#motleyd

[archaeval]

@motleyd :>

[sanguinisa]

@motleyd ;;

The last time they had seen each other, Nan had been a master of her craft. Death was her calling card, brutal and swift at the end of a bloodthirsty knife or, more favorably, the blunt end of a warhammer. Even now, Corpsegrinder was her constant companion, a vicious maul gripped in a bloodsplattered hand.

The market buzzed around the commotion. A thief had tried to flee with stolen goods, but when a guard shouted stop him! she had acted without thought. The poor man's skull now decorated the cobbles while Nan stood above him in a daze. She could barely remember pulling Corpsegrinder from her back, much less taking him down, and yet there he was. For a few moments, the emptiness plaguing her melted away, and she was whole once more. Deathbringer. Blooddaughter. Godspawn.

Grey-skinned and horned, she did not belong here, but the crowd kept her pinned in place, at a loss of how she might escape. "I, uh..." she stammered, with an accent right out of the gutter. "I stopped him?" Nan didn't expect praise for a moment, no matter how fulfilled she felt. When her gaze landed on Amber, there was no spark of recognition, one face out of many lost to the holes in her butchered mind. "You're welcome?"

[sanguinisa]

“Don’t listen to them. They don’t know you.”

monstrous // @motleyd ;;

"And you do?" she snapped. It was a stupid question, and Nan regretted it the second the words left her mouth. Of course she did. Amber knew Nan better than herself. Hell, she had all but shaped Nan into who she was now.

It shouldn't have bothered her. Nan didn't look like anyone else, large as she was. Stone-grey, mottled with blue freckles. Demonic from horn to toe. Even if she had appeared human, her size would have been enough to differentiate herself from the rest of the world. But with her horns and tail, and those glowing yellow eyes — no matter what she wore or how she held herself, how could anyone look at her and not know her to be a monster?

It was a fact of life. Simple as that. So why did it bother her now?

“Sorry,” she mumbled, feeling suddenly small and pathetic. “I don’t mean that.” How could she have doubted Amber for even a second? Nan looked down at her scarred, meaty hands, hesitating before she reached out to lace their fingers together. “‘S just…”

It was just a dress. She picked idly at its weave until a thread came loose. Though it was wide enough to fit her, the hem barely made it to her calves, and it hung awkwardly from her broad shoulders. It didn’t belong on a creature like her — a monster trying to be a person. “‘S a joke, ain't it? Dressing me like a fine lady, parading me about. People're gonna stare. They're gonna..."

The thread snapped. Nan sighed and shrugged.

[sanguinisa]

beloved gives nan a hand-carved bracelet of wooden beads

give nan things // @motleyd ;;

She's afraid to break it. Amber's beads are things of beauty, her livelihood and craft honed over the course of years. Nan carefully examines each bead in awe, gaze flicking up occasionally to Amber as if to confirm that, yes, this is for her. "It's beautiful," she says, rolling a bead between her fingers. "Everything you make is beautiful."

[mosvani]

how long amber had held her perch, announcing her presence with the tap of her fingers, alanna couldn't say. she stills but does not startle (not for lack of surprise), barely moves at all except for the languid cant of her head, catching amber in her peripheral and holding her there.

the early morning had veiled two rivers in a thin mist, the chill of which she'd reluctantly bartered for its quiet. a blouse, what remained of one, sat in her lap as she attended to mend its shoulder—a fool's endeavor, maksim had been too eager to inform her—and wore her frustration nakedly across her face. it'd crept into her fingers, rendering what should have been even tension into jagged swipes and clumsy knots. peppering the morning air with the intermittent hiss or gasp or curse as she jab her thumb with the needle or further tangled the thread.

im her present company, alanna tries to temper her face but, as it was want to do, her body rejected this exercise in restraint.

"good morning, @motleyd " she says, balling the tattered fabric. she resists the impulse to shake out her hand, eyes skimming her fingers where blood might have beaded before she clasps them tightly together. and turns her head fully to the other.

[sanguinisa]

𝐒𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐇   𝐎𝐑   𝐏𝐀𝐒𝐒

smash or pass // @motleyd ;;

Simply put, there is little in this world Nan would not do for Amber. She is a safe harbor, a gentle hand that has molded Nan into who she is today. Amber's touch is soft, her thin bony body more comforting than any blanket when she's curled up against Nan. It feels almost like blasphemy to admit the truth, but Nan does so all the same, "Smash."

[archaeval]

𝐒𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐇   𝐎𝐑   𝐏𝐀𝐒𝐒

smash or pass // @motleyd ;;

𝑵𝑶 𝑫𝑶𝑼𝑩𝑻 𝑻𝑯𝑬𝒀'𝑽𝑬 𝑺𝑬𝑬𝑵 𝑨𝑵𝒀 𝑵𝑼𝑴𝑩𝑬𝑹 of futures where the world shifts just so, and the two fall into bed together. Even if the Fool looks so different from when she once knew him all those aeons ago, she could not deny that they carry a certain fey loveliness about the features. But he knew her as a mortal. He saw her when she was a weak, smiling creature, baring her neck for anyone who came too close. For that alone, her answer will remain the same for a very, very long time. "Pass."

[motleyd]

amber blows in on the breeze, strange in the stillness of his place, yet perfectly at ease as she moves about her morning tasks — drawing the drapes and straightening her lady's sheets before pressing a gentle palm to rhaella's brow: searching, perhaps, for fever, or perhaps for a simple stirring of life. she waits, one beat and then another, before settling down against the bed with a satisfied sigh, stretching cat - like in the sun with a familiarity that does not suit her station. ❛❛   it seems we must both face another day, but the question remains: what face shall we great it with?   ❜❜ and with one sidelong smile years slip away, and he is once more that fool of old, though dressed now in another's clothes. ❛❛   outside of this room i shall be amber, though for you i suppose the fool should suffice ...   ❜❜ / @summerhells