A mighty triumph o'er his foes
Apr 2, 2018 12:11:23 GMT -5
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Kyle Shane and Gerard Angelo like this
Post by Grimm on Apr 2, 2018 12:11:23 GMT -5
The Lord of Misrule is defeated. Again.
He lays sprawled on an outcrop, shirtless, exposed to the elements. His upper body pockmarked with bruises and welts. His right shoulder a particularly vibrant mélange of purples, greens, and yellows. Eyelids flutter. Breathing, shallow.
It’s time.
Phinehas Dillinger’s hands and bare feet (for it is neither the time nor place for his usual waffle stompers) are seared by his chosen trade. Fingers tap out a war drum rhythm on the limestone, sending flakes of lichen drifting to the ground – flakes very much the colors of those testimonies to his beating. Those hands twitch in reflex, adjusting a phantom belt that has been lost to him, much like one who reaches to knead an aching limb that was stolen by trauma long ago. Other than such sporadic spasms, Phinehas lays there chiseled from the rock, formed by the roots and briers that even now inch to reclaim him.
Even so, the Lord of Misrule regrets nothing.
Unlike those who may very well learn to appreciate the bitter taste of regret on their flapping tongues. Be careful what you wish for.
Ruth leans against a poplar tree. She scratches at its bark as she watches over the broken form of her brother. Raising a hand to eye level, she sighs as she picks out splinters and moss from under her fingernails. She sniffs her fingers, and frowns. Then wipes off her hands on her patchwork skirt.
That’s when the crows come.
The great black birds arrive en masse to light in all the trees. Perch on branches both dead and blooming. The crows jerk their heads, their croaks resounding through the hills. They look on with murder in their black pitiless eyes.
Ruth looks back, and waits.
Phinehas’s eyes flicker. A sliver of white peeks up at his jury.
Neurons and synapses fire through a Pure Class Wrestling flipbook. A swirl of faces. Sadistic, Showtime, Ace Anderson. Lantlas, Whitey Ford, Loki. Justin Kaard, Non Compos Mentis, Kyle Shane. Stormm, Johnny V, Seromine. Brenna Gordon. Wasp.
Wasp…
An image of pulp, remnants of a paper nest. Shredded. Tatters scattered on the wind.
The faces run together. The names lost to the ravages of time. Forced into groups with little-to-no-forethought. Slap-dashed together in hopes of…what, clinging to relevance? A simple provision of self-preservation? That’s not how this works. Choosing the wrong allies in a rush of desperation only to eventually find themselves stranded. Abandoned. High-mindedness and rectitude become rarer the longer this business carries on. Solid, reliable members of the federation, nigh on nonexistent. These must stand for something more than just strength in numbers, or they’ll fall for anything. And most of them do.
Powers and principalities. Darkness. Carnivals, circuses. Orders.
They dissolve without by-your-leave, and then where do you find yourself?
Phinehas’s eyes pop open. A glaze of ice melts, revealing the reflection of the deepest layers of frost crushed beneath a high mountain glacier. The crows erupt in a cacophony of frustration. They had come to fulfill a task, only to leave empty-handed (so to speak) as they blanket the sky in a twilight of feathers.
While the others are preoccupied with their own increasingly slim chances of accomplishing anything of merit, you’ll be alone in the ring with the Hangtown Horror in all his unsympathetic splendor.
And in the aftermath of losing a Very Important Match, at that.
Phinehas curls up into a seated position. A primeval hostility rising to face them all from across his millennium. He swings his legs over the side of the great anvil of rock and grips its edge. He squeezes, flexes, releases. Tense and relax. Phinehas – Grimm – is not muscle bound. Function precedes structure such that there is nothing extraneous about him. Efficient in word and deed. No one dares speak on his behalf.
Phinehas works to crick his neck this way and that. He looks up into the empty trees.
“What’s going on? I thought this was supposed to be it,” he says as one more confused than inconvenienced.
Ruth reaches into the folds of her skirt and produces a silver pocket watch. She consults its face. Despite a complete absence of second, minute, and hour hands, she says, “I guess it’s not your time. You must not be done yet.”
She closes the watch with a snap and tosses it to him. The chain writhes along the arc. Phinehas grabs it and turns it in his left hand. He loses himself in the glint of the light as it catches hammer marks.
Grimm scratches his chin beneath his beard, and grins.
He lays sprawled on an outcrop, shirtless, exposed to the elements. His upper body pockmarked with bruises and welts. His right shoulder a particularly vibrant mélange of purples, greens, and yellows. Eyelids flutter. Breathing, shallow.
It’s time.
Phinehas Dillinger’s hands and bare feet (for it is neither the time nor place for his usual waffle stompers) are seared by his chosen trade. Fingers tap out a war drum rhythm on the limestone, sending flakes of lichen drifting to the ground – flakes very much the colors of those testimonies to his beating. Those hands twitch in reflex, adjusting a phantom belt that has been lost to him, much like one who reaches to knead an aching limb that was stolen by trauma long ago. Other than such sporadic spasms, Phinehas lays there chiseled from the rock, formed by the roots and briers that even now inch to reclaim him.
Even so, the Lord of Misrule regrets nothing.
Unlike those who may very well learn to appreciate the bitter taste of regret on their flapping tongues. Be careful what you wish for.
Ruth leans against a poplar tree. She scratches at its bark as she watches over the broken form of her brother. Raising a hand to eye level, she sighs as she picks out splinters and moss from under her fingernails. She sniffs her fingers, and frowns. Then wipes off her hands on her patchwork skirt.
That’s when the crows come.
The great black birds arrive en masse to light in all the trees. Perch on branches both dead and blooming. The crows jerk their heads, their croaks resounding through the hills. They look on with murder in their black pitiless eyes.
Ruth looks back, and waits.
Phinehas’s eyes flicker. A sliver of white peeks up at his jury.
Neurons and synapses fire through a Pure Class Wrestling flipbook. A swirl of faces. Sadistic, Showtime, Ace Anderson. Lantlas, Whitey Ford, Loki. Justin Kaard, Non Compos Mentis, Kyle Shane. Stormm, Johnny V, Seromine. Brenna Gordon. Wasp.
Wasp…
An image of pulp, remnants of a paper nest. Shredded. Tatters scattered on the wind.
The faces run together. The names lost to the ravages of time. Forced into groups with little-to-no-forethought. Slap-dashed together in hopes of…what, clinging to relevance? A simple provision of self-preservation? That’s not how this works. Choosing the wrong allies in a rush of desperation only to eventually find themselves stranded. Abandoned. High-mindedness and rectitude become rarer the longer this business carries on. Solid, reliable members of the federation, nigh on nonexistent. These must stand for something more than just strength in numbers, or they’ll fall for anything. And most of them do.
Powers and principalities. Darkness. Carnivals, circuses. Orders.
They dissolve without by-your-leave, and then where do you find yourself?
Phinehas’s eyes pop open. A glaze of ice melts, revealing the reflection of the deepest layers of frost crushed beneath a high mountain glacier. The crows erupt in a cacophony of frustration. They had come to fulfill a task, only to leave empty-handed (so to speak) as they blanket the sky in a twilight of feathers.
While the others are preoccupied with their own increasingly slim chances of accomplishing anything of merit, you’ll be alone in the ring with the Hangtown Horror in all his unsympathetic splendor.
And in the aftermath of losing a Very Important Match, at that.
Phinehas curls up into a seated position. A primeval hostility rising to face them all from across his millennium. He swings his legs over the side of the great anvil of rock and grips its edge. He squeezes, flexes, releases. Tense and relax. Phinehas – Grimm – is not muscle bound. Function precedes structure such that there is nothing extraneous about him. Efficient in word and deed. No one dares speak on his behalf.
Phinehas works to crick his neck this way and that. He looks up into the empty trees.
“What’s going on? I thought this was supposed to be it,” he says as one more confused than inconvenienced.
Ruth reaches into the folds of her skirt and produces a silver pocket watch. She consults its face. Despite a complete absence of second, minute, and hour hands, she says, “I guess it’s not your time. You must not be done yet.”
She closes the watch with a snap and tosses it to him. The chain writhes along the arc. Phinehas grabs it and turns it in his left hand. He loses himself in the glint of the light as it catches hammer marks.
Grimm scratches his chin beneath his beard, and grins.
