ren

ㅤ ʽ ‥ #cesare #nocturne ㅤㅤㅤㅤ 𝓬𝔀. implied ptsd, adverse childhood experiences, unreliable narrator, hints of delusion, mommy issues; referencing threads of a timeline in encountering bellinor constantine & before reuniting with fynn fowler in a hallowtide thread, somewhere in evernight's outskirts that evidenced blood wars. ㅤㅤㅤㅤ a tactic where a piece makes their final advantageous move before being hopelessly captured.

ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ even before finding himself at the mercy of the undying king, being brought down to his knees a second time is not necessarily cesare’s plans of observing hallowtide.

this is supposedly his first time celebrating witnessing such excessive displays of the harvest and the goods shared between townsfolk. or so what they say festivals are. with a bottle of ale in his hand and its content downed in half, that is the original plan after completing a hunt requested by a father down the road to evernight. spending the night with attempts not to stumble on his feet, drowning the spirits in his head through his bloodstream.

however, the only howls he heard are the anguish of the ghouls that coincide with the increasing whispers in the back of his head.

body bloodied and ego bruised, the man treks uphill in a deserted ruin of what seems to be once a lively district in the countryside. the clouds that never let up a ray of sunshine became darker, thunder rolling in waves until a torrent of rain turned the dry, dusty landscape into a treacherous trap of mud and petrichor. shattered windows, fallen houses, broken families scattered across the never-ending horizon, based on the numerous shadows that follow him with every step.

the dead continuously clings to his cloak, and the man trudges with their heavy burdens of regret, remorse, and rage all over his person.

i should've...

i would've...

if i could've...

their shrieks and pleas mix with his own thoughts of pain, head pounding away as he gnashes his teeth together. still, the forgemaster bears with the labor of dragging himself to a proper shelter, or whatever he can make do with the mass graveyard that he unfortunately has no choice but to go through.

cesare doesn't know how he made it at some point, chancing upon the remnants of a fortress and immediately sliding down on the ground once he barricaded himself in with the certainty that he finally lost his pursuers. he threaded through his hair and tugged hard, hoping to alleviate the building pressure from the overwhelming presence of the spirits that clawed their way from the Otherworld.

and now, whose claws dig into his flesh and tearing at the cracks they found in his memories; pouring in malice, hatred, melancholy, and mania to fill it in, to make him their own and they as his.

the taste of iron begins to dance on his tongue from the force of keeping his piercing cries lodged in his throat; the sharpness of his teeth cut the inside of his mouth, his lower lip, his tongue to stop himself from screaming. he braced himself, arms wrapped around himself, and his own nails buried in his skin lest out of rising despair his hands will find his cranium to be ripped apart.

they were never this angry.

cesare has never been this angry.

they have never been this malevolent.

cesare has never felt so vindictive that he would rather watch the world burn away than save it.

because we earned it, ▬▬ the forgemaster gasps silently, momentarily forgetting how to breathe, hearing a voice eerily familiar with an icy tone rivaling the harsh winter in whitepeak's ▬▬ because everyone deserves it.

it is undeniable.

the way his hands shake as he lets go and redirecting his vision and focus on counting every finger, the way his ribs ache in response to the adrenaline pumping in his veins, and the way that arrogance washed away in the face of near-death . . .

cesare thinks that his heart finally stops at the clear sight of the woman dressed in all black.

black dress, black veil, black soul.

out of all spirits that tethered themselves to him for a chance to walk the earth again, she had been the only one to keep her distance in midst of the dead's demands and requests that he receives wherever he goes; and for a year that her spirit travels with him, cesare sometimes entertained the idea of comfort in her silence. the funny feeling of finding solace in a stranger that understood him even without an exchange of words.

and now, with the way she holds herself regally, the way she towers over bones and shadows in her wake, and the way her cold, ever so cold touch lifts his chin to meet her gaze, cesare now sees his mistake.

he feels like he'd seen this before.

in the darkness of his room, layered by the talking walls of the castle and the innocent blood that every chastain's hands spilled in its defense.

❝ because if we did not have it our way, no one else can, ❞ the nameless silhouette chuckles grimly as her fingertips trace his jawline and directs his face to the opposite direction while her body language indicates meticulous scrutiny. the spirit tuts disapprovingly afterwards, both hands rest on his shoulders before they wrap tightly around his neck.

❝ oh my lost darling boy, my north star, how can you not remember that i sacrificed love for power, how everything has been for you? how you left your dearest mother to perish pathetically? how you keep fucking around in continuously neglecting that throne i worked my whole life for, right in the hands of those monsters? ❞ the now guttural voice of a predator renders cesare immobile, speechless; clutched in the vice grip of a familiar yet distant nightmare that deceivingly dressed itself in mourning the loss of her child. he is trapped, choking and grasping at nothing, attempting to pull the malevolent entity away from him with the forging hand-wraps he made himself.

hestia evangelina constante hills the woman in black barks from beyond the grave, her madness empowering her temporal form in the only time of the year that the veil between the worlds become passable.

tears draw lines on his face, skin too clammy and pale from every second that passes him by.

othello thought he should've died then.

... he was supposed to.

the gurgling sounds of his defeated struggles and the echoes of her bellowing laughter fades along with his remaining consciousness.

...

...

hel barks, alerting him awake.

the man stirs from his sleep, coughing harshly from sudden alarm and the clothes that stick to his skin, effectively rendering higher chances of catching illness in this state. the smell of ozone and petrichor hits his nose as soon as his hand quickly runs to his neck, and the flash of lighting enters a fragmented window as soon as another round of heavy downpour occurs outside.

his hound now growls, her lithe body stands between him and the dark of this abandoned fortress; hel's distress sends him back to reality despite the exhaustion still nestled within his bones, and the fangs glinting in the shadows finds cesare in a terrific situation.

❝ ah, shit. ❞

lowbloods, haunted houses, and lycans.

what a way to celebrate hallowtide.

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