DEATHMAGE.

LILIANA of MAGIC: THE GATHERING. affiliated with isola radiale.

[thepumpkin-queenn]

HALLOWEEN ASKS 🎃

ghost: have you ever seen a psychic? witch: do you believe in heaven? black cat: favorite urban legend? bats: are you superstitious? coffin: have you ever had a paranormal experience? cauldron: strangest dream (or nightmare) you’ve had? wizard: do you believe in aliens? enchanted: what fictional character scares you most? haunt: do you believe in haunted objects? spells: do you believe in magic? graveyard: do you believe any conspiracy theories? if so, which ones? potion: favorite horror movie? full moon: do you believe in reincarnation? vampire: are you afraid of death? pumpkin: do you believe in ghosts? midnight: last horror move that you’ve watched? skeleton: what is your biggest fear? crystal ball: when is a time you got caught? magic: have you had any near-death experiences? raven: favorite fairytale? ouija: have you ever played with a ouija board? fangs: favorite poem?

[macabrewaltz-blog]

strawbelled‌.

   The woman looked like something out of a fashion magazine. Part of it was the outfit. If Ichigo had to put it into a single word, it’d be dramatic. But that wasn’t a bad thing at all in her eyes, a striking dress, and a confidant attitude to go with it! For a moment Ichigo wondered if the woman was a model. It wouldn’t surprise her if she was, in any case. 

   The girl walked up to Liliana, a bright smile on her lips. 

   “Your dress is really pretty! Did you get that from a store around here?”

@macabrewaltz​

it takes her a moment to realize she’s the one being addressed; another moment, after, to notice who was addressing her.

just a child, she thinks, superficially interested in her -- a child that was admiring her, even, in the way that children do when they find someone they think they want to be. 

( the brief flash of melancholy she experiences at the realization of how similar this child is to another child she’d known doesn’t show on her face. )

a final moment, as her gaze settles on ichigo’s face, in which she considers lying. considers acting as if she’s familiar with the city. but there’s nothing to rest that lie on; she isn’t, and it would fall apart quickly, and what advantage did she stand to gain in showing a false front to a child?

she should brush her off. it’s reflexive, really. but liliana decides against it. even so, she doesn’t have the energy to put up that familiar front of faux-sweetness. her words are clipped, even though they’re devoid of real hostility.

“ i’m afraid not. to begin with, i’m not sure where here is. ” 

where in the sense of both within and without, though she doubts this girl notices the double-meaning, and she refuses to explain regardless.

[macabrewaltz-blog]

silence. darkness. there was no time, no light, no sense. except there was -- something, where there should be nothing.

a pull.

not now -- no, not now, not now! don’t lose the path, you know where to envision, where to go --

-- she wakes with her feet on pavement, disoriented, having been drawn through the dark by some irresistible force. sudden sunlight blinds her — reflected off of towering buildings of glass and metal.

she is dampened, somehow. her power no longer reaches as it should — she can walk, but, with no small amount of panic, she realizes that she cannot walk — the border between worlds is no longer malleable, not even passable, but solid like stone. it will not give way, not to her demands. not to her requests.

she is trapped anew.

how? some hallucination, she thinks. or an afterlife? but she’s not dead. she’d know if she was; at least, she’d like to believe that she would, death being her singular area of expertise.

speaking of death, her thoughts turn to it, then cease progressing entirely as something sinks in that shakes her to her core --

-- she can’t feel it. 

decay, rot, withering flesh and soul swam just under the surface of her attention, ready to be pulled and shaped and used as her arsenal -- but when she reaches out, she finds herself unable to touch it, that connection cut as if it were as fragile as string.

buried underneath it all is, as if smothered by decades -- no, centuries -- of neglect, is that mote of light that she first nurtured as a child -- her nature as a healer survived, albeit broken and contained. limited, like her. that small mote of warmth she nurtured as a child is all that’s left to her now.

where did she go, after the battle ended? after she saw that face burn to cinders before her eyes, felt the fading warmth of that life with her own hands? she went deep into the blind eternities, but she didn’t mean to go here -- somewhere she doesn’t know, somewhere that refuses to bend to her will.

all is lost. 

the spirit-gem is gone, the veil, silent and inert, any allies she could have convinced, beyond her reach, now. she is among strangers, a city, its din settling down around her as she sits at the edge of a strange chasm. she is once again unknown -- unimportant. the passerby do not give her so much as a glance. she is stripped of power, nobody, nothing. her name holds no weight.

...maybe, possibly, this is the best outcome of all.

( but want rises in her throat, a want to grasp what was taken, what was her due. how could she be satisfied with such an end? )

something echoes, soft, in her mind.

isola radiale.

she does not welcome the intrusion -- but neither can she deny it, weakened as she is. liliana raises her head.