~The Blackheart Masquerade 2020 ~ Closed
Amaterasu She steps around the tables, twisting a gold wire in her hands. Wind and unravel, extend and retract. The metallic hiss as it is pulled from the pretty bangle on her wrist is reassuring. What fun festivities might she find this night, she wondered. She wouldn't be left wondering long, certain that when the ball reached it's peak there would be a most spectacular display. It was not the right season for hanging stars from trees but... Ah. There you are. A robed figure leaned across the bar and caught the woman's eye. When the shadowed figure moved away, she would follow in a roundabout way, keeping the creature in her sights as it drank and slipped among the guests. The obstacle in her path would seen be dealt with. The Nun and the Whisperer took a moment to appreciate the view from the lovely second floor window. The Nun being granted a closer view than most would probably enjoy. When the shadowy figure moved to slip away and they were alone at last, the pretty gold wire would come out. In a flash, it wound around that cloaked figure's throat. Constricting, cutting into the skin, crushing the windpipe. And she whispered, that voice filled with the most delighted emotion which sat at odds with her expressionless countenance, “Won't you tell me a secret, dear sister? Please make it good since it will be your last.”
Amaterasu The sun would never seem as brutalizing or unfeeling as this. Surely there was no sister as chatty as this one who tried to dance her way out of death with some well placed words. But Amaterasu knew a lie when she heard one in this family of lovely little liars filled with greed. Don't be mistaken, Amaterasu didn't really hate her siblings but there wasn't a chance she was going to miss out on such an enticing game. Money couldn't buy happiness. However, it could get rid of the majority of obstacles presented when living within the Realm. As far as Amaterasu was concerned it was better to murder than resort to petty thievery. The body of her darling sister dropped towards the floor in a heap of dark fabric and silence. No more whispering. And she laid the body down the rest of the way and pulled the wire free, with a satisfying snap and a splatter of blood, it disappeared back into her bracelet. She used a handkerchief to wipe up the bit of sanguine liquid, some of it staining her white and red robes. At least she could play it off as decorative. Or so she had intended when she straightened fully and was about to return to the party alone. But there was a sharp and sudden pain and all of her muscles stopped working properly. Twitching wildly. Her mind drawing a blank. Was she forgetting something? She couldn't see that sweet Marie had taken the opportunity to practice her reverse lobotomy technique. But she could feel the twist of something digging around in her skull before.. nothing. Amaterasu's lips twisted into a grimace that might have been a smile. The first true expression to cross her countenance. Summer was over indeed. And then her body collapsed in a ragdoll fashion, falling right next to the body of her own victim. It seemed Lorilei Blackheart had underestimated her family. Now her blood, too, would be left to drip onto the dancefloor.
The Countess in Bone ~ A Windswept Winter Winter watched quietly, as winters often do, while carnage and death swept through the room. All dressed up and nowhere to go, the curtains fell, the ghosts rattled their chains – losing their heads and other appendages perhaps – as the whole of the room erupted to the undertones of music. Black lips curled into an unnerving smile as she watched, slightly dazed, as things began to unfold. She glanced around at the other party-goers and drifted closer to Autumn. In silence the dark seasons stood side by side as the lighter ones had drifted away, the Summer Sun scorching the earth while Sweet Spring turned into a tumultuous possibility of a storm. Perhaps, the storm had already begun and Winter sat in its shining eye among the watchers and the watched.
Medusa Phantom. Fresh floral scent. A decapitated rose in a garden maze that takes the wanderer.. Nowhere. She, the wanderer. And this, her endless, twining, winding prison of smoldering vapor and constellation eyes that fling themselves like shooting stars about the room. New legends rising to become uncharted skies in the hushed gray obscurity of quiet torment. These the things she spies as she bends lethal limbs and thinks only of plucking those stars from the ebon night. Until the last note whips to slice the flesh, to bleed the ears. No, hold on. Don't let go. Don't go. Don't go.. To draw them closer, softening, closing in around the throat. Choking. And she stills, chest heaving, tenuously holding onto herself as the black spots flicker at the edges of her vision. The shadows growing deeper. Closing in. Reaching, seeking pandemonium. She closes her eyes and counts. Counts the dreams and the reaper's coins, the number of ribs broken beneath her scared skin. The number of times he drew the life out of her, gulp after gulp. Stop. Now is not the time. Those eyes open. And the madness within them warps and withers the mind. Calls three times louder than fear and grief. Echoes somewhere lower than death in the depths of the abyss. It is softer than a lover's kiss and sharper than the blackhounds teeth and it bays. It howls. It screams for the moon. To the moon and back and it is twice, no, five times as mad as the rage carried in the hollow, rotted places inside of her. And it is beautiful in its swirl, like a crescent scar. Horrific in its tangent, like a collapsed lung punctured by the cage of ones ribs and filling with blood. Filling up. Up into the throat, out of the mouth and the nose and the eyes. It is teardrops and raindrops and blooddrops dripping down the stalactites and the haunting hell-lights and her cheeks, catching on the corners of her mouths and the point of her chins. Lingering, salty and sweet and wet on the skin. It is dread. It is something long dead and buried. And so very.. Very.. Alive. Then she sighs. All that tension released, she collapses in on herself in a mound of bleeding feathers and stiff snake skins and the bent neck of a violin with snapped strings. And she is laughing, chips of obsidian and bright diamonds and flashing teeth, just like those jester smiles. Until at last the darkness creeps in, for just a moment, sinks into her skin and clips something inside of her that keeps her clinging to reality. For just a moment, she sees him. The face! The face! THAT FUCKING FACE! Clear as day, standing there, every detail chiseled artfully and so very sharp. No, no, no, nononono. Before her mind runs screaming, back into the haze, where everything is soft and ugly and decayed. Where it is safe. But nowhere is safe, is it. There is no escape.
