#RIPHALOS / a video game centered multimuse roleplay blog written by tori (30+). highly selective & mutually exclusive, here to write whatever is itching the brain. will contain mature content and darker themes.
— an exploration of goodness pushing against all odds, the weight of duty pressed heavy on strong shoulders, how jealousy grows such sharp rows of teeth, the right thing losing its shine as time tarnishes its metal, tyrants rotting in their own wrath, morality weighed on scales with flesh, how hope pines through the darkness from candlewick flicker to lighthouse beam, and the dangers of reckless power glittering from the crowns on casanovas.
heavily affiliated with @vilifyme
muse list below the cut
RESIDENT EVIL
grace ashcroft , #inlight
zeno , #duplirot
ada wong , #herownside
jill valentine , #hopefights
chris redfield , #rotcrush
"Really?" The question is more of a wheeze. All the music wrung out of her lungs when her whole body feels as if its on fire and stuck out in a winter chill all at once. It sweats and trembles until even her bones ache. If she was honest, Aridani had wanted to stop the moment she stuck her foot in that bog-trap. However, that would have slowed them all down and when they had a wiggling, illithid timebomb in their heads time was not exactly on their side.
Not to mention their githyanki companion already looked at her as if she was a liability and had more than once in the past few days threatened to put a knife in her for one reason or another. The last thing she wanted to do was give her any more justification to do so. So she pressed on and forced a cheerful whistle until the damn leg gave out beneath her the moment she returned to camp.
Sinking back against her pillow, Dani winces as it feels like she flopped down against a rock instead. She never thought she'd miss her lumpy old pillow back home quite so much. Though had she been, she was certain her whining would have earned her some sort of scolding. Perhaps Ilmater could forgive her lack of fortitude just this once considering the circumstances.
"...I don't feel so lucky at the moment."
shar's wound in her hand keeps quiet whilst she sits by the fire, warmth washing into tired aches burrowed elsewhere. but shadowheart expects the pain to come to her tonight; expects the lance of it any moment now, sliced through a palm that can quiver with the sensation of an impaling spear within her dark lady's poised hand. but she does not sit with dread nor worry. she has trained herself to greet it with more grace, with gratitude in the bow of her head or spun into any hiss of discomfort that cuts free.
so she sits with lean shoulders braced as she watches aridani finally find some rest to nurse her wounds with. it's been on shadowheart's mind since she'd heard the trap snap within marshland muck, has made her consider both how it will slow them down and... how much it must hurt. the latter, of course, she has kept tucked more private behind her teeth. she shouldn't concern herself with another's weakness, with pain that is not hers to cherish or remove.
but enough of her misshapen memories shifts with the familiarity of the mother superior's scolding snap of a voice. she has been called soft before. has had it used against her, has had her nose rubbed in her own tenderness and felt the burn of not belonging.
still, she can't help but watch aridani now with a soft huff through her lips. can't help but roll her eyes, shuffle in closer, rub palms together to gather magic there in a tingling pool all aglow and warm as the fire. “you are lucky. it could've crushed all the way to the bone, could've mangled the shin and ankle completely unsalvageable. you have both legs, don't you? maybe a nasty infection, but…” she inhales slowly and exhales just the same as she hovers glowing palms over the wound to will their healing touch to her aid. “with the herbs i've got, it'll pass.”
and as expected, agony rips into her marked hand and forces her head to bow — in penance, in devotion, in suffering, in worship. all of the above shivers through her and that palm does flinch, does recoil from the task at hand, but shadowheart swallows thick, thanks her gracious mistress in her prayers, and carries on. even manages a weak, wry laugh as her face tilts back up with a very slight smirk. “you do look like the hells chewed you up and spat you out, though.”
and then there's you ; pride has nothing and everything to do with the grin when it twists it way, thin and sly. it's a tone he's heard before. most of his life if he cares to reminisce. men and women alike, each with there deepening frowns, wondering aloud what he's gotten into this time. put on a suit, shined up boots, at his core he'd never changed and reno's teasing tongue to teeth in a delicate exchange for words that would never help the situation. partially out of responsibility — he had a job to do.. a boss to appease. tseng wouldn't like extra paperwork to fill out, but the want to give it to him is never far from the table.
still..
" here i thought i'd made myself pretty easy to find. " comes across cheeky, tail end tainted with a snicker that casts shadows where they aren't needed. against a backdrop of ivory and marble, his image is stark. a flash of red.. a shadow that lurks. ravus' accusation is closer to the truth than he realizes and that, in itself, deserves how his lips split. bare teeth in what's more smile than anything else, deceptive but largely earnest. " you got a bell i can wear ? "
smoke leaks from flared nostrils, pluming tight before dispersing over the railing he's continued to lean against. not a bad view. a few less neon lights than he liked. no raucous noise from nearby pubs or nightclubs, but.. not bad. neither was he, in his own too stiff to function sort of way. reminded him of someone.
" i'm just here to keep tabs, " a liar's half-truth, reno's dug his elbow atop the banister and turned just enough to register ravus' sneer with a knowing hum. " not that i expect you to believe that. " with how he'd been collared, led about like some mongrel, it wasn't far to reach. trust was hard to come by and, in the absence of it ? he'd been received in worse ways. " you want me to stick to your swanky pad, might have to make things more interesting. it's like a fucking crypt in this place. "
ravus doesn't care that his tone cuts harsh, bites with his teeth around the words he wants hissed unimpressed. so that this shinra lapdog knows he isn't easy prey, isn't so complacent and convinced of good will when his own throat feels tightened in a thick leather leash. though if it's shinra's making or his own remains to be seen, refuses to be seen by the mismatched eyes staring out across pretty pale rooftops. at least the turk's not hiding within the shadows meant to suit him. he actually seems quite keen to be observed, this blaze of scarlet within royal white walls and shiny sleek marble. so it could be worse, perhaps. just perhaps.
“yes, well. i'm sure it cannot compare to sleazy alleyway bars and garish neon. i do apologise.” words leaned smarmy, sarcastic, pompous through his sneer as his grip tightens across the railing. a metal fist makes the iron groan, reminds him to ease up on the grip clenched through a clawed gauntlet that remains curled there even slackened ever slightly.
he hates that he doesn't despise the smell of cigarette smoke dusting his inhales of the cool evening air. his nose wrinkles more with disdain than disgust and he finally straightens the long slope of his back. he doesn't look at him still, keeps his gaze forward on people in their windows and walkways; his subjects who ask him about luna, about her return, about how long they must wait to see her again. because that is always who he is — an extension of her, hardly an identity all his own no matter the titles to decorate a name few even speak out loud. he prefers it this way, always has.
all the more reason not to trust reno's game when he so often haunts his peripherals, jackal's eyes agleam only for him.
“you don't care about interesting. you care about causing trouble, getting a rise.” he finally faces him, stern brow furrowed over a glare tired within corners of blue and purple. “i'm not stupid. shinra left you here to test my patience. an insult, a slight meant to mock me,” he corrects, huffing a new scoff in the stiff shake of his head. “don't act like you give a damn about what my city has to offer.”
already the conversation has outlived its use. it's purged what delicate patience she'd managed to manifest and left her stomach tight with want to argue. meet that swell of his puffed chest with the slope of her knuckles. see how much hot air he'd spout if she cut his mouth out of the equation. it's an appetite that glows hot in the embers of a glare curved by squinted lids and a sneer riding through raised upper lip. provocation, however, had been met by the undertow of rebuttal and, in his shadow, her head tilted back, l'rhea acknowledges, silently, that this was brought about by her own untethered tongue. the very same that, now, tests the sharpness of fangs. ties itself with a slur that is, instead, swallowed.
" ...excuse ? " repeated, aloud, it makes even less sense. some allusion to a responsibility unclaimed. caretaker of the cowering masses. " is that a joke ? " asking when she already knew the answer, what fragile distance between them has survived is laid under the mercy of a swaying guillotine she's eager to drop. applies pressure when creeping ever-closer. testing just how long a lifted chin would survive when his bare throat sits below it.
" i am helping— " a steepled argument, tail flicking sudden, jarring snaps behind her, " ...i'm propping up this farce of a defense, " gestured to in a thoughtless, swept reminder back where the wall creaks its support. " making sure the wee ones catch a wink of sleep before they're expected to fight off a swarm of stinking goblins. " where they would, no doubt, fail. where their short lives would end.. where the blood of ' her people ' would fertilize the earth for some time to come. his alongside their pitiful little puddles.
too easily baited, risen onto the balls of her feet, the lean that thinks to lead her to worse is aborted, swift and purposeful. it's not worth the uproar.
" i will not be cowed into some corner by a coward's want for safety. " sooner a trap than a sanctuary, the swallow of the grove can be their grave if they choose, but not hers. not while she has a say in the matter. " when the gates are stormed i intend to be outside of them. " locked into the limbo of some misconstrued agreement that is beginning to feel less and less worth the struggle. " i wouldn't want you to have to come off your hands, after all. do stay seated before you wind up a casualty in the crossfire. "
the urge in him is restless, tightened taut under pressure from all sides meant to make diamonds out of so much coal. rolan is at the precipice of a greatness long denied him; is finally standing at the fork in the road where one path leads to all his dreams realized and the other bends crooked, weed-choked into humdrum nothing and the bottom of a bottle or three. but his thirst to prove himself burns bolder than that for the drinks he can never handle well ( or in moderation ), which further provokes the itch in him to move, to run, to put as much distance between himself and this ugly, rustic grove. it also riles his temper all the more petulant, huffing hot through flared nostrils. he simply does not have time for this!
“you think i want to be a part of all this? caught in the crossfire of all this... nonsense?! i don't care about these people or any damn druid ritual, thank you very much!” he hisses it heated through pointed teeth, needs to check himself when some heads turn mildly offended at the callous venting of words. he swears lia is glaring daggers in his direction, wherever she may be. so he huffs, shaking his horned head as his tail flicks its own agitation from beneath robes still new, bought fresh for good impressions he's anxious he won't get the chance to offer. he'd like at least one soul in this wretched glade to understand, to see his side of things. even if l'rhea sneers unimpressed, she seems reasonable enough. or will at least offer a distraction from the impatient tension bunching up anxious in his guts like knots and tangles.
“i have a grand future waiting for me in baldur's gate — one that would curl your toes if you could even begin to understand the importance of the opportunity. so why in the hells would i want to sit around and wait for goblins to kill me? i'm hardly some casualty waiting to happen!” a wizard's not meant for lowly chores and labor, should keep his hands soft for spellwork and page-turning. but, as though to prove a point, he clicks his tongue and glowers around for a moment; makes a satisfied “ah!” as he spots a branch thick enough to do the trick, even rubbing those pretty palms together before reaching to drag his prize over to both her and the wall he plans to reinforce. out of spite.
he tries to be discreet with the small bout of panting that catches him with the effort, masking it as best he can with more annoyed huffs and sighs to seem more annoyed than winded.
so with a moment's pause to straighten his posture, rub his hands down the front of his robes, he clears his throat. eyes close, the intent is pictured clearly within his head, and an incantation is barked clear and firm to accompany the sweeping, upward gesture of his arms as though to will the large branch forward. there's a glow of light in his hands, a heat that crackles there with the potential for a grand swell, before... nothing. rolan's eyes go wide and he deflates, groans, shoulders slumping as he shakes out his wrists with tail giving a hard, sheepish swish behind him. “...just— just give me a moment. i'm distracted. it's your fault, you know. it usually works just fine, but you've gone and blocked my focus! had to bring up the damn children.”
not all ships are For wanting them to be in a happy healthy relationship together. sometimes shipping two characters means you want them to be erotically obsessed with each other and become entwined in a mutually toxic love affair for a few months and then horrifically break each other's hearts and never speak again. sometimes you want them to be codependent best friends with enough repression to explode a submarine who only make out/have sex when they're at their worst. sometimes you want them to pine after each other for years, never say anything, and then die. sometimes you want them to kill each other. this, too, is shipping
"Really, Anders, its not that bad. I can barely— ow!"
The smack to his hand as he tends to the burn on her arm is a reflex more than anything. A warning that echoed of years spent swatting at pesky, prodding older brothers who didn't know when to leave well enough alone. Still, it's sharp enough to ring out in the dusty hovel of his clinic like a whip crack and for a brief moment Bethany can only gawk at her own audacity. Just a moment of wide eyed surprise before she found her voice once more.
"Oh, Maker's breath, I am so sorry." The shame staining her cheeks in a bright crimson is proof enough of that. It leaves her restless as she shifts awkwardly atop the wobbly little stool he planted her on only moments ago. His kindness should have been met with grateful compliance, not being batted at like one of his street cats might do a rat. "I definitely did not mean to do that. It just sort of snuck out there."
a combative patient is often expected in this line of work, but he hadn't expected it of bethany hawke. not that she's throwing fists or fireballs, nor thrusting a shiv for his ribs as he's been dealt in the past, but... anders still gasps. looks to her with the wide eyes of shock, brow lifted while their expressions mirror one another. only for him to shake his head and slant a playful smile whilst a soft laugh falls through his breath.
“you sure? to be fair, i feel like i've earned a few good whacks at this point in my life.” he shakes out the sting ringing in the skin of his hand, grin bending all the more fond. because teasing as his tone lilts with the ease of his chuckle, it softens a cozy warmth as he opens his palm out to gesture she offer her arm again when she's up to the task. he likes to offer choice where he can, especially where pain is concerned and its unfortunate inevitability within ramshackle clinic walls. “it's fine, no harm done. but i'd like to finish up, if that's all right? i swear it'll feel much better if i can just see it for a moment more.” another laugh lazes here within the smile that reaches the amber gleam of his eyes. “you can even aim for my face this time, really get it out of your system.”
alexsandr kallus ˢᵉⁿᵗ 'let me hear it. what's the job?' / @riphalos
‘A little bit of this, a little bit of that,’ a saccharine grin spread across the director’s face as he clasped the younger man’s broad shoulders. He gave Kallus a little shake, entrenching gloved fingers into the fabric before releasing him just as sudden. Krennic motioned ahead to his office — dimly illuminated in a gentle yellow glow. Dark clouds shrouded the sun, casting an overhead of grey. The pitter-patter of rain had started to fall as he stepped in first. ‘ Considering your reputation, I expect great things of you. What I’d like to entrust is a matter of galactic importance, if not more. Now, how do you take your liquor? I have, at minimum, fifty years of vintages at my disposal.’
what is alexsandr kallus but a weapon to be finessed within capable hands — a blade like those forged in beskar and pressed to vulnerable throats for the glory of the empire. which is why he's here, why he's meant to be sheathed within krennic's arsenal for whatever's needed both within his and ISB's interests. the latter is what follows him always to different bases and outposts and destroyers: the narrowing of eyes that wonder if he will drag off insurgents or the empire's own to be pried apart and repurposed.
but his spine is ever-rigid, ever sturdy even as the director's palm finds the broad slope of his shoulder with a firm shake. he isn't used to touch meant so casual, so familiar, and the imprint lingers a dancing prickle even after the man's drifted aside to gesture him inward. he steps promptly, folds arms behind his back as is polite and well-trained within every sleek fiber of himself woven for imperial benefit. “of course, director. i am at your disposal,” he assures, strong chin dipping down in a respectful bow of the head. though his expression shifts only slightly from stern professionalism; an almost sheepish tilt of his brow and subtle smile. “ah. that's very generous of you, sir, but i am still on duty. i couldn't possibly trouble you.”
@4sabers asked: “ we could still fix this. ” cardiff ➤ obi-wan
he'd found him splayed limp in the dirt, near-death and barely breathing. the force bleeds like raw lightning from a storm; that open scent like pure atmosphere before rainfall that washes stark in obi-wan's senses. it sits like this after battle, when the dust and ash settles over the bodies in the trenches that he often stares at too long. it hangs like a ghost, a reminder that often keeps his pale gaze morose even in the flush of triumph that never climbs too high up his neck.
but it could've been worse — he could've come too late and sensed death plain and simple, the force's welcome arms enfolded around the faithful returned to its cloth.
so now he sits with cardiff in the makeshift medic tent they've pitched. cody and the 212sts maintain the perimeter, keep tabs on wildlife and locals alike, reassure their general in updates that there's no sign of the monster meant to have done this. but obi-wan isn't as concerned with grim new figures looming within war's violent cycle. what matters is a peer and colleague, an old friend, whose return to consciousness swells emotion within eyes never meant to show too much.
he does swallow it down, that visceral rush of relief shining agleam in all that blue, and schools his expression calm and measured. though the smile in his beard is as concerned as it shapes itself comforted by his voice cracking tired between them. “what needs to be fixed is your common sense. as usual.” he lifts a hand, a gesture to remind him to lie still in his cot. “rest. please. more of your heroics can wait.”
she never sits in his presence. never stoops or kneels. won't crouch to fetch a blade when her hands know many ways to cripple a heart without aid. but disinterest is not the same as disgust and though he treks a short path back and forth across the camp, she wonders how deep the cut of her stare has penetrated. if he feels it in his nape. that thin expanse of flesh that calls to her palm and fingers that may tighten an absent fist, though it is just as swiftly forgotten. among the bodies in offering, the familiarity is what discards her want for space. sees company kept in a silent, unloving embrace.
and in that company comes risks. this no different than any other, hot and thick and trailing a slow-rolling descent down high cheekbone. iron coupled with embers, minthara has waded through richer ichor and felt less sullied. sneers shallow by comparison. not for the blood, run to her jaw, but the words.. the silk that's bat away, landed in the soil beside still armored boots. better to wear his token than to be seen conspiring towards morbid comaradarie.
" the blood of my lessers belongs on my skin, jaluk. " what he does with his netherlord is of no concern nor interest. where sigils sear hot white and the stink of wanton magics has perfumed the hillside ; his stain. one tall, piercing beacon that will undoubtedly summon the interest of any faithful nearby. the call for action where none is needed.. she'd given such orders, herself, numerous times over. ' march to your deaths or return to greet worse. '
what does it say, she wonders, that she yearns for that fight ? something to disrupt the silence and her mind in a twisted waltz with no end in sight. remnants of the absolute. the pinpricks of an invader, squirming about where it shouldn't. in the absence of battle, bereft the sanctuary of bloodshed, there is only this. the quiet. and him.
" you know well that messes are necessary, " death. the calculated scalpel that cleaves the cancerous mass from a people prone to its growth. where one house falls, all others benefit. even the ungrateful. even those who seek salvation in false idols and a world that cannot properly fear or elevate them. " how apropos that you saturate the dirt.. so eager to feed vermin of all kinds, it seems. your patron starved as the worms you trample ? curious. "
her crimson glare is one he has felt a thousand times before. it is one he knows deep within his skin, a burning near-tangible in its heat that leans to the nape of a slender neck. what usually comes after is the ironclad grab of a palm or the assertive clamp of teeth meant to maul their claim. at least here, there comes nothing. at least here, he knows she is stalled by something unspoken between them; the same taboo ground of what kept him from leaving her to the mercy of zealots, the flaying of a mind that could have been mulched into meaningnless meat if he had turned his back.
and he is so much more than what he'd been in the underdark. smells it even here in spilt blood so much darker than it used to be, prettied an almost ink-black with his patron's eldritch presence sinking more and more within the meat of him the tighter he solidifies his pact. he would rather follow this path, allow the unknowable vastness of his savior to make him so much other than to remain tethered to what he once was in the eyes of a city ( a goddess ) that used him.
especially when he is still lesser within minthara's growl. the word tightens his jaw slightly rigid with the sour taste prickling the back of his tongue.
“many secrets sit in the dirt. because most lift their eyes too high to see them.” he himself does not look back up. he feels no urge, no need to offer her the depths of red, red eyes that no longer bow beneath a matron's stare. but atti'kas does smile to himself, does let the line sit amused within one corner of his lips. “the great old one sees you… and knows you. asks me in my trances what purpose you serve.”
now he looks up, now he fixes her with a shining sharpness unapologetic within his appraisal. one that remains vague, but unimpressed all the same. “give it a show, one of these days. because i've been wondering the same, myself.”
he finishes his bloodletting, sighs to feel the cold comfort of cosmic approval swell a shiver within his ribs upon his next exhale. his patron acknowledges his offer, emboldens the magicks humming in both his flesh and around their campsite. 'kas gives thanks within his head, lifting a palm to summon the discarded silk back to his hand so he can press it into the slim cut of the wound there for clotting. “blood best feeds magic,” he tells her within the fall of a fresh sigh. “it keeps me – us – safe from things that go bump in the night. not that you need it, right?”
@vilifyme asked: “ you came back. it doesn’t have to end like this. ” gortash ➤ atti'kas
wyrm's rock sits a cold fortress in the dark settlement of nightfall, eerily quiet within stone walls that catch the sharp, salty winds off the sea. the crowds have thinned out, the noise reduced to a low hum, and even the clanking steelwatch stand still at their posts. all of these are reasons atti'kas shouldn't be here alone, shouldn't let his curiosity lure him to a lion's bone-cluttered den. but evenings are where his skin sits better on a body meant for the caves of his home and the evolution of his tadpole, the reach of his abilities, sprawl far more understood within his skull. he isn't afraid to walk alone when his independence yearns for more of a foothold outside the needs of those sitting fireside back at their room in the elfsong.
what also yearns for more is the voice of his patron pressing its familiar, comforting weight to the back of his brain. it also wishes to learn and understand, urges 'kas to the tyrant's chambers with nothing but the usual sprawl of slinky robes and eerie aura atop his doorstep. not even a weapon to have frisked off him when he's allowed inside with his long, long pale hair tied back such shining liquid silver.
“no one said anything about ends. yet.” he saunters past guards and watchful mechs, doesn't care what eyes follow the sprawl of dark cloth, the low plunge of a sinister neckline, all seemingly spun from the shadows he often slinks from. but this isn't for gortash, isn't meant to wink coy at some seduction game. it is what he knows and what he wears out of some proud spite these days — the drow escort who will not cower in shame when every part of him, mind and body, is finessed a deadly weapon he will wield where blades fall blunt.
“i've been considering your offer. thought it best to talk it over without a crowd stifling the mood.” he smiles, lets his voice laze a purring chuckle through the coy curl of his tongue. it doesn't roll honeyed and sweet, nor soured too stale with sarcasm. he is neutral, he is waiting and wondering. “unless you'd rather we play this out like they all expect? would be a shame to make you bleed without an audience.”
