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@unwholesomeocweek Day 4: Mindbreak
TW: Abusive relationship, implied sexual abuse
Orcus’s grip on her wrist is bruising as he drags her back to their shared room. Proserpina doesn’t fight it. When he’s in this kind of mood... he needs to keep her close. She can’t refuse him. She’d never want to.
The door slams behind them. He pulls her to the bed and shoves her back, and Proserpina collapses obediently onto it. There’s no use fighting it, or begging him to be gentle. He’s so far lost in his own head that he wouldn’t hear her pleas— let alone care to oblige them. It’s best to comply, to let the mood pass.
Orcus tears at her jacket, trying to rip it off her shoulders and away. Buttons pop, seams strain. Proserpina twists to let him tug it off her arms.
When she’s left in only the plain, white dress shirt underneath, he deems that satisfactory and crumples into her arms. Like a marionette with cut strings— one moment he’s towering above her, the next, he’s limp and nuzzling into the space between her arms. “Proserpina...” he mumbles, muffled where his face is shoved against her chest. “You c-can’t leave me... I need you.”
A second later, she hears the wet sniffle of tears.
Proserpina folds her arms around him in a gentle hug and lets him cry. He clings on tight, nails digging into her back viciously enough to leave little bloody crescents even through the cloth. By now, she already knows what those marks will look like. She’s born the scabs and scars countless times over the years.
“Never,” she assures him. “I’ll be with you forever. No one can take me away.” She knows what words he wants to hear; their sounds are familiar on her lips, like vows repeated every time he starts to fear her abandonment.
She’s everything to Orcus. From the time she was brought into his life in their childhood, she’s been the only thing keeping him sane. She loves him. He needs her. She has nothing without him, and he’d fall apart without her. What’s a little pain in the face of fulfilling her purpose? She’s a lifeline to him. She’s the safe place that prevents him from breaking down entirely.
“Don’t you dare—!” he snarls, still sobbing. There are tears soaking the front of her shirt. His weight crushes down on her rib cage.
But Proserpina understands. She knows how much he needs her, knows the purpose she serves. He only acts like this because he’s the one in pain.
Time passes. Minutes blur together in a haze of stroking Orcus’s hair and shushing him while he cries. He only clings tighter— eventually, he leans up and sinks his teeth into her shoulder, just to feel her flinch and gasp.
That hurts, she wants to say. She doesn’t dare. Telling him no means that she’s dissatisfied. If she’s dissatisfied, it means she wants to leave him. He can use her body as he pleases, cause her any amount of pain, if that will make him understand that she loves him, that she’s never going to leave.
@unwholesomeocweek Day 3: Corruption/Power Imbalance
TW: Blood/gore, amputation, human trafficking/slavery
Ran is lucky that she doesn’t have to attend these meetings, Asagi thinks. His older sister is so hyper-competent that their father doesn’t think she needs his lessons anymore. Not like the rest of them, who have to stand out on a frigid training field first thing in the morning, waiting for whatever concept Oros has decided needs to be drilled into their heads this time.
His brothers don’t look any happier to be here than Asagi feels. ...well, Stali and Hakuren seem enthusiastic enough, but that’s normal for the two overachievers. Their hyped is everyone else’s miserable.
“Wonder what he wants to show us so badly...” Kaito mumbles, sounding somewhere between irritated and half-asleep.
“Who knows? I wish we could go back inside, already,” is Asagi’s complaining reply. Satski is waiting inside. Anything else is a waste of time.
When their father finally appears, he’s dragging a beaten man by the hair. One of their merchandise, Asagi realizes, and abruptly snaps to attention. “This one—” Oros announces in that deep, booming voice that means business, “—thought that it’d be a good idea to try to get away from us last night.”
Ah, an escape attempt. Those never go over well. Beside Asagi, Kaito rolls his eyes. Stali is standing at attention now, and Hakuren has a distinctly rabid look in his eyes. Great. Two out of four are now absolutely captivated.
“Now remember, boys, he’s one of our better pieces this time around. Good-quality merchandise. We didn’t want him getting damaged,” Oros explains, as if the rest of them would dare to forget. “Your sister even found us a buyer, one that paid in advance... but, it wouldn’t reflect very well on our establishment to let this kind of disrespect slide, you know? That just wouldn’t work out.”
A wide, dangerous smile creeps across their father’s face as he talks. Excitement at the prospect of what he’s about to do to his unfortunate captive, no doubt. Oros always punishes harshly, rules his stock with an iron fist.
Releasing his grip on the man’s hair, he’s thrown roughly to the ground. Oros then reaches for the sword at his hip. “We’ll refund the difference if we have to, boys. Right now, our reputation is at stake. This is how you teach ‘em!”
He swings, and severs the man’s foot at the ankle. There’s no time to beg for mercy— the pain hits in an instant, and leaves him howling.
“See, now he won’t be getting any funny ideas about running away!” Oros laughs, grinning wider as he shakes the blood off his blade. “You four can have your fun with him now. Rough him up good, make sure he learns his lesson.”
As Hakuren and Stali turn on the now-crippled man, Asagi raises his hand. “Father, I’d like to be excused. Satski is waiting for me back inside.”
Kaito chimes in. “Me too. The meatheads have it covered out here.”
“Alright, alright, fine. You two are excused,” Oros grins, back to boisterously good-natured like some invisible switch had flipped. “Thanks for paying attention out here. These things are important lessons to know. Gotta learn how to run the business before somebody does your old man in!”
Asagi thinks, personally, that his father is the kind of man who might not ever die. He’s too large, too loud, too powerful. How could anyone take him down?
@unwholesomeocweek Day 2: Body Horror/Coercion
TW: Grooming (non-sexual), manipulation, harm to children, referenced character death
The girl is young. She was abandoned too early to know exactly how old she is, but Tasalya would venture eight or nine at the latest. And just like Tasalya did at that age, she stares up at Cassius with adoration-filled wonder.
“It’ll hardly be painful at all,” he assures her, in that gentle, patient voice he uses for people who are getting so very close to understanding some obvious truth. “And you’re a strong one, aren’t you? You can endure a little bit of discomfort for me. I know you can. That’s why I’m choosing you, you know. You’re special. I trust that you can give everything you have to aid me.”
As expected, the girl nods. The prospect of being special to someone always makes people more willing to do what Cassius wants, but Tasalya knows the words aren’t just empty flattery. Cassius only trusts special people, in the first place. There are a select few who are worthy of joining in his plans.
At least this girl seems to understand that. She tips her cheek into Cassius’s wide, warm palm with a worshipful smile tugging at her lips, nodding along to everything he says as if just hearing him speak is an honor.
“If... if my life becomes yours,” she starts, quiet and unsure, “that will help you, won’t it? You’ll be better off because I was here?”
“Of course. And I’ll be ever so thankful to you for it.”
The Life Machine is a magnificent contraption of tubes, pumps, and inner workings that harvests a subject’s potential life energy through the medium of Aura, where it can then be transferred to someone else. The subject’s lifespan decreases by a proportional amount of years as the recipient will then gain. The exact means of its function is more complicated than Tasalya comprehends, but in theory, using the energy it creates could give someone immortal life— at the cost, of course, of however many subjects must die to sustain it.
That’s Cassius’s goal— an unceasing, unchanging existence, free at last from the fear of having everything he’s worked for torn away. This girl will be a sacrifice for that cause, just as every one that comes after her will be.
A part of Tasalya hates to see it happen. Children are the most suitable subjects, with so much life left ahead of them. Using them while they’re young will minimize the number of people who ultimately have to pay the dearest price. She knows that, but... the prospect still doesn’t sit well.
Cassius has a way of making people see the worth in serving him. Once they come to know him, they’d give up anything he asked. Tasalya is no different. She’d sacrifice her life in a heartbeat if he had use of it.
This girl will die satisfied that her brief, cruel life had a purpose. She was useful. She was wanted. Those are greater comforts than the average abandoned orphan is afforded. She’ll live out her last few weeks captivated with the kindness Cassius has given her, happy as can be to lie down for the slaughter.
Cassius needs this. That’s reason enough why it has to be done.
@unwholesomeocweek Day 1: Violence/Divorce
Tw: Blood, gore, attempted murder, aftermath of an explosion, character death (sort of).
The first thing that Draco notices is the smell. Gunpowder. Dust and rubble. Blood. It hangs heavy and acrid in his nose, fills up his lungs until every breath takes in more pollution and scent than clean air.
The room is caved in. There’s a hole in the ceiling that lets in the evening breeze. Chunks of debris form a teetering tower, a haphazardly stacked, blunt-topped spire with inky red seeping out between the crevices. Blood. Coppery and sharp. And if Aracaan wasn’t here, wasn’t the one trapped in the blast, then who—?
Draco’s veins freeze over. Clammy sweat gathers on his palms.
Soldiers scurry around like roaches, looking for evidence, cleaning up the aftermath of the explosion that tore the room in two. Draco hardly registers their faces. None of them matters. None of this matters. Aracaan isn’t dead.
He stumbles through the warzone scene on shaky legs, eyes scanning every detail for any sign of a body. Someone got hurt. Who did he hurt?
Finally, his gaze lands on an off-white tangle of hair.
Admaris.
Draco’s vision swims. There are medics huddled around her, moving her body, clearing away debris. There’s blood, so much blood, puddled beneath her and smeared across her crumpled form. Her clothes are torn and burned. Her face is streaked with soot. Her eyes are closed, and her body is ripped open like a stuffed toy torn apart at the seams. Shiny, ragged flesh, glistening insides ripped wide apart and bared to the gunpowder-heavy air. She’s not moving.
His throat closes up and strangles a scream before it can escape. Someone is talking to him, but Draco can’t make out the words. This isn’t right. This isn’t what he was trying to do. Aracaan was supposed to be here tonight, so why is Admaris the one bleeding on the ground—?
This isn’t how it was supposed to go. This isn’t what he wanted. Aracaan was the problem, the one who needed to disappear. Draco couldn’t keep on living knowing that the person who always overshadowed him still held the throne. He had to do something, anything, even if it was wrong. Annavelle would be a fine queen even without her husband in the way. They already had children, heirs.
He would have been executed for the crime, no doubt, but even that would have been fine. Admaris is strong enough to carry out without him.
Except, now it’s her broken body on the floor. She’s not breathing, someone yells. Draco’s throat goes tight. The walls twist and warp in the panicked sway of utter dread creeping over him. He wants to run to her, hold her before she’s taken away, but does he have the right, when he’s the one at fault?
If Aracaan doesn’t kill him for this, he’ll end his own life to atone. If Admaris is gone, he shouldn’t keep existing in this world either.
She’s gone, isn’t she? He ruined everything. Annavelle won’t forgive him for this. Aracaan might finally decide he’s worth hating. If he turns himself in, he can do one thing right, now that it’s too late for anything else to be saved.
By the time the weather starts getting warm again, Lillianne has settled into her new role.
Allat’s absence is still more present than she’d expected, remembered in half-hearted reminders and quick flashes of thought whenever something triggers a memory of the person who’s no longer there, but Lillianne likes her new authority enough to more than make up for it.
It’s what Allat would have wanted, anyway— the strongest person available running the show.
Her life becomes one of strategy, of planning, of making decisions for herself and for others to keep everyone alive and prospering.
Mervyn brings documents and reports, discusses supply lines and resources, consults with her on where they should go to follow the trail of prosperity and stay out of the way of larger, stronger gangs.
Lillianne learns that their group has allies, others of their own that they’re on good terms with and whose paths are safe to cross. She learns that the group avoids larger towns (too many people, too much to fight at once), but that a small handful of villages are willing to pay a fee up front to avoid the potential conflict of a raid.
She learns how to manage equipment, how to keep track of who has what, and what things will need to be repaired or replaced and when. She learns how to ration out meals and how to make sure that everyone gets their fair share of spoils and daily allotments alike.
There’s more detail work involved than she would have expected, more little things that she has to be aware of than it had seemed while watching Allat work from a distance.
Some parts are difficult.
Mervyn has to give her lessons in mathematics and economics, and he jams in studies on history, warfare, and politics on the side. It’s the closest thing to schooling Lillianne has had since she was back in Dinah’s classroom all those years ago, and she finds she doesn’t mind it. She’s not good at it, but it’s bearable.
She learns. These things are important. They’ll get her somewhere. This time, there’s a reason to pay attention that’s for her own sake, not just following along with where someone else sent her.
For once, Lillianne wants to learn.
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Now I want to take away Revon's knife and give him paps and tell him he did a good job :(
He likes praise! Good luck taking away the knife, but at least he’s receptive to praise! …especially if it’s coming from Zaire Xavier. :)
What are Lillianne's main goals? Do you think she has what it takes to reach them, or will she fall short in her endeavors?
Lillianne’s main goal depends heavily on what part of her life she’s in. Pre-immortality (as in, pretty much all of what Survival At All Costs covers), she’s aiming mostly for power, personal achievement, and material success. And she does very well for herself at getting those things! If not for the whole immortality issue, she probably could have had a very satisfying life working for what she wants. She really is cut out for that kind of life.
Post-immortality, however, Lillianne’s goals change pretty dramatically. After a few hundred years of fucking around and doing more or less what she had before that point (just much more reckless and independently), she finally starts to realize the long-term consequences of her situation. At that point, she just wants to be dead. And while that stays her goal for quite a while after, there’s nothing she can do to actually accomplish it. The circumstances of her being able to die or not are entirely out of her control. In that sense, she’s doomed to fall short of her goals over and over again. She has what she wanted from the start (survival, the ability to have good things for herself), but those things have lost their appeal. She’s cursed with getting what she’d always longed for, and she hates it.
The rest of the group adjusts to the change in leadership with little fanfare. Mervyn talks Lillianne into making an announcement (advising, as he phrases it), where she informs the rest of them that Allat is gone and that she’s the one in charge now.
And that’s it. One victory, then one little speech, and everyone recognizes her newfound authority. It almost feels too easy.
“It’s happened before,” Mervyn explains with a bitter shrug. “Allat took her position the same way. If anyone’s been here long enough, I’m sure they remember that’s what happened last time.”
“Although you’d best watch your back,” he adds. “You don’t yet have the same reputation that our former leader did. You may have beaten her, but someone here might decide that you seem like an easy victory next, and try to take your position while it seems like a simpler task.”
“If anyone tries, I’ll kill them too,” is Lillianne’s blunt response.
Mervyn sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose between two fingers. “At least you have the right personality for the job...”
There’s a certain invisible tension between them, as if he’s resisting the urge to scold her like he would have before she’d earned a rank for herself. Like he has to willfully hold his tongue or risk falling into old habits that are no longer allowed.
“What do I have to do now?” she asks.
“You’ve seen most of her work already, but I’ll fill you in on Allat’s behind-the-scenes duties. We can go over finances and logistics tomorrow... after you get patched up. You won’t be of any use to anyone while you’re still limping around like that.”
Despite his vaguely disgusted tone, Mervyn is already scribbling away in the little record book he always keeps on his person, planning out the group’s future in graphite and ink.
He may not like her, but Lillianne trusts him to do his job.
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Eleanor Daryan Bio
Name: Eleanor Daryan
Species: Daryan
Race: Whitescale
Role: The former queen of the Daryan country. A vibrant, powerful woman whose unique abilities led to mental instability in her later years. The mother of Admaris and Aracaan, she disappeared without a trace, leaving her successor to take up the throne with no warning or time to prepare.
Affiliation: Daryan Royal Family, Palace Guard
Mervyn is the one who comes to find them, eventually. He must have noticed Allat had gone missing, and only now stumbled upon the results.
He stumbles up to the scene looking ready to launch into a lecture...
...but as he registers the sight in front of him, his face goes deathly pale.
“Y-You... You didn’t—” he stammers, panicked, gaze flickering from Lillianne’s bloodied self to the corpse of his former boss and back again.
“I won,” is Lillianne’s simple response. She shrugs with one shoulder on the side that doesn’t scream when she moves it. “That means I’m in charge now, doesn’t it?”
Mervyn’s expression turns nauseous. “...yes, I suppose it does. We’ll have to do something with the body... not let those ruffians back at camp raid her tent while we’re looking the other way...” He devolves into frantic muttering, then, and Lillianne starts to tune him out. She doesn’t care much for the bureaucratic side of things.
At some point, she’ll pick herself up off the ground, sheathe her sword, and limp back to camp. Mervyn will patch her wounds and debate the group’s next steps, his tone towards her now more respectful than it’s ever been before.
It will sink in, slowly, that she really did it. That the group is hers, and Allat is no more. That she won, and there’s nothing anyone here can do to take that from her.
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Draco Daryan Bio
Name: Draco Daryan
Species: Daryan
Race: Whitescale
Role: The younger brother of the current Daryan queen, and father of the crown princess, Asakiri. A bitter, hot-tempered man whose envy leaves him always dissatisfied with his own abilities and renown. The perpetrator of the failed assassination plot that led to Admaris’s decade-long coma.
Affiliation: Daryan Royal Family, Palace Guard
Annavelle Daryan Bio
Name: Annavelle Daryan
Species: Daryan
Race: Whitescale
Role: The currently ruling queen of the Daryan country. A level-headed and logical, yet intense and dedicated woman whose strategic abilities have been instrumental in the progression of the final years of the 300-year war. Aracaan’s wife, and mother to Arassia, Anya, and Analaya.
Affiliation: Daryan Royal Family, Palace Guard
Admaris Daryan Bio
Name: Admaris Daryan
Species: Daryan
Race: Whitescale
Role: The older sister of the current Daryan king, and mother of the crown princess, Asakiri. An intense, vivacious woman with a powerful personality and an unbreakable will. The accidental victim of a failed assassination plot, which led to a roughly decade-long coma.
Affiliation: Daryan Royal Family, Palace Guard
Aracaan Daryan Bio
Name: Aracaan Daryan
Species: Daryan
Race: Whitescale
Role: The currently ruling king of the Daryan country, and son of the previous queen. A boisterous, excitable man who glows with an unquenchable joy despite the often dire circumstances of the world around him. Annavelle’s husband and father to Arassia, Anya, and Analaya.
Affiliation: Daryan Royal Family, Palace Guard
Asakiri Daryan Bio
Name: Asakiri Daryan
Species: Daryan
Race: Whitescale
Role: The crown princess of the succeeding branch of the Daryan royal family. She grew up separated from her family and birthright, and now struggles to adjust to the demands her new life places on her. Passionate and dedicated, yet hindered by fear and overwhelming self-doubt.
Affiliation: Daryan Royal Family, Palace Guard
Analaya Daryan Bio
Name: Analaya Daryan
Species: Daryan
Race: Whitescale
Role: The youngest princess of the current ruling branch of the Daryan royal family. Growing up under the pressure of the 300-Year War and its effects on her family, she developed a hyper-responsible personality, driven by her need to compensate for her eccentric elder sisters’ shortcomings.
Affiliation: Daryan Royal Family, Palace Guard