#selfexcision

If he were a vampire, this would be the beginning of the end. Nicholas steps in. 

The half-bistro, half-cafe is quiet now, improbably enchanted with a spell that absorbs the rush hour roar. The lights are melted butter. These are natural woods. Nicholas is canopied by a ceiling of netted lush plants that propel him into fantasies of a witch-herbalist’s medicinal hut, a familiar corner of his brain hatching ideas of a cauldron foaming in the back. Vann may be the grandson of great shamans.

He knows of Vann. Vann will be forever too tall. Vann, with his turmeric eyes, knows how he likes his tea: warm with herby notes of Christmas and before-bed chamomiles. Nicholas likes his seat by the window. 

“I’m told there was a home here, and a woman who lost her son in a fire.” He pulls back a chair. He sets his briefcase down beside it. “She wanted to return him to her as Elijah, and she did—only without his body,” he says. “And so she searches for a new host every year, that her son may have it for his own.”

NON-VERBAL PROMPTS. 🪞｡˚ * 𓂃 ࣪ ˖ ➷ ❪  open ❫ @selfexcision

Exorcisms fail all the time. This is well-known among those who lay abed with devils; the ambitious and the unsuspecting, the desperate, and the destitute, all alike . . . What is lesser understood, however, is how one might endure the aftertastes that arrive and swell long into the hours following that failed untangling: that resinous, church-smoke flavor — half like frankincense, half like roasted bugs — clinging on the tongue; the taste of magic boiled too long in a greasy cauldron, now mingled with that sickly demon-spoor that's fermented through her brain and every nerve; then comes the fits — of shivers, wailing, and prismatic visions — and, well, make no mention of the upchurn of burgundy bile upon the throat, searing the esophagus raw and terrible, every other half hour.

No, no book exists to guide one through the night on these things. Only certain comforts, found through a slow ritual of trial and many, upon many, errors, might abate this suffering.

Blankets are a start.

❝ T-Thank you, ❞ says Adella, to the cleric she so often seeks refuge in these days: Vannil Niorun, a man of impossible stature, and kindness, too, who was not drunk off the pulpit and dogma like so many of his kind, who never spoke so sanctimoniously, but sincerely, salt-of-the-earthly, instead. And it is in such souls this poor, doomed witch places her fragile hope . . . praying (so to speak) that one found along the way of this terrible, puzzle of a quest might yet find the means to sever her pact. For good.

She wipes a streak of tears, silver stains upon her battered raw, near-bleeding, chin and cheek. Then she locks her jaw tight, to keep it from quivering so much. ❝ I really t-thought this way would work. But you know, and then again, I think that way every time . . . False advertising is a very ugly problem t-these days. Do you know why it didn't work? Can you guess? I'm hoping sincerely that you know everything there is to know about the world. I do like you, more than others, and I'd hate to find a new friend all over again. ❞

❛ I had no reason to doubt you, ❜ he says, examining their blood - splattered surroundings for any traces of a nearby nest, ❛ but you're right: you haven't been on the Path for some time. ❜ Ghoul bone and loose twigs crunch under his boot as Vann shifts his weight, squinting at the hill a short distance away from them. It's quiet for now, but that doesn't mean all the ghouls are dead.

this is, after all, a popular spot for highway robbery and murder. Blood and death are the perfect lures.

❛ Nothing further practice and work can't solve, though. ❜ he turns to Viator after making sure there's at least one grapeshot in his pouch. ❛ And what better time to get both of those than right now? Come on, the quicker we find and ruin this ghoul nest, the better. Even I'm not fond of being out for a contract in the dark, and I have keener vision than most. ❜ // @selfexcision

This hasn't been their life for decades, they reminded themself ; decades spent honing themself as a political weapon has left them horribly disadvantaged for the job they were fated to do. what matters now is that they returned to it when their path became clear, the rest would come back naturally. Vann hadn't seen just how bad it was when they took their first contract after leaving their partner, so he had no idea how far they've already come.

Should the worst befall of them, then perhaps Viator's expertise in dealing with humans would be of some use.

"Truer words haven't been spoken." Silence, punctuated with a deep sniff, their expression turned sour from the odor. with all the corpses around there's no way they can simply sniff it out, so they squint and pick through the bodies to a likely funneling point -- a path through the woods that they walk to and kneel beside, fingers coming to touch the worn out places where grass no longer grew. Some of the steps in the path are fresh, bearing the imprints of boots, and others the gnarled limbs of the ghouls themselves. Viator flicked his braid over their shoulder and cleared their throat.

"graduates of the schola don't end up here unless you've seriously screwed up." a short, sharp burst of dry, sardonic laughter. dark eyes narrowing as she looks him over. it's a dig at herself, just at much as him or any of the other arbitrators dragged aboard grendyl's ship of lost causes. of course, emily elizabeth is just as much as a lost cause as any of these 'rejects', even if she would just never admit it out loud.

she makes note of his features in the way only years of writing investigate datawork can. gait, build, features, scars, tone of voice. it's filed away like evidence to be brought forth at a later date. "choose to be forthcoming or don't." her voice has returned the dour tone that seemed to be the characteristic mood of the arbitrator. "it's not like it matters here anyways. we are all merely tusk-bison in the stockyard of tertium's slaughterhouse."

blythe leans against a railing, bringing up a hand, and picking at her chipping nail lacquer. like the flaking layer of black polish can hide the amount of manufactorum grime that's settled into her skin, like it belongs in the tiny cracks of her callouses and scars. she's looking past her her hand, still observing. the way she watched new customers who came into her dive in the carnival. part bone deep weariness that comes from a life of hard toil in the hive, part guarded caution that seeps into every action she had ever taken. she stretches almost lazily, a punctuation to the crafted casualness of her posturing.

"i'm just hanging 'round." her eyes stay fixed the servitor in front of her. "zola said she's got something special for me, but i gotta wait 'till they call me up." her sentence is punctuated by a full eye roll. she respects the explicator, has always respected her; but you can never trust any member of the water cartel. "nothing wrong with taking a break, especially if there's no good bounties out."

‴  No. You are wrong.‴  He says it sharply; as sharp as the shards of Dorn's blade on the day it was shattered on his knee. He speaks knowing the truth, stating it as such without any blemish of doubt. ‴  Our souls are steeled in faith and fury, tempered by holy fire. Our bodies broken and re-forged so that we may be the instruments of His will. Humans are inferior in every way, and this is by design.‴  A pause,

‴  We are different. Look upon them and see. See how easily their bodies break and hearts may turn to the Archenemy. ‴  There was a teacher's cane present in the form of the Reclusiarch's words; each word a lick upon the Apothecary's ears. This was paired with the deathmask of their Emperor turning its gaze upon Nerovar.  ‴  They are as ill-equiped for peace as they are for war. ‴  A cant of his head, no more than a few degrees ajar, signals his inquisition. ‴  And yet. Humans, despite this, manage it. ‴  The turning of his blessed ceramite silhouette sends sound ringing against the metal and stone halls around them. 

‴  They find peace in squalor and satin. Breed both in filth and in luxury. Across the Imperium, humans are able to exist. They are able to scrape and scrounge together moments of peace and crudely stitch fates for themselves where their souls are content. They thrash against a galaxy that would see them dead or enslaved, clawing at the eyes of the enemies of man and screaming into the abyss one single message throughout the void; 'I wish to live! To die! To find peace when I know there is only war! '. ‴

'I cannot fathom how.' He thinks to himself. Grimaldus does not voice this thought, harboring it in the innermost sanctum of his mind so that it may be pondered in pure clarity. His words are paired with a stillness of body and mind that only emerged in moments of ministration and prayer. For a moment, the Reclusiarch appears to be in contemplation without consensus before he speaks yet again. Gaze drifting to the visage of Him on Terra carved into the stone of their surroundings. 

Thunderbolts starters // accepting

THEIR INEXPERIENCE SHOWS, but at the very least their mastery of igni had been useful. Viator's attention flitted from the burning remains of the lone ghoul they had managed to take down on their own to Vann's face, his body, studying the unspoken language of expression for even an inkling of disapproval.

" -- You pulling my leg? "

their inadequacy being an embarrassment was an understatement. viator sniffed indignantly. the rest of the ghouls were slain by the other witcher, and with their keen hearing picking up nothing but the rustle of leaves in the wind, they sheath their silver sword. with each job taken they got better and better at what a witcher was supposed to do, but in the company of another they're made aware of how much more they have to learn to be worth half as much.

eden tenses in immediate rejection of it despite knowing intimately how much people can change, how fast they can change; and still, someway, somehow, they can be so incredibly, impossibly, impressively resistant and stagnant. it amazes her, really, just how different a person could be, and yet no different at all from the version of themself she taught herself to hate.

" you can't really believe that, " she says ( and not without a heavy bite behind her words ), tilting her head up to look at tristan's face. eden studies him quietly, her own face impassive, but her eyes dart around like minnows until they settle and fixate on the square of forehead just above his eyes. enough to make it seem like she's looking, like she's listening, but also enough to keep the window to her soul tightly shut. because deep down, she knows he's right and she's loath to admit it. she's a starkly different person from the girl she'd once been what feels like a millennium ago, but now . . . she's frozen in place, unchanging, and she doesn't want to press forward and be better just as much as she abhors the idea of regressing into the past.

her gaze drifts, and a soft sigh slips through her parting lips. " not for the better, then, " eden amends. that, at least, she can say with certainty. " are you in the business of giving people second chances to prove they're different? you'd be far better a person than me. " and even quieter still, " how do you reconcile who someone was before with who they are now? how do you forgive them? "

monster you've created / always accepting.