#koschyei

[laperlina]

[TXT] : open the door.

*⁑. 𝒯𝒆𝒙𝒕 𝒯𝒂𝒍𝒌. 🪞｡˚ * 𓂃 ࣪ ˖ ➷ ❪  @koschyei ❫

[ ➵ Vanya 💔 ] : what are you? a fucking vampire? [ ➵ Vanya 💔 ] : as if doors ever stopped you before [ ➵ Vanya 💔 ] : besides. i am NOT ruining MY beautiful bubble bath for YOU [ ➵ Vanya 💔 ] : or speaking to you ever AGAIN for that matter. [ ➵ Vanya 💔 ] : COUNT ORLOK

[motleyd]

❛❛   all men hate the wretched, how then must i be hated.   ❜❜ / @koschyei

all men hate the wretched,   but one must hate himself to seek pity from a fool   —   yet,   steadfast servant that he is,   this fool moves through the motions of grief with determined might.   his performance begins with three simple words:   ❛❛   oh,   poor soul   —   ❜❜    from there it transforms to sniffles and sighs and shoulder - shaking anguish. he fawns,   tugging a line of bright, unbroken cloth from one well concealed pocket and making a show of dabbing at bone - dry eyes ... and all the while, the words flow from him, whispers and woes that rise on the wings of a breath, an ever - growing fervor: ❛❛   what a world! what a life! what a life without life! do not grieve the war torn, the maimed, the widows and orphans ... grieve only this bringer of war, by his own admission wretched!   ❜❜

he pauses, and on one full - bodied breath his slight frame rises, only to crumple with the release of an ever - charming raspberry. he lingers there, head bent in one low and mocking bow, before rising at once — a puppet on a string, his pale lips curled in a half - moon smile. ❛❛  if i could i'd crown you king of the wretched ... or king of the hated, perhaps? though as it stands i'm barely even the king of fools. a shame, for i think we should both suit our positions well.   ❜❜

[walkpathe-arch]

[ CAUGHT ]: sender finds receiver somewhere they aren't supposed to be. (for solya!)

throat parched and head too numb to make use of magic, solya finds himself in a dire predicament.  a disastrous venture into the woods has left him bereft of men (a torn-limbed, half munched over mess) and, worst of all, stranded past rosyan territory. the foul stretch of forest laying on one side, enemy borders endangering his path back home on the other.

if he were at full strength, he could march up to a border post and dare anyone to stop him.  either the sight of the white blaze of his whip, or the threat of retaliation from polnya would have them think twice. the falcon is, after all, rather infamous around these parts;  how many rosyan soldier has he killed on the battlefield? he ought to have lost count.

it's just his rotten luck that he is found before his energy has replenished more than a useless sliver.  his white hair and peculiar attire must give him away at first sight to the soldiers patrolling this side of the river. solya refrains from fighting, or trying to loose them in less than familiar terrain, only sighs dramatically as his arms are pushed behind his back for good measure.

'' ah, it's you then, ''   he addresses rosya's first wizard — the red sorcerer, as they call him — with the usual sharp smile, severely lacking warmth.   '' i must say your hospitality leaves much to be desired. what a shame. ''

prompt

[archaeval]

@koschyei gets a surprise starter ;;

𝑻𝑯𝑬 𝑺𝑬𝑻 𝑶𝑭 𝑯𝑬𝑹 𝑱𝑨𝑾 𝑩𝑬𝑳𝑰𝑬𝑫 𝑶𝑵𝑳𝒀 the slightest discomfort, yet the presence of a crack in her armored composure at all spoke volumes. Instincts demanded she smile, simpering and seductive, but her new-found dignity refused to give in. A part of her gnashed and howls at the bars of her perfectly stoic cage, having found herself entering into the service of yet another beautiful man with gold in his pockets and more power than she could imagine. But what other choice did she have? To die in the woods alone, and hope the wolves took her before hunger. That, or face the noose that waited for her in Orlais.

A single damnable note of desperation crept into her words. "I can offer anything within my power to give, Majesty." Was it the correct title? She couldn't say. "Secrets, names, the wars brewing silently, threatening to boil over." Useless, all of it. Ruby knew it the second the words left her lips. What use did the tsar of Buyan have for politicking, when the world shied away from his land?

"Your enemies in my thrall for the night." Ruby's tone was neither alluring nor seductive, but a simple, steady recitation of fact. It was not often she volunteered this information readily, but, then again, it was not often she found herself in a country that once lived only in old wives' tales. "A single look is all it takes for them to become mine."

[blacknighted]

Henry was but a peasant boy. He'd flirted with the girls at the taverns and played at knight by the sheep pen. Starting young, he had dreamt generously of adventuring like those prose-trailed gallant heroes in their armor on their steeds. Goodness, he was but nineteen in his summers when he'd the softness of a lamb.

Alas, the burn of conjured fire had rendered him wolf.

He glares. Gone is the wool, one'd think now. Gone are those eyes like lemon jam and the bleating of boyhood. At twenty-three, Henry's both hardened and angry, the smell of smithies in his hair from the heave of great bellows. He had buried his parents and would go wandering so often to the ashes of home, and still, the grasses underfoot would shy from breaking surface. Too wrought. Too charred by magic and its devilish fire.

He rocks on his knees. Past the linden tree where his folks rest, he catches the crunch of footfall.

"Who goes there?" His eyes light up. There lies a forge in them. He is yet unquenched steel, fragile, roaring with heat and ready for a hammering, a steadying, a hiding like it'd render him man, and still, he burns. He grabs the sword by his hip, and turning, sees a shadow as mighty as a mountain.

Strange. How? How had he not heard their coming till now? Down his back, Henry's skin shivers and jumps. "Come out, demon. Or does it comfort you to stay in the dark, gutless like a coward?" Oooh, wolfling!

@koschyei liked for a starter.

[daylighter-gone]

⋆˙ ⟡ ˙⋆    iris message from @koschyei, location : the great library at buyan.

he had dozed off without meaning to, but cheating sleep only worked so long. he had deprived the smaller things of life around him of sunlight to fuel his own wakeful-ness and avoid slumber, which meant he could carry on for the past three nights to tear through one tome after the next. in the dimness of the room he had not minded the quiet and the absence of one's particular intrusion as morning-tide went on and on endlessly. when at last he does pay the cost of this, it is when buyan's keeper finally makes himself known once more after their last confrontation. when he is woken from sleep, his reflex works before he even leaves his dream : a hand, sparking with light, violently shoots out to attack seconds before his eyes wake.

card of dust.     koschei finds him asleep over a book and wakes him.

it is blocked by a wall of magic to deflect it, and he blinks a few dozen times as the world reorients itself, and he makes sense of what he is seeing. no longer in the dreaming world then, but in the sharp-bright periphery of his first reality. the gust of voices at his ears had risen high like a storm meeting landfall before quietening as he rouses more fully. his eyes slant upward, the tension along his shoulders thawing as he leans back with arrogant ease. ❛ was wondering when you would weasel back. ❜  his eyes drift then to the tome, which he snaps shut and, crossing his arms, exhales as if he had not levelled his fist at koschei — an ordinary occurrence. ❛ have you come bearing complaints? ❜

[warfires]

⭒ @koschyei sends: you didn't count on me when you were counting your rosary.

the tsar of life electing him had implied additional time. his hijacking had signified more time for eddie in the physical world, more time in the realm that he's infallibly served, more time with his son, and buck, and every mortal untouched by the breaches of the liminal state. they still possess the privilege to live, and suffer, and slip into an eventual afterlife of serenity and eternal rest devoid of infinite torment. he is branded, soul tainted and claimed by the smiting hand of his maker in rebirth, branding like a burning hand on his soul — searing and blistering with every rescue and act of compassion to those at the clutches of danger or imminent death. eddie has dealt with his fair share of catholic guilt, in fact, who knew that being greeted by death and reawakened as a soldier for an army he'd never choose to fight in, would excavate a reservoir of this guilt. so he prays the rosary for penance, perhaps it'll keep him from burning up with good deeds. perhaps it'll keep him with his son. he can only hope.

"because when i'm counting my rosary i'm praying for freedom from the life you've imprisoned me to. i was ready to die, even if i was afraid. i was ready, and you—" he points into the space before him, as if there were another standing there, materially and within proximity, but the space before him is vacant and he responds into the void, knowing he'll be heard, aware he's being seen. most days its as if he carries koschei in his mind — a wraith taunting and harrowing — but other days it's almost as if his mind has returned to his own, with no others claim but his own. those days are seldom, those days aren't his to keep. koschei has replaced the ghosts that once lived in eddie's head while alive, now his presence alone scorning him of those he's lost, of his inevitable fate whether or not he chooses to resist the eater, even when words are unspoken. the presence alone is enough. "—you took that from me. you didn't have enough in your army? you just had to scoop me up, too?" fighting back is fruitless, but he longs for understanding.

[sluaghter]

@koschyei asked: how many commandments can we break in one day? 𝑽𝑨𝑵 𝑯𝑬𝑳𝑺𝑰𝑵𝑮 sentence starters (accepting)

A breeze passes, more a whisper. The candles shudder like a thousand wet eyes. 

This is not the Spirit. Nicholas rises up from his prie-dieu. He feels it against the back of his neck, the oppressive white noise that comes with being watched. It hasps the well between his shoulders. It yokes its limbs around him, this feeling like a face in the window, a ghost at the end of the hall, the bed dipping beside him, silent and mouth-to-neck. He lives alone.

He knows it’s not the Spirit because he can feel this.

“‘We’?”

Nicholas turns. This man cuts through the negative space. He’s tall, soap-water eyes, cumin hair. He may be capable of murder. 

“I would say none, only that would be one already.” Nicholas’ voice crawls through the chancel, almost sardonic. The floors glisten like a wet tongue. “But what better place to be purified, I wonder, if not here.”

He doubts this man cares for that.