The sun is setting. The sky is all twilight, pinks and oranges and yellows. You find yourself staring. The sun touches the horizon line.
A mar reveals itself on its skin as if breaking in a shatter.
It startles you, but you do not stop staring. A mar on the sky itself rips open in front of you. The rift is torn apart like cheap fabric as a shadow lifts its head against it, as inky curtains of hair spill out, as the sky falls around it like a veil. You cannot stop staring. The unmistakable shape of an eye rips open. It mirrors the horizon line perfectly. It spots you, looms over you. The next tear opens inside the rift; a crooked smile, full of teeth. You wish you could stop staring.
In comes a whisper in your ear, a breath of voiceless voice:
hiiiiiiiii~
i feel like ive mentioned this before, but the "h" in "h. reisz" often stands for "hypocrite". they loathe the concept of having someone walking around in their psyche and/or peering inside their head... and love doing that to other people. theyre a curious little thing, is all. just browsing :) don't worry about it :) if they like the cut of your jib you will wake up better than when you went to sleep. you may find a treat in your pocket, even. if they don't... well. oh well!
unedited og
yknow the deal. alt versions georg.
first one edited using the default samsung gallery settings, the rest (first included) with an app called onelab
so its just like that. back to their life just like that?
yapping about the ghostie's background with this casanova below bc it is, unironically, crucial early lore. It's not an exaggeration to say he's almost directly responsible for their present marriage
There's a lot I haven't posted & I need to make it clear how much this mummy Leaving messed Rei up.
extremely old doodle depicting the first moment they - a mangled half-bandaged thing post 7th Coil, literal nobody with barely a penny on their pocket - caught his eye; a writing snippet from that time & a summary i wrote before. and only remembered after rewriting the entire thing below. shdjklsk WELL I AINT DELETIN!!
more context about destiny throwing him to reisz to specifically break them just right for the blonde:
The entirety of early Light Fingers had them going on dates with him and having genuine fun while the LF cast were going thru horrors unknown (the Fading Music-Hall singer broken by hammers, for example).
Behold my favourite journal screenshot ever.
If only the world were like this. A lover who promises to wait for you to dream again. do you guys Understand why i became insane about nm. look at this literal omen. rng made it so bro. it made it so i had no choice
That honey-dream (their last honey-dream ever, bc they stopped taking honey + became a Silverer a while later), in the very next nap after escaping the arms of their husband-to-be.
After that hammer of lead they promptly limped to The Smuggler's home + had an honest talk with him. Of course the Reisz was thinking He could be the one in their desired honey-dream. The one who would promise to wait for them, who would join them in laughing pursuits through long grass. Reisz wanted to chase and be chased and be caught and laugh. It wasn't too much to ask, now, was it?
Unbeknownst to them they were with much stronger feelies than the Smuggler probably ever did.
There's this constant juxtaposition between Fun Smuggler Dates in which Reisz fully believes this is how Love must feel like; and Light Fingers horrors. They dressed up to infiltrate a party with him, then dressed up as an orderly to infiltrate the orphanage alone the literal next day, and fun fact:
He left their life the day after Reisz set fire to the Orphanage. (The hole in the back of their head still fresh, readjusting to photophobia and affected peripheral vision and issues with their hands and reading and writing and thinking. And with a new responsibility they never asked for.) The One good thing in their life, leaving them. Leaving them alone. They had never felt more dead inside on their entire months-old life (lol)
It was this that made them understand: I can't do this. I can stand damage. I can stand my broken bones and my damaged organs and my soon-to-be scars, I can stand splitting my skull open and feeling my brain collapse. But I cannot stand this. I can't do this song and dance of beginnings and endings. I can't.
i'll never love again.
And then, well. Then someone that wouldn't leave got on one knee in front of them.
SO, WITH ALL THAT CONTEXT OUT OF THE WAY,
A PROMISE TO REMAIN. I AM HERE WITH YOU.
a gemstone with the deep dark brown colour their eyes were when they met. when they still looked human. pupils round and innocent.
mildly gorier versions + yapping & a writing snippet below the cut
I think one of the most triggering parts of the first half of the Avulsion period for Edward was the fact that, by suddenly falling into the role of caretaker, he gets to be effectively an orderly again.
He gets to care for a victim of moonmilk again. Restrain them, as he was taught to do, as he had once been; try to keep them from hurting themself; try to maintain them hydrated and clean, as it was occasionally needed to collect data; he has to run after them when they break free and, worst of all, he has to pull them from the fires they set when they lost the minimum of self-control they had. He was an orderly having to deal with an inmate at the peak of their insanity again, but this inmate is a legitimate monster that breaks their own limbs to escape from restraints and sets fire to the air with their body and voice.
This inmate is also the only person that matters.
Why did it have to be fire?
He gets to do all that while also having to face how he burned in the beginning and how he didn't have anyone to take care of him and how he had to endure that painful agony all on his own. Because of this same inmate.
And he can't even rejoice about it. He can't, because Fire took everything he had again. It was not fair then and it is not fair now.
But then! But then. Haha. When has life ever been fair to him, right? :)
the ref, which ive wanted to use since 2024 but never had the right Vibes for it up until recent developments + version without any filter layers to resize it lol
u may be wondering how did reisz feel. well for one they barely registered or paid attention to him, initially. he does not even remotely look like a fire. thats a ramble for another post but have this brief interlude that summarizes the transition to the better part of their defeated era
[ A BODY WASHES UP ASHORE. IT IS A COUPLE METRES FROM YOU. YOU DON'T MOVE. THE BODY IS BLEEDING. YOU DON'T MOVE. YOU WATCH THE BODY. IT DOESN'T MOVE. THE WAVES CRASH AGAINST THE BODY. BURNT. BLEEDING. BODY. BURNT. YOU DON'T MOVE. SOMETHING WAS IN YOUR HANDS. SOMETHING WAS CARRIED BY THE WATER. ]
[click.]
[ YOUR HEAD HURTS.]
[ The body coughs water. Coughs. Retches. Says something you don't understand. You don't recognize the words. You don't move. You just look. Silent, cold. Body falling apart. Body bleeding. Body that looks at you in surprise. Body that laughs, and speaks in a way you understand, finally - you're not even going to help us? Voices that laugh. Body that pierces you with silver eyes. Silver hair, silver beard, silver epaulettes. Body that doesn't register the pain of salt on its raw flesh. Body in red threads. Body that tries and body that fails to stand. You don't move. You just watch. ]
[ Strange voices. Mouth that does not move yet you hear it all the same. ]
[click.]
[ THE BODY BEHOLDING YOU LAUGHS QUIETLY. SALTWATER COVERS IT, THE WAVES CRASH AND WATER ENTERS ITS EYES AND ITS NOSE AND ITS MOUTH. WHEN THE WATER RECEDES ITS GAZE IS PIERCING. YOU FIND YOURSELF STARING AT THE SILVER INSTEAD OF THE DARK. ]
[ DO YOU? ]
[ THE WATER WILL REACH YOUR HEAD, IN TIME. ]
[ THE WAVES REACH THE VERMILLION SPLATTER BEHIND YOU AND EAT THEM GONE. ]
[ THE WATER WILL SOON COVER THE BODY,
AND YOU WILL BE LEFT ALONE. ]
[ you, and the salty water down your face, and the trembling in your hands, and the gaping maw inside your ribcage want to go. you have stared at the dark horizon line all your life. the sea – the zee. you think about it and something in you wails. you might have been waiting for the tide to rise and for the water to take you. all along. all along. why? you have nothing. yet something has been lost at zee. something. someone. someone walked into dark water. who? your head hurts. the pain inside your skull and the shivering in your body were all you had, and that was enough,
but now
you want to follow. ]
[ THE HAND IN THE SAND REACHES FOR YOU. BONE AND GORE UNRAVELLED. ]
[ The water around you
squirms and spirals as if alive. ]
[ Two bodies in dark water ]
[ It burrows when you touch it. ]
moodboard for Hyacinthe's first year beneath the earth.
You are alone as you've always been. You find yourself continuously finding new ways to be, and feel, alone. But that's fine. That's the path you've chosen.
Hyacinthe was a girl that believed in justice. She believed in systems and laws and authority. She believed in rules. Why wouldn't she? Simultaneously sheltered and shunned her for most of her life, she only started learning about the real world - and herself - once she stepped away from the rooms she had been confined to.
She swore she would bring her beloved justice and she swore she would never cause harm to innocents on the path she chose to follow.
On her first week below the earth she accidentally murdered a servant.
Smashed her head on the wall with violence she didn't know she was capable of.
She was on her path.
...
She wept that night.
Later, she wept at the cruelty she found in the gardens. Her body wept in blood and pain, stung, cut, bruised.
Later, she wept when the first and only friend she ever made left her a note. "You're delightful. Let's never do this again". The night before had been a surprise that racked her with guilt. But it was. It was delightful. Let's never do this again.
Later, she wept on and off when her investigations seemed to have reached a dead end. Iron Republic. She had no idea how to reach that place. There was so much to learn, so much to be done. The length of her path seemed infinite.
Later, she wept on and off when she had to be confronted with her own powerlessness. She struck a deal to learn things that challenged all her understanding of the world. But she had to concede - maybe she simply never actually understood anything at all in the first place.
Later, she wept on and off when the physical ache became a constant companion alongside the ache in her heart. The burns. The blisters. The migraines. All her notes had bloody tear stains. She was learning, she was still walking, but god above, you don't look this way, do you? You can't see us beneath the earth.
Later, she wept when she finally reached the place she needed to reach. She thought she was nearing the end of her path. She thought once she survived this unbelievable island that represented the very rejection of every rule and law and authority, she could finally rest. She thought-- she hoped. A naïve little girl to this day.
On her first year below the earth she purposefully, permanently murdered a man.
Slit his throat with cold precision she didn't know she was capable of.
on hands, responsibility, and "what's mine is yours"
the ghostie is inevitably going to See In Apocyan some rather personally disturbing parallels between the Seventh Coil/Tiger Keeper and themself :D itll take me a while to get to that though so. why not revisit the start with the 37486 unposted things i have lying around
Edward's hands are their hands.
Responsibility is the strongest thread that kept these two tied to each other, back then. Reisz made sure to leave it clear on day one. Marrying me isn't you getting what you want. Marrying me is a punishment.
He, by all means, should have died. It would be the kind thing to do by their own (naive) beliefs and yet Reisz kept him alive on a (selfish) whim.
If he's breathing now it's only because they let him breathe.
Which means that all his actions– whatever wrong he does, whatever person he haunts— is on their tab. This is not a matter of guilt or remorse: Reisz' own self-administered price to be paid for their whim is the permanent sense of responsibility over their... husband.
If he gets blood on his hands, that's blood on their hands.
You are my responsibility.
His hands are their hands.
Reisz' hands failed them ever since they tried to commit suicide in that coffin.
Caving their skull in left a series of minor issues that made their life more difficult. Small things. Speaking. Reading. Writing, holding a pen. Buttoning and unbuttoning. Delicate lab work. Even opening jars stopped being an automatic action and became an active process. Reisz dropped things all the time– they couldn't trust their hands for a lot of things now. Nothing too bad, though! They swear. Nothing serious. Minor annoyances, that's all.
Edward's hands were burned.
It was true hell to move them at all after his darling dearest set fire to his life, yet he endured it. He agonisingly held tools to write letters upon letters and carve sculptures day and night as palliative care, desperately trying to retain a modicum of sanity while separated from his object of affection. He purposefully burned himself again, he endured it, and the pain helped him through it. After shedding skin twice, the scars remain, although not as stiff as they used to be. They don't get in the way of his life at all.
...
Reisz doesn't ever ask for help in London– after becoming a POSI, they started to concern themself with reputation. They don't want to be seen as weak, or rather, they don't want people to learn their weaknesses. It feels inadequate.
Well, Parabola isn't London. They reach a point where all the minor difficulties add up. One day Reisz dreams of the Orphanage, their unconscious taking them to their responsibility extended, they see this man they're keeping tabs on, grinning, all but glowing just by being near them, and they are so exhausted they give up, they make use of him.
i need you to...
It makes him so happy. Even when he tried not to smile they could still see the false-joy in his eyes. This is far from a punishment, but isn't that sort of thing part of being loved? Isn't this the make-believe they wanted to experience in the first place? It's fine. No one else is here to see. He's seeing it, but he's cut off from London so it doesn't matter. A couple weeks into this marriage and Reisz starts to slowly but surely favour their own comfort.
His hands are theirs.
.
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and yeah in case anyone's wondering how badly rei inadvertently set themself up,
