St. Michael’s Church, Budapest (IG: macabre_bat)
Lilith had not been home in a fortnight now, though it’s unlikely that Zephyr noticed. The girl’s tendency toward silence and her quarters being on the ground floor provided a large buffer between them. But tonight she could not lay beside Valikar -could not jolt him awake with her thrashing, her shrieking, seeing the carnage of the Second Scourge Invasion in her mind. Without being able to see the bloodied streets of Silvermoon City -only feeling the slick cobbles against her boots- sickened visuals filled the gaps in her hollow pits.
She wanted to be nowhere now. The Scourge had come five days ago and disturbed the Stratton’s healing mind. The sheer cacophony, the din of the City, orders shouted by her partner and other’s in authority.. Lilith had killed only one thing in her life, and never seen combat. Dark rings were visible even from beneath the cherry-coloured goggles; the right cup was cracked again. Zephyr would have to fix it. Again.
As Lilith entered the vast foyer she reeked of fresh blood, rot, and ichor; gore was encrusted onto her azure leathers and clung to the hilts of her daggers. For a moment, in the silence of her ancestral home, all was still.
Thump, thump. Thump, thump.
She prayed her heart would slow.
Something drew Zephyr out of his den. Whether it was the stench of fresh violence, or the incessant sound of a wounded heart beating, it was unclear. It had been a long time since he was seen roaming the halls of the Stratton manor, long enough that he almost seemed out of place, there. So when he at last descended the staircase into the foyer, he took in the long forgotten sights and sounds- interrupted by his dear sister tracking guts in on the marble. His goggles clicked and whirred as he gave her a long once-over, his lips curling into a wry smile as he took her in inch by inch, his gaze at last landing on her visage.
"Looking a little worse for wear, are we?" He cooed, his head cocking mechanically to the side in curiosity. A few short steps took him to the railing overseeing the foyer, which he leaned against while his hands made idle work of lighting a cigarette.
If anything had befallen the world around him while he was locked in his chambers, he was blissfully unaware. For the better part of 5 years, that is the only place that he existed- and the last time he left the manor? Even longer. That place was like his personal reality; something that he was at this moment, remembering that he shared with another soul; Lilith.
Something about this amused him- perhaps the look on her face, or the crack in her goggles, but he looked at her quietly, expectantly, smiling allthewhile.
The littlest Stratton didn’t even bother looking up in the direction of her brother’s voice. Even if she could see, what -was- there to see? A frail man who had died many years ago. “The Scourge are upon us, Brother,” she called up in her sickly sweet monotone, though the largely robotic girl seemed even more empty than usual. Hollow.
Her boots squelched against the marble as she found her way to the velvet armchair in the centre of the garish room. It had never been moved. Even if Lilith had desired to, Zephyr wouldn’t’ve let her. So instead she sat. Knees on her elbows, forehead in her hands. Did she come here for aid? Another blade for the City? A shoulder to cry on? She would find exactly zero of those things here.
“.. I cannot sleep beside him again. He cares too much.. holds me like I am glass. If he holds any tighter I am liable to cut him.” Lilith’s voice was quiet as she spoke mostly to herself, but Zephyr would hear it. He heard everything.
“Bring me a cigarette, Brother. And a drink. Or anything else.. I no longer care.”
Indeed, those Elven ears flicked and pinned to the rhythm of each word, and his head tipped from side to side as he contemplated her sentiments- as well as wrap his mind around the part about the Scourge. If these things fazed him, it didn't show. He remained unmoving for a few moments after she had spoken, those goggles spinning as his mind did. Then, with a small huff, he pushed off the bannister and wandered towards the bar, fetching a glass and a bottle of whiskey.
It was not usual for this one to be so obedient, but perhaps he was feeling generous after his hiatus from the world and its chatter and torment.
He came to a stop in front of the armchair and dropped his center so he could balance on his toes at eye level with Lilith- or, a lack-of-eye level, rather. One hand pushed a glass of whiskey neat into her hand, while the other aimed to tip her chin up and place his very own cigarette between her lips. Once he had delivered her desires, he rocked back and plopped onto his bony ass in front of her, lighting a smoke for himself and then leaning back on his hands while he studied her.
"The Scourge would have a hard time finding their ways past these doors, darling. Not even ghosts come here." A low chuckle permeated the air around them, followed by quiet humming. Either he was delusional, or he truly believed that this manor was not of the rest of the earth.
"In my experience, caring is more dangerous than any of these indulgences. In the same vain, if he wants to cut himself on your limbs, surely he is aware that they bite. And if you are glass, then you can take care of yourself, no?" A soft huff, and then a loving drag from his cigarette. Nothing ever seemed as if it was serious to him; only as if they weren't even real. As if nothing could touch any of them.
Despite that, his interest had been piqued, and he sighed softly before he kicked a leg out to nudge hers.
"I do wonder, though, why you entrust me with your feelings out of every soul that roams this god forsaken planet?" He hummed, almost condescendingly.
Zephyr was neither generous nor obedient, but within his wicked heart was love for her. The only one left. The only one who would never leave him. Though Lilith could hear him approach her she flinched back as the cool glass touched her hand; surprise flashed across her porcelain features for the briefest of moments. Only the voice in her head caused her such fright. Was this what was to come for the freshly-christened battle child? Paranoia? Night terrors? Apathy? She stuffed these thoughts down with the acrid brown liquor, and a long drag from the shared Stratton cigarette.
“Only ghosts come here.” It was true. A forgotten House. An empty manor. Empty children. Nothing living would ever pass through those doors again.
“Can you believe that we once held galas here? Father wed couples in that theatre. Once there was life here.. though I think I prefer it now.” A wistful tone passed through the girl’s pierced mouth with bitter smoke following behind. “I entrust you.. because you do not care, I suppose. - Do you even know I’m here? Do you think me a figment of your imagination?” One gore-covered boot slipped out to nudge Zephyr.
Her recoil was not lost on him, and as he recalled it, he clicked his tongue against his teeth knowingly. Though from completely different situations, he understood that feeling. To run from shadows, to launch at noise, to skitter away at the smallest brush. He had been haunted, hunted. Still, his demons crawled from under the bed and whispered nothings into his ear in the middle of the night. There was love for her in his heart, and that love brought him to resonate with her experience, no matter how little. Enough for him to fetch her a drink and a smoke and dust the cobwebs off of his ears.
"Sometimes when I wake, I oft find myself wondering if a rat has made its way in to feast on what's left of me, yes- but then I remember that a rat doesn't sound like scuffling feet and a door opening." His smirk grew into a cheshire grin, one that perhaps it was better for her not to see, anyways.
"I think you a figment of my imagination because I want you to be. Look at what you've just encountered in the outside world- don't you think it would be better to just be done with it? Be where it can't touch you anymore? Where the only thing that matters is four walls and your heartbeat?"
His gaze wandered away from her, over the balconies made from webs and the floors covered in a thick layer of dust, over the crumbling walls and ripped portraits. If one didn't know better, they'd think this place hadn't been inhabited in a millennia. And that was the way he liked it.
"I find those memories far too alive. I prefer to pretend they didn't exist. They can't hurt us that way. There is nothing to mourn over if there was nothing to begin with. And in the end, there is nothing. Time has made that abundantly clear. It's not as if your childhood was sunshine and rainbows, Lilith- why do you pine over it?" Her name rolled off his tongue with a sweetness so thick it was nearly disgusting.
“Why not end it, Zephyr? Put the gun to your head and paint the walls with your brains. I’ll even bring you the one that killed your wife.” There was the Stratton in her. Cold, biting, cruel. It was even rarer to see in her now than the pitiful insanity of her maternal line. He would never lunge at her for such a comment: he had said and done much worse.
“I’m not a figment, Zephyr. I wish I was; that I could cease to exist and yet watch it all.” The girl said so much yet so pitifully little. “Childhood was simple. It was painful and traumatic but surprisingly simple. I was the half-breed born to an illegitimate House, beaten and hated. That was it. So fucking simple.” Lilith’s last few words were a hiss as she tugged the fag away from her mouth to ash on the dusty marble.
“I am at a crossroads now, dear brother; I can feel it so clearly in my mind.. apathy or insanity. I can feel it, like a hand drill.” She reaches out with a filthy hand to find the centre of Zephyr’s forehead and jut her twisting finger into the greasy flesh. “Reluvethel mocks me so.. I’ve let Valikar believe that the voice in my head is gone, but it never will be. I will die with this cunt in my head.” What a difference war makes. Not two weeks earlier she was smiling, laughing as Valikar took her home to live with him.. though only an hour before that moment she’d been sobbing about how weak she was. He said he liked strong women and so she gave herself to him. Dominance, strength.. they were the same in her rattled little mind.
“I don’t know what I came here for.”
Once upon a time, he would have proven her wrong. He would have tackled her down, chair and all, spat in her tired eyes and took her bloodied tongue. This Zephyr just stared at her, his smile consistent by design, his heartbeat slow and steady, his usually twitching limbs static and still.
"End it?" He echoed, his head cocking to the side as that smile only grew, reaching the cups of his mechanical guise, now. "Why end something that you wish for? You said it yourself- you wish you were a figment. I am." The words slipped matter-of-factly through his lips, lilted and delightful.
As her digits prodded at his forehead, he did not shy from their assault, only lean further into their touch. At this moment, this docile being would take anything he could get. A conversation about the failings of their world, a touch more jolting than delicate, an insult about something still sore. It was clear that he hung on her every word, that he was memorizing her tone and her movements. Holding them close to him, for when he would put himself back into his hole and not reemerge. For when she tired of their conversation and left him to his devices.
"Are insanity and apathy not one in the same? When you are apathetic, the world snubs their nose at you, because you are no longer just another cog in their machine. When you are insane, you are cynical. To me, all of these things go together hand in hand. It's another vicious cycle to find yourself pulled into. Have you ever stopped to consider that nothing even matters to begin with? That there is no point to us being on this planet, to be breathing? All of this around us has been made at man's hand. Your troubles, your sentiments- they are barely even yours. They are passed down to us by generations long past." He paused, running his tongue over his broken lips. "Ever consider that there may not be a soul alive that doesn't have a voice in their head? Mine sounds like father's."
He shifted onto his knees, at long last returning his gaze to visage. "As for what you came here for? Strattons, as time would tell us, think that returning to our roots will make the hurt go away. Many of us come here looking for solace, but the hurt was never gone. It lives in each and every one of us, it lives here, it lives in our nostalgia. It never helps, darling. But perhaps, you find comfort by hearing the voice of a man that should have been dead a thousand times over and somehow, despite the drugs and the violence, has managed to still have a heartbeat. Or perhaps, it was that I'm the only brother that you have ever liked, or has liked you." He couldn't help but snicker at that last part as he cupped her jaw in a bony hand and guided her head up to press a soft kiss above her goggles, lingering for many moments before he withdrew.
"You will always have a place with me here, Lilith. You are just about the only person I'd ever like to speak to for the rest of my life. I might even do you some favors, if you'd ask." He whispered against her skin, taking in the scent of gore and depression. He almost missed it.
Those cherry-coloured goggles whirred tightly as Zephyr’s face closed in on Lilith’s to press affection to her porcelain skin. Though they had been augmented to give the girl echolocation-based sight, their former function had never been cut. They tried in vain to focus on her brother’s limp, greasy hair, unshaven face, his cold, bug-like visage. Sometimes they did this, stuck and freaked out, so she seized them by the broken right cup and flung them over her head and against the marble floor where they landed with a sad crunch.
Another broken pair that Zephyr would have to fix. If she asked nicely.
“I loathe having to wear those. I feel like an insect. But not for much longer.” Lilith did not elaborate on her last comment but instead shifted on her rear to swing her grimey legs over the red velvet chair’s arm, and lean back across it.
Something about this place always unravelled her and she didn’t need to uphold that perfectly curated façade and particular way of speaking: no curses, no contractions, simple yet flowery. Here she was no one’s China Doll.
“There’s no solace here, Brother, just dust and disappointment.” A small snicker passes Lilith’s arched throat before she places her fag back to her miouth, leaving it there.
“What happens when you finally die, Zephyr? What do I do with the manor? I’m the last one, after all. The Illegitimate Heir. Father would roll in his fucking grave.” Bitter grey smoke accentuated her words with long plumes that deadened her sweet voice. How nice it was to not worry about smoke invading her eyes.. the only advantage of rocks for eyes.
"Funny that you think I'll ever die," the rueful mutter came, growing quieter as he withdrew from her space and crawled across the floor to where those broken goggles rested. He reached out with two fingers to pluck them up, letting them dangle in front of his face as he examined their condition. There was nothing that brought him more sadness than ruined tech. A grunt, and he scuffled across the marble to his prior position at Lilith's feet.
His attention wandered to his sister, strewn about the crimson velvet armchair like royalty. It had sat in that same spot for decades, and Zephyr had seen every Stratton sit on it. She was illegitimate, a half breed, but she fit it so well. The memories of each generation flowed through his mind, filling Lilith's space, before they faded and returned her to his vision- the last functioning member of their family. It was all he had not to bark a laugh- ironic beauty.
"Father may be eternally tormented, but Mother, on the other hand.. my mother, she would smile. I think Ace would be absolutely fucking giddy. I believe she'd find pure poetic justice in our bloodline being left in a half-Embershade's hands." He hmphed softly, clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth before he kissed his cigarettes to his lips for a long, drawn out drag.
Why did that not bother him more? When there was still fire in his blood, he would have died before he relinquished control of his family to Lilith or his ex-wife. Yet he sat calmly, ever-present smirk still set on his marred lips.
"You're here, aren't you? You still walk through the doors hoping that there might be breath flowing through the walls, and perhaps, sometimes, you even think that the guests of our galas may resurrect themselves in the ballroom. You will hold this manor in your heart, you will visit even when I am not found here- just hoping for a shred of normalcy, that was never there to begin with. You will never let this place die. If only you could see yourself now, Lilith. The portrait of a true Stratton. Bloody, bitter, and broken. Not even outside blood could have saved you. We all end.. just like this."
“We all turn to dust in the end, Zephyr.” Lilith scoffs, “The only thing keeping you alive is to spite it, I swear.” The girl lifted her head slightly to pour more of the burning liquid down her throat but a thin line still managed to escape and drool down her left cheek. She didn’t care enough to wipe it away.
A sigh left her as Zephyr continued in his flowery pontification and she butted the spent cigarette against her bracer before tossing it uncaringly into the foyer.
“Perhaps I like disappointment. It is a true constant in life. - maybe I’ll have it rebuilt, refurbished, and sold to the highest bidder. Then they can be tormented by the ghosts that wander here. Perhaps they too will succumb to hedonism.. I quite like that.” Her pierced mouth turned upward in that infamous, lopsided smirk. Her mother’s smirk.
“Does the organ still work? Play something for me, Brother, I never hear it anymore.” Lilith grunted and shoved herself upright while swinging her legs over and down in front of Zephyr, parted to avoid hitting him.
“I wish to lay atop it like the true royalty I am.” A hand was extended to him as she required the eyes to make it there, “Bring the whisky, I plan on draining it.”
To the highest bidder.
Those words ricocheted around in Zephyr's brain, and for just a second, that smile faltered. That the only thing, the only place that remained of what their lives once were could just be sold to some anybody that wouldn't even have the slightest idea of their surname, of who they were, of what had happened there.
"Don't sell it," he hissed, his spindly fingers finding home tangled in the broken tresses at the nape of his neck. His teeth idly picked at the skin on his lower lip while he worked to control his breathing. "You'll find that you'll be the only one tormented, then."
After a few moments, he lifted himself onto unsteady legs and took her hand into his, which was only slightly trembling, delicately interlacing their fingers together. He lead her past the bar, snatching up the bottle of whiskey before he whisked them away in the direction of the theater.
" 'Does the organ still work?', she says," he scoffed, his eyes nearly rolling back into his skull behind his whirring mechanical guise. "Part of the reason I'm alive is to keep other things alive. My goggles, yours, the organ, the clocks, the guns. Everything but living beings, I suppose. I kill those."
They arrived at the pocket the grand organ resided in, and Zephyr dipped down to swoop Lilith into his arms, delivering her onto the top of it dutifully. She would find the bottle of whiskey placed directly into her hands shortly after, but she would not hear his footsteps fade just yet. Perhaps she felt his eyes burning holes into her as she settled. Maybe it was the guts and gore, but she looked like true royalty to him- she wasn't the same little girl he had known for the better part of his life. He liked her better this way. They had more in common.
At last, he found his seat, and his fingers the keys, one of the few things in the manor not covered in a veil of dust.
"Now, what would the princess like to hear?"
Lilith hummed quietly at her brother's hissing words, a small smile tugging at her lips, “I knew you’d have a preference. There are some things you care about..” She had tugged off her gloves at some point and so, slid a clammy, burn-scarred hand into his -she held tightly to try and calm his jittery digits.
“No one would buy it anyways. - Do you ever consider coming back, Zephyr? Not to rule as you once did, but.. just be around, I suppose. There are some who still recall our name you know. I met a man a few months back who claims to’ve shot you, which is not surprising or at all unbelievable--” Lilith was suddenly cut off as her legs were kicked out from beneath her and then lifted onto the organ’s ancient wooden top.
“A little notice, please..” An irritated mutter came, though she was quickly shut up by popping the cork out of the bottle and pelting it into the theatre of toppled chairs and empty tables, then lifting the bottle to her lips. Lilith was never one for imbibing back in her younger years -not that she was at all old now- but since her eyes were taken she found herself drowning in the bottom of a dark glass bottle from time to time. It’s frequency would increase now -of that there was no doubt- but it was nothing to concern herself with now.
“I know I look like her. I can’t change that.” Lilith mistook her brother’s lingering for the wistful nostalgia of his wife. Her mother. Acalinia. Her voice was not chastising, but quiet and sad. Everything was sad here.
At last, she laid back on the wooden top with the bottle resting on her stomach and right knee peaked over the left.
“Madness.”
