lumenfall

[lumenfall]

Deep-feeling though she was, Maria was rarely touched by fear.  Now it took her into the iron vice of its grip, groped her through the layers of her garb.  No longer a spectre dredged from darkest memory, it became something tangible, and no leather nor lace could keep her from its touch, from the cold smoke of its breath.  If it spoke, it was only to say this:  welcome home.

Long ago, in the miserable days of girlhood, Maria had whittled herself a mask of indifference.  Furious fits of rage and despair, shining and sodden, were witnessed by none.  Any protest was to be written on parchment in an elegant, persuasive cursive or voiced in a measured tone, clipped of any pleading, dried of any tears.  The hunter sank behind that familiar, frost-crowned façade as they trotted towards the crucible she had been delivered from a lifetime ago.  That lofty place of birth, and of lowly execution.

Not once did Maria look out of the small window as the castle loomed closer, imagining the carriage as her coffin, and Cainhurst as inevitable as a hole measuring eight feet long and four feet wide.  Yet Gehrman’s student was nothing if not loyal.  The glittering assistant to his magician, she would obediently place her hand in the lion’s open mouth and stroke the coarse pin-feathers of its barbed tongue – even though she knew a wild animal might be taught to present as hand-tame, they could not resist instinct indefinitely, they could never learn to love.

The sense of suffocation intensified with their arrival, and Maria descended the carriage steps as one walking into night-time water, dark and deep.  It pressed its immeasurable weight against the walls of her chest, squeezed the breath from her throat, left a taste of salt on the lips.  In this, the shape of Gascoigne’s hand holding hers was a lifeline – yet she caught the aftermath of awe in the silver storm of his eyes, saw that he fell for the many-eyed fan of a peacock’s tail feathers, without anticipating the fury and violence of the fornication which might follow.  A cage, she reminded her companion gently, coolly, though the triumph of his sex and foreignity robbed him of true understanding.

Only now that they stood on the front step, before the axe-wound of the open gates, did Maria look at her former home directly.  Beautiful, imperfect woman, one once vomited into the waiting arms of Yharnam, now ready to be eaten a second time.  Her mind was sharp, its wheels whirring silently, but its corners were caked in cobwebs, cluttered with the letters that went unanswered, leaf-litter locked away in its bottom drawers.  Her umbrage was not with her royal cousin, with whom they had scheduled audience, but with the wider tapestry the Queen Annalise herself was painted into; slaughter for the sake of slaughter, opulence for the sake of opulence, a strict social code, a narrow pigeonhole for everyone.

A knight approached – here came the noose, the halter, the lead-rope, the shackle – and with his greeting Maria’s nostrils flared subtly.  The similarities in their dress were painful to her, her commissioned garb the echo of a dream she once held and had been denied.  Shame was a blade to her throat, its steel tip pricking her heels as they walked inside.  Her existence was an offence to tradition, to the bloodline that had born her.  To be a noblewoman was to be a vessel, and to be empty was to be worthless.  Swallowed, they sank together into the belly of the beast, their progress reflected by gilt-edged mirrors spotted with age, judged by the sea of portraits depicting pale, pointed faces.  Smog-laced bodies were awash with the stale scent of parchment and polish and mildew and blood. 

Even with the gargantuan shadow of Gascoigne at her side, Maria had to wonder if there was a version of this story that ended with her being left behind.

prompts. for @lumenfall / Lady Maria

The wind whipped a flurry of drift snow towards them. It was a feral display, the sharp clarity of this airborne dance. Howls and shrieks punctuated the turns and tosses of invisible performers. Then the white squall blew over the crags and burst into crystals overhead. Castle Cainhurst nested above the elements all on its perch of black rock and windswept cliffs. Its impossible spires stabbed the low-hanging sky. It was not unlike Yharnamite architecture in its myriad of arches, interleaving details and tightrope bridges. There was a gravitas to this structure, however, that predated the pomp of the sprawling city. What seemed a natural development in the metropolis that grew cancerous among the hills and dales of the lakeshore was calculated precision in the castle's old stones.

Gascoigne had watched the ancestral seat of Queen Annalise approach for some time as their coach made its treacherous path across the bridge. The lake itself shook the foundations beneath their horses' steady steps. Lady Maria had grown as icy and rigid as the walls of her erstwhile home. Her pallor shone repellent as she sat beside the scholar clinging to his bag of scrolls and trinkets. Gascoigne sat opposite the two of them in silence. He studied her. Beneath her stoic, ever pleasant mask, he knew her stare was hardening with each mile that flew past.

When at last the coach came to a snorting, creaking halt, Gascoigne stepped out first. The coach trembled under his weight as he emerged and turned to behold the island in its entirety. He made little secret of his curiosity. Storm-grey eyes lifted at once to take in the sprawling castle. Its gardens, overblown with snow, were dotted with marble statues, twisting in hedonistic pleasures, or death throes.

Lady Maria followed after him. Her fine silver hair was tucked back sternly under the cap of her tricorn. She looked devastatingly handsome, even in her obvious tension. It worked her jaw. It tightened the muscles in her hand where it rested upon the pommel of her treasured Rakuyo. Gascoigne offered his hand to steady her descent from the coach. Another show of support seemed beyond his grasp in this moment.

A knight descended the steps to meet them, followed by guards. His silver hair whipped behind him like the mane of a horse in sprint. Gascoigne watched him approach them with measured steps as Maria and their joint charge finally exited the carriage entire. The driver tended to his horses in silent industry.

"Just marvelous," The foreign hunter breathed his awed verdict of the castle, a plume of steam sweeping forth from his lips. The fur trim of his coat and his high collar grew heavy with ice dust. "I can't imagine wanting for anything in a place like this."

❛ a golden cage is still just a cage ❜

Maria's voice came gentle and clear. He felt her fingers brush against his leather gloves as she slipped into place beside him. She moved like quicksilver, poured into the mold of a woman. When her eyes fell on their welcoming party, she stood straight as an iron rod, driven into the ground right there. Gascoigne did not believe that she was reprimanding him as much as she was voicing a very old, very private grievance. It wormed its way out of her throat just so.

The armed man at last reached them and introduced himself with a clipped nod. Logarius, his name was. The trio followed him inside the castle. Whatever would come of the audience with the queen, it would serve them to watch their backs from here on out.

#sorry this took so long! #i'm feeling rusty and writing with a headache but! #i couldn't stand to leave this thread waiting any longer #✤ verse — the love of nature is a kind of religion #goesblind

[lumenfall]

casual wear (splattered with blood) vs. evening wear (drenched in blood)

#✤ musing — i am so damned not even death wanted me

[lumenfall]

Lady Maria & the Plain Doll by wlop.

#✤ muse — blooming flower like / blood in the water

[lumenfall]

“She might be a little introverted, livelier of movement than of conversation, neither bashful nor forward, with a soul that seemed submerged, but in a radiant moistness. Opalescent on the surface but translucent in her depths…”

— Vladimir Nabokov, The Enchanter

#✤ musing — i am so damned not even death wanted me

[lumenfall]

They walked past rows of armchairs waiting for visitors who would never come, past stripped shelves, bare tables, empty beds, doors to nowhere.

—Grady Hendrix, Horrorstör

#when i tell you maria's townhouse is odd #half-lived in at best #an unusual mix of disused and opulent #✤ musing — i am so damned not even death wanted me

[lumenfall]

“Here, I am graceless. No. Worse than that.”

— Kaveh Akbar, from “Recovery,” Calling a Wolf a Wolf

#✤ musing — i am so damned not even death wanted me

[lumenfall]

And by the time this story is over, they will be covered in blood. Some of it will be theirs. Some of it will belong to others. But they will drip with it. They will swim in it. They will drown in it.

— Grady Hendrix, The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires

#the hunter experience ✨ #✤ musing — i am so damned not even death wanted me

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linennaive

#✤ inspiration — all that blood was never once beautiful / it was just red

[lumenfall]

maturing as a woman is realizing you’re cooler than any and every guy you ever meet

#it's true #✤ musing — i am so damned not even death wanted me

[lumenfall]

prompts. for @lumenfall / Lady Maria

The thing lay still.

Its bulk of matted fur and mange-ridden skin had ceased even the tremors of biological hangover; a lifeless puppet strung loosely on the wires of its sinews, its nerves. Now it was all silenced and the fell beast pooled blood onto the polished tiles by his feet. The stench of its rot ate its way into the foreign priest's nostrils and it was the most he could do not to cover his face in disgust.

He stood victorious above the slain creature, an unsheathed saw cleaver dripping red by his side. Sharp breath came flat and fast after the exertion and left him again as plumes of silver steam. It was such a peaceful, chilly night by the lakeside. None who did not traverse these academic halls would fathom the slaughter that was ritualistically undertaken at the College of Byrgenwerth. He looked stupefied upon his kill, overcome by sensations hitherto unbeknownst to him. Adrenaline pumped wildly through his veins and sweetened the song of his success.

He had spilled his share of blood during his apprenticeship and was no stranger to battle. Though when he had killed, it was the frame of man he made to split. Not this. Warped and transmuted flesh, running fevers and overflowing with corruption. He could smell the traces of it, though. Quicksilver. His old faith flared. He was on the right path in this strange, barbarous country.

The students came scrambling then, like so many scavengers, and systematically took the beast apart. They siphoned its blood and harvested its organs, the few the Father's panicked frenzy of attacks had left undamaged. The strength of the beast had shaken him. The famished monsters that prowled the woods were no match for whatever hellmouth had vomited forth this creature.

Gascoigne saw now what the jeering had been about, the comments made so fast and quietly that his untrained ears could not make sense of them. The Yharnamite tongue was unrefined and coarse. His own spoke with much more flourish, more melody. Though he could speak the language of this forgotten and misbegotten child of Loran, he was loathe to hear it. The students stepped around him with wary respect and some muttered approval. But even so, in their weaving he saw the trap. He had been lured out here to face this creature, perhaps to test his faith, or his dominant arm. As a man of God, a God that they had not deemed certain for themselves, they seemed to take him for a simpleton. Or worse: a gentle man.

The cleric would not deign to punish his new peers with contempt, though he certainly felt his gaze cool down by degrees. From the balcony that spanned the higher tier of the atrium, then, a new and strangely accented voice rose to meet him:

❛ congratulations, you have survived! ❜

Father Gascoigne turned to see a group of strangers there. It was evident that they had been watching the proceedings, each ready to leap down and put an end to the sport if necessary. He spotted the glint of their weaponry at a distance. They were dressed not like students, though their attire was certainly a sibling if no twin. A tall woman leaned casually upon the balustrade, her arms crossed to support her weight. Behind her stood a towering man who seemed to carry a folded scythe strapped to his back, and another, a lithe man who lifted his chin curiously. She was the one who had spoken, though, and Gascoigne's eyes were trained on her.

She was so pale, she seemed to glow in the moonlight. If some poet stammered their way into an approximation of her likeness, they should call her marble-made, a sylph of contradictive gravity. Her beauty was apparent, almost oppressive, but it possessed itself with such austere severity that one could do nothing but give way. Her air was noble, regulated. Though he never knew them in his own homeland, here he saw one that he should gladly call aristocrat.

Her voice was airy and light, sweetly tinged by her foreign origins. There was a lilt to it he adored at once. She had made herself his ally by calling out in this companionate way. The priest could think of nothing witty to reply and so instead he lifted his weapon to hail her. He held the cleaver aloft briefly before swinging it low to perform a suitably polite bow, a humorous response to her remark. As though the battle done here was but a farce, put on for her entertainment.

Then he turned aside, almost shy. He wiped the cleaver on his trouser leg and folded it in again. It lay unevenly in his hand. Though he could wield it, Father Gascoigne would soon see to it that he found a weapon more suited to his strength. He had not come as a butcher but a preacher. But such were the ways of his Lord. He would have His blood, one way or the other.

#my god this is poetry #i've read it a dozen times and i'll read it a dozen more #thank you for being a bright spot on a dark day my beloved goesblind 💕 #✤ maria × gascoigne — what we made between rage and love and falling asleep / haunts me still #✤ keepsake

[lumenfall]

““But I’m very near,” she said caressively, gaily. “Yet distant, distant,” he said.”

— D.H. Lawrence, from Women in Love (Dover Publications, 2003)

#it's true!! #✤ maria × gascoigne — what we made between rage and love and falling asleep / haunts me still

[lumenfall]

Sophie Mackintosh, from 'Cursed Bread'

#oh they!! 😭 #✤ maria × gascoigne — what we made between rage and love and falling asleep / haunts me still

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#✤ inspiration — all that blood was never once beautiful / it was just red

[lumenfall]

“Secrecy flows through you, a different kind of blood.”

— Margaret Atwood

#✤ musing — i am so damned not even death wanted me

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Erwin Blumenfeld - Modéstia, Lisette, (Fotogravura). 1938

#meanwhile in the research hall – #bless goesblind she gets it right 100% of the time #✤ inspiration — all that blood was never once beautiful / it was just red

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ISABELLE ADJANI as Emily Brontë in: Les Sœurs Brontë (1979), dir. André Téchiné

#so very maria coded #the landscape the expression the garb #✤ inspiration — all that blood was never once beautiful / it was just red #cw: gif

[lumenfall]

— Anaïs Nin, from a diary entry featured in Mirages: The Unexpurgated Diary; 1939-1947.

#✤ musing — i am so damned not even death wanted me