A PROPHECY FOR THE COMING YEAR.

a low-activity magnus archives multimuse, by rosemary.　 *　sideblog to.

[oculim]

remade this blog!   still a sideblog, i just got frustrated with my tags here & felt a bit cluttered lmao. still good to continue any threads i have going rn, just tag the new @ !

[oculim]

remade this blog!   still a sideblog, i just got frustrated with my tags here & felt a bit cluttered lmao. still good to continue any threads i have going rn, just tag the new @ !

[inksplit]

[oculim]

STATEMENT OF IVANA ‘VANYA’ VASILEVA,      REGARDING FOG AND A POTENTIALLY CURSED VIOLIN.   STATEMENT GIVEN DIRECT FROM SUBJECT.      content warnings:   neglect,   depression,   murder.

you said to start at the beginning,      so here is the beginning      :      when i was a baby,      my mother died.      single mom,      and i’ve never been able to get a straight answer regarding cause of death      —      for so long,      i was too young to be given that information,      and by the time i was old enough i didn’t have the energy to pursue it.      i suppose i could now,      but it’s not as much of a priority as it was when i was a child,      constantly asking and constantly ignored.

i was adopted by a couple that,      i’m told,      were friends of the family,      though my mother had no real family to speak of aside from me and they never really talked about her aside from brief mentions.      her name was tatyana and i look like her.      that’s about all i know.      my adoptive parents were kind enough,      but they thought they’d want a child much more than they wound up wanting me,      specifically.      they liked the idea of me more than the real thing,      and they were exhausted by the real work of parenting,      and i took to being constantly quiet and nearly invisible to make things easier for them.      they weren’t cruel,      just      ...      indifferent.      they worked a lot.      they didn’t have time for the daughter they’d gotten,      but they weren’t going to give me back,      so they gave me food and gave me shelter and largely left me alone by the time i was old enough to cook for myself and get myself off to school.

it’s hard to say when things crossed the threshold from unusual but understandable childhood to supernatural occurrence for this reason      :      even back then,      i felt like a ghost most of the time.      everything was just a bit gray around the edges,      and nobody really saw me,      i mean really saw me,      until i moved out and went away to college.      and even then      —      i lived alone,      studied violin in empty practice rooms,      didn’t have many friends.      i wasn’t an outcast,      but      …     i wasn’t part of the group,      either.      i went to parties but i was never invited to them.      i didn’t have any of my classmates’ phone numbers.      i was still more of a haunting than a real person.

so it’s hard to pinpoint,      but what i do know is that sometimes,      when i looked up from my sheet music or woke up from a nightmare,      there would be nobody around.      just fog.      i tried describing that to a therapist at the time and she didn’t understand      :      when i say nobody,      i mean that it was three in the afternoon and the just - sunny sky was suddenly so covered in clouds it was dark,      and times square was empty.      i know,      because i thought to go there once      —      i had to run the thirty blocks from my apartment to midtown,      because there weren’t any cars on the road for me to hail a taxi and the subways weren’t running,      on account of there not being anyone to run them.      times square doesn’t get empty.      midtown,      in general      —      new york,      in general,      is never so devoid of people.

i wasn’t keeping very good track of the days at that point      —      my therapist said i was depressed,      and i think she was right,      on top of everything else happening      —      but this happened every couple months from my junior year of college to when i was twenty - three.      more often by the end there.      i’ve always been a lonely person,      so i was used to that      —      but this was beyond that.      this empty blankness.

i think it might’ve swallowed me up if not for the new orchestra i joined.      the orpheus theater was having auditions,      and i’d lost touch with my old orchestra during one of those bouts of blankness.      not sure how much of that was standard depression and how much was some outside force      —      in the end,      whether it’s your own mind taking things from you or something else,      the result’s the same,      isn’t it?      the isolation.      you’re left with just yourself and your thoughts.      but i thought      :      a new orchestra would do me some good,      being around people,      playing music.      that’s what i clung to,      when that emptiness became too much.      the music.      i’m a violinist,      i’ve been studying since i was a kid,      and it’s something to hold onto,      you know?

i could have sworn i’d destroyed any chance of me getting into the orchestra with my audition.      i missed a few notes,      i was so nervous,      and i could feel that fog stinging at my legs      —      it was freezing cold.      but the conductor stared at me and said,      first chair.      first chair.      if you’ve never been in an orchestra,      you can’t understand how much that means      —      it’s like being god.

i never got the conductor’s name,      which is weird,      in retrospect,      but i was too happy to notice at the time.      too giddy to see that there was absolutely no chance i’d earned a first chair spot.      you really have to work your way up to that.      it takes years.      not only did he give me first chair,      he gave me a violin      —      pure white,      looked custom made.

he looked at me like i was prey.      i should’ve been scared.      but once he gave me the violin      —      well,      i wasn’t prey anymore.

i think i need to emphasize something here.      the way i am now is not the way i was then.      it’s been two years since i got the violin      —      it’s in its case,      sitting by the door,      i don’t really go anywhere without it.      i was      …      different.      shy to the point that i barely spoke at all.      i’d never have thought about giving this long of an explanation of anything at that point      —      i didn’t start talking as a kid till i was five years old,      and i never really learned how to express myself in words.      (      laughs.      )      i think that’s why i liked music.      i’ve always liked the sort of classical songs that sound angry,      you know the kind?      the ones that feel like the composer just wanted to stab every single person they could see with their baton.      but when i wasn’t playing music,      i was      …      well,      almost invisible.      i kept headphones on,      wore giant sweaters everywhere,      hid myself whatever ways i could find.

i don’t think the violin changed me so much as made me realize things that were always there.      first off      :      that i was angry.      i was raised in total isolation,      my parents didn’t give a shit about anyone but themselves,      i had no idea what i was doing with my life.      second      :      that everyone else around me was angry too.      just full of rage and violence.      bursting with it.      it took me a while to notice,      because when you’re so wrapped up in your own worries,       the people around you fade out into the fog.

but i did notice.      every time i practiced,      i’d hear shouting outside my window or from the apartment next door.      when i rehearsed my solos,      the other musicians would get into fights backstage      —      fistfights,      sometimes,      not only verbal ones.      at my first concert as first chair,      a riot erupted in the audience.      you would think we were at a show with a mosh pit.      someone was stabbed.      there was a lot of blood,      but i don’t think they died.      we kept playing through it all.

the next rehearsal,      a cellist tried to beat a piccolo player over the head with a music stand.      i saw the way the conductor looked at me during it.      not at the cellist and the piccoloist but at me,      with the widest grin.      like i was telling him the best joke on earth.      it all clicked for me,      then.      in retrospect,      it took far too long      —      two months since i’d auditioned,      the whole time with this violence all around,      but i’d been so      …      joyful,      i suppose.      it was a new feeling.      i didn’t really know what to do with it.

i didn’t stop playing as i walked towards the conductor.      i didn’t have my sheet music in front of me anymore,      and i don’t think i knew the piece well enough to have it to muscle memory,      but i kept playing,      and he kept watching me.      not like prey,      but like a gift.      more musicians joined in the fight behind me,      i think,      but that was its own kind of music.      it started to blend with the song i was playing.

and then i was a yard away from the conductor,      and i reached out with my bow.      it was sharp.      sharper than a bow should be.      sharp enough to cut his throat in just one fluid motion.

i’d never killed anyone before.      i wasn’t expecting it to feel good.

obviously,      the orchestra dissolved.      i don’t know why no one caught me.      whenever someone knocked on my door,      i was expecting the police.      i didn’t really have to worry about that,      though      —      a week or two after the conductor died,      i realized the fog was back.      that empty clawing at everything.

i think i panicked.      i don’t remember picking my violin up,      but i was playing it,      loudly,      with every bit of anger i’d realized i had in the last few months.      crescendo after crescendo.      how dare that loneliness try to grab me again,      how dare it try to pull me under      —      i was becoming something else,      something more than that.      it was a blank and empty space,      but i was anything but empty by that point.      i think i screamed,      as i played.      i don’t really remember.

it dropped me off in paris.      when i was a kid,      i’d fantasize about running away.      i don’t know why paris was always the place i imagined then.      i’d never left new york before this,      but i think it was the fog’s last act of revenge against me      —      i got the sense that it hated me,      the way it clung to me that last time,      so much colder than it had ever been before.      my fingers were halfway to turning blue.      when it cleared,      i wasn’t anywhere i recognized.

i had my violin,      though,      and my wallet was in my pocket,      and i      …      my playing had a draw to it that it never had before.      i’ve practiced since i was eight years old,      but i can’t put this down to practice.      whatever the conductor had done,      whatever was in the violin      —      along with its violence,      as that followed me too,      it drew people in.

i think you can guess what happened then.      i don’t stay in one place for too long anymore,      but after a few months i get      …      hungry is the best way i’ve found to describe it,      but it isn’t quite right.      there’s a hole where my rage should be.      and i play the violin,      and people erupt around me      —      they follow me,      fighting and clawing and bloodied,      until their red stains me and their bodies are behind me,      and i’m playing the whole time,      and it’s      …      beautiful.      that’s the only way i can describe it.      it’s filling,      and it’s beautiful.

have you ever cried at a song on the radio      —      really cried,      and not because of the lyrics or any memories tied to the song,      but because the music was so powerful it filled your heart until it exploded outwards?      that’s,      i think,      what it’s like.      the power of it.      i play,      and it bursts out of me and into something angry,      and it goes to whoever’s around me.      it’s intoxicating.      it feels incredible.

(      a pause.      )      you don’t need to worry.      i left the violin by the door for a reason.      i’m not going to play it in here.      i won’t kill you.

i’ve made my way around      —      i’m not close with my parents at all,      but i did have my mother mail over my passport,      so i can get around.      it’s easy to find orchestras,      and they pay their first chairs well,      here.       i’ve been in london for a month.      there’s enough people here that,      even when that hunger sparks,      i can probably stay for at least a year before any deaths are noticed.      maybe more.

i’m here because it felt right.      i follow what feels right,      now      —      not what’s good or moral or what’ll lead to whatever path i think i should be following through life,      but the instinct of it.      honestly,      i came in to talk about the fog      —      i never did get a real answer about that,      and ghosts seems as likely as anything      …      and that’s sort of the deal here,      right?      i’m fine with the violin.      i’m fine with what it’s made me.

and i know nobody will believe you if you try to report me.      that helps,      too.      i can deny it,      or move around,      or kill my way out of it      —      but i have never felt more like myself than in the last two years.      in the center of all that music and light and violence,      there’s me,      and i haven’t seen the fog since that began.      it’s more than worth it.

STATEMENT ENDS.

[oculim]

WHICH TAROT ARE YOU?

JUSTICE.      What would you do to ensure justice? You know full well I don’t speak of lofty ideals and courts and magistrates, dearest. What would you do to those that hurt you? If I dropped them in your lap, what would you do? What kind of pain could you possibly inflict upon them? You are right to do so. You are right to want to do so. Ignore the screaming, dearest, you are the hand of justice now, and they hurt you. Do not look too closely at their faces, dearest. You are within your rights. You spell out your own rights, now. Are you happy about it? Are you certain that this is the right person you hold by the hair? Does your anger hurt less now?

tagged by @baseyra​.   tagging @vestieg​, @consequntial​, @everyjedi​, @eskewed​.

[oculim]

instinct says to snarl,      bite,      devour.      instinct says everything is in the chase and without a chase there is no point,      not in this afterimage of a world,      not when everything around her is doing its own ripping and tearing and shredding and killing and bleeding and suffering      —      the smell of blood is strong but the smell of fear is stronger,      and she follows both across the ruined landscape and she howls and she hardly remembers that there was anything before,      anything that could be called after,      anything at all beyond the chase.      all she hears is the call of blood.      all she sees is red.

she’s being chased.      she’s known that for quite a while and kept running,      thrilling in it:      oh,      she’s not used to being on this side of a hunt,      the prey,      but she knows she can turn the tables anytime it gets dull.      and it has.      it has gotten dull and she has doubled back to where the detective is sleeping and she is bright-eyed and sharp-toothed and nothing      —      hardly anything,      almost nothing,      eurydice too far in the underworld to be found      —      left of her humanity,      all bite and no bark.      doesn’t remember her own name,      much less the woman in front of her’s,      though she thinks in that corner of her mind that still thinks in words and not simply instinct that she should,      that it’s important      —      that even when she’s forgotten herself she should remember her.

this woman will kill her if allowed,      so half-wolf half-woman kicks the gun to the other side of the hollowed-out half-shelter and doesn’t give her the chance.

neither does she attack.      just      ...      stands,      watches the detective watch her.      this inaction is difficult:      everything in her yearns for the taste of blood but she doesn’t give in,      holds herself back for the first time since everything changed.      doesn’t think it’d taste as sweet as it should.

@baseyra​ & daisy.      are you here to kill me?

she isn’t sure how to answer      —      how to make the words form in her mouth when her teeth have turned to knives,      or what the answer even would be.      it’s been a while since anyone’s spoken to her.      is she here to kill basira?      (      oh,      that’s the woman’s name.      it slips seamlessly into a missing space in her mind      &      it fits just right among the other half-abandoned things,      discarded in favor of the hunt.      )      she should be.      she is hungry and everything is prey to her,      everything something to chase and eventually catch,      eventually kill.

basira isn’t.      it doesn’t make sense but she feels it bone-deep,      deeper than the hunt.      she didn’t think anything was more embedded in her veins as the call of violence,      but basira is.      for a moment the fear and hunger are each far away and she can see half-clearly,      flickering between something monstrous and something terrifyingly human.

‘      basira,      ’            she says.      half-growled,      but not malicious.      it’s just how words come out nowadays.      it isn’t an answer but it’s the only truth she knows      —      a yes or a no would both be lies,      in their own way,      but this is not.      the hunt doesn’t know how to lie or deceive,      it simply is.

still.      she hasn’t decided an answer but she’s decided a not yet,      at least,      fighting against everything in herself,      turning against her own urge to tear everything around her to shreds      —      and she backs up,      no longer hovering over basira.      several meters away and she sits on the ground and simply looks.      hates the way the eyes in the sky gaze down on her,      but there’s not much more she can do than echo their ever-present gaze      —      she doesn’t dare to blink as she studies basira.      looks and looks and looks.

she should be here to kill basira,      but she isn’t,      she decides.      there is plenty of prey around but basira is not among their ranks.      the most minute shake of the head;      words get stuck around the bones in her throat but gestures,      she can do.      (      it’s been so long since she’s communicated,      since she’s cared enough to look at someone without seeing every muscle and tendon and sweet-sour blood and sharp-edged bone beneath the skin.      )

[oculim]

@vestieg​,      tim & sasha.      i love you sideways daily.

after-work happy hour drinks with the rest of the archives crew has turned,      once again,      into the two of them at sasha’s flat,      bottle of wine passed between them and some movie on that they’re each only half paying attention to.      if they combined their memory of the film they may be able to get a full picture,      but as it is it’s piecemeal and incomplete and utterly unimportant compared to sneaking glances and the feeling of her head leaning against his shoulder,      legs tangled together on the sofa,      the unspoken something between them becoming palpable in the air.

at some point the movie’d finished.      the credits are rolling across the tv screen and sasha wonders how she hadn’t noticed,      how she’d gotten so distracted.      tim’s hand is in hers and she’s not quite sure how that happened either,      just that it had,      and that it is warm and she would hold it forever if she were allowed.

they haven’t really talked about it,      this seamless transition from best friends to something more,      and perhaps they should.      perhaps wine-tender and completely unprepared for the hangovers they’ll certainly have in the morning isn’t the ideal time to finally say the words      —      but then again,      maybe it’s the best time,      maybe it’s the only time.      maybe when tim says i love you sasha can just turn her head from its comfortable perch on his shoulder,      look up at him,      smile soft and smitten.

(      she’s not sure when she’d fallen in love with tim.      not first sight;      she’s never believed in love-at-a-glance and theirs had been such a gradual thing that it’d been a shock to realize,      and somehow,      it also hadn’t been a surprise at all.      )

‘      just sideways?      ’            poetics don’t suit tim,      not usually,      but he looks so sincere,      and it makes her heart burst into a billion butterflies in her chest,      warmly fluttering around her ribcage.      it should be a joke,      her question,      but it comes out so soft and so fond.      she doesn’t even mind.      tilts her head up,      presses her lips to the edge of his jaw for just a moment;      everything murmured,      like the moment is too precious to be broken by something louder than a whisper.            ‘      what about right-way-up?      upside-down?      backwards?      because i love you every which way,      all the time.      have for a while,      really.      ’

[bunnieresources]

killing eve season 1 sentence starters.

“ turns out people are still murderous bastards on the weekend. “

“ please don’t make this a thing. i’m feeling very fragile. “

“ i just want someone to play with. “

“ i was counting on you not having a life. “

“ how would you kill me if you could? “

“ they won’t catch me. “

“ it’s annoying me, but you were right. “

“ wear it down. “

“ if they fire you, you better drag me down with you. “

“ you’re brilliant. just don’t tell them everything. “

“ if they’re not killing me, then frankly it’s not my job to care anymore. “

“ letting yourself into my apartment and drinking from a tiny cup doesn’t make you intimidating. it’s just rude. “

“ i’m not trying to intimidate you. “

“ i had quite a heavy period last week, but other than that, i think i’m okay. “

“ do you still have dreams about ____? “

“ it’s good to have someone worried about you, huh? “

“ i know that you cannot let people stand in your way. you have to show ambition. “

“ you’re just… surprising. “

“ i am never going to hurt you. “

“ these people are powerful and particular and, so far, completely invisible. which means they’re probably everywhere. “

“ are you sure you want to do this? “

“ i don’t have to tell you. you just have to trust me. “

“ we can fight. but you will get tired and i will get bored and you don’t like it when i’m bored. “

“ if i kill you, they will just send me another one. “

“ i thought you worried about me. “

“ we don’t know what they know, but we’re working on it. “

“ i can be subtle. but it’s going to be expensive. “

“ we’ll continue as usual. just be aware. “

“ your actions are your own. what do you want to do? “

“ oh, god, i’m going to die, aren’t i? “

“ i don’t even think about ____. “

“ tell me what happened in ____. “

“ i just fall in love with whoever i fall in love with. “

“ why did you want to see me, ____? what do you know? “

“ sorry, i’m bad with grief. “

“ i’ll be fine for two years and then i’ll have a complete breakdown about this. “

“ no one is ever allowed to know the truth. “

“ i want to kill ____. with my bare hands. “

“ do you think i don’t know everything? “

“ i want you out of this. if you value your life—our life—you will. “

“ it’s disappointing when the mole is the one who looks most like a rodent. “

“ we’re not after blood, ____. “

“ i thought i’d never see you again. “

“ i won’t fight you. i just don’t want you to get hurt. “

“ you are quite a romantic underneath it all, huh? “

“ i give the orders. “

“ say something stupid and i’ll shoot you. “

“ you gave me my way out of there. now i’m giving you a way out. “

“ let me. i’ve been wanting to do this for a long time. “

“ i know. it’s going to be hard to trust me again. but i will prove myself to you. i promise. “

“ are you running or crying? “

“ i don’t think i can trust you anymore. “

“ i don’t want to hear what your version of the right reason is. “

“ what i’ve done is nowhere near as bad as what a lot of people have done to save their families. “

“ for someone who says they hardly know anything, you seem to know rather a lot. “

“ don’t run. “

“ i’m not going to hurt you! “

“ i just want to have dinner with you. “

“ why are you here? “

“ you are so pleased with yourself. “

“ you should never tell a psychopath they’re a psychopath. it upsets them. “

“ are you here to kill me? “

“ we’re just watching you. “

“ i think if you went high enough, you’d probably find we work for the same people. “

“ ____ was slowing you down. “

“ i am going to find the thing you care about… and i am going to kill it. “

“ we don’t have time for you to react to that, so don’t feel like you have to. “

“ when you die, your eyes will just… empty. then your soul goes in. it falls so far in and just… just becomes so small that it can’t control your body anymore. it’s just in there, dying forever. “

“ i’m going to kill you nicely. “

“ i liked having a team, but you can’t trust anyone, huh? “

“ we can’t help what we are. “

“ am i in trouble or do you want something i can never give you? “

“ i’m spontaneously violent. “

“ don’t be a smug asshole. “

“ it was always the ones i liked the least that i loved the most. “

“ i can get us out of here. “

“ you’re welcome to stay, but you haven’t been invited. “

“ don’t pull that face. “

“ ____’s dead. “

“ i don’t want to be free. “

“ you made it. well done. “

“ are you always like this? “

“ i was protecting you. they want you dead. “

“ i am so proud of you. i love you. “

“ you are more powerful than any other person. “

“ be careful. you’re ____’s type. “

“ it makes me rage how efficient things are when you’re a dick to people. “

“ your face is hurt. “

“ i will shoot your black heart. “

“ you see, you can’t do it. you can’t. “

“ i spent every night dreaming that you were alive, so i could shoot you myself. “

“ if i told you, i’d really have to kill you, you know. “

“ please stop moving or i’ll shoot someone. i swear, i am desperate. “

“ ____. don’t break my heart. “

“ you’re a good person… i think. “

“ i have to do my job, and you understand that. “

“ come with me. just you and me. “

“ please take me with you! i’m dying here! “

“ what are you going to do with that? “

“ i’m going to kill you. i am. “

“ you like me too much. “

“ i think about you all the time. “

“ i just… want to know everything. “

“ i think about you too. “

“ what do you want? honestly. don’t be a dick. “

“ god, i’m tired. “

“ you found me. well done. “

“ i’ve never done anything like this before. “

“ i really liked you. “

[oculim]

vestieg‌,      tim stoker.

tim doesn’t really know what led him to sasha’s flat   ,   other than having nowhere else to go.

what do you do when you’ve dragged yourself bloody from the wreckage of a bombsite   ,   jagged remains of the detonator melted into your hands and chest like some half-horrific ironman costume   ,   as if this were any story for superheroes.      where do you go when you’ve just emerged from your chrysalis after weeks and weeks of  burning  ,   all grief , and rage , and fear   ,   as you’d been at the very end   ,   until finally you feel there’s nothing left of the you before your terrible metamorphosis still worth mourning.

(     he runs hot   ,   since his new becoming   ,   skin wicked with perpetual fever as the pyrogens in his blood attempt against all sense to burn some strange sickness out of him.   he doesn’t know what it burns   —   perhaps it’s the waxwork his feverish blood attempts to reject   ;   i do not know you marbled into his scars   ,   the traces of some other in his skin   ,   a stolen fear.     he tries not to think too closely beyond that though   ,  to wonder if perhaps it’s what remnant traces of the man he’d once been which still ember beneath his skin  ,   incompatible with his new destruction.    )

he’d waited outside her house for too long   (   he didn’t dare go to the institute   )  ,   burning restless soles into the pavement as the hours wore on with no mind for the time than the dim glow of distant moon   ;   half-terrified he’d gotten it wrong  ,  half-convinced he’d missed something among the rubble   ,   half-sure he’d somehow missed her in the ruins of the unknowing before he brought the cracked remains of that fucking museum to the ground for good.    but sasha had come.  and now here they stood.

she’s different now   ,   he can see it in the set of her jaw   ,   the light of her eyes   ,   which persists even as she smiles.      her eyes which see too much and know things now   ,   and send a chill down his spine entirely separate from how it used to.

different   ,   but the same…   her skin  ,  comparatively  ,   is cool as her hand slips into his own and their fingers are laced before he can even think to pull it away.    he doesn’t.    and as if caught between their disparate temperatures   ,   all heat and cold air ,    the impulse evaporates and for a moment tim forgets how to breathe   —   won’t   ,   for fear he’ll disturb its escape back into the atmosphere and take those doubts back in   ;   won’t   ,   because the breath caught in his chest is laced familiarly with the laundry powder sasha uses  ,  and the smell of her skin  ,  and for a moment     —   just a moment   —     he can’t taste ash or dust or smoke.  

so he keeps their hands laced   ;   so he feels himself smile back   —   gnarled at the corner and hazier than it used to be  ,   but he smiles   ,   laughs even  ,  however weakly  ,  and wills the dam not to break as he stops letting words go unsaid.

                    “   i’m sorry i–  left  ,  sash–   i didn’t know what else to do.   ”

tim’s changed      —      the blast,      the wreckage,      the aftermath      —      but so has she.      sharper-tongued and static-eyed;      her irises glint in the afternoon light,      that record-button red that stays steady on every disparate model of tape recorder that appears around her.      when she looks at him,      it is not a longing to see the old him,      one unmarred by waxwork and desolation.      she’s all truths and hardly any room for wishes.      she squeezes his fever-warm hand and it is solid and that is all she needs from him      —      just to be there,      after she thought she’d lost him forever.

because nobody could return from such an explosion.      sasha’d been far enough away to avoid the worst of it,      but she’d still been in hospital for a few weeks recovering from shrapnel wounds,      has a nasty scar across her ribcage to show for it.      nobody could return,      but tim did      —      came back for her,      and that means something.      that means everything.

(      sasha’d always thought the idea of another person completing you,      two halves of a whole and etcetera,      was trite at best and insulting at worst,      but with tim she can almost understand the urge to such poetics.      she feels more herself around tim.      he’s the only person who’s seen every mask she wears and whatever lies underneath and stayed.      and now they’ve changed,      but they’ve done it together.      two halves.      )

‘      you don’t have to apologize,      ’            she says.      soft and steady and smiling      —      an anchor,      a tether,      a plea to stay this time,      please,      for me.      there’s a lot that she understands and more that she sees without comprehending:      she thinks she understands what he’d done at the unknowing,      the desperation that had led him there.      she wants to understand.      more,      she wants to be joyful that it didn’t end the way he’d expected      —      and a part of her pushes back at that,      says this must be the opposite of what he had wanted,      but he’s alive and he is back and god,      she could weep for the sheer wealth of emotion that’s boiling in her.

some part of her more beholding than sasha is hesitant to take her eyes off of him      —      as if he’ll disappear or change the moment she isn’t looking directly at his face      —      but she ignores it.      she wants her arms around him and so she goes:      buries her face in his shoulder,      wraps her arms tight around his back.      pours every ounce of feeling into the embrace.

his skin is warm enough that it’ll be uncomfortable fast,      and she’s well aware that they’re still outside her flat:      on her periphery she can sense more than see the pigeons waddling past,      the family across the street side-eyeing her reckless embrace of him,      the sun dipping ever-lower in the sky.      she doesn’t dare move even so.      it’s a giddy joy that consumes her.

‘      you don’t have to apologize,      ’            she repeats,            ‘      but god,      i missed you.      ’            it hasn’t been so long since the unknowing,      but waking up to the news that he had died in the explosions had been      ...      indescribable.      worse than a million horrors she has seen and a million more she can only imagine.      that hopeful urge at the back of her mind that perhaps he wasn’t gone was written off as delusion when it should have been a hint,      knowledge,      such precious knowing.      she should know to trust her instincts by now      —      the eye hasn’t led her wrong yet,      just made her more.

muffled against his shirt:            ‘      we should go inside,      i know,      but i      ...      i don’t really want to let go of you.      sorry.      ’

[arterialtrees]

Christina Ricci photographed by Mario Sorrenti, 1998

[zerascout-archive]

hfsghjhdfj girlfriends,,

[baseyra]

@adaisey / @oculim

[rosources]

—   ask meme   :   RICHARD SIKEN,   THE LONG AND SHORT OF IT.

you have been watched from a distance for some time now and now you are being watched from even farther away.

you’d like to believe it’s true. who wouldn’t?

just because a thing’s invisible doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

you close your eyes and nothing happens.

let me in, i’m still here, hello hello, you know me, you know…

i could pretend i’m speaking to everyone — assume a middle distance and transcend myself — but i’m talking to you and you know it.

where did you just go?

it doesn’t always matter where we are but here i am and i say hello.

you would like it here. maybe you would like it here. i think that maybe you would like it here.

when i try to guess your trajectory i end up telling my own story.

i love you sideways daily.

i’ve been rereading your story. i think it’s about me in a way that might not be flattering, but that’s okay.

we dream and dream of being seen as we really are and then finally someone looks at us and sees us truly and we fail to measure up.

sometimes you get so close to someone you end up on the other side of them.

so here we are again: me being here and you being off the map.

do you have a human soul and can you prove it?

a robot can do the math. a robot can spit out an answer. people, they make it up as they go along.

i had a tape recorder. i poked and prodded.

i’ve been warned that i’m not supposed to threaten or beg for pieces of someone’s soul.

you said if people wanted to change the world, they would.

too bad for them. i want something else.

you know how i am. i push too hard. i get ahead of myself.

i’m learning how to be gentle.

love, love, go ahead and have another plate of it, it doesn’t run out.

of course, i wonder if you love me back, which is, really, besides the point.

sure, we invent each other. we agreed to that a long time ago.

here is a place for it to happen. a place where i can love you.

[oculim]

ofvast‌,      mike crew.

‘ i know, but there’s something to be said for the fact that you’re probably going to be the one and only martyr of the scorched earth. ‘ his voice is light, teasing. the thing she died for, the thing he did - in a way, they don’t exist anymore. the cult of the lightless flame may still persist, and the lichtenberg figure is still trapped to the pages of ex altiora, but they’re fading fast, and their ties have been severed. for all agnes worries about her fire, there is something exhilarating about burning those bridges. 

he knows. 

she says no fate, no expectations, and he knows, pale eyes shining with the quiet empathy of a shared experience. dying is … it’s something like cutting the gordian knot, made of the lines of fate. maybe there was never a hope in untangling, but they found a way through anyway. 

he hesitates, feet a few inches off the ground, as they so often are. ‘ can i touch you? ‘ he asks; and doesn’t quite mean is it possible, will you burn me - somehow, he is almost sure it won’t. he is simply asking permission, as a friend would. it’s a strange impulse, maybe, but he wants to hug her. 

touch has always been a danger,      a mistake,      so forgive the way she has to stop herself from flinching at the question:      it hadn’t gone well for the last person who’d asked to touch her,      after all.      (      has it only been a few days since poor jack barnabas?      he’ll be left alone by the cult,      she thinks.      they’ll see her burning kiss as punishment enough,      she hopes.      )      even having shed the layers of sweaters and coats that kept her skin covered,      lest she mistakenly brush against someone and leave third-degree scalds in her wake,      her conscious mind is slower to catch up.      fifty-odd years,      she’s been unable to touch anyone not already made from wax.      it’s a hard thing to unlearn.      the prospect of it is more daunting than death had been.

but though the fire still dwells in her,      it’s no longer all she is.      though the knowledge of the end sits in her heart      (      not heavy,      not even mournful,      but peaceful in its inevitability      )      she has to remind herself of it.      her death and rebirth.      something lost,      something found.      there is no reason to think her touch will still burn,      much as her every instinct says it will,      says she should shake her head and say i don’t want to hurt you.

she nods after a long moment.            ‘      i think so.      yes.      ’            doesn’t move      —      safer to stay frozen-still,      let him reach out,      easier for him to pull back if he starts to burn.

[mademoiselleclipon]

Camille Vivier

[oculim]

ofvast‌,      mike crew.

@oculim ( agnes ) asked: in the end, i loved the world, so i remained in the world. [ from dead astronauts ] 

they are both so, so different. 

there is a lightness to agnes, too, he thinks. one that he feels in his hollow bones, in the way his heart has been soaring ever since he fell. something like freedom. like a physical weight taken off their shoulders. ( when they had met, he had been drawn so taut with paranoia, with stress, that it seemed like touching him too hard would make him snap like an overstrong bow, and she had been … a melancholy messiah, resigned to her fate. ) 

death suits you, he almost says, but it seems a little bit morbid. 

he laughs instead, a soft thing, but it is full of joy. like a breeze in summer, a cool relief. the glint of his teeth is clear against his face. ‘ it fills me with amaze / to see thee, porphyro! - st. agnes eve! / g-d’s help! my lady fair the conjuror plays / this very night; good angels her deceive! ‘ 

the freedom of a jump, of vertigo, of rushing air. the freedom of a quiet death. 

‘ i’m glad. ‘ it’s stated like a fact. ‘ it’s … good to see you again, especially … ‘ especially different. unbound. ‘ you look … light. how do you, ah - how do you feel? ‘ 

she laughs.      she’s not sure she’s ever laughed so freely before,      all of her emotions so tied up in a fire that has since extinguished,      that ever-present fear that any feeling will lead to scorchmarks now gloriously gone.            ‘      i’m hardly a saint      —      i think that’s the whole point,      ’            she says.      smiling all the while.      she knows he must be quoting something but hasn’t the slightest idea what,      isn’t well-versed enough in poetry to even hazard a guess,      but st agnes has nothing on the former messiah standing in front of mike.      st agnes could not have shone so brightly.

‘      i feel      ...      ’            oh,      how can she put a word to it?      the peace that had filled her as she’d made her choice.      the joy at waking up to an empty room,      empty rope hanging from empty ceiling,      candles burnt out around her:      and she cannot feel the flame in her ribcage and it is strange,      the lack of it,      but not unwelcome.      it’s no longer destruction,      whatever fire is left in her.      it’s warmth.      it’s lovely.

‘      free,      ’            she settles on.            ‘      for the first time in my life      —      or,      not life,      not anymore,      but      ...      existence      —      i don’t have a destiny.      no fate.      no expectations.      ’            he’ll understand how that feels.      the untying of fatestrings from where they weigh you down:      it’s a delicate art,      undoing the knots there,      but it feels so wonderful once it is gone.      death does suit her.      in the end,      she feels more alive than ever.

[oculim]

baseyra‌,      basira hussain.

@oculim liked for a percy jackson starter

it’s become almost a ritual of theirs, however unofficial. / basira   knows   she’ll   find   daisy   by   the   sparring   ring.   she’d   been   almost   intimidated   at   first,   but   daisy   was   the   only   one   willing   to   train   with   her,   and   basira   wasn’t   in   a   position   to   turn   her   down.

“hey,”   basira   says   when   she   shows   up   that   day,   trying   to   be   casual.   a   few   of   her   siblings   had   thought   it   would   be   funny   to   steal   her   prayer   rug   and   hide   it,   and   she’s   still   a   little   flushed   from   running   all   over   her   cabin   searching   for   it.   she   wonders   if   she   should   bring   it   up.   they   don’t   really   talk   much   outside   of   the   workout.   “how   are   you?”   it’s   only   polite   to   ask,   though.   has   nothing   to   do   with   the   way   she   likes   hearing   daisy’s   voice.

it’s all well and good to smack a wooden training sword against a wooden training dummy      &      repeat until the rhythm of it distracts from the pointlessness of the exercise,      but daisy much prefers a live sparring partner.      prefers the beating heart of a fight,      the unpredictability,      the chase.      she prefers sparring with basira even more.      this habit of theirs has become the highlight of daisy’s days:      hearing basira’s voice,      seeing her breathless smile when she gets a hit in;      daisy’s not sure what she likes more,      the sparring itself or the fact that basira’s her partner in it.

either way,      something about her brings out the sunshine in daisy:      that urge to be gentle,      soft,      lovely,      even when they’re in the midst of sparring.      (      odd,      how something violent could made daisy feel so tender.      )            ‘      hey,      ‘sira,      ’            and daisy smiles at her,      bright,      soft.      shrugs at the question.            ‘      ‘m fine.      you alright?      ’

[8-bitstories-deactivated2020062]