#{ self ;

[sobreviviir]

          Kraggan Ruumzis by @theboltboy

[galenvance]

(i stand alone beside you.) | self

                                                               Twelve years. 

Twelve years of his life, Galen had lost to the Lion’s Keep. He could measure the years in many ways, in coins or in insults or in sweat; he could measure them in how many words had been spoken to him that actually mattered. In how many ( how few ) people he’d met that he’d be glad to see again in he future. 

But now, watching the home he’d known for nearly half his life burn to the ground...

Well, for such a towering structure, the Lion’s Keep suddenly seemed so insignificant. It would burn and burn, the fires would blaze for a long while before the rocks crumbled into nothing, but at its heart it was just another building. It wasn’t special. It wasn’t immune to fire; it would be licked up by the flames and turned to ash, just like a common hut. 

One of the towers crumbled suddenly, sending an explosion of light up into the sky. It seemed that the sparks nearly touched the stars. And still, the Keep burned. He couldn’t keep watching, he knew---he had things to do, food to procure for Hailey in thanks for the shelter she’d provided, a trip to plan---but Galen still found himself watching the flames. Even from a distance, he could feel the inferno’s heat twisting with the heady summer air. 

Soon, the place he’d lived would be nothing more than a memory. The past twelve years he’d lived, all the things he’d done, the good and the bad---they’d all be gone. His room, Zion’s bed, the kitchens, the observatory, his office; the velvet, the silks, the polished wood---gone, gone, gone. 

                                                 Nothing left.                                                              ( Insignificant. Beautiful. )

Galen closed his eyes, seeing the flames dance against his eyelids. 

Despite---           despite the thick roiling guilt that had been in his stomach for days weeks;           despite Antony and Alycia’s pale bodies laid out to be tucked into their tombs,           side by side both in life and in death, thin, deep-red rings lining their necks;           despite his sharp tongue ruining the best thing that had ever happened to him,           cracking the most important promise he’d ever made; (I’m sorry, so sorry, I l---)                                                                                                                       ---he felt free. 

Finally, he turned away from the orange glow off in the distance. What was done was done, and he had no reason to linger any longer. He’d sealed his own fate and now he had to deal with it, but the prospect of building a future wasn’t as daunting as he thought it’d be. Lonelier, perhaps, than what they’d he’d been planning, but he’d been alone before. It helped that he could go anywhere, for the first time in his life. It made him feel light, despite---everything.

Highmeadow was supposedly beautiful this time of year. 

[celinereece]

G L I T T E R ;

CIVILIANS:

Before participating, please ensure you have read the event.

The hour for everything to change has arrived. The free folk have spilled into the city, but they don’t make for the houses to burn or for the civilians to capture. Their eyes are on the Keep, and it is soon that the citizens of Westedell discover why: the lords and ladies have been taken hostage within. ( The entire Keep has been taken hostage, with no signs of salvation in sight. ) The wisest thing for the civilians to do would be to stay out of sight, but we know that not all will do such a thing. What is it they think as they see the home of their King taken over by those who want justice against the Vitellos? What is it they plan to do: allow it to happen, fight back, or something else altogether? Remember that the free folk will leave most civilians alone, but if any come forward to fight — the warriors will fight to kill. In a time of upheaval and danger for the civilians, it is now that the rest of the world learns who they really are.

“i feel like god; alone.” 

PARA RESPONSE: { i’ll flay you alive. }

      "Hm.” 

Celine pinched her lips together in thought as she watched the chaos unfolding around her. How messy, she mused, edging a bit farther away as some poor overly-brave fool was disemboweled just a dozen feet away. Free folk kept surging deeper and deeper past the walls of the Keep as the Vitello knights stationed there strained under their fury. There were a good number, she noted, but the red-and-gold knights were falling very quickly under the northerners’ weapons. 

                           It could have had something to do with their green-and-silver counterparts, who weren’t even attempting to help them. 

She watched in curiosity as the men and women---she assumed they were of another rich family, knowing at least the Vitello colors---barely flinched as their fellow knights were cut down, standing to the side stoically with their swords in their sheaths. The free folk milled past them as though they weren’t there, as though they had never been a threat. 

These must have been the ALLIES Illias spoke of. She looked on, dark eyes drinking in the carnage. 

Funny enough, she didn’t see any of the folk she knew. No Neilson with his heavy bear-furs and impressive beard; no flame-haired Olena with murderous eyes. No Orell-who-would-make-a-very-handsome-wolf-wouldn’t-you-agree? or incongruously friendly Illias. Oh, wait---there was Janelle, orange hair brilliant in the dying sunlight and eyes black with khol and warpaint. The sight made Celine smile bright and amused, everything slotting into place. Because if she was here, watching over her people’s progress, that meant that the others---

         Pain in her shoulder.

                                                                                          “---!”

  A knight gripped the witch hard, completely oblivious of the wide berth the invading free folk had given her. He was yelling at her to get to safety, shaking her as if she were a rag doll, as if he had any right to touch her, and---

                                      No. 

No, that would not do at all. G O L D glittered along Celine’s hands and lit up her eyes---and maybe she would help the free folk after all, just as Illias had asked.

[fortisvenxtor]

➵ THE SIEGE .

ALLIES OF THE WILD:

Before participating, please ensure you have read the event.

The hour for the free folk to retake their freedom has arrived. Warriors are donned in their war paint and traditional braids, and each has made their peace with the world. ( If they are to die, they believe they will join the stars as vibrant heroes. ) While some were left behind in the encampment outside the walls, the majority haven taken up arms. They know the plan: to serve as a distraction as the Rivers family and company — Neilson, Illias, Orell, Olena, and Helena — are let inside the city by Pierce Sommers and Arthur Belfast and then let into the Keep itself by Galen Vance. 

In their determination to find the Vitellos, they may come across a few knights who remain loyal to the royals. How will they react in this direct confrontation with war? As they find other lords and ladies in their hunt, they bring them forward as well, shepherding them all into the throne room to await judgement, although some do not come easily. For all the speeches and words the free folk cling to, it is now that the rest of the world learns who they really are. 

“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”

PARA RESPONSE: RULING ALL BUT MYSELF --- (now my night is laid to sleep.)

      The coppery-thick splash was hot across his face, but it didn’t make him so much as blink. He was ALIVE in this moment, lips pulled back from his teeth as he dug his knife deeper into the knight’s fool head, helmet knocked off in the dust and hair fisted tight through his fist. A final slash to free his knife from the mangled mess sent another splash across his arm; he just grunted as he shoved the body away, pulling back into the tight formation the five of them had kept. 

                That last one had dived at Neilson. They could tell he was their leader. 

What they didn’t know was that to get anywhere near him—near any of them—they’d have to get through El’s goddamn claws and fangs, and they were sharper than anything even the forest-witch could’ve conjured. He’d been waiting YEARS for this, had wanted nothing more since the moment he’d held Myranda’s death-pale face in his hands and screamed his pain into the trees; it was a pact sealed in salt and copper between those who called themselves “Kings” and those who truly owned the land—and none of the Vitellos’ simpering half-trained knights were going to stop him from getting the  R E V E N G E  he’d been promised. 

He looked like carnage, like fire and blood and the crack of bone, hair cut and braided by Janelle’s careful hands and warpaint blackening his eyes. The heavy pelts of a dozen predators ( peerless before they’d met him ) sat on his shoulders, stitched together with care by the woman he’d lost, and shouldn’t that have been a warning? That was the thing about the kneelers, they were blind—they’d run into certain death for porcelain-doll rulers who didn’t give a fuck about them. Maybe El would mourn their foolishness a little when he cut their numbers into his flesh, one-five-ten-more, would regret cutting them down—

                                                                        ( He wouldn’t. )

The doors opened for them, and for a moment he felt his stomach drop, was sure it’d be more soldiers, and he’d put himself in front of family—but Vance stared back at them like a statue, expressionless. He was gone quickly enough that they could’ve dreamed him, and El didn’t care enough to question it—just pushed forward with the rest of them, dripping blood and tracking dirt in their wake. 

                 The halls of the king’s castle were empty, echoing, ghost-like.                  They held thousands of stories, and El knew he’d enjoy burning                  the building the ground. Maybe it’d burn this vicious, murderous                  part of him away with it. He was thirsty for blood, but just barely                  enough to cover the ache in his bones, to quiet the quiet voice in                  his head that sounded like a silver whisper running between trees—

“You only need to survive a bit more to return to the home you’ve protected for so long.”

                                He kept her voice in his mind. It’d be over soon. 

There was no one in the halls for him to attack; they’d made it into the dining room, an abandoned table overflowing with food at the center. El scoffed to himself, half-disgusted but with so much anticipation thrumming in his veins that he was half-amused as well, picking up a jug of wine and raising it to his family with a cruel twist of his mouth. 

“Long live the King, aye?”

[iapetxs]

his R E D right  hand— { iapetus }

                                     you’ll see him in your  n i g h t m a r e s ,                                                  you’ll see him in your  d r e a m s ;                          he’ll appear out of nowhere, but he  a i n ’ t  what he  s e e m s . 

                                                                ☩

      Phillipe Vitello, once Poseidon, the proud Lord of the Seas, was dead. Iapetus knew this because he had just finished washing the blood from his hands. 

      Likely the only good thing about the terror that had swept through the Lion’s Keep was that its security wasn’t quite what it had once been. Almost all of the knights who hadn’t been turned to stone in the past month or weren’t currently guarding someone the King and Queen had deemed important were off watching the dungeon’s overflowing population of prisoners. (Which was really quite fair, because with everything that had been happening inside the Keep, none of the commomfolk who weren’t obligated as servants had any desire to go near the towering building.) This was good news for Iapetus, given that the tallest man this side of Westedell wasn’t particularly inconspicuous. Small victories. 

      The King’s uncle had, of course, been beyond distraught at the death of the heir. Distraught meant drunk meant easy to drag from his bed in the middle of the night. And what a fun time they’d had together after Iapetus had been reunited with his old friend. 

      Fun for him. Granted, he didn’t blame Poseidon for not enjoying their moonlit meeting as much as he had; after all, Iapetus has been planning it for centuries. 

      First went that silver tongue; then he knocked out the perfect teeth. (Not another word from you.)

      Second went those blue eyes; then he shoved them down that gaping throat. (Never again to see the light.)

      Then he broke each of those clever fingers (no more harm can they do); then he bashed that pretty face in (no more women can it deceive); then he shattered those strong legs (no more land can they cross). And when he’d dragged the whimpering wretch to sit beneath the King and Queen’s window and his guts were spilling red red RED across the green green grass, Iapetus took the man’s prized trident (never again to see battle) and shoved him down on it like a stuck pig. Fitting. 

      It was only after he’d left the scene, the night so very calm as the river washed the red from his hands, that Iapetus let his shoulders slump and his eyes close for a moment of respite. Of peace. 

      It had taken so long to exact revenge for the untold horrors his three nephews had forced upon his family that he thought it would never come. Finally. Finally. And even in his satisfaction, it didn’t seem like nearly enough---an hour of torture to match the centuries he and his sons had survived? A handful of injuries when he had survived millions? A single death when Prometheus had felt thousands? It wasn’t enough, but nothing would ever be after all they had seen and survived. 

      But Zeus and Poseidon were rotting in Tartarus, and Olympus was waiting for them. 

      (One more to go.)

      His hands clean, he took a deep breath and returned to the Lion’s Keep. His family was waiting for him.

[galenvance]

the event

GALEN VANCE:

Before participating, please ensure you have read the event.

With the death of the Crown Prince of the Seven Kingdoms, Antony and Alycia Vitello have vowed that they shall not rest until they find the culprits. They see their enemies everywhere – even among their oldest friends. They plan to question all, throwing those in the cells of the deepest dungeons for the night if they feel they do not gain a satisfactory answer. They intend to drag all those to trial who may hold a connection to the monster, and if a swift justice cannot be doled out there, they intend to do it themselves.

The prisons are overflowing, and the King and Queen have called open all they can to assist with it. Knowing Galen would have little conflict of interest in the place, they sent him down to the cells to help out the guards with the unruly prisoners. 

“Because he could not afford to fail, he could not afford to trust.” 

THE RESPONSE: { HELL IS ROUND THE CORNER WHERE I SHELTER. }

The world had gone mad. 

A night ago Galen had been roused from his writing by familiar screams, had run out of his room to have a young serving-girl sprint straight into his arms with a face ashen-pale, trying to gasp out what had happened from between numb lips. He saw quickly enough even without her help, saw the statues of guards (good men, dead men) littering the halls, and—

Well, everyone in the Lion’s Keep knew how the story ended. 

And so he found himself in the dungeons, of all places, the memory-sweet scratch of coarse fabric against his skin and the heaviness of chainmail weighing against his shoulders like his cloak usually would. A guard, really—how was he suited to this at all? He could perhaps intimidate prisoners (who didn’t know him) with his size and he could surely restrain someone if it was needed, but he would probably be useless if things came to blows. 

But it was alright. He was finding ways to keep himself occupied—even though he knew that his absence in the above-ground floors of the Keep meant that the people he was meant to take care of were on their own. For now… he could stomach that. Because for once, there were others who needed his help more.

The prisons were overpopulated, practically overflowing; full of Lords and Ladies and servants and knights alike, people who were frightened and hungry and weak. Little to no food or water was being offered to them, no creature comforts as far as the eye could see, just the cold and the damp and the gnawing of hunger and the disinterest of exhausted guards. 

Galen had always had such a SOFT heart. These people would not starve; their lips would not crack from thirst. He would take care of them, as he always seemed to take care of those lacking the Vitellos’ favor. 

This was nothing new for him; another day, just without sunshine.

[iapetxs]

the event

ISIAH BALOR:

Before participating, please ensure you have read the event.

With the death of the Crown Prince of the Seven Kingdoms, Antony and Alycia Vitello have vowed that they shall not rest until they find the culprits. They see their enemies everywhere – even among their oldest friends. They plan to question all, throwing those in the cells of the deepest dungeons for the night if they feel they do not gain a satisfactory answer. They intend to drag all those to trial who may hold a connection to the monster, and if a swift justice cannot be doled out there, they intend to do it themselves.

Even in his state, Antony would not be so mad to take on the head of the Balors directly. Instead, he went to the Lady and Lord Balor with a proposition: instead of marrying their son to the adopted daughter of a dead king, marrying him to the most sought after prize in the Realm – Halle Ogden. Allowing them to think they have all control, he hopes to keep the bond between Balor and Vitello while simultaneously eating away at their happiness.

“When you know what a man wants, you know who he is, and how to move him.”

THE RESPONSE: { UNTIL MY BLOOD BOILS ———— }

      He sat as still as a statue, firelight flickering over his face and casting shadows in the hollows of his cheeks and the cut of his jaw. His cut-from-ice eyes glowed in the light, sharp and attentive and—so, so very cold.

      They faced the King together, the fireplace roaring behind them and bathing them in golds and reds and blacks; his love, she glittered like a jewel in the warm light. Between their high-backed chairs was a table where their hands were clasped, her slender fingers held in his grasp with the ring he’d given her more than two decades ago casting reflections of light over the walls.

      They were forbidding. They were stately. {They were barely holding themselves together.}

      And with every candied word the mad boy-king spoke, Iapetus’ gaze only grew darker. He saw the red-rimmed eyes, the half-crazed twitches of his movements, the curl of his lips; this was a man in grief, but no matter how deep he reached within himself, the Titan could find no sympathy for the former god of war—Zeus’s pale, pitiful reflection of the Titans’ own Menoetius. 

      Menoetius, who was rotting in the dungeons under their feet, T A R T A R U S all over again, except this time Iapetus wasn’t there to P R O T E C T his boy——

➛    They had awoken in the night to hear shouts and the clank of armor and the hisses of drawn swords as their quarters were stormed and their boys were dragged from their beds, three-four-five armed men barely enough to hold Is Iapetus back as he strained towards his sons, roaring his rage as they yelled for him to stand down and dragged his arms back and forced him back into Charlene’s hands with her nails digging into his shoulders as he was ordered to stay in their room because this was just routine and everyone was being summoned and his sons weren’t special if you don’t stay calm My Lord we’ll have to take you with them—

      Her nails pierced into his skin and he bared his teeth. He didn’t move towards the door again as they departed, locking the Lord and Lady inside their gilded chambers.

      A THREAT dressed as a BLESSING: the King giving them the Realm’s prettiest little prize in place of the dead King’s bastard daughter ( the woman Menoetius would surely die for traded for bread ). An end to the hunger clawing at their people in the Ironmoor as the Ogden family opened their coffers for their powerful in-laws, a fixed position of honor with a girl of proper lineage in their son’s bed. 

      They were not giving them this girl out of kindness. They were trying to tear them apart, forcing their hand and backing them into a corner like trapped animals. ‘Take the offer,’ the Vitello boy’s dark eyes said, ‘Take our generosity and take your son’s hatred, watch him turn against you as you take away the one thing that is his in this world to feed your people. Aren’t I clever?’ 

      No, he was not. He would rue his mistakes. He had cut Iapetus away from his children, had buried them deep underground where no warmth or human touch could reach them. Powerful Menoetius, clever Prometheus, foolish Epimetheus, enduring Atlas—suffering again, suffering as they had never been meant to in this life ( not again, not again, not again— ) and Isiah had been fraying at the edges, unraveling from the moment he caught Atlas’s terrified blue eyes in the moonlight framed by the glint of sharpened metal. Isiah was patient, Isiah could wait out years, Isiah could spin webs and drop pretty words and smile charmingly and whisper allegiances; but what had Isiah achieved in his slow, clever plotting? 

                                                             N O T H I N G.                                He had done nothing. And his sons were paying the price.

      Isiah was too clever for his own good, too patient and too calculating and much too cool-headed. He would not do. He was not enough. He needed to be — m o r e . And so he closed his eyes and breathed a quiet breath in the stillness of the night, and among distant screams as others were dragged down deep and with the scuff of soldiers’ boots still on the marble floors of their broken family’s rooms, IAPETUS AWOKE.

        FOOLISH CHILD, YOU KNOW NOT WHAT YOU HAVE WROUGHT.

      The fire crackled merrily, and they were in the King’s company. It was the next day. All would be well, they were assured. 

      Iapetus smiled.

      “Your offer is indeed generous, My Liege. My Lady and I request some time to discuss our situation, and we will have a response for you forthwith. Thank you kindly—and our deepest condolences. If there is anything more you need in these trying times, give us the word.”