vainglory.

𝚘𝚑, 𝚋𝚞𝚝 𝚑𝚒𝚜𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢 𝚖𝚘𝚟𝚎𝚜 𝚒𝚗 𝚜𝚞𝚌𝚑 𝚟𝚒𝚌𝚒𝚘𝚞𝚜 𝚌𝚒𝚛𝚌𝚕𝚎𝚜 private / dependant multimuse penned by marie

[vainglcry]

vainglcry. a dependent multi-muse blog penned by marie (she/her ; 18+). current muses: amelia bones ; devna rai ; ?? catchlove ; lucius malfoy ; zarina ??

a. bones. tag tbd

i. intro // ii. pinterest // iii. ship // iv. stats // v. tag // vi. threads

d. rai. tag tbd

i. intro // ii. pinterest // iii. ship // iv. stats // v. tag // vi. threads

?. catchlove. tag tbd

i. intro // ii. pinterest // iii. ship // iv. stats // v. tag // vi. threads

l. malfoy. tag tbd

i. intro // ii. pinterest // iii. ship // iv. stats // v. tag // vi. threads

z. lastname. tag tbd

i. intro // ii. pinterest // iii. ship // iv. stats // v. tag // vi. threads

au: soc

n. lantsov. tag tbd

i. intro // ii. pinterest // iii. ship // iv. stats // v. tag // vi. threads

[vainglcry]

nitwitisms​:

who: amelia bones ( @vainglcry ) where: edgar’s house.

Edgar would never be certain how someone so important to him, could also feel like a stranger. Amelia was not just family. She was his best friend, his confidant, the person he knew he could always count on. Her stubbornness, he’d always believed, was a strength. An indestructible dam in the face of a mighty flood. While they weren’t always on the same page, Edgar always felt as though she would be there for him; understood him. He often let his emotions wash over him; Amelia was the one who kept him from ruining himself. His dam. 

These days, he wasn’t certain if he and his sister would ever find their footing again; if that normalcy, that current, would ever return. He’d suggested family dinner, half expecting her to turn him down, and yet they sat, eyes trained on their food. He couldn’t even try niceties, not with Amelia. She’d see right through any ruse he was trying to pull, right through any fake attempt to get them back in step.

Still, as he pushed rice around on his plate, he looked up at her words falling from his lips and breaking the silence before he could stop himself. “I don’t think I’ve said congratulations for all the work you’re doing at the Ministry.” And he was proud of her, despite it all; despite the fact that he couldn’t really believe that she was sticking around. She’d always had the idea that changing the world meant following the rules, the law. Somehow, Edgar had fallen on the opposite side of that coin, but it hadn’t meant either was wrong. Until now, he supposed. Until war was involved. 

“I know it’s not… Well, I can’t imagine it’s easy. If you wanted to…” He waved his fork in the air, waiting for her to finish that sentence. A large part of him just wanted to scream at her to get out, but that sort of command always had the opposite effect. If anyone could do it, create a neutral section of the Ministry, it was his sister. But with Death Eaters crawling the place, with Order members getting exposed every day, he worried. Not just about her, but about what he might do to her.

Edgar stared at her expectantly, not sure how to voice any of his concerns without asking her to take a step back from what she believed in. What happened if someone found out he was an Order member? What happened if they found out his sister’s life was more important to him than his own? What then? What now? 

-----

The problem with loving someone, Amelia had always thought, was how completely it opened you up to weakness. Vulnerability was something she’d trained out of herself, something she’d crushed beneath her heel; even as a child she’d been so self-contained. So protected. And yet--and yet. Sometimes, she could convince herself that it didn’t count, loving Edgar. He was an extension of her, part of her very soul; the only person she could rely upon without feeling as if she was walking on a tightrope.

Sometimes--but not all the time. Not when the very foundation upon which she'd built her adult life (staked her career, her reputation, on!) had shifted from solid ground to a raging river beneath her feet. No, now there was no room for weakness, not anymore. And yet, she'd still accepted his invitation to dinner. It wouldn't happen again.

Every muscle in her body seemed to freeze with Edgar's words, a full fork left hovering just above her plate. "Thank you," she replied, her voice so cool and professional that she almost wanted to cringe. And the very worst part of it was that even still, she trusted his words, trusted his judgment. Everything he said, everything he did, came from a place of love, and didn't that just make the whole damn thing into some cruel joke. The world fell more and more to pieces with each passing day, and a part of her yearned to get her big brother's advice because it was the only thing in this world she could rely on to be true. And here he was--offering her comfort and praise and the chance to put down her heavy load, all in a neat little package.

If anyone knew just how off-kilter she was feeling, it would be Edgar or--well, Edgar was the only one of them who mattered. "--talk? What would there be to talk about? This is what I signed up for." The brisk, clipped words are out of her mouth before Amelia can even process them. Shrugging off the doubt, the questions, had always been second nature to her even before it'd become a necessity. While it may work for anyone at the Ministry who grew a bit too nosy, she knew there was a crazed tint to her eyes, knew Edgar would catch it.

Amelia's cool expression faltered as she met her brother's eyes. All this hard work, all these years and years of working so damn hard to make the world a better place, to stop this war in its tracks--just for everything she'd ever believed in to be called into question. Amelia was falling apart at the seams, but she'd be damned if anyone saw. "What could I talk to you about, anyways? Any detail I let slip might end up used in this damn war I'm trying to end." Her words cut through the air like knives, but she wasn't sure just which of them they were meant to wound.

[vainglcry]

who: amelia & tarquin (@zahra wtf is ur @) where: tarquin’s fight club

It’s—late, or early, or so late it’s become early again—and Amelia is cracking, crumbling, coming apart at the seams. She’s sober, painfully so; there is nothing to shield her from this decision, nothing she can blame or hide behind. The door closes behind her and she lets out a sigh and Amelia has no choice to confront that, somehow, this place—no, this person, she can admit that to herself—is the closest thing to a comfort she can find. Even this has been timed so perfectly, yet still it’s almost a surprise that Tarquin is the only person here. The smell of blood, of sweat, hangs heavy in the air, but she hears the steady one, two, one, two of Tarquin’s punches and something in her loosens.

Amelia leans against a pillar and breathes, watches, waits. There’s no doubt in her mind that he knows she’s there, that he’s known since the door opened; the same tether that told her he’d be here must grant him that same awareness of her. Maybe she’s never been an optimist or a romantic, but it’s an inviolable truth: they know exactly what shape the other takes in the world. They know the cadence of each others’ steps, the pattern of the other’s breathing. Amelia stands and watches and knows that she is giving him time the same way he is granting that to her; she won’t dare call it a truce.

“Busy night,” she calls when his punches lull, arms crossing across her chest. The stance is defensive, combative; if her workout clothes weren’t enough of an indication that she’s there for a fight, then the frustration rolling off of her in waves is. “I could shut this all down right now, you know. I can see half a dozen safety violations from here.” Amelia casts her gaze around the club before letting her eyes meet his: a challenge, a plea.

[vainglcry]

who: zarina & isobel ( @rcnaissancewrites ) where: outside an old london home

If she is being completely honest, Zarina isn’t exactly thrilled to be in London again. Sure, she’d spent a nice few years in the city a few decades back, but really, the world is too big and too bright to waste her life in these crowded grey streets. But, she supposes, if she’s going to find her way back to dreary England, it’s only fitting that it’s for the woman who convinced her to dream bigger than the small mountain town she’d been born in in the first place.

The letter had found her in Barcelona and, really, she maybe should’ve been more surprised that even after all these years she could still be tracked so easily, but Isobel’s family has been around far longer than Zarina’s scant handful of decades. She’s long since grown used to being found by them--by her--even when she is unfindable to the rest of the world. So when she’d returned to her villa and found a note that simply read, Find her, she hadn’t asked questions. Zarina knew the drill: she’d search for her and Isobel would let Zarina find her, and for some reason she’d listen to her when her siblings were met with only silence. She tries not to think too hard about it. Of course, she had a nine hour long flight to do nothing but think about it, but oh well.

Hidden in the shadows of an arched doorway, Zarina’s fingers drift over the edges of the paper she keeps tucked in her pocket. The edges are worn already; even if they’re not in Isobel’s own hand, they’re still a connection to her, still something tangible tying them together after all this time of Zarina trying to stay away. Even from across the street, she hears the cue she’s been waiting for: the sharp, distinct snap of a neck. She doesn’t give herself time to think; in the blink of an eye she is across the street, inside the building, facing blood and carnage and her. In another blink, she is pressed close against Isobel, all-too-familiar curves never quite as distracting as the glint in her eyes. Hand pressed tight to the other woman’s throat, Zarina cocks her head. “Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?”

[vainglcry]

griefswar​:

It would have been easier to apparate back home. A flash of pain traded for this slow hurt that dogged his every step. The sooner he got home, the sooner he could fix himself up before Rory saw him like this. It strangely felt like taking the easy way out and besides the apartment had a way of feeling too still at times when he was alone. The absence of something he couldn’t quite pinpoint could chill him to the bone. 

His injuries weren’t all that bad all things considered: a broken ribs, a shallow cut in his side, a leg that ached with every step after he had fallen off a roof and landed badly. Finn hadn’t seen the ambush coming and he usually did if only because he liked to avoid violence when he could. It became a necessity in his line of work though and the ongoing war had only heightened tensions, the fighting disrupting whatever supply lines the brothers had managed to set up. Finn doesn’t like what violence does to him ; doesn’t enjoy the fact that it manages to come easily when he gives in to it. Perhaps if things were different he wouldn’t even bother putting up a fight — he would have happily bled out in the back of an alley and call it rest well earned — but he still has his brother to get back home to. But then if it wasn’t for Rory he wouldn’t have made it this far. He wouldn’t have climbed out of his house’s window when he was eleven. He would have died in that place with his mother. 

He turns down an alleyway, a flash of pain crossing his features as he drags his leg behind him when he feels her presence. He isn’t surprised by the recognition, he always known when she was around but he is surprised by the wave of relief it brings. He had missed her. It was a simple thing but one that Finn had never allowed himself to linger on when she was gone. He does now though. He pauses, leaning against a wall, his gaze shifting to the top of the buildings. She wasn’t in sight but he knew she was near. “You can come out now, you know,” his voice slightly rough. He can’t help the smile when he finally does see her, “Most would stay away in the middle of a war. Not come back.”

---

It’s almost as if she doesn’t let the thought cross her mind, really. Devna watches the difference in his pace, the tension in his shoulders, and she wants so desperately to chalk it up to poor memory, to too long away. It’s the kind of hopeless optimism he’s always accused her of, the kind of hopeless optimism she’s clung to across decades and tragedies, and here she falls back on it like a crutch. Even as some part of her works to piece these signs together, she refuses to even consider that he’s been injured somehow--that she could’ve lost him, too, this person she cares enough to return to despite every reason not to. But the flash of pain on his face cuts through like a knife, drawing the matter into laser-focus, thoughts running a mile a minute--

But then he speaks and something restless inside her stills. For a moment, just one, she closes her eyes and lets herself bask in it. Oh, she’d missed this, with a fierceness that should’ve sent her running--had sent her running, in a dozen different cities. This line she walks has grown only thinner during her time away, it seems, but she can’t bring herself to care. She steps into view and sees his smile and the one she offers in return is luminous. “Maybe I missed the weather,” she says, and if her gesture towards the sky is blasé the raw happiness in her voice is anything but.

Hopping down from the roof is as easy as breathing and she steps towards him without breaking stride. “Maybe I missed the food,” she continues, taking one more step, two. When she comes to a stop, she is close enough to reach out, close enough to touch. The space between them is electric, is a chasm; she doesn’t dare cross it. “Maybe there were some things in this city I wasn’t ready to leave behind.” She doesn’t drop his gaze for one more breath, two. When she does, it’s merely to look him over, unable to resist the urge to take him in now that she’s close. In the end, she’s not sure what gives it away--a flinch, a bruise, some swelling, some innate knowledge--but Devna feels her body grow cold, go inhumanly still. “You’re hurt.”

[vainglcry]

who: devna & finn ( @griefswar ) where: the streets of london

Devna had spent far more time away from far sunnier places, but as she walked the streets of London for the first time in months she couldn’t keep the wide grin off her face. Sure, the sky was a dreary grey turning all the more somber as afternoon faded into evening. Sure, she’d left the city a war zone and returned to a massacre. But this--this dirty, busy city held something that so few other places in her long life had offered her: a reason to return.

Inhuman reflexes sent her from one roof to the next, feet landing whisper soft on each one as she followed Finn along. Not that she’d admit it to him, but she’d been on her way to the Finnigan’s flat when she’d spotted Finn weaving his way through the streets and, well. An even earlier reunion was all the better--but she’d still have her fun first. And if a part of her was nervous, that part grew easier to ignore with each roof.

But something was off--something even her happiness at seeing him again couldn’t overshadow. When Finn turned down an alleyway, Devna knew she was caught, and none too soon; the nerves she’d felt when she’d first spotted him were back tenfold, but with a far more acute fear this time. Still, uncharacteristically, she hesitated, waiting for him to acknowledge her, happy to follow his lead in this if in little else.