love this whole EP
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@hypermnestic-blog
love this whole EP
[ part 1 ] / [part 2 ]
@hypermnestic
Kat’s chest pinched as a her muscles burned and tingled uncomfortably. Sudden weightlessness made Kat’s stomach twist sickeningly and she choked on her own scream trying to force the contents of her stomach to settle.
Bloop– !!!
– and then there was LIGHT…
After an unfavorable amount of time encased in pitch darkness and deafening silence though, the sudden change in environment had Kat pinching her eyes shut as ashen fingertips twitched to shield over her ears. She whined quietly as her senses were painfully overwhelmed. For a long time, Kat simply stood there as her body acclimated to the sounds around her. Once she felt comfortable with that, only then did her eyes flutter open and hazel hues curiously peer around herself.
Where WAS she?
Numb feet carried her forward, brows furrowed as Kat struggled to figure out where she might have…. ‘ended up’. ( What had that been anyways? ) However, the longer she wandered around, the more anxiety began to coil it’s way through her ribs and constrict her chest .
This place wasn’t familiar ( she couldn’t breathe )
she didn’t know where she was ( her heart was hammering so fast )
oh god, ( it HURT )
where was she? what had happened? she didn’t UNDERSTAND —!!!
Her panicked steps carried Kat straight into another body, stumbling face first into thick dark robes. Surprised and on edge, Kat let out a small screech of startled surprise and shoved hard against the other with both hands as she backpedaled herself a couple of steps. However, she quickly froze, eyes wide and focused on the faint green hue fading from the tips of her fingers, leaving warm tingles that lingered briefly.
“I…
I’m so sorry, I…. I don’t know what’s WRONG with me…”
-Sometimes the cave stars would crash into his front yard. Left half-sinking in the marsh muck, they’d glow for a while, oftentimes--a long while. It was as if they didn’t understand or comprehend their beheading by the forces of gravity that even he could not escape as deep into this hell he’d sunk. Their lingering lights make it easy to forget the darkest depths of Waterfall’s dank basement where bottom-feeders feuded below the flooded, ankle-deep walking paths for ample share of the sluice, but unfortunately--forgetting is no longer viable, at least to his well-being. Tightly wrapped as every inch of his skin is beneath his cowl, he’d rather not linger within the light longer than it took to drain the stones of their last magical essence until they too joined him in the unlit depths of an afterthought. After all, he muses mid-shamble, safety for some depends on memory’s fallibility.
Crouching by the newest of his yard decorations, a rather large opaline chunk of cave that had narrowly missed the wreckage he called home, the cloaked figure claws along the shining surface with pointed palms that looked more like blackened spades. Part of him wonders if his fingers, if freed from their tight bindings, would still spread apart; their throbbing had ceased long ago, so he doubts that even if they do separate still, he would control each of them with the mastery he’d tried to lose with his origins. Mel had taught him that knowledge was a weapon, and sometimes the best tactic to avoid being slain with it, was to forget about it. Still, certain memories grew hot and smelled of copper in his clutches as he struggled to scatter them through the flooded plains, each a coin shrilling for the bottom of a fountain to rest. Several sat in a jar upon his mantle, relics of currency. He’s still missing a piece--the only one that was not forged in faux-silver. He wonders if its new owner had kept it, or dropped it into the bay. Mmm--yes, this will do nicely. Humming to himself, the figure saps the light from the stone until it settles like a large, pale raindrop in his palm. Dropping it into an open jar, he seals the top again and tucks it into his cloak, leaving the section of yard thoroughly blackened yet again. That is, until another star falls, sending ripples racing up his cloak-tails. Turning towards the glow rising up over a hill of garbage, he clutches the brooch clasping the cloak over his collarbone before sloshing towards the newest landing sight. Might as well kill two stones with one jar.
With a lurch, he limps around the bend in the garbage just as the green glow suddenly shrinks to a heart’s size in the distance, and vanishes. Just the brief flicker of that kind color has him curious, and he brakes in place to still the waters announcement of his approach. Something tells him this is not a stone he’s on the trail of...and logic tells him the two wielders of that soul’s shade are...no longer. Mel...his mind murmurs well within the cowl’s captivity. Collecting all these fallen wishes...and I still wish I could forget. Fantastic. The dagger is jagged, and unkindly fanged, and he clasps the handle beneath his robes as the sound of shifting water surges towards him with unsure steps. Steeling himself at the initial bump, his shoulders tense, preparing to launch towards the intruder when--he stops, and not of any will of his own. With a grunt, he stiffens with the green magic stitching his silhouette still; under its light, he notices her. Mainly, notices she’s human. Peculiar.-
...There’s no need to apologize, child. I’ve had harder love-taps. -Musing as the magic fades, he forsakes the dagger to lift the jar of pale energy closer to the trespasser’s face. Yes, they were human all right. But what was she doing down here? She’d bring Asgore right to his front door. Geh, how troublesome.- I’m assuming you’re new here? You stick out like a sore thumb, dear ~ ♪ -He hums, heading back to his hut with a shimmy in his step.- Discrepancy might seem a shade of strife, but that green is guaranteed to take your tra-la-la-la-life ~
Gaster: Leave the wildlife alone, Merlin.
Merlin: I am the wildlife. ;)
Merlin: *tiger growl*
Gaster:
Gaster: I'm kinkshaming.
✪ ⋮ Greetings, child. You must be--Papyrus~? Oho, forgive my informality–"The Great Papyrus", is it? You were born into that title, you know. You came from a great monster. -The lost soul's smile is too wide almost, curling like a burned bramble.- I suppose we’re alike in that regard. -If he misused the term "monster", anyway.- Although, the monster I'm referring to could only lay claim to greatness through bloodline blunders. Cherish your father, child–as not many are able or willing to.
@callmeplatonically
-Out of all the hints of hauntings he’d heard of late–voices that scuttled out from shadows twining along twilight’s breath, this one seems considerably less unsettling. It also seems closer than the others, almost to the point where he could have sworn someone had leaned over his little seance circle of action figures, their arms twisted backwards as if startled by the sudden jangle of jewelry that followed the flicker of a nearby candle’s dancing wick. With all the whispers in the house as of late, he had started to wonder if maybe one of Waterfall’s scamps had become ghostlessly lost while playing peek-a-boo, and was simply too shy to ask him or any other inhabitants where the nearest exit was. Though he’s starting to think his theory rather far-fetched, especially when the voice implores him of not a single direction, but of … Dad?-
WELL, YOU AREN’T WRONG…WHOEVER YOU ARE. -His sockets shift from one dimmed corner of his room to the next, but his guest seems to have found an exceptional hiding place.- THIS IS THE GREAT PAPYRUS SPEAKING! EMPHASIS ON “GREAT”, NO EMPHASIS ON “CHILD”. BECAUSE CONTRARY TO POPULAR BIRTH RECORDS, I AM ABSOLUTELY AN ADULT. -Yes, an adult who happened to be surrounded in a circle of action figures. What? Action figures are for adults too!- HEH, MISINFORMED AS YOU ARE ON THE MATTER OF MY MATURITY, YOU SOUND LIKE UNDYNE! EXCEPT SHE TELLS ME TO CHERISH CARPET BURNS AFTER WE SHRED SOME SICK AIR-GUITAR SOLOS. -Which could very well mean … -
…ARE YOU MY CONSCIENCE?
-For one who’d given their guard up alongside their form long ago, the soul finds himself flexing phantom fingers along his glitching brow in a make-shift sun-visor against the assault of this particular treasure’s brilliance. Why, with hesitation (or lack thereof) like that, he finds the source of the recent disturbance to match the newest coat of luminescence that still lingered and thrived within the shadows that stained the lost soul’s regular surroundings. Not that he’s complaining, of course--though eventually, he knows he must...for His sake. Although he welcomed the opportunity to scrub the charcoal from his existence by skirting the edges of the foreign but familiar shard’s light, he’s not so daft to huddle nearby its calming hue and risk detection by the far more egregious of his kind. And considering the crudeness of his crimes, such titles were not so sparingly doled out among them.-
Oh, I’m far older than you can imagine. To call you a child is actually quite generous of me! -The soul chuckles, positively charmed by the Sunspot’s candidness despite his blissfully disorienting manner of speech. Oh, He’d outdone himself with this one.- In truth, if you aligned yourself to my time, then I’m afraid you’re more a thought that’s yet to bloom. One of few wonderful ideas your father’s had, if I must say. But I don’t ~ so try not to dwell too much on it, dear. -Hadn’t he promised himself that he wouldn’t venture too close to the obstruction just the other day? Of course, he hadn’t met a promise he couldn’t cross over as easily as snapping a sapling underfoot, and the soul isn’t keen on remedying that restlessness that roused him forward any time soon. Of course, the sapling in this sap’s smile is a special occasion he makes note to side step and circle curiously until he’s caught by the young skeleton’s conclusion. The soul couldn’t stifle a fit of glitching laughter he tried, not when the innocuous nature of the assumption is so intertwined with the late mannerisms of a certain dingus--yet dismantled.- Consider yourself lucky that is not the case. -And somehow he doubts the scarred soul he slithers through would vouch for his capability of any conscience-related work with the wonderful job he’s doing with the Guilt Department.- Aligned with you, I am too a thought. One that bloomed a long time ago...one that did not wilt, but was cut from the stem and compressed between the pages of a book kept within a library you will never find. Call me “M” ~
And there’s so much--
skin to see. A simple ~
Epicurean philosophy ♪
I love to ride in my boat. Would you care to join me?
✪ ⋮ -The laughter spills in waves, further puddling on the ground when he hunches over to clutch his knees and struggle for breath through his amusement once it hits his convulsing lungs. Needless to say, his refined acolyte education did not include any PE classes. Laughing hysterically in the face of death, however, was one of the more popular intramural courses.- "Incidentally--run for your life"? -Incidentally, he does a great nerd impression. Not because he's one.- Gods--are you even real?
@skeledxd
While Gaster had not a bone in his body meant for harming others, there were instances where he’d felt almost inclined to afford others a well meant smack across their skull. The thought was always fleeting, gone the instant it was born; However, in this case the lanky skeleton could not help the strength of his need to quiet his ‘would-be companion’ before he got them both killed. With no small measure of strength, Gaster grabbed the human by his waist and booked it, running with all the swiftness a creature could possibly have after taunting a creature soevidently violent.
Had Merlin no actual sense of self preservation? Gaster couldn’t be sure. He’d not the breath to ask him–not yet. Better to focus on not DYING first.
* “NOW IS HARDLY THE TIME FOR JOKES!” He bit out, immediately thankful for his ill-need for the breath Merlin could not seem to keep steady. Who on earth deemed it wise to pick on wayward (and carnivorous) beasts of the forests was beyond the skeleton’s comprehension.
* “You are going to get us all killed!”
-Statistically speaking, the mage supposes he owes much of their mishaps thus far to the sardonic stitches he’d stitch into any situation, especially there were nothing to gain from casual commentary except trouble. But it’s hardly his fault that the grizzly was having the most horrid of hair days! The slobbering savage stood little chance to defend itself against his wit once it had lumbered across the path looking far more of a hot mess than Mel ever did (bless her savage, sleeping soul!) Of course, that didn’t stop it from standing at all, and after Merlin mirthfully added the bear could rival his distant step-mother’s beauty with a face like that, the carnivorous creature had reared up quite gracefully for a brute of its size. The bear blasted a trumpet's worth of fury through its fangs, ad Merlin could have sworn it clawed the air like a war steed before the beast fell back to its forelegs and charged. By then, the bushes were looking awfully blessed as a potential escape route, but it’s ultimately his companion’s limb lassoed around him that has the final say so in where the two of them scamper, apparently “for their lives”, as Gaster had so amusingly described. Not that there’s anything amusing about nearly tripping over his robes along the pebbled path several times--oh, and sweating.
Once their pace landed them up a tree, he was suddenly reminded of why he’d sworn off running as his slippery fingers slide along the bark. With all the twigs he’d collected on the way up, his hair could pass as a bird’s nest (not that it hadn’t already rocked that look before), he was also reminded of why he refused to frolic too closely to nature, even if nature seemed perfectly amused in frolicking below in frenzied circles around their hiding place. Couldn’t bears climb trees? He felt like he should really bring that up, but he couldn’t get it out through his wheezing if he tried. Once his heart settles along with the bear’s tantrum as it toddled off, digging at roots as it went, Merlin leans further into the crook of the skeleton’s side, a wicked smile curls along his face like the edges of a burning vine.-
Oh come now ! We’re alive aren’t we? Besides! You know what bears would be without bees?
...“Ears”.-At least the tree knew how to punish a poorly timed joke. The pine-cone clonks him in the head before Gaster has the chance to. Unlike knuckles, it sticks.- Ow! Gaster--could you be a dear and help me detach a few of these nature souvenirs? -The mage adds while plucking a twig free.-
Vulneraries
“Oh, great! I was hoping you would understand.” Unlike Merlin’s subtle touches, Chasm’s voice is drenched in sarcasm, and their smile holds an underlying threat as concealed as a dead elk that had been rotting for a week in the middle of the road.
They waste no time in walking off and leaving the rather flashy and far too talkative mage to his own devices. What a headache. Chasm can’t see his life lasting much longer, not if he kept sticking to the warrior’s side.
The peaceful riverside is a breath of fresh air. The sounds of the camp are distant, and if they focus on the babbling flow of water and the twittering and chattering of birds and squirrels and countless other animals, Chasm could pretend they were on their own again.
Chasm sets all of the jugs down before tugging off their gloves, boots, and chlamys. Once the clothing has been folded and set aside, they pick up a jug at a time and fill them with the river water. With their task complete, the fighter sets the containers off to the side in favor of stepping into the stream and feeling the cool water sweep over their bare feet.
The twilight is quiet and peaceful as the setting sun paints the sky vibrant pinks and purples. If they close their eyes, they could drift back through time. Long before the war, long before embers and smoke stained the sky. Even if the sediment beneath their feet lacks that familiarity and the scent of the forest is tainted with war. Chasm crouches down to touch the water with their fingertips–
The rustling snaps them out of their thoughts. In an instant, they pivot to face the intruder with their sword drawn. Alert eyes focus Merlin and narrow as Chasm locks on their target.
They slide the weapon back into the sheath and turn away. As the mage speaks, Chasm scoops water up with their hands and washes the dust and dirt from their face.
“What am I fighting for,” they repeat. “Are you looking for a sob story that humanizes me or the truth?”
Something about the man compelled Chasm to humor him.
“Not too long ago, I might have thought they were the same thing,” they explain. “Vengeance. I started fighting to get revenge. In some way, I still am–but for different crimes. The monster who destroyed my village is long dead.
“There are only two people I really want to kill now. Everyone else is just for fun. That is why I fight. For fun. My allegiance is to no one but myself. Not any general, not any army, not the king, and not any sort of divine deity. I fight for myself and no one else. If there is anything else, then maybe I’ll figure it out and maybe I won’t. It doesn’t make a lick of difference to me. I don’t particularly care about my own motives–I don’t consider myself a good person.
“You are a mage, aren’t you? You must be pretty good to transfer out here.” They look over at the other human, eyes sweeping over him with something that could almost be called a degree of softness. Something about him is so familiar, like an old friend who died a long time ago. “You don’t belong here. No one fighting for romance and admiration does. Violence irreparably changes people, and never for the better. Not people like you. Just go back home.”
-Twilight is the hour of twisting allegiances when bruises of the day, nursed in secret behind curtains of sunlight, inevitably begin to bleed through a gilded horizon. Sinewy fingertips dust the cracks in his countenance where bludgeoned skin shows a patch of the night he’d let fall over him as suddenly as he imagines the King’s madness had. It certainly seemed that way, didn’t it? One day, two kingdoms had collaborated in contrived harmony—and the next, one would decide eradicating the other would be in everyone’s best interest. Oh, hadn’t he heard that lovely excuse before? Particularly in regards to his poor mother, paid off to pinch her lips on matters of royal rendezvous. How else would the dastard in a crown explain the forked path of illegitimacy that inevitably led to a family line crossed with the very creatures he’d claimed war with? An ill smile did little to dissuade the singed roots of his battered cheekbone from spreading through the golden illusion he still smothered his intentions under to the bane of those he rooted for, and the befuddlement of his current company--no more contemptible than he. Betwixt day and night, they were still irreparably human, crossing paths with him through twilight. He began to think of his allegiance as a realm soaked in similar lighting while he paced the shadowed line separating golden shores with the ink of an ocean he could wade into up to his head until the waves pushed him back to his starting point. If humanity was anything like solid ground, then his sought to crumble constantly beneath his feet against loose sand. The waves would always deposit him back where his birthright insisted he belonged, and after a while, he’d stopped fighting the stormy waters in favor of picking his way along a stained shoreline, chucking stranded starfish across the barrier that was never his to breach. Though he had the means to trek back into humanity’s high noon, he would hardly turn his back on the sunset he’d found hanging over the monster’s ocean, even if humanity chased him to its limits, sword drawn. The stars often spoke of a blade leaving its sheathe from the direction he’d already left behind him, but he would not look back—not when he had so much to look forward to. The human’s blade sings.-
The truth would be nice for starters, but if it requires sobbing—you’re welcome to my hankie, here. That is to say—you’re welcome to it after you give yourself a bit of a wash first. -Although he had a sinking stone of a feeling that the romp in the river wouldn’t mask that horrid stench radiating off his company like a decomposing skunk Merlin was more than certain would not come out of his robes after he’d bumped into the brute earlier, lest he burn them in a little heap of luck talismans. Either way, there’d be no salvaging a sequin-infused handkerchief after the Gaunt Giant infused anything he offered to them with their sour anal gland scent. But then again, it wasn’t like the mage hadn’t already concocted his own infusion into the cloth—a nice muscle relaxant by anyone else’s definition, though he liked to refer to it affectionately as his ace up the sleeve mace. With a casual wave, he tucks the corner of the veil he’d allowed to slip coyly from the confines of his cloister robe’s cuffs, as if a peep of the proposed tissue might convince them to slather their face in the solvent-stained stitches. Though he’d really rather refrain from flirting with this strapping young killer’s boundaries any more than necessary, the mage couldn’t scrape his curdling curiosities away quick enough to cater to the insistence in his heels to carry him out of the human’s camp before his lovely tea curdled their guts. Sure, he may have come from the capital, but there were only so many puddles of steaming sickness he could side-step before never wanting to revisit that sordid section of his life again, much as he already expected to hear some spew from this horrid human’s account on how they felt justified in jabbing at such a peaceful race as boorishly as downing skinny sparrows with stones for little more than show. But after all those rumors of the humans’ war dogs wheeling around to bite their own packs, he cannot staunch his morbid intrigue for this particularly violent breed.-
Oh, I see now…fancy a meal best served cold, do you? - Keeping to the shoals, he meanders along the bank with a bobcat’s mindfulness in keeping its paws dry, dusting stray leaves from the muss of muddy locks with each frazzled split-end shorn at random.- Losing your home like that though...I can’t imagine. -It’s not like he has a home to lose anymore; no, he’s luckier than the lot of monsters who have witnessed their homes reduced to nothing but warm cinders while they held onto their hopes that their family’s dust was not laid to rest among the burned huts. To have a loved one disappear without a trace...the thought tinged the mage’s heart a deeper shade of bruised. Now on his walks through woods long dried out from Mel’s miles of magical roots, empty eye-sockets follow him from the hollows in decaying tree trunks. Although he usually spun that tale to a younger, more anxious audience who’d believe if they listened close enough, they could hear the witch of the woods whispering Merlistenhereyoulittleshit when the breeze blew through her woods. He enjoyed that lie most of all. It helped him forget she was dead.- Won’t your fun end with the war’s conclusion, though? -Although it wasn’t impossible for him to happen across another human this deep in the span of ideology’s day, they were usually found in monster camps, other zealots that decried the treatment of the only other sentience they would share their world with even if it meant closing off their chance to return to their families with a traitor’s branding.- What a concept! -He nearly laughs when the stream-stationed sentry suggests what so many monsters had already proposed to him, specifically their dagger-toothed Captain. Just go home already. All you’re just going to get yourself killed out there. These were granules of truth that couldn’t be farther from the truth if they tried. He’d blocked his path home already—not because he didn’t trust himself to stick through the war, but because those waiting on the other side would sooner slit his throat. It seemed this place he wandered would not serve as his personal sanctuary after all...not when those lacking allegiances of any sort found the twilight-tinted grove that was the closest he could venture to the cause of preserving Monsterkind.-
This war is a deep wood many have lost their way in looking for home rather than the path ahead of them, friend. And between you and I, I’d rather not add another distraction to my list of tripping hazards. Try traversing a thicket in these robes, if you fancy your balance. -Leaning over the water’s edge to take a gander at the scab his Wonder Wall had sustained, he grimaces at the sight of it slowly stitching itself together for that final summer’s glow he’d infused in his appearance’s most common illusion.- Your concern is noted, however--...I fight for neither luxury. Have I completely befuddled you, then ~? No, no--it’s a fortunate matter. A mage’s power is wired to their unpredictability, you see. -Not that he’d admit to it also being quite the Achille’s heel to the studious sorts so set in their ways they could only transcribe potential battles through chess regulations. There’s nothing chess-like about the knot weed rustling to life behind the mage, and for a moment he thinks someone from camp has come seeking dysentery-asylum. Twisting towards the flash of yellow scales that escape the thicket some yards down, he blanches at the sight of the small, armless monster dipping their head low to scoop up mouthfuls of river water only to spit it in a spray through their nostrils and squeak a complaint of a horrid taste. Oh the stars, this wouldn’t end well. Especially not for the poor monster’s taste-buds after gargling with the ripe human’s bathwater.-
...I suppose now’s a good time as any to see if your sweat’s as lethal as it smells? -The mage interjects, crossing through the shoals to cut across his company’s sight of the shore, and the hapless trail of trout bobbing belly-up to the surface . It takes him toddling up as close as he can manage without gagging on the smell of wet carcass to realize the warrior’s still tall enough to see over his head. Well seven shades of fudge--he has to do something or that little tyke’s going to join the sediment at the bottom of the river.- Say, how about you let me handle this Squeaker?
➀ | ➁ | yosuke (Do not remove credits)
[Disturbia]
Those fingers were familiar, like the long legs of a spider caste in shadows which spread along the dimly lit walls of Gaster’s makeshift work space. Just dark enough for the skeleton to catch in the sweltering gloom, just sure enough to make him doubt, to make the pounding of his migraine surge forward with the weight of what must have been another looming against his chair. Weight that was not his own.
Gaster felt the familiar beginnings of panic eat at the tips of his fingers, of anxiety like a cloud as it swelled with promise beyond his ribs, No, no, he wasn’t real, this wasn’t real, none of it was real. He was alone, the barrier had been abolished and the world was as it should have been, the loud silence which prevailed in the vast, lonely walls of his newly furnished laboratory was just that–a sliver of the nothingness of the VOID which now chased his coat tails like a prevalent disease.The shadow crawled upon odd watches of twilight that framed grotesque, yet gigantic wreathes of unrefined steel. The whispering shadows had risen from the dark corners of his mind, as they always did, and buried their talons into his spine. He could not linger, he knew that now–Gaster made a promise, after all. He had to anchor himself in the only way he knew how.
He needed to be with her.
* ✋ ✌💣 ☠⚐❄ ☹✋💧❄☜☠✋☠☝📬
* [I AM NOT LISTENING.]
His voice remained steady despite how his hands shook as he reached for a few nameless tomes, ghosting their covers before he snapped them closed without care for the purpose he’d acquired them for. It didn’t matter. Not now. He moved with the unsteady precision of a creature teetering on the edge of falling into a spacious doom–the fine line was one Gaster tread with unspoken fear. That wasn’t him, he was dead–
* ☹☜✌✞☜ 💣☜ ✌☹⚐☠☜📬
* [LEAVE ME ALONE.]
-The bulb in the desk lamp is due for a replacement any day now. It flickers occasionally, granting those nearby without eyelids the momentary means to blink--or rather, forces them to. It’s through these blank moments of existence erased, the lost soul finds movement. With clockwork limbs, a pale arm stretches over the edge of the desk, poised in a hook as if the wrist attached belonged to a rag-doll twisted into an unforgiving angle. With fingers flexing slowly between flickers, they twist the loose bulb tight again, and with a hissing pop--the light floods back red, engulfing the room in a far bloodier infared spectrum as if the walls had come alive with another’s life force burning through the plaster.- Oh dear. But that’s mine again, isn’t it? Maybe you aren’t so forgetful after all, friend.
-The soul’s voice had swollen to an uncomfortable bloat. Bearing silky skin the color of drowned flesh, it twitches like a ripe spider’s egg sac before a rip in its side releases thousands of thrashing legs that spill onto the floor, a tangled mess of static that scatters into each nook and cranny the office had to offer. Once hidden away, they tuck themselves tight to the shadows and watch with unblinking opticals as the ruby room drains to a washed out pink, leaving black-cherry puddles in the darkest of its corners.- I’m almost...flattered. -He admits, folding his fingers along the hill of the office chair’s outline with the same finesse they would lightly strum a lute. He didn’t play much music these days, only plucked at raw nerves that would sooner reward him with the sounds of flies buzzing than common chords.- And I most certainly would be--if it didn’t seem to bring the worst in you out.
-His laugh is as frivolous as he had been in life--lighthearted and lavished in illusions.Trinkets click together with every subtle shift of even more subtle muscle while the remnants of decorative coins strung along a chain, rattle with amusement as the skeleton stumbles to snap his books shut as if hiding more pleasurable reads from a colleague's wandering eye. Seemed there would be no light reading tonight, seeing as he’d gone and spoiled the studious mood. Amusing to know he still had a streak of delinquency in his blurry soul, he preens into the back of his palm as he watches the skeleton limp around his desk--a rabbit with a bitten haunch. The blood’s still fresh in the crook of his smile, and the lost soul wonders if his quarry even realizes that it’s leaving an obvious trail of its inner colors behind for anyone or anything to follow.- I’d keep those ears pricked if I were you, Dear Rabbit--...oh. Bad example! -Laughter chimes through the open door where a concentration of darkness breathes as curtains billow before an open window, beckoning the cornered creature closer.-
There are far worse things you keep in here. Things you wouldn’t want sneaking up on you. And with all this new light around--cozy as it is...you stick out like a sore thumb. Ignore my prattling if you wish, Prince With A Thousand Enemies. But they’ll still come for you. They don’t have to comb through the darkness to find you anymore. Their talons will carry you off when it pleases them most.
And we live in a beautiful world…
Vulneraries
Just who is this foolish man? Did no one warn him about Chasm’s violent temper? How they are just as quick to turn their blade on enemies and they are on their allies? And did the dagger at his neck fail to clue him to that fact? Or is his foot just permanently jammed into his mouth?
“I don’t care for flattery, either.” Romantic pursuits, ersatz admiration, it all may as well be the same to Chasm. Useless. A waste of their time. In a war, there are too many things that take greater priority, and during times of peace, there are even more.
No, there is never any time for romance.
“Do I look like a fucking tour guide?” With practiced ease, Chasm balances one of the jugs on top of their head. “The kettles are with the rest of the cookwares.” To make that information not completely useless, they point a couple of tents down.
“If you don’t need anything else–” the look they give Merlin suggests that he should think twice before needing something else from the bloodthirsty brute “–then I am going to the river now. You can follow me if you wish.”
Without waiting for a response from the ‘new soldier,’ Chasm turns on their heel and begins to walk away.
-While his mouth is certainly wide enough to accommodate a size ten boot (a fact only known to him through the occasional sleep-eyed soldier stomping over his face in the dark), any obstruction couldn’t hope to block his flowery words from slithering out between the gaps in his teeth like creeping vines on a mission to blossom before gardening shears could cut their journey short as savagely as this warrior seemed to verbally gut his peers. Not that they couldn’t actually gut everyone in the vicinity, of course. Of course...if they did go ballistic, then wouldn’t he be one of the first of the merry soldiers to feel the cold slash of steel? Close company as he liked to keep midst his conversations, the mage is certain that curling up cat-like near this character’s toes for a fire side chat would just end with him somehow on fire. And ever since that slob back in Concoctions 101 had singed most of his hair off already, Merlin liked to think of himself as understandably unenchanted by the notion of repeating burns best left behind like so many open potions in his academia’s past.-
All for the best then! You’ve spared me the trouble of tugging out some truly dusty material from my capable collection of quixotisms. I suppose that counts for something...absolving yourself from touring all thirty-feet of camp, for example. -Like the blood congealing purple under his cheek, the sarcasm barely stains his tone as he touches the mark with a tender dusting of fingertips he immediately regrets with a grimace guiding his hand out of his curiosity’s range. Of course he’d rather not get stuck to such a brute’s side for the remainder of the evening, but hastening their departure seemed foolhardy to the mage. He’d rather not draw anymore suspicious gazes than he’d already managed. The stars’ silence from the previous evenings were foreboding enough; he’d tread as carefully as possible from here on out. Of course, that would be asking a lot of him, wouldn’t it? His senses drowning in the pungency of the freshly snipped yarrow, he erects one free palm between him and his capricious company like a shield might erupt from the light wiggle of his fingers instead of parting wishes.- Well, if that’s all there is to it--...-Their look singes the sass right out of him, and he bites his tongue, and any semblance of snark short.- I’ll just--be over here...brewing!
-And with a turn of his heel, he starts off with a strong scamper, then after nearly falling over the parked body cart--empty of its decomposing wares, he wobbles the rest of the way off to where the kettles were kept according to the end of the terror’s fingertips. Of course, he loses his own dagger somewhere between there and the water tent. A relatively small camp makes sliding the blade neatly into one of the barrel’s backs a relatively easy matter; and how ironic that a blade set with an emblem of the kingdom would be sapping resources that didn’t belong to him? Leaving a golden brew on the embers to draw a few thirsty spectators from their post-battle lounges, Merlin melts into the surrounding brush with a bitter-taste on his tongue. Yarrow was never all that great in tea anyway. But then again, the clump of buttercups growing by the back corner of the tent weren’t all that much better. Nails digging into the bark of a nearby birch, he grinds his teeth into the terrible taste before rustling in the knotweed ahead coaxes him through the soft thicket until the grey glint of the river’s bed bleeds through the segments of speckled stems. The blow to his head must have rattled his senses around to think he could steal through some reeds unnoticed in a getup as showy as foxgloves. No helping it, he supposes as the sunset stains his silhouette’s eastern path with shadows sent from the West. Eyeing the stooped figure along the embankment, he plucks a heart shaped leaf from its stem and flicks it past the barrier between the reeds and river rocks.-
There’s something I cannot claim to understand...-Expecting a vicious impatience aimed at the most likely reason the mage had supposedly meandered after the warrior, possibly to admit he’d failed in locating a kettle only a few tents down, Merlin makes certain to drop a rock atop that can of worms before continuing swiftly.- ...--about you. You can be a terror for your teammates, so I’ve heard, but you’ll still tend to the wounded. -Or at least shove herbs in their faces and tell them to tend for themselves, he thinks dryly.- I suppose we’ll do just about anything to win this war. Regardless if you think there’s a place for it, we all find something to fight for alongside allegiance. Romance, admiration...the list goes on. What I don’t understand is--where someone like you falls into the fray?
...in the end, what is it you’re fighting for?
Ysa said stereotypical anime mom Merlin and so I made these
"--now don't you go lookin' away," there was a rather malicious looking smile possessin' his features - before in a swift movement, the other is tugged forward an' a smooch is left to the corner of his lips, "--i'll bite 'em right off 'yer face next time, yeah?" (why sans so concerning tho)
-Those muddy eyes had meant no disservice to the hulking troll some dared to call Sans as when they’d begun drifting sideways. It’s not so much as he’s “looking away” as he’s assuring himself this cad is making a beeline towards some other poor fool-that is, until the skeleton’s comment causes Merlin’s wandering gaze to swing back to startled attention. Perplexed by the approach, and more so–the oddity of the request, the mage meets the suggestion with a curled set in his cowl.-
Excuse me, you fig? -And here he thought he’d been being quite enunciable, but apparently he must have slipped up somewhere, and somehow solicited some rough-housing in skeleton talk. Yelping as he’s jerked forward by an untied cravat, he nearly goes cross-eyed trying to figure out the teeth tapping his lip is all about. Then, once it finally dawns on him, the gathering sweat cools as he laughs off the next threat.- You do know I charge for those, right~? -It’s not like his pony fortunes foot all the bills!- So it would seem the only thing you’re going to be taking a bite out of is your wallet, child.
[Wing Dingus]
‘Dearest rabbit’, Gaster smiled at the human’s term of ‘endearment’. How interesting. The very notion of a predator chasing his prey with no intention of devouring them, with only the wiles of a beast content to watch the rabbit dart across the unforgiving tundra was one he’d some difficulty comprehending. Gaster wondered, given Merlin’s history, just how forthcoming those sentiments were, he wondered if Merlin chased his heels for the thrill? He wondered how much of those kind, welcoming smiles were genuine. The skeleton monster eased back against the post which had afforded the pair such an optimal view of the sky before he took another long, savoring sip of his tea.
* “I am a rabbit?” He queried aloud, nursing the rim of his cup and the sweet, lingering tang of warm honey. It was a pleasant change from black coffee, very much akin to the hopeful rays of the sun as it broke against his tongue in small, pleasant increments. The skeleton’s gaze traveled along the verdant landscape, and followed the withering brambles and falling apple blossoms. Spring was a many splendored thing; born and gone in the very same breath, and all the made all the more beautiful for its fleeting nature.
It was only with Merlin’s fussing (too preoccupied threading flowers into his duster’s lapel) that Gaster found his attention drawn back, immersed in a rippling warmth, to the unkempt mess of hair and finely sewn robes that had settled at his side. It was easy enough for the human to write himself off as some dreg, it was preferable to the gilded privilege he’d surely come from.
* “If you are a wolf, should the Rabbit not be fearful?”
His voice carried a touch of amusement, of that honey which lingered along the immaculate rim of his tea cup. It was an honest enough question. The young Skeleton knew better than most other monsters that Merlin, while a hurricane of misdirection and mystery, meant only to do good.
Ah, but the path to hell was paved in good intentions–
The touch of death lingered on the tips of his finger bones. His was a kind,
a merciful bringer of D E A T H.
* “The wolf is, more often than not
hungry for much more than just T I M E.”
-The wolf’s tireless pursuit of its prey was just one of many thematic threads his lord, smirking as though he held every answer to the universe in a hoity-toity handbook held under his arm, would weave to packs of acolytes that wandered too near to his courtyard lectures. “This world of ours belongs to the strong, my friends!” Memory could not curdle the contempt with which the strategist, hardened by his share of past conflicts throughout the history of their gutless kingdom, spoke to the easily impressed, but directed towards royal-blooded pupil from all the way across the plaza where Merlin spent most of his brief rendezvous with the sunlight--playing monkey in the middle with a couple of dunderheads who always left their lunch stains on his tomes. “To become stronger, we devour the weak. That--is the ritual of our existence.” Even if the ritual required a recently stolen tome? He’d thought at the time while playing tug of war with Oleander’s sunburnt ears. “Will you be a rabbit or a wolf in this ritual? Only time will tell.” But not enough time for Merlin to stifle a snort and an inquiry aimed for that complete cup, Oleander, about if he thought Lord Leo was always on about rabbits because they must have stored a few carrots up his ass--contrary to his prior headcanon involving his lord and a lancing accident. At least the thought tickled his tormentors enough to fumble his tome enough for him to reclaim it from the boughs of a cherry sapling, anyway.
-It’s difficult to drown a wolfish grin when watching a skeleton sup from a cup. No lips certainly make an amusing sight out of the mundane activity of warming one’s guts in the coolness of a freshly sprung Spring morning. Then again, skeletons don’t exactly have those either.- You--are adorable. -Aiding the correction of his company’s curiosity with the clink of a small spoon against the side of his teacup as a judge might hammer out a decree, Merlin slides amused fingers along the side of his face as if he could wipe away the pleasant tingle of secondhand embarrassment. Truly there are times when the skeleton does seem a tad lagamorpha for his own good, Those teeth though--he can’t hardly disentangle the sight from those buck-toothed brownies lounging in the fields he’d passed by many a time on a horse bound for the countryside. Whenever he stopped to stare too long, they’d give a sharp leap up into the air, legs nearly tagging themselves along the spine before they’d zigzag through the tall grass and disappear underground. Just the thought of Gaster doing the same nearly has him in stitches. Still, if he did spook so easily, Merlin supposes he’d be down a tea partner. Ah--sacrifices. At least this brave bunny lets him close enough to litter its fur with sweet blossoms.
Resisting a pressing urge to gnaw on the edge of glass himself just to clue his clueless companion in on the source of his mirth, Merlin manages to smooth the fraying edges of his composure long enough to allude.- Well, are you afraid, Prince of a Thousand Enemies~? -A hawk’s distant cry shrills faintly, and the thicket quiets down--small creatures going still, becoming one with the landscape.- When they catch you, they’ll kill you. But first, they must catch you. -With a smile like thinly spread honey, he places his fingers at the cuff of the skeleton’s sleeve before tugging a sparkling handkerchief free from the opening.- So be cunning, and full of tricks ~ -Chuckle chiming, he dabs at a golden dribble before it can drip off the skeleton’s jaw and spoil his coat.- Well, you’re not wrong, friend. Between you and me, I could really wolf down a pastry right about now’o’clock.
You certainly make that glass look delicious though. Consider my breakfast options--reconsidered.
[Dissonance]
Why indeed?
Why echo his questions to the darkness when he knew the answers? Better yet, why entertain the hollow walls of his mind with sentiments that no longer held the weight of consequence in the world any longer? Why did he find himself tormented with the ‘what if’s’, and the ‘could have been’s’ ?, Gaster shrugged the unconscious thought with a soft, relenting breath and allowed his unfocused gaze to travel along the rows of undusted books that littered his desk without order– He supposed it was his nature to pick at scabs.
A significant degree of warmth draped along his narrow shoulders with the rise and fall of his thoughts, chasing whispers and the sound of stirred decadence only he could discern–brass, maybe faux gold, a touch of bitter sweet honey and thick incense–obnoxious, really–incense and Jasmine oil, yes, yes Gaster could remember the smell. Of course he could, how could he forget?
He had always troubled himself with the small, frivolous things of the world.
Humans often did.
–Thatsnothim–
stop, stop, stop it–
CLEAR MY THOUGHTS–
TRY AGAIN.
He took another sip of his tea.
* “–..You’re not real.”
-Fingers spread so far past kissing the summer sun while flexed into crude symbols against a cloudless sky, and drag along the spines of books left to line dusty shelves in the deepest catacombs of the skeleton’s mind. Pale farm-plows, they paint themselves gray while horizontally streaking clarity along the vertically-inclined titles left to slumber under fresh dust. Lingering over a smaller slice cut into the tightly-packed bookcase, the lost soul smiles short of sliding his find ajar, and then apart from its neighbors. With a nail hooked under a leather-bound corner, he thumbs through the text just to fill the silence with the subtle slap of parchment sheets. It was far easier to lose one’s way in a library when hallways with no ends teemed from the words within each captive story rather than the seen-surface that sheltered each slice of mind-pie from the dangers of weather’s casual capriciousness.
-Once satisfied with his find, the lost soul slinks behind the good scientist’s chair before sliding a thin offering past an elbow left so sloppily among the growing desk-clutter. A Turn of the head would reveal the final Screw in the title, but not the flash of fingernails that scuttle spider-like past the edges of peripheral vision. Content to lean weightless against the chair’s back, he hums a tune similar to the faint boil in the missing kettle. One might even mistake the sound as content.- While claiming checkmate to a game you’ve yet to start is a blunder that barely suits you.... -Amusement to rival honey sweetens each taunting term in its vacant affections--hollow chocolate.- I’ll admit, your hunch may muster a fair share’s merit. To anyone else--you’d have me pinned as “charlatan of the century”--yet again.
Oh, but come now! What’s the point of calling bruises on ruses if you’re having such a pleasant chat with what’s “not” here? Nothing but us Nothing At Alls~ -Ten print-proof fingertips drum along the seams of the chair’s silhouette, an unsettling accompaniment to the soft chimes that follow in coy confession.- ...that is to say: nothing but your own stubborn self painting walls in the dark again.
What fun!
I wonder what colors--
you’ll make?