haha wow

@ahlite / @devolusion

haha wow

@ahlite / @devolusion

haha wow

@ahlite / @devolusion

haha wow

@ahlite / @devolusion

niya :)

@gonchayas : ( for ely! he’s pulling her by the harness <3 )    ❛  drag .   to  pull  my  muse  closer  by  a  piece  of  clothing .

Two strong fingers loop / her eyes widen, both with surprise at him and with surprise that she'd never thought of this / through the metal ring nearest her throat, tugging her closer by the harness around her chest. They'd shed their shoes the moment they'd gotten home, so Kostya pulls them upwards on their tiptoes — his mouth is hungry, waiting but not patiently. It's — wonderful.

They give Elysia space to pull away, after a long kiss, but don't quite release the harness. Their gaze goes adoring, as it often does, for all the Elysia struggles, sometimes, to understand why. Their gaze isn't just adoring, though.

She, pulled by her lead — lead by her lover —— oh, oh. Wonderful. "Should we get a leash?" she teases, lashes fluttering as she leans upwards for another kiss. Despite the fact that it's her flirtation, her mind fills with imagines of what a leash might be useful for, and her cheeks flush hot. Against his mouth, they say, "or would that not be close enough?"

They chuckle, warm and affectionate, into Elysia's mouth, his other strong hand finding their hip, grip possessive. Elysia might black out. It's genuinely INSANE that they hadn't thought about the utility of them perpetually wearing a bondage harness.

"Help me out of this," they murmur as they fall back to their heels, because if they don't get them both stripped and into bed in the next five minutes, they'll explode. Konstantyn doesn't let go of the harness. "If you want, I'll put the harness back on once we've shed our other layers. Might do it even if you don't want me too, now that I'm turned on about it." They'd hate to deny their lover the control he's earned, after all.

And they do help her out of it — but not before they drag her to their bedroom.

kicking around a fatui ely au. she gets her body wrecked as usual but ends up rescued by some fatui recruits who keep her around once they realize she's a genuis. she agrees to work with them because she hates the gods and the heavenly principles and wants them destroy. she defects as an adult upon realizing what horror and oppression her tools are being used to cause

elysia vc i'm special :)

niya has hooked up with ely, rosaria, roza, and beidou by default.

anyway i need ely to get kidnapped by the fatui

thinking about ely's particular flavor of immaturity

Oh, Sylvie, they say, and the child winces into herself minutely, guilt swallowing slow. She knows Alain worries for her — worries dearly — and, once, that would have only made her happy to be so loved. Now, with blood on her palms and in her head, it's just another mark against the girl who is the nexus of uncountable sufferings. Hundreds dead before she'd even known — because of her. Another dead at her hand. Alain, forced to protect her. Kostya, forced to protect her. Both put in such danger for her sake. Her lips press together, but after a long, hesitant moment, she moves closer, crawling into bed. When Alain moves away, Sylvie does her level best not to start crying again. He worries, but he doesn't want to touch her. No one has ever wanted to hold her. She didn't allow herself to notice before, but now all she can do is notice the way others look at her and stay away. They must know — everyone has always known, long before she did, what a strange, wrong child she is.

She stays close to the edge of the bed, curling small.

Sylvie doesn't want to be a baby. Doesn't want to be a bother. Doesn't want to be a problem to solve. Doesn't want anyone else to die because of her. Doesn't want to die. She inhales, hard. She doesn't cry, but her hands shake where they're curled around each other against her chest. She wants to talk about it. She wants to tell him about the way the memories twisted together / she's already woken him, forced him to share a bed with a strange, broken child he does not want to be too near. ( every papa that she has doesn't want to be too near. she didn't allow herself to notice the lonely before, either. ) The child's head shakes and she inhales shakily, small. Small.

"I — I'm all right. I'm s - sorry. You can go back to sleep — don't s - stay up for me." What a baby she's being. She's the reason all this has happened; she has to be a big girl. She'll kill for him again, if she has to. She knows she will. That's a big - girl thing to do. It's a big - girl thing to do, too, to lie, again, "I'm all right."

he’s a light sleeper by nature.    weeks spent in a narrow cell,   days spent without sleep due to the callous nature of the prison guards ensuring he never had a moment of respite,   the constant hum of prison life—   it had turned him into a cautious creature, always anticipating the worst.    the slightest things stir him awake,   now:    sounds from the outside    /   sephtis working their late nights, rummaging around downstairs in search of formaldehyde and methanol    /    even small footsteps,   barely audible among the oak panels.    although alain isn’t startled awake,   their awareness is spontaneous.

they groan quietly,   pulling an exposed leg under the covers and into the warmth,   curling slightly into themself.    in their drowsiness,   they pay the sound of encroaching footsteps no mind,   and they only open their eyes when they hear the quiet creak of their door opening.    a hand rubs at their eye,   the other pushes themself up so they are sitting upright.    illuminated by the dim glow of a hallway light,   he hears a familiar voice:

@DEVOLUSION,  SYLVIE:    ❝    p — papa?    ❞     sylvie murmurs,  stumbling into the room—   her nightgown wrinkled and her eyes lined with red.    she fidgets in the doorway,  small fingers worn red at the edges.    ❝    papa,  can i—   sleep in y-your bed?    i—   it's okay,  if i—   c-can't.    ❞     apologetic for needing anything.  apologetic for being.    ❝    i had a—    a bad d-dream.    ❞

❝    oh,   sylvie...    ❞    lucidity murders his drowsiness and immediately, he rouses. without saying another word,   alain moves close to the wall in order to vacate room in the bed.    a hand pats the empty space,   urging her to it.    ❝    it’s fine.    you can sleep here tonight.    ❞    they wait for her to crawl onto the mattress,   moving further back so that she could have her own space.    despite the absence of light,   his vision has adjusted to the darkness enough to discern the traces of tears among her eyes,   knows the tone of her voice too well to dismiss it as just any other nightmare.    (    as if bad dreams could ever be dismissed.    )    his heart softens at the realization,   aching.    hurting.    

(    if only he could take the nightmares away from her, if only he could remove the pain.    just another thing he can’t save.    )

❝    bad dreams,   huh?    ❞    they say,   voice hoarse from a deadened sleep.    ❝    i’m sorry.    i know how it is.    ❞    he may not be able to save her from nightmares,   but he can at least give her a shoulder to cry on,   lean on.    a hand reaches out for the covers,   tucking her in,   ensuring her warmth for the night.    (    the comforter they have may not be big enough for the both of them,   but if they have to suffer a cold,   sleepless night in order for her to rest easy,   then so be it. ) ❝    would you like to talk about it?    it’s okay if you don’t.    ❞

@gonchayas​ from ———— the hound strains the leash.

Internal war, a schism between what's innate and what's possible, what's right and what's fair. A child should not have to endure such splitting, let alone survive it, but Sylvie has been experiencing this slow, stinging tearing for months. She was born with love and trust and ample care, heart blooming like a flower in the sun; she was installed with a weapon that makes her a target, that forced her to kill, that has her childish heart roaring and breaking and bleeding as it strives to spill its viscera without killing its host.

He promises she's safe — she misses being safe — and that he won't die — she's the nexus of countless bloodstained threads and even now she's so afraid to be far from Alain, if he dies because she wasn't there it's her fault, it's her fault — and she's a child who wants to be safe who wants to be held who wants to be comforted, who wants to be anything but on - edge, who wants —

To stop forward. She does. One step. Two, hand raising, trembling, just a little. She tries for a third, but stops, eyes widening, looking away from him — stupid, stupid, don't look away from the enemy, you're so stupid — and down at her foot; vines wrapped around it to prevent her from moving closer. She pulls away from them, but as soon as she's free, more tear from the earth, grasping her wrist. Her eyes widen further.

She's a child who wants to be held who wants to be comforted who wants to cease being afraid of everyone around her and herself for just one moment and her plants WON'T LET HER! She feels tears building, anxiety and horror edging close to something else. HER PLANTS WON'T LISTEN TO HER. HER PLANTS ———

Her plants can only listen to her. She wants to be safe, she wants to trust this person, AND UNDERNEATH THAT SHE'S SO SCARED OF HIM AND OF EVERYTHING AND OF THE WORLD THAT SHE CAN'T BEAR TO MOVE CLOSER. She is a child who will never get to be safe again, no matter how much she pretends otherwise.

Sylvie wrenches against the vines, now up her arm and around her waist and, when they don't give, the pain and the terror and the tired in her chest gets louder, more panicked, and there's nothing to do but burst into pathetic, wailing sobs.

Wailing, childish sobs, the plants retreating as Sylvie's fear wins out over Sylvie's loving heart. She sways and then collapses to her knees, hands digging into the earth like it's betrayed her, heedless to the scrapes or the bit - short nails and the bit - raw fingertips that threaten to split like her heart. "I'll die!" she screams, only a child, a little girl who's been so strong and so grown up and who's so scared and tired and nothing's right and she can't see a way out or an end to the always - horror except getting killed, slow and painful. She wails, and can do nothing else, words slurring like they can't bear to show past her teeth. "I — I kuh - killed —— p - people and —— !! A - And I'm guh - gon' get killed —— an' — an' —— y - you'll die 'cause o - of me, too —— !!"

Their lips roll, thoughtful; Elysia is silent, for a long time after he’s spoken, after he’s looked away, after he’s laid himself bare.  Once, he’d had to help them replace on our their internal organs, hands in their artificial and their organic organs, metal and slick together.  Laid bare.  Strange, that that felt far safer than telling him the story of how their organs came to be that way.  Kostya hasn’t flinched from them or their pain.  They won’t flinch from his.

— They won’t flinch from theirs.  all they ever do is flinch from theirs.  “I think...a part of me will probably always be the girl with her chest and her arm blown away,” Elysia says, careful.  They don’t make him look at her; speaking of this makes them feel anxious, sharp, like they’ll crawl out of their skin and tear it so badly in the process they won’t be able to get back in.  “I think I’ll probably always be that wounded kid, bawling her eyes out and broken because of somebody else’s cruelty.  And I think a part of you is always going to be that kid who monsters made into a weapon.”

It’s a sad truth.  That there’s no escape from it.  The wounds will scar but the scars will remain, a reminder when a hand brushes over them.  But — but —— “You probably can’t escape it.  But that doesn’t mean you can’t be something else, too.”�� There’s more skin than scar, and the skin can freckle in the sun, flush when embarrassed or delighter, grow pale with fear or joy.  "The hound will always be there.  But it’s not all that you are, and you don’t have to kill that part of you to be something else.”

Her own eyes drift, smile going rueful and sharp as she feels.  She’s glad she’d slept with her prosthetic arm on when it rests against her mechanical chest.  “It doesn’t work, anyway.  Killing the part of yourself — your past — that you hate.”  They’d despised that little girl, naive and stupid and helpless, having to depend on the brothers who made her youth hell — and no matter how much they hated her, she just wouldn’t die.  “You defected — for me, at least partly — back when you were still the hound.  You doubted.  That part of you wasn’t all bad, either.  You can’t escape it, but you can be something else, in addition to it.  Something that’s bigger, that drowns the bad stuff out.”  Something that changes hate of the past self to a grief - drowned kind of love.  Building a self, piece by piece.  But not from nothing.

FROM @DEVOLUSION’S ELYSIA,  CONTINUED ON BETA EDITOR.

it’s likely another byproduct of his upbringing,  the way he doesn’t understand elysia and her compassion.    he wasn’t able to understand it when he first stepped into that prison cell,  and he still isn’t able to understand it right now,  laying at her side    ───    never will,  probably.    they smile briefly,  solemnly as they watch her press a kiss to their palm,  tender and kind as ever.    [    a kindness they’ll never deserve.    ]

❝    i know,  i know.    ❞    they say,  a mindless kind of reassurance,  something that they don’t really know.    or,  at least,  it’s something they’re trying to learn.    despite his own doubts,  he can at least acknowledge her truth.    every ounce of cruelty and violence was done at the behest of others,  an incurable echo of trauma and violence in the name of a god and her own personal order.    they were a soldier before they were a child and they were a monster before they were ever a human being.    their fault,  not his,  he tries to remind himself,  like it would somehow alleviate the guilt and the nightmares and the repulsive stickiness of blood that is not on him.    their fault,  he corrects himself,  but not without his own guilt.    elysia is right:    it was fucked up,  but it’s good that they’re trying so hard to be better than the evil they have done.    but still,  despite the aversion and the stain upon his own wretched legacy,  why is it that the only place where he feels himself is behind the cold of the hound’s helm?

❝    i’m just…  afraid,  i think.    ❞    the confession immediately feels wrong.    he shouldn’t be admitting fear,  not so openly.    konstantin forces himself to press on despite the discomfort blooming in his chest.    ❝    everytime i sleep,  i dream about shit that i’ve done and it’s just    ───    i’m afraid i can’t do it.    change,  i mean.    ❞    the back of a scarred hand rests against elysia’s cheek,  drawing down their features,  softly;  a far cry from the violence he’s described.    ❝    the way they brought me up just…  feels like something i can’t let go.    i never realized how much it’s affected everything i do until now.    don’t know how to get rid of it.    if i can get rid of it.    ❞    the movement of their hand stops,  drawing away.    they avert their gaze to the mattress,  fighting the hints of bleariness in their eyes.    ❝    i don’t want to be what they made me, not anymore. i just don’t know if i can escape it.    ❞

sylvie has both a traditional lisp and rhotacism; the rhotacism is more apparent.  you’re unlikely to notice that her pronunciation of “sunshine” is closer to “thunshine” until you’ve heard it a few times, but it’s hard to miss the way she swaps rs for ws, such as “rabbit” becoming “wabbit.”

she’s undergoing speech therapy at the université, but isn’t overly concerned.  by the time she’s older, she’ll have grown out of both a bit, but never entirely.

modernverse ely is one of those ppl who builds elaborate mini rooms for their cats

gonchayas​:

there’s a kind of vulnerability to this,  they know.    opening their heart,  opening up about every ugly,  repulsive thought and emotion that has run through him time and time again,  thoughts and memories that still haunt him even when his hands are no longer stained fresh with blood.    konstantin’s eyelids flutter close once more,  quiet,  debating whether or not to push the subject aside or resort to honesty.    ❪    elysia has already given so,  so much to you.    to hide behind avoidance feels like betrayal.    ❫

“    i was younger in it;  basically a kid.    ”    a scarred hand trails upward,  resting over the hand on his cheek,  urging it as close as possible.    “    i was fighting with one of my comrades,  we were both beating the shit out of each other but somewhere in the middle of it,  i got the upper-hand.    his blood was in my mouth,  i was angry.    one of my instructors had to pull me off of him.    ”    he opens his eye,  stares at nothing;  decides it would be better off to keep them closed,  to cherish the dark comfort it provides.    ❪    WRETCHED FIEND,  THING OF EVIL.    in the end,  he’s still the same monster they deified.    ❫    “    he was scurrying away from me.    for the first time in my life,  someone was genuinely terrified of me.    ”    his hand releases hold of elysia’s,  falling down against the mattress and closing itself into a loss fist.    “    i liked it,  too.    something about it made me feel strong,  powerful.    ”    they bring themself to look at her,  noting her reaction.    “    it was fucked up of me.    i know.    ”

Elysia spent years clawing and fighting for this self — this body (  hand - made, but not alone  ) and this heart (  years unraveling bitter hatred of the sort that made her cruel in ways she’d never choose  ), all built in the wake of grievous suffering.  The work they’ve done has allowed them to be kind — to be loving — to be patient — and to be glad, even on the worst days, to be alive.  It hasn’t made them perfect, though.  They are a person, battered and aching, not some archetype built for saving broken men.

They don’t pull their hand from his face, but they can feel their stiffness, shoulders hiking, as they speak.  Fear.  Not of him — but of the cruelty he describes, that she can’t entirely understand for all she can come close.  But she doesn’t pull her hand away.  She inhales, eyes closing, exhales.  (  years ago, she as the terrified child on the receiving end of another’s cruelty that made them feel strong.  )  Her eyes open.

She is not a child, so easy to harm, any longer.  And Konstantin is building a self — clawing and fighting for this self — that knows what they did was fucked up, that does not want to do it again.  “Who cares if it was fucked up?”

Elysia’s eyes widen as the words they’ve just said process — then they laugh, quiet and brief and guilty, at themself, at their stumbling.  “Sorry — I didn’t mean it like that.  It matters that that happened.  It’s sad, for the person you hurt.  And it’s sad for you, too, that you were hurt so much that you learned to want that.  I just mean that — you don’t have to...”  She’s not good at this, putting thoughts and feelings to words.  They shift closer in the dark, until their knees touch.  “You don’t have to — tack on disclaimers.  I’m not running away.  And you — you’re not that kid anymore.  It’s okay to just — tell me how it hurt, and not — make sure I know that it was fucked up.  I don’t care that you did a fucked up thing in the past.  Your million fucked up things in the past don’t have to define who you are now, who you’re — who you are when you’re in bed with me.”  Are they making sense?  They can’t fuck this up.  “I love you.  You’re my partner.  That’s who you are to me.  I care that my lover is hurting. ”  She moves closer again, free hand finding their free hand and raising it so they can press a kiss to his palm.  “It was fucked up.  But you’re not that child anymore.  You’re my partner now.”