astrapocalypse

In the shadowed night of a kingdom known for its bright lights and big top delights writhes the form of a hideous and many-eyed behemoth. Its shape is a familiar one-- albeit a significantly larger one than the knee high critter she’s accustomed to-- and Clerise is confident that her quarry, despite its horrible visage, is no match for the likes of her. It’s decided to invade her personal domain, after all, and she’s one to let potential threats slide, even if the thing hasn’t yet made contact with the landscape of her sprawling circus home. Other stygian may have wondered why a titanic abysseel was wandering in the wild, but not Clerise. It’s easier to strike first and think later, if she bothered to think about it at all. Cliche as it may be, all that she cares about in this moment is the thrill of a hunt. The opportunity to prove who was the real apex predator around these parts. The chance to spill aether into the air and all of its wispy glory. Clerise’s laugh echos through

Deep within the Labyrinth, something stirred. This, of course, was not unusual: the Labyrinth was nothing if not a thing of perpetual motion, a neverending symphony of chaos played in a splendorous and discordant key. Its Floors were many and its oddities were more, and if you asked him, The Eleventh Hour was rather proud of having and *being* exemplary examples of them both. Not that anyone had asked him any*thing* for quite some time; until this very moment, he had been in the midst of a pleasant nap, its duration impossible to determine. Time was so hard to gauge from within the walls of the Labyrinth, and The Eleventh Hour rarely quibbled over its finer points when he roused. (He was, after all, going to be late regardless.) Instead of concerning himself with such things, The Eleventh Hour simply sighed a contented sigh and unfurled into his leviathan shape. Matte black scales and a golden spine gleamed beneath a falling curtain of candles, and for a moment he basked in the

As sure as he sensed their descent into W?nd?rl?nd, so too does The Eleventh Hour sense the reverse for each and every visitor that chooses to leave in that natural way. They've learned all they can from the rustling leaves of the hedge maze, from the siren ring of a room bleeding red, from a throne handmade and empty-- and now it is time for their ascent. They rise from deep within The Labyrinth-- like a bucket from the bottom of a deep, deep well, like amusement park balloons with cut strings flung into cloudless skies, like a single note ringing out clear and true into a breathless audience-- leaving behind the walls of his shared creation with knowledge anew. Knowledge to be tucked beneath their breast or cast aside without a second thought. A gift to be kept or to be squandered, as all gifts are. The Eleventh Hour turns this thought over and over in his head like a smooth riverstone as each visitor flickers briefly through the Fourteenth Floor on their way to the surface of

It is rather kind of the maze you walk to narrate to you the history of its design as you wander its paths. It leads you this way, and then that, and then this again, and you do not mind its repetitive nature. In fact, you marvel at the design of it, for it reminds you of your own home. How what you've constructed runs up against itself at its edges, at the limitations of your design. You can only code so far, and so much. The force of your exertion in a foreign realm can only go so far. As the narrator sings to you a song of how the creatures of this place reached into the core of themselves and built it brick by brick with their ichor and their blood, you can't help but wonder what that entails for a Stygian. You have not yet had the pleasure to nick a creature of Nightmare with a blade to see what occurs. Instead, you pluck a petal from a rose and deposit its curled slip of a form into a tube for later analysis, tucking it away into your coat. (That is the nature of diving, and

The scent of roses and the rustle of leaves unveil the painful secrets of a bygone era to Matka's waiting and open heart. It is only a shame that the narrating voice alongside it is as jarring as it is thunderous. Its words weave together a tapestry worthy of pity and great empathy in equal measure. Much like her and her compatriots of the Aetheneum, the residents of W?nd?rl?nd had vied for the precious gift of memory. They had wrestled with their nature-- and their home, and their prison-- in writhing twists and turns in the hopes of being Enough to disrupt the placid surface of recollections in the collective unconscious. A lost cause, it seemed, with how the L?byr?nth sunk lower and lower beneath the even the most dreadful depths of nightmares. Matka caresses a vibrant rose petal as though it were a kitten's chin. As though the maze were aware of her presence-- and with how the walls seem to shudder around her, she supposes it might be. The walls have eyes, and ears. The sky

Even the sights of the Mad Tea Alley are too loud for Matka's predilections. Buildings stretch towards an empty void of a heavy, blanketed sky, and the walls are covered in places with paint so fluorescent she finds it easiest to avert her eyes. Storefronts with closed doors litter its streets, and an empty table coaxing adornments and accompaniments beseech her assistance. All the while, a buzzing grows in the hollow of her throat, the whine and the hum of it not her own. Her footsteps do not echo as she traverses the narrow alleys, muffled by something as of yet unknown, drowned out by the siren song of nostalgic songs (although Matka has never heard their discordant tunes). She wants to settle down the cacophonous clamors of these unknown crowds, their blurry and eager voices too much for her untrained ears. Forward, the desires pull her, until the shadows of her slide from the cyan and magenta and cream of the alley into something-- Sharp. The walls close in, collapsing in