#lusmor

He has long surmised that love and war are not bane but kindred, do ut des: to love is to fray, and to make war is to hallow. Troy taught it apertly, desire rived the gates where fryds fell; love was not the casualty but the marrow. So the false antithesis collapses. Thus he stands as he does: sarcinarious ℛobin, son of Venus and lieutenant to Mars — 𝑏𝑜𝑟𝑛 𝑜𝑓 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑒٫ 𝑠𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑛 𝑡𝑜 𝑤𝑎𝑟. If love may stay a war, then war exacts blood; if blood is given back to the earth, the earth names it love. Yet the dead do not prevail. The living do. To persist, therefore, is itself an act of love, the body bearing aeipathy forward under covenant and cost. This is the law that binds him.

Now, he is a ruby lodged in an emerald isle. 𝐼𝑟𝑒𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑑 is sanguinary with chēle tonight. The air cuts his skin as it inngans unshackled through the bresten window, needling the wound already opened. He looks down at the glass strewn like teeth across the floor. At the room’s disorder. At the wall stripped bare where something sacred once hung.

δόρυ του Ὀδυσσεύς 𝑇𝘩𝑒 𝑆𝑝𝑒𝑎𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝛰𝑑𝑦𝑠𝑠𝑒𝑢𝑠.

For centennium it was want: losian to bruit, disrated to apologue. Heroes and monsters alike soht it and languished. Then Mars proposed a game. A dare. ‘ Find it, if you can. ’ And not to misqueme, Timothy did. How obscene, that it should be found on Ὠγυγίη ( Ogygia ) He laughs despite himself at the irony: the relic in the hands of a collector — Atlas O’Houlihan. Of course. He should have known better, prescited he is. No game set by a god is ever solitary. 𝑄𝑢𝑖𝑟ī𝑛𝑢𝑠 had come for him. The Roman spear incarnate, the first name beneath what New Rome would later call Timothy, 𝑄𝑢𝑖𝑟ī𝑠, wielder of the spear. Quirīnus had been tracking him from the moment he was given the spear of Mars. He remembers the struggle: the god’s face close enough to spit prophecy. The words flung like verdicts as they grasped for the δόρυ του Ὀδυσσεύς. ' That spear should’ve been mine. It has always been mine, ' Alabandical blateration! ' I will not let you take that as well. '  And with that famelicose, the spear answered. It tore across Timothy’s abdomen, a mancation of the flesh.

He looks at the wound again. The red blooming into the carpet, his thysiastery. The cold easing, almost familiar. As if the body, desarcinated, has remembered something it was once. If he is to die here, what shall he resarciate? An apology to the amorevolous Venus, for choosing war over love? A prayer of thanks to the phalerated Mars, who named him Robin and set him beneath his banner? Or a confession to himself: that he fought ichorescently, that this would be an bonifate death?

@lusmor sent : ❛ You won't have heard of me. ❜

like a diamond in the deep, a treasure lost at sea, sunken into the sands amidst a ship's forgotten wreckage and algae blooms and ribbons of seaweed, coral gardens and, of course, the souls bound to protect the crown jewels destined to never again see the light of the sun. eden likes to think she's met every color of soul there is to know within the universe, from the deepest blues to most vibrant pinks, the most vivid greens like lush forests in the peak of spring as the world comes alive, but every now and then someone surprises her, enchants her like a moth to a flame.

her palms press together and her cheek leans against the back of her hand as she looks upon the woman before her as though she is the most fascinating thing in the world. and at the moment, to eden, she is.

" no, " eden starts, petalite eyes glistening with a marvelously curious sheen. her lips part ever so slightly in her quiet, and blatantly shameless, admiration, like she's lost her thought for a breath — a breath she certainly doesn't need to take, but it doesn't ever stop eden. " i suppose i wouldn't have. i'd surely remember someone like you. "

their world is an exclusive and insular one, hidden in plain sight, yet hidden no less away from prying human eyes. eden is no expert in every manner of creature lurking in the depths, cast in shadows, buried in the thickets of endless forests, down a thousand leagues beneath the sea. but no matter what they are, where they come from, she has learned over time the scent of people distinctly inhuman. " tell me, then, " eden says, sitting up straighter, her inky eyelashes a flutter as she blinks up from a half-lidded gaze. " because i think i might like to know everything about you. i don't often get to keep such beautiful company. "

inbox prompts / always accepting.

[𝒯]he reird of bacchanal yet abides beyond the walls, thinned to a distant churr: voices rifted, mirth broken, the night continuing its trade without them. They have always known when to leave, the gravity that draws them into themselves. He had taken her hand when the moment allowed, drawn her from the press of bodies, through the gardens and along the elephant path worn smooth by palilogia, until the practice room received them once more.

Their sanctuary. It bears the marks of sojourn: books cast aside mid-thought, equivalency abandoned where certainty failed, and upon the piano the worn leaves of Vivaldi's 𝒲𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑟, left open, notation dour and exacting, awaiting hands that know its asperity. The bench is nare. It has ever been so. He has named it complaint before and never once sought remedy. Tonight she does not sit beside him but upon his lap, and the matter is settled. There is no space left abnegated. Her fingers twine between his, filling each hollow as though decreed. He does not shift. He does not wish to. Moonlight serves her, striking her face vestal, and he regards it with the attention of one long versed, one who has committed each line to gemynd more faithfully than any score. She turns her gaze aside beneath his, modest still. Abiding has always been his scourge. When he leans nearer it is with forethought, until her breath touches his cheek. His hand rises and cups her face with chary, thumb resting where warmth gathers despite the hour.

❛ I know you're tired of hearing me say this, ❜ he murmurs, voice lowered, almost careful, ❛ but I'll never get tired of saying it: 𝑦𝑜𝑢ˊ𝑟𝑒 𝑠𝑜 𝑏𝑒𝑎𝑢𝑡𝑖𝑓𝑢𝑙. ❜ And the words remain between them, inornate. He shifts closer, drawing her with him, and when his mouth meets hers it is restrained at first. A kiss held as though he is asking permission of the moment itself.

𝒲𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑟 still reigns him. She answers, and the antiphon loosens him. His mouth moves against hers slowly, obeisantly, as if learning her anew. He pauses between each motion, lingering, as though the kiss must be earned each time. His thumb along her jaw, steady and sure. 𝒮𝑝𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔 breaks quietly. He outhales into her, a sound barely there, and the kiss warms, fuller now. Tide lingering longer, heat held like a covert shared only between them. 𝒮𝑢𝑚𝑚𝑒𝑟 gathers. His hand slides from her cheek to the nape of her neck, holding her there. The bench protests beneath them, but neither listens. Mouths move together now with shared rhythm, 𝑠𝑙𝑜𝑤٫ 𝑖𝑛𝑠𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑡٫ 𝑑𝑒𝑣𝑜𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑎𝑙 ... His thumb resting at her pulse, feeling it answer his own. 𝒜𝑢𝑡𝑢𝑚𝑛 arrives not as epilogue, but as surfeit.

When they part, it is only to breathe, foreheads resting together, lips still close enough to feel calidity, to remember habite. He keeps his hand at her neck. Her laughter comes softly then, and she turns him toward the window. In the glass remains the witness: her colour traced above and below his mouth, not careless, not concealed. He inclines his head, eyes with mischief ( ... )