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hiddenhistoria · 3 years

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Find the word tag VIII

Tagged by @zmlorenz and @sleepyowlwrites, thank you both! My words are: flower, friend, fragrance, fun, free/ air, break, clear, danger, and excite/ suspect, sick, safe, and solid. As always, snippets from These Cursed Paths.

Flower

She makes towards the kitchen, feet soundless, hand reaching for her gun. The parsen is still on the set table, waiting to be feasted upon. She looks away, ignoring the pang of her chest, and focuses on the task at hand. No intruders here, either. Jehona figures they must be watching the entrances.

And she is right.

Another Kairanese girl has made base in the living room, facing the front door. She doesn’t hesitate. The girl slumps much like her companion outside. Jehona sweeps through the rest of the house with the same efficiency, finding two more girls, one in each bedroom. Only the last one, a Kairanese that must have been Rumaysa’s age, is vigilant enough to sense her coming into her room and put up a fight. Jehona breaks the only flower vase she owns over the girl’s head. She makes a mental note to replace it and the wilting flowers that have fluttered to the ground before Rumaysa finds out.

Chapter 8

Friend

Another shot pings on the cobblestones. Rumaysa bites her lip to stop from making any noise. Her leg shakes from the strain and she leans against the wall of a building, moving at a crawling pace. Rounding the corner, she drags herself along the wall. Even her head fails her, her eyesight going blurry as she slides down, sitting on the road, the yielding a reprieve for her battered body. Everything hurts: her leg, her shoulder, her hands. The crutches escape her grip, clanging as they hit the ground.

“Who’s there?”

Rumaysa starts, hope blooming in her chest. She knows that voice, the cold uninterested timbre it adapts with strangers. Her eyes, which she didn’t even realize had slid closed of their own volition, fly open. “Jehona?”

And it is indeed her best friend rushing towards her, brown locks flying with the wind, voice frantic. “Rumaysa?” She crouches down in front of her, placing blessedly cool hands on her flaming cheeks. “Are you hurt? What are you even doing here?” Jehona’s eyes do a sweep of her sprawled body, the brown dark with worry and panic.

Chapter 5

Fun

“Can you even worry?” he snips back.

She shrugs. “If I try hard enough. Now, I’ll operate under the assumption that you actually got some information to share with the class—” Hideyoshi nods. “—so we’ll retreat for tonight. I doubt we’d be able to go out again, either way, what with the uproar you’ve caused.”

“That would be advisable,” the gargantuan remarks, pulling a miraculously clean kerchief from somewhere on his person to wipe at his face. “I’d also advise you against wearing that cloak next time we go in. You’ve made an enemy.”

Jehona turns on her heel, leading them back. “All in a day’s work, Hideyoshi,” she throws over her shoulder.

“Of course she’s flippant about it,” he mutters under his breath and she smirks to herself. He’ll make her life hard and, in turn, she’ll make his life hard. Thankfully, riling the gargantuan up is fun.

Chapter 10

(Hideyona, Hideyona!)

Free

“Pity,” she laments, circling again to find the girl’s fingers. “Your poor friend will have a hard time wielding a sword with nine fingers. That is, of course, if she doesn’t contract an infection first and die. I haven’t cleaned this basement in ages.”

The subject of her attention whimpers and Jehona is reminded just how much she absolutely hates her job. She drives one more proverbial knife in.

“If you want to blame someone sweetie, let it be your friend, who keeps her silence while you are threatened.” Jehona unfolds the girl’s fist gently and the girl sobs.

That seems to do the trick. “No, wait! Wait! We don’t know! We don’t know, I swear!” The leader all but screams.

Jehona circles back to meet her eyes. “You don’t know?”

“I swear on my life we don’t. That is information shared on a need-to-know basis and we don’t need to know,” the girl reasons. “For this reason exactly, if nothing else.”

She accepts the explanation with a sigh. It makes sense. These girls are just grunts come to kill her. And she doesn’t have any more time to waste with them.

Jehona sets the dagger on the floor about two meters from the girls, hilt facing them. “That wasn’t so hard, now, was it?” She looks at the tear-faced girl. “You scared your poor friend for nothing. I have to go now. Use this—“ she points to the blade, “—to free yourselves. And do try, please. I’m not keen on coming back to four rotting corpses in my basement. Have a good day, ladies.”

With that, she walks out.

Chapter 8

Air

He smiles at the soldiers. “At ease, Wolves. Mirmengsi to all of you.”

“Section Commander, sir.” Erisa appears at his elbow and salutes. She’s a tiny woman, barely reaching his shoulder, always shrouded in an air of seriousness that he can’t disperse no matter how many stupid jokes he cracks. Even Jehona hasn’t resisted that long in her more serious moments. The two four-pointed stars on her left breast catch the morning light as she faces him.

“Major Arlet, good morning,” Klevis greets, turning on his heel and motioning her to follow. He’s aware of the eyes that closely follow their movements. There’s an ongoing rumor about the nature of his relationship with Erisa, which has now turned into wishful thinking on the Wolves’ part since neither one of them has done anything to encourage the rumor. They’re just a bunch of romantic fools, in his opinion. And they’re going to have to wait a while longer to see a romance blossom between him and her, given he’s aromantic and Erisa is done with his shit. The only pro to the rumor is watching the serious facade crack a little more each time a pair of eyebrows is wagged in their direction. Coincidentally, that is also the only con.

Chapter 11

Break + Clear

She rolls her eyes. “Not in Hideyoshi’s presence, Maysa.”

“Why not?” he protests with narrowed eyes. Jehona likes to think he can feel the jab she’s about to send his way.

“Because,” she starts slowly like she’s talking to a toddler, “in order to explain, I’d need to break the law. I fear you’d faint at such a transgression and, as you can clearly see—” Jehona gestures to the black lump in her lap, “—I can’t move fast enough to catch you, darling.”

He glowers and Maysa snorts, all worry for Klev momentarily forgotten, alongside inquires about RT’s powers. Jehona is too good at this. Hideyoshi stops in front of her chair, impossibly tall from this angle. And, honestly, every angle she can reach at 1.65m. “Even if that were the case, you couldn’t possibly carry me, chīsame no yatsu.”

She leans forward, narrowing her eyes. “Say that last bit in Lukovian, coward.”

He leans down, resting his hands on the table. They’re practically nose to nose. “E vockël.”

Jehona gasps and, from somewhere behind Hideyoshi, Rumaysa snorts. Some best friend she is, laughing when an asshole calls her ‘little one’. Even RT wears an amused smile at that. Klev really found the day to abandon her. “Why don’t I shoot you and then we’ll find out if I can or can’t carry you, you abominable shit giraffe?”

“Can an ant carry a giraffe?”

She scowls. “If the ant tears it to pieces first, it sure as fuck can.”

Hideyoshi straightens with such a saccharine smile, her teeth hurt. “Why so irritable, chīsame no yatsu?”

“Listen here, you uncivilized dickheaded gargantuan,” she starts, ready to inflict bodily harm. Luck, however, seems to favor him as the door slams open at that moment with a bang that has RT starting and Rumaysa glowering.

Chapter 12

(HIDEYONA, HIDEYONA!)

Danger

Rumaysa rolls into the bunker with a disapproving frown, ready to chide Dezi further for wandering. Until she catches sight of Kass clutching him, silently crying and Jehona by her side, smiling like an idiot. She looks from her to her cousin and her cat, then shakes her head. “Nevermind. Seems like I’m already asleep.”

Afraid not, Jehona signs.

The rumble of her wheels sends Kass’ heartbeat through the roof. Rumaysa draws nearer with the sort of look anyone with a grain of common sense wouldn’t want to be directed at them and, fine, Kass is terrified. Dezi wiggles out of her arms as if sensing danger and not wanting to be caught in the crossfire and even Jehona takes a step back when Rumaysa cranes her neck and addresses her by her full name. “Kassiani Trantis.”

Kass swallows. She is screwed.

“How dare you—“ her voice cracks and Kass sees her eyes well with tears. “How dare you not hug me after all these years—“

She doesn’t wait for Rumaysa to finish, dropping to her knees and throwing her arms around her umzadya.

“—you asshole?” Rumaysa finishes with a sob on her shoulder.

Chapter 13

Excite

They clamber to their feet slowly, stiff as Jehona pushes thoughts of an angry Rumaysa from her mind with a shudder. Up on their feet, they’re a head taller than her, all gangly limbs and awkward posture. Most probably a recent growth spurt then. With a messy head of very wet brown strands, blue eyes, and a smarting of faint freckles on their cheeks, they remind her inexplicably of a puppy. A very excited puppy.

“I’m RT,” they say, extending a hand and almost hitting her arm. “Non-binary.”

She smiles despite herself, grasping his hand and shaking twice. “Jehona. A very kind woman, as you can tell.”

They laugh at that, allowing her to place their hand on the crook of her elbow, effectively getting them out of the rain. “Thank you, Jehona. I was starting to lose hope of making it back home tonight.”

“You didn’t. It’s dawn.”

Chapter 1

Suspect

Jehona looks then and what she finds on his face stuns her. It is understanding, written plainly on the arch of his brow and the line of his lips, in the way he looks at her, all of the pieces she’d laid bare for his inspection and does not flinch or judge or hate, as she’d expected him to. “Look at what you’ve done,” he says quietly, running a hand through his hair. “How can I hate you when you’re just like me?”

Her chin trembles.

“Really, siren.” Hideyoshi smiles a small, heavy smile. “That was rather rude of you.”

An inexplicable spark warms her chest, chasing away the terrible cold. “For what it’s worth, I am sorry for what I did to Tomoki and Yukito.”

“I’m not the one you should be apologizing to.”

She snorts. “Well, yes, but I suspect if I went to apologize to them, I’d have injured them for nothing since your clan members would most definitely kill me on sight.”

Chapter 12

(HIDEYONA, HIDEYONA!)

Sick

By the time the parsen is done, the house around her is sparkling clean and orderly, their little dining table set and ready, and Jehona a mess of nerves and anxiety. She has worked herself up into a frenzy and she is sick of it. This must be how her dad felt last night. His anger makes so much more sense now.

Restless energy plagues her and she takes to pacing the length of the living room. Her injured leg throbs dully; she’s overworked herself in her measly attempts to pass time. Jehona plops on the couch, stretching her leg out, and sighs deeply. She is being ridiculous. The events of the previous night have set her on edge and she’s letting hypotheticals get to her. It won’t be long until her father comes back, whining about how he’s ravenous and all will be well. There is no good reason for them to dispatch Captain Trantis’ squad to the third district. They’re usually assigned to the sixth district and they do a damn good job of keeping order there. Whatever reason the President-General has for sending men into that district, he surely wouldn’t endanger good capable men. Not with the threat of Austeria hanging over Lukovia like an axe ready to drop. Avniel may be many things but a fool he is not.

Chapter 4

Safe

Klevis just sighs. “Now that’s out of your system, back to my genius idea. Jehona is going to live with Hide.”

“Klev, dearest, weren’t you harping on about me needing to be safe?” Jehona points at Hideyoshi’s glower. “Does that look like someone who won’t kill me the first chance he gets?”

“I am no murderer.”

“With the right incentive, everyone is.”

Hideyoshi only glares harder. “Fine, then I won’t sully my hands with your blood.”

“You sure about that?” Jehona smirks. “A hasty conclusion, given you haven’t even heard of my latest nefarious deeds.”

He narrows his eyes. “What did you do?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know.”

“This is getting a little out of hand,” RT comments. “Any grownups want to intervene?”

Rumaysa snorts. “Sorry, RT. Those are in short supply around here.”

“Klevis, what did she do?”

Klev shrugs. “How am I supposed to know? Is this about those four Nonaka girls who breached your house?”

Chapter 8

Solid

She shifts in her wheelchair now, finally pulling the infernal device off of her leg and dumping it aside unceremoniously. “Not that I’m not eternally grateful to have found you two there—“ Rumaysa meets Jehona’s eyes, deciding to bite the bullet, so to speak, “—but what were you doing in the third district?”

Her best friend’s anger has always been something akin to spears of solid ice and has been used as such: with calculation and precision. And rarely has it surfaced, a trait Jehona shared with her mother. Both were too adaptable and solution-oriented to be sweeped by emotions. Except for tonight, apparently.

“We?” Jehona’s voice is a burning brand, in the way something too cold feels hot to the touch. “What were you doing there, Rumaysa? Do you think this is a fucking game? That shithead would’ve killed you!”

Rumaysa finds she doesn’t have much patience tonight. “I asked first.” She says matter-of-factly, eliciting a snort from Klevis. Rumaysa can’t quite tell if it’s from amusement or disbelief. It seems he himself can’t either.

Chapter 5

Some of these are a little too long (yes, I’m talking about the Hideyona bits) sue me. I’ll pass this on to @writingamongther0ses, @sleepy-night-child, @fictional-semantics, and anyone else who thinks they can find these words in their manuscripts: smooth, shatter, sliver and smirk.

#find the word tag #my writing #amwriting #wip: these cursed paths

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crownedmidas · 7 years

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❛ i need to get in the right mind and clear myself up. ❜

February 23rd.

I’ve always wondered, if I wrote a story about my own life, how it would begin. Would it begin where it all began, at birth, with the tragedy of my mother’s death? Would I, or whoever had the unpleasant task of retelling my singular and insignificant life, begin the story with men in colored scrubs, surrounding a bleeding woman and holding a crying newborn? Or would it begin when I was nine, when I was out on the playground and saw the first boy I found myself attracted to? Would it really be on that semi-windy day where we chased one another around the swing set until we tumbled down, him on top of me, the light in his hair, and with me, discovering how beautiful he was? This, of course, would follow him shouting, “you’re it,” and me being forced to chase around a dozen nine year olds to no avail. The teacher would call us in from recess and I would spend the rest of my lessons doing what I did best: fantasizing about the people around me, particularly him, with his golden blonde hair and molten brown eyes. Later, when I sat with my crayons and paper at home and drew the both of us holding hands, my father would come in and tear the paper from my fat little hands. I still remember the disgust that rolled onto his face; it never went away. Maybe it wouldn’t begin like that though. Maybe it would begin in the air, with my hands pressed against the window as I stared down at the million different lights below, the airplane descending down into the best and broadest home I’ve ever known. Maybe it would begin with the fairytale prince finding me, with his wide, but beautiful smile, broad shoulders and well defined jaw. Maybe it would begin in Paris, where I’ve never been happier, more sad too, but more alive than I’ve ever been.

Before I proceed, I must warn you in an explicit form, because it is me and not some stranger who heard from a guy who heard from a guy of my story, that I am an avid daydreamer. Everything that I tell you is subject to questioning. My heart and my imagination are my biggest downfall and best strength. They will distort the story, but nonetheless, it will be true. Let me begin, not with my past as I’ve always imagined, nor with a peak into my present, but with an explanation of who I am. My name is Giovanni Summers. I am many things. I am a writer, who struggles with broken pencils and a distaste with pens. I am a homosexual, something my father deemed inappropriate and an abomination. I am human, made of mistakes, emotions, triumphs, and failures. I am the blood and bones of my body. I am the skin that I wear, the hair on my head. I am my legs, my arms, my rear. I am many things, but you may call me Giovanni.

Now that you’ve gotten to know me, I am predisposed to introduce yourself into my narrative. You are a leather bound book in which I am writing for to, as he advised me to, “get in the right mind and clear my head.” He, being which, will be introduced at a later point. It was be very distinct as to who he is and quite possibly very soon as I don’t believe I will be able to tell the story without introducing him. But as we were, we were introducing you. You have three hundred pages exactly. While your pages aren’t numbered, the little strap of paper attached to you upon purchase was informative enough. You have white pages with blue lines, a brown cover, and a strap to close you with. At this time, I am unsure if I will be able to fill all three hundred pages, or alternatively, be able to cram my entire story into three hundred pages, particularly because, I am not dead. My story is not complete. But for now, this will have to suffice.

As for the reader, I do not know who you are. My active imagination makes me want to believe that you are fourteen, bored out of your mind in a house that you do not live in, and rummaging through things that are not yours. I imagine that you have found this old book and hope that the language it is written in is understandable to your teenage mind and the messages in it resonate with your teenage soul. Or perhaps you are reading it through your screen. Perhaps someone put my story on the web to share with hundreds or thousands, maybe even more, though probably very less. That being said, if you so choose to do, I give you permission to publish this story on the web, but only under one condition. I’d like to be dead before all of my secrets and internal thoughts are spread through the internet. I do not expect to be well known, as I am as already put, insignificant and singular, but I hope this won’t be too much to ask. Please, if you wish to share my story, check to make sure I’m dead first. At the very least, flip through the last page now to check if I have died by the end of this story. I promise, if I reach page 300 and have not died, I will make sure the last line will say as much. And if I don’t, well. Then you have your permission. For simplicities sake, I will continue on referencing you as ‘journal’ throughout the remainder of my story.

It is raining today. I am seated outside on a balcony of an apartment complex that is not mine. If I’m being honest, the clothes on my back aren’t even mine. They, both the apartment and the clothes, belong to him. He is 5’9” and I am 6’4”. He is also broader than I am, so as you can imagine, the fit isn’t perfect. Where are my clothes, you ask? My clothes are in the cycle, drying from the rain. To make matters clear, I do have a home of my own and clothes of my own. There was a point in my life where I did not have the former, and during that point, I lived here. It is why, despite how awkward I can be, I feel in complete ease here. That ease is also the reason that I am forced to clear my head through pencil and paper. The thing is, I feel complete ease in a house that belongs to a man who does not belong to me.

His name is Wesley Bourque. He has blue eyes and an uncanny ability to make anybody in the room fall completely and hopelessly in love with him with a single conversation. Now Journal, I imagine at this point you wish it was his story you were reading instead of mine, as he is vastly more intriguing, but fret not. He is deeply imbedded into mine and I doubt, even with 297 pages still blank, I will be able to finish this story without making mentions of him every two to five pages.

I did not intend to to show up in the pouring rain, just as I did not intend to fall in love with him. Before I continue, I want to mention that he is gay. This isn’t one of those kinds of stories. But he does have a boyfriend. They were in an open relationship, a concept I did not understand when he told me, and a concept I do not pretend to understand now. I don’t believe there’s anything wrong with it, but the idea of being deeply and utterly in love in Paris has always been ingrained in my subconscious, even before I knew where Paris really was. But they had their agreement. They kissed other men, slept with other people, often together if they cared for it, but they always came home to one another. Looking between the pair, I never thought they were ever in love.

I know my disposition leaves me biased and my judgment impaired, but I never saw it. I see it in a thousand people, strangers I’ve never met, images of their stories in my head, but I did not see it in them. It wasn’t for lack of trying either. I thought, perhaps it’s a good thing, to be so in love with one another and respect each other enough to know that there were other people who could provide them better pleasure, but it wasn’t that. They were very active in their private lives, especially with one another. To say they weren’t enough to satisfy one another was a lie. I believe what they lacked with one another was a connection between the heart and the soul. They enjoyed one another, but they did not love one another. I believe Wesley is beginning to realize that too, only, I don’t think he wants to.

As you might have noticed, I referred to Wesley’s open relationship all in the past tense, as it is, or I hope it will be soon, in the past. I am the reason to blame for that. While it wasn’t my intent, I did not arrive to Wesley’s door soaking wet on a whim. I could not ask him to make the choice between myself and his boyfriend, as I am sure which one he would have chosen. I am just one person after all, and Wesley was accustomed to more, much better than me. But I couldn’t stand it anyone. I couldn’t stand watching him with other people, my heart in my throat and my mind whirling with possibilities of all the people who might have been as equally in love with him as I am. I’d watch him, like a sad puppy, speaking to other men and wonder if he would go home with them tonight or with me. I could not live my life like that anymore, and as I have no claim on him, I made the decision to leave.

Now, to be clear, leaving him is not equivalent to leaving Paris, even when it felt as such. Every time I stepped out the door, I was reminded of him. I’d go to the park and remember him taking me here. I’d remember the dogs we played with or the kite he rescued for the little girl. Every time I looked up at another attractive man, I’d wonder if he knew him. I was in a rut and he was no better. I don’t know exactly what had happened between them, but I do know the aftermath that lead me here. Wesley had called, his voice frantic or angry, bits of French slipping between his English, indistinguishable words uttered in between. I came quick, perhaps too quick, but when I did, I found him alone. His boyfriend had left him and Wesley wanted to leave for good. More so, he wants me to come with him.

I cannot leave. As I have entered into my fourth page now, that has become abundantly clear. He wants to go to Florence, to start over with me there, but I’m afraid. I think all he’s really doing is as I’ve done: running. It makes sense. He found himself in Paris, he fell in love, and then he never left. Selfishly, I’d like to think he fell in love again and now he does not know how to process it. I told him I needed a moment, that I would consider it, but I can’t. I, too, have fell in love with Paris. I know it all reminds me of him, but he reminds me of happiness. I cannot leave, but I hope, dear journal, I can convince him to stay.

#otp:give me love #this got ridic long and it's all in first perspective #carolenarps

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