#faust au

Ulquihime Week Day 3: Sin. Featuring the Faust AU.

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With the mountain pass snowed in until spring, Orihime Inoue had plenty of time to explore Doctor Ulquiorra Cifer’s sprawling estate. She searched behind fireplaces for hidden passages, carried candles up spiral staircases into dust-filled attics. Mostly, she found large tomes written in languages she could not read, ornaments from faraway lands, stacks of mildewed parchment covered in mysterious runes.

And in various rooms, she found pentagrams, drawn in what appeared to be blood. Curiously enough, these were the only places in the mansion where she did not feel like she was being watched.

Some motivational sketches I did for @white-rainbowff today. It must have been her lucky day.

Hitaka concept art for the second installment of the Faust AU. I bugged @white-rainbowff to give me a drabble for the sketch; you can read the teaser under the cut.

The bottom two sketches are for @argent-gale. She’s working on her Kylux Emperor Bloodlust fic and I love the aesthetics of it.

Johann and Johanna Faust were never your “average” twins.

When Johanna was born, their father could have sworn the woodland beasts gathered around outside the house to meet her, the birds sang a sweet melody to usher her into the world, and all the flowers and plants of the yard leaned closer as if to bask in the sunshine that was her being.

When Johann was born, their father could have sworn the woodland beasts had vanished and the birdsong had ceased, replaced by a cacaphonous murder of ravens and crows that stained the forest black and thunderous with their many wings, and the plants at the sill had wilted brown by the time he had let out his first, tiny cries. That’s what they had been told, anyway.

As they grew, it would not be far from the truth, for the twins had been bestowed the gift and curse of Magick. Johanna held the breath of life at her fingertips; plants and animals were drawn to her presence, flowers blooming overnight around the spots in which she would sit and sing, and newborn fauns and hares and swifts somehow always finding their way to her vast garden. Wherever she went, the food tasted better, and the sun felt warmer.

Johann held the grip of death and the thread of the veil at his command. Drawn to his capable eyes came vast droves of spirits, eager to meet a boy who could pass as one of them and yet belong to mortal flesh. They did his bidding where he could not see, punishing those who would bully him and causing worse pain - even death - to those who did worse. These sins were not associated with his magic, but rather with the boy himself, after all within his house were dead in their beds overnight save for him and his sister.

Johann and Johanna were chased from their village when it became apparent that the two were in fact witches. Despite Johanna’s skill with medicinal herbs and Johann’s innate ability to keep death at bay (his spirits doing at the sickbeds of those who would come into the twins’ care), they were no longer welcome under pain of death. It was only by Johanna’s emotion blending into her magic that the town was miraculously convinced to spare them.

The two live in a cottage settled in the thick forest on the South East side of Brocken mountain, Johanna caring for her brother and his fragile mental state. While she took care, he learned to control his spirits, learning every bit of blood magic and necromancy that he could in order to better communicate with the droves that continued to flock to him. Today, they say the South Eastern Forest is cursed; if you enter with impurity in your heart, the first you will hear will be the ethereal voice of a beautiful woman, and the last you will see are the eyes of the dead piercing through the morning fog, cloaked in a murder of crows.

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SOMETHING TO NOTE:

When Johann Faust had met his end, and the Archangel Michael had shown up just as the color went out of his corpse, Mephisto knew he had a problem.

The doctor’s soul, in the end, had continued to stand balanced on the edge of a knife between Heaven and Hell, for no amount of wickedness and steerage from God’s righteous path could damn a heart so pure and light. Thus, he was to be won in the old way, as tradition decreed: Fighting for it, naturally.

Three things convinced Mephistopheles to do what he did, then. The first was that he already knew the inevitable outcome of a battle against his brother. The second was that he absolutely hated to lose. And the third was that over his dead body was his high and mighty sibling going to pry Faust from him.

And so, being the Devil, he took the only appropriate approach: he sealed Faust’s soul away while Michael was distracted, and applied magic so that, while sealed, he would not be able to be found by a Divine being. Only after he had done this and Michael had departed and he had buried the man’s body as requested did he realize that that meant he couldn’t interact with him either.

For nearly three hundred years, Mephistopheles kept Faust with him, never having been so lonely with his dearest so close in all his long millennia. He never took off his amulet, fearing he would lose Faust, as he was by blood and bone an Angel as well, and to misplace him meant he’d have been lost forever. He’d talk to him as if he were still there, which alienated him from his other devils, not that he cared, for Faust remained his and his alone.

Inevitably, of course, the day came when he lost the amulet; having had to replace the cord that kept him around his neck, he’d dropped into a vase on a nearby table without a sound. Mephistopheles was devastated, and in his raw sorrow, his mind was too clouded to search the vase.

For nearly two centuries, the Devil was in despair. He became bitter, spiteful and sarcastic, having truly lost everything for the first time, for even with the Fall, he still had a kingdom at his command and those who cared. Now the only one whom he cared for in return had vanished by his own doing.

Eventually, one day, he came across the vase again as he pondered which parts of his old life to make way for the new millennium. Once again full of overwhelming sadness, in a rage, he shattered it against a wall. It was only when what was undeniably a soul began to pool that he realized what he had done. Faust had been within his reach all along. Then the amazing happened:

Before the Devil’s eyes lay his long-lost friend, soul as young and fresh as the day he’d transformed him into the prime of youth, naked and asleep and utterly beautiful. It was if time had stood still, and indeed it had, for as Faust awoke, the words that came from him were still in his centuries-old tongue. It was then Mephisto realized that he’d been the first his soul had laid eyes on; according to The Rules, that meant he truly belonged to his domain.

My entry for the @kyluxtarot project. General Hux with a zweihänder is the King of Swords (• ε •)

His outfit is the one from the Faust AU (too lazy to design a new set). Also, work-in-progress shots under the cut. I swapped out the claymore for the zweihänder cos the crossguard was concealing his nose.

Memento Mori (Faust AU) - Chapter 5

As he half-listened to the polite babble of the ambassadors gathered around him, Hux's eyes scanned the dance floor to look for Mitaka. He found him surrounded by admirers. He blushed as they doted on him with drinks and various fruits. He beamed brightly as they laughed at his jokes. He chattered ceaselessly as they sat enraptured with every word. Mitaka’s aura through it all was a pillowy grey puff of pure happiness. Yet it was not Mitaka’s contentment that held Hux’s interest. He was more focused on the vivid green auras that permeated off of his admirers as their rising lusty appetites grew the longer they lingered around Hux’s groom. He is mine. Hux thought, a ferocious rancor scraping at his insides. The jealous storm within him roused the sleeping Force.