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#first time drawing blood please have mercy on my soul
praisethesuuun · 1 year
Note
Hello 💖 I am not sure if you still open a request, but can I request a one shot about Thor? I am sorry but I do not have any plots on my mind, so please feel free to write any topics you want
Thank you 🙌 Hope you have a nice day
I tried my best, dear anon, hope you like it! I tried to use my knowledge in runes as I read them myself - even if mine are dedicated to Odin - and adapt them imaginatively. That said, I'll leave you with the reading🧡
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Thor x reader: Worth
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Type: fluff
Warnings: none
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Our world is full of secrets. You intended to discover them all, stealing the eyes from the beating heart of nature, visiting worlds never seen before. Your curiosity urged you to let your mind travel, like a bird taking its first flight.
Power radiated from the bag containing your runes, unleashing moments of pure freedom in your soul, especially when you felt your patron's hand guiding yours with each draw. It was warm, empowering, and strong, like lightning striking the surface of the water, spreading its shock everywhere. Your beloved runes were consecrated to Thor, the only god you felt right, because that's what you felt as soon as you said the name of the first sign during the blessing; the god of thunder had accompanied you throughout your life, guiding you on the way to Valhalla at the time of your death.
His presence was unique, radiant, Thor inspired your every reading and, once you arrived in heaven, you were surprised to hear the request he had made of you: "Fight with me, if you're strong enough, I'll take you under my wing"
This was the proposal he had made to you three days ago and you were terrified of it. "Please, just help me..." but your runes weren't responding, probably Thor was blocking their power to prevent you from predicting the outcome of your test: he wanted to see your maximum power, what you had learned in the years he had been with you, he wanted to see his future apprentice.
In fact, Thor was so hoping to see you win: your fighting style was worthy of a god, the runes danced across your skin in unrestrained prayer, flooding his ears every time you invoked him. Before you, many shamans had consecrated their runes to him, but none had been able to handle the power of Thurisaz, his personal symbol…only you.
No matter how many times your arms burned when you held it close in your hand, the flashes that erupted didn't emphasize you more than you were used to; before long, you were able to trap thunder in a mortal body.
A human with that much strength and power couldn't go unnoticed, which brings us to your current situation.
"I could block it with Isa, then...no, it's not good..." you muttered under your breath, while you were searching for something - anything, at this point - to beat your god, a task that looked impossible.
Holding Uruz in your hand for strength, you rolled your eyes, only to collapse on your bed, defeated and with a thousand thoughts in your head: who would have ever thought you'd end up like this?
The match would have been the next day, early in the morning, when dawn turns the clouds pink and the sky begins to turn clear blue.
"Let's hope we don't die for the second time"
And that was your last thought before you collapsed.
❛ ━━・❪ ᛟ ❫ ・━━ ❜
On the other hand, Thor was having a great time listening to you from behind the door, after all, it was at his personal temple that you were staying overnight. He really hoped you would prove your worth.
There is a belief that each god takes a human - usually, wizards or shamans - under protection by staying with him as he grows up and blessing him with luck and power. Well, Thor had vied to have you: apparently, Zeus had eyed you too, not only for your good looks, but also to add you to his collection of heroes; but do we really want to trust Zeus? No. Thor couldn't stand it and, being his blessing on your family for millennia, he certainly couldn't leave you at the mercy of that pervert.
Just the thought made his blood boil.
To tell the truth, initially he didn't even want to fight you, yet his father Odin was obsessed with this thing, where you had to prove that you could be a brave warrior; perhaps this obsession of his was linked to your death, this had been natural, you hadn't died in battle or in some heroic enterprise, yet you were there.
When no more curses were coming from your room, Thor walked away silently, which seemed impossible given his size, and then headed in the direction of his rooms. "You're going to make her win anyway, aren't you?"
"Go away, Loki"
The last thing the god of thunder needed was the god of mischief. It was not uncommon for the latter to appear at the wrong time on the wrong day, Thor was used to it by now, but this time Loki had to be careful of his words. "So? Cat got your tongue? Well...more than usual" said Loki floating gracefully at the height of the other's head, speaking close to his ear and trying to keep up. Thor was already starting to get annoyed, but still didn't want to respond to provocations. Though, he somehow wished the god of deceit was right: if only he could have let you win so easily, he wouldn't be so agitated now.
Valhalla had strict rules, laws that the gods must follow to the letter; Fate is an ancient force that has ruled the universe since its inception. We cannot oppose it. "We'll see," replied the red-haired god, before abandoning his heckler to take refuge in his chambers.
Loki stood there, with an amused grin.
❛ ━━・❪ ᛟ ❫ ・━━ ❜
"When the sun touches the tip of that pillar, our fight will end"
Thor's voice was low, hoarse; you've never heard him like this, partly because of his reserved nature, partly because of his scarf that muffles his words. Your heart skipped a beat as you prepared yourself inside the small ring, carefully drawn on the ground and with an agile hand. Just over two fingers deep and shaped like a perfect circle.
Your sparkling eyes were in stark contrast to his, precious as pure gold, but with enormous concern. His hammer rested on his shoulder, as if it didn't weigh at least a ton; you were always so surprised to witness the physical strength of the god, it was just a shame had to unleash it at you now.
"Uruz" I said, while two magic circles appeared on your legs, shining like dew in the sunlight; you leapt forward avoiding a hammer blow in the face. Thor didn't seem surprised and, within a few seconds, he grabbed the hilt of his weapon again, preparing to attack again. At the same time, your move had placed you behind the god, freezing his legs with Isa engraved on your hand. Your arm was engulfed in ice, spreading across the ground and attacking the god's metal boots.
Thor broke it without any problems. "Shit"
A kick sent you flying to the ground, with a searing pain in your knees and taking your breath away. Your eyes widened, all your enthusiasm turned to adrenaline and survival instinct. Despite the shock, you were still able to cast Algiz, creating a shield around your figure, parrying an attack and establishing distance.
When you turned to look at your opponent, he had a satisfied smile, the most beautiful you've ever seen. You blushed suddenly, surprising you with your mind to make you have certain deathbed thoughts. "Wait..." you said, something wasn't right "...where's the hammer?"
Your mind didn't even have time to process it, that Thor, leaping quickly, was able to pin you to the ground, unloading all his weight on you. You were looking into each other's eyes, intensely and suddenly; from the touch of his hands you could feel the storm, the immensity of a god as powerful as he was. A shiver ran down your spine as the air generated by the spinning Mjolnir kicked up a fuss, passing over you two before stopping after hitting a pillar as thick as a house.
Thor's expression hadn't changed, indeed now it even seemed playful. "I won," he said slowly. Your heart broke, while your eyes became clear at the thought of having failed your God. "I'm so so-"
But I didn't have time to finish the sentence, that his soft lips crashed on yours, capturing them in a sweet, comforting kiss. Actually, Thor didn't care about Fate, the fact that you lasted more than half a second was already a record for him. You didn't think twice about reciprocating, feeling flooded with an energy you've never seen before and feeling the runes quiver. There you were, just the two of you, with all the time in the world and the fresh morning air; the thought of letting him down was gone, as a new life of learning opened up before you.
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writing-the-stars · 2 years
Note
AHAH
I forgot to add to my last request
About dark klaus
With his love interest, making it about her trying to leave him, be uninterested
Please enjoy!
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WARNING: This does get kinda dark. Toxic/Abusive Behavior, Mass Murder (mentioned), Torture (mentioned), Kidnapping, and Psychological Trauma. Please read at your own risk
Masterlist | TVDU Masterlist
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Falling in love with Klaus Mikaelson was the easiest thing you ever did
He was so gentle and kind at first, sending you jewelry, drawings, and an overflow of praises. As far as the hybrid was concerned, you walked on water and he made you feel like you put the stars in the sky
By the time you realized that was all smoke and mirrors, it was too late. He had isolated you from your friends and family, moved you into his home, and forced you to rely solely on him
He loved knowing that you quite literally needed him in order to live-- it helped combat his fear of being alone. Plus, he adored taking care of you, dressing you to his liking, feeding you and feeding off of you, showering you in luxury for being "such a good girl"
You had been so blinded by love and gifts that you didn't even realize he completely immobilized you
However, after a long conversation with Camille, you realized just how toxic your relationship with the hybrid was
Enlisting the help of Davina and Marcel, the four of you made plans to help you escape the Original Hybrid and help you gain back your independence
Unfortunately for you, there's not a thing that happens in Klaus's home that he doesn't know about-- especially when it comes to you
He knew the minute Cami stepped foot inside the Compound and snuck her way into your room. He heard the entire conversation and was hurt betrayed by how easily you dismissed his love for you
He listened as the four of you "sneakily" planned out your escape, keeping tabs on the three accomplices to your treachery
He couldn't believe how disloyal you truly were, smiling in his face during the night when he was home and plotting your escape during the day when he was away
He began to question how real any of your love for him had been
On the day of your escape, he gives you an opportunity to be honest with him and re-earn his trust and forgiveness. However, you lie to his face and shatter any form of mercy he was willing to give you
He allows you to carry on with your plan, giving you the hope that you will soon be free
However, when you arrive on the ferry that is supposed to take you out of the city, you are horrified to see the mass of human bodies surrounded in pools of their own blood-- not a single living soul in sight
Your blood runs cold as you realize he knew, he knew all along
Just as soon as you come to this conclusion, his ghastly figure appears before you-- the blood of the passengers falling from his lips. It makes you sick
He takes you back to the Compound where you are sickened to see your three friends bound and gagged awaiting Klaus's torture
It is part of your punishment for trying to leave him. To watch as the three people you cared for are brutalized for helping you
It also serves as punishment and a reminder to them, that NO ONE takes what belongs to him
After that, you are too demoralized and traumatized to even think about trying to leave the hybrid again
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A/N: Hi Anon! I apologize for the wait, but I hope it was worth it! Not going to lie this was kind of fun to write. I liked seeing how dark I could go (in a totally non-psychopathic/sadistic way). I hope this was as enjoyable to read as it was to write. Thank you all for reading and for your patience with me! I hope have a wonderful day.
Taglist: @catmikaelson20
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chim-aera · 6 months
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immortality
immortality.
it's a pretty little prison.
all wrapped up in gold and embers, copper chains, and ruby brimstone, how lovely is it, to look Death in all his splendor, look him in the eyes and solely grin.
I want to be like that.
but gods above, I don't think I want to be immortal.
everlasting.
oh how divinity is etched into our bones along with the spell scripts of sigils to hell.
throw me a bone and see if I sink or swim. gnashing teeth and ribbon wound, what I wouldn't do to fly.
but I'm here.
instead.
not sinking, not floating.
here.
a pity.
Isn't it?
like peach pits in the stand of apples.
immortality.
yes.
humans have many words for it.
we're addicted to the splendor, the madness, the draw of it.
but how they don't recognize the cruelty. but oh, do they still grasp with clutching, clawing little hands.
immortals.
take vampires, for example, Slavic in origin, but romanticized with soft, sensual smiles dripping with blood-stained lips. ivory points against my neck.
give me freedom.
time.
or drain me dry like a fruit shriveled in the sunlight.
it's a coin, death and life. but the life is in the dying.
there is no everlasting in life eternal. perhaps it's a metaphor. to show humans can truly never live for ever.
mortals.
it's in the name.
Latin.
mort.
death.
ones who die.
mortals.
immortality is the opposite of humanity. but let's also not put humans on a pedestal, we've seen what happens there, and the real monsters have no flashing fangs.
now there's another prospect.
example.
they go by many names.
sidhe.
seelie.
unseelie.
tuathe de danaan.
fae.
and as much as those glinting undead with cloaks and capes and soft little whispers of velvet and bat flight, they have no grasp on me.
not like those wretched and righteous ones of moss and morbidity.
skulls and deer bones.
moth wings and cobwebs and chaos.
laughing.
like fox barks.
sharp and shivering.
bony hands like skeletons, like branches, skittering like spiders down my bosom, down my spine.
would I shriek or soften into them? a cat leaning into a caress.
give in or go out in a glory of fists and futile efforts.
no.
I've never been heroic.
I know the horrors.
but my soul holds no salt, iron, or holy water.
I'd rather much burn, most likely, I am all vervain, and mugwort, and mishaps. rabbit wry and wolf wild.
but gods.
gods it isn't the immortality.
it isn't the promise of never dying.
but perhaps, that is alluring too.
for unending, flawless fingers to trace over this rotting flesh and make me right again.
like I was ever right.
but also, perhaps, it isn't that.
perhaps, just maybe, I want someone to see me, see this awful, putrid mortality, and love me regardless.
but then I'd still fade. like a match sparked too soon. no,
no, no, no.
I don't wish to hurt them.
but it's better then being hurt, I'd rather first wither then ever lose another again.
no.
no.
no.
no.
please no.
Thanatos, please.
perhaps this is why I am drawn to monsters.
beasts.
creatures. claws, and horns, gaping maws, grins both wicked and charming and terrible, oh so terrible.
hauntingly wonderful, achingly beautiful. the list goes on. but oh, I want to be wanted.
but oh no, how I don't wish to love something Death can reach his slanted scythe and harrowing hands for.
I'd rather take his offering myself and let him feel my cold, pale palm against talons and ash.
perhaps he'll have mercy, perhaps he'll wrap a chain around my throat and send me down to wherever things like me reside at the End.
or maybe, he'll simply set me free.
but nevertheless.
I want one thing.
love.
oh, oh how fickle, how predictable, how human. isn't it?
but can't things that aren't human love too?
I'm a child again.
gods I feel so young.
youth was snatched from me on wilted wingtips and now I'm some creaking vessel both new and ancient sewn together crudely with wire and silk.
what am I?
oh what am I not?
but love.
affection.
how I want to be wanted.
to be craved.
I have been running and hiding and fleeing like a deer with hounds at its hooves for so, so long.
I want to be chased.
to be stopped.
to be held.
I fear I will jolt at the first touch of softness, so I long for someone that does not let me.
gods, perhaps when I do get free, I'll only crave a bigger cage.
but I still do want love.
but I look for it, in all the wrong places.
the plastic pot of my wilting emerald perperomia.
the faded edges to my indigo coat.
the perfumed silk of my grandmother's shawl.
no where.
everywhere.
the night sky.
the forests.
the clutching, clawed hands of treetops.
the silent downy beat of snow and rain.
stories.
pages.
libraries.
I will walk alone, with my boots sounding against tile.
alone.
alone.
alone.
I seek to be alone, yet I'm reaching like Icarus to a height that'll only ever singe me if I find it.
I think I give up on love. but oh, how that is a bitter little lie.
I'm so tired of tearing off little pieces of my soul to act as bookmarks for my stories I hold so dearly.
only to come back to those pages and find those beloved bittersweet artworks of meddle and mind and ink and ebony staring up at me unchanging, immortal, while I wither here to dust.
what will I do with myself when I'm older?
will, and if I even make it.
I'm more then two decades old.
I'm no moon eyed maiden, no innocent owlet with the world at their wings.
molly grue, but never amalthea.
where were you?
where were you?
oh, I still haven't found you.
I'm jaded.
and harsh.
flitting by with what ever is left of my empathy, my ever beating heart, sewn together with pin heads.
I am here.
yes.
I am here I am here.
but sometimes my mind is so far away my body and psyche are not the same vessel.
I'm so tired.
of wanting to being wanted.
crumbling like quicksand, like drywall, like dried flowers in a fisted hand.
let my petals color you, like inchor, not bloodstains, and let me fly into the wind entirely disregarded as nothing but a tragic little misadventure.
funny.
isn't it?
how I'm so remarkably cynical.
tell me you adore it about me.
or better yet, tell me what I do wrong.
a sharp slap to my jaw feels kinder then a kiss right now.
perhaps I really am undone.
so I'll keep spinning, until I find the thread to Lachesis, Atropa, and Clotho, teach me how to knit.
to stitch.
maybe then I can put together my aching soul.
perhaps.
or they might just wind me up in red ribbon and send me back down to the hellscape mortals reside again.
back to this sorry sarcophagus of a body I reside in, to creak and wail like a splintering elmwood banshee.
is it ever my fate to tell?
but never feel.
gods above I believe it is sometimes.
cursed to either be the omnipotent omen or some cursory comfort for some to drink down like chamomile and cough syrup.
until I'm brushed aside and disregarded like a moth eaten coat, kept only in the closet for sentimentality and the use on a rainy day.
I don't want to be that.
some velveteen rabbit only alive after I've been let go to the crows and clutches of the other wordly.
but I'll suffer it.
I will.
oh I sound pathetic sometimes, I say I don't want pity but I could drown in it.
but I don't want to.
I want to live or go out in a blaze of scroll smoke and stardust.
or maybe.
just maybe, feel alive again.
I have no need for immortality, although, I admit, the prospects are tempting.
but only would I accept it if it was the nectar of the gods as I was Psyche and my lover Eros.
a promise, of truth, and devotion so deep, not even Death will hold us instead of each other's arms.
I would never be Chang'e.
my Honyi would either have my elixir, or we'd both go out mortals.
If I ever find my love, not even the gods themselves could wrench them from my talons if they meant harm.
but no claw marks would ever marr their skin.
I'd rather burn alive then to contribute to a caustic terrible love.
I may not be all goose down and goldenrod, but I will be soft for them.
you.
whoever.
whenever.
if.
longevity.
I watched my grandmother pass, a month after my grandfather, crumbling to ashes like a phoenix with no feathers.
glorious, but oh oh oh so sad.
I don't want to be her.
I adore her.
I can't even mourn, she doesn't feel gone.
I feel more dead then she does.
how is the irony in that?
but, immortality.
I suppose it sounds nice, on a weekend, or Mondays, but never stretching through time like a monotony of mortality.
unless.
unless.
I had someone to share it with.
but don't go tossing me a vial of the fountain of youth freshly bottled.
no.
I'll wait.
I'll rot.
if I have to.
I already am.
but maybe, just maybe.
if I'm not untouchable for mortals just yet.
someone, monster, or man, warrior, or woman, finds me.
maybe I'm enough, or maybe I'll just be here, an hourglass of a cacophony of sorrow and syllables.
but for now, who knows, I feel like I'm running out of time.
but perhaps, it's just me running.
like I always have been...
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pureseasalt · 1 year
Text
Namor x Shuri: Playlist
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(playlist is on spotify)
Track list:
when i watch the world burn all i think about is you (bastille)
my head's a cloud/ my ego bruised/ and drunken dreams, am I deluded?/ i'm paranoid, hung up on you/ no love, my love/ she denies me//oh, lay me down in ash again/ and watch the world crumble
sad day (fka twigs)
i, you're running/ i made you sad before/ i can imagine a world when my arms are embraced around you/ i lie naked and pure/ with intentions to clench you and take you
closer, presets remix (kings of leon)
she took my heart, i think she took my soul/ with the moon i run/ far from the carnage of the fiery sun/ driven by the strangle of vein/ showing no mercy, I'd do it again/ open up your eyes/ you keep on crying, baby, i'll bleed you dry
princess of china, acoustic (coldplay, rihanna)
once upon a time on the same side, in the same game/ and why'd you have to go, have to go and throw water on my flame/ i could've been a princess, you'd be a king/ could've had a castle, and worn a ring// cause you really hurt me/ no you really hurt me
november (rachel chinouriri, hak baker)
do i finish with my words?/ put it down to my fists/ violence don't come first/ but violence seems to finish
te guardo (silvana estrada)
tus ojos que, cuando los miro/ brillan igual que los míos/ pero no logro entender/ de qué van (rough translation) your eyes that, when I look at them/ shine just like mine/ but i don't seem to understand/ what they mean
draw your swords (angus & julia stone)
so come on, love, draw your sword/ shoot me to the ground/ you are mine, i am yours/ let's not fuck around/ cause you are, the only one
queen of peace (florence + the machine)
like the stars chase the sun/ over the glowing hill, i will conquer/ blood is running deep/ some things never sleep/ suddenly i'm overcome/ dissolving like the setting sun/ like a boat into oblivion/ 'cause you're driving me away/ now you have me on the run/ the damage is already done/ come on, is this what you want?/ 'cause you're driving me away
empire (of monsters & men)
feel the ocean as it breathes/ shivering teeth/ see the mountains where they meet/ smothering me/ as the wind fends off the waves/ i count down the days/ heavy stones fear no weather// illuminate there is a river/ running wild that will create/ an empire for you/ an empire for two
sunlight (hozier)
i had been lost to you, sunlight/ and flew like a moth to you, sunlight, oh, sunlight/ oh, your love is sunlight// each day, you'd rise with me/ know that i would gladly be/ the icarus to your certainty/ oh, my sunlight, sunlight, sunlight/ strap the wing to me/ death trap clad happily/ with wax melted, i'd meet the sea/ under sunlight, sunlight, sunlight
unholy war (jacob banks)
steady on/ go take your bow/ weather the storm/ good times will pass you by/ hit the road/ leave your sorrows behind/ oh, would you let love lead you home, oh please/ let redemption keep you warm
close to you, moonlighting (cosima)
now you're someone broken moonlighting as some who's healing/ and now you're someone lost moonlighting as someone who's free/ oh, i was someone smart moonlighting as someone stupid/ to be close to you/ you're someone special, but you're someone fucked up too
gun (mas ysa)
even the sun/ knows where you sleep/ i wasn't done i wasn't beat/ you found a boy/ thought he'd grow old/ i had a girl/ and I'm taking her home/ that's no one's home now
alternate world (son lux)
oh-oh we're magical/ we'll wake the dead from sleep/ oh-oh we'll shed our skin/ we'll walk the other side/ oh-oh we'll brace for it/ and conquer everything/ tear me away from this fight/ tear me away/ take me to an/ alternate world/ alternate age/ alternate life
bet (mereba)
i like his meaner demeanor/ it doesn't mean our/ worlds can't collide/ right place right time, right?// heard from a bird that you you're nothing but trouble/ you're just trouble/ but i like how low you lay/ and i let you in my day
love drought (beyoncé)
'cause you, you, you, you and me could move a mountain/ you, you, you, you and me could calm a war down/ you, you, you, you and me could make it rain now/ you, you, you, you and me could stop this love drought
lover's desire (anais mitchell, michael chorney)
from the musical hadestown (act ii): after eons of marital conflict, hades & persephone took each other’s hands & danced
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theprayerfulword · 5 months
Text
November 11
Philippians 3:13-14 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, 14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
2 Corinthians 2:14 Thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of Him.
John 7:38 Jesus said, “Whoever believes in Me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them."
2 Corinthians 4:6 For God…is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
Deuteronomy 13:4 It is the LORD your God you must follow, and Him you must revere. Keep His commands and obey Him; serve Him and hold fast to Him.
1 Peter 3:10-12 Let him who means to love life and see good days refrain his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking guile. 11 And let him turn away from evil and do good; let him seek peace and pursue it. 12 For the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and His ears attend to their prayer…
May you remain true in your devotion to the Lord your God and pure in your affection toward the King, your First Love, not forgetting His gracious care or pushing Him behind your back, completely disregarding the One Who bore your sin at such a cost, but honoring your Betrothed and waiting for Him, obeying the Spirit Who is sent to ready you for the day He comes to receive you as His own, having prepared yourself to be presented without spot, wrinkle, or blemish. Ezekiel 23, Ephesian 5
May you draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having your heart sprinkled to cleanse you from a guilty conscience and having been washed with pure water, hold unswervingly to the hope you profess, for He Who promised is faithful since He opened, by the blood of Jesus, a new and living way for you into the Most Holy Place. Hebrews 10
May you consider how you may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not becoming isolated or giving up time spent in company with each other, but encourage one another, all the more as you see the Day of the Lord approaching. Hebrews 10
May you live according to the knowledge of the truth you have received, departing from deliberate sin and pleasurable fellowship with the willful and intentional enemies of God, for whom there is no sacrifice remaining, only a fearful expectation of judgment and raging fire, for if rejecting the law of Moses brought death without mercy, how much more severely will one be punished who consciously tramples the Son of God under foot, knowingly treating as unholy the sanctifying blood of the covenant and purposely insulting the Spirit of grace? Hebrews 10
May you know that your confidence will be richly rewarded if you persevere so that when you have done the will of God in the Spirit of Christ, you will receive what He has promised, for in just a very little while, He will return and gather His righteous ones who have been living by the faith of Christ, because those who shrink back in pride or fear, though they profess much, are not able to please Him. Hebrews 10
I take pleasure in the springtime of your soul, when My Spirit is moving over the hard, frozen ground of your heart, bringing the warming, thawing rains that melt and break up the resisting ground, allowing the seeds of My Truth to push through to the light as I wake them from the sleep that has held them. The visible changes from barren cold earth to tender green, and then to lush verdant growth, draws notice from others who have known you and causes them to seek My answers in order to learn how they can receive the same rich blessings in their lives. The time of flowering is an occasion of beauty that gladdens the hearts of all who see the delicacy of color; the diversity of shapes and sizes draws praise from the beholders, which I receive. The fragrance is heady and exhilarating, and all the senses are engaged during this time of living vigor. My true joy and deep rejoicing, though, comes in the autumn when the harvest is gathered in, for that is the result of the persistence and endurance of those who truly believed, obeying My will, doing My work, trusting My words, through the heat of the summer, through storms and droughts, never quitting, always standing back up again if blown down by the storm or pummeled by the hail. Though the beauty of the blossom brings pleasure to the beholder, not every flower in spring will bear fruit in autumn – only those who overcome and endure.
May you praise God, Who does not remain silent when wicked and deceitful men open their mouths against you, speaking with lying tongues and words of hatred, attacking you without cause in return for your friendship, for you remain a person of prayer. Psalm 109
May you be found innocent before your heavenly Judge when accusers oppose you, for you have an Advocate at your right hand, and your prayers for your enemies justify you. Psalm 109
May your days be many & your joys in the Lord abundant, & may He establish you in His authority. Psalm 109
May your children be many and your family increase, bringing strength and joy to you and your spouse as God multiplies your ministry and raises up many strong leaders from within them, causing you to enlarge your tent, lengthen the cords, and strengthen the stakes. Psalm 109
May your harvests be great and your storehouses open to the needy, as you share the fruits of your labor freely from the abundance God has given to bless many through your obedience. Psalm 109
May you be blessed by many for the kindness you show, and may your family be welcomed wherever they go as God sends them forth to spread the gospel and share His love, proclaiming His kingdom and bringing many into His house, that their names may be written in the Lamb's book of life. Psalm 109
May your heritage of obedience to God continue to many generations, even as you have received the heritage of righteousness from your spiritual parents in the Lord, and may God always recall the faith you have walked in, that it will be spoken of as a testimony to nations. Psalm 109
May you wear blessing as a garment, like a cloak wrapped around you, tied like a belt forever about you, so that it overflows from within you like springs of living water wherever you go, and soaks into your bones like the oil of anointing, bringing refreshing and renewal through your touch and your words to all you encounter, for your every thought is to do kindness, and to bring joy to the heart of the poor, the needy, and the broken-hearted; so may the blessing you share come upon you, and may the pleasure of giving be always near you, for this is the Lord's recompense to those who delight in doing God's will. Psalm 109
May the Sovereign Lord deal well with you for His name's sake, and deliver you because of the goodness of His love, when you are poor and needy & your heart is wounded within you, that you will not fade away like an evening shadow, or be shaken off like a locust, but be strengthened in your fasting and given authority against your accusers. Psalm 109
May the Lord your God help you and save you in accordance with His love, that your accusers will know that it is the hand of the Lord that has done it, and that He has blessed you when they sought to curse you, and that as you serve your Lord and King, you will overcome in victory when they attack, while they will be clothed in disgrace. Psalm 109
May you greatly extol the Lord with the words of your mouth, praising Him in the great throng, for He stands at the right hand of the needy one to save his life from those who condemn him. Psalm 109
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joz-yyh · 1 year
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Love Host - Ch. 4 Preview
SUMMARY: A prequel to my fic, “Good Boy.” Takes place during the final scene of the game and the journey home afterwards. Miles becomes the host and the Walrider intends to consummate their bond. No beta. Read at your own risk.
RATING: T (PREVIEW ONLY for kissing / suggestive themes). The rest of the fic is rated E (for tentacle sex / xenophilia)
PAIRING: Walmiles (WalriderxMiles)
A/N: Miles spends his first night on the run in a trail park. He’s not taking it too well, but at least the Walrider is there to keep him company.
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The entity makes as pitiful, injured sound, sharing in the man's pain, the feeling amplified when it's host attributes it's presence with fear and rejection.
A set of claws extend to wipe the man's tears away, but Miles intercepts it, holding up a forearm defensively to block any further advances.
"Hey, uhh ... m'sorry I am such a mess. This ... this is taking a lot out of me," the man sniffles, inhaling sharply, "All the waterworks are probably grossing you out."
He dries his tears with sleeve of his jacket, trying to avoid looking weak, helpless, frail. He's forcing a smile, a mask of cynicism, trying to act strong and he doesn't even know why. Old habits die hard.
The Walrider is the last person (was it right to call it a person) that he should be hiding from because as much as Miles wants to tie a pretty ribbon around his frayed ego and call it whole, this creature knows his true self both inside and out. It -- they -- are the same being, a caduceus of blood and soul, and Miles needs to trust that all the devotion and loyalty it's put on display for him thus far won't waver due to his depressive episodes, that Murkoff doesn't have a secret switch somewhere that will turn his biogenetic partner against him.
As it has from the very beginning of their unholy union, the Walrider seeks to comfort it's host. Bony hands cup the man's face and Miles doesn't try to resist it's touch this time.
A makeshift tongue licks at the remainder of tears blotching his pale cheeks, lapping up one side, then the other. The Walrider purrs, the specific frequency of vibrations set to help the man to relax, nanites exuding a pleasant aura of heat to quell the incessant shivering invading it's host.
A whorl of nanites card between the button folds of Miles' shirt, caressing his chest, stroking along his abdomen and the patterns with which they do feel more suggestive than ergonomic.
"Trying to warm me up, are you," Miles laughs, arching a lucrative brow. It shouldn't be this easy to cheer him up with a few soliciting touches, but it is.
The man blinks, a lone tear escaping down the right side of his face and he remembers reading some theory online about the significance behind that.
The machine hums in agreement, mewling, it's festering eyes creased into convex crescents as it rests their foreheads together, rubbing against the human's hairline just enough to ruffle his skewed bangs.
"Hey, c'mere," Miles says, tilting his chin up, urging his companion face to become level with his. Their gazes align, pupils shifting as he stares into it's glowing cerulean eyes with unfaltering admiration.
"I want to show you another way that humans kiss. I am going to use my tongue this time, just don't bite me ... please," the last word comes out strained, a cry of mercy.
He suddenly feels like such a teenager, telegraphing his every move and naturally he's just a little embarrassed when he speaks the words aloud, hesitates a fraction, waiting for some sort of signal from the Walrider.
The entity growls in acknowledgment, idle, awaiting it’s host's next move. Miles starts out small, drawing his tongue along the protrusion of mandibles tentatively, licking a wet stripe over the sharp contours. The machine's jaw slackens at this, opening a breadth wider, a chitter causing it to rattle.
Miles prefers to keep his tongue attached so, he slips it back into his mouth until he can gauge the other's reaction, it's body language, which is damn near impossible when it involves an uncategorized phantasm of floating pieces.
The Walrider growls at him, eyes narrowing, goading him to continue with a playful snap of it's mouth.
"Yeah, OK. Let's go again," Miles swallows, licking his lips as he separates the meager distance between them, a drop of fear curling in his gut.
Nervously, he slides his tongue past the jagged rows of teeth, finding the demon's artificial one hidden inside. He gives it a few nudging little licks, convincing it to move, to meld with his own.
The Walrider grips it's host, pulling him closer, taking him deeper. It's glowing tongue curls around his, twice as long and twice as big, overtaking him easily. Miles can taste the pulses of energy flowing through it, the thousands of vibrations as the entity kisses him back with frightening intensity.
Every so often the sharp daggers that pass for it's teeth cut into his tongue, little nicks of minimal consequence as Miles gets carelessly swept away in the thrill of it all, but it's not enough of a hindrance for him to stop. What does cause him to turn his face away and break them apart is his need to breathe.
As Miles attempts to regain his stolen breath, the Walrider’s claws find the collar of his jacket, peeling it down so that it can get closer to the man's neck. It does the same to the reporter's shirt, tugging it away to graze it's teeth along porcelain skin. It lingers over the faded red marks it left on Miles' shoulder, biting down right above the welts to make a duplicate impression of punctured, bloody rings.
{End Preview}
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turnpage · 3 years
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send me a ✐ for a random sentence starter from my muse (1-1500) — tw: profanity, mild nsfw, long list
generator here quotes compiled from here inspired by
feel free to change to fit your preferences as need.
❨1❩ ❛ They are dreams, but I’m too out of control, I lose myself in them, and I’ve already lost too much to let them take over. ❜
 ❨2❩ ❛ Sometimes human places create inhuman monsters. ❜ ❨3❩ ❛ I'm not gonna hurt ya. I'm just going to bash your brains in. ❜ ❨4❩ ❛ Monsters are real. Ghosts are too. They live inside of us, and sometimes, they win. ❜ ❨5❩ ❛ The world's a hard place. It doesn't care. It doesn't hate you and me, but it doesn't love us, either. ❜ ❨6❩ ❛ The tears that heal are also the tears that scald and scourge. ❜ ❨7❩ ❛ Pull your act together and just go on. ❜ ❨8❩ ❛ I had never dreamed there could be so much pain in a life when there is nothing physically wrong. I hurt all the time. ❜ ❨9❩ ❛ Tough old world, baby. If you're not bolted together tightly, you're gonna shake, rattle, and roll before you turn thirty. ❜ ❨10❩ ❛ Are you sure self-pity is a luxury you can afford? ❜ ❨11❩ ❛ Truth comes out. In the end it always comes out. ❜ ❨12❩ ❛ Living by your wits is always knowing where the wasps are. ❜ ❨13❩ ❛ No matter where you go, the same asshole gets off the plane. ❜ ❨14❩ ❛ We sometimes need to create unreal monsters and bogies to stand in for all the things we fear in our real lives. ❜ ❨15❩ ❛ That’s your job in this hard world, to keep your love alive and see that you get on, no matter what. ❜ ❨16❩ ❛ Human nature, baby. Grab it and growl. ❜ ❨17❩ ❛ God wiped snot out of his nose and that was you. ❜ ❨18❩ ❛ Run away. Quick. And remember how much I love you. ❜ ❨19❩ ❛ How many times, over how many years, have I—a grown adult—asked for the mercy of another chance? ❜ ❨20❩ ❛ I was suddenly so sick of myself, so revolted. ❜ ❨21❩ ❛ You listen to me. I’m going to talk to you about it this once and never again this same way. ❜ ❨22❩ ❛ But those pieces, they’ll never fit just the same way again. Never in this world. ❜ ❨23❩ ❛ Dying is a part of living. You have to keep tuning in to that if you expect to be a whole person. ❜ ❨24❩ ❛ Officious little prick. ❜ ❨25❩ ❛ I’ve been sleepwalking again, my dear. — The plants are moving under the rug. ❜ ❨26❩ ❛ How I wish you were fear. ❜ ❨27❩ ❛ But it was a dreadful kind of curiosity, the kind that makes you peek through your fingers during the scariest parts of a scary movie. ❜ ❨28❩ ❛ All we have is time, you know. An eternity of time. Or shall we end it? Might as well. After all, we're missing the party. ❜ ❨29❩ ❛ We all remember our pleasant dreams more clearly than the scary ones. ❜ ❨30❩ ❛ The way things should be and the way things are hardly ever get together. ❜ ❨31❩ ❛ Got to be regular if you want to be happy. ❜ ❨32❩ ❛ But in a solitary life, there are rare moments when another soul dips near yours, as stars once a year brush the earth. ❜ ❨33❩ ❛ He showed me his scars, and in return he let me pretend that I had none. ❜ ❨34❩ ❛ Humbling women seems to me a chief pastime of poets. As if there can be no story unless we crawl and weep. ❜ ❨35❩ ❛ It is a common saying that women are delicate creatures, flowers, eggs, anything that may be crushed in a moment's carelessness.  ❜ ❨36❩ ❛ If I had ever believed it, I no longer do. ❜ ❨37❩ ❛ I thought once that gods are the opposite of death, but I see now they are more dead than anything, for they are unchanging, and can hold nothing in their hands. ❜ ❨38❩ ❛ I cannot bear this world a moment longer. ❜ ❨39❩ ❛ I have a better idea. I will do as I please. ❜ ❨40❩ ❛ All my life has been murk and depths, but I am not a part of that dark water. I am a creature within it. ❜ ❨41❩ ❛ You cannot know how frightened gods are of pain. There is nothing more foreign to them, and so nothing they ache more deeply to see. ❜ ❨42❩ ❛ When we are young, we think ourselves the first to have each feeling in the world. ❜ ❨43❩ ❛ When I was born, the word for what I was did not exist. ❜ ❨44❩ ❛ But perhaps no parent can truly see their child. When we look we see only the mirror of our own faults. ❜ ❨45❩ ❛ I will not be like a bird bred in a cage, too dull to fly even when the door stands open. ❜ ❨46❩ ❛ This is what it means to swim in the tide, to walk the earth and feel it touch your feet. This is what it means to be alive. ❜ ❨47❩ ❛ You threw me to the crows, but it turns out I prefer them to you. ❜ ❨48❩ ❛ Yet because I knew nothing, nothing was beneath me. ❜ ❨49❩ ❛ If now I am wise, it is only because I have been fool enough for a hundred lifetimes. ❜ ❨50❩ ❛ You can teach a viper to eat from your hands, but you cannot take away how much it likes to bite. ❜ ❨51❩ ❛ Give me the blade. Some things are worth spilling blood for. ❜ ❨52❩ ❛ I have been old and stern for so long, carved with regrets and years like a monolith. But that is only a shape I’ve been poured into. I do not have to keep it. ❜ ❨53❩ ❛ I wake sometimes in the dark terrified by my life's precariousness, its thready breath. ❜ ❨54❩ ❛ Understanding the world is a matter of keeping very still and showing no emotions, leaving room for others to reveal themselves. ❜ ❨55❩ ❛ Beneath the smooth, familiar face of things is another that waits to tear the world in two. ❜ ❨56❩ ❛ The truth is, men make terrible pigs. ❜ ❨57❩ ❛ My father has never been able to imagine the world without himself in it. ❜ ❨58❩ ❛ This is the grief that makes our kind choose to be stones and trees rather than flesh. ❜ ❨59❩ ❛ Witches are not so delicate. ❜ ❨60❩ ❛ Those who fight against prophecy only draw it more tightly around their throats. ❜ ❨61❩ ❛ I learned that I could bend the world to my will, as a bow is bent for an arrow. I would have done that toil a thousand times to keep such power in my hands. ❜ ❨62❩ ❛ There's the story, then there's the real story, then there's the story of how the story came to be told. Then there's what you leave out of the story. Which is part of the story too. ❜ ❨63❩ ❛ The best way of being kind to bears is not to be very close to them. ❜ ❨64❩ ❛ Life is warped. I'm just in sync. ❜ ❨65❩ ❛ Now it's a whisper from the past. ❜ ❨66❩ ❛ But hatred and viciousness are addictive. You can get high on them. Once you've had a little, you start shaking if you don't get more. ❜ ❨67❩ ❛ Why is it always such a surprise? The moon. Even though we know it's coming. Every time we see it, it makes us pause, and hush. ❜ ❨68❩ ❛ Perfection exacts a price, but it's the imperfect who pay it. ❜ ❨69❩ ❛ What is 'belief' but a willingness to suspend the negatives?  ❜ ❨70❩ ❛ I have scars, inside me. ❜ ❨71❩ ❛ The dead are not entirely dead but are alive in a different way; a paler way admittedly, and somewhat darker. ❜ ❨72❩ ❛ However dark, a darkness with voices in it is better than a silent void. ❜ ❨73❩ ❛ Amazing how quickly the past becomes idyllic. ❜ ❨74❩ ❛ It is another way of saying tough luck. To people you aren’t going to help out. ❜ ❨75❩ ❛ I'm waiting, far off in the future. ❜ ❨76❩ ❛ The only sure camouflage is unpredictability. ❜ ❨77❩ ❛ There are so many of them, and each one of them is doing part of the killing, whether they know it or not. ❜ ❨78❩ ❛ First rule: limit bloodshed by making sure that none of your own gets spilled. ❜ ❨79❩ ❛ I long to swim in liquid moonlight. ❜ ❨80❩ ❛ That's right, I don’t like to be summoned on trivial matters. ❜ ❨81❩ ❛ The part that really made me happy was that you wanted me to be happy. ❜ ❨82❩ ❛ Cut that part out of us: the grinning, elemental malice. Begin us anew. ❜ ❨83❩ ❛ Where there are wars, there will be crows, the carrion-fanciers. And ravens too, the warbirds, the eyeball gourmands. And vultures, the holy birds of yore, old connoisseurs of rot. ❜ ❨84❩ ❛ At last. It's you. ❜ ❨85❩ ❛ No, you will not be cooked on a fire when you die. Because you are not a fish. ❜ ❨86❩ ❛ Take what the moment offers. Don’t close doors. Be thankful. ❜ ❨87❩ ❛ How many others have stood in this place? Left behind, with all gone, all swept away. ❜ ❨88❩ ❛ Is it disapproval or extreme lust? With some men it’s hard to tell the difference. ❜ ❨89❩ ❛ My hair was driving me crazy, but then … I died. ❜ ❨90❩ ❛ Seek and ye shall find, eventually. And you found. You’re right, I don’t dispute that. Sorry. ❜ ❨91❩ ❛ Everything digests, and is digested. ❜ ❨92❩ ❛ My head was once a filing cabinet. Now it’s a flurry of papers, floating on a draft. ❜ ❨93❩ ❛ You cannot keep bumping your head against reality and saying it is not there. ❜ ❨94❩ ❛ I have a feeling that inside you somewhere, there’s something nobody knows about. ❜ ❨95❩ ❛ And if I don’t want to die, I’ve got to start living. ❜ ❨96❩ ❛ The world is a beautiful place. Don’t forget that. And don’t miss it. ❜ ❨97❩ ❛ I was fighting for my life. So I must not want to die. ❜ ❨98❩ ❛ Something’s happening to me, through me, something dangerous and new. ❜ ❨99❩ ❛ It’s taken root, a poison tree; it’s grown, fanning out, vines winding round my gut, my lungs, my heart. ❜ ❨100❩ ❛ We’re interpreters. We’re translators. ❜ ❨101❩ ❛ You’ll notice I’m not asking what made you this way. ❜ ❨102❩ ❛ No family, happy or unhappy, is quite like any other. Tolstoy was chock-fullo’shit. Remember that. ❜ ❨103❩ ❛ We lived in monochrome those nights. ❜ ❨104❩ ❛ You live in a dream. You’re a sleepwalker, blind. How do you know what the world is like? ❜ ❨105❩ ❛ Do you know, if you rip off the fronts of houses, you’d find swine? ❜ ❨106❩ ❛ I stand here in the dark: cold, utterly alone, full of fear and something that feels like longing. ❜ ❨107❩ ❛ The definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results. ❜ ❨108❩ ❛ Not to warm the flesh, but solely to please the eye. ❜ ❨109❩ ❛ Selective emotional detachment. ❜ ❨110❩ ❛ Not for me, or at least not today. ❜ ❨111❩ ❛ Dead but not gone, watching life surge forward around me, powerless to intervene. ❜ ❨112❩ ❛ Do I sound like a hillbilly saying that? ❜ ❨113❩ ❛ Remember, you’ve got your secret weapon. ❜ ❨114❩ ❛ The dream drains away like water. The memory, really. I try to scoop it up in my palms, but it’s gone. ❜ ❨115❩ ❛ My shadow stretches along the carpet, as though trying to detach itself from me. ❜ ❨116❩ ❛ It curls away from me, like blood in water. ❜ ❨117❩ ❛ It’s been so long since I felt the rain. Or wind—the caress of wind. ❜ ❨118❩ ❛ But snow I never want to feel again. ❜ ❨119❩ ❛ Through adversity to the stars. ❜ ❨120❩ ❛ No hero. No sleuth. I am locked in. I am locked out. ❜ ❨121❩ ❛ Thinking hasn't gotten me anywhere so far. ❜ ❨122❩ ❛ The face you give the world tells the world how to treat you. ❜ ❨123❩ ❛ Sometimes I think illness sits inside every woman, waiting for the right moment to bloom. ❜ ❨124❩ ❛ Women get consumed. ❜ ❨125❩ ❛ Sometimes if you let people do things to you, you're really doing it to them. ❜ ❨126❩ ❛ A child weaned on poison considers harm a comfort. ❜ ❨127❩ ❛ Safer to be feared than loved. ❜ ❨128❩ ❛ I ached once, hard, like a period typed at the end of a sentence. ❜ ❨129❩ ❛ It's impossible to compete with the dead. I wish I could stop trying. ❜ ❨130❩ ❛ I always feel sad for the girl that I was. ❜ ❨131❩ ❛ Every time people said I was pretty, I thought of everything ugly swarming beneath my clothes. ❜ ❨132❩ ❛ How do you keep safe when your whole day is as wide and empty as the sky? Anything could happen. ❜ ❨133❩ ❛ See, there I am. I told you I lived. I told you I was. ❜ ❨134❩ ❛ Sometimes I think I won't ever feel safe until I can count my last days on one hand. ❜ ❨135❩ ❛ To refuse has so many more consequences than submitting. ❜ ❨136❩ ❛ I'm here. I don't usually feel that I am. ❜ ❨137❩ ❛ I'm tired of dying. ❜ ❨138❩ ❛ What if you hurt because it feels so good? ❜ ❨139❩ ❛ How confusing to live in the shadow of a shadow. ❜ ❨140❩ ❛ Do you ever feel like bad things are going to happen, and you can’t stop them? You can’t do anything, you just have to wait? ❜ ❨141❩ ❛ Sometimes my scars have a mind of their own. ❜ ❨142❩ ❛ Everyone has their own version of a memory. ❜ ❨143❩ ❛ Isn’t a smile a girl’s best weapon? ❜ ❨144❩ ❛ My sense of weightlessness, I think, comes from the fact that I know so little about my past. ❜ ❨145❩ ❛ Do what I want; I might like you. ❜ ❨146❩ ❛ I feel sorry for Persephone because even when she’s back with the living, people are afraid of her because of where’s she’s been. ❜ ❨147❩ ❛ She has never told me she loved me, and I never assumed she did. ❜ ❨148❩ ❛ The sight of it actually does something to you, makes you less human. ❜ ❨149❩ ❛ It infects you. It ruined me. ❜ ❨150❩ ❛ Your health is not a debt you just cancel. The body collects. ❜ ❨151❩ ❛ Men love to put things inside women, don’t they? ❜ ❨152❩ ❛ We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom. ❜ ❨153❩ ❛ Nothing is so necessary for a young man as the company of intelligent women. ❜ ❨154❩ ❛ The strongest of all warriors are these two — time and patience. ❜ ❨155❩ ❛ If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war. ❜ ❨156❩ ❛ There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth. ❜ ❨157❩ ❛ The whole world is divided for me into two parts: one is she, and there is all happiness, hope, light; the other is where she is not, and there is dejection and darkness. ❜ ❨158❩ ❛ Let the dead bury the dead, but while I'm alive, I must live and be happy. ❜ ❨159❩ ❛ It's not given to people to judge what's right or wrong. People have eternally been mistaken and will be mistaken, and in nothing more than in what they consider right and wrong. ❜ ❨160❩ ❛ You can love a person dear to you with a human love, but an enemy can only be loved with divine love. ❜ ❨161❩ ❛ If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, then all possibility of life is destroyed. ❜ ❨162❩ ❛ We are asleep until we fall in love! ❜ ❨163❩ ❛ I simply want to live; to cause no evil to anyone but myself. ❜ ❨164❩ ❛ Everything I know, I know because of love. ❜ ❨165❩ ❛ Man cannot possess anything as long as he fears death. But to him who does not fear it, everything belongs. ❜ ❨166❩ ❛ If there was no suffering, man would not know his limits, would not know himself. ❜ ❨167❩ ❛ Yes, love, but not the love that loves for something, to gain something, or because of something, but that love that I felt for the first time, when dying, I saw my enemy and yet loved him. ❜ ❨168❩ ❛ How can one be well...when one suffers morally? ❜ ❨169❩ ❛ Kings are the slaves of history. ❜ ❨170❩ ❛ God is the same everywhere. ❜ ❨171❩ ❛ Pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy. ❜ ❨172❩ ❛ One must be cunning and wicked in this world. ❜ ❨173❩ ❛ We love people not so much for the good they've done us, as for the good we've done them. ❜ ❨174❩ ❛ When one's head is gone one doesn't weep over one's hair! ❜ ❨175❩ ❛ For what, for whom, must I kill and be killed? ❜ ❨176❩ ❛ He did what heroes do after their work is accomplished; he died. ❜ ❨177❩ ❛ Life is too long to say anything definitely; always say perhaps. ❜ ❨178❩ ❛ Everything ends in death, everything. Death is terrible. ❜ ❨179❩ ❛ The distant and impossible suddenly became near, possible, and inevitable. ❜ ❨180❩ ❛ How often we sin, how much we deceive, and all for what? ❜ ❨181❩ ❛ The wolves should be fed and the sheep kept safe. ❜ ❨182❩ ❛ When I was a child, adults would tell me not to make things up, warning me of what would happen if I did. ❜ ❨183❩ ❛ My memory is a patchwork of occurrences, of discontinuous events roughly sewn together: the parts I remember, I remember precisely, whilst other sections seem to have vanished completely. ❜ ❨184❩ ❛ Would it be worse to love someone who is no longer there, or not to love someone who is? ❜ ❨185❩ ❛ Like mirrors stories prepare us for the day to come. They distract us from the things in darkness. ❜ ❨186❩ ❛ It is not that I was credulous, simply that I believed in all things dark and dangerous. ❜ ❨187❩ ❛ Sometimes you do things you regret, but there's nothing you can do about them. Times change. Doors close behind you. You move on. ❜ ❨188❩ ❛ Love will be an impulse that will inspire and ruin in equal measure. ❜ ❨189❩ ❛ He died alone. It don't matter a rat's ass whether there was anyone with him or not. He died alone. ❜ ❨190❩ ❛ It was love, I knew, and it tasted like champagne in my mind. ❜ ❨191❩ ❛ The end of the world is a strange concept. The world is always ending, and the end is always being averted, by love or foolishness or just plain old dumb luck. ❜ ❨192❩ ❛ She was my dream; and if you touch a dream it vanishes, like a soap bubble. ❜ ❨193❩ ❛ Daylight is always safe. ❜ ❨194❩ ❛ If not for death, they'd be content to simply exist, but with death, well, their lives will have meaning. ❜ ❨195❩ ❛ You want to know the future, love? Then wait. ❜ ❨196❩ ❛ There are things in the darkness beneath us that wish us harm. ❜ ❨197❩ ❛ Fairy tales are more than true. Not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be defeated ❜ ❨198❩ ❛ But sometimes you leave blood on your instruments. ❜ ❨199❩ ❛ I'd like to be a wolf. Not all the time. Just sometimes. In the dark. I would run through the forests. ❜ ❨200❩ ❛ You've seen them. They have mouths that twitch, and eyes that stare, and they babble and they mewl and they whimper. ❜ ❨201❩ ❛ They are not mad, or rather, the loss of their sanity is the lesser of their problems. ❜ ❨202❩ ❛ Good a reason for writing as I know: releasing demons, letting them fly. ❜ ❨203❩ ❛ That miserable state in which everything seems flat and of equal importance; when nothing matters, and in which reality seems scraped thin and threadbare. ❜ ❨204❩ ❛ Someone had scrawled graffiti in black marker on the metal: JUST DIE, it said. Like it is easy. ❜ ❨205❩ ❛ Winter started today. The sky turned grey and the snow began to fall and it did not stop falling until well after dark. ❜ ❨206❩ ❛ Memory is the great deceiver. ❜ ❨207❩ ❛ Silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way. ❜ ❨208❩ ❛ I may have lost my heart, but not my self-control.  ❜ ❨209❩ ❛ If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more. ❜ ❨210❩ ❛ I always deserve the best treatment because I never put up with any other. ❜ ❨211❩ ❛ But you know what I am. You hear nothing but truth from me. ❜ ❨212❩ ❛ I have blamed you, and lectured you, and you have borne it as no other would have borne it. ❜ ❨213❩ ❛ There are people, who the more you do for them, the less they will do for themselves. ❜ ❨214❩ ❛ One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other. ❜ ❨215❩ ❛ Better be without sense than misapply it as you do. ❜ ❨216❩ ❛ You must be the best judge of your own happiness. ❜ ❨217❩ ❛ Were I to fall in love, indeed, it would be a different thing ; but I have never been in love ; it is not my way, or my nature ; and I do not think I ever shall. ❜ ❨218❩ ❛ Indeed, I am very sorry to be right in this instance. I would much rather have been merry than wise. ❜ ❨219❩ ❛ If I have not spoken, it is because I am afraid I will awaken myself from this dream. ❜ ❨220❩ ❛ If a woman doubts as to whether she should accept a man or not, she certainly ought to refuse him. ❜ ❨221❩ ❛ Faultless in spite of all her faults. ❜ ❨222❩ ❛ A heroine whom no one but myself will much like. ❜ ❨223❩ ❛ There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart. ❜ ❨224❩ ❛ Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, and waste its fragrance on the desert air. ❜ ❨225❩ ❛ I pity you. I thought you cleverer. ❜ ❨226❩ ❛ Evil to some is always good to others. ❜ ❨227❩ ❛ I certainly will not persuade myself to feel more than I do. ❜ ❨228❩ ❛ She is loveliness itself. ❜ ❨229❩ ❛ Time does not compose me. ❜ ❨230❩ ❛ A man always imagines a woman to be ready for anybody who asks her. ❜ ❨231❩ ❛ I do not find myself making any use of the word sacrifice. ❜ ❨232❩ ❛ I am quite enough in love. I should be sorry to be any more. ❜ ❨233❩ ❛ I must tell you what you will not ask, though I may wish it unsaid the next moment. ❜ ❨234❩ ❛ I examined my own heart. And there you were. Never, I fear, to be removed. ❜ ❨235❩ ❛ With all your little faults, you are an excellent creature. ❜ ❨236❩ ❛ You have another long walk before you. ❜ ❨237❩ ❛ The child's laughter is pure until he first laughs at a clown. ❜ ❨238❩ ❛ What is marriage but prostitution to one man instead of many? ❜ ❨239❩ ❛ Out of the frying pan into the fire! ❜ ❨240❩ ❛ We must all make do with the rags of love we find flapping on the scarecrow of humanity. ❜ ❨241❩ ❛ She sleeps. And now she wakes each day a little less. ❜ ❨242❩ ❛ And, oh, God . . . how frequently I weep! ❜ ❨243❩ ❛ From the coffin of your madness there is no escape. ❜ ❨244❩ ❛ I am feeling supernatural tonight. I want to eat diamonds. ❜ ❨245❩ ❛ All the same there is a chance that if we keep on shaking our chains, one day, some day, the clasps upon the shackles will part. ❜ ❨246❩ ❛ It was sad music fit to make you cut your throat. ❜ ❨247❩ ❛ Nothing is more boring than being forced to play. ❜ ❨248❩ ❛ Amongst the monsters, I am well hidden; who looks for a leaf in a forest? ❜ ❨249❩ ❛ Wherein does a woman’s honour reside? In her vagina or in her spirit? ❜ ❨250❩ ❛ Perhaps...I could not be content with mere contentment! ❜ ❨251❩ ❛ Have you ever stared stark failure in the face? The trick is to outstare it. ❜ ❨252❩ ❛ Sometimes it seems that the faces exist of themselves, in a disembodied somewhere, waiting for the one who will wear them, who will bring them to life. ❜ ❨253❩ ❛ I have the febrile gaiety of a being without a past, without a present, yet I exist. ❜ ❨254❩ ❛ I felt myself turning, willy-nilly, from a woman into an idea. ❜ ❨255❩ ❛ She looks wonderful, but she doesn't look right. ❜ ❨256❩ ❛ The one-eyed man will be King in the country of the blind. ❜ ❨257❩ ❛ I raised you up to fly to the heavens, not to brood over a clutch of eggs! ❜ ❨258❩ ❛ I love to hear my bones rattle. That’s how I know I’m alive. ❜ ❨259❩ ❛ I learnt, first, as the birds do, from the birds. ❜ ❨260❩ ❛ Inside and outside match exactly, but both are badly wrong. ❜ ❨261❩ ❛ During the less-than-blink of time it took the last chime to die, there came a vertiginous sensation. ❜ ❨262❩ ❛ I fear a wound not of the body but the soul, an irreconcilable division between myself and the rest of humankind. ❜ ❨263❩ ❛ I fear the proof of my own singularity. ❜ ❨264❩ ❛ Still nothing could calm the fearful storm in my erupting skin. ❜ ❨265❩ ❛ Petersburg, loveliest of all hallucinations. ❜ ❨266❩ ❛ A breathless second between black forest and the frozen sea. ❜ ❨267❩ ❛ I'm beginning to feel totally cut off from the world. ❜ ❨268❩ ❛ What does this all mean? Where are we? ❜ ❨269❩ ❛ Sometimes I bleed. ❜ ❨270❩ ❛ If you see a ghost, you say "hello". ❜ ❨271❩ ❛ The war is not over. ❜ ❨272❩ ❛ You're not going. You left us once already. ❜ ❨273❩ ❛ You can’t go! ❜ ❨274❩ ❛ I loved you, but that wasn't enough, was it? ❜ ❨275❩ ❛ If you're dead, then leave me in peace. ❜ ❨276❩ ❛ The only thing that moves here is the light, but it changes everything. ❜ ❨277❩ ❛ I won't ask for forgiveness for something I didn't do! ❜ ❨278❩ ❛ Sometimes the world of the living gets mixed up with the world of the dead. ❜ ❨279❩ ❛ Death of a loved one can lead people to do the strangest things. ❜ ❨280❩ ❛ Sooner or later, they will find you. ❜ ❨281❩ ❛ They're everywhere - they say this house is theirs. ❜ ❨282❩ ❛ You're always teasing me, and telling lies. I'm sick of it. ❜ ❨283❩ ❛ Others will come. Sometimes we'll sense them. Other times, we won't. ❜ ❨284❩ ❛ No crying now. No crying. Stop that. Here. Look what an awful face you've got when you cry. ❜ ❨285❩ ❛ You listen to me. I've seen them too. ❜ ❨286❩ ❛ You'll see. There are going to be some big surprises. There are going to be... changes. ❜ ❨287❩ ❛ Why did you go and fight that stupid war that had nothing to do with us? Why didn't you stay like the others did? ❜ ❨288❩ ❛ Your place was here with your family. ❜ ❨289❩ ❛ So you say you know this house well? ❜ ❨290❩ ❛ I wasn't expecting you so soon. ❜ ❨291❩ ❛ What's the matter? Has the cat got your tongue? ❜ ❨292❩ ❛ You mean they just vanished? Into thin air? ❜ ❨293❩ ❛ No door must be opened without the previous one being closed first. ❜ ❨294❩ ❛ Here, most of the time, you can hardly see your way. ❜ ❨295❩ ❛ Whatever you do, don't open the curtains. ❜ ❨296❩ ❛ Now, come on. Eyes closed. ❜ ❨297❩ ❛ We start off with high hopes, then we bottle it. We realise that we’re all going to die, without really finding out the big answers. ❜ ❨298❩ ❛ By definition, you have to live until you die. Better to make that life as complete and enjoyable an experience as possible, in case death is shite, which I suspect it will be. ❜ ❨299❩ ❛ I chose not to choose life. I chose somethin’ else. ❜ ❨300❩ ❛ And the reasons? There are no reasons. ❜ ❨301❩ ❛ Love does not exist, it's like religion, made to control you. ❜ ❨302❩ ❛ After all, we're not fucking stupid. At least, we're not that fucking stupid. ❜ ❨303❩ ❛ You fucking knew that fucking cunt would fuck some cunt. ❜ ❨304❩ ❛ Everything in the street today seems soft focus. ❜ ❨305❩ ❛ What does that make us? The lowest of the low. ❜ ❨306❩ ❛ Take your best orgasm, multiply the feeling by twenty, and you're still fuckin’ miles off the pace. ❜ ❨307❩ ❛ It’s as if everything is a copy of what you knew before, similar, yet somehow lacking in its usual qualities, a bit like the way things are in a dream. ❜ ❨308❩ ❛ It’s all okay, it’s all beautiful; but I fear that this internal sea is going to subside soon, leaving this poisonous shite washed up, stranded up in my body. ❜ ❨309❩ ❛ It cuts me up. It confuses me. ❜ ❨310❩ ❛ It's not funny laughter. This is lynch mob laughter. ❜ ❨311❩ ❛ Protect me from those who wish to help us. ❜ ❨312❩ ❛ They mean well, and they mean well to me, but there's no way under the sun that they can appreciate what I feel, what I need. ❜ ❨313❩ ❛ The pit of melancholy is a bottomless one, and I am descending fast. ❜ ❨314❩ ❛ Living like this is a full-time business. ❜ ❨315❩ ❛ I’ll stand or fall alone. ❜ ❨316❩ ❛ We are no wiser now than at the start. ❜ ❨317❩ ❛ This is pathetic, and fucking boring. ❜ ❨318❩ ❛ Death is usually a process, rather than an event. ❜ ❨319❩ ❛ We're ruled by effete arseholes. What does that make us? ❜ ❨320❩ ❛ We are all acquaintances now. ❜ ❨321❩ ❛ The problem is that this beautiful ocean carries with it loads of poisonous flotsam and jetsam. ❜ ❨322❩ ❛ Life is beautiful. I'm going to enjoy it, and I'm going to have a long life. ❜ ❨323❩ ❛ The grim reality of impending death can be talked away by trying to invest in the present reality of life. ❜ ❨324❩ ❛ There must be more to life than this. ❜ ❨325❩ ❛ We all see what we want to see. ❜ ❨326❩ ❛ Statistically speaking, you're more likely to be killed by a member of your own family or a close friend, than by anyone else. ❜ ❨327❩ ❛ What am I living for and what am I dying for are the same question. ❜ ❨328❩ ❛ Maybe that's what love is: it's being pissed off. ❜ ❨329❩ ❛ You can forget who you are if you're alone too much. ❜ ❨330❩ ❛ Any religion is a shadow of God. But the shadows of God are not God. ❜ ❨331❩ ❛ Human understanding is fallible, and we see through a glass, darkly.  ❜ ❨332❩ ❛ We must be a beacon of hope, because if you tell people there's nothing they can do, they will do worse than nothing. ❜ ❨333❩ ❛ Everyone wants to feel like a princess, and princesses are selfish and overbearing. ❜ ❨334❩ ❛ We shouldn't have been so scornful; we should have had compassion. But compassion takes work, and we were young. ❜ ❨335❩ ❛ How easy it is, treachery. You just slide into it. ❜ ❨336❩ ❛ Amazing how the heart clutches at anything familiar, whimpering: Mine! Mine! ❜ ❨337❩ ❛ All creatures know that some must die ; that all the rest may take and eat. ❜ ❨338❩ ❛ Is this the image of a god? My tooth for yours, your eye for mine? ❜ ❨339❩ ❛ Without the light, no chance; without the dark, no dance. ❜ ❨340❩ ❛ Why are we designed to see the world as supremely beautiful just as we're about to be snuffed? Do rabbits feel the same as the fox teeth bite down on their necks? Is it mercy? ❜ ❨341❩ ❛ Love is useless, it leads you into dumb exchanges in which you give too much away, and then you get bitter and mean. ❜ ❨342❩ ❛ Maybe sadness is a kind of hunger. Maybe the two go together. ❜ ❨343❩ ❛ Now I can see how that can happen. You can fall in love with anybody -- a fool, a criminal, a nothing. There are no good rules. ❜ ❨344❩ ❛ If you really want to stay the same age you are now forever and ever, try jumping off the roof: death's a sure-fire method for stopping time. ❜ ❨345❩ ❛ You couldn’t leave words lying around where our enemies might find them. ❜ ❨346❩ ❛ I'm fine, for the moment. And the moment is the only time we can be fine in. ❜ ❨347❩ ❛ Because if you can't wish, why bother? ❜ ❨348❩ ❛ It's better to hope than mope! ❜ ❨349❩ ❛ Reality has too much darkness in it. Too many crows. ❜ ❨350❩ ❛ In any case, time is not a thing that passes, it’s a sea on which you float. ❜ ❨351❩ ❛ I know I’m deceiving myself, but I prefer to deceive myself. I desperately need to believe such pure joy is still possible. ❜ ❨352❩ ❛ Too much God and you overdose. God needs to be filtered. ❜ ❨353❩ ❛ Behind my eyelids I saw an animal. It was golden colour, with gentle green eyes and canine teeth, and curly wool instead of fur. It opened its mouth, but it did not speak. Instead, it yawned. ❜ ❨354❩ ❛ ‘Why can't I believe?’ I asked the darkness. ❜ ❨355❩ ❛ Everyone’s too sad for everything. ❜ ❨356❩ ❛ If you can’t stop the waves, go sailing. ❜ ❨357❩ ❛ I would like to be the air that inhabits you for a moment only. I would like to be that unnoticed and that necessary. ❜ ❨358❩ ❛ Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them. ❜ ❨359❩ ❛ In the end, we'll all become stories. ❜ ❨360❩ ❛ I am inadequate and stupid, without worth. I might as well be dead. ❜ ❨361❩ ❛ If you knew what was going to happen, if you knew everything that was going to happen next—if you knew in advance the consequences of your own actions—you'd be doomed. You'd be ruined as God. ❜ ❨362❩ ❛ If you can't go through an obstacle, go around it. ❜ ❨363❩ ❛ Stupidity is the same as evil if you judge by the results. ❜ ❨364❩ ❛ Time in dreams is frozen. You can never get away from where you've been. ❜ ❨365❩ ❛ Male fantasies, male fantasies, is everything run by male fantasies? ❜ ❨366❩ ❛ We still think of a powerful man as a born leader and a powerful woman as an anomaly. ❜ ❨367❩ ❛ If I love you, is that a fact or a weapon? ❜ ❨368❩ ❛ You fit into me like a hook into an eye. ❜ ❨369❩ ❛ Knowing too much about other people puts you in their power, they have a claim on you, you are forced to understand their reasons for doing things and then you are weakened. ❜ ❨370❩ ❛ Farewells can be shattering, but returns are surely worse. ❜ ❨371❩ ❛ Women have curious ways of hurting someone else. ❜ ❨372❩ ❛ This is the one song everyone would like to learn: the song that is irresistible: the song that forces men to leap overboard in squadrons. ❜ ❨373❩ ❛ Get rid of death. Make it be spring. ❜ ❨374❩ ❛ You are innocent as a bathtub full of bullets. ❜ ❨375❩ ❛ I am the space you desecrate as you pass through. ❜ ❨376❩ ❛ Favour me and give me riches, destroy my enemies. Save me from death. ❜ ❨377❩ ❛ She is a raw voice loose in the rooms beneath me. ❜ ❨378❩ ❛ Isn't the moon warm enough for you, why do you need the blanket of another body? ❜ ❨379❩ ❛ This is a torch song. Touch me and you'll burn. ❜ ❨380❩ ❛ If you look long enough eventually you will see me. ❜ ❨381❩ ❛ I would like to sleep with you, to enter your sleep as its smooth dark wave slides over my head. ❜ ❨382❩ ❛ I would like to give you the silver branch, the small white flower, the one word that will protect you from the grief. ❜ ❨383❩ ❛ But some people can't tell where it hurts. They can't calm down. They can't ever stop howling. ❜ ❨384❩ ❛ How else can we live, these days, except in the midst of ruin? ❜ ❨385❩ ❛ What am I living for and what am I dying for are the same question. ❜ ❨386❩ ❛ Gods always come in handy, they justify almost anything. ❜ ❨387❩ ❛ We loved with a love that was more than love. ❜ ❨388❩ ❛ Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before. ❜ ❨389❩ ❛ The boundaries which divide life from death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins? ❜ ❨390❩ ❛ There is no exquisite beauty without some strangeness in the proportion. ❜ ❨391❩ ❛ Never to suffer would never to have been blessed. ❜ ❨392❩ ❛ Believe only half of what you see and nothing that you hear. ❜ ❨393❩ ❛ And all I loved, I loved alone. ❜ ❨394❩ ❛ Years of love have been forgot, in the hatred of a minute. ❜ ❨395❩ ❛ The best things in life make you sweaty. ❜ ❨396❩ ❛ There are some secrets which do not permit themselves to be told. ❜ ❨397❩ ❛ Anything is better than this agony. ❜ ❨398❩ ❛ You fancy me mad. ❜ ❨399❩ ❛ I hear all things in the heaven and in the earth. ❜ ❨400❩ ❛ Who dares insult us with this blasphemous mockery? ❜ ❨401❩ ❛ Leave my loneliness unbroken! ❜ ❨402❩ ❛ A more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrills every fibre of my frame. ❜ ❨403❩ ❛ The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. ❜ ❨404❩ ❛ Let my heart be still a moment. ❜ ❨405❩ ❛ You call it hope —  It is but agony of desire. ❜ ❨406❩ ❛ Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or silly action for no other reason than because he knows he should not? ❜ ❨407❩ ❛ To die laughing must be the most glorious of all glorious deaths! ❜ ❨408❩ ❛ The beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage. ❜ ❨409❩ ❛ Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive. ❜ ❨410❩ ❛ I have been happy, though in a dream. ❜ ❨411❩ ❛ Nevermore. ❜ ❨412❩ ❛ The truth is, I am heartily sick of this life. ❜ ❨413❩ ❛ I am convinced that every thing is going wrong. ❜ ❨414❩ ❛ The scariest monsters are the ones that lurk within our souls. ❜ ❨415❩ ❛ And if I died, at least I will have died for you! ❜ ❨416❩ ❛ It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night. ❜ ❨417❩ ❛ Hurt and humiliation — But this, I can not take. ❜ ❨418❩ ❛ The walls in there have ears. ❜ ❨419❩ ❛ This is for your ears only. ❜ ❨420❩ ❛ What is it? You have me scared. ❜ ❨421❩ ❛ Whoever isn’t for us, is against us. ❜ ❨422❩ ❛ You are just a body; to be dumped, disposed of like a carcass, left out for the birds to feed on. ❜ ❨423❩ ❛ The dead will have to forgive me. ❜ ❨424❩ ❛ From now on and no matter how your mind may I change, I will not accept your help. ❜ ❨425❩ ❛ If death comes, so be it. There will be glory in it. ❜ ❨426❩ ❛ Live, then; and live with your choice. ❜ ❨427❩ ❛ I am doing what has to be done. ❜ ❨428❩ ❛ Nothing is going to stop the ones that love you from keeping on loving you. ❜ ❨429❩ ❛ Worst is the man who has all the good advice, and then because his nerve fails, fails to act in accordance with it, as a leader should. ❜ ❨430❩ ❛ Only a loony would walk himself into this. ❜ ❨431❩ ❛ Why do you need such fences and defences? ❜ ❨432❩ ❛ Enough. Do not anger me. ❜ ❨433❩ ❛ The gods, you think, will side with the likes of him? ❜ ❨434❩ ❛ Watch it. You are over stepping. ❜ ❨435❩ ❛ I warn you. You should keep a civil tongue. ❜ ❨436❩ ❛ There is no such thing as an oath the can not be broken. ❜ ❨437❩ ❛ Every now and then, the things you’d hardly let yourself imagine, actually happen. ❜ ❨438❩ ❛ And you stand over this? This is the truth? ❜ ❨439❩ ❛ The bigger the resistance, the bigger the collapse. ❜ ❨440❩ ❛ Iron that’s forged the hardest, snaps the quickest. ❜ ❨441❩ ❛ Even the wildest horses come to heel when they are reined & bitted right. ❜ ❨442❩ ❛ That’s how guilt affects some people. They break and everything comes out. ❜ ❨443❩ ❛ Will it be enough for you? To see me executed? ❜ ❨444❩ ❛ So you know something no one else knows? ❜ ❨445❩ ❛ They know it too. They are just too afraid to say it. ❜ ❨446❩ ❛ If you die, how will I keep on living? ❜ ❨447❩ ❛ There was a star riding through clouds one night, & I said to the star, 'Consume me'. ❜ ❨448❩ ❛ How much better to sit by myself like the solitary sea-bird that opens its wings on the stake. ❜ ❨449❩ ❛ Alone, I often fall down into nothingness. I have to bang my head against some hard door to call myself back to the body. ❜ ❨450❩ ❛ I am made and remade continually. Different people draw different words from me. ❜ ❨451❩ ❛ For this moment, this one moment, we are together.  ❜ ❨452❩ ❛ Come, pain, feed on me. Bury your fangs in my flesh. Tear me asunder. ❜ ❨453❩ ❛ I am as neat as a cat in my habits. ❜ ❨454❩ ❛ Everything falls in a tremendous shower, dissolving me. ❜ ❨455❩ ❛ I am the foam that sweeps and fills the uttermost rims of the rocks with whiteness; I am also a girl, here in this room. ❜ ❨456❩ ❛ We are cut, we are fallen. We are become part of that unfeeling universe ❨457❩ that sleeps when we are at our quickest and burns red when we lie ❨458❩ asleep. ❜ ❨459❩ ❛ These moments of escape are not to be despised. They come too seldom. ❜ ❨460❩ ❛ Up here my eyes are green leaves, unseeing. ❜ ❨461❩ ❛ The moment is all; the moment is enough. ❜ ❨462❩ ❛ I do not want to be admired. I want to give, to be given. ❜ ❨463❩ ❛ I am not one and simple, but complex and many. ❜ ❨464❩ ❛ And if you are dead, I shall weep. ❜ ❨465❩ ❛ But beauty must be broken daily to remain beautiful. ❜ ❨466❩ ❛ But our hatred is almost indistinguishable from our love. ❜ ❨467❩ ❛ I desired always to stretch the night and fill it fuller and fuller with dreams. ❜ ❨468❩ ❛ Life is a dream surely. ❜ ❨469❩ ❛ I think sometimes I am not a woman, but the light that falls on this gate, on this ground. I am the seasons, I think sometimes, January, May, November; the mud, the mist, the dawn. ❜ ❨470❩ ❛ Oh, I am in love with life! ❜ ❨471❩ ❛ I have been knotted; I have been torn apart. ❜ ❨472❩ ❛ There was no freedom in life, and certainly there was none in death. ❜ ❨473❩ ❛ I do not know. I do not know myself sometimes, or how to measure and name and count out the grains that make me what I am. ❜ ❨474❩ ❛ I ride rough waters, and shall sink with no one to save me. ❜ ❨475❩ ❛ I am above the earth now. I am no longer upright, to be knocked against and damaged. ❜ ❨476❩ ❛ I see it all. I feel it all. ❜ ❨477❩ ❛ Death is woven in with the violets. Death and again death. ❜ ❨478❩ ❛ We have been walking for hours it seems. But where? I cannot remember. ❜ ❨479❩ ❛ If we were all on trial for our thoughts, we would all be hanged. ❜ ❨480❩ ❛ When you are in the middle of a story it isn't a story at all, but only a confusion; a dark roaring, a blindness, a wreckage of shattered glass. ❜ ❨481❩ ❛ Murderess is a strong word to have attached to you. It has a smell to it, that word; - musky and oppressive, like dead flowers in a vase.  ❜ ❨482❩ ❛ Sometimes at night I whisper it over to myself: Murderess, murderess. It rustles, like a taffeta skirt across the floor. ❜ ❨483❩ ❛ If the world treats you well, you come to believe you are deserving of it. ❜ ❨484❩ ❛ If I am good enough and quiet enough, perhaps after all they will let me go. ❜ ❨485❩ ❛ It’s not easy being quiet and good, it’s like hanging on to the edge of a bridge when you’ve already fallen over; you don’t seem to be moving, just dangling there, and yet it is taking all your strength. ❜ ❨486❩ ❛ There is no fool like an educated fool. ❜ ❨487❩ ❛ There are many dangerous things that may take place in a bed. ❜ ❨488❩ ❛ I am afraid of falling into hopeless despair, over my wasted life, and I am still not sure how it happened. ❜ ❨489❩ ❛ Underneath it all is another feeling, a feeling of being wide-eyed awake and watchful. ❜ ❨490❩ ❛ And underneath all that is another feeling still, a feeling like being torn open; not like a body of flesh, it is not painful as such, but like a peach; and not even torn open, but ripe and splitting open of its own accord.  ❜ ❨491❩ ❛ The small details of life often hide a great significance. ❜ ❨492❩ ❛ Guilt comes to you not from the things you've done, but from the things that others have done to you. ❜ ❨493❩ ❛ I wonder, how can I be all of these different things at once? ❜ ❨494❩ ❛ It is always a mistake to curse back openly at those who are stronger than you unless there is a fence between. ❜ ❨495❩ ❛ Some call this "Eve's curse," but I think that is stupid because the real curse of Eve was having to put up with the nonsense of Adam. ❜ ❨496❩ ❛ I don't know why they are all so eager to be remembered. What good will it do them? There are some things that should be forgotten by everyone, and never spoken of again. ❜ ❨497❩ ❛ I would never blame a human creature for feeling lonely. ❜ ❨498❩ ❛ If they want a monster so badly they ought to be provided by one. ❜ ❨499❩ ❛ It’s as if I never existed, because no trace of me remains, I have left no marks. And that way I cannot be followed. It is almost the same as being innocent. ❜ ❨500❩ ❛ Today you wear your habitual expression of strained anxiety; you smell of violets. ❜ ❨501❩ ❛ Of course you have always been an idealist, and filled with your optimistic dreams; but reality must at some time obtrude. ❜ ❨502❩ ❛ I wonder what would become of me, and comfort myself that in a hundred years I will be dead and at peace. ❜ ❨503❩ ❛ For it is not always the one that strikes the blow that is the actual murderer. ❜ ❨504❩ ❛ There is a “do this” or “do that” with God, but not any “because”. ❜ ❨505❩ ❛ If you have a need and they find it out, they will use it against you. The best way is to stop from wanting anything. ❜ ❨506❩ ❛ They say, why don’t you ever smile or laugh, we never see you smiling, and I say I suppose I have gotten out of the way of it, my face won’t bend in that direction any more. ❜ ❨507❩ ❛ I was shut up inside that doll of myself, and my true voice could not get out. ❜ ❨508❩ ❛ I see what you’re after. You are a collector. You think all you have to do is give me an apple, and then you can collect me. ❜ ❨509❩ ❛ If you want to be an asshole, it's a free country. Millions before you have made the same life choice. ❜ ❨510❩ ❛ Then there's the future. Sheer vertigo. ❜ ❨511❩ ❛ Nature is to zoos as God is to churches. ❜ ❨512❩ ❛ After everything that's happened, how can the world still be so beautiful? ❜ ❨513❩ ❛ There's something to be said for hunger: at least it lets you know you're still alive. ❜ ❨514❩ ❛ These things sneak up on me for no reason, these flashes of irrational happiness. It's probably a vitamin deficiency. ❜ ❨515❩ ❛ Toast cannot be explained by any rational means. Toast is me. I am toast. ❜ ❨516❩ ❛ You can’t buy it, but it has a price. Everything has a price. ❜ ❨517❩ ❛ As a species were doomed by hope, then? You could call it hope. That, or desperation. ❜ ❨518❩ ❛ I am not my childhood. ❜ ❨519❩ ❛ Human beings hope they can stick their souls into someone else and live on forever. ❜ ❨520❩ ❛ “I'll make you mine”, lovers said in old books. They never said, “I'll make you me.” ❜ ❨521❩ ❛ How much is too much, how far is too far? ❜ ❨522❩ ❛ Expectation isn't the same as desire. ❜ ❨523❩ ❛ Why not cut to the chase? ❜ ❨524❩ ❛ Maybe there aren't any solutions. Human society, corpses and rubble. ❜ ❨525❩ ❛ I thought you didn’t believe in God. ❜ ❨526❩ ❛ I need at least the illusion of being understood. ❜ ❨527❩ ❛ What change would have altered the course of events? In the big picture, nothing. In the small picture, so much. ❜ ❨528❩ ❛ You are only looking at the dirt under your feet. It's not good for you. ❜ ❨529❩ ❛ I like to keep only the bright side of myself turned towards you.  ❜ ❨530❩ ❛ Grief in the face of inevitable death. The wish to stop time. The human condition. ❜ ❨531❩ ❛ So many crucial events take place behind people’s backs, when they aren’t in a position to watch: birth and death, for instance. ❜ ❨532❩ ❛ Would you kill someone you loved to spare them pain? ❜ ❨533❩ ❛ When the water’s moving faster than the boat, you can’t control a thing. ❜ ❨534❩ ❛ Don't be so fucking sentimental. ❜ ❨535❩ ❛ Wrong, as usual. ❜ ❨536❩ ❛ Why do you want to talk about ugly things? ❜ ❨537❩ ❛ I understand why serial killers send helpful clues to the police. ❜ ❨538❩ ❛ Take your time, leave mine alone. ❜ ❨539❩ ❛ You will hear thunder and remember me. ❜ ❨540❩ ❛ If you were music, I would listen to you ceaselessly. ❜ ❨541❩ ❛ I seem to myself an accidental guest in this dreadful body. ❜ ❨542❩ ❛ Call me a sinner, mock me maliciously. ❜ ❨543❩ ❛ I, from the very beginning, seemed to myself like someone's dream or delirium. Or a reflection in someone else's mirror. Without flesh, without meaning, without a name. ❜ ❨544❩ ❛ I knew the list of crimes that I was destined to commit. ❜ ❨545❩ ❛ The future ripens in the past, so the past rots in the future. ❜ ❨546❩ ❛ You are untranslatable into any one tongue. ❜ ❨547❩ ❛ I was hoping my silence would fit yours. ❜ ❨548❩ ❛ See, we were never about butterflies. All about us is unearthly and radiant. ❜ ❨549❩ ❛ You do not know just what you've been forgiven. ❜ ❨550❩ ❛ I need to slaughter my memory.  ❜ ❨551❩ ❛ Forgive me that I appeared to you in waking dreams. ❜ ❨552❩ ❛ I will condemn, I will forget, I will give comfort to the enemy. ❜ ❨553❩ ❛ I know beginnings, I know endings too, and life-in-death. ❜ ❨554❩ ❛ Wild honey smells of freedom. But gold smells of nothing. ❜ ❨555❩ ❛ You are three times more beautiful than angels. ❜ ❨556❩ ❛ I will kill you without spilling your blood on the ground, not touching you with my hand, not giving you one glance. ❜ ❨557❩ ❛ You invented me. There is no such earthly being. ❜ ❨558❩ ❛ You’re late. Way too late. I’m glad to see you, nonetheless. ❜ ❨559❩ ❛ Forgive me that I felt forsaken. Forgive me that I kept mistaking too many others for you. ❜ ❨560❩ ❛ Real tenderness can’t be confused, it’s quiet and can’t be heard. ❜ ❨561❩ ❛ What else lived in that house besides us? ❜ ❨562❩ ❛ How unhappy we are together! ❜ ❨563❩ ❛ I defend not my voice, but my silence. ❜ ❨564❩ ❛ Without love, I'm more at ease, I'm sure. ❜ ❨565❩ ❛ I've got no more tears or explanations. ❜ ❨566❩ ❛ I’m not complaining. Happiness is not for me. ❜ ❨567❩ ❛ Are you not the only tie between good and evil, earthly pits and paradise? ❜ ❨568❩ ❛ In the morning we shall find out who has died in the night. ❜ ❨569❩ ❛ I was not a lovable child, and I've grown into a deeply unlovable adult. ❜ ❨570❩ ❛ The truly frightening flaw in humanity is our capacity for cruelty - we all have it. ❜ ❨571❩ ❛ I have a meanness inside me, real as an organ. Slit me at my belly and it might slide out, meaty and dark. ❜ ❨572❩ ❛ I am not angry or sad or happy to see you. I could not give a shit. You don't even ripple. ❜ ❨573❩ ❛ I was raised feral, and I mostly stayed that way. ❜ ❨574❩ ❛ I can feel a better version of me somewhere in there - hidden behind a liver or attached to a bit of spleen. But the meanness usually wins out. ❜ ❨575❩ ❛ I felt something loosen in me, that shouldn't have loosened. A stitch come undone. ❜ ❨576❩ ❛ Everyone who keeps a secret, itches to tell it. ❜ ❨577❩ ❛ Coffee goes great with sudden death. ❜ ❨578❩ ❛ I should just listen to my gut and then do the opposite. ❜ ❨579❩ ❛ “Smile, it can't be that bad!” Yeah, actually, it can, jackwad. ❜ ❨580❩ ❛ Everything bad in the world already did happen. ❜ ❨581❩ ❛ You’re going to find peace? Like knowing is somehow going to fix you? ❜ ❨582❩ ❛ Instead of asking yourself what happened, just accept that it happened. ❜ ❨583❩ ❛ Homesick for a place I've never been. ❜ ❨584❩ ❛ Worries find you easily enough without inviting them. ❜ ❨585❩ ❛ It is always consoling to think of suicide. It's what gets one through many a bad night. ❜ ❨586❩ ❛ Do you understand this is serious? ❜ ❨587❩ ❛ Sometimes it feels good to fuck with something. Instead of always being fucked with. ❜ ❨588❩ ❛ How could you kill something you cared enough to name? ❜ ❨589❩ ❛ Draw a picture of my soul, and it’d be a scribble with fangs. ❜ ❨590❩ ❛ We have the same chemicals in our blood: shame, anger, greed. Unjustified nostalgia. ❜ ❨591❩ ❛ I appreciate a straightforward apology the way a tone-deaf person enjoys a fine piece of music. ❜ ❨592❩ ❛ The phrase fuck you may not rest on the tip of my tongue, but it’s near. Midtongue. ❜ ❨593❩ ❛ Nothing to it but to do it. ❜ ❨594❩ ❛ There are a lot of people who deserve a lesson, deserve to really understand, that nothing comes easy, that most things are going to go sour. ❜ ❨595❩ ❛ If ifs and buts were candies and nuts we’d all have a very Merry Christmas. ❜ ❨596❩ ❛ Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. ❜ ❨597❩ ❛ What does it do to a girl who knows her mother is a murderer? ❜ ❨598❩ ❛ That mean old bitch across the street bit it. ❜ ❨599❩ ❛ Survival is a talent. ❜ ❨600❩ ❛ Crazy isn't being broken or swallowing a dark secret. It’s you or me amplified. If you ever told a lie and enjoyed it. If you ever wished you could be a child forever. ❜ ❨601❩ ❛ Who has the courage to burn themselves? ❜ ❨602❩ ❛ Is insanity just a matter of dropping the act? ❜ ❨603❩ ❛ Have you ever confused a dream with life? Or stolen something when you have the cash? Have you ever been blue? Or thought your train moving while sitting still? ❜ ❨604❩ ❛ You need to be well fed, clothed, and housed to have time for this much self-pity. ❜ ❨605❩ ❛ When I am supposed to be awake, I am asleep; when I am supposed to speak, I am silent. When a pleasure offers itself to me, I avoid it. ❜ ❨606❩ ❛ There is thought, and then there is thinking about thoughts, and they don't feel the same. ❜ ❨607❩ ❛ In a strange way we are free. We've reached the end of the line. We have nothing more to lose. ❜ ❨608❩ ❛ The world won’t stop because we aren’t in it anymore. ❜ ❨609❩ ❛ I can't answer the real question. All I can tell you is, it's easy. ❜ ❨610❩ ❛ I am lighter, airier than I’ve been in years. ❜ ❨611❩ ❛ I am not dead, yet something in me definitely is. ❜ ❨612❩ ❛ You meant that as an insult but I am taking it as a compliment. ❜ ❨613❩ ❛ What life can recover from that? ❜ ❨614❩ ❛ It's a fairly accurate portrait of me. It's accurate but it isn't profound. ❜ ❨615❩ ❛ Pull yourself together! There's nothing wrong with you. ❜ ❨616❩ ❛ It's quiet. It's like― I don't know. It's like falling off a cliff. ❜ ❨617❩ ❛ Once you start parsing a face, it's a peculiar item: squishy, pointy, with lots of air vents and wet spots. ❜ ❨618❩ ❛ I lost him. I did it on purpose. ❜ ❨619❩ ❛ It’s a mean world. There’s nobody to take care of you out there. ❜ ❨620❩ ❛ Reality is getting too dense. ❜ ❨621❩ ❛ I'm ambivalent. In fact that's my new favourite word. ❜ ❨622❩ ❛ I can't come up with reassuring answers to the terrible questions you raise. ❜ ❨623❩ ❛ A spring day, the sort that gives people hope: all soft winds and delicate smells of warm earth. Suicide weather. ❜ ❨624❩ ❛ Twenty-five chocolate chip cookies would be the perfect dinner. ❜ ❨625❩ ❛ A thought is a hard thing to control. ❜ ❨626❩ ❛ Life demands skills I don’t have. ❜ ❨627❩ ❛ Light like this does not exist, but we wish it did. We wish the sun could make us young and beautiful. Most of all, we wish that everyone we knew could be brightened simply by our looking at them. ❜ ❨628❩ ❛ It never stops, even at night, it’s my lullaby. ❜ ❨629❩ ❛ Love blurs your vision; but after it recedes, you can see more clearly than ever. ❜ ❨630❩ ❛ This is the kind of thing you see if you sit in the darkness with open eyes. ❜ ❨631❩ ❛ I have done something wrong, something so huge I can't even see it, something that's drowning me. ❜ ❨632❩ ❛ Whatever is happening to me is my own fault. ❜ ❨633❩ ❛ Hatred is easier. Hatred is clear, metallic, one-handed, unwavering; unlike love. ❜ ❨634❩ ❛ Potential has a shelf life. ❜ ❨635❩ ❛ Don’t move. Stay like that, let me have that. ❜ ❨636❩ ❛ I have come to the edge, of the land. I could get pushed over. ❜ ❨637❩ ❛ Never pray for justice, because you might get some. ❜ ❨638❩ ❛ It disturbs me to learn I have hurt someone unintentionally. I want all my hurts to be intentional. ❜ ❨639❩ ❛ We have been shark to one another, but also lifeboat. That counts for something. ❜ ❨640❩ ❛ This is what I miss, not something that’s gone, but something that will never happen. ❜ ❨641❩ ❛ I am not good. I know too much to be good. I know myself. I know myself to be vengeful, greedy, secretive and sly. ❜ ❨642❩ ❛ You are amazing. Amazing and agonising and almost lethal. ❜ ❨643❩ ❛ In my dreams of this city I am always lost. ❜ ❨644❩ ❛ I don't know where these feelings have come from, I don’t know what I've done. ❜ ❨645❩ ❛ I am not the centre of your story, you are.  ❜ ❨646❩ ❛ I’m mad because you’re an asshole. ❜ ❨647❩ ❛ It's enormously pleasing to me, walking away. It's like being able to make people appear and vanish, at will. ❜ ❨648❩ ❛ There is never only one of anyone. ❜ ❨649❩ ❛ I can't do this without feeling I'm acting. ❜ ❨650❩ ❛ I am prepared for almost anything; except absence, except silence. ❜ ❨651❩ ❛ I’m losing my appetite for strangers. ❜ ❨652❩ ❛ You wear your cravings on the outside, like the suckers on a squid. You want it all. ❜ ❨653❩ ❛ Knowing too much about other people weakens you. You are forced to understand their reasons for doing things. ❜ ❨654❩ ❛ I have lost confidence: perhaps all I will ever be is what I am now. ❜ ❨655❩ ❛ Echoes of light, shining out of the midst of nothing. It's old light, and there's not much of it. But it's enough to see by. ❜ ❨656❩ ❛ Whoever cares the most will lose. ❜ ❨657❩ ❛ Young women need unfairness, it’s one of their few defences.  ❜ ❨658❩ ❛ Time has gone on without you. ❜ ❨659❩ ❛ Don't let the bastards grind you down. ❜ ❨660❩ ❛ Who can remember pain, once it’s over? Pain marks you, but too deep to see. Out of sight, out of mind. ❜ ❨661❩ ❛ Better never means better for everyone. It always means worse, for some. ❜ ❨662❩ ❛ There is more than one kind of freedom. Freedom to and freedom from. ❜ ❨663❩ ❛ Remember that forgiveness too is a power. ❜ ❨664❩ ❛ I am not your justification for existence. ❜ ❨665❩ ❛ I want to be valued, in ways that I am not; I want to be more than valuable. ❜ ❨666❩ ❛ If it's a story I'm telling, then I have control over the ending. ❜ ❨667❩ ❛ All you have to do is keep your mouth shut and look stupid. It shouldn't be that hard. ❜ ❨668❩ ❛ Truly amazing, what people can get used to, as long as there are a few compensations. ❜ ❨669❩ ❛ I want everything back, the way it was. ❜ ❨670❩ ❛ You can't help what you feel, but you can help how you behave. ❜ ❨671❩ ❛ Nothing changes instantaneously: in a gradually heating bathtub you'd be boiled to death before you knew it. ❜ ❨672❩ ❛ To want is to have a weakness. ❜ ❨673❩ ❛ There isn't even an enemy you could put your finger on. ❜ ❨674❩ ❛ The past is a great darkness, filled with echoes. ❜ ❨675❩ ❛ Ordinary is what you are used to. This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time it will. It will become ordinary. ❜ ❨676❩ ❛ I wish this story were different. I wish it were more civilised. I wish it showed me in a better light. ❜ ❨677❩ ❛ The night is mine, my own time, to do with it as I will, as long as I am quiet. As long as I don't move. As long as I lie still. ❜ ❨678❩ ❛ By telling you anything at all I'm at least believing in you. ❜ ❨679❩ ❛ Whatever is silenced will clamour to be heard. ❜ ❨680❩ ❛ Don't worry about forgiving me right now. There are more important things. ❜ ❨681❩ ❛ Keep the others safe. Don't let them suffer too much. If they have to die, let it be fast. ❜ ❨682❩ ❛ The body is so easily damaged, so easily disposed of, water and chemicals is all it is, hardly more to it than a jellyfish, drying on sand. ❜ ❨683❩ ❛ The world is full of weapons if you're looking for them. ❜ ❨684❩ ❛ Nobody's heart is perfect. ❜ ❨685❩ ❛ One false move and I'm dead. ❜ ❨686❩ ❛ Watch out. I've got my eye on you. ❜ ❨687❩ ❛ Fear is a powerful stimulant. ❜ ❨688❩ ❛ I couldn't afford to lose you. ❜ ❨689❩ ❛ Name one hero who was happy. ---- You can’t. ❜ ❨690❩ ❛ I feel like I could eat the world raw. ❜ ❨691❩ ❛ We are like gods at the dawning of the world. ❜ ❨692❩ ❛ I could recognise him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world. ❜ ❨693❩ ❛ There are no bargains between lion and men. I will kill you and eat you raw. ❜ ❨694❩ ❛ You can use a spear as a walking stick, but that will not change its nature. ❜ ❨695❩ ❛ He is a weapon, a killer. Do not forget it. ❜ ❨696❩ ❛ Some men gain glory after they die, others fade. ❜ ❨697❩ ❛ I am made of memories. ❜ ❨698❩ ❛ Will you come with me? ❜ ❨699❩ ❛ I wish I had let you all die. ❜ ❨700❩ ❛ It is right to seek peace for the dead. You and I both know there is no peace for those who live after. ❜ ❨701❩ ❛ Bury us. Let us be free. ❜ ❨702❩ ❛ Go. He waits for you. ❜ ❨703❩ ❛ Nothing could eclipse the stain of this dirty, mortal mediocrity. ❜ ❨704❩ ❛ I know I have told you of this. ❜ ❨705❩ ❛ I don't know how you remember them all. I swear they look the same to me. ❜ ❨706❩ ❛ Perhaps you should get some new stories, so I don’t fucking kill myself of boredom. ❜ ❨707❩ ❛ I yearn for the darkness and silence of the underworld, where I can rest. ❜ ❨708❩ ❛ There is no honour in betraying your friends. ❜ ❨709❩ ❛ There is no answer. Whichever you choose, you are wrong. ❜ ❨710❩ ❛ Divine blood flows differently. ❜ ❨711❩ ❛ How is there glory in taking life? We die so easily. ❜ ❨712❩ ❛ This is what I will miss, I think. I will kill myself rather than miss it. ❜ ❨713❩ ❛ How long do we have? ❜ ❨714❩ ❛ Do you think we fight hopeless wars? ❜ ❨715❩ ❛ There is no law that gods must be fair. ❜ ❨716❩ ❛ I do not fear ridicule. I never have. ❜ ❨717❩ ❛ You were always better with words than I. ❜ ❨718❩ ❛ Who can be ashamed to lose to such beauty? ❜ ❨719❩ ❛ When you see beauty in desolation it changes something inside you. ❜ ❨720❩ ❛ That's how the madness of the world tries to colonise you: from the outside in, forcing you to live in its reality. ❜ ❨721❩ ❛ The shadows of the abyss are like the petals of a monstrous flower that shall blossom within the skull and expand the mind beyond what any man can bear. ❜ ❨722❩ ❛ Silence creates violence. ❜ ❨723❩ ❛ Some questions will ruin you if you are denied the answer long enough. ❜ ❨724❩ ❛ There are certain kinds of connections that are so deep that when broken you feel the snap of it inside you. ❜ ❨725❩ ❛ Nothing that ever lived and breathed was truly objective—even in a vacuum, even if all that possessed the brain was a self-immolating desire for the truth. ❜ ❨726❩ ❛ We all live in a kind of continuous dream. ❜ ❨727❩ ❛ You can either waste time worrying about a death that might not come or concentrate on what’s left to you. ❜ ❨728❩ ❛ What can you do when your five senses are not enough? ❜ ❨729❩ ❛ We will neither be what we had been nor what we would become once we reach our destination. ❜ ❨730❩ ❛ Perhaps my only real expertise, my only talent, is to endure beyond the endurable. ❜ ❨731❩ ❛ When you are too close to the centre of a mystery there is no way to pull back. ❜ ❨732❩ ❛ I long ago stopped believing in promises. Biological imperatives, yes. Environmental factors, yes. Promises, no. ❜ ❨733❩ ❛ I look not for shooting stars but for fixed ones, and I try to imagine what kind of life lives in those celestial tidal pools so far from us. ❜ ❨734❩ ❛ I hesitated for just a moment. Some part of me wanted to see the creature, I think. If so, it was a very small part. I ran. ❜ ❨735❩ ❛ I don’t require any of this to have a deeper meaning. ❜ ❨736❩ ❛ All of this speculation is incomplete, inexact, inaccurate, useless. ❜ ❨737❩ ❛ We don’t have real answers, because we still don’t know what questions to ask. Our instruments are useless, our methodology broken, our motivations selfish. ❜ ❨738❩ ❛ This part I will do alone. Don’t follow. ❜ ❨739❩ ❛ People my entire life have told me I am too much in control, but that has never been the case. I have never truly been in control. ❜ ❨740❩ ❛ Has there always been someone like me to bury the bodies, to have regrets, to carry on after everyone else was dead? ❜ ❨741❩ ❛ I loved them, but I didn’t need them, and I thought that was the way it was supposed to be. ❜ ❨742❩ ❛ Places can impress themselves upon me, and I can become part of them with ease. ❜ ❨743❩ ❛ There is no one with me. I am all by myself. ❜ ❨744❩ ❛ Pretending often leads to becoming a reasonable facsimile of what you mimic. ❜ ❨745❩ ❛ I think you're confusing suicide with self-destruction, and they're very different. Almost none of us commit suicide, whereas almost all of us self-destruct. ❜ ❨746❩ ❛ What did you eat? You had rations for only two weeks. You were there for nearly four months. ❜ ❨747❩ ❛ Something here is making giant waves in the gene pool. ❜ ❨748❩ ❛ I need to know what’s inside. ❜ ❨749❩ ❛ These aren't decisions. They're impulses ❜ ❨750❩ ❛ What do you think I do when you’re away? Do you think I’m out in the garden pinning, looking up at the sky? ❜ ❨751❩ ❛ If I know what’s happened I can save their life. ❜ ❨752❩ ❛ They either went crazy or something in here killed them. ❜ ❨753❩ ❛ Something is coming through the fence! ❜ ❨754❩ ❛ Nothing is written in the stars. Not these stars, nor any others. No one controls your destiny. ❜ ❨755❩ ❛ People who claim that they're evil are usually no worse than the rest of us. ❜ ❨756❩ ❛ Happy endings are still endings. ❜ ❨757❩ ❛ We believe in all sorts of things that aren't true; -- we call it history. ❜ ❨758❩ ❛ Does the devil ever struggle to be good again, or if so is he not a devil? ❜ ❨759❩ ❛ In the lives of children, pumpkins turn into coaches, mice and rats turn into men. When we grow up, we realise it is far more common for men to turn into rats. ❜ ❨760❩ ❛ Girls need cold anger. They need the cold simmer, the ceaseless grudge, the talent to avoid forgiveness, the side stepping of compromise.  ❜ ❨761❩ ❛ Love makes hunters of us all. ❜ ❨762❩ ❛ There is much to hate in this world and way too much to love. ❜ ❨763❩ ❛ You confuse not speaking with not listening. ❜ ❨764❩ ❛ As long as people are going to call you a lunatic anyway, why not get the benefit of it? It liberates you from convention. ❜ ❨765❩ ❛ The eye is always caught by light, but shadows have more to say. ❜ ❨766❩ ❛ Not everyone is born a witch or a saint. Not everyone is born talented, or crooked, or blessed; some are born definite in no particular at all. ❜ ❨767❩ ❛ We are a fountain of shimmering contradictions, most of us. ❜ ❨768❩ ❛ The wickedness of men is that their power breeds stupidity and blindness. ❜ ❨769❩ ❛ I know you don't want to hear this but someone has to say it! You are out of control! ❜ ❨770❩ ❛ Even at the very worst - there is always choice. ❜ ❨771❩ ❛ Maybe the definition of home is the place where you are never forgiven. So you may always belong there, bound by guilt. And maybe the cost of belonging is worth it. ❜ ❨772❩ ❛ Cross a man and you struggle, one of you wins, you adjust and go on -- or you lie there dead. Cross a woman and the entire universe is changed. ❜ ❨773❩ ❛ That was such a wonderful time, even in its strangeness and sadness. Life isn't the same now. It's wonderful, but it isn't the same. ❜ ❨774❩ ❛ I don't care for approval, and I don't mind doing without. ❜ ❨775❩ ❛ It's where I live. A permanent state of bereavement. This is nothing new. ❜ ❨776❩ ❛ Always the bridesmaid, never the bride. Always the godfather, never the god. ❜ ❨777❩ ❛ The world unwraps itself to you, again and again as soon as you are ready to see it anew. ❜ ❨778❩ ❛ Evil is an act, not an appetite. Everyone has the appetite. If you give in to it, that act is evil. The appetite is normal. ❜ ❨779❩ ❛ How many haven't wanted to slash the throat of some boor across the dining room table?  ❜ ❨780❩ ❛ Even God used silence as a strategy. ❜ ❨781❩ ❛ I learned failure early and mastered it. ❜ ❨782❩ ❛ It isn't whether you do it well or ill, it's that you do it all. ❜ ❨783❩ ❛ This is why you shouldn't fall in love, it blinds you. Love is a very wicked distraction. ❜ ❨784❩ ❛ Wisdom is not the understanding of mystery. Wisdom is accepting that mystery is beyond understanding. That's what makes it mystery. ❜ ❨785❩ ❛ Wrong takes an awful long time to be proven, in my experience. ❜ ❨786❩ ❛ Such brightness, as you know, decays brilliantly. ❜ ❨787❩ ❛ I take responsibility only for the future, not the past. The past can't hurt you the way the future can. ❜ ❨788❩ ❛ Tell me to mind my own business, tell me to go fuck myself, to piss off, go on, say it, but don’t tell me nothing’s wrong. ❜ ❨789❩ ❛ The truth isn't a thing of fact or reason. It is simply what everyone agrees on. ❜ ❨790❩ ❛ One can't make peace with another by force. ❜ ❨791❩ ❛ I am a forgettable leaf on a tree. ❜ ❨792❩ ❛ That's all I want; --- to do no harm. ❜ ❨793❩ ❛ I only believe in the opposite of luck, whatever that is. ❜ ❨794❩ ❛ Human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves. ❜ ❨795❩ ❛ You’re too young to know that the heart's memory eliminates the bad and magnifies the good, and thanks to that we manage to endure the burden of the past. ❜ ❨796❩ ❛ Love, no matter what else it might be, is a natural talent. You are either born knowing how, or you never know. ❜ ❨797❩ ❛ Whatever you do, you will be sorry all the rest of your life. ❜ ❨798❩ ❛ There is no God worth worrying about. ❜ ❨799❩ ❛ The only regret I will have in dying is if it is not for love. ❜ ❨800❩ ❛ Wisdom comes to us when it can no longer do any good. ❜ ❨801❩ ❛ Think of love as a state of grace, not the means to anything, but the very end in itself. ❜ ❨802❩ ❛ Only God knows how much I love you. ❜ ❨803❩ ❛ There is no greater glory than to die for love. ❜ ❨804❩ ❛ Nothing resembles a person as much as the way he dies. ❜ ❨805❩ ❛ Take advantage of it now, while you are young, and suffer all you can, because these things don't last your whole life. ❜ ❨806❩ ❛ Today, when I saw you, I realised that what is between us is nothing more than an illusion. ❜ ❨807❩ ❛ I have waited for this opportunity for more than half a century. ❜ ❨808❩ ❛ I want to be myself again, to recover all that I was obliged to give up. ❜ ❨809❩ ❛ The only thing worse than bad health is a bad name. ❜ ❨810❩ ❛ This soup tastes like windows. ❜ ❨811❩ ❛ Why do you insist on talking about what does not exist? ❜ ❨812❩ ❛ One has to live a long time to know a man's true nature. ❜ ❨813❩ ❛ No, not rich, I am a poor man with money, which is not the same thing. ❜ ❨814❩ ❛ My heart has more rooms than a whorehouse. ❜ ❨815❩ ❛ That may be the reason he does so many things, so that he will not have to think. ❜ ❨816❩ ❛ Love if it exists, is something separate: another life. ❜ ❨817❩ ❛ Things did not go as badly for me as they would for you. ❜ ❨818❩ ❛ There are things you do only for love. ❜ ❨819❩ ❛ I’ll have plenty of time to rest when I die. ❜ ❨820❩ ❛ There is no innocence more dangerous than the innocence of age. ❜ ❨821❩ ❛ You treat me as if I were just anybody. ❜ ❨822❩ ❛ The symptoms of love are the same as those of cholera. ❜ ❨823❩ ❛ There is no law, human or divine, that you have not ignored. ❜ ❨824❩ ❛ Why is it that I feel I've known you so many years? ❜ ❨825❩ ❛ Stuff your eyes with wonder, live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories. ❜ ❨826❩ ❛ It doesn't matter what you do, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away. ❜ ❨827❩ ❛ We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long is it since you were really bothered? About something important, about something real? ❜ ❨828❩ ❛ There must be something, something we can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don’t stay for nothing. ❜ ❨829❩ ❛ If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you'll never learn. ❜ ❨830❩ ❛ If you drown, at least die knowing you were heading for shore. ❜ ❨831❩ ❛ You can't make people listen. They have to come round in their own time, wondering what happened and why the world blew up around them. ❜ ❨832❩ ❛ It was a pleasure to burn. ❜ ❨833❩ ❛ I'm antisocial, they say. I don't mix. It's so strange. I'm very social indeed. It all depends on what you mean by social, doesn't it? ❜ ❨834❩ ❛ Being with people is nice. But I don't think it's social to get a bunch of people together and then not let them talk, do you? ❜ ❨835❩ ❛ Do you notice how people hurt each other nowadays? ❜ ❨836❩ ❛ Who knows who might be the target of the well-read man? ❜ ❨837❩ ❛ I don't talk things. I talk the meaning of things. ❜ ❨838❩ ❛ I'll hold on to the world tight some day. I've got one finger on it now; that's a beginning. ❜ ❨839❩ ❛ I just want someone to hear what I have to say. And maybe if I talk long enough it'll make sense. ❜ ❨840❩ ❛ That's the good part of dying; when you've nothing to lose, you run any risk you want. ❜ ❨841❩ ❛ Someday we'll build the biggest goddamn steamshovel in history and dig the biggest grave of all time and shove war in it and cover it up. ❜ ❨842❩ ❛ You're not like the others. I've seen a few; I know. When I talk, you look at me. ❜ ❨843❩ ❛ You're afraid of making mistakes. Don't be. Mistakes can be profited by. ❜ ❨844❩ ❛ When they give you lined paper, write the other way. ❜ ❨845❩ ❛ The sun burnt every day. It burnt time. ❜ ❨846❩ ❛ We have everything we need to be happy but we aren't happy. Something is missing. ❜ ❨847❩ ❛ I feel I'm doing what I should've done a lifetime ago. ❜ ❨848❩ ❛ I'm not afraid. Maybe it's because I'm doing the right thing at last. Maybe it's because I've done a rash thing and don't want to look the coward to you. ❜ ❨849❩ ❛ Good God, who were those men? I never saw them before in my life! ❜ ❨850❩ ❛ How do you get so empty? Who takes it out of you? ❜ ❨851❩ ❛ It must be right. It seems so right. ❜ ❨852❩ ❛ To everything there is a season. Yes. A time to break down, and a time to build up. A time to keep silence and a time to speak. ❜ ❨853❩ ❛ It's my game. And no one can help me. Not even you. ❜ ❨854❩ ❛ What makes earth feel like hell is our expectation that it should feel like heaven. Earth is earth. Dead is dead. You’ll find out for yourself soon enough. ❜ ❨855❩ ❛ Death is a long process. Your body is just the first part of you that croaks. Beyond that, your dreams have to die. Then your expectations. Your anger and memories must die. Your ego. Your pride and shame and ambition and hope. ❜ ❨856❩ ❛ Help me give up my addiction to hope. ❜ ❨857❩ ❛ Life is short, death is forever. ❜ ❨858❩ ❛ Hope is something really tough and tenacious you have to give up. It’s an addiction to break. ❜ ❨859❩ ❛ If the living are haunted by the dead, then the dead are haunted by their own mistakes. ❜ ❨860❩ ❛ We all wish to be pursued. We all long to be desired. ❜ ❨861❩ ❛ All the demons of hell formerly reigned as gods in previous cultures. No it's not fair, but one man's god is another man's devil. ❜ ❨862❩ ❛ I can become someone else, not out of pressure and desperation, but merely because a new life sounds fun or interesting or joyful. ❜ ❨863❩ ❛ It's my petty fear of personal rejection that allows so many true evils to exist. My cowardice enables atrocities. ❜ ❨864❩ ❛ You fucked up. Game over. So just relax. ❜ ❨865❩ ❛ The greatest weapon any warrior can carry into battle is absolute certainty of her eternal soul. ❜ ❨866❩ ❛ If killing you will end my existence as well, be it. Small loss. Such a life, as your puppet, is not worth living. ❜ ❨867❩ ❛ I might be a touch of a sadist and a little bit jejune but at least I'm not a victim, not any longer. I hope. ❜ ❨868❩ ❛ Dying seems like the greatest weakness, and in a world where people say you're lazy for not shaving your legs, then being dead seems like the ultimate character flaw. ❜ ❨869❩ ❛ Any concept of right versus wrong, is merely a cultural construct relative to one specific time and place. ❜ ❨870❩ ❛ To prove that I exist I must kill you. ❜ ❨871❩ ❛ I'd say that my life has been a way-too-long case history of chasing rainbows. ❜ ❨872❩ ❛ The world is a battle for attention, a war to be heard. ❜ ❨873❩ ❛ Every garden looks beautiful in May. ❜ ❨874❩ ❛ When we neglect to fear such brittle monstrosity, we render it powerless. ❜ ❨875❩ ❛ My taste for power continues to grow, as does my ability to accrue it. ❜ ❨876❩ ❛ Such language! Why don't you just take a dump in my ears? ❜ ❨877❩ ❛ You’d be foolish to count on people displaying high standards of honesty. ❜ ❨878❩ ❛ Depending on her mood, she can be more frightening than any demon or devil you might ever run across. ❜ ❨879❩ ❛ Cross your fingers! Maybe death won't happen to you. ❜ ❨880❩ ❛ Do not die while wearing cheap shoes. ❜ ❨881❩ ❛ Old habits die hard. ❜ ❨882❩ ❛ It's our attachments to a fixed identity that torture us. ❜ ❨883❩ ❛ What do I think I am? In a thousand words; I don't have a clue. ❨884❩ ❛ If I am to be saved it is because your love redeems me. ❜ ❨885❩ ❛ All I wanted was to be loved for myself. ❜ ❨886❩ ❛ I have tasted all the happiness the world can offer. ❜ ❨887❩ ❛ Shall we pity him? Shall we curse him? ❜ ❨888❩ ❛ You have a heart that can hold the entire empire of the world. ❜ ❨889❩ ❛ Look, I am not laughing now, crying, crying for you. ❜ ❨890❩ ❛ Tonight I gave you my soul, and I am dead. ❜ ❨891❩ ❛ You are afraid of me! And yet I am not really wicked. Love me and you shall see! ❜ ❨892❩ ❛ Are people so unhappy when they love? --- Yes, when they love and are not sure of being loved. ❜ ❨893❩ ❛ Your soul is a beautiful thing. No emperor received so fair a gift. The angels wept tonight. ❜ ❨894❩ ❛ Blood!...Blood!... That's a good thing! ❜ ❨895❩ ❛ Now I want to live like everybody else. I want to have a life like everybody else. ❜ ❨896❩ ❛ You will be the happiest of women. And we will sing, all by ourselves, till we swoon away with delight. ❜ ❨897❩ ❛ I should be as gentle as a lamb; and you could do anything with me that you pleased. ❜ ❨898❩ ❛ I am going to die of love, I am dying of love. That's how it is. I loved you so. I still love you so. ❜ ❨899❩ ❛ I am dying of love for her, I tell you! If only you knew how beautiful she was when she let me kiss her. ❜ ❨900❩ ❛ He fills me with horror but I do not hate him. How can I hate him? ❜ ❨901❩ ❛ Holy angel, in Heaven blessed, my spirit longs with thee to rest. ❜ ❨902❩ ❛ Nothing is colder or more dead than my heart. ❜ ❨903❩ ❛ I had loved an angel and now I despise a woman. ❜ ❨904❩ ❛ Our lives are one masked ball. ❜ ❨905❩ ❛ Why do you condemn a man whom you have never met, whom no one knows and about whom even you yourself know nothing? ❜ ❨906❩ ❛ He would commit murder for me. ❜ ❨907❩ ❛ If I don't save her from the hands of that humbug, she is lost. But I shall save her. ❜ ❨908❩ ❛ We will go from here together or die together. ❜ ❨909❩ ❛ Your fear, your terror, all of that is just love and love of the most exquisite kind, the kind which people do not admit even to themselves. The kind that gives you a thrill, when you think of it. ❜ ❨910❩ ❛ Destiny has chained you to me forever. ❜ ❨911❩ ❛ You must never ask me that. ❜ ❨912❩ ❛ Are you afraid that you will change your mind? ❜ ❨913❩ ❛ You must come and fetch me in my dressing room at midnight exactly. ❜ ❨914❩ ❛ The holes in your life are permanent. You have to grow around them, like tree roots around concrete; you mould yourself through the gaps. ❜ ❨915❩ ❛ I have never understood how people can blithely disregard the damage they do by following their hearts. ❜ ❨916❩ ❛ There’s something comforting about the sight of strangers safe at home. ❜ ❨917❩ ❛ I have lost control over everything, even the places in my head. ❜ ❨918❩ ❛ It’s possible to miss what you’ve never had, to even mourn for it. ❜ ❨919❩ ❛ There’s nothing so painful, so corrosive, as suspicion. ❜ ❨920❩ ❛ When did you become so weak? ❜ ❨921❩ ❛ I don’t know where that strength went, I don’t remember losing it. I think that over time it got chipped away, bit by bit, by life, by the living of it. ❜ ❨922❩ ❛ Let’s be honest: women are still only really valued for two things—their looks and their role as mothers. ❜ ❨923❩ ❛ Sadness gets boring after a while, for the sad person and for everyone around them. ❜ ❨924❩ ❛ I’m playing at real life instead of actually living it. ❜ ❨925❩ ❛ I’ve just got to let myself feel the pain, because if I don’t, if I keep numbing it, it’ll never really go away. ❜ ❨926❩ ❛ I am not the girl I used to be. I am no longer desirable, I’m off-putting in some way. It’s as if people can see the damage written all over me, can see it in my face, the way I hold myself, the way I move. ❜ ❨927❩ ❛ Who was it that said following your heart is a good thing? It is pure egotism, a selfishness to conquer all. ❜ ❨928❩ ❛ It’s impossible to resist the kindness of strangers. ❜ ❨929❩ ❛ Sometimes I catch myself trying to remember the last time I had meaningful physical contact with another person, just a hug or a heartfelt squeeze of my hand, and my heart twitches. ❜ ❨930❩ ❛ I have to find a way of making myself happy, I have to stop looking for happiness elsewhere. ❜ ❨931❩ ❛ How did I find myself here? I wonder where it started, my decline; I wonder at what point I could have halted it. Where did I take the wrong turn? ❜ ❨932❩ ❛ Now look -- Now look what you made me do. ❜ ❨933❩ ❛ It’s okay, whatever you did, whatever you’ve done: you suffered, you hurt, you deserve forgiveness. ❜ ❨934❩ ❛ They’re what I lost, they’re everything I want to be. ❜ ❨935❩ ❛ You broke me and I broke us. ❜ ❨936❩ ❛ I’ve been the fool. If he does it with you, he’ll do it to you. ❜ ❨937❩ ❛ I’d never realised, not until now, how shameful it is to be pitied. ❜ ❨938❩ ❛ Sometimes, I don’t want to go anywhere, I think I’ll be happy if I never have to set foot outside the house again. ❜ ❨939❩ ❛ I don’t believe in soul mates, but there’s an understanding between us that I just haven’t felt before, or at least, not for a long time. ❜ ❨940❩ ❛ There can be no greater agony, nothing can be more painful than the not knowing, which will never end. ❜ ❨941❩ ❛ Being the other woman is a huge turn-on, there’s no point in denying it: you’re the one he can’t help but betray his wife for, even though he loves her. That’s just how irresistible you are. ❜ ❨942❩ ❛ I feel a rush of gratitude so strong, it feels almost like love. ❜ ❨943❩ ❛ You don’t know how determined I can be. Once I’ve made my mind up, I’m a force to be reckoned with. ❜ ❨944❩ ❛ The more I want to be oblivious, the less I can be. Life and light will not let me be. ❜ ❨945❩ ❛ You don’t have to be afraid of being alone. It’s not the worst thing, is it? ❜ ❨946❩ ❛ I have felt this way before. On a larger scale, to a more intense degree, of course, but I remember the quality of the pain. You don’t forget it. ❜ ❨947❩ ❛ If he thinks I’m going to sit around crying, he’s got another thing coming. ❜ ❨948❩ ❛ I don’t like to lose. It’s not like me. None of this is like me. I don’t get rejected. I’m the one who walks away. ❜ ❨949❩ ❛ I don’t remember anger, raging fury. I remember fear. ❜ ❨950❩ ❛ I can’t sleep. I haven’t slept in days. I hate it, hate insomnia more than anything, just lying there, brain going round, tick, tick, tick, tick. ❜ ❨951❩ ❛ Maybe the courage I need has nothing to do with telling the truth and everything to do with walking away. ❜ ❨952❩ ❛ I’m not beautiful, and I can’t have kids, so what does that make me? Worthless. ❜ ❨953❩ ❛ Failure cloaked me like a mantle, it overwhelmed me, dragged me under and I gave up hope. ❜ ❨954❩ ❛ It’s an odd thing to say, but I think this all the time; I don’t feel bad enough. ❜ ❨955❩ ❛ Some battles aren’t worth fighting. ❜ ❨956❩ ❛ I never felt guilty. I pretended I did. I had to. ❜ ❨957❩ ❛ I never meant for any of this to happen, we fell in love, what could we do? ❜ ❨958❩ ❛ What bothers me most is that I haven’t got to the end of my story, and I can’t start over with someone else, it’s too hard. ❜ ❨959❩ ❛ A person is, among all else, a material thing, easily torn and not easily mended. ❜ ❨960❩ ❛ It isn’t only wickedness and scheming that make people unhappy, it is confusion and misunderstanding. ❜ ❨961❩ ❛ Falling in love can be achieved in a single word—a glance. ❜ ❨962❩ ❛ Though you think the world is at your feet, it can rise up and tread on you. ❜ ❨963❩ ❛ I’ve never had a moment’s doubt. I love you. I believe in you completely. You are my dearest one. My reason for life. ❜ ❨964❩ ❛ It might hurt, it is horribly inconvenient, no good might come of it, but it is what it is to be in love. ❜ ❨965❩ ❛ It was always an impossible task, and that was precisely the point. ❜ ❨966❩ ❛ Come back, come back to me. ❜ ❨967❩ ❛ In my thoughts I make love to you all day long. ❜ ❨968❩ ❛ The truth is I feel rather light headed and foolish in your presence and I don’t think I can blame the heat. ❜ ❨969❩ ❛ Beauty occupies a narrow band. Ugliness, on the other hand, has infinite variation. ❜ ❨970❩ ❛ Is there any meaning in my life that the inevitable death awaiting me does not destroy? ❜ ❨971❩ ❛ However, withered, I still feel myself to be exactly the same person I’ve always been. ❜ ❨972❩ ❛ Hate is a feeling as pure as love, but dispassionate and icily rational. ❜ ❨973❩ ❛ I’m going mad. Let me not be mad. ❜ ❨974❩ ❛ Is everyone really as alive as I am? ❜ ❨975❩ ❛ Every now and then, quite unintentionally, someone teaches you something about yourself. ❜ ❨976❩ ❛ Something has happened, hasn’t it? ❜ ❨977❩ ❛ I like to think that it isn’t weakness or evasion, but a final act of kindness. ❜ ❨978❩ ❛ Is it possible that I am, in the modern term, in denial? ❜ ❨979❩ ❛ How could anyone presume to know the world through the eyes of an insect? ❜ ❨980❩ ❛ Not everything has a cause. Some things are simply so. ❜ ❨981❩ ❛ I’ll be quite honest with you. I’m torn between breaking your neck here and throwing you down the stairs. ❜ ❨982❩ ❛ How old do you have to be before you know the difference between right and wrong? ❜ ❨983❩ ❛ It was never meant to be read. ❜ ❨984❩ ❛ If I fell in the river, would you save me? ❜ ❨985❩ ❛ That was an incredibly bloody stupid thing to do. ❜ ❨986❩ ❛ I want to thank you for saving my life. I’ll be eternally grateful to you. ❜ ❨987❩ ❛ I’m very, very sorry for the terrible distress that I have caused. I’m very, very sorry. ❜ ❨988❩ ❛ Don’t call me that! – Please don’t call me that. ❜ ❨989❩ ❛ It may be the wrong decision, but fuck it, it’s mine. ❜ ❨990❩ ❛ Like patience, passion comes from the same Latin root: pati. It does not mean to flow with exuberance. It means to suffer. ❜ ❨991❩ ❛ No one ever really gets used to nightmares. ❜ ❨992❩ ❛ I still get nightmares. In fact, I get them so often I should be used to them by now. I’m not. ❜ ❨993❩ ❛ Sublime is something you choke on after a shot of tequila. ❜ ❨994❩ ❛ Some people reflect light, some deflect it, you by some miracle, seem to collect it. ❜ ❨995❩ ❛ Beautiful women are always drawn to men they think will keep them beautiful. ❜ ❨996❩ ❛ The ruminations are mine, let the world be yours. ❜ ❨997❩ ❛ You will fulfil a promise I made years ago but failed to keep. ❜ ❨998❩ ❛ Darkness never satisfies. Especially if it takes something away which it almost always invariably does. ❜ ❨999❩ ❛ I want something else. I’m not even sure what to call it anymore. ❜ ❨1000❩ ❛ What can I say, I’m a sucker for abandoned stuff, misplaced stuff, forgotten stuff, any old stuff. ❜ ❨1001❩ ❛ Is it possible to love something so much, you imagine it wants to destroy you only because it has denied you? ❜ ❨1002❩ ❛ It’s just silent, no sound at all. It’s like something’s waiting. ❜ ❨1003❩ ❛ I guess I’m hoping the weapons will make me feel better, grant me some kind of fucking control. ❜ ❨1004❩ ❛ Oh and something else: – Fuck you. ❜ ❨1005❩ ❛ God I’ve never been afraid like this. ❜ ❨1006❩ ❛ I miss you. I love you. There’s no second I’ve lived that you can’t call your own. ❜ ❨1007❩ ❛ I’m so tired. Sleep’s been stalking me for too long to remember. Inevitable I suppose. ❜ ❨1008❩ ❛ Not seeing the rip doesn’t mean you automatically get to keep clear of the Hey-I’m-Bleeding part. ❜ ❨1009❩ ❛ These days fantasies flourish and die like summer flies. ❜ ❨1010❩ ❛ Yeah I know, I know. This shit’s getting ridiculous. ❜ ❨1011❩ ❛ ‘Fuck’ and 'fall for’ have very different meanings. The first one you do as much as you can. The second one you never ever, ever do. ❜ ❨1012❩ ❛ It’s a nice idea but it reeks of hope. False hope. ❜ ❨1013❩ ❛ It’s, well…one thing in two words: fucked up…very fucked up. Okay three words, four words, who the hell cares…very very fucked up. ❜ ❨1014❩ ❛ Do you think I could spend the night at your place?  ❜ ❨1015❩ ❛ Any fool can pray. ❜ ❨1016❩ ❛ I feel like I haven’t slept in months. My neighbours are scared of me. ❜ ❨1017❩ ❛ I’ve lost my mind? Maybe, maybe, maybe. Maybe I’m just really drunk. ❜ ❨1018❩ ❛ Perhaps by cleaning out my system I’ll come to a clearing where I can ease myself into peace. ❜ ❨1019❩ ❛ I should be dead. Why am I still here? ❜ ❨1020❩ ❛ Fuck if I know. Your guess is as good as mine. ❜ ❨1021❩ ❛ You are my flesh. You are my bones. I know you too well. I read you too perfectly. ❜ ❨1022❩ ❛ Not all complex problems have easy solutions. ❜ ❨1023❩ ❛ Do you believe in God? I don’t think I ever asked you that one. ❜ ❨1024❩ ❛ We all create stories to protect ourselves. ❜ ❨1025❩ ❛ Are you kidding me? This place is scary. ❜ ❨1026❩ ❛ These days the only thing that gets me outside is when I say: Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck you. Fuck me. Fuck this. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. ❜ ❨1027❩ ❛ You like that crap because it reminds you of you. ❜ ❨1028❩ ❛ You may suddenly realise things are not how you perceived them to be at all. ❜ ❨1029❩ ❛ The two hardest tests are the patience to wait for the right moment and the courage not to be disappointed with what we encounter. ❜ ❨1030❩ ❛ People never learn anything by being told, they have to find out for themselves. ❜ ❨1031❩ ❛ Be crazy! But learn how to be crazy without being the center of attention. Be brave enough to live different. ❜ ❨1032❩ ❛ You are someone who is different, but who wants to be the same as everyone else. And that in my view is a serious illness. ❜ ❨1033❩ ❛ God chose you to be different. ❜ ❨1034❩ ❛ Why are you disappointing God with this kind of attitude? ❜ ❨1035❩ ❛ You have two choices, to control your mind or to let your mind control you. ❜ ❨1036❩ ❛ Everyone is indeed crazy, but the craziest are the ones who don't know they're crazy; they just keep repeating what others tell them to. ❜ ❨1037❩ ❛ Haven't you learned anything, not even with the approach of death?  ❜ ❨1038❩ ❛ If people don't like it, they can complain. And if they don't have the courage to complain, that's their problem. ❜ ❨1039❩ ❛ Nothing in this world happens by chance. ❜ ❨1040❩ ❛ I want to continue living my life the way I dream it, and not the way the other people want it to be. ❜ ❨1041❩ ❛ Be like the fountain that overflows, not like the cistern that merely contains. ❜ ❨1042❩ ❛ Collective madness is called sanity. ❜ ❨1043❩ ❛ Consider each day a miracle - which indeed it is, when you consider the number of unexpected things that could happen in each second of our fragile existences. ❜ ❨1044❩ ❛ You say they create their own reality, but what is reality? ❜ ❨1045❩ ❛ Many people don't allow themselves to love because there are a lot of things at risk. A lot of future and a lot of past. ❜ ❨1046❩ ❛ Death frees from the fear of dying. ❜ ❨1047❩ ❛ The danger of an adventure is worth a thousand days of ease and comfort. ❜ ❨1048❩ ❛ The happier people can be, the unhappier they are. ❜ ❨1049❩ ❛ Life is always a matter of waiting for the right moment to act. ❜ ❨1050❩ ❛ It's best to accept life as it really is and not as you imagined it to be. ❜ ❨1051❩ ❛ You don't seem mad at all. ❜ ❨1052❩ ❛ We’re allowed to make a lot of mistakes in our lives, except the mistake that destroys us. ❜ ❨1053❩ ❛ You’re what you are, not what others make of you. ❜ ❨1054❩ ❛ Am I cured? ❜ ❨1055❩ ❛ Real love changes and grows with time and discovers new ways of expressing itself. ❜ ❨1056❩ ❛ A lot of people think something is right, and so that thing becomes right. Is that it? ❜ ❨1057❩ ❛ They think they're normal, because they all do the same thing. ❜ ❨1058❩ ❛ I didn't know that other ‘me’s existed inside me, ‘Me’s that I could love. ❜ ❨1059❩ ❛ I have no idea what's awaiting me. ❜ ❨1060❩ ❛ What will happen when this all ends? ❜ ❨1061❩ ❛ I know that you are capable of great deeds. ❜ ❨1062❩ ❛ A loveless world is a dead world, and always there comes an hour when one is weary of prisons, of one's work, and of devotion to duty, and all one craves for is a loved face, the warmth and wonder of a loving heart. ❜ ❨1063❩ ❛ The truth is that everyone is bored. ❜ ❨1064❩ ❛ I feel more fellowship with the defeated than with saints. Heroism and sanctity don't really appeal to me, I imagine. ❜ ❨1065❩ ❛ If there is one thing one can always yearn for, and sometimes attain, it is human love. ❜ ❨1066❩ ❛ Who would dare to assert that eternal happiness can compensate for even a single moment's suffering? ❜ ❨1067❩ ❛ It's not easy. I've been thinking it over for years. ❜ ❨1068❩ ❛ While we loved each other we didn't need words to make ourselves understood. ❜ ❨1069❩ ❛ People are more often bad than good. ❜ ❨1070❩ ❛ I don't believe in heroism; I know it's easy and I've learned that it can be murderous. ❜ ❨1071❩ ❛ What interests me is living and dying for what one loves. ❜ ❨1072❩ ❛ In fact, nobody is capable of really thinking about anyone, even in the worst calamity. ❜ ❨1073❩ ❛ Nothing in the world is worth turning one's back on what one loves. ❜ ❨1074❩ ❛ Again and again there comes a time in history when the man who dares to say that two and two make four is punished with death. ❜ ❨1075❩ ❛ There are more things to admire in men then to despise. ❜ ❨1076❩ ❛ It is in the thick of calamity that one gets hardened to the truth - in other words, to silence. ❜ ❨1077❩ ❛ What on earth prompted you to take a hand in this? ❜ ❨1078❩ ❛ Your code of morals? What code, if I may ask? ❜ ❨1079❩ ❛ I'm fumbling in the dark, struggling to make something out. But I've long ceased finding anything. ❜ ❨1080❩ ❛ No doubt our love is still there, but quite simply it is unusable, heavy to carry, inert inside of us, sterile as crime or condemnation. ❜ ❨1081❩ ❛ I’m not happy to go, but one needn't be happy to make another start. ❜ ❨1082❩ ❛ I am incapable of suffering for a long time, or being happy for a long time. Which means that I am incapable of anything really worth while. ❜ ❨1083❩ ❛ I should have found the words to keep her with me. ❜ ❨1084❩ ❛ We can't stir a finger in this world without the risk of bringing death to somebody. ❜ ❨1085❩ ❛ The evil that is in the world comes out of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding. ❜ ❨1086❩ ❛ There are always flies and itches. That’s why life is difficult to live. ❜ ❨1087❩ ❛ The best protection against anything is a good bottle of wine. ❜ ❨1088❩ ❛ There is no peace without hope. ❜ ❨1089❩ ❛ It's enough for me to be sure that you and I exist at this moment. ❜ ❨1090❩ ❛ There is always something left to love. ❜ ❨1091❩ ❛ A person doesn’t die when he should but when he can. ❜ ❨1092❩ ❛ Things have a life of their own. It's simply a matter of waking up their souls. ❜ ❨1093❩ ❛ Tell me something: why are you fighting? ❜ ❨1094❩ ❛ I've come to realise only just now that I'm fighting because of pride. ❜ ❨1095❩ ❛ One minute of reconciliation is worth more than a whole life of friendship. ❜ ❨1096❩ ❛ It's better than not knowing why you're fighting. Or fighting, like you, for something that doesn't have any meaning for anyone. ❜ ❨1097❩ ❛ Holy Mother of God! ❜ ❨1098❩ ❛ A person does not belong to a place until there is someone dead under the ground. ❜ ❨1099❩ ❛ I was born a son of a bitch and I'm going to die a son of a bitch. ❜ ❨1100❩ ❛ Bad luck doesn't have any chinks in it. ❜ ❨1101❩ ❛ I plead youth as a mitigating circumstance. ❜ ❨1102❩ ❛ Get those bad thoughts out of your head. You're going to be happy. ❜ ❨1103❩ ❛ Children inherit their parents' madness. ❜ ❨1104❩ ❛ I'll turn to ashes in here but I won't give this miserable town the pleasure of seeing me weep. ❜ ❨1105❩ ❛ You would be good in a war. Where you put your eye, you put your bullet. ❜ ❨1106❩ ❛ Men demand much more than you think. ❜ ❨1107❩ ❛ Even the craziest and most persistent love is just a temporary truth. ❜ ❨1108❩ ❛ If we’re alone you can whisper in my ear any crap you can think of. ❜ ❨1109❩ ❛ You have taken this horrible game very seriously and you have done well because you are doing your duty. ❜ ❨1110❩ ❛ We have the right to pull down your pants and give you a whipping at the first sign of disrespect. ❜ ❨1111❩ ❛ What worries me is not your shooting me, because after all, for people like us it's a natural death. ❜ ❨1112❩ ❛ What worries me is that you've ended up as bad as they are. ❜ ❨1113❩ ❛ It is characteristic of men to deny hunger once their appetites are satisfied. ❜ ❨1114❩ ❛ Dying is much more difficult than one imagines. ❜ ❨1115❩ ❛ If you have to go crazy, please go crazy all by yourself! ❜ ❨1116❩ ❛ We have still not had a death. ❜ ❨1117❩ ❛ How awful, the way time passes. ❜ ❨1118❩ ❛ You may be in command of your war, but I'm in command of my house. ❜ ❨1119❩ ❛ I missed you every hour. ❜ ❨1120❩ ❛ You know what the worst part was? It caught me completely by surprise. ❜ ❨1121❩ ❛ I’ve risked my life for you. ❜ ❨1122❩ ❛ The problem with wanting is that it makes us weak. ❜ ❨1123❩ ❛ I love you, even the part of you that loved him. ❜ ❨1124❩ ❛ I’m sorry it took me so long to see you. ❜ ❨1125❩ ❛ I never really belonged anywhere. ❜ ❨1126❩ ❛ Thanks for being my best friend and making my life bearable.  ❜ ❨1127❩ ❛ Thanks for finding me. ❜ ❨1128❩ ❛ You and I are going to change the world. ❜ ❨1129❩ ❛ I’ve been waiting for you a long time. ❜ ❨1130❩ ❛ I’m not used to people trying to kill me. ❜ ❨1131❩ ❛ You’re shaking. ❜ ❨1132❩ ❛ There's nothing wrong with being a lizard. Unless you were born to be a hawk. ❜ ❨1133❩ ❛ Make me your villain. ❜ ❨1134❩ ❛ Just you and me. It’s always just you and me. ❜ ❨1135❩ ❛ Do you blame me for every mistake I made? For every dumb thing I’ve said? ❜ ❨1136❩ ❛ Well, if it gets too bad, give me a signal. ❜ ❨1137❩ ❛ Did you tell him what I showed you in the dark? ❜ ❨1138❩ ❛ Did you miss me when you were gone? ❜ ❨1139❩ ❛ What is infinite? The universe and the greed of men. ❜ ❨1140❩ ❛ You’re interfering with my plan. ❜ ❨1141❩ ❛ Too much champagne? ❜ ❨1142❩ ❛ I hope you don’t expect fairness from me. It isn’t one of my specialties. ❜ ❨1143❩ ❛ There is something more powerful than any army. Something strong enough to topple kings. Faith. ❜ ❨1144❩ ❛ All you said was that I had to kill you. You didn’t say how. ❜ ❨1145❩ ❛ What is she? She’s everything, you dumb son of a bitch. ❜ ❨1146❩ ❛ She’s an ugly little thing. No child should look like that. Pale and sour, like a glass of milk that’s turned. ❜ ❨1147❩ ❛ I wouldn’t make that mistake again. ❜ ❨1148❩ ❛ It’s a great honor, to save a life. You saved many. ❜ ❨1149❩ ❛ In this world, there are things you can only do alone. ❜ ❨1150❩ ❛ What seems like a reasonable distance to one person might feel too far to somebody else. ❜ ❨1151❩ ❛ If you really want to know something, you have to be willing to pay the price. ❜ ❨1152❩ ❛ Why should you be interested in me? ❜ ❨1153❩ ❛ I have been told I've got a darkish personality. A few times. ❜ ❨1154❩ ❛ It's not as if our lives are divided simply into light and dark. There's shadowy middle ground. ❜ ❨1155❩ ❛ I'll write to you. A super-long letter, like in an old-fashioned novel. ❜ ❨1156❩ ❛ The spotlight doesn't suit me. I'm more of a side dish. ❜ ❨1157❩ ❛ The ground we stand on looks solid enough, but if something happens it can drop right out from under you.  ❜ ❨1158❩ ❛ So once you're dead there's just nothing? ❜ ❨1159❩ ❛ If only I could fall sound asleep and wake up in my old reality. ❜ ❨1160❩ ❛ Is action merely the incidental product of thought, or is thought the consequential product of action? ❜ ❨1161❩ ❛ Nobody can shake off their own shadow. ❜ ❨1162❩ ❛ The silence is so deep it hurts. ❜ ❨1163❩ ❛ I may not look it, but I can be a very patient guy. ❜ ❨1164❩ ❛ Killing time is one of my specialities. ❜ ❨1165❩ ❛ You can't fight it. ❜ ❨1166❩ ❛ Tell me something,—do you believe in reincarnation? ❜ ❨1167❩ ❛ I can’t understand nothingness. I can’t understand it and I can’t imagine it. ❜ ❨1168❩ ❛ I can hardly breathe, and my whole body wants to shrink into a corner.  ❜ ❨1169❩ ❛ I do have a few things wrong with me, but those are strictly problems I keep inside. ❜ ❨1170❩ ❛ I can't take it any more, I can't go on any more. ❜ ❨1171❩ ❛ You don't really have it together. ❜ ❨1172❩ ❛ Is it against the law for me to know it? ❜ ❨1173❩ ❛ I keep having the same dream. ❜ ❨1174❩ ❛ Are you asking because you really want an answer? ❜ ❨1175❩ ❛ I hate this! I don't want to be changed this way! ❜ ❨1176❩ ❛ No contradictions, no irony. They do everything according to numerical formulas. ❜ ❨1177❩ ❛ Want to hear the rest? If you’re not interested, I can stop. ❜ ❨1178❩ ❛ If I didn’t have these memories inside me, I would’ve snapped a long time ago. I would’ve curled up in a ditch somewhere and died. ❜ ❨1179❩ ❛ I don’t know what you’re feeling. I won’t even pretend. ❜ ❨1180❩ ❛ What are you doing here, honey? ❜ ❨1181❩ ❛ You're not even old enough to know how bad life gets. ❜ ❨1182❩ ❛ You don't understand me. ❜ ❨1183❩ ❛ All wisdom ends in paradox. ❜ ❨1184❩ ❛ It is love that overthrows empire. Love that binds two hearts together, come hellfire & brimstone. ❜ ❨1185❩ ❛ I have lost my gift. ❜ ❨1186❩ ❛ Winter is the season of alcoholism and despair. ❜ ❨1187❩ ❛ The seeds of death get lost in the mess that God made us. ❜ ❨1188❩ ❛ They're just memories now. It’s time to forget. ❜ ❨1189❩ ❛ The time has to be right and the heart willing. ❜ ❨1190❩ ❛ The world, a tired performer, offers us another half-assed season. ❜ ❨1191❩ ❛ Capitalism has resulted in material well-being but spiritual bankruptcy. ❜ ❨1192❩ ❛ Grief is natural, overcoming it is a matter of choice. ❜ ❨1193❩ ❛ I want out of that decorating scheme. ❜ ❨1194❩ ❛ With most people suicide is like Russian roulette. Only one chamber has a bullet. ❜ ❨1195❩ ❛ You never get over it but you get where it doesn't bother you so much. ❜ ❨1196❩ ❛ Don't waste your time on life. ❜ ❨1197❩ ❛ I'm a teenager. I've got problems! ❜ ❨1198❩ ❛ Adolescents tend to seek love where they can find it. ❜ ❨1199❩ ❛ Obviously, you've never been a thirteen-year-old girl. ❜ ❨1200❩ ❛ It was a mistake. ❜ ❨1201❩ ❛ It seemed like we were supposed to feel sorry for everything that ever happened, ever. ❜ ❨1202❩ ❛ Buffeted but not broken. ❜ ❨1203❩ ❛ Shit. What have kids got to be worried about now? ❜ ❨1204❩ ❛ If they want trouble, they should go live in Bangladesh. ❜ ❨1205❩ ❛ I can't wait until I get out of here. ❜ ❨1206❩ ❛ When she jumped she probably thought she’d fly. ❜ ❨1207❩ ❛ I do not think the patient truly meant to end her life. Her act was a cry for help. ❜ ❨1208❩ ❛ You're a stone fox. ❜ ❨1209❩ ❛ It was love at first sight, at last sight, at ever and ever sight. ❜ ❨1210❩ ❛ Light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. ❜ ❨1211❩ ❛ He broke my heart. You merely broke my life. ❜ ❨1212❩ ❛ I'm sorry to have deceived you so much, but that's how life is. ❜ ❨1213❩ ❛ Words without experience are meaningless. ❜ ❨1214❩ ❛ I loved you. I was a monster, but I loved you. ❜ ❨1215❩ ❛ Come just as you are. ❜ ❨1216❩ ❛ If a violin string could ache, i would be that string. ❜ ❨1217❩ ❛ Perhaps, somewhere, some day, at a less miserable time, we may see each other again. ❜ ❨1218❩ ❛ What's so dreadful about dying is that you are completely on your own. ❜ ❨1219❩ ❛ Don't touch me; I'll die if you touch me. ❜ ❨1220❩ ❛ You took advantage of my disadvantage. ❜ ❨1221❩ ❛ I walk in a maze I cannot get out of. ❜ ❨1222❩ ❛ Life is just one small piece of light between two eternal darknesses. ❜ ❨1223❩ ❛ Imagine me; I shall not exist if you do not imagine me. ❜ ❨1224❩ ❛ There is no harm in smiling. ❜ ❨1225❩ ❛ There is no point in staying here. There is no point in staying anywhere. ❜ ❨1226❩ ❛ There is nothing more atrociously cruel than an adored child. ❜ ❨1227❩ ❛ I am so tired of being cynical. ❜ ❨1228❩ ❛ Come to live with me, and die with me, and everything with me. ❜ ❨1229❩ ❛ This is the only immortality that you and I may share. ❜ ❨1230❩ ❛ I loved her more than anything I had ever seen or imagined on earth, or hoped for anywhere else. ❜ ❨1231❩ ❛ I was despicable and brutal, and turpid, and everything, mais je t’aimais, je t’aimais! ❜ ❨1232❩ ❛ Years of secret suffering has taught me superhuman self-control. ❜ ❨1233❩ ❛ Solitude is corrupting me. I need company and care. ❜ ❨1234❩ ❛ I've missed you terribly. ❜ ❨1235❩ ❛ I've been revoltingly unfaithful to you. ❜ ❨1236❩ ❛ It doesn't matter a bit, because you've stopped caring anyway. ❜ ❨1237❩ ❛ What makes you say I've stopped caring for you? ❜ ❨1238❩ ❛ Nowadays you have to be a scientist if you want to be a killer. ❜ ❨1239❩ ❛ The sun climbs high in the sky, then starts down. People come, then go. ❜ ❨1240❩ ❛ Tell me, have you ever thought of killing me? ❜ ❨1241❩ ❛ I can not believe you are the same human being. ❜ ❨1242❩ ❛ Just how urgent is it? ❜ ❨1243❩ ❛ It is time for you to be going. ❜ ❨1244❩ ❛ How is it you know something like that? ❜ ❨1245❩ ❛ I don’t mind. Your mess is my mess. ❜ ❨1246❩ ❛ Everybody has one thing they do not want to lose. ❜ ❨1247❩ ❛ I’ll be late tonight, so don’t wait up for me. ❜ ❨1248❩ ❛ Nothing I’ve tried to do by myself has ever come off. ❜ ❨1249❩ ❛ I am not catching you in the middle of anything important, am I? ❜ ❨1250❩ ❛ Some things are forgotten, some things disappear, some things die. ❜ ❨1251❩ ❛ My biggest fault is that the faults I was born with grow bigger each year. ❜ ❨1252❩ ❛ To get irritated is to lose our way in life. ❜ ❨1253❩ ❛ A friend to kill time is a friend sublime. ❜ ❨1254❩ ❛ I don't really know if it's the right thing to do. ❜ ❨1255❩ ❛ Faster cars and more cats run over? Who needs it? ❜ ❨1256❩ ❛ Most of everything you think you know about me is nothing more than memories. ❜ ❨1257❩ ❛ Your fate is and will always be the fate of a dreamer. ❜ ❨1258❩ ❛ You’re loads better than you think you are. ❜ ❨1259❩ ❛ You’re only half-living, the other half is still untapped somewhere. ❜ ❨1260❩ ❛ The song is over. But the melody lingers on. ❜ ❨1261❩ ❛ You are extraordinary. ❜ ❨1262❩ ❛ We tend to fool ourselves into thinking that time is our size, but it really goes on and on. ❜ ❨1263❩ ❛ It could be five years or ten years or one month. It's all the same. ❜ ❨1264❩ ❛ I’m forever realising things too late. ❜ ❨1265❩ ❛ I’m not complaining when I say my life is boring. ❜ ❨1266❩ ❛ Weakness is something that rots in the body. ❜ ❨1267❩ ❛ Coming from your mouth, it has the ring of truth, but I doubt anyone would believe me if I told them. ❜ ❨1268❩ ❛ You can't expect something unreal to last anyway, can you? ❜ ❨1269❩ ❛ A wise man does not step betwixt the beast and his meat. ❜ ❨1270❩ ❛ So, kill me. Tell the others I attacked you so you killed me. ❜ ❨1271❩ ❛ Should never have come here. ❜ ❨1272❩ ❛ Hard to guess my tastes. ❜ ❨1273❩ ❛ Can’t it wait until the morning? ❜ ❨1274❩ ❛ You’ll find temper tantrums won’t help you here. ❜ ❨1275❩ ❛ It must have taken courage to return. ❜ ❨1276❩ ❛ It all sounds grimly dystopian. ❜ ❨1277❩ ❛ I am not afraid of you! ❜ ❨1278❩ ❛ All this could be avoided! ❜ ❨1279❩ ❛ You consider me a murderer? ❜ ❨1280❩ ❛ Gross way to die. ❜ ❨1281❩ ❛ What sparks wars? The will to power, the backbone of human nature. ❜ ❨1282❩ ❛ My life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops? ❜ ❨1283❩ ❛ Our lives are not our own. We are bound to others. ❜ ❨1284❩ ❛ I believe there is another world waiting for us. A better world. And I'll be waiting for you there. ❜ ❨1285❩ ❛ You are allowed to feel messed up and inside out. It doesn't mean you're defective - it just means you're human. ❜ ❨1286❩ ❛ Power, time, gravity, love. The forces that really kick ass are all invisible. ❜ ❨1287❩ ❛ Unlimited power in the hands of limited people always leads to cruelty. ❜ ❨1288❩ ❛ Truth is singular. Its 'versions' are mistruths. ❜ ❨1289❩ ❛ Dreams are all I have ever truly owned. ❜ ❨1290❩ ❛ Your version of the truth is the only thing that matters. ❜ ❨1291❩ ❛ I believe death is only a door. One closes, and another opens. ❜ ❨1292❩ ❛ By each crime and every kindness, we birth our future. ❜ ❨1293❩ ❛ The healthy can't understand the emptied, the broken. ❜ ❨1294❩ ❛ Lying's wrong, but when the world spins backwards, a small wrong may be a big right. ❜ ❨1295❩ ❛ The weak are meat the strong do eat. ❜ ❨1296❩ ❛ Do whatever you can't not do. ❜ ❨1297❩ ❛ What precipitates outcomes? Vicious acts & virtuous acts. ❜ ❨1298❩ ❛ I remain thankful to God for all his mercies. ❜ ❨1299❩ ❛ You can maintain power over people, as long as you give them something. Rob a man of everything, and that man will no longer be in your power. ❜ ❨1300❩ ❛ Power. The ability to determine another man's luck. ❜ ❨1301❩ ❛ Pain is strong, aye - but friends' eyes, more strong. ❜ ❨1302❩ ❛ Perhaps those deprived of beauty perceive it most instinctively. ❜ ❨1303❩ ❛ Why ask a question whose answer would demand ten more questions? ❜ ❨1304❩ ❛ You can’t lie to your soul. ❜ ❨1305❩ ❛ Why would I want to do a thing like that? ❜ ❨1306❩ ❛ We start off with high hopes, then we bottle it. ❜ ❨1307❩ ❛ Better to make life as complete and enjoyable an experience as possible, in case death is shite, which I suspect it will be. ❜ ❨1308❩ ❛ I’m not running away, I’m moving on. ❜ ❨1309❩ ❛ The reasons? There are no reasons. ❜ ❨1310❩ ❛ Some people are easier to love when you don’t have to be around them. ❜ ❨1311❩ ❛ Love does not exist. ❜ ❨1312❩ ❛ Fuck that ‘regrets’ bullshit. ❜ ❨1313❩ ❛ How does it make you feel? ❜ ❨1314❩ ❛ It’s horrible how we always die alone, but no worse than living alone. ❜ ❨1315❩ ❛ Choose us. Choose life. ❜ ❨1316❩ ❛ You fucking knew that fucking cunt would fuck some cunt. ❜ ❨1317❩ ❛ I’m more of a warrior than you’ll ever be. ❜ ❨1318❩ ❛ What does that make us? The lowest of the low, the scum of the earth. ❜ ❨1319❩ ❛ You don’t have to run away.  ❜ ❨1320❩ ❛ I tried to stop because it was only causing pain. I couldn’t. ❜ ❨1321❩ ❛ I’m not going to get crushed. ❜ ❨1322❩ ❛ I love doubt in a woman. It’s nearly as sexy as determination. ❜ ❨1323❩ ❛ Take your best orgasm, multiply the feeling by twenty. ❜ ❨1324❩ ❛ You’re a mess. ❜ ❨1325❩ ❛ I know that it’s never left you alone. ❜ ❨1326❩ ❛ Are you asking me or telling me? ❜ ❨1327❩ ❛ You just get used to all the shit. ❜ ❨1328❩ ❛ You can’t afford a conscience in this life. ❜ ❨1329❩ ❛ None of us are saints and scapegoats are always handy. ❜ ❨1330❩ ❛ Doing things doesn’t hurt you; you get hurt by avoiding them. ❜ ❨1331❩ ❛ What was that? ❜ ❨1332❩ ❛ Protect me from those who wish to help us. ❜ ❨1333❩ ❛ You can’t love yourself if you want to hurt things like that. ❜ ❨1334❩ ❛ What happens when people open their hearts? ❜ ❨1335❩ ❛ Nobody likes being alone that much. ❜ ❨1336❩ ❛ I don’t go out of my way to make friends, that’s all. It just leads to disappointment.” ❨1337❩ ❛ Don’t feel sorry for yourself. Only assholes do that. ❜ ❨1338❩ ❛ You need to grab whatever chance you have of happiness where you find it, and not worry about other people too much. ❜ ❨1339❩ ❛ I want you always to remember me. ❜ ❨1340❩ ❛ Despite your best efforts, people are going to be hurt when it’s time for them to be hurt. ❜ ❨1341❩ ❛ What stays in your heart will stay; keep them, and what vanishes will vanish. ❜ ❨1342❩ ❛ All I want in this world is you. ❜ ❨1343❩ ❛ I want the two of us to begin everything from the beginning. ❜ ❨1344❩ ❛ No truth can cure the sorrow we feel from losing a loved one. ❜ ❨1345❩ ❛ What a terrible thing it is to wound someone you really care for and to do it so unconsciously. ❜ ❨1346❩ ❛ If you’re in pitch blackness, all you can do is sit tight until your eyes get used to the dark. ❜ ❨1347❩ ❛ I’ve had enough hurt already in my life. More than enough. Now I want to be happy. ❜ ❨1348❩ ❛ People leave strange little memories of themselves behind when they die. ❜ ❨1349❩ ❛ Stop eating yourself up alive. Things will go where they’re supposed to go if you just let them take their natural course. ❜ ❨1350❩ ❛ When your feelings build up and harden and die inside, then you’re in big trouble. ❜ ❨1351❩ ❛ When you fall in love, the natural thing to do is give yourself to it. ❜ ❨1352❩ ❛ If I have left a wound inside you, it is not just your wound but mine as well. ❜ ❨1353❩ ❛ Hey, what is it with you? Why are you so spaced out? You still haven’t answered me. ❜ ❨1354❩ ❛ People are strange when you’re a stranger. ❜ ❨1355❩ ❛ The dead will always be dead, but we have to go on living. ❜ ❨1356❩ ❛ You don’t get it, do you? ❜ ❨1357❩ ❛ I am a flawed human being - a far more flawed human being than you ❨1358❩ realise. ❜ ❨1359❩ ❛ At least let me know whether or not I hurt you. ❜ ❨1360❩ ❛ All of us are imperfect human beings living in an imperfect world. ❜ ❨1361❩ ❛ I’ve never once thought about how I was going to die. ❜ ❨1362❩ ❛ So I’m not crazy after all! ❜ ❨1363❩ ❛ I miss you terribly sometimes, but in general I go on living with all the energy I can muster. ❜ ❨1364❩ ❛ Will you wait for me forever? ❜ ❨1365❩ ❛ I don’t want our relationship to end like this. ❜ ❨1366❩ ❛ When am I going to be able to talk to you? I want you to tell me that much, at least. ❜ ❨1367❩ ❛ It hurts not being able to see you. ❜ ❨1368❩ ❛ I’m not totally mad at you. I’m just sad. ❜ ❨1369❩ ❛ The world is an inherently unfair place. ❜ ❨1370❩ ❛ Life frightens me sometimes. I don’t happen to take that as the premise for everything else though. ❜ ❨1371❩ ❛ I’m a real bargain, don’t you think? If you don’t take me, I’ll end up going somewhere else. ❜ ❨1372❩ ❛ We’re all kind of weird and twisted and drowning. ❜ ❨1373❩ ❛ Don’t you think it would be wonderful to get rid of everything and everybody and just go some place where you don’t know a soul? ❜ ❨1374❩ ❛ You’re not telling me anything I don’t know already. ❜ ❨1375❩ ❛ He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past. ❜ ❨1376❩ ❛ If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself. ❜ ❨1377❩ ❛ We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness. ❜ ❨1378❩ ❛ Until they become conscious they will never rebel. ❜ ❨1379❩ ❛ Power is not a means; it is an end. ❜ ❨1380❩ ❛ They are not interested in the good of others; they are interested solely in power, pure power. ❜ ❨1381❩ ❛ Now you begin to understand me. ❜ ❨1382❩ ❛ In the face of pain there are no heroes. ❜ ❨1383❩ ❛ Big Brother is watching you. ❜ ❨1384❩ ❛ Power is tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing. ❜ ❨1385❩ ❛ It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. ❜ ❨1386❩ ❛ The choice for mankind lies between freedom and happiness and for the great bulk of mankind, happiness is better. ❜ ❨1387❩ ❛ Your mind appeals to me. It resembles my own mind. ❜ ❨1388❩ ❛ Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else. ❜ ❨1389❩ ❛ We do not merely destroy our enemies; we change them. ❜ ❨1390❩ ❛ How can I help it? How can I help but see what is in front of my eyes? ❜ ❨1391❩ ❛ You must try harder. ❜ ❨1392❩ ❛ Confession is not betrayal. ❜ ❨1393❩ ❛ What you say or do doesn’t matter; only feelings matter. ❜ ❨1394❩ ❛ If they could make me stop loving you —- that would be the real betrayal. ❜ ❨1395❩ ❛ Of pain you can wish only one thing: that it should stop. ❜ ❨1396❩ ❛ To die hating them, that will be freedom. ❜ ❨1397❩ ❛ No one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. ❜ ❨1398❩ ❛ What can you do against the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself? ❜ ❨1399❩ ❛ To keep them in control is not difficult. ❜ ❨1400❩ ❛ So long as they are not permitted to have standards of comparison, they never even become aware that they are oppressed. ❜ ❨1401❩ ❛ The consequences of every act are included in the act itself. ❜ ❨1402❩ ❛ The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labour. ❜ ❨1403❩ ❛ Stupidity is as necessary as intelligence, and as difficult to attain. ❜ ❨1404❩ ❛ I hate purity, I hate goodness! I don’t want virtue to exist anywhere. I want everyone to be corrupt to the bones. ❜ ❨1405❩ ❛ The past is dead, the future is unimaginable. ❜ ❨1406❩ ❛ You know the answer already. Everyone knows it. ❜ ❨1407❩ ❛ You don’t give a damn what they suffer. All you care is yourself. ❜ ❨1408❩ ❛ It is not easy to become sane. ❜ ❨1409❩ ❛ No emotion is pure anymore, because everything is mixed up with fear and hatred. ❜ ❨1410❩ ❛ They say that time heals all things —- they say you can always forget. ❜ ❨1411❩ ❛ The object of waging a war is always to be in a better position in which to wage another war. ❜ ❨1412❩ ❛ I sold you and you sold me. ❜ ❨1413❩ ❛ You do not exist. ❜ ❨1414❩ ❛ How does one man assert his power over another? By making him suffer. ❜ ❨1415❩ ❛ Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? ❜ ❨1416❩ ❛ Everything else we shall destroy – everything. ❜ ❨1417❩ ❛ Two and two makes five. ❜ ❨1418❩ ❛ Facts, at any rate, can not be kept hidden. ❜ ❨1419❩ ❛ The past is whatever the records and the memories agree upon. ❜ ❨1420❩ ❛ So long as human beings stay human, death and life are the same thing. ❜ ❨1421❩ ❛ If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable—what then? ❜ ❨1422❩ ❛ The lie became the truth. ❜ ❨1423❩ ❛ It is like swimming against a current that sweeps you backwards however hard you struggle. ❜ ❨1424❩ ❛ Turn round and go with the current instead of opposing it. ❜ ❨1425❩ ❛ It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything. ❜ ❨1426❩ ❛ I don’t want to die without any scars. ❜ ❨1427❩ ❛ This is your life and it’s ending one moment at a time. ❜ ❨1428❩ ❛ You know how they say you only hurt the ones you love? Well, it works both ways. ❜ ❨1429❩ ❛ You are not your job, you’re not how much money you have in the bank. You are not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet. ❜ ❨1430❩ ❛ You are not special. ❜ ❨1431❩ ❛ You’re not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You’re the same decaying organic matter as everything else. ❜ ❨1432❩ ❛ The things you used to own, now they own you. ❜ ❨1433❩ ❛ Today is the sort of day where the sun only comes up to humiliate you. ❜ ❨1434❩ ❛ Maybe we have to break everything to make something better out of ourselves. ❜ ❨1435❩ ❛ Only after disaster can we be resurrected. ❜ ❨1436❩ ❛ Everything is evolving, everything is falling apart. ❜ ❨1437❩ ❛ We’ve all been raised believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. ❜ ❨1438❩ ❛ Don’t you have other things to do? ❜ ❨1439❩ ❛ Prove you’re alive. If you don’t claim your humanity you will become a statistic. ❜ ❨1440❩ ❛ You have been warned. ❜ ❨1441❩ ❛ If you don’t know what you want, you end up with a lot you don’t. ❜ ❨1442❩ ❛ It’s not love or anything, but I think I like you, too. ❜ ❨1443❩ ❛ If I could wake up in a different place, at a different time, could I wake up as a different person? ❜ ❨1444❩ ❛ Why did I cause so much pain? ❜ ❨1445❩ ❛ The lower you fall, the higher you’ll fly. ❜ ❨1446❩ ❛ Maybe self-improvement isn’t the answer, maybe self-destruction is the answer. ❜ ❨1447❩ ❛ May I never be complete. May I never be content. May I never be perfect. ❜ ❨1448❩ ❛ Everyone smiles with that invisible gun to their head. ❜ ❨1449❩ ❛ We are not special. We are not crap or trash, either. We just are. We just are, and what happens just happens. ❜ ❨1450❩ ❛ The girl is infectious human waste. ❜ ❨1451❩ ❛ I want to destroy everything beautiful I’ll never have. ❜ ❨1452❩ ❛ On a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero. ❜ ❨1453❩ ❛ If you could be either God’s worst enemy or nothing, which would you choose? ❜ ❨1454❩ ❛ It is like you’re never really awake; but you’re never really asleep. ❜ ❨1455❩ ❛ Worker bees can leave. Even drones can fly away. The Queen is their slave. ❜ ❨1456❩ ❛ A moment is the most you could ever expect from perfection. ❜ ❨1457❩ ❛ The people you’re trying to step on, we’re everyone you depend on. ❜ ❨1458❩ ❛ You have to give up! ❜ ❨1459❩ ❛ Reject the basic assumptions of civilisation, especially the importance of material possessions. ❜ ❨1460❩ ❛ Without pain, without sacrifice we would have nothing. ❜ ❨1461❩ ❛ You have to realise that someday you will die, Until you know that, you are useless. ❜ ❨1462❩ ❛ A tiger can smile. A snake will say it loves you. ❜ ❨1463❩ ❛ Lies make us evil. ❜ ❨1464❩ ❛ If you died right now, how would you feel about your life? ❜ ❨1465❩ ❛ You always kill the one you love. ❜ ❨1466❩ ❛ Maybe we should always assume the worst. ❜ ❨1467❩ ❛ Put a gun to my head and paint the wall with my brains. ❜ ❨1468❩ ❛ Which is worse? Hell or nothing? ❜ ❨1469❩ ❛ A minute of perfection is worth the effort. ❜ ❨1470❩ ❛ You’re going to die, tonight. You might die in one second or in one hour, you decide. ❜ ❨1471❩ ❛ Lie to me. Tell me the first thing off the top of your head. Make something up. ❜ ❨1472❩ ❛ I don’t give a shit. I have a gun. ❜ ❨1473❩ ❛ I know who you are. I know where you live. ❜ ❨1474❩ ❛ Tomorrow will be the most beautiful day of your life. ❜ ❨1475❩ ❛ My philosophy of life is that I can die at any moment. And the tragedy of my life is that I do not. ❜ ❨1476❩ ❛ Everything is so far away, a copy of a copy of a copy. You can’t touch anything and nothing can touch you. ❜ ❨1477❩ ❛ There are a lot of things we don’t want to know about the people we love. ❜ ❨1478❩ ❛ We just had a near-life experience. ❜ ❨1479❩ ❛ If people think you are dying, they give you their full attention. They listen instead of just waiting for their turn to speak. ❜ ❨1480❩ ❛ I am nothing, and not even that. ❜ ❨1481❩ ❛ This isn’t really death. —- We’ll be legends. We won’t grow old. ❜ ❨1482❩ ❛ Stop trying to control everything and just let go. Let go. ❜ ❨1483❩ ❛ The amazing miracle of death, when one second you’re walking and talking, and the next second you’re an object. ❜ ❨1484❩ ❛ Only if we’re caught and punished can we be saved. ❜ ❨1485❩ ❛ I never thought about how important the sky was until I didn't have one. ❜ ❨1486❩ ❛ Dreams are like that: they go in and out of memories and scenes, but they're never real. They're never real, and I hate them because they aren't. ❜ ❨1487❩ ❛ Power isn’t control at all — power is strength, and giving that strength to others. ❜ ❨1488❩ ❛ A leader isn’t someone who forces others to make him stronger. ❜ ❨1489❩ ❛ A leader is someone willing to give his strength to others that they may have the strength to stand on their own. ❜ ❨1490❩ ❛ In the end, we are alone. ❜ ❨1491❩ ❛ It is like a piece of my soul is lost, empty. ❜ ❨1492❩ ❛ If my life on Earth must end, let it end with a promise. Let it end with hope. ❜ ❨1493❩ ❛ Sorry? Sorry isn't enough. ❜ ❨1494❩ ❛ Every single thing I ever loved is beyond my reach now. Everything I ever wanted. Everything I ever was. ❜ ❨1495❩ ❛ Will you stay with me? ❜ ❨1496❩ ❛ A leader doesn't make pawns - he makes people. ❜ ❨1497❩ ❛ Do you hear that? The pulse of life from your heart, the slow in-and-out from your lungs? Even when you are silent, even when you block out all noise, your body is still a cacophony of life. Mine is not. ❜ ❨1498❩ ❛ It is the silence that drives me mad. The silence that drives the nightmares to me. ❜ ❨1499❩ ❛ There is nothing between us but rain. There is nothing between us at all. ❜ ❨1500❩ ❛ I like a little chaos. ❜
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ignisaeri · 3 years
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~
At that time, all Alatus could hear was the howling of the wind, and the screams of the Yakshas as they waged war against their karmic debts.
A blaze of crimson flame splits the night sky as the Pyro Yaksha shrieks, clawing desperately at scarlet locks of hair with bloodied fingernails, trying to rid herself of demons only she can see. Her eyes flash with the light of a thousand stars as she throws her head back, pleading with the darkness in ragged gasps to leave her, to go somewhere where they could not haunt her. She’s still begging as she dies.
~
The Geo Yaksha rests his foot against the Hydro Yaksha’s abdomen, using her still body as leverage to draw his sharpened blade out from between her ribs. His eyes stare into the distance, unseeing, pupils clouded over with an inky black, fingers twitching as they hold the weapon that had killed one of his oldest friends. The Hydro Yaksha only lays quietly, death caressing her form with its bony fingers, the pool of water beneath them tinged pink from blood.
~
The Electro Yaksha falls to his knees, gaze finding Alatus’ one last time, seemingly apologizing for leaving the Anemo Yaksha alone for eternity. His slender hands float over the blade embedded in his chest, then collapses onto his side as his last breaths leave him, currents of violet electricity flickering out into nothing. He dies silhouetted against the blackness of The Chasm, as silent as the sun creeping over the horizon, even as the battle rages endlessly around them.
~
Rex Lapis gazes at Alatus with such pity, such sadness, before smiling hesitantly, gold eyes meeting the Yaksha’s.
‘Sit, Ever Vigilant Yaksha. The archon war is over. Let us share a cup of osmanthus wine.”
“Alatus, I free you from your duty as a Yaksha. In the fables of another world, the name Xiao is that of a spirit who encountered great suffering and hardship. He endured much suffering, as you have. Use this name from now on.”
“Yes, Morax.”
~
The God of Freedom seeks him out one evening, when he’s resting quietly near the edge of a cliff, feet dangling restlessly off the side, imagining the faces of the lost Yakshas floating through the clouds. Barabatos’ braids glow a gentle forest green, and he inclines his head slightly towards Xiao as he nears.
“Alatus, correct?”
“Xiao,” the adeptus corrects him.
“Xiao,” Barbatos says, “Rex Lapis told me of you.”
~
“It was you with the flute, was it not?” Xiao tells Barbatos as they watch the workers construct a massive statue in Liyue’s center, honoring the late Tianquan. Ningguang’s placid face smiles down at them as the workers dust the marble, freeing it from dust and grime.
Venti bobs his head, gaze never straying from where Rex Lapis (now Zhongli) stands with arms folded, gaze dark. With Ningguang gone, the last of the Liyue Qixing has perished.
“Yes,” Venti says. “I saved you that day.”
~
Tonight, they drink, in honor of the dead. Zhongli gingerly holds a glass of osmanthus wine, a glaze lily tucked into his hair. “To Guizhong,” he says. “Havria, Ningguang, and Tartaglia.”
Venti hiccups, face the color of an overripe tomato, the glass of dandelion wine tipping dangerously in his grip. “To the children of Mond,” he choruses. “To the Ragvindr brothers, to Jean, to Lisa, to Noelle. To Klee!”
Baal is here tonight too, and she leans forward restlessly. “To Kujou Sara,” she adds. “To Kitsune, Chiyo, and to Sasayuri.”
Tonight should be solemn, Xiao thinks, as they list the names of their dead companions. Yet, nearly five hundred years after the last of them passed, he feels nothing but contentment.
Xiao raises his own glass. “To the traveler and his sister,” he says. “And to the Yakshas”.
~
Xiao watches as Venti’s fingers dance, weaving an enticing melody through the hollow sounds of his flute. He’s sitting against a rock, the cool water of the stream lapping at his ankles, washing against the outcropping where Venti stands, a face full of bliss as he plays.
The song is one that Xiao wished to hear, one that he had first heard from the cart of a passing merchant shortly after the end of the Archon War.
The notes seem to float away into the air as he listens, chasing away the darkness in his soul, and he closes his eyes, reveling in this small moment of peace.
~
Sometimes, when Xiao sleeps, he dreams. He dreams of a woman wreathed in fire, eyes burning tears down her cheeks. He dreams of a not-truly-there man, standing with his blade buried in the chest of a woman floating limp in blood-tinged water. He dreams of purple lightning dying as a man takes his last breaths deep within The Chasm.
~
He knows, of course, that he cannot run forever. One day, he will become engulfed by his karmic debt, like the Pyro Yaksha, or go mad and disappear, like the Geo Yaksha.
That day comes sooner than he thinks.
~
Liyue is burning. The city is just as Xiao remembers, a perfect place of beauty. If he concentrates, he can still barely remember the night of the Lantern Rite, thousands of years ago. He closes his eyes and wishes to see the light of a hundred lanterns, instead of the light of fire the buildings shudder and succumb to the roaring flame.
Zhongli stands in front of him, something akin to pain in his gaze, one arm thrown to the side to keep Venti from rushing forwards. The Anemo Archon’s eyes are wide and wild, hat askew and bow grasped in shaking hands. Baal stands straight, weapon drawn, sorrow dotting her gaze.
Fontaine’s archon, the God of Justice, flits around the backdrop of burning flame, hurriedly trying to save as much of Liyue as she can. Her hands wave, spilling waves of water over the temples and buildings, undoing the damage that Xiao caused. The Dendro and Pyro Archons are busy, pulling screaming mortals from the wreckage and destruction.
Three torches and three exploding barrels, compiled with Xiao’s anemo attacks, had set all of Liyue aflame.
There is distant screaming in Xiao’s ears, sounds he knows only he can hear. Deliriously, he recalls the Pyro Yaksha howling at non-existent demons millennia ago and wonders absently if the same will afflict him.
The karmic debt has finally taken over, and it seems to favor the path the Geo Yaksha had taken. Xiao almost laughs as he realizes this, feeling trapped within his skin as he wields his polearm, pointed unwaveringly at the archons.
“I am sorry,” he rasps. There is darkness at the edge of his sight, and the screams only intensify. He can hear individual voices now, hissing and howling and wailing, crying for mercy and death and blood.
“Do not apologize,” Zhongli says. “It is not your fault.”
“What is this?” Venti gasps, the sound echoing in Xiao’s ears. “Xiao, what is happening?”
Baal answers for him. “It is the fate of a Yaksha.” Electricity begins to crackle around her shoulders, eyes darkening to violet as she calls the power of the storm.
Xiao wants to weep at how much she reminds him of the Electro Yaksha.
Maybe, he muses, he will see his fellow Yakshas again. Maybe he’ll meet Aether and Lumine too, in the place that lies after death. He may finally meet those who used to belong to Mond, the ones that Venti talks of so adoringly.
Zhongli finally draws his polearm, an earthen pillar appearing before him, casting protective gold around the archons. Xiao knows why.
He can feel the wind gusting around him, responding to calls he does not remember sending out. Leaves swirl in the gale, and trees rip their way out of the ground. The pain in his head intensifies as the number of screaming voices triple.
Xiao meets Zhongli’s gaze. Sometime, somehow, over the years, the archons had become his closest confidants. Yet, Zhongli was always his oldest companion, so now, Xiao asks Zhongli to do the impossible.
“Morax,” he croaks, using a name that hasn’t been spoken for ages. “You must.”
Zhongli’s gaze is pained, yet resolute, and that is how Xiao knows that Morax will kill him to save the world. Baal seems to sense this too, and lightning strikes the ground not too far away, anxiously awaiting her command.
It is only Venti who has not yet seemed to grasp the situation. He frowns at both archons. “What must you do, Zhongli?”
Zhongli only shakes his head, and Xiao knows it pains him to be the one who will have to kill the last Yaksha. So he answers Venti, limbs shaking as he desperately tries to contain the whirlwind threatening to tear from his chest.
“He must kill me. If he does not, I fear I will destroy Teyvat. I have lost control over my body, Venti.”
Barbatos’ eyes flash green, and Xiao is yet again reminded of the power of the archons. “No,” he says simply. “You cannot die. To live for thousands of years, to drink with us, all this time? You cannot die like this.”
Xiao loses concentration, just a tiny sliver, yet the gust of wind that tears from him shears the top off of a nearby mountain. He groans, harnessing the gale yet again, even as the action forces him to his knees.
“Morax,” he says again. “Please.”
Zhongli looks at him, and the archon’s eyes are glistening in the light of the dancing flames, as wind whips his hair into his face.
“Alatus,” he says, and his voice is full of hurt and resignation. “It has been an honor.”
Yes, Xiao wants to answer back, but he cannot force his mouth to move. He just nods, shaking his head as if he can jar the wailing into silence.
Venti starts towards Zhongli, power thrumming at the edges of his fingers, seemingly ready to resort to battle in order to prevent Xiao’s death, and that is when Baal moves. She slams into Venti, pushing him into the ground, even as wind starts to whirl around them - Venti’s magic, not Xiao’s. Her element locking curse comes a second later, binding itself around Venti, even as he hisses at her in protest.
“Xiao,” Venti cries, twisting as if he can escape the curse. His hat is lost, blown away in the wind, and his hair has come loose from its braids, flying around his face.
“Barbatos,” Xiao whispers. “I never thanked you, for saving me that day.”
Venti pauses, for a second, stunned into silence.
“Thank you,” Xiao says, over the voices in his head. “Thank you.”
Baal only looks at him solemnly, and Xiao stares back at her. They exchange no words, but Baal just nods, once, the simple gesture conveying everything he needs to know.
Xiao holds her gaze for a few more seconds, turning back to find the point of Zhongli’s spear resting above his heart.
Zhongli's face is twisted in grief, yet his blade still hits true, sliding into the hollow space between Xiao's third and fourth ribs.
Xiao chokes, the whirl of wind around him finally dying out. His legs buckle and he falls ungraciously, feeling gentle hands grasping at his clothes as he does.
Somewhere, Venti is screaming his name.
The wailing inside his skull is dissipating, and near the edges of his sight, Xiao can make out swirls of color. At first, he thinks they are the archons, and his failing body cannot see the details of their faces. Then, he recognizes a blue that does not belong to those in the present.
“Rest,” Zhongli whispers, as Xiao fades. “Rest, Alatus.”
And Xiao does, letting himself fall into the embrace of the Yaksha's, who are only becoming clearer, even as Xiao dies.
~
637 years later, a scholar strolls through the bookshelves of Sumeru's most famous academy, searching for a piece of information that could support her thesis.
She turns into a lane labelled Mondstadt: The City of Freedom, and begins to scan the titles, careful to replace everything exactly where she finds it.
There are two other travelers within the small space between the bookshelves, and they're talking to each other, quite loudly.
The scholar frowns. No matter how foreign these travelers are, the rule of silence in a library should be universal.
The first traveler, a tall man with golden eyes and umber hair that falls to his lower back flips another page in his book, completely ignoring his companion. A jade spear is strapped across his back, and the scholar thinks idly that the weapon looks more like a piece of art, with great wings of green jade shattering outwards from the main spike.
The tall man's companion is quite short, with yellow cat like eyes and evergreen tufts of hair, a pink pearl necklace slung loosely around his throat. His boyish grin seems quite misplaced.
It only takes the scholar a few moments to figure out why.
A few months ago, the scholar had studied ancient folklore of Liyue. Among them was a tale of several Yakshas, the last of whom had supposedly been buried beneath a statue of himself, on the highest peak in Liyue.
The man standing before her looks exactly the same as the grainy photo in the text. However, in the scroll of lore, the last Yaksha had worn a fierce scowl across his features, nothing like the one that stands before her now.
"Come, Zhongli," the should-be-dead Yaksha says, tugging on his friend's sleeve. "Baal is waiting for us."
"Baal can wait a while longer," the taller man says, turning the page of his book a while longer, which the scholar now sees is a copy of The Ruling System of Mondstadt: Grandmasters and Cavalry Captains.
"You said you wanted me to learn more about Mond, didn't you?" the taller man continues. "Besides, I am quite intrigued as to exactly who this 'Kaeya' is, the one you keep referencing."
The yaksha frowns. "Kaeya," he says. "Diluc's brother."
At his companion's blank stare, the yaksha says. "I'll remind you later," he chides. "We really must be going, Zhongli."
The scholar startles, embarrassed that she eavesdropped for so long. However, she still hears what the tall man says back.
"Fine. Let us go, Venti."
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missallsundayyy · 3 years
Text
"You're just saying that"
ANOTHER LAWBIN DUMP BECAUSE I SHIP THEM LIKE A MAD WOMAN ITS INSANE! here is just Law being a simp for our fave straw hat archeologist, Nico Robin <3
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“You’re beautiful”
“You’re just saying that”
“No Im not”
Law crawled towards Robin who was fully naked and tangled in between the sheets and smiled at her. He had a goddess on his bed and today was the last day she was going to be on his ship before she had to return to the strawhats. His head bowed and his lips connected to her long slender soft legs, he peppered kisses in a straight line and went towards her thick thighs. “You’re going back to your ship tomorrow Robin-ya” he muttered in between kisses. Robin had her head thrown back against the soft pillows with a contented sigh “Yes i do”
When it comes to pleasure build-up, there was no one better than Trafalgar Law, he made her horny beyond words and he could go for hours and hours just making sure that she was satisfied and pleasured magically. Since he was a doctor, on god he knew where all the good spots were and fuck did he rub, kiss, touch and reach all these area well. All her weak spots were mentally printed in his brain and he touched her so well because he knew her body like the back of his hand.
Law didn’t just wanted to please the historian but he worshipped the fuck out of Robin’s body. She was the definition of beauty and his ideal woman. Her hourglass figure, her large bust, her porcelain skin, her long luscious raven hair, her waist that was meant for his hands, her scent when she was turned on...oh how fucking addictive she was. He could go down on her for hours craving for more and more even when the historian was sore but no he could never get enough of her. “You make me so hard Robin-ya, you look so fucking absolutely mouth watering.” he grunt out licking her soft thick thighs in long strokes. His hands were already parting her legs wide, giving the sight he’s been craving to see. She was already dripping wet for him.
“La..law-kun...please…” Robin moaned softly, her hands reached out for his head and gripping his hair ushering his face forward to her wet core. He smirked and licked her pussy with one long and teasingly slow stroke. Her head dived deeper onto the pillow at the contact even though it was minimal. “You’re already looking so fucked out my love, did i keep you waiting that long?” He teased her by bringing one digit and plunging it into her hole without warning and going at a rough pace.
“A..ahh!” she moaned and fisted his hair roughly. Law was unrelenting; he added the second...third...and fourth digits into her wet hole that was gladly accepting his intrusion. He fucked her with his fingers hard and fast never stopping to let her adjust or catch her breath. He pulled out JUST for a second much to her dismay, her blue orbs adjusted its vision to see what her lover was doing, and his actions made her whine in lust, this man was so sexy. The feral demeanor he had and the way he was enjoying pleasuring her turned her on to the point she could feel more juices dripping out from her cunt. “Fuck.., you’re dripping onto my bedsheet and soaking it baby” he groaned and admired how wet she was for him. Law gathered his saliva in his mouth and spit it directly onto her soaking cunt “Let me make it even wetter Robin-ya” he said. He shifted his position so fast that even she didn’t see this coming, he plunged his hard cock into her with no warning again. “Ohhh my god!” Robin screamed, he filled her up so good and there was no way in hell she was going to feel this type of way with anyone else. Law was not only long but his cock was so very very big and the first time they ever did this, she was taken aback like taken aback would have been an understatement.
“Gomen I cant control my...oh fuckkk you’re so tight R-robin-ya.” Law grunted aloud, he didn’t go slow nor did he held back this time, he was going to fuck her hard and long and make sure she felt him for weeks and months until they had the opportunity to meet again. He was going to wear her out and that's exactly what he was now doing.
“La...law..please..more! I-its so so so so gooood! Ahhh ah ah” whatever words she could muster out was no incoherent, she couldn't even form any proper sentence with how good he was fucking her. His length was impressive, it hit deep and reached everything that she couldn't satisfy herself and the width...mmm she worships this man’s cock. How good his dick was and how amazing the person was as well. “C’mon use your words my love, i’m going to miss you so much and i- ergh fuck!” his hands had a tight hold on her legs, spreading as wide as he could while he fuck her into oblivion. Her large breast was now being kneaded by her hands trying to maximize her pleasure even more.
“You’re so..ahhh fucking hell….sexy. Look at you right now, i could fuck you for hours and prolong this as long as I could my love” he looked down at their connection, what an erotic sight and sound. She was squelching around him and her pussy wasn’t even trying to milk him with everything he got, their juices were mixed and was dripping out of her wet hole and cum was splashed everywhere on his sheets. Oh how he would love nothing more than to capture this image and frame it in his cabin room.
His cock went in and out of hole at a vicious pace, never giving Robin a chance at catching her breath. Everything that came out from her mouth was vulgar and sinful and only her moans and his grunts echoed throughout the bedroom. “Fuck fuck fuck you feel so good around me, gripping my cock like that...so tight like- ahhh…” he brought himself down to her chest and buried his head into her giant globes and grunt out in pleasure of her soft skin and the way her pussy was sucking his cock in.
Robin had one hand gripping his sheets and one hand clawing his back trying to hold onto him to be in sync in his monstrous pace all while he was comfortably sandwiched in between the valley of her breasts. He brought his face back up and tongued her nipples that were basically calling out for his mouth, his large hands palmed the right side of her breast while he was basically making out with the other side.
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“La..law….kun...ahhh its too much...im g-gonna… ah ah ahhhh..” she screamed and clawed his back drawing blood, the pleasure he was bestowing upon her has become overwhelming. Law ceased all his actions and brought one hand and took both her arms, pinning them above her head and his other hand found her throat and gripped at it hard; now this was how he could get Robin to cum so hard because this has always been her kink, almost cutting off her oxygen intake brought her euphoric pleasure. “You cum only when I say you can love, are you forgetting that?” Law whispered in her ears, giving her a long teasing lick at her lobes.
Robin whined at the loss of his movements, his cock was still yet buried so deep in her hole and she was rocking back and forth trying to get some friction but his body weight kept her in check and she knew better in strength that she could never outmatch his strength especially in bed. “La..w….please please please please...ne-need to cu..cum!” she begged him desperately, her eyes were half lidded and both corners of her eyes were filled with tears of pleasure and desperation.  He brought his face down to hers and their forehead rested against each other and he locked eyes with hers, souls intertwined and orbs connected and both of them read each other like an open book.
“You look so beautiful baby, you look so good like this…” he whispered to her, face evident with pure lust and adoration. He loved this woman and he fucking knew it, there was nobody he wanted to share such passion and connection with. He wanted to pleasure her to the point of no return, making her the happiest woman alive and he relishes in her existence. “You're gonna cum so good I promise you baby” he grunt out. With that he resumed his thrust but it was even more powerful, dominant and oh so impressive. He pounded her hard and fast fucking her stupid and passionately, he gave his 1000 percent when he do her and right now he was treating her hole unforgivingly and no mercy and she was definitely going to feel him inside her everyday. He printed and branded his cock in her pussy and there will be no other man that could be compared. She whined and moaned hotly, tongue sticking out with a string of drool at the corner of her mouth, the bed shook with the rhythm of their fuck pace. The atmosphere was hot, the air was bathed in redolence of sex and passion. Sounds of his dick going in and out of her wet hole immited sloppy wet sounds that was the focus of their hearing and the unison of their sinful moans. His grip on her throat tightened and he moaned out loud at the sight and took her mouth in his and gave her an open kiss, it was sloppy and hot, their tongues fought each other and both of them were moaning in each other’s mouth.
“Cmon, cum now baby, i can feel you squeezing me so hard, you’re so good for me”
“Law...law! Law! I ahh...ahh im go..gonn! gonna cum”
“Cum for me my love” he’s raspy voice commanded her and if she was grenade, his voice was the trigger. She was sent over the edge and everything in her felt awakened and she exploded with a scream. With his hands on her neck her voice was semi blocked but this kind of orgasm remains unmatched. Robin heard Law muttering strings of curses and swears at her orgasm, she tightened and her insides was trying to milk the fuck out of his cock.
She was sent over the edge and everything in her was awakened and she exploded with a scream. With his hands on her neck her voice was semi blocked but this kinky action always had her fucked out. She saw stars and her body was instantly taken into another universe. Her legs tightened around him and were now trembling, her body still rocking with his  rampaging thrusts both rocking to the rhythm of her high.
“F-ff--fucking hell.” He grunt against her collar bones.
“La--law…” Robin whimpered softly, “Do it in me...please...i want you to cum in me and fill me up please please ple-- AHHH!” He didn’t need to be told twice, her filthy words spurred him on more and she swore he felt him getting harder.
“Fuck i- gonn...a fill you in so good..” he groaned and she captured his mouth with her open ones and their moans and grunts were drowned in the messy and sloppy wet kiss.
“Mmhmm!” Strings and strings of his load was pumping into her hole as he came the moment Robin kissed him with so much need and to simplify it….she was so fucking sexy and was the hottest woman in this god damn planet; he thought.
“Sss--so full!” she whimpered in his mouth.
Her facial expression drove him crazy, she was in a state of bliss and she was on cloud 9, only he could do her like this.
Both of them rode each other, absorbed in their high and lived for each others’ touch.
TIMESKIP
Law tossed the towel that he had used to clean Robin up into the laundry basket in his bathroom and came out to the sight of his goddess laying down peacefully. She was now looking at Law who only had a towel hugging his lower regions and she smiled, admiring his body. He was so handsome, his body was lean with the right muscles everywhere.
“You’re so handsome”
“You’re just saying that”
“No I’m not” he laughed, they were having the same conversation before their love making. He loves her. Trafalgar Law loves Nico Robin so damned much.
THANK YOU FOR BEING HERE AND READING MY FIC. DO LIKE AND REBLOG, ask me if there is anything you guys want me to write! I'm currently working on more LAWBIN. I know I've been writing them like crazy but that's because the internet doesn't have enough Lawbin and idc I will write till i'm satiated.
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foilfreak · 3 years
Text
Beauty and Her Beast: Summary and Ch.1
A Salvatore Moreau x Female!FishMutant!oc fic based on this idea I had the other day that a very specific subset of the fanfom went absolutely apeshit for, which I'm here for and decided to act on. I can't make any promises for consistent uploading or even a finishes product by the end of this, but so long as im still interested in working on it, I'll keep working on it, and if im not, then I wont, plain and simple. Anyways, here's the summary and chapter 1, please let me know what you think of the story so far, i hope you all enjoy (you'd better all enjoy), and I can't wait to see you all again for chapter 2. Bye! <333 (Link to ao3 posting will be in comments so check there if you want to read it there instead)
Warning: This fic is rated NSFW and contains graphic depictions of things some people may find disturbing or alarming, including, but not limited to: violence, gore, unhealthy family relationships, Oedipus complexes, gratuitous amount of pornographic literature, ableist language, physical, mental, and emotional abuse, etc. If you are someone who does not enjoy fiction with these elements in them, then I suggest you refrain from reading this, because this fic will have all that, and probably a lot more. So, this is your first and final warning to turn around and go somewhere else if stuff like this just isn't your vibe, because from this point forward, your emotional wellbeing is in your own hands, and I will not be accepting blame if you disregarded my warnings and ended up reading something you didn't like. Idk why I feel compelled to write one of these despite this being Resident Evil fanfic, but I figured I'd cover my ass just in case.
Summary:
Now, I’m sure everyone already knows the ancient tales that tell of a beautiful young woman slowly falling in love with a horrific monstrosity of a man. The pure and true love this innocent beauty comes to feel for him, despite his terrifying appearance, is the key that breaks the cruel and twisted curse under which he’d been kept prisoner. This allows the man behind the monster to not only return to his true human form, but then go on to live his Happily Ever After with the beauty who saved him. Everyone already knows of these tales, as well as the messages behind them, however that is not quite the way this particular tale plays out.
The tale I am about to tell bears many similarities to the one above, however there are also quite a few important differences. For while the original detailed a beauty falling for a monster because of the kind and loving man he was behind his hideous exterior, this is a tale of a beauty, with a few monstrous qualities of her own, falling in love with a kind and loving monster, not at all despite his grotesque appearance, but rather, in part, because of it.
This is a tale, where the Beast still falls for his Beauty first, but the Beauty is the one who will be pursuing her Beast.
Chapter 1: Mother's Gift
Few of those who lived isolated from the outer world, high up in the mountains of Romania, would expect anyone of reasonable sanity to be out traveling in this hellish sort of weather. The wind howling a demonic high pitched tune; snow, sleet, and hail pounding into the ground like an endless shower of bullets from the heavens; and hungry lycans still roaming the area, tirelessly looking for their next meal, would be enough to incentivize even the strongest of mortal men to seek shelter away from the deadly conditions of the outside.
A man by the name of Salvatore Moreau however, one of the 4 lords of this mountain region who lived in the reservoir just past the windmills, did not appear terribly concerned with what other people thought of the traveling conditions. Completely unbothered by the horrifying weather and threat of suddenly being ground into doggy food, the hooded man trudged his way through the dark and barely maintained snow paths. Starting at the reservoir and making his way toward the village, Salvatore moved as quickly as his deformed body would permit, an unusually chipper spring added to his lumbering hobble of a walk.
Mother had a gift for him.
Yes, a truly joyous day it was whenever Mother Miranda called upon him to join her and the other lords for a meeting. Miranda was usually so busy with her experiments that she rarely had time to visit her children outside of these ‘family meetings’ they’d been having recently. However, it would appear as though Mother has come up with a solution of some kind to this problem and wishes to share it with them in person. Whatever this solution is, the mutated man has no idea, as Mother Miranda had been quite vague in her message, however the fact that Salvatore was being given the chance to see his radiant mother AND receive a gift from her, all in one day, was more than enough to make up for how agonizingly lonely he’s been these last few months since winter set in, as well as how agonizing it was for him to walk in this weather.
Salvatore arrived at the usual meeting site just as the clock struck 8pm, precisely as Mother had instructed. However, much to the hooded man’s confusion, when he turned the handle on the large wooden door to enter the room, he quickly realized that he was currently the only one present. This was especially strange considering that, usually, at least one of his siblings was always present a little earlier than necessary, usually Alcina or Karl, but occasionally Donna with Angie in tow.
Mother had clearly said in her message that she wanted to start the meeting at 8pm sharply, so where on earth is everyone?
“Moreau” Mother Miranda’s voice called out, immediately pushing all thoughts from Salvatore’s brain as her powerful, yet lucious voice echoed against the halls of the room like a choir of angels.
“Y-yes! W-what… is it… M-mother Miranda? I-i-i came to you… j-just like you asked” Salvatore responds, bowing his head in reverence as he slowly crosses the room and approaches the otherworldly woman.
“So you did, though I suppose you coming exactly when I call makes the most sense. You always were the most obedient of my children” the woman remarks with casual disdain, her voice devoid of any sort of motherly affection or tenderness. Despite the clear disgust and disregard with which Miranda regards the hooded man standing before her, her words light Salvatore’s soul ablaze, filling his mangled body with intense feelings of heat and desire that melt his heart of the cold, icy frost that had frozen it over the course of the long winter.
“Y-y-yes, y-yes of c-course, Mother M-Miranda! I-i would… I would do any-anything... for y-you. A-anything you s-say... anything y-you n-need… I’d d-do it... f-for you. W-without question!” The deformed man says, practically getting on his hands and knees and crawling as he neared closer and closer to Miranda, stopping only when he’d arrived just in front of the steps the raven mother stood upon, his gaze trained at the ground as he knelt at her feet, awaiting his fate at his mother’s hands.
“I know you would, Moreau,” Miranda says cooly, gently brushing the palm of her hand against the black fabric that covers the top of Salvatore’s head, “which is why I’ve called you here today; to reward you for your loyalty and service to me thus far.”
Salvatore sinks sharp and jagged teeth into the flesh of his bottom lip, nearly drawing blood as he desperately tries to silence the needy whine that wanted to tear its way from the back of his throat. His body shivered and twitched in unimaginable delight from the sudden tender caress to his sensitive skin. How long had it been since someone had touched him so gently? How long since someone had spoken to him with such kind and soft words. Took the time to gather presents as a reward for years of faithful servitude? How long since someone had loved him like this?
‘Too long’ the disfigured man sighed to himself, reveling in the soft, gentle contact for as long as he is able.
“Moreau. Look at me” Miranda commanded firmly, and despite not wanting his beloved Mother to be forced to bear witness to his hideous face, he complied, lifting his head up and back to allow his gaze to lift from the floor and up at the glowing figure that was his Mother, his beautiful, incredible, intelligent, majestic mother.
The light shining down from above illuminates Miranda from behind. From Salvatore’s perspective on the floor, the light darkens her face and most of her torso and waist, giving a softened, almost ethereal glow around Miranda’s figure. This, along with the rest of her garb, makes Mother Miranda appear even more like the holy woman that Salvatore naively believes she still is. Despite her less than affectionate treatment of him thus far, Salvatore still stared up at the darkened face of Mother Miranda, his eyes shining with reverence, love, desire, and unending devotion.
“Y-yes... Mother?” Salvatore breathed, barely able to speak above a whisper as Miranda stepped away, gesturing for him to follow.
“Are you ready to collect your gift now?” The raven mother asks, speaking more softly than before and even holding her hand out to Salvatore, her pose and appearance mirroring that of a powerful god taking mercy upon her wretched follower, reaching out to reward the years of faithful servitude and worship.
Salvatore, barely able to keep himself calm as he stumbled to his feet, did not grace Mother Miranda’s question with a proper response, instead practically racing to take the woman’s outstretched hand in his own.
“I’m ready Mother… I-I’m ready for... my g-gift now… can I… c-can I have it n-now… p-please?” Salvatore begs, pulling at Miranda’s hand like an overly excited child, seemingly unaware of the disgusted twist of her face when the hooded man’s cold, slimy fingers firmly latched onto hers.
“Of course, my child” Mother Miranda says, pulling her hand back from Salvatore’s and instead placing it along the man’s hunched back, beginning to guide him to wherever it was the raven mother had hidden his gift.
As Salvatore limped next to Mother Miranda, the deformed man couldn’t help but wonder what exactly it was that Mother had gotten for him. Was it a new cloak, to replace the worn one he was currently wearing? Perhaps a new set of romance films so he didn’t have to rewatch the ones he already owned over and over again anymore? Or maybe it was something to help with his digestion?
It would be nice to get his chronic acid reflux under control again.
Regardless of what the gift actually turned out to be however, Salvatore was merely pleased that he was finally getting a chance to spend time with Mother Miranda all by himself for a change.
Maybe, if he was lucky, she’d even agree to hold him, just like she always did back when he was still undergoing cadou treatment.
Oh how wonderful that would be!
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musicallisto · 3 years
Text
⚔ — 𝐛𝐞𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐮𝐥 𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐥; (tyrion lannister x f!reader)
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@multifandomfix​​ requested: Hey, for your start of the year event, could I get #44 with Tyrion Lannister, please? Thanks in advance if you end up choosing it. I hope 2021 will be a great year for you. 😊
song: bazzi - beautiful | 𝄞
summary: How could he tell you it was all his fault - that he had loved you to pieces since the stars had taken their first breath, and that Tywin’s revenge on him was to make you suffer while he was powerless?
author notes: I ain’t never seen a fluffy one-shot written by me, always half of it gotta be depressing
word count: 2.7k (what the HELL)
warnings: language + the typical stuff that’s commonplace in GoT
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𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐍 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐖𝐄𝐑𝐄 younger, young enough to hear her speak freely around you, you’d often heard the illustrious Cersei Lannister, blessed may her reign be, mutter her implacable adage through slit eyes and arrogant teeth; in Westeros, when one played the game of thrones, they were either crowned or buried. Some win and some die, she’d state with a smug grin, ignoring Jaime rolling his eyes right by her. You would always nod in silence; partly because you, lesser Lady of King’s Landing, certainly did not dare to contradict your most redoubtable playmate; but also because, deep down, you believed in her truths. You’d seen it when your father came back from his battles, commanding the Crown’s armies across the Southern seas, or when you heard the whispers at Court of yet another fallen Lord who believed he could play with fire like the Targaryens; there was little more than victors and vanquished, and you, as a lady-in-waiting to the future Queen, could sleep easy at night knowing you were on the right side of the world.
Yet when the rebellion led by your father’s army of mutineers was crushed by the King’s forces, when your brothers all fled into exile across the continent; when your title, name, and lands became those of a traitor to the Crown; you understood that in the game of thrones, death was the only blessing the powerful bestowed when they were clement; for there was far crueler and harrowing a punishment than torture: humiliation and servitude.
King Robert Baratheon, his mercy guided by Tywin Lannister’s murmurs, decided against sending you to death as he would have any of your brothers, despite the abject crimes your name now carried. In all his bonhomie, he had made you a servant of his wife instead, perpetually condemned to following the Lannisters around and never quite catching up to them.
“Why did the King spare my life?” you had asked Jaime one time, in hushed tones, aware that a servant caught talking to the Kingslayer with such familiarity would cause quite the scandal.
“Probably because he knows you were always a dear friend to Cersei and me.”
That was Jaime, as always; believing what he wanted to believe, and damned would be the one who’d change his mind. And to think he still thought, with a disconcerting assurance, that Cersei and you were still dear friends...
You hadn’t asked her why you were still alive. You knew she’d eye you for a moment, then order you to fetch her some water. She savored the sight of you in rugged clothes and immensely exhausted.
The only one who knew was Tyrion.
He always knew everything.
Even more so when it was about you.
“Why did the King spare my life?” you had asked him one evening, in the quiet banquet hall, only illuminated by flickering candles. He had looked up from his chalice of wine and at you, clearing the last dishes from the grand supper, and he swore his heart ruptured. He loved nothing more than staying absurdly late after dinner so he could catch you alone, but when your misty eyes, still too pure and bright for a world so cold, asked such unfathomable questions...
“I don’t know,” he had muttered casually.
Neither of you believed it. There was nothing Tyrion didn’t know.
But how could he tell you it was Tywin’s sick little pleasure, to keep you in chains at an arm’s length from him, from his embarrassment of a son? How could he tell you it was all his fault - that he had loved you to pieces since the stars had taken their first breath, and that Tywin’s revenge on him was to make you suffer while he was powerless?
“Sometimes I wish he had not,” you had confessed with this outrageous beauty of yours, chin up and prosody of a dame despite the greasy plates in your elegant hands.
Tyrion had bitten his tongue hard enough to draw blood. You were not the King’s prisoner, nor the castle’s, nor your family name’s; you were his, and he loved you so ardently, beyond all the words he knew, that he was utterly paralyzed.
The wine and hall were long cold by the time he went to sleep that night.
The following days, inexplicably, Tyrion was the first of the family to retire to his quarters after dinner. A pang of sullenness stung your throat when you brought the usual wine cup to an empty chair. Never before had he gone to bed without wishing you goodnight. Not since the night, so many years before, when you had run out on Cersei and Jaime to stay with their boring and lame little brother and talk the night away with his electric soul...
“Why didn’t Tyrion wait for you?” Jaime had whispered into your ear as you leaned over to pour him more wine.
You froze, almost long enough for Cersei to flair your discomfort. That was Jaime, as always; surprisingly perceptive when he allowed himself to be...
“I don’t know.”
You and Tyrion were so alike. You had the same inflection in the voice when you admitted to not knowing something... frustration and defeat.
“Maybe he’s not feeling well. You should check on him.”
“I’m certain he is f—”
“Y/N, go tend to my brother, please,” he cut, his voice a little louder.
You stopped, looking at Jaime, strong and tall and almost imperturbable. You were a servant of the Lannisters, but Jaime rarely bossed you around. You looked deep into his eyes, looking for a hint, a glimpse... and found it; a remnant of the boy you once knew, the childhood friend you sparred with wooden swords with. The boy with mischief and connivance.
“Yes, of course, my Lord.”
Your footsteps already echoed in the somber halls when you remembered you hadn’t even brought the wine pitcher back to the kitchens.
Before you knew it, you were standing in front of Tyrion’s closed door. Years before, you had run up and down all the castle halls in search of passageways and hiding spots with a giggling Cersei on tow; yet you had never felt as lost and out of place as you did then, knuckles hovering over the wooden panel.
“Lord Tyrion, your brother asks to see you,” you called in one breath after knocking sharply. Calling the twins by their titles was disturbing enough to you; but Tyrion, brilliant and dedicated Tyrion, Tyrion you'd find reading hidden in the library and who'd blush when you asked him what his book was about—Tyrion, a Lord of Casterly Rock?
“No, he does not.”
There was nothing he didn't know. Especially when it came to his brother... and you.
“I...,” you sighed, at a loss for words. So many untold truths jostled in your throat, none eloquent enough for his bright soul. “He insisted I check up on you, sir.”
“Well I'm fine, am I not? You can go now.”
His words echoed in your skull with the strength of a thousand storms. Taking a shaky breath, you prepared to turn around and leave him... but a sudden force rumbled deep in you like a menacing earthquake. You might have been stripped of your lands and rights, you might bear the name of a traitor and a criminal, but he had been a general before he was a corpse and you had been an eldest daughter before you were a plaything. Your foot grazed the door, almost with too much violence, when you turned to face it.
“Truth be told, I wanted to check up on you as well, and to tell you that I’m bewildered at your recent behavior towards me, and that I don’t think I have done anything to deserve this shift in your attitude, and that I esteem you dearly and dared to hope that it was the same for you, and that I am frankly hurt by your sudden coldness, and that if you will not deign to tell me whatever is happening, then I will merely wish you a pleasant night and disturb you no further. Sir.”
Catching your breath, you turned on your heels before you could regret any of the words you’d just said. It would be a miracle if Tyrion managed to catch any of them clearly with how fast you had hammered them; let alone answer to them... yet as you were about to leave, the door was unbolted, and there stood a seemingly somber and preoccupied Tyrion.
“Come on in. And please, we’re alone. Don’t give me any of that “sir” crap, I know you hate it.”
And like so many times, so many years before, you stepped into Tyrion’s quarters like inside a forbidden dungeon, but it all seemed twice as small and dark as it did when you were reckless children.
The both of you remained silent for long moments, even after he had motioned for you to take a seat on the ottoman at the foot of his bed; the shadows from the fireplace projected onto his face made Tyrion’s unmoving silhouette all the more unreadable.
“Is it something I’ve done?”
“Do you wish to know why the King didn’t have your head when your father rebelled? Well — why my father didn’t?”
Your eyes widened for a split second, but your irritation barely subsided. For some reason, despite your never-ending quest for answers, the subject of your family’s treason and fate always prompted you to defensiveness when it was mentioned by others... especially by your best friend. The one who knew too much.
“What does this have to do with anything, Tyrion?”
“Everything, Y/N. It has to do with everything.”
“Enlighten me, then. You always know better than everyone else.”
Tyrion took a deep, interminable breath before continuing. It was only then that you noticed how shaky his hands were; for the first time, you read a disconcerting uncertainty on his face.
“My father knows humiliation is far worse than death, especially among Lords... and he knows how to take the most pleasant acts of revenge on his enemies. Your last name... and myself.”
You kept quiet. The puzzle was starting to piece itself together, spurred by Tyrion’s voice, low and even, albeit a little unsteady — as though the charred logs and crackling fire were confiding in you themselves...
“He’s known you since you were an infant. You were always proud and righteous, a proper Lady and a treasure to your name, but still pure and kind... all the traits I adored in you when I first met you. He knew nothing would hurt you more than stripping you of everything you had - status, respect, poise, and dignity... and your friends. He’s burying your family’s legacy under grime and filth and savoring every second of it...”
His words became progressively spaced, as though he was choosing them carefully. You hadn’t yet noticed your own hands were shaking now, too.
“And he can screw me over as well. Any chance he gets, he takes.”
His shoulders were solid and unmoving, but his words came in ragged breaths and laborious swallowing. He took a step forward, finally breaking free from the backlighting of the fireplace; his eyes were fixated on you, resolute and, despite the nervousness, more tender than ever. You remembered the expression all too well; it was the one he had worn all through the night you had talked until daylight about anything and everything... and seeing the enamored child in the man before you, you started to understand it all.
“He’s always known how much I care about you. How your presence never fails to lighten my mood and ease my worries, or how I’ve always looked for excuses to talk to you alone and catch your eye at supper. Most of all, how you’ve always given me exactly what I wanted... a chance. And he always thought it was the ultimate example of my weakness. To kick you around like an animal when I can’t do anything about it and know it’s all partly because of me is his favorite game...”
You clasped your hands together on your lap to curb your agitation. He had taken another step towards you, and you couldn’t break away from his gaze. Each of his features held more love than you’d ever known; more than when your father would ruffle your hair, or when you’d share your family tart with your brothers and smeared all the jam on their cheeks; and you couldn’t fathom how long it had taken you to discover this warm and fuzzy feeling you got whenever Tyrion was around had a simple name: home.
“Tyrion,” you spoke before the tears invaded your eyes. “Are you saying you fancy me?”
“Ah, to hell with it.”
Eyes entirely bathed in light now, he responded almost immediately and clearer than before.
“I’m saying I love you, Y/N, and that I have loved you for as long as I can remember. I first thought that I only liked your company, and admired your grace — that you were just the sister I wish I’d had, but I’ve had to face the fact that your face and voice set me afire in a way that nothing else can. I’m light and naive when you’re around... and you make me believe I have the strength they all won’t stop blabbering about. But I thought that if I could convince my father I saw nothing more in you than a whore like all the others, he would maybe let you go... maybe set you free.”
And the last confession seemed to hurt him more than everything else he had admitted that night, because it cut him right in his pride.
“I was wrong.”
An impossible soreness had taken over your throat during Tyrion's tirade, leaving you struck and mute. For a few seconds, all you could hear was the gentle hooting of the wind outside and the rapid and disjointed thumping of your heart... when you spoke eventually, it was but a hoarse whisper.
“All these years...”
“Yes.”
“And all those girls I had to see you with...”
“None of them mattered. None of them were you.”
“Why didn't you tell me, Tyrion?”
“Why would I?” he puffed with an acerbic laugh, gesturing at his frame, his scars, his cynicism and selfishness, and his wit and brilliant mind and feverish eloquence and golden eyes...
And suddenly your father's voice echoed in your head, unmistakable yet so distant, as he had spoken to you one day when you were little; he had said that angels existed in this world, closer than one might expect, and more often than not they took on unexpected forms, but once could always recognize them as they were the shiniest forces in the world around when everything was grim and black.
Maybe it was the dim lighting of the fire and moonlight that cast abstract shadows on the walls, or maybe your eyes and heart playing tricks on you, but you swore Tyrion was veiled by a pulsating halo, gold and black, that got even more radiant as he half-smiled.
When you leaned over and kissed him, you did not doubt that he truly was the angel your family tales had told you about, and maybe the only remaining angel in Westeros — because kissing him was like every star in the sky falling into place and forming new constellations, and when he grabbed your face to deepen the kiss, you were certain you felt his wings rustle.
“You have the most beautiful soul in this damn city, Tyrion,” you breathed when you finally pulled back.
Had he always looked at you with this unshakeable air of triumph and delight, or was it another trick of the light?
“If you knew how long I've waited to tell you how beautiful you are...”
“Tell me. Over and over.”
There was a smile on his face, the first genuine and devilishly charming one you'd seen in weeks when he stepped back and closed the velvet curtains.
He told you all night.
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tagging; @fives-cup-of-coffee ​ @softeninglooks ​(all my writing)
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mistabullets · 4 years
Note
i also want alucard to rail me ! could i perhaps suggest,,, alucard with a chubby s/o,,, as wholesome or nasty as you desire
A Taste of You
Characters: Alucard | Adrian Tepes x Reader
Word Count: 1.7k
Summary: Alucard decides to show his love for you.
Content Warning: n/s/f/w, afab reader but neutral pronouns, chubby reader, virgin reader, reader is a witch, vaginal finger, slight blood drinking (he just accidentally nip your lips), slight virginity and corruption kink (???), and post season 3 but it’s quite fluffy so don’t worry
Note: There wasn’t any railing involved but you gave me a reason to write some indulgent smut with Alucard and for that, I appreciate you. 
Not SFW under cut ; 
You let out a quiet gasp when the dhampir’s careful lips meet the warm skin from the column of your neck, tensing slightly as it sends tingles down your spine. He laughs at your small reaction, finding it adorable; a lithe hand running down your side to ease the fluttering anxiety and reel you into his ghost kisses. “Relax, my dear… I just want to make you feel good.”
Considerate as always, you think, despite the growing erection brushing up against one of your thick thighs. He must feel uncomfortable to a degree since he is still in his trousers.
How odd it is, that fate led you to him.
You were a mere witch, hopping from town to town but never staying too long in fear that some close-minded individual would suspect your magical ability and report you to the church officials. However, the last particular town found out too soon of your sorcery. Before anyone could act and drag you to a stake to be tied up and burned, you packed your belongings and ran into the forests. You heard from the townsfolk how dangerous it was to roam those woods, especially at nighttime, that a particular vampire lived within the heart of it. However, you reasoned it must be some myth to scare the children or just something to make this dreadful town more interesting and have something to talk about.
Yet deeper into the greenwoods, the lingering smell of decaying death met your nostril. Again, you rationalized - this was the territory of wildlife. Perhaps it was a deer carcass nearby. Who knows? Now wasn’t the time to fret, as you heard voices bounce and echo from the trees, too far away but you could certainly pick up some words: witch, find, and a few curses. Without properly analyzing your surroundings, you picked up the pace, not considering directions and ignoring the fact the putrid scent grew stronger the further you went.
You were stopped in your tracks by a blur of red and a thunk to your head. Before the waves of unconsciousness dazed you, you caught a brief glimpse of golden locks and a pale figure. Perhaps the villagers had gotten you; perhaps this was your angel to guide you toward heaven. But can a witch such as yourself go to heaven, especially if you dabbled in the dark arts?
Well, considering where you are, beneath a beautiful man who carried a merciful soul that you did not deserve… this is the closest to any celestial afterlife you’ll ever be. It took months, perhaps even a year, to mend the wounds of his heart. You recall the first couple months here, living behind the closed doors of Castlevania. Alucard, who happened to be dhampir son of the late Dracula, wasn’t too enthusiastic about allowing another soul to inhabit, especially after being alone for nearly half a year. While you were polite to never ask questions, you eventually put two and two together upon catching a glimpse of the scar, from recent times, forever ingrained into his porcelain skin. No wonder he longed for some privacy. For they were a reminder of loss and betrayal, the day when he saw humanity’s corruption.
And while he’ll never fully forget the sin they committed, he came to realize his lapse of judgment. It stemmed from the unmerited tribulation - he was quick to close off his heart, not properly allowing himself grief, to process the trauma he’s been through.
But seeing how you still forgive the humans and long to aid them, despite them killing your coven, gradually made him realize how foolish he has been. He was reminded of his mother’s wisdom; how she was willing to be scrutinized by the church if it meant she could help others and spread her nurturing knowledge. You were willing to help those in need, despite the hardships humanity has gifted you. While it certainly took time, he was beginning to open his heart to you… and in return, you were showing him your vulnerability, culminating into this moment: you and Alucard, glowing under the moonlight, exploring each other’s bodies like new lands.
He kisses your plush lips again, mindful of his incisors. His hands find your plump breasts, giving them an experimental squeeze, relishing in the breathless gasp your voice elicits. Adrian withdraws himself from your mouth, savoring the taste of your lips; he wants to smother them, hear the symphony he can pull from you, but he wants to drink in your blushing form and the plush curves of your flesh against his muscled figure. The dhampir sees you as a goddess undeserving of him yet here you are, sprawled out and waiting for his next move. You find yourself more flustered than before, small and fragile beneath his resplendent eyes. His visage softens, noticing the doubt casting your lovely face. Adrian leans back down, resting his head against the middle of your breasts, the blood rushing through your veins sounding delicious. But oh, while your blood may be sweet, he wants to try the appetizers first.
“God, you are the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen,” he declares, lips peppering kisses on one of your breasts before finding a nipple to feast on. A shaky moan leaves your lips, your hands find themselves in his hair. Alucard makes sure to give each of your pert buds attention; suckling them in between his lips and gently pinching the sensitive skin with his lithe fingers. Your mind is swirling - how painful the virginal heat is between your legs, how merciful yet ruthless his touch is, how patient this angelic man is despite his own carnal desire, and how you love it and you love him. He allows your breasts to rest from the overstimulation; kisses explore your collarbone and neck while a curious hand searches for the heat radiating at the apex of your thighs. You whimper please at the feel of his hand against your now damp undergarment and your lover can’t help but chuckle at your eagerness. “Patience, my love.”
He rewards you a kiss, brushing strands of your hair away from your forehead. Your face is burning from how intently the dhampir observes each time your visage twists in newfound pleasure. A finger rubs up against your clothed slit, wishing to draw out more of your juices and lewd noises. “A-Adrian, please… t-touch me, please.”
“I am, my treasure,” he teases with amusement.
You whine, exasperated, and Alucard gives a playful grin. He understands what you mean but it’s fun to tease. Looking into your blown-out pupils, he asks for silent permission and you already know what he wants. You awkwardly lift up your hips so he can pull down your undergarments with ease. Once off, his fingers make contact with your naked mound, collecting the slick pooling from your heart and down your thighs. You’re eager to spread your legs further apart, allowing him access to more. He sighs, pride swelling how he is able to make you fall apart so quickly. After some painful slow strokes of your exposed slit, Alucard’s finger experimentally rubs your bundle of nerves, relishing in the moan of his name and how desperate yet demure it rings. Finding the entrance to your maidenhood with ease, he easily slips his index finger and god, that wail sounds ethereal. The dhampir sees how your entire form is quivering, from the tension and nerves, and he’s quick to litter your body with kisses and lovebites to distract your melting brain. You giggle a bit when a strand of his golden locks brushes against a ticklish spot and he’s glad to know you’re easing into his touch.
Adrian tentatively curls his finger in a come here motion - and after a few strokes, he finds that spot that makes your toes curl and makes you moan even louder. Your mind is foggy but you’re feeling confident, enjoying the way your lover is making you come undone - you plead for more. And so he adds another digit to your tight heat and repeats the same motion and experimenting more; scissoring your insides, burying his digits to the knuckle, and alternating these motions. You’re almost at the peak, he sees - with how your moans grow in volume, you’re bucking into his touch, and your e/c eyes swim in lust and adoration. His fingers pick up the pace, drinking in your divine image: soft and thick thighs spreading out more, lightning shape stretch marks adorning your cute belly and hips, and your chubby face contorting in the madness of pleasure as you imagine what his cock would feel like inside of you.
Wishing to relinquish you of this torture, he presses his thumb up against your clit and you’re seeing stars speckle your vision as strange pressure builds higher and higher to the cliff of your undoing. “A-Adrian, i-it’s too much! I-I’m going to, a-ahh--!”
Alucard rubs faster and harsher and thrust his fingers deeper - like he wants to feel every inch of the textured insides of your pussy. His forehead comes to rest on yours to admire your hungry eyes. Before you tumble from your peak, his lips crash against yours to consume the lovely noises, desperate and needy, and he accidentally bites your lips; but god, is your blood even sweeter in the glow of your climax. You didn’t even realize he’s grinding his groin against the mattress, too caught up the new sensation of Adrian’s fingers fucking your womanhood. If you could read minds, could you handle the extent of his ardor for you, a bashful witch? After seeing you wonderfully fall from your summit, Adrian truly believes he would die if he didn’t have more of you, if he couldn’t hear more of those needy keens, if he couldn’t pound you into oblivion, if he couldn’t--
His focus shifts from his lewd imagination to your glowing visage. From the dazed glisten of your eyes and the soft smile plastering your blood-smeared lips, Adrian could wait. Carefully, he pulls his fingers out of your sopping core, curiously bringing them up to his lips and lapping up the juices (much to your embarrassment), Alucard can’t help but laugh at your burning red face, planting his lips against yours and drinking up the remaining blood (the metallic taste of it combined with your juices made for a good combo).
“Do you need a break before we get to the main course, my beloved?”
He smiles at your cute face, steam particularly coming out of your ears.
But he smiles wider when you say no.
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loveinterestcastiel · 3 years
Text
sursum corda
Part one of a new canon divergent series, “A Sacrament to Be Taken Kneeling”
Summary: the opening dialogue to the eucharistic prayer, or anaphora, translated to english means “lift up your hearts”, and is the beginning of a devout worshipper’s holy communion with god
Canon divergent from 6x22, this one is rated M for religious blasphemy, power dynamics, and mature subject matter (later installments will be rated E for violence, sexual content, and graphic depictions of blood). Honestly this is just a fucked up exploration of the catholicnatural that could have been if the spn writers hadn’t been cowards and had instead really leaned into the whole Godstiel thing, and his dynamic with Dean. I’m going to hell for this and you know what? That’s just fine with me.
It can be read here or in AO3! Enjoy <3
Castiel was brighter than the sun, and he was beautiful. He was the most terrifying thing Dean had ever seen, because somewhere in there, he could still see Cas, the old Cas. He let Crowley go. Dean was going to kill that demon, but- later. Later, when they got out of here and got Sammy put back together.
Then Castiel blew Raphael up with nothing more than a snap of his fingers, and their most formidable adversary, after all these months, was suddenly just a bloody smear on the wall. The last Apocalyptic threat, gone, just like that, leaving Dean and Bobby alone with a Cas-gone-nuclear.
They were so, so fucked.
Cas looked over to Dean, his face softening incrementally but still distinctly smug.
"So you see," he said, turning away from Dean and moving as if to inspect his explosive handiwork, "I saved you."
Dean Winchester is saved.
“You sure did, Cas,” Dean said faintly, drifting further into Cas’s orbit as if somehow compelled. Castiel didn’t acknowledge him, keeping his back turned, his spine ramrod straight. Damage control. Holy fucking shit, damage control right now. “Thank you.”
“You doubted me. Fought against me.” He slowly turned to face Dean, a mockery of their first meeting in that rundown barn years ago, tilting his head the same way, his blue eyes the same limitless color and just as mesmerizing, but somehow about a million times more unsettling. “But I was right all along.”
Dean’s stomach swooped. “Okay, Cas, you were. We’re sorry,” he added quickly, his breath shallow and shaky. “Now let’s just defuse you, okay?” he suggested, the words cumbersome and heavy in his mouth.
Cas narrowed his eyes almost imperceptibly before relaxing again. “What do you mean?” he asked icily.
Dean forged on desperately. “You’re full of nuke. It’s not safe, so before the eclipse ends, let’s get them souls back to where they belong.” Oh, he felt like he was going to be sick. Please, Cas, please just listen to me…
“Oh, no, they belong with me,” Cas countered, his tone almost patronizing, like he was speaking to a child.
“No, Cas,” Dean interrupted before his brain or his fear could catch up to him. “It’s- it’s scrambling your brain.”
“No, I’m not finished yet,” he said firmly, with the ghost of a cold smile tugging on his features. “Raphael had many followers, and I must-” Cas paused, choosing his words, “punish them all severely,” he finished deliberately.
Bobby’s eyes darted over to Dean. He was visibly horrified.
Okay. One last effort. Okay.
Dean shoved down his fear and tried again. “Listen to me.” He stepped closer to Cas, swallowing hard as his voice fought to stick in his throat and looking steadily into his eyes. “Listen- I know there’s a lot of bad water under the bridge. But we were family, once,” he pleaded. “I’d have died for you. I almost did a few times.” Castiel’s face remained impassive but Dean continued. “So if that means anything to you- please,” he begged, abandoning his pride. “I’ve lost Lisa, I’ve lost Ben, and now I’ve lost Sam. Don’t make me lose you too.”
Castiel wrenched his eyes away from Dean’s and cast his gaze down to the floor between them. Was he considering it?
“You don’t need this kind of juice anymore, Cas,” he tried to reason. “Get rid of it before it kills us all.”
A beat.
“You’re just saying that because I won,” Cas mused, raising his gaze back up to look at Dean again, pinning him there like a specimen under a microscope. “Because you’re afraid . You’re not my family, Dean,” he said, closing the remaining distance between them until he stood less than an arm’s reach away, positively radiating power, the air vibrating with it. “You’re just… human.”
His eyes lingered on Dean’s face, tracing his freckles, his eyelashes. Whatever he was looking for, he didn’t seem to find it. Castiel’s face hardened into stone, his next words iron. “I have no family.”
The words rang in Dean’s ears, banging about his brain and battering it into despair. It felt like a small death, his heart pulling on his ribs as he floundered for a new angle to pursue.
And then Sam was there, behind Castiel, and he just stabbed him with an angel blade, and Cas was swaying just a bit with the blade still stuck in his back as Sam gasped for air behind him, clearly distressed and stumbling backwards.
Dean froze, horrified.
What the FUCK were you thinking, Sam?
But- oh. Oh god.
Cas wasn’t dead. It didn’t work. His brain buzzed blankly with a static-y sensation of bewilderment as Cas reached around himself and pulled out the blade- shiny, clean, utterly free of blood- with an alarming squelching noise.
"I'm glad you made it, Sam," Cas said in a distressingly level voice, placing the newly-extricated angel blade on the table in front of him before turning to glance at Sam. “But the angel blade won’t work, because I’m not an angel anymore,” he said, matter-of-fact as could be, as if he hadn’t just dropped yet another massive bomb on their lives. Sam looked to Bobby, his eyes wide, and Bobby shrugged back minutely, similarly floored.
Look at me, Cas, leave Sammy alone, you’ve done enough-
As if he heard Dean’s thoughts- fuck, was he praying?- Castiel turned back to Dean and met his eyes. “I’m your new God,” he said, with an air of authority and immense self-satisfaction permeating his words. “A better one. So you will bow down and profess your love unto me, your Lord. Or I shall destroy you.”
Bobby’s eyes widened in the periphery of Dean’s vision as time seemed to swirl and slow down to a crawl- clearly, he hadn’t expected this either.
Sammy was strung out and swaying on his feet behind Cas, his eyes darting and rolling over the room as he rode out the hellish things that tormented him in his head, seemingly incapable of reacting to the gravity of the situation as what Cas had done put him out of his mind with fear.
In the span of a heartbeat, Dean made his choice. He had no choice.
He fell to his knees.
The crack of bone on hard tile was near agony. His gun clattered uselessly to the ground beside him as he shifted his gaze to land somewhere around the hem of Castiel’s coat. He couldn’t look at his face. Couldn’t meet his eyes. It was almost impossible to believe the terrifying figure before him was once his closest friend, and had saved him from Heaven and Hell alike before he had turned into whatever this was.
His throat was dry. He forced himself to swallow, drawing his tongue over his bottom lip as he tried to find the right words.
Bobby started to kneel, too. Survival instincts, probably. He’d have never gotten this old without them, anyway.
“My lord,” he began hesitantly.
The new God waved his hand dismissively at the title. “Castiel.”
“Castiel,” Dean corrected himself. Great start, you fuck up. “Cas, I swore my obedience to Heaven, once. To God, and his angels. To you,” his voice cracked as he risked a glance at the former angel. His eyes were like fire. Glowing. Unreal.
Bobby interrupted: “Dean, no-”
But Castiel snapped up a hand, palm out, and Bobby’s mouth moved, but no sound came out. “You will be silent,” Castiel ordered, his eyes never leaving Dean. He looked intrigued by Dean’s sudden compliance and admission. “I’d like to hear what you have to say, Dean. What can you possibly say to justify your lack of faith in me up until now? I could have cast you back into the pit, and Sam, too, had I not done this, all of it, for you.”
“I know you did, Cas,” Dean said. “Thank you. I- thank you. You were right, about everything, and I should have listened to you. I was wrong. I should have trusted you.” The words tasted like poison in his mouth. A part of him meant it. A part of him was just desperate enough to say anything. The rest of him wanted to see the cold monster in front of him dead. But how could he turn back now, without sentencing them all to death? If he played his cards right, he might even be able to save Castiel. Surely if he could get him to let go of those souls, he’d start to see reason, would be Cas again. But he was getting ahead of himself. Gotta think a little more short-term, right now. Band-aids and duct tape, not trauma surgery.
“I was blind,” Dean said, “and proud. I took you for granted, and I can do better. Be better. For- for you.”
He had never felt so weak. Groveling to his dad was different. He was his dad’s son, sure, but there was no love there. It was all survival, clinical, even his rage and his fists when Dean didn’t do enough to earn his mercy were detached. Duty and discipline and disappointment. This was different. It was hot with near-tears, messy and filled with grief for a man who wasn’t even dead. He wasn’t lying earlier when he told Cas he was like a brother to him. It was the closest comparison he had for what the angel was to his heart. He had never needed anyone like he needed Castiel- because he wasn’t Sammy, or Bobby, or Lisa, or Ben, or Cassie, or any other category of need. He was just Cas. And Dean wanted him in his life. Or he used to, anyway.
“I don’t know what I can do to make it right between us, Cas,” he said, his throat tightening slightly. “But I want to,” Dean offered, looking down in shame. “I want to be-” he choked out.
“What do you want, Dean?” Castiel asked, taking another step forward, the very picture of authority and control. One more step and Dean could reach out and touch him. The air was electric, heady with power as it positively radiated from his body.
He lifted his head to meet Castiel’s eyes in a pose of supplication, his knees aching, his eyes burning with tears as the situation started to overwhelm him. “I want to be forgiven,” he gasped out. “Cas, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Please forgive us.”
“And Sam’s betrayal?” Castiel inquired, casting new fear into Dean’s heart. “He stabbed me in the back. And he has not knelt as you have. Why should I offer him mercy?” he mused.
“Look at him, Cas,” Dean said quietly. Sam was hunched over on the floor in the corner, holding his head in his hands, rocking slightly into the wall and pushing off of it again in a strange repetitive motion. “He can’t follow any of this. I don’t think he even knows where we are. It’s been getting worse as time passes. He was slightly more coherent an hour ago, but-” Dean shook his head. “I think he was just trying to protect me. I don’t think he even knew who you were, just- saw a threat and tried to take it out.”
Cas made a noncommittal little noise, glancing over to where Sam had retreated.
“Cas,” Dean said, drawing his attention back to himself. “He didn’t know what he was doing. Can you try to forgive him that?” he pleaded as the first tear escaped and ran down his cheek.
“And in return?”
“Anything,” Dean swore. “Just- Cas, please. I’ll do anything. I will, I swear it. Just please help Sammy.”
“It won’t be as easy as you think,” Castiel warned. “I want your trust, Dean. I want the bond we once had, and your submission to my better judgement, untainted by your... fear.” His voice turned hungry, reminiscent of when they worked that killer Cupid case last year and it turned out to be Famine. To be on the receiving end of desire of that magnitude was by turns exhilarating and horrifying. “I want your love.”
“Cas,” Dean said faintly, unable to tear his eyes away from his friend’s face even as Bobby attempted to fight his holy gag order from his place next to him. “I… I’ll try. For you,” he added, trying to add a note or resolve to his voice as his thoughts roared in fear and grappled with the idea, stuck on the precipice of this terrible new unknown he had run up against. But he truly had no choice. Sink or swim.
“I swear, Cas,” he said, raising his hand to his heart, “I’ll try.”
Castiel’s eyes softened. They stopped glowing.
Suddenly, for a moment, he looked just like himself. More than that, he looked heartbreakingly human.
He moved suddenly, sending Dean’s heart sprinting again for what felt like the hundredth time that day.
But he didn’t hurt him. He didn’t hurt Sam, or smite Bobby, or engage in any sort of holy wrath. He just kneeled, in front of Dean, and clasped his clammy hands briefly in his own warm, dry ones before shifting them both to his right hand and raising his right palm to Dean’s cheek, his eyes darting over his features with an air of disbelieving gratitude. It was so...
Castiel had lovely hands, Dean noticed. Strong, soft, and broad, with a gentle grip and long, agile fingers. So different from Dean’s own hands, already scarred from the last few years of wear and tear since his resurrection. Of course, he’d noticed before. Noticed that sort of thing about Castiel, how he used his hands to fight, to pray, to eat and to comfort, how they looked drenched in blood and how they looked at rest. How they looked striking a blow to his own face, and how they looked when he healed him. They were one of a million things Dean knew about him better than he knew himself.
“Oh, Dean,” he said softly, “That’s all I ask of you. Just try. Lift up your heart to me, and I will give you everything.”
Dean inhaled sharply, his chest tight as he leaned into the touch. "It's yours," he breathed out, "It's all yours, Cas."
Castiel smiled, and the world fell away.
Tagging in some people who I think might be interested, just dm me to be added or removed: @castieljew @dependsupon @autisticandroids @sunforgrace @heller-jensen @lateral-org @cactuscas @adhdeancas @icaruscastiel @holmesemrys @evermorecastiel @yana125 @faithcastiel @good-things-do-happen-dean @i-sing-for-me @whatevr-4evr @sonder-stars @jeanne-de-valois
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belit0 · 3 years
Text
Anonymous:
Hey can you do Indra with a partner who's equally power thirsty as he is? (s/o is already strong and absolutely a top)
Power couple goals!
Power couple goals for our King🧙‍♀️
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After trying to kill each other countless times, Indra and [Y/N] finally understood that they could not erase each other’s existence. They are both highly powerful, and for every attack or defense that one presents, the other has an equally strong trump card up the sleeve.
Your life was relatively quiet until you came face to face with the deserter from the Ōtsutsuki clan, who with airs and graces of violence and revenge sought to increase his power at all costs. The problem is that you were looking for the same thing. Your story is different, you were not betrayed by your family, you were not turned away by your village, but the darkness hovers over your soul in the same way.
This is something that you notice in Indra from the first moment that you cross glances. How his only desire is to dominate, to destroy, to conquer, to impose himself. But this is a disadvantage in your plans, because in a world as broken as the one you both live in, there cannot be two rulers over the underdogs.
From your first meeting, you were both destined to try to kill each other. He underestimated you, believing that your power and intelligence would never compare to his, and it was at that moment that he condemned the encounter to an infinite draw.
The village you were in was big, with a largely developed self-sustaining system, a stable place to dominate and make your home, your empire. With determination, you knew that you would stay there, fight any villager or warrior who wanted to challenge your rules and build your much-desired kingdom.
And that’s what you’ve been doing for the past three months. You had found this place by pure chance while walking through the forest, looking for a location where you could rest and recharge your supplies to continue your journey. But just in the same way that you arrived as a terrifying stampede for the helpless village, so did Indra.
The people tried to fight against your orders, in fact, you annihilated almost the entire military unit that the village had. It was a struggle to be heard, you had to repress and punish them all over, but eventually, they dropped their rebellion, giving in to your inevitable command.
When things were going relatively well for you, a suspicious traveler appeared at the entrance to the village, and invaded the settlement carelessly. Killing villagers in the blink of an eye, the very same Indra Ōtsutsuki appeared in your home, attempting to steal everything that was yours.
Of course, you had heard the legends about this man. Myths run as fast as the shooting stars in the sky. But that did not mean that you believed the stories that reached your ears when you were traveling from place to place. If the tongues didn’t lie, this warrior wasn’t someone normal, but someone on your level. You were always smart and learned that underestimating your enemies was the fastest way to dig your own grave, so when Indra demanded to speak to the village leader, you waited and tested his patience.
“If you don’t bring the head of this wretched place here this instant, I will have to get rid of all of you, one by one… the choice is yours.”
Faced with the man’s threat, a desperate villager looked directly in your direction. Hiding among the sea of people watching Indra’s massacre, you listened to his speech. You prayed internally that this villager would not be so foolish as to give away your identity in front of your enemy, but of course, you could not expect much from people so inferior to you.
“[Y/N]-SAMA! PLEASE SAVE US PLEASE THIS MAN IS INSA- ”
Before he could speak any further, you pierced his right eye with a sharp Senbon, thrown towards your victim from a formidable distance. No one noticed the weapon that struck the villager, but of course, Indra was able to track and detect the movements, and when the villager fell dead in front of the crowd, he already had his eyes on you.
A long dark red cape covered you completely, from head to toe. Its hood covered your eyes, preventing your enemy from using his visual powers on you. That was the first thing you noticed when he burst into your village, confirming that the stories about him were real.
“What kind of leader is such a coward enough to hide among those who are the lowest followers… [Y/N]-Sama… I despise you; I should do you a favor and kill you here and now.”
“You should try, Ōtsutsuki Indra. I don’t guarantee your fate, anyway. Take the risk.”
That’s how the first fight between the two happened. It lasted an incalculable amount of time, occupying days, and nights of physical fatigue. The chakra exhaustion attacked the two of you at the same time, signaling the same level of accumulation. On the battlefield, where they had fought vigorously and relentlessly, they collapsed.
By the time you woke up, Indra was sitting next to you, and his intentions felt different. You were no longer detecting homicidal feelings towards you. The man was calm, relaxed in some way. His clothes were torn and dirty, and you assumed that yours were too. You were unable to move your body, as the pain spread mercilessly through all your limbs, so you just watched him.
If for some reason he decided to kill you at that very moment, there would be nothing you could do to prevent it. But instead, he simply stared at you when he heard your groans of bodily pain, and you gazed in confusion at his countenance. The man who fought you seemed to have vanished.
“Why didn’t you kill me? Keeping me alive and watching me die is quite cynical…”
“I have no intention of killing you, not yet. You have proven to be efficient, and you could work in my plans.”
“Your plans… Why would I be interested in participating in them? Just kill me.”
“I’m afraid I won’t do that. I’m proposing an alliance, if you don’t accept, I’ll leave you here on the floor, incapacitated and at your mercy. You know, someone said to me a few days ago ‘You should try Indra, I’m not assuring your luck, anyway. Take the risk’. I don’t assure your luck [Y/N], take the risk”.
“Shut up, you idiot, cocky, annoying, fucking asshole… Did you say days? Has it been days?”
“You know how to fight, but you don’t know how to calculate the time it takes to beat your opponent… too bad, you’re missing points. Are you in or not?”
“What exactly should I do…”
“Help me, to form my clan. Once you conceive my heirs, you are free. Until then, you are bound to comply.”
“You’re crazy to think I’ll help you with that.”
“Very well, then, I will set out again on my journey. It’s a shame about your dreadful village… we killed everyone with our fight and destroyed the land. Good luck surviving.”
“Wait! … Shit… I’ll go with you, but we’ll share the power equally.”
“You think you’re in a position to negotiate? How delusional.”
“Not at this moment, but when you want to impose yourself again, we’ll solve it by fighting.”
“You sound very confident… I accept, but when you have to surrender to me, don’t expect me not to enjoy the victory.”
"Be quiet and help me.”
Abruptly, he stood up as if nothing had happened, and lifted you off the ground with him. Quickly, you were positioned on his shoulder, just like a rag doll. The only thing you could focus on was the painful ways your body bounced with each step from Indra, who showed no compassion for your poor health.
That’s how the two of you started a complicated relationship, which, between fights and provocations, became something addictive that neither of you could give up. Suddenly years had passed since the first encounter, and your days were filled with challenges for power.
Neither of you wanted to give in to the other. You knew that Indra would not abandon you even if you continued to extend the time to conceive his heirs, you could feel it in his soul and see it in his eyes. The Ōtsutsuki had developed a strong attachment to you, love, I would dare to call it, and even if it took a lifetime to form your family, he would never change you for anyone.
So, in the meantime, both of you were playing a little game. Your routine was based on constantly provoking the other, pushing the other to the limit so that the situation would end in an inevitable fight to the death. The funny thing is that, as both maintained the same level of power, there was never a winner. Weeks could pass in a single confrontation, but no one was ever victorious over the other.
For years, the two would travel around the world. With no need to settle in one specific place, terrifying legends about the couple spread throughout the villages and towns, telling how the most powerful partners in history wandered the Earth, looking for power and control to feed on. Your days were joyous as you found a small village to destroy together, delighting in the screams of the villagers, making love over the blood of the murdered people.
Everyone began to fear your presence, escaping the sighting of [Y/N] and Indra, reincarnations of hellish beings.
At some point, Indra became somewhat impatient. Without warning, he began to show the need to find a place to build a real-life for both of you, where he could give birth to his family with you. Without any complaint, you accepted the request and decided that maybe it was time to listen to his desire.
A déjà vu hit you when you found yourself standing in front of the big door of a village, your man next to you, looking straight at the frightened people who were turning pale in front of you both. The satisfaction of power ran through your veins, and from the strong grip Indra held in your hand, you knew he felt the same way.
The Ōtsutsuki began to talk to the villagers, explaining what you both wanted from them, when you felt it necessary to interrupt him and continue with the task yourself.
“We are here to take control of this community. We don’t care who the ruler is, we are both the leaders now. Whoever opposes our supreme authority will perish on the spot. Inform your people of this, for we have come a long way and only wish to rest. When we deem it appropriate, we will announce the changes to come”.
In terror, the people who received you two at the door looked at the floor and nodded their heads. Without saying anything, they slipped inside, carrying out your errands.
One of them guided the two of you towards the main house, where there was privacy.
“I was in charge of the situation [Y/N].”
“Oh honey… I can’t help but think that since you want to start our family you have become a little more… Weak? Soft? I don’t know… I think I’m the only one who still wants to dominate everything around here…”
“It would be unwise to start a fight in the village we just occupied.”
“Are you chickening out? Where is my Indra and what did you do with him, stranger?”
“[Y/N]… you are really getting on my nerves…”
“I’m glad, darling.”
“You know what? If you want to fight so bad, fine, let’s do it. But this time, the rules are different.”
“Well, well, what do we have here? Indra-Sama wants a harder challenge… tell me, with weapons? Without Jutsus? Blindfolded?”
“No dear… I’m not talking about any physical fight you can imagine.”
“So…?”
“Whoever exhausts the other in bed first is the absolute leader of this filthy place. Until our clan rises above the unpleasant people who live here.”
“If I manage to dominate you during our entire fuck, will I be the supreme leader? No tricks, Ōtsutsuki.”
“No tricks, love.”
“Let’s get started.”
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