MARCH UPDATE

POSTED ON Jun 26, 2024 19:56:12 GMT

Cillian Quinn likes this

there are no songbirds in sootopolis.

every turn on the world's axis is marked by silence. a setting moon catches the light of the sun. a sky's exit wounds change to stars, then clouds, then nothing. the waves wash over one another and crash softly against the stone. wingull and pelipper fly overhead, cawing but not crooning, and the stones warm beneath her.

a soft melody joins the dawn chorus.

bare feet drag slowly across white marble, toes drawn to a point as she dances alone in the caldera to the memory of a memory.

in her waking dreams, she is spun into the hands of loved ones. here, at the dawn of a new day, verona hums a lullaby. her eyes closed, as she steps across the river styx: blood, clinging to the white skirts of her dress, and out of the reaching grasp of the ghosts that haunt this place. sticky iron clasps onto her ankles as the fabric twirls around her legs like a flower unblooming.

she sings sweetly a funeral dirge for this open casket of a city. a mourner, this way comes, and the incense smoke curls from the obsidian dish set at her feet.

fermata, the birdseye. the rains washed the stone and the bird quiets but does not stop.

cherry syrup hardens to sugar.

crystallizes, beneath the curtain of lace as she regards him with a watchful eye and an outstretched hand in open invitation to continue a performance meant for no one but herself. and now, she supposes: for him.

Cillian Quinn

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played by

thorn

the Harbinger

he/him

october 28th

circhester, galar

demisexual

underboss

the harbinger

6'3" height

I want corruption, I think I'm the devil in disguise.

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8,652 posts

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TAG WITH @gavin

POSTED ON Jun 27, 2024 5:30:30 GMT

Tempest Quinn likes this

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No rest for the wicked.[break][break]

A common enough saying, and if Tempest Quinn wasn't sleeping like a rock beside him, perhaps Cillian would find some truth in it. He has tossed and turned for the past hour without result.[break][break]

When the singing starts, it takes a great deal of effort not to scream.[break][break]

Frustration lengthens his claws and sharpens his teeth, shadows swallowing skin. Sweet song has awoken an eldritch horror, and he haunts the streets in search of prey.[break][break]

He is more shadow than man when he approaches her, three sets of eyes that blink out of sync narrowing in unison. He appears to drift rather than walk, so completely does the MIASMA consume.[break][break]

He does not reach for her hand.[break][break]

"Some of us," he growls, his voice echoing unpleasantly in grating contrast to her song, "are trying to get some sleep."

[break][break]

[attr="class","tag"]verona santillian

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played by

aphelion

she/her

thirty-five

november 9

sootopolis city

greysexual

priestess

civilian

5'6" (167.6 cm) height

tragedy baptizes the angels, and so too it will initiate me

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POSTED ON Jun 27, 2024 7:14:01 GMT

there is little difference between dawn and dusk and she greets the horizon with a bow.

here, a mourner—an observer, a trespasser, this way comes. its eyes gleam. gold, then ichor and honey. black, though there are no night that truly is. more parable than story, she thinks of the shapeless monsters that haunt the texts that they read to children. her thoughts wander, irreverent, to a conclusion: that, perhaps she ought be fearful, but knowing that she is not afraid of the dark.

the creature looks to her, jagged edges and pointy teeth.

calls to her, to say that there are things that still sleep.

and she laughs in song, priestess allowing her singing to slip into a soft hum as she steps through the ash and across the stone as she ignores it a while longer. it stays past its welcoming. dark hair curtains soft features that she turns towards the rising sun. she copies the wind. follows it over salt-slick stone, and allows the refrain to fall into her chest like water in her lungs. she regards the creature at once, takes its hand when it does not offer it and discovers the weight of a man that wears its skin.

fingertips trail against where she thinks a wrist would be. presses her thumb into a lifeline.

feels for a pulse, and finds nothing.

she does not know what she expects. the birth of a star, a supernova—nothing. the stillness of space.

"where is your heartline?" as she turns its hand in search of a palm, verona digs her nails into shadow to rip the light from beneath sinew.

"i cannot tell where it leads, little one."

Cillian Quinn

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played by

thorn

the Harbinger

he/him

october 28th

circhester, galar

demisexual

underboss

the harbinger

6'3" height

I want corruption, I think I'm the devil in disguise.

awards

8,652 posts

DOLLARS

part of

TAG WITH @gavin

POSTED ON Jun 27, 2024 17:40:02 GMT

[nospaces]

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She reaches for his hand, and it is curiosity that prompts him to allow the touch. He feels nothing as her fingers brush past shadow, then pressure against his wrist when she finds the human behind the dark aura.[break][break]

"My what?"[break][break]

He has only a vague, pop-culture idea of what that might mean.[break][break]

Though thrown off enough from rage by her odd actions, the anger returns in force when nails dig against flesh-beneath-shadow. She'd feel a shift beneath her fingers as his aura solidifies to repel the unwanted intrusion, and claws contract around her hand in turn.[break][break]

"To your end, if you are not careful."

[break][break]

[attr="class","tag"]verona santillian

[attr="class","pkmn"][break]

close tab

played by

aphelion

she/her

thirty-five

november 9

sootopolis city

greysexual

priestess

civilian

5'6" (167.6 cm) height

tragedy baptizes the angels, and so too it will initiate me

awards

21 posts

DOLLARS

part of

TAG WITH @verona

POSTED ON Jul 3, 2024 7:13:17 GMT

what would they say of the creature that stands before her now? did it long to be a part of something greater than it is? than it deserved to be?

she does not dream of sainthood.

but, she wonders if this one did before shadow took to flesh and bone. before fingernails became claws, and eyes became infinite: was it that the monsters that were bid it into the abyss? promised it fortune and power and safety—her hand is sealed in a vice.

a trap, and she dares bid that it makes good on its promise to sever her wrist clean in two.

the wind blows. a morning sun rises higher over the split of sky, sea and mountains. his shadow drags longer across marble and she thinks of the creature that lies at the bottom of the lake. not her god. not any of these people's, but that of another place. abomination. she smiles, and it is a titter of a sound.

she likes the answer.

but, she does not choose it as she remains.

"a heartline," she begins, splaying out her hand to press hers into the shadow to illustrate a point, "cannot be shared. it is yours and yours alone." hers is thin. half-finished. somewhere, there is a scar where she attempted to complete it.

"it cannot lead to my end."

"no more than mine can lead to yours."

Cillian Quinn

close tab

played by

thorn

the Harbinger

he/him

october 28th

circhester, galar

demisexual

underboss

the harbinger

6'3" height

I want corruption, I think I'm the devil in disguise.

awards

8,652 posts

DOLLARS

part of

TAG WITH @gavin

POSTED ON Jul 4, 2024 0:25:56 GMT

sariel duong likes this

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Shadow Lugia was indeed an abomination, and him her Harbinger. The closest thing to a priest that she will have, his sermon is death and destruction and the darkness that swallows things whole.[break][break]

He is dangerous, and this woman seems unafraid. Perhaps he should fear her, instead.[break][break]

He doesn't. Nor does he separate wrist from arm.[break][break]

Yet.[break][break]

"Perhaps not," he says of his heartline. "But I can."[break][break]

It wouldn't be difficult, he thinks, with her so close. He could pull her closer, jam a knife between her ribs to puncture the lung from which the sound that had woken him drew its air. But he's just intrigued enough to continue listening. For now.[break][break]

Shadows melt from his arm like snows in spring, slowly revealing the pale, scarred skin beneath. Geometric designs that would mean nothing to the priestess have long since faded, an old attempt to cover old wounds that have gone white with age. The veins beneath his skin are darker than they should be, yet he is human enough beneath the visage of the night's terrors.[break][break]

Just one pair of eyes, now, hardened gold. The Harbinger, indeed. His name, his face on wanted posters.[break][break]

"For what do you sing? And why here?"

[break][break]

[attr="class","tag"]verona santillian

[attr="class","pkmn"][break]

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played by

aphelion

she/her

thirty-five

november 9

sootopolis city

greysexual

priestess

civilian

5'6" (167.6 cm) height

tragedy baptizes the angels, and so too it will initiate me

awards

21 posts

DOLLARS

part of

TAG WITH @verona

POSTED ON Jul 4, 2024 7:46:58 GMT

white scars form jagged mountains.

she searches where he allows, digits aloft as she charts every course to understanding. the worthiness of a life, or the lack thereof: she traces the heart that'd abandoned him. her gaze follows every seam. half-tempted to pluck a stitch and see if the man unravels before her, verona instead turns her attention to veins that pulse with poison as his reply is met with silence.

how do you unzip a man's veins without first making him bleed? garnet loses its facets, and priestess hums as she taps her requiem against his skin.

what she divines is unclear. what she speaks of, even less, as bestial eyes become achingly human and the monster is swallowed by daylight.

she has seen his face.

she has known his name.

he asks her why she sings here, and she thinks he should know the answer before she tries to slip her bony wrist out of his grasp. she will play the part of prey if he believes himself the predator.

so, no answer is given and the song begins again.

Cillian Quinn

close tab

played by

thorn

the Harbinger

he/him

october 28th

circhester, galar

demisexual

underboss

the harbinger

6'3" height

I want corruption, I think I'm the devil in disguise.

awards

8,652 posts

DOLLARS

part of

TAG WITH @gavin

POSTED ON Jul 16, 2024 17:33:41 GMT

[nospaces]

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Fingers ghost along skin that still tingles in their path, travelling the rivers of veins that would still spill blood and scars that had taken time and pain to heal.
[break][break]

He does not know what she searches for, nor whether she finds it.
[break][break]

But when she tries to pull her wrist free of his grasp without first answering the question posed to her, Cillian's grip proves tight as a noose.
[break][break]

She starts to sing again, and her song seems to bring forth the creature of nightmares. Shadows stretch slow along his arm, his eyes the deep colour of corruption.
[break][break]

"I have endured your cryptic nonsense and the interruption of my sleep," he snarls, and it echoes softly. "Answer my question."

[break][break]

[attr="class","tag"]verona santillian

[attr="class","pkmn"][break]

close tab

played by

aphelion

she/her

thirty-five

november 9

sootopolis city

greysexual

priestess

civilian

5'6" (167.6 cm) height

tragedy baptizes the angels, and so too it will initiate me

awards

21 posts

DOLLARS

part of

TAG WITH @verona

POSTED ON Oct 26, 2024 18:02:54 GMT

impatient, does the beast grow.

he demands subservience. he demands an answer. why does she sing? why is she here? she does not think it requires an answer. she is a simple thing, and so she thinks that there are only simple answers. she thinks this is quite funny: that a nickit should be so polite to a taillow before it consumes it whole, and that this performance ends with a weighed silence.

her lips split into a smile. that small, unsettling thing: it does not suit the priestess, as she angles her head and presents her throat to him. the shadows creep up his arm and the sun rises higher.

"does it frighten you so, little one?"

carnelian brightens behind a curtain of inky black, the weight of the night grasping at her hands as she peers at him with a defiant gleam in her eyes. "to be reminded of all that which has been taken from this place?"

a monster must devour that which is weaker. she is a lamb here. weak, brittle, breakable.

she dares beg that he drown her here.

Cillian Quinn

close tab

played by

thorn

the Harbinger

he/him

october 28th

circhester, galar

demisexual

underboss

the harbinger

6'3" height

I want corruption, I think I'm the devil in disguise.

awards

8,652 posts

DOLLARS

part of

TAG WITH @gavin