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raigash · 5 months

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Just For The Day

[Inky Depths Masterlist]

Pascal and Rose content for the first time in a little while! Their story needs a bit of restructuring, but I wanted to write a new taste of them before I got to work editing the old. TWS for intimate whumper, victim blaming, and the most prominent- fever/illness whump! I hope you guys enjoy!

There are ghosts swimming in the shadows, and for the life of her, Rosalind cannot figure out what it is they want from her. Wispy clouds of pitch black dance along the baseboards of this haunted home, and she can hear their whispers. Can feel their frozen fingertips reaching ever closer to her heated skin.

Her world feels like it’s on fire, and freezing over, all at the same time. Everything hurts. Every breath she fights to take feels Sisyphean as her chest flutters and collapses within seconds of each inhale. The rough fibers of the study’s carpet dig into her exposed skin, reminding her just how exposed she truly is.

She doesn’t even remember when the bedroom melted away into the study. She barely remembers making it there from the dining room table before that. Time has been a fickle keeper these last few….days? Hours? Seconds?

She doesn’t know. And that, in and of itself, is a problem.

Her mouth is dry. It has been since that awful tasting liquid was held to her lips, and she was forced to swallow the bitterness down in shuddering gulps. The pressure behind her eyes has eased some since, but her shoulder still screams in agony that refuses to be quelled. Is it bleeding, still?

She shivers, unable to feel a difference between untouched skin, and that which has been carved by Pascal’s fury. Everything hurts, right now. Every old wound rising from the depths of her mind feels brand new as her body screams in pain that it cannot escape. For good reason, apparently.

That thought keeps surfacing as the waves of fever crash over her again and again. Keeps digging claws into her and forcing her to remain alert through the torment. She was here for a reason. This was all happening for a reason.

That reason does little to soothe the nausea, but it keeps her from giving into exhaustion’s pull. What right does she have to sleep? To rest? To reprieve? This was her doing.

This was her penance.

The Study door does not squeak when it opens- she has taken too much care in her duties to allow that. Still, though, she hears the change, and with Herculean effort, she lifts her head from the floor.

Save me. Heal me. Remake me.

Words bounce around her head in fervent spirals, cascading thoughts and pleas and condemnations all splintering into nonsense before dissolving back into the dark, and being given new form. She is lost in this darkness, in this sweltering abyss from which she cannot escape. And she looks to this artificial lamplight in the absence of the sun’s warmth.

There are words, but they are… garbled, at best. She squints to try to get a better view, and her world spins violently- so much so that she whimpers as her head drops back to the floor. Everything hurts.

The garbled sounds continue even as she feels icy fingers trailing up her back, touch gentle, but searing. Maybe these are her ghosts. Maybe that’s why they taunt her so. Maybe they are gifting her back the memory stolen from her by time.

Pascal draws closer to the shivering form on the floor, face set in a frown as she remains unresponsive. She is bare, save for a pair of tacky sweatpants that he keeps for times when things may get messy. The tepid wound festering on her shoulder blade certainly qualifies for the occasion.

She shivers, face burrowed into the carpet as though it’s a pillow. Her skin is soaked with sweat, and her breaths come in ragged puffs. This shouldn’t be happening. He has never had something like this happen before, in all his years. And this is far from the first time he’s done a carving in this manner.

He has a feeling it is more than a simple infection, but either way, he may have to procure a physician to assist in getting her back on her feet. He is not losing his prized paragon. Not like this.

Pascal crouches beside her, then, examining her closer as he brushes a hand through her sweat soaked hair. It needs combing, but he supposes it’s fine given the circumstances. A small noise of worry, followed by another attempt of lifting her head, is the response Rosalind is able to give.

He takes pity on her as he watches her neck begin to falter, and cups her cheek in his hand, supporting her head. Her foggy gaze falls just below his cheekbone, just as it should. Her skin is practically on fire, and his expression twists further into one of worry.

He’ll need to find someone fast

Without wasting time explaining, he scoops his little songbird up easily. The sudden change in elevation startles her, and she cries out, only to be shushed back into miserable silence. She is carried from the study, down the hallway, and into the master bedroom. The sheets feel prickly against her skin as she is laid atop them, but less so than the floor. It is a miracle she recognizes where she is enough to be utterly confused.

It must show on her face as she nestles deeper into the uncomfortable embrace of satin, because Pascal answers her with a hum, and a hand though her hair once more. “Just for the day. Don’t get used to it, little dove.”

He leaves her there, then, without another word, and closes the door behind him. Alone, Rosalind closes her eyes and drifts in the tumultuous sea of existence.

#raigash writing #original characters #original content #my ocs #rosalind #pascal #inky depths of bloodstained pages #intimate whumper #illness whump #fever whump #victim blaming

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evelynsfics · 4 years

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Of corrupted souls.

Once a mercenary, Ayame now serves the Royal Family as a guard of the highest honor. Her job is to travel outside the Kingdom and hunt down those touched by the corruption.

A/N: I was talking with my friends and I got inspired to write a small piece for an RPG AU. Basically what's going on here, is that Ayame wields a really heavy blade but it's filled with gravity runes so she can actually lift it. Her book is a cursed artifact that has a small pocket dimension in its pages where Ayame keeps her other weapons.

Tw: dark themes.

She stood between the tainted grass, the vines held out their thorns like desperate claws, trying to snake around her legs, yet she ignored them, her full attention lay just beyond the ruins of what once was a proud shield of safety for people fleeing from the corruption that crept it’s way to the town’s heart.

Ayame's lips formed into a smug smile, her piercing eyes shone with excitement as she reached down to her bag, not daring to break eye contact with the being that stood just outside her vision. Her fingers gently traced the book’s worn out cover, carved runes and symbols of ancient, dead languages greeted her in their familiar way.

She broke the seal of chains that held it down with one swift motion, the book sprung to life in seconds. It flew behind her, to anyone looking from outside, it looked like a twisted halo, a broken crown atop her head like a reminder of what she had to do in order to keep it’s blades.

It opened to a page dripping with inky magic, remnants that stained its pages like a dying ember of a candle who’s smoke trailed Ayame like her own shadow.

A heavy blade bound by runes fell from the sky, it pierced the ground with a thud, the dust it rose up soon faded in the heavy wind. It’s sharp edge shone in the dim light of the dying sun, it was surrounded by a plum outline of a spell casted long ago.

Her pale hair swayed in the cool breeze as she locked eyes with the man standing across from her on the final step of the old, crumbling stone steps that sat in front of the ruined church. The man looked at her with clear anger visible in his cold features as a scowl fell on his pale lips. The corruption spread through his veins like a deadly poison, Ayame felt a tingle of guilt for not being able to get there in time, but she knew what she had to do now.

The man spoke in a broken voice, shattered into millions of shards that reminded one of precious gems. It was obvious he was long gone, his body controlled by a darker force like a puppet, ready to be thrown away the second he was no longer useful.

“They took everything from me!” His voice would make those that just picked up their swords flinch, but Ayame knew that tone, she’d seen many like him, countless souls lost to obsession and greed.

“My home, my family, and my life!” He screamed in pure agony, his head slightly rolled back as he picked up one of the many fallen blades that lay bloodstained around the decayed, rotten entrance of the building.

She tilted her head slightly in response, yet she remained quiet. An eerie silence fell like heavy war fog upon the two, they locked eyes once more, but now all she saw in his blue ones was emptiness. She realised he was completely gone, and so, she walked over the blade resting a few feet away from her.

She wrapped her fingers around the hilt of the heavy sword, gripping it with an unreadable expression on her pale features, she pulled it out of the inky grass.

The clouds above them swirled, morphing into abyssal constellations as she sharply exhaled.

The first time she encountered one of these poor, lost souls, she tried to talk to them, pull them out of whatever depths those horrid, faceless whispers put them in. It didn’t take long for her to figure out that would only get her killed, the only option was to get it over with before she lost her head.

She stood still, waiting for her opponent to make the first move. Her eyes scanned his sword carefully, the tip was broken, the edge dulled from the countless wars it was wielded in before falling silent forevermore.

The man, left as nothing but a shell void of life, moved awkwardly towards her, his arms and legs moved, but not quite right.

He swung blindly, his arms snapping in directions unnatural even for the dead. Each time he held the broken sword up, he missed her by a few hars.

She cried out in pain as a thin, shallow line of crimson was sliced into her shoulder, the blood trickled down in small droplets of scarlet rose petals as she jumped back, surprise clear in her eyes.

She didn't have time to move, as the creature ran towards her, it moved with speed that almost matched her own, its face no longer that of a human, but one of a creature far beyond the veil of their world.

With a rough swing it roared, the sound that left its mouth made Ayame wince in pain, she harshly placed her hand over her right eye, looking at the creature with a burning hatred.

She stepped back, barely dodging yet another attack, her head snapped back as she momentarily lost her balance.

The creature finally managed to find an opening, it kicked her with its clawed foot, sending Ayame skidding on the ground. She rolled over just as her sword landed where her head was mere moments ago. Standing up as quickly as she could, she tried to pull her sword from the dirt. The second her fingertips touched the grip, the runes shattered, her eyes widened, panic bloomed in her lungs like a grim wildfire. With all her remaining strength she tried to pull up her sword again, and again, yet it didn't budge.

With no other option left, she reached for the book again, reaching into it, she pulled out a small blade.

It was far too small and light for a gravity spell, yet Ayame kept glancing to it, feeling its solid, metal weight in her hand.

She quickly finished her mission, having no time left to spare.

She sighed heavily, throwing the dagger back in the book’s mirror dimension. As she turned, she saw the creature turn to ashen dust, and she finally breathed a sigh of relief. Slowly, she walked back to her sword, looking over at the damage. Ayame cursed knowing she would have to walk all the way to the main city to get it fixed by the royal smiths.

In moments like these, she remembered the whole reason she bought that damned, cursed book from the traveling merchants. Yet, what that book truly had planned for her could never be compared to simply writing down runes and spells.

#Rpg #Rpg au #Last legacy #Last legacy fictif #That's it. That's all I have for today #Tomorrow? Who knows

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go-truck-yourself · 5 years

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The Final Goodbye

The battle ended seemingly hours after it had began, the remaining students panting as they held their wounds, staring at the sight before them. Takehiro stood, hand almost inside Menes' chest, the fallen prophets blood coating the acolytes arm. Takehiro had broke Menes' charm during the fight, mostly due to Ayates urging, and had managed to wrestle the maniacal mans blade from his hand.

Menes chuckled madly, as Takehiros eyes widened. Deep down, he'd wanted to save Menes. To pull him from this mire of madness he'd steeped himself into. He still believed there was hope, that Menes had just been being controlled, manipulated. Even now, He looked into Menes' eyes, blinking and worried. Those yellow orbs simply stared into his as Menes laughed. Takehiro opened his mouth, prepared to stammer out an apology, assure Menes that he was going to live-

"Ta...Ke...Hi...Ro..." Menes began to speak, his voice still laced with the honey that had eased Takehiros nerves so many times. "If anything, I'm glad it was you."

His voice sounded...tired, reserved. Maybe he'd expected this, or maybe he just accepted that death was coming.

"N-no! Menes, you c-cant die! You're..Y-you're going to face t-trial! For t-trapping us he-here! And th-then you can ge-ge-get help! Y-you aren't w-w-well!"

Takehiro had seen both sides of Mene's madness, assisting him through the twisted 'game', as he called it. Ayate had helped keep him from being fully in the madness that Menes preached, likely saving his life. He'd finally broken down and confessed everything to his love when Menes had ordered his death, wanting to solidify Ayate's allegiance.

It was Ayates plan to take the hemlock poison in the first place, after all.

Takehiro bit back the irony at revealing Menes' treachery through a Shakespeare play. Hamlet would have been more ironic, but still...

He'd seen Menes in a new light from that point, after Ayate explained his plan. He'd always been confident, kind, caring. It couldn't have all been an act, right? The kind, caring soul that had given Karin the confidence she needed to be herself, that had helped Hots deal with her issues of self worth, even bringing Arzexith out of their shell.

Arzexith...

Takehiro didn't want to spare a glance back at the cloaked figure. They'd gotten close to Menes, Takehiro knew about it. Arzexith thought it had been love, and maybe it was, they'd taken Menes' revelation of betrayal the hardest.

All of that, the warm voice that lulled Takehiro to sleep, the gentle hand who liked cinnamon and honey in his tea, who enjoyed honey mustard...

It couldn't have all been a ruse? An act?

"I-It's gonna be okay M-Menes!" Takehiro tried again, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. He believed that there was good in Menes, somewhere. There had to be.

The man simply laughed, madly.

"Indeed, it will be, Takehiro. For my message, my words are now inside all of you, for eternity." He coughed, a trail of blood leaving from his mouth as he spoke. The light in his eyes was dull, but still sparkled with that insanity. "I die, so that my cause may live. I had hoped my path would continue but-"

"You aren't going to die!"

Takehiro was surprised at the shout, he hadn't realized he was going to speak.

"You're going to fucking pay for what you did! For the people you killed!"

Ayate, storming forward, holding Takehiro around the waist, protectively. Takehiro leant into the embrace unconsciously, tired from the prolonged fight.

"For what you tried to make Takehiro do!"

Menes simply laughed, his silver voice groaning as he struggled to breathe.

"No, young Ayate. I don't believe I will."

He continued to laugh, as Ayate seethed. Takehiro spoke again, shakily.

"M-Menes...It's going t-to be...alright! W-we're going t-to get you the help you need! To he-help you s-see-"

"See what I did wrong? That my lord isn't real?" Menes cut Takehiro off, coughing up more blood. The ghostly forms of Menes' personas began to appear behind him as he spoke, his coughing worsening with almost every word.

"You would not be the first, to attempt to cloud my vision from the true path...I was destined to walk."

A skeletal figure, clad in tattered black cloth in tarnished golden jewelry. A leather tome in its right hand, flicking through the ancient pages with a yellow hand of ghostly yellow, staring at the remaining students with a single piercing yellow eye. Vecna, The Arch-Lich.

"I was born...To serve my king. Taken from those who had the honor of being my flesh and blood-"

A large man, muscular, clad in an armored skirt of Grecian origin. A jagged shoulder-pad adorned his right shoulder, with a similar gauntlet down his arm. He held a sickly looking spear, covered in points, looking to cause as much damage as possible. A horned helmet, with bloody red plume sat atop his head, glowing yellow eyes shining out from within. Deimos, God of Terror.

"And taught by the finest elders-" He coughed again, his voice shifting in pitch with every word, his pearly teeth staining pink with blood. "In the glorious words of my lord."

A hauntingly beautiful woman with deep black skin, adorned in robes made of gold and spiderwebs, a cruel smirk on her face. An eight headed whip loosely dangled at her side in a loose grip, an ancient staff in her other hand. Eight legs, tipped with cruel looking barbs extended from her back, idly twitching in the air. Lolth, The Spider Queen.

"The path I walk, is one I was destined to walk. Every step, every hardship i've faced has been for my King."

A twisting black mass of tentacles and sludge, surrounding a vaguely humanoid shape. Masks of tortured looking faces covered every inch of the inky fluid, bands of the same sickly yellow pulsing through it all. Nyarlathotep, The Crawling Chaos.

"I have not lived- not lived for me."

The familiar shape of a Melampus appeared, a veil over his face as usual. The healing, soothing aura normally produced by the persona was strangely absent, though that was likely for the best. The loose robes fluttered, as he held his hands out in a welcoming motion. Melampus, Soothsayer of Pylos.

"All I have...All I am...is simply for my lord."

Menes coughed again, the light fading fast in his eyes.

Takehiro was crying now, finally getting a glimpse into Menes' thoughts. He knew that Menes was steeped, but he hadn't fully known the depths of his...friends insanity. For a brief moment, he saw the humanity in Menes Ultharian. A person who was only taught that the words of his lord were correct, and had them beaten into him.

For a brief moment, Takehiro saw himself.

The thoughts were bitter. Could Menes had been saved had he found someone earlier in his life? Not been born the moment he was? Could he have been rescued from the cold loneliness, instead of escaping into the depths of his insanity?

The air grew cold, the five persona turning behind them as a larger figure appeared.

A woman, clad in a simple robe seemingly made of the night sky, flowing around her body as she shimmered into existence, moving towards Menes. The other persona followed suit, approaching.

Takehiro gasped, and backed away, Ayate pulling him away, the knife coming loose of Menes' chest, still firmly in Takehiros grasp.

The woman continued to form as she approached, her hair a rich purple, dotted with ornaments of gold, pulsing with runes. Her eyes were a solid gold, staring at Menes' laughing body.

One by one, the Persona touched Menes, disappearing into a sickly yellow mist as they did so, the yellow spray being absorbed into the giant womans form. Finally, she laid a hand on Menes head, caressing him almost lovingly, before pulling. A sickly yellow mist left Menes mouth, eyes, from seemingly every pore of his body as he coughed up blood, vomiting onto the stone below him.

Moments later, Menes dropped like a puppet with his strings cut, the woman disappearing as she absorbed the mist, fading as she walked away into the void.

Takehiro rushed forward, dropping the crystalline dagger and choking back a sob. Menes' breathing was shallow as Takehiro rolled him over, blood covering the leather armor, staining the intricate designs.

"All...Hail...the King...In...Yellow..." Menes gasped, his voice sounding so...weak. Quiet. Takehiro had never thought Menes could sound like this. Tears flowed from his mismatched eyes as he tried to speak.

"M-menes..."

He reached a hand out, not sure what he was trying to attempt. Menes chuckled again, closing his eyes, a faint smile on his face. He slowly, painfully, brought a bloodstained hand up to hold Takehiros, staining the boys hands further with blood and pushing something into his palm.

"G...ood...bye...Tak..e..hir...o"

His voice was faint, and then-

His chest ceased to rise and fall. Menes Ultharian had died, and was looked over by the one who struck the final blow.

Takehiros tears were flowing like a river as he looked at his hands. Menes' charm lay in his grip, the holy symbol to his cult shining through the blood that covered it.

"Goodbye...Menes."

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raigash · 4 months

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Reunion

[Inky Depths Masterlist]

[I have yet to decide whether this is an entry into canon yet, but enjoy this with the understanding that it very well may be :) This takes place many years after Rosalind is freed, and is a sneak peak to some large story changes that have been made behind the scenes. Warnings for possession/mind control style whump, as well as general angst. This one hurts]

She had thought it a dream, at first. A specter from the depths of her mind, come bursting forth to haunt her once more. It wouldn’t be the first time her father’s ghost had come crawling from the inky depths to lurk in her peripherals. And to say that her sleep as of late had been fruitful would be hyperbolic at best.

This time, however, when Rosalind turns over her shoulder, the apparition doesn’t simply disappear. The gentle breeze rustles the greenery he’s lingering behind, obscuring large swaths of him at a time, but he’s still there. She recognizes the macaw feather earring, and the scarred shoulders, and the feel of her father’s presence. The only thing she doesn’t recognize is the way he continues to remain hidden. Robert Gardner was never one for concealing himself.

If only it hadn’t been so very long since she’d seen him last. Perhaps she would have recognized the twisted darkness entwined with her father’s energy signature.

“Dad?”

It’s spoken in a crushed whisper as the lump in her throat grows ever larger. That’s…that’s him. Something deep inside of her, a fracture that has never truly healed, shifts painfully at the sight of that familiar ponytail. She can feel him, can feel his presence bumping against the edge of her perception as he lingers in the treeline.

It’s as though he doesn’t hear her, rooted to the spot and motionless as he is. It’s all so bizzare, and her heart is thumping in her chest, but she takes a few unsteady steps towards him. Nothing greets the first, second, or third step. The stillness is almost uncanny, especially from a man so prone to motion. But with the forth step, it’s as if she crosses some kind of invisible boundary, and his head jerks up to stare directly at her. Pushing aside the branches obscuring him from view, Robbie finally steps forward into the light.

Rosalind is only able to process the shadowy gleam of his once-brown eyes before he has crossed the distance between them, and is slamming her into the rough bark of a nearby tree. It knocks the wind from her, and she wheezes in surprise at the vicious reception. She tries to grab at his fists, but the grip he has on her shirt is far stronger than her hands are able to counter. Panic courses through her like a live wire as the need to survive kicks in. It’s a dizzying sensation, when mixed with the equally intense torrent of emotions.

“Get off me!”She shouts in desperate frustration, her voice echoing out through the trees around her like a gunshot. The force of her fear does, indeed, shove Robbie back a few inches- just enough time for her to take off running as renewed fire flares in her father’s eyes. She sprints as absolutely fast as she can, and faster still as the crunch of leaves herald his approach. Her legs ache as she dodges stones and roots- her chest, even moreso- and yet still, she runs.

It occurs to her, in some morbidly hysterical manner, that for all the years she’s dreaded the possibility of her father having run away from her, she has never considered the inverse a possibility.

Unhindered by the natural instinct not to hurt himself in the process, however, and with far more experience in the hunt, Robbie is far faster. With her head start, it takes him about fifteen seconds to catch up with his target. He tackles her to the ground the second he is within reach- one hand darting out to grab her by the shoulder while the other makes a bid for her neck.

A cry of despair billows out into the air, shaking the trees and scaring birds into taking to the sky as father and daughter crash to the ground in a desperate grapple. Rosalind’s hands are weak, but she fights hard, kicking and shoving and doing her damndest to get free. She has waited so long for this reunion, but her fear is stronger than hope, these days. She’s had the lessons of survival carved deep into her person. It’s not as harsh or as unbelievable a surprise as it once might have been, to have the people she was supposed to trust betray her.

Experienced as he is, though, Robbie is destined to come out on top. And as he frees his left hand from her panicked grip, it darts up to join his left in closing firmly around her throat. Violet eyes frantically lock with his own as he bears down, steadily stealing the air from her lungs. She tries to writhe and jerk from his grasp, but it is no use. She is trapped, staring up at the face of the man who welcomed her into this world, and who now seems intent on removing her from it. It is her father’s face, but different. Twisted with an anger she has never seen, eyes tinted with a shadowed hue. He is terrifying, like this.

And yet, still, he is her father.

In those shadowed eyes, she sees reflections of the life she has been trying to find her way back to for almost a decade now. Laughter and joy, safety, love. She sees it all, like a window through time, and it bolsters her courage. Her father is here, but something is wrong. It’s him, but it isn’t. But he’s here, not gone for good as she’d feared.

She could have him back again.

“Daddy…please,” she pleads, instinctively mouthing the words despite the lack of necessary features to physically speak. And at such a close distance, perhaps that is what does it; there certainly is a bolt of shock that flashes across his face when the grizzled wound becomes visible. But it’s more than that. Something in the words, in the heartsick magic they’re soaked in, seems to cascade down his spine like a shiver. His hands loosen around her throat as something like confusion dawns in his face. The darkness ringing his eyes ebbs, just the slightest bit, as his brain whirs to process the information it’s been given.

She doesn’t waste the time to see if it will work. She fears she may not survive this, if she does. Instead she shoves him, hard, knocking him off balance and sending him to the ground. Scrambling to her feet as he grunts in surprise, she spares him only one more glance before she takes off running. Confusion, still. No recognition. She wants to scream. But instead, she runs from the one person she always ran to, aching muscles carrying her further and further from his side with each stride.

[Tag List: @lektricwhump @tormentum-ab-intra @salamancialilypad Let me know if you’d like to be added or removed!]

#inky depths of bloodstained pages #raigash writing #my ocs #original characters #original fiction #emotional whump #mind control #whump #Rosalind #rosalind gardner #Robbie #Robbie gardner #they have last names finally!#only took me three years lmao #anyway #big changes coming in the works I have published #Robbie may or may not canonically be alive still #:)

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raigash · 4 years

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Inky Depths of Bloodstained Pages: Masterlist

This is the story of Rosalind, a girl with a big heart and a knack for storytelling that seems nearly...paranormal. After publishing two books underneath a pseudonym and graduating with a bachelors in Linguistics, she finds herself lost, alone, and heartbroken in a world she isn’t equipped to understand.

Pascal, a volunteer at the library she adopts as her temporary home, is intrigued by her right away. After getting to know her a little better, and experiencing some of her talents, he gladly opens his cottage to her. A little...too gladly.

While she may no longer be sleeping outside in the elements, she will soon find out much about herself, her host, and the world around her that will bring her life crashing down around her. After all, how does one escape from a cage they stepped into willingly? And how does one shoulder the responsibilities of a whole universe, when they’ve lived their whole lives knowing so little of its true existence?

Pre-Graduation:

The Need to Be Loved (½)

The Spirits We Gave Names Back To

White Dove

Post Graduation/The Expulsion:

Misty Midnight

In the Cottage:

The Beginning of the End

First Break

The Devil’s Wife

Story Time

Parlor Tricks

Strawberry Sunset

Sunbeams Caught in Teardrops

The Breakfast Table

Vice Versa

The Need to be Loved (½)

Breathe Out

Just For The Day

But I Leave in My Heart...

After That Night:

She Knows Better

An Anniversary, Remembered (Pt. 1)

Non-Cannon/AU Pieces:

Siren Song

Tear Me To Pieces (lektric-whump Collab!)

Reunion

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raigash · 4 years

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Whumptober Day 18 and Alt. 3: Panic Attack and Comfort

[Inky Depths Masterlist]

[CW: Panic attacks, ptsd, references to broken hands and past torture]

This is a birthday present for the absolutely wonderful @comfy-whumpee, who requested I visit some comfort upon one of my OC’s.

When her eyes fell upon the offered pen, her entire being froze. Her lungs seemed to stop their breathing. The heart inside her chest seemed to beat miles a minute, while also stopping completely. She was short circuiting.

“-a little difficult, but it might be better than nothing.” She faintly recognized that he was speaking, but it was hard to hear the words, much less comprehend them. The world was opening up to swallow her whole, and she was slipping into a vortex of quicksand fear.

She knew better

Wide eyes followed her as she practically jumped off the couch. There was no focus on gracefulness, or even balance. She just knew to get away. So after a clumsy step or two she clattered to the ground.

Still she tried to inch away, turning to face the offending object and shrinking back from the man who offered it. He looked worried, frightened even. it’s a trick it’s a lie get away from the pen

“R-Rose, it’s alright, what’s-?” she was shaking her head vigorously before the words could even leave his mouth. He was so confused.

Seconds ago she had been timid, but calm. He had been suggesting they watch a movie, to which she had nodded her agreement, but he had wanted to grant her access to more than just the options he could name off the top of his head.

He wanted her to have this choice

So he had asked her to wait for a second, while going to fetch a scribble pad and something to write with. It was...a long shot, given the state of her hands. But he figured he might be able to help her brace it to the paper, and she could merely move the pen in the strokes to make letters.

All of that seemed to have gone out the window, now, though. Fearful violet eyes were glazed and staring holes into himself, and the writing utensil, alternatively.

Matthew didn’t understand fully, but he also knew that he didn’t need to. He understood enough.

So he bottled up the rage inside that flooded him every time he was reminded of exactly how much this poor girl had gone through, and he got to work. First he turned to put the pen and pad in another room, out of sight, seeing how that seemed to be the cause of all this.

He returned quickly, however, to find her in the same spot. Backed up against the wall, shaking a little less, but the same distrustful gaze adorning her face. Eyes still dazed, like she was somewhere else, and here, all at once. It tugged at his heart, and burned yes another hole in his resolve to not try and find whoever the fuck did this to her, and to take her recompense.

And so he lowered himself to the ground, sitting cross legged not too far from her, but enough of a distance to give her space. That seemed to have an effect, the fog clearing a little as someone lowered themselves to her level.

Something that would have never happened, before.

Holding his arms open, palms up, and as unthreatening as he can possibly make himself, he takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry I scared you, Rosalind. You’re safe here. If you need to stay there, I understand. You don’t have to come to me if you don’t want to. But I’m here if you need me. You’re safe.”

The unadulterated panic melted away from her as the warm timber of Matthew’s voice drew her away from memories of the past that had made themselves far too real. The apology really served to jolt her out of it, as did the use of her name. Not a nickname, not a pet name. But her true name. Pascal had never said he was sorry. Not for his actions. And never to Rosalind.

Without the paralysis of the expectation of punishment, tears swiftly welled up in her eyes, and without thinking she practically launched herself into his arms. Letting out gasping, silent sobs, she buried her face into the warm cotton of his shirt, and let the fear and the pain and the sorrow burst through the dam, too exhausted from her fright to hold it in.

Matthew held her, gently, sadly, and ran a comforting hand through her hair. He began to hum a gentle melody, hoping to aid her in calming. The vibration of his chest against her skin was soothing. As was the idea that…he was singing to her.

It was so unlike her time in that godforsaken little cottage with the little wooden stage and the door she could never quite find the courage to walk through.

Her sobs eased, slowly, and before long she had fallen asleep, still clinging desperately to her savior’s shirt. Matthew held her with all the care one would afford priceless porcelain, and never once stopped his humming.

[Tag List for Inky Depths: @whumptober2020 @salamancialilypad @oops-all-whumping @khalwrites @lektricfergus and @comfy-whumpee since this one’s for them! 🧡🎂🖤🎂🧡🖤🎂 let me know if you’d like to be added or removed!]

#whumptober2020 #no.18 #no.3 alternate #panic attack #comfort #panic attack tw #ptsd tw #recovering whumpee #trauma recovery whump #past trauma tw #inky depths of bloodstained pages #Rosalind #Matthew #some comf for a girl who never gets any #as requested by the amazing comfy whumpee #my writing #raigash writing

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raigash · 3 years

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FebuWhump Day 2: “I Can’t Take This Anymore”

[Inky Depths Masterlist]

[CW: creepy, intimate whumper, semi-dissociative whumpee, drugging, and dehumanizing implications/nicknames ]

Pascal had baked her a cake, today.

He had let her sit up on the stool in the kitchen beside him while he poured over the recipe, warmed by the oven, and by the sunlight drifting in from the open window. Had spoonfed her tiny bites of icing and fondant for her opinion on the flavor, asking for her preference on how it was decorated once it had been removed from the oven.

It was, after all, a celebration of her.

Addled as it was by nights upon nights of sleeplessness, and the gentle plying of the leftover drug working its way out of her veins, her mind was slow to come up with an image she could appreciate. Finally, afraid of taking too long and upsetting his momentary benevolence, she had just decided upon the ocean.

It drew a disbelieving look from Pascal when she gave her answer. The kind of look that she knew all too well meant he was wondering exactly how little there was rattling around up there in that brain of hers. Like always, she felt the rush of shame at the truth behind that stare. In reality, it was the river waters she wanted to see, more than anything. The murky water she used to run too, to watch dance in the sun when things got too hard.

She didn’t know what hard meant, back then. And she didn’t have the capacity to explain, so she didn’t. She just asked for the ocean.

In the end, he had simply shook his head, muttering something about wasted talent, and acquiesced. It was a strange and beautiful thing, to see him caught by the wind of passion. Beneath his attentions, crashing whitecaps sprang to life, frothing and bold and stunning. It was as though she were watching the waters of the Great Wave sweep across the crust, until every inch was soaked in artwork she would have never expected to come from those hands that brought so much pain.

There were many instances, this one included, where she found herself wondering exactly what comprised the narrative of Pascal’s path, the story of what he had been before he became what he was now. She didn’t think she would ever know. It did her little good to focus on the things he didn’t want her to, and so she didn’t.

The cake was breathtaking. She did her best to fix that sweet, appreciative smile on her face as she carried it to the coffee table in front of the couch. She barely ever wavered, anymore. It had taken awhile. But she had learned. He smiled approvingly at her once it was sitting before them, and drew her into his arms once more.

This was no box cake, hastily thrown together. No, this was something special. Pascal had spent many, many years on this earth, and the intricacies of baking were deeply familiar to him. It was a masterpiece of chocolate and vanilla swirled, even below the frosting, and each bite she was fed melted like butter on her tongue. It was delicious, and still, to her, it may as well have been a sandwich of sandpaper and arsenic.

Today was the anniversary of the day she had agreed to call his home hers as well. Today they celebrated the day loneliness had driven her from the cold, concrete steps of the library, and right into his waiting arms.

Today, she watched yet another year of her life wither away, lost to the winds of time.

Curled up in his lap, darkness dancing languidly in her head, she found herself incapable of faking the emotion she knew he wanted to see from her. Her wrist hung limp in his grasp, no fight left in her muscles as he cleaned the skin, prepping her for another dose. There had not been, in a long time. She no longer trembled as the needle slid easily into her vein. No longer cried and moaned and pleaded as the plunger was depressed, and the strawberry poison inside leaked slowly into her bloodstream.

It still hurt. Of course it still hurt. But being hurt felt a lot like being numb to Rosalind, now. And numb was the closest she got to rest in this place.

And she was so, so very tired.

Pascal gave a pleased hum as he tucked the ornate syringe back into its box, pressing a cotton ball to the little dribble of blood that surfaced from the puncture wound. It was a swift and practiced motion, one that was as familiar to her as a breaking, now. As common as trying to breathe for air when the game dictated she be allowed none.

Eight years had carved deep and irreparable chasms into her soul, and each day she found more and more of herself taking the dive into the obscurity. Shadows were slowly swallowing her whole, and not for the first time, she wished they would just hurry up with it.

But she was never done. There was always another performance. Always another song. Always some new way to cut herself open and elegantly display the pieces that had yet to wither and rot away. As the chapter closed on this year, she was greeted not with the comfort of the end cover, but the hopeless sight of a thousand more pages left to be read.

All exactly the same.

She did not realize she was being spoken to until her chin was tilted upwards, and she found herself gazing through watery eyes into green ones that actually looked...almost concerned. His hand slid to cup her cheek, thumb brushing away a tear she didn’t realize had fallen.

“What’s on your mind, my Rose?”

Permission was given, and the floodgates were thrown open, and she was...she was drowning.

“I, I c-can’t, I can’t do it anymore, please, I can’t.” The words were broken and halting, and they came from someone that hadn’t been her in a long time, but they were coming. Her chest shuddered with the sobs that were building, somewhere deep inside her. Somewhere where the last parts of herself hid away, sheltering from the storm that would never end.

It would never end

She expected retaliation. Expected a slap, or to be shoved to the floor, or just, something. She was greeted, instead, with a gentle kiss planted on her forehead, and her hair smoothed back out of her eyes. Somehow, it hurt even worse. A ragged sob was her reply.

“You can, sweetheart. My sweet little dove. My beautiful Rose. You can, and you will.”

It was not spoken threateningly. More like a reassurance. A comfort. His hand slid around to cup the back of her neck, threading his fingers gently through the hair that gathered there, and drawing her close to rest her head against his shoulder. He shushed the little gasping cries that had started to work their way from her lips, and bent his head low to whisper in her ear.

She shuddered as the words brushed over her skin.

“You will, because there’s no other option for you, my love. Nowhere else for you to go, nothing else for you to do. You will, because it’s all you’re good for.” He paused to chuckle, still warm. “Well, almost all you’re good for.”

She was already too busy weeping brokenly into his shirt to give him an answer. He sighed happily, then, content to just hold her there and run his hands through her hair as she cried, the drug slowly easing her into the sleep she so seldom could find on her own anymore.

His songbird. His Rose. His Paragon

His. Always, and forevermore

[Tag List for Inky Depths: @lektricfergus @broken-wings-and-whumpy-things @khalwrites @oops-all-whumping @salamancialilypad and @writingwithhope ❤️ let me know if you’d like to be added or removed from the normal list!]

#febuwhump #febuwhump2021 #febuwhumpday2 #drugging tw #addictive substance tw #pet whump tw #dehumanization tw #intimate whumper #creepy whumper #pascal needs his own tw at this point #trauma response #anniversary of captivity #inky depths of bloodstained pages #Rosalind #whump

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raigash · 4 years

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Strawberry Sunset

(Inky Depths Masterlist)

[CW: drugging and mentions of past drugging, conditioning disguised as “treatment” for an illness that doesn’t really exist, mentions of broken bones/past suffering, and just overall creepy intimate whumpy saccharinity]

As the day faded, they sat quietly together in the study. The rocking chair had been drug from the center of the room to the far left side, where it sat cattycorner to the arched windowsill. From their vantage point, they watched the gold of the sun bleed through the treetops. Wrapped in a film of warmth and weight and beauty, grounded only by the feel of her fingers drifting over the rough patches of sewn designs, Rosalind floated.

She could barely breathe around the scent of strawberry. It clung to her senses like a specter, clogging her nose and lumping in her throat like wet sand. It was...uncomfortable. But that thought fell away as quickly as it had surfaced, pulled mercilessly under the waves of static crashing upon the shores of her mind.

The other voice, the one inside, had thrown a tantrum earlier that morning. It had been loud and obtrusive, and had, like always, brought on nothing but agony in its wake. Her voice, the one that rang clear and still, came easily. It materialized with only a soft ripple, parting the murky waters she found herself eternally submerged in with a gentle ease. It was a voice that talked of pretty things. Whole things.

The angry thoughts were excruciating, pitch black and rotting, leaking from a profound crater within her soul. She had often tried before to find it, and to patch it, but it never succeeded. The words burned too hot. The pit was too deep. It seemed to slash through her like an axe to driftwood, splintering her heart and shattering her mind with each fell swing. Screaming hateful, broken words, it lashed out over and over and over again. Maybe it thought it was helping her. But it didn’t have to pick up the pieces in the following hours.

She was sick. Normal people didn’t carry two voices within them, two souls in their hearts. She hadn’t known she was sick before. She hadn’t realized she spoke with the other voice, leaving her true one to atrophy and decay in the depths of her head. But she did now. She knew she was sick. She knew she was in good hands, and that her real voice was healing. Was growing stronger. And she knew she was lucky.

She was lucky someone cared enough to take her stripped and smashed wires, and form them into something useful. Something lovable.

She was lucky someone cared enough to treat her at all. She was lucky she had met Pascal.

A dull throb resonated in the back of her skull, and so she simply let her thoughts melt away and drip through the cracks once more. The medicine always seemed to work better when her mind was placid, anyway, and her thoughts were worthless anyway. If he required it, she knew, the words he needed would return to her. He had told her often that her voice was more beautiful on strawberry days. The fog that swept away pain took the edge of fear off as well, and left it a soft lilting timbur that seemed to please him more than anything else. And the way she would sometimes trip over her words as they bobbed in and out of her mind, stumbling disgracefully through the saccharine haze, served to infuriate him more than anything else.

His anger was terrifying, but was always meant well. She knew that. He always meant well. There was nothing she could do. It fared no better to sway on half built towers of logic than to drift within the waves. And so she let them crumble to the ground, lost to the brine of the tears she drowned in. And she floated away down the river without a second thought.

Pascal kept her within her lull, massaging her aching hands with his own and humming a soft melody under his breath. She was lucky he was so understanding when she grew so tired on days like today. He understood that her songs were sloppy, her voice slurred on days when the Voice would overtake her. He would always do what was best for her, to help her overcome the worst parts of herself.

To help make her better. One day, she would be whole again. She would be perfect.

What’s wrong with me now?

An ache tore through the left side of her head at the thought, and she flinched back into his shoulder with a slight whimper. She felt his chest rumble with an amused sigh before he eased his massaging, shifting both of her hands to rest in his left. With his right freed he began stroking her hair softly, his humming changing tune and pace to a softer, calmer melody. Instantly the whispers of pain, the migraine that was, that could have been, fell silent. She had learned to stomp out most of the small fires by herself. But she was still weaker than him, still untalented. Whatever she wasn’t strong enough to silence, he would finish for her. He was always so kind. And she was just so lucky.

The feel of a hand underneath her chin spooked her from her reverie once more. The hand in her hair had been removed, and was now tilting her chin upwards. She ducked her chin instinctively, chiding herself as his laugh tumbled through the room again. It was warm, but she shivered regardless. He wants you to look. Look. “How are you feeling, my love?” His voice was poised as always, and seemed to smooth across her heart the way his thumb smoothed across her cheek.

She could have been bleeding out at that point, for all she knew. Once her eyes met that sparkling green, she knew nothing but turmoil. The tides crashed against each other, a muddy river and a vast ocean, and she found herself within a whirlpool. She couldn’t breathe. The water in her lungs tasted like strawberry.

“I feel...like me again.,” she whispered, from another throat. One that wasn’t drowning in tidal waves, stripped raw by the salt. “I don’t...I don’t hurt anymore, and...and I, I’m not feeling bad any-anymore.” She glanced down as she felt the blood rush to her face, for a reason she was not in a position to understand. “Thank you.”

The words hurt for a reason she didn't understand either, and so she tried to focus on something, anything, else. Her hands caught her eye first, as they always did. They always seemed to shake less on days like this, when reality bled in and out of focus and she felt anchored to the seafloor by the taste.

They hurt less, too, like everything did when she needed treatment. But their appearance never seemed to deviate from reality, even when the world bent and she fell into hallucinations and delirium. Broken bones still jutted out at alarming angles, ruined beyond repair by countless destructions and intentionally nonproductive settings. They haunted her in her nightmares, jagged thorns of flesh wrapped a cage around her throat. Her heart. A shudder tore through her, and she shifted her attention again.

The sun, which had bathed the whole room in a honey tinted glow not long ago, had fled below the horizon. With it, the warmth that had cradled the scene had vanished as well. The stars did not filter through the trees as the sun had, she knew. The window sat open, but one would have to be sitting upon the sill to be able to look up past the mossy giants to the few unobstructed constellations. That would not be happening tonight.

She was tired, and the chill in the room had begun to sap the little relief her hands had experienced away from her. They were always the first to agonize her, and the last to satiate. The wound was a deep one, and cut through the membrane of her soul. It would never cease to pain her.

As she floated in thought, she felt Pascal plant a kiss atop her head. He began to sing to her in a soft voice. A song she knew, long ago. In the before. As tears she didn’t understand flooded her eyes, she buried her head back into his shoulder, and sobbed silently as the night drug her into a realm all her own.

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raigash · 4 years

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Whumptober Day 6 and 12: No More/Please Stop+Broken Bones

[Inky Depths Masterlist]

[CW: broken bones, blood, panic, manipulative whumper, unexpected whump]

@whumptober2020

Her head spun, and in the whirlwind of panicked, confused thoughts, one memory stuck out like a sore thumb. The voice of Mr. Schaal, flat and monotonous, dragging through a lesson in health class.

“It can be hard to see when a situation turns abusive. Turn the page to 342. Often the metaphor of the frog and the pot has been used to describe the phenomenon. In essence, a frog placed directly into a broiling pot will hop free. A frog placed in lukewarm water will stay, and remain complacent as the water heats slowly and boils it alive. Marnie, I’d like you to read the diagram A.2, and...”

And for the life of her, Rosalind could not remember the water beginning to heat. It had been only days ago, she was sure of it, that warm arms had held her while she cried, gentle assurances falling like water from his tongue.

She thought of paper airplanes, folded painstakingly from assorted pamphlets, flying over library shelves and sometimes hitting her. More often than not missing, and always providing a laugh for those there to witness it.

She recalled warm, sympathetic smiles on cold evenings, and the soft wool of a tan sweater often passed to her before he left for the night. The tail lights winking at her as his truck pulled from the parking lot for the night.

She remembered a laugh full of wonder, the smell of campfire smoke and the rich earth surrounding them.

She couldn’t remember when the water had reached its boiling point. But she knew it was far too late for her to hop out. The restraints locked around her wrists made that point very clear.

It had been a normal afternoon. Well, as normal as anything in her life could really be called, anyway. She had been just...adjusting, honestly, as she had been for the last week or so.

She had gone from sleeping on concrete that seemed to soak in and hold the chill close to her to a real, warm bed overnight.

It was shocking, and a lot to take in. It left her weak and a little dazed, but Pascal had been kind, and assured her it was all perfectly normal. He had held her on days where the world seemed to spin around her, and she was left open and scared. Had tucked her into bed with blankets to chase away the lingering chill. Soft pillows to aid her to sleep.

He never seemed to get very angry, though it was clear he did have a temper about him. She wasn’t sure why it upset him when she wanted to go outside to see more of the landscape, but it made her nervous. Even if he did simply take a deep breath, and smile at her, and explain that it was simply a matter of their safety for the time. Especially in the state she was in

That made sense. She knew she was a mess, for whatever reason.

But that was nothing compared to this.

All she had done was finally work up the energy to pull her notes and papers from her backpack, and take up a spot in the little window seat to pour over them. It took her a few minutes to organize them, she wasn’t sure why she had left them in such disarray last time she had them out, but then she began sketching out the outline of the next chapter on a new page.

She was lost in her own world when Pascal came looking for her, and found her writing. She had been putting the last strokes on a sentence, dotting the i’s in her protagonists name and at the end of the phrase. He left the room for minutes, her none the wiser, and returned.

He did not necessarily have to be quiet to have easily snuck up on her. She would say, though, that she felt like the temperature of the room dropped. Still, her face was buried in the pages

Until, that is, they were ripped from her hands, and a rough hand gripped her chin, tilting it up. Alarmed violet eyes met hardened green, and there was an edge in his presence that she...had never seen before.

She didn’t know why, but he was livid

She hadn’t had the chance to ask, either, before her chin was released and the pencil plucked from her grasp. Then, she was being wrenched upwards.

She stumbled much, fear and lack of understanding a tripwire seemingly winding itself around her legs. “Pascal, h-hold on, i don't, w-what’s-” she stammered, questions jumping into sight, then twisting and changing themselves in her head before they could leave her mouth, until she was left spewing nothing more than a jumbled mess of confused syllables.

He was unresponsive as he continued to drag her from the room. She tried to ease some of the discomfort by getting her footing and walking with him, but quickly her foot caught on the rug she had not known was coming up, and she tripped. Once more she was at the lacking mercy of his iron grip, and his ceaseless forward momentum.

There was no relief when they halted suddenly, and she was thrown against the dining room table. The wind left her lungs in a breathless sob as her stomach slammed against the side, and her knees buckled beneath her, suddenly forced into the task of keeping her up.

It was only seconds, during which she had not even begun to recover and much less to move, before hands grabbed her arms once more, coming from in front of her this time. They jerked forward, pulling her a little further up the table and leaving her on shaky tiptoes, until her wrists came to rest in circles of half metal.

Had those been there last night?

Swiftly, what she managed to assume were shackles locked closed, tight against her skin. Before she had even attempted to pick herself up from where she had been thrown, she had been thwarted.

All she could manage was to lift her head a little, pain faded now to give the fear and utter lack of understanding room to grow. Her eyes found the green ones she had gazed into so many times before, and was shocked to find she didn’t recognize the man behind them.

What had she done?

Movement drew her eyes from his face to his hand, which was reaching to pick up a large, smooth stone that was resting on the table. Her breath caught in her throat, and her heart seemed to stop beating.

“After all the kindness I’ve shown you, you go against the one thing I ask.”

She was shocked by the strong, frigid tone. She floundered first any grasp of what he could possibly mean. He...she vaguely remembered him asking her to take a break. Something about pausing with her manuscript and just relaxing for a little while. Surely that, that couldn’t be what this was about? Right?

Lost in trying to figure it out, she was caught off guard by the heavy rock smashing into her left hand. Her brain short circuited, unable to process the pain now layering itself over fear and sorrow and confusion. A high keen peeled itself from her throat as as it came down again, and again, and again.

“Pas-Pascal, wait, stop, stop please! stop I’m I’m sorry!”

Instead of stopping, he slammed it down harder. It fell upon each finger individually, smashing knuckles and dainty phalanges. It wrecked metacarpals and shattered tiny bones into fragments, a horror show beneath screaming skin, until Rosalind was nothing but a sobbing mess.

Her knees had given out after the first blow, and so she draped, dead weight, over the table. All of the weight centered in the wrists that were restrained to the table, pulling on the already agonized hands. She could barely breathe over the cries she could not fight off.

“P-please no more, please please, I don’t-don’t know what I did wrong please I’m sorry, please don’t hurt me anymore, please,” she pleaded

There was a pause filled with nothing but weak gasps for air and tearful blubbering, before he responded.

“If you don’t know what you did wrong, then you can’t be properly sorry. Guess you still have a lot to learn.”

The bloodstained stone was then swiftly brought down upon her right, and an agonized wail rang out like a prayer to a god who had no ears to listen.

“Good thing I have all the time in the world to teach you, little Dove.”

[Tag List for Inky Depths: @salamancialilypad @lektricfergus @oops-all-whumping @khalwrites 🧡🖤🧡 let me know if y’all want to be added to or removed from the list!]

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raigash · 4 years

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Whumptober Day 15 and 28: Possession + Accidents

[Inky Depths Masterlist]

[CW: car accident, gore, death, dark themes. Possession, altered state of mind. This definitely does not fall within the bounds of Rosalind’s normal cannon, and instead is a fun AU-ish concept I’ve been messing around with. So uh...yeah! Enjoy some dark Rosalind :) ]

Upon one summer’s morning, I carefully did stray

His keys fell, clattering noisily to the concrete, as the strange song captured his ear. It drifted in on the sweet summer air that hung heavy like wine on his tongue. Gentle, lilting notes that were almost too soft to hear, but too poignant to miss.

Down by the hills of Wapping, where I met a sailor gay

He turned, looking out from his front porch into the falling night. Street lamps had just flickered on, bathing the street in a muted orange. Leaves bustled gently in the breeze, and crickets sang a mournful goodby as the sun slowly disappeared beyond the horizon. All seemed quiet. All except...

Conversing with a young lass, who seemed to be in pain

Again the melody reached out to him, a soft and sad thing. It brushed across his skin like the silk of a lover’s hand, cradling his cheek and beckoning him onward with the crook of an invisible finger. Where was this music coming from? There was a quality to the sound the likes of which he had never heard before.

Saying “William, when you go, I fear you’ll ne’er return again”

It was intriguing. Enticing. And he quickly found himself walking back down his steps, head swiveling to try and locate the source of the sound. It seemed to come from all around him, and nowhere, all at once.

My heart is pierced by Cupid, I disdain all glittering gold

As his foot stepped from the bottom stair to the grass of his front lawn, the voice seemed to grow in volume, if only so very slightly. Enough to be noticed. He was going the right way, good. He was getting closer.

Another step forward yielded similar results. And then again. It drew closer and closer to him, warmth pooling in his chest as he wrapped himself within the tones whispering through the night sky.

His keys lay forgotten on the cold stone of the porch.

There is nothing can console me but my jolly sailor bold

It was tender. Something in it felt like home. Made his heart swell. His thoughts were no longer on getting to his room to shed his work clothes. Visions of quick meals to fix up before falling asleep no longer occupied his brain.

Instead he focused on finding the woman behind the enchanting song. Being drawn close, held warmly to her bosom. A hand carding through the hair on his weary head.

His hair, it hangs in ringlets, his eyes as black as coal

Formless dreams of comfort and safety swirled in his mind, moving his muscles ever forward. It he could have spoken, he would have told you he was searching of his own volition

He would have been mistaken.

My happiness attend him wherever he may go

He was inches from his mailbox when she stepped out of the darkness, and into the cone of light shed by the lamp across the street. She was positively radiant.

White silk billowed around her ethereally. Beams pooled around her, until it seemed she gleamed like the face of the new moon. Lithe and becoming, a smile adorning her features.

She beckoned him fourth with a wave of her hand.

My heart is pierced by Cupid, I disdain all glittering gold

It was as if he could see the melody as it flowed from her lips, eighth notes and bar lines drifting in the air, and he followed it. Step. By step. By step.

When his foot met asphalt, he did not notice. Neither, did he notice the headlights of the oncoming car. The song was louder than the squeal of tires.

There is nothing can console me but my jolly sailor bold

It was over in an instant. Blood spilled across the road gleamed black in the night, and the smoke of the car now wrapped around the light pole danced in the night sky. Through the shattered windows, the radio could be heard, echoing the same song she continued to softly hum. Neither driver nor victim would wake again.

There was a satisfied momentum in her steps as she strode through the carnage, a sharper smile now pointed towards twisted corpses.

So come all you pretty fair maids, whoever you may be

Her heels clicked as she quickly walked up the steps, stopping to retrieve the keys that lay abandoned. He wouldn’t be needing them now.

Rosalind cast one last satisfied look out into the night before unlocking the door of the house, and entering.

Who love a jolly sailor that ploughs the raging sea

[Tag List for Inky Depths: @salamancialilypad @oops-all-whumping @khalwrites @lektricfergus @whumptober2020 🧡🖤🧡 let me know if you’d like to be added or removed!]

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raigash · 4 years

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Whumptober Day 11: Crying

[Inky Depths Masterlist]

[CW: creepy, intimate whumper, broken bones both past and present, pain and fucky though processes, as well as abusive, manipulative victim blaming phrases and dehumanizing pet names]

@whumptober2020

It had been a gift from a visiting gentleman, if you could find fit to call him that, on the night of their party to usher in the start of autumn. He brought it in, wrapped in glinting silver paper and tied up in a pretty gold bow, and passed it to Pascal as the two exchanged greetings. It was received gratefully, with a clap on the back and a sardonic grin Rosalind knew couldn’t mean anything good for her.

It sat that way, an inside joke between the two of them, on the table near the stage where she was allowed to keep her water bottle. A mystery that haunted her until the last guest had finally left for the night, and Pascal allowed her to open her present.

She didn’t know what, if anything, had prompted its acquisition.Merely that it now sat, all gleaming steel and hard edges, screwed into the kitchen counter.

The chill in the air settled deep beneath her skin, pouring into her aching bones and set her to shivering worse than she already was. No matter how she tried to calm herself, to hold still, the trembling persisted. There was nothing she could do, as she watched calm hands slowly turn the crank, except feel the weight of fear sink lower, and lower, and lower within her stomach.

When the jaws of the thing stretched wide enough for his liking he let the handle rest against the countertop with a soft clink. As he turned around once more, he found his little bird waiting merely steps away, just as he’d asked of her, shaking like a leaf.

He smiled.

“It’s cold tonight, isn’t it, darling? Winter winds are coming in quick. That’s why I had Charlie bring us this little surprise the other night.”

He offered no further explanation until he had stepped forward, reaching to grab her hands in his own and yanking her close to him. Caught off guard, she let out a tiny yelp of pain and surprise.

There was relief, for mere moments, when warm hands began undoing velcro straps, releasing elastic from taught positions and allowing her mangled joints to once again spread to the position they had last been set in. The first feeling of air against skin that had been bound by the braces always brought with it a rush of comfort.

It was gone in the blink of an eye, as he gathered her wrists in one hand and slammed them down into the maw of the vice. She could not fight the tears that leapt to her eyes as pain gripped her with relentless claws.

She could not fight anything, tonight.

So she merely stood there on wobbling legs as he began to cinch it closed around abused skin and bones, a cheery glint in his eye, and began to speak once more.

“Figured you’d like to spend some time in the warmth of the kitchen around this time of year. Especially since you’ve been having such trouble with your little task of getting the table set and ready for me recently.”

A whine crawled from her throat as the walls pressed in tighter, and tighter

“The only thing I can think of is the cold must be making it harder for you, other than you just, you know, showing out. I figure this way I don’t have to worry about you bumbling around in the kitchen and messing things up like you did with the silverware the other day, and you get to spend time in here with me!”

Tears were streaming down her cheeks at this point, and she swore she could hear bones grind together as he twisted it even tighter. She bit her lip to keep the building sobs at bay. She didn’t want to interrupt him while he was still talking.

“Sounds like a win-win, right? Well, more of a win for you, since I’ll be having to pick up your slack, but I don’t mind too terribly for the time being. Anything for my little Dove.”

One hard twist and she swore she heard a familiar snap. It was hard to tell agonies from agonies, the pain was all too interconnected now. Mashed together, ground into her very being at this point.

She could not stop the sobs as they tumbled free from quivering lips.

He didn’t want her to, anyway.

“What do you say, little one?”

It was a few seconds of sniveling, wretched sobs before she managed to gather the strength to thank him.

[Tag List for Inky Depths: @salamancialilypad @oops-all-whumping @khalwrites @lektricfergus and @comfy-whumpee since they helped me with the mood for this one 🧡🖤🧡🖤 let me know if y’all want to be added or removed from the list!]

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raigash · 4 years

Text

An Anniversary, Remembered (Part 1)

[Inky Depths Masterlist]

[If you’ve made it this far, you know this story is a bit strange, and is very touch-and-go. I’ve been holding off on this for so long because I’ve been trying to find the right balance of “not giving away key details from the past” and “explain everything.” I think I’ve got it worked out enough that I feel pretty comfortable introducing you to Rosalind’s future. Let me know what you think, feedback helps me mold the story to be more enjoyable to y’all, and to myself! So yeah, ramble aside, behold]

Matthew had been gone less than two hours.

He had made sure of it. He had sped through the store like a bat out of hell, drawing funny looks and thinly veiled harrumphs from other shoppers. He had practically cut the list in half, down to the barest essentials that he himself needed to keep them afloat for the next few days, in order to minimize the time she was left alone and quite possibly frightened.

In the end, he had finished unloading and returning his shopping cart at the 1 hour and 23 minute mark. The half hour return trip was spent in silence, as most of his car rides were now. Barely conscious of the trees and fields speeding by him, he allowed his mind to wander through the clouds. He let it meander through random topics until, like always now, his thoughts converged on the girl now occupying his guest bedroom.

She was an enigma, a riddle with no beginning and no end. He was lost inside the mystery, not understanding the magic that seemed to flow in her veins, to compel her very atoms. Even less was his understanding of how he fit within that puzzle.

He had known from the moment the lupine wisp had found him on that endless, gloomy night that there was something...special about the figure he had found bloody in that clearing. It was miracle enough that helpless and wounded in an area surrounded by merciless predatory species, she had been untouched by any animal. No gator had scored her with his teeth, no ospreys to pick at exposed wounds.

And sitting in a lumpy chair in the waiting room, listening to the idle drone of a midnight talk-show host on the television with dull ears, the mystery had only deepened. An ethereal wail, agonized and so, so sad punched through the fuzzy atmosphere, shattering his heart. It had startled him, and he looked around to see curious looks sent his way at his reaction.

It had taken him until the second cry to realize that he wasn’t hearing the sound with his ears. It seemed to be flowing straight into his heart, wrapping around it, it’s desperation, a cinch that pained him. It was then that he realized, no one else was hearing it either. How could they not?

What is she? He still didn’t know

More important to him, however, was the question of just what had she been through? He knew much from the doctors, who had been careful and considerate in explaining the extent of care she would require in early recovery, about the physical aspects of her suffering. Her hands had just under 200 individual active fractures and breaks, with evidence of many, many more in the past. Bruises covered nearly every inch of pale skin, stretched taut across her aching bones from months, maybe years of starvation. She tossed and turned in agony as withdrawal wracked her mangled body, the shades of drugs used to keep her under control peeling away to reveal to herself how deeply she had been wounded. Her body had been tormented, broken in almost every fashion imaginable. At least, to himself anyway. He shuddered to think what would have been done to her if she hadn’t escaped. What haunted him at night was less the scars he could visually see, and more those that he could not.

The process of figuring out communication had been an awkward stumble, at best. Realistically, it was more of a painful, broken hobble. When offered a pen and paper, she had simply broken down into terrified sobs, making garbled and muted noises he could only assume would have been begging, before. A Speak and Spell had only been greeted with morose eyes, and a darkening in the chords of the music filling the house. He had debated on investing in a pointer board for her, but he didn’t have the expendable income. Not yet. One day he would, if she wanted it.

In the meanwhile, they had reached a compromise that seemed to work pretty well. A magnet board, with a small cloth pouch containing all of the basic letters of the English alphabet, punctuation, numbers, and more in multiples. The first thing she had told him, of her own volition, anyway, was that she could be on her way soon. She wouldn’t take up his space, if she could just stay until she could walk easier again, please, she’d be gone as soon as possible. He had heard nothing of it, telling her she could leave when she was healed, and then only if she really wanted to. She had taken it meekly, and said nothing more on the topic. It wasn’t until she was well enough to walk around and attempt to do every household chore under the sun that he thought it might have been because she thought him another version of the captor she had known before.

She never made eye contact immediately. It seemed to be as natural to her as breathing, to duck her head at the first sign of interaction and wait to be given some sign of permission to look up. It made his heart weep, but he had yet to work up the courage to speak with her about it, lest she take it as his displeasure with her.

That was something which always sent a quake of disgust down his spine, at himself, and at whatever monster had cut this radiant star down from the sky and had held it captive. Any sense of anger from himself was met with shaky attempts at placating, often in ways he found...situationally unsavory. Fear and puppy love would swirl in those eyes, eyes he could get lost in, and he would find himself holding back tears at what had been stolen from her. When he made it clear he wasn’t going to make her do...that, she would just toddle off with a sad gleam in her eye to go find something to clean, to organize, anything.

She displayed an almost ever-present terror of taking too much. The lights were never left off in a room once she had left it, sometimes even remaining off while she occupied the room if she could manage what she was doing solely by the light of the windows. She ate morsels instead of meals, never eating more than perhaps an applesauce around dinner. A biscuit at breakfast. Oftentimes nothing at lunch. She rarely spent more than 15 minutes in a shower, coming out pale and frightened with her hands up defensively if she believed she had gone over the imaginary time limit. The first few days after getting her home had nearly broken his heart. He thought, as he had daily since that night, that he was in way over his head.

Since the moment she had been revived under the bright lights of the hospital room, he had yet to spend a day without the melody of her presence. Though her movements, her actions were nearly always the same, there was something confounding about the modulation of the tune. In the beginning, agony and fear and a highlight of longing was the only song that kept them company. Slowly, he came to find days where the quiet desperation had turned to something...harder. Something angrier. A dark storm loud. A red sky. He was exceptionally curious about what was going on inside her head. He had borne it silently, not wanting her to feel afraid of the one way of expressing herself she seemed to cling to. She had spent the early hours wandering the house like a ghost, trailing a palpable cloud of fear and confusion about behind her. He wouldn’t deny her whatever solace she could find. Neither would he intrude upon it.

The sight of his little dirt driveway, marked with a little blue whitewashed mailbox , pulled him from the chasm of his mind. Glancing into the rear view mirror as he turned down the path, he found himself glad he had beat the coming storm. The clouds were a malicious charcoal color, piled atop each other like foam on the sea. Hopefully we can get all the groceries in before it starts pouring.

It had seemed strange enough that he hadn’t been greeted with the featherlike tingle that announced her mental presence when he had turned on to the little hidden road, but he had shrugged it off. Crossing his fingers and ignoring the twinge of unease, he had simply parked and grabbed the cold foods from the passenger seat, hoping to find Rosalind alright inside.

The stillness of the house unnerved him, a sense of disquiet growing within as he slowly closed the door behind him, locking and deadbolting it. The crinkling of the grocery bags in his hands echoed into the silence, the only thing he could hear in a home usually blooming with noise. The lights in the foyer, as well as the living-room from what he could see, were off.

He stopped off in the kitchen, worry growing as he checked off yet another room she was not in, and quickly shoved the cold food into the fridge. There would be time to properly sort and put away the items later, after he had finished unloading the rest from the car. Before anything else, he had to find Rosalind.

No longer laden with milk jugs and eggs and all other manner of perishables that slowed him, he did a sweep of the house. She had not been in the foyer nor kitchen, and upon examination she wasn’t to be found in the living room either. He flicked on the light switch as he passed into the connecting hallway, peeking his head into the restroom to find it unoccupied as well.

Passing the entrance to his room, he went first to the guest room at the very end of the corridor. She was staying there, officially. The curtains had been pulled away from the window, allowing her a view of the small garden on the far side of the house. While he rarely ever found her sleeping in her bed-even now the covers were practically undisturbed, left the way he had made them for her nearly two months ago-he could often find her peering out at the butterflies as they danced around the little rose bush. Now, though, the room was empty.

That left his bedroom.

It was with a partial sigh of relief that he found her buried underneath his brown sheets, that dingy blue rabbit pulled against her chest in a crushing embrace. The bloodstains had never washed out, but she refused to part with it. Even when he had offered to get her a new one, the exact same plush. She had merely shook her head and clutched the old one tighter.

The slow inhale and exhale of her breathing calmed him further. She wasn’t dead, or hurt, it didn’t seem. She was just quiet. He found the magnet board on the bedside table, words spelled out in some sort of message, and he took it up to read.

Took my pain med, full dose not half

Can’t be awake tonight

Something heavy and sad settled on his shoulders, and he lay the board back down once more. Mind swirling with a million emotions once again, he made his way back out of the room, silently as he had entered. Taking one last look back through the darkened doorway, he set about fetching the rest of the groceries and putting them away. He, too, needed something to take his mind away from a world too stained with cruelty. He didn’t know what would compel her to take her full dose, when she had been fighting and sneaking to never take more than she could get away with of what the doctors had prescribed her. All he knew was that it had to hurt. His heart broke for her, this lost and battered miracle he had taken in, been blessed with the opportunity to care for.

His tears mingled with the first raindrops, and the storm began in earnest.

#rosalind #matthew #caretaker #recovery #tw: withdrawal #tw: mentioned past drugging #tw: mentioned past torture #inky depths of bloodstained pages #nonverbal communication #tw: past trauma #paranormal whump #i’m sure i’m missing something #tw: past starvation #trauma #creepy whumper #intimate whumper #tw: implied past dubcon #my writing #raigash writing

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raigash · 4 years

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The Need to Be Loved

[Inky Depths Masterlist]

[this is my very, very late entry for WIJ Day 3! Rosalind is 11 and 22 respectively. Not a lot of real whump in this one, but it’s definitely implied both before and after the second half. Hope you guys enjoy! If I’ve missed a tag or there’s something I could be doing better, let me know!]

Warm hands brushed across her forehead, wiping away the sweat from her brow and tucking a misplaced tuft of hair back behind her ears. The touch was comforting. It seemed to gently push aside the haze, if only for a second, to remind her that there was something beyond the bounds of the fever that ravaged her body.

Seeking further reprieve through contact, she let her head loll to the side, burying it within the denim encased leg that rested beside her. Her skin felt glacial, her innards like frothing lava. The two extremes raged against each other in a ferocious battle for ground, heedless to the white flag she herself had raised hours ago. Rosalind felt as though her body had nothing left to give the vicious malady which held her ransom. All her water had been sweat or cried out, all her energy depleted.

A low humming emanated from the figure currently watching over her. It slipped out into the quiet of the room, melding with the gentle whir of the overhead fan as it desperately worked to keep her comfortable. It was doing absolutely no good, but she couldn't find it within herself to raise a complaint about it. It would likely be just as uncomfortable without the breeze, and knew when the clouds cleared, she would prefer the room cool anyways.

She would have to thank her mom for that later, when her stomach settled its turbulence and she could open her mouth without fear of regurgitating what few crackers she had managed to keep down. For now, she simply let the rough grain of the fabric scour away the frost from her nose and cheeks and drifted through a twilit world of halfway thoughts and ethereal shadows.

It was much easier to let herself drift than to attempt to claw her way back to lucidity.

“How’s she doing?”

The voice from the doorway floated in on the wind like it always did, wrapping around her and sinking into her very bones, and she couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.

She loved her mother dearly, but her own anxieties about the illness her daughter was facing buzzed in the air around her like an angry swarm of bees. They poked into Rosalind’s skin, boreing holes and nestling themselves within. It was almost enough to undermine the comforts wrought by her presence.

Almost, but not quite

“Not any better than she was this morning. Her temperature dipped for a little while after I got her to drink some broth, but it’s spiked again and hasn’t gone down since,” her mother replied. The bed beside her dipped as she moved to extract herself, brushing a caring hand through soaked hair one last time before standing up completely.

Rosalind didn't endeavor to turn her head towards her parents, knowing what would be happening on that side of the room wasn't worth the expenditure. There would be a kiss on the cheek, a warm embrace, and the like. She could hardly find it within herself to care to think about it, much less to look at it as it happened.

She let herself drift again, finding it easier than surfacing to take information in from the world around her. She wasn’t aware if it had been 5 minutes or 50 by the time she felt the bed shift once more. She was vaguely aware that the tiny beam of light she could see pouring in from the window through squinched eyes had gone from the pale yellow of afternoon to the intoxicating gold of late evening. She took in the information with a muted surprise, the true ring of the emotion dulled by the fog that she swam through.

I just want to sleep

She continued to observe with the muffled curiosity of a distant spectator as her head was shifted into her father’s criss-crossed lap. The world was slightly blurry through glazed eyes, but there was a gleam in his own, and smile that could shine through the darkest night.

For the first time in quite a few hours, she found herself smiling as well.

He leaned down and placed a gentle kiss on her forehead, brushing aside the hair that had been mussed up during the shift. He crossed his hands beneath her head, laying his arms atop her torso in a way that allowed him to hold her hands that lay at her sides as well as hold her. The embrace felt safe, a haven from the warring temperatures tearing her apart, and the weight against her skin gave her something else to focus on.

“Close your eyes and rest, Rose. You need it.”

Wrapped in love so strong and buried beneath a mountain of exhaustion, she let her eyes flutter closed. There was a calm stillness in the air around them that she could feel slowly loosening her tensed and abused muscles, making quick work of draining away the aura of suffering that had begun to box her in from all sides. As she slowly sunk beneath the veil of unconsciousness, she heard her father begin to sing to her. Febrile and spent, she found comfort deeper than she ever had before.

“The need to be loved

Is as old as the wind and the sea

Or as young as the mulberry tree on a summer day

The need to be loved is the song of the lark on the wing

In the winter, the promise of spring…”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Through the years, come what may,”

The parlor was muggy tonight, and her thoughts sloshed around inside her skull. She clung to herself, adrift on the turbulent seas in nothing but a paper mache ship. Within seconds, she could be dragged under, tossed and battered in a battle she had never been prepared to undertake, dashed against the rocks to fade into the mist. She could not allow herself to sink beneath the purple waves that threatened to swallow her whole.

Feeling the music build within her veins, the melody nudging at her with purpose as it slowly ascended, she opened her eyes to take in a read of the room.

“When the world falls apart for children, like a broken carousel,”

The candles which lit her ornate wooden stage flickered slightly as she sang the verse, digging deep within herself to perform. She clawed desperately for any kind of hold on the place inside her where her stories lived. A yawning purple void was all there was to greet her.

Private parties meant less people

Private parties did not mean less work

“That’s when we need the warmth of love,”

She looked into eyes made of glittering malachite. I thought they were emerald once, I was wrong. There was a dark hunger there, hidden beneath layers of emotions he carefully layered atop it. There were only three people here tonight, besides she and Pascal. She could see the wicked gleam in the eyes of her audience, and knew all too well what was in store for her tonight. She would not be up to standard this evening, and there would be consequences. Just as he’d planned it.

“To tell us what we know so well”

Violet storms thundered in her mind, dragging her further and further away from the connection she needed to have to the music. She needed to feel the tempo in her blood, the rise and fall in her heart. She needed to crack under the weight of the words she sang, to speak them as they were meant to be. Without being able to...to feel the song, she was just...singing.

He loved to throw her into performance scenarios after doping her up and suppressing her ability to tell the stories these songs embodied. It was a cruel trick, and a painful one that severed a vital part of herself for hours at a time. He’s doing it to help you. He loves you. You’re lucky

“That each little rose, needs the help of the rain and the sun,”

Some days, when she watched the rain pour down over the marshland from her window vantage point, she wondered if she could melt in the sun like the puddles of water did after a storm. No more performances, no more parties, no more work meetings. Sometimes she wondered what stories raindrops could tell. Sometimes she wondered if it was really worth it all, if she was truly so irreparably screwed up.

“And the need, yes the need to be loved

Is the same for everyone.”

Sometimes, she was truly happy to be the girl Pascal loved.

Sometimes, however, she thought of a house made by hand in a clearing by the river. And she thought of the headstone beside the rose bush that she would talk to when she forgot what it meant to feel loved.

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raigash · 4 years

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Whumptober Day 10, 14, 24, and 25: Blood Loss + Fire + Forced Mutism + Disorientation + Blurred Vision + Ringing Ears

[Inky Depths Masterlist]

[CW: gore/mouth gore, blood, self-inflicted, dissociation and generally fucky mindset, organ removal, glossectomy. This is a heavy, and dark piece, so make sure to take care of yourself and stay safe ❤️]

The only sounds within the darkened bedroom were that of peaceful snores, and the purposeful breaths of a soul too exhausted to continue sobbing. Silent tears fell from trembling lashes as a deep and pervasive blackness swirled within a broken heart. The shadows seemed to congeal into demons of pitch and despair inside a body that simply had nothing left to fight them with anymore.

They both glued her throat closed, and held it invariably open.

They crawled sluggishly through her veins, numbing soul and skin alike.

She was drowning in an onyx sea, with no life preserver in sight

From her position, curled up with her back against Pascal’s chest, she could see the stars through the open window. She watched them with listless eyes. The smallest pinpricks of light, in total darkness, transcending the brutal cold of Space’s void. Thousands of years in the making. Only to fall through a glass pane onto rough carpet in a home where dreams went to wither and die

Tomorrow would be another day, just like the last. And the one before that. And every single day for years, upon years, upon years.

The weight was choking her. Her lungs hung like lead in her chest, and her brain swirled, nebulous and clouded. She could not breathe. When socked feet slid from beneath the covers to land silently on the floor, she did not know where the impulse had come from.

No thoughts but blinding fear. No breath. No sound. She was sure her lips were turning blue, they had to be, as she padded noiselessly from her side of the bed to the door of Pascal's closet.

At one point in her life, she wouldn’t have been able to have moved even an inch in the pitch black room without stumbling. Now, she knew the darkness better than she knew herself. Her feet walked the path expertly, while her mind reeled and keened and screamed black words that covered all spots where anything else might could flow.

The brass doorknob was cold under hands that could no longer tell. Pain echoed up her veins, a seismic storm that began in the fingertips and struck through her arms. It was a grounding pain. One that returned a sip of air to her starving lungs.

That sip turned to a trickle, as aching muscles twisted the handle with all the care they could manage. There might have been a pulse there, from a heart that had long since stopped beating, as the heavy wood swung forth, and she ducked into the small space.

Once inside, she quietly pulled the door closed-an action she could neither remember having initiated, nor having ever done anything else. All of time seemed to exist in this one moment. From the dawn of existence to the world’s flaming demise, all laid out before her very eyes, and all compressed into these seconds that felt like generations.

She knew no past, no present, as her trembling fingers found the chain, and ushered in light to the room with the sacrifice of sparkling pain. The little hand carved box, sitting in its special case on his shelf, existed in a dimension beyond.

She could not feel the grain of the wood against her skin as she lifted the top and gazed upon it. A chill shot down her bristling spine as she took in the familiar sight of the glistening black handle, wrapped in twisting vines of jade. The blade of dark malachite.

Still her body moved, knowing it’s task, knowing what it had to do. She both understood, and could not even begin to fathom.

She awkwardly cupped her right hand around the knife, crooking mangled fingers to get a sturdy grip on it, and took it from its resting place. She could no longer feel the pain keeping her bound to reality.

With her left hand she pulled the chain for the light once more, and with some difficulty managed to open the closet door. Exiting as quietly as she had entered, she softly pushed it closed once more before following the pull of her feet where it led her.

She crossed the chasm of darkness once more, coming to stand at the window. She gazed up into the sky through tear filled eyes, searching for something she would never see.

Somewhere in the night, a wolf’s cry rang out mournfully

I can’t do this anymore

I can’t

Get me out of here

I can’t

With shaking hands she raised the blade slowly. As she tried to open her mouth, she found it impossible to stave off the growing sobs that had been building inside her chest. Instead of pressing her lips closed against the sound, she held them open wide enough for the blade to pass through.

She was wailing in earnest by the time the sharpened edge pressed into flesh. It was an awkward sound, muffled by her shaking hands as they gripped the blade tightly, pressing it further and further down her raw throat. Tears poured from bloodshot eyes, mingling with the tears of blood weeping from her mouth.

Behind her a loud thump signified Pascal jumping time his feet, finally wakened to the sound of her utter anguish. She jolted at the noise, causing the blade to dig in harder, further, and she just kept...

She just kept going

Bitter iron was the last thing she tasted. Through the fiery inferno of pure agony, she felt the twitching muscles fall still and flop uselessly to the bottom of her mouth, no longer tethered. Time moving in slow motion, she found the sensation almost novel, in a funny little way.

Then the pain coursing through her grabbed her focus once more, and she went to scream and there was no noise and

and she dropped the knife

Suddenly blood, warm and treacherous flooded her throat

There was no air it was just blood, there was no air

She was drowning, and

Suddenly strong hands were upon her, forcing her to bend forwards and striking her repeatedly on the back, as one might a choking stranger.

A splutter, somewhere between a cry and a cough, cleared her throat, and she felt the weight leave her mouth, along with a spray of the lifeblood leaving her. It must have landed on the floor with a splat, but she could not hear it.

She could not hear anything over the deafening ringing in her own ears

There was yelling, someone was yelling

But it was like she was underwater

A hand fisted in her hair, and suddenly she felt the blade be shoved back into her mouth, stabbing into the side of her cheek. Instantly the blood pouring in rivulets disappeared from her senses, swallowed by vines that never grew quenched. One less thing for her to worry about, in the long run

She was quickly growing dizzier, only getting more and more lightheaded, as she was dragged like a doll from wherever they had been to wherever they were going

Where were they? Where did they end up?

All she knew was her mouth was on fire

At some point after they had stopped-when did they stop-the blade was removed and the rivers sprung forth once more. They were swiftly-had time passed? She wasn’t sure-extinguished as eventually it was forced back inside her mouth.

This time, scalding hot

She felt the press of simmering stone against the ruined flesh in the back of her throat, and tried to scream.

No sounds came, and she fell into the shadows.

[Tag List for Inky Depths: @whumptober2020 @salamancialilypad @khalwrites @oops-all-whumping @lektricfergus and for this one, @comfy-whumpee and @ashintheairlikesnow 🧡🖤🧡 let me know if you’d like to be added or removed from the normal list!]

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raigash · 4 years

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Parlor Tricks

[Inky Depths Masterlist]

[Late WIJ day 12 entry, Do It. This features two creepy whumpers forcing Rosalind to draw upon her inclinations, despite it obviously causing her great pain.]

“Show me. Do it again.”

The command was hushed. Awed. The voice was a familiar one, the face too if she remembered correctly. Dark brown, almost black eyes and raven hair to match. He was a frequent in the house, someone who tended to show up whether it was a night with many people, or with very very few. He sat in a plush chair, pulled up to Pascal’s table near the back of the room. Pascal himself sat quietly in his own seat, smiling smugly and watching the interaction with great interest.

She stood beside the table, hands crossed over her perfectly wrinkle-free dress in just the right way. She wore blue chiffon with creamy satin accents, pearls and flats to match. Beneath the white gloves that looked for all the world to be normal were “braces.” Straps and bands of elastic arranged in very specific ways, to situationally bend her cruelly disfigured hands back into shape for show.

Every move of her wrist was agony. And so, she stood statue still until movement was demanded of her.

“What would you like me to-”

“That’s up to you, Darlin’. I want you to show me what you can do.”

A chill went up her spine at the thought of falling short of his expectations. His, or Pascal’s. She closed her eyes and reached down to find something, anything she could find within herself to latch onto. To deliver to these men who could take everything they wanted from her. She had gotten used to exposing raw, intense parts of herself in exchange for what peace she could secure.

A gilded cage was still a cage, but it was easier to navigate without a broken wing.

“I reach for the stars, high though they sit upon the shelves of the heavens. The blue of the night gives way to light that bleeds in from somewhere beyond this plane. Somewhere where all things are one.”

She began to move circular motions with her hands, shaping air and energy into a slowly forming sphere. It was nebulous, a swirling storm of smoke that seemed to have come straight from her fingertips, and radiated a sort of mystery. The man watching her let out a soft gasp as she worked, but she was too deep within to notice. She used the agony of the motion as a fulcrum, as leverage to draw from the world exactly what she needed to tell her tale.

“One day all the stars will have fallen, and will have shattered upon the ground like glass. That night will be blacker than ever, and the sun may never rise again.”

The flickering light of the candles extinguished as she spoke, bathing the room in pitch black shadows. The only shred of light came from the steadily forming figure in her hands. Slowly, pinpricks of white began to punch through the inky currents.

“That is fine by me. When the long night comes, and darkness consumes, I will walk my path as boldly as ever. I have watched the stars for years. When they die, They shall live on within my spirit. Let their light spark the dawn of a new age.”

Immediately she pulled her hands back down to her sides, relinquishing her grasp on the ball.

No longer held captive, the magic exploded. It expanded outwards in a cataclysmic wave. Smog swept across the room, adding a weight to the air and dancing about like demons in the moonlight. Shattered beams fell across every surface they could touch, fractals of light glinting off polished metal and falling upon the wicks of the candles to light them once more.

Yin and yang waltzed in the hushed room, singing a song she could hear, but couldn’t quite make out. It grew more and more dim as the effects faded away, leaving the room exactly how it had been after she had stepped down from her little wooden stage.

She felt tired. So tired. But alive.

Pascal laughed heartily, genuine surprise and earnest amusement tempering it into something she could almost have described as fond. “See? What did I tell you, Mason? Isn’t she fantastic?”

Black eyes glittered in curiosity. In hunger.

Later that night, when tides of purple would drag her under and drown her endlessly while she half-slept in their half-empty bed, she would swear she heard hushed voices chattering excitedly about something called a Paragon. Strange dreams filled her hours, and her hands screamed in agony, as Pascal had forgotten to remove the braces before sending her to the bedroom.

#rosalind #pascal #creepy whumper #intimate whumper #tw: drugging #tw: repeated drugging #tw: abusive relationship #magic #forced to use powers #disfigured hands #inky depths of bloodstained pages #whumpmasinjuly #day 12 #my writing #raigash writing

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raigash · 4 years

Text

Misty Midnight

[Inky Depths Masterlist]

[Very Very Late WIJ day 6 prompt, water. Nothing too bad here, just some angst, homelessness, and environmental whump]

Rosalind paced up and down the flower-lined pathway that led to the front doors of the large two-story building she had taken up residency beside. There was little else to do, and she knew she could not even begin to attempt sleep until the brewing tension had broken.

At the first sign of the coming storm she had slid her clipboard full of papers underneath the locked doors of the library. A stickiness has stolen over the cooling night air, and the scent on the breeze told her she was in for a downpour.

She hated being without a notepad or any kind of paper, in case inspiration struck and she had no way to record it. But she couldn’t risk her drafts getting wet. It was best to leave them where they would be safe until Mrs. Moran came with the keys to unlock the building in the morning.

She was equally hesitant about parting with her backpack for the night. The thin red plastic was all that protected her few possessions, all that separated them from the outside world. The nights on the hard bench were easier with her stuffed rabbit, and she hated to not have her brush with her to fix her hair before she entered the library.

She also knew, however, that she did not want them caught up in the weather. It felt scary no matter how many times she had done it, but she knew she had never not gotten her things back before. And it was worth it to have them for clear nights, whenever she could.

Besides, she would care less about it once the rain started falling down. The chill and the bone deep drenching would drive most coherent thoughts from her mind. She would fall asleep shivering, to wake partially dried in the weak light of the morning sun. It had happened many a night before, and would happen many nights past this one. It was how she lived now.

And it was better than nothing

With that bleak picture in mind she walked to the book return, sliding the little metal door aside and dropping the knapsack through the chute. She heard a quiet thud, indicating the bag had found its place with the books at the end of the slide. Letting the door fall closed again, she went to sit out in the grass that surrounded the building.

The lawn was beautiful. There were a few oak trees scattered about, as well as spatterings of azalea bushes that wept flowers at the peak of their season. She kicked herself back, stretching out upon the soil and folding her hands beneath her head. Here, she could see the stars as they slowly began to appear in the darkening sky.

There was something ethereal about the world before a storm. Clouds swirled in a midnight blue sky, and everything seemed to hold its breath. She lost herself to its splendor for a time before water began to pour from the sky, and she fled to her concrete bench.

It sat just beneath the overhang of the roof, which provided a great deal of shelter for vertically falling rain. However, when the winds began to howl, and the droplets began to fly sideways, diagonally, crazily, it did little good.

She was saturated within minutes. Holding herself tight and burrowing into the rough concrete like one might a pillow, at least no one could tell that the raindrops on her cheeks were actually tears.

#rosalind #whumpmasinjuly #water #rain #homelessness #whumpee #environmental whump #kicked out #storm #inky depths of bloodstained pages #my writing #raigash writing

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