revenant undone

where are you running to / one-way mind; have you forgotten / there is nothing left ahead or behind? burned all, ruined all

[lxcuna]

BEHIND SANITY: the Carpenter

Little Boy King—all grown up and all alone                          for when the dark comes to wrap you ‘round                          no one will be beside you

[onrataxia]

this or that tag game: arcane elements cycle wip aesthetics by @aesterea​​

SENSUAL: the meadow or the mountains? the desert or the winter wasteland? castle or village? palace underwater or castle in the clouds? ghosts or beasts? sparks or snow? black or red? red or blue? silver or gold? light or dark? day or night? silhouette or shadow? tarot cards or playing cards? fire or water?

SENTIMENTAL: defiance or devotion? memory or prophecy? beauty or mischief? creation or destruction? control or submission? like calls to like or opposites attract? live for love, die for love, or kill for love? chaos or cleverness? mystery or history? friendship or romance? haunt or be haunted? you are mine or i am yours? secrets or confessions? treasured waste or wasted treasure?

ARCHETYPAL: death or the lovers (tarot)? the magician or the wheel of fortune (tarot)? the moon or the hermit (tarot)? the savior or the martyr? the healer or the assassin? the damsel or the dragon? the songbird or the dragon? the siren or the sailor? the dreamer or the dream? the captor or the captive? the rose consumed by the flame or the flame that consumes the rose?

[onrataxia]

FOR: @akarablooming DATE/TIME: 09/21 AM 2:30 LOCATION: the Mangled Mermaid

Here he comes. Again.

He’s not surprised when he looks up from the counter to find familiar pretty features weaving through the crowd of sea-roughened face. He would like to be, sure, but alas. By now, this has become the expected. No matter how many times he tells the boy off, trying to warn him to stay home, wherever ‘home’ maybe, he just keeps coming back like some lost ghost let loose from its mausoleum.

Already, there are eyes being drawn to the newest arrival, and more than one pair of hands is reaching out to grab at this fever-haze dream made real. “Alright alright, knock it off!” he intervenes, easily pulling patrons, already unsteady on their feet, away from their prize and out the door. Only after he’s seen the worst of the mob off does he turn back to Akara, disapproval clear even as he pulls the boy behind the counter and into the back hall with him.

“You’ve gotta stop getting lost in here princess, it’s not good for your health.” They’re in the small employee’s room now, door locked and muffling the sound of laughter and breaking glass. “And right during the busiest hour when these idiots are at their drunkest too, are you outta your mind?”

[onrataxia]

kingofentropy​:

the night in overland is the mantle of an old god. it glitters, constellations sprawling like a lover on a velvet cove, and it drapes the earth. like god and the absolute, it has no end. in the under, the sky has a limit you can imagine, the dome of a vulgar snow globe, of a pregnant, unfurling terrarium that hungers and screams. amos tilts his head back, catching a sliver of the infinite, and tries to imagine himself a part of it — not some separate happening — closes his eyes, feels the original wind on his skin. 

but it’s impossible. not with the worries festering in his head, pickled wounds that require urgent attending. his neck cracks twice as he lolls it between his shoulders; he keeps moving. the world stella left him on a dingy, bronze platter calls, and he must answer lest the insect swarm of his guilt will make him their hive. 

poet will know what to do.

the pub is as he remembered, complete with a comforting and persistent howl of lively conversation, siren scrapes of the bar stools across the sticky floor, and the constant clink of full glasses. it had been one of his fonder haunts when he considered himself an overlander. he dismisses the slithering hand of a female patron upon his shoulder, plucking it and leaving it for dead in the water as he passes through the errant crowd. negotiating a hair-pin path as a giant is no easy task, but when he reaches the bar, he finds an empty stool as reward.

“don’t s’pose i can speak with the proprietor?” he asks the back of poet’s head.

So far, he’s only had to throw three people out for being disruptive idiots—more so than what he tolerates as ‘normal’ for a pub at ten on a Wednesday—and break apart four fights at the bar. All in all, a regular night.

Amazing how even on a work night, in the middle of the week, denizens of the coast and beyond find it in them to seek out his corner of the city for...what? Routine? Diversion? A sense of connection with others they may otherwise miss out on entirely as everyone goes about life in their own personal bubbles? This long in the business, he learns not to question the motives of determined drunks looking for a place to wallow in relative companionship.

With the noise level, it’s easy to miss the door opening and shutting, especially since a group sitting right up at the counter suddenly bursts into raucous laughter over some private joke. He nods when one of them waves and calls out for another round, hands going through the motion of filling glasses without conscious thought. Just another regular night indeed.

Until it isn’t anymore. A voice he hasn’t heard in a long while, not directly under the open sky at least, suddenly cuts through the white noise of general hubbub. He turns, a grin already forming. “Amos!” His mammoth of a friend is hard to miss, taking up enough room at the counter for at least two regular men. “I swear you get bigger every time I see you. You don’t knock it off, pretty soon you won’t fit through the doors anymore.”

He grabs a half-full bottle of bourbon off the shelf, pouring out a 2oz glass and sliding it over to Amos. “What brings you to the surface? Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice seeing you again, but Over’s not really your thing anymore, is it?”

[onrataxia]

hxtters​:

The pub had been crowded as always, especially after pieces of news like city hall had released earlier in the day. Curiouser and curiouser, things always seemed, which suited Ruby just fine. it was high time that they had something interesting happen around here.

But the stragglers were finally headed out, whether willingly or unwillingly, as she breezes through and hopped onto the counter, pulling up her legs to fold into a cross, Business had been particularly busy, as she liked to take advantage of the police still floundering in trying to solve the cases that came up last month. The scenes she left behind were always clean of traces of her, though the same couldn’t be said of Ruby herself.

Hands rub at the stain on her knees, but it only serves to smear the red onto a bigger area, fingers coming away with the same marks. Oh well, it isn’t as if her company had never seen blood before.

“ Hiya! Lotsa people in today too, wonder if they’re here ta drown all their uneasiness away. ”

People fall into vices so easily, things to distract, things to lure away, and Wonderland has always been happy to provide. Rabbit holes are dangerous things to fall into, and danger so often comes from the most innocuous of things.

“ Thought someone mighta tried to hide a body by burning the whole church cause they made a mistake, but nothin’ was there. Have ya ever burnt a building? ”

Another night, another mess to clean up, but it’s not as bad as it used to be. Concerning actually, considering the type of establishment he runs, and the kind of people his regulars are. For these rough and calloused sailors and dockhands to be so subdued must mean things are getting ugly out there beyond his walls.

He’s taken care to make sure Wonderland does not get to him this past decade, and so far, he’s done well to maintain a safe distance between himself, his pub, and the drama of the city. That doesn’t mean he hasn’t kept an ear to the dirt though. Ignorance is a luxury few can afford, and he’s been a part of the game too long to believe any semblance of peace they scrounge up can last.

The door opens again and he looks up, ready to tell the new arrival to come back tomorrow, only to find a flurry of red on white and black filling his vision, already cross-legged on his countertop without invitation. He sighs, the smile he aims at the tiny terror that’s found her way to him again fond, though exasperated.

“That’s the only reason this place is still open,” a shrug and he steps back, gesturing for her to hop down on his side of the bar and follow him into the bathroom. “What have I said about cleaning up after a kill? You look a fright girl, come on.”

He’d heard the hushed re-tellings of how Houndstitch had gone up in flame and smoke not too long ago, and all the superstitions and speculations that surrounded the happening. “It’s possible, but that might be too simple an explanation.” The faucet running fills the silence briefly as he wets a towel for her. “No, I’ve never liked working with fire. Too unpredictable and hard to manipulate into doing what you want it to. Guess I’ve got a bit of a control complex huh?”

While she cleans up, he goes back to the front to wipe away the blood that she tracked onto the countertop. “I haven't seen you in a while. What mischief have you been up to?”

[onrataxia]

FOR: @rcdqueen DATE/TIME: 09/21 PM 8:00 LOCATION: Mangled Mermaid

“Well-well, look who has decided to grace us with her presence after so long.”

It’s early enough that the pub is mostly empty when she walks in, not that he wouldn’t notice her immediately even in a crowded room. Mina has always been a force to be reckoned with in her own way, even before she’d clawed her way to the top of the city, and he’d recognize that domineering gait demanding ‘all eyes on me’ anywhere.

A few of the regulars look up from their drinks to frown at this woman making her way into their midst. Does she look out of place to them? He grins at the idea. If only they knew how at home she can be in the girt and grime of these lower parts of Wonderland, just another of the many angry ghosts that haunt here, looking for an outlet.

He sets aside the towel he’d been wiping down the bar with and leans forward, both hands braced against the counter. “Tell me, are you here as a Queen tonight? Or as the little slum rat I know and love.”

[onrataxia]

FOR: @knxve​ DATE/TIME: 09/17 PM 8:30 LOCATION: the Mangled Mermaid

Thursday night after quitting time and it’s a slow turn, just the usual regulars straggling in and out the doors to cluster around shaded tables in disgruntled chatter. Most are dock workers, some come off the carriers that find their way into port, and others are local residents looking for easy liquor and the sometimes-pleasant company of strangers they’ll probably never meet again in daylight.

He‘s wiping down a few glasses up front when his supplier pops in, nodding towards the back before disappearing around the corner again. It’s slow enough he decides to let the servers handle the floor while he retreats down the hallway, pausing when he passes the break room—a glance at his phone tells him it’s definitely pass time for certain someone’s shift to start.

The figure sprawled inelegantly across the break room couch is, unfortunately, exactly what he expects to find when he steps inside. Typical...not in the mood to entertain the whims of the younger man, he picks up a book somebody else has left behind and drops it unceremoniously onto Arthur’s face.

“These crates aren’t gonna unload themselves,” is all he says as explanation, already heading out the door again with an impatient gesture. “Let’s go, up! You know what’ll happen if you make me drag your ass out.”