raging wildfire

"run! all your refuges will be burned to ash. i am the impending doom! i am your demise!" || kalpas of honkai impact 3rd, affiliated with gnostic hymns

[bloodbxrn]

closed and affiliated rp blog for kalpas of honkai impact 3rd with @gnostichymns

talents // muse // mun // interview // playlist

[bloodbxrn]

[STEW] - Oh wow, this stew's been cooking for months! It's campsite tradition to add something new to it everyday. Though some mischevious campers have tried to sabotage it with outlandish ingredients, it manages to maintain a deep, delicious flavor that's as addicting as it is mysterious. Want a bite? Just toss something into the pot, then get some stew of your own!

THE MAN BESIDE HIM LOOKS TRULY FORMIDABLE, yet to the trained gaze of a genius he finds him to be a fellow of many faces as he so effortlessly carries tins upon tins of food that to anyone else would likely be a truly strenuous task. Yes, Screwllum can find little fault with a being of seemingly boundless strength, yet the ancient Intellitron can hardle allow another to outdo him as a hand reaches for the knife dug deep into the board.

To say he is intrigued is an understatement, watching as man carry meat on their shoulders before an idea is sparked in ancient cogwheels. "Pardon me..." A synthetic cough, turning towards a man that he suspects would be frightening in another life were it not for the shroud of snow covering his features. "Proposal: We should requisition meat for the stew, it would seem, after all, your can carrying has gathered a rather sizeable crowd of hungry admirers."

The aristocrat refers, of course, to the children that seem to have taken to staring like ducklings at the sizeable fellow. Truly, if he had the time to devote to it he would have felt some level of shame for his careful manipulation and yet the Erudition speaks to him, sings that the man beside him can almost be considered a friend to children. Yet Screwllum is content to continue chopping his root vegetables all the same, humans do so need a healthy diet after all, especially the short, growing ones.

Kalpas had been heaving and hauling stuff for the past while, and every time he lifted something it came with gentle awe from those around him, as though it were some big fucking deal that he picked something up and put it down somewhere else. It came to be that, every other crate or so, the children that had gathered convinced themselves to sit atop the crate and allow Kalpas to hoist it upward, dragging peals of laughter from them as though it were some big fucking game.

And, all right, maybe after the third or fourth time, he gave it a little shimmy, a little pizzazz, like it was a game. They seemed to like it, dizzy with delight when their feet touched the ground afterward, no matter how irritated the adults in charge of them looked.

The voice grated against his senses, and Kalpas glanced over, nose wrinkling underneath the mask at being addressed.

"Fuck you say?"

He hated shit like this, when people didn't just say what they meant-

"Oh, you want - sure, fine. Gotta be some around here. Not like this is the slum or anything. You," he gestured for one of the children, hovering in the periphery, who brightened at being called upon, "you gotta know where the meat is, right?"

"Only if I get a ride!" came the tart reply.

[bloodbxrn]

[ GUARD ]

The cold gnawed at her skin, and even the fire's crackle had taken on a hypnotic rhythm, like a loom beating out a pattern. Though her unseeing gaze was set on the project in her lap, fingers deftly wielding needle and thread to mend the torn arm of a child's teddy bear, her senses were stretched to maintain vigil beyond the fire.

A stutter in the darkness snagged against one of her golden threads, and Aglaea smoothly cinches her seam shut. She tucks the repaired bear into its owner's arms, the child drawing it close in his sleep, and Aglaea allows a small smile before raising her head to gaze at her companion.

"We have uninvited guests. Shall we attend to our duty?"

There was a quiet confidence about her that Kalpas found that he enjoyed watching, if only in large part because he suspected that she could not see him watching. It wasn't the same as Blind, but it was similar enough - in that, she moved about just fine, and she kept her hands busy, but there were subtle tells in her interaction with the environment that told Kalpas that this woman could not see, at least not with her eyes.

Hers were fucking open though, so excuse him if it was harder to tell.

It struck him, too, that like Blind, she did not seem as nonplussed by his presence as some others, those who might have seen the mask, or the shimmer of heat around him, and known in their prey-hearts that something was wrong.

He watched in some fascination as she sewed the child's bear shut, efficiently, clinically, and still managed the warmth in the handoff before turning to him.

He had heard the crunch of footsteps nearing, but more importantly he could feel it, from faroff, the lick of energy that told him whether it was something worth pursuing to grind into a smear in the snow. His head cocked, doglike, listening as though that might change anything, before he rose to his feet.

"Stay here," he said, rough edges of his voice belying the soft intention of the command. "I can take care of it myself. Don't need you so just...keep warm, or something."

[bloodbxrn]

[ MEMORY . ]

her hands that so rarely were allowed to be able to create , that were so used to slashing -- cutting down enemies in her way , fighting those who stand in her way , those she never knew .

. . . those she cared for the most .

rarely did she get to use them so gently , to give life to something , anything , her hands that finally lacked a blade picked up piece of scrap after scrap , until it finally resembled something like a lantern -- it wasn't the most perfect , but for her first time ever trying something like this ? she can't really complain .

eyes wandered over to those nearby , just like always , faces she's never seen , faces she cares for . . . and a masked man who likely wouldn't recognize her .

once finished , she would pull out a little piece of paper with a message written on it , slip it right into the lantern and step towards the man , whether or not he'd been participating , she still felt obligated to pay him a visit .

" it's really so eventful here , isn't it , stranger ? "

the lantern gently held in her hands , greeting the man with a smile . " sorry if it seems random , hope you don't mind , but I make it a point to try and meet someone new every time , I'm Raiden Mei . "

extending a free hand out to him , although she knew he probably wouldn't take it , she could still try , able to start off differently from their first meeting .

as for the note inside ?

even if none of you remember me . even if you will never know who i am . i will still value all thirteen of you , always .

This lantern looked like shit.

No matter how he twisted the metal, the many wires and scrap pieces of steel, it didn't resemble anything, let alone a lantern - it barely had space inside for the wish, which was the most important part, it did not have to be anything achievable, and he knew that there was nothing he could ever want that he would receive, but Kalpas continued to bend and fold the scraps until, after a long and arduous process where he definitely shouted things he should definitely not have been saying in mixed company, he held gently in his hands something that could feasibly have been...

Well, it's not like anyone was going to come inspect it, were they?

As his fingers fiddled with the latch, something delicate that he had only just managed to attach to the body of the thing, he heard the crunch of footsteps - someone who was used to approaching quietly, whether she was trying or not.

He suspected in this instance, she was trying. Why? Why would she even know to step cautiously near him?

Kalpas did not look up as she spoke to him, continuing to attempt to open that dainty little latch to the lantern, whither that wish be placed, and it may even have looked for a moment that he was ignoring her.

It was the hand that made him cease, head canting in its direction briefly to stare at it before he lifted his face to hers.

"Plenty of other people to meet," he said pointedly, eyes snapping downward as the latch finally opening with a tinny squeak, and he pushed the tightly rolled slip of paper inside before staring for a moment as the realization dawned on him that now he had to get it closed.

A small growl formed in his chest and rose to his throat, before he looked to the girl again and conceded; "Kalpas. Close this for me."

[bloodbxrn]

[ HUDDLE ]

He would not recognize her, not now that she was out of her disguise, but she surely recognized him. Just as she did in that arena, she neared him, basking in the warmth of kinship---and of him.

In that way, it must have been nice that his body was built the way it was. It was not always so hot that it would burn. All fires make for good hearths if one tended to it correctly. And Robin wished, so so Wished, to stoke this one into tenderness.

"It's nice to share the warmth," she said simply, with an eye-crinkling smile, "isn't it?"

While it seemed outlandish to him that anyone would find solace in his presence, it was not without the gentle hope of rationality that in a snowstorm, heat was the most valuable commodity, and that was something Kalpas had in abundance. He didn't fool himself into believing that this meant these fucking people suddenly liked him, or anything, simply that there was the fine line for them to tread being idiotic or fucking stupid.

He stiffened at the approach, finding something familiar in the gait but unable to quite place it, and thinking that perhaps he was wrong anyway - people didn't walk the same when it was cold as they did...where, where did he know her, he swore he did, but he had to be wrong about this, like he was wrong about everything.

"Nice for the people who don't have it," he snapped, but made no move to indicate that she was unwelcome, crossing his arms over his chest.

He said nothing about how it felt to give, because that was an opportunity to sparsely afforded to him, but sharing came in equal parts give and take, and Kalpas had nothing that he could take.

Nothing except the gentle comfort as the girl sat down, arranged herself beside him as though there was nothing wrong with him; nothing except for those moments of quiet acceptance, after which she would stand, and depart, and give that quiet acceptance to someone else who deserved it more.

[bloodbxrn]

[ SNOWBALL ]

That's when he takes himself to the outskirts where stews and campfires lift smoke and steam into the air and draws the eyes, draws the nose, and draws the heart. He can smell cooked broths and creamed stews with the sound of people all around—and he hears the cries of screaming children. A shrill cry once was filled with surprise and then laughter from somewhere else within the area where youths are playing. From small children to older teens all throwing snow, perhaps a few adults weaving in and out to pick up their kids or to drop them off… it was a warzone, if you can call it that in a juvenile sense.

With how the few children are acting with weaving in and out, it was not far off when Kosma could spot a familiar stature at the edge of it all. The warmth near him was sure to be visible, snow not sticking while the flakes disperse and are no match, and an ever present figure but not moving. A still target—althought he knows better than anyone he was still just as vigilant.

But does that stop him from pointing the man out, under his breath and with a few youths watching him ball up snow. With him feeling back, he throws the snowball at a familiar tuft of ashen tipped hair, and aims at the square of his center mass. He knows it'll never make it, something as flimsy as warming snow would never, but the silent declaration of play is real. Around him, kids stare with tilted heads.

Kalpas knew he was being watched, because of course he was. Of course there were a pair of eyes on him, a flock of them, between curious children and their cautious parents, and those still more familiar eyes that he had never shaken the shackles to, the way that they felt more like a tightening collar than a hand on the shoulder.

But he knew the feeling of other eyes as well, and this figure was familiar, as foreign to these Belobogers as he was himself, as odd and striking a figure, no matter how quiet this one was.

Kosma tried to slip through the crowd, tried to hone the hunter's instincts, and he came up a little short, as ever.

Kalpas let the snowball hit him - if it could be called a hit - and by the time Kosma had straightened from his throat, there were great handfuls of snow in Kalpas' palms, dripping wet and condensing by the moment from the heat, from the pressure, and he lobbed them with a speed and ferocity only achievable by Decimation himself.

The cackles escaped him in time with each of the snowballs' hits against Daybreak, and Kalpas threw his arms wide.

"Come on, then, let's make a bigger target for you - !!"

Another scoop, flung, another hit, another laugh.

Any onlooker might have been hard-pressed to determine if they were truly enemies, or friends, or something else altogether.

[bloodbxrn]

[FIRE]

Much like the cats that so decorated Mondstadt’s streets, Dahlia’s languid behavior was often compared to one- as was his mischievous streak and tendency to pick up more than he should. Once he had taken his station in the Church, such habits had faded into something a little more austere, or at least, his guard had not been let down enough to return to such actions.

Here, however, he is cold, and the bonfire, while warm, was also crowded with others- noisy and bustling. He had enjoyed his time among them, and now slid up to another who stayed a distance away but nevertheless radiated the same warmth.

“Hahh… You don’t mind if I sit here for a while, do you?” A stretch, tucking legs up into his chest in a gesture distinctly boyish, violet eyes blinking at the strange man with a mask. Regardless of response, eyes half-lidded meant a guard was lowered, and exhaustion would do the rest.

The air shimmered faintly around him, nearly a vacuum against the cold and the sound of peals of bell laughter in the streets, allowing him to move through Belobog as though he were a mirage, something that the people who resided in the city could not have been quite sure was real, or not.

It was nice enough, for a while, to simply exist, to enjoy the faint sizzle and steam of snowflakes that dotted his skin before evaporating into the air.

Kalpas was not so used to being the observer, someone who was granted the luxury of sitting to one side to watch the surroundings and the way they worked - his lot was the observed, the constantly monitored, and even on this rock he suspected Deliverance and that doctor of his were taking notes of his behavior, good or otherwise, marking them down for the next time they needed a calamity from him.

But for the moment, he could sit, almost feeling the cold, almost feeling the sun.

The press of another into his space startled him, only for how calm it was, how unconcerned at his very being, and Kalpas nearly began to growl low in his chest when the boy sat down, despite asking first.

"Go ahea- "

But he already had, already curled up and began to half doze in a way that was almost familiar, almost nostalgic, and when in that half dozed state the boy tipped to one side and his head hit Kalpas' arm, he kept himself impossibly still, only craning his neck to make sure that he wouldn't wake with a crick in his neck.

Though the snow continued to fall delicately around them, for all his stillness, it could not gather on him - but when it started to pile on the boy, he reached over his other arm and gently brushed it off.

[bloodbxrn]

[ CONFLICT ]

“Please cease this infighting immediately!” Gepard’s voice rang across the uproarious crowd, which easily got overshadowed and lost in all the noise. Beginning on his way to push his way through to the center that housed the two individuals that the masses had flocked to once the altercation had begun. Regretfully, he wasn't paying close attention, and didn’t see how it all began. The only reason he knew now was due to one of his men coming to him in a fit of panic asking for assistance. 

“Hey! Watch where you're going!” A crowd-goer screamed at him as he accidentally bumped into them in his rush. Feeling awful that he wasn’t able to state his sorry to the individual, but he doesn’t stop, as he was determined to put a stop to this violent display.

The crowd let out a loud cheer once he made it through to the front, likely due to fight in the middle, and he was right. One of the individual's just completed a wide swing that completely missed their opponent. The reckless move making them lose their footing, tripping over their own feet and moving with the momentum to stay standing. Surprisingly, they managed and righted their stance. 

Right in front of where Gepard was standing.

From what he saw, the person's face was completely red, facial expressions full of anger, rapidly they turned to get ready to charge back into the fight. Raising their hand in a tight fist, but Gepard had seen enough. Before the individual could move, the Captain grabs onto their wrist to stop them. "Hang-" He tried to say, but was cut off rather abruptly when the aggressor wanks their arm out of his grip. Whirling around to punch Gepard square in the face.

All this over a fucking heel of bread.

It was stale, and not even the whole loaf, let alone a bread bowl to fill the belly of whatever lean, wolfish dredge pulled out from the city's underbelly - but then that was the thing, wasn't it? It wasn't the shitty stale ass end of yesterday's loaf, it was the absence of everything else, in comparison to the steaming bowl and salted baguette that some of those posh citygoers received.

Kalpas did not hunger, he had no need for the soup or the bread or the heat that they provided cupped between desperate palms, nor even for the comfort of community that the action of taking and receiving provided. He hunkered with the rest of them, ushered and prodded into the city square, that pretty plaza as everyone turned their eyes to the sky in despair at the roiling white.

It had started small, a few bitter comments here, a shoulder check there, but ramped quickly in a way that only deep-seated bitterness could, and the fight that seemed to have started from a spark erupted into a blaze before his very eyes.

"You think I didn't notice? That you took twice the portion?"

"Oh, fuck off! I took the same that everyone else did - "

"Yeah, this time around! Change your hair a little bit, put on a scarf - I see you, asshole! You've been through the line twice now!"

The guards would come, as they always would in situations like these, an attempt at order in spite of the burgeoning hatred that remained underneath the surface. Kalpas watched as those armored men tromped into the crowd, pushed everyone back with those massive shields, and even as Blondie got his clock cleaned, whirling in the fray.

His fellow guards could have formed up, then, if they'd the reflexes, could have moved to file around him in the way training with those shields surely could have, and maybe that would have stopped the riot that was simmering just beneath the surface, or maybe it wouldn't, or maybe it didn't matter as bodies began to shove against one another with impatience, with carelessness, bootsoles grinding the stale heels of bread into the dirt -

Kalpas surged forward, a fist curling into the shirtfront of the largest man, whose own fist was raised and ready to strike, and whose anger had shoved a girl in red to the stones, the steam of her soup misting the air as celery and carrots embedded in the mortar.

"Give her yours," he snarled, and the heat rolled from him in waves, the baring of teeth in warning, a tiger snapping its teeth in the face of a pup whose ego was as big as the feet he tripped over.

Apologies muttered underbreath, more servings of soup doled out, and those stale fucking heels of bread - the same as everyone got - and Kalpas turned to slink back into the crowd.

But not before he cocked a head at that blonde man, certainly the leader of this coterie of guards, and assessed him silently for a moment, and finding him wanting.

"Need to keep a better eye, don't you? Lot of people. Lot of tempers."

[bloodbxrn]

— [ BET ] GHSnowswept2025 ❅

This bracket is as complicated as they come, match conditionals on constant rotation to keep the betting masses on their toes.

Otherwise known as a scam at best and rigged at the worst… but Jing Yuan merely folds his arms over the rail and observes the organized chaos. Unfair or otherwise, it serves its purpose.

( The fee the venue takes from all wagers is another form of robbery, but this is exactly what spurs him to reach for his personal funds. )

Peaceful, he admits - not for the sweat and blood on display for greed and entertainment, but for the anonymity he can enjoy in the meantime. Jing Yuan has never preferred needless shows of strength, knows that martial prowess is nothing without the reason moving the pieces around the board.

“Kalpas, is it?” Jing Yuan’s chosen chess piece is… double-edged. When he steps into the ring, he is a marvel with no counter - able to maneuver the board as if immune to the laws of the game. Jing Yuan’s expression is polite, eyes just shy of falling shut when he blinks. “It is a pleasure to sponsor such a skilled combatant.” Skilled. He could have said destructive, chaotic, unpredictable, but he suspects it would be nothing the other doesn’t know of himself.

Offering his hand, he passes the tournament roster with the other. “I look forward to making your acquaintance.”

Kalpas wasn't unused to being viewed as a weapon, and after his time with the Fire Moth, the soldiers who would hoot and holler to see him step into the ring and skirt their way around him in the hall, eager to look upon him but never at him, places like this rolled off his shoulders, same as the curl of steam as he felt his control begin to slip, bit by bit.

It was the common misconception that he was a single bad moment from leveling the surface of a planet, from burning everything in a hundred mile radius down to cinders and smearing the ash across his chest in a display of manic superiority.

A misconception he had never found the need to correct. Maybe he was a bad day from ending it all, these idiots never knew, and they would never need to, bumping chests and trying to find his eyes through the mask as though no one could hear their knees knocking.

For all his polite veneer, this one was no different, looked at him as though his teeth were bared and poised to tear at the jugular. Kalpas regarded him quietly for a moment, gaze flicking downward to the extended hand, and then to the roster, letting the movement around them pulse like a vibrant heartbeat.

Then he took the hand, grip relaxed, nearly blase as he nodded, almost uncertainly. Whether it was sincere or not, the calm civility was something rare, unpaired with the fearful collar of Deliverance around his throat.

"Whatever you bet, put more on it," he said. "Unless you came here for the show. It won't last long."

[bloodbxrn]

[ COMPANY ]　/　"an out of control beetle?" aventurine inadvertently ends up parroting the workshop staff out of surprise. ". . . how much trouble can that be?"

he envisions the ones they've been surrounded by so far: ankle-high, a couple feet long at most, a foot wide, about as capable of chaos as a horseshoe crab. most of them couldn't even be programmed to do anything more elaborate than vacuum. but the worker's face suggests something a lot more concerning than a rogue roomba, and she wrings her hands together at the tone of his doubt, shaking her head nervously. "i—it's different from the ones that've been laid out here for civilian repair. . . the GILGAMESH B-INFINITY was one of the previous workshop owner's projects that was never finished. it's a lot. . . um, much, much bigger. . . "

first of all, it takes him a second to get past the name.

"just how much bigger are we talking?"

. . .

a couple of minutes later, and he has a much better grasp of the look of panic on her face. not only was this automaton the size of a tank, but it'd also been equipped with defensive protocols a lot more advanced than most things on belobog, apparently drawing from lost technological artifacts dating from before the eternal freeze.

as for how those defensive protocols had been triggered, who's to say. but he knew when he was in over his head. "really sorry, but as you can see, i'm just your ordinary businessman. as for putting down a rogue machine of that size. . . " he turns around just as the door to the workshop opens, revealing an imposing man who steps in from the cold light of the frigid morning to the interior of lamps and warm bronze decor. lady luck smiles on him again. the corners of his lips twitch as he gestures promisingly: "i'm sure this gentlemen would be much better suited for the part and happy to help."

He had been followed for some miles - it felt like miles, through the winding paths littered with robot detritus and human ingenuity, and perhaps a little of their resentment and hopelessness as well, or perhaps those were the same thing, he didn't fucking know - and it wasn't even subtle. Kalpas has simply been idling, out of the way and safe for the people of Belobog, didn't even need babysitting this time, he could be left to his own devices, if the others could have been bothered to see it, but every few feet or so there was the clunk, and fizz, and whirr of something too large to pass through, not quite knowing what its parts were doing.

If he were in a more forgiving mood, he might have sympathized, but when he looked over his shoulder to find the creature scuttling on legs larger than tree trunks in his direction, its massive red eye locked onto his form, he found himself less in the mood for it.

Wasn't like it was someone's pet or nothing.

He did not even allow it to reach the appropriate range for the aperture in its eye to adjust, simply counted a hopping step, one, two, three, and he was in the air and the heat was swirling out from the seep of ICHOR in his veins and out from his palms, fingers curling into claws to rend into the heart of the thing. The fizz and pop of circuitry crackled in time with the bubble of metal, and he could almost hear the echo of his laughter against the steel case of the thing as he cracked it open piece by piece.

Sometime later, and he found himself followed again - and it felt like miles, heavier now for the stares of the humans around, because there were always stares, some curious, but with their resentment and hopelessness as well - all the way to the little robotics shop at the end of the settlement.

The screech that came with dragging the corpse of shell-metal behind him certainly did nothing to stem the tide of attention, but he ignored it, dumped the thing in a heap outside the shop before he shouldered his way in, stiffening at the eyes that fell upon him instantly.

"You take scrap?" he asked without preamble, ignoring the man who looked at him like an opportunity. "I found a bunch of it out in the wastes."

[bloodbxrn]

distant spark of warmth

He's never been good at these big celebrations - at the merriment, at the large crowds of people, at the heightened emotions to celebrate something so simple as the sun in the sky.

But as he makes his way through the streets and feels the thrum of something warm, Kalpas thinks that he might for a moment be looking at the sky and finding the same comfort that they are.

He's largely in the Robot Settlement, but you can feel free to grab him for your needs anywhere!

[ PART ONE PROMPTS ] [ PART TWO PROMPTS ]

Snow Plains - Gepard, Dahlia

Museum - Screwllum, Aglaea

Fight Club - Aventurine

Robot Settlement - Kosma, Robin, Raiden Mei

Administrative District - Jing Yuan

[arboriter]

oh mary, contrary

[arboriter]

“Mm.” Su hums in response, almost uncaring in its serenity- though the fact that he remained was proof to the contrary. Rising heat does nothing to a mirage, and Bodhi had always been unconcerned with the promises of violence sent his way. “My body isn’t here, anyway.”

It wasn’t somewhere that could be reached, anymore, if it even mattered- a remnant of the past, as well, the reminder that he was once alive in the way that he was no longer. But even those details were trivial, now. 

Trivial to whom? Su had never even attempted to see where his body was, had not spared it a second glance as his proof of transcending physical bounds, of losing what little was left to ground him in the world he once lived in. 

But clearly, it was important enough to grant a thought to, even if its very owner did not care to mention it further.

“I can’t stop you.” Pleasantly, almost conversationally- as if it were not spoken as a challenge but rather a genuine question, or perhaps more accurately, as a friendly debate. “I don’t plan to, either.”

A separate thought, one whose distinction was necessary. There was a great deal that Su claimed to be unable to do, but more importantly- and similarly more rarely was his admission to fail to try.

[bloodbxrn]

Neither of them would have admitted it if asked, nor would it have even occurred as a though, that what had just occurred was an exchange of permission - Kalpas too proud to ask it, and Su too humble to give it. But it was the tacit assurance that his body would not be in danger, and the nudge that he would not stop Kalpas, that seemed to be the final thing that either of them was waiting for. 

If, in fact, they were waiting for anything. 

Kalpas puffed up his chest a bit, though whether it was the expression of that pride, in preening, or taking a deep breath in preparation, or something else entirely – was something that even he could not have said. 

The crooked smile widened a fraction, then dropped. 

"Well. Then what the fuck are we still doing here?" 

It ignored a number of things, as many conversations with Kalpas were wont to - what was he doing here to begin with, why had he stayed, why had he allowed them to chain him if even for that singular breath before he decided on his whim that he no longer wanted to be here. 

But whatever switch in his mind had been triggered, and the heat began to rise, condensation from the cool stone very quickly evaporating with little screams of steam pressing through the cracks in the mortar, and off in the distance, he heard the telltale scramble of someone who understood that something was about to go terribly wrong. 

And then Kalpas burst forward, rending stone and metal alike beneath him, and leaving the cell behind in a whirlwind of wretched flame, mindless as ever of the destruction that crumbled in his wake. 

[bloodbxrn]

givin’ ‘em the ol’ razzle dazzle

[wind-blumes]

I was, in fact, following you just now, Venti had been tempted to point out, but the man he had followed seemed like a very temperamental man and so he stayed silent and watched him sniff around on all fours. 

Indeed, it was quite the ask for him to tell Venti to leave when Venti himself had just witnessed some incredibly suspicious behavior right in front of him! If he had been mildly curious before, he was overflowing with the stuff now. And besides -

“You’ll get hurt,” the man had said, and now he really wanted to know what was going on. Obviously, he wouldn’t disregard his own safety, but Venti was certainly sturdier than your average mortal, and if what this man was looking for could be potentially dangerous to any other banquet attendee he’d rather it be him getting hurt than anyone else. 

“I’m stronger than I look. And older,” he said, and then sighed. Wow, he really must seem like a petulant child. Wearing shorts and stockings also wasn’t exactly helping his case. 

“You do realize you look rather suspicious right now, right?” he asked, deciding to approach this from a different angle. “Trying to be all secretive about whatever it is that you’re doing won’t make me go away. If you at least tell me what you’re looking for, I can try to be helpful.”

He walked towards the wall that the man was currently snooping around and placed his own hand on it, but didn’t sense anything out of the ordinary. Opting to cross his arms instead, he stared at the man expectantly. “So? What’ll it be?”

[bloodbxrn]

Well, if he knew what he was looking for, then he wouldn't be looking, now would he? 

It was awfully tempting to shoot that back in the kid's face after his snooty little tone, but that was engagement of a different problem that was distracting him further from the initial problem – ie, the thing he didn't know about that he was following, or trying to. 

Kalpas wrinkled his nose up at the kid, and then as he rose to standing once more down at the kid, eyes narrowed in response to the expression the boy was wearing as he proudly proclaimed he was not merely stronger than he looked, but older. 

The crowd had begun to spiral back in this direction again, no longer cushioned by the pocket of secrecy that they'd had before, and if he wanted to get behind this wall – and he did, very badly, knowing in his gut that this was where the muscled suit had gone to – then he would have to do it before too many eyes were on them. 

"If you get your ass beat, it's on you," Kalpas promised, leaning forward and prodding a finger in the child's direction, before he shoved his shoulder with some force against the wall – it shivered in response, unused to such rough treatment but sliding open a few inches nonetheless to reveal the chamber behind the false wall. "I won't come running if you find yourself in deep shit. Now go on – go!" 

He ushered the boy inside with a hand before slipping in himself and sliding the wall back into place behind them, squinting a bit as his eyes adjusted to the change from great sparkling ballroom lighting to the softer near-dark of the corridor they now found themselves in, faintly humming from the din of the party just a few feet separate from them. 

"Damn, lost him - " 

[bloodbxrn]

when the moon hits your eye like a predator in the night - that’s amore

[aevitium]

Elysia knows it is not her dream for a number of reasons. 

That the colors are too dark, the atmosphere too rugged. That it lacks a layer of candy floss fog, coloring it in all the ways that something less than human might see it. Her eyes wander the treetops, a melodic hum from her throat at Kalpas's commentary. 

"I'm as surprised as you are," comes her musing in response. To think him one to daydream about something so simple-- so calm and pleasant-- how wildly it contrasts with everything she has ever known the man himself to be, and yet how oddly fitting she decides it is. Slotting quite nicely into the idea of him that Elysia has always chosen to believe in the existence of, what might be left of him and his desire were someone to finally siphon all that hatred and anger away at last.

Her smile turns self-satisfied, a grand objective achieved. Here, in this miraculous invention of a tunnel, she has finally proven it.

That's when it occurs to her that the clouds have turned a darker, heavier grey. That the air around them has begun to cling too closely to her skin, too-warm and unsettlingly heavy. Her head cants curiously, searching for the source in the endless sea of trees on their either side. Nothing, only the chattering of a few birds, the world seemingly yet to become aware of what goes on above it.

Clockie Studios must just be having troubles with their air conditioner, she determines, the air steadily growing hotter. How fortunate that her body hasn't the need for sweat, though she taps her cheek to inspect for running makeup regardless.

"Not so bad, now is it?" Sing-song, she looks to her company again. "Maybe we should plan a real camping trip, since I've dreamed of it so long and all~"

[bloodbxrn]

It wasn't unusual for her to make fun of him, although in most instances he usually knew what she was making fun for – what was strange was for her not to rub it in, to leave it so ambiguous that Kalpas could only furrow his brow as the boat bobbed along the chugging water of the artificial stream and pulled them further into the treeline. 

"I guess," he conceded. Indeed, there was nothing now stopping them from doing something so mundane as a camping trip - if this did not end up what she had envisioned in truth, something that he was slowly coming to suspect was not the case. There was no strong houkai threat, there was no looming Finality -  

There were no Flamechasers. 

The thought stilled him for a moment, although it was equally likely that it was the shift in the environment that caused his heart to stutter, arrhythmic skipping along still water as he took in the sky and the trees and that smoke, that curling, familiar smoke. 

A fist pounded on the side of the boat, swaying them with a hint more violent urgency than the placid chug forward. 

"Hey!" he called into the empty wilderness that began to envelope them, watching as the rise of heat grew closer to them, Elysia's fingers fluttering about her face. "Hey, turn the boat, we can't go this way!" 

He didn't know how this worked, whether there was anyone guiding the boat down the path it needed to go, or what powered them forward – all he knew was that he didn't need to see the base of the pillar that was cresting over the dark canopy of trees, enough at a distance that it seemed a small thing, but looming with intention all the same. 

Kalpas shifted, made to stand, but the bar over his lap tightened, and he sucked in a breath, the feeling of being confined all the more intense for the great open sky. 

[bloodbxrn]

and then we drop a chandelier on em

[bloodbxrn]

Previews for the Golden Theater's new show are now live. This season's production of 'Neverwinterland' is meant to celebrate Belobog's triumph over destruction, and was written especially for the Solwarm Festival. There's just one problem, however… During the first night of open rehearsals, the big geomarrow centerpiece collapses onstage! Thankfully, no one's been horrifically injured, but the production's been put on a pause. Witnesses say that they saw a shadowy figure in the wings at the time of the incident. Is this sabotage from a trounced performer, jealous of the principal cast? A simple accident? Or is there something more supernatural at play? Phantoms of all kinds love to linger onstage, after all.  (starter for @disciplineswrath)

Even through the closed doors to the frigid outside, through the halls stacked with dense, plush carpet and warmed by the light of antique fixtures, the bombastic notes of the overture spilled into the air to dance with the snowflakes in the late afternoon sun. Rehearsals had been running for some days now, but as opening crept ever closer, things needed to be stitched together to form the cohesive unit that audiences would gasp and cry over, to find shared delight and movement in. 

Even under the powder and the sweat, the steaming breaths of everyone gathered and the dust shivering down from the far corners of the high rafters, Kalpas could smell her perfume. It was the familiar scent that wrapped its shackles around his throat and made the corner of his lip curl into nearly a snarl, more effective than any manmade chain. 

It distracted him as much as it grounded him, infuriated as much as soothed him, reminded him that there was a place he had once thought of as home, and everything that came with that. 

"Sir? Sir, if you could project - ?" The director had been reticent about taking them on as his performers, anxious more it seemed at the idea of a poor performance than he was at the thought of his primadonna being squashed by something falling on her head. 

The fact that he had nearly stood his ground when he'd asked Kalpas to remove his mask was something Decimation had never quite seen, a quivering waif of a man around an iron spine. Regardless of outcome, it was impressive that he had tried. 

Kalpas exhaled once, short and sharp through his nose, as though that would clear it of the stench of pollen and indigo flowers, flicked his eyes upward to the heavy spotlight. 

"Line," he demanded, a curt grunt. 

[bloodbxrn]

well i think it's a metaphor

[grannyitztli]

The stars had more literature that Citlali previously thought, lending themselves to novels with, well, quite novel ideas. Finding herself intrigued by this dreamlike university, she decided to attend an open discussion about the hit new book with various different endings that somehow also heralds doom for the entire world she finds herself in.

Art should disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed… but this all seems a bit much over a novel. Though I will admit, this has to be some of the best writing I have seen in a while.

Citlali finds an open seat near a young man with a mask… quite the odd attire for a book discussion, but is quickly dismissed it, focusing on the discussion.

Despite being an avid reader, the meaning of most it as well as completely understanding the ending evades her, but after some time, it seems clear that these students, yappers as kinich would call them, did not seem to have deep intellectual insights that she was looking for.

The young man next to her though, he is the real problem. Constantly making noise, loudly shifting, and being an over all nuisance. It’s taking everything in her not throttle him right here and now, and then the noise box finally decides to open his mouth.

“So when are going to talk about the gun? He had a gun, right?”

She immediately shoots up, sending her chair scattering backward, rattling against the floor.

“Stop it with your useless drabbl-“ before she can finish an idea pops in her head, stopping her from continuing any further, looking upon the young man with eyes and mouth agape.

“Oh my archon, he had the gun the whole time. He was never helpless, he was feigning weakness.”

Seeing all the eyes on her, she quickly composes herself, summoning citlalin and quickly sitting back down.

“I’m sorry for my outburst young man, my name is Citlali. I’ll forgive you for all the disruptive noise you made earlier if you would you talk more about the gun. You seem to be the only one out of all these yammering students who actually paid attention to the text.”

[bloodbxrn]

Oh, so she hadn't read the book either. 

Look at this lady, she thought she was so slick. They always were when they talked about forgiveness that he didn't ask for, trying to wrap him into the shape that they wanted him to be in. In most cases, he let it roll off of him in silence, knowing that they were wrong about him, and knowing there was nothing he could do to change it. 

No one ever expected his forgiveness, even when they hadn't asked for it. 

"'Zat what you think a gun is for?" Kalpas didn't feel the need to rise to match her outburst, and was rather the picture of contrasting coolness - the chair screeched once more as he shifted his weight again to lean back, draping an arm over the uncomfortable seat that hardly contained him. "You think it's to make him feel helpful?" 

"Well, actually," chirped the young lady in the front row, who had been hanging off of every word put forth as though any of this had any worth, twisting about in her seat to face them fully, "The opposite of helpless isn't necessarily helpful - " 

"And neither was that," Kalpas snickered. "I know the opposite of helpless is empowered, but we're talking about the fact that he was a worthless piece of - " Oh, he'd been scolded about this before, probably - canting his head he filled in, a touch ruffled, "Gum." 

Shaking his head, he continued. "He had the gun and he didn't use it. Lotta good it made him, at the end. Who should he have fired it at, lady?" 

Smiling, although he knew it couldn't be seen, he added, "Not everyone needs a gun not to feel useless." 

[hopetune]

Death is potential to that Man

˚ʚ [robin & kalpas ] ɞ˚

[hopetune]

The Music, for a Moment, comes to a sudden Silence—she had so Hoped (always Hoped...!) that this man would be her ally, but suppose a Fight would have different stakes for different People. It was Selfish—Naive—to think that theirs could be aligned. She lowers her sword a bit, the very same he had tapped.

"...No, I won't give you the reason. If you want to fight me even after everything, then I'll let you." Robin says, sad but Unafraid, "Your choice is yours."

The songstress dashes to the side, narrowly avoiding a Desperate lunge from one of the remaining guards. The commentator's yells feel like White Noise, and the heavy beat of her heart echoes uncomfortably in her ears. Still, she presses on. Her grip on her sword is loose, and her retaliation is only a Suggestion of an attack, but Damn if she would not keep trying—Damn if she did not even try! For Harmony was as much eliminating the Noise as it was creating Music. If she could not do the former, she could never do the latter.

( This Man—this Flame—would he be Noise, too? Could she not try to let him join the Music? Could she not do that for everyone? )

Teeth grit. Glossed lips turn red from tightness. The Sweat of her Skin grows thicker the longer her head stays Caged within the helmet. But she Continues on—She Tries and Tries again, so unused to what her body is doing. Readjusting her stance, she finds herself standing with her back almost against the Man's—the Fire that flickers off his Body pierces through her armor, and she feels its Heat like a Planet feels the Destruction of its core—so Innate, so Internal, so Edifying so as to be her own Flame.

More guards enter from the right. Reinforcements, Robin guesses—meant to remove the Man from the arena. But the songstress would not let them. She could not.

"Sir, to your right—!" She calls out, "More of them come. They surely want to arrest you, but..." Robin does not Realize it, but her Voice sounds just a touch bit different—more Resonant, perhaps, "I... can't let them take you away. I just can't."

[bloodbxrn]

Kalpas wrinkled his nose – well, it was less of a wrinkle, since the mask on his face had begun simultaneously to char and fuse with the ichor in, making what had been implacable and flat into the terrifying visage of the beast whose teeth only bared – and snorted his disgust. 

This too was a mask, the shifting beat of his heart in his chest as her back pressed fearlessly against his. He knew the heat that he put off, knew that it would be intolerable for any human, and yet it seemed that to her, the distance was more intolerable. 

All this fight in her, and she wouldn't even defend herself against him. It wasn't pathetic, but he didn't know what it was, only that it nudged a corner of his memory gently until he found himself seeking the planes of a familiar face underneath that helm, knowing that he wouldn't. 

The disgust, though, wasn't just for her pliant acceptance - of his assistance? Of his rage and the destruction that followed with him? 

"And what're you gonna do about it with that stance? What're you holding there – it ain't gonna bite you if you get a proper grip on it." 

The reinforcements circled them, as their predecessors had, but for the one or two that dragged away the two that Kalpas had already dispatched with those singular motions. The uniforms on these guys were different, they were, well, uniform, and Kalpas canted his head as he counted them, grin widening as he heard the sound of bootfall that promised more. 

"Look, you gotta hold it – you drop it when you finally stick a man, that'd just be embarrassing." 

As though in demonstration, he gently propped his palm on her elbow and guided it forward with a sharp motion, the point of the sword embedding itself into the thigh of an oncoming guard, who grunted in surprise. 

"See? Now try to pull it out – not gonna be able to with that pussy grip. Body acts like a vacuum, so you really gotta - " And his hand traveled downward, enclosed over her own to ape the proper grip, and tugged the blade out of the man's leg, leaving him crumpled to the ground, seeping from the nicked artery. "Really have to put your whole ass into it."