sepelire [lat. to inter, to bury; to perform rituals upon a corpse] No light had touched the walls of the Vauntelaire crypt in the long years since its latest viscount had found rest there with his son. Its seal, rime-veiled granite hewn generations ago from the depths of the Spine and carried to its appointed place at the heels of a dozen sturdy fowl, resisted every attempt to part it from its frame save one. Gièvaix raised a hand to the sigil graven in the stone.

#nyctober #batwrites

[sepelire]: latin, "to bury"; older, "to perform rituals upon a corpse". what better gift for verrot upon his nameday.

part 01 can be read here: shorturl.at/8oHS3

Death did not become him. No — that did not express it. Death, that spectre waiting in the shadows of wings, in the cruel glint of talon and fang, should never have touched him. His lord — his master — possessed far too great a will ever to allow himself to sink into that withering embrace. Such a refined magnificence could never belong there.

He should have triumphed. He should have outlived them all. Yet here he lay, bloodied and broken, a child’s discarded doll thrown carelessly from the parapet above into the stones of its ruin like so much ballast. The last of greatness born to this ancient house cast from his height with no more ceremony than a swift kick into the depths of Witchdrop; while the son, with his father’s name and half his valour, knew the agony and the glory of dragonfire. It was an insult.

And yet death had not taken his beauty from him along with his dignity. Was it mercy? Or simply a final mockery, sneering at him from beyond the veil already shrouding those perfect eyes? The answer, its glassy stare turned endlessly to the heavens, twisted in his heart like a lance.

#batwrites | #danverslore | #MORIBUNDBASH

belated, incomplete, nevertheless i wish to share a small morsel of the macabre, in honour of @/sabattons.com making it through another turn about the sun.

[ adieu, mon seigneur. ] - a wip on grief + obsession.