🕯️ 𝗗𝗔𝗬𝗟𝗜𝗚𝗛𝗧𝗘𝗥, the son of apollo & centurion of the first cohort. a myth will come to tell the story of a demigod who bargained with the three fates to become fateless, a divine-blooded glitch beyond the scope of prediction. private & independent blog for kenneth vareck — from riordan's percy jackson & the olympians universe with heavy influence from roman mythology and fantasy. there are some minor divergences present, dark themes. minors dni.
i. 𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘥, ii. 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘰𝘯𝘴, iii. 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘦𝘴, iv. 𝘮𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘴, v. 𝘮𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘪.
𝗪𝗥𝗜𝗧𝗧𝗘𝗡 𝗕𝗬 𝗛𝗔𝗩𝗜. 27, they/them. affiliated : dvaurga, cadever, sheikage, nightorne. currently on semi-hiatus, slow activity. most explored verses are in bloodborne, cyberpunk, baldur’s gate, and elden ring. plotting guides.
𖤓 themes explored : dilemma of fate versus free will, where psychosis and fantasy merge, the indomitable will, light as a deceptive force of trickery, villain hidden in plain sight, love & death’s champion, the sun endlessly consumes.
﹙ a small introduction … ﹚ kenneth is a roman demigod and son of apollo residing in camp jupiter, a safe haven for his kind and legacies of the roman realm. he is a conduit to the fates, a general, and the junior centurion of the first cohort, replacing octavian after his death. kenneth is primarily based post-heroes of olympus ( and trials of apollo ), at which point he is 23-25 years old.
verses available : bloodborne, baldur’s gate, elden ring, cyberpunk 2077, star wars, castlevania, all for the game, witcher (books/show), tolkien, faerie, grishaverse, ninth house, dark academia, legend of zelda, and a lot more!
﹙ basic rules apply … ﹚ i'm open to feedback, but i won't tolerate competitive attitudes and generally being a dick — please find another portrayal if mine is not for you. lastly, any modicum of bigotry, sexism, islamaphobia, anti-semitism, zionism, queerphobia will result in a hard block. psd: calisources.
accessibility request : i also request that colours, fancy letterings and double / triple spaces between words be avoided when writing with me. kindly soft-block when unfollowing and feel entirely free to re-follow whenever!
﹙ regarding canon and original work … ﹚ please do not steal my work. i am critical of some of rr’s choices and tend to avoid or edit his takes on the gods which are frequently disrespectful outside of comedy, as well as some choices made story-telling wise re: see here. for engagement outside of the riordanverse, my general / modern day mythology verse is here, though it can easily be adapted into a historical setting.
✦ THERE'S A RAKISH SORT OF JOY in seeing kenneth suffer his own words, even just for a moment — terminally unable to lie, teddy could pluck him like a fucking lyre to hear the bitter, honest tune he'd sing — but the moment is short and the moment is bittersweet. he'd asked, did you miss me? and the fucking prick parried it anyway; sidestepped the question by focusing his answer elsewhere. something squirmed in the pit of teddy's stomach, neither poison nor ken's questionable soup, but something cold and greasy — disappointment?
he didn't really want to hear about the soup. he wanted ken to take the bait and bite back. he wanted to see discomposure, irritation, mulishness! anything but that stupid smile. teddy wanted to hear him say —
“ow,” what a little rat, thank the gods he'd worn his heavy boots that day; he should have taken advantage of the table jiggling to accidentally-on-purpose spill the soup, “did you mean for that to sound so — deranged? what do you mean, you were thinking about me, bent over? what do you mean, it brought you comfort? please, centurion, people will talk.”
mmm. the poison was starting to take effect; it burns a little ways up his throat like a directionally challenged shot of fireball, but blessedly goes no further and saves him the indignity of spewing in front of vareck. wouldn't that have been a shame, after all the effort the man went to, just to build teddy a tolerance to something only ken would ever inflict on him? teddy clears his throat, swallows thickly, and waits for the nausea to pass. it takes about ten minutes less than it used to — wonderful! excellent. this surely meant ken would move onto more potent poisons now that this horrible level had been cleared. ugh.
“no, i don't want any more of your bullshit soup,” he considers kicking the chair out at ken, but needs to wait for the tingle in his leg to pass first, “but while you're up — get my bag. there's something in there for you.”
growing familiar with someone to the degree that they might finish your sentences or your thoughts was a two-way street. when he delivers his jab and knows he’s robbed teddy of something vital, even if he wasn’t entirely sure what it was, he could see it in the way the light in his eyes short-circuited just barely. just a fraction. fraction enough to be seen by him, hawk-eyed stare fixated and, in that vein of knowing teddy to an atrocious degree, waited for him to take the bait of the next blow. and it came, brilliantly— lewdly. and when his expression didn’t falter, didn’t seize up in a horrible blush, he sized teddy up & down with the pretend air of someone assessing with dragging boredom.
❛ oh, aren’t they already talking? seems easy enough to believe you’d bend. ❜ silence. he broke into a grin first. teddy’s delayed response was the poison’s cue to hand the high ground back to him. he was mutely pleased with the fact that teddy hadn’t turned purple already. good. this was a sign it was working, which meant by next week’s time, he could move on to stronger— ❛ what. enough now, you haven’t even eaten— ❜ another silence, a different sort now.
he had been standing by then to fetch teddy a second bowl & halted to stare down at him. he was certain his expression was the oddest concoction of confusion and suspicion he could conjure up. teddy had been gone for days, doing gods knew what. had it mattered to him? surely it didn’t. what did it matter what teddy did without him? if he had needlessly pondered this long into the night, it certainly wasn’t about to show on his pinched expression. ❛ huh, what now. a dead rat? a bear trap? i’d be pleased with both, in truth... ❜ he turned around and inched his way into the hearth room. teddy’s dark little bag sat ominously over the settee rather than the floor. rather than pry it open, he took it back to teddy and set it over the table. then, returning to his seat, he fiddled his fingers over the other pair of them & blinked between his friend and— this.
❛ what on earth did you get me? ❜ he was surprised to find that teddy had gotten him two things actually. somehow, even while addled with poison, he was able to pry open the bag & pull out: what was obviously a book, the science title of which he glimpsed with rapt attention, and then, with the paper bag crinkling giving it away, he imagined this was that something sweet teddy had spoken about once. he said he enjoyed it, went to have it every time, that one day he wanted to take him there too. ❛ you’re an asshole. you waited until i’d poisoned you to tell me you got me gifts? ❜ he wavered then, sighed a bit dejectedly and thoughtfully. ❛ if i’d known sooner, i’d have used a better poison as thanks. nevermind that now; why did you get me all this? ❜
𖤓 ﹙ the stages of intimacy … ﹚ accepting.
a tent in the middle of nowhere where no one can hear anything.
sunlight fell over the plains like shattered glass through the intrusion of towering trees. these bright beams pocketed the meadow in spokes, warm light that the land had been deprived of for an unspeakable history. in the early hours of the morning, he had watched it rise in its slow dance across the sky, and the altus highway had been alight with a vermillion wash. there he had concluded the hunt with a proper catch, rabbits caught through nettings & arrows, what he supposed his partner would help him to make stew out of. they were not too dreadfully far from the capital, though the wilderness had a tendency of providing him with the unique relief of a certain manner of freedom. at the base of the meadow he looks up, catches the cry of a raven. as his eyes follow it’s glide, he looks ahead, and there sees a tent hitched by the dormant campfire — and the dragonspear waiting beside it.
their conversation had been light and brief, a few words exchanged although it was their eyes that held the proper greeting between tied souls. he had huffed something about the drawl of fall; sure enough, there was a colder bite to the breeze as it brushed past them, the spokes of sunlight travelling at a snails pace around them. then it was a matter of his hand being taken, or perhaps it was him who had taken vyke’s hand first, & moved inward into the tent they had propped for the night. a journey back to leyndell— surely, it was not lost on either of them that in a day alone that they had spent resting, they could have made it back by nightfall. yet they had dragged it out unnecessarily, and with slippery hope, he thought he knew why.
❛ vyke. ❜ a kiss grazed his mouth before he was pushed. the contact was severed, but it chased him down until it had found, with deadly efficiency, the soft bit of skin in the hollow between his collarbones. with a thump, the excited sort, his back had met the bedroll. a noise appeared between them, a startled thing in his throat. there was a great deal of shifting and shuffling that involved legs, & a sound weight began to settle over him. ❛ —vyke. ❜
within seconds, he had slid his hands over the length of a pleasant spine, and into the tousled mess of silvery hair just past vyke’s ear. as his fingers tightened with a handful, he pulled it stubbornly, and if he had attempted to speak, it came out fruitlessly as a string of muddled sighs instead. dazed with sensation and heat, he began to push at the other warrior until they had rolled over, swapping vantage points. the fluttering walls of the small tent threatened to collapse with all their tussling about. the noise of it gives him pause as they look up, breaths in unison, & stare at one another. though he could hardly desire to stop now, he took a moment merely to sit over the line of his waist and stare at him, smiling. ❛ i wish we did not have to go back yet. the sun... it’s changed how this place looks. do you like it? ❜
you being an hr manager while simultaneously writing kenneth vareck might be the most beautiful example of irony in the best way possible and i just think that's neat
brother .... i’m a firefighter and write a pyromaniac arsonist!!!
there is no complication here, which in itself is a complication. a shared past that did not necessarily account for a shared future. perhaps fate was but a mere figment to them as even in his own most hellish dreams he could not have foresaw the dwindling of their friendship with such destructive finality. youth had to die screaming to make room for this; it consumed all the air in the room, it left no space for sweetness yet they tried to steal it anyway. while ronan's king may be upstanding in the purity of his ceremonial armor, it is his dreamer who must claw through the dirt to maintain the paragon of his integrity. he calls this sacrifice because if he were to give it any other name it would be apostasy. yet it is this very same allegiance which leaves him hollow, as the loyalty to the crown alone was unable to feed his unfettered heart.
tasting the salt of sweat across his tongue, a kiss that also a bite. warrior incapable of not leaving bruises wherever their hands chose to roam. this was its own pledge, the temporary permanence found in discolored skin. then there were the more gruesome reminders… ❛ you ran me through with a blade on your way out — i wouldn't call that taking it on my back. you'd have me pursue you before the blood ran dry, is that it? ❜ which was to say it had been far from a simple exchange of words, as if it ever was between them. they spoke like this: liquid darkness blotting out all their doubts and mouths that wouldn't temper even when coaxed into a kiss.
❛ my dreams aren't so predictable, come on now. this is real whether you want it to be or not, rúnsearc. ❜ alluding to the fact that this was inevitable that there was no version of this story where the spymaster didn't find his way back into the dreamer's den of curios. bringing on a dagger as a form of defense, he should be insulted by the meager showing of a challenge. was this truly the best the ratcatcher had to offer? yes, but not in the ways in which it had been assumed. led into the false security of the his sighing mouth. ❛ quoting me? you already have me in bed, i think you can stop flirting with me now. ❜ sucking in air as he is silenced by the fervor of ken's lips savoring the wrongness that seeped out of him. mouth coming away raw as a bruise with the mire of shadows dripping down to his chin. another temptation that forced him into motion, first having him shrug out of the doublet with a deft urgency. then, flushed and bare, pushing back the chiton until it bunched at his stomach.
sinking onto his knees, the moss beneath bracing him at the crest of the bed. this he isn't precious about, the swollen tip encouraged out of its fabric holdings as soon as it had come into view with all his rough handling. ❛ no use in sounding so miserable about it— you don't have to tell me anything your cock hasn't already. ❜ thick in his hand, the breadth of it is no stranger to him as slides his fist upward once then down. a cheek leans into the unforgiving heat, ken trembles there against his face and the once-prince is rewarded with a kiss to his feverish flesh. one that becomes many, as he travels the length upward. already beginning to leak with anticipation, his thumb soothes over that damp.
❛ but i won't stop you from sounding so desperate, it's only going to get worse. ❜ then he takes him fully into his mouth, down to the throat until the oxygen begins to drain out of him. only surfacing with a gasp, and a grin with all the teeth he had blunted in the act.
well, yes, he’d run him through with a blade. in hindsight it seemed now all a little contradictory; how he had been the one to suspend their affair, yet stabbed ronan on the way out as if the knight had done the suspending. it mattered little now. there was hardly sense to be had where his heart was concerned with the subject of his inane desires and joys, in all its vicious thawing and scrambling. even this untidy bit of revenge, in slippery clothes & wanton hands, was an extension of his dwindling sanity. though he smiles through it as if he had expertly planned it all out of mischief and a desire to goad, the knight seeks out the coiling thing hiding beneath the surface. rotten and clotted, unstable and aching. he reaches for it and it is a sour understanding that for ronan to have found anything in him at all, was a confirmation that he was known. this was the thing: a startling desperation to be safe, to have the exhaustion on his skin overwritten by love, and for the machine of him to be overriden.
if only for a night. for a moment that he would like to pretend could become weeks, and months, and many years to come. his expression wavers: he wanted to be pursued until he stopped running, until the bargain was gone & he was home. don’t stop that. he thinks it before his hands jump, furious elven on his tongue in aggressive rebuke. fists darting against the knight’s shoulders in quick succession. his lover [calling him by his other name, beloved] seemingly undeterred, drags him closer for taking all the while. ❛ when have i ever known you to be sensible? ❜
and it was painfully real, each nerve-ending seemed aware of it before his pride wanted to bow and accept it. his hands scramble for purchase in the head of mist-black hair settling like a cloud of shadow between his legs. his voice comes out roughened and snapping as characteristically as possible, but between the words, there’s an unsteady coarseness that hadn’t been there before. ❛ ghh, would that you weren’t so insufferable, i might let you into mine. ❜ the tenor of his voice finally hitches. a hand has found him & wrangled the chiton into pleasant obedience, so that it sits gathered above his waist. breath quickening, his fingers curl into the dark hair, a spear of heat crawling down his spine. it’s nothing ronan misses, doesn’t take a hold of and thumb with pleasant smugness. were he less in love, he thinks, he would have snapped his head off for such words. instead, he’s wavering with a stifled grunt and his face flushed dazedly. ❛ shut up. just shut— ❜
the hand around him moves, swift and steady, strokes him a few times that feel a dozen; the warmth of scattering kisses over his tenderness leaves more than just the inside of his thighs blushed red. they shiver against his lover’s cheeks, and instinctively he tries to put his knees together, an effort that becomes quickly trying when a hot warm crashes over him. with a sudden shock, his breath unravels first. the hand busied in the knight’s hair tightens. eyes fluttering shut, he turns his nose into the soft linen of the bed and stifles a strained sound. when his leg hangs off ronan’s shoulder, the mouth slides further in, taking him whole, & the restraint he has painstakingly championed splinters. something dizzy like a moan crawls out of his throat, trembling and tender, not unlike the delicate heat wetting between his legs.
his free hand moves over his own mouth. he thinks he’s said ronan’s name, the only truth in the dark. it’s all muffled, stubbornly determined for quietness, and cracking over the seconds that stretch. ❛ chéadsearc. lousy bastard. you are cruel tonight. ❜ he tugs at the fine bit of black hair & pushes himself back into the mischievous grin watching him. when the knight withdraws for breath, his hips chase him belatedly, fingertips shaky where they refuse to relent their hold. having bitten his own mouth red, he holds eyes with ronan in a flurry of translation, of wants bleeding him try in punishment. of bliss that was at last writing over his bitterness. with a noise gathering in his mouth, his hands did the pleading; pulling, tugging, caressing the fine line of a cheek, thumbing a wet and glossy bottom lip. ❛ more. ❜
teddy sits slumped with ken in his periphery, and every sensation feels gummy and tilted. he feels the warmth of ken's knee pressed to his knee, and in his drunken haze, he doesn't think to correct this point of contact. ken hasn't moved either. is he drunk, too? he hopes ken doesn't move. he hopes ken doesn't move because his focus has slipped into asinine territories and he fears heartbreak, and if ken moves, if he breaks that tiny, meaningless connection, teddy will be heartbroken.
he cannot account for this foolishness — heartbroken over their knees no longer touching! for fucking shame! the greeks called him heartless as a joke to hide their fear of him, and now he sat trembling like coward at the mere thought of being untouchable — and he blames kenneth for it. teddy turns his head sidelong to give ken the bibulous stare of a man who has just realised he has been stabbed and is bleeding, but cannot find the offending wound to stem the blood. there is no weapon in his friend's hand, but that doesn't absolve him; his hands may as well be stained scarlet for all the heartache he's caused teddy, with or without his knowledge.
“you've ruined me for anyone else, and i hate you for it,” he sighs, “not that you even care.”
the thing about being shit-faced is, he doesn’t like it. it feels wrong and gross and irresponsible. it feels like courting danger and disrepair. it feels like juggling with a blindfold. there’s his prized control, and he thinks alcohol wants to see him eat dirt the way some first cohort weasels do. did the sweet drink teddy give him have fun, tearing the paint from his skin & dousing his thoughts to mush? he has the good sense left to consider panicking. but, the lull is so soft, and his periphery has gone all dewy. even more damning was when he glanced left, hearing teddy speak, while their knees touched and his exhale was breathy with dizziness: he saw two of teddy. no, three. three teddy’s. all three with the same punched up expression.
he isn’t sure if teddy’s drunk, which feels a bit unfair. when teddy speaks, it sounds like he’s a lot more in control of himself than his own gin-addled mind. god, he hates this. hates seeing double and hates his pulse skittering and hates that really, he doesn’t feel the familiar bliss of alarm crawling through his body, & convincing his half-cracked mind that everything that moved was an enemy. he hates that he feels— at ease. a proximation to safety. he feels, teddy’s knee. hears teddy’s words.
then he’s turning his head a little where it had been leaning against the wall. kenneth meets his eyes, and slowly grins wickedly with all his teeth. ❛ awh, poor ted. ❜ he moves his knee away, only to shift onto his side. it brings the other one closer instead, just barely brushing teddy’s leg, like he’s huddling closer to exchange secrets and not wounds. ❛ i don’t give a fuck, honestly. ❜ truth rune pledge, he swears it with two fingers raised & patting his lips. afterwards, his palm flattens against the ground and he leans closer, dangerously inviting. ❛ hate me then. you’ll come around. what’s— ❜ ah, no. his words slur just a fraction. he’s stupid drunk and knows it. ❛ what’s anyone else against me, anyway. won’t know you like i do. maybe that’s what you really hate. ❜
[25.] pushing them onto a piece of furniture before straddling them.
𖤓 ﹙ the stages of intimacy … ﹚ accepting.
she had turn on him wreathed in rage. his answering smile as he stepped backwards had earned him the first push. what was it written in her dark brow? that stringent gasp that said, you stopped. not because of something insignificant like fatigue, but something far more poisonously addictive: punishment. it was a look of unfettered accusation. by the time he’s shoved down on the closest piece of furniture, a settee in baby blue, she’s taking stock of what was hers & straddling his lap with force. his hands have already dug splinters into her nightdress. courtesy of slinking in under the cover of night, and she, expecting him, a message translated through a single hostile look exchanged over dinner, had let him lockpick his way in.
❛ why the rage? ❜ roughhousing on the cushioned seat, his hand winds its way up her silken back and catches her hair. there’s a hard, demanding tug in the full fist of it as he holds her in place, teeth sneering at teeth in a hovering kiss, & the weight of her blissfully perfect against him. ❛ does it feel good to be robbed? ❜
moments prior was when he had first decided on his cruelty. a successive exchange of hateful kisses that spurred something lustful, something warm & familiar and taken off the pages of letters. her hand reaching back for him, where her body had been bent over the bed, letting her nails do the complaining with each tear she put down on the sheets. that was where the crescents had ruined her dress, a sinking grip just at the edge of finality. a sultry temptation to push in again and again, and then hold that shock of warmth inside. but he had pulled away just as her thighs grew stiff, and her breathy sighs grew tight. what was it to know someone as well as a bad dream, to understand even the hitch of one’s breath?
her fingers tended to clench. her lips parted more often around sighs but attempted to clam shut through stifled moans. her hair to him, seemed a refined disaster told in stormy paintings. hypnotic in her daze and unafraid of her bliss, yet stubborn as a soldier in holding herself together. now that temper was turned on him.
❛ do you want more? ❜ there is a shared sigh hitched between them, crashing waves and pleasant sweat over flushed skin. he tugged at her hair again, but she was against him, wet between her legs & everywhere she pressed down to slide along him. a teasing push and they could have eachother, but not quite yet, not when there was a war between their eyes. ❛ say it. ❜ mouth parting like a flower at her jaw. the bud of a bruise just at her neck. he kisses it between bites, memorises the inches of her neck. a hand leisurely cards over the silk of her abdomen and rubs both ribs and breast. ❛ kärista, i want you to say it. ❜
you're the last person I wanted to see today. (hi)
𖤓 ﹙ love is a battlefield … ﹚ accepting.
it’s the kind of thing to be said upon walking into an unwelcome trap, and so he thinks his appearance was unexpected. levi had gone a grand total of five steps into the library before realising he was decidedly not alone. where they met was an odd spot; a table, a chair, and a shard of blistering light through the wide plane windows separated them starkly. he considered the other man with the half-lidded eyes of a swan debating where to tear flesh. ❛ i don’t think highly enough of you, ❜ he starts, deciding the hostility & levi’s short temper wasn’t worth his time when they had been wrangled into a treasure hunt. ❛ to care about your wants. this is happening, whether you like it or not. ❜
the book he had slipped away from one of the shelves is a dusty old thing. he supposes a lay of the land would be helpful for his own learning rather than take everything from the mouth of the other. he turned a page, momentarily losing interest, & lipped the book shut before looking towards his company. now it was his turn to be snappish, arms folded and jaw canted. ❛ you’re already late. make yourself useful, unless prattling is all this commander does? ❜
ken's movements are watched like a hawk would a mouse. not out of ill intent, rather out of curiosity and to catch a glimpse before prying eyes do. they're standing firmly on eggshells, considering where they are having the entirety of this conversations. ensha is not far and neither is the door to gideon's chamber. it's almost insulting that he gets his own lavish chamber while the rest of them are merely passing guests.
an elbow moves in to nudge ken but he stops himself just before. they're no brothers in arms or trust. ❛ and his hands, if we're unlucky. ❜ vyke's upper lip moves shortly, a sign of his disgust with the mere thought. the dependence of other tarnished is a mark of weakness. not that help should be omitted at all but what gideon is offering is neither help nor guidance. it's all fodder in the name of his own interest - that realization is one vyke has made early on. ❛ nothing around here happens without his fingerprints all over it. ❜ it's nice, to finally get these things off his chest. so many confide in gideon and so few understand the fox he truly is.
a hand, clad in its gauntlet, reaches for one of the leather pockets around vyke's waist. it remains closed, unlike the goods kenneth decided to share. a pat, rough quite uncaring for its contents ( even if they are of value to others ) reveals only the general shape of the item inside. ❛ found something he might be interested in. it's a bargaining chip. ❜ there's a certain confidence in this. everything concerning gideon is a delicate dance ; what to give and what to take. it's a game of who buckles first in their pursuit. ❛ his more precious information isn't free and neither are my services. ❜ vyke is known to test the limits of what gideon will put up with. so far, he hasn't found it yet. kenneth, on the other hand, seems to have made a pinpoint observation of the moment when it boils over. entertainment is rare and this is the next best thing.
he looks around once. twice. eyes linger on ensha for but a moment. there's nothing to read off them behind the silence and helm. vyke's voice is hushed now and he leans just a bit closer for the next bit of info he gives. ❛ someone's on my heels and i need to know who. ❜ he's spoken to rosceline, about this, about the eyes he feels, glued onto him every time he turns is back. it's an uneasy feeling and certainly not one that should be shared with anyone he comes across. in this situation, however, there is a reason to him telling. if those after either of them find out he knows, they might be more careful. worry heralds mistakes. mistakes make for easy targets. it's not out of trust that he shares this. no soul in the hold has earned this from vyke. ❛ i'm sure he knows. i'm just as sure that he's waiting for me to pay up. ❜ and he's not going to do it without fighting gideon all the way. as per usual. it does have some upsides to be beloved by the hold.
❛ and his dog, if we should be so glad. ❜ this is directed more pointedly at ensha. good manners would dictate that he continue to speak as if they were not there. but he had none of that decorum in front of gideon’s door & relayed the insult with his face. when ensha refuses to budge, he remains where he is a moment before to consider vyke. when the hammering of his own pulse quietens long enough to let him think, he squints a little and is not dazed enough by enchantment to forgo his training; he is raptly attentive, considering each word given in seriousness, even if he appears humorously dismissive. the seal in his hand is curled into by his fingers before he pockets it once more. it was not so long ago that gideon had sought a better seal, had asked him to watch for the contender just in front of him. would that vyke knew, this talk would sound a lot more different. but they are neither allies or enemies, but merely, and significantly, strangers.
there is a quiet moment where his expression is turned away from ensha entirely, and towards vyke’s shoulder, that a slip of something honest gets out of him. a comment about gideon’s fingerprints everywhere— he knew something of that. mouth open as if to say one thing & coming out with another. how he would like to see gideon backed into a corner, yet it was never so easy with slippery things. he clears his throat some, and looks away; though the answers were unclear, he has long watched the beaten roads and the spring of murders that have followed in recent time.
❛ it’s you at his door; he will pretend at thrill and humility, but he won’t turn that down. vyke, ❜ because he knew his name, most did anyway, but he had said it thoughtlessly. vyke leans in with a hushed whisper, and he nearly looks at him then in the sudden privacy of their conversation. a mild sense of alarm grips him. ❛ you should be careful about— ❜ there it was, a hand catching the back of his shirt like a sudden gasp. ensha.
whatever it was he had considered saying was snipped into the wind, courtesy of the black helmed irritation bearing down on him. ever attentive was ensha to preventing gideon’s ravens from uttering more than they should, even former and unpleasant ones. ❛ —mad hound, let me go. ❜ the thing would not, even as he resisted being discarded away as simply as that by the towering blight. promptly he was to be torn away from the dragonspear with more urgency, as ensha merely instructed vyke inside with less than polite contempt and a pointed finger.
there is no au unfortunately where ken has long hair because he hates me and hates joy and whimsy. the second it gets longer past his jaw he’s grabbing the scissors. however in faerie au where apollo does get to raise him somewhat i know he’s sitting there mad as hell cause dad’s giving him tiny lucky braids and his hair needs to be fluffier and longer for it.
(Some notes: The infinite sign shape above is Ouroboros, a snake eating its own tail, historically a symbol of infinity or the cycle of life, death and rebirth. I chose to put it there because the duality of death and rebirth corresponds to Apollo as the god of light but also god of plague. The name “apollo” itself has the meaning of the “destroyer” too. Snake is also an animal related to Apollo in myths.)
You make me feel like I'm losing a battle I didn't even know I was fighting. ( quick he’s becoming self aware )
𖤓 ﹙ love is a battlefield … ﹚ accepting.
his attention settles on elric with the body language of a snake, and it starts with the turn of his head. his eyes narrow and his mouth twists, a searching frown. he can feel the wave of discomfort emanating from the now and oddly quiet elric who sits not far from him, over his comfortable bedroll within an elegant mass of a tent, which he suspects lacks even a quarter of thay’s opulence. that he has crawled his way inside is insignificant. he is ever a shard of light crawling through cracks & spaces that he shouldn’t. they are still miles apart however; cross-legged and distracted by what he can only assume is torment clouding elric.
kenneth wonders, what is it that he is thinking? what is it that he does not say? albeit suspended in this curiosity, he smiles in a twitch of amusement as well. ❛ i know what regret smells like. ❜ he tastes the air as serpents do, & finds it lacking of disappointment. there is something else there, though. ❛ but you don’t even taste of it. you would rather pretend indifference to me? ❜ a long pause ensues. it stretches like a body between them. he tilts his head the other way, unsure of what to make of elric’s eyes just then, yet no less discouraged from trying. they were out in the wilderness of a sweltering land, rocky mountain tops and his blood pulsing with the sun. infections in their heads and a clock counting down to the end. what was there to do but seek? he prods again, tentatively, with his knees pulled lazily to his chest. ❛ is this making your stomach turn? ❜
