#i like songs that sound like howls. this song. the ideal husband
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its important to me. that you all know you first is my number 7 song. you guys should know this i think its importaqnt to know
#replay 23#i love her.....#lots of paramore on this list...#Spotify#i like songs that sound like howls. this song. the ideal husband#also to all my friends that hate this song. DIE
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Blood on the snow
With each step, the pack on the back became heavier. A rifle weighted painfully on the shoulders. Blizzard was so frantic that it even blurred the outlines of bare trees around.
Veil would never in life trust his life into the outside but arguing with the father was pointless — the only son and also the oldest child - the ideal target for the family’s hope.
Most of the path passed in silence. Veiloran Sr. only sometimes pointed with his wild gestures which way to move. In fairness, they started the journey when clouds still didn’t cover the sky and the man expected a good hunt but the weather of Triva didn’t hear people’s wishes.
At least Semargard - place, where they lived, was the capital, which meant that in surrounding forests were many lodges. The soldier knew by heart its locations because during the patrols he stayed in them countless times.
The wind slammed the door knocking food stocks off the shelves. Even inside Veil’s teeth were shattering, he could say even with closed eyes, where beams were destroyed by dozens of years. At least he finally exhaled. Howlings outside the windows reminded songs of women who got their men for war. Horrendous, bone-chilling sound, leaving its trial in the nightmares.
Why did you stop? The hearth will not light up itself.
The boy only sighed quietly. Music stopped. He knew his father was too practical for the art. However, remembering his past, the son tried not to judge.
Woe. There is not enough wood for the night, we need to go out again.
But we’ll freeze to death. Why don’t chopped the furniture to the fire and definitely stay alive?
Will you bring the new one? Even find this shack again? Look, there’ve already been such clever guys like you, only one chair is left. Don’t be your sisters, the weather is already settling down, - the father punched the table so hard even used to this Veil shivered. He just took the axe and turned to the woodpile only to understand. The problem wasn’t about big chunks. There wasn’t enough kindling like paper or thin dry sticks. Why did not say this from the beginning?
Where are you going? Want to wander in the storm alone?
I thought you’ll stay to keep an eye on the fire.
We’ll have enough time to take turns during the night to watch the stove. I won’t let you go alone, without a weapon. Don’t even dare! Let’s go. I’m expecting a hot dinner today.
Veil was nearly hauled by scruff outside. A white wind, indeed, quieted down letting people collect twigs uneventfully but it also didn’t go to bring the game. While returning Veiloran Sr. wrinkled.
Seems, like we’re going to chew dried meat again. Haven’t I had enough in twenty years in the regiment?
Actually, mother had given them cheese, eggs and even a vegetable pie but her husband didn’t define it as real food.
Only he was angry, Veil had a sigh of relief. So quiet as he could so that father wouldn’t hear. At first, time being ten years old when he was teaching to shoot, he nearly hit the leg of a dad’s friend. Second, he couldn’t kill a horned hare on the first try. The poor animal stood before his eyes when it was needed to take a firearm.
And yet this day mocked him. Around the house were seen footprints of a small creature. Snow didn’t have time to cover up marks. A smile appeared on the man’s face first time this day. With a gesture, he commanded his son not to make a sound. Veil could only follow the father looking around.
Brown fur flashed between the drifts. The shutter clicked. Horns twitched abruptly. With the last scream, a body leaned in the snow nearly without sounds. Veil looked away.
Saints! Dad?
Good shoot, yeah?
There are footsteps of the ice wolf, - giant. Bigger than any local animal it rounded across the river whose frozen waters now seemed to be a tiny path. - Why is it so close to the people?
Silence! - hissed Veiloran Sr. between his teeth. His son felt the shake in hands, In a side poked painfully. - Take your weapon, why did you stack?
As if he could heat the target that moment.
A little they closed to the prints, and his heart shrank.
Dad, she’s with the pups.
I see. Prowl with me stride for stride.
We can’t!
Do you want to scare them away? - ache howled in the shoulder, so hard it was griped. For a minute father and son were looking into each other eyes. Veil turned away first.
It was becoming colder. From the blizzard with time remained only large flakes. Veil could look only at the ground. Now he noticed - there were at least three cubs. Probably, hunger led them here.
Animals hid from the weather in a narrow ravine that had stamped a place for sleep. Their fur blended perfectly with the fresh snow. Fluffy tails covered up long muzzles. The paws of the wolf were as big as a head of a middle-aged man. Never before Veil had seen the such creature.
The wind was carrying away faster and faster the steam outgoing from the moth and the beast scented the human smell. A deep growl sounded like the snow crunching under the limns. It seemed fangs could easily bite through the body but the man didn’t step away. He fired. Not in the mother but in pups. There were too far away, so bullets only seated them in panic. The wolf sharply spun when heard a frightened squeak. Second was enough to aim again.
It had to release several shots and presently everything around became red. In horror, pups run away in different directions. Deathbed howl sounded like a cry. When people neared, the blood was still hot, emitting a sickening stink but Veil still bowed down to the corpse to close the lids and felt how tears were dropping from his own eyes.
Whining like a girl. Look at you, how you will go to the patrols. What if there will be a conflict on the border?
The wind was getting back its power and now branches were crackling ominously over the heads. New snow covered the stains. Nature would recover from mankind's actions. The hunter was hurrying up to attach the ropes to the prey. It needed to go before the trail would disappear.
We cannot leave the cubs.
Want to run for them? Mother will close the door before me if I bring a piece of ice instead of her child.
A new flow of blizzard was so harsh, that even Veiloran Sr. with his large body type shattered, skinny Veil stood on his feet only by a miracle. For the last time, he looked at the animals’ shelter but there was nobody. His heart was whining. He had to pull the scarf higher so that father wouldn’t see his cry. And the most harassing was the thought that it was in vain. People in the city would get mad and suggest creating a fur coat from the babies.
This night Veil had a bad sleep and stayed to watch the fire even when his father asked to swap. In the voice of the wind, he was hearing a wolf’s howl. The lad stood up from the heater to look through the window. Maybe it was not a vision. Maybe wolves came in their footsteps. But this kind didn’t live in packs.
Thanks to the full moon the landscape was as bright as day only everything became cold and lifeless. It lightened, even more, the path of crimson snow absorbed the prints of wounds. Veil groped a cinder which his mother ignited in the kids' room years ago. Everything to forget for a second about a body which was already deprived of its skin, laying a couple of metres behind the boy’s back. It seemed to him that blood was now dripped by a weak flow to their house but there couldn’t be so much of it. Barely hands got into the sleeves, the lad jumped out outside. But, of course, there was no river near the threshold. Wolves silenced. Veil got out with a new candle. The night was quiet and lonely. It turned out they somehow spotted the bark of the nearest trees like it was somebody’s cloak. Veil had an anxious feeling that he was observed but he couldn’t say from where. Closing the door he noticed with a corner of an eye, how the edges of the cape showing outlines of a human and “cloth” was so long it ended in the snow.
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before you jump; hansol x fem!reader
dystopian au
wc. 1.9k
a/n: same world as ‘to infinity (and beyond) but this piece was meant to take place many years earlier and mainly unrelated to jihoon’s fic. this piece is just really not the best of my writing, tbh not even sure why i’m posting it but yolo ig
a/n 2: the first part is the beginning of the fic but the second part is supposed to be towards the end of the piece like around the climax or maybe it is the climax
************************
The chords of an old song echo from the depths of his car. It's an older model, a classic, they called these kind of cars Teslas. The first of its kind. Self driving, revolutionary. You had learned all about in classes you took. But now self driving cars were only used by those determined to hang on to the past and those who felt that they belonged in it. And of course those in the lesser districts. You were none. But he was one.
You assume his fascination with the past (despite his future being right in front of him) began when he found his grandfather's tesla in his family's old house out in the brown district. They rarely visited. But it just so happened that the one time they did, it completely changed him.
When he picked you up for primary class the next day in the outdated car, you almost puked out of embarrassment. You only agreed to step foot in the car once he confirmed that the car had gotten a cleaning. And a deep one at that.
(You realize now that the car had to be completely clean to pass the border wall screenings. You also know now the diseases from brown that you had been so afraid of weren't deadly at all. They weren't even real)
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“It's so nice that you two could join us for dinner today,” your grandmother gushes her voice laced with a sense of formality you imagine isn't commonly held when speaking with one's own family, yet here you are, sitting across from your mother at the long cyprus table in the common dining room of the minister's quarters otherwise known as your grandparents’ home. “It's a shame your husband couldn't join us Corinthia.”
Your mother sets down her fork and knife, wiping her mouth with a napkin before taking a slow sip of her wine. “Yes,” she answers, “it is, isn't it?” And with the look your mother gives you, you have to bite back a chuckle at her so blatant defiance of her parents, yet your grandparents continue on with their meal indifferent or blind to your mother's almost teasing smile you couldn't tell.
The four of you continue in silence the only ambiance being the clinking of silverware and the crackling of fire. You don't mind of course. It had been so long since you were forced to join your mother to her weekly friday night dinners with her parents. And now especially, after what you saw in the yellow faction, after your fight with hansol, you don't mind the silent treatment your grandfather gives you and your mother. You'd take the almost hostile silence to his lectures and preaching any day. You have to hear your grandfather preach his bullshit about the grandeur of Callademe every morning, you could go without it tonight. You catch your mother's gaze as she makes a face at you swiftly replacing your surfacing anger with a lift to the corners of your lips.
“So child, how are your studies?”
And as quickly as your smile had appeared, it disappears as well. You wait a couple beats too long before responding to your grandfather that your studies have been well. And when the last syllable leaves your lips your mother seems to let go of a breath you hadn't realized she was holding.
He hums taking a calculated sip of his wine before setting the goblet back down on the velvet table cloth. You don't have to look at him to know exactly how he stares at you. You do anyways. His grey eyes have methodical glint to them resembling the sparkle of black ice. Deadly in its own twisted way. The two of you end up engaging in a staring match of sorts. You don't dare look away first. So he does, acquiring his goblet of merlot and finishing it in one long gulp. He snaps his fingers, and a butler fills it anew. “Have they now?”
You don't respond scared the shaking in your hands might reach the tones of your voice.
“Dad you should see her progress statistics and teacher evaluations,” your mother begins, and you can nearly feel the laugh boiling in the back of your grandfather's throat, “she has been doing exceptionally well this term.”
You can't help but choke on your water when your grandmother says, “Isn't that wonderful, Corin?”
He laughs. A loud bellowing sound. That fills the entire room like it's meant to be heard. Like it's meant to entertain. But it only fills your throat with bile and your mother and grandmother with bewilderment. You can't help but start choking more when he laughs at you.
“Oh Corinthia, I don't remember raising you to be such a fool,” he spits and you can feel the hurt that paints itself onto your mother's face, “you've become so pathetic my dear Corinthia,” he taunts again venom seeping from the cracks in his teeth, “so pathetic that your own daughter can disobey you right under your nose.” Your mother's eyes turn to you. The same cold grey eyes as your grandfather but different, glassy and glazed with betrayal. You see the knife you've impaled in her back. She bleeds and bleeds, and with the pain that takes hold in you, you assume that somehow you've impaled your own back as well.
“Corin! What are you-”
“Thea can't you see?” your grandfather snaps cutting your grandmother off. He harshly stands making his chair fall to the floor with a dull thud and takes a hold of his cane moving behind your mother so that you can't avoid his gaze any longer. “We have a traitor sitting right next to us.”
He points his cane at you.
Three pairs of eyes watch your every breath, but you aren't sure if you're still taking any.
“Tell them child,” he howls at you, “tell them how your studies are really going.”
You feel tears threaten to fall, you don't want to answer but with the way your grandfather fumes you fear what'll happen if you don't.
Your voice comes out smaller than its meant to be, more feeble than you'd hoped: “I haven't be-”
Your grandfather throws his goblet, shattering it on the space next to your head. Your shriek is drowned by him screaming, “LOUDER!” Your grandmother doesn't even flinch.
“I haven't been going to school,” you manage to cry over your grandfather's screams. The satisfied turn of his lips makes you want to vomit. Not only for the way your grandfather treats his family, but also for how he treats his so called people. You remember your fight with hansol, and it becomes apparent how right he was. Minister Callademe is no minister, he never was; he's a monster. And only you knew just how much. He had to be stopped, and because of who you are and the power your name alone holds, it had to be you to take him down. So you wipe the wine from your cheeks, and you continue.
“No, grandpa, I haven't been going to school,” this time your voice has purpose dare say your voice has power, “but I've been learning more about Callademe then I've ever been taught in school.”
Your grandfather scoffs, “Corinthia, I told you to keep her from that chwe boy. Look at the treason that spills from her mouth.”
“Not treason, grandpa; it's the truth. Because I wasn't in school, I was in the yellow faction during the fires, and I watched as people burned and died and suffered. And I watched you do nothing. I am not the one committing treason, you are”
“I'm afraid you don't understand-”
“No, you're afraid I do.”
He doesn't say anything. But he breathes as if each exhale contains fire. Although with the anger traveling through your nerves, you think it might.
You wait for a response that doesn't come.
“What were you planning to do grandpa? Let them die in the fires? Keep the other factions from knowing? And what'll that do for you? For Callademe? You aren't a minister. You aren't leading anyone. The only thing you are is a symbol. A symbol of why people should fight, should rebel. Your own people know that you're a monster.” The heat in your face only grows. The shaking in your hands is no longer due to fear, replaced with a bitter mix of anger and hate for the man who taught you everything, for the man you once idolized and loved, for the man you want to destroy. And it's because you've spent the last couple years avoiding your grandfather's rage, you're surprised to find him quiet but with a scathing scowl imprinted on his face. You're even more surprised to find that you aren't afraid. But you know your grandfather is like a grenade, eventually, with the right hit, he'll explode.
“Dad,” your mother mumbles, “is this true? The fires in yellow? The-”
“LISTEN TO ME CORINTHIA!”
(boom)
“YOU TELL YOUR CHILD TO BEHAVE PROPERLY-”
“Corin,” your grandmother stands up, unaffected by the commotion, shutting up your grandfather with one word, “you should learn to keep your temper. The house keepers might hear.”
You've known your grandmother to be the ideal picture of what a woman should be. You never knew if that was because she believed it or because she was taught to be so. But now, as she walks toward you with a manner perhaps more frightening than your grandfather himself, you think she's had you fooled all these years. Her face remains indifferent, but her eyes, which you knew to be kind and comforting, hold the brightest shade of venom.
“Child,” she begins taking hold of your shoulder, digging her nails beyond the fabric of your blouse, “have you no sense? The fires were but a mere inconvenience. The yellow faction itself is no more than an inconvenience to our agenda. There will be no uprising. There will be no rebellion. The other factions will never be capable of such feats; they lack the means to do so. Do you think that because you and the chwe boy have seen the other factions, you understand Callademe? Do you think because you saw the yellow fires, you understand their oppression when you grew up in privilege? You don't know anything about Callademe, you are only a child. What makes you think that you and that chwe boy could lead a rebellion when you are the very thing they're rebelling against, when you carry the name they resent the most?” She pauses with a pitiful shake to her head, “You won't be doing anything in opposition to Callademe because you are one. You carry this name. It's time you acted like it.”
“I'd rather live in brown, then be a Callademe.” You spit back at your grandmother. She doesn't move, keeping her painful grip on your shoulder as if waiting for you to take it back, as if waiting for you to repent.
You don't.
“Well then,” she turns towards your grandfather, “Corin, you know what to do.”
He nods, and you can see the panic settle into your mother's brows. She starts to beg and plead for them to stop; they ignore her.
Your grandfather calls in two CouncilMen, and your mother's begging grows.
He tells them to take you away. They ask where.
Your grandfather gives you one last glare. “The chambers.”
*********************
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100 Questions!
thanks to the lovely @chioo92 for sending this my way~! 💕💕💕
edit: putting this under read more bc it’s looooong 😂😂
1. What is you middle name?
Elizabeth
2. How old are you?
18
3. What is your birthday?
october 16
4. What is your zodiac sign?
libra
5. What is your favorite color?
in general black, but i do really like teal and deep greens
6. What’s your lucky number?
i don't really have one, but i like 13 and 16 and 3116
7. Do you have any pets?
yep! two dogs~
8. Where are you from?
a little italian town in the lower half of illinois
9. How tall are you?
technically 5' 1&¾". please feel free to round up to 5'2"
10. What shoe size are you?
depends on the brand, mostly between 8 and 9 u.s. sizes—they have to be wide though, or i have to get bigger sizes and just deal with the looseness 😅
11. How many pairs of shoes do you own?
i think 8?? but i only actually wear like 4
12. What was your last dream about?
in the last dream i *actually* remember, i was a character from my wip and she was with her husband in like this cozy, dim-lit room filled with furs and ancient pieces and neat stuff and she was moderately pregnant so i just remember feeling so warm and loved inside. looking back it's kind of weird bc i've never been pregnant or in love romantically, but it's still heartwarming
13. What talents do you have?
um, I bake well i think 😂 so far i haven't had any bad feedback...😅
14. Are you psychic in any way?
nope.
15. Favorite song?
gaaaaaaah why is this always so hard mikrokosmos ~ bts or lucid dream ~ monogram
16. Favorite movie?
singin' in the rain, howl's moving castle, moana, all mcu movies i've seen so far
17. Who would be your ideal partner?
someone who shares my beliefs/morals and who supports my passions/interests (and i would do the same for him). has a few quirks he needs a few to survive me lol and is musical, respectful, and romantic. also has a sense of humor i appreciate and vice versa. there are other qualities, but that's the gist 😂
18. Do you want children?
yes! not necessarily biological though, i am very open to adoption
19. Do you want a church wedding?
most likely yes
20. Are you religious?
it depends on your definition of religious. in the sense of believing in a particular faith/religion, then yes
21. Have you ever been to the hospital?
yes 😫
22. Have you ever got in trouble with the law?
nope!
23. Have you ever met any celebrities?
if you count the drummer from a now-disbanded band, then yes
24. Baths or showers?
showers most times
25. What color socks are you wearing?
plain white—they're extra thick ones though! 😁
26. Have you ever been famous?
in what sense? 😂 locally or within a specific community of people, then i think so??
27. Would you like to be a big celebrity?
nope. i used to dream about what it would be like, but i seriously value my privacy and i would feel like i had none if i was famous
28. What type of music do you like?
pretty much anything and everything—except country 😅😂
29. Have you ever been skinny dipping?
nope...
30. How many pillows do you sleep with?
three
31. What position do you usually sleep in?
this weird twisted position on my side. it usually ends with my shoulders hurting 😅😅
32. How big is your house?
it's decently large, but we just updated our tiny two bedroom, one bathroom house (for five people for 15+ years 😳) to a five bed, two bath with an open living area/dining room/kitchen. we made it big enough to accommodate both sides of my family around the holidays (bc we have a decently large family that's only growing 😂)
33. What do you typically have for breakfast?
cereal or a fruit smoothie with either coffee or black tea (preferably earl grey) assuming i even eat breakfast
34. Have you ever fired a gun?
not yet, but i would eventually like to! thinking about a concealed carry permit as well depending on circumstances
35. Have you ever tried archery?
yess, and i love it!! it always makes me feel like some woodland elf heroine or something 😂
36. Favorite clean word?
like just regular words? pretty much any soft-sounding, flowy word with l’s, like melody or lucent
37. Favorite swear word?
i don't swear so none
38. What’s the longest you’ve ever gone without sleep?
like 36-ish hours
39. Do you have any scars?
yep
40. Have you ever had a secret admirer?
...not that I'm aware of??
41. Are you a good liar?
.....i do my best to be honest, but.....i can be....😅 just don't tell my mom
42. Are you a good judge of character?
i think so? i'm not going to be right 100% obviously, but most of the time i think i am
43. Can you do any other accents other than your own?
yeah, but they're not very good 😂
44. Do you have a strong accent?
depends on where you're from tbh
45. What is your favorite accent?
i reeeaaally like australian accents...
46. What is your personality type?
INFP-T
47. What is your most expensive piece of clothing?
a top and skirt set someone i know bought for a wedding and never wore again. i think she paid $100+ for it?? so i got it for nothing which was amazing
48. Can you curl your tongue?
yep!
49. Are you an innie or an outie?
innie~
50. Left or right handed?
right~
51. Are you scared of spiders?
most of the time no
52. Favorite food?
i'm just gonna go with italian beef with mozzarella bc it always sounds good
53. Favorite foreign food?
ramen, bingsu, turkish delight, gulab jamun, and this one chicken rice dish that i have no idea what it's called but it's a.maz.ing.
54. Are you a clean or messy person?
in general? clean. my room? the best way to describe it is definitely-not-so-organized chaos
55. Most used phrase?
oh my goodness or oh my word
56. Most used word?
like or eyyy
57. How long does it take for you to get ready?
......depends. literally anywhere from 5 to 45+ mins...
58. Do you have much of an ego?
i don't think so
59. Do you suck or bite lollipops?
both
60. Do you talk to yourself?
if i didn't i'd go insane
61. Do you sing to yourself?
^ see above
62. Are you a good singer?
i'm decent if my vocal chords are warmed up enough 😂
63. Biggest Fear?
failing/disappointing others. that and falling from heights
64. Are you a gossip?
no. i do my best not to be, anyway
65. Best dramatic movie you’ve seen?
i literally don't know what's considered dramatic anymore
66. Do you like long or short hair?
for my hair? long
67. Can you name all 50 states of America?
give me a piece of paper and a pen and yeah 😂
68. Favorite school subject?
english and music
69. Extrovert or Introvert?
introvert~
70. Have you ever been scuba diving?
nope
71. What makes you nervous?
being put on the spot
72. Are you scared of the dark?
not really, but it also depends on where i'm at and who's around
73. Do you correct people when they make mistakes?
if it's one of my really close friends I'll jokingly correct their grammar, but that's it
74. Are you ticklish?
.......sometimes.
75. Have you ever started a rumor?
no
76. Have you ever been in a position of authority?
a couple times, yeah
77. Have you ever drank underage?
no
78. Have you ever done drugs?
no
79. Who was your first real crush?
this one kid when i was like four or five. his name is tyler. he actually just got married! random i know
80. How many piercings do you have?
none
81. Can you roll your Rs?”
no 😥
82. How fast can you type?
not terribly
83. How fast can you run?
slower than my 70 lb. dog
84. What color is your hair?
dark brown with some blonde and red hints
85. What color is your eyes?
dark chocolate so brown
86. What are you allergic to?
pollen 😥 i think i also have oral allergy syndrome (but that's purely self-diagnosed 😂), so there's that too
87. Do you keep a journal?
i have the past couple weeks for a class, but otherwise no
88. What do your parents do?
my mom is a nurse and my dad is a letter carrier
89. Do you like your age?
ehh, ish
90. What makes you angry?
things taken out of context of conversations, situations, etc. and twisted to portray something else entirely
91. Do you like your own name?
yes~
92. Have you already thought of baby names, and if so what are they?
yes! these are just some of my favorites
for girls: lacie everest, elizabeth marie, roselyn chae (or chaela rose)
for boys: vincent alexandre, killian gray, quinton james
93. Do you want a boy a girl for a child?
both~!
94. What are you strengths?
um....i'm very musical 😂
95. What are your weaknesses?
i procrastinate too much and i don't really know how to work on a project with a group
96. How did you get your name?
my mom knew someone with the name (but they shortened it). she later found out that my dad's great- or great-great-grandmother had the same name
97. Were your ancestors royalty?
like seeeeeeeeveral hundred years back, but yes
98. Do you have any scars?
some
99. Color of your bedspread?
off-white/cream and a purple-y maroon
100. Color of your room?
off-white/cream
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
not tagging anyone bc this is like super long 😂😂 if you see this and want to fill it out, go ahead! you brave soul 😂
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Download And Install Nazareth Eben Singers Tamil Christian Songs 3gp mp4
Dj jaysmoke releases this gospel mixtape 2018 for Nigeria christians to groove to this spiritual praise and also worship mix filled with Naija churches top tracks as well as Songs from leading gospel artists like nthanielbassey, ada, sinach, and so on. Dubai based tape-recording artist Jolie B songwriter and also a Gospel songs Preacher under Omega fire ministries launches launching single 'Power of the HolyGhost' Jolie B is a Cameroonian birthed and also a devot fan of God. Power of the Holy Ghost is tune expressing the power residue in us as Christians with a mandate to share the same healing and setting the slaves complimentary. Gospel songs artist, Ben Nazareth makes one more prolific introducing with the release of a new incredibly love single titled "You Merit".
Having the desire to recognize God more and his enthusiasm for gospel music brought him where he is today. He sings to proclaim God which in turn ends up being a true blessing to lives. At the Nigerian music video awards which kept in 2007, Faze and his brother-manager Ifeanyi declined to exchange introductions with the said reporter.
Although he had actually constantly enjoyed singing, he just solved to take songs skillfully after fulfilling Tuface as well as Blackface, the other participants of the then Plantashun Boiz. The singer also exposed that he at first faced difficulty locating the appropriate audio to please his fans, but claims he eventually did. The sound which he calls 'universal flavour' since according to him, it contains everything from Jazz, Raggae, Heart, Rap, Hip-hop as well as Soul.
Who just sing about bum bum as well as product things. Mom Victoria Orenze is an anointed vessel unto honour and actually for all great function. She's a minstrel whose songs have really set my heart ablaze for God by His grace. I pray that God will reinforce as well as establish her In Jesus' Name. Although not much is understood about her private life consisting of whether she's married or perhaps recognizing that her husband is and also as we claimed earlier, the ministry is still moving on.
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I've been your fan for many years, never ever understood this was exactly how you were', howled the upset fan. Faze faced the major controversies of his job in year 2007, when he was refuted by Akon, captured to be in debt mess as well as was called a fool to his face by a mad fan. Faze is the first Nigerian musician to have 3 successive platinum albums. In 2008, he released his 3rd album, 'Creativity' which went platinum in its first month of launch.
She has additionally dealt with numerous scripture singers throughout the nation that include the likes of Nathaniel Bassey, Frank Edwards, Sammie Okposo, Sinach and so on. Orenze came, saw as well as dominated with many heart really felt and also inspiring tracks such as; Commitment Maintaining God, Invade Me, Faithful God, Holy, Great & Mighty and so forth. She likewise released her solo solitary "Ablaze" to more cement her position in the scripture ministry.
This new solitary is coming via after earlier launched songs, "I Depend On You" as well as 'Our Papa'. Triqablu likewise goes down the official video of among the songs off the EP "Jeje" which was shot and also directed by "Director Lavic" in Port Harcourt. The music video additionally starts broadcasting on Youtube from the 9th January, 2020. Likewise, media reported that the truly-talented vocalist was snared in a debt mess in South Africa. In Port Harcourt, an upset follower called him 'a fool' to his face, after he refused to do at a performance following dispute with the organisers.
French Head of state Emmanuel Macron promised more tax obligation cuts, reforms to the welfare system, and major public financial investments on Thursday as he revealed his policy less than a month from elections.
This new track Ideal Tracks Of Nazareth|Nazareth Ideal Songs Of Perpetuity 70's 80's 90's. Mp4 & MP3, 3gp is an impressive track that will certainly be worth a place on your playlist if you are a fan of this particular genre of songs. Finest Tunes Of Nazareth|Nazareth Finest Tracks Of Perpetuity 70's 80's 90's. Mp4 & MP3, 3gp Download is a fantastic tune that you will certainly wish to put on repeat anytime any kind of day. Nigerian music minister, Ben Nazareth floats a return this new year with a brand-new track titled; You Are Jesus, generated by TAJ. The new tune which explains the preeminence of Jesus also aids to reinforce confidence in every follower so ... In summertime 2018, the sis' mother, Jean, a former teacher who had actually motivated them to follow their dream of making songs, died. Mr raw still has what it requires to make a hit, he not be daunted by all these him children.
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Pay attention to Nazareth's brand-new songs consisting of "Dad dad", "Where", "Press agent" and also a lot more. Enjoy Nazareth's most current tunes as well as explore the Nazareth's brand-new music albums. If you wish to download Nazareth songs MP3, make use of the Boomplay Application to download the Nazareth songs for free. Discover Nazareth's newest songs, pop music, trending tracks all on Boomplay.
Victoria is a true worshipper her worship links you to heaven.Faze had in 2006, flaunted himself as a Konvict songs act-to-be. Triqablu likewise drops the official video of one of the tracks off the EP "Jeje" which was fired and also guided by "Director Lavic" in Port Harcourt.
Victoria began as a back up vocalist in church prior to at some point creating her very own tunes while leading praise and praises. Victoria Orenze is a quick climbing Nigerian sensational scripture vocalist and also songwriter who has actually tempted lots of hearts unto God with her remarkable vocals. Prior to signing up with the popular musical collabo, 'Plantashun Boiz', Faze was a Rap artiste under the name 'Lyrical Orge'.
He is the initial Nigerian artist to have three consecutive platinum cds. Considering that her development, Eldia Osadia has been true blessing the people with beautiful tunes such as Heart Cry, Absolutely Nothing You No Fit Do as well as Guarantee. This impressive body of work is created by the super manufacturer Dummex, under AMA Records and also it's off her approaching EP Love Stroll, ready to be released soonest. After a lot anticipation, Eldia ultimately released the revamped version of Jesus N'agaghari-- a divine body of job equally as guaranteed.
Victoria Orenze is among the influential Nigerian scripture vocalist with an estimated total assets of $250,000. Victoria is a multi skilled vocalist and also instrumentalist singer with honors to compliment. She was chosen for song of the year for her track "On Fire" at the CLIMA Awards 2018, Tunes of Quality at Media Honors AGMMA in 2018 and more. She has got the ideal verses to maintain the ministry and certainly its transferring to the long-term area.
Daunt has been involved in songwriting as well as vocal singing given that 1994 when he joined the DBN Karaoke Contest and also won. That was the beginning of his trip to stardom. His third cd Originality went platinum in its very first month of release.
'Also if Akon stated so, he ought to have kept it on the reduced', his sibling was reported to have actually said. He has actually collaborated with a lot of musicians consisting of a taped single with Wyclef Jean entitled "Proud to Be African" in 2004. He was once claimed to have been signed on to Akon's Konvict Songs which he was preparing to move over to the USA to continue his songs profession, an insurance claim which Akon later on rejected.
PUREPRAISES is a gospel music platform committed for propagating the gospel with music as well as more. Our Naija DJ Mix 2019 has top and Trending Naija Mp3 tracks, trending tracks of 2019. This is a tune of Divine recommendation unto God where all being are called unto. Ben Nazareth shared his steady heart of recognition as he reverbed fantastic verse in the praise of the Most-High. You Merit is a factor note that readornes a heart of complete worship unto God. Along with visiting with Bon Iver and producing If I Was with Justin Vernon, the sisters have ended up being friends with the Wisconsin-born artist.
Each participant of the obsolete Plantashun Boiz went solo after 2 albums in 2004, Daunt released 'Faze Alone', his initial cd in the exact same year under the WestSide Music Label. The album offered over one million copies, his critiques say he used this album to gain pity and also favour from fans. Born into a family members of six in Imo state, he has actually been a worshiper from on-set. Ben Nazareth ended up being born again in his teenage age and also he's a member of Assemblies of God church. Chinaza Benjamin Nwokearu known as Ben Nazareth is a Nigerian birthed Gospel vocalist, songwriter, praise and worship Leader. He finished as a financial as well as Money student from Michael Okpara University of Farming, Abia State.
"It is a song that came from Africa greater than a hundred years earlier. I don't assume anyone recognizes who composed it or that began singing that chorus. When the tune dripped recently, a lot of people from Africa and Nigeria were trying to allow me know where it originated from." she said.
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Viva the Divas! (1996)
FROM AMERICA TO ASIA, STYLISH WOMEN SINGERS ARE FORCING THE BAD BOYS OF POP MUSIC TO STEP ASIDE
BY: RICHARD CORLISS
There was something feminine about Elvis. His mouth formed the pout of a sullen schoolgirl; his hair was swathed in more chemicals than a starlet’s; his hips churned like a hooker’s in heat. Presley was manly too, in a street-punk way. For him, the electric guitar was less an instrument than a symbolic weapon–an ax or a machine gun aimed at the complacent pop culture of the ‘50s. Performing his pansexual rite to a heavy bass line, Elvis set the primal image for rock: a man and his guitar, the tortured satyr and his magic lute.
He also established the androgyny of the male star. When a guy could provide his own sexual menace, long hair, coquetry and falsetto singing, who needed women? Oh, they were allowed to scream in the audience, or maybe sing backup, but not to rock on, down and dirty, with the big bad boys. Even today girls are no more encouraged to pick up a Stratocaster than to pilot an F-16. They are expected to play only one instrument: the voice.
And do they! After nearly 40 years as second-class citizens, women singers are staging their own revolution, The upheaval may be demure, even ladylike; Miwa Yoshida does not froth on the concert stage, nor is Faye Wong likely to trash a hotel room. But they have stormed the barricades where it counts: on the charts of best-selling CDs and in the hearts of a billion or so fans around the world. They have reconfigured pop music. This is the era of the pop diva.
Diva means goddess. The dictionary definition is more modern: “an operatic prima donna.” Let’s fiddle a little with those words. “Operatic”: note the strenuous, hyperemotional, aria-like feel to many pop ballads. “Prima donna”: remove its suggestion of imperious temperament and translate it literally as “first lady.” Voila! Celine Dion or Gloria Estefan, Whitney or Mariah, Madonna or Enya, Miwa or Faye, Toni Braxton or Tina Arena, Annie Lennox or Alanis Morissette. They come from the U.S., of course, but also from French and English Canada, from Cuba, Ireland, Scotland, France, Germany, Australia, Japan and China. In every country, in any language: la diva.
Like so many other forms of popular culture, the diva genre exists both locally and globally at the same time. Dion, from French Canada, alternates albums in French and English. Estefan, born in Cuba and raised in Miami, records in Spanish and English. Dion was chosen to open the Olympic Games in Atlanta with a pop hymn, The Power of the Dream, backed by a 300-member gospel choir, and Estefan was there on closing night to sing her anthemic Reach. Both singers embodied success stories as potent as any come-from-behind Olympic fairy tale: Dion, the youngest of 14 children who has become this year’s Diva Deluxe; and Estefan, brave survivor of a 1990 bus crash that broke her back, who is now back on top. “So I’ll go the distance this time,” she intones, “seeing more the higher I climb.”
Divas can’t climb much higher. They nestle at or near the top of their country’s music charts. Some, like Dion, Houston and Mariah Carey–not to mention, for the moment, Canada’s crack-voiced outlaw diva Alanis Morissette–have been on the Top 10 lists in Europe, the Americas and the Pacific Rim simultaneously. More important, most are damn fine singers. They are a link between the great voices of the past (think of Ella Fitzgerald, Ethel Merman, Edith Piaf) and the ears of people who can’t get attuned to the howling self-pity of much contemporary rock but aren’t ready to give up on pop music.
Like the Olympic spirit, the divas’ internationalist impulse reflects both a curiosity about other cultures and a nose for smart marketing. To spur Japanese sales of her Colour of My Love album, Dion added a new song, To Love You More, from the Japanese TV mini-series Lover, backed instrumentally by the Japanese ensemble Kryzler & Kompany. Dion sang it in English, but the locals didn’t mind: they bought 1.5 million copies.
A diva needn’t be Western to have the international flair. Nothing forces Yoshida, the soul-jazz sensation who fronts the band Dreams Come True, to go west to increase her Japanese fan base. She still writes and performs songs in her native language. Yet she usually records in Britain, and she cut her first solo set, Beauty and Harmony, in New York City with some top American sidemen. The collaboration produced vocals that were more precise, more regimented, than her past work. But it showed the need for even top regional artists to prove their chops in the U.S., which is still revered as the big leagues for singers.
Some stars of the Pacific, like Tina Arena, have long set their sights on America. An Australian who has sung publicly since she was five, Arena has an easy authority as vocalist and songwriter; her cool-teen voice matches her rock-easy compositions, which are so infectious that six-year-olds would learn them instantly and so familiar that you might think they were big hits a decade ago (they’re all new, all hers). When Arena gets precision and voltage into the songs–Heaven Help My Heart, Greatest Gift, Standing Up–she sounds like a kid sister to Elaine Paige, superb star of London musicals, who introduced such instant standards as Don’t Cry for Me Argentina (from Evita), Memory (from Cats) and a quite different Heaven Help My Heart (from Chess). But England is not Arena’s destination. She’s moved to Los Angeles because, like a lot of divas, she may believe she can’t be a star until she’s an American star.
Wong is too cool to entertain those ambitions. Indeed, she prefers to record in her native Beijing, where she can concentrate on her music, rather than in Hong Kong, where for years she was a formulaic Canto-pop singer known as Shirley Wong. Her striking, angular looks–think of an elongated pixie who moonlights as a sorceress–made her a natural for movies, but her debut made few notice; in Beyond’s Diary she played the girlfriend of a pop musician.
Gradually she found her own style, on records and on film. Her second picture, Wong Kar-wai’s Chungking Express, made her a hip pinup to sophisticated moviegoers on both sides of the Pacific. The film also internationalized her choice of music. She plays a dizzy waitress in a fast-food restaurant who is obsessed with going to California and playing, over and over and over, the 1966 California Dreamin’ by the Mamas and the Papas. Over the end credits she sings a Cantonese cover of the Cranberries hit Dreams. And now, on her Restless CD, she meets the international market on her own terms: five of the songs have no intelligible lyrics at all, and two irresistibly obscurantist cuts were written and produced by Scotland’s Cocteau Twins. Wong remains the spooky gamin of Chinese music, and Restless is a wondrous blend of Canto-pop and lollipop.
Wong’s approach alternates between a blissed-out whisper and bright piping in a register so high only Pekingese pups can hear it. That puts her squarely in one tradition of divadom: the vocal virtuoso. For decades, two Americans defined this style. Patti LaBelle, a gospel-trained ranter, has enthralled the faithful with her mad-woman riffs. Bette Midler, known internationally as the blowsy star of movie comedies, built her career as a throwback singer who could evoke Sophie Tucker’s bawdiness and Bessie Smith’s soul-in-hell emotional exhaustion with equal power and facility. The virtuoso mode can also be heard in the florid, world-weary style of France’s Catherine Ribeiro and, with glances back to the glamour of Piaf and Dietrich, in the bitter brilliance of Germany’s Ute Lemper. Though their styles were unique, all these women kept bright the flame of the traditional torch singer.
But none of them became international superstars or encouraged others to do the same. For that you can thank Houston (and her mentor at Arista Records, Clive Davis). It was an old recipe–great chops, exotic looks and a clever choice of material–that served Lena Horne, Abbey Lincoln, Eartha Kitt, and Houston’s cousin Dionne Warwick. But in the harsh prevailing winds of mid-'80s rap and heavy metal, Houston was a welcome spring breeze. Her delicacy of phrasing made songs like Saving All My Love for You and The Greatest Love of All easy listening in the best sense. Her prom-queen glamour made her an ideal star for the early video era, an antidote to Cyndi Lauper’s goofy-girl atavism and Madonna’s bad-girl sass. Her first album, Whitney Houston, sold 10 million copies.
Houston has retained her eminence, if not pre-eminence, while curtailing her output: she has released less than a single regular album’s worth of songs, only 10, since 1990. But her example and her relative quiescence have spurred a dozen divas-in-waiting. Many noted the structure of Houston’s big hits–a slow-tempo devotional tune that escalates from the foreplay of whispers to the explosive orgasm of wails and whoops–and made the mistake of imitating it. (Houston made that error too.) Dion’s early English-language albums are almost touching in their fidelity to the Whitney formula. It took her a while to realize she could relax on record.
Today’s top Whitneyesque star is Mariah Carey. Like Houston, she’ll mix ballads with synthesized dance music; she’s a handsome woman with a video flair; she has a patron in Tommy Mottola, boss of her record company, who is also her husband. Carey has even outsold Houston in the '90s, because she releases albums at a busier pace.
One big difference: Houston sings straight soprano with some church inflection; Carey is a coloratura. She could even be called a cubist, for she appraises nearly every note in every song from a dozen or more angles. In When I Saw You from her current Daydream CD, Carey breaks the word knew into an amazing 26 separate notes (this is only an estimate: we played these four seconds over and over, and got up to 26 just before we went mad). Her jazzy riffs suggest demon virtuosity, but it could also be musical browsing. Maybe Carey can’t decide which interpretation is the right one, so she tries them all.
Like Carey, many female singers co-write their music. Many others don’t, and are thus handicapped by pop’s 30-year tyranny of singer-songwriters. Hey, if you don’t write, you’re not an artist. “Vocal interpreter” used to be an honorable job description–good enough for Ella, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole. Now the epithet is often an insult. It conjures up images of a Las Vegas lounge singer crooning Feelings.
All right, maybe the top pop songwriters of the day–Babyface and David Foster (who collaborated on Dion’s The Power of the Dream) and Diane Warren (who helped Estefan write Reach) aren’t Gershwin and Stephen Foster and Harry Warren. But they can write good songs for good singers. These three composers all had a hand in Toni Braxton’s fine Secrets CD–dusky, mellow, infectiously commercial, like a grownup Tina Arena.
And there’s plenty of other good music to record. Alison Krauss, a child fiddle prodigy from Illinois and later a world-class bluegrass singer with her band Union Station, became a star with her 1995 compilation Now That I’ve Found You. The set puts Krauss’s mountain-stream soprano on pretty display. She caresses standards from R. and B. (the title song), gospel (the soul-lifting When God Dips His Pen of Love in My Heart) and the Paul McCartney catalog (an elfin I Will). Think of it: a singer with no gimmick but a passionate talent and a great, rangy taste in music.
If there’s a knock on the modern divas–whether pop, like Carey, Houston and Dion, or pure, like Krauss–it’s that their material is just too amiable. Much of their music is not just middle of the road; it tiptoes on the white line in the middle of the middle of the road. Dammit, they sing like girls! And in social norms, the pop diva adheres to the proper side of the gender split in music. She is expected to be a sister before a lover; the operative slur word is “nice.” Pop is the boarding school where the good girls live. Rock is the shooting gallery where the naughty boys hang out.
Somewhere between these extremes there should be an outlaw diva. She can do cool-guy things: write songs about malaise and disorientation, play a harmonica, take herself very seriously, sell 16 million copies of her first big CD. Why, she could be Alanis Morissette–the anti-Whitney, the pariah Mariah, the outre Faye, the mean Celine.
Anyway, that’s how the 22-year-old comes across on a first listen of the Jagged Little Pill album. Morissette’s songs sound aggressive, grudging, desperate. Her alto lurches among the octaves, from growl to shriek. A typical phrase will end in a gasp, as if one of the emotional inferiors in her songs had suddenly retaliated by pressing thumb and forefinger on her windpipe. The voice of Sinead O'Connor, you imagine, in the mind of Patti Smith.
But Morissette is not that simple. A former teen star in her native Canada, she’s smart enough to give her choruses sing-along melodies–the likely contribution of co-writer Glen Ballard, who formerly produced Wilson Phillips, the trio of cool-harmonizing, second-generation pop stars. In the perkier tunes (You Learn, Head over Feet), the singer overdubs tight harmonies that might have come from Wilson Phillips. And that is Morissette’s dirty little secret: inside her edgy plaints are craft and a yen to please. She’s a mainstream diva in spite of herself.
Morissette may soon discover that the rock machismo she approximates is often just an acid flavor of the month: a hit, a burnout, a trivia question. But being a diva is a life’s work. The Scottish Annie Lennox has been at it for 20 years, developing a husky voice and a gift for weaving a dramatic spell that is almost visual. Her 1995 Medusa album has 10 old and new songs written by others. The opening cut, No More “I Love You’s,” relies on Lennox’s evocation of love’s demons–“Desire, despair, desire, so many monsters”–and her conjuring up, in a mid-song monologue, of a little girl for whom these monsters come to life. A woman’s bed of sad passion has telescoped into a child’s bedroom fears at midnight.
The final number on Medusa is Paul Simon’s 1973 Something So Right. In Lennox’s gorgeous reworking, she answers the pessimism of No More “I Love You’s” and completes the album’s circle. “Some people never say the words I love you, / But like a child I’m longing to be told.” Again a girl in a woman’s supple voice, Lennox finds salvation foraging in a child’s garden of cries from the heart. Lennox might be Piaf here–there’s that eerie understanding of a lyric–but with the fever adjusted to room temperature.
Piaf is still an icon, both for her poignant life story and for her ability to hurdle emotion over the language barrier. But in the world market of the '90s, when virtually every album with gigantic global sales is in some form of English, what’s a diva to do? Cultivate her own garden, for the worldwide boom in CD sales means there are more people searching for something different. Morissette’s album is bubble-gum music next to Tori Amos’ Boys for Pele, with its forbiddingly opaque lyrics, a voice that runs amuck over the octaves and the famous inside photo of Amos with a suckling piglet at her breast. Yet the album has sold millions. Moral: You can’t be too weird. You must be you.
That is the message attended to by Wong in her recent take-me-or-leave-me mode, and by Yoshida in her American experiment. It surely applies to singers who harbor nations within themselves. Enya, the Celtic lass whose ethereal soundscapes might have emanated from a very gentle UFO, sings in Gaelic, English and Latin–the languages of family, school and church. Her melodies are so mellow as to seem downright shy, yet they’re so popular that an entire genre of new music is known simply as Enya.
By that standard, the pop brand of Cuban-American music should probably be called Gloria. With time, the Estefan sound has grown full and wise, Latin rhythms accompanying rather than defining the melody. Estefan has also learned to write for her voice and disposition; on her latest album, Destiny, she has taken her own advice. Reach–higher.
And Celine Dion has reached inside. The Falling into You CD, a supercharged superproduction, will yield perhaps half a dozen smasheroo singles, and it’s a treat to hear her belt a song to bits. But a bigger piece of her heart can be found on The French Album. There the girl from Quebec sings in her mother’s language and in a voice so ardent and discreet it reminds you of Elvis in the intimate ballads he recorded in his time off from creating the bad-boy iconography of rock. Murmuring like the heart just before sleeping, Dion’s voice summons the power and the glory of the diva.
–With reporting by Charles P. Alexander/Montreal
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SOURCE: TIME MAGAZINE
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Warzone
“People of America, when will we learn?” Yoko Ono asked over a briskly strummed acoustic guitar on her 1973 album, Approximately Infinite Universe. “It’s now or never: There’s no time to lose.” She sings those same words on Warzone, a collection of 13 songs from her back catalog that she re-recorded with their original lyrics and somber new synthesizer underpinnings. It’s been 45 years since she first urged her adoptive home to dream of a reality unblighted by violence. The words ring sadder now; the people of the United States ostensibly chose “never.”
A ferocious optimism animates Ono’s half-century career. Her early performance pieces and her 1964 book of creative prompts, Grapefruit, worked from the assumption that art was play, an inborn human faculty. She carried that humanism into the music she made, on her own and with husband John Lennon, throughout the 1970s. Impassioned, erratic vocals tore at long-held conventions of what women behind microphones should sound like. Her liberating irreverence reverberated throughout New Wave in bands like the B-52s and the Talking Heads, as well as underground experimentalists like Meredith Monk. That her legacy as a creative force was so deeply subsumed by the myth of the Beatles speaks to a slowly lifting rockist misogyny, not the quality of her work.
Warzone collects a handful of songs from Ono’s seminal ’70s records alongside tracks from 1985’s Starpeace and 1995’s Rising, plus an interlude from 2009’s Between My Head and the Sky. Most songs tell the same story: Humanity will one day achieve enlightenment and relinquish war in favor of love and unity. The unity of the message speaks to the endurance of the Ono’s idealism. While the original recordings offer a glimpse at the sheer variety of Ono’s discography—her work houses dub beats and thrash metal riffs and acid freakouts—the re-recorded versions drain each track of historical and musical specificity. Most have been slowed to a funereal tempo, which makes lyrics that once brimmed with hope sound like a concession to the ubiquitous cruelty of the present. Ono sings a 20th-century dream for a 21st-century utopia that never came to pass.
When Ono strangled the word “why” during the 1970 song of the same name, she pronounced the question like it had an answer that she could find if she screamed hard enough. She was spurring herself into action. But the 2018 “Why” loses the original’s rock instrumentation and shelves Ono’s feral vibrato. Instead, over wolf howls, trumpeting elephants, and ambient synthesizers, she wails the word as if in mourning. One “Why” looks out onto a course that has yet to be set; the other looks back onto irreversible wreckage.
“Woman Power,” from 1973’s Feeling the Space, loses its sense of spontaneous play. Roaring electric guitars and a commanding drumbeat once gave the track urgency, as if Ono really were singing on the cusp of gender liberation, as if she could sing it into being. The re-recorded take might be the track here closest to its source material, as the guitar riff and drum pattern survive for the song’s first half. But the instruments hide under Ono’s voice; rather than raw and vital, they sound spectral and faded. They soon fall away entirely, replaced by strings arranged by New York composer Nico Muhly. When the band crashes back in and guitarist Marc Ribot tears through a rote solo, it feels as though two visions of the future are competing: one in which women have already seized the power afforded to men, and one in which Ono mourns that power’s lack.
Warzone’s liner notes include a 1972 essay by Ono originally published in The New York Times. “The Feminization of Society” articulates an enduring tenet of feminism: that masculinist ideals have failed the world, and only by means of feminine survival strategies can the world be saved. She argues that women cannot compromise their liberation or achieve it within existing masculine frameworks. Women must rewrite reality by force. Some of Ono’s writing has aged well. On the other hand, she flippantly claims that black people have already achieved liberation and women must do the same, at once seemingly forgetting the existence of black women and glossing over the United States’ enduring racism. A year later, she’d release an album with Lennon that printed a racist slur on its cover. On “I Love All of Me,” originally released on Starpeace, she again uses black people as a rhetorical peg, claiming, “I’m a black man who’s come to terms with his anger.” A line no doubt meant as a bid for compassion undermines her vision of universal love, conflating black masculinity with anger without interrogating that association’s roots in white supremacy.
These moments pin Ono’s radicalism to a vision of liberation that ignores the way racism and misogyny structure the world in tandem. They feel dated and draining in a political climate where a majority of white women voted for a candidate serially accused of sexual assault, opting to safeguard the benefits of whiteness by aligning themselves with a violently misogynist party. That Ono never thought to rewrite these lyrics or the included essay while rearranging the songs themselves highlights a disconnect between the hippie utopianism of the 20th century and the current bitter fight for survival of so many.
Because its overt politics now feel so inadequate, Warzone works best as a melancholy gesture, a long look back at a time when dreaming of a better world felt invigorating rather than exhausting. Its peak comes on its last track: a recording of John Lennon’s “Imagine.” Nearly a decade after releasing the song, Lennon admitted that Ono deserved partial songwriting credit, because he had penned the lyrics around one of Grapefruit’s prompts. Here, Ono reclaims a song long offered as proof of her late husband’s towering genius.
Ono works against its engraved expectations. Her rendition is melancholy and moving; she sings tentatively against sparse electronic drone, as if reckoning with the weight of all that has been lost in the decades since Lennon sang the same words. She strains a little to hit the high notes before the chorus, the playful vocal flourish so idiosyncratic to the late Beatle. Her voice considers his absence as she pronounces some of his most famous lines: “You may say that I’m a dreamer/But I’m not the only one.” She’s right, of course, and the world she envisions here—no possessions, no nations, no want—still describes the world young radicals are fighting for against late capitalism’s heavy inertia. It’s a beautiful idea, this paradise of which she sings. It just takes more than dreams to get there.
Source: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/yoko-ono-warzone/
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— the fire sermon.
topic: how the pied piper came to be.
who: orpheus ahulani; hermes ahulani; joseph & katherine ahulani; theodora moreau.
when: birth (1979) - the present day, more or less.
where: the streets of verona.
triggers: blood; murder; violence; fire.
“There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create.”
(T.S. Eliot -- The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock)
[one] - O R I G I N ;;
He wailed when he was born.
Howled and howled until his lungs should have given out, until his throat should have been scraped raw and hoarse from the effort of so much crying. He drowned out the other infants in the ward, filled the ears of all the parents and nurses with the ringing sound of a baby’s squeals. He cried until it drove the paediatrician a little insane, until the man snapped and ordered the dark-haired terror moved away from the other children and into his mother’s room, and then, suddenly, there was silence. Suddenly, the babe that had spent the past two nights caterwauling so loudly that it almost cracked the hospital windows lay serene, peaceful, content. Suddenly, the nurses, stepping closer in perplexed relief, realised just how angelic this little cherub was, how beautiful his forest-coloured eyes were. Suddenly, Katherine’s hospital bed was constantly surrounded by a teeming crowd of well-wishers, passers-by with wide eyes and enraptured faces who cooed at the little boy clutched in her arms, who complimented her and her husband on having made something so perfect. They were not intelligent enough to understand him, these fools entranced by pretty eyes and an oddly magnetic aura, but as they looked into that tiny face, his parents comprehended the truth of their son’s existence, knew exactly what to name him to best capture this infallible gift that the gods had blessed him with. He would captivate the world over, they knew, could lead all the citizens of Earth to a watery grave if he only asked them nicely, and so they gave him a name befitting of such power, named him after the greatest, most captivating soul the mythological world had ever produced. Katherine and Joseph knew precisely who their son was, and what he could one day grow to become.
He wailed when he was born, but it was not wailing borne out of hunger, or fear, or absence, like most infant crying is. When he was born, Orpheus Ahulani cried because even then he knew that he didn’t want to be surrounded by other children, that the place he would receive the most adoration was in the arms of his dear parents. Even then, he knew precisely what he wanted.
And from then on he made sure he always got it.
[two] - F O R T I F I C A T I O N ;;
He wasn’t given anything as a child.
It was not for lack of love, because his parents reminded him constantly that they were impressed with the man he was becoming, and even if this wasn’t always made explicit Orpheus learned early on how to read the signs. No, he wasn’t given anything because such an upbringing formed an essential part of his tuition, because his parents wanted to form him into their master thief, their ideal conman, as early as they could, because they believed firmly in legacy and knew that their first son would be the one who carried that torch forward.
As soon as Orpheus was old enough to comprehend what stealing was, his father sat him down in a sunlit room and told him that this was his life, now, that he had to learn that if he wanted something, he had only to reach out and take it, and that the only thing to remember in this new life he was entering was don’t get caught. If he wanted a toy, his father pointed him in the direction of a rich little boy or girl who wouldn’t miss it. If he fancied a new item of clothing, his mother ushered him into a clothes shop without any money or a credit card on hand and made it clear that they wouldn’t leave until he’d lifted exactly what it was he desired. It was in no way a conventional childhood, but it was the perfect one for the kind of little boy Orpheus was, and the kind of man he hoped to be, because ever since he was young enough to really think for himself Orpheus knew that this was the life he wanted, knew that even if his ancestors had not been thieves he would have sought out a life of illicit activity for himself.
Orpheus was five years old and already he didn’t believe in excess, believed in taking exactly what you wanted so that you had enough to get by, that surrounding yourself with trinkets and empty vanities would not make you feel as alive as the rush of taking something that should never have been yours. He stole the toys or books he wanted, and when he was finished with them they were gifted to those he saw as being in need, those who made his otherwise static heart throb with a beat of compassion, and once the charitable deed was done that compassion evaporated, replaced with a burning desire to seek out the rush of theft again. His parents, his grandparents, stole and conned for that rush alone, but as he grew Orpheus felt a new sensation coursing through his blood when he stole, a sense of indomitable power, of control. He learned that he could dictate the emotions of others by doing something as simple as slipping his little hands into their bags or pockets, could make even the most arrogant man crumple and weep for what he had lost. Orpheus was six years old when he realised that, whilst his relatives saw themselves as something akin to demons when they stole, that some distant part of them regretted that they had not been granted the wherewithal to be more honest, when he stole he felt like GOD. He was only a little boy, and already he saw himself as a divinity, possessed that unique, self-affirming grace that obliged people to love him so much and blinded them to the truth of the power in his heart.
He was nine years old when his brother was brought home to him, when his parents pulled open the door to his room and presented the bundle of limbs and baby hair to him with beatific smiles and luminous eyes, and Orpheus breathed a sigh of relief because Joseph and Katherine finally had the child they needed to fill the hole that had been present in their hearts. He looked at his infant brother and knew that they would both be perfect sons, in their own way. Hermes was the son to love and be loved by, who would fill their home with laughter and warmth and shower their parents with gratitude and appreciation for their efforts in building a family. Orpheus had never been that son to them, it was made clear from the moment of his birth that he was not the child who would inspire happiness, no. Orpheus was the son to be proud of, the son who would pick up the Ahulani mantle and fortify the legacy his parents endeavoured to build, and such a momentous destiny could not be hindered by something as banal as love. Katherine and Joseph looked at the two boys sat by each other one day and knew in their hearts that Hermes was the son who would inspire love, but Orpheus, Orpheus was the son who would move MOUNTAINS.
This cavernous expanse of difference between the two brothers was made abundantly clear at every turn. “What do you want for your birthday, my boy?” Katherine asked her sons in July and November.
“To go to the zoo!” a three year old Hermes giggled, stretching out chubby little arms towards his mother’s neck, knowing that even though he was too old for her to carry him around in her arms she’d lift him into the air anyway, laughing in the way that only a child of the sunlight can as he pressed his face into her auburn curls.
“A better mark,” mused a twelve year old Orpheus, gaze sharp as a laser and expression almost defiant, focussed, seeking bigger and better challenges wherever he could get them. His last task had been to rob some elderly lady; hardly a challenge. He was twelve and fired up and knew exactly what he should be doing with his life. His mother looked distant but proud and he was rewarded suitably for his enterprise, and when he walked away from the jewellery store on his birthday, pockets full and alarm blazing uselessly behind him, Orpheus knew that he had finally been gifted the freedom to go about his business unhindered, that the time had finally come for the phoenix to rise from ash and cover the world in fire.
He tried his best to teach his brother the life of a con artist, to instil in Hermes the same fervour that hurtled through his veins at the speed of a freight train, but knew from the very beginning of his tutelage that his little brother was ruled more by his heart than by his head, that he was too passionate, too flighty, to ever truly excel. He should have celebrated the difference between them, should have been tolerant of this diversity, but the callous part of Orpheus looked at his brother and saw only a problem, a weak point, the tremor that could cause the entire house of cards to come tumbling down. He looked, and he listened, and he evaluated, and like any good problem solver he came to an uncompromising solution.
He was sixteen now, freshly tattooed and even more independent than he had once been (if such a thing were possible), and knew that his family could all let him down, with their emotions and their happiness and the familial bliss they seemed content to wallow in. There was potential to build a kingdom from their enterprise, to raise up palaces of iron and stone out of the dirt and to make themselves indomitable, but the Ahulanis had grown stagnant and lazy. For them, the things they had stolen until now had been enough, but Orpheus was never one to settle for sufficiency. He recognised that his family were resources, that if put to good use they could help him in his quest for immortality, and so like any chess grand master confronted with a board of uncooperative pieces Orpheus set about manoeuvring his nearest and dearest into position. He became prince and general to them all at once, an emperor to lead his troops into battle, to make ten men and women feel like ten thousand. If his relatives were shocked they did not know how to express it, and instead merely allowed this boy-king to manipulate them, knowing in their heart of hearts that he had already surpassed them both physically (he towered over everyone he met, and the breadth of his shoulders inspired both awe and apprehension) and metaphorically, intangibly, that his ambition and his drive were unparalleled and would likely never be seen again in any of their lifetimes.
”Why do you steal things?” Hermes asked him one day, nine years old and completely devoted to his older brother, ready to obey his every command without fail, overexcitable and unflinchingly loyal, firmly convinced that Orpheus was the most magnificent person in the entire universe.
Orpheus was eighteen now, officially a man (although he hadn’t been a boy for some time now) and didn’t care much about his younger brother’s devotion, saw it only as a useful weapon to be wielded, the perfect way of exercising control.
“Because it’s what I was born to do.”
[three] - P E R D I T I O N ;;
He should have known that it couldn’t last, that no kingdom could be erected from nothingness without a few complications, without the inevitable pitfalls and setbacks, but Orpheus saw his success and revelled in it, and in his revelry he allowed his eyes to fall blind to the dangers that lurked at the fringes of his accomplishments. But all fortresses have their weak spots, and weak spots are only discovered through the most bitter of tragedies, so that the castle can be redesigned, made ten times stronger.
He was out drinking when it happened, celebrating the latest in a long line of successful cons (everyone had told him that the Mary Jane couldn’t be pulled off by only one person, but as ever he’d proved his detractors bitterly wrong, and the look on that pompous dickhead’s face as he’d realised that he’d frittered away his ill-gotten life savings had been priceless), was enjoying his customary mix of expensive whisky and cheap cigarettes when his world shifted slightly on its axis, when its orbit fell out of sync for the briefest of moments.
His brother was seventeen and stupid like Orpheus had never been, and the latest in a long line of petty fights he’d gotten himself into (over a girl, no less) had taken a darker turn than usual. No one bothered to call the paramedics (rich people were too paralysed by centuries of inherited inaction, and too closely bound by a desire to protect their own), but even if they had there was nothing that anyone could have done.
Hermes Ahulani died ignominiously in the middle of one of Verona’s piazzas, hands, face and neck cut to pieces by shards of glass from the bottle he’d been attacked with, choking slowly, grotesquely to death in a pool of his own blood while his family looked on in horror, eviscerated by the sensation of their own utter helplessness.
It had all happened in a matter of mere seconds, too fast for anyone to process it, too fast for Orpheus, normally so perceptive, so quick to react, to leap out of his seat and intervene as he had done countless times before. They had all ignored the conflict brewing between the two youths, had passed it off as nothing more than adolescent males trying to burn off some excess testosterone. None of them had anticipated the rich brat’s cowardice, had foreseen him using that damned bottle of wine too expensive for its own good to cut Hermes down. One moment he was standing tall, buoyed up by surging adrenaline and the cockiness of teenage boys, and the next he was on the ground, crushed underfoot like the flower he had been, so much vitality spent in no more than five minutes. Orpheus had tried to stop the bleeding, had fallen to his knees on the cobblestones and clasped his hands around his brother’s throat, a futile effort to plug the seemingly endless leaks, and watched in what he dimly recognised as horror as his brother’s life-force leaked out between his fingers, staining his hands and the pavement below a tragic crimson.
As they watched the rich boy run away, face contorted into an expression of disgustingly entitled horror, no doubt seeking the protection of his parents and their wealth, Orpheus felt the walls of his heart close up completely, so that no feeling could ever again be let through. He shouldn’t have cried, for rulers never wept at the demise of their subjects, merely strode out amongst the common people and found new followers to take the place of the fallen, but the eldest and now only Ahulani brother allowed himself to shed a single tear that day. He hadn’t loved his brother in the conventional way, in the way that families are supposed to love one another, but he had felt something akin to his own brand of affection.
Hermes had never been much of a thief, had always been impulsive, loud-mouthed, capricious, all qualities that Orpheus manifestly disliked and had eradicated from his own personality. He laughed too much and stopped far too little, never waited to check what was around the corner, told his deepest secrets to just about any stranger with a kind enough face, and couldn’t hold his drink. They were polar opposites, these brothers, and Orpheus should have disdained his younger brother utterly, should have shown him nothing but contempt - after all, that was how he treated others whom he deemed unworthy. But the bonds of family are a strange thing, and whilst Orpheus cared little for his parents and grandparents, seeing them only as tools to help him build the world he craved, Hermes had always represented the people for whom he was trying to build this better world. Orpheus had never exhibited much kindness or goodness but he recognised its abundance in his younger brother, and despite himself he felt the need to see that goodness preserved, felt an obligation to create a realm in which his brother could lead the life that he deserved. Of all the people that he knew, and of all the people he would ever meet, Hermes was the only one Orpheus Ahulani had loved, and he didn’t deserve to have met his end before he’d even become a man, at the hands of a coward who had nothing to show for his life but money.
Before that fateful fay he’d been happy to let the elite lead their own gilded lives, as long as they didn’t get in his way, but as he watched his brother die Orpheus realised that the wealthy didn’t deserve to be ignored. They deserved to be BURNED, and he’d be damned if he didn’t see it happen.
But the path to vengeance is never smooth, and for the first (and only) time in his life Orpheus was careless enough to let his rage cloud his better judgement.
It played out like a scene from an Oscar-winning film about the callousness of the wealthy, and the Ahulanis were all too crippled by their mourning to look up and see it coming. First the coroner ruled young Hermes’ death as accidental, having the gall to call the brat’s selfish action self-defence. Then witnesses began to fall curiously silent, saying that they hadn’t seen a thing, that all they had seen was the young poor boy picking a needless fight, that perhaps he deserved what he got, each of them singing to the rich family’s tune. The police were similarly uncooperative, muttering about the prevalence of crime in poorer neighbourhoods, the victim’s prior pattern of behaviour, the fact that he was known for being violent. One by one, each piece of the puzzle slid into place, until Hermes’ case was encircled by an impenetrable wall of bodies itching to exonerate Raffaello Brazzi at the behest of his parents. Outrage spread through the Ahulani ranks like wildfire, fuelled by a desire to see their son’s memory preserved, and when an emissary from Giuseppe Brazzi came knocking, offering the family their weight in gold if they were willing to chalk their son’s death up to a tragic accident, if they would just let bygones be bygones, Joseph Ahulani told the man exactly where he could shove his bribe. Orpheus had wanted to raze the Brazzi family to the ground from the beginning, to make sure that none of them ever drew breath again, but his mother, still on a perverse quest to reform her once criminal life, begged him to let them do things the right way, to try and build a legal case, and against his better judgement Orpheus ceded to her demands.
They must have banked on them all being home that day, must not have foreseen the possibility of Orpheus going out as soon as each new day dawned to search for new evidence. The fire was already out of control by the time he returned home, and he watched amber flames as tall as trees surge through the old building, a deathly cavalry tearing everything to pieces, a ravenous monster leaving no life in its wake. Had Hermes still been alive, had his brother been in the burning structure, Orpheus might have thrown caution to the wind and run inside to save him, but now he stood rooted to his spot, watching mutely as firefighters attempted to combat the unconquerable blaze, watching and watching and feeling nothing in his heart but anger.
Orpheus Ahulani was twenty-six years old and in the space of three weeks had lost all the family he’d ever known, and knew as he watched his childhood home, his ancestry, go up in flames, that he had been right all along, that his mother’s utopian desire for justice was untenable in a world such as this one, where the wealthy elite did nothing but take, smashing up people and things in their way without a second thought.
He wasn’t a religious man but in that moment he thanked whatever deity it was that had kept him alive, that had given him this purpose, and knew that no matter how far they ran or how well they tried to hide, the Brazzi family had signed away their lives the minute his brother had drawn his final breath. The wealthy were not afraid of anything except damaging their reputations, but Orpheus knew that his destiny was to make them experience real fear.
Orpheus was twenty-six years old, and he was coming for them.
[four] - R E T R I B U T I O N ;;
They didn’t run. It wasn’t a surprise, in the end, given that they thought their secret had been burnt to a crisp with the Ahulani home. A more patient man would have plotted his line of attack, would have ensured that there was no way for them to harm him, but Orpheus knew that he was indomitable, that the fact that he was the last Ahulani left alive made him untouchable by human hands. Ever one for boldness and grand gestures, he strode through the front doors of the Brazzi mansion with a machine gun slung over his shoulder and seated himself at the head of their dining table, and let the members of the family he hated most in the world crawl to his side, quivering like frightened sewer rats. He made no verbal or physical threats, didn’t utter a single word, in fact, merely sat there with his assault rifle lying on the table for all to see and cleaned his nails with a pocket knife.
The implication was clear.
Giuseppe Brazzi hid behind his wife’s skirts and shook with fear, and after what felt like a century of petrified silence his voice, cracked and weedy, echoed across the empty room.
“We’ll give you money,” he stammered, “more money that you could ever dream of.”
(He was wrong, because Orpheus had never been a dreamer but he could dream up quite a lot.)
“How much do you want?”
The silence as they awaited his reply was deafening, the response even more so.
“All of it.”
“All of it? You must be joking. Who the fuck do you think I am?”
Orpheus didn’t even deign to look at the old man, merely laid his knife on the table. His terms were simple.
“You took everything from me, I shouldn’t have to remind you of that.” Expression as blank and unfeeling as slate, he picked up the gun, caressing the trigger with a macabre kind of reverence. “All I have to do is squeeze.” Finally, he made eye contact with the Brazzi patriarch, and the fire burning in his green eyes made the man visibly wilt. “Who the fuck do you think I am?”
They should never have underestimated him. He was Orpheus, the last Ahulani, he walked in shadow and in flame, the prince who would one day rule the criminal underworld which had shaped him. He was the Devil’s advocate, his messenger, his brother, the same blood pulsed in his veins as had once flowed through the body of the first fallen angel. Marianna Brazzi hurled a litany of curses at him as he stripped her husband of his entire fortune, damned him a thousand times to the fiery pits of hell, and as Orpheus walked away from that house with all the money in the world he smiled Satan’s smile because he knew that her words had no power over him, that if there was damnation to come he would welcome it with open arms and an open heart. The Brazzis hoped fervently that it would be enough, that their riches would be enough to pacify the beast, to fill the void and guarantee his distance from them (his silence had been guaranteed long ago, the minute they chose to set his family ablaze). They should never have underestimated him.
It was not enough, Orpheus knew that from the moment they offered him the money. It would never be enough. He was not the kind man that so many of Verona’s poor made him out to be, he was not their saviour, their symbol, their martyr. The only pyre he would ever throw himself on was his own, and only when he was ready to leave the world that he had barely had the chance to make his mark on yet. It would never be enough. There was only one punishment that befit this crime, only one way to repay the bastards that had taken everything from him. He was good at stripping people of everything they held dear, of everything they loved, and this would be his magnum opus, his greatest theft. The Brazzi family had played with fire, and it was FIRE that would let them know the magnitude of their mistake.
Orpheus wouldn’t just fiddle whilst Rome burnt. He would conduct a whole fucking orchestra.
He came with darkness as his cloak, ensuring that the whole family was in one place before he acted, making sure that he didn’t make the same mistake they had. Once again, he strode in through the front door, but this time he had no gun on him, only a box of matches and a knife and the Devil’s hellfire in his heart. There were nine of them in the house - parents and seven children, and they all paid the price, because the question of their innocence had been rendered utterly void when they did everything they could to sweep his brother’s life under the carpet.
He made them bleed that night, stained the walls and the floors and the priceless antiques with vermillion and crimson and every other shade of red imaginable. He was an artist, like Jackson Pollock splashing the surface of the world, with the Brazzi home as his canvas and their blood as his paint. He took his sweet time with each family member, carving his rage and his revenge into their bodies, making sure that they were all awake to see the look in his eyes as he killed them, so that his face was the last thing they saw on this earth. Almost poetic, in a way; the most lyrical Orpheus had ever been in his life.
Raffaello was the last to die, a fate he had sealed for himself the minute he chose to raise his hand and end Hermes’ life. Orpheus let him crawl from his bedroom into the corridor, watched him leave a trail of blood behind him as he tried to drag his body away, and felt nothing more for the teenager than he would feel for a slug that had crawled into his path. The last thing Raffaello ever saw was the slow approach of Orpheus’ black boots and the twisted expression of macabre determination on his blood-flecked face. Lying there, surrounded by his own blood and the blood of his relatives, Raffaello Brazzi, murderer and coward, started to cry, and amidst his sobs he looked up at Orpheus and begged.
“Please, please, please, God, have mercy!”
“Mercy?” All Orpheus could do was laugh, the sound bitter and piercing in the mansion’s cavernous halls, lips contorting into an expression of pure disgust. “My brother might have shown you mercy. No, the only thing I can give you, the only thing you deserve, is my name. I am ORPHEUS AHULANI,” he proclaimed, raising the knife one last time. “Never forget it.”
[five] - E N D U R A N C E ;;
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, one fire for another. Orpheus torched their mansion to the ground, obliterating their family from the face of the Earth and making sure that no one by the name of Brazzi would ever darken the streets of his city again. He walked away from the burning wreckage with his head held high, proud frame silhouetted against a background of embers and flame, knowing that he would never face judgement for the crime he had committed (although he didn’t see it as such - to him, his actions were entirely justified, completely necessary, for there had been filth in his life and it had been successfully purged). Anyone who knew anything about Hermes Ahulani’s murder and the subsequent cover-up believed that he was dead, thought his whole family had been erased in order to let a killer go free simply because of his wealth. Orpheus knew that he was untouchable, and that finally the stage had been cleared for his life’s greatest work to begin.
He began slowly but confidently, disseminating news of his survival throughout the streets on which he had grown up. The paupers of Verona had been mourning their fallen prince, had feared the demise of their Robin Hood at the hands of the wealthy he stole from, and they were overjoyed to hear that their hero had been preserved, claimed that it was his virtue that had rescued him from the deadly inferno that had stolen his beloved family from them. Orpheus could have laughed at the irony of being presumed to be virtuous, but he let the rumour spread, let the streets ripple with rejoicing and relief, knowing that this jubilation would raise up a horde of soldiers for him. He whispered in all the right ears, smiled at all the right people, and used the outrage that had spread through the community upon the death of his family to galvanise the loyalty of every woman, man and child he laid his eyes on. The fortune he’d acquired wasn’t spent on himself, instead he began to dip into the pot of the vast wealth he’d suddenly accumulated to further magnify the people’s adoration, making sure that his charity was never too overt, that nothing more was ever said about his power than the odd whispered phrase. It was better this way, to be king from the shadows. It made him stronger.
He was only twenty-six and already more powerful than most men could become in five lifetimes, let alone one, and the whispers about him grew louder and louder, sparks that eventually ignited a forest fire of speculation, of mystery. Fires demand to be seen, to be heard, and one by one the influential figures in Verona began to take notice. Many approached him with offers of treaties and alliances, hoping that by taming Hades they could make his Underworld dance to their tune, but Orpheus knew the value of the kingdom he was poised to rule and the music that he wanted it to play, and so he turned each of them away, these men and women who claimed to be powerful, seeing through their charades of lies and always wanting something more.
It was a rainy day in October when Cosimo Capulet requested a meeting, and as he strode into the Cathedral, hair damp from the deluge outside, Orpheus knew that the right offer had finally come knocking on his door.
It was the first time he’d been into church to do anything other than steal, although equally illicit deeds were about to be performed under the Lord’s watchful gaze, bargains between the dark and the even darker, a treaty between two black kings who had each removed the white knights who threatened to stand in their way. Cosimo was shorter than Orpheus had expected, and with something of a wry smile he imagined that his brother would have informed the Capulet boss of that fact before he’d even sat down.
“Mister Ahulani, good of you to come.”
Orpheus acknowledged the pleasantry with a brief cant of the head, but didn’t bother to respond.
“Let’s make one thing very clear: if you’re here to offer me some hollow alliance, a way to take what I’ve built and sweep me to one side as soon as you get the chance, I’m walking out of here. The streets are no place for a man from your background, and you will never be able to control them like I can, no matter how much money or how many guns you have. We both know that you need me a lot more than I need you, Mr. Capulet, so go ahead, make your offer. I know you’re a smart man.”
Cosimo had to smile at that, knowing that his instinct about this young man had been correct. “My offer is simple, Orpheus, if I may call you that...” he trailed off, then, pausing to savour his triumph. “A good name you’ve got there. I like it.” Suddenly, he remembered himself, still smiling. “Yes, my offer is very simple: I want to give you the keys to a kingdom. Your kingdom. You can rule the underworld of Verona,” he intoned, sounding every inch the emperor he was, “you can rule it — with my hand to guide you.”
Outside, he could see the city lights sparkling through the stained glass. The rain had all but stopped, and Orpheus felt like he was flying.
“So what do you say?”
They’d both known the answer to the question the minute they’d laid eyes on one another, but Orpheus felt triumphant enough to say it anyway.
“Yes.”
[six] - C O M P L E T I O N ;;
And so Cosimo Capulet opened the gates that Orpheus had been longing to see open for as long as he could remember. With the might of the Capulet name behind him, he acceded to the throne that he was always born to sit on, knowing that Cosimo was intelligent enough to keep his distance, that he would never interfere. But even the king of kings could not know the extent of the ambition that lurked in Orpheus’ heart, a volcano of energy and zeal that was lying safely dormant, waiting for the perfect opportunity to erupt. For all the bullets in the world, he had weapons that were just as powerful - passion, emotion, the kind of burning fanaticism that only those who have nothing can muster. He accepted backing from the Capulets, played their game when they wanted him to, all the while conducting his own ruthless chess match in the shadows their eyes could not reach.
One day, he knew, he would build up the force to throw off the shackles of Verona’s elite, and so he bided his time, content to play the long game until such a time as it felt right to act.
But can a king ever really rule without someone by his side, without an ally of sorts, another half? Orpheus had had many lovers and companions throughout the course of his life, but none had captured his fancy for more than a fleeting instant, none of them could ever be considered worthy, and then he met Theodora Moreau in a hotel bar one night and the final piece of the puzzle seemed to have fallen into place.
It was not love that drew them together across a crowded room - love was for children, and idiots - but necessity, a flame that danced and sparked and seemed to hypnotise them both. He had heard them spoken of throughout the underworld and indeed above ground, had been privy to many whispers of the street kid who had risen beyond the stars, and the rumours had piqued his interest. He was in a corner booth at the bar in the Hotel Emelia, enjoying the low lighting and the whispered secrets that floated over to his ears from neighbouring tables, when he felt eyes on him and saw that they was standing directly in front of him. “You want to have sex with me,” they informed him curtly, lips pursed and head tilted contemplatively to one side, and Orpheus had to allow himself a laugh at their brashness. They were even more perceptive than he’d imagined. He had been watching them for most of the evening, out of the corner of his eye, allowing his gaze to drift with pleasure over their perfect form and that face, those eyes that were far more intelligent than he suspected many gave them credit for, finding himself drawn like moth to flame.
“Yes,” he answered, responding to openness with openness, quite enjoying this game to which they both seemed to know all the rules, “but a name would be nice, first. We are civilised people, after all.”
They looked him up and down with a hint of disdain (and damn, he was sold already), clearly thinking ‘well I, at least, am civilised, whether you are or not remains to be seen’, but seemed to deem him worthy of more than just an anonymous fuck in the hotel bathroom and sat down at his table instead. “Theodora Moreau.” They didn’t offer him their hand but he took it anyway, enjoying the way they shivered slightly as he brushed a kiss against their knuckles.
“Orpheus Ahulani.”
“It’s a pleasure,” they responded, withdrawing their hand back to their side, and for the life of him Orpheus couldn’t figure out why they were doing him the courtesy of such trivial pleasantries, but was mightily, mightily glad that they were.
“No,” he responded, taking a sip of his red wine and grinning, cat-like, in the half-light. “The pleasure is all mine.”
#( stories; )#d: the fire sermon#i know this is my para sample lol sue me but i wanted it on my blog#my navi page was looking woefully empty#title from t.s. eliot's 'the waste land'
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