#she knows there's more to it than that and so she consigns herself to solitude bc it would be better than feeling like she didn't belong

[roobylavender]

in my little damian canon divergence thingy i have this idea that when talia manages to finesse damian out of the league and bring him back to the manor bruce suggests the two of them go into hiding and that she refuses to do so not only bc she already feels guilty enough of having robbed him of a life with damian but also bc she knows from experience if she refuses to leave the manor ra’s won’t stage an attack bc he refuses to harm her specifically.. and so she kinda damns herself to that patron saint of batman role bc the only person in the manor she actually knows deeply is bruce with whom she is on unsteady terms given everything and then to everyone else she’s essentially an outsider. but as people in bruce’s circle come together to help with damian and figure out how to stop ra’s and the lazarus pits for good she gets to know them one by one and slowly the manor changes from her self-made prison into a semblance of something she could actually call a home.. and she finds herself fighting for all of these people to know just how much bruce cares about them bc for all of her problems with him the one thing she can never deny him is his love. but in the path of all of it she comes to be loved and cared for as well yknow so that when things are over and she leaves to live her own life it’s not like she’s leaving to be completely isolated anymore. she can talk to people and have friends and embrace affection again where it almost felt lost 

[llamagoddessofficial]

Once mc recovers from her time as a monster how would sans punish them?

"you know, i asked around before i found you. you’d be surprised how much people talk when they’re scared."

The Goddess didn’t reply, her forehead almost against the floor in the deepest grovelling bow she could manage, her whole body shaking in utter terror as she tried to keep herself from glancing at the bottom of his midnight robes. His merciless gaze was the only thing keeping her pinned- it was the only thing he needed.

“i was curious, after all- i wanted to know the reason you cursed her. perhaps, if she caused genuine offence, i could forgive. i know your kind are rather prone to throwing around curses when you’re enraged; even the highest gods do it.”

“I-I didn’t know she-”

“do you know what i discovered?”

She shut up. She didn’t need to be told to, but she did anyway, which was good because he was barely controlling his temper enough as it was. He could see her magic jumping around her, screaming at her to flee, to become a damselfly or hummingbird, to get away as fast as possible... the sweat dripping off her face onto the ground. But she stayed put.

There were enough proverbs already about running from death.

“i found out... that you cursed her because she ‘disrespected’ you.” His eyelights extinguished, even as his grin grew so wide it was beginning to get uncomfortable. “by not bowing as low as you’d like when you walked by.”

... 

He hadn’t been this angry in... eons. Genuine eons.

... She let out a choked sound, complete panic- perhaps his rage was showing through his voice, or aura. He didn’t know. He was usually so in control, so calm and unshakeable, aware of every molecule of himself... but right now, he barely knew where he was. Her face and elbows touched the earth as she tried in desperation to show her regret nonverbally, shoulders shaking so much her breathing was rattled, but it wasn’t soothing his temper.

Not in the slightest.

Entities like this... they disgusted him. They always had, from the very beginning. Grovelling in terror under those more powerful than them and begging for mercy or kindness- and then lording with cruelty over anyone less fortunate. 

“you turned her into a monster.” He could hear his voice changing, deepening, aura shifting to something thick and suffocating- a hateful boiling tar. “you outcasted her. branded her. consigned her to a fate of solitude and agony. you tortured my bride,” 

The rage was seeping through his bones. Twisting them. Releasing the energy, and the form, restrained inside.

“for not. bowing. low enough.”

... 

... The Goddess made the mistake of looking up. Her terrified scream would’ve echoed across the land...

... But Sans made sure it never left her throat.

[journalofimprobablethings]

I wish I could remember the post or fic where I first saw this idea, but someone pointed out that if Lucretia saw Lup's name burned into the wall after Angus's magic lesson, she probably very quickly worked out where Lup was and I just--can you imagine?

Lucretia walks into the dining hall and sees LUP written in giant letters on the wall and her heart just stops.

No one here knows Lup's name. No one here should know Lup's name. So what does it mean that this is here?

And maybe Angus is still there, investigating, and he notices that the Director is standing there staring at the name on wall, and he's like, ma'am are you...okay?

And she has to quickly cover her shock and pull on her Madam Director persona and ask Angus, as calmly as she can, who wrote that word on the wall.

And Angus gets excited and starts to explain what happened and how he thinks there's something wrong with Taako's umbra staff because it went rogue during their magic lesson and incinerated his macarons, and he doesn't think that Taako would have done that on purpose even though they were pretty bad, because Taako pretends that he's mean but he's actually not.

And then he explains how the staff wrote L-U-P into the wall all by itself, and Lucretia is getting more and more confused and more and more worried and she asks Angus what Taako did when this happened, and Angus says that he was just confused. He didn't know what L-U-P was either.

Lucretia's heart aches at that, but she can't dwell on it long because it's all coming together in her head, and she's realizing with horror and excitement and dread that she knows exactly where Lup is.

And she excuses herself and leaves the hall and at first she's thinking about how to get the staff and how she'll have to go down to the surface to get Lup out because the lich wards would do something awful to her if she does it on the moon, and would breaking it work or would that risk hurting Lup more--? and then her steps slow as she realizes that she's not sure what Lup will do, once she's out.

She'll want to find Barry. She'll want to find Taako. Lucretia doesn't know how much she's been able to see or hear, inside the umbrella, but she thinks Lup probably knows what Lucretia has done. She'll know that none of them remember her, and she won't want to let it stand. Who would?

Imagine the moment that Lucretia realizes that just as she's had to keep Barry away, to consign him to solitude and loneliness, to make him the villain of the story she's spun--imagine her realizing that if she wants her plan to work she can't let Lup out. Not yet.

Imagine how she had to rationalize that decision to herself.

There are only a few relics left. Once the Light is reformed, the barrier is cast, then she will bring all of them back, including Lup. They'll hate her for what she's done, she knows. But it's the only way to save everything, to make sure their hundred years of fighting and running weren't in vain.

They can't hate her more than she hates herself, for this.

Imagine Lucretia, having finally found Lup after years of searching, years of being resigned to the possibility that she was truly, irrevocably gone--imagine her choosing, impossibly, to turn away.

I bet when everything is over, even after the others have forgiven her and let her back into their lives, this would be something she'd never, ever forgive herself for. That she knew where Lup was, trapped in the umbrella, and she left her there.

[kettlequills]

affinity

unsure at this point whether elenwen would benefit more from a long course of therapy or a good dicking. luckily, neither of these are in store for her, so enjoy an elenwen who is not hinged at all plus sybille, who is having a very bad day. TW: blood drinking, cutting, violence, manipulation and threat, sexual themes, and character death. implied sybille/istlod, a lil elenwen/elisif, uhh idk if youd say this is elenwen/sybille but hm. enjoy, and gimme a shout if you think it needs an extra tag. a03

Elenwen discovers Sybille's secret, and has ... words.

The Thalmor Ambassador had come to Solitude and found an empty palace. No one else was there but Sybille, left to frustratedly amuse the Ambassador while someone hurried to fetch the steward, the Jarl, somebody. Anybody, but Sybille Stentor. Some dispute had drawn them away – some fluster in the training yard – Sybille neither knew nor cared, except that Falk was not here to ask the Ambassador why she had come to darken their door, nor even Elisif, to gracefully offer wine and bread to the sour-faced elf.

Even if it had not been months since she had last slaked her thirst in the prisons beneath Solitude, Sybille still would have had little patience for this. The Thalmor irritated her, with their poorly-hidden disdain, their smugness, their superiority. As it was, her head pounded, her throat ached, and moving around in the dim evening sunlight was painful enough that it made her vision blur red. She had begun to hear heartbeats in the chests of her friends, the Jarl she was trying to become loyal to, and each night was an exercise in self control growing monumental in difficulty.

And there was Elenwen standing with her hands behind her ramrod back, looking as if she had sniffed something foul. Her expression was so forbidding, so bleak, so threatening that Sybille immediately perceived why the weak-willed guards had found someplace else to be. For once, she was completely alone, unflanked by unsmiling justiciars.

Foolish, or another spiteful little snub. No, Elenwen had nothing to fear in the heart of the Blue Palace – as much as they might whisper into their pillows how much they hated Thalmor oversight, Thalmor gold still sweated in their palms as they tipped their toothless necks back for the glutting. Why bother with guards, when you had the helmless court of Solitude on a leash?

Oh, Istlod. How he would be ashamed, to see his court reduced to this.

“Ambassador,” Sybille ground out, hating this. She wasn’t supposed to be the one greeting dignitaries come to pander and parley. That was Falk’s job, or the Jarl’s – but Istlod was long gone, and Torygg was dead, now.

Torygg, Torygg. He’d been just a boy; Sybille remembered as if it had been yesterday his chubby hands grabbing on the front of her robes, his lisping pronunciation of “ibble!” before he’d learnt to say her name. A gangly teen, pimple-faced but trying desperately to be noble, the pride of Istlod’s eye, blushing-bold. Bare years after, before even the flower of his prime – dead, dead and cold on the cobbles. Sybille had promised Istlod to keep him safe. But she’d failed. She failed, and Torygg was dead, his murderer walking free and all that was left was … Elisif.

Elisif. A dear girl but… not Torygg. Young, foolish, easily swayed. Inexperienced. Weak, when they needed strength. When Sybille needed Torygg. She was fond enough of her but Elisif looked at her like she was drowning, always begging for advice, and when Sybille met her eyes all she saw was the moment when Torygg had heard Ulfric’s challenge ashen-faced, then turned to his bright young wife and visibly steeled himself.

Ready to die, rather than dishonour her, disappoint her.

It wasn’t Elisif’s fault that she had survived Ulfric when Torygg had not, but Sybille could not stop blaming her. Still, Sybille wished she was here now. The young Jarl was better at this, the inane courtesies, the lies, than Sybille was. Even if Sybille thought she was far friendlier to the Thalmor Ambassador than was wise.

“Court Mage,” Elenwen greeted, polite as picture. In her clipped Dominion accent, the two words sounded loathsome as a curse. Her lip curled upwards in an estimation of what she probably thought a smile was supposed to look like. It was all sneer, and like most of the Emissary's facial expressions, was tinged with pointed disgust.

She was standing rigidly in the main hall of the deserted emptiness of the Blue Palace like a stubborn brick over a fire. Choking all the air out of the room, stifling, her presence as oppressive as a lead weight. The maids had all found themselves somewhere else to be, fearing, no doubt, the Ambassador’s legendarily cutting tongue and Sybille’s own displeasure at being left to entertain. As if she did not have a thousand more pressing matters to attend to, and barely the patience besides.

Not even when she was well-fed, which she was not.

They stood in silence for a moment, Sybille warring with herself, before she grudgingly asked, “Are you in need of refreshments, Ambassador?”

Hospitality, to a pit viper. If Sybille had not been what she was, the thought would be funny. As it was, it only insulted – Solitude did not need any more secret teeth tracking the prey that would not be missed. Sybille had heard the rumours, like everyone else, of secret Thalmor dungeons, and screams from beneath the solar so loud that they could be heard over the music during the parties. The prisoners of Solitude – such as they were – were Sybille’s domain.

“No,” said Elenwen, a pinch too swiftly, as if the very idea was nauseating, “And yourself, Court Mage?”

Sybille's control of her face was not so slight that she blinked, but she was aware of a tightening around the skin of her knuckles. The words, the consideration, were so odd in Elenwen’s cold, autocratic tones that at first she was certain she had misheard.

“I fail to see how that is any concern of yours,” Sybille said rudely, and suddenly, Elenwen changed.

She turned fluidly towards Sybille and prowled closer, the stiffness as if she was daring not to breathe for fear of inhaling foul scent gone. Her sneer vanished, smoothed into a smile, wide and full, completely genuine, utterly threatening. Her eyes glittered flatly, like mirrors. Her movements were slow and slinking. Gone were the sharp clicks of her boots, muffled by some trick of her step that left her silent as a panther.

Sybille was left feeling like the world had suddenly shifted to the left and left her behind, as dizzy as if a rug had been pulled out from underneath her. A moment ago, the Thalmor Ambassador had stood in front of her, haughty as ever, unbending with her stiff Altmeri pride – but this hungry, prowling creature was not her.

Her teeth sharpened in her mouth at the implicit threat that rolled off Elenwen, at her approaching closeness, the blood Sybille could sense flushing the capillaries under her skin, pounding through the chambers of her cold Altmeri heart. At once, Sybille was immensely aware that there was no one to observe them; no one at all.

And it had been weeks, weeks since Sybille had drunk her fill.

“How quickly these mortal children wane compared to the lifetime of an elf,” Elenwen murmured. Her voice was throaty and rich, the sharpness of the consonants blurred by a coastal accent that Sybille swore she had not had before. “How we see them pass us and consign the summers of our childhoods to the distant realm of myth and mystery as they bloom and fade in the blink of an eye. Truly, I am impressed at how faithfully you served the late Jarl Torygg, like you served his father Istlod before him. Tell me, how many of them have ... failed to see?"

Elenwen's horrible smile stretched wider.

"But I see, Court Mage.”

“I am perfectly well-appreciated within my position, Ambassador,” Sybille said coldly.

She was beginning to feel somewhat uncomfortable. There was no possible way that Elenwen knew her secret, but the damn elf seemed far too smug for Sybille’s liking. She hated these types, the twisted double-talk that meant something else entirely. Was she attempting to recruit Sybille to the Thalmor? She had to know that Sybille would never have agreed to that, for Istlod’s sake, who had been miserable at the news of the Concordat, if nothing else. Now, if only they were somewhere a little more secluded, then Sybille could teach her some proper manners –

Except no, she couldn’t, that was the Thalmor Ambassador. People would notice if she visited the Solitude dungeons and came back with marks on her neck and a hunger to be bitten, drained deep, pliant in the arms of a predator, better attitude notwithstanding. And Sybille couldn’t kill her. Not without reprisal.

Istlod would have wanted Sybille to kill Elenwen. Except – no, he had agreed to the peace too. Her fangs pressed insistently, dully, on her tongue.

Elenwen’s smile widened. Sybille saw every one of her straight teeth. Too white, too even, lined up like regiment soldiers or grave-markers for war-dead. Some of them were fake, she was willing to bet. This wide, the makeup caking her cheeks folded around her smile unflatteringly, the thick foundation hazed with cracks. Fake, fake, but the blood that ran under her skin was real.

Sybille could force her to bleed, force her to feel spark-bright pain, force her to reveal the truth under her teeth, her claws, her little boot knife. Even an ice-spike would do, chill that golden flesh high and taut until it pebbled with goosebumps and she was shivery and damp, and the heat of her blood spilling over her chest made her gasp at the shock of warmth.

That would make her speak straight and true, if nothing else would.

“It has been a dry spell in the prisons, hasn’t it?” Elenwen purred, soft, sympathetic, as if she was commiserating over something truly terrible, “My condolences, truly, you have been much more patient than I would. But tell me, have any of your beloved young humans noticed you have not aged a day?”

“Many humans are not aware of the life spans of an elf,” she said, to hide the fluttering of something that was beginning to feel like panic or fury. “I am Dunmer, a few decades are no great time to me.”

“Could you go decades, I wonder?” Elenwen’s smile dropped, but the look that replaced it was worse, coquettish, sly. She contrived some way of looking up at Sybille through her eyelashes painted and curled with oil despite her taller height and took a falsely-nervous step closer, all awkward shoulders and sliding foot, just as if she was a wheedling young lover begging her first kiss. But her eyes danced brightly, privately, as if this entire interaction was nothing but a game they were playing, just the two of them. “I rather think you’re hungry now.”

“I ate this morning,” Sybille lied flatly, “with the rest of the hall.”

“Tch,” said Elenwen, as if Sybille had missed a step, and belatedly, Sybille realised it would not be any hardship for a spy group as developed as the Thalmor to verify that lie, “Are you sure, Court Mage? We could test it, if you like. How much of you would be left, after decades? It’s been such a short time, and yet, I can see it in how you look at me.” She came closer, thrilled and faux-breathless. "You are hungry."

“I am quite sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sybille bluffed, but she knew she had lost. Whatever game the Ambassador was playing, Sybille did not know the dance. She glanced haphazardly around the room, but they were truly alone. She could not hear so much as a scuffing slipper or clank of mail.

“Two months, three, since you last drank blood,” Elenwen clarified, so there was no possibility at all of pretending that she did not know, and smiled, smiled, smiled wide at the look of horror on Sybille’s face. Ice poured down Sybille’s spine. The floor dropped out from underneath her. No, no no, the Thalmor could not know.

“Were you fucking his father?” Elenwen asked conversationally, in the silence that fell, “Torygg’s, I mean.”

“I don’t… That is a serious accusation, Ambassador!” Sybille hissed, ignoring her, unable to name the feeling that started icy in her fingertips and spread dully and low up into her breastbone until she ached the whole way through. Her stomach knotted and writhed.

“Aren’t you thirsty, Sybille Stentor?”

Elenwen was so close now. So close that Sybille had to step back, her tall shadow casting her in gloom. Her eyes were half-moons behind the sun, and the light gilded her blonde hair like it was strands of gold. A strand drifted out of its aggressive pinning as Elenwen bent forward, swaying into Sybille like she was magnetised, and tickled there along her artificially-blushed cheek. Sybille could smell the powders, the hotness of her skin trapped beneath it. She had bleached with lemon oil recently, a faint scent clung to her, almost drowned by the floral drench of cosmetics.

“I don’t have time for this nonsense,” Sybille snapped, mouth dry as bone, and Elenwen laughed. It was full and unrestrained, a laugh from the stomach, and nothing at all like the stiff, courteous little smirks she gave as ambassador. It rang, rich and loud, through the entire hall, down the stairs and over the thrones, and Sybille heard it with a sinking feeling of a lock snapping shut.

Elenwen would never have laughed so loudly, so out of her stiff Ambassador performance, if she thought it was possible she could be overheard. Would she? Was this a bluff?

Sybille’s gaze darted again to the dark eyes of the doorways, but the palace seemed empty. Were there Thalmor in the wings? Elisif. Was the Jarl safe? She should be – though had not Sybille sent a servant to fetch the Jarl, the steward? Was Elenwen planning to unmask her before the court?

“Come on now,” said Elenwen, warmly, her smile conspiratorial like they shared a secret, just her and Sybille, “We’re all alone now, and I’m right here. Why don’t you bite me? Look,” She undid the first two buttons of her uniform, exposing a long line of pale gold throat. “I’ll make it easy. Do you like it easy?”

“Are you insane?!” Sybille snapped. There was no other possible response to that.

Nonetheless, her eyes were drawn to the expanse of bared skin, the delicate lines of the veins and tendons in Elenwen’s neck. She could see the forklike line of her jugular, the thinner softnesses of her veins. Vulnerable. The skin here had not been painted and powdered, hidden as it normally was under her collar. It was paler, yellower, like Elenwen did not get enough sun. Sybille wondered how she bruised. Whether she would paint over the bruises Sybille would leave her, when she woke in the morning, and wondered how she had struck her neck in the night.

Sybille swallowed around a mouth pooling with spit. It had been too long.

She could see the hollow where Elenwen’s pulse fluttered, waiting for Sybille to sink her teeth home. What would she taste like? Could anyone truly blame her, if she took just a little taste, just the tiniest mouthful, to sate her burning throat?

Surely, if she was doomed already, it would not hurt.

“Bite me,” ordered Elenwen, steely. Softer, she said, “Bite me, Sybille Stentor. You must be so thirsty. Doesn’t it feel like flames in your throat?”

It did, it felt like each inhale peeled dry chunks of her throat off with all the gentleness of searing sandpaper. Elenwen was so close now that Sybille could lift her chin and kiss her, close enough that her breath, warm, alive, smelling vaguely of summer-wine, brushed Sybille’s cold cheeks. Elenwen’s warmth was like another creature between them, the impossibility of Sybille being the dead one, with Elenwen’s eyes like a mirror to every fear Sybille had ever banished.

“You must have confused me with someone else,” Sybille said faintly as Elenwen stepped even closer. Their bodies brushed, her breath fanned hotly over Sybille’s forehead.

Elenwen hummed a little, disappointed. “Perhaps,” she said, and suddenly there was a dagger in her hand, so quick even Sybille’s vampiric eyes could not spot it. Just as fast, the dagger flashed, once, twice – and then the heavenly aroma of fresh blood reached Sybille’s nose. On Elenwen’s neck, either side of her tendons, two deep slices welled fresh red, deep, deep enough that after the first droplet rolled enticingly towards her collarbones another followed.

Sybille swallowed. She could smell it, thick as perfume, tantalising as an oasis in the desert. Elenwen’s blood was fresh, healthy, and right there. It was bright red, scandalously scarlet, against the warm gold of her throat, like a slash of silk. The candlelight from Sybille’s little alcove shone and shimmered in the droplet like the magicka in it sparked and sung, for Sybille alone. Begging her, almost, to lean forward – barely any movement at all, to chase the droplet with her tongue, lap up along that proud, stiff neck to the wet gash that fluttered like breathless lips waiting to be kissed.

How fast was Elenwen’s heart beating, to push such quick, steady little pulses down her neck? The collar of her robes was darkening to a liquid blackness, but Elenwen did not seem faint at all. Would she be strong til the end, Sybille wondered, would her heart hammer and struggle against her lips, her hands, her body and Sybille’s mouth? Would she pant and gasp and writhe, or would she fall still and silent, terror-glazed eyes and frozen muscles, or best of all, would she struggle and strain, drum weakening hands against the firm cage of Sybille’s arms?

“It’s a bad time to be a vampire in Solitude, isn’t it?” Elenwen asked, friendly, almost sweet, “With all that terrible news about undead stirring in the catacombs. A death sentence for you if anyone should find out, I expect.”

Sybille opened her mouth but her fangs were beginning to protrude, and venom ran eagerly down her chin. Elenwen’s gaze tracked the wetness in her mouth, and her voice dropped an octave when she spoke again.

“But I’m right here, and I’m offering,” said Elenwen, soft as a spider, warm as the blood Sybille could not tear her eyes from. “I could do so much for you if you enthralled me. All the power of the Thalmor at your fingertips…”

She chuckled, darkly. This close, Sybille felt it vibrate through her chest into Sybille’s own. The movement of her shoulders had a droplet of blood, teetering on the steep ridge of her tendon, tumble headlong into the sleek curve of the dip where her collarbones joined her neck. The swipe of red glistened wetly.

“… and I have so many more little puppets dancing for me than you could ever guess, Sybille Stentor. You would never have to fear being found again. All it would take is… a taste. Bite me.”

Pressing her shoulders back against the wall, Sybille turned her head away stubbornly. The stone was cold through her robes. Elenwen’s warmth was dizzying by contrast. Sybille was hot with bloodlust, had never wanted so badly. She was aware, as if it was happening to someone else, that she was trembling.

Involuntarily, she considered Elenwen’s offer. Imagined stepping forward, grasping the elf’s thin waist, following the trail of blood with her tongue. Licking up that taunting trail over the rigid line of her tendon, sucking hard and strong on the slash she’d cut into her own neck, the bones of Elenwen’s hips fine as glass under her grip. Imagined how Elenwen would go moaning-soft and boneless as butter in her arms, her long ears brushing over Sybille’s hood as her head drooped. How Sybille would have to catch her when her knees buckled, the reflexive way she would go to push Sybille away turned to a trembling grasp, rigid at first by the pain, then softened by the venom, how her brilliant, hard blazing eyes would go soft, dark, round with venom and bloodloss euphoria, when Sybille imposed her will over her, how Sybille would drink, and drink, and drink-

But no – it was broad daylight in the middle of the fucking Blue Palace, there was no way that Sybille could drain Elenwen or thrall her quick enough to avoid discovery, and that was only if Elenwen didn’t have some other plan. There was no way that Sybille would go along with some Thalmor plot out of – hunger, hunger alone.

What would Istlod say?

Elenwen pressed close until she was crowding Sybille against the wall. Her body was thin and bony, the buckles of her uniform dug into Sybille’s breastbone. Her lips brushed the tip of Sybille’s ear through her hood when she spoke. This close, the smell of blood was intoxicating.

But Sybille was not strong enough to push her away.

“Drink,” Elenwen cajoled. “It’s been so long since you last had a prisoner, hasn’t it? …Such unfortunate accidents.”

Sybille heard the shift of cloth, that and outrage had her turning her head back to glare at Elenwen, but she was too close, and instead Sybille’s nose butted against her smooth cheek. Her skin was searing hot, a fine dust from her makeup tickled Sybille’s nose. Sybille felt Elenwen’s repressed shiver at the chilly brush of Sybille’s dead skin against hers in the pit of her stomach. “You-?”

“Me,” Elenwen confirmed, smile widening in Sybille’s peripheral vision.

Sybille was transfixed as Elenwen lifted her finger to the bleeding wound on her neck and shoved her finger in, stark, bold, crass. Her smile never wavered at all at the pain. Her bright, bright eyes were focused on Sybille. The part of Sybille that had been mortal once was horrified at her disregard, the part of her that thirsted so badly for blood it barely cared anymore found it unbearably erotic.

She behaved like a venom-drunk thrall, but she smelled rich and fresh, unbitten, untainted. Did she feel no pain, or did she not care? … Did she like it?

The deepened wound gushed redly down her neck, and Elenwen leaned even closer, until the warmth of her body pressed Sybille’s cold one through their robes, like she wanted to become one with her bones, buckles and all. She was thin, thinner than Sybille had expected her to be; she could feel the ridges of Elenwen’s ribs, her small breasts, the cavernous flutter of her stomach.

Elenwen’s finger, glistening with her own blood, raised towards Sybille’s watering mouth.

There was nowhere to go. She turned her head, straining, but Elenwen chased her, cornered her, and Sybille’s mouth parted involuntarily to stop it from painting her lips red. If she tasted the blood – even a droplet – Sybille knew she couldn’t hold back. She choked out a little moan when Elenwen let her finger rest there inside Sybille’s mouth without touching her at all, breathing in the scent of her, so strong, so present. Slender and long, she could have tickled the back of Sybille’s throat if she chose, made her cough and gag and choke, but she did not, instead she teased, not touching, not tasting, forcing Sybille to breathe around the inescapable allure of her.

“I must confess a little professional curiosity,” Elenwen told her, intimate as a lover’s whisper, “I’ve never met a vampire before, and I’ve always wondered how it compares. The blood of Alinor’s finest surely ought to taste better than the swill in the dungeons, though personally, I can’t say I’ve ever tasted much of a difference – Nord, Altmer, Dunmer, we’re all good in wine.” She smirked a little at that. “Won’t you taste, for me?”

The saliva pooled down around Sybille’s fangs and over her chin. She closed her eyes in humiliation.

Elenwen tutted. “I suppose not. Perhaps this will help.” She drew closer, closer, nudging under Sybille’s hood, until her breath puffed over Sybille’s ear, waking long dead nerves with a shiver. Her free hand bracketed the wall above Sybille’s head, then stroked down over the back of her neck and seized the base of her skull. Her fingers knotted into the hair there, each one hot as a brand.

Sybille forced her tongue against her teeth, trying to ground herself through the strain in her jaw. Elenwen’s blooded finger in her mouth was a burning beacon, commanding attention. Spit and venom drooled continuously down her chin. Elenwen’s thready heartbeat – affected, now, by the bloodloss – pounded underneath Sybille’s ribs like a call to war.

“I killed Torygg,” Elenwen breathed into Sybille’s ear. “I told Ulfric to kill him. I broke his mind and I told him to murder poor King Torygg. I was told he squealed like a stuck pig when Ulfric knocked him down, broke his darling bones with one of those beastly shouts of his. Did you hear them break? There’s a certain sound a bone makes when it shatters beyond repair, and the look in a plaything’s eyes, when they realise they are only breakable meat – well, you don’t need me telling you how sweet that is. … I envy you. I wish I could have seen it.”

Elenwen’s gory detail was not needed. That day was burned into Sybille’s memory, the dull wet pops, the snaps and cracks of Torygg’s bones, the horrible thud and the wail he’d made in the thunderous after-shocks of that terrible Shout, the bitter venom in Sybille’s mouth when Ulfric contemptuously cut his head from what remained of his shoulders with one swipe. Ruby-red, it spurted from the messy stump, it had puddled in the grooves of the courtyard’s cobbles, and weeks after rust-red flecks were found, splattering shoes and hems. Torygg had contained so much blood in him, so much of Istlod, and his iron scent was seared into her nose, her mind, mixing with the tantalising barely-there taste of Elenwen in her mouth.

Sybille gurgled on a gasp. She closed her eyes harder, overwrought, fighting to restrain the tears that welled there. That broke through the blood-haze. She’d known. She’d known it had been too simple, that it hadn’t made sense. But – the Thalmor, killing Torygg? Manipulating Stormcloak?

Elenwen moaned at something on Sybille’s face, tearing her concentration. The vibration stirred Sybille’s chest, the quiver of her ear, and Elenwen’s hips ground against hers in subtle, excited circles. It was vile. It was seductive. Sybille had never wanted to break more than she did now. She deserved to die. Wouldn’t it be worth it? Grief, sick desire, warred with prudence. But – this was what she wanted, Sybille fought to remember, the Ambassador was trying to manipulate Sybille to – to –

She was so thirsty.

Sybille’s teary glare did not seem to faze Elenwen at all. This close, she could see the breaks in the makeup that covered Elenwen’s skin, the artificial wrinkles that made her look older than she truly was. Everything fake, a performance. She made a negative sound around the venom bubbling out of her mouth, and Elenwen smiled. It was not a nice smile.

“And I think I might fuck that idiot doll you’ve got on the throne, too,” Elenwen whispered, and Sybille’s jaw muscle jumped. Her catlike eyes warmed with glee. “Oh, I know you were warning her off my little parties. Came back in too much of a state once, did she? The funny thing is that she approaches me – you should be thanking me, really, all that whining about her poor husband, but she cheers right up if you get a little summerwine into her, turns right into quite the … bold … little … slut.”

That last word was delivered in a hiss, lips brushing Sybille’s ear, and at once, she couldn’t take it any longer. She jerked to snarl back, and Elenwen’s bloodied finger rubbed the soft wetness of the inside of Sybille’s mouth. The rich taste of fresh blood overwhelmed her, blanked her mind. Sybille sucked reflexively, and Elenwen’s breath stuttered in her chest. She threw back her head, exposing her bloody neck, and ground hungrily into Sybille.

“Does your doll like knives?” Elenwen panted. “I do.”

Then, she laughed, delighted and breathless, as Sybille’s hands left the wall and found themselves somehow on Elenwen’s back, pressing her close, wrinkling her robes beneath clenched fists. She bit the flesh between her teeth, dazed, searching tongue prodding for all the blood she could smell but not taste. Her own venom burned her throat when she swallowed.

“Oh, though I suppose it doesn’t matter,” Elenwen continued, tugging her finger free, “She will learn to, if I want her.”

Her body tensed as if she meant to move back, but Sybille shot forward faster than lightning with a bloodcurdling snarl. She seized Elenwen’s hair and waist in a vicious grip, bringing her face close to the dripping wounds. The blood, hot and wet, the revenge, the wanting. At last, Sybille dared a tentative lick, a long, sure line up Elenwen’s neck, chasing the path of the bleeding. She tasted like magic, sun, knives, sharp and a little acrid. Intoxicating. Sybille smoothed over the wetness of the open wound, and she hesitated there, damnation at her lips.

A man’s face was before her eyes, fuzzy Nord-beard, mournful wrinkle-sagged stare. …Istlod?

Elenwen did not fight her at all, though Sybille felt the prick of her dagger against her ribs, a second from slipping into her heart, even as she whimpered at the tightness of Sybille’s grip on her fine hair. It was soft, thin as insect-wings over Sybille’s fist. Elenwen’s body hummed with tension like a live-wire, she breathed in gasps, and she trembled faintly with an unbearable want that Sybille could feel straining to pierce the skin, meet its echo in the parched emptiness of Sybille’s bloodless gut. But her knife tickled at Sybille’s robes, warning and promise both.

“Go on,” Elenwen goaded, her voice strained, a little breathy, cracked with desperation, “Hurt me. You must want to. I killed him, I starved you. Hurt me.”

Could she drain Elenwen before Elenwen stabbed her? There was some reason why Sybille could not drink, she knew that, but all thought deserted her every time she breathed, every time she couldn’t help herself and licked the welling blood before it reached Elenwen’s collar, tracing the topography of her willing throat. Elenwen made sounds, beautiful and ragged, when Sybille lapped at her with her cold tongue, shivered in her arms, all eager sighs and clutching hands and poised knives. But still, Sybille did not affix her mouth over the pumping vein and drain, drain, drain her dry.

“Just-!” Elenwen bit out, “What’s wrong with you? Just – do it…”

Sybille strained against her desires. A battleground between her self-control, the mind of the mage who had served loyally for years, and the hungry animal that howled for blood. Istlod. Torygg. The sweetness of the elfsblood – sunlight and sweat, blade-tip lick – in her mouth. The iron reek of Torygg splattering over the cobbles. Elenwen’s gasps, overlaid with the symphony of Torygg’s body breaking, shattering, pulping under the force of Ulfric’s rage. The world had quaked then, now it whimpered in Sybille’s arms, immobilised by her grip. Istlod at peace on his bed, still smiling his last smile. Torygg’s tears. Elisif wailing, when the sword came down. The war-prisoners in the dungeon, hollow-eyed men whose blood tasted of death and despair. The Thalmor’s snake-whisper, hurt me.

Sybille felt Elenwen’s ear twitch against her hand. A moment later, footsteps rushing towards them.

“Out of time, vampire,” Elenwen cooed, almost a disappointed sigh, and when she pulled back this time Sybille felt her numb fingers release her.

She swallowed, copiously, trying to empty her mouth of spit, and burned hotly with indignation.

“You dare,” Sybille rasped, but Elenwen only quirked her lips, apathetic to Sybille’s fury.

A flash of light and the marks were gone, eaten by healing magic. The dagger disappeared into the folds of her robes, the buttons done up, the stray hair smoothed back into its severe imprisonment. She stood an easy few paces away, as if she had never dared to come so close to a starved vampire, a vampire she had starved. It took moments, and through it all Elenwen’s expression was bored, not a hint of fluster, not even a breath of that wretched amusement or nauseating intrigue.

“I’ll send a prisoner or two your way,” Elenwen promised in a flat voice, plucking at the neckline of her robe. “Do think of me when you drink them, won’t you?”

She drew herself up, and suddenly the Ambassador was back, rigid and stern.

“The Thalmor appreciates your cooperation in this matter, Court Mage,” she said sniffily, the accent disappearing as if it had never been there in exchange for the ringing, cold tones Sybille was used to from her. Pinched about her eyes there was nothing but vague disdain, as if she knew nothing about Sybille, as if she had never clung to Sybille and all-but-pleaded to her, and in fact, considered her just as interesting as a cockroach beneath her heel.

She turned away when Falk rushed out of the bowels of the Blue Palace and greeted her with a flurry of apologies. There was not a wrinkle on her uniform. Her heels clicked loudly on the marble as she followed Falk, reverberating into Sybille’s ears, as if she was the only sound.

Sybille sagged against the wall, and cursed Elenwen in every tongue she knew. Sybille considered herself good at reading people, had thought herself safe, well-protected here at the heart of the court. But the damned Thalmor had her over a barrel. She had no doubt these prisoners of Elenwen’s would be nothing but good men and women who had simply fallen on the wrong side of the Dominion, and Sybille nothing more than a convenient way of disposing of them. She could not see a way out of this trap easily – Elenwen could expose her with a word, had proven her control over Sybille’s food source, had threatened the last dregs of the family Sybille had loved.

Sybille needed blood from those who wouldn’t be missed, needed secrecy, needed to be in court even more than ever to protect Elisif and Solitude now she had glimpsed the danger Elenwen posed: the disdainful Ambassador, the eager prey, the gloating predator, glossed in her makeup to falsely age herself, in her uniform that hid her thinness, with her secrets and her contradictory masks. And yet, the most troubling of all was that Sybille could not tell which of the sides of Elenwen she had seen was the truth, and which was the lie.

[mythriteshah]

What Could Have Been

Tresses of ebon black.  Eyes of emerald and aquamarine.  A face, aloof like his, but calm and sporting flawless features.  Twirling in garments of deep violet, and adorned in earrings of only the purest Agate, she gazed into her mirror, and beheld her transformation.  Though the lehenga she had received in the past was of considerably high quality and befitting for a queen of her stature, this robe was made for her.  A garment as rich and as powerful as the heritage she so proudly upholds from her seat of power in the Deep Sagolii.

From afar, he beheld her.  Thiji Higuri, the rising fashion mogul, witnessing the fruits of his latest project take form.  Her already grand majesty had become even grander as she donned his newest creation.  This was the Gemini Gown known as Death’s Coronation, straight from the Lucavi Assembly, and the first of such to wear and own it was none other than his old friend and former rival, Chichibi Chibi, Grand Magus of the Order of Mhach, and Merchant Queen of the Deep Sagolii.  The shining star of Thanalan, whose beauty rivals even that of Sultana Nanamo ul Namo. Brushing aside a few stray locks of her hair, she caught Thiji staring intently at her reflection, and met his gaze from the mirror.  She watched him in anxious silence, wondering what the Mythrite Sultan would say… “This robe was meant for you, Your Grace,” complimented Thiji.  “How honored I am to bear witness to your evolution after so many winters…” “Evolution…?” the Merchant Queen asked with a graceful turn of her heel.  “Into what, my old friend?” “… Into a goddess,” he replied after a short pause.  “I’ve been graced by the presence of my fair share of Lalafellin maidens in my time, but none can begin to compare to you, Queen Chichibi.  You are the quintessence of Lalafellin beauty, and when your subjects next lay their eyes on you they will know that Mhach lives and breathes through you; they will know that you are their goddess, and they will kneel before you in supplication… and those who refuse to bask in your beauty will regret it in the afterlife.” His words made her grin.  She was perhaps pleased by his monologue, and even more so by having the honor to be the first among eleven others to don clothing from his latest project.  She simply gave a curt bow of her head in response before turning back around to inspect herself in the mirror. “And you are certain payment is unneeded?” she asked. “For you, Your Grace, it is not,” he answered.  “Helping bring my dream to fruition is payment enough.” “Truly, My Sultan,” Chichibi started, “Eorzea would be lost in his drabness and dreariness without your fashion acumen.” “Indeed…” the Mythrite Sultan said softly, turning around as if to leave.  After a long moment of silence, another voice was made apparent… “My Sultan?  Are you well?” Its tone was feather-soft, almost like a whisper, and all too familiar to him.  The Mythrite Sultan opened his eyes and found himself in the basement of his Aldenard Branch Headquarters, the main center for the distribution of the Regalia’s wares.  From the corner of his eye he saw the Viera known as Isja, his Angel and official model of the Regalia.  She sat on the edge of one of the heart-shaped beds in which his Angels retire with legs crossed.  He turned over to her and nodded.

“Yes.  I was… simply reminiscing,” Thiji said. “Ever and always does your mind seem to wander, my lord,” Isja commented.  “This must only attest to the source of your genius.  But I feel… this is different.  You seem to exhibit feelings of… longing.” “Queen Chichibi,” he immediately stated.  “I was thinking of her, and… what could have been.”  The Veena tilted her head in confusion, clueless as to what he meant.  “I’m not sure how much you know of her from your past interactions with her emissary, but she rules the deepest reaches of the Sagolii Desert as Queen, spanning as far as Cape Deadwind.  She and her line have brought the numerous tribes under her banner and now hold a place of power within the ocean of sand.  A magnificent master of the Black, and a Mhachi prodigy akin to our great Shatotto…”

Isja pondered.  The amount of emotion he poured into praising her only spoke of how highly he held the Merchant Queen.  But what did he mean by “what could have been”?  Seeking more clues, she pressed the subject forward.

“She sounds very beautiful, and the dress you chose for her to model do her great justice,” spoke the Viera.  “Perhaps… and if I may be so bold… she could be your Sul-?” Isja caught herself when she saw her master’s eyes shut.  She knew just as much as her fellow Angels that such a subject was highly sensitive for the Mythrite Sultan.  After a moment of silence, she bowed her head in apology.  Thiji, however, paced toward the center of the room, his gaze fixed on the rotating diamond chandeliers which dotted the ceiling.

“Isja…” he sighed, “We went from rivals, to friends, to business associates, to confidants.  All this and so much more she has become to me.  And when I gazed upon one of Mhach’s proudest and greatest descendants in the Regalia’s finest garb, I surrendered myself to my mind… visions of what could have been if fate took different paths…”

Isja straightened her posture, giving Thiji her full, undivided attention.  “The Knight I could have been.  The Sorceress I could have served; the love that would have bloomed; the heirs we would have sired; the imbeciles we could have crushed; the ideal world we would mold together.  All of this did I see, wishing it were thus… Such beauty and refinement this piteous realm would never hope to see… A dream that would not come to pass.” She was moved by his lamentations so that she wanted to speak, but she knew he had more to say, and for her lord, Isja would gladly lend him her ears.  “I can do all I can to hide my emotions, yet the empty space beside me speaks softly, yet voluminously.  My brother after me was the fortunate one, yet I am consigned to witness every sunset in solitude, looking over my shoulder, wishing to share the moment with the Sultana for whom I dared dream…”

His gaze lowered, he turned now towards the large fountain to his left, watching the waters fall into the pool which bore the holy symbol of Llymlaen, the Navigator.  “I said to her that when she would next meet her subjects – when they would see their jewel shine once more in the Sagolii Deep, they will gaze in awe at the cold yet welcoming shadow, and kneel before her majesty – whether through their own will, or through hers.  Those who would yet defy her would find the shadow of Mhach as their last sight before they would join the hundreds of broken bodies on the battlefield, scattered before the wake of her calm yet fierce beauty.  I pray she did not look back towards the lonely sultan whose heart is as ice.  The Spinner has other fates in store for us, as is Her wont.”

Now she knew what he meant.  If he and Chichibi were together, they would be one of, if not, the greatest power couple in all of Eorzea and beyond.  With their power and wealth combined they would bring even the Syndicate low.  Isja would shed but a single tear for her lord before rising to her feet. “What if she did look back, My Sultan?” Isja questioned as she placed a hand to her heart.  “What if… she wanted you to speak your heart to her?  Why consign yourself to such a fate?”

“She is Mhach, and Mhach lives and breathes in her,” he replied.  “She must shine in the skies of Thanalan alone.  'Power in Beauty' is more than just a motto, Miss Isja.  'Tis a way of life that my family has embraced for many generations.  My father knew this.  My mother knew this.  My brother and Lady Umimi know this.  And I - as the new head of the Higuri Dynasty - must uphold it.  I cannot truly be sad so long as I know my dream lives in those who embrace high fashion.  Especially you, who has so quickly adapted to and embraced the refinement and grace our empire brings - coupled by your own unique traits as a Viera.” "Thank you, My Sultan, for your praise," Isja said with a slight bow of her head.  "But I speak for everyone when I say that I feel none in this realm is more deserving of a Sultana than yourself.  When I heard of the Regalia and of the man behind it all, I found purpose in my life, and it would be serving under you and my fellow Angels.  But after hearing your tale I cannot help but feel even more resolved to carry out your wishes.  For you, and for the Sultana I adamantly believe you will find someday, I will do all I can to show this realm true Power in Beauty.  You have my word."

Thiji bowed his head in gratitude.  Isja then turned and slowly made her way out, shutting the sliding partition behind her.  Now by himself, he went into his private chambers where he gazed upon an ornately framed portrait on the wall, showing him and Queen Chichibi in their regal splendor.  As he focused on the picture, the words slowly echoed in his mind:

"Walk with Halone..." The Mythrite Sultan shuts his eyes, thinking back to all the grand memories they had shared.  Perhaps more will be made should they meet again, as unlikely as that may seem given both are retired adventurers.  But hope has always been prevalent in the hearts and minds of the sons and daughters of man.

"Always," he quietly said to the portrait, as if the visage of the Desert Queen spoke to him directly.  "Another and another may take your place... but none will ever replace you." For now, it was time to rest, and time to plan.  The realm still needed some more enlightenment. (This short story is dedicated to the in-game character Chichibi Chibi.  Thanks for all the awesome and fun times we've had over the years, and the bonds we had formed along the way.  We have withstood the test of time not just in FFXIV, but in other games as well.  I pray that we keep bumping into each other - whether we expect it or not - and that our future adventures take us to new heights.  Eternal glory to you and your efforts!)

A Love that Could have Been - commissioned by https://artistsnclients.com/people/Charmedwheat

[ratherhavetheblues]

INGMAR BERGMAN’S ‘BRINK OF LIFE’ “I’m not suited for life…”

© 2020 by James Clark

     Our film today, Brink of Life (1958), opens by way of a presence you might not notice. A muffled ambulance siren can be briefly heard. The credits chug along. And a murky way provides an endless underground cave. Periodically we can hear reports, as if from a mining concern. Panning through this terrain there are gentle, fleeting clouds, shadows from a source unknown. Why was such a configuration brought to bear upon a saga of a maternity ward? Somehow, the action becomes about something bigger than babies.

Coming one year after producing two of the giants of the Bergman goldmine, namely, The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries, this chamber drama here, though making a splash for a year, seemed to have become in total eclipse. Not only does Brink of Life deserve better; it is arguably even better than the panoramic two, inasmuch as its brink opens deeper dimensions.

Getting to the nub of this excitement involves, first of all, its surface of the everyday percolating into a magic of high caliber which tends to become stillborn. The woman in the ambulance, Cecile or Cissi, materializes in an Emergency Ward where, as early as three months’ time, her pregnancy were to segue to other fields. Indeed the pain and flow of blood at that crisis had its impact—a rather familiar impact. Cissi, and her entourage of a husband in a precious trench coat, elicit, from the other group waiting to see a doctor, a working-class family with a sick little girl, bemusement and vague hostility. The Hollywood dresser, calls out, “Be a brave girl and all will be fine… Remember, Cissi, Ellius [his family] expects his wife to do her duty.” (The preceding films of 1957 having been studies of pedantry and advantage.)

 Her duty is not his duty, nor his clan’s duty. Her duty involves knowing that having a child is a deep passion. “I must know” [that you agree]. His response is less than what she wants. “There’s nothing you or I can do about it right now… Just place yourself in the doctors’ hands, like a parcel [the depths of the cave not addressed]. A large parcel with a smaller one inside.”  (In the whirl of that other grouping in the room, the baby’s doll ends up in Cissi’s stretcher. The doll has been invested more creatively than the wife.) The nurse that night is cold and matter of fact. She derives from the patient that our protagonist works for The Board of Education—“you can put, ‘secretary.’” At this juncture, the doll emits a hiss, recalling the cave/mine. Also, it produces a crying. (Cut to a sleek, modernist clock on the wall, the three dials mooting useful motion, and much more to boot. We’re directed in that clock-face to a central area reflective of depth.) She begins to hemorrhage and panic. In the course of her nightmare she has the presence of mind to pronounce, “I already know. I lost the baby… It has left me.” The young doctor, somehow intuiting the mystery in the air, declares, “Something failed from the start….” He adds that the procedure now will “clear everything up for the next time.” Cissi maintains, “I don’t think there will be a next…”

Next morning, with the anesthetics and curettage still a factor, the Head Nurse, Brita, brings a pair of caring hands to remind her that all is not lost. But Cissi sees fit to address mighty wrongs. “It was wrong from the start. There should never have been a baby [spoken in a hard whisper]. Don’t try to comfort me, I don’t need it right now… I have to say it now that I see clearly. I have never seen anything so clearly in my life. This baby was not wanted. It’s father did not want it. It’s mother was not strong enough to love it on her own. Therefore it could not be born, merely flushed away in the drain. Or put in a jar for scientific purposes… I didn’t love it enough… You can’t leave, Nurse!” (Nurse Brita quietly finding Cissi’s harangue out of tune.) “You must listen to me. I never usually speak, but now I have to speak. I don’t feel any nausea, only tremendous clarity. I have always known it…” (Now about a universal, not a domestic, outrage?) “Known that I wouldn’t be good enough. Neither as a wife nor a mother. Some people are predisposed never to be good enough.” (The universal looming once again.) “Don’t you think so, Nurse? When I found out I was pregnant, I could not be happy. Deep inside something said, ‘This baby will never be born.’ I knew Anders didn’t love me. He never told me, of course… But I saw it in his eyes.” (Brita can readily read a self-absorbed, sentimental, melodramatic softie. But maybe there are currents the nurse doesn’t handle well.) “This is over now, and the grief won’t kill me either… I have my friends and my work and all the beautiful things. I make such beautiful embroideries…  In here everything is different. I can feel it.” (Life and death; feet to the fire.) “I will never forget this moment… This close, you see… I will never be this close to life again!” (Never a wise policy to ditch that realization.)

   Her long apologia concludes, before she falls asleep from the tension, with her in dark shadow on one side of her face, while the other remains in light. A play of powers, open for the truly brave. “At least it has gone through my hands, through my womb. But like water. Not leaving any trace behind.” (Here is the apt place, with its questionable declarations, to indicate the heavy flim-flam of Bergman’s instigation here in his so-called “behind the screen,” for “clarifications.” The production did have a grotty, low-budget environment; the cinematographer was a mere journeyman [Bergman perfectly capable of carrying on from out of long-standing, blue-chip precepts; but it was very much a serious, even experimental effort—not the nonsense he tried to sell to a drowsy constituency.]) Speaking of confusion, with the visit of “Schoolmaster Ellius,” Cissi finds herself less whimsical and more decisive. He presents her with an unblooming, small swatch of foliage which, from our perspective, covers the patient’s face for a few seconds. He kisses her on the forehead with no warmth, with no natural traction, no romance of that gracious love being at the depths of creative action. “You talk as if to a stranger,” she levels. “Someone at a distance… This marriage was a mistake…” He maintains that he had always been attentive. “I may not have been happy as an expectant father-to-be. I worried about you. But also about myself. I worried about us, Cissi. We were supposed to wait until I had finished my thesis.” (That roaring pedantry, which the doctor in Wild Strawberries only transcended, for a few seconds, near the end of his life.) He reaches a point of saying. “I’m sorry. I’m so clumsy.” Which leads her to maintain, “You don’t love me. That’s all. I must set you free.”

  It is in this full attack that Cissi stands to emend her precious sense of “leaving any trace behind,” of a new life. Necessary danger had become cosmetic, not intrinsic. “I want to go away, Anders. It’s what I’ve always wanted. I am not a strong person… I’m not suited for life. At least, I’m not suited to marriage. I want to set you free, Anders. I think I’ve known for a long time.” (The textures of resolve being for Cissi far more complex than her words suggest. As never before—and perhaps never again in this filmic campaign by Bergman—the brink of life stands open here in its raw and sophisticated fruition.) “I’m not what you dreamed of,” colliding crazily with, “I’ll be happy if I know you’re happy.” Pushing away the phoniness, she states more clearly, “I like keeping to myself, Anders” [this being very much the tip of the iceberg]. I’ve always been that way.” Anders thinks to bridge the gulf by reminding her of their fine furniture and books.

The following night, Brita, being far more balanced than the amateur who claims she’s a life-long rebel, suggests sleeping pills for the passionate scattered. Cissi tells her, “It’s throbbing down here.” (Can it become animation?) She finds herself, along with another woman in the room, unable to sleep due to anxiety about a third woman’s  being taken to the labor and delivery room, after performing anticipation at dangerous levels. That care and the interplay between them tells us more about Cissi’s endeavor. She provides a cigarette to the other, being desperate, and assures her that she will take any blame forthcoming. Also, the tete-a-tete discloses that the smoker has had her first baby intercepted by her father with a coat hanger. Our main protagonist, learning that the other has had her current baby and consigned it to adoption, gently soothes the sense of cheapness of the first pregnancy and the copious tears, to an upshoot of Cissi’s urging contacting the distraught woman’s mother to help handle the new complication. (A dead fetus is described upon the configurations of the woman’s shirt.)

   During the next day, Ander’s sister appears, to deliver the same kind of advice which Cissi gave to Hjordis. “I really think you and Anders are an exceptional match.” (This angel of reconciliation—“a confirmed spinster”—dressed in severe, patrician, masculine garb, and all about her clan’s skills in advantage—has been sent to calm a weak link in the house of kick-ass.) “But Anders is my younger brother and you know what he means to me.” (In fact probably very little, but a distaff  chore on the fringes of fortune.) “You of all people [anther loser to be seen to the world as significant] should understand…” At this, Cissi asks, “Understand what? That women like me should never marry? We’re independent enough to want to stand on our own two feet. Our only option is solitude.” The enforcer, putting on her cutthroat face, glares into Cissi’s work in progress. “And what do you think solitude means?” (Our protagonist clearly deflated by this contempt from a figure with nothing to learn.) “A cool tranquility? Inviolable security?  That’s an illusion, Cissi. Real solitude is an acrobatic act. With constant fear lurking in the background. Constant fear, Cissi… Are you cut out for that?” To the brute’s surprise, Cissi argues, “Despite all you say, I think I am.” She’s just pissed off enough to regard that the celebrated, “Constant fear,” is for endless dullards. The emissary adds, “Heightened by your current physical condition?” Not alert and self-confident enough to eschew debate with someone knowing nothing of the subject, she feebly puts out, “It’s precisely my physical condition that…” [my supposed, fevered sensibility, that I would be ready to bet against the enterprise of classical rationality and its deranged, runaway advantage]. Counting on more chances to break her down, she leaves with, “Anyway, you two can’t leave things like you did yesterday. Anders was devastated and couldn’t understand… You two have to talk. Shall I tell him to stop here tonight?” Cissi nods yes. “Ask him to stop if he likes…” Real solitude so involving as to seem impossible.

   First of all, will she rejoin the firm, in the capacity of a guarded laughing stock? Where are the chances to ply her more than obscure trade? That semi-latter skill of hers being describable as acrobatics. While there are thugs of the homestead (and in billions of others), knowing nothing about the dynamics of serious cogency, Cissi’s surreptitious contention would involve not only haste but lost affection, in its default of mathematics. The repertoire would be faced with linking play and work in a constant attention of sensibility. The remainder of this film measures and savors the ways of nature, not personalities being pleased or displeased. There is a flood of melodrama pounding forward, which requires us to notice when it spills over to become something very different.

Almost stealing the show by her high spirits, there is Stima, whom the other two worried during that long night where the delivery date had come and gone. Preceding the long and shattering night, there was, with Cissi recently brought to her place of recovery, Stima, noisily chomping down on an apple. (The first of myriad thrusts, from her, mining for sensuous gold.) She comes to Cissi’s distress that morning in smoothing over the moment of vomiting caused by the medication of the night before. Her assisting Cissi’s using the bed pan to clear her system is redolent of a farming background, where carnal moments are frequent and appreciated. Stima rubs the city dweller’s back and shoulders, and states, “My mom used to do this to me. It may not help, but it feels good.” (“Feeling good,” having a timbre which could reach light years.) Cissi tells her, “My mother did the same. It does feel good.” (A fleeting glance upon our protagonist’s working-class ways.) Stima blurts out, “You were like a lifeless doll” [recalling her stray doll at the advent of the battlefield]. The sunny associate quickly apologizes for being “so informal.”/ “Why not?” the somewhat soulmate asks. Stima places her hands over Cissi’s face to calm her, and then we see the friend’s hand gently touching her wrist. (Medication of a different type.) In an effort to have Cissi stop raving about the powers of shutting down a birth, Stima maintains, “It may not be that unusual when it’s your first. My mom had it like that the first time, but then it was all fine. She practically danced them out. She had seven in nine years.” (Could this be a form of negation of our protagonist’s capacity to induce the forces of creativity? Stima will go on to bear a stillborn; but her mainstream proclivities could, in fact, do with some mystery. Cissi’s insistence, “I won’t have another one,” opts for a wild side.)

   Cissi and the other insomniac, namely, Hjordis, have struck chords far away from the regular sanguine mood of a hospital. Stima, on the other hand, even so much as helping the staff with tidying and storing the materiel while awaiting the blessed event, and a talented comedienne, brings to the heavy lifting a weight of delight which enriches the resources being put on display for the sake of a breakaway. The staff had concluded that her baby would be born that day and her dance to the heavens is a presentation of how thrilled life can become. “Come out, lazybones, so that mommy can get slim again… Come out to your father who can’t sleep at night because of you.” Giddy, clapping her hands, her smile a power, she dances around the incongruence. “Come out, you little rascal. You little scamp and mischief-maker! Come out and see your mother…” Teased about possibly concealing  champagne, she retorts, “This is all faith, hope and love.” She is presented with a lager—“That’ll be my first!”—to offset the castor oil. “One for father. One for mother. And one for our Father, and no one other…” (On a good day, Cissi might doubt that  there is only one driving this show.) “One for me, as happy as can be. And one for the little boy who is his mother’s pride and joy! Have you ever seen such a mad mother-to-be before?”

Out of the blue, she’s blue. “I don’t know where it came from… What if it doesn’t come out like he should? I felt a pain pass through me.” A visit from elements who know abysses being shot through with joys and shot through with death. Stima brushes off the blues by way of superstitions, and she arranges for Hjordis to do her hair, for the sake of the visiting hour and Stima’s husband. She purrs from the sensuous treatment, a little moment not to take for granted. “You have the right touch… It’s not too late. You’re still so young.” The dinner menu is liver. Stima’s husband steals a bite  and, like her, he loves it. Ways of fortification, ways of meeting complication. His bouquet is not only much bigger and far more beautiful than that of Anders, but it has come from the “community garden.” Creatures of community, for better or worse. “No store-bought flowers with our son when he’s due.” A bit pedantic? The preceding two films, The Seventh Seal, with its mania about immortality, and Wild Strawberries, and its pedantic celebrity setting a poor example. Leaving for the Labor Room, Stima calls out, “This is life!”

   Returning to the place of overreaching, Stima strikes like a rattlesnake when Hjordis tries to help her reach a glass of water. She’s less rabid when, at rounds, when asking, “I’d like to know why he died.” The head doctor replies, “I’m as much at a loss as you are. I’m truly sorry. There was nothing wrong with you or with your little boy. But it just wasn’t meant to be… Cruel as that may sound. It seems it became too intense. But there’s nothing to suggest it wouldn’t go well next time.” Nurse Brita comes to her bed, and Stima looks away, covering her head with her arm and presenting an angry fist. By her bed, a reflection seems to describe a small ladder for a tiny figure to climb.

Becoming too intense? What tempering might have found some traction? Stima won’t always feel like that. Cissi also might canvas ways to see things differently. But neither has brought to us a need to overcome being impressive. That abortive syndrome allows of control. Disinterestedness is right around the corner. We have seen Hjordis going from deadly cold to some facsimile of warm. Her exit poses another angle, another form of dismay. She’s on the public phone in the corridor, asking one, Tage, a sort of boyfriend, “Could you come see me tonight? I need to talk to you…” This elicits, “Are you crazy? That god-awful place?” She replies, “All kinds of people can visit, husbands, fiancés…”/ “I’m no god-damn fiancé!” She perseveres with, “But you’re the baby’s father…” Tage declares, “I’ll fix that when you get out!”/ “Not like the last time,” she promises. “They ask so many questions!” Back to the corridor, she peeks into the maternity ward. A woman doctor comes up to her and says, “Aren’t they sweet? Let’s talk a bit. I have some time now. Therewith, not for the first time, Hjordis is given the prospect of caring for her baby, by way of fulsome resources deriving from the government. The enthusiast, another patrician (but absent the acrobatics of advantage), becomes a victim of the young mother’s grudge against anyone who seems to have had it easy. (After the interview, Brita will tell Hjordis that the doctor in question has had many miscarriages and cannot attempt any further birth.) Patiently describing her possibilities, the doctor overplays the political, and underplays the family. “A social worker will help you and make the father pay child support. Of course it would be better to contact your parents. You’re afraid of your mother, is that it?” Having crunched the numbers—as Cissi and Stima will also do—and assimilated the players, she insists, “I’m not afraid of my mother” [any more]. Where would I get the money?”/ “From the bank. You’ll get a loan and priority on the housing list.”/ “How do I pay the rent?”/ “You have to work, of course… There are excellent day care centers with reasonable fees for low-income workers” [like hairdressers]. The joy of having a child, something to live for… There are women who can never have children…”

   This whack of complexity and responsibility finds her reverting to cheap thrills. “You are trying to scare me into crying…” [by way of jettisoning the baby and continuing her being impressive as a passionate outlaw, far less than effective]./ “No my dear, I don’t want to scare you.”/ “I’m not your dear. And you do want me to cry because then I am soft. Once I’m soft you will question me and force me to talk… You’ll force me to give birth. Money this and money that.” Homes here and homes there! Aren’t they wonderful? I find them disgusting and repulsive. What do you know of such things? You’ve just read books at a desk. You’ve never left the rubber at home or seen tattooed arms digging into you!” She covers her mouth, and runs out of the office, where she encounters Brita at a pregnant moment. Despite her noisy hostility, Hjordis had inferred that there was, beyond the angst, a way to deliver the wild while plying the domesticity.  The ambiguous exponent of decision asks the nurse-with-a-difference, “Do you think that children are adorable, too?” The latter retorts, “They’re not exactly adorable. But there is something about them.” Hjordis’, “I think they are disgusting,” is more a residue of the past than the real situation now. “I wish I had never been born,” is far off the mark now. Her emphasis, “Not just now. It was the same when I was little,” sees this snag in a new way. Brita, having seen Hjordis making sure that Stima won’t see that celebratory bouquet, celebrates quietly a new friend about to leave. The latter now sees fit to do something about, “It’s awful in there. As if there were nothing but death all around.” She gives Brita a warm hug. “Nurse Brita, would you lend me some money to call my mother?”/ “Of course.”/ “Would you hold my hand? It won’t take long.”/ “Is that you, Mother? I haven’t been well. I’m going to have a baby. I wanted to get rid of it, but I just can’t. Mother, I want to have the baby, but I’ll be on my own… Can I really?! Even though, exactly what you feared has happened… I’ll be there tomorrow!”

   Whereas Hjordis has climbed a formidable mountain, certainly where most movies would trot out a victory lap, Bergman is not in the business of calling it a day. We’re pointedly reminded of this singularity when the new mom hears from the really formidable nurse, “Do you have money for the ticket?”/ “No I don’t. What on earth shall I do?”/ “I can lend it you.” (This  godsend activates Hjordis to write out an IOU.) Brita has graced this saga with not only generosity, savvy and stamina, but magic itself, the kind of magic we found in the donkey of Robert Brisson’s, Balthazar (1966), leading his last owner to refer to him as, “besides, he’s a saint.”

But, with Bresson, we are in the realm of absolutes, while with Brita we are in the realm of uncharted territory. Lovely figures are well known. Acrobatic figures, as Bergman sees them, have never dawned on humankind, in a celebratory way. The three women, as all of us, were addicted to being impressive. Disinterestedness defeats us because we confine itself to planet earth. Given a horde like our little stage, tempering its survival needs slips back into the pathological. Going back to mother, has its drawbacks. Perhaps for all three of them, there would be moments of realization that nature is not sensible, nature being poetry, not prose.

   Fleeting poetry has graced this sadly obscure film, about the brink of life. While Cissi raises hell out of the ambulance, a working-class family with a seriously sick child establishes the gulf between attitude and come what may. The various gusts of digging in. Are they bound to never soar? Or does a lost skill, pertaining to one’s hands, have a hope of  reaching a much wider constituency?

[caffeineivore]

Oh oh, and 9 for Minako/kunzite because why not

CAN’T STOP WON’T STOP NOT SURE HOW TO STOP (WHY STOP)

***TRASHY REGENCY HISTORICAL ROMANCE M/K*** 

Lord and Lady Overton certainly knew how to throw a ball, Mariana thinks as she skirts along the wall out to a terrace after finishing a quadrille with Sinclair. The ballroom was a crush of men in impeccable evening-wear and women in their best gowns, and everybody who was anybody was in attendance. So, too, unfortunately, was the wealthy Mr Woodcock of the onion-breath and the coal mines, and earlier that evening he had penciled in his name on her dance card for the very last waltz. The memory of his greasy hair and leering eyes still made her shudder. 

“Dash it all. I’d have to ask for three months’ worth of pin money and win every night to have enough,” Mariana mutters to herself as she stares out at the night sky. “I might as well ask for the moon and stars, for all Papa’s going to agree… I wonder if cottages are cheaper in Scotland?”

“Cottages are a bit cheaper in Scotland, my dear, but I don’t think you’d find the weather agreeable.” Suddenly, sounding far closer than she might have expected, Mariana hears a deep male voice, feels the solid presence of someone behind her back, and almost jumps out of her skin. Whirling around, she encounters a snowy-white cravat, a broad-shouldered, powerful form in a black coat without any adornment. Storm-grey eyes meet Mariana’s blue ones.

“Lord Kensey!” Mariana’s voice escapes in a slightly undignified squeak, but she manages an elegant curtsy. “I’m sorry, I did not see you were out here.”

“The fault is mine for not saying anything as you walked out here, of course. And I seem to be at a disadvantage. You seem to know who I am. I suppose that without a chaperone present, you will have to introduce yourself.”

“Oh! My manners are atrocious tonight, aren’t they? I’ve intruded upon your solitude and now… My name is Lady Mariana Ashton, and I am the eldest daughter of Lord Vernon. And you’re Lord Kensey, of course.”

“I am.” His voice is low and smooth, warm like her father’s best brandy, and much like those spirits, she has no business sampling it, being here alone with him. The hand which takes hers is strong and warm through the layers of gloves, and doesn’t immediately let go of her own even after he places a perfectly appropriate kiss over her knuckles. Lord Kensey of the terrifying pugilist reputation doesn’t exactly smile, but perhaps Mariana is overwrought, after a month’s worth of nights gambling away at a gaming hell and days plotting to get out a horrid arranged marriage. She did, after all, consider deliberately getting ruined as a better alternative to Mr Woodcock’s tender mercies.

“I shouldn’t be here, of course, and if someone finds us, it would be a horrid scandal,” Mariana blurts out, her face reddening. “But you need not worry, sir. That is to say, I’m not trying to trap you into marriage.”

One pale eyebrow wings up on the Earl’s otherwise-impassive face. “Of course not. As I understand it, I’m hardly a prospect.”

“Surely you cannot be as awful as they say? You fought a duel over a girl, I’m told. But that means you have some honour, and care about women, and that is more than can be said for a lot of men who have perfect reputations.” Mariana does not have any inkling why she is babbling so to a perfect stranger, but she cannot seem to stop. The words bubble out of her like a champagne spill. “Do you know, Lord Kensey, how many gentlemen will toss away fortunes on the entertainments of a gaming hell and a brothel while their wives wait at home? There are some who will actually replace their wives’ and daughters’ jewelry with paste to fund their gaming! It’s a disgrace, isn’t it? We women are at the mercy of our fathers, then our husbands, with not-so-much as a by-your-leave when the former arranges for one’s sale– and yes, it’s nothing but a sale– to the latter! A title for a fortune, a fortune for a title… either way, no one wins.”

“And that is why you want a cottage, in Scotland.” Are her ears deceiving her, or is that a chuckle rumbling from Lord Kensey’s chest? Mariana is fairly certain that her face is the same colour as the ripe strawberries adorning the cake they’d served at the end of the evening’s meal. 

“Well… anything is better than the alternative. I am not marrying Mr. Woodcock!” 

The chuckle is now almost a guffaw. “Of course you’re not. Mr. Woodcock? Is that truly his name?”

“It’s ghastly, isn’t it? And he’s my father’s age! He’s frightfully rich from coal mines, you see, and I don’t think I could live with myself knowing how many orphaned children likely perished to fund my pin money, and moreover, he smells like onions!” Lord Kensey isn’t completely crowding her, but she’s close enough to smell him, and his coat bears a faint scent of brandy and cool spearmint soap. Mariana manages to catch herself before she leans forward. “I’d rather be ruined and consigned to a life as a spinster than become Mrs Woodcock!”

“Ah.” Lord Kensey somehow manages to infuse a world of meaning into that one syllable. “Do you truly intend to be ruined, my Lady?”

Now, all at once, everything about Lord Kensey’s terrifying reputation makes sense at one long look into his eyes. Mariana swallows hard, suddenly noticing that the scent of brandy and cool spearmint seems to be closer than before… and then, with a ruthlessness that surprises herself, gives him one decisive nod.