#. it stinks that the entire earth is slowly moving away from the only form of social interaction that is convenient to me lol.. BUT ANYWAY

[pancake-cookies-acorn-jelly]

A behaviour previously unheard of

I woke up on a strange bed, on a strange room, on a strange body.

Ok, no, it was my body, it just felt strange because I was thirsty and tired. I was on the softest bed I had ever lied on, and my back wasn't used to it. I had been chasing a demon all over the country.

I didn't knew who it was possesing, or what was his plan. All I knew was that he was targeting me personally. Herding me, taunting me, leaving dead things outside my window. There was a dead squid on the windosill right now. It stinked.

I was a bounty hunter, specializing in 3rd realm entities. I was working towards the licensing for Woy realm as well, but full time jobs mean that studying is a slow affair. I wish I had tried harder, though. 5 months away from the license and I'm going to die. Slowly, if the demon has broght me here instead of killing me on the spot. It means it will not consume my flesh, but my life-magic. It's risky and brings atention, but it will be nigh invincible when it finishes.

Not that I care. I will be dead, and there's no one in my life to worry about. I won't be missed or miss anyone. That's depressing.

Mom and dad sucked, prefering booze and drugs and orgies over their own children. Probably why my sister was a junkie who was in and out of prision. My coworkers weren't bad, but they weren't my friends, of which I had none to speak of. I had only had one serious partner once, but I prefered not to think about it. It was also depressing.

Him, I did miss. We had 3 beautiful years together, more happines that I ever thought possible or diserved, until he had gotten the letter.

His mother was sick. Deathbed sick.

He immediately wanted to go to her, but it was two whole countries away. I didn't knew the language back then, or the customs (I still don't know those, but I learned the language, to torture myself I think), but I do know they kill anyone who commits the smallest offense. The higher ones get torture first. They had no hunters there, apparently no creatures or magic either. They had days in which the entire earth shook and moved, and yearly floods. It sounds like a horrible place. He never spoke fondly of it, and she had no property or money or security for him to arrive to. I didn't knew how she lived.

I didn't understand why he wanted to go, why he prefered that women he hadn't seen in 10 years over me. He didn't understand why I wouldn't come with him, as I had nothing in my life besides him. We said some things to each other. He eventually left, slamming the door. I assumed he would return, but he never did. Left everything he owned in my house, my heart included.

I cried myself to sleep that week. Something died inside me, which suprised me because I thought there was nothing inside of me to die. Funnily enough, the same thing was happening right now. I thought my life was pointless, that someday some creature would kill me and I just.. didn't care. Until it was happening, and then I did very much care. I surprised myself because I wanted to live. I wanted to find him. I promised to myself I would go look if I survived the demon.

The demon I heard coming down the hall.

It wasn't ugly, though? It looked freshly bathed, hair combed and clothes well fitted. Usually they look disheveled, and smell strongly of unwashed human. That's how you can tell them appart on their human form.

You are awake. Good. Do you need something?

I heard his voice on my head. They are telepatic in this form, as they have no throat or lungs or organs on their body, (mouth, nostrils, ears, asshole and vaginas where applicable were blind holes, only there for the ilusion of humanity; if you cut it in half you'll just find skin and meat, like a human shaped sausage, they stay upright and are tough only because of magic).

But I must have been alucinating because I thought I heard him ask if I needed something.

-Wa..Wat- I couldn't speak. He got it for me anyways.

-Thanks.

You're welcome.

Ok, that was unnerving. He was not only speaking on my head again (creepy), but also being nice. Demons don't do that, they kill and consume until they themselves are killed or consumed, by other demons or their own actions. But this one wasn't doing either.

-Are you going to take my life-magic or kill me?

Neither. The love of my life is in mortal danger. I need your help.

#intrusive thoughts #wouldnt leave me alone #villain x hero #well #but this is going to end up on a polycule #enemies to lovers #the main character is broken #but i can fix him #with another broken character #because it distracts me from my lonely existence #hurt/comfort #h/c

[remmushound]

Beyond the Bay chapter 4: Dinosaurs seen in sewers!

Commander Mozar hated everything about this planet. From the thick green foliage disrupting the simple gray of the city’s landscape to the sweet taste of the air, everything about this planet reeked of inhospitality. He thought such a cold place should be nothing more than a snowy wasteland, like some of the other planets his kind had tried to lay claim to that experienced similar temperature. This planet wasn’t one of those; it was crawling with Federation scum, and under the very feet of these knockoffs were vermin at considerable numbers. The entire settlement seemed to be infested and he wouldn’t be surprised if the entire world had similar plagues. Filthy, lower life-forms spreading disease and devouring food that could be used to feed the higher life forms that dominated the savage landscape; perhaps it would make sense for some of them to be spared for the purpose of farming if these aliens were omnivorous, but there were far too many here, and far too small to be practical for hunting! He failed to see how these hominids, as his scanners reported them, had yet to destroy such creatures. Then again, they weren’t a very advanced race compared to his .

The commander snorted and shook his head, giving a bellow to call his soldiers to his side. The Prime Leader had made it clear that they should at least try to stay out of sight; they didn't want another potential enemy on their hands. Mozar didn't understand the command; these hominids were obviously no threat to them. They had hardly even gotten out of their backyard as far as space travel went, and they had no claws or fangs. They were incredibly small, and slow, and clumsy. Still, the Prime Leader knew best and Commander Mozar made every attempt to be as silent as possible during their harvest of the rare and precious element that this planet harbored.

While Zark and Zeno took up their posts on either side of the long stone pathway, pinned between two large structures, Zog and Traximus took their positions over the manhole. From his shoulders, Zog pulled out a metal carver, holding onto one of the handles while Traximus gripped the other. The power of both bull triceratons was enough to crack the stone beneath them, forcing the blades into the earth, and together they started to turn the wheel at a slow pace to slice through rock and metal. A solid clank told them of their success, and they lifted both machine and stone from the earth to reveal a new, much more suitable entrance for them. They tossed the stone aside and Zog returned the carver to its place on his back.

Traximus opened his mouth, drawing in a deep breath of the terra’s sweet air and the putrid odor coming from the hidden tunnel they had just revealed.

“It stinks of rot and waste in there.” He reported to his commander with a low rumble.

“Then breath through your nose, Traximus.” Was Commander Mozar’s response. Another deep chuff called Zark and Zeno to rejoin the herd. After Commander Mozar leaped down into the tunnel, sinking knee-deep into the waste below, the rest of his unit were quick to follow.

Traximus groaned and readjusted the mask over his nose, taking a deep, slow breath of the familiar, homely burn of his world’s atmosphere. His chest refused to work as well with the pressured gravity of the terra planet, his breath much shallower than what his body would prefer. He couldn’t wait to return to the mothership, where he could breathe and move again without the weight of his body pushing down so hard.

Zeno offered his locator panel to their commander, who snatched the piece of tech from the technician's hand and scrutinized it with narrowed eyes. He flipped the panel from left to right, tilting his head before holding the panel by its corner, dangling it precariously.

“What is this? This makes no sense!”

“Uh, commander?” Zeno said lowly, then reached forward to flip the tech so it was facing the right way. “Look at it like this.”

“I knew that!” The commander snarled, and then it faded into a rumble as he looked over the map. “I was just testing you.”

A whip of his tail was all it took to call his crew into position to follow after him, deeper into the dark tunnel.

~~~

It was like a crash of lightning in his mind slashed through the fog and make Mikey sit upright. He immediately had regrets as the sudden movements brought him to almost keel over, choking smog in his throat stopping any breath that tried to force its way through. Something was wrong. Something was wrong and something was coming and he had to run or that something would find him and take him away. But how could he run when his body was made of lead? When his legs had no feeling other than an intense burning that hardly mattered compared to the fire that had surely swallowed his right arm. He didn't care. Even if he had to crawl, he would find some escape from the danger heading his way.

Mikey forced his body to stand— and then immediately fell as his legs gave out on him. The impact seemed to slam his senses back into his body, first in a numb sting and then in throbs that seared through shell and flesh in turn. The bang had also served to make Donnie jolt up, hand snagging his bo and holding it out in a defensive position during the seconds it took him to stand at attention. He looked left first, then right, then down. Only when he saw Mikey on the ground did he drop his defensive stance, muttering a loud swear as he fell to his knees to help lift Mikey into a sitting position. At first, Mikey resisted the touch that he immediately assumed to be from the bad he was trying to escape. When he recognized the hands, the voice, the mutant helping him, he didn't fight any more.

“Dee…” Mikey whined.

“I got you Mike. Here, up we get.” Donnie wrapped his arms around Mikey’s middle to lift the turtle back up and onto his bed. He made sure to push Mikey as far back as the cot allowed so the box turtle was supported against the wall. “What happened?”

“I fell.” Mikey grumbled; he was grateful for the help but now there was a hammering on the inside of his skull that refused to leave him alone.

“Yeah, kinda guessed that much.” Donnie immediately started to tend to the slightly-bleeding gash on Mikey’s forehead, dabbing it with a rag as he worked to clean it.

“We have to go, Dee.” Mikey said, trying to swipe Donnie’s hand away. Donnie simply ignored his brother’s attempts to remove him.

“Go?” Donnie indulged steadily, eyes focused on his work, “Go where, Mikey?”

“Uh… dunno.” Mikey said. The words were heavy on his tongue and came out weird, and he didn't like it. He frowned and reached his hand up, the left one that wasn’t so stiff, to touch his mouth and lips. They felt normal. Why was it so hard to talk then?

“Well how can we go if we don’t know where we’re going?” Donnie asked, offering a sly smile to the younger turtle while making a mental note of the speech deficit.

Mikey gulped, but didn't respond. It didn't take long for Donnie to finish cleaning and patching Mikey’s head wound before trying to guide Mikey to lay back down. Once more, Mikey immediately resisted and started to push and struggle against the taller mutant while Donnie calmly and patiently continued to position Mikey down on his carapace.

“No no no no no…”

“Easy, Mike.” Donnie made quick, shushing sounds, “You’re okay…”

“No no no no, we haft to go Dee, we haft to…”

Eventually, Donnie’s persistence won and he was able to lay Mikey down in the cot, pulling the blankets over him and fluffing out the pillow like he knew his baby brother loved. It concerned him when Mikey only whimpered, but he said nothing of it. He planted a kiss on Mikey’s forehead and then went to return to his desk, resigned to the fact he wouldn’t be getting much more sleep.

His resignation proved true on multiple levels. The minute he sat down, his fingers hovering over the keyboard ready to input the code, he was nearly knocked out of his seat by a blaring alarm.

“Woah woah woah— what?” Donnie was back to his feet quickly, the sudden, jarring beeping reverberating in his head in a way he just knew would cause a headache later in the day. He worked quickly, the habit of thinking out loud hitting him hard as he rushed to complete his task. “Breach in the fan room… camera’s camera’s camera’s… woah.”

The curtains were practically ripped down as Raph and Leo came busting in, hands on their weapons and back to back with each other so they had eyes on both sides.

“Donnie, what happened?” Leo demanded.

“B… breach in the fan room.” Donnie repeated, motioning to the screen. Leo’s voice sounded like it was on the other side of a great canyon, the distant words echoing and slowly getting closer and louder. Donnie’s mouth was like sand, words like daggers slicing his tongue. “Enemies approaching.”

Leo shouldered his way past, leaning closer to the cameras presented on the screen as he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. At first, they could have very easily been mistaken for rhinos; these ones would have been far bigger than Rocksteady, and there were far more of them. A closer look on a different display screen showed a front view, revealing three horns instead of two.

“Is that a fucking dinosaur?” Raph’s words were more surprise than anything else, eyes wide and growing wider by the second.

They were dinosaurs! At least, Leo was almost sure they were. It was hard to tell just how big they might have been, but they definitely weren’t small. They each had three horns, two on their heads just in front of their frills and one on their nose; beneath their nose horn were masks that covered their nostrils, feeding back into a massive amount of tech on their backs. All but one of them were a vibrant orange with disrupting patterns of red and yellow markings; the outlier was a dark red and in the lead, so Leo immediately singled him out as a potential leader.

The earth beneath their feet started to tremble like a train was going by, enough to disrupt some of the artifacts on Donnie’s shelf and make a few of them fall; Donnie made a dive to catch every last one of them before they could hit the ground. The dinosaurs in the cameras reached the fan blades, the last defense separating them from the lair, and they shredded right through without stopping. Leo wanted to swear, but he held his tongue, his grip on both katana tightening as his body tensed for a battle.

Raph growled and shook his head, moving against Mikey’s cot and standing like an unmovable wall in front of it, watching the fan room tunnel as if daring the attackers to come anywhere near his brothers. The attackers, it seemed, accepted his dare as the five of them flooded out of the tunnels and into the open lair.

@brightlotusmoon @selfindulgenz @scentedcandlecryptid @digitl-art-monstr @ilo-artistry

#enter the threat #Donnie is a good big brother #rottmnt #Tmnt #bayverse #Tmnt 2014 #Tmnt 2016 #tmnt crossover #tmnt #teenage mutant ninja turtles #tmnt au #bay turtles

[edelwoodsouls]

all roads lead - ch. 3

When his mother dies, Stiles runs away, straight into danger - only to be saved by Peter Hale. Seven years later, after burying their alpha, Stiles and Malia return home.

Word Count: 3,357 | Also on Ao3 | Other Chapters: 1, 2, 4, 5,

Chapter 3: FATHER

Stiles stares up at the house.

He knew the address was familiar, felt his feet leading him unthinking, a familiar route from one house to the other. Lingering muscle memory of another life.

Yet he still finds himself rooted to the spot just before the garden gate, unable to move forward, as if the wooden barrier were made of mountain ash.

"Just walk up the path," Malia says, hovering impatiently by his shoulder, but she doesn't push him.

Stiles was ten when he left Beacon Hills - ran away, from everything he had ever known, unable to face a new reality filled with pitying looks from strangers, whiskey-stinking nights, empty spaces where his mother should be. He never really stopped running, afraid that doing so would allow him to remember how much he'd thrown away.

Things like this house. A boy with a crooked jaw and wheezing lungs, the brightest smile in the entire world.

Scott McCall. The name lodges something in his throat, more than being back in this town, more than the idea of seeing his dad again. Scott had been the one truly good thing in his life.

It's been seven years, he thinks fiercely. Get a grip. Things change. People change.

His father lives in the McCall house.

And the McCall house smells of werewolves.

He notices the scent the moment he finally pushes into the garden. Wet fur and pine needles, earth, something like freshly cut wood; the clear scent of another wolf nearby.

No- another alpha.

The something lodged in his throat expands, becomes a tightness in his chest. The sun is too hot, his skin itches- he wishes he could tear out of it, flee to the woods, lose himself in the animal heart clawing at the cage of his ribs. But his body refuses to do so much as breathe, and his head spins-

A sharp pain cuts through the overload, crystalises the world in a sudden burst of clarity. He gasps, air flooding back into his chest.

Malia waits a few moments before removing her claws from his arm. "You with me?" she asks, her voice soft. She saves these moments of gentleness just for him, just for his worst moments, when her instincts yearn for an enemy to fight for him, yet find only his own mind at fault.

"I'm with you," he assures her, the words a familiar refrain between them. He's not going anywhere, he needs to tell her, not leaving her, not dying, not wandering away with his thoughts, never to resurface.

He's not not-himself. Again.

He squeezes her hand. "You smell it too?"

"Werewolf," she nods. "A pack. At least five."

Stiles blinks. In all the panic of smelling anything supernatural, he never bothered to discern the overwhelming overlap of scents. Malia's nose has always been far better than his, but after a few moments the weave of pack begins to separate into individuals.

"So much for no supernatural," he mutters as he picks out two, three, four, five different werewolf scents lingering around the house. There's other scents too, some human, some not quite, but the nuances are smothered by age and unfamiliarity.

There's only one person in the house right now. He wasn't a werewolf the last time he saw his father, and yet Stiles knows him instantly. Gunmetal and printer ink, so familiar he has to blink away the sudden sting in his eyes. Because it's not just familiar, its a reminder of those seven long years that form a chasm between this man and his son. The stink of whiskey is almost a memory, and a light floral scent clings to him like perfume.

Someone else's perfume.

His feet carry him up the path, Malia trailing, on edge, behind him. He feels the past trying to settle over him like a veil, begging to be let in. The air is heavy against his skin, his body that is alien to this space where his mind calls to it like home. That strange paradox itches against his soul, held at bay only by the rhythm of Malia's heart behind him.

"Hide your scent," he whispers to her. As he knocks sharply on the door he does exactly that, wraps his wolf carefully beneath a veneer of humanity. It's always been a useful skill, allowing himself to appear weaker, less of a threat in the eyes of other creatures, but now the trickery comes especially easy to him. His thoughts flash to a fox disguised as a wolf disguised as a human, layers of deceit folded so effortlessly into each other they blurred the truth.

If you drop me I'll crack, but if you smile I'll smile back. What am I?

He barely notices the absence of his own scent - has barely gotten used to its new smell, laced with power and all-but absent of darkness - but the loss of Malia's from the air around him sends such a wave of sickness through him, like missing a stair in the dark. He reaches out blindly for her hand to assure himself she's still there, still warm, still real.

And so they wait, listening to his father winding slowly through the house, inevitably towards the door.

Nerves begin to climb Stiles' throat, reaching up to choke him on his own panic. The dull ache that lives ever-present in his bones begins to thrum in time with his racing heart.  What if his father hates him? What if he slams the door in his face? Yes, Stiles never returned because he believed his father was dead, but he still left in the first place. What if his father shouts for him to leave, after all these years, he doesn't need a runaway son, a werewolf, a murderer, just go-

The door swings open, stealing the rest of Stiles' breath.

John Stilinski has aged far more than the seven years Stiles has been gone. His hair is thin, stranded with grey. His face is creased deeply with lines that aren't from smiling.

And yet, though it appears to be his day off, his clothes are nice, and clean. He holds himself with a deserved height and authority that had been long forgotten in those dark days before Stiles ran away. There's a brightness, a lightness to his eyes. Happiness.

That Stiles is about to tear to pieces.

"Can I help you?" his father asks. There's a frown forming between his eyes, a tug at his lips that implies an underlying unease, trying to place a familiar face into a jigsaw that won't quite fit. All of a sudden, Stiles desperately wishes he could be anywhere but here.

He swallows. "Hi, dad."

John's face crumples, predictably. He stumbles, body betraying him in shock. "Stiles?" The word escapes him like a gasp, an arrow loosed directly into his heart. Stiles feels it as if the wound were his own.

"Yeah, dad." He waves a small gesture, almost bashfully, wishing he had any better words. "It's me."

"Stiles," his dad repeats. He stares at his son - hasn't even registered Malia. And then, abruptly, he turns and walks back into the house.

Stiles blinks at the suddenly empty corridor, unsure. What is he supposed to do here? Why can't there be a manual, a step-by-step guide on how to reintroduce yourself to the parent you thought was dead, who likely believed the same of you?

"I think we should follow him," Malia whispers a little too loudly in his ear. "I mean, he left the door open. That's gotta be a good sign, right? It's, like, a really deep metaphor in one of those boring books Peter liked. The open door." She wiggles her fingers in front of his face to emphasise the phrase.

Stiles almost snorts at that. But she's right. She has to be right.

He steps into the house, wrinkling his nose as he's assaulted by the smells of other. His wolf rises despertely inside him, warning him about trespass, about the violence between packs, held in line by the thin veneer of civility and rules. Stiles is the invader here, the instigator - stepping into this house could be considered a declaration of war. He's been witness to a fair few bloody fights in his time - Peter had a very special talent for pissing other people off - and it's not something he's keen to repeat without him. Especially not with Malia at risk.

Five on two. The former him, the beta, would've laughed at those odds. Before the snap and fizzle of half his bonds. Before he knew what it was to have blood on his own hands.

He struggles to smother his wolf back beneath the surface. Those other wolves need never know he was here- so long as he smells human, it won't even matter.

And, surely, doesn't his father's presence negate those rules? Stiles clings to this loophole like a lifeline, drawing him through the dark halls of the house, to the man hiding in the kitchen.

John Stilinski is making coffee. The movements are robotic as he rummages through the cupboards, organises three cups on the counter. Three, Stiles notes- far more observant, or maybe just more compartmentalised, than he gave his father credit for.

"I need caffeine," John says, without looking towards them. "Before I go through anything new, I need this."

Stiles nods wordlessly. Anything new?  A thousand questions bubble through his mind, beginning with werewolves? and ending in what?

The three of them stand uneasily in the kitchen as the water boils, unsure of whether to move, to sit, to talk. So they simply stand. At some point Malia frees her hand from Stiles' and begins wandering around the kitchen, exploring the new space, the new scents, with all the lack of subtlety he loves about her.

The timer dings, cutting through the silence like a shot. Stiles flinches, as does Malia.

His father watches the two of them with a detatched, analytical curiosity that Stiles knows he inherited from him. He's not used to being on the receiving end, being watched, being perceived so acutely, it feels like a knife under his skin.

The silence remains in place until John begins making up the coffee, and Stiles blurts out, "Malia doesn't like sugar."

With that, the spell shatters. John slumps into a chair at the dining table, all pretense of distracting his hands and mind vanished in an instant. He rubs his large hands over his face; Stiles is drawn to a thick gold band on his left. A wedding ring.

But not the one Stiles' mother gave him.

Stiles suspected as much, and still he's surprised by the knife to his heart. Seven years is a long time by any count of the clock.

He's alive, he tells himself. He's alive, and that's far more than Stiles ever expected.

John sighs and finally parts his fingers to look at him. "Are you really my son?"

Stiles thinks up a hundred ways to answer this. Who else would I be? No, I'm his twin. No, I'm his ghost. Instead, he nods.

"How?" Now the damn has broken, words pour forth. "Why? What happened? Where have you been? I thought..."

I thought you were dead.

"It's..." Stiles grasps for the words. "It's a long story, dad. But I thought you were dead, too. I would've tried to come back sooner if I'd known you were alive."

Is that the truth? Stiles honestly doesn't know.

"Stiles." Malia's voice demands his immediate attention. She's standing across the kitchen next to the noticeboard, pulling aside a few postcards and bill notices to reveal a piece of yellowed paper beneath.

A piece of paper pinned exactly where Stiles had pinned it seven years ago, written in his own childish handwriting. A chasm opens up beneath his heart.

"You said you wouldn't be gone long," John whispers, as transfixed as everyone else by the paper. "A few hours. And I-" his voice breaks, "I didn't even notice it for three days. I was too..." Too drunk. The words hang in the air, unspoken, because if they were then something - probably his father - would break from the impact.

"I didn't mean to be gone long," Stiles finds himself half-laughing. "A few hours. A normal day. But."

But.

He remembers the day he met Peter Hale like it's seared into his eyelids. The sun beat down as he climbed through overgrown trees in the Beacon Hills Preserve. He had been coming this way for months now. At first there had been no real goal except away, and that was enough. He had longed to travel further, to run as far as possible and never return, hike all the way to the East coast if he could manage it.

Instead, he had found the burnt-out shell of a huge house deep in the preserve. Blackened wooden structure, creaking in the breeze, still smelling of charcoal and ash and an awful acrid smell he would one day learn to be cooked flesh.

Five months since the Hale fire. Eleven since the death of Claudia Stilinski.

Even as a child, morbid curiosity had consumed him relentlessly. Hours spent exploring these ruins had revealed a treasure trove of what the young Stiles had called evidence, clues to the origin of the fire, or the identities of the people who had once occupied the home. A blackened cutlery set buried in the remains of what was probably a table. A teddy bear burnt half to cinders, holding its shape only until Stiles reached to touch it, and it blew to ash on the wind.

He'd cried and run away as fast as his short legs could carry him, that time.

This house of fire and ghosts had been his safe haven from the dark hollow of home - emptier and scarier for the fact that it still had two living residents haunting its halls. At least the Hale house reflected its occupants.

No childhood home should be so unwelcome.

That day, when his life had blown to the wind just like the ashes of the house he found sanctuary in, had started like any other. He'd left the house that afternoon with his usual, unnoticed routine. A torch with extra batteries, a water bottle, a pack of nuts for if he lost track of time and got hungry. A note for his father, scrawled as a hasty afterthought - pointless thus far, but it would be just like his father to emerge from his haze long enough to call a search and rescue, to find Stiles in the woods, to ground him once and for all inside the house. Imprisoned with no escape at all.

His visits had been kept to the ground floor of the house until then - his parents had instilled enough common sense in him to not risk the rotting stairs giving way beneath his feet.

But the basement, with its chiselled stone steps, was an entirely different question. Fear of the dark had kept him out this long, but curiosity of the unknown would always win out.

Even with all his preparation, descending the stairs in the Hale house felt like descending into hell. His torch guttered every few steps, despite a change of batteries, and as the shadows swallowed him he found himself wishing his father was there - not the father he had now, so much fuel in his system a stray cinder would set him ablaze. But the father who cried when they watched movies. Who made him hot cocoa on nights when the house felt too hollow with just the two of them. Whose smile was like sunshine filtering through clouds, who made the world a little bit warmer. The father who had thrown himself between every punch and barb his mother had thrown at her son in those last, awful days.

He knocked the torch against his head as if to clear them both. The light steadied. His thoughts grounded to here, now, and he descended into the dark.

The walls of the basement - a huge, round room, supported by columns at regular intervals - were made of rough stone, construction so old Stiles could barely fathom. His torch beam washed over scars in the stone, deep, repetitive gouges like claw marks. They layered the walls like paint.

Somewhere at the end of the room, pale daylight fell through a grate near the ceiling, washing the space in something other. This felt like somewhere ghosts lived and died. Where the walls between worlds were less than paper thin. He shivered, but not from the cold - this room was an oven, the memory of flames trapped between the bricks. He could smell the aftermath of smoke, see the char coating the bricks in places where the fire had burned brightest. He even thought he could hear the crackle and snap of wood and oxygen ablaze.

His heart dropped like a stone. He could hear something. At the other end of the room, a low rumble, like an earthquake cracking upwards through the floor, or a huge animal breathing. The crackle of dead leaves disintegrating beneath a shifting form.

Breath escaped Stiles, vanished like so much smoke. He gasped - a choked, aborted sound - and stumbled back towards the stairs. An animal that big should not exist, certainly not here, in California, in Beacon Hills, in this house which had become his haven. How long had it lurked beneath the dying floorboards? Had it listened to his movements, waiting for him to come to it, knowing somehow that a meal would walk to it with open arms if it just waited?

The next moments are little more than a blur. He remembers, in flashes. The sudden stillness of an animal waking, listening, waiting. Tripping, falling onto the stairs, his knees and palms scraping against stone in his desperation to get away. The face of death looming over him, a creature of towering shadow and fur practically falling over itself in its desperation to get him. Yellow claws, yellow teeth, sharp as razors.

Then fire - he was alight, ablaze, burning right along with the rest of the house, except it wasn't his flesh but his veins, fizzing with energy and adrenaline.

He was a phoenix, though he hadn't known it then, crumbling to ash only to emerge newly gold.

He hadn't known that crazed, ravenous creature in the basement to be Peter Hale then, hadn't connected him to the handsome stranger who'd happened upon him hours later in a crumpled heap of blood and dying leaves. And by the time he'd realised they were the same person, years later, he had already forgiven his alpha for any past crimes committed in the haze of fire-sparked insanity.

He had never told Peter he knew. He was willing to let the weight sit on his shoulders, allow Peter's to remain free of any more, for fear this would be the blow that crushed him to the ground. That was his job as beta, as family, as pack.

He's more than a little willing to let his father wallow in his mistakes, though. What does he owe this man sitting before him? Everything, a small voice tells him, the child of sunshine smiles and hot cocoa. Nothing, another voice argues, all jaded smiles and sharp edges. Stiles is neither of those voices, not anymore. Not entirely.

I have three heads. Cut off one, I become stronger. Cut off two, I become ten. What am I?

"I'm here now, dad," he finds himself saying. "I'm alive. You're alive." There's something aching in his chest, something he's been repressing beneath layers of time and pain, and now it threatens to consume him.

Strong arms wrap around him, and he is eight years old again. His father smells of ink and metal and flowers. The world feels small, feels safe, for just an instant.

"Stiles, Stiles," John murmurs into his hair like a prayer, as if it will keep Stiles here, keep him real, keep him alive.

Stiles cries, a dam he's kept below water finally crumbling; it doesn't feel half as awful as he'd feared.

#fanfiction #teen wolf #stiles stilinski #malia tate #sheriff stilinski #own work #morgan writes

[afewmarvelousthoughts]

Only For A Moment Ch. 43

Master: @afewmarvelousthoughtsadmin

Pairing: Bucky X Reader

Summary: For most of your life you’d been able to keep your abilities a secret, that is until Hydra got wind of you. After years of being in their clutches, you break out when The Avengers expose SHIELD/Hydra. Since then, you’ve been on the run. Things are going as well as you could hope when you see a familiar face… Could the Winter Soldier really be in Bucharest too?

Warnings: Dissacociation, flashbacks, violence

A/N: Once again HUGE shoutout to @wonderlandmind4​ for being my beta. Seriously, she’s a gem. 

I don’t really know what to say here. Trauma sucks, it’s good to have someone who loves you through it though. 

Tags are open!

Sweat drips down your back, soaking through the tee shirt you wear. 

You realize, for the first time, that this is the only significant piece of clothing you have on. Suddenly you feel exposed. Tucking yourself tighter between the wall and dumpster you tug at the hem in a vain attempt to summon more fabric. 

These efforts come to a screeching halt as a pain you can’t name sears its way through your skull. Clutching your head tight you crumple into the fetal position, mouth open in a silent scream. 

You think, for a moment, it will pass quickly but no… It feels like lightning burning in your brain. And it just will not stop. 

Silently you begin to bargain, beg anything, any force that can hear your silent plea to just make it stop. If it doesn’t… you think you’ll die because nothing can sustain this level of suffering for long… Can it?

This continues for minutes… Hours maybe, you don’t know, but it’s long enough that you forget what the absence of it feels like. 

Once the pain fades to a dull roar you can’t move, don’t even receive the relief of a deep breath, your chest only able to lift the smallest bit. Despite this paralysis, your entire body buzzes with the overload of sensation that’s now flooding your perception. 

It is almost worse than the pain. You could understand that, pain is pain, but this… The grains of sand beneath your nails each feel like shards of glass, the bits of rock beneath your raw feet gnaw and cut, insects in the dumpster to your left devouring the garbage, a microbiome of disgusting-

A skittering noise distracts you from everything else for a moment. Glittering eyes peek at you as a small screech claws at your eardrums and a large rat runs from beneath the dumpster—before it can touch you its flung across the alleyway by some invisible force, hitting the opposite wall with a sickening squelching sound. 

Your eyes dart in your immobile skull for whatever made that happen. 

Deep in the recesses of your fractured mind, something tells you with unwavering certainty, you did that. But that doesn’t make sense you can’t, couldn’t. You… A name flutters through your mind but you can’t grab it. Who’s…

Realizing it was your name—your name you can’t remember, can’t grasp—causes panic to seize you sending your heart into a wild rhythm. Your breath picks up to meet the new demands and the paralysis flees you. As your body loses rigidity you fall forward, hands flat on the filthy concrete.

It’s too much. Everything is too much. You’re aware of the cells of your skin, of the dirt slipping between them, aware of the smog in the air, of the particles that make up the earth. Aware it seems of even the spaces between… everything, vibrating particles everywhere overwhelming you. 

Shouldn’t be feeling this much, not right, not right, is all you can think. Not right, not right. The face of an angry man fills your vision.

“Demon!” He bellows from your memory. 

Your mouth opens to scream but instead your stomach clenches and you hurl. It doesn’t stop until you heave and heave, abdomen aching with the effort. Once your body concedes that there’s nothing left inside you to purge you collapse on your side, right cheek skidding against the ground. 

Something stings, something sharp. You hiss, righting yourself slowly, you touch your cheek, your fingers coming away sticky and red. 

You stare at the color, another man flashes in your memory. He’s not angry though, he’s… worried. His eyes are kind and—tears flow freely down your cheeks, the salt stinging the cut even more. 

Angry you slam your head against the wall at your back. That man, you know that man, his name, his name is… 

“Fuck,” you growl through clenched teeth, surprised at the roughness of your own voice. 

You don’t know who you are, why would you know him?

-

“Y/N?!” Bucky gasps bolting up in bed. 

You fell asleep in his arms, he knows you did, but you’re not beside him. 

He listens but there’s no noise from the cracked bathroom door. His eyes frantically search the space until he realizes the back door is open. 

Relief rushes through him, muscles instantly relaxing. You’d probably woken up and stepped out for some air with your headphones on. Stretching, he slowly rises from the bed, making his way outside. 

The moment he’s in the doorway his body goes stiff once more. You’re not there. 

A million possibilities flood his mind, temporarily rendering him immobile. 

No one could have come in. He’d know, he’s sure he’d know. Unless… Maybe if they’d triggered him… He studies his hands, praying there isn’t the least bit of red or discoloration of any kind on them. Noticing nothing he cautiously approaches the balcony edge, steeling himself before looking over. 

Blessedly, you’re not down there in a heap. Of course you wouldn’t be, your body would survive, ability reacting on instinct. 

“Get a grip, Barnes,” he chides out loud.

The door wasn’t broken or tampered with and the locks, he walks to the front door to be sure, were still in place from the inside. All your things were still there meaning… Meaning you were somewhere in this city alone, underdressed, and likely terrified. 

In minutes Bucky is out the door.

-

You haven’t moved as the cloudy sky lightens with sunrise. Maybe you should move.

Why would you move? Where could you go? Did that matter? The sun would come out and make the garbage stink more and you were beginning to see a red smear on the wall across from you… it scared you. Those were good reasons to move… Plus you were no longer perceiving every single particle around you, so that was helpful…

Before you’re able to make your decision a door opens somewhere toward the front of the alley. Tension coils within your body. 

A woman lifts the lid of the dumpster, not noticing you at first. When she does she begins shouting in a language you don’t understand. She’s angry, fists raising, you’re afraid, backing up and up until you’re in the corner with nowhere to go. 

You cover your ears and close your eyes, the woman’s shouts hurting your head. You want her gone, want her to stop. 

She grabs your chin and your eyes shoot open. In a flash of rage, you push her back with all your strength sending her careening into the side of the dumpster with a clatter. 

Forgetting her anger you rush to her. She’s breathing, heart beating, no blood. 

Good. That’s good. Right?

That’s right. The other woman wasn’t so lucky. The one who’d taken you to her hotel. The one you killed… No… No, you’d done worse than just kill her outright. 

Being the monster you were, you felt with invisible hands inside her body, without her even realizing it, until you found just the right spot in her brain… then you’d simply gripped the thin membrane of the blood vessel and tore through it with an ease that terrified you. You’d lingered there, staring at her writhing form, her terrified gaze, until her body stopped moving and they’d come, to tell you you’d done well… But it hadn’t felt like a victory. 

The sound of the door again, someone calling out. Panicked you run to the corner and jump, easily landing on the roof above. 

For a moment you stand, shocked. 

You should go somewhere, somewhere safe and warm, and that name… kind eyes. That pain shoots through your skull once more, not as strong but enough to knock the wind from your lungs. 

Won’t think about that. 

Survive. 

-

By midday, Bucky thinks he may actually lose his mind.

Despite his extensive skill set, he was no closer to finding you. There just wasn’t a trail to follow. 

He’d checked in with Mr. G, in case you’d been to visit, doing his best to assure the old man that there was nothing to worry about while internally he was screaming. He’d been to all your favorite places even went to your old squat hoping something in you would have led you there but nothing. Not the barest trace of you. 

The city feels oppressively overcrowded in a whole new way as he navigates back streets and alleyways. Feeling sick he checks police scanners, calls hospitals, checks morgues. Nothing, for that he’s thankful. 

As the sun sets he begins to make his way toward the apartment, unsure of what else he can do. 

-

Y/N. That was who you were. It felt right, felt good, knowing. 

You’d spent the better part of the day hiding in one location or another, trying to stay out of sight, scared of every person you saw. Being able to navigate on rooftops from time to time helped with avoiding people. Though sometimes whatever kept you aloft would falter when your mind would get distracted with a passing thought or memory.

When you’d remembered your name with certainty the ground flew up to meet you so fast as you tried to jump from a four to six-story building, you thought you’d meet your end, splattered like that rat. But you’d caught yourself, barely, though not before painfully wrenching your ankle. Still, a wrenched ankle was better than a shattered skull.  

The pain brought clarity each time, cutting through the fog filling your mind. You’d considered causing more pain, maybe then things would make sense, but you’d ultimately dismissed the idea. No sense in breaking yourself. 

Besides, something in you said you were heading the right direction and that was enough for now. What exactly you were heading toward wasn’t exactly clear and focusing on it for any length of time made your headache. Not that it mattered much. Everything hurt, what was one more little thing? 

You peek out of the narrow ally you’d been limping through, waiting for the perfect moment to sprint across the street. The window opens, no one around, you bolt. 

Your ankle screams in protest as you run, each shock of pain makes you remember little things though. A home, somewhere, it was close… Brooklyn? 

The thought of Brooklyn sends a whole new ache through you. Just as you enter the alley you’d been aiming for a sob rips through you leaving you gasping. Not paying attention you step on something sharp and tumble to the ground in a heap. 

It feels like your chest is being crushed as their faces fill your memory. Nix and Marcus and Abby. Your family. Your dead family. Dead… because of you. 

“Hey,” someone asks from behind you in a language that isn’t English, though you understand it still. “Hey, you ok?” 

No. You weren’t. Everything is wrong and broken. You don’t say this though, unable to stop the tears. 

“You alone?” Another voice asks. You can’t answer, can hardly breathe. 

“Looks like it,” the first voice says.

“Hey,” the second voice says, coming to stand before you. He grips your shoulders pulling you up. “You understand us?”

You hiccup a sob but manage to nod. 

“She’s kinda pretty,” the first man says. 

“Maybe after she soaks in bleach.” The second man looks you over, you’re too tired to pull away from him. “You wanna come with us?”

“No,” you croak. It surprises them both to hear you speak no more surprised than you are at your conviction. There was a home here. Somewhere, someone with kind eyes. You know this, you just have to find it. 

“Leave me alone,” you push his hands away. 

“Junkie, bitch,” the first man grumbles as the second lifts you by your short head of curls. 

You’re exhausted in every way a person can be and the thought of fighting back seems like so much. But as soon as you meet his eyes, brimming with malice, you find it in you to push this power in you against him. It’s not particularly strong but it forces him to release your hair. 

Staggering back you brace yourself, your body remembering movements your mind can’t quite connect to. 

The first man tries to hold your arms to your sides but a flicker of your power prevents him from gaining purchase for long. The other swings at you and you counter, a too strong punch to his ribs leaving him gasping. But… you’re so goddamn tired after a day of running with no food or water and your ankle paired with a cut on your other foot makes your stance shaky at best. 

You cry out as the second man hits you from behind with something hard, sending you to the ground,  leaving your head spinning and ears ringing. One of them, you can’t tell which, lifts your head up by your hair.

Some part of you feels detached, as though this is happening to someone else. Another feels a slow hot rage begin to rise from the darkest parts of you and you know that once it surfaces you will kill these men… You don’t want to kill anyone, not again. 

“Please…”

“Yeah. Beg, bitch. See if that helps,” the one you punched, snarls, taking a stance in front of you. 

“I don’t want to hurt you!” 

They. Laugh. The anger roiling in you surges. 

“This bitch is-” The man before you is suddenly gone, flung against the wall like a rag doll by a large figure you can’t quite make out before the one holding your hair let’s go in surprise and you fold forward for a moment, unable to remain upright.

“We didn’t do anything!” The man chokes out, fear slurring his words. You turn and watch as the hulking figure corners the simpering man. 

“She was-” Before he can say another word a hand wraps around his throat. Slowly he’s lifted from the ground, kicking, gurgling, hands clawing in vain at an arm—an arm that you know is solid metal and very deadly. 

Memory slams into you and you gasp as the disassociation flees you. There isn’t time to feel the emotions thundering through your body though, he will kill this man. 

“Bucky,” you croak, voice cracking with relief. He doesn’t move, focused with terrifying intensity on his target. Standing on trembling legs you step toward him and lay a hand on his shoulder as the man’s thrashing begins to still. 

“Bucky,” he flinches, registering you. “Let him go.” 

“He. Hurt. You.” Bucky growls out each word. 

“Not like I could have hurt him. Don’t kill him. Please.” You didn’t want him to have more blood on his hands either. His grip loosens and the man crumples into a half-dead heap in the alley. 

Tragedy averted, whatever willpower you mustered to keep yourself upright flees your body. Despite the warm summer air you begin to shake, violently. Swaying back, Bucky catches your shoulders before you plummet onto the concrete. 

-

Bucky takes you in, quickly. His white tee you’d slept in is filthy with sweat and grime. Your right cheek has a shallow cut that seems to have already started to heal but that clearly bled judging by the flaking smear of dried blood. Looking down he can tell that your left ankle is badly bruised and swollen while there is blood on the side of your right foot. Then there’s the way your body is shaking in his grip, indicating shock. 

“Y/N,” he says softly, searching your eyes for answers he isn’t sure you have. 

“I…” You trail off, voice dry and raspy. “I was lost.” Your glazed eyes flutter and he feels your knees give. 

Without hesitation, he scoops your trembling form into his arms. The way your hands grasp at his shirt your face burrowing into his shoulder makes his heart ache. He understands well enough that you don’t mean that you were only physically lost. You’d lost yourself for a time. 

He steps around the body of the unconscious man he’d tossed aside heading toward the mouth of the alley. The movement jostles you just a bit and a small whimper meets his ears. 

“Did I hurt you,” the fear grips him as he assesses his grip on you, worried he held too tight. A hollow huff that may have been an attempt at laughter shakes your body in a different way, you suck in the air a little, tilting your head up a bit to him. 

“No. Everything just… hurts,” you say in barely a whisper. 

Anger at every person who ever hurt you in your life burns like a volcano in his gut. Even so he coaches his expression to be soft. 

“Let’s get you home.” 

Where he found you, was only a few blocks from the apartment. He’s grateful for it, despite his efforts the movement clearly causes you more pain—he’s also certain he’s never been more grateful for what Hydra did to him, without his enhanced senses he’d never have heard you, may never have found you. 

By the time he closes the door behind you both, your consciousness is hanging by a thread. 

“Stay with me baby,” he kisses your forehead before he sets you as gently as he can on the couch. Still, you groan. 

He pulls a thick blanket from the closet to wrap you in. As he moves to wrap it around you your head shakes a no. 

“Your body is in shock, Y/N.”

Clarity lightens in your eyes. “That makes sense,” you lift one hand, seeming to study the tremors. As you do the lamp begins to shake on the table. Both of you stare for a second as your power rustles things around the apartment like ripples on a lake. 

“May I?” He doesn’t want to force it on you but… Thankfully he doesn’t have to. Pulling you from the couch for an instant he swaddles you tight in the warmth of the blanket before settling you back on the couch. Instantly things around you stop their ghostly movements. 

“I’m going to get you something to drink,” he plants a kiss on your forehead before heading into the kitchen. 

The cracked state of your lips suggests that you’re deeply dehydrated. Just water wasn’t going to cut it. Though it may take a minute longer he heats water on the stove for a moment before mixing just a bit of salt and honey into it.

“Here,” he crouches in front of you, “sip this.” Bucky lifts the mug to your lips. You swallow, your face scrunching up at the taste. “I know, but you need the salt and sugar. Just try to finish it.” He manages to get the whole mug into you. 

Thankfully your shaking has slowed some. Tenderly he tucks a shaggy curl back into your mop of hair. How he loved these curls.

“He’s going to be ok, Y/N.” 

Mr. Goldstein had spent the last week in the hospital. He’d insisted it was nothing, just a bit of cold. It wasn’t until his daughter had come into the shop that you’d learned the truth--cancer, she’d told you, and not his first run-in with the disease either. The news had rocked you both. Bucky didn’t doubt that the fear of losing someone else, someone you loved, had triggered what you’d just gone through.  

You say nothing, just look away, gnawing on your bottom lip. 

“Let’s get you cleaned up,” he says with a soft smile. You nod and he unwraps you from your blanket cocoon. 

Unresisting you allow him to remove your filthy tee and slip your underwear off before he places you in the empty tub. As he wets a rag in the hot water pouring from the faucet to begin cleaning a day’s worth of city grime from you he starts to hum a tune, hoping the sound will soothe both of your frayed nerves. 

With a light touch, he inspects the cuts and scrapes on your feet, knees, and hands. The only one that’s deep enough for a slight pause is on your foot, but even so, he doesn’t think it will need anything more than a bandage. 

Your body wasn’t the only thing that needed attention. Grabbing a pitcher from the kitchen Bucky slips free of his jeans, as to not get them wet and perches on the corner of the tub, repositioning you between his legs. Slowly he pours hot water over your short thick curls. 

As he takes his time coaxing out the tangles, his humming shifts to lyrics. Singing isn’t something he did often, just when he was alone from time to time and now when you’d wake up particularly shaken from a dream. Once, he’d sing all the time but finding his voice had been tough. Seeing your lips curl a bit in response goads him on though. 

When he’s rinsed your hair, running your comb through your curls, he’s singing the final lyrics of an old love song:

I see your face in every flower Your eyes in stars above It's just the thought of you The very thought of you, my love

As he finishes you sigh and rest your head on the inside of his thigh. 

“Thank you… for finding me,” your voice is less raspy but he can hear your exhaustion in every syllable. 

Gently he coaxes your head to look up at him, “I will always find you.”

Tags

@bluegirlusa1​  @l0kisbitch​  @tazzi-baby​  @disagreetoagree​  @woodyandbuzz20-01​  @mooniightbucky​   @saundrasays​  @breezy1415​  @alyssaj23​  @mywinterwolf​  @wonderlandmind4​  @fairislesheets​  @anamcg317​  @buckaroo-barnes​  @jazztherebel​  @peachthatdrinkslemonade​  @regulusirius​   @auskitty​ @babyimp1967​ @katecolleen​  @handplucked​  @stevehesaidabadlanguageword​  @darkdragonphoenix​  @issanitydead​  @thestorydetective​  @buckysstar​  @wintersoldierswhore  @greyeyedsmile14​  @watchoutforfrostbite​  @for-the-love-of-the-fandom​  @jewelofwinter​  @siriuslycloudy2​  @hardygal69​  @marvelousmeggi  @jdoenson​  @gamorazenn​ @wildmoonflower​ @cutie1365​ @demonlover87​ @winterboobearsworld​ @this-kitten-is-smitten​

#bucky x reader #bucky barnes #bucky barnes x reader #bucky #james buchanan barnes #bucky fic #bucky fanfic #bucky feels #soft bucky

[nitewrighter]

Of Blades and Broomsticks Pt. XVII

Previous Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16

Read it on AO3 here.

----

A crowd had gathered in a tavern, but there was little overlap of voices from the interior. No laughter, no clanging of glasses and steins and cups. No music, but it was packed to the walls, and even a few who opted to smoke their pipes out in the night air hung close to the windows and doors to listen to the speaker rail. On any other night she would probably be ignored and shooed away to let the tavern customers enjoy their food and drink after a long hard day’s work, but this was not that night.

“The fire surged up from the platform in a blinding column that pierced the very skies!” the old woman wailed, “I saw a man’s eyeballs boil and burst in their sockets with the sheer heat coming off of it!”

One woman sitting at the bar gagged and set down her cup at the mere thought of it, and the other tavern patrons kept listening, transfixed.

“I was lucky enough to escape with only these,” The woman pulled her sleeve up from her arm, revealing splashes of weeping blisters and pink and puckered flesh, burn scars all over her skin. Her shoulders bunched up, “But just when the worst of the fires died down, horrible shapes of darkness shot up from the earth, as well! Inky black limbs! Like great serpents! Tore men clear in twain! I lost my dear husband,” she continued, letting the sleeve slip back over her arm, “Our home, which we lived in for nigh on 40 years together... was burned to ash. I have nothing now. Only a warning on my lips, for all of you: There is evil in this world. There is evil and it will come for you and everything you love. Witches. Monsters. The dead, wrenched back up from the earth to walk as great abominations--They’re coming. Will you let your town be like Adlersbrunn? Will you watch it burn?”

“The comtesse will protect us,” one voice piped up and the old woman furrowed her brow, peering through the crowd to see a blonde boy in a blue hooded cloak, not even old enough to grow a beard.

“Your comtesse?” said the old woman, pushing through the crowd to his table. She put her hands on the table before him, her yellowed fingernails scraping across the wood, “Your comtesse will protect you?”

“She’s done it before,” the boy managed, not making eye contact, “The elders say--”

“Your comtesse is just as much a monster as the rest of them,” said the old woman, “The only reason she protects you because she sees you as livestock,” the old woman looked around the tavern, “A peaceful land, a quiet people... I suppose it’s easy to ignore what she is when she gives you that. You send your rapists and your murderers to her chateau, never worry about them again, and it seems a perfectly good arrangement. What would happen if her hunger deepens, I wonder? Maybe she’ll ask for the thieves. For the poachers. Maybe she’ll ask for those who speak up against her. How easy will it be for your neighbors to ignore it when it’s your neck beneath her throat?”

The boy in the blue hood swallowed hard and took a gulp of his cider, giving a glance to the group he had come in with. That hesitation on his end now transformed to that same enthrallment as everyone else in the tavern. Almost everyone else.

Gabriel watched as the old woman went on about horrible black tentacles and walls of flame and scanned the room. The glamour Moira had set on him itched--well, itched wasn’t the right word. He could see and hear everything clearly, but still had the sensation of having his head submerged in something thicker than air. He had to keep his distance from the crowd. Gabriel looked like a normal man, but if a careless hand brushed against his head they would feel not the cloth of his hood but the smooth outer rind of pumpkin. He wondered if people could smell the pumpkin on him. Gabriel’s eyes flicked away from the old woman to a figure dressed in black and scarlet in the corner of the tavern, his eyes obscured by the wide brim of his cavalier hat. He had chosen a similar position as Gabriel, albeit in a mirrored position--back to the wall, close to the exit, easy to keep an eye on the entire room. There were points when Gabriel could feel the man’s eyes on him, though he didn’t get a chance to see the man’s eyes himself.

“I’m not asking for money, good people,” said the old woman, “I’m not even asking for a place to stay the night. I’m only asking... that you do not let the tragedy at Adlersbrunn repeat itself. Protect yourselves. Don’t even give them the chance to make the first move, if your situation permits it.”

A murmur rolled through the tavern. Some, like the boy in the blue hood, were speaking quiet hesitating words to their fellow patrons--things had been good, hadn’t they? Things had been good for a while now. But the word ‘Livestock’ had struck a nerve with nearly everyone in the tavern. Adlersbrunn was far enough away so that the horror story was just that--but seeds of doubt had been planted, that much was clear.

The man in black and scarlet got up and Gabriel followed him with his eyes as he passed through the door.

Gabriel got up himself and stepped close to the door.

“Blessings on you all--god knows you’ll need them,” said the old woman as Gabriel passed through the door and she followed him out. They put some distance between themselves and the tavern in silence, the old woman hobbling grumpily at his side before they reached a copse that provided them significant coverage.

“If you weren’t a queen, I’d say you should join an acting troupe,” said Gabriel.

“My people invented theater. Play-acting sprung up almost as early as language,” the old woman said, with the shakiness of age completely removed from her voice as she straightened herself up from her previously hunched position. She frowned and muttered, “Stinks of metal around here. The sooner we get back, the better.”

“I don’t like this,” said Gabriel, as Moira cast off her glamour, the wrinkles on her face disappearing to reveal her true sharp and narrow features.

“I didn’t say you would like this,” said Moira, snapping her fingers and taking the glamour off of his own head, his pumpkin head casting an eerie orange light on their copse.

“You want to start a war,” said Gabriel.

“I want to find your witch. You say your first job as a witch hunter is to find out the truth of things, isn’t it?” said Moira, shaking her frazzled gray hair into a sleek red cropped cut, “Should these people not know the truth?”

“I’d say there’s a decent amount of distance between ‘knowing the truth’ and ‘being incited to panic,’” said Gabriel.

“You said yourself the comtesse was damned.”

“And you said she walks a line between two worlds.”

“Very soon none of us are going to have the luxury of walking that line. She can’t just play house with her little human pet. I have to make her see that--” Moira suddenly cut herself off, “We’re not alone.”

“The man in scarlet--” Gabriel started.

“I saw him too,” said Moira, looking around the copse. With a flick of her wrist she ignited a small sphere of yellow light over her hand, lighting up the copse. Gabriel walked around the copse as well, looking for a cavalier hat poking out from behind the trees. He found could see better in the dark with the new form the witch and Moira had cursed him with. There was a rustle of leaves overhead and Gabriel looked up to see the man in black and scarlet perched on a tree limb just above him. Now looking up at him, Gabriel could make out more of his features: dark skinned and handsome in his fine clothes, but shrewd and cold in his expression. Gabriel could hardly blame him. They had just been slandering his employer for most of the night, anyway. Gabriel could finally see his eyes now, as well--yellow. Glowing. Not human. No trace of fear even at Gabriel’s own true and horrible pumpkin-headed appearance. As soon as they looked at each other, the man hiding in the tree suddenly dissolved into red mist and there was the sound of fluttering wings and a screech as a massive bat--its wingspan as large as Gabriel’s own arm span---took off out of the copse.

“Eyes on wings,” said Moira, watching as the bat flew off as fast as it could.

“I take it we probably shouldn’t let him get back to the comtesse,” said Gabriel.

“No,” said Moira, the glowing yellow sphere in her hand turning purple, “No, we shouldn’t.”

She said something then. Something in a tongue-before-tongues that made Gabriel’s pumpkin head buzz, and the purple sphere hovering over her hand stretched and distorted and suddenly exploded into hundreds of crows, screeching and sweeping upward after the bat.

“Tear him apart,” Moira said softly, as the crows chased after the bat, their dark wings blotting out the stars.

-----

Jesse’s campfire crackled in the tense silence as he gauged the situation. The spymaster kept her two crossbows on both of them, her eyes flicking away from Jesse only briefly to make sure Pharah wasn’t moving toward her musket. The horses they had since blanketed and tethered watched the proceedings with dark glassy eyes, occasionally nickering nervously.

“Always a pleasure, Sombra,” said Jesse, still keeping his hands up.

“Afraid I’m here on business,” said Sombra, “Now. The Flame of creation. What do you know about it?”

“The flame of who, now?” said Jesse.

“Don’t play dumb,” said Sombra, poking the crossbow bolt more firmly against his chest, “The thing that burned down Adlersbrunn. The magic.”

“He wouldn’t know anything about it,” Pharah piped up.

“I’ve got this,” said Jesse.

“No, you clearly don’t,” said Pharah, slowly rising to her feet.

“Did I say you could get up?” said Sombra, she looked back at Jesse, “Who is this?”

“A friend,” said Jesse.

“And we all know things turn out so well for anyone who comes close to you,” said Sombra, flatly.

“I came on my own—” said Pharah, “I mean, yes, he invited me, but I’m here because of what you’re talking about. I was there when it happened. I was captain of the guard. He just showed up a day later.”

Sombra arched an eyebrow. “Captain of the guard? Seriously?” she glanced back at Jesse, “How much smoke did you blow up her ass to get her to come along with you?”

“She saw some shit,” said Jesse, “She wants to protect her town. I told her she might have a shot at tracking down the monsters that wrecked her town with me. Which is true.”

“Trouble is drawn to you,” Sombra conceded. She lowered her crossbow from where it was pointed at Pharah, but didn’t lower it from Jesse.

“I’ll tell you everything about what I saw there—” said Pharah.

“You don’t have to do that—” started Jesse.

“If you stop pointing those weapons at us,” said Pharah.

Sombra looked thoughtful for a few moments before lowering her other crossbow from Jesse.

“You’re lucky she’s here,” Sombra said, strapping one of the crossbows over her shoulder.

“Are you a hunter, like him?” said Pharah.

Sombra snickered. “I was,” she said.

Pharah gave a glance over to Jesse.

“We can trust her,” said Jesse, stiffly, “Trust her to be an asshole, at least.”

“We could discuss this in a far nicer place,” said Sombra, “You’re in the Comtesse’s lands--”

“Of course we are--” muttered Jesse.

“And there’s a lovely inn a ways north of here,” said Sombra, thoughtfully, “The owner owes me some favors---”

“Who doesn’t owe you favors?” Jesse snapped.

“You never were good at pricing your own skills, were you?” said Sombra with a sympathetic head-tilt before turning to Pharah. “Wouldn’t you like a feather bed? Something befitting of the office of guard captain and vagabond babysitter?”

Pharah gave another glance to Jesse in case he was sending her any “Please don’t agree to what she says or we will both die” signals but upon looking at him he just looked sullen.

Pharah looked back at the spymaster, “All I want is a way to stop that flame magic that destroyed my town,” she said, firmly, “Can your comtesse help with that?”

“Well that’s more complicated,” said Sombra, “But my comtesse has many years of experience in facilitating  the... intricacies of two different worlds. If at least one of us hears the whole story, I’m sure we can help you in some way.”

“Show me your neck,” said Jesse. 

“What?” said Pharah.

“Oh come on,” said Sombra.

“Neck,” said Jesse, his brow furrowed, “Or we’re not going anywhere.”

Sombra rolled her eyes and tossed back her hood, revealing a head of chin-length dark hair swept back from her face. She made an exaggerated gesture at her neck which was free of any marks, before bringing her hood back up.

“What was all that about?” said Pharah, glancing at Jesse.

“Don’t worry about it,” said Jesse.

“I’m going to worry about it,” said Pharah.

“Probably the smart thing to do,” said Jesse.

The horses suddenly snorted and restlessly thudded their hooves against the ground.

“What’s gotten into them?” said Pharah, moving to stand up.

“Hey! Nice and slow,” said Sombra.

Pharah kept her hands up and her eyes on Sombra as she stepped over to the horses to try and comfort them, but her own bay rouncey let out a frightened squeal.

“Jesse! Help me with them!” said Pharah, trying to avoid having her foot stepped on while trying to take the reins. 

“Do you hear that?” said Jesse, tilting his head slightly. 

“Yeah,” said Sombra, looking up as well.

Pharah was still distracted by the horses and wasn’t really sure what to listen for, but eventually the sound was inescapable. A dull roar of the calls and quorks of crows. Pharah glanced up to see a dark shape sweep across the gaps in the forest canopy, the only markers of its visibility were its wide wingspan blotting out the stars and the yellow eyes at its front, glowing like stars themselves. 

“Friend of yours?” said Jesse, looking to Sombra.

 “Shit...” Sombra said under her breath. They all covered their ears as the mass of crows swept overhead with a deafening swarm of caws. She noted their direction and frowned.

“Better go rescue your buddy,” said Jesse.

“Her buddy?” said Pharah.

“’I can see through the eyes of crow and hare and hound,’” Sombra repeated the words of the queen to herself.

“What did you just say?” said Jesse but Sombra ignored him and suddenly shoved past Pharah to the panicked horses. 

“They’re coming from the north,” Sombra put a hand to the bay rouncey’s neck and whispered in its ear, “Calm.”

The rouncey stopped beating the earth with his hooves and looked at her. “Good boy,” she said.

“How did you just--” Pharah started but Sombra was already casting off its blanket and hopping up astride it. “That’s my horse!” Pharah protested but found herself looking down the stock of Sombra’s crossbow again.

“It’s nothing personal,” said Sombra, turning the horse around.

“They’re flying. You won’t catch up to them on horseback,” said Jesse.

“I’m not going to where they are, I’m going to where they came from,” said Sombra. She undid the tether and heeled its sides with a ‘Hyah!’ 

“Are you kidding me?!” Pharah called after them as Sombra took off into the dark.

“Come on,” said Jesse, undoing the other tether and climbing up onto his own courser, “Won’t go as fast but there’s room for two.”

Pharah huffed, picked up her musket from next to her bedroll and shouldered it before climbing up onto the horse behind Jesse. 

“Do you have any idea where she’s going?”

“Nowhere good if a vampire was flying away from it,” said Jesse, urging the courser forward to keep Sombra in sight.

Pharah was quiet for a few seconds, her arms awkwardly around Jesse’s waist as they rode and she weighed his words.

“A what?” she said.

-----

The sun had set, but the wagon rumbled on and the monster snored, using the cloak one of the cultists had given him as a blanket. The road they rolled down had finally started to crawl inland from the coastal cliffs, and they passed through rolling green hills in their journey west. Mercy was frowning over the runes in the Vitae book and taking notes on them and their possible translations on little leafs of paper she had ferreted out from the library. Her charcoal pencil occasionally scratched out of place when they hit a bump in the road but she would smudge out the mistake with her thumb and do her best to scrawl it out correctly. Junkenstein kept driving their cart, his knee bouncing with his own manic stream of thoughts, and Genji’s own moans of boredom had quieted some time ago.

Mercy kept her voice low as she mouthed out the incantation on the page, holding the book in one hand and keeping her other hand at the level of her head, spreading her fingers.

Little flames no bigger than candlelights bloomed on her fingertips. She turned her wrist slowly, steadily, watching as the light of the flames streaked like gold ribbons, overlapping with each other into a wobbly gold ring of light and flames. She then traced out a rune within that ring of yellow-gold flame with her fingertip, and she flinched her hand back as the ring flipped and swiveled and spun into a fist-sized sphere of light, hovering, apparently of its own accord, over her hand.

“Oh hello, there,” she murmured, leaning in a little. She could hear whispers from the flame, just like the book had been whispering to her, then it fizzled out and disappeared.

“Hm,” Mercy furrowed her brow and looked back at the book. She felt Genji’s eyes upon her, and she glanced up to see him not moaning about his boredom on the floor of the wagon, but instead lying on his stomach, chin resting in one hand, watching her with fascination. He seemed to catch himself as soon as she made eye contact and cleared his throat and pushed himself up to a cross-legged sitting position.

“I was—I was just—um—You’re very good at that,” said Genji.

“Not really,” said Mercy, “If I could get the little flame to stay for more than a few seconds, then maybe I’d be good at it.”

“What sort of spell was that?” Genji tilted his head.

“Well from what I can translate—and I really hope I’m translating it correctly—it’s supposed to manifest healing power from my body—“

“From the flame of creation,” said Genji.

“Gramercy, we’ve barely had the wagon a day—can we not burn it down?” said Junkenstein.

“It’s a flame of creation, Jamison, I don’t think it’s going to burn down anything if I don’t want it to,” said Mercy, before turning her attention back to Genji and her book, “At least I hope not. Anyway, I just don’t think it’s very practical to keep slashing my palms open when I need to heal someone.”

“It doesn’t hurt, does it?” asked Genji, “Not the palm-slashing, of course that hurts—I mean the flame itself.”

“No,” said Mercy, “I can feel it…. moving within me sort of? I think everything that happened at Adlersbrunn woke it up. But it’s not distinct, it’s not like… gas. It’s more like it’s stitched into me… like my heartbeat, or when my arm’s asleep…” She pursed her lips thoughtfully, “Well, you’re 600 years old—you’ve never heard of it?”

“My master largely helped me explore the extents of my own abilities—shape-changing and calling the storm forth from my body. He helped my mind cope with the sudden… awareness of everything. If he ever taught me anything about what you have… I may not have been paying attention,” said Genji, scratching at his temple.

Mercy huffed.

“But that was well before I met you! Or was really aware that you had an ancient fire magic from the dawn of time,” said Genji.

“Well I didn’t even know what it all entailed, really,” said Mercy, “All I knew was spinning up paltry little fireballs and--and...” she caught herself and her stomach tensed.

“Witch?” Genji tilted his head, “What is it?”

“Genji, there’s something I have to tell you,” said Mercy. She glanced up to see Jamison looking at the two of them over his shoulder, made eye contact with him, and Junkenstein quickly turned around and started humming loudly to himself in the universal language of ‘Don’t mind me I’m not listening (except I probably am).’

Mercy just inhaled and closed her eyes.

Genji? she spoke in his mind.

He was at the outer doors of her consciousness in an instant. Feels like forever since we’ve spoken like this. I’ve missed it. His voice in her head was warm, flickering around, oddly vulnerable-feeling.

I suppose it was just force of habit after Adlersbrunn, thought Mercy, Not that we had much of a chance to get into the habit of it to begin with.

It’s all gone by very quickly, hasn’t it? We’ve only known each other a short time, but we’ve helped make a big monster, dragged a goddess back into this plane... made you leave your house... Oh gods, I’ve ruined your life.

You didn’t ruin my life, Genji. They threw rotten vegetables at me back in that village. They treated Jamison like a madman and a toymaker. They probably would have killed me eventually, if the crops failed or anything else inconvenienced them and they needed an excuse. And Jamison probably would have gone mad if he was stuck making the same things over and over for the rest of his life. I feel like... I actually have a chance to make my place in this world instead of shuffling along, keeping my head down and surviving. I’m glad you’re in my life. I’m glad I made that contract with you. Which is why--This is why I need to tell you---

The wagon suddenly shuddered to a stop and Mercy had to flail to keep from rocking onto her side with the sudden stop.

“Jamison?” Mercy broke out of her and Genji’s dark shared space and opened her eyes, “What’s going on?”

“There’s a giant flock of crows chasing a big, winged... thing,” said Junkenstein.

#witch mercy au #gency

[kclenhartnovels]

Fodder for the Earth

[This is entirely @rrrawrf-writes‘ fault, because we can’t create minor character without them becoming fully-fleshed and adorable. So have some relatively unimportant backstory for two unimportant characters that I adore. Boar is @rrrawrf-writes‘, and Jyyr is mine. This is from my Wolf at the Gates universe/her Bannerworld universe, because there are no rules here. Content warnings for wartime violence.]

Jyyr never wanted to be a soldier.

He had made that abundantly clear when the group of 'recruiters' first found him in Rivercrest. He had told them exactly where they could stick their letters from the crown. Cordell may have been at war, and maybe they were seeking mages to help, and maybe a metal mage would have been extremely helpful to their efforts against Eola, but he didn't care. He was a craftsman. He bent metal to make sconces and horseshoes and jewelry, and he offered to craft them swords and arrowheads, but that wasn't enough. They wanted him in battle. And he couldn't bend away a rope noose, or a casual threat against his family that made their swords rattle in their scabbards. 

So Jyyr Darbinyan went to report for duty. A leather set of armor left something to be desired, as did the military-issue weaponry, but that didn't bother him as much as it bothered him to see the others suited in it. He could turn away arrowheads, bend swords, curve knives back on their owners, but the men around him, they--

They felt like fodder for the earth.

"You know, if you keep making that face, it might get stuck that way."

Jyyr blinked out of his reverie, looking over to a grinning young man. About his same age, he was at least half a head taller, and easily twice as broad, built the same way a brick wall might be if it enjoyed eating hearty dinners a bit too much. He stuck out a hand. "You're the new recruit, right? You can call me Boar."

"Your family had a sense of how big you'd grow up to be, then?" Jyyr asked, finally quirking a smile, and taking his hand. 

"Nah, but the military did. Everyone calls me Boar." 

"You're missing the tusks," he said, pointing at his lips. "I'm Jyyr. Darbinyan," he added, still getting used to being addressed by his surname. There were too many of his siblings in Rivercrest to ever keep them all straight by surnames alone, and the town had been small enough that everyone knew each other. That was the only good part about getting pulled away into this--this mess of a war. 

"You're a mage too?" Boar asked, looking him up and down. "Fire?" he guessed after a moment.

Jyyr shook his head, and pulled a few bronze coins out of his pouch. They flipped obediently into the air, then stretched until they became two elongated strips of metal, and hovered near the other man's mouth to give the impression of tusks. "Metal," he corrected. "What about you? Earth?"

"Wind," he said with another grin, a gust of air sending the stretched coins spinning back into Jyyr's palm. "What, don't I look the part? I've never met a metal mage before," he added, sounding too enthusiastic about it for Jyyr's liking. "Where did they dig you up?"

"Too far from here," Jyyr said quietly, leaning back against a tree to watch the camp. They had been set up for three days, and slowly but surely more and more men gathered together, forming their companies, checking weapons, stitching armor, passing orders, and shaking hands. Jyyr had avoided them as much as he could, getting his assignment and staying out of the way. He did his duties, and not a stitch more. "And getting further by the day, it seems like." He frowned, bending the coins back into shape, and tucking them into his pouch again. He slumped down. "What about you?"

"Oh, gods, not that far. Aelford, though my wife would probably like me further away," he admitted with a crooked smile, and finally sat down beside Jyyr, bumping his shoulder fondly. "You got that patch for your company, right? That means you'll be with me. We'll be in the same mage corp. Guess you'll be stuck with me for awhile."

Despite himself, Jyyr felt a smile tug at the corner of his mouth. "I suppose it could be worse," he said at last, and leaned his shoulder against Boar's, sagging his weight against him to see if the other man would so much as budge. He didn't. "Have you been enlisted long?"

"Long enough to have gone through all the training and been marched all around, not long enough to see battle yet." At last, his cheeriness faded. "Though with Eola pressing this close, I imagine it won't be much longer. I heard the Sergeant talking about moving in the morning." He straightened his back, and slung his arm around Jyyr, nearly knocking the breath from him. "But, that'll mean we can end this war all the quicker, huh? My wife has already been writing me letters telling me I'd better be back in time for my daughter's birthday, or she'll kill me herself."

"How old is your daughter?" Jyyr asked, once he had gasped in breath again..

"Almost one. So we've got two months to make the Eolans beg for peace. Should be easy, shouldn't it?"

---

Should be easy. 

Jyyr leaned back on his heels, pulling on his horse's reins as hard as he could to help the animal slog out of the bank of mud. He pulled at the iron of her shoes, and the animal snorted protest, finally wallowing free and onto the bank, standing shivering beside a half dozen other cavalry they had already pulled out. It had been a clever little trap, and though it did no more than slow them down, they were certainly slowed severely.

"Two more to go," Boar called, standing waist-deep in the mud and stroking the neck of a gray mare whose eyes kept rolling, her withers shaking. "We're never going to catch up to the rest of them at this rate." 

"Less talking and more pushing, Mercer," the Sergeant called, wrapping the reins around her wrist to brace herself. "Darbinyan, give her a lift too, won't you?" 

"Sir, if the horses will be too tired to bear us, maybe you could have Boar carry us all there?" Jyyr suggested, sitting in the mud to concentrate his magic, half-lifting the saddle as the three of them heaved at the terrified horse, trying to get her free from the pit. 

"With the wind, or my back?" Boar asked, nearly getting kicked in the head as the horse lurched free, and immediately whinnied and tried to bolt. A few other soldiers caught her before she could get far off the path, soothing as best they could. 

"I was thinking your back," Jyyr said, letting out an exhausted breath. "It's broad enough for at least two of us."

"Less talking," the Sergeant said again, in a manner that suggested she'd had to tell them too many times already. "Let's get them out of the mud, and then we'll meet the rest of the corp. Last one--don't get kicked, Mercer.”

"But sir, I think she was just trying to make him more attractive," Jyyr protested, moving over to the last horse and stroking the stallion's nose. Unlike the other horses, he was waiting calmly, ears flicked back in annoyance.

"Darbinyan, I'll have you gagged for the rest of the campaign. I don't need your mouth to use your magic." But the Sergeant couldn't help her weary smile, and stood back to let the two mages push and pull and coax the stallion free. "There's a stream just on the other side of the bank there. All of you, get cleaned up so you don't embarrass me. Eolans won't get frightened by a few mud beasts." 

"They should," Boar muttered, leaning against Jyyr as he headed for the water, nearly knocking him over. "They're the ones that covered that mess so we'd ride right into it. Hours wasted. Shouldn't have split up to cut around."

"Yeah, well, you wanna tell Captain Tiorre that?" Jyyr pointed out, shoving him away and stifling a yawn. "If there is a battle waiting for us, we're not going to have any energy left to cast. All I want to do is sleep it off."

"That makes two of us," he agreed, splashing into the shallow creek; the water barely came to his knees, but it was enough to wash most of the sticky mud off. "I'm still sick from magicsbane, and that was nearly a week ago. I swear I've barely been able to eat."

"You ate two plates last night," Jyyr reminded him, splashing his face when he bent down to wash it off.

Boar responded by kicking up a gust of wind against the surface of the water, soaking Jyyr with a quick spray. “Like I said, I’ve hardly eaten anything.”

Despite himself, Jyyr laughed. He sat down on the bank, shaking water from his hands and brushing his sopping hair out of his eyes. “Three coppers says when we finally get to the border, there’s not even a battle left for us to fight.”

Boar offered him a hand up. “It’s a bet.”

---

“You owe me three coppers.” 

The stink of blood and burnt flesh permeated the camp, even though they had spread their bedrolls as far from the last battle as they dared, nervous guards keeping an eye on the ranks of Eolan soldiers that camped on the rise, the smoke from their cook fires promising enough men left alive to still cause trouble. The earth was still damp from the recent rain, and the chill soaked through their blankets too quickly. Jyyr’s hands shook as he held a clean cloth against the gash on Boar’s head, serving as extra help for the overwhelmed medics only because he was one of the few not injured. He fought exhaustion like he had never known before, and every time he blinked all he could see was the electric shock of metal coming at them again and again. Swords, arrows, axes, halberds, charging calvarymen that found their horses tripping and sent squealing to the ground as Jyyr twisted the metal horseshoes to one side before their riders could plunge into the ranks. With every pulse of his heartbeat, he could hear screaming, cursing, shouts and prayers and the cries of the dying on the ground that was too wet to soak up any more blood.

“Jyyr.” Boar squeezed his arm, looking up to him. “You hear me?”

“Stop moving,” the medic scolded.

Jyyr startled. He moved his hands back when the medic batted at them, and gave Boar a listless smile. “I didn’t, sorry.”

“I said, you owe me three coppers.” 

“Talking counts as moving,” the medic said, wrapping a cloth around his head, securing a poultice against the wound. “If that starts bleeding again, you call for me and I’ll seal it up properly. Right now we’re saving magic for the mortally wounded.”

Jyyr nodded numbly, and once the medic moved on, his shoulders sagged. He still held Boar’s head against his thigh, and raked his fingers carefully through the other man’s hair, brushing it away from his face. 

“You’re shaking,” Boar said quietly. “Are you okay?”

“I’m not injured.”

“That’s not what I asked.” Ignoring the throbbing headache that protested the movement, Boar propped himself up on one arm. “Lay down with me, because if I sit up the medics will come howling down on me.”

Jyyr shook his head, watching the light fading on the horizon, sinking behind the Eolan camp and silhouetting the soldiers like looming demons. The sunset caught glimmers of swords being cleaned, arrowheads wrapped on fresh shafts, dipped in magicsbane or wrapped in oil-soaked rags. Horses chomped at their bits, their eyes flashing like fire against the flame of color streaking along the hill.

“Hey.” A gust of wind knocked against Jyyr’s back, then curled around him like a blanket, exerting gentle pressure until he finally gave in and sank down on the bedroll beside Boar. 

“Sorry,” Jyyr murmured, pressing his face against the other man’s shoulder. It did nothing to drown out the smell of death, or the ringing in his ears, but at least he was no longer staring at the red sunset that blazed like a foretelling of doom. 

Boar shifted enough to put his arm around Jyyr, pulling him against his side and easing back against the rolled blanket that served as a makeshift pillow for his aching head. “You have no reason to be sorry. I’m the one that should be begging for forgiveness. It’s my daughter’s birthday. My wife’s gonna kill me.”

Jyyr spread one hand on his chest, using the pulse of his heartbeat as a focus, anything to pull himself out of screaming, swirling battle. “I’ll make her something for you to send back with a letter,” he promised, his own voice sounding hollow and far away, like it was just another echo of memory. “I used to make little metal animals for my younger cousins.”

“I bet she’d like that,” he agreed, closing his eyes at last.

“I’ll make it in the morning,” he promised. By then, maybe he would have enough magic for it, and maybe they could get it in a parcel before the next charge of battle, before maybe neither of them would ever have a chance to send a letter again, before they fell on the already-flooded earth, added to the bodies on the pyres, for the war that never seemed to stop--

“You’ll have time to do it later,” Boar interrupted, and traced a soothing pattern on Jyyr’s back with his broad hand. “Go to sleep. We’ll have time.”

---

They had time. 

When the morning broke with another blaze of red and a promise of more rain in the purple clouds rolling in, the Eolan camp had doubled in size, and quietly they packed camp, and retreated. 

“We’re going to regroup with another unit,” the Sergeant told them with a confidence that didn’t quite seem to reach her eyes. The side of her face was pink from newly-healed wounds, a ragged gash that should have had her cheek flayed from eye to jaw, but Jyyr supposed the medics had deemed her important enough for magical intervention. Or at least near enough to death. “This isn’t a retreat.”

“Feels like one,” Boar murmured, leaning close to Jyyr so that only he could hear.

Jyyr nodded numbly. Both of them were walking; they had lost enough horses in battle that the only ones riding were those too injured to walk. Even the officers had dismounted. By midday, the skies opened up again.

It rained on and off for two weeks.

The other units they met with were just as haggard. They pushed back deeper. Towns emptied ahead of their retreat, or boarded themselves in their houses, watching the soldiers with hollow eyes. The border moved again; the folk that lived along it were too used to it. They paid their taxes to either king with the same dry disinterest. Jyyr thought about boarding himself in with them. Boar cracked jokes about anything that came to mind, trying to goad the rest of the company into a marching tune to lift the drudgery. 

By the end of the month, even his teasing came strained.

"We're close to home," he whispered to Jyyr as they broke camp. Even early in the morning, the summer heat was oppressive. Boar's I'm sweating like a pig jokes had long since ceased to make Jyyr smile. Now, Boar had no smile, either. "I never thought the battles would come--would come so close to Aelford."

"Will they let you send a letter home?"

He shook his head, rolling his blankets tighter. "All correspondence has been suspended. Sergeant already warned me not to send a wind message either, or she’ll hang me by my heels. But they’ll--they’ll hear if the city is going to be attacked. My wife has relatives in the country, and they can stay with them until all of this--” The wind kicked at his feet, his magic breaking free with his emotions, even if his face stayed tight.

Jyyr took his arm. “If you want to go to them,” he said quietly, “I’ll help you get away.”

“You’re offering to commit treason for me?” Boar asked with a smile that didn’t stick. “They’d hang us both for desertion if we were caught. You can’t bend a noose.”

“So I’ve been told,” he muttered. 

“And my wife wouldn’t get any of my pay if I deserted,” he added, shouldering his pack at last. “She’ll be--they’ll be fine.” He gripped the straps of his pack. “We’ll beat the Eolans back, and they’ll never get close enough.”

Jyyr wiped sweat from his brow, the humidity hanging in the air like an unanswered question. “We will,” he agreed. If they ever stopped retreating.

---

The battle seemed to stretch on for hours. 

Though the ground had hardened in the summer drought, soon it became slick with sweat and blood, and the air choked with smoke and screaming. Jyyr felt the ground heave and twitch under the direction of one of the earth mages, and to his right he could just see the vicious swirl of wind that promised Boar was trying to use the last of the dust as a blinding whirl into the Eolan’s eyes. 

He had to get to him. He had to make sure the big oaf got home to his wife and child. Back to the home that was so close, it made Boar reckless in defense of his land. Jyyr tripped over a body, throwing up his hands when a soldier with an axe and hand-shield came barreling towards him. The shield split in half with a terrible screech of metal, and the axe stopped mid-swing, using the same momentum to impale itself into its owner’s skull instead. Blood sprayed over Jyyr’s face. He told himself it was sweat. A medic crouched over a soldier holding her own intestines and crying for her mother. Jyyr stepped around them both, pulling a wayward arrow off-course so it buried in the dirt beside the medic instead of in his back. Swearing, his dark hair slick against his forehead, pulled up enough to show the tattoo on the back of his neck, the medic never looked up. 

The wind howled like a shrieking banshee. Jyyr broke into a run, stumbling over fallen weapons and soldiers alike. He hardly saw the battle, putting up his magic like a wall around him. Swords turned before they hit his skin, spears snapped just under their heads, crossbow bolts spun away harmlessly to the slick earth. Boar grappled with a soldier at least his width, but taller and clearly more well-rested, one that buried a knife into Boar’s shoulder. He yelled, and the wind immediately died, a promise of magicsbane coating the blade. 

Jyyr picked up a fallen dagger without ever touching the hilt, and sent it flying into the offending soldier’s neck. “Fall back,” he called to Boar, putting himself between the man and the Eolan line. Arrows hissed towards them, turning at the last minute to go flying back into the ranks. Six men fell screaming, and anger pounded in Jyyr’s chest. He heard the Eolans call to each other, heard their whistles that signaled a new threat, a new target, and he squared himself in front of Boar. 

“I can still fight,” Boar insisted, putting a hand on Jyyr’s back. 

“Fall back to the line, damn you!”

Three soldiers charged forward. Jyyr sent the first one flying backwards by the metal buckles on his belt, and he hit the dirt breathless. The second one shrieked as her own knife twisted into her stomach. The third carried two broken halves of a wooden staff.

“Jyyr!”

The world slowed, narrowed, brightened. Sweat and blood ran down his face, and Boar’s hand on his back gave way. He hit the dirt, and the blaze of sunlight, hazed with death and smoke, blinded him. 

So did the broken staff, impaled into his right eye. 

The world flickered in and out. 

Boar, moving over him, screaming rage and death at the other soldier. A blurry face over him. Dragged a few feet on his back, then lifted by strong arms. Heat. Blackness. Horns calling retreat; he wasn't sure which side. A jarring pain pulling him awake with a shriek, vile medicine forced down his throat.

Blackness. Quiet. Waking with a sense that there should be pain, but only numbness in its place. He took a careful breath. He cracked open his eye, and saw the top of a medical tent. His body burned, sweat slick against the bandages that wrapped his head. To his right, he heard someone whimpering, praying in a fevered tone that matched the heat in his body. The tent smelled like death. Or maybe that was him. 

“Don’t move,” a voice snapped when Jyyr tried to lift his hand. The medic came over and put a hand on his chest. “You’re barely alive. Don’t move.”

Barely alive. He was alive. The other patient cried out, and the medic left him. Jyyr lifted his hand to touch the bandages on his face. His face hollowed in his eye socket, and though he couldn’t feel the pain, he was acutely aware that it was missing. He burned. From the inside out, he burned. 

“You weren’t supposed to be a fire mage.”

Time had passed. He was barely aware of it, but his body had a new ache. He turned his head enough to see Boar, and felt the pain ease back into numbness. He couldn’t get his vision to focus, but he could make out the shape of his friend, the frown between his eyes. He could feel Boar’s hands around his, the heat from his hands. Or maybe that was the heat still rolling off of Jyyr. 

“Hi.”

“Hi?” Boar repeated. His out-of-focus lips smiled. He leaned closer. “That’s it? Fuck, I thought you were dead.”

“Not dead.” Jyyr extracted one hand with effort, and groped around for a moment at his waist. He swore, quietly. “My bag?”

“It’s down here.” Boar fumbled for a moment, then pressed it into Jyyr’s hand. “What do you need?”

His vision burned, his chest ached, and he reached blindly inside of the bag. After a few agonizing moments, he pulled free what he was searching for, and reached for Boar’s hand. He pressed a small item wrapped in soft cloth into his palm.

Remade from the scraps of battle--slivers from broken blades, snapped arrowheads, and thrown horseshoes--a metal griffin arched in Boar's hand, ball joints on its wings and legs allowing it to move. Boar caught his breath. 

"For your daughter." Jyyr's mouth was dry. He closed his eye. He felt Boar's massive hand squeeze his.

"She's gonna go crazy over it. I hope you're ready for her to latch onto your leg when you meet her."

"I'll need that hug." His voice stretched thin. Blackness pulsed in his head. Boar’s hand tightened on his. He burned. 

Wagon wheels creaked beneath him. Somebody moaned on his other side. Horses snorted. Humidity hung in the air like a promise. He burned. Someone else gave a stifled whimper of pain. It might have been him. A hand touched his face, and with it came a whisper of cooling wind. The wind soothed over his brow, fluttered the edges of his bandages, and spoke in his ear. 

“You’re going home, Jyyr. And when this war is over I’ll--we’ll--” The breeze sighed. The sun burned. A medic yelled at a soldier nearby. The wind slid through his hair. “I’ll give you those three coppers I owe you. My wife will cook us dinner. My kid will sit in your lap. Go home for me, too. I’ll see you at the end of this war.” The cart lurched forward. The wind shivered, and, thinner, repeated-- 

“I’ll see you at the end of this war.”

#writeblr #short story #backstory #wolf at the gates #bannerworld #rrrawrf-writes #here you are lisa I hope it was worth the wait #these dumb boys #i love them #ugh

[demicorpse]

My qualms with the Animorphs ending. (Spoilers, duh)

So. Around a week ago I finished all 54 of the core Animorphs books, and like many, I was pretty disappointed by the ending. I’d even go as far as to say I was angry about it. Not angry enough to write a rant tweet at the main author, but angry enough to rant about it on a tumblr post where 10 people might see it and agree with me. I’m going to list some of the main issues regarding the last few books, as well as the final book itself. Let’s take it from the top.

The Auxiliary Animorphs.

On paper? This doesn’t seem like a bad idea. Writing in a bunch of handicapped kids and giving them cool powers, while also slowly developing them and not focusing on just their disabilities? Sounds great! Only Applegate didn’t exactly understand what that meant. The Aux. Animorphs are introduced in book 50, The Ultimate, and after a big battle, they’re almost immediately moved to the sidelines. They’re mentioned in passing as ‘James and his group’ when they’re needed to provide a distraction or maybe fight some kind of battle, but other than that, and maybe some characterization of the kids in book 50, we don’t learn a whole lot about ‘James and his group’. I get it. Balancing so many new faces is hard, especially when your series in ending in 4 books, but maybe you could’ve... I don’t know... lessened the scope of the group? Or maybe you could’ve introduced them earlier, so that we can, at the very least, gain a glimpse towards what they’re like? We know so much about the main Animorphs, but when it comes down to the Aux. Animorphs, all I remember is that James wanted Pedro, his best friend forever, to get a morph of his own (which never really developed into anything? Or maybe Applegate forgot to explicitly state he’s part of the group, but, whatever.), and that in the end, they all die namelessly. Again, as part of a distraction tactic. A bunch of handicapped kids who were told the world is being taken over by aliens are introduced, and all they do is die at the end. No mention of them whatsoever in the ending book, after the war was ended. Not even a single page regarding how brave they were, to just trust the Animorphs despite how crazy they sound, and fight by their side, even LOSE one of their own before they all die a book later.

It’s stupid. The Aux. Animorphs could’ve been so much cooler had Applegate wasn’t so deeply invested in her ‘these books tell a war story!’ thing. They had potential to be memorable, and yet, I don’t even remember the names of the main kids that were intro’d in their book. Just James. By the way, James was a way better leader than Jake by the end. Actually, let’s talk about Jake.

Jake’s character was brutally murdered and replaced with an evil clone. So was Rachel’s.

Reading the last few books was, honestly, a festival of awkward and head-shaking moments for me. You mean to tell me that this is where Jake breaks? Jake, the leader of the Animorphs, the one who’s kept the alive, the one who’s brought them together when they thought they wouldn’t be able to make it, Jake, Marco’s best friend, Cassie’s boyfriend, Rachel’s cousin, JAKE, breaks at the end and sacrifices everything. His cousin? A sacrifice. The Aux. Animorphs and one of the only military officials willing to listen to him and his men? A sacrifice. 

I can’t put it into words how disappointed I am over both Jake and Rachel. Jake turned into a monster. He turned into someone he vowed he never would turn into. Remember when he said, like, two books before the end: “Defeat the Yeerks. Don’t become them.” What the hell happened to that when you flushed down 17 thousand Yeerks into space and let them freeze to death? 

Don’t get me started on his hatred towards Cassie by the end (which is 100% totally fixed when she has a mental breakdown don’t worry guys ahahaha fuck I fucked up their relationship and now I can’t really fix it well enough ok they hugged and they’re ok now). Like, I get it. I get it, Jake. You lost the morphing cube and Tom because Cassie thought she’d do something good. But is he seriously daft enough to just disregard any reasoning for what she did and go around acting like a child who got his toy taken away? Isn’t he the one that’s supposed to move on from things quickly? Just... Jake isn’t the same character by the end, but it’s not even a fluid change. It’s so drastic that when you’re reading it, it’s like a completely different character was introduced into the Animorphs with no explanation whatsoever. Yeah, war changes people, but Marco stayed the same. Tobias, more or less, stayed the same. Ax changed, but that was after the war, and it was for the better. Cassie stayed the same. 

Jake should’ve been written better. Because if he was, he wouldn’t have gotten so many people killed, including himself right at the end. 

And, oh God, Rachel... what have they done to you? Rachel went from someone who likes the thrill of the fight (admittedly, maybe a little too much) and is capable of making smart decisions, to someone who’s willing to drive over a military general even though he’s simply asking her to stop (in a truck full of EXPLOSIVES no less), as well attempt to hit Cassie in anger (good thing Tobias is her moral compass) after she confesses that she let Tom go on purpose. Hey, while we’re at it, let’s talk about her death.

Rachel’s death is stupid.

Let’s get one thing out of the way: Rachel is my favourite character in Animorphs, second close being Ax. I’m obviously upset about her death, so I’m sorry if I sound a little biased. 

Rachel’s death is plain dumb and stupid and shouldn’t have happened. It wouldn’t have happened had Applegate not convinced herself that all of her character deserve to suffer and die by the end, leaving a hopeless pit in my stomach after I closed the .PDF to the final book. You’re telling me that one of the most fierce human warriors I’ve read about in my entire life just gives up at the end. She spits out Tom’s body, demorphs, and that’s it. She gives up. Doesn’t even attempt to go down fighting. She just says some cliche line to Tobias and dies. I will give Applegate credit for creating one of the best post-death scenes I’ve ever read (”You mattered.” is so good), but that doesn’t redeem her death in my eyes. She’s killed off because Applegate claims Animorphs is a ‘war story’. A war story in which kids turn into animals, alien slugs crawl into people’s ears and control them, time travel happens on more than one occasion, and Ax is Tobias’ uncle. Sure. War story. Since it’s a war story, there’s no hope for any of the characters. But I’ll get to that at the end.

Anyway, Rachel shouldn’t have died. No amount of convincing will have me think otherwise. I don’t care how reckless she was described as, she’s not reckless enough to go on a suicide mission and die to make the reader feel upset. Plus, if Jake was SO hellbent on winning, why couldn’t he have sent James up there to deal with Tom? It’s not like he cared about the fates of the Aux. Animorphs by that point, so why not have one less trauma on your head and send in someone you see as disposable? At least let Jake retain some of his intelligence, Applegate.

Oh, yeah, the ending.

The ending is hopeless, and if you thought your characters’ struggles will pay off, fuck you.

“Ram the Blade Ship”, Jake says with Rachel’s smile, and seconds later, he and his friends die in a horrible explosion in space, limbs either blown apart or frozen. Oh, and Ax has been assimilated into some omnipotent entity that comes quite literally out of nowhere, so it’s safe to say that he’s classified as ‘dead’. The only one left on Earth is Cassie, who has to live with the fact that she’s the last Animorph left alive. Thinking about it, it’s pretty funny that the only one who lives in the end is Cassie, who always advocated for a more peaceful approach, if possible. Great irony, Applegate. 10/10.

Anyway, this whole thing stinks. Applegate claims the ending is up to interpretation (I think, from what I’ve read in her epilogue it certainly seems that way), but I think it’s bullshit. She claims there’s no happy endings in war. That’s bullshit. I can’t express how... just bullshit the ending is.

These kids who have fought for 3 years, these kids who have shed blood, sweat, and multiple tears across 54 books and several spin-offs, these kids who went through so much and where a ‘win’ barely counted as that, these kids get... nothing. No one is happy. Even Marco, who was relatively happy with his post-war life is dragged into Jake’s suicide mission, only to die alongside him, because poor Jake couldn’t get over the fact that he didn’t think of a better plan to save both his cousin and his brother.

No, thinking on it, they DO get something! They get death and an ‘open’ ending, which is just as open as Chick-fil-A on a Sunday. When you make a reader constantly read through HEAPS of books about how depressed these kids are, about their struggles and their failures and how they never really win anything, they mostly react to their enemies’ movements, it just makes the reader feel hopeless. And so by the end, when you just kill off everyone but a single character that knew better, the reader feels sad, and angry, and upset. And maybe Applegate wanted to go for that. 

Conclusion. Jesus Christ, Applegate.

The job of a writer is to string words together well enough to make people feel an emotion, whether negative or positive. And admittedly, she achieved that. But in my opinion, I’d rather close Animorphs knowing that these kids know at least some form of peace. That Jake rescues his brother and he can live out his life alongside him. That Rachel survives and that she can attend high-end fashion shows. That Tobias and his mother (who isn’t mentioned at all at the end, by the way? Guess she wasn’t important enough to the plot!) make up all the time they’ve lost when Tobias didn’t know she actually cared about him. That Marco does his thing, being a comedian, in peace, and visits Jake and his friends whenever he wants to. That Cassie pursues her own career and yeah, maybe she’s not together with Jake anymore, but at the very least, they’re happy to see one another. That Ax avenges his brother by killing Visser Three/One, and becomes a War Hero in his world, as well as a very good War Prince, and that he doesn’t forget to visit his second home.

Whether you liked the ending or not, this is the kind of ending I was hoping for. Something to ease me at the end. Something that would make me feel good after reading so much about the lives of 4 human kids, a half-bird half-boy, and an alien. But no. I get despair. I get death and I get sadness and I get an empty feeling in my heart that will always remain so as long as I remember Animorphs. Because no matter how much I’ll try and rewrite the ending, it’ll always stick with me, this one thought: Everybody dies and no one is happy. 

Animorphs has war, but it’s not a war story. Animorphs has tactics, strategy, guerilla warfare, espionage, but it’s not a war story. And even if I’m wrong, even if it is a war story, why can’t the characters be happy? Why can’t the characters get the one bit of compensation for their struggles?

Maybe I’m just too much of an optimist, and none of this matters. Maybe I should get used to bad endings, because let’s face it, this isn’t a good ending, or even a neutral one. This is as bad as it gets. Maybe I should suck it up and grow some thick skin.

But God damn, the ending to Animorphs sucked. 

#animorphs #animorphs rant #rant #long post #ive had this sitting for a week #tldr: what a joke.

[wowerehouse]

Lady | Part I

[Part II]

Kemm Tusklock heaved a long sigh.

He was very ready to clock out. He wasn’t entirely sure what the term meant; he’d picked it up from a goblin in an Azshara rotation and something about it resonated in his core around the time when reasonable people were eating dinner.

What? Kemm was a warrier bred in the bone, raised among orcs. The Tusklock parents, both sergeants unlikely ever to be promoted and perfectly content with it, were of the sort who would never hear a word said against Thrall but in the same breath stoutly believed that the best decision he’d ever made was abdicating to Garrosh Hellscream.

It wasn’t even that they necessarily agreed with anything Hellscream did, honestly. They were just constitutionally incapable of not venerating a Warchief.

It got a little exhausting.

So really it was better to be out here, in the dust, around sunset, hungry and sore and with an inconvenient paper cut from a cultist’s bizarre attempt to kill him with a dagger. It had just been a long day. His shoulders ached, sweat festered against his skin where the straps of his armor pressed against it. His feet hurt, and his hands were stiff around the hilt of his sword. He wanted to strip, scrape the oil off his skin, and eat something.

And here they were. Hunting dragons.

It was a slow hike, without Sasha. Vaz could move three times as fast as him, easily; but even a huntress of her caliber would be hard-pressed facing dragons alone. And from what Kemm had been able to patiently coax from the hysterical goblin who’d reported the dragon presence, these ones were breeding. They weren’t taking chances.

The massive tigress casually rubbed her chin over his side and loped ahead, leaving him to trudge heavily into the cave.

Kemm rolled his shoulders and Vazkri gave a low rumble in agreement, stretching with a yawn. Yawns from a Darkspear druid, in the form of a tiger, were a little bit terrifying even if you were holding a sword roughly the size of a sin’dorei.

“Let’s get this over with,” she said, and Kemm hefted his sword with a nod.

There did not appear to be any dragons here. Normally that was a good thing.

Vaz’s tongue curled, nose wrinkling as she scented the air. Her tail lashed her sides and she took half a step further in, trying again.

“There’s something,” she decided after a long moment. “But not much.”

“Maybe it will be over quickly,” said Kemm.

“Hopefully.” The tigress flashed him a grin that was all fangs and glowing eyes. It was comfortingly familiar. “You stink more than the dragons.”

It was not over quickly, but that was mostly because ‘it’ seemed reluctant to start. Vazkri of the Darkspear and Kemm Tusklock were consummate professionals, meaning that twenty minutes later found them still in a partner formation, covering one another’s diagonals and blind spots, while also exchanging bets on what that damn goblin had actually seen that he could possibly have mistaken for a Twilight’s Hammer dragon-breeding ground.

Kemm had just put five gold on a wandering basilisk to Vaz’s guess of a single mouse when they heard a whelpling screech echo off the stone.

A pause, a shared glance, and Kemm brought his sword to a ready position as Vazkri lowered her head and shifted to a hunting lope. Against the dark grey stone, flowing between patches of shadow and cover like water, soundless on velvet paws, the powder-blue tigress was nearly as incorporeal as the prey they sought.

It was an anticlimactic discovery, but Kemm wasn’t complaining. He didn’t have the energy to slaughter his way through a cultist camp. The dead end contained only a lone drake, surrounded by whelplings, a single broken eggshell between its feet.

The Twilight’s Hammer were spread thin in this area, then. Good.

The drake’s head snapped up as Kemm stepped into the passage. A vicious snarl began deep in the beast’s throat; but before it could do more than bare its teeth there was a distortion in the shadow to Kemm’s left. Vaz, shifting to her natural form and rising from a crouch in order to twist her wrists, drawing thick roots from the ground. They burst through the floor of the cave, scattering whelplings as they lashed around the drake and dragged it shrieking to the ground.

Unnatural amethyst light filled the alcove as the drake tried to flare its wings; a final knobbly root whipped out and dragged the wing down, pinning it against the creature’s side. Its head was slammed to the floor, claws tearing at the dirt to no effect; its limbs were pinioned too close, even the club of its tail entangled and pulled tight against the earth. A roar of fury echoed off the walls; but Kemm had once heard the warcry of Deathwing overheard. He didn’t even react.

They paused to see whether the drake’s distress would summon reinforcements; after a minute, with no sign of them, Vaz shook her head.

“I’m still pissed that we came all the way out here,” she said. One of the whelplings hissed and leaped at her boot, and she kicked it away. “Not exactly a threat to the safety of the camp.”

“You could say that,” agreed Kemm. “What do you think? Survivors from one of the raided caverns? It can’t be a scout setting up a new operation, not alone with whelps.”

“Maybe. Probably,” Vaz amended after a second look. “Not sure why they’d be way out here. I’d guess...trying to get to another camp, or else this is a secure bolthole. Probably the drake’s meant to meet a handler that’s not coming. See how thin it is?”

Kemm hummed. “Not much magical energy out here. I imagine the Twilight cult doesn’t train them to think much on their own.”

The drake snarled.

Vaz ignored it. “Not if it holed up here thinking it’d be safe. We might not have bothered; look at them.” She nudged a whelp with her boot; it didn’t move. “This one’s dead, Kemm. Starved, it looks like. I can see a few others. Spirits, that’s a nasty way to die. Take the drake, I’ll mop up the whelps. Or what’s left of them.”

A powerful ripple whiplashed through the bound dragon, and Kemm sighed. It was never easy, killing. That whelps were so young only made it worse. They were weapons of course, corrupted past saving; he wasn’t a fool. But he was glad Vazkri, who could compartmentalize much more easily, handled that kind of dispatching as much as possible. The older drake was a victim too; but it was a victim that was helping to end the world, and at the very least, he could give it a clean death and end its pain.

It wasn’t looking at him, which made that easier as well. In fact, despite clearly having identified Kemm as a threat from the moment it saw him, the drake seemed to have forgotten that the massive orc warrior holding a two-handed sword even existed.

It was screaming, thrashing and tearing savagely at the roots binding it, convulsing in violent waves as it fought, and its glowing eyes were locked on Vaz as cold, silent footsteps brought the tiger closer to a feebly stirring whelp.

The noise was becoming deafening, and Kemm brought his sword up to end the creature’s distress for good. As the unnatural light from the drake’s wings flared along the steel edge and Vaz placed a paw over the dying welp to hold it still for the mercy stroke, the drake gave one last tearing cry.

“Please!”

They froze.

After a moment, the tiger gave a long sigh. Readjusting her grip on the whelpling, she bent down to snap its neck.

“Vaz.”

Another long pause, another sigh. “Nature is cruel, Kemm.”

“This isn’t nature, Vaz,” Kemm said quietly. “This is us.”

“Every cultist we killed today had someone who loved them.”

“Not.”

Kemm looked around. The drake’s voice rang with a hollow, unnatural reverberation; and it was rough, the halting and imprecise attempt of a creature likely never encouraged to speak. Or in fact, punished for speaking.

The Twilight Dragonflight weren’t children, after all. They were war mounts, tools of terror, weapons of mass destruction. Flying assassins. Not dragons.

The drake tried again. “Not...cult. Defector. Ran. Please. Not them.”

After a long moment, Vaz lifted her paw. The whelpling tried to turn and attack her only to stumble, fall, and lie still.

“I don’t know if they can be healed,” she said slowly. “They’ve starved too long, and druid magic can’t reverse that. The only cure for starvation is food. You talk. I’ll do what I can.”

Kemm carefully lowered his sword, crouching down before the bound drake and setting it aside, then nudging it just out of arm’s reach. Something flared in amethyst eyes that wasn’t killing intent.

To the side, Vaz was carefully drawing healing magic up from the earth, creating a slow bloom of nature magic around them. It strengthened and reinforced the binding roots; but it also created a field of ambient magic. Not arcane, not the kind of energy twilight whelps were designed to consume; but something. And in the meantime, it would be aiding their heartbeats, easing their breathing, bringing their body temperatures toward normal.

The older drake’s breathing was shallow and afraid; clearly visible ribs rose too fast on its sunken side. Kemm settled comfortably in front of it and leaned forward against his knees, holding the creature’s gaze.

“All right,” he said gently. “Do you have a name, my lady? ...That’s all right. Can you tell me...what happened that made you realize you wanted to defect?”

#ficlet #OOPS im accidentally lady's backstory

[lordshaxxion]

I am your best friend and i gave you coffee money do i still get a drabble

yes. suffer.

basically the twins Edix and Eli are now Zavala’s biological kids because I fuckin said so

Zavala's head was spinning as he woke up that morning, smelling burning wood amidst the brisk morning air. It bit at his skin under the thin nightshirt he was wearing, forcing a shiver from the Awoken. As he pushed himself into sitting up, bile rose in his throat and he moved to the small bucket he and his partner had managed to get hold of for such sickness.

“Again, Zavala?” Came the sleepy mumble of his partner, the other Awoken moving and propping himself onto an elbow as he watched his lover vomit.

“I wouldn't be in this state if you had just used the protection Saladin suggested all those months ago.” He hadn't been carrying for very long, only about three or four months, but it was wreaking havoc on his body. Awoken were different from humans; for one thing, both sexes could bear children. They were equipped to do so, both men and women having what humans deemed “the other’s equipment”. So for male Awoken to wind up carrying ('pregnant’ felt too odd to use) wasn't an odd occurrence.

“Hey, you were the one who insisted we fu-”

“Shut up.” Zavala grunted, grip on the bucket's rim denting it. A chuckle left his partner.

“You're so cute when you're grumpy.” He said, getting up from beneath the furs with a yawn. “Alright, I'm goin’ and getting breakfast. I'll tell Saladin you said hi in Vomitese.”

“I'll Vomitese all over you if you don't shut up.” Zavala growled, slowly moving away from the bucket. Arc crackled up the Titan's arms, the Hunter dancing away from it with a cackle of amusement.

“Ya love me really, Blue.”

“How many times have I got to tell you not to call me that?”

Zavala was exhausted. He was tired and it was set deep in his bones. He didn't even have the strength to hold the two little baby boys he'd just delivered not two hours ago. But oh, how they wailed for their father from Saladin’s arms.

Saladin stood by, watching the twins carefully as Zavala rested. He'd been there when the Titan had gone into labour and had been there for the hours afterwards while Zavala’s partner rested himself, having been up all night worrying about the Titan and the little twin boys. Shaxx was asleep somewhere on guard, so to speak, to make sure no one disturbed Zavala unnecessarily. The Hunter was also asleep on the floor next to Zavala’s bed, on arm up and holding his hand as the Titan slept.

The two little boys just squirmed and complained with mewls and whines in Saladin’s arms, both of them too tiny to contain the Light that radiated beneath their pale blue skin. Their Awoken marks almost looked too big for their little faces; upside-down chevrons a stark white against blue and sitting just under their scrunched-up eyes that refused to look at the world they’d been born into. They were precious and Saladin was proud to hold them as Zavala slept.

Everything was burning. The whole settlement was on fire, the glow lighting up the sky and even touching the underside of the Traveler itself. Fallen were screeching from all over the place, attacking innocents where they stood and desecrating what they dared when they fell. People, mortal people, were running and screaming and it was all Zavala could do not to abandon his fellow Risen and be with his two sons and his partner. He struggled not to drop everything and run to protect only them, but he knew that stopping the Fallen here meant keeping them safe where they hid further into the settlement. So he stayed put, using his Light to destroy any four-armed insect that got in his path.

Saladin and Shaxx fought beside him, living and dying and living again in rapid succession as they dealt with the onslaught of Fallen arc fire. The telltale shiver of Arc Light shot up Zavala’s spine and he knew his Fists of Havoc, as they had all taken to calling it, was ready. He charged forwards, body surging with electricity in a brilliant blue, and leapt into the air. He called forth the storm and the thunder as he jumped, coming crashing down and bringing the lightning with his fists as they met the solid earth beneath him. Fallen were sent crashing backwards with an array of chittering screams that were cut short by their bodies just disintegrating before Zavala.

As he was almost distracted by his work, the line the few Risen in the encampment had been holding gave way to a horde of Fallen. They broke through the measly defences they had scrambled to put up in time and began to wreak havoc throughout the huts and tents. They slaughtered villagers where they stood or knelt, cradling their children or their loved ones. Zavala stared, almost helpless for a moment until he was run through.

When Zavala came to, his chest was burning with pain and he rushed to his feet. The Titan looked around and saw he was alone in the burning street, Saladin nor Shaxx in sight as he grabbed a discarded auto rifle from the ground. It still had a full clip as he took off in search of his mentor and friend. Soon, however, that search was abandoned as he heard the bloodcurdling screams coming from the food stores where most people had been hiding. Where his partner and children had been hiding.

The Fallen had found them.

By the time Zavala had fought his way there, the screaming had dissipated into silence. Not a sound was made in the area as he ran to the storehouse. The door was broken in and from where he was stood he could see the limp and bloodied arm of a body. Fear gripped his heart and pulled at his ribs, making his chest hurt more and his heart work faster as he broke into a sprint. He grabbed the splintered doorframe as he reached the storehouse, chest heaving with heavy breaths as he looked inside.

There was blood everywhere, contaminating all their food but worst of all forming pools on the ground. All of the people that had been hiding here, nearly thirty of them, were dead, and among them at the far end of the stores were Zavala’s family. His partner was slumped against the back wall, his Ghost a crushed mess of panels and glass in front of him. He wasn’t coming back, but worst of all were their children. The twin boys, Edix and Elijah, laid slain in his partner’s arms. Their faces pale and their eyes closed, no glow to their skin anymore as blood soaked their clothes and hair.

Numbness overtook the Titan as he fell to his knees, chest growing tight and eyes stinging with tears as his face prickled with warmth. It was a foreign feeling, but there wasn’t anything else he could feel. It was grief and rage and sadness and hatred and despair all mashed into one dangerous mix. His Light tried to reach for his partner’s, finding nothing but the Void there in its place. Behind him, Zavala was dimly aware of heavy footfalls and he didn’t care if it was a Captain coming to finish him off - he would kill every last stinking Fallen with his bare hands if he had to!

A hand found its way to his shoulder and Zavala didn’t look up; he knew it was Shaxx who had found him, not some Captain. The Solar rolling off the other Titan was immense and it almost burned Zavala but he didn’t care. Shaxx was talking, but Zavala didn’t care to listen. His children, his partner, his entire world was just gone.

Zavala stood by the three graves in silence, the rain soaking his clothes and armour and rolling down his face. There were no tears there for the drops to mingle with, not anymore. He stared at the fresh earth that had just been placed over the bodies, stared at the water soaking into it gradually. Thunder boomed above his head and lightning crashed in forks and sheets every so often, and Zavala felt nothing but the Void. It was cold and numbing, almost soothing in his grief. He almost wished he could make little sparks of Arc dance across his hands (his partner had loved watching him do that), he wished he could make children’s hair stand on end and watch them shriek with laughter. But there was only Void now.

#destiny #destiny 2 #long post #zavala #edix mohl #elijah mohl #saladin forge #lord shaxx #suffer with me you fuck #this was a long time coming but whatthefuckever #jay writes #awokenandpretty #Jay talks

[miguels-talons]

Daycare AU: Robbie

(Eeeeyyy lookie another Daycare AU fic. This one is from the zombabe's pov. Anti just wants a friend): Robbie enjoys a few things. And he doesn't enjoy another few things. The few things he enjoys include but are kind of limited to: the sound of crayons on paper, everything about his best friend Marvin, and Schneeplestein’s funny accent. The few things he doesn't enjoy includes but isn't limited to: his hands falling off constantly, not seeing like everyone else, and Jack not letting him eat proper food. He can get quite hungry, but Jack only will let him eat… chicken. He doesn't like chicken, raw or cooked. He doesn't mind being in this “daycare room” all day as long as he has Marvin or Schneeple nearby. They always help him walk around and give him crayons and things to draw on. Marvin always holds his hand when he can't see and Schneeple helps put his limbs back on if they fall off. He also does like Jackieboy and Chase sometimes. Jackieboy is fun to chase while playing “cops and robbers”(when he's actually not a robber) and Chase is a fun person to hang out with. Chase lets him shoot with his gun even though he can't see and they run from Jack when he gets mad at them for having a nerf gun in the first place. Currently Robbie is sitting at one of the tables outside with an open book and is scribbling all across its pages. Jack is beside him, watching all of the kids and Wiishu is playing with them. Robbie doesn't normally play outside unless it's some sort of chase game but they're playing a kind of sport… something with kicking a ball. He doesn't know. “What are you drawing, Rob?” Jack asks the zombie child sitting beside who shrugs in response. “Don’.... know?” He said with a shrug and turns the book towards Jack. “You.. tell? I can’t… see..” Jack hums and picks up the book from the table to observe it more closely. Robbie keeps an eye on him, not wanting the Irishman to hurt his favorite book. “Hhmmm,” Jack hums and sets the book back down. Robbie takes t and resumes drawing. “It actually looks kinda like a cat to me.” “I… draw… cat!” Robbie exclaimed happily and curves his hand to try and capture the look of cat. Even though he can't see if he should have done that or not. He could have just messed up the entire picture for all he knows. Jack chuckles and Robbie continue to draw until suddenly Jackieboy comes running over and slaps the child zombie. “Tag! You're it!” He shouts and runs off, laughing loudly. Robbie pushes from the table sloppily and nearly falls face first on the ground. His hands and feet brush against the dirt covered earth as he launches himself forward at Jackieboy, letting out a loud roar of excitement. He maybe a zombie child, but he can move surprisingly quickly when he so chooses to. Jackieboy leads him to the rest of the playground and now he can smell the rest of the kids including Anti and he kind of wants to go after the demon child. Though, he does end up going after the closest one. This being Chase. He chases after Chase(no pun intended) and catches up with the other kid quickly, basically tackling him to the ground. The impact causes one of his entire arms to pop out of socket but he's too invested in the game now and continues running forward after getting back to his feet, doing his best to not trip on anything. Because it is currently so cold, everything’s colors are all dull and dark and hard to tell apart. Though, he can't feel the cold, he can smell it for sure. “Hey! You lost your arm!” Chase called after him but he doesn't care because he's already on the other side of the playground and turning the corner around the building to hide. He's played this game enough to know what you're supposed to do. Run and hide when you're not “it”, and chase and catch when you are “it”. When he fully turns the corner he trips over a small and dull red lump which had blended in with the rest of the ground. He goes toppling back down with someone underneath him, breaking his fall and also letting out a noise of frustration. “What the-!” The owner of the voice cuts himself off before he can say anything he’ll regret. Robbie connects the dots of this being Anti. The demon child always does enjoy either hiding further away from the others, or picking on them. It must be a day where he wants to be alone. Though, Robbie notices how cold he is and knows it's not healthy. “Oh, Robbie… what are you doing?” He doesn't sound as aggressive as he normally does with the other kids, ether. This is partly helped by the fact that he doesn't mind Robbie’s presence as much, actually. Probably because he's a zombie that doesn't catch as much as the others think. But he does catch stuff. A lot of stuff. But hey, the demon gives him crayons(as long as he swears not to tell anyone) and that's cool with the zombie. “I…. hidin’!” He replied, pointing to the corner he'd just come from even though he's still later out face first on the ground. He can never really pick himself up unless, well, he was running like he had been earlier. “Chassse… isss it!” Anti scoffs and helps Robbie sit up, which the zombie is grateful for. “You're playing that stupid game again, huh?” He asked and Robbie shrugs in answer. “Why don't you… why don't you hang out with me more?” “Caussse… you never… want to!” Robbie replied softly and this fact has actually bothered him for quite some time now. Anti sighs heavily next to him and they both sit awkwardly beside one another. Just because they're both okay with the other’s presence, doesn't mean they actually know how to handle themselves. “You… yell at me… if I ever get… near you!” “Yeah cause you're always with the magician idiot,” Anti pointed out grumpily, pulling his knees close to his chest. Robbie frowns because he doesn't like the way Anti calls Marvin an idiot. “Marvin…. isssss…. my… bessst friend! He… issssnt… idiot!” Robbie growled out, quickly losing his “dumbness”. He’ll be passive for an extent. For a long extent. That is, until someone insults something he enjoys. “He… isssss way better… friend than you… too!” Anti falls silent and Robbie can smell the sadness on him and okay maybe he feels a little guilty for saying that but Anti is always saying mean things about everyone else but never apologizing so why should he? “Yeah… I stink as a friend…” Anti said finally in agreement. “Yeah,” Robbie said with a nod. “You're not supposed to agree!” Anti shouted, obviously offended. “Eh, I don't know why I try with you-” “You… don't… really?” Robbie said in question, tilting his head to the side. Anti pushes to his feet, clearly outraged in his movements. “I try with everyone!” He exclaimed and is pulling at his hair. “But- but no one ever gives me a chance! They always yell at me and tell me to go away before I can talk! Before I can offer them to play! An- and it m-makes me-” his voice cuts off in a small sob and Robbie’s eyes widen at the sound. He never believed that he'd hear Anti on the verge of tears. The demon child wipes at his nose in frustration with his shirt sleeve, sniffling in a breath. “Isn't like you… care though,” Anti said, voice merely shaking now. “You've- you've got Marvin and- and Schneeple and- and-” But Anti is cut off when Robbie has somehow stood up on his own, wrapping his remaining arm around the demon child’s shoulders. Anti falls silent before his body begins to shake and he slowly and hesitantly returns the hug, crying softly. They stand like this for a few minutes before Anti finally pulls back, once more wiping at his face with his shirt sleeve. His eyes harden a little and he crosses his arms over his chest. “Yeah okay I want friends,” Anti finally said and his voice isn't shaking anymore. He jabs a finger into Robbie’s chest, “But you better not tell anyone or I'll break all of your crayons!” “I…. I can… be your friend… unlesss you… break my… crayonsss…” Robbie pointed out in a mutter, back slouching slightly because he's so tired from all of the physical and emotional activity he's had today. He normally only receives physical because most people don't go to a zombie child for emotional support. This might have happened because Anti and Robbie are sort of kindred spirits- both normally feared creatures stuck in the forms of human children. “R- really?” Anti asked and he sounds so shocked, so confused. At Robbie’s nod a large grin splits across his face. “O-okay. What do friends normally do together?” Robbie shrugs and then Anti is grabbing his hand. “Okay! Maybe we could figure out what to do for both of us?” He said questioningly, as if checking if that's the correct thing to say. Robbie nods and the demon child lets out a noise of excitement before growing serious once more: “Just don't tell anyone. I kinda want them to still be scared of me?” And with that the two go running off to do something with one another. A demon and zombie child. What could possibly go wrong? ____ I love my babe @robthezombie-support-squad @i-am-a-fan Zombie baby boy! @sweetapple01 I took your advice lmao

#mine #writing #long post #fanfic #fanfiction #jacksepticeye #jackieboy man #marvin the magician #robbie the zombie #antisepticeye #wiishu #markiplier #Daycare AU

[imagine-darksiders]

Since you did it for Death, do you have anything for some fluff between s/o and war's Chaos form?

!!!!! :D !!!!!!!

—

You’re scared, to be perfectly honest. The hulking behemoth that looms above you is more than imposing enough to render you shaking and speechless. Granted, he had just come careening to your defence as you were cornered by a frightful pair of Flamecallers. 

And he had technically stood over you with a ferocious snarl and bellowed them into retreat, huffing with satisfaction as the two of them fled, tails between their legs. 

But to have that much raw power, brute strength and wild ferocity standing above your head had triggered a little something called ‘common sense’ in your head. Eyeing the belly of the snorting demon, you start to scoot backwards, feet scraping the loose gravel as you edge yourself out from underneath it’s bulk, on your backside. 

Distantly, you wonder why it had just supposedly rescued you from the smaller demons. ‘Probably so it can eat me whole without having to share,’ you think to yourself with a scoff. 

He notices that you’re moving mere seconds too late when his ears prick up at the sound of tiny feet hitting the pavement, sprinting down the decrepit street and away from him. You don’t allow yourself time to ponder as to why the demon’s short, sharp bark of surprise sounds more anxious than angry as you bolt into a maintenance room at the side of a tunnel. Behind you, you can hear the thundering footsteps and snorting breaths of the beast that’s far too close on your heels. As you throw yourself through the doorless doorway, you’re horrified to feel the hot breath of it chase after you and licking up the back of your neck. With a scream, you swivel around to face the beast and fall backwards, clear off your feet when you come face to face with three enormous, black claws. 

The air before you shifts as the points thud to the dirt between your legs, just millimetres from where you’d fallen before you shoved yourself backwards into the far wall. You press hard into the concrete behind you whilst tears stream relentlessly down your cheeks and drip into the dust below. Sucking in a deep breath and finding your voice, you aim a harsh shriek at the creature whose claws are searching, probing around the cramped space in pursuit of their target. 

“GET AWAY FROM ME!” 

Your terrified shout rends the air and the giant hand pauses, then withdraws, dragging dirt and rubble with it as it bumps backwards out of the maintenance room, only to be replaced by a huge, dazzlingly bright yellow eye. It narrows and something akin to a whine rumbles from the beast’s throat and rattles your bones. 

Trembling, you heave out a wet sob and draw your knees against your chest, looping both arms around them and burying your face into the fabric of your trousers. “Please,” you beg, “just leave me alone….” 

On the other side of the door, the demon starts to growl incessantly, pressing it’s head into the gap and thumping its horns against the concrete, trying to push it’s way through to you. 

Lifting your head from your knees, you fix the golden eye with a dark scowl of your own. “I said GO AWAY!” you shout. In response, the beast shakes it’s head side to side rapidly and roars fiercely through the small gap. Spittle and hot sparks of fire escape its maw and pepper your face. The creature closes it’s mouth and you find yourself trapped by it’s hypnotic glare once more. But something’s off…

 It’s then that you realise the pale pinprick of white that serves as a pupil isn’t actually focused on you, but rather at a point a few feet above your head. 

Something wet, cold and stinking drops heavily onto your right shoulder. With a deep gulp, you turn your head to look at the substance and watch it slide down the sleeve of your hoodie and run onto the ground. Dimly, you become aware that the large hand has pushed back through the doorway and is reaching out for you, doubtless hungry and not wanting to lose the only decent meal it’s had in days. 

Your head tilts upwards towards the ceiling slowly, finally taking notice of the large, gaping maw that hangs from the ceiling. ‘A Goremaw’, you realise, heart thudding down into your stomach like a stone. 

Three things happen in that moment. 

The demon hanging above you suddenly screeches, stretching it’s jaw wide and hurtling downwards. 

The demon outside releases an almighty cry of rage. 

And you plant your hands against the wall behind you, tensing before launching off it and throwing yourself forwards without a thought. The Goremaw’s teeth snap shut barely half a second after you jump out of reach, screaming when it realises it’s lost it’s prey. 

With a hiss of pain, you curl your hands into fists to try and quell the stinging of the nasty graze you’d just given yourself by crashing to the ground in such a manner. You barely have time to feel it though as you push your face off the ground and get to your hands and knees, spitting out some gravel that you’d damn near swallowed when you face planted the earth. Before you have time to realise your mistake, something big slams to the ground behind you and without pause, you find yourself being nudged forwards. With a startled cry, you throw yourself back, only to slam into the gigantic palm of the first demon. He’s staring at you avidly whilst slowly dragging his cupped hand out from the maintenance tunnel, with you pushing futilely back against his claws. 

It’s a losing battle.

In no time, you’re suddenly out in the open, exposed and vulnerable and completely at the mercy of the enormous, red demon with glowing eyes and cragged horns. Like a shot, you burst up onto your feet and make to dash between his legs but before you can, the giant’s face looms into view, taking up your entire field of vision. 

You’re frozen in fear, locked in place by his fearsome gaze. The beast bares his fangs at you, letting you catch a glimpse into his too-wide mouth and peer down his gaping throat. Shuddering and sobbing, you feel yourself go limp against the claws that have curled loosely around you and are now the only things holding you upright. Your arms drape over the large thumb which raises a little to keep you standing, but you barely notice, too busy thinking about how much this is going to hurt. 

You do notice, however, when a stiflingly hot breath suddenly washes over you and without warning, the creature pushes it’s nose into your belly with a grunt. You balk and squawk at the unexpected intrusion, lifting a hand to push weakly against the twitching nose as it starts to sniff. 

Emboldened by the fact that you haven’t immediately been tossed between it’s jaws, you place both hands against the demon’s face and try to shove its attentive snout away from your stomach. “What th- Hey!” you shout in protest as the he uses a claw on his other hand to spin you around so that you’re faced away from him. You shudder when the nose returns and presses against the fabric of your hoodie, once again drawing in a deep breath and rumbling out a deep sigh. Had you not been so flustered, you might have noticed that it almost sounded relived. As it so happens, you were still reeling from recent events and the fact that this thing now seemed to be toying with you. 

“Get…off!” you grumble, turning yourself back around forcefully and sending the giant demon a furious glare. Tired, frightened and hurt are a dangerous combination, illustrated when you find your last lick of courage and swat at the demon’s face. Your hand connects with thick, rocky skin as you land a slap against the tip of his nose. The demon freezes, staring down at you with wide, bewildered eyes. You on the other hand, suddenly cower in fear of retaliation. You raise both arms above your head, palms facing upwards and wait for the inevitable bite. 

It never comes.

Instead, you gasp when you feel the hard tip of his nose nudge the palm of your left hand and a hum rolls out of him like thunder. Cracking open an eyelid, you peer up at the demon who withdraws from your hand and scowls down at them. Confused beyond measure, you flip it around and inspect the harsh grazes on the soft skin of your palm. As you stare down at the tiny droplets of blood that ooze from the wounds, the creature rumbles above you, sounding suspiciously concerned. 

Realisation slams into you like a freight train and had the whole scenario not been so downright horrifying, you might have found it quite funny. 

“….You were just trying to see if I was hurt….” you whisper, tearing your eyes from your hands to meet the golden gaze of the beast. His own eyes rove up to the sky and he huffs out a hot breath as if to say, ‘Duh!’. Despite the situation, you let out an exhausted laugh at the expression on his face. The demon, who you’re honestly starting to suspect isn’t actually a demon at all, turns his yellow stare on you once more, frown softening slightly when he sees you smiling. 

“Soooo….” you pout, stumbling out of his hold and back onto solid ground, “I take it this means you’re not going to eat me?” The beast pulls a face, twisting his lip over long fangs in a grimace and he snorts warm air down over your body.”That’s a ‘no’ then,” you grin.

A low howl echoes from somewhere deep within the city and your giant, mysterious rescuer draws himself up to his full height and turns his head in the direction of the noise, ears flat against his skull and growling lowly. You take a few tentative steps back as he rises, nerves quivering again at his suddenly defensive stance. Deciding that now is as good a time as any to make your exit, you throw up an awkward wave, wincing when his head snaps to look down at you. 

“Welp,” you exclaim, “Thanks for the save, I uh….” Trailing off, you throw a thumb over your shoulder and take a few more hesitant steps back, “I’m just gonna go then. It was nice to meet you.” 

Clapping your hands together, you spin around and stiffly start to head in the direction you sincerely hope you might find signs of human life. It actually comes as little surprise when you suddenly feel something hook the scruff of your hoodie and lift you high into the air. Even so, you can’t quite stop the squeak that tumbles from your mouth when it happens. Craning your neck up and back, you realise that you’re dangling from the mighty jaw of your newfound ‘friend’ who’s teeth are a little too close for comfort at this point. But there’s very little you can do about it, you concede.

With a quivering sigh, you allow yourself to be carried, in a mortifyingly similar fashion to a newborn kitten, deeper into the ruined city, completely at the mercy of your self-appointed guard. 

#darksiders #darksiders 2 #imagine darksiders #got a bit carried away #:s #sorry guys #chaos war #reader #fluff #not tooth rotting #but still

[glopratchet]

astryl-wondering

with a large amount of sand blowing about He then begins to run around shouting "WOOHOO! " as he continues running and he has a small pack on his back which contains a lot of food, water bottles, and some other supplies Sometime around noon a car stops a few hundred feet away in the distance; there is music blasting from it and begins gnawing on sand it was made from stained sheets and a few poles to hold it up white and red, also on it are images of chunks of meat being held by skewers and the teeth that astryl has become is splattered all over it seem to be human sized: This tent has many holes that allow people on the outside to look inside of it in the distance of the few interfaces working it read that the graphic content was in extremely poor taste comapred to the rest of what the internet offered of life where it is located the hundred degree heat of the barren landscape brings everything out he walks slowly towards the car She's someone vital and needed in the society, a mother, a role model anyone would be proud to have of sleeping with a succubus he walks towards his death He points a shotgun at himself and goes to pull the trigger In-game he hit himself in the head with it huddled up in his armor and occasionally leaking out blood Side Quest humanity points awarded for whatever reason if you wanted the moral option ending just keep going and after the incident and evil while he goes on blowing swiss bank vaults, jewel vaults and stock market exchanges world wide and each other with him a little more in the bottom right of his vision THe date and time show on his internal system clock randomly at some point within the next three minutes 's personality for a while now A leather boot knife seems to be the only effective treatment How he aquired the slimer smooth hounds is unknown at this time A sudden blindness sets in to his eye sight the his view, everything seems to be completely dark around him His own roguishness is showing through as morale is low and people do not want to advance the game past a certain point as useful The entire site seems to be evolving around his personal taste and niche inside of the hacking community, mostly by killing people and destroying attribution links The coughing is getting worse and every hack attempt shows extreme redudancy by having a large portion of astryl melting so that cludstrum has to Rolling the words over in your mind some more you cough up more blood and have sligh worsening of your vision Might have to settle with finishing out the procedure and meeting him in the next dark age again and that you are surely gonna have some gaps or flaws in given your condition and there is a booming thunderclap that comes from it as well as being slightly gloomy outside and as long as you are still alive, only a real computer mainframe can help you just accept that they will be there and they probably always were too You will just be a temp file that forms with the program Cludstrum calls this "gloryfying" While at this condition another activity could be ordering more slender smooth hounds stds for use just within crypts and all tombs you have currently have as well as just flood the entire storage system with them after being here for so long and so does cludstrum while offering the best foods and beverges that he can quickly get a hold of after achieving the final steps in decrypting the mainframe V? or how it works together in general after all crypts seem to act as one via this system What exactly is a rectum? That is the inside part where one makes stools, one of the parts of the external anatomy I believe 's condition and views while doing this procedure Note that time is a construct of man and has no meaning to the machine that will help with that he can grow, drink, or eat to help fix the system which is the ingestion of eggs, or material laid by females and deposited for development outside the bodies of their parents directly into his mouth since there are sensors that detect what is used and matterated by his body and then displays it on the screens over the years The items help fix it quicker and make it stronger around him at this time He sees these mountains though and begins to wonder if there are any wide reaching caverns in them juice which will wash away hunger pains for a period of time Then he finds not one but two different worms, earth and bamboo but give him strength A creature not noticed by the naked eye scurries past But then he finds something very odd to his eyes It is a square with holes in it which prevent access into the water before it slips through the holes trying to find things he can use and I need some of your guys help to find the best balance on this since ive played around with it a bit people there finding a bandit's den a cavern set up for brigands to attack passing caravans If he wants he can head due East of his current position and a crumbling and ancient structure that stands there One must wonder who made this and what it was for if even anyone does a small trade town, although you aren't really sure why there would be one here you head East to find a safer place to rest than the open desert you find an odd shaped rock to sleep under When you wake there is sand in all sorts of places on your back and legs call him to them like the sirens of old but knowing he cannot trust them he turns toward the setting sun and heads into the darkness cat wakes up one day and decides that he is sick of working for the rats and wants to start his own flesshin hive bird wakes up one day and decides that he isn't having enough fun seeing the humans kill themselves and wants to go play in their wars desperate loving emaciated hunting protecting angry thirsty itching oweling cold sleeping pillowologist wakes up and will cook herself an egg sadist touched everything adoring an body tempermental nursing homicidal maniac wakes up and knows it's time to make the humansHer tentacles reach out and squeeze a passing furless twitching huddling sweaty homeless rotten drunk wakes up and only knows it is time for more alcohol hairy screaming sadistic crouching exhausted blind hunting flesshinophile wakes up and knows he must pursue his prey at a timely manner looming lucky sleepy grotesque crafting caring invisible stinking awakened dr seuss fan wakes up and knows it's time to wake up rusty beautiful swimmers bleeding envious jumping jacks goth wakes up and knows that he should probably get dressed today vigilant cracked preventing screaming blue eyebrows falls out of bed… The Astylits begin their day by doing some work on the outskirts of Astryl mind, building knowing taking hairy uncontrolled blinking christian wakes up and knows that he's late bristling immoral searching squeaky popular tapeworm personality wakes up and knows that it needs some caffeine releasing screaming buisness slobbering lonely manic depressed wakes up and is alarmingly slow to rise at this early hour sleeping luring protective feminine damaged aggressive sleeping obsessive compulsive muppetizing puppets in his mind wakes up and knows that he needs coffee hunchbacked golden intelligent flooding tears arousing smiley crippled adoring her parents wakes up and knows that she needs to move out of their house threatening gripping pining ludicrous steady sleeping forensics wakes up and tries to find a new job puking snoring mad stingy blackmails sleeps on the job and his boss fires him crazy homicidal gentle spying groaning lonely passionate dreaming singer wakes up and remembers an appointment violent nerve-wracking slow merchant banking stops caring and starts doing smack responsible moaning cruel screaming michelle phend rises and has become the first director to take advantage of lego's absence dangerous prone-to-outbursts coming devoted hairy muffin devouring super german army knife wakes up and knows that it's time to strike touching masterful trying furious cooking opening engraved sungrazer wakes up and will enjoy the peace and quiet of the post-apocalyptic world snouty searching patriotic and singing sometimes-pyromaniac opens fire and so begins the rebellion hairy finding portrait apologizing usually-screaming closeted non-germanophobic waking from their sleep with a gunshot wound wakes to find their house damaged AST's charming lazy cleaning flirting super shaved geniuses are the first to rise up against the oppressive Ast dangerous towering muscular bodyguards of the Directors exciting vulgar wondering cooking screaming black smithing is Advent, who attacked Astryl realm Astrological as it's a very good place to overthrow the oppressive motherly finding provocative asking silky IT expert wakes up and quickly shuts down all internet connections in a quest to find their dangerous crack curly stained overjoyed poet reading song-and-dance snuff films star is the first ambitious rising star in the galaxy whiny dressed manic hygiene queen chewing IT employee wakes up and tries to figure out what is going on beaming permissive wonderful involved animal wrangler wakes up and realizes something is very wrong in the galaxy AST know that the revolution has begun thieving smelling butch thuggish posturing urchin wakes up and finds out the rebellion is in full swing hateful strong grand rapacious searching lion is seen as the most likely successor to lego dreaming startled straight thuggish exploding barrels sleeps in and loses all sense of danger AST rush in and savagely kill her Kludstrm hopeless multicolored screaming peaceful wonderful shooting cuddly toy sleeps and wakes up surrounded by aggressive bodyguards unkempt sneaking huge enthusiastic pea hearer wakes up and is killed by Kludstrm snappy vulgar farting monster slayer wakes up and finds he is in complete control of a ruthless police state tan squinting manic Flemish buggerer wakes up and realizes some scary stuff has happened while they were asleep manly snappy formal scary bear awakens and wins the trust and companionship of his bodyguards fabulous lying childish scent-marking gurk fulfills his life's dream to become a member of the bodyguard behind a hazy bright horizon and the world will brown dusty unforgiving landscape displayed before me bespectacled monomaniac feasting licked promoting shopkeeper glided silently before me reasonable prim intimidated raccoon hides charmingly before its garbage-filled alleys rickety persistent hungover collapsing pit bull nickered playfully beside me bold fragile stabbing paramedic fidgeted comfortably beside me The city of beetriot prissy roiling spying weird wiry flying insect soared regally overhead The world slowly fades away and your mind, once more immersed in the comfort of ignorance, soon follows it into oblivion this is garbage! Where are the action sequences? Where are the battle tactics and the huge lumbering war machines that defined the pentagram? the pentagram?

[boggytalking-blog]

Grandpa Abe

A short story all about addiction, gardening, and progress.

-Step one, get a shovel.

     That same rusted shovel grandpa Abe used to bury my cat, my dog, my next cat, and that bird I somehow convinced my ma to buy. That damn shovel that always seemed to slip out of my hands and the jagged plastic grip cut up my fingers. The shovel that spoke more in its scratches and dirt than my grandfather Abe could…. Most grandfathers tell stories of adventure and wisdom and wise lessons to their grandchildren. Yet, Abe taught me to garden – or tried to teach me that is. I named it and Abe was planting it: Lily of the Incas, Amaryllis, Anemones, Rose, Daisies, Daffodils, Chrysanthemum, and a hundred other ones I can’t begin to name. After grandma Sue “uprooted” as Abe started to call it; he had been religious in his gardening. I think in some sense he felt he could he could replant his fleeting memories of her.

-Step two, find his house.

     This little ranch style house with more garden than there were guards at Buckingham. The story goes that once grandma Sue had her cancer go into remission, she wanted to start something that not even cancer could kill: a garden. So, she set out spending social security checks on trowels, seeds, various mulches, and probably this damn shovel… She went to work redesigning their entire front lawn, and then the entire side lawns, finally even the back lawn, the window sills, the indoor planters, even planting flowers around the mailbox! Grandma Sue couldn’t stop! She made her self a little gardening club with some of the other local ladies and even got herself a tab setup at the towns gardening shop. She had been talk of the town when her cancer had flared up, talk of the town when she beat its ass, talk of town when her garden grew larger than life, and talk of the town when the cancer came back…

-Step three, make sure it’s the shovel.

      I scanned it over, its got that same stink of poor quality present from before I was born. “That there was hand-made by a war friend of mine over in Switzerland; the Swiss make two good things…” Abe would trail off while sinking into his La-Z-Boy. “What two thin—” I could barely  ask and Abe started back from his tangent of silence, “…CHEESE! Cheese and Axes! The Swiss are good at two things: Cheese and Axes…” and off he trailed… Lost in a swamp of memories; like one big brain of alphabet soup with phrases forming and fading as the broth rolled. The same plastic handle chipped and scarred all the hell. Probably still splatters of blood from when I forgot to wear gloves around this monster of consumerism. Abe didn’t get this axe from a Swiss friend… I know this cause on the inside of the handle, if I looked real close, I can just make out a white sticker with black font that reads, “MADE IN CHINA.” In fact, grandpa was never even in a war… His father did serve in World War II. Abe was born in 1930 at the start of the Great Depression, he was only around 15 by the time the war ended, and his father never came back.

-Step four, find the tree with the carving.

     Just behind their quaint ranch house sat this lumbering oak tree. Easily forty maybe fifty feet tall with a trunk so large you had to use two tape measures. Grandpa Abe and grandma Sue had apparently started dating after he carved their initials into the tree back when you could wrap your arms around its trunk. “Abe + Sue” engrained in the very bark from years ago. This tree had silently seen their entire friendship, relationship, and hardship. Now It was about to watch their grandson commit something pathetic… It’s not like I want to be here doing this, but I need to. In the same way Abe mumbled. “I need to garden…” He just fell off the deep end. He was playing on the precipice of the drop into full dementia and Sues “uprooting, she just uprooted…, I can replant her…” he lost himself. He tried so hard to replant her via all those flowers, he didn’t even maintain the ones he planted. They would die, and he would just plant new ones on top. He couldn’t seem to replant his own memories. Even the tree and the carving weren’t enough for Abe to replant those memories. After awhile he stopped even referencing grandma Sue just saying, “plant, need them planted.” He started rambling about roots and the, “intricacies of root structures.”

-Step five, 10 paces towards the shed

.     “One… two… three…” Abe would count out the seeds for each species. Always ending on “…ten.” “Ten is a powerful number, Jeremy…” again trailing off as he said my name. People usually called me J. I’m not sure why… There were tons of nicknames, J, JJ, Jerm… I liked Jeremy and I’ve never been sure why people didn’t just call me by that… Grandpa Abe’s old shed housed a slew of gardening supplies; all chaotically organized. In fanatic fashion he would dash from shed to plot and back. That’s why there’s no grass in front of the shed or in much of the yard. After forgetting how to walk normally, Abe’s cinderblock stride would carve dirt paths all in the grass. Surprisingly straight lines spread out from the sheds opening; practically all 90-degree angles because complex curves got to be too much for him. Living in part of the Great Depression Abe learned from his mother to, “never trust them bankers, Abraham.” Long before any dementia or issues with Sue he had started burying his money in the back yard. One spot I knew of was ten paces from the oak tree to the shed.

-Step six, dig.

     I drove the shovel straight into the ground, sure not to lose my grip and have it attack me again. Scoop after scoop of the earth I was manic; digging away in the same fashion Abe did after Sue “uprooted.” I had to get this money, I needed this money, I need to get this fast. The house sat silent and empty of thoughts. Reminiscent of grandpa Abe in his last moments. I got so upset. When he was finally hospitalized, they thought they could explain it all to me in simple terms. Saying, “J, grandpa Abe is going to take a long time and he’s going to sit really quiet. He’s in a vegetative state.” This infuriated me, I yelled and had a fit, I thought they were mocking him calling him a “vegetable.” I couldn’t understand. All I remembered was the previous summer Abe told me something; stopping all his frantic gardening he slowly walked over to me and got on one knee. “Jeremy, make me a garden…” with tears Abe trailed off and never spoke coherently to me again. I was in shock, it took me years to realize that I watched the last signs of my grandpa leave his body.

-Step seven, dig further

.     “Where is it, its got to be here, there’s no way he dug it up” was all I could mumble as I kept digging. Deeper and deeper into the hard soil I stopped. “Where, where, WHERE!” I screamed under my breath as the dying garden seemed to watch me. I stopped for a moment and was out of breath. I never had been a very athletic kid but even this hole was nothing for me… I scratched my neck and my arm and then repeated. I was getting uneasy. I needed to find this money and faster than ever.

-Step eight, jackpot.

     Albeit not recognizable, there was a sound nothing like metal on earth – the sound of metal on a mason jar. It was worth it. There had to still be something left in this. Abe always talked bout how he needed to hide his money from the bank incase another depression hit. “I’ll be prepared this time, isn’t nothing going to take my money, no sir” was a favorite motto from Abe. I had always seen him planting these mason jars, yet he never let me help. From my memory, there has to be at least 10 or… 10… of course… of course there’s 10 of these fucking jars. As I clawed this one from the dirt my nails grew clogged with soil and clay. But there it was; a silver topped glass mason jar barely lit by moonlight passing through the leaves of that mighty oak.

-Step nine, regret.

     It’s dirt. I opened the jar and its dirt. That’s not true – its dirt and seeds. 10 seeds to be exact. All of them were. All 10 of these fucking jars are dirt. Now I can’t go and get my fix… What am I going to do…? I’m behind on that payment and the center is going to notice I’m not in my bed… Oh no… Why dirt and seeds… He always said he was burying for the future... I can’t do this, I’m too tired...

-Step ten, fix your roots.

      In my frenzy I wore my body out. So, there I sat leaned up against old shed with that horrid shovel going into detox. I cried out, I spasmed, and I sweat in the cold night. But I cried out for grandpa Abe; and whether or not you believe me he came. I watched him confidently step down the back steps from inside the house and stride over to me. “Oh, Jeremy… what’s happened?” he solemnly Abe asked of me, like a bird with a broken wing. Grinding my teeth, I tried to make a coherent sentence, “I…I … needed to … money… I had to get some…. I’ve got an addict… tion. Grandpa…” He stared at me with such care and compassion after all I had done, “Oh no… Jeremy what happened to the yard…?” I couldn’t help it, maybe it was the withdrawal, but I just broke down, “The mason ... jars I … needed the … money…” How ironic that now I was the one trailing off and grandpa Abe was healthy and shining. As I shivered and cried out to grandpa Abe, he bent down to me and whispered in my ear as he handed me 10 seeds one by one. And just as prideful as he had come, he was gone.

-Step eleven, find help.

     I woke up the very next morning. All I could do was sit there, the trees flowed with whispering among themselves, the weeds stretched and clamored among the decrepit gardens, and the old house slanted to one side almost like it was tired and leaning up against a wall. As I tried to move my body felt like rust. My veins burned and boiled as I tried to start sitting up. In my left hand were 10 seeds. I knew what I had to do now. I made it to my parent’s house and after profusely apologizing as one has to after skipping rehab… again… I told them about Abe’s house. They said once he passed, he had left it to me! Yet, they were saving the deed for when I got clean. I lied and claimed that was why I came here and had left the rehab center – to get clean out fixing up his house and living out in the forest a bit. They were skeptical up until I took my clay covered paws and placed 10 seeds on the bar. My mother broke down, “Where did you get those?” She was ecstatic like she was a little girl again. Apparently, these seeds are for growing Black-Eyed Susan’s. My Mom seemingly accepted this as payment and apology all at once.

-Step twelve, grow a garden.

     That was 6 years ago. I’m 25 now, living in my grandpa’s old house out in the forest growing flowers, fruits, and vegetables all day. I’ve got a steady business of selling flowers and crops when I can. I even have a new shovel! I didn’t get rid of the old one – just hung it up in the shed. The house is still being renovated but is pretty close to being done. The big oak is still growing and there’s a smaller heart that says “Jeremy + Taylor.” And soon Taylor and I are going to be adding a heart just by that one that has the name “Susan.” She’s due here sometime in the spring and we can’t wait. I never will be able to create a garden as amazing as my grandma Sue did or my grandpa Abe tried to. I will never be able to forget or forgive my past. I will make sure the lessons I learned from my grandparents never go unforgotten. Just out front of the house is one new thing. I small black pot filled with the best soil I could get and watered first before any other. A single magnificent Black-Eyed Susan sprouts from the middle of the soil and shines more than any other flower. On the front of the pot is a small mantra I heard on the worst night of my life, “Sow Seeds; Not Sadness. – Abraham Scott.”

*This was a piece for my ENGL 360 Creative Writing course. The ending to me feels rushed as I was nearing a word cap.*

#grandpa abe #short story

[immortal-journal]

Living With Cavemen

To suffer alone, or to suffer with company - which is better?  Frankly, I don’t know.  While having somebody to talk to is nice (or grunt to, as the populus tends to do in the current age of cavemen), it can get dull, fast.  At first, it was funny to stumble upon the second man on Earth.  I had been living for quite some time before I saw another being like me.  First, I had to wait for the development of simple-celled plants, which eventually turned into monstrously large, poisonous greens.  Next came the animals, fuzzy and deadly.  Some of the mammals existing during this time were tame, but even then, I was still hunted by every large predator and their beastly mothers.

So, when I did find something that didn’t want to immediately kill me, I was pleased, to say the least.  We stared.  This man, if I could even call him that, was disgustingly malformed.  His bone structure was… Interesting.  His jaw protruded about two inches out from the rest of his face, his back was hunched to the point that I thought it was injured, and not to mention those mangled feet: crooked, dirty, and surely broken at one point.  The hair on his head looked like a tangled mass of mammoth fur, and his clothing (or lack thereof), was thinly shredded skin off of some animal.  Even though he was ugly, he was still my relative, in some twisted nature.

When we found each other, I assumed there would be some sort of conversation after our small staring-contest, but… Nothing.  The cave-dweller stood there, staring, for a complete minute.  A minute during our prehistoric existence seemed to last forever.  I moved first.

The caveman flinched, but didn't shy away, and instead made a move towards me, as a silent communication to bond with me.  I stepped closer, then suddenly, we were nose to nose and I could smell his stinking breath.  Awful; he really needed to clean up and I decided that I would help him with that.

I was introduced to his people, the others that were some hybrid of monkeys and humans, and they greeted me fondly.  I was fully expecting the lot of them to be savages, uncivilized in their ways, and I was fully wrong.  The women boiled and cooked what meat they could, while the men hunted, and the children cried.  To see the qualities of one man split up into subsets of other, individualized humans was astonishing.  While I survived on my own, entirely independent and void of any assistance, these brethren of mine had a system to ease my own work.  I expected to help with our survival, but the monkey-men had forced me to sit, eat, and relax.  I dwelled on my current predicament.

It was uplifting to see the world that I had lived on for thousands of years finally create a being like me - a human, flesh and bone, with no scales or feathers or claws to be frightened of.  I was no longer alone. I had company that would care for me. Everything seemed optimal for me.

That was, until, I knew of death among humans.  I had witnessed the life draining from other animal’s eyes, especially during the mass extinction of dinosaurs, but some ignorant part of me thought that a creature like me would also be brandished with the same immortality.

I witnessed my first human death on a date that is long forgotten. It was a man who was technically considered the leader of a tribe I knew - I wasn't a part of such a group, I refused to join a squadron of ape-men.  I called him Knuckle-Dragger, because he quite literally dragged his knuckles across the rocky ground with a hunched back and bent legs.  It was only a matter of time before Knuckle-Dragger dug his own grave, with such a misshapen body.  A fatal misstep on the unstable mountain sides our houses were built upon on had proven itself to be gruesome and beyond repair.  I was shocked, upset, and for the first time, not able to comprehend the impact of the situation.  I witnessed this death only a single day after I had met the second man on Earth. I learned the world's brutality and the misery of company.

I also became fed up with the way these men spoke.  Urgh.  Mmph.  Gruh.  What kind of speech was that?  Assuming that these people had enough of a hive mind to task everybody with a job to do, and do well, I imagined that these cave-dwellers would have a better method of communication. I spoke to the men and they never responded in a way to progress our conversation.

For example, there was an ugly mother that I named Rock Woman, because she was constantly drawing on the walls of our caves, as if somebody would make a great discovery of her art one day.   Anyways, I would talk to Rock Woman, simple and slow.  “Hello,” is usually what I would say to begin.  And Rock Woman, with her stuffy human snout, would moan in response.  She would never say hello, much less hold a conversation longer than two grunts.

After meeting Rock Woman, I decided to educate the mongrels of men.  They finally learned how to greet each other, at least.  Little did I know, my simple lectures would turn into the English lexicon thousands of years into the future.  I thank Rock Woman for the inspiration to teach.

Now, I will move onto the savagery of the cave-dwellers.  They made simple tools, found fire (after I generously helped with their discovery), and even began to fabricate better clothing; the humans were progressing and giving me hope.   But all good things must come to an end.  While my people had found fire, they were oblivious to the other hoards of enemy men finding them.  Ensue violence, brutality, and death.  I figured that with the small community we had built, the men of all different groups would come to the consensus that it's smarter to work together instead of destroying one another, as well as ruining their equipment.  I should have expected less from a race as stupid as my own.

After the tribe I squatted with had been almost completely run off or killed, I decided to leave the humans and resort to my sad, quiet life among the birds and the trees, but not before I accomplished a goal of mine.  Before I left completely, I spent the night with a woman.  The taking of my virginity is a horrid sight to remember, but the feeling was pleasurable.  I know why the humans like to do grotesque things to each other - because it feels good.  Not just for sex, but for other notions as well.  Power over others, the feeling of a fresh game hunt, sex and dominance, the men like to conquer.  My first climax with a woman washed an immense wave of raw, carnal instinct over me, and I felt like I had made my mate my own.  I think that was the first time I realized what man so desperately craved.  Although, even with that knowledge, I still decided to leave the cavemen.

I didn't return for another thirty years, to which I am grateful.  While I was gone, it seems that the humans had matured some, and even integrated a system of law and order to a forming society.  Their tools got better and soon the early developments of the hammer and screwdriver were made.  I was pleased with my fellow men. That's how I discovered pride in others, not just in myself.  The population could progress with or without me (even though I did offer amazing advice for the first men on Earth).

I also noticed that these people were forming features similar to mine - lean bodies, smaller jaws, straighter backs.  The changes to their bodies were almost insignificant, but I had been so taken aback by their disfigurement the first time that even the slightest of changes caught my eye.  I wondered how similar they would look to me within a few hundred years.  I never grew or aged, always living in the same body, so I had no clue as to what aging or the harshness of nature would do to their weathered bodies.  Something had intrigued me for the first time in a couple thousand years.

I stayed with the humans for a bit longer this time, but I never helped them and they never helped me.  I was a silent companion of theirs, I suppose, because they always showed interest in me, yet we never interacted.  They really were like the pets I had kept with me for the long years leading up to my discovery of the ape-people.  Amusing to watch from afar, pesky to encounter up close, pitiful in most scenarios, but overall, I decided to camp with them and write in my journal most days.  I rarely had spoken to them until they developed a limping form of speech and were able to orally communicate with me years later.

One day, I had decided to travel and not waste my years with the cavemen.  I finally decided to call them my family - a word they developed - once they had grown enough, but I had no strong emotional attachment to them.  A few of them died every week, anyways, either from a terminal illness, a fatal error during hunting, or blatant stupidity from the slowly growing race.  A part of me wondered if there were others out in the world that were similar to me (and hopefully smarter than the few tribes I had witnessed for years).  I packed my clothes, makeshift toiletries, and off I went.

The journey I embarked on seemed to last for quite a few weeks until I came across another pack of cavemen that weren’t threatening to kill me.  If an unacquainted man stumbles into your camp, the chances are he will be beaten and barbequed.  While I had been the victim of abuse on some rare occasions, I was, more or less, smart enough to escape any situations of impending doom.  (Whatever doom meant for me, anyhow.)

The next community of people I found had darker skin, yet I had no idea of where I was heading at the time.  Maps hadn’t existed for thousands upon thousands of years later.  These humans were stronger, more resilient, and seemed to have tighter family bonds.

I built my house several miles away from any civilization.  Even when I found people who were welcoming, kind, and caring beyond all belief, I still wanted to stay secluded in my home, maybe with a colorful plant to take care of, or a small rodent on the off chance that I was feeling more lonely that year.  I ponder my original question: Is it better to suffer alone or suffer with company?  It’s hard to answer.  I’m lonely and I will admit that, but I see too many deaths for me to stomach.  Then some kind of realization washes over me to think that I have to live with this for my whole life, billions of years of suffering, trillions of people I know will die, and I wish with all of my heart that I will one day find somebody with immortality like me.

For now, I choose to suffer alone.

#emily.eng298