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A Million Possible Outcomes #5

What a ride! With a word count of around 8,800, this may just be my longest one yet. But, since I wrote almost all of it in two evenings, I feel like that's fair. Considering all that, though, I think I did this really well! Read on if you enjoy: lots of gay metaphors, mysterious old ladies, riddles and treasures and Enid-Blyton-Esque summer adventures, and a yet another healthy sprinkle of anti-capitalism.

TW: mention of death, cancer, and minor themes of familial abuse and assault

For those who don’t know, AMPO (@a-million-possible-outcomes) is a writeblr challenge run by @nicola-writes & @strawberrystarcake and I’d highly recommend getting involved! The prompt this is based on is "Let's make one thing clear: this is not a confession."

Now, without any further ado:

confess

/kənˈfɛs/

verb

admit that one has committed a crime or done something wrong.

"He confessed that he had attacked the old man"

acknowledge something reluctantly, typically because one feels slightly ashamed or embarrassed.

"I must confess that I half-believed you"

—

Golden sun seeps in through the grand, arched window, a liquid Midas touch that leaves everything in the room tinged with sepia. It’s not the sort of scene I would ever have expected to live through, a melancholy reserved for portraits of fields, faded photos in trim brown frames, or the beginning scenes of the Wizard of Oz.

In some twisted way, that makes sense. Aaron Ordrich is not something you live through. He’s the end of everything.

But, more than that, he’s the love of my life.

And now, he looks at me from across the expanse of the table stretching out between us, sleek marbled wood lined with golden trim along the edges, curled into intricate shapes and gleaming animal heads. I look at them like that will keep me from feeling the weight of his gaze.

“Go on then,” he says. “Out with it.”

“I want to start by making one thing clear.” I raise my eyes to meet his, ringed with gold as they are. He is the sun, and I’m nothing more than a speck of dust caught in his sway. “This is not a confession.”

Just over One Month Earlier — 9th June:

Outside of school hours, I volunteer at a local charity shop. It’s nothing big, it’s nothing special, I’m not saving the world. But I’m playing my little part. I’m another pair of hands when I need to be, doing what I can, where I can.

I pack boxes. I order books. I wear a lime-green shirt with the charity’s logo on it (a blooming plant with leaves the shape of a heart, if that helps visualise) as I stand behind a counter and give change in two penny coins.

It’s nothing so extraordinary.

Maggie, the elderly lady who works alongside me, thinks otherwise. She’s volunteered here for around thirty years, and she sees everyone come and go. She says I’m the first person to really stick with it for any extended period of time.

“I’m telling you, Coulter, we need more kids like you.”

“Please, Maggie, there are plenty of others like me.”

“I’ve yet to see any.” She sighs and shakes her head. “And I tend not to believe in things I can’t find proof of.”

“God?”

“God? God?” She reaches into her mouth and plucks out a half-sucked throat-sweet, setting it down on a coaster she keeps nearby solely for that purpose. Someone picked it up trying to buy it once, and the sweet slid off and down their sleeve. They didn’t come back. “Pesky little barnacle, you are, making me philosophise so early in the morning.”

“Good exercise for your addled brain, Maggie.”

“No, Coulter, that’s what sudokus are for. Sudokus and candy crush. Not pondering the depths of the universe. I’m too old for such existential crises.”

“Sounds like excuses to me,” I tease.

“Excuses? Young man, you’re lucky you’re the best darn kid in the universe. If you were anyone else, you’d be getting a fistful of granny power right now.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Granny power?”

She nods sagely. “All grannies know Kung Fu.”

“I thought you meant you were radioactive.”

“Funny.”

“There’s enough funny ingredients in those throat sweets—”

“Oh, quit yer yappin’,” she says waving a hand airily in the air. She waits for a beat, then looks up. Not quite at me. “Besides, you can find proof of God anywhere. The wooden grain of the counter between us. The delicate pattern of leaves, rustling in the wind. The relieved faces of parents when their toddlers don’t beg them to buy our entire store’s worth of toys. The end of a life well lived.”

“Maggie?”

“Yes?”

“Are you okay?”

Now she meets my eye, smiling sweetly. “Never been better.”

12th June:

Maggie wasn’t there to open the shop today. Just me.

15th June:

Maggie hasn’t been in for a few days now. The throat sweet is still on the coaster, dried on and impossible to prise away. She must have forgotten to take it off.

I wish I had some way to contact her, but she despises phones, social media and any mode of interaction not plucked straight from the 1800s.

So I just have to cross my fingers and hope. I just have to bide my time.

20th June:

They’ve got a new lady in now. Sarah. Just looking at her, I know she won’t last more than a few days here.

She’s not the sort.

23rd June:

Alone again.

25th June:

Today, a new gentleman comes in. Sleek black suit, silver watch gleaming on his wrist, platinum-blonde hair slicked back in a widow’s peak like he’s trying to emulate Dracula and a sneer to match. Very clearly out of place alongside racks of children's clothes that barely go up to his knees.

His eyes roam the shop, almost bored, then settle on me. He crosses the room in little more than a stride. “If it isn’t the little philanthropist.”

“Sir?”

“Coulter, yes?”

I nod, not quite sure what to say. Stranger Danger bells are ringing in my head.

“She said you’d stick around.”

“Who? Maggie?” I ask, practically leaping forwards. Slightly embarrassing. “You know Maggie?”

He blinks, half-taken aback, then chuckles warmly and pulls something from his breast pocket. A small, weathered photo, folded into four. Him, a decade or so younger, alongside Maggie, looking not a day younger than the last I’d seen her.

“Know her? Margaret Atford is—was—my mother.”

Slightly more embarrassing. And then the realisation hits me.

I freeze, stomach dropping. I’m sure he can see the blood rush from my face. I know I can feel it.

“Was?” I breathe.

“She’s been ill for quite some time now. Cancer. We thought she was getting better, but…” He paused. “She passed away just yesterday.”

“I’m sorry.”

He shook his head softly. “Don’t be. She was content. She said it was her time.”

I suck in a shaky breath, determined not to let myself cry. There’s something wrong about crying for the loss of someone you knew tangentially when the person who knows her the most is keeping their composure. “Sounds like her.”

“I wouldn’t know. I’ll admit, we rarely interact anymore. I’m only glad I got one last chance to say goodbye.”

“Why did you stop talking?”

He straightens, ignoring my question entirely. “But she also wanted you to know. She said that you deserved closure.”

“Thank you for telling me," I say, going along with the subject change. I'll let him have this one. “I appreciate it.”

“I’m not done yet. You see, despite giving most of what she had to charitable causes, and devoting her time to helping others, Margaret still amassed something of a small fortune’s worth of stuff in her many years. Of course, she has left most of it to charity.”

I nod. “That makes sense.”

“She has also left some to you.”

My world tilts on its axis. “She's what?”

—

Left Field is a small village. Not quite to the point where everyone knows everyone else, but fairly close. It’s built right along a stretch of lush green hills, so there are little to no straight roads anywhere, and certainly no flat ones. Most people walk, and the plucky few cycle. There are one or two buses at most. Forests wrap their leafy tendrils around the streets, small cobblestone paths veering and meandering throughout them like little stone streams.

And, notably, an old manor house overlooks the town from its perch atop the tallest, most vibrant hill. Cream walls, white highlights, windows that shimmer in the sun. A sprawling drive, and an even larger garden. A single path leading up to it. No one really goes there, and no one really knows who it belongs to.

I suppose I am now one of the lucky few.

I now know it was Maggie’s.

The Gentleman—who still hasn’t given me anything to call him other than “Sir”—takes me up to the Manor in a sleek black car that’s clearly not meant for these kinds of roads. It growls up the track, sputtering and shaking as the hill just gets steeper and steeper.

“I get the feeling,” Sir says, “that it would be quicker, easier, and infinitely more pleasant for our poor ears if we had left the car behind and gone on foot."

“Oh, definitely,” I reply.

He stops the car. "Right then, out we get."

"We're in the middle of the road," I say. He's already opening the door. "We're nowhere near the house."

"And we'll stay nowhere near the house if we keep going at this pace." He closes his door and opens mine. "Come on, let's go."

—

Sir unlocks the door with a single silver key plucked from one of his many pockets, ornately twisted to be shaped like a rose. "I will warn you," he says grimly, "I can't say I know the state we'll be finding this house in. I left Aaron alone in here while I went out."

I look up to him, frown settling on my face. "Aaron?" A pet of some sort, maybe? It seemed a very city guy thing to lock up a dog indoors.

"My son. He's not thrilled to be here, but better alone in here than alone in the city."

Oh. So not a pet.

"And you think he can cause that much of a state?"

"I know he can," he says, dead serious. I shiver.

The door swings open, and he wipes the clumps of mud from his once-polished shoes on the doormat (reading "No visitors before 10:00am").

There's not much to be done about the mud and grass splattered right up the hems of his trousers though. It's somewhat funny, seeing someone so woefully out of place.

"We're home," he calls in through the door.

The sound of a vase shattering from upstairs. "Fuck you!"

"Nice to see you again too," Sir says pleasantly, and walks in.

The sound of something heavy being overturned. "I hope you shit yourself and have to walk a mile to find the nearest toilet in this fucking hellhole of a town!"

Sir slides off his suit jacket and hangs it on a flamingo-shaped hook, brushing his hands off against his ink-black waistcoat. "But Aaron, we have visitors!"

"Fuck them too!"

"You weren't exaggerating," I say to Sir.

"I wish I had been."

A beat of thunderous silence, and then a boy pokes his head into the stairwell, staring down at us with fury brimming in his eyes.

I blink, taken aback. He doesn't look like the sort of person to be throwing a violent hissy fit. He's dressed innocuously enough—like a rich city kid, sure, but not like a thug—with tight-fitting denim jeans torn very purposefully at the knees and a cream-coloured shoulderless-shirt (with sleeves, for some reason?) that looked like it had probably cost him double his weight in gold.

His face is covered with freckles that travel all the way down his neck in clusters, pooling around his shoulders like someone had flicked a wet, coffee-stained paintbrush over him and left him to dry in the sun. His golden-brown hair is strafed out so that it hangs in messy strands over his face, and it gleams with the sun streaming through the windows.

"This is him then?" He asks, and his voice is posher when he's not screaming profanities at the top of his lungs. “This is the kid who inherited more from my Grandmother than I did?"

"In the flesh," Sir says, patting me on the shoulder. "I thought it might be nice for the two of you to get to know one another in advance of the funeral—" He turns to me once again. "—to which you're invited, of course."

"Thank you."

"Don't thank me. It's on her request."

"She sure requested a hell of a lot for a dying woman," Aaron cuts in, clomping down the stairs. "Not much of it to do with her own family."

"It's only fair," Sir replies. "We haven't spoken with her in many, many years. Disagreements will do that to a family."

"It's the principle of it," Aaron snorts.

"Now you sound like her."

"Fuck you."

"That's quite enough of that language." He claps his hands together. "I'm thinking of starting a swear jar. Since we're here for as long as it takes us to settle her estate, we might make quite the little fortune."

"As if we haven't done that already," Aaron snorts.

"Behave yourself, and you might earn yourself a larger chunk of it. Introduce yourself to Coulter. Show him around the remains of the house. Break anything that's left to him and you will be paying it from your own pocket."

It's awkward enough being caught in the middle of a family argument between two strangers. Knowing you're the cause of it? Near unbearable.

"I hate you," Aaron glowers. I'm not sure which of us it's directed to.

"Better. Much more civil. Maybe one of these days you'll explain why." He claps his hands together. "I'm heading back to the car. I'll leave it down in the town, I reckon. Have fun."

He is gone in a blur, and the door swings shut behind him. The lock clicks.

I turn back to Aaron, and he's moved just as fast as his Father, till he's right up in my face—maybe it runs in the family. It's a funny thought, Maggie moving at that speed when the most speed I've ever seen her muster is just faster than your standard snail. An angry snail, maybe. I giggle.

He blinks. "Something funny?"

"Nothing, nothing," I say.

He snorts, then slams me against the wall in one deft movement. He's right in my face, and I'm breathing in his hot air. "I want to make one thing clear. I don't like you. I don't like your town. I don't like whatever fucking charity you work for. And, in case this wasn't clear already, I will not be touring you around this house."

He draws back, running a hand through his hair as he composes himself.

"Wish I could say it was nice meeting you, Coulter, but I really can't. Go die in a hole."

With that, he's gone too.

26th June:

The funeral is a sombre affair. Everyone wears black. She would have hated it.

27th June:

It seems I'm going to get my inheritance in bits and pieces. The first thing I get is a porcelain model of an animal somewhere between a giraffe and a cat. Its mouth is just open enough to slot something into. When I shake it, something clinks inside.

I hope it's not a throat sweet.

28th June:

Sir clearly thinks he's going to need all the time he can get because, come Monday, Aaron is at school with us. And he’s not enjoying himself.

He stands stiffly, arms tight as if ironed to his side, next to Professor Willow’s desk at the front of the classroom as she gives the class a quick introduction to him.

“I’m sure you would all like to extend a warm welcome to the young man who will be a student here alongside you for this week. In from the Big City, Aaron Ordicg is the son of businessman and entrepreneur, Mark Ordrich, and heir to a quarter million sterling. I’m sure we will all have something to learn from such an interesting young man.”

With every word she speaks, the class seems to grow in interest. People go from twiddling their thumbs and staring down at their desks to watching him, eagle-eyed. And I do have to admit, though I wasn’t twiddling my thumbs in boredom at the beginning, I am more interested now than I was a few seconds ago.

Especially since I've learnt Sir’s name was Mark. That just isn’t right.

Now finished with her impromptu Wikipedia article on Aaron, Willow turns back to him. “Now, Aaron, this is something of a right of passage here, so I’m going to have to ask you to indulge me.”

He turns to face her, face set in a frown. The rest of the class is murmuring to one another—is she really going to subject him to this?

“I want you to name three things about yourself. Plus one ambition, for luck.”

She is.

“Of course you do,” he says tartly, then turns back to face the class. And somehow, for some reason, he looks directly at me. “I would like to precede this with a small expression of gratitude for being allowed to speak about myself in a village that clearly defines people by the amount in their wallets.”

Willow frowns, and Aaron seems to relish in it.

“1.) My favourite colour is yellow. Think buttercups. 2.) I am missing my final few weeks with my best friend before they move to a different country to be here, and there’s not even enough signal to message them. 3.) My father does not care.”

The class is dead silent.

“And your ambition?” Prof. Willow says, voice barely more than a whisper.

“To make him care. To make him and anyone he calls an ally regret ever crossing me. To burn everything they know and love to the ground.”

He strides across the classroom without another word, and sits at the one empty seat. The one next to me.

He swivels his head and looks me dead in the eye. “Any questions?”

I realise my mouth is open, and quickly clamp it shut, shaking my head.

“Good,” he says, then sits back and puts his feet up on the desk. “Professor, you may start your lesson at will.”

—

It doesn’t take much to make someone the talk of the town in a place as small as Left Field. And it takes even less to make someone the talk of Progress Academy, secondary school extraordinaire. Still, I don’t think anyone has managed it quite as quickly before as Aaron has today.

Willow clearly saw that he was going to be a handful. She clearly saw that he knew me, somewhat. And she clearly passed on the message to every other teacher in the school, because for the rest of the day so far, we've been paired together for everything.

As the class files in for the fourth lesson of the day, he turns to speak to me for the first time since this morning. “This is getting a bit old now.”

“You don’t say,” I respond drily. “Look, I’m not exactly a fan of this pairing either, but it’s not like there are people queuing up to work with you instead.”

As I say that, a tall girl, one who I’ve shared classes with for the entire year but never really paid much heed to, appears between us, practically bouncing on the balls of her feet.

“Hi, hello, hiya,” she says, sticking out her hand in a way that doesn’t make it quite clear if she’s expecting Aaron to shake it or kiss it, “I’m Melody. Melody Ryans. It’s lovely to meet you, Aaron. Would you like to sit with me for this lesson?”

He looks her up and down.

“No thanks. I’ll stick with the prodigal son over here.” He gestures to me with his thumb.

She looks between us, sniffs slightly, and patters off and away to her posse of girls, who all take turns to pat her shoulders very sympathetically.

“Hang on,” I say, turning to Aaron. “Weren’t you just saying that you wanted to—”

“Who said you could speak to me?” Aaron scoffs, throwing his bag down on the seat next to mine. “Keep your mouth closed, and we might not have any more issues.”

“Fuck you,” I grumble, but resolve to keep quiet after that.

Aaron Ordrich is the sort of storm you don’t try to fight against. You just find shelter.

“Tsk tsk,” he says mockingly. “Language. Haven’t you heard? Father is starting a swear jar.”

29th June:

My next snippet of the inheritance is a compass, which—I have checked—does not point north. Ever.

I'm starting to wonder why Aaron even thought this was so much of a big deal. And why Sir—I can't call him Mark, I just can't—feels the need to stay for so long.

It's all beyond me.

2nd July:

I've gone up in the world of charity shop volunteers. Apparently, Maggie left a good word for me before she passed away—as well as a hefty donation—and that's got me to the prized role of Chief Volunteer™ now.

I don't know where she got the money for a donation in the sort of scale that I've heard whispers about. Maybe she had a little more than a small fortune of stuff. Maybe she had a real fortune too.

As I'm pottering about, doing all my Chief Volunteer Duties™, the bell rings and I look up to see Sir striding in, with a petulant Aaron in tow, hands thrust deep into the pockets of his beige trench coat.

"Congratulations on the promotion," Sir says blandly.

"Not really much of a promotion, Sir. I'm still a volunteer."

"Yes, well, I've heard you now have the authority to boss around other volunteers."

I scratch the back of my neck, setting down the Thomas the Tank Engine toy I had been about to shelve. I think I can see where this is going. "In theory."

"Marvellous," he says, nudging Aaron forwards. "In that case, you have a new volunteer. Be as harsh as you will. I think he needs a little tough love."

"I'm afraid corporal punishment isn't a thing in the insidious world of charity shop volunteers, Sir."

"So long as you keep him out of my hair, I couldn't care less. I just can't have him wrecking Margaret's house more than he already has."

With what Sir clearly thinks is a chilling last word, he turns and strides away. The chiming of the bell marks his exit, and the shop descends into silence once again.

After a beat, Aaron throws himself down into one of the toddler's chairs for sale, which is quite clearly ten or so sizes too small for him. He doesn't seem to care.

"I will not be volunteering," Aaron says, without looking up. "In case that wasn't obvious."

"It was. Just keep quiet, don't get underfoot, and I can't see us having much of an issue."

"Joy," He says, plucking a pocket dictionary from one pocket and flipping it open to an earmarked page.

I pick up the Thomas toy and pop it on the shelf. I wait a beat. I let a second or so slide by. I give in. "Is that a dictionary?"

"No. It's a birthday cake." He turns the page without looking up. "Obviously."

I feel myself flush bright red. "What I mean is, what are you doing reading a dictionary?"

"I like it," He answers drily. "It's something to do. I might learn new words to add to the curse I am mentally composing against your bloodline."

"Fun." I perch myself up on the counter, careful not to accidentally knock the Throat Sweet Coaster with my hip. "Or, could it be that the ineffable Aaron Ordrich actually has a hobby other than swearing bloody vengeance against everyone he knows?"

He opens his mouth like he's about to swear, realises that would prove me right, and closes it again. He shuffles about in his seat, flips another page, then looks up at me. "You ever heard this word? Vellichor?"

I shake my head. "No bells are ringing."

"Noun. Vellichor (uncountable) (neologism). Defined as the pensive nostalgia and temporality of used bookstores; the feeling evoked by the scent of old books or paper. First used in this context by John Koenig in 'The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows."

"Huh," I say, because I feel like that's a fair reaction. "That's pretty cool."

He tosses the dictionary to me. "Test me."

I turn to the definition to Vellichor, and listen in shock as he recites it word-perfect.

"Just how freaky good is your memory?"

"Very."

3rd July:

My third part of the inheritance turned up today: a worn little book of poetry, bound in greenish leather and tattered at the edges. Enclosed in the front cover sits a little envelope (opened and then re-closed?) with a £20 note in it.

It's sweet. There's not much more to say.

5th July:

I'm cycling home from the park when I see it unfolding. Aaron and another boy, standing outside the Eggy Cafe (yes, it's really called that) yelling their heads off at one another. I can't quite make out the words, but there's definitely a lot of sounds spilling from between their lips, and they don't seem to be happy ones.

I slow down as I near them.

The boy throws his arms in the air and storms away, and Aaron flips him the bird as he stalks away.

I screech to a stop, coming in at an angle that would look really cool if it had been anyone else pulling it off. I'd like to say my bike spits up asphalt, but that's not really true. More like a load of tiny pebbles.

"What was all that about?"

"If it isn't the prodigal son," Aaron sighs, running a hand through his hair. "Don't ask. I don't want to have to add another clause to the curse. It's long enough as it is."

I tilt my head to one side. "Can curses have clauses? I always thought they were more in verse."

"Just—" Aaron sighs. "Just leave it. I'm tired."

"You know, they serve pretty good coffee in there."

"I don't want—"

"Yeah, yeah. Quit your whining. But maybe think about getting yourself a cup. You need one, for all the bloody vengeance you're wreaking."

With that, I kick back off and cycle away. I don't turn back, even though I can feel Aaron's gaze, hot against my back.

There's something about it.

It's Electric.

7th July:

We're in the middle of a heatwave right now. Prof Willow said it might just be the hottest day on Left Feild's record.

It feels like the world is going to end.

Aaron and I are in the shop, as usual. Me behind the counter. Him sitting in the toddler's chair. He's graduated from the dictionary to Maggie's old poetry book now, flicking mindlessly through the pages as he looks for a poem he likes.

"The Treasure, Rupert Brooke," He says, holding the book up by one cover so that the pages flop downwards. "This is a good one. Listen to this."

"I'm all ears," I reply, wiping the sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand. The Throat Sweet is starting to go rank. I'm going to have to throw it out soon.

I just can't bring myself to do it.

"When colour goes home into the eyes—" Aaron stops reading suddenly and squints at the page. "This isn't right."

"What?"

"This isn't right," he repeats. "I reckon Maggie started going senile in her old age. She's underlined a load of letters like they're typos, but they're not. They're the correct letters."

"Are you sure," I breathe, wiping my forehead again, "that it's not the heat playing tricks with your head?"

Aaron scowls at me, the book, me again, the book (once more for good measure), then sighs and sets it down on his lap. "Normally I'd say absolutely not, and add another three clauses to the curse for even suggesting that. But it's so hot today you might just be right."

"I'm thinking of closing the shop early. No one's coming in anyway." I say, plucking the book from his lap and setting it into my satchel. "I still can't believe your Father still made you go here in this heat."

"I can," Aaron grimaces. "It's very in character."

I sling the satchel over my neck and dust myself off. "Well, not much he can do if I choose to close the shop. There's a stream in a nearby forest we can go dangle our feet in if you want. We could cycle over there."

"I don't have a bike. Father's controlling all of my property at the moment. He won't give any of it back until I stop breaking things, and I won't stop breaking things until he gives it back."

"So you're at an impasse."

He nods.

"Ride with me then. We'll double up."

He looks me up and down. "That is an absolutely terrible idea, and I will not lower myself down to the point where I give it a drop of consideration."

—

Two minutes later, the shop is closed and we're on the move.

8th July:

We don't even open the shop today. We head straight from school to the stream, wind rushing by our faces as we ride recklessly right through the centre of the roads, swerving around other people, on foot and other bikes.

With his arms around my waist, his chin rested in the crook of my shoulder, his breath on my neck, I feel supercharged. I feel like I could do anything, even in this sweltering heat.

Aaron Ordrich is a storm. And I'm right in its eye.

"Am I off the list of people to curse now I'm officially your taxi service?" I ask as we hurtle right out of the town and into the forest.

Aaron snorts, bouncing as we race over rocky trails and green underbrush. "Give it a few more trips and then we'll see, Prodigal Son."

—

It's not just shoes off and feet in the stream today. I don't know which of us does it first, but soon we've both stripped off down to our pants and sat ourselves side by side in the stream, letting the cool water rush over us.

I tip my head back, feeling the soft grass of the riverbank against my neck. My eyes are closed. "Got any poetry memorised in that ineffable head of yours?"

"Only the bloody vengeance sort, I'm afraid," Aaron replies.

"Hmm, might ruin the mood," I say.

"I hate it when you're right."

A beat of silence between them, filled only by the gentle rush of water.

It's me who breaks the silence. Again. "I've got a question."

"Perish the thought."

"Shut up," I chuckle, then compose myself again. "How come you chose to sit with me?"

"You brought me here?" Aaron asks, voice toned with confusion. "Where did you want me to sit? Ten meters away?"

I flush bright red, and hope Aaron's eyes are closed like mine. "I meant on the first day. When Melody came up to you."

"I wanted to keep it secret. The whole son of a businessman thing. People try get close to me. For the money. For the company of someone more refined. So I drive them away. I put on my violent, villain act. It's easier when they're sided with father too. Easier to chase them away."

I nod, realise he probably can't see me, and make a small hum of acknowledgement.

"And then you came along. You made it clear you didn't care about my money. You didn't care what you could be losing by fighting back to me. You didn't even care about my Father, even though he'd seemingly hand-picked you as one of his future sycophants."

"Big word."

"I know."

"I guess I like that about you. You liked me—or you know, hated me—for me. Aaron Ordrich. Not for Mark."

"Don't call him that," I chuckle. "It's just wrong."

A beat of silence.

"You know the boy by the Eggy Cafe?"

"Yeah?"

"He confessed to me, not that he'd even known me long enough to do that. He just said he liked my, and I quote, bad-boy charm, and asked me to the cafe. I got there—a little bit of entertainment, you know? I was a tiny bit hopeful I might find something there— and the first thing he asked is if I'd pay for him."

"You said no?"

"I said no. We fought."

"I'm aware of that bit. It wasn't subtle."

"Well, I'm not exactly a subtle person."

"You can say that again."

"Much as I know I could make a dad joke there, I'm going to be the bigger man and refrain from that."

"You? The bigger man?" I chuckle. "That's new."

"Fuck you," He says, with absolutely no bite in it at all.

"Swear jar," I chide.

He sighs. "And then you came along, and I thought you were going to ask me to buy something for you too. But you didn't. You just cycled away. Not before, of course, you recommended me a drink. A drink that, may I add, was awful—"

"You tried it?"

"Shut up."

"You tried it?"

"Look at you, making an awful situation even worse with a real shitty recommendation." He paused, sighing deeply. "Fuck, I hate confessions."

"In that case," a cool voice said, "it's lucky you're awful at keeping secrets. And also, swear jar."

We jolt at the same time.

Standing in the shade, with his waistcoat unbuttoned and the long sleeves of his white button-up shirt rolled up above his elbows, is Sir. His eyes drift from us to the pile of clothes behind us, my satchel heaped along with them, and then back to us again.

"Coulter," he says, "you're meant to be a good influence on my vagabond son. Don't tell me these interactions are having the opposite effect."

"It's too hot to be a good influence, Sir," I respond. "Give it a few days, and then I'll try again."

"Hmm. We'll see."

"What are you doing here?" Aaron snaps.

"Same thing as you, I imagine," Sir replies, shrugging easily. "Trying to cool off."

"Did you walk?" I ask. "All the way up here?"

"I've given up on driving around here. The only reason I'd even touch that car before I leave this town is if I had to run someone off the road."

"Progress," I say. "Ominous progress, but progress nonetheless."

9th July:

I get a petite, hand held gardening shovel today. Another part of the inheritance. Another mystery.

10th July:

Not wanting to have another strange run-in with Sir, we opt today to not to turn to the stream as our release from the feverish grip of the heatwave. Instead, we down to my house, Aaron pressed up against my back once more.

"You should have told me we'd be having guests," Mum says as the two of us walk in. "I would have prepared snacks."

Aaron suddenly stiffens.

"It's okay," I say, running a hand through my hair. "You deserve to relax just as much as we do. Don't go giving yourself heatstroke."

She wags a scolding finger. "Young man, I'm not the one cycling through the baking streets with another sweaty boy at my back."

Aaron looks even more awkward—like he did standing before Prof. WIllow, but without the burning anger.

"No, but you're up to...you know, whatever it is parents get up to when their kids are out."

"Be that as it may," she shrugs, "I'll whip up some lemonade."

"Thanks, Mum," I say, kissing her on the cheek.

She ruffles my hair. "The things a parent does for their child."

I turn to Aaron, and gesture towards the stairs. "My room's up this way."

He nods, swallowing nothing but the air in his mouth, and follows me upstairs.

—

He sits on the edge of my bed, eyes darting across my bedroom. "You get on...well with your mother."

"She tries."

He sighs deeply. "Is it mean if I say I'm jealous?"

"Since when have you cared about mean?" I say, opening the draws of my desk one by one. I know there's a hand-held fan in one of them, hidden away somewhere.

I feel his gaze on my back, setting my entire body aflame. The passion he'd directed into anger, destruction, and fighting his father tooth and claw for every little action when I'd first met him now transferred into something else entirely.

"Since I met you," He says it without withdrawal. He lets its meaning linger.

I turn to face him, hands still in the draw, fingers brushing over the chain of the faulty compass. It points, now, towards him.

"Is that so, Mr. Ineffable?"

"It is, Prodigal Son."

"I never apologised for how I first treated you."

"You don't need to."

"I do."

A beat of silence, broken only by our breaths.

"You can't see it, but I'm symbolically ripping up my curse against you at the moment."

I chuckle, but my next comment is interrupted by a sudden rapping on the door.

"Come in," I call, and it swings open.

"Another guest, boys," Mum says, passing each of us a cool glass of lemonade.

Aaron looks up. "Who?"

"Your father."

Sir steps neatly in through the door, lemonade glass in his hands. He takes a slow sip. "Hello, young man."

I look up to Mum, and her notably empty hands. "Didn't you get a lemonade?" I mouth.

"Only made three," she mouths back.

Sir takes another sip. "If you're not going to be volunteering, Aaron, I'd rather you be at Margaret's estate with me. If you help lend your clever little brain to the cause of...organisation, we might just get done sooner."

The last statement seems to be just as loaded as Aaron's earlier. Maybe it runs in the family too.

Aaron stands rapidly, and I realise suddenly that between me and getting back to say goodbye to his best friend, I lose. Every time.

"I expect you two will be volunteering again tomorrow?" Sir says, looking to me. It isn't a question, not really.

"If the heatwave's over."

"It will be," he says. "I hear the storm is coming."

His eyes dart down to the compass, and his mouth opens to make the tiniest of o-shapes, like he's finally coming to an important realisation, but wants to keep it quiet.

I close the draw without looking away. Maggie gave that to me, not him. It doesn't feel like something he should see, even though I know, logically, he's looked over everything before he gives it to me.

His eyes narrow.

I've just started something. I wish I knew what.

11th July:

After every heatwave, there comes a storm. So, logic dictates that the larger the heatwave, the larger the storm—and the writhing mass of black clouds looming just above the horizon, edging slowly closer to Left Field with every passing second, certainly doesn't seem to be proving me wrong.

Aaron and I stay in the charity shop today. Sir didn't make it seem like we had much of a choice.

Aaron helps shelve a box or so of rock CDs before he sits down in his usual toddler's seat, but the silence between us is tense, stilted. Not like it was yesterday.

Maybe he realises the silent choice he made yesterday. Maybe he regrets it.

"Hey," he calls from the seat. "Do you still have that poetry book on you?"

"Yeah," I answer. A beat passes. "You want it?"

He nods. "Now it's cooler, I want to look at it again. With a clear head."

"Smartest thing you've ever said," I say, tossing the book over. "Not a high bar though."

He catches it with a little snort, and flips it open to the page.

A beat of silence.

"What is it? What's happened?"

"Gone." He holds up the book, and the entire chapter is ripped out.

"Why would anyone do that?" I squint, confused. "And who would even wan—"

Aaron stands. "Father, by the stream. God, I should have known he was up to something. He was asking me, last night, what I knew. God, I should have known."

"What? What was he—"

"Paper, paper and pen," He snaps, hands rising to his temples. "Now! I remember the page, all of it. We need to look at those not-quite-typos again."

I toss him the till's notepad and pen, staring over his shoulder as he scrawls down the poem, so fast his wrist is little more than a blur, complete with typo marks.

A beat of silence. He puts the pen down, then leans in towards the paper, squinting down at it like its holds the answer to all life's secrets.

"G...O...T...O...T"

"The letters underlined?"

"Exactly." He squints at the paper. "Go to...the banks. Follow...the needle."

"What does that even..." I freeze. "The name of the poem. The treasure. It's a fucking treasure map."

"The banks?"

"Riverbanks."

"It's a stream."

"I doubt Maggie would have cared. We know what she means."

"And the needle?"

"The compass," I breathe, already flinging on my raincoat. "She left me a faulty compass too."

"Fuck," Aaron says, following me. "Mad old Maggie had more than just a fortune of stuff. She had a fortune. And she left it to me."

I whip around. "And your father—"

"He's been looking for it, he must have been."

"We need to go," I say, hopping onto my bike. Thunder rumbles overhead. The clouds are closing in on us. "He knows where the compass is, come on. We might already be too late."

He hops on, clutching me like a life raft, and we're moving immediately. We're racing down the hill, and I don't think all the millionaires in the world could stop us now.

Rain begins to fall, slowly at first, then gaining in speed and ferocity, until we're caught in the midst of a near-Biblical deluge. Still, we cycle onwards, wet to the bone in little more than a second.

Time blurs with the onslaught of water, washing away the barriers between minutes so that the only way to tell the time at all is our heartbeats. We're at my house in no time, and I barely stop the bike before we're off and rushing in through the door.

In the living room, Sir sits opposite Mum. "Thank you so much for—"

She jumps up when she sees us, cutting him off midsentence. "Boys?"

"Not now," I yell, heart pounding in my ribcage.

"Aaron, what are you doing?" Sir calls after him.

"Fuck you!" He yells, and we scramble up the stairs, slam open the door to my room, dive for the draw. It's still there. Thank God. Sir must have thought he had more time.

Aaron is right behind me. "Got it?"

I show him, enclosed in my fist, and shove the gardening-shovel into his hands. "Come on, let's go!"

He nods firmly, and we race back down the stairs.

Sir stands in the living room doorway in shock, and Mum is trying to squeeze past him. His eyes narrow in on the compass, and he reaches out for it. "Wait!"

Aaron whirls round on him, brandishing the shovel like a knife. "Fuck you, fuck your rules, fuck your swear jar, and fuck everything you've ever taken from me. We're about to return the favour."

"Boys," Mum breathes, but we're already out and away.

Thunder booms overhead.

"Boys!" Her voice echoes after us, barely audible over the storm. "It's not safe!"

—

Lighting slices through the sky, shattering and dividing it into a million slate-grey segments of rolling clouds and streaming rain.

We're soaked to the bone, tired to the core, splattered with so much mud we may well be unrecognisable, but there's something supercharging us in that moment. Maybe it's each other.

After all, with Aaron on my side, it's Storm against storm.

The roar of a car behind us cuts through the sounds of nature like a knife.

Headlights slice through the murky darkness of the forest, like a lighthouse illuminating a tiny ship, adrift in a tempestuous sea. We are swallowed by them.

"It's father," Aaron yells over the roar of wind.

I pedal harder, and he grips tighter.

I can barely breathe. I can't breathe.

Risking a glance behind us, for the smallest fraction of a second, I see Sir's car baring down on us, wheels squealing and spitting up tidal waves of mud as it stops and starts, fighting tooth and nail for grip on the road. Behind the wheel, Sir himself, fury in his eyes, sleek hair now wild and uncouth. Mum sits next to him, paler than I've ever seen her before. Terrified out of her mind.

I mouth an apology, then turn back to the way we're travelling. We're at an advantage here, against the sleek city tech that's useless out here in the hills.

We push forwards.

—

We throw the bike to one side as we reach the stream. The compass hangs from my neck from its chain, and Aaron grabs it, flicking it open.

I'm jerked towards him, but I can't bring myself to care.

"This way!" Aaron yells, and we're running again. Somewhere in all the chaos, he takes my hand.

Thunder booms and lightning crackles overhead. Sir's car sputters and roars behind us. The world is nothing but a cacophonous roar of sound, incredible and impossible to reckon with.

Aaron grounds me in all of that, running ahead, kicking up mud behind us. He is my compass, and I follow him blindly into the forest.

An ill tree crackles behind us, and the car bursts violently through it with a metallic roar and a wretched splintering of wood. Sir has gone off the track entirely, literally and metaphorically.

He opens his car door, and it is immediately ripped off as he drives narrowly by a more solid tree.

We speed up.

He's half standing out of the car now, rain beating down on him—it barely seems to be slowing him down, like he's some sort of avenging angel—and Mum has unbuckled and leapt forwards to take the wheel.

"Stop!" He booms.

We ignore him.

I cast my eyes down to the compass, rattling against my hip as we charge forwards, and the needle seems to have found a mind of its own, urging us onwards into a sharp left. A left the car could never manage.

"Left!" I yell, and we dive forwards as a branch crashes down to the forest floor behind us.

The car screeches to a sodden halt, and Sir casts his furious gaze down to Mum, who appears to be yelling her head off at him.

"Start the car," He screams at her. "Start the car!"

"Have you lost your mind?" She screams back.

They disappear from view as we press deeper into the trees. Thunder booms overhead, and Aaron flinches.

"How do we know when we're there?" He yells over the rain.

A shattering of glass, and the needle springs right from the compass and embeds itself into the sodden earth.

"That's how," I breathe, and we dive for it, Aaron digging with the shovel, me with my hands, scrabbling and scratching at the mud.

A crackle of lightning, and the entire world turns to white for a beat. When it fades, we see a tree only a few metres away burning, even in the torrential downpour.

"Faster, faster!"

The corner of a wooden chest now pokes out from the earth, and Aaron digs the shovel under it, using it like a crowbar to lever it upwards. I leap for the exposed end, pushing it up until the entire chest heaves from the earth and lands like an upside-down turtle before us.

I let myself breathe a sigh of relief. "What now?"

An earth-shaking thud nearly knocks me from my knees, and the flaming tree hits the ground with a hellish spurt of fire, like a geyser of blood.

Sir rounds the corner, snarling like an animal. "First my own mother thought she could keep this from me, thought I wasn't worthy to hold her precious fortune, and now my own son and a fucking no-one stand in my way. Move!"

We stay rooted in place.

He pulls a gun from his pocket and levels it right at us. "I said move! Move, Goddamn you!"

Aaron puts his hands in the air and stands slowly, walking dead ahead. Sir keeps the gun raised, so it's aimed right at his own son's head.

Aaron looks right into the barrel. "You're a terrible father."

The fire is spreading now, flickering around us like a predator out for blood.

"I told the class," Aaron continues, "that I would burn down everything you'd ever loved."

The fire licks at their heels.

"I meant every last word."

"Aaron!" I yell.

He doesn't turn around, instead shaking his head furiously as he's speaking. Sir doesn't see it for what it is, but I do.

Slowly but surely, I begin dragging the chest away.

"You thought you could control my life. You thought I was just another asset to bring you profit." Aaron spits.

"I thought no such thing—"

"Lies!" Aaron screams. Thunder booms. I draw further away. "You thought you could do the same for Coulter. You see every moral, principle and shred of human decency as a stepping stone to greatness. And I'm here to provide a little bit of a wake-up call."

Sir lowers the gun, then swings it round and slams the butt of it right into Aaron's face. He staggers backwards, hands rising to protect his face. "You little shit. The only wake-up call you're providing is that I should have disciplined you a hell of a lot harder a long, long time ago."

The crackle of fiery wood tumbling down all around them, the hiss of rain as it fights valiantly against it.

I leave the treasure behind, running back to them. Aaron, not gold, is my compass.

Sir looks up and meets my eye. For a fraction of a second, he seems genuinely scared.

Then, a fiery branch whirls round, arcing towards his head, and he's battered to the ground with a guttural groan. Behind him, holding the flaming wood like a sword from heaven, stands my Mum.

"You, Sir," she thunders, "should be completely and utterly ashamed of yourself and everything you have done. You are a terrible Father, a terrible person, and, if I have a shred of say in it, will be going away for a long, long time."

A crackle of lightning, and the world goes once white once more.

12th July:

"All that," Aaron says, staring down at the singed chest on Maggie's sleek dining room table, "All that and we can't even open it."

"It does seem a little odd." Mum raps on the top with her knuckles, then turns to me. "Are you sure there's nothing she gave you that might have unlocked this?"

I shake my head.

"No key? Nothing?"

It doesn't make sense. Why would she get me all the way to the treasure, then not give me any way to open it? All she gave me was the shovel, the book, the compass and—

"Wait!" I yell. "I know where the key is!"

—

Mum has taken a sliver of the fortune and gone to book Aaron a taxi back to the city. If it makes it in time, he might just manage to wish his best friend goodbye.

The storm has passed. Or at least, one of them has. Aaron is still here, alone with me, for a little while longer.

"You've got something you want to say," he says. "I can tell."

"Smart," I say, not quite meeting his eye.

In some twisted way, that makes sense. Aaron Ordrich is not something you live through.

He’s the end of everything. But more than that, he’s the love of my life.

“Go on then,” he says. “Out with it.”

He pauses. "Oh? And what is it?"

"This is a conversation, from me to you. You've read the dictionary. You've memorised every Goddamn word. I have done nothing wrong, and I have nothing to be embarrassed of. I like you, and I like liking you. I don't want to lose you after we've come this far."

Aaron watches me with surprising tenderness. He crosses the table to stand opposite me.

"So, the prodigal son finally speaks his mind."

I hang my head, already feeling stupid. It was a stupid hope. "I'm sorry. I know you hate confessions."

His hand reaches the back of my neck. "Lucky for you this isn't a confession."

And he kisses me.

—

He promises he'll write, and, one day soon, come back. I trust him. I've learnt that, with the exception of one man, the Ordrich family seems to be one to trust.

Maggie wanted her fortune to go somewhere good. She didn't want it to go to a millionaire who would only use it to make himself richer. But she clearly didn't just want to give it to charity, or she would have done that herself.

I think she wanted me to make my own charity. To pave my own future. I intend to honour her wish.

Today, I bin the Throat Sweet Coaster. She has left a bigger legacy behind than that.

#ampo blog reblog!#july 2022 #stories #cactusprincewrites

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a-million-possible-outcomes · 2 years

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AMPO Prompt: July 2022

WE LIVE! Sorry about June, but now we're back on track and have our newest prompt ready. It is:

Let's make one thing clear: this is not a confession.

You'll have until July 30/31 (roughly around there) to post your story. You’re free to write anything you want, barring any NSFW content and Harry Potter fanfiction (other fanfic is ok), just please add content warnings at the top. We can’t wait to see what you come up with!

#writblr #writeblr #writblr event #writeblr event #a million possible outcomes #words from nciko

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a-million-possible-outcomes · 2 years

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Destruction of the Universe

This is my third story for @a-million-possible-outcomes i think?

Prompt: "And as the noise swelled outside, something inside of him swelled, too."

C/TWS: brief mention of animal death

It had been months since they last saw the sun

Clouds rolled in on Monday. By next Thursday, they hadn't moved a bit. If the sun had exploded, it would've taken days and days and days for them to know. There was no wind. There was no rain. Just dark, dark clouds and the thickening silence of their fear.

The rumours started on the third Sunday of the month. The whispers traveled around the church and floated through the air, poisoning anyone who heard them. It was disease, contagious, fuelled by the natural anxiety of the human mind. People agreed something weird was going on. They said God was punishing them. They said the apocalypse was upon them. Special services dedicated to repentance and forgiveness were arranged.

The clouds did not move.

The rain came, finally, on Wednesday. Everyone cried with joy, thanking their gods and their priests and their universe for this sign of life. Song and dance filled the town as people took to the streets to celebrate this change, this reawakening of the sky. The night was one of joy, full of light, and it was promised that the sun was to rise the next morning. They sang the songs of their immortality and danced away their deaths, blessed once again. They'd been gifted a miracle. Poets sat in the wet fields with their pens and their paper and began to write, capturing this moment for years to come.

It didn't stop raining that morning, or the morning after that, and the sun refused to be seen.

Soon, they realized this rain was not a blessing. It was a curse. Rainbows did not appear in the clouds. They prayed that they would live, remember the covenant between God and all the living creatures on earth. They held their Book of Genesis to their chest and hoped they would be protected once again. Their tears joined the flood accumulating in the streets.

On Monday, the sewers filled along with the ditches and then followed the fields, the gardens, the sidewalks and streets and the living rooms. Families sat on the stairs and watched their precious belongings float away into the storm.

The rain stopped on Thursday. No one celebrated this time. They climbed down from the top levels of their homes and stood in the storm water, letting their grief pool amongst their ruined things.

No one noticed that the clouds had given way.

The water was collected and boiled and the windows fogged up with steam and blocked any view. People threw their soggy living rooms in trash bags, their homes expanding in size as they got rid of everything that had damaged.

Screams filled the town on the first day, Sunday morning before mass.

When everything had dried or been trashed, everyone stepped outside to walk the way to church. They expected to see the ugly clouds that had thrown them into this mess. They did not expect the sky to be on fire.

Now they knew that the sun had exploded.

The sirens started before noon and kept wailing through the night, never-ending, reminding them that this is happening it's happening it's happening and they can't escape. Soon the cries of the children joined, followed by the weak-hearted adults and then everyone was crying because reality was kicking in and there was no God to save them. No one reached for their bibles; they knew no pretty passage could save them now.

Sleep became a rare thing, the peace undeserved and the quiet too loud. It was snatched for minutes in dark corners or those few seconds when the sirens stopped before they rang back out, screaming the melody of their fates.

Light and Night were no longer separate things.

On the second day, the firmaments reached down upon them and cast heat all over, brushing their fingers upon their soft skin until it blistered and reddened.

Heaven burned.

On the third day, the grass and herbs and fruit trees and flowers began to wilt. The dry land that God had formed so carefully was being burned by the supposed paradise all were entitled to.

Earth burned.

On the fourth day, they began to forget about the sun, moon, and stars. Clocks lied and there was no way to tell what time it was. The bright sky spread and took the stars and moon with it. They knew the sun had disappeared long ago.

There was no one to watch over them anymore.

On the fifth day, birds fell from the sky and the fish washed up on the shore, the waters no long enough for them.

The earth was dying, and so went everything that lived from it.

On the sixth day, the humans began to give up. Life slowly faded from their bodies, and no one was sure what would happen to them after death if their God had allowed this to come down upon them during life. There was no food or water to support the rest anymore. The land animals hid from the burning heat in their shelters and never emerged again.

Everything was coming to an end, and they knew it.

On the seventh day, God released his grip on the universe and rested. It was the end. Everything holy had died and the rest fell apart. They, the humans, accepted this and went out into the streets one final time as the world they'd loved crumbled.

The sky was a pretty red the way blood is a pretty red and final shouts of goodbye and prayer rang through the town. Four pairs of arms linked around the shoulders they were connected to, shielding them from the world, reminding them that they were merely humans and this was the fate they were headed for no matter what.

Perhaps someone would find their burned bodies and make up lives for them, never knowing they were simply strangers who met and enjoyed the poetry of their bodies fitting together like puzzle pieces while Hell froze over and Heaven shattered around them.

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haha pretend i didnt forget my taglist (ask to be – or +)

@abysslll @cnnamonrolls @pixelw0rds @void-fireworks @strawberrystarcake

#wherearetheplants #stories #may 2022 #BAT BAT BAT BATTTTTT. thats all i can say except for more screaming so yeah

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a-million-possible-outcomes · 2 years

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A Million Possible Outcomes #4

I may have missed the last one, but baby, I'M BACK!

With a word count of about 4,060 this is my shortest one yet. But, since I wrote almost all of it this evening, I feel like that's fair. Considering all that, though, I think I did this really well! Read on if you enjoy: cute and flirty gay romances, slightly vague magic systems, words that are definitely totally 100% being used correctly, and a healthy sprinkle of environmentalism and anti-capitalism.

WARNING: THIS DOES CONTAIN ELEMENTS OF BODY HORROR

For those who don’t know, AMPO is a writeblr challenge run by @chaotic-queer-disaster & @strawberrystarcake and I’d highly recommend getting involved! The prompt this is based on is “and as the noise swelled outside, something inside of him swelled, too."

Without any further ado:

Dray had never seen a day as sunny as the day the Darkness came to town.

Heat beat down on the rolling fields, and he wiped the beading sweat from his forehead with his bare forearm. Next to him, Corym's tanned chest rose and fell softly.

Corym shifted to one side, arm lolling over Dray's chest—sticky with heat, but Dray didn't care—and pressed his face into the curve of Dray's shoulder.

"It's too hot," Corym mumbled, breath warm against his skin, "I'm too hot."

"I know you are," Dray said gently, running a hand through his boyfriend's golden-brown hair and pressing a soft kiss to the top of his head.

"Noooo," Corym groaned. "I'm not being flirty, I'm being real."

"I know," Dray replied. "And I'm being both."

Corym angled his head upwards to shoot Dray what could only be described as one of his looks. God, it sent shivers down Dray's spine, even in the burning heat, even after all this time.

Dray leant forwards and kissed him on the lips, then the cheek, then the forehead—and when his eyes fluttered close, his eyelids too. "You're hot," he grinned. "Hot, hot, hot."

"Fuck you," Corym sighed, smile obvious on his face.

"Please," Dray breathed.

"Too warm," Corym sighed, propping himself up above Dray on his hands and knees.

Dray rose to kiss him again, shivering as Corym carded his fingers through his hair. They kissed, and they kissed, and then Corym flopped back, eyes blown wide and skin slick with sweat.

"I need to cool down."

Dray pushed himself up, sparing a second to send Corym a crooked grin. "I have an idea."

The River Harriett sliced right through the continent, rushing waters dividing the landscape with their every violent twist and turn. Some of the Fine Folk Scholars called it the Golden Line, since at least four countries had their Capitals built up along the banks, but it wasn't really a line. It was more like the trunk of a family tree, hundreds of smaller rivers bursting from it and skittering across the landscape, villages and towns perched on the boughs like mothers and fathers and uncles and aunts for as far as the eye could see.

The River Thrush—a distributary really, but Dray had long learnt that technicalities like that were reserved for the Fine Folk—branched off from the Harriett, its waters calmer and cooler. It was the Thrush's gentle waters that ran through the heart of the fields. And it was the Thrush, Dray was sure, that would help them cool off in that roasting afternoon.

They dived in, whooping and laughing, and the chill hit Dray like a wall as the the waters enveloped him in a burst of bubbles. Corym followed close behind, a clumsy tangle of flailing arms and legs as he jumped from the tallest branch of a nearby tree.

"Whoo!" He yelled, and Dray broke the surface just in time to see him hit the water and disappear briefly into the depths.

A beat passed, and when he emerged, panting and grinning, he threw his head back and ran a hand through his hair to slick it messily back.

"Gods," he beamed. "I needed this. We should've done this so much sooner."

"Are you saying it would be better to cut our make-out short?" Dray teased. "For shame, Corym, for shame."

"I would never suggest that," Corym replied, treading water to close the distance between them. They were a breath away, Dray's palms flat against Corym's chest, lips inches apart. And then Corym whipped his arms up, sending a wave of spray right into Dray's face.

Dray spluttered and laughed at the same time, swallowing a mouthful of water. "Oh, you didn't."

"I did."

"You've chosen your fate," Dray grinned, and leapt forwards, grabbing Corym's head and dunking it under the water.

He held it for a beat, and then let his hand fall mindlessly away. There was something in the air. Sucking in a deep breath, he drew back slightly. The air in his lungs felt wrong. Stale.

Corym broke the surface again, concern written into every blemish his face. "Dray?"

"Something's wrong." Dray treaded water as he turned in himself round in slow, delicate circles, eyes darting across the rolling landscape.

Something more than heat shimmered in the air now.

"Dray?" Corym began tentatively. "What are—"

The explosion seemed to scorch the entire sky, black and orange tearing through the blue, eating up clouds and birds and light, writhing like fire and smoke fighting for control. Water burst up around them, a shockwave of spray hitting them like a brick wall.

"Dray—" Corym called.

It was too late.

Dray flew right off his footing, grunting as the wind was struck from him, then crumpled in a heap. Everything was black.

Dray used to dream he stood in front of a set of golden scales. They were so tall he couldn't see the top in the clouds, but he knew in his heart they were perfectly balanced.

In that moment, writhing darkness, he dreamed again.

The balance tipped.

The Harriett was a family tree. And just like any family tree, it had spots where the names had been etched out and worn away. Areas that had been forgotten or disowned, disconnected from the Heartbeat that tied everything together. The Dredges, the Fine Folk called them, the Barren.

No one knew how they were born—or, more aptly, how they died—but Dray knew one thing for sure, before he even opened his eyes.

He was sitting right in one.

"Dray? Dray?" A panicked voice called, piercing through the bleary-eyed, aching muscled darkness that had its hold over him. "Shit, shit, shit. Dray? Can you hear me?"

For a moment, he hung in the precipice between summer and winter, light and dark. It would have been so easy to just slip away, sink into the darkness and never get up again.

"Love, love, come on," the voice urged, rising in intensity with every word. "Dray, I need you to be okay."

He burst awake.

"Corym," He gasped, lurching forwards into his boyfriend's arms.

"Thank God," Corym breathed, clutching at every inch of him. He shuddered into the crook of Dray's shoulder. "Thank God. I couldn't lose you."

Dray shuddered into his shoulder. "Seconded."

The sun beat down on them, dark fire hanging ghostly in the air. The Thrush to their right. Barren land all around, cracking under them with their every movement.

The fields they'd grown up in, the forests that lent them shade in the summers and shelter in the winters, the poppy fields they'd played in as children, the gnarled oak that they first kissed under, all of it was gone in the blink of an eye.

They let the silence stretch on for a beat, just holding each other close. Dray could feel Corym's heartbeat pounding in his chest, and he gave himself permission at last to breathe a sigh of relief. Even if the world around them was, dead, they weren't.

"What the fuck just happened?" Dray breathed, "Besides the obvious."

Corym's beautiful face darkened. "I know as much as you do."

"We need to get back to town."

Corym nodded shakily. "Seconded," he whispered, but his gaze was elsewhere.

Dray shuffled around to face the same direction, then leapt back, eyes widening and mouth dropping open in slack-jawed shock.

A ginormous beast of a boat bore down on them, shearing through the now-murky waters of the Thrush, all sleek angles and polished white surface, sails trimmed with golden lining and patterns of flowers. With a skeleton of fine wood, curved at the edges and carved in impossible detail, it could only belong to one group: The Fine Folk.

Corym stared up at the ship. "What the hell are they doing here?"

Of course. Their entire life had been destroyed, their entire town would need to uproot itself, hundreds of people from little children to silver-haired adults would need to make a harsh trek to who knows where, and the Fine Folk had showed up just in time to document it all, to tick them off like little test subjects and call it a job done.

Painting-frame hatches embedded into the ship's side slid up with a rhythmic clicking, like even their mechanics worked to inhuman automation, and wooden pillars slid out of perfectly-measured spaces to jam into the riverbank on either side of them.

The process left gouges running through the banks like fingernails in chalk, claw marks stretching right along the length of the soft earth until the ship finally slowed to a stop.

"Here they come," Dray groaned, picking himself up from the floor. "Best make ourselves presentable. Can't appear too uncivilised for their refined palates."

He offered a hand to Corym, who used it to pull himself up but didn't let go, instead gripping it tighter as he leaned his body into Dray's. Dray rubbed one thumb gently in circles over his calloused knuckles.

A beat of silence—the calm before the storm—and then countless Fine Folk swung from over the side of the boat, dressed in regal white-and-blue high-collared cloaks, soft leather boots sending cracks skittering to the floor as they landed nimbly. The silver crescent moons stitched onto the backs of their deep blue fingerless gloves marked them as Star-Sailors, followers of the night sky, disciples of the North Star.

A tall man—most likely the Captain—stepped towards them. He had a clipped sort of manner to him, straight-backed and stiff, with his arms by his side as if ironed there, and his legs bent slightly at the knees, like he was in a rush to bound away but trying desperately not to show it. His skin was perfectly smooth and unblemished, with high, polished-china cheekbones and glittering eyes set back in his sockets.

He might have been something vaguely resembling handsome if it didn't all give him this inhuman, wax model sort of effect. It was all superficial, charms and spells, magic taken from the Heartbeat of the Planet, distilled into palatable portions and then directed inwards at themselves.

The Fine Folk were the only ones who could do that, and God, did they lord it over everyone.

"Captain Erudite," the man said, words accompanied by a sharp nod of his head. "Of the Dredge Investigation Unit."

Dray stared up at him, barely disguised hate brimming in his eyes. "Got here awfully quick considering this place barely became a Dredge a few minutes ago."

"We've been tracking the spread," Erudite said blandly. "Trying to pinpoint the next spot. We were hoping to get here in time to prevent the Emergence, but alas, what will be will be. Perhaps success is reserved for the next time."

"Oh yeah," Dray hissed, "maybe next time. We're just another one on the list. It's not like people's lives are involved in this."

"We are doing this in order to better understand and thereby prevent the continual occurrence of Dredges," Erudite sniffed. "Your cooperation would be greatly appreciated."

Corym grimaced, clutching Dray tighter. "Maybe you should leave now. Make sure you get to the next one in time."

Erudite looked him up and down, raised one thin eyebrow, then extended a hand towards him. "Your cooperation would be greatly appreciated."

Corym raised his and Dray's intertwined hands. "Sorry, can't shake on it. Hands occupied."

Erudite twitched. Something metallic shimmered in his eyes, hummed in the deadened air. "It is customary—"

"To shake hands to initiate a permanently binding magical deal?" Dray cut him off. "Yes, we're aware."

"We may not be Fine Folk," Corym grinned, and God, Dray bet Erudite just wished he could smile like that, "but we're not idiots."

Erudite twitched. "I had hoped that you would agree to our studies willingly, but alas, what will be will be."

"Studies?" Corym grimaced, taking a step backwards. Dray held his ground.

"There's always a person or two at a Dredge site. We have reason to believe they're linked to the expansion. But, as with any investigation, certain tests must be run to confirm this."

"Captain," a Fine Folk lady called from over their shoulders.

The three of them turned toward her at the same time. Dray was only slightly surprised to see her hovering over the Thrush, droplets murky water floating around her like an oversized halo. "Trace amounts of residue. They've been in the river."

"I feared as much," Erudite said. "Nature needs to be respected, revered, kept sacred. It can easily be corrupted, and so it is the duty of everyone to ensure that they take the proper care when partaking in its service."

"In the common tongue?" Corym huffed.

Erudite twitched again. "Nature is all about exchange. If you take from it, you must give back. If you use a river to cool off, but do not give something back, then you risk corrupting it?"

Corym actually laughed out loud, and Dray very nearly joined in. "I'm sorry," he said, wiping an overlarge tear from the corner of one eye, "but are you actually telling us that we did this by going in the river. Bullshit."

"You sailed here in your giant fucking monster of a boat and left claw marks right through the riverbank, and expect us to believe you care about nature?" Dray scoffed.

"We understand the exchange. We know what we must give up in order to pass through."

"Look, we need to get to town now, start helping the others get their stuff together," Dray said. "But nice talk."

The two of them turned away—right into the path of another Fine Folk, lightning flashing in his eyes.

Dray stumbled backwards, but Eredite's firm hand at his back tipped them both forwards again.

The electric-eyed Fine Folk ground a foot into the dusty floor, like a bull about to charge, and the earth beneath their feet juddered, then gave way.

"Shit!" Dray yelled, and Corym echoed him as they dropped.

The same instinct must have kicked into both of them—they thrust out their arms, just enough to stop their fall. WIth a bloody grunt, they lodged into place, right in the narrow entrance to the tunnel that led down, down, down. Their own strength was the only thing keeping them from falling through and becoming one with the Heartbeat. Maybe that's what the Fine Folk wanted of them. Or maybe they had something else planned.

"Well," Erudite said calmly. "I think it would be best for both of you if you were to cooperate. I will not offer again."

The Folk had set up a base a few hundred miles down the river, all marble walls and canvas sails, crescent moon flags bursting from every windowsill and doorway. The entire structure—not quite a castle, but not too far off either—was built on a cliff edge that jutted over the foaming white channel where the Thrush joined up with the Harriett. Thick pillars jutted from the rushing waters and drilled into the cliff-face—to stabilise it, presumably.

"What did you have to exchange to get that done?" Dray scoffed, as Folk Guards pushed him off the boat and onto land—gorgeously ripe, unnaturally vivid, each and every strand of grass jewelled by dew even in the late afternoon. "A few Dredge-sized areas of land, maybe?"

"Or is it just the first few people you found in each one?" Corym finished.

Erudite frowned at them both. "Please, do not try to make us the villains. It is the responsibility of everyone to maintain the balance of the planet. You must remain responsible—"

"This is a fucking sham," Dray cut him off again. "There's no way we could form a Dredge by swimming in the river to cool off. But making a castle like this? Keeping yourself eternally young and perfect? Granting yourself perfect intelligence, and magical powers, and God knows what else? I would say—"

Erudite whipped around so fast his entire body blurred, one of his gloves almost seeming to fly off his hand as he did, and pressed his now-bare palm right over Dray's mouth.

His skin burnt like fire where Erudite touched it, pain spasming through his face and stretching at his skin. He could feel himself shifting and warping as tears streamed like blood down his cheeks.

"Don't touch him," Corym screamed. "Don't fucking touch him!"

A Folk grabbed him and forced him to his knees, but he didn't stop struggling even as he hit the ground with a pained grunt, even as his head was forced right to the floor.

Erudite pushed his hand further into Dray's skin, and Dray's entire world was swallowed by pain, his skin knitting itself together, sparks bursting through his entire being.

Corym's guttural voice pierced through the air, even though he was yelling into the grass. "Don't touch him! Don't you dare touch him!"

Erudite's gaze shifted, and he drew back, pressing his hand against his chest. "Very well, boy." He turned to Dray. "I don't think you would say anything now, freak."

Dray tried to yell, to scream, to curse and hiss and spit in Erudite's face, but no sound came out. He couldn't even open his mouth. Electric dread filling his stomach, overflowing right through his pores, he reached his fingers up to drift gingerly over his face. He had no mouth.

He had no mouth.

He staggered backwards, hands over his face, clutching at the perfect sheen of his skin, hiding it from the world.

Corym burst free, crossing the distance between them in the blink of an eye, hissing and spitting. Not a single Folk stood in his way, as he cupped Dray's face in his hands.

Dray kept his palms firm against his face.

"Dray." Corym's breath hitched. "God, Dray, what did they do to you? What the fuck did they do to you?"

Dray shook his head, tears streaming freely down his face.

He'd never be able to speak again. He'd never be able to laugh, sigh, sing. He'd never be able to tell Corym how much he loved him.

He let his hands fall away as he sobbed—soundlessly, shaking chest and streaming eyes alone—into Corym's shoulder.

"God," Corym whispered. "God. I'm going to kill them. I'm going to kill them all."

Dray shuddered against his skin.

"I love you, Dray" Corym breathed. "I will love you forever, and I swear to God I will stay by your side no matter what they try do to you."

Golden Scales, shimmering in his vision. One side was right in the ground, almost buried entirely.

It was time to balance things out.

"Now," Erudite boomed to the Fine Folk audience that had gathered before him, "We balance our world once again. What is taken must be given, and what is accrued from the earth must be admitted back to it."

It was strange. Dray hadn't thought the man capable of projecting his voice like that. Earlier, he'd been more of a slow, pronounced speaker. It was almost as if he'd stolen Dray's intonations along with his voice, the subtle lifts at the end of certain words, the wry hint to sounds normally humourless.

Judging by the fury simmering in Corym's eyes, he was right about that.

It was okay though—or at least, it would be. He was about to take it all back.

"These two," Erudite continued, gesturing to the spot at his feet where Dray and Corym had been bound in chains and forced to kneel, "must be taught that they cannot take without giving. So to the earth from which they were born, I now return them."

He raised his hands, and the wind seemed to rise at his back and call, sending leaves flurrying through the warm air.

If the Fine Folk had figured out how to talk with the earth, how to give and take and balance nature to the degree, then he could too. He focused all his energy on the scales, to the point they seemed almost corporeal. Maybe he could have reached out to touch them. He didn't try.

"I offer to you, O Earth, these souls..."

He didn't have a mouth—not anymore—so he said the words with his heart instead, willed the world to hear them, poured them into the Golden Scales. He only hoped it worked. It had to.

I offer to you, O Earth, these souls...

"Who, in their foolishness, thought they could take and not give..."

Who, in their foolishness, thought they could take and not give.

Erudite was wrong. Dray was about to give the earth everything it had ever wanted.

He squeezed his eyes shut.

“Now what you need to heal the rift, I provide…”

Now what you need to heal the rift, I provide—Golden Scales, Golden Scales, twitching behind his eyelids, balance altering—Oh earth, what do you need to mend all the dredges? Would every Fine Folk do? What they have taken, now I offer up again.

Erudite stopped mid-sentence, looked from left to right slowly. “Do you hear…”

“I return the Fine Folk to the Earth!” Dray’s voice boomed now, but he wasn’t speaking. The ground beneath him spoke instead, and the Harriet, words rising through the rushing waters. Every blade of grass whispered the words as they rustled, and they reverberated in every gust of wind.

“What is this?” Erudite gaped, staggering backwards.

Dray was almost glad Erudite had stolen his intonation—that way, Dray got to see the pure terror in his eyes that would have previously stayed locked away in an expression of wax as the wind tugged at his skin and hair—almost. It was time to take it back now.

“I return the Fine Folk to the Earth!”

And as the noise swelled outside, something inside of him swelled, too—his chains shattered, and he burst to his feet. “I return the Fine Folk to the Earth!”

His voice! His voice! He raised a hand to his face, blood streaming down his wrists from his broken shackles, and felt his mouth, his lips. He ran his tongue over his teeth. He could talk again—he was undoing the damage, everything the Fine Folk had done. To others…and to themselves.

Erudite clutched at his face as he began to wither, golden hair suddenly drooping, posture crumpling so that he fell to his knees in an instant—the action reverberated throughout the entire base, echoing as the Earth took back what rightfully belonged to it.

The balance of Golden Scales finally corrected.

Dray turned to Corym, channelled all the energy of the Earth still thrumming in him—“I return the Fine Folk to the Earth!”—and watched as his shackles shattered too.

Corym forced himself upwards, straining with every minute movement against the howling wind, leaves whipped up into a frenzy, boiling air slamming against them, and slipped into Dray’s arms.

“I love you,” he breathed.

Erudite reached a withered, bony hand towards them, skin crackling and flaking and blowing away in the wind, and then he was gone entirely.

“I love you too,” Dray said, laughing at his own voice, soft amidst all the chaos. “I love you, I love you, I love you. I’m never going to stop saying that. I love you.”

The Castle behind them let out an almighty creak, wooden pillars bending in on themselves and snapping beneath their own weight, canvas sails flaying away into the wind, twisting and turning and tearing themselves to shreds.

“I love you,” Corym said back. Leaning forwards on the top of his feet, wrapping his arms around Dray’s neck, he kissed him.

Beneath their feet, the grass’s vivid, magic green faded to a dim, natural green.

And just like that, it was all over. The wind dropped. The sky calmed. It was just another hot summer’s day.

“Do you think the Dredges are all gone?” Corym breathed, drawing back slightly. Dray could still feel his heartbeat against his chest. “Did you just save the world?”

“I just did what the Fine Folk kept saying. I played my little part.”

Corym grinned. “Let’s go back to town. I want to see if its all back to normal.”

Dray wiped the sweat beading on his forehead away with the back of his hand. “I could go for a swim too. I’m really hot.”

“Yes,” Corym grinned. “Yes, you are.”

#cactusprincewrites #!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!#stories #may 2022

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a-million-possible-outcomes · 2 years

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AMPO Prompt: May 2022

hello! we're alive for reals <3 (it's Nico making this post. I have not checked in with Mika on it, because Mika @strawberrystarcake is sleeping.)

The prompt we decided on for this month is:

"And as the noise swelled outside, something inside of him swelled, too."

You'll have until May 28th to post your story, or around there (it's later than usual because we didn't have time to talk about the prompt until now. Sorry ;-;). You're free to do whatever you like with the prompt, barring any NSFW content and Harry Potter fanfiction (other fanfic is ok), and we can't wait to see what you come up with!

#self rb because there's roughly a week left

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a-million-possible-outcomes · 2 years

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AMPO Prompt: May 2022

hello! we're alive for reals <3 (it's Nico making this post. I have not checked in with Mika on it, because Mika @strawberrystarcake is sleeping.)

The prompt we decided on for this month is:

"And as the noise swelled outside, something inside of him swelled, too."

#writblr #writeblr #writblr event #writeblr event #a million possible outcomes #mika's not awake which means i can make this post horribly chaotic and unprofessional. its so fun #words from nciko #btw #when she offered this prompt mika said ''vague and easy to do. could be interpreted as anxiety or joy. or a baby but thats VERY unlikely''#so that tells you exactly how professional we are behind the scenes #anyway ill stop rambling now because . yeah. professionalism. this blog will go back to being professional after this and i will pretend #this never happened

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a-million-possible-outcomes · 2 years

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S U N S H I N E .

ampo story number 5 !! no it's not late what are you talking about ^____^ @a-million-possible-outcomes

It's a rare thing, this sort of light.

Mornings come unforgivingly cold most days, crisp with ice and snow and the silvery winter film that never quite goes away. I’ve grown accustomed to it, and perhaps that’s why I notice straight away that something has changed. Summer, it seems, has come.

It finds me in my bedroom. The sunlight spills in through the window, golden and warm, washing over me like something novel and familiar all at once. Beside me, my best friend lies tangled in my sheets, staining them strawberry. She’s staring at the sky, or what little is visible from where we’re curled on the bed.

(I do not think about how she makes me feel the same way the sunlight does, with all that liquid light pooling in the dark of her eyes. I do not think about how the sunlight itself is almost drawn to her, like a moth to a flame, except in this case the flame has fallen into its own trap. The beguiler beguiled, ensnared in a web of its own design.

I most definitely do not think- we are more alike than I thought, the sun and I.)

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” she asks. She knows what I’ll say to that. “I want it. It’s that kind of beautiful. Do you get what I mean?”

“Yes,” I say, because that is what I always say. It’s a familiar back-and-forth. She’ll say do you get me and I will say yes, because I know her better than I know myself.

Silence again. The sun rises in the sky, bleeding from gold to white. She is curled beside me, now, and looking at me like the proximity means nothing to her. It probably doesn’t, I think, wryly and ruefully all at once, and whatever comes next goes both unspoken and unthought.

(Here is what I do think, mulling over the things I did not think and the things I did not say: maybe one day, I’ll stop lying to yourself about everything that truly matters.)

I kiss her for the first time on the way home from a movie, three blocks from our tiny suburban neighborhood with all its stifling comfort. She tastes like strawberry sugar and the salt of her tears.

“Here,” she whispers when we part, tugging me into a diner by the road. It’s an old place, made all up of dusty white tiles and busted neon signs and milkshake stains on the driveway. She, with her wild hair and sunlight eyes, shines ebullient against it all. “Kiss me again.”

And so I kiss her again. Hold her close again. The day is warm again. In our little winter town, all there is to warm me is my love, and it burns. It flows through me like molten gold. My blood thrums hot underneath my skin.

She shivers against me, laughing saccharine-sweet against my lips. I close my eyes and take a shuddering breath.The world spins, slightly, and I feel half-drunk on sunlight and laughter and the artificial-strawberry scent of her hair. She’s all the sort of lovely that turns a person into a fool, and in that fleeting moment, all I can think is- how lucky I am, to have known her in this life.

“He’s beautiful,” she whispers, one quiet silver day, and I look up.

They say that when the heart breaks, you feel it as if it were something physical, something more than a metaphor. I never gave it much thought myself. I’ve only fallen in love once, and I’ve always believed that one’s heart can only break on the pavement if it flies high enough to fall.

On that day, I am flying high enough to see the stars that twinkle in her eyes when she looks at the boy across the courtyard, and I am Icarus in the flesh, wax melting white-hot down my back. The ocean is no refuge, no relief, no balm for a broken heart.

He is beautiful, really. And sweet. And perfect. His eyes catch and shimmer in the sunlight just like hers do and he’s kind; so, so kind. He’s perfect for her, hovering exactly at her level like I never could. When she could have him, why would she settle for anything less?

(The taste of jealousy is not pleasant, but it is addictive, and it’s not something I can chase away. It’s bitter under my tongue and bitter down my throat and bitter in my heart and lungs.)

It’s the typical story. I’m only one girl of hundreds, falling deeper and deeper and wishing desperately for just one chance. But that chance never comes, and a part of me- the part that just wants to keep me from getting hurt worse than I can take, I expect, or perhaps the cruel part that presses down on my heart with ice-cold silver hands- knows that I am not going to be the exception.

So I know how this ends, and hope that she does not know it too. I will watch from the sidelines until the end, staying silent to see her smile and fall in and out love and, in the end, make a life with someone who is not me. Someone I can never compare to, reminding me of everything that keeps me from her.

Glass walls are crueler than concrete, I think. They come with the electrifying, egregious, aching awareness of what you will never get to have.

He doesn’t last a week. None of them do. They just get better and better, worse and worse. Boys with sharp tongues and boys with silver souls and boys who hold her in the night, curled in her room across the street, prying their fingers into the cracked thing just behind my breastbone again and again and again. And in between all her perfect boys, her eyes burn with angry discontent, and she kisses me to forget the taste of them.

I will never have her, not really. I’m good at dulling her pain, and I’m good at holding her through the night, after she has cried all the tears she can cry. I’m good at pretending I’m not selfish, that I don’t let myself believe sometimes,when she is wrapped in my arms under cover of velvet night. I’m good at being hers, even though she will never truly be mine.

“I love you,” I say, one day. It sounds like an apology, spoken in the tones of earnest regret.

“I know,” she says, quiet as anything. The golden light of sunset does not glow in her eyes when she turns to me. “I know.”

taglist: @abysslll @chaotic-queer-disaster @quixotic-ethics @crystallaer @double-cross-my-mind @moondrop-jellyfish @marveladdictt @crystalias @wherearetheplants @matcha-chai @fierreth-who

#mika strawberrystarcake you've done it again (/pos)#strawberrystarcake

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a-million-possible-outcomes · 2 years

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𝚊 𝚖𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚙𝚘𝚜𝚜𝚒𝚋𝚕𝚎 𝚘𝚞𝚝𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚜: 𝟺

hi! its my first time here submitting smth for ampo, and if you don't know what that is, it's a writeblr event hosted by mika @strawberrystarcake and nico @chaotic-queer-disaster! they have a blog all about it (@.a-million-possible-outcomes), check it out if you want :) anyway the word count here is around 2.3k and it's also my first time writing a story this long so . don't expect anything big or deep, i'm still trying :D i just did this for fun and i had lots of em LOL no tws ^_^

"autumn was a peculiar person. she was secretive. she was quiet. she was the most introverted person i know. but she's still my best friend."

that was via. fifteen years old. she's talking to a new student in school. he thought via was talkative and loud.

"we met when we were around 12 years old, you see. she was a new student here in this school, and being the extroverted kid i was, i marched right up to her and introduced myself, just how i'm doing it to you right now! she started avoiding me but i was very clingy, and so she had no choice but to put up with my nonsense."

the new boy looked very confused and obviously didn't want to be there, but it looks like he had no choice.

"we soon became very good friends!", she continued, "i picked her up every morning and brought her home every aftern-"

"look. i don't have time for this. you're just not my type of friend. now c-"

"oh and she disappears very randomly at times, probably to visit her mother."

he was rather intrigued. just a little bit.

"wait, who takes care of her then?" he asked

"no one" via said simply. she's a very mature being. she's pretty good at taking care of herself"

𝚊𝚞𝚝𝚞𝚖𝚗 ; 𝚊 𝚑𝚎𝚊𝚡𝚒𝚊𝚗 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚘𝚍𝚊𝚢

𝟷𝟿𝟿0𝚜

autumn was a very peculiar person and she knows it. she liked being called peculiar. it was a compliment to her.

her life was quite simple. gets picked up by via at 7am, brought home at 3pm, and she disappears to who knows where until she is picked up at 7am again the next day.

that was a lie. her life is not simple at all. her life is the opposite of simple. it was hard, tiring, draining and demanding. most people would probably switch lives with her, but trust me. that is not the way to go.

so, what is she? is she a princess? is she a heir? no. she's a heaxian.

she comes from a land called heaxia, some place near japan and taiwan. of course, it's invisible to the naked eye.

heaxians are-- powerful. they get to choose a power to keep for life when they come of age (14) and is assigned to a country. their lifelong goal is to retrieve the eyes of the heax from every country there is.

𝚐𝚊𝚋 ; 𝚠𝚑𝚘 𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚎𝚍 𝚒𝚝 𝚊𝚕𝚕

𝟷𝟾𝟾0𝚜

the gods were bored one day, so they decide to play a little game. there is a little pebble, as smooth as glass or marble, as shiny as a silver platter, and as big as a thumb would be lying around on the ground once a year. the gods would drop the gift in every country for a whole 24 hours, and if ever the rock finds a person worthy, it'll show itself. the person in question now has the ability to get powers of their choice, and the game is over.

a 10 year old girl, gab, was skipping around her garden, she saw something shiny. she thought it was a coin at first, but it was far too thick to be one. then; it snapped. "mama! mama! i found the gift! the gift in our country!"

of course, her mother was very doubtful. "how do you know this is real? could this be a copy? a prank? gab. you can't jump to conclusions."

gab felt it. she knew she's found the gift.

that night, the gods, miles and ysabel, visited her dream. "hello gab! as it turns out, you have found the gift! congratulations!" gab was too starstruck to speak. she was standing on a cloud, and it was very bright. it seemed to her that there were castles in the distance. "why am i standing on a cloud?" they both laughed. "this is infinite magical powers we're talking about. anything is possible."

gab chose the power of teleportation which was very convenient on her part. her powers were passed on only to her worthy descendants. to be specific, only around 35 out of around 80 descendants got the gift, which all happened in around eleven decades.

now here's the catch. the gods' game backfired. they didn't think it through. you see, after gab has officially gotten her power, the gods lost power over the stones, which means a whole other race of heaxians could arise just if one more puny little childless human being, as the gods would call us, finds a stone- which could be a big problem, since they never wanted the heaxians to take over the human population.

which brings us back to the present, the 1990s

𝚊𝚞𝚝𝚞𝚖𝚗 ; 𝚊 𝚑𝚎𝚊𝚡𝚒𝚊𝚗 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚘𝚍𝚊𝚢 ; 𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚛𝚘𝚍𝚞𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗

𝟷𝟿𝟿0𝚜

autumn was in her condominium, heading out to another part of the state to search for the eye of australia. for the past three years, she's been in melborne and today, she's decided to go near that one cafe a few blocks away from school. she's been able to search the entire school just last week, and nothing, as she expected

there are two more heaxians in australia- milo and taylor. we're not aware of their location, but we'll find out soon enough.

i haven't told you about autumn's power yet!! well, she had a very hard time deciding on it. when i say hard, i mean a really hard time. it took her weeks to decide because she had too many ideas, but settled on seeing the future. the catch was she only had 10 minutes to visit the future every two weeks. all she had to do was find her inner peace, say where in time she wants to go to, and snap.

𝚊𝚞𝚝𝚞𝚖𝚗 ; 𝚊 𝚑𝚎𝚊𝚡𝚒𝚊𝚗 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚘𝚍𝚊𝚢 ; 𝚐𝚒𝚟𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚒𝚝 𝚊 𝚜𝚑𝚘𝚝

she has always wondered what would happen if she looked into the future regarding the eyes. would everyone be able to collect all 195 eyes? seeing as they've collected about 1/4 of the eyes in 120 years, it seemed unlikely it's going to happen anytime soon. she's always debated whether she should give it a shot, because she's not even sure if that's possible. although there's no harm in trying, right?

that night, she's decided to do it. she went into her room and locked the door, closed the windows and curtains

"am i allowed to do this? probably not. does this violate a rule of the heax? probably. will i do it anyway? yes of course, for gods sake i need some exciting things in my life."

she needed to find her inner peace. her brain had to empty. her strategy in doing so is imagining herself floating in nothingness. a white place and nothing more. when she felt ready, she did.

*snap*. "take me to the next century."

she felt the sensation of being sucked into a loophole, just as you would feel if you went on a merry-go-round; just exclude getting dizzy. around and round and round again, until she is dropped into what is supposedly the 2090s.

"oh no."

𝚏𝚞𝚝𝚞𝚛𝚎.

𝟸0𝟿0𝚜

everything was. magic. everywhere. was magic. teleporting, super speed, invisibility, you name it. as she was going to walk up to a nice looking lady for some questions, she felt a tingling sensation and she was brought back to the position she was in when she first arrived. everyone started clapping and laughing.

"what- what the hell just happe- excuse me? excuse me, yeah you, what just happened?"

"you uncultured and disrespectful child may i add. raine just did her Thing."

"raine? her Thing? what?"

"jesus christ, that's not funny. some kind of comedian you are, aye?

"sorry. where am i again?" she added. "my head's feeling funny." god, that was a horrible fib, she thought.

the lady shakes her head. "honestly, woman, did you hit your head on the way? you're in calagary, canada, where the heax magic is strongest.

"oh. okay. thank you, anyway i best be going, see you."

"wait! where are you going? how do you know wher-" but she was already off.

it was a horrible sight, i can tell you that. chaos everywhere. no control, and no government in sight to stop it all.

you may be thinking of a place with paper planes all over the streets with cars zooming past the speed limit and plastic bags flying all over the air. here's the thing: it's not that kind of chaotic. everything was actually neat when it comes to actual pollution, because ella was always there to help. she's an environmentalist, and she chose the power of tidying up. in a snap of a finger, she can put all the trash in the city disappear into oblivion. gone. disappeared.

of course, just because ella can clean them all up, it doesn't stop her from reminding everyone to avoid littering. every 2 months, with a help of her friend alex, who can make his voice heard by a thousand miles, they have programs about the environment. autumn was fascinated by ella's and alex's determination. back at 1990, people couldn't care less about the environment. "maybe the future isn't so bad after all."

she was wrong. she visited a nearby cafe and observed that the non-heaxians were the laziest asses in the universe. everyone is complaining. "hey yOU! MAKE A CUP O' COFFEE APPEAR! IM THIRSTY!" "ey, get my cup from the counter please? can't you teleport?" noise pollution was booming.

and then she saw a girl, around her age. she looked stressed. autumn was in dire need of explanations.

"uh hey there. question. who's raine?"

she looked startled and took off her earbuds. "oh sorry, didn't see you there. you must be knew here. raine's a popular person here in our country and she has the power to turn back time."

"oh. makes sense. thanks."

she also noticed the girl looked distressed and disappointed.

"y'alright?"

"no, no i'm not alright. this world is doomed. everyone is relying on these.. heaxians, theyre called? to do the work for them. hell, my sister wont even learn to drive since her heaxian of a best friend can fly her to wherever. everyone is taking everything forgranted. the heaxians can do nothing. our mayor believes that humans have higher power and authority over them. they're used as slaves."

"my mother and father were heaxians. they both died three years ago because they weren't doing as humans would tell them to. they thought that their sacrifice would inspire other heaxians to fight back. it was no use. their death was put in vain. cowards." she stopped, and added "i wish i was born in the past. maybe in the 1990s. lovely place."

she started tearing up. autumn felt the need to pat her back consolingly, and she did. they both smiled at each other.

"i agree with you completely. this is utter chaos. sure, there are peacemakers everywhere and environmentalists, but the true magic of life is gone. words like 'hard work' and 'determination' and 'patience' are washed away in a sea, forgotten."

she couldn't be more relieved to hear that.

"oh, and what's your name?"

"kim. kimberly vega."

"wait what?"

"yeah? w-"

and she felt it again. she was sucked back into a loophole. her head went round and round and round and then suddenly she felt like falling. and then she was back. the lovely 1990s. she has never been more relieved to be back. autumn vega couldn't be more relieved.

autumn died at the age of 82. funnily, she got to visit her town in australia as a spirit, in around the 2080s. it was hilarious watching them all go wild. newspapers, radios, cellphones and televisions all blasting the same questions. "MAGIC EXISTS?????" "WHAT THE HELL ARE HEAXIANS??????" "IS THIS THE END OF IT ALL?????"

people in heaxia were also panicking. "IS OUR MISSION A FAILURE??? WILL THE WORLD BE DOMINATED BY OUR KIND???? ARE OUR DECADES OF WORK WASTED?"

she knows how this ends, of course.

𝚔𝚒𝚖 ; 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚏𝚞𝚝𝚞𝚛𝚎

𝟸0𝟿0𝚜

fast-forward. a hundred years later. it's 2090 now, and kim vega was in her comfort cafe with her usual caramel macchiato. a 19 year old, as usual, pissed with the world.

a strange girl suddenly appeared outside her window, she looked younger than her. she looked confused but no matter. kim had nothing to do with her.

ten minutes later, the girl entered the cafe and started walkimg towards her. thoughts like "what does she want with me" and "get off me i dont need friends" revolved around her head in less than 3 seconds.

"uh hey there. question. who's raine?"

crap. she pretended not to hear her. who's raine???? what kind of question is that? kim thought to herself.

sigh. i guess i'll have to answer. and so kim went on about raine and her popularity.

"y'alright?"

i knew it, she thought. now what do i tell her. suppose i'll tell her the truth, she's going to think ive lost my mind. no harm in doing it though, i don't even know her. and kim started talking about how she hated the future, about her parents, and about how she wished she was born in the 1990s instead.

to kim's surprise, the strange girl agreed with her.

she started patting her back. kim was pretty touched.

"oh and what's your name?"

"kim. kimberly vega."

"wait what?"

"yeah? why? anything wro-"

she couldn't finish her sentence because the strange girl was surrounded by little lights. they looked like fairy lights but she couldn't see the cord. what. is. happening.

in a blink of an eye, she was gone.

"huh. weird. sucks i guess"

𝟷𝟿𝟿0𝚜

"and that's all i know about autumn. she was very mysterious, you know?" via concluded

"yeah. i know. anyway, best be off now. i've got a story to narrate."

yep. i'm milo, yeah, does that ring a bell? thought i'd like to surprise you.

there are some unanswered questions to the tale, and all we can say is we don't know. how did the humans learn about our magic? wasn't it supposed to be kept secret? and what happened to kim?

you know, sometimes our questions are better left unanswered.

the heaxians will always be remembered, but i'm not sure if it's something to be proud of.

#!! this is some really awesome worldbuilding :D #and the last line is perfect #overall this is just a wonderful story #thanks for participating !#words from nciko #stories #april 2022 #studiare-con-asteria

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