deercountry | August + September Catchall

Entry tags:

August + September Catchall

Who: L Lawliet and YOU
What: A somewhat late August catchall, focusing on event stuff but can include CR logs and slice of life! When September's event goes up I'll add prompts for the month in order to save a bit of space. Please feel free to hit me up on discord at ladylazarus#2235 or plurk at LexiL if you want to plot, wildcards are welcome!
When: Throughout August and September
Where: Various place throughout trench

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[L's not breathing hard; he's scarcely breathing at all, not unlike a prey animal caught under the gaze of something fierce that kisses with its teeth. His knuckles are white where they grip the book in his lap; he bleeds, blithely, all over his clothes.

There's a stifled yelp when she pulls him up by his shirt, and he stumbles, because he could use his arms for balance, but his hold on the book is an unbudging priority.

It's like moving a scarecrow, both due to his insubstantiality and his tendency to trip a bit over his own still-wobbly legs. The alley is at least out of sight, but is it also out of frying pan and into something hotter?

Nothing more so, he thinks, than his burning cheeks.]

I didn't know, that it would-

[The explanation might sound fumbling and half-hearted, because well, it's only true insofar as L didn't know he would be Augustine, didn't know they would try to seduce the Emperor together. It would probably go over better if his participation hadn't been so obviously active and enthusiastic.

He's not sorry; he realizes there's no lie he can tell to make it seem like he is.]

[ L's wobbling excuses are cut short when Mercy wheels on him in the alley, twisting her grip on his arm as she crowds him up against the wall and seizes his soaked collar beneath the wound to drag him down closer to her eye level. She can sense the whole state of him, the shamelessness of his blushing stammers and attempts to cover himself, coy as a new bride. ]

I don't care what you didn't know. [ She grits out, with the rasp of fine sandpaper. ] I care about what you did know.

[ It's a filthy, sickening display. Her tongue slips from her mouth to her lips, darting and red. Her tumultuous wet-rust eyes bore into his, no less a haze than they were in the dream. ]

You knew him. You knew what to say, how to behave - you knew, and you will tell me how, and then you will tell me why you hate him.

[ She yanks him closer, showing the serration of her teeth when she bares them in a tiny, tight spasm of a smile, curved as a scalpel and twice as sharp. ]

Don't be shy. You certainly weren't before.

[ Inside of L, the first vanguard of her unknown invasion seeks to claim territory. If L's flesh cannot fight her spores off, he will begin to feel the fluttering clench of excitement low in her belly. ]

[His dark eyes are steady. The marble gloss of idiocy seems to have dropped away at some indeterminate point, leaving something sharp and clever that's thinking very rapidly at this juncture. They're performing calculations, attempting to determine how much of a threat Mercy poses to his life, the pieces missing from the scene he witnessed, the name that was forbidden to speak in the Emperor's presence because it was just too holy.

Not Mercymorn's. Did she love him, or despise him? Some mixture of the two, some similar heady sentiment to the one that tarnished the kisses she'd shared with Augustine and, by extension, the spying interloper?

Were he aware of Mercy's vileblood spores, already prevailing against an undernourished and under-rested immune system, he might be struck by the irony.

The highly deliberate front of resolved composure catches at that unexpected lift below his navel. His eyes constrict fretfully around the edges, because while he doesn't always know what's right, he generally can tell what blatantly isn't.

When he speaks, his voice sounds like something self-possessed and calm fed through a prism, distorting and scattering little pieces of the effect he intended.]

Strong personalities sow discord naturally. It can't be surprising that he'd have disagreements everywhere he goes.

[But not with just anyone. L's largest advantage is often that he can pass for no one special, a strange shabby human unworthy of a second glance or even passing remembrance. No one like that would draw John's notice, of course, let alone his ire, and certainly not over something like a "disagreement."]

Edited 2022-10-13 05:39 (UTC)

[The queer, slit smile remains on Mercy's lips as she twists her hand in the stranger's collar, drawing it into a half-knotted noose that shields his seeping wound from the unkind air even as it tightens close enough to hint at a replication of what he had dared to do to her Emperor, her God. Her eyes flash like a wildcat's in the dark, coiled for the pounce, their haze receding at the prospect of this puzzle.

The growing thrill in her has as much to do with sensuality as the clashing violence of their kiss did with love. The stranger breathes, and there is a new thing in Mercy that tracks the barely there scattering of his voice with a rapt wonder of hunger.

She feels it. She feels something, through the clouding oppression of her sunken soul.]

If you've had disagreements with him, you know very well that I could turn you into so much vapour, if I wished it. I could sift you into component parts, put each of them into a jar, and ask them all in turn the questions I am asking you until one of them saw fit to answer me.

[Half-musing, half-threat, but all of it said in a heated, nearly joyous flush of her own, her cheeks better pinked (or greened, as it were) than they've been since she first awoke on this terrible shore. She digs the nails of her other hand into his arm lightly, just enough to tease worse.]

But I hate to waste anything I can use, and I hate to be untidy. [Her tone turns reasonable all at once, level-headed and sensible.] But perhaps I begin too broad.

You know my name. I would like, very much, to know yours.

[L doesn't blink, doesn't swallow, even as the drenched red fabric of his shirt constricts closer around his neck. The advantage of being a Paleblood is the deceptiveness of it, the notion that one could easily be passed for a Warmblood until the moon is out, but that's not exactly going to get L out of this situation, and he knows it.

There's another question, of course, that being: does he actually want to be out of this situation? The way Mercy looks at him and breathes, the way she hungers and listens, make him eager and willing to stay, whatever the danger.

He nods, just twice, enough to show her that she is understood, and he is not flippant.]

I know what a necromancer can do. A Lyctor, especially.

[And something about that seems open-ended, as if he really does want to see what that would look like, all those parts and something willing to talk. Finally, his wide eyes blink in response to the dig of her nails into his scrawny arm.

A vision flashes through his mind, her rose-gold hair spread against gravel beneath them, the forceful, rhythmic dig of it against her back and his knees. Either he's blushing more deeply or it simply isn't possible, at this point.]

I know your name.

[He confirms it quietly, as something forbidden, but mine isn't real.]

Mine's Lazarus Sauveterre.

[He gives as good as he's given anyone else in this world, a false name with a literal meaning. Consciously, he does his best to reclaim decorum and synthesize the tense hitch in his stomach with slower, more even breathing. It's strangely difficult.]

[Mercymorn brightens further, the benevolence of her approval well-tempered with the malign drive that consumes her. She looks at him like a pupil being coaxed into the correct answer to a problem, and her the indulgent teacher - a way she certainly never looked at Harrowhark.]

Lazarus Sauveterre. [She rolls it over her tongue like it's as sweet as his blood.] I am Mercymorn the First. I was the Saint of Joy. I am the Saint of Woe. I was the second of God's Saints to ascend - I was his fist and his gesture, his blood and his bones - and I have sinned terribly against him.

[She pats his arm with the side of her thumb, a tiny, slippery motion of conciliation. The flush of blood in his wan, hollow cheeks is impressive, since she imagines he has so little he may spare, and it is that thought which presses the back of one bony little knuckle against the wound on his neck. It seals shut at her command, although it gives her a stubborn little pang of displeasure.]

And it takes a great deal to get my attention. [Her teeth show as her smile widens, the canines overlong, ridging on all of them more serrated than they were.] But you have it.

What did he do to you, hm? What would make you take such a risk with a Lyctor, if you know what any of us might do to you for it?

[Even when L was actually a child, he struggles to remember being regarded this way. He can't tell if it's playful and gentle, or ridiculing and cruel. Either way, it makes him uneasy. She introduces herself in so many words, he he stiffens when she reaches for his arm, expecting more pain, but when her hand travels toward his neck, she heals him with just as much ease as the emperor had when restoring his hand.

Lyctors are puzzling, terrifying, and humbling. A knit in his brow, he stiltedly nods silent thanks, still absorbing all of her titles and that little hint that her deeds make her anything but his foe.

Both saints and sinners, in their relative and complicated ways. He cants his head, his hollow gaze lingering long on her sharpened canines.]

I can suffer a murderer, but not a tyrant. I believe it's always come down to that.

[The word tyrant troubles her, saps some of her dark mania. An old spike of mingled hurt and grief and inward turned reproach, a scar that aches at any change in the proverbial weather. She lets her knuckle stay nestled against the thready throb of his pulse as she sheathes her teeth and swallows another dilute wash of his blood.

It's not as soothing as it was. She tightens her grip in his collar with a damp squelch and gives him a little shake by it, then releases him. There is a still-clean stretch on the side of his shirt, and she drags her hand down it, painting it with red already darkening to rust, and there's something still to savour in the prominence of his ribs. She dries the rest of her hand by wrapping the hem around her fingers before she pulls them away, stained but not slick. She finally pops her knuckle from his throat, and some magnetic whim pops it into her mouth to suck the last sticky remnants from.

She never breaks eye contact. He does have her attention, and her attention is a relentless thing, whirring like malevolent gears.]

So you'd knock him off his throne - or keep him from climbing up one. [She muses, a neat line tucked between her brows.] What a thing to say to one of those who helped build his first.

But then again, perhaps I have already given myself away to you...recklessness invites recklessness.

[L can't help but notice the word's affect on Mercy. He's keen and attuned to everything regarding the Emperor, after all, and so the minute changes in her expression scarcely go unnoticed. For a few moments, he wonders if he will be impaled or crushed for his insolence, given that reaction. How, and why did he dare to call John a tyrant in front of one who would seduce him so passionately?

Well, that's simple. I was easily accomplice to it all, in spite of feeling no such loyalty or dedication.

He stands, steady and supple as an autumn reed against some bitter chill, as she drinks his blood again. She seems to dislike it now; he does not flinch as she shakes and releases his damp shirt and the lanky, scrawny, utterly unremarkable human inside of it. He does not break eye contact with her; he does not let her know or even suspect that, while frail in body, he he is also weak in spirit and resolve.]

For one who helped him build, weren't you... eager?

[He seems to struggle to settle on that final word, considering others.]

To dismantle it all, I mean. You seemed...

["Eager", of course, but there are other words he wants to say.]

There was a desperate passion to your desire, to dismantle him. I admired it; perhaps that is the recklessness that you perceive.

[It was less a new aversion to his blood than her own unhallowed appetite for it, and worse yet, some atavistic compulsion to touch, to mark. To leave the imprint of her fingers feathered over him like he has left his own unexpected mark on her. She wants to slide her hands up to circle his neck and bring it back to her, an unfinished itch of a thing not quite finished.

She has always found a certain pleasure in self-denial. And she wasn't lying about hating waste. You simply don't eat a man like this all at once.]

It's even more reckless to admire me. [A breath close to wry and bent to be near laughter.] I have a habit of disappointing.

[An admission she makes in her own continued recklessness, but with contradictory pride. It might be something to disappoint someone again, even for a moment; to have an opinion left to fall it. Admiration is only ever the decline to contempt, but once-

Once people looked at he does now. As someone to reckon with, not cosset or condemn or cast away.]

You have me twice. I wanted nothing more than to crack it beneath him...to tear the crown from his head and stomp it beneath my least favorite boots.

[The why - to pry the man out of the God, and set him free. But she won't give everything to Lazarus; it doesn't strike her as an interesting thing to do. Let him wonder at that.]

Sometimes one must be reckless for their prize...did you find winning this one satisfactory?

[She leaves her meaning deliberately ambiguous, of course.]

Do you think so? No... yes, I suppose you would.

[He seems to give it careful and intentional consideration as he looks at her with his deep-set, haunted eyes.]

I choose my allies, and I judge my allies. Every single one. I've decided that you are not a disappointment. Your lips could touch him while he knew who you were.

[He sounds so admiring, so reckless, and his young, thin face smiles.]

He knew who you were, and he let you close enough to tear the crown from his head and crack it beneath your worst boots. I'd give so much to crack it between my bare feet. I'd bleed for it, as you know, so... yes. It's more than satisfactory. I'd do it again, and again.

Edited 2022-10-24 02:20 (UTC)

[Mercymorn can't quite tell if this is a further attempt at seduction, and if it is, how much sincerity might be wound up in it. It's been an extraordinarily long time since anyone tried to woo her in any manner sincerely. The Cohort had the fear of her instilled in them long ago, and her brothers and sisters were too used to her as the unscalable mount. Even the fools of Blood of Eden never attempted to fling some sop in her path. Perhaps they'd had enough of that already with their beloved commander.

She has to admit it's flattering to be enticed into conspiracy, rather than having to serve as the goad. He says I choose my allies with such unfettered confidence for one so young and disadvantaged, like saying such a thing will make it so.

She's always had a weakness for fanaticism. She smiles back at him like she has a mouthful of bright feathers hidden behind her lips, eyes half-lidded in thought.]

The last person willing to look me in the eyes and say anything of the sort threatened to shoot me between the eyes for my trouble, which was exactly the sort of horrid thing she was always doing...but you.

[She reaches up and touches his jaw, very lightly, at the place it tips upwards on its way to hinge to the rest of the skull. She tilts her head, and makes a soft, humming noise towards the back of her throat, then drops her hand away.]

Let it never be said I am not reasonable. [Says the bloody woman with a mouth still full of teeth who cornered him here.] Let it not be said I am not amenable to cooperation.

Keep my name to yourself, and I will consider the rest fairly won.

[L's passion is a strange thing, pure however it presents. One could be forgiven for thinking it's an attempt at seduction; maybe it's similar, maybe it's close to those to impulses and desires all roped together like a wreath.

All he knows is that it's so rare for people to smile at him like they know what he's thinking. He's too cautious to return it, but his gaze lingers.]

I wouldn't threaten to kill you... you're not on that list.

[As though, of everyone in Trench, he could easily kill whoever he chooses. He stands and stares, as she touches the sharp line of his jaw and her hand slides away from the angle.]

Tell another reasonable and cooperative soul, why he would share the name "Mercymorn" with John Gaius. I've just met you, and I care more about keeping your business discreet, than his.

[There's a terrible blurring of distinctions between things that ought to be kept well apart from each other with sufficient time under the grindstone of the universe. Mercy harbours no illusions about herself in this. She is a more rotten revenant than any of them.

Thus, when Lazarus commits blasphemy twice over, holy names uttered in this dirty crevice of a filthy city, the Second Saint to serve the King Undying, founder of his most devout House, and most stringent, unrelentingly guardian of those sacred syllables - she really does laugh.

It's a softer, prettier laugh than should come out of her mouth, still half-masked in gore, chiming and high and wholly in disbelief.]

No. You don't strike me as the idly threatening type.

[She says it with a stress on idly that tings with satisfaction, like she's hit upon a puzzle slotting into place, and is pleased with its shape.]

But yes...why should you care for God's discretion, when he has so badly misplaced it? As for why - I can't imagine. We did not part on the best of terms. It wouldn't win you any favours...and I somehow doubt he's inclined to bestow them on you anyway.

[L stiffens, guarded. He's unaccustomed, after all, to earning laughter that isn't ridiculing or mean-spirited in nature. The jaunty, satisfied little win of a joke well-landed is a feat he's accomplished enough times to count on one hand... and this time, he's not entirely in on the joke, he thinks. Maybe the prettiness is just a veneer over what he is used to, the same familiar creature coming to him in a different guise.]

I prefer the truth, however it happens to look under sunlight. We're often at-odds because John's prefers his truths in the dark, packed in ice. Shame is like that for proud men.

[So there is a nerve in Lazarus that may be plucked to his displeasure. The fierce underdogs tend to have one. She is not entirely dissatisfied to see it sing, stringing him up to a more personal sort of defensiveness.]

Oh, you have been digging.

[She approves. Her approval is as sharp as her disdain, but far rarer, the glint of a diamond dusted blade over the jagged rake of broken plex. Her teeth are almost pink to match her hair when she flashes them, flipping her hood up over her distinctive hair.]

All I ever wanted was the truth. [She tilts her head, lightly.] Whatever the cost. A demanding principle...one so seldom appreciated.

You may go. Clean yourself up. I will consider your proposal.

[As though he did not already have the audacity to declare their allyship.]

[L, only human and a mortal one at that, in fact does have no shortage of nerves. He'd love one to think otherwise, of course, because by the standards of a merely mortal human, hadn't he done his very best to close himself into an ivory tower while he quietly witnessed the world's corruption and pain?]

Perhaps I have.

[He doesn't outright deny it, likely because she seems even a sliver of pleased. Her beauty comes with a sort of violence parceled and packaged along with it, and he could look at it, he thinks, a little longer.

His fingers tighten on the edge of the book, and he hurries away before she can demand it back from him.]

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August + September Catchall

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