the common honeybee

[astrapidae]

.//. a little behind in catching up on messages from the last few days - if we were in talks i will get back to you shortly!

[mindthewater]

Despite the magnitude of his fright, there's an innate comedy to his startled reaction and subsequent bounce from it, never one to stay down at first strike. In some twisted way, he appears to enjoy himself nevertheless; chronic optimist, so dazzled by what he gained that he no longer seemed to mind what was lost.

Nix revels on the pitiful whimpering, his throat bulging from the strain of holding himself back, wet coils of dark hair sticking to his temple, all of him so lickable. He yields as easily as ripe fruit, presenting himself so readily for her to devour. Yes, yes, they can go now. Soon as she budges. Hoping she won't.

"You have no idea." Teeth too sharp, keeping him captive between the web of her hands, Nix nibbles lightly on the tip of his nose. "Come on, little man." Dragging her knees beneath her curving spine, she rises swift and unceremoniously up to her feet. In a practised gesture, the naiad gathers the circumference of her hair and begins to twist it over her shoulder, wringing out the excess water that trickles down her bare torso with nigh divine splendour.

She steals his towel on the way out of the bathroom, patting her skin dry while continuing to drip all over the hardwood floors of his suite until she stands on a plush woven rug in front of his dresser's full length mirror and anxiously awaits her gifts.

[astrapidae]

For a only moment - as the palms of her hands cradle his jaw and the woman of his nightmare hovers close, catching his breath, the points of her nails gracing just lightly at the skin and the cold plush of her lips within a distance - there is a flighty thought which thinks that she might either kiss him or devour him, right there, and an uncertainty of which would damn him more. Maybe the thought alone is proof that he is damned already, god help him.

The thief stays still whichever way, a bead of sweat lingering at his temple and an intake of air held tentatively in his lungs whilst the points of Nix' teeth nip at his nose, in... play? Espérons? She would not bite, just 'cause she can, non? It is a good nose--

She speaks before he has the time to build anxiety about the desecration of his features.

"Petit...?" Eyes darting down again, his brow knits and he parrots the word back in a small voice just a moment before the woman deigns it fit for her purposes to move, her very sudden motion and the sudden relief of pressure against the still most sensitive parts of him spurring a series of soft (and mildly alarmed) little's 'oh's to fall from Arsène's lips as he is briefly jostled without means to his defense, deflating again with a quiet wheeze once she is up and out and he is freed at last. Sweet mercy.

Even so, his head lolls to the side to rest his cheek against the copper; his wide, dumbfounded gaze following her as she goes, caught by the blue-green shimmer of her wet hair in the warm lamplight, the slight sway of her gait, her back, and the opalescent droplets on her olive skin before she dabs them clear with the lavish hotel towel, the thievery of which he cannot even bring himself to mind so terribly--

There's a tented pause after she stops before the mirror in the dressing room, framed by the wood of the furniture and the fall of thin, lace voiles over the windows overlooking Place Vendôme. She is still visible from within his quarter-full tub even across the other room - where they each linger in silence, him, in awe, until the air starts to hang heavy with her loaded expectation.

Catching her eye in the reflection, the thief is then at once snapped from his trance with sudden urgency of realisation, rousing to motion and hastily throwing his leg over the siding of the basin;

He slips almost immediately upon the soapy tiles, thoroughly tingling limbs meeting the thin layer of water covering whole the surface of the washroom, causing him to clang and curse as his knee thunks into the siding of the tub. His hands grapple for anchorage at the edge of the sink until, with an ungraceful effort, he manages to pull himself afoot and stumble after her, naked and sodden, dick still stupidly a little hard, taking a greater care walking along the wet trail on the wooden floor.

And only slightly wincing. In a manly way.

"Eager for tonight, Ma Dame?" The Frenchman clears his throat to query as he shortens their distance, to linger behind her, hovering near, yet, preserving some courteous berth between them, trying to regain a certain smoothness in his bearing as he attempts to gauge her mood. "I do not wish to spoil the surprise, but I am told it should be quite the excitement."

[astrapidae]

continuing from (x) // thread; greek chorus ft. arsène, mycroft & james @theprimordium

Shrouded by the midnight shadows of the room for-- shall we say, an ambivalent amount of time, the phantom interloper perches languidly atop the antique, opulent vanity directly opposite the equally clandestine bed-frame, one leg dangling off the edge and the other hiked up by the heel upon the dressing table's floral, cushioned chair. Satin curtains, satin sheets; It's an ostentatious nest, oui, no more, no less at Le Meurice - only the best a man's pocket can buy in Grande Paris. Security, too.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on who you ask) even the best cannot deter Arsène Lupin, au contraire, it is practically an invitation. And so, a silk-gloved thumb rests now beside the slanted curving of his mouth, and the cheek of a canine, biting his lip, presents the image of a rather impish trespasser--

Or, ah well, it would have, might have, on a proper stage with better lighting. Only the mirror (woman-less, this once) catches any luminance at all with which to line his well-dressed silhouette, washing him in what little streetlight makes it up this far from down below, outside, before the phantom's voice betrays him outright. A silent observer until then, yet unable to resist the urge to comment when the larger body in the bed-sheets starts to stir. A sigh of content. Ah, a pleasant dream?

The immediate alarm once he is recognized is, perhaps, somewhat to be expected.

Now, to Arsène's credit - this is wholly a curious way to have come upon the typically proper Monsieur Holmes and the Napoleon of Britain, both, not to mention the fine-aged guard dog popped outside to indulge his vices on the balcony. It is, however, strangely sweet, likewise, this peaceful scene of liaison; he is earnestly charmed as much as he is thoroughly amused, but either way, his is a very short-lived levity.

What is it Chérie says?

'Jupiter descends--'

"Oh, non, non, non--" alert, waving a hand frantically to try and placate, the rogue slips off his seat with almost comical immediacy once the volume of the elder Holmes' rises, just as the man himself does from the bed, a rare and veritable storm. A sight which would have been impressive, if he were not the one stood in the shallows.

The shifting of sheets shortly behind the towering figure makes Arsène's eyes dart hastily between him and the old professor, still comfortable, seeming too gleeful at this turning of events - and barring a snort when Moriarty gets the finger for his hubris, his own tickled expression wipes right off again into a rapt straightening of the back, a wide-eyed face of positive submission, shock, the moment the brunt of Holmes' ire falls back on him, as though he was as surprised as anyone to find himself - at present - present. How did he get here? Why? Qui sait, we just can't know for certain--

Oh, wait.

"Pardonnez, s'il vous plaît, the--" the roguish thief's once clever tongue trips over the words just as he almost trips over himself in the dark, stepping back too quickly, causing him to bump into the corner of the vanity he'd sat on and knocking a few crystalline items off for which he only barely manages to save a gruesome fate against the marble.

He falls halfway to his knees scrabbling to catch and quickly return them to their places, hands all over the table, the combination of his discordant clattering and the rise of angry voices spurring the Colonel to find that moment to take notice from the deck, reappearing hurriedly within the doorway, alarmed, confused and magnificently bare-chested with his half-smoked cigar - sights flicking over the three inside, calculating.

Arsène waves yet again to dissuade a violent measure, like a man closed in upon by tigers and one very gratified bobcat, pulling himself back to his feet. A second, he just needs a second, he can save this, voilà--

"--the intrusion. Forgive. I come bearing gifts." Yet raised, his hands, so does his brows lift as his absconsion halts and he turns his head a little sideways, peering at Holmes demurely through the corner of his eye, held up a moment while he waits and gauges whether he will be allowed to stay for long enough to carry out his aim. Slowly, then, does he lower his arms so as to produce a modest missive, which he places delicately upon the vanity; a small and woodcapped jar of sweet, golden nectar, wrapped in some wax paper and tied with a red string to a bow, a slip which reads 'Rosaceae'.

The first of the first batch. The first of many.

"I would have letter too, alas - this is not the only den of lovers' I have been chased out of tonight."

[theprimordium]

"You talk in your sleep, did you know that?" Lupin @ either Mycroft or James dealers choice of nighttime freak

5th May, 1947 Paris, France.

He had been having quite the pleasant dream, prior to this unwarranted interruption. Incidental, devoid of much deeper meaning beyond a recently arisen wanderlust— a rare and frankly exotic impulse that had been anticipated, then in turn recently met and catered to. In the waking world he was lain in a four-poster bed framed by a spill of the finest silk cushions and the plush comforts of several quilted blankets, while in that of his dreams he was stood before the southern shoreline of Sussex, watching surf water roll over his toes in a captivating spray of frothing saline.

Mycroft must have shifted in his sleep, fluttered his eyelids or else showed some sign of nearness to waking to have prompted the remark thus put his way. He therefore lurches with discomfort as his eyes snap open, his body surging upright with alertness as his locking gaze fixes upon the intruder in the room. An initial swell of urgent adrenaline quickens into gelid mortification, then morphs gradually into a gathering fury.

Buried beneath the covers beside him, a protesting hum of enquiry, as well as a lean pale arm slipping from his naked clavicle like a marionette limb with strings newly severed from the sudden motion he'd taken. A head of thinned ginger hair emerges from the pillows beside him, as James Moriarty directs his own attention towards their rather unexpected guest— terrible security for what was supposedly the finest luxury hotel in all Paris, apparently paying for the top floor suite meant nothing after the ravages of war and occupation.

But then, he supposed, this was Theo's boy. No need for him to rise to the occasion however, Mycroft has been silent long enough for him to know that all was in hand; he only needed to sit back and enjoy the show. In the spirit of this sentiment, James merely chuckles for one note beneath his breath before reaching an arm over to the bedside table next to him. Mycroft, meanwhile throws a veritable bounty of bedcovers from his person and begins to rise from the bed like a towering omen of discontent.

"Arsène Lupin." Oh, the full name. Right out of the gate. "Among your many transgressions of one's personal privacy, this would be the worst. To think you would— don't you dare."

James starts forward while a slim cigarette is already perched between his lips, dropping his matchbook and promptly spilling matches all over his lap— murmuring with furtive apology, he attempts to gather them up and swiftly plucks the cigarette from his mouth again.

Mycroft, for his part, drops his pointing finger and turns from his bedroom partner to instead round back onto M. Lupin. The thought occurs to him latterly that he was now grateful to God above that he had donned his pyjama trousers again before taking to bed, he's fairly certain on that note that James had not. Where was Sebastian? How long had M. Lupin been here? He was fond of the young man but whatever his reasons this conduct was absolutely unacceptable.

One hand planted on his cotton-hugged hip, Mycroft otherwise swings the other out to point towards the ornate set of double doors leading from the bedroom.

"You will exit this room, M. Lupin. You will depart this hotel entirely, and you will wait until an appropriate hour to conduct your business, or so help me I will haul you out by the scruff myself."

From the lavish bed behind him, James could hardly contain his spectating glee— having abandoned the impulse to smoke following his own chastisement, he now rather sups from a short glass topped with brandy pulled from the bedside table's cabinet storage. Truly, he would have been just as irritated with the intrusion if he weren't now reveling in the beast that was Mycroft Holmes' temper let loose in this room.

[astrapidae]

kink meme (generator).

Arsène’s top five kinks are: 1. Begging 2. Sounding 3. Masturbation Instruction 4. Dirty Talk 5. Electrostimulation

taken from: @mindthewater tagging: (looks at the camera)

[astrapidae]

continuing from (x) // thread; promises promises ft. arsène & nix @mindthewater

A delicate touch graces the inside of his thigh, trailing the soft and tender muscle, parting his legs in an unspoken invitation; she sighs, of course, and he laughs, head cushioned back with dark chestnut curls against the curved rim of the tub - a warm and bubbly sound swelling from his bath and filling the room.

Ah, he jests, he jests (unless...?) - but he cannot resist the tease, never, if simply just to cherish the expression of exasperation which Nix wears before her face fades from the mirror, leaving its twisted, ornate beauty somewhat lacking in her absence.

Ah, dieu, even her ire leaves him wanting.

It's with a slosh and slow exhale Arsène sinks deeper in the water once she's gone, idle fingers stroking absently over the dip along his pelvis as he melts - disrupted from his rituals, diverted and distracted in his thought, inevitably. He did not expect her to stay, non, but he admits, he did not mind her looking; another little shiver of excitement finding its way through him as he recalls the flash of her eyes come unexpectedly upon him, their sharpness, that slightly unnerving tingle down his spine of being watched--

They've plans tonight. He's sworn her gifts, excitement, anything she'd like - and he intends to keep his promises. But one cannot begrudge a simple man some small indulgence, no? A head full of fluff will not serve either of them. Or so he reasons.

The looking glass dims with a haze as drops of condensation trickle down the copper basin, the closed door giving the heating of the room no means to dissipate. Between the water and the soap, time is not the only thing which slips away; his purchase found, his lips part and his cheek turns to the metal; eyes knitting shut, lost in a fiction, his breath starting to mingle with the steam. He forgets himself amidst the motion and sensation, such that he does not even notice when he's no longer alone, caught unawares until the moment when he crests--

He does not scare easily. And he definitely does not shout and haplessly flail when she emerges from below, slick, dark and grinning like she's Scylla herself bursting from the depths; Charybdis the man-eater; consuming the space within a drum which - for all his flaunting - was not built enough for two. The devilish woman ghosts her face too close to his, all teeth, locking their eyes, making his body's instinct be to jolt right as it peaks - but with her weight between his legs, he's nowhere to go.

Suppose he never did rescind the invite.

"Fini, fini--!" he stutters, one hand grappling for dear life along the edges of the tub whilst all the water is displaced in a cascade, the other fluttering - moving to touch her, thinking better, then scrabbling feebly at the floral wall-tiles. With his senses caught between the throes of ecstasy and fright (a little unsure which is which right at that moment) and cock trapped flush against the smooth, cold pressure of her stomach, he chokes on the whimper stuck in his throat as his heart leaps up to join it. Yes, yes, yes-- "--we can go, we can go!"

Now, the thief would very much like to think that at this point in their acquaintanceship, this creature finds his talents boon enough she would not kill him whilst he's naked and quivering beneath her - but he knows better than to trial at the bounds of her impatience. The little death is all he would prefer, today, thank you.

As his shuddering quells (and he must will himself to soften while she yet comfortably rests atop him, truly, a herculean effort) the rogue's body deflates uselessly, still captured, able to do little but to let his gaze flick down between them both, then up to her eye, down, away, and back again in rap succession. He knows better, yes. Mostly.

After a pause - still panting breathlessly - the corners of his lip twitch and his brows raise, querying.

"That was-- good for you too, oui?"

[mindthewater]

"keep your eyes on the mirror ... watch yourself come undone for me." OR [ DISPLAY ] sender touches themselves knowing receiver is watching. // arsène, uno or reverse for either

& SPICED WINE. – accepting ! @astrapidae // Arsène Lupin

"Is this gonna take all day?"

"It can take all night too." He parrots back, all cheek and no shame, stewing in the steam rising from the copper tub he bathes in.

Nix is early, possibly, hard to tell when you don't own a clock and have nowhere to be. The metrics of time are useless to her, as is knocking, and letting your host get ready in peace before you come barging in. Problem is she's eager -- there's a ball tonight and he's promised her a gown, as well as the prettiest jewel she can find, no matter whose neck it hangs from.

She peers back at him from the brass framed mirror hanging above the sink, her patience thinning quickly. She had meant only to check in, but the minute he notices he has company, Arséne deliberately switches from scrubbing his arms to putting on a show, attempting to get her to join. He says he's just unwinding from the day, lying back rosy-cheeked and glistening wet, grinning, his hand slipping from the rim of the bathtub to his knee, then the space between his thighs. Soapy water a poor deterrent against a fertile imagination.

Nothing short of exasperated, the nymph rolls her eyes and fades from the reflection, returns to her creek and waits. Quarter of an hour, would that be enough?

The mirror is fogged up when she visits again. There's a rhythmic sloshing of water to go with grunted breaths, and outside the night grows darker, their plans nearer. He doesn't notice her this time, open and disarmed, hairy chest reddened from effort, some obvious fantasy occupying his mind.

To give him peace would be too easy. To ruin the crescendo of his climax infinitely more entertaining.

So she waits, partially concealed, no more than a shadow in the looking glass. When the thief's voice goes up a pitch, his manners near a frenzy, chasing that brief taste of oblivion– Nix emerges from the bottom of his tub, hair slick to her temples and cheeks, crawling right up between his legs, making the whole bath feel impossibly small all of a sudden. Sudsy water splashes over the border, all over the chequered tiles, while the nymph slithers up along his warm torso, living for the fright that makes him abandon his cock but not prevent the unravelling.

He twitches pathetically against her bare belly, thrown from the right to savour that simple pleasure and forced to look the devious nightmare in the eye while she just smiles, the tip of her nose lightly bumping his.

"Are you done now? Can we go yet?"

[bakwaaas]

I don’t want casual I want you to eat me alive

[thecreativecatalogue]

Artworks by Jon Christopher Gernon

[mindthewater]

[ BITE ] sender digs their teeth into the hollow of receiver's neck. // Jach - uno or reverse

& SPICED WINE. – accepting ! @astrapidae // Jach

The summer Heat swells nearly as irrational and decimating as the Great Hunt. Already the earth burns under the scorching sun, forcing every living thing into daytime slumber, crawling out only at the first merciful glimpse of moonlight.

Her reserves grow scarce, and rain looms only as a distant thought.

It has been days since she's eaten. Nighttime is spent prowling for a different kind of succour, haunting the edges of the forest, the caves in the mountains, the outskirts of villages where she appears like a mirage to parched young shepherds and farmers. There will be others sharing the creature's affliction, itching to consume and be consumed in one, to tear through the very limits of the flesh for a single spark of connection. Soon, it will pass, and they'll pretend it never happened.

****

Sunset spills across the vibrant sky, promising a cooler evening ahead. Nix lounges on the sprawling shade of an ancient oak tree, legs tucked beneath its long obsidian torso, head held at a relaxed angle and drowsy gaze pointed at the shimmering lake. The grass is cool beneath its belly, and around her a pair of crows flutter about, assuring her rest is not interrupted by any of the minor insects cluelessly bumping into her.

It smells company before company shows itself.

The barghest drinks from her pool in long, desperate sips, paws digging into the arid soil to keep her from falling in. So she lives. Every time they run into each other another year is ticked off the calendar, and they've survived a new set of bizarre events. Yet, all in all they don't talk much, and play a tremulous game of mutual tolerance instead.

Nix's ears flick back and forth at the sounds of intrusion, nose curling, tasting the afternoon. Hunger slips undetected once more to favour a different kind of consummation, and her invite goes out carelessly, tail swishing along the ground, lifting upright. Her cunt perfumes the air, lush moss and resin and musk. A great big void seeking to devour anyone that approached.

Jachen takes an interest, curiosity above anything else it seems, and turns from the water to its beast, maws drooling and wet. It's an invitation to play, that much she can tell, but whether they end up fucking or fighting is yet to be decided. The huntress begins to approach. Hesitant, scratching the soil, circling. The kelpie's tail swats her corvid companions away, and though she does not rise from her spot she fixes a luminous eye on the horror. Waiting.

Heat continues to churn through her. If the hound won't make up her mind, Death will slip out of sight to find relief elsewhere.

It's all very simple.

You have an itch, you scratch it until it bleeds.

Finally, Jachen's snout finds the back of the kelpie's thigh, tentatively licking damp fur coating the taut muscle. Recognition. Nix responds with a low, wanton growl, bending its neck until they are face to face; this is as far as consent goes between them. The barghest proceeds to mount the river, hooked claws slipping over its resting form, bracketing it into place, preventing escape. Nix pushes her croup further up as the hound in turn presses the weight of her hips down; play that turns into clumsy, frenzied grinding, forcing the sweltering heat into something unbearable.

Hot breath on Nix's mane, teeth scraping the tight arch of her trapezius. The build-up amidst the continuous struggle for something else something more– fatally sharp canines sink into her neck, shocking the kelpie into lucidity. It isn't an attack, but it is a claim, and a transgression she allows no one.

<< Get off me. >>

The nymph screeches a death alarm and with explosive force rises up to a stand, knocking the other off its behind. Viscous, red-black blood drips down her shoulder as she bucks, once, twice, one of her hooves landing squarely on Jach's jaw, her teeth gnashing at the air, ears pinned back in fury.

She won't stay to chat. She slithers into the water, where her mate can't follow, and wonders if maybe it's time to eat instead.

[mindthewater]

@astrapidae // Jachen continued from ( x )

She hears them too, their wild frenzy as they tear through the land. The underworld and unseen risen, swinging their scythes without restraint, without a morsel of respect for the balance that stands.

She was caught in it once. Never again.

Against the distant, frenetic thunder that rolls through the earth, shattering the frosted film that would have otherwise covered most of the river bank, there is a slower, more uneven footfall. Something drags itself to her shores, the stench of blood and injury announcing its presence before it even dares speak.

A pair of long, black ears emerge from the dark surface of the river where moonlight pools in silver ripples. Then the crown of its narrow head follows, silent as a ghost. Its visitor demands passage, wedged between two violent deaths. Nix knows their kind can't cross her depths without drowning.

<< Why should I? >>

Even if she had been any good at taking orders, there was no telling the hound wouldn't try to attack her on their way, or that they wouldn't just draw unwanted attention with their stench. It is not a risk she is willing to take for nothing.

[astrapidae]

The winter river sends an unforgiving shiver up her limbs, cold as ice and all but frozen. Smooth rocks and clay wedged between her pads. She supposes she should be relieved she has sensation left to scowl at, for it would mean that there is life left in her somewhere, still, even if the water soon begins to seep a numbness through the sinew, too keen to wash those dregs away. The wet clinging like hands onto her tufts of fur.

Somewhere ahead the boundary breaks; a figure of silken black emerging - just barely - from the ink dark ichor, seeing, listening. Evaluating. Her instincts say danger. Her other senses start to yearn for something undefinable, as the brisk and earthy scent of her grows clearer.

"... take... anything..." her breath rasps and her nostrils flare with fog. She continues an automaton, not walking at where the creature peers above the mirrored surface - not directly - but blindly forwards, deeper. If neither of them moves the beast will pass her (maybe - she can't really tell, if she is left, or right). Only one of them has a choice to make;

"... my life... if it... amuses..."

There is thunder rumbling in the distance. She has no more to offer - reduced to charity, or leisure. But beings like It are seldom moved by pity, and though she is a dog - a hound - she will not beg more than she has already. The thick muck at the bottom of the riverbed begets a slip where the ground sinks lower suddenly, and with a clumsy, staggered movement, the weight of the barghest's chest dips downwards with a splash. Loud, awkward.

Might the annoyance stir reaction? A kill to put them both out of this tedium and misery.

Her black lip curls.

"... better... than drowning... alone."

[astrapidae]

get to know your mutuals:

favorite  color:  warm sunflower yellow

last  song: saint levant - DIVA /peek.png

currently  reading:  Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke

currently  watching: bipping between mr. selfridge, sense8 and lidia poët

currently  craving: psychological damage

tagged: @mindthewater tagging: 🫵

[maureen2musings]

Charles Bridge before dawn, Prague

miromarsik

[astrapidae]

[ secrets ] your muse sharing/confiding a secret in mine.

Sherlock & James.

December, 1944, Bletchley Park

"Did the consideration ever cross your mind - in passing - that you might've embraced a life of such irrelevancy, after our fall?" A thin plume of smoke trails from the simmering embers of his cigarette, loosely poised in-between two slender fingers as it slowly eats away upon itself, letting its ash flake to the floor, idly consumed and neglected.

Stood before a set of Georgian panes and casting out over a field of dusk, he aims his query towards the man who mirrors his reflection in the window. The one whose step had only moments prior ferried down the corridor - resolute, yet with an unmistakable lightness in the dreary silence - and who now deigns to hover like a shadow in the door frame with his calculating eyes upon him. A fragment of the past. A man who would've once and might've still rather have scorched the earth using the candle in his hand than to be reduced as such.

The makeshift office sets with the waft of cheap tobacco and the rain, mingling with books, cologne and papers. A scent that should be comforting.

Unfinished work sorts into neat stacks on the desk.

The pens are polished and aligned.

--It is, of course, a singularly inflammatory statement; a question so ludicrous within its self-conception, Sherlock might've gotten on all fours and barked and thus inspired a lesser raising of the brow. His former enemy (is it former...?) had clung to life fiercer than life itself and carved his name into the granite alms of history not once, but twice, all the while the cascade of rivers, death and time had sought to wash both Moriarty and his legacies away. That's not ambition - it is obsession. The sort that you might read of in the mythos of the ancient Greek; the lengths to which a man will go in his defiance, which might either condemn him or endear in the eyes of the divine, depending.

Perhaps it was a cruelty even to ask. If so then, pray, he hopes the maestro who had graved his memory into his flesh permit indulgence, just this once.

"For the subject with the eyes of an empire upon his back, and the weight of his name on a crescendo of the tongue, does it not strike - that he may find some perverse sense of solacement in obscurity? In the idea of being disappeared so utterly, completely?"

Sherlock hums after a pause, resting a hand along the rolled up bent crook of his other arm, where old marks linger - only then taking the first drag of his vice that he'd thought to since he lit it, breathing the smoke out with a sigh. Tilting his head back, silver eyes, painted with distance, follows his exhale on its meandering path towards the ceiling, until at last it dissipates to nothing.

"You could've gone anywhere." He muses. "Was there not a peace in that?"

[astrapidae]

"Don’t look around. Don’t change your expression. Just listen very carefully to what I’m about to tell you." Mycroft to Sherlock. Any verse/time.

April, 1883, London

It is singularly curious, how nothing but the mere vibration of a sound - an utterance, if you will, spoken in the manner of exacting cadence - might produce such an immediate effect upon a person. Indeed, like an errant kitten with a mother lion's breath huffing its neck, he seizes imperceptibly in his position-- the insensible instinct being to go limp as he awaits the ever careful if exasperated nipping of her teeth again its nape; expecting to be, quite delicately, removed from whence he'd strayed a little too far from the nest.

It is too fetched too far to hope that he could claim he'd simply lost his invitation.

This gathering of the members of parliament and a few aristocratic men of influence, (private benefactors, et al, et cetera) had come together by the technical claim of mandate - although most truthfully, by inclination - not merely to oblige in social graces, but to discuss these subjects of law (superficially, perhaps), related to the recent surge of acts purporting to their interests in the Irelands; to the disputes of land, of business, and to the motions to supply a temporary and provisional relief unto the poor, and to the destitute. Yes, occasionally, he listens.

It is thus one of the more stalwart opponents of suggesting any favour who had been the one to call for such a meeting, and on this dime he understands all the attending dine tonight, as the eve gets longer and the conversation slips from matters practical to frivolous to - the recent sports; the races; complaints of horse smell clinging to suits; the difficulties of finding proper help; the boons of marriage; the tedium; a ribald comment on the topics related to 'riding' which had him hiccup and refrain to trip over his own two feet--

But maybe this is just the way of these proceedings, he couldn't know. He doesn't care for politics at large and to his brother's knee-fallen chagrin he has never cared for mingling. Rather, he is here on the behalf of both a maid and an unhappy wife (curiously separately, mind, though they had barely missed each other in the stairway), on a case involving a rambunctious affair, a missing cabby, two false portraits, and a suspicion of financial peddling which was perhaps the least interesting facet.

To get into the soiree had been a relatively simple matter.

To remain inside until he's found his evidence? Uncomplicated.

The peril is almost entirely of a more personal nature--

To the aspiring detective's credit, despite the inherent and initial trespass of him being here at all, Sherlock does acquiesce quite smoothly to his brother's terms, when spoken over his shoulder - what diminutive jolt of stiffness and surprise takes hold might be perceptible only to the sharp eye of the other, whilst to all else who body the crowd within the hall he yet remains the very image of a servant, catering his tray of apéritifs while he takes vantage of the room. Mycroft's nursing at his own drink - whiskey from the smell; barely sampled, judging by the viscosity of the elder's idle swirling - and there is a brief instinct to wisecrack, but it is not what reaches his tongue.

Or, well, not entirely.

"At your humble service, sir."

[greengableslover]

THE GREEN KNIGHT (2021) dir. David Lowery

[astrapidae]

"I didn't lock the door to keep them out. I locked it to keep you in." // Sherlock

October, 1879, Edinburgh

It has been a proven thorough-line of deduction, that once you have exhausted all the evidence to the contrary - and at such, eliminated the impossible - whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Of course, the usual course of such is then to open up the mind unto the possibility of even the most unlikeliest of motives, the most innocuous of culprits and the most outlandish methods-- but even then, there always remained a certain degree of grounded reality to most of his cases. Something logical, something explainable, however convoluted it may be. Something he could understand.

Spectral women in the looking glass rather pushed the boundaries of disbelief.

But then, isn't that what made this whole affair so curious?

"... Quite." The detective finds his voice after a beat has passed. Which is, to expatiate, yet another beat after he has slowly risen from stool sat in the middle of the attic, only moments after the loud click of the lock behind his back had snapped his gaze first to the door, and then forwards again knitted together; towards the antique, floor-length mirror leaned between two narrow windows up against the wall, and the figure in it, formerly his own, now looking back at him. Moving her lips.

The room is dark - unlit quite by intention - save for the pale blue moonlight which cascades in gentle waves on either side unto the ageing floorboards, in the fall of which speckles of dust dance in the draft seeped from outside like little wisps of luminescence, making the in-between seem... darker, somehow. The mirror a void, a portal, drawing near the shadows around it into a supernatural hollow, the swirling ivy pattern of its silver boarding barely perceptible, let alone the woman at the centre of it.

But he does perceive her. Mind and body seized to the image, grasping for fractures. There is something about her that is shifting, formless, but when he concentrates, he sees a stream of slick black hair, falling in waves, as though she'd stepped out from the water; a slip of olive skin under her eye; a gown like mist beneath a waterfall. Around her he can see his own surroundings echoed back, inverted, and yet she stands where he should be, superimposed over his own reflection. Or, a part of it...?

All the while he stands, the intensity of his grey eyes never leaves her, never blinks - as if some part of him had thought, perhaps, that what he sees might disappear as soon as he does. It would be all too easy to dismiss this whole occasion a hallucination, a sudden delusion of the mind - it would not be the first time. But he had been called here on some business; up to Edinburgh on behalf of a most frantic creature, ranting and raving of a haunting; of voices whispered in the night, murky water trailed through the halls, and of being watched, within their bed.

A disconcerting notion, certainly, and an account which makes it all the more a challenge to reject the voice as simply a symptom of his often, shall we call them, recreative habits. If it is the wind, then it has gotten rather literate.

They'd moved the mirror to the loft. Into a vacant room all of its own, trying to contain whatever devilish spawn or creature they imagined had possessed it. Too frightened even to dispose of the old thing, though it is well enough they hadn't; He'd rather hoped to spend a night within its company, to study it if nothing else, perhaps run a few tests for toxic contaminants - although thus far, he must say his expectations have been substantially circumvented.

Is it excitement, threatening to catch his breath, or something else?

"I confess, I don't quite feel the urgency to leave." He speaks at the spectre as the corner of his mouth tugs, ever faintly. Straightening up where he remains some paces from the wall - staving off any approach - he assembles to some form of measure, although his lips remain a fraction parted to sustain a sense of awe, and he rather believes that he can feel his pulse a little quicker. A chill, taking to raise the hairs along his forearms, when he thinks he her eye look through him.

"It would appear to me as rude, seeing as you've only just arrived."