#i: soa

[enrax]

next to you

When Junji got to the Gangnam bar, the party had just started kicking in. Glitter, giggles, pastel colors, the pulse of upbeat pop music - everything was youthful and contemporary and infinitely not his scene. Everyone smiled at him, and four vodkas in, he smiled back. 

There was only one reason why he was at this bar. Soa. Her flat was around the corner, and though this wasn’t a place he could imagine the vampiress spending a considerable amount of time in, it definitely had proximity and prestige on its side. The kind of place Soa would make a brief but impactful appearance before going to haunt a more suitable location. 

While he sipped on his fifth vodka, he idly listened to the talk of the patrons around him, discussions of relationships, idols, sex, work, clothes. He was drunk enough to be genuinely heart-warmed at their attempts to include him in these conversations. Everything was bathed in a bubblegum pink light. A girl who was way too young for him offered to buy him a drink. He politely declined. 

He was trying to find a place to sit away from the dense crowd when he saw her. Glossy dark hair, black dress with a zipper down the front. There she was after all this time, like an apparition. He blinked, and struggled gamely to bring her into focus. 

Flecks of pink light swam in his eyes. For a moment, he did not believe she was real - an illusion his booze-addled brain had cooked up to spite him. As if to test this theory, he called out her name. 

@ilnerium​​

[manikax]

She Moves in Mysterious Ways

When: November 19, 2022 Where: Soa’s Gangnam penthouse

There is no real reason why she’s doing this. Not a good one, at any rate. 

Maja shows up at Soa's Gangnam apartment the day before the vampiress’ return from Hong Kong. She’s dressed in all black. The ensemble was unnecessary, but the doll could never pass a chance at playing dress up. 

With an Oscar de la Renta dress box under her arm and a sugary sweet smile, she tells the concierge she's here to see Guan Soa. The man informs her that the vampiress is out of town but Maja may return at a later date. She's still smiling as she compels him to show her upstairs. Before they reach the top unit, she sends him back down to the lobby, leaving him with no memory of her or what happened. Plausible deniability. Sort of. 

As she ascends the stairs to the penthouse receptacle, she wonders if Soa's guards would be vampires or something else. Whatever they were, they were probably super bored, she reasons. She was doing them a favor.   

When she emerges from the stairwell with dramatic panache, the three men stationed in front of the penthouse door look shocked before smoothing their expressions, all business. They were burly types dressed to the nines in pressed black slacks and crisp white Oxford shirts. It checked out that even those on the outskirts of Soa's sphere would be well-dressed.

"I'm sorry," one of them says emphatically, heading her way, "but you can't be up here."

She locks her gaze on him. "Yes, I can."

His eyes glaze over. "Yes, you can."

The other two guards exchange a brief glance before drawing their weapons: matching matte black Glock-22s. They all just sort of stare at each other for a moment, like an old-fashioned Western standoff, and she gets the impression that, despite their stone-faced expressions, they knew this wasn't the kind of brawl you brought a gun to. However, she could have been human. Somehow. They had no choice but to put on a show.

Maja presses her forehead against the muzzle of one of the Glocks. "Come on, big boy. Blow me." At her command, the man drops eagerly to his knees, tossing his gun to the side. All bets were off. The last guard makes to bum-rush her, and she realizes she only has seconds before he figures out how to silence her or summons backup. 

"Protect me," she tells the on-knee guard. With a gladiator's war cry, he wraps his arms around the other man’s knees and brings him to the ground. They tussle. Maja circles them, looking for a way in. At last, she roughly grabs the face of the only guard not under her control and forces him to look her in the eyes. "Let me inside the apartment." He tries to comply, but the other guard has him pinned. Maja rolls her eyes. "You can stop now. I'm super protected. Thanks."

The guard unlocks the door. Before she enters, she compels the men to sit in a circle in the hall and express their feelings to one another. "I believe you'd all benefit greatly from it. It’s not exactly therapy, but hey, it’s a start." Closing the door behind her, she tugs on the black cat balaclava she'd brought for this exact moment. It was more theater. She was aware that she had been captured on camera the moment she waltzed into the building, but she was having fun.

Maja prowls down the elegant halls and into the immense closet she remembers Soa dressing her in. Delicately, she sets the dress box on an upholstered bench. On top of the box, she places a thick ivory card. In black ink read the words: Meet me at the Vortex. 11 PM.  xoxo, Maja. One of the corners is adorned with a bubblegum pink lip print. 

Mission accomplished.

@ilnerium

[danikavasile]

N E C E S S A R Y  D E A T H

When: November 2, 2022 / 11:50 PM  Where: the lab in Gyeonggi For @ilnerium​

Danika switched on the harsh white light of the overhead lamps, tracing the body’s webwork of veins in brilliant blue. She looked down at the corpse on the medical table and felt within her a germ of aversion. It was not due to her being so near death or the nude body itself (both of which Danika was intimately acquainted), but the species of the body - vampire. She’d operated on numerous vampires in her 620 years but still subsisted a dark animus curling within her ego. 

The ego. Though science could not confirm this fact with any degree of confidence, Danika had long suspected that the ego was the last element of the organism to die. And this proved true in humans, vampires, werewolves, mermaids - the ego was the last to go. 

Likewise Danika’s own ego was throbbingly present whenever she autopsied her own species. It was a fate  - the finality of nothingness in death - she’d welcome the least. But it was rare that she be given such a pristine vampire specimen to study; such was the nature of the vampiric demise that they usually came to her in pieces or a pile of ash, if they came to her at all. This creature on her table had donated himself to research, and she would take an abhorrent delight in cutting him open, appreciating the exquisite object that his body was. Her version of gratitude. 

Later. For now, she was only admiring. She zipped up the body bag and shut off the overhead lights. Her heels clicked against the waxed black laminate as she crossed the lab floor, pushing through the double doors and hanging a left toward her office. Her office was a baroque fantasy of thick velvet curtains before a solitary window and molasses-dark hardwood flooring. It wasn’t especially large but big enough to house three floor-to-ceiling bookshelves stocked with all manner of medical textbooks and anatomy almanacs. The shelves were pressed against the back wall behind her mahogany desk, which faced a voluminous black leather settee. 

Danika hung her lab coat on the rack and went about acquiring a bag of blood from a small fridge, pouring it into two delicate china teacups. The silver dial of the wall clock read ten to midnight. Soa had been expected at 11:30, but Danika had stopped anticipating her chosen sister to be on time. Danika lifted one of the tea cups to her ruby lips and drained its dregs. 

Danika’s hair was secured in a low chignon by one of her most treasured hairpins. It was silver and hollow, once serving as a container for lethal poisons. Danika had never used the pin for the purpose herself but loved its morbid history. She was attired in an ensemble that was rather understated for the ancient vampiress: black slacks and vest with chain detailing, banker stripe button-up, and tie. 

Soa arrived as Danika was pouring a second serving of blood into her teacup. She could feel her presence as she stood in the doorway of her office and needed not to look up. “I would’ve thought,” said Danika, sealing the blood bag and returning it to the fridge. “That your relation with Mr Okada would make you more punctual. Or is your punctuality reserved only for those you fuck?” She rendered a familiar fanged smile at her sister. 

[enrax]

Come What May

When: November 22, 2022 Where: Car en route to the Guan Estate

The car arrives at 5 p.m. to fetch him.

Junji has been to the estate before, but this is the first time he's returned since Roga and Aeu's slumber. It'll be strange, he thinks as he settles into the supple back seat, to be in that house knowing its proprietors are sleeping not far away. He imagines that this must be a comforting proximity for Soa, but the necromancer finds it a tad creepy.

Although the journey is long, Junji is well-prepared. There are many work reports to read, for one thing, and so much mental preparation he needs to conjure out of thin air before his arrival. The grandeur of the Guan domain is staggering. The first visit had been such an arresting and not a little sinister experience that he'd been inclined to think the property was magically enchanted.

And so with the sun mounted low in the sky and great bursts of red leaves melting off the trees, Junji is driven to the Gaun Estate.

He's not alone in the backseat. One of the Guan's guards sits in the seat across from him, watching him and not being the least bit subtle about it. Junji knows better than to engage him in conversation. He'd tried it before, and the man had shut him down with nary a word, glaring at him from behind dark sunglasses. The necromancer's insides had withered from the embarrassment.

He reviews the reports for as long as he can. When they reach a certain bend in the road, one Junji recalls with searing clarity, the guard tugs a silk bag over his head. Why this was necessary at this point he did not know. He'd spent the better part of a decade serving this family, but he still posed a threat to their privacy. He had no sight into Roga's heart, but he knew that while he trusted Junji to an extent, he didn't trust him with the sacred knowledge of the Guan hearth. That was a privilege reserved for those with whom shared his blood.

They are driving uphill. He can feel the altitude change in his head and ears. With his vision restrained, his remaining senses are working overtime to keep him grounded. If he remembers correctly, he will be wearing this bag for an hour, so he tries to relax. He counts three checkpoints and tries to imagine the daily routine of the guards stationed at those locations. What did they have to sacrifice in order to attain the knowledge needed to do their jobs properly?

The time passes and the bag is torn from his head. The sudden rush of light into his corneas is startling, even though there's barely any sunlight left. He blinks and fixes his hair.

The estate is even more ornate than he recalls, an imposing Gothic mansion standing tall against the hills, possessing darkness within. Three guard towers have been erected near the port, and large dogs with gleaming teeth patrol the grounds.

Another sentry stands at stiff attention in front of the house. Each of the men chosen for sentinel duty had hard mouths and arrogant postures, meaty muscles claiming dominance over their large physiques and projecting an air of perpetual violence. Not even the suave grace of their designer suits could conceal the enormous power of their bodies.

When Junji steps out of the car, it is this guard who leads him deeper into the property. Yet again, no pleasantries are exchanged. He guesses the Guan's did not pay these men to speak. They enter the main building swiftly, ascending an L-shaped set of stairs into Soa's wing.

@ilnerium

[manikax]

2 Die 4

There was an air of forbidden affair in her third meeting with Soa. As promised, the woman with the tight chignon that led Maja out of the club that night called and provided her with Soa Guan's number. One of Soa's numbers. Maja imagined a woman like the vampiress had different phones for various purposes. She wondered which one of those numbers she used to summon the murder clean-up crew.  

It was all Maja could think about for the past two weeks. The feel of the man’s bones breaking beneath her shoe, the light vacating his eyes as Soa depleted him of his life force. It supplied her with white-hot energy whenever she conjured the image in her mind. Rapist: dead. But there were more. 

The guilt Maja might have felt thirty years ago was utterly absent now. What had changed? 

She. She she she. 

Maja prowled the streets of Gangnam in her favorite black platforms and a white bustier mini dress that said less forbidden affair and more Las Vegas wedding. However, the sheer black panties she donned underneath were assuredly applicable to both. 

She followed a map on her phone but seldom needed it to locate Soa's apartment. The building was positioned in the center of the neighborhood, like the shiny, chrome heart of the district. Maja took the lift up to the uppermost floor and found herself confronted with an immense set of black double doors. She knocked, and the obsidian ring on her finger gleamed in the hall light.  

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ♡ — @ilnerium

[manikax]

Maja could not, for her soul (itself a questionable substance), figure out what to do with the news of Elias' return. Long years had passed since his death, and while the pain of losing him had never subsided, it had stealthily transmuted into something else. Something visceral. She couldn't bring herself to be optimistic about his recrudesce because it wasn't really that, and he wasn't really Elias. He was Kakuzo: a rockstar. A pig.

The bar's walls were dark red, the color of raw liver. Maja debated throwing her drink at the wall in front of her, producing a glimmer of shards like angry stars in a galaxy of blood, but her fingers only tightened about the glass. She wanted to scream. She wanted to drive a dagger through his heart. What was behind these impulses? Hatred? Was it love? She thought the love she and Elias had shared was no ordinary passion, that the strength of their affection would transcend time and space. But she'd been a fool.

Maja caught the dark grandeur of Sypha's aura before she saw her. The vampiress was as captivating as she'd been at Pride, enthrallingly eloquent and wildly unnerving in a black Dolce and Gabbana dress. Her singular yet undeniable cast of beauty masked the truth of something terrible lurking below the surface. Evil, delicious, violent. Maja made a point to meet her lurid gaze.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ♡ @syphavc

[manikax]

stream starting soon

When: December 2, 2022 / 11:00 PM For @ilnerium 

Maja live-streamed every Friday at 11 p.m. She'd concluded the latest God of War and was looking for the next long-form game she could turn into a series. Meanwhile, she had decided to play a game called -

"The Devil in Me," Maja revealed to her chat. "The Devil in This Pussy." Her Friday evening streams were rated R, as opposed to the ones she conducted on Mondays and Wednesdays, which she managed to keep PG-13 by the grace of God. "It's from the same studio that made Until Dawn and Little Hope, and... oh... what was that other one? The people on the boat... Man of Medan! Yeah, I didn't like that one as much as the others." 

Her streaming setup was singularly curated and very pink: pink wireless cat ear headphones, pink mic with flexible boom, pink keyboard. She'd even set the neon lights in her room to a soft sunset glow, bathing her body in a wash of lavender-pink. Her small frame was swallowed up by an oversized heart-print jacket. 

[normalsquid:] i am the homo of the sexual

"I am so proud of you," Maja said, putting on an air of seriousness that the situation did not warrant. It didn't last very long. She burst out laughing.

[knownbagginses:] THERE ARE CONFIRMED LESBIANS IN THIS DON’T KILL THEM DON’T KILL UR PPL

She gave a peace sign. "I will do everything in my power not to commit a hate crime against my people." 

Maja was pleased by these comments. For the previous two weeks, the majority of her chat had been jammed with irritated incels and entitled men, but tonight's stream was decidedly less... toxically masculine. People had finally stopped bothering her with trivial questions about Taewon, realizing she was only going to troll and lead them astray. 

The positive vibes persisted as she played through the prologue. The energy was high, and her stream chat was especially amusing - amusing in a way she hadn't remembered her audience being in a long time. It was in these moments that she recalled how much she enjoyed streaming and shooting the shit with her fans. But it didn’t last. She'd only been playing for an hour when her stream chat was deluged with anonymous dissenters. It didn't take long to figure out what was bothering them and that this raid had been planned on some third-party forum. They were calling her various names that all amounted to her being a slut. Many people were angry because she had 'lied' to them and 'cheated' on them with Taewon. Some wanted refunds.

Maja had excellent moderators who immediately went to work blocking the dissenters, but there were a lot of them. Maja paused the game. She was both smiling and baring her teeth like an angered animal. “I’m only gonna say this once,” she said, “So listen up, bozos. You are not entitled to my - or any other woman’s - undivided and immediate attention. I don’t care what I am: a whore, a virgin, the fucking queen of England streaming live from hell.” 

She noticed that the tone of the comments was shifting from slut-shaming to accusing her of using her feminine wiles to dupe men into donating money, all because she’d concealed her alleged relationship status.

[driedfishcel:] if i had known you weren’t single i wouldnt have wasted my tiem getting invested in you [khanivore:] FUCK FUCK FUCK!!!!!!!!fucking subhuman whore you led me on. i should kill you (in a video game) [Nightwalker_99:] proudly displaying your degeneracy for all to see. dirty stupid foid

[manikax]

[ @syphavc ]

Maja surveyed the crowd through the dark lenses of her Celine sunglasses. If asked, she would say she was people-watching, but that didn't capture the true essence of what she was doing. She was watching people watching her. After taking time to get dressed that morning, she was determined to be seen. It was a brilliant blue day, the sun so hot it shimmered like a glob of melting butter in the sky. Patrons combatted the heat with handheld fans and rice-paper blotting sheets, but nearly everyone was covered in a thin film of sweat. Not Maja. She didn't sweat. But she'd always found it a fascinating mortal bodily function. Once, out of curiosity, she'd licked the sweat from a partner's neck in the wild throes of lovemaking. It surprised her. She hadn't expected it to taste so salty. Most of the red-cheeked crowd was of little interest to Maja. And even those who greedily drank her in with their eyes had started to lose their appeal. She was about to give up and turn her waning attention to her phone when she caught sight of an enigmatic couple. She noticed the woman first. She was taller than the average Korean woman and her demeanor made her seem all the more imposing. Although she was walking on grass, the heels of her Valentino pumps did not sink into the dirt at all. Her steps were light as air. She was beautiful, but in the way nightshade was beautiful: captivating, poisonous, deadly. She clung like a vine to a giant honey-haired man dressed in black. He seemed less of a creature made of flesh and bone but instead something inhuman, a cold thing hacked out of marble. Their combined auras made Maja's stomach twist. She had been integrated in the dark arts long enough to know that this couple had to be supernatural. She might've just left it at that, observing them with interest from afar, if it hadn't been for the way the woman spoke to her companion. Seemingly innocuous, the curvature of her body as she leaned toward the shell of his ear caused something to erupt in Maja's mind. A flash. A memory. She had seen that gesture before. She had seen that woman before. A long time ago. Maja realized she had risen from the bench. Driven by some invisible and unidentifiable force within her, she made her way to the couple. Her vision narrowed, and she perceived only the woman; the man - impressive though he was - dissolved into the background like smoke. "I'm sorry," Maja said to the woman. She had decided on her angle in the second it took to approach. Her tone was amicable and even, but behind her large sunglasses her eyes were keen as a tigers. "I don't mean to bother you, but I love your dress. I was wondering where you got it."