─ lying cheek to cheek in your cold embrace so soft and so tragic as a slaughterhouse ─
when it enters the room, its eyes are not drawn by the fine solterran filigree at the corners, or the beauty that enchants a casanova from the depth of the crowd, or the statues in the hall (some of which, eerily, follow you with their eyes), but by a painting that stands on the far wall. It looks to him, calls to him, to it, a cadence to the untapped leagues that wander the starlight in his veins, the black holes of his eyes, each lit by a crescent moon that hunts and hunts. An ocean to an ocean – they reach for one another, these horrors. His ambiance is cosmic, one that begs tentativeness when in the gravity of his presence; an eclipse in the eye of their sun. They mirror one another, it and the painting, even through the bodies that stand between them like hedges.
It is swathed in blues and golds and shining sandy tans, (and blots of indigo, violet, faint, forgotten needlepoints of white) a galaxy that repeats itself over and over through painstrokes that gleam in the light drawn through curtained windows. At their center is a deep dark, one that tunnels on, on, into unprecedented depths – but it knows where it reaches. It knows what waits. And oh, how the boy that was Erasmus would shudder, having learned. It is unlike the other paintings that deck the halls of the noble house – this one is enchantingly atmospheric, haunting terror, a gasping torrent of fear amid the pleasantudes of smirking portraits and aristocratic abstracts. It speaks to him, and he speaks to it.
The aether hums to another galaxy, a dreaming drumbeat pulse that resonates in his ears, his jaws, his veins. It is a song, a dirge unto the bleakness of the unknown which you dare not touch in your worst imaginings – and the beauty in it that waits beneath jaws of a bewildering, lachrymose beyond.
It is silent despite these wonderings between the folds of flesh and spirit – where the aether nestles like a pit of black vipers, as it does in the hollows of his flesh. The noise does not escape his throat, where it grows like an impending thunderhead, black and unfurling. It dreams of great stones rising from the bruising blues of the vortex's lining, of red sore suns bleeding light from its most desolate corners, of things that flutter, not unlike birds, not unlike fish, over the violet-eyed haze of drifting islands. The sands are acidic sheens of vapor rolling, devouring, choking, and the blackness which waits – well, we know it, do you?
He has closed his eyes then, but a servant arrives at his side and clears his throat. Glass rattles and the echo dies, and Erasmus, eyes still entangled with chaining voids, looks to him like shifting shadows at the end of a windowless hallway. The servant's breath catches in his throat, but he remembers - “Could I interest you in a drink, sir?” and though his words threaten to stumble over one another as he is nearly swept into a celestial chasm, one that bites and gnashes but promises things beyond dreams, he ushers the question like it is his last confident breath in a dying world. Erasmus looks to the drinks that gleam in the golden light, watching their contents swirl like glimmering cosmos. For a moment he lingers between sapphire and emerald, something picking at the back of his skull like a needle prodding for a memory, before he selects the oceanic brew.
The servant does not wait to move on. Before he does, something unconsciously slips into his eyes like a second pilot, and for a fleeting second it is discomfort, denial, and demure, then it is gone again.
When the servant's back is turned to Erasmus, the thing looks back to the painting and drinks deep of the tincture.
─ this is where it starts, this is where it will end here comes the moon again ─
you think you are possessing me but I've got my teeth in you.
I
see everything.
I don’t know everything—as good a job I do convincing everyone otherwise. But I do see everything. It’s my party, after all, and if anything goes wrong I’ll be holding myself responsible for it. Any embarrassment will follow me into my nightmares; there is nothing I hate more than being made a fool of.
But so far things are going swimmingly. (I tap my glass against the nearest piece of wood, part of the doorjamb, as I think this, a stupid commoner’s habit I haven’t quite shed from childhood.) So I’m in a good mood when I see him enter—mister tall, dark, and handsome, his long hair unbound, striated with veins of gold like a fine piece of marble.
He speaks quietly to a server. He stares at a painting on our wall, and I watch him watch it, curious which part is so entrancing to him. (It is one of our most morose pieces.) The server comes back, and when the stranger picks up a glass I can’t help but sidle up behind him to check.
In his goblet is the cocktail made of thick, smooth sapphire, little curls of steam rising off the top. When I see it, I lean in and say slyly: “Good choice.”
And then I return to my station, ever the diligent host.
OOC: drink #4 produces a "laughing gas" effect. for the rest of his time at the party (or as long as you'd like!), Erasmus will likely find himself in an increasingly good mood, as well as finding it harder to control his reactions (especially positive ones). if you have any questions or concerns, let me know; otherwise, have fun <3
If gazing into mirrors ever becomes a sport—I have no doubt I would end up placing uncomfortably close to the victor’s podium.
I try to ease the relative sting of this revelation by telling myself that this isn't something I take any pleasure in but simply because I must be perfect. I must be perfect. I will not be attending the Ieshan party alone; before I had even received the invitation, a golden hawk had soared through my window at dawn and dropped a letter on my desk, the wax still hot, the ink so fresh I could smell it.
Might you join us for the evening, Cousin Aghavni? Mother misses you terribly. It will be fun. —S
Father is no longer here to scare away my aunts and cousins. Like vultures they have gathered, and an orphan they have labelled me. They click their beaks and settle into the dirt and watch and wait for the little orphan to die.
* * *
I have wound rose vines around my neck and the buds are beginning to stir. I gaze into the mirror hanging like a portrait behind my bed, my eyes bright and pensive, and think that I would like for the buds to bloom carnation pink.
Carnation pink, and carnation petalled, yet armed with a rose’s wicked thorns.
A spot just below my temple begins to throb as the rosebuds struggle open their petals, their dark, furled hearts bleeding away motes of rose-red. I barely feel the pain. I tell myself this sternly, yet my reflection twists her lips into a grimace until I catch her at it and tug her mouth harshly back to perfect placidity.
I would like for the rose-carnations to bloom loveliest near my eyes. I would like for the pink to compliment my eyes, like silk softening the sharp, sharp facets of a princess-cut emerald. But, I add hastily, they must not take away from my eyes; they must not soften them to docility.
The throbbing in my temple rises to a fever-pitch as the roses hear and obey. I must state my desires very precisely to them, in this fashion, for them to bend their heads to me and listen. A curl of pale hair falls into my reflection’s face and sourly I fix it back into place with a small black pin, back inside the bun twisted up behind my ears.
The blooms (that are almost perfect, now) begin to wilt.
Of all the flowers I have trifled with, roses are always horrifically jealous. I cannot leave them alone before they are complete, not even for a moment, unless I would like for them to punish me by turning in their thorns and shriveling their petals in vindication when they feel my attention stuttering.
My reflection’s bright green eyes gleam like daggers. She bites her lip hard and the thorns turn themselves out again, but not before pricking a trail of bright blood to bloom. I curse when I feel the blood drip thick and hot, like melted wax, down my neck.
By the time the roses settle, carnation pink and carnation petalled, loveliest near my eyes, the blood has seeped into my bedsheets and won’t come out no matter how hard I scrub.
* * *
There is a cousin clothed in scarlet on my left, her hair as black as mine is gold. “Aghavni,” Cousin Sulwen murmurs into my ear, “is that Prince Pilate?”
I follow her cold, appraising gaze towards a scaled figure leaning languidly against a banister twined with fresh holly, a spotless, breathy robe spilling like water off of his dark frame. I look at the snakes coiled lazily around each other, a living braid; I smile. My teeth flash like a string of pearls.
“The prince of the hour.” Sulwen's smile grows wings at my confirmation, until it leaves every semblance of cruelty behind and becomes all honey, all flattery, all gold, glittering Hajakha. I marvel at how quickly she does it. If the rumors are true, and each child of Ieshan claims a different part of the snake for themselves, then Sulwen must really be their cousin and not mine.
“Then I must go to him,” Sulwen chirps, before pressing a cold kiss to my cheek and wading into the slow current of the crowd. I know I will not be seeing her again tonight unless she wishes for me to find her. It has always been that way. The hierarchy has always been reversed.
My roses tremble as they grow a thicket of thorns over the place I received her kiss.
Perhaps it is luck, or perhaps it is some reawakened memory of traversing these echoing, marble halls behind my mother that leads me into the Ieshan's dining hall. In any case, I am relieved—the surroundings are comfortably familiar, the silk material of black-suited servers turning to sapphire if I squint.
It is the Scarab and it is not; I think I recognise everyone until I don't. The bar table, filled to bursting with an assortment of jewel-toned drinks, darkens to polished mahogany when I reach it. I choose a seat at random, my smile easing into something more comfortable to wear when the smell of liquor and smoke wafts like perfume around me.
A drink made of liquid sapphire is placed in front of the guest besides me. I turn towards them, intrigued by the cocktail's brilliant color, until my breath snags and my eyes blink when it is Erasmus. Gold-veined Erasmus, sun symbol Erasmus. He is a very long way from home.
I cannot help it; I laugh.
“Has Solterra sank its fangs into you as well?” I do not bother hiding my interest, when he tips the sapphire liquid down his throat and swallows. “Well? How does it taste?”
─ lying cheek to cheek in your cold embrace so soft and so tragic as a slaughterhouse ─
It starts like a hum. And it is not one that praises or pleads or worships, it is a damnable hum, and it reminds the aether of a sound like the one Erasmus heard when he was drawn to the island that ties them all together. At first, this is all it is: subtle, but scarce, like the buzzing of a fly. It is not a high pitch, but a low drawl that drains the height of the voices behind him – they become unison, humbled to incoherence, shouldered for the finer notes that raised between them: the sharp clinking of glasses, hoofbeats on marble, an ear-splitting laughter from the courtyard. And then: “Good choice.” The glimpse of the man is fleeting, but Erasmus just catches the tangles of serpents' heads as they sneer at him in passing, fangs and tongues and eyes with a lethality that he admires.
Laughter draws him from another direction, and he can tell by the note of its song calls to him, if not in one way then in another. It is familiar, distantly, but not in a way that it knows – it is a sound caught in a web of fluttering cards and smug voices and the crooning of sophisticated music pursuing the darkness caught in the tender places eyes cannot reach. green eyes – green eyes and sharp things, moonlight hair and the undulating waves of – of – his core churns pleasantly, needily, an uncoiling black boa of appetite and fervor.
“Has Solterra sank its fangs into you as well?” her voice flits like a bird over the heads of the guests, and that greedy black thing at the pit of his stomach recoils, grinning, mouth wide and waiting. “Well? How does it taste?” Her laughter is still pouring vibrations over the lull of her voice, and the songbird is fluttering with each syllable over that black beast, wavering, wavering, and Erasmus laps the word taste over and over his tongue with dreams of snatching the nightingale, of coiling, of devouring. How does it – how does it taste? His fangs knit the tight line of his lips, and – taste – sounds like an invitation, like a rose unfurling for him, like an offer, like a sacrifice.
But there are thorns beneath that rose. Would they hurt, all the way down?
One hopes.
He turns then, when the hum rises above the chanting of their audience, and the poison of the drink is strangling the essence of his veins and the hunger in his throat – molding it, compressing it, making anew – some muffled chuckle, and it hurts. Why did he laugh? The lining of his flesh prickles with the thought of more laughter, the way it bubbles up his throat, but he swallows it all down. It thinks that it should frown for this distaste, but the grin only spreads, a twitching, derisive thing that loathes itself. But it forgets, drinking in her countenance as though she were the remedy to the awful thing beginning in the center of him and turning him inside out. Death would be better.
His eyes move to each pin in her hair – just after drinking the depth of her eyes, which make him think, perhaps I should have had the emerald potion instead – and cut themselves on each pinnacle, then each thorn, then each blushing petal of carnation-rose that blooms from the nestle of her cream-white hair. It is a wonder that the thorns do not cut or pick more roses from her flesh – and it thinks, perhaps his teeth are the thorns that will. Taste?
"Not as pleasant as–" as you may, Erasmus's voice echoes in its head, and more laughter, but this time he is unsuccessful in stifling it. "–as I would like, but it is... different." Strong would be the appropriate word, but it doesn't understand the correlation of a taste with that particular physical property. Potent is the better word, but he doesn't say it, because this doesn't even suit the nature of it. He also doesn't tell her about how it is undoing him at the center, splitting him like a knife inside his chest, and all he can do in spite of it is find the humor in it.
His eyes are at the thorn lingering above the delicate lining of her neck again, and he thinks he can just see her pulse under the shadow of its point, and it sings above the drone of that pandemonious hum - the nightingale, that bird. He is the black thing coiled beneath.
The laughter swells in his throat again like a bubble, and he bursts it before it has a chance to escape. Beyond them, the guests are a blur of color and silhouettes, insignificant and melodious as a drunken orchestra. (But are they not so?) The painting on the wall parts them, like a beam splitting the room for them, and he asks, what do you think of that painting? and in the same thought, Has Solterra devoured you, Aghavni? but instead, it comes as: "Have you ever seen the death of a sun?" And it is absurd, but it is there, and there is no mortification in it, no notice of the gravity it speaks, of the darkness welling in each corner, so like and unlike a threat. The black hole in the painting opens, spreading like cracks, like veins, and menaces to darken the lining of its golden frame.
─ this is where it starts, this is where it will end here comes the moon again ─
