Nothing thicker than a knife's blade separates happiness from melancholy.

[al-shairan.livejournal.com]

Evening of Tuesday, 12 June; The Tavern of Hell

It is these pauses that are our undoing. It is then that sedition enters the fortress and our troops rise in insurrection. Once before he had paused, and love with its horrid rout, its shawms, its cymbals, and its heads with gory locks torn from the shoulders had burst in....

I wore this body here once. It was a wet night; I remember how this body stumbled, a knee going down into the dirt. The witch's mouth on mine, tasting of cigarettes. I was grieving for the Night Wind then; I am always grieving for him, it seems. Or myself. It is a fine line.

That grief was for how he had betrayed me, what he had made me feel. This grief... If I did not know better, I would say it has a taste of regret to it. That is a different savour than other sorrows; a bilious feeling, a sick pain under the ribs.  (Bodies are so useful for these articulations.) Something that feels regret can feel remorse, and that can lead to reconciliation; and those are things I will never have.

I thought I had known sorrow; but these feelings are - different enough in a way that is... unbearable. I have endured for so long. But not for much longer. I have decided to move matters on apace, faster than I planned. I had thought to wait until Rose was ready for her first blood; the symbolism appealed. But though I think she would reach that in three years, I am impatient now, as I have not been in a long time.

Come, reap.

I pick up my glass and drain it.

[Open]

Comments

[marbasthefallen.livejournal.com]

On anyone or anything else, the disdain would be ugly. Iblis has always worn it beautifully.

I consider my drink for a long time. Will the end truly come this time? There has been talk and plans before Excolo. I would like to think there will be talk and plans after Excolo as well. And I can be back with Lilith and Celeste in a matter of heartbeat ts...

"I will stay for a time, أخي، يا رب." As I grow to miss Lilith after a time, I also grow to miss Him. I am sure the feeling will abate after a few weeks within his company.

[al-shairan.livejournal.com]

I nod.

"I may call on you, then, if I require your services. It is more entertaining to participate than to merely observe, no?" I finish my second drink and set down the glass.

[marbasthefallen.livejournal.com]

We shall see if Iblis' grand ambitions play out they way they are intended to. We shall see.

"You have not needed me in a millennia or so," Drain my glass and set it down. My eyes kindle into flame as I look at Him. "But if I can be of some assistance, feel free to call upon me."

[al-shairan.livejournal.com]

"I will," I say, swinging off my bar stool. "And put those eyes away before you draw attention to yourself." I set money down on the bar, and make my way out. I have had enough idle conversation for today.