PRIDE, POMP & CIRCUMSTANCE

Independent RP for The Witcher OC Badulf Mounier. Read the rules first. "Once a king dressed in red, Warmed by FLAMES on feather bed, While all the town starving cried, Chilled by winds, the MONTH OF ICE."

[thedressmaker-blog1]

CHARACTER FLAWS.

Bold the ones that apply to your character.  Italicize the ones that sort of / occasionally apply.

absent-minded | abusive | addict | aggressive | aimless | alcoholic | anxious | arrogant | audacious | bad liar | bigmouth | bigot | blindly obedient  | blunt | callous | capricious | childish | chronic heroism | clingy | clumsy | cocky | competitive | controlling | corrupt | cowardly | cruel | cynical | delinquent | delusional | dependent | depressed | deranged | disloyal | ditzy | egotistical | envious | erratic | fanatical | fickle | finicky | flaky | frail | fraudulent | forgetful | frivolous | guilt complex | gloomy | gluttonous | gossiper | greedy | gruff | gullible | hedonistic | humourless | hypochondriac | hypocritical | idealist | idiotic | ignorant | immature | impatient | impractical | incompetent | indecisive | insecure | insensitive | jealous | judgmental | lazy | lewd | liar | lustful | manipulative | masochistic | meddlesome | melodramatic | moody | naive | nervous | nosy | ornery | overprotective | overly sensitive | paranoid | passive-aggressive | perfectionist | pessimist | petty | possessive | power-hungry | pretentious | proud | pushover | reckless | reclusive | remorseless | rigorous | ruthless | sadistic | sarcastic | secretive | selfish | self-destructive | self-righteous | shallow | short-tempered | sore loser | spineless | spiteful | spoiled | stubborn | tactless | temperamental | theatrical | timid | tone-deaf | traitorous | troublemaker | ungracious | unlucky | unsophisticated | untrustworthy | vain | withdrawn | workaholic

tagged by: @cllgood (ty, berty boop!) tagging: @ivakir, @synthmama, @taromancies, @tevinterbound, @thoseofonen (Ingvar!), @lostson and... that might be it who I don’t think was already tagged? It’s been so long since I’ve been here and so many people are gone. :(

[thedressmaker-blog1]

❝ How many hearts have you collected? How many chests have you left aching and empty? ❞ // from maxima probably none because bad is aN ASS BUt

💔 HEART ACHE SENTENCE PROMPTS (accepting)

“I have broken — much. Much too much and I have more, just more hearts than that… mer-thing. Yes, that one! The one with the never-so-pretty head of maraschinos. The very one! More than she has silver-forked combs and very obviously underwater spoons.”

Badulf would be the first to confess. He loathes it — heartbreak, misery, tear-diluted wine glasses over lovesick poetry — but he has standards. He can’t love just anyone. Not Felicia and her cherry-puckered lips or Isolda and those hills beneath her dress. He could warm their satin sheets and rattle their beds until every vase and painting tipped and shattered over their floors, maybe, but he could only fall so wholly and hopelessly in love with a princess. A queen! A honey-haired duchess and her baby blue eyes, and they were not it. 

Tragically, Badulf wilted down onto her bed and spun a single pearl of her pearl necklace between his fingers. What did she care about their heartbreak, anyway? She felt nothing.

[vaememes]

💔     HEART     ACHE     SENTENCE     PROMPTS    !  

❝ You are a victim of your own broken heart. ❞

❝ You’re breaking my heart.  ❞

❝ The heart is just a muscle, isn’t that right? ❞

❝ You’ve left a void in me that cannot be filled. ❞

❝ Time does not heal a broken heart as they say. ❞

❝ How do you cope when the love is with somebody else? ❞

❝ Well, you can’t have heartbreak without love. ❞

❝ Love is supposed to heal, to be your haven from misery. ❞

❝ My heart no longer felt as if it belonged to me. ❞

❝ There is an ocean of silence between us… and I am drowning in it. ❞

❝ Raw love, like raw heartache, could blindside you. ❞

❝ I was born the day you kissed me, died the day you left me.  ❞

❝ I’ve fallen victim to love once in my life, it was enough for me.  ❞

❝ I think perhaps I will always hold a candle for you – even until it burns my hand. ❞

❝ I would have followed you to hell and back… if only you’d lead me back.  ❞

❝ I had fallen but you were not there to catch me.  ❞

❝ This pain has not passed, this pain, I’m afraid, it will never pass. ❞

❝ A broken heart can be as lethal as a bullet to the brain. ❞

❝ As if you gave your heart to autumn, for what it destroys never blossoms again. ❞

❝ A single heartbreak teaches you more than what a lifetime of schooling can. ❞

❝ You taught me how to live with you, now tell me how to live without you… ❞

❝ You hurt me and yet I cannot stay away, I am miserable either way. ❞

❝ Do you know why he did what he did to you? Because he could. ❞

❝ I have been bitter since the day you broke my heart. ❞

❝ Today is just another day of trying to get by without you. ❞

❝ An entire world of people can never replace the one that I’ve lost. ❞

❝ I cannot carry on with my future when I am stuck in my past. ❞

❝ Many things we die but this love I have for you will not. ❞

❝ I could never love another as I do you, even if I wanted to. ❞

❝ This heart break will be the death of me. ❞

❝ I still fight and I don’t know why. ❞

❝ If our love is tragedy then are you my remedy? ❞

❝ When you’re ready, come find me, my heart is open. ❞

❝ Love is both, the strongest and the weakest thing you can have in life. ❞

❝ Black misery painted on a blood red heart. ❞

❝ You make me feel like a firefly. Trapped in a belljar; starved for love. ❞

❝ Sometimes your eyes are not the only place the tears fall from. ❞

❝ My heart does not beat, it aches, for you. ❞

❝ Do you even know how you make me weak? ❞

❝ If you lose your one and only, there’s always room here for the lonely. ❞

❝ Part of me aches at the thought of her being so close yet so untouchable. ❞

❝ Sometimes it feels like love and sometimes it feels like the death. ❞

❝ I don’t know where your heart is but mine is bruised. ❞

❝ I tried to wash the scars and marks from under my skin but you’re etched in me like stone.❞

❝ You call it love, but still you hate me? ❞

❝ You’re the pain and the medicine, one taste and I’m numb again. ❞

❝ With you next to me, there’s no darkness I can’t overcome.  ❞

❝ They don’t love you the way I love you. ❞

❝ What a wicked way to treat the one that loves you. ❞

❝ What’s worse, looking jealous or crazy? ❞

❝ There’s a fire starting in my heart, it’s bringing me out the dark. ❞

❝ The scars of your love remind me of us. ❞

❝ Tears of blood fall from my broken heart. ❞  

❝ Never mind, I’ll find someone like you. ❞

❝ When it’s all said and done, I’m still in love with you. ❞

❝ I want you to know that I’m all yours. ❞

❝ You could break my heart in two but when it heals, it beats for you. ❞

❝ The emotion that can break your heart is sometimes the very one that heals it…  ❞

❝ Jealousy is just love and hate at the same time. ❞ 

❝ I know you still think about the times we had. ❞

❝ I’ve been so selfish because I love you so much. ❞

❝ You’re just like a pill, instead of making me better, you keep making me ill. ❞

❝ I bet you start loving me as soon as I start loving somebody else. ❞

❝ Do you ever think of me when you lie? ❞

❝ I fell for your lies, you hurt me, all the time. ❞

❝ Despite everything, I still remain loving you. ❞

❝ I’m waiting for the one day to come, when I can look at you and feel nothing. ❞

❝ Love creeps up on you, you never know how hard it’s there until they leave.  ❞

❝ I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to forgive myself for just how badly I broke you.. ❞

❝ What chance did we have against fate? ❞

❝ Be careful when fixing broken people. You may end up cutting yourself. ❞

❝ Every other lover will always be compared to you. ❞

❝ I would recognize your heartbeat from the ends of space. ❞

❝ Even in dreams, ghosts of former happiness haunt me. ❞

❝ You should see me when my heart is broken. I don’t grieve, I shatter. ❞

❝ Love, but don’t fall in love because everything that falls breaks. ❞

❝ If my love was a war, you only fought for the glory of winning. ❞

❝ How many hearts have you collected? How many chests have you left aching and empty? ❞  

❝ I have not broken your heart - you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine. ❞

❝ If it’s a question of my heart, you’ve got it. It don’t belong to anyone but you. ❞

[thedressmaker-blog1]

pride, pomp & circumstance Indie The Witcher tailor OC Badulf Mounier rules // about // verses

[thedressmaker-blog1]

@ivakir

As the day waned to a tragic smear of pinks and golds, laid deep in the comfort of a too steamy bath was Badulf, lost in his hopeless realm of star-crossed fantasies and pomegranate soap suds. Yet there was no joy to be had. Nothing eased him. Not his hand-picked roses, not the petals in his bath, not his ever-fine bottles of wine, and no, not even the sad, sad letters from his rosy-cheeked beaus or their heart-shaped cream puffs. Nothing.

He wilted and read ‘my one and only star.’ The parchment in his hand soaked from the water.

“Can a star give two? Three ever-so-daydreamed kisses? A... feather-pillowed I love you and sweetly ever after sighmaking? Might she know a thing of sighmaking? Romancing? Silky-sheet I dos?” he exhaled, letting the love letter drift hopelessly to the floor. Water sloshed about and he wrinkled his nose, not bothering to turn his head to whatever direction Ivakir could be beyond these walls. She was reading his love letters with him, wasn't she? “I can... not. Do more. Not a sigh or a blink more and --- go. Go, I say. You must, really just must read it to me.”

[clauderains]

Christoph Waltz, photographed by Alasdair McLellan| Fantastic Man issue № 20

[thedressmaker-blog1]

I miss you and your wonderful blog

[omg I’m really touched! Flattered! Happy!! I’m sorry I’ve been away for so long, though. A lot of things happened and have been happening, but now that everything’s good, it hit me, “I haven’t written in a CRAZY long time, and every time I did try a new character, it never was as fun as playing Bad. So I log back in after Sherlock Holmes-ing my e-mail and… your ask fills my raisin heart … I’ll start going back on this lil macaroon-suckin, Shakespeare-bashing bitter romantic. If you’re still on, please let me know and we can start a new thread!!]

[thedressmaker-blog1]

[Hey, guys, sorry for the long radio silence. Aside from being busy, my father recently went under cardiac arrest. I've been putting my time and energy into him, so please excuse my indefinite hiatus as I continue to support him.]

[thedressmaker-blog1]

MASCARPONE:

It was a no-name kingdom, with a king no one’d heard of in more civilized lands. There was a palace, but the palace was more like a hunting lodge with pretensions; it was long and low, with a central great hall in which sat a throne which deserved the name only by virtue of being a rather larger chair than the others. The great hall was pillared and smoke-stained; at times of feast, they dragged in long tables and benches and set them up down the middle of the hall and hunting dogs foraged for bones and lapped up spilled ale among the feet of the kingdom’s nobles and warriors.

But it was a kingdom, and it was a palace; and Renfri was most certainly a princess, and her current paramour was most certainly a king. A newly minted one, maybe, having only recently decided (under Renfri’s suggestion) to throw a lovely little coup as a surprise for his father, but a king, regardless. He wore leather, and woven wool, and a heavy bronze torc around his neck; his crown was also of bronze, and there were bronze antlers rising from it.

Where his father had been a barrel-chested man, whose stained wool tunics had strained over his girth – he had gone to fat, as many once muscular men did – and whose greying beard had been yellowed with grease, the new king was slim and strong, a vigorous man who was young enough to fancy he loved her and old enough to know what to do with her in bed. She’d landed well, for the meanwhile; she’d make the best of it while she was able.

And that included such niceties as wardrobe. King Balendin might prefer hunting leathers even when sitting his throne, but Renfri had been a princess in a different sort of land altogether; she demanded fine fabrics, and Balendin was too besotted still to deny her.

Thus, the tailor, brought in from another kingdom at great expense to Balendin’s coffers. Renfri held her arms out from her sides as he measured and muttered and made his little notes, slipping pins into the roughly blocked-out drapes of fabric as he went about his arcane and complicated business.

“Tell me,” she said. “Do you craft undergarments as well? I require cambric, for such.”

@thedressmaker

To be in this... nameless thing of a kingdom. Where were the roses? The fountain of flowing wine? The flock of pretty nobleladies fanning the summer flash from their eyes and the throng of on-one-kneed suitors singing songs of everafters? And where, yes, where was the castle? The castle that pierced the cotton-puffed clouds that Belle and even Anna Henrietta herself would live in? This was a... lodge. A... cabin.

Truth be told, why he was here was a mystery. Or not. It wasn’t just because of the gold, because he had enough to buy a million or so thousand-coin bottles of whatever to smash on particularly sulky moods. He was here for the princess. A princess! A princess so beautiful he was told he had to see, and Badulf Mounier, forever ready to give himself to rose-colored fairy tales and dainty-slippered beauties, whisked himself a world away to see just how beautiful she was... 

...and... oh. How awful. She was. With her sweet head of... mascarpone... sneaking up on him like a little dove.

The couturier tossed his notes away with a forlorn sigh.

“Bra-lettes? You could have a dress, you know. Two. And an appropriate pair of silky silked gloves and all things puffery, but --- lin... gerie? Lace? Teddiettes? Two? More lace?” But she was a princesses, and princesses always were so, so modest, and he’d never for the life of him force her to be bold. Daring. Sultry. And absentmindedly, lazily, Badulf wandered his thought palace, already starting with an innocent little design and only occasionally distracted by that new romantic tragedy he’d been reading, the one cracked open behind him. Oh, he was distracted again, but just this twice. 

[thedressmaker-blog1]

🎶

MY MUSE IN A RELATIONSHIP Qs (accepting)

🎶Do they have a type?

Strong-willed. A go-getter. Not hesitant. Not shy. Confident, even opinionated if he so happens to share the same opinion. The chin-held-high, feathers-never-ruffled kind of girl with a sultry smile and dark, dark eyes that can undo or unnerve you with a single, silent glance. Oh, he loves that, those femme fatale types. Those I-could-have-any-man-around-my-finger-but-I-chose-you type. The type who knows what they want and aren’t afraid to get it. The regal type who signals her arrival with the click of her heels. The show stopper. Blondes. Hips don’t lie. Kissible lips. Long hair to pull on and great nails to scratch him with.

That said, they’re also one of the worst types for him because they’re too ridiculously incompatible. They, bless their sultry little souls, wouldn’t have the patience to deal with him and most, most likely, they’d be stringing him along for something they want, which has happened (Lavinia) and is happening (Maxima @mercysought). It’s a lose-lose game for him, really, and thank you for all your rapturous support, but he has always been and will always be a lost cause and it’s all been for nothing!

[thedressmaker-blog1]

😘Does their demeanor change when in a relationship? ; 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦Do they want children? ; ⚔️ Are they protective of their partner?

MY MUSE IN A RELATIONSHIP Qs (accepting)

😘Does their demeanor change when in a relationship?

Absolutely. See, Badulf is a hopeless romantic and it’s incredibly easy for any dose of emotion to overcome him, so something as powerful as love, and mutual love at that, is bound to do all sorts of crazy things to him. He’s kinder to the object of his affection. He’s sickly lovey-dovey. He’s sweeping you off your feet — literally, too! — and you’re his literal sun and stars, and everywhere he goes you’re either 1) on his mind or 2) he sees you everywhere or, more likely, 3) all of the above. He’s less moody and less melodramatically sullen, but more poetic and obsessively in love with love, and will talk about his plus one like a besotted teenage boy, and he’s so, so hopelessly smitten. 

Once the honeymoon phase is over, it’ll mellow out, but he’s a die-hard bleeding romantic and will surely die for a kiss.  

But he’s still generally a tool. To everyone else. He’s not going to be complimenting tattered shoes and he still is going to mention how your eyebrows don’t look like sisters and he still hates you if he’s always hated you, especially if you’re a bard and named after a certain weed. 

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦  Do they want children?

Badulf and children don’t mix. At all. Like relatives and Christmas dinners. Has Badulf thought about having kids? Of course. He’s thought about love and marriage and living happily ever after, and naturally, usually, that comes with thoughts of a family, but does he actually want children? Well. Maybe. Possibly. If she wants children, but mostly, he thinks he doesn’t have time for kids or, well, he does, but he doesn’t. He’s too much of a brat himself. Pay attention to him. Not our… spawn! 

That said, Badulf as a dad would actually be predictably awful. As in his kid is always right. Always. Maybe not against him, but to everyone else’s kid. His kid is Ivy League material. His kid punched your kid on the playground? Probably had it coming. 

⚔️ Are they protective of their partner?

Yes. And everyone should be afraid of the well-dressed, silver-spooned tailor who has never once ever held a sword or fired an arrow and who’s fighting repertoire consists of dinner party fisticuffs because he insulted someone’s baby daddy. 

[thedressmaker-blog1]

MAXIMA:

Maxima watches him for a good second, hand sliding to the side of her ribcage and then sliding down to her hip as she slowly walks forward. Green eyes move from his face down to the rose petals in his hand and the half torn roses. What a waste of perfectly good roses, to be torn on a whim of someone that had barely any control of his emotions. Bards were hardly the problem, if anything, it was odd that he seemed to hate them quite so much, especially considering how wildly unmeasured their emotions tended to be, and how their ideas about love and romance tended to be completely ridiculous. 

Ah yes - how could she really not remember? - of course the hallmark of a good and perfect romance was to moan another woman’s name during sex. How could she think anything different?

   “Only you can tell me if I do flee your dreams come morning.” A lie, of course. She could, if she wanted, read his mind. From the little circus that she had witness today, however, she was more than sure that she certainly wouldn’t want to. She stops besides where he stood, looking him up and down for a second. “Even if I don’t, however, we clearly know when else you seek me in your thoughts and imagination.“

The hand on her hip drops to the side of her body as the other moves to her hair throwing it over her back. Her eyes are now on the mirrors that reflect back her image. Her smile grows at his comments, green eyes moving from her own shape to him through the mirror. If things were different, maybe. He did have a good face and she imagined that if he woke up on the right side of his bed that he would be agreeable and pleasant, willing even to shower her with compliments. As it stood, she doubted that touching him in any other way other than reminding him of his place would bring her many good things.

Her touch, her attention was a gift. Why would she be willing to give such a precious gift to someone that clearly scorned it? Green eyes return to her own form.

   “I ask a question because what you say and how you act transmit very conflicting intentions.” Her body turns to face him, brow arching as hands fold one over the other. “Now“ - a pause - “What I want, right now, is to have my measures taken and hear your ideas for a dress.“ 

At last, his need for attention has melted away.

“Flee? You don’t flee. You... nosy in. In...trude. Rob me of every passing silky-sheet daze and I hate running, sweeping, merry little chasing after the whole flowy-dressed you, but you! you should do all the chasing from now on. I'm... out. All out. Freshly so.” 

And for all his disagreeing and restless complaints, it wasn’t an exact... no. Never. Ever. But, oh, even if he drank himself to a stupor once upon a blue moon and almost sank to the depths of his lavender bath thinking about her or tossed in bed cursing all things magical in the darkest of the night or slipped, rocked, filled inside a blue-eyed thing and moaned a name that wasn’t, wasn’t Carolita, it meant... nothing. Nothing. Because he still invariably and impossibly despises her and her hips. Her mouth. Her legs and hellfire bless his soul, if she even looks at him like that just one more time...

Then... What? He’s forgotten. She’s turned all too suddenly, and now she’s all too suddenly everywhere. Face to face. And against all his worst judgement, for which there’s just too much, the tailor falls victim to his imaginations of same-height kissing, of tongues and coral lips without neck craning or the tippy-toed reaching but no, no. Enough!

He discards his wine oh so solemnly and takes her shoulders. 

“Do you not know? That I don’t.... not hate you? But only ever mostly. And I don’t think too much of you... Well. Only ever sometimes.” And it’s usually never good. Have pity. The longer he goes on like this, a victim to her existence, the more he can feel his precious sanity draining away and he’s gone. Spent. There’s nothing left of him any longer and hurry up, he’s slipping the robe off her shoulders. Look at the mirror, their imperfectly imperfect reflection of disaster. “I can’t tell you everything. You will just have to --- wait. You can do that, can’t you?”

[thedressmaker-blog1]

@khaleesiofvalyria (continued from here)

Badulf? Jealous? Always.

He sat there as Dany perused through the fabrics, all of which were only the best of the best and more than all of which most people could never dream of. He was busy, though. Too busy. Too busy drifting in and out, back and forth, comparing all of him to all of them; that no-good, dirty, sword-swishing... Oh, he’s too far gone. The couturier felt his pencil roll out his hand onto the parchment and he draped back over the table, his whole spurned self too agitated, too bothered, too riled. Not even the cool winter air and his charmeuse could help him. 

“My --- soufflé. I said it once. Twice. Thrice and six more all in my head, and I can’t do any more, just no more than that,” he sighed, watching as she rounded the table and poured the wine. He took his glass and something in his chest rattled. “He had... eyes! Of honey. But I’m caramel, cinnamon, pâte à choux and I can write sonnets. Love letters. Better than he can with his pointlessly pointless swords. He is not even a... knight! And can’t sing to her under rosy-thorned balconies or tie one or two cherry knots and, Dany, she calls him Rome-e-o.”

[thedressmaker-blog1]

MAXIMA:

   “Then I can only guess that you do not know as much about love and romance as you thought, hm?…” Maxima comments from behind the divider, a smile curling on her lips as she waited to hear what tirade came from it. Badulf? Being told that he might not know as much as he thought about something? Much less of love? Perish the thought, not in this house. 

She could take the amount of clothes that she wanted just with a flicker of her wrists. She could, but that would also mean cutting in the suspense, and in the possibility of keeping him waiting as he had done to her. It seemed only fair that she’d take her time removing the clothing manually, and to take her own, sweet time while doing it. She snorts, first and then a laugh pours from her lips as he asks the question. From somewhere in her memory the sound of an harp crawls slowly to her consciousness. My, it had been a very long time since she even remembered that the song was a thing, much less singing it.

   “For the Witcher, heartless, cold, paid in coin of gold.” her voice is soft, low like a lullaby should be. Her hands are on her hair, bringing it up into a messy bun, pinned down by a single large jeweled hair clip “He comes, he’ll go… Leave naught behind, but heartache and woe.” a pause, deep deep woe is completed in her head. She wondered if he even knew the song. Livius hated it, as one would expect.

They were stripped from emotion from the mutagens, as much as one could really. That was really why people called them mutants, cold, heartless. That only cared for the gold (that was so little, at times, for what they faced that it was just insulting). The people that needed the help the most most of the times did not have the coin that was fair. Well, perhaps it was only fair to have them die then? Instead of dragging young boys to go through the horrors that they did and then not even have gratitude to show for it. 

Maxima’s lips twist for a moment. They could all rot for all she cared.

A deep breath and a smile again on her lips. “Do you know that song?“

She continues removing the clothes, sitting down by one of the chairs there.

   “Are you going to be the one to commission a song like this to be written but about sorceresses, I wonder?” a short breathy chuckle leaves her lips. Now that would be the day, that others would have a song about the love of a witcher and a sorceress and she would have a song about how heartless and awful she was “I know quite a few bards, if you’d like, I can’t wait for the day.“

A sigh, eyes rolling. She guessed she had enough fun. Everything else that is needed is taken off and her hand holds one of the robes that are laying close by wrapping it around her body as she finally walks out “Plus, are you unable to talk of ideas without having your eyes on me?“

“Ob --- viously. I do. Obviously, obviously I know all there really is to know about truest, one true love. You remember? And... romancing. Proper bedside romancing and tragically lovesick poetry and I know just too very much because I. In --- vented it! All of it. You really should remember." 

This is it. Nothing can assuage Badulf now. He feels every last bit of his non-existent patience draining away and he knows that when utterly spent of joy and too nettled for his very unloved good, there is only one thing left to do: he succumbs, with no struggle, to his undying love for melodrama and drifts off to a vase of roses to pluck away one. Two. Three petals, but none are for good luck and absolutely none, none are for she loves me and she loves me nots and, and...

His hand stops.

From behind the divider, a voice trickles through... Her voice. A soft voice, but deep, velvety... dripping down to every corner of the atelier... and under the cracks of his doors, his curtains... and for a moment, he doesn’t even realize he’s turned halfway to where she should be... watching the strap of her dress slip down... 

It sounds like a promise, sugar sweet. Something you’ll soon regret. 

At last, she finishes, and Badulf swallows. He never noticed taking three steps forward.

“Bards? You. Can’t. Make me. I want nothing, not one dash or sprinkle or sugar dusting, to do with... bards! No more than I do early mornings. Sleeping Beauty. Her lilac eyes,” he insists, stepping past those three fallen rose petals. He swirls his wine temperamentally and is... mesmerized... hard by her shadowy figure. “Might you smell of tartly berries? Sweetly lilacs? Do you flee my very only dreams come the very only morning?”

The answer? No. No. She... doesn’t. And even now as he watches her silhouette stand, poured finally out of her dress, and sees a leg slip from past the divider, he --- snorts. 

“Plus, are you unable to talk of ideas without having your eyes on me?” she dares.

“Why do you...? Al-ways? Ask that? Like you... want me? Might you want me? Well. Of course you do, but I can’t, now can I?" he tsks, snagging his measuring tape and closing the rest of the distance in a pouty rush. He snaps it open and doesn’t dare look at her. “But if you do --- and obviously I know you do --- you should just ask. Go on, ask a little better.”

[christophfanalways]

How could anybody not fall in love with him

[thedressmaker-blog1]

It’s no secret: Badulf is highly and unapologetically sexual. He enjoys it, has plenty of it, and with its mind-blowing euphoria and his pick of pretty, wanting noblewomen, how can he possibly ever resist? But for Badulf, sex is more than just to feel good. It’s also how he forgets his inconsolable loneliness. 

What he wants is love. What he wants is romance. And while he has no trouble at all finding someone to warm his bed, absolutely no one he loves has ever or will ever return his affections. He loves, loves, loves but hates love stories and poems because he wishes he had that. He hates seeing old and newly-wed couples because how dare they. He hates how he hates it. He hates how he thought he had it only to find out it was all a game, and all alone in his thousand-yard villa, consumed by the incessant reminder of his intolerable loneliness, he often looks for someone to sleep with because --- hey. It’s another person. It’s some physical connection. It feels so unfathomably good and hot and yes, it’s temporary, and yes, he may or may not feel just as lonely if not ten times more afterwards, but for the moment? For the moment, he doesn’t remember that.

Sometimes, very occasionally, his neediness comes through when he’s in bed. Sometimes he wants them to stay. Sometimes he feels irrationally disappointed when they leave and sometimes he holds on to them longer than he should. Sometimes he takes too much pleasure in hearing them say ‘I love you’ even if 99.99% of the time, they’re just moaning it because the fuck is that unbelievably good. But he can imagine if he tries hard enough, and sometimes if they don’t pick up on it or ignore it because, God, they don’t want it to stop, then the night’s not entirely spoiled. 

But almost always, the beautiful not-quite-princess tangled in his sheets isn’t there come the morning because this was just for fun. No strings. Or she has to go home to her family. Her husband. And after the euphoria’s faded and he’s finally spent, Badulf gets to have the pleasure of lamenting about how lonely he feels all over again. 

Until it becomes too much to ignore and he drowns it out with wine.

Or until he finds the next person to stumble upon. 

[thedressmaker-blog1]

MAXIMA:

    “To put it in terms that you’ll perhaps understand…” she pauses, a calculated, cold one as green eyes rear towards the man. Smile fading slowly from soft lips. One could take those pauses maybe to structure one’s thoughts, seek the right words to make sure that everything was understood and nothing was misconstrued. Maxima’s demeanor was perhaps closer to a large feline slowly circling her prey. Each pause similar to how one’s paw silently fell on the floor “To forget is to loose information, something that I find extremely abhorrent, a waste of the highest order. Much like…” green eyes narrow and shoulders shrug “I guess, you would see someone lying to you about their feelings for you.“ 

Maxima walks slowly to the mirror, her body to the side so she can look at the way that her current dress drapes over her figure. Long and soft waves of brown hide the intricate pattern over the purple corset on her back. Green eyes move from herself to the other through the mirror.

    “Why would I care for someone that is not capable of caring for me? If nothing else, to suggest that I help you, even if for a price,” after all nothing came without a price, even a nobleman such as him should be very aware of it. No magic, no miracle came without a price written over one’s flesh “should be enough to show that I care.“

Or that she had at least seen someone that didn’t deserve the fate that he had been assigned. It was not a crime to be a cretin, after all. 

     “I could have simply left you after taking you off your precious sea lover. Not asked for Livius to find a way to life your curse.“ brows arch, as if she had just now started to think about such things in that very moment “I could have simply decided to leave you to your fate. For me, it would have meant less drama and less insults hurled my way, anyway.” her gloved hands move to cover his over her shoulders “If that is not kindness and a sign of care, I don’t know what it is!“

Maxima remains looking at his face for a solid second, the silence dragging on and hoping that her words would really sink in. In general, Maxima could not really say why she had decided to help, it hadn’t been for the money or the dresses though those things were nice. If she wanted to be the least involved she wouldn’t have helped him, left him stranded, but that simply not her nature. She guessed that beyond the fact that she did want to help, she also found having someone to prod without feeling guilty that she’d hurt his feelings (because she even doubted he had any feelings beyond anger, lust and the need to demonstrate that he was superior in every way) “But, I have to agree, it is too much fun.” 

Maxima moves away from the mirror, her hands moving to the back to remove outer layers in order for him to take her measurements. Her smile grows as the shoes are removed.

     “In the end, it’s a good thing I don’t care if you like me one way or another, hm?“ she chuckles leaving a few layers over a couch before moving behind one of the separators, green eyes on him as her fingers hold the edge of it before disappearing behind it “Now, as for the dress, what were you thinking about doing?“

That was-- Badulf stiffens on the spot.

“Li--? You. Can’t. Say you love me. Kiss me. Promise me a night then forever and for always. Your --- heart. And never not mean it,” he argues, turning to the dew-dropped window, suddenly feeling the distress of his fate. “I-- I have many, much too many countless I love yous, did you know? A thousand or million and five; more than I or a poet or you could ever really know what to do with, and never once upon a time did I say a thing of --- loveless love. Confessionless confessions... Daydreamed! Yes, only-ever-daydreamed romance.”

So where, oh where did she get this... idea, this lie, that anyone who was anyone said I love you to him and not mean it? Who’s talking? Is it Beaufort? The moon? The very few slabs of brick that his buttercup bled all over exactly three years ago? Who else? The stars? Moon? The lightning bugs that never could mind their own business? That shoe-shiner boy who suspiciously always did know too much? Badulf can see it all now: her cheeks paler and less pretty, a mistake bleeding out on the street. A werewolf snarling. Fear in her eyes. A pathetic squeal of a screech and the final leap in her chest and---

Poetry, poetry! Yes. He had to think about... poetry. The couturier quirks his mouth and in a feeble attempt to assuage his see-sawing mind, grabs a bottle of Fiorano. That... witch. With her... everything. He uncorks the wine and pours himself a glass and recites to himself “Sonnet 116″ because he has to and love is not true love, love is not true love.

She begins peeling away her clothes. His eyes steal a glance and stay.

“Yes. You don’t. You don’t know. You would let me drown. Die. Swallow all the whole entire ocean and choked never-so-sweetly on seaweed. And... kissed. By those --- lips, those sea-salted lips that are not a thing like my once-dreamed fantasies, my underwater could-have-beens,” he laments, looking all accusatory at his wine, her disappearing behind the panel, his wine. “You never cared. You... can’t. Not if you have me beg. Buy you jewels. Dresses. Courtly secrets. And you. Yes, you. Have you ever, possibly ever or once cared for anyone who wasn’t the least bit you?”

Badulf festers in his entirely hopeless situation that not even a glass or ten of wine could fix, and how laughable. Her. Care? She had no need for hearts, remember? And how long will she stay behind that divider? How long will it take her to... un...dress... He has a lot to do. Like drown. Die. Swallow all the entire ocean. She asks what he plans to do with the dress and he huffs into his wine, tapping impatiently at a table.

“When will you hurry? Never? After I’ve finally left to my shells? Coral? Candleless castle?”