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Necromantic
Published 3 years, 9 months ago
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This will also be played on the Splatterday Nightmares livestream on Saturday starting at 6:00 PM Pacific :)Necromantic
by PernicketyPony
You have no idea what you are doing, that much is obvious. You burst in, with your too-bright jewellery and your too-wide grin and stride up to the bar – loudly ordering a beer even though everyone else is drinking spiced rum.
Barely half a drink in and you begin boasting, to anyone who will listen, of how far you have travelled and how much danger you have faced to get here – how you proved to be too smart and too quick and too strong for those that tried to thwart you.
When she approaches you from the other end of the bar in a cloud of fragrance we all avert our eyes, but you look her steadily in the eye and flash a smile that is like a bolt of lightning in that dark room. You offer to buy her a drink and she accepts. You turn to the barkeep but he is already bringing the drink over – something dark and sanguine in a crystal glass. You arch an eyebrow. “Wine?” you ask. “Pomegranate juice.” she corrects, then takes a sip of the tartly sweet fluid, her eyes not leaving yours.
You lower your voice, then, speaking to her in something more like a purr. You bat long eyelashes over eyes that gleam like two shards of obsidian. We all watch you and grind our teeth but you seem not to notice, or else you don't care. You are probably used to be looked at. You with your smooth, dark complexion. Your long, elegant neck. Your hair – a universe of glossy spirals.
In contrast, her skin is pale and slightly transparent, like the belly of a fish. Upon her breasts is a delicate tracery of little, blue veins. Like lace-work. Like rivulets. With a boldness that makes us shake our heads in disgust you trace one of those lines along her collarbone. She sighs and parts her juice-stained lips.
As she speaks to you, her voice a soft, funereal whisper, her hands flutter about like a pair of tiny doves. On closer inspection you see that her nails, though neatly trimmed and freshly painted, are lined with dirt. The scent you had first taken to be perfume is actually embalming fluid and it doesn’t quite cover that other, darker scent that clings to her – the sickly mixture of dried blood and wet clay.
Why did you come? Was it the promise of riches that drew you here? It's true that she has wealth beyond imagining – a miser's hoard. Perhaps you dreamt of making use of her power to hurt your enemies, or of obtaining that power for yourself. Or maybe you just wanted to be able to say that you had been here, that you had touched the hem of her skirt, that she had spoken your name.
Little does it matter, in the end, whether you came for money, for revenge, for fame. It always ends the same way. Perhaps you think it will be different for you – because you are brave and pure-hearted or because you are a woman – but to her you are no different to the rest of us. In the end you are just so many pounds of meat and bone.
********************************************************************************
We do not have to be there to know what happens next.
She leads you through the silver moonlight to the nearby cemetery. The grounds are remarkably, almost obsessively, well-kept, but perhaps you do not notice this. She laughs girlishly as she picks her way spryly through a labyrinth of tombstones and statuary – a whole host of marble angels. She approaches a large, white mausoleum, bordered with pomegranate trees. Those fruits, bursting with bright red seeds, form the beating heart of the cemetery.
The door to the crypt is open and she waits for you there. You finally catch up and she leads you down a small set of stairs into her home.
The main chamber is lit by a mass of candles. You are naïve enough to think them beeswax, but we know with what grim precision she crafted them from rarer tallow. Adipocere drips off them to form greasy pools on the cold, marble flo
by PernicketyPony
You have no idea what you are doing, that much is obvious. You burst in, with your too-bright jewellery and your too-wide grin and stride up to the bar – loudly ordering a beer even though everyone else is drinking spiced rum.
Barely half a drink in and you begin boasting, to anyone who will listen, of how far you have travelled and how much danger you have faced to get here – how you proved to be too smart and too quick and too strong for those that tried to thwart you.
When she approaches you from the other end of the bar in a cloud of fragrance we all avert our eyes, but you look her steadily in the eye and flash a smile that is like a bolt of lightning in that dark room. You offer to buy her a drink and she accepts. You turn to the barkeep but he is already bringing the drink over – something dark and sanguine in a crystal glass. You arch an eyebrow. “Wine?” you ask. “Pomegranate juice.” she corrects, then takes a sip of the tartly sweet fluid, her eyes not leaving yours.
You lower your voice, then, speaking to her in something more like a purr. You bat long eyelashes over eyes that gleam like two shards of obsidian. We all watch you and grind our teeth but you seem not to notice, or else you don't care. You are probably used to be looked at. You with your smooth, dark complexion. Your long, elegant neck. Your hair – a universe of glossy spirals.
In contrast, her skin is pale and slightly transparent, like the belly of a fish. Upon her breasts is a delicate tracery of little, blue veins. Like lace-work. Like rivulets. With a boldness that makes us shake our heads in disgust you trace one of those lines along her collarbone. She sighs and parts her juice-stained lips.
As she speaks to you, her voice a soft, funereal whisper, her hands flutter about like a pair of tiny doves. On closer inspection you see that her nails, though neatly trimmed and freshly painted, are lined with dirt. The scent you had first taken to be perfume is actually embalming fluid and it doesn’t quite cover that other, darker scent that clings to her – the sickly mixture of dried blood and wet clay.
Why did you come? Was it the promise of riches that drew you here? It's true that she has wealth beyond imagining – a miser's hoard. Perhaps you dreamt of making use of her power to hurt your enemies, or of obtaining that power for yourself. Or maybe you just wanted to be able to say that you had been here, that you had touched the hem of her skirt, that she had spoken your name.
Little does it matter, in the end, whether you came for money, for revenge, for fame. It always ends the same way. Perhaps you think it will be different for you – because you are brave and pure-hearted or because you are a woman – but to her you are no different to the rest of us. In the end you are just so many pounds of meat and bone.
********************************************************************************
We do not have to be there to know what happens next.
She leads you through the silver moonlight to the nearby cemetery. The grounds are remarkably, almost obsessively, well-kept, but perhaps you do not notice this. She laughs girlishly as she picks her way spryly through a labyrinth of tombstones and statuary – a whole host of marble angels. She approaches a large, white mausoleum, bordered with pomegranate trees. Those fruits, bursting with bright red seeds, form the beating heart of the cemetery.
The door to the crypt is open and she waits for you there. You finally catch up and she leads you down a small set of stairs into her home.
The main chamber is lit by a mass of candles. You are naïve enough to think them beeswax, but we know with what grim precision she crafted them from rarer tallow. Adipocere drips off them to form greasy pools on the cold, marble flo