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ashintheairlikesnow · 2 years

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Always Alone

For @whumptober 2022, day 24: blood covered hands

Killan’s masterlist

Follows directly after All the Light is Gone and Monster, Made

CW: Stitches/sewing up skin, trauma response, panic, environmental whump

Killan wakes, bleary and only partially conscious, to a stinging pain along the top of his head, the familiar sense of a needle and thread weaving in and out of his skin. He groans, turning his head away. “… stop…”

A small, long-fingered hand presses sharp talons that prick from cheekbone to jaw and then it back. "Bhei sà, du," A voice hisses in a familiar lilting, lyrical voice.

Killan feels rock under his back, a needle in his skin, and the shadowy sense of a fae leaning over him. For a moment, all he can understand is that Calon Nie must be here, wanting him back again.

His breath catches in his throat, eyes snapping open. Adrenaline sends a wash of cold terror from head to toe, and he sits up in a sudden jerk, shoving away his assailant. The sound that comes from him is twinned, a fae’s whistling shriek and a human’s scream. “Kani, Calon Nie! Nei!”

There's an angry squawk and hiss in response.

Killan's already moving, throwing himself forward and panting as he starts crawling with desperate speed across the room. Something thin keeps hitting him in the forehead, but he can't care about that now. There’s a tunnel ahead, and he can hear water running somewhere clear by. He heads for it.

Water means life, it might head towards the sky.

The sky means escape, from Calon Nie’s terrible ambitions, from the corpses littered around him making his new body for Calon Nie to control until he tires of its imperfections.

Behind him, the sound of pursuit - talons clattering on rock and quick breathing. It only drives him on faster, more desperately.

His wing drags behind him on one side and the pain rises and falls with his breathing, but he keeps going. There's a fork, and he swings left, following the sound of the water.

"Kai! Tarai iis, du!"

It's not the right voice, and it sounds angry, Calon Nie was almost never angry. Irritated, but not angry. Every resistance was only a slight delay, after all, when it came to how Calon Nie saw time.

Killan slows.

Where is he?

He crawls into another opening, this one only just large enough to sit up in, though much wider across. To one side, he can see the rushing water now, glimmering in the darkness to his stolen fae eyes. When he moves to touch it, it isn't cold, but slightly lukewarm. His fingers are smeared with gray wet sludge. When he lifts it to his nose, panting until his breathing slows enough to inhale more deeply, it smells like ash.

"Tarai iis," the voice says again, breathless and slightly raspy. He turns to see her, remembering only then the fae, Siira, and everything that led to this moment.

The flock of birds, the odd dark smoke around the ancient mountain…

The explosion, the way the mountain simply ceased to exist where and how it had before.

"Wh-... What were you doing to me?" He asks, and his voice comes out doubled, hissing fae and lower-pitched, trembling man. "What were you taking from me?"

"Take no thing, me!" She smacks one hand down against the ground. Her wings are puffed again in annoyance, holding something up between her talons. Both her hands are smeared with blood up to her wrists.

His blood.

The familiar sight makes him feel sick, remembering Calon Nie with tiny feathers sticking to the tacky drying blood on his own talons, patting a trembling, sobbing Killan between his reformed, mutilated shoulder blades and cooing praise for his near perfection.

Until he wasn't perfect any longer.

Until Calon Nie decided he should start fresh with other lives taken for his discoveries.

He sees the needle and shoves himself backwards again, landing promptly right in the sludgy running water. "Why? Why?!"

She narrows her eyes, clicking four times in confusion. Her head tips to one side. "Head." She taps the side of her own head. "See big cut, sew it up, me. Almost. You wake. Now…" She shrugs.

"Now…" He reaches up to run fingertips on his human hand over his scalp, when he finds something bumpy and painful. He pulls his hand back to see smears of bright red on the tips of his fingers.

A bit of thick black thread sticks briefly to the blood, then falls back against his hair.

"Need finish, me," Siira says impatiently, beckoning him back to her. "Tarai, du."

Killan swallows, but he moves back out of the water, shivering as a breeze runs over and around him. The smell of ash and smoke is on the wind. They can't be far from a way out. The air smells too fresh, feels too dry and warm not to be from somewhere they can reach.

Siira goes back to work once he's close enough, hissing softly as she threads the needle once again. Killan trembles, forcing himself to stay still as her talons press lightly against his head, sending pain in a wave down through him. He curls his human hand into a fist just to do something.

"Dollmaker use needles much, hm?" She asks, leaning in so closely he can feel her breath moving his hair. "Make many scares, you."

"Yes," He whispers. The needle pricks his skin, and he feels the pull and pressure of a needle pulled through, thread easing the two sides of his sliced scalp together. "I've been… cut open a lot. He gave me… new things."

"Many new things. Seeing, me. New wings. New eyes, you, new hand, new… this." She taps the scar over his throat, making him jump again. "Sssss!” She smacks him. “Be still, you! Not moving!”

Killan closes his eyes, breathing carefully, slow and even. Just like Calon Nie would have told him to, would have made him hold still, freezing his body for the knife, the needle, the magic to remake however he saw fit.

His shaking is getting worse.

There's one rough tug that makes his fae voice squawk in pain, less controlled and more instinctive than the human one, before Siira shifts back, showing him the needle in her bloody hand.

"All done. Help you, me. Help me, you. A good deal. Take to the sky, now. Follow the water, us?"

Killan shudders, trying in vain to shake off the ghosts of his past, and nods. They have to get into the running water and wade against its muddy current, the small, light fae's hands gripped tightly to his waist so she can follow him without getting swept away.

The smell of ash and fire gets stronger, the breeze starts to whip around them, and finally, finally he sees above them an uneven, jagged open place the water is falling through. It looks like when the earth fell apart beneath him, this space opened beneath a creek bed, creating again an underground river that had dried up long, long ago.

Maybe after the last time the mountain erupted.

Beyond it… he might see the trunk of a tree, the suggestion of branches. A star, or maybe he just hopes the sky is still there.

"Here," He says, shifting and holding out his arms. "You climb out, then pull me up."

She eyes him thoughtfully, then nods and clambers right up his back, until her feet dig claws into his shoulders. She stretches out, arms above her, wings closed tightly against her back.

Bracing himself against the water still running around his legs nearly to his thighs, he shoves her upwards, goes up on his toes, and feels the weight of her lift as she catches her talons on the edge and pulls herself out.

There's a pause where he stares upwards, breathing hard.

"Siira?"

No answer.

Then, the sound of talons scrambling over rocks, the heavy beat of wings, a cry of delight in her freedom from the prison under the earth, and she's gone.

She left.

She left him here, alone.

Killan stares, despairing, and then braces himself and jumps. His fingers almost brush against the edge. He grunts with pain as he lands, broken wing shifting, head throbbing.

He tries again and fails.

He tries again.

And again.

It takes another five tries before, just at the end of his energy and ready to give up, he gets just an inch or two higher and the talons on his right hand catch the edge, buying him just enough time to grab with his human hand, too.

His arms ache with the strain. He gulps in a breath as the water roars down over his head, chilled until his muscles lock and freeze. His grip slips and he cries out as he has to throw his arm up again, grappling and feeling his broken wing scrape painfully along the edge as he breaks through and finally lands on his stomach, pebbles digging in, water running all around him.

By the time he manages to drag himself to the riverbank, laying down and staring upwards, he realizes all the trees are gone. He had seen a stump, sure - but…they’re all gone. He sits up in wonder and stares around at the carnage that surrounds him.

There are no trees standing. Just snapped trunks or roots thrown entirely from the earth, piles of shredded branches and trunks on the ground, leaves all long since burnt to ash by the rush of heat that Killan had been hidden from underground.

Being trapped down there, he realizes, had saved his life.

Once he’s out of the river, the ground feels warm, like cobblestone streets after a long and sunny day, despite the darkness and the cool air. There are no stars, clouds roiling thick and dark above him. The air reeks of bitter, acrid smoke, and when he takes too deep a breath, he can taste it on his tongue and coughs until his lungs join the rest of him in aching.

He stands slowly up, turning and looking towards the mountain. There is a bright orange glow in rivulets, like rivers of fire winding down the sides, that’s all.

And the mountain seems… shorter than it was before. Smaller, on one side and at the top. As if aware of his regard, it rumbles, the ground trembling once more under his feet.

Killan backs up, one step turns into two, three, and then that becomes a flat run, winding around the trees and grinding his teeth against all his aches.

The fae in him knows what direction to go, follows unconsciously the earlier flight of the birds. Maybe, he thinks, the mountain will calm once the monster is no longer hiding in her forests. Maybe this was merely to throw him out, to send him fleeing under the softly singing stars. Maybe she felt such loathing for this abomination in her woods that she would destroy all the trees just to rid herself of his contagion.

Maybe even this is all his fault, for being something everything but the stars seem to regard as profane.

Even nature throws him out, unwanted.

So he runs.

Like always, he runs alone.

@quirkykayleetam , @whumpallday , @whumppsychology , @doveotions , @broken-horn-blog, @hackles-up @whumpfigure @whump-only , @just-strawberry-jam , @loopylunacy @raigash @whump-tr0pes @astrobly @burtlederp , @finder-of-rings

For whumptober @whumpworld

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ashintheairlikesnow · 2 years

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All the Light is Gone

CW: Environmental whump, cave-in, brief wing whump

Killan’s Masterlist

For @whumptober 2022, days 12 and 13: Cave In and Fracture

Discordant notes litter starsong all around him, and Killan shifts uneasily, wings ruffled and feathers fluffed out.

He’s crouched in the fork of a tall tree, a bagful of supplies worn on a leather strap over one shoulder and across his chest, resting against his hip. His eyes turn upwards as stars give way to dawn, winking out one by one as an eerie red and hazy light rises along the horizon.

An immense, ancient mountain in the distance - one that seems like little more than a hill, part of a rolling range that cuts this land in half between the human communities in the valleys and plains to the east and the secluded, isolated band of western fae closer to the sea, sits between Killan and the promise of the rising sun.

He belongs to neither of them, not fae and no longer human. On his good days, he thinks of himself as a creature - on his worst, as a monster who should have been put down for his own good a long time ago.

He hides from them both, this monster and man sewn together so expertly, and yet no one ever seems to see the man in him for long. His fingers move to brush at his lips, remembering a kiss-

But he flinches back from his own touch, as it is the sharp pinpricks of talons that he feels instead. Looking down at his own hand, he can see the scars where they were stitched on, after Calon Nie took human fingers away and gave him these instead.

He's still out there, somewhere.

Maybe he has made a new creation, a better one, since sending Killan away for not quite matching his vision. Maybe there is some version of him who survived but doesn't have to live like this, utterly alone. Maybe Calon Nie kept the next one, maybe the next one was good enough to be worth keeping.

Killan, in the end, had been imperfect. He had just been the first to be alive, still, when Calon Nie rejected him.

Even still… Killan might rather run into fae, these days. At least the fae, if he saw them, would simply kill him quickly for what he is - the humans have always made him suffer for their pleasure or money instead. At least the fae would not lay heavy hands in his hair and call him pet.

He shudders with the memory, pressing himself more firmly to the rough bark of the tree, turning his eyes back to the horizon, chin tilted to scent the air in an instinct driven by the half of him that is inhuman now.

The largest of the mountains is wreathed in what he takes at first for dark fog, but the stars whisper a warning to the fae blood that twists around the human in his veins as the hint of an acrid scent hits.

Smoke.

As if in response to his realization, the tree shivers around him, the leaves rustling. There is a low rumbling that he feels more than hears, as if the very ground is in pain. The tree he perches in sways, briefly throwing him off balance, forcing him to drop his hands and grip tightly to the branch below to keep from falling. Bottles clink together in his bag.

He swallows, hard, and pushes himself to standing, leaning forward with talons on his hand dug in to the main trunk to keep him steady.

More stars flicker away above him, and the red sky is bright and intense, breaking sunlight like water against the underside of high wispy clouds.

The rising light seems nearly orange, and his own skin is tinted sickly yellow when he traces the line of his arm with fae eyes.

His heart races and pumps fae blood twined around his human cells, which only makes the starsong speak more clearly. He can't grasp it as strongly as real fae, but he hears enough to know what it tells him.

He tips his head as a breeze plays with his shaggy hair. Even the wind whispers its warning, today, as if it doesn’t dare to speak any louder.

Stars do not use words. They sing in a language older than throats, older than the sun that warms the world. Stars sing in a language of light first brought to endless dark, in the language of the time before time.

The fae know the stars sing from birth, but Killan had to learn. It wasn't his language to know.

The dead gave it to him. It's with their ears, their eyes, their blood that he listens, that he watches, that he feels the screaming of a forest that cannot flee whatever is coming.

Go to ground, children, sing the stars. Run, run, run. Go to ground.

It isn't Killan the stars are singing to.

He jolts and jerks back to the safety of his crouch with a gasp as flocks of birds take flight at once.

The starsong is briefly muffled by the deafening beat of tens of thousands of wings and their high-pitched cries. The sky dims above his head, and he cranes his head to watch them - geese and finches, robins and swallows, hundreds and hundreds blackening the sky with their bodies and fleeing east, away from the great mountains, towards the human valley below.

Below, a rumbling begins again, lasts longer this time before it settles.

Killan spreads his wings and jumps off the branch, beating his wings hard to gain air, unnaturally hollowed bones light enough - and the twisted, magically-created muscles that hold the bones to his back strong enough - that a rising breeze carries him upward, where he can see that they don't stop at the valley.

The birds keep flying.

How far do the stars tell them to go?

Beneath him, he hears crashing through the trees, and looks down to see a bear with two gamboling cubs behind her making her steady way in the same direction. Nearby, deer race through the underbrush, but the bear doesn't hunt them. She never even looks in their direction.

Killan's heart goes cold for the first time.

A hunter, deeply in need of feeding to stay strong for her cubs, who doesn't hunt even as deer nearly brush shoulders with her... it’s far more frightening to him than the red sky above.

Killan shifts and drops back to earth, using his grip on tree branches to slow his fall and swing himself safely onto his feet on a bed of pine needles and decayed leaves. The ground feels like it trembles beneath him, and he tucks his wings tightly against his back and runs for his camp.

As he runs, the animals of the forests race the other directions. He sees a fox, squirrels leaping from tree to tree. Mice are nearly a carpet, all of them moving at once.

It’s like fighting the current of a river.

Leaves shiver and rustle all around, rolling waves of ground under his feet. The earth feels like it lurches to one side and Killan is thrown sideways, smacking hard into a tree and letting out a cry as he drops to his knees.

A mouse runs over his legs.

Go to ground, sing the stars. Run, hide, flee. Run, children. Fly. Hide. Burrow. Run.

Wolves howl from somewhere nearby. Killan drops his plan to go back to his camp and turns around, taking the advice of the birds and the deer and the bear.

He runs.

He thinks about flying, but some deep-rooted instinct tells him not to.

Bare feet slam into earth in a pounding beat matched by his racing heart, kicking sticks and leaves aside as he runs through the depths of the forest. He flees east, because that is the direction the birds were flying, and tells himself he will hide from the human villages when he gets there.

The earth groans again. The rumble turns to a roar.

There is a deafening scream of ground tearing itself asunder, an explosion somewhere behind him that rolls through his body and rattles the very bones under his skin.

Where a moment ago there was ground, this time Killan's left foot simply steps down into empty air.

He falls, dropping to his hands and knees.

The ground rips itself like peeling the skin off a citrus, trees collapsing and falling into a cavernous empty space that has opened up beneath them, dragging them down, roots and all.

Just as he pulls his feet back under him, the ground throws him again, and he rolls forward off-balance. The ground is moving him down where it was flat before, following the falling trees. Something snaps and breaks in his wing, making him scream in pain as he drops - and the drop takes so long - and slams onto his side.

Killan pushes himself onto one elbow and turns back, wide-eyed, to see a huge dark cloud rising above a gap in the trees.

All the light is gone.

Around him the forest is darker than midnight, and when he breathes some kind of acrid dust sticks in his throat and down his lungs, making him cough, spitting onto the ground.

His saliva, he realizes with alarm, is black.

The burst of sound comes again, even louder this time. The ground shakes violently, and Killan's own answering scream goes unheard.

Every sound he might make is lost in his throat and swallowed by the sudden darkness that envelops him as the world is a burst of darkness and death.

Starsong goes silent.

There is one final sound, an explosion of noise unlike any he has ever heard.

The ground opens up beneath him and swallows him whole.

He hits stone this time, not earth, and dirt crumbles soft over him and lands around him. Sticks and rocks clatter down, too. A sudden thump felt through his body makes him peer through the darkness, reaching out a hand-

Nothing. His talons close around the branches of a fallen tree.

He can't stay here. He'll be crushed.

Run, hide, flee.

It can't be the stars - he can't hear them over the roar. But still he hears the voice, and he swallows, crawling forward on his elbows, his wing a shrieking agony where the larger flight bones have broken.

His ears ring, deafened except for the howl of fear he can feel in his throat and not hear.

Driven by pure instinct, he crawls as the world shakes apart around him.

At some point, he realizes that he is crawling down, further into the dark. But behind him there is only death, and the stone above him is so close he can't stand - so he crawls on.

His ears stop ringing. His muscles ache, and he keeps coughing up sludge he must spit onto the ground as he goes. But he can't stop. The rumbling, shuddering earth around him drives him forwards, pushing through the pain throbbing in one dragging wing.

He's in an old, dried-out underground riverbed. There are pebbles digging into his forearms, sharp rocks cutting his elbows. He smells his unnatural blood as it spills out.

How long he keeps going, he doesn't know.

The rumbling gradually lessens and then stops. The earth keeps shaking. The tension that had made the air feel so heavy and still lessens. The air smells like wet and mold, now, not bitter ash.

Ahead of him, he hears a frightened trill, trailing off into a hacking cough, ending in a soft whimper of pain.

Killan recognizes it - not who, but what.

There isn't any other direction to go. Nowhere to run to. So he takes a deep breath and crawls towards the sound of the fae ahead.

@quirkykayleetam @wildfaewhump @whumpallday , @whumppsychology , @doveotions , @broken-horn-blog , @hackles-up , @whumpfigure @whump-only , @just-strawberry-jam , @loopylunacy @raigash @whump-tr0pes @astrobly @burtlederp , @finder-of-rings

For whumptober: @whumpworld

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ashintheairlikesnow · 2 years

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Light/high/self for Killan!

The wagon makes its slow and steady way down the road, the team of two draft horses in no particular hurry, and their driver not bothering to push them to move any faster. He sits back, reins loose in his hands, and lets the horses have their heads.

High above, the sun shines weakly, its yellow light barely giving off enough warmth to cut the chill. The driver pulls his cloak more tightly around himself, hood up to keep his ears covered. On either side of the road, there is still snow in any place shadowed from the trees.

Off to one side, a bird sings, a trilling scale of notes up and down.

Behind him, the driver hears an echo coming from the creature's cage. Plaintive and sad, the trill follows the original song up the scale, but more slowly.

"Shut up," The driver snaps. A job's a job, but he doesn't enjoy this one. Fae are cursed monsters to begin with, but what he's got back there... even worse. But he's been paid a bulging bag of marks to see the damn thing off to its newest master, and so he hunches his shoulders and makes the sign against evil, eyes narrowing. He flicks the reins to encourage his horses to move at least a little bit faster.

The creature, thankfully, falls silent again.

Its presence, though, sits along the driver's back like a malevolent weight. It'd just as soon tear his throat out as look at him. He'd said he'd only take the job if they put it in a cage it couldn't see out of.

He supposes it's too much to ask for it to be unable to make a sound, too.

#killan is babey and saddest boy #whump #captivity #isolation #sensory deprivation #fantasy whump #fae whump #sort of #fae whumpee #of a sort #nonhuman whumpee #kind of?

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ashintheairlikesnow · 2 years

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How is Killian doing? And his puppies wolf friends?

Outside the cave, the wind whistles vicious and frozen, whipping empty branches and tearing the last remaining leaves away. There have been no stars for days, only heavy dark clouds that seem close enough to touch, as though the sky itself would burst open and leave no barrier between breath and space.

Inside the cave, the wolfpack lay, breathing calmly, curled over and around each other. Heavy tails curl over wet black noses.

In the center of the wolfpack, the creature sleeps, too.

The creature is not a man, although he was a boy, once. He is not a fae, though fae wings lay over he and the closest wolves, closing in the warmth of their bodies even more securely.

He lays curled up, head pillowed on one wolf, another at his back, a third in front of him. Two skinny half-grown pups, members of another pack that didn't survive the harsh winter except for these two, who the creature had found - those two are the wolves sheltered under his fae wings.

The creature shudders in his sleep, a very old pain wincing over his expression. One of the pups raises their head, huffing air through its nose in puzzled curiosity, and watches the creature with yellow eyes. When he shifts again, and whimpers, the half-grown pups slowly yawns, jaw stretching wide and then snapping shut sharp teeth. It leans over to nudge its heavy head under his chin.

The creature inhales, and slides an arm over the wolf's thick rough fur. He relaxes, slowly. The pain leaves his face, and the fear. He slips back into a deeper sleep.

Outside, the wind screams, but it cannot reach the creature or the wolves who keep him safe.

#killan is babey and saddest boy #killan asks

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ashintheairlikesnow · 3 years

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Five sentence prompts: “I’m not the man that hurt you!”

Note: Killan's world and details of fae in his story all belong to @wildfaewhump. It's Vic's amazing world, they just let me write in it!

For the Anon who wanted soft!Killan!

"Sssshhhhh, it's all right. I'm not the man who hurt you." Killan carefully reaches out his human hand for the kit to smell. It presses its nose to the roughly-hewn metal grid, and Killan is careful not to touch the cage it is being held in directly.

A wet black nose bumps his fingertips, and it whimpers, liquid eyes turned up at him, pleading.

"It's all right," Killan repeats, and shows the kit his other hand, the wickedly sharp talons that curve where fingers once were. He's too aware of the men sleeping inside the tents nearby to trill, not this late at night, but he ruffles out his feathers, takes a twig from his hand and gives it to the kit to smell. "I'm here to help."

The woods are dark around them. A breeze winds around tree trunks and pushes lightly at Killan's back. He stands, moving with silent steps, letting the blood of a fae hunter that died to make him lead his path. His eyes - from another who died, two really, since the first didn't take - dart quickly, seeing more in the dark than any human ever could.

Wings tucked tightly, he lets the wind, and the scents it carries, guide him.

The forest takes care of its own, but it gave him a home here for a reason.

Sometimes, even the wilderness can't save a caged kit without a set of human hands.

Well, one hand, anyway.

"Sleep," He whispers, pulling the trickles of starsong his fae voice can find. Inside the tents, the men slumber more soundly. "Sleep, and leave when you wake and find your hard work undone."

He leans over the man meant to be standing guard, now snoring lightly. There is a key hanging from a leather cord around his neck. Killan gently lifts it away.

Then he heads back for the cages.

Kit, first.

Then the other animals they've trapped.

Then maybe he'll steal some pants.

#killan is babey and saddest boy #whump oc #winged oc #whumpee turned caretaker #wildfaewhump's world #fae oc #sort of

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ashintheairlikesnow · 4 years

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Masterlists Masterpost

Here are the links to viewable Google Docs:

Bones in the Ocean (Original fantasy writing, siren whump, captivity, magical stuff happenin’)

Daniel Michaelson’s Story (contains some shared content with @evermetnotforgotten) pet whump, conditioning, captivity, rescue, recovery, torture

Erase to Control (Kauri) + Misc BBU Content (contains collabs with @the-host-and-colton and more!) Conditioning, pet whump, BBU/box boy, trauma recovery

What We Can’t Make Right: Jake, Chris, etc (contains references to @deluxewhump‘s Z2 writings) neurodivergent whumpee, pet whump, BBU/box boy, trauma recovery

Vampire Chris AU: vampire whumpee, drugging, drug use, pet whump, trauma recovery, blood drinking, creepy whumpers, neurodivergent whumpee

Chris Saves Himself AU: Trauma recovery, neurodivergent whumpee, drug withdrawal, imperfect caretakers

Little More Than a Chance: New Rescues. Pet whump, conditioned trauma, BBU, group whumpees, trauma recovery, torture (if link doesn’t work, click here for backup)

A Little Town Called Hope and Other BBU Stories: Trauma recovery, lab whump (eventually), BBU, box boy universe, environmental whump (Alternate list here if the original does not work)

What Makes a Monster: Killan Josta (@wildfaewhump‘s universe) Dehumanization, monster whump, magical whump, fantasy setting

Signs of the Sea (mer whump, lab whump, medical whump, captivity)

The Motherfucking Gallaghers - collaborative storyline with @comfy-whumpee‘s Jax Gallagher. Intimate/creepy whumper, lady whumper, shock collars, captivity, slavery

My AO3 Account (includes fanfiction for A Darker Shade of Magic / VE Schwab’s ADSOM series, as well as Sarah J Maas’s A Court of Thorns and Roses, plus original fiction that doesn’t work on Tumblr)

Like what you’ve read? Please leave a tip in the tip jar to fuel my writing (and caffeine) addictions!

I have a tendency to just flat out forget to update for weeks at a time. Check the character tags attached to this post and you may find newer pieces I haven’t added in to any of the masterlists just yet.

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ashintheairlikesnow · 3 years

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can we have random facts about Killan please im sad

Hi, Anon! Sorry this is only getting answered now, illness has found my household and I went to bed early last night.

1. Killan goes so long without speaking that most people believe his voice is permanently hoarse, because he rarely speaks to anyone long enough to warm it up to normal again

2. His scars, where Calon Nie sewed him together, sometimes itch so terribly it's all he can do to not go mad from it

3. For only having talons on one hand, he is a surprisingly good hunter. It comes from him being patient and willing to wait for the perfect moment.

4. He dreams about going back south to see his mother, but he would never want her to see him like this. He just wants to see if she is still alive.

5. He is currently known as a ghost haunting a set of woods in which bandits and other cutthroats have begun to disappear. Local folk tell a tale that he is a bandit himself cursed to be look like a fae and take revenge on those who would harm them.

#killan asks #killan is babey and saddest boy

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ashintheairlikesnow · 3 years

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“You betrayed me” or a similar variant 🥺❤️❤️ Thank you ash

CW: Dehumanization, implied gore (fade to black)

“You... but you promised we would-... that you would grant me my freedom!” The creature fought the ropes that looped around its wrists, jerking it backwards and away from her, the hobbles around its ankles of a similar roughened rope knotted tight enough to chafe the skin raw. Its wings strained against the ropes that kept those gorgeous reddish-brown feathers strapped down to its back, feathers kept being rubbed far enough out of place to yank themselves free drifting down to the courtyard’s cobblestone path.

Leanisa lifted her chin, coolly, unmoved. She felt the carefully constructed structure of her dress as a kind of armor, and she gave a thin smile to the watching guards. “I did no such thing,” She lied, perfectly believable.

The creature’s eyes widened, and she saw the blush of pinkish red that let her know tears would soon follow.

“You lied to me!” The creature screamed, and Leanisa felt the first stab of worry as she heard a furious fae screech layered under the human cry. “You, you said you-”

“I said nothing,” Leanisa snapped. “Someone gag it before we have to listen to its fae lies any longer.”

“I’m not a fae! I’m not lying! I’m not-”

One of the guards jerked it to one side by the rope attached to its wrist, and the creature stumbled, then stared at the rope and back up at the guard. It yanked its own right arm closer, pulling the surprised holder of the other end off balance.

Leanisa watched with horror as the creature used razor-sharp talons to slice its wrists free of the ropes. She took one step back, and then another.

“Be still,” The creature said and Leanisa felt herself freeze, suddenly sure she must absolutely not move a muscle.

Its hideous blue eyes were locked on hers, and when the guards moved, the thing said, “All of you, be still!”

Everyone in the courtyard stopped moving.

The creature staggered to one side, then looked back at Leanisa. “You... said you loved me,” It whispered, mournful, and furious. “You said, you said, and you-... you’re giving me to your... your husband, you said-”

“I never said-”

“Silence!”

Her jaw clicked, her mouth closed so fast.

He couldn’t hold the guards. She saw them move, one step. Another. His foul magic couldn’t hold so many for long.

She realized that it didn’t matter - that still no one would reach her in time - as the creature flung itself at her, talons out, an expression of utterly human grief and rage written across its face.

Just as if it were a man.

---

(details of fae biology and magic abilities referenced in this piece credited to @wildfaewhump)

#killan is babey and saddest boy #captivity #restrained #fae whumpee #fae whump #wing whump #mind control #betrayal

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ashintheairlikesnow · 3 years

Text

Christmas Specials: Longest Night

CW: Internal dehumanization, referenced torture, captivity, brief suicidal thoughts (of the "better than going back" variety)

This is inspired by conversations with @wildfaewhump and @comfy-whumpee - and includes direct references to Morg’s worldbuilding for their Silver Birch storyline, used with their permission and all credit to them. Otherwise, the overarching universe outside the wood belongs to @wildfaewhump.

On the Longest Night, in the bitter cold, the creature - who had been a boy, once, and had never been fae, although parts of him had, and who was now neither of those things and perhaps nothing at all - could run no further.

His wings trembled, clinking the heavy rings pierced into them so long ago the agony of it was barely a faded memory, as he collapsed. Finally shrouded in the shadows of the forest, he listened with little more than resigned despair to the baying of hounds. They were coming, and there was nothing he could do, nowhere left to run.

He'd been caught kissing Laekna, had tried to fly at first, but his wings were weak from how long it had been since he’d taken to the sky, and too many of his feathers were missing after Laekna’s brother and the other townspeople had set upon him, and he just couldn't force them to take to the air again.

His wings and shoulders and back screamed in fury at him for trying, aches ran through his ribcage like bolts of lightning. Every breath was pain, but it was still a free breath.

He would take only a few more.

Would she miss him?

Or was she like Leanisa, and it had only been because he was a monster unlike any man she'd met? Was he nothing more than novelty to any human now, and sacrilege to any fae?

He shuffled his bare feet through the underbrush, the sound of the dogs growing louder and louder. He could hear Laekna's brother shouting, shuddered at the memory of him accusing Laekna of being thralled, declaring the monster a fae who deserves nothing more than death.

His head throbbed at the back where the club had come down, blood trickled down his back where they’d held him for the whip before he’d taken a chance and run when they briefly let go. He left the dogs an easy trail to track, but he couldn’t stop.

Couldn’t... had to keep going... had to-

Finally, even his legs gave out, and he crawled into a hollow underneath an immense old tree wider around than four Killans holding hands, wings that stung and feathers thick with drying pearly red blood tucked tightly around himself for warmth, and waited for the dogs to find him.

If he was lucky, they might kill him outright, or sell him to another traveling merchant. If he wasn't, they'd pluck his feathers one by one to sell, and keep him somewhere, alive, but barely.

More muzzles, to still his thralling voice. More chains to pull his wings out for their inspection, their endless groping hands, their hatred. More hurt, for what he had never wanted to be, but Calon Nie had made him anyway.

The dirt beneath him warmed slowly to his skin, and beyond the protection of the hollow, the wind whistled through the high branches, rustling leaves that felt like a whisper. His heart pounded, his pulse rushed in his ears and temple.

The creature tried to curl up tighter. He could hear the hunters shouting now, soft cries of this way and found a feather. It was a matter of time. The dogs would follow his blood.

He closed his eyes and waited, as the shouting and howls grew louder, for them to come.

The wind picked up, leaves and branches clicking together, and then a smell drifted into the little hollow. A smell that was at once warm and that stung his nose. A smell of old blood and fur.

The monster lifted his head, just a little, and with bright blue eyes with their slit pupils took in a yellow-eyed wolf, shaggy with heavy winter fur, staring back, her head lowered to look at him in the hollow.

Behind her there were others, huffing, nipping at each other, a whole pack gathering into the clearing by the great old tree.

One by one, they turned to look at the bit of bedraggled feathers and tangled limbs in the hollow. Eight pairs of yellow eyes met his own.

The creature caught his breath - and then let it out, a long sigh, in something that was far too close to relief. He was too tired to run any more. Maybe the wolves would kill him faster than humans would. That would be a mercy, to die free, better than life spent tied down.

"Please b-be fast," He whispered.

The wolf's lip curled back, showing sharp canines, and she growled, a low rumble barely audible against the wind.

The creature swallowed, tried to remember, and felt some piece of him threading starsong to find a connection. The words came, not effortlessly, but almost easily once his blood rose to the occasion. "Mharú min glen agaes tepa, diirfiúr," He said, in the language of the fae, of Calon Nie, of the nine deaths it had taken to make him this.

One of them had been a hunter for their own people, the one who had given blood. He feels the words in his blood, beating pearly red through his veins. Maybe it would seem like human blood again, on the ground in the dark.

"Ná list do no fiir mise a thógael ar dtii."

The wolf's claws dug deep into the underbrush just outside the hollow and she lowered herself, ready to come in after him. There was no anger or bloodlust in her eyes, he thought. He could almost feel her, his own predator’s blood calling to hers. "Go raebh maith agaes, a diirfiúr," the creature whispered, his gratitude thick in his voice. The creature uncurled, made himself ready to be taken.

He closed his eyes, and wondered if he would watch from the mountain with the many fae Calon Nie had killed to create him.

A hawk's cry tore the sky above their heads and the wolf paused, raising her nose to scent the air, as the creature opened his eyes, surprised. The hawk screamed again, took off in flight, and the trees rustled louder, the course of the wind nearly insistent now.

A flock of great black birds settled into the branches above them, watching, crying out, caw caw caw. The wolves watched them, intently. The creature had the distinct feeling he had stepped into a conversation about him, but not including him.

The wind blew in a sudden violent gust through the branches of trees. The hunters' dogs bayed, sound carrying so loud they seemed nearly on top of him, and the wolves began to howl in return. Moving as one, they turned away and threaded back through the trees.

The hunters never found him.

The wolves scared them away, their howling the sound of a triumphant hunt, and the creature tried to count the hounds as they barked in return, soothing himself knowing they were all there. It wasn't the dogs' fault the monster had stolen bread. It wasn't their fault they knew how to hunt the scent of his feathers and half the blood in his veins.

The great black birds left, after a while, when the scent of the wolves came again.

The creature tensed, but they crawled into the hollow with him without their teeth bared. Their warm fur and breath surrounded him, heavy and thick. He tried not to think about why they still smelled like blood, fresher now, new. He hoped Laekna would forgive him, if the blood had been her brother’s.

Not that he could ever go back to ask.

In the bitter cold of the Longest Night, the wolves kept him warm, and the rush of wind through the trees whispered, sleep, boy, be safe here.

"Not, n-not a boy," The creature whispered back, to what he assumed was a hallucination.

The wolf from before huffed a heavy sigh and laid her head on the back of his neck.

Boy, the trees sighed, in a sad whistle of wind through the hollow. Killan.

Tears were hot behind his closed eyes as the boy - and he was a boy, even now, after everything - let the wind whispering his name soothe him to sleep.

No one had said his name in so long. He never lost the love of hearing it, even if it was only a dream.

He believed what he heard was a dream.

When he woke, the wolves were gone, but there was a freshly-killed rabbit laid outside the hollow, only a little torn by their teeth. The wind had shaken black walnuts from the trees, along with twigs and branches and he found just the right kind of rocks to create a spark.

Above him, the trees spoke his name, and the deep blue-black of the Longest Night gave way to the pinks and yellows of dawn.

We know you, said the trees. The boy caught his breath again, looking up into the canopy.

“What?” He heard it, clear as day, understood the trees. He could feel the starsong that made the world, everything alive in this wood he could sense gathered together to start a new year, the shortest day and longest night passed, the new pass of time begun.

The trees were quiet, but he heard them anyway.

Be seen. Be Killan. Be here.

You are safe.

---

@quirkykayleetam , @whumpallday , @whumppsychology , @doveotions , @broken-horn , @moose-teeth , @whumpfigure @whump-only , @just-strawberry-jam , @loopylunacy @raigash @whump-tr0pes @slaintetowhump @astrobly @burtlederp , @finder-of-rings

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ashintheairlikesnow · 4 years

Text

BTHB: Working Through the Cold

I’m not entirely happy with this, but some advice from everyone here has me thinking I will post it anyway! Let me know what you think! (and thanks to @slaintetowhump, @moose-teeth, @wildfaewhump, @robins-whump, Anons, @that-one-thespian, and others who were so nice about me being a schmoop yesterday)

TIMELINE: About a year before things get better for Killan

@badthingshappenbingo request: Working Through the Cold by Anon

CW: Extremely dehumanized whumpee, noncon touching (nonsexual), wing whump, muzzling, conditioning/training a whumpee, careless/casual/distant whumper, a kind of pet whump, referenced piercings, restraints, display whump

From inside the little shop, located on a busy street close to the central square, passing people might have heard the sounds of chirping birds, chittering small rodents (a southern delicacy, you know, when fed just the right mixture of seeds, nuts, and berries), two long, lean spotted cats built for the hunt and the chase, and one very old dog whose bark was much worse than his bite.

At least, he was missing enough teeth by now to undermine the threat.

A long-treasured travel companion, the old dog was fed rice cooked in a rich chicken stock with vegetables and chicken shredded so finely it didn’t require chewing. He’d had the dog for so long, now, and perhaps the old boy didn’t move much these days, but the merchant would rather rent a shop to help his dog keep warm over the harsh northern winters than be richer - and lonely without the old boy by his side.

The dog, of course, was not of much interest to his customers. No, they came to look at the rarities - to buy quill pens made from feathers saturated with a brilliant teal, or perhaps take home a pair of lovebirds cooing to each other, beaks just touching. An aristocrat or two with a taste for the meals in the far-off lands they’d traveled to might by the Sunning Hens for the soup pot, along with the packet of heady spices and tikla flour the merchant offered to recreate the spicy, thick stews from the south, where the people fought heat with heat.

They could come and see, while the weather continued to cool day by day, these reminders that there were lands, far away, who did not grow cold enough to bring out the painted lights in the sky at night, there were places that did not see the Longest Night at all.

They could see these things, for an easy, small price. In the large bay window of the shop, that angles outward and then in again, the people often paused to see something else entirely. No a reminder of the south’s bright colors and warmer clime, but… something new.

The summer’s warm air had been blown away by the oncoming winter chill, and autumn was in full swing. The trees in the small park in the town square were a riot of reds, oranges, and yellows, drifting down to create pools of color against the browning grass.

This far north, autumn felt like a luxury, a few weeks of middle-chill before the deeper freeze set in.

The people made the most of the time, and some of those people - when out their walks, or taking their children to and fro - stopped to look at the creature in the rarity-merchant’s window.

You couldn’t say anyone had ever seen anything like this before. In this part of the world, the fae were a whispered rumor of mountain folk more like birds than men, who swooped down to carry off lambs and calves and children alike. They were known to sour the milk and spoil the harvest using magic no human could quite master.

Here in this bustling city, the people had never so much as seen a feather that could be proven to be of fae origin - although many large hawk and eagle feathers were sold to excited children as fae feathers, the same way they might bring home a plush centaur or unicorn to line up in their beds.

No, nearly none of these people would ever see a fae in person, in their lifetime. But when looking at the creature strung up in the merchant’s window, they came as close as ever they would.

The creature shivered - the window did not hold out the chilly autumn breeze, and even through the slightly scratched glass the people could see the tiny bumps that rose on its skin, the minute tremors, the way its body fought to warm it.

It wore only a loose pair of pants - scandalous, if it had been a man. It looked a bit like one, of course, except… well.

Except for all the ways it didn’t.

In the window, they came to stand, one or two at a time - whole families on occasion - to look at the strange half-open blue eyes with tiny slit-pupils that stared back at them above a heavy leather muzzle dotted with little brass circles where it took in air to keep breathing. Wavy brownish-blond hair was chopped roughly, curling over rounded ears and against the nape of its neck, and only drew attention to the inhumanity written in the flatness of its eyes.

For all the roundness of its ears - and didn’t everyone know the faes’ ears were pointed and moved forward and back like a cat’s - and the gentle rather than pointed curve of its chin, you couldn’t ignore those eyes, or the blunted, pitch-dipped talons that twitched on its right hand.

A thick chain ran from the buckle at the back of its muzzle, keeping its head pulled slightly back, exposing a wickedly curved scar that ran down its throat from pulse point to collarbone. Affixed to the window at even level with it was a small piece of paper that read TWO VOICES, TWO WORLDS: 10 Marks to Hear a Song!

Iron cuffs around its wrists were chained to the wall, keeping its arms outstretched, giving an easy view of the other large scar down its left side, traveling down over its ribcage, fading out only just above the hips. Another sign here read FLIGHTS OF FANCY: Could this scar have to do with the power of flight? Come inside to see more!

It knelt - or sat, as the day went on and on - on a small cushion, and the people came each day to drop a coin or two in the box outside the shop and drink in their fill of the visual of the strange creature, neither man nor fae. Afforded the respect given to neither - not terrifying enough to fear like the fae, and so clearly not human.

The old dog by the fireplace was given more dignity than this.

But it wasn’t like the creature understood that, right?

Near its talons, one more sign in the window read: Razor-sharp talons slice a rabbit to shreds in seconds! These are dipped in pitch for your safety. Feel free to inquire inside for a closer look!

Mostly, they stay outside. It was worth a coin, or two, perhaps - to look at the winding, stitched-in threads that adorned its pelvis in a series of constellations that directly echoed the shape of the stars on clear winter nights all the way up to its chest, where a spiral had been sewn directly over its heart.

Assuming, of course, it had a heart in the same place a human would. No one seemed to know, and there really was only one way to find out for sure. The merchant wasn’t ready to sell the thing off for parts, not yet.

Some of the people, curiosity and the chill air driving them inside, couldn’t resist the pull. They meandered into the little store feigning disinterest. They looked over the areas where the merchant sold the rarities he kept in cages - brightly plumed birds, the little rodents, those two great hunting cats - and pretended to be more interested in those. Maybe they even bought a bird or two.

In the end, though, they gave the merchant more money for a chance at the creature’s wings.

They were huge, to the eyes of humans who had never seen fae - spread to their full wingspan by chains hooked into the joints that ran straight up to the ceiling. The creature’s display took up an entire side of the room, really, the side farthest from the warmth of the fireplace.

The southern-bred birds and rodents needed the heat, after all. The creature in the window seemed largely dulled to the cold.

This close, a paying customer could see the creature’s ankles were chained down, too, to keep it from trying to stand or move away. The occasional man or woman might flick at one of the thin but solid chains hooked to its wings and listen to the creature’s answering whimper as it forced the joints, even for just a second, to stretch farther.

While the creature kept its eyes on the people outside, it was the ones within the store who touched it. Their curious, questing hands ran over its spine, pushing and prodding at the scar tissue there, murmuring with scandalized whispers about the way the ropey, knotted skin seemed unnaturally thick.

There were more stitched threads, new constellations humans had never thought of and never named, that twined and twirled around its hips at the back and skimmed up the center of its spine. Galaxies were marked, and no one in this city knew what those galaxies might be called, but the fae knew.

And the creature - the boy, who had been named Killan once, and who now was only monster or creature or stop that, it’s not so bad - had been taught each and every name to scream into the spinning void as the magic was sewn in. Not that he told the merchant that.

Even now, abandoned and sold and then bought and sold and bought and sold again, there had to be some things he could hold inside, secret and safe from even the deepest violations. They had taken nearly everything, but they did not - they could not, they didn’t know to - take this.

Everyone thought the galaxies on his back were some fanciful nothingness sewn there. Only the boy - and the fae who had made him, and the other fae who had turned away from the horror of his appearance and had been the first to call him monster - knew the names of the stars on his back.

But the hands never stopped on the galaxies, and when they moved to his shoulder blades, the creature drifted uneasily back into the haze, colored with nothing, that let him exist as an it, day after day after day.

If there was still a spark, it was so hidden that none of the customers could ever, ever find it to take it away from him.

No. That he was still him was his own private secret. To the gaze and the hands and the curiosity and the endless need to know to see to feel to own of the people who came, there was no boy.

Only the creature.

It continued to shiver as the cold air drifted through the imperfect seals on the glass window and ghosted over its front. Even in the haze, the thing would tremble more and more through the day. Stomach hollow and empty, it held as still as it could under the overhot, clammy hands of the paying customers behind it, but still there was a slowly growing coating of grime and dirt and grit from their fingernails scratching at a thread to see if it would pull up, or rubbing at the base of its wings in a violation so complete it pulled an unwilling keen from the creature’s throat.

Every other day or so, the creature at least knew there would be a bucket of water over its head in the stables, a harsh brush meant for cleaning the dust from the horses, its own skin nearly torn open and reddened from how it would clench the wood handle in its hand and desperately try to clean away the memory of their touch…

Well.

The buckets of water were something, at least. And if it could not be interesting enough to be sold, it could be interesting enough to see.

The merchant was a clever man. He’d begun to understand that no one wanted to pay a good price for the creature, not here, but they wanted to pay a smaller price to see it. Give the people what they want, he always said, and you’ll make your fortune.

So he gave them what they wanted.

He gave them something new, at an affordable price.

The days passed, and autumn turned to winter, and still the merchant led the quiet, unprotesting creature with dulled blue eyes from the stable where it slept with the horses to the window every day, fastening its chains, stretching its wings to an agonizing width.

At some point, to amuse himself, he began to make up little whistles to train it to respond to. A certain number of notes meant stand, a second meant lift your hands, a third spread your wings. The winters were long, and the nights stretched on and on to a nearly-constant twilit near-dark, and he began to keep the creature in his rooms at the back of his store for longer and longer each evening after its daily meal.

The creature proved eager and willing to learn, when offered an extra helping of porridge or stew or whatever he fed it that day.

Enrichment, the merchant thought, quite pleased with himself. Like the small wooden clickers he left in the bird cages, like the tiny wheel he’d fastened together for the smallest rodents. Something to do, to put in the creature’s mind. A way to please him.

Even the old guard dog’s tail thumped, now and then, when he brought the creature in and it stopped to give the dog a scritch behind its ears.

Funny, how the creature seemed to have quite the way with the animals.

Still, even learning to move by whistle, to answer his unspoken commands, something was… missing, from the eyes of the monster. Listless, unsettled. The monster began to remind the merchant of silt - a swirl of useless dirt covering up the depth of a lake, or river. Making it look shallow and unsafe to drink, and beneath the silt, in the depths… what?

Empty darkness? Or a raging torrent?

To make up for the loss of shine and the heavy shadows under the creature’s eyes, he began to paint a bit of kohl and shimmery gold, not quite transparent, over its eyelids.

He couldn’t completely hide the way its spirit had dulled nearly to dying, but he could disguise it.

The winter passed this way. There were always new customers, and returning visitors, and one by one the birds, the rodents, and the hunting cats sold to interested parties.

Until only a few cages of birds remained… and the creature in the window.

In the winter, the shivers started faster, but the warm hands of the paying customers inside the store were far more welcomed than they had once been.

The creature stopped pulling away from them, or trying, and began to lean back, pressing its spine into a questing touch, tilting its head back even further to seek out the palm and fingers that had run so kindly through its hair. It would trill and chirp on command for the children who came by, and there was a slight wrinkling of the nose, a hint of a crinkle to the eyes, that made the merchant think absently, on occasion, that the creature might be smiling behind the muzzle at their delight.

From the window came a bitter cold. The merchant rarely ventured to that part of the store, and kept his own fireplace stocked high and crackling, to keep the remaining merchandise and the dog as warm as he could.

The creature, though… well, fae did not get cold so easily as people did. Its shivering was a show it put on, he thought, to try and make him feel guilt. He was unmoved. He ignored the whines and keens of pain when he finally unhooked it at the end of each day and its wings were finally able to curl back against its back. Instead, he whistled, and watched it drop to its knees on the wooden floor instantly in the back room, eyes closed to soak up the relative warmth compared to its usual proximity to the window.

After its daily meal, the merchant watched it curl up near the fireplace by the old guard dog, wings tightly wrapped around itself. He had grown a little fond of the thing, and so often allowed it to go without its muzzle for a couple of hours and warm itself before he led it to the stables to be chained down to sleep.

Usually, when he came in the morning to feed the horses and pick it up to lead it to the store window, he found it sleeping curled against one of his horses. And he never stopped feeling the prickling worry that the look in the liquid eyes of his long-time wagon team was not knickering interest any longer, but a simmering hate that grew each time the creature required its pitch to be replaced over the talons, or they saw the muzzle remove and replaced.

Surely that wasn’t possible.

Horses didn’t hate.

The merchant put the thought from his mind.

Through the winter, each day was the same in the little store the merchant rented. Wake the creature at the stable, allow it to stretch and bend its muscles in preparation, allow it to drink its fill of water, and then get it set for the daily display. Each day the winter stretched onward, the creature seemed less present than the day before.

Instead, the creature began to watch the twisting northern lights in the sky that stayed vibrantly visible late in the morning as the days without sun continued on. Instead, the merchant found its eyes were tilted upward, not on the customers, but up at the grayish-purple eternal twilight.

One night, the merchant paused on his way leading the creature to the stables, and caught its eyes turned upwards. He’d left the muzzle off, for a bit, and with so much of its face visible, he saw a very sentient look of awe written across its expression.

Intelligence was in that face, however dulled and deeply repressed. Humanity was in that face.

“What are you doing, creature?” The merchant asked, to cover his own unease.

It turned to look at him, and for a moment darkness covered the inhuman eyes and concealed its tightly curved wings against its back and he was looking at a young man, nothing more. A young man in chains, and with the red marks of the muzzle pressed so deeply against the bridge of his nose and his cheekbones that starlight left them in plain sight for hours.

The creature had not spoken in so long that its voice came out hoarsely hesitant, struggling to form the words. The monster had a soft, slight accent, as though it had grown up far to the south.

“Listening,” It said. One word only, and even that was reluctant.

The muzzle in the merchant’s hand twitched, suddenly wondering if he should replace it before he let the thing say a single word more. Still, he couldn’t stop himself. “Listening to what?”

The creature, who looked like nothing more than a boy, turned its gaze back upwards. Above their heads, a brilliantly painted blue and green light snakes along the sky like a snake, the trace of some great dragon.

The boy was silent, for a second, and then clicked deep in his secondary fae throat.

“Stars,” He said, plaintive. Soft and sad. “Wish they could hear me. I hear them. Try to sing back. Don’t think I’m heard.” Reddish tears welled at the corners of its eyes and caught the starlight, and it was that that broke the spell the merchant had been under, transfixed by the sound of its very human voice.

All at once, he remembered.

Fae magic.

The merchant’s jaw set in a shiver of repulsion, and he yanked on the chain that went to the ring around the boy’s - the creature’s - neck. It stumbled forward, and he replaced the muzzle, fastening the buckles with a touch more cruelty than necessary, until the thing whined at the pain.

The animal sound the creature made soothed the uncertainty that had so briefly flashed inside the merchant’s mind.

It bedded down obediently enough with the horses in the stables. In the morning, it was back in the window, on display for the stragglers who might come by in the crowd.

The merchant did not ask it questions again.

---

Tagging Killan’s crew: @astrobly @burtlederp , @finder-of-rings , @slaintetowhump , @quirkykayleetam , @whumpallday , @whumppsychology, @doveotions, @broken-horn, @moose-teeth, @whumpfigure, @oceanthesarcasamfox, @whump-only, @just-strawberry-jam, @loopylunacy (if you would like to be added to an OC’s tag list, please send your request via an ask! Those are easier for me to keep track of and I tend to lose requests in comments, reblogs, tags, or PMs!)

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ashintheairlikesnow · 4 years

Text

Whumptober Day 20: Lost

CW: Wing whump, puncture wound, blood/blood loss, dehumanization both external and internal

As always, details of fae biology and this universe in general all belong to @wildfaewhump and they are Vic’s express creation

He knew he was a boy – a man, actually, right? Wasn’t he? - but the more he bled, trailing pearly shimmering red along the forest floor as he stumbled, leaving a smeared impression of his fingers on tree bark as he caught himself, losing the occasional feather to bushes and shrugs that seemed to reach for him with spindly limbs… the harder it was to remember he had ever been anything but an animal.

A creature, a monster being hunted through the woods, trying to outrun the hunter and his dogs, splashing through a shallow stream with his left wing dragging ripples when he could no longer keep it up and curled against his back.

Water soaked up into the feathers, slowed him down with the weight he had to carry. His shoulders were burning from the strain on his muscles, and worse than that was the blood still dripping down his wing.

The pain was too great, and he wasn’t moving fast enough. He’d been running for… a while. Could have been minutes, or hours. It was hard to tell, the woods were dark around him. Crashing through the branches could have been the hunter back on his tail, or it could be squirrels or birds or absolutely nothing at all.

He couldn’t-... couldn’t fly.

If he could have - letting the currents of air lift him above the canopy of trees in this dense, dark forest, even for a few minutes - he might have been able to see a way out of this. Some part of him screamed at him to fly, to take to the sky, get high enough their arrows could not reach him again, but it was too late. He was already caught, wasn’t he?

If only he could have moved a little faster, or gotten airborne again for just a second… All he needed was the edge of the woods, the open flat dirt of a road. Even just woodsmoke from a cabin, where he could maybe hide out in the barn until the hunter had gone. Anything, anything at all, anything he could see from the air-

But he couldn’t even begin to get his left wing to move that way, and he’d been trailing shimmering, pearly-red blood from the wound in his wing for a while now. It first soaked slowly into his feathers, the high, soft, tiniest ones almost like down and then the flight feathers, longer and sleek, clumping with red that glimmered with starsong forced into it. Once it had soaked through his feathers down to the edge, it had begun to drip to the forest floor.

He’d been leaving tracks, and he could hear the predators following him. They were waiting him out, keeping back to avoid the sharp talons on his right hand, avoid the range of the voice that could thrall them.

They were letting him tire, until he had nothing left.

And he had no idea where he was. He was lost, stumbling through an unfamiliar wood, bleeding not to death but certainly to weakness, and in his mind was the constant refrain of I won’t go back, I won’t go back, I won’t go back-

But he would, and he knew it.

Back to the most recent salesman, the one who had won him in a card game from another. A tall, thin merchant with cold eyes, who called him damned.

Through n-no fault of my own-

It doesn’t matter. You should be kept out of sight, in the dark, until I figure out what to do with you.

He let out a choked-off sob as his feathers were caught and pulled by low-slung branches on a wobbly, thin tree that hook briefly into the brass ring in the join of his wing - pulling the skin taught around the place where the shaft of the arrow is still stuck straight through him.

He had to jerk the ring free, weakly scrabbling at it with his human hand, soft keens of pain coming from his fae voice, tiny human whimpers alongside. It hurt, and it hurt far more when he heard the first baying howl of a dog that had caught his scent and he had to hurry. He had no time to be careful, and he felt dizziness rock him as a fresh burst of hot blood ran from his wound.

He wasn’t going to make it. He couldn’t keep bleeding like this, and he could barely carry weight on his right leg, it was starting to drag - a telltale track for the hunter to follow, a not-fae monster with a lame wing and a battered, bruised leg.

He’d been flying, heading for the mountains, hoping maybe this time he could beg for sanctuary with the fae. Somehow convince them he wasn’t a threat, get somebody’s court to take pity and at least let him stay to the edges, at least let him live without being hunted. Let him live in the light.

The fall had been worse than the arrow, at first.

The sudden burst of white-hot pain had stunned him, caught him mid-spin enjoying an early-morning chill, and sent him tumbling to the ground below.

He’d heard his own frantic keens of panic and fear as if from a distance, and then they’d been drowned out when he slammed into the trees, feathers flying all around him as they were ripped free by the branches he smacked into one after another on the way down.

His saving grace had been catching himself with his right hand, talons digging deep, or he’d have broken something when he hit the ground. Still, his ribs ached and he knew the way a cracked rib felt, he’d been kicked in the ribs more than once in his life, and his right leg wasn’t broken but it wasn’t far off.

It had been his saving grace, maybe, the reason he wasn’t dead from the impact - but… but it had made him a slow-moving target, easy to simply follow and wait for him to collapse.

The constant throbbing agony moved through his body, sharpest where the arrow was still embedded, slim well-made smooth wood stabbed right through. He’d managed to cut the tendon-ties that had held the arrowhead on, and now he carried that in his hand, an absurd sort of self-defense.

He had talons on one hand and an arrowhead in the other, but it didn’t matter- wouldn’t matter - could never matter.

The hunter knew these woods, and the boy - the monster, the creature, the thing - was lost and bleeding.

The dog howled again, and this time its packmates answered, and he heard the hollering call of the hunter. Now - now they were getting closer, closing in on him, maybe reading how his steps were beginning to shuffle, slowing down. The barking of the dogs was louder, and his heart thundering in his chest, the blood rushing in his ears, could no longer drown them out.

Too late.

He couldn’t go fast enough to escape - and he had no idea where he even should be going, if he could.

The creature - not a boy, no, just an animal, to be hunted and sold and kept and sold again - fell to its knees, groaning in pain, weeping into the soft decaying leaves that were gradually turning to dirt on the ground.

When the hunter found it, it would have no energy left to fight.

Dragged back to the man and the muzzle, and its place in the dark.

---

@quirkykayleetam , @whumpallday , @whumppsychology , @doveotions , @broken-horn , @moose-teeth , @whumpfigure @whump-only , @just-strawberry-jam , @loopylunacy @raigash @whump-tr0pes @slaintetowhump

#whumptober2020 #no. 20 #lost #wing whump #nonhuman whumpee #sort of #fae whump #fae whumpee #wildfaewhump's world #puncture wound #puncture #running #failed escape #killan is babey and saddest boy #dehumanization #dehumanized

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ashintheairlikesnow · 4 years

Text

Whumptober Day 26: Blindness

CW: Blinded whumpee - references to eye gore, dehumanization, creepy and sadistic whumper, noncon touching (nonsexual)

Set after The First That Will Live

Killan’s world and its details as always belong to @wildfaewhump. It’s Vic’s sandbox - they just let me build some fucked-up castles there.

“Been thinking, me,” Calon Nie said, tapping talons lightly on the stone ground.

He watched the blindfolded human boy clumsily pawing with his pinkish pointless prodding little fingers at the feathers of one reddish-brown wing.

It had come within a day or so - the boy had started, in this sad little human way, to try and groom himself, combing through his feathers with those blunt-tipped skin-covered fingers, straightening them obsessively. Even after he stopped being able to see them, Calon Nie would watch him spend hours trying to carefully straighten them back to the right placement.

Instinct, pure and simple - and Calon Nie enjoyed the sight of it, the proof that his theory on the sharing of blood and the connection of bone to back had been correct. Each piece of the boy he took away and replaced with something else seemed to impress more and more deeply into him a set of fae-born impulses he didn’t have on his own.

It wouldn’t be long before they would move on to the voice, and then the organs, and then… who knew? At some point, Calon Nie had begun to wonder how many parts of a weak, ineffectual little thing could be replaced before what he created was no longer the original human at all.

Could you take out a brain and give a new one? These were the questions Calon Nie asked himself before he slept.

It wasn’t clear at first if the boy heard him speaking - he kept combing at feathers, and Calon Nie let the silence draw out to listen to their soft rustling. The wing was majestic - the hand hardly worth having. He would fix that, when the boy’s body was ready.

He could fix everything in the boy that was not to his liking. He understood that, now, in a way he hadn’t before the wings connected, the magic settled and took root in him. Starsong wrapped itself around the human like a blanket, a pillow pressed over mouth and nose to smother the human in the boy and draw out the fae.

He would kill the humanity of the boy, burn it away, and beneath its ashes he would find the new thing underneath.

“Buachaill del.” The boy did not look up - not that he could, exactly, look at all. Bandages wrapped over his head from eyebrow to cheekbone, covering up the evidence of his failures. It was the pain of his useless failed eyes that led the boy to spend the hours grooming his wings, soothing himself, as blood soaked through the cloth.

He wept blood, now, and that was the most fascinating part of the eyes to Calon Nie.

“Killan.” The boy flinched at the use of his human name, the name Calon Nie did not like. He bit the syllables, drew out the ah sound, made his disgust perfectly clear. “Listening? Listen to Calon Nie, you?”

The boy’s shoulders hunched up near his chin, head turning in Calon Nie’ direction, hitching in a breath in sudden fear. Calon Nie’s sharp teeth flashed in a smile the boy could not see in response. “I’m listening.” His voice was whispery-thin, nervous, uncertain.

Calon Nie hummed to himself, tapping talons on the floor, watching the boy sit so still, as though stillness could protect him from the dangers of the world. “Good. Failed, you, to keep new eyes. Costs a life, to give something new. Killan Josta, human boy, he fail Calon Nie. He fail the life given, when eyes don’t work. Did not respect sacrifice.”

“I’m… I’m sorry,” The boy said hoarsely, curling in on himself even more, his wings instinctively curling protectively around him. “I… I don’t want anyone to d-die for me. I didn’t mean to-... I didn’t mean to fail. I, I tried to p-pray for them, to stars, to-”

“Paugh! Mysteries do not hear you.” Calon Nie tilted his head to the side as he watched the boy’s wings bristle, feathers slightly fluffing out with nervousness and maybe even a little defensive anger. From the moment the connection had been made, the wings had been a part of him, mind and body, more rapidly than Calon Nie had ever dreamed.

A clear sign, for those who knew how to look for it. Favored by the stars, this boy, the starsong already slip-sliding around him even though he couldn’t use it.

Not yet.

They would need a fae voice for that. Calon Nie already had someone in mind, someone who had dismissed his ideas. Someone who would live to see their progress before he allowed them to die and be part of his grand ambitions.

“Anyway, no matter what mean. What intend. Already have died, for Killan. My kin and yours.” The mention of the humans that the boy had slaughtered brought fresh bright red blood to soak through the new bandages, and Calon Nie watched with fascination as the spots spread, as though he could see with his blood. Beautiful. “Too late for sorry. Have already killed your own, yes? Slit throat after throat, for Calon Nie? Your hand holds knife, yes?”

The boy choked back a sob. “Yes.”

Calon Nie knew the cruelty was unnecessary, but it was fascinating to watch how red blood rushed to pale cheeks, visible even in the dimness to Calon’s sharp fae eyes. Even more fascinating to see how his pretty human’s new wings already reflected his moods, built as deeply into the basic movements of his body now as the beat of his sad, tiny little heart, the movement of air in and out of his stupid nearly-pointless weak lungs.

Beautiful, wasn’t it? The way the spaces left behind by failure wanted to cry? The way that red wetness still soaked the cloth that Calon Nie had tied around his head to hide his failure from view? It was beautiful, to watch the damp spread slightly shining in the cave’s soft light to the boy’s jaw. The trails of red that ran and dripped to feed the earth.

There were still eyes under the blindfold, failed fae eyes that bled constantly and could not see, holding place until he could find another one of his own people to lead here. Another life given to the stars in the name of something new.

It was worth everything - every mistake, every death, every step closer. It was worth any cost, for Calon Nie to be something better than any other fae had ever been.

They would fly with the stars, but Calon Nie would direct the mystery of them himself. No one else could do that. No one else had ever tried.

But he would do it, no matter how many he must kill. Humans, paugh, they weren’t anything. But fae lives… that he took seriously, but still. It would be worth everything, in the end, and failures were to be expected. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t play with the boy’s fear, now and then for his own amusement. It didn’t mean he wasn’t confused, and troubled, and worried that this perfect subject was… perhaps not perfect enough.

He wasn’t sure how the eyes had failed when the wings worked. It was a mystery, and Calon Nie loved mysteries but he did not like them when they meant that his failure cost fae lives with no gain in return. He’d flown the body back up to the mountains to place next to the one who had given her wings. They would rest together, he could give them that much, but Calon Nie did not like that this second had died for nothing.

Were they honored, still, to die for no reason?

Or was he simply murdering, then?

For the boy’s body to fail when it most needed not to, forcing Calon Nie to waste a gift of sight. It was… irritating.

It made Calon Nie doubt himself.

Really, it was not the boy’s fault human bodies were so frail and weak, that they had to make sharp things to hurt with because they had no sharpness themselves. It wasn’t the boy’s fault that he was an imperfect recipient of Calon Nie’s discoveries.

The strongest, so far - but still not perfect.

“Hmph. I say no sorries.” Calon Nie waved his talons dismissively, ignoring that the boy could not see him do it. “Is Calon Nie’s fault, not my del, really, that eyes did not work. Missed something, me. Miss step, miss thought. Something… something missed.”

The boy was silent beyond the harsh loud sound of his breathing. He claimed the failed eyes hurt, a constant throbbing pain in his face, and Calon Nie allowed him to drink some teas that soothed it, but that was all.

He needed to be pure, to ensure the eyes worked next time. To make sure that the next of his people he gave to the stars in search of his greatest dreams would not be a pointless murder, but something that a fae could be honored by.

Even if they did not know to be honored, until they were dead.

Calon Nie moved over to the boy, watching the way his chin lifted and his head tilted as he tried to hear Calon Nie’s careful quiet footsteps across the cave floor. Maybe he could be given new ears, too, somehow, someday. Rather than his silly half-deaf human hearing.

The brush of the backs of his talons made the boy flinch backwards, but Calon Nie tsked, clicking narrow tongue against sharp teeth, and the boy went still, trembling under his touch as he gently pushed the blindfold up to look underneath.

Pale, cloudy fae eyes looked sightlessly beyond him. They had bonded well enough, but something severed the connection that magic should have made, and they looked like they had been scratched and scarred over from the inside out. Pale yellow, with only the tiniest sliver of slit black pupil.

Blood ran wet from the corners of the boy’s eyes, trickling down his face.

He held still, though, without the force of a thralling, without the mysteries to hold him.

“Pretty human,” Calon Nie whispered. He wrapped his hand carefully around the boy’s throat, staring into his blind eyes. The eyes that had been taken from a fae, the eyes that had been sacrificed, only to need sacrificed again. “Pretty, pretty. My pretty new thing. Mo ragnaithe. We will try again.”

“P-Please,” The boy whispered, sniffing, his little human nose scrunching up. “Please, I-I don’t want to be blind.”

“If try again, me - if give another life to making you better - and this next one dies and still, you fail… will die, you.” He leaned in, lips moving against the boy’s ear. “Will kill Killan myself, me. Understand this, you? That Killan dies?”

The boy nodded, frantically, sightless wide eyes filling with red tears.

He let go of the blindfold and it dropped to the ground. Calon Nie pulled back and away, watching the boy scramble to cover his pointless useless eyes again, whimpering and choking back sobs as he tied the cloth back on, knowing how Calon Nie hated to hear weak whimpering human sadness when he was being built to something of such glory.

The boy curled into the tiniest little ball he could make of himself, and Calon Nie watched as his shaking fingers went back to his wings, to straighten the feathers, to comb through them, to soothe himself with grooming. Obsessively straightening, running fingers through, soothing.

Bit by bit.

Moment by moment.

Piece by piece.

The next set of eyes would work, Calon Nie was sure of it.

They would work, or he would declare this one a failure, just like the rest, and dispose of him in the woods to rot alongside his other failed experiments.

Then he would start again.

---

#whumptober2020 #no. 26 #blindness #blind whumpee #referenced eye whump #eye whump #wing whump #fae whump #magical whump #fantasy whump #killan is babey and saddest boy #captivity #noncon touching #death threat #magical whumper #creepy whumper #sadistic whumper #mad science #sort of

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ashintheairlikesnow · 4 years

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Just something soft and sad for a Sunday morning.

CW: dehumanization, pet whump, referenced scarring/torture, wing whump, noncon touching (nonsexual), creepy comfort

Timeline: During Killan's time with "the wolves", my affectionate nickname for the Lord and his Lady friend who are among his first owners

As always, Killan's world and details of fae, fae biology, the concept of the mysteries/stars - all of it belongs to @wildfaewhump! It's Vic's brilliance - they are kind enough to let me write in their world!

The creature woke with his muscles aching, shifting with a stifled hiss as pain flared up the inside of his arm along a bicep, worked its way deep into the muscles of his thighs. The heavy copper chains he wore had been removed, at the end of the night, and he felt lighter than air with only rings in his wings and a thin single round of copper around his neck.

"Ah, it wakes." Lord Reg's voice was warm and amused, and the creature blinked eyes open that felt crusted with the sleeping-sand gathered in the corners, to look up.

He'd fallen asleep on the lord's own floor, curled up on a rug in front of his fireplace, wings curled against his back. He had to blink, again and again, working the blur in his vision gradually back to clear sight.

The lord was sipping a cup of hot strong black tea, seated in his dressing gown at a large wooden desk, looking over a series of rocks of varying sizes. The creature - the boy - swallowed, wincing as there was an ache in his throat, a throbbing in his head. What had happened, after the fourth drink the night before?

"You may speak to greet me," The lord said, voice gentling a little, pleased with the boy's silence.

"Yes, my lord," the boy whispered, cracked lips moving with a whisper of chapped skin. "Good morning, my lord."

"Good morning." Reg hummed to himself, a nonsense nothing-song. Beneath the deep bass of his voice, the boy heard the greater song of the threads of the stars and the spaces between them, and closed his eyes, trying to hear it just a bit more strongly.

"Come here, pet." Reg tapped two fingers on the arm of the elaborately carved wooden chair, and the boy moved fast, scrambling onto his feet even as everything in him ached with protest. He moved on bare feet across the cold stone floor, wings shivering and giving away the nervousness he tried so much to hide.

He dropped into a crouch next to the lord's chair, and felt the man's hand, heavy with rings even this early and before he dressed, settle onto the top of his head. He began to pet the creature - who felt at his most degraded in moments like this, so much more than when he was in pain - while sipping the tea he held steaming in his other hand.

"Look at this, pet."

The lord often liked to hear himself speak. The creature wasn't expected to respond if it wasn't a direct question. But he raised his head, blinking.

The lord put down his tea and held up a rough-edged rock no large than a child's palm.

The creature went still, staring wide-eyed. Unknown to him, his slit pupils widened, blotting out much of the too-bright blue. The rock seemed to glitter, faintly, in the morning light.

The lord rubbed his thumb against an edge, and the boy shivered as the rock began to sing - faintly, with sorrow, separated from the larger mystery it had once belonged to.

The song was fading, but clear.

Reg, of course, heard nothing but the scrape of his own thumb. "I am told this is a verified-"

"Star," The creature said, hoarse-voiced. He trilled softly in surprise. When the hand on his head stopped moving, he glanced up to see the lord's focus on him, not the rock at all, and nervously licked his lips. "It came from the stars," He tried.

Speaking was hard - they wanted to hear his voice so little. His heart beat with fear whenever he took the chance.

Reg's hand shifted down the back of the creature's neck, running along the soft down of feathers, rubbing his fingertips into a scarred spot near the ring that clinked at the first join. The boy shuddered against the violation, but held still.

"Yes," The lord said, working his fingers now beneath the down feathers, pressing against the places the vanes of the tiniest, softest ones attached. The boy's eyes closed, the way the lord's hands moved so soothingly was starting to lull him, calming against his will, and he slumped just a little.

The creature slowly exhaled. Lady Layla was always cruel. Reg, sometimes, was worse.

Reg guided the creature to rest his chin on the lord's knee, smiling with fondness as he watched the thing's eyes slide half-shut, listened to its soft unknowing chirps. "They call it a meteorite. How did you know?"

"Can... hear, my lord... please don't-"

"Ssssshhhhh. Relax, for me. You were quite a showcase last night." Rough, large fingers worked their way to the twisted, scarred, reshaped spine and shoulder blades that allowed the creature to carry such great wings. The warmth made him shiver, and he tilted his head, resting his cheek on the lord's thigh.

Muscle knots gave way under the lord's careful, expert press and push, and the creature chirped softly, unconsciously, in something like pleasure.

"What do you hear, from this rock?" Reg's voice dipped, matched the rough soothe of his fingers. The creature could have slept again, like this.

"A song," The creature whispered. "Mysteries. It was broken, falling to earth. It sings of the spaces between... between stars, my lord."

"Lovely." Reg set the rock down on his desk and kept one hand working at the knotted muscles and scars on the boy's back while his other absently petted through the wavy brown-blond hair, so absurdly human compared to everything else. "Just lovely. The space between stars. You might have been a poet, had you a soul to write poetry with."

The creature - not a boy, of course, not human, soulless and only a husk filled with the lives given to make him - kept his eyes closed. "Yes, my lord."

"But you have nothing."

"Yes, my lord." When the creature tensed, Reg tsked, until he felt those muscles relax under his fingers again.

"Whatever song you hear, pet, I can't imagine you are even remotely a part of it, are you? Like this?"

"No, my lord." A soft, sad chirp, and Reg smiled at the sound. "I'm not."

"Good." The lord carefully, gently wiped away the single red tear before it could drip onto his pants and stain them.

Then he picked his teacup back up and looked back over the rocks on his desk, wondering how many of them, in the ears of the monster, would sing.

Tagging Killan’s crew: @astrobly @burtlederp , @finder-of-rings , @slaintetowhump , @quirkykayleetam , @whumpallday , @whumppsychology , @doveotions , @broken-horn , @moose-teeth , @whumpfigure @oceanthesarcasamfox , @whump-only , @just-strawberry-jam , @loopylunacy (if you would like to be added to an OC’s tag list, please send your request via an ask! Those are easier for me to keep track of and I tend to lose requests in comments, reblogs, tags, or PMs!)

#dehumanization tw #dehumanized #dehumanization #pet whump #wing whump #killan is babey and saddest boy #nonhuman whumpee #sort of #cruel whumper #creepy comfort #whump #fae whump #wildfaewhump's world

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