BARRIE.

second star.

[secondstxrs]

rowstock‌:

this feels like a scene right out of an audrey hepburn film. two lovers, fingers tracing wrists, calling for each other. the dimly lit hallway, priceless figurines and paintings. a dream of a boy following his every step. horatio feels like they are stuck in this moment, like time has given them an escape through reality. this is neverland, just for the two of them.

llewelyn, just with his voice, pulls him. horatio places a hand on his waist, intertwines the other with his, placing his chin on llewelyn’s shoulder. he’s tipsy. champage is the greatest invention in the world. “i think that one’s a wedding gift,” horatio slurrs, just slightly, lips next to his ear. “boris might have told me about it, but i presume i was wasted. or i just didn’t care, honestly.” with a swift move, horatio turns llewelyn around, presses him against the wall. counts the stars in his eyes.

fuck the painting. 

“but i doubt there is a more beautiful piece in this house than the one right here,” he says, cheesy, knowing it, loving it. he grins, all cheshire cat, rotten and empty, far far away. horatio loves this dance. “how do you like invictus so far?” it is half an attempt at distraction, half at seduction. 

oh, he could die and swallow them both whole. 

‘would you like to live in between my ribs?’ he wants to ask. ‘would you be happy there, kept by marrow and sinew, my heart as your pulse?’

but it’s too much to think and to say it would startle them both, and so he folds himself closer, cheeks pink with liquor-laced ardor pressed to horatio’s, fingers furl tight around a hand he would press to his heart, to his axis, the thrumming in his neck. rebel fervor hides beneath innocuous, feather-light gestures that better befit his moonlit romanticism than it does his zeal--anything to keep horatio here, filling all the space that touches him, anything to keep horatio close. 

in truth, lou doesn’t care about the painting either. 

“you utter lothario,” he murmurs, breath catching in his throat. a fever has already taken hold, it travels red and damp along all his sloping curves, and he bares his neck to be ravaged. what terribly prey he is. when he speaks, he’s only half-aware of his words and how breathily they slip out from lips begging to be reddened, already deep in a limpid, living daydream. “i adore it--everyone has been gracious, and kind, and the whole clandestine nature, the ferrying over like charon and the styx, it feels just magical.” he presses his nose to horatio’s jaw, shuts his eyes. “tell me--if i forgot my obol, will i get to stay here forever?”

[secondstxrs]

alistairefox‌:

there is a part of alistair that thinks these parties never can quite end fast enough. another part of him thinks they should last forever and a day more. the feelings never settle well in him, never finding a balance. right now, as the clock ticks closer and closer to midnight, he wishes it would continue long into the hours of the night. it’s going well, better than he could have ever imagined, and the idea of it closing and turning into whatever comes next doesn’t quite settle well with him. nevertheless, he doesn’t have control over time. he doesn’t have control over the future. it will come as it does and he will face it head-on when it does. 

he sees lou before he is spotted. he thinks to himself how nice it would be if he made it through the entire evening without speaking to the younger member of invictus.

he isn’t that lucky.

it isn’t that alistair dislikes llewelyn, that’s entirely untrue, but there’s a part of him that’s jealous, jealous of his closeness with horatio and his having what he never will. he takes a breath before talking. “ soon enough, yes. it’s unfortunate, but the party, like all things, must come to an end. ” he purses his lips before adding, “ of course, if you’re too intoxicated to find your way back to wherever you’re meant to go after this — ” there’s an unsavory insinuation here “ — you can find a room and stay until the morning. boris never minds too much.  ”

for as tender as he’s wrought, his whole being had been weaned on the shimmer-glow of fireflies tapping at fairy lights, of starlight caged, of the gasps that follow the footsteps a tightrope walker. there has always been room for wonder, even if food had been sparse and even if he knew little else beyond their cloistered world where the nights could be too long--he’d been opulent with riches intangible. but, faced with alistair, all his riches suddenly appear as fool’s gold.

here is a boy-king at the helm of the world, clever and sharp in all the ways his idea of a sovereign ought to be, everything enviable at his fingertips--people who love and admire him, his role defined, a path seemingly unobscured. lou can’t help but wonder if he is as just as his implicit nobility would imply. there hasn’t been much warmth to their exchanges thus far, none that he could sense--but then, it’s hardly been a month. not even a full season.

“that’s kind of boris, really--and, thank you. i didn’t... didn’t want to think of any of this ending, but perhaps i must.” he can’t help how his mind catches on the phrasing--where you’re meant to go--even in his airy intoxication, it sounds tepid and pointed. his legs still. how he wishes he could breach their distance and have them reach each other’s pulp, see what was really at the pit of their seed. he is too curious for his own good. “if it weren’t for this dinner tonight, what would you be doing?” 

[secondstxrs]

sanayoons‌:

WHEN: 4th october, 7:30pm WHERE: atwood’s WHO: @secondstxrs​

“this is weird, right?” sana says, leaning her head closer to her best friend. she’s not quite vibrating with nervous energy, but she tugs on the sleeves of her jumper enough that she pulls on a stitching of a hole that she just sewed up the other weekend. with a wrinkle of her nose at herself, she turns to lou instead. “or, maybe not weird, but surreal? i mean, who has a house on a separate island? who throws parties there?”

despite being no stranger to the strange and eccentric, lou can’t deny the peculiarity of it all, in all of its velvety exclusivity, the clandestine, the enigmas. he leans in, hushed, brushing his nose to her ear in an attempt to be discreet--his drink has made him a touch clumsy, but all the better to be closer to her. “it reminds me of the tales of the hellfire club, crossing waters to reach it, inviting no spectators beyond the stars.” he does little to obscure how swollen his voice has become with thrill and fervor. “i suppose if you have a crown jewel, you’d want to show it off, no?”

[secondstxrs]

antiquitylloyd‌:

     time: 8-ish, just before dinner, 4 October      place: Atwood’s           ( @secondstxrs )

She knows, intellectually, that there are meant to be new people here tonight: three of them, first years, newly tapped to be members of Invictus. But that doesn’t mean that she’s emotionally accepted the addition of new faces to their normal flock. She hasn’t met any of them – hasn’t met anyone yet, this year, a month of school gone by like a fever dream, or a coma, days smearing together into one like paint dragged across a muddied canvas. Is there any time she has spent outside of her room or the library? Is there anyone she’s spoken to who did not initiate the conversation?

Still, it’s time to make good with the new recruits. That’s what tonight is about, after all: pretend everything is normal, so Invictus can live on in spite of what they did last year. So at the first unfamiliar face she sees, she resolves herself, steels herself, and heads over to approach him.

     ‘Hey, I ah, don’t think we’ve met yet. I’m Ani, I’m a second year. You are…?’

he unfurls in this dark, this dark that is damp and dim and greets him as if he is an old friend returned home. when it’s late like this, the inky black of the water surrounding them blends with the tenebrous firmament above, around. he’s safe here, this spot that has no beginning and no end, awash with a summer breeze, the din of water lapping at a shore and laughter in the distance, warm and clinging to the skin, his favorite humidity.

but someone new cuts through, stark in her distance. he knows her name--a name that calls to mind stone-cut deities, cinerary urns, and time immemorial, but the person allows for less fathoming. no words exchanged, not yet, but he’d seen her at the initiation, and at the time he’d imagined he wanted belonging with her too. 

"llewelyn. but lou is often easier for everyone.” he beams, unfolds himself and extends a hand--to offer a taste of his drink. handshakes were a touch too impersonal. “what a pleasure it is to meet you, ani. are you enjoying the evening?” his aunt’s wealth made itself known in artifacts and isolated places, not unlike boris’ home, but the bodies filling the space with idle chatter and wine and warmth offered a reprieve he’d never known. “it’s like a dream here. i don’t ever want to wake up.”

[tremendousandsonorouswords]

Dans le noir du temps, Jean-Luc Godard, in Ten Minutes Older: The Cello, 2002

[secondstxrs]

date: october 4th, 1991 time: 11:37 pm availability: closed to @alistairefox

he’s pleasantly disheveled--by drink, by mirth, by the soft draw of the evening, by lips on lips, of the moon. it’s almost time to leave, he thinks, but how lovely it would be if the night would continue to unwind from its spindle--it feels the very same as waking up too soon from a warm dream. this belonging feels like an indulgence, like something he was never wealthy enough to afford--and yet, he had been welcomed. 

he staves off midnight on one of the balconies overlooking the water they’d all crossed hours before, nursing another drink, humming along with a faraway song as his legs dangle in between the stone balustrade. there are footsteps behind him, and he turns to catch a glance of alistaire, shooting the same tepid smile a pauper would to a prince--or, a sovereign of dust and glamor to one spilling with gold, and adoration, and love.

“is it already time to leave?”

[secondstxrs]

date: october 4th, 1991 time: 10:17 pm availability: closed to @rowstock

there are places that belong in dreams, swept from the expanse of imagination in a lush, velvet flurry and dropped in front of the living, with haste. carnival clandestine, and even aiglon college with its snow-capped mountains and verdant fields, remind him of dreamscapes he once dreamt--and this estate too, having to cross waters to reach it, secluded by distance and time, seems as if it might disappear once the fog rolls in and night falls. 

but the inside is more tangible than the outside, to his delight, filled to the brim with priceless baubles and artifacts and glass things waiting to shatter. he’s two drinks in, careless as he traipses through the wide corridors, hot on the heels of a boy whose shadow he could trace in the dark. “and this?” dark eyes catch starlight as he points a slender finger at a painting, an artifact, a treasure--he’s hardly paying attention when he’s just hoping horatio will turn and find him. “what’s the story behind this?”

[secondstxrs]

butter / oolong

TEA ASKS - ACCEPTING

Butter tea: Show / Tell me about one thing in your room you find awesome.

“the playbill to the very first play i acted in.” there’s roses waiting to be plucked from the apples of his cheeks as he cautiously unfolds a pamphlet worn from travel and frequent attention. “and the accompanying programme.” the thought to frame either is a frequent one, but to look isn’t enough, and the urge to touch, to feel himself in print is a visceral calling. “our town. and how perfect it was. some of us forgot a line or stumbled over the stage, but it was wonderful. just wonderful.”

Oolong tea: Which book series could you read again?

"at the risk of sounding juvenile and sentimental, i think–the chronicles of narnia. now i know it’s not without its problems, and i’m still very upset about susan, but it had offered a touch of escapism i desperately needed at the time of reading it.” 

[sagamemes]

send me a biblical or a historical sin for a drabble or a starter themed around that topic.

LUST  –  intense longing, sexual or otherwise, that subverts propriety.

GLUTTONY  –  the overindulgence and overconsumption of anything to the point of waste.

GREED  –  an artificial, rapacious desire and pursuit of material possessions.

SLOTH  –  cessation of motion and an indifference to work.

WRATH  –  uncontrolled feelings of anger, rage, and even hatred towards oneself or others.

ENVY  –  a sad or resentful covetousness towards the traits or possessions of someone else.

PRIDE  –  putting of one’s own desires, urges, wants, and whims before the welfare of people.

ACEDIA  –  neglect to take care of something that one should do.

VANITY  –  the excessive belief in one’s own abilities or attractiveness to others.

[tremendousandsonorouswords]

Jean-Luc Godard, Pierrot le fou

[ofheavensent]

“Wild as a wood-bird note, fragrant as crushed red wine.”

— Lucy Eddy, from Poems; “Ophelia Roses,” written c. September 1916 (via violentwavesofemotion)

[violentwavesofemotion-deactivat]

“Star-pale, celestial, neither flesh nor blood,”

— Marya Zaturenska, from The Collected Poems; “The Seven Shadows,”

[its-teatime]

You are in a café with me, what tea do you order?

[antiquitylloyd-blog]

its-teatime‌:

1. Rosehip tea: Which book did you love when you were younger? 2. Oolong tea: Which book series could you read again? 3. Rooibos: What is one of you favourite books? 4. Strawberry tea: Tell me about your first kiss, if you had one. 5. Apple tea: Tell me about your first break up, if you had one. 6. Earl Grey: Which countries have you visited? 7. Chai: Where do you want to travel next? 8. Darjeeling: What languages do you speak? 9. Hop tea: Do you have a favourite tea? Which one? 10. Herbal tea: Which person would you chose to travel the world with? 11. Nettle tea: Are you jealous on a person? Why? 12. Ice tea: Do you miss somebody? Why? 13. Yellow tea: What shampoo do you use? 14. Ceylon tea: Do you have a song you like, but have bad memories with? 15. Hibiscus tea: What is a song you can always hear? 16. Flowering tea: What is a movie you can always watch? 17. Pu-erh tea: What is a book you can recommend to others? 18. Turkish tea: What is your favourite cake? 19. Green tea: What was the first movie you saw in a cinema? 20. Blueberry-Muffin tea: Tell me a memory, which makes you smile. 21. Panda tea: Do you have pets? Which one? 22. Butter tea: Show / Tell me about one thing in your room you find awesome. 23. 24 flavors: What is your favourite word? 24. Matcha: Bonus question of you choice! I might answer…