CWs: Blood, implied torture & captivity, some nasty descriptions maybe?
Luna didn’t believe what was in front of her, at first.
The muffled voices of Arielle, Lali and Lis barely made it to her ears, as if they were stuffed by water, and all she could make out was that they were worried and rushed and panicked.
Not at her, though.
She fell to her knees.
Kaiki was there. They’d found him. They’d finally found him.
But he wasn’t right. He was sitting down with his arms hanging over his head, by... chains? His bleached blond hair was falling in front of his face, loose and stiff and soaked. It was dark at the roots. It was also dark at the tips. Kaiki didn’t seem to recognize them. He had a vacant look on his face.
And he was soaked in blood.
Luna moved her hand in front of her mouth to avoid throwing up. Was that all his own? No. That couldn’t be. His chest was bare, and his skin was crossed by scars. There were large ones. Small ones. Luna thought one of them looked like a heart. Some of them had spiky edges. They were over his ribs. Over his lungs. They went up all the way over his neck. There was a big one on his throat. There was also a huge, wide hole where his gut should be. She could see some bones. And flesh. And lots of red. Like some dead deer she’d seen in cartoons.
But it wasn’t a deer. That was her brother.
No, it couldn’t—that couldn’t be true. Luna choked out a sob. And then, right before her eyes, it was like time was retreating and making the flesh piece itself together. Regenerating. More blood appeared. Kaiki coughed and some dripped from his mouth. When she dropped her gaze to it again, his belly wasn’t that much of a hole anymore.
Luna stayed there, mouth fallen open, knelt down and unable to fix her gaze in any other direction.
That had to be some sort of nightmare.
“-na. Luna!” Someone yelled in her ear. Luna winced and looked their way.
Lis was shaking her by the shoulders.
“Luna, you have to get a hold of yourself! Kaiki needs you. We need you awake. Do not faint on me right now. Are you hearing me?”
She slowly nodded.
“She’s too out of it!” Arielle screamed from far, far away. “Lali, help me break those chains. We need to get out of here!”
With a loud clang, her brother’s arms fell limp and he falled forward. Lali’s big figure catched him. He was shaking as he carried him up.
Oh, yeah. Up. She needed to get up.
They needed to get out.
They had Kaiki now.
Luna’s lungs filled themselves with air, and she felt like she’d been holding her breath. Everyone’s voices and all the noise that wasn’t making into her ears until now flooded her senses, and then a strong smell of blood reached her nostrils as well. She covered her nose with a hand and got up.
“Here,” Luna whispered—okay. She didn’t mean for her voice to come out that low—, running to Lali, who was having a hard time taking cuffs out of Kai’s hands with his own hands busy holding him up. “Lemme do this one.” Before he could retort with something like get off, I can do it on my own, she clenched her hand around the little bag of sand in her pocket and conjured up enough energy to break them. The metal cracked, and then fell split open.
“Guards are coming!” Lis said from the door. Arielle had moved to her side as well, to help Lis in guarding it. “Luna needs to open up the way, now.”
“Don’t we need to—to heal him or something?” She asked, looking down at Kai. His eyes were not closed, but he didn’t look like he was seeing anything in front of him. And now that she was near, she could also hear the sickly drip, drip, drip of his blood falling on the stone floor. She tried to prevent her eyes from tearing up.
“He’ll—” Arielle cut themself, face contorted as if they’d eaten a lemon or were trying not to cry. “He’ll heal on his own. Rush.”
Luna unclenched her fists—she hadn’t even noticed she was clenching them—and nodded. That was probably true.
The huge gape below his chest, she noticed, was smaller now than when they’d arrived.
“Okay.” She said. “Cover your ears!”
Luna grabbed her bag of earth and casted the magic that flowed through her veins. Concentrate it. She remembered. Move it where you want it to go. When it’s where you want it, hold it on.
She pointed her fingers like a gun towards the wall—she didn’t recall it very well, but according to the blueprints they’d gone over, the labyrinth they were gonna take on the way out was somewhere in that direction.
Luna breathed in, hand shaky.
Let it out.
A burst of light, and then a loud explosion. The wall burst open. Lali coughed behind her, and the dust also made its way into her eyes.
“Let’s go!” She yelled out to Lis and Ari, scrubbing them with the palm of her hand. They took their eyes out of the corridor, looking over to her, and nodded.
Arielle ran towards the hole in the wall to lead the way in front of Lis, who was anxiously looking out to see if they weren’t being followed.
Luna rushed behind Ari. She was the second in their formation. Her job was to help clear the way.
--
Kaiki had been drifting in and out of consciousness for a while. He felt heavy. The blood on his mouth was dry. It wasn’t as dark as it was supposed to be.
Had Alvaro planned something with fire again? He forced his eyes shut. Please, no. He still wasn’t healed from the—no. Do not think about it.
But... something was wrong. He wasn’t in his cell. His arms were tucked over him. He remembered being left chained to the wall. Kaiki felt himself being moved up and now as if he was riding a bike. Was he moving? Now that he noticed it, his feet were also not touching the ground. Weird. He opened his eyes again.
It took a few seconds for Kaiki’s eyes to process the input they were receiving now.
But when they did, he was knocked out of his breath.
OK so i got a liiiiiiittle complicated with what I had planned so
[ID: Loose drawing of a boy with short black hair and full lips, smilling and looking to the side. /end ID.]
This is (supposed to be) Lali. His favorite color is pink, he is kind of a magic prodigium, he has NPD AND i didnt work too hard on his design before and now it's coming to bite me in the ass. He's a pretty boy.
Kaiki: His color is dark green. Sometimes it's a more warm and worn out shade, like yellow grass, yknow? And sometimes it's a dak cyan disguised as green. Either way, whenever I want a flat color background or a detail for him, I always go with one of those colors lol
Tatiana: Kai's sister whose color is also green lmao
Lali: Pretty! Intelligent! Never sad! Kool! Just pink. Hot, bright pink. Flashy and cute and quite "feminine", from a certain point of view. Just like him
Lucy: Blue. It can be a little deep and dark or light and soft
Espa: Yellow! <3 Bright and colorful and cheerful like a flower. Also looks great with red blood.
Guy: Purple
Meine: Green as well. Serene and grounded, although as fragile as a leaf
Zaire: Lavender. One of the lightest shades at that.
Hi! Happy Second Day of STS! Let's talk about makeup. Do your characters wear makeup? What's their opinion on it? Does makeup carry any significance for the characters and/or people around them? Feel free to yap about anything other about makeup too! :D
@flock-from-the-void
Oh, thank you for the ask! ^^
Lali, Sethie and Guy are probably some of the few that use makeup on a daily basis lmao. Lali loves something simple (and pink) to highlight his features, and Sethie is the kind to go all glitter and colorful. Guy is more subtle and uses like eyeliner or some lip gloss. Rose also uses some makeup on the daily, but it's more of a job thing than something she actually really minds to use. When she's on the run she doesn't wear it as much lol.
Other characters, like Totsuka or Luna, wear it to formal events or parties but don't usually wear anything.
Kaiki never, ever uses makeup. It makes him dysphoric. Petrichor simply does not know how to apply it even if sometimes he wants to XD and once Sabre gets the chance to (when he runs away and goes live with Guy) he tries some stuff and becomes really, really fond of eyeliner.
(Lali, Kaiki and Luna are from Ein; Guy and Sabre are from Espada; Rose is from SW; and Totsuka is from Anima :) Petrichor isn't from any wip hesjust floating there lmao. Although he does have an au i sometimes like to draw)
ID. An alignment cross chart with "gay" on one end, "thot" on the other, "son" above and "daughter" below, forming the alignments "gay son", "thot daughter", "gay daughter" and "thot son". Lali is drawn in every single section. End ID.
