Hythlodaeus (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
weenwoon) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
isleofavalon2021-08-08 10:02 pm
weenwoon) wrote in isleofavalon2021-08-08 10:02 pm
Entry tags:
[CLOSED/TBA for now?] august mayhem log
🧙 WHO: Hythlodaeus and the close CR! maybe others later, who knows.
⚔️️ WHAT: Recovering after his revival, fluff, trying to trail his murderhusband.
🕒 WHEN: First half of August.
🗺️ WHERE: Red Spring, Camelot
⚠️ WARNINGS: None as of yet, will likely have references to gore/abuse in the future.
A. Camelot; Polydegmon's
[TBA, I'm so sorry I just want to throw this at Chips before I go to bed]
B. Red Spring
[TBA]
C. Trailing (The First)
As Hythlodaeus's recovery progresses, his mind grows clearer. It's still a slow process, of course, but the treatments at the resort, the peaceful atmosphere and the security his friends' presence brings all work towards restoring not just his body, but his heart as well.
Unfortunately, that also means he is now in a state to notice things around him more. And one of them is the strangely late time that Hades returns to their apartment one night, as though he'd been out almost until dawn. It's quite hard to tell by his appearance, given that Hades looks exhausted at the best of times, but Hythlodaeus has been his friend for eons, and the many little cues are still noticeable to him. Despite his dodging and statements to the contrary, Hades is tired and clearly worried about something.
But the conversations don't lead to anything much, and so the next time Hythlodaeus resigns to try and follow his friend. He stays in bed for long enough that Hades would believe him to be asleep, then quickly gets up and gets dressed, his new familiar keeping watch of the street from the windowsill. Once he's ready, Hythlodaeus slips out of the house - just in time to see Hades turn into a darker alley at the far end of the street.
Heart pounding with worry, he tries to follow - but he's not so good at concealment, not in these circumstances. Though he tries to keep to the shadows and step quietly, an all too-obvious pool of silence and tension follows him. It's only a matter of time before Hades would notice he's being trailed.
⚔️️ WHAT: Recovering after his revival, fluff, trying to trail his murderhusband.
🕒 WHEN: First half of August.
🗺️ WHERE: Red Spring, Camelot
⚠️ WARNINGS: None as of yet, will likely have references to gore/abuse in the future.
A. Camelot; Polydegmon's
[TBA, I'm so sorry I just want to throw this at Chips before I go to bed]
B. Red Spring
[TBA]
C. Trailing (The First)
As Hythlodaeus's recovery progresses, his mind grows clearer. It's still a slow process, of course, but the treatments at the resort, the peaceful atmosphere and the security his friends' presence brings all work towards restoring not just his body, but his heart as well.
Unfortunately, that also means he is now in a state to notice things around him more. And one of them is the strangely late time that Hades returns to their apartment one night, as though he'd been out almost until dawn. It's quite hard to tell by his appearance, given that Hades looks exhausted at the best of times, but Hythlodaeus has been his friend for eons, and the many little cues are still noticeable to him. Despite his dodging and statements to the contrary, Hades is tired and clearly worried about something.
But the conversations don't lead to anything much, and so the next time Hythlodaeus resigns to try and follow his friend. He stays in bed for long enough that Hades would believe him to be asleep, then quickly gets up and gets dressed, his new familiar keeping watch of the street from the windowsill. Once he's ready, Hythlodaeus slips out of the house - just in time to see Hades turn into a darker alley at the far end of the street.
Heart pounding with worry, he tries to follow - but he's not so good at concealment, not in these circumstances. Though he tries to keep to the shadows and step quietly, an all too-obvious pool of silence and tension follows him. It's only a matter of time before Hades would notice he's being trailed.
no subject
Forcing his eyes to remain open, he nods.
"Yes. I wouldn't be me if I were the type to sing lullabies on demand." Carding his fingers gently through Hythlodaeus' hair, he clears his throat and begins to sing softly.
The song is in the language of their people. A quiet tune about the stars in the sky. Though it has fourteen verses - one for each constellation - it's rare for the singer to make it past the fifth before a child drops off to sleep. Hades hopes that will hold true for his friend as well.
no subject
1/2
Hades sits back and breathes out quietly. For a little while, he gazes at his lover with unfettered fondness. It would be nice to lie down and forget about thoughts of vengeance...
But when he blinks, he sees Hythlodaeus bruised, bloodied, cowering in fear of abandonment. He recalls how tightly the other man had clung to him, not out of love but out of panic.
I'm keeping him safe, he tells himself as he rises to his feet once more. Stealing silently out of the room, he fetches his cloak from its hook and wraps himself in its shadow once more.
"I'm doing this for him," he mutters to himself in the chilly late night air. "If I mix some sleeping potion into his tea before bed..." He's careful to close the shop door without disturbing the bell. Then he hurries off, hoping that his target is still where he last heard them being.
2/2
All that is about to change now. He has the leader in his sights and he won't let anyone stop him from killing them.
As soon as he sees an opening, he calls to his familiar ("Nyx!") and activates the Soul Catcher. The people near him stumble back with shocked cries as he transforms into a draconic avatar. But he has eyes only for one person.
His target pales and immediately bolts.
Hades fights with reckless abandon, tearing up the street with his alchemy and firing aetherial bullets ahead of him. No injury seems to slow him down for long. In fact, they vanish almost as soon as he acquires them. A long gash down his arm here, cuts and bruises to his flank there - Hades takes them all in his stride until one last leap drops him squarely on top of his target's back.
They crash to the pavement with his weight crushing the air from their lungs. "No, please, no...!" they beg; he doesn't listen. They hadn't listened to Hythlodaeus. Why should he extend them the same courtesy?
Eyes bright and savage, he wraps his hands about their neck and begins to squeeze.
no subject
But even the sleeping potions are not an infallible solution, and one morning Hythlodaeus wakes up with a jolt, struggling out of the claws of a half-formed nightmare - one that turns real, too, once he realizes that the space next to him is empty and cold. Hades is gone, and has been gone a long time. There are, of course, many reasonable explanations for his absence - shop business, something to do with their friends, simple insomnia. But it's nigh impossible for Hythlodaeus to remain reasonable, not when his fears still weigh on him so heavily. In panic, he scrambles to get up, get dressed, run through the shop calling for his friend - and then onto the street when it proves to be empty.
His heart only sinks further when there turns out to be some kind of commotion in the streets. Terrified that this might have something to do with Hades - perhaps those accursed smugglers had found them in the end, perhaps someone else decided to make trouble for them, - he rushes blindly down the street until he comes across signs of battle, pavement torn up, jagged spikes jutting out from the sides of buildings, branches of the city trees hanging broken or snapped off, broken things underfoot... The scene squeezes Hythlodaeus's heart painfully, yet another reminder that this is not the peaceful land that their home was, but fear drives him on. Hades had said he'd tried to investigate the strange murders, hadn't he? Perhaps he did get caught up in it all, and now the criminal wanted their revenge...
There are screams up ahead. A man, screaming.
Hythlodaeus speeds up, feeling like his heart and lungs are about to burst from the strain, and when he finally makes it his head is spinning too much for him to make out any real details. A figure on top of someone, not human and yet somehow familiar...
"Stop," he manages to gasp out even as he has to lean against a wall. If he were in the state to think logically, Hythlodaeus would realize that this was an incredibly stupid thing to do - he does not know what's going on, he is absolutely no use in a fight, he can't even contact Hades or the others quickly enough if something happens... but the one thing he knows is he doesn't want to see anyone get hurt, ever again.
no subject
Hades does not hear Hythlodaeus arrive. His focus is utterly consumed by the fae before him.
"Help? You want help?" He barks out laughter, pressing down harder on their throat. The man flails, trying to push him off, away, eyes bulging. "No-one helped my friend when he cried for help now, did they? And no-one will come for you."
He leans closer, leering, and eases the pressure just enough to keep them cognisant. "You saw my sculptures, did you not? Your people are all dead. You are alone." Sitting up straight, he laughs again. "Unless someone here from the crowd would like to intervene?" he jeers. "Come! If you would defend such a vile piece of morbol pus then come at me!!"
no subject
"No, no, no, no no, no, no," he half-whispers in panic as he finally manages to force himself to move, struggling through the bodies of the frightened onlookers. Hythlodaeus still has no idea what he can do here, but he can't... he can't just stand there. Even if this is all just a dream, he can't stand by and do nothing.
"Hades!"
Hythlodaeus calls out the name once he's out on the open space, voice full of confusion and fear and concern, and rushes forward--
--tries to rush forward, but it feels like his whole body is paralyzed once he sees who the victim is. He remembers their face and voice as well, those that haunt his dreams and reality whenever he's alone, whenever his focus slips. The terror is plain on his face and in the shaking of his hands as Hythlodaeus presses them over his mouth, slowly trying to back away.
"N-No... no..."
The words come out as a whisper, Hythlodaeus's intent of stopping Hades forgotten as the fear seizes him, mind and body.
no subject
"How amusing."
He lifts his hand and snaps his fingers. At the knight's feet, a sudden pillar formed out of the dirt and cobblestones thrusts upwards and topples them over. Hades laughs as more shoot out in a rough circle, trapping the knight in an earthen and stone prison. Their muffled, angry cries can be heard coming out the gap in the top.
His laughter is cut short by a sharp pain in his abdomen. He looks down and sees the man has thrust their dagger into his side. Growling, he wraps his hands about their neck, lifts them up just enough to slam their head down against the ground. While they're dazed, he yanks the dagger out and turns it into a useless pile of paper clips and leather cord.
"Pathetic," he sneers. The wound in his side isn't even bleeding. That soul catcher had been worth the cost.
no subject
"Please," he whispers, clutching at his own head. Let this stop, or let him wake up at least. Someone from the crowd with more presence of mind than others reaches out to take Hythlodaeus's arm and try to drag him back - after all, it's dangerous here; who knows what the madman will do next? But Hythlodaeus tries to struggle out of it, unthinking, raising his voice again.
"Hades!"
cw: violence, gore etc. from hereon
"I thought for a long time about what I would do with you when I finally found you," he rasps, thumbing at the man's ear with his claw-tipped fingers. "In my world, fae kind such as yourself would provide a glut of aether to those who trade in such things. But no such market exists here. So..."
Tap, tap, tap go his claws, walking themselves just beneath one of their eyes. Without warning, he pierces the socket and rips out the eye. A blood-curdling scream erupts from his victim and they thrash futilely beneath his weight. Similar screams come from those watching. Any with weaker stomachs or sensibilities immediately flees.
"Oh, do be quiet," he says disdainfully, inspecting the bloody pulp. "You're disturbing the citizenry."
a lot of very bad things in here!
The bystander still tries to drag him away, but Hythlodaeus is frozen in place, eyes locked to the terrible scene. This time, the word that tumbles from his lips is quiet.
"Why?.."
no subject
"What?" he asks as the fae whimpers pathetically. "Do you want it back? Oh, very well..."
With his other hand, he forces the man's mouth open and pops the eyeball inside. Then he covers their mouth and pinches their nose to force them to swallow, unmoved by the frantic flailing and tears leaking out from their remaining eye.
"Chew and swallow. You wouldn't want to choke now, would you?" Smirking, he waits until he hears them do just that and lets them breathe properly again. Bloody smears coat their chin and cheek. He returns to thumbing the man's ear while they blubber incoherently.
"You know," Hades resumes conversationally, "I will admit to admiring one thing about short-lived races. That drive to live is quite unmatched. With enough hope and will, they will do anything to live. I have seen them crawl through the mud of a battlefield as fire rained overhead, dive into sewerage to escape a captor, even mutilate their own bodies to slip through gaps too narrow for the body of man."
Pinching the outer shell of their ear, he thrusts the tip of his thumb claw into soft flesh. The fae screams again, this time not bothering to beg for their life as Hades neatly severs the ear from their head. Blood drips from the mutilated hole left behind and puddles on the churned up earth. Smiling humourlessly, he waves the thing before their face and leans close.
"So if you want to live, I suggest you start eating."
Ignoring their moans, he repeats what he did with their eye and forces the lump of flesh into their mouth.
For a few seconds, the fae manages to hold out. But lack of air forces them to do as Hades bids. They swallow...and then begin to gag. Hades quickly releases their nose but it's too late: they bring up the contents of their stomach into their mouth. Blood, bile, and the undigested remains of the eye and ear force their way out from beneath Hades' hand.
He leans back in disgust but makes no move to help clear their airway. Thus he bears witness to the fae's final, horrific moments where they slowly suffocate in a pool of their own vomit. Unable to speak, unable to cry for help. Limbs jerking, hands clawing at his soiled clothing, and a wordless plea in their remaining eye...before they finally fall still.
Their death doesn't fill him with the satisfaction he expects it to. It simply leaves a larger hollow in his heart. He remains straddled atop them, staring expressionlessly at their mutilated corpse.
cw emeto, suicidal thoughts kinda, mentions of gore, etc
Slowly, Hythlodaeus forces himself to turn back to Hades and the... the body. The noise of the crowd rises again, some people hurrying off to find knights to apprehend the madman, others simply voicing their shock and disgust and anger. Oblivious to all that, Hythlodaeus shuffles numbly forward. He isn't thinking, not as such, it's much too hard right now, but he wants - he needs an answer, any answer. All this still seems so... impossible. Hades has ever been one of the kindest, most caring people Hythlodaeus has ever known. Even after so long among the horrors of the mortal world, under the thrall of Zodiark, Hythlodaeus believed - no, knew that his friend was still himself, deep down. Wanting to protect others, wanting the world to be kinder.
A cruel and sad thing to do, Hythlodaeus had said about him snuffing out the original Solus Galvus's soul. But now, with this macabre, foul display before him, Hythlodaeus finally understands what cruelty, true cruelty is. Watching it, and watching it happen by Hades's hand... it leaves him feeling as though he would rather die. He would rather have gone through his imprisonment again. No matter how terrible it had been, it was better than this.
Feeling his vision grow darker, Hythlodaeus finally falls to his knees not too far away from the corpse. Moving is so hard, but he manages to force himself to look up at Hades - and anything is better than looking at the body.
"Why?.." he repeats, voice hoarse from crying and barely above a whisper. "Agesandros, what have you done?.."
no subject
"Why--? I put in more than usual. You should still be sleeping," he whispers. He hasn't been afraid of much in his life but terror paralyses him now. Hythlodaeus is not supposed to see this. Hythlodaeus should have woken up later, after Hades had returned home sans the evidence of his gory deed.
What has he done? He drops his gaze to the corpse he's sitting on and stares at his bloodied hands. He starts shaking, eyes growing hot with tears. This is a dream, isn't it? A nightmare. Hythlodaeus can't be here. No. No, no, no no--!
The draconic features recede as Nyx parts from him, hopping away with a small shake and a tired growl. Her absence leaves him drained and he sways, overcome by a bout of fatigue made worse by the departure of adrenaline. If she's leaving him now, then...
Far away, something breaks. He doubles over with a muffled cry, clutching his side. Blood seeps from beneath his fingers, staining his shirt deep red. Elsewhere on his body, other wounds appear just as rapidly and without warning. Bruises, gashes, other injuries inflicted by the fae as they ran from him. All hitting him at once.
Hades sways and collapses off to the side, breathing shallowly. Heavy, metallic footsteps approach, although he cannot discern them in his fading vision. The rest of the Camelot knights, he presumes.
"My friends..." he mumbles. "My brethren... Can I join you now...?"
no subject
There's barely enough time for the words to register, but they do. So... Hades planned for this. And the sleeping potions were not just there to soothe Hythlodaeus's nightmares. Dimly, some part of Hythlodaeus wonders at just how much his friend's talent for planning ahead has grown, but the rest of him is numbed by the realization that this was done with intent. To think that Hades would want to do this, that it's not merely a flash of anger that he's prone to now...
Impossible, his mind whispers. Even with the evidence so plain before him, Hythlodaeus simply cannot fathom the thought that his friend would willingly engage in such cruelty. He stares at Hades in incomprehension, eyes searching the other man's face for... for any clue, any answer as to why he would do this. Killing this fae would not achieve anything, and the manner in which it was done only further emphasized the pointlessness of it. Was it--was it really because Hades wanted to make them suffer?
That thought feels like a blade stabbing through Hythlodaeus, taking away his breath as he gives a choked half-gasp, half-sob, reaching out with trembling fingers towards his... his friend. He wants to hope that they are still that, that Hades is still someone he knows--
But the moment of suspension is shattered when the man suddenly doubles over, blood seeping through his clothes, injuries appearing everywhere - and they bring a new kind of terror with them, a realization that Hythlodaeus might lose his friend not just spiritually, but physically as well.
"Hades!" His voice is a frantic scream as Hythlodaeus tries to move forward, panic and fear spreading through him like a wildfire; he can't, he can't, he can't lose him, he doesn't want to be alone, he doesn't want to know what it's like to watch someone you love die. "No, no, no, no, no, Hades, no--!!"
Someone grabs Hythlodaeus by the arm, pulling him up as others cluster around Hades, weapons drawn. Hythlodaeus does not notice, trying to struggle out of the grasp, still screaming - incomprehensible at this point, losing words and sense, merely anguish and terror given voice. The person holding him is shouting something, but he's not in a state to understand, eyes locked to Hades even as his own vision blurs with tears and fades as they're both dragged away from each other.