Week 2: Scoperta

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The Role-playing Scientists

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Its Suffering Time

Week 2: Scoperta

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Tairais

Tairais

@Amuulzhaan 2 years ago

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(( Link on deviantart for the sake of behinds the scenes commentary. Also, kudos to doodle for drawing the Elias panel for me and letting me trace over!

As a side note there was supposed to be clever writing here but I can't for the life of me remember it so uh. I'll post it if I ever remember it I guess XD ))

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chatterghosts • 2 years ago • edited

(( Shhhh noooo, we weren't a week late--...rather, not if we say the two-week absence was intended! ;D ))

"Get the hell off my doorstep, Argyros."

He wouldn't admit it, but he was glad to hear Luis' voice again -- however angry it was. The passing weeks had left Elias bereft and aching for home.

(He didn't stop to consider that, yes, by this time he really did consider the Society to be his home, but.)

"You didn't even see me!" came Elias' response, his voice lilting with a mocking sort of humor. With no delay the door shot open, and a blurry, violent shove sent Elias staggering backwards.

The angry figure stormed closer, pushing Elias further back. Furiously, his words spilled out, vibrating through the air: "I told you,idiota, I told you to leave France -- you have no right to be here. I told you, I promised you! Te mataré y--"

"Artemis is missing, Luis."

The fireball stopped dead in his tracks. "Pardon?"

"My brother was...taken," he repeated, quieter this time.

Luis' bitter glare softened into sympathy, accompanied by the dreaded memories of heartfelt condolences. "Your... little Artemis?"

Not so little anymore, Elias thought to himself.

A verbal response didn't come, however, and so Luis continued, "Do you..need a place to stay?" He paused, and then added, "Why do you only ever come around when bad things happen?"

Elias scoffed. "Could be 'cause you always try to kill me. I'd call that good reasoning."

"Does criticism simply bounce off of you?"

"That and shoves," he responded brightly.

"I can still kick you off my doorstep, so watch it."

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Tairais • 2 years ago

To him, the quiet of the cathedral was as oppressing as an ocean of sound, of white noise slamming against the windows, of bullet-like raindrops pounding against a metal roof.

Save for the occasional sniff or sigh of the two souls who shared the sanctuary with him at the earliest hours of the early twilight, there was no sound. The city of Paris had yet to truly wake for slumber- though there were almost certainly sounds outside the stone walls, none reached his ears.

Truly sanctuary. Truly peace.

Oh, if only.

Instincts long buried but never forgotten forced him to remain completely still while the prickling feeling of being watched slithered up his spine and curled at the base of his neck like a sliver of ice.

Slowly, carefully, he turned in a circle, taking in his surroundings anew.

Who was watching him- and from where? Not his mentors, not Artemis nor Elias. Lewis was elsewhere- so who were they?

Highly unlikely that it was the two behind him.

Seeing nothing, but refusing to believe the danger was past, Richard returned his focus to the note he had discovered beneath the section of the stained glass windows symbolizing Judas' betrayal, willing his hidden tormentor to appear.

Nothing more than confirmation and shared memory rendered in the bird's-eye sketch of Regensburg. Beauty where there would be carnage. No words, no instructions, no signature, and yet the author was unmistakable.

Of what sort of chaos would the artists unleash upon apprentice? What shade of crimson would pen the pages of a new chapter in his life- for there was about to be a great, defining change in his life, he didn't even pretend to ignore that. The moment he allowed physical contact with the past, he opened himself up for change.

Questions roared in his ears to the tune of the raging sea, crying out for a pair of souls it should have claimed, should have washed away for good. Accusations were painted in mist and fog, recrimination murmured in the salty air clinging and pulling at his skin, at his ribs, at his aching heart.

He should have left the Society the night Elias kissed him. No attachments, no strings, no fuss.

Artemis would certainly be better off for it if he had. As would Elias.

This world was not their place, strange and warped and ethereal in the most twisted sort of religion, the most beautiful kind of organized chaos.

He opened his eyes to a storm of white, blinding light. When had they closed?

No matter, he had a destination. Cathedrals were places of reflection, like a still pond that dragged the swimmer under. Though the feeling of being watched persisted, his thoughts realigned and ordered for a a time, and he felt still.

Sanctuary, serenity, and solemnity.

He turned on his heel and walked into the sunlight emerging from the great, towering windows with ghosts of memory and their oceans of sound crawling after him.

Wrathful, whispering, wistful.

He sat down in a pew, and did not notice his shadow as his back ached against the stern wooden chair. It which was watching him, warping and shifting with ebony antlers and feathers and red eyes. His heart raced the longer he sat in its eyesight, which glittered like a set of stone-cut rubies.

Calculating, cunning, cruel.

Waiting, whispering, warning.

But when did he ever stop to listen? To listen was to invite madness, and he could already no longer distinguish himself from the things that had happened to him in what seemed another lifetime. To listen was to lose what little sense of self he had.

To listen was to know that the whole situation was rapidly spiraling out of his control, and to listen was to admit that he was running out of time to trade himself for Artemis. A few weeks, at most.

While reasonable, the monsters who raised him would not wait forever.

Ruby eyes regarded him with pity and mischievous malcontent as the miasma of their body vanished in the growing light. With a final flare as the sun reached over the roofs of Paris, they seemed to shout a silent warning, then vanished.

Richard sighed and sank against the seat, letting it press into the knobs of his spine.

A few minutes, he told himself. A few minutes he would rest, and then he would be on the first train towards Regensburg.

There was to be a body.

Elsewhere at the same moment in time, two pairs of hands bathed in crimson held a knife together. A pair of ice-blue eyes stared into the secret contents of a lone oak tree, while twin pools of brown, almost maroon gazed upon the other in joy and awe.

But this is not their story, and thus, we do not speak of them.

(( This probably made more sense when I wasn't falling asleep at my desk, but I remembered enough so I wanted to go ahead and share. Worst comes to worst, there's an edit option. ))

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