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heich0e · 11 months

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dinner and a show - miya osamu/f!reader (haikyuu!) part 9 in the bff!osamu series tags: angst, childhood friends to pining, mama miya deserves a netflix comedy special or a nobel peace prize, sometimes home is a person and sometimes that person wants you dead, finally a bit of communication i was about to call in UN peace keepers, things r getting FEISTY FROM HERE FYI this chapter is the literary equivalent of the elevator ride at the beginning of the haunted mansion

Mama Miya has always loved variety shows.

For as long as you’ve been coming over to visit the Miya house, if the family matriarch was present, there was a better chance than not that the television in the living room was on and there was some kind of spectacle unfolding on the screen—the louder the better, in her opinion.

She’d told you once that she just loves the way people laugh on variety shows, so loudly and freely, and that there’s nothing better than the sound of a house filled with laughter—and you know from lived experience that the Miya household had never been one that was short of joy, nor of it’s own chaos, in much the same way as those outrageous shows she loves so much.

As you grew up, you came to invariably associate that particular type of television show with the woman who had raised you like a second mother; sometimes when you missed her—when you missed home—you’d put one on just to bask in the cacophonous familiarity. But watching a variety show alone in your Osaka apartment pales in comparison to watching them together in the tidy living room of the Miya home, tucked under the kotatsu, sipping tea and eating fruit and occasionally making jokes about which one of the handsome male celebrities joining that week’s episode as a guest would be a better husband—comparing their heights and their jawlines and their variously successful careers in the entertainment business.

But right now, you’re not looking at the dashing star of that new historical drama who’s trying to climb up a rock wall against a ticking clock.

Instead, you’re looking at Miya Osamu who is standing in the doorway to the living room of his family home, and he looks like he’s just seen a ghost.

Though, in his defence, you probably don’t look much better.

Cradled in your palm, your satsuma rests unmoving—frozen in place just like the rest of you. It’s half-peeled to reveal the soft, pale orange flesh hidden beneath the pith, but you barely feel the weight of it as it rests forgotten in your outstretched palm. The scent—the one that just moments prior you’d been remarking was so fresh, so bright—seems duller now. Everything that isn’t Osamu seems to slip away to grayscale and to background noise; unremarkable against the stark contrast of his painfully familiar face.

Neither of you even blink.

Miya-san had just gone to the market to pick up a few things for dinner, after repeatedly insisting that you stay for a meal and eventually wearing you down. She’d left you in the living room watching TV, promising to make her trip to the store a quick one, and otherwise ignored your offers to join her.

She was supposed to be coming back soon, at any minute really, but suddenly you’re poised to flee. Everything in your blood is telling you, urging you, to run as quickly as you can—to preserve whatever tattered shreds of your sanity remain after the past six weeks of hell.

The six weeks that had felt more like a year. A war. A lifetime.

The six weeks that had seen you finally seek refuge in Hyogo under the guise of housesitting for your parents, who had gone travelling abroad—as convenient an excuse as any to escape Osaka and the troubles that plagued you there.

Little did you know that the troubles would have the same idea as you.

Your eyes flicker momentarily in the direction of the rear door of the Miya home, the one that leads out into the backyard—the yard that backs onto a little wooded grove where you used to play as children, running carefree and wild. The grove where you used to take naps in the shade on sticky summer days. The grove where you had once broken your arm. It’s foolish, you know, to even think about leaving; your shoes and coat are at the door, with only slippers on your feet and a thin sweater on your frame. Your own childhood home may be only a few houses down and around a corner from the one where you currently find yourself, a five minute walk at most even if your pace is leisurely, but dashing out the back door and making a break for it would be inadvisable—not least of all because there is a woman due home at any moment, one who has loved and raised you like one of her own, who is expecting you to be here when she returns. A woman who wants to share a meal with you and hear about your life. A woman who doesn’t know why you had come crawling back to Hyogo.

A woman blissfully unaware of how much unresolved tension is currently polluting every inch of her living room.

Your conscience is already heavy to begin with. You’d avoided Mama Miya for the past week—having faked a cold for a few days to buy yourself some time alone when you first got to town. She’d called you every day to check in, and she brought you homemade soup and medicine more than once. The very least that you owe her is a proper visit. You can’t possibly leave now.

Osamu’s lips part, his eyes—his deep, infuriatingly kind eyes—meeting yours.

“Ma doesn’t know I’m in town,” he says, and the first sound of his voice feels like a knife between your ribs. “I can go and come back later after… after you’re gone.”

He knows, you realize. He’s watched and understood every terrible thought that has raced through your mind since the moment he entered the room play out plainly across your face. You’ve always loved that about Osamu—how you hardly need to say anything at all in his company, and he still understands your mind and feelings just by reading the lines of your features.

Now it makes you feel sort of sick.

You mull his words over belatedly, having been too shocked to digest them in the moment at which they were spoken. Slowly you nod, the slightest little dip of your chin signifying your agreement to his offer. Accepting, tenuously but decidedly, his olive branch.

He seems to deflate slightly, a flash of hurt behind his eyes.

But it’s all too late, anyway.

“Samu?” Miya-san’s voice rings out through the house, incredulous but noticeably thrilled, the sound of the front door closing punctuating the eager call like a question mark. You hear rapid footsteps and the woman appears a moment later with a wide smile on her pretty face. “What’re you doin’ here?”

She sets her shopping bags down on the floor at her feet, wrapping her son up tightly in her arms and rocking him back and forth. You watch as Osamu smiles against the crown of his mother’s head—a gentle, peaceful look on his face as his eyes flutter shut—and you avert your gaze, because witnessing the tender moment is strangely and inexplicably painful.

“Just wanted to come home for a visit,” he murmurs, and it takes everything in you not to dwell too long on the way his figure towers over his mother in your peripheral vision—tall and broad and strong now, just the way she raised him.

“Did you two plan this?” the matriarch asks. She looks between the two of you as she finally pulls away from her son’s embrace, though her palms still gently rest upon his forearms.

“Nah,” Osamu laughs lightly, and to his credit he’s doing a very good job at acting like just being in the same room as you is not one of the most hideously uncomfortable moments of his life. “I had no idea she was gonna be here.”

“You didn’t tell him?” Osamu’s mother questions you, visibly surprised. And she’s right to sound so shocked, because if this was any other day—or at least any day that didn’t follow what had transpired between the two of you six weeks ago—Osamu would have been the first person you’d have told you were coming home. Would have been kept up to date, nearly to the minute, with any stop you made in your hometown or any variety show adventures you embarked upon with his mother. Would have known exactly what the two of you were having for dinner, how it was being prepared, and he would have received a photo of the meal when it was finally time to eat just to make him jealous (and because you know he likes to feel included on the visits where he isn't able to join you.)

“Oh, he knew I came home for the week,” you lie quickly, meeting Osamu’s gaze and suddenly hoping above all else that your thoughts are as clear to him as ever. He looks more startled by the sound of your voice than you expect him to. “Just didn’t know I’d be here today, since I stopped by so last minute.”

Osamu swallows, then nods. “Yeah.”

Mama Miya smiles and clasps her hands together. “Well, this is such a nice surprise! Tsumu’s not hidin’ somewhere waitin’ to scare me, is he?”

“’S just us, Ma,” Osamu laughs lightly, and she reaches up to pinch his cheek affectionately. You don’t miss the way his eyes flicker over to you when his mother turns her back.

You’re still holding your satsuma in your hand, but you no longer have the faintest desire to eat it.

“Needa hand with those?” you hear Osamu ask his mother as she picks her shopping bags up from the ground. You hear some rustling, and can only assume she’s elbowed him based on the way he yelps and then laughs. “Ow! I’m just tryin’ to help!”

“Ya hardly just got here yourself, bag’s still at yer feet and everythin'!” his mother chides him, but it’s full to the brim with love. “Just sit down and relax for five minutes, will ya? Yer lookin’ dead tired.”

His mother waves him over insistently in the direction of the kotatsu where you’re seated before she shuffles off towards the kitchen, the plastic bags in her hands swishing as she goes.

His mother is right: Osamu looks, without softening your words, haggard. He’s got shadowy rings under his bleary eyes, his skin looks dull, and his hair still has a faint ring indented around the circumference of his head from his trademark baseball cap. He looks like he did when he first set up his business—tired, stressed, wearing a little thin at the edges from the portrait of his usual self.

You wonder if you look the same in his eyes.

Mama Miya had remarked similarly on your own appearance when you showed up at her door earlier that afternoon, but you at least had the falsified alibi of having been recently ill to hide behind.

Osamu is watching you from the doorway, still hesitating to move any closer—like a man who stumbled upon a beast in the wild, and is equally parts fascinated and petrified.

You look away.

“Sit down,” you tell him, your voice quiet and slightly cold as you stare at the orange in your hands. “She’s gonna think something’s wrong.”

Something is wrong, you both know that truth all too well, but the last thing you want is for her to know that. This entire situation between the two of you is already bad enough without the shame of other people knowing. Without his mother, of all people, knowing.

Osamu nods, and then approaches the kotatsu slowly. When he lowers himself down to the floor, he takes the seat opposite you at the small square table instead of beside you like he normally would. Something in that contrast stings a little bit, though you’re certain you’d be more upset if he was any closer than he already is—you’re suddenly exceedingly conscious of the possibility of your legs brushing underneath the table, and it makes you shift nervously, drawing your limbs as close and compact to your body as you can.

Osamu is so still on the other side of the table that it’s almost uncanny. Statuesque in a way that might make you laugh if this whole mess wasn’t so harrowing, if the wound wasn’t still so fresh. You’re not even sure he’s breathing.

“Just… be normal,” you whisper, finally setting your forsaken orange down and reaching up to rub at your temples where you feel the beginnings of a tension headache thrumming beneath the skin. You sigh, long and drawn-out. “I don’t want her to worry.”

He nods again.

The television show continues to play on across the screen beside you both, and while your eyes may be on the screen, you doubt either of you are paying much attention to it. You roll your half-peeled orange from one hand to the other idly across the tabletop, occasionally picking away at the skin.

Mama Miya appears with more plates of fruit not long after, having taken time to cut them up for you both even though she’s already busy preparing a meal in kitchen—the sounds of sizzling and her knife against the chopping board having filtered down to the living room while she worked.

“Sure ya don’t need any help in there, Ma?” Osamu asks, peering up at his mother as she cranes down to set a plate of apple slices in front of him.

“I fed you and yer brother just fine for 18 years, didn’t I? I know how to make a meal,” she jokes, returning to her full height and wiping her damp hands on the front of her apron. She glances over at you, smiling knowingly as she rests her hands on her hips. “Besides, ya haven’t seen this little thing all week—I’m surprised you two aren’t hangin’ off each other like ya usually do.”

Your eyes meet her youngest son’s, and you both quickly look away.

You can’t help but wonder if the woman before you suspects something then, even if she doesn’t say anything and in spite of your careful attempt to conceal it. But with two boys like hers, her sense of perception has long been honed to a fine art—she knows when trouble is brewing long before it strikes—and it wouldn’t surprise you in the slightest to learn that she’d known something was off even before that small slip-up. Maybe she’d known from the moment you’d shown up at her door that afternoon. Maybe she knew the second she heard from your mother that you were coming back to Hyogo.

Dinner is awkward.

Maybe not overtly—there aren’t prolonged silences, or tense stares across the table, or any real moments of palpable discomfort—but it’s a careful balancing act between you and Osamu pretending to be up to date with each other’s lives, and neither of you navigate the steps particularly gracefully. You mention one of Osamu’s employees, asking how they are and what they’ve been up to at the shop since you’ve been home in Hyogo, only for Osamu to “remind you” that they had moved up to Sendai to go to school earlier that month. He mentions a project you were tasked with at work, and you awkwardly stumble when you explain that it had changed hands a few weeks prior. He didn’t know you were “sick”, you didn’t know he’d gotten a glowing review from a notoriously harsh food critic. Neither of you even try to mention Atsumu in fear of getting the wires of your falsified stories crossed.

You try to keep quiet as much as you can, after that. You sit back in your chair, picking at your food and contenting yourself with watching the Miyas chatter away across the table before you.

Osamu and his mother eat the same. You’ve noticed it before, but now you have time to really dwell on the observation. They hold their chopsticks in the same slightly peculiar way, just a bit too far forward to seem comfortable. They pile food on their plates in the same order. They even occasionally reach to sip from their glasses at the same time.

How familiar it all is makes your chest feel achy like a bruise, because there’s an undercurrent of something being just slightly off. You’ve sat at this same dining room table a hundred times, shared meals just like this one too frequently to count them, but this time something feels different.

Fortunately there’s plenty to drink to accompany dinner, and the alcohol helps balm the sting.

Mama Miya is pouring you another glass of sake when she asks, “So are you two drivin’ back to Osaka together tomorrow?”

Osamu freezes with his chopsticks lifted half-way to his mouth, and the two of you share a glance from opposing sides of the table, trying to telepathically draft some kind of cover story. You had already told her that you were planning on heading back to the city tomorrow around noon, but you have no idea what Osamu’s plans are.

“Not sure yet,” Osamu says eventually, wiping at his mouth between bites of food. “We were plannin’ to play it by ear. I thought about stayin’ till tomorrow night since I made plans to visit Kita-san in the morning.”

Mama Miya accepts this lie easily, and the conversation continues on.

You resent how easy it is to slip into routine with Osamu. It’s been six long, terrible weeks since you last laid eyes on him, but soon you find yourselves finishing each other’s sentences, passing condiments across the table before even being asked for them, and filling each other’s glasses when they’re empty without thinking. It all comes back to you like second nature.

Because it is, maybe.

“Ya need a haircut Samu,” the woman at the head of the table says, her words a little slurred and her cheeks blazing bright pink thanks to the sake. Mama Miya loves to drink, but can’t hold her liquor for anything—it’s always reminded you of Atsumu.

“Do I?” her son reaches up and ruffles his hair absentmindedly, leaning back in his chair. “Got it under my cap so much I don’t really notice.”

His mother is right: Osamu’s hair is longer than he usually lets it get, as he tends to keep it short and easy to manage now that he’s working at the shop. It hasn’t been this long since you were in high school, and there’s a little tendril of dark hair that curls right beside his ear that you find you can’t stop staring at.

“Maybe I’ll buzz it all off,” Osamu finally says with a shrug.

You and his mother both make similar sounds of disgust.

“You and yer brother are my flesh and my blood, and I love ya more than anything,”—Mama Miya rests a hand across her chest dramatically, her expression somber—“but I’m telling ya right now yer heads were not shaped to sport buzzcuts.”

You can’t help but laugh into your hand at the impassioned remark.

“What about letting that little thing at ya again with a pair of scissors?” the woman beside you juts a thumb in your direction as she questions her son.

“Not a chance,” Osamu snorts, glancing fleetingly over to you.

You’d once cut gum out of Osamu's hair when you were both nine—a gift courtesy of Atsumu—and to the best of your recollection, you did pretty well for someone who wasn’t even tall enough to ride most of the attractions at amusement parks.

“I did a great job,” you gripe huffily as his slight.

“My hair was lopsided,” Osamu reminds you pointedly.

“Maybe I was going for something avant-garde, something high-fashion.” You roll your eyes as you reach for another piece of meat from the dish at the centre of the table—pinching it in two with your chopsticks and placing the other half onto his plate without thinking. “Guess I'm asking too much for a guy who wears that same baseball cap and cycles between three t-shirts day in-day out to understand my vision.”

Mama Miya cackles at the jibe, tipping her glass back to drain it. “Oh, you two crack me up.”

Osamu smiles a little, picking up the piece of meat you’d just given to him and popping it wordlessly into his mouth.

When dinner is done and the plate are cleared, Osamu washes the dishes and you dry them—assuming the roles you two have long claimed after sharing countless meals together. You work side by side at the sink in quiet, with just the clink of dinnerware, the sloshing of dishwater, and the sound of Mama Miya laughing along to a variety show in the other room to be heard between you.

She’s had enough sake now that you aren’t as worried about her picking up on things, so you can let the facade drop slightly—you can just exist in an uncomfortable quiet without fretting so much.

You’re not sure which is worse: the pretend ease, or the very real discomfort.

“I’m gonna head out now,” you call to the woman laying on the sofa as you poke your head through the doorway to living room, all the dishes from dinner now dried and put away. Osamu shuffles past you to take a seat beside his mother on the sofa.

She stares at him like he’s grown a second head as he settles down next to her, her lips parting as her eyes remained glued to him.

“Aren’t ya walkin’ her home?” she asks, bewildered.

As kids, neither you nor the twins had been particularly concerned with walks home—or anything remotely close to etiquette. The three of you would stand at the corner half-way between your homes, exchange a few parting words and maybe an insult or two, and then go your separate ways—only to repeat it all again the next day. But that changed in your early teens, rather unexpectedly really, and the twins have never ever let you walk home alone since.

It wasn’t always both of them accompanying you—sometimes it was just one or the other—but one of the two always made the walk alongside you, no matter how short it was, or how late it had gotten, or if the weather was unpleasant. One of the boys always followed all the way to your door and waited until they knew you made it inside, without fail. At first you found this strange development overbearing, and then humiliating when you found out that their mother had told them it was something they had to do, but over time you found that you were grateful for it.

You grew up in a very safe neighbourhood. You never felt any real danger making the short walk on your own. But doing it with the twins’ company made made you feel cared for, protected almost—even before you knew about all the terrible things out there in the world that made women need escorts home in the first place.

Osamu is quiet at your side as the two of you shuffle along towards the corner where your streets meet. He stands nearest to the roadway, with his hands shoved into the pockets of his jacket and his eyes on his feet. It’s the very same path the two of you have walked a thousand times in just the same way, no doubt your feet falling into the exact parts of the pavement they’ve already tread before. But the walk home has never felt like this. The two of you have never been so unsettled in each others’ company.

You stop when you reach the corner, your feet cementing themselves into place as solidly as the ground beneath them.

“This is far enough.”

Osamu stops, already half a step closer to your house than you are since he hadn’t anticipated your sudden halt. He looks at you, a furrow making itself known between his brow like your words aren’t quite registering in his brain. He’s never walked you just halfway before, and maybe that’s why he’s hesitating.

You blink hard a few times, then move to step past him and leave, already making plans to take an earlier train back tomorrow just to avoid running into him again. Your little neighbourhood is much smaller than Osaka, and Osamu’s presence is too loud here to ignore.

But you’re glad, at least distantly, that you made it through the evening relatively unscathed. Tender and bruised, certainly. But the wounds you’ve been trying so carefully to mend over the past six weeks seem, largely, to have stayed knitted closed.

You can see your house from the street corner as you step towards it, the windows dark and waiting for you. You’re looking forward to scrubbing the day from your skin and then crawling into bed, hoping you can forget all about—

“I’m sorry.”

Your body goes stiff, and your feet—without any conscious command—stop carrying you forward. You stand with your back to him, your shoulders rigid like raised hackles, but you know Osamu is still there.

Still watching.

Still waiting.

Your teeth bite down hard into the flesh of your cheek.

You muster every shred of resolve that you can, and weave the iron of your will into your throat to make sure your next words ring firm. “Osamu—“

“No, I need to say this,” he interrupts you before you manage to say anything at all, and he sounds desperate. “It’s all I’ve been thinkin’ about fer weeks.”

You’re angry. Furious, suddenly. A white hot rage boiling up in your throat that tastes bitter and revolting and wipes away any lingering trace of sake on your tongue. All Osamu has been doing lately is whatever the hell he wants, and it’s really starting to piss you off.

You just want to go home. You just want to throw the meagre amount of belongings you’d carted to your parent’s house with you into your suitcase, hastily dump too much water into your mother’s houseplants to hopefully get them through the weekend, and then get the hell out of Hyogo.

You don’t want to be here.

You don’t want to hear this.

“I know I’m bein' selfish. I know that all of this is because of how selfish I’ve been. What I did that night wasn’t fair.”

You’re listening to him in spite of yourself. In spite of the fury ringing in your ears. In spite of the pain in your gut that feels like stitches tearing.

“I know what I did was fucked up. That it… That I ruined somethin’. That even if you can forgive me, everythin’ will always be a bit different now because of what I did—and I am genuinely, from the bottom of my heart, sorry for that.”

You find yourself softening. Or maybe wilting slightly—withering under the warmth of his words.

“But I’m not sorry fer how I feel,” Osamu’s soft words sound remorseful only because he isn’t in the way that matters most to you. “I can’t be. I tried ‘n I can’t.”

You feel yourself shaking your head, intimating the dissent you feel but can’t bring yourself to voice. Your feet are still stuck, keeping you there. Trapped by your body against your own conscious will. You’re so nauseated you think you might be sick.

Osamu sucks in a breath that shakes on the inhale. “I’ve loved you my whole life, y’know that? I don’t even know what it feels like not to, so callin’ it that doesn’t even feel right most days,”—there’s a waver in his voice that cuts through you like a blade—“And maybe it used to be different, or maybe it’s always fuckin’ been like this, but I have been a god damn mess for the past six weeks tryin’ to think of a way that I can do this without you and I came up with nothin’, because there’s not a single part of me or my life that isn’t the way that it is because you’ve always been there.”

You’re choking. You’re choking now. You can’t swallow. You can’t breathe. Your throat is a vice that you can’t pry open, that you can force neither air nor words through when you need to. Your heart is lodged, firm and unmoving and worn raw, in the hollow of your throat.

You finally turn to look at him, but your sight is blurring at the edges.

His face is so pale that part of you—the part that has cared for him for as long as you've cared about anything—worries he might faint. His expression so grave he looks like he’s in the throes of mourning. It’s unfair that grief colours him this way. That even in this moment, under the buzzing streetlight, with the world shifting underfoot, that he should still be so handsome. That he should still look like your Samu.

“I know that this is a shitty situation that I caused. But I couldn’t do it anymore. I needed you to know how I felt—how I feel—because it was eatin’ me alive. And even without Tsumu’s party it would have happened eventually. Maybe it woulda happened better, or maybe it woulda happened worse, but it still woulda happened—because no matter how I went about it or what I’m fucking up by sayin’ it, it’s true.” Osamu squeezes his eyes shut tightly, swallows, and then opens them again to fix you in his stare. “I’m in love with you and I always have been.”

“I lost you both, Samu,” your voice is quiet and brittle when you finally find it in the knot of your throat and let it free. “I know that’s partly my fault, but I just couldn’t look at Tsumu and not see you. It hurt too much. Suddenly the two most important people in my life just weren’t there anymore. That’s not fair.”

Because this is bigger than just the two of you. It always has been.

“I’m sorry,” Osamu says to you, but his words are so faint they risk being lost in the cool evening breeze.

“Please stop apologizing to me,” the only reply you can bring yourself to utter reflects every bit of your exhaustion—your voice is flat and lifeless when you speak the words.

The two of you stand there on the street corner, the half-way point between your childhood homes, and it’s so impossibly quiet.

“I don’t know where we go from here,” you say as you pull your coat a little bit tighter around your frame, and for the first time all night it feels like the only time you’ve been truly honest.

Osamu looks at you, and if you sort through all the emotions in his eyes, you know you see the same feeling reflected back in his stare.

On Sunday evening, Osamu makes his way back to Osaka alone, and the house you grew up in is dark and empty when he passes it. As he drives back to the city, he can’t quite shake the feeling that neither of them—not Hyogo, not Osaka, nothing and nowhere in between—feel quite like home to him the same way that they used to.

#osamu miya x reader #miya osamu x reader #osamu x reader #miya osamu #osamu miya #hq drabble #hq writing #writing #bff!osamu

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shadowriel · 29 days

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The Blade of Your Tongue, Clashing Against Mine

I’m super excited to be posting another chapter of what I’m calling “villain Gwyn, down-bad Az.” Aka enemies to lovers (with an interesting twist). Hope it makes you as feral as I feel writing it xx

Summary: As general to Koschei's army, Gwyneth Berdara wields death with power. It's a choice she made after being rescued from Sangravah-to never be helpless again. Yet, her story rewrites itself when the Spymaster of the Night Court is captured as a prisoner of war and claims to be her mate.

Chapter 2: When All That’s Left is Ash

Read here on A03

Read a snippet below:

A low grumble stirs from the depths of the dungeons, reaching her ears along with a series of cacophonous shrieks. In this stretch of the winding stairway, where the walls narrow and sounds converge, Gwyn struggles to recall that she’d once loved listening to the world around her. That once, there had been joyous sounds. Whispered words in a library, tucked in the pages of well-worn books. Laughter interspersed with sharp intakes of breath. Lilting prayers sung with voices like birdsong and melodies held together with the fraying edges of hope.

Now, there is no joy in what she hears, only the sounds brought forth by the sharp edge of a knife. And the singular scream that drowns out her thoughts, even in the brief moments her body finds sleep.

Yet, today, something is different. Gwyn almost doesn't notice at first, the word repeated over and over, an echo working its way through the stone.

Shadowsinger, she hears the earth say, again and again. A premonition. A warning. In response, her hand finds the black blade fastened at her side. Her fingers tighten around its hilt. But—for a fleeting moment, she warms despite the chill of the air around her.

She hasn’t heard the name in years, since the rough rasp of Koschei’s voice whispered it to her in the darkness. When she’d been searching for any sliver of motivation to keep going, and he gave it to her in the form of promised vengeance.

She can still remember her trembling voice, asking for the identity of the man who’d killed her sister. It’s ingrained in her memories, the same as her final night in Sangravah. Yet, despite the clarity of that night’s events—of Catrin’s scream and a dark presence, wrapping her in his cloak—Gwyn hadn’t been able to remember who it had been that had taken a knife to her sister’s neck.

Then, Koschei had named the Shadowsinger.

And so, the Death-lord had saved her twice. Once, in Sangravah, and a second time, here in his territory, filling in any gaps in her memory as he visited her day after day, with a meal and an offer.

It hadn’t been long before she accepted it. It was a simple choice—to never be helpless, again. To make the Shadowsinger pay.

Taglist (I'm just guessing here, so please let me know if you'd like to be added or removed: @foundress0fnothing @captain-of-the-gwynriel-ship @trashforazriel @sv0430 @sunshinebingo @shadowsxgwynriel @thelovelymadone @damedechance @estellaluna @mmiscbutterflies @talons-and-teeth

#gwynriel #gwynriel fanfiction #gwynriel fanfic #gwynriel supremacy #gwyn berdara #gwyneth berdara #azriel #acotar #acotar fanfiction #au gwynriel #the blade of your tongue

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wraithinkorporated · 2 months

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Just got done grinding to finish Side Order with the Final Pallette, and as I lost my second to last run to Asynchronous Rondo, Marina said something that I found interesting.

A smarter person wouldve screenshot it so I could put it here, but I didnt plan on making a post about this until I started really thinking about it. She said something along the lines of "The spotlight reminds me of the lights during concerts."

I found this interesting because I thought it was odd that Marina would associate her pride and joy, making and performing music, to the Spinning Horror Prison.

And then I started picking at another thing that I found odd about Asynchronous Rondo: the wretched noises it makes even before you approach it. Many have pointed out that it's """singing""" Ebb and Flow, which is a very interesting and cool detail, but Why? Why is it the only boss (I believe, since I haven't seen mention or noticed this from the other bosses) that is echoing one of Off the Hook's songs -- and not only just one of their songs, but the prolific Ebb and Flow? Sure, there are motifs of their songs throughout Side Order, but none of the other bosses are actively singing them.

The conclusion I came to is that Asynchronous Rondo could be a twisted interpretation of Marina's worst thoughts about being an idol -- as she said herself, the bright light being pointed at her. The panopticon represents that at any given moment, she could be being watched. The sudden carnival motif that plays in the song -- she's on a stage, putting on a performance at any given moment. The many faces spouting a distorted version of Ebb and Flow, the nebulous fans voices muddling together into one cacophonous symphony of her own making.

Anyway Im very unwell about this. And to be clear, I dont think these are Marina's active thoughts about being an idol. It was revealed that Order/Smollusk was made from the intrinsic desires of its creators, so this is likely just another implication of that.

#side order #side order spoilers #maybe i thought too much into that line #but the fact that it sings ebb and flow finally makes sense to me #splatoon 3 side order #i love this fucked up squid game so much #asynchronous rondo #might as well tag the bastard that spawned these brainworms in the first place

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frenchfrywrites · 7 months

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Kinktober Day 2

Tickling

MINORS DNI

Dom genitals ambiguous gender neutral reader, sub Diavolo, tickling, overstimulation

Tonight, you sneak out of the House of Lamentation, and make your way to Diavolo's castle. Barbatos greets you at the door, and promises not to let the others know about your whereabouts. You find Diavolo laying on his bed, nose-deep in a book. You recognize it immediately as youthful fun 101.

"What're you reading about?" you ask, sliding into the bed next to him.

He cries out your name excitedly, taking your face in his hands and landing a loving kiss on your lips. "I was reading about the practice of tickle fights," he explains, closing the book and turning to you, "it sounds silly. Do humans really do this?"

"Um, yeah I guess sometimes, when you're a kid," you answer honestly, and then regret it when you see the glint in Dia's eyes.

"Oh please can we try it? Just for a little while, I wish to see if it really is as fun as it sounds." You think about it for a second. You can't remember the last time you had a tickle fight, but it certainly wasn't any time recently, and it just seems a bit ridiculous for two adults to do it. Then again, Dia is looking at you with his big golden eyes, his bottom lip jutted out in a pout, and as you recall his isolated childhood you feel yourself cave.

Instead of giving him a proper answer, you grin, giving him only a split-second to realize what's to come before you reach out and begin tickling him. Diavolo shrieks, and then breaks out in cacophonous laughter. He shakes and squirms under you, his chest heaving as he tries to catch his breath between peals of laughter, tears brimming at the corners of his eyes.

You start laughing too, partly because it's about as fun as you remember, and partly because his joy is infectious.

Eventually you find yourself on top of him, straddling his body so he can't escape your attacks— so to speak. It takes you a moment to notice it but in this position you feel a very familiar bulge under you. Your fingers still as you realize that Dia's gotten hard from this.

"Sorry," he whines breathlessly, "sorry I do not know— it just happened— I mean," he searches for words, looking far too anxious under you.

"It's okay," you hum, brushing his hair from his flushed face.

You grind down on him and Dia whimpers, his face flushed, still catching his breath. "You were having a lot of fun, weren't you?" He nods to your question, and you let your fingers tickle him again. He lets out a startled laugh, then

"Please, please," he begs, maybe to stop your relentless fingers, maybe to redirect your attention elsewhere. You pause and hum at the sight of him, bringing your hands down to touch his cock. Dia covers his face with his hands, peaking at you through his fingers. You can't see it, but you can tell he's smiling.

"Let's see if we can keep you feeling good, huh baby?" Dia whimpers and nods again, watching you with his shining golden eyes. You grope him through his sleep pants, feeling him up, rubbing the tip of his cock, and then moving down to fondle his balls. Dia moans, loud and wanton, and tries to jerk his hips up into your touch.

"Keep still," you murmur, but the sentiment is half-hearted at best. You pull him out of his pants, and rub your thumb over his tip. He arches his back, his hands falling from his face to tangle themselves in the sheets. You take your hand off him to spit in your hand, then use it as a makeshift lube as you begin to stroke Diavolo's cock.

"Oh," he gasps, his eyes fluttering shut as he basks in the attention. You start pretty slow, letting him sink into the pleasure, and because starting slow makes Dia squirm; he wants more but won't ask for it— yet.

Eventually, you give his tip attention as well, pulling his foreskin back so you can rub the pad of your slick thumb against his slick cockhead. Dia sucks in a sharp breath as you do so, his eyes snapping open to stare at you.

"Please," he begs, and because it's not specific enough, you dig your nail into his cock. Dia keens— high and needy— his hips jerking violently under you. "Please, I want to get ah-off please," he tries again, his voice cracking. You oblige now that he's used his words.

Without another word, you begin stroking him off at a faster pace. "Oh, oh," Dia moans, melting into the bed, "please, can I cum, can I please?"

"Yeah darling, whenever you need it, you can cum for me," he whines at your words, and it's not much longer until he's jerking his hips and staining his shirt with his cum. He lets out a gasping moan, turning his head and pressing his face into the pillow as you stroke him through it.

"Hurts," he keens once he's done riding out his orgasm. You smile, and while you slow down your pace, you don't let go of him.

"You can give me another, can't you?" you ask sweetly. Dia sniffles, but bites his lip as he grins and nods his head yes.

#i promise ill write something beyond handjobs lmao #cw tickling #cw overstimulation #spice #kinktober/2023

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lena-in-a-red-dress · 1 year

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Public Royalty AU Pt 4

Lillian doesn't find out. Not before the grand wedding, at least.

With the warmth of their secret marriage in Kara's chest, the toil of the royal version is suddenly weightless. She weathers the final preparations, the fittings and photos with an almost giddy smile, at ease with the knowledge that it was all merely icing on the proverbial cake.

Even the carriage ride through metropolitan streets (closed for the event) is tolerable. Kara's smile brightens with excitement to see others' joy, the celebration of love between two women. Though Lena's nation has been somewhat progressive, Kara's surprised to see that the first gay wedding in royal history elicits so much support.

Upon arrival at the cathedral, Kara gives a final wave to the crowd before she and Eliza are whisked into a side room to wait. When the cheers outside grow cacophonous, Kara knows Lena has arrived. She fights the urge to poke her head out to catch a glimpse of her wife, resplendent in her designer gown and carefully selected adornments.

Kara imagines it in her head instead, and her heart skips a beat. She's marrying a princess.

Then her stomach sinks. She's also marrying into the institution.

In the end, it doesn't matter. When it comes time for Kara to walk down the aisle, her spirits lift once more. This is it. The final step to making their matrimony public.

Her processional song begins, and the moment her foot steps between the pews Kara's mind blanks. The next thing she knows she's at the altar, with Eliza giving her hand a squeeze as they part.

For a long moment, Kara stands there alone, bouquet in hand, until the organ shifts into a robust chord, announcing the appearance of Princess Lena.

Kara turns, and her vision immediately blurs with tears as Lena slowly makes her way down the aisle. Her long off white ballgown drapes fully over her hips, the bodice snug and off the shoulders. Hundreds of diamonds twinkle throughout, matching the tiara settled tidily upon her crown.

For much of the walk, Lena's features maintain her public smile, her chin high and regal as she takes each step. It's not until Lena is past the final pew that her smile brightens in true delight.

Kara extends her hand, as she is expected to, and a bolt of electricity seems to pass between them when their fingers meet. Together, they turn as one to face the archbishop.

As he intones the requisite passages, Kara is aware only of Lena's fingers, which squeeze hers gently every now and then, Lena's thumb lightly brushing against Kara's skin.

Before she knows it, the archbishop is gesturing for them to rise. More words, and then Kara repeats the same words she offered on the beach just weeks before.

"I do."

#supercorp #modern royalty au #public royalty au #the grand wedding

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cicidarkarts · 4 months

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Blood Defied - 10: Mudblood

< Previous Chapter | Chapter List | Next Chapter >

Ominis stood before Cree.

“Pl-please, Ominis,” she said, quivering.

But her voice was drowned out by a sharp, nasty susurration. Generations of Parselmouths envenomed him with their ideals and hatred. The sound formed together in some sort of coherence. It sounded like his mum, hissing in distinguishable parseltongue.

“Put an end to it.”

As if something mad had claimed him, he shoved Cree to the ground. She hit the floor, yelping in terror. He knew she was unarmed. He knew she was helpless against him. The tiniest part of him that begged for this to stop was quashed by his madness.

“Don’t do this,” Cree begged.

He lifted his wand, expecting his voice to call out the Killing Curse. His heart dropped into his churning stomach when his mania forced out,

“Crucio!”

She screamed. It sundered his ears and ravaged his mind. His younger self accompanied her, cacophonous, overwhelming. His lucid part cried out for it to stop. The hissing laughed, sneering and wheezing in its joy. His own lungs expelled a laugh—cackling that turned to uncontrolled and venomous hissing.

When he stopped, Cree panted and sobbed. The static of the curse and smell of tears drenching Cree’s flesh pierced his nostrils.

“Why?” she begged. Generations within him hissed, “Kill her.” “I trusted you, Ominis.”

He struggled against himself. But this was simply how things were. She was nothing to purebloods—to him.

“Shut your mouth, mudblood.”

The word assaulted his tongue. His coherent side pleaded for her to release him from his madness. But that umbral half only held contempt for the helpless mudblood. He lifted his wand. He felt the words bubble up in his chest, ready to spew from him and destroy everything.

“Avada Kedavra!”

Bright green flashed across his blind eyes. Then Cree’s breaths halted. Her silence rang in the air like the tolling of a thunderous bell. Her sobs and voice were gone forever. Her arms would never again hold him tight. And she could no longer reassure him that he was sane.

Ominis jerked awake. Shooting upright chilled his damp and clammy skin. A dream. A nightmare. His lungs burned with heaving breaths. He felt his heart pounding against his bones. Warm tears burned at his eyes and new sweat trickled off his forehead. He still felt that atmosphere—cold and dark and oppressive, swelling in his lungs and fogging his mind. That insane half of him ripped apart his brain, picking out things he was sure rested deep within him; things that prepared to burst forth one day when he least expected it.

Sebastian mumbled from his side of the dorm. “Ominis…? Are you all right?” “Y-yes, I’m fine.” “Actually speaking to me?” he mumbled again with a hoarse voice, stirring as though he sat up. “You sure you're all right?” Ominis sighed and pulled his cover over him. “Come off it.”

He rolled to face the wall. Sebastian groaned softly and collapsed back into bed. After some sheet rustling, the room went quiet again. All that was left was the sloshing of the Black Lake.

Dirt scraped Credence’s legs. Her muscles burned, desperate for respite as she hurried out of the Great Hall. She’d been running for who knows how long, yet she was still going to be late! With her food in hand, she practically tackled the Floo Flame.

Her feet hit hardwood flooring. She panted and looked around the common room entryway. Ominis sat on one of the benches, surrounded by the usual Ravenclaw books and clutter. He held his own plate. A few bites had been taken from it already.

“Credence, where have you been?” he asked. “Sorry,” she said between breaths. “I don’t— Mean to be— So late.” “All right, what insane story do you have for me this time?”

She walked toward him, kicking some of the dirt clumps out of her pant leg. One of his brows cocked in response.

“I was in the Forbidden Forest,” she said. “Uh-huh.” “Looking for pearl moss.” “Right.” “And I fell.” “....” “In a niffler den.”

He paused and she watched a smile forming across his lips, though he tried to push it back down.

“Oh. Well, I’m glad you’re—” He forced away his giggles. “I’m glad you’re okay.” “It was so not funny,” she said, though she was also giggling. “I was stuck for ten minutes!”

She opened up the door and they headed inside.

“And what do you mean I have insane stories?” she demanded. “At least several times a week,” he said, nodding. “You’re exaggerating.” “Don’t you remember the last time?” “Hyperbole.” “It was three days ago.”

He reminded her of the time she’d come into the Great Hall, feet slapping wet against the floor. She’d sat next to him with a loud smack of sodden clothes.

“Why are you all wet?” he’d asked. “Remember that transfer thestral we got? The one that’s been following me everywhere?” “Ashes, yes.” “I had to go out near Lower Hogsfield to get some supplies. When I got there, I realized I also needed some leech juice. Well, those leeches were running from me, I swear. Getting really close to the lake and everything. When I was chasing one, Ashes bowled me over. Right into the lake. I guess he saw me running and wanted to get involved.”

“And you laughed at me then, too!” she said in the present as they headed toward the rooftop. “Oh, let’s not forget that other time just last week, when you came into the Great Hall reeking of dungbombs and swamp water.” “It was the hinkypunks!” “How did you and Regalian get lured in by hinkypunks?” “We were searching for them!” she said, flustered and indignant and dramatic. “They didn’t ‘lure us in’. It’s not that we’re just stupid! Well, maybe Regalian is, but I’m not!” Ominis clutched his sides in laughter. “Okay! Okay, I’m sorry!”

She recounted that day again, having to go into the Forbidden Forest with a sneering and snarky Regalian. By the time they’d found the three escaped hinkypunks, she’d just wanted Regalian to shut up. While arguing and chasing the hinkypunks to catch them, the ground had suddenly disappeared under Credence’s feet. She fell right off an embankment.

The noisome mud of the bog greeted her. Regalian cackled at her for that one. She’d glared at him, belly-first in the muck, eyeing up that small, unsteady outcropping on which he’d stood. She took great pains to ensure Ominis and Sebastian knew that she’d kicked the ground out from under him, which sent Regalian tumbling into the mud.

Ominis was cracking up as they reached the roof. “That one was definitely not funny!” she said, also laughing. “Regalian also smelled so horrible that day, I bet he was bloody pissed!”

He took the lead up the stairs to go at his own pace. As their giggles quieted, they breached the cool air of the rooftop. Outside with them was another Ravenclaw huddled with her Hufflepuff girlfriend on one side of the roof.

Credence and Ominis took the other side. They enjoyed the last bit of warm sun before Christmas as they ate. Right when they finished their plates and got comfortable, a frigid gust of wind blew along the rooftop. Credence nuzzled closer to Ominis. The two girls squealed at the frozen air. They giggled together and jogged back inside. Credence relaxed knowing she and Ominis could talk without interruption.

“Are you signing up for that winter tournament Brattleby wants to hold?” asked Ominis. “Can't. Lucan says I'm not allowed to participate in tournaments with my Protego. It still sometimes can't tell the difference between a friendly competition and an actual threat.” “That's fair,” he agreed. “Too bad. I would've loved to see you participate.” “See me?” He nudged her. “You know what I mean.” “At least I'll get to see you in the tournament, right?” “Yes, I'm already signed up, actually. There’s a surprising amount of participants. I guess they want some excitement before heading home for the holidays.” “I'm guessing you-know-who is in the tournament.” Ominis, despite having never seen it done before, gave her the most impressive eye roll. “You don't have to call him that; he's not a blight, even though he feels like it sometimes. But yes, the bloke with whom I'm not on speaking terms is joining. Wouldn't surprise me to know Garreth is already getting bets on Sebastian winning.” “Have you guys talked about what happened?” “I can't get him to shut up about what happened. He's been pestering me ever since, constantly apologizing.” “Sebastian really doesn't know when to quit,” she said. “Yes, he's under the impression that if he just says sorry enough times that it'll make it all magically disappear. He brings to mind a toddler throwing a fit rather than a sincere adult.” “Yeah, I know. I don't think he really understood what he was doing. I mean, he's so caught up with this Anne thing.” Ominis stiffened and his hand upon her hip grasped her. “He acts like he's the only one being affected by that. We're all hurting over poor Anne. It's been a truly horrible situation. I’d find it admirable he won’t give up, if he wasn't stepping on everyone's toes in the process. But he thinks he knows better than everyone else. Not even the experts at Saint Mungo's know how to help Anne. I'm sorry to say that even I've given up— Oh.” He put his fingertips over his mouth. “Oh, I shouldn't have said that…” “It's okay,” she assured, massaging his deflated shoulders. “It's a hopeless situation. It's okay to feel like you've tried everything and there isn't anything left.” “I feel so awful about it.” “I understand.”

She knew it had to have been weighing on him for a long time. At least as long as the semester if not longer. Ominis so tightly held onto guilt and negative thoughts that she wondered when he'd last remembered good times with Anne and Sebastian.

If she ever thought about her brother, she tried to remember his smile; his excitement (and confusion) about finding out she was a witch. She thought about him telling off one of her schoolmates for making fun of her for being muggle-born. How Kameron promised to keep her safe as war stained their backyard.

If she ever thought about her father, she thought about how he fought for his family. She thought about him twirling her about when her magic schooling letter came in. How her father held all of them tight as bloodshed knocked on their door. Surely, Ominis had similar memories of Anne.

“What's Anne like? she asked. “I've only heard a little.” “Oh, she's great,” said Ominis, a soft smile upon his lips. “She's always so energetic. It was usually Anne coming up with pranks and silly stories. She's really intelligent, even though her humor is like a twelve year old boy's. I think she does that to appear less smart than she actually is, but she's hilarious. Between her and Sebastian, I've never laughed so hard in my life.” “She sounds wonderful, Ominis.” “Yes, she is.”

Credence tried to keep her smile up but there was a little twinge in her gut. That couldn't possibly be—jealousy? The moment the realization hit her she tried to beat the beast back into the recesses of her mind. Ominis brushed his hand over her knee, getting her out of her thoughts.

"Thank you for listening,” he said. “You're the only one who does. Sebastian is so wrapped up in his own life, and Anne… Well, I haven't spoken to her ever since she fell ill, I'm afraid.” “Why not?” “I just… Can't bear to see her like that. Then my worst fears will come true—I'll know for sure that she'll be gone soon. Her and Sebastian were the only people who didn’t judge me for being a Gaunt, before you came along.” “I bet Anne would love to see you again.” He sighed and frowned deeply. “I know. It's so selfish of me.” Credence put her arms around him and held him close. “You need to do what's best for you. If seeing Anne is too much—” “I should see her anyway.” “I'll support whatever you want to do, Ominis.” This eased his frown. “Thank you, Cree. Would you come with me if I went to see Anne? I feel like I'll need you there.” “Of course. You and Sebastian just let me know when.” His face went quite cold, frown returning with a vengeance. “Right. Sebastian. I'm sure he'll be there as well. If there's ever an opportunity to get up to Feldcroft and see Anne, he takes it.” “Well, better to face him in that Crossed Wands tournament first, right?” “I plan to.”

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levi-venn · 8 months

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My Favorite Meatbag

(Tech & TAY-0)

(w/ special appearance by Crosshair and Egg the Crow from the Cross and Crow series)

Also found on AO3 here

"We're baaaaack!" Omega's voice bounced with her steps as she bolted down the Marauder’s ramp. She was greeted by a crowd of Pabu villagers who responded to her cheer with equal excitement.

Tech was hoping no one would notice their arrival, yet it sounded like the whole island was present.

"Yeah! Woo! We made it!" Wrecker shouted, shaking the whole ship as he ran down the ramp after Omega.

Tech was still seated on his bunk as he watched Hunter and Echo follow Wrecker. They graciously accepted pats on the back and warm hugs from the villagers as they descended, expressing a level of ease and good humor that eluded Tech on even his most social days.

He wished they had arrived in the dead of night, so that he may sneak off to his assigned quarters, decompress, and then acclimate to this new life on his own schedule.

"Are you coming?"

Crosshair stood at the top of the ramp, his newly befriended crow, Egg, sitting on his shoulder.

Crosshair and Egg gave Tech an intense stare, and they both had a toothpick in their mouth and beak respectively.

"Not yet," Tech said. “I will be along shortly.”

He wasn't making an excuse, but it was a convenient last errand before he unofficially retired with his siblings.

“Suit yourself,” Crosshair shrugged. “We’re going to the beach. Less people. C’mon, Egg, let’s stretch our wings.”

Tech waited until Crosshair exited the ramp before closing the hatch. Not being interrupted by loud, friendly locals was preferable, especially during this rather delicate procedure.

Tech sat at his work bench and produced a soft cloth bundle from his munitions cache where he had stored the racer droid’s head over a year ago.

The sudden destruction of TAY-0 was jarring to say the least, and it had felt wrong to leave him behind on Safa Toma to be melted down and turned into who-knows-what.

Tech removed TAY-0’s faceplate, studying the tangled and frayed wires within and seeing a clearer path here than he did in his own future. Beyond the Marauder’s ramp there were too many variables to quantify, but here he still had some semblance of control and he wasn't going to leave the ship until TAY-0 was up and running.

It took twenty minutes longer than he anticipated, but by the time he was done the cacophonous joy outside the ship had dissipated, and was replaced with the crisp sounds of TAY-0’s circuits jolting to life.

Tech replaced the faceplate just as the three eyes and series of rectangles that shaped the droid’s mouth began to flicker.

“I…regret…nothing!” TAY-0 said, repeating his final words expelled moments after being blown to bits by a fellow riot racer’s pod.

"Hello," Tech greeted. "How are you feeling?"

“Woo! What a rush!” TAY-0’s triple eyes flashed and his face plate tried to spin, but was blocked by the workbench. He bobbled clumsily across the surface. “Safa Toma’s finest is back, baby! Can’t keep a good TAY-0 dow-…wait…what?! Why can’t I move?!”

Tech picked up the disembodied head. “I’m sorry to have brought you back in such a state, but I wanted to make sure I could restore you, before building you a body.”

TAY-0 flipped his face plate around once. Then twice. Then spun frantically. “Where is my everything, human?!”

Tech adjusted his goggles. “In a scrap pile, I imagine, to be melted down and reused for future Riot Racer repairs.”

"Well, aren't you just a meatbag full of sunshine and confetti? TAY-0's in pain here, human, how about a little sympathy?"

“You don’t have any pain receptors,” Tech said.

“Emotional pain!” TAY-0 said. “TAY-0’s heart is broken, literally and figuratively!”

“It…isn’t ideal, I admit,” Tech said. “Now that we've docked however, I can put together something more mobile for you. I again, apologize for your condition and how long it took me to revive you."

“What do you mean ‘how long’?” TAY-0 balked. “Give it to me straight, doc. How long was TAY-0 out for?”

Tech did a quick calculation, subtracting the two initial attempts to revive TAY-0. “Fourteen standard months, and thirteen days.”

“A whole year?!” TAY-0 cried. “An entire year of my life gone?! What about TAY-0's family, huh?! TAY-0's wife probably ran off with some smarmy R2 unit! Soooo typical."

Tech's eyes narrowed.

"I am not a stranger to sarcasm." Tech said, dryly. This was…partially true. He did miss sarcasm more often than not, but TAY-0’s sarcasm was as thick as Crosshair’s and easily identifiable.

"Caught on, huh? Fourteen months is nothing," TAY-0 said, cheerfully. “I'm gonna live forever.” His face plate did a 360 turn. "So, when's the next race? You better not have trashed my pod while I was out of commission."

Tech frowned. "There is no race. I don't believe this planet has racing of any kind."

Surprisingly, TAY-0 didn’t have an immediate response. In fact, he looked at Tech with what could be described as a blank expression. “Hey, not to look a gift eopie in the snoot, but why would you bring TAY-0 back if not for racing?"

"I don’t understand the question.”

"My owners bring me out for two things: Racing and Prepping for a Race. If I’ve completed those tasks, boom, TAY-0 is shut down and shoved in a locker until the next race. So what’s the play here? Why bring me out if I’m not useful?”

“I…” Tech blinked. "I was unaware of this arrangement. Did you not have a choice in the matter?"

"Hah, a droid with a choice? Cute, human, real cute. Droids get powered up to make credits for the meatbags, that's just how it is."

"It isn't like this everywhere. Certainly not here."

Again TAY-0 was quiet, tilting his face plate down as though deep in thought. "Okay…so…you still haven't answered my question, human."

"It's not a complicated reason." Tech said. “It bothered me that you were destroyed. I wanted to restore you.”

After a moment, Tech added. “You also call me ‘human’, and I find it fascinating.”

“Okay, wow…well, if calling someone by their species is all the criteria I need for a friendship I’d be much more popular.”

Tech hadn’t mentioned friendship. This was simply a gesture of good will. Nothing more. Probably.

“I am a clone of a human," Tech clarified. "and what’s more, I am a variant clone, an experimental project. As such I grew up being called all manner of things, but never 'human'. My brothers and I have owned the moniker ‘bad batch’, but I do not believe I am ‘bad’. In fact, I feel far superior to regs…regular clones and humans.”

"Huh…"

Tech waited for a snarky reply, mocking him for just the simple pleasure of being considered human.

Surprisingly, all three of TAY-0's eyes dimmed briefly, with some sort of emotion Tech couldn't immediately decipher.

“TAY-0 knows how lonely it is at the top. It's hard being this good-looking and talented, y’know? Well you probably don’t know, but trust me. Everyone is jealous of me on Safa Toma.”

Tech’s eye twitched. “I see…”

“Well anyway! So you freed TAY-0 and that’s great news and all, but I have a pretty big existential question here, human: TAY-0 is good at racing, right? And if there’s no racing then what am I good at exactly?”

The question struck Tech like clanker shrapnel to the heart. "As it happens, I have been asking that very same question of myself. I was a soldier, then a mercenary of sorts, now…I have a stable home, and no mission. The future is uncertain and it bothers me greatly."

"Same boat, huh? Well, human, you're in luck, because I have an exceptional mind and you're pretty smart, too. We're going to come up with new purposes. Between the two of us we can figure it out, yeah?"

Tech smiled faintly. "Perhaps we can."

“Sooo, where did you bring me, human? Where are TAY-0’s new stomping grounds, assuming you’re going to give me some stomping feet?"

“You may receive treads, but we’ll deal with that later,” Tech said. Holding TAY-0’s head-frame firmly, he went to the cockpit, bringing up a holomap to accompany the rather spectacular view.

To the East was an uninterrupted landscape of calm ocean, the sapphire waters wearing the golden sunlight like a shimmering cape.

To the West was home.

“This…is Pabu.”

The single mountainous island was a quiet sentinel in the dreamy sea, rich in natural history, peaceful at times, violent in others. The domestic structures built all over the island seemed to add to the beauty, not tame it, as if the island itself granted permission to let these villagers thrive.

TAY-0 gasped. “Wow…”

Tech’s smile widened, with an unexpected sense of pride.

“...this place is cuuuuuute.”

Tech’s lips thinned.

“And by cute, I mean tiiiiiny. Did you find this place at the bottom of a mantell mix box? Where are we going to live? In conch shells? Like hermit crabs?! Ahahahaha.”

Tech turned TAY-0’s head frame sharply toward him, cupping the face plate so he couldn’t move, forcing TAY-0 to look directly at Tech in his goggled eyes.

“When we leave this ship, you are going to behave yourself. You will be gracious. You will be respectful. This island is a safe haven and a carefully guarded secret. Kindness to these very generous people will go a long way if you are to make any friends here.”

“Friends?” TAY-0 asked. He looked…hurt. “But, TAY-0 thought we were friends.”

Another mention of friendship…

…Tech waited for the punchline.

There wasn’t one.

TAY-0 looked quietly at Tech as if waiting for a response.

Tech hesitated.“You…don't even know my name,” Tech reasoned.

“Sure I do, human.”

“...it isn’t-”

“It’s not human,” TAY-0 said, quickly. “I know that!”

Tech tilted his head.

“Ah ha, trick question,” TAY-0 ventured. “You don’t have a name.”

“This is not how a friendship starts,” Tech said, not knowing the first thing about cultivating an actual friendship. Though he imagined an exchange of names would be included. “My name is Tec-”

“Tech!" TAY-0 took over. "Your name is Tech. Uh yeah, of course it is, how could TAY-0 forget a name like that. It’s so…”

Tech frowned.

“...short.”

“Brevity is the spice of life."

“Uh huh, yeah, That's not something TAY-0 will crosstitch on a pillow anytime soon. TAY-0 doesn't do brevity.”

“Obviously.”

“Well, Tech, you’re in luck because it just so happens there's a vacancy for TAY-0’s best friend. You’re it! Congratulations!”

Tech considered this, pressing the edge of his finger to his chin in thought. “I’ve…never had a friend that has elevated me to a ‘best’ status before.”

“Oh yeah? How many friends you got?”

“Apart from my siblings?”

“That…sounds like the number's zero.”

“Correct. It is zero. And how many friends do you-”

“Hey, hey, we’re not talking about TAY-0 here.”

Tech didn't push the issue.

They were a pair of friendless entities, brilliant and unappreciated though Tech had far more humility regarding how superior he was to others. Naturally.

“Are you ready to go outside?”

“Wait! One more thing,” TAY-0 said.

Tech held TAY-0 up to his face again. “What is it?”

TAY-0’s eyes flickered, and while the blinking facial expressions were unknowable to Tech, he had the impression that TAY-0 was growing emotional again.

“I’m glad it was you who brought me back, human. Tech. You're my favorite meatbag.”

"Full of sunshine and confetti?"

TAY-0's eyes flashed with apparent mirth.

"Exaaaaactly!"

Tech snorted a laugh.

And with that, Tech punched the button for the ramp, relieved to find the crowd had indeed dispersed.

Tech took TAY-0 to the beach where only Crosshair sat, boots beside him as he hid his feet in the sand, watching Egg soar around his new home.

“This is an ideal stretch for Riot Racing,” TAY-0 said, eyes glowing, face plate spinning enthusiastically.

“As I said before, there is no racing here.”

‘Well, we’ll just have to change that. This island is in dire need of a little TAY-0 style.”

"This is a peaceful island, TAY-0.”

"Ugh, fine. We’ll have Quiet Racing. Quiet Riot Racing! Hey that could be your name, Texx: The Quiet Riot Racer!"

“It's Tech, and we’ll see.”

It wasn't a bad nickname. The announcer at the Safa Toma Riot Race seemed disappointed with announcing the winner as just "Tech".

"Or you can continue being the Spectacled Spectator! Your brother loved it.”

“Technically, you’re the one spectating, as that's all you can do currently.”

“Oh haha, you're hilaaaarious, y'know that, bestie?"

"Let's start with 'friend', first," Tech said, sitting on a bench just behind the beach line. He set TAY-0's head beside him so he could also enjoy the view.

In the distance, Crosshair and Egg tossed a piece of shiny shell back and forth.

"We can revisit our status when you remember my name." Tech decided.

"I haven't forgotten it, human…it's…Ted."

"Tech."

"That's what I said!"

Tech's laugh came out loud and unexpected, a short burst of mirth that was unfamiliar to his own ears. These days mild amusement was most he could conjure as it had been a hard year. A harder several years actually since the Empire took over.

And even before then…when had he felt comfortable enough to laugh?

The sound carried to Crosshair and Egg who both whipped their heads back in equal startlement.

"What's that about?" TAY-0 challenged. "Ol' toothpick over there never heard a human laugh before?"

"Not this…human." Tech felt something loosen in his chest, like an overtightened gear cog finally shaking off the rust of fear and worry and instability.

He took a deep breath of the salty, fresh air.

He felt very human.

"Tech…" TAY-0 said, his gaze fixed to the ocean. "Thanks. I mean it. You didn't have to bring me back and you did. TAY-0 doesn't forget kindness like this."

Most likely because few have shown TAY-0 kindness at all, but Tech kept this observation to himself.

He put a hand on TAY-0's head frame as the sun meandered its way towards the horizon.

"You're welcome, my friend."

***

If you enjoyed my writing, please consider checking out my queer sci-fi murder mystery novel “Error: Detective Not Found (A Cake Pop Noir)”. You can also find more info on it and my original works on my main tumblr account @blueberryhelper

***

My Taglist is currently one person, but thank you for being on it @motte-the-goblin :3

#tbb #tbb tech #tbb Crosshair #tbb tay-0 #tay-0 #badbatch #badbatch tech #badbatch Crosshair #tbb egg #egg the crow #was anyone else as upset as I was when TAY-0 exploded #fixit fic no one asked for #i love him youre honor #an excuse to give egg his own toothpick #Bad Batch

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autumnalwalker · 3 months

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7 Snippets 7 People (Part 2)

Thank you for the tag, @blind-the-winds.

I've actually had two of this tag game sitting in my Drafts for a while now, and given what I just wrote last night for Chapter 21 of Empty Names I thought it might be fun to combine them a bit. This most recently written bit was basically one long sequence of Eris tripping out and losing her sense of self due to exposure to a Lovecraftian eldritch entity and experiencing warped hallucinatory versions of old memories that have either happened or been referenced earlier in the story.

So I thought it would be fun to put all those scenes back-to-back with the earlier parts that they're referencing.

But before I get started, softly passing the tag to @sarahlizziewrites, @writernopal, @nettleandthorne, @void-botanist, @sleepyowlwrites, @the-down-upside-finch, @kaiusvnoir, and the usual open tag for anyone else who wants it.

(And here's the link to Part 1. The first snippet in that one gets referenced multiple times throughout here.)

(Content Warning for some violence and mild body horror.)

Now then, let us pick up where this hallucinatory nightmare left off, with a warped version of Eris's character introduction from Chapter 3...

Moonlight reflects off the lake and into the whispering of the trees that brushes against her cheek to welcome her home with the scent of blood in her mouth. Smell and taste blur together as her senses begin feeding into one another until the whole world seems more. Was she really even alive before this?

Her oldest dance partner rises from the lake to greet her on the shore. The one who tried to hunt her and in failing to do so taught her the joy of being the predator rather than prey. Their dance begins again. As it always has. As it ever will. Her dance partner is a gaunt and stretched out figure of tongues and teeth that still resembles a man. Her dance partner is a beast of scale and shell with jaws that bite and claws that catch. Her dance partner is a cacophonous evolution of forms between as the two of them drive one another to learn and adapt with each dance.

Her dance partner is a mere shadow, frozen in a block of ice and thrown into the back of her van to be stowed away and forgotten. She has long since grown beyond it. She slams the rear doors of the van shut.

And yet still the hunt always cycles anew. She is always hunting.

Do you recall a certain encounter with a spider in Chapter 14?

The spider gives her an eightfold eyeing up and down, takes a tentative step forward, and then begins tapping out a pattern on the ground.

“I don’t know what that means, but…” Eris crouches down and raps on the cavern floor with a curled fist, imitating the pattern as best she can.

The spider stops abruptly in what Eris can only assume is surprise, and then taps out another pattern that she once again copies.

“I probably sound like a real idiot to you right now, just repeating back whatever you say, huh?” Can they even hear her, Eris wonders? Spiders don’t have ears after all. She makes a mental note to look that up later. For now though, she sits back down in what she hopes will come across as a sign of nonaggression and watches the spider retrieve a small cocooned offering from one of their baskets and place it on the shrine’s altar dish. This offering too is devoured by the fungus. Perhaps it was not so forgotten a god as she thought.

Local deity appeased, the spider begins extruding thread from their spinnerets and curling up on themself in a complicated motion that spills one of the candles from its basket.

Eris lunges forward and catches the errant candle before it can roll into the lake. Walking over to the suddenly-still spider, Eris offers the candle back.

After a moment’s hesitation, the spider uncurls, rights themself, and leans to one side to tilt the candle basket toward Eris. Taking the final step closer, Eris returns the candle and sees that the spider’s been attempting unsuccessfully and messily to bandage their own leg.

Slowly, and keeping her hands in view the whole time, Eris unzips another pouch and retrieves a compressed roll of elastic bandage. She points once at the spider’s wound leg and then at her own arm before wrapping herself up by way of demonstration. After a moment of holding the pose, she unwraps the bandage and stretches it out, proffering it toward the spider. When the spider turns themself to expose the injured leg, Eris takes that as permission and begins wrapping. Once that’s secure she scoops a palmful of cold, clear water from the lake and sprinkles it over the bandage to activate the infused alchemical agents, stiffening it enough to alleviate the need for a splint and accelerating the healing process. If it works anywhere near as well on giant spiders as it does humans, they should be better in several hours.

“There you go, all better” Eris says, flicking the last bits of water and misapplied webbing from her hands. “Now, on the off chance that you’re psychic or something and can understand what I’m saying, I’m gonna put it out there that the thing I’m hunting is probably the same thing that did that to you. Don’t suppose you can lead me back to it?”

The spider taps out another pattern in response.

“Still can’t understand you,” Eris replies with a shrug, but copies the pattern of taps once more anyway.

If you don't, that's fine. Eris doesn't seem to be remembering it correctly either.

The air in the candlelit cavern smothers like a damp blanket. A drop of blood trails down the back of her hand, catches on the tiny hairs, leaves bits of itself gathered in the pores and creases, and falls from her fingertip into the crystal clear pool the same as any other drop from the cavern’s stalactites. It seems the shadow of her old dance partner left her with a final parting gift.

She approaches the cavern’s shrine and the wounded shadow praying at its moldy offering plate skitters away. She weighs whether it is worth pursuing but is distracted by a shambling pile of bones. The bones snap and crunch so pleasingly and the soft shadow beneath rips apart so delightfully. But when the bones are ground to dust and the shadow they failed to protect are gone she is still hungry.

The wounded shadow taps a pattern on the ground. Its eight eyes are not human at all but they hold fear all the same.

There’s a kindness Eris should offer at this part. She doesn’t, but what does it matter? It’s just a beast.

Still not satisfied, she turns her attention to the shrine and the small, forgotten god it venerates.

Blood and hearts and bones and stone and ichor and mold. What would a god taste like?

A memory from Chapter 18 that was lost and then came back all at once...

Sun hot enough to cook eggs on the dashboard. An Arizona truck stop. Rumors of a big cat prowling the desert and attacking truckers and tourists who stop there too late at night. Killing time waiting for nightfall by practicing along with a language learning CD snagged from a clearance bin. An empty parking lot beneath a moonless night sky. Climbing out of the cab and watching the desert. Feeling the temperature drop. The feeling of being the only person on Earth. Lingering in a space only ever meant to be passed through. The howl of an almost-human voice that almost sounds like a song. The weight of a tire iron in her hand. Stepping out beyond the edge of the pavement. Stopping just at the edge of the furthest lamplight. The twilight border between known and unknown. A whistled tune to announce her presence. Eyes in the dark. A growl that almost sounds like words. Circling. Blurring the line between predator and prey. Claws and teeth. The crack of a tire iron against a skull that almost looks human. A whipcord whistling sound through the air. A step too slow. Blooming pain. The feeling of veins replaced by rose vines with vibrating thorns. An inhuman growl from a human throat. Hands preventing a tail from ripping a stinger free. A slow extraction from a chest. A quick insertion into a neck. The loss of a tire iron. Seven minutes slumped against a door, trying to work up the strength to open it. Three days in the bed in the back of a truck cabin. Angry voicemails threatening unemployment. Coughing up blood. Engine noise going quiet. AC cutting out. Sips of hot water. Knocking on the door from a concerned stranger. A declined offer of a ride to the hospital. A request to siphon gas. The passing of years. An impossible city. A new job. A kindred spirit. A wonderfully wicked smile beneath golden eyes. The feeling of another’s hands tracing a familiar shape. The comparison to a flower.

Now recalled and reprised in a different key...

The air in the desert tries and fails to sap the moisture from her body. Neither the heat of day nor the chill of night can touch her through the craving.

Feeling like the only person in the world, she lingers in a space only ever meant to be passed through until she hears the howl of an almost-human voice that almost sounds like a song. Feeling the weight of her spear fall from her hand, she steps out beyond the edge of the parking lot pavement to the edge of the edge of the furthest lamplight, that twilight border between known and unknown. Feeling no need to announce her presence, she locks eyes in the dark with a shadow and utters a growl that almost sounds like words as she circles her prey and blurs the line between beast and self.��

There are only claws and teeth for the thing whose face is almost human. A stinger strikes through the air with a whipcord whistling but is a step too slow. An inhuman growl from a once-human throat accompanies the tearing sound of a sting ripped free from its tail and plunged into its owner’s neck. Deed done, she retrieves her spear and walks back to the truck whose cargo has been her excuse to travel the land’s liminal spaces for prey like this.

She opens the door to the sleeper cab and finds herself face to face with a squawking peacock.

The avian incongruity leaves Eris shocked enough for the bird to shuffle out past her and take to the wing. She blinks. Waking up to find a peacock in her cab wasn’t even the same year as hunting the manticore. That happened in Vermont and this was in Arizona. Why are those two memories mixed together?

Wait. Memories?

Cautiously, she climbs into the cab. Something about it feels too small, but otherwise all is as it should be. Neatly made bed in the back, movie poster from her old bedroom on the ceiling, glowing dreamcatcher hanging from the rearview mirror… The mirror! Her reflection! Her eyes! She turns and flees into the dark tunnel in the back of the cab until she can no longer feel that awful piece of glass staring at her.

No. This isn’t right. She’s not…

In Chapter 15, Eris saved Ashan from an explosion conjured by another wizard. While she's since repressed the memory of what came after, Ashan bore witness:

The first thing Ashan hears upon regaining a tenuous consciousness is a repeating heavy, wet, crunching sound.

The ground he is lying on is warm and slightly damp, and after a struggle to open leaden eyelids he sees vapor rising up from the earth around him. A white flake floats down and lands on the back of his hand. He forces a blink, trying to focus. It is ash.

There is a voice accompanying those wet, thudding, crunches. He cannot quite make out the words. Or is it only growling?

He tries to shift his position but finds the calf of one cold, numb, and immovable. Oh right, the spear. He stretches out an arm to find that the ground mere inches further away from where the hand had lain is intolerably hot. The reflex of jerking his hand back is enough to tire him.

The sound continues. He smells something burning.

Pushing himself up onto his elbows is a trial that he surprises himself in passing. Lifting his head enough to look forward while keeping his fully unbound hair out of his eyes is hardly easier. The urge to go back to sleep is treacherous and so he quashes it.

He is lying at the edge of a small crater, maybe about as wide across as he is tall. Hard to judge with the smoke, ash, dust, and steam all swirling together in and around it. On the other side of that blasted pit a hulking, demonic figure with fire for hair that flows down over the black-and-red carapace of its shoulders and back is repeatedly stomping something obscured by the low-hanging steam. Its lips are pulled back nearly to its ears is what might just as easily be a snarl or a grin but either way is all teeth.

Amidst the creature’s slew of invectives and vocalizations more beast than human, Ashan manages to pick out the phrase “slaving piece of human garbage,” as one of the few intelligible mutterings directed at whatever it is crushing.

Unfortunately, this is not a place where she is allowed to forget...

Rage.

There has ever been constant knowledge of how good the climax of the hunt feels. Has felt. Will feel next time. And few things have had are having will have a death so sweet as the pile of garbage before her that calls itself a man. It is not even fit to be prey, but the righteousness of ending it will more than make up for that. It has captured, enslaved, and sold the innocent. It has hurt one of her own. It has arrogantly tried to summon the sun itself.

She swallows that sun. Lets it burn away that which is not needed and bring light to what remains. Its fire erupts from her scalp to become her hair and tumble down past her shoulders. Its core melts down the flimsy scraps of armor and becomes her carapace. Its hunger welds with hers and becomes yet more fuel for the hunt.

Her charred lips pull back nearly to her ears in what is both a snarl and a grin and in any case is all teeth.

The flash of her brilliant metamorphosis alone was nearly enough to dispose of the garbage, but not quite. What is left of it continues to cough and twitch on the steaming ground. She walks over to it and raises a foot in anticipation of a heavy, wet, crunching sound repeating over and over.

No!

This is not her!

This has never been her!

This can never be her!

#writeblr #writers on tumblr #my writing #tag game #writing tag games #seven snippets seven people #7 snippets 7 people #empty names

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frogonamelon · 22 days

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If you haven't seen/read Marble Sky by @somerandomdudelmao, I highly recommend it! It's expressive, its beautiful, it's hilarious, its everything I've come to expect from Cass's work and more because it's their own original characters and just kjdnkndkndkg I love it!

The reason I drew this to profess my love for this comic instead of say Alcor (who has my heart and soul adorable little guy) is because I do the same hairstyle as Oscar! When my hair is long enough (or too long), I will absolutely twist the whole damn thing up with a claw clip! Brought me joy when I realized <3!

If Cass ever ends up seeing this in the cacophonous abyss of Tumblr: Thank you for your incredible work and for being so inspiring to so many people, myself included. Just... thank you

#I don't know how to tag this #It shall be lost to the abyss most likely #thats okay #...Fanart? ig

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rionas-path · 7 months

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Chapter 3.

To Wander in One’s Grave

XVI. Wind continued to rush along. His golden strands of hair Kept being blown ‘cross his morose face. Tears only now streaming Down his dejected cheeks. The pain could be seen in his gleaming Eyes as the moonlight shone upon them. He held his wife’s fair And cold hands, clutching, clutching to them. All these memories Now swept through the youth’s mind as she watched the anemones That dotted her mother’s burial mound. A tombstone which read a prayer Stood afore and above a willow tree the grove ensnared.

XVII. The passing of her mother’s soul was a long-fought tragedy. Though, she had now been buried for twelve months, given to Sky To be shepherded in the meadows; her end was a sigh Of relief. This cursed affliction of the Flow’s abnormality Holds barely a remark in all the lost lore of bygone, Departed moons, through which her tribe had endured till dawn. Continuing to stand there, a hand reached onto her untactfully. She turned to see who’d come to bother her so callously!

XVIII. In fury’s grasp, her father grabbed her by the coat’s Vandyke And pulled her up onto his brown stallion without a spoken word. She thrashed around to no avail, as her cry showed she’d been stirred From her daydream. “Thou shouldn’t resist, and much to thy dislike; Never return!” Roared on the chieftain in his battle attire. “I beg thee, for Eleanore’s sake, before you make me all but tire Out on this forsaken day! We must make ways before the ghostlike And cursed shadows; escape south!” Then gave his steed’s sides a heel strike.

XIX. The world suddenly began filling with the sounds of turmoil That had been there all along. Noises from the burning dwellings, Shapes moving in the shadows. Smoke rising from the surrounding Hills, from which calling horns bellowed and footsteps shook the soil Itself as soldiers mustered. The exodus had begun. As the two passed through the broken-down city gates, they both were stunned At the sight of the dying city of Wir Byhor. It had been despoiled Of joy and of flow, and all that was left was in war embroiled.

XX. The crackling of other hooves began to draw nearer and nearer, And though hard to make out from the commotion, Ríona could see The man approaching them from the side would clearly be Her father’s second, his right-hand man. In gloom was the bearer Of horrid news. But in that moment, the voice she heard so often From within, came forth from the echoing in an attempt to soften The heavy toll of panic that she had endured in this horror. She closed her eyes, focused herself onto it and heard clearer.

XXI. “There lies sorrow in thy heart, friend; but thou must worry not, Moreover, thou should’st give into my calming murmuring. Trust me as I speak – these words that hold much truth; thy heart forbearing: For now, thine only strength. Now, gather thy grit, be not by dread fraught And gaze into the Lion’s maw – and gaze towards the valley In which thy people’s best last stand will be: their grand finale! Only then wilt thou understand and know it wasn’t for naught! And finally, when grow’st thee strong, thou wilt stop the cruel onslaught!”

XXII. With passion did Aurianne beseech her host of vigour. Attempting to pierce through the cacophonous cries of helpless Souls who were still trapped inside crumbling buildings. Though restless, Ríona was not afraid; and others might’ve perceived her rigor As shock. Even the Goddess would fail when trying to predict How the child would react to her surroundings. Instead, a conflict Inside her mind grew from the echoes, an anger that could trigger Further destruction, and the Queen her words would reconsider.

XXIII. But then, not soon enough, her father – the chief had jolted His horses’ sides again, and it answered with a dash. Every one of her previous thoughts now muddled and mashed, And her rage that had built up dissipated as if it had moulted Away like old feathers. The other rider would only follow For a while longer, resuming down the valley with no bravado, But a still air about him, as he joined up with his men devoted. Then the steed rushed up the crest of the hill as if it floated.

XXIV. It didn’t take long till they were approaching the summit’s peak And a grand vista opened afore: A valley brimming With figures both foul and pure. The Byhoran last stand was forming. A champion then rode before their ranks and chose to speak. The chief pointed t’wards him and cast an ethereal plea: “One day thou shalt stand in those heavy boots and victorious be!” He ran his fingers through her golden hair with a touch so meek, “As for him… As for them…” his voice trailed off into a murmur weak.

XXV. His gaze locked on his troops. “Forever as heroes that they are, By our people recalled!” Melancholy brimmed eyes spoke thousand a word. Raising his hand, and rolling his sleeves to uncover notches begird Along his arms. He pulled out a dirk and began to carve scars, And cut in a few notches alongside half-a-hundred more. “This our tradition be; child, it’s how we live!” he swore, Then showed his bleeding cuts to Ríona. “For every one mar A man was lost today, each: a hero – lost thus far!”

XXVI. His sacrificial lamb waited in the mouth of the valley As shambling figures gathered from the hillsides surrounding, The chief grimaced: “Southward we embark, escape this abounding Damnation that hunts us; and upon reaching those shores – we rally!” “To honour our Tribe Mothers, glory to thy names!” he shouted As a tear began to rush down his cheek. Their sacrifice showed undoubted Valour, which he himself could not partake in. He would carry The burden’s heavy toll to his death, e’er marked by his tally!

XXVII. With a jerking motion, Audar turned his stallion and the two Joined up with a caravan of souls lost, scattered, and afraid. Beginning their harsh journey t’wards the south, the Chieftain prayed For their safe passage. Then Ríona felt a firmness grew On her shoulder, as her father’s hand pressed down onto it As if a form of punishment: “For thee it would befit To listen to my words and listen well, or thou may rue The day when I am gone.” She felt a scolding would ensue.

XXVIII. “My heart sunk deep into my chest when I thought I had thee lost! To disappear, so quick, without a trace, without a hitch, And hide so deftly beneath the stars; concerns me of that Witch Sharing thy flesh. What foolish rebellious thoughts has she tossed Into thy mind? I spent hours and hours on end In search of thee, all while I could not my people defend! A nightmare eked out my mind’s depth, a fear that brought in frost, A thought of losing thee, by Gods! A line which shan’t be crossed!”

#riona's path #fantasy #dark fantasy #poetry #epic poetry #poem #epic poem #literature #writing

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