orphic;

orpheus ahulani. xxxvii. king. i know a bank where the wild thyme blows, where ox-lips and the nodding violet grows

[orpheus-vault-blog]

lawrence:

Hands shoved into his pockets, he took to exploring the hotel, finding the crumbling stairways and unoccupied rooms oddly surreal and romantic. Lawrence had reservations about the structure itself — the outside worse for ware with gaping holes in the side where the windows blew out from the bombs and the paint from the once beautiful building was now faded and chipped away. But on the inside, it was more alive than he could imagine. Hope seemed to float through the hallways from the people who would never stop fighting for it. They were preserving what they were doing in this monument, celebrating another minor victory that would soon result in the final hurrah that would push the Axis forces out of power. At least that’s what everyone hopes for. 

Until it’s officially over, Lawrence will hold off on any celebration. It’s not fair to those who are still under terror — terror that he helped inflict — are able to have brief moments of happiness instead of the constant oppression brought onto them. He wandered into a wayward part of the hotel, though he could still hear the faint chatter of people, and found himself in the company of another. 

‘ I guess we’ll have to see. ’  He leaned up against he wall, shifting the weight off his bad leg and nodded toward Orpheus,  ‘ Could I bum a smoke off you? It’s been a while since I’ve had a puff. ’

The very walls seemed to shake as the party inside the ballroom swelled, and every so often flakes of paint would detach from the ceiling with a drawn-out crackling sound, floating to the marbled floor below like snow. Every time he caught a drift of laughter emanating from inside the room, Orpheus’ eyes twitched, threatening to roll skyward with all the force of his disdain, scornful of the fact that people could so easily turn to mirth at the merest sight of hope, that they were so quick to cast off the weight of their supposed sorrow and their grief at the horrors of war when the promise of a party loomed.

Although part of him supposed that he shouldn’t complain. Tonight was a night for profit, for him - most of the alcohol the cackling masses inside were drinking had been procured by his hand, as were so many of the cigarettes that he’d seen being smoked. War was certainly a lucrative business.

He hadn’t quite expected it to be Lawrence Vernon who approached, but Orpheus welcomed the opportunity to study the man, thief’s mind seeking any information that he could filch and file away in the rogue’s gallery he’d constructed in his mind. He held the cigarette packet out when it was requested, one corner of his mouth curling upwards into a smirk. “By all means. But I should warn you, it’ll come at a price.”

[orpheus-vault-blog]

grace:

The guys tossed the dolls over the shoulders, the alcohol flowed freely and lights continued to shine long into the night, confident that there would be no bombs dropped this night. It was almost as it had been in peacetime, six long years ago, before they had all been dragged into a war not of their choosing - and watched their country rise, fall and begin to rise once again. It was a glimpse of what was yet to come, of a decade of hope and prosperity, back to simpleness. And god - how she despised it. Grace Daly had been made for more than dancing, bigger than any wedding band slipped upon her finger or any brats she might spawn. And yet, with the revolution’s purpose ending, she felt as if hers might too. Unacceptable. Finding a solution wasn’t easy, but it had to be done.

Ducking out of all the light-hearted bliss, Grace twirled a cigarette between her fingers. Pressing the cylinder to her mouth, she nodded towards the stature of a man who had become familiar these past years - her smuggler. If she recalled correctly, he was the one who had pressed this pack into her hands. “Couldn’t give a girl a light, could ya?” More distracted by her own needs than his, she scarcely caught his off-hand comment, his lamentation about the future. Laughing sharply, Grace curled her lips into a smile, not quite a mockery of him and his beliefs. “War didn’t begin in 1939. Or even in 1914.” Her father had once told her that they had called that one the Great War, the war to end all wars. Look at what had happened. “There will be another. And another. Until we all shoot each other.” A sinister outcome - but one that sent chills down her spine. “Or we’ll all turn on each other and brawl on the streets. How does that sound?”

Of all the people that could have found their way to his side tonight, this was, at least, a presence that Orpheus could bear. He’d often heard it said that darkness was drawn to darkness, and if the curious understanding that he’d come to with Grace Daly was any indication, it was a sound claim. She had a brute force about her that he couldn’t help but admire, a crude, utilitarian view of the world that was sorely lacking in so many of the drones that crawled across the earth’s surface. War had crushed so many feeble flowers beneath its relentless march, but in the wake of conflict it seemed that the eldest Daly sister had turned to iron.

When she asked for a light he fished into the matchbox that rested on his knee and lit one, holding it out just far enough, so that she’d have to get close to him to get it. A test, of sorts, perhaps, or just a product of his boredom. “No,” he said, tone void of all emotion. “But for the foreseeable future at least, we’ll have to play at peace.” The word was offered slowly, drawn-out and coated with disinterest, a disinterest that spoke to his desire to see the board overturned, and all the pieces scattered. “It’ll be a while before the next one rolls around. After all, everyone’s so shocked.” This time it was scorn that painted his voice, and he laughed, the sound twisting and insidious in its cruelty. So many pretended to be so appalled by the storm of bloodshed that had raged across the world for the past six years, but Orpheus had seen enough, had dealt with enough people minded exactly like he was, to know that such morality was hollow. Or we’ll all turn on each other and brawl on the streets. “Mm.” A smile twisted his lips. “That sounds infinitely preferable. Guns, tanks...” He clicked his tongue against his teeth, a tsk sound echoing across the small space. “They’re so impersonal.”

[orpheus-vault-blog]

faron:

He leaves the woman with a kiss and his teeth on her throat. Probably married too, though the ring’s missing from her finger when he presses his lips to her knuckles, a devilish smirk and the stain of red on his cheek. Messy and rough in an abandoned corner of the hotel, skirt pushed up over her thighs, body pressed up against the wall.

He’s wiping the lipstick off, wondering if there’s still a trace remaining beside his mouth when he spots Ahulani. The man is hovering in his own little alcove beside the rehabilitated ballroom. Faron’s mouth slants into a smile.

“What they’ve always done.” And doesn’t Orpheus look inscrutable, smoke a wreath about his head. Looking as a predator, appearing otherworldly- perhaps a demon or perhaps a god. Perhaps that’s why others give him a wide berth. Faron in that regard is less cautious, he’s always been willing to touch the gods. “Start going to the clink instead of winning medals. Shame.”

He pauses beside Orpheus, leans against the wall. Always carefully out of reach of the larger man. He’s had his fair share of fights with men as big as Ahulani. Always slightly wary of their propensities for breaking necks, always mindful of the propensity for his neck being broken, deserved or undeserved as that mindfulness might be. He grins. “Going to offer me a cigarette, Ahulani?”

There’s lipstick at the corner of Faron’s mouth. Orpheus notices, of course he does, to miss it would be a carelessness on his part, but he doesn’t deign to comment. That would be too easy, too familiar, and Orpheus isn’t interested in acting like he cares for the other man’s appearance, or, worse still, like he’s at all concerned about where the red stain came from. So he sits, he smokes, he listens.

He hopes Faron has something interesting to contribute to this thoroughly uninteresting evening.

“Medals?“ he echoes, and lets out a laugh, the sound resonant, sharp, warped. “Don’t tell me you care about such things, Faron.“ He studies the other man for a moment, blinking steadily, and relieves the cigarette of ash once again. He’d rather prison than war any day. War, he’s found, only serves to inflate people’s sense of self-worth, makes them blind to their own failings. One had only to look at the seething mass of pompous fools swaggering around the ballroom just a few yards away to see that.

But to admit that would be giving far too much away, and so he says nothing instead, waits for the other man to speak again. And when he does that laugh emerges again, even more abrupt than the last time. Orpheus meets Faron’s gaze head-on, eyes simmering, and takes a long, indulgent drag of his cigarette, expression pointed. “Depends. What are you going to offer me in exchange?”

[orpheus-vault-blog]

clark:

Such began the festivities of a war’s much-warranted culmination. Endless gales of gay and flagrant laughter filled the expansive though dingy halls, the revelers exuding a buzz that was distinctively absent from years of desolation. With him having a position among the top of the resistance’s ladder, coupled with the distinctive glimmer of his eyes tinted sinister blue, his presence was domineering. No doubt there remained still a populace who still thought him duplicitous, if a few menacing eyes were any indication. 

No matter. You do not have to prove your allegiance to anyone. His conscience spoke, and spoke soundly.  

A faint click of a custom-made lighter was heard as he lit a well-procured cancer stick, which had soon found its way between his lips. His position, meters away from the hustle and bustle of jovial crowds, served as an assurance to his apparition’s invisibility. And rightly so: for there was no room in the festivities for a man with alabaster skin and smelt like the pungent smolder of burnt nicotine, lest he be mistaken for a ghost in the night. The last thing the people needed was a reminder of looming danger and of death’s inevitability. 

Clark had come across into a favored quiet, with him and his unfiltered poison for company, until moments later saw another figure address him. Squinting his eyes in an effort to distinguish the other’s cartography, his features took on that of mild surprise as he saw the other’s face. Orpheus. A smile from Clark is a rare happenstance, one that manifested itself tonight as the corners of his lips pulled upward, ever so slightly. “Hominids learned to walk before their brains had fully developed. If we’re lucky, we’ve crossed another step to evolution. Then again, diplomacy is overrated.” Another upward pull and a dimple on his cheek surfaced, almost uncharacteristically.

Clark Rossellini. The sight of him was neither welcome, nor unwelcome: it just was. Orpheus had no particular feelings for the man, save for a little twinge, a fleeting spark of interest that pricked lightly at the corners of his consciousness. He knew his story (Orpheus knew most people’s stories) and while the facts of it were unremarkable - men with silver spoons in their mouths somehow always found their way into the crosshairs of war - the betrayal that marked his past was.

What made a man spit on every value he had once held dear, abandon his family? Orpheus was no stranger to betrayal, had honed the skill into a fine art, and to recognise the same inconstancy in the countenance of another was a welcome change from the masks of virtue that so many kept so firmly plastered to their faces.

Diplomacy is overrated. “Is it?“ One eyebrow twitched up in what looked like curiosity. He took another drag of the cigarette in his hand and smiled, too, a smile that seemed almost warmed by the cruelty that danced at the edges of it. “I would’ve thought that a man in your position would be less hasty to scorn diplomacy.“ The words were pointed, but delivered in the smoothest of tones, and the smirk that lurked at the corners of his eyes was indication that this was a test, a probing search somewhat reminiscent of the way a child would poke at an insect with a stick.

He shook his head, then, suddenly, as though bored of the current conversation, and waved a hand a the cigarette Clark was clutching. “That’s good stuff. Where did you get it?”

[orpheus-vault-blog]

date: 24 april 1945 time: 21:00 location: hotel vittoria, a little alcove outside the ballroom open

Smoke curled about his head as he sat and watched gleeful smiles pass by, face cast half in shadow, eyes alight like slow-burning coals. War made people superstitious, flighty, and folks had been whispering of late, whispering that they’d seen a demon about these parts, a strange, infernal thing come to dance upon their graves and laugh at their agony. With his head so shrouded in mist, like this, with the expression of cool detachment that painted his face, Orpheus could almost have fit the description.

More bodies rushed past, voices breathy with relieved laughter, and Orpheus let out another smoky breath, flicking ash onto the floor. These were good cigarettes, none of the cheap imitation that only wartime could produce, and he savoured the one clasped between his fingers, knowing that the rest of his stash was too far away from the hotel, knowing that because he had to be here today he couldn’t go and fetch it. Part of him wanted to leave, the part that didn’t care who won, who lost, as long as the eventual outcome was in his best interests. But another part, the part that had gone down in a blaze of glory over foreign skies, in the cockpit of a young man’s plane...

( It was for that part that he stayed, for the memory that he could never quite let go of, the voice at the back of his head belonging to a young man whom he knew would have enjoyed a celebration like this. )

A familiar face swam into view amidst the haze, and Orpheus canted his head to look at them. “So it’s ending, then.” He flicked more ash onto the floor, narrowed his eyes. “What’ll human beings do when they want to slaughter each other now?”

[orpheus-vault-blog]

--- au: seconda guerra mondiale

BIOGRAFIA

“In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity.”

Born in Verona, in a dirty little house on a dirty little street in one of those parts of town where sunlight can’t quite penetrate the pervasive squalor. His parents were petty thieves, petty and unremarkable. Once their son was old enough to walk, they taught him how to steal. Despite the things they had stolen, they were poor people, poor and ordinary. From a young age, Orpheus found them disappointing.

Armed with the tricks his parents had taught him, a little ladro flourished in the less savoury districts of Verona. But the efforts of his parents were not enough. They stole like it was an obligation rather than a calling, always with that same put-upon look that belied a yearning for better things, for a life lived outside the shadows. Orpheus saw their fervent attempts to purify their souls and turned his nose up. Already he knew that they were too pedestrian for him, that he had outgrown them in so many ways. When he was six he stole a diamond necklace from a jewellery shop, a bigger score than his parents had pulled off in years. He sat in an alleyway with it for a few hours, just looking at the way light danced within the crystalline stone, then gave it to the homeless woman who lived at the end of his street, because she would always feed him a pastry when she had one to spare, and he thought that if he presented her with a gift she might give him more.

His brother was one of the few lights in his life. From the moment Orpheus saw little Hermes, he knew that this would be his one tether to the trappings of ordinary people’s lives, his one weakness, a single chink in the already impervious coat of armour that he’d forged for himself. The nine years between them didn’t seem to matter, not when Orpheus had donned the mantle of protector and had acquired the purest, most kind-hearted acolyte.

As he grew, so did the reach of his shadow, so did the black desires that pulsed in the space where a heart should have been. He stole more, fought more, made a name for himself as the dark king beneath the streets, making use of people’s poverty and their faith to galvanise an army of devotees. His parents could do little but watch as their son surpassed them, and Orpheus made sure to remind them at every turn that he had done what they never could. His empire grew vast and dark, drawing in the most macabre cast of players. And Orpheus sat at the top of his heap of bones and knew that this was what he was born to do.

When war broke, Hermes was first in line to enlist, naturally siding with the Allies over the darkness that was pouring from Germany like water. Orpheus laughed and laughed at this blind altruism, but pulled some strings and got his brother a place within the ranks of the resistance. When war came knocking on his door, however, he turned his head away, lip curled into a sneer, refusing outright to throw himself in the path of bullets for the benefit of so-called leaders who didn’t give a damn about the droves of bodies they were sending to the slaughter. He stayed in Verona, kept his hold on the city’s underbelly as tight as it had been, and allowed the chaos of war to drop opportunity into his lap. The darkness of war turned into business, and Orpheus thought that he could wait out the rest of the conflict sat comfortably in Verona, watching men massacre each other from afar and feeling nothing for either side.

But fate has a funny way of messing up even the best-laid plans, and Orpheus’ conscientious objecting would cost him dearly. His parents died early in the war, killed by a mortar bomb as they were attempting to flee the country (or something to that effect - Orpheus hadn’t been interested in the specifics). He didn’t think of them again after that, but he thought of his brother a lot. And that was to be his punishment.

The telegram arrived early and unceremoniously one morning, the death notice printed in clipped and unemotional Italian. Two measly little sentences to summarise the greatest life that Orpheus had ever known. It didn’t seem enough. It would never be enough. He cried that day, cried and cried until it felt like he’d cried all the tears out of him, and when he was done crying, he decided to act. Joining the Resistance seemed like the logical thing to do, the best way to honour his brother’s memory, and so he finally chose a side, drifting over to the rebels like a spectre, ready to do his part if need be. The outcome of the war was still of little personal consequence to him, but for his brother’s sake Orpheus thought he might as well try and tip the scales towards the side of the light, for once.

FATTI

Has done many different kinds of business during the war, very few of them legal. No one but him quite knows the reach of his influence.

His prime source of income is smuggling - can get you anything you need, anything you could ever dream of, but for a price. Always.

Also moonlights as a gun/knife-for-hire, someone who can take care of problems that people are too afraid or too ashamed to deal with themselves.

Enjoys killing, and makes no secret of this. His preferred weapons are knives (they feel so much more personal, he says), but he’s happy to use a gun if need be, or simply to swing his fists.

Precisely what he does for the resistance, no one really knows. But safe to say that he’s always there, present somewhere on the fringes, ready to materialise out of the shadows like a demon of some kind.

Runs a series of underground bars throughout the city, which are generally the haunt of Verona’s criminal elements but which he’s offered up to the resistance as points of refuge.

Never, ever talks about his past. Is quite content to let people think that he grew out of the ground like a poisonous plant, or simply came into being like some sort of infernal creature. If anyone asks why someone so obviously not virtuous joined the side of the Allies, he just shrugs and says that he thought it’d be fun to try killing some Germans.

War hasn’t changed him, not in the way that it’s changed others. He had a dark soul and no heart before, and he’s just as heartless now. But the loss of the only person he ever truly loved has twisted that heartlessness, sharpened it into unfettered cruelty. Mentioning anything to do with Hermes, in any way (no matter how roundabout) is akin to stepping on a minefield. Beware.

CONNESSIONI

TBA.

[orpheus-vault-blog]

date: 27 march 2017 time: 02:45 location: outside the cirque arcana open

They led him outside in cuffs, arms winched into impossible angles behind his back and encircled by iron gauntlets. He let himself be bound with mute dispassion, staring blankly off ahead through eyes that were thick with the haze of narcotics but somehow still sharp, still cutting and piercing like ragged shards of broken glass. Somehow, even when handcuffs decorated his wrists, there was still a danger about every plane, every angle. He let himself be bound because he knew that he could be free of the restraints in moments, if he wished.

(The men who dared to cuff him knew this too, and their hands shook so much that they could barely close the restraints around Orpheus’ wrists.)

For now, though, he was content to play along, for no other reason than he knew the scene must look amusing to an outsider’s eyes.

They led him outside, past the tents that still reeked of detached euphoria, still dripped with the final vestiges of the heightened chaos that only drugs could elicit, and when he felt that he had gone far enough he twitched his wrists behind his back, let satisfaction wash over him as he heard the brittle chain between the handcuffs snap. One of the harlequins guiding him yelped, despite himself, and Orpheus grinned, all teeth, chin a little flecked with someone else’s blood.

“Shoo,“ he whispered, and then laughed - because he was still a little high and because this whole charade had just been so damn funny - a deep, dark, belly laugh that blasted through the twilight air like a cannonade. The security guards scattered in seconds.

There was still a trace of that hellish laugh in Orpheus’ throat as he lit a cigarette, exhaling wisps of smoke warped by the quaking of his breath as the guffaw subsided into a chuckle and finally faded to silence. Distantly, through the fog of smoke and the Sweetheart Table’s poisoned incense, he noted another presence by his side, and as he turned his head Orpheus forced his mind to sharpen, ready with his customary brand of pointed malice.

“Quite the night.“

[orpheus-vault-blog]

lucrecia:

Lucrecia watched him carefully, taking note of his casual bets and the way he won—every single time. A new hand was dealt, and he won. A new deck was pulled from behind the table, and still, he won. No matter the time, place, dealer or fellow player, Orpheus was riding the horse of victory tonight, eyes wide and teeth bared for all the world to see. As a result, not only had the atmosphere at the table shifted—people got up, people left, people flocked to his side—but the entire room seemed to be enamored with his irresistible howl each time he crushed yet another hand. Heads turned, crowds parted. Effortlessly, her fellow capulet commanded the attention of the whole house—the whole club—in the blink of an eye, in the dealing of a few cards. 

She was impressed, to say the least. And intrigued, to put it mildly. 

Even she couldn’t fight the urge to cross the room, hanging on his every move, completely transfixed. She couldn’t help herself. Drink and cigarette in one hand, she pushed her way through the crowd, elbowing and shoving where it was need to get a close enough look. With a frustrated huff, the man next to him gathered his few remaining chips and pushed himself away from the table. Lucrecia jumped for the seat, eyeing some blonde woman who went for the chair at the same time. She gave her a sneer and the woman backed off, turning that sneer into a smirk as she sat.

Her chips spilled from her hand, falling onto the table in a heap. A few winnings here and there, from a few hands at blackjack and a few lucky turns at the roulette table, but none of it compared to the mountains Orpheus had stacked around him. Inebriation forces her to sort of collapse into the chair rather than sit down gracefully, but she doesn’t care. 

It seems to be a winning night.

She smiles and takes a hearty sip of her whiskey before replying. “Does it?” She fidgets with her chips, lazily organizing them by denomination while looking up at him every so often, “seems to me you are the lucky one.” A small laugh escapes lacquered lips. “But far be it from me to resist a lucky table.”

The longer his victories continued, the faster the crowd of players clustered around the central table dissipated. With each exasperated sigh that prefaced a patron’s retreat from the game, Orpheus’ smirks only grew wider, his laughs louder. Aside from the winning, which was a welcome pattern, he enjoyed the sensation of thwarting people’s expectations, delighted in the way that his actions provoked little more than frustration, and sometimes even anger. But the more he won, the more people chose to abandon the table, to take the meagre winnings that Orpheus had allowed them to keep and count their giving up as a victory.

Things were threatening to become dull.

And then Lucrecia Falco took the seat to his left, and suddenly his interest was piqued again. This was someone who, from the observations he’d managed to make, was shrouded in the same kind of shadows that he was, another infernal creature who delighted in darkness and the spill of blood. Their paths hadn’t crossed often, so far, and that was something Orpheus had been intending to change for some time.

Luck. A strange, arcane concept, often invoked in reverent whispers in the hope that it could truly shape the course of someone’s life. Orpheus had always found the world’s dependence on luck pathetic, a spineless kind of hopefulness that stemmed only from an inability to shape one’s own destiny. He didn’t believe in luck, never had, and it wasn’t Lady Luck that had served him tonight.

(In times like these he thought fleetingly of his father, grateful that, despite the man’s disappointingly pointless existence, Joseph Ahulani had at least been a skilled card sharp. But he dismissed those memories as quickly as they found their way into his train of thought, feeling nothing other than mild distaste as the recollections dissolved into smoke.)

Leaning back in his seat, he fixed Lucrecia with a darkly charming smile, idly twisting the rings that adorned his fingers as he spoke.

“I’ve found I’m only as lucky as I want to be.”

[orpheus-vault-blog]

pavel:

If he had known that his statement, the noise he created with the fall, would have drawn the attention of Orpheus, he would have bit his tongue or not fallen in the first place.

The placement was all too familiar, him staring up at Orpheus. A blink, and he was fifteen, a howl of joy bubbling in the back of his throat as the older man manipulated and destroyed what stood in his path. Another, and he was seventeen, all smiles and damn affection as he observed Orpheus kill, as he learned how the world of Verona worked while under the man’s tutelage. Once upon a time, he considered what it would mean to Orpheus like family, of what it would be like if the world was at their fingertips. 

He closed his eyes, dispelling the damning memories. And when he opened them, he watched a trail of blood enhance the devil’s smile he once adored with all his being. 

All at once, Pavel wanted to scream the frustration and horror and desperation that tightened in his chest, threatening to suffocate everything he was.

His mouth parted. A low chuckle echoed. “I’m only in as much trouble as you give me.”

The scattered thoughts focused then, and he sucked a breath, pushing past the tension in his chest to predict the future. The pocketknife near his ankle, the revolver pressing against the small of his back, jostled only a fraction by the fall. A dagger at his thigh, tucked away in a pocket. If he was quick, he could escape large hands choking the life from him. If he was quick, he could cause enough mayhem to distract and scamper to safety.

The silence stretched; his fingers twitched in anticipation.

And then, a shift in the air, and Pavel could not halt the narrowing of his eyes as Orpheus offered a hand. To say he didn’t believe the older man was an understatement. Multiple paths unraveled before him, and if he took the other’s hand, there was less of a chance he would run unscathed. 

And yet, sometimes lady luck was a gracious woman.

A hand reached up, and he gripped as tight as the pressure on his chest felt. Jumping to his feet, a wild smile spread across his face. “My oh my, what a rare day! I believe the last time I saw you being generous was much too long ago. Almost believed there was no pity left in your soul; I’m happy to see I was proven incorrect!”

They could have ruled the world, once. Could have set their fires loose on every street and watched, cackling, as it consumed everything in sight, as everything that was old and familiar was razed to the ground, could have torn down palaces and kingdoms and watched their rulers fall into ignominy. But Pavel had chosen to turn away from the promised path, to disappoint. Part of him held bitterness towards the young man in front of him, a kind of bone-deep resentment that would likely never be excised. But another part of him held only coldness, an ice that was designed to burn. This was the part he let bloom now, releasing it from the vault in his chest and letting the darkness flourish.

(It almost didn’t matter, in a way. Orpheus would still rule the world. He would just do it alone, and obliterate any obstacle in his path.)

“And if I decide I want to give you trouble, hm? What will you do then?” He canted his head to one side, studying the boy sprawled on the floor with the gaze of a snake, the kind of gaze that reminded people he could lash out at any moment, that his bite was coated with poison. He could instigate trouble, if he wanted, could easily refuse assistance and choose enmity instead. He could do so many things. Could easily remind Pavel what it meant to sever your ties to the Devil, that a separation like that didn’t come without a price.

He could teach the boy a lesson that he would never forget.

His eyes narrowed, crackling with hellfire, expression contorted with impossible cruelty.

“Would you really want this alleyway to be the last thing you ever see?”

It would be so easy, he thought. So many options, so many potentially elegant outcomes. All it would take is a few swift moves, a few well-placed fists. The image of what he could do flashed across his mind, projected onto his imagination in full technicolour. To say that the thought hadn’t crossed his mind in the past would have been a lie, and as much as Orpheus delighted in falsity this was one deception that he chose not to entertain.

Murder would be easy, in this moment. But, for the moment, it wasn’t a priority.

Lucky boy.

“Pity?” Orpheus echoed the word and shook his head, a snarl of a laugh bursting forth from his lips. “This wasn’t pity, I’m afraid,” he corrected, and as the smirk on his face widened he tightened his grip on Pavel’s hand, a tantalising squeeze away from shattering bone. “Be careful what you assume.”

[orpheus-vault-blog]

delilah:

No matter how hard she tried, Delilah couldn’t help but feel that he was laughing at her. There was nothing very telling about the way that he looked out over the water again or the way that he looked back at her with a smile that seemed to hold more secrets than her entire life, or the way he pulled his phone out and opened it up, but she wasn’t sure if he was proving her point in the speed with which he sent his text or if he was proving her wrong. With him, it could be both in the same moment and she was sure she wouldn’t know until it was too late. It was one of the many reasons that she was not a fan of him.

“Nearly,” she repeated, expecting an explanation. When she didn’t receive one, she rolled her eyes and looked back out over the water, determined not to let any surprise well up in her when he didn’t tell her what he was waiting for. Why should she? It wasn’t surprising in the least. It wasn’t coming by boat. That was the only information she was given. Of course. “I came down here to get some peace and quiet. I should have known things weren’t going to go my way,” she told him with a shrug as though she expected as much to be interrupted in her quest to find nothing more than quiet waves and a soft shoreline. That and she was determined to get out of her house because even she knew she couldn’t hole herself up there forever.

“Peace and quiet.” He echoed the words in soft tones, coasting smoothly into silence as he mulled the phrase over. For the most part, his was a world of loudness, of howls and screams and voices racked either by fear or laughter (and sometimes both). Orpheus had little time for peace, had never been patient enough to accept anything other than conflict, than the endless and endlessly violent scramble for progression. To stand still was to sign a death sentence, in his view, to accept weakness and eventually defeat.

But quiet... There was a value in silence, sometimes, when unspoken things were just as dangerous as what was articulated, and sometimes there was pleasure to be gained in lapsing into wordlessness, in a moment’s quiet. He supposed that this was as good a place as any to find quietude, particularly in the midst of a city that never quite seemed to stop humming, whether with barely-contained revelry or poorly-smothered screams. He half-smiled at Delilah’s shrug, at the slight bite that followed her words. It was a reaction to his presence that he’d seen what seemed like an infinite amount of times, and it never quite ceased to amuse. “I’m sorry your plans were thwarted,” The sentiment was half-sincere. Orpheus knew that he wasn’t many people’s first choice of company, particularly not in moments of solitude. He just didn’t care.

[orpheus-vault-blog]

hiran:

The Capulet made it sound to easy, as if it was the flip of a switch. ON: his mother would be alive, nitpicking him about the smallest things while his father watched him afar, smiling but not wanting to interfere. OFF: they were both dead. How could the differences be so DRASTIC? It was a game, a cruel game. 

A game which he had been losing. 

“ – how?” Hiran wondered, knowing that not everyone had brutal strength like the Capulet. Not everyone could crush their opponents with sheer force. If Hiran had such an ability, Faron would’ve been DEAD by now – alongside his army. A reign of blood conducted with his shaking hands. He wanted it; he wanted REVENGE. 

“Besides, flipping suggests a quick death. It should be slow.” Agonizingly painful, just like how his heart felt.  

He knew how easily the conflict could be over, knew that all it would take was a single uprising to rid the streets of the plague that had settled in them. All it would take was a single common impulse, a single shared desire for blood. But grief made people weak and febrile, scraped them raw and left them with little that was useful. Orpheus could easily bring about the change himself, he knew, if he whispered the right words in the right ears.

But there was something much more entertaining about watching this kind of chaos unfold from a distance.

How. With guns and knives and fists and teeth. By unleashing the kind of hell that even the gods of old would fear. Orpheus wondered whether the Montague was capable of contemplating such a thing, of even hearing about it. Revenge was easy until it came time to actually coat one’s hands with blood. “Can’t your colleagues help you?” Orpheus raised an eyebrow. “They must all be as angry as you.”

He smiled at the mention of a slow death, pleased even by the promise of bloodshed, and fixed Hiran with the stare of a predator. “And what do you plan to do about that, exactly?”

[orpheus-vault-blog]

orion; alexander:

date: 20 march 2017 time: 1:30 am location: outside the teatro romano status: closed to @orpheusahulani , @alexanderrallis

He and Alexander always met like this. In the dark.

The scene often shifted. Clear bottles, amber bottles, half-empty, some full on lacquered bar surfaces. Their shot glasses battering together so violently they cracked. Alcohol in their mouths, lingering on their breath and audible in their conversation, the way the words dragged out and the topic dropped into lower layers of depravity. Sometimes there was no alcohol involved at all. And red was the main feature. Dripping, splattering, caught on the notches between knuckles, the crescents of nails.

The scene often shifted. But not the lighting. Always, only in the late hours.

Despite how much Orion enjoyed Alexander’s company, now–especially now–he couldn’t afford the appearance of intimacy with the wolves across the castelvecchio.

But he was always terrible about denying himself. Even when his allegiance to the Spades was tenuous and brittle, here he was. Seeking Alexander’s company on evenings when he had an appetite, a need to descend to an immorality the rest of his peers couldn’t stomach.

He took a drag of his cigarette. Flicked the ash in a scatter of sparks.

“Has Roman told you?”

By his right foot was a thread of carpenter ants. He shifted his oxfords, scattering them.

“About–”

Wait.

Movement by the wall of the Chiesa dei Santi Siro e Libera. There was someone across the street. Orion grew quiet, tipped his head back, exhaled smoke.

“Ahulani.” The ease, the soft slopes of his lines grew stiff. Instinctive. Distrustful. He had to make a conscious effort of composure. “Missing me so much that you’ve taken to following me around?”

There was something intoxicating about nights with no moon.

On nights like these, darkness spread like a poison into every corner of the city, smothered and embalmed and consumed until Verona was little more than a cadaver at the mercy of the shadows. On nights like these, the dark that settled above ground meant that the dark that reigned below could rise up to meet it. And when shadows were given free reign in such a generous way, all the cruel and twisted little things that had been hiding from the light came out to play. The blackest nights for the blackest deeds. Almost poetic, really.

Orpheus was wandering tonight, soaking up the moonless, starless sky. Drinking, too, when he wanted, in and out of shady back rooms and rundown bars that served him without demanding payment, without quite meeting the fire of his gaze.

On nights like these, his power seemed more absolute than usual.

Voices drifted to him from a nearby alley, familiar voices. Orpheus stopped, raised his head to the sky, a predator catching the scent of blood, and walked on a few paces until the figures of Orion and Alexander dissolved out of the gloom like a mirage.

He could have approached unseen, melted into the shadows and then emerged out of them like some hellish thing, but he wasn’t in the mood for theatrics.

(And he’d unsettled Orion Massetti enough for the other man’s unease to last a while yet.)

He shifted, made his presence tangible. Crossed the street with dark laughter in his eyes.

Ahulani. The voice that spoke to him was brittle, closed like a fist. He ignored the question, fixed Massetti with a slow-burning stare instead.

He sighed, clicked his tongue against his teeth. In the quiet the sound was almost menacing. “Always so tense.” A hand reached out, large and heavy, clapped Orion on the shoulder, laughed soft and low. “Tranquillo. I won’t bite.”

Green eyes flicked up towards the other figure, then. A beat of silence while Orpheus thought, evaluated Alexander’s presence, and as his eyes narrowed the smirk on his mouth unfurled into something infernal. “Isn’t this lovely? A playdate.”

[justiceleague]

[orpheus-vault-blog]

date: 26 march 2017 time: 22:00 location: the hearts club open

“Play the game,” the voices clad in pinstripe had whispered. “Try your luck.” They had filled the room with smoke, poured it full of ephemerality, of wafting impressions and mumbled promises so that no-one could quite pin any of it down. It was the perfect place for a con, if he had to choose one, the kind of place where it was somehow comforting to let go of carefully-clutched inhibitions, where letting the man smiling at you from beneath a top hat felt right. It was enough to fool almost everyone. “Play the game,” the voices had said.

And he had played.

And, like most times in his life, he had won. And won, and won.

(Orpheus Ahulani was never careless enough to lose.)

He’d once been a purveyor of these little schemes himself, his hand was more practised than most, and although most had forgotten that the Devil once made his name with parlour tricks and the most understated of deceptions, he had not. The pile of money (money he didn’t need) in front of him grew, and grew, and as more and more notes were added to the little mound the faces of the men in pinstripes, once so obliging, so charming, had turned progressively sourer, disappointed to have met another thief, another cheat.

The hosts had moved, reluctantly, onto poker, and for the third time in a row, Orpheus had a winning hand. Smoke spilled from the cigar clenched between blood-red lips, and the smile on his face, in his eyes, was nothing short of merciless; cruel, victorious laughter threatening to burst forth from his chest like thunder at any moment. There was no need for an expression blank as slate when the outcome was inevitable.

“You might as well try your luck. It seems to be a winning night.”

[orpheus-vault-blog]

memesandthings:

SEND A SYMBOL FOR A CORRESPONDING PROMPT/STARTER.

[ ☎ ] my muse calls yours in tears.

[ ✪ ] our muses are stuck in an elevator together.

[ ◐ ] my muse is having a sleepover with your muse.

[ ✿ ] my muse attempts to cook dinner for your muse.

[ ◈ ] my muse makes a drunk confession to your muse.

[ ღ ] my muse makes an attempt to cheer your muse up.

[ ✦ ] my muse pushes yours out of frustration/anger.

[ ❢ ] my muse discovers yours all bloodied and bruised.

[ ➤ ] my muse accidentally punches your muse in the face.

[ ⌚ ] my muse recalls their favorite memory with your muse.

[ ✜ ] my muse collapses in front of yours, all bloodied and bruised.

[ ☯ ] my muse tells yours that they never want to see them again.

[ ✈ ] my muse asks yours to accompany them on a trip/mission/etc.

[ ● ] my muse catches yours snooping through their belongings.

[ ☻ ] my muse wakes up in your muse’s closet the night after a party.

[ ✌ ] my muse reaches out to yours after months of no communication.

[ ☢ ] the car broke down in an unfamiliar part of town, and our muses are lost.

[ ✠ ] it’s three in the morning and my muse unexpectedly arrives at your muse’s home.

[ ☁ ] the entire city is without power due to a storm, and our muses run into each other during a supply run.

[honeybunchesofquote]

In thousands of agonies— I exist.

The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky (via honeybunchesofquote)

[orpheus-vault-blog]

theodora:

Their escapade was never meant to last longer than thirty minutes. An introduction shared between two lone figures should have sparked a quick fuck that would only fill the pages of another pleasure with strangers. Theodora never meant to drag the ink between pages to mark over the regular. The night was not intended to be of bent spines hollowing into the film of a duality that stars a pair with addictive natures. Often, during the late hours, they ponder over the thought of how life would have been if they never confronted with the man. Their solitaire would have been handled with countless affairs of unnamed individuals. The nights would be conquered by the cold breeze of a beating organ knocking the humanity of their chest. Perhaps, if they have not met that night, they would have met at another date. Is that not what fate defines?

Theodora Moreau was drunk on Orpheus Ahulani. 

They can pray to the many stars scattered about the night sky, but they could never rid the feeling of want when it came to Orpheus. Through all the fights, the pain, and the irritation; they could not wash out the taste of his name off their tongue. Their hands felt his figure with every touch, and their thoughts were only guided by his behavior. It’s a phenomenon they would have never called for in the future, for they believed they would be lonely for all eternity. It was as if God noticed the feral child’s shivering body those various encounters before at the Cathedral. He heard their cry, and He gave them a forever. He no longer wanted to see them in pain due to loss. Their permanent stay came in the form of the man who whispers taunts in their ear during the night.

 Face bare clean, all accessories off, they remained still in posture when his voice rang in their spacious bedroom. He did not need a reason to visit them. It was a sad truth. Even in the midst of a toxic feud, the two only return hours later to reconcile, slipping back into the formality of proper care. Rough hands and bruised lips are begged to stay away, but once those hands venture on their curves and lips warm their skin, they are cradled back into the divinity they conquered. The queen of soft touches cannot live long without their king of rough edges. So, in all, they did not need a reason, but Theodora would never mutter the truth.

Feline hues averted over to outline the frame of his against the dip of the sun. A pout pressed over their nude lips as a strand of their hair fell over. Fingers were quick to collect the strand behind their ear before words fiddled out, “You should respect my wishes. When I ask for you to not visit, I expect to not see you.” Their words are all meaning one thing, but, in reality, they are nothing but pleased that Orpheus sneaked in. Once again, that is not something they will confess.

With his lips on the curve of their neck fading in just as quick as they faded out, their attention ducked low to avoid the visage of the two so close. His fingers were intermixed within the silk strands of their hair, and they pushed their chest out as a breath was gathered within. Theodora hated the affect he had on them. Refusing to remain in a trance, they rose from the seat of the vanity only to slip their robe off when entering the walk-in closet close by. It is then when their fingers were occupied with the sleep attires lined up before them to pick. When they slipped into a silk, pink nightgown, they walked out and approached their half. “Tell me,” they began by placing a hand on his shoulder, “do you plan on staying late, or do you have a task later tonight?” A smirk grew over their nude lips as their head cocked to the side. 

It was clear as day, still, their first meeting, his first glimpse of them imprinted as clearly on his mind as any of his memories. They had come to him as if out of a mirage, parting, it had seemed, the very molecules of air that surrounded them, existing in a strange, divine kind of vortex that could do nothing but attract errant souls to it. And they had arrived, as the divine are so often wont to do, at the close of the lowest point in his life, leading him directly into a world of nothing but intoxicating highs, pouring a kind of light upon him that was tinged with enough darkness that he relished its glare. So many things in his life would come and go, pass by him, silent and deadly, like ships in the night, but this was the one thing that he would never relinquish, the one luxury that he would always covet. It often veered into the realm of vice, what they did to each other, with each other, but something about the fatefulness of their first meeting made it feel a little closer to virtue.

He didn’t believe in fate, hadn’t ever believed in it, was too firmly attached to the idea of creating his own destiny, of using the power in his own hands, to accept that there could be a force dictating each of his actions, a callous third party with a worldview not unlike his own attempting to determine his course. But there was something, something intangible about the chance encounter he had had with the one who had now come to be seen as what normal people called his other half, something that made him think that, perhaps, in that instance, there had been something cosmic that had pushed them together, as though God, or whoever it was that sat up in the sky watching over what happened down below, had looked down and decided that these were two souls that needed to be twinned.

And he had taken up the hand Fate had dealt him eagerly, greedily. It should only have been sex, mindless and careless and burning out as quickly as a match, but without either of them realising it they had poured gasoline upon the flame, letting it crescendo into an inferno, and then they had each let the fire they had built consume them both. Orpheus relished the burn, enjoyed the acerbic nature of their spats, the toxic edge that their back-and-forth sometimes took on, plunged his head and hands deep into the flames and only acted to stoke them, and the knowledge that, despite their better judgement, Theodora longed for much the same things he did, only served to provoke his fire further.

He watched them go into their closet with a look of reverence on his face, a look that threatened to verge into unguarded adoration were it not for the mischievous glint that danced in the corners of his eyes, the serpentine smile that wound its way across his lips. “And what about my wishes, hm?” he queried, leaning back in his seat so that his back rested against the table of their vanity. “What if I wanted to see you?”

At the sight of them returning (that nightgown was a particular favourite of his), his smile only grew. Absently, and wholly deliberately, questing fingers reached up to skim the outline of their hipbone, faintly visible through the softness of pink silk. With the softest of touches he traced patterns onto their skin, and when a gentle hand came down to rest on his shoulder he leaned into the touch almost imperceptibly, comfortable under the weight of a palm more familiar to him than his own. When they spoke, he looked up at them through hooded eyes, wearing a smirk to match their own. “That depends,” he intoned in response, voice low and smooth, and with his free hand he took their hand in their own, pressing a kiss to the inside of their palm and then lacing his fingers through theirs, his own big, rough hand enclosing the smaller, softer one like a vice. “Do you want me to stay?”

The answer was yes, of course, this game of theirs was nothing if not predictable, but he enjoyed the theatricality of asking all the same.