#(.closed)

Regardless of its continuous oft endless ruination, Nagato remained seated in this palace— his home. Basking in the center of countless candles amalgamated into twisting wax spires that spill over altar tables and stair steps up to this throne.

He casts a glance over to his companion. Lavender blanched eyes offering no more than a flicker of acknowledgement when she paces into the room.

" Welcome home, " his voice layers over itself on the echoing acoustics, yet his mouth didn't seem to move. His form shifts, raising its posture upright to better greet her," did you have fun? "

@necropolist / a semi-plotted thing that i am just RUNNING with

he dismisses a spin doctor with the wave of his hand, a lazy sigh when the guy dares to suggest heidegger join in on shinra's photoshoot.

this one revolves around the military, their recruitment campaign in full swing - macho guys posing as if they were action heroes, beautiful women garbed in military fatigue - the perfect ploy to compel either desperate men or women into war. there's no notion in these photos of masks and helmets, restrictive, modest clothing. no - the men are flexing their abs and the women pushing up their tits. it's sleazy, sure, but as palmer had once said - sex sells-! and selling the military to the people had apparently been needed since the end of the war. without war, people didn't see the need for the army - were heidegger to have his way, their campaign would revolve around passion - surviving and thriving. knowing full well, and promoting, that bloodshed be a good thing - were it the spill of your enemies. alas, that may have been the reason why he'd not been placed in charge of PR.

smoking a cigarette, he watches as models pose and tease toward the camera - each and every figure, the perfect pin-up-girl. but her - marni - she's the best. the most beautiful. eyes toward the camera not without a wink and a kiss. he gazes at her from the side lines, watches her with a grin as she taunts the camera.

"would y'look at that-?" a soldier muses aloud, the director initially quiet in awe before he exchanges a word with the younger man.

"incredible." his eyes remain on her, watch her with a smoulder similar to the burn between his fingers - lips carved into a knowing grin. after-all, he's a man with power. a man with pull.

if he wanted it, he'd get it and right now - he wants her.

his tongue lashes at the wet lips of a man, hungry, knows all too well where she'll end up tonight. his bed, maybe the back of his car.

confidence ( or perhaps arrogance ) is the guide on the walk toward her, heidegger talking to her not moments after her shoot is over.

" No. I was thinking of you and realized I haven't darken your doorstep on my own terms for some time now, " he manages a smile and an affectionate grip; squeezing just above her elbow.

Angels bled, it seems, and it never stopped.

Grasping onto whatever remained of her own limb, she carried herself ( with her flock ) back into the warmth of Heaven. The adrenaline of battle wore out somewhere between the sobering realization of losing Adam and the steady, even paced flight back into sanctuary. The pain of her grief outweighed the pain of gaining a phantom limb, which served as the only force walking her legs to Emily and Sera's abode.

Under standard protocol, she would never come here. It was tacky to skip the chain to the top and expect pity, but her judgement was eluding her; an injured soul grasping at tattered ends of a lick of sympathy. A tearful eye she would never get back at the barracks.

"I did," she replied, voice thick and raw from shouting.

Emily's fingers were gentle ( daresay, inviting ) yet Lute flinched whenever the woven cloth grated over raw flesh.

@sadistpet liked for a starter.

"you some kinda soldier?"

his cigarette is a sweet relief needed, the briefest respite to the pain that seers through the scarred façade of a man, twisted. his tongue lashes lips puckered, a cloud of grey temporarily disguising the steel mask he dons. he keeps crimson eyes on the other - watches him as if he's an animal eyeing prey.

"wearin' a uniform like that..." he teases, lips extended to a smirk - the edge of fangs evident in a growl "betcha think yer real hot shit, huh?"

he searches the other for a response ( the quiver of a lip, cock of a brow - hell, maybe even a flush of his cheeks ). after a second, jagi presses his cigarette to his lips once more.

Mitsuki sought the faint warmth in the fingers woven through his loose, choppy locks. It bellied him with a feeling he cannot name, for he didn't know, outside of the prospect that it was positive and that he was highly receptive to the affection.

" This does all that? " he asks again, unravelling the mysterious of the world one pinpoint question at a time until he eventually finds the single key that unlocks all to him and his feeble mind. " Intriguing... " the thought trails, traveling in some space in the back of that brilliant mind until it hand-picked another question from its garden of inquiry.

" Were you made like this as well? Piece by piece, floating in this empty? "

His mind thought of Orochimaru as identical to himself in everything down to the dimple on his cheek and the messy curl of his hair, only with the colors his parent carries now. At first he was many limbs ( like a broken doll ) assimilating together and growing into a full person that would soon walk these white-tiled halls.