a soul-binding contract.

             while eve was almost incapable of feeling fear without probable cause, she would again be lying if she tried to act like their sudden ( yet somehow slight ) change in appearance didn’t unsettle her. unsettled and somehow transfixed. she found herself unable to move or so much as take a step back as they loom over her. instead, her gaze locks with their own, hands clasped and wrung in front of her chest as she shrinks in front of them.

             “ my heart…called you to me? ” only now did she tear her gaze away from them, dropping it to her torso. “ or did you just…hear it? ” her questions sounded the same, but they were somehow different. at least, in her brain they were. she managed to pull her hands apart to rest one on her chest, almost silently asking why her heart would betray her and give away her secrets like that. or…maybe it wasn’t betraying her as much as it was trying to help her out like a friend?

             they spoke in such a vague yet wise way that it kind of made her head spin. “ you’re…wait, you’re…y-you’re offering to give me money? for…for what? ” there’s only a slight pause, brow furrowing as she finds her focus on them once again. voice grows quiet, mostly from confusion, and she only pauses for a second. “ i don’t…blanche dubois? ”

             “ w-wait, it…! it doesn’t matter! i’m not…i just can’t take money without…i have to earn it, you know? with a job or…or a service. i couldn’t just let you give me money, t-though it’s very kind! unless…do you have some sort of job for me? ”

“Money? You want MONEY?”

The question comes with a slight tilt of their head as their lips become thin, pursed. How can it be that this girl is so terribly... NAIVE? Though, true, it is not always easy for mortals to be cautionary when they are truly desperate, there is in her something... beyond that. Something that comes with the concept of, for lack of a better term, rock bottom.

The willingness to set aside one’s pride, self-actualization, and only Elohim knew what else - in this state, one is wont to be called a bargainer.

And this sets their lips in a tight, yet loose smile - bearing not teeth, but protecting the girl from all that was hiding beyond that pupils of cold and steel, made from the hands of the Cosmic Creator all those millennia ago.

“I can give you SOMETHING - but only if you ask it. I do business in all KINDS of things, but it is always in the customer’s best interest.” They begin, gesticulating this way and that, eventually bringing their hands together as they leaned into the table. “If you must earn it, being the good girl you are, then fair enough - but do be WISE.”

“Every entity has to have some kind of false appearance - some choose great beauty, others choose youth - but I find that both approaches are rather uninteresting, in the sense that they reveal in the person something truly bland and petty. However...”

A pause, as a sly smile grows on their face and a few strands of pitch black hair fall down the crook of their neck, down the sharp and bony curvature of their shoulder.

“If you could... you would be anything but this. Anywhere, but here...”

Allow this historian to set the stage for this, a most momentous occasion - wherein one world, seemingly created from the demented mind of a troubled cartoonist (or so he THOUGHT - dimensions and worlds truly were so malleable and beyond human understanding), granted passage to the character known as Solveig - one who could know just about anything at any given time, and was drawn almost systematically to the desires of others. In their long, bony hands held the keys to freedom for whomever might wish it; should they ask, should they be ever so humble as to drop their heads before them.

But the truth is, dear reader, not everybody would, or even did. And while the seriousness of Solveig’s expression was taut - unreadable, a bit tight, and perhaps even stubborn in their approaching the blonde-haired woman with pouty lips and a shapely body - there existed within that uncanny figure an amusement at the prospect of potentially shaking hands with her.

Sealing the deal.

But who knew? The most entertaining part was seeing if the individual would take the bait. And so, we return.

How blunt their statement comes, as strands of their black hair fall over their eyes and lips - a snake in a woman’s (?) skin. Their hands come together, fingertips pressing against each other to form a triangle as they hold their head big.

A crime empire. Human beings, specifically humans since, as far as Solveig is aware (and this historian included), there is no other species on Earth that would engage in something as over-complicated and convoluted as this. In fact, someone such as him would probably not want very much more than what was already on his plate. Power, fame, fortune - an entire army of people willing to die for the “cause”, whatever that might be, simply because the Saints were the equivalent of a FAMILY for some.

Yes indeed. FAMILY. What a word... something that was out of Solveig’s reach, disappearing into the distance like the rest of those concepts that even the most basic of mammals held in their palms.

To him - The Boss, he was called, Django Foley in truth - they say with their finger circling the rim of their glass with a curious air, lip slightly pouted as the humidity of the air in this place, a bar, seemed to bear heavy on their pale skin:

                       ❛  some of them want to use you, some of them want to get used by you.  ❜  why she was telling this stranger about the people who surrounded her in this  nightmare  of a city, she had no idea.  then again, she had no idea about everything at all lately, from the  INCIDENT  that had sparked that chain of events that caused her to go from a regular teenage field hockey player to a murderer of criminals to the visions she was seeing of her favorite cartoon character  &&  dead boyfriend.  ❛  some of them want to abuse you, some of them want to be abused.  ❜

@stoneveig  /  sc.

“In the end, everybody is complex, no? It is difficult to say how and why such things happen, but alas... mortals remain both predictable and unpredictable simultaneously.”

Speaking so openly seemed, at that moment, the best approach to the young girl who stood before her - yet, appearances are often deceiving, dear reader. One might think that perhaps Solveig could not quite discern what it was that was so disconcerting about this child (though, not a child either, most definitely); but it was indeed something ferocious, an ominous power that thumped beneath the surface of such a frame.

A Child of the Branch they were called, otherwise known as Scarlet Wing. One possessing supernatural powers, one who was capable of great deeds, though in this case, dear reader, the term great can mean whatever you might want it to mean.

☾ CLASSIC LIT SENTENCE STARTERS ☽ - ACCEPTING.

“Experience, hm… your statement is true, to some level.”

All this said with a sideways smile befitting of a complex character such as them - frightening, beguiling, and above all impossible to read to the average mortal. They bring their fingers - bony, a bit too long and thin to be considered human - to their chin, and stroke it thoughtfully.

“But experience also allows men to steer clear of dangers unbeknownst to them before, now clear as day. Take, for example, the man who attempts to save his companion tied to the train tracks. He finds out, later, that this companion of his was unfaithful in every sense of the word - he thinks that, perhaps, he shouldn’t save her the next time.”

A pause, as they balance all their weight on the tip of their foot.

“And fortunately for his sanity, in this hypothetical situation, when she is met with the promise of death again, he does not save her. His experience taught him, therefore, that the life of someone who does make a mistake is inferior to that of his tarnished feelings. However, many people might argue that this is, in fact, a morally right decision.”

@stoneveig is as unsettling to this world as him…

Giant teeth revealed themselves in a wicked smile as the Overlord shivered. Solveig’s presence alone was enough to bring in a chill so arctic that the ghost forgot that it was summer. The way their jetblack hair and porcelain skin refused said summer’s light was also enough to draw Casper in, his heart chained by a seductive call from their presence. It was rare indeed that he EVER felt this way for a human, however…

“Youuuuu’re not human, are you?”

How could he be? He looked as beautiful as a doll and had the eyes of Satan himself. There was no way this abomination was like any “trainer” he’s met, but that’s what he adored.

Something new and fresh– another feast for his dark ambitions that hungered far more than any Guzzlord in the 9th dimension.

“C’mon, baby! Spit it out! I wanna know what you REALLY are! SURELY you’re none too shy to let ol’ Caspy-Waspy know if you’re brave enough to romp about LIKE a human!”

“Beeee–sIIIIiiiIIIIdesssss… Would a face like THIS mean you harm?”

“SSH, quiet now... you wouldn’t want to stir up the SPIRITS with such talk. And believe me, that would be a rather UNFORTUNATE thing, as I’m sure you know...”

All this said with a slight smile, lips curled into something completely mysterious and impenetrable - a finger placed in front, as though to mockingly hush the purple ghost; not an anomaly, but a natural occurrence here in the Gehenna, as it was called. But how could that be, dear reader, when it was Solveig’s modus operandi to maintain a completely cool head - tricking and manipulating to their heart’s content when they thought nobody was aware? Well, you see, it can be explained like so.

An entity that was not human Solveig wasted no time with; they knew, it knew, there was no point in playing it out further. And that wicked grin on that purple creature’s face - no, ghost, Solveig reminded themselves, not a creature. This one was special.

And special requires attentiveness and honesty. Well... to a point.

They fold their arms across their chest, their smile not waning for even a second - how could they in the face of a grandiose evil such as this? The OVERLORD of the Gehenna?

“If I were human, I wouldn’t have come here unharmed, would I?” They inquire, tapping their fingers against their arm. “Though my clothes appear human, and this face appears human,” a pause, as they pinch their skin and stretch it as far as it can go, albeit for a moment. “But yes, you’ve seen right through me...”

RELATIONSHIP POTENTIAL (ACCEPTING).

send a ♡ and i’ll fill this out for our muses !  i’ll bold what i want for their relationship, italic what i could see and strike out what i don’t .

FRIENDS.   childhood friends  /  work friends  /  family friends  / recently friends  /  turning antagonistic  /  turning into something romantic  /  stable  /  falling apart  /  friendship of need  / friendship of circumstance / pen - pals or internet friends  /  coworkers  /  partners  /  other .

ROMANCE.   childhood sweethearts  /  newly entered  /  soulmates  /  skinny love  /  unrequited from my muses side  /  unrequited from your muses side  /  friends with benefits  /  awkward  /  fading  /  turning  toxic  /  toxic  and  destructive  /  other .

FAMILIAL BOND.   sibling bond  /  older sibling figure to your muse  /  younger sibling figure to your muse  /  parental figure to your muse  / guardian figure  /  legal  guardian  /  other .

starter call | @stoneveig​

   —𝑻𝑯𝑬 world had changed. Whatever magic he conjured, however long    he spent in his own lair with his own spell-addled servants of warriors as    company, the fact remained that Chase lived on in an era that had seen    his every human peer live and die a meager, fragile lifetime—a longer one,    for those with the luck to have passed one Revolution or another, but only    marginally so when measured against his own time. Their work moved    without them, passed down in fragments tweaked and disassembled and    reassembled once again backwards into some new invention every few    decades: the electric light, the automobile, the internet. It moved and it    spread, one lifetime after another, building on and over until he could no    longer discern the structure below. The world he had walked as a human    once existed only in dwindling temples and remembered spells.

   And so, Chase Young left his citadel to buy the month’s magazines. He    couldn’t very well ask for them to be delivered to the menacing cave    carved into a volcano, after all.

   It was simple enough to veil his armor, slimming its appearance to    something better suited to the decade. The exact illusion had seen    more changes than he cared to keep track of, one definition of casual    or another presented to the human or magically-uninclined in just    enough to allow him to browse the bookstore shelves in peace. One    could only read ancient texts so many times.

   He would have thought, if approached by any being of inscrutable,    horrible power and origin, that it would be while reading one of said    ancient texts, but there they were, at the end of the aisle, catching his    eye through the dark lenses of his shades (his eyes refused all attempts    at glamour) as he skimmed the editor’s note of a genuinely thought-    provoking gardening magazine. A glance alone instilled the cold, sick    inkling of something very wrong, or more than an inkling, if he looked for    longer at the gleam in their eyes or the breadth of their smile. His scalp    prickled with the energy in the air, a kind of slight and subtle that meant    enough power to hide its own extent. For minutes longer, he stood,    flipping from page to page and retaining maybe a word of each, before    taking the magazine in one hand and moving to the next down the aisle.

   ❝ I’ve already lost my soul, if that’s what you need. My apologies for the    disappointment if it is. ❞ Nothing about their presence was improved by    proximity, unless he considered the delirious urge to strike them an    improvement.

“Disappointment? No... hardly, Young. I don’t play by those rules all the time, I’m afraid.”

Each words slips out from their blackened lips, slowly but surely, with all the sweet charm of a colorful snake hiding in the trees of a tropical forest, ready to pounce at a moment’s notice. But, dear reader, you might imagine that such a snake does not exist - but the reason the analogy is given is not because it is something real necessarily, but that one must recall that the more colorful a being is, the more toxic it undeniably will be once its fangs or vertebrae stick themselves straight into your skin.

And when the poison reaches the depths of the veins, through the arteries, it will no doubt reach the point of no return and plunge into the recesses of your heart - wherein, within seconds, a grandiose paralysis will overtake you and render you completely helpless in the face of a truly horrific fate. 

This tangent is necessary, dear reader, for you to understand that Solveig is not one to play tricks on those who know better than to treat them as just another person - this Chase Young no doubt has tangled with their kind before. Instead, they are simply going straight for the direct approach. To poison directly, but slowly. Subtly. Carefully, with all the tact of a cat on the prowl for an injured bird, blood oozing from its wing.

“I come to those with intense desires in their heart - and this modernity... it is abhorrent against such a crudely created illusion. Something ancient lurking among the crevices of the technologically advanced world... can they truly be AFRAID of the likes of you anymore, with their fancy gadgets and scientific achievements? I should think NOT...”

RELATIONSHIP POTENTIAL (ACCEPTING).

send a ♡ and i’ll fill this out for our muses !  i’ll bold what i want for their relationship, italic what i could see and strike out what i don’t .

FRIENDS.   childhood friends  /  work friends  /  family friends  /  recently friends  /  turning antagonistic  /  turning into something romantic  /  stable  /  falling apart  /  friendship of need  / friendship of circumstance / pen - pals or internet friends  /  coworkers  /  partners  /  other .

ROMANCE.   childhood sweethearts  /  newly entered  /  soulmates  /  skinny love  /  unrequited from my muses side  /  unrequited from your muses side  /  friends with benefits  /  awkward  /  fading  /  turning  toxic  /  toxic  and  destructive  /  other .

FAMILIAL BOND.   sibling bond  /  older sibling figure to your muse  /  younger sibling figure to your muse  /  parental figure to your muse  / guardian figure  /  legal  guardian  /  other .

RELATIONSHIP POTENTIAL (ACCEPTING).

send a ♡ and i’ll fill this out for our muses !  i’ll bold what i want for their relationship, italic what i could see and strike out what i don’t .

FRIENDS.   childhood friends  /  work friends  /  family friends  /  recently friends  /  turning antagonistic  /  turning into something romantic  /  stable  /  falling apart  /  friendship of need  /  friendship of circumstance / pen - pals or internet friends  /  coworkers  /  partners  /  other .

ROMANCE.   childhood sweethearts  /  newly entered  /  soulmates  /  skinny love  /  unrequited from my muses side  /  unrequited from your muses side  /  friends with benefits  /  awkward  /  fading  /  turning  toxic  /  toxic  and  destructive  /  other .

FAMILIAL BOND.   sibling bond  /  older sibling figure to your muse  /  younger sibling figure to your muse  /  parental figure to your muse  / guardian figure  /  legal  guardian  /  other .