House of the Inspired

District of the Undeserving, Fifth Ring.

The stage at the heart of the Opera building had been turned into a dining hall for the Muse and his guests. A massive table occupied much of the Stage. It stood on an exquisite red carpet. All around the table, heavy curtains hid away the area behind the stage while the view to the seatings was wide open. A veritable crowd of hybrids sat in the orchestra pit. The clumsy-looking things handled their instruments with surprising care and provided a subtle background ambiance. This was very much the first time Tharia would eat accompanied by music. What she found unnerving, however, was the audience. There was nary a free spot in the seatings and even the balconies were filled up with viewers.

Some of those things looked almost entirely human with minor feats of animal here and there: Whiskers instead of a mustache or mouse ears are hidden underneath a hood. The ones closer to the stage, however, looked less human. That said, they shared a common trait: Hunger. And Tharia was to sit still and eat the most opulent meal she had seen in months. All these impressions pressed down on the young woman but she just sat on her chair, with a proper regal pose, and ate what she was served: Beef, Pork, Chicken, and varieties of flesh she had never seen before. She wolfed it down with reckless abandon. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Annabelle just stare at the food. A nagging sensation tugged at her mind but she paid it no heed. This was, after all, a feast worth having. The Muse had suggested to her personally she should just dig in.

“Why are you hrmmpf...”, Tharia had trouble speaking with her mouth full, but alas, she just had to do it anyways, “So why hmmrnng, are you helping hgrnmmng us?”

The sudden laughter of the audience made her shudder. This was absurd. She wanted to throw away the cutlery, her stomach grumbled its disagreement with the meat but when she saw his smile and the strong scent of flowery sweet nectar, mixed with an odd musk, she couldn’t help but smile as well. She quietly hummed a melody while her eyes were transfixed on the artist’s fabulous visage.

“That’s the wrong way to think my dear”, he said.

Laughter. What the bloody blazes was funny about that? Well, Tharia realized she would have to ask herself as she was laughing too. Everyone but Annabelle was laughing.

“You see, all artists are selfish. We create because we want recognition and fame. It’s a truth that must not be spoken. Well, to the abyss with it, I dared say I was no selfless pup and they cast me out”, the Muse tousled his grey hair and smirked. The moment he had ended that sentence, a hundred voices suddenly sighed in sympathy. There was only one person present that didn’t quite fall into this spiel and that was Annabelle. Her friend sat stonefaced, didn’t eat and didn’t reply to anything. It was as if she wasn’t entirely there. Tharia shook her head.

“Muse, friend. That didn’t answer my question”, she said. Gods, the meat was so sumptuous and delicious. Her stomach rumbled in pure joy and even the flame inside of her was abuzz.

“Now my friend, you need to listen between the words. I help because you are to be my magnum opus”, the Muse said and stood up. He walked over towards Tharia with a mindnumbing elegance. Each gesture seemed custom tailored towards giving her a magnificent impression of him.

“You, my dear enigma, are the middle child of the Verholdens. The young one? A clever tyrant. The elder sibling? A ditzy siren with assets but no grace. But you? You’re a scarred secret wrapped in a golden cage”, he said and whirled around towards the audience, “And what is art if but a mystery of the mind and heart?”

Applause was his answer. Much to her confusion, Tharia noticed various things being thrown onto the stage. Mostly flowers but also in one case expensive underwear. She didn’t dare ask. Besides, the grumble in her stomach had grown louder. Why are you eating this, she thought for a moment. She hated it. Because he asked you to, of course. Silly girl. She loved it. She shot a glance towards Annabelle. Her friend was lethargic but whether it was because the Muse simply hadn't asked her to eat or because of what happened earlier, Tharia couldn't tell. Her stomach cramped in pain as she cut off another slice of meat and gulped it down.

“Your friend then is perhaps even more interesting”, the Muse said and spun around before he came to rest next to Tharia, elbows placed on the table.

“She is not quite complete, is she? Tell me, why do you think she carries that Scythe everywhere?” he said and pointed towards the weapon Tharia had failed to notice. That actually was a good question. Without waiting for an answer, the Muse now locked eyes with the lifeless Annabelle. Tharia felt a sudden surge of sorrow as she saw just how detached from everything her friend seemed.

“May I?” the Muse asked and reached for the blade end of the Scythe. Annabelle absent-mindedly handed him the weapon.

“Now this is a good tool, all things considered, is it not?” the Muse once again turned towards the audience.

“A tool of harvest, a tool for food. But this one has tasted blood”

Without warning, the man suddenly threw the Scythe towards the seatings. It flew with absurd speed, but just as it was about to crash into three unlucky hybrids, the weapon suddenly started to glow. Golden flakes of light peeled off the weapon and disappeared into thin air. This happened in less than a second but when it had stopped, the weapon was gone.

“And it will always return to get more of it. Belle, be a dear and recall it”

“What?” was all Annabelle said.

“I forgot just how incomplete you are. Just lift your hand and imagine it in your hands”

Annabelle raised one of her hands. It took a second, but then a golden line appeared right there. A wooden handle slipped out of it and once Annabelle wrapped her hand around it, a sudden golden flash materialized the Scythe. The viewers went loud with awe and soon started to clap in appreciation. Tharia was confused and the Muse grinned from ear to ear.

“It’s part of her. She is, after all, what she is. But I see now, this act is premature. We need to get back to the origin. Now then, you two. I promised I’d help you and this I will do. You will visit an old friend of mine by the name of Eleanor. Kindly invite her over to my place”, he clapped his hands and the hybrids burst into a loud cheer, “No need to include anything but the head, really. Do that, and you will profit greatly”

He then suddenly whirled around and climbed onto the table, before hopping down on the other side. He had gracefully dodged the various plates of food.

“Oh but that name sounds familiar, does it not, last of the gods? Eleanor, the noble-born maid of a certain goddess. Eleanor Zuresti, close companion to Annabelle with unsavory rumors more resilient than weeds”, he said with a wide grin, “She was the first in many things. First to touch, first to betray and first to pilfer your essence, first to fall, first to be shunned and first to be exiled. Now as dramaturgy demands it, she too shall be first again. First to struggle, first to appease and first to face judgment”

He leaned in close to Annabelle and whispered with a wide grin.

“Which shall it be, godspawn? To reconcile or to kill?”

Tharia watched in shock as Annabelle’s face showed a sudden influx of emotions. She was fletching her lips and showing her white teeth. The nose was wrinkled and the eyes sparked with bloodlust. Tharia shuddered as more intense cramps assailed her stomach. Yet still, she kept on eating the flesh.

“KILL IT IS!” the Muse screamed and so did the audience. A sudden dry cough, however, pulled his attention towards Tharia. She really wasn’t feeling well. With a sudden leap, he jumped straight over the table and landed right next to Tharia. She felt a warm hand on her back.

“You look sickly pale and you’re burning up”, he exclaimed loud enough, then suddenly grabbed her plate.

“Was this poisoned? Bring the cook, at once!”

Tharia tried to protest. Deep down she knew why it hurt. She didn’t just dislike the taste of meat but found it utterly vile. For some forsaken reason, she had eaten absurd amounts of it. When next Tharia looked up, a meek-looking elderly woman had been dragged to the stage. The Muse stood in front of her and it was only now that Tharia realized just how big he was. He towered over the cook and stared down at her. All while Annabelle still stared at the table. Tharia bit her lip and wondered about what had happened to Annabelle. Was it really just the strange suggestions? Was she affected at all? The Muse raised his voice.

“Tell me filth, have you poisoned my guest?”

The cook quickly shook her head. She was in open panic, clutching to her apron while shivering and crying in fear.

“Then why is she in pain? Did she send you?” The Muse pressed on with seething rage twisting his beautiful visage.

“I don’t know, Muse. I only used the best ingredients, even though we were out of so many things”

The man called Muse threw the old woman to the ground and then faced the audience.

“Poison or accident?” he asked.

Poison chanted the hybrids. The sheer amount of bloodlust Tharia felt from that was only making matters worse. She could barely keep it together as is but kept chanting poison subconsciously. The only one that didn't was Annabelle. Weakly, Tharia held up a hand.

“It wasn’t poison, I just can’t deal with meat”, she whispered. More nausea flooded her senses. This was going to come out. Soon. Pretty soon. Bloody blazes. Tharia suddenly jumped up and dashed off the stage as fast as she could.

Tharia felt utterly miserable, dirty and vile but the situation had cleared her senses entirely. She took a bit longer to return than was necessary and used it to sort her thoughts. The Muse was dangerous. He was just the right mixture of charisma, powerful suggestion and something else she couldn’t quite put the finger on. She had eaten something her body couldn’t take, simply because he had asked her to. Twice now, she had witnessed others die at the simple utterance of a suggestion from Muse. She shuddered. They needed to get out of here.

When Tharia stepped back on the stage, the curtains had been lowered. The elderly cook stood still like a statue with Muse standing right behind her. He beamed a smile in her direction and Tharia answered it with one of her masterful fakes. It seemed to work, as there was no sudden urge to fulfill this man’s wishes.

“Are you better, dear?”

“Very much so, thank you”, she replied.

Upon hearing this, the Muse pushed the elderly woman away from him.

“Well then. Art is a tolerant mistress. Failures are part of our path if we reflect on them. Go now, reflect how you could have prevented this. You are hereby exiled”, the Muse told the elderly cook that suddenly burst into tears.

Now that Tharia looked closer, she noticed the small patches of irregular fur on the old woman’s hands. Tharia felt anger well up in her. The cook had no fault in this. It was her own mind falling to the strong suggestion. One strong enough to override her natural instincts. Yet if she allowed her rage to show now, the Muse would notice she had broken free of his lure.

“Thank you for looking out for us. We’re sorry to impose upon you, friend Muse”, Tharia said instead with the sweetest of smiles she could muster.

“It’s nothing much”, the old man said and curtsied with perhaps the first honest smile all evening. An awkward silence followed during which Tharia looked over towards Annabelle. Her friend still sat quietly at the table. Something was wrong with the girl.

“Now then, I think it’s prudent that I urge you to expedite your encounter with Eleanor. It’s, after all, a matter of the divine”, the man said. Anything to get out of his reach, Tharia thought in reply but offered a most proper curtsy of her own.

“Naturally. Thank you for your hospitality. We’re in your debt”, she spoke while somehow scrounging together every modicum of etiquette she could remember. Part of being the Tomboy of the family was a certain leeway in behaving the proper way. No one was surprised when she had behaved oddly. Even something as a curtsy proved a challenge, but luckily the large man seemed to be distracted. He left with an odd look on his face.

Tharia waited until he was gone and ran over towards the table. The food on it still had that scent of meat and almost immediately brought nausea back, but there was nothing left in her stomach that could vacate the premises. She tapped Annabelle on her shoulder.

“Alright, let’s go, shall we?” Tharia said. The former goddess stood up and without uttering a single word, left the room with a very concerned looking Tharia in tow. Had she been manipulated as well or why was she acting this weird, she wondered.

Falhorn Alley, leading to Old Henrietta's Slight

Lower District of Seeking, Fifth Ring.

They were back on the road again. This time with just one Rucksack, they left most of it at the Opera House at Annebelle's behest. The moon now stood high and drowned everything in a pale light that left plenty of shadows. They had quickly realized that the Opera House had been an anomaly. Somehow, in the middle of the slums, there was a tiny district of the Opera and a handful of assorted neighbors. These hadn’t been popular living places and post end of all days, it had really fallen apart.

Their target was a good while away and they had been going for a while. Tharia followed Annabelle closely and watched her friend with a sullen mood. Every attempt at conversation had been blocked or flat out ignored. The human girl let out an especially deep sigh.

“Alright then. If you won’t talk, I will. It’s alright. I’ll tell you about my day so far. Awakening next to my friend was nice and it came with a bit of a surprise. Now my friend hasn’t talked to me since, after that initial all too cute apology, but I’d love to tell her it really was alright and if she wants another, she just needs to ask”, Tharia said and accelerated her pace until she walked in front of Annabelle. Her body still felt as if it was aflame, despite having evacuated the food earlier, the spark was still working overtime to heal damages she didn't notice she had. Paying it no more mind, she then turned around and tried to walk backwards. Annabelle kept her stoneface going on.

“Right, I can be on top of the world and still be a moron. Should be my motto”, she said as she stumbled constantly. Even with the spark, she lacked the bodily finesse to do something as simple as that.

“Now then, dinner was 'nice'. Powerful suggestive ability going on with that guy. I vote we don’t trust him one bit. Can you be sure this is really your Eleanor we’re about to meet? What did really happen between you and that woman? Did she betray you? Was she really your uh... extra-marital sweetheart? You didn’t seem the type to be all polyamorous. I don’t really like that, to be hone...”

Tharia felt a sudden intense pressure on her shoulders. Before she could even think to react, Annabelle had slammed the human girl effortlessly against the wall. Tharia let out a yelp and suddenly found herself pinned to the cold stone. Annabelle’s intense grey eyes stared down at her. Tharia wasn’t much smaller than her friend but right now, she felt tiny. She wasn’t quite sure what to expect, the emotions in Annabelle’s face changed from ‘give me more, please’ to ‘holy bloody mother of destruction’ and back.

“You are impossible”, Annabelle said with clenched teeth, “This is mine to sort through. Give me some time. I’ll happily seek your help and company when I’m ready, okay?”

“Sheesh”, Tharia said and exhaled the air in her lungs, “Could have just asked me to stay quiet, you know?”

“Would it have helped?”

Tharia placed a finger against her lips and thought long and hard with mischief on her mind.

“No, I don’t think so. I probably would have just continued talking. You’re right. Yeh, I guess. I’d have asked about all the details. Like how you met this Eleanor girl, how it happened and why...”

“Tharia!” Annabelle growled. The slightly smaller girl closed her mouth with a smacking sound and nodded meekly. Message received. She hadn’t seen such a temperamental Annabelle before. Part of her wanted to tease her but she ultimately decided to respect her wishes. The goddess finally let go and brushed a few of her hair strands behind her ears. Tharia still didn't know whether the suggestive abilities of the Muse affected Annie, but at least she now had a better idea why her friend acted this weird.

“Let’s go”, Annabelle then said and pointed down the alley.

They quickly reached another district. The sheer difference in social stratum was immediately made obvious by the opulence of the buildings. These were built by people with money. Lots of it. Going by their weird mixture of various styles, this was a rather recent addition. There were still the tell-tale arched windows and occasional buttresses. Seeing how these houses didn’t reach all that high, this was more decoration than purpose. However, mixed in with that were red bricks that had been painted with pictures of gold. The images were individual to each of the houses.

One showed a forest of massive trees with tiny fairies in them. The tiny creatures were stylized with over exaggerated femininity that rubbed Tharia the wrong way. And that wasn’t just because her nickname was 'Fairy'. Absolutely not. She tugged her loosely fitting blouse shut just because she felt like it. Either way, the next house over showed a completely different scene, merchants sat on a carriage and were engaged in trade with the Sky-People of the south. This was the odd picture out because it wasn’t only painted in gold but kept the cerulean skin tone of the Asansi Sky-People intact.

She noticed Annabelle suddenly getting slower and with a wink of her hand, golden light manifested into the familiar scythe. The walls here around them were still painted but it was hard to see them under a layer of glittering silver strings. These ended in massive moth cocoons and Tharia really only knew that, because one of those oversized creatures peeled itself out of one. She instinctively reached for the pistol, but Annie gave a quick sign to stand down and mouthed the word ‘Quiet’ to her.

She nodded and watched her friend run towards the beast. Just in case, she kept her weapon aimed at the head of the moth thing. It was still half-stuck and struggling to break through. Annabelle used that chance to run up to it. One of the appendages broke free and tried to slam the attacker aside, but Annabelle was quicker. She batted the boneless tendril to the side and then used her speed to close in on it. There came a moment when she looked up at the massive moth and the beast stared back with a whole assortment of beady eyes. Not even a second later, the sharp edge of Annie’s weapon came crashing down. It cut through the horn as if it was cloth and dove deep into the beast. The moth-thing shrieked in pain.

Annabelle pulled on her weapon and when she found it stuck, she suddenly let go. Golden light emanated from the tool and a moment later, the scythe appeared anew in Annabelle’s hands. She took aim for another swipe, this one more shallow but aimed at the entirety of the thing’s neck. Tharia changed up her position in an attempt to maintain a clear shot. At the first sign of real danger to her friend, she’d act but so far, the silver-haired woman had it under control.

The second slash cut deep into the moth and silenced the shrieks. Yet, the beast was still not down. The first appendage thrashed about aimlessly, which distracted Annabelle just long enough for a sneaky second one to suddenly knock her off her feet. Moments later, the tendril shuddered. Without warning, a sharp talon appeared at the end of it. Annabelle rolled aside just in time as the thing smashed into the ground with peculiar accuracy. It was an odd sight, the massive moth was obviously dying or already dead, but the tendrils still kept active.

They jabbed a second time. And a third before Annabelle got back on her feet. Tharia scanned the beast with her eyes in an attempt to figure it out, while Annabelle defended from the two tendrils. She looked the moth over, but the beast was obviously dead. It had stopped twitching and thick blood ran down the cocoon until it landed on... a strangely human face. The visage hung in the cocoon and was barely visible behind the silver but it was moving nonetheless.

“Annie, face, lower half cocoon”, she spoke. Annabelle smashed the two tendrils to the side, then hooked her blade underneath one of it and suddenly yanked her weapon back. The tendril was cut clean and a human cry for pain rang out. For a second Tharia thought it had been Annabelle, but the face in the cocoon grew more defined. It was clear enough for Annabelle to see and target. She could, however, not reach it with her swings as she really only had room for vertical attacks and the weird human-like face was rather in the middle of the large cocoon. Annie simply turned the scythe and then rammed the handle into the face. Again and then yet another time until the tendrils too stopped moving.

Tharia then quickly closed up to her friend and placed both hands on her back. She let part of the divine flame flicker over to repair any small damage Annabelle might have incurred but Annabelle was physically alright, just out of breath.

The human girl then knelt down next to the cocoon and took a closer look at the face. Upon second glance, it was nothing like a human. There were the rudimentary details but it mostly looked like something had painted a face without having any knowledge of anatomy. That was taking into account that Annabelle had restructured the whole thing with her weapon.

“I already hate these things”, Tharia whispered quietly and looked up at her friend. Annabelle directed her stoneface at the open road before them and the massive mansion behind it. This really was a much more affluent district yet money hadn’t protected it from the infestation of monstermoths.

“Let’s just pick a different route. Good thing we don’t have to pass here”, Tharia finally said and wiped the sweat off her brow. Annabelle, however, didn’t reply. She was once more openly showing her emotions and they were in complete chaos. Tharia looked back and forth between the mansion and her friend until she finally saw the golden plate marking the owner: ‘Eleanor Zuresti’.

“Oh, come on!”

End: House of the Inspired | Coming up: Faint of heart