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#screams from mountaintop
sanamustdie · 1 year
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THE BOYS | billy & becca butcher as weyes blood lyrics [2/2]
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technitango · 1 year
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they're fuckin married I'm going to lose my goddamn mind aaaaaaaaaaaah
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frankiegirl · 10 months
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hey just wanted to say i'm happy you managed to get something that will bring you so much joy ❤️ you deserve it
Thank you so much!!!!!! I’m literally SO excited about it and I’m not letting anything suck the joy from it 😇😇
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datastate · 1 year
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i need to go up the mountain again i neeed to for my health ok? ok.
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dottiesxdreams · 2 years
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@honeyhcarted​ asked–– “Good morning, sleeping beauty.”
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It was simple moments like these that made Dorothy feel like the luckiest girl in the world. It was the gleam of a late summer sun peeking in through the gaps between her curtains, it was the way the rays illuminated the silhouette of the stirring body beside hers, and it was especially the way his voice, still husky with sleep, rang out to break the silence as soon as she was noticeably awake. “Good morning, sleeping beauty.”
It was still too soon for her to respond verbally. She wasn’t quite ready yet, hardly having shaken the cloudiness that lingered from her slumber. Instead, Dottie acknowledged him with a squinty-eyed grin and an open, extended hand–– it was his to hold until she properly came to.
“G’mornin’ bubba,” she had found her voice, although it came out like a quiet hum, her eyes finally fluttering open to their full beam to greet Sammy warmly.
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earthsbestdefnder · 12 days
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knowing that when evelyns born she’s gonna get so much love and so many presents (I know because I share an Amazon account with my parents) and so much attention meanwhile I’m the one who was pregnant for 9 months and then has to push her out of me and I just know that’s gonna be met with…nothing
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batteredhilt · 5 months
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I love my bf so much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’m so proud of our relationship and our friendship
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kajmasterclass · 8 months
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youtube
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drpierceandmrhyde · 2 years
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literally the dream is real reality is the nightmare
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artiev88 · 2 years
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I'm on vacation with my best friend and god. I hope she knows how happy I am to sit in silence with her for a week. I hope she knows how much it means to me that we have this at least once a year and it's the safest space I've ever been in and I hope I make her at least a bit happy too
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arachnixe · 3 months
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Rest
A knight drags her well-worn sword behind her as she ascends the stairway up to the throne room.
Her muscles ache with the exhaustion of a long journey that now comes mercifully to its end.
Dangling at her chest is the Amulet with the power to seal the Demon Queen away forever.
The knight’s quest had been long and arduous, taking her from snowy mountaintop to deepest abyss, from heat-blasted desert to choking jungle to toxic marshland.
She passed all the goddess’s trials, earning every piece of the Amulet now weighing down her neck.
Her quest ends here.
At the top of the stairs at last, she props herself up by her sword to collect what remains of her strength.
She once imagined kicking this door down, eyes blazing in triumph as she holds the Amulet aloft and invokes its power to cast down the Demon Queen. Now it’s all she can do to place one unsteady hand against the massive crimson door and lean her body weight into it until—with a long, slow creak—it opens enough to permit her entry.
One foot in front of the other. Her legs scream, but she wills those final steps into them.
Lifting her head, the knight meets the eyes of the creature whose rule she quested so arduously to end. The Queen looks like a woman. Half again as tall as a mortal, and dressed entirely in black clothes of a scandalous cut to reveal her ample curves, but a woman nonetheless.
Fury burns in the Demon Queen’s eyes at the intrusion, but only for a moment. After casting her eyes up and down the knight, her fierce expression is overtaken by a look of…pity. She doesn't speak, doesn't threaten or monologue, she simply strides to her throne and takes her seat.
The knight drops her sword and lifts her hand to the holy symbol she wears, preparing to speak the invocation that ends this quest.
But still her enemy does not make any aggressive movements. Instead she pats her lap with a black-clawed hand. Cherry-red lips smile softly in invitation.
Without a word, she offers rest.
Rest. That’s one thing the goddess never gives the worthy.
The knight stumbles forward those last few steps, collapsing to her knees at the throne. With her head cradled in the Queen’s lap, she allows the tears to flow.
A hand strokes her hair as she allows herself to give up.
Over the years to come, many others arrive to challenge the Demon Queen’s rule, but every attempt is doomed from the start.
After all, without the Amulet they have no hope.
And oh how she savors the taste of the despair in their eyes when they see it worn by the doting figure she pets.
The knight still proudly carries it around her neck. It is her greatest joy that the one she serves knows she will never be in danger of its power while the knight is in possession of it.
The Demon Queen trusts her to keep it safe, and she trusts her Queen to keep her safe.
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r0-boat · 1 month
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taps empty gift card against table
So werewolf!Red, huh?
∾ 【 Rouge Anon 】
Big Red Wolfie boy! Give him head pats and scratches
Werewolf!RedxGn!reader hcs
+wereMountainLion!Blue
Life on Mount silver
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You live secludedly at the Foothills of Mount Silver. Not all of the mountain is covered in snow. There are beautiful fields of green where the snow melts, giving the plants water and nutrients to thrive. Fertile soil falling from the mountaintop's water eroding the ragged rock into soft, leveled soil perfect for your little cottage and the food you grow to sustain you and your Little livestock animals. You make the wheat and veggies and too delicious bread and home-cooked meals, and the leftover seeds go to your hungry chickens. Your compost bin is filled with nutritious rotting food for the worms you use as bait for to catch fish in the rivers nearby.
Discussing and screams of your chickens had an alarmed you. Abandoning your breakfast you had been cooking on the stove You rush outside your cabin. With a shovel in hand you were prepared for the last time that pesky fox will try to sneak into your chicken pen! When as you get closer do your coop you've noticed the chicken wire you place to keep the natural predators out we're torn and ripped open and your poor little sweet chickens home giant hole in it One thing was for certain. A fox did not do this. Gripping your shovel and standing your ground you sneak around to get a better look at the hole. The creature who made the damage was still there!
A big beast the size of a man perhaps even bigger black fur large ears a snout with razor knife like fangs. Has your chickens seemingly unharmed coward in the corner The beast in front of them laid motionless it's breathing shallow as it laid unconscious. It's black fur soaked in a red as it pooled onto the wooden floor it's formatted with scratches all over its body as if getting out of a huge fight.
Now, seeing as this thing was damaged and beat up. It broke into your chicken coop, yes, but it did not do any harm. You were fair but not a monster. Even so, you couldn't kill the thing even if you tried. You hated to do this, but your last resort was calling animal control or some kind of service that takes care of these kinds of giant beasts. You rush inside to grab your phone, and when you return, the beast is no more, something that puzzles you more. A half-naked man now lay where the beast was.
Confused and rightfully kind of scared, You still helped the man over your shoulders, blood staining your clothes as you carried the man into your house. Now, you were no doctor, but you knew how to do basic first aid, wrapping up his wounds and soaking the bandages in rubbing alcohol before laying him down in your bedroom; your guest room has been occupied with storage at the moment since you were not expecting a visitor. With your breakfast now ruined... You start to work making soup packed full of soft vegetables and nutrients. He woke up upon smelling the delicious dish you were making.
You didn't hear him You didn't see him when you turned around you jumped the man you helped was right there brown eyes staring down at you never realized how tall he was standing there silently. You held a bowl of soup in your hand wanting to give it to him in bed but.... "I-i found you laying in my chicken coop You were hurt but... I see your better now? I made this for you?"You held the ball of soup up to him You heard him hum as he takes it wincing in pain as he holds the bull gently in his hands He forgotes the spoon drinking it straight from the bowl He lets out a growl shaking his head. "It's hot it's, be careful" You speak softly. The Man let's add a home in return blowing on the soup before drinking again.
He was too hurt to go back to where he once was, wherever he was from, so he stayed with you for a while. He did not talk much, really at all. He only told you his name every now and then, making sounds. You've learned very quickly to know what he meant. You've learned that the giant beast you saw in your chicken coop was him when you finally cleared out to the guest room for him to use somehow; when you woke up, you noticed a giant beast wrapping its arms around you, holding you close. When Red tried to call you down as you were yelling and freaking out, he changed into his human form... Realizing that Werecreatures are real was a hard pill to swallow.
Even when you said goodbye to him, Red was a frequent visitor. You don't even know how to get in. You don't remember giving him a key. You would come back from hiking or guarding in your backyard to see a giant wolf sprawled on your carpet, his tail swishing from side to side beside your fireplace, cold to the touch, and his fur dotted with snow.
Red wasn't very affectionate. He would always be in the same room very close to you, but physical affection was foreign to him. All he would do was lean against you or touch you in some way, and that was enough for him. But you did notice that even when his face would stay blank, his tail would make slight movements. He was a dog, after all, less of a wolf and more of a golden retriever, even with his scary face. And Red happily lets you play with his ears, tail, and fur.
Red came over a lot, It was nice to have a visitor. And red light that he could sleep in an actual bed instead of wherever he could find on Mount silver. Every time he would come over unannounced or announced by a knock on the door It was almost as if you read his mind having extra dinner prepared or the guest room prepared for his stay. And when he would come over with cuts and scratches from tussling with a big animal you would be there to patch his wounds.
It was obvious that Red was protective over you Even when you're out hiking around Mount silver or trying to find natural herbs spices Red watched you from afar. But he didn't notice that other eyes were on you a mountain lion it's claws gripping The Rock it was hiding behind it's paws and thumbs flexing its claws aching to feel flesh around them. The big creature leaped tackling you to the ground. It's tail whipping around You were terrified too terrified to scream You only saw a blur of black and red tackling the mountain lion off you. The two of them tumbled it looked less like a fight to the death and more of play fighting. Red quickly overpowered the lion has it laid out of breath and exhausted on the ground You saw it change its shape to a more human form "so this is what you've been hiding from me?" The human panted giving red a smirk "Buddy how could ya? thought I was closer to you than that!" You flinched one the man stepped closer to you. "Names Blue. Sorry about all that, just felt like play'n. Cuz I'm a big cat and all."He seemed so nonchalant giving you a cheeky smile. "Seems like you already met Red. He don't talk a lot so he doesn't make friends easily so how the hell did he get a pretty human like you huh?" Red still in his wolf form slapped Blue across the head when he called you pretty. "What I can't call your little secret pretty?"
You are patching up blue is wounds later glaring at Red for biting him.
Now you have two giant were animals showing up on announced You didn't know taking in a man would lead to you waking up with a giant were cat pawing at you for food in the middle of the night or him on top of your roof laying in the sun. And Red inside your house laying as usual spot near the fire or in your garden watching your chickens.
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sculptorofcrimson · 4 days
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Snowfields
Synopsis: A cold walk atop the mountain with Valdor.
Relations: Valdor x female Emperor shard
Warnings: Suicide attempt
This is relatively tame for what I write, and I wrote it in one sitting when I had roughly 20 minutes to spare. Ty for your time!
“Do you remember Ararat, my liege?”
No. No, she didn’t remember Ararat. She has never heard the name before. But she will. By the gods, she will. 
The air was cold. It rattled through her lungs when she tried to breathe. The white seemed to stretch forever, like malignant bones, the wind laid bare and rattling its screams. It would rise like a frosty howl around the two of them, wailing like a soldier who had lost a limb, weeping its cries for eternity. The cold bit at her, tore at her, the snow would have frozen mortal blood solid in mortal veins. Thunder grumbles in the distance. A crack of lightning splits the sky in half, purplish white against the ghoulish grey. 
His cloak was warm when he wrapped it around her. But his touch, without doubt, without even question, was unfathomably cold. Without even thinking of it, she had shrunk away.
Valdor’s grip had only tightened then. He fastened the clasp of the too-large cloak, the stench of incense and parchment wafting from the silk. A small smile, the emotionless movement perfected by a mind that could not actually smile, flashed briefly across his visage as he took her wrist, trapped it so effortlessly between his fingers and kissed the soft skin there.
“There was a Primarch once. A magnificent man. One that even I respected, in some regards.” Valdor led her, slowly and patiently, holding her up when she stumbled through the knee-high snow. The mountaintop seemed to rage against her. Well, too damn bad. She hated mountains, and she hated snow, and she was about to teach him a lesson out of spite. It was pure pettiness, but it was hers, it was one last plan she held to herself, one last wish she was certain was hers and not his, and if she was going to die, drowned limb by limb into the unseeing gold, she wished to at least pain him with it. 
How had it gone so wrong? How had angels of such glorious aurite turned into nightmares wrapped in gold and crimson? 
She yanked her arm away. Valdor let her go without struggle, simply rising back with a singular, elegant motion, as if he were a dancer performing a long-awaited waltz. When she stumbles over another snow-covered rock mere moments later, he was there, as if he had never left, one arm gently wrapped around her waist as he hauls her upright. This time, when she tries to pull away, his grip only tightens, as if he was defying the very storm itself.
“The snow reminds me of him. The Cataegis Primarch of the IVth legion. You watched us duel atop a mountain not so unlike this one, my liege, when the storm ended. It felt like the top of the world. We were in a deadlock when you appeared, your attention straying just for a moment to our fight. I snapped his wrist with a twisting motion, and slammed him into the ground hard enough to snap part of his spine. Your attention had departed by then, but it was enough. You still remember the frost, do you not?”
No. No. She didn’t. She couldn’t. Valdor’s hand, so gentle, so damnably gentle, placed itself under her chin. It stroked her hair, his gauntlets’ touch heavy yet tender, the jewels flashing dully through strands of hair that were quickly becoming darker, swallowed first by brown and then by black. He had not forbidden her to cut it. Out of spite, she had ordered him to cut it for her. 
It didn’t matter.
The strands had grown back, with an unrelenting zeal, glossy and luxurious and flowing like ink over water. She was innocent once, she was mortal, she lived among men and walked amongst mortals, and she will never be again. She will never live again, and that truth was simply so jagged, so broken, so horrifyingly caught between her chest and her throat that it was as if something broke a little further every time she took a breath. Valdor had only quietly polished, brushed and glossed over her hair, his movements methodical and calculated, even when silent tears rolled their way down her cheeks, her vision blurred by the salt and the water but just visible enough to see the flakes of gold swirling in her pupils. Still clear enough to see herself die.
She had felt Valdor’s fingers through her hair then, braiding it carefully in an intricate style she had never seen before, but one that tugged at familiar roots she had never felt before. 
Her hair. Some mewling, broken part of her(was it her dream or His? Was there a difference anymore?) instinctively felt like it should be darker. Longer. Wreathed with gold, and weighed down by a crown. But it was her hair. It was her hair, once upon a time, and she had lost it strand by strand, inch by inch, as the gold swam up through her vision and blocked out her eyes.
A rock clattered over the side of the mountain, followed by dull, distant thunder. It jolted her back to her mind, to her body, to the world that she did not rule over and should have never ruled. 
Numbly, she felt herself shake her head. Valdor only raised an eyebrow, and adjusted the clasp.
“I remember the rock, my master.” Valdor was saying. His voice rose and fell like a litany, carefully retracing steps the Emperor had once guided him through, when He was a king and gods walked the earth. She felt so small against him, so tired, so far from the invincible god-warrior he had once served, but that was alright, He had returned to him, and he would shepherd Him, guide Him, protect Him, through this life and through this death till the last. “Even the rocks felt cold. It was black, and it glistened like oil whenever the sun shone. There were storms every day of that campaign, as if the heavens themselves were against us, as if the gods had conspired to strike you down, but yet you gave us the order to march. And the wind. You told me that you heard it screaming. Malcador jokingly asked that if you should live again, you would choose to enact Ararat during the summer instead, if only out of sheer annoyance from the wind.” Valdor’s smile was nothing more than a reflex. There was no humor in it, nor human emotion. “Do you remember it then, my master?”
The wind. Had it screamed then, as it screams now? Had it screamed, beneath the weight of the betrayal, wailing with the sheer horror of what it had taken? Did it scream, singing a threnody with the thunder, as the skies growl and hail shudders from overcast clouds ahead? She shivers underneath her layers. The finest climate suits had been prepared, coupled with the Custodian cloak over her shoulders, but she felt cold, so unspeakably cold that it was nearly painful. 
Oh Throne. She was cold, so cold. 
“Constantin?” she rasps. Her voice was not her own. It was rusty from disuse, and cracked, and weak, but yet some part of it resonated, it echoed like the tongue of a god, speaking through the plaintive shell of a mortal, just enough to hiss like a shadowy undertone. It should have been more sonorous, it should have been softer, it should have been the voice of a conqueror, it should have been the voice of a girl snatched away from her home by an angel and transformed into a god. It should have been hers, but it was His instead. She licks her lips and tries again. “Constantin.”
“Yes, my lord?” he was at her side(was he always so close?), the memory jarringly left unfinished. The hand once gently guiding her and became more insistent as he knelt down until they were eye to eye. 
“I don’t remember the mountain.” she replied flatly. Her voice was weaker than a whisper. She didn’t care. She knew he’d hear it anyway. And if he didn’t, she no longer cared enough to ensure he did. She no longer believed she had the strength to stomach that voice any longer. 
The cliff looked dizzyingly as she peered over the edge. She wondered if even a Custodian could survive a fall at such a height. 
“I don’t remember the snow, Constantin.”
“That is alright, my liege.” He was so sweet, so sickeningly sweet, so unerringly gentle. It made her want to claw at him, to crack him, to see what could finally burrow under that invincible flesh and make him howl. It made her wonder how the Emperor broke him to make him the man he had become, how deeply He must have laid His tongs in the forge of flesh and fire. 
She wondered what his screams would sound like, if he could scream at all.
“Do not trouble yourself, my liege. Your form is still young.” Of course, he could afford to wait. He had waited for ten thousand years, and he would gladly wait for ten thousand more. In that broken, delusional mind of his, it was only just, after all. He’d speak litanies of loyalty, roaring them over the screams of her brethren, he’d speak praises so numerous that they’d drown out the sobs of her family. “Your memories will return, when given due time. I can tell you about them. The preliminaries, the campaigns, the plans you undertook.”
Of course. They’d have to return. They must return. They will return, and He will live again, born out of this mortal shell under Valdor’s guidance. Valdor simply could not be, must not be, could not accept, could not live in a world where his liege has fallen forever. 
The snow was no longer biting her. It seemed to have been cowed, laid low beneath the vengeful eye of its rightful master. Even the storm seems to have settled, briefly, at least for now. For the eye of the King, the Emperor, the god-sorceror. 
It was so cruel, the revelation, the realization that welled up in her when she gazed dully back at him with listless eyes. The revelation that came for her, and not for him, for he would be nothing if not for his delusion. How quickly she understood the truth beneath why she had called him here, why she had suddenly finally accepted his offer to visit the mountain, when she had been delaying it, dreading it, putting it off for weeks upon months. 
The edge. 
The end. (And not the death).
She wondered if even a Custodes could survive a fall from this height. She wondered if it mattered anymore. 
The plan had been formulating itself for weeks now, brewing like boiled flesh in a cyst, nursing itself, grieving its wounds, growing stronger, gaining weight. First she had refused to eat, then to bathe, then to move at all, all the dreary, listless days crushed into the same monotony as brass as she had sat still upon a throne she did not want and stared off into oblivion, as he occasionally knelt by her and asked for her commands while she numbly stared off in the distance, her eyes a thousand yards away. Her gaze had been lost in a time beyond time, beyond memory itself, and not even dreams could steal her away. 
First it had only been how she stopped even trying to hide from him. She simply let him follow her, on her aimless, little walks aboard the massive ship that had become her only location. Then it had been how her tongue had stalled and she no longer even greeted the serfs that occasionally came by to deliver her food she did not eat, water she did not want, utensils she did not use, how she simply stared ahead, as reactive as a corpse, about as conscious to the world as the dead. Valdor had cared after her then, when even her memory had failed her, when she lay still and sullen like ash, the weight of the world upon broken shoulders, silent, painful tears trickling a cheerless trail from her eyes to her duvet. How he had lifted her up and cradled her to him, asking which stories she wished to hear, which glories she wished him to recount. Which memories that were not hers but soon will be, tales he regaled her of His conquests, of His victories and His lessons, His mantras drilled into her bones as they have been drilled into his.
She had left the world, bit by bit, husk by husk, until she felt as if she weighed no more than one of His eagles’ feathers did, frailly clinging onto the world with a whisper and a dream. It was as if she was sinking into some calm, clear, colorless water and feeling the waves close in above her, but there was no sensation of drowning, no voiceless cry in the deep. Simply the noiseless struggle in her own dreams, as she prepared herself for the final breath before oblivion. 
(Did she have the strength? Did it matter any longer, when he could overpower her no matter the answer?)
It was so beautiful, up here, at the edge of the sky. She could hear the storm breathing in the clouds. It was close enough that she could close her eyes, and dream of Ararat, listening to Valdor’s words. An end. An end, just like the Thunder Warriors He(and she?) slaughtered so long ago. The final unraveling. She didn’t want to die, but was she truly living? An immortality without life, without passion, without even joy itself, was that truly living when she was little more than a corpse, kept alive through obsession?
If the Emperor had loved them, He would have never created them at all. What merciful god would create such grotesque angels? 
If the Four were merciful, they would have sought Valdor, as they sought the Primarchs. They would have whisked him away, upon winds of change, tainted him with their mark, made sure He would never accept him as a servant again. They would have saved him, corrupted him, broken him, taught him what it felt like to dream, before the golden light shone again, and His dream took over his. 
But he was a servant, not a master. He was not a leader. He knelt, instead of ruling, and the Emperor had sunk in His claws so deep even the Four could not pry it out. And so he was His, forevermore.
He died ten thousand years ago. And somewhere, inside that twisted, broken Palace that was a mind, His dog was still waiting loyally at the door, waiting for Him to return. 
He was kneeling beside her now. She had never even heard him move. With infinite reverence, he cups her features, admiring the black strands falling over his gauntlets, the golden eyes - so broken, so gorgeous, so His - staring back at him.
“It was the end of the Unification Wars, my liege. And the start of your rule. The Imperium was born that day, your coronation happened atop that bloodstained snowfield, when Malcador held up that laurel, and crowned you King. How could you forget how I, the first of your Custodes, knelt first and rose last, when the ceremony ended?” 
So careful. So gentle as not to hurt her.
“Tell me about them.” a small, cruel smile had found its way onto her face. She was no longer looking at him, instead smiling serenely, blankly staring out upon the sky. The mountain truly was beautiful. It was such a shame this was where she would die. She should have felt something then. A sense of guilt, perhaps. A moment of horror for what she had become, for taking advantage of something so deeply broken into him that it was written into his very bones. Obedience was carved into his blood, seared into his marrow. He would know no other way but to obey. 
“The Unification Wars?” Valdor asks, the question poised so effortlessly, head tilted like a loyal dog, perfectly prepared to obey his master’s every word. 
It would be almost easier, she thought, if he had been a crueller man. Easier to break him, easier to hate him, easier to gaze upon that perfect, immaculate features and wonder what if he had lost those duels. If he had been taught to be mortal, what his screams would’ve sounded like, what sounds of pain he might wheeze out when his perfect, immaculate dancer’s grace falters and he learns, he learns the price for immortality. 
He was never meant to love. 
Not for the first time, she wonders if he can feel pain. If she’ll even care, if it’ll even matter. For a creature who loved no one but his master, would it even be a sin?A sin, to teach him what it meant to fear? To taste the copper tang of terror, to twist the knife in him as he had twisted the knife in her. And to die, exalted, knowing she would have hurt him, knowing she brought down a demigod. 
You can’t reason with a mad dog. You can’t plead with someone who knows they’re right. You can’t gaze into the eyes of Constantin Valdor and expect to see reason back, when his master was right in front of him and alive, so sickeningly alive he would rather kill than forget Him again.
Would he even mourn this time? Did he even know what mourning felt like? She had an inkling that he did, however twisted it may be. Because, for him, the tale isn't over yet, the tale must not be over. His Emperor is not dead, it cannot be, he cannot be, in a world without the Emperor, it simply is not possible. Without Valdor, the Emperor could not lead His Custodes, but without Him, the Custodes could not live. 
“No.” she replies. “The mountain. Tell me of them.” The smile that stretched across her face felt nothing like her. It did not belong to this life. It was too old, too heavy, too sad and too cruel for a face that was once joyous and wide with mischief. She had an inkling of the words Valdor was about to say, the bitter, treacherous words she would weep to hear, and regret ever having forced him to speak. 
“The Thunder Warriors.” she murmured. She had closed her eyes again by then. The plan was formulating, inking itself together with the same mindlessness of crawling, squirming things beneath the earth. And she didn’t want to see what the ground would look like when she fell. She didn’t want to see what it felt like to die a second time. This was only a distraction, a charade, a pitiful illusion built by a mind almost broken. There was no one here but a madman, a broken girl, and the ghosts of the storm calling out its mournful rage overhead. 
“Tell me what became of them. Of that Primarch you spoke so highly of. And no lies.” she sighs, and the voice that whistles out of her is too old, too broken. She brushes his hand away. This time, he doesn’t even insist on remaining. “Tell me what happened on Ararat. I want to hear the truth from your lips.” 
If there had been anything left of her heart, she might have mourned for him. For what he had become, living not for himself but for another. Living His life for Him. And when He died, what could become of him? What could become of him except to endure? When he had slaughtered brothers, lovers, children upon the snowfields, betrayed loyalists and watched life fade from their eyes, all in the name of Him, what could be left of him if not to serve?
He served, and loyalty was its own reward. Loyalty, unyielding, unbreaking, even in death his duty would not end.
Valdor tilts his head like a confused dog. “What good will it do now?” 
She utters a dry, raspy laugh. It had no inflection within it, no actual human emotion. 
“I command you, Valdor.” she spoke. There was nothing behind it, nothing even when the command hurt him. It stirred nothing but a deep, dull ache and the brief knife of guilt, which was quickly surpassed by the lasting numbness that did not seem to leave her bones. “I command you to speak of them. On Ararat. What happened on Ararat?”
She turns from him, walking slowly, and without care. She needed to be on a ledge. Distantly, thunder shrieks, and the storm crashes down. Lightning briefly illuminates her features, skin half-tanned, black hair flowing and golden eyes peering through the brume, and in that radiant flare of lightning she looked positively divine, a half-god caught on earth, if not for the weary, haunted gaze of a hunted animal. Her shoulders were hunched, her movements withered, as if her bones could no longer support her weight. She walked without a singular care in the world, and Valdor trailed immediately afterwards. She knew to jump was no longer an option. Even the stormclouds seemed to mock her. It was foolish, so foolish, she knew. He could not let her die. He would move faster than she could even think, he could catch her, snatch her around her waist and carry her to a safe distance before she could even advance an inch towards the edge. 
She could not die here. He would not allow her to die.
And they both knew that.
Voicelessly, soundlessly, she gazes up upon the stormladen sky. Its grey dances across her golden irises, the stormwind playing with her hair. Thunder crashes, and she feels herself scream back, wordlessly, soundlessly, without even conscious thought. Dully, she knew she was raging, screaming, that her mind was seizing at the clouds and tearing at them, begging them to save her, but physically she made not even a single move. Her body was frozen, the snow pelting her shoulders, Valdor’s cloak swirling from the wind. She felt frozen, too. Her mind was no longer wreathed with such self-pity it once had, it was churning, clawing, raging like a caught rabbit in a trap, desperately wishing the ground would open up and swallow it whole, not as a kind of freedom, but as a final form of spite to the hunter.
Thunder crashes around the two of them. Neither of them move. The edge was close, so dizzyingly close that she could feel the wind gusting around her. Valdor was watching her closely, the same way a starved wolf may watch a weakened deer.
When Valdor finally speaks, unable to resist the bluntness of her command, his eyes were still distantly focused on the memories of Ararat. And his voice was passionlessly dull, carefully kept neutral and utterly without pity. 
“I slit his throat.” he confesses dully, flatly, without even a hint of inflection. “The Primarch. I slit his throat on Ararat, from ear to ear, then from ear to clavicle. I only stopped when I felt bone scraping against the edge of my knife.”
Surprisingly she laughed, and the sound was garbled, as grim and as dry as bones. “I suppose you killed him then?” she asked. One more step. One more step and she would be at the edge. He would not let her. He would move faster than the earth could drag her down anyways. But it did not matter. Slowly, incredulously, she could feel herself smiling. It was going to be alright. She could feel it in her bones, the static, the storm. Even the snow seemed to be on her side. For a moment, she felt like a god, standing at the top of the world, the conquered earth groveling beneath Him, knowing that even the elements would fall beneath His gaze. 
She could taste the ichor then, sweet and lifeless and pouring from the sky along with the snow, the charge in the sky and the thunder. The vengeance it held. The sheer rage, an echo of her own. She would rule them. She did not want to rule. She would rule, for one singular moment in her wretched life, she would rule, and she would hurt him, as he had hurt her. For the serfs he terrorized, for the Sisters he slaughtered, for the martyrs he first betrayed and then hung out to die. All in her name. All for her wishes. She no longer wished to wish. She no longer wished to reign. 
Let her abdicate the throne of skulls. Just once. Just once, she prayed. 
“No.” Valdor shook his head. He was already moving, one hand reaching out to grasp her arm and drag her back before she could approach the edge. “It would have been a kinder fate if he had died then. It would have been a kinder fate if-”
“-if you had granted him an honorable death.” she finished for him. She spoke softly, plaintively, as if this was a comfort. She had turned her face a little, just enough to see him, just enough to see his elegant features illuminated by the storm. To gaze upon him, one last time. The way he held himself, like a dancer, his lean features accentuated by the lightning as the thunderbolt carved the sky open and struck the ledge beside her. The way his auramite had shuddered from the lightning as he had, for the first time in her memory, stumbled, his gait not utterly perfect before the divine rage. The first word she had heard him say that was not perfectly calculated.
The lightning snaps the ledge like bone.
The surprised intake of breath she had uttered, a squeal that was nearly a gasp as the rock beneath her feet had caved in, and then crumbled as she had desperately hoped, the weathered stone no longer capable of supporting its own weight bending and breaking and shattering as the lightning arced through it, the smite separating the ledge like the same way Valdor had carved through that serf. That poor, poor serf who had slipped her a kiss upon her request. It was little more than a peck, that poor thing. And he hadn’t even been able to scream when Valdor separated his bones like paper. 
In a silent vow to him, in a wordless vow to them all, the corpses he laid so she could climb atop her throne, she promised she wouldn’t scream as she fell.
Grimly, lips drawn in a tight line, she only felt the distant thunder as she descended like a one-winged eagle, her face utterly expressionless, lightning briefly dancing sparks against her hair as if in reverence. 
Valdor’s cloak, still wrapped around her, its silk as crimson as spilled blood, unfurled around her as she fell.
Distantly, from somewhere beyond the mountaintop, thunder roared. 
~~~~
It was warm, when she finally awoke. She muttered something, tried to turn, and decided to burrow deeper against the warmth instead. There was a rumble, a purr-like sound, and the slow, drifting scent of incense as one titanic hand came up to rest against her hair. 
With careful reverence, it adjusted the master’s laurel. 
“Welcome back, by lord.” the voice purred. “You expressed quite the interest in the Cataegis Primarch.”
She groaned. Golden irises flickered back and forth, as if in distress, beneath her lids. Valdor’s other hand reached up to stroke through her hair, careful not to upset the laurel.  
“I had thought you would have recognized him, my lord. It was, after all, his grave that I showed you that night upon the mountain.”
He makes a long, slow chuckle, almost like amusement, if he had been capable of it. “I had expected you’ve greeted him already, my master. You were standing atop his bones.” 
Somewhere, distantly, thunder growled. And without even being conscious of it, she shivered, and tried to burrow closer to his warmth.  
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ingravinoveritas · 2 months
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Revisiting a poll that I conducted last year to see what everyone's thoughts are now that we have David's take on his and Michael's kiss in GO 2...
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callmearcturus · 1 year
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having rewatched glass onion last night, i have already screamed from the mountaintops that janelle monae is the GOAT
but also when you know the twist, edward fucking norton. has edward fucking norton EVER phoned in a performance? god.
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nekropsii · 5 months
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his name is SEX CAPTOR he has TWO DICKS his sprite has a DICK BULGE and he is the only good character in homestuck.
This is so fucking true, anon. Scream it from the mountaintops. If you have other faves you’re wrong.
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