Stringing along Blood

featuring

The Puppeteer

There's a steady beat in the chest. There's a red curved stain on the surface. There's a misconstrued notion of this being. Art is never defining nor could it be refined with limitations. Nor could one be excluded or even argue that fact; not even a corpse presented against a clear backdrop by taut string.

"You're doing it wrong." commented a dark voice from seemly every darkened area of the room.

A momentary calm re-entered the makeshift studio room. The painter effortlessly brought their red inked brush down along the pure cavas connecting already made red lines to another to fulfill the outlined image of his mind's creation. He breah outed steadily; unfazed by the sudden voice. "No...I'm not."

There was a silenced hum.

Neither spoke and the painter was not expecting a response as he had not been expecting a starting line for a conversation either. Much against his want he found his gaze shifting from behind his mask to the corner of the room a few feet behind the easel he was currently using to where he noted the voice had sounded its strongest.

It was somewhat vexing to know another had broken into his solitude space. Disturbing his peace of element with such an opening remark. He breathed in. Relaxing the newly awakened but still lullingly sedated urge to refill his ink pots. However it was for not as the disembodied voice, for it could be nothing else as no mere wind was strong enough, jostled his muse making the body he was currently painting become disrupted in it's strung up pose.

The painter breathed in deep through unseen slightly bared teeth before exhaling the air in the same calming airy voice that broke no louder than a mother's humming lullaby.

"Get out."

There was a resounding chuckle, mocking in its tone and sounding far closer to the painter's ear than expected. "Let me help you, hm?"

The string holding up the muse of the painter's picture suddenly took on a yellow-golden glow that seeped into the string, gaining more coverage as it made its way over every bit of string tying the form in place. Alighting the crimson outlines of sunken string that had been wrapped around the fleshy limbs. With a shallow grind and crack of bones moving in stiff joints the body was shifted into another pose then another followed again by another. Every new one making the painter's indignation grow. As the body did a final posing strike, the once dull string flickered with it's new glow in the only warning before the body moved with a motion as if someone was mocking the skillful dance moves of a ballerina.

He watched as the slender figure did a nearing slow motion twirl; their dangling feet now within grazing distance of the dusty floor. His hidden lips pulled back into a minor sneer at the sight of the dancing corpse. It's fluttering long brown hair and remains of its torn dress following each movement with a sway he couldn't help but think dauntingly beautiful; making his indignation spike into loathing.

The painter struck out with his knife.

The dancing pale corpse of his recent victim with the painted smile upon her young face fell to the floor in the most ungraceful flop ever to be seen. "I said...get out." Repeated the painter in the same calm seemly unaffected tone of voice.

It slightly irked the owner of the deep voice. Enough for the figure who housed the disembodied voice to suddenly appeared just behind the painter. Their voice gave no breath as they spoke their words over the shorter haired male's exposed ear. "You wear the mask of a porcelain doll." The painter remained silent not voicing his thought as to why that mattered. And it seemed he wouldn't even have to regardless as the figure furthered along with a touch to the tender flesh residing just underneath the painter's chin. "Do you want to become a doll? I could assist you in that where I seemed to have failed you in your muse."

The painter turned their head; hidden blue eyes boring into the glowing skull holes of the figure's eyes and mouth that matched in coloring tone to the string that had made the corpse dance. Those features were not something he had ever experienced, his surprise of such a halloween sight was nearly skillfully muffled if it wasn't for the faint backward lean and upward cm tilt of the painter's head.

It drew a deep chuckle from the man with the golden-yellow glowing facial orifices.

"Surprised?"

Silence was the reply.

"It's alright. Let me introduce myself, and I assure you that my name shall be the victor here." The figure of male build swept their dark coated clad arm against their chest and gave a mock gentleman's bow. Their glowing eye sockets still boring into the eye holes of the painter's mask. "I am the Puppeteer, a rarity to meet me without dying so swiftly." The deep voice took on a smug note toward the end as if their name was a grand thing compared to the other.

However the painter gave no impression of knowing the name; or rather the title. In fact it urged him none to find out more about it but what did peek his interest was the comment before that.

"The victor here...?"

The responding smile was haunting to anyone innocent of sinful atrocious. "Ah yes, for you see. I have heard of you and I can not remain idle any longer for I have seen your actions; Bloody Painter." The Puppeteer righted his stance, slipping his hands into his coat pockets whilst taking up a relaxed stance. "And I found you befitting to become a true doll and not simply parade around in a mask of one."

A frown touched the other's hidden lips. He was quite sure he had made his interest in such a thing known already. Was this pumpkin dismissing his word without even a fraction of consideration? If they were going to deploy baric behavior than he would repay it with silence; he wasn't about to dip down to their level. He had a enough of being on that end to last a lifetime and the memories of such bulliness still lingers within him. Rising to the surface more so during the time just after finding a new victim and sending them to their death.

The bloody painter moved away from the other. Making their way to the slumped corpse of the girl and crouching down, blue hidden eyes already locating their knife. He wiped the light stains of blood and flakes of the substance from his knife on her tattered dress; duly noting it was starting to smell strongly of mold as well as her flesh. It seemed his time with this muse was already over for it would take some time to remove the puppeteer and finish off the painting and by that time the smell and decay of the body would of done too much ruin.

The masked painter twitched; their grip tightening on the handle. "How dare you." He turned around, only to meet the other's face an inch away from his own but refrained from shifting to put in distance. He learned it was tended to be taken as a sign of weakness from old past experiences. Experiences this wanna-be-pumpkin was reminding him of against his own free will.

"How dare I, what?" The Puppeteer smirked in a taunting way, fingers shifting just enough to gain an unseen downward flicked gaze to the glowing string that wiggled out of the man's fingertips like long maggot worms trying to get deeper into the tender soft part of a rotting brain.

"Subject my peace with your unwanted presence and attempts to lay claim as to what you deem something I want." came the reply, the painter's voice clipped now and leaving no room for the other to deny or playoff his statement as childish or undeserving of a real serious response. "You know nothing of me and yet judge me from simply watching. Something I find myself noticing you have in common with my past muses."

The string wielder brushed a hand through their long bangs, pushing back the darkened strands as his head moved some to glance at the dead corpse of the young looking brunette girl he had made dance just a bare half hour ago. "If you're strung up bodies aren't mimicking me in some kind of call for me to answer or isn't a show of just what you want from me then I must be missing something."

"You are."

"Oh?" A lifted dark brow was raised; those glowing eyes widening a fraction with the movement before settling into a slight narrowed gaze when paired with the teasing smirk on the man's lips made the expression more mocking than actually surprise or anything close to it. "And just what am I missing, little painter?"

A swift knife slash gleamed the reflection of those glowing threads in the only warning before the blade made contact. "Your head."

With the practiced and honed in skill of dealing with countless fighters before their death was brought to them by the string master, the Puppeteer invaded the blow only getting a few hairs skimmed off from the sharp weapon. He backed a repeated step as the painter stepped forward with each lethal swing and swipe of their knife. Soon the long haired male found his back nearing the unevenly lined up row canvases and directed his glowing treads to pick up two of them and knock the used canvases into the nearing body of the other.

The action was unexpected but the Bloody Painter managed to dodge most of it; glowering at the fact his works were being ruined. Not just his muse but also completed paintings of his. Glaring behind his mask, he sliced a slit into his own arm and flicked the blood at the glowing orifices of the annoying man who dare to interrupt him.

They hit their mark but so do the sudden direction of those alight threads tearing off the painter's masking and tossing it across the room.

The one connected to those threads froze for a moment at the sight of a completely human face. Pale-tanned skin. Wholesome cool blue eyes and not a hint of normality or something unearthly about them. Their glowing sockets were trained on that revealed face even as their body still moved to avoided the attacks dished out to maim their person. Finally refocusing on what was going on with his own limbs, the string master shot off a few to wrap around the other male's wrists and tugging hard to yank the hands upward and outward so that knife wasn't aiming away at him anymore. He took a few steps forward completely disregarding their fight from his stumped state. His brain just couldn't get over the fact this guy wasn't a being like himself with what he had seen the man do.

Tossed mask forgotten; the painter returned the surprise show of facial action of the Puppeteer's with a lackluster smile. "Surprised?" came the mock question stated in the same tone as the other murder had used earlier before in the night once he realized their interaction was put on pause. He wasn't one to deny a moment of silence when it was allowed.

"You're human." was the bluntly put question.

"Utterly, so."

A single word was uttered by the puppeteer before the fight truly began.

Perfect.

THE END.