#lunarscorching

Starter for @lunarscorching

He watched as the colours faded from her eyes.

The stage beneath him was set; tonight, the art of a slow death touched upon a morbid curiosity, inviting the silent pleasure from the shadows as the sun fell beneath the treelines.

She was patient in her departure - a rare flame that fed on the vestiges of a full life, with memories that still burned beneath her lashes as they flickered to seal them before they'd left. Her hair spilled like liquid umber across the plane of ash, painting her last motions as her breath fluttered into ice, and blood still fresh from a beating heart, spindled like web into the brickwork, weaving into the fringes of a rug that laid long abandoned in this corner of the estate.

Finally, after what seemed to be the length of dusk, the tomb closed upon her, leaving only the shell of a soul whom had ventured too far from the comforts of her home, too far into the realm where his claws grew sharp, and his teeth whetted, and waiting. The candles that she had lit, the ones she had brought in invitation, died with her, hissing into smoke as the last of the wick burned into dust.

The darkness shifted as it surveyed its work, a glimmer of ivory cutting a line where its lips had parted.

This was not farewell. She would soon meet him again in the chasm beneath its feet, where the fields of fire would blaze night and day, with only the symphony of hollow cries signalling the turning of time, the permanence of a new, tormenting fate.

Now, as she laid still and cold, he began to lift himself from his perch, straightening to a stand as his great wings spread high to the rafters - the spires of horns pierced the glow of the waning moon as it turned its sight to the forest.

It would not be for long that he had the estate to himself. The old world stirred, and the beasts of the night would soon be drawn to the scent of blood.

Such was the case, then, when he heard the approach of hooves, clacking amidst the fallen branches that paved the road to his desolate domain.

get to know aqssaaaaaa !!

@lunarscorching

He clatters and clinks those soft-placed bottles to find his main ingredient: a golden placebo, a mint of the blood runneth to flit within every nerve, every feathery touch at the tips of living fingers, something like an ichor.

The basement of the College is wreathed with cobwebs and darkened nooks, frozen over by the belly of the mountain doth it quietly reside, and Roland is thrice-wrapped to keep his delicate sensibilities safe from the cold. White clouds puff from his mouth and nose, and art his hands trembling yet tightly wrapped, twinkling and pinching gently at those corked founts.

The vows reach their crescendo —a tremor of certainty and rehearsed forever— and something in her vision shifts. It is not sight in the ordinary sense yet it is not imagination either. The red cast through the stained glass deepens, thickens and for a pulse too long, it stains the groom’s collar like arterial spray. The bride’s gold pales into the waxen hue of a fevered brow. Serenei blinks once. She has learned not to react to what only she can see. The colors settle but not entirely and the metallic scent beneath the lilies sharpens. She sees it the way she sees most things; distant, final. Some moons from now, the city quieter than it should be, doors marked in chalk, smoke rising not from hearths but from pyres outside the walls. The young groom is thinner, hollowed. A bed dragged closer to a window for air that will not help. His hand wrapped around hers, uselessly warm against skin already cooling. The flux maybe, or the sweat, who knows saving the Gods themselves. Her jaw tightens almost imperceptibly, and the vision thins like mist burned off by sun. The couple remain at the altar, bright and trembling and alive.

Serenei’s gaze remains forward. “For now,” she answers, voice even. “And for a while, it’ll be enough.” A small pause settles between them, thin as dust in the light. “They will be happy,” she continues, voice lowered and unsoftened. “While it is still simple and unchallenging to be.” The organ hums beneath the priest’s blessing. Enjoying each other is soft and easy on the heart before the air turns. The priest asks for the rings. The bride laughs, nervous and bright. Applause trembles at the edges of the pews. “They should enjoy this,” she adds, watching the couple as they beam at a future already thinning at the edges. “It’s the only part they’ll get to keep uncomplicated.”

Bells. Laughter. Tears of joy and praying words invoking Lathander's guiding light upon the newlyweds.

“Before the plague reaches them.”

Unprompted // @lunarscorching ;;

𝑻𝑯𝑬 𝑺𝑬𝑪𝑶𝑵𝑫 𝑹𝑼𝑩𝒀 𝑻𝑶𝑼𝑪𝑯𝑬𝑺 𝑻𝑯𝑬 𝑩𝑶𝑶𝑲, she grows still as stone -- even more unmoving than usual, jaw clenched tight enough to crack bone. After a moment, she speaks through her teeth, "Do I want to ask what I just touched?" Disgust and rage burn bright in her eyes, barely held back by her vice-like grip on her composure. Her library is stricter about food than most public libraries, but there's no way to control what happens outside her doors.

They’re garbled. They’re long strands of tangled-together spider legs pretending to be letters the same way changelings pretend to be children. Her name runs down the page, the first in bed head Arabic. Then jumbled Thai. Stir-fry Greek. Hieroglyphics.

She has a python grip on her quill and her fingers are inky black. Nicholas stands behind her, looking over.

“Slowly. You’re doing better,” he promises. He unspools his arm, cheek twitching. “Haleth. Did you learn your sword in a day.”

He passes a cloth to wipe the ink. He tells her to ease her hand.

Start again.

Dress my muse up

Go girl, steal your boyfriend's clothes!!! Also throwback to when I drew them swapping outfits:

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@lunarscorching : "This   is   dangerous,   isn’t   it?"

“ blood magic ? ” he muses distractedly, not taking his eyes off the steaming liquid in the small pot. the wizard stirs the bubbling substance nonchalantly, like it is routine, a finger drawing circles in the air as the liquid follows the direciton. “ —is always dangerous. ”

“ it has a fickle nature, you could say. ” he explains to his newly acquired companion, paid for like cattle though chosen carefully after reading the manual. like the furniture that fills his little castle. sarastro draws a sad scrap of humor from the comparison and hopes she'll be more useful than that. born during an eclipse. that is a challenge, but it doesn't have to be an obstacle.