‘sometimes I wish it had been me. it was my fault. all my fault.’ for Azoth
the shining - stephen king sentence starters.
For 𝔄𝔷𝔬𝔱𝔥 / 𝔐𝔢𝔯𝔠𝔲𝔯𝔶 𝔊𝔥𝔬𝔲𝔩 ;
Copia’s confession is the only thing that can quash his wrath, ripe with enough self-loathing to rival his own hatred for the man. It’s a white flag a flapping frantically above the parapet, a handkerchief being beaten about in the wind, an entreaty to armistice, a plea for ceasefire: surrender. The Mercury ghoul breathes hard against the inside of his mask, a snarl is channelled out of steel-sheathed nostrils, and his eyes shimmer dangerously, the eroded metal almost the same hue as his irises. “Your cold blooded mother,” he hisses, voice sounding even more serpentine than usual with the mask muzzling him; his silent protest. He would never don the half-mask or the steampunk helmet as the other ghouls had, spineless creatures, he would wear the mask his youngest son had designed for them with pride, a fitting tribute to the dead artisan. “Should have left you on a mountainside to die.”
His heart has calcified since their passing, hardened, stone cold, he has only the glowing embers of his resentment to keep him warm, and with every spat he hopes to engender a flame. “And I should have sank my teeth into her throat and torn her limb from limb while I still had the chance,” but for all the venom he spewed, still he was unable to say what he really wanted to say: to expose her, to expose the conspiracy that had stolen his three sons from him. “She is nothing but a hateful wench and you are the cancer of her womb,” he sneers, standing toe to toe with Niccolò, in his clownish papal paint. “I didn’t expect anything less from you.” And perhaps, he thinks, he’s being excessive, and then his hatred catches up to him and immolates any thought of reconciliation.
Stepping away with a sigh, he takes a moment to reach up beneath his mask and thumb away the tears from his under eyes, lest the pontiff see through his meticulously crafted disguise. Not that the ghoul was really fooling anyone. But his temper had become a thing of legend, giving credence to his moniker: the mercurial ghoul. He had reverted to the bloodthirsty and intemperate ghoul he had been as a young man: the scourge of Mesopotamia. He wasn’t above maiming another ghoul for their insolence: poor Dew would have a scarred shoulder for the rest of his infernal life. “Abdicate,” he demands, turning to face him once more. “It’s the only way to atone for your misdeeds.” And he pins him with his icy gaze.
