#hes been in hiding because hes been in metamorphosis

[xythlia]

— ❛ metamorphosis ❜

inspired by the greek myth of pygmalion and galatea, the sculptor who loved his creation so much he begged aphrodite to turn her flesh and blood so she would be his wife

› satoru x f!reader

› word count : 2k+

warnings : angst, m masturbation, mention of death but nothing explicit, readers a curse & a marble statue, something something be careful what you wish for (possibly gonna do a pt two because obviously reader came back wrong™)

Everyone who needs to know, knows how a curse is formed. Knows exactly where they come from and for the most part why. But Satoru could never wrap his head around why you chose to haunt him, and like this.

After your initial death it manifested as peculiar visions caught in his peripheral, a flash of white that dissipated the second any of his six eyes tried focusing on it. But the feeling of it, god it felt just like you. And it was so like you to play some elaborate little joke, even after death. As if your entire death had been one elaborate joke and not the second greatest heartache of his life.

He'd been careful, so painfully careful about controlling himself and not letting the despair of losing you suffocate him lest this be the outcome. He didn't want to see you that way. Instead throwing himself into teaching, into the present, lest he become shackled by the past even more than he already was. He tried so very, very hard to let you go.

But apparently it wasn't really up to him, because as the years passed you gained more and more substance, more form, and seemingly felt more emboldened to no longer hide in the corners of his eyes but forcing yourself front and center.

And what a odd form you took.

A statue. Innocuous at first glance but he was never one to take anything at face value. It was like you were carved by a sculptor par excellence, birthed not from chisel but as if from the universe itself. Every detail, down to the most miniscule, lovingly rendered in breathtaking relief. So much tenderness held captive in your hardened, unseeing eyes. A hand held aloft in an almost loving, beckoning position.

As the days passed he spent more and more time focused on you, on your appearance and looking at it not as a curse but perhaps the strangest of blessings. You hadn't come back as some thing all teeth or claws, in fact you never moved a muscle. Just like all the earthly sculptures bedecked in various museums around the world you stood much the same.

With each day came a new bauble he would fix to your marble form, a flower held here or there to your hair with scotch tape, his favorite scarf wrapped around your cool to the touch neck. This evolved into a sort of... ritual over time. It was something he took greater joy in than he would ever admit. Quiet nights spent murmuring to you, not minding that you never answered. You didn't need to. It wasn't as sophisticated as telepathy but just the same it was like he could feel your feelings in response to whatever he was saying while rearranging and redressing your stone body.

In rare moments when his fingers would brush against the stone he could almost swear it felt warm, as if just seconds away from giving beneath his fingertips like melting wax, and in the next second you'd be shrieking with laughter at being accidentally tickled by him.

Just like back then.

It did mystify him a bit, why you chose a marble statue and why you remain so silent and still. Maybe it would hurt too much otherwise, so he doesn't press you to speak or try to change your shape. It was just like when you were still here, he would've loved you no matter what so why would it be any different like this?

But still, he feels all the same longing he felt then. The need to touch you, hold you, see your back arching off his bed and feel your fingers gripping against his shoulder blades. The saccharine cries of his name from your lips, prayer like and spurring him on move deeper, harder.

His hands tremble against your inert ones, tears blurring you in watercolor relief as the world loses its focus. His breathing became laborious as he rested his forehead against you, always so cold to the touch. It did little to ground him against the tidal wave of grief soaked desire that rushed around his mind.

Without conscious thought his hand slid down his torso, palming at his aching erection through his sweatpants. It was obscene, even thinking about doing something like this with a curse but for better or worse he was devoid of thought in this moment. His lips pressed sloppy, open mouthed kisses to your alabaster skin as he rolled the waistband down, feeling his throbbing cock smack against his abdomen.

Satoru hissed feeling the warm weight of his cock in hand, the pressure felt good and a soft sigh fell from his lips as his eyes fluttered closed. Retreating into memory as his other hand gripped the frigid marble, so hard he was afraid for half a moment that it would bruise before remembering himself.

He licked the palm of his hand, wishing it was your tongue sliding against the veins of his cock before wrapping it around the shaft, stroking slowly at first and alternating to swipe his thumb over his flushed tip, practically dripping precum.

He's called back to a memory from early in your relationship, showering together for the first time mostly out of utility after being on a particularly lengthy mission. The way you'd slid your hands down his body, across his back and over his stomach had made his heart feel like someone strapped electric cables to it.

Its harder to hold back as he falls headlong into it, remembering how your hands looked wrapped around his cock, fingertips straining to meet around the full thickness of him. The thrill of it sends shivers down his spine, makes him pump himself faster.

You'd look otherworldly on your knees in front of him now, eyes teary and cheeks hollow as you struggle to take all of him down your throat but you were always so eager to please, especially when it came to him. Satoru can feel the coil tightening in his gut, and before he was truly ready it's already happening, thick milky spurts splashing against your skin and his balls throbbing so hard his thigh muscles even tensing up in response. It took monumental effort to keep himself steady, braced against your solid form as his cum decorated you with the most pornographic accessory yet.

As his breathing steadied he was overcome with the fact that he hates himself for this.

Hates you a little bit too.

How pathetic, to be reduced to masturbating against this lifeless vision of you. To play dress up with it. To speak and laugh with it as if it's his closest confidant.

Just as he felt himself on the brink of the emotional abyss of grief something caught his eye, making his breath hitch and it was as if all time stopped.

The color of the marble was different.

So subtle that he nearly missed it, but it was undeniable. Ever so slightly the pallor of your skin had shifted, as if the color was bleeding through slowly.

For the first time in a long while Satoru wept.

#jjk smut #jjk angst #jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen x reader #gojo x reader #jujutsu kaisen smut #gojo smut #gojo angst #satoru gojo smut #satoru gojo x reader #gojo x reader smut #gojo x you

[eros-vigilante]

The Many References in Teniwoha's Samsa

If you haven't read "The Metamorphosis" by Franz Kafka, the one thing you likely know about the short story is that in it a man turns into a bug. And this is enough to recognize the allusion of Samsa being named after the protagonist, Gregor Samsa, as well as the imagery of a dragging tail and onomatopoeia of "zuki". However, there are several deeper layers to Teniwoha's symbolism of themes and references to "The Metamorphosis" that add a great level of cohesion with Immiscible Discord's story. First, I would like to say that "The Metamorphosis" can be found as a free pdf online, and is a very good short story, so if you have the time and energy you should read it. This post will only be summarizing the themes that are referenced in Samsa and Immiscible Discord and will not include some of the other great commentaries Franz Kafka has. And of course, it will spoil the progression of the plot. Also, all quoted lyrics are from Amiaryllis' english cover, which is also very good and worth listening to. The lyrics will not be quoted in order.

The biggest and first theme the surrealist nature of the story expresses is that Gregor Samsa has been led to - and does - believe that his worth is tied to his ability to work. When he discovers he is a bug, he is only concerned because he is going to be late for his job if he cannot figure out how to get out of bed in his new body. He is determined to go to work because his entire family relies on his job to pay for their lives. ("i've grown monstrous down to the very core of my soul") This is comparable to Mafuyu's relationship to academics. Their mother relies on them to fulfill her dream of Mafuyu becoming a doctor, and so teaches them that nothing matters as much as this goal. Even when Mafuyu is stressed or physically ill, they push themselves to attend school, club activities, cram school, and study. Mafuyu's academic performance is their worth to their mother, as Samsa's income is his worth to his family. ("so could the bravest of souls face me and bear the toll?") When Samsa's family discovers he is an insect, they are horrified. Samsa finds this reasonable as he also considers his form monstrous. It is another theme of the story being from his perspective that he has good faith in his family to the point of seeming either naive or to have a low self-esteem. Actions that are most easily justified as disgust and hatred are rationalized by him, despite acknowledging at points that his family was not as affectionate to him after they began relying on him for money, as well as acts of physical violence such as his father shoving him back into his room.

("those painful fights, fearful nights") This is an interesting thing to compare to Mafuyu's experience of being gaslit by their mother. They believe very strongly- because they were told- that everything their mother is doing is for them, their future, and is in their best interests. This prevents them from questioning her actions and sacrificing their own desires in a self-destructive manner, which is also something Samsa does. For instance, he hides himself with a bedsheet so his sister does not have to see him when she brings him food, despite him finding this uncomfortable. ("craving any smile or attention just from you") Samsa's sister is the only one who still shows affection towards him, as she is the one who brings him food, but eventually she too festers fear towards and dehumanizes him. By the end of the story, the entire family blames their despair on him becoming an insect and no longer believe he is Gregor Samsa. The most direct reference to the story in the lyrics is when his father throws apples at him and has to be stopped from killing him by his wife, Gregor's mother. He crawls back into his room and he is locked inside. ("i beg, don’t throw those rotten apples at my chest before they lock up, lock up samsa") This could best reference when Kaito says that Mafuyu's mother is killing their feelings or true identity. Additionally, Mafuyu's mother places all blame for Mafuyu's recent behavior on Kanade's influence. And as the family plans for their life after his death, Mafuyu's mother tells Kanade that she plans to convince Mafuyu to go back to doing what she wants, no matter how extreme she must be about it. ("if it all goes to plan, then, we’ll soon rejoice") In the end, Gregor Samsa stops eating, and dies of starvation. All the while, he still thinks fondly of his family and believes they are in the right for their treatment of him. Gregor Samsa is used to form a strong representation of the extent to which Mafuyu has been gaslit. ("so please don't tell me that you'll be giving up on reality, samsa") The biggest difference (other than the bug transformation) is that Mafuyu has people who still dearly care about them, and not just for what they can provide. While all of Gregor Samsa's family abandons him, the other members of Nightcord do not abandon Mafuyu. Mafuyu has a reason to live, and people to tell them that they do not deserve to be locked away. ("i know that brilliant light will shine as the clock strikes 25")

He could already hardly feel the decayed apple in his back or the inflamed area around it, which was entirely covered in white dust. He thought back of his family with emotion and love. If it was possible, he felt that he must go away even more strongly than his sister. He remained in this state of empty and peaceful rumination until he heard the clock tower strike three in the morning. He watched as it slowly began to get light everywhere outside the window too. Then, without his willing it, his head sank down completely, and his last breath flowed weakly from his nostrils (Franz Kafka).

#mafuyu asahina #immiscible discord #mafumom #samsa teniwoha #franz kafka #prosekai #n25

[see-arcane]

Blood of My Blood: Something to Cry About

Consider this a spinoff of a spinoff. Based on @ibrithir-was-here's Blood of My Blood and directly jumping off of @bluecatwriter's chapter, Overindulgence.

In which the Master of the castle runs into an unexpected concern regarding his dear vassal and being the monster in the picture is not quite as fun as he recalls.

(Warnings for suicidal ideation and domestic abuse.)

His eyes were shut, but he wasn’t sleeping.

It was not the first time his friend had greeted him so. Back in that first private summer there had been something of a game made from it. Whenever his friend was caught supine in bed or on a couch without the will to drag himself to consciousness and perform for his Master, the latter would sometimes test the limits of the act. A hand on his throat. Another under the shirt and over the drumming heart. That had been back when only one of them carried a chill.

What a distant thing that season was now. The dark-haired youth had only been able to hide his expression because fatigue still left its miserable countenance stamped on him. He had not been able to fully hide his shudders then; not when the hands began to move. Now here was his friend just shy of the full metamorphosis, human by the thinnest wisp of definition, a marble statue in his bed.

Stained marble. He was so drained as to nearly match the silver-white corona of hair on the pillow. There were the usual shadows under the eyes and the mottling spots that showed where his family nursed at throat and wrist. But the palette broke anew along one side. Even if it was to allow space for the bandages.

Bandages that had started white but now flared in spots of scarlet. Rings, rather.

Bites.

Ah, he had indulged deeply. 

Enough to sand the years away to those earliest days when he himself had been a youth peddling soul and sacrifices away beneath the Mountain. Amusing as it was, and infinitely worth the woman’s face upon seeing the full claim of her husband in action, he did catch himself counting the hours until this whipcord stage would fade out of him. It would be a pain in and of itself for bone and beard and build to all even out again into full manhood. Just having his own voice in his ears would be a relief in itself. Unquestioned as his rule was, even he could not play deaf to the absurdity of the lord of the castle sounding a year short of his first shave.

He could almost fool himself into thinking dear Jonathan was playing ignorant because he did not recognize his Master’s voice. Almost.

“She wrapped it poorly,” he hummed. He sat at the faux dreamer’s hip. “The stain should not be visible.”

Jonathan’s eyes stayed shut. His breathing did not change, thin as it was. Perhaps the woman was in his head, whispering behind his back. But a simple check showed otherwise.

Mother and child were both out from underfoot for the moment, amusing themselves with animals. The boy maintained the wolves as his most cherished creatures, as was right, but the other beasts in the dark had hooked his eye as well. Bat and rat, owl and fox. The latter had scared him once, hearing it scream for the first time—a human shriek from an inhuman throat. The woman was out with another of her husband’s doting gifts, a book of fauna with all the airy definitions and dissections that mortal science had seen fit to cage the local range of species in. It was something to keep them busy and another little facet to add to the boy’s knowledge.

The woman felt him prying and a reflexive response tried to leap back at him. He shut her out before she could know where he was. Not that it would matter. He could revoke her meager privilege with his friend as he liked. But this was not for others to intrude on. Supposing Jonathan dropped his act sometime this decade.

“Oh, dear. I had not realized you were so depleted. Perhaps I should fetch some donors from the village and have them pipe their veins into yours. It worked so artfully for other patients. Or,” he made a show of slitting open a wrist to let the dark vein ooze, knowing the gesture was sensed even behind closed eyes, “since you are so set on the repose of death, we could go ahead and rescind all the playacting and reach denouement early. It would surely save much in time and tears and—,”

Jonathan’s eyes were open. Not looking at him. The pale hands remained folded atop the sheets. One was limp. The other was lax only from the effort to avoid becoming a fist.

“There you are. Ah, and there is the opportunity gone.”

His wrist was already healed. Sealed shut almost the instant it was cut. Even two nights on, he was swollen with his friend’s draught. He had to admire the vitality required for such a task. Poor Lucy would have wilted at the first two bites, with or without her impotent ring of suitors dumping their blood into her to drag out the inevitable. In truth, he had half-hoped that the sweet diversion of the Lesson would end with Jonathan’s heart stopping altogether. The feeding of blood was only a requirement if the transformation was intended to be a slower process, as it had been meted out to the woman.

Had Jonathan died, he would be undead within the same night. Perhaps even the same hour. Being siphoned for almost half a decade by three vampires would leave no room for the process to drag its heels. What a treat it might have been to see the woman realize what she’d done. All her beloved’s sacrifice thrown away because she’d grasped beyond what was hers. And better still to have the weight of the farce finally shrugged from his shoulders as it was ripped from Jonathan’s. The boy would have cheered, he knew, to see his Papa finally in their ranks completely.

And then would come their first hunt…

But he was woolgathering. And, in the fashion of a youth, chasing mere impulse when he knew the fruits were not yet ripe. Let the game play out, young man. He would have his way by the end, do not throw the foreplay away now.

Jonathan still did not look at him.

“You seem unable to turn your head, my friend. Did I truly spend so long with your neck? Memory does not lie and I can see myself that the shoulder received far more attention.”

Jonathan did turn his head—to face the wall. The ghost-light eyes hovered on the calendar, brow furrowed in reading the weeks. His lips moved in silent muttering.

A clawed finger reached out, hooking the pallid chin until Jonathan turned to him. There was a genuine wince as he did so. He had bitten deep and not with the usual set of teeth. He’d called upon the Wolf’s rows to be sure of strength and for the demonstration made before his greedy audience. But even with the heady extra helping of blood, even with the Lesson successfully taught, there was no sidestepping the fact of the method’s sloppiness. Intentional in the moment, yes, but…

But what? He will heal. And if he doesn’t, he will die and do better than heal. Call it a Lesson for him too. Such is the lot of one who clings to the role of livestock. Really, it is probably a boon to his penitent soul. A belated lashing for what he still considers his sins. 

“Does it hurt?” he asked aloud.

Jonathan did not answer. Only stared at him. There was no fear there, nor even that constant element of melancholy. There was only a queer flatness. It might nearly be mistaken for the same glaze of placidity the woman tried to hide her rages with. But no, it was not even anger. What, then?

“Have you lost the use of your tongue as well?” The question came with a flicker of mesmer. It hooked the root of Jonathan’s tongue and yanked.

“No,” Jonathan offered blandly. And no more than that. As if there were truly no other words he had to spare for his Master.

“I had not realized you stored your vocabulary in your arteries.”

“Even if it were otherwise, I imagine I’d have little to say worth sharing.”

My friend, is this you sulking? It has been years!

Years since that last pregnant silence as he showed Mr. Harker the wolves at the door. Since he watched the young man sit and stew and struggle against tears before ascending wordlessly to his room. What a raw little thing he’d been then.

But the thing staring back at him was not raw. It was something leaden and tired and…bored? Was that it? Something near to that, perhaps, but sharper.

“Now, there is no need to pout. You know I have never ceased to cherish our little talks. But I do see you are making do with only water and bread. Dear Mina has left you like a lame pet up here.” In reality the water was fresh and the bread, baked the day before, was joined by what non-perishable goods the woman had scrounged by way of a breakfast. Even the boy had left him with what he considered a treasure by way of a bowl brimming with wild berries he’d picked himself around the castle. All this had been sampled, if thinly. “Yours is the only tongue here left to appreciate a vintage in its original state rather than filtered through a vein. Shall you have a claret or something stronger?”

“Neither. Thank you.”

Flat as a skipping stone. He did not even reach for the old half-joking insistence that he did not dare risk an overindulgence of wine or liquor as, quote, ‘If I drank every time I felt I needed it, I would be an alcoholic within a week.’ Instead, the stare. Still ongoing. Seeming to realize this, Jonathan made himself blink before trying to turn his head away. Back to the calendar.

His Master locked a full hand around his jaw and twisted him back. Another wince.

No fear. No sorrow. No anything. Just that blunt void of acknowledgment. That unknown thing hovering between ire and lethargy.

“Might I ask what it is that so fascinates you about the date? It must be some worthy holiday to outweigh your Master’s presence.”

“Not a holiday,” Jonathan allowed. “Though I suppose I should mark down the evening three nights prior as a milestone. Something to keep on record.” Three nights prior. When the Lesson was taught. “Your first bout of physical abuse on me. I had thought you couldn’t hold out beyond two years. Most of you don’t even make it past the first two months. Yet you are patient, so I figured there would be an insulation period.” 

It was his turn to stare back. Jonathan waited as he did, seeming oddly like he was itching for a pocket watch to tally how many minutes he was wasting breath on this exchange. His Master’s hand moved from the pale chin to the bandaged shoulder.

“Most of who?”

The hand squeezed. Jonathan grimaced, but didn’t blink.

“The demographic of men I had hoped you were better than. There was evidence enough to suggest it. At least a ratio of odds that favored something less predictable. Despite what proofs there are to the contrary, you are not a violent man, Sir. Not when you can happily do worse than violence. Certainly not when the prelude to it provides better results and entertainment. Why else would you take such care to drag out a season of captivity or play your games on the Demeter? Why feed on a victim by drops rather than ravage outright but for the joy of watching their comprehension of the inevitable? The only instances in which you resort to straight aggression are when you want something over with.

“A mother eaten by wolves. Sacks of children thrown like scraps. Your own aide waiting ashore, slaughtered and stuffed in a stone wall to muddy your trail. Quick, quick, quick. Violence bores you in the same way doing linens bores a laundress. If it must be done, fine, let it be over with—but it is no more or less than something to scrape from the schedule. At a guess, that night’s violence was for Mina’s sake. I had not changed anything in my routine. Quincey had done no ill. Mina, I suspect…what? Blinked incorrectly? Asked to see me for a heartbeat beyond the scheduled feeding? Dared to request a moment of make-believe where you do not own us all, as if the very act of imagination equated a challenge to you?

“But that is all beside the point. You have stepped fully into the cliché. And I had accounted for that. The first round tallied. Fine. The issue comes with the timing. Your insistence on who else ought to be in the audience.” In his lap, one hand finally lost the fight and hardened into a fist. The other, attached to the bitten arm, only twitched. “Mina was the point of the show. But our son? Was he part of the Lesson too? Did you order him to stay as yet another hoop for her to jump through, to make her act and lie beyond all extremes? No, I should not ask. Of course he was.”

The ghost-light eyes burned.

“This, when he loves you as his Father. When the entire point of all this is giving him a life he can trust in. You saw him smile for you in this room. He held you and beamed and heard your stories. And then what? What did he ask before you left him in his coffin?”

The woman had not been in his mind at the time to overhear. She could not know. She could not have told her husband what the boy asked.

The boy, his smile fading, his eyes sunset-bright and wondering, blankets fidgeting in his hands.

‘Are you sure Papa is alright? He looked really tired…’     

His Father had told him yes, of course, but Papa had been so enchanting that night that Father had not been able to help himself. Not to worry, his Mum would take care of him as she always did. All’s well, diavol. And the boy had tried to smile. Tried to believe him.

And couldn’t.

“He turns five next year. Five. And you are already blasting holes in the foundation of his faith in you. In what we have been building out of debris to produce a happy reality for him, in which his parents are not monsters.” Now a note of true venom slipped through his voice, the hollow-burning eyes narrowed to cold angles, and at last the feeling was recognized for what it was, and it was... “In which he does not have to be yet another actor for your benefit.”

…Disappointment.

Cold and grey and coarse with recognition. With experience.

“All of that being said, Sir, if you feel you must make another show of the obvious,” the fist uncurled to gesture at the mauled shoulder, “I ask that you reserve it strictly for the adults.” Finally the lambent gaze skidded away, looking not at Master or calendar, but at his still-resting hand on the covers. The fingers still hadn’t curled further than halfway to his palm. “Perhaps I’ll blame it on a doorknob next time.” Then, as if the entire topic were dismissed, he reached across to the nightstand. A notebook sat beside the dish of food. Not another diary, but a weighty planner. Jonathan folded it open to the latest page. The fountain pen’s cap was worked off with some difficulty by wedging it between the fingers of the lax hand. “Most of the itinerary was cleared a week ahead. The triplicates will take a little longer than I’d hoped, but they should still be ready within the month.” The nib poised on the page. “Was there anything else that needed attention, Sir?”

Besides you? said the ghost-light eyes.

His Master regarded him for a moment. Another. A third. As he regarded him, a clawed hand floated out and pinched the book out of Jonathan’s hold. The book flew like a discus into the furthest wall. Outside, a summer storm grumbled. He felt a distant twitch of his senses as the woman and the boy both prickled with worry. Storms were never just storms around the castle.

Jonathan capped the pen and waited. Even devoid of a psychic voice, his eyes spoke with an articulation so clear he might have talked aloud:

Go on. The moment fits the criteria. We are our only witnesses. Fetch a switch off a tree or a broken bottle while you’re at it. Really round out the scene.  

“I came here,” his Master grated with rigid courtesy, “to offer some manner of respite. Perhaps even a token of reward for so expertly assisting in a much-needed Lesson. But I see I was mistaken. If I had known you were in such an ungrateful state, I would have waited. As it stands, it appears you need educating of your own. Poor Mina, she will be so disappointed to learn that her dearly-bought visits are now revoked.” He feigned his own interest in the calendar. Then at the vast window that looked out on the plummeting height of the tower and the half-moon squinting through the thunderhead’s cracks. “Our son’s as well, I think. He really is so spoiled in his free time. Bothering his poor beset Papa night and day when he has so much to do…

“Ah, but then, perhaps this is remiss of me too. I am no child despite my current face. I have run the entirety of this castle and its domain singlehandedly for centuries, all without any novice solicitors to flutter around my office. Likewise for the tending of the castle itself. Really, my friend, what reason is there for you to be so abused as to leave this room at all? To be bothered by maintaining the performance for mother and child? Such a labor, such a trial.

“Well, no more of it! You can stay here, they can stay without, and whenever it comes time to feed, you may empty your veins into a cup. Far tidier that way, and so much closer to the human façade besides! You do want the boy to learn how to pantomime humanity in full, yes? Of course you do. So that is how it shall be from here out. You in your tower, they in the crypt, and I shall endeavor to play go-between for all to the best of my ability. How does that suit you?”

He bared his teeth to the gums with his grin. Waiting for the tears. For the shattering of the dull mask. For the bribe, the plea, the grovel. He did all quite beautifully when the occasion called for it over the years. His wife did well enough, especially for one grappling with the impulse-weight of the Vampire, but Jonathan had it down to an artform. Indeed, he saw the first shine of dew come over the brilliant white-blue of the eyes, the quirk and twitch of his face into a grimace—

No. No, not a grimace.

A rictus.

The corners flinched up before Jonathan could hide it behind his hand. By then it was too late. Assuming the man could’ve stopped himself. A noise that tried to be a sob leapt through his teeth. It came out as a laugh. As did all the sounds that followed. A long hideous string of giggles boiling over into a cackle that brought rivers of tears to his shining eyes. It was not a man’s sound, but the mock-laughter of hyenas, the baying racket of jackals.

Unbidden, he leaned an inch away from his friend. Several inches. The movement snapped Jonathan’s eyes back to him, wide and wild and blazing and for one lunatic instant they seemed to brand the afterimage of the house in Piccadilly on the room, that surreal moment in which he first saw the uncanny Thing that wore his dear friend’s skin; a Thing that could and would kill him with his steel or his own hands. Even in a crowded street.

But that moment passed—long, long ago now, back before the insurance of the woman and her collared will were his precious cudgel—and Jonathan himself seemed wholly oblivious to the recollection. In his face there was only a madness of such profound despair and scorn that the effect dizzied.

“You do not understand. You really truly don’t, do you?” The words were cracked and brittle, barely holding an intelligible shape. “You talk of tokens and punishments. As if I have ever dared to hope, to even think of wanting anything for myself, since that night in October. As if I have not already imagined and lived, expected and met every possible nightmare that God could throw in my path and hers. I lived the first twenty years of a pointless joke of a life already under every bootheel the civilized human world had to offer, as did she. We grasped at crumbs of joy, of hope, of respite from the reality of our lots. This we could do because we had each other and our faith. Faith that for all the ills that humanity dealt out with the good, there was at least a chance for us. There was, we prayed, something better waiting on the other end of life. If we were good. If we did good.     

“But then you had to prove it all wrong. To burst the lie. Not that God is not real. He so very clearly is. But you—all that you are, all that you’ve done, all you will continue to do without so much as a slap on the wrist from the divine Powers that Be—proved that He is fickle. That His love and protection is wholly conditional. That someone as good, as pure, as blisteringly virtuous as Mina could be burned by the Son for another’s sin, abandoned and denied like a used rag for the crime of someone else’s violation. All to have the ransom of her humanity dangled over our heads to spur a handful of strangers onto the hunt after…what? Four centuries’ worth of you owning these mountains and its people, all of them dutifully cowering and dying behind their own half-helpful crucifixes?

“But oh no! Too late! Complications abound! The mother is with child and it does not matter to the good men who swore to slaughter her! And God must have declared them good men, for they did so good with Lucy. Lucy, who has surely gone to Heaven with her slaying…or not. What proof is there? What guarantee is there that anyone with your poison in them can hope for salvation, alive or dead? They saw her corpse and nothing else. They choked on hope and called it evidence that this was the right thing to do. God’s will be done.

“I have already murdered to go against His will. I slew those good men to keep them from making an Isaac and a slaughtered lamb of my Loves. I damned myself then as I had been preparing to damn myself since the moment I woke to her screams and your work. Do you understand?”

Despite the sultry rainstorm air trying to bleed in through the window, the room was cold. Somehow it had grown outright frigid around the bed and the Thing hunching out of his sheets.

“I have nothing. Nothing at all but purpose. Nothing I would dare to want, knowing it will be lost. Nothing I have left to lose, having ceased to believe the lie that I have any potential for joy beyond a reflection of my Loves’ peace. Nothing resembling anything so laughable as respite on any level. I am reduced to a talking trough for the sake of a family who deserves worlds beyond the stain you and I would leave on them without supreme effort. So, go ahead. Play jailor. Play glutton. Play king of the castle and lord above all and whatever else you stopped being able to play with your last captive audience once they were worn down to cackling husks that only had room in themselves for hunger and jeering, knowing that you had no more to threaten them with after taking all that they had.

“In fact? Here. Since I still have some feeling in my left hand. Wouldn’t want you giving me a holiday from work without due reason, and it shall save you the trouble of inventing an excuse to maim the rest.”

As he spoke, Jonathan tore at the bandages. They fell away in grisly ribbons to reveal a far grimmer map of injury than expected. It was worse still when Jonathan twisted to show his back. Bites and bruises patterned him like gruesome puzzle pieces. There were stitches closing two flaps of skin together. In one portion there were small chunks of flesh entirely gone where the teeth had torn them loose.

“Go on. Get on with it. Or would it be better for you if I threw in a scream and a plea to top things off? Pick a script, Sir, let me know.”

Jonathan kept his back to his Master. His Master only stared. Then, with a hand laid gentle as a feather on the ruined shoulder:

“I believe you were right at the start. You do have little to say worth sharing.”

The hand traced the first of the marks. A broad bite clamped along the carotid; the kind that could have torn the entire throat out, Adam’s apple and all. If its maker were not cautious. It was only the ensuing that had been ragged, tearing at muscle more than vein. To make a necessary a point.

As if his friend cared. As if he should care whether his friend cared.

His thumb brushed over a small crater where a canine had torn away so thickly that the flesh dimpled.

Jonathan waited for it to be joined by others like it.

Waited. Waited.

It was almost a full minute before he realized the light touch on him was no touch at all. He turned to see his Master was gone. If he’d had the energy to leave the bed, he might have gone to the door. His Master was on the other side, turning the key over in his hand. As he lingered, a bat summoned to the window. Beady borrowed eyes peered through the glass, waiting for Jonathan to rise, to go to the door and see if it was open.

Should he lock it as he rose? As he tried to turn the knob? Or did he skip the key entirely and simply hold the door shut to watch him scrabble one-handed at it?

The bat watched Jonathan hobble from the bed and to the chair of the writing desk. He dragged the chair to the window. Sat. Stared out through the glass at the moon.

His Master willed the clouds to cover it.

Jonathan stared still.

Still.

Still.

His good hand was the only part that moved. There was something white being fidgeted with. A stick of chalk.

It was only when he felt the woman and the boy heading for the tower that the key was pocketed unused and its owner drifted as a mist through another window. The bat watched as Jonathan pocketed his chalk and stood from his chair upon hearing the child’s chirruping voice echoing up the stairs. Papa-Papa-Papa-are-you-up? Papa hid the bandages and donned a robe before grabbing a book at random for his lap while his good hand pinched cold food from his plate. The boy bounded in, mother in tow, Papa, Papa, look-look-look. Jonathan looked dutifully at the new drawings he’d made, including one done from life of a red fox that let them get this close before running off. Jonathan was duly impressed. His weak hand was in his woman’s fingers, gently held, more gently curling and testing the limp knuckles.

Their Master did not linger long enough to know whether Jonathan would tell her of their visit now or later. It was moot. The scene cloyed.

The bat flew and the mist sank away.

He couldn’t recall the last time he’d been in his women’s chambers. Even the sole woman left in the castle hardly bothered with them. Antique treasures were buried under the modern trappings he’d tossed their way in preparation for England. They would have been with him once he set the groundwork in London. Them and his good friend.

All dust now.

Like the dust now glazing so much of the old rooms. Jonathan had taken a Herculean task upon himself some years prior to try and chip at the disuse and damage of a room at a time between his usual work. The paperwork, the horses, the errands, the cautious playing of mouthpiece and shield between Master and subjects. Between all that, he set himself to the tidying of this hall or that chamber. It was as impressive as it was embarrassing to note whenever his Master passed by one of these rooms in a state of surprise. He’d half-forgotten most of them existed, let alone what they had looked like before the ennui set in. Even the tarnish on the fixtures and doorknobs was cleaned away.

‘Perhaps I’ll blame it on a doorknob next time.’

He curled his lip and shoved the thought away. Then shoved over a bookcase for good measure. Novels in half a dozen languages went tumbling alongside a few expensive baubles. Old gold bookends, glass statues, cut gems so large and hollowed they could hold a wealth of rings and bracelets. All to pair with the tailoring of the wardrobes. These stood at attention beside abandoned easels, instruments, and myriad other distractions. All things given to be taken away. Only as was merited, of course. Such lazy mincing things, his old Loves. Coaxing anything but bile or idleness from them was like convincing a snail to run.

And most of what was goaded had been—

‘You yourself never loved. You never loved!’

—not a fraction of what they had given at the start. Not even their beginnings had amounted to much after the consummation. Stolen or bartered or lured, his Loves had lapsed so quickly into backhanded camaraderie. They had made cats of themselves, knowing they were craved simply for the fact of their presence and it gave them as close to free reign as their Master would ever give. Not enemies, but pets. Pretty faces and musical laughter to populate the nights with more than his own echoes.

For there had been laughter. With him. At him. Sometimes he had even let them claw or snap at him just for the excuse of the punishment he would inflict after. Really, for the sake of something to actually do with them beyond their nightly sniping.

He left the chambers and frowned down the hall. Moonlight fell through the nearest southward chamber, the window clean for the first time in ages, the interior righted and swept. It held books he had read two centuries ago, an old chessboard he had lost a century before that, now with its polished crystal men standing at attention, fallen curtains beaten from their dust and hung anew, paintings and an elderly world map peppered with monsters reframed and set upon the walls. The latter had been drawn to his attention by Jonathan himself, smiling with the boy in his lap, mentioning idly that he had found a map of fascinating creatures he had no name for, might Father know them..?

Father had, of course. The boy had been enraptured for nights with his definitions, with the monsters proven wholly imaginary or simply animals or, he knew from experience, terribly real. Tales he had relayed giddily at the next family meal, his Papa wasted but smiling on between him and his mother who had already heard her dose of legendry down in the crypt. Holding his Loves with two good hands.

He knocked a dresser over as well.

What did he care? What did he possibly care whether his dear friend took some overdue recompense for his betrayal? For upending meticulous plans and striking a scar into his Master’s brow and daring to haggle for the chance to squat here, under his lenient aegis rather than order the woman to tear into him and their brat and bash her own skull to gruel? Really, his friend was lucky to have such a meager toll to pay.

Other than vassalage. Other than slaughtering in Love’s name over God’s and sending the hunting party’s scraps limping away. Other than complaining of his mangling only because it upset the child; because the child had to hide that he was upset, just like Mum and Papa hide from Father. Other than actively laying foundations for a second invasion of England once the boy is grown, selling himself further down the layers of Hell, for Love’s sake. Other than this, yes, most meager. Practically nothing. You are many things, old devil, but the least you can be is honest with yourself. Or are you not still preening to yourself even now at your bargain?

Your losses: A scratch on the head. A two-decade wait. A handful of women.

Your gains: Your mind. Your future no longer being a mere checklist. Your Harkers.

Your friend.

Draga ta.

He first bristled, then sighed. His mind was walled off. There was no spying. He could admit the obvious to himself.

Not now, not tomorrow, but eventually. No need to fret over it. Time is the sea that eats away all stone, however stubborn. He will break given ages enough. It took the weight of the Mountain and its Lessons, but you broke too. And you were better for it. This sour period will pass. They will all break and learn and be pieced into proper shape.

Obvious, obvious. Of course.

His feet took him to the southward room. Map, art, chess, books. One of many rooms with forgotten treasures. Converted and cleaned and left like little oases. For the boy, for the woman, for his Master.

And yet Jonathan’s own room remained bare.

There was a little bookcase, he knew. But was it used? Was there anything else in the man’s room but a bed, clothes, and a desk? Memory ticked back along his mind. All the visits made to drink or talk or, in his friend’s sleep, simply to watch. What was there to that room that was not already waiting for him when his Master first ordered him in?

Sometimes there were drawings or wild bouquets from the boy. Food from the woman whenever he worked into one of those stupors that made him forget his meals. No more than that. Almost five years under the castle’s roof, diving in and out of the place’s uncounted rooms, going to and from the towns or ordering from afar, and there was not a single thing within his personal four walls to suggest it. And was that not strange in itself? True, he might occasionally be locked inside the tower, but not as a constant.

If the point of giving something was to have it taken away, the reverse held true too. He did let his friend roam where he may more often than not. And his friend did make use of it and his limited access to his Master’s coffers.

For anyone other than himself.

Yes, well. He does have his chair and his window. If he has gone so long without need of more, so much the better. Far easier upkeep than some hangers-on you could mention.

The thought failed to raise a smile on him.

He gripped the bookcase before him—jammed end to end with hardcovers of multiple eras, not a volume out of place—and thought for several minutes of tipping it over. Perhaps throwing it into the courtyard. Instead, he walked his fingers along until they landed on a history text. Written in the native tongue, it was one of the less maddeningly misinformed volumes of the late 17th century. Even the illustrations were passable. Jonathan must have overlooked it. He had been as adamant as their son once upon a time when it came to unearthing old histories. More, he was making more than fair leaps with his practice in the different languages of the mountains.

The book left the room with him.

The book stayed with him for the rest of the night and all of the day.

His eyes were sent elsewhere.

The bats slept, but the rats were busy. Or they would be, if he’d had need of more than one left loitering in the shade under Jonathan’s wardrobe. Animal-fear waned to animal-confusion waned to animal-annoyance as hours ticked by and its verminous little belly went empty as it continued to keep watch for its Master. Eventually it was swapped for another, this one peeking through a crack near the roof. Fear-confusion-annoyance under his thrall again. The same went for a third and fourth rat. Their eyes all showed the same tedium.

Jonathan Harker only ever allowed himself leisure when he had no choice. He only had no choice when he was recuperating from exsanguination. It turned out that his idea of this amounted to either laying in bed or shuffling to the chair to look out the window. Sometimes he even stood and gripped the windowsill. And once, just once, he undid the latch and swung the pane open.

Looking out. Looking down.

His good hand moved on the windowsill as he stared. The chalk had returned. Scratch, scratch, scratch it went, all the way along the stone, like a student writing out a long verse. It was the damned shorthand, of course. Yet it couldn’t be a message for the woman. Her mind was sunk deep in the torpor. Deep enough that her Master could filter into her unnoticed. There was hardly anything worth digging for beyond the usual infantile fantasies of his brutal demise and carrying her Loves off into the sunset. All he needed was at the surface.

Just a few notes. Just enough to make sense of the arcane little dashes.

Scratch, scratch, scratch, Jonathan wrote.

His Master angled the latest rat so he could read it all and filter it through the woman’s knowledge. The rat squealed and flinched away into its hole as its Master’s own shock prodded its speck of a mind.

Scratch, scratch, scratch.

DO NOT DO IT DO NOT DO IT DO NOT DO IT DO NOT DO IT

FOR THEM FOR THEM FOR THEM FOR THEM FOR THEM FOR THEM

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE

He twitched in his coffin, almost rising wholly from the anchor of the death-sleep.

But then Jonathan sighed and closed the pane. The chalk was erased. A return to the chair, a return to the stare. This time with new tears tracking down his cheeks. He didn’t move again until his stomach snarled. The doorknob was checked—unlocked—and he took himself away to eat. His Master’s borrowed eyes followed him all the way down, watching him cook and carve a fish without relish. Watched him try and fail to open the office door—locked—before idling down one of the in-progress halls. He worked in the dust and the decrepit furnishings for a few hours before marching back up to the tower. His hands were empty despite having handled an array of oddments and literature and art.

Up. Chair. Stare. Bed. Wait.

It is nothing but a recent spell. He has been here almost half a decade. He’s not spent his time only in his little labors and bloodletting. Who could? Perhaps he dwells on the pending retribution for his outburst. Waiting for the sword to fall.

And what of the threadbare room? What of the trips that brought home nothing but sustenance to let him feed his family, give or take a new treat for them bartered from what allowance was spared for him?

What of it?

He did not answer himself. Only waited until the woman made her exit to the tower. The boy was called to under the level of her psychic awareness.

Come here, child. I have an important task for you.

The boy was still in his coffin, reading in the heap of blankets and fairy books. He poked his head up over the rim with a look that balanced between worry and curiosity.

A Lesson?

Not at the moment. Unless you wish for a Lesson on why not to keep your Father waiting.

But the boy was already scurrying out of his box and up the steps of the tomb. He paused to look up in wonder at his Father.

“Your face is coming back.”

So it was. Finally. He felt the itch along his cheek and jaw which told him adolescence was waning finally back to his prime, just as the shiver of bone announced the return to full stature. There was a reason he rarely drank this deep.

“It is. The body prefers its natural shape even after an indulgence too far. It may only be another night before I am myself again. But that is too long a wait for this. Here.” He passed the history text down into the boy’s small hands. “Be mindful of not turning to the wrong page. There are sights inside that your poor parents would not approve of.”

An easy bait, that. The boy’s eyes glittered like a little Pandora’s. For an instant. But then a cherubic moue passed over him as he mouthed out the title. What little blood he had in him flamed up to his cheek.

“I don’t think I can read this yet, Father.” The boy admitted as much as though it were a crime.

“I would be stunned if you could, child. No, this is something to bring to your Papa. He is a fiend as much for history as the trudge of modernity and I know he is as eager as you to master all tongues in the mountains. This shall be a fine practice for him as your little tales are for you. Come, I shall walk you up.” He reached to tuck the boy under his arm in the usual way only for the child to shrivel under his hand. His gaze had flicked away from his Father in the same moment as his buzzing little mind tried clumsily to bury something. “Diavol. Is there something you wish to tell me?”

The boy started to shake his head, knew better, and simply shrank deeper into himself. His eyes were nailed firmly to the hardcover. He hugged the volume like a paltry shield.

“Child.”

The lips trembled and cracked at the same time those brilliant ruby eyes rolled up to him. Fear hovered there, but it was not quite of his Father. It was the kind of fear a Father was meant to dispel.

“Are you and Papa fighting?”

“Where would get such an idea?”

His hand reached out again. The boy still cringed, but did not shrink from him. They walked from the tomb and on toward the stairs.

“Since our last meal he hasn’t talked how he used to.”

“Oh, dear. He has gone mute?”

“No. No, he talks. Only he skips over things now. Things he used to bring up all on his own.”

“We are not playing a guessing game, diavol. Speak plainly.”

They had made it to the floors aboveground now. The boy paused mid-step to look up at his Father, his face turned pale as ivory in a window’s moonlight.

“He has not talked about you, Father. Before he brought you up at least once whenever we were together. Asking what you taught me last. Sometimes he’d bring things up like you do. Little hints and edges of things I would have to go to you or Mum to ask about. Papa was the one who brought up journalism—the power that records the world—and told me to ask Mum about it. And he told me that you knew how to find buried treasure on a magic night, that everyone else was too scared to try. And…” His narrow throat worked with a strain. “And he told stories about before me. About how you and Mum and him all came together.”

A crest of the innate fondness rose and fell in the boy’s look at that. He was ever a fiend for the romance of his parents’ history before they came to live in the castle. The romance as their Master had scripted it.

Yet the child’s cheer over it blew out like a candle.

“He won’t talk about you at all now.” The ruby stare flicked up at him. “Not since we ate.”

Not since you tore at Papa like a wolf with a rabbit, Father.

“It has been less than a week, child. For all that I am an occasional favored subject,” he failed to ignore how something twisted in his chest at that, “it is nonsense to expect he keep a checklist of things to speak of. He is recuperating and things will slip a hazy mind. But, to answer your question, no, Papa and I are not fighting.”

The boy did not look away. Even the expected smile could not follow the rules.

And since when does he have rules of acting to follow?

“Was there something else?”

The fear was back. Redoubled. Not the kind dispelled by a Father.

“Father, are you the one who’s been making him sit?”

They had been walking again. Halfway to the tower. Now it was Father’s turn to freeze. Even to gawk.

“What?” The boy shivered at his tone, half-hiding behind the history book. He winced as the white hand at his shoulder grew out its claws. A long breath was forced. The claws retracted an increment. Then, again, “What do you mean ‘making him sit,’ child?”

“Do you remember when I had the Lesson about trancing?”

The one in which mother, child, and Master sank their psychic teeth in dear Jonathan’s mind and almost tore it three ways down the center with their mesmeric quibbling? Yes, vaguely.

“I recall.”

Now the boy looked away entirely. Facing the tower’s direction. Dread came off him like a perfume.

“Do you remember the sharp thoughts in Papa’s head?”

“…I do.”

“Mum said before—,” another lurch of the little throat, almost choking, “before we all jumped in him, when the Lesson started, that she could make him do things. Things people aren’t supposed to do to themselves. Like walk in a fire or make him stay in one place for hours and hours, not doing anything. No sleep or food or anything that keeps Papa alive. She could do that. But she didn’t. She hasn’t been. Papa would know and he’d not be so mad at her that time when she used him in the Lesson.” The child rattled where he stood, intent on the shadows that led up to the tower. “He was sitting at the window before that night. Lots of nights. And days. The first couple times, I thought he was waiting for me. Back when I first learned to do climbing. I snuck up to his door to surprise him. Watching in the keyhole.

“And he sat and sat and sat there, looking out the window. Sometimes he stood up to look closer, sometimes he scratched something out on the stone and wiped it off. Then he’d go back to sitting. It was strange. I didn’t know what it was. But then the Lesson happened and I saw—I saw him—,”

He could not finish and did not need to. His Father remembered.

Vision of a daylit escape. Rising from the chair. No message written on the sill. Just the open pane, his feet on the ledge, and a tipping over into gravity’s arms. Down, down, down. Gone. Among other methods by rope or steel. But the fall came first and crispest to his flailing mind.

Before. He was thinking of it even before that night. Since the boy started climbing. At least two years. And that was just when it was noticed.

The boy was making noise at him again. Accusing.

“Are you the one doing it, Father?”

He would have been mad if it was Mum. We all know no one is allowed to be mad at you. Right, Father?

He struggled with a sudden urge to snatch the child up by his scruff and drag him the rest of the way up to the tower. To hurl him squealing into the room where the loving couple roosted, watching their faces drop slack with horror, and then—

And then..?

Then his mind fell into a red haze. A livid shapeless blank where something like release from the growing storm behind his temples would finally come.

“No, child. I am not responsible.” He stole his hand back with a twitch. “Go the rest of the way yourself. There is something I must see to first.” The boy peered up at him. Doubt in miniature. “Do I need to tell you twice?”

The boy fled. Not walked, not ran, not ambled. Fled. From him.

What of it, old devil? Is this not the proper way? Your adversaries and their spawn cringing and scrambling from you at every turn, quailing under your thumb? This is victory at its height. Is it not so?

He thought of three harpies who mocked and robbed and tittered as he piled their centuries up with gifts and weeping sweetmeat.

He thought of the spur of a delightfully infuriating woman and the admiration of an impossible child.

He thought of his friend, red-handed with the enemies slain for his wife and his Master, slipping silently into servitude and his tithes of blood and obedience, the quiet misery free of charge, Sir.

He thought of his friend, sweeping dust from his mind as blithely as he banished it from his forsaken rooms, varnishing and whetting his nights to an edge finer than a surrendered kukri.

He thought of his friend, who had begun as a mere pending addition to his colony and was now evolved into a thing worth bartering for, worth sheltering and hoarding and honing despite a betrayal paid triply in death and deeds on his Master’s behalf.

He thought of his friend, screaming in his jaws. Clawing his way towards a laugh, look, son, see, son, it’s alright. No, Mina, no, let it be, let him do it, please, Mina, don’t, Mina, do not risk yourself, our boy, please, please.

He thought of his friend, mauled for another’s Lesson, half-dead, streaked in gore and sweat and tears, patched together with inexpert hands. 

He thought of his friend in his desolate box of a room, staring out the window with a piece of chalk as the only barrier between life and death.

He thought of all these things and many more. He went on thinking them as he stalked away to his own room and went to work.

An hour had come and gone since he finished what was needed.

An hour and fifteen minutes since he masked himself from their senses and planted himself outside Jonathan’s door. He listened to the cadence of them as one might strain for snatches of birdsong. Only Jonathan and the boy were audible, but even the woman’s mental chatter carried a bristle on the air. His Harkers made such a warm sound all together.

The sound stopped as he turned the knob.

Three heads lifted like a trio of deer hearing a huntsman’s boot disturbing the grass.

They were huddled together on the bed, as always. The woman guarded her husband’s wounded side. The boy sat under his Papa’s good arm with two books open across their laps. Here was the history book and one of the fairy tale collections. They had been taking their turns reading a page apiece, son reading meticulously through a moment of fantasy in Hungarian while his Papa overdid a silly dull drone in the same tongue over the drudgery of an overpacked page for the child to groan at. Mum would cap the whole act by way of glancing at the page and then thinking a flash of knowledge into their heads. There, done. Thank you, Mum. Laughter abounded.

Until now.

“Goodness, such a hush. Do I interrupt?”

Jonathan, the immaculate actor, smiled and shook his head.

“Nothing that did not want interrupting. For some reason I’m failing to win any appreciation for the recital of 200-year-old politics across the Carpathians. Perhaps it’s my delivery.” The latter was directed half to his Master, half to the boy. He even cupped the child’s shoulder. Hinting. The boy offered him a smile in return.

And tried, “They didn’t make it like a story. Just a lot of, ‘This happened and then this and then this and then this.’ You and Mum could write it better.”

The woman offered a sing-song rebuttal of, Or you could, Dearest. It would make for very thorough writing practice.

The boy made a face of dismay and denial, pretending to take cover behind his book of fables. Cute. Precious, even. The whole charade was. Their Master felt his own grin strain to hold in place as he strolled to the bed. Anxiety thick enough to gag floated on the air.

“I leave such judgment to mother and son. For now, Papa and I must speak in private.” He set his gaze level with Jonathan’s. “There is something I require your assistance with, my friend.” His hand uncurled to take. “Come.”

“Of course,” from Jonathan. Not so much as a tremor. He turned to the woman as his good hand gave the boy a parting hug, then raised it to set in his Master’s palm. “I’m afraid you must take up the mantle of inflicting ancient territory disputes on him—,” But then found his good hand was trapped. By the boy. The woman tensed. Jonathan froze. “Sweetheart…”

“Papa, don’t go. Please don’t go.” The boy held fast around his Papa’s hand and half his arm, a feeble anchor whose attention jumped fitfully among his parents; not including his Father. “Mum, tell him not to. Please?” A hesitant thread of mesmer squirmed in his voice. His Father could have rolled his eyes. This tug-of-war again? Was the child dense? “He’s going to do it again.”

The room chilled.

Jonathan flicked a frantic gaze to his wife, blasting silent urgency through his thoughts. The woman fought an enormous urge of her own to spare her Master a glower before addressing her son:

Dearest. You know that night was only an accident. We are a long way from another meal besides.

Then, thrumming with the weight of a lie:

It’s alright.

But the boy would not swallow it this time. He was an amateur at playing pretend in the way of his parents. A child fed on blood and fairy tales full of monsters who lived in the house as much as without. The boy held onto his Papa and shook his head. Fear crashed up against sorrow and sorrow up against anger.

“It isn’t! You all keep saying it is, and it isn’t! Papa, he hurt you and he did it on purpose! He didn’t kiss you at all! It was just tearing and hurting and—,” a word stuck, choked, flew, “—and lying. He says you aren’t fighting, but you are, or he wouldn’t hurt you and make you sit and be sad and sharp all the time and…and…” His eyes were close to running now, the words melting into a hiccough. “…and he never even said sorry…” The boy forewent his Papa’s arm and clamped around his middle instead, hugging tight and hiding his face in the man’s side. “Papa, don’t go with him…”

Him, him, him.

Was he not even Father anymore?

“Quincey, I promise you we aren’t fighting. Even grownups make mistakes. That’s all that night was.” Then, silk-smooth, “Father apologized already.” He turned to the woman, expecting reinforcements, “Mina, you remember—,” But the woman was looking through him and into the boy. The boy, who had peeked up enough from his sniveling to think out at her, showing the little chat shared between Father and son on the way to the tower. Inhaling it, she looked to her husband with renewed alarm, reflecting their child’s tattling into Jonathan’s mind.

Jonathan lost another shade in his pallor. He turned all but snowy as his wife turned her attention to their Master. A blazing thing, all horror and hate and, surprised that she could still feel it, a new level of shocked disgust.

Even this is not beneath you?

‘This’ being the vision scraped from her son’s spying through the keyhole. Hours and nights and days’ worth of the sight of Jonathan Harker mesmerized by his window.

Her hands had drifted by reflex to grasp her husband, her position shifted in paltry protection of her prize. Likewise for the boy who now clung wholly around his Papa’s waist. Jonathan, meanwhile, appeared truly and entirely terrified to a degree his Master hadn’t seen since their last nights together in that long-ago summer. Afraid for them.

He held them each as best he could before lifting his good hand again—

“My Loves, it’s alright, I promise, I—,”

—and having it caught in his Master’s.

His Master, roiling with ire, pulled him forward. His kin, roiling with fear-hate-love, pulled back. Three iron grips all working against each other.

And what was begun in a battleground of the psyche not so long ago was made flesh upon the bed. Briefly. Just before they heard the pop.

A muffled sound, almost comical. Wet and cracking and quick.

Pop went Papa’s shoulder.

Papa made his own noise to go with it.

The iron grips turned to jelly, their owners flinching back as one. Jonathan caught himself on his working elbow and fought down another agonized note as its own pain throbbed up to the mangled shoulder. This he tried to turn into another smile as his breath came in a huffed stutter of a laugh.

“Oops,” he panted, wavering up on his knees. His only hand went to the sagging shoulder, the hold still too weak to hoist it. “See? Accidents happen.” A hoarse noise, fighting not to be a sob. “Darling, could you..?”

But she was already on him, aligning shoulder to socket, bracing, shoving—

Pop!

—the arm back in place. Another noise from Papa, this time through locked teeth.

“Thank you. See?” The fingers of his right hand flexed experimentally. Weak, but functional. “It’s fine, Sweetheart, it’s fine, you didn’t mean it, no one did, it’s alright…”

But the boy was past mere sniffling. Now he bawled. Red rivers of tears emptied from his eyes, turning his little face wax-white as he scrambled to his Papa, blubbering fragments of apology, of denial, of no no no, Papa, it isn’t alright, no no no. The woman’s eyes were running too. Shame and rage and pain streaked her face like a mask of grief as she wrapped herself around her husband, her mind a litany as garbled as her son’s.

Jonathan Jonathan sorry so sorry Darling my Love sorry sorry sorry sorrysorrysorrysosorry—

“It’s alright,” Jonathan echoed mindlessly back, the most he could do by way of dialogue through pain and panic. “It’s alright,” as his arms, now both water-weak and crippled, folded around wife and child. His back to his Master as if he might shield them.

His Master felt somehow as if he had ceased to be in the room. Now he was watching a lackluster play unfold. See here, the poor little family menaced and ravaged by the monster. The monster looms over them, gloating over the injuries left, waiting to strike again as they weep. The boy cries, the woman cries, Jonathan cries. And why not? The monster gives them something to cry about. As monsters should. As is right. The family belongs to the monster, not the reverse. The monster has no place within the family. Fragile and grating little thing that it is.

See how easily it’s wounded? How quickly it turns on the monster for a mistake? Not even his own! Not entirely his own, at least.

This time.

So. You can admit it.

The boy, the woman, Jonathan, all crying. All huddling against him. Away from him.

As if any of them can spare the loss of blood. As if they expect him to open his veins and refill them to make up for their own idiot blubbering. As if he can waste more of himself on their fumbling and failures. As if he has not hollowed himself of everything, feeding his blood and his time and his toil and his soul until he has only a husk left for himself, picture of the good husband and father, give give give, work work work, feed feed feed, and all they offer him is more need, more pain, more excuses, sorry, sorry, I did not mean it, Papa, I did not mean it, Darling—

He watched Jonathan raise his head enough to look over the heads of his Loves. A single pining glance at the window.

I did not mean it, draga mea.

“Enough.” It was not the bark he wished it to be. He was not even sure if his Harkers heard him. But they didn’t need to. Within a heartbeat he had shot forward snaked his arm around Jonathan’s middle. He hoisted the man like a doll, shock alone making him flinch and scrabble at the hold. The child keened piercingly and the mother’s mind erupted with hate-panic. Her Master flung an order out.

Hold the boy. Do not follow.

The woman spasmed against the order until every cord of muscle stood out from her like wire. Then she was giving a mute howl as she fell upon her son, snatching him up and trapping him in her arms. The boy shrilled deafeningly and fought his mother in a blur of little limbs, tugging, reaching, kicking, begging.

“Let go! Mum, let go! Papa! Papa!”

The boy’s face was a horror of running blood, his eyes turned to marbles of red glass.

Jonathan was little better. His Master had not allowed him to stand. He would waste time if he had; would have tried to dawdle, to scramble back and soothe the tantrum away, to trap himself and his Master another endless minute in this squalling hell of a room. So his Master had hoisted him up first as a farmer might trap an errant lamb under his arm, then threw him over his shoulder.

Then moved to the window.

The boy shrieked.

“Papa! Papa! No, let him go! Papa!”

“Please,” Jonathan’s voice was a hoarse whisper. His hands clung without strength to his Master’s back, trying to drag himself loose, straining towards mother and child like a dying flower bowing toward the sun. “Please, Sir, not like this. I have to go to them, have to explain things, I have to—,”

SLEEP.

Jonathan became a dead weight over his shoulder. The window was opened. Another scream from the boy, this one so great it turned into a nigh rupturing cough.

“Papa,” a reedy sound, “Papa, wake up, Papa..!”

Out the window they went.

Mid-descent, monster turned to mist, carrying his prey like a leaf in a breeze. Down and away and around the castle’s side. Finding the way back in that no eye or mind within the castle could discover.

Jonathan woke half an hour later.

He did so with a surprising lack of pain. As sleep melted off, he became aware of new wrappings layered on both shoulders. The left’s ragged side was plastered with a cooling sleeve of linen strips. His right was bound with something that felt like a fuzzing velvet numbness trapped under its bandages. Each side ate away their respective aches.

“Alchemy as men know it never did manage to turn iron to gold. But it bridged many gaps between simple medicine and magic’s bending of bodily law.”

Jonathan raised his head enough to see his Master sat at the opposite end of the bed. If one considered it a bed. They were in a nest of blankets and cushions that had been layered into a den of alien stonework. While not musty in the way of other ancient bedding strewn around the castle, they carried the spiced stamp of aromas from the work that was done in the adjoining room. Over his Master’s shoulder he could see a heavy oaken door left a crack open. A lamp glowed there, highlighting glass and clay vessels arranged on a far worktable. Some smoked. Some glowed. Some seemed to look back at him.

“Nature would have you heal over the course of weeks. Likely months. Supernature,” his Master gestured at the bandaged shoulders, “will see you healed within the next two nights at the latest. Of course, this will hardly matter if you decide to forsake your little chalk notes and throw yourself from the window.” Jonathan held his tongue as his Master sunk both eyes into him like brands. “The boy did not catch what you wrote on the windowsill, if it’s any consolation. You could let them go on believing I have been so monstrous as to force my poor friend, poor Papa, poor Darling, to sit dull and dead before the window for hours upon hours whenever he does not work or sleep or bleed. I am so suddenly the only monster under this roof as well as Master.”

Jonathan swallowed. Once, twice.

“Apologies. I shall—I shall explain things to them. Please, forgive me, Sir.”

“No.” Jonathan stared at him. Worry and confusion clashed and crumbled into each other behind the ghost-light eyes. “No,” his Master echoed, “this is not something that is forgiven any more than it is forgotten.” His hands clenched to white stones in his lap. “How long have you been like this, Jonathan?”

Do not lie.

Jonathan twitched but failed to catch his tongue in time.

“The first time was in mid-May. Back when I first started to suspect you. The prospect rose and fell in me more than once until the end of June. If it were not for the chance of seeing Mina again, I would have walked into the wolves on that last night together. I was still thinking of cliffs and wolves the day I escaped, prepared to take that route rather than have the Weird Sisters’ teeth pin me here forever. But those thoughts came and went.

“It wasn’t until October 3rd that the urge came back and never left. That was when I stopped being sure whether or not Mina would heed the threat of death potentially leading to undeath. I know she still thought of high buildings. Of train tracks. Fires. So I started thinking of them too. Just in case. After November, after the killing, I just kept thinking it. Whenever I was not busy or seen or sleeping. I have heard that suicides are damned outright. Murderers of good men too. I have thought sometimes that I could take that leap and die, but I would not know the difference once I woke to Hell. Sometimes I think I jumped an eternity ago and just can’t remember.  

“I know I cannot risk it, of course. It would risk them too and leave them hurting besides. All it amounts to now is a sort of meditation. And I do appreciate the view. It is no more than that, I swear.”

“You swear,” his Master nodded. “You swear in this particular moment. Just as, not so long ago, caught in a snare, you thought of taking yourself away in earnest. The leap or the rope or the knife reached for in full daylight. A most effective slap to rouse your greedy little family from their play. But it does not bode well for this, your current oath. Only a thought, only a meditation. Not to worry. This is what you would have me believe?”

“Thought is not action, Sir. I would not still be here if it was.”

“Indeed, you are here. And doing what? Ah, let me specify. Doing what, besides working and bleeding?”

Jonathan frowned at him.

“Raising my family.”

“Which falls under work.”

A deeper frown, almost stormy.   

“It hardly feels so, Sir. My Loves are not the burden you would paint them as.”

“Even if I believed you, you still have not answered my question. What are you doing, Jonathan Harker? What are you doing solely for yourself? You stare out a window that you must convince yourself every day not to leap from. You clear dust away from every room in the castle but your own. You touch a book only when you must be seen reading, you sing only when there is an ear besides yours to hear it, you wear your smiles the same way a maid dons her uniform. You do not answer me because you have no answer to give.” Lantern eyes burned. “In the five years since you have been here, you have done nothing but hollow yourself of everything. Blood and fealty and life and love. Yes, true, you live. Because that too is in your itinerary. Just another chore of maintenance.”  

 Jonathan sat up fully now.

“And?” A whisper. A thing of lead. “What does it matter?”

Why do you care?

“It matters because, even without a stomach, I am not immune to nausea. Call it secondhand indignation if you like. I have made deals with many devils and played pupil to the best of them. You see what bounty such Lessons have afforded me compared to,” he waved a clawed hand in Jonathan’s direction, “the usual lot of misery that comes to the would-be hero and the practicing martyr. If I should ever get around to some dire retribution from kismet, it will only be after nigh half a millennium of unchecked power and slaughter with nary an angel flying by to chide me for my play. Even Faustus got to have his allotment of pleasure before Mephistopheles tore him to shreds and flung his soul to Hell. But you? You spoke the truth before.

“You have nothing. You began with scarcely more than that. A narrow starving life with only the distraction of a woman who hardly merited the pedestal you lifted her on for playing nursemaid and starring, as so many muses do, within a theatre of high romance you painted around her; she, a soul as commonplace as a grain of sand in a desert. For her, you damn yourself. Her and the unholy miracle of the boy. You started with crumbs and gave away all you had and more, gaining nothing but the safeguarding of others’ fortune. Others’ lives. While you whore your life and veins away and tell yourself a chair and a window are sufficient for the last dregs of self you permit to exist.

“Do not mistake me. It is hilarious in the abstract. I would laugh if you were on a stage. But you are here and real and proving insufferable with your insistence on denying yourself any opportunity to do something other than play the role of grist in a mill.” He bared his teeth. It was not a grin. “But I waste my time telling you what you already know, yes? You have clearly made peace with this Spartan half-life. You did not even bat a lash at the prospect of mother and child’s visits being stripped away.” Jonathan’s breath stopped as his Master looked down on him. Lantern eyes now infernos. “Until tonight. There is a crack in the performance now. Father is suddenly a monster and he has stolen poor Papa away.

“And here, in this space, Papa can never be found. Not even by his wife’s prying mind.” White knuckles rapped against the strange black stonework. “It was not easy making this place. A genius loci can only flex so much. But the Scholomance exists in a space that is not possible and it was with brick from that Mountain that I formed these walls. A little sanctum away from Earthly meddling. Back before my condition required the grave soil. How nice to know it will not go to waste.”

Jonathan’s face fell as his Master stood. In less than a blink his Master was at the door, then through it, filling up the threshold. Perhaps too late it occurred to him that the nest of a room had no light lit in it. Not so much as a candle. The only illumination left was the faint glow at his Master’s back and the fires that were his Master’s eyes.

“You have a new task before you, my friend. Something to meditate on without distraction. No work. No window. No wife or child. The task is this: Think of something to do, to be, to want, that serves only you. An addition to your life that you can drop into the raw pit you have carved out of yourself to feed the clamoring maws of your dear family.”

His hand curled around the handle.

Jonathan’s eyes were wide and bright as stars.

“Wait—,”

“In the meantime, for as long as you fail in this endeavor, you will be here. To the boy and his mother, you will be a ghost. Undetectable by mind or sound or scent. They will only know you live by the taste of you in the cup. But do not rush yourself. Take however many nights or years you need.”

Jonathan fought his way out of the tangle of covers.

“Please, wait—,”

“I’m certain they will take it well.”      

The door shut and bolted. A moment later there was a hammering in the dark interior, fists drumming against the thick oak. From the exterior it sounded barely louder than the patter of rain. The shouting only the buzz of an insect. Rain and insect grew slightly louder when the laboratory’s light was put out, erasing even the outline of the door. All was dark. Hammer, patter, shout, buzz.

Silently, the Master of the castle sighed.

He just as silently took a seat outside the door. His eyes were their own strange points of light in the pitch and they glanced down into the open face of his pocket watch. It stood out clearly enough to him. One hour. Two. Three. His friend carried on at intervals through them all. Shouts or sobs, pleas or pounding.

Out in the castle, mother and child were hunting. Father and Papa were nowhere to be found. They threw out the feelers of their psyche as far as they could go, scented the air, raced and called to each other on every floor and through every room. Nothing, nothing. The woman even dared to breach her Master’s bedroom.

Ah, close! So close! Did she detect her husband there? An echo of his presence?

Of course she did.

Her husband was the only one other than her Master to be allowed in that room, and then only with their Master’s beckoning. Even if she had no reason to doubt the freshness of the hint, there was still no following. Not into this space that only a student of the Mountain could detect, let alone enter. She came and went within walking distance of her beloved. All as he screamed out for her. For their boy. For their Master.

By the fourth hour the room had quieted.

He held his ear to the crack:

“Please…” came a croak almost too thin to count as a voice. “Please, I don’t understand this. What do you want from me? What am I supposed to say? Just tell me, please…”

I did. I did and you still cannot make sense of it. Draga mea, has this been you your whole life?

He wanted to laugh.

A curse was mouthed instead.

He stood, relit the lamp, unbolted the door, and found his arms suddenly full of his friend. The bandaged arms clung to him while a face streaked in tears and sweat ground into his chest, eyes somehow still running. He made a note to force a carafe down the man’s throat before he passed out. For now, he let his friend hold to him, shaking.

“Sir, Master, I’m sorry, I’m sorry for angering you. I only want to understand what has to be done to mend this. Please.”

He held his friend in turn, stroking through the white cloud of hair.

“That you say this means you have not taken the order to heart. How is it such a trial to want something? Whether you fear it being taken or not, how is it you cannot even name a thing you desire?”

“I don’t know.” The words left his friend like millstones. He seemed almost to deflate in his Master’s arms. “I don’t know.”

“You could not have been so before you were here. Before you were mine. Even the destitute will dream. Did you not want for anything then, however meager?”

Quiet unspooled for almost a minute. There was a small breath. He waited.

“…Wanting gets conditioned out of some lives,” was his friend’s answer. “Need comes first. Need is always there, taking up your mind and your time. Urgency. Efficiency. Every cent and minute hoarded. Books were a luxury. Second and thirdhand purchases, the rest from the library. Theatre was a treat to reserve once a season at most. No concerts, no revelries, no records playing in the apartment on a phonograph never afforded. The first time we did not know need was after the man I considered a father died and left the gift of his will behind. A house and a business and a bank account that finally did not sting to look at, traded into our hands at the loss of another precious life.

“Between Lucy and Hawkins, there was not even a heartbeat in which to be more than performative in appreciating our changed fortune. Not before the trap of you sprang again. Van Helsing’s call to arms. You know the rest. Even Mina, even the blessing of our child, those priceless wants above all others, were made into another thunderbolt from Fate. Another proof that some people are just not meant to want, let alone have. No matter how great or small a treasure. I learned that Lesson well enough even before you. And so I have schooled myself out of it. Wanting.

“The part of a mind that craves for itself has been atrophied and beaten into dust in me. But if you say I must want, I can perform otherwise. Tell me I am sick of the window and I shall board it up. Tell me to read, I will read. Or sing a song. Or dig up old recipes to enjoy even when I am not cooking to flavor myself. Or whatever else. Even while you all sleep. Even with no one looking.” Jonathan pulled his face away from his Master’s heart and turned bleary eyes up to him. Blue ringed in rose. “Whatever fixes this. Please.”

Throw him back in. He will do better in a week. A month at most. Do it.

He sensed mother and child outside the castle now. Running, circling. They had taken clothes from Jonathan’s wardrobe and, against the Lesson so gravely taught, son watched mother order the wolves to her, demanding they take her husband’s scent and search, go! The wolves would lead them to the usual route Jonathan took to the towns, no more. But they were desperate. Still weeping. Bloodless and starving for grief.

Do it.

Jonathan stared at him. Waiting for another blow. For a laugh, a sneer. A cold hand tossing him back into the dark. The dog laying before his Master’s rising boot, knowing the fine quarry brought home was no excuse for not wagging his tail as he did so.

A fine dragon you are, old devil. Are you so soft now? You laid out the terms. He has not satisfied them. Do it. Do it!

“Fifteen years. That is how long the boy has left to nurse from you if you have your way. Fifteen more years until he is a man, innocent of taking a single life. Likewise for his mother. Because you feed us all. Wasting and wasting until that final night. Do you expect to die and remain dead at that hour? Do you think I would lose you, even if Mephistopheles himself came up to collect?”

“No,” barely a breath. Jonathan seemed to wilt another inch as it left him.

“No. The wait ends. Your unlife begins. Which means what?”

Jonathan could not bring himself to speak. Only looked away. His Master thumbed away another tear.

“Eternity in potentia,” he answered himself. “Centuries. Longer. We both know the Vampire is made of its wants before anything else. Such is our nature. I will give credit to dear Mina for her control. She has far more cause for loathing me than her Sisters did and she does admirably against her own desires. Even if she only has as much will as my own allows, it is a thing of iron in itself. But what of you, draga mea?”

Recognition pinched Jonathan upright again. The ghost-light eyes gaped with what was uncertainty or else the wish to be uncertain.

“You will no longer be as you are. No more playing vassal. No more wearing the yoke of mere servility. No more stalling in your martyr’s Pit. You will be Vampire, you will be want. And what will you do if there is nothing of the latter there to catch you? What shall you do with infinity? Will you only be as my missing shadow? Only your woman’s faithful dog? Will you still have the boy, grown and whole, pulling at your apron strings? A servant, forever caught between bowing to others or laying as a corpse in the moonlight for lack of anyone to serve. That you would be for eternity?”

The hand that wiped the tear moved to Jonathan’s jaw. It held like a strut against his attempt to turn away.

“I always kill my pests. I may torture an enemy before his end. But I would ultimately be rid of them, not leave them to such a Hell as the one you seem so dedicated to crafting for yourself.”

The hand was a snare and it kept Jonathan facing forward. Straight into the basilisk gaze and the mesmer at its heart. An order that was a plea.

“Think. Think of one single thing you want for yourself tonight. Just one.”

The trance worked deep. Snapping at the heels of Jonathan’s mind like a hound after a fox. Further, further, down, down, through a pinhole of a tunnel into the abandoned gloom where the carcasses of hope and yearning had been thrown away. The trance dug. The trance prodded. The trance found a coin’s worth of treasure, like dead men’s gold hidden under a blue flame.

Here was another view from another window. After the departure of a captor. Before the arrival of the hypnotic mists and their hungry smiles. Sweetly in-between, here was the sight of the moonlit world back when it had been a beautiful balm. A sole comfort in his terror but a heartbeat from being spoiled by his hostesses’ threat.

Jonathan Harker had seen small shapes moving on the wind. An owl soaring far below. Moths fluttering past like living petals. So high, so close to the peaks and stars, a needle of nostalgia had found him. The boy within the young man who had wished with the hopeless fantasy of all hungry children looking up from their sparse plates and miserable families and through tatty curtains at the open and untouchable sky. Wished with sweet-somber futility for escape. For…for…

Jonathan spoke the wish aloud. A last wet trail fell from his bloodshot stare. His Master wiped this too.

And found Jonathan’s mouth with his before willing him back to sleep.

Mother and child were returning from the road. She had taken the boy up in her arms again, cursing as she half-ran, half-flew. The child had ceased sobbing, at last, but he rattled in her embrace. This had never happened before. They had not thought such a thing could happen. That anyone, let alone Papa and Father, could simply disappear. Especially from her senses. It was impossible to lose track of them. She always knew where they were. Always.

And now…

“Mum?” She had stopped. Her head cocked like a wolf’s, ears pricked high, eyes flaring. “Mum, what is it?”

There. They’re right there. How?

“Where, Mum? Are they close?”

She didn’t answer. Only took off at another rush, firing herself and her son like a spectral bullet through the forest. Perhaps the boy would have been more stunned than afraid that his mother could be such a blur if not for his worry. His senses were smaller than hers, still reaching and searching for whatever it was she’d found. It wasn’t until the outline of the castle came into view that he skimmed the presence of his fathers on the air. They were at the castle, but not within it.

Two frantic sets of eyes hunted around the grounds, trying to make sense of how the mingled presences could be so near and invisible at once. Closer. Closer.

Up.

They craned their heads until the moon met their gaze. That and the two shapes against the sky.

Jonathan was held close in his Master’s arms. The two of them were a speck against the stars. A moment more and they were drifting down to the ground. Jonathan was set lightly on his feet and almost knocked off them as his son clamped around his waist. His wife almost finished the job by locking her arms about his mending shoulders. Their Master watched on at a careful distance; no sudden moves to alert the herd.

The next hour was devoted to running both men’s tongues ragged.

Yes, diavol, he had lied. There had been a fight and he was embarrassed for it. But it was not what caused his Father’s tearing at Papa. That was his Father forgetting himself, forgetting how easy Papa was to break. Father grew angry at himself first for the mistake, then again when Papa was upset for frightening their son, and then most of all when, old man that his Father was, he had forgotten a remedy he had once known to cure away the injury and make Papa well again. It made him stormy, as all saw. He hated having a solution just out of reach.

But he had remembered at last. That was why he had come to take Papa away that evening. To put his mistake right. But then had come all the hurtful words from their harsh-tongued child, the tears, the fretting, and then that nasty surprise of a second mistake. Again, poor Papa was forced to pay the price for an unruly family. And Father had snatched him away before more pains could add up.

He had gone to a place that, he will be honest, did not exist properly inside the castle. Like a ballroom tucked into a woodshed. It was where his older magic was stored, back before Father was all that he was, back when he had need to worry about skin and bone. There he took Papa to heal. And to talk.

About his sitting and staring. About how he did this for lack of joy alone. Papa made himself so busy and tired that there was nothing left in him to play or take pleasure all on his own.

Was it the sharp thoughts again, Papa?

A tremor here from the boy. Begging, but bracing.

No, son, only absurd ones. The kind that grownups do not like to admit out loud because they do not wish to seem foolish or idle. Other things too. Little things that would need asking for. But your Papa hates to ask for anything, and so he hid all that in his head too, so he would not ask at all.

Yet Father had made him talk and ask and it turned out it really wasn’t such an absurd thing at all.    

“I asked to fly.”

“Like us?”

“Like you. Isn’t that silly?”

“It’s silly that you didn’t ask! I always wanted to fly too, seeing Mum and Father do it so easy.” The boy held tight to him again, grinding the coagulation of old tears against his Papa’s neck. In a small voice he shuddered, “I thought you wanted to do something else. I thought…”

“I know, Sweetheart. I’m sorry for scaring you all before. I would never listen to the sharp thoughts like that. It’s just a sour part of imagination. That’s all.” He rested his chin atop the boy’s head. One hand cupped him close. The other looped around the woman’s shoulders, the ease of the gesture proving the strength of the medicine. Her eyes dug in his. Knowing and shelving the truth for later. “I promise,” Jonathan breathed.

…Do you still want to fly?

“Once you have another meal in you, Darling. I think we are all too worn out for now.”

“No,” the Master intoned from the castle’s shadow, “You need not soften it. You are worn out, all of you. I remain the only one overfed and hale. I shall still be so once you are ready to feed again.” He waved his hand. “I shall skip my helping at the next feeding, lest I burst like a tick.” The boy perked up in his Papa’s lap while his mother narrowed her eyes. Father never skipped his taste of Papa. Not ever. Father only grinned. “But before Papa plays family dinner again, it must be agreed that he needs a holiday. I believe he had some ideas he wished to share with you.” His gaze flicked to Jonathan. “Is it not so, draga mea?”

Mother and child each recognized the term as it hit the air.

The woman was considerably less enthused than her son, who knew the words from the fairy tales. The magic words between one true love and another.

Jonathan distracted them both with the first small thing: A phonograph and new music to play on it. Perhaps even sheet music of their own, if any of them would dare to risk each others’ ears with the practice.  

What was a phonograph, Papa? Was that like the music boxes he’d brought home for them?

Something like that…

Chatter carried on under the moon until Jonathan’s stomach growled. The woman stopped just short of carrying him off to the kitchen. Master and child dawdled behind. The latter pretended interest in a moth that had landed first on a flower, then a stone, and then up on his Father’s shoulder like a great grim tree.

But the moth flew off and still he did not look away.

“…Yes, child?”

“I’m sorry, Father.” Thank every god below the Earth, he did not bring himself to tears as he said it. Though he looked close. “I should never have thought you’d hurt Papa.”

“Ah, but I did hurt him. We all did. By accident, with carelessness, without ill intent, still he was hurt. We are fortunate that he is so forgiving a soul and strong enough to weather us. Such men as him are rare. I do not think I have met another like him in four hundred years.” The child’s eyes shined just short of another bloody tide he could not afford to lose. Sensing this, he snuffled and squinted and fought the weeping back. Good boy. “He will be alright. Amends will be made and we shall not repeat our mistakes with him. Papa does so much out of love for us. We will do the same, yes?”

He held out his hand. The boy forsook it to duck wholly under his arm in his accustomed spot, huddled close as a pup to his kin. The open hand drifted down to stroke his hair.

“Yes,” the boy nodded against him, scrubbing the last dry tracks of tears away on his suit. “Promise.”

“Good. No more tears tonight, diavol. There is nothing to cry about.”

#I promise I'm working on the Dracula Daily-inspiration ref post #but my internet has been patchy as hell and I couldn't get some of the ref links and images I needed #it'll be up soon #but in the meantime enjoy this lovely terrible Text Brick #-throws it through Blood of My Blood's window and runs- #jonathan harker #mina harker #quincey harker #dracula #dracula bad ending #blood of my blood #horror #my writing

[mysebacielblog]

Ciel is Trans Theory

I Need to point this out because. I have a hunch that Ciel is Trans, and fingers crossed I’m right. Honestly, I could be completely off base and this could be as close as Ancient Aliens is to History.

This might be an overreach but here is my case for it, as best as I can:

* Based on previous events and Chapters, Yana has shown that She Likes Playing on the concept of Gender from the Very First Arc. From the Very beginning we are introduced to a woman who is Jack the Ripper, challenging the male murder stereotype on its head, and her lover, a gender ambiguous (Later Confirmed Canonically!!) Trans Reaper Lady. Both unite from their desire, and hatred for the prostitutes who beg for abortions at her clinic. There are Already wombs being ripped out of women and we’ve just started.

* The Fact that Ciel is Dressed extremely effeminately not only for the period, even for EGL clothing standards might point to something as well. But when forced to wear a dress for the sake of a mission, he loses his mind. Although it could be a tween’s worst nightmare, how Madame Red laments to Ciel when dressing him as a girl that she always wanted a daughter feels like something.

* Ciel is always referred to as beautiful, which is not wrong for the period, but there are less masculine terms that people refer to him as.

* Yana herself says that she Over Masculinizes Ciel. Which is an interesting take for his effeminate nature of dress Vs masculine personality?

* Another hot take is that Yana Specifically has instructed in certain live action and anime for the voice actor to be a woman. I’ve seen a lot of talk on this particular conversation but none highlighting this as a clue on our Ciel’s Identity??? How??

* Mey Rin is also have been hidden as a boy with her previous life as a sniper, so this also shows that this is not out of the question either. The same reveal has happened with Doll.

* Ciel does not let anyone get close to his body. This is obviously because traumatic stress behaviors, however, similar flinching could allude to a different reason entirely.

* Our Lad introduces himself as the “Earl Ciel Phantomhive” Earl almost being apart of his first name. He’s already changed his name to hide his past. But Why?

* Let’s pretend that Ciel was in fact, born a boy at birth. If his brother and parents died, even if he was considered a “Spare Child”, (remember the British Phrase an Heir and a Spare). He would still be a legitimate hier due to his brother being unable to claim inheritance (because of his death) and pass on something to him. Even if another family member became a guardian and inherited a majority to raise our ciel, he would still be entitled to Something, and (might) even become Earl. This would Not be the case if Ciel was born a girl.

* Two Cultural similarities Japanese Manga and the Victorian period have in common are the troupe of “women disguising themselves as men”. I put this in quotes because, as Ciel described it, “the old him died in his cage,” pointing to metaphorical metamorphosis, and not simply a disguise for convient’s sake. Although it was common for (transgender men, queer cis women and/or Cis women) to take on a male position / pseudonym in order to establish a title, or a job position (typically in writing, this continued until the 1960’s). Now add on the popular manga/anime that were important in playing with perceptions of gender during Black Butler’s Debut (think Ouran High school host club), and there’s something there.

* The Fact that no one mourned Ciel’s Death was unfortunate, but a critical plot point of the story. Up until now, no one even acknowledged Our Ciel had ever Existed. Not a name, not “twins” nothing. Even though our Lad was an ill child, no one had even acknowledged he was there to begin with. Women and children were rarely recognized in Victorian culture, let alone a “Woman Child”. This culture was challenged somewhat through literature in the early ‘30’s with works from Jane Austen, ‘47 with Charlotte Brontë (who went by a pseudonym) and Lewis Carol’s Alice and the Looking Glass at the end of the century. (introducing a Girl Protag!! Gracious!). As sad as it may be, no one would really mourn an terminally ill girl compared to her family’s murder, unless having accomplished something amazing. It would be seen unfortunately as a lifted burden, and ultimately one less dowery or added expense. The fact that no one even bothered to notice our Ciel’s death or even the toll it might have on his twin is evident enough.

* The most Damning evidence I have for this theory is Lizzy’s reaction to figuring out “Ciel” was not the real “Ciel”. The immediate turn against Ciel. Why wouldn’t she even hear him out? What could have possibly turned her away like that, without a doubt in her mind, even if she had met with the Real Ciel? The fact that her reaction was not confusion but rather an extreme turn against him, she did not even think one minute to give Our Ciel a chance. And the only possible reason (combined with the fact that he was lying about not being his brother) is that if he was Not Cis. Not only would that mean that she was with the sick weaker sibling not heir to the Phantomhive legacy, but Ciel Could never conceive a family with Elizabeth, nor marry her like she would have wanted. And even if she married him, they would never be able to have children of their own (a really big obsession with British Aristocracy- modern day source: royals). All of her dreams would be shattered. And that shattering would bring her to turn instantly.

* The fact that everyone automatically assumed our ciel was real ciel, just based on saying so. Why?

* The fact that sick girls were often dressed like male counterparts to strengthen them during this era, as well as androgynous clothing for children being in fashion (because of less washing headaches and hand-me-downs)

* A smaller, minor detail is how Sebastian says “When lies become truth”. This is pointing towards both their façades but an interesting quote none the less on transitioning.

* I’m pointing to his teeny shoes with the high heels. It’s not that they’re effeminate women’s shoes that are iffy for the period, (which let’s be clear, they are) but. Look at him. Trying his best to be tall adult man. I’m pointing at his shoes.

* I might be missing a lot. Tell me if I am.

Reasons For Why I Am Extremely Wrong:

*Tanaka and Vincent referring to Our Ciel with he/him pronouns, (although I’m not sure on the original Japanese translation on chapter 131)

#black butler analysis #black butler theories #slaps Ciel’s Head #this bad boy can fit so many queer coding #I’m not writing this because I’m nb #But I’m not Not saying I’m writing this because I’m nb #i wrote this at 2am #please be gentle #Pepe Silvia board

[boywifesammy]

fucking 4x04 metamorphosis man. i think it's the first time spn really addressed sam being a "freak". like it's set up beautifully for the first 3 seasons but the psychic/demon blood arc pulled it to the forefront.

sam has felt this feeling of alienation, this wrongness inside of him his entire life. not fitting into the hunting life, never having a stable home, being nerdy and empathetic and emotional trapped in a big 6'5 body. and when he finally gets a life outside hunting with jess, it gets ripped away from him. for the first 3 seasons he kept that all bottled up inside and let dean take the reigns (very lil bro of him btw), because whenever he tries to break out of it (jess, meg, etc etc) it ends horribly. and to have that feeling of constant otherness validated by learning that he has demon blood inside of him? sam must have believed that he was sick to the very core. he must have looked up to dean as his amazing big brother, who was rough around the edges but good and normal and always dad’s favourite. so it’s no surprise that sam kept a lid on all of those feelings around dean, because he was used to being the freak, and he was used to suppressing it.

then dean is gone and sam suddenly loses the one person who saw something good in him. hell, his own father thought he was a monster, and other hunters, who are the only other people he could make any sort of meaningful connection with without putting their lives in danger. he’s stuck with this awful thing inside of him, rotting away at him, his whole family is dead, and ruby is there, telling him he’s not evil. he’s not bad. he can make something good of this thing inside of him. and sam must think that ruby understands; she’s a demon, trying to be good, she gets it. so sam gets so deep into it that he forgets why it would ever be bad. he basks in this feeling of otherness and he embraces being a freak because for once in his life, it's actually a good thing that he's different.

then dean comes back to life and suddenly everything is flipped on its head. in the eyes of dean, he’s a monster. that awful feeling of alienation returns. he’s a freak, he’s a ticking time bomb, he’s tainted from the inside out. so of course sam hides it from dean, because he wouldn’t understand. not like ruby apparently understands, not like the other psychic kids, to sam dean could never understand him because he was always the freaky nerd younger brother and dean was the cool, sweet talking older bro that always seemed to have everything in check.

so that look of absolute hurt on sam’s face when dean says he has something evil inside of him, something in his blood?

that is genuine betrayal. dean's loss is still fresh to him, and now that he's finally found something that makes him belong, it's ripped away from him. just like stanford, just like jess, just like anything else in life that he tries to make his own. so he blows up on dean, screams about how he feels like a freak, just unloads all of this shit that he's been holding in his entire life. his entire damn life. because sam has been an "other", a freak, as long as he's known. the only person who he had was dean, but now he was losing him, before he even got him back fully. all because he tried to embrace who he really was.

so yeah. 4x04 metamorphosis man. wow. just fucking wow.

#oc #sam winchester #spn meta #absolutely phenomenal episode like CHRIST #4x04 metamorphosis #also this is NOT meant to be dean cr*t #i 100% understand dean's reaction to this he's obviously terrified shitless #sam's insecurities about himself doesn't mean that dean doesn't love the hell out of him #i mean he'd die for that boy #he's just not the greatest at showing it #and sam's a very talky touchy feely guy so he doesn't respond well to the whole “tough love” thing #not with his dad and not with dean either

[serenpedac]

Metamorphosis

Words: ~800

Rating: Teen and up

Relationship: Mina/Mason

Warnings: None

On a star-filled and chilly night, Mason finds Mina watching out over the bay near Wayhaven.

Notes

For @lovelyfoolish, because you’re a wonderful person and I wanted to give you a little something. I hope I did Mina and Mason justice <3 

There are many versions of myths surrounding Orion. In this fic, I’m referring to this one.

*~*~*~*~*~

The moonlight glitters on the rippling water of the bay. The onset of a breeze scatters the moving mosaic further, the light breaking, refracting patches of silver against the darkness of the water. 

Mina pushes her hands deeper into her coat pockets at the stinging chill in the air. The wind is stronger here, on top of the cliff that shelters Wayhaven’s bay. She hadn’t noticed how it had picked up, shielded as she had been, first by the houses of the town, then by the narrow patch of forest, as her feet trod the familiar path of one of her old routes. 

There is no real need for her to patrol, not with Unit Bravo stationed here, and not with how quiet things have been as of late. A quietude she should be grateful for—she is, she is—yet she can’t help but feel like it’s little more than a superficial stillness, like the mesmerising surface of the water of the bay hiding the currents below. Too much has happened, too much has changed, for her to trust she can rest now.

She startles at the sound of footsteps on the seashell path and twists around to find Mason several steps away. 

“What the hell are you doing out here?” he asks, closing the remaining distance. His shoulders are tense as if he would fight off the cold. 

She lifts a shoulder in something like a shrug. “This used to be the outermost part of my rounds.” 

It’s not really an answer, and, eyebrows drawn together in a tight frown, he examines her, relaxing a fraction when he finds— She’s not sure what he sees on her face, but it’s enough for him to join her in her silence.

As the moment stretches on, her gaze is drawn to the horizon, where the bay opens up to the ocean. There’s a tug in her chest, a feeling of falling, or maybe of the currents pulling her along out into those unknown depths. 

A glance to her side reveals Mason with his hands pushed into his pockets like a mirror image of her. Unlike her, his gaze is fixed up at the stars speckling the sky. High above the dark water of the ocean, the three stars of Orion’s belt burn a cold blue-white.

How fitting, she thinks, that he would look up to the sky with its near eternal stars, while she would be tied to the deep waters here, earth-bound and mortal.

“Did you know,” she begins, her voice soft, “that according to the legends, Orion was the son of Poseidon, god of the ocean?”

Mason doesn’t turn to her, but his hand skims hers. Once, enough to let her know he’s listening.

“It’s said that he was killed by the hand of his lover, Artemis, while swimming in this very ocean. Her brother had tricked her into doing it out of jealousy. Heartbroken, she placed Orion in the sky to grant him immortality, even if it meant they couldn’t be together anymore.”

“That’s a pretty depressing story, sweetheart.”

It is, isn’t it? She hadn’t meant for it to be. “It’s a story about love,” she says, though what was maybe meant as reassurance is tinged deeply with melancholy. 

Mason scoffs, looks at her. His grey eyes are swirling with— something. It reminds her of how he had looked at her months ago, that look that had drawn a confession from her, her hands shaking as she uttered how she didn’t want to die. He had told her she wouldn’t. He wouldn’t let her die. Is he thinking about those words now?

Moving slowly, he reaches out to push her hair behind her ear, his fingers brushing along the shell of her ear until reaching the small hoop of her earring, where he pulls back. She exhales at the loss of contact.

“It’s a story about some gods and their foolish quarrels.” Pale moonlight and shadows play over his features. Barely visible against those stark contrasts are the freckles dotting his skin, little flecks that soften the sharp lines of his face.

Mina strokes his cheekbone with her thumb, and his eyelids flutter closed for a moment at her touch. Cupping his jaw, she leans in to press her lips against his wind-chilled cheek, feeling the way his mouth curves into a smile. When he wraps his arms around her, she slips her hands underneath his jacket to tangle her fingers into his shirt, the delicately woven fabric soft and warm. 

Mason’s head is tipped down, his hair falling forward to tickle her face as she leans her forehead against his. Breathing in the same air, they stay like that while the stars wheel overhead and the tide of the ocean ebbs and flows.

#please bear with me as i don't write M very often #serenwrites

[xxsycamore]

𝐏𝐮𝐦𝐩𝐤𝐢𝐧 𝐂𝐚𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐭 𝐒𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐭 𝐆𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐢𝐧'𝐬 𝐌𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 🎃🎃

► SYNOPSIS:

The residents show off their Jack-o'-lanterns, and the competition is tough.

Meanwhile, someone is missing from the scene.

▍characters: MC, comte, leonardo, mozart, arthur, theo, isaac, vincent, dazai, jean, sebastian, napoleon

▍rating: G 

▍tags: Humor; Crack; Mentions of Blood

▍wordcount: 2,238

masterlist

▍a/n: Happy Halloween, everyone! I hope you enjoy this. Have a spooky day <3

It's almost Halloween in Saint Germain's mansion, and as per tradition, MC takes it upon herself to properly introduce the residents to the fairly new holiday for their current time period - hoping that it would bring nothing but fun times for anyone. This year she steps up her game by adding an element of competition to the pumpkin carving.

The dining room is transformed to accommodate the display of the spooky creations - chairs put aside and pumpkins lined up to be rated by the trustworthy judges, namely MC and Comte. Why them? Because they've been scouted as the most unbiased ones, in theory, because they're practically biased in everyone's favor. A loving father figure and a loving…babysitter and caretaker of the mansion. It would make do.

"Alright everyone, let's get started! We're going to be harsh. Remember, this is all just a silly little competition, don't take anything personally!" MC announces, eyes moving from one end of the long table to the other, meeting some excited and some conflicted faces.

***

She puts her attention to the first in the line, Arthur, and begins examining his creation alongside Comte.

They're both puzzled by what they see.

Arthur's pumpkin is… well, first of all, it's not horny. MC is not sure how Arthur would've been able to convey his unrestricted slutty nature into the shell of a pumpkin, but she figured he had his ways. The thing in front of them, however, gives off a different kind of emotion…something to do with deep emotional dread. The face of his pumpkin looks as if it's been tortured. More interestingly, there appears to be something written on the sides…? MC and Comte lean in and squint in order to read the tiny text, but Arthur hides it before they can make anything of it.

"It's notes. For my book. I had to write them down before I can forget."

The tone is nothing like his usual one. Looking up from the pumpkin, MC's blood freezes as the sight is more frightening than the pumpkin itself. Arthur looks sleep deprived, his hair a mess, his foot tapping aggressively against the floor at a fast pace. Right, he did mention something about going through writer's block…

"Oh. By Jove, I really need to go."

A word or two about taking care of himself is well in order, yet MC feels a little betrayed by his lack of interest in this mansion bonding experience.

"Jeez Arthur, your book is not going to go away!"

"No, I mean… I really need to go… to the toilet. I think I drank one too many coffees, Luv..."

***

Next up is Theo, who is finally finished laughing behind his, err, friend's back, and as soon as the two judges are in front of him, his expression undergoes a fast metamorphosis from smug to frightened. He has his pumpkin facing him, preparing it for a dramatic spin which would reveal the carved face on the other side.

"I'd be careful on your place. Especially you, Hondje. Try not to wet your pants."

"Just show it already…"

"Ahem." Theo coughs and tries to build up the tension again, "I made the face of one of the most dreadful creatures known to humankind."

You in the morning waiting for pancakes?, MC thinks, deadpan, while Comte is smiling emptily - he's seen everything. He is not easily amused at this point.

Finally, Theo spins the pumping, revealing…

Revealing…

A cat's…face?

"A cat's face?" MC and Comte's voices overlap - it's one part an honest guess, because it's not the most prominent cat's face they've seen - and one part surprise. And then it clicks. Theo is scared by cats, so naturally…

"HOW are you not scared. These creatures are just vile. I barely managed to carve this."

Uh-oh. The situation is laughable, and Theo is angry. He expects his efforts to be appreciated. As if by telepathy, MC and Comte both nod and smile, passing the notepad to each other to put in their impressions, just like how they did for Arthur's creation. Theo looks smug again. They move on.

***

Napoleon's pumpkin is…

"Well, that sure is a pumpkin."

Comte nods, hand on his chin. "It is, yes. It has a strong Halloween motive to it."

Napoleon blinks, his smile growing a tad more awkward, waiting to hear more.

"A classic Jack-o-Lantern. I almost see the stock photo watermarks over it."

"The what?"

"MC is trying to say that,"

"If all the pumpkins here were the characters of a mobile game, this one would be the poster boy!"

Napoleon is even more confused. But if anything, he prides himself in having good intuition. And the thing it is telling him now is…

"Are you saying that my pumpkin is boring?"

***

The stakes are high for Vincent. Not that every artist is necessarily good at all art mediums there are, much less when it comes to the complex art of pumpkin carving, but the excitement is huge nonetheless. Vincent chuckles shyly at their bubbling curiosity, and like Theo, spins his pumpkin to reveal its face.

It's not a face, however. It's a whole landscape - fields upon fields, threes in the distance, scorching sun above with its rays portrayed for effect. The most eye-catching of it all is that Vincent found a way to stay true to his unique style - the elements of the landscape are consisting of many dashed lines carved into the surface, achieving that familiar feeling of movement present in all his canvases. It's a masterpiece on a pumpkin.

After a round of applause beginning with the judges and following through all of the room, Comte and MC are ready to fill in their remarks on the notepad, but…

"That…wasn't very scary now, was it?"

Vincent rubs the back of his neck, understanding his mistake. "I couldn't bring myself to put any scary elements into this. I'm sorry. The competition's spirit filled me with one too many bright emotions!"

They don't deserve Vincent.

***

Leonardo's pumpkin is outright steampunk incarnate. It's a very intriguing thing to look at, with various types of screws forming the smile and two nuts for eyes; most likely scrap parts from his various intentions and the things he is fixing back in his room. It's the embodiment of the phrase "work smarter, not harder" since the judges notice that there is barely any carving done here. They take back a point for that, impressed or not.

***

"I don't understand this."

"I do." Comte says, eyes scanning over the few lines of sheet music carved into the pumpkin instead of a face, by Mozart. His knowledge of playing the violin comes in handy in understanding the creation of the music genius in front of him, and he analyses it to his best extent.

"It's threatening music notation.", he states, visibly feeling threatened by whatever is going on on this staff. MC doesn't get much of it, but she can tell that it is something absurd-looking, just on the verge of not making sense yet passing for actual music, ruining the lives of the ones convicted to play it.

"Thank you."

***

"On first look, it's a normal Jack-o'-lantern," Isaac explains, a slight smile on his face, gloves on, eyes protected behind goggles. Naturally, the other contestants move a few steps away from Isaac out of concern, but their eyes stay close to what is happening in front of him. The attention is a little too much on him, so he wastes no time processing the demonstration. "But when I add the hydrochloric acid…"

Isaac pours a small amount of the contents of a vial to what appears to be a hidden container inside the pumpkin - the result comes quickly as the lid of the pumpkin is put into place and tons of white fog-like smoke pours out of the Jack-o'-lantern's mouth. Isaac's smile grows just a tad wider while everyone is busy looking at his creation and wowing, and the following round of applause is welcomed by him, too. Maybe that competition wasn't much of a bad idea, after all.

***

"I was inspired by Ai-kun's invention."

Comte and MC raise a brow, mirroring each other almost perfectly, albeit Comte still manages to do it in his own refined way. Isaac is voicing out his frustration in advance and everyone is waiting to know.

"Let me demonstrate." Dazai brings his own pumpkin into view, which, by the way, has a very comical expression. Maybe it's that the eyes are too tiny, or the mouth too crocked, but there is something goofy about it for sure. What is more interesting, though, is that Dazai appears to be spinning a handle at the pumpkin's backside.

Soon its "guts" start to spill through the opening of its mouth, seed and pulp and all that, wave after wave. It's spooky for sure. A bit like a parody of Isaac's creation, but spooky nonetheless. A point for that.

"So what's the mechanism behind it?" Comte asks, notepad propped up against his chest reminiscent of a curious student in front of his professor. Dazai is amused to catch his interest like so, and probably everyone else's at that matter and hurries to explain.

"I burrowed the meat grinder from the kitchen and put it inside."

***

By the time they reach Jean, the last contestant, their hopes are high again. After Dazai nothing can manage to be as much of a headache or to potentially require a conversation on how kitchen appliances are not borrowable for Halloween decoration.

"Jean, what is this?"

A haphazardly cut-out triangle for one eye, eyepatch over the other. A vertical cut in the place of a mouth.

"It's me."

***

Alright, that's all! Comte and I will discuss the results in private and decide on a winner… though I can already tell it's gonna be a hard job."

The dining room gets rowdy with conversation.

"It's a shame that Sebas didn't get to compete as well."

"Yeah, I was thinking the same."

"Man, he would've LOVED to see everyone's demonstrations. I can imagine him, diary in hand and everything."

"He has a diary?"

"It's fine Vincent, we don't have to pretend we don't know when he's not around."

"Anyway, why isn't Sebastian here, anyway?"

"Huh? No really, why is he not here?"

"Where is Sebastian?"

"Good day, Messieurs."

The dining room's doors open with a bang, pushed by the force of a familiar figure. It's Sebastian, but his state is unrecognizable. His usually neat and clean butler's uniform is now all dirtied up with… bits of pumpkin pulp? Is this what it is?

"Forgive my rude demand, but," he puts the object he was holding, namely a pumpkin, on the center of the table. "I would like to participate as well. I hope you're accepting late entries."

It's a…

A whole pumpkin, untouched in the means of carving, not even gutted out yet.

But what it does have, is a butcher's knife stuck in it.

And an ominous red stickiness all around.

"Sebastian, calm down." Comte is the bravest to speak first, keeping his composure. "I know good lawyers. You know I'd never let you-"

"Oh but what's the need, Monsieur Le Comte? This is merely some rouge I spilled."

It's Comte who sighs in relief, but it feels like it's also everyone else in the room.

"I spilled it because I was busy making ten pumpkin pies. You generous messieurs have left me with…quite the material to work with. Copious amounts of it."

Eyes are meeting eyes across the room, some glued to the tips of their owner's shoes instead. No one dares to say anything.

"Some were left in separate bowls, which is fine. But some were left in the sink."

Sebastian grabs the handle of the butcher's knife and effortlessly retracts it from the pumpkin. He takes a cleaning cloth from his back pocket and begins to wipe it clean while talking, still keeping his eyes up. Out of respect.

"Some were in questionable kitchen utensils and other places. A large amount - on the floor."

Napoleon is brave, too.

"Sebastian, we are going to help-"

"What? What was that, Monsieur Napoleon? We're going to hold a competition for doing Sebastian's chores for the rest of the day? Oh how I'd love to be a judge in that! Do count me in."

Before Sebastian gets too scary to be around, the residents head towards the kitchen, carefully going out of forehead flicking range. Arthur is there as well, fortunately having finished his business in the toilet for the time being.

"Ah. Another thing. Since you told me to think of a way to add to this year's Halloween spirit, and I had plenty of time in my hands back in the kitchen all day to think, I've come up with an idea. I hope it will be to your liking."

"Do tell, Sebas. Your ideas never disappoint." Leonardo tries to lighten the atmosphere, almost giving Sebastian a pat on the back but deciding to refrain from doing so at the last moment. He is the head of the small group on their way to the kitchen, everyone already knowing their fate. "I thought we could cut off on fake blood expenses for decoration purposes. We will be decorating with your blood, Messieurs. It's not like it would be lethal to you if I were to borrow some. As far as I'm concerned."

a/n:

"Threatening music notation" is a reference to a twitter account with the same name for which I joked about being run by Mozart.

"But what was the first place prize in the competition?" I . dont. know. Maybe you have a suggestion? Either way, I doubt they'd get to that part anytime soon. Maybe Sebas can have it?

I wanted to draw what the pumpkins look like but I doubt i'd ever have the time for that :D If anyone happens to want to do that instead, i'd LOVE to see them!

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#Ikemen Vampire #IkeVamp #Ikemen Vampire Comte #Ikemen Vampire Leonardo #Ikemen Vampire Arthur #Ikemen Vampire Theo #ikevamp theo #ikevamp theodorus #ikevamp isaac #ikevamp dazai #ikevamp jean #ikevamp vincent #ikevamp napoleon #ikemen vampire napoleon #ikevamp mozart #ikevamp sebastian #ikeseries #ikevampire #cybird #ikevamp fanfic #ikevamp crack #ikevamp comte #ikevamp leonardo #ikemen vampire isaac #ikemen vampire dazai #ikemen vampire jean #ikemen vampire vincent #ikemen vampire mozart #ikemen vampire sebastian

[actuallymanu]

Kafka's Metamorphosis: My Ramblings

Hello world (Luna)! Since I got this account like...2 days ago, I'm just gonna post whatever insane ramblings I have in my brain into here, and that's all that is necessary for me.

I finished Metamorphosis this morning, and knowing not only how he saw himself, but also how he saw his father:

"You never hanged me, but I always felt the rope around my neck"

In all honesty, I saw this quote attributed to Kafka's writing, but I cannot find the quote itself so please take this with a grain of salt. However, the quote still applies to the book itself.

Ramblings:

Turned into a bug, Samsa's first thought when he transforms is not about him. In fact, never — not for more than 2 or 3 instances for which he is almost instantly punished — does he think about himself. Rather, his every thought, his life, and his existence seem to be consumed by his family.

He lives for his family. He breathes for them. But in his essence, what is he, if not for his family? Now, he must know. He must know because he has no family any longer. He's a vermin hiding inside a house that was no longer his the second he was not the perfect son, although he paid for it.

Even as a bug, he thinks of his family. Completely starved for any kind of human treatment for himself, he still hides underneath a blanket for his sister's comfort.

And yet, he hopes, silently, that she would move it and look upon him with the adoration she used to have for her brother. But she doesn't.

She treats him like he is dead, and feels guilty about it. That is why she empties his room like one would a missing or gone relative. She believes her life is ruined by his transformation, more than his. She is who matters because she retains her human form. In fact, that is why she doesn't let the mother clean the room.

She doesn't want to treat his room or him as something that should be cared for because she knows she does not care for him. When her mother tries to, it proves the neglect that she has been showing him. She cannot be confronted, just like her father couldn't, with the truth that their beloved.

Samsa is almost immediately resigned to his fate. He aches and longs for communication with the only ones he loves. He aches for belonging, so much so that he is willing to live with the torture of the room as long as he can see that it is his own. He aches for communication.

But he cannot bother his family. He cannot do it. So he screams silently.

They clear his room, and he only asks for a single painting to remain.

They leave him scraps that he returns untouched, only hoping that they notice his starvation

They leave the door slightly ajar while refusing to engage in conversation with him, and he stays in the shadows to not horrify them with his appearance.

His father tries to kill him, and he stays on the floor to not scare him further.

He hides in silence under a blanket to prevent his sister from witnessing what she considers disgusting.

His sister's music plays and is not fully appreciated his only thought is to protect her and play for who would truly appreciate her — him — but only through her free will.

He wakes up as a cockroach and though he describes the pain as debilitating, he still tries to force himself to work for his family.

However, his family only thinks of their own. No longer human, Samsa was no longer their concern. If he could not be a part of the family as a human, he could no longer be a part of the family at all. But they cannot admit to themselves the cruelty of their actions in their pursuit of freedom.

Samsa did not have the privilege of a job he enjoyed for his family.

Samsa observed the world with the innocent eyes of an observer.

"Was he an animal if the music could captivate him so?"

No, Gregor Samsa. You were the one with the most humanity of them all.

#the metamorphosis #franz kafka #gregor samsa #cockroaches #lit analysis #ramblings #in all honesty the book is a lot deeper than “oooh family evil” and i actually have a lot to say about it but I'm tired #kafka

[samwinchesterpregnant]

this is just a little unfinished something (i’m not going to post it anywhere else until i edit it it’s literally a notes app fic so i’m sorry for everything)

sam is jealous of dean’s small-town girlfriend while dad goes off to hunt a ghost in missouri. he resorts to bad behavior to remedy this.

sam is a teenager but it’s sfw

they’re in pike county in the dead, dry peak of summer and there’s nothing but corn fields, fire flies, and casey’s gas stations as far as the eye can see.

but dean’s found something to do, he always does. some pretty little thing who’s dad worked at the button factory in pearl and left her alone all day to find her own fun.

looking at her makes sam want to spit. she’s got this farmer’s daughter thing going on, with long, sun-streaked hair down her back and freckles all over her nose and her shoulders. she shows dean around town, they make out at an abandoned house the neighborhood kids are scared of and she takes him to a dusty old lake where al capone supposedly dumped his mistresses aborted babies— or something nasty like that. sam tags along, because of course he does.

dad is checking out a haunting just across state lines in missouri making some old lady’s walls bleed. he told them to stay put and lay low. sam’s days stretch on; long and endless and tepid. there’s nothing better to do besides trail behind dean like a lost puppy and shoot bethany or becca or becky or whatever her name is rude glances over dean’s shoulder when his head is turned.

he just doesn’t like her. if she weren’t hanging around so much, sam reasons, everything would suck marginally less. they would still be in butt-fuck midwest nowhere, but at least they’d be able to do whatever they wanted instead of whatever she wanted. and dean wouldn’t be tripping over himself like an idiot trying to look cool to impress her.

in any case, sam took no measures to disguise his disapproval, because becca or brinley or brianna seemed to have reached much the same conclusion.

she bristled visibly when sam answered the door to the creaky, old, half furnished-by-a-dead-lady house they were renting for dirt cheap in pittsfield. sam had overheard, in muffled protests, her suggestion that sam not join them on their trip to the movies that evening:

“wouldnt it be nice, yknow, to just go somewhere just us? get some privacy? i mean—“

“i don’t see what the big deal is. sammy likes ghostbusters, he won’t talk through it or anything.”

“dean, i just think—“

and then, there was the way she sometimes (sam swore) really truly startled when sam entered her line of vision. as if he was a snake in the yard hiding under a garden hose, one you couldn’t see until you were way too close. like he was a creepy crawly scaly sort of thing.

and it was true that this summer he had been feeling more like a creepy, crawly, scaly sort of thing than anything else. oftentimes, laying out in the grass in the flat midwestern heat, he felt like something was shifting beneath his skin, lurking like a latent disease— a gene gone wrong that just needed a flip to switch and activate something nightmarish inside him.

his outer appearance revealed none of this. he was, maybe, more comely than he’d ever been. freshly grown out of his puppy fat; legs impossibly long and lean, the bones in his face suddenly coy and cervine, skin golden and eyelashes sooty and downturned like a calf. it was almost as if these two developments went hand in hand. this latent urge— this dark feeling under his skin, and his sudden metamorphosis into something desirable. he surmised that maybe a missed tick bite had given him lyme disease. or maybe it was prions from curiously prodding roadkill on the lucky occasion. either way, sam winchester felt positively terminal.

regardless of all that (ticks and prions and snakes and bethany/breanne/brenda or whatever), what it really was about was dean, dean, dean.

sam was out of school for the summer, dad hadn’t taken dean with him to missouri, and so, thusly, naturally, it was time for dean to shine upon his brother with the unwavering and uninterrupted attention he was fully capable of giving.

this had been the way, ever since they were children. their summers were famous.

last summer, somewhere in nebraska, they’d stayed for two weeks in an abandoned house sam had broken into with a pair of pliers. dad had gone to find a werewolf in the neighboring county, and the boys, tired of the stuffy motel, had made their own vacation with a mattress pad and a flashlight and the hole in the ceiling on the top floor where they could see the stars. they’d found an old calendar from 1946, and some weird canning jars in the basement that looked like a science experiment.

it was still fun even when dean stepped on a rusty nail and sam had to pull it out (with the same pliers) and swore that if dean died of tetanus, he’d take himself out, too. unfortunately, it hadn’t come to that.

summer was supposed to be their time together. not dean and brittany and their third-wheel. sam latently wished they were sewn together.

to remedy this, sam made preparations.

the next time they were at breanna’s dull little rambler in griggsville, sam snuck off into the bathroom (which smelled vaguely of jasmine, cat piss, and mildew) and rifled through the drawers until he found a lavender conair brand hairbrush with a jelly handle covered in fine blonde strands. surreptitiously, he tugged a clump free from the bristles and shoved it into his pocket.

he returned to the living room where ghostface flickered on the television that sat on the tan carpet, feeling sort of smug. it wasn’t a difficult task, but he’d gotten what he needed.

smiling wryly in the way he knew revealed the dimples on his cheeks, he climbed back onto the couch and slung his bare legs over dean’s lap, socked-feet kicking in brenda’s direction. she shifted away with a frown as dean slung his arm around sam’s shoulders, his other hand coming up to rest on his bruised knees, drumming his fingers there.

bethany sat her chin in her palm, seeming to be withholding a look of mild disgust. sam beamed.

later that night, the hair went into a jar with:

a handful of graveyard dirt

a rancid lemon

shards of glass

a rusty nail

a few drops of blood

sam pissed in it and buried it in the backyard which should, allegedly, solve the problem.

#samdean #wincest

[nuctoria]

I don't know what to say, I'm glad you liked my AU and that it was accompanied with a cup of coffee.

I already decided on a name:

'You are what you eat'

I don't plan to write a fanfic, the reasons:

English is not my first language. Spelling/writing is not my strong suit.

Believe it or not, I don't know how to use Ao3.

I haven't played Dream Team, I don't have the best financial situation and time. I can emulate it, but I really want to get a copy and I don't know where to look.

I'm learning to draw and I don't want to do something else without finishing the other. Besides, I'm entertained with polymer clay.

Yeah... I won't be doing it in a fanfic anytime soon.

But I can give a little more about the AU.

As it says in the name; Luigi is a good person, too good for his own good and wouldn't it be funny if Antasma took the path of redemption by force/accident.

Antasma survived thanks to Luigi hiding in his dreams, it was a little difficult to have him in his clutches.

Since Antasma could not consume Luigi's energy at once, he had to resort to force in the form of biting, several bites and licking as a form of mockery, a kind of victory and because he does not want him to die from blood loss (sorry Luigi).

Antasma's terror lasted for days, because ending the fun would be boring and he wants to see all hope disappear, a bad decision.

He has captured habitants of the kingdom in a deep sleep so that they generate nightmares and he can feed himself, he will not need it.

After the bird's capture, the bat only visits him once to taunt him, but the Zeekeeper doesn't seem to take him seriously, because he knows what will happen.

Antasma not only visits Luigi to "eat" but also to show intimidation and power, Greeny takes advantage of this to extract information and form an escape.

Sometimes before "eating", Antasma likes to play with the plumber; games like chess, hide-and-seek, tic tac toe, among others... but they have a sinister side, more defeats, more bites.

Dreambert is not feeling well emotionally; He has not been able to maintain his kingdom for long, he has failed his people and the King of Bats has returned, he failed in every way.

Although Mario assures Dreambert that everything will be fine, he does not feel safe, he has gone on adventures alone, but he does not feel well and he wants Luigi's safety while he goes in search of saving him, his skin itches...

The dream world is more hostile thanks to Antasma's influence.

In Antasma's metamorphosis (transformation), I took inspiration from the Honduran white bat, slowly but surely, it is growing soft blue fur (I still haven't decided what shade of blue), it must be funny to present itself in an intimidating way while you have that blue fur spreading, it's not uncomfortable and it's one reason why the bat ignores this (that color doesn't look so bad on him).

I have a headcanon that Antasma has an unsatisfied hunger, no matter how many nightmares he consumes it will never be enough, until Luigi appears and his stomach is starting to feel full, he finds it strange, but not inconvenient, that the green plumber is more participatory, maybe he is accepting his defeat (no).

This new power (I don't have a better name) is not what it seems, at first it is indestructible and invincible, it is not the Dream Stone but it is almost the same; However, we are talking about Luigi, he would never hurt someone who does not deserve it and he would seek to help/save everyone; This affects Antasma's attack where he does the complete opposite of chaos and begins to feel fear; which leads him to the decision to stop consuming Luigi's energy thinking the situation would get better, it doesn't.

It seems like he is losing control, he is, satisfying that hunger to have a full stomach, but he doesn't want to consume more, he is scared; he visits Luigi not to eat but to make him face what he is doing to him, the plumber only confronts him, this is what he wanted, right? he tries to get closer to the bat to which he moves away and ends the conversation; Antasma needs to concentrate, he starts by looking at his appearance and doesn't seem to recognize his reflection; claws and fangs not at all threatening, there is more blue than purple, too much fur for his taste and since he had not realized that his belly had increased in size... and despite this, he was not scared, with his "claws" he began to explore, it's soft... sensitive... nice... maybe this isn't bad... maybe this is what I really want...

NO!!

He is the Antasma, King of Bats, Bringer of Nightmares, Terror of the Night

He's not going to give up on something as pathetic as this.

(he's just delaying the inevitable)

In the final battle, before Luigi takes a desperate measure to end this once and for all, he looks into Antasma's terrified eyes... he is... crying...

Luigi feels a little sympathy for him, pressing his lips together, he senses that this will do good not only for Pi'illo Kingdom but also for Antasma.

Phew, it's too much but I don't regret it and there's still the after of this adventure. A new Antasma was born.

Have a good day.

Thank you very much for adding a bit more detail in certain parts of your story, I honestly really love it and keep going back to it when I can.

As for why you won't turn it into a fanfic, I completely understand and won't pressure you into writing it. English isn't my first language either but given you well you've written these, grammar and vocabulary mistakes won't matter all that much to the readers if the plot is this good, it'll just annoy you a bit when you spot it and give you the itch to edit it out. When I first learned of Ao3, I could not use it at all and ended up not liking it just because of that and I still have trouble using it to some extend.

As I mentioned in previous posts, I haven't played a single Mario game ever and have just watched gameplays on YT, I especially loved watching Super Mario Galaxy when I was really little and it's some of my best memories. Take all the time you need and manage your money according to your needs before deciding to buy the game if you want it. I'd suggest trying to find a used copy on Ebay or Facebook store since the used ones are usually cheaper.

Also, good luck on improving your drawing skills and working with clay, I bet you'll do great and find an art style you can use and like.

#luigi #antasma #mario & luigi dream team #anon ask

[brandwhorestarscream]

How do halfbreeds work with the cybermorphs?

I'm so glad you asked!

So, cybermorphs in general are a sterile species. The only ones traditionally capable of reproduction are the queens (and kings, to a lesser extent, but their capabilities are a bit screwy). The vast majority of morphs don't experience sexual urges.

But, as all things with nature, nothing is 100% an absolute. It's incredibly, stupidly rare that morphs aside from queens can crossbreed with cybertronians, so much to the point that there's only 2 cases:

First one came from the union of Lugnut and Strika: she was an enslaved gladiator and he was of the first generation of cybermorphs. We like to say that there's a 1 in 10 billion chance a unique spark will connect with a morph's and they'll be inexplicably drawn to them: that's what happened with these 2. For some unknown reason Strika caught Lugnut's attention, and without getting too much into detail, he eventually helped her escape the Pits so she could start over and have a free life. One thing led to another and she eventually decided to join the hive, asking the queen to mutate her. Just before her metamorphosis, she opted to teach her new partner about sex, and they had a 1 in 10 billion miracle conception. She was unknowingly carrying when she entered her cocoon to undergo the transformation, and when she emerged a fully formed morph she shortly thereafter gave birth to little half and half baby Bulkhead. Because he was concieved when she was still fully cybertronian, his genome is built of half of it. Since cybertronians are technically ½ xenomorph and ½ cybertronian, if you wanna get into fractions, he's like. ¾ cybertronian and ¼ xenomorph, but that's kinda confusing so just. Half morph, half cybertronian, more naturally intuned with his cybertronian half

The only other one in existence is Nickel, who's sire was also a morph. Her sire was in deep-cover, hiding and posing as a loving conjunx for some unknowing bot: they spent so much time, millions of years even (possibly a sleeper agent? Idk), that their body eventually mutated/evolved to better mimic the people around them, and actually shifted from completely infertile to having very low fertility. They died shortly after Nickel was born and so she was raised by her single carrier, who never knew about their mate's true identity.

Tldr: it's such a rare possibility that there's only ever been 2 recorded cases in all of cybermorph history, but the conception is mostly the same as normal cybertronians

#cybermorph au #bulkhead #nickel

[roy-dcm2]

DBZ Theory Frieza's True Form

Here's a new one theory that I've been ruminating about for a few weeks. Let me be upfront, this actually a theory about Frieza's BIOLOGY, how does his species's Transformations work.

One lingering questions has been, which of Frieza's forms was he born in? Was it his "Fourth Form" (the white purple version) and then he shifted down to the "First Form" (small pink with horns)? Or Vice-versa?

[Personal note - I've always considered Freiza as having only 3 forms. I view Big Pink w/Horns as just an extension of Small Pink w/Horns. But I'm not here to convince anyone of that.]

Before I get to my main point, let me explain something else I discovered that let me to my current theory.

Let's talk about Cell, Dr. Gero's Ultimate Life-form. Cell is a mixture of the Z warriors, plus Frieza's species, too. Cell actually exhibits a few traits that were hard to place, for instance his regenerative abilities.

We always assumed that his capacity to regenerate from just a clump of tissue was a supercharged version of Piccolo's ability to regrow his limbs. But Piccolo has a clear limit that his head has to be undamaged. Why doesn't that affect Cell?

As I was watching The Return of Cooler for the first time, I saw that Cooler survived as just a head. Then I remembered Frieza survived the explosion of Namek despite massive head trauma. And in Resurrection F, Frieza survived as a a bunch of chunks of meat, including is head in several pieces.

That's where it comes from!

Cell can regenerate his head because the Ice Demons doesn't need a complete head to survive. (That raises the question of where is the Ice Demon consciousness is located, but that's a question for another time.)

Anyway, recently I was rewatching the Cell Saga and I noticed a particular ability that Cell has but no one ever seems to talk about. Cell is actually from the future and he traveled back in time, but to do so he reverted himself back into an Egg.

What a strange, random ability for Cell to have. Saiyans and Namekians can't do that, I'm pretty sure. It could only come from the Ice Demons! That's it!

Freiza's species can probably go up and down on their transformations.

It doesn't really matter which is actually their first form, but I'd have to guess Freiza born in the Small Pink w/ Horns form, since his transformations are more like an insect's metamorphosis, rather than transformations like a Saiyan.

But I imagine, they mainly go up on their transformation scale, because it comes with a great boost in power. Shifting down leaves the Ice Demons more vulnerable since it greatly limits their power levels. (That's why Cell reverted into an Egg - to hide his power level)

It's probably a leftover survival mechanism... like if the environment is not suitable for their needs they can revert into an egg. Or if they can't find a mate. It's kinda like Hibernation for them. There are some species of crustaceans that can control their metamorphosis, even staying in the "adolescent" stages for a long time. Frieza felt no need to metamorphosis to increase his survival rate until he fought on Namek.

It's likely the small and smooth form is supposed to be the "Adult" form of the Ice Demons. (It does raise some questions about Cooler's forms and Kuriza, but those are best left for another time)

In summation, my theory is that Freiza's true form is likely the White and Purple "Fourth" Form. It's what I believe his biology was ratcheting up towards. It is his Adult form. But if he ever needed to, Frieza could revert back into his "first form" or possibly all the way back into an Egg. (Not that he'll ever need to do that.)

#dbz #dbz theory #dragonball z #dragon ball z #Frieza #Freezer #Cell #Transformation #Metamorphosis #Anime #Dragonball Super #Roy-DCM2 #Ice Demon #Cooler #Koola #Ressurection F #Ice Demons

[medicaldoctordana]

Can you write something with mulder’s boyish charm and Scully absolutely delighted by it?

Well it's not exactly that but it sure is something.

Scientific Integrity

Rated G

W/C: 650

“Look, Scully! I found another one!”

“Mulder, when you said a nice trip to the forest, I was skeptical. Especially considering how the last two nice trips turned out. But this, this one’s actually kind of nice.” Scully’s smile was bright, it was the one she usually reserved for quiet moments of joy. Like biting into her mother’s corned beef, or seeing the name of an old med school friend in her medical journals.

Scully looked up through the trees, astounded by their height and the peaceful sounds they made in the breeze. They had only been walking through the woods for a mere hour. The sun was shining and the heat was abnormal but satisfying for an October in Washington. This trip was much more pleasant than the last time they traipsed around the Olympic National Forest.

“Woolly bear’s stripes are said to predict the conditions of the upcoming winter. You see here?-”

Mulder brought his palm up to Scully’s face with the wiggly little caterpillar crawling from finger to thumb.

“The more black there is on their body, the harsher the winter will be. But then, you also have to take into consideration the amount of orange, and! And! Where its head is and how far the coloring extends before shifting.”

Mulder’s free hand indicated where the borders were on the particular caterpillar resting in his hand.

“You see here, Scully?”

Yes, she saw there, his childlike delight.

“Here we can see that the orange is equidistant from both sections of black, which span the same length. You'd think from this that the area will see a moderate winter. It starts moderate and will end moderate. The Isabella tiger moth will hatch come May.”

Mulder made frequent eye contact with Scully, eyes shifting back and forth from her to the caterpillar. Her gaze, however, rarely glanced downward.

With a giddy grin, Mulder somehow produced another caterpillar and placed it beside the other.

“But this caterpillar here- he barely has any orange. He’s telling us it will be a harsh winter. Starting moderate but ending harsh. See how far the black extends on both sides, Scully?”

Mulder sustained his gaze as he waited with bated breath for her answer.

“Yes, Mulder. I see.” Scully’s arms were crossed in amusement. Some days her job felt more like babysitting and less like professional investigating.

“Good that's great because here we have a third caterpillar with-”

“Mulder, how many caterpillars do you have?” Scully interrupted.

“Just seven,” he responded innocently like he’d been asked how many of his mother’s vases or lamps he broke while playing baseball inside.

“Mulder!” Scully’s eyes widened at the number. Surely he wasn't going to perform this little show and tell with all seven of the caterpillars. And where was he hiding the other four?

“What? Scully! We’re in the forest. It's prime larvae time. These little critters have to start their metamorphosis before the weather turns too cold. If I picked up each one I saw along the way I’d have 27, not just seven. Be happy, Scully. I could be crawling with ‘pillars right now but instead, I selected only the most prestigious of crawlers for scientific integrity. I thought you'd be proud.”

Scully rolled her eyes, “Mulder if you were concerned with scientific integrity, you'd know to pick seven at random to get a more accurate accumulation of data points. By hand selecting seven out of 27, you've tainted your data with personal bias.”

“Scully you wound me! How dare you accuse me of inciting bias!”

“It's not an accusation Mulder, it's fact! You have a biased sample group!”

“Well, lucky for you, there are still another three miles to our destination. Plenty of time to un-bias my sample group.”

Scully’s eyes were getting sore at the number of rolls they were engaging in. She took back her sentiment, this trip wasn't that nice.

#the x files #dana scully #txf #msr #fox mulder #x files #fanfic #anon prompt #todayinfic

[hlcyxnfilms]

‍

‍ . . . alchemy of souls : light and shadow

‍

interpretation and theories for how light becomes shadow and shadow becomes light ; metamorphosis of jang uk and cho yeong : a thread.

Disclaimer: Some of information were found on internet. While I tried to keep my research resourceful, please bear in mind that there can be misinformation or mistranslation. Interpretations are heavily based on what I think and observe, please don't repost them as your own.

Shadow refers to absence of light. When light can't pass through an object, shadow appears. Yet, shadow isn't a reflection and light doesn't have a shadow of its own. Shadow becomes bigger when light is closer. First scene: shadow.

Darkness obscures senses and perceptions, and shadows cannot be completely trusted. Shadow is the instrument through which illusions can take form. You need source of light to understand shadow and they make you curious about who it belongs to.

Even in first scene, we see coexistence of light and shadow. The unknown woman gives hope (light) to homeless but hides her true intention in shadows. We see what she wants (feeding a soul shifter) after light reflects in her eyes.

While shadow is often associated with negative influences, it also implies the "presence of light".

So, here is how Alchemy of Souls applied those elements into storyline and cinematography.

1. The name meanings ;

The introduction of Cho Yeong already stated who she really was. A "shadow" assassin, a person who hides under the shadow of another persona, Naksu. Yeong also means soul, which directly explains her journey.

Even when she moved into Mudeok's body, she hid under shadow of another persona (even if she appeared in a brighter scene). However, she had light in her, she was aware of her true identity (Cho Yeong) and her purpose.

Writers already stated that Uk means light. It also refers the morning sun and sunshine. Even his first appearance was in a bright place and he was en"light"ened about his purpose, which is to find a master who can open his energy gates.

Jang Uk has always been determined and vocal about his purpose, never hid them and continued his education even if he didn't achieve his goal. In a way, he didn't learn fast only because he's a genius but also because, he already spent years learning.

Yet, Jang Uk still had shadow in him and it was shown in the same scene. He was unaware of his roots, who his father was and his fate as the owner of King's star. He was light but was shifting into shadow by slowly discovering the hidden truth.

read more on twitter !

#alchemy of souls #alchemy of souls season 2 #alchemy of souls s2 #alchemy of souls analysis #bluebirdfilm

[ophelionclem]

“Wizardly Ladybug and Chat Noir”

Going on with some Hogwarts x MLB!

(I had to reduce the  size  because the file was too heavy for tumblr, it might have dropped the quality of the picture!) Not sure I will do more; but at least I got the idea out of my head and it feels great to share ! o/ If we may whange the synopsis a bit : Marinette, a ravenclaw awkward student and Adrien, a punny gryffindor have been entrusted with the power of miraculous  from their ancient runes teacher, Professor Fu, to find the one who stole the butterfly miraculous by transforming into Ladybug and Chat Noir. Little do they know that behind Hawkmoth mask hides Gabriel Agreste, father of Adrien, renowned wizard designer, ex-Death eater and  Transfiguration teacher at the same school. But while Hawkmoth is relentlessly using the ancient magic to transform the student into akumas in order to find the creation and destruction miraculous that could somehow revives his wife (he wished); our duo is resolved to not let him do as he pleases! As it's true their new costumes are less convenient for moving; I feel that in a wizard world, they would need this less. They both have a broom ( Chat's stick can transform into one), and Ladybug can use her wand to control her "yoyo". The metamorphosis actually allow them to use an ancient spell each : Lucky Charm and Cataclysm ( of course); spells that can't be used otherwise.

I used reference for this from @theposearchives on deviantart ( a couple that does a lot of poses for drawings ) : 

https://www.deviantart.com/theposearchives/art/Male-Wizard-with-Cloak-Evil-Stance-Low-Angle-Pose-927235343

https://www.deviantart.com/theposearchives/art/Male-Wizard-Casting-Spell-Pose-887043522

#mlbxhogwarts #miraculous ladybug #adrien agreste #Marinette Dupain-Cheng #chat noir #ladybug #wizard chat noir #witch ladybug #cross over #ladybug cross over #costumes #wizard robes #mlb hogwarts au #mlb au

[boss-the-goofball]

Fantasy au

Catboy ALLMIGHT CATBOYS

pffft ok ok

Panthera Demons come in a variety of forms based on different Big Cats. Toshinori is from a family that's more Lion Based, which is actually evident with his hair that sometimes looks like a lion's mane. Though no one can really tell because his horns are filed down into little bumps that you can't see unless you get in real close.

On the day Toshinori finally goes through his Metamorphosis, which is a year after he gave One for All to Izuku, that is when his horns regrow and he gains a lion's tail and his ears also shift to look more cat-like. He also gains claws and sharp teeth.

Toshinori's Metamorphosis is also when Izuku finally learns his mentor is actually a Demon. He isn't sure how to feel about that at first, but after realizing that Toshinori is still the same person...it removes whatever fear Izuku had for his own inevitable Metamorphosis. Because if his mentor is still the same kind man who has been there for him, then that means nothing will change for Izuku when he goes through his.

Ironically, Toshinori is also a descendant of Yoichi. However, he loses his claim to the Throne when he goes through his Metamorphosis as only a Royal Demon can claim the Throne, followed by any blood relatives of a different Demon Classification who have not gone through their Metamorphosis yet.

When Toshinori helps Izuku with paperwork that All for One has neglected, he actually comes across the contract signed by Iou and Granny Akatani. He absolutely shows this to Izuku and they both agree to hide it- though that does explain a lot of Inko's stories about people trying to propose to her, only for the rings to catch fire.

#5 headcanons game #anon #bossanswers #fantasy au