DAUGHTER WEAVER WITCH

[criniteris]

priv. sel. CHAOS WITCH QUELAAG of Dark Souls. sideblog to @henosiis. low activity. written by kat affiliated with @bloodblame

[sunmad]

@criniteris : Quelaag inquires:

"Well? Can he sate you, dear sister? Your new little husband-pet."

The voice carries farther still than her sister's menacing glow. Miriam pulls back the hood of her robes, just enough to let the heat of Quelaag's misgivings warm her cheek, as she shall receive no softer greeting. She returns to their Lord Mother's halls, a woman made. A woman made wife. How it must irk the Witch, and how it must irk Quelaag, who parrots their sovereign in all things. As if she'd thrown herself at the Knight Commander's feet in supplication. As if she wasn't thrown.

"I am also pleased to see you, my sweet Quelaag." Miriam drips oil into the flame with a polite nod of her head. "I return quite sated, and with growing appetites." She carries on, up the many rough-hewn steps.

"Your good opinion means the most to me, as you know, so pray tell how I might alleviate your coldness towards my husband. Surely you do not think him a thief, as he did not rob me from my maiden bed. Surely you do not think him a schemer, as he knew nothing of his betrothal. What fault do you find in him beyond his humble birth?" She fixes her sister with an appraising eye, a challenge written somewhere at the back of her retina.

"Or is it me you fault, in truth? As I am not adequately miserable in my fate. No, I suspect you find it beneath my station to be content. Mother preserve us, if the husband that She sold me to might also seek my happiness. He sates me, sister. Nightly, I devour him. I ride him harder than he ever could his steed. I enslave him at my leisure and work sorceries to make him thirst for naught but the nectar I provide. —Is this answer to your satisfaction, or should I elaborate?"

[criniteris]

The land of our birth welcomes Miriam with its sweltering kiss. My welcome shall not be so affectionate. It never has been, and never will be. Still, in my own way, I awaited her return, patient atop the stone stairs that lead her to Izalith’s upper quarters. It is a strange thing, to have known her for so long, to have borne witness to her growth every passing day, and yet see her so changed in so short a time. She left a maiden, a little sister, and stands before me now a woman grown, a wife, and perhaps soon - too soon - a mother. There is a certain curiosity for what will come of her recent union. We were, after all, not borne of a womb but of a great Soul. The answer will come. For now, I question her on much more critical matters.

Miriam talks and talks. Oh, my dear sister, you have always spoken at length when so few words would do. I wonder who listens. In this moment, I for one am all ears, all grinning lips. A long nail tapping my chin does not suffice to hold it back. Appetites, she says, as though she knows what it means.

“And yet the cur still lives.”

In truth, I know well the Commander is innocent - a mere pawn. And perhaps it is the source of my anger, that our Lord Mother would sell her flesh and blood to such a devoted servant of the Light. It is Her fear that has taken my sister away, not that silverclad would-be god. Will She continue to bow to Gwyn, again and again, until we are scattered, our most sacred bond made memory?

“The love you bear weakens your flame, you know. We are wild things, and our passions should be no less. Let him not tame you with a mere touch of his bloody hand. One cannot shackle fire - not by affection, not by matrimony. It is not your misery I wish for, dear sister, for surely you know I care for you. No, I hope only for your glory.”

I walk towards her soft-stepped and slow. It is an ambush, and she knows full well. My grin widens as I tuck a strand of her chestnut hair back beneath her cowl. Modesty befits a wife.

“You are blinded by hungers of flesh, but your marriage did not make you a whore, my Miriam. There is power yet for you to take beyond the taste of men's skin.”

There is little more to say. It is hopeless; Miriam returns to me lovesick. I, too, am sickened with her weakness as I take my leave. “Remember what we are, won’t you?”

[criniteris]

evil spider lady hot. more at 11

[sunmad]

👤+ Quelaag

@criniteris

"I hate to speak of them." She says. It is a clinical way she has, when she says this. Her words are a thousand years old and they have gathered sufficient dust, they have been adorned with cobwebs. The maiden in white, with her sober veil, her unvain robes, lowers her gaze as if shy. Her eyelids are heavy and in the light, in the half-shadow, you'd think them touched by kohl, some paint that should give color to her pallor. So turned away, so gazing down, one cannot see the splinter in her gaze, the infection she dares not touch.

"Any of them. I hate to think their names and their faces and all their deeds. I hate to share them. In truth, I know that they are gone from me and dead. I've kept them in my silence as in a tomb. I've kept them with me. I never thought I was jealous, because, of course, I had everything I wanted. You can think yourself so virtuous, when you lack nothing." Miriam of Carim lifts her head by the fire and the shadows fall differently.

"Quelaag would laugh at that. She had a way with her laughter, a cutting way. She'd make you so aware of your failings. Perhaps because she had so few. She was Lord Mother's favorite, mind you. None could argue with Her in Her own halls. She'd suffer no dissent. But She would suffer Quelaag. In pride, they were equals. I believe my sister was born with a hunger for all our Lord Mother possessed. She was never content, being another treasure, another tool. There were times when I thought... One day there shall be bloodshed. And it shall be Quelaag whose head shall be dashed against the onyx tiles and Lord Mother will stand tall and awful over her corpse. I've dreamed of it in nightmares. Even in my worst fancies, I could not imagine a world in which Lord Mother would not rise victorious. ...Quelaag always thought me too subservient. She thought ill of many things about me, I believe." A concession in the tilt of her head, "She thought ill of my betrothal. 'Married to a dog', she said. 'A shame', she called it. Whose shame was it, in the end? I wonder if she'd resent it, that it was my love for him that saved me from the corruption. If she'd rather I'd have suffered side by side with them all until my last futile breath. She was never uncaring, my sister. She was my sister."

Miriam exhales and the bonfire shudders like a fawn.

"I'd give anything to see her..."

[wishbzne-deactivated20210526]

anne carson, ‘lines’

[ID: “How long will it feel like burning,” end ID]

[grimae]

Quelaag

[criniteris]

Will it ever stop festering, the Chaos Flame in my belly? Will it ever stop its gurgling, its mad trembling with the hunger for change? Will its need ever abate?

It matters little now, I suppose. It’s part of me now, the Flame, wrong and twisted as it is. It belongs here in my gut, I, Daughter of the great Witch. Even as it rips through my insides, melts and reforms me, I feel its power surge like lightning through my veins. Oh, what sweet anodyne, the power. You may think I am drunk with it, gone mad. But who would I be, if I did not welcome it, relish in it? I would not be myself. I would not be Quelaag.

What a gift You have given me, fallen Mother, dearest of kin! For Your mistakes I am made greater. Where I once walked I now skitter, tenfold legs tipping and tapping. They feel everything, the slightest of movements, the disturbance of air.  I see the world through so many eyes now, in hues I could not have dreamed of. I grow with every corpse I create, great spider that I have become, in the home I have woven with my own spinnerets. You always told me I was the most promising of them all. Do You see me now, Mother? Do You see me?

Watch as my blade tears through undead flesh. Watch as Izalith’s red rivers pour from my thousand-toothed maw. Watch as I devour. And poor Quelaan, her gentle soul, it rots where mine burns. I do it for her, Mother, that darling sister You never liked. She is weak, You were right. Tenderness ravages her like miasma. Perhaps she, and not our brother, was your first misstep. Did You see them, these monstrous bodies, grown like worms from our wombs, when you brought the Flame to us in our tiny nest? We were pups, then, unformed things, crawling blind in the dirt. But I am not what I once was. None of us are.

It is a cruel gift You have given me, Mother. To become so powerful, so beautiful, when there are none left to see me. When the mortals come, I let them gaze upon me, before I claw out their souls. I watch the horror on their faces and I smile, knowing their doom is at my hand. I will delight in their pathetic, night-black cores. Then my sword sings and it is over, that quickly, that suddenly. I want to make it last, but the thrill is too strong. No longer daughter, no longer woman. Do not blame the Flame, I beg You. I was always a predator.

But Mother, oh Lord Mother, will it ever stop burning?