So some things happened.
And it's entirely Azure's fault.
God dammit Azure.
First thing's first, Dante's battle with Manny will play out over the course of the upcoming clan war between The Coils of Nehushtan and The Night Creatures.
And I have no idea how in the fuck we're going to score it. But we'll figure it out sooner or later, and if it comes to it we can just treat it like a spar.
Now- as for what that entails...
Acts IV and V of "reflections" - a short story page originally intended to fill the gap between the most recent Secret Santa event and the present day, have been removed from the page, and may or may not make their way to Dante's official canon. I would like to keep certain elements, events, and themes of these two story segments intact, but for now they are in a somewhat precarious position. For anyone interested in reading them, here's what would've been acts 4 and 5 of "reflections" :
:::8:04pm - home:::
It had been 31 days since Dante had been knocked out twice, slightly flame-broiled, and tortured when Dante decided he was, in the slightest bit, tired of simply resting.
“I’m going to go get a drink,” he said.
“What’s the worst that could happen,” he said.
:::11:11pm - the local bar:::
Dante had found himself a very nice looking pickaxe.
“This is a nice pickaxe,” Dante acknowledged.
:::8:04pm - home:::
Rhami and Astor gazed at Dante questioningly as he made his way to the door.
:::11:12pm - the local bar:::
“Why you thieving bitching fucking god damn sonuvabitch- that’s my god damned pickaxe, give it back!!!” Manny swore as his cloth body merely padded away at Dante’s moderately muscled abdomen.
“Hey, calm down little guy.” Dante chuckled. “I was just looking at it.”
:::8:05pm - home:::
Dante paused at the doorframe as the remainder of the minute passed him by. “You know," he smiled, "You two could still come along for this. We could spend the night out for once. Just the three of us.”
Rhami tapped him lightly on the shoulder and turned away. She didn’t meet his gaze.
:::11:13pm - the local bar:::
Manny had retrieved his pickaxe.
Soon it would be Manny’s turn to laugh.
:::2:34am - the walk home:::
Dante was nursing a hangover. It’d been a long night.
Dante wasn’t big on drinking, or not as much as he used to be, but when he did drink… well… he drank. Ever so carefully, and nursing wounds of which he had yet to place, he put one foot before the other, and walked down the road to home. The streets shifted before him, but he tracked their movements as best he could. As he did so, he thought back to the events of last night- mostly a blur, and searched for clues in the cuts and scrapes that littered his body.
He had a bad gash on his right knee, probably from falling on it. He had a mark on his elbow, which wasn’t bleeding, presumably coming from the same fall. His clothes were tattered- souvenirs from a drunken lover, he assumed-but beyond that he was… fine, save for a couple bruises to his abdomen, which he could barely feel at first.
And his knife, of course, was still on him; his precious donger. No amount of alcohol could part him from that. Checking first to see that no one was gazing at him, he unsheathed his precious.
Something was caught in his precious. Was it… hair?
No. It was cloth. He stepped aside to examine it. Whatever it was, it looked disgusting. And old. Had Dante tarnished his coveted in the disrobing of a potato sac?! Dante was unsettled. And sick. Dante needed a moment to lie down, and his bed was still a ways away. So Dante found an alleyway, and curled up next to a dumpster. The smell of garbage overwhelmed Dante and saddened him somewhat. He sensed banana peel merging with alfredo emanating from the dumpster, which only worsened his condition as Dante fought back a resurgence of past meals.
Eventually mustering the courage to face his fears, Dante reached into the dumpster, following a hunch. From experience, Dante knew that most dumpsters in towns like usually had a few half smoked cigarettes ripe for the taking, so long as you knew what you were looking for.
Dante found one. Nowhere near long enough to smoke, and a bit wet, but all Dante needed was the smell. Plucking a lighter from his back pocket (which he’d plucked from someone else’s front pocket) Dante cupped the butt of the cigarette in his iron palm and set it alight. Not a smoker himself, Dante at first cringed as he wafting the putrid smoke towards his nostrils. But with time, he allowed the smell to drift over him- through him, and to send him back to earlier that night in pursuit of a memory as foreign sounds began to echo in the area around him. He was running out of time.
He remembered a fire that had yet to be quelled. In one hand he held the lighter, and in another- his knife. He was kneeling down, and looking over something. Someone. It was speaking to him. Laughing.
Cigarettes were burning all around him, tiny flames shining like lanterns as their wielders looked over the man and his mess with an even bolder fire blasting away within their smoldering hearts.
“Stay down, Manny.” He spoke to the pile of tattered cloth.
As it stitched itself back together, it spoke back, and the line between past and present blurred. “Don’t... start...” it laughed,
¡¡¡ WHAT YOU CAN’T FINISH !!!
(((New Story Page Coming Soon)))
Note that I do still plan on adding to "reflections" at a later time, and do still hope to make "WHAT YOU CAN'T FINISH" its own story page as well. However, the themes for both and the distinction between them should hopefully become more apparent.
As for that clan war- it's all true, friendos. Dante will be joining the Coils of Nehushtan for the upcoming battle with the Night Creatures, and will remain a member of the coils for a period of indeterminate length afterwards. Note that this was not a spur-of-the-moment decision, but the culmination of my work with Nehushtan's leader over the past few months, Azure's challenge(s), and our response to that. We're having to pick up the pace, but the direction we're headed in hasn't changed for the most part.
For anyone looking to keep an eye out for stories from me / any and all featuring this this character, here's what to watch for:
>Cast Asunder
can we just release this already
>Sanctuary ACR 1
yes wow, that thing I asked to write is being written still
>Tryout/Explainer for Dante's joining Nehushtan
should help clear things up going into the clan war story
>Nehushtan vs Night Creatures
attractive people + altaer VS a couple ugly-as-shit monster looking motherfuckers. yeah i said it.
>Maybe a thing
like a
thing thing maybe :o
>Death of a Dream
A story I've been putting off for years that I may be able to finish and post in a few months if all goes well
Also that beautiful schedule thing I have on the front page? Just- ignore that for a bit. I'll get to it. I put so much work into making it look nice that trying to edit it had me tearing up a little, haha~