Musecraft - 🪐 — Musecraft.

🪐 — OUR FLAG MEANS DEATH : @baldursgoons ( aurora ) for birdie ▶ ❝ we’re friends. friends tell each other these kind of things. ❞

IT'S BEEN AWHILE since birdie has had a real friend, & she pauses in her work at mending a heavy winter cloak to look up at aurora in surprise. ❝ oh. they do ? ❞ of course, birdie considers almost everyone to be her friend, even those she hasn't met yet. but it's hard to keep friends when you don't stay in one place for very long, & birdie tends to wander on her own more often than not. so to hear the assertion being directed at her brings a broad smile to her face, her pale feathered wings giving a giddy flutter. ❝ i didn't know. i guess i've never had one stick around for long enough to ask. ❞

she hesitates, but aurora seems genuinely curious. & though birdie hasn't had anyone ask for awhile, the story hasn't faded from her memory. her eyes drop to her stitching as she begins. ❝ my father was a mortal — i never met my mother, but he thought her an angel when they first met, on account of her wings. he said they were so great they could almost touch the ground. when she left him, she left me, too. i didn't have my wings when i was a baby, so i guess she thought i was a mortal, & that i should be with my own kind. but when they came in ... ❞ she pauses, glancing back up to catch aurora's eyes, her wings settling close against her back. ❝ my father didn't enjoy having the reminder of her. so i left. i've been on my own ever since. ❞ & birdie smiles then, shrugging. it isn't a sad story ; not to her. after all, it ends with her being set free.

❝ & you ? what of your family ? ❞

"I own the night" - Jacob Anderson as Louis de Pointe du Lac

Interview With The Vampire (2022-) 2.08: And that's the end of it. There's nothing else.

IT'S HARD TO BELIEVE that this is the same room that had served as a kind of combination prison-slash-torture-chamber for he & ed over those horrible months. in fact, the little nook where they are lounging together now is almost exactly where izzy had lay when his captain had ordered his toes removed, one-by-one. but ed doesn't live here any longer — he's ashore, with stede, where he wants to be — & izzy has a new captain now. & frenchie ( along with wee john & the rest of the crew ) had clearly worked some kind of magic to exorcise the demons from the ship. now, sunlight pools on the floorboards where shadows used to linger. candles burn in every lamp & all the knives & splintered furniture have been removed in favor of more comfortable seating. soon, they will add more color, fill the walls with art again. soon, it will look like an entirely different space.

& he's never before been accused of being an optimist, but izzy only shrugs at it now, softened by the term of endearment frenchie bestows on him. ❝ i don't know, ❞ he admits. ❝ maybe it's the music, or the calm day. maybe it's you. ❞ it's gentle ; far more gentle than he's used to being. he would never say such a thing if there were anyone else around to hear, but there isn't. & even in the midst of the storm, in the arms of the kraken, frenchie has always kept izzy safe. ❝ you want to hear me sing, then you'll have to play something i know. ❞

THE SOFT MELODY WASHED OVER THE CABIN cleansing it of the dark aura which had lingered for so long, well, that and the candles Wee John had lit. "Keep talking like that and people might take you for an optimist." His words blended into the final notes of the song and judging by the look on Izzy's face he hadn't distinguished one from the other.

"Oi, mon rayon de soleil," Frenchie gave Izzy's good leg a gentle poke with his foot, "what's brought this on? You're away with the faeries today." And he wasn't the only one. Frenchie thought this must be what it felt like to be a summers breeze. He caressed the neck of his lute, and as he looked at Izzy he found himself smiling once more. I don't think I've heard you sing. Not even a shanty."

RHEA RIPLEY WWE Fastlane, October 7th, 2023

🪐 — BLACK SAILS : @anquenin for louis ▶ ❝ am I crazy? tell me. i’m asking. ❞

IT'S A RIDICULOUS QUESTION, & the absurdity of it almost makes louis laugh. almost, but not quite. instead there's only a slight twitch of his brow as they wander like mortals through the city, a slight curve of his lips as he stops to look at the other vampire in the orange streetlight glow. ❝ you're asking me ? ❞ his voice is tight, uncertain of everything — including his own sanity.

but astarion seems to want a real answer, looking to him as if for some kind of reassurance that louis doesn't know if he can provide. palpable tension rolls off of astarion, his thoughts a bleakly fatalistic mirror of louis' own. but after a moment, he shrugs, brushing away the other's concern. ❝ look, man, we're all crazy. all of us. it's our way, our kind. we all lose our minds eventually. ❞ & if astarion hadn't figured that out yet, then he should be prepared for it to happen soon. the price of immortality was insanity; louis had seen the truth of that firsthand. & yet, somehow, he felt as if his mind was sharper, more lucid while walking with a relative stranger than it was with his companion of these last 30-some years. louis found himself in no hurry to return to the suite he shared with armand. & knowing what he did of astarion's maker, it seemed the strange pale vampire felt the same. ❝ but i think keeping the right company helps. at least a little. ❞