#so sue me lol | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

convexicalcrow · 3 months

Text

Cairo, 1921

It's been a long season of exploration for Pix, leading expeditions into the oases west of Egypt in search of new discoveries. Much of what he'd found was rubble, or buried several feet under sand. But it had not all been for nothing! He was particularly interested in what some enscriptions call an invasion of the Sea Peoples towards the end of Dynastic Egypt which seems to have plunged the country into chaos. There's more records in Greek and Roman sources, but they're much more sedated in their descriptions, and mostly talk of Egypt falling into ruin. Concerning, but not that concerning for a civilisation that had lasted for thousands of years relatively unchanged.

The problem was, such an invasion was unlikely to leave much evidence behind, if some of the stories aare true about the scale of the slaughter. Which, of course, could have been for dramatic effect. To the victor goes the spoils. Certainly, in Bahariya Oasis, he'd uncovered some broken pots with various bits of papyrus in them, and evidence to suggest things had once burned. The temple that once stood there was barely standing anymore; it was just a few columns and stelae and statuary half-buried in the sand.

And now that the digging was over, he was now tasked with recording his finds and writing up a report for his benefactor, so he might continue exploring next season. Most of the papyri in the pots seemed to be letters to the dead, though there was no record of these sorts of papyri being buried in pots. Still, this could mean it was ground-breaking research and that was exciting! Well, as exciting as reading through such personal expressions of grief could be, Pix mused.

On their own, they were pretty standard. Children talking to their parents. Parents calling for their children. Others calling for other family members or friends, some who may or may not have been buried. They seemed to be the newest Egyptian artefacts found in terms of dates, as the hieratic they were written in was only from this late period around the time of this supposed invasion.

It was when Pix looked at them together that it kind of hit him how grief doesn't really change. These could have been written twenty years ago and no one would think them odd. And there were so many of them! Some were dated, some not, but he had uncovered over 115 of them in one necropolis, and another 97 more in a second necropolis further towards the outside of the main town in the oasis. That was a lot of grief, and might not have even been all of them. All of them written in the space of, perhaps, ten years or so, as if something calamatous did indeed befall the oasis. The letters are vague about what happened, but given the dates, Pix is sure it can only mean one thing. Some invading force reached this far-flung oasis and left a lot of people dead.

Pix finds himself returning to one letter in particular. It's written from a son to his father, with writing that's erratic and disjointed. Some of the ink has smudged, making parts of it unreadable. It's also remarkable that it contains no names. The son simply calls him, father, and himself, his beloved son. Which is rather unusual indeed. The remembrance of the name was considered vital to a good afterlife, so why would this letter remain so anonymous?

He picked it up to examine it. It was a small piece of papyrus, torn in places, and folded hastily and shoved into the pot, unlike the others that were rolled and tied with a piece of cloth. It suggested some reluctance, or haste, or perhaps he was disturbed in the process of writing to his father. Perhaps he'd never know. But some of the words just kept echoing around in his brain, as if somehow, these were people he once knew. Which seemed absurd of course! He was no ancient Egyptian! But something nagged at him. It was just-

"A letter from a son to his father. It begins, 'Praise to my father, who died for Ma'at, who rises with Ra into the sky from the belly of Nut! Praise to you, O Wesir, who gives life to the lifeless, shine on with my father, may he be justified! Please… keep him safe. I know not where you are. You would not recognise me today. My heart is. weary. How can I mourn when there is so much at stake? I have few friends in this world. Your beloved son misses you, and perhaps, one day, when my heart no longer rages, perhaps then I will find peace. Please just let me know you are okay. Let me know you made it to Wesir's court, that you are an akh in the skies, who lives forever. Every day I am met with uncertainty. I remember the last time I saw you. I remember the fear in your face. I think I knew then, that this would be the end. I was too young to understand, but somehow, I knew. I' and then it cuts off. I feel this son's sadness and confusion as if it is my own. But why though? Who are you? Who are you who haunts my dreams?" Pix said, staring at the papyrus as if it might give out more secrets.

He sat back in his chair, letting the papyrus sit on the desk. He could see- candles. A dark place with candles. Some kind of weird memorial. Nothing Egyptian, it looked nothing like that. And as soon as the image was in his head, it was gone. A fleeting imagining of something. Or a sign he was up too late again. It was, after all, after midnight, he confirned, checking his pocket watch. Perhaps sleep will cure him of his ills. Perhaps another expedition out to the oasis will yield more finds. Perhaps then he might be able to put these letters to rest, along with those who were being remembered.

#hermitcraft #empires smp #fanfic #pixlriffs #the lost prince au #reincarnation #past lives #letters to the dead #ancient egyptian au #i couldn't help myself #this is so self-indulgent #but archaeologist!pix is so precious to me #i had an idea and ran with it #so sue me lol #hermitfic

12 notes · View notes

catscidr · 1 month

Note

Could we get some Dottore x escaped experiment reader? Gn if possible, doesn't even have to be smut. I just can't find anything along those lines and I like your writing style :)

i. note — hehehoho i might have uuuhhh used this ask as an excuse to go off a lil and try something new teehee °ᗜ°) but this was really fun to write!! thank you nonnie for the suggestion, and thank you very much for liking my stuff enough to req something!!! i hope u all enjoy ii. includes — dottore, gn!reader iii. cw — unhealthy and toxic dynamics, no dialogue, mentions of cannibalism, mild body horror, one (1) dead body, not quite stockholm syndrome but maybe kinda, reader is a mess and dottore is not a good person (shocker). minors do not interact, age in bio or block. iv. wc — 2k -> posted on ao3 too!

To humans, running is what they do when they’re late to work, when they’re working out, or even when they’re playing games at recess as children. To predators, running is what they do in order to secure their next meal. To prey, running is what they must do so they can escape from the predator’s clutch in one piece, to not end up as a mangled corpse serving as someone or something’s food.

You have more in common with prey than you have with humans, despite being one yourself.

It hasn’t always been that way. One moment you were enjoying the warm afternoon sun of your home region out on a walk, and the other you found yourself thrown over someone’s shoulder with a bag over your head.

You always find yourself reminiscing, yearning to feel the warmth you felt that day— minus the incident. You used to be a model citizen; someone people would rely on.

A shame no one helped you when you desperately needed it.

Your own mind is all you’re left with, as you’re clumsily tripping over your feet, rocks scraping your skin and blood trickling down your legs. The feeling is almost peaceful; but after running for so long, and with how often you’ve gotten yourself in this exact situation, you’re starting to second guess your motive for running in the first place.

Is it a form of entertainment, are you growing bored of the four padded walls engulfing your five senses at all hours of the day that you feel the need to get the energy out of your body like a hamster does by using the wheel in its cage? Is it to leave the predicament you found yourself in after trusting someone you, under no circumstances, should have trusted?

Or is it because you gradually have come to find yourself sharing more similarities to a dog, begging its owner to even unenthusiastically throw a plastic frisbee for a smidge of attention to fulfill your need to be seen, to be heard, and now you feel the responsibility to own up to that label you inflicted upon yourself?

The lines between reality and your thoughts have blurred so much it frightens you.

...Or, rather, it should scare you. After spending so much time in your own head, one would find that it’s surprisingly easy to come to distrust your own mind. You’re not sure if you should believe what goes through your head, even less believe what you feel. But at the same time, you’re all you have. You have no choice but to trust yourself, even when you shouldn’t.

Only a select few are aware of how dreadfully strong and outright stubborn the human mind can be, whether it be from their own personal experience or from seeing others slip into a state like yours.

Unfortunately for you, He’s familiar with your situation. Painfully familiar.

…

Sometimes you wish you were a luna moth. Delicate and radiant, people would be torn between praising you for your beauty and shunning you away for the crime of looking different than what they’re used to. You wouldn’t be a butterfly, would not conform to what society wants you to be. You would be able to be who you want, look however you want to without worrying over other’s opinions.

The people that did like you, though, would treat you with care and would do everything in their power to make your stay in this world a pleasant one. A stay that would only last a week.

Not long enough for you to become familiar with the horrors that await humanity. Seven days filled with nothing but genuine smiles, void of empty promises.

You’d crawl out of your cocoon, eat good food, find someone to help continue your bloodline, then die somewhere peaceful and hope that your crumbling, decomposing body will bring relief to someone desperately needing something to eat.

But you’re not a moth.

…

It’s unbearably cold when you come to your senses. Peeling your eyes open, you glance around to find yourself surrounded by cold limestone, barely illuminated by the cave’s entrance just a few feet away. The hairs on your skin rise from the wind guiding snow through the passageway, making you curl into yourself in a pathetic attempt to keep your body’s temperature from dropping too low.

You look down at yourself; your pants are ripped at the hem, and you see messy splotches of brownish red staining the fabric and your skin, going all the way down to your calloused feet. You’re not sure how long you’ve been out for, but it must have been at least an hour given how the bleeding from the numerous scratches and gashes on your legs stopped without any assistance.

The cave felt completely foreign to you, but even then, it brought you more comfort than He had. Or at least you think it does.

You feel free. Despite the way your body shivered endlessly from the wind howling into the cavern, despite the dull but searing pain that made it feel like your feet were scorching that traveled up your legs, despite the way you couldn’t move your lips from how dry and cracked they were, split from sheer cold.

You think this is the most freedom you’ve felt since you’ve gotten yourself stuck in His maw.

...

The wind is reduced to a soft, soothing melody when you wake up again. Almost calming enough for you to drift off to sleep a second time, but a nagging feeling in the depths of your gut told you that it was a bad idea to fall unconscious this time around, so you try to shake off the numbness in your limbs instead of succumbing to the call of the void.

Standing up proves to be a challenge as your legs buckle under your weight. You catch yourself before you fall, holding onto the rough formation of a rogue stalagmite; it’s a struggle to hold yourself up, but at the very least you didn’t give yourself a concussion.

The pain isn’t completely unwelcome, though. Your feet are throbbing, and the palm of your hand holding yourself up with the help of the stalagmite stings. As you blink the drowsiness away and the blood begins to flow through your limbs correctly again, you straighten your back to take in your surroundings properly.

The cave’s entrance was filled with thick snow. There was enough that it would reach your stomach should you walk up to it, ignoring the snow that fell into the grotto, and not the snow that partly obscured your way to the outside world. You can’t see much outside, only the faint outline of pine trees wavering in the distance, far enough that you can only barely make out their form.

Looking away from the blinding whites outside, you notice how utterly desolate the cavern is. Not even a single trace of a life was left behind in this cold, worn hollow. Maybe it’s better this way. You’re not sure you would have appreciated seeing even a wild hare or a fox in here, much less a bear.

Sitting down on the rocky ground again to give your legs a break, you take a moment to think back to what got you here in the first place.

You faintly recall rusty medical equipment, convulsing organs, and seeing Him jot down notes. You remember a plate being handed to you, the vague image of a man covered by a stained sheet of what used to be white, and the bile that rose to your throat when your gaze focused on what was on the plate itself.

Everyone knew the Doctor was a twisted man, but you doubted He was twisted enough to force someone to cannibalize one of their peers.

Clearly, you were wrong.

Then, you remember making a mad dash for the thick iron doors of his laboratory. By the grace of god, you were able to leave; and you now found yourself in this desolate cavern, tucked away from civilization.

As far as you were aware of.

But you shouldn’t trust your mind. You knew this, yet you also knew not to trust yourself when you told yourself you couldn’t trust yourself. Simultaneously believing in logic and being a mess of paradoxical jargon— it exhausted you to think about. So you try not to.

Whether by a stroke of bad luck or because of something else entirely, your dull sense of hearing picks up the faint sound of snow crunching beneath boots. Your hands and legs scramble to take you where you can hide as much of yourself as you can behind a rock formation, and you stare out of the cave’s entrance, holding your breath.

The sound becomes louder. An almost gentle woosh noise accompanies the scrunch of snow, and soon after it stops, you’re able to make out a blurry figure approaching the cave’s entrance. The icy flakes make way for Him at His command, hand waving to get rid of what was keeping you physically separated from Him.

The pure white snow behind His body glinted off his intricate accessories, the light forming a halo so otherworldly that it left you utterly breathless.

His boots make a soft clicking noise against the limestone as He steps into the grotto, your safe haven for however long you had been here— now not. Not a single word left His lips as he assessed your rugged appearance.

You wish He would smite you right then and there. He was most likely able to, and with ease, but you doubt He would willingly discard one of his longest-running experiments for disobeying a rule that you had broken many times before anyways.

Your jittery gaze follows His movements as He outstretches His arm, offering you a gloved hand, silent.

Did he know how much you simultaneously trusted and distrusted your own judgement? You stare at His hand, unmoving, heart racing against your ribcage— torn between bolting away, into the darkness of the cave, or intertwining your fingers with His, allowing Him to take you away voluntarily.

This was mercy either way. You could either die at the hands of whatever lurked in the shadows of the grotto, or you could die at the hands of the man that brought you so much pain it morphed into comfort, solace. He stood, unmoving. Observing you.

You knew Him well enough to know that He was taking mental notes on your behavior even now, outside of the familiar comfort of his lab in Haeresys.

Both options were foolish, but you weren’t exactly known to be in the sanest state of mind.

Pulling your arms away from your body, you bring a shaky hand up to take ahold of His, allowing Him to pull you up to your feet. You almost fall as a result of your nerves, but thanks to His quick reflexes you find yourself tucked in his arms, cheek pressed up against His navy cravat. The hand that wasn’t holding yours comes up to pat your head, gently untangling the knots that had formed in your hair. You melt into His touch, eyes fluttering shut to bask in the warmth He provided.

As you stand there with Him, knees weak, body upheld by His will alone, you shove down the thoughts that brew in the forefront of your mind. Usually you would welcome the noise, even be grateful that you, at the very least, had yourself to lean on. But you find yourself wishing to lean on Him more than yourself, both literally and metaphorically, keening at the comfort He brought you.

You knew you couldn’t trust your mind, so why not trust His instead? If you couldn’t rely on your own instincts, judgement or thoughts, then how bad would it truly be to let someone other than you become fully responsible for your wellbeing?

...

You were neither a moth nor human.

You were a dog.

54 notes · View notes