{"Through dream I travel, at lantern's call / To consume the flames of a kingdom's fall" - Grimm Troupe... Today it be a good ole day to shoot not only one bird with the @bananafish branded Finish the Story today. NIE! I shoot two birds with one slingshot of stone with a haiku~ for the Mizu No Oto contest!... Today's music-aide: Grimm Troupe and Nightmare King remix done by Retrospecter (YT), remixed from the Hollow Knight OST.}

Banners by @f3nix

[Image by me]

Here now, falling sun
whoosh~ rustle crunch whoosh rustle~
"Ain't it purty now?"

- Grimm -

- Prompt by @dirge -

Benjamin Leitner, son of General Reinold Leitner, grandson of Count Dietrich Leitner, stepped from the stagecoach and lit his pipe. The night was cold, the sky a vast black emptiness. The moon, if it had shown itself at all that night, was gone, and nothing but the light cast by Benjamin’s lantern offered solace from the creeping dark.

He’d reached the graveyard, home of his family tomb and its historic dynasty. It was a forbidden place, the site of his late mother’s suicide, where Leitners were entombed stretching back centuries. He hated this place, more than anywhere else on earth. But he’d come, alone as ordered to. He’d come, as he had no other option but to do so. And he’d brought the gold.

The letter was written in her typical style. Loquacious, expounding on the nature of their relationship, apologizing for her affairs, thanking him for standing by her throughout it, remaining at her side despite all the controversy of the town. Despite even her own parents telling him to abandon her as a lost cause.

She’d not only dragged herself down into the mud. But him as well. Benjamin the financier, of Wolfstone and Kauffman, now the cuckold of all of Austria. But worst of all, she’d tarnished the name of Leitner.

And when the accusation came, of witchcraft and devilry, of black magic and the most bestial of sacrilege, of whoring in the night endowed with opiates unto madness. Well, it was no wonder when Kauffman wanted out.

And still he stood by her.

Should he have been surprised when the letter came, demanding the last of his finances or else she’d accuse him in the papers of having masterminded it all? Of being an original scholar of the black arts?

That would render the Leitner name into devilry.

No. He couldn’t allow that.

Benjamin finished his pipe, the tobacco charred and ashen. He cast the ash into the wind then slipped the cherry wood pipe into his coat pocket, beside the letter crested with her seal.

Melinda. Oh, you wench.

I’ll be in the crypts, waiting.

He suspected she wasn’t alone. Benjamin suspected the whole carnal tribe to be down there, waiting for her.

Well, so much the better. Let them all wait for his arrival. Let them all see the truth, the forbidden history denied to the world. Stretching back into the foundation of the soil. Let them know who it was that the Leitner’s may be.

He stepped across the grass, peering at the graves of his forbears till he reached the central crypt. The iron gate was ajar and the darkness seemingly impenetrable. They were down there, waiting for him.

“Melinda,” Benjamin said to himself. “It could have been different. So different. But you threatened my name. For that, I cannot forgive you.”

He entered the crypts.

“Time to meet the family,” he thought to himself, almost with a laugh.

Gif source here

- Ending by @theironfelix -

A flame screams to life, forcing Leitner's legs to step away while the eyes surveyed the reddening brightness of the room. But a bat's wing smacked his face, screeches echoing about the crypt-interior. The body tumbling to the floor that the concrete sang every single troubled step with ease, ending with the high note of a collapsed body. The torch rolling away, whistling like the excited flame-stick 'twas.

Peck, how'd I not hear that? Gah, come here you torch... What was that even?

The body correcting itself, his legs staggered forward and the concrete emanated each click of the boots. Moments upon the red-light grazing the main section, did his eyes see a swarm of vestige bats feasting.

Well, this was entirely unexpected; the flame should keep me safe-

However, the flame flew away from the torch and pierced the center-vestige; red-flames crackling for eyes and its wings flapped once into the air. The noise pinged into the other vestiges' ears, who shot straight towards it. A mass of pulsating darkness spiraling about, a faint pop echoed and the darkness subsided to spotlight an old contractor of his - eyes burning bright red, caped and a head with two black horns with a white-masked face.

"Grimm! Is Melinda involved?-"

"Who's this Melinda you speak of? I'm here for you, for I as troupe master shall decommission you for abandoning your role-"

Flintlock roaring a pellet forward, chips of Grimm's head splintered as the pellet whistled by.

"Stay away, dæmon. You slaughtered-"

"Correction, Grimmchild did dearie - kid's learning fast."

Leitner's flintlock finally roared, but Grimm's fingers seized the pellet and slugged it towards Melinda's flintlock. The flintlock bursting and taking Melinda's hand, Leitner seeing both Grimm's bow and Melinda's collapse.

"No more formalities, let's dance finally."

Leitner's body began torquing for his rapier, Grimm snapped his fingers as the crypt flashed a crowd of the crypt's inhabitants as the audience. Leitner's body staggering to the flash, red smoke phased Grimm as his hands squeezed Leitner's trembling and tossed him into the air. Smoke-phasing again, the crowd cheered as his cape furled upwards with his fist clench. The concrete soon yelping as shards flew away to dodge Leitner, Grimm spun spirally as his cape wrapped him into a drill. The wind whistling the diving drill, Leitner's body barreled away and staggered to get back up.

Grimm noticing, he made his cape unfurled as his body spider-squatted on the floor. Cape wrapped around his arms like a lance, he lunged towards; pinning Leitner's body.

"Oh Leitner, such a pain; your fight, your only bane. Now in this hour, the end of ours. Remember when my protection of your name was great? Yet with you stopping, I stopped. Rot has manifested into you, and you shall be cleansed along with Feudal Europe."

Retracting back, Leitner collapsed while Grimm's cape unfurled and magicked swarms of red-flame vestige-bats lunging into Leitner. Soon incinerating screams rang out which made the audience clap, yet Grimm's fingers gently grasped Melinda's chin. Her voice-box weakly whispering:

"What... you want?"

"O Melinda, to carry on the ritual. I shall help purge your reputation as you help cleanse Austria - later, the troupe together shall weed out Feudal Europe."

Her mind went blank as her body was carried outside the crypt by Grimm.

-------------------------

Two things: Seeing @f3nix's suggestions and my snarky retorts back, I am possibly considering giving this an extension (like seen in the old days) and I shall advertise the shit out of it if I actually do follow up on it present an extended story like I did with past FTS entries. But if I were to do so, I shall do it in the perspective solely of Grimm and maybe incorporate what I bantered with @f3nix in the contest page.

Of course, where in the peck did I found Grimm Troupe (Troupe Master)? I found him from Hollow Knight and now I am getting the urge to go purchase the game to solely fight this mofo and his later form, Nightmare King Grimm. Do you need to know this to know Grimm Troupe better, nie but it would make sense of one thing: my newfound love in another fictional character. This cootie-patootie fallen kingdom cleaner/rot-remover/weed-outer is just one of the best Video Game characters that I have genuinely spent time looking into.

On that note, Hollow Knight is having a sequel in the form of Hollow Knight Silksong (when it was supposed to be DLC but turned into a full fledgling game). Did I mention that Hollow Knight basically gave expansions to the base game for free like candy? The only DLC really is "Gods and Nightmares" - yet that's it for paid DLC and that's just OST to listen independently from the gameplay, just like the official OST of Hollow Knight. And Grimm is apart of the that DLC, so yeah. Blep :p

(In essence, my version of Lorerunner's [from YouTube] Imperium grows as now Grimm is apart of the cast. Yet let the extension post do the work of actually justifying that.)

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