lost in the lapse again.

till nothing but my heart remains, only for you. i lie awake & ask myself, 'who do you think you are?' when you inhale, I fill your lungs. a wol au sideblog for koret swan, as penned by sea. this is not a roleplay blog!

[mooglemeet]

MOOGLEMEET now has a Twitter! It will function exactly the same as this blog, but with a focus on promos and positivity posted on that platform — meaning you can # and @ to your heart’s content and I’ll retweet your content. I don’t know how active it will be yet, as it’s my first foray into something like this on Twitter, but please give it a follow if you’re interested!

[gatheredfates-a]

                                 So flood me like Atlantic, wither me to nothing                        WASH AWAY THE BLOOD ON MY HANDS

[gatheredfates-a]

she lingers in your mind like a wraith

𝔦𝔫 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔫𝔦𝔤𝔥𝔱, 𝔰𝔥𝔢 𝔪𝔞𝔫𝔦𝔣𝔢𝔰𝔱𝔰 ONEIROPHRENIA: A hallucinatory, dreamlike state caused by several conditions such as prolonged sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation or drugs. PROMPT THIRTEEN | MASTERLIST | WORD COUNT: 770  | SONG INSPO: In The End Tw: Graphic depictions of gore/decay.

What a farce the shelter of wakefulness was, that it claimed to shelter one from the terrors of sleep.

In the dead of night, when the will of Llymlaen calmed the sea to a sheen of glass and the cosmos expanded brilliantly in the inky black sky, the captain of the Wolfsbane could be seen at the wheel of her ship. Her crew had long since grown accustomed to such behaviour, conducting their nightly routines around her or descending below deck for some much needed personal leisure. On these nights, where gentle waves lapped the sides of her vessel, one could achieve the deepest sleep. Rocked by the very mother of La Noscea, they were but babes in a vast cradle.

Kor could not allow herself the pleasure. In the deepest sleep she hunted her, that darkened memory that lingered in the shadows and distorted the mirror when she dared to look too close. Hers was the vision she saw when she closed her eyes; a single lantern, a wooden table and a body resting on pale linen. Sometimes, if she thought about it too long, she could swear the smell still lingered in her nose.

Sailors told stories of sirens. Beautiful women perched on craggy rocks whose songs would lure men to their deaths. She thought it ludicrous at first – most especially because her bastard of a father could never deny himself a pretty woman, and he wasn’t dead yet – but, in more recent times, she’d come to appreciate the superstition.

Perhaps a siren need not be beautiful.

It was always the catch of her dress first. The cotton turned see-through in the water, fanning in the air as if though it were the deepest oceans. Kor’s knuckles turned white as she gripped the wheel and she looked away.

“You’re not real,” she reminded her ( or, more accurately, she reminded herself ). “You’re not real.”

But the wraith did not care for illusion or reality, and she continued to stare.

Kor’s tongue ran the length of her bottom lip, teeth pressing hard into the skin. She’d be the fool to think that a simple word could dispel her, and she looked up slowly to witness her fully.

Almost a doppelgänger. Hers was the same wavy red hair, more ginger than her crimson, yet it was the only thing that felt recognisable. Though her gaze bore into her she had no eyes – the hazel had long been eaten by fish – and her mottled skin was marked by veins that turned blue in the beginning of bloat. She didn’t say anything, but the muted expression on her face was descriptor enough.

It was vacant.

“You’re dead,” she choked. Always the same sight – this darkened apparition wreathed in seaweed and sea-life – yet she seemed intent on refusing the inevitable.

Your fault, your fault, your fault  – YOUR FAULT!

Lily opened her mouth, sand pouring from the orifice.

She screamed.

                                            I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!

Time both seemed to speed past and stand still, for it was both instantaneous and a millennia before another soul pulled her from the brink. His hands around her shoulders were painful in their force, but it was only when he pulled her into his chest and shielded her face from the sight did Kor realise the scream was not her sister’s.

It was hers.

“Hey, hey, you’re alright. Kor? Kor, you’re fine. Everything’s fine.” 

She might have laughed at how the seriousness of the situation chased the formality from Robince’s tongue but, as her first mate pulled back enough to cup her face and access her for any injuries, she hated to say it was only her sanity that was bruised. Her fingers curled around his wrists, sobs wracking her skinny body, and when she looked up the ghost was gone.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry – “

“For what?” He asked, though even he knew deep down the apology was not aimed at him. It was aimed at the girl whose flesh had long turned to bone in the icy blue; whose revenge had seldom brought the peace she surely craved.

“You need to sleep –”

“I can’t, Rob. Sleep doesn’t help. Wakefulness doesn’t help. Not even killing him helped,” Kor croaked, finally pulling herself free of his grip. When had she fallen onto the ground? Embarrassing, she was an embarrassment. No wonder her father thought her a waste.

Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she shook her head. “I need a couple of minutes. I’ll be fine. I am fine.”

[gatheredfates-a]

my memory will build a tomb of you

𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚍𝚒𝚛𝚝 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚠𝚒𝚕𝚕 𝚜𝚕𝚎𝚎𝚙; 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚠𝚒𝚕𝚕 𝚜𝚞𝚏𝚏𝚘𝚌𝚊𝚝𝚎. AVATAR: the physical embodiment of an idea or concept; a personification. PROMPT SIX | MASTERLIST | WORD COUNT: 576  | SONG INSPO: Dark Signs NOTE: This prompt is focused on Kor’s WoL verse! It has no standing on her regular roleplay verse.

In the sunken city of the deep, the queen of death lay dreaming. 

It was a story as old as the sundering itself; passed through language, woven into litany; sung like a requiem, a lamentation – a mockery.

Persephone. She watched her people sundered, she who stepped aside to the machinations of primal gods and she who was obliterated by both. Her legacy was autumn turned wintery death; the curl of leaves as they withered, the last rattling breaths of the damned and the millions of fragmented souls scattered across these gods-forsaken shards.

To forsake her would have been the easiest option. She had done as much when she had abandoned the Convocation and him in turn, choosing to leave her people to the devouring of the Final Days. There were many times, when the tedium of existence would turn to outrage, he vowed to scratch her out from its legacy altogether.

“You would erase us from memory!” He roared, but the gall in his voice did not penetrate her eyes. Golden amber met his with rueful indignation, but she would not relent.

“I refuse to see us enthralled instead.”

Persephone, queen of the dead, mayhap she already saw the corruption in his –  the places where Zodiark made a home in the honey of his iris. Perhaps she knew it was already too late.

The farce, the melodrama and the pantomime. It was the constant twirl of actor ‘pon the stage and the same rehearsed lines he mouthed in their performances. How comical it was to watch the lesser play the part of gods, but it let him feel something of home. In the royal circle he’d feel the paper brochure crinkle beneath his fingers, caring not for the names of the troupe, and in the refracted lights and glitter he watched the queen descend from the heavens like a dark omen.

It was never her.

Deep down, he knew this. It was a fool’s hope.

A pity.

Persephone rose from the land of the dead to sundered shards, her soul awash in the sunless sea. A story he did not yet know, but when he looked upon the one most striking, the playwright in him bemoaned the lost opportunity.

But the man? The man was insulted. Not Persephone. Not Kore. This woeful, half-formed simulacra who bore a mutation of her name.

[gatheredfates-a]

oh, mangy dog among the wolves,

𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐢𝐬 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐬𝐧𝐚𝐫𝐥? 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐝𝐞𝐞𝐩 𝐢𝐬 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐡𝐨𝐰𝐥? ABERRANT: departing from an accepted standard / diverging from the normal type. PROMPT TWO | MASTERLIST | WORD COUNT: 317 | SONG INSPO: Danielle TW: implied domestic violence / familial & emotional abuse

Long fingers reached for iron buttons passed easily through pressed cotton. The coat around her shoulders was two sizes too large – a man’s cut, she thought caustically, that her father should ever remind her – and as Koret lifted her hands to the back of her head she loosened her hair around her shoulders and watch it tumble against the navy cloth like a bloodstain in the darkened sea.

It was not her father’s wish to command a ship. It was never his wish for her to have control over anything. She was the aberrant; a ugly duckling in the flock of swans, the dog among the wolves. To have his blood, his eyes, his stature, his sardonic tongue; it would never be enough. Her ushering into power was less a great bestowing as it was his relent to the machinations of expectation. By other’s accounts, as his blood heir, should she not be afforded the opportunity?

“ A fuckin’ disappointment –” his snarl was hardly a memory; he could have just as easily stood behind her and it would have the same bite. Yet Kor smoothed the coat out all the same, picking imaginary threads from the fibre as his memory-forged apparition spoke as if though he were pressing his lips to the tip of her ear. “Nothin’ but a cunt, y’are. Barely anythin’ – “

“ – We can’t be everything,” she spoke to the empty air. It was a moment’s defiance; rebellion against herself as much as him. At least here it wasn’t enforced by fists. Amber eyes flicked upwards.

She looked a pantomime. A jester of La Noscean seas – a comical trope of someone literally too big for their boots. Yet, with a click of her tongue and a fold of her cuffs, she would not let herself be so easily humiliated.

“I’ll find a tailor in Ul’dah if he is intent on wasting the fabric.”

[mortuislupus]

𝔽𝕆ℝ𝔾𝕀𝕍𝔼ℕ 𝕀ℕ𝕊𝕆𝕃𝔼ℕℂ𝔼 // by LoryDraws.

[gatheredfates-a]

[aphrodites-gem-deactivated20220]

Persephone

In Greek mythology, Persephone, also called Kore, "the maiden", is the daughter of Zeus and Demeter. She is the queen of the Underworld, & partner to Hades, the god of the underworld. She is the personification of vegetation, which shoots forth in spring and withdraws into the earth after harvest; hence, she is also associated with spring as well as the fertility of vegetation.

[kyoka-sui-get-su]

[mortuislupus]

beware the teeth of emaciated beasts.

𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙧𝙨 𝙞𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙟𝙖𝙬 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙗𝙞𝙩𝙚𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙝𝙖𝙧𝙙𝙚𝙨𝙩. FERALITY: the quality of being feral // (especially of an animal) in a wild state, especially after escape from captivity or domestication. PROMPT ONE | MASTERLIST | WORD COUNT | SONG INSPO: drip. TW: patricide??? murder?? no spoilers but someone gets shot.

                            When I bite down I don't stop until my teeth are touching.                               When I'm hungry I don't rest until my fangs are bloody.                                                   I don't stop until they meet.                                                  I DON’T REST UNTIL I EAT.

                                                                   [ halatali, eastern thanalan ]

Her shoulders rolled. Her jaw locked. Her eyes remained steady.

There was always a bit of wolf within the girl; a mangy, emaciated beast clawing at the sinew; threatening to come out when she least expected it; begging for her to let it show it’s teeth. He had always thought her animalistic --- less than human, unworthy of the things that would make a person whole, and it was a dull acceptance that heralded him within these corrupt halls.

He cared about Ala Mhigo when it suited him. Much like he cared about anything. A suave word to Ilberd and a trip across the seas would have been an easy task if it came with the possibility of dispatching her and his smug, self assured smile was enough for the anxiety within her to froth rabidly. 

A breath in her lungs. She was still alive.

“Filicide, father? Can’t be a first.” Not when her sister’s bones disintegrated beneath the soil of La Noscea, and her dead-eyed stare followed Kor like a shade. Not when Dimitri’s smile tugged wider at the mention, his hand thumb circling the safety of his gun like an idle habit, and she knew --- as she had always known --- his hands were never clean.

“It’s time to stop playin’ hero, girl,” he answered, those same amber eyes meeting hers with cool indifference. He wasn’t drunk for once, which gave him equal measure of her and hers, and it was all he could do to laugh. “No’ that there ain’t much heroism in this. A child, a refugee and a war criminal. Warrior of Light, they say? Nah, you’re too dim-witted ---”

Alphinaud, who remained an ever present fixture at her side, had moved to speak, only to be silenced by the weakened, heavy hand of Raubahn. It was fortunate that, for it allowed the snarl to emerge from deep within Kor.

“Shut. Up.” Remember, you are more than a girl. A storm --- a hurricane. For everything he had said she was not, she had achieved so much more.

“--- a waste.” His voice reflected a growl. They were not too dissimilar in that way. Kor let out an incredulous laugh, arms spreading wide at her side.

“So have you come to stop me?” she asked. “Then you will have to kill me yourself, coward.”

“Kor, please reconsider ---”  Alphinaud interjected.

“The Limsan way,” Dimitri agreed. She understood. Without a word spoken to her companions she strode towards her father, a hand in her pocket to retrieve the bullets for her musket. His smile broke clean into a grin.

A duel. As old as Vylbrand herself; it was not uncommon for a dispute of power to be concluded by a bullet and the death of a captain, though Kor was sceptical that her father would remain honourable. But it was the tongue-in-cheek nature of him --- the kind who clung to old traditions that did not apply to him. He’d cheated his way through Limsan Lominsan ranks by parroting their customs and he would use them to undermine his daughter.

For a second the two of them were close enough to touch. Dimitri still wore smug satisfaction on his face like a child eating cake and it was all she could do to pledge herself to the idea that the Echo surely could not fuck up when it came to something like this. At least she hoped not.

They turned their backs to each other and Kor looked to Raubahn. He knew the customs of Limsa from negotiations, and his single nod gave her confirmation that he would carry her as best he could in fairness. Both she and Dimitri took three steps each, steeping themselves in the silence.

“On three. Three, two ---”

The first noise was a crunch of a foot against the soil. The second were two gunshots simultaneously after each other. Blood splattered against her cheek. Kor did not flinch.

However, her father did. From his eye a gaping hole emerged, a ironic mimicry of the gaping pits reflected in Lily when she was pulled from foamy shores. The neurons in his brain now fractured and fried began to fire wildly though the only result lay in two shots fired at their feet. His remaining eye met hers with a trembling iris and Dimitri slid to his knees. Kor’s head tilted back to look at him as if he were little more than a gnat and, as she stepped forward, she kicked him hard against the ground.

“Fuck you, you dishonourable prick.” He would never bank on the third, the Echo had told her as much. Alphinaud broke Raubahn’s hold to rush to her side and he and Yugiri followed suit behind him. Yet Yugiri did not immediately go to Kor’s side. With a marked gaze the shinobi’s gaze washed over Dimitri’s body, noting the twitches of his muscles, but knowing the truth.

“He is dead.” She said impassively, though Kor didn’t expect he would still be alive. Alphinaud placed a hand on her arm and it was then he’d realise how much she was shaking.

“Are you alright, my friend?” came his quiet ask. Looking briefly to him and then back to Dimitri’s body, Kor nodded once and stowed her gun. Her other hand reached for the blood on her face and tried to wipe it away.

“Yes. I will be. Let’s leave this miserable fucking place.”

[milksshrimp]

gold

[agni-ignition]

OC/canon and selfships are good y’all are just scared of having fun

[agni-ignition]

“But it’s cringe” ok what if it is? What’re you gonna do about it? Call the cops? Are you some kind of cringe police? Huh? Suck my nuts. I have 30 bfs and gfs and I’m having fun while you sit in your sad little clown corner getting second-hand embarrassment from looking at people having a blast. Make a self-insert oc and maybe you’ll feel better

[i-had-a-gotdam-plan]

lmao thought this belonged here

[gatheredfates-a]

                                                   Come, let’s forget that future                                        that is becoming smeared with blood again.

[gatheredfates-a]

she will return with the seafoam and the salt

& 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐛𝐚𝐥𝐤 𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐧. REVENANT: a person who has returned, especially supposedly from the dead. PROMPT SIX | MASTERLIST | WORD COUNT: 247  SONG INSPO: fallout [antagonïzer]

TW: Graphic depictions of death & decomposition / decay.

standing my hands red                                           THE LION AND THE LAMB.

On the shores of the river Styx she would always find her.

Keep reading

[mortuislupus]

when you leave the flowers bloom

𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐬. SWAY: move or cause to move slowly or rhythmically backwards and forwards or from side to side // control or influence (a person or course of action). PROMPT TWO | MASTERLIST | WORD COUNT: 442  SONG INSPO: STAY /  MEPHISTOPHELES NOTE: Whilst I enjoy in my personal canon that Elidibus was a young adult (18/19) upon joining the Convocation, this is not commentary to the child!discourse. Enjoy him as you see fit, it’s your interpretations and I’m not about to tell you how to enjoy the game. ok thank u.

                    PLEASE STAY WITH ME ONE MORE NIGHT                            [ at the seat of azem, she weeps ]

A gust of wind heralded her exit greater than any horn or fanfare, the billowing dance of fallen jacaranda flowers both a beauty and a metaphor for what was yet to come. Behind her the stares of the Convocation felt like a haunting not yet realised; the dead yet to die; and as she choked on her rage and disbelief she barely noticed the single feet that followed her own, only the desperate call that earned only momentary pause.

“Azem, you know this is the only way ---” 

“The only way?” Incredulity stained her voice and fused her teeth like taffy, the pain merely fuel for her outrage. She turned her head. “If this is the will of the Convocation then I am not the Fourteenth. They may be swayed, but I will not. Elidibus is barely a man and you would have him be the catalyst.”

“He has volunteered ---”

“---Because he is obsessed! When you throw the weight of expectation and responsibility on someone with no life experience what do you expect? He follows you, follows us, because he looks up to us, and you would throw him on the altar like a sacrificial lamb?”

Kore’s voice was a snarl, and the way she rounded on her company was no less animal. Hades did not balk at her; rather, as amber eyes met honey-gold beneath the weight of the Ascian sigils, he stood resolute as she drove her finger hard into the centre of his chest. She accused him and he did not relent.

“He will do his duty because he thinks it is the only way. Because you and the others have convinced him it is the only way. He will be the catalyst and you will allow it.”

“And what would you suggest we do --- “

“I don’t KNOW what we’re supposed to do!” she shrieked in return. His voice was calm where hers was not, his convictions strong where hers cracked at the edges, and they shattered in her answer. “Not this.”

His hands, once a comfort, fell heavy on her shoulders. Kore would not give him her grief --- not even when his tone equally lamented their fate. How did it come to this division? Though the traveller, Amaurot had always felt steady and predictable; yet now the turbulence threatened to swallow them altogether.

“This will preserve us,” he told her. The laugh she gave was hollow.

“This is your answer?” asked she.

Hades nodded. Kore pulled away. His fingers curled against the empty air, but they would not find her there. Drawing the hood tighter around her head, she stepped away.

“This is mine.”

                                                                In sight of land                                              Convinced the stars were falling down                                                                   I saw you                                             Silent, releasing the rope from your hand

[endocathexis]

Death and the Maiden by Ana Sanchez

[mortuislupus]

the folly of human nature.

PROMPT 3 (YEARNING) of my 30-day WoL challenge! @otolin-xiv​ and I have been chatting about our duel WoL verse for AGES, so I wanted to play off that a little for this. Aka, if I don’t capture him correctly at all, I’m so sorry. LMAO.

Two fingers rested on her face between the bridge of her nose and chin, a distant, contemplative expression laid bare as her single eye cast itself downwards to the open window of the Crystarium. There, among the periwinkle trees and slopes of elegant crystal, her caretaker strode across the neat-trimmed grass back to the Ocular; and she, ever foolish in her nature, followed him to the brink of her vision.

“It’s not too late to tell him that you know... if he doesn’t already, that is.”

Otolin was not a man of many words, and yet the ones he spoke always seemed to carry a certain weight. Whether that was because she swore he knew her better than she knew herself, or merely because he contemplated every line with careful consideration, it was enough for her gaze to shift from the window and to him; for her hand to lift from her mouth and towards her cheekbone where she used the back of her knuckles to prop her head. It was not the first time the two had participated in a heart to heart, but it was less about what he said as opposed to how he looked.

It was in the furrow of the brow, the downturn of his lip and how his words, when they were spoken, were carefully selected as to not spur her ire. Because that was the thing about Kor: she was very good at trying to push people away, and he was as used to stoking the fire as he was dousing it. His was the measured step in opposition to her haste -- the open posture as he watched her hunched physique and dry, humourless smile.

“If Ardbert is right about that mirror, I’m sure he already knows.”

“I... I don’t think he would use it for that purpose.”

No, he wouldn’t. Even Kor knew that, but it didn’t make her feel any better. As much as she tried to convince herself that G’raha the Exarch was somehow all knowing, her pessimism could not overrule sheer fact. He was doing his utmost best to conceal his identity and he was too good a man to spy on the two of them. Which was fortunate, as much as Kor didn’t want to admit it, because the yearning beneath her ire was transparent and pathetic.

And obvious. Very, very obvious. There was a reason she often saw Otolin’s gaze staring at her own whenever they were in the Exarch’s presence -- how he would allow her to lead the conversation, not in tandem as they often did, to gauge how much information she was willing to give. He was a good man, too; which was very annoying, as it meant Kor had to try and emulate it.

Sometimes.

“Like how you’ll admit your feelings in the Greatwood?”

She watched the flush of blood to the surface of dark skin and the way Otolin’s mouth twitched. Good, she thought, better to turn the tables on him then act like she was the only one at the mercy of her folly. It did not mean that he would not be the stronger ( of the emotional aspect, he so often was ), but in her moment of defence, she revelled in watching him squirm. Y’shtola would have no times for petty games and of that she so sincerely respected her.

--- Except when it was turned on her. She didn’t respect that. But, at least for the start, it would not be turned on her, and she could enjoy it.

“Now, see? You should wash the hypocrisy off your face, Otolin --- it’s not very flattering,” she said. and he’d see the cold wickedness reflected in the amber of her eye. His affront was obvious.

“You know... you know I’m right.”

Damn it. He was doubling down, the bastard.

Kor groaned, stretching her legs out suddenly over the bed as she let her hands rest either side of her legs. “Yes, I could, but you know what that would achieve? Nothing. Nothing, because there is obviously a reason why he’s not telling us, and it could very well be something a simple as not caring for us anymore.”

Otolin was silent. She didn’t really know if that was a good or a bad thing. Probably bad, considering his open stance still conveyed something akin to “You know that’s not the truth”, and she’d rather pretend G’raha was being malicious or uncaring so she could get over it.

Looking back out to the window, now that the Crystal Exarch was out of sight, the woman sighed and rubbed her cheek below the eye-patch. Her ruined eye always had a way of itching when she was irritable -- as if though its maker was taunting her for her rage. They were not alike. She would do well to remember.

“I don’t want to talk about it.” Not that she ever did. But the footsteps echoing from beyond her peripheral spelled Otolin’s acceptance and, when she looked back after a few moments, he was gone.

Much as she hated it, yet inflicted it upon herself, Kor was alone.