#!mainverse

[bellaumbra-blog]

new tags thing, blug.

[valentinusluciferum]

        { "Those who have lived have nothing to fear from Death," CAPVT I }

     It’s dark and chilled when the portal opens. Jonathan thinks it might just be him - his father doesn’t shiver at all as he pulls forth his witchlight, as if to check they’ve come out where he intended. He can see his breath and the shadows cast by the stone and not much else. It is quiet but not the quiet of home, where the stars could be seen and the crickets heard in the fields far off. There is the hum of electricity, the rumble of traffic near by.

      His eyes have adjusted by then and he can make out bricks and mortar around them, tall walls of it towering up, windowless on either side. An alleyway or side street. It smells like cold, wet steel and faintly of garbage. He is snapped out of his thoughts by Valentine’s voice.

   “Jonathan.”

       Sebastian isn’t sure where they are, not until he turns and follows his father, obediently,  to the mouth of the alley where he stops. The witchlight is extinguished, no longer needed. Dim, dirty street lights display yet another back street. Boxes and wooden pallets, garage doors and trucks. They walk for a time, in silence. There is a building unlike the others, even from the back. The lot is on freshly poured concrete, the building materials new and pristine.

       He wants to ask what they’re doing but he had a bruise on his face not too long ago that says Valentine’s patience is limited. They get closer, under the bright motion activated flood lights. A video camera in a cage is oblivious to them, hidden by runes. Valentine stops and grabs Sebastian’s a roughly, directing him with a jab of his finger.

    “Here. This is the place. This is a cryogenics facility. It isn’t open to the public yet but they’ve been taking investors. Investors like yours truly. This is where you will bring me - everything is prepared to be available at a moments notice. They will not ask questions and you will not volunteer information. They are simply greedy and foolish mundanes. I paid a fee for their silence. Kill them if they do not comply.”

       “Why didn’t we come during the day and go in the front?” He knows it wasn’t a good question as soon as it comes out of his mouth and he lowers his eyes.

       “Oh, did you plan to open a portal on the main road and stride in with my body? I’m doing us both a favor. Now you’ve seen where you’re meant to end up and neither of us will be lost due to your lack of imagination.” Valentine lets Sebastian go, but he rests his hand heavily on the crown of his sons head. An almost affectionate gesture. He supposes there was a time before Valentine hated him. It is quite probable that his attempts at a young age on a younger Jace soured any softness.

       Jace was always better, but Sebastian, Jonathan, he had been first and he would be the one to last at Valentine’s side. His father’s heavy hand strokes his hair, down to the nape of his neck where it rests, and squeezes. Valentine dipped his head, speaking into Sebastian’s hair, the cruel mimic of a kiss. “If it comes to this and you fail, Jonathan, they will find you and they will devise a fate worse than death. I am the only one who loves you. I am the only one who ever could. If I die, you will be alone. And you wouldn’t want that, would you?”

       They take a portal back, and Valentine retires from all company. The first stage is set.

[valentinusluciferum]

Carried through many nations and over many seas, I arrive, brother, for these wretched funeral rites so that I might present you with the last tribute of death and speak in vain to silent ash, since Fortune has carried away from me you in the flesh. Alas, poor brother, unfairly taken away from me, now in the meantime, nevertheless, these things which in the ancient custom of ancestors are handed over as a sad tribute to the rites receive, dripping much with brotherly weeping. And forever, brother, hail and farewell.

Bᴇᴛᴛᴇʀ ᴛʜᴀᴛ I ʜᴀᴅ ʙᴜʀɪᴇᴅ ʏᴏᴜ, ᴛʜᴀɴ ғᴏʀ ʏᴏᴜ ᴛᴏ ᴡᴀᴛᴄʜ ᴍᴇ ʙᴜʀɴ.

[valentinusluciferum]

      — So, I’m thinking I will just write out Valentine planning his backup, telling Sebastian about it, and the process of Sebastian collecting the human sacrifices etc and then I can thread the completion and the resurrection itself. Mostly because unless I have Seb have sex with a unicorn to bring Val back, I’m fairly certain Sam and I are on the same page with what is ic and what isn’t for Sebastian. That way we can get right into it and commence the end of days, savvy? Like for yes, scream objectionable obscenities for no.