#serenaderain

[mysteriae]

can you not be the sweetly vexing child again? how dutifully you would catch my arrows for practice, how adoringly you would let me whisper in your ear how best to wield your pilfered bow. but now... now you spend all your days dodging my aim. ✧. aura ( @serenaderain ) ft. hermes

some places were better left unvisited, and hermes has seen enough to know love's domain to be one of them. still, he twirls the caught arrow between his fingers, knowing one wrong turn, one small prick from that blurred arrowhead, and his folly would be eternally devoted to the next soul he casts his eye upon. to a mercurial god, born as ambivalent as the mountain winds that swaddled him, the finite terrifies as much as it thrills; so, as with most personal matters, he makes a game of it :

let the heart of a loveless swain be shot through by aura's unrivaled aim or continue to roam the pastures freely and unharmed on the back of his wiles. it seems fair enough, when she only needed one good strike to claim victory, and the greater labor belongs to he whose only objective was to prolong the loss. is it his fault she disadvantaged herself in teaching him to catch and evade the arrow as a child? ( or had she underestimated a trickster's foresight even then ? )

❛❛ loveliest aura, ❜❜ the herald's churning voice wheedles around her in hushed, rose-jeweled tones, mindful of a slumbering paramour just beyond the threshold he'd hoped to escape from. ❛❛ should it be an insult to you, when this unfettered heart offers no small amount of cursorial fun to open the embittered ones to your worship again ? ❜❜

here laid the perfect example: the widow, wracked with a grief so profound she thought to renounce love's throes until her last breath, had in time become amiable to nightly condolences. of course, she never dared to love something borrowed, but realized, at least, that the end of a life did not spell the end of an entire world, and it could be a blessed thing to lean into the unknown and relearn the joys of companionship again.

from there, it was a matter of time before fumigations called upon the goddess to lead her into love's second wind. surely, aura saw that, but he reminds her for good measure, offering up the arrow like an olive branch, a plea for trust and mercy. ❛❛ if you strike me, the locksport will be over, and you'd lose your greatest conciliator. so why rush to such things, hm? you've all the time in the world to make a trophy out of me, and i've no doubt that you will someday. just not today. . . alright ? ❜❜

[mysteriae]

card of coins ✧ . gwen ( @serenaderain ) | fantasy action prompts , accepting

a castle, carved out of the peak of mount huon, veils itself amidst purple-grey thunderclouds ; a most unwelcoming sight ( for a number of reasons ) to those who stand at the base of the mountain, in a quaint little town known as cloudsrange. the warm mist of petrichor serves as a warning and gentler prelude to the downpour that is to come, so when the townsfolk begin to clear the streets, tristan and yvaine follow suit, finding shelter inside an innkeeper's tavern. the innkeeper is a spritely crone, of an indeterminate age, but rumored to be old enough that she might have lodged the first of the eighty one lords of stormhold when he first came upon the high craigs.

' you mean the first of eighty two lords, ' the crone corrects yvaine, but does not answer to the truth of the rumor, much to her irritation. ' coronation or not, he who holds the power of stormhold be our eighty-second lord. tristan thorn, be his name -- and that's your husband soaking in the tin bath, isn't it lass ? ' knowing eyes warn her against lying, and the bite of fear darkens the star maiden's heart. seeing the dim of her translucent skin, the keeper purses her whiskery lips, and eventually promises to keep their identities a secret as her lady wishes. ' but better leave his mother a note, if he insists on lollygaggin' about for another three years !' the crone huffs as she wobbles off with two jugs of ale, leaving yvaine to herself but under watch.

had it been three years already? she bawks at the thought. despite the plethora of sights and misadventures that the two had journeyed through, it feels like a wink of time to a star, whose poorly set leg and bruised side now ache with a reminder of the start as if it were yesterday. yvaine frowns, mind whirling with the implications, unaware of the stranger who approaches until two coins are laid on the wooden counter in front of her, and a valiant voice calls to the barkeep for a round of drinks. the star's eyes blink at them, a twinkle of light from within the shade of her silver-blue hood. ❛❛ i thank you, good knight, ❜❜ she says warily, accepting the drink out of politeness, but does not take the first swig outright. ❛❛ might i ask where you hail from ? ❜❜

[mysteriae]

i'll get blood on your shirt. ✧. prompt: aya akazawa (@serenaderain) ft. hermes , accepting

❛❛ sing, o muse, of aya akazawa, who will take on any grief as her own. even yours, bubbles dry cleaners. ❜❜ his lofty address refrains into a chin-dipped smile, chiding the bleeding heart while utterly unfazed by the gruesome red streams overpowering her pale face and bare neck. the display may have been a horror to some, but the god's eyes regard her kindly, and without reservation. to him, this was just aya, divine and all the more admirable for her show of compassion.

disturbing was the rest of this scene: silent souls stripped free of their wailing torment were drifting en masse to charon's skiff, while aya did her best to suffer those burdens discreetly, and worst of all —— alone. no friend nor tissue box in sight. how was he supposed to abide that ? ❛❛ come on. get in here, ❜❜ hermes beckons again, this time with reaching fingers that ignore the protest. they pull her into an embrace, where he practically smothers her into the wrinkled button-down, sealing its soiled fate for good. ❛❛ bloody it up as much as you need. ❜❜

like lightning striking water, the violent and involuntary spasms that wrack through her between sobs peels through the heart that now bleeds for her. ( you carry all their dirty laundry to give them peace, but where do you find yours? who washes you clean? ) hermes rests his chin on the top of her head, as if cocooning her with his entire being might help steady her. for her sake, or perhaps by a new default, the hummingbird that nests behind the alcove he makes of his chest beats slower, evening out with deep breaths, calling her to let the storm pass and sink into step with the present again. ❛❛ it's not even mine, you know, ❜❜ he finally murmurs into the growing quiet, his cheek glued to her hair with a crooked smile that could be heard and felt. ❛❛ —— the shirt. i stole it from apollo. but that stays between you and me, got it? ❜❜

[lusmor]

tessa: ❛  i'm so tired trying to see from behind the red in my eyes. ❜

          PERHAPS,    THERE ARE WORSE PLACES TO LINGER IN WALLS.   this displacement is somewhat shared with that of the young warlock, @serenaderain   (    though it could be said that they were within the same time of their lives...    if this phantom still lived    )    the london institute was home to many of the departed,    although the lady eimile was not one of the souls that perished within its walls.    no typical specter but the denizens of the shadow world need not know the full extent of her whereabouts.    their concerns lay with the living,    of which she was not.    

          still,    she had come to develop a fondness for the newest resident amongst the hunters.   ❛   you should not be so hard on yourself,    miss gray.   ❜    there were times transparency escaped her and she conducted herself much like a young woman who still carried a weight with her step.    sitting beside the crestfallen girl with her veil of sympathy over her.   ❛   your circumstances are anything but conventional...    and you are so far from home.   ❜    an american,    how novel! it was her first time being able to speak with someone who was properly from overseas.    

          ❛   if you need a confidant that isn't one of those troublesome nephilim men,    i would be happy to oblige.   ❜    frequently the lovelorn poetess fell victim to a certain mister herondale's poison tongue.    his affinity for seeing the unseen made her easy prey for his more sour moods.    it was no stretch to say she did not hold the boy in high regard.    

𐦍   HOZIER LYRIC PROMPTS   ( * accepting !

[acataelepsie]

mishka to ekaterina: what do you need ?  —  what can i do ?

“ just a moment of reprieve, ” was murmured into the palm of her hands. the exhaustion hung heavy on her frame, weighing her bones down like anchors dragging at the bottom of the sea. her duty was to remain within the confines of her parlor and support her people, but every night the guns went off and death was closing in. “ there’s only so much I can do — ” they were losing the war; that much was clear. she hadn’t slept in days. “ — and I wonder if I must surrender to save them. ”

[mysteriae]

i want this ✧. prompt : aya akazawa ( @serenaderain ) ft. hermes , . . . accepting

what burns him here, in the underworld's high tower, that has him so hesitant to move any farther ? is it the warnings of her father, his lord ? the fiery pits somewhere yonder ? no, there was never much regard for that. it's the prick of an arrow that stings. and has had him pining quietly to this point, out of fear, out of wanting to contradict everything aya has heard about a trickster's intentions. still, the goddess invites him to come to her window; kisses him until he's rendered flightless, fallen prone in her bed, too eager to cross a line ( and should he refuse, when she says she wants this ? )

❛❛ do you ? ❜❜ he asks, his desire still clothed, but reaching for a gateway. a herald has to be sure she knows: they likely wouldn't come back from this. a second plea, and where a bright, lush-bitten smile grows, the eyes also darken ( how much ? ) his sleight of hand reaches down between them to pilfer the answer with a permitted touch to a forbidden place, and the wealth that he finds there is a welcome surprise.

what makes her offer it ? the god wonders, unused to a reward that didn't require some exchange of labor. still learning that a soul has value too. that he can sit with a heart for weeks, offering no more than his company, and still find that wanting thing overflowing from the boundaries of her body with just a thought, a dreaming. the evidence of her affection overwhelms him, sets the heart aflame, the ichor into a rush -- because no one has ever wanted him like this; no one has ever wanted him this much.

❛❛ — — you were thinking about me even before i came, weren't you ? ❜❜ he has a mouth for trouble, forgetting himself by delighting too much in the idea; but here there's a color of regret to match the color of pink that blooms in her cheeks. it's sweet, arouses a wish to tease her more, but hermes hadn't meant to embarrass her. how to reconcile it then ? the other hands knows, salving the burn with a gentle caress of his knuckles, kissing the corner of her mouth with a purity that contradicts the criminally slow laps his fingers make around her sex. ❛❛ don't be shy about it, princess, ❜❜ he whispers into her skin, a timbre rich with adoration, lips dragging a trail under her jaw, sowing kisses like flowers. ❛❛ i've thought a lot about you, too. ❜❜

[mysteriae]

plots please 🔪

you wanna dance???? I'LL DANCE

001. dion & aura: for their ancient greece, pre-olympian days give me the initial frenemies vibes where at the same time dio comes to her or aura finds her way to him during his worst lows. ampelos was obviously the first, but i love the thought of that being a consistent thing throughout dio's campaign. and this would mean: when dio was cursed with madness and killed his retinue without meaning to, aura might have found him before he banished himself to the deserts for seven years. after the events of the bacchae in thebes, when dio acted more like a ruthless god than a human being, that would also be an interesting point for them to clash and/or bond. but alsooooo give me a plot where someone takes dio's necklace and he's on berserker mode unable to find a way back to reality/himself and hello ??? miss aura, who owns a piece of his soul is so prime to being able to draw him back

002. rhiannon & yvaine: unsurprisingly, you never miss with your oc concepts!! we can flesh this out more, but my first thought when i saw innkeeper oc was yvaine and oop her very fun time at a magical inn that wasn't an inn. consider she finds her way to rhiannon's instead, but so do one of the big bads who have been tailing her?? let miss rhiannon catch someone almost slicing your girl open with a butter knife, she'd give her the best yelp review ever.

003. selina & koschei: i know we talked about this briefly, but..... CANNOT SLEEP ON THIS. i think a dc verse might be better suited here?? with koschei as an immortal sorcerer who in modern times would still be a wealthy "art collector" who really has a stockpile of magical items and weapons, and let miss selina steal something shiny not truly knowing what it is and oop..... it's something very important ( or possibily his real death, not a decoy. not that he's telling her that, but will go above and beyond to get that thing back !! )

[sentinaels]

@serenaderain sent : plots please 💙

elias & rhiannon : my basis for this is just. immortals ( or close enough ). but look, i love the potential dynamics between two beings who have been here basically forever. elias is a traveler and a meddler, so i imagine he has plenty of reasons to come by the inn more often than not. are they old friends ? gossip buddies ? got into a bad fight once or thrice ? exes ? on and off ? idk the possibilities are endless and we love to see it

i don’t officially have him on here ( unless… ) but ema & klavier content, anyone ? their dynamic in aa4 is hysterical to me. tfw you fucking hate your coworker but he keeps making a himself of nuisance to you. i think there’s a lot of room for their relationship to develop, and i definitely blame the storyline shift between aa4 and aa5 on that, but it could be fun to have them see past the fronts and attitudes(tm) they both put up, and maybe grow closer as a result.

listen. i’ve just pulled this out of my ass but hear me out : vasya & morgan. i’m still in the middle of winternight book 3 rn so please forgive any inaccuracies, but. something something au in which vasya did get sent to a nunnery after all and just so happens to meet a like-minded girl there. they both have ties to old magic, they’re both spirited as hell, they should get to pull off their jailbreak arc and go apeshit.

[RATTLES CAN] WANT SOME PLOTS ? accepting.