speak the incantations — [the vvitches].

[napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.]

[presto][/presto]

there's blood on your lies
disguise opened wide
there is nowhere for you to hide
the hunter's moon is shining

Beneath the tragedies, the heroes and the sinners, the massacres—this was a game, a checkered board with the pawns and the knights in place; this was a performance of blood and bones, the stage a graveyard. In order to win it, to appease the ravenous audience, one must be sly enough to collect the wiliest dancers, the prettiest actresses, and the most sullen princes.

The first, the dancer, was Slate Rothul, bird-boned and petite yet burning fiercely with a warrior’s ruthless ambition, the sort that made her unafraid and wild enough to tear down a kingdom even with her bare hands. She had lived and had a mausoleum of scars to prove it. A mere silver blade, when wielded in between her steel grasp, became an army.

The second, the actress, was Penelope Marcet, with a smile that could rework itself from a cherry-sweet and innocent thing to the beak of a loaded pistol at any given moment. She knew the curtain calls, wore the glamour around her form as one would a robe, had learnt the lines. No matter what light was cast upon her, it always became golden and aureate in the end.

The third, was the boy I’d given a smile to: sunken eyes and cheeks, a gleam in his eyes that resembled barbed wires, dead and thorned fields. He was the prince of a kingdom long forsaken, now a carcass of stones and ruins over which ghosts and phantoms danced.

But, I’d be the true haunting.

“As I was saying, it’s a danger to be a lone-wolf in a place where everyone is a predator,” my tone was a spell, eager to coax him onto our palms, “we need you as much as you need us.” I raked a hand through my silver hair to feign nonchalance, keep the tension to a minimum, don’t let the threats show yet. “When the cages are opened, all the wolves want to run: they want to tear everything apart, limb by limb.”

Then, my lips curled into a smile, honed to a polished, dangerous edge. I was the trickster here, the cold hearted villain, Death's warrior. I let all of them see it.

“We don't want you to be the first to get torn apart.”

i'm running with the wolves tonight
i'm running with the wolves
i'm running with the wolves tonight
i'm running with the wolves



lyrics: aurora - running with the wolves

[eulalie blake 1a 🍒 tris]

[presto][/presto]

yeah, I love you on the weekends
but I'm careless and I'm wicked

"Oh, Vargen, be gentle with the boy."

My voice runs like blood, smooth and hot as it flows through the air. I step forward, placing a hand on the young man from Twelve's shoulder — and then I circle him; I am the cat with her paw on the mouse's tail. "You make it seem like a difficult decision. He should be honored by the invitation."

I stop in front of Reggie, bringing my fingers to my hair and twisting a dark strand around them. "Aren't you?" I tilt my head to the side, a coy smile playing on my lips. It spreads like a disease — until I am smiling ravenously. Insatiably. "Of course you are. I'd be offended otherwise."

The dryness of my laughter speaks for me. "And I'm not someone that you want to offend." I move back to Vargen, wrapping myself around him until my cheek rests against the hollow of his throat. "I have so many darlings now." I reach out a lazy hand, brushing a mess of curls from Slate's face. Such a beautiful, feral thing.

"Don't you want to be one of them?
Or you could be my enemy."

This time, I speak for myself.

"But I promise you,
I'm so much worse than a wolf."

yeah, I love you on the weekends
it's a cruel war

^{( griffin ;
wars )}

[sidney]

[presto][/presto]

i’m always ready for a war again
go down that road again
it’s all the same

“I need you?”

It’s hard not to scoff, to quirk my lips up from the corner and laugh at the notion. As if I cannot survive on my own. As if I have not been doing so since I was fourteen. It is nothing new, but what is new are the circling wolves here—now. The pale, white-haired ghost of a boy before me speaks of them there, in the arena, waiting to pounce and tear me limb from limb apparently.

“Is that meant to scare me?” My shoulders stiffen and I clench my jaw in silent offense, irked by the assumption such tactics would work. But what’s more off-putting is his partner, the next to approach me. Softer, but with just as much, if not more bite. It may have been covered in honey, but I know better than to take something sweet from someone without asking what they want in return.

He should be honored by the invitation.

Her hand rests atop my shoulder and as much as every fiber of my being revolts, I fight the urge to recoil and instead stand firm. I do not cower before beasts, no matter how beautiful the visage. And that girl is undoubtedly a terror wrapped in lace.

“Be offended, or don’t. I couldn’t care less. But the honor has yet to be shown.”

My voice is unwavering, tone steady and pitch unmoving. The truth was I didn’t know either of them, and from the looks of it they were all show and no substance. Spectacles for the viewers to gobble up like the decadent food they love to gorge themselves on. Dramatic and lackluster, and yet to show me what they’re actually worth.


Nothing or everything.

I look to my left, over my shoulder quickly, then do the same to my right. “Did I miss something? Are there cameras in here too?” A cruel laugh finally escapes from deep in my gut after several tough moments of holding it in. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Does all this—” I pause and hold my hand up to gesture at her from head to toe “—actually work on anyone?”

Baffled, I just stare at her blankly for a moment in utter disbelief before shaking my thoughts loose and closing the distance between us slowly. She’s wrapped herself around the boy like a snake to a branch, but it doesn’t stop me from addressing her personally, getting close to her face and his by mere proximity.

“Worse than a wolf, you say? All I see is a performer, and a bad one at that,” I scoff in her direction, my eyes rolling over her entire frame once again, measuring the inadequacy of this horrendous interaction. “I want to survive. If you can help, then great. Prove it. But either way,” the truth claws its way viciously up my throat and I lay it at her feet like the ugly thing we all know it is, “only one is coming out.”

who gon’ pray for me?
take my pain for me?
save my soul for me?
‘cause i’m alone, you see