“Undoubtedly.” Pythia Quips With Ripe Confidence, “I Couldn’t Very Will Bring All This About

“I have long since considered what I might do if I ever faced him again, Roth.” For what felt like eons, she’d likely have done anything to draw even a glimpse of Ulthar’s immediate sense of presence but something so personal had long since slipped through her fingers of desire. Instead, the only thing left was to destroy what he loved the most. The realm they currently occupied earning the majority of their fathers love and respect since the day he cast them all aside. Offering the perfect world to those who would do nothing more than pick it apart and taint it to ruin. So, ruin she would give him. “Now, he could stand before me and beg, and I’d want nothing more than to flay him along with the others. If the world we were promised cannot be ours - he can have it returned to him, in dust and ruin.” 

          a gift for @fxllenpythia​,

          “Even if you were to slaughter Uriel and Michael where they stand it wouldn’t pull Ulthar down to face you,” they’d sort of learned from mortals that a lot of problems arise in life from daddy issues and certainly the seraphim, who predated even gender, were proof of that. They have this half-smirk that hints at Roth’s lips, it’s this tiny lilt of humor but its fragmented by understanding; sometimes one just vied to see the world burn. He’d thought of it often, after the fall, but it was more channeled at the divine realm than it had ever been for this piteous mortal coil. Roth had felt the splintering quake that rattled the Otherworld, could only figure it was Leviathan’s doing supplemented by their cult following. He’d had this itch to face their Blessed siblings, it would always remain as a buzzing in the back of the skull, but their mind could not grasp this need to destroy Ulthar’s second creations. For Roth, they were measly and insignificant in comparison to the Old God’s faced eons prior, meaningless in lieu of their Blessed counterparts who attempted to control the world under their own puppeteered reign. Still, Roth’s words offer this teetering point, this subtle cue that they’d align again if need be; there was always a damned side to choose.

“The truth is that I’ve cared for this world far longer than anyone else.” After all, she’d been one of the first to take up arms against those that would see the world they now occupied, as belongings to the weakness of human kind. She’d witnessed the destruction they’d wrought upon it as they plundered the precious realm and behaved as if it was there to serve them, and not the stark opposite. “What I don’t care for, is those that have done nothing but tarnish it in every possible way. Human kind, and all that followed, is a blight upon the earth.” It had been created as a paradise, a place that would mimic the divine realm in ways so few could see, and yet it had been left to squander. Their brethren condemned to an eternity of pain and suffering for wanting to protect something so precious. All that they’d been promised, rotting deep into the core of all that it was. “Michael and Uriel, they worship and admonish all others to follow the orders of our father as if that would convey whatever love they might have once felt for him, when in truth, allowing Titania and her barbaric creatures to inherit this earth, was the first act of defiance, not ours. And yet we are marked as the traitors.’

fxllenpythia​:

“I have long since considered what I might do if I ever faced him again, Roth.” For what felt like eons, she’d likely have done anything to draw even a glimpse of Ulthar’s immediate sense of presence but something so personal had long since slipped through her fingers of desire. Instead, the only thing left was to destroy what he loved the most. The realm they currently occupied earning the majority of their fathers love and respect since the day he cast them all aside. Offering the perfect world to those who would do nothing more than pick it apart and taint it to ruin. So, ruin she would give him. “Now, he could stand before me and beg, and I’d want nothing more than to flay him along with the others. If the world we were promised cannot be ours - he can have it returned to him, in dust and ruin.” 

          Uriel had come forward to Roth, pleading of some alliance to defeat Leviathan, to ensure a world he suddenly found so precious could be preserved. The Conquest had always looked upon the mortals with disdain and the Ira’s curiosity had been whetted as to why the sudden change. It was inevitable to grasp upon humanity once immersed in this realm, Roth had done so himself, living a mundane life until the Blessed and Leviathan brought forth the fumes of a war once more, a vicious cycle, but one that was to be expected. “You care for nothing in this world?” It was void of contempt, only that same curiosity they had in lieu of Uriel and Michael, how brothers once carved to be purely a weapon were now brimming with compassion and mercy. Leviathan often seemed to drift mysteriously throughout her actions, allowed her little Coven to stir up most of her ruinous work and they wondered what Leviathan’s idle hands were truly preoccupied with.

“I never believed that you would.” Perhaps, in another lifetime, Pythia should have liked to be more like Astaroth. Her anger and taste for vengeance had blossomed long before they fell, born for war it was truly a wonder that Ulthar could ever have predicted another outcome. Never would they all fall to decree when all so many of them had wanted, was simply what they were promised. Would a life among the mortals in hiding have offered Levithan a different outlook? Were she not cast into the inferno and forced to pry her way out, could she have been so quietly indifferent in this moment? “They have wished to kill me for millennia, Roth, and though they may be far closer in their efforts than they ever have been before, I am not what they once knew.” Proof was in each devised plan that swayed just as surely in her favor - in that of the Asphodel. Her death would cost them something that would break them, the same way she had once been broken. Their sacrifice would shatter, or those condemned would rise. “You always did fare better standing on your own,” it’s noted in the hitch of her mouth, the bittersweet smile almost one that could contend with nostalgia, “I won’t make you choose,” after all - choice was something she offered all those who had none. The choice to be more, the choice to stand against all that was deemed acceptable. “Just know that neither do I want to strike you down - but I will, if I must.” Venom didn’t curate her words into the fangs of a serpent as she cast dark hues to her brother. Heartless; she’d earnt the reputation that overwhelmed so many, and yet - “Unlike the others, however, I’d find a way to bring you back.”

fxllenpythia​:

“The truth is that I’ve cared for this world far longer than anyone else.” After all, she’d been one of the first to take up arms against those that would see the world they now occupied, as belongings to the weakness of human kind. She’d witnessed the destruction they’d wrought upon it as they plundered the precious realm and behaved as if it was there to serve them, and not the stark opposite. “What I don’t care for, is those that have done nothing but tarnish it in every possible way. Human kind, and all that followed, is a blight upon the earth.” It had been created as a paradise, a place that would mimic the divine realm in ways so few could see, and yet it had been left to squander. Their brethren condemned to an eternity of pain and suffering for wanting to protect something so precious. All that they’d been promised, rotting deep into the core of all that it was. “Michael and Uriel, they worship and admonish all others to follow the orders of our father as if that would convey whatever love they might have once felt for him, when in truth, allowing Titania and her barbaric creatures to inherit this earth, was the first act of defiance, not ours. And yet we are marked as the traitors.’

           “I won’t kneel to their request,” Michael and the Conquest were not seraphim one wanted to be in conflict with but Roth had gone head to head with Uriel once before and was confident, even in eons of retirement that he could survive again against his Blessed brother. “They wish to kill you, not place you in a torturous prison to command over,” Roth was certain that Pythia, as they’d come to go by, was well aware of this determined quietus. Others of their brood, fallen seraphim, had been cut down for less, their cosmic essence pulled back to the cosmos for merely disagreeing with Ulthar’s demands. The Pythia had set the world ablaze, smiled as it bent and snapped beneath her will; hers would be a violent end, a barbaric rule over the Inferno no longer in her future. “I told them I’d not stand with them.” It holds influence, though Roth’s wording carefully proposes the reminder that while he won’t strike her down and join the slaughterous campaign, he’s not about to align himself with her creed either.

The rise of his voice - a moment of frustration and anger was one of the only flickers of conviction the Pythia had seen of Eric in some time now. Hollowed out by his own discomfort - his choice to stradle the line between this life and the next would be his downfall. Unable to choose until all that remained was the pitiful indecision to return to a world that had already cast him aside once. “You should have spent these months learning to secure your own fate instead of wallowing in self-pity, abhorrence or expecting someone else to do it for you.” A serpent’s hiss rounded out the snap of her own fangs, the glimmer of hues daring him to test another bark in her presence. Still, she softens - smiles, and shakes her head gently, “I never needed to make you a monster, Eric. You’ve been one since birth - and everyone, including your mother, knew it.” It’s flippant, haphazard, the way she speaks. As though every word she spoke were facts well known. “You were exiled long before the pack turned it’s back on you, and it seems you’re itching to experience that all over again.”

“If all you see here is destruction, you’ve not been looking hard enough.” The asphodel - the Necronomicon, was wrought with the creation of all things frowned upon. To stop death in its tracks, open realms beyond this one, and bring about a world that no longer saw those with such an affinity banished to barren lands. Eric had yet to see the totality of the destruction that she could wrought and as she wove the intricacies of power around her finger, the once regaled seraphim condemned the volatile to a life of bridled pain. A shortened life, beyond the safe haven of those willing to do anything - his body would seek to reject the hearts granting - long life, and strength beyond all else. Rue the control he sought being safe - the fire within him deserved so much more. The spark of a flame ignites and the blackened candles surrounding the room cast long shadows across the room. “Your troubles are your own, Eric. I offered you opportunity, and you squandered it. Perhaps the harbinger won’t mind another disappointment.”

“You are not like most.” As much had been clear to her from the moment that August first felt compelled enough to touch fingertips to the art of dark magic and inevitably called to her. So many that wanted would never comprehend what it took to obtain everything, and all of them would fall to the pages of the book for their cowardice alone. To sacrifice to the necronomicon and find anything beyond that too much to handle was comical at best. “He showed me,” she speaks and the tone of her voice emboldens with the hint of a smirk that toys at her lips. “I’ve never seen anything like it.” At least, nothing that drove her as wildly as the very premise he spoke of. “Did you think I’d take us this far and not allow you there for it, August?” She prises with an edge of mock offence in her voice, “I’m not a monster.” A joke that undoubtedly humored her far more than she let on. Monster; abomination, she’d heard it all - conformed to it all out of pure spite. Levithan had long since become all that they’d feared she would, and there was no end in sight as of yet. “We’re so close. Speak to the drow, I want to know what their rodents have discovered. And keep looking for deserters.”

fxllenpythia​:

“Everything comes with a price,” an utterance that had gone unspoken for so long between them. Python had never seemingly had to warn August of what would come of his venture with her and the Necronomicon. Even still, it was only ever the stout of heart that remained when the truth of such a statement was embedded into the very marrow of harrowed bones. “They’d claw their way down for the ultimate power and yet refuse to pay the ultimate price. Fooling themselves into believing that being mediocre is a good enough gift in return for mindless servitude and laws.” All that the other side offered in her mind would retain the shape of a cage, no matter how she looked at it. Stemming from the very will of Ulthar himself - and his decree that the seraphim were to allow the humans the world promised to them - to protect and serve from above; entwined by the consequence of free-will being their own undoing. 

“More will leave,” she started, “allow some of them to believe they’ve done all they can. The time will come when they will pay what we’re owed.” We; as if everything she’d ever beholden to the world was also given to him. “Were they bold enough to have a single thought of their own, they’d understand that there are other ways.” True death. With no way back - no way to reverse the loss of a soul. A price that none expected, and one she refused to warn them of. She’d needed the numbers to begin with, the souls to grant her the power to invoke such a spell; to bring about the death of a God. Now, their souls belonged to the book - to her, and where they ran, she would always find them. “Narcissus betrayed us. Revealing our location to the Senate. We should pay them a visit.”

-

The fight had taken everything from him, the absence of power that came with the loss of channeling Trivia was palpable to the power-hungry necromancer even now. For someone like him, with everything that he’d become, it was impossible to not miss it, to not crave it. The Asphodel had worked in tandem and crushed a reinforced city under heel, the archdruids had broken, their petty God had broken, and that ichorous blood of the divine that flowed over his fingertips was addictive. That anyone would walk away now felt foolish, stupid even. Weak. “There’s no price I wouldn’t pay,” no price he likely hadn’t paid. “Bastien had a vision of the empty throne of the Gods, of blood raining down over Elysium.” The druids and their paradise, but what was heaven if not just another realm to devour? “I want to be there when it happens.” He wanted to see firsthand the look on the faces of those who’d betrayed them - the lesson that they would learn when they had nothing left but their own despair. 

It grates her nerves and though he did, indeed, leer such greeting as a testament to what Leviathan had always envisioned, there's a pinching tease within it that makes her want to turn each of his snacks to dust within his pockets. "You're positively glowing," not nearly his glorifying beautiful garish self. It's insult to a festering wound and she's never wished to make a realm bleed as much as she does in this fleeting moment. "It's disgusting." The wave of her hand sends that which he holds flying across the room as she settles in beside him. "Hail Lucifer, indeed. Have you seen him? Since arriving?" Pythia certainly hadn't and it was one, among many, affronts to suffer through while her coven returned to hiding.

a starter for @fxllenpythia,

Abaddon was already feasting on his thirteenth emergency snack, little tidbits packed away in his vessel's coat that were proving to be an insufficient amount as the day was only half way through and he'd almost pilfered the entire stash. What some would look upon and label as stress-eating was merely Abaddon's sacred vice, though it was noted that the more he ate, the more under duress he actually was. Freed from in the Inferno, from the practical starvation suffered, Abaddon had gorged himself on the creatures and life within the Otherworld. He'd feasted for several days and nights until he felt comfortable, but an archfiend such as he could never be satiated. "Hail Lucifer," teased in greeting, Abaddon offered an empty and teasing smile to his sister; Leviathan, the creature whose vice was violence, even they were not spoiled to the plan to release their siblings from the pits of the Inferno.

It's a tiresome speech, and one she's head over and over again. Just as the first to try, Valentina would find the dark hole of disappointment all those before her found. No matter the state of the world, the depths of evil within it would always look for her; violence. "You're beginning to sound like a child, Valentina." The sharp edge of her tone is almost condescending, "And petulance certainly doesn't become you." Of course, she wasn't entirely wrong - the temptation Python offered would always be more than anyone mortal was worthy of, and until one so depraved could cling to all she offered without become a whisp of their former selves. "Kaan died a fool, and he died to save none but himself." Had the sovereign held onto his anonymity, perhaps he wouldn't have rendered the Narcissus reputation little more than a handful of ashes. Unable to be trusted. "And yet, I still stand." Leviathan smirks, "Forgive me, for not holding my breath at this little... premise of my downfall, darling. You're hardly one with clear sight, if each downfall of your own life weren't telling enough - and to be quite honest," she pauses, "i've simply never put much weight into the hands of a hypocrite." The irony is not lost, in fact, it paints a smile of saccharine devastation across the archfiends features. "Now, move along, lest I make you."

Valentina wants to make a vow, a promise that she'll extinguish Pythia's grip on her loved ones before the Narcissus coven is completely dissolved but she always cursed those fools in the movies who told the villain their plan to do them in and ended up with a knife in their stomach for their efforts, she can operate in shadow and darkness -- such is a gift for a spirit and Narcissus never shied from doing what was necessary no matter the reputation it preceded. "You tempt souls into darkness and leave them to drown when the shadows consume, I know your true face Python and Kaan died to save those that you would gladly had for your slaughter, nothing more than fodder." She wondered how awful it must be to have such an empty existence. "He has always been my friend and he died my hero, I know how seductive you can be promising great grasps at power but speaking nothing of the empty husk that it leaves you. There is no one that has true allegiance to you and you'll learn of how cruel fate can be soon."