茨の谷

[coeurabyssal]

[ × ] [ DISAGREE ]  -  Have a disagreement with a member of your appointed Defense Exam Team,  whether you are able to mediate this is up to you! 

Butting heads with Ashengrotto was not at the top of his list for ‘things to do during a crisis’, but Night Raven University was nothing if not incredibly unpredictable and inconvenient.

The thing about these two going head to head was the fact that it took an act of the gods to make either of them drop their composed acts.

A prince and a salesman, locked in a battle of manufactured pleasantries. Delightful!

Watch as their piercing gazes dare one another to snap back at thinly veiled insults! Marvel at the way the cephalopod attempts to start a business venture in the middle of Diasomnia’s ruined carpets! Feel pity for the little redheaded one as he senses that the vibes are, as a human would say, ‘rancid’!

Malleus is not the sort to mediate, but given the circumstances, he deigns to let the matter rest by simply scaring the daylights out of Azul, flashing an impossibly wide, alien smile, pupils sizing the other up like the most trivial of prey.

Nothing is more disconcerting than the never-before-seen, after all.

And nothing more obnoxious than knowing no one would believe you when you relayed what you saw.

[coeurabyssal]

@vorpalswxrd | continued from here

“Rosehearts.”

It’s neither a greeting nor a question— a blunt acknowledgment from the oh-so-enigmatic prince. Was he perhaps angry about the lost invitation? Or simply the type who did not mince words?

Truly, most of the leaders knew next to nothing about him aside from his status as a mage, his bloodline, and the fact that he was one of the more formidable figures to encounter on campus in the wee hours of the morning.

It made his next words all the more unexpected.

“I wish to sample a parfait. I have never consumed one prior— nor have I had the opportunity.”

Long lived he was— it was hard to believe that he’d somehow missed out on a relatively common food. Was it sheltering? Another case of the Briar being odd?

“Is there a problem?”

[coeurabyssal]

@crossedtheline | continued from here

“With physical means, of course— gold, currency, and various gems.”

Only one of the aforementioned means of payment was normal, so that certainly spelled problems in terms of a measured response to this situation.

“I would hesitate from using magic in this space, child of man.”

Green eyes are luminous against the relative pitch darkness of the closet— and they don’t waver in intensity or focus despite the sound of something… distinctly scale-y brushing against the stone floor.

A black mass, large, serpentine.

“I cannot ascertain the nature nor origin of this curse, and I fear magic would only harm our situation.”

The dark shape lunges between them, smashing against the ancient wooden door with wall-shaking force, splintering apart boards and ripping it from the hinges.

A mass of wood hits the floor with an almost deafening slam, only made more unnerving by the odd emptiness of the campus.

What manner of beast did the prince summon? A hydra? Some sort of shapeshifter?

The answer was quite dull, really— as the culprit was quickly revealed by the dim lighting of the hallway to be a tail.

“ . . . I suppose in cases like this, rudimentary solutions work just as well.”

[coeurabyssal]

@citrus-perfume | continued from here

Good, Silver responded.

It wasn't as if he could pester Lilia about dinner ingredients with his track record. The best option was a joint effort of sorts between at least two of the less-volatile cooks.

🐉> turnips for soup.

Something in particular perturbed him... How did 'Silver' make that little face? Others did this, but when he asked Lilia how to do it, he said something about him 'not being ready for that'.

Whatever that meant.

He wasn't eighty anymore.

🐉> how do you make the phone smile?

[coeurabyssal]

you can (not) kill mario with your mind

Malleus was hardly someone who had interest in video games.

Other than his GaoGao, they simply didn't make sense- and putting a controller in his hand was, as Lilia once said, "a guaranteed way to brick your console". Whatever that meant. He'd never thrown a brick at any of Lilia's Super Bintendos.

That aside... Malleus loathed being excluded. Even if it was for the general safety of the dorm.

When Lilia decided the dorm activity would be a game of Superb Mario, Malleus was delegated to his high backed chair, left to stare at the little jumping toilet repairman with narrow pupils.

He will fall soon enough. Be killed by the monster, foolish mushroom eater.

[coeurabyssal]

[TEXT] - are you seriously leaving me on read right now?

Malleus stares at the message for a solid four minutes. This number is not saved in his contacts- but no numbers are.

It takes him another twenty or so to type out a reply, though this is entirely due to the deadly combination of talons, gloves, and a cracked touch screen.

Such a pain.

🐉> One cannot be left 'on' read, it is a concept.

[coeurabyssal]

[TEXT] - i will not hesitate to strangle you ____ Sometimes a simple mistype of one number can lead to an awkward situation. He received a dm on his magicam from his brother quoting a new number and barking some orders. With a roll of the eye he typed on his phone a response and clicked send....unfortunately he mistyped the number.... The message did not go to his brother...instead to the dorm head of Diasomnia. 🪳 > I will not hesitate to strangle you

" . . . "

He finally gets a new phone of sorts and... this is the message? It is not one of his memorized three numbers, either....

🐉 > Worm that you are, do you wish to burn amongst the cinders of hell? Will you fight? Or will you perish like a dog?

[rubymemes]

𝐓𝐄𝐗𝐓𝐒 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐌𝐏𝐓𝐒 (a collection of texts prompts. Some have romantic undertones, but not all of them. Feel free to adjust phrasing and gendered terms as necessary)  TW: food & alcohol mention

[TEXT] - please just call me back.

[TEXT] - i’m sorry.

[TEXT] - so this is my number, but don’t save my name as anything sketchy.

[TEXT] - i’m making dinner tonight, you should come over.

[TEXT] - WHERE ARE YOU????

[TEXT] - you’re LATE.

[TEXT] - can we talk? 

[TEXT] - how did it go?

[TEXT] - you’re gonna laugh, but can you pick me up at the police station?

[TEXT] - thinking about you…

[TEXT] - i miss you so much.

[TEXT] - i have an idea, probably gonna get us in trouble though.

[TEXT] - i know you’re awake! pick up the phone! 

[TEXT] - so you’re just gonna ignore me forever? 

[TEXT] - i’m at taco bell you want anything? 

[TEXT] - are you awake?

[TEXT] - i have good news and bad news.

[TEXT] - how are you? 

[TEXT] - new phone, who is this? 

[TEXT] - wanna come over? 

[TEXT] - what’s wrong with you?!

[TEXT] - you only call me when you’re drunk. 

[TEXT] - me, you, a bad movie. you in? 

[TEXT] - wanna bang? [TEXT] - hang* [TEXT] - whatever

[TEXT] - i’ll seduce you with cool scientific facts.

[TEXT] - are you still alive?

[TEXT] - we are sophisticated adults ok?  [TEXT] - last week i purchased a vegetable

[TEXT] - i will not hesitate to strangle you

[TEXT] - what are you doing this weekend? 

[TEXT] - can i come over? [TEXT] - because i’m in your driveway.

[TEXT] - are you seriously leaving me on read right now?

[coeurabyssal]

He wanted to eat a parfait.

It was a sort of strange fixation to develop all of a sudden, especially considering his usual sullen demeanor. Most outside of his guards and Lilia did not even know he had a sweet tooth. That was beside the point, however, and unimportant in the scheme of things.

Malleus Draconia was going to eat a parfait.

He had heard they contained some sort of frozen cream- meringue? He wasn’t certain, but it sounded suspiciously similar to ice cream, and that was enough of a motivation to draw him away from his usual strictly scheduled 3 p.m. gloomy wallowing while gazing out the window appointment.

Sure, he scared about half of the dorm members who were drinking peacefully in the common areas when he strode through the middle of the room like a military commander, but it was short lived and he hardly tended to understand their facial expressions regardless. Surely it was just confusion. With additional shaking. 

Standing quietly in front of Octavinelle’s own mirror, eyes narrowed, the prince seemed to be deep in thought.

“Would this be of suitable quality for my first parfait…? I heard around campus that Ashengrotto's establishment began serving them, but…”

[coeurabyssal]

continued from here / @silverknightpiece

There is something altogether hideous in growing up, Malleus has decided.

It didn't used to be that way- when he was smaller, more hidden away from the world than even now, he was able to play and spend most of his hours in the cottage. The palace was a place of occasional, prolonged staring contests with his grandmother in which neither spoke until she nodded and he was allowed to leave.

These days, it felt he was there nearly every waking moment. He had begun to become 'involved' politically.

He'd not had much choice in the manner, as he was no longer knee high to Lilia and considered a 'proper teenager' at this point. Naturally, to his own annoyance, people had become interested in meeting and rubbing elbows with him in hopes of pushing their own interests forward.

So, as Silver had surmised, his hair seemed permanently slicked back.

Before the awful blunt-cut mullet Lilia just gave him, that is. He's actually positive he can't turn up at home like this and needs to go into hiding for several months.

Mally-iz!

He's brought out of his post-spit take reverie by that familiar little voice, clear as a bell.

Great seven, look how they massacred my boy.

If Malleus' awful blunt bangs were a misdemeanor, these safety-scissored swings at Silver's were a felony. Lilia looks far too delighted and amused by the turn of events for his taste.

" . . .We match. "

He tries to sound enthusiastic, but he's suddenly overtaken by the need to lie on the floor and play dead in hopes it becomes less humiliating.

This endeavor wasn't supposed to garner casualties, good gods.

[coeurabyssal]

continued from here / @s-essha

A single, thin brow raises- his expression almost comically quizzical- and Malleus speaks without restraint, as he always does.

"Treat you as a worm? What should I accomplish with that?"

Kneeling, single shin pressed to cold cobblestone, the very image of a storybook murderer prince.

"We have not spoken since becoming dorm leaders, Shroud."

A single hand is extended forwards, black leather littered with water droplets. Malleus smiles, in that strange, alien way he does. His mouth seems almost impossibly wide when the curve of his lips is genuine.

"I am beginning to worry you may be afraid of me."

[coeurabyssal]

continued from here - @crossedtheline

"A credit card...?"

His voice seems more like a sort of malevolent spirit than whatever closed and or locked this door in the first place. He has the earthshaking charisma of a waterlogged banshee with liberally applied makeup.

"I do not possess such a thing. Merely physical riches."

Instead, the prince peels off one of his leather gloves to reveal impossibly sharp nails. He extends a pale finger to use a talon as a sort of makeshift lockpick, but after a few moments, his brow furrows.

" . . . The lock itself has been hexed."

[coeurabyssal]

There was a time, once, long ago, when the palace servants began to lose hope in Malleus’ future.

His uncontrollable magic was enough of a hindrance to ordinary existence, Vanrouge’s help aside, but certain strange behaviors bred whispers and apprehension amongst those nearest him.

It would have been error to call him more than a hatchling at that age— able to walk and talk, yes, but still unexpectedly tiny for a member of the Draconia line. He found it necessary to stack a pillow over a book when seated at a desk. It seemed like, despite this, he was finally settling into the high expectations the royal blood in his veins demanded— but Malleus, ‘easy’ in comparison to his mother and grandmother by Lilia’s own words, was prone to moodiness and despondency.

The first incident of note occurred in the grand hall leading to his grandmother’s throne chamber. When a maid saw him staring at a portrait intently, she had expected to see his parents’ visages gazing back— the poor thing, alone so young— but found instead the gaunt face of a long dead king glowering down. The little prince stared up at the oil painting with glassy eyes and an unmoving expression— there was neither recognition nor acknowledgement in that unfocused gaze— rather, it seemed he was looking past it, despite solid stone walls. He remained rooted there, unresponsive, for nearly an hour before Lilia managed to bring him back to reality with a rough ruffling of his hair, but when questioned, the prince had no clue what had occurred.

The next was in the storage— ancient heirlooms and forgotten letters rotted away silently there. Little talons ripped into rusted shut boxes with curiosity, but it was a plain, white marble container which captured him eventually. Lined with a deep blue velvet, the only thing lying within was a (by noble standards) rather unimpressive brooch made of odd metal and a dull stone. He pilfered it away, but his guardian’s brows would furrow in a sort of silent concern when he spotted it a week or so later, shining dully on his bedside table in the moonlight.

When Malleus then became fixated on the rose garden, it seemed a healthy twist of fate. The outside air would do his constitution well— that was what Zigvolt told Vanrouge— and the princeling seemed robust for the first time in ages as he learned to weed, plant, and tend the long dead patch of thorns back to a state of bloom.

Hatchlings are curious little beasts, however— and his little bare feet and a strange wisp led him down a strange, abandoned footpath one evening. The stubborn little thing crawled over branches and rocks, shredding the hem of his cloak, but found only a tiny, enclosed little area, where a worn, mossy thing sat. A stone figure of some kind, crudely carved with a pair of horns.

He thought nothing of it, really, but returned on occasion to plant a flower seed or leave a piece of fruit for the bats. One misty evening, green eyes met the trail of a strange, white cloth when he managed his way into the thorny little enclave— and the pallid visage which stared back at him seemed to flicker like candlelight.

When he blinked, the scene had faded away into nothingness.

When he blinked again, he was in his room.

To have a sense of the beyond was not terribly unusual in fae children— with such heightened connections to magic itself, they were bound to experience oddities when their minds were still no more than little sponges— but the strangeness and melancholy which seemed to seize the little dragon was highly strange, the dim dreams worrying, and the odd way he’d stare into the sky for hours from his window only concerned those around him more.

‘There’s something wrong with the prince’ .

That was the conclusion reached, and even as he grew, he was still prone to wander at night, eyes fixated upon ruins of long dead kingdoms, and it seemed as if the more aware he became of the fearful gazes of others, the larger the ominous stain upon his crown only grew.

[coeurabyssal]

[LEAVE] "I was thinking Malleus..." Kalim pondered when he had caught up with the tall third year. "I know headmage Crowley said that leaving the school was forbidden but maybe we should test to see if there was an emergency exit just in case we had to evacuate people." He rubbed his chin thinking. "Maybe between your skills and my magic carpet we could fly someone out if needed... want to test it?" He grinned, almost bouncing with excitement.

[ LEAVE ]

"Al-?"

He couldn't even manage to put forth Kalim's surname before an interruption. This was par for the course with him, however, and Malleus doesn't even allow his face to fall into a characteristic pout.

"He did say it was forbidden, yes."

Malleus purses his lips slightly, hesitating before offering a brief nod. His dorm did have a fair share of humans within- that much meant they were at a distinct disadvantage in terms of durability in less-than-ideal situations involving physical peril or injury.

"You...may be correct in that finding an exit of that sort would be imperative in maintaining the safety of other students."

Crossing his arms, the corners of his mouth quirk upwards. Pearly fangs glint.

"Very well. I agree to your proposition."

[coeurabyssal]

[ TRAPPED ] - Explore a closet with the receiver,  only to find that the door has closed,  and the two of you are now trapped inside.  

[ TRAPPED ]

How...did Malleus end up in this situation?

It was almost comically stupid.

With the sheer chaos on campus, the convenient absence of the headmage, everyone was attempting something to try and unravel the mess in whatever way they could. When Jinx requested he aid him in searching a closet, he was skeptical at best, but relented in vain hope that it would solve things.

After all, this had thrown his usual gloomy lurking into a bit of a tailspin...

A telltale click echoed in the dusty, dim little nook of a closet.

". . . The door just locked itself."

His tone is rather blunt- the two were barely more than several steps through the door frame as is- but he wasn't the sort to tell tall tales for laughs.

[coeurabyssal]

[ BREAK - IN ] - Break into the school’s dorms, checking to see the status with the poor weather and destruction. 

[BREAK - IN]

This may not have been the best decision on their part, but it was the decision they made regardless. Malleus was, admittedly, not too familiar with Jack outside of spelldrive matches, but university spirit compelled him.

Or whatever it was the headmage had called it.

Regardless, they'd attempt to burst into Malleus' own dormitory first. As the so called 'leader', he figured he at least had the rights to attempt that in his own territory.

Predictably, almost, the condition was... less than ideal. The two of them were nearly hit with a loose roof tile the moment they even perceived their surroundings, and the prince counted himself lucky that the debris that flew their way had nothing to do with the shattered windows. Air crackling with static electricity, Malleus pressed forward, attempting to at least put on an unfazed facade, but...

"Something is. . . Incredibly wrong here, Howl."

[coeurabyssal]

[ the great briar scissor ban - closed starter for @silverknightpiece ]

It had started as something so... mundane. So how exactly did Malleus end up in this situation, coughing so hard he spat tea directly on his unsuspecting guardian?

A week prior, he'd been sent into another one of his moody pouting spells, not entirely uncommon for his age, truly... However, the cause was new and different from his others entirely.

Malleus was self conscious.

'Your forehead... is big. Do the horns hurt?'

That was all it took to send him in a spiral- one comment from a mere human hatchling. Little Silver, who had never said something like that before...!

Regardless, he'd spent hours staring at his forehead in the mirror with enough derision that he'd asked Lilia to give him 'bangs', as the elder fae called them. He had not expected the scissors to leave him looking akin to someone wearing half a watermelon on their head, but life was cruel and he found it even more of a reason to sulk into his tea.

Until Silver entered the room several days after the bang catastrophe, that is- Malleus swallowed and coughed simultaneously, tea all over the table (and Lilia), mouth agape.

"Silver-?!"