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| The Masque of Red Death; for jinan! [preemptive gore tw?] | |
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| Topic Started: Sep 1 2014, 05:44 PM (131 Views) | |
| Amyntas | Sep 1 2014, 05:44 PM Post #1 |
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EARLY SPRING 8 AR Lady Nadira, as always, knew how to throw a ball. But how can anything less be expected, the masked man thought, a crooked smile peeling his face, from nobility grown fat under Orion's regime? He leaned back on his heels, a jaunty whistle nearly springing from his cracked lips. Nobody noticed him, for once -- a rare thing, truly, to not be the only masked horror afoot. The streets swarmed with bright fabrics and laughing noblewomen, a masquerade of demons and goddesses and beasts, murmurs bubbling like a spring. Amyntas stood anchored in the midst of it, his gloved hands tapping upon a walking-stick, clad in black, as per usual; his cloak had been swapped for a pitch doublet and its ballooning sleeves, hints of gold embroidery threading like veins. Atop his head wound a dark turban, more of a scarf, really, sweeping up his scraggles of black hair and erasing what slivers of skin still remained. The rest of his face was covered in a metal mask, a smiling demon of sorts. A third eye peeled itself across his shining forehead, theatrical teeth jutting from snarling brass lips. His blue eyes flickered from within, chips of ice darting across the square. A beautiful view of the main oasis, some part of his mind registered -- but the rest of him was focused on picking out his partner for this… mission of sorts, finger tapping absently on the handle of his walking stick. And where is Miss Tawfeek? It is not in her nature to be late for an opera. A fitting choice, all told, for possible assassins. A masquerade ball. Masks made monsters of men, peeled away all the cautions that came with having a known face, a name one answered to. Unmasked men faced the guillotine, the noose, the Inquisition. But a cat from a dragon from a mummy? His eyes skirted the three newest additions to the party, laughing and fanning themselves in the heat of the sunset. The stone belched back the heat of the day, but at least the accursed sun slunk through the old mosques, his old enemy winking out its last. And soon the city would be blessedly cool, washed by the pinpricks of stars, settled into comfortable darkness. A twinkle came to his eye, burnt flesh crinkling in its corners. Now he did whistle, a merry little tune, foot tapping absently -- a mood had settled over him, the happier sort, the liveliness tingling in his veins before something abhorrent came to pass. Murders in operatic form! Deaths to crescendoes! What would it be this time? Lady Nadira had no shortage of enemies; frankly, her husband should have worn an archer's target for a mask. A most fitting role indeed, characters sweeping on this bloodied stage, whirling until the masque of red death appeared and left everyone shrieking. How long until then, though? I should like to see the first act, at least. He hummed, and waited, and kept his eyes sharp. After all, rich women do not invite Inquisitorial dogs for the company. |
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| Jinan Tawfeek | Sep 2 2014, 06:20 PM Post #2 |
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She turned, turned, swallowing; her careful eye ate the image in the mirror—unfamiliar, ugly, preposterous. Her gaze swept down to the dusty boots, overflowing with buckles, folded and embroidered and the calf with an unnecessarily large cuff; up, up, to the too-tight leather pants, to the gaudy blue jacket with its gold buttons, to the cravat that puffed out like an agitated robin's breast, to the gold tassels on the padded shoulders. The wig she'd invested in flowered out from her head in a mane of black, framing her wooden mask in lush curls. It almost looked like her face, she realized, an awful smile cutting her face beneath it: Save, of course, for the wispy patch of black affixed just below the lip, and the bad red blush in the plump wooden cheeks. A Sotoan ideal, perhaps? And to top it all, she had her hook, as always: But she was no longer the hook-handed inquisitor, the gristly woman braced against her nightmares with her coat and her hook and her sneer. No, tonight, she was a pirate, and a Sotoan one at that—a man of the seas. Fond of ruffled shirts and silly blue coats, peering out from a hole in the painted eye-patch on her wooden mask. (Frivolous. Idiotic. Absolutely without excuse. She loved it.) She slipped her pipe into her pocket as she left, for no reason other than to feel the familiar weight. As she moved from her house, jangling the keys and whistling, she wondered idly what her fellow inquisitor would think. Amyntas, Amyntas—she could not picture him in a costume himself. What ruffles would she find, when she met him at their spot? What feathers? What silly curled boots, in luscious green velvet? She thought a jester would be appropriate, for a moment. Or perhaps the cackling villain, his long black robes dragging behind him. (Would he even wear a costume? Did he need one?) She hoped she wouldn't be disappointed. * “Arr,” came a familiar caw, “ye're an ugly 'un.” The voice came from behind the man in black, the tip of a hook nudging the puffed sleeve of his doublet. The gaudy blue cloak slithered and rustled behind Amyntas, announcing its wearer's arrival on heels just a bit too high to go unnoticed. Nudge, nudge, went the hook, deadly tip brushing the tender fluff of black silk with enormous care. Then it was gone, flourishing. The wooden-masked pirate moved round the drab inquisitor, shaking its rich locks, leering—for just a moment it became Jinan Tawfeek as she raised the mask with a spare hand, grinning, but then Jinan disappeared beneath a painted smile. The pirate once more wheezed with laughter. “What a... charming ensemble.” Inquisitor Tawfeek gestured at the horrid mask, the third eye and twisted brass teeth, with her hook. (Still there were the blue eyes—so sharp, so human! How strange. Under all that, she could hardly imagine anything other than a man. What trickery was this, what reverse psychology? Her imagination had healed his face! Her eyes took in all this, behind her pirate's visage. As if she could use it for later, for the smoky nightmares of her chambers.) “...what, precisely, were you going for? Invoking some ancient demon from the Scriptures? Or, no—that face looks horribly familiar. Alas, but I can't guess it...” |
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| Amyntas | Sep 3 2014, 05:18 PM Post #3 |
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THE MASKED WOMAN APPROACHES. The whisper. A breath in his mind, a vague twinge on the back of his head. Paper-dry lips, scraping a verse audible only to him. He felt Jinan before he saw her -- the insistent jab of cold metal, ever-delicate. A touch that could turn deadly in a wink, a soft tone shattering to a shriek. Ah, Tawfeek. A smile crinkled his withered lips as the man turned his head in a smooth motion, following the Inquisitor as she prowled around him. For a moment, he could not see Jinan under such absurdity -- could not see the woman choked by ruffles and lace, a puffed mummer belonging on the prow of a ship. Hair! His dancing eyes bounced to the quivering locks, the glimpse of a grin under that wooden face. A marionette, a genderless thing, at once Jinan and yet not, winking away under that painted leer. His walking stick rapped the ground as he gave a small bow, tipping his own mask in return. A ruined nightmare of a mouth grinned from beneath, all burns and bloodied teeth, then mercifully disappeared like someone slamming a trap door on a horror. A muffled laugh echoed through it, warped tinny and hollow but genuine nonetheless. "When did you join a mummer's troupe? Or is there a pirate's corpse floating down the Origa?" He put a hand upon his waist with a shiver of chains, clinking barely audible over the murmur of Ashoka's finest swine, dressed and ready for a villain's table. Amyntas flicked up the walking stick, prodding curiously at the buckles crawling around Jinan's feet like glittering snakes. He returned it to the cobblestones, bracing his weight upon it. A nobleman appraising a new business partner, perhaps. The mask glittered, leered, fangs flashing in the dying sunlight. "Well, captain. I hoped to invoke an oni, a demon from the Isle of Daro. Their mythos is intriguing -- often, these demons become protectors, ferocious warriors in battles for peace and order." A dark chuckle wheezed out of his throat. "I thought it fitting. Well, then." The demonic creature turned, nodded at the entrance of the theater house, a grand, opulent thing. A maw bristling with mosaics and trim, vomiting out a tongue of steps. He extended a velvet glove. "Shall we?" Edited by Amyntas, Sep 3 2014, 05:19 PM.
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