LUXURIA.

when a bud readies to bloom: fresh, ethereal, and b e l o v e d. pity its petals thin as mist; pity its HEART gnawed by worms; fallen, decayed, and despised — and yet, always, 𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐥𝐲 𝐛𝐞𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐮𝐥 . ❁ constance  .  the dahliaﾠ|ﾠhsr affil. with gnostic hymns mourned by rai

[balemouns]

crimson-stained snow.

elation commission: a body in the snow plains.

[balemouns]

consideration for what else to do with the yet-warm corpse of mr. kough has to wait as the figure in her peripheries emerges in earnest, speaks, asks a question. arms fold across her chest as arlecchino turns to face the approaching figure, and marked eyes scan down over her once before swiveling back up. not dressed in any way that seems particularly familiar, but there are a few unusual details... hornlike growths at either cheek, a few hints of blue fire, a coolness in her voice that seems almost lackadaisical in the face of a dead man she seems was also looking for while alive.

from that alone... what good would it do to be forthright with someone like this?

she answers as she takes a few slow, gliding strides over to the peculiar stranger, still trying to determine more as she does so --- "no." a glance back to the body, then forward once more: "from what you've just said, I take it that you were hoping to speak to this man...? when I saw him laying here, I came over to try and see if I could assist, but... unfortunately, his head was quite crushed from the impact."

what would she want with a fraudster of a bureaucrat? a few possibilities come to mind, but the conjecture is too scant to dwell on without any kind of idea of who she is first. "I'm about to head off to see if there are any authorities in the vicinity so I may alert them of this poor man's passing. but... who is he to you, exactly?" then, one arm unfolds from where both rest across her ribs, and offers a dark hand outward with palm up to the sky: an offer of introduction, a place for a hand to rest. "I'm arlecchino."

[avahlia]

RARELY DOES SHE COME ACROSS SOMEONE　🕯　so easily forthcoming. the dahlia's enigmatic smile doesn't flinch or waver, dark eyes intent with curiosity lingering on the woman and her every movement. most——human, animate, or otherwise——tended to startle when she appeared without warning, but this one had hardly twitched a muscle ; rather, like a seasoned predator, she had lifted her head and scanned her surroundings, confident in her grounds and ready, though not anxious, to defend it.

she senses in that very woman's gaze the same interest returned, though hers is far more muted, couched carefully in the diamond of black crosses that smolder unleveled. there is the scent of blood here ; more than just the quiet rot of death and decaying onset, it's something else, something she can't quite put her finger on.

is it this curious individual that it comes from. . . ? she has a hard time believing ' mr. kough ' could have entangled himself in such a decadent trail.

will-o-wisp depths lower to the outstretched hand, black, mottled, and not without wear——that untraceable impression of memory deepens. "you can call me constance. . . but i should warn you: touching me may bring some effects you might not be fond of. you might be better off being careful with who you offer your hand to." her guidance is gentle, like that of a loved one folding a warm coat about the shoulders in winter ; yet a distinct fervor that cuts a pure note through it nevertheless: she would love nothing more than to take that hand.

instead, her attention returns to their unlucky third party. "as for what ' he ' is. . . maybe calling him a ' former friend ' would be the most accurate. but rather than coming here to talk to him, i had been hoping to see him die."

she smiles at arlecchino again. "knowing that, will you still go and tell the guards to take him away?"

[avahlia]

#CORE VALUES.　the bedrock that informs how we live and behave, and what we pursue.　please repost, not reblog!

part one.　bold the values that apply to your muse. you can also strikethrough the ones that absolutely don't apply.

achievement　adventure　authenticity　balance　beauty　belonging　career　collaboration　commitment　community　compassion　competence　competition　courage　creativity　curiosity　dignity　empathy　equality　fairness　faith　family　fame　financial security　flexibility　freedom　friendship　fun　generosity　growth　happiness　harmony　health　honesty　hope　humor　independence　influence　inner peace　innovation　integrity　justice　kindness　knowledge　leadership　learning　love　loyalty　meaningful work　openness　order　passion　patience　perseverance　pleasure　power　recognition　relationships　reliability　spirituality　respect　responsibility　security　self-expression　service　simplicity　stability　success　teamwork　tolerance　tradition　trust　truth　wealth　wisdom

part two.　pick your muse's top 3 values from those bolded. list them below and say more.　(　i.e.　how they define it ; where does it come from ; how does it show up in them ; etc.　)　similar values may be combined.

i.　beauty.　constance's primarily value and motivator is grounded in aesthetic. only partly visual and moreso an emotional and philosophically-adjacent experience of beauty, this is ultimately where her thirst for experiencing everything that life has to offer stems from. as a gluttonous creature, constance revels in the full pendulum of living expression, human and otherwise. much of this is based in emotion ; she wants the good and the bad up to and encompassing all their extremes ( arguably especially the negative ), and finds particular beauty in watching and experiencing growth and subsequently inevitable decay. with so little known about her origins, this fixation seems to just be an innate fixture of her nature, and ties in with many of her other values. her love for the beautiful end primes her for adventure, encourages authenticity, draws out curiosity, and begets passion.

ii.　influence.　constance enjoys the idea of having influence——over others, but moreso than that, over trajectories, and being able to see them to their mesmerizing end. this is represented well in her ' something to share ' line: Do you still remember the Ever-Flame Mansion? In the Duke's memories, I was the child whom he always took the most pride in. I stirred up the flames of his ambition, and he fell on the road of the Destruction, only to create an opportunity for you to cross paths with the Nihility... A mere stoking is all it takes for the many "fates" in this cosmos to erupt into flames powerful enough to incinerate countless souls. in a number of her lines, she speaks with wistful rapture on the idea of being able to influence or alter ' fate ', and that's part of the reason she claims to love the moment of ' betrayal '——it's the moment when she's able to deviate the course of events from their current path and send everything careening off somewhere else to elicit countless new future possibilities.

iii.　patience.　the tenet of patience ties hand in hand with her appreciation of beauty——in her eyes, nothing at the apex of experiential aesthetic is achieved quickly or recklessly. the best foods are cooked over long hours and days rather than swiftly-made, and memories and experiences are the same. i'll refer to her ' knowledge ' voiceline for this one too, since it encapsulates it best: Wantonly editing memories or burning them all up without a second thought... That's how unbelievably banal my colleagues often are. But I like to wait. I wait for glorious things to fall into the past, for them to rot bit by bit like a pile of fallen petals, until they are covered with worms named lament and hatred. Then, under candlelight, I finally pick cherished mementos to be buried with them... The thought alone is intoxicating... tl;dr: constance is the queen of emotional edging i guess. and she's willing to wait patiently for however long it takes to obtain what she wants at its finest.

tagging.　go for it!

[balemouns]

crimson-stained snow.

elation commission: a body in the snow plains.

[balemouns]

against the freshly-fallen snow of this unforgivingly cold planet, the warm pool that spills out from the face-down man looks nearly black as it spreads wider, wider, wider: the fellow who had stood at the cliff overhead just minutes ago is not what he was when he had spoke, scowled, threatened, stammered, refused.

a pity, really: that fall wasn't exactly what she had planned on seeing to when she followed his trail out into this desolate and chilly wilderness. arlecchino's knees bend as she reaches down to pull a leather billfold out of his right pocket: at least he was the mr. kough she was looking for, despite all his denials. no family photos, just a few crumpled business cards --- both his own and crumpled ones that belong to others, and a punchcard for a food stand in the walled city that looms in the greywashed distance...

... what a pitiful way to live and to die.

arlecchino returns the billfold to the same pocket, then reaches up with the same blackened hand to feel at the bureaucrat's neck for any remaining pulse, despite the telltale crunch she'd heard from above. a hum as she waits, and nothing comes... his skin is still warm, but no life moves and flows beneath it. "hm..."

now what? besides his death, that still left the unresolved matter of...

... a barely discernible flash of warm black against the snow moves in the corner of her eye. arlecchino stands once more, then looks around quickly: was there someone else here, in that flash of black just now? "...?" one thought considers calling out to whoever else was nearby: another quickly subdues it, favoring a few sharp steps away from the body to look around a second, then third time.

@avahlia.

[avahlia]

BY WHAT MEANS SHOULD SHE REFER TO HERSELF?　🕯　was she a being? a creature? an ' entity '? certainly she had been called all these and many more. whichever the case, for that which she was, traversing through the paths behind those which ordinary people walked, there were fewer places so easy to move through as the now snow-ridden little planet that went by jarilo-vi. here, memory grew fervent like a virus, not only covering the surface of its everyday life but burrowed so deeply through its very being that it bled out onto the exterior in myriad forms. it flowed and danced——colorful, jagged, and free, in corrugated scapes of black and ruddy gold ; and when she panned her fingers through it, it came away like film and burned so readily, eating up her fire like salvation.

jarilo-vi was a planet heavy and tired with its own memory. how she would love nothing more than to rejoice and lavish as it came down to ash all around her. her love for this place——for she truly, truly loved it——was the kiln for its end, for only because she loved it did she wish so ardently to see the light of it in embers.

extricating herself from the wine of her thoughts, she releases an earnest sigh and returns her attention to the snowy expanse to which she draws near. long before any of that could happen, there was one more thing she wanted to see to before taking her leave from this place for a little whileﾠ(ﾠit was as they said——exactly because she loved something so much did she have to let it goﾠ) ,ﾠand all clues about it had led her here, where the individual who now called himself mr. kough had fled. . .

only to find himself at a most unfortunate end.

"looks like i've arrived just a little too late, even after everything. . . " she emerges from the space between memories with the flickers of blue flame licking at the edges of reality before fading, drawing the attention of the searching woman around to her. gold-tipped fingers tap against a pale cheek as she gazes down at the body——pricking, thinking. "what a shame." the ambiguity of her tone suggests it may or may not be. "are you the one responsible?"

[avahlia]

　❁ ❜　𝗗.𝗦. 𝗔𝗟 𝗖𝗢𝗗𝗔 .

post. 3.8

[avahlia]

IT IS A RARE TIME WHEN THE GOLDEN HOUR　🕯　is all but deserted. in penacony's dreamscape, there is no day or night——time passes only according to one's own internal clock, and sense of waking and resting is all too often one of the first things to go. but even in the land of miracles, there was wonders that can still transcend the imagination.

the curtains have been thrown wide, the false sky has been drawn back, allowing the true light from beyond to begin to pierce through. or so a historian would conclude, putting a period to the tale of this place before a weathered hand closes the final cover. penacony was waking, but there were plenty who still wished for slumber.

with them, it appeared, the family's young starlet would stand, embracing them within care until the very end. how charming. . .

ordinarily, the girl disguises herself around the twelve hours, choosing to go unrecognized. she would like to say it's for this reason that she's touched the fine strings of memory as she has, so that she approaches the other from behind not as a stranger, but a figment of something fond and familiar: the young halovian would recall her only as a nondescript friend who had come to her assistance recently at a crucial moment.

"miss robin. at a time like this. . . rather than standing in this square alone, shouldn't someone like you be celebrating?"

indigo depths lift to the towering statue of clockie before them, his frozen and eternal gaiety stark in the dead night where he seemed to have been stripped of his luster, his shine instead like that of gold leaf, liable to flake off with a single rub of a thumb. she, too, had spent almost all of her power for the nihility's final bow, limited now to simple, candlelight tricks. her eyes fall back to robin again, accompanied by a gentle smile. "how are you feeling now?"　/　@hopetune

[avahlia]

　❁ ❜　𝗦𝗛𝗘𝗗 𝗦𝗞𝗜𝗡 .

comm. ELATION⠀∶⠀belobog aftermath.

[avahlia]

DONNIE'S FAMILIARITY WAS A THING BROUGHT ON BY LONGING.　🕯　as it turns out, the planet of snow and ice, long blocked off from even the garden's reach by the influence of a stellaron, contained memories that were tricky, yet at the same time all too easy, to finesse.

this comes down to the fragmentum. a spotted tangle, ripe with rot all over and mixed in with new growth in unexpected places——it was as though she was looking on a jungle that hadn't been touched in centuries, terrifically overgrown, nigh untraversable, and thrillingly primordial. of course, she couldn't resist the allure of getting involved.

there had never been a donnie in the city of belobog. what there was was a desire for kindness, a need for stability, and a burning, persistent hope for the future that refused to be extinguished even as it flagged and withered down to its last smoldering embers. thus had donnie been all too easy to breathe to life ; she fit right in, she was all the weight the city placed on the solwarm festival, and she strode toward that better future with a brightness that lit the way. even when disaster struck, then battered her relentlessly as it did the iron walls of belobog, she crumpled but did not fall, and she would continue to lead the efforts to fight and to rebuild if she had to do so from her knees.

but such was the nature of fragmentum, that as the sun began to warm the earth again and the ice retreated, it became less and less worth holding onto the beautiful image she had woven.

and so, atop everwinter hill, at the peek of dawn, donnie breathes her last and is given away to the rosy-fingered light of morning as it comes over the distant horizon of treetops like feathered flame.

what stands in her place is the woman who had always been, who turns now at the approach of a second pair of footsteps to the city's highest point, white upon white upon white. ". . . i didn't think there'd be anyone else awake this early to take in this view."

"welcome——stellaron hunter who was nearly buried by the snow."　/　@neverendingdeath

[avahlia]

　❁ ❜　𝗘𝗜𝗚𝗘𝗡𝗚𝗥𝗔𝗨 .

comm. ELATION⠀∶⠀the solstice upon nod krai.

[avahlia]

THE CHILDREN OF NASHA TOWN HAD GONE MISSING.　🕯　it began four months ago with ava potanin, eleven years old, daughter of one of the nasha branch bank workers. despite days of investigation, she was never found, leaving a nondescript family quietly in pieces.

a week after her were asha and samuel sadeghi, the twins of a wealthy merchant magnate from sumeru who'd been down on his luck ever since his wife had left him. coming to nod krai, he had hoped to turn his fortunes around without needing to sell most of his ancestral belongings, only to lose the last things he cherished.

not two days later, while the town had begun to flare with rumors of everything from a serial kidnapper to the wild hunt, it was the late-discovered disappearance of filip rozman, better known as a street-roaming troublemaker who answered to ' flip ' than by family connection, that colored everything in a new light. in the ensuing investigation, the absence of the household guardian——one sofia rozman, sole proprietor of a claustrophobic property stuffed with a dozen children of varying ages——had been deemed suspect, derailing the search for days until she was tracked to a settlement near the starsand shoals where she had been regularly meeting up with a lover for the past year, leaving behind nasha town and those in her care for sometimes weeks at a time.

amid the public outcry and the ensuing commotion of civil services getting involved, it'd been easy to overlook the small discovery officials unearthed beneath the pillow that filip shared with a brother five years younger: a letter, penned in uneven hand on milk-stained paper, claiming the discovery of the riches of reed miller, the legendary treasure hoarder, and a detailed confidence of embarking to find it near the canyon. a letter that was confirmed to belong to the missing boy.

. . .

through the flickering flame, the image of the letter's rallying cry dances amid the light of a thousand tiny embers. ' seek the black raven, and the rest shall be revealed! '

a clawed hand closes to a fist, and the image curls in on itself, desiccating at the edges into black like brittle petals that burn down to its center. the watcher releases a heartfelt sigh, then extends that same hand, dismissing the flecks of ash into the seaside wind with a wistful smile. but they don't go so peacefully, catching instead with a crackling howl and the distinct impression of jagged eyes searing into her from all around——for she is imprisoned in this moment, and the flash of one bolt-like lance impaling the last of the departing memory reduces it to shattered glass.

she lifts her head to look past the brim of her hat to the one who has her trapped here, a man whose own memories she would love to fissure open a little, just like an eggshell, and peer into. one of nod krai's own ' lightkeepers ', a defender of the land's last grasps for dignity. "was that really necessary?" she refers to the threat display with a petering sigh that only thinly disguises its latent excitement. "i already promised you. . . the children are safe."　/　@aarnivalkie

[avahlia]

　　𝗦𝗧𝗔𝗥𝗧𝗘𝗥 𝗖𝗔𝗟𝗟 𑁍ࠬܓ

please like this post for a random starter from me on constance!

it might be commission if i can work it in, or it might not. i prefer takers who are willing to yes-and me and not only spend their posts replying to the content of mine, but also take the initiative to decide a bit of what happens next in theirs as well so that it is not entirely on me to drive the scene forward.

capping at 3 for now, to save room for the january board. thanks!　edit: closed.