[P] once I had a love, and it was a gas-

[Mesnyi]

soon turned out, had a heart of glass

“It’ll be fine, Jasmine, really! Just come on. I’ve heard there’s a castle, and shops full of jewels and riches without anyone watching them. You’ll find some beautiful jewelry, I’m sure of it. Just...don’t look down.” 

Mesnyi huffed. She had looked down, and what she saw beneath the bridge nearly made her vomit right there. Perhaps the only thing keeping her from doing so was the presence of a handsome - if not a bit eccentric - nobleman, who had absolutely insisted on taking her to the island. It had, of course, changed since their agreement, and Mesnyi was now hoping that the whole of it was much lovelier than the bridge. And whatever was below the bridge. She was not looking again.

The young stallion leaned into her - an altogether alarming gesture when one was on a bridge - and insisted that she look into his eyes (really?) and he would lead the way. He was, certainly, much nicer to look at, though she allowed herself a glance now and then at the gemstones glittering around them. Even if she knew that they were really vertebrae. They soon arrived at the city, which altogether was both awe- and fear-inducing, but Mesnyi had little say in it now; she wasn’t about to head back across the bridge and, since she had made this terrifying journey, she might as well go looking for that jewelry. 

Her suitor - a tall, ash-gray boy called Gregory - led her through the winding streets. She took the time to memorize landmarks (though she did not expect them to change), as she was certain he had not. A signpost here, a statue there - if any strange beasts reared out of the mica-lit corners, she would know how to get away. With or without him.

“Jasmine, look here!” She’d fallen behind a few steps while she scrutinized a sculpture of a...something. She wasn’t really sure what it was. Mesnyi trotted up to the boy, who stood looking into the window of a shop lit only by a white flame that sat atop a pedestal in its center, encased by wires. In she followed Gregory - who was entirely focused on the light (though perhaps it was a star?) which, Mesnyi found, reflected off of a multitude of crystalline shapes. Many were simply loose amongst the shelves, though some were pressed into the walls or even a canvas depicting - again, she wasn’t quite sure, a landscape, perhaps? The temptation to shovel everything into Gregory’s satchel was not nearly so strong as the feeling that a foul beast might arise from the star to defend its hoard, or that it would all turn to dust on reaching the other side of the bridge. "Gregory…” She started, gaze traveling the room before settling on a flower made entirely of glass. “Be a dear and get that for me.” He reached eagerly for the sculpture - too eagerly, considering its make - and fumbled, his satchel’s leather strap catching against the display’s decorative hook and tugging. The flower, despite his mind’s best efforts, fell to the ground and exploded into a fine dust. It did not shatter. It simply - became powder. The floor beneath them rumbled, and within moments, a section of the wall slid away into an entrance. Within, a hallway lit by more white flames extended beyond mortal sight. 

“Jasmine, I’m so sorry-” 

“Be quiet,” she snapped. “We’re going in there.”

“I don’t think- I mean-”

“Is this more frightening than the bridge?”

Gregory swallowed. “Well it’s just that - this powder got on me and it’s kind of...itchy…” He rubbed at his leg with his nose, and immediately threw his head back and sneezed violently. “I’m not sure-” he sneezed again - “it kind of hurts now -” and again - “maybe we shouldn’t-” 

She was inclined to agree with him, of course, as she certainly did not wish to go near the pile of sneeze-dust, but his nose was beginning to turn slick and pink as the flower’s petals, and - she looked down - so were his legs. Mesnyi backed away, and as she did so, his body kept turning, and soon enough he could not even speak to ask her what was wrong; a few seconds more and he was entirely pink glass. 

Mesnyi screamed. 

"Speaking."

@Septimus | appreciate the lyrics please 

✽

[Septimus]

ONCE I HAD A LOVE, AND IT WAS DIVINE / SOON FOUND OUT I WAS LOSING MY MIND
❃

This place (and he must insist that he does not say this lightly) is a monster.

The moment that he sets hoof onto the bejeweled spine of the bridge, he comes to the unnerving realization that, not only is it composed of bone, it is composed of a sort of living bone – he is not so sure that the massive creature that left this bit of skeleton behind is dead in any way that matters. There is a sort of pulse to it, a heat that is unnatural in any dead thing, a half-living throb that reminds him of the steady, two-step beat of some great and distant heart.

In nature, bright things are a trap. Septimus knows that this is a trap, so he decides to split the difference for himself; even if he is doing just as this place, in its half-sentient changings, wishes for him to do, he knows that he is in a rather great and terrible danger as he draws deeper and higher into the unnatural cave and towards the city, which, he hopes, should keep him out of said great and terrible danger.

(The key word there, he thinks, is hopes.)

He has heard a few of the rumors, before he arrived on the island this season. An entire city does sprawl out below the surface, floating above a great and awful mass of…something that he knows better than to look at too deeply. If he were at home, he wouldn’t have shied away from it, but he is not at home, and he knows better than to provoke a hostile landscape. He is surprised to find most of them true and accurate – there are shopfronts everywhere, elegant facades and winding streets, and bedazzling wonders no matter where he looks. The place is also unspeakably abandoned, but, as he walks deserted alleyway after deserted alleyway, he hears more than the simple clip of his hooves against the almost aggressively clean and splendid cobblestone walkways.

He could probably find the source of the noise – which was something that he could not compare to anything else, a sort of sound that evaded categorization, though it did linger behind him like insect humming on an early summer night wherever he went -, but he doesn’t. There are some things, he knows, that it is wisest to avoid.

When he hears the scream, if it weren’t so definitively a person, he might have avoided it, too.

Instead, he finds himself whirling on his heel in a scuffle of hooves and rushing off in the direction of the noise, his satchel thumping insistently at his side. He nearly loses his glasses more than once, and, when he runs at such an exaggerated pace, the clink of the jewels that adorn his antlers is a bit less pleasant and rhythmic (like a windchime, he likes to think) than it is utterly chaotic and grating, but he soon finds himself turning into a storefront with a white flame in the window, his chest heaving and a slick of sweat dribbling down his forehead. He wipes it away and rubs his foggy glasses in the feathers of his wings as he steps into the room, his attention flitting between the three most evident things within it.

For one: a hallway illuminated by white flame, leading…somewhere.

For another: a unicorn, beautiful and slim and screaming at the top of her lungs.

For a third: a sculpture crafted entirely of bright pink glass.

The pink glass sculpture is across the room from the shrieking unicorn, and it catches his attention almost more than she does because it is so very large and detailed. He looks over at it through his spectacles, brow furrowing, and finds that it has a very unusual expression, for a sculpture, and a pose that is very unique-

Oh. Oh, that pink glass was very lifelike – and, if Septimus has learned much of anything during his numerous travels, it was that it was nearly impossible to blow glass into something lifelike, at least…without a suitable mold. He swallows, his eyes running from the scrunch of the man’s nose, as though he were about to sneeze, to the unsteady angles of his legs. That couldn’t be good. That couldn’t be good at all.

Rather than continue to look at the glass sculpture (which was almost certainly not a sculpture), Septimus turns his gaze on the frantic unicorn, his lips twitching into something very much akin to a grimace. “Are-“ He pauses, looking over her lilac-soft coat and snowy white hair for any sign of the glossy pinkness that had, evidently, overtaken the man who he is rather pointedly not looking at, “Are you alright, Miss?”

(Even if she isn’t, he doubts there is much that he can do; but he doesn’t say that, and he tries not to think of it.)

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@Mesnyi || this reply was so much fun to write || ted kooser, "after years"
Speech

@

[Mesnyi]

♡
Lost inside / Adorable illusion and I cannot hide

She hears him, scrambling hoofs on stone, loud, clacking, scraping - but it takes the rest of her body to catch up with her senses. She cannot look away from Gregory, or what was Gregory, at least - 

“Are-”

She stares at the sculpture.

“Are you alright, Miss?” 

Mesnyi drags her eyes away, very slowly, as though it pained her (it does, but it pains her more to look at - through - Gregory), and fixes them on Septimus. She does not say anything at first, mouth still open as if an unheard scream could still be wrested from her throat. She looks back to Gregory, and finally, closes her mouth, and remembers to breathe.

She says - perhaps to Gregory - “No.”

And then she looks at Septimus again and says: “I fucking hate this place.” Mesnyi does not use foul language, on the grounds that she is too pretty for it. She looks at Gregory again. “We should all hope to be art when we die. I am going to be a fucking ugly skeleton. Gregory gets to be a sculpture on a magic fucking island. That changes!” She huffs. “There is nothing more beautiful than art that dies.”

Mesnyi steps away from Gregory and his pile of magic-fucking-death-powder to stand near Septimus. She nods toward the cave. “You seem like a conscientious individual. Come, honor his sacrifice with me. Tonight we may drink and recount our trauma on the way home, riches in hand.”

« r » | @Septimus

[Septimus]

ONCE I HAD A LOVE, AND IT WAS DIVINE / SOON FOUND OUT I WAS LOSING MY MIND
❃

The unicorn responds to his query with a bout of frenzied sociopathy that Septimus can only assume – or chooses to assume – is primarily the result of seeing a man turned into a glass sculpture right before her eyes. (A coping mechanism, he tells himself.) He gives one more glance at the sculpture, and he listens rather patiently as the unicorn snaps about just how much she hates this island, and how Gregory gets to die as a glass sculpture, and how she will certainly make for an unpleasant skeleton when she dies. He resists the urge to raise his eyebrows.

Septimus clicks his tongue, giving a shake of his head. “Now, now – you’re far too pretty to make an ugly skeleton. I’m sure you’d be the variety than an archaeologist would be quite overjoyed to dig up.” He thinks of the bejeweled spinal cord that composed the bridge to the island, which is probably suitably pretty for the jewel-adorned unicorn. Still, he thinks that, given the option, he would prefer not to die at all.

(Then again, as an immortal – most of the time -, he’d never much had to worry about whether or not his death would be appropriately artful.)

She decides, then, that he seems rather “conscientious,” and she suggests that he accompany her, with a promise of drinks – and treasure, and recountings – on the way back. Septimus is not entirely sure that it is the best way to honor the dead man – Gregory’s – memory, but he dips his head in agreement regardless, if only because he happened to look down at the space beneath the bridge on his last few steps towards the city, and he would rather have the excuse to forget about what he’d seen as quickly as possible. “Certainly,” he says, and starts toward the flame-lined entrance to the cave. (He supposes that means that he is to escort her, and, with it, to proceed into the cave first.) “It’s best to have company, I find, in a place like this."

And, well, if company happened to be a lovely shade of lilac and eloquent (if not entirely charming), all the better.

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@Mesnyi || hello I love this thread|| ted kooser, "after years"
Speech

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