#ralucad

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I’m procrastinating so here’s the cast of Breaking Down Hell made with this picrew! I wanted to balance it out so there’s a character from the future too! They are, in order: Maxia, Timely, Ralucad, Cradle, Illidan, and Varshridan! Appearing in the same order that they do in book!

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Finally drew Ralucad in a way I can stand! Amazing what a different style can do

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Breaking Down Hell Part 31

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30

Maxia took another look around. He didn’t know where to start. There was nothing there, nothing anywhere, other than the mounds of the damned. He doubted they would have any idea on how to help and they would probably be unable to if they tried.

“We are free here, aren’t we?” Maxia asked, “We can move about, this sin is not ours? That marble thing, it said that it would be easier for us to leave if this isn’t our personal sin or, that’s how I took it anyway.”

“Lust for sex?” Ralucad shrugged, “Of that I’m fairly without sin, lust for other things though? That may be a bit harder for me, I’ll admit.”

“I’m ace, so I’m good in that department.”

Ralucad kicked the rock, letting it tumble as far as it could before the wind picked it up and made it turn awkwardly. “We could just wander round until I completely lose myself and kill you, if you like.”

Maxia stared at him, the fur on his back rising and his teeth sharpening. He said it so casually, though his body showed that he was serious, with how it was shaking, with how his features were slowly changing, growing more cavernous and monstrous. He didn’t look like himself, like he’d been vacuum sealed and was now just a skinny horrible thing.

“Let’s not do that,” Maxia suggested, lifting his head and sniffing the air. It was the smell of blood that was affecting Ralucad so much, it coming so easily even though it was old and constrained within the memories of bodies that these souls still possessed. The wind coming from their left was a little bit less, didn’t try to blow them off course. “We’re going that way.”

Maxia turned so that the wind was against his back, pushing him in that direction. It was still blindly searching, but it was something, at least. He didn’t have a key, though he didn’t know how badly he would need one. Doors were all different here, he had no way of preparing for one until he reached it. He just hoped that they reached it soon.

He didn’t want to have to fight Ralucad.

Ralucad stayed close to him though it was clear that he was faltering, each step a little bit slower than the last. Maxia would stop every once in a while, let him catch up. But Ralucad’s eyes were stuck on the motions beneath them, his nose constantly searching out blood.

Maxia almost reached out and took him by the shoulder in order to lead him, but he changed his mind last minute, knowing that Ralucad would feel his pulse and be worse off for it.

“Why did they think they needed me?” Ralucad murmured as he caught up with Maxia again. “Timely, that is. They said both of us were needed for their rescue and yet, here I am, slowing you down. I have done nothing, as of yet, that aids you or has benefited their rescue.”

“I doubt we’ll ever know,” Maxia shrugged. “Maybe you just haven’t done whatever your purpose is yet and maybe it’s something more subtle than that. I mean, as shitty as all this is, I am glad I’m not alone here.”

Ralucad just shrugged at that.

The mounds of bodies were the last refuges for the souls of the fallen. They clung to one another, reaching out and grabbing at any others that flew past them, trying to add to their mass. It was an attempt to undo what was meant to be done in this place, to create security, some place to just sit and breath, without being buffeted around. There were some Xestor moving from mound to mound, pitchforks in hand, pushing into the mound and prying the weeping souls away from one another, freeing them to all lose one another into the wind.

Drawing closer to them made their screams more audible, though they were also ripped away and cast aside by the wind. The Xestor had no compassion for them, would not be demons if they did, and Maxia shivered as they drew near. He wanted to do something, as much as he pretended that he didn’t. Ralucad wasn’t looking at the bodies, nude and squirming, and Maxia didn’t know if that was because some of them had been pierced and bloodied with the prongs of pitchforks or if it was due to their position.

There was nothing that they could do, this was Hell and it was the way that it was for a reason, as abhorrent as that was. Even trying would bring them nothing but enemies.

@writinginslowmotion​ @mirror-of-too-many-books

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Breaking Down Hell Part 26

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 

“It was hard and it was grueling and it felt so so terrible to do, but I did it. I stole something that was worth my life. And I promised that, upon my death, the location I had hid it in would be given to the devil lord Guerra so that she could take her armies up and pillage the Heavens. My body was as blackened as my soul when I was visited by an angel that demanded the key back. I told xim the plan that I had made and would not give the key back. It tore the plague from me and gave me eternal life, so the deal could never go through, but cursed me with the thirst of a vampire.”

Finally finished Ralucad just stood there for a long moment, warily eyeing Maxia. He still wasn’t making eye contact, looking consciously at Maxia’s chin, but he was waiting, waiting for Maxia to say something, to be disgusted, to throw him away for his sins against humanity. They were plenty. There was no vampire out there free of sin and what Ralucad had done, there was no forgiveness from Heaven for that, it was clear enough.

Maxia wasn’t of Heaven, didn’t care much, one way or the other, about sin. He was a being created out of sin itself and they were wading through Hell. It wasn’t his place to judge. Ralucad wasn’t that bad, anyway, other than the initial sense of unease he gave off just from his nature.

“What do you want me to say, Ralucad?” he asked.

Ralucad closed his eyes, forcing himself to relax, his head hanging low. He was in a position of piety, even though he was a monster speaking to a monster. “Anything.”

Maxia knew what he wanted, after all. He just wouldn’t say those things. He wouldn’t demand Ralucad leave or absolve himself, that would be nothing more than hypocrisy, but it was what Ralucad expected. It was what happened every other time he had told this tale.

“I can’t believe you’re trans,” Maxia chuckled. That got Ralucad’s eyes open and on his quickly. “I’m usually really good at noticing other queer people and I knew there was something not cishet about you but I couldn’t place it. I was super nervous too when Timely brought me to you, thought you’d call me out on it.”

Finally, Ralucad laughed, a loud and violent cackle, leaning back so that the sound could rise up from him. It was the kind of laugh of the broken, of relief that the end hadn’t just come. He still wiped at his eyes but now it was accompanied by a toothy grin.

“You’re alright with that?”

Maxia crossed his arms. “Uh, I don’t know if you noticed but I’m half demon. It’s just good to know this stuff. Like, it would have been really good to know that everything down here would hate you but that you’re also a vampire who can kick ass.”

Another small chuckle. Ralucad glanced at the book that was still lying there, open, ready for them. “I suppose then that I should mention that this place is draining me, not Limbo, but all of Hell. That flask I had was all the blood that I had brought with me. I will do what I must to not hinder you but it would be best if we didn’t tarry too much.”

Maxia would have reprimanded him for that, since he was the one that had distracted them so much, but it was Maxia who had pressured him to speak in the first place. He could not hold that against him.

@writinginslowmotion​ @mirror-of-too-many-books

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Breaking Down Hell Part 25

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | 

Maxia needed answers but he couldn’t ask them, not with the creature right behind them.

At the base of the spire, carved out of the spiraling marble, was a door. It was slim, too small for Maxia to enter comfortably, though the rest of the building was definitely wide enough for a decent gaggle of people. He opened the door and let Ralucad in first, since he was slim enough that he could fit through with ease. Maxia went in sideways, glad to see that the walls weren’t too thick and there was plenty of space for him inside. The creature though, it could not enter and they were finally free of it.

The inside of the spire was much like the edges of limbo. While it wasn’t so terribly hot they were still fleshy and pulsing, the veins of darker marble more like dark blood here, beating through the thin sinew. None of tit intruded on the space, got in their way, and the book, set atop a small pulpit of veins, all braiding, twisting, plaiting, and growing through one another, were safe from it. The pulpit also beat with a heart that was deep beneath them, though the book was still in it’s place.

“What the hell was that thing talking about?” Maxia asked as soon as the door was closed, turning to Ralucad, where he stood next to the book. “What deal did you make? What’s going on?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Ralucad argued, his voice still quiet.

“Yes it does! You’ve been here before, haven’t you? I need to know what’s going on!” He was trying not to sound angry, to not raise his voice, but Ralucad was making it difficult. It was clear that he didn’t want to talk about it but it was driving Maxia insane. He had to know what was going on.

“Fine.” Ralucad clenched his fists at his sides, eyes still down and away from Maxia’s. “I was a human once, a stupid and foolish human back when disease was rampant and going to a doctor was as much a death sentence as not. And I, of course, grew ill. Ill with child and ill with plague. If one didn’t kill me the other would. For some reason, I was absolutely convinced that I wanted to live, even though everything in my situation craved death. I searched and I searched for a cure and I found a witch woman who desired a child of her own. She had made a witch daughter but she had died and the witch’s heart had not yet mended so I gave her my unborn child. She staved off the plague for a while and gave me information on what I could do to stay alive.”

He breathed sharply through his nose. His shoulders were shaky. The white’s of his eyes were red, but with tears instead of with some vampiric affect. He sniffed ungentlemanly and wiped at his nose with his sleeve.

“I stole” he paused, lip quivering, “I stole a key to Heaven.”

Maxia stare at him, not sure which part yet he should have been more freaked out about. Ralucad had been pregnant, which meant that he was like Maxia, he was transgender. He had no idea but, then again, Ralucad had made no mention in the fact that Maxia was so different in appearance from when he was a child, had taken the changing of his name in stride. Ralucad just seemed to have a sort of comfort within his own body that none of the trans people Maxia had ever met possessed, like there were feminine aspects to him, his long hair and curled eyelashes, his thin waist and curved hips, but he leaned into those just as much as his masculine shoulders, his strong neck, and his movements.

And he’d had a child, kind of, by the sounds of it. Maxia wasn’t sure if, giving a baby to a witch meant it was born or not or what may have happened because of it, but it sounded terribly emotional anyway. Then, how old was Ralucad anyway? Maxia couldn’t even guess that much on human terms, but it sounded like Ralucad had been around since, what, the 1300’s? He wasn’t sure how Ralucad could keep u with everything that had happened in his life if that was the case but the antique shop definitely made more sense.

But he was still talking.

@writinginslowmotion​ @mirror-of-too-many-books

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Breaking Down Hell Part 36

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35

They did not step into the lake but went around it. They did their best to ignore the begging forms calling out to them. They went to the door, which was coated in Norse stylings of gold knots, runes telling some great story, woven delicately around images of intercourse, demons, humans, and beasts. Ralucad gave him a look, swallowing heavily, and then pushed the door open.

It was, as expected, terribly loud inside. Maxia tore himself away, burying his ears in his claws hands, trying to push the sound away. He had been in this form before, but only for short, controlled periods of time, in quiet and controlled environments, with someone that he trusted. Now he was without all of these comforts and it was all to much. Moaning and groaning and pain and pleasure and the terrible crunching of bones made it past his hands, the sound of sobbing and liquid spilling onto the floor and death rattles setting his remaining blood to flame. Ralucad must have heard it too as his eyes turned black and red, looking everywhere, trying to find the origin of the sound.

The main room was all gold and open with pillows instead of furniture. A versubus was feeding off of two apparitions of men at once, true beings in the real world but just holograms of them hear. Their mouths were filled, not drinking blood but a deep purple vein of energy that was more or less than a life’s amount of essence. It would grow back, if they were careful.

Ralucad cleared his throat and the versubus stilled, back straightening as it’s four pairs of bat wings flared open. They turned, looking over at the pair where they stood, the stain around the mouth in their face bright purple. Their teeth too were the bright color and they dripped with the liquid, thicker than any other bodily fluid.

“Oh, I’m sorry!” they perked up upon seeing them and rose from their prey who easily faded away as if they too were on a breeze, even though there was none within the temple. “I didn’t hear you I was a bit too…. In the moment!” Their voice was bright and chipper, almost young. “How can I help you?”

Maxia huffed. The sounds were a little bit lesser with those two gone but there were a dozen doors leading from this room and each led to a humans wet dream, each being where something was feeding on someone else.

“We’re looking for the door downstairs,” Ralucad admitted, trying to keep his voice cool and collected. Maxia could hear a shrill bit of excitement in it. As much as he claimed to not lust for sex, something in here was distracting him. “We were told to come here, that Naibus would be able to help us?”

That made the Versubus chuckle and, when they did their mouth fell open to show that those sharp teeth sat in misplaced rows, almost losing their pattern, as they slid back into their throat, growing thinner to become like hairs. “What did you bring for Naibus? She helps no one for free!” They glanced over at their tail, which was pierced with a large dark green gem, the center of it glowing amethyst. “Even her children must give her some of the energy they exhume.”

Ralucad took another step into the room. He was absolutely cowed by the size of it. Maxia, looking down at him, did not help matters.

He gulped. He looked over at Maxia with an expression that Maxia wished he could understand in his current form. There was a part of him that recognized fear and relished in it.

“I am nothing that Naibus has had before, I can assure you of that. I am undying and my energy is far different than anything she has sampled from Hell or Earth.”

Maxia stared at him. Again, it was only part of him that understood what Ralucad was getting at but what he understood made his stomach twist. It sounded a lot like Ralucad was willing to sell himself for this. If there was a part of him, as a vampire, that was curious in what it would be like to be fed off of by another immortal, it was buried under his feelings towards duty and redemption.

@writinginslowmotion​ @mirror-of-too-many-books

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Breaking Down Hell Part 23

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22

That explained his fear of counting, it seemed, but nothing else. He was distant, in a way that Maxia didn’t like, the kind that came with trauma, the kind that came with fear of the other.

“I’m not going to make you count anything,” Maxia promised, “hell, I’m not going to force you to tell me, I’m just asking you to. And laying down the consequences of what will happen if you don’t. I want to make this work.”

“You’re not human,” Ralucad reminded himself, moving his hand to rub at the bridge of his long, narrow nose. “Even though you smell so much like one. You have he same fear as I do, of how humans would react if they knew what you really were.”

That was true. He’d had a girlfriend once, some little pastel goth girl that did some of his piercings. He hadn’t told her for months. Telling her he was trans was less anxiety inducing then telling her he was half demon. She couldn’t even understand it at first, her humanity getting in the way of her seeing things as they really were. When he finally showed her, just a bit of his true form, she’d freaked out so badly that he’d gotten beaten up as badly as a human probably could get with a broom and he was banned from that tattoo parlor. He felt like, for Ralucad, it was worse. He knew it was too, from the small hint of a story he told.

“I’m not here to judge,” Maxia pressed. The noise in his ears was growing louder, something more was coming.

“Am I safe with you?” Ralucad asked. His ears at slight tips to them and they were swerving a bit, trying to catch the sound. It wasn’t just in Maxia’s head then.

He didn’t know what that meant, what all that implied. He also knew that he wouldn’t abandon Ralucad here for whatever it was he was so afraid to admit. Even if Ralucad was the devil himself, Maxia needed him to find Timely. They needed each other.

He nodded, “Yes. You’re safe with me.”

Ralucad licked his tongue again. It was so hot. Maxia didn’t know how Ralucad could stand it, how he could have before he was wearing the amortiguador. He shook his head again but this time, it was with an air of defeat.

“I’m. Well, I am a vampire,” he whispered under his breath.

@writinginslowmotion​​ @mirror-of-too-many-books

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Breaking Down Hell Part 29

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28

Ralucad yanked his hand free of Maxia’s backed away from him, wrapped his arms around himself. He kept his eyes down. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I should have better control over myself.”

One of the creatures hands bled the black back into the usual pattern of veins and it held that hand out to Maxia. He didn’t want to take it, but he did, feeling that it was the right thing to do. It tapped the same pattern into Maxia’s skin, a little bit faster than Ralucad had done.

“Do not tempt a starving beast with meat that you wish to keep,” it explained, pulling Maxia forward, further away from Ralucad.

Blood. That was what it meant. Released, Maxia looked at his hand. The pattern that they had found was his heartbeat. Ralucad was going through the blood in his system, fast, and was hungry for more.

They were leaving the space with the shadowy souls, entering a small grove of trees. They did not look healthy. The ground was becoming squelchy, the air hot. There were those thick veins, like underground streams, pushing through the white ground, a combination of flesh and stone, growing over one another in shared rivalry. The trees were growing out of the veins, which, in turn, spiraled like cheap ribbon and tore and dyed. The trees were black and bulbous, all knots and thick bark, no leaves on any of them.

They were parasites.

One tree, deep enough into the grove that Maxia started to sweat with the heat of the outskirts of Limbo, was massive, splitting in two and still growing, the branches reaching up for a sun that would never exist here.

“Here is your door,” the creature said, stopping before the massive tree.

Maxia looked it over. It didn’t look much like a door, but neither had the door in the spire. He knew though that the doors would be hidden, usually sealed away by a sigil that only a demon could surpass. This though this was just a tree.

The creature must have noticed Maxia’s apprehension, as it stretched its neck out once more and looked down into the massive bulging root system. Maxia followed it, looked down into the gaping maw that was beneath the roots. Many trees had hollows under them, but this one was through something fleshy, and the scar tissue that had formed from the tearing of the parasite was a sickly brown and blue; a bruise through a scar. There was a bit of space down there, a little pit or oubliette, definitely large enough for both Maxia and Ralucad to hide in.

He looked at the creature, wondering if that was all this was; a way to get rid of them. From the mouth hole of the mask dribbled a dark purple fluid, thick as mud, thicker than blood. It spilled in a small stream, breaking off from the mask as it pulled back. It fell for a short period of time before hitting the bottom and, when it did, the sigil that Maxia had been expecting lit up with a bright purple door.

“Every door needs a key,” the creature explained, “sometimes the key is of yourself, other times it is far more literal. The less worthy you are of freedom in a land of devils you are, the harder the key will be to find.”

They didn’t have time for a bunch of puzzles and riddles. Ralucad was already showing signs that he had to leave this place. “Is there a way for us to go directly to a specific level?” he asked, “Or do we have to take a level at a time?”

It stretched its wings, feathers fluttering. “It can be done and quite easily, but not by you. You would need to fly in order to get there. But do not worry for the delay, the doors desire to align, and thus they are near one another regardless of the orbiting of the spheres.

@writinginslowmotion​ @mirror-of-too-many-books