#propheresy

“There’s something wrong with me.”

Jason knows that feeling of wrongness, has been intimately acquainted with it for years now. Shame and guilt are things he and Miriam have in common. When she is guilty for the lives she took, however, Jason is guilty for not feeling guilty about the ones (way more than Miriam's) he did.

But what is he supposed to tell her, that she's right? That he's noticed the thrill of the kill in her eyes, a perfect mirror of his own? That, while Jason can understand that feeling, so many people won't and that will set her apart from them one day, slowly but surely alienate everyone in her life? Should he tell her there's no coming back from where they are, that once she gets used to life in a warzone, she won't feel home anywhere else? He can't. He can't tell her the truth because it would break her. God knows she's already cracked.

◈ @propheresy

It did not do well to linger too long in the wilds. Drenched in the shadows of ancient trees, they might sicken, become wolf-drunk. Miriam had been reluctant, remained so even now, but Farkas had insisted. After all, she was most susceptible to turning skin, surrendering eternally to the beast.

Mud-clogged streets were hardly thrilling, neither were the suspicious stares that scratched at them. Outsiders, trudging into this remote settlement. A most peculiar pair. A man with a ruined face, wounds delivered by a terrible rake of claws. Lurid in their colouring, still knitting closed, those furrows had almost cost him an eye, had left a gouge in the bridge of his nose, had split his lips. Filthy knuckles rubbed at the lacerations time and again, man and beast alike driven half-mad by their itching.

Miriam was a pale shadow by comparison. Bruised, fretful, pretty thing. A ghost of a girl, even as she stood in the throes of youth, the summer of her years. Hooded and cloaked, she curled into him, clung to his flank as one who hoped to climb inside his shifting body, to make a home in the raw heat of his viscera.

The interior of the rain-stained tavern was an assault on their senses, almost unbearably loud to an inhuman pair attuned to quiet, untamed corners of the forest. Hot, stale air reeked of smoke, sweat and souring ale – all of which would go some way to disguising their own musk, the wet-fur stink of their kin.

A couple of tarnished coins – languishing miserably in his damp pocket – were traded for slices of cracked wheat bread, generously buttered, and two bowls of stew fished from the perpetually bubbling pot, hung over the perpetually burning fire. The fare of mankind, fit for armies and common folk alike. A reminder of their humanity and the comforts of civilisation.

“Eat. It will do us both good.”

What he should have said was: it will do us both well to eat something cooked, something warm. For far too long they had been nourished by great gluts of raw venison, sitting heavy as liver in their bellies.

One hand swallowed a spoon, the utensil almost comically delicate in his monstrous grasp. The other hand slunk beneath the ring-marked table to find Miriam, his thick fingers forcibly filling the narrow spaces between her own.

“Will they?”

A ache blossoms in his chest as he sits in front of his niece. The pain is nothing sentimental, rest assured — a pinched nerve somewhere in his shoulder, or perhaps too much strain placed upon his lungs. He imagines Joseph would prefer it if he softened his heart to her, this girl he thought he’d killed years ago, tubes pinched between his wavering fingers in some hospital down in Georgia. He’s heard the tale before, half-confession and half-decree. God spoke, and so his brother obeyed. 

Jacob wonders even still if it were some backhanded response to his own defiance, rather than guilt, that prompted the Father to recount the slaying. A threat that none were safe if his daughter wasn’t.

Botched slaying, Jacob thinks with some measure of derision. 

It’s terribly ironic, poetic in the way his brothers love but Jacob hates; success would have prevented this. He doubts Joseph would have been so lax as to let either of his brothers escape, had God condemned them as He had his daughter. 

Regardless, she is a present threat to be dealt with, not a past memory to dwell upon. 

“When will that be, d’you reckon? It’s been...” Jacob pauses, mulls the passage of time. Beraiah, ever faithful, ever steadfast, had dutifully plucked her from the bosom of the Valley within hours of his handler ordering the capture. 

Five days ago. His boy works fast, can scent a heretic better than any of his wolves. She is not here in their clutches because of any negligence on her part. She is here because the Father willed it, and his soldiers obeyed.

“Five days. Nearly a week of shittin’ in the corner of that cage, pissin’ your trousers, sleepin’ in the cold. When d’you think all those good, kind people you helped save will break you outta this kennel?”

A redundant question, he knows. It’s half the reason he’s asked it. Abandonment protrudes from her chest like a hunting knife, and Jacob takes his time twisting it. 

“That ‘resistance,’ those Cougars at the prison, the Whitetails...” Scorn drips from his words, not least of all when the final epitaph passes his lips. Some militia. Eli’s frightened band of pretend-soldiers, cowering in their bunker, wondering who among them will turn when the right tune passes through their ears.

“You’d ‘ve heard the gunfire. It echoes in these mountains. Not a peep. They’re all sittin’ around with their thumbs up their asses. They know where you are. I don’t bother to hide it.”

Jacob reaches through the bars of the cage, grabs Miriam by the jaw and squeezes. “So when the fuck’re they comin’ ?”

He halfway expects her to snap at his fingers like the feral mutt she is. A gnarled hand shoves her away as he leans back in his seat, the ache in his chest spreading to his sternum. God damn his lungs for their tender flesh, and God damn the military for pumping chemicals into it in hopes that he would die in some desert before he could complain about it. 

“You know just as well as I do. No one’s comin’. Not those fuckin’ hicks down in the Valley, not those pretend-soldiers Eli sends out to die every day. Not that little friend of yours, either. One of Faith’s Angels, fella with the flesh rottin’ off his face.” A dry, flat laugh rasps out past his cracked lips, the sound turning into a heavy cough. 

Well, that describes all of Faith’s zombies, doesn’t it?

“Had quite a look to ‘im when he first came to us. All his hair, his guitar, head hangin’ down low ‘cause he’d lost his way.” Jacob wipes his mouth with a cloth caked in dirt, olive-drab and spackled with the rust of his own organic decay. “What’s his name, again? Michael?”

Jacob swipes at his mouth again and tastes iron on his tongue. 

“He ain’t comin’ here to help you. Reckon he’s thrilled you’re with us, gettin’ to know the family. He’s been a good boy, your Michael. Maybe you ought’a join ‘im here.”

He says it as if his first impulse isn’t to shoot her dead. 

“Or is it John you want?” 

Ah, his baby brother. Had Joseph let him order his Chosen to kill the bitch dead, John never would have spiraled into this obsession with the girl, tethering his salvation with hers. In part, Jacob’s hunt had been to sever the cord between them. But the knife needs to be twisted further. Miriam is just as stubborn and degenerate as any Seed that came before her.

“No, no...” Jacob shakes his head, glares down at his captive. “Johnny ain’t gonna be seein’ you for a long time, niece.”

@propheresy ♱ - joseph. like for a starter !

♱. ❛ it wasn't my fault , joseph. ❜ his words were plain. deep. nearly emotionless if it hadn't been for the slight shake in his tone. one could argue that perhaps it was the cool night air chilling the water , soaking his legs to the bone - dripping from fingertips. or maybe it was the bodies that surrounded him , floating lifelessly as the moonlight casted it's light down upon those whom the baptist could not cleanse. the urge. . . he knew it was god's gift to him. but what gift could it be when one's sins were too strong? what if he couldn't bear to be around it? how could he even stand it?

he couldn't. so his own sin. . . his own sickness broke right through.

"Thought maybe as a birthday thing but I couldn't wait. And it's Valentine's." He adds, a little sheepish. It's very kindergarten, now that he thinks about it. Ber looks back at Quinn as if to try and gauge her reaction. He's got no clue why he's even nervous to begin with. Maybe it's too much. Maybe it's not enough. Fuck.

"...Wanna try 'em out?"

She was going to kill him. An argument was already dancing on her lips that no bullshit meant no bullshit. But she was caught off guard by the look on his face. Something so soft and caring, it was a look that had almost been lost on him as they grew older, Quinn couldn’t argue with him about it even if she tried to force the words out. Not now. Beholding the gift presented before her, something deep in her chest ached, not the splitting or devastating ache of hurt, no, this was more cruel somehow. For it was the ache of want. 

“Ber…” She started, but was unsure how to finish. Taking the knuckles from his own hands to examine them. They were perfect, this moment was perfect. Sliding them onto her own knuckles, she couldn’t help but think that for normal people it would have been a ring or bracelet, her cheeks rose to a deep blush when the word of what the day actually was was mentioned. 

“I didn’t get you anythin.” Her tone was almost embarrassed, they had an agreement! No bullshit. Though as the thought crossed her mind, it was as though the knuckles shone and she held them up to admire them. They must have cost some pretty little eddies… or he’d stolen them. She’d have preferred he’d stolen them, actually. Shifting her gaze to Ber, she could read him like a book. The nerves that leaked out of him. A smile cracks onto her features as a little sigh of a chuckle leaves her. “Ber.” Again, shaking her head at him for a breath of a moment before she was flinging herself around him. Arms around his neck, brushing the knuckles against his nape, burying her own face into the space between his neck and shoulder, lips grazing the skin there. 

@propheresy​ || confrontations || accepting!

“ you can’t run away from this forever.  ” (beraiah saad)

There’s mud two inches deep on either side of his boots. Paul doesn’t mind. But the sound is a bit stomach churning as he walks to the very edge of the compound. He doesn’t get as close as he used to. Tensions keep rising between the town and what’s going on out here..where ‘they’ are? He’s been getting some hellish looks leaving town and making his deliveries out this way. Has even had his fair share of confrontations about supplying the crazies (and that’s the kindest of the names the Seeds are getting for themselves) anything they might need. 

Paul doesn’t tell them the worst of it. How, from the corners of his eyes, even though he keeps his head down and tries his HARDEST not to see much (unsure if it’s plausible deniability he’s going for or attempting to convince himself that he’s not toeing over a line he doesn’t want to admit is there when he’s telling himself, and others, that it isn’t)----there’s a sinking feeling in his gut when he glimpses what’s going on behind Beraiah. Or around him on his way up to the last gate.

Or how the mud’s often mixed with a color too red to be rust when the rain washes the dirt downhill..

Brows shove together, he lifts one foot. A sickening sludgy gulp, sucking pop noise later--it’s free.

‘ you can’t run away from this forever. ’ Ber’s voice drags Paul’s attention up from the tan and copper/crimson laced gunk coating worn black leather and makes eye contact. He’s speechless. Pale, sea green eyes search the others like he doesn’t understand. HE DOES. Makes his blood turn cold. A slick coats his mouth and tongue.