#fiabhras

LORDE ( ACCEPTING ) / @fiabhras

Maxima’s eyes move to the man in front of her, a smile drawn over bare lips; hubris spills from him so quickly that she knows it will fully paint the room long before she can even so much as say a word. The sorceress smiles still, smiles despite the anger that burns within her lungs, long past burning her stomach and throat. Others would have likely not allowed him to approach, not enter her territory but instead set his very semblance ablaze as soon as one recognised him. Maxima was not one of them; had never been. She always felt that any sort of payment dealt in the heat of one’s fury was often one that left a bitter taste over her tongue. It was one of her many regrets: that when she had the chance to visit her dearest brother on his deathbed that she had done and acted in anger, in fury, not fully taking in every detail and every single bit of the space around them. It was not regret that tainted her memory and mouth though it certainly had a similar taste; no, it had the after taste of a missed opportunity and nothing more.

The cigarette is placed down on the gold ashtray, cherry smoke leaves through nostrils. So intensely grey that it hides her face fully for a moment. Her tongue brushes against the back of her upper set of teeth before a side of her lips twists into something far sharper than bare pink lips would have otherwise foreshadowed.

   “Your heart, my dear?” both hands fold over the table, head tilts to the side and a joyful laugh spilling from her lips. She leans back on the soft back of her chair, her hands lifting to the left edge of her table. Bare feet bathing in the dim moonlight that spilled from the open window. It is a loud laugh, full in a way that it so very rarely was. The smoke from her cigarette still floats to the air, the shapes that it takes turn from mindless pictures to that of roses and then slowly to something different, sharper. Or perhaps that was just a trick of the mind? She stops laughing, and green eyes (darker still in that light, in the way that the warmth of her laugh did not reach them) open to meet his figure over her white carpet. Left hand folds over her stomach, covered only by the lace of her robe while the other hand opens towards the ceiling, elbow resting on the arm of her chair “What use would I have for something that does not exist?…”

She did so hate when her little birds went missing; especially when she had an inkling, a feeling, eyes and ears that whispered of a mindless cat prowling in her gardens. Attacking her birds indiscriminately and yet she did not want to kill him. Not out of sentimentality as perhaps he would believe (despite her bambie eyes, as her father would have called her, she would never mix such things in her business and even lovable hands could wipe out her fragile birds), but out of a game that crossed a line. And yet he stood there, thinking himself a winner, as a courageous soul that dared to trample in her rose garden when she had told him not to. What a foolish, foolish man. 

   “No, no, my dear, I do not want to rip your heart out.” she hums with her eyes narrowing and lips closing. She gets up slowly, walking around her desk and towards where he stood. She could see a new set of scars and she wondered if it was a parting gift of some of her gifts, a memory of their struggle or if he had simply sought more of life’s offers, tearing through the treasure of what one might call life to attempt to find that heart that he claimed that she wanted. She stops in front of him, circling around him as green eyes hover over his figure “Nor would I hurt you in such a manner, not when you seem to like it so much,“ tip of her fingers touch hiis shoulder as her bare feet continue over the smooth surface of her rug “You almost invite it, don’t you?“ she whispers against his ears as both hands land over broad shoulders. She squeezes them softly and but for a second before moving away. Keeping her back turned “Always wondering if it will make you feel anything?“

When she around him, finally returning to face him. Her clothes are different; Redanian in nature and dark, black and purples and details of red that did not belong to her. There were many things that did not belong to her and yet she had taken them. Once a thief always a thief, hm? Her hair is notably darker; so much darker that it was black in the way that the moon light bathed against it almost consuming it fully.

   “If I wanted to hurt you.” her smile deepens and the amusement drips from a voice that is no longer hers. It is lively and light, and it sounded wrong with the way that she twisted it to match the way that she would speak otherwise. When she turns to face him she is already half way to the way to her desk. Her eyes green, a wrong shade of green but one that he would find familiar. The same as deeply pale skin that had made him jump out of bed, to run to the window in the middle of a winter night to grasp for air “There are other tricks that I can turn to.“ she lets the silence stretch as both of her hands fold over her chest; her fingers ready. It had been amusing, amusing beyond words how he had always assumed that she would try to hurt him, tear his heart from him in a physical manner. That he would offer her the dagger that she now held between her fingers. 

She had no need for a dagger. He had given one before long before he had even realised. The tip of her finger plays with the blade. What a foolish, foolish man. 

LORDE ( ACCEPTING ) / @fiabhras

   “My.” she hums, the cup of wine is placed back on the table where she had been resting against. The bouts of melancholy that seemed to take him from time to time mixed with the violence with which he so easily spoke was a combination that Maxima had very little appetite for. Appetite and patience; even for one that lived for as long as she did she felt that the time that one spent drowning ones sorrows being bored and proclaiming it so made her roll her eyes. There was much to do and the world never stopped. Perhaps that was simply about different hungers; Maxima craved to know everything, how each of the brains and emotions of the people around her worked, what made them tick, while him… Well, Maxima was at times sure that not even he knew what he wanted anymore, what hunger consumed him other than that of a void that he could not fulfill regardless of how much he consumed “Bored already, my dear?” head tilts to the side, her hair is held up on the back of her head, only a few strands allowed to rest against exposed collarbones “I could take offense to your words... That anything which involves my presence can be considered graceless…”

It wasn’t, and neither did she tie her value and her particular talents to that of his wiles. Now that would be foolish. Perhaps it was time for him to leave, go off and seek something that he could not name, only to return and seen her move on. What he might think as something to incite him: to wear red, to chance perfumes, the games... They were for her, for her wiles and her amusement. That it brought him to her time and time again was just a side effect of a game and dance that she had done for years and would continue doing so long after he fully grew bored of her. Yes, perhaps it was time for him to leave, but not before a final game.

   “A game, perhaps?” she hums with a sharp edge on her lips. The red was still drying over her lips as long lashes blink slowly. She moves away, the half full, half empty glass of wine left behind as she approaches him in the arch between her balcony and the crowds that gathered beneath on her garden. The white fabric rustling through the floor the only sound that accompanies the sound of clicking of heels and the flicker of candles “There are two people in this party that have my attention. One of them owes me a favour, the other owes me so much more.“ her smile grows but green eyes do not linger on the crowd, not in one person in specific. After all, this was just another part of the game “The man is tired of life as he knows it, craving some adventure in his life. A scholar, I’ve heard that he also writes the most foul poetry.“ irises shift from the crowd to the man beside her “Likes red hair and attention.“ 

There is barely a breath, a pause when she continues. Head tilting to the other side and her body shifting to face him“The girl is a flimsy thing, though I feel that the new life that she has entered has brought a wave of life through small brittle bird bones. Tales of adventure and scars are bound to keep her attention for hours on end.“

But she did not need hours, and while both the sorceress and the heartless man had plenty of it, Maxima was a greedy woman that would not waste anything of hers, not without a motive behind it.

   “Find who they are and bring me a strand of each of their hairs. The game is won when the hair is in my hands and they have given to you willingly,” her left hand, the only one that remains ungloved moves to his caressing the scarred and harsh surface, moving through the palm all the way over his fingers, closing his hand into a fist and keeping her hand over his “your hands remaining clean of their blood, though I know that I had no need to say it.“ a step closer, her hand falling from the side of his skin to land over the side of his body, over to his chest and up to his chin, grabbing it for but a second and tilting it downwards in her direction. A smile, green eyes narrowing as she finally releases it.

send an ask get a kiss || @fiabhras

She was no stranger to masculine attention. When Iris had first begun to grow into her somber beauty, she had learned quickly the effect she could have; with little more than the way her slim hand revolved upon her slim wrist, or the way her berry-painted lips slid slowly into a secret smile, she could watch a man hooked upon her and wriggling like a fish.

It was fascinating, to discover such power. She had made something of a study of it, testing its limits – so far, she had found none, or very few – and all the varied nuances of its effects. If she dropped her glove thus, what would happen? If that glove was scented with her perfume, was she more or less likely to receive it back in gallant rescue; or would he instead keep it to press to himself in secrecy and think of her? It had been astonishing to discover that higher necklines – smooth silk and lace mounting to her chin, the column of her throat rising from it like marble – had a stronger effect than lower ones, revealing the décolletage. She had come to realize that perhaps men enjoyed the mystery and the challenge; the idea of stripping her slowly from her sober layers to reveal the prize beneath had an appeal more lasting and more entrancing by far.

So she had made Olgierd wait. She had made him wait, and wait. She had smiled, and she had laughed a laugh which was deep in her throat and gently mocking. She had tilted her chin just so, that the dark smooth fall of her hair had revealed a hint of white throat. She had gestured as she spoke of her art, gestured as if there was a slender brush in her hand, letting the lace at her cuff fall back just so; the bones in her wrist had a birdlike fragility to them which she knew fascinated him. She had made it all seem artless, or tried to; she had tried to make it seem as though she had no idea whatsoever of her effect upon him.

But his eyes, his devil’s eyes, had clung to her with a knowing darkness in their depth, as though she was entirely bare to him, her and all her secrets; and alone in her room she had shivered to think of being truly naked before those eyes.

“You should make him wait,” her dear friends told her, whispering, giggling. “Make him wait and then let him catch you. Make it seem he’s pursued you and won. Men like that. They like to win.” Her friends sounded so confident of it; but they were only as old as Iris herself, and she doubted their expertise. Besides, they did not know her Olgierd. Not as she did.

So she decided to catch him, instead.

They walked in the garden, as they often did. And they outpaced their chaperone, as also often happened. The sky above was a threatening grey shot through with shades of purple and blue and she laughed aloud, feeling energized by the electricity in the air and the waiting hush of imminent storm.

“I think I must paint this,” she said to him as they walked. “The garden with all its dark glossy leaves under this light. The promise of a tempest. In the center, I’ll paint a statue, a single stray beam of sunlight painting it in brighter white to draw the viewer’s eye.”

He turned his face toward her as if to answer and that was when she stretched up on her toes to kiss him. As if in a novel, the sky chose that moment to crack. Lightning fractured the clouds like the crazing on old porcelain and the loud crash of thunder followed at once, thrilling her. She laughed aloud and tossed up her hands to cover her hair ineffectually as the rain began. “Come on,” she called, catching his hand and tugging at him. “Come, there’s a gazebo just ahead!”

hocus pocus / closed.

                     THE VON EVEREC ESTATE  bleeds pale this time of year —— ice muddied with rust & roses wilted to the thorn.  the fragile wings of bees peek from the ground like snowflakes, trampled.  inside, lord bilewitz thaws his mitts by an open flame.  his daughter paces near him & wrinkles her skirt with balled fists, the feel of satin easing her riled nerves to a whimper.  neither of them are fools —— they can smell the copper, the death beneath their home.  they know what creatures linger beyond crude boundaries made of chalk.  when they still their breathing, they can almost hear claws scraping beyond the veil.

                     unseen, o'dimm watches ink smudge beneath hesitant tears.  he leaves them in contemplation, choosing instead to inhabit their vermin - infested kitchen.  here, he finds olgierd warming himself by the pint while thumbing through some charred tome.  perhaps he still believes himself capable of cutting through the spider’s web.  perhaps he only wishes to ignore the noise of his lamenting wife & her recriminating father.  though their words are hushed, he can surely hear through walls so thin.  selfish.  heartless.  killer.  the accusations are more bearable with the company of alcohol.

her heart   /   a saint’s cartography :   she could spend a lifetime looking for a new light,   thinking hers had faded away.   this heart had been broken by an enemy before,   someone elle felt nothing for,   yet it changed everything.   forever.   it explains this uneasiness,   the tangling of pale-white knuckles so tightly on top of dark wood table.   she looks at him once every several minutes, as if all her pride had never existed.   ❝   hoping fools,   to be exact.   ❞   her statement tastes like ash,   looks like ash.   &   they falls down unto her,   like her heavy brown hair.   she entitles herself    ;    it feels like seeing the most beautiful thing in the world allowing itself to die.   ❝   hoping fools   &   clever devils.   ❞   elle’s copper chain tinkles with   the writhing of shoulders,   a single movement of tiredness.   there’s a jar of wine over the table,   but she doesn’t touch it.   she looks at oldierd again,   this time for longer,   this time being able to hold his gaze.   she’s delicate,   like realizing she doesn’t belong here,   that the territory isn’t hers.   it’s eerie   &   lovely.   she’s given up ever trying to see him as an enemy.   ❝   we’re so different,   olgierd      ——      that sometimes i wonder how can we even   stand in the same room.   ❞