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sanguine-arena · 2 years

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"crosschecked." | bad things happen bingo, #3

desc: Everyone thinks the PIHL is always going to be safe because wanton violence is against the league's rules, even its players; they know they're lucky to be playing here and not in the CSHL. Baku Akiyama certainly never expected to be the one to die on the ice, especially not from such a routine play.

cw: character death (described), broken bones (briefly described), suffocation (described), paralysis (implied)

prompt: "im fine", @badthingshappenbingo

wc: 1,217

(read on ao3!)

—

The Thunderbirds' arena had never gone so quiet.

Moments earlier, the thousands of people inside had seen one of the Thunderbirds' defensemen, Baku Akiyama, take his usual route down to the rink's corner and eventually behind his own net. He had the puck on his stick, putting his body between it and one of the other team's players, who he knew was trailing behind him by now.

Baku knew the other would try and take it from him, but he'd never expected the way in which he would go about it. Before Baku knew it, he felt the harsh shove of the other player's stick slamming into his back. The amount of follow through his opponent had helped in dropping him down to the ice.

Baku had been caught so off guard that he didn't even have the time to think about grounding himself. He collapsed surprisingly easily, scrambling as he slid full speed towards the rink's wall. He twisted desperately and tried to pull himself up to his feet, only managing to trip himself again as his efforts were proven to be completely in vain.

He felt his head slam directly into the wall only seconds later, wanting to cry out from the pain that instantly lit up his head and neck on impact. He felt his body crunch in on itself seconds before he bounced off of the wall as easily as the puck he'd held seconds earlier would have. He could've sworn he heard a loud pop, or a loud crackling from inside his neck; he drew on every ounce of faith he had to make that be a thought and nothing more.

His vision started to shake and blur as he heard the faint sound of blades cutting into the ice. He saw his teammates skating towards him and the other player, and he was sure at least one of them was giving the guy the beating of his life. Baku's mind began to spin and he swore his ears were starting to ring as he tried to force himself to stay awake and in the moment.

"Baku!"

"Baku, are you okay?"

This was the worst pain Baku had ever felt in his life.

"I….I'm fine-"

The words breathlessly left Baku's mouth, and he hated how weak he sounded. He hated how much of a wheezed sound entered his already fragile voice. He strained to look up at his teammates as they knelt down to be closer to him. Baku's eyes struggled to stay open and his eyelids became heavier by the second.

Everything was escalating so much more and so much quicker than he'd expected.

He heard the sound of the referees' whistles, and the sound of a scuffle nearby, though he had the passing thought that they'd seemed as if they were miles away. Baku's body slumped further to the ice along with his head.

"Baku, hey, hey- hey, stay awake-"

"Hey, stay awake, man-"

Baku felt a dull throbbing pain in his neck, but if he were honest, he wasn't sure where the rest of his body had ended up by now.

"I…I-"

He tried to get out another reassurance to his teammates, though it only came out as a near silent gasp. Baku tried everything he could to will his tall, lanky frame to move, to no success. He put every ounce of strength he had left into trying to move his arms, or his legs, or even just his fingers- something to tell everyone that he was fine, that they didn't have to worry, that he could get up and keep playing just as he always did.

Another issue beginning to emerge on the horizon for Baku was the sudden realization that he couldn't breathe. He tried everything he could to breathe in, to force his lungs to expand, something to give him just enough air to keep him going for a second longer.

It'd felt to him like he was wheezing, gasping, and choking for his breath, for any semblance of oxygen to be pulled into his lungs. Baku thought he was drowning, but didn't feel the distinct burn in his chest that came with a lack of air. He wasn't even sure his chest was moving, or if it even could move.

He wanted more than anything to be able to talk to everyone around him and tell them how he was suffocating now. He wanted to reach out to anyone around, anyone he heard but couldn't see, but the words wouldn't come, no matter how hard he tried. Nothing came from him but the faint twitching of his lips as he tried to make them form words. No air was coming in and certainly no words were coming out any time soon. He was sure his heart wasn't too far behind, as he couldn't tell if it was still beating or not.

"Hey- hey, talk to me, buddy-"

"Help's coming, buddy, hold on-"

Baku didn't know how much time he had left.

He was fading, and fading fast. He knew he was getting to the last bit of air he had left, and the faint tingling he felt in his chest now was almost comforting. It was comforting to feel anything, even though his gut feeling screamed that he only had seconds left before he would lose consciousness completely, if he were lucky.

The last thing he wondered before he passed out was if help was really coming at all.

Teammates and opposing players alike looked on as the arena's medical staff finally made it to ice level, hurriedly wheeling a stretcher onto it and breaking up the crowd that surrounded Baku's crumpled, completely still body. The silence in the massive stadium was deafening, and if one looked close, they could see almost everyone in the stands biting at their nails and holding their breaths as they awaited any sort of update from the ice hundreds of feet below.

The medical staff scrambled to get any sort of response from Baku. They shook at his shoulders to no result. They grabbed one of his wrists, searching every inch of the nearby skin for any hope of a pulse. They grew more frantic as they continued trying anything and everything to rouse the young man back to consciousness with no shred of luck.

One of them turned his head to look at one of the nearby officials.

"Call it. He's gone."

The crew of four carefully loaded Baku onto the stretcher, wheeling him unceremoniously away. His teammates remained where they stood, the horror of tonight starting to dawn on them more and more as the arena's announcer took to addressing the thousands in the stands.

"Thunderbirds fans, we are very sorry to announce that due to an unfortunate on ice injury…."

Mumbled curses and the sound of barely restrained emotions came from both teams' benches, and time started to feel as if it were standing completely still.

"Tonight's game will be suspended and rescheduled…."

The arena seemed more hollow than before as the announcer's message continued on and eventually faded into the background. People were hesitantly clearing the stands, many turning back to the rink as they left as if it would somehow bring Baku back and reverse the events of tonight's game.

#bad things happen bingo #whump oc #whumpblr #ch: baku a.#this was fun to write #just because youre in the clean league doesnt mean youre safe!#also baku is keiko's brother #i know i havent introduced him formally yet. but yeah!

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secret-bug-pain-blog · 2 months

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@febuwhump Day 8 - ALT PROMPT - Lightning Strike

"With brutal strength and extreme resilience, this type of Lynel somehow surpasses Silver Lynels in sheer power. It is said they are actually Silver Lynels who mysteriously transformed after being struck by lightning. If you see one, get away as fast as you can."

-Sheikah Slate Bestiary, Breath Of The Wild.

Back again. Slightly late. In our defense we were In Transit. This is from the universe of Flesh, Bone, Blood, Magic, if a bit... far forward. If you see any inconsistencies: don't worry about it, the plotting for this has been going somewhat slow, and it'll probably be explained in future ficlets. It's fine.

The cublet leaped.

Kasa's breath caught in her throat- had the shapeshifter gone mad? It knew how difficult of a fight that a Lynel could be - she had taught it herself, spar by spar against its unending energy. She might not have cared for its antics, but that didn't mean she wanted to know if it could die.

Its talons grasped at Squall's sides as its limbs warped, spawning joints to keep up with his movements as a dragonbone copy of a Moblin's long-blade stabbed at his back once, twice, thrice-

-and the cub-thing was thrown to the ground as Squall twisted, wolf-muzzles still forming from its sides as it tried to tear at at his sides on the way down.

He pointed his many-blade spear at it, its flesh still warping and twisting as it tried to form wolf-heads to snarl at him. She could see the water evaporate off of his pelt as he reared up, preparing to finish the shapeshifter off-

Kasa roared, thundering into him and catching his spear shaft in her blade. The nameless thing scrabbled out from between her hooves as she reared up, kicking at Squall's underbelly with her thriplegs. She could feel the fur on her back began to raise, an electric sense of power swelling from something behind her.

She had to end this quickly. Otherwise, she feared, she wouldn't finish it at all.

The dragon was coming.

Her fur stood on end. Sparks flew from her weapon, stinging against her pelt. She could taste ozone on her tongue as the green-scaled dragon began to crest the path, lightning arcing over its scales.

Squall gave her a smug look, stepping away from the edge, and she planted her hooves, readying herself to charge. Lyr made an undignified choking noise, tossing their sparking weapon to the side behind her, but she stood strong. The dragon's lightning had not jumped to her blade while the cublet was playing with the great wyrm. She trusted that it would be the same here.

She could feel her fur stand on end as she raised her sword, fire coming to her throat as the sparks reached a climax, the dragon turning its great head towards her-

It burned.

Were you to ask Kasa a few days ago what the worst pain in the world is, she would have laughed and told you it was the impact of becoming a silver-mane. The change from black-pelt to silver-pelt was long and painful, as any silver-pelt could tell you, Lynel or not - the days of pain and transformation, the feeling of pure Malice seeping into your flesh and bone, the agonizing sensation of your very soul being tempered in rivers of Kingsflesh.

It was slow, raw, corrosive. It sunk into the very last cracks of your being like pouring molten copper into an ant's nest, leaving deep purple stripes in its wake as it carved out vessels for strength. It stretched you to your very limit to accomodate the mark left, and even once the enhanced strength it offered had settled in, it left you feeling burnt and hollow for weeks afterwards.

To be blessed by Malice's King was a heavy burden to bear, and the days of suffering of her own transformation were still fresh enough in her mind that she could bring them to mind as sharp as the day it had happened.

And this was worse.

The blinding light of the bolt hit her blade, ripping through her body in an instant as if she were being set on fire. The world turned to white, blinding nothing, every nerve and shred of magic she had lit up in a single second. If she screamed, she couldn't hear it. If she dropped the blade, she couldn't tell. The world was pain, and everything that wasn't horrible, unrelenting agony was whited out as every scrap and shard of her burned.

For an instant, time didn't matter. An eternity stretched out into a second, trillions of years of agonizing, burning pain pressed into a second of time. Her pelt lit up, divine lightning burning through every part of her essence. In an instant, divine power was scorched into the deepest depths of her being, electric and brilliant, playing on every whisker and strand of fur, etched into every strand of muscle, conducted through every ounce of her body, through her blade and back again.

A second. An hour. An unending, agonizing eternity.

Kasa staggered, but she didn't fall. Her blade fell to her side, its metal turned to something bright, shining, malachite blue-green. Her body sparked, leftover electricity discharging from millions of trillions of nerve endings.

The fire in her breast burned, nearly thrice as hot as it had been. She felt no pain.

Her fur, steaming in the still-falling snow, gleamed bright, burning gold.

Kasa looked Squall in the eyes, and she roared.

(Thriplegs: The middle set of a Lynel's limbs; the leading hooves.)

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nimata-beroya · 2 years

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Star Wars Writing Resources

Note: None of the resources below are mine. I just assembled them in one place for your and my convenience. Feel free to use and reblog. If you know of any other useful site missing from the list, let me know and I'll gladly add it.

NOTE (05/17/23): There's a new, much more comprehensive version HERE.

Places

Interactive Galaxy Map by Henry Bernberg

Map of the Galaxy

List of planets and moons [Wikipedia /needs expanding]

Planet Name Generator 1 [SciFi Ideas]

Planetary System Generator [Donjon]

Character Development

Star Wars Name Generator 1 [Donjon]

Star Wars OC flow chart by @thefoodwiththedood

Star Wars Name Generator 2 [FantasyNames]

Star Wars Name Generator 3 [FantasyNames]

The character creator

Droid Name Generator

Star Wars Randomizer by @aureutr

Clone Trooper face/helmet template pack by @fox-trot

Clone Picrew by @batdad

Character Picrew [Twi-leks, Zabraks, Torgutas and Nautolans] @/megaramikaeli

Star Wars Character Templates by SmacksArt [the ULTIMATE battery of template for any human/humanoid original character in any era. From troopers to droids, from Jedi to Sith, from KOTOR to the sequel Trilogy. 100% RECOMMENDED]

Miscellaneous

Standard Calendar and Holidays [including month names!]

Galactic Standard Calendar [wookiepedia // including week day names]

Date converter according to SWTOR [Google sheet]

Hyperspace Travel Times (to calculate how much time would take to go from point A to point B within the GFFA)

Materials (fabrics, leathers, silks, plastics, construction, metal composites, etc.)

List of TCW Opening Quotes

Ship Generator 3D

Star Wars: The Clone Wars Republic Military Hierarchy Flowcharts by @cacodaemonia

Languages; Phrases and Slang; Vocabulary

Coruscant Translator (from/to Basic from/to Old Corellian, Proto-Basic, and Smuggler's Cant; Catharese and High Cathar; Cheunh and Minnisiat; Echani and Thyrsian; Mirialan; Flora Colossi, Ortolan, and -everyone's favorite- Mando'a)

In-Universe phrases and slang [Google sheet]

List of phrases and slang [wookiepedia]

List of equivalents to real-world objects [wookiepidia]

Star Wars Menu Generator

Helpful blogs

The amazing @fox-trot, who not only makes astonishing art and write an amazing fic, she also responds to medical questions and gives all kinds of references for writing medic characters.

@writebetterstarwars, which seems to be inactive, but there are a bunch of references there.

@howtofightwrite The place to find out how to write a good fight scene.

@scriptmedic no longer active, but it has a great deal of useful information.

@scripttorture for your whump needs. Major trigger warning for all its content.

Writing in General (For those who don't want to die like Stormtroopers)

SlickWrite: Completely free; online. Checks grammar, punctuation, flow, and writing style according to different settings (including fiction writing).

ProWritingAid: [RECOMMENDED] One of the most thorough online proofreader I've ever used. Although when using a free account gives extremely thorough feedback, it gives +20 different in-depth reports for only the first 500 words for free. However, you can earn a premium account license (for a year or for life) if you get 10 or 20 new users signing up for free; (if you wouldn't mind doing so using the link above and help me earn mine, please). The settings allow you to check your writing according to your needs, from general to formal to creative. It has a bonus that you can check depending on the genre you're writing. For example, in creative, you can choose romance or sci-fiction (there are 14 sub-genre in total). And just like google docs, you can share a document, and people can view, comment or edit.

LanguageTool: [RECOMMENDED] Another excellent proofreader. It also has a word limit in free accounts, but if you use the add-on for Google Docs, it counts each page as a new document, so hitting the limit is nearly impossible. It helps you to rewrite a sentence, even if it doesn't raise any flags; it's very useful for when your sentence is grammatically correct, but it doesn't feel quite right.

Grammarly, Hemingway Editor: No so great, but they do the basic job.

#star wars writing resources #star wars #the mandalorian #the bad batch #sw rebels #the clone wars #obi wan kenobi #obi wan kenobi show #tbobf #the book of boba fett #andor

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redd956 · 6 months

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Mini Whump Prompt 129

Formal caretaker has always worn gloves, scarves, and warm socks just about everywhere they go, sometimes even indoors.

At the complaining and shivering emitting from whumpee one cold night, caretaker gives up their gloves for borrowing. It's only when exchanging them back does whumpee feel how quickly caretaker's hands have gone ice cold.

#caretaker #caretaker turned whumpee #multiple whumpees #whump #cold whump #formal caretaker #whump prompt #whump prompts #mini whump prompt #mini whump prompts #whump ideas #winter whump

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sorcerous-caress · 6 months

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I accidentally broke up with Gale and he was like "Oh I see thats disappointing. Youve actually caught me at an inopportune time. Blasted dust in my eye. Excuse me." Highkey broke my heart but the heart wrenching whump is hitting the right spot. Could you write a little something post that discussion maybe from Gales pov?

The Hanged Man | Gale

[Angst, character study, break up, nb!reader]

Gale's thoughts after you break up with him

"Oh" a fool.

"I see." A smitten fool, that's all he was.

The orb pulses inside his chest, tugging his heartstrings along and squeezing the fragile organ painfully.

He can't let you see, he must keep it inside.

"That's disappointing." He can't even hear his own voice as he chokes the words out. A burning hellfire gagging his throat and making each word a struggle to force out.

A struggle to seem unbroken in front of you, to tug his shattered heart pieces back into place and hold them as their sharp edges dig into his fingers, a pathetic performance.

You're looking at him, the concern in your eyes, the furrow of your eyebrows.

Your lips are parting, the same lips he felt melt against his own each night, the same lips that kissed so delicately against his neck, down his chest and between his legs.

For a second his brain flashes back to your previous kiss, a mere hours ago. Your last ever kiss together. How could he have known it was the last? He would've prolonged it if he could turn back time, kissed you with more passion, more tenderness, for longer as he poured all of his love into that one final kiss.

The corners of his lips twitch as his muscles forcefully smoothe out his frown, not in front of you, not now.

"You've actually caught me at an inappropriate time," the words are formal, rehearsed, academically appropriate. The words that got his previous teachers to not dig too deep into his personal business, to allow him to keep his own dignity, to bury his emotions until he was back at the comfort of his own home.

Where is that damned cat when he needs her the most?

He almost begs. Like a snivelling child crying for their mom to come pick them up from school, he almost begs whatever god out there for Tara to appear from thin air and save him from this situation.

"Blasted dust" his voice cracks.

Covering his own eyes as if to rub the dust away, he conceals the tears escaping his soul, like acid burning his flesh in shame.

"In my eyes." He trails off, swallowing back a sob. He is already turning away, shielding what remains of his fragile wound from your judging gaze, "excuse me."

And he doesn't look back.

A silence spell would keep his dignity, a silence spell would allow him to save face as he crashes into the soft bedroll inside his tent.

Books scattered around, not a sign of a single cat hair for him to annoyingly roll his eyes at, not even a small scratch of claws on the hard covers.

Tara is not here, for the first time in ages, he is truly by himself.

To love and be loved, that's all he asked for. That's all he longed for, god or mortal made no difference for him.

But it's too much to ask for, isn't it? What's a wizard if not fated for a lifetime of solitude.

No matter how much he tried, he couldn't replace his longing for companionship. Because at the end of the day, none of his books would hug him back.

Gale closes his eyes, taking a deep breath as the silence spell diminishes from around him. Not that he could concentrate at his current state of mind, a headache is already making itself at home in the front of his head.

A fluttering of wings, a gentle nudge against his limp body.

"Mr.dekarios?"

#♡Gale #♡angst #♡character study #gale dekarios #angst #bg3 angst #gale x reader #baldur's gate 3 x reader

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ikaishere · 7 months

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just letting you all, dear creatives, know. i will be expecting a formal apology for the October whump.

#im having my eyes on you

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victimeyez · 8 months

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Professional//Victim

Darwin

CW: captive whump, drugged whump, graphic depictions of torture, intimate whump

Taglist: @lonesome--hunter

The nausea starts when they roll off the highway. An unfamiliar town lies here, sporting lots of fancy diners and shops for wasps.

“It’s coming up. Get ‘im lively.”

Tommy had been awake for a while now, but a bump of coke made him “more lively” for clients. The bitter taste didn’t help his stomach when he rubbed it into his gums. Sure, it was more direct up the sniffer, but one time he sneezed blood into the passenger window, so they switched strictly to the oral route. He didn’t like the taste or the buzz, but it helped with the pain a little. Not that it mattered.

His stomach drops to his knees when they turn off onto a long side street and begin passing houses. Only a few down and they turn onto a long, neat driveway that slithered into the woods. Finally, a house emerged from the foliage.

(Brown, drab. Not a mansion, but expensive. Groomed lawn. Driveway, maybe a quarter mile. Isolated. Definitely not a client we’ve seen before. New clients are always crapshoots.)

Caius dragged Tommy up the path to the door. He hesitated before ringing the doorbell, making Tommy face him while he fixed his curls and looked him over. He pinched his cheeks and his lips to give him a flushed look, pinching some of his eyelashes between his fingers and tugging them painfully. He repeated it on the other side, making Tommy’s eyes water so they were tearful and moony. He then pressed the gold-framed button next to the door. A twinkling classical piece played inside in lieu of a standard bell.

A middle-aged man answered too quickly, surprisingly well dressed in a tortoiseshell suit and matching glasses. He looked like a professor. He smiled kindly at the two of them.

“Please, come in.”

Caius put a firm hand on Tommy's shoulder and pushed him through the doorframe into the house, while the client politely held the door for the pair. He closed it behind them and activated an electronic lock, hidden from the outside. A heavy deadbolt slid into place with a loud chink. It resonated with an ominous finality that made Tommy’s stomach clench.

“I am Darwin. I take it this is Tommy?” He gestured to Tommy.

“I’m Caius, and this is Tommy.”

Darwin nodded, and then hesitated as he began to turn.

“Forgive me if I’m new to the etiquette of these…arrangements. Could I offer you a water, or maybe some wine?”

“Don’t worry about formalities, you’ve paid for us to be here. Let’s not waste your time.”

Darwin's eyebrows raised just a touch, but he seemed relieved to dispense with niceties. He began up a flight of stairs, which Caius ensured Tommy followed close behind. His heart was starting to pound and his feet felt heavy. Upstairs rooms were less common than basements. They somehow felt so much more intimate. Tommy had long since learned you can’t tell what a client wants based on appearance. He wasn’t sure what he feared more - a dungeon, or a bedroom.

He could feel himself starting to shut down already, and he embraced the dissociation.

(Left, right, left, right, keep walking, just follow. Don’t feel anything, just exist. There’s nothing you can do now. Just breathe. Disconnect from the feeling of desperation. We don’t have to remember this part.)

He walked robotically behind Darwin until he was led into a room that looked like an enormous study, with a fireplace at one side and rows of nice bookshelves and displays lined the walls. The display closest to him looked something like fireplace tools, but not like ones he had seen before. The floors were of a rich hardwood.

“Remove your shoes, Tommy.”

He hated it when they used his name. As if they knew him. As if they were friends. All it took was a warning look from Caius and he peeled off his tennis shoes, setting them awkwardly to the side. (Avoid eye contact. Makes it easier.)

“Are you wearing underwear?”

Tommy didn’t like where this was headed. He despised the romantic ones.

“Yes, Sir.”

“Strip down to them.”

Tommy mechanically removed his shirt, and then more hesitantly, his sweats. He was down to plain black boxers, a stark contrast to well-dressed Darwin. He handed them off to Caius while his eyes scoured the room.

The center of the room was filled with precariously placed items that looked very old and worn. There was a big lumpy looking chair made of wood, a kind of bench-like table with three rolling pins attached in the middle, and a big sort of horse-shaped wooden structure. It looked badly built, and had a big triangle for the saddle.

(Don’t panic. Don’t run. You don’t have to know what’s happening. Don’t think about it. Don't think at all. Turn your brain off. It makes it easier.)

“I curate for the museum here, and over the years I’ve become a bit of a collector of sorts myself. When the museum here wasn’t interested in these pieces, I knew I just had to buy them up. Unfortunately, I haven’t gotten the chance to play with them, and they’ve gone without use. Then I found a video of Tommy here online, and I thought I found the perfect person to try them out.”

Thomas felt like his body was moving without his will as he was led to the chair, which upon closer look, was more than uncomfortable. It had no open slats but was made of uncut pieces of wood with a high back, wide arm rests, a flat seat, and another solid plate between the front legs, almost to the floor. Every inch of it was covered in neat rows of small, wooden spikes.

“Which video?” Caius asked conversationally.

(Market research.)

“It was some kind of flogging scene, with Mistress Alice. A few months ago now.”

Tommy’s head swam before he realized he was holding his breath. He felt a little shaken by the mention of Alice, and struggled to stay adrift from his feelings.

“It looks like he’s healed up marvelously though,” Darwin appreciated, looking him over hungrily.

“He cleans up well, and we have excellent doctors on hand. We cannot allow certain things that will damage him beyond repair, so I will be staying with you for our time. Most nerves can be fixed, but no severing of central tendons or arteries, and go easy on the spine to keep basic motor controls intact.”

Darwin nodded. “They shouldn’t puncture too deeply. Everything is antique, but sanitized.”

Without ceremony, Tommy was shoved back into the chair.

He took a sharp breath in when all the points sank in at once, biting into the sensitive flesh of his ass and thighs. The shock of It was like being submerged in icy water. He instinctively leaned forwards away from the back of the chair, but he could feel beads of blood forming where he had knocked into them initially.

Hands appeared from nowhere, wrapping a leather strap across his throat and pulling him flat against the back of the chair. The shock of the pain winded him, and he gasped for breath as Darwin fastened his restraints. His ankles were locked with leather and pulled taut hard to force his legs into the spikes, and his arms were pulled hard down on the spiked armrests. Thick leather cuffs bound his wrists in place, and slight sides built into the back ensured his outer arms were also penetrated.

The best he could do was try to arch his back away from the back of the chair, but with his neck fastened it only seemed to drive the ones in his shoulders deeper. The awkward position made his back start to cramp immediately, and he doubted he could hold it for long. The urge to fight the restraints was overruled by the pain that the slightest movement caused, and he found himself paralyzed by it. Even breathing agitated the punctures, and on instinct he started to breathe shallowly to avoid it. A muted thought came to him, of the sharp wooden skewers used for shish kabobs, and he suddenly related to being a piece of skewered meat.

He vaguely registered that Darwin had stood back and was watching him, a great grin on his face.

“This piece is called the ‘Armchair of Inquiries’ - a bit of a cheeky name, in my opinion. This one was actively used a bit longer than most, with the last recorded use being May 8th, 1868. I’ve had it thoroughly cleaned and disinfected just for you.”

Tommy tried to pull his head away from the pins, only resulting in choking himself against the leather collar.

Darwin smiled. “I had that strap attached as an extra, from a heretic’s fork. I think it makes a good addition, even if it wasn’t the original.”

There was something deeply sickening about the pride in Darwin’s voice, while he gladly explained history that hardly mattered to the butterfly he had pinned.

The initial shock was starting to wear off, but the pain was blooming. He doubted there was enough coke in the world to shield him from this. His shallow panting took on a whine to it on every exhale as the pain began to steep.

Darwin had walked away, and returned with quick steps holding some sort of miniature harness. It consisted of metal bands arched and connected, with an adjustable leather strap. Tommy couldn’t identify it, but the glee with which Darwin presented it made him think he would find out the hard way very soon.

With a surprisingly gentle hand, Darwin guided his head forward as far as it could go against his neck restraint, and slipped the harness over his head.

“This one has many names, and many forms. It was the first piece in my collection. There are other ones that are shaped like pigs, or fools with long noses, or even a cone coming out from the mouthpiece. Just to name a few.”

At being masked, Tommy started to panic and struggle, shoving hard against his restraints only to have the spikes impale him again and again, agitating the wounds with every movement.

“Wait, wait, wait, fuck, fuck, wait you don’t have to do this-”

Tommy finally begged, which Darwin only acknowledged with a soft smile as he worked the cage mask on. There was a metal band that ran down the back of his head, parting his hair, but pushing him off of impalement on the spikes there as the metal band rested atop the points.

The other band came down the middle of his face, forking into a triangle around his nose. Right below, it connected to a thicker metal band across his mouth, and a sharp obtrusion from it pressed hard against his lips. He clenched his teeth against it to try to keep it out, abruptly ending his ability to beg with words. His pleas reduced to panicked keens of fear and pain.

“It’s called a bridle mask, a scold’s bridle, a mask of shame…” Darwin rattled off idly. He tapped a finger against the metal bit against Tommy’s lips.

“If you can’t feel it yet, there’s another spike in here. I’m about to fasten this tight across your jaw, and if you don’t let it in, it’s going to puncture through your lips and cause you quite a bit more…discomfort. Open up for me, Tommy.”

Darwin’s hands cradled his face with a disturbing intimacy, stroking over his cheeks. His fingers found the hollows of his cheeks and pushed into them sharply, forcing his jaw open. A long metal spike followed by a thick metal bit pushed in, and he had to curl his tongue to keep it from skewering straight through. The metal bit held his jaw slightly open, but if he tried to speak, he would pierce his tongue.

The strap at his jaw was pulled sharply taut and secured. Darwin’s hands returned to his cheeks, stroking his face gently between the gaps of the mask.

(Don’t spiral. Just another - just ignore it - the pain is - how much -)

His best guards against the pain were failing, easily overwhelmed by this unfamiliar torture. A new hysteria was building deep inside of him, and he was starting to grow light-headed from his shallow panting around the gag.

Darwin’s lips were parted and he was panting a little too, his face so close, hungry eyes roving over Tommy’s own caged face. His thumbs tenderly stroked comforting circles over the apples of his cheeks, and Tommy felt a wetness there. (When did we start crying?) His eyes felt so heavy as they spilled over without relief.

Darwin closed the gap between them suddenly, pressing his lips intensely against the outside of the gag. Tommy tried to turn away from him, but Darwin’s gentle hands became restraints holding his head in place. He slowly kissed and tongued and licked the dark metal there, and Tommy couldn’t help the harsh whimpers escaping his opened mouth.

Darwin finally pulled away, his lips wet. A strong urge to wretch boiled in Tommy’s gut.

“You look so beautiful.”

His stomach lurched.

“I have one more piece for you,” Darwin murmured, mostly to himself.

Tears ran down the sides of his face, wetting the metal harness as it started to warm against his skin.

“But before that…can I take a picture?”

Tommy was confused for a moment until his brain finally caught up to the fact that Caius was still there, sitting off to the side and witnessing his agony with a look of profound boredom.

“Sure. I have a camera in my bag if you’d like me to take some nice ones for you. It doesn’t cost extra if you let us also use them for promotional materials.”

Darwin licked his lips. “Of course.”

Tommy let out a miserable moan of protest, with heavy tears of humiliation and pain dripping down his face and cooling uncomfortably at his neck.

Caius kept a calm demeanor of cool indifference while he circled Tommy, collecting photos with his camera. Tommy was only addressed with a sharp snapping of fingers, directing him to look one way or another. He could see a dark reflection of his face in the wide lens of the camera, and he closed his eyes with a sob.

Darwin emerged to be front and center again, holding one of the metal tools that Tommy had noticed when he entered. It was a crude, thin piece of metal, with two fork-like tines on each end. He held it up so Tommy could see it, and then playfully tapped one side of tines against his cheek.

“The heretic’s fork. It fits right in here,” Darwin offered, and slipped it into a leather buckle of the collar around his throat. Tommy tipped his head back to try to avoid it, but yelped when he felt one pronged end pushed shallowly into his neck behind his collar bones. This firmly locked the fork vertically against his throat, the tines on the opposite side baring threateningly against the soft flesh under his jaw.

“If you can keep your head up, this won’t hurt.”

With this last attachment, Tommy suddenly felt entirely overwhelmed with helplessness. He couldn't move an inch, couldn’t even breathe without disturbing the bed of thorns beneath him. His tongue was cramped in the back of his throat, and he was starting to drool around the gag. Lowering his head at all would impale him on the tines of the fork, driving it both into his jaw and into his sternum. He couldn’t think of a time he was held in such strict binding, and his brain was starting to short circuit with the horror of his situation.

Darwin seized this opportunity to lean in and press another kiss over his gag. Tommy whined impotently, hyper-aware of his inability to pull away.

Darwin stood back and took a long, shuddery breath of excitement. He ran his tongue over his lips.

“P-pictures, please,” he called breathily. Out of the corner of his eye, Thomas could see Caius toss his cellphone aside and get back up to take pictures.

Tommy stared at the ceiling, blinking tears of terror. He always hated the feeling of something stuck inside of him, the gnawing urge to pull it out only growing with the many barbs penetrating his skin. He thought his regular collar was bad enough. He could no longer see anything around him, and he had no idea where Darwin or Caius were in proximity to him. The anxiety made him tense, agitating his wounds.

“This doesn’t quite fit in with the others, but, well…we only have so much time. I think this will speed things up.”

He sounded close. There was a popping, crackling sound Tommy couldn’t quite place.

(How much time do we have? How long has it been? It felt like an hour, at least. Maybe. It always feels slower than it is.)

Something touched him, two dull points maybe an inch or two apart. Pressed to his diaphragm. He braced himself for it to puncture him, but for a long minute it just rested there. Darwin was breathing heavier. (Psyching himself-)

His body was on fire.

It almost felt like relaxing. He lost all control while a painful, hot tingling went through his body. He spasmed, shuddering violently until it stopped as suddenly as it had started.

He sagged back into his bindings, but the damage had been done. There were a thousand points on his body that throbbed in urgent pain. It was a full-body pain like he had never experienced before. It was terrifying not being able to look down at his body to see how bad it was - he felt like his skin must be shredded, vivid imaginings of his flayed corpse pinned to this throne.

A touch against his diaphragm, heavy breathing in front of him. Excited sounds from Darwin. He was lit up once more, for a longer time. He could feel himself tearing around the spikes. This time he was vaguely aware of the sound it pulled from his, a deep, guttural cry as the breath was knocked from his body. It was a unique sound he didn’t recognize as his own voice, but a deep wail of anguish. It felt entirely disconnected, like the sound was coming from the prod pushed to his stomach, not his body.

When it ended, his vision was swimming. Everything was black, gray, yellow, dancing shadows. He blinked a few times as he slowly started to come back to his senses.

This time, he noticed the foam in his throat. He coughed, and blood burned on his lips, long dried from the gag. He finally registered the taste of blood on his tongue, the pain in his mouth. His tongue had been speared on the spike inside of the gag. His brain couldn’t process where or how his tongue was pierced, but he drooled blood out the corner of his lips and struggled to swallow the rest pooling in his throat. He couldn’t identify an exact moment when, but the fork under his chin had been driven into his jaw, and judging by the burning pain in his chest, it was up to the hilt on bottom as well.

Darwin let him stew with the tip of his device pressed to his stomach again. Tommy sucked in a breath, his only chance at pulling away from it, but his movement was easily followed.

He writhed in his restraints as he was electrocuted again, spasming uncontrollably even as it tore him open. Everything was pain, every breath, his nose burned, his eyes rolled back into his head. It let up again and he shuddered to stillness. He could still feel the tingle, and he continued to twitch in spite of his best attempts. He dry wretched, blood in his throat, in his stomach, making him sick. The still room reeled around him.

“Next time…you can call me Arthur.”

It felt a bit like sweating, an intense sweating across the entire side of his body. As the blood trickled out underneath him, he was starting to feel very cold. The shocks left him feverish, and he felt quite sick, like when he had the flu and felt hot and cold at the same time. He hoarsely barked out sobs that wracked his body. Every surface he touched pooled blood, making his seat feel wet and tarry underneath him. He was limp in his restraints, his heavy head supported solely by the prongs driven into him.

He numbly felt a prodding against his naked torso, and unconsciousness took its mercy on him.

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#captive whumpee #intimate whumper #sadistic whumper #medieval torture #professional victim

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revelisms · 1 month

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Antichrist Copia theory has overtaken me yall. I was not expecting to crank out a full thing on this, but, uh...if you're looking for one big indulgent braindump on Terzo trying to unpack his feelings on this while Copia gets possessed by a demon, look no further?

Quick context setting—I'm still working out these headcanons a bit, but what I'm generally tinkering with here:

Everyone tied to the Emeritus bloodline has some degree of magical abilities, which were formally "awakened" in an oath-taking ceremony at a point in the boys' childhood. This is the Sight mentioned here (i.e., whatever is up with the white eye), and each of the brothers have a slightly different angle for it: Primo can see into the minds of living things, Secondo can see into the past, Terzo can see into the future, and Copia can see into the realm that bridges life and death—and is somewhat a literal bridge, himself, between those planes of reality.

The Exaltation ceremony is a formal handoff from each Papa to the next heir, in which their Sight is tapped to its greatest potential in preparation for becoming head of the church. This typically involves a delivery of rites, a magical blessing, and an opening of the Gate between worlds (which, in this context, is technically Hell itself).

Basically: mayhem ensues.

here we lie

4k words | Rating: M | Terzo-Centric | Antichrist Copia | CWs: Ritual magic, dark imagery, near-death experience, blood, language, existentialism, doomed fate, whump, anger issues, dysfunctional family dynamics, hurt/comfort. Also on AO3

The exaltation ceremony goes wrong.

By all accounts, it shouldn't have.

As with any long-standing traditions of the church, the ritual had been perfected to the scrape of dust one was allowed to wear on their boots—and, as such, had been prepared with the expected flurry of pomp and circumstance.

The esteemed Monsignor Emeritus, firstborn, blessed with the Sight, had cleansed the air thrice with dishes of althea and frankincense and bistort: enhancements for protection and divination.

Sister Mariella, well-familiar with the customs, had laid down the sigils for the Gate flawlessly: shadowed by the slow-prowled growlings and page-turned rites of Secondo Emeritus, Archbishop of the Eternal Light.

The ceremony, as was custom, was set to be led by the head of the church: their Exalted, sheened in black from neck to toe, the points of his clawed gloves glinting in the lowlight—for whom the Sight of premonition had seemed both a blessing and a curse, and never more so than now.

He was distracted, perhaps. Dehydrated, maybe. Dreading the moment he would stand at the door to the realm beyond—a threshold of time and space untethered—that would soon devour the faceless flesh-form of a ghoul cast back to the shadow (his One, his All, his own); a door he himself, in time, would one day find himself crossing, with body and soul split, head and neck cleaved, heart and mind shattered.

From the moment he'd slopped a spoon through the breakfast his secretary had slid on his desk that morning, he'd known, instinctually, that this damned thing could turn so haywire, if only because he'd been the one shackled with it.

His jittery magic, his restless brain, and Copia—

Well.

Copia has been anything but normal, from the day Sister carted him up the chapel steps.

Terzo knew he had magic—the likes of which few could fathom, even from his sticky-fingered child days. The night the little rat had taken his oaths, the air had sung with it: a strange buzz of sensation that felt like the sun had tipped off-center.

And now—

Now, the Gate is laid open beneath Terzo's hands, the unseen ink of his spell-marks glowing a blood-lilac fuchsia, bright enough to glare violently through his clothes, and the void of Hell itself screaming in its glory—and Copia is not imbued with the Dark One's majesty, as he should be—is no man, is not living, has flames for eyes and claws for teeth and wings like the undead and is screaming—

"Close it," Secondo snarls at him, a blurred tower of shadow and piercing white—

—and Terzo knew this.

Knew this boy-man-beast-hellspawn of Christ-Shadow Beholden always was.

He'd looked him in the eye—kneeled there in the cat's cradle of a pentagram scraped in chalk, hands fidgeting at his cassock—and gave a crook of his head: murled, Ready? like a tease, though some part of him had meant it as, You'll be alright, eh?

But unblessed saints and demons below, Copia isn't.

What writhes before him now is a creature that terrifies him to the bone—one that may not abandon his brother completely, should he fail at this any farther than he already has.

"Terzo." Primo, now: an urgent hiss at his shoulder. "Close the gate—"

"I know." His magic burns at his fingertips, sears through his blood. "That—thing hasn't released him—"

A thing with claws cradling Copia's head like ceramic a hairline from shattering, spitting a pained growl through his teeth.

The sacrament in Mariella's hand shakes. "Papa, what's...?"

"I don't know." The flamelight flickers unnaturally against the domed walls: a great breath that lapses to darkness, sparks back again. "Shit, I—I don't know."

"Terzo—"

"Close the gate—"

"Hell Satan—will you all shut up?!"

There are horns in Copia's hair, slick-red-gold between his grappling fingers.

His stomach is in his head. His brain in his feet.

Mariella swallows. She's always been a strong soul—far more than him, now: level-headed in a storm, vibrant in a fog; a presence that guides as much as it grounds.

"How long can you hold it for?" she whispers, firm and calm.

He pulls dry air into his lungs. "As long as I need to."

He steps forward, spellwork singing in his veins, and lets his hands unfurl. The air whips at his vestments, wailing with the bone-deep unease of voices old as Creation straining to be heard.

Somewhere in there is Copia's own. He'll drag it out by hand, if he has to.

"You imbecile!" Secondo is shouting, muffled behind the blurred opalescence of the Veil: a wall that glows off the circle Terzo crosses, consumes him with the prickling unease of a limb losing its circulation. "You can't reason with it!"

The flames warp again. A shadow like death bends over the walls.

Terzo's no stranger to the taste. His dreams have been riddled with the stench of it, from the day the Sight was force-gifted upon him. And like he had, then—a child with battered elbows and bruised knees; a not-man with awkward limbs and disdain for the old orders of this world; a Cardinal with paint on his teeth and a straightjacket of woolen expectations—he repents.

"I call on the spirits of the Then and the Below." A twitch strings through his fingers: with it, a flare of violet light. "To the Beings of those Beyond, the Eternal, I speak now, and speak only—" The pitch of his voice mangles, ragged with the corded growl of a beast: the underbelly all their half-human souls peel clean, when drowned deep enough in this waste. "In my Blood, see my will. In my Sight, my path—"

"What is he saying?" Mariella asks, her voice muffled as though through glass.

Primo calls a sharp warning: "Don't cross it—"

The air whistles with a faint singing of metal—and splits. It grapples at his clothes, twisting his hair with a gravitational pull unseen.

He breathes in chalk dust, sighs out knives.

Beneath Copia's shivering limbs ripples the black expanse of the Gate: an aether so endless one couldn't capture its history in a millennia: a presence so indefinable that even Primo, with years of such history under his belt, can only stare through the blur, voiceless and rigid at the sight of it.

With twitching claws and lightless eyes and Hell beneath his feet, Terzo beckons.

"Bare yourself to me."

The room shivers. The walls shriek. The flames stagger, flutter, wheeze again—and snuff out, completely.

In the pitch, it is only the Eternal, and the glow within his veins, and the white of his eye, and Copia's beast-man-beast-man-fanged grin with a split lip—

A Being that takes the air of the room by the throat, and speaks in a voice that thunders.

"It is time."

Terzo feels its presence slithering up his legs. The weight of its All on his lungs.

He keeps his hands steady, his intent clear, even for the exertion that leaves his arms quivering.

"Not here," he grits back, a strange echo in the ringed light that encases them. "Not now."

A hand that is not Copia's, is scaled and rotted and red, slaps to the stones. "When?" The shriek hits his ears like a thunderstrike. A chill is crawling under his veins: a heaviness that isn't right, is this thing more than his own blood. "When?"

Primo's magic is wafting through the air—some swift-casted attempt at a ward around them, far too late now. The scent of it itches on Terzo's tongue: dragon's blood, rose-ash, frigid at his back. His own aura swats it off like a gnat, too distracted to let it in, to think.

Fuck, he needs to think.

A stage—

The Being wails.

His downfall—this one's own Ascension—

Ice knifes into his ankle.

A stage and heat and lights and purple-bleeding-black and blood on his throat—a syringe in his brother's own hands, a demon masqueraded—his Unnamed's voice gristling in his ear, Be still be still be still now—

Mariella squeezes a talisman in her palm, smoking sweetly with the taste of Secondo's own protection charm.

"Papa," she calls out: her voice a muddy, drowned thing.

His lashes flutter open, heavy as lead.

"Coward!" the Being retches. Hellfire blisters against its silhouette, a nebulic haze. "Tell them of your death. Of Our purpose. Where We were sewn. You know it—"

Mariella holds the stone out to him, guided through the surging current of Primo's ward. The air wrestles like a gale through her sleeve.

"You know it!"

His claws catch at her palm—not his gloves, but his own, thick and black as talons. The talisman burns a sunspot-bloom through his marrow, bright as a thousand stars.

"Thirteen months." His speech is one he doesn't recognize: child and entity and Bloodline infinite. "On a black dais, surrounded by your flock." The talisman melts like a balm into his skin: an unseen shield that ripples with half-lit iridescence. The chill biting into his skin flinches. "You will know it," Terzo grits on, "and now is not it."

He thinks he hears Copia's voice through the fray. He can't be sure.

"And then?" snarls the Being.

Not a being. Not a thing.

No—this is Lucifer-incarnate.

An orchestration.

"It won't be finished, then." The shell of magic around them snaps like embers in a flame, a jolt wrestling up his arm. So much time. So much weighed down—and he weighs it down, still, his breath shuddering. "You'll have years to go—"

"And then?"

Scraped nails, dead eyes, bloodied horns, Copia—

Secondo's gloved palm tears through the gleam, squeezes like a noose around his bicep. "I won't say it again, you fuck," he spits, the words warped and crackling. "You're going to get him killed—"

He can't shake him off quickly enough.

"Close it!"

Copia's eyes. Copia's soul, trapped in the All. Right there—

His magic flares like a supernova, spears through that gate and holds: a cosmic blast that shouts his throat raw, knocks Secondo nearly off his feet, leaves him lightheaded and with blood on his teeth—but he has him—

"Thirteen months' time," the Being roars, "and you'll be taken with it."

Terzo hisses, his claws scraping at his brother's skin.

"So is the Rule."

The Gate grapples at his silks.

Copia's gloved fingers shake, snatching desperately at his arms. His own voice breaks through the loom. "Terz—"

"I've got you," Terzo spats. Sweat sticks at his neck.

The fibers of his magic are fraying at the edges.

Red eyes glare up at him. "Do you accept it?"

The portal whines.

"To the day it is marked, you'll have it. As it is written." His claws slip on Copia's sleeve. "As it always was."

The Being grins. "And so it will be."

It spits his brother out.

His hold on the Gate snaps like a wire—and shatters the well of magic, with it. The howl torrents through the room with a cello's blare, and whips to a bee-winged nothingness.

With the loss of it, gravity lurches in his gut. He cracks to his knees, catches himself on the stones just enough—gloves still intact, not torn through, only clawed with gold—and heaves blood.

"Papa!"

And his brother. His damned demon brother: rubber-legged, staggering, Copia gasps like a man near-drowned.

Unscathed, somehow—Satan willing.

Primo is across the room, in an instant. "Copia. Unblessed beneath, are you alright?"

"Ye-Yes, yes, I—shit." Primo catches him, his gloves slipping at his sleeves. Unsteadily, he veers back on his feet. "What...what happened?"

It's too dark. Too quiet. Too loud.

Terzo swallows down bile; chokes on blood and phlegm. Mariella's habit swims in his vision.

"Papa," she hushes, clear as crystal now. "Papa, look at me."

Secondo, halfway between them: "Is it gone?"

Her fingers skim through the sweat-dripped mess of his paints: press cooly at his temple.

"Is it gone?"

"Yes," she breathes.

Hazily, lashes flicking, Terzo tips out of her touch. He chokes on his words, the first try; rasps them, the second. "Where's the rat?"

"He's here," Primo answers him. "He's fine."

There's a clumping of boots, a rustling of silks, Mariella scurrying from the floor.

"What in Hell's name were you thinking." Secondo's hand jerks at his sleeve, wrestles him half-blind back into his bones. "You could have doomed us all. We never—never—speak to the Unnamed without wards in place. You know that—"

"Brother," Copia croaks.

Secondo rips his head over his shoulder. "You shut your mouth. I haven't even gotten to you." With a firm grip, his hand slips under Terzo's arm, helps him slowly to his feet. "Get up," he huffs. "Come on. Are you alright?"

"I'm—fuck. Fine. I'm fine."

His elder brother scowls down at him. "Good. And you better stay that way, because I have half a goddamned mind to put a fist through your teeth—"

"Dino," Primo snarls, "This is helping nothing." Years of practice in such misguided events has left him rationed, calm: a quiet glance turned to the pale-faced attendant behind him, who stands shell-shocked, having seen unwantedly the darker veins of their Order—and ones their customs would soon have him forget. "Jean," Primo says, waiting for his eyes to drop. "We will need a medic. Say nothing to the All-Father."

Secondo scoffs. "Oh, yes—Nihil will have this one's ass, when he hears of this—"

"Saints—ignore him, young one. A medic, and Priestess Diana. Quick as you can."

The boy nods and takes off through the hall's doors, stumbling up the stairs in his haste.

In his absence, the room holds a collective breath, the eyes of the siblings still in attendance fixed like rabbits on the four men clustered in the center of the room.

"We're alright," Primo says to them all, in a tone that is more order than reassurance.

It couldn't be more of a reach.

Terzo wheezes a snarl, a laugh. "Alright." The stones sting beneath his feet: five paces that drive him out of Secondo's iron grip, steer him straight into the path of Copia's saucer-wide blinking: eyes blue and white and younger than they should ever seem, in a face that has grown so weathered, as all of them have.

And he knew.

He lifts a clawed finger, his breath too slow. "I knew."

Primo, sharp as steel: "Do not take this out on him—"

He couldn't give a shit.

He almost killed him.

The bastard wasn't living.

"What are you, mh?" Terzo licks his lips, tastes the bitter metal of blood. He lifts a shaky hand. "No, no—what did she make you?" He smears the leather against his mouth, the heat of his stare unwavering, a knife-edge sliced from shoes to frazzled fringe. "That—that Aether just within you, eh? Always that, under there?"

Copia shakes. "I didn't," he blunders.

"This is why she brought you, isn't it? Satan, of course—"

Secondo wrestles for his elbow, a steadying squeeze. "Terzo—"

"You saw it—!"

His brother's eyes simmer: one black in the lowlight, the other white as a moonbeam. "I saw you."

His bites his nails through his glove. Rattles in a breath.

"Calm down, the both of you," Primo says coldly, a hand still on Copia's shoulder. "It was reckless—but you managed. We are all still in one piece." He steps between them, pointedly, studying Terzo's face like a leech. "Your Sight will be strained for weeks, after that. You did not have the power to even attempt that on your own."

Terzo snuffs. "A good thing one of us sorry shits did."

Behind the sharp slope of Primo's shoulder, Copia shivers, eyes downturned. "I—"

"Don't." He drags a gloved hand through his hair. Shaking—still shaking? Outraged—always. Horrified, still. "You're good," he tells his brother, tells himself. "It is all good. You're alright. Okay."

Primo's eyes stare through him, see a bitten-lipped boy with a bandage on his cheek.

Terzo turns away. "Okay," he hushes again, and walks, past Secondo's stone-still glare, Mariella's worried frown, and walks, and walks, and walks—

"You are not running away, now—"

"Dino. Leave it. Copia, do not linger on that, alright? Don't listen to it. You know how he is. It is not your fault—"

"But what—what was that? What happened—?"

—up the gnarled stairwells, out the maze of lower halls, stumbling over the grasses, and sits like a stone on the side-entry's steps. Like a ghost.

Sits for an age.

He must—because, by then, the medics have come, and the stench of that room has been dragged open, and Mariella's whispers are drifting across the corridor's arches—after he's ripped off his gloves, dug his fingers through his hair, tried to breathe and not think—and he expects her.

He expects her fear, her pity.

Not Copia.

The fool's boots scuff on the stairs.

"Is it, eh..." His brother muddles over a breath. "Alright if I—?"

Terzo doesn't have the mind to fight it—not with sweat still cold at his back. He swats his palm, some attempt at allowance, kneading his other fingers over his brow.

Copia slumps down to the steps. Just stays there, in awkward, insufferable silence.

Finally: "Shit—it's chilly today, isn't it?"

Terzo leers through his fringe. "Going to talk about the birds, next?"

"I'm just saying."

"Just saying. Yes—and you'll be singing, after." He combs back the half-tamed waves of his hair, hangs his hand across his knee. "Old chamber smells like a cesspool."

Copia manages a smile, the thistles of his mustache wrinkling. "Bleh. Nasty place. I've always hated it, down there."

"All the more reason to, now, huh?" Terzo forces a sneer of his own, glaring away. He sniffs. Pits his tongue against his teeth.

For a beat, his brother says nothing. Then, his gloved fingers squeaking over each other: "I'm alright."

Terzo chuffs, furrowing his brows. "Barely."

He can feel the rat's eyes on him. It makes his skin crawl. "Primo...told me. What it—well." Copia frowns at his boots, at the graveled path beyond. "Did you mean it?" he hushes, lifting his eyes. "That you've...seen it, before?"

Terzo bites the inside of his lip. "Seen lots of things."

"But—that. It's—I've always thought...er...felt that, maybe, she'd..."

"Sister?"

"Mother, yes—"

"Your mother."

Copia's shoulders twitch.

"I—sorry," Terzo mumbles, shifting his fingers over his thumb. "I know it's not..."

His fault, his intention—his anything, right?

But it is. Isn't.

Should be.

He flexes his hand, pitters his fingertips together. Looks away. "Anyway."

A breeze rustles cooly through the shrubbery that flanks the stairs: a feathered hush along the pines that tower over the grounds.

"Anyway," Copia repeats, shifting his tongue around his mouth. "It's just...you, eh...you have seen it, before," he says again, watching the air ripple through the leaves, "haven't you?"

Terzo glances at him. Sister's sloped nose. A paintbrush-smattering of freckles. The white of his eye, fixed on the swaying branches. Lanky little thing, as he's always been. The mirror to his own placelessness, own purposelessness, own forced mantle he never asked to have thrown upon him—but craved, clawed for, claimed, nonetheless.

"Told you, little thing," he says, tipping his heel off the stones. "Seen lots of things."

"But I know. I've always...felt it, I just haven't—" Copia fumbles, lacing his fingers. "Had the words, I guess."

"Rare thing, for you."

"Shut up."

"Heh—even rarer for me, eh?"

"Ugh."

They breathe in unison, the air thick with it: hope, despair, magic, emptiness.

"When it...when that...thing took over me, did it...say anything to you?"

Terzo's mouth ticks.

Thirteen months. Poison in his neck. His body tossed through the gaping maws of the realm beyond.

He stares at the points of his boots, still speckled with his own spit and blood, and scuffs his thumb at it.

"Eh...not clearly. Hard to make out, in the muck of it."

"None of it came through?"

Terzo tilts his chin on his shoulder, fixing him with a narrowed look. "It wasn't you, Coppie," he says. "Just...forget what I said, before. Old temper of mine, rearing its shitting head again."

"But what if—"

"It wasn't." Terzo plants his palm on his brother's knee, chipped black on his nails, and squeezes. "It wasn't," he murmurs again.

Copia stutters. "Well, even if it wasn't—it—it felt like I was..."

"Delirious?" He perks one brow, fox-grinned in his usual reach for deflection, distraction. "Dead, even?"

"Whole."

The smile wanes.

For a breath, he tries to hunt for that beast beneath his brother's skin—the way he so often does in the steamed glass of his own mirrors, and so easily sees it in them: the spire-teeth, the winged limbs, the eyes half-living.

He finds only a quivery little boy, tucked in the cage of a man's body. The same one who spent years, against all odds—against his own stupid, spiteful jealousy—clinging like a barnacle to his side.

He slides his hand away. "The Sight does it to all of us, little rat. Strips away the Veil." He picks at his thumb, the gravel hazing to a fine blur, and swallows: white stone crisping to clarity, again. "Catch an Emeritus in the right light—even a clueless one can see the Fallen in them."

Copia frowns.

Maybe it's not a comfort. All the more proof that he isn't one of them, as he has so often feared.

The Other, above all else.

"But what if I am?" he says quietly. "Whatever that...thing was? Will, eh...will something happen, if that's true?"

Terzo lifts his eyes to the sky—grayish with cloud-cover, damp with the chilled humidity of a storm along the way, something to wash this whole mess clean—and lies through his teeth.

"Happen?" he snides. "What is this—Armageddon, itself? You worry worse than Nonna, Coppie." He wrinkles his brows at him, his smile thin, his paints half-smeared off his face. "And even if you were—would it be so bad? All of us are hardly human, eh? Perhaps you are just farther along the evolutionariness—the truest Creature of the Night, of us all." His eyes widen, teasingly. "I mean—psh! I will have my fangs, no? And the pincher, his wolf-pelt, and Primo will, eh...Hell, what would the old goat be?"

Copia rolls his eyes, leaning into the cradle of his elbows. "A zombie?"

"Feh—the Nihilist is the rotting corpse, surely."

His brother rolls into a snicker. "Sea creature?"

"Agh—not the lagoon man! We will insult the dear river's integrity, with such things—no, no." Terzo sniffs, feigns smearing away his paints instead of the heat itching at his eye, and smiles wryly again. "Let's be realistic, here—the old gardenia will be the enchanted plant that traps one's bones for the witches, yes?"

Copia wheezes on another laugh.

Saints, he hates that laugh. Godawful sound, a mimicry of his own: a snort and a tea kettle and a giggle all in one.

The brightest sunbeam of any.

"He has to be the, er—the witch, right?" Copia wonders, giving him a teasing glance.

Terzo flashes his teeth. "Now, if that is the category—I will rule above them all, no?"

And his brother laughs again.

Their little brother, little demon, little star. The highest heir of them all, doomed to a path he should have never been put on—as all of them are, in their own ways. Always have been; always will be.

Terzo ignores Primo's shadow in the corridor, flanked by Mariella's quiet eyes. Ignores the hawkish leer of Secondo's folded-armed scowling, waiting to deflect the plague that will no doubt burst into the halls, once news of it all has reached the ears of their Highest.

At least for this moment, he can pretend.

Flit away what is yet to come, like a bottle tossed to the sea—Nihil, Sister, this brother tressed in silks and jewels for a price he hadn't the slightest knowledge would be paid—and goad another laugh out of him, and another.

Relish in the denial that this is all that ever was. Ever could be.

Copia: blushing, teary-eyed but toothy, knocking his shoulder into his—unable to do anything but choke at the idiotic scenarios he conjures for the four of them, in all their monsterly glory. As distracted as he deserves to be, after that wretched thing. The memory of it all forgotten, if for a moment.

And that's enough, Terzo thinks, the cool tang of rain on the gales.

For now, maybe, that's enough.

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