Chapter Text
Life's a joke to Temenos.
As far as Throné can remember, there isn't a single moment he has not managed to squeeze a laugh out of, no matter how tragic, vile or painfully unfunny. His nonchalant smile never leaves his face, sharper than the blades hidden underneath his cloak and impervious to the grim nature of their shared reality. He laughs at business meetings, at torture sessions, at funerals. He cracks jokes while he cracks fingers, skulls or minds. He comes out of Mother's chambers with a manic grin, clamoring that the old mama is losing her touch. He cackles like there is no collar choking his throat, no poison lurking in the vicinity of his skin, no chains binding his soul to this filthy body of theirs.
This is the sort of man he is. This is the sort of man the Blacksnakes create, on accident, while trying to fabricate puppets with knives. In retrospect, it's not surprising he would stroll up to the Diamande's mansion balcony and say:
"Aw, you started the party without me."
Throné has Pirro's head on her lap, one hand in his hair, the other soothing the wrinkles of his shirt. There isn't much she can do to rend his body presentable, drown under the dreary rain that spatters incessantly on New Delsta's gray pavement, torn apart with knife wounds and the gruesome rot darkness magic unleashes, but she tries nonetheless. Pirro has always been vain, the prick, constantly stealing nice, expensive, noticeable shit that got him into trouble. A peacock in the piggery, that's what Temenos called him that one time he showed up at the den with a gold lined coat some aristocratic twat uptown must be missing.
He'd want gravediggers to believe his corpse must have had a good life, at some point. There's nothing sadder than a thief assessing you and judging you've got no goods worth stealing, not even in death.
"Apologies," she rasps out without raising her head. "I was not informed of your attendance. In fact, I thought you out of town."
Mother had sent him to some secret mission Aeber only knew where a few weeks ago. They had a bizarre relationship, Tenemos and Mother, based on mutual loathing and reluctant admiration, on Mother's end at least. She despised him and the untouchable casualness her artful cruelty continually failed to break, but had no choice but to respect his talent in interrogation, intel gathering and psychological warfare.
Among the pack of war dogs the Backsnakes are bred to embody, none can pretend to be a smarter hound than Tenemos. If it's delicate information Mother or Father require, that cannot gathered through their usual brutish means, they always send him in priority.
"That's quite alright, my dear. It was a last minute decision. No offense taken."
Throné gently lets down Pirro's head on the floor, and raises up on her feet. Tenemos leans against the balcony, his back on the railing, as if Scaracchi's and Diamante's corpses weren't laying a few feet away. Rain crashes over the white strands of his hair and the expense of his light green cloak, another of his eccentricities. He hates dressing up with the dark garbs their kind favors.
And he's smiling. Of course he's smiling. To be fair, Pirro would be offended if he didn't. He admired that side of Tenemos, and used to trail after him as a kid, trying to mimic him and his detached, lackadaisical manners.
"You knew what Mother and Father planned," Throné says, conversationally. There's no point getting angry with Tenemos. Fury, sorrow, hatred, it all washes over him like blood's on a naked blade. If anything, getting emotional gives him an edge in the confrontation, a breach for him to slide in and twist. Every Blacksnake can kill someone, but none can destroy a heart the way Temenos effortlessly manages.
"You know me, Throné. I'd never miss a party."
"True, I suppose. Do you intend to participate, then?"
"Do I, indeed?" He muses. "I believe that's the usual expectation when one does show up to festivities. Oh, before I forget, I took the liberty to bring along another guest, I hope you don't mind."
With two thin fingers, he whistles. Throné tenses, her fingers shut tight around the handle of her dagger. A familiar bark responds to the call from the stairs, and a dirty ball of fur runs up on its tiny but enthusiastic legs to crash on Throné's boots. Throné remains frozen in place, unresponsive to the puppy's cries.
And here comes the breach, wide open. There's no way she can protect herself and the dog should he decide to attack. She's not even sure she could defeat him with only herself to save. Objectively, Throné's the better fighter, but she's exhausted, mentally and physically, and he has an enormous psychological ascendant on her. On everyone, really.
Her heart's not into it, either. It wasn't only Pirro who trailed behind his tail as a child, eyes wide with adoration.
"We met by coincidence on the way," he says, his face unreadable as ever underneath his smiling mask. "I noticed some ill-intended individuals bothering your little friend, and taught them a lesson. I could hardly stay still knowing how much you care for him, hm?"
Could be true, could be a blatant lie. There's no way to know with him. Either way, he's weaponizing the specks of affection she allows herself against her, just like Father would.
A laugh blurts out of her throat. Another follows along, then another, another. The puppy has gotten quiet, afraid of the strangeness of her behavior. So much for not allowing Tenemos to get a raise out of her. The very thought was foolish from the beginning. The scent of blood pollutes the air, omnipresent, inescapable, and there are bits of her everywhere, shattered by yet another betrayal. She's on display, ripe for the slay. Throné understands the appeal, suddenly, of Tenemos's way of life. This is absurd. Life is absurd. None of it makes sense. What other choice is there but to laugh at it?
Tenemos replies to her insane display with a chuckle of his own, the corners of his cold, morbid eyes wrinkled with mirth.
"Is this what you want then, Tenemos?" She says softly as she gestures at the emptiness, encompassing the balcony and its meaningless corpses, the city and its crass streets and disgusting bowels. "You want to be the chief of the Blacksnakes? Go ahead. Kill me, and become king of the rot."
"So dramatic now." His knife twirls between his fingers. The big staff on his back is mainly for show. Just like the rest of them, Tenemos has been bred a creature of the blade. "I feel cheated, truly. How come Pirro fights you at your most determined, and I get only defeated defiance? Your will to live has withered so quickly already."
"Live? You call this living?"
She still has Pirro's blood on her hands. It's everywhere, on her skin, on her clothes, inside her lungs, bloated in her heart. She'll never remove it. It'll follow everywhere, for as long as she exists in this cursed world. The puppy rubs its fur against her boot in a heartfelt attempt to comfort her in this sorrow he cannot understand.
Her mental breakdown leaves Tenemos unfazed, his smile unbroken. Madness is a sea he sails smoothly on, when he's not riding the wave or diving in its depths.
"According to common definitions, they are dead." He gestures at Pirro and Scarraci. "And you, my dear Throné, are alive. You must wish to do something out of it if you are willing to kill for your life."
Her fingers raise up to the familiar weight of her collar. Her skin gleams under the moonlight, in echoes to Temenos'. Pirro asked the same thing. What do you want, Throné? What do you want?
"I'd rather die before I become their heir. I want… I want to be free."
Tenemos considers this, his head tilted to the side. "Free, uh? Such big words you have learnt, unfit for an obedient snakeling. Mother would have a conniption to even hear its echoes. Free. And how exactly do you intend to obtain this forbidden fruit, child?"
The response comes ever so naturally to her lips. There was never another option for her. "I'm going to kill Mother and Father."
Of course, he laughs. Tenemos is always laughing, even when he's not.
"My dear Throné, ever such a blast! I'm glad it is you who survived. Between you and I, you always were my favorite, although I was quite fond of dear Pirro as well. He would have never dared to do what you plan to. Keen eyes and nimble hands, but a heart without drive, without hope."
"Don't make fun of him," she whispers, pointlessly. HIs corpse is right there. Perhaps he can still hear from the afterlife.
"I would never." He clasps his hands together, looking quite delighted. "Very well, it is decided. I shall accompany you on your journey towards this mystical freedom. Having never tasted this delicacy myself, I find myself quite curious to witness your ability to obtain it. If you allow it, that's it."
Throné slides back down. The pup climbs on her lap, and she rests her hand on his wet, but warm fur. The rain has stopped now, only the fog remains, and Pirro, frozen and rigid on his pavement linen. She'll have to find a white cloth for him, and put some shoreflowers flowers in it. He loved that scent, the prat.
From the pocket of his coat, she finds his pack of cigarettes and the lighter Donnie stole from an uptown cop on a dare before Scarracci stole it back from him, before Pirro stole it again. She opens the lid to grab one of those tightly rolled fellows. It's the bad, cheap sort of tobacco that fills the lungs with rot and despair and just the hint of pleasure to get you coming again. She puts the cigarette at the edge of her mouth and lights up the end. A puff of life, that's what they're all good for.
"I was not aware you smoked now, Throné."
She chokes on that disgusting smog, and smiles. "Last minute decision."
He sees the humor in that, but once again, he sees the humor in everything. The moment passes, in quietness. The pup whimpers on her lap. Tenemos waits under the moonlight. She finishes her fag, painfully, slowly, but with determination.
Once she's done, she crashes the end of it on the pavement, the way she has seen Pirro do countless times, and stands back on her feet. "Alright, you can come along."
"Oh?" He taps one long finger on his cheek. "So easily? No more questions, no more accusations?"
She shrugs. "What for? Questions and accusations are your territory, Temenos, your battlefield, and I stand no chance to win an inch against you. I'm not foolish enough to believe I can ever obtain any answer you do not wish to give. The way I see it, you'll proceed as you will, like you always do, so either one of us kills the other, or you'll follow along anyway, regardless of my opinion on the matter."
He has the nerve to wink. "I'm flattered you think so highly of me, my dear."
"I think highly of your potential as a particularly persistent pest."
"The highest praise indeed, considering your thorough knowledge on vermin control. Say no more, lest my ego inflate to the point of no return."
She chuckles, helplessly. It's disconcerting how easily they fall back on banter even at the bottom of the barrel, in the darkest of night, as if they were fooling around Gil's tavern, Pirro, Scarracci, Donnie and her, with Tenemos occasionally chiming in in-between top-secret assignments, the cool older kid checking up on the juniors that hung up to his every words.
Once upon a time, she would have been so excited to be invited in one of Tenemos' mysterious missions. That time has passed though. Donnie lays abandoned to the gutter, Pirro and Scaracci torn apart by the betrayal of their parents, and the only two left stare at each other under the judgment of the moon, pondering the best spot to strike, searching for where the meat is most tender.
"I don't trust you, Temenos."
She says it more for her sake than his.
"I'd be offended if you did. Creatures of our ilk shouldn't trust anyone, least of all our own kind."
She looks down. Pirro's eyes remain closed, his eyelids shut by her own blood-tainted fingers. She hauls him up her back like she has countless times before. He's quieter now. Won't complain about how much he's craving a fag, or how stiff her back is, and you should really put on some weight, Throné, seriously-
"I'll leave at dawn. Be there or not, I don't care."
"Dawn, uh." His smile turns wistful. "If it does come, then I shall be there."