#deathbond

wow im hard

DEATHLESS. | accepting

    “Say another word and I’ll see if the nebula below us has a spot to wrap around your head.”

    A trail of dissipating corpses was what remained in the White Mask’s wake, and were it not for his inability to stop and reply where Karthus was concerned, he very well might have made good on his threat well before he said anything. His rifle trained on Karthus’s face more than implied the possibility.

     “You say such a thing like it matters,” he hissed. “As if it matters if I was privileged enough to get back up after dying. After the First Star went silent.”

     Finger cradled on the trigger. Spider lilies spread where he was standing. He had the intent. He had the will.

    “I’ll let you speak if you answer a question of my own.”

    But nothing happened.

hey adrian! i hate it

puss is taric, donkey is draven, shrek is darius, fiona is garen 

     When Vladimir wakes, he is already reaching for him again.

     He adores the ghost of a song, that coaxes him out of sleep and then lulls him again; so much that he smiles against Karthus’s forehead, pressing as closely as the layer of clothes between them would allow. Their night together was ethereal, further from human, and now the morning drifts calmly over them both. Vladimir feels the rising and falling of their breathing, and listens to the sleepy morning song.

     Then—

     Brrriiing! Brrrrriiing! Brrriiiiinng!

     He flinches, tightening his fingers around Karthus briefly, before relaxing again when he recognizes the digitized alarm sound. Annoyed, Vladimir reaches to the other side and finds his phone on the nightstand. With half-lidded, bleary eyes, and an ill-disguised groan, Vladimir scrambles to turn off the alarm.

     Once it is silent, he all but throws the device to the side, and it lands with a muffled thud on his carpet. Vladimir drapes his arm over Karthus again, but his mind is already awake, forced out of his peace and into the events of the day ahead. The morning light seems harsher, now. Shower, coffee, work…

     He sighs, and pulls himself out of Karthus’s embrace, before the idea of waking up becomes even more undesirable. As Vladimir sits up, he looks back among the white sheets and the wisp of a person among them. He smiles, and shakes his head.

“is that the reason that you have bound yourself in this state?”

though the methods were abominable, michael could perhaps empathize with the search for truth. true revelations required sacrifices-- and much unlike the mundane and the weak-willed fools that composed the majority of humanity... this one sacrificed much indeed. 

“as so to still your soul before death, endlessly searching for some semblance of truth. you call this a revelation, i call it a tragedy, Karthus.”

oh, and such anguish echoed in his voice as he whispered his name.

    A puppet.

    Difficult as the realization might be, the nature of Irelia’s resurrection and the consequences of it that continue to dog her and will continue for years well beyond the natural aftershocks of the war’s end has opened her eyes. Ionia is no perfect conglomerate of regions and people-- and neither is an Ionian any less predestined to greed and conspiracy or more skewed towards good and peace than their Valoran (yes, even Noxian) cousins.

    Sometimes what it takes to see your countrymen for who they are is death, renewal, and ceaseless questioning of what you are and who you fight for.

    The Irelia without death is the Irelia that has faded into Placidium legend-- the golden girl, the starling commander in their time of need whose ferocious defense of homeland was what stymied the Noxian tide and will be the one guarding the rest seeking to restore Ionia to not only original glory, but a new nationalistic grandeur not seen since the feudal era of old.

    The lie. The marionette at the hands of the Council and whomever sits pretty on the Apex.

    After all, what is there to learn from only victory? What would there be to push her to wonder if the direction Ionia is heading is the right one? Certainly, she’d have seen horrific bloodshed at the hands of Noxians and countrymen alike regardless of the fact, but it would serve only to usher her ever forward, ever ticking in tandem with those newly in power (including herself). The past becomes an avoidable nuisance, a scab she can let go of picking with nothing grounding her there to start with.

    By the time she’d realize her mistake, Ionia would be long gone, now out of her hands from either the Council or whomever seizing the opportunity for a coup d’etat.

The way he watches him irritates Karthus. It is not fear he longs for, but a moment of respect - acknowledgement of who he is, beyond the moniker lich. Perhaps he should not expect such from mortals, believing their voices could never crawl above a whisper in the wake of one from the Mist - but it still reaches a nerve he thought he didn’t have.

How terrible it is to have an ego.

He silences the growing agitation like pinching a candle’s light. Karthus still does not enjoy the presence of the tomb raider.

“That which strengthens my existence is not yours to take,” he says, more plainly than he thought he might, feeling irritation peak at the back of his throat and curling around his words, like a snarl. He narrows his eyes down upon the boy. “Neither is it yours to guess. What joy do you derive from asking such things?”

    Ezreal wonders for a moment whether to offer Karthus the truth or not-- he’s learned that he’s better with truthiness than lying, but these sepulcher halls are more cramped and ruined than on his first scan through, and they usually dropped talking and went straight for the roaring and chasing after he told them the truth.

    Then again, his experience with the undead were the gibbering, mindless remnants of sorcerers concerned with protecting their artifacts long after their catacombs were lost to local knowledge and themselves none more than brittle bone and ash. The Shadow Isles are more than different-- it’s extremely dangerous.

    And there isn’t a bigger hoard waiting for him than in somewhere extremely dangerous.

    So Ezreal looks Karthus in the eye, one hand over his gauntlet and the other pointed across and says flatly, “Was worth a try.”

    “Sometimes on the first threat they drop everything and tell me where it is because their next trick is trying to claw my eyes out or fry me open with dark magic.” His eyes flicker to the cobble walls beyond Karthus, disused and miserable as the cathedral’s foundation. Then they’re back at him and Ezreal shrugs.

                The younger stars have more life than him, more ambition. It is peculiar to him in some ways, that there is still some semblance of who they once were within their cores. As if the void and the dark hadn’t fully consumed it. Maybe that was for the better, maybe it wasn’t. He doesn’t know, Brand finds himself caring even less. 

                Karthus burns brightly; his light is deep and dark, composed of rich violets and deep blues. It is much different from the black and wisps of red that escape him. Perhaps it is because Brand will burn out in time; he has burned for so long as it is. All stars burn, all stars die. The young Dark Star burns too brightly for his tastes, though, Brand would much rather watch the horizon, or the stardust that flickers from his hands like embers.

                So he does. He watches the trails of black smoke move, escaping and reforming constantly, he watches the pieces of stars nestled in this body shift like the tides. Finally, the deep red pits of his eyes raise to watch the horizon line ( he’s searching to feel something, anything, but he always feels nothing except this bottomless pit within his core ).