Apr 7, 2021
{The Honey Bee ~ Tavern & Inn}
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{The Honey Bee ~ Tavern & Inn}
Hello Darkness, My Old Friend~
Everything hurt. Pain had settled into her bones like silt in stagnant water, and all she wanted in that moment was a bottle of whiskey, a smoke, and the warm, protective embrace of the men who held the largest pieces of her heart - comforts of which she would find none. Not while trapped in this room, breathing in the scent of dust and stale air.
Victoria had done what she could in what little time had been afforded them, but each breath Riley took was absolute agony, and she could hardly open her eyes without the sensation of a red-hot poker being forced slowly through her skull.
At least the swelling in her face had receded enough to regain sight. At least she'd helped Jasper's sister escape a truly horrible fate. At least there was that. "Aislinn, are you awake?" Hearing her birth name from the lips of her brother snapped her almost violently into full consciousness, her gaze darting to the room's lone exit from behind which he spoke. She didn't answer.
"I am truly sorry for your injuries - I did not think the man capable of such unnecessary violence. You do understand why it had to be this way, don't you?" Riley remained quiet still, grimacing as she rose from the bed and limped towards the door while exerting great effort to keep herself from whimpering with each painful step.
"Still as stubborn as ever," he sounded amused, making her seethe in silent rage. "Maybe a little solitude and self-reflection will make you more agreeable. I'll be back in a while to see if you've had a change of heart." A pause. She heard him chuckle, heard him tap his finger against the door. "Hmph. Just like old times, yeah?" The sound of footsteps moving away echoed in her ears, leaving her crushed by the weight of deafening silence which remained in their absence. It had been years since she escaped from the hell that was her childhood home, but being back in that house, locked in that dim, windowless room made her feel like a scared little girl all over again. 'I''ll be back' could mean hours or days, though without a way to track the passage of time, it hardly mattered. Perhaps she never left. Perhaps her mind had fractured in that dungeon from her past, and everything since had been a cruel manifestation of a shattered psyche. Perhaps she'd died there, and this was her own personal Hell. It was all too much. The pain, the anger, the fear. It overwhelmed her, sucking all the air out of the room, making it difficult to breathe, causing her heart to beat so wildly she feared it would burst from her chest. There was only one thing to do in that moment, only one thing she could do; roughly collapsing to her knees, leaning against the door to her prison, she came undone, choking on silent, gut-wrenching sobs until succumbing to the merciful pull of a deep, dreamless sleep.
((Mentions: @wicked-dalliance @booksinbloom @garrett-lionsroar @tythis-dielturas @jasper-quinn))
The finest black worgen pelt a woman could by on the black market cover the wooden floors of her private home. Her heels dragged over the pelt tearing at the fur and ripped at the hide. Restless she strolled back and forth over it.
Below her, a map laid across her coffee table. Dots shifted on it across the world moving on a whim. Two dots moved on her map, standing in Duskwood together. One had it seemed to have track down the other. Foolish girl.
Transformed imps curled up in their black snake forms sleeping among themselves in a pile near the fire. Should she toss one out the door to be her eyes? Would the other notice its new familiar following them around?
No, for now, she had to let the focus lay on the noblewoman who was stealing hearts left and right. How proud she was of the little lady for feasting with such gluttony even when it seemed to turn against her. Word would spread the name fast, many would come to meet the uprising house. While Maeskia had little love for the games of nobles, it was her blood. Her own Ravenmourn lines once stood among the elites. By habit she would want to be there to hear the stories. To breath the drama. Too much to risk to send the vipers, for now she had to wait.
“I really don’t know why you’re so worried. She probably stayed with Jasper last night.”
“That isn’t like her, Garrett. You know that. She would have come home, regardless.”
“You worry too much, Ty. Come on, she’s going to be here with a hangover any minute.”
Tythis was pacing around the kitchen with his coffee mug in his hand. He kept looking outside the window, wandering a few paces left, turning around, looking out the window again, and then pacing right. He was like a saber in a cage. Garrett, on the other hand, sat at the table with the morning paper, his coffee idly sipped and his reading glasses perched on his nose as he flipped a page every now and then.
Riley had left the day before, promising to just have a few quick drinks with the Red Headed Ruffian before being home for dinner; she never arrived. At first the two men thought little of it, figuring their raven haired beau had just had a few too many and couldn’t quite make it home. She had various friends around the city, and it wasn’t out of the ordinary for her to end up stuck at the bar with a few friends for longer than intended.
It wasn’t until she hadn’t shown up for morning coffee that really got Tythis worried. He had been the first to wake, having hardly slept, and instead wandered around the house brewing coffee before Garrett finally rose from the dead to join him. What all happened next was quiet binal in its domestic normalcy: Tythis the overly concerned mother, and Garrett the nearly indifferent father.
“She should be home by now,” Tythis said again, stopping near the kitchen window to peer out into the streets of Boralus to try and see if he could see anything. It was just the usual morning crowds of people filing to the market. No sign of Jasper, or Riley. Nowhere.
Garrett sighed, realizing he wasn’t going to get any actual reading done, and slowly folded the paper before setting it on the table. He took his coffee and got up, wandering behind Tythis and loosely wrapping his waist with an arm. “I’m sure she just slept in, Tythis. You worry too much. This is Riley we’re talking about. She’s just working off a hangover with Jasper and she will be home soon to coffee and cuddles. Okay?”
Tythis himself wasn’t so sure. He had felt the loss of a lover once before, had the sting of it rip through his heart. Though many years had passed, he did not think he could manage another one again. The dread and anxiety that had settled into his chest was too real to be a coincidence. He knew when something wasn’t right, could feel it on the air even if he wasn’t within his beloved forests. Something had happened, he just knew it to be true.
Garrett brushed a kiss against the Kaldorei’s temple, briefly taking Tythis from his thoughts as he looked to the grizzled old sailor with a sad smile. “I hope you’re right Garrett,”
“Come on. Let’s head upstairs and take a shower and get ready. That way when Riley gets home, she has two clean boys who can help cook her breakfast and brew her coffee. What do you say?” Garrett was trying to lighten the mood, take Tythis’ mind off the anxiety that settled in his chest, and he appreciated that, he did.
However Tythis just couldn’t shake the feeling something was wrong.
( @blue-eyedraven ) ( @garrett-lionsroar )
Starscream: Trauma? PFFT-! What trauma?
Starscream (internally): AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
“It’s time. What do I have left to lose?”
@ourcollectivefantasy @valzilla-the-keen
"This is stupid. This is so fucking stupid, what are you thinking?" Riley stood before a full-length mirror, where she'd been standing for the past several minutes trying to talk herself out of what she was about to do. It had been some time since she'd last seen herself decked out in a full set of armor, and while there was a seed of dread growing in the pit of her stomach, she couldn't deny the rush of adrenaline pumping through her veins as a result. Soft, flat-soled, knee-high tactical boots were laced tightly up the front, dark leather pants were donned, darker leather straps pulled snugly around her thighs, a dagger rested at each hip, throwing daggers stored in the hidden pockets of her tunic and bracers, and a small collection of vials were carefully concealed within the pouches of her belt. The dark fabric of her hood and mask hung loosely about her shoulders for the time being, her ebony locks gathered into a ponytail at the base of her neck. There was something comfortably familiar, even cathartic, about getting herself ready for a mission, and it always made her think of Malcolm; his absence had been felt deeply, every day, but it was times like these that she missed him the most, and whether it was a force of habit, part of the ritual, or just an absentminded gesture, she felt the weight of the key in her fingers as she lifted it to her lips, leaving a kiss there before tucking the trinket back beneath the front of her tunic. With a sigh rumbling in her throat, Riley shook her head, pulled her gaze away from her reflection, and swiped her pack off the end of her bed by its strap with enough momentum to hike it up onto her shoulder on her way out to the front room... and the three males she'd left waiting while she got herself ready. Stanley yipped happily, shaking his entire backside as he was scooped off the floor and into the loving embrace of a woman who was reluctant to leave the little one behind. "Behave," she whispered, grinning as she caught his tongue across the tip of her nose, coming to a stop before Jasper so she could deposit the feisty fuzzball into his arms.
"I'll be back, Jay. I always come back, it's one of my best character flaws," her lips curled into a smirk, and though it was far from her normal levels of snark, it was surely the first real glimpse of his friend he'd seen in weeks. She rolled onto her toes, one palm pressed flat against his right cheek while she planted a kiss on his left, and pulled him into a hug. "Don't burn the place down, yeah?" She teased, pulling away so she could turn and address the towering blue elephant in the room, folding her arms across her chest as she peered up at him, one dark brow arched high. "Alright, Big Blue. Let's go save our friend from that glorified tree-house you call a city."
(( @jasper-quinn & @baelar-maeranar for mentions! <3))
In My Darkest Hour Pt 2: Dreams
The moon hangs bright overhead, and the breeze is soft and cool. He can see the soft silver of the crescent from just beyond the trees, but the quiet whispers of the forest do not grace his ears. It’s quiet all around, eerily so, but try as he might, he simply can’t get up.
He’s laying on his back, vulnerable, and trapped, but the moon overhead is too beautiful to ignore. He casts a hand upwards, determined to feel the soft curve of his Goddess cheek, but instead something lands upon his outstretched fingers.
It’s pitch black, only the gloss of its feathers reflecting the moonlight. He half expects hollow eyes to stare straight into his soul, but instead the avian looks upon him with with crystal eyes so clear they were like the sea. They are mesmerizing, those eyes, unlike anything he had ever seen. He feels his hand move of its own accord, up to softly run a knuckle down its chest, but he hesitates. It caws once, twice, and then it speaks.
“Wake.” It squawks, midnight beak preening beneath its wing. “Wake.”
The white hot sting of the whip, is what jolts him from his dream.
“Ahh, there you are,” Coos the pervasive voices overhead. “Did you have a nice dream?” The shadows of its fingers softly caress his cheek, he recoils away from the icy chill of its form.
“Do not withhold your mercy from me, My Goddess,” He whispers, a fevered prayer on chapped and broken lips. “may your love and faithfulness always protect me...”
“Again, with the praying,” The voices softly mock. “Do you not see how your Goddess has abandoned you? You, of such reverence, and faith. Surely she would have come by now, if she truly did care.” The icy tendrils surrounded his limp frame, and cradled him in their chilled embrace. The rattling of his chains, was all he had to remember he was bound - a prisoner to these perverse beings - and at their mercy.
“Why don’t you pray to us instead? Hmm?” The voices Whisper, soft like lovers side by side in bed. “We can free you of these chains, if you but worship...”
Slowly, the voices set him back before their perverted alter, where they had bound and chained him, forced his body into a permanent state of kneeled reverence. The shadows danced about the stonework, the tendrils hissed softly in his ears. If he prayed, it would all stop. If he prayed, his chains would be lifted.
He felt himself struggle to his knees, his ankles and knees bound beneath him, his wrists chained together. The shackle about his neck felt heavy, like the weight of this decision were set there along the metal. He pulled his bound wrists to his chest, and lowered his head - a reverent acolyte at the alter of perverse shadows.
Yet, he could not stop thinking of the dream. Of the raven. He knew those birds were omens, or he thought they were, but the crystal of its eyes was welcoming, not hollow and black like the visions the shadows sent before. A newfound resolve overtook his heart, and with a stalwart tenacity, he prayed all the harder.
“For troubles without number surround me; my sins have overtaken me, and I cannot see...”
The voices all around seem to recoil in rage. The whip cracks down harder, the tender skin of his back torn asunder. They would see his moontouched blood bathe their alter - one way or another. “SHE HAS ABANDONED YOU.” They cry, a cacophony of mangled voices so tortured it’s hard to hear.
“They are more than the hairs of my head, and my heart fails within me.” He whispers fervently, his eyes closed as he endure another crack of the whip. Within his mind flashes the raven, and its crystal eyes. Another whip crack. He sees the mangled face of a beast, with brown and tan fur, his visage gentle and trusting. The whip falls once more, but when he does not stop his fervent praying, something slams into his shoulder.
He cries out in surprise, his body roughly forced to the ground, and upon impact, he feels his shoulder give way, and slip. He bites on his lips to stop a noise of pain, he would not satisfy them.
“Be pleased to save me, My Goddess...come quickly, my Moon, to help me...”
The voices howl and rage above him, a wind so cold it cuts daggers into his skin whipping up about him. The whip falls harder, the voices foaming and snarling in their rage. “She has abandoned you,” they seethe above him, their feet soaked in his sanguine blood. “Soon you will see that we are right.”
The whip does not break him, so they tighten his chains, and set him before their alter, his hands bound in reverent prayer to the cold stone. He would not sleep. He would not dream. He would not be free until he gave them what they wanted.
They would break him. One way or another.