One Moment, She Stands Before Vitoria, And The Next Tendrils Of Smoke Carry Her To The Alcove The Narcissus

BENSU SORAL   | 1.02  －  Tuzak

The qualms of humanity, are ever-present, even within the living dead and she's quickly reminded of the fatal flaw of emotional connection as Valentina conjures to a near-corporeal form beside a rotting headstone. "I've taken much from you?" It's a haughty reiteration of such a claim, the saccharine curve of her lips unmistakable as she shakes her head in mild disbelief. "The shock factor that you lot cling to, it's exhausting. Truly." It was always, you've taken this, you've taken that - and never, look at all the things she'd made possible for someone like Valentina. Kaan - all those who revered her as the ultimate betrayer. "Kaan is the one who took from you, Val, darling. Now is not the time to misplace your feelings." Though, the challenge is there. "The price of betrayal has never been something I've kept close to my chest. Kaan understood the risk and took it anyway. Did he stand as your friend when he made the choice to turn his back on everything I've given him? Everything I'd given you? Knowing he would never succeed."

who: @fxllenpythia where: The Graveyard

Pythia was dangerous company to keep and Valentina didn't dare invite her within her sanctuary that the Narcissus estate was, most days she rarely unlocked the doors for the witches to leave unless they promised to return -- not wishing for the Estate to be a prison but the Wraith could be an dangerous spirit at times and she was controlled by her empathetic abilities, becoming emotional made her gain power and lose control. Python was a demon that had kept her company in life, she had split her palms to conjure magic and she dallied with the blood of others in ritual, it was pure luck that brought her back as a spirit instead of an accidental sacrifice. The leylines ran underneath the tombstones and made her stronger, more vivid in appearance as she stood in front of the fallen Seraphim. "You've gone far, you've taken much from me. Kaan is nowhere to be found in the spirit realm, I don't expect you to have a heart but there was once a day where I considered you a friend." Bitterness strained her voice as she was a fool then and miserable now.

Pythia — A Satyr King's Funeral

The rise of his voice - a moment of frustration and anger was one of the only flickers of conviction the Pythia had seen of Eric in some time now. Hollowed out by his own discomfort - his choice to stradle the line between this life and the next would be his downfall. Unable to choose until all that remained was the pitiful indecision to return to a world that had already cast him aside once. “You should have spent these months learning to secure your own fate instead of wallowing in self-pity, abhorrence or expecting someone else to do it for you.” A serpent’s hiss rounded out the snap of her own fangs, the glimmer of hues daring him to test another bark in her presence. Still, she softens - smiles, and shakes her head gently, “I never needed to make you a monster, Eric. You’ve been one since birth - and everyone, including your mother, knew it.” It’s flippant, haphazard, the way she speaks. As though every word she spoke were facts well known. “You were exiled long before the pack turned it’s back on you, and it seems you’re itching to experience that all over again.”

“If all you see here is destruction, you’ve not been looking hard enough.” The asphodel - the Necronomicon, was wrought with the creation of all things frowned upon. To stop death in its tracks, open realms beyond this one, and bring about a world that no longer saw those with such an affinity banished to barren lands. Eric had yet to see the totality of the destruction that she could wrought and as she wove the intricacies of power around her finger, the once regaled seraphim condemned the volatile to a life of bridled pain. A shortened life, beyond the safe haven of those willing to do anything - his body would seek to reject the hearts granting - long life, and strength beyond all else. Rue the control he sought being safe - the fire within him deserved so much more. The spark of a flame ignites and the blackened candles surrounding the room cast long shadows across the room. “Your troubles are your own, Eric. I offered you opportunity, and you squandered it. Perhaps the harbinger won’t mind another disappointment.”

Flame, licked at every crevice of the prison. Taunting in nature, it would burn none, other than those that tried to escape. A foolish venture that very few attempted to stomach. Despite it, a chill swept across the floor of stone and bones of those long dead. Disappointment was something Pythia had known since the war of the Old Gods had ended. It ran rampant among all those she knew, a flaw that couldn't be stripped of any who carried it within the breadth of their spineless forms. When it first begun to show in one of her most loyal - a man present when the asphodel first formed and invocated Pythia from the inferno in the first, she was surprised that he'd fall so far. "Of all the fools to walk into hell," she laughed, a lowly sound that sounded within the rumble of the Necronomanteion as if the kingdom itself breathed with her. "I have never known someone so stupid, Kaan Narcissus. How does it feel, to know you've led your entire coven into the arms of certain death?"

where. blood prison who. @fxllenpythia

Raffaele and Jianyu were gone. Or rather, within a realm that he could not get to. That he could not save them from. For his betrayal, for his want to destroy Pythia and the Necronomicon, they now suffered a fate worse than death. If they could not be returned to him, if they could not be saved, then there was nothing left for him in this world. And that he would use to ruin Pythia, in any way that he possibly could. He would not give up, not yet, even if his magic no longer flowed through his being. He would find another way to rip the demon apart, even if he had to use his bare hands. "Come to gloat then?" He questioned idly, as if the want to destroy his once sovereign did not burn so hotly within him.

“Then do it.” It’s spoken as if she’d drawn it directly from the void within her. It’s empty and holds nothing but callous intent. She would watch him burn for all he’d condemned them to; whether by choice or blind loyalty. Once a revered general among divine armies, Leviathan existed upon the purity of orders. Of war and all that it stood for. Winning conquest was to be rewarded - and ultimately, peace was all she’d wanted. That, and all that was promised to her - to them. All that she’d fought for, stripped from the offering and once again, they were asked to kneel. Did he so easily forget who she’d been? What she’d been without the blood and death? This was not all she was; but it was what they’d forced her to become. “No, you can’t change the past, and nor can I simply forgive and forget.” And now she existed purely out of spite. “ I will never forgive you.” For all that could be said about her - cold, callous and heartless. The spire that each empty emotion was carved from, Leviathan could be all and more but one did not linger so violently in a world that sought to tear her down without first finding a level of care and determination that solidified her desire to accomplish what was necessary. She would not grieve for those given this realm without first understanding how precious it had been; but for all those who fell - who fought to hold and cherish this world, she had never once stopped mourning. She felt that ache with every moment that passed. Hues narrowed at the incessant audacity he had to even attempt such an approach, and meager footsteps drew her closer as she took in the sight of someone she once admired and revered above all, finding no sense of familiarity anymore “ -- You are no brother of mine.”

fxllenpythia​:

“Then I sincerely hope it plagues you. Night and day.” For fault, in her mind, did not lie with she - nor those who had fallen. Rather with their father and all those who sought to use force against them to begin with. “I hope everything you have, falls to the same inferno that you damned us to.” And truly, she would like to see noone suffer more than Michael himself. Perhaps an eternity before, such a confrontation would prickle emotion hot enough for tears to spring to life, for something to catch in her throat, but long gone were her reservations about how she might feel coming face to face with them once more. “I do, because nobody else is willing to.” Willing to fight for what was rightfully theirs - to carve their own fathers betrayal into the flesh of the world poisoned because he saw greater perfection in creatures no more worthy than the dirt they walked upon. “Everything I have suffered - we have suffered, is because of this realm. These people. These creatures that would have Ulthar turn from us. Betray us so fervently. Do not stand there and accuse me of being a puppet when all you have ever done, is bend to the will of another. When was the last time you considered how this realm, and all others, would be if you hadn’t bent the knee in blind faith to one who would never offer you the same loyalty?”

-

“If it would turn you from this course, I’d walk into the fire myself.” Leviathan had destroyed themself for this goal, Sathanas, Astaroth, Leviathan - the list of the damned generals went on. Michael had torn the grace from even more, had returned countless to the cosmosand in that action he’d called himself righteous. His sibling levelled their anger upon him and was justified in doing so, so much pain for one decision, for refusal that their divine father had taken as a slight. The army that had won so much for him had lost its use if they were not willing to serve in complete, blind obedience. “I cannot change the past, Leviathan.” Michael wouldn’t dwell on what could have been or what should have been, all that could be done was to press forward. He’d once begged his father to let him descend upon this realm so that he could cut down the fallen, and if there remained no other course: he would do exactly that. “I’m asking you,” sincerity rang in Michael’s eyes, “as your brother: don’t do this. Walk away.” 

@domxbirchall​ location: some dive bar

“I’ve gotta say, being a free man suits you far more than I remembered.” Her presence is not one that she’s announced, rather shifting through the shadows of the dimly lit bar and seemingly manifesting in the booth seating across from him. Regardless of the new face she wears, Pythia knows that recognition would at least flicker beneath the surface of whichever thought plagues him now. “How did you manage?”

It was a strange thing, to be so connected to so many. To hear so many thoughts and feel the tremor of even their deepest, darkest emotions. However deeply buried they might have been, she felt them, a distant tremor in the base of her skull that she could so easily diminish. To reach out and pull at a single string and watch the entwinement of all who belonged to her and the book unravel within the palm of her hand. Too often, it left her giddy. “Tepiltzin, I was wondering when you’d find your way back to me.” They always did - it wasn’t often that one could experience all that she could offer and find such an infinite way to sever themselves. Greed was a rife poison that lingered in even the most well-rounded of creatures. Without second thought, she moves; each step neither too prominent nor inaudible as she finds herself within reach, fingertips shifting the flesh of his upper lip until she can press the pad of her thumb into the fang that elongates under the will of her own thought, “I’m not sure I like you better this way, but I suppose we shall see, won’t we?” Her vessel bleeds, a bead of crimson growing until it spills onto his lip. Even as one of the fallen, the power she carries stains that of the being she possesses, offering him but a menial taste of what he’d once had. “Is that what this is about? You want to join the band of God-killers?”

          a gift for @fxllenpythia​,

note: kisskiss, love a beca

              The Necronomicon and, tethered by that, the Pythia had once consumed his druidic life. When Seth had come forth a vampire, progeny of Mars, life was so drastically transformed that he thought little of his former proclivities, relished in wreaking newfound havoc with new abilities, lost sight of his former pursuit of necromancy. What worth was it to a vampire? Seth had never once aligned himself with anything or anyone, every ambition or desire claimed was for his own selfish gain, but the Asphodel had killed the First; a God. That was worth it’s weight in gold, it was something he could see his own former smarts within necromancy, his power now as a vampire, embellished by. “Remember me?” He’s emptily teasing, the Pythia had so many under their command, the Criminal couldn’t imagine they’d know each and every one, still there was flattery in recognition and Seth pitifully held out silent hope. He’s casual, like some louche predator despite the fact the Pythia is far more influential and menacing, Seth leans on the wall behind him, grinning as though they’re old friends, “Whatever God is next on the list, I’m interested.”

BENSU SORAL    |    ELLE MAGAZINE  －  ISSUE NO.O4