FLOAT LIKE A BUTTERFLY. SCREAM LIKE A BANSHEE.

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UNDER CONSTRUCTION: general rules, info, and muses under the covers.

Despite her height, Maven hit like a battering ram. The bulk of her guardsman armor clanging unceremoniously against his templar issue as she drove her shoulder into his midsection and shoved him with all her might from the path of a lash of lightning. The ground where Carver once braced now little more than rubble. Pride with its head thrown back and great maw stretched wide in a roar that shook the stone around them.

" Good morning, sunshine. "

Judging by the dim light beating helplessly at the dark corners of the room from the lantern at the bedside, there was neither morning nor sunshine to greet him. Instead it was Evelyn, gold hair piled high on her head and streaked suspiciously with what might have been soot, looming over him with curious, calculating eyes.

He stank of chivalry.

Considerations for propriety and her safety should have been comforting — especially when she found herself in the clutches of the cold and barely hospitable North for the time being — but all she wanted to do was get farther away. Leave him and his good intentions in her wake. " I've done quite well for myself thus far, my lord. I can continue to manage alone. "

The laugh was a pitiful thing. A sob repurposed hastily in an effort to save what little face she had left. To not spurn the kindness Glenn offered during a time when the world felt bereft of any gentleness. " Does it really look that bad? " Was it as horrible as it felt? Each heaving breath sending a burst of white hot heat down her back.

Only once they'd managed to roost securely atop the fire escape, kept well above and away from the grasping hands and moans down below, Penelope gingerly shrugged herself out of the backpack and jacket she wore. She didn't have the same grace Glenn did when it came to jumping fences and a frayed bit of chain-link had sliced right through the thin fabric and into the soft flesh of her shoulder blade.

She had long since ceased being startled when the familiar mumble came from beside her.  

Cole, perched nimbly astride the parapet to her right, had taken to haunting her up here when she had thought she might find a moment alone between the tireless demands of the Inquisition.  How he sat, one leg dangling heedlessly over the edge with toes pointed to the stone courtyard stories below, as if he had been waiting for her all along.  She might have spared a worry for what might befall him should even the smallest gust cut through and knock his scrawny frame to the cobbles below if she thought it would affect him at all.

Maybe if she gave him a nudge just to satisfy the curiosity . . . no, no.

The thought batted away like the intrusive nuisance it was, a desperate, if not a bit morbid, distraction. Sava braced her forearms against the rough stone wall and leaned heavily upon it. Below them, the courtyard outside their small chantry was full. Mourners for the soldiers who had made their way back to the bosom of Skyhold only to succumb to their wounds, congregated together to share in their grief. 

Up here, the cries were taken away by the wind off the mountain, and didn’t ring so sharply.  She hadn’t yet found the stomach to face them and offer condolences. How could she? When she was the who might as well have put them in the pyre herself. She was the Inquisitor after all.

𝚂𝙾𝙼𝙴  𝚂𝙰𝙸𝙳  𝙸𝚃  𝚆𝙰𝚂  𝚄𝙽𝚂𝚄𝚁𝙿𝚁𝙸𝚂𝙸𝙽𝙶,    how the city had called for blood and he, like a specter, had appeared  to see who shed it.    an unannounced arrival that put nobles in a spin and begged for silence once the echo of lord cousland’s boots had neared.    kirkwall..   this rotten little pustule at the edge of the vinmark mountains    —    so close to a monument of blood and death he could recall the stink of it rolling over the waking sea as a boy.

          and her at the center of it all ;    savo’d expected more.

for a champion, she was unremarkable.    no taller than expected..   nothing so fantastical as to rival what he’d seen in his ventures.    a woman, somehow both   separate   and blended in with the rest of the ilk who swarmed her.    lapped at her heels with false gratitude if ever he’d seen it.    recognized how it felt familiar and scoffed loud enough to interrupt.

“  if you were truly thankful, you would make yourself scarce,  ”        something about the blood.    tell a man his is superior and he’ll straighten to let it flow its course unhindered by a slob’s slouch or the wear of a day’s work.    and more, like this one, would puff his chest when he turned..   a cock on the walk till a cast shadow cut the illusion and disinterest abandoned so much bluster.    fed a gaping mouth dust.

          “  you wear kirkwall well,   hawke.  ”

There was a time, not very long ago, that she would have reveled where she found herself tonight.  Sheathed in gold and silk.  Rubies at her throat.  The finest Orlesian vintage in her cup. And eyes — all eyes — on her.  The new scion of House Amell.  Putting their tarnished family name back into the mouths of the Free Marches high society.  A far cry from the rapscallion with skinned knees and big dreams she’d left behind in Lothering. 

If only mother and father could see her now.

Would they see slight hitch in her gait?  The gray creeping prematurely from her temples? The hollowness behind kohl-lined eyes?  Or would they see what everyone else saw?  The accomplished, sophisticated, revered Champion who danced and dined with the same people who had spat on her all those years ago.  A detail conveniently forgotten now as they all clamored for her attention — or her favor. For whatever they could wring from her next until her eyes had glazed over and mind wandered until she hadn’t noticed the incoming stranger until he was upon her.  Sending Lord Whoever-He-Was scurrying off to preen for someone less important.

" Oh, that? " Nonchalance couldn't quite mask the quiver. Couldn't smooth down the frayed nerves that left her hands rattling as they silently waved Anders and the others away before they could even begin to venture closer. Best to keep him, specifically, far beyond the notice of the Knight-Commander standing over her, whose pale hair was damp and clinging to sharp cheekbones Marian has the most unusual urge to reach out and brush away. " It looks worse than it feels, I assure you. "

And it certainly did not look good. Blood wept from the gash in her thigh and down the leather trousers that may have finally met their match. Forced her to favor her weight to the left before even that knee began to buckle and she sunk heavily down on to the marble steps. No worry of maintaining appearances now that the surviving nobility had been shepherded off to the Chantry to recover from their ordeal.

tucked away, out from under a sun that’d burned for years, the itch was less obvious.   it lost itself under armor’s smother, stifling what’d arched ‘neath his skin, threatening to break free in visual confession.   what’d bled red into his eyes and through the fine veins at his lips the longer samson strained a smile more genuine than she’d have liked.

old friends, they weren’t, perhaps, but the familiarity was welcome.   a face he needn’t squint at to remember the slighter details of.   the brightness in eyes older than a foggy memory had painted them, but still holding shine.   a gloss that faded out in the reflection his shadow stole from them.   dark and ominous and all those things he’d been accused of by pointed fingers who still lapped the chantry’s nectar so devout.   still believed in the safety a circle promised..  still trusted ideal justice he’d known, now, for years, had always been a hoax.   the pretty lie to bend their knees.   at the foot of an absent maker she’d sat as steady as she did here, awaiting the company of a true god.      “  ‘s funny, isn’t it ?  ”

candle light flickered behind his movements, lyrium dancing swirls of red against sharp angled cheekbones and a now docile expression.   a man willing to listen, were she capable of the same.   a first enchanter in her own rights   —   and, for what ?

“  we’re all equal now,  ”      degenerates and criminals, chased into pockets of wilderness not unlike this hollow.   where stones could double as stools and that crick in his neck felt ever the more pronounced without something rich to indulge in.      “  all of us down ‘ere in the dirt, rottin’ together..  that maker’s lookin’ like a real arse, ain’t he ?  ”

The Inquisitor told her it was a waste of her time.  

Looking at Samson now . . . his once capable hands — a templar’s hands — gaunt and dangling carelessly from where wrists rested on rusted iron bars.  The skin of his brow ashen and beaded with perspiration that trickled slowly down to the fine point of his nose.  The twist of cracked, bloodied lips supposed to what?  Broker some small sense of understanding between them?  To remind her there was still a man beneath this wretched, hollow thing he had allowed himself to become?

Tallulah wondered if, perhaps, the Lady Adaar had been right.

“ The only arse I can see from here is you. ”  The only rot to tell of trying to claw its way out of his flesh.  Why she kept her distance, poised just beyond reach of gnarled hands, worried if she strayed too close he would infect her too.  Because even behind bars and a ravaged vessel and countless warnings . . .  it sang to her.  Peered into the darkest parts of her and beckoned her with crooked finger.  Easy to see how it could bewitch even the most steadfast.  To see how its trickery could even overcome the likes of Meredith, whose willpower had been considered unwavering when she had reigned within the Gallows.  

But she would not be seduced.  She would harden herself against the wiles of red lyrium and thus harden herself against him as well.  Whatever pity she might have harbored pushed down, deep into the core of her, before it had a chance to betray her.  Summoned steel into a spine that had only just begun to remember the feel of it.  A First Enchanter without a Circle.  A lady of House Amell clad in naught but linen and wool.  

04. — salve // #WIITHKNIVES (@vilifyme)

"Where is he?" Iloen descended upon the camp like a fury of locusts — thrumming with rage that would have sent lesser men shrinking into their tents to avoid being swept up in it. Blood caked her face and leathers — some certainly hers, however most had the distinctive hue of darkspawn ichor — and there was a prominent limp in her gait, but she let neither distract from her quarry.

Leliana made a half-hearted attempt to intercept, but the Dalish deftly avoided her and circled the campfire Alistair was pointedly engrossed in diligently stoking. Eyes trained on a familiar tent. It's flap pulled back, the shemlen mage was preparing to enter when Iloen hissed, "Leave him!"

Wynne had more sense than to protest, hands lifted in silent surrender as Iloen ducked past her and into clutch of the tent. Pitched just tall enough to afford her the benefit to loom, she did just that. The Dalish archer stood over the form stretched out, wounded but alive, on the bedroll before her. Zevran the sole recipient of the ire that bubbled behind clenched teeth and quivering fists, balled at her sides.

It was there she stood for a long moment. Glowering down at him with flinty green eyes that scoured for any sign of mortal injury. Only once she was satisfied he wasn't going to give way in the next few moments did she speak. "Don't you ever do that again." Calmer now for what it was worth, Iloen's demand was thick with something she had yet to acknowledge. Something heavy that sat in the pit of her belly and made her palms slick.

“The door... sure.” If she were being honest it felt more like talking to a door. Made of steel. Cold and sealed tightly shut. Not that she could blame him in the slightest after what had happened. What they — she — had allowed to happen. “That’s fair, I suppose.”

Penelope could still smell the gunfire and the smoke from the fire fight. Could still hear the shouts of Woodbury’s citizens calling for death — his death. Could still feel the fear seizing her spine, rendering her powerless to move or speak even to try and save a man’s life. To Pene...she was just as bad as the rest of them.

Which is why she hadn’t protested when they took her captive not far outside the gate. She could still feel the barrel of the rifle from where it jammed between her shoulder blades. Arms raised high in the air, weaponless and compliant, but desperate to be as far away from Woodbury and her shame as possible. 

So they put here in this cell, door thick and solid, with a little window her head could nearly peek through if not for the fogged, fractured glass. A precaution, one of them had told her and she didn’t protest — waiting for the verdict they would hand down. What to do with this Woodbury defector. Was she a spy? Was she sent to dismantle them from the inside? Had they known her they would have laughed, but she didn’t begrudge them their suspicions. Only wished they would make their decision before she froze to death in this dark cell.

He’d done this before.

Evie’s breath hitched in her throat as Shane filled the space around her, forcing her to back up into the collapsed drugstore shelf — tripping as she went along as one toppled shelf collided with the back of her calves. He knew how to corner a person — to make himself large and insidious and force his opponent into a defensive position. He knew how to make her feel small, weak. Shane seemed to suck all of the air and light of the room, leaving her half crouched under the canopy of his body, as she frantically tried to right herself to little avail. Heart hammering in her chest, Evie made an attempt to dip under the arch of his arm and put some distance between them.

“I very much doubt that.”  The words might have come across nonchalant if they didn’t still have the bite of seething anger underneath them.  Her attention focused solely on ripping the feathers from the decapitated chicken pinned between her knees rather than at the leather jacket wearing gargoyle looming over her. “You lack the —” Rip. “— required parts.”  

It was all a game to him. Negan strutting around as king of his hollow castle, swinging his bloody scepter and enjoying the show his subjects made as they genuflected and cowered at his feet. Negan. Courting her as another one of his many queens with nothing more than salacious words and veiled threats. 

Rip. Rip. Rip.

@vilifyme​ / #benignrites ( x )

“ Well . . . that sounds a little harsh. ” Not to mention a little terrifying coming from the stoic Turk — looking particularly inscrutable behind those fancy shades. The grim set to his mouth giving away absolutely nothing for her imagination to latch on to. Nothing to give her the impression that he was anything but deadly serious. Her attempts at conversation consistently met with clipped, one word answers or pointed silence didn’t daunt her though — nothing daunted a Turk, after all — not even her mentor’s chilly demeanor.  “ It was just a question. ”

Questions she should have probably known better to ask, but to Evie there was no such thing as too much information. How else was she to observe all the angles of an assignment if everything was kept locked up behind Shinra’s precious need-to-know basis? Intel eked out like a miser reluctant to part with his gil. 

The war between Wutai long over, but when the orders came down to investigate a possible sect of Wutai rebels, stirring up rumors of rebellion, in the south Shinra was apt to do little more than point a Turk at it to make it go away. They didn’t care whether it was true or not — only that others might perceive it to be. More than enough to warrant swift and decisive action.