“Fat lot of help you are,” said the Doctor cheerfully. “But at least now we know our next step: finding the similarities between our various victims. Shall we?”

Easier said than done; a scan of each victim’s personnel file revealed far more differences than similarities. There was Miranda, a not-quite-middle-aged dinner lady, followed closely by the second victim, a more-than-middle-aged nighttime caretaker, and a third victim, an office worker who took ill and died immediately after stepping foot in the building. Then you had the medical team, not one of them alike, and the mysterious second victim in Saito’s care, receiving treatment along with Jackie. Strangely, according to the report, the young man fell ill after being bundled into sickbay with several others, but he appeared to be the only one affected. So far, no one else in sickbay had begun to exhibit any symptoms whatsoever. At least he was still alive, even if his condition was a little dicey; the other victims had all died within moments. The Doctor tried not to think of what that meant for Jackie.

He scowled. No matter how he thought about it, he couldn’t find a single factor to connect the dots between Jackie and the other victims, not age, not gender, not ethnicity, not vocation nor location nor general health or anything else, save that they all worked in this building, and they were all (presumably) human. Factor in the unusual symptoms, the highly irregular behavior re: antibodies, the likelihood of non-Earth origin, the reanimation of the bodies after death, and the absence of other markers indicating an infection related to viruses, diseases, or bacteria, and you had—

—a Doctor who was still completely stumped, and a Jackie who was running out of time.

“Rubbish,” the Doctor announced. “The medical team just overlooked something, that’s all. Not that I can blame them; I’m certain they were rather busy getting infected and turned into zombies and such. But if you want something done right…”

He pushed back from the desk, offering a brisk nod to bobble-head Yoda. “So long, then. But a word of advice, one supercentenarian to another: 900 years is no excuse to let yourself go.”

Jogging to the office doors, the Doctor quietly pushed them open, sticking his head out into the darkened hallway and glancing both ways. Of course, with the active quarantine in place, the hall was deserted, free of any over-enthusiastic UNIT agent that may attempt to apprehend and re-quarantine him, though something about the faulty fluorescent lights flickering queasily overhead made the Doctor uneasy. He couldn’t shake the feeling of something crawling up his spine, even as he busied himself locating the UNIT floor directory, scanning it for the location of their laboratory.

A click at the end of the hall caused his head to whip round, his gaze sharpening, scanning the area for the source of the noise. But nothing unusual greeted his senses, just walls and ceiling tiles and potted plants and that never-ending flicker overhead. He took a few steps forward and gave a good long look at the door at the end of the hallway anyway, just to be safe.

Nothing. Just a nagging little buzz-hum rattling around the back of his head, probably the cheap overhead lighting. UNIT really should replace it all.

Shrugging, the Doctor turned back to the directory, only to jump back in shock.

Miranda stood there.

 **

 Rose tried very hard not to stare at the other patient behind the glass, averting her eyes as best she could while Saito wheeled in her mother into the observation room and arranged a more longterm setup. (“Technically a breach of protocol, bringing a patient in here for treatment,” Saito had explained moments before, “but this is the easiest way to keep an eye on everyone. That’s what comes of being the only physician on the graveyard shift, I suppose. Desperate times, desperate measures, and all that.”). But Rose’s curiosity got the better of her, and there she found herself. Staring.

The patient lay in the other room all alone, prone atop a hospital bed, staring up at the ceiling through glassy dark eyes; his skin had faded to a papery nigh-translucent white, and his fingernails and lips and eyes were stained utterly black, as if painted with ink. Between the oxygen mask strapped to his face and the tubes plugged in seemingly willy-nilly all over his body, the poor young man looked like a machine more than anything, like a cyborg or maybe Darth Vader peeled halfway out of his protective black shell. He was totally still, save for the stilted breaths that entered and left his body with a watery wheeze; Rose couldn’t help but think he already looked like a corpse. Rose kept glancing through the window at him as she shed her trusty leather jacket and Saito seated her and prepared her for the transfusion. She watched him while Saito prodded at her arm for veins and swabbed the inside of her elbow with an alcohol-soaked cotton ball. Even the bite of the needle in Rose’s skin wasn’t enough to tear her attention away.

White skin, watery wheeze, black-stained fingernails and lips and eyes; that poor fellow was knocking on Death’s door, and Death was about to answer.

“So, Agent Tyler,” said Saito, monitoring the transfusion tube as it pumped blood straight from Rose’s arm into her mother’s. “It’s been a while since you last visited medbay. How’ve you been—”

“You don’t need to do that,” Rose interrupted.

Saito shot a glance over her spectacles. “Do what?”

“Distract me, keep my mind off all this. I know it’s part of the routine, but you don’t need to worry about it with me.”

“Agent Tyler—”

“Not Agent. It’s just Rose, now.”

Saito hmphed. “Welp, that answers the question of how you’ve been doing, at least.”

“Yeah,” said Rose flatly. “Been a lot better.”

“Been a lot worse, too. I was actually just getting ready to commend you for going a whole three months without needing stitches or a cast.”

“That you know of,” replied Rose with a faint smile.

She quieted, looking over Jackie’s limp body, at the blank expressionlessness of her face, deceptively peaceful beneath the oxygen mask. “S’weird,” said Rose. “Usually I’m the one on the bed, and Mum’s the one fretting over me. Never knew how hard it was to be on this side of things.”

“Not a role reversal you particularly care for, hm?”

Sighing, Rose reached out with her free hand to push a stray hair out of Jackie’s face. “This is why I told her not to come after me,” she said quietly. “I knew something like this would happen. She’s supposed to be safe, at home, away from all this stuff.”

Her mouth twisted in unhappiness. “Why didn’t she just stay put, like I told her to? I told her.”

“Yes, because the Tyler women are notorious for following orders without question,” Saito replied drily.

The urge to fling a lob of sarcasm swelled like bile in her throat but Rose did not reply, focusing on her mum instead. For several moments all that could be heard in the room was the pulsing of the heartrate monitors. Rose imagined she could hear accusations hidden in their tones, a rising chorus of Your-fault Your-fault Your-fault echoing off the sterile white walls.

Something seemed to soften in Saito’s features as she watched her. “Chin up, Rose,” she said, her voice much gentler than usual. “How many times have you pulled something out of a nosedive at the last second? Besides, your Doctor bloke’s here, isn’t he? And didn’t you tell me a hundred times what a miracle-worker he is? Even if his methods are highly questionable,” she added, rolling her eyes. “But if anyone can help your mum, it’s the two of you. Right?”

Rose hesitated. I think like him, he’d said. Same memories, same thoughts, same everything, he’d told her. Part of her wanted to believe him; it would be so easy to surrender to everything her gut was screaming to be the truth, to believe he could fix everything, just like before.

(That was one hell of a bet to hedge her mother’s life on. Then again, what other option did she have?)

Rose swallowed hard. “Yeah,” she replied quietly.

 **

 “What are you?” the Doctor asked.

Peering out from behind a ragged curtain of matted, oil-slicked hair, Miranda did not reply, or rather, her body did not; it watched the Doctor in silence, blinking just a fraction of a second too slowly, dark lids sliding over dull black eyes. Ichor dripped out of its mouth, trailing a path down, down, down its chin and throat and chest, staining Miranda’s work uniform and filling the air with the cloying stench of damp and rotted things. Its veins were far more pronounced, now, a horror-movie spiderweb of pitch-black lines inked into its face and the tissue-thin paper of its sternum. Its hands hung dull and heavy at its sides, darkness pooling in its fingertips.

Anger flared up in the Doctor’s chest, so burning-violent that his hands balled into fists and shook with the force of it. He fought to tamp it all down. He didn’t have time for that sort of nonsense. More importantly, Jackie didn’t have time. And besides, this wasn’t about him; this was about helping those infected, preventing the infection of anyone else. He could punish himself for his oversights and shortcomings later.

He could punish this thing later.

“The other bodies seemed to understand me. Do you?” he asked, louder this time. “What are you? And what are you doing here? And why?”

“You know who this body is,” Miranda’s body responded, its words slow and thick, its tongue weighing heavy in its mouth.

“I know who it was. Not so sure, now.”

Miranda’s body tilted its head, almost thoughtfully. “The Miranda. This is the Miranda.”

“Except that’s not true, is it? Not anymore.” When Miranda’s body fell silent again, the Doctor heaved a sigh in impatience. “Oh, come on, you know what I’m asking. No need to play coy, we’re all friends here. Well, not friends so much as some sort of invasive contaminant and the person most voted most likely to try and kill it dead, but, you know. Potato, tomato.”

“We need your help.”

“Oh, do we now?” asked the Doctor, eyebrow piqued. “My help, specifically?”

“Yes.”

“Well, isn’t that something,” the Doctor murmured, studying what used-to-be-Miranda’s face, like maybe something in its ichor-darkened features would give its intentions away. “Curiouser and curiouser. Do you even know who I am?”

“Traveler,” Miranda’s body hissed. “Magic-maker. Time-bender. Death-bringer.”

“That last one’s a little melodramatic,” muttered the Doctor. “How do you know all of this?”

Miranda’s body shook its head. “Not important. We need help.”

“Well, why don’t you tell me what we are, and I’ll see what I can do.”

“Help us,” it hissed.

“Tell me what you are,” insisted the Doctor.

“Help us.”

“Tell me what you are.”

“Help first.”

“Nope!” said the Doctor cheerfully, and good grief, wouldn’t that horrible buzzing noise overhead ever cease? “You want my help, you answer my questions. That’s how it goes. No other way, no other choice. So one last time before I start to get testy: what are you?”

“Not what,” gritted out Miranda’s body. “Who.”

“Fine. Who are you?”

“We are us. Ourselves. Legion. No name. Can’t tell anything more. Not before help.”

“Oh, but you’ve already told me so much, just now,” said the Doctor, rocking back on his heels. “See, your use of we indicates the plural, moreover the persistent use of we in lieu of any other pronoun indicates a lack of sense of individual self, and that, coupled with your insistence that you’re a who, not a what, yet you’ve got no name—well, that sounds an awful lot like a hive mind, doesn’t it? And it’s clear you’re not local, not unless this Earth has got some very funny little quirks the other one hasn’t; an extraterrestrial hive mind, then. Oh, but what need has an extraterrestrial hive mind got for human bodies, hm? Human bodies, but not human brains. Make that a parasitic extraterrestrial hive mind. A parasitic extraterrestrial hive mind that, somehow and for some reason, has the capability to possess humans—” 

The lights flickered again overhead and the Doctor snapped his fingers in revelation. “Ah, not somehow—telepathy, that’s how!” he said excitedly, pointing to the lights above him. “That pesky flickering, that’s you lot, isn’t it? Interference with the electronics due to a low-level telepathic field. Explains that horrible intermittent buzzing sound, too—actually, anytime you’d like to knock that off would be fine by me, still got that post-regeneration extra-sensitivity and it feels a bit weird in the teeth. Although to be fair, the new teeth always feel a bit weird, so maybe that one’s on me.

“And that explains why you’d know certain things, doesn’t it? Like my identity, all that—your telepathy has granted you access to your victims’ memories. You probably know everything about me that Jackie does. And oh!” he shouted as realizations struck him, one after the other. “Oh, that explains why the protective suits don’t make a difference, as well! Telepathic possession isn’t like an infection or a virus or bacteria or disease, it’s not strictly physical, it doesn’t care if you’ve got antibodies or a protective suit. So you possess your victims, override their consciousness with yours via telepathy, and you mutate their bodies after, killing them in the process. That makes you a telepathic, infectious, fast-spreading, parasitic, zombie-generating extraterrestrial hive mind, with a nasty little side serving of murder.”

He glanced up at the Miranda-thing with a sharp grin, feeling very proud of himself. Certainly Rose couldn’t help but be impressed, if she saw him right now.

“How am I doing, so far?” he asked.

The corpse did not reply.

“So that brings us to the million-dollar question, which is: Why are you doing all of this?” the Doctor asked thoughtfully. “Why are you infecting humans, why are you killing them? Why are you changing their bodies on the molecular level? And why have you only targeted some of them, as opposed to others? Not that I’m complaining—broadly speaking, the fewer people you murder, the better—but why choose one human over another? Or have you even got a choice, or is it something else altogether? Just, why?”

“Wasting time,” rasped Miranda’s body.

“Whose time?”

“Yours,” it replied, its voice a snake slithering through the leaves. “Hers.”

“Now that sounds an awful lot like a threat,” replied the Doctor. He chuckled darkly. “Something you should know about me: I don’t take well to threats.”

“Not a threat. A promise,” hissed the corpse. “Help us, or she dies.”

 **

 As soon as the transfusion was complete, the needle removed and the tube with it and everything swabbed and bandaged and clean, Rose grabbed her jacket and slipped it back on, wrapping it snugly round her frame. Warmth suffused her bones and she sighed in relief; she felt much better with the jacket on, shielding her like a protective shell. Not to mention, giving all that blood had made her terribly cold. And a little sleepy too. Or maybe that was just the overall lack of sleep.

“You feeling all right?” asked Saito, concerned. “You look a little pale.”

“M’fine,” Rose lied.

“If you’re feeling faint or anything, you should let me know.”

Rose pulled her jacket tighter. “Don’t worry about me. Worry about my mum.”

“Agent Tyler—I mean, Rose—”

“What should we be doing for her?” Rose asked.

Saito huffed impatiently behind her surgeon’s mask. “I will continue monitoring her and running tests. You don’t need to be doing anything right now, except having a bite to eat. And maybe a lie-down.”

“I don’t want—”

“Too bad. You gave blood; you need a snack. Doctor’s orders. Two doctors’ orders.”

Rose hmphed. “Fine,” she said, grudgingly reaching for her sandwich. “I’ll eat, and then you’ll tell me how I can help.”

“Eh, truth be told, there’s not much you can do, unless we hear something different from your bloke.”

“He’s not my bloke,” said Rose as she peeled back the clingfilm.

She could tell Saito was struggling not to roll her eyes. “Well, until Not-Your-Bloke gets back, help me keep an eye on your mum, and keep her company,” she replied, peeling off her gloves. “That’s basically all you can do.”

Saito started to stand up, but hesitated. “A word of advice, if I might?”

Rose nodded at her to proceed.

“I’d like to think we have a good shot at saving your mother,” Saito told her. “I’ll do absolutely everything I can to help her. Knowing your family, she may survive out of sheer stubbornness, much as anything. But in my experience, it’s generally wise to hope for the best, whilst preparing for the worst.”

Rose’s hands trembled around the sandwich, clenching squeakily in the clingfilm. She forced them still. “Are you saying I should start planning her funeral?”

“No. But if there’s anything you want to tell her, now would be the time. Doesn’t matter if she’s unconscious. Better to say something now than risk leaving it unsaid.” Pushing up from the stool, Saito laid a gentle hand on Rose’s shoulder. “Take it from someone who knows firsthand, Rose. Regret is a terrible thing.”

Swallowing, Rose nodded again. Saito gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze before she left the room, and now it was just Rose and her mother, and an atmosphere thick with uncertainty. Rose watched her mother as she slept, her eyes motionless beneath her eyelids, her mouth parted beneath the oxygen mask, her hands cold and still. She looked nowhere near as bad as the patient in the room beyond, but she was awfully pale, and the blackness in her fingernails had spread. Already, she looked like a ghost.

Your-fault, your-fault, your-fault chimed the heartrate monitors.

Rose clenched her eyes tight against the fear and guilt that threatened to overwhelm her. She couldn’t do that right now. She couldn’t give in. She had to be strong, for her mum. She had to help her fight. She had to help her win.

“Right,” she said, breathing out a shaky exhale. Rose set the sandwich down on the empty stool, scooting closer to her mother. She reached out and grabbed her mum’s hand, flinching when her mother did not respond. Worrying the inside of her cheek, Rose cast about for something to say. Anything. Anything at all.

(But her treacherous mind couldn’t conjure up any words, could only show her the last time she’d held the hand of a body on a cot, and the Doctor’s fingers were stiff and icy between hers, and it didn’t matter how stubborn he was, he was still—)

Rose tightened her grip around Jackie’s hand. She wouldn’t let that happen to her mother. The fact that Rose hadn’t got there in time to save the Doctor was irrelevant. She wouldn’t let her mother die. She wouldn’t. She wouldn’t.

She gathered her breath and her courage. “So,” Rose said, her voice trembling. “Mum. What do you want to talk about?”

 **

 “Killing one of my friends is an excellent way to ensure you’ll never get my help in any capacity whatsoever,” said the Doctor with a brightness that belied the anger in his eyes. “Now, do you want to try another approach, or shall I levy some threats of my own?”

Miranda’s body blinked lazily, its lips falling open and closed, as if it were considering. “Help us and we will surrender your friend.”

“And she’ll be healthy? No more fluid in the lungs, no more burning up, no more risk of turning into whatever-the-hell-you-are?”

The corpse shook its head. “She will be restored.”

“Excellent!” said the Doctor, clapping his hands. “That’s a little more like it. Now, what can I do for you?”

“Home,” breathed Miranda’s body. “Help us go home.”

“All right. Where are you from?”

“Far away. Very far away.”

“Well, that’s helpful,” the Doctor said mildly. “You got yourselves here, why can’t you get yourselves back?”

“Can’t. Not without help.”

“Why not? What, did you run out of pocket change for the intergalactic Underground?”

“We fell,” said Miranda’s body, and if the Doctor didn’t know any better, he’d think its tone mournful. “There were holes in the world. In the earth and sky. The nothing came, and it ate all the stars.”

“That sounds an awful lot like the Reality Bomb,” the Doctor murmured.

“We saw it everywhere. Stars, gone. Worlds, gone. All of them, lost to the nothing. We fled, to outrun the hunger. To outrun its maw.”

The corpse’s tongue slithered out, running over its teeth, exploring the crannies and jagged edges of them as if, perhaps, considering them for the first time. Black fluid smeared around its mouth and the Doctor grimaced in disgust.

“It swallowed everything,” Miranda’s body whispered. “Nowhere left for us to go. We took refuge in the howling black. We thought we were safe in the dark. But the dark…”

Miranda’s body shuddered. “It eats, too.”

“So you fled to the Void?” asked the Doctor, half-impressed. “How’d you manage to survive that?”

The body twitched, a convulsion borne of memory and fear. “Didn’t,” it rasped. 

“Then how are you here?”

“Heard the song of the Vortex, sung by the magic box. Followed it.”

“Magic box,” the Doctor hummed. “I can only imagine you mean the TARDIS. So you did a bit of extradimensional hitchhiking, then.”

Miranda’s body nodded. “We clung to the box and followed our hope. Searching for safety. But it was too late. Just shadows, now. Desperate to live.”

“And the only way you could survive is by inhabiting the bodies of others,” said the Doctor, suddenly understanding.

“Yes,” whispered Miranda’s body. “An unfortunate necessity. Sins committed so we may survive. But we smelled it, now, the return of the stars overhead. The nothing is gone. So now, we can go home.”

It stepped forward, pleading. “We will claim no one else, if you take us home.”

 **

 A small eternity had passed by, and still, Rose couldn’t think of anything to say. She squeezed her mother’s hand, wishing desperately that Jackie would squeeze back in response.

“I guess I should probably call Pete, yeah?” Rose said quietly, staring at the floor. “So he can come and talk to you too, so that he can—you know. Just in case—”

Her breath hitched in her throat. “Should he bring Tony, too?” she asked, forcing the words out even though they hurt. “I mean—no, he can’t. Neither of them can come, can they? Not with the contagion. Can’t risk them getting sick too, can we?”

Sighing, Rose leaned forward, propping herself up with her elbows on her knees. God, she was tired. Even just thinking was as exhausting as climbing a mountain.

“Video chat could work, though,” she continued. “That way, we can make sure they both get to see you before—you know, if anything—like Saito said, about the worst—just—”

Rose sniffed loudly in the empty room, but Jackie’s eyelids did not flutter, her mouth did not move. Her hand did not squeeze back.

“Just wake up, Mum,” said Rose, and her cheeks felt suspiciously wet all of a sudden; surprised, she reached up to thumb away first one tear, then another, and another and one more. Her vision grew blurry and the pressure in her sinuses grew unbearable and before she knew it, the dam had split and tears were trailing down her cheeks, one after the other, growing fat at the curve of her jaw and dropping onto her jacket with a plasticky splat. Rose bit her lip to hold back the tears, but it was a halfhearted gesture because as horrible as it was to cry, as much as it made her feel like a small and stupid child, god, it was just such a relief.

“Wake up, please,” she said again, sniffling, and tried not to think about what life would be like without her mother in it.

(Would it have felt the same, if she’d successfully stayed in the other universe, and all the paths had sealed shut behind her? Would the realization of Jackie’s loss have struck her like it did now, pounding at her chest until she curled in on herself, until she withered under the weight of it all as the truth fully struck her that she would never ever see her mother again?

Lips pursed shut, Rose inwardly shook herself. No. This was nothing like that. It wasn’t. It just wasn’t.)

“I’m so sorry, Mum,” Rose said thickly through her tears. “I didn’t want to leave you behind. I never wanted to hurt you. Never, ever. But I wanted to get back so badly, and I thought—I don’t know, I thought if I could just get back to the other universe, everything would work out all right in the end, somehow. You know? Like it would fill this hole inside me, the one that’s been growing ever since we first came over here. I wouldn’t feel empty anymore. I wouldn’t feel broken anymore.” 

Pain welled up in her at the thought of those first few months after Canary Wharf, fresh and bleating as the day it happened, so much worse than the throbbing in her damaged fingers, all of it so loud she could barely think past it. But Rose forced herself to continue. “It all just hurt so much, Mum,” Rose said, pleadingly. “Getting stranded here without the Doctor or the TARDIS—s’like, I’d had a purpose before, yeah? When I was with the Doctor, we’d travel all over, righting wrongs, fixing things. Helping people. But I didn’t feel like I could do that properly here. I didn’t—” 

She sniffled, loudly. “I didn’t feel like I could do it on my own. It was like someone had broken both my legs, and I couldn’t walk anymore. But working on the Cannon, working on getting back—not just to get to the Doctor, but to stop the stars from going out overhead, to help people again—it gave me something, Mum. I had meaning again, I didn’t feel so empty anymore. And then I worked so hard, for so long, that it was like everything about me, everything that makes me me, hinged on me succeeding, in getting back to him. Does that make sense?”

Rose swallowed. “I thought everything would turn out all right in the end, somehow. So I just tried not to think about it, yeah? How much I’d be giving up, to be with him again. You know?”

Silence was the reply.

“I should have told you all that upfront,” Rose murmured. “But I was just—I dunno. After Canary Wharf, after Will, after Plymouth—”

Memories of burnt ozone and a room full of screams sliced through her vision and Rose clenched her eyes to close them out. Her lips clamped shut, the words burning her like scalding-hot coffee in her mouth, even now.

“After all that, and everything else,” Rose tried again, her voice shaky, “I didn’t want to let anyone in. I thought it would be easier that way, if anything bad did happen. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst, right? But the worst is here, Mum, and it’s not like anything I planned for. Nothing I did made any difference, and now everything’s gone wrong and you’re sick and I don’t know what to do and I’m not ready for any of it, I’m just not ready, I’m not—”

Her face crumpling so hard it hurt, Rose lapsed forward onto the hospital bed, surrendering to the gravity of her exhaustion and sorrow. Clenching Jackie’s hand tight, she sobbed into the mattress. “Please don’t go, Mum,” Rose half-wept, half-choked. Great heaving sobs wracked her shoulders and she cried even harder, gasping for air. “You can’t leave me. You can’t. Please, Mum. Please.”

Jackie did not respond.

Rose wept, and wept, and wept.

 **

 Scratching the back of his neck uncomfortably, the Doctor paused to consider. Even amidst his anger and disgust, he felt a small swell of sympathy for the creatures. They’d done what they felt they must in order to survive. They’d clawed their way past impossibility, banding together in the face of certain death. Theirs were actions borne of complete and utter instinct, the desire to live overriding everything else, leaving only fear and desperation behind.

That didn’t change anything, though. Didn’t reopen the holes between universes; didn’t grant them a way to slip back through.

It didn’t change the fact that they were killers.

“Please, take us home,” said the corpse, reaching a ghostly hand toward the Doctor, palm up. Its veins were black and stark beneath moonlit flesh. A request writ in ink. A plea birthed in blood. “Please,” it rasped again. “Help us.”

  **********

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 

[passchae-blog]

[ cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war ]

once again, she is denied relief. once again, she is refused a rebirth of her own making. once again, it is him. 

( oh, for he is her moon, and she is gaia cursing him to an eternal punishment; a wretched circumgyration of irascibility, the waltz of the sinners. )

chaeyoung’s breath stutters at the sight of him; breath-takingly wreathed in his habitual wrathful rancour. under the deceptively tranquil translucency of her eyelids, she recalls:

a gentle smile marred by the savage lunacy of betrayal. a strong voice made brokenly infantile by the force of his devastation. oh, the sanguinary way he stripped her of her false feathers; the plunge of two lucifers’ into a hell of their own making. oh, how her blood sung as she tarnished him.

—and her heartbeat resumes with the beat of an echoing war drum; for war is upon her horizon.

and so once again, she falls back into her hunt; a dance she knows better than herself. slyly, she stalks him with her stygian orbs; and takes relish in the way she traces the lugubrious vessels decorating his skin.

chaeyoung laughs. yes. this is good. this is familiar.

and there, at the bottom of the gold-plated stairs, she spins the silver of her web; patiently, slowly. there, she waits for him to come to her, as he always did. there, in the pinnacle of her familiar smile, she finally pierces him with eyes lined with the smeared debris of his own ruins; a noir of bitter havoc. there, she marks out the saturnine rings under his eyes, his planets banished; throne tarnished.

once again, she poises to imbibe the life out of him even before the inception of their first greeting, until all that would remain on his weary cheek is the stain of her judas kiss; a perfect, shapely red dahlia of punic faith.

( come, for it is time for another antediluvian waltz again; with its exquisite myriad of missteps and vicious teeth.

how prosaic; you say?

no, dearest. let us re-commence our sempiternal orbit; our wonted obloquy, for i have yet more lèse-majesté to carve into the hollow nebula of your chest for you to remember me by — )

“remember me, darling?” she purrs; the frigidity of a serrated blade on a vulnerable jugular.

( oh yes: in nights where i drowned you in the throes of ecstasy;

what was thing you used to whisper into the slim gaps between our intertwined fingers?

…oh yes, that’s right.

“forever us against the world”; right, r o w o o n ? )

@passrowoon​

[rebeccanicoletti]

36/100 “Waltz” | “Valz” . . . I touch hatred like a daily breast, from clothes to clothes I come incessantly sleeping far away. I am not, I am no good, I don’t know anyone, I have no weapons of sea or of wood, I do not live in this home. With night and water my mouth is filled. The durable moon determines what I do not have. What I do have is in the midst of the waves.
A thunderbolt of water, a day for me: an iron bottom. There is no counters, no shield, no suit, there is no special unfathomable solution, or vicious eyelid. I live suddenly and at other times I follow. I suddenly touch a face and it murders me. I have no time. Do not seek me, then, drawing back the customary savage thread or the sanguinary vine. Do not call me: that is my occupation. Do not ask my name or my estate. Leave me in the midst of my own moo, in my wounded terrain. #the100dayproject #the100dayprojectwithrebeccaandroo #pabloneruda #watercolor #painting #art

[ecotone99]

[FN] Capture

Salem disguised her presence with magic lurking motionless in the shadows. She's waiting for the change of guard, knowing it's better not to face off with royal officers.

"If you should manage to evade me till morning I will not send my guard after you, you may leave with whatever you've gathered and I will erase your bounty." A gentle whisper, her breath caught up in the tension of the moment not wanting to give up her position if it were to be a charade, turning towards the voice directed at her blue eyes and flush pale skin staring right into her soul.

Salem faltered 'HOW DID I NOT NOTICE HER!? SHE WAS COMPLETELY SILENT! UNDETECTABLE!' Pausing on the face before her, as a spark of recognition hits 'She's the ruler of this castle and is letting me ransack it?' "What if I should fail to evade you till morning?" A stern response trying to hide how shaken its keeper is.

"Aha! I wasn't sure if I was seeing things as I was flying over here." A gleeful smile warms her face.

'So it was a trap, damn.'

"Then your punishment will be yours to decide," Salem began to slink off on her treasure-laden escapade, "albeit you may not choose a path that leads to freedom. You'll have 20 minutes start and I'll inform the guard not to interfere. See you in a bit." A cheerful lilt in the dragon lord's voice worrying the stone-cold thief.

Later on in the night, both dragons within the treasury. The larcenist filling greater bags of holding to the brim with gold and jewels. Her rival of the night standing by, propped on the nearby desk. Salem sauntering over with Ruby grabbing her wing. "You know if you continue to be so nonchalant I'm going to get away."

"Oh? But I already have you caught." Glee and blood-lust spilling forth with the sway in her voice.

"You think that holding my wing will stop me?" Lain bare the contempt she holds for the woman beside her, not sparing a glance back. 'She's frail there's n-'

"But this will." Ruby wrestles her down and dislocating her foe's wing while turning to her draconic forme meanwhile, Salem thrashes underneath the formidable dragon with a cry. Salem disorients her with a sharp headbutt and rolls over, scrambling to her feet. Bolting to the door with an abrupt stop to her scutter. The joints in her tail popping and throbbing icy pain spilling from her tail to her head, movements abruptly stilled. Cold harsh pain is all she feels, frozen in place to all but her head.

"So what will my punishment be?" A smug grin spreading on her captor's face as she waltzes into Salem's vision. A flicker of darkness in her eyes belies the absolute glee she's going to have.

"I told you already, the punishment is yours to choose. You may not choose freedom, nor may you choose death, as it frees you from the shackles of life." The bitter look in the eyes of her prey, fearful of what lies ahead. The fear exciting her pale counterpart of the outcome to this encounter.

Pondering her options. 'A jail sentence would lead to my eventual death. Though she could torture me and force my tongue on where my treasures are. Women are of no interest to her I know at least that much. Is suffering my only path or did she want me as a tortured plaything this whole time? Fuck. I hadn't even thought of that. That wolf of hers is an excellent healer if the rumours are true.' Despair spreading across the coal coloured dragons visage. 'Wait...'

"Will you take me as your familiar?!" Her head dropping down with a groan. The smaller dragon perking up at the offer as she melts back to the human shape she tends toward.

"Oh?" A twisted grin winding up the cheeks of the lord, narrowing her sights on the encased dragon. "I like that. You'll be bound to me til I die then. I'll have command of you when I need. Or perhaps Wolf would have you for himself and his experiments? It's decided then." An ornate knife manifests in her hands, as she grasps it by the blade with red dripping from the tip and her palm.

"Fuck." The ice covering her winged arm melts enough that she has free range with it and swipes at the other. Blood soon dripping from the fingers at the tip, A glare from the small human stalls her thrashes.

"Try that again and I'll rend the wings from your body and leave you to rot in the dungeons." The dragon stills herself. Brilliant light spilling from the floor rising to wash over them, chains manifesting from the beams of magic. The blood from their hands, covering the blade forming a taut thread between the beating hearts of both as the chains envelop it, binding the two in eternity. "It's done." The same lilt spills from the albino girl. "You're now free to go" the ice surrounding the other dissipating.

"But I belong to you now as your familiar? What do you mean I'm free?" Confusion in her voice retaining the joy felt by such words.

"You're free to continue as you like but, I will summon you as I need," The sanguinary tone in her voice melted away. "though you can't take this." Chuckling while taking the bag of goods, returning the items to their respective homes in the treasury. "I like seeing the world with different points of view. Your eyes will give me the exhilarating experience I could never have as Queen of these lands. I do hope you keep me as interested as you did tonight."

submitted by /u/PudgieHedgie [link] [comments] via Blogger https://ift.tt/2RhFvzO

[charmspoint]

Sanguine Friday 6

 Introducing the religious groups and beliefs of the world:

The worshipers of the Unwillting Rose - The main religion of the world and the one perpetuated by the vampires. They are followers of Lurza, believing in her visions of a beautiful, perfect and undying world and doing everything in their power to spread vampirism and fulfill her wish. Those who don’t willingly accept the undeath are seen as traitors to the goddess and freely treated as prey. Followers indulge in endless beauty and hedonism, often holding grand balls in their goddess’ name. They also perform blood sacrifices, mostly of angels of other gods, seeing them as the most fulfilling and beautiful meal they could offer to their goddess, just as they see consuming angel blood as a step towards becoming closer to her.

The children of the Earth Mother - They believe in the old Mother who had given birth to the world and the gods and had since fallen asleep. They believe that with time she will awaken and take her place as the rightful ruler of the world, defeating Lurza and restoring the world back to its old prosperity. It’s a relatively paganistic religion, concentrated on upkeep of the world and defense of that which still remains unchanged. They are gradually losing in popularity with each year the world falls to darkness and the Mother remains unresponsive to its plights. Most of the believers are human.

The hands of the New Brood - A group consisting mostly of former angels. They believe that what the world needs is a new batch of gods that will restore the balance of the world and overthrow Lurza. Despite this lofty goal, they are hard pressed to explain by which method they would create these new gods and are mostly viewed as young experimentalists with nothing to show for their grand ideas. Their numbers are small and a lot of them end up switching their allegiance with the Mortal Marrow instead. 

The keepers of the Mortal Marrow - unlike their siblings in New Brood, most of the members that make the Mortal Marrow are determined to work their way down, instead of up the evolutionary scale. Their goal is to make humans the dominant species in the world, elevating them to a godhood position without actually making them gods. Angels who had willingly fallen instead of losing their gods make a big portion of this group, as they see humans as gods that would be easier to manipulate and control in their own favor. Human members are generally left unaware of the darker plans of their companions. Mortal Marrow is an intensely scientific group, employing large numbers of alchemists and researchers as their belief is that the quickest way to godhood is for humans to partake in the creation of new form of life, just as gods had so many years ago. 

Vigil for the Fallen - Not exactly a firm religious sect on their own, this name is used for the former angels who still continue to uphold the rules of their dead masters and who wander the world trying to find a way to bring them back. They are mostly looked upon with pity as even the death of a god is a permanent, irreversible thing. And who is to say that if gods did return from the dead, that they would return unchanged.

[charmspoint]

Sanguine Friday 10

Just gals being cult pals

-

Her prey had escaped her again.

It has been years since the fall of her God, years since she set out to bring His unruly flock to heel, years since this particular sheep continued twisting out of her grasp. A situation that was fully expected. Prinnsal, after all, had been one of the honour guard, a soldier she had trained herself, far above any of the little grunts that had died so easily under the stroke of her whip. She would have almost been disappointed with him if he hadn’t managed to evade her for this long.

Almost.

His performance in the hunt was much outweighed by her need to return to the city in a prompt manner. Time moved slowly, but still it moved, and there was no telling what the angels left behind might have done with the city of her God, without her there to take the lead.

Yes, pleasing as the fugitive’s skills had been, she needed to find him soon. Find him, end him, return to her proper station. Only when he died, when the last of the fugitives finally felt the squeeze of her whip against his throat and coughed out the blood of his treachery, would her task be complete. She would be able to move on.

Her thoughts ended there.

Find him, kill him, return to the city. The future beyond that was black and faceless, Unorganized, uncoordinated. All she could count on was that when she came back, something within her would stir. Something within her would tell her what to do next.

At least she hoped it would.

Without guidance, there was no life for her, no future to be found.

She had to kill Prinnsal.

The room he must have inhabited only a day ago was now cold and empty. She had turned it upside down and failed to find a single clue to where he was heading, what future might that crooked, broken mind of his have devised for his own benefit.

That was perfectly alright though.

Coretha had more ways to locate her prey than physical traces he left behind.

The small statue of Lurza was carefully tucked in the side of her bag. As soon as Coretha’s fingers touched the smooth marble, a warmth blossomed through her, a dizzying feeling that was her God’s not her own. His devotion, His love, His obsession. When she held the statue, she could hardly think of anything else but the Goddess behind it, the one that had stolen her God’s heart, the one He did everything for. And the one for who Coretha, as His extension, would also do anything for.

But it was never Lurza that answered the called, the prayer, that Coretha directed towards the statue.

And maybe that was for the best, because the one who did answer brought a glow into the dreary room that Coretha had never even been aware of until Lurza’s emissary answered her prayers that very first night she had called.

Irinia’s wings spread out behind her as she appeared, almost as wide as the room itself. Her skin practically glowed a warm brown, the rushing strength of her Goddess giving her shadow a golden glow. A peaceful expression rested on her face and peace spread from her arms as she opened them, setting them wide as if she was about to embrace the world as a whole. As if she was about to embrace Coretha.

There were no words that Coretha has been programmed with that could explain the way Irinia’s presence made her feel. She could only imagine that this was how her kin had felt when they were born from Rezasel’s still whole mind so many eons ago. This warmth that seeped through clothes and skin, settling into Coretha’s bones. This tranquillity that set her heart in it’s place like nothing else on earth ever did. This total, complete acceptance that just for a moment made Coretha feel like she was a being whole, not a being shattered.

“You called upon my Lady’s guidance?” Irinia’s voice was a chirping of birds, the first warm breeze of spring. Her eyes fluttered open and Coretha caught herself almost tipping into her gaze, attracted to that gentleness like a migratory bird finding it’s way home.

Coretha tightened her grip around the hilt of her whip, reminding herself to breath, to centre herself to time and place and not a person her broken soul longed for. It was hardly appropriate, to set something like this, a strange, eluding feeling, above one’s life function. Both her’s and Irinia’s.

“I’m still tracking the same escapee,” she said, tension seeping out of her shoulders when Irinia showed no derision towards her inadequacies. “He keeps dodging me. I need a hint. If Lady Lurza would be so kind to provide.”

Sadness clouded Irinia’s features for just a moment, casting her face in a shadow of uncertainty. It was gone almost as soon as it appeared. She closed her eyes. Coretha knew her wishes would not be fulfilled.

“My Lady concerns herself not with dealings of your Lord anymore,” Irinia whispered, the slightest touch of pity dyeing her tone blue. “I cannot provide guidance for you, and I implore you not to bother my Lady with such trifling things again.”

Coretha bowed her head. There was nothing more to be said of the topic, despite how that little thorn of resentment stung at her. The frantic adoration for the Lurza still burned in her veins just as it had burned in the veins of her God. But something else still rested beside it in her heart. The bitter feeling she had to chew through every time the Goddess refused to acknowledge any part of Rezasel’s legacy still left upon the earth.

She kept her head bowed as Irinia’s light started to fade, slowly making her way back to the plane that Coretha had never once in her short, painful life laid eyes upon. Warmth seeped out of the room, out of Coretha’s body, with her retreat, leaving the inner workings of Coretha’s mind once again spinning and frantic.

“It is not my Lady’s word, but I have observed your escapee.” The soft whisper, a confession of a crime, floated almost undetectably to Coretha’s ears once Irinia was almost only light. Coretha’s heart lurched in her chest, but she kept her head down as if she didn’t hear a thing. As if there was nothing being said. “He’s quite a bold one. He has made his nest with the predators of our kind. Find them and you will find him. That is all I can tell you.”

Coretha closed her eyes, committing that information and that gentle, reassuring tone to her memory.

“Do stay safe. I’ll stay listening.” The light whispered one last time, before being extinguished entirely.

Coretha righted herself, squared her shoulders against the returning cold and the ice picks lodging themselves into her spine. She would not let this information go to waste. She would find Prinnsal and bring along his end.

[charmspoint]

Sanguine Friday 9

(technically a saturday cuz i forgor)

Name: Irinia

Gender: Female

Pronouns: She/her

Age: Since the early days of time

Height: 167cm

Orientation: ???

Affiliation: Lurza

Belief faction: Lurza

Personality: Personality? Even more so than Coretha, Irinia is a blank slate, a nonexistent thing. She exists in the way Lurza made her and does what Lurza tells her to do. She acts like a high priestesses because that was what was ordained and never so much as raises a voice in rejection of the rule that makes her lifeblood. But every now and then, in small, hidden moments that not even she is properly aware of, something stirs within her. Something like pain, something like rebellion. Something like recognition of all the wrong she is forced to do. Something like a desperate wish to set it right.

Appearance: Irinia is a beautiful woman with long, brown curly hair and warm brown skin, her eyes a deep black. Whenever she goes she brings a sense of ethereal elegance with her, peaceful and dignified despite her cruel master. She is one of the last true angels and therefor one of the last angles whose runes are still intact. They flow across her skin like honey, enchanting to look at. When she spreads her wings they are rather fluffy and soft, more fit for showing off than flying and usually appear as if composed of sunlight. She dresses very femininely and usually in warm pastel colors. 

Goals: Execute Lurza’s will

Nightmare of the body: Her body is not her own. She is not a person, she is a device, a tool. And with her god the last one standing, with no one left that is powerful enough to defeat her god, she might always remain so.

[charmspoint]

Sanguine Friday 8

Introducing one of the support cast, the angel after Prinn's life:

Name: Coretha

Gender: Agender

Pronouns: She/her

Age: 89yrs

Height: 182cm

Orientation: ???

Affiliation: Razasel

Belief faction: Vigil for the Fallen

Personality: Personality? It’s hard to say that Coretha does have one. For all intents and purposes, she’s an automatic rifle on legs with a homing system attached. She’s cold and emotionless, seemingly having no capacity in her heart for mercy and seemingly having no space in her brain for anything but the last orders of her master. She’s efficient. She’s ruthless. She is a weapon.

Appearance: Coretha is tall, dark and practical. Like many of Razasel’s angels, her hair is black, fashioned into a French bob, and her eyes a deep gray. Her skin is a little too pale, unfinished, her veins sticking out in blue lines across her arms. She dresses simply and practically, the only flair to her appearance being a half cape draped over her shoulders. Her main weapon is a thin, black whip. The runes on her skin are pale and extinguished due to Razasel dying, but even before that they looked wrong, crooked, sloppy and messily composed, not like the elegant script on the skin of her siblings. Her wings are a messy patchwork of white, black and gray, with no distinguishable patterns.

Goals: To keep the rest of Razasel’s angles in line and to destroy those that refuse to stay in said line.

Nightmare of the body: Coretha is the last angel Razasel had ever made. At the time of her making Razasel was frantic, thoughtless, driven mad by love and the cruelty of his own actions. He had no care for the plight of humans or the soft complaints of his own angels, wanting for nothing more than to keep things under control easily so he could focus on courting Lurza. Coretha was the product of this wish. A thoughtless, incomplete product. She’s the personalization of her god’s frantic end, not made to carry a story or a personality, not meant to carry a purpose or a question. Simply made to execute one order over and over again. Before she ever had the chance to, she was denied the possibility of ever being human.

[charmspoint]

Sanguine Friday 7

Potential intro scene of Prinn and Duchess meeting

-

It wasn’t a bad looking mansion.

Nestled in a sprawling garden, roses climbing its sides, ruby red apples hanging off the trees, fishes swimming in the decorative ponds, it would have looked like something out of a fairytale if the stonework of the building itself wasn’t so dark. Burgundy drapes sheltered the inside of the house from direct sunlight and the wood of the door was dark, clean cut, no visible irregularities.

Prinnsal refused to let the aesthetic trappings of the lair lull him into a sense of comfort. What hid inside was nothing short of a thirsting monster, one that would sooner drain him of his blood than invite him in for tea.

And still he approached.

Still, he took the knocker in his hand—Intricate, branching frame, the wear on the gold attempting to hide beneath an inadequate new coat of paint—and banged it over that immaculate wood.

Suicidal, the others might have called him, like he didn’t know so himself. Like he wasn’t perfectly aware that an angel knocking on a vampire’s front door is just a feast delivering itself to the doorstep. But he wasn’t stupid nor reckless nor quite done with his life yet. There were simply more pressing things that wanted to kill him than a bloodsucker with a pompous taste.

The door opened without so much as a creak. Through the narrow opening, a man stared out at him. An old, gray haired man with eyes almost bulging out of his skull, like an insect inserted into a human-like suit. His eyes darted over Prinnsal’s frame, before shutting the door again.

For a couple of minutes, Prinnsal wondered if that would be it. If he would he would simply be turned away without so much as an acknowledgment of his stupidity.

But no. His blood alone was too delectable of a lure. The man returned. He opened the door wide. He bowed deeply. He motioned Prinnsal in.

So Prinnsal stepped into the belly of the beast.

Walls of the hallway crowded around him oppressively, claustrophobically. Every few feet, a rose shaped candle gave its damndest to light up the dimness of the house, failing considerably in the battle against the rich black walls and the scarlet carpeting.

Prinnsal kept his back straight, his fists unclenched. Every rune on his body screamed at him to flee, to turn tail now, while he still could, while he still lacked a bite at his throat and death at his back. But he was made of firmer stuff than fear. He was made of the hardest steel tested under the cruelest lash. Hundred years of torture couldn’t bend his back and neither would this. Even if this turned out to be the thing that actually killed him.

The house opened up as he was led into the parlor. A spidery chandelier gave the room some much needed light, dripping red specks of light down onto the two couches positioned around a tea table. The frame of them was a dark cherry rosewood, the firm panels carved in the shapes of snarling wolves chasing a fleeing doe. Brought to life by a masterful hand, that was plain to see, each animal lovingly crafted with distinct fur patterns and lively posing. 

On the further seat, the one facing the door, sat the woman he had steeled himself to meet. And he could have prepared for a week more and still failed to suppress a shiver that ran up his spine that first time their eyes met. What greeted him from those eyes was visceral, raw hunger.

He tore his gaze away from her eyes, only to have it snag on her mouth instead. Tips of fangs poking out between her lips, two tiny pears in a sea of dark red. Panic pinched at his mind in a sharp burst, almost making him miss her actual greeting.

“You know, my dear, it’s usually customary that one should announce themselves before coming to visit. I must say I’m caught quite unprepared to receive such an esteemed company.” She looked at him like she wanted nothing more than to tear his throat open and gorge on the blood. She smiled like a hostess keen on entertaining exactly how good manners dictated before she did just that. “Nevertheless, we must preserve. Sit, will you not? Tea please.”

The last line was directed towards the wavering servant in the doorway and the man bowed before disappearing from sight. There was something strangely unnerving about being left alone with her. Prinnsal had never before been this close to a vampire. He never before felt so much like a mouse in front of a starving cat.

She must have seen it in his eyes, in the briefest hesitation before the next step, because her smile widened and her fangs flashed fully in the dull candlelight.

“Sit, little lamb.”

Prinnsal did what he did best.

He gritted his teeth behind a smile and approached like there was nothing to run from. She lounged on her seat, hair spilling over her shoulders in bronze waves, relaxed in that finicky way of cats that could lash out at any moment. He refused to break eye contact first. It set his nerves on fire but he wouldn’t allow himself to yield a second time.

“I’ve come to you with a proposition.” He said, every muscle in his body tense just to keep his voice steady.

“A proposition, how exciting.” She grinned, leaning towards slightly, her dress—all shadows spilling over a scarlet sea—leaving little of her voluptuous figure to imagination. The servant returned and set the platter down on the table, two cups of tea and a generous helping of sugar. The subtle scent of pomegranate wafted through the air as she waved the servant off before picking up her cup, gently blowing out the rising steam. “And what may be your proposition, little lamb?”

The teacup didn’t stain with lipstick as she drank from it, not even a hint of the dark red color that was too vivid not to have been painted on. His own throat felt dry so he reached for the tea too. Tried to enjoy the warm lull of it without thinking of all those stories that warned not to eat the food of the underworld.

“I know how much your kind values the blood of my kind.” His voice sounded steadier than he thought it would, and that fact alone gave him the confidence to continue. “There are rumors saying that our blood stops your decay and the dungeons are filling up because it must be true.”

Something glinted in her eyes, a sharp sort of light, like the reflection of sun on a polished dagger. She brought her tea away from her lips and set it back down on the platter. Rings glittered on her fingers as she folded her hands down in her lap.

“Interesting,” she said that word as if she meant to say foolish, “I thought you were far more ignorant of your position in the world to come knocking on my door. Did you fail to consider this visit might cost you your head.”

“Wouldn’t dream to.”

“And yet here you are?”

“I thought that perhaps you’d like to entertain the idea of me being more useful in the long term.”

She licked her lips. One long, slow swipe of her tongue that cleared away the pink stains left by the tea, but left the makeup unsmeared. “How quaint, I’ve never before had a meal come to my door and demand to be played with. You’re masochistic, for an angel.”

“I haven’t come here to offer myself as a meal,” he said, even though that was only partly true. “One meal means nothing. You eat me now and, in a week, you will hunger for angel blood again. But you keep me under your roof, in your care, and I will willingly let you feed off of my blood every day, for as long as you wish to have it.”

There was that glint in her eyes again and this time when she swiped her tongue, she trailed it over the sharp edges of her teeth. “And in exchange?”

“In exchange I ask for nothing but protection. I am to be yours exclusively. You shield me from others of your kind that may wish to harm me.” He hesitated a moment, the final confession briefly stuck in his throat, fighting to give her that much of a leverage on him so early on. “And you shield me from anything else that may come for me.”

Curiosity infested her smile, turning it into a butcher’s knife. “Poor little thing, is someone chasing you?”

“No one that could stand a chance against you.”

“Oh you flatterer,” she laughed, waving her hand at him dismissively, though her eyes shone with pleasure. “You come with a whole heap of trouble, I just know it, but…mine exclusively.” Her smile played over the edge of the words. “I like the sound of that. Do you have a name, little lamb?”

“Prinnsal.”

“Prinnsal,” she turned it over in her mouth like candy, hissed out the ‘s’ and curled her tongue around the ‘al as if she were savoring the taste’, “A cute name for a cute pet. Prinnsal then.” She reached down below the tea table and pulled out a knife. It wasn’t terribly big but it was sharp as sin, the ornate handle printed with shapes of thorns and wild flowers. She pushed the platter with the tea cups closer to him and laid the knife upon it. “Flavor my tea.”

Not once during his travel there did he actually consider how the deed would be done. There was no need to, he reasoned, vampires were cruel creatures, they knew how to let blood spill and at least that they could be trusted with, if nothing else. He hadn’t prepared for the possibility of her wanting him to do it himself.

But her eyes left no room for opposition, the words of refusal couldn’t even make it past his lips, and perhaps it was better that way too. He had come so far. He wouldn’t give up now, not at the final step.

The knife was light in his hand, barely more than a toy. His eyes reflected back at him from the blade, pupils blown wide in the silver sea, as if he himself couldn’t believe what he was doing.

He did it anyway, pulled her cup closer, settled it under his arm. It wasn’t like he never bled before, but he was never one to inflict such suffering upon himself. Positioning was mostly guess work. Trying to remember where the others had hurt him, how to cut shallowly enough not to actually harm the system underneath. Divine blood still flowed through his veins and he had to trust it to keep him together. Not to let him bleed out upon her desk.

It hurt, but he wasn’t a stranger to pain.

He didn’t dig deep, barely a line, barely a small trickle of thick blood down into the rich sweetness of her tea.

A sharp sting, an uncomfortable roll of dread through his body that he tried to ignore.

The knife was well taken care of, polished to a shine and sharpened regularly. The teacups on the table all matched charmingly with the pot and the sugar bowl, black in color with the constellations painted on with delicate and precise brushstrokes of stark white. Darkness blossomed in her tea like a winter flower.

He didn’t let himself make a sound, didn’t let himself so much as wince, wouldn’t stand for the humiliation of it. He was the one who had chosen this. He would see it through. 

The trickle of blood eased and he pulled his arm back, leaving the knife down on the platter and pressing his palm against his forearm. The pain was a memory and a dream and the tea table was black walnut carved with wild roses. 

“You have strong nerves, I like that,” she said as she retrieved the cup, stirred the bloodied tea with her spoon, let that dark color spread and grow until it was the deepest shade of garnet.

She then brought the tea to her lips, drank in elegant, contemplative sips for a long time, every so often pausing just to close her eyes and sit still for a while, the smile unwavering on her lips.

By the time she finished the cup, he had stopped bleeding completely and his palm was stained red.

“I think we have reached an agreement,” she announced, extending her hand forward, giving him little choice before she was taking his hand into her own, pressing his blood between their palms, “Remain at my service, give your blood to me when I ask for it. In exchange the protection of Duchess Elizabeth will be yours for as long as you earn it.”

[charmspoint]

Sanguine Friday 1

In which I do my very very best to every friday post at least a little something about the original story I'm toying with, Sanguinary Waltz.

This week I bring you the blurb and the brief summary for the idea.

Next week I'll introduce the male lead.

Questions are welcome!

-

Blurb:

The gods are dead. Their angels brave the world like abandoned children. Vampires rise in droves, threatening to become to dominant species on the planet.

As an angel, Prinnsal knows that serving one being you know is better than testing the teeth of thousands you don’t. Freshly reeling from the betrayal and death of his own god, he throws himself into a service of a vampire. Duchess Eliza is everything nightmares are made of, sadistic, hungry and all too intently interested in using her new pet to social climb through the bloodthirsty world of her kin. With angels struggling for survival on one side and vampires trying to establish themselves on the other, the two enter a deadly dance of love, blood, and most importantly, utter obsession.

Summary:

The story is set in an alternate realty, in a world created by a group of gods. The gods initially made two groups of beings. Angels, who were their servants and nothing more than mindless, soulless tools for their will, and humans who served as more advanced toys of gods, able to make their own decisions. Most of the gods were satisfied with this, aside from the goddess of beauty, Lurza, who couldn’t make peace with her creations wilting and dying. To combat this, she made a new species, vampires, who she sent to earth to turn other humans and establish an era of eternal life and beauty. The gods fell into combat over this, most of them opposing Lurza’s plan, aside from the god of industry who had been courting her for centuries and who ravaged his own cities to provide aid to her cause. The war of the gods ended with all of them dead, with Lurza killing her lover to establish absolute control, with angels of all other gods left behind by their masters and the vampires allowed to freely rule over the world, increasing their numbers every day.

The story centres Prinnsal, an angel of the god of industry, trying to establish his own selfhood while surviving in the ravaged world left behind by the war. Prinnsal is bitter with his god because the years before the god’s death were filled with abuse and monstrous experiments to respec the angels under his rule. He had left the city his god had stationed him in, but not without being followed by one of the last angels to be created, still functioning on dead orders to keep her kin in line. To seek shelter from his pursuer, as well as the vampires that would more than gladly have him for breakfast, he enters into a deal with a low-ranking vampire, Duchess Eliza. In exchange for her protection, he gives away his life to service and acting as her walking blood dispenser.

Duchess Eliza wasn’t the first vampire ever created, but she was amongst them, as her family had been slain by the beasts some eighty years ago, turning them all. She is a devout worshiper of Lurza, often hosting parties and scarifies in the goddess’ name in order to appease her. Vampire society is split into strict social ranks and Eliza’s own is relatively low, so she dedicates herself to social climbing and power trips, trying to secure a firm grasp on the newly emerging horrors of the world. She sees a bragging right in Prinn. While most vampires do enjoy angel blood as a delicacy, it is hard to get by and most of the angel blood bags are prisoners being slowly drained in the basements. An angel on a leash is completely unheard of and therefor the deal grants her immense social benefits, along side the more material ones of fresh blood. She fully intends to eat Prinn if he becomes boring or useless to her agendas.

This is a story about struggle with identity. Developing one as an ex-tool and retaining one as a corrupted monster. It’s a story about evil, about people willing to do the unspeakable as long as it brings them to the top. It’s a story about love. Or maybe less love and more so obsession, worship, hunger. It’s a story of two people very determined to bend the world to their will if that is the only way they can survive it. A romance story. A horror story. A corruption story.

[charmspoint]

Sanguine Friday 5

In which we cover the species in the world

Vampires - The almost perfect creations of the goddess Lurza, the vampires are seen (mostly by themselves) as the true inheritors of the world and the ones who have the right to its future. They are hungry, debauched beings who live for nothing but perfect pleasure and beauty in the name of their goddess. Vampires feed on the blood of the other species, having no blood of their own. Inside their own body the blood slowly starts to transform, rot and corrupt, so frequent feedings are necessary. Vampiric transformation itself is done by draining a human completely of their blood before force-feeding them mixed blood of other humans and of a vampire. Most vampires have very foggy memories of the process because they are essentially dead through most of it. Because of the curse put on them by Rezasel, the more human blood the vampire drinks, the more monsterlike they become. This is one of the many reasons why angel blood is considered a delicacy in the vampire world. While the vampires are trying to turn all humans to their goddess’ vision, the angels were never really considered a part of that vision, never considered people but only tools. Still, angels have drinkable blood and so it is planned that when all the humans have transformed into vampires, it will be angels they feed off indefinitely. Angel blood is pure. It does no harm to the vampires nor does it alter their appearance so it is highly valuable not only as a trophy, not only as divine food, but also as something that is rumored to make them beautiful again. As sought after as it is, angel blood is rare and only the richest vampires can afford the manpower to consistently hunt fresh angels. To others it’s a luxury or an art of keeping one angel alive for a long time, though blood taken like that tastes a lot worse than one of a healthy, fresh angel. Vampire bites also have a sedative effect. Each vampire has access to low level illusion magic specifically designed just to alter their appearance and hide their monstrosity. 

Humans - Original creations of the god’s and now a slowly extinguishing species. They try to adapt to the new world as much as they can, going into hiding or seeking help from the angels. Some of them try to fight back the vampires, the others are starting to work for them for protection, but all live under constant knowledge that every day might be their last and that the vampires are the dominant species in this new world who sees no future in them.

Angels – The oldest species, angels have existed ever since the Gods knew how to create. Angels come in a variety of appearances though every God has their personal preferences as to the aesthetics. They are largely humanoid, being predecessors of humans, aside from retractable wings on their backs which can be in varieties of colors and patterns. The skin of every angel is embedded with markings and letters in the language of the Gods, a language only the Gods and angels can understand. This writing serves as a bind of an angel to their God, at a same time an enforcement of loyalty and a dictation of the angel’s duties and alignments. The writing is said to encompass the very core of the angel’s being and everything they are supposed to be or do for the entirety of their existence. The writing is present all over the angel’s body, but is most centered around arms, neck and around the wings, though some angels may have different placements. Angels poses small amounts of magic that originates as a gift from their God, though its rarely powerful and usually specific to the God’s own interests.

At first passive puppets in the Gods stories and games, as the creation continued and the Gods attention shifted towards the humanity, angels more and more took on rolls of servants and tools to carry through the whims and wishes of the Gods. Their purpose varied greatly amongst individual angels and amongst individual Gods. Some angels were sent down to earth to act amongst the humans, while the others were kept in closer contact with Gods, fulfilling their duty there. While originally creatures with no will of their own and no decisive power to act away from their God’s will, angels had proven themselves to be very adaptable to their surroundings and very quick to absorb what they had been shown. While the angels that remained with their Gods mostly stuck to the original make of their being, those whose tasks carried them amidst humans eventually started copying human emotions, actions and even resemblances of free will. While angels were never supposed to be beings of free will and their God’s will always be superimposed over their own, even this fledgling and submerged will in some cases caused an angel to start questioning their role and existence and, in extremely rare cases, this questioning led to rebellion and abandonment of duty. These angels who had deserted their God in search for their own fate are called Otiselli. They are markedly different from others of their kin because the willful denial of their God causes their wings to wither into nothing and the writing on their skin tends to be broken up and undecipherable. This is a process that happens eventually over time so it can be rather easy to tell how long an angel has been away from their God's mercy with no intent to return.

The mass death of the Gods in the war had a rather devastating effect on the population of angels. Upon the deaths of their Gods, the angels who had survived the war were simply left, the power and direction of their Gods plummeting out of them and leaving them hollow and drained of everything. Unlike the angels who had left their Gods willingly, these angels are called Ostavelli. They have kept their wings though their writing has faded down into their skin, still readable but nowhere near the glow and power it held while they were still angels. Their magic has also faded, with no will of their God to power it. Unlike Otiselli who have chosen the life of a human, Ostavelli suffer from being suddenly and without warning thrown into the kind of existence they were not at all equipped to handle. Most of them have gone from tools with no sense of self or will of their own to beings empty of anything to direct and command them who must suddenly make all of the decisions on their own and who are met with very little understanding when such a task proves not to be easy. Ostavelli are in particular a kind wrought with a search for self and questions of identity and many of them never really manage to work those questions out, often falling prey to cults, kings and other things they can put their loyalty behind and which can take over their need for command.

The only real angels left are those that had served the Goddess of beauty. After the war, those angels who had still been amongst people had been quickly and cruelly hunted and killed as vengeance for the changed world and those that still remain alive are just the angels who had since the start been at Lurza’s court. It is whispered that a sighting of an angel of Lurza is a prediction for great disaster and pain to come.

[charmspoint]

Sanguine Friday 4

This friday I bring you some creation lore

The story of Creation

At the beginning there existed a world.

Nobody knows for certain how the world came to be, if it formed by itself from time and space dust, or if a meticulous hand painted the rivers and planted the trees and formed the wildlife in the air, the land and the sea. Some believe the world was formed by an ancient Mother, the very first to bear that title, who fell into a long slumber upon the culmination of her creation. If that is truth or fiction nobody can tell, because no one was there to witness the beginning of the world save the rock and the bark and the stream that tell no tales even if asked.

But at the beginning there existed a world.

And at a point, Gods came to be.

Just like the world, nobody knows for sure how that had happened. Some say they were the final creation of the Mother, some say they had crawled out of her eternal dreams, some say that the world longed for its mistress and mourned the loss so much it had forced into existence something entirely new and somewhat alike. Some say they simply were, just like the world simply was.

But at the beginning there existed a world and Gods inhabited it like curious children.

They were a powerful kind, full of creativity and potential, and they explored every inch of the world given to them, learned the song of every bird, made a game out of naming every plant. The Gods existed and the world existed around them, independent if malleable and bursting with possibility.

When they had tired of exploring the world, when there were no new things to see nor learn, the Gods sat with each other and started to tell stories. They weaved tales of creatures similar to them, formed puppets out of sticks and sand and bone and flesh. Gave them names, gave them purpose, gave them a story. Each night the Gods put their new toys away and each day they would pull them back out, inventing new adventures and tales for their creations. With time, the puppets began to move on their own, heads turning towards their masters’ voices, legs taking them to where they were directed with no additional influence. These were new creatures, different from the animals and the plants the Gods knew until then. These creatures were intelligent, just like the Gods were, they thought and could act on their own just the same. But they had no will of their own, their existence starting and ending with the purpose their God had spoken into them.

These were the first angels. The first real creations of the Gods.

Upon the discovery of this ability, the Gods rejoiced. Captivated by their own power, they soon endeavored to create beings unlike even the first set. Beings that had their own will, their own direction, their own ability to choose. A breed that was made by the same hands that made the angels, but that had its own ability to grow and influence the world. The Gods chose to make something akin to themselves in all ways except for power. And the Gods made humanity.

The humans settled fast into their new home, adaptable and wise beyond the years of their existence. The Gods loved the humans dearly and dedicated all their time and attention to their care and growth. They kept shaping angels, the beings without will, too, and they sent some of those angels amongst the humans to be teachers and shepherds and muses and helpers. Some were kept in the palace of the Gods, a place inaccessible even to human understanding, to serve and to record and to take care of every need Gods may have as they gave their all for their precious new children.

Just as humans, the Gods were all different and they each took a different interest in their new creations. One loved to create beauty and perfection in human form, the other was most interested in humanity’s own ability to create, the third loved nothing more than to study conflict and tension, the fourth took keen interest in the ability of the human mind and so on and so forth. With time, human’s would give the Gods names like the Gods have given them names. With time, they would start noticing patterns in their creators actions and assign them roles that made sense of their own world. With time, the humans would influence the Gods just as Gods have influenced the humans and the pantheon would be formed.

The story of the Unwilting Rose

The name given to the Goddess who presided over beauty of all things was Lurza and she was said to be the most breathtaking being that had ever existed, as delicate as a dewdrop on a rose petal, as captivating as a solar eclipse. Lurza was beloved by both the Gods and the humans but no one loved her more than Rezasel, the God of industry, who spent his every waking moment trying to court the beautiful Goddess and even gifted her one of his most beloved cities, Brilnant, turning it into the center of all the world’s most beautiful crafts.

Despite the love she received, Lurza was still horribly unhappy. While a Goddess like her existed untouched by time, the same was not true for her creations. Even the most beautiful and perfect of humans she made eventually succumbed to the tooth of time and in her misery the Goddess withdrew into solitude to think of what could be done.

What she came up with would mark the end of the known world, for she came back with a creation entirely new. The new creature was beautiful. Impossibly, chillingly so. Its features appeared carved from marble and ice, its eyes shining like the flame of the first hunters or the eyes of the beasts in the dark. The new creature lived forever, unchanging, unwilting, unrotting. And most importantly, with one simple bite, the new creature could bestow this gift of eternity on to anyone else.

This new creature was called the vampire.

To Lurza, this was the ultimate human form, beautiful and frozen and able to turn every human into its own kind, avoiding the need for a cull in favor of the new species. Some of the Gods agreed with her, adoring the idea of shaping and observing beings as eternal as they were. The others opposed the idea, finding the preciousness of humanity in its briefness or fearing that an eternal being was too close to their own making, that it might overthrow them.

Failing to come to an agreement about the future of their world, the Gods fell into a war that shook the earth and shattered the sky, turning day into night and the world into a desert. There was no thought spared to their own creations as they waged war. The angels served as soldiers and tools. The humans suffered greatly and died as a result of their creators’ carelessness. Every corner of the world was stripped of its original beauty and turned into something vicious, dangerous and unrecognizable. Rezasel overturned Brilnant completely, twisting it into a locked fortress from which only weapons came, monitored by the shoddily repurposed angels who went from being muses to being cold and cruel guards.

Not a single speck of dirt in the world was left unchanged by the end of the war. And the end of the war came with a hush from a lover’s embrace. Having survived the violence and the terror that had marked the end of all other Gods, Lurza and Rezasel stood at the end of the world, holding the very first vampires in their intertwined hands, ready to be set out into the world. But the war had changed Lurza like it had changed all else and she could no longer imagine a world she had to share with another, could not imagine anything but complete and total control of all creation, could not compromise her ability to make everything perfect and just the way she wished.

At the end of the world, Lurza killed her most faithful lover, the one who had willingly destroyed the world for her favor.

Devastated and betrayed with his last breath and last swell of power, Rezasel did the one thing he knew would wound the Lurza most, would keep his name forever on her lips even if as a curse. His blood poured and sizzled over the first vampires and he cursed them to wither and decay more and more with each evil they inflicted upon the world.

With that last decree, he died and Lurza, the Goddess of beauty, the vampire queen, the unwilting rose, became the only God of the new, dark world.

She never wept over the other Gods, nor the destruction they had razed over the once beautiful world. But she did weep over the desecration of her creation. No matter how much she tried, a God’s final making was irreversible and every vampire she had set on earth grew rotten and malformed the more they spread their disease and every vampire she tried to make since suffered the same curse. Heartbroken, she gave the vampires the gift of illusion magic, forcing it into their hands and ordering never to break the façade if they wanted to keep her wrath away. With that, she turned her back to the world and returned to isolation. It is said that to this day she persists in attempts of making another perfect, immortal, untainted being. A being that would finally reflect her vision of the world. 

[charmspoint]

Sanguine Friday 3

This friday is for the second protagonist and the love interets, Duchess Eliza.

Beautiful art once again done by @lilleeboi (keep an eye out because there will be an updated version :3)

Name: Elizabeth

Gender: Cisgender woman

Pronouns: She/her

Age: 118yrs

Height: 204cm

Orientation: Aromantic Bisexual

Affiliation: Goddess Lurza and the vampire faction

Belief faction: The worshipers of the Unwillting Rose

Personality: Eliza has a condescending, confident nature of a predator sure of their strength. Once a high-class lady, now a sharp toothed monster, Eliza wishes for nothing more than to be seen as she once was. Beautiful, elegant, worthy of admiration and awe. She carries herself with those assumptions and Lurza help those who may contradict them because Eliza is not of forgiving kind. The vampire world is one made of lies and illusions and Eliza is more than happy to play her part. She pays close attention to manners and etiquette even when doing the most monstrous deeds, as even the most gruesome acts must be prettied up and presented in the right way. This doesn’t make her any less of a vampire though. She nurtures a sadistic nature, a love to play with her prey much like a cat, toying with them until the moment she gets bored and devours what is left. When tables are turned and those of higher power start toying with her, fracturs in the mask appear. She has little patience for being talked down to, for her status being questioned or for being dismissed. Such irritations quickly lead to passive aggressiveness and, if uncurbed, vengeful violence. She is a pretty beast but she is still a beast when the chips are down. (Second) life long worshiper of Lurza, Eliza is pretty much a fanatic, hosting parties and sacrificial ceremonies in her goddess’ name. She spares little blood for these events, wanting to get the goddess attention and hoping to be blessed by her. The natural state of decay the vampires find themselves in distresses her greatly, and she hopes that with enough worship her goddess might look upon her kindly, return the beauty she once possessed and grant her eternal salvation from the curse. She cares little if any other vampire gets the same benefit. While seemingly heavily social in nature, Eliza is very much the kind of person who puts herself and her own well being first. In the end this world is a food chain and she is going to make sure she ends up on top of it.

Appearance: There is no such thing as too much. Eliza is a lady of fine society and that is visible in the way she dresses. Full ball gowns, plentiful jewellery and high heels to match are the order of the day. Her signature colors and red and black, with gold accents here and there to spruce up the ensemble. She is quite found of big, hanging earrings and detailed necklaces and collars as it’s incredibly base to show one’s neck in the presence of other vampires. The illusion magic she weaves over herself leaves her hair looking rich and thick and gives somewhat of a blush to her skin, but she is still incredibly pale as there must, after all, be a visible difference between a distinguished vampire and a lowly human. Her real form is something else entirely. Underneath the layers of magic, Eliza is a decrepit, sunken in monster, with sickly, pale pink skin collapsing in waves over her features. Her nails sharp as claws and teeth crooked and stained with blood. Her hair a lifeless mop upon her misshapen head. She considers it better for people to die than to walk away having seen her true form.

Interests: Dancing, music, fashion, gossip

Fears: Break ins, people seeing her true self

Habits and quirks: Sadistic and playful in her manner of speaking, she often talks down to people and ghosts over their opinions entirely if they don’t match hers. She loves great many things and marks each with a special pet name.

Goals: Advance her position in the vampire society and become recognized by her goddess

Lines in the sand: Eliza is the type to go with the flow of almost anything as long as it’s going in her favor. Trouble arises when her authority and class is questioned and when the fact that she’s a relatively low ranked vampire is brought up. Polite society can take a lot, but not mockery. Attempting to reveal, or even just seeing her true for on accident provokes untameable wrath.

Nightmare of the body: Like with all the vampires, Eliza’s observable body is an illusion. A magic trick designed specifically to counter the curse resting on their kind which leaves their bodies decaying. Eliza cannot make her peace with it. She despises her real body and puts extra efforts in always maintaining her illusion, often fiddling with the little details of it. She will wear it socially, but also privately, only breaking effort to keep up the magic when she is absolutely sure nobody will see her for a good amount of time. And even then, she avoids mirrors like a plague and tries not to perceive the way her body looks. Accepting her body the way it is seems like a completely impossible task and one she would rather die than undertake.