The Art of War

All warfare is based on deception. Mei Ling Heron. 26. Persuasion an rp blog for murderworldkrp

[mwxheron]

i.

there’s always that warning: ‘don’t play with fire’ yet i remain mesmerized by its warmth. i figure if i can feel real warmth  at least once in my life it’ll be worth the burns.

( these scars all are i have to remember you by )

i’ve buried you but i’m haunted by this growing need to feel warm again. you’ve started a fire that cannot be extinguished.

ii.

‘i am death. you’re a mutant.’ ‘i am cancer. you’re a freak.’ these were the first punches you threw. bruises only showed on my skin when you threw out the word jiejie. these two words ripped through  the thick skin i’ve worn since birth, leaving my wounds for you to behold.

( it’s okay. jiejie forgives you. )

with only thin layers of dried crimson to separate my real face from the world, tell me didi why do we look so similar? are you a monster like me as well?

iii.

the celestial bodies never heard my cries. they hid behind night’s veil  looking down at me,  yet there you were looking after me. has nobody told you the cruelties of earth before you fell? this is damnation. either you are born into it like me, or you become corrupted by it eventually like you. i suppose this is your nature  to shine your brightest before you burn and collapse on yourself. this must be why i found myself drawn to you, a moth flying directly into a flame, before my light dims as well.

( star light, star bright, first and last star, i’ll see tonight )

[mwxheron]

extinguished

;description: a companion piece to this  ;tw: blood

you swore no one will see you bleed. like sharks they will encircle you at any sign of weakness, yet they both saw you bathed in it like you’ve been baptized where people are reborn only to die and die again.

he called you a freak. he left you to die. but he saw you when you were weak, and he saved you.  you couldn’t grasp why he threw himself off that edge with no hesitation. because, in the end, self preservation still required for the self to be preserved. 

but you understand now. 

the only life he worked to save was jongin’s. a final act of desperation to save somebody he wanted to protect. your lives ran parallel to each other’s to the tee. you almost forget that his story isn’t your own.  you feel the weight pressing down on you again. the entire souless seventy-something kilograms pushing down onto you all at once as you hear him ask

“jiĕjie, do i deserve to live? can you answer me; can you tell me? what do you think? is there a point to me? do i have a purpose at all; will i ever have a purpose? do i, do i really deserve to—” 

you shield him. with your fallible body, you protect him. there is breath in this body. there is life rushing through his veins. you want to preserve all of that, so you reassure him over and over 

“yes, zitao.. yes, yes you do.”

you don’t ask anymore, but you tell him to trust you. trust the one who once stood on the other side of the prison she was born into.  trust the one who stands on the other side as the one who was protected.

for this reason, you cannot hurt him. even after he laid a dagger in your hands with his words and positioned its point to his throat, you cannot go through with it. you can’t let him be another dead body in another’s arms.

dried streaks of a burned out rouge paints the canvas of his skin.  experience has taught you the best way to wash blood off yourself even after the blood had ample time to seep in and stain.  nobody helped you rid yourself of your image of a bloodstained monster but  you never needed them to. you don’t need anyone’s help yet someone always needs yours.

“if you don’t have a purpose, then find one. if he is your light and your wildfire, then live for him. he might be too bright for you to look at or too hot for you to approach,  but remember that he is your wildfire. he is not the sun. something that unattainable doesn’t need your protection. and i’ll tell you this, zitao.  you have to make it your purpose to live, because once he loses you, his fire will be extinguished too. can you cope with that?”

[mae-rps]

Violence/Death themed ask memes/prompts

((Obviously, lots of trigger warnings here so please be careful - Violence tw, death tw, killing tw, physical abuse tw, blood tw))

[mae-rps]

“Is that blood?!”

“You didn’t have to kill them!”

“I could always just kill them…”

“Why are your knuckles bruised?”

“Just go! I’ll clean up this mess." 

"You busted my lip!”

“You clean up, I’ll hide the body.”

“They deserved it.”

“Dont you dare hit me!" 

"I liked killing them.”

“Oh God, there’s so much blood!" 

"Don’t be a baby, I only kicked you in the balls.”

“Kill them! Go on!" 

"Who gave you that black eye?!”

“They died happy at least." 

"Do you want me to hit you?!" 

"Get rid of them and I promise I’ll never bother you again." 

"I’ll kill you, I swear!" 

"They were trying to kill me! I had to defend myself!”

“I’ll kill every last one of them." 

"Ow! I think you’ve broken my arm!”

“I’ll fight beside you." 

"Are you burning a body?”

“I was protecting you!”

“Don’t be alarmed, but I may have just run a guy over.”

“Have you ever killed anyone before? Be truthful.”

“It was an accident!”

“Well, you should’ve thought about that before you hit them with your car!”

“Burn the body and lets go.”

“I’m glad they’re dead!”

“They’re not going to make it.”

“Don’t you dare die on me!”

“I had to do it.”

“I killed them so we can be together, don’t you see that?”

“I may or may not have a dead person in my basement.”

“I am sick of cleaning up your mess!”

[thejoneseffect-deactivated20150]

Force is tilting the balance of power to your side by gathering advantages.

Sun Tzu, The Art of War [1.12]

[mwxheron]

compassion is an illness - [taemin + heron]

[ mwxtaemin ]

The shivers came even in broad daylight when the day’s warmth crashed over Mei Ling. The never ending yawns shook her up even more. Every couple of steps, a yawn. Every few minutes, a yawn. She lost count of how many it had been. The yawns forced her eyes to close-- her body’s way of letting her know what it desperately needed, but to the pleas she remained deaf. This was not by choice. She did not choose this for herself.

Fatigue became her companion ever since she lost the previous one. Whenever the moon rose to greet her, she knew the time where she was most vulnerable came as well. It wasn’t just other contestants or the wild beasts dwelling in the forests that she feared anymore. Night time was when scenes of the past relived themselves over and over. Her arms still tensed as if they could feel the full weight of a body pressing down on them. An overwhelming compulsion inhibited her legs. They wanted to run and to keep running. Even without a destination to run to or a target to run from, they just wanted to run.

( The last words of the dead were far more compelling than anything her powers conjured. )

Her head throbbed as demons dances within it. She had to lay down with her head firmly gripped between her hands in sad attempts to contain the pain. She hated that all she could ever see was phantoms of blood coating her body when she should’ve seen that shadow in the distance approaching her. She hated that all she could hear were the bloodthirsty howls of the sentinel when she should’ve heard the rustling of someone stealing her supply bag. 

Well all’s said and done, she caught everything much too late. She barked out a command for the man to let go of the bag. The command and the rasp of her voice grated against her already sore throat. For her to have to fight in this ill condition was too much. Her punch didn’t even connect but she doubted it would’ve even caused much damage in her state. Was she ready to die over a few berries, sharp metal scraps, water bottles, and matches? Logics and strategies would urge her not to but with everything that had been stripped from her, she wanted to put up a fight. 

[c-starstruck]

Ni Ni at Dior Haute Couture event in Paris

[mwxheron]

I owe mwxwolfram and mwxtaemin starters. Please forgive me I’ll get them up asap!!

[mwxyura-deactivated20150706]

Yura shrugged, already starting to walk away, “I’m going, I want to know where it’s coming from.” She said, going off to where she pointed, not bothering to wait for the other.

[mwxheron]

A brave one. ( Or just plain reckless. ) “Fine. Lead the way,” Mei Ling said softly. She followed behind, but kept a safe distance in case she needed to get away.

[mwxheron]

;cave canem

[mwxjongin-blog]

The moment feels lukewarm when he stands in it like this, only partially registering the broken physicality that’s keeping him upright. An ornery attempt on his part that’s bypassed consciousness as if something in him longed to forever be as hardened and powerful as he lets on. Jongin’s eyes bear weight unbeknownst to him, the weight of his mother’s challenging glance that called forth all of existence to knock on her door until she let it in and was swept away by its undertow, and it doesn’t stop with her, continues to the perseverance of his father and sleepless nights. That restlessness skin deep and looking like dystopia on a son, an accumulate transferred through blood. Deprivation and construction coincide, it makes empty things wanting to be filled, one way window people like himself that look back into reassurance like it’s a foreign concept, speechless lips drawn taught as hands take up space on his body. He doesn’t say that this is the first time someone has touched him without feeling the repercussions of his individual turmoil, people have come into contact with wars and have separated from them with reformed mentalities; the destruction he’s capable of reminds him of this, the distant stares and brokenhearted voicemails, faces avoiding him on side-streets. 

He’s a specific brand of trauma seared into the flesh. 

No one forgets touching him and feeling summer’s swelter, but equally they are reminded by the burns, by the scars he’s managed to leave behind the size and shape of his fingertips. Jongin doesn’t say he’s brought to the escarpment of near death, heart lodged in his throat enough to keep him silent when he’s itching to say things that aren’t genuine to him because they’re dipped in fear. Rather, he encompasses the stillness, letting warmth seep into his spine. The hand on his back curves him at the vertebrae and he decides that if this were not a minute in time, dedicated to something other than two people navigating their way around an uncomfortable elephant in an endless room, knowing each other too much and not enough and in all of the wrong ways, he would like the feeling. If this was not a matter of running away from the inevitable until their feet ache and their lungs burn, he considers that maybe he would stay like this and not question it like he does everything else, because there’s a stranger who carries his skeletons and his chest has become a closet that’s too empty as of late. “To the treeline,” he says, confirming his suggestion with little certainty, a hitch in his breath bleeding into the night. “Then to the sea, just not here.” He steals his weight back if only to lessen the encroaching dependency that could turn him into a hindrance if he isn’t heedful of it. ( you dont want Tao to see comfort turning the lights out in your eyes before vacancy takes its place; this is normal and you favor normal for its grays, its cryptic nature.) Then feet stagger forward at the mercy of lopsided senses, repeats the process until it solidifies and the forest is blurring in his peripheral. The details start to sharpen when the sky clears of canopy and he spares a directionless glance around him. 

Searching for one thing and detecting three, blinking as if to reconfigure but failing to erase the other objects from his vision when everything comes to. The scenery becoming a backdrop to beacons of red, to monuments of blood.   

[mwxtao-blog]

he hadn’t doubted the sin. iniquity whose admittance he had heard once only; darkness whose coalescence spun a single thread prior to being led by inevitability’s needle, its venomous tip puncturing innocent skin — weaving an inescapable cloak that would drape them in the summer and leave them bitter in the winter. he had not doubted it, the destruction whose base was too subtle and its hidden homicide that had crept through their inner-workings, hellish and relentless flames committing arson within his own sanctuary with an undaunted repetition, until it was unexplainable and inconceivable how the walls were still intact, surrounded by the ashen blood of themselves. the pain was unquestioned, the anguish unchallenged; sentimental notions he hadn’t doubted, not because jongin had shown their existence, but because they had taken too much of him already. the way he spoke; the way he thought.

the way slow death had caressed him softly; jongin knew it and yet he still did not run from the reaper.

acceptance, albeit unvoiced, is something perpetual and unquestionable between them — he trusts it enough to surmise its eternity, and through that recognizes it is love that had set the sporadicity in his heart then. that indistinguishable shiver of the breath that had escaped him when the link between them separated. the pride of independence resurfacing with a distinction still perceptible through weakness and for once — not once, he had already taken before, remember? — he is selfish enough to stop jongin’s claim of it. his arms refusing to abandon the other then and should they have looked back to challenge him, in his eyes they would have seen steadiness; the embrace coaxing a depth that they could sink into. a quiet promise of loyalty to shroud affection that felt… “jongin,” it’s like the beginning of a prayer to him, “i’m being genuine,” a repeat of something long past, “you can trust me. you can really trust me. it’s literally almost completely fucking useless for you to be trying to walk by yourself when i don’t even need you to tell me how fucked your senses are. i don’t mind” — holding you — “helping you.”

he had thought to say more but didn’t, instead resolved to tot the other alongside him in their makeshift embrace. his walk somewhat slow, following directions he had not really tried to remember until he sees trees and remembers the initial step. cutting through shadows cast overhead, twisting and turning bodies in an attempt to preserve adored flesh from surrounding brush. a navigation he doesn’t mind and considers easy, until the sound of fallen branches breaking becomes louder, the sound of footsteps frequenting the backdrop until he realizes that, whoever it is is coming closer and he braces himself, placed in front of jongin to oppose the raven-haired girl he had met before.

heron, he remembers her as and it is that memory that sparks his rage. had he really been so stupid so as to lead her directly here; directly to jongin? “what the fuck are you doing here? have you been following me?” it was like his own corporeal toxins were dripping off of his tongue now, hatred something he felt immediately, until it’s the illumination from the torch that reveals her scarlet frame. “what..” his arm steadies, some type of barrier between her and jongin. “what are you doing here? that announcement from the loudspeaker — what’s happening?”

[mwxheron]

Blood covered her body. Darkness covered her vision. Pain covered her heart.

Her mind raced in tandem with the rest of her body and covered about just as much ground. She grasped for puzzle pieces and tried to piece a mural together. Qiu’s death fitted in with the mysterious creature. Then there was Arcade’s message about his “friends” that fitted in with the creature. Only when she took a step back did she discover that Arcade’s message simultaneously connected with Qiu’s death as well. 

“As much as I appreciate the formation of alliances, the activity has been quite dull.”

The alliance with Qiu was forged in order to keep a target off her back and yet doing precisely so put them both on the radar. The cruelness behind Arcade’s motives burned her worse than any of Qiu’s flames. A man entitled to his entertainment stripped her of her claim to security and companionship. After all what better way to wear someone down than to rid them of anything that made them feel human? At this rate, the animals in the forest won’t be the only feral beings around.

One wrong turn and she was sent tumbling down a slope. An endless vortex awaited her. The chances of her either landing on rocks, branches, or nearly hitting other tree trunks with her legs changed by the second. With how fast everything came at her and how little she could actually see, all she could do was take each hit as they came. It didn’t take too long for her physical state to become as numb as her emotional state. That was one of the few benefits of her situation. 

As best she could, she pushed herself on. Through the fatigue and the aching, she continued moving just as Qiu instructed. The speck of light in the distance was her equivalent of a finishing line. Torch light meant other humans and other humans meant reinforcement. The owner behind the light however was all too familiar to her. Made her almost wish she was still falling down that hill. 

“Get out of my way, Cancer,” she spat in her native tongue. Any edge that would’ve been in her voice dulled out due to her fatigue. “Arcade sent out something. --Before you ask me what it is, I’m telling you that I fucking don’t know and I’m not interested in finding out. I’m not interested in being drenched in my own blood either so I need you to move, now.” 

She inched forward and spotted yet another face dimly illuminated behind Cancer. Yet another puzzle had confronted her. She took a good look at Cancer’s posture-- Arm out as a separator, body right up front as a shield, a biting tone like he was ready to attack. Flashbacks of Qiu bombarded her mind and the pieces came together. “Protector,” a dry chuckle accompanied the word. “This really isn’t a good night for alliances, didn’t you hear the announcement? If you’re smart you’d start running too.”

[mwxheron]

what you’ll never know

He had his hands around your neck when you first met. You knew his bloodlust had flared up. The fire in his eyes were ready to swallow you whole and leave your ashes on this foreign land with no one to mourn you. 

He needed to be whole again. You knew of his desperation and took advantage of it. His stare begged for help and so you stepped in to offer your assistance. What he didn’t know didn’t hurt him. 

He said he’d protect you as best he could. You knew the fine print read of your imminent death if you so much stepped out of line once. He had your every move on surveillance and watched you closer than any predator did to its prey. You knew he didn’t trust you.

He said he wasn’t looking. You knew he was but you let him. The way his eyes fell on you didn’t feel sharp or threatening for once.

He had a track record of never doing rescue missions. You knew he meant it. Then came the day where he searched for you for an entire day when you didn’t show up back at camp. When he finally found you, relief softened his eyes that were widened with concern.

He came back for you on that night. You knew death loomed over him, ready to claim him for its own, and yet he came back just for you. His eyes no longer opened after his last breath, but you were glad you were the last sight imprinted onto his fractured memory.

He was going to sell you out for some lighters and matches. You will never know the betrayal that awaited you. You were never anything in his eyes other than a means to meet his own ends. 

( Good thing he met his end before you found out. )

[mwxheron]

;cave canem

[mwxjongin-blog]

Electricity floods from an epicenter, devours senses as if it were starved. He’s taken from without remorse, all that keeps him locked firmly into stability within an instant, and it isn’t the loss of these necessities that kindle fear in his gut as he comes to, shoulders jarred into soil and his head home to cotton as it’s lolled to the side to survey where he’s landed, but quickness of the theft that has him reaching tentatively for his nape, curling digits into his skin where sweat has accumulated and turned him an odd clash of temperatures. He’s a shade of rigor mortis, swallowed by a flush of ripe adrenaline. Exhale around that fear, the one so intent on choking him before he has the chance to stand, before he has it in him to regulate individual perceptions so he could listen to the crackle erupting through darkened canopy. It comes into clarity as he’s back into stride, refurbishing what had been broken but somehow falling short; Tao is nearby, this being something so solid in his assumptions that he, despite the warning from overhead, clamors forward as if this idea alone — that there would be fire directed into the depths of him if he searched for its warmth — would make him impervious, insusceptible to the demons of this world, however new and lethal their threat may be.

Brush lacerates his skin, turns it into monuments of crimson for this, for clarification that when found would bathe him with relief, albeit subtle. It shakes itself free from his voice, but he hasn’t the time to be thankful. “We’re not safe here anymore, can’t risk staying in a place like this; we have no clue how populated this forest actually is and,” a pause, eyes falter, fall to the ground then recover anew with reluctance infecting his retinas, “my senses were crippled by the shock.”

[mwxtao-blog]

it had dissipated by the time the other arrived, the pulsation in the crook of his neck whose electrifying waves he had felt but disregarded. too isolated, both literally and figuratively, to comprehend the magnitude of the situation until it is his temple that seems to have caught its early ruination and he rose like a fortress, walls entombing jongin in security. arms resting over sleeves to place fingers on a clothed back, tactfully avoiding physical touch as his eyes allowed the returning gaze to recuperate their stability. he did not know what to say; did not want to tell jongin that he did not care and did not want to tell jongin that it didn’t matter where they took refuge. those cameras saw everything, even bodies being tossed over precipices in the privacy of places he considered his home.

instead he only obliges. “okay, i understand.” he nods, confirming the truth of his words as he shifts his weight to compensate for jongin’s, unwilling to dissolve the awkward embrace he had made. “where do we go then? tell me where and i’ll bring us there. i can carry us both, i don’t actually care. just tell me where to go, okay?”

[mwxheron]

Torchlight illuminated the familiar outline of Qiu’s as he struggled to keep his balance while approaching her. Seeing him relived the pressure building up in her chest. Her own safety directly correlated with his own, but in addition to shallow motivations, she had to admit it was nice to know he was okay. “Hurry up! I have a very bad feeling. We need to go now,” she reached out for his hand. In dark conditions like this she relied on him to guide her and be her eyes on top of being her bodyguard. 

Her hand continued to hang in the air, grasping at nothing. “What part of now don’t you understand?” There was that shrill tone in her voice that always got her yelled at. And so she waited. She waited for the warmth of his hand to envelop hers. She waited for his voice to chastise her. 

But they never came.

The sound of him hitting the ground shattered through her concentration. Such a dull thud rang in her ears the same way a chorus of bells would. He was just a few steps away but she rushed to him nonetheless. Setting the torch down to free her hands, she reached out to him again and pulled him up enough for his head against her shoulder. Something had slicked her hand. It felt warm and damp. Her own shirt began feeling moistened as well. “Did you fall into a creek?” She brought her hand up to her nose and the iron undertone that laced the scent sent a bolt through her heart. The dim light of her torch only lit up his face enough for her to witness the pain on his face.

She grabbed the torch to pull it closer and saw the damage for herself. 

His clothes were singed. His arm sported a bite mark. His stomach riddled with deep claw marks. 

“We need to go, okay? Let’s go so we can find you help. Let’s go.” Mei Ling only managed to stop talking when she heard Qiu gurgling on what she presumed to be his own blood. His hands found their way to her arm and tugged on her sleeve. 

“Run, Heron.” His words sounded strained despite it coming out as a small whisper. His hands pushed her away-- Or at least, they tried. For someone who was usually so strong to exert such little strength today illustrated a complete image of how quickly life was rushing out of him.

She pulled him up as best she could. “No, get up. We have to go. Qiu--” Gravity dragged his body down with ease now that he was no longer present to counteract it. “Qiu, get up! Get up! Get up! Don’t leave!” 

Time must have stretched around that moment because Mei Ling lost track of how long she sat there holding Qiu’s body. The stench of his blood soaked her clothes and she didn’t even have enough in her to mind it. Only when two beams of red appeared against the dark velvet backdrop of the night did she finally realize she had to fulfill Qiu’s last wish.

And so she ran. 

Without looking back, she ran. 

[everysongaday]

Visit Original Link

 D.O. (디오) of EXO - 외침

[mwxheron]

On a long and tiring day I got together my heart that was filled with sighs

Today and tomorrow, I will get up again And live through the day

[ ... ]

[mwxcastor-blog]

i can’t hear you { heron x castor }

    { mwxheron }

     After losing a game of rock-paper-scissors, he had been appointed by his sister to gather the firewood for that night, a sigh escaping his chapped lips every minute as he continuously bent down to pick up every branch he saw. 

     He hadn’t been gone long but his arms were already full of his haul for firewood, a small smile tugging at the corners of his lips as he deemed it enough. Arthur was on his way back to tonight’s “base of operation” (as his sister had called it) when the sound of hurried footsteps approached him, panting breaths and muffled whimpers indicating that it’s human.

     Arthur would usually ignore such trivial moments, opting to ignore whoever and whatever they were, but her muffled whimpers became shouts, and he couldn’t ignore her voice. Stop! It–she–screamed, his body complying to her commands as he heard her come closer. It took him a few moments, echoed huffs in the air, before he could move again, hiding behind the biggest tree he could find to observe who it was that willed his being to listen.

[mwxheron]

     Shit. Hand clutching her chest in hopes to muffle the loud beating of her heart, Mei Ling knew she got careless. The extra influence of compulsion came easily without having to concentrate as much as before. The biggest downside was still detaching it from her own emotional responses. For her cover to be blown due to her own ineptitude burned her inside.

     The atmosphere grew still after she shouted. The possibility of her overreacting brought a hue of embarrassment to her overall spectrum of emotions. She bent over, bracing her hands on her knees, as she caught her breath. Every ounce of capability to keep running slipped away from her body. There was no option left for her but to just rest.

     Something shifted in the air again. Mei Ling picked herself up and turned every which way to get a full scope of her surroundings. “Come out!” She shouted. Already a sitting duck with no energy to run away, she just wanted whoever she had to face to make their appearance. Compulsion never required face to face contact but propositions did. In the long run, she needed these contestants as her own weapons more than she needed them as body count boosters.

[mwxyura-deactivated20150706]

Yura scanned the area, thinking hard. “Should we look around?” She asked. She stuck a finger in her mouth for a few seconds, taking it back out and holding it up. “The wind must have taken the smell, it’s coming from there.” She said, pointing to her left.

[mwxheron]

Mei Ling’s brows raised at the thought. “You think it’s wise to follow?” She kept staring off towards the direction Yura pointed at. Usually strange smells warded people away, but to actually seek out the source... 

[mwxheron]

;cave canem

[ mwxjongin​ , mwxtao​ , mwxqiu​ ]               [ ☾ ] 

A trembling palm covered the side of her neck as she listened close to the message blaring from the speakers. Her eyes searched for images on the screens. Though impaired during nightfall, even those screens should be easy to spot. A shock worse than the one in her neck shot through her chest by the time the message stopped playing. Alliances were called out so that put both her and Qiu at the top of the list for whoever he sent out to get them. Fucking Qiu wasn’t around either and she told him time and time again how night time wasn’t good for her.

She picked up a long branch with some vines wrapped around near the top and partially fed it into the fire. The makeshift torch lit up bits and pieces of her surroundings as she cautiously left their spot to find Qiu. Even if he was sleeping at some random tree, that electric shock should’ve woken him up. I swear to God if he does not come back... -- She swung her torch over to where she heard rustling a couple of feet away. Are these the companions Arcade spoke of? Where the fuck is Qiu?

[wnq-anonymous]

You’re allowed to scream, you’re allowed to cry, but do not give up.

Unknown  (via wordsnquotes)

[immortalfaces-deactivated202103]