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rotworld · 3 years

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The Truth in Masquerade

usurpers part 7. previous | next

derek gives in. izsák reaps the rewards.

->derek/oc. explicit; contains d/s dynamics, degradation, biting/blood drinking, descriptions of violence and torture, and the usual derek things.

It takes less than a week for curiosity to eat through Derek’s resolve completely. Izsák speeds things along by bringing up weird shit every chance he gets and then waiting, perfectly poised, for a shift in Derek’s expression. It’s always some off-handed mention when it’s just the two of them. Izsák will help him prepare for another guest appearance at another dreadful party, presenting him with a fresh towel after a shower, tying his tie, and then he’ll sigh in a wistful way and say, “You never have liked these little soirees. It was much easier when Ferenc was here, wasn’t it? He bore the burden of public scrutiny with such ease.”

And what the fuck is Derek supposed to do? Not ask questions? Not think about why Izsák will stare, studying his face expectantly, and then suddenly laugh and mutter, “Pay me no mind, sir.” He tells himself it’s just Izsák being his usual freaky self, but has he always been so strangely in tune with Derek? Did he always stand so close and act so concerned over every little thing? Fussing over him when he bangs his knee on a table, or after a particularly public breakup? It’s fucking weird. Derek tells him it’s weird, and Izsák just smiles peaceably and goes about his business.

Three days after the museum, Izsák is drinking tea at the kitchen table while Derek eats lunch. His father is out with Clarice and the house is blissfully quiet. Derek is texting Emilia, who is hysterical and wants to break up with him again over some new bullshit that Derek can’t remember and doesn’t care to figure out from the vague hints she’s dropping. He’s sure he can talk her into a night out and a quick fuck with the right combination of sweet talking and apology gifts. He wouldn’t bother, but his father chewed him out about how it looks when he brings a new girl to every social function. People notice, his father claimed, and people talk. Derek rolls his eyes just thinking about it. His father keeps a girlfriend for a few months and now he thinks he’s some kind of fucking expert on monogamy.

And then, out of nowhere, Izsák breaks him out of his thoughts. “Are you feeling restless, sir? I had something in mind, if you are interested.”

“Unless it’s something to get Emilia to calm the fuck down, I’m not interested,” Derek says. He only looks up from his phone when he hears the scrape of Izsák’s chair across the table and sees him coming closer. He stands behind Derek, rests a hand on his shoulder, and leans in to peer at the phone screen. His touch, light, weightless, totally innocent, makes Derek burn with desire.

“I see. She’s upset that you have taken other partners.”

Derek rolls his eyes. Of course it’s that. Nobody can keep a goddamn secret anymore. He wonders which one of them couldn’t keep their mouths shut. Regina? Francine? Couldn’t have been Laney, because Laney...

Derek swallows hard at the thought, the memory. Standing here in the kitchen when Emilia called him sobbing, saying her two-faced bitch of a friend was comatose in the hospital. Car accident. She never woke up. Izsák had looked up from organizing his father’s day and watched as Derek took in the news. There was something knowing in his eyes, and Derek remembered suddenly how Izsák had uncorked a vial of chicken blood and flicked it after Laney.

There’s no way. Derek repeated that in his head like a mantra whenever he caught himself starting to believe it. The blood of a black-feathered hen. No fucking way. He looks over his shoulder at Izsák, at the eyes gazing back at him and awaiting—something.

“You got a spell for this?” Derek says. He’s perturbed when Izsák smiles, like he’s delighted to be asked.

“Of course, sir,” he says. He retrieves his tea and strides quickly to the kitchen sink, dumping the rest of it down the drain. Derek watches him pluck the damp bag of herbs out of the cup, shaking the rest of the water out, and setting it on a plate. “You may watch if you’d like,” Izsák says.

“I don’t care,” Derek says. And he shouldn’t. But his gaze is drawn back when he sees Izsák pull a lighter from his pocket and flick it until a little wavering flame appears. It looks like he’s trying to light the tea bag on fire, but it’s too damp to catch. Some foul-smelling smoke sizzles to the ceiling. Izsák whispers something, not in English, and Derek just stares.

That’s when Emilia messages him back after a solid ten minutes of the silent treatment. She says she can’t stay mad at him and asks to meet up later that night. Derek stares at the text in disbelief, then looks up and finds Izsák standing there, watching him. Smiling.

“You may ask me questions, if you have any,” Izsák says. “I wonder if you remember this one.”

“Where exactly am I supposed to remember it from? I’ve never seen that shit before.”

Izsák answers automatically, like he’s been waiting for this. “Csejte, 1578. I performed this spell for you for the first time.”

Derek doesn’t know how to react, so he doesn’t. “You did not.”

“I did,” Izsák insists.

“You fucking didn’t. That doesn’t make sense.” Izsák frowns, opening his mouth to disagree, but Derek gets up, leaves the table, and goes out to the pool to soak his feet and avoid whatever it is that’s happening. Izsák knows better than to pursue him and gives him space, but it’s too late. Derek is thinking about chicken blood. He’s thinking about headless girls encased in ice. Which is weird because he’s never seen that before, but something about the statue at the museum, about the things Izsák said, put a distinct image in his head. He’s hungry. He wants to taste somebody’s blood. He feels himself salivating when he remembers biting Izsák’s neck and he wants to feel skin give beneath his teeth.

“What the fuck,” he mutters to nobody. He kicks at the water until dusk, until his erection is gone and his father comes home with Clarice and Izsák is busy with other things so Derek can avoid his eyes and that look that knows too much.

Four days after the art museum, Derek wakes up and his dick is so hard it hurts. The dream snaps out of place and tries slipping away before he can remember it, but he holds tight to everything that’s left;

A castle. Stained glass windows. Stone archways. The snow-covered courtyard with its frozen women like grotesque, grasping trees. Long corridors and echoing screams. He stood eclipsed by flickering candlelight and writhing shadow, walking barefoot through puddles of blood. There were bodies dangling from the dungeon ceiling, hung from meathooks and impaled in iron cages. Slit throats. Dangling entrails. They wept and moaned above him, and their blood rained on his skin. These were his kills. He hunted them himself, hung them like trophies. He reveled in their pain. Silhouettes played across the walls, human and beastly shapes that grew and warped and twined together in obscene dance. Derek felt these shades watching, but he didn’t fear their gazes. There was no need to perform for them.

And Izsák was there, smiling gently. He wore nothing. He was deathly pale, unmarked as though the blood couldn’t touch him. Derek was possessed by the need to dirty him. He reached desperately, his grasp leaving bruises, dragging Izsák through red rain and filth. He was tainted slowly, a splatter across his shoulder, a rivulet dripping down from his scalp. It fell in heavy clots in his lashes. Derek pressed him against the cold stone wall, his wandering hands smearing abstract shapes over Izsák’s skin, and then he licked it off of him with long, slow drags of his tongue.

It was so fucking stupid. He’d never do that in real life. But just thinking about it gets him even harder. Derek palms himself through silk pajama pants, shivering, leaning back against the headboard. He’d never be so tender and gentle. But in the dream, Izsák looked at him with this passion, this reverence, like Derek was God and that castle dungeon was their private, depraved heaven. It was so vivid. The musk of all that flesh and blood was heady and visceral. He slips his hand beneath the waistband of his clothes. It’s pathetic. Jacking off has never been so disappointing. He can see it when he closes his eyes, dreamlike and hazy; bodies and darkness. Izsák beneath him, his hands framing Derek’s face, his eyes glazed with wanting. He twists his palm around the head of his cock and imagines it’s Izsák doing it, Izsák between his legs and covered in blood.

It’s not the first time he’s fantasized about Izsák, but it was always different before. More impersonal. Izsák’s mouth around his cock. Izsák’s hips moving against his. The way Izsák’s back arches and his muscles all go taut while Derek fucks him raw over his father’s desk. But this is so much more heated and detailed. It’s not just the sensation or the view, it’s how Izsák looks at him, how he talks to him. It’s how he knows Derek in intimate and frightening ways, and doesn’t expect anything more of him.

In the dream, Izsák worshiped him. He got to his knees and the sight of Derek’s body, his apparent desire, the hard cock swollen against his abdomen, seemed to mesmerize him. He looked up at Derek as he pressed a kiss to the head of his cock, drool and precum on his lips. His tongue caressed Derek’s length from base to tip and his hands smoothed along his thighs. He moaned shamelessly, the sound vibrating against Derek’s flesh as he suckled on the sensitive underside. He mumbled something, unwilling to pull away and cease pleasuring Derek for even a moment, but Derek understood somehow. He knew what he was trying to say; I’m yours.

Derek bites his lip so hard it bleeds, desperately fucking his fist. It’s too hot. He has to throw off the sheets and pull his pants down around his thighs but he’s still sweating, his head pounding. He still feels the stagnant dungeon air, the blood drying to his skin. He remembers the way Izsák bobbed his head, the hot slide of his lips and his tongue at the base of Derek’s cock when he started to deepthroat him. Izsák gagged and squirmed but he didn’t pull off, didn’t even try. Derek wasn’t holding him still because he didn’t have to. They didn’t speak to each other, but he understood in that moment the depths of Izsák’s devotion to him. He knew Izsák would do anything for him. Would kill for him. Would give his own blood, his own body, if it would satisfy Derek.

“I’m gonna cum,” he says, panting. Izsák is too hot and wet and perfect around his cock. He thrusts deep, feels his balls slap Izsák’s chin and he grinds against the back of his throat, and Izsák chokes on a moan. His worship becomes even more fervent. His hands grip the back of Derek’s thighs, squeezing his ass, spurring him into more violent movements and keeping them locked together. He wants everything Derek has to give him. He accepts it all, the hunger and brutality, his every whim and desire. When Derek cums down his throat, Izsák gags on it, his hands tightening on Derek’s legs, but he stays. He looks up at Derek through hazy eyes and swallows obediently. He lets Derek soften in his throat, sucking gently as though to milk him of the last of his climax.

Derek lays there, dazed and confused, realizing he’s alone and his sheets are soiled. It takes time to catch his breath. He lies in his own mess, eyes closed. He’s still there, in the castle dungeon. The dreamfog begins to clear. He isn’t standing anymore. He’s reclining, encased in liquid warmth. When he moves his hands, red swirls around them. He licks it off his fingers. It’s hot, metallic, and sickly sweet. It’s so clear, so detailed and real, that Derek is startled to open his eyes to the dark ceiling of his own room again.

Just a dream, he tells himself. His heart is still racing.

Five days after the art museum, Derek’s determination to ignore all the strangeness is shot. Pretending that everything is fine and he isn’t turning into a fucking vampire goes from a chore to a battle of epic proportions against his own body. He’s hungry all the time, his libido is out of control, and he has to bite the inside of his mouth to keep himself from sinking his teeth into anyone else. He takes Emilia out to see a movie and he can’t focus on anything but her neck. The way the light plays across it, the moving shadows, the outline of her muscles every time she swallows or laughs. He imagines himself biting her, his jaw clamping down on her throat like a wild animal. He tells her he has to use the bathroom halfway through and jacks off in a stall fantasizing about tasting her carotid artery.

Asking Izsák is out of the question. His pride won’t allow it. Izsák is already smug as fuck about all of this, sneaking up on Derek constantly and asking very pointed questions about how he’s feeling or whether he’s had enough to drink, all with that fucking smile on his face. He retreats to his room in his father’s house, blessed with a rare moment of privacy, and gets online. The tentative approach doesn’t get him far; a quick online diagnosis gives him two types of cancer. In desperation, he starts trying the things he’s heard Izsák casually mention, names he can’t remember right and places he can’t spell.

Inevitably, he finds her. Frozen in time, she gazes back at him from her lofty position atop a webpage detailing her atrocities. One hand rests daintily upon a faded red tablecloth, the other holding an embroidered handkerchief. She isn’t smiling and there’s a weariness to her regality, a thinly veiled disdain in her eyes. Derek feels that he knows her, that he recognizes that quiet sneer. He’s seen it in the mirror before. A strange, twisting feeling knots up his stomach, and he doesn’t fully understand it, doesn’t know what all of this means, but he knows something has happened to him. Some change has taken root.

He skims the page absently, the words washing over him both exhilarating and deeply familiar. Torture. Mutilation. Bloodbaths. The stories are fantastical, too incredible to be true, and yet there is no shortage of them. Derek searches further, needing to find her, needing to know exactly who she was. Elizabeth, Erzsébet, the Bloody Countess—no matter what she’s called, Derek finds kinship in the morbid details. Born into wealth and excess, thrust into the noble’s spotlight, and utterly disinterested in it all. She was on a quest for timelessness, to escape the mundane world. She performed as Derek does, marrying, attending to her courtly duties, wearing the mask of contented civility, but she also indulged and hunted, relishing in the viciousness of it all. Derek looks at her portrait with newfound emotion, something heavy yet freeing.

He almost isn’t surprised when Izsák speaks as though suddenly materialized behind his chair, “Your father sent me, sir. I am to prepare you for this evening.” Derek turns and examines Izsák, searching for things he hasn’t noticed before, or things he didn’t want to notice. His easy, eager submission. His smile. His eyes that know Derek, know what he wants, what he needs before Derek himself is even aware. Eyes that have seen centuries.

“Which one?” Derek asks.

Izsák tilts his head, silently seeking clarification. He’s smiling very slightly. Did the Blood Countess see this same smile? Did it greet her before grand balls, assuring her of the safety of her secrets? Did it welcome her to the dungeon, her private sanctuary?

“She had accomplices,” Derek says. “Servants who helped her keep things quiet. Some of them were questioned at the trial.” He doesn’t clarify; doesn’t have to. Izsák listens patiently, his smile widening as though this is precisely what he’s been waiting for. How long has he waited? Derek wonders. How much longer was he willing to wait? “There was one man who helped her torture her victims, but the rest were women. One was her old wetnurse, and one was one of her personal servants. The other two were witches or something. Right?” Dorottya and Darvulia. He didn’t bother to learn the rest of the names, but he memorized those. One of them was important. One of them mattered more than all the rest.

Izsák hums thoughtfully. “That is what many people say, yes.”

Derek stands up and hits him. It’s sudden, impulsive, happening so quickly that he doesn’t realize he’s done it until his hand starts to sting. Izsák touches his reddened cheek with soft, uncertain strokes, as though he’s just as surprised. The way he looks at Derek is wrong. Not disdain. Not disappointment. Elation. The joy of a long-awaited reunion.

“Which one are you?” Derek asks.

Just like in the dream, Izsák sinks to his knees before Derek. The movement is slow and graceful, as though he’s done it a thousand times before. He takes one of Derek’s hands in his and holds it as though it’s something precious. “I am the one who did not betray you,” he says, pressing his lips to the back of Derek’s hand. The gesture is gentle and intimate, stirring something violent within him. He wants to hurt Izsák. He wants to dirty him. He wants to thank him for coming back after all this time, saving him from suffocating in his own constant performance, but he only knows how to lie about gratitude, not show it for real.

The one who didn’t betray him. Derek turns the words over in his mind to admire like precious stones. He remembers—did he read it somewhere, or does the knowledge come from somewhere else?—that the countess’ servants were called to stand trial. Each one confessed to the atrocities, the beatings, the bloodletting. The man. The wetnurse. The servant. Even Dorottya broke her vow of silence and servitude to testify against her mistress. They all betrayed her.

All but loyal Darvulia, her devotion unending. She wasn’t there that day. Already dead, some stories say. It doesn’t matter. Derek knows what became of her now. He threads his fingers through Izsák’s hair.

“I don’t get it,” he admits. “I don’t get how it works. But I believe you. I see pictures of her, and I know we’re the same.”

Izsák nuzzles against Derek’s palm like an animal, a pet seeking affection. It’s intoxicating, the power he holds, the total submission Izsák gives him, unchanged by the centuries. It feels right. It makes sense the way a dream does in the midst of it. “I couldn’t save you,” Izsák murmurs. “I was not strong enough then. This time will be different.”

Derek is too caught up in the thick need in Izsák’s voice, the curve of his spine as he leans into Derek’s touch, to understand the words right away. “Save me from what?” he asks, but Izsák is already standing, stepping away from him. Derek isn’t done with him. He yanks him back by the forearm and bites him without warning, leaving the shape of his teeth in his earlobe. “Save. Me. From. What,” Derek growls, each word punctuated with a nip to Izsák’s delicate skin. He bruises so easily.

“From your family,” Izsák gasps. He holds onto Derek, moves against him shamelessly. Derek feels how hard Izsák is and smirks against the fluttering flesh of his throat. He slides his thigh between Izsák’s legs, giving him the privilege of rutting against it. Izsák is so needy, so desperate to serve and explain as he chases his own pleasure, his words coming in breathless pants and whines. “Just as it was before, your own blood plots against you. Your father, he—oh, sir, please!”

Derek can’t pay attention to whatever Izsák is trying to tell him. It doesn’t matter. Nothing is more important right now than getting inside of Izsák and tasting him. “On the bed,” he demands, and Izsák obeys without question. They’re all over each other. Derek savors the roaming worship of Izsák’s hands down his biceps and across his chest. It feels good. It feels right. He can’t get undressed fast enough, still shedding clothes as he nips and licks at Izsák’s tempting neck, and Izsák is so good and obedient, turning his head to give Derek better access. “You really are mine,” Derek says.

“All yours, sir,” Izsák says. Derek has barely touched him and he looks blissed out already, eyes glazed, a delirious smile on his face as though just being in Derek’s presence is the greatest of pleasures. He unbuttons his shirt further, exposing a tantalizing flash of his collarbones and old, faded marks Derek left days ago. “Take me. Drink from me. Do with me whatever pleases you.” Izsák’s nails sink into his shoulders as he pulls himself up enough to whisper against Derek’s ear, “Please, master. I’ve waited for you.”

The final, worn string of Derek’s self-control snaps. He bites into Izsák like he’s meat. He hears skin and tissue give beneath his teeth, splitting, squelching open, tastes the tangy burst of Izsák’s lifeblood on his tongue. He ruts against Izsák’s hard, twitching cock, trapped between their bodies, and Izsák’s head falls back in ecstasy. Derek sucks at the wound and tastes Izsák’s tenderness, the sharp sweetness of him. It’s so good, so right and familiar. Izsák was born for this, born for him. He would never belong to anyone the way he belonged to Derek, would never know anyone as deeply, would never want anyone as wholly. Somehow, arched and gasping, Izsák moves himself, grinds slowly against Derek’s achingly hard cock. He reaches between them and guides Derek to his twitching, anticipating hole. Derek slams inside of his welcoming, tight heat and his eyes roll back in his head. Nothing has ever felt so good.

“You’re mine. My loyal little toy. My cockslut,” Derek hisses, unclamping his jaws from Izsák’s neck just to find a new, fresh spot to taste. Izsák shudders around him, beneath him. His legs open wider. Derek hooks Izsák’s ankles over his shoulders and bends him in half. It’s new, doing it like this. He’s fucked Izsák while looking at him a couple times but never staring like this, never pressed chest to chest and sharing breath. Izsák’s lips are right there and he moves without thinking, swooping in, crushing their mouths together. So soft and tender. His teeth crunch through Izsák’s lower lip and blood gushes into his mouth, heady and intoxicating. “Can’t get enough of you,” he moans into Izsák’s mouth.

Izsák’s nails rake down his back hard enough to draw blood. Derek lets him. It’s better that way, more raw, more wonderful. He pulls back to admire the blood and saliva smeared across Izsák’s lips, dripping down his chin. It feels like the desert in his room, the heat, the intensity, a soft body surrendering beneath him. He slams his cock into Izsák’s helpless body over and over again, relishing the sensations, the sounds, the desperate raggedness of Izsák’s breathing. He crushes Izsák against the bed and this time he kisses him. He should’ve done it earlier. Izsák’s mouth is so hot, so soft and slutty and wanting him. He sucks on Izsák’s tongue as he fucks him into the mattress, hips pistoning, cock drilling into his pliant, shaking body.

Izsák has been wanton and shameless before, but this is more than that. This is devotion, Derek thinks. This is what he’s always deserved. Izsák’s thighs quiver as Derek pounds into him, so hard and fast his own legs are straining but he can’t bring himself to stop. The pleasure is blinding, a liquid heat in the pit of his stomach. He’s kissing Izsák in filthy, hungry ways that he’s never done with any of his girlfriends, licking into him, tangling their tongues together, sucking on the bite he left for every bead of blood that bubbles to the surface. He’s going to cum. He’s going to claim Izsák so thoroughly, so completely, that he’ll never be satisfied by anyone else ever again. He’ll worship Derek’s cock just like this with his whole body. He’ll beg for it. He’ll beg for a chance to suck his dick under the table at dinner parties. He’ll thank Derek when he cums down his throat and swallow every drop.

Izsák is his. He might be Derek’s father’s assistant on paper, he might spread his legs for him sometimes, but he’s Derek’s. He’s been Derek’s across centuries, across continents. He’s come all this way just to get on his knees before Derek, where he belongs. Derek squeezes Izsák’s ass, digs his nails in. This is mine, he thinks. This body, this mind, this entire being. He stops kissing Izsák to nose against the other side of his neck, licking and teasing the unbroken skin.

Derek smirks against Izsák’s hammering pulse. He’s close. He’s going to cum. He fucks Izsák deep, grinds against him, feels his balls roll over Izsák’s smooth skin. “Beg me to bite you,” he purrs.

Izsák clings even more tightly, begs even more sweetly. “Please, give me your bite,” Izsák cries for him. “I need it. I was born to receive it. Please use me, make me yours. I should always belong to you, master.”

Derek cums hard, buried deep inside of Izsák. Everything whites out, sight and sound and understanding consumed by orgasm. There’s a sharp stinging sensation somewhere on his body, a pain that crests with the pleasure, intermingled too tightly to process on its own. Izsák writhes and whimpers through his own orgasm, his own cum splattering across his chest and Derek fills him. It feels like the aftershocks last forever, heat rushing through him, waves and pulses.

Derek is trembling when he pulls out of Izsák, watching Izsák’s hole clench obscenely around emptiness as cum leaks out of him. Neither of them speaks for some time, basking in the completion of it all. Derek feels the world swaying as though he’s riding a metronome, the call of sleep smothering and irresistible. He can’t believe how hard he came. There’s still blood on his mouth and he licks his lips, humming at the taste. He feels someone touch him; Izsák, gentle and reverent. Tracing his muscles. Caressing his chest. He doesn’t cuddle, but when he’s this tired, teetering on the edge of oblivion, he can’t complain.

He wonders if they did this before. If Countess Bathory laid with sweet, loyal Darvulia, cuddled like lovers. Just this once, he thinks, he’ll let Izsák get away with it. For old times’ sake.

—murmurs. Someone calling him. Calling his name. Softly and distantly, then loud. Close. Not Izsák. Not respectful enough.

“Derek. Get up.”

A rustling sound, the scrape of curtains rising. Blinding, burning light assaults Derek’s eyes and he groans, rolling over. God, what time is it? Sleep clings stubbornly to his mind, clouding his thoughts. He’s sore, mostly in his legs and back. Right, it’s coming back to him. He and Izsák fucked last night. Izsák, Darvulia, hundred year old Hungarian witch, whatever. It was some of the best sex of his life. But usually, it’d be Izsák who comes and gets him in the morning, so why is his father here, looming over Derek’s bed and refusing to leave?

“What?” he says, groggy. His father is frowning in that tense, disappointed way that turns Derek’s stomach. He sees it directed at other people mostly, former business partners, overambitious rivals, people who really, really fuck up. Derek’s mouth goes dry. “What?” he says again, struggling to sit up straight. What happened? What did he do? He can’t be mad about Izsák, right, it’s not like they were being subtle. Did he forget something?

Derek looks at the window and fuck, it’s late,he must’ve slept through an event he was supposed to go to or some shit. He rubs his eyes, pushing himself to remember. He thinks, maybe, there was some kind of afternoon social he was supposed to make an appearance at, but the details are foggy. Why is his head pounding like that? It’s like having a hangover. He feels like he slept for decades.

His father paces halfway across the room. Derek follows the movement with his eyes and spots something at the foot of the bed. Is that blood? Dirt? Some kind of ugly stain on the sheets. They really got carried away last night, he thinks, but then he sees an arm.

Just an arm.

Not Izsák’s. He’s not sure why his mind goes there immediately, but it’s not, he knows it isn’t. Izsák doesn’t wear flaking pink nail enamel with glitter. He just knows there’s a severed human arm on his bed and a bunch of stains around it. Definitely dried blood, but there’s dirt, too, like someone dug up a grave, and.

That’s cum. That’s definitely a cum stain. Derek’s eyes slowly trail up to meet his father’s. His father looks down at him and doesn’t say a word. Derek swallows hard and tries to think of something, anything, that he can say. Nothing comes to mind.

“I’ve had concerns,” his father says. Derek can barely hold his gaze. That judgment, that cold scrutiny—he works tirelessly to escape it, to put on the most convincing performance he can. “You don’t know the first thing about discretion. That’s one thing. It’s another that you think I’ll clean up all of your messes for you.”

Derek glances at the arm, sprawled grotesquely over his sheets. “I don’t know what that is,” he says hoarsely. Obviously he knows what it is, but he doesn’t know how it got there.

“I’ve been lenient,” his father goes on, as if Derek never spoke. “Too lenient. I’ve turned a blind eye to most of your deviancy. But this? This crosses the line. I should have listened to Izsák sooner.”

Derek’s blood goes cold in his veins. “What does that mean?” he demands. His father turns his back on him. Derek throws himself out of bed, rushing after him. “What the fuck does that mean?”

“It means you’re cut off,” his father says. He doesn’t even look at him when he speaks. “I want your things out of here by tonight, but don’t go too far. The police want to speak with you. Something about graverobbing and desecration of a corpse.”

Derek stands there numbly, watching his father walk out and the door slam shut behind him. No. He didn’t do it. He didn’t do any of this. He looks back at the arm hatefully. What the fuck is it doing there, ruining his life? Heat rises to his face, shame, humiliation. Maybe he was getting a little arrogant, brazenly packing his bags for his desert outings, leaving things lying around in plain sight, but it was always so easy to explain away. He’s good at his performance. No one suspected anything. If he’s going to get caught, it’s not going to be for some bullshit he didn’t even do. He wipes angry, helpless tears out of his eyes and storms downstairs. Izsák. He needs to find Izsák.

He runs into other housekeepers who pale and dart out of his way. Derek ignores them. He doesn’t care about any of them, his gaze lingering only if they’re the right height, wearing the right uniform. No sign of Izsák in any of the usual places. No one in the kitchen. Not a soul out by the pool. He scares a gardener when he comes storming through but finds nobody else. His father has retreated elsewhere in the house and Derek finds his office abandoned, paperwork strewn across his desk. Derek sees several financial forms and summaries, land deeds, company assets, stocks and bonds. A copy of his father’s will sits in the corner and Derek’s heart stops.

Under the section for inheritors, his name isn’t listed. Neither are any of his siblings or cousins. Not even Clarice shows up anywhere. But one name does appear, getting absolutely everything his father could possibly leave behind.

Izsák Varga.

There is one moment of silence. A lack of comprehension. Derek reads the name several times before it makes sense. Then comes the storm building, the fire and venom churning inside of him, a tight, clenching pain in his chest. Disbelief. Bitter humor. A hatred so powerful it makes him lightheaded and hot in the face. He goes through the stages of grief in the span of a millisecond, mourning something he didn’t realize he even wanted, and a crazed smile stretches across his face.

Calmly and quietly, he goes upstairs and begins going through his things. He shoves his dresser out of the way and pushes aside a false wall panel concealing a large, musty-smelling duffel bag. He unzips it, checks the contents. Grains of sand trickle from an open compartment. Good. Everything he needs. He’s angry. He can’t remember the last time he was this angry, his hands shaking, his whole body seeming to vibrate with the need to stab and strangle. But there’s an excited edge to it, the sort of anticipation that comes with his vacations.

I’m going to fucking kill him, he thinks. I’m going to make him beg for death.

He’s smiling too big, too honestly. He feels giddy and he can’t hide it. A woman dusting in the hall gives him a wide berth when he passes, plastering herself against the wall. He’s a predator passing, a wolf with better things to do and bigger prey in mind. He licks his lips. His mask fails him. He doesn’t even try to pretend anymore.

#rotpeach writes #usurpers #tpof #derek #izsak #i feel like i should apologize in advance lol brace yourself for this one #i'll do my best not to make you guys wait another year for the followup lmfao

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the-hoarse-bard · 4 years

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As I was prepping myself for the climb ahead with some meditation, I overheard some local villagers talking about a man named Klimmek. It seems he usually helps provide food to the Greybeards, but had been unable to do so lately due to a knee injury. Thinking it would probably be bad for me if my new instructors were to starve, I found Klimmek and offered to take the supplies up for him. He was very grateful, and told me to just leave the bag in the chest outside the door of the monastery.

I stood before the first step, Klimmek’s supplies in hand, paralyzed. Could I really do this? I took a few deep breaths and remembered the words of my mentor when I was leaving Elsweyr for Skyrim, “the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”. I could still feel the warmth of his fur as he embraced me, and the smell of the skooma on him. He was sober that day, but that smell doesn’t come out. I know that too well. With renewed resolve, I started the steep climb.

I noticed a small shrine at the top of the first set of stairs, and curious I decided to check it closer. Then I noticed writing on a small plaque set into the stone. These shrines seem to tell the tale of dragons and their relationship towards men. I decided to keep an eye out along the trail for any more. They seem like an interesting read at the very least.

As I came toward the second stone, I caught sight of a man. I asked what he was doing here, and he claimed he was a hunter. He liked to make the pilgrimage up the seven-thousand steps every now and then, as is the Nord tradition. I told him that I respected him for it. I was already beginning to get exhausted by the climb. We shared a laugh, and parted shortly after, headed in opposite directions.

The second emblem told of the beginnings of men on Mundus. The wording suggests that the dragons protected them at that time, because they were weak. What could that last part mean though? About having no voice. Hm.

The sky began to cloud and snow began to fall as I approached the third emblem. It told of men beginning to war with the dragons over land, and dragons being impossible for the men to beat without a voice, and so the dragons broke their hearts. I felt a tear roll down my cheek. The last part reminded me of my mother, and how she had given me up to the Two-Moons temple when I was young. Of course, how could a Senche-Tiger hope to raise a child? Had that been an example of not having a voice? I dried my eyes, and headed onward.

I encountered another Nord walking the steps at the next emblem, a woman this time. She seemed to be meditating in front of the emblem. I didn’t want to disturb her, but she spoke to me as I tried to walk by. She greeted me warmly, and introduced herself as Karita. I asked what she was doing up here. She said she preferred to leave it as being just another pilgrim, as she takes the trip up the mountain every few years. She asked me what I was up to, and I couldn’t help but lie that I was also on a pilgrimage. She gave me a wry smile. I could feel like she knew I was fibbing, but she didn’t pry and wished me luck on the trip, and went back to her meditation.

The fourth tablet told of Khenarthi seeing her people suffering and calling on the dragon Paarthunax, who pitied them, to give them a voice. This incited the first dragon war, as men could now hope to best their draconic masters. This time I was reminded of my time at the temple. The monks were as loving as their limited attachment would allow, they taught me most of what I know. They were like family to me. However, once I came of age, I realized I could never be one of them. I was too attached. They would die long before me, and that was a sorrow I could never bear. So I set off into the world alone. They did their best, but I was not prepared, and fell in with a bad crowd, where I learned to pickpocket and steal to fuel my new skooma habits. I became a shameful addict. Of course, that’s where I had met my master, an old sugar-tooth of Cathay-Raht furstock named Dro’Khrassa. Fate has strange ways of leading us. His sorry state made me give up the skooma out of pity, but also because he believed I could be better. The monks had refused to teach me their martial arts. Something about spoiling my innocence. A cold wind shook me from my reminiscence, and I hurried on before I fell back into it.

The snow stopped as I approached the next tablet. the clouds remained, and the wind was still biting, but not having it fling ice into my face made it less so.

I pulled my cloak tighter around me as I read the emblem. It told of how men triumphed over the dragons with their newfound voice, shouting Alduin out of the world, and of the many sacrifices it took to achieve this. I recalled the first lessons from my master. The way to recover from the skooma’s influence. A brew of moon sugar and luna moth wings to slowly ebb away from it. Almost as sickeningly sweet as the taste of skooma, but with much less damaging effects, as long as one doesn’t mind turning invisible with the inevitable hiccups it brings. He called it the Moon Dance tea, and claims he heard of it through the nomads of Elsweyr. Despite the constant skooma shakes, he was a great teacher. He may not have had his once-honed body any longer, but his mind remained sharp through all his years.

The next tablet was among a small stand of trees, providing much-needed shelter from the wind as I read.

This one told of men founding their first empire, and the dragons withdrawing from the world. It reminded me of why I had come to Skyrim. My master, amidst his skooma-fits had seen a vision. A great shadow threatening to swallow the world. He claimed that he had seen me in his vision too, fighting back the shadow alongside great heroes of the past. Heroes who had achieved great deeds. The Hero of Kvatch, the Nerevarine, and the one who had halted the Warp in the West. He said he had never had such a clear vision in his life. Of course, the both of us not having much money, and not being daring enough to steal enough money to travel, I had to go alone on the back of a stolen horse. I rode right through Cyrodiil, from Lleyawiin to Bruma. I was forced to kill the horse and use its body to keep me warm as I passed into Skyrim. I hope that old so and so was safe after my flight from Elsweyr. We were both known by the local law enforcement as accomplices, so I pray that they didn’t pin the horse theft on him.

The seventh tablet told of Jurgen Windcaller, who had been the one to defeat the dragons at Red Mountain, and how he meditated for seven years on how the strong voices of the dragons could fail to the fledgling voices of men. I suppose that’s why these are the seven thousand steps. One thousand for every year he meditated. I wonder if he ever found his answer?

The next emblem told of Jurgen choosing silence and returning to civilization. Seventeen men tried to shout him down, but none could. He then built his home upon the Throat of the World. I suppose this must be how High Hrothgar began. I’ve read in history books that the land of Skyrim was warmer then. I suppose these heights might have even been pleasant then. Reading of his isolation did remind me of my father though, I never knew him. My mother could never tell me anything about him, as the Senche cannot speak. I assume he must have been of a similar shape to her own. Then I had the rather unusual image of an Alfiq bedding a Senche enter my head, and I couldn’t help but stifle a laugh. Surely such a thing would be ridiculous.... But who can be afraid of looking ridiculous when they’re in love?

The monastery was in sight of the next shrine, which told of the Greybeards calling Tiber Septim, the first Dragonborn to High Hrothgar, as they had now with me. I felt anxiety enter my mind. What if I wasn’t what they had expected? What if I came all this way for nothing? I shook my head, I had to do this. If not for my master, then for myself.

The final emblem had but a short stanza upon it. “The voice is worship, follow the inner path, speak only in True Need.” Strange. It almost sounds like how the monks in Elsweyr had spoken to me about their claws. As well as being useful, they were dangerous. A great blessing, as well as a great responsibility. They had told me all of us Khajiit were creatures of duality. “Just as moon sugar brings us closer to the gods, it can debase us. As the moon chases the sun, as the deserts meet the jungles, we are always both the light and the dark, for our mother is Azurah. The spirit of the twilight between the dusk and dawn.” For a moment I regretted not heeding this advice when I was young, but then I had a revelation. They did not mean it as a negative. Just as my darkness had damned me to thievery in a skooma den, it had also led me to my master, who had given me purpose and given me a brighter light. With renewed resolve, I faced the monastery.

I dropped Klimmek’s package into the chest as he had asked. Clearly, the Greybeards are well provided for, but I was still glad to have a hand in this gift. I walked up the final steps to the door, and headed inside, eager to meet with my new teachers.

#skyrim #shirazzha #khajiit #high hrothgar #lore

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spaceshipsarecool · 7 years

Text

Belong

Happy Birthday @coop-writes!!! My attempt at supercorp for you came out a bit of a mess, but I hope you will enjoy it anyway <3

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“Ten more minutes,” Alex pressed, trying to grab Kara’s arm as she walked towards the DEO landing-pad, but Kara shrugged her off easily, too intent on her aim. “Kara, please!”

“I’m fine, Alex. I just need some air.” It was only half true. Physically she hadn’t taken any damage in that last fight, but her emotions were still spinning and ‘air’ wasn’t what she was after.

The alien himself hadn’t been anything special, just another remnant of Fort Rozz with a grudge against her mother, but he had clearly spent enough time with Kryptonians to perfect the language. His taunts in her native tongue had been painful, cutting in a way that his claws and teeth could not, and when he had spoken the name of her house, Kara’s control had cracked. Technically, there was nothing wrong with his pronunciation, but the disdain that had colored his words had been all his own, and it had been unacceptable.

She had gotten good at playing Kara Danvers over the years, at pretending to be an awkward, but mostly normal human from an average middle-class American family. But ever since she had started to embrace who she was as Supergirl, she had been finding it harder and harder to simply shrug off the confidence the suit lent her, to distance herself from the memories of walking through Argo City with that crest on her dress. She hadn’t been Supergirl in those days, but she also hadn’t been Kara Danvers, and there was still a part of her that recalled what it was to be royalty, to see people bow their heads as she passed and speak her house name with reverence.

“Kara…” Alex tried again, and a twinge of guilt that she was causing Alex to worry made Kara pause at the door. Alex would calm her down if she stayed, soothing her and reigning her in until she was back to being the little sister, and most of the time that was what Kara wanted. The Kara that she was in Alex’s presence was the closest she ever came to feeling like she fit on this planet, but looking down at her clenched fists she had to admit that this fit as well; the anger at hearing her house insulted, the pride at defending it so completely. Maybe the emotions didn’t quite match the culture she had adopted, but they did fit her. They belonged to her by right, and she wasn’t ready to let go of them just yet.

“I’ll come by your place later for a sisters’ night,” she offered without looking over her shoulder, hoping it would be enough.

A moment later Alex let out a resigned sigh. “Just… be safe, Kara. I’ll be waiting whenever you’re ready.”

It was all she needed, and she was through the door and leaping into the sky before Alex had finished speaking, her destination at the forefront of her mind.

It probably wasn’t the smartest decision to seek Lena out right then, but the crush that had started simply enough had grown into so much more. Kara had seen the vulnerability behind Lena’s strength, the questions behind her confidence, and whenever Kara saved Lena, or held her in her arms to chase away the fear, it stirred the ancient oaths in her blood, promises of shelter and care. It was a pull she tried to suppress most of the time because the way it wanted to manifest did not fit with who Kara Danvers was supposed to be, and Supergirl wasn’t close enough to Lena to address it with any real depth, but Kara Zor-El...

If she kept the visit short Lena would brush off any odd behavior, and just once Kara wanted to be around Lena when she wasn’t struggling to police her inner thoughts. Kara wanted to spend a few minutes with Lena where she didn’t stop herself from wondering what Lena’s lips would taste like, or from savoring that little blush that sometimes adorned Lena’s face. Most of all, Kara wanted to look at Lena and let herself imagine how beautiful she would appear if she were to wear Kara’s crest. How stunning Lena would be when proclaiming to all who would see that she was deserving of such a title, and that like the mark, she was precious, was Kara’s to protect.

It only took a minute to reach L-Corp, another few to change and make her way through the building to the correct floor. Nodding to Jess as she passed, Kara proceeded to push open the office door. She was greeted with a pacing Lena, one who’s step faltered and hand jerked at the sudden entrance, sending the pencil she had been twirling in her fingers flying across the room.

“Kara! I wasn’t expecting… this is a nice surprise,” Lena’s smile was warm, and Kara’s heart beat faster, her own smile rising in answer.

“I missed you,” she said, flicking her eyes over Lena’s body too fast for a human to follow, biting her lip as she took in the tight black top and matching skirt. Lena looked good in anything, but there was something deliciously tantalizing about her in black, almost a pretense that she was fiercer than she was, and all Kara wanted to do was peel her out of it and uncover the woman underneath.

But Kara still had a line. Maybe it was different from the one she typically drew, but as long as it was only her own temptation, her own desires at play, she would not cross it. Not unless there was more at stake.

“It’s a good time for a break, actually,” Lena continued. “Just let me find my pencil, and then we can…” she trailed off, waving her hand expressively before walking past Kara and casting her eyes downward.

////////////////////

“No.”

Lena’s breath caught at the firmness of the tone, unexpected from the woman behind her, and instinctively she froze in place.

She hadn’t thought anything of it, of hiking her skirt up and sinking to her knees in front of Kara, of placing her hands on the floor as she prepared to lower herself even more in search of the missing implement. With someone else the idea of them seeing her like this would have been untenable, but this was Kara. Just Kara, only Kara, who was all sunshine and smiles and warm hugs. Kara who had never judged her, who put her at ease in a way that people so rarely did. Except that now...

“No,” it came again, and this time Lena shivered as the voice moved over her, slipping through the thin barrier of fabric to settle directly against her skin.

Suddenly her position no longer seemed so innocent.

She had imagined it, of course. Imagined kissing Kara, gliding her fingers through that hair to work it loose from whatever restraint Kara had placed on it for the day. Imagined her hands trailing lower as she pushed Kara back into a wall, or a desk, or a bed. It was always gentle in her dreams though, Kara staring at her with an open trust as Lena worshiped her, Lena’s thoughts never straying too far into the dark.

But that darkness was still in there, and sometimes the phantom of Kara’s hand would grip her just a little too tight, or the look in Kara’s eyes would turn possessive for the briefest of seconds before Lena could lock that desire away. It was one thing to let herself picture Kara, but she wouldn’t allow herself to take that next step, to betray the person that Kara was by warping her into someone different, no matter how much harder she came against her own fingers on those nights when a hint of that other, not-Kara seeped in.

The not-Kara who she was sure would sound exactly like this one, if only Lena had ever let herself get that far in her imaginings.

Slowly, Lena forced her head to rotate, the rest of her body still unable to move, but she needed to see, needed to understand, even as at the same time she wanted to close her eyes and crawl away so that she wouldn’t have to face the disappointment when the image didn’t match what she had heard; the further disappointment in herself at how badly she wanted it to.

“Kara’s enough,” she tried to remind herself, but it felt hollow. “Kara’s enough, Kara’s enough, Kara’s-”

Kara was standing over her, having moved closer without Lena noticing, and Lena’s throat bobbed at the power in that pose. She looked like royalty, a Goddess of War with her stance wide and her shoulders proud as she stared at the back wall. The illusion was accentuated by the way Kara’s hand was resting on her glasses; not in that cute, nervous way she normally had of fiddling with them, but rather with an almost calculated finesse as she held them down to look over the rim.

“Lena,” Kara’s eyes drifted to the woman at her feet, not bothering to resettle her glasses, and for the first time Lena found herself under the full, uninterrupted gaze of Kara Danvers.

“No, not the first time,” the correction was immediate, all the little oddities about her friend falling into place. “The lenses must be tinted,” even with everything else the scientist in her couldn’t help but wonder what alloy had been used to dampen the brightness of those eyes. It was the only explanation—how the glasses worked so well—an added quality that reacted to the blue and nothing else, so that when someone viewed Kara’s eyes through the lenses they didn’t appear to be quite so alien. Quite so... consuming.

They were consuming her now, boring into Lena with single-minded intensity, and she almost moaned under the attention. Whatever hurt she might feel later that this secret had been kept from her couldn’t even begin compare to the heat of the moment, to the surge of want as her image of Kara blurred and shifted to accommodate this new information.

“Is this why you’ve never invited me to your home? Because you’ve been living here all this time?”

It demanded an answer, and Lena opened her mouth to give it, but her response died in her throat as the implication of Kara’s question sunk in. When Lena had initially moved into the small, single room ‘apartment’ hidden behind a panel in her office wall, it had been a temporary measure until she had time to look for a real place. But then one thing after another had surfaced, and when she didn’t have anything to look forward to after a long workday other than a glass of wine and one-sided dreams about her best friend, continuing to live at the office had just seemed more convenient. She had told herself that it was practical, not sad, buying into the argument enough to let the situation drag on for months.

Only now Kara had figured it out because when Lena had dropped her pencil, Kara’s automatic inclination had been to use her x-ray vision to locate it for her, seeing through the wall in the process.

Which was why Lena couldn’t speak, because the Last Daughter of Krypton, Heir to the House of El, had offered her power freely for something so insignificant. Because she wasn’t even trying to hide her identity anymore as that would mean hiding what she knew, hiding her concern.

And there was concern there, in the commanding tone, the sharp gaze, and Lena blinked as her image of Kara shifted yet again. For all that Lena was the one on the floor, the one that could be crushed in an instant, it was Kara’s power and energy that were being directed for her, because of her—Kara’s otherness doing nothing to mitigate the care and bond that had been forming since that first, fateful meeting.

“Lena,” the name was gentler this time, still steady, but there was a hesitancy seeping in as Kara became uncertain of how Lena would react. And that… now that Lena had seen this Kara, been gifted with this Kara, was not something she ever wanted Kara to feel around her again.

Tilting her head, Lena exposed her neck, not out of any fear but as a way to even the ground between them, to reveal herself back to Kara as Kara had just done for her. It was only fair, after all. Kara had taken them this far, and it was Lena’s turn to be brave, to unveil to extent of her emotion; the desire that had lingered behind every interaction.

Kara’s eyes darkened, time stretching out before them as she recognized Lena’s gesture for what it was, as she wavered over whether or not to accept.

“Don’t leave,” the prayer was silent, and Lena could only hope Kara would hear it anyway.

“I asked you a question, Lena.” Kara’s hand left her face, hesitancy fading as she made her decision, and she tossed her glasses to the couch without breaking eye contact. Then those same fingers were skimming along Lena’s neck, settling under her chin to hold her in place.

“I…” Lena’s voice was raspy, although from relief of arousal she wasn’t quite sure, and her tongue darted out to wet her lips before trying again. “I-I’ll find a real apartment soon. I prom-”

“You have a week,” Kara cut her off, grip tightening slightly to punctuate her words, and Lena shivered again when Kara’s thumb smoothed over her mouth to soften the touch, eyes slipping closed when Kara leaned down so that her breath fell against the shell of Lena’s ear. “You’re more than this place, Lena. More than the shadow of your name, more than your work, even. So I’m giving you a week to find someplace suitable, and it better be worthy of you, because if I judge that it’s not…” she let the words hang, more potent for their lack of clarity, and Lena knew that over the next week her mind would be in overdrive, conjuring up different scenarios to fulfill that threat.

But that wouldn’t be all, because there was also an implied reward, a promise of what would come if Lena obeyed Kara’s command. And that was something she wanted even more.

“It doesn’t have to be expensive, Lena, or opulent, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Kara drew back, but Lena kept her eyes closed, pressing her face into the hand that was now caressing her cheek. “Don’t just have Jess find the most upscale building she can and sign the lease sight unseen. Find a place that’s you, where you want to be, where…” Kara paused, and then in a whisper that Lena had to strain to hear, she added, “find a home, Lena. You belong here now, and I’m going to do whatever I can to convince you of that.”

“Please.” She hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but she couldn’t be embarrassed by the raw need in her voice, not when the answering tremor that passed through Kara’s fingers proved once and for all that the desire Lena had been warring with for months had never been just her own.

Before Lena could say anything else there was a whoosh of air and when she opened her eyes she was alone in her office, the missing pencil spinning on her desk as a reminder of what was to come.

#supergirl #supercorp #kara danvers #lena luthor #dom!kara #sub!lena #my fics

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the-writhing-mist · 5 years

Text

HV Chapter 1 Part 1

Word Count: 4634 Themes: 18+, medieval, dark fantasy, crusaders, demonxhuman, shame, religious guilt, mention of sexual violence, the world is terrible, D/s

(Chapter 1 of the primary Harvester story) home——navigation——next

Chapter 1: Ser James of Martom

The lights in the inn’s tavern were low.

Natural lights, the soft glow of candles.

The air was stuffy, warmer than it should’ve been, so many bodies shoved into a small space. The air was burned stale and musty.

Across from him sat two of the other men from his company.

Still wearing half their armor, their cheeks red, their faces grinning as they flirted with barmaids and chugged weak mead from ceramic mugs.

James sat quietly, both hands set on the table without anything to grasp at, breathing kept shallow as he watched them make fools of themselves.

They were traveling back from conquest.

War, but one that only truly belonged to despots and Kings.

Fresh blood still in his mind, crackling fire, children plucked from their beds, cries of women in the streets.

Their crime only that they didn’t believe enough.

Belief that was only verified with coin.

Sitting by Sigurd’s side was a woman. Shell-shocked, bewildered, with a tie on her hands. She wasn’t from here. She didn’t belong here.

James watched her carefully. His thoughts wouldn’t organize.

So he left to sleep.

But, alone in his room, different thoughts wandered through his mind.

He was a young boy again. In church, hearing the word of their god. His frail, dying mother at his side. His father, gone. At the head of the church was a statue, image of a great, luminous being that watched over them and demanded of them actions that marked them as pious.

A being that watched them for their actions that marked them as unworthy.

Damnation for intemperance.

Damnation for cruelty.

Damnation for perversity.

He prayed.

He prayed for his soul to be clean.

They had found him defiling himself and told him to pray.

They looked upon his mother’s health and told him to pray.

They looked upon his father’s absence and told him to pray.

But, alone, with only darkness and the sound of Sigurd and Castille from downstairs to watch him, he didn’t feel like praying.

He laid down on the bed.

The straw cut into his sides. It smelled of musk and rot.

It was wrong not to.

If he didn’t, he would be like them.

Loud, violent, lecherous.

And it would all be for nothing.

Instead he lay there.

Unable to sleep, unable to worship, unable to coalesce his feelings into solid form.

Staring at the light drip in from under the warped wood that made the door frame.

There was something off about the light. He squinted at it, sitting up so his feet touched the ground, tilting his head slightly as he stared. It was failing though there was a smoke strangling it. He listened to the voices from outside, smelled the air. Nothing seemed amiss. But still, in the darkness, sifting through the light, something was as it shouldn’t have been.

He could barely see it, though it were the reflection of oil sitting atop a puddle of water. But he felt it coming towards him, seeping into his skin with a feeling that could only be described as deeply foreign, with little else to place what it might be or where it was coming from.

He took back up his feet onto the mattress, staring intently downwards. There was nothing that could be seen.

But it wasn’t the first time he had noticed phenomenon of its like, and, with a brief scowl, made the decision to ignore it.

There was no ill fate he did not deserve, after all.

Strewn out over the straw-filled mattress, still wearing his gambeson with the heavier pieces of armor set on the ground, the knight was in deep sleep. He tossed and turned, uncomfortable, making strange whining noises with tremulous breath, his limbs wrapped with the thin, worn blankets, until suddenly he was shocked into wakefulness by a loud pounding on the door.

“We need to get going if we’re to make it to Yorl by sundown.”

James groaned at the familiar voice. Behind the door stood the tall, dark-haired Castille, fully donned in armor, with the shorter, courtly Sigurd standing behind him.

“I won’t be long,” he called back to them and pulled himself up.

But he found his breathing erratic since ripped into wakefulness, nerves sparking, veins filled uncomfortably, pressure nestling in places he didn’t dare acknowledge.

Staring at the pile of iron chainmail and plate setting by the bed, he let his thoughts drift.

It had been a dream that had secured the state he was in. But he had been woken so suddenly that he could scarcely piece together what it had been. Rotating his gaze back to the bed, his head filled with syrup and his joints longing for use, and he thanked his fortunes that he could not remember it any longer.

But there was little time left to tarry and little piety left to let himself linger in that state, and so he pulled himself away to tie straps tight to fasten his armor over him. He tied them tighter than usual, thinking to help keep himself in order, but as he stood up and began walking he felt the pressure against his bones only worsened his state.

The others would have acted on it.

Brutish monsters, he thought. Hypocrites. Lechers. Sodomites.

Ah, but who was he to care about things like that?

He had not even prayed the night before.

And as he lingered in the room, his thoughts became driftwood awash in a great lake, taken away to visions of what other men might’ve done, what they were capable of, awash with morbid curiosity as he played it out in his mind. He wouldn’t have let himself stray a year ago. A year ago, there would’ve been a wall to keep himself away from those things. A wall that had been built by his mother, by vicars, by teachers, by his uncle. A year ago, he would’ve gladly drank poison if it meant he was spared from such sin.

But, slowly, the wall had crumbled until the forbidden landscape lay but a careful step away. It was a charred, desolate land, with twisted trees and bubbling mires.

He found vision of Sigurd there, acting upon the heathen girl he had claimed as his own.

A crude act. The motions, sounds. All of it vile beyond comprehension.

It shouldn’t have been in his thoughts at all.

If only there was some way. Some means that the wall could be built back up again.

Hand on the door handle, he let in one last breath from the well of his demons, then took a step outside, thankful that his armor was thick and covering enough to keep symptom of his thoughts hidden.

Outside, he greeted his horse, patting him on the head and taking hold of his reins to lead him forward, then pulling himself up to the saddle to join up with the others. Luvisi was a black courser with a white snout, bred and gifted to him by his uncle, the Count of Martom. More his friend than any of the men he travelled with. He had known the others for months, fought with them, rode back from the capital with them after learning they were traveling in the same direction, and yet could suffer no feeling of familiarity or camaraderie with them.

They were from Olfael and Matrea. Smaller, more rural towns further west that had been summoned by the Count when the call to battle was poured into his chalice. They were closer to the godless cities along the coast, where it was said men bedded men and spent their days worshipping the body and all of its whims with perverse statues and paintings.

James glared idly at the satchels of gold tied to their horses.

“Do you know of the monster living in the hills of Yorl?” Castille said to his wayward companion.

“I am familiar. It is an old tale,” said James, though his mind lingered elsewhere.

“It’s a dragon that snatches up young girls!” Sigurd added with a grin.

“It is only a legend. I have been through those woods many times. There is no sign of a dragon.”

“There is a similar tale told in Matrea,” said another in their company, a hooded man with a thick beard by the name of Evelyn. “Of a monster that hides in the deep of the lake. Many have seen it. It is said to drown children and old women.”

“Ah,” Sigurd groaned. “You speak of the feeble and infirm who swim far past their limits.”

“That is no good reason to doubt it,” Castille boasted. “There are demons everywhere, my friend, many of who prey on the feeble and infirm. Why should we doubt on Yorl’s dragon? There were maidens who went missing, after all.”

“There are many reasons for girls to go missing,” James said, eyeing the heathen girl who walked alongside them, lead by rope intertwined with Sigurd’s fingers.

“If you are to be believed, then there is no harm in passing through those woods to see for ourselves.”

“We are not lingering in Yorl,” James protested.

“I, at least, want to ask around,” Castille said. “See what people have to say about it. I am interested in such things.”

“There could be a reward for its death,” Sigurd said with a grin.

“It is a long journey yet,” Evelyn spoke up. “We need supplies, a day spent in Yorl will do us good.”

As much as he wished to veto the decision, thinking to himself, We could’ve got supplies before we left, of the five of them Evelyn was the only one he held some respect for, and so James simply said, “Perhaps you are right,” and let them have their way.

“Perhaps there is no reason to let the Count’s bastard nephew decide what we do,” the soldier named Merric said, his tongue a serrated blade. “We are far from battle, are you not tired of listening to the bark and whine of noblemen?”

The others mumbled agreeably amongst each other at the sentiment, satisfied with what it had to offer them, and James held his tongue.

But the silence was unwelcome and, without focus, the warm, humid air filling his lungs, there was nothing to keep his thoughts from wandering.

His mother had begged him to find a wife before she had died, pointing him to courtly women of lesser regard. They smiled at him, skin smooth, fingers delicate, eyes bright, but never could he willfully approach them.

For, he had been told, he had the same face as his father.

It was beyond him to associate with creatures so fair.

Hair in heavenly curls, lips red though painted with blood, their frames small, their wrists able to fit in his palm, so easily hurt, so brightly their skin would show bruises, so vividly blood would shine, so sharply, timidly they might cry. How they watched him, looked on him, and knew nothing of his nature.

His father’s nature.

They might shriek in disgust if they knew, reviling him for his depravity, smirking for he was so prone to failure, so weak to the whispering of demons, no better than a heathen. The admonishment was only a part of his fantasy, though. His uncle would reject him, he’d be tossed out on the street to starve, and he’d be left only with desperate demons to bite at his ankles until he became wild and monstrous, to the horror of all involved.

He used to pray.

In the dark of night, he had gutted his soul, hoping someone was listening, hoping to be saved.

But the more he prostrated himself, the more he hated forgiveness.

He did not even know the girl’s name they toted along with them. He let his eyes grow envious of her, to be so vacuous of being, to be gutted only then to be filled with her master’s guidance and direction while his god gave him only silence.

The knight knew she was nothing to envy, especially not with a man like Sigurd as her keeper. He had stood with Evelyn when they had tried to convince Sigurd to let her go, arguing mostly over food and water. But she was beautiful and providence had secured his right to her. If she had converted, perhaps, a case could be made. But she knew not their language nor their god.

They had stopped to rest, to bring their horses to water alongside a forest pool, the noontime sunlight beating down on them in pieces and shards, having escaped from the canopy’s net. Birds called to each other throughout the branches, mockingly unseen, acting as chorus to the quiet rustling of the wind through the leaves. James patted Luvisi’s side as he drank, the sounds through his throat hearty as he snorted and then raised his head to shake the water free of his mane.

The heavy-built Castille had found himself a place on the ground, his greaves set next to him, and he rubbed at the sores on his feet with his hands. He was a wild man in appearance, his hair long and body made out of boulderous stone, but his visage owed as much to their months away as his nature. He was a hunter by trade. They were fortunate to have his company, though the boisterous candor of his voice grated so on James.

Evelyn had also sat himself down, all of his face but his peppered beard obscured by his cloak, pulling out bits of stale bread he had brought from the last town to chew on. Sigurd had secured his horse’s reins on a tree, but he was otherwise nowhere to be seen, along with the other two.

With a murmur of resignation, James knelt down to take the clear water up in his hands and threw it up over his face. Feeling his skin finally cool since morning, he let out a sigh. He turned his head back upwards, listening to the whistling of the forest life, and thought perhaps it was otherwise a pleasant day.

Much better than the weeks spent outside castle walls in siege.

But his thoughts drew ill again at the thought of returning home. Of the sight of his uncle. His cousins. The gnawing void birthed by his mother’s death. The shadow of his absent father keeping every step with him in those halls. And, so, he took Sigurd’s lead to wander about on his own after securing Luvisi, thankful for the chance at solitude in familiar territory.

He followed the stream that had fed into the pool, pacing idly and letting the sound of water and the larks in the trees focus his mind. But the shallow water offered no relief as when he cast his eyes upon it and his feet were drained of their momentum when he noticed a strange mist running along its edge. Thin, implacable, nearly invisible were it not for its strange iridescence and the fuming shadows it cast upon the surface of the water.

It was the smoke again, settling alongside where water met stone and gravel.

But there was little he was able to think on it.

When he raised his head again, he immediately was captured by the sight of a small bird.

A lone, black swallow, perched on a large spire-like boulder along the creek’s edge, directly facing him with its wings folded and head held high. It made no sound, no call, it carried itself coldly and with reservation, unlike a bird of that size in every movement and intention, so keen in its fixation upon him.

He stepped backwards, but his foot hit upon unsteady ground and, with a snap of a twig, he was forced to turn to see less his balance be forfeit. When he returned his sight forwards, the bird was gone. He had heard no flutter of wings, no sign of movement, no evidence that it was ever there in the first place.

The clear conclusion hung in the mind of the knight, but he let it settle without reaction or reservation, feeling the straps of his armor sitting against his body and weighing down on top of his nerves in a way that tended the fire in him.

Continuing to follow alongside the creek, he saw it open up into a gully, filled by recent rainfall, trees that had been pulled down with their soil lining the ground. At the far end of it he caught sight of Sigurd, unmistakable with his shortened hair and clean-shaven face, and one of the other men of their company was with him. It was Merric, the all-too-eager companion in many of Sigurd’s games, with light, stringy hair and crooked teeth. He thought to approach them, but that stream of thought was quickly suffocated as he noticed the girl. She was on her knees, the binding on her hands holding her wrists behind Sigurd’s knees, her hair a leash and eyes shut tight.

James quickly ducked behind one of the fallen trees, blood rushing through his veins until he was deaf, wishing that it would take his sight just the same. Face flushed, he buried it in his hands, trying to ward off the impurity that threatened to take over him. At such circumstances, how was it even possible for him react like this? But it refused to go, and his fingers slipped from his eyes until he felt unable to move them at all for fear any energy put towards them would turn them traitorous.

But as he became accustomed to his heartbeat in his ears, he picked up sounds from the other side. Sounds that made his nerves itch. Sounds that were not of speech. And, glancing over the tree trunk, he knew there was little use fighting it. Guilt at his reaction shutting down all faculty, he surrendered, thinking only to drain the wound. Amputation of his spirit was all he could afford.

With trembling fingers, he let his hands slip under his armor, undoing the buttons on his trousers, thankful that the gambeson and the tassets that hung over his waist hid his sight of it so he could be spared from more visceral knowledge. But he felt all air running through his throat become soft and murky, sticking occasionally on his vocal chords as he took hold of it and realized just how quickly the feeling carried him away, awash with physical relief as the sensation was nurtured forth from his flesh.

The guilt was a poison in his gut, but it was a poison he needed. It was a poison that ensured his act of self-deprecation was founded, that the shame and the lust all brewed together until he had lost sense of himself, fully surrendered to the void within him, erased from existence by feeling if only for a moment.

But his grip weakened as the initial moment of exaltation faded and he realized he needed something different. Something more. It was impossible for the feeling to be sated. Not like this. And the sense of purposelessness in the act filled his joints with cement until he no longer had the will to carry it through. It was too sickening, even for one as depraved as him.

When he set his head back and allowed his eyes to open, he quickly swallowed notion of his preoccupation to find sight of the bird again. It sat on the tree across from him, again languid in movement and its singular intent upon him sticking in his throat.

His eyelids twitched inwards as he saw it refused to react or move, unable to draw his attention elsewhere at being watched so that it might have seen him, that it knew.

“Witch,” he whispered, trying to calm his shuddering breath.

The bird tilted its head.

“Incorrect,” a voice said. It was a woman’s voice, calm and authoritative, but it had come from nowhere, making itself known only within his head.

“Demon,” he tried again. “I know what you are. Followed me back from Timpan.”

“Demon?” it hummed the word. He knew the voice was the swallow’s, for it was as cold as how the tiny creature held itself. “Says the creature made of cruelty. And, for that matter, it has been a very long time since I have been to Timpan.”

“Leave me alone,” he hissed, trying to kick it with his foot, but it merely took wing and then landed again by the base of his heel.

“I see no reason to do that.”

He raised his arms to claw anxiously at his neck, scooting himself further backwards against the tree. “You have lead me to temptation and come to gloat over your success.”

“I have done no such thing,” it responded. “If it were me, it would’ve been much more of a success.”

“What do you want from me? I am no longer am I a pious man, there is nothing the devil gains by corrupting me that he does not already have. I’ve been impure since my conception.”

“Oh, dear child,” she said with a strangely loving sigh. “You do not need to be saintly for me to find interest in you.”

“Interest?” he sneered. “I am no one. There is your despot of cruelty over there, forcing acts of sodomy upon a helpless girl. Go recruit him to your cause, I am sure he would gladly give up his soul in exchange for whatever it is you are offering.”

“I have no interest in cruelty like that. In fact, my interest is only in freedom from cruelty.”

“What?”

“There’s no reason to try to convince me of your guilt, James.”

“What are you talking about? I said nothing of guilt.”

“You are not like that man. You would never do such things.”

“You cannot say that after witnessing my actions. I shouldn’t be driven to… I shouldn’t find… I shouldn’t,” he just shook his head.

“No need to say it. I can see clearly into your heart.”

“Then surely you know. I should be harder driven to help her.”

“But why have you not?”

“Because I like it. I like the sight of her. I like thoughts of what he does to her. Is it not obvious?”

“You say that only so I would be goaded into judgement against you. I understand you so need to feel responsible. But that is not the truth of your inaction.”

“What is a demon bird doing trying to tell me why I do the things I do?”

“Let me tell you what I see, and you can determine for yourself,” she said. “You do not act because you’ve learned so well to bury your impulses that you’ve forgotten how. You’ve been taught that abstaining from all needs makes you stronger, but what is justice or mercy if not a need? Are they not similar to your need for guidance or reprisal? In fact, it impairs you, so programmed to bury anything that comes to the surface, so used to inaction in the face of uncertainty, no longer able to grasp onto the impulse to match it with a compass before it is swallowed back down and forgotten. You are lost and all your actions feel wrong, that is why you do nothing.”

“You make me out to be a timid babe,” he muttered with biting tone. “I am not helpless. I am not weak. I have lead men, taken lives with my own hands.”

The bird fluttered upwards, landing again on his leg, looking up at him with dark, beaded eyes. “An action for which your god refuses to punish you. After all, he made you so in his image, he would have to judge himself before he could ever be genuine in his judgement of you.”

James scoffed. “I should not listen to you. You are a demon. I should squash you where you stand.”

“A demon, yes. But one that is offering to help you to properly bury the bodies in your graveyard so that they might find peace.”

“I know not what that means.”

“I will show you. Do you wish to finish in your act?”

He found himself hesitant to speak, holding his tongue against the roof of his mouth.

“I did not make my voice known to you without care. But if you are so sure you can gain nothing from interacting with me, then get up and leave. There is nothing forcing you to listen to my words.”

“Stop what they are doing,” he said, turning his head back towards the gully and the other men. “You speak of mercy. Show me you are capable of it.”

“Very well,” the voice said with reticence.

But the small, black swallow did not move. It continued to watch him and his face fell into a nervous scowl as he stared at it expectantly. Its wings slightly too large for its body, its chest puffed out, small enough that he could crush it in his fist if he took hold of it. There was more to the demon, he knew. And the spots of sunlight that streamed through the forest canopy began to disappear, replaced by the sound of wings as thousands of birds descended upon the gully in a swarm.

“What is this?” he heard Sigurd shout.

The birds, of all local varieties and colors, had covered every inch of the ground, perching even atop the men and their belongings, refusing to be swatted away. Panicked, Sigurd reached for his axe, but could scarcely see for the swarm of birds that burst up from their perches and took flight in front of him, only to circle around and land again at his feet.

“Where the fuck did they come from?!”

“It’s an omen,” Merric said in hushed tones and dropped his hold on their prisoner’s ropes.

“Wretched vultures! Go away!” Sigurd said and lifted his leg in an attempt to crush the creatures.

But every movement sent up fluttering wings and shrill calls, clouding their senses, disorienting them and stranding them amidst a sea of feathers and chirping. They were calm, indisposed, as though under a spell, until, in one sudden movement, the flock took flight again and left.

Spooked by the sight, Merric stumbled in his words as he said, “I-t is a sign. The dragon… it must be close.”

“Witchcraft!” Sigurd snarled and turned to the girl.

She tried to scoot away from him, holding her hands close to her chest, but the other man placed a hand over his shoulder to catch his attention.

“We must tell Castille of this. He will better know what to do.”

James watched from the other side as they stormed off, dragging the girl along with them. In pained voice, he whispered to the demon, “You did not free her.”

“I stopped what they were doing,” the bird lowered its head as if to bow. “As you asked.”

“It stops nothing.”

“I have shown you that I am capable of mercy. But I have no reason to stress myself more without promise of something in return.”

The knight looked back down to the swallow perched on his leg, feeling his breath quicken as the heresy of what he was doing sunk into his thoughts. Consorting with a demon, making deals with it, begging of it to aid him in a task that had no grounding in the eyes of his faith.

“Do not fret, I will not ask much.”

He raised his voice, trembling in tone to say, “W-what is it you want?”

“Merely that you will continue to speak with me.”

With a sharp inhale, he gave her a fearful nod.

She simply said, “I am pleased. Now. You should go, less your companions leave you behind,” and the swallow took flight.

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#smut #demon #knights #demon x human #medieval #original fiction #writers on tumblr #the crusades #religious guilt #D/s #writblr #sharvester

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song-seunghyun · 6 years

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Soul marks. An invention by some internal force of nature that left a human body covered in images that told stories of a person's past. Many remarkable moments were eternally saved on the skin of people globally and some, ones that were meant for true soulmates, were shared.

One Dorian Grey however, had long come to terms with his unique soul marks. In his youth, they had been exciting, an equalizer for everyone. They transcended social class, though in the late 1500s it was thought that royalty had marks to prove their worthiness to rule others. Dorian had never seen a royal up close and wouldn't for a long time.

His first soul mark had appeared before he could remember, around the age of four. A small white rabbit that he had kept as a pet, his first true responsibility, dashed the back of his small tanned thigh, running in an invisible field of flowers representing a youthful quality that Dorian never lost.

After the first mark appeared, another shorty followed after when he started to question his mother about them with childlike excitement. On his mother's side, just at her ribcage was a harsh, childish drawing with a round face and innocent eyes. Dorian could hardly recall it, but his mother explain it to be a drawing he once made for her and it had engrained itself permanently on her skin. Later in life, when he would be taken away, the drawing would fill in, dark and marred by the loss of her son.

Dorian similarly, discovered a new mark for his mother the next morning. A willow tree, just blooming trailed over his side, the branches creeping over his ribcage to cover his skin. When he was taken captive, the tree warped and changed, shedding its leaves and wilting. Over the years, the mark had faded, a faint color as the years seeped by, draining away as the memory of his mothers smile disappeared into oblivion with it.

By the time the war broke out, Dorian had a small handful of marks, all vibrant and vivid on his skin. A small vine with delicate purple flowers wrapping around his bicep, similar to the ones his younger sister would pick for their mother. Another curving around his thigh for his father, thick black lines heavy and binding to his skin to represent his more rigid, firm personality.

However, after the long journey on the boat, bound in ropes, Dorian was left in a land he knew nothing of and sold off to someone he could hardly understand. When his bindings were removed, his new owner showed concern at the dark marks on his wrists, thinking them bruised. It wasn't until later that Dorian came to realize they were permanent, marks to show his eternal enslavement. Others that had survived the journey bore similar, distinguishing marks. A man, who Dorian had slept next to many a night, had new marks of rope slithered around his ankles and throat by the end of their journey and Dorian had been thankful his had been less conspicuous.

For the time that Dorian stayed with the family that purchased him, no marks appeared. There were only the bruised wrists and what he had earned back as a freed man. Nothing spectacular happened to him for two long years... he scraped by and learned just enough until he could finally escape.

On his way into France, a new mark formed just on his ankle. Birds soaring into the sky to represent his new found freedom in a country that did not know he had been taken captive.

Living on the streets did little to help the young man, his body becoming worn down and fatigued until he came to a church that took him in. Dorian stayed with them for several months, regaining his strength and learning French and Latin to broaden his chances at work. The first words to ever grace his skin appear in curling cursive, swirling its way over the back of his hand as he learned to write them.

Omnia vincit amor.

When he left the church, seeking a work in trade, he had received a blessing from the deacon. Dorian had never felt particularly attached to religion, but the kindness of the man gave him perhaps some hope. Well that's how he explained it when on his right thigh a set of ornate gates appeared, wrought in gold and jewels, slightly ajar, waiting for the him to open them completely. However, later in his life, the mark shifted just enough that the gate closed, black seeping up the golden bars from beneath. His chances of Heaven eternally lost.

After he became a baker's apprentice, he met Madame Garon who would change his life forever. She painted him, unknowingly to him sealing his life to an eternal age. A small portrait of her silhouette graced his skin, situated just at base of the decaying tree that represented his mother.

It took years for Dorian to realize what had happened, living his life normally in France and trying to return home. He rarely received extra marks, focusing on his work until it finally came to his attention that everything around him was changing, but not himself. That he had all the time in the world to go back but he chose not to.

Marks slowly began to appear on his skin as he gave himself the freedom to experience life. Most of them were small and insignificant. A simple, golden locket curling over his hip to represent a man he concealed his love and attraction for as a merchant in Rome. A scarlet rose blossoming in the middle of his back where a woman he held dearly for several decades would kiss him as they lay in bed at night. Emerald eyes on his shoulder to remind him of whore he came to worship nightly, void of the kohl that rimmed her eyes before he lost her to disease.

There were also visible marks that accompanied not just the people he met, but incidents that impacted him greatly. A picture of flower petals cascaded down the back of his calf, melting away into ashes to represent the substantial loss of life during the Black Plague. The lens of camera emboldening itself on his hip when his love for photography was born in the technological advancements. A snake curling into a circle, eating its own tail placed at base of his spine when someone he trusted attempted to use his gift of eternal life against him and the betrayal was felt deeper than anything he had ever known.

As time progressed and his marks shifted with him, some fading over the centuries others staying just as vivid as the day they arrived, Dorian came to accept his unique outlook on life. He was content with his snippets, his memories of the past that he carried with him on his skin. That's was until he met a remarkable man in a museum after returning home. It had been... different. There was an understanding, a knowledge that Dorian had not known could exist for anyone else other than himself.

The man had no visible markings, but he was... breathtaking. They could sense within one another that they were unique. For one, Dorian didn't hide his marks as so many did, having learned long ago it didn't matter. He had been through the mysticism and the scientific reasons behind the soul marks. He had seen every taboo there was to have about them and frankly, his were different but rarely did people ask why some were more faded than others.

The most visible were still the marks on his wrist, hardly having faded as the memories of the tiny boat and death still clung to him like a second coat, constantly reminding him of where he came from. No one dared to ask about them, clearly assuming an abusive relationship had been the cause of it. Dorian would occasionally smirk to himself, thinking if only they knew.

The man however never even glanced at them, or if he did, Dorian didn't notice. He was intrigued by the energy he gave off and later when they ended up tangled together, he never once thought about the fact that Blake's skin was barren. Perhaps he was very private, covered them up with his make up. It was perplexing but Dorian didn't mind.

Later, when he found out that Blake wasn't necessarily human, it all clicked into place. Maybe it worked differently for beings that only mimicked human emotions. Or perhaps there was some hoodoo going on that kept Dorian from seeing them, but he never actually asked.

When Blake began to help him to understand his meaning in life, why he had stuck around for so long, the marks began to appear slowly, one by one crowding his skin. The first had been simple. A symbol etched itself just behind his ear where he enjoyed having Blake whisper to him. It wasn't uncommon, for Dorian to receive a mark from someone he felt a connection with, though it was small and tucked away, as if it was meant only for the Demon. The symbol came from a stamp set, one the Dorian knew Blake had probably had since forever, as ancient as himself most likely. An old crest of sort with a sword dipped in hellfire.

When the second mark appeared, Dorian had settled into a routine with Blake. It was easy, simple, perfect and utterly terrifying. Dorian had loved people, but they had been capable of feeling in return. Those that had left marks on him had bore their own from him. Blake's skin, for all he knew, was empty. However a new mark was forming across his chest and it scared him more than it should have.

Over the space on his chest, just over his heart, a lock appeared. It was a padlock, rusted and worn as if it had gone through years of rain and had never been touched. The only thing that's stood out about the mark was the fact it was unlocked, the hinge swinging open and free and it didn't take long for Dorian to realize what it meant.

When he later talked to Blake, telling him that he couldn't continue the facade forever, he never once let it be known what had appeared on his skin. That was his secret to bear and it would be nothing to a demon, or at least that was what he convinced himself as he moved countries to escape his emotions.

What Dorian hadn't been expecting was for only a few years to pass and for Blake to have hunted him down. It was a whirlwind, whipping him back up into the frenzy that was the rush of emotions he felt for the inhuman being. Blake never asked about the lock, possibly because he didn't want to know the answer. It could have come from anyone or anything while they were separated.

It was blissful, a few months of happiness that began the process of his skin filling with color on his back, curling from the rose and out. It was slow, barely creeping across his skin in his own hesitancy to accept what he felt. Then when he left again it stopped, half finished and incomplete. Blake must have known, he could see it on his skin what he was doing to the immortal man... but the demon didn't seem to stop. He kept finding him, kept letting the colors seep further and further across the planes of his back.

Dorian did his best to fight it, shoving the demon away for what was the last time, he promised himself... the portrait on his back nearly complete. It took years, many years for the man to come to his senses, to realize what had exactly happened to himself. It was deeply rooted inside of him and finally he got the nerve to seek out Blake for himself.

The woman and children he found however sent a shot of white hot rage and jealousy straight through him. Blake had been his, always would be... and this woman thought she stood a chance? It nearly made him laugh but it hadn't stopped another mark from appearing just at his navel. In crude, harshly written Greek letters, the name Phthonos was spelled out in dark red.

It took Dorian another year to finally approach Blake in his home when he knew that the wife would be away. And everything he remembered and loved about the man came rushing back to him. The canvas on his back completing itself overnight. The red rose was still bold and bright, but the colors Blake had left were softer. Surrounding the flower was a beautiful work of a water colored garden, littering his skin with the beauty of freedom and sanctuary he felt with Blake. Or at least that was what he assumed, but it wasn't as if he was ever sure. The mark covered his entire back, moving with his muscles to create the illusion of leaves and branches rustling in the wind.

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manicanhaus · 7 years

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Princess Senux and The Half-Sun Leviathan

By Paul Edward Costa

THE LIBRARY OF FLIGHTSARCHANIOL CODEX K, WHITE CHAPTER, PASSAGE 0-1010-)(-ON THE KINGDOM OF SENUX’S LAST REMAINS-)(- Cults of worship dedicated to the Half-Sun Leviathan inevitably appear in the settlements and villages of Kolcawtha when the creature’s location becomes a seven day ride from them.If it wanders away, the cults fall into hysterical dogma before vanishing.If it lurches closer, they feel the deepest sadness they’ve ever known as their nature becomes reality.RECORDER: ARCHANIOL WATCHER QY-LIUN*** “You are a malevolent god,” Princess Senux said under her breath. She gazed to the west from an ice shelf overlooking the frozen wasteland of Kolcawtha’s northern shores. Her figure—topped with a horned helm and clad in black onyx armor—cut a shadowy figure against the inescapably white landscape. As Princess Senux began her flight, the end of her kingdom felt more gratifying than reflecting on the cause of its downfall. She held onto her opal trident with both hands. Her weather worn black armor rattled like wind chimes in the sharp, cold, and bitter wind. She struggled along frozen ice sheets. Snowflakes blew across her vision, blessing the flat, white beach and low cliffs with the essence of dream. Princess Senux rose in her tent and emerged from its flaps. She put out her campfire and struck her tent without giving regard or acknowledgement to the phenomenon on the western horizon. The sun rose and became a semi-circle on the final edge of land, casting its faint warmth in long streaks of light over the wintery coast. Against the semi-sun’s hazy orange glow a colossal being rose from its slumber. It puffed out its human-shaped torso and stretched its massive arms towards the dark, navy sky above the dawn. The Half-Sun Leviathan held its face in its hands and shook violently, swinging about the many horns protruding vertically from its skull. It stretched its multiple arachnid legs with restless mania. Continuing its daybreak ritual, it slowed its movement and stared at the earth with massive, white, oval eyes. Its shoulders rose and fell with deep, contemplative breaths. Ice curtains descended by mid-morning and howled as the sun rose to a higher altitude. Both these changes removed the distant monstrosity from sight, just as its legs began moving steadily and its form became slightly larger. With her small camp repacked, Princess Senux again became a nomadic black shadow in the chilling quiet of snowy shores, freezing water, and ice flows blurring the border between the two. She continued walking away from the dawn, hoping she’d reach the fabled end of Kolcawtha and not a continuation back into sunrise. She prayed and pushed such concern from her mind, repeating to herself that she’d soon solve such vexations. The Half-Sun Leviathan did not rage at the sky or move towards the Princess. It instead raised a fiery fist in the air and made hieroglyphic signs, but the Princess continued on her eastward path. The Leviathan hung its head (crowned with horns) and wept silent, molten tears before returning to the purpose bestowed on it by those who fled its eternal flame. *** When evening set and plunged the cold shores of northern Kolcawtha into a subzero night, Princess Senux sat a dozen paces away from her campfire, staring into its glow until all else fell away from her sight. She bitterly remembered the feeling of a fire’s warm touch. She allowed herself−in the cold, dark night−the luxury of removing her helmet and gloves so she might comfortably look upon her bluish, frozen flesh, all covered with patches of black frostbite. She fell asleep outside her tent and woke the next morning in agony. The fire had died away into black ash, but the sun rose and the faint feeling of its warmth raked her exposed flesh with searing agony. She let out a short shriek before she flipped over and pressed her face and hands into the snow to her immediate relief. With her boot covered feet she pushed herself through the snow towards her discarded armor near the dead fire. When she adorned herself once more with the protection of her black armor she lay on her back and rested, letting the intensity of her breathing diminish. She closed her eyes and imagined once more being a child swaddled in a warm blanket, but such thoughts led her to commit the sin of lamenting the inescapable. Even with little sleep, she began moving again. *** Sometimes she felt a heaviness only lifted by a dream purge.That night, she woke at midnight and stumbled out of her tent. Princess Senux stood under the moonlight on the milky frozen wastes. She removed her helmet while still clinging to the last bits of her dream before she lost them permanently. She pulled a rose crystal talisman from her pack and pressed it to her forehead where it absorbed the mythic elements of her hazy mind. She convulsed soon after and dropped the talisman. Her dream of a ceremonial sword floating with foreboding in the corner of every room she stood in—a sword visible only to her— tormented her psyche. The memories of it flooded the forefront of her mind before a sharp scratching began burning her esophagus. She tilted her head back and straightened her throat. The sharp tip of a blade emerged from in between her lips, followed by its thin steel body and short, sapphire encrusted handle. It fully rose out of her mouth. It hovered over her head for a moment before it fell to the snowy ground and shattered into mist. Princess Senux hunched over momentarily before turning back to her camp. She returned to her tent.***After the next morning’s breakfast, she walked down to where the ice met the restless northern sea. She cut off a slab of ice with the sharp end of her trident, impaled it like a bale of hay and dragged it back to the site of her camp. She carved an image into the tablet of a ruined cathedral. She put an inscription below it. It read as follows:“Let the sin be not forgottenWhile its cause passes from mind.”The Half-Sun Leviathan stayed perfectly still during its dawn window of visibility. It stared hard towards the Princess’s eastward path with its white, oval eyes pulsating.*** Princess Senux came across the round top of a tower sticking out of the snow atop an imposing range of seaside cliffs and sheer ice. She realized the tower’s body lay encased within the frozen ice shelf. It once stood on its own, but it had long since been overtaken by the water freezing over and joining the land. She wondered if any undissolved ether parchment scrolls lay inside. The spectral forms of ancient scholars walked in circles on the tower’s round peak with their heads bowed. They took no notice of Princess Senux as she walked through them (they had matters of ether to occupy their ghostly minds) and descended into the tower. Her opal trident glittered and provided her with low light. Inside the tower she found a spiral staircase running along the wall and twisting towards the tower’s base. Frozen bookshelves containing old volumes locked in solid ice lined the walls. Great booming percussions rang out from the shadowy bottom of the tower and shook the stairs. Princess Senux—even with the sparkling of her trident—barely saw the large wooden desk on the other side of the bottom floor, behind which sat Wylar, the Last Librarian, his skeletal head hidden under a swarm of unidentifiable insects and his thin arms emerging from the folds of his rector’s robes. He stamped the ether parchment scrolls unrolled in front of him and giggled with a barely contained glee during moments when the Princess stumbled with dizziness each time he shook the tower by bringing the stamp down. She felt the floor beneath her spin. Finding herself thrown off balance and rapidly losing consciousness, she gave up on stealing a length of ether parchment, and slowly climbed back up to the surface. ***Princess Senux next sought the minstrels of Vaelnyk Valley in the forgotten east (only knowing them from small mentions in old songs) in a last bid for the immortality of her lost kingdom. She hoped the minstrels might preserve the chronicle of her old dominion in a set of ballads that may transcend its material death. Privately, she also hoped the omnipresence of the music in that valley might block out her memories of how she championed the final faith her people practiced, which rose in influence after the tragedy that transpired during the kingdom’s annual Day of Redemption, where all her high priests left the confessionals of their Cathedral and marched silently into the freezing north sea. ***The faith Princess Senux championed advocated the construction of prayer towers facing the horizon where the Half-Sun Leviathan appeared during each dawn. The prayer towers became filled all day and night with subjects releasing thoughts from the deepest, most warped parts of themselves, transferring such thoughts to a being of greater immensity, perspective, and age than they were, who somehow survived and thrived alone in the unexplored lands past the western limit of Kolcawtha. Those who confessed never shared the contents of their released thoughts with each other. Several threw themselves from the towers, but these suicides were accepted as the inevitable few who could not comprehend The Half-Sun Leviathan, whose existence on the horizon became more real to the populace with each prayer they sent in its direction.The sky over the kingdom grew inexplicably black during one particularly bright midday.When it arrived, the Half-Sun Leviathan spoke in the language of the people’s prayers (and they filled their ears with wax to escape its deranged screams). It fulfilled the secret wishes of the Princess’s subjects (who fled into their catacombs as the beast carried out the slaughter each citizen wished on another). However, the tombs where they hid eventually cracked and caved in when the Leviathan manifested their repressed resentment of the sacred. END

Author Bio: Paul Edward Costa has published in Timber Journal, Entropy, Thrice Fiction, The J.J. Outre Review, Peacock Journal, Rainfall Books ("Space Adventures #4" and "Strange Detective Stories #11") and other periodicals. His novella "Dark Magic on the Edge of Town" is available on Amazon from Paperback-Press. He is also a high school English teacher and has founded the ongoing "Paul's Poetry Night" spoken word series in the Greater Toronto Area. Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/PaulEdwardCosta/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/PaulEdwardCostaInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/paul.edward.costa/Amazon.com:https://www.amazon.com/Paul-Edward-Costa/e/B01NA0BTR9/Twitter: @paul_e_costa

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