The Chorrol Community Contest 2013 Entry Thread Options

[Colonel Mustard]

Voting is now closed. Do not send me more votes, you peons.

First of all, to make this as obvious as possible:

DO NOT POST IN THIS THREAD!! AT ALL!

Thank you

Now, I'm posting all of the stories up anonymously, and will be taking votes for the next two weeks. Since everyone found the whole timezone thing confusing, to make it as simple as possible voting closes the moment your day becomes the 19th of April. Send your votes to me via PM, and I'll keep a running tally up here.

Also, as I was going for a final shortlist of five stories, I've decided that as only six were entered in the end, I'm posting up all six of them as it just seems like a bit of a dick move to leave one person's entry out in the cold.


Winstad Manor votes: 3
Ang Anghel at ang Demonio votes: 2
A Question of Guilt votes: 2
The Tenth Divine votes: 2
Absolution votes: 2

Good luck to all contestants!

This post has been edited by Colonel Mustard: Apr 20 2013, 07:27 PM

[Colonel Mustard]

Entry 2

Ang Anghel at ang Demonio
(Sinner's Gospel)
***********************************************

"Oh, you were like a glass statuette of a faceless ballerina, pirouetting mindlessly atop the shinedown glories of this flithy world.
Your audience were the petty heavens and the stars themselves, and you taught the gods Beauty,
The glass-jaw fragility of this chainsaw mercury flapping its wings
as mortality. Like Icarus, you'd burn and melt when you met me.
Yes. It catches you well, my dear.
You are as unholy as an upside down pentagram,
a pentateuch of all that is gone,
a five part epic of perfection gone wrong,
And as beautiful as hypothermia,
in a hyponitizing dance of hazy ideals,
half-blind truths and quakey promises that should be crucified
and nailed down, or all of it'll go away, and we're back to square one,
coughing out phlegm and philosophies
of how cruel and cold this world is.
Or maybe the world is a victim too,
and we were the ones who made it that way..?"
**************************************

"I planned on keeping my job a secret until we were wed, you know. By that time, you and I would be adults, and the Folsing Daune wouldn't have any use for middle-aged footsoldiers. Wed be burn out from what we saw and did, they think, and the Commission'd be worried that we might get some funny ideas. Funny ideas like morality, conscience, guilt, all those sweet tonics that we drink to help sleep the nights through."

In the copper hills of southern High Rock, where the clear Illiac shines agold from the magnificence of Magnus in a hot summer's day, ten wily miles west from the city of Wayrest there stands the lonely vigil of a villa's alabaster walls, surrounded from three sides by forest trees, on the final one the loping descent to flat land. It was young and newly built, this home. The uncracked smoothness of the foundations, shining untouched by the passage of time, and the way of its structure had a peculiar magick from its architect. Clear and clean thought it may, first and foremost it was unassuming and plain, with no further machinations of grandeur upon it. When one's eyes got over it, it would be irresistibly drawn to the gate and entrance, a thing of metal beauty and ingenuity, and that was the magic. For in the grandiloquency of the gate, there lies the royal exertion of the humble architect's creative imagination, and the skill from his hands of which he has wrought it to existence.

In the sleek, black iron metal work, angels and demons fly about each other, in an unknown dance realixed only by these fickle entities. Broken curses scorches the air along with the flames from the hellspawn, fluttered feathers falling down as angels descends down to contest them with sword and spear and shield. In the center of this confrontation lies the sleeping head of an unknown god, oblivious to the cancerous clamor around him, dreaming dreams only a dead god would. It's mouth was open, and from the toothless maw, the handle of the battling gate, taking the form of a dragon eating its own tail.

Past this gate and this unknown war of angels and demons, one would walk in a paved road towards the large steps that lead inside to the innards of a three-storey mansion. This paved road, dotted by cobblestones imported from the city Anvil, was colorized with the hues of pomegranate reds and lavender's blue from the flowers beside it. This field of rubies and lapis-lazuli gave the air a fragrance of orchidal refreshment, and calmed the hearts of those who tread in its multi-hued shadow.

Tread the path of flowers, and lead yourself towards the large steps, ascending to the oaken doors that lead inside....

"Hey, remember the time when we went to Chivauch's party? Athanasiel got so drunk with that Morrowind stuff she threw up all over Timsis and the other guests! That was real funny, yeah? She never really did hold her liquor well, and she'd flap her mouth about things she shouldn't have, particulary after we did a... hit. Maybe that's why we found her body later that year, her two mouths sewn shut."

*


The decor of the lobby was grand and boastful about the owner's wealth, but those accustomed to the novelty of riches and fashions could clearly see that this was an amateur's hallmark, a man of nouveau riche backgrounds trying to emulate those old monies and bloodlines of High Rock. But no matter the voyeuristic plagiarism, the expensive taunt did its job well, with the positioning of sleek, black furnitures pioneering a contrasting image with its alabaster floor. Curtains and chandeliers retailed from ancient castles dominated the upper part and the glass windows respectively, taking light from the outside and giving the lobby a red and draconian look. Another magic here; the decor is grand, but left feeling inadequate, and once one's eyes sweep over it, it would drawn to the royal stairs that ascends left and right, with a fountain of a lion inlaid with white gold and ebony at the center, watching over the household with imperious eyes and a mouth ready to let loose roar. This was the greatest of the owner's treasures, having it specially crafted to fit in with the overall decor of the mansion.

Ascend further to the third floor.....

"This one time, we were ordered by the Commission Elders themselves about a personal favor. Can you believe it? The biggest fishes in the underworld asked US, of all people, to take care of a request from them! We were just friends back then, and the whole group was still complete..."

The third flooronly has one room. The master bedroom. There was nothing special about this particular room, save for the Breton sitting on a king-sized bed, talking to his wife with a red eyed conviction of a confessor. The man was young, in his early to mid twenties, and had an angular face that anguished at every words he said. His whole appearance was dishevelled, hair unkepmt and beard untraced, and the reek of strong spirits fermated from him staggeringly. His wife, a crystalline woman with the ageless beauty of western High Rock, was his polar opposite. Whereas his was untraceable in a crowd, hers was the grand work of the Gods on the subject of beauty. Her golden tresses curled invitingly to behold her. her blue eyes the tantamount testament of innocence, fragile as glass. As was said before, she had the ageless beauty of the elven-touchd bloodlines of West High Rock, where the ancient Nede joined with the Elves to form the Bretons of today.

She listened to her husband, without words to convey what she felt, so shocked from the revelation was she.

"What they asked of us was simple enough, at first. The usual 'show-them-a-message' type."

A world-weary sigh, as sad as an impotent animal caught in a trap, heedless of how to get out.

"That favor might as well came from the Daedra themselves. The mark was a rogue politician, a hardboil that refused to give the usual tithes and protection. I can still hear that old man's wheezing laugh. 'Make this one especially grisly, boys. As grisly as can be.' Fools that we were, and sycophantic lickspittles besides, we bowed our heads and promised that we would."

Still no words from his wife. He continued.

"Promises... I learned the hard way. Never make promises. At all. We're too cruel to see it through. It'll destroy you in return. What a mistake..."

Wiped a tear from an irritated eye, and a dangerously long swig from a bottle of strong spirits.

"So we went over to the mark's house, posing as new servants. The Commission already had feelers there for a long time, and we got in without a hitch."

A hiccup and his voice was broken. Hrash, grating, rough from both liquor and self-hatred. A hopeless stare to his wife, who still hasn't spoken.

"It was his daughter's birthday. A private affair, not too many guests apart from family, but even then, so few, so less. I said to Titus that maybe we should pull off and hit him another day, even Alennus agreed, but... We would've paid the price, Titus said. We would've paid the price and it was better that it should be him, rather than all of us. And I .. I backed off and didn't say a word when we moved in but gods know I SHOULD'VE, I SHOULD'VE but I didn't! I didn't! Because I was afraid and greedy and I didn't want to die, not in the hands of the Commission, not with those monsters...."

He was weeping openly now, digging deep in the guarded closet of his heart, a closet full of dark secrets that gave him a miasma until now, until now when he opened it and let the bad out. His wife, now too, wept with him. Shining diamond tears from a crystalline face. Even in sorrow was she ever so beautiful.

"I saw what the Commission could do to muck-ups, Elenna, and I was afraid for myself, and I didn't even.... We... Titus and the.... 'Especially grisly, boys...' Elenna."

The utterance of his wife's name, an alien on his tongue. Strange, oh so strange, but painfully familliar. Like an infant gazing into his mother's eyes and saying the words, 'mama.' Intimately instinctual.

"We crucified them all, Elenna. 'A message so severe it would dominate without swords.' We crucified them all. Even .... even the child."

An explosion from the revelation of the deed that marked him an everlasting monster. The confession was done with the cold charisma of the indifferent damned, and the eyes that spoke sorrow now cleared, and the wife stared at him, shocked as if by the very gods themselves. An explosion from the revelation.

"It was a safety guarantee, Titus said to us. No witnesses. No one left alive. And of course, 'as grisly as can be.' And the Commission wouldn't be worried now that the daughter wouldn't seek reve-,"

The wife had started screaming, screaming incoherently and sharplu, a sonic torture from one so crystalline and beuaty. For him, it was a condemnation. A rebuke. A rejection of forgiveness. He expected that their vows of love towards each other would've stood upo to his secrets, since secrets were the poison of relationships, but he should've known better. He wept.

Now came the needless and boneless justification for a deed so dark.

"B-but, I promised my-myself that th-the mon-money fro-from the favor wo-would be use-used for BETTER THINGS! LIKE YOU!"

The wretched feeling of damnation gave way to rage, and soon enough, the whole mansion was shaking with both the terrified wailling of Elenna and the loud vents of her husband.

"I DID THAT TO SECURE OUR FUTURE! I DID THAT BECAUSE I LOVED YOU! I NAILED THAT GIRL TO A CROSS AND SLIT HER FATHER'S THROAT BECAUSE I WANTED TO ... to.... to..."

He crashed his head against hers, and he held her in place, keeping their temples locked together. His voice, rough and husky, silent and damned, found the helpless words again. He wiped the tears from her already-bruised face, noting how the abuse he gave her earlier was fast on showing its marks, and Elenna gave a muffled cry of protest from the gag in her mouth, trying to clear away but unable too, bondaged and cuffed into place as she was.

".. make you happy, Elenna, my dear, dear Elenna..."

He dragged a serpentine tongue on her welted cheek and tasted the blood and salt on her crystalline face. The hand that kept her locked descended on her throat, and tightened like a hangman's noose, tight and air-tight as the current condition his heart was in. He realixed that he was whispering.

"I love you so much that I'm willing to do things like that again and again and again and again. For you. You're mine, and I'm yours. I was genuine when I said those useless vows on the altar; how about you, love? Were you genuine when you said that you'd accept me for who I am, that you'd stick with me through it all. Lies. Liar. This is why I never make promises."

He stood up and gave her ribs a spiteful kick, flattening her against the wall. To the side of the bloodied bed, covered in between the sheets, lay the corpse of a man so savaged and so mauled it looked like he was attacked by a rabid pack of wolves. He went ot the body and retrieved its head, ruined so much it was a messy pulp, held only by the smashed links of flesh and bones. He threw the piece of cadaver to the lap of Elenna, who stared at it in silence, wetting and wasting herself in pure terror.

"HOW COULD YOU, ELENNA?! HOW COULD YOU BETRAY ME?! I was loyal to you! I was willing to kill just to make you smile! How could you?! In all my life, you're the only miracle I had, the only reason I had to keep on going, and now I find you sleeping with a man on OUR BED?! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU! I SWEAR TO THE SIXTEEN THEMSELVES I HATE YOU!"

The muscles on the knees gave way, heart pounding, blood rushing in his veins, a raging inferno. All around him, he saw only red. The most reddest of them all was Elenna, a goddess from above, looking at him with a blue stare of infinite sorrow and fear. As he fell to the ground, he wanted nothing more than to rip her to shreds. He crawled towards her, and laid his head upon her lap.

"... Gods above, I love you. How could you do this, Elenna? What the hell did I ever do to take all of these punishments from you? I'm so tired."

He stood up.

After he had murdered Elenna's new lover, Kelros made sure that every part of the mansion, the legacy he built on blood and murder just for her, was doused in oil and other inflammable substances. Along the way, he had ruined everything he could on sight, erasing the memories he had with Elenna, smashing the records and traces of what they had. He stared at his wife, at his ultimare destroyer. He didn't want to believed it. But there it was. The final strike. From her. He retrieved a flask of oil, intimately carved with angels and demons, and studied it for a whole minute.

His eyesight was blurred from the tears again, so he didn't see clearly.

Who was the demon and who was the angel in this?

In the end, he decided as he poured oil on both himself and Elenna. It didn't matter.

Only the fires would remain, their long-standing testament.

Kelros lighted a candle.

He dropped it.

Watched as the upright mass of wax danced a soliloquy in dark gravity, singing a sin all the way down.

The fire, with a pounce, ate him and his wife and their mansion and whatever what was left.

Time took Kelros to another place, catching his lesion laced eternity in a singular instant and showing it to sightless eyes. A boon. And a passing mirror to reflect upon those golden days of the past before the sweet slide into nothingness.

***

"I never really understood the part in church," comely Alennus was saying, waving a fork about with a spongy slice of applecake stabbed on it. "Where you join hands together and sing some hoo-has like a bunch of idiots. I like singing, but why join hands? Guy next beside me could be diseased or something you know."

Athanasiel laughed that ashen laugh of hers, a sound of scraping nails against a board of metal. But it had a certain twink about it, and soon her lover Chivauch joined in, this time a gentle and dignified chuckle. On the farther side of the table, was Titus, imposing and imperious as a lion, an omnipresent disdain on his face. The Imperial looked at the Bosmer and sniffed, his voice unusually mild and tempered in contrast to his brute image.

"It signifies that the church-goers are one voice when giving praise to the deity they worship. And people wash their hands with the holy waters and annointments before entering in."

Alennus cringed at him.

"A public washing facility-"

"No, a cleansing fountain."

"-eek, that's kinda dirty. Never know when someone jerked off-"

Kelros groaned and cut the elf off before he could finish his unruly opinion.

"Why don't you just shut up and eat," he said to him.

The others nodded their agreement. Alennus was forced to comply sulkily.


How he missed those days of true companionship.....

****

The rain hadn't stopped, and over the weeks, it gradually became stronger and harsher until all of High Rock was harried to the bone with a sharp punishment of cruel gales and blade-like rain. On the coastal streets of Wayrest, where none tread, there walked a lone figure, becloaked against the elements, marching with a grim purpose in his steps. He weaved upon mazes of alleyways and crooked niches, descending into squallid slums until his resolutes found themselves stopping in front of a ramshackle hut, barely supported by a series of rotten wood.

The doorway was small and poorly maintained, and he could've easily knocked it down with but a push, but he elected to suffer the rending rain and knocked, loud enough to be heard over the clamor from the clouds, but gentle enough not to be seen desperate. Sharp ears picked up a shuffle, and seconds later he was pulled by razor-thin hands. surprised by the strength from such frail-looking limbs.

The ageless beauty of Elenna stared at him, a questioning look on those eyes of her, but Kelros found the delighted quirks struggling on her lips to be changed into a full-grown grin at his arrival. She made her voice sound harsh, but once again, he could hear the undertones that she was happy to see him.

"Fool," she had said. "You're soaking wet! And I just cleaned the rugs too!"

Kelros fought back a grin and etched an innocent look on his face as he glanced below. Several rats' furs, sewn together to enlargen the whole pack, was indeed more whiter than the usual grey tone it took, and it had a fluffy look too.

"Pshaw! You call that clean?"

He whirled to face her, and she was a painting of an angel with a background fit for the lowliest beggar behind her.

"My grandma's nickers are cleaner than this during her perio- gwack!"

The breath in his lungs gave way and he let out an 'oomph' as Elenna charged at him, glomping him with such force he was knocked on the rotten floor. She was laughing as she held him down, mounting him and looking down at him with a wide smile. He reached out to cup her cheeks before he rose to kiss her gently. He then laid her beside him, playing with her hair, and she with his, burying themselves with the comfort provided by the other's company.

They stayed there for some time, just enjoying the warmth. Eventually Kelros spoke, a contradicting confidence with hesitation on his voice.

"Elenna, I have to ask you something. Real important, so I want a serious and honest answer."

Ruffled by her lover's uncharacterisically grim tone of voice, Elenna stood on her elbows and looked at him, uneasy and wary.

"What is it? Is it something about Tyclen and the other pimps? I already told you, I qui-"

Kelros shushed her with a finger on her quaking lips.

"Its not that... No.."

For reassurance, he gave her forehead a kiss.

"Its about our home."

He gestured to their dillapitated home, bare and downtrodden save for the basic necessities and some stolen item of vanity here and there.

"What about it, love?"

From the folds of his heavy and soaked cloaked, Kelros pulled out a bulging sack easily the size of a grown man's fist. Elenna eyed it warily, unsure and unsteady, but willing to indulge him. He drew the cover and up-ended the contents on the ground beside them. Gems upon gems, coins upon coins. An amount that could easily enriched a whole neighborhood.

"I got a job, love. A well-paying job at last. Things have finally looken up!"

In her joy, she hadn't noticed the tremble in his lips, the quaking regret on his eyes, and the fact that the sack had some traces of blood on it. If she inspected the robes further, she would've found a bloodied hammer and knife, instrument of a deed that would haunt them for the rest of their lives.

This post has been edited by Colonel Mustard: Apr 11 2013, 03:10 PM