#tartarusdwelt

[referentblood]

✖ How has Tumblr RP changed since you started?

OPEN RP

    “  AH                          --    my  lady .       i  have  accidentally  sent  you  a        picture  of  my                                cock               &               balls                        PLEASE ! delete it .                 unless? you desire to see it?                                      I JEST , I JEST !                                                      u n l e s s ?   “

(ignore haurchefant and estinien)

[solvina-archive]

what if kor simply grabbed g'raha's face and kissed him full on the mouth. i am no longer asking.

it is a late night,  and the crystarium is hushed.  how quickly the people of the first have remembered how the day shifts and darkens,  how to settle into their homes with burning lanterns to light the way,  how to ward off the stars with hushed tones.  but he ---  well,  he cannot remember the last time he slept,  light or no,  so he determines to enjoy the night the only other way he can  (  alone,  his eyes aching from looking too long at missives and messages and maps and books,  but it is an old ache and one he will survive  ).

but it is the third time now he’s read this passage,  without much luck,  and the old language is becoming tangled in his mind.  all the knowledge of the tower is useless,  when he can’t keep the thoughts at bay,  and as he drifts into the age-old pull of worries,  he hears the door to the crystarium open.

through its quiet,  echoing halls,  the soft click of footsteps finds him in his study.  he moves to his feet with weariness,  and joins her there,  at the doorway.  he doesn’t think he has gone unnoticed,  but she says nothing at first,  her eye tracing the mirror.  she is something bright and burning,  a beautiful touch of color to a space awash in the blue of crystal.  something alive and whole.  this is a different ache,  something bone deep that he has refused to recognize since she appeared on the first  --  something better left unnamed.

he clears his throat.  her head tilts,  but she doesn’t look at him.

“  you could not sleep.  “  it isn’t a question  --  she’s here,  in his space,  filling it with life and breath and the promise of future,  and he is as dusty as the books in his study.  aged over,  with nothing to light the way.  he can’t possibly begin to guess what he might be able to lend her,  whatever it is she has come for.  there are only corpses and graveyards here.  “  come in,  koret.  i will make us tea.  “

he turns,  a steady swish of movement and coiled grace.  he doesn’t wait to see if she will follow,  but his ears are pricked to the sound of her footsteps trailing after,  and still silence echoes in their wake.  he leaves her at his desk,  her hands ghosting over ancient tomes,  and books with more dust than words,  as he sets to work.

“  do you?  “  she asks,  as he is mid pour,  and the water only splashes slightly over the edge to his credit.  her chin rests on her first,  watching him.  he swallows past his sudden nervousness,  trying to forget things long to history  (  before he had walked the path he did now,  when he had been young;  he wants to ask what happened to her eye,  who hurt her sometime between the then and the now,  but that is familiarity he hasn’t a right to  ).  she clarifies after a moment,  prompting with soft laughter.  “  sleep,  exarch?  “

beneath the safety of obscurity,  he can catalogue the lines of her,  the soft curve of her mouth and the rarity of it,  wonder at the strangeness of her mood.  the cup clinks down on the table between them,  his hand hovering over the top a moment  --  their hands bump as she reaches to take it,  and he flushes,  bright and crimson.

(  yes,  obscurity is most blessed.  )

but she is not reaching for the cup,  she is reaching for him.  her hand,  palm sliding along his to circle fingers around his wrist.  touch  --  a scarcity among the first,  a gift rarely permitted,  but there are so few things he would permit her,  if she only asked.  so he freezes,  caught in the fire,  as she observes the crystal of his hand and the gold veins beneath.

“  does it hurt?  “  they are still exchanging secrets,  in hushed tones.  the steam of the tea rises between them,  against his arm caught in the middle,  but all he can feel is her touch and the weight of her words. 

“  n- ......  “  his throat is suddenly very,  very dry,  and he clears it with a quick cough,  too loud and jarring in this steady,  delicate air between them.  “  no,  no.  i hardly feel it any longer.  “

she hums thoughtfully in response,  fingers dancing along one golden vein. tracing it to the curve of his elbow.  she has asked her question,  and he has given her answer,  and they aught to part there.  leave this moment where it belongs,  among the quiet dark.  instead,  he holds very,  very still,  breathing slowly.  she must be starlight  --  some planetary body,  for he feels caught in the gravity of it,  unable to pull away.

ah,  if he is damning himself,  may as well do it fully.

his thumb,  uncrystallized,  brushes across the high curve of her cheekbone,  following the line of leather pressed to flesh with curiosity.  a quick swipe,  but he still burns from the contact.  “  i will not inquire as to this,  but know  .....  know you leave me in awe.  “

now.....  now he might pull away.  instead,  he sees the shift in her,  the change,  as her hands move to his face.  a catastrophe waiting to happen,  that makes no attempt to move from the path of.  her fingers find his jaw,  slide into the hair at the nape of his neck,  and he is frozen.  shocked,  and quiet,  and waiting,  half in misery and half in hope,  his eyes fluttered closed as he braces.

he did not expect a gentle rain or a soft stream,  not from her,  and he is proven correct as her mouth finds his through the dark.  he catches one,  sharp breath against her mouth,  hand curled in the air beside her head  --  a belated attempt at some measure of restraint  --  but she doesn’t shy from it.  she is so soft here,  no longer hard edges or bared teeth,  and he finds the dichotomy of it far more enchanting than he should.

(  what can it hurt,  to kiss her back?  only everything,  only everything.  )

storm over the horizon,  he breaks,  and satisfies that bone deep craving to feel the silkiness of her hair as his good hand makes tangles through it.  he kisses her once,  melting against the promise and goodness and rightness of her,  her body settling against his in familiarity.  their tongues tangle,  his hand mapping the art at the curve of her hip,  up against her ribcage,  and he is fully prepared for the loss,  for the unmasking,  for the righteousness of his undoing-----

until he jostles her wrong once,  against the table,  and both cups spill into the mess of books and papers.  he pulls away,  singed from the flame of her,  the light,  and curses a word under his breath that he shouldn’t even know let alone say aloud.

he saves the books with quick,  efficient,  brisk motions,  head bowing once at her before he is all but fleeing towards the door.  “  forgive me.  “  his speech a stilted warmth,  an ember of whatever she has planted in his chest.  “  i hope...  i hope sleep will find you this night.  “

then he is gone,  and even the vaunted warrior of light could not hope to stop him.

[clemencied-moved]

ardbert vc: stoic nod

He is more than relieved to know that Ardbert supports his fishing endeavors, not like the many others pinging his linkpearl and tomephone. Gods know what he'd do otherwise. He's never heard of anyone fighting an imaginary friend who also happened to be another shard of their former self. That would be ridiculous. He just wants to have a peaceful vacation after all that happened.

[solvina-archive]

@tartarusdwelt​​  (  prompt  --  five times kissed  ):   five times kissed / TANKSWAP RUIN ME

01.   𝒅𝒆𝒔𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏.

not the first,  but a first:  there is something carved into his chest,  something cold and hard.  maggots among the flesh.  he can't put a name to it,  but he knows it's there.  all the scions are wrapped in their own problems,  and he doesn't like putting his to name  (  old superstitions,  from those old sailors:  the tongue is the most powerful muscle,  right after the heart  ).  there is still something young and hopeful in him,  something which looks over the future and only sees sunrises.  heroic is just another word for naiveite.

so it goes.  by the time the end comes,  he knows he is too late.  consciousness now,  which flickers and fades,  an ebb and flow between states.  sometimes,  he can fight the waves,  and sometimes they pull him beneath.

"  nothing to say?  "  she taunts,  that hard edge of her voice pulling him back from the edge.  they're discussing some sort of plans or tactics that he can't focus on,  and with a hand shoved into his hair,  he lifts his eyes to hers.  the answer sits there,  out of reach.  instead,  he smiles.  a beat too late,  off kilter,  not the right shade of crimson,  and he sees the suspicion that darkens her frown.

all he needs is air,  but there's not enough no matter where he goes,  and certainly not after he flees that meeting.  her hand on his arm stops him,  the severity of her accusation,  the fleeting distrust  (  he knows it,  of course;  the familiarity of a childhood stained  ).

"  you're hiding something.  "  and there goes all the oxygen with her.

"  only how lovely i find you.  "  but he chokes on the words.  all that constellation bright,  the burn of sunlight,  just a little dimmed in the wrong way.  her mouth parts to interrogate,  and instead---

instead,  his hands find purchase in her hair,  tilting her head just so  (  a sweetness to the gesture  --  he is always too sweet with her when he knows she wants violence  ).  his mouth presses against hers,  capturing whatever she has to say,  whatever questions he can't answer.  quick and fast and evasive.  he pauses there,  their breaths mingling,  eyes closed against the flood of darkness swallowing him whole to wait for her response,  be it teeth or tongue.

when she kisses him back,  it is a kind of salvation.  he presses his fears and his vulnerabilities into the curve of her lips,  hands tightening in the spill of her hair,  and falls to prayers.  his body says what his tongue won't  --  save me,  save me,  save me  --  until they are both gasping.

02.   𝒂𝒇𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒎𝒂𝒕𝒉.

he is still finding shards of himself out of place,  jagged edges that he runs his hands along.  damage,  irreversible.  some scars don't get away  --  this one,  along his hands,  against the curve of his palm,  where the fire had singed.  the healers had tried to fix it,  put it back to rights,  but he had been among the devastation for too long.  it had settled into the marrow.

that's how he feels.  wrung out,  his body tired,  overused.  aether sickness,  the hyuran medic had said with tender eyes.  we don't know many who have survived an ascian possession,  but i'd bet that's what it is.  it'll go away.

meanwhile,  the world spins.  his friends throw themselves into the path of the knife,  and he isn't there to help,  to be a body between them and death.

she comes to his bedside looking disheveled,  unexpectedly withdrawn,  and the darkness of her eyes he can see the reflection of his own exhaustion.  all those stories on heroes  --  it was only one event,  wasn't it?  one great hurrah,  one thrust of the sword,  and the beast fell,  and peace came next.  but this isn't like that.  this is bloody and violent,  a slow crawl  to the top of the mountain,  until they are ragged and raw from the undoing.

"  i wish i could be there.  "  he says.  he doesn't say,  wait for me.  he doesn't say,  stop throwing yourself into danger.  the desire is there,  but it will never come to fruition.  he would love them less if it were any different.

"  you will be, soon.  "  she answers,  unexpectedly.  he is glad it is anything except,  how are you feeling?  how are you doing?  he is exhausted all the words,  all the ways to dance around that topic,  even as brilliantly evasive as he is.  he should've known she'd never ask.  neither want to be the knife,  neither want to be the flayed chest.

"  ah,  the banquet.  as if i would miss you in all your shining glory.  "  this,  this is better.  his soft laughter,  her half-hearted glare.  relearning the steps of this,  whatever it is.  he touches a hand to her chin and leans forward.  a soft brush of lips to hers,  coaxing  (  alive,  we are alive  --  there is nothing more we can ask for  ).

03.   𝒂𝒏𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓  𝒇𝒊𝒓𝒔𝒕  𝒌𝒊𝒔𝒔.

he comes to gasping.  the world,  shimmering in all its awful glory,  and he can't make sense of it.  the leaves crunching beneath his palms are too loud,  too much.  stark and harsh and grating.  y'shtola had saved him.

it is an ilm by ilm,  gradual climb back into the body.  it fits wrong in some places,  and there is a piece of him,  a chunk taken out of his solar plexus that he can feel the emptiness of when he looks a little too hard.  somewhere out there,  there are people that need him.  and once again,  this body is unfit for the task.

the day they find him in the highlands,  he can't thumb away that shame,  thick and cloying that makes work of him.  everything feels different and new,  and worse.  had he never noticed how red her hair is,  or how tired the curve of her mouth was?  growing pains,  for those transcending the divine.  no one ever said sainthood was an easy task.

later,  when the night falls and he is weathering the weight of it,  trying to remember how the hands work and how the mouth works,  and speech too  (  he used to be a master of that  ),  she comes and they sit in silence between the fire.  hip to hip.  through their clothes,  it isn't so bad.  he can breathe through the electricity,  until it becomes a low hum against his skin,  and when her hand slides against his  (  bone to bone,  muscle to muscle;  we are not yet transcendent  ),  that is okay too.

"  you really are lovely.  "  he says,  in a low voice,  emptied of its platitude and laid raw.  not this--  this flesh,  he means,  but whatever is beneath.  this is his heart,  if she deigns to swallow it,  or they can both look away and pretend he is not skinned of himself.  meat for the slaughterhouse,  but as long as it is in her service,  he doesn't mind.

a hand reaches to touch her hair,  heated by the firelight,  and that too settles against his skin.  easy to the stomach.  she always has been,  for all her teeth.  then it is desperation,  mouth to mouth as he inscribes the shape of her against him,  and him to her.  something to remember him by.  he doesn't want to be in the stories,  just in hers.

she straddles him,  and in the fall of clothes and mouths and traded breaths,  she drags him back to himself.

04.   𝒕𝒉𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉  𝒕𝒉𝒆  𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒎.

a clash of weapons.  normalcy,  in the movement of bodies,  the shift of battle.  his mind remembers the dance,  the steps,  the curves and tides and falls,  but his body is less perceptive.  she downs him for the fifth time that night,  and laying on his back in the dust,  looking up into her teasing face,  he laughs.

the universe,  inhaled through his lungs.  a long,  cold,  chilling breath,  something pure to ease the ache in him.  they all speak of him in hushed quiet tones,  their touches reserved  --  he is simply glad to hurt again.  he wants the bloodshed more than he wants the healing.

"  a pathetic show,  i'm certain.  "  the self-deprecation is easy.  not an acerbic recrimination,  but something gentler,  something softer.  the mud soaks into the tips of his hair,  dying the silver into brown,  and he pushes himself into a sitting position.  her hands braced on her thighs,  she leans over him,  and a moment  --  a moment,  he is staring into her face,  and she is the sun,  spilling light across him.

his throat works a swallow.

"  another round.  "  he says,  around the dryness,  and crawls to his feet.  weapons drawn.  feet at the ready.  this time,  he manages the twist,  the draw,  the dance,  and they spin in planetary axis.  constellations,  twisting through the filth and the dirt,  until he catches a foot at her ankle and she drops.  they hit the ground together,  his dagger a soft press against the curve of her throat.

he feels alive.  something whole and human.  and she is smiling at him in laughter,  through the synchronized heaving of their chests.

he captures her jaw,  weapon lost to the dirt,  and kisses her through the reclamation.

05.   𝒂𝒈𝒂𝒊𝒏.

five years,  and there she is through the din of battle.  a haze of red,  like fire on the horizon,  and all he can feel is the cold dread in his stomach.

(  fear,  that's what this is:  this world is hungry in a way eorzea isn't.  she shouldn't be here.  anywhere but here.  )

so here is the violence,  for what it's worth:  his own anger,  that fury that has been clawing its way through the body.  a slow and poisonous ache.  when he kisses her now,  he can taste the blood,  the grief.  he hopes she can't.  the crystal exarch had succeeded,  and he had failed.

her hands,  tangled in his hair,  pull,  and he relishes that bite.  the feast of her survival,  and he the glutton.  "  took you long enough.  "  a half-gasp,  even as his heart thuds out of his chest.  it is in her palm and she doesn't even know it.  hers to do with as she pleases.

she bites his lip and he can taste the flood of steel on his tongue.  the taste of homecoming.

[solvina-archive]

‘  you  do  this ,  you  do .  you  take  the  things  you  love  and  you  tear  them  apart .  ’ / HADES KORE HADES KORE HADES KORE

such is the path of destruction,  and whether or not he chose it  (  a cold hand,  through his chest;  the voice says  you are mine,  you have always been mine,  and he,  exhausted,  settles into that relentless despair like it is home  ).  

has that torn her apart?  is this confessional,  she at bended knee pressed palm to palm in supplication?  (  this is the only way;  sacrifice,  for the future at the end,  if only she could see,  if only  ).  desperation burns him,  but he is only kindling  --  wherever he goes,  the flame follows.  so it devours,  as hands bracket the lines of her face,  as he commits to memory the light of her eyes and the feel of her hair.  she is tensed and static beneath him,  tired and furious,  and he has never loved her so much as he does in the end.

“  no.  no.  do not say that.  “  it is grief hidden in fury;  wolf in sheep’s clothing.  if he kissed her,  would she taste that salt on his mouth?  the blood on his lips?  if he kissed her,  would it undo him?  it is too unsafe.  there is a thrumming in his blood that demands obedience,  destruction,  and how desperately it hungers for her.  his hands tighten almost painfully,  one of her hands coming up to curl around his wrist,  but she does not shatter him,  not yet.  “  not for you.  hear me.  “

it is an old dance,  this intertwining of souls.  when the universe was young,  it bound them together,  hand to hand,  and since they have suffered the consequences.  her body sways into his,  and they are bastardizing this art of dance,  the sorrow.  the sky is falling.

“  i will find you,  kore.  i  will.  “

his lungs are filled with smoke.  the wind whips into a frenzy as he breaks,  tide against shore,  and spills into her.  the world ends like this:  he is kissing her,  pressing promises into the curve of her mouth,  promises that ache of lies.  she is leaving,  she is always leaving,  and when he calls her name,  she does not answer.

[solvina-archive]

❝ I can be charming. I charmed you, didn’t I? ❞ / kor to thancred

let it not be said that he is a bad liar,  for there is only a moment  --  brief and swift  --  where his mouth twists into disagreement before it is a blindingly bright smile.  he has been gone awhile,  hasn’t he?  it has been a long,  treacherous climb,  back to somewhere safe,  somewhere warm,  but they are there,  and things feel so achingly simple and new.  his arm curves around her shoulder with dramatic resplendence,  dodging easily the half-hearted swipe of claws she gives him  (  a test,  but he ever likes the spilling of blood  ).

“  certainly,  you did.  “  there must’ve been something off in his inflection  --  the look she gives him is scalding,  but he answers only in light.  a gentle touch of his thumb to the corner of her mouth,  a softness that tells more than anything else might.  for all his skill in words,  it only ever serves as smokescreen.  “  but  --  i’m afraid not everyone has my proclivities.  “

this time,  he does make haste to dodge her claws,  in a quick rustle of coats as he heads to their man,  looking dark and brooding at the edge of the tavern.  his wave over his shoulder is bleeding with self-satisfaction.

“  i will speak to him.  “

[salveticn-a]

❛ that’s your face? oh, i thought it was a mask. ❜ / from emet (:

@tartarusdwelt || x

     ❝ oh , did you forget what i look like , emet-selch ? ❞   inquired the youth with furrowed brows . was this one of those situations that were about sarcasm ? the emissary was never good at reading it ; for a moment he studied the expression on his face to perhaps catch a glimpse of irony , but … nothing , the esteemed emet-selch looked the usual .

     yet , suddenly , it hit him .

     ❝ ah ! it must be the age ! ❞   elidibus gasped silently , bringing lithe fingers in front of his lips .   ❝ i’ve heard that one’s senses tend to weaken with time . i was starting to grow worried when it would be my turn , but i fear that yours got here first ! ❞   a smothered giggle escaped his lips , only growing slightly more airy as he mentions something about not even lahabrea’s senses have weakened yet , him being the oldest of them all !

     ❝ but yes , emet-selch ! this is my face ! don’t you forget it soon now , hm’kay ? ❞

[hackereaped]

“ we don’t have a lot but we do have each other. ” / hi vic, have some more ryne. :)

@tartarusdwelt ➜ submitted!

          There’s comfort in the way the other speaks that is making it so much easier for Rhyme to come down from the almost heightened panic they were close to crossing into. The way they feel the hand taking her own, fingers intertwine to seal solidarity in the fact they truly were there for each other. Rhyme’s never felt lonelier despite having familiar faces around. 

They’d find a way in again. They’d find way to get others to remember him. Rhyme understands now more than ever. Gets why their brother endured so much on his own for three years. 

There’s another squeeze of their hand which has them returning their gaze to the other. Rhyme squeezes back to apply reassurance that she’s going to be okay. Even encouraging the hand close to her lips for a quick promising kiss against knuckles. Anything to keep them grounded.  

“ You’re right, we do have each other, we’ll find a way to make it all work out. I know we can do this! After all, two heads are better than one! “