1. The vacuum of time.
2. Terror in the night.
3. Flashes of euphoria. Jim

He thinks yeah, if he focusses, he can hear it all.

A couple smokes fags and talks about rock stars. Harmless. He almost wants to pop over and bum one off them just for the shock value but they'd probably scream.

A man walks by himself. Dangerous. Jim follows behind him for a while until the guy swaggers inside. He's not going to break and enter just because a bloke feels wrong.

A gun and the man holding it glint at a woman with red rimmed eyes. Back to work. The woman doesn't thank him but the guy squeaks.

And when the nights are quiet he can climb up the sides of buildings and watch the city side by side with the gargoyles.

4. Dancing with the devil.
5. Fatal accident.
6. Haunting melody.
7. Black ice.
8. Breathtaking reality.
9. Sensation of loss.
10. Shooting star.
11. Broken spirit.
12. Central power.
13. Left behind.
14. Unguarded touch.
15. Last time.
16. Dying sun.
17. Devastating explosion.
18. Alone in a crowd.
19. Fragmented truths.
20. Gaping chasm. - Candy

They're all alike these men with cold sweats and limp dicks who wrap their arms around her afterward and pretend this moment mattered. Topaz had a soft spot for them but not her, never her, she sees them for the delusional creatures they are and she cannot feel anything but bile when she looks at them.

The one she's got now had been sobbing quietly into her shoulder. That would be fine for all the things that would need to be re-cleaned but he pushes his luck. "What's your name?"

Candy mentally rolls her eyes but her face only freezes into a motherly look of amusement as she tells him the answer for the third time.

"No, I mean your real name," he insists with a kiss to her collar bone. He paid for her time so she does not explain to him exactly where he can put his assumptions. Candy is her name. There was no one left who knew her any other way. So she teases the moment back into her control and distracts him with the threat of magic taken away too soon before returning into his embrace with a giggle her people would recognize as fake. He's disappointed but he doesn't really care, he only thinks he does, and the articles of clothing removed push him to forget.

He sees but he doesn't comprehend.

21. Arise from the ashes.
22. What lies beyond forever?
23. Remember me.
24. Flash of lightning.
25. Suffer the agony.
26. Immortal laughter.
27. A whisper on the wind.
28. This world was never meant for one as beautiful as you.
29. The calm before the storm.
30. A life of lies.
31. The winds of change.
32. The hand of fate.
33. Desperate plea.
34. Nightmare.
35. Bound by iron.
36. Caught in the act.
37. Sensual command.
38. Close your eyes.
39. Beyond the horizon.
40. Finality.
41. And it is beautiful.
42. Lie to me.
43. Tarnished.
44. I covet you.
45. Caress the darkness, kiss the light.
46. Screaming silence.
47. One dream, one lifetime.
48. Fleeting flame.
49. Gasping confession.
50. Betrayal.

51. Uncontrollable wrath.
52. Dragons in the shadows.
53. Natural disaster.
54. Leap of faith.
55. Faceless and nameless.
56. Harsh revelation.
57. A path to follow.
58. The power of goodbye.
59. Through a child's eyes.
60. One final look back.
61. Smoldering heart.
62. Ignored instinct.
63. Seductive danger.
64. Jumbled truths.
65. Shallow grave.
66. Why they call it falling.
67. Volcano.
68. Dying land.
69. A child's truth.
70. Fire and storm.
71. Chained to mortality.
72. Dim as an ember.
73. Acid tears.
74. Unexpected emptiness.
75. Miraculous relief.
76. Letting go.
77. What Earth once was.
78. Frantic search.
79. Tragic moment.
80. Beneath the smiles.
81. Across the worlds.
82. In the still of the night.
83. Counting years.
84. How you suffered for your sanity.
85. Surrender to despair.
86. Ring of sunlight.
87. Creaking cold.
88. Serenity incarnate.
89. Beloved sin.
90. Enfold your heart in mine.
91. Shard of honor.
92. Horrific distortion.
93. Miraculous ruin.
94. Leap into my arms.
95. Bewildered madness.
96. Ravenous time.
97. Approaching doom.
98. Eternal danger.
99. Vacant arch.
100. Recoil.

101. Intentional suffering.
102. Urban legend.
103. Gentle warmth.
104. Rippling tide.
105. Fallen haze.
106. That's all I ask of you. Ophelia & Nina
Ophelia
Ophelia
Ophelia

Wake up.

I want to play bloody bingo
on the benches outside
I want to make movies
where the blood splatters
so realistically
that no one believes
it's blood at all.

I want to grind flowers
into the asphalt
so they grow twisted vines
great and green into London
where they'll wither and die
before anyone notices
that they were there
and that they mattered.

I want to fuck God out
of mortal imagination
and-

Shush?

I'm not going fucking anywhere.
You're no fun anymore.
Murderer. Whore. Ugly. Stupid.
Your 'friends'?
They hate you.
They're just too noble to admit it.

It's your birthday again
and we will celebrate you
with candles that burn
or people that scream
or maybe both!
Or neither.

I forget which.

Because that's why.

Because.

You're not paying enough attention to me.

I just want-

Oh, Ophelia.

Come closer and see.
107. Think of me.
108. Promise me.
109. A white rose.
110. Weary wanderer.
111. Ghost of a rose.
112. Fire.
113. Enchanting surrender.
114. Cowering sunrise.
115. Deliverance.
116. Resisting temptation.
117. Leaves of amber.
118. A shining road that leaves me all alone.
119. Heart of a child.
120. Don't scream.
121. Kiss the hand that feeds you.
122. Mysterious stranger.
123. One heart, one breath.
124. The truth about forever.
125. Ragged hunger.
126. Don't look away.
127. Lost soul.
128. Wandering spirit.
129. Touched by an angel.
130. Shattered reflections.
131. For the sake of sin.
132. Ripple effect.
133. Don't you dare.
134. You can't do that!
135. There will always be a monster.
136. Intimate embrace.
137. It's too late.
138. Cabin by the sea.
139. Guardian.
140. Amusingly inconsequential.
141. Unbroken illusion.
142. Stealth forsaken.
143. Of blood and honor.
144. As the wind kindles the fire.
145. Mysterious memories.
146. A song of sweet forgiveness.
147. Resonating hunger.
148. Relinquished radiance.
149. Transcendent joy.
150. Silent watcher.

151. When eyes believe in mysteries.
152. To love a storm.
153. Sweet nothings.
154. Unfinished tale.
155. Endless night.
156. Suffocating silence.
157. You must hold what you cannot keep.
158. You must fear what you cannot know.
159. You must fear what you cannot speak.
160. Ancient willow.
161. Off the map.
162. Deserted riverbank.
163. You must sow what you cannot reap.
164. A walk along the shore.
165. A valley of echoes.
166. Purity.
167. Fire and ash.
168. Secret bonding.
169. A time for tenderness.
170. Sleeping storm.
171. Islands in the sky.
172. Unheeded warning.
173. Battling oblivion.
174. Spellbound.
175. Blameless.
176. Tempting enigma.
177. Compassion's shadow.
178. Gently stirring.
179. I hate love.
180. Irresistible coercion.
181. No excuses offered.
182. Tumbling clouds.
183. Blue mists.
184. When history repeats itself.
185. Seek and find.
186. Memories unfurling in the mind.
187. Nothing lost, nothing gained.
188. Delicious tragedy.
189. The in between.
190. Into the river.
191. You're only sleeping.
192. What can you see?
193. Calling you home.
194. Into the world of night.
195. Somewhere.
196. Lamentation.
197. The moment.
198. Suddenly.
199. Childhood's end.
200. Broken weapon.

201. Gazing upon the sky with dampened eyes.
202. Vast horizons.
203. Entrapment.
204. Quaking knees.
205. Memory of a dream.
206. Dangerous illusion.
207. In the hands of a child.
208. Outrageous superstitions.
209. Guilty morals.
210. Fragile as a dream
211. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
212. Portal.
213. Fall from grace.
214. Balance of power.
215. Out of sight, out of mind.
216. Diamond in the rough.
217. The essence of life.
218. No hope was left in sight.
219. Desire, ask, believe, receive.
220. A fate worse than death.
221. The razor's edge.
222. Reach for the stars.
223. Touch me.
224. Unrequited.
225. Perhaps they never will.
226. Laughter forbidden.
227. Starved for affection.
228. Between a rock and a hard place.
229. No man is an island.
230. Vengeance.
231. Rough hands.
232. Mystery.
233. After tonight.
234. Farewell.
235. And the edges blur.
236. One thousand promises.
237. A broken sensitivity.
238. A curling shadow.
239. A darker pride.
240. A deluge of dancers.
241. To carry you along.
242. A four leaf clover.
243. A golden shield.
244. A love remembered.
245. A lustful lie.
246. A magical time.
247. Down the silent river.
248. With Heaven's love at stake and hell to pay.
249. Worth losing you forever.
250. A story never to be told.

251. All sorts of complicated.
252. The tears of God.
253. Alone I crumble.
254. Defying gravity.
255. No one mourns the wicked.
256. Die alone.
257. Asleep at dawn.
258. Heart's assassin.
259. Based on a dream.
260. Once upon a December.
261. Before the next tear falls.
262. The beginning of goodbye.
263. A lonely tomorrow.
264. Beneath the blue.
265. Better left unsaid.
266. Thoroughly ravished.
267. Beyond the universe.
268. Black and white.
269. Blood and moon.
270. Blood feud.
271. Bribing the Devil.
272. Broken promises.
273. False gold.
274. By midnight's favor.
275. By the light of a million stars.
276. Castles in the sky.
277. Catastrophe in the making.
278. Creeping nightmare.
279. Crimson bloom.
280. Crown of ivy.
281. Call of the wild.
282. Darkness becomes you.
283. Dawn of night.
284. Dawning upon a crimson ruin.
285. To flatter death.
286. Demon tongue.
287. And it is terrible.
288. Fighting destiny.
289. Burning star.
290. Do you remember the end?
291. Oath bound.
292. When innocence meets its death.
293. Tossing pennies to the moon.
294. Soul's surrender.
295. Edge of sanity.
296. Candy-coated dreams.
297. Equinox rising.
298. Ethereal.
299. Swelter.
300. Exquisite and unforgivable.

301. Face down I cry.
302. Fallen fae.
303. Light step. - Ophelia & Em

To describe Em in words would be pointless- as far as Ophelia can tell through her rose-tinted glasses words are too limiting. She can never pick the perfect ones when there are not Mozart veins and Chausson fingers moving faster and faster to the beat of something she can't follow to figure. Nina gets to the heart of things (That one will be chewed up before she's spat out) but Ophelia can only, wait, watch, and dance when music presents itself- stepping lightly so her noise does not upset the song. There is a pulse to Haven and while she follows Gryffs moods she follows Ems beat. Ophelia closes her eyes and follows that which she can twirl to. When Em plays she can imagine they are all better this way.

304. Faery-eyed child.
305. Slow burn.
306. A childhood dream.
307. Fields of dust.
308. Final breath.
309. Reaching for eternity.
310. Flames of twilight.
311. For the child I will sing.
312. Serenade the sea.
313. Lost beginning.
314. Forgotten, not forgiven.
315. Fractured reality.
316. Fragile heart.
317. Angels among us.
318. Haunting lonely pools.
319. Portrait in black.
320. Approaching Flood.
321. Cloak of darkness.
322. Wandering hidden paths.
323. Twilight's selfish shade.
324. The tattered, the torn.
325. Invisible defender.
326. Dashed against a rock.
327. I miss who you were.
328. Kisses of a night terror.
329. Two days from now.
330. I wish upon tonight.
331. Tragic sin.
332. If looks could kill.
333. Illuminated darkness.
334. Speak softly to the eastern wind.
335. Shatter the moon.
336. Unfathomable truth.
337. Shackles of the mind.
338. Growing fonder.
339. A time to grieve.
340. Fire in your eyes.
341. Tales of long ago.
342. Crave.
343. Whisper of the wind.
344. Hold still, I'm trying to kill you.
345. Breath of the devil.
346. The innocent can never last.
347. Too wide to cross.
348. Desperate times, desperate measures.
349. Beautiful friendship.
350. In the shade of a Sycamore.

351. Samhain.
352. Midsummer.
353. Intoxicating.
354. Island of light.
355. It ends tonight.
356. Quarter moon.
357. Night of fire.
358. Knowledge in death, wisdom in immortality.
359. Harbor.
360. White wings.
361. A beacon of hope.
362. Like shattered glass.
363. Killing moon.
364. Bless the union.
365. Only by candlelight.
366. Silent sentry.
367. Beyond the shattered pane.
368. To lose what wasn't yours.
369. Blood and tears.
370. Lost island.
371. Garden path.
372. Mint and lilac.
373. Fountains of roses.
374. Mother Earth's last stand.
375. To say goodbye.
376. Horizon's meeting.
377. Breathtaking innocence.
378. Perilous stranger.
379. Lost in dreams.
380. Iron gate.
381. Crystal statue.
382. Treachery runs deep.
383. Warped.
384. Disenchanted.
385. Laughing at the moon.
386. Blind-sided.
387. Future's past.
388. Supernova.
389. Whispers in the dark.
390. Letters from nowhere.
391. The one no one sees.
392. You are everything.
393. Passionate desires.
394. Remnants of darkness.
395. The bitterness of mortality.
396. Too much to hold.
397. Sit with me.
398. You raise me up.
399. Miracle.
400. Trusting soul.

401. Twilight surrender.
402. When love turns to hate.
403. Lost and alone.
404. When the river runs dry.
405. Lapping at the shores of sleep.
406. Landing among the stars.
407. Touch the moon.
408. When stillness descends.
409. On the brink of forever.
410. Clinging to the edge of control.
411. Abandoned resistance.
412. Life companion.
413. Heart within the eyes.
414. When forever fades away.
415. Grave acceptance.
416. Over the rainbow.
417. Falling from a cloud.
418. Time and space.
419. Sunrise upon a soul.
420. Prisms of a fragmented whole.
421. Unexplored cavern.
422. Disembodied voices.
423. Dancing beneath the moon.
424. Alighting on the water.
425. Gliding on glass.
426. A tale rewritten.
427. Exiled child.
428. Sacrificed child.
429. I'll try violence.
430. Who named the stars?
431. Mysterious beyond.
432. Ocean's tears.
433. Siren's song.
434. Sea bed.
435. Living nightmare.
436. Bound by silence.
437. A twinkle in the night.
438. A waking slumber.
439. A soul divided.
440. Speak not the secret you bear.
441. Abandoned by fate.
442. A far green country.
443. Attacked by a dream.
444. Caressed by a nightmare.
445. The ravages of time.
446. Ancient tale.
447. Faces in the clouds.
448. Ripped apart.
449. From better to worse.
450. The space between. Nina & Ophelia

Ophelia is. Nina was. Nina will be.

Ophelia is Nina but Nina is not Ophelia.

Sometimes they talk openly at night; their voices never speak at once but they dance in and out of her throat. Ophelia hopes no one notices. Nina smiles and chatters louder.

They watch the Watchmen and Nina practically screams at the screen in glee.

A man with no face (Ophelia felt bad for him, very bad, but more so for the little girl who made him that way) states facts she's taken for granted. "None of you understand. I'm not locked up in here with you. You're locked up in here with me."

Nina purrs and oozes her satisfaction out into every section of mind she can wrap her claws around. Ophelia's nose is bleeding. She doesn't quite know when it started but her face is covered in blood.

Sometimes she simply stares at herself in the mirror. She looks exactly the same as she she always does. Then Ophelia sees a lava red glint in her eyes and she turns away, but away is just deeper inside.

451. Look beyond.
452. Edge of the knife.
453. A human voice.
454. Dream the impossible.
455. Forgotten roads.
456. Petals on the wind.
457. A bitter pill.
458. Another fine mess.
459. The life inside.
460. Still crossroads.
461. Frozen bridges.
462. Fear of the fall.
463. Dear heart.
464. Severed tension.
465. A child's path.
466. Imitation of life.
467. Behind the mirror.
468. Through the fire.
469. Echoes of bondage.
470. Freedom in chains.
471. Last regrets.
472. Unheard of.
473. Hidden tales.
474. Disowned.
475. Frozen fire.
476. White shores.
477. Lights out.
478. Liquid sunset.
479. Silver glass.
480. When words fail.
481. A death of a thousand screams.
482. Those who do not remember the past.
483. When laughter's lost in peaceful silence.
484. The sands of time.
485. When death's lips left mine. - Armand

It's the same thing once every year.

He consulted the others and most can't possibly imagine what he means. There are a few who look as if perhaps they'd turn pale if they could but those disappear the second he brings up the topic of conversation.

Once a year however, if he acknowledges it or not, a woman appears to him at midnight. She could not be older that Clyde but she is older than time itself. She is every nightmare he's ever had and every waking moment he's ever lived. The dichotomy annoys him.

She holds out her hand.

The second year it happened he put a list into her hand of all the peoples of interest she'd have better luck with. She took the list with a shadowy sort of smile but did not pursue it further.

The third year he attempted conversation. She was unmoved.

The fourth year he took her hand and spun her around his office. She laughed as they waltzed and left a spider web kiss on his cheek.

There was a bruise where her lips touched.

Nothing to be concerned about.

486. Cataclysm.
487. Messenger.
488. When worlds collide.
489. A mortal's forever.
490. When tomorrows run out.

I'm late to the party- but why not. All my current characters are on the table and if you want to throw in any unmentioned old ones that's a ok too. ♥