[cuntlike]

A WRITING BLOG FOR DHUFEAINNEWEDD, AN ORIGINAL CHARACTER SET IN MULTIPLE UNIVERSES, ORIGINATED IN CD PROJEKT RED'S THE WITCHER III : BLOOD HUNT. follows back from @favoriteache.

full name: from elise le bescond to ishtar atta isil to dhufeainnewedd to (don't say her name in case you actually summon her) age: either 25 or a thousand years old. who knows pronouns: she/they sexuality: bisexual species: human? height: 5'2

see full information and available universes here.

facts :

overpowered gremlin. chaotic threat. evil minx with a nefarious plot she won't tell you about. watch your back (find her oggling your ass)

autistic menace. bisexual flirt. cockroach under god's boot, still wriggling its little body & throwing a wink for good measure

a mask beneath a mask beneath a mask beneath a mask. manic pixie dream girl whose own reflection is a blurry mess of stitched up parts

fate's forgotten. fate's little spy. time means nothing to the timeless: whatever piece of trivia you hide behind a clenched jaw, she probably knows about

came from dirt, still choking on it

[pixistic]

the coarse sheets are rumpled at his waist. there was a nice contrast when ishtar was draped over him, all soft and sweet. when she jolts up, she takes her warmth and the sheets with her. tim’s left buck naked, feeling sort of abandoned. begrudgingly, he pops open one eye, just the right, because the world is painful to look at straight on. so is ishtar, who looks disheveled and furious. sexy as hell.

they never closed the hefty polyester curtains over the large windows before crashing last night — ishtar’s delicate hand print is smeared smack in the middle of the view — and now the midday sun streams in the room fierce and mean. dust mites float in the slants of crystal light. he notices ishtar’s ring before his own. plain, only thing special about it is that it’s on her finger. and he’s got a matching one.

his mind is spinning with nowhere to land, and it’s hard to focus when he’s hard because ishtar is nude and backlit like an angel with a halo. her scowl is all spitfire and devil. he can taste her in his mouth, more potent than the whiskey. his cloudy gaze zooms in on a hickey above her collarbone before flitting down to the band on his finger. he inspects the silver without any big reaction. she’s doing that for the both of them.

“can we — ” his voice is gruff and crackly, “ — come back to bed.”

[cuntlike]

"come back to bed?!" she parrots it back like tim's gone mental. the room's filled with damning evidence: the discarded clothes, impromptu ashtrays, the empty bottle of champagne and the pair of glasses, one of them smeared with pink liptstick. tim, too, displays marks of last night's activities: smudged pink on his cheek, teeth imprints near his collarbone, nail marks down his thighs. they fucked without fighting and apparently decided to celebrate it by tying their lives together with a big, nice red string of fate.

she closes her eyes. panic grows deeper still in her chest. breathing gets hard, and harder, like trying to dig up roots. "this's a nightmare," she murmurs as she gets up, barely managing to stay on her legs as she attempts to find her clothes. there's no bra, only a big tee-shirt and a plain pair of pants. she thinks the tee-shirt is actually one of tim's that she stole when she left town, a decade earlier, the collar so worn it's a miracle it hasn't unraveled yet. she remembers sleeping in it while on the road, curved on herself in the back of her truck.

she finds the signed papers on the table while she's struggling to get back into her jeans, and she stops there, only one leg in, tee-shirt put the wrong side out, looking at the scratched signatures and the official stamp. not a nightmare, then. "bitch, ya've really outdone yerself this time." the murmur is so quiet tim might not have caught it at all. she knew she could do really stupid self-destructive shit, but this absolutely takes the cake.

[favoriteache]

fun fact: if you send me a prompt from this tag, for ishtar, you get a starter in the very near future

[thesoldiersminute]

Elle Fanning as Thia Predator: Badlands (2025) dir. Dan Trachtenberg

[lieability]

leave the crime scene, abandon the bodies; burn the chapel, the church, the home and the house. kill your god. make love to your demons. create something holy and break it. these are the mari dai commandments. the ruling in which judge / jury / executioner no longer exist. (it's simple, if you know them— complex, if you don't.) leave the crime scene, abandon the bodies, ignore google searches and empty bottles and pill prescriptions that never match her name. bury the ghosts. swallow the secrets. avert your eyes when her body becomes as haunted as she is.

ishtar's never been given a manual, but she seems to understand the regulations. the cogs in the machine that allow mari to operate the way she does. (get high, pretend to die, submit your almost-late essay, start again.) most people handle mari like a minefield. stepping carefully, stepping hesitantly, unsure of which way is salvation and which way is slaughter.

she has a reputation. unstable, unsightly, slurred breath and slightly off the rails— a manic pixie dream girl that's more of a nightmare in person. ishtar's got her track record, too. she doesn't mind. to mari, ishtar's just cowboy and color and one slick trick hidden up her sleeve; sour and sweet and a back alley gamble on a winning streak— she's undefinable. unexplainable. and sometimes, mari doesn't know if she'd rather be with ishtar or be her, herself.

or maybe that's just the alcohol talking. "some friend she is." the murmur comes out from around the cigarette, inhale-exhaling to a tilt of her head. mari leans an inch further back onto her backpack, using it half-as a pillow and half-as a backrest, and closes her eyes. for a second, she imagines it: one quick fuck in the library, a backseat affair of secrecy. strangers fucking strangers who briefly become lovers, all for a fast fix. her mouth twists at the corner, and her eyes open again. a glance towards ishtar. "i wouldn't do that t — to you." a blank blink. "just so you know."

[cuntlike]

mari's vices are not ishtar's; the latter watches them happening the way a scientist glazes over a mice's tendency to go for the sweetened water-- a few notes on a clipping board, in a red pen. knowing that if you want the mice to go the extra mile, you'll up the sugar dosage. a cheap trick, an easy gamble. mari smells like mama's farm did: booze and smoke, heady and haunted. sometimes ishtar wants to lick into her mouth just to see if she tastes the same.

mari's slouching but istar sits like she's just been summoned inside a ritual circle: cross-legged and straight-backed, eye-catching yet impervious to the attention. she doesn't have anything to lean against, anyway. her backpack's a grocery bag from target that she carries around and fills with stolen trinkets, like mari's charms or another classmates very nice pens. she has pieces of paper buried in there, too, but it's always a bit difficult to say if they're school-related.

the couple's still fighting, and ishtar's still watching like it's a broadway show: she knows the cadence, can play the metronome, tap, tap, tap, she sees him missing the mark, the crestfallen look that ensues because he fucked up and he's now realizing there's no going back. ishtar likes that: moments where time tips over. it's like being on your very first rollercoaster… onto the very last big swoop! last chance to scream your lungs out. after that, it's all queasy uneasiness and the lingering sensation that nothing will ever replicate this exact feeling. you could go on another rollercoaster, but then you'd be chasing it, which ruins the newness of it all. as a rule, ishtar doesn't chase.

anyway, the point is that he's ruining everything and ishtar can relate, so of course she has to look at mari and say, "ain't that nice," it is objectively nice, but the way she drawls it makes it sound like she's dubious. she wonders if mari really knows who she's talking to. it's pretty well-known that ishtar would fuck anything if she could get something out of it, even if it's a stolen piece of cutlery. actually, now that she thinks about it, she did get a few nice spoons that way. she remembers eating ice scream with them last december, because one of the teachers was cranky and the school heaters weren't work and ishtar was bored. "can't say the same, sorry babe." she shrugs, like being honest absolves her of being unkind. or maybe it's that she doesn't know it's unkind to be this honest. it's a bit difficult to tell around the lollipop. "if yer boy thinks fuckin' yer friend's okie-dokie and yer not dumpin' his sorry ass, i'll take one for the team and give ya an excuse."

[cuntlike]

ON MEETING DHUFEAINNEWEDD (THE WITCHER III : BLOOD HUNT)

you look for her in the pages of a dusty book, find half a tail to pull on; it brings you here, in the seaside, ozone and salt swirling in the air. a storm is coming, so you take shelter in the first and only inn you find. the people in the village tell you nothing when you ask for dhufeainnewedd, though every man has a tell and the fisherman looks to the sea three times in a row after saying that no, sir, i don't know what you're talking about, sir. you can't go where his evident lie points. the sea dances, irreverent, with the winds. the horizon is a silhouette cloaked in white smoke. it is all clouds and angry lightning. it screams trouble.

you go on the third day, instead, too desperate not to confront the storm head on, drenched and hopeful. there, sitting near the demarcation between sand and soil, you find a very small house. pots of flowers outgrowing them. vines everywhere swallowing the foundations. it looks haunted. it looks beautiful. it looks abandoned and lived in and perhaps, like a bad omen waiting to be heard. you knock once, twice, but no one answers. so you wait, and try your chance again, once, twice. it's the night biting at your neck that forces you to leave the small house. you promise you'll be back, and you could swear that the windows stare right back at you, amused and disbelieving.

you come back, of course. you need it. you need her. why else would you go look for dhufeainnewedd? she is but a murmur, the kind of songs taverns only hum when despair is on the horizon. she is for war and disease and death. she is for the hopeless and the vengeful. you knock for the third time. when she opens the door, you find that dhufeainnewedd is... small. you have to dip your chin down to look at her. she doesn't smile, but you can see the dip in her cheek that tells you she could, if she wanted.

she invites you in. she pours you tea, disregard your ask for less milk. she has the kind of accent that cannot be placed; something both exotic and terribly homegrown. something old, like a prophecy waiting to be sung. she serves tea the way she wishes to, which means it is overflowing with flowers and leaves and it is so sweet you wonder if you didn't bite teeth-first in a ripe fruit. no matter, you're not there for the tea. she smiles then, a gap between her front teeth. of course you're here for the tea, she tells you, her voice sweet and cold and coming from everywhere at once. you don't think you said that outloud. you ask, then, a bit delirious, not sure why the flowers have started winking at you with all their petals, soft, like birds taking flight: why would i have come all this way for the tea?

and then your head is very heavy, and nothing seems to matter more to you than to press you forehead against the wood of the table, where you can trace the tree's age: so many rings. it's older than you, surely, but is it older than her? you think so. how strange, to sleep beneath an old willow tree, with the sun's piercing gaze steadily watching you. she is still smiling, a moon crescent over her steaming cup of tea. is it night already? her voice comes from faraway, or maybe it comes from inside, like it's echoing from one rib to the next: the tea's the question, what comes next is your answer. sweet dreams.

[aratsaka]

@favoriteache sent: well, you wanted to know.

he did want to know. gods above, he didn't expect such a crazy answer. then again, he didn't really know what was sane anymore. mack shouldn't have survived the nautiloid. no one aboard the nautiloid should have survived, and they especially shouldn't survive the guests behind their eyes. he sighs and stares up at the night sky, bright and clear compared to what he'd see when he'd look up at the sky in baldur's gate. it seemed so simple out here. he hated it.

“ that i did. i can't say i was expecting that. ” he wasn't a model citizen and he never claimed to be. who was he to act like the patron of virtue and all things good? “ what do you think our prognosis is? if you had to make a guess. personally, i'm hoping that druid bear man will be able to help us. ”

[cuntlike]

the sky opens its maw wide above them; spits out stars and promises that istar feels she could have read, once, like poems in-between the prose of a dusty book. mack's question is simple, so the answer given is brutal; tit for tat.

a wriggling worm behind their eye, a monstruous transformation awaiting its final steps. they are but one step out of the grave. she tells him as such, swapping the wizard's scholarly metaphors for gory details. all the while, she smiles, eyes to the sky. when he asks to bet on their recovery, she finds that she has no answer.

"i think…" what does she think? she thinks she'd put a stake through her eye if she was really worried, but she is not. something protects-- something whispers. it demands. in the dreams, it promises. she doesn't trust it, but she doesn't trust science to be right about magic. she thinks she'd rather live terribly than die defeated. she thinks that if the tadpole doesn't kill her, the hunger thrumming beneath it most certainly will.

"my bet is on that goblin priestess," she tells him around a smirk, "sounds like the real deal to me. besides, she captured your druid. makes her more powerful."

[palespawn]

her generosity is appreciated, albeit silently questioned. there would always be the romanticised vampire in fables, the mysterious lover by moonlight with sharp fangs and a dead heart begging to beat once more. adjacent to that, there is the fearsome vampiric beast that prowls throughout the night, unapologetically tearing households apart once invited through the front door. which one he was to her, was an enigma he was presumably not privileged to ever know. her eyes do not stray to him so as they do for another, nor does she retreat from him in fear. he sits in this unusual middle state, not a lover, nor an enemy, but some other, third thing.

“ "why?" it's as i said before, i wouldn't try until you invited me to dine, ” that first encounter by the fire had been a moment of weakness, a burning curiosity in the night to test the parameters of his newfound freedom. a lapse in judgement, one might say. consent was a tumultuous topic, however, one he was coming to refashion for himself; being stripped of all liberties, to have his boundaries crossed so cruelly and consistently they became all but non-existent... why, he wouldn't wish that upon anyone. well, anyone he cared about, at least. if he could not afford those the right, why should he be allowed such courtesies in return? he might argue he has endured enough and he deserves to be selfish, but in moments like this, such an attitude (he has learned) would likely garner him nothing of benefit.

the shift in mien does not go unnoticed, a minor wrinkle that betrays her. as swiftly as it appears, however, it slips into something more familiar. astarion can relate, and thinks not to press too firmly on the tender spot so evidently there. “ i don't mind sharing, but it's as you say. i think our dear wizard might keel over at the thought. a shame, really, ” his smirk remains. astarion had once pondered loudly the idea of what each of their companions might taste of. an idle daydream, and one that would remain so... but still. there was no telling now what the blood of a wizard with a detonator in his chest might taste like, and he's not so daring to try. it would likely be his last meal.

“ who's spitting? certainly not i, ” astarion scoffs, wondering if he had, in fact, struck a nerve after all. his free hand flies to his chest, feigned distress at such a thought. nevertheless, he lowers his mouth to her extended wrist, a mild twist of apprehension gnawing in his gut. she could very well remove said gift on a whim, and he would be left to hunger. were he less hungry and conscious of gale's wandering eyes, he might have dared to press a kiss to the skin he intends to pierce. however, astarion bites. his teeth sink into her flesh as easy as one bites into an apple. her ichor floods his mouth, tainted with what concoction of liquor she had consumed prior. it's sharp, and as it rushes past his tongue he can feel it leak beyond his lips, to run both down his chin and along her forearm. the fingers that had so delicately caressed along her wrist before now firmly wrap around her arm to keep her still, as his hunger is sated and his mind grows addled with second-hand spirits.

[cuntlike]

there she sits, a shrine of empty glass bottles surrounding her altar; how many did it take for her ideas to swim out of order? the remnants of debauchery gleam beneath the moonlight, as do istar's eyes while she stares, unblinking. truth is she thought of the vampire while she drank. thought of their hungers, the shapes they take; how both hunt for the same torment, how neither can be satisfied. she thought of experimenting-- of the rules of undeath-- call it academic thirst. he was not, though, the force behind her taking up that first drink. was it the wizard? a confession, istar's hand on his chest, so close to his throat, awaiting for absolution, his sin devouring him from the inside out. no, it couldn't have been him: she understood his folly. still does, even though her minds swims with each thought-- she, too, knows her hubris to be buried beneath her breast, beating its rotting tune.

was it the dreaming? was it the pain? she thinks of them as indistinguishable from one another, like a shadow stuck to the sole of her feet. "duh, i know that." she says, as if she had not doubted that he would respect his word. a lie, for she did doubt his attentions; she simply found that she could not care less. let him feast-- one of them shall not go hungry.

trust is a mishaped little thing. istar does not see it often; today it wears the skin of an extended wrist, and an amused smile. yesterday, it bore teeth and did not approach. it shall remain capricious. it will not always remember who it must turn to. she is proud, though, that he would keep true to his word-- had she been in his place, she does not think she would have. it is such a terrible thing to be hungry. "could have asked, though." that, at least, is the truth: astarion does not have to play the role of a true vampire: to demand an invitation when one can simply ask for the paper to be signed, for the letter to be exchanged, for the summons to be granted.

the invitation is exchanged, as it must. a meal to be had. the wrist that stays between them until it is clasped. until it is bit. the sorceress does not move. she barely breathes as the fangs go through skin. there is no bated breath, nor is there any sigh. it just happens, the way all wounds do: skin is torn until it bleeds. and bleed profusely it does. the electrifying taste of magic on the tongue. she imagines it. for a second she almost reaches out with the illithid tadpole-- desperate to know the flavours of her crimson. her control on her mind, though, is a fickle thing: the tadpole barely registers the demand.

astarion is still drinking. she wonders if he'll stop in time. the hand that held her wrist keeps her arm in a steel-like cuff. it reminds her of something but she isn't sure what. a scalpel that drags on unblemished skin. links on her arms as she struggles. a scream that doesn't echo, for the walls are more flesh than she is. the lack of blood and the high amount of alcohol remaining make her head swim; for a moment she forgets who is holding her, only that it is happening. two places at once collide; something is in her skin; the familiar feeling of liquid being dragged out.

the hand that isn't prisoner goes to astarion's shoulder, where she presses once to no avail. she is weak, but not yet frightened. her hand moves again, dazed and uncoordinated, to push at the juncture between shoulder and neck with more strength. "'starion, meal's over," then, the clear-cut sound of laughter, even though anything comical has yet to happen: "you drunk yet?"

[cuntlike]

when she wakes up, the world is a fuzzy mess of colors and lights. something stirs beneath her cheek: what she's lying on is warm, it rises & falls to the ever-thrumming rythm of a heart. panic starts with this: trying to remember who lies beneath the sheets and finding no memories of the mysterious identity.

the lack of memory is less upsetting than the source of the amnesia. ishtar's debauchery rarely entails large amounts of alcohol: she likes to ruin things with a clear mind. but yesterday… oh yesterday must have been horrid. she can smell it in the room: sex and drinks and something heady-- probably the result of a joint passing between spit-slick lips.

panic grows tenfold when an unfamiliar weight is registered on the hand that clutches the covers. a ring. she can see it as it gleams in the blurry mid-afternoon light. "fuck," comes first, soon followed by another heartful "fucking hell", spitted while she tries to get up and finds that her head is swimming in all directions, while her body has yet to move. deciding that sitting might be the only option, she goes back down, and waits a moment, breathing through her nose.

a look to her right: there, a familiar head of hair turned away from her, and the familiar torso she was lying on. realization catches on her tongue. "tim," his name comes out in a whisper, soon followed by a much more acerbic: "wake up, asshole." @pixistic

[pixistic]

@cuntlike , ishtar : [ TXT ] : answer me coward

tim [11:32am]: was sleepin

half-truth. he’d been wasted, passed out in his jeans and boots. he scrolls through the missed calls and texts now through a pounding headache. mouth cotton-dry. he can’t tell if it’s the hangover or ishtar.

tim [11:33am]: wats wrong

[cuntlike]

ishtar [11:45am]: yeah i bet

she texts it under the table at the lawyer's office, while he continues to drone on and on. considers throwing her phone at his face, then ends up typing another text instead.

ishtar [11:47am]: i need you to pick me up ishtar [11:47am]: in like 30 minutes at [address] ishtar [11:50am]: [redacted, not sent] please?

[envernus]

" should you? " he wouldn't dare mock her plight nor goad her temper, which is why he counters with a casual question almost immediately. gortash knows what it's like to be taunted into retaliation but after many lessons learned, he now takes that particular environment apart like a chemical reaction. a fire needs a fuel source, oxygen and heat; take away any of those three, and the fire either dies or never starts at all. orin is playing with two of them and is goading istar into providing that third element, the one that could lead to the razing of bhaal's temple at the hands of a single woman. it could lead to worse, too. not that he'd ever underestimate istar but for all the contempt he's grown to show orin, he knows both sisters to be undeniably dangerous.

and orin is toying with istar like a young artificer with a bomb. needless to say, it bears careful diffusing.

his hands slip away from the back of istar's seat and he lowers himself onto the chair directly opposite hers, shoulders drooping almost imperceptibly. " orin has the temperament of a child, bold in that she believes she can get away with it. sadly i'm of two minds belay that, i'm of several minds. the first, you do nothing; fires can't start if fuel is missing, and right now she wants you to said fuel. sparks that don't catch inevitably flicker out. caveat: orin's bhaalspawn, and that could take ages. gods only know how vigorous the both of you are ... but that's why it shouldn't be a problem. "

a pause. gortash fidgets with the ring on his pinky finger, turning it around slowly like a thief waiting for the click of the combination lock. " second, you retaliate with exponentially more disquieting offences. i can't imagine anything that angers orin more than murder for murder's sake. no art, no pizzazz, no message: death because it's what your master wants. and third "

he looks to istar now. his next suggestion, ready upon his tongue like a loaded bullet, almost gives him pause. almost. " third, you eliminate the problem outright. " enver spreads his hands in lieu of a shrug. " but it's easy for me to say: i'm mortal - born and an only child. to you, orin is family ... even if bhaal is nowhere near as sentimental. "

[cuntlike]

of course he would be of several minds; that is what she appreciates with his cunning. not one stone remains unturned. it makes their merryband of criminals a perfectly balanced scale: gortash plans for the sacrifice, istar enacts it, and both get to share the spoils. it is a bit more difficult to navigate, however, when there is nothing in it to win: to kill orin is to deprive bhaal's temple of a very fine blade. to let her continue would be to disregard what might as well be the calm before the storm. istar knows her sister the way she knows her own mind; like a rotten blade stuck in bone. "oh, i fear the first sparks flew the second we started planning for the absolute, dear, and she has done her utmost to fan the flames." orin is jealous. orin does not like when blood is spilled without intent. worst of all, orin does not like to be deprived of bhaal's attention, and it is exactly what is happening. every day, istar gains more of his attention, though she cares very little for it, while orin bathes in eternal silence, no more favoured than any other spawn. for a shapeshifter, what a terrible thing it is to fail at being what the other wants. even if she were to borrow istar's skin, she would be unfit to rule: she is not infused with divinity. forever lacking, forever a lackey.

"mmmh, it would be most delicious to murder some more people without leaving bhaal's sceal on them. she would hate that." it is said with a smile; a voracious thing, the edge of her teeth a tad too sharp, eyes glowing unnaturally in the low light of the fire. she watches as he turns & turns the ring on his finger; then her gaze goes up, to his face, where it remains, unblinking. so does he, watch her that is, his gaze accompanied by words that carry a terrible weight. for her to consider orin's death is a warranted consequence, survival instinct at its finest. for him to do so… a hint of treachery. her smile grows sharper. a nail digs into the fragile cloth of the arm of the chair. "indeed. bold of you to propose kinslaying as a possible path." her head dips to the right.

it cannot be betrayal; she has discarded that already, the moment she came to sit in his home; and so she prods at the possibility of it with intent; thinks of eryri in wild flashes; finds that it is a bruise she has no wish of seeing in blossom. orin shall live because istar does not kill her kin, as enraging as they might be. to remove her from a place where she can continue to do harm... she will have to think about it. "no family of your own, then?" she imagines his parents with difficulty-- there are creatures that seem to have been placed on this plane of existence rather than birthed.

[bhaalbie]

the smell of blood. coppery, metallic and rich is what eventually brings her back to. blinks her eyes into focus, and it's warm everywhere, cleaning into every piece of her armor, the fabrics beneath them. she gasps, like being reborn every time. then a figure, familiar, unfamiliar dahlya cannot decide. but she is drenched in blood, with the back of her hand she attempts to wipe her cheek. something stirs within her, wishing for a taste.

then she feels a disgusting crawling sensation. disdain suddenly in her eyes. it is only her and @cuntlike in the room in the abandoned temple, a trail of mangled bodies surrounding them. "what are you staring at?" impatient, bratty but utterly scared. "is there something on my face?"

[cuntlike]

dhufeainnewedd watches as bhaal's spawn drenches herself in the blood of her enemies. there would be much to say about nurture versus nature, but in this moment it seems that both collide in one simple truth: there is no escaping one's fate. be it weaved by one's choices or sewed onto you by a god's hand, it will become a noose around your neck-- and with it, you will be dragged to where you are most awaited.

istar smiles at the little sorceress, eyes glowing in the relative darkness of the corner she stands in, back against the wall, arms crossed over her chest, so very obviously unbothered by the happenings. "there is a nauseating amount of blood on your face, dear." then, with a dip of her nose, obviously taking into account her entire body, "well. on the whole of you, if i'm being honest. did you take a bath in someone's entrails, by any chance?"

[lieability]

"oh, a pity party. these are fun." — @cuntlike, as ishtar isil.

university's been the kind of place mari shows up to and forgets herself in. she loses charms, keys, the back end of a bracelet. misplaces her heart, her mind, the answer to last week's quiz. people only know what they can google about her. her friends only know what they see of her. drunken at her first class, slumped through her last, still reading her father's obituary in the library. she's odd, in the way that she's ill, and in the way that everyone but her can see it.

but ishtar's different. ishtar doesn't look at her as if she's got death wedged between her teeth, like she's got blood stained on her hands— she doesn't glance over mari's shoulder (at least, not noticeably) when she decides to google her mother's release date for the sixth time that morning. it's nice. it's kind. it's friendship, or fondness, or something far below and somewhere in between. or, rather, that's what mari's decided to call it.

an unlit cigarette pulls out from behind her ear, lighter flicking to life as tobacco wedges between lips. an imprint of cherry chapstick lingers on the filter, and smoke billows out from an exhale. "you th — think she's doing the pity party, or him?" there's a glance over to where ishtar's staring. a couple, clearly mid-argument, stand in the distance— one half of the equation distressed, the other half of the equation angry, and both parts increasing in volume. a soft huff of a chuckle, and the cigarette slow-drags from mari's lips once more. "my bet's on him. guys like t — to pull that shit. boo-hoo, woe is me, blah-blah ... blah."

[cuntlike]

university's been the kind of place where ishtar gets to hide. from backstage, she can watch the stories people tell when they focus on the wrong audience. it's a bad habit, but she can't shake it: she goes from class to class, most she hasn't even enrolled in, just to see what will happen; she exists in a realm where her name has no rhymes and therefore means nothing. when people speak of her, there is no mythology that follows. she's ruining it, of course, day by day: the way she talks, the questions she asks, the clothes she wears, the people she fucks, the ones she fucks with. stories are bound to form around her; chains at her ankles. soon she'll be as much a prisoner of her own image as she was in highschool.

for now, lollipop on her tongue, cherry sweet, she watches a new play unfold: it starts with a comment-- they're walking, he says something. it's the wrong thing. the shrieking sound of sneakers rubbing against linoleum. then the bodies, moving, on that same slab; his, first. a question in the orientation of his shoulders, soon followed by the raising of eyebrows. for the girl, everything is told through the crossed arms, the blank stare. he speaks too much, her not enough.

she points it out to mari.

it's easy to be friends with mari: all it takes is a good reading of her script. the obsessive checking of a google page, the low line of her shoulders when she reads in the library. the stench of alcohol. the charms she leaves behind that ishtar puts in her pocket and never gives back. all you have to do is fill in the cracks: don't look at the search bar. don't look at the book. pass her a note with the quiz's answers. leave the crime scene everytime someone tries to dig up mari dai's ghosts.

"i reckon he's 'bout to do exactly that." she drawls, lolly in her right hand now, holding it like mari's holding her cigarette. a copy of her posture, just to see how it works; how much is told through muscles and the adjusment of bones. "hmmm, i'll bet he cheated. told her he was fixin' to study… just let it out he was lyin'." eyes linger in the air above the couple, like she's thinking, before they lower again, cutting & decisive, "he fucked her friend. no doubt 'bout that."

[pixistic]

@cuntlike , ishtar:  ❛ your heart is beating so fast right now. ❜

deny, deny, deny.

ishtar’s already gotten her out of her clothes. there was nothing left of her to strip naked. it feels like a show of weakness, though, when caramel flits her gaze to the shoreline where she discarded her cutoff shorts and baby tee in a heap—just to check they’re still there, waiting for her. but she only winds up realizing how far they’ve swam out, where the ocean hasn’t formed its waves yet, just soft ripples of black water. would be mellow if it also wasn’t so… stranded.

ishtar hasn’t blinked in her icy scrutiny of caramel’s body language, looking as she did since they met at the beginning of the summer. like she can’t decide whether to kiss caramel or kill her, and she’d be capable of both, easily. caramel is acutely aware of ishtar’s proximity—their pebbled nipples brush and it aches—so she knows it’s pointless, but she tries anyway, with a wobbly smile, “it’s not — i’m just cold.”

she’s a shit liar. her voice breaks. she’s wet between her legs. and she makes the mistake of glancing toward the shore again, comparing the distance to the depth of the ocean lapping at her tanned shoulders, the gradually tiring muscles of her legs treading the water. under the full moon, bone-white and seeming close enough to graze the top of their heads, caramel’s slight panic is apparent. her cheeks are flushed, her jugular is fat with her accelerated heartbeat.

“should we — go back?"

[cuntlike]

the creature prowls closer-- a siren in muddy waters, a blonde halo of hair illuminated by the crescent moon. the beating of caramel's heart is delicious in its swelling effort; it goes on and on, a cacophony ishtar wishes she could taste from the inside. she would suck on the soft membrane of a ventricule-- feel it expand against her lips; a grotesque kiss.

the loren facing her is no different to the one that existed a few centuries ago: her hair pools at the surface of the dark waters. her eyes are brighter than the stars above their heads, winking in a waning fashion at the sky turns dark & brewing. soon, rain will join the ocean; tears in an already filled cup.

she is beautiful, of course; but that is because she is on the verge of being ruined. everyhting is more precious at the beginning of a haunting-- they are on the precipice of it, right before the moody atmosphere turns lugubrious.

ishtar smiles with teeth that seem too sharp. "no, not cold." the fear in the air is potent-- more so than the desire. she swims a bit closer, until the staccato rhythm of caramel's heart bites a smile out of her mouth. "don't ya wanna stay with me? here?" how could you want anything else? it's an invitation-- it's an order-- it's a supplication with no knees touching the holy ground. her left hand comes to ensnare caramel's throat. a loving collar. a hanged man's rope.

"a kiss, then, and we'll go back." death, too, rarely asks for anything more.

[pixistic]

the chair under ishtar’s ass squeaks as she writhes between tim and the bar, mixing with the wet squelch between her legs. tim’s fingers don’t let up, not for a second, as she comes apart in his arms. even when she starts shaking and crying. mindlessly, he dips his head, licks the salt trails off her cheek. all the while his wrist continues to work her, drawing out her orgasm for all its worth. he drags it from her like she owes it to him. when she blabbers some nonsense into his neck about not letting her go, his grip tightens on her waist like a reflex and steadies her as she rides out the wave to its end. but he doesn’t say anything. not yet. partly because he’s worried he’ll say something he can’t take back, like she’s the one who let go. partly because her soft hand is wrapping around his cock and his brain fizzles out for a moment.

nothing but hot air. his shirt is damp. so is his wrist where it had pressed against her clit. it all sticks to his skin. the air conditioner in this dive has been broken since last fourth of july. it’d be uncomfortable, if he wasn’t so focused on the tortuous slide of her palm along his base, down to the tip, back again. he’s hot there, too, heavy and pulsing in her grip, torn between bucking closer and pulling away to save his dignity. his hips twitch once. they slip against each other’s sweat. it’s unbearable, actually.

dully, he hears her voice over the blood pounding between his ears, sounding smoky and like sin, boasting of the hold she has over him, after all this time and spite. “shut up,” he says, because she annoys him. but he’s horny, too, and his only defense is to stagger back to hostile territory. “yer a brat.” that he adds to be petty, knock her down a peg.

with his leverage on her waist, he lifts her easily, and then spins her, just to get her hand off him — and because he stared at her face the whole time she was coming and it burned a fire like scorched earth in his gut. “you talk too much,” he complains. he admires her backside and grabs a lush handful harder than necessary. then positions her with a knee braced against the stool, bent over the ledge of the bar. it’s awkward with the height difference, but it’s doable. better when he smushes her face into the countertop and his view is restricted to the back of her head. blonde hair mussed.

tim drops his pants to his ankles. he can feel her now, without any barrier, nudging up against her slick. he hisses a breath through gritted teeth, clocks his restraint fraying like a rope about to snap — already weak to begin with. so he doesn’t inch in or allow room for her to accommodate his length in stride. he sheaths himself inside her in a rapid thrust. if he experiences her at a savoring speed, he’d admit something he’d rather lock down. like yea i missed you. still missing you right now. that she clenches around him like some kind of death trap is already damaging. besides, his strangled moan does a hell of a job exposing him all on its own. “yer a — goddamn — pain in the ass.” his forehead falls between her shoulder blades. the cotton of her shirt is sweated through so it nearly leaves her spine bare. plenty of that to go around.

[cuntlike]

he manhandles her until she's a faceless thing to fuck-- how trite.

effective, though, because she goes cold all over at the new position, her cheek pressed against the wood of the bar. the whole length of it is sticky clean underneath her face. it smells like detergent and alcohol and regrets.

here it is, she thinks. tim is like everyone else in that aspect: ishtar pushes-- he snaps-- she snickers in the wreckage: "think ya'll forget who yer fuckin' if i shup up?", she asks him, mocking. there's no heat in the statement, but that's because she doesn't have any left to offer. she's under five feet of snow and her body is a distant, vindictive beast.

tim hurts her in a way that feels good, which is perhaps all they'll ever do to each other. squeezing bruises, crafting new wounds, pressing the tips of their fingers inside like it's any other hole to fill. one would think that ten years of separation would put a damper on such destructive habits, but less than twenty hours into finding their way back to each other and they're doing what they've always been doing, which is to fuck it up while fucking it out.

(fine, she thinks. let's do it your way.)

once he's inside, unrelenting, the wounded noise she makes is half a sigh of contentment. one hand holds on to the other side of the bar, while the other is underneath her face: mouth open against the warm skin of the back of her right hand. in the darkness of her eyelids he has yet to become a stranger.

a few back & forth until she presses her thumb against a canine-- press on a tooth until it hurts. to check on her body if her mind can't follow. the pressure, here, does nothing. it's a bad sign. she thinks of telling him to fuck off. she thinks of leaving. she feels sticky and heavy and lost.

his forehead taps against her spine, like a key turning in a lock, and she doesn't know how to get out of that. the urge to stay. to let him get what he wants. even if she doesn't want to be here. even if she doesn't want to desecrate something she once held dear. even if she doesn't want to be reminded she's the villain of yet another story.

she thought she could handle it; that tim hated her. she got it wrong. crawling insects beneath her skin. a beating heart bound to crush itself under the weight of its own effort. tim is here but isn't hers anymore-- reality crashes against memory until all that's left is a man pounding into her like he has something to prove, and she knows it's not to her. a stranger taking something that she isn't sure she can afford to part with. she has so little left... she had barely anything to begin with. a boy and a few memories and a desperate need to survive the home that birthed her.

now? the boy can't look at her, the memories are all tainted, and the home's just a house with crumbling walls and a dead mother. there's nothing left to love, nor is there anything left for her to torment. not even him.

it's all gone.

"y'used to like that 'bout me", she hears herself whisper, the sound brought back by wind-- ishtar wonders, then, how far she went for her own body to seem a journey away.

[maereor]

↪ @cuntlike / ishtar . . . are you sure you want to find out?

on victor's phone screen lies two notifications from his ex-not-ex-something-or-other , an image and one text; he's got bags and everything. is it him ? the thought of opening these messages is about as unbearable as the thought of not. for the past week on the road with ishtar , tommy has been texting about a man knocking at victor's door , shouting through it , in various states of distress. there's no way its his father. but then again , who else could it be ?

forehead bonks too-hard against the passenger seat window , a groan offered in response as the vibration of the road makes him dizzy. ❛ no , i'm not. ❜ he's seen pictures of his father before. he'll know right away when he looks if it is or isn't. and what will he do then ? what will he feel ? he sits straight again , sinking into the cushions as if wishing to melt into the car. ❛ what if it is him ? what the fuck would i do then———i don't even know why he'd show up. i know my mum sent him a letter or some shit , but its been awhile . . . ❜

fingers worry at his brows , which pinch together. please don't offer to kill him , he thinks. that probably wouldn't help———maybe. ❛ fuck it , i'm looking. i have to. if its not him , then i need to know who the hell is trying to get to me. ❜ and look he does , heart sinking so deep he thinks it falls out of the truck and gets left down the road. there his father is , pictured at his front door , older than the pictures victor has seen before. he sighs , heavy , and closes his eyes. ❛ fuck. ❜

[cuntlike]

the pick-up truck is purring beneath them as it swallows the asphalt of a nameless road, the only sound surrounding them except for the crackle of a radio station they keep getting out of range of. that's why the ping of a notification is easy to spot: it wails in the silence, it begs for attention. ishtar doesn't think she's ever received such a message-- something that will shift reality on its axis. other things, of course, have happened to her: a good fuck that led her right down the rabbit hole. a knife and a laugh and a doll mask. but nothing as laughingly modern.

victor's complicated life could be easily picked apart: a decision here & there. if only he was in the habit of making decisions-- something she isn't sure she has seen him do in their short week of cohabitation, past that one moment of intense clarity where he jumped into the truck and refused to move from it. why she let him sit there, all miserable and fearful-- she doesn't remember. victor has become somewhat of a blind spot; perhaps there is some misguided desire to keep on protecting something she killed for.

"did y'all like each other?" she asks, thumb tapping against the wheel in rhythm with the words that come out of her mouth: in the sun, on a road with no end, the southern drawl seems more apt. less of a bad joke for a cowboy movie that won't air. "'cause that's a whole lot of turmoil for a stranger." she shrugs, as if it's that simple.

& maybe it is!

look at her: mamma's a nutcase in a smalltown nowhere. mamma doesn't include her in her prayers but will always find her name when it's time for blame. mamma hated for what she'd become. ishtar now is exactly what mamma saw her as. and maybe that's all they have to be to each other: the harbinger of the end, and its horseman.

"we ain't going back", she tells him after a moment or two after that initial 'fuck', because he looks like he needs someone to tell him what's going to happen. with both hands on the wheel, she adds, almost like an afterthought: "bad luck to return to the place of the hauntin' and all that."

[envernus]

for all his years spent in the lowest parts of the lower city itself, he's never once found anything that might lead him to locating the temple dedicated to bhaal. he's made it his business to know the undercellar like the back of his hand and still, the temple remains unreachable, a lair hidden beneath the cloak of invisibility called ignorance. he imagines it like a maw, stretched impossibly open so as to engulf the entirety of baldur's gate and periodically fed by murder and violence often wrought by istar and orin's hands. maws happen to have teeth, and with those it's chewed on and spat out istar far more often than it ought to be normal. though she neither crawls nor drags her feet away from the depths of her haunt on account of her dignity, istar still wears exhaustion like a second skin. she moults whenever gortash gives her shelter.

it's one of those days today. they would have met anywhere else if it wasn't for orin and her shapeshifting so they trade the lower city for gortash's drawing room. his residence is discreet, at a twilight point between the outrageously luxurious and suitably practical, but most importantly it's quiet. it's a place to trade the scent of blood and rust for that of a burning hearth.

she's sat by the fire and is as silent as the room around her. enver rests his hands on the back of her seat, an attempt at gently alerting her to his presence. he's no assassin himself, but his own tendency to walk silently is a habit with decades of life. " you seemed a million miles away just then. " his tone abandons all theatrics. " need me to keep your mind busy, and if so with what? "

@cuntlike / @favoriteache, sc.

[cuntlike]

on the first dawn after the fire that destroyed eryri, she had imagined being in such a position: ruling over the full horizon. utterly and completely in control. she had imagined it with such vivacity for the next decade that she had spelled it into reality. it had been a source of pride, in the early days. now, presented with all the horrible ways in which she had succeeded, she felt… weary. a bit out of place. like a loose screw in a terrific machine that was bhaal's temple. it was, she knew, a byproduct of being at the top: each day, she was faced with more assassination attempts than she frankly knew what to do with, forevery loose pawn considered themselves a contender from a warm throne. and such a situation was bound to take a toll. she did enjoy the killing part of it, though. a bit mindless, like it used to be when it had been about survival rather than ambition. it felt nice. like using your legs after a long while sitting down.

this morning, she had killed a gaunt little dragonborn that looked terribly similar to her dear khairos, and she had since been faced with the hilarious thought that whoever had sent it (read: orin) wanted her to feel bad about that death. istar, of course, was not the type of monster to get sentimental over one's demise, but she still felt a bit somber about having to destroy lookalikes of her familiar. she would kill anything that breathed at her wrong, and that truth was a fact that would not budge under any circumstance, but it still felt wrong-- to kill something that, in the right light, looked exactly like her most prized companion.

there was a time she had destroyed an entire city for such a slight. which brought her to this particular thought, that had been bothering her for a while: she, once again, wondered if it would not be better to raze bhaal's temple entirely. a clean plate, for a clean start. but then again, orin was a competent monster, and the plans they had did need to be enacted by such monsters. was that what it meant, to be on the throne? a hand forced by ambition. no other way to enact one's will and, therefore, trapped. she did not like it. she wanted to gnaw at the metaphorical shackles at her wrists. she, for one moment, considered if anyone was gaining from her growing frustration-- if someone was to blame for it. but in the end she knew that bhaal's ambition ought to be hers, and that bhaal's hunger for blood was hers, and that there was nothing left to do but endure until she could, like her father, feed herself upon the deaths of million.

that was the crux of why she was sitting in silence in enver gortash's drawing room: she was agitated, and angry, and contemplating which step would bring them closer to completion, for she was getting impatient, and she knew that orin was getting closer to figuring out a way to truly be a nuisance. hands on the back of her seat had her looking away from the fire, but not toward whoever was near: she knew that perfume, and she had been somewhat aware of a presence. it was rather difficult to make bhaal's chosen jump: even if the shadows welcomed you, they still spoke to her in hushed tones. at his words, she sighed. she was an easy book to read here-- perhaps a consequence of not being one at home. she always had to protect herself in the temple: assassination attempts notwithstanding, everyone was staring at her as if she was bound to falter. blood begot blood, and murderers were hungry creatures that would never settle for anything. that meant that whoever was in charge would only remain so until someone else, hungrier and scrappier, cut off their hands to hold the scepter themselves. there would be no peace-- not until she had the power of the absolute on her side.

but within gortash's home, she could lower her shoulders. he would not betray her yet. he was an intelligent individual-- he knew their plan was sound-- he would not chase another ally unless she gave him a reason to. that meant she could relax for a few minutes. it meant that when he asked what he could do to distract her, wih that tone of his, she knew it was not a ploy to divert her from a potential knife in her back. she lked that about him too: that he was willing to meet her halfway. dropped shoulders for her, dropped theatrics for him. they met each other, curiously so, in the middle. "orin is growing bold," she told him, and though her tone was fairly flat, it was easy to read the amused barbs in the lilt of her voice: how it was both amusing and absolutely aggravating that orin thought she could best her. "i should be thinking of ways to retaliate. i'm sure you're full of good ideas." she leaned back in the seat, eyes toward the ceiling to catch the edge of enver's form. "i'd love to hear them."