The sun burns what it touches, and the heat against Nsilo's hands is all Dorian's whilst she remains to be the hellish rock, freezing over. As the rogue astronaut always wants when blinded by adventure and expectation, he craves to go a little further. Test the limits of his oxygen and hold his breath for another moment — again and again, damn the suffocation in the price of exploration. In being live witness to a supernova, decimating all that is was and will be, in this realm.
No. Dorian Holloway is marked for death. She wants him to go back, so there is a lesson here, in the wake of pandemonium. Wants are trivial, needs are carnal things and Nsilo's about to play into that need for her insatiable appetite.
Her mouth mirrors his; parted as though to speak. Wet with blood as it gleams against the pair suspended. Her finger which is hooked in his belt tightens a loop around the leather. He is panting wantingly, like he has done all the work himself. The mess at his feet and staining their flesh is all his doings, by his own, merciless hands. He's claiming rights to the destruction and mostly, it is the expiration of the cosmos that is Holloway and all the toxic air he might breathe. There is no air supply in space and he has run out of time in his oxygen tank. A man dying, dead.
He never should have been tempted to see how far he could go without gravity to pull him back to earth. Flown too close to the sun indeed.
She needs to see him burn and writhe, to know the price of disobedience. He's flouted his role in Anemoia and he's taunting the everburning star into sparing his flesh and bone. Castillon can see the strain in the inches below her hand, the dare in Dorian's gaze that appeals to all her banal urges. And he's tasting the fire with the last of his living moments, nipping at the cardshark's lips and stealing the unlife from the very pit of her soul. Want is a fickle thing. She eyes him, warning him of his boldness to pursue, to go against her order. Nsilo tips her head slowly; a smirk creeps up on her newly wet lips when she recognises the depravity and the impetuousness of his intention.
There is no sound in space, but Holloway speaks a language he knows Castillon will never pretend she cannot understand. A man, on his knees. It's appealing to her and it's all the taunting that she stands to tolerate.
"Nobody will want you, 'Rian." She muses, understanding that for him to wander out there, bloodied to the masses. They might take him, for all he's good for. Nsilo thinks him hers — the manager of her empire. If he wants to leave his given seat empty, going cold to play games with another. Then that's his choice; she can find another to warm the throne beside her if that's the case; if he doesn't satisfy. Her nail cuts his throat as she swipes it from a chiselled chin, and she draws the same bloodied finger to her mouth, he tastes like starvation; his, offered to placate the pit of hers when lost in the stillness of infinity.
A hum vibrates, a careless, almost thoughtful sound when Dorian feverishly latches to her throat, skirting another stream of warmth southward; a current trickling down between the bloodstains of their atrocity. She thinks he has plenty to atone for. Let him start there. "Look what happens when you encourage a mess." The ash, the blood; the beginning and end of a planet thrown out of orbit. "Kneel it in, then." She moves a hand to his hair, fingers tangling the strands to tug him out of his trajectory. He falls out of the direct path of the heat of the sun and to the ground he's so desperate to be caught between.
They are a supernova ⸻ exploding stars in naked night skies, their immeasurable distance from Earth making it impossible for anyone to see the light of their irresistible inevitable doom. Just a white dwarf trigged into a nuclear fusion, collapsing to a black hole. It consumes and consumes, light years away from safe ground. Dorian knows he doesn’t want to set his feet on solid ground again; he floats towards her explosions, her guiding light. The burns of cataclysm scorch his skin; and is this what Icarus felt during the fall? Complete contentment?
Ground control, did his tears bleed?
If Dorian’s do, will his constellation lick his face clean? Will she cradle his broken body into her void arms, shush him until the stars claim him? Slipping into the cosmos, falling through galaxies. Starman, can you hear us? If this is danger, Dorian Holloway chooses to ignore safety — his helmet is cracked, and holes in his chest and back mar his suit from his burning wings. He wonders when he looks in her eyes, as he is now, if she is lulling him into compliance ⸻ nothing but a cow to feed, to fatten up, to bleed dry. Will she hang him from the ceiling, dripping ambrosia in her mouth? In a bathtub of her desires and pleasure? Will she remember him, centuries after she eats him until there’s nothing more but the dried up body of Icarus?
He does not care, when his hand cups her chilled cheek. His Neptune; cold on the surface, but the hotness between her legs scalding enough to melt his tongue. He can’t get enough of her. Sometimes, he thinks he is the vampire in this game of theirs ⸻ addicted to her taste, to her scent, to her touch. Wanting more, and more, and more. Never satisfied. Always hungry. Starved. His throat is parched for her honey, for her blood; he wishes to sink his teeth into her flesh, into her heart, and satiate his needs. Live solely off her. All the vitamins he needs ⸻ Ground control, there is food in Pluto. Andromeda is rich in nutrients ⸻ it’s me, it’s her, it’s us. It should be them forever, lost in this explosion, burning hot until their light reach Earth.
But as his white teeth brush across the skin of her jawline, he knows time is fleeting. Brief. He is nothing but a speck of dust in her story; a smudge in her journey. He doesn’t like that. He wants to be eternal, a piece of her soul so tangled in her orbit she can’t rid herself of him. Saturn and its rings. Sun and Moon. Penelope and Odysseus. Does he need to defeat a cyclops for her? Traverse the treacherous sea? Leave a trail of red on every island? Has he not done that already? ⸻ He will build her a wedding bed with his blood and sweat, bones and tears.
When his lips ghosts over her mouth, he promises them that. He will make himself priceless.
He kneels on the ashes of a woman who, not long ago, dared to poison his body with her touch; looks up at Nsilo with clean blue eyes, a devotee praying for his Goddess ⸻ his priestess, his everything. His hand trails a path upwards her leg; from her ankle to her thighs, a featherlight touch carrying all the boldness he musters. A rocket taking off. There’s a question is his eyes, a beg; let me touch you, let me taste you, let me rip your clothes off and show you how much I care.
[ locations ] ― what are their favorite locations to have sex? are they a risk taker where people could walk in on them, or do they prefer to keep it private?
Nsilo's office. He is a big risk taker, an exhibitionist, and likes to be on his knees where his queen sits atop her throne.
Time operates differently in space; the hierarchal peace and war of galaxies is a complex ideation that relies on the state of the atmosphere surrounding those existing in their corner of an endless void. Planetary death, sterilisation, catastrophic episodes — time is as unavoidable as fighting against necroplanetology; a study of corpse planets, it is an inevitability; death is a constant. When a new abyss is ripped into existence, it reminds Castillon that she has little control over the ticking of the death clock, but she controls this.
Dorian Holloway has made his bed, and he will lay in it. In the time that the moon has moved a few inches on its orbital path, a thousand planets have already met their extinction. Dorian Holloway is a man so terribly dead. And with it, he reaps. It is not his first murder, but it dares to be his last.
Skin bares brightly against the lowlights, glistening — not silver but crimson; an eclipse as the shadows of a woman that isn't her shrouds him, enveloping. Nsilo is looking now at the paling water on mars, glacier-like and piercing; drowning, drying out from the arid heat that burns the skin of the inhabitable plain. She lingers at the doorway, daring to leave, daring, daring. Daring to tear the wet appendage from his mouth, digits that caress in a manner of provocation included; he slicks his skin with the blood that is hers (and simultaneously not hers); presenting virulent intentions that he knows are suffering and spite and —
Supernovae. Gone are the gleaming stars that glaze the man, killed in the touch that is not hers; it is destruction; self and beyond — a nuclear fusion of incompatible elements. A sun needs to set as the moon rises; that is the order of things. It is the worship of two forces in countenance to one another, staring at the earth that blackens between them; ever wrecking itself.
In the nova, there is so much blood — a firework that pleads to belong, but they only feature in the dark; their beauty is a lie, a second long thing — another thousand planets, tearing one another apart. Implosions of self; of unwilling intent that ends life.
Dorian Holloway is teetering on the precipice of death. Where Nsilo denies capturing the smile, or leering at the moon earlier in the night, those anchors in the sky that revolve and revolve until they might split off their axis and end the life of the other — she cannot look away now, the stoicism that borders on lunacy, a slow tip of the head that has fangs threatening to pierce through her lips. A noise that jealousy will not claim right to, absurd to think that the sun runs at any deadly heat; it is burning, but in a way that ice is a slow thawing. Dragging out over time, where limbs tremble in desperation to live, and survive. Dorian Holloway will not survive this.
Goodbye Icarus. You will never see the sun again. In his death, he moans — a noise rivalling a scream, agonisingly vying for the sun to cradle him closer. There is no mistake in the tip of wings set aflame, or the burst of blood when it boils from the pores. There is no mistake. Castillon can hear the bones shatter under the force of gravity's pull before they are ashen, decorating the substratosphere in ghosting memories. She feels the fragility of bones under her grasp when she crosses the room, a rocket puncturing through atmospheric entry. The pressure of a skull is easily crushed in the pressure of space, time — gravity's constant mercilessness.
Dorian Holloway will watch death, as this is all he's wanted. Who would challenge the sun by any means; millions of years of existence, undefeated. This woman who Nsilo glares at will not take from it; her Icarus claimed. She does not want to watch him wander further from her burning touch; from her flaming death, but she will not look away blindly. So she will not tolerate either.
Castillon has forced him away, to mount the woman baring fangs, knees crushing biceps that try protesting the presence, like she has no right in the severance of limbs.
Enjoy this. It no longer matters who she is thinking of. She will justify all acts as she always does when victory stands to appear like losing; she doesn't lose.
The sun beams as it always does when it burns — tearing nails across the fracturing of a skull as mutilated flesh peels from the concaving face; made so ugly in its artistry. Eyes pop under the strength of buried thumbs that provoke gurgled screams to echo off the walls. Nsilo drowns the sound with a hiss; the sizzling of burning flesh in the violence of interplanetary warfare.
In a quiet rage, the decapitating neck from bloodied shoulders sounds so much like a roar of a black hole. Silent. But, fully capable of deformation in the most grotesque of senses. Blood sprays Nsilo's person and the walls of the lounge as it ruins the Venician. It's over quicker than Castillon willed to watch Dorian's hips grind against the woman he foolishly got his rocket up for. He knows the cost of veering too close to oblivion; the black hole is unforgiving, as is the sun — a supernova, and a meteorite that will pepper him in scalding hot debris.
When the woman is crumbling dustfalls under Nsilo's brutality; a frenzy that has her instantly in front of Anemoia's manager. Fistfals of dust that trickle from between her fingers. A hand opens to violently grip his chin, and delirium slowly fades behind the composure that Castillon shutters into place. She would have handed him the woman's filthy head, had Dorian's victim not been reduced to nothing.
Would you like to choke on her now, Dorian Holloway? She squeezes his chin in threat of another crack, a touch that is tainted by the scene; the first of the night. Punishment enough, to also be his last. She says it all in her mind — before she pulls him forward by his belt, so she can be sure he is present; that he is listening; that he knows.
The sun and the moon — they belong, on other sides of night and day: "Get back to your job, 'Rian." And, whilst she wants to burn the mess from his body and scar him until he will thank her for putting her own there. He might do better to crawl around, licking up the ash if he wishes to live another night — or maybe that will be the real end: "Clean this up,"
Dorian Holloway hangs over the abyss of Saturn - sweaty fingers digging deep into unknown galaxies while blue eyes stare at the black oceans of Titan. Ground control, do you copy? He watches the void, stars in his eyes, red lungs filled with crimson liquid - mouth parted for particles of ambrosia to grace his tongue. Icarus watches the sun scorch the earth, and he wants more. It claws at his skin viciously, this desire - heavens his chest, bulges his throat, laces his trembling breath. Ground control, my helmet has been compromised. Can he breathe in this orbit Nsilo created? The Big-Bang, a great meteor exploding all around him, coating him in ashes and blood. Can he exist in this new atmosphere? Is he nothing but a skeleton in a rock, fossilized, knees bound to his chest and hands reaching up for her grace - begging, devoted, little sacrifice.
ground control
do we get what we deserve?
He has killed before - fight little wolf, have you had enough little wolf - bare hands meeting flesh, meeting blood, meeting skull. Dorian Holloway is a beautiful creature, a lone astronaut in a burning ship, and he carries his mother's face; in his smile, his golden hair, his full cheeks. His father's resentment could not affect his arrogance - or was it the catalyst which created his galaxies? His father was not a beautiful man; frail bones, balding hairline, pale skin, dark eyes. When Dorian stopped punching, his father was nothing more than red - it covered Dorian's chest, dripped from his hands, his mouth. Inhale, exhale. Altitude - The hands that load the gun are just to blame as the fingers that pull trigger. Icarus stands in front of Chaos, of her madness, the aftermath of her explosion. A void familiar to him, a taste in his mouth he swallows, moans.
ground control
He hangs, he holds, he tells himself the abyss underneath is not worth it. His tongue darts out, licks wet lips, spreads the blood on the roof of his mouth, behind his teeth, covers his gums with it. He swallows and swallows, the burning fires of the sun spreading through his skin uncontrollable. The natural reaction to the sun is looking away if direct eye contact is made - cover the iris, surrounded in darkness. Flinch from the pain. He holds her gaze, he parts his lips, he beans with her touch. He burns, and burns, and burns - Moaning in the face of the pain, hungry from the smell of his torched skin. He needs her to taste him, sink her teeth into his flesh and rip out his throat - mark him, claim him, eat him. I love it I love it I love it I love it I love yo- “No.” Ground control, do you hear me? “I don't think you want me to go back.”
His fingers tremble where it digs in the edge of Saturn, his mind throbs with something dark, something real - His mouth waters with desire. He needs more. He will explode in his pants, the birth of a constellation, the death of his self respect. He needs her, needs her more than he needs air. He needs Castillon at her worst, needs her hand gripping his throat, pulling his hair, squeezing his throbbing cock. He needs her inside of him, spitting in his mouth, ripping his skin open. He needs, needs, needs, needs -
ground control
i'm letting go
The fall into the abyss is exhilarating. It is everything he dreamed of, everything he begged for. His lips find hers in a press of teeth and skin, irresistible force meets an immovable object. He kisses, bites her bottom lip. Pull away, stare into the sun. “I think you want me here. To claim me, mark me. You want me out there? Where I can find someone else to destroy me?” He chuckles. “Will you let her have something of me you don't?” Tongue moves to her neck, the salt of her skin. He glady drowns in the seas of Titan. “I think you can use my tongue in your cunt, right now. Am I wrong?”
Dorian Holloway has yet to die - Icarus survived the fall. Melted wax wings hidden beneath a fishnet shirt, he stands tall and proud at the main floor of the gallery; as if he is the main event. He smell of sweat, a variety of perfumes from women he approached when the hand holding his leash moved her eyes out of his orbit, of desire and arrogance in a pretty perfect smile. His hearing aid sits neatly inside his ear, phone tucked in his pocket, arm burning where it touches the sun. It is wrong, to touch a Goddess so freely - to put on display this minimal subtle act of dominance; his arm around a waist belonging to a queen. He should have the limb chopped off for this offense; roasted on an open fire, coated in spices and herbs, offered to her in a banquet.
His heart skips a beat at the vivid image of pristine fsngs sinking into his red, dripping flesh. She would not get rid of him, then. He would always belong to her. Devour me, devour me, devour me -
Pressing himself closer, his lips a shy touch on her hair, fingers caressing hip bones he would normally don't hold - elegant hands pin him down, bend him over, wrap around his hips and guide him, use him - breath careful slow once the stiffness settling in the room dwells on him. Dorian doesn't like it - he prefer to bask in the warmth of his sun, no worries in his head, nothing more than a pretty jewel in her arms for the world to admire, desire. He tells himself one could steal him easily (Medusa whispering she is not dangerous) - more money offered, more powerful, exclusivity, security. Love. He would scoff, if his face wasn't perfectly masked to indifference - Love is useless in a world of wolves. Love is only for Eliza.
He presses closer, the smell of burning skin filling his nostrils.
No, not burning. Rotten. His focus laid so intently on the sun he didn't notice the masterpiece being revealed, the gasps in the room. Flesh piled ontop of more flesh, grey and dead, the bleeding piece the center of it all. He wishes that was him; open, bleeding, in the focus for his sun to devour, to show off. Nothing but a piece. It is not him, it's not her, so the piece unerves Dorian. He studies the room to find a glimpse of his sister, throat bobbing under the force of a dry chuckle. "Well, that sure is something, huh? Will you be buying that?"
The purpose of the moon is to orbit its planet. To follow a trajectory on a clear set path; the gravitational pull does the heavy lifting, and the moon simply, revolves. Around and around, worshipping the rays of the sun and watching the planet below through its rise and fall. It does not speak, argue or protest its role in the system. It simply is. A planet with no moon has no sense of time, direction; or path.
Castillon often thinks of Dorian as one of those inevitable moonrocks, leering down. Appearing at night, and disappearing to other duties in the day. Always there, but his presence becomes visible and damning as he likes to be the thing stared at in the sky. Bathing in the attention of the millions, knowing the moon is there, vibrant in its silvery hue, washing those beneath it in its awe.
Full, half, crescented — a show-off, to be a little slither one night, to full nude when demanding the shift of its planet.
Nsilo doesn't look at the moon, once. Why would she? It is the afternoon. And meteorites do not care for their pathway, veering off course to collide with whatever dares be in their path.
She addresses the woman, as if she were the one who had spoken.
"Please, let me arrange a private room for you both," An offer from the devil in heels, her smile forged on the blackest anvil, gleaming sharp. "You can partake in these activities and pleasures somewhere more suitable, just not here." And it is as though her Dorian is not there and is but a little bird squawking. Moons do not speak. They watch, they push and pull in their singular orbit. They do not go off their paths without reason; a meteorite hasn't struck, yet.
The cardshark leaves little room for argumentation on the main floor when she clarifies to the patron daring to make a scene. Voice low, she beckons, just once: "Blood belongs elsewhere."
Come. The gesture is urging, and security follow suit, curving around to encourage them off the floor, away from the exit. Dorian Holloway may die tonight, but he does not die before another does and he will see death in all its violence. It is punishing, for emerald hues to offer their faux courtesy to a woman whose patronage Nsilo no longer cares for. No fault of her own, that Dorian chose her; she is simply treading on Castillon's turf and dirtying her carpets. Dirtying it all. But she is not finished — never finished. There's not enough blood on the surface of the moon. Dorian wants blood, he wants it bad, then he may have it.
"I can spare him for the evening, of course. I have plenty others I can call on," Castillon leads them further afield, through the closed depths of the bloodhouse that hasn't had its day-to-night shift yet. She takes them through to the back, through the lavish corridors, lined with freshly filled decanters, open doors, some closed.
She finds them an empty room, and waves a hand, offering it to them. Security falls away from the flank, nodding.
Nsilo stands, waiting. "There's no need for a quiet, or fast one. Take all the time you desire." Ruthlessness doesn't always come with blades and horror. It can come in dares and taunts, vicious kindness that never appears as one wants it to. "It's on the house, take your fill."
Dorian is there. It is agonising to know that whilst smeared in his own, delicious blood that drips down his skin. He wears fresh marks; red raw and blooming. They litter his body like a foreign infection, foul and in need of a salve. Castillon would like to do severe, terrible things at this moment because she dares him to walk into that private booth — yet she has not cared to look at him once upon her arrival.
Dorian Holloway is definitely dying tonight. He should have foreseen the consequences of a game he is set to lose ⸻ should've counted his cards, prayed to his luck stars. But what can the moon do but desire? The rings of Saturn cannot shine more than him. He knows Nsilo is no Earth ⸻ she is more beautiful than the ocean bellows, unreachable in ways Mount Everest could only hope to be. A shipwreck in the seas of Mars. A plane crash in the skies of Neptune. Aphrodite from Venus. He did not orbit her atmosphere, could not reach a hand to her burning lights if he tried. He is too far away ⸻ a space cadet adrift. The moon, longing for a glimpse of the sun ⸻ turning, turning, turning, never laying eyes on the beauty of life. It pains him to admit he may never land on her grounds. He will burn forever in his desires, wishing and wanting and unsatisfied.
But the moon shines for all who wish to see, does it not? ⸻ Achilles and his men, Odysseus and Penelope. She might be Cleopatra and he, the snake, but the apple can taste sweet as poison on his tongue. If he makes himself Zeus, who is she to deny him? Thunder bringer. He knows the game; is bound to it by invisible ropes he wishes not to free himself from. Choke me with them, he wants to say, choke me until they mark my skin, until I'm a piece of you. The moon shines for others too. Perhaps Nsilo should be reminded of that.
Helen and Paris ⸻ ships in the night.
Pools of blue remain focused on the sun ⸻ Icarus and his wings, Dorian can feel the wax melting against his skin ⸻ but his fingers swiftly unbutton his shirt, remove it all together. This is the game she wishes to play, is it not? Houston, we are venturing into a meteor shower. His craters merely makeup to solidify his beauty. Who doesn't want the moon? Beautiful beautiful beautiful ⸻ Pretty boy, is that all you can be? Guilt dares not touch him; it knows it has no place on his fingertips. Only gold do ⸻ dark red when he trails the dripping path on his chest, bring it up to his mouth. Moans when the fingers touch his tongue. Eyes on him, stargazing his infinite constellations. His smile is the full moon ⸻ bright, big, open, fleeting. Flesh and teeth meet when he lunges forward, hand tangling in the hair of a woman who tastes like rot. He should know better.
No. He knows better; in the depths of his body, the marrow of his bones, carved just outside his soul ⸻ He should not be provoking a black hole like so. Nsilo is the universe ⸻ collapsing, burning, eating all in its entrails. She is everything. But autumn has passed and another circle is about to be finished, Dorian does not fear the seasons. He does not fear the sun. It is ever present, is it not? Even now, when the moon dares to move in front of it, demanding its attention, she does not leave. It brings him a wicked joy when his eyes lock onto her, hand pushing the woman's head to his neck. He should not, but the pressure continues until fangs are piercing his neck and he is loudly moaning for Nsilo to hear. An eclipse does not last forever, and Dorian Holloway fears he might not as well.
It is thrilling, to watch her, knowing another's touch plagues him. Stains him. He wants to be eaten alive today. He wants her to see ⸻ needs her to smell his lust, know he is willing to let this random, insignificant woman to fuck him. The astronaut has found a planet that isn't her ⸻ Dorian wants Nsilo to be aware of that. He needs her to take action. To grip him by his neck, pull his hair, bend him over. He wishes to bite her neck, drink from her like he is a starved man pulled out of a falling spaceship. His eyes seem to say, look what you have done. But his mouth only begs for more, hips instinctively buckling against a body that isn't hers.
Dorian Holloway wishes to die tonight ⸻ Under her hands, her tongue, her fangs. He will stop at nothing to achieve this.
Five minutes is too long, she knows. An exhaustingly slow tick tick tick that captures every finite movement; the nails; the blood; there's a pair of her own fingers that ghost along the flesh of her lips, mirroring the gesture she is witness to. Invisible senses are brought to life as Castillon's view only deteriorates. In space, there is a red shift; a wavelength of light when a distant object stretches beyond its usual capacity. A phenomenon Nsilo sees firsthand. An experience that rivals its Doppler; it moves away, away on a trajectory that goes beyond her realm of sight.
The red shift is maddening. Seeing red is a term she reserves for the circumstances where loss of control is equally as rare as such shifts. She tells herself it's the same for any of her employ that go off-book without prior permission.
If Dorian Holloway would like to die tonight, so be it. But it will be at her hands, and not the woman who's fingers are exploring his mouth.
Nsilo's attention peaks when she rears back in her chair — too quickly, perhaps. Because the entire room glances her way. They're met with a smile that is so sickly sweet it would make anyone unwell. It's picked up quickly, as she awaits confirmation that the supplier contract is satisfactory; they have an agreement.
"Well?" A faux patience emanating expectancy. She needs to exit this impending inferno. This punishment she does not condone when there is one outside the walls, far more deserving of it. Castillon would — will carve her name in skin, if that's what it takes to get her staff to stay in their lane.
She doesn't recognise how fast she's exited the boardroom, but she is following the path security had previously followed. Anemoia's axis is off-kilter; it's got a meteorite flaring its might nearby. Flames and debris roll from a calm-paced pair of heels, a director's smile. Gentle hands caressing shoulders as she passes, saying greetings in more than one language as regular patrons catch her for a moment. There's blood ringing the air, too public; too early for those activities, mortals still populate the space. Too exposed. Nsilo talks herself into all the reasons this is unsolicited.
There's a careful smile when she leans up to whisper in security's ear, she's spitting distance now. Security nod at her orders. And they close in on the indiscretion — cutting conversation between Dorian's lady and the man she converses with short, it begins plainly.
Do not make a scene, if you know what's good for you.
Dorian, get back to your job.
But she finds herself there, in the fray nonetheless. Flashes of red-tinted vision fade in and out as she approaches. Sharp eyes on a woman hushing firm words to argue with security. "You know the rules," Castillon says to the woman, hiding her amusement. As forced as it may be. She's only echoing security's prior instructions. Voice low, in warning; challenge me, I dare you. "There's only a few; sanguineous activities are for sundown." She doesn't look at Dorian. But she knows, he's right there; smeared with his own blood, glistening in his own sweat; doing everything in his power to not be where he is supposed to be.
Dorian Holloway would not like to die tonight ⸻ a conclusion not difficult to reach when he feels warm blood pooling on his chest, the loud thump-thump of his heart on a speed worth of Ayrton Senna's Mclaren in 1993. It only accelerates with each intake of cold, thrill-heavy air ⸻ he turns the anticipation over on his tongue, and turns it again for good measure before he allows it to fill his collapsing dunes of lungs. It tastes like hot melted shattered glass; burning coal from a firepit; like despair and exultation in one.
Rapture found in a bullet. To the head? To the heart? To the desire turning and slithering in the pits of his stomach, the base of his spine, where his dick shifts unknowing if it lusts or fears? ⸻ He does not question the risk every member of his body is in, when he plays this game. Did Icarus fear death when he neared the sun?
When sunlight touched his parched cold skin, did Icarus cry? Wax wings melting on his spine, he wonders if Icarus screamed. Or did he call out in joy? Basking on the freedom of the fall, the warm embrace of an old friend? He does not know. Euphoria is rare to achieve, and no one dares talk about the darkness lurking around cloud nine. The atmosphere burns when you cross it, yet astronauts do it all for the view still. Is he Armstrong now? Watching Earth from a broken ship, scorched skin reeking of victory? Oozing of pride?
A lonely explorer in search of knowledge ⸻ the answers of the universe he can only find between her legs, beneath her claws, caught in her fangs. She is Rapture. She is Misery. She is the torment that comes in paradise; death breathing life into his broken bones.
She is so close he could reach for her ⸻ Icarus reaching for the sun ⸻ but he doesn't. He smiles ⸻ Like he is sure Adonis did to Aphrodite, Odysseus to Circe. She does not look, and he is nothing but a kid looking at the moon through his telescope. Swallow me, he seems to plead, eat parts of me until I'm nothing but an extension of you. He only knows devotion; to his sister, to this monster in front of him. Rules are meant to be broken; after all, didn't Paris steal Helen from Troy out of love? Selfish and vain and wretched and wicked love. Ruthlessness is mercy upon parched lost spirits.
"We were leaving," he foolishly says because he wants her to hear him ⸻ to know he was going to choose another goddess to worship tonight; another body to fill his, carve itself inside of him until he is hoarse and ashe. He could not. Would not. But she doesn't know that. Cannot know how every kiss tastes like poison when hers is ecstasy down his throat. "Didn't mean to bleed. My bad. I asked for it." He did, didn't he? From the moment he approached this creature not Castillon, he made himself beg ⸻ with his fluttering eyelashes, his open shirt, presented neck. He asked for this ⸻ He flew to the sun, open arms and broken wings. "I'm sure you don't need me for the rest of the night," he dares, mocks, threatens. "Everything is taken care of. Should be a quiet, fast one."
Associates are scrambling into a conversation about updating the contract Nsilo's just picked apart in front of them. All with painted nails and sharp teeth. The boardroom buzzes with the stale energy of balding men, sweating under the scrutiny of a woman they'll never touch. Made more certain, by the fact Castillon's gaze wanders out of the room, to oversee her casino again.
Suddenly — she is suspended, a vacuum roars in her ears; time, space and oblivion are sucked into the aether. In the hole, damnation, ruination and perdition crawl as elongated limbs and gnashing teeth. They envelop the blackened parts of her soul, infecting the edges of her resolve. Laughing sounds in her head, unclear if in pain, or in torment. Dorian catches her gaze, he's blinking tirelessly behind long lashes. It's a purer condemnation to see the flesh, sleek with sweat. Not unlike those in the room with her — but so differently desirable, in skin and bone. The wickedness of his smile is a gun, aimed at her head — no, chest; her bleeding heart, a bullet with its sights on victory. She can already taste the ash of herself fading, souring her tongue. It's not a grin for her. It's at her, she presumes — the woman he's entertaining.
There's no doubt that Dorian knows exactly what he is doing, limbs languid and loose around a patron, losing at a game she's sure Dorian doesn't care to follow.
Maybe, his new distraction may run out of funds, and exit on her own accord —
The casino manager is talking. She cannot hear it, behind glass, and this distance up in the sky of Anemoia. Even if she contemplates shattering the clear screen between them, so she can listen to the music and the hum of the games, she does not. She tells herself she will scold him later, for acting beyond his position. A balled fist will not be the embarrassment of an inconceivable show of power in broken glass. She is not those with barbarian in their blood. But yet, she follows his every intentional movement.
Dorian needs to do his job.
Security appears across the room, padding down one of the stairways to the floor. There's little in the way of major disturbance, Nsilo knows that too evidently in the way they hover nearby, but don't intercept. There's a sigh exhaling, on neutralised features. Solely performative, she draws her gaze from Holloway to the contractors, once more. Leave it for later.
"I assume these adjustments will be the final ones, my time is expensive,"
He leans down ⸻ a moth to a flame, Icarus reaching his golden hands towards the sun; he wonders if Icarus wept when his wax wings began melting with his skin, or if he smile; for sunlight waa touching him and he was enveloped in warm love from the sun. There's no love here, now ⸻ only cold skin he presses his lips to, a corner of a mouth that tastes like his most hated drink. Why is he doing this? For the attention of the sun? ⸻ to be the only planet around her orbit, until he is nothing more but charred marble she can shape?
Choose me, his actions seem to beg, choose me trap me never let me go never let me be without you.
He is not the only ⸻ but he selfishly wishes to be. He tells himself it's because of her money, her power; he doesn't want to share it with anyone else. He can almost fool himself when a cold hand reaches inside his shirt, tracing a path with sharp nails to his chest. They dig into skin, blood staining the red frabic quick as a running river. The sharp pain brings him no pleasure, but he still has smiles when the woman gathers his blood to bring into her mouth with fingers that are presented to him after. She is not looking at him, and when he sucks the digits in his mouth, he isn't looking at her either.
He is Icarus searching for the gaze of his sun ⸻ Paris chosing Aphrodite. He wants her to see his tongue cleaning his own blood of another's woman fingers, wants her to claim him in front of all these people that are unaware of what's going between them. Outside, he is just a pretty face trying to get lucky.
He already feels lucky ⸻ he belongs to her, his universe, exploding galaxies and bright seas. He is hers, isn't that luck enough? But she is not coming, she is not fetching him from sand and dust, placing him in her golden core.
He stands up with the woman, her grip on his waist uncomfortable, parading him around like one of the prizes she's won. He shrugs his shoulder when asked something by the man who stopped the woman for a chat, tuning out the obvious delayed departure as he looks at the office again.
He wonders what she will see. What she will make of the situation. There's lust in his eyes, blood dripping down his chest, parted lips silently daring Nsilo to act.
It isn't allowed to get heated in this office, over conflicting contracts. Whilst pens scribble over printed font, Nsilo is humming. The courier is rearranging the transport of goods and ultimately dragging out the details for as long as possible. She is thumbing through the paperwork, scanning the rework; eyes diverting course as if a gnat is pestering her in her periphery.
It's not a bug when she peeks through the window to see the stark disturbance on the casino floor, but a far more symbiotic creature. Skin splayed out like a challenge to every sharp fang that might passerby, as though it is his only role.
His eyes focus on the woman snaking around him, drawing the pretty little thing on her arm. Fingers almost tear the stapled pages in her grasp. Dorian, could you do your job? If she could will the damn phrase into him, she would. But he should already know that. He's gone off script, as he often fucking does. Usually, it's in her favour, however.
"—Castillon—" her name earns a brief flicker back to the boardroom of tradesfolk. "—Is everything in order?"
Eyes cast downwards to the contract, she's barely reading it now. "Give me a moment," Slow as it might be, her head jerks towards security posted at the door, a gentle nod of her head indicative of encouraging them to go onto the gaming floor — disperse the potential for something unsavoury to be so on display on the main pit.
Security exits at the command and Nsilo trails her gaze back to the window. Dorian's whispering in the other woman's ear now, muscles straining in the suit that's practically falling off of him; it's so dishevelled. A tongue slicks her lips and she leans back in her chair, thumbing the next page of the contract to swiftly end this deal.
A discrepancy means she can't. Eyes flash. "Seven," she says, "Not twelve. This needs adjusting, for bi-weekly. If you wish for twelve, you deliver seventy-one percent more than discussed, and I don't think you can keep up, can you?" Whilst her tone is challenging, it's not primarily irritated by the boardroom, as it is by the sights outside of it.
When his eyes finally meet hers, it's rain in Paris during a chill autumn day ⸻ it's the death of stars, stardust in his eyes filling his lungs with eternity. He feels fear; ecstasy; regret; delight ⸻ Feelings he refuse to unravel hiding in the darkness where a burning sun cannot illuminate. Explosion of galaxies in his chest crevice, with every thump thump of his heart.
The death and birth of Celestial beings ⸻ how can she make him feel everything? She is the Saturn moon he watches through a telescope, he is Pluto untouched by warmth.
A lone astronaut waiting for the moonlanding ⸻ he wonders if she can hear his adoration, from her place above his orbit.
The twich of his lips gives nothing away of the thoughts in his mind, emotions swirling like a satellite out of control. His smirks doesn't falter, his touch doesn't tremble, and the flush of his skin can easily be blamed on the sudden lips of a daring patron on his collarbone.
His eyes draw from her slowly, a ship leaving port, before sunlight dimple is giving its delicious attention to the woman grazing his skin with fangs that feel like barbed wire. A viper going for the kill. Castillon's feel like a sip of water in the dessert, the commemoration of a goal in the championship ⸻ A goddess kissing his skin, blessing him with her velvet touch. It is right; the missing image of his tapestry. Within her touch he is complete.
His stomach stirs when the woman pretends to dig, wrongness crawling up his spine, wrapping around his pipes and choking him with its rotten taste. He smiles, still, laughs so sweetly he could be made of sugar, dares to sit on her lap as he whispers something in her ears. Castillon can't hear, he knows, but he wishes she would.
He eyes security on the floor ⸻ wonders if the lady of the house sent them for damage control, and only curls lazily around the woman holding him. There's nothing wrong happening here; not that the eyes could see. If security intervenes, a scene will be caused for reasons no one will admit. Not Dorian, not Castillon.
"Yeah," he says a bit louder than a whisper, face slightly turned to Castillon's office. Can she read lips? He doesn't know. Still, he speaks, "you can take me home as a prize if you win."
"—in agreement with our previous contract, you supply an increased quantity — no I care not for—" Nsilo trails off, idly reciting terms of a renewal contract for supply for the bloodhouse, with clarity that the teahouse can also be provided for, via the same company. Company, being a loose term for, singular fuck dealing with the drama of hospitals, donors and wherever the hell they find the plasma to spike the teas with, dropped off in boxes that her employees can distribute accordingly. Castillon is looking out the office window overlooking the ground gaming floor.
She's caught one of her managers nearly dancing on a patron's lap. A far cry from the role she'd given him.
It has her tipping her head — distracted by the unprofessionalism of the suited man giving attention to a low-grade individual betting $10 on blackjack.
It's less irking than Dorian smiling, gawking — running his hand over the backside and front of the patron, he's not looking up but at the careless betting happening at the table.
Sighing, she veers her head back to those in the office with her. "—No, I won't move on my offer. I can find another supplier if you want to fiddle your prices."
His neck bares like a butterfly spreading its wings, buttons of his shirt undone and smile threatening to overtake Helios's precious sun. This is not his job anymore ⸻ has never been, truly, in the first place. Still he itches the skin, makes himself open and desirable, hand massaging the back of a beautiful, yet older, vampire whose eyes he sees darkening when he leans closer.
"That's a beautiful hand," he all but whispers in her ear, uncaring for the cards she hold but the money he knows her to possess. Her hands do look well trimmed, the blood clinging under her nails just an icing in the incredibly fucked up cake his life has become. His lips graze her skin, her own free arm curling around his waits like a viper squeezing it's lunch. Blue eyes glance up to where he knows Nsilo sits, hoping to catch the eyes of Castillon with a smirk on his lips.
He should not tease ⸻ she is his boss, his owner, and more powerful than Dorian likes to admit. Yet the thrills of danger the affair gives him make his core twitch, blood pumping rapidly to the organ that mostly guide his actions towards Castillon. He wants her to see him ⸻ wants her to see him flushed, hard, bleeding on the lap of a woman that isn't her, see if there's fury in her eyes. The vampire doesn't bite him yet, and he rubs the spot behind his ear to make his neck more inviting as he continues to fill her ears with sweet words ⸻
She had called as soon as Marcia had left her side, back to the madness that had broken through around them. Leaving her with numb apathy, a heaviness in her mind that made it hard to move. She could hear Marcia's indications like a faraway voice in her head, knew she should move. There was chaos around her, bodies moving in all directions, getting away. Everything so loud and still, Eliza couldn't move, eyes glued to the screen of her phone.
[text] Butthead : where are you?
[text] Butthead : please pick up
[text] Butthead : or at least answer a fucking text
[text] Butthead : don't do this to me dor... answer your fucking phone.
Dorian didn't have a chance to check his phone until they were out ⸻ until he was safe with Nsilo and Eliza wasn't anywhere in sight. His chest feels tight, like his heart will explode if he breathes in too hard. His hands trembles as he picks the device, opening their conversation with tears in his eyes. If she is texting, then she is safe, right?
[text] Stinky: i'm here
[text] Stinky: where are you?
[text] Stinky: i looked for you all around, i couldn't find you eliza
Nsilo is quick to hush him, stem the worry he is vibrating so violently with. "Would I not scent her if she's anything like you?" It's the final tease — and Castillon cannot discern any blood in the fray when Dorian is beside her, bleeding; essence still lingering on her tongue. But she's smiling, confidence fills every crevasse of her being.
She guides him, scared and frantic through the bloodied crowd. Nobody would brave to touch him — or her and keep a head on their shoulders.
So it's a quick survey; a demoness' gaze scours the disarray for several minutes, curiosity forming in place of concern.
"She isn't here." It's a fact, a statement that has her glancing down at the pieces of human — ash of her kindred and tattoo-marred skin bathed in red. None have an inkling of what runs in Dorian's veins; she's tasted one half of a pairing, and she believes she'd know the other. Even if she has no intent to claim his sister. "Therefore, she is not dead, 'Rian." She looks back to him, fingers ghosting his arm, drawing up to trace his collar. A reassuring gesture to make sure he can see that Nsilo would not taunt him in this.
He doesn't know what comes over him ⸻ perhaps blood loss from wounds he can't see. His head feels drowsy, he tastes rust on his tongue ⸻ heavy as the air rapidly filling his lungs. The constant ringing in his ear seems to grow absurdly enough every other sound is drowned, even if his aid safely in his ear. He touches it ⸻ briefly, barely, ⸻ to check before his hand finds home on Castillon. Her arm, her shoulder, whatever he can reach ⸻ he grabs, wishing to feel her around him like a safety blanket.
He knows she is not lying to him ⸻ she would be truthful had she caught a sense of Eliza. He thinks that honesty is what throws him to the sharks, now. Eliza is not here. She is not hurt, but not here. Castillon is not a source of comfort ⸻ not a hold he looks for when in need of love. But he still falls to her, naturally, as if he is cloth of her blood, piece of her soul. He doesn't know if he is bleeding inside his suit, if the wound on his neck reopened, or if he feels weak because of worry.
He doesn't know what makes him nuzzle his face in Castillon's neck, his legs unable to support his full weight. He knows she will keep him alive. She is safe. He is hers and she will protect him. His fingers grasp her dress, eyes blinking slowly as the world around him seems to narrow ⸻ until only she remains. As it should he, a voice in his head calls, but all he can whisper is, "am I going to die?"
She knows that intimately, even without his verbal admission. Dorian is hers to shape — like a wooden mannequin that she might pose in anticipation of painting. Sometimes, she'll even do it all under his instruction. His skin is the canvas and her teeth are the brushes that mar. Red is their favourite colour. Bet all on red.
The alternative is everything on black; the void of denial, an abyssal thing that curls in their stomachs when they war. It's beautiful when they war. A vicious, but necessary evil deriving from sharp smiles and desperate threats.
She dares him to squeeze his fingers tighter, just to see how hard he can go, here. He knows she will not rip apart his sister — there's no need. "Put the dramatics away, tiger. She's ours to protect. You're mine to —" She's caught up in the intensity of it all, tangled in the machinations Dorian makes. It's wry when she brushes a finger the length of his wrist,"—well, you know." don't you?
It's a safer slip of the tongue than her former remark.
After the moment has exhausted itself, Nsilo is back to being the jaws that own: "I'm teasing." a beat, to assert: "Now, as much as I revere this zealous act, I shall have it when we leave." First, his sister. She plucks his hand loose, as easily as he is an extension of self. "Your darling sibling, if she's still here."
You know ⸻ Does he? The truth is simple in its complexity; he too is hers ⸻ hers to hunt, hers to shape, hers to devour. His blood is hers to taste, a wine only her throat will be filled by. But more than that ⸻ well, they don't talk about it, do they? He works for her, a glorified whore in her cassino, and serves as a personal bloodbag often enough the shape of her teeth is carved in his skin. He certainly is nothing more than that, not enough she would risk saving his sister, too.
A shrug of his shoulders, his face morphing into anesthetized indifference, hand falling from her throat to her chest ⸻ a phantom touch that lasts but a second before he pulls away entirely. Their arguments have no place here, now, where everything is already bathed in blood. He doesn't want to fight.
He wishes to touch, mold himself to her body and be protected from the horrors around him. Instead, he rubs where his neck aches and itches, before his legs begin to take him where he saw Eliza last. Hus heart hammers, word going grey. "What if she is dead already? I can't ⸻ I can't ⸻" hand to his chest, knees wobbling slightly, not enough air in his lungs. Faintly, he can hear the voice of his father screaming at him. He feels like he is going to pass out.
He says her name and she can hear it so wantingly. Over the mulling of the vampire opposite them deciding if they wish to fight this battle. They sooner flee, for another victim than attempt to snatch Dorian from arms wrapped tight; spidery limbs curl around him, only like a fly in a honey trap. Nsilo cannot resist to graze a tongue over the open wound, to lap up the trail that stains his once-white shirt.
Messy little boy, she thinks. A trusted one she doesn't like to let go, either. A smile brushes against the injury, a tongue that traces the other vampire's stain of a bite. Castillon wants to make new ones, erase the touch of any other who might taste one of hers.
But now is not the time.
Castillon pulls back, gently craning her neck to peer at him and his request. When he turns, Nsilo loosens her grip on him; nobody would interfere, whilst she's got his blood staining already red lips.
"I can find her." It's said as a fact; that confidence in her ability is practically arrogant. "Holloway blood is mine tonight, isn't it?" She teases. Despite Eliza being no part of Nsilo's game of Anemoia's web. Dorian is so tangled in his role there, that what he cares for, Castillon too will shoulder that. Even if she has a list of those she plans to take beneath a shadowy wing tonight.
Nsilo thumbs the last drops of blood from his neck as the wound slowly eases of its constant flow. She brings it to her lips, and gestures for them to move through the crowd. "Does she taste like you do?" It's provocative, but said in query to know what Nsilo is looking for; what Eliza is wearing would help. "Let's hunt your sister then shall we, Dorian?" She does not share his concern, but she does have a desire to see the man without his worried, fear-filled face.
Her touch makes him shudder ⸻ warm rosy skin breaking out into goosebumps, shivers shooting up the base of his neck. He is sure she can feel his blood traveling in his veins, the flow of it seemingly only moving for her. To her. He is nothing but a bag of blood, a warm meal. It is strange how the thought doesn't offend him ⸻ Dorian doesn't want to think on why his heart flutters at the thought of her fangs piercing his skin.
“Yes,” he breathes out with a blink, as slow as the wheels of his mind are turning. He cares only about Eliza, about keeping her safe, taking her away from this. Dorian knows he would've agrees to anything if it meant saving his sister.
He doesn't want to think about how he would agree to anything leaving Castillon's mouth, regardless. “It's all yours tonight.” I'm yours tonight, are the words hidden in the cracks of his sentence, wide eyes looking at her.
He can't stop the hand that reaches out for her throat at the tease ⸻ and he knows it's nothing but a tease. Anger is under his skin, but his grip is loose. He doesn't want to hurt her. “You will not bite my sister,” he growls through clenched teeth, blue eyes darkening for a brief moment. Images of Eliza caught between Castillon's jaw is enough to make him see red. “You can do whatever you want to me, but you don't hurt my sister, do you understand?”
Markus is ever the centrepiece of an elaborate spectacle — all embellishments and feather flapping. More meticulous in his dramatics than Nsilo gives him credit for. He's usurped the civility and replaced it with a not-so-noble crusade of hunter slaughter.
She supposes, they could argue of virtuous intent all night if they cared for it. De Villiers does seem in the belligerent mood tonight considering his lover's quarrel.
Castillon plans only to sweep up those she has investments in, or use for under a blackened, charred wing. Bring them close, as to be netted in her loving teeth — than in the clutches of the damaged and depraved. The list is short of hunters — barely a couple, more mortals she favours in her circle.
Nsilo finds Dorian quickly even in amongst the fray of fresh hunters' blood — and the spillage of the living and dead is met with a harsh vengeance of those being ambushed. A hand snakes around the man's waist, pulling him back away from a creature springing over the buffet table towards him. Nsilo grins over Dorian's shoulder — she's baring teeth in careful warning to dare try.
"Oh, he's mine," A statement — a one chance to go find another meal for the night, for the masked maniac who stalks closer. Nsilo skirts a thumb across Dorian's waist, blowing a kiss to the stranger threatening to pluck Dorian from her grasp — she teasingly lowers her mouth to graze a fang over Dorian's jaw, to make a point: "Find your own."
His neck bleeds ⸻ a deep unhealed wound left by the older vampire he was chatting with before the chaos. It is why he finds himself in this predicament now, he knows; caught in the dark eyes of a predator wishing to dry him of blood. His white shirt is stained, cold sweat dripping down the back of his neck as he calculate his next move. He won't let this thing stand in his way ⸻ Eliza is alone, unprotected, in the middle of a crowd going mad ⸻
The body against his back is familiar ⸻ in a way he dares not admit. He tries not to think on how that hand fits perfect over his waist, how her head over his shoulder is a comforting weight. Instead, he gulps, moving closer to her. She is strong, Dorian knows, and foolishly he feels safe in her hands. Safer than he would be standing by himself against the other vampire.
He doesn't blush as the woman claims him, barely moves as his skin breaks into goosebumps. His body and his mind are at conflict, he knows. "Castillon," he whispers, practically begs. He is hurt, scared, enamored, and worried. Dorian feels tired, and is not about to pretend his ego means something right now. He wants to make sure Eliza is safe. He doesn't know if the woman can smell another vampire on him, the other's mark, but he hopes all she can smell is the blood. He needs her help. He needs her to wish him. If she does, maybe he can pretend his own desire is merely a payment for her help.
"I need to find my sister. I don't know where she is. I need ⸻ I have to go find her." He shifts in her hold, wishing to run, to get Eliza and leave. His neck drips blood.
“Yes, sir, of course. I ⸻ Yes, no, I understand. Thank you.” Finishing the call, he lets out a disappointed sigh. How could he not be? This is the third job that has turned him down in the past week. Dorian knows he lacks experience in a lot of field, and hiring him is a big leap for many companies, but he hoped for an easier time with his new resume. Of course, hoping and reality are two different things. He knows that too well. He can't help but miss soccer in moments like this; he will never regret doing what he did to save Eliza, but he misses his team. His opportunity. He sighs again. “You don't happen to have a job offer lying around, do you?” He asks the person near him. “I can read lips amazingly well.”
"Oh, honey, you should've come to me sooner. Here, drink this." Harley spoke to the other, slipping them a healing potion. He kept a lot of them on standby, and outwardly he liked to be helpful within the community. A true healer. Everyone has their secrets, though. "It'll speed up the process, but still keep an eye for infections or anything of the sort, okay? I'll give you a salve you can put on it to try and stop any infections." A shadow crossed in front of him, he felt it blocking out the natural light. He spoke without looking up from the wound he was working on, "Can I help you?"
Conversations around him were easy to miss and ignore, even with his aids secured in his ears. Small things caught his attention here and there, but lip reading is difficult from a distance. He does not mean to pry, or intrude — doesn't want to be impolite. But with everything that happened the past few months, he has been keeping an eye for anything that looks suspiciously like magic, inching closer despite his better judgment. He wishes to learn, to know, find ways to help Eliza. Yet, he can't help the walls that build up when the other speaks to him. Call it instinct or assholeness, he doesn't know. “No, no. It's just that —” he itches the back of his head, an involuntary laugh escaping his lips. “I wonder if that works for ingrown nails.” He is not making fun of, not intentionally. He just doesn't know how to approach the subject.
