#descriptions of corpses

[dalamusrex]

Shor's Stone

(Content warnings for: abuse mention; descriptions of blood, gore, and corpses)

“‘Hop over to Shor’s Stone,' they said. ‘It will only take a couple hours,’ they said,” Dalamus grumbled to himself atop his horse. The palomino mare below him ambled along the cobblestone path, tired from a short skirmish with a small pack of wolves. The Rift’s woods were full of them, and Opal was not a warhorse. Thankfully, the wolves had been easily dissuaded with a well-aimed horse kick. The rest immediately fled in a panic. Hopefully they would tell the rest of their brethren not to bother with this adventurer.

“I am sorry, girl. I will be sure to get you a treat once we are back home, hm?” He reached forward and petted the side of her neck in an attempt to calm her. Just a bit longer and he would be able to get out of this blasted sun…

During a routine visit to buy alchemy ingredients, Elgrim had asked Dalamus a favor. The miners of Shor’s Stone had fallen ill, and they needed medicine. Elgrim is too old to be traveling, and hardly trusted a soul. But he has known Dalamus long enough to know that the mer could handle himself should trouble arise. Not that trouble will arise, of course, Elgrim assured. The mer was given a box full of elixirs to deliver, which he balanced before him while seated in the saddle.

Shor’s Stone--a mining village just North of Riften, between the Velothi Mountains and the mountains which contain Redbelly Mine. The mine from which the village makes its income. Unfortunately, mining is a dangerous job in many ways. If one did not get crushed by collapsing tunnels, they risked being choked by fumes of unearthed gas, or accidentally set aflame by torches lit in gas-heavy chambers. The constant chipping of stone and ore fills the lungs with dust, often causing breathing issues. Such is the issue this time, as well. Without the miners, their income has slowed to a crawl.

It will only take a few hours, Elgrim said. Just drop off the medicine and come back. Simple as that!

But when was anything as simple as that…

Another half hour passed and Dalamus finally saw the peaks of houses appear before him. Filnjar, the blacksmith and unofficial leader of the community, stood at his forge staring distantly into the embers. It was not until he apparently heard Opal’s hoofbeats that the Nord looked up. Filnjar did not smile, but some tension leaked from his shoulders in relief when he noticed the box of medicine.

“I presume you are the delivery man for Elgrim.” Filnjar spoke as Dalamus carefully dismounted his horse, attempting to keep the box level as he did so. Once on his feet and the box secure, he could face Filnjar.

As much as Dalamus hated being thought of as a ‘delivery man,’ he could hardly argue. He handed the wooden medicine box to the Nord. “For today, I am. Here are the elixirs. Give each miner one elixir to drink over the course of a week. Hafjorg sends her well wishes.”

Filnjar took the box from the Dunmer’s hands and placed it on his workbench. Grabbing a nearby tool, he pried the box open to inspect its contents. Sure enough, at least eight peach-colored potions sat inside, compartmentalized with thin wooden slats and wrapped in parchment to prevent breakage during transit. Filnjar smiled, shoulders sagging with relief. “Thank you for coming all the way out here, lad, even though I suspect it’s not your day job. Before I set you off with your coin, may I ask.. Are you a mercenary? A blade for hire?”

Dalamus’ hands hesitated on Opal’s reins, anticipating a new request if he were to answer affirmatively, and inwardly groaned. He just wanted to get home. The heat of the sun was thinning his patience. And yet… “I can be, for the right price. Why?” He turned his piercing glance back to the blacksmith, and could have sworn the Nord shrunk a little.

“Well…” Filnjar began. “We haven’t seen the guards from the nearby watchtower in quite a while. They’re probably just in a drunken stupor and sleeping it off, but if something has gone wrong, no one here is equipped to deal with it. Since you’re already here, would you mind checking on them? I will give you what money I have left to spare, plus what I owe you for the delivery.”

Dalamus mulled it over for what seemed like an eternity. Even Opal nudged him impatiently, as if asking him to make a decision already. He did not want to do more. He had already done the job he promised. He wanted to go home. But.. if the guards were just being lazy, it would only take a moment. And he had not yet been paid. “...Fine. I will check on the guard tower.”

“Thank you, lad.”

Dalamus scoffed. This was supposed to be a quick delivery job. Deliver the medicine, Elgrim said. Now he was trudging off to a watchtower to investigate. Hopefully, the guards would be completely fine, and he could leave.

But as he approached the tower, he quickly realized that the worst had happened. The smell of old blood and active rot filled his senses and immediately placed him on alert. He approached with caution, hoping that perhaps the guards were not the source. Perhaps they had gone hunting and this was the smell of their kill. Judging from the pit near the entrance which had not seen fire in at least a week, this seemed unlikely. The mer scrubbed his face with frustration.

“Hello?” he called out towards the tower. This was stupid. Why did he have to do this? Anyone else at the town could have called up to the tower just as easily. But the lack of response was concerning…

...No, it was not! Dalamus did not care about these people. He was not invested in their safety. He was delivering the medicine for money. He could assume the guards were dead, and return. There were many ways he could lie.

...But what if townspeople come looking for bodies to bury?

Why did it matter?! It was not his problem! He did not owe anyone this investigation. Except, he had agreed to it. And his payment might get withheld if it was discovered that he lied one way or the other. And he was already here.

...Fine.

“Hilye,” he said, ordering Opal in Dunmeris to stay put while he approached the tower. The smell of rot hit him like a wave once he reached the abandoned fire pit. It had not been lit in many days–no smolders, no fresh ash, no trace of food or utensils nearby.

As he turned towards the tower, he spotted a guard. Or… what used to be one. Leaning against the side of the tower’s entrance was the corpse of a guard, pale and rotting. A sword wound split the man’s chest nearly from shoulder to hip, and various insects clung to the putrefying form.

One guard found… Two to go.

He made his way to the tower’s entrance and onto the stairs. With each step, the stench of decay grew greater, straining even Dalamus’ sensory tolerance. He could not hear any heartbeats, nor sounds of movement, and could only conclude that the worst had happened.

Two Riften guards lay slaughtered on the top floor, one with an arrow through the skull, the other stabbed in the back multiple times with a bladed weapon. Their armor appeared ill-fitting, their corpses filled with putrid gasses causing bloat. Judging by the lack of a struggle, the guards were likely attacked at night. Perhaps the guard meant to keep watch had fallen asleep, himself, allowing their quick demise.

A letter sat on the table next to their last meals, now molding.

Akar,

We’ve word of a band of Legion soldiers advancing on your position. Reinforcements are on their way. Talos guard you.

A black brow rose on the vampire’s face. So they had had a warning, yet still fell? Filnjar had implied that the guards partook in revelry if not frequently then consistently. Perhaps they really had imbibed too much on the night of the attack. Fools.

The sound of rustling in nearby trees froze him. He kept low to the floorboards and crept over to the ledge to peer down. Were the soldiers back? Had a brigand come to loot the bodies? No… It was much worse.

A large troll had followed the scent of the blood and rot--and possibly Dalamus’ yelling--straight to the tower. It grabbed the corpse at the side of the tower, picking it up with the ease of a child lifting a doll. In a gruesome display of strength, the troll ripped a limb off the body with a sickening crack and squelch. It put the arm in its mouth and peeled the metal armor off with its teeth before spitting the inedible material aside. The wet sounds of chewing were occasionally punctuated by the loud crack of a bone.

“You must be fetching kidding me.” He cursed under his breath in disbelief at his rotten luck. Dalamus dragged a hand down his face again. What now? He could wait and hope the troll leaves once it had its fill. What if the body out front was not enough to satisfy its hunger? It might ascend the stairs to consume the two corpses here. He could drop down the other side of the tower, but would still need to cross the troll’s line of sight to get to Opal and return to town.

The sound of Opal’s nervous whinnies pulled him from his thoughts and into action. The troll had noticed her and was advancing towards her, hoping for a large, fresh meal. Opal, Divines bless her, was dutifully waiting for Dalamus to return despite her terror.

“Miraga!” he yelled from the top of the tower, commanding Opal to flee and find somewhere to hide, giving her permission to escape by whatever means necessary and get to safety. “Miraga!”

The mare turned and ran, and the troll attempted to follow but was stopped by Dalamus landing upon its shoulders after leaping from the tower, and sending them both tumbling. Dalamus immediately rolled to his feet in time to dodge the swipe of a massive clawed hand. The troll roared, sending spittle and loose food flying, enraged that its meal had been interrupted.

Another swipe from the creature aimed to take Dalamus’ head clean off his shoulders, but he ducked and thrust a dagger upwards into the troll’s arm. Its skin was thick and leathery, extremely difficult to cut or pierce. Even his ebony-steel could not find purchase in the troll’s arm. Dalamus leaped backwards to avoid the second hand, but misjudged the length of the creature’s arm and was snagged by sharp claws and sent off-balance.

A backwards roll brought Dalamus to his feet again, adrenaline coursing through him and allowing him to temporarily ignore his wound in favor of strategizing a way to either win or escape. Trolls were generally slow but persistent. There was no guarantee it would not follow him back to town should he turn and run. The miners were in no condition to defend themselves, and he did not want the guilt of a town massacre on his hands. He was not heartless.

One slip up and Dalamus knew he would end up in two pieces on the ground. And, of course, this battle just had to take place in the middle of a beautiful sunny day–his wounds would heal slowly, if at all. Bumps and scrapes were the least of his worries though.

For once, Dalamus wished daggers were not his weapons of choice. Normally he enjoyed getting up close and personal with his enemies in combat, but not when it involved getting within grabbing distance of a troll with rancid corpse breath.

He kept the troll at a distance, circling the small space behind the tower. Dalamus could feel the troll’s eyes sizing him up, possibly mulling over which limb to separate from his body first. Vampire flesh tasted terrible, but trolls were not picky.

The troll lunged, and Dalamus ducked, bringing a dagger straight down into one of the beast’s feet. It roared, but before Dalamus could pull away, he was lifted from the ground by his middle and forced to leave his dagger embedded in the troll’s flesh. The giant hand surrounding him threatened to crush his rib cage. He felt a bone crack in his side, then the troll’s other hand grabbed his left arm and began to pull. A scream tore from his throat as another rib cracked and his left arm dislocated from the socket. Through tears and searing pain, Dalamus reached for his second dagger still in its sheath at his hip, and with as much force as he could muster, he thrust the ebony steel dagger straight into one of the troll’s eyes.

It dropped him immediately, clutching at its face and roaring, stumbling backwards in agony. Dalamus had only fallen a few feet, but he felt as though he had been tossed from the top of the watchtower to crumple to the ground. Everything hurt, but he could not afford to stay still. He was now entirely unarmed, and his left arm mostly useless, not to mention the sharp pain which bloomed in his side with every movement. Though he needed no breath, mild panic brought the habit back, and to his detriment. Every gasp invited stabs of pain.

The troll, now finished with its anguished bellows, pulled the dagger from its eye and tossed it aside far too distantly for Dalamus to ever dream of reaching. If he got caught one more time, he would be killed.

So, Dalamus kept his distance once again, he and the troll circling the small clearing. Even the brutish creature was hesitant to step within fighting distance, the dark blood spilling from its eye a grim reminder that this Dunmer was no simple prey. Drips of crimson began forming a circle as they strafed their small battlefield. Normally, a troll might leave this battle. Wounds severely diminished its ability to hunt. Certainly losing an eye did. But there were three corpses here, and it was not about to let so much food go to waste. It drooled with anticipation and frothed with anger.

After the dripping blood had created three quarters of a full circle on the ground, the troll lunged. Dalamus dove to the left, landing on his shoulder and the pain forcing a cry from him. Red eyes searched for his destination, one of the fallen guards’ corpses. Another hasty leap had the vampire practically landing in the stinking corpse’s lap. Putrid flesh and offal smashed under his weight and stained his clothing with rot.

He could hear the thuds of the troll’s feet stomping in a rush towards him while his back was turned.

In a decisive movement, Dalamus grabbed the fallen Nord’s sword, pivoted, and stood, bringing the blade straight up, right through the troll’s lower jaw and into the skull. Its rage ceased instantly, but momentum brought it forward to collapse on top of Dalamus, and the corpse. Pain exploded everywhere at once as he was pinned to the ground between two stinking masses. He did not know which was worse, the rank troll drool and dark blood now dripping to stain his front, or the faint sensation of slimy rot and wriggling creatures against his back coming from the corpse below him.

After what felt like an eternity, Dalamus managed to wiggle his right arm free to lift the shoulder of the beast off him. Then he continued to wiggle until he could get his knees up and kick the troll body away from him. He crawled to a clear area of ground and laid back down to process what had happened and assess the damage. Two, maybe three ribs broken, left shoulder dislocated, an open wound on one side of his abdomen. Blood stained every inch of his shirt, and he was pretty sure some degloved corpseflesh clung to his back and maggots were crawling into his hair. Somehow, it was the best case scenario after a fight with a troll in the middle of the day. He would not heal if he continued to lay in the sunlight though, and after all this, he deserved his damned payment. Oh, and the villagers would probably like to know what had happened to their guards. But first he had to at least take care of his shoulder.

“Opal?” Dalamus called, hoping she might be within earshot. After a painful moment of waiting, he heard the crunch of leaves under hooves, much to his relief. She had taken refuge in the nearby trees, waiting for the battle to subside.

With more than a few winces and grunts, Dalamus got to his feet and all but hobbled over to his horse, taking her reins and leading her to a tree with a fork at his chest level. He put the tree between himself and the horse, and the reins over the fork in the tree, wrapped around the wrist of his dislocated arm. The goal was to have Opal help him relocate it.

“Bivi. Re’aldis.” He told her to back up, and slowly. Opal obeyed, moving backwards step by step, slowly lifting Dalamus’ arm up and over the fork in the tree. He clenched his jaw to tolerate the pain and braced himself against the trunk. Opal continued until he was pressed up entirely against the tree, but once there was resistance in the reins, she stopped.

“Bivi,” the mer ordered again, too tired to remain patient. Opal was reluctant.

“Bivi!” he shouted, and the horse, startled, pulled backwards as commanded. All his frustration evaporated as pain rushed to fill its place. A shout was forced from his chest, and Opal rushed towards him in concern.

Reins no longer taut to hold him up against the tree, Dalamus fell backwards onto the ground, white hot pain ricocheting up his side and shoulder as he caught himself with his now relocated arm. The reins were relinquished and his horse snuffled at him from above, disheveling his hair in a supposed attempt to soothe or perhaps apologize. Dalamus was too exhausted and in too much pain to care about his hair, or his ripped clothes, or the corpse jelly that clung to him, or the maggots on his shirt, or how he reeked, or how much blood was oozing from his side.

Although he would not die of blood loss, at least not any time soon, the more blood he lost, the sooner he would need to feed in order to replenish it. And with the sun still high in the sky, his wounds would not close. The longer he sat here, the more of a danger he was to the people of Shor’s Stone and Riften when he returned. Perhaps it would be best to feed from an animal between here and there. With a groan that eased into a whine, the mer slowly pushed himself to his knees, and then his feet, placing a hand on Opal to steady himself.

“Juli, Opal,” he rasped out in praise, giving her neck a stroke. His hand left a smear of dark blood on her coat. Whoops.

Dalamus trudged slowly over to the troll’s corpse, a sneer lifting his lip to reveal a threatening fang at no one in particular. Despite thirst scratching at his throat, the dark, stinking blood pooling around the dead creature was anything but appetizing. He was here for something else…

The sword he had used to impale the troll was still seated firmly in its skull, blood seeping out of either end of the wound it had created. With a few shoves of his foot, Dalamus managed to roll the hulking creature onto its back, then braced the foot against its chest in preparation to remove the sword. His muscles protested and burned, broken bones sending electric jolts through him with every strain. Through gritted teeth and a whimper of pain, Dalamus pulled the sword out, the flesh squelching as it released the steel.

He grips the sword hilt in both hands, brings the blade up over his head, and swings the sharp edge down hard into the throat of the troll. Again. And again. And again. Blood and odd slivers of corpseflesh flung into the air and onto Dalamus himself. Swords made for terrible chopping tools, especially once it reached bone–but perhaps he would get an extra reward if the townspeople knew the trouble he had been through for their ‘simple’ errand. With every swing of the weapon, his body screamed at him. Even more so when his arms absorbed the shock each time the blade bit into the ground.

Once the majority of the flesh had been hacked away from the spine, Dalamus changed to a more delicate approach. He used the point of the blade to try and slip between the segments of neck bone, stabbing the rubbery disk until finally it gave. Then, with a final chop, the troll’s head rolled free of its body.

Dalamus grabbed the troll’s head by a fistful of fur—hair?—and lifted it to peer into the dead eyes of his enemy. The jaw fell slack, still oozing foul saliva and stinking blood. If he did not get compensated for this… He sighed in exasperation, triggering a jolt of pain in his side.

Dalamus glanced at his horse and his shoulder throbbed in response. The mere thought of pulling himself up into the saddle caused discomfort in his shoulder, and the slowest of gaits would still jostle his broken ribs as he kept balance and time with the horse's movements. Walking, it is.

The only consolation—if one could call it that—was the sun still hanging in the sky. It meant he still had time before the vampirism began knitting his body back together. If it were to heal back wrong, such as during physical activity with the body in motion, it would have to be re-broken. Such was a fate he wanted to avoid if at all possible.

After gathering his daggers from the area and placing them back in their sheathes, blood and all, they began the trek back to Shor's Stone. Opal walked diligently beside him, allowing him to lean against her flank when pain halted their progress. If paused for too long, she would reach back and snuffle him with her big soft nose and remind him they still had a ways to go. Walking the path uphill was surprisingly laborious, but he knew it meant they were close.

As they crested the small hill, Dalamus could see the miners of Shor's Stone lining up to get their medicine from Filnjar. They looked and sounded terrible, a step away from draugr. Constant coughing had left them completely exhausted, their entire bodies sore, evident in how they shuffled forward. Darkened eyes and unkempt hair spoke to their lack of sleep. One face in the line stood out to him, and he felt the hairs on his neck bristle and his posture stiffen.

A scarred older Dunmer with greasy black hair falling to his shoulders stood halfway down the line of miners. His eyes were tired, barely open, and trained on the ground in front of him. He did not see Dalamus approaching, and this gave the vampire confidence.

Leaving Opal's side, Dalamus strode past Filnjar towards the line of sick miners. The Dunmer in line glanced up at the commotion, locked eyes with Dalamus, and all exhaustion in his body was replaced with terror. Drevain was flung to the ground before he could get a single word out—not that Dalamus would have listened to anything he had to say.

The vampire's previously dislocated arm threatened to fall out of its socket once again, the joint screaming at him, but the pleasure of landing a perfect punch across Drevain's face was too good an opportunity to pass up. The world around him ceased to exist and all decorum dissolved once he saw Drevain on the ground, frightened of him. The sick older mer was weak, thinner, exhausted, and Dalamus drank it in like ambrosia.

The vampire grinned, a flood of victorious adrenaline surging through him and pushing his own pain to the back of his mind. It could be dealt with later. But right now? He had Drevain at his mercy, and his head swam with the possibilities.

He knelt over Drevain like a sabre cat over a felled elk. His fangs caught in the light, and at this angle only his father could see. Dalamus' arm came down again, this time gripping Drevain's throat tight, pinning him against the ground. With every movement, every attempt to escape, Dalamus squeezed tighter. His fingers bit into Drevain's flesh like a blacksmith's vise; he could feel a pulse under his fingertips, struggling against the pressure. The vampire's lip quivered with barely restrained rage, his father's gasps and whimpers music to his ears.

Then, betrayal! He was being pulled off of Drevain! He struggled against the weak hands and arms, but it reminded him of his own pain and exhaustion. It took at least four people, but he was thrust back into Shor's Stone, where his revenge could not take place. Where he was surrounded by witnesses who did not know of Drevain's atrocities. Who only knew him as a miner now being assaulted.

He resisted the urge to spit and hiss and bite, to fight back, to throttle the closest person for daring to come between him and the revenge he had dreamed of for years. Instead, while being restrained and questioned, he explained himself, his words dripping with venom. “That mer, that fetcher, is my father! He is filth. Rot. Liar. Abuser.”

Stunned speechless by the accusations, all the restraining hands left Dalamus, although they remained close just in case intervention was necessary again. Dalamus moved to stand over the fallen Drevain, the rest of the townspeople hovering around him like a cage ready to close.

Dalamus' face twisted into a contemptuous smirk, and his voice lowered to a growl. “Look at you. Feeble old mer. I could kill you right here, right now. It would be so easy.” The townspeople tensed, ready to leap into action, but such was not Dalamus' plan.

“But I will not. Because I am not you. I am better than what you made me. I even brought medicine.” His voice darkened and his red eyes seemed to glow with malice. “I hope you choke on it. I hope it burns. I hope it sits heavy in your stomach and nauseates you, knowing that I saved your life. I hope it eats at you for the rest of time knowing that. You. Owe. Me. That you live because I will it. Because I am better than you.”

Dalamus turned his red eyes to Filnjar, who visibly startled. Only after recovering was he able to hand the injured Dunmer the money he was owed--and he seemed more than eager to get rid of it, all but flinging it into Dalamus' hand. Dalamus weighed the heft of the coin pouch and, satisfied, nodded. “Unfortunately, your watchtower guards were killed by passing Imperials. I killed the troll that had begun feasting on their bodies. It should be safe to reach them for burial, if you wish, but I warn you the sight is.. not pretty. Oh. And, Father~” he called, locking eyes with the other mer for a final time, his sing-song tone not enough to disguise the venom on his tongue.

“If I see you anywhere near my family, I will tear you into so many pieces that every animal in the Rift will get a bite.” It was Drevain's turn to live in fear. He tossed the troll's head towards the downed mer as proof of his prowess in battle, proof of his strength.

Dalamus then pushed himself up into Opal's saddle and they began their trek towards home. Every broken bone in his body screamed in time with hoof beats, but it was important to Dalamus that Drevain see him leave strongly. He had to make an impression, even if it meant searing pain. He had to appear strong. Triumphant.

It was only after he was certain they were out of eyesight that Dalamus curled in on himself in the saddle, gripping at his side, sucking in air through his teeth in a vain attempt to somehow stabilize himself. The adrenaline was wearing off and the pain came rushing back. He felt as though he had been run over by an entire herd of horses. Twice. And the sun was getting low. He needed to get back to Riften quickly. The sooner he could lay in a bed and get everything stabilized, the sooner he could heal correctly.

But it was not just the physical pain that engulfed him. The confrontation with his abuser left him trembling despite his own clear upper hand. He had felt so powerful in the moment, but now he was wracked with fear. Were there going to be consequences to this? What if Drevain did not believe his threats? Had he just endangered his family rather than protecting them? He slumped in the saddle and fought the urge to sob, clenching his teeth to prevent any sounds from escaping. Nothing could prevent the sting in his eyes. He had come so close to killing Drevain. So why did it feel like Drevain had still won?

When he got back to Riften, he would warn his loved ones of Drevain’s presence in Shor’s Stone.

“Ruhn,” he told Opal. The word for “home”. He just wanted to get home. Everything hurt.

Everything hurt.

#missy writing #dalamus story #shors stone #aka Dal and the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day #copy/pasted directly from LibreOffice so please for the love og god Tumblr don't mess up the format lkjdhfg #drevainrex #abuse mention #not described just mentioned #descriptions of blood and gore #descriptions of corpses

[spicysourchimken]

Murder! Murder! Murder!

TRIGGER WARNING: discussions of death, murder, descriptions of corpses, gore and corpse desecration

(This Idea is loosely inspired by @/the-witchhunter's 'Ghost in the Morgue', please go check it out if you like this concept and have not yet read it)

[Other stuff in this AU: World Building]

Corpses au Danny, not just Corpse but Corpses. Every time Danny transforms he drops a new body, Danny honestly has lived with it long enough that it's funny at this point (and also. maybe made him a little weird about his own death and or deaths). This is not the same for Tim, who now has to deal with a potential serial killer.

Tim is looking into a string of strange and suspicious deaths that might point to the appearance of a new rogue, this results in him taking a visit to the morgue as Red Robin, only to meet a potential victim, Daniel Fenton the latest medical examiner for GCPD.

----

Tim was the one who had found the first body a week ago. He'd been on patrol when he'd spotted it propped up against a dumpster in an alley. It couldn't have been there longer than an hour, the blood was far too fresh.

Tim had planned to just check out the scene and call it in, but then he actually saw the body. It'd been eviscerated, torso ripped open organs spilling out and its hands had been frozen to the ground- hell the entire body seemed to be coated in a layer of frost.

Tim kept tabs on the investigation, if anything for simple curiosity. Then they'd found the second body. Body frozen to the ground, same victim profile- but the death had been completely different. Slashed throat, face mutilated.

Then there was another, and this time Tim wanted to see it in person. This was either a serial killer or the start of a new rogue, and for Tim to be able to tell he needed to see. He sent word to Gordon, if anything more of a warning. He was greeted by the medical examiner.

Greeted was a strong word.

The medical examiner was... strange. Tim had heard news of him starting work and as far as Tim was aware of he was clean, and an almost boring person. The medical examiner that Tim met was unnerving. Pale, staring almost through him and carried blase attitude to his work.

What was worse is that he reminded so much of a corpse, not just a corpse but the corpse.

Then it struck him.

Fenton could be a target. Fenton could be the focus of the killer's obsession.

He'd have to keep tabs on Fenton, too bad he might be the most reckless Gotham citizen in existence.

----

Gotham, admittedly hadn't been Danny's first pick after he finished medical school. Danny had always intended to become a medical examiner, dealing with your own corpses for years would do that do you. 'Finished' was the real problem, Danny had been doing well, great even but then he'd died. Twice. Real unfortunate really, hit and run and then poison, left him with a dry throat for weeks.

His own classmate apparently tried to kill him, which means it would be more than hard to actually finish medical school. That's fine, he had access to Tucker, an actual godsend who was able to make it look like he had all the proper qualifications... as long as you didn't look too hard.

Gotham was apparently pressed for a good medical examiner. All he needed to be was experienced.

Thankfully he had that in spades.

Things frankly only started going down hill last week. He'd made a habit of taking on requests between work, occultist avoided Gotham like the plague leaving him the only voice for the dead. Usually it was pretty easy gig, collect some momentos, help a few ghosts recognize they're dead. Until he'd had to deal with a Wraith.

It didn't go well. Danny was dead set on handling it as a human, appearing as Phantom could cause all matter of chaos. Danny had also not been informed that the claws of a wraith could pierce through human flesh so there's that. Danny was once again evicted from the mortal coil, dropping his own corpse and having to finish the fight off

Danny had planned to deal with his body after gaining his human form back and making sure that the thing could no longer return to the earthly plane. Turns out a bat got there first, turned the place into a crime scene. Just his luck he was beaten bloody enough to be unrecognizable.

His luck continued to go down hill when he was killed, not once, not twice but three times (this of course, wasn't accounting for the times he'd needed to go ghost). He'd gotten good at taking care of his bodies in Gotham at that point, or so he thought, until he was told he had not only a new body on his table and Red Robin waiting to be escorted to his morgue.

Now Danny has to juggle the growing chaos that it they spirits of Gotham while trying to make sure none of his bodies are identified, even if that means making a mess of Red Robin's investigations.

#for anyone wondering about the world building around Danny and his many many corpses feel free to send an ask because I got Thoughts #dc x dp #dpxdc #dp x dc #dp x dc au #tw death #tw murder #tw corpse #tw corpses #tw description of corpses

[the-magpie-archives]

Like many of you, I am fascinated with the state of Jonathan Sims head archivist of the magnus institute London... In particular, his ribs! Many focus only on his missing two, but there are many more things to consider!

Jon's a fragile guy, I mean it's pretty much his whole canon appearance! For a man like him to be thrown around like a ragdoll for pretty much his entire time as archivist, he'd certainly have suffered more than a few broken ribs!

To contribute even more to the damage, after the unknowing, Jon was found with no pulse and not breathing, meaning he would have undergone CPR for at least 20 minutes. And trust me, THAT BREAKS RIBS.

Aside from bones, I can't imagine Jon's lungs are in the best state either. He's a long time smoker, was exposed to dangerous amounts of CO2, and survived a massive explosion followed by a collapsing building. Needless to say, these sort of things make it hard to keep lungs healthy!

Despite all the pain and horror, I like to think that Jon managed to stay looking at least relatively put together, so picture this:

A polite, slightly awkward office worker comes into your clinic. You decide that to diagnose properly, you'll need to do a chest X-ray! He's distracted, but readily agrees. After the brief wait, you get the images back, and see THE MOST FUCKED UP CHEST YOU HAVE EVER SEEN. A horrifying amount of healed fractures, warped and re-broken; two ribs are just straight up gone, both lungs scarred beyond survivability, and somehow this guy is just sitting there. Alive, as far as you can tell.

The man remains composed, and smiles politely as you stare at the X-rays, and you begin to think that maybe those aren't acne scars across his face.

#Overall I would just love to do a full medical examination on him... God it'd be fascinating. #Man's using otherworldly life support to keep his corpse up and walking #But seriously Google 'healed rib fractures' if you don't already know what they look like‚ shits interesting. #tma #the magnus archives #the magnus institute #Jonathan Sims #the archivist #The unknowing #jared hopworth #tma the flesh #tw injury #tw doctors #tw graphic description

[ilynpilled]

jaime through the eyes of other povs

#ik ik reconstruction of b&tb #also appearances #doodoo caca covered in gold #doesnt change the fact that he is an it boy #i still love tho that before asos he is presented to us as someone truly inhuman #like a griffith esque villain/beast #like these descriptions arent even positive they r just grand #like this kind of perfection is so inhuman #until he is brought back down and made into someone so thoroughly human #tbf this illusion also breaks when he falls off his horse and gets his helmet stuck on his head like a loser #half a corpse & half a god iktr #imagine being the worst guy ever and that all these people want to bash ur skull in #but 90% of them still go like #ok but id hit… #jaime lannister #valyrianscrolls

[nat-space-obsessed]

For @kinglazrus !! Super excited abt this one! I love corpse aus so I just had to do this one.

AO3 Link

"There's a shallow grave in the woods. The only marker is a stone with the name "Danny" scratched into it. Judging by the fresh-turned soil, it hasn't been empty for long."

The call came in from a hiker early in the morning.

She'd been going on her daily hike when she decided to go on a route that was different from her normal route.

When she tripped over the rock, she should have known that there was something wrong. At first, she started to walk past, and continue on her hike.

It was on her way back that she really noticed the issue.

The rock she had tripped over had writing that she didn't notice the first time.

It was a simple engraving, probably done with another rock or a different sharp tool, definitely not professionally done.

There was one word.

A name.

'DANNY'

It was at that point that she realized that the dirt path seemed to be disturbed near the edges, as if someone had gone digging.

Oh god, someone had been digging .

As she looked at the disturbed dirt, she saw something odd. It was an odd color, looking as if it had been burned or melted, blackened.

It was a bone.

A charred, dirty, old bone, covered in a material that had melted and fused to it.

It was like one of those horror stories, of certain toys made from plastic materials melting onto skin if exposed to too much heat.

She called the police station the second she was in range of a cell tower.

All the operator at the call center heard was, "God, the bones , they're black, they're burned. There's bones in the woods ."

The CSI left the station immediately.

.

..

...

"She wasn't kidding, these bones were definitely burned, but they're weird. It's more reminiscent of electrical burns. What could output enough power to burn a body so thoroughly by electrocution?" The lead CSI said. She was wearing gloves and slowly unburying the body.

The more they uncovered, the more horrified they were.

"This is a kid," A member of the team said, "Either a kid or a small person. The size of the bones indicate that the owner of this body was under 5 ft. Maybe a small kid? What name did the stone say?"

"Danny, I think, it's a little hard to read, but that looks like the right name."

"Wait, wasn't there a kid that went missing a year ago from Amity named Danny?"

"Yeah, but I thought the parents were under suspicion, with that weird lab in their basement."

"Didn't the sister call it in?" The one handling the bones said.

The case they were talking about was the case of Daniel Fenton. He had gone missing four weeks before his freshman year, except he was only reported missing when his sister came back from a college summer camp. Two weeks after he supposedly went missing.

Because of this, nobody actually figured out when he went missing. The police had searched the entire Fenton home, which had uncovered the lab in the basement of the home.

The Fentons had a portal. An interdimensional portal to some place they called the Ghost Zone, and it had corresponded with sightings of weird, translucent, flying people that had been sighted in the city.

They had been taken into custody, but then later released due to a lack of evidence. His sister was still advocating for missing children, especially kids who weren't reported until long after they vanished.

"But this body is too decomposed for only a few months. Maybe the burns accelerated it?"

"I mean, if this is the Fenton kid-"

"Don't start being a conspiracy theorist now, Sean." The lead investigator said, shaking her head.

"You never know!"

.

..

...

The coroner's office was cold. The autopsy room was colder.

The body on the table was small, a kid, wearing a plastic material that had seemed to fuse with the bones it was covering.

The bones, God the bones. They were blackened, covered in a dark material, flesh that had been burnt to a blackened crisp.

The coroner looked at the body in front of him and sighed.

The only thing he could easily use for identification that wasn't fingerprints or DNA were dental records. Luckily, while the corpse was completely desecrated, the bones were somehow intact.

He was able to take a scan of the teeth and send them off to be compared with all local dentist offices within a 50 mile radius.

It was a few minutes later when he got the ping.

There's a match.

"Shit."

.

..

...

The Fentons were in their lab when they got a phone call.

"Hello, this is Jack Fenton of Fentonworks, how can I help you?" The burly man said into the receiver.

"Hello, Mr. Fenton. This is the Briggersdale Police Department, calling you to inform you that a few days ago, we found a body in the woods. This body has been identified as the body of your son, Daniel." The voice on the other end said to him.

"What?" Jack stood with the phone in hand in shock. Maddie chose that moment to walk into the room.

"Are you okay, Jack?"

Jack thanked the officer and hung up. "They... found a body."

"A body? Why did they contact you? Where was this?"

"The next town over. The body was identified. It was Danny's."

A sharp intake of breath could be heard from Maddie. "We need to call Jazz."

"She isn't speaking to us, she'd just ignore anything we have to say to her."

"She'll listen, it's about Danny."

.

..

...

Jazz Fenton had been having a good day. She had only one class that morning, her favorite introduction to developmental psychology course, and she had just finished speaking with her roommate about their date next weekend with their longtime girlfriend. She was happy for them. She was having a good time, reading one of her favorite books at her desk.

It was a good day, until she got the phone call.

It was from her parents.

She refused the call at first. This was the third time that week her parents had tried to contact her, and the third time she refused their call.

Usually they stopped trying to call her, and just left her a few texts after she refused their call, but this time was different.

She should have known something was wrong.

"What is it? I thought I told you guys to never contact me again." Jazz spoke before either of her parents could even get one word out.

"Jazz... They found it."

"What, what did they find?" Jazz stood up. She was really getting annoyed now, with them being all cryptic towards her.

"His body. Jazz, they found Danny's body."

Jazz's phone slipped out of her hands.

What?

They found his body. They found his body.

Oh god, he was actually dead.

Jazz knew after the first few days she realized her brother was missing that the chances of finding him again were slim to none, and after the first two weeks, she knew that she would probably sooner see a body bag than see her brother alive again.

But this? This made it real.

He was dead.

He was gone .

She was never going to see him again.

Oh god, this was real .

She stared in front of her. She stared at the wall.

Her knees gave out and she slumped to the ground.

She could feel her eyes well up with tears.

She could hear her roommate shouting her name and kneeling in front of her as she sobbed, crying and trying to say anything, but no words would come out of her mouth.

Oh god, she had to tell Sam and Tucker.

No way would her parents even know that he had them as his friends, and they were always the first people that she gave updates to, even before her parents. They deserved to know he was... dead. That they had found his body.

.

..

...

Sam and Tucker were hanging out at Tucker's house when Sam's phone rang.

She picked it up, recognizing the number as Jazz's.

Tucker watched as emotions crossed her face, beginning with worry, and ending in dread.

"Oh my god. Tucker. They found it."

“Shit.” He said.

“Shit.” She nodded in agreement.

#corpse au #danny phantom #ao3 fanfic #danny fenton #phic phight #phic phight 2024 #fanfiction #a couple ocs #but not really #Sam and tucker #they know something you don't #they know something you will never know #angst #kind of #description of a corpse #My forensic knowledge comes from trye crime and the show Bones #innacurate forensics #maybe #idk #sam and tucker just looking at each other like 'oh no #might do a part 2

[akolnoix]

gay sex wouldn't have fixed seishin and toshio's relationship but i think they should've given it a shot anyway

#shiki #corpse demon #seishin muroi #toshio ozaki #shout out to all 5 of my fellow toshisei warriors 🫡 #got more embarrassed writing out the image descriptions than drawing the images

[ty-bayonet-betteridge]

can we talk for five seconds about how bonesaw almost figured out the Cycle entirely by observing peoples brains as they triggered. and she was younger than 12 when she did it.

#she is such a genius its amazing i love her #like ye she tortured and murdered hundreds but she also made enormous strides in the field of parahuman medicine #wow gee why does that description sound familiar... #glares at the flayed remains of doc moms corpse #wormblr #parahumans #worm spoilers #riley davis #riley grace davis #bonesaw

[slightly-awkward-sunshine]

Finished re-reading the Gregor the Overlander series in probably 15 years and I’ve been ugly sobbing for an hour (it’s now 3:30am)

Real question is how did I not remember my favorite character dies in the end?? Twelve year old me really blocked that out huh

There were so many specific moments I remembered so clearly across all five books but my childhood comfort character fucking dying a gruesome traumatic death was not one of them 🤔

Fucking Suzanne Collins man 🧍‍♀️you read her books as kids and go hmm wow war is really traumatic 😞and then you re-read them as an adult and it’s like jESUS CHRIST

#the last two books in the series are so fucking dark honestly idk if they could get published nowadays #this is not me saying it’s a bad thing they are so graphic in their descriptions of the horrors of war #I actually think that’s part of her brillance of writing #it’s just interesting I’m seemingly more affected as an adult #by her descriptions of genocide plague corpse-littered fields etc #but maybe I’m more affected bc I can draw comparisons to real world horrors #whereas as a child I was more just fascinated by the gruesome depictions than disturbed by them #food for thought #anyways #I won’t get over him dying tho it’s just so cruel #gregor the overlander #Maeve talks

[fitzrove]

Tags on your post about RPF made me think... Okay, I get the bisexuality, but what does BDSM crown prince Rudolph look like? An extremely Cursed mental image if you ask me. Like an extremely pretentious Christian Grey.

You missed a crucial part of the tag -- BDSM sub crown prince Rudolf ;) which is canon in the musical as far as I'm concerned,,,,

#not that your asessment is far off ajsjjffjk i think irl rudolf fits that description #HSHFJFJJG he's one of those tumblr memes that are like 'not gonna lie kitten daddy's about to shoot himself in the right temple rn' #also not to get off topic but i love how andy bieber rudolf just lies there like a corpse and silently sobs when tod goes in for the kiss #jxfdjklgsjfsjsg. symbolism #asks #kronprinz rudolf

[ask-thearchivists]

Now I’m curious, what happened last time you helped Charmer?

The Cartographer: It was during the mission with the Titans. Charmer knew it would be a lot of work to get rid of them, so she wanted one of us to help her train and command the slayers she was going to use to kill them all. Because it was anticipated to be a mission that would ultimately require Cleaning, Coordinator was busy writing down all the information on the species, societies, and food webs as quickly as possible, while Curator was expanding the Archive in anticipation of a great sudden influx of mortals. So I was the only one not currently busy.

The Cartographer: So he brought me down and explained his plans, what had happened and what was planned to happen. She explained her idea to trick the babies and children into trusting the mortals she had enlisted, by taking the skins and skulls of little Titans that had already been killed and having the mortals wear them. He wanted me to try on one that he had made so he could see how convincing it looked.

The Cartographer: I'll never forget the smell inside the skull, the way the fur felt on my arms. I had to leave immediately. I came back to the Archive. I pulled that horrible thing off me. I'm probably not allowed to tell you how else I reacted. But who cares? I got sick onto the floor. I knew it was going to happen, which is why I left, because we're not allowed to show any perceived weakness to mortals. The Coordinator was angry and yelled at me for leaving without saying anything, I think. All I remember is the way my arms were still itching from the fur, like things were crawling all over me. The Curator grabbed my hands and the Coordinator stopped yelling. I had scratched my arms until I started to bleed.

#ask blog #ask the archivists #asks are open #toh the archivists #the owl house #toh #toh oc #the archivists #id in alt text #self harm #panic attack #blood mention #description of corpses #murder implied #child murder implied #child manipulation #fictional genocide #vomiting implied #child abuse mention #ask to tag #great googly moogly if you need this tagged for anything PLEASE SAY SO #I did finish my puppet of Charmer so now I just need to draw the intro post for him #oh yeah and they don't mention it but they were like (emotionally mentally physically) 14 when this happened #Me running this blog: Haha yes talk to my Archivists aren't they neat #And then The Horrors appear

[lezzian]

i was led to believe disco elysium was a fun game about communism and substance abuse but it's a depressing as fuck game about communism and substance abuse

#mission report #disco elysium #the descriptions of the corpse alone are just. gross in such an unglamorous way #(which fits the tone! but man it's different from what i expected!)

[sky-neverending]

TW: mentions of death, corpses, and injury (the characters are already dead and have been for a long time), light descriptions of wounds and broke bones, and overall just heed the warning that this is basically just “what would happen if the crows all died” but from an outside perspective years later. also crooked kingdom spoilers. ok i think that’s all, it’s nothing too graphic or descriptive but i want to warn just in case

Six bodies lay in shallow graves, where the grass meets the sea. Six corpses, all decomposing into earth below them and becoming one with the land they, in varying degrees of reluctance, called home. Six piles of bones, all lined up in a row underneath the feet of whoever chose to walk over that barren wasteland.

Five of the bodies were buried at the same time.

The first, with a cane in one clutched hand and a body full of broken ribs. The other hand was stretched toward the smaller body beside him, this one with a knife under the bones where her thigh would be, and two completely shattered ankles.

The third and fourth bodies were that of two boys, barely men. Their fingers were intertwined, the bones almost melded together from years under the soil. The younger boy’s skeleton was broken into fragments at the wrists and the chest, almost as if an explosion had gone wrong and burnt through the skin. The older had a single gunshot wound to his skull.

The fifth body had no obvious sign of death except a small hole in her chest, but not one that signaled broken bones, or a gunshot, or any sort of physical trauma. It was almost as if she had been killed from the inside out, an internal force leading to the tragic passing.

The sixth body was deeper in the ground, the state of decomposition further along than the others by a year's worth of time. It too was the victim of a gunshot, the rest of the large frame untouched.

These six bodies were recorded as the following: Kaz Brekker, Inej Ghafa, Wylan Van Eck, Jesper Fahey, Nina Zenik, and Matthias Helvar. The first five died during their final, fatal heist. The last, a year prior.

It is said that Brekker wrote the following statement in his will, which was rewritten days before his death:

I am going to die. We all are. If you cannot bury me in gold, bury me with the rest of them. Bury me where he was taken from me. Let the tide run over my skin until I'm nothing but a shell of a man. Let them forget me.

The bottom of the note was marked with the coordinates of the graves. It is unknown how Kaz Brekker knew he was going to die, or who the ‘he’ is that he refers to.

All that is known are the rumors. The stories. The whispers of tragedy in the wind that blows in with the tide.

All that’s left is the bones.

The bones of the ones known as Crows.

#sky writes #six of crows #shadow and bone netflix #wylan van eck #jesper fahey #kaz brekker #nina zenik #inej ghafa #matthias helvar #the crows #tw: death #tw: injury #tw: corpse #pls read the tws #even though it’s not super descriptive #crooked kingdom #ck spoilers

[rosemaidenvixen]

Another prompt for the Halloween thing: TOH completely this time, The Collector is a lot more dangerous than he appears and when Luz and everyone get back to the Boiling isles to save everyone, there's the smell of decay and death in the air. The witches and demons are puppets. But not eating or sleeping for weeks has turned them into corpse puppets... And the Collector is still out there.

tw: graphic descriptions of corpses, vomiting

Ao3

“Over here guys, I think I see something!” Luz heard the others hurrying behind her as she rushed through the trees. After getting back to the Boiling Isles the six of them had wandered for nearly an hour before she’d spotted the glyph from King’s island carved into one of the trees.

Taking it as a sign she’d looked and found more of the same glyph, leading them deeper and deeper into the woods. Not knowing where they were leading, but not having any other markers they kept following.

And hoping with all her might that she was heading towards Eda and King.

Then at the crest of a hill, deep in the heart of the Bat Queen’s forest, she’d spotted the fabric tops of tents. Tents that all of them were now rushing towards.

As they got closer witches and demons peeked out of tents, expressions of terror turning to concern as they spotted them.

“Kids!?”

“What are they doing here?”

“How did they stay safe!?”

A witch pushed through the crowd towards them, a familiar witch.

“Raine!” Luz ran towards them.

“Luz, how are you here!? I thought you kids were trapped in the human real–” Raine shook their head “It doesn’t matter, here, all of you put one of these on,”

Raine handed out small medallions, each of them carved with King’s glyph. Now that she could stop and look for a second, Luz could see Raine wearing one as well. All the people were, King’s glyph was everywhere. Carved into trees and painted on tents and etched into jewelry.

Suddenly everyone started asking questions at once.

“Is this everyone? Are my dads here?”

“Why are you hiding out in the woods?”

“What’s going on with the Collector!?”

Raine held up a hand for silence, letting out a deep breath “We do have a large group of survivors here, but looking for a specific person will take some time–”

Luz scrambled towards them getting up close and personal “Survivors!? What did you survive!? Are Eda and King…”

Raine’s expression became tight “Eda and King are…secure. The Collector has latched on to King as their playmate, they’re keeping him close but he’s not in any danger. Eda…”

Their voice dropped low “Eda is stuck in her cursed form, but the Collector is very attached to her as well. They’re keeping her locked up in their archives, along with some other people including the former coven heads. I was with them for a while, then King taught me this glyph and I was able to escape. But don’t worry, Eda, King, everyone else the Collector’s imprisoned should be safe,”

“Safe…..?” Amity crept forward “What are they ‘safe’ from?”

Something flickered behind Raine’s eyes, so fast Luz nearly missed it “Don’t worry about that right now, let’s just get you kids some rest and something to eat,”

Luz just stared, mouth slightly parted and heartbeat stuttering.

She knew an evasion when she heard one.

From behind Camila stepped up and put an arm around her shoulders “Mija I know you’re worried, but I think we should listen to…Raine and try to get some rest before we make our next step,”

In some tiny corner of her mind Luz knew her mom was right, but she knew there was something awful going on and couldn’t stop thinking about what it could be. 

“Raine…”

Raine bit their lip and looked away.

Which was why it caught them off guard when another witch came running up.

“Head witch Whipsers, we’ve recovered more of them, they’re gathered in the big tent with all the others. We’re tracking down any next of kin right now and once we get the all clear we’ll begin the autopsies,”

Raine’s skin instantly went ashy. Luz felt her own face stretch into a mask of horror, and knew the others had to be the same.

“Autopsies!? Raine what’s going on!?”

“I…”

Abruptly Amity darted away from the group and ran in the direction the witch had come from.

“Amity wait!”

“We shouldn’t split up!”

“Come back!”

The rest of them raced after her, ignoring Raine and Camila’s shouts of alarm behind them. They followed Amity as she sprinted through camp, dodging past witches and demons as she went. Coming up to a large tent on the outskirts of the camp and darting inside.

Luz was just about to pull open the flap and head in herself when the most primal, gut wrenching scream she ever heard echoed from within. A sound so awful she almost couldn’t believe it came from a person.

It took her a few seconds to realize the sound was Amity.

She hesitated, looking back at all the others. They looked uncertain and frightened, but they stood their ground. Willow steeling her expression and giving Luz a single nod.

Luz nodded back before turning forward, taking a deep breath, and stepping inside.

She’d been preparing to face something utterly horrific, braced herself for it, but what she was inside seemed completely…normal, if not a little odd. The tent was full of rows and rows of people lying on the ground. For a second she wondered if this was some kind of infirmary, but none of the people were lying on beds, just straight on the ground. 

Ok so not an infirmary, was this some kind of…nap tent? But then why–

A second later she spotted Amity huddled kneeling on the ground right next to one of the reclined figures, sobbing into her hands.

They all moved towards her, Luz kneeling down to put a comforting hand on her shoulder “Amity what’s…”

It was at the moment Luz noticed the familiar grudgby uniforms on the people lying in front of Amity. And only a second after that did she recognize the people themselves.

“Boscha!?” She scrambled closer “What’s going on? Why are you…”

Luz trailed off when she realized that Boscha wasn’t responding, not so much as a twitch. She hadn’t moved the entire time Luz was in here, none of the people had.

On the ground Amity sobbed even harder.

Something cold and dense settled in Luz’s belly as she realized something was very very wrong here.

“Boscha…” Luz kneeled down on the ground, from behind she could hear the others talking in hushed whispers “Are you…ok?”

Again no response, Boscha stayed perfectly still staring up at the ceiling, all the grudgby players did. Something was off about Boscha, about all of them, besides their unnatural stillness, but she couldn’t figure out what.

Before she even realized what she was doing Luz found herself reaching towards Boscha’s arm–

The second her hand made contact she ripped it away with a screech, scrambling back on the ground, heart pounding.

“Luz!” Gus immediately stepped up behind her “What’s wrong?”

“I– I–” Luz couldn’t get enough air, heart pounding and hand clutched against her chest.

Boscha’s skin had been cold and slick, more than any person’s should be, it felt like touching a piece of plastic rather than a living breathing pers–

Her heart stopped, the world around her slowing to a crawl.

It finally hit her what was so off about Boscha and the grudgby team. They were completely motionless, eyes staring glassily upwards, no steady rise and fall of their chests.

Boscha and the grudgby team were dead. Everyone in this tent was.

The sound returned to her world with a pop, Amity’s sobs, Willow, Gus, and Hunter’s horrified shouts as they realized it to. Her vision filled with rows and rows of corpses–

Luz pitched to the side and vomited, hacking and spasming until she was coughing up bile. 

She was startled out of it by a gentle hand on her shoulder. Whipping around she saw Raine, the look on their face sad but not surprised. Still shaking, Luz allowed Raine to help her to her feet, from the corner of her eye she saw her mom had Amity, still sobbing, wrapped in a tight embrace. The other three were drifting around the rows, Willow and Gus’ expressions pale and drawn, Hunter’s face a cold mask.

It took longer than she thought but Luz managed to find her voice “Raine what happened!? Why are all these people…”

Raine shut their eyes and pulled in a deep breath “When people didn’t want to play with the Collector he’d put a spell on them that would turn them into puppets. At first we thought the spell put them in stasis. But it soon became apparent that it didn’t. And after several days without food or water those affected would starve to death,”

“And the Collector…just kept going?” Willow stepped up to them, face pale and eyes brimming “Doesn’t he care that he’s killing them?”

Raine’s expression became pinched “They do care…they just don’t understand what death actually is. They didn’t understand that they were killing people by turning them into puppets. And whenever their puppets start to decay they attempted to…fix them with their magic…”

Entire body cold now, Luz turned and looked around. Only now did she notice the various stages of decomposition on the bodies. Some were nearly pristine, like Boscha and the grudgby team, but others had skin discolored and missing in places, chunks of bone exposed. There was even one unfortunate person that was barely recognizable, scraps of purple and brown flesh clinging to black bones. Something that should’ve fallen apart from rot held together by unnatural power–

But no smell, they were surrounded by cadavers but Luz couldn’t smell anything. The stench of decaying bodies sealed behind the plasticy veneer left by the Collector.

Somehow in a tent full of corpses that was the most unsettling thing.

“The Collector was frustrated by their failures to ‘fix’ them,” Raine continued  “Fortunately they only used their puppet spell sparingly after that, and King was able to persuade them to–”

All of a sudden Raine clammed up.

Luz looked up at them sharply “Raine…what did King get them to do?”

Raine couldn’t meet her eyes.

“Just– just tell us,” Hunter stepped up to them “Just tell us or we’re going to imagine something worse!”

Raine swallowed hard, raised their head to look Hunter in the eye, and then spoke “King persuaded them to…practice their ‘fixing’ on the remains he found of the previous golden guards,”

Luz could actually see the wave of shock crashing through the group as they all staggered back, Hunter’s expression turning stricken.

Deep down Luz knew she should be freaking out along with the rest of them, but she couldn’t figure out how to make her body move.

Meanwhile Hunter had composed himself, or more likely shoved everything behind a mask of professionalism “So what happens when the Collector realizes that he can’t ‘fix’ the previous golden guards,”

Raine just looked down, not saying anything. And if they noticed Luz’s fingers digging into their arm as she clinged to them they didn’t react.

The Collector, a being who’d moved the moon with a flick of their finger, didn’t understand death. And truly didn’t understand what he was doing when he killed people and stitched them back together and sealed them under a layer of shrink wrap.

She’d fought demons, monsters, and Belos himself, but knowing there was a god-like child out there playing with people’s lives with all the carelessness of paper dolls chilled her to her core.

#the owl house #luz noceda #raine whispers #amity blight #hunter #willow park #gus porter #camila noceda #fanfic #halloween prompts #graphic descriptions of corpses #corpses #vomiting #rmvwrites

[recorded-anew]

WAIT IS NOTJON JUST REGULAR-ASS ACTUAL NONFICTIONAL HUMAN JONNY SIMS???

see. the joke was he was vaguely designed around regular-ass actual nonfictional human jonny sims, but within the story he is not, in fact, regular-ass actual nonfictional human jonny sims. I couldn't do that to regular-ass actual nonfictional human jonny sims.

#mod corpse #wip ask tag #notjon #big fan of the description of him as regular-ass actual nonfictional human jonny sims #Going to start calling him that #regular-ass actual nonfictional human jonny sims

[heraldofavalir]

shoulder the sky

(read on ao3)

Here is how the story goes on: mud up to her ankles, the buzz of magic lingering in the air like gulping down static, and the stench of rot. Elody is more than familiar with the smell, knows her way around a battlefield, knows the ways in which death announces itself. It blows in from ahead of her, on the road, and she almost—almost—goes around.

There are times when a fight is needed. There are times when a fight is best avoided. Her numbers are few; she picked a handful of her knights to accompany her, on this one, last, desperate search for allies. If she leads them into a trap, walks them into something for which they are unprepared, then that will be the end.

She is tired. But she is not ready for that.

So she almost gives the order to find a different path. But the rot is thick, and smells like not just flesh, but also wood and cloth and perhaps fruit, something growing that undoubtedly is no longer. And that buzz of magic—difficult to ignore, that. She is here for anything that could give her an edge. Anything to reclaim her kingdom, save her people.

She calls her knights to a halt.

“I’m going to investigate,” she says. “If I do not return, or if you hear me give the order to do so, proceed back to Shoeberg. I don’t want anyone taking foolish risks.”

They want to protest, she can tell. They will not. She is their princess.

(armor is so much heavier than a gown, but she has learned that a crown and a helm weigh much the same)

It is raining, a steady drizzle. The mud sucks at her boots. Mace in hand, she walks forward, and the buzz grows stronger. Rattling her bones, her teeth. She grimaces.

She sees the pumpkin first, massive and dead, hollowed out and falling apart. There is furniture scattered about here, and it sends shivers up her spine even before she understands what she is seeing, sees the twisted malformity, sees a human face here and a human arm there and she can only hope that this was furniture transformed and not people, because either way is grotesque and terrible but the latter would be worse.

There are bodies. People. Animals. Much of it not fresh. Splintered wagons. Remnants of armor, swords. Torn clothing, bones picked clean and bones still glistening. It is easy to guess what they fell victim to, and she watches the furniture warily, her arm loose and ready, mace held steadily. But it does not stir, and though the magic still hangs here like a plague of locusts, it feels purposeless. Aimless. An aftershock, a release, a last violent cry.

She picks through the battlefield. This is familiar. It is not only mud on her boots. She finds fresher bodies; a few days old at most, only just begun to decompose. An old man, clutching a book to his chest; she wonders if it was worth dying for. A young woman, briars curling around her skin, and further inspection reveals that the thorns grow from her flesh rather than the ground. They weave around her like an embrace, and Elody does not try to move her.

She finds the young girl between two hills. Her stoicism cracks; she has seen many corpses. Not so many dead children. The girl is surrounded by furniture, some of it whole, some of it hacked to pieces. She fought.

Elody crouches. Closes the girl’s eyes. Breathes in and out.

There are more bodies, older. Dead horses. A cat wearing a cape and boots, someone’s beloved pet or a sentient creature in its own right; impossible to say which. Torn belongings, rusted swords, a child’s doll, a puppet half devoured by termites and covered in moss.

She finds the fairy. Dead. Dead for a long time, by the looks of her, though the strength of the magic here tells her that that cannot be right. The fairy’s face is frozen in a howl, her eyes glassy and wild and something deeply unnatural about her state of decay.

Elody does not think that there is a threat here. Not anymore. She feels a bit of relief,

(she does not hold with fairies, not their promises and not their curses)

but mostly just an emptiness. Perhaps determination, if she is feeling generous.

One last time, she inspects the fairy. Just to be sure that she is dead. No threat.

Satisfied that she has discerned the source of the rot, she almost does not see Gerard.

Almost.

(here is how the story goes on, and here is why: the story must go on because the story is ever after, and there is no beginning to that and there is no end, because the ever after is implied in the once upon a time and no beginning is true and no ending either because there is always another story and it does not stop)

(once upon a time, there was a frog prince in a pond)

(once upon a time, there was a boy who was a child who was a child around the wrong person)

(once upon a time, there was a princess with a golden ball)

(once upon a time, there was a girl who made a friend)

It doesn’t register, at first. She sees him. Knows him. Thinks, what is he doing here? Thinks, that’s odd, because she doesn’t know where her husband is because the castle has fallen and her people are scattered and she has had so many other things to worry about than tracking down which group of refugees Gerard fled with, which band of children and elderly. Because Gerard fled, of course; she never considered he would do anything else.

(because he is alive, of course; she never considered he could be anything else)

The image is so incongruous. Gerard belongs in the castle, eyes shining and cheeks flushed with wine. Gerard belongs in the castle, willfully ignoring the rest of the world and all it has come to. Gerard belongs in the castle, trying to pretend that his eyes have not changed and his skin has not grown sallow

(she is not blind)

and that everything is just fine.

Gerard has never belonged on a battlefield. No matter how often she wished that he could just be there for her, with her, at her side. He does not belong on a battlefield.

She takes a step. Stumbles. Her knees sink into the mud next to him. The mud is not just mud.

“Gerard,” she says. Her voice is a whisper, a rasp. She puts her hand on his chest, just over where the glass shard protrudes. His body is stiff. Flies land on his face; she bats them aside, but they come back.

He is far more froglike than the last time she saw him. How long ago was that? She doesn’t remember.

(she does)

His hands are bloody, torn to shreds. One of them lies near the glass—a spear, if anything, though no spear she has ever seen the like of.

The flies keep returning. She can’t get them off.

“Gerard,” she says again, like that will do anything, like saying his name will call him to her, will force life into a heart that stopped beating days ago when she wasn’t there. She feels a scream in her throat, and she swallows it, swallows the scream and swallows the nausea and the only noises that escape her are little hitching gasps, because it has been a very long time since she cried and it seems that she cannot allow herself to do so even now, not properly.

This is no place for you, she wants to tell him. Wants to shout. She has never shouted at him. Not even when she was angry. And she used to be angry, used to resent him, and all of that is suddenly gone because he is gone and there will be no chance to be angry at him again, and there will be no chance to fix what they had or even decide if she wanted to, if the war ever ended and she came home alive.

This is no place for you. What were you doing here?

She reaches for the shard. She does not want the shard to be in him. She reaches for it, slices her hand open. Retreats.

The damn flies are—

And he didn’t even know how to fight.

He didn’t know how to fight, and this fight found him all the same, and he is dead. He has laid here for days, and he is going to lay here longer, because this glass spear pins him to the ground and she cannot take it out. So ends Prince Gerard of Greenleigh, far from home, far from family, far from anyone who lo—

Even her mind cannot form around the word.

(this is no place for you she wants to scream and something in her wails and this is no place for me and it is no place for you or me but she has not had the luxury of caring about that for so long and she cannot start now and she cannot go back to when things were easy and good and falling in love with a frog was the simplest thing in the world and when she looked at him she felt sparks and fireworks and not hollow frustration and not this, not this gaping wound this gaping nothing where a person should be)

(this is how the story goes on, and who dictates, in the end, what is a place for a prince and princess?)

The flies—

“Get off of him,” she says. Barely a noise at all. “Leave him be.”

She swats at them. They return. She leans over his face, holds him. Holds him like she should have been here to hold him days ago, because she does not remember the last time she held him, and now, this will be the last time, and he is dead.

Hitching gasps. Nausea rolling in her stomach. A bleeding hand. An embrace unfelt. The whisper of his name.

This is what she can offer. Her eyes are dry. She can’t keep the flies away.

(the story goes on, and this world does not end because Gerard has left it)

----------

(When she departs from the castle for the final time, she has not slept in the same bed as him for more than three weeks. He still comes to see her off. He has taken to wearing shirts with increasingly high collars. She has pretended not to notice his lack of a nose, or the way his eyes are drifting slowly apart.

She has wondered, occasionally, if it hurts. She has not asked. Asking would require talking about it. She has not talked to her husband about anything in a while. She’s stopped trying.

“You won’t be gone long, right?” he asks. He shifts from foot to foot. Agitation. Maybe discomfort. He seems to be having a little more trouble with his stance today, with standing up straight.

A million responses flit to her tongue. She chooses a more neutral one.

“I’ll be gone for as long as it takes to eradicate the threat Snowhold poses us,” she says.

“Right, but like—that’s not gonna take—” He trails off, gesturing.

There is so much fear in his eyes. And it’s not that she didn’t know. Not that she didn’t know Gerard has never been able to stop looking over his shoulder whenever the dogs bray. Not that she didn’t know that some part of Gerard has always stayed in that pond.

It’s just that she dismissed it. Thought the past was in the past. And for a long time, that worked fine, until the shadows knocked at their door.

How much can she blame him, really, for wanting to draw the curtains and hide in the illusion of safety?

“It will take however long it takes,” she says. “I’ll—I’ll try not to be long.”

It’s the only comfort she’s willing to give him. She knows very well that this might take months, or years. Snowhold’s might is nothing to scoff at, and Greenleigh is not a large kingdom. This will not be an easy war; there is no such thing as an easy war to begin with.

She might not return at all.

But Gerard can’t confront that. She looks at him and feels nothing, and she does not have the energy to try, once again, to explain to him how important this is, how great the danger and how heavy her duty. She certainly does not have the energy to try, once again, to persuade him to take on some of the burden that she once thought they would share.

So: pithy words that she knows he’ll accept and wishes he wouldn’t.

“Okay,” Gerard says. So easily. Bitterness flares in her chest. “Just—stay safe, alright?” And then, he tacks on, “We’ll have a celebration when you get back. A big one. Party of the year. We’ll make all your favorites.”

Do you know what those are? she thinks, which is uncharitable, because he does. And then, Do you understand how little that matters to me right now? which is far closer to the mark.

“Alright, Gerard,” she says. She mounts her horse. She rides out, her knights behind her, her banner streaming. She does not look back.)

----------

(The bitter truth: she knows he loved her. Dearly. Above all else, if not enough to confront responsibility, if not enough to be what she needed.

An even more bitter truth: there are times she wishes that it could have been enough. That she could have allowed herself to stay, to shut out the Times of Shadow and dance until the morning came. To drink and be merry and charm all the people and fall into his arms and sleep soundly.

There are times when she wonders if she was the problem.)

----------

For the first time, she meets a princess who wears armor, like her.

“Princess Elody?” the other princess says. “I’m so glad to finally meet you.”

And Princess Cinderella of Elegy tells her a story.

(a story of stories, and this is how it goes on)

Elody considers the idea that she has lost the capacity to feel. Lost it in the mud and the blood next to her husband’s corpse, or before that in the swing of her mace into an enemy combatant’s head, or when she rode away from home and did not look back then or ever again, or the first time she woke up and stared at Gerard and her chest was empty and the sparks were gone.

She understands, now. Everything about her life suddenly makes sense. She had a fate written out for her, a love story prescribed. And the story went on, and she lost the happily but not the ever after, and all of her fighting has meant nothing at all. It’s not the part of the story that matters. She has lost everything and gained nothing, and the only thing that will be remembered about her is that she kissed a frog and made him into a prince.

And she feels numb.

“I’m sorry,” Cinderella says. “I know this is a lot to take in.”

“Yes,” she allows. “Why have you come to me?”

“There’s a group of us,” Cinderella says. “We’re not—content, let’s say, to let the fairies shove us back into our stories. We’re tired of destiny, tired of their little project. We intend to stop them, by whatever means possible, and we’d like you to join us.”

(elody, too, is tired)

“Because I’m a princess?” she says.

Cinderella’s lips twitch. “We do have a bit of a theme,” she says. “But it’s more that—you deserve to know. We all deserve to know that we don’t get to make our own choices. And we deserve the chance to change that.”

She considers the idea.

“I don’t know if I can believe you,” she says.

“That’s okay,” Cinderella says. “You don’t need to. I’ve given you a lot to ponder.”

“Where would we be going?”

“I told you about the other worlds,” Cinderella says. “One of our number, Sleeping Beauty, has awoken in a different one. We would need to go there to find her; we think that continuing our efforts in this world would be immensely more difficult than trying to move on to the next.”

Intentions, efforts. It’s all so very vague.

“I would abandon my people here,” she says, chewing on the words. Tasting them. “My duty.”

Cinderella’s gaze is even. But it is deep, and there is a vast sadness there. And an understanding. True understanding. Elody has craved understanding for so long

(though perhaps not like this, not this terrible knowledge, not fate and destiny and world upon worlds pressing down upon her, not the dawning realization that none of it, none of it at all really matters)

and here it is, in this woman’s eyes and her stance and the way she grips her polearm and holds her helm beneath her arm in a perfect mirror of how Elody has carried herself for years now.

“It’s your choice,” Cinderella says. “If you don’t want to come, that’s alright. I understand completely.”

And here is the thing: she looks at Cinderella and sees glass. Glass armor, glass helm, glass polearm. That last, in particular, catches her attention. She can trace a pattern, all the way back to the shard in Gerard’s chest.

And so, another understanding: Gerard was caught in a fight he should never have been near, that he know nothing of. A war that was never his. A casualty of circumstance, of forces far bigger than him, far greater than he could ever hope to match. Senseless loss. Meaningless.

“There’s nothing left for me here,” she says, and it tastes like truth.

She meets Cinderella’s eyes, and sees that she understands that, too.

----------

(A meeting: other princesses. A woman with lips red as the rose, skin white as snow and cold as ice, footsteps dogged by the dead. A woman smiling, a woman vivacious and bubbly and a mask to face the world, hair a whirl and words calculating. A woman who ate the beast and became the beast and who holds books so gently in her hands.

They tell her who they’re looking for. A princess by the sea. A princess of thorns.

She tells them much. She finds understanding. Company. Friends. Sisters. She does not tell them about Gerard.

By a count of years, she is older than all of them, older by a decade at least. But some of them have eyes that are ancient, and sometimes, she feels like she is the child among them, fumbling her way alone in the dark. But she is not alone, because they are there; or maybe it is that they are all alone together, all alone in the dark.

And so.

A journey: the gaps between the worlds, horrible to comprehend, difficult to walk, the shadow of the gander’s wings, beating them down into the earth. Troubled dreams; a woman’s face enters her mind, a book and a name—Scheherazade.

She is not alone. That is the most important thing. She is no longer alone. And if she is, she is alone with them.)

----------

They take the castle at dawn. The Snow Queen refuses to relent, and Elody finds that she has little mercy in her heart for her. She has lost everything to Snowhold, has little inclination to give quarter to Snowhold’s allies. There is no beauty in death, little satisfaction, but at the end of the day the castle is theirs, the library is theirs, and Snow White finally has the time to tell them why her mood has been almost warm.

“Sleeping Beauty was here,” she says. “She and her friends knew where the princess by the sea is. They’re going to find her and come back.” A smile, an eager twirl of her hands, more emotion than Elody has ever seen from her.

“We’ll be seven,” Cinderella breathes.

Elody knows that these princesses have been waiting longer than she has. The relief in Cinderella’s voice is palpable. Despite that, there is little hope—but perhaps that is to be expected.

Snow White keeps darting glances at her.

“It’s not just that,” Snow White says. “Several of her companions possess true books. One of them, an old witch has one, and it’s almost entirely blank. I offered to take a look at it for him, but he bargained dearly for it, didn’t want to part with it—but with this library here, we’ll be able to discern its nature and how best to use it. And, and—the place I saw in my mirror, the palace made of books, they’ve been there. They know where it is. It’s not in the Neverafter at all, but somewhere in between worlds.”

It’s positively an effusive speech, from her. The Beast looks intrigued; books are her wheelhouse. Rapunzel’s hair drifts about her head, some strands slow and ponderous and others moving whip-coil fast.

“She does move quick,” Cinderella says. Surprise, even a bit of awe. Affection. How easily, these women accept others into their fold. How easily they show warmth. Elody finds herself looking forward to meeting this Sleeping Beauty.

(she has never had sisters before, only distant parents and then even they were gone and she was alone in the castle and her closest connection after that was a frog in a pond a frog who was her friend once upon a time)

“She’s not kept idle,” Snow White agrees. Another glance at Elody—why is she doing that? But then, another glance at Cinderella, even less certain. “There were other things they said. Other things that—well, I’m not certain if now is the time. We’ve already so much to think about, so much to do.”

“One problem at a time,” the Beast says. “The library is large; cataloging anything of use to us will take some days.”

“Time is something we may not have much of,” Cinderella says. “But if we await Sleeping Beauty and her companions—perhaps we can afford a little.”

Rapunzel’s eyes in particular gleam brightly; already, she has sent her hair spinning throughout the castle, and Elody knows that she will leap at the chance to become more entrenched, to make it hers, to weave through the rooms and make tea for the five of them, for the seven of them, for seven of them and more.

And for her part—there is much to do, yes. So much left to fight. To plan. But for a time, they will stay, and Elody has not relaxed in a very long time, has forgotten how to let down her guard, and even here, she cannot do it. None of them can.

But maybe, for a little while, some rest.

---

(and this is how the story goes on)

---

(and cinderella walks into the hall and with her is a princess that elody has seen somewhere before like an itch in the back of her mind and with her is)

---

It’s not a gut-punch, seeing him again. It’s not a revelation. It’s not all the air leaving the room, or sparks suddenly bursting in a dead heart, or tears welling up and overflowing. She has not cried in a long time; now is not an exception.

What it is, is going for a breath to find that her lungs have forgotten what air is. It is the long-ago scream, still trapped but making itself known, beating at the cage of her throat like a rabid thing. It is hands that do not shake and knees that do not tremble, because her muscles don’t see movement as an option and the marrow of her bones is as frozen as the crown on the decapitated head out on the balcony upstairs.

Gerard walks in—alive. He is not quite the same. He is all frog and almost no man, for all that he still strides on two feet. He wears a sword sheathed at his hip; it appears functional rather than decorative. He is a little rougher, a little more ragged, something a little shadowed in his eyes.

He hugs her. She hugs him back.

(she is holding a corpse, and the flies won’t stop landing on his face, and she has never felt more powerless)

She means to keep herself distant. It should be easy; this is not her world, not her Gerard. She’d even thought about it in a vague way, the possibility that she might see him somewhere here, alive and well. Steeled herself against it. She means to be aloof, to speak to him civilly and cordially and without any weight to their interactions at all. But then he talks about the bigger picture and the things of him and—

She can’t.

She can’t—

She maintains her composure. She’s good at that. But she asks for privacy, clears the room, because—well. He obviously has things to say. Things he should be saying to the Elody of this world, no doubt. But he says that he won’t trouble her with the things of him, and it’s such a Gerard thing to say and so very not a Gerard thing to say all at the same time, clumsy and awkward as ever and self-deprecating in a way that is entirely new, and something in her shatters a little more just from the way he’s looking at her.

(the bitter truth: he loves her. that’s the way the story goes. that’s always the way the story goes. and maybe she is the problem, if he can keep loving her and she can’t keep loving him, but if she is the problem then it is because the problem has been put on her shoulders without her looking for it, written into her story without her permission, and she has never asked to be remembered as the princess who fell in love with a frog)

(it’s so hard to parse out questions of fault when she doesn’t know if anything of herself is her own)

He apologizes. It’s difficult to listen to.

Because here is the thing: they made it to the end of their story. They made it to the happily ever after. And then it didn’t end, and everything in her life that has been hardest for her is everything that will not be remembered, will not be written. Everything that was struggle, everything that was difficult, that is what the fairies want to erase.

(once upon a time, there was a princess who went to war, but that is not how the story starts, isn’t even in the middle, so who can give those words weight?)

She cannot be angry with him for being what their story made him to be. She cannot be angry with him for supposing the story was over, because if not for the Times of Shadow and the incessant beat of the Gander’s wings, it would have been. She cannot be angry with him.

But she still cannot explain. Not really. She can try, and hope that he hears what she means. But she still lacks the energy.

Words are just words. She doesn’t have the strength to be someone’s inspiration

(not when all she ever wanted was for him to stand by her side of his own volition, because he decided it was right, because he wanted to do it, not when all she ever wanted was an equal partner on equal ground)

and she does not have the voice to express her disappointment when he tells her he would have done nothing, nothing at all, if he didn’t know she was here.

Words are just words. And so many of his—are the right ones. Are, maybe, things she wanted to hear. Maybe he has changed. Maybe he has grown. Maybe there are coals here that can be fanned back to life; maybe the embers aren’t dead just yet.

But this isn’t even her Gerard.

At the end of the day, she doesn’t know what to feel. Doesn’t know what to do with a husband-not-hers who apologizes and claims her as inspiration and professes to be better and puts the ball entirely in her court.

(doesn’t know what to do with a husband that breathes, with a story that continues, and she’s sick of ever after, would rather just live happily, but that’s not going to happen anytime soon, it seems)

(once upon a time, a frog pushed a golden ball out of a lily pond, and it’s not because he was kind or funny or someone worth befriending but rather because that’s just how the story goes)

So she leaves the room. That’s easier. To leave him behind, to pretend he never came back in the first place.

----------

(They have time, now. Of that, she is certain. Ever after never ends. They’ll have all the time in the world to figure this out. If there’s anything to figure out.

Part of her wants that. Part of her wants nothing more than to learn this new version of him, to allow herself to hope that he really has changed. Part of her wants to learn his friends, too, this motley assembly that he came in with, that were so eager to jump to his cause and who he is—comfortable with, at the very least. These people with whom he seems to be a little more settled in his skin.

They will have time. She will have time. She can afford to take this slowly, inch by inch. To be certain before she allows him anywhere near her heart. To let down her walls as painlessly as possible, and to have time to build them back up again if that’s what she needs, what she decides.

They’re all together in this castle, now. They will have time.)

----------

She should have known better. Is there anyone to blame but herself for allowing her to hope?

(she hadn’t even realized, how much she was hoping)

Maybe this is just how the story goes, though in her heart of hearts, she knows that this isn’t written in any book. Her narrative was never supposed to twist toward war. His was never supposed to lead beyond the pond. And so here they are, another castle but the same old song; she stays, and he flees.

(after what was perhaps the most frustrating conversation of her life and really, what was she supposed to do with any of what he was telling her, and she can’t possibly believe that he was being truthful, not now, not like this, even if there’s a voice in the back of her mind that takes his words and takes the looks in her friends’ eyes and whispers doubt and whispers what if)

“It’ll be alright,” Cinderella says. She doesn’t sound like she believes herself. Elody shakes her head.

She thinks he looks back. Does he look back? It’s so hard to tell; the sunlight gleams on the snow and renders her blind.

Does it matter? Does any of it?

(he has left her so many times, and what is one more in the face of that, what is an emotion as foolish as hope)

The ramparts are the only thing holding her up as she watches them go, a party of six fading into dots against the snow, and then vanishing. Cinderella and Snow White are steady presences at her side, bulwarks of empathy and compassion, and they know. They understand. They have lived so many lives and she only one, but they still understand the loss. They understand what it is to be the one who has to keep fighting. They understand what it is to be left behind.

They understand, but she’s still so cold.

It’s not until she goes back inside that she realizes she’s been weeping. She is capable of crying after all; whether she’s crying for this fresh betrayal or a corpse pinned to the mud or the loss of all her innocence or the joy she once felt in a castle that was hers as light spilled from every room and fireworks burst overhead and Gerard cracked a stupid joke and she laughed and laughed and laughed—whether she is crying for one of those things or all of them or none of them, she couldn’t say.

And it’s all too little, too late, in the end.

----------

(“Hey, Elody?” the whisper comes. She’s snuffed her candle. Her room is lit by moonlight.

“Yeah?” she whispers back. Gerard is a formless lump in his little bed on her nightstand, but she thinks she can make out the yellow gleam of his eyes.

“Are you okay?” he says. “It’s just that you seem a little stressed.”

“I’m okay,” she says. “It’s just, with my parents gone—and sometimes I feel—”

Like I have no idea what I’m doing. Like I’m all alone in the world. Like this is a position I wasn’t made for, and now I have no choice but to fill it, to grow and to twist and to force myself into a shape that will fit the empty space that my people need. Like I’m not strong enough to become who I think I’ll need to become.

“Oh,” Gerard says. “I’m sorry. If it makes you feel any better, I think you’re pretty great.”

Something in her chest unclenches; something in her breathing eases.

“Thank you, Gerard,” she says.

“You’re welcome,” he replies. “You should probably get some sleep. I remember sleeping at night. Pretty important.”

“Pretty important,” she agrees.

The moonlight drifts in, gentle and sweet. Frogs are largely nocturnal; Gerard will probably stay up for a long time yet. She likes to think that staying up in here, with her, is less lonely for him than staying up by himself, in the frog pond, surrounded by nobody that understands him.

“Gerard?”

“Uh huh?”

“Thank you,” she says again. “I’m glad you’re here.”

And that is how the story goes.)

#dimension 20 #d20 #neverafter #elody of greenleigh #gerard of greenleigh #d20 cinderella #cw for non-graphic description of corpses #anyway haven't posted on tumblr in a hot minute but i've decided this is an elody/gerard blog now /hj #cat writes fic

[fluentisonus]

I can't stop thinking about the way that all those descriptions of eponine & javert using the exact same phrases gives this last scene where he sees her body & says "it strikes me that I know that girl" the quality of someone looking at their own corpse

#in that the descriptions are casting them as being from similar material so it's like a whole different version of him w a whole other life #that he's recognizing but not aware of the extent to which he's Recognizing #but also something something recognizing a corpse when you're about to be one #<- is this an insane take?? sorry if so #thoughts #les mis #also smth smth his unwillingness to sympathize with people & thus see the ways people can be cast so similarly but be in such different #situations & such different people preventing him ever fully recognizing something like that & so it's left to the narrative to point out #the irony of the fact that his conscious recognition was from arresting her (iirc?) while the broader recognition he doesn't see is All Thi #if that makes sense akhdfkjasf #idk I'm still chewing it over