#firstemeritus

For 𝔓𝔞𝔭𝔞 𝔓𝔢𝔯𝔣𝔦𝔡𝔦𝔬𝔲𝔰 ℑ𝔛 / 𝔄𝔩𝔢𝔰𝔰𝔞𝔫𝔡𝔯𝔬 𝔄𝔟𝔟𝔞𝔫𝔡𝔬𝔫𝔞𝔱𝔬 ;

Predominately, I think Alessandro is thrilled that his bloodline isn’t extinct: a likely outcome given the infant mortality and premature death rate in the period of history in which he lived. War, plague, poverty, and crime were all probable outcomes for even the most noble of highborns in Late Renaissance Italy, and half of his children suffered the indignity of being born to his mistress, one of the Sisters of Sin in the Ministry of his day: something that places them in a very precious position, both socially and financially, though these two things have always been closely entwined.

I think he’s a little baffled by these three young men, and what ‘young man’ has come to mean in the modern age. What do you mean you can’t read Latin? Terzo never paid attention during class, I mean, who can blame him? He never expected to be pontiff. None of you can horse ride? What do you do for sport? Scherma? Calcio? Che palle! Where is your cavalleria? Your sense of sprezzatura? He finds it remarkable that men of such little talent managed to acquire the high office of pontiff. What the Emeritus men know about diplomacy and the Fior di Battaglia could be written on one side of a napkin. Porca madonna...

Their legacy is another matter entirely. As a man of the Renaissance, who witnessed the construction of St. Peter's Basilica (and the painting of the Le Stanze di Raffaello, the Appartamento Borgia and the Capella Sistina), he recognises the power of art, and its ageless quality ("a man is immortalised by his works, pronipoti"); he thinks the Ghost Project is a testament to their genius and a credit to the Ministry. Like the masterworks of Zacara and Canova da Milano, he thinks their music will survive for centuries to come. If he understood the first thing about modern instrumentation, or even modern notation, he might try his hand at it. Alas, he's got several hundred menial things to learn about modern living before he gets around to leisure activities.

For 𝔄𝔷𝔬𝔱𝔥 / 𝔐𝔢𝔯𝔠𝔲𝔯𝔶 𝔊𝔥𝔬𝔲𝔩 ;

To describe his eldest son as misanthropic was insufficient. A creature with a dual nature, neither entirely ghoul, nor entirely human, his aversion to humanity and human emotions represented more than antipathy; it approximated a complete vacuum of knowledge when it came to the human condition. Humans and ghouls alike were irrational, were subject to impulsivity and orneriness, succumbing to their animal appetites rather than navigating life guided by their rationality and moral integrity. Vittorio, it seemed, had inherited both the indifference of ghoul and the cold and calculating mind of an ascetic or a mathematician; it another life he would have made a lethal predator. He speaks but little, but the Mercury ghoul’s ears are the first to prick up when he summons a deep breath:

The frost-flaked bag of frozen peas drops into the sink with a crunch, and the ghoul rotates slowly to face him, his tail tucked between his legs like a beaten dog. “What did you say?” He rasps, voice ripped at the edges, courtesy of the shouting match he’d had with Ben in the hospital waiting room. “I must have misheard you…” The ghoul feels along his fractured cheekbone with tentative fingers, inspecting his swollen eye socket, his skin mottled several shades of red, purple and dark blue. “Because I know the son I raised would never say such a thing…” Cursed the acute hearing of a bat, there was no way on Satan’s barren Earth he had misheard.

“You are entitled to your anger. You are entitled to your pain,” he recites, trying to restore diplomacy. “But please, don’t make this harder than this already is.” Downtrodden and fatigued, Azoth isn’t sure he’ll survive another lambasting from an Emeritus as he teeters on the edge of yet another tearful interlude. “Save your anger. Bottle your rage. Set it aside for another day. Right now, your brother needs us.” Here he was, hypocrite in chief, preaching from his pulpit, his knuckles still throbbing from throttling the antipope half to death. “Both of them do.” He’s calm and collected, but the thinness of his voice and his shallow, stuttering breaths give him away; he’s in agony, and he’s a hair’s breadth from falling apart. “Pain isn’t the answer, believe me. What we need, right now, is love.”

the shining  - stephen king sentence starters.

For 𝔄𝔷𝔬𝔱𝔥 / 𝔐𝔢𝔯𝔠𝔲𝔯𝔶 𝔊𝔥𝔬𝔲𝔩 ;

Of the triumvirate of Emeritus scions, the firstborn was by far the most cryptic, a creature not-quite of this realm, with his puckish pinnae and uncanny proportions; who Nihil had sired the half-breed with had never been disclosed to him, but it makes the boy‘s Delphic declarations that much more disquieting. A being who bridged the chasm between the realm of the living and the spiritual plane, Azoth would be wise to heed his credo. What’s more, whilst of Nihil’s heirs were afflicted with the same cynicism to differing degrees, such a display of misanthropy from the aloof and apathetic sibling is out of character; more than another eccentricity developed in his retirement. “I hope by man you mean human, or I stand to lose a lot more than most.” Removing his soiled gardening gloves, he claps the eldest on the shoulder and clambers back to his feet.

It’s eerie, seeing the son he raise bedevilled with the burdens of aging: stiff joints, a defective memory, his voice hoarse and his face beleaguered with canyons and crevices, all while Azoth remained static, preserved, like a work of masonry. If the ghoul could bequeath each of his surrogate sons just another century of life, strike the years from his slate - see if he cared - he could go to his sepulchre knowing they had ample time to achieve all of their aspirations and revel in every pleasure the human experience had to offer. “Have the premonitions abated any with the sleeping draught?” Azoth had consulted the apothecary personally, stressing the pr of the recipient; emeritus to the office of Papa he may have been, but he was no less vital importance to the Ministry — he’s not less vital to him. All he wanted was for his son to know peace - peace before he was committed to the grave - but with every day Primo increased in age and decreased in health. At least they would always have his garden.

“No,  Cardinale...  not  even  in  hell.”  

Primo  allows  that  to  haunt  the  air  for  a  long  moment,  clasped  hands  hidden  by  his  robes,  all  the  while  watching  the  younger  man’s  anxiety  swirl  and  mutate  into  what  he  identifies  as  FEAR.  It  is  true,  the  ghoul  was  simply  there  one  day...and  the  next  not.  Gone  in  a  haze.  Even  as  a  child,  he  saw  the  significance  of  the  event.  

                                                           “Some  people  simply  disappear.  What  the  dark  lord  does  with  them  is  His  business  and  his  alone.  I  do  not  pretend  to  know  His  mind.”  Modesty  is  a  virtue  he  is  willing  to  possess,  as  holy  as  some  think  it  may  be.

❛❛    did  they  look  in  the  ninth  circle   -   because  you  know  how  it  is  over  d’ere,   they       ⁻ ᵉʰʰʰʰʰ ⁻     they  don’t  do  much.   ❜❜    a  hand  comes  up,  defensively.       like  lucifer  himself  could  hear  him  critiquing  his  best  work  or  something.   copia  looks  behind  him,   paranoid.    when  he  speaks  again,   it’s  a  whisper.       ❛❛     you’d  look  for  me            ‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒           right  @firstemeritus​ ?    ❜❜    lucavacchi  looks  into  primo’s  eyes,   trying  to  hold  his  gaze.

ˊ    👻     @firstemeritus  sent   a  halloween  prayer !