child of the dark

[dxrkchiild-blog]

                            ɪꜰ ʙᴇɪɴɢ ʜɪᴍ ɪꜱ 𝓌𝒽𝑜 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝒶𝓇𝑒                             ꜱᴀʏ ɪᴛ ʟᴏᴜᴅ ꜱᴀʏ ʏᴏᴜ ᴋɴᴏᴡ ʏᴏᴜ ᴀʀᴇ                             ɪꜰ ᴀʟʟ ᴏꜰ ᴛʜɪꜱ ꜰʟɪᴇꜱ ᴀᴘᴀʀᴛ                             ʜᴇ ᴡɪʟʟ ɴᴇᴠᴇʀ ᴋɴᴏᴡ 𝓌𝒽𝒶𝓉 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝒶𝓇𝑒                             ᴀɴᴅ ʜᴇ ᴡɪʟʟ ɴᴇᴠᴇʀ ᴋɴᴏᴡ 𝓌𝒽𝓎

[dxrkchiild-blog]

shoarkellen‌:

   She wasn’t one to talk someone out of owing her a favor for long and when Parnus made his decision she gave a slow shrug, deciding not to press the issue further and instead, let her full attention focus fully on his person and, as it was, waited.

   When it all came down to it, Kellen had new plans percolating in her mind. The air was rife with burgeoning chaos and she knew — knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, even — that his favor may come due well before he planned; he didn’t need to know all that, however, so she merely gave him a half-smile, the closest thing Kellen gave anyone as far as the public eye was concerned.

   “You realize the risks and I am here to answer to the best of my ability.” Kellen offered, as if to push him into actually asking his questions rather than looking as if he wanted to blow his top. It was subtle, the line of tension in his body, but she recognized it for what it was: annoyance laced with an underlying hint of panic.

   Her eyes cast towards the horizon, then back to Parnus, but she made nary a move to shift away from him, instead standing still as a statue; it was eerie… almost. At least if one didn’t know Kellen to begin with.

“Not here.”

He could tell that she was prompting him to begin their not-interrogation in her body language. Or lack thereof. But this was too open of a place. Too many ears listening, both within and without. No, he didn’t need anyone reporting back to Wolfgang or even the Bone Queen that he was asking about the centuries gone.

Parnus didn’t waste time in jerking his head to lead Kellen back to his abode. It wasn’t the safest place in Sanctuary by any means, but it was close to Town Hall and Ayanna should the need arise, and he knew the other Vampires avoided him by nature; which meant at least a few less ears listening in.

Behind him he shut the door; a flimsy way of giving them the privacy they both knew was impossible in a town like this. To stave off the darkness Parnus went around and lit the candles he had placed in every corner, and then the one he had up high on the sill of the small window he used to tell the day from the night.

“To start, I want to know the first thing you remember. As a Human, even, if you have any memories from those days.” He wasted no time. There wasn’t any to waste.

[dxrkchiild-blog]

kngkllcr‌:

Venera had left word with Lilita days ago that she would be out of Sanctuary and traveling, tasked with a hunt with a vampire. Venera knew little of Vampire culture until coming to Sanctuary, so she knew not if he was an important one or some pawn used in this game as well- what she did know were simple things about him. He slowed her down during the day, making it impossible to track as far as she’d like to go. He also seemed to have a childish heart, though not easily manipulated or exploited and that part interested her. 

The stirring under the rumble had caught her attention, glancing up at the faded sky. With his rising they could now continue on in their search. While little had been shared between the two- at Venera’s doing of course- they both seemed to be of the interest on where the wildlife had gone. Curiosity had driven them this far and now interest was keeping her going. 

Washing the remaining bits of red from her fingers, the evidence of her full belly now washing away in the stream of the fresh water. Her attention turns toward him on his approach, standing now as she wipes her hands dry on dirty pants. She would love nothing more than to wash the travel from her skin, get the dirt and grit off a little but they have to keep moving or they’ll never find answers. And if Venera comes back without answers it would be a hard day indeed for the General.

“I have a feeling there won’t be any deer to find in those mountains either. There hasn’t been signs of wildlife in miles- something or someone has wiped them out. And we’re the only beings for miles.” Her mind was working, trying to come to up with possible ideas on what is happening. Another plague, but this one attacking the animal life? No, that couldn’t be it, they’d have seen signs of sickness or weakness in the wildlife around Sanctuary long before this. It had to be a person, or a group, that was doing this. 

“I can only come up with bizarre ideas the more I think about it. The least likely is starting to look the most sane.” Paranoid to her core, Venera always thinks that attacks or wars are just in the horizon and brewing. “I can only come back to the idea that someone is wanting us to suffer, to starve.”

He hated to admit that she was right -- not because of what she was but because it meant everything they had done those last few nights was useless. Useless to them and useless to Sanctuary. Every catch of the breeze Parnus stopped to inhale for signs of life, of blood, but the scent was far too faint to be nearby now.

He turned to listen, brow furrowed.

“That’s a lot of trouble to go through, though,” he countered, “to get rid of all animal life within the radius, at least towards the Blood Territory?” Would anyone really want to do such a thing...?

Though Parnus had stumbled half-starving to Sanctuary from the time he rejected the Blood Court, all the while in a haze of memories and dreams, he remembered certain landmarks. One like the hilly range in the blue, hazy distance.

Parnus splashed water on his face and wiped the grime from his cheeks. “We’re a nights’ journey from the edge of Wolfgang’s Territory. From what I remember there might be a clan or two outposted. We can ask if they’ve seen anything, at the very least.”

“I’ll keep you safe, don’t worry.”

[dxrkchiild-blog]

rose-red-sinner‌:

ailes-de-corbeau‌:

With the two vampires wandering away, Lilita was left looking to decide what to do. She could always go out and look for useful scrap, as they were supposed to. The only potential dangers she could encounter outside were wild animals, which generally didn’t bother another predator unless it was in their area. However, she decided against that on the off chance that something goes wrong. Then the two vampires, rendered useless by the sun peeking from the horizon, wouldn’t be able to help her out. And the very thought of being in a position where she’d need their help made Lilita bristle.

So, she too decided to stay inside this building and explore it a little.

Nothing caught her fancy as she wandered down the halls that might have once been pristine, now covered in layers of dust. Side stepping shattered glass, easily stepping over fallen models of what had once been a bear, Lilita wandered down what was the museum. Descending a few flights of stairs, she stopped randomly on a floor that must’ve been two levels before the surface.

An arched doorway with, what was once, an ornate door hanging off its hinges, caught her fancy. Guided by interest but not leaving caution behind, the upyress strolled inside. On either side of the doorway were two statues, that looked humanoid, holding torches with their heads and bottom half in gold, chipped and broken in places. Now, she didn’t need fire to see clearly but, she wondered if those torches still worked.

Intrigued she went further in.

( @rose-red-sinner )

Zion’s laughter only grew while she placed the head piece, was it a crown? It was golden or was golden at one point. It had all but lost its luster. Zion knew a lot about crowns and the power they held. Funny how such a little thing could amount to so much. A throne set on mountains of the dead. Both the vampires and the Upyr ruled viciously and as she continued to move along the wide-open area, it became clear that these people were capable of ruling with the same brutality. White statues of men and women, all set with a beautifully stern air of power.  

Her hands brushed along the marble; legs and arms, swords and shields. They were all so delicately crafted into life-size figures. How could someone do this? How long did it take? Faces with blank eyes directed her gaze toward a series of statues. A story that could last forever, preserved in stone. The minor imperfections of age were not nearly as severe as they should have been. The building had served as protection from the elements.

A gilded statue of a man with a spear, the three tipped spear. “Is that a pitchfork?” Zion looked puzzled for a moment. A king with a pitchfork and a fair looking girl. The next statue was a woman, the same powerful expression she had seen in Milena bore directly toward the fair female figure. Anger, that was pure uninhibited anger. Zion trailed after the story constructed in various figures. The next scene was clearly the punishment. The fair female figure was weeping, and her good looks were replaced with gigantic slit eyes and a head full of snakes.  

“So, the guy with the pitch fork screwed you sideways and you got the blame…. Typical.” Zion could totally relate the to the dire situation this girl was in. Looking down, Zion noticed a mirrored shield. Both sides were overplayed with a smooth reflective surface. “I’m taking this.”

He didn’t know how long he and the images carried on their silent conversation. All he knew was that it didn’t feel like any time had passed at all when the dusty glass frames began to get harder to see, and Parnus turned with squinted eyes to see the high-up windows reflecting the warm hues of sunset.

But he didn’t want to leave -- knew he had to, of course -- but he didn’t want to. How long before someone would take conversation with these pieces of the past again? How long before they were appreciated? Some foreign voice echoed like mist in the back of his mind; a dream of a dream.

The world was supposed to fix itself when we woke up.

He didn’t know what it meant, didn’t know the sleep referred to or thought about, but nothing in this world had fixed itself. Not until the likes of Sanctuary. And even then... tensions kept everyone at arms’ length when they were supposed to embrace as friends.

Carefully the Vampire retraced his steps through the long corridor of images, his dance to avoid the sunlight one he was all too familiar with.

He was the first to arrive back in the entrance where they had all gone their separate ways. He hoped they would return soon.

( @ailes-de-corbeau​ ) ( @rose-red-sinner​ )

[dxrkchiild-blog]

ailes-de-fleurs‌:

While Ayanna doubted that there was only one such place that was so grand and beautiful, she hadn’t come across any other such place when they had been just wanderers, moving and running for their lives. However, something in the back of her mind told her that the Bone Court wasn’t the only one. She didn’t express that to Parnus, because his line of logic had hope. Whereas hers meant only heartache for her friend.

Plus, there was no harm in, at least, checking it out. They had been in luck with the book. Perhaps their luck would favour them some more.

She smiled softly, planing her warm hand upon Parnus’ cold one. “I think I know someone who can help us out,” she revealed, praying it doesn’t get his hopes up exponentially. “The Upyr Advisor, Darius Vasilescu. I trust him.”

If Ayanna trusted the Upyr, then Parnus could at least find himself open to the idea of trust as well. He recognized the name only because it stood out in his mind as the Upyr who had been kind but forthcoming about exactly why he had taken time out of his evening to converse with the Vampire -- because he wanted to know more about the Outcast of the Blood District. 

It was his honesty that had left a mark on Parnus’ being. He could respect that if nothing else about the man was honourable. But he had a feeling, one that only grew with Ayanna’s quickly answered request for a private meeting between the three in the halls of the Museum, that there was a possibly of an alliance between them. For this, at the very least.

The Upyr gave them a specific time and day to meet him at one of the side entrances to the Museum. None of the involved parties wanted the Bone Queen to know the exact nature of their meeting so Parnus understood why they needed to arrive somewhere other than the very public Museum steps, and only when the Queen was guaranteed to be visiting some school a few alleys over.

Still Parnus was on edge as he and Ayanna waited in the shadows for the door in front of them to open. Couldn’t stop looking over his shoulders at the slightest flicker of a shadow. Ayanna’s safety was paramount.

Finally there was a click and the door swung outward, the Upyr Darius darkening the dimly-lit doorway in greeting.

“Nice to see you again.” offered Parnus with something resembling a smile.

( @darius-r3x​ ) ( @ailes-de-fleurs​ )

[dxrkchiild-blog]

The Things We Do in the Dark                   @ailes-de-fleurs

From sunrise to sunset Parnus kept his eyes wide open and trained on the doorway. Even as morning passed and the stream of constant sunlight faded away with the shadows he didn’t dare look away. 

Not because he feared being burned. Once the panic of the sun died down it was replaced with a much larger, much more fierce worry. Because as he searched and wracked his brain, as he replayed the events of his encounter with Rayyad Wolfgang-Child in his head, each time he came to the same conclusion: there was a gap of time he couldn’t account for.

He remembered struggling -- not for breath but for stability. He remembered ripping off the other Vampire’s ear. Falling to the ground, and standing up. Then... he was against the large slab and running for his life. There, between the ache in his jaw and the tips of his feet burning in his shoes, something was missing. Similar to the way everything else in his head was missing in a gaping, aching void. 

The mere thought that his memory loss could be a continuing thing shattered everything Parnus was all the way down to the bone. And he knew there was only one place he could go.

Not a moment after sunset Parnus dashed out of the Bone District and through the streets of Sanctuary. Like a blur he turned this way and that, interrupting those heading back from a day at the Market and disrupting those on their way to set up for Midnight. Through every disgruntled call his way he ran, and ran, and ran until he was clinging with ardent desperation to Ayanna’s front door. 

Nails scrambling, wood gathering underneath them, and then the forced push and thunk of a broken lock as he compelled the door to open for him and shoved his way inside.

[dxrkchiild-blog]

Covert Operations                   @ailes-de-corbeau

The Humans didn’t like him. The Vampires didn’t want him. Where did that leave the Upyr?

Parnus had only seen them around during his shifts at the ruins and during the events the town had held in trying to make everyone get along. Beyond that, his interactions with Upyr had been limited. And now he found himself in the unique circumstance that he needed to be on one’s good side if it meant finding out anything more about the journal and her owner.

Ayanna had ruled out that they would need to find a way for him to enter the Bone Court in person to understand any further information, but Parnus wasn’t so skeptical. If anything, it was better to have a plan and not need it than to be floundering without one at all.

Floundering. An interesting word he didn’t know the meaning of, but knew how to use it.

He was running into a lot of interesting words like that lately.

He’d been casually tailing the Upyr woman for the better part of the night; skirting around the stalls she stopped at in the Midnight Market -- always near but never beside her, never in contact. And he didn’t figure he was being sneaky about it, either. 

She had to have noticed him, right?

A hope Parnus carried as he watched her head into one of the side alleys bordering the Blood and Bone Districts. Not bothering to conceal his footsteps or hide in the shadows. He wasn’t trying to steal anything from her. Except maybe a moment of her time.

[tarqxryen]

#relatable

[dxrkchiild-blog]

wxlfgangsoutcast‌:

He wasn’t the Dark-Child.

He wasn’t the Dark-Child. He wasn’t the Dark-Child. He wasn’t the Dark-Child. He wasn’t the Dark-Child. He wasn’t the Dark-Child. He wasn’t the Dark-Child. He wasn’t the Dark-Child. He wasn’t the Dark-Child. He wasn’t the Dark-Child. He wasn’t the Dark-Child. He wasn’t the Dark-Child. He wasn’t the Dark-Child. He wasn’t the Dark-Child.

                                                              He wasn’t the Dark-Child.

The grave opened like a pit, swallowed everything on the outside, and left nothing but the acceptance of that one fact. He wasn’t the Dark-Child. Strange, a stranger in a strange land, stood before him. Something that hadn’t tasted the earth, or forgotten the taste of it. Something that sent an unfamiliar wretchedness down his spine. Something that made him wretch.

With the howl of a wounded beast and the speed of the predator perfected by circumstance, Rayyad rushed the thing that wasn’t the Dark-Child and sent it hurtling through the air and against a slab of stone slumbering peacefully on its lonesome.

He didn’t wait for the thing to recover. Didn’t want the thing that wasn’t the Dark-Child to come after him and take something else of his. 

His. Rayyad’s eyes scanned the ground in a panic and landed upon the flesh-coloured stone. It would grow back… and he would remember that he lived without it. 

In haste and hurt Rayyad gobbled his severed ear in one gulp, feeling the oblong shape of it slide down his gullet and settle somewhere it should not go. His body would reject it later. His everything else had rejected t h i s, NOW.

A thing. Not Dark-Child. A spider with every eye everywhere and every leg in every pocket. A black sheep cowering among the flock of wolves.

Rayyad ran – F L E D – as fast as he could.

He did not turn to see if the wolf had chosen to follow the trail of the earless sheep.

When Parnus awoke, it was to a brightness burning at the backs of his eyelids and a sickening feeling crawling all over his skin. Like someone had turned him inside-out and back again, but had done so with everything backwards and some things in the wrong place altogether.

He held up a hand stained with blood and found an effective cure for the cloudiness in his head to be the sight of smoke unfurling from his fingertips.

In panic Parnus turned to the sight of the sunrise behind him. Where he lay prone on a large sheet of rock, he was positioned to be both the pan and the fire. 

A chill without cold ran down his spine and though it sent every single in his mind to scream in agony, he scrambled down from his resting place and limped with every last ounce of his energy towards the safety and shelter of the outskirts of the Bone District.

Only when he was safe and secure, cowering against the back wall of a gutted stone home with no door and the sunlight inching close, but not too close, to his salvation, did Parnus feel his body relinquish itself and weep.

-----------------END

[dxrkchiild-blog]

wxlfgangsoutcast‌:

The last time fear passed through the mind, the body, the soul of the man called Rayyad, he had come face to face with a creature. The creature hunted at night and was burned by the sun, and judging by the blood on its face, it lived to consume life itself. The creature had found his hiding hole in the middle of a maze of stone and rusted metalwork and pinned him down – small, fragile, bones not yet grown and body not yet aged fully – and prepared itself to feast. In a moment fueled by the primal thing called Fear, the boy called Rayyad fought tooth and claw for his life.

The creature paid with his.

Decades had passed and while his mind had faded and been stitched back together with his own blood-soaked hands, while every feeling and emotion after had dug a deeper and deeper hole and covered the grave with rotting flowers and the carcasses of his enemies, Fear had not been forgotten like he thought.

                                      It had been lying in wait.

Missing, ear-shaped piece to the Rayyad flesh puzzle forgotten, the Mad Prince stared in bewilderment and  f  e  a  r  at the thing that stood before him.

What animal so vicious could behold the terror of a madman in fickle palms?

Rayyad felt a smile try to find sanctuary on his face.

                                         “You’re not the Dark-Child.”

He looked down at his hands, flexed his fingers in unison while his wrists rotated. Blood, sleek and shining under the dim moonlight, the scent of wildflowers long forgotten but blowing in from the east, the ringing in his ears tinny and with a vibrato.

With a trembling palm he pushed back strands of mousy brown hair clumped together with sweat, grime, the stench of fear and winter air clinging to every strand. Blood smeared on his forehead but gave a weight to his body, to his form, to the world around him.

Dirt desperate for a home clung underneath his fingernails, coated his palms, tried to beg passage anywhere but where it had rested for centuries. Centuries... He cupped his palms and inhaled deeply. No scent, but the tickle of the earth in his nose, down his throat and in his lungs. Where it clung to the tip of his nose and the rounded bow of his lips with a desire to be tasted.

The voice brought him out of his reverie and hurled his attention to the figure across from him. A skeleton with flesh and rotted blood, rotten from the inside out where it oozed from his skull. Red and viscous clinging to oil-black hair but nothing tantalizing about it.

Blood was blood. But that blood wasn’t. 

And after the crescendo of hunger lulled to sleep, the words found meaning again.

He looked at the corrupt, half-alive thing before him, a child of the night starved of everything worth saving, everything worth sacrificing, reduced to... to a husk.

                   “No,” he answered, and dragged blooded fingertips over his throat to feel the swell and ebb of his own voice, “no, I’m... I’m...” Forcing his lips, cracked and dry, to form the words, “P-P...”

[dxrkchiild-blog]

wxlfgangsoutcast‌:

The world was silent but for their ragged gasps. Inoutinoutin–inoutinoutout–ininoutoutinoutin. No matter how hard Rayyad tried to put them in sync the Vampire at his feet was trying too hard to breathe that it was throwing him off. 

Slowly, as if the air around them had turned thick as the blood-hazed fog in his mind, Rayyad reached upwards with trembling fingers still smeared red and felt the chasm left in the space where… a part of him had been.

Repeatedly his digits searched, used to the familiarity of something constant, as bodies tended to be, before the flat of his palm pressed against the open wound. He didn’t scream, didn’t shriek; nothing like the creature he had mutilated and been mutilated by in return. 

“Everything grows back,” came the familiar echo of his own voice in his head; bouncing off of the curves of his skull and delighted at the prospect of wiggling out of his mind by using the new door that had been made mere moments ago. “And when it does… remember that you lived without it.”

Before Rayyad could reach down and pluck the key from the Dark-Child’s grasp the thought found its escape and slithered out of his mind. And was no more.

A slow, measured blink. 

“That’s mine.”

Both Vampires were in similar measures of shock and, at least on Parnus’ end, revulsion. As though he had just come to terms with what the object in his hand was he tossed it forward, wanting to be free of the sickening implication it chained him with. 

The ear arced through the air before making a short and sudden stop on the dust-covered toe of Rayyad’s boot, where it rolled off to end its journey on the ground.

As though hypnotized they both watched it until it was still, and even then only when it had been still long enough for Parnus to fully grasp the magnitude of what he’d done. What he’d done in retaliation of what had been done to him. Retribution from the Tribunal, Wolfgang’s reaction, even Ayanna’s disgust were far from his mind as the dull pain in his shattered mouth throbbed and everything in the world around them came down to one, all-consuming thought.

Parnus found it strange how one moment the earth cradled his back in his agony, wavering eyesight trying desperately to focus on the Vampire above him; and the next he stood near eye-level with the other man on feet firmly in place.

Something bright, brighter than the sun, brighter than pain, brighter than rage and fury, flashed behind Parnus’ eyes as they closed in a blink. More than colours he couldn’t describe or a name he wanted so desperately to call out but couldn’t for the life of him remember. More than the flurry of snow on his bare skin like thorns in a brier patch or the last desperate taste of mouths and tongues and teeth before what could very well have been the end.

The brightness found a home in the hole in his chest and for one fleeting moment everything in the world was in the right place at the right time.

                          C  R  A  C  K.

His jaw realigned with a single noise. Bones mended seamlessly, the burn of blood trickling down his throat was gone. His mouth opened, but he didn’t recognize the voice that spoke.

“How... dare... you...”

[dxrkchiild-blog]

wxlfgangsoutcast‌:

There was a childish sense of wonderment and delight sparkling in Rayyad’s eyes as he watched the broken little thing try to set itself free. The familiar song of Vampire blood – once relished in his days with a finite lifespan but now nothing more than a subtle substitution for sexual pleasure – called out to him, and for the first time since he’d arrived at the rough, pebbled beaches of Lake Glass he didn’t resist what was nothing more than a healthy, natural impulse.

Rayyad closed his lips over Parnus’, tongue snaking out and into the wet cavern he had broken with his own grip to taste the blood before it was wasted in going to the belly of the host from which it came.

Beneath the cover of his mouth he felt the fragile Vampire shake and swallowed the muffled, moist noise of his constant screams. Pulled his mouth away with a squelching p o p and dragged his tongue down over his own hand to smear the blood across his knuckles and grasp.

“Oh… you taste…”

The sensation of it hit him before he could muster his answer. Blood not meant to give the dead a continued life but certainly meant to inspire a change in the form. There was nothing like it; and he had sampled everything past and present. More filled to the brim with an aching corruption and desire to spread than the blood that had killed a monster and made a massacre. 

So certain was he that if this blood poured from the chest of his little spider it would gather on the ground and form a hole too deep for anything to crawl out of.

The Prince closed his eyes, ichor smeared across the lower half of his face, and felt unbridled arousal move through him like the eye of a storm.

                                                    “ E N D L E S S ”

Nothing done so far to Parnus that night brought as much fear to him as the actions that he could only describe as intimate worship of his blood. He’d figured the rumours Ayanna had told him were true -- what was there to be gained in accusing someone of being a cannibal in a world like theirs? -- but every whisper and worry they had traded over the introduction of another of Wolfgang’s wild cards was eclipsed in comparison to what he was being forced to endure.

Filled with agony, shame, desperation; Parnus closed his eyes and surrendered himself to the other man’s madness.

                                                   “ E N D L E S S ”

Eyelashes clinging together through the thin film of teardrops, the amnesiac Vampire managed to steal enough of a peek to know that Rayyad’s insanity had, albeit temporarily, made him retreat from the world around the pair and into whatever batshit place of damage he felt safest in his mind.

For a fraction of a moment Parnus debated letting the opportunity pass by; imagined all of the things Rayyad could do to him to bring on further pain and degradation. And when it passed, the void that was left boiled and frothed at the edges into unbridled rage. 

Rage reached out and dug fingernails into soft skin, locked them in until blood pushed into the spaces underneath. Rage yanked down while its partner Fury let out a wailed cry as resistance gave way to tearing flesh and cartilage. And Rage clung to the detached ear through the slippery slick of blood that coated Parnus’ palm.

One moment he was hovering and the next the ground below tried and failed to make a comfortable grave.

Hand outstretched, he uncurled his fingers to stare at the severed ear in his possession.

[twyllodrus]

#a disaster bi

[dxrkchiild-blog]

wxlfgangsoutcast‌:

Finally. Someone was listening.

“I think you’re a spider, wordy little thing, mouthy little thing, all those eyes seeing everything and all those hands in all those pockets.”

Once Parnus had stopped trying to fight him off it was easy to take the next step and lift the thin, starved little thing to dangle in the air. Rayyad’s grip had to tighten to do so, and another sickening grind of bone followed like a change in melody. It was music to his ears – better than the drums howling into the dawn back at Court or even the screams of the dying and the dead and the undead. 

It was the music of PAIN, and pain was a tune Rayyad knew all about. Because PAIN, unlike death, lasted and lasted. PAIN lingered long after the dead were dead. When death was a release into something after, PAIN kept clinging onto life with gargled gasps and the twitch of feet hovering inches above the dirt.

“Think you’re too good for the family, think you’re too good for the feed, too good for the feral frenzy and famished festivities… but look little spider – you’re just like us. Look, look.” When Parnus’ eyes remained shut to his torture, Rayyad saw red through the fog in his mind. Squeezed his hand harder until a c r u n c h became a CRACK and a howl of pain echoed off of each and every rock stone and boulder around them in their unfortunate(-ly delightful) solitude. 

“I SAID LOOK!”

The hoarse scream died in Parnus’ throat in the same wet, throaty way it had begun. With the air of the night against his cheeks he could feel each agonizing inch of the tears that collapsed from his eyes and ran down his skin, but beyond that they were wet and there he couldn’t feel anything else beyond the prickling, blinding pain that came with the strange numbness in his tongue. 

Something thick poured down his throat -- the taste of blood hollowed out, blood that needed to be filled with something--someone--else in order to be complete. Parnus gagged on his own blood as his flailing in Rayyad’s grip resumed.

Where the opposing Vampire’s haughty, chiming laugh had previously sunk dejection into his heart it now spurred him on to keep fighting. And with each desperate try and failed attempt to grasp onto some part of the Vampire for leverage the laughter grew. 

Red glinted under the moonlight in the corner of his blurry vision and Parnus looked down to see his blood slink along a trail down from his mouth to Rayyad’s grasp, then further down his arm. Slicking the way, making it harder to hold on. 

He thrashed with all his might and a howl of rage, and felt Rayyad’s solid stature fumble.

[dxrkchiild-blog]

wxlfgangsoutcast‌:

“Little pest is backing into its hidey hole~” 

Rayyad’s voice, low and sing-song, grew as he continued. As he maneuvered himself off of the boulder like a spider with a treat in its web. Pressed forward and began to chip at the shattered reflection of the Vampire before him piece by piece until the cracks were chasms and he loomed over the little monster that would think himself strong, and loud, and enough to push back R  A  Y  Y  A  D OF ALL THINGS the one who had tasted flesh before he’d tasted fruit and who knew the edge of the black black void far better than a simple mind of nothing like the thing before him was. 

Nothing was d a r k - c h i l d if there was no black on the soul.

                        “Are you the spider, or the fly?” 

There was a drop of defiance left on the Dark-Child’s teeth and Rayyad wasn’t going to hear it. Snatched his hand up and grasped the pale jaw mid-stretch, pressing so hard the grating of bones could be heard like crumbling stones tossed in pile after pile to get the job done.

“No more rocks. No more feel-otherly. My turn to play.”

There was nothing gained in trying to choke a Vampire. Parnus should have realized that Rayyad knew that when the hand grasped for him. He prepared his throat, readied himself for the pain of the physical pressure but without the gasping need to breathe or find death.

Instead he felt something in his face crunch as the strong grip tried to compress his jaw into rubble. Tongue flopping wetly in his mouth, Parnus found himself able to only gag and heave rather than form the words to properly tell the other Vampire to fuck off like he wanted to do so badly.

He tried to reach; to claw at the taller stature in some attempt to harm it enough to let him go. But it was all in vain. Rayyad’s strength coupled with the manic look in his eyes had definitely not come to play.

[dxrkchiild-blog]

wxlfgangsoutcast‌:

Normally they stopped talking because he’d decided to take their tongue, or entire lower jaw in some cases, as a prize of his own. A prize for winning the game of the person who didn’t get their face mutilated. There was an entire clan back home who now refused to return to the Blood Court out of fear that he would win the game for a third time in a row.

For the record, his winning streak was six hundred and forty one to none.

But the Dark-Child still had his jaw and his tongue yet he’d stopped his self-righteous ramble all on his own. Maybe he could teach the Vampires back home how to do that. Wait, no. He wasn’t allowed to bring back the strange one no matter how entertaining he was. His Princesses wouldn’t like having a brother to share their Daddy’s affection, and the Sunlight One wouldn’t like it very much either.

Once she liked Rayyad more, he had plans to bring the Dark-Child’s heart to her for a gift.

Rayyad didn’t understand why he’d stopped.

“Go on, go on go on go on,” he insisted repeatedly, “tell me what I don’t know. Tell me how you k n o   w. I’m waiting!”

All of Parnus’ gusto and pomp had been snuffed out of him like a solitary candle in a raging storm. There was probably a reason he didn’t feel right about it -- not because he didn’t know how to follow through but also because there was a strange and unnerving new gleam in Rayyad’s eyes that suggested something a bit more primal than mere hunger. 

And Parnus didn’t really want to find out what it was.

“Didn’t you hear me the first time?” He tried getting back on the offensive; narrowing his eyes and gnashing his teeth together with every word. “I don’t have time to fuck around with you and whatever your... your deal is. So get off the rock. I’m asking as nicely as I can.”

But what had happened still lingered in the back of his mind. He had thought, for a brief and glorious moment, that he had the upper hand on someone--anyone--even a person as irreparable as Wolfgang’s cannibal son. He’d let that get to his head and now found himself more filled with doubt than ever before.

And worse; Rayyad could sense it. It was an instinct they both knew and could smell. The Vampire senses were attuned to scenting the fear off of prey to better hunt it down. Only now it betrayed Parnus and gave his opposition an advantage.

[dxrkchiild-blog]

wxlfgangsoutcast‌:

Rayyad teetered back on one foot, limbs splayed outwards in all directions, and looked prepared to collapse backwards into the dust and rubble. Only when he noticed his antics weren’t being acknowledged by the Dark-Child, who had his back turned while he surveyed something about one of the silly boulders, did Rayyad regain his footing with a huff of indignation.

A thought came to mind and the Prince acted on it without forethought; appearing crouched atop the boulder-shaped distraction in the blink of an eye. Head tilted, he looked down at the little Vampire as his head did that awfully annoying thing it did where it repeated someone’s words in his skull over and over and over and over and over without end.

Something about those words was strange. Rayyad agreed with his head – neither of them liked it.

“Say it again,” he demanded, “say your funny words again. Feel… Feel-ortho… Feel-otherly?” He tasted the words on his tongue, but they reminded him of a time when he didn’t know the taste of any words, and didn’t like that very much either. “Bye – Bye-otherly.”

Parnus had been acting under the assumption that, like the other Vampires did with him, ignoring something for long enough will make it go away. A concept that had never met Rayyad Wolfgang-Child, apparently.

He stared in utter confusion at the nonsense coming out of the other Vampire’s mouth before the realization came. He was trying to pronounce what Parnus had said. 

For the first time -- that he could remember -- something closely resembling smugness spread in the bewildered little smile on Parnus’ lips. A challenge glinted in his gaze. While all of his forgotten years had been useless until then, he’d never noticed or even entertained the thought that he could know more words than his fellow Vampire.

Not that knowing more than a deranged, fractured-in-the-head man-child was any sort of real victory. But Parnus was going to take what he could get out of this strangeness.

“Philosophy, and biology? Is that what you’re trying to say?” Parnus snorted and shook his head as his hair fell away from behind his ears and into his eyes. “Funny you know so much about Humans and how they breathe but you don’t even know that biology means--”

Eyes widened and his words faltered. The word had come to him as easy as his name, as easy as his hellos and goodbyes and all the times he told Ayanna everything was going to be okay. But for the life of him, and now he was pretty certain that meant more the longer he’d lived, he couldn’t give the word a meaning.