#there are so many layers to odin’s cruelty | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

realityhelixcreates · 3 years

Text

Lasabrjotr Chapter 78: The Great Provider

Chapters: 78/?

Fandom: Thor (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe

Rating: pg 13

Relationships: Loki x Reader

Characters: Loki (Marvel),Thor(Marvel) Wanda Maximoff, vision, Bruce Banner

Additional Tags: Post-Endgame: Best Possible Ending (Canon-Divergent), Party Time, Alarr Is A Little Bitch Now And Forever, Seriously Bull Cults Are Super Old, And Super Important

Summary: You face the bull.

“There's a lot of people looking at me.” Your father whispered to you, fiddling nervously with a crumbling slice of dark buttered bread. “Your asshole beau got me good this time.”

Seated on the other side of you, Loki sighed. Of course he could hear, even with the din of the First Feast all around. You shook pepper onto a peeled, boiled egg.

“It wasn't planned like that.” You whispered back. “All of the humans are seated on this side, me included. The planners just thought you should be next to me.”

On the one hand, you were glad your father was acknowledging your relationship without major pushback. On the other hand, insulting a prince within earshot of that prince, and many of his vassals, was probably not such a good idea.

“I mean, I can ask them to change the seating order. Put you down at the farthest table, with a bunch of Asgardians you've never met.”

He shuddered. “You wouldn't. My own daughter wouldn't do that to me, her poor old father, who has so few years left to him. You wouldn't show such cruelty to a vulnerable old man.”

“Yeah, yeah, you've got one foot in the grave already. You could fall over dead any minute now. You're practically dust.”

“Well, that might be going a little far.” he huffed. “I've still got some vinegar in me.”

“You even talk like an old man.” you teased. “Besides, you don't get to pull the Old Man Card, and then complain because I play along. Make up your mind.”

You passed him a serving bowl full of bilberry porridge, and he dipped some out. One thing your father was always willing to do, was try new food.

“Speaking of, what counts as 'old' to these folks?” he asked. “You've been saying some stuff about that, but it seems unbelievable.”

“You gotta start believing this stuff, Dad.” you chided.” It's all real. I know it's hard. My head has been swimming for months. But it gets easier to accept the more you learn. Anyway, for an Asgardian, about five thousand puts someone firmly into the 'elderly' category, but for an Aesir, like the king, or Saga, or Loki, the sky is the limit. I can count the number of kings Asgard has had in it's whole history on one hand. They just live that long.”

“Five thousand? Damn. That's...That's like, pyramid building times, isn't it? Say...did they...?”

“No, they didn't build the pyramids. I already asked. And even if aliens did build them, it wouldn't have been Asgardians” you pointed out. “They would have been in the north, making, I dunno, runestones? Longships? Something like that. The people in the north never really did the large-scale monument building like they did in Egypt. But Asgardians sure did. You saw the paintings of the old palace?”

That thing that looked like a pipe organ? Yeah.”

“So, if they were building our monuments, they'd have looked like that, wouldn't they?”

“Okay, but what if it was different aliens? We know there's more than one kind of alien.” he pointed out.

“Yeah, but...I never found out if the other gods of the world were aliens or not. But even if they were, I'm pretty sure the pyramids were built by humans, even if they were built for their gods.”

“They were.” Loki interrupted. “But they also made for interesting sight-seeing expeditions for many peoples across Yggdrasil, so yes, aliens visited Earth quite often in your distant past.”

Your father clammed up and glared. After a few awkward moments, Loki turned back to his plate, passing along a crumbly cheese that turned out to be similar to feta. You added some to your grain salad.

Just get through dinner, you thought to yourself. Why did the men in your life always have to be so difficult?

Time was left between courses for the making of toasts, and there was a lot of back and forth-between the Icelandic dignitaries praising the Asgardians for being such gracious hosts, and the Asgardians praising them for hosting all of Asgard in the first place. There were toasts for the Avengers in attendance, though they were somewhat subdued; the Maximoff girl was still a fairly controversial figure, Dr. Banner continued to be visibly uncomfortable with the attention, and the Vision was simply not as well known. But they were dutifully honored nonetheless, and then the humans of Trolerkaerhalla turned their adoration on you.

'The People's Seidkona', they called you. 'The bridge', and 'the Huldra shield'. Even 'the Sapphire Brand', a kenning Loki had invented for you, which made you wonder what he had been discussing with his worshipers when he was out working on the longhouses.

The dessert course was mixed dried fruit, cooked down into a compote and served over bread.

It was also the last course before the slaughter of the bull, for tomorrow's Second Feast.

You'd told Tara and your father about it, to mixed reactions. Tara was repulsed, but your father, who presumably saw more dead animals along the side of the road than you would be comfortable with, seemed to take it in stride.

“Someone has to do it.” he'd said, “They gotta get to the plate somehow. Sucks, I know. There's no way out of it?”

“It's tradition.” you'd sullenly explained. “And it's really old. Like, Proto-Indo-European old. Back when kings used to be worshiped and held responsible for everything. If the crops failed, they sacrificed him. So it was in a ruler's best interests to make sure his people were provided for. I think, eventually, the bull became a stand-in for the king. I don't know if the Asgardians influenced us in this case, or if it was the other way around, but there's a whole deep layer cake of symbolism involved, and I really do have to participate.”

The bull and the ruler. Symbols of power, fertility, plenty, and prosperity. It was poetic, in an ancient, rustic kind of way.

You had thought that you had it all together, but when you heard the bellowing sound of the bull somewhere close, and your heart clenched in your chest.

Suddenly dessert didn't taste so good.

******

There had been an arena built between tables for the bull to be driven into, with a raised platform that you were currently perched on, holding a goad with a trail of ribbons at the end. You would be enticing the bull towards you with the movement of the ribbons, and once it was within range, Loki would strike.

Then the beast would be butchered on the spot, to prepare for the next nights festivities. It would be very educational.

The human guests had been informed of what was about to happen, and of course, the Asgardians already knew, but they still cheered you on anyway. Skaldic students picked up a slow drum beat, that pulsed like a heart.

How many thousands of years worth of rulers and seidkonas doing this? Odin and Frigga had done it. Bor and Bestla had done it. Buri and Audhumla had not-the holiday hadn't been declared until after Buri's passing. But one had to assume that they all gazed out from Valhalla, within it's great black hole, and saw what their descendants were doing. Presumably, Buri could now see that two people who had no true relation to him, were now the ones honoring him. How would he feel about that?

The bull bellowed behind the gates, the sound echoing and distorting strangely. Loki lurked next to the platform, waiting. This wasn't going to be like a matador facing down an angry beast. This was going to be an ambush.

The gates slowly begin to open, and your adrenaline spiked into the sky.

Here it comes, here it comes, here it comes

The bull entered the arena and you froze in shock, almost completely forgetting what you were supposed to be doing.

The bull was...wrong. It was completely still, standing on a board on wheels. It did not walk into the area, but was pushed. It's head was oddly textured, almost shiny, and strangely shaped. It bellowed again, weird and distorted, but did not open it's mouth.

Its strangeness blended into your anxiety, becoming a potent cocktail of revulsion and dread. Loki patted the platform next to you, and you started, jerking your ribbons to and fro. The bull bellowed one more time before Loki strode up to it, and, with one smooth and elegant swing, beheaded it.

There was no blood. The wound was hollow, and the head sprouted the legs of a child as soon as it hit the ground, running around and mooing irreverently to the amusement and obvious confusion of the audience.

It was fake. It was a fake bull. Loki had mentioned to you that you need not worry because he had taken care of her bull problem, but hadn't had time to elaborate before you'd had to scramble up the platform. You would have never guessed he meant this.

With a flourish, Loki whipped the tanned hide off the bull, revealing a hollow armature beneath, within which was an ice-covered table, piled up with cuts of meat, bowls of organs, piles of stew bones, and a bucket of blood. The bull reduced down to its edible parts, all ready for tomorrow's feast.

The drums stopped abruptly, the child who had been hiding in the paper-mache bulls head discarded it to the side and ran off into the cheering crowd, as people came forward to carry away the bits of bull.

Loki draped the bull's hide over his shoulders and helped you down from the platform.

“Did I not tell you?” he said smugly. “I took care of it for you. Truly, the symbolism is the most important part, and this speeds the process along so that we may get to the dancing all the sooner!”

“That was freaky as hell!” you scolded. “You shoulda told me it was gonna be a fake! I spent that whole time all bent out of shape because of it, ugh, what a lot of wasted sleep!”

“In my defense, I didn't find out that you were troubled about it until yesterday. I had only a limited time to come up with something.”

“And you decided to stuff a kid in a fake bull's head? That's what you came up with?”

“That's Beli's youngest great-great-great-grandson, and he volunteered! My dear, what's wrong? I thought you would prefer it this way?”

“I do!” you huffed, irritated. “But I need you to start telling me when you do things like this! How am I gonna do my job if you already make all the decisions by yourself? Stop trying to surprise me all the time. I froze out there because of it! What did that look like to everybody else, huh?”

“I think they were too captivated by the bull to take notice...” he didn't sound so sure. “But yes, you are right, of course. It is a bad habit. I will be better.”

Somewhat mollified, you took his arm and allowed him to lead you to the dances.

*******

“It's an insult!” Alarr raged. “He reduces our history to mere spectacle!”

“It may have been for convenience.” his wife pointed out. “Our Midgardian guests need more frequent rest. It wouldn't do for his Highness' little seidkona to collapse from exhaustion.”

“Do not call her that!” he snapped. “She doesn't deserve the title! What part of her is a seidkona? The part that graces Loki's bed? Or the part that gets into cat fights with her betters? This is exactly what I am talking about though! The Midgardians are weak, but we are the ones expected to lower ourselves to their level? If they cannot keep up, they shouldn't be here! The prince is a fool, and the Allfather merely enables him. Together, they will reduce us to infants.”

“Watch your tone with me, Alarr. I tire of your temper.”

“And I tire of watching our culture and people be diminished for easier consumption by outsiders. When does it end? If even our holy days aren't exempt from foreign influence, then what part of us can we really expect to keep? How much can we be diluted, and still remain Asgard?”

“Alarr, this obsession has already cost you dearly. And not just you, the whole family has been impacted by it. You are so preoccupied with everything you're afraid we're going to lose, that you don't see the harm that you are doing to us yourself! Now you may sit here and let your rage rob you of your Buridag, but I'm going back out there to enjoy myself! Stars know, I've had precious few chances to do so lately!”

She stormed out, leaving him behind to seethe.

******

“That was so weird.” Todd said. “I thought it was going to be a real cow.”

“I'm glad it wasn't!” another camper exclaimed.

“Yeah, me too, but why did they go through all that rigmarole about what was going to happen, explaining the whole thing, telling us not to fear, and then wheel out a meat-filled piñata instead? Did they think we were gonna think it was real? Like, are we toddlers to them?”

“Maybe? They're all hundreds of years old, aren't they? Even the kids.”

“Yeah, I guess so. I feel like that's a problem though. I mean, think of the advantages they have over all the rest of us! I can't help but feel like they will eventually have a disproportionate amount of global influence, just because of the monumental projects that they can put together with that longevity. And like, I know the longhouse squad might not mind having alien overlords, but I'm sure not excited about it.”

“Global superpowers rise and fall. That's just history.” another camper said. “Are you sure you aren't just worried that yours might be overshadowed?”

“No need to be rude.” Todd chided. “People were rightly worried about super powered individuals before these guys even showed up. I mean, look at what happened to Sokovia! When I was a kid, that kind of thing was unthinkable! Now we've gotta worry about nukes, and terrorists, and school shootings, and climate change, and now alien invaders and supermen on top of all that? It's no wonder people are so worried. Did you know these people haven't even signed the Accords? What do you think that says about them?”

“Hey, I'm not disagreeing, man. I'm skeptical too. But they're refugees all the same, and it's only been a couple years. I figure they're just trying to get adjusted before they go committing themselves to anything big, you know?”

“And that's fair for the average Asgardian. As far as we know, they didn't do anything wrong. But Thor...you know, as much as I like him, he's been involved in some pretty destructive events. And the least, I mean, the very least he could have done to show some kind of good faith with Earth, would be to turn his brother over to some kind of justice. But he hasn't; he's just let Loki flaunt every authority. The man committed a felony, he kidnapped my girlfriend, and...nothing! He's not allowed on United States soil, but he did it anyway, and nothing has been done. I can't help but be resentful, who wouldn't be?”

“I know what you mean, but then why did you come to this shindig, anyway?”

Todd shrugged. “I just wanted to see that she was okay, you know? We weren't perfect, but we really had something, and I just want to make sure she's okay. She didn't look okay, up there with that fake bull, and I don't like it. I know her; she's kinda delicate. All this is gonna be too much for her.”

“You have a lot to say.” interrupted an unfamiliar, accented voice. The little knot of campers jerked to attention. A young man stood nearby, arms crossed, glaring.

“Uh, yeah...” Todd said. “To my friends. Who are you?”

“Fritjof.” the stranger said shortly.

“That's the mutant.” one of the campers whispered urgently. “We saw him out in that fight, remember? He throws fire!”

“Oh.” Todd held his hands up in front of him. “Hey man, we don't have any beef with you. No need to lose our tempers or anything...”

Fritjof snorted. “Somehow, I doubt this.” he sneered.

“Frit!” A woman cried, then rattled off a quick sentence Todd could not understand. Fritjofs intimidating stance softened, and he answered back.

“I'm going to dance now.” He told Todd. “Be a more gracious guest.”

Several of the campers let out the breaths they'd been holding, as he left.

“What a freak.” One of them muttered.

“Don't know what his problem is, but I think he could use a class on minding his own business.” Todd said.

“So, you wanna go dance?”

“Not really, but I suppose it couldn't hurt to go see what it's like.”

******

The dancing was energized and frenetic; stomping, clapping, twirling, leaping. It was full of laughter and celebration, messy and unchecked. The commoner's dances were danced by all, and you had thrown yourself into them with relish. From arm to arm you passed, jumping and shouting in time with everyone else.

You danced, and spun, and bounced, finally ending up panting back in Loki's arms.

“Come, sit with me.” he said. “You need a breather.”

He sat you down in one of the covered seats, wrapped you in his cloak for extra warmth, and pressed a cup of hot cider into your hands. The community continued to dance, some breaking off to rest, some jumping back in. You simply watched, sipping your cider as Loki twirled Sjofn, Thor kicked with Wanda, and a very tall Asgardian lady tried to entice an increasingly uncomfortable looking Dr. Banner. Even Gloa seemed to be having a good time, though you noticed Alarr was nowhere to be seen. Andsvarr, however, was dancing for all he was worth, and rarely let Saldis out of his grasp. It was cute, but not as cute as Tara, slightly drunk off buttered rum, flirting openly with several very confused Asgardians, or your father, trying hard to avoid Dr. Banner's fate.

Loki whirled his way back to your side, and plopped down next to you, but must have noticed you were fading.

“It has certainly been a long day, hasn't it?” he asked. “Would you prefer to return to our rooms?”

“Yeah. As much as I'd like to stick around, I'd really need some sleep.” you admitted. “Gotta be up bright and early tomorrow too.”

“Then shall we?” He offered his arm, and somehow the two of you slipped away without much notice.

“Are you going back out?” you asked, as he tucked you comfortably into his bed.

“Yes, for a little while longer. It's best that my brother and I be seen out among the people for as long as possible. I'll be back later. Sleep soundly, my dear.”

The rigors of the day caught up to you quickly, and you had no inkling of how much time had passed when you finally felt him slip into bed next to you, smelling of sweet crystal mead.

#lasabrjotr #loki (marvel)#loki x reader

12 notes · View notes

diveronarpg · 5 years

Photo

Congratulations, JEM! You’ve been accepted for the role of IAGO. Admin Rosey: Jem, you have no idea how much I flailed and screamed and went buckwild while reading this application. The quotes that you picked for the plot points set the stage for an absolutely exceptional application. I think that, with Iago, a difficult task can be capturing his core without humanizing him so that others can understand him. But you gave us insight into his being without us feeling a shred of sympathy for him. Most know that I enjoy the exploration of these sort of characters but it can be so difficult to trust someone with them. There is no one I trust more than you with our duplicitous Iago. Everyone, read this application from beginning to end and weep with me. Please read over the checklist and send in your blog within 24 hours.

WELCOME TO THE MOB.

OUT OF CHARACTER

Alias | Jem.

Age | 25.

Preferred Pronouns | She/her.

Activity Level | I’d say my activity level is about a 6/10! My work schedule is pretty demanding, but I always try to carve out some space in my life for writing, and I’m usually able to plot and crank out replies consistently throughout the week.

Timezone | EST.

Current/Past RP Accounts | Here, here, and here.

IN CHARACTER

Character | Iago/Ivan Rahal.

What drew you to this character? | I’ve been drawn to (re: obsessed with) Ivan since literally the day his biography was posted, but I initially shied away from applying for him because I was, admittedly, a little intimidated by how unrelenting his darkness is, and I wasn’t quite sure I could do justice to a character with so many layers and so many complexities, all of them wrapped in varying shades of evil. But I found that once I began unraveling Ivan layer by layer, that intimidation gave way to fascination, and I became so completely wed to the idea of immersing myself wholly in all of Ivan’s inner workings, in dissecting his person and his psyche as thoroughly as he dissects those around him. Ivan errs on the side of evil, yes, unquestionably so, but his lack of morals is deeply rooted in discipline, and that discipline has bred a methodical, calculative process of destruction that, though morally bankrupt, is unique to Ivan Rahal and Ivan Rahal alone. He’s a villain unlike any other one villain, a monster unlike any other one monster. To delve into the motives of a man who wants for nothing and feels for no one was challenging, yes, but also vastly compelling. Initially, I wasn’t quite sure how to approach a character who’s so definitively dark, but even darkness is painted in different shades and shapes, and Ivan is no exception. He’s cruel, yes, but he metes out his cruelty subtly, and in increments, and only to those he deems worthy of his attention (usually those virtue-bound apostates). He’s rotten, yes, but his rot is tempered some by his self-control, and that leash alone makes him considerably less prone to apocalypse than he might’ve been had been born absent restraint. He’s treacherous, yes, but there is beauty to be found even his treachery: the way he transforms, the way he sheds his snakeskin and shifts it to match the changing colors of the political current. To simply brand him a “monster” is to do a disservice to his many layers, for he’s a creature far more nightmarish than monsters could ever hope to be—and he swathes those nightmares in stardust, tricking the masses into thinking him angel-born, haloed, hallowed by the heavens. He’s cruel, and selfish, and he has a severe deficit of conscience, but he’s also smart, and tenacious, and adaptive, and in this game, in this war, those qualities are invaluable—and that makes him a valuable player here in Verona. Ivan is a villain, to be sure, and one of the worst, but even the most wretched devils in the most wretched circles of hell have their limits, their lines to cross or not cross. And isn’t that what Verona’s about? Flirting with the spectrum of monstrosity; forging lines, and deigning to cross or not cross them; wading in the gray sea of morality. Ivan is a villain, to be sure—and so the question remains: what kind of villain will he be, and what kind of lines will he cross?

What is a future plot idea you have in mind for the character? |

“A wolf will never be a pet.” —Kamilla Tolnoe He’s a Capulet, to be sure, but make no mistake: Ivan would just as soon slit Cosimo Capulet’s throat as he would Damiano Montague’s if it meant getting his way. The Capulets were little more than convenient to his plans upon his arrival to Verona: he needed to remain close to Odin, and he found the Capulets’ methods of war far more preferable to those of the Montagues. But Ivan’s self-interest remains paramount, and should the Capulets ever become inconvenient to his agenda, his eye might yet wander elsewhere.

“When strong, avoid them. If of high morale, depress them. Seem humble to fill them with conceit. If at ease, exhaust them. If united, separate them. Attack their weaknesses. Emerge to their surprise.” — Sun Tzu, The Art of War He’s avoided Delilah, and depressed her, and exhausted her, and separated her from Odin, and from the Capulets, and from the Veronesi. And yet still she remains. A broken shell of the woman she once was, to be sure, but Ivan was certain she’d have fled Verona by now, driven from her home by shame and gossip, found to be guilty of adultery by a jury of vipers. And yet still she remains. Curious. Dangerous. Ivan was so certain he’d well and truly broken any love Odin felt for Delilah, but he sees remnants of it in the way he looks at her, in the way he reminisces about her, in the way he shows kindness as an ode to her memory. And that simply won’t do. Not for Ivan, who would not do well to be found out; not for Odin, who would be the first survivor of Ivan’s games; not for Delilah, who would be the first winner of Ivan’s games. It’s the first time Ivan has felt—not quite panic, no, but a sort of unnerving itch, like the chessboard upon which he’s been playing has suddenly been turned around, and he’s disoriented by it. He’s more determined now than he’s ever been to expel Delilah, and all of her suspicions and wiles, from Verona.

“You have played, I think, and broke the toys you were fondest of, and are a little tired now; tired of things that break, and—just tired.” — E.E. Cummings For all of Ivan’s love of games, he’s bound to get bored eventually, no? What happens when he’s made his way through the masses of Verona, when he’s grown tired of his games with Odin, and Delilah, and Chiko, and Pandora? What will happen when he’s broken all of his toys so thoroughly that there’s nothing left to play with? What will he turn his attentions to next? Who will he turn his attentions to next? Will ever there come a time when he finds he can no longer sustain this sort of gameplay, when even his dead, wintry soul grows weary of such cardinal sin?

“What are you? A chaos.” — Anaïs Nin, Fire: From a Journal of Love He’s motivated by power, yet, but not inasmuch as he’s motivated by his passion for destruction. His life’s greatest joy is ruination: his blood sings for it, his heart thrums for it, his bones rattle for it. It’s ingrained in his very being, this endless want for destruction, this mad desire to desecrate all things holy. He’s proven time and again his value to the Capulet mob, but for all of Halcyon’s efforts to leash him, Ivan yet remains feral, untamed, and that could prove problematic, surely, for an organization based on mutual trust and collaboration. How will Ivan’s own motives intersect with those of the mob’s? What will happen when those two sets of motives are no longer compatible? What will happen when Halcyon’s leash breaks?

Are you comfortable with killing off your character? | If the admins felt strongly about using Ivan’s death as a plot device, I’d certainly be open to it!

IN DEPTH

“You’re terrible at this,” Ivan groaned to Odin from across the table, eyes flicking from the book in his hand to his companion. Odin, whose face was scrunched with concentration as he stared at the chessboard between them, shot Ivan a dark look. “Must you read while we play?” he groused. “It’s distracting.” Ivan snorted. He very much doubted his reading mid-play had any sway in Odin’s chess skills. In all of their matches, Odin had never once won, had never even come close to beating Ivan—not in the game of chess, and not in the other games Ivan played with him, either. “What else am I supposed to do during the hours you spend deliberating how, exactly, you’re going to lose to me?” Ivan drawled, eyes returning to the book in his hands as he kicked his feet up onto the corner of the table and rocked his chair onto its back legs, his limbs sprawling out—ever the picture of a lazy, contented cat. Odin glared at him and outstretched his palm as if to move a chess piece to make a point. In the end, he decided against it, and returned to his ruminations. Ivan blew out a loud sigh of frustration, and Odin, irked, growled, “What are you reading, anyway?” Ivan didn’t look up as he raised the book in his hands for Odin’s purveyance. “The Art of War?” Odin read the title aloud, brows knitting together. Ivan nodded in confirmation, purring, “Perhaps if you read it, you might stand a chance at winning one of these matches one day.” Odin grunted his disapproval. “What could I possibly learn about chess from a book on war?” “All life is war, Odin,” Ivan said, and the response was so immediate, so instinctive, that Odin raised a brow at him. “Look,” he said, and turned the pages of the book towards Odin, pointing to the chapter’s title: “‘There are five dangerous faults which may affect a general.’ Who’s to say you couldn’t use these faults to outmatch me in chess?” Ivan placed the book on the table, reaching over to Odin’s side of the chessboard, moving one of his rooks forward one space. “Firstly,” he explained, “there is recklessness, which leads to destruction.”

Funerals weren’t so terrible, Ivan supposed. A bit redundant, maybe—how many times in the past hour alone had family and friends alike, red-nosed and puffy-eyed, groveled to Ivan about how wonderful his father was, how kind and true and good. (It had been a concentrated effort for Ivan not to ask each of them, amidst their weeping soliloquies, if they were at the right funeral, or if they had the right Samir Rahal, or if they were deaf or drunk or dumb, because by no stretch of the imagination was Samir Rahal wonderful, or kind, or true, or good.) So—redundant, yes—but not so terrible. If nothing else, the black dress code suited Ivan well—suited Ivan almost as well as the veil of death that lingered overhead, muzzling the gathered crowd with a heavy blanket of despair. It was a hunting ground for his ilk: a garden of eden nouveau, abound with trees sprouting apples ripe for the picking. And he was the black-and-silver-scaled garden snake, weaving about their ankles, hissing nightmares into their ears, all at once at the helm and bow of their ruin. Ivan had a way about him that was nearly reptilian in nature (an ode to his true essence, he supposed)—the way he moved, the way he spoke, it was all very…snakelike. Eyes slitted with alert focus; a lean, muscled body that seemed to swagger and sway with an ease that was far too predatory; a tongue poised with venom, and a sharp set of teeth to match. And those eyes, more animal than human, turned to the crowd before him, picking through the masses with a cool, hooded gaze that eventually zeroed in on his younger brother, who stood just beyond the stained glass doors of the church house, trying in vain to light a cigarette with a now-empty lighter. Turning on his heel, Ivan slinked through the crowd and sidled up next to his brother, a matte black lighter already in his outstretched palm as he approached. (Ivan himself didn’t smoke, but he made a habit of keeping a lighter on his person—all worthwhile negotiations were made over shared cigarettes, after all.) “Why the long face, Joseph?” he deadpanned, lighting the end of his brother’s cigarette in one fluid, graceful motion. His brother gave him an incredulous look before drawing a sharp inhale, hands shaking as he took the cigarette from between his lips and flicked its bud, ash catching on a gust of wind and scattering between them both. Ivan clicked his tongue with admonishment as he swatted a fleck of ash off of the lapel of his jacket. “What did Armani ever do to you?” he drawled, face lax with cool indifference. Joseph’s only response was a vulgar gesture and a mean scowl. “So sensitive, brother,” Ivan chuckled—and he was. Of all three Rahal children, Joseph had always been the most tempestuous, too easily steered this way and that by the unpredictable tide of emotion. Messy—Joseph was always so messy, and that sort of disposition made for easy prey. “You look well for the son of a dead man,” Joseph noted, glancing sidelong at Ivan. “You don’t,” Ivan countered, eyebrows raised as he looked pointedly at his brother’s trembling hands, at his pallid face, at the way his eyes glazed over blankly. Joseph shrugged, and Ivan noted with no small delight the defeated sag of his brother’s shoulders. He was prime for ruin, riper now in all his sorrow than he’d ever been before. “Nicotine isn’t quite doing the trick today, I see,” Ivan said. “Perhaps whiskey will.” He jerked his chin at the tumbler in his brother’s shaking hand. “What, Ivan?” Joseph hissed. “Are you going to tell me what you used to tell Baba?” Joseph screwed up his voice and deepened his voice a few octaves, mimicking Ivan’s rich timbre. “Alcohol isn’t the solution, now, is it?” “Technically,” Ivan pointed out matter-of-factly, “alcohol is a solution—of the chemical sort, of course.” He expected another vulgar gesture from Joseph, a growl or grunt at the very least, but he instead looked to Ivan with round, pleading eyes, seeking salvation from the very source of his damnation. Stupid boy, Ivan almost wanted to chide him. So reckless in his trust. It was too easy with Joseph—boring, almost, to feast on a thing so bent and broken. Joseph looked at Ivan as if he were the salve to all of his wounds, not knowing that he was plague that fostered pitfalls of pestilence beneath those very wounds, nourishing his hurts with black tar and rot, siphoning the life from him without a trace. And this was perhaps Joseph’s greatest fault of all: he wanted, and he wanted recklessly. He wanted to heal the wound without first dressing it; he wanted to feel, but to feel only the good, never the bad; he wanted stability, but plunged headlong into life’s greatest uncertainties: love, drugs, death. He wanted, wanted, wanted, Joseph, and he was reckless in his wants, desperate enough to procure them that he would’ve placed his trust in anyone who claimed they could deliver him those wants, even Lucifer himself. And, well, here he was: Lucifer himself, Ivan Rahal, tongue coated with the poison of promises unkept, poised to deliver Joseph the salvation he so recklessly pursued. “Brother,” he entreated, outstretching his hand for his brother’s taking. “Come.” Joseph obeyed without question and reached his arm outward, and when his fingers clasped around Ivan’s and met with the cool, hard steel of a needle concealed in the palm of his brother’s hand, the clouds in his eyes cleared, replaced by the mad glint of a reckless man who’d just discovered a new want.

“Then,” Ivan said, “there’s cowardice, which leads to capture.” He reached across the chessboard to move Odin’s rook back one space—a fearful retreat.

“Mama,” he crooned from his place at the kitchen’s entryway, one shoulder propped against the doorframe. “You look tired.” The effort he used to layer his voice with varying shades of concern was minimal (his charades, even in his young adulthood, had long since become instinctual—more second nature than conscious effort). He pushed off the doorway and moved to her side, eyes round with feigned concern. She turned to him, face weathered, drawn, bruises of purplish blue blooming beneath her eyes from sleeplessness. She smiled at him, and if he had any heart at all, it might’ve broken at the sight: a sad, sorry widow, joyous at the sight of her imagined savior, blind to the life he leeched from her, ignorant of the poison he injected into the very marrow of her being. Yes, if he had any heart at all, it might have broken, but the foul, writhing beast that inhabited the arctic wasteland of his ribcage didn’t break: it preened at the spectacle of heartache, like a desert rose blooming in the midst of high summer. So fragile, the human spirit; so easily broken. “Nothing to trouble yourself over, sweet son,” she said, reaching out a hand to place over his own. Her eyes crinkled at the corners when she smiled up at him, and he noted with some small dismay the veins of gray that began to creep into the edges of her thick sable hair. Her age in spirit had taxed her age in body, made older by his father’s shortcomings than she might have been had she married a good, kind man. Her eyes seemed ever round with fear these past years, murky and unclear, as though she were constantly treading the tide of cowardice, fighting to stay afloat, grasping with slippery hands at the anchor of courage. He pitied her, but it was a cruel pity, not a kind one; the sort of pity that might belong to a wolf who’s just come across wounded game. Pitiful, but still hungry; pitiful, but still hunting. Ivan’s gaze slid from her hunched form to a pile of envelopes laid out before his mother: bills, he imagined, all left unpaid by his father. In one sweeping gesture, he reached out, gathered the bills in one hand, and stuffed them into the pocket of his overcoat, leaning down to press a tender kiss to his mother’s temple. “I’ll take care of it,” he murmured—and he meant it. He’d pay the bills, every last dollar, every last cent. But he wouldn’t do it for love, or for pity—he’d do it for the game. The game of giving and taking, of building and breaking; of nursing his mother with riches of love and wealth only to watch her wither at their gradual extinction. When she looked to him, her eyes were watery with gratitude, but there was a sort of murkiness there, too—a kind of cowardice; a fear of unknowing, of a mother unable to care for her brood. And he fed it, that fear—nourished it in his mother so tenderly, so subtly, that she would already have succumbed to it by the time she realized fear’s talons had burrowed into the essence of her. And perhaps it was because of that fear that she smiled when Ivan pulled a small bottle of pills from his coat pocket and placed it on the table before her. “For the exhaustion, Mama,” he said. “It’ll help you sleep.” She didn’t hesitate in taking the bottle and tucking it between the folds of her dress. Because she was fearful, and because Ivan had trapped her in that fear—a cage made by his own masterful hand, carved from the shadows of nightmares and the rot of death, stitched together with naught but the fine web of her own unbecoming, her deepest dreads and terrors. “Ivan,” she sighed, and his name on her tongue sounded like a hymn, a prayer. “What ever did I do in this life to deserve a son like you?” He didn’t have an answer for her.

“Thirdly,” Ivan said, “there’s a hasty temper, which can be provoked by insults.” He moved one of his own rooks forward three spaces. Odin raised his hand to move his own rook forward, eager to capture Ivan’s rook, but Ivan held up one of his hands, gesturing for him to wait, to temper himself.

“Son!” his father grunted from his study, the single syllable slurred with what Ivan could only assume was brandy, if he was lucky—whiskey, if he was not (Samir Rahal was not half as cruel drunk on brandy as he was drunk on whiskey.) Eyebrows raised, he exchanged a knowing look with his brother, who sat in the chair opposite him. “It’s your turn,” Ivan said matter-of-factly, returning his attention to the book in his hands (some old, weathered text about European trade stratagem). “Please, brother,” Joseph groaned, voice strained. He was only two years younger than Ivan, a young seventeen now, but when he was like this, begging, he looked much younger. Ivan flicked his gaze back to his brother to find wide, pleading eyes round with fear. Ivan heaved a sigh, exasperated. So dramatic, he was.“What’ll you give me for it?” Ivan asked, one eyebrow cocked. “Anything,” Joseph said quickly, sounding far too desperate for a man attempting negotiation. Ivan made a noise of disgust and moved with swift grace as leaned forward in his chair to smack the side of Joseph’s head with his book. “Never promise anyone anything,” he hissed. “God above, Joseph, have I taught you nothing?” His brother muttered a curse and made a show of rubbing the back of his head, but he said nothing more. “Here,” Ivan said, tossing the book in Joseph’s lap as he stood to his full height. “Read it. It might do you some good.” And so he went, off to his father’s study, straight to the fat, drunk lion’s den. But was of no favor to Joseph that he went, no (Ivan’s actions were not—not ever—motivated by anything but self-interest). He went to his father not to spare Joseph his wrath, but to incur it. It was part of their game—his father, drunk and foolish and full of ego, thinking himself a god, a Zeus of old age; and Ivan preying on his foolishness, and his drunkenness, and his ego, a Hades of new age come to usurp the gods of old and claim his kingdom come. “You rang, Baba?” Ivan said as he entered his father’s study, closing the door behind him with a soft click. He was greeted with an empty bottle of Jack catapulted by his father’s own hand that crashed into the wall just a few centimeters to the left of Ivan’s head. Whiskey it was, then. Pity—for his father. Ivan schooled his face into a mask of boredom as he brushed a mist of shattered glass from the sleeve of his shirt. “You’ll mind your aim next time,” he said cooly, turning to the round mirror hung on the wall and inspecting his face for embedded shards of glass. His skin remained unscathed, save for a few small scratches on his cheeks and chin. “The Versace,” he said, gesturing to the fabric of his shirt, “can be replaced. The face cannot.” Ivan’s indifference had always irked Samir well, and already he was incensed, outraged by his son’s insolence. “You’ll mind your mouth next time, boy,” his father growled, and he moved to take a step towards Ivan, but the motion made him sway, and he thought better of it, instead planting his feet firmly in the ground and anchoring his hands on his hips to save face. But the misstep did not go unnoticed by Ivan, and he practically purred at the advantage his father had just handed him. The game had only just begun, and already he’d won. “Sealegs aren’t working well today?” Ivan asked, one corner of his lips hitching upward cruelly. His father, with that fickle ego so easily provoked, began to unravel before Ivan’s very eyes. It was the unbecoming combination of fury and pride, Ivan was sure, that drove Samir forward a step, and Ivan raised an eyebrow pointedly at the way his father grabbed the back of his leather armchair to steady himself. “Was there a reason you called for me, Father? Or did you only want an audience to spectate your balancing act?” Rage, untethered and undiluted, eclipsed the clarity in Samir’s eyes. “I called for you,” he snarled, vicious now, “because I wanted to look into the eyes of my thieving son”—he pointed a finger at his ransacked liquor cabinet, which now housed only two lone bottles of Jack—“and hear his defense before I beat him bloody and throw him out of my house and onto the street for the wolves to devour.” Ivan flicked his gaze to the near-empty liquor cabinet, drawling, “I only drink top-shelf, I’m afraid”—a denial, a half-truth, and a half-lie all in one. He did, indeed, only drink top-shelf liquor, but he did also, indeed, pour most of his father’s liquor stock down the kitchen sink for no reason in particular other than game-playing. “I don’t think Mama would be terribly pleased with you exiling her eldest from your house, do you, Baba?” Ivan mused, ambling over to the liquor cart at the center of the room and pouring an amber-colored liquid out of the decanter and into a tumbler. “Your house,” he repeated, turning the words over on his tongue in slow, dripping syllables. “Is it, though?” he asked, raising the glass in his hand and swirling it about. “When’s the last time you paid one of those bills?” he asked, nodding to the pile of envelopes that lay on his desk—no doubt electric bills and property taxes and mortgage notices, all of which Ivan had paid and righted in the year prior. And he’d paid them not for kindness, or for decency, or for love of family, but for power—for this moment right here. He’d been steadily gaining the upper hand in this very war for just over a year now, a general priming himself for victory: fashioning his mother and brother and sister into an army of loyal allies eager to defend his honor; sharpening his tongue into a weapon of mass destruction, arming himself against his father with an arsenal of information; drawing up blueprints of Samir’s weakest points, testing for faults in his defenses and marking them down in detail. Yes, he’d been preparing for this war for a long, long time now, fighting and winning small battles all the while, and Samir, the poor fool, had only just now realized war had been waged. It was almost unfair—to go to war with a foe so disadvantaged. Samir made a gruff noise of outrage, face red with fury. “Can you remember the last time you paid a bill for this house, Father?” he asked, and he layered the question with enough innuendo that it sounded more like, “Can you remember anything at all, you miserable, wretched drunk?” Ivan moved towards the desk and began rifling about the already opened envelopes, reading their contents aloud one by one. “Electric bill—account balance paid in the name of Ivan Rahal. Water bill—account balance paid in the name Ivan Rahal. Home insurance—account balance paid in the name of Ivan Rahal.” He flipped through the envelopes unceremoniously, and each time he spoke his own name may as well have been a knife to his father’s gut. “Ivan Rahal, Ivan Rahal, Ivan Rahal,” he crooned, dropping the stack of envelopes back onto the desk with a loud thud. “It would seem, then, that this is my house after all. Perhaps I ought to exile you, Baba, and see how well you fare with the street wolves.” Samir sputtered like a fish, so consumed by his outrage that he didn’t know which vein of fury to latch onto, which battle to fight first. It was no matter, though, for whichever battle he might’ve chosen, he would’ve lost—he already had. “Don’t fret, Father—I’m not an unreasonable man,” he said, again swirling the tumbler of liquor in his hand. “You may remain here, in my house.” And then, making a show of it, he brought the tumbler to his nose, sniffed once, grimaced in distaste, and poured the amber liquid out into the dimly lit fire, which roared to life with a grand whoosh. “But I’ll not have whiskey under my roof,” he said, scowling. “Certainly not bottom-shelf whiskey.” And that was it: his final blow—placed well and delivered even better. It landed perfectly, beautifully, the way a symphony’s sonata ends on one grand crescendo, and his father, mad with rage, lunged at Ivan. He made it one, two, three steps before stumbling over his own feet, thrown off balance by the heavy weight of whiskey. He fell at Ivan’s feet, groaning something awful and spitting half-intelligible curses at his son, a god bending a knee to his usurper. Zeus falls, Hades rises. Ivan sneered down at Samir, his face cold as he crouched down beside him. “Need a hand?” he asked, only the way he said it—darkly, and imbued with shades of malignant rot—sounded more like a threat than an offer of aid. His father, cheeks, eyes, and nose all bright with redness, looked up at him, and when Samir Rahal did, indeed, take his son’s hand, Ivan knew he’d won this war after all.

“And then, lastly,” Ivan said, “there’s a delicacy of honor, which is sensitive to shame.” Ivan moved forward one of his pawn’s.

The soft, clinking ring of the pawn shop’s doorbell drew Ivan’s attention, and he watched through cool, narrowed eyes as a woman with dark skin and dark hair that tumbled down her back in messy curls strode through the front door. Ivan studied her as she weaved in and out of treasure troves scattered about the small shop, her eyes catching most often on paintings. She seemed wild, feverish, full to the brim with a kaleidoscope of life’s greatest joys: love, beauty, freedom, passion, honor. Unbent and unbroken, she enchanted Ivan, and that, he supposed, was unfortunate for her, for the epicenter Ivan Rahal’s attention was not a pleasant place to be. With quiet, slinking steps, he slithered up to her side, where she was admiring a Syrian fresco of moderate value he’d extorted from an old friend. “What’s the going price?” she asked, not bothering to break eye contact with the painting. “There is none,” he replied smoothly, to which she furrowed her brow and canted her head in silent question, her gaze darting from the painting to Ivan. “I don’t trade in the currency of coin here.” A half-truth. He did, on occasion, accept monetary payments, but most often, his preferred currency came in the form of secrets and owed favors. “What do you want for it, then?” she asked. “A name seems a fair starting point,” he said, propping his shoulder against an old, mammoth grandfather clock adjacent to the painting she was studying. She smiled then, and it was a brilliant, dazzling thing—a vision of beauty that Ivan admired not only for its capacity to be ruined, but for its loveliness, too. “Sirena De Angelis,” she said. “Sirena De Angelis,” he repeated, each syllable rich and heady on his tongue. “You’re a painter, then, Sirena De Angelis?” More an observation than a question, and when she shot him another quizzical look, he slowly reached out one hand to curl a stray tendril of hair coated in dried blue paint around his pointer finger, holding it within her scope of vision for her purveyance. Matching splotches of blue streaked other places in her hair, and speckles of it peeked through the neckline of her blouse. “You’re either a painter, or a girl with some rather…messy proclivities in the bedroom,” he purred, hooded eyes falling first to the paint in her hair, and then downward, to the low-cut vee of her shirt. She blushed furiously, and for a moment, he wondered if she might surrender right there and storm out in a fury. But his initial assessment of her rang true, and her eyes lit with a fire untethered, a passion unmatched. “Can’t I be both?” she challenged, and he smiled at that—a real, rare sort of smile, one that met his dead eyes. “You’d have to tell me, I imagine.” “And then will I have earned the painting?” she shot back. Ah, smart girl. She was learning how to play his game, and he was excited, endlessly, to have found a partner that could match him—if only for a little while; if only until he well and truly broke her. “This painting,” he said, sweeping one arm outward towards the fresco, “was recovered from the remains of the Royal Palace in Mari during a French archaeologist’s excavation in 1935.” Leisurely, he pushed off of the grandfather clock and neared Sirena in slow, lazy steps. “It’ll cost you more than a confession, signora.” He paused, one corner of his lips quirking. “Even one so delicious.” She cocked her head, considering. “What’ll it cost me, then?” He studied her, eyes fixed on hers with feverish intent, daring her to falter, to misstep. But she met his gaze with equal intensity, eyes of green smoldering with the same amber fire that seemed to emblazon the very core of her spirit. “A kiss will suffice,” he said plainly, casually. That seemed to throw her off balance, and for a moment, her full lips floundered open and closed, searching for a response. She eventually settled on: “I’m married, signor!”—which she emphasized by flourishing her left hand, showcasing the unimpressive diamond ring on her fourth finger. He’d guessed as much (he catalogued each person he met, and the wedding band she wore had not gone unnoticed during his initial assessment of her). “So am I,” he countered. That gave her pause, and some of her anger gave way to confusion, and perhaps a bit of outrage. “You’re—married?” “No,” he admitted, chuckling, and she looked positively irate at being toyed with so cruelly. “But if I were, would it matter?” “Of course it would matter!” she exclaimed, insistent. “Why?” he asked. “Because,” she huffed, “it’s—it’s—dishonorable!” He barked a laugh, the sound rich with amusement. “Ya haram,” he grumbled, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. “Is that it, then? Honor?” He raised an eyebrow, crossing his arms over his chest. “I didn’t think such a thing existed in Verona.” “Well—it does,” she said stubbornly, mimicking the action of crossing her arms over her chest: a true competitor through and through. They stared at each other for long seconds, perhaps even minutes, and it was Ivan who finally broke the silence. “Honor, like art, is subjective,” he said, and moved to stand beside her, facing the painting. She opened her mouth to argue, but he continued on before she could voice her opposition. “Here”—he pointed to the top of the painting: a sky painted in a flurry of dreamy hues, dappled with shades of pinks, oranges, and creams—“I see the beginnings of a sunset, but you may see the beginnings of a sunrise.” She didn’t argue that (she mightn’t have had a counterpoint to argue with at all). He turned to her, closer now than he’d been before, head bowed to meet her at eye level. “You think it’s dishonorable to kiss me, but I think it’s dishonorable to waste a pair of willing lips.” She held his gaze, her face taut with the busy inner workings of her mind. “We’re at an impasse, then,” she breathed, ragged, and they were so close now that the soft whoosh of air she expelled fanned his face. “So it would seem.” He studied her a moment longer, and when their lips were naught but an inch apart, he abruptly straightened to his full height, turned to the painting, removed it from its easel, and handed it to Sirena. Dazed, she took the painting, eyes round with confusion as she looked from the fresco to Ivan, then back to the fresco, then back to Ivan. “Take it,” he said, turning on his heel to retreat to his back office. “It’s worth much, Signora De Angelis,” he called over his shoulder, pausing at his office door to turn to look at her one last time. “But it’s not worth your honor.” He delivered the lie so well, he almost believed himself. She returned to the shop the next night and proved to him two things: firstly, that the painting was, after all, worth her honor, and secondly, that yes, she was indeed a painter and she did indeed have some rather messy proclivities in the bedroom—or, well, in the back office of a pawn shop, on top of a desk that was littered with various containers of paints and inks Ivan used for forgery. And so began their tryst: a mad, wild, tempestuous affair, imbued with all things rotten: deceit, infidelity, lust. They fucked viciously, desperately, grasping at each other for air, for life, for passions long denied. Each joining was more frenzied than the last, an unholy union lush with labored breathing and tangled limbs, writhing bodies and sweat-slicked skin, pleas and groans and moans, scratch marks and bite marks. And yet, in spite of its malignancy, their affair bloomed with beauty abound: he’d bring her Egyptian paints of the richest hues, and she’d paint him, and after, or during, they’d make love; he’d pull her into alleyways in broad daylight to do wretched, wonderful things to her, and she’d slip away from her sleeping husband in the dead of night and sneak into Ivan’s apartment to do wretched, wonderful things to him; she’d collect little treasures—pendants or rings or books—for him to sell in his pawn shop, and for each treasure she gave him, he returned the favor, showering her with gifts galore: a sapphire-stoned choker dating back to the 20s, a sundress embroidered with spun gold, a vintage Versace scarf. Ivan took great care to wean her on him, to immerse her in his person, in his essence. He kissed her well, loved her well, romanced her well, fucked her well. He fashioned himself the axis upon which her world spun, bent himself to her will to fool her into thinking she’d brought a god to knees. Everything she was, her world in its grand scope, became deeply rooted in him, and only once she was well and truly infatuated, once he’d pulled the wool over her eyes and led her astray from all the other sheep, did he unsheathe those big, wolfish teeth. His extracted himself from her life in increments—slow, poisonous increments. He began with small things: gone were the terms of endearment, the thorough, passion-filled sex, the thoughtful gifts, the affection. In their stead, he sewed seeds of doubt and uncertainty: screening her calls, letting his gaze drift pointedly to other women, coming when dusk settled and leaving before dawn broke. And when the early dregs of madness began to cloud her once-clear eyes, he exited her life altogether, severing himself from her so cleanly that there were times she wondered if it had happened at all, or if Ivan Rahal had been the making of a nightmare dressed in dreams. And then, when he’d stripped her of nearly everything, her love and her hope and her joy, he took what remained: her honor. Early on in their tryst, she’d gifted him one of her paintings: a watercolor vision of Ivan sprawled half-naked in her bed at dawn, hair mussed, eyes heavy-lidded and face soft from sleep. One morning, that very painting arrived at her husband’s workplace, and when Sirena returned home that evening, he cast her out of his house and his heart as thoroughly as Ivan had, and in the following weeks, Verona’s hotbed of gossip devoured what remained of her ill repute. Months later, Ivan was reading the paper when he saw it: Sirena De Angelis, 27, found drowned in the Adige on Sunday. And he felt—nothing, really. Surprise, perhaps, and maybe even a bit of nostalgia, but not sorrow, and certainly not guilt. Honor would have driven him to guilt, but he had none. Sirena had honor, and it drove her into the Adige.

There was a beauty in this tête-à-tête between he an Odin—a perverse irony in the way he laid out precisely how he would set out to bring down the lionhearted fool. He would take his time with Odin—would destroy him thoroughly, slowly. The muse that whet his appetite for apocalypse. He would desecrate all that was holy about Odin, would ransack his temple of virtue and leave that cavern hollow and wanting, a new habitat for his demons to occupy. He would water Odin’s small seed of recklessness with brandy and whiskey, with long, late nights spent at The Dark Lady, with the occasional hit of this drug or that drug. And then, he would feed his fears with whispers of his beloved’s adultery: creating imagined visions of Delilah’s eye straying a touch too far at that gala the week prior; waxing poetic about her beauty, a beauty unmatched even by the seraphs carved by Michelangelo’s own hand. And only once Odin was well and truly rooted in the trenches of his own cowardice would Ivan start poking at the weak spots of his temper, needling them, hollowing them out until he was naught but a bundle of raw nerves, easily provoked into fits of rage that Ivan would be sure to redirect in Delilah’s direction. And then he would prey on Odin’s honor, which Ivan imagined would prove the most challenging stage of Odin’s destruction, for his honor was deeply ingrained in his core, the foundation upon which his person was built. But Ivan would warp it, he was sure—would poison Odin’s honor until it was too delicate to battle his ego, until his reputation and its perseverance became his sole focus, and there was little he would not do to keep it intact (little he would not do to spurn his wife and outcast her as the villainess of the story to paint himself the hero-victim). Swiftly, Ivan reached across the chessboard to move forward Odin’s queen, which then checked Ivan’s king, left exposed without the protection of pawns and rooks. “Checkmate.”

EXTRAS

You can find a Pinterest board for Ivan here, a playlist here, and an instrumental playlist here!

MBTI: ENTJ. Astrology: Scorpio (November 2nd). Moral Alignment: Neutral Evil. Enneagram Type: Type 8. Headcanons:

OCCUPATION: His uncanny knack for weaning people on poison has long made him one of the Capulets most able dealers, and Odin has since restricted the majority of his duties to networking clients and peddling weaponry, dealing heavily in the black market trade of firearms. His silver tongue and military experience make him an extraordinary dealer of illegal weapons, and he’s cemented his place amongst the Capulet ranks as one of their best merchants, so to speak. In addition to his role as a Capulet soldier, Ivan owns and runs a small pawn shop in Verona called Handkerchief (an apropos ode to the Shakespearean tragedy from which he inherited his codename). Ivan is, and has always been, a procurer of things not easily procured: weapons, liquor, jewels, drugs, blackmail, information. And so it seemed natural, really, for him to set up shop and capitalize on his trade of black market products—a front to trade treasures for information, to curry owed favors and debt among those foolish enough to make a deal with Verona’s snake-skinned devil. By the looks of it, Handkerchief is little more than a small, homespun pawn shop in the heart of Verona, rife with trinkets, antiques, and paintings of great value. But in the back of the shop, dealings of a far more sordid nature take place, and it’s behind the shop’s plain front that you’ll find a variety of illegal goods ranging from firearms, to poisons, to drugs, and all matter of unseemly things. The pawn shop works partly as an outlet through which Ivan can peddle black market weaponry on behalf of the Capulets, but his business is equally rooted in more selfish interests, and it’s not uncommon for Ivan to trade away items of great value for information or I-owe-you favors to be cashed in on a rainy day. Whether or not he chooses to share the information and servitude he grosses from personal ventures is his own prerogative—one he handles on a case-by-case basis.

WEAPONS: His military service in the Middle East was a study in all sorts of weaponry, but Ivan’s found he’s partial to knives, old-fashioned though they may be. There’s something exquisite about robbing life with something pretty, something luxurious. It makes a dirty business something elegant, dresses murder up in glitter and gold—or sparkles and silver,as circumstance would have it. He quite likes the feel of a blade’s hilt, silver and etched with the Capulet crest, fitted against his palm like a babe burrowed against the nook of her mother’s neck. Seldom does he travel without knives—karambits, butterfly knives, combat knives—hidden beneath his jackets, in his boots, up his sleeves, and you can count on each blade in his possession to be coated in some variation of poison, be it monkshood or henbane, nightshade or yew (he’s a connoisseur of poisons, and is well-versed in those natural toxins that kill cleanly, sleekly, with no trace of his person). Veronesi at first made the mistake of thinking Ivan less skilled in physical combat than his Capulet companions, too reliant on fighting of the intellectual sort. But he schooled them all in his capacity for ruin of any kind, and he has since developed some repute as one of the Capulets most notorious assassins, skilled well in weaponry and even better in discipline and strategy (a product of his time spent fighting wars overseas). But perhaps Ivan’s greatest weapon in his arsenal is his tongue, and oh, does he use it well. Perhaps never in the history of the modern world has one man’s mouth been so capable of ruin. It’s with words that he’s laid waste to whole cities, imbuing his chosen victims with the sort of fear that rattles bones and teeth alike. He can talk most anyone into most anything with that tongue of his: he can talk enemies into lovers, can talk lovers into spies, can talk spies into allies, can talk allies into enemies—and so on. His wish is will where his knack for persuasion is concerned, and it is for this reason and this reason alone that Cosimo Capulet welcomed Ivan Rahal, a wild card without conscience or loyalty, into his ranks with open arms—because that sort of tongue could turn the tides of war.

FAMILY: The eldest of three children, Ivan was born to Samir and Esmeralda Rahal, neither of whom were well-suited to raise children. Esme, even before Ivan poisoned her against herself, seemed not of this Earth, perhaps forged from the clouds, untethered to the world and its realities. She was untethered, manic with faraway dreams and giggly lunacy (a byproduct of marriage to his father, from whom she was desperate to escape, even by means of imagination). She was horribly ill-equipped to raise a brood of three unruly children, and Samir was no better off. He was unhinged, dependent on whiskey to see him through his days and scotch to see him through his nights. Gruff and cruel and violent, Samir was no better able to raise his children than Esme, and the only bit of parenting he ever contributed to his lot came in the form of raised voices and raised hands (fists, if he was running low on Jack) when they misbehaved. No, Samir and Esme were not well-suited to raise a family, and so the Rahal children raised themselves. The oldest of three, much of what Ivan learned as a boy was self-taught. He taught himself how to read, how to play chess, how to tie his shoes, how to speak English, how to write Arabic. Then, when he was two, Joseph came, and four years after that, Yara came, and he taught them these things, too, because playing chess with someone who doesn’t know how to play chess is no fun at all. And then, when he was older, he taught himself how to drive, how to light a cigarette, how to negotiate, how to court lovers, how to hold a gun. These learned trades, though, he kept to himself, because playing chess with someone who knows all your tricks is no fun at all, either. Joseph was tempestuous—hypersensitive to his emotional keep and prone to chronic mood swings. Yara was gentle—a soft bloom of a girl too sweet to be sustained by the cold winter of the life the stars had designed for her. And their parents, one a madwoman full of sorrow and the other a catatonic drunk, did nothing to correct their children’s ills. Ivan’s love of catastrophe began here, with his father, who grew less and less alive with each gulp of amber liquor, a gradual deconstruction of man that fascinated Ivan endlessly. And it was not just deconstruction of man, but self-deconstruction of man, for what did Ivan do but place the bottles into his father’s own hand? And then, once he was weaned, what did Ivan do but take the bottles away? What did Ivan do but press needles discretely into his brother’s palm? What did Ivan do but bring his mother bottles of pills big and small, blue and pink? What did Ivan do but whisper doubt and misery into his sister’s ear? Ivan didn’t force his father into a depressive withdrawal so intense that he died of a heart attack. Ivan didn’t press the needle into the crease of Joseph’s elbow. Ivan didn’t force his sister into developing a habit of whoring around just to feel whole, alive. Ivan didn’t shove those pills down his mother’s throat. Was it not Ivan who arranged his father’s funeral and thereafter (and for some time before) looked after the family’s finances? Was it not Ivan who paid for all three of Joseph’s rehabilitation stints? Was it not Ivan who came to pick up his weeping sister whensoever she beckoned him, despairing outside of clubs or alleyways or her lovers’ apartments, seeking comfort and safety? Was it not Ivan who, when Esme was too lethargic to get out of bed, brought her groceries and fresh flowers from the market? What did Ivan do but hand his family their own instruments of destruction and let them have at it, swooping in at the end of it all to save them from themselves. What guilt did he bear in their ruination when all he ever did was give them the choice between ascent and descent. Was it his fault that they chose Hell over Heaven? Was it his fault that they suckled from Eden’s ripe apple tree like famished pests? Was it his fault that they never learned to play chess well?

APPEARANCE: He’s always belonged to the shadows, Ivan, and he dresses in their colors like a ship flying its kingdom’s sails. Black, black, black. He wears slacks and shirts of varying shades of black and grey, all embroidered with veins of Capulet silver. Jewelry gets in the way of his unique lifestyle, and so he doesn’t wear much of it, but he often dons rings, on most every finger. Rings thieved from his victims, his lovers, his foes. They’re trophies of wars waged and won, and they make the bite of a mean right hook even meaner. The only other piece of jewelry he wears is a silver cuff around his wrist fashioned to resemble a serpent with eyes of embedded emerald. It was a gift from a freshly heartbroken Odin—a trinket crafted from the melted remains of his silver wedding band and forged into a band of brotherhood—a gift to the savior who spared him his wife’s faithlessness and preserved Odin’s repute amidst a scandal tainted with shame and dishonor. Ivan wears it daily—an ode to his greatest masterpiece, his most fatal plague.

MANNERISMS & HABITS: Subtle and discrete, you must look to his body language to discern his moods: a cocked eyebrow when he’s intrigued, rigid shoulders when he’s hyper-focused, a scowl when he’s displeased, a crooked smile when he’s up to no good (and he’s never up to any good). To many, he’s an enigma, swathed in shadow and bathed in mystery, no discernible telltales to give away his moods. Ivan’s gone to great lengths to perfect the art of smiling when he wants to bite. A little faux charm goes a long way, and for none is this truer than Ivan Rahal. A master of transfiguration, he sheds his snakeskin like an art. A dance of duality, he straddles worlds with exquisite ease: the noble son, the dutiful wardog, the loving brother, the loyal soldier, the steadfast companion, the devoted lover. A purveyor of worlds, he knows well how to appeal to the masses, how to mold his person to suit his audience. Some know him to be sweet-eyed and sweet-tongued, and other knows him to be devil-eyed and devil-tongued; it all depends on what game he’s playing, what role best suits his interests. And that’s what it’s all about, really: his games. He fights dirty, kills dirty, fucks dirty. His father taught him young that honorable men are remembered for naught but dying young and dying easy. And so he lives without honor: thieving indiscriminately, killing indiscriminately, screwing indiscriminately. And this is how he gets away with it: smiles. Darkness, to Ivan, is an art, and he’s gone to great lengths to refine it. The whole of Verona knows him to be lethal, the Capulet mob’s grim reaper raised feral and trained wicked. But so easily do they forget that he’s a killer, a beast untethered by the human weight of a moral compass. He’s dark in the way he smiles sweetly with the same lips that have sneered down at the corpses of his victims; he’s dark in the way his hands curl around his lovers’ throats one night and around his foes’ throats the next (darker yet in the ease with which he demotes lover to foe). How many of his once-lovers and once-friends have suffered the winter of his cool indifference once he’s used them all up and thieved their greatest joys, their greatest loves? How many people—children, mothers, fathers, wives—have fallen pray to his foul games and tricks? With his lazy grins, a chin raised a fraction too high, hooded, cool eyes, and a masterful combination of archaic elegance, indifference, and a silver tongue always poised with lies and half-truths, it’s easy to be bewitched by Ivan’s bacchanalian beauty, to forget that he’s a killer (a good one, too)—and by the time they remember, it’s far too late.

LANGUAGES: Born in Syria, Ivan’s native tongue is Arabic, but he’s since mastered a handful of languages across the globe. He fancied himself the weapon of conversation at a young age, and he knew early on that what makes a weapon powerful is, above all, its versatility—its ability to be wielded against all manner of friend and foe. And so he immersed himself in cultures and languages across the world, diversifying his greatest weapon as well as he was able. During his early travels, he familiarized himself with German and Russian, and then, during his military tour, he picked up the Romantic languages (Spanish, French, Italian—a very small bit of Romanian). Since joining the Capulets, he’s become near-fluent in Italian and Spanish, and he’s made an effort to school himself in Zulu for the sake of his South African contacts. His versatile tongue and wide-ranging cultural scope has made him anoutstanding negotiator and conversationalist among the Capulets, and he is known well for his diplomacy by Capulet contacts in Spain and South Africa.

#accepted: iago #accepted

4 notes · View notes