The Fragrant Smell of Decay is Becoming of the Darkness (Closed)

[Lucien]

(Follow my lead and be as bad as you want to be, oh Nekoboooooi)

A church.

Rows of pews padded with red velvet, lined in perfectly symmetrical order. The intense eyes of hanging stone saints, limp from the cross they bore, stared intently at the empty temple. The floors were a rich cherrywood, covered with a varnish of fresh dust and rat droppings. The smell of stale holy water with filthy trappings of dirt still residing within the pools was everywhere, as was the bleak lighting that only changed when another crash of thunder illuminated through chipped painted glass. There was no moon, not even an outside. It was all an illusion; some trapping of the body by the mind. This was the Citadel, where people fought and died in faux battles for honor and sport.

The continuation of a violent culture through violence, and violence always continued in a violent culture.

*thump*

It was different from the thunder; more close to reality than the battle that raged in the sky. A hardcover tome of hymns struck the ground with such force that a wave of dust swirled in the air like a presence that left in evanescence. A boy, tired from the tricks the Citadel played, lay on the front pew like a damned man doomed for the gallows. His blond hair greatly contrasted the environment around him; it's purity seemed to help illuminate the cathedral as much as the bolts of lightning that cried from the heavens in the imaginary outside. He sat up, a shiver reaping his very sanity at the sound he himself had created.

Jeans and a pink t-shirt were all that protected his frail bod from the devilish hell that were the elements. With no warmth from candle nor cardinal, he curled himself up to conserve heat.

"All over a stupid bet..." His mind raced with regret and mourned the loss of his freedom; the stakes of the bet were steep indeed.

Perhaps the old saying was true. The brave do die but once, and Lucien was by no means valiant.

[Artifex Felicis]

The old wooden object sat before the cat boy unmoving, a wooden titan forgotten by time and waiting to rise again. The size was deafening, swallowing up everything around it and chocking voices down to a whisper by its mere presence. It was if Gaia herself came out of the earth, unwilling to be contained by her own body, and made the organ her avatar. The wooden base was impeccably cleaned, feasting and assimilating all the light nearby, a black hole in the upper level of the church.

A white hand reached out, touching a single ivory key. It slid down slowly, moving with all the speed of a god in its realm, and the sound the erupted so quietly from the act brought a shiver down Leon's spine. The mighty instrument, made to never be uprooted from its home, began to play again slowly and deliberating, with nary a sound but what the monstrous instrument, though it could very well have been its own being, commanded it to sound. A haunting melody, soft as a velvet kitten and as deep as the black sea, began to rise from the machine. The pearly keys rose up and down as they played their notes, waltzing and appeared to be more alive then the thunderous bolts of lightening streaking across the inky sky. Even the torrential rain, the fat raindrops sounding like a thousand fists pounding on the cathedral's wall and roof, was drowned out by that soft melody of haunting black.

The cat boy stepped back, suddenly aware how bright he appeared in this house of gods. His white hair, as well as his choice of light clothing, was starkly visible against the creamy, quaggy darkness. The cat boy began to descend down the steps that lead to the geometrically perfect floor of the church, every step magnified so it called out his arrival far more effectively then a chorus of singing cherubs. The cat boy's white fur and clothing, unblemished, pristine and as perfect as the god's ambrosia, all seemed to shine in the cathedral's room, lightening up some of the most nearby corners. A bright, cherry twinkle tinkled from the bell around his neck, clashing and fighting the overpowering symphony that hung in the air like thick, dark snow over the dark grave of a poor man. The bell's soft light, barely enough to brighten anything but the nekomata, continued its proud vigil, marking out the nekomata so it was impossible to miss his body, majestic and sublime as a descended god among unwashed men. His angelic form mirrored the stone statues of god, surpassing man's greatest achievements to capture true beauty. He blinked brightly shining eyes once as they surveyed the deplorable scene before him, tails swishing back as forth like a snake crawling through the grass for its prey.

This is going to be entertaining.

[Lucien]

That song

Though played through a beautiful instrument, it's notes were bastardized with age and the deplorable conditions that surrounded it. The boy jumped up; more frightened then when he dropped the book of hymns that resounded on the ground like so many beating war drums. He unsure footing and quaking body were a target to whatever opponent now approached. But the boy, knowing full well that the boundaries of death were bent here, and knowing too that his pride and anger were enough to succumb the coward deep within, would not stand idly by well he was made a mockery of by some unknown and unkempt pianist.

"Who's there?" he questioned, the seething rage in his voice becoming almost a vision unto itself; a vile bubbling of pitch and boil; more heated than brimstone on the Devil's hearth.

A being of pure white descended the darkened stairwell in decadence, dispelling the traces of dust from the air as if bringing the rapture itself. The creature had the ears of a beast, and claws to match. But so draped was it, that Lucien could not help but attribute the grotesque thing to some sort of malformed angel; a Raziel, bringing forth the mysteries of his lord in a deformed state reaped by malice.

The boy's teeth were barred in some attempt to imitate what he feared; this creature of the unknown; apostle to the fallen god. "I'm not afraid of you!" His cry was vivid and loud, echoing off every dark surface and shadow to create a vivid life; so harsh was this cry that the walls themselves seemed to shudder and quake as if the hooves of the four horsemen rode steadily by; respecting the Lord only enough to not enter his house of worship, but to molest it instead.

Lucien left the pews and stood on the red-carpeted main pathway, his toes digging into the rug as he tried to form some sort of defense against the miserly creature that approached.

"I think..."

[Taskmienster]

This thread has been waiting for over a year. If you would like to complete it, or work on it further, you can PM myself or another staff member and ask for it to be moved. However, till that time, it will be resting in the Citadel Archive forum.

Thanks,
~Task