#long post; short fiction

[normallyxstranger]

Hard Feelings

featuring Andy Foster & Vivian Cole— characters from The New Ashton Chronicles, written & role-played by F.R. Southerland

(@normallyxstranger | @frsoutherlandauthor | www.frsoutherland.com)

© 2019 F.R. Southerland

original fiction (repost) | approx. words: 1300 | general warnings: n/a | largely unedited | reblogs allowed & encouraged

     No one ever called the diner by name. Maybe Dine Right Diner never quite caught on because of the cheesiness of the title. It was just “the diner”, an appellation that everyone in the city–in the immediate vicinity especially—knew. There were other diners, other restaurants, and eateries, but the Dine Right was unlike the others. Not really because of the greasy spoon menu items, or the dim lighting and chipped Formica tabletops, or even the general slow-moving, altered ambiance of the diner. It was something else. Location maybe? It was smack-dab in the center of the city, an easy-to-find sort of place.

     Andy always thought it was location-based, but more than that—it was the people. The cooks and wait staff, the customers. Everyone who passed through the diners doors and spent any amount of time there had a story to tell, had some kind of extraordinary presence. She had wondered, before, if didn’t have something to do with the mystical origins of the city itself and the complexities of its composition. Was the diner built on some vortex of power? On some in-between sort of space, ever shifting?

     These were the sort of things that came to her mind as she stood at the diner’s counter, waiting for someone to take her order. The feel of the place was warm today, which the witch took to be a sign of good things to come. It wasn’t overly crowded either. Her gaze searched the dining room, searching out familiar faces. There were a couple—customers who were usually here, or others she might’ve seen at the store, or who visited her shop. There was one woman she was sure was a cashier at the grocery store. Andy gave a pleasant smile when she was caught looking and immediately shifted her gaze back to the counter.

     She'd often wondered why Vivian, the Alpha of the Newfound Pack, worked at a place like this. Was it convenience? Was it because this place was a central hub and she could keep an eye on things? Or was it something else? She'd always considered asking Glen about it but they'd never quite gotten around to talking about that. Or much else. 

     Laughter came from behind the closed kitchen door. Through the round window, Andy could see one of the cooks moving back and forth, and then the top of a head, brown hair pulled back. And then Vivian emerged from the door, adjusting the strings of her apron. The smile on her face faltered for just a second when she saw Andy. 

     It wasn’t really a surprise to see the red-haired witch there. She came in several mornings a week to pick up coffee for herself and the others at the magic shop. It made sense that she’d be there this morning. It only startled Vivian, as it always did. She liked Andy well enough, but some of that like had soured after the way she had treated her cousin Glen. Break-ups had a way of doing that. Vivian truly didn’t hold any bad feelings toward—except that she kind of did. Sometimes, the ferocity of those feelings took her by surprise, as it did in this case. 

     Her smile didn’t stay gone long, though perhaps a bit dimmer than before, when she directed it at Andy again. “The usual?” She probably didn’t even need to ask. 

     “Yeah.” Andy put her hands on the counter, fingers drumming for a second. “Well, no. You can forget Vinnie’s. She’s not at the shop this morning.” 

     Vivian gave a small nod and began prepping the coffee. Three to-go cups—all with milk and sugars —for the girls at Embers & Ashes. 

     The scent of fresh brewed coffee was strong, wafting throughout the diner. It was one of the many things that made the place seem warm today, Andy thought, even if Vivian’s smile had seemed to cool the atmosphere down a bit. She didn’t blame her though. The whole thing with Glen was fucked up and Andy was still deeply sorry about it. Apologies had been given and the mending process was underway. She hesitated though, wondering if she should—No, probably not a good idea. Pissing off a werewolf —especially the alpha of the local pack was a bad idea. It had been a while, yes, but digging open a still healing wound wasn’t how she wanted to spend her morning. And Glen wasn't here to act as a barrier, though given the circumstances, she wasn't sure if he'd hold off his cousin or not. The hurt was still too fresh. 

     She debated, watching Vivian add the milk to the cups. Finally, she came out with it, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. “How’s Glen?” 

     Over the scent of warm coffee, Vivian could smell a mixture of herbs covering Andy's nervousness. It had a scent like sweat—salty, sharp. She'd rather smell the coffee, but close proximity and her heightened senses didn't afford her much choice. Vivian paused to clean up some milk that had sloshed onto the counter. Her lips pressed together, forming a thin line for just a minute. “He’s okay.” Andy asked once in a while. Maybe she was trying to ease some of her guilt, maybe she was genuinely concerned. Whatever it was, there was a pattern to it —she wouldn’t ask every time, and she always was direct about it, which was something Vivian appreciated. She’d rather someone drive right to the point of something, instead of trying to be delicate about it. She understood sometimes tact was important, but not for something like this. They both knew what it was. It didn’t have to be delicate. 

     At least not too delicate. 

     “He’s fine,” she said again, when she realized her tone might’ve indicated her cousin was anything but fine. Vivian placed the cups into the cardboard carrier and placed it on the counter, tilting her head up to view the much taller woman’s face. 

     It seemed like Vivian wanted to say more, and Andy actually hoped she would. Maybe elaborate on how he was okay. Maybe give her a clue about what was going on in his life. But Andy didn’t deserve to know, not really. She’d blown her chance and she knew it. 

     “That’s good,” she said, mustering up a smile. She passed the bills to Vivian before her fingers found a hold on the carrier. “Tell him I said ‘hey’.” 

     Another thing she always added. To say ‘hey’, or ‘hi’, or 'tell him I’m thinking about him’. Vivian hadn’t yet figured that out. It was either kindness or desperation. Andy was trying to do her part, but maybe trying too hard. But what did she know? She nodded anyway, smiled, counted out the change. “Sure. I will.” She rarely did. 

     Andy’s smile turned more genuine as she pocketed her cash. “Thanks. Appreciate it.” Her gaze swept to the side, taking in the smattering of customers, feeling the strangeness of it all, and noting how the place no longer felt as it had before. It had shifted again. Maybe it was because she was leaving, or maybe it was because of the exchange with Vivian. Either way, the diner didn’t feel so welcoming now. 

     “See you tomorrow,” she said, as she flipped hair over her shoulder and backed her way out the door, balancing the coffees carefully—with just a little bit of telekinesis to ensure she didn’t drop them. 

     Vivian watched her go before she released the inside of her lip. Andy’s heart was in the right place, she thought, but it would be a while before she could accept that any good would come from it. With a sigh, she grabbed her rag and started to wipe down the counter.

#short fiction #urban fantasy #The New Ashton Chronicles #TNAC #long post; short fiction #long post #long post tw #long post // #reblogs allowed & encouraged #.Andy. #.Vivian. #short fiction; Andy #short fiction; Vivian

[frsoutherlandauthor]

Torn

featuring Alexandra Cappello & Rae Travis — characters from The New Ashton Chronicles, written by F.R. Southerland

(@frsoutherlandauthor | @the-new-ashton-chronicles | www.frsoutherland.com)

© 2020 F.R. Southerland

original fiction (repost) | approx. words: 800 | general warnings: violence | largely unedited | reblogs allowed & encouraged

1996

     She smelled of magic. Failed magic. Its scent was pungent, bearing earthy notes and burnt amber. It almost burned the inside of her nostrils--so much so that she recoiled back from her. Since when did she use such potent magic?

     Rae snapped her head up, sensing the sudden movement before she saw it. Her eyes widened, fingers tightly wound about the stake. She held it up, taking only a second to react—a precious second if Alexandra wanted to kill her. Heart kicking her ribs in a quick tempo, the spike of fear cutting through the magic-scent, negated any threat she proposed.

     She looked like an animal, Alexandra always thought. A little animal caught in a trap.

     But this animal had fight in her and Rae whipped around fast, throwing out her arm to smack against Alexandra’s face—but the vampire anticipated the move, grasping hold of Rae’s forearm and yanking her. With her forward momentum, the hunter stumbled, lost balance, and collided with the brick wall. When she pushed off, Alexandra had her. An arm wrapped around her middle, leaving Rae’s arms pinned down. Alexandra’s other hand pressed to the teenager’s throat.

     Though she stank of fear and burnt magic, Alexandra held her close. For a few seconds, Rae struggled, then went still. 

     “Alex,” she panted, words tight. “Let go. You’re hurting me.”

     “That’s the idea,” she crooned—but she obliged. After all, she hadn’t come to fight the girl. Just tease her, toy with her, continue the dance they’d been performing since the very start of it all. Her fangs pressed into her bottom lip when she grinned.

     Rae didn’t return the grint but narrowed her baby blues. She quickly put distance between them. “What do you want?”

     “Nothing important,” Alexandra answered coolly, her grin vanishing at the venom in the young hunter’s words. “You’ve been practicing magic.” She didn’t know whether to be concerned, impressed, or angry. “Haven’t I told you stupid little girls playing with illusions always get into trouble?”

     “That never seemed to stop you,” Rae retorted. Her hair had come loose from her ponytail, some of the dark strands caught against her sweaty neck. She pushed them back impatiently. “You were a stupid little girl with magic tricks once.”

     Ah, yes. She had told Rae about her past, those humble beginnings when she was a young witch learning her trade, before she became the vampire she was tonight. Her smile returned, albeit somewhat thinner. “I never said I was stupid. I knew the risks.”

     “Yeah? So do I.” She still held the stake tightly in her fist, knuckles white in the grip. 

     “You’re no witch. Whatever you tried to do failed. The stink of it is all over you. What were you doing?” She may have come to antagonize Rae in the usual way, but the talk of magic now gave her an excuse to press on, a reason. 

 ��    But Rae avoided answering and instead drew her arm back, peering down at the sleeve of her jacket. Torn, no doubt in the scuffle, the thick fabric revealed skin beneath it. Rae stared at it, the corners of her mouth turned down. “Doesn’t matter, does it? Why would I tell you anyway?” she finally said, when the heat of Alexandra’s intense stare became too much. 

     The avoidance darkened her mood further. Was it a spell to offset her influence, or was it something more benign? Oh, it didn’t really matter, but it irked her 

     “Magic requires a balance. Talent. Understanding. Sacrifice. It’s not some toy for you to try and throw away. When it backfires, it can destroy you. Do you know how colossally bone-headed you are for attempting something like this?” It was anger, she decided. Anger and concern over the misuse of magic, of the consequences, of pain and suffering. “You are a stupid little girl.” 

     For a second, Rae simply stared at her, blue eyes wider than they’d ever been. 

     The blow came before she could stop it—a strong right hook straight to the jaw. The girl was strong by human standards, but nothing compared to a vampire’s. Though it struck her and made her stumble back, it by no means incapacitated or truly harmed her. 

     But then Rae was running, racing down the alley, her footfalls loud and slapping on the pavement. She splashed through a puddle, rounded a corner, and she was gone. Alexandra blew out a breath from her dead lungs, her face stinging from the blow. She took two steps forward, then stopped. Chasing after her would solve nothing. The girl was stupid and headstrong and nothing she could say or do would stop her from attempting magic, at least nothing short of magic itself. While an option, Alexandra wouldn’t choose it. No. Rae had to make her own mistakes and pay for them when the time came.

      It could be too late by then, but so be it. She wouldn’t be torn over this any longer. 

#short fiction #writeblr #Alexandra Cappello #Rae Travis #The New Ashton Chronicles #TNAC #long post #long post; short fiction #reblogs allowed & appreciated

[paranormaltaro]

Shoutout to all Selfshippers.

Shoutout to the women who selfship, to the men who selfship, to the intersex people, to the nonbinary people and other trans people who selfship. Shoutout to the Xenogender Selfshippers and those who prefer to stay unlabeled.

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Shoutout to the Selfshippers who don't use she/her pronouns, to the ones who use she/her pronouns! Shoutout to the he/him, they/them, it/its, neopronouns and no pronouns using Selfshippers.

Shoutout to Selfshippers who date men and those who date women. And Shoutout to Selfshippers who date both men and women, or even anyone that isn't either. Shoutout to the Selfshippers whose F/Os have no canon gender or are canonically genderless.

Shoutout to neurodivergent Selfshippers, to those of you who have personality disorders and dissociative disorders. Shoutout to those of you who struggle with social interactions, who need a constant reassurance, to those who feel safest in their relationship with their F/Os.

Shoutout to disabeled Selfshippers, to those who don't always need their aid and to those who do always need them! To Selfshippers who have learned to live with their disability and embrace it the best they can, and those who struggle daily with their disability.

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Shoutout to the Selfshippers who are also Plural or Otherkin, to the Therians and Fictionkins. A Shoutout to the Selfshippers who are IRLs of Characters and those who heavily identify with certain characters for any reason whatsoever.

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Shoutout to Selfshippers who accept all of their F/Os canon, to those who only accept certain aspects as canon and those who refuse all of their canon.

Shoutout to Selfshippers who have interacted with, watched and read all of their F/Os sourcematerial. Shoutout to those who haven't watched everything, regardless of if you plan to or not. Shoutout to the Selfshippers who have not once interacted with their F/Os source.

Shoutout to Selfshippers who draw Art of their F/Os, who draw Art with them and their F/Os, to those who write about their F/Os and to those who don't do any of this. Shoutout to those who daydream about their F/Os and those who dream about their F/Os at night.

Shoutout to Selfshippers who only have one F/O, to those who have multiple. Shoutout to those who have only romantic F/Os and to those who have not one romantic F/O. Shoutout to the Selfshippers who ship platonically, queerplatonically, romantically, familial or any other way.

Shoutout to the young Selfshippers in the Community, to the teens and the adults. Shoutout to those who only started selfshipping now and those who have selfshipped for years on end.

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Shoutout to Selfshippers who date someone next to their F/Os, to those who love both their Significant Other and their Fictional Other. Shoutout to those who don't want to date someone in real life because they feel content with their F/Os and to those who can't date someone in real life due to being so committed to their F/Os.

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Shoutout to Selfshippers who own a bunch of merch of their F/Os and shoutout to those of you who don't have any merch at all. Shoutout to those of you who have F/Os that have no merch and to those of you who don't have the money to buy merch. Shoutout to those of you who make their own merch of their F/Os, those who commission others and those who buy their merch online.

Shoutout to all and any Selfshipper. Know that your F/Os love you - because you're the definition of perfect to them.

#some of the parts are short because I lack the words and knowledge to write them properly #so feel free to add your own shoutouts as well #i feel as not everyone was mentioned here but this is a long post already #i just want to spread some love to all selfshippers because positivity and all #[selfship] #f/o community #fictional other #self ship #self shipping #selfship #selfshipping #f/o #proship dni #comship dni

[caffeinewitchcraft]

Cinderella Doesn’t Believe in Fairytales (pt 7)

(part 1) (part 2) (part 3). (Part 4) (part 5) (part 6)

This, Cinderella thinks, is a fairytale.

The nobles are bowing to the Prince, to her, and the air smells like the desserts on the table to her left. The music is still going, a sweet flute that serves a placeholder until the greetings to the prince are done. Over the bowed heads of the dancers nearest them, Cinderella can see her stepfamily curtsying to the arrival of the Prince.

Curtsying to her.

“I am glad that my tardiness did not hold up the festivities,” the Prince says. He inclines his head to the dais where the Queen and King sit. “We should resume.”

The Queen and King.

The Queen is as beautiful as the rumors say. Her long, black hair, streaked with grey, falls around her shoulders like vines, pinned into curled shapes against her violet gown with pins that sparkle like the night sky. She wears a simple gold circlet that glitters in the candlelight. Is it encrusted in jewels?

The King wears a heavier crown in burnished copper. His eyes remind her of the Prince’s, hawkish and knowing when he looks at them. He’s dressed completely in black except for the sash that crosses his chest. That is the same violet as his wife’s cape and his son’s jacket.

Cinderella is prevented from curtsying by the way the Prince presses her hand against his arm. She bows her head as best she’s able, heart thundering in her chest. Somehow looking at the Queen and King reminds her of the rainbows in the meadow. They swim in her vision as if obscured by power.

“Hold your head high,” the Prince whispers to her. His breath is hot against the shell of her ear and when she glances at him out of her peripherals, his eyes are warm. “You’re with me.”

Cinderella has never been with someone. She’s always been trailing behind, packages in hand, or at their knee with a hairbrush and sewing kit in hand. Even as a little girl she was never with her parents. She always felt like she was a step behind them, watching as the distance between them grew into an ocean.

She doesn’t feel like that now. The Prince’s arm is warm under her fingers and the gaze of so many people makes her face hot even if she knows the Prince’s magic protects her from being recognized. Cinderella has never felt so keenly in her own skin as she does in this moment.

Cinderella pulls her shoulders back and looks right over every noble to the blooming mosaic on the other side of the hall.

Well done, the voice in the back of her head purrs. There’s satisfaction curling in Cinderella’s stomach that feels foreign and heavy. She likes standing tall. She likes feeling bold and confident. Very well done.

“I know I promised you champagne,” the Prince says. He waves his hand and the music begins to play again. The nobles don’t resume their dance right away, their eyes fixed on the Prince’s every move. Expectant? Hopeful? Envious? The Prince only has eyes for her. “But I am jealous your first dance wasn’t with me.”

“Perhaps if someone had been on time it would have been,” Cinderella says. The Prince snorts and Cinderella’s smile widens. “Your highness.”

The Prince leads her onto the dance floor. The band is gently coming together again, string instruments rising underneath the lonely flute, the pianist adjusting on their bench in preparation. The nobles part for them like water, sliding back into their places without a word.

The Prince comes to a halt in the center of the dancefloor. If he notices the way the nobles stare, it doesn’t seem to bother him. He slides his arm out from under Cinderella’s hand, but doesn’t relinquish it. He kiss the back of her hand and asks, “May I have this dance?”

Cinderella must be beet red. She breathes in through her nose and smiles on the exhale. “Yes.” Then, because he is her friend, “You’ll be the first to have a dance from me, if that makes you feel better. The rest only shared one with me.”

Does the Prince’s gaze soften? Candlelight catches in his eyes, setting them ablaze. “Having or sharing, it doesn’t matter,” he says. “As long as it’s with you.”

Cinderella is speechless. The Prince takes the opportunity to sweep them into their first dance together, one hand on her hip, the other still holding her hand aloft. She’s not ready or at all prepared for it and has to rely on his grip for support when she stumbles.

“Where on earth did you learn to talk like that?” Cinderella hisses. She kicks at his shin and scoffs when he evades it easily. “Ugh.”

“I’m fairly certain that’s not how this dance goes,” the Prince says, tone mild. He’s smiling when she turns her glare on him. He whispers, “You’ll need to be faster if you want to kick me.”

Laughter bubbles in her chest. Cinderella fights it down. “You’d better show me how this dance works before I give into the temptation.”

“My pleasure.”

Dancing with the Prince is better than any of the other dances, though she doesn’t think she can bear to tell him that when he’s grinning like he knows it. He doesn’t guide her like Cy, her first masked partner, pulling and navigating her through the steps like a teacher might. He doesn’t make it a competition like Iz did, doesn’t change the rhythm whenever she manages to catch up to his pace. He isn’t considerate like Morrigan, waiting for her to catch her breath after a particularly tricky step.

Dancing with the Prince is like…it’s like being in the meadow. It’s like laying underneath the oak tree and watching the sun through the leaves, his gentle voice in her ear and the feeling of his magic chasing the chill away. It’s the feeling of being together where anything she says or does will be welcome or celebrated.

She doesn’t know when the other dancers join them, but she notices when the Prince nearly runs into a pair. She neatly takes the lead, spinning them to avoid a collision. The Prince startles and then scowls.

“I would have noticed,” he says. His gaze is dark on the dancing couple as if he’d like to curse them for the near accident.

“But you didn’t have to,” Cinderella says. Somehow she knows he isn’t that irritated. She thinks about spinning him but decides against it. She’s never tried spinning her partner before and is afraid of throwing him into the swirls of skirts and tailcoats that now surround them. She follows him away from the couple who nearly collided with them, surrendering the lead easily. “I did.”

“You did,” the Prince says, an inscrutable look on his face. It only lasts for a moment before he’s quirking an eyebrow at her. “Another song?”

Cinderella doesn’t feel tired at all. “Yes.”

They dance.

-----.

The night is a dream.

Cinderella holds onto it even after the Prince escorts her back to the Emerald Castle, after Helga pulls the pins from her hair, after she gulps down water and fruit before climbing into bed. They never did manage to have a glass of champagne. Cinderella can’t bring herself to regret the missed opportunity.

I’ll just have to try it tomorrow, Cinderella thinks with a thrill. Tomorrow. She’s going to the ball tomorrow.

She danced with the Prince all night. He delighted in each song with her, always keeping up with her mood and inviting her into faster steps or higher leaps. They talked and they laughed and, looking back, they must have seemed like children to everyone else. Cinderella felt like a child, free and excited in a way that she hasn’t been allowed to be in a long time.

She closes her eyes and can’t wait for the Prince to come pick her up for the ball tomorrow.

-----.

The carriage lurches and jumps as it transitions from the smooth Royal Road to the rougher cobblestones of the royal town. The silent occupants seem to wake up from their stupors all at once, the jostling as good as cold water on a dreamer.

“Mother,” Drizella whines. She doesn’t understand what went wrong. She did everything her mother said to do! She curled her hair and wore her lilac dress and didn’t dance with anyone other than the Prince. Except— “He only danced with her all night!”

“I have never been so embarrassed,” Anastasia says. She bites her thumb. Visions of the woman in green spin across the back of her eyelids every time she blinks. “We wore the same color! How dare she?!”

Baroness Ramsey doesn’t answer her daughters. She promised herself when she married the Baron that she would never allow anyone to guess at her non-noble past through her conduct. So she lets her face remain impassive and thinks carefully before she speaks.

Inside she is seething.

“That woman was in the wrong,” the Baroness says at last. She lays her hands daintily over her lap. “A ball like this – well. It’s for all noble ladies, isn’t it? The Prince was meant to dance with others. I’m sure the King and Queen will talk with him tonight. Tomorrow…”

She trails off. Her girls misunderstand as she meant them to. They perk up at the mention of tomorrow and the idea that the Prince will be different then. Anastasia begins debating what jewelry she will wear to compliment her gown tomorrow, going over the pros and cons of each one (“That woman wore gold tonight and won’t tomorrow, so the gold necklace might be the safest choice. But the prince wore silver tonight and might again and if I wear silver we could match.”) while Drizella pulls at her curls, lost in the daydream of what tomorrow could bring.

Inside the baroness is not so sure.

“A second invitation will be sent to those the Prince has taken an interest in. Expect news by dawn.”

They are not high nobility. It is only through the baroness’ hard work and clever deals that they’re nobility at all. Perhaps it would be different if her husband were better at networking like her, but he’s not (if he’s still alive at all) so they have no advantage through title alone. Their only advantage lies in her daughters’ beauty being recognized and – thanks to that woman – that didn’t happen.

Maybe I was hasty to leave Cinderella at home, the Baroness muses. Cinderella would have caught the Prince’s eye. There’s always been something…unsettlingly compelling about that girl. To be honest, the Baroness has always been a little afraid of Cinderella. Even as a child she always seemed to look through the Baroness rather than at her. With her golden hair and odd, light eyes, Cinderella would have been enough to compete with the woman who had captured the Prince’s attention. Then, when the second invitation arrived, the baroness could have kept Cinderella away to leave the real work to her girls.

She eyes her daughters. No. She could not have chosen any differently. It’s been hard work ensuring her daughters never grew afraid of their strange stepsister. Imagine if they were forced to watch the prince be bewitched by her? The baroness was right to leave Cinderella at home, dressed plainly, rather than allow her daughters to see through the soot and rough clothing to the strange, menacing woman beneath.

“We will stay up all night until the invitation arrives,” the Baroness announces. She won’t be able to sleep anyway. “I want each of you to go over every detail of tonight. Who did you notice? What could you have improved on? We will need to be even better tomorrow.”

Anastasia and Drizella complain, but the Baroness tunes them out. She knows what’s best for her daughters. If she says that they need to go over noble greeting they say, every pin, every broach, every conversation, they will.

It will come, she tells herself. The Prince may not have noticed her daughters, but the Queen was certainly interested in them. She seemed particularly interested in Drizella. Perhaps she will be the one to choose the prince’s bride. Yes, that must be it. She was too attentive to my daughters for that not to be the case.

The second invitation will come. The carriage squeaks to a halt outside of their inn and the baroness waits impatiently for the coachman to open the door. Yes, her earlier concerns were born from anxiety. Obviously the Prince won’t choose his own bride. Clearly! He’s a prince and princes must marry based on their parents’ wills. She, a baroness, wouldn’t allow her daughters to choose their husbands. Certainly the Queen, a fellow noble mother, feels much the same.

Cheered, the Baroness doesn’t yell for the coachman to hurry up helping her daughters down from the carriage. Anastasia does it instead and her Capital accent is even beginning to sound convincing! Drizella nearly falls when the coachman supports her step down too weakly, but her recovery is much quicker than it would have been two years ago.

Yes, the baroness must not lose herself to anxiety. She’s raised her daughters well and that will all pay off when she sees one of them married to the prince. Perhaps she should talk to the Queen herself tomorrow? Mother to mother?

Yes, that’s the best plan. She’ll leave her girls to the business of catching the eye of the prince. If they prove successful, wonderful. If not?

The Baroness hides her smile. There’s a reason she came to the ball despite the invitation not including mothers of the potential brides.

-----------.

Three important invitations are delivered at dawn.

One is snatched by the Baroness who breathes a sigh of relief that she must hide from her daughters.

The second is handed to Helga who rolls her eyes at the redundancy and promises to deliver it to her charge once she wakes.

The third is delivered via raven to a lone man on the road on horseback. He holds his arm above his head as soon as he recognized the purple ribbon tied around the bird’s neck, barely flinching when its talons cut through his thin, traveling shirt.

“A summons?” the man asks. The bird does not answer. It takes off as soon as he unties the message from its leg. He flips the letter over to examine the seal. His stomach lurches. “From the Queen?”

He can’t ignore a letter from the Queen. With a sigh, the man turns his horse gently before even breaking the seal. The Queen only accepts replies in person. A bitterness coats his tongue.

Another letter has brought him back to his ancestral home. A very important letter from someone he’s been forced to leave alone too long. And now, barely four days’ ride from the sender, he’s forced to ignore her once again.

I’m coming, Cinderella. Just a little longer.

Baron David Ramsey has been away from home for too long.

If you’d like to read more parts of Cinderella a week earlier, please consider checking out my Patreon (X)! On top of posting all my stories a week earlier there, I also post Patreon Exclusives.

#Cinderella fan fiction #my writing #cinderella retelling #this is turning into a full novella #this is why i write short stories #BECAUSE BOOKS GET SO LONG #long post

[strangestcase]

I want- no, I need for dracula adaptations to stop reading Lucy and Mina as the madonna/whore complex.

what makes them so compelling is that they're just some girls. Lucy is rich, kinda naive and ditzy, super sweet, and everybody loves her and thinks she's so nice. Mina is rather dorky, a nerd, a working class woman who's super in love with her equally dorky boyfriend.

neither is the madonna and neither is the whore. they're literally just women.

Lucy is friendly and nice and sweet and remains a virgin, and her reward is being preyed upon by a monster that turns her into one of his kind, a shriveled husk of a girl, a walking corpse devoid of personality that can only crudely mimic the person she used to be to further devour literal children. her body is twisted and her mind is destroyed, and she did absolutely nothing to deserve that other than being the essence of all that's good in this world. Because Dracula wants to destroy all that's good in this world.

Mina is spunky and transgressive. She is hard-working, and wants to further study and work to be a good wife, which in her books involving learning skills that women had only begun to learn at the time. She's a proto-feminist and literally complains that the moral standards of the time don't allow her to have premarital sex. Mina is just a regular woman who gets married and has sex and enjoys is, and, get this, she still gets preyed upon by Dracula. Because Mina also represents goodness, but in a different angle- she's weird, and smart, and loves science and technology, and she's helping a crew of amateur vampire hunters. Of course Dracula wants to destroy her as well.

Lucy represents the goodness lost to everything Dracula is a stand-in for (illness, war, conquest, ignorance; we also have to be aware that he's also a stand-in for the Scary Foreigner, for jewishness, for the East, etc). Mina represents the ultimate triumph of science and good.

Stop trying to make Victorian era characters fit sexist stereotypes that were only created for modern horror. There is Victorian era sexism present in Lucy and Mina's writing, but to force them into the madonna/whore dynamic absolutely kills the strong points on both characterizations. Which is only made worse by the fact that, despite the (nowadays obvious) underlying misogyny in Dracula, its female characters are surprisingly three-dimensional and respectfully written for the time. We can't take that away from it.

#doc talks #dracula #dracula daily #dracula spoilers #gothic fiction #gothic literature #rant #long post #lucy westenra #mina murray #mina harker #in short: I love them so much your honor

[louroth]

Well, well, well. Would you look at what the cat dragged in. (it's me, Lou!)

The time is here, and oh man, do I have a lot to say! Ever since this post was posted on my personal tumblr, on the fifth of may, I have been working like a machine on all things OUROBOROS. I had originally planned for this to just be a progress report/ announcement on what I will be working on now that I am free of the shackles of work, but, somehow, I managed to finish all bullet points, and more. So, let's get into it!

First off, the title.  Ouroboros becomes all capitalized OUROBOROS. Idk. It's neat. Next!

Art. Whew. I didn't think I could draw like this anymore- drawing has been more of a struggle than writing has been, forever, always- it was something I really strived to become good at, for a time. And I gave up. Only to pick it up again when I started ouro, and ever since I released that pressure, something just clicked and I have been churning out art like never before. I don't know if this is a fluke, a stroke of luck or if all that hard work I once did slaving away with menial art practice… but I'm grateful nonetheless. (A note on official RO art: I lost my ipad pencil somewhere on the lawn, lmao. I haven't been able to get a new one yet, so there is a slight delay here.) I am hoping that I get to make some commissions too, in the near future. Visit the forum to see some works in progress (amongst them, Yor's RO portrait!)

Onto the hellscape that is coding! I have been growing more proficient with CSS and html with the help of the ones that run so that we can walk; I have studied and researched and tested and tinkered until my eyes crossed, finding my way into this medium with the incredible guidance of the giants of whose shoulders I stand on. I will talk about this in detail on a later date. So I think it's finally time to reveal that yes, I am working on a twine version of ouro. I will develop it in tandem with choicescript; the porting over from one to the other isn't the herculean task I thought it would be.

Why am I doing this? Because I need to have a save system. I am continuing to write the whole alpha draft in choicescript in hopes that CoG will announce the ability to have a native save/checkpoint system, but if that doesn’t happen, I can’t publish this story without one. Unfortunately, I am not willing to code in a savesystem in choicescript myself, because this will be a large game, with far too many variables for that to be sustainable. Trust me, no one is more disappointed by that fact than me. If it comes to the point that twine publishing will be what I do, I will set my sights on writing a smaller game for hosted games. 

Now the meatier announcements!

New Socials!

Tumblr: You are looking at it!  This is the new, exclusively OUROBOROS blog where I will share all announcements and sneak-peeks, and future updates. I worked together with the dev of the theme and made it oh, so pretty and functional. Please check out their portfolio here, if you are ever in the market for sprucing up your (desktop version) of tumblr. They were a pleasure to work with. Amongst other things, it has a gorgeous header (again, only if you visit on web and not mobile) where I am showcasing fanart and official art. Go check it out! This month, I am showcasing a truly breathtaking art from KAIRELART, and you can find the full art here, or follow the links in the “FEATURED ARTIST” tab in the top bar.

I hope you enjoy this new haven for OUROBOROS! I will be answering questions once a week (saturday) and ramping up as I adapt to this new schedule, more on that further below.

My old tumblr, honeypeabrain, will revert back to being my personal blog. Feel free to keep following me there, but know that it will be inundated with shitposts, crass humor and the occasional poetry dump and personal post. You’ve been warned!

Discord!

By the good graces, this was ROUGH to set up. Working with discord bots is akin to wrangling code, and it was well and truly, a war. But with the help of many, it is finally all done and ready for anyone to join and talk to me and others about OUROBOROS and anything else between heaven and earth. 

I will also greatly appreciate if any future bugs and feedback are submitted through here, so I can keep easier track of it. Come join us! (18+ ONLY.)

Patreon & Ko-Fi

Yep! Ko-fi is just a place to toss me a coin if you wish to help me towards the goal of new PC parts to make testing easier, or to just show appreciation for those that have it to spare. Patreon however, already has a multitude of posts and will be a hub for exclusive NSFW sidestories that you get to vote on, loredives and extensive sneak peeks, Q&A’s, polls and weekly dev logs. 

Right now, there are only two tiers, but I expect it to grow as my story does. I have many plans, but I am going at a steady pace. 

Amongst tiered content, there is a (free) NSFW story with female MC and Idren to read there right now, if you want to check it out! I am mgoing to post it on tumblr and the adult thread here over the weekend.

NOTE: I stupidly didn't realize that patreon had a review process after I pressed launch, which I did just a few minutes ago. Sigh. I am going to post the short on tumblr and the adult forum thread as soon as I get to it.

It is not mandatory by any means, so if you do choose to support me, you have my eternal gratitude as these places will be the sole source of income for me.

Onto writing:

The best news out of this whole bunch is that I have worked so hard on editing and writing, that in the past month I have all but finished a two chapter update! I have a chunk of about 5-6 thousand words left to write, and I am going to buckle down over the weekend to see it through. I wanted to have it done so badly for today, but I lost three days of writing time last week due to still being weighed down with work. I hope it isn’t too disappointing to have to wait until monday for the demo update! I am going to post a link to an as-I-write updated demo on Patreon and Discord, if you want to see the ugly face of raw wip drafts. Otherwise I will post the demo update here on Monday with a comprehensive post!

And now!  the biggest news is… from now on, I am writing full time!

This is what I have been tossing and turning about every night ever since Easter. It started as a silly idea while talking to some friends and family about how I was looking for a change in career. And then, little by little, that idea whittled down to a plan, carefully carved by my partner and his whispers of a happy future, a finished dream project, and something to be proud of until the day I wither and die. 

Somewhere between then and now, I grasped a tiny sliver of bravery and held on for dear life. 

I quit my job as a teacher, and instead of accepting a cushy office job, I started behaving as if OUROBOROS and writing was my work (for all the moments I could afford). I have researched and tried different methods from week to week, and although I was still tired from work, I felt like I was onto something that could build into a sustainable future. 

I have no doubts that this journey will be bumpy and long, but sometimes all it takes is to take that first step, and do it with determination. It might all crash and burn and fail in a spectacular way, or with a whimper, but then I will know that I have tried. I will know that I gave myself the chance to be who I want to be, work on what means so much to me. 

And that’s it. I think the hardest part of formulating this post (I’ve written about 50 versions of it!) is getting to the point; the kernel of what makes it so special to me. So, in my heart of hearts, what I'm trying to tell you is that I'm gonna give it my all- and while I know the road to having a sustainable career in writing is rough and ever winding, I do know for sure that I am ready for a challenge, to pour my heart and soul into it until the day I rush out of the office screaming IT IS DONE. IT IS DOOOOONE!!! 

If you decide to join me, I will treasure your company like a lantern in the dark. Hand in lovable hand, let’s fucking go.

#OUROBOROS #ouroboros-if #interactive fiction #hosted games #CYOA #twine #dev log #progress update #honeypeabrain #smacking tags on this post like they're skittles im aiming into a beasts mouth #I DIDN'T REALIZE PATREON WAS GOING TO REVIEW MY PAGE (literally cried about it because I planned everything so meticulously) SOB #anyway :') but a small stepping stone on the long journey ahead #I am going to take the dog for a long walk and then upload the demo/spicy short as I say hello to anyone joining the disc #I hope to see you there :>

[insomniac-dot-ink]

The Dragon’s Hoard

The first one appeared in the middle of a storm. Lightning broke the night sky and rain pounded the earth. The dragon, as most, was asleep deep within his lair, exhaling plumes of ashy smoke and warming gold beneath his belly. A violent sneeze woke the dragon, he reared his great head and snapping his barbed tail. A second sneeze followed.

Mallow the Destroyer stalked down his mound of gold and swept across his caverns. He gave a wordless roar and his breath steamed in the chilly night air. The cave echoed with his threat: “None who enter here may leave.”

A small bundle sat on the floor next to a number of black-steel swords. A little hand seemed to be curiously poking at one.

The dragon roared. “WHO FORFEITS THEIR LIFE TO MY CAVES?” Mallow thumped his mighty tale against the ground and the bundle jumped.

The thing turned and snot ran down its face. A child, no more than seven. And they were staring up at the dragon with a starry-eyed confusion. The little creature rubbed her sleeve across her snotty nose a few times and blinked.

Mallow blew hot air in her face and her blonde curls swept back. 

A ratty scarf was tied around the girl’s neck, she was bundled up in several layers, a blue coat was far too large for her. Packaged like a stuffed ham, the girl’s arms stuck out at stark angles and she toddled more than walked in a pair of secondhand boots. 

“I am Laurel,” she announced in a voice that was far too loud. She wore a pair of thick earmuffs and two sets of bandages wrapped around her head. 

Mallow narrowed his eyes, he bared his terrible teeth, and thrashed his tail and the little creature wobbled and fell onto her behind. The girl’s eyes became even larger somehow, but she didn’t weep. Didn’t flee. Didn’t run. 

“What are you doing? Tell me how you wish to die!” The dragon sneered, but it was no use. The child’s ears were stuffed and she could not hear him. Mallow was forced to dig out a cursed notebook and write down words in the common tongue.

Instead of answering, the child wiped at its snotty face and shrugged. She pointed at herself. “I am Laurel.”

Mallow might’ve eaten her or burned her to a crisp, but there was a note pinned to her overstuffed coat: for your hoard.

—-------

The first one's name was Laurel. The second was Rowan. They were sisters with black hair the texture of crow’s feathers and large eyes that made the youngest look constantly in awe and the older like she was lost in a composite maze.

They both had the same note pinned to their chest. And Mallow couldn’t eat something of his hoard– it could be valuable.

“Who approved this foolishness?” The dragon Mallow perched in front of the eldest. She held her young sister in her lap and exposed one pink ear to the draft. 

“My mother sent us,” Rowan said with a quick nod toward the mouth of the cave and a bit too loud. “She’s a witch.”

“Good for her.” 

“She’s says you’ve met before.”

Mallow narrowed his eyes. “Oh?” He gave a terrible grin with a terrible puff of his chest. “And she sent me unskilled tiny servants in response. How lovely.” “Don’t be daft,” Rowan said frankly and bounced her baby sister up and down on her knee. “Do you have any kindling?”

“I should turn you to splinters for asking,” Mallow narrowed his cat-like eyes. He enunciated slowly, “I only collect valuable things. Things worth more than your life. Things you cannot burn.”

“Aye,” the girl replied absently.

“Perhaps you should offer me something of the like in exchange for your life.”

The younger sister tugged on her sister. “Scary.” 

“Yes, yes.”

The dragon puffed up. “Your sister seems to have some sense.”

“Not you.” The sister’s eyes flicked to the dragon’s pile of whittled instruments from the Year of the Elder Crow. “We have something mum says you can’t say no to. Do you have kindling now?”

The dragon’s eyes went wide. He was a creature of want after all. “Something I can’t say no to? A Witch must like to gamble.” He repeated, smiling and leaning forward. The girl held his gaze.

“But I can’t show you ‘till tomorrow.”

The dragon circled around the children and thrashed his tails and made his threats, but Rowan was already putting her headgear back on and curling up around the other child. Mallow knew he was being played, but retribution could wait until morning.

The children were unarmed after all and he could spare some ancient tomes on taxation for their fire. 

—--

An older child named Ralph arrived in the night. A mealy child who had pick-pocket hands and a lean-dog frame. 

“No! Absolutely not,” Mallow growled. “I am not here for the village’s lost scoundrel children.”

Ralph was wearing a gauzy series of headbands and sat down next to the others, sucking in his lower lip. Mallow bared his teeth and Rowan held up something wooden and boxy in front of the dragon’s long snout.

“It’s inside.” 

He delicately picked up a box with many indents and moving parts.

“A treasure from the Witch Hazel,” Rowan said loudly, one ear exposed. “If you can solve it that is.”

“There is no manmade contraption I cannot master.” The Dragon sat back on his haunches. “I'm sure your people say that's what dragon's traded our souls for."

The new boy, Ralph, folded his arms over his chest. “Lotta good souls do us.”

“Don’t say that,” Rowan hissed at him and clutched at the Witch’s holy hawthorn around her neck.

The dragon laughed. “Perhaps he can stay. Tell me, boy, how attached to your soul are you?"

Ralph crossed his arms over his chest. "Depends on what they're offering."

"Don't humor him." Rowan met the dragon's eyes and they seemed to burn. A challenge. “Our mum says you have a soul. She sent us here. And she is the cleverest and most revered lady–”

“Bragging doesn’t suit meals," he cut her off. Mallow turned the box around in his claws.

Rowan set her jaw. “We’re using the canvases as beds.”

“Don’t you dare. You’re leaving in the morning.”

The boy that was mostly ribs sniffed, “If you can solve that thing, aye?”

The ancient dragon griped, and snarled and eventually lay down to twist the small box into different shapes. Children’s play, it had to be children's play.

—--

The children might be trying to trick that dragon. Mallow came down from the top of his pile of gold to ask for a hint on the puzzle box the next morning.

Naturally, there were five more children in the small camp. Some of these kids wore rags tied around their heads in long strips that made them seem bulbous. Two of the kids wore almost nothing at all and walked around with fingers jammed in their ears.

They all had something different clutched in their puny hands or tied to their wastes with a note. For your treasure. For the dracon. Foyr yur horde.

The Dragon reared up. “I do not collect children.” He shook the cavern. Two of the kids stumbled forward and shoved puzzles made of hoops or stones at him. One presented a wooden jewelry box with a riddle.

Rowan batted her eyes and said very simply, “Can you not solve these? My mother, the witch,” she emphasized, “said you could.”

Mallow settled down in front of the older child, “Are these even solvable you urchin? Provide a hint to let me know they are not an impossible task.”

Rowan pointed at where to place his fingers.

The cave became far too lively and far too much singing and running filled the space. But some good came of it. After a great deal of twisting and complaining, Mallow conquered the cleverest of Witch Boxes.

He plucked a ring from inside the contraption and rotated it against the light. There seemed to be a small rainbow caught in the center of the jewel. “What is it?” “It’s a mood ring. A ring that can detect your mood.”

“Magic!” The dragon purred. He slipped it on the very end of his tail. “A gift indeed. What does it say, young witchling?”

“Purple means passion.” Rowan shrugged and went back to a kind of flower arrangement. “Or something.”

Mallow flicked his tail and grinned. Passion was indeed what he felt in the contest of wills with the box; proper magic.

An eerie-looking child, ghost-like and pathetic, stumbled toward him and held up a game of colored tiles. A player must “connect four” to best their opponent.

He settled down in front of the phantom child, Sally, to challenge her wits. “Very well, you may stay another night. My little hoard.”

The children ran in circles and seemed to acquiesce to the ideal through their cries of delight. —----

Dragons avoid spending time with their own kind, much less that of other species. Juveniles even worse. Which was why Mallow decided to turn them into an adequate army instead. Provided with creaky wooden swords and dinner-plate size shields, he rallied the children to prepare to do great battle.

“Yes! Yes, we will unleash the seven furies of hell and overtake the kings of the mountaintops and queens of the oceans. They will cower before us, lament their fates, and relinquish their gold to our cave."

Shrieking laughter and whooping answered Mallow. Laurel appeared to be making her wooden sword and wooden dagger kiss. Ralph was making one of the younger boys hit himself. Sally fell down, scraped her knees, and started crying. No matter, Mallow collected every medicinal wonder of the world.

His troops continued to train as Mallow dug through one of his herbal collections. He didn't see the figure appear.

Music began to play. A jaunty, slippery sound from a panpipe. The lullaby, sickly sweet and unnatural, filled the space and seemed to muffle the air itself like a blanket.

“Get off! Get off, you wanker!” 

Mallow turned in place. Ralph and others marched across the cavern, stiff-limbed and empty-eyed toward the opening. The other children were in chaos. Sally, bleeding knees and all, bodily tackled Marco to the ground and wrenched the gauze from out of his ears. The twins Lucas and Abigail wrestled on the ground, trying yank fingers out of ears.

The dragon flared his nostrils and stepped forward.

“Stop, stop!” Tears streamed down Laurel’s face as she held her sister back. She clawed bloody ribbons down Rowan’s arms, but the elder girl wrenched the earmuffs off her head and threw her to the ground, face empty.

A pair of yellow eyes glowed in the dark. The children were walking. The music played on.

Mallow leapt toward the front of the cave and let his fangs dripped molten hot. He roared, “You think to disturb the sanctity of my treasure?!”

The Pied Piper blew a sharper note, but Mallow was beyond such tricks and tore through the night with his claws. The Trickster was faster and ducked. He smiled something sour and cruel and blew a series of musical notes. The Trickster’s yellow eyes were swallowed by the dark.

A note was left in his place that simply read, PAY UP.

The dragon’s chest heaved and his breath steamed against the air. He threw himself into the sky and flew across the mountaintops, searching and lighting up the night in flames. But Pied Piper’s were not easily caught. 

Mallow returned and counted their heads. There were seventeen. Just as the number they had started with. The children looked up at him with enormous shining eyes and the younger ones threw their arms around his leg. Mallow tried to push them away and tell them of the nature of dragons: They don’t lose things.

Like many young, they didn’t seem to listen. The children slept at his feet that night.

—----

The Piper tried to lure the children away from the cave several more times. All it took was one note and one pair of ears, sometimes the Piper brought in outside children as well and laid traps and schemes. Sometimes he simply grabbed one child under his arm and ran.

“They must pay,” he repeated like a rabid man. “They must pay their debts.”

Dragons however, did not pay prices. And he did not tolerate being stolen from. No matter how far the bard ran, the dragon was faster. He plucked Ralph back from the man’s arms and almost lit the ocean on fire. Marco and Laurel rode on his back from the dark forest.

Rowan learned to light Witch’s Fire and The Piper gained a new scar when he tried a fourth time. And a fifth.

That was the first year where no children drowned from the Town of Hoppling. Families from Bernick and Wastings and city children from the Skid Row and the fish monger districts that couldn’t pay the Piper, all arrived at the cave of the Dragon Mallow. They only had to bring a simple game and perhaps a clever riddle to share around the fire.

The Dragon gained a new name in the years he guarded his hoard and scared away the Piper. Dragons don’t have souls. But if they did, there might be one named Mallow, Saint of Children. Saint of Safety in Fire.

------

If you enjoyed the story please consider donating to my ko-fi or supporting me on patreon (even a dollar helps!), check out my Sapphic fantasy book as well!

#flash fiction #dragons #short stories #fairy tales #fantasy stories #long post

[thefiresontheheight]

1. The Roud Folk Song Index lists it as the 39th Child Ballad. Comparisons to be made to Type 425 in the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index, under the entry “The Search for the Lost Husband.” TvTropes.com has more to say on the page titled “Shapeshifting Lover.” A story iterated upon in many forms. A young woman, almost always a woman, sometimes virginal, is wedded, or falls in love with, or is taken away by a man under some sort of curse. He is horse. Or a lindworm. Or a wolf. Sometimes only at night. Sometimes only when the fairies who cursed him make him so. He is a Beast, she must undo whatever evil makes him so, normally through a kiss, true love, wedding him, or, in some of the less sanitized versions, simply sex. 1. The first time they hooked up he cried afterwords, which she didn’t understand at the time. They were sophomores in college. It wasn’t her first time. It should have been casual. It was up until he cried in the morning. She felt so bad that she suggested they get breakfast together, when she had simply meant to leave. At breakfast he calmed, he talked about his life. Quiet, nerdy, hiding in his hoodie. There was something vulnerable there, and she liked it. She gave him her number after. 2. Later thinkers and writers have revisited this trope. Sometimes it is played straight, depicted on the screen by Disney. Sometimes this is (falsely I would argue) called Stockholm Syndrome. Sometimes this is, it must be said, simply used for purposes of sex and titillation. I think, however, that the continued persistence of this motif in media, it’s emotional resonance, demands further explication of its longevity. What about this appeals to us in the modern day, when we (ideally) can no longer ascribe to it a moral of young women being forced to accept arranged marriages? 2. They’re a few months into their time dating, after long arguments about that label, when the crying returns. This time no longer after sex, but she feels the emotion is the same. You should leave me, he says. Break up. You should do it now before I hurt you, he says. And she, not wanting to point out that she is bigger and stronger than he is, gently asks why he says something like that? In there time together he has been nothing if not careful. Thoughtful. Kind. One of the most soft and charming people she knows. He cannot explain it in any satisfying way. He simply insists that there is something dark inside him. Something he has sought to deny far too long, and will not be able to deny forever. That if she stays she will be hurt, simply as a function of loving him. He will one day lose the fight against himself. She does not know what to do but hold him. 3. I think some of the appeal of this trope can be found in reference to another motif of our pop cultural mythos. That of the werewolf. We are used to seeing werewolves depicted from the viewpoint of the hunted. But there is perpetually the question of what such a transformation looks like from the viewpoint of the animal itself. A human transforming into a beast demands of a human audience that we consider what it must be like to monster. To be capable of hurting those we love. And yet, I at least wonder, if we are capable of hurting those loved ones, do we not still hope that they will love us as we transform? As we become different, monstrous in shape and utterly unknown even to them? 3. They graduate. Together. Move into an apartment above a Taiwanese restaurant. She gets a shitty job that has health insurance for them both. He does commission from home. It’s not perfect. There is some part of him he never shares and she does her best to make peace with that. To accept that wherever his mind goes when he is watching her put on a dress, do her make up, whatever he ponders while watching the women passing by the street outside, or after they have sex, that is something he has chosen not to share. But instead they share popcorn. And bills. And shitty inside jokes. And that time they got accidentally drunk at his mothers remarriage to Craig (fucking Craig amiright?) and got found by the staff of the hotel whose ballroom she had rented, having passed out near the punch bowl. It’s a life. It’s their life. She tries to give him space within it. 4. Consider again the Ballad of Tam Lin. The idea of Janet in the woods, holding onto her lover as wicked fairies transform him. To something ice cold. To something burning hot. To a horrible slimed thing writhing in her embrace. To a snarling wolf-monster, a beast of wicked claws and gnashing teeth. Who has, at one time or another, when circumstances reveal that which we keep hidden, felt like that? 4. She gets home unexpectedly early one spring afternoon in her late twenties. Janet from accounting somehow set fire to a microwave, which set off the sprinklers, and no one could get anything done that day. A small treat, and it validates her admittedly flash-judgment of Janet. And as she unlocks the door, flowers in hand, she finds him in front of the closet they share, and understands the secret that has been kept from her for almost a decade. 5. And then of course, the tales and legends end. Normally in the curse being lifted, the lover being returned to normal. Beast is a beast no more, the Lindworm is again a prince, Tam Lin may leave the woods a man. A simple ending to a simple story. But for us living in reality? Outside of the tidy constraints of fiction? Perhaps there is no ending. Perhaps we remain a beast, remain a wolf, remain cursed, and monstrous and strange. Perhaps we endlessly transform into new, and more twisted shapes, and have only hope that our loves will hold us nonetheless. That even if we become something that may hurt them, something they may not understand, they will still love us. 5. It is hard. It would be nice to say there are not challenges. She always thought she was bi, but the label of straight was easy, and she never had to examine it when she was with him. She keeps on stealing her dresses. There are good times too. Times where she looks at this woman still becoming, someone she had loved for a decade and still barely knows, and sees how brightly she smiles, and feels so proud. But it is above all else hard. The crying does not go away. Estrogen works wonders, but cannot stop dysphoria, and hurt, and pain. It is hard to love her. But she is trying. And when the fights over labels and new boundaries and shifting emotions break out, or the dread comes, or the weeping, she does what she can. She holds her partner, no matter the form she takes.

#long post #short fiction #short story #trans fiction

[izwonnye]

𝖨’𝗆 𝖺𝗇 𝖺𝗇𝗀𝖾𝗅 𝗍𝗁𝖺𝗍 𝗐𝖺𝗌 𝗆𝖺𝖽𝖾 𝖻𝗒 𝗍𝗁𝖾 𝖽𝖾𝗏𝗂l

#spotify #stars #symbols #୧ ׅ𖥔 ۫ ◌💱.˚ @𝐢𝐳𝐰𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐲𝐞 post ⋄ 𓍯 #: ​ ┄୨ ask’s ୧┄ : #moodboard #female idols #wonyoung #kpop layouts #long locks #messy short locs #simple bios #short fiction

[neopronouns-in-action]

Before we begin, I highly recommend reading

Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, by Edwin Abbott Abbott

(Project Gutenberg link, where you can read and download the book for free. You can also find many audiobook versions on youtube and the web archive)

(BTW, the word "romance" here is not referring to romantic love, it's the older version of the word that means a story with adventures and amazing quests.)

and

Transgender Warriors: Making History from Joan of Arc to RuPaul, by Leslie Feinberg

(Web archive link where you can read and listen to the book for free)

to best appreciate this short story.

___

Neopronouns in Action #062: Flatland Warriors: Ponder the Meaning of the Words, or, The Breaking Point.

The audiobook version of this story can be listened to here on the web archive: "https://archive.org/details/neopronouns-in-action/Neopronouns+in+Action+062+00+The+Breaking+Point+-+Context.mp3"

Neopronouns:

da/dar/darl/darkling

phi/phim/phis/phirself,

tuo/tuak/tuar/tuaresi,

Which all follow the same rules as he/him/his/himself:

Replace he with da, phi, or tuo

Replace him with dar, phim, or tuak

Replace his with darl, phis, or tuar

Replace himself with darkling, phirself, or tuaresi

EX:

"He is going to adopt a new puppy soon, as soon as he gets a fence set up around his yard so the puppy can go outside without him having to walk it. His uncle is going to help set up the fence, since he has a set of power tools he’s letting him use, since he lost his. He's going to buy toys and train the puppy himself.”

Becomes:

"Da is going to adopt a new puppy soon, as soon as da gets a fence set up around darl yard so the puppy can go outside without dar having to walk it. Darl uncle is going to help set up the fence, since he has a set of power tools he’s letting dar use, since da lost darl. Da's going to buy toys and train the puppy darkling.”

Or

"Phi is going to adopt a new puppy soon, as soon as phi gets a fence set up around phis yard so the puppy can go outside without phim having to walk it. Phis uncle is going to help set up the fence, since he has a set of power tools he’s letting phim use, since phi lost phis. Phi's going to buy toys and train the puppy phimself.”

or

"Tuo is going to adopt a new puppy soon, as soon as tuo gets a fence set up around tuar yard so the puppy can go outside without tuak having to walk it. Tuar uncle is going to help set up the fence, since he has a set of power tools he’s letting tuak use, since tuo lost tuar. Tuo's going to buy toys and train the puppy tuaresi.”

= = =

Flyssa sighed as da rested in darl room, trying, unsuccessfully, to tune out the conversation da could hear from the doorway to the parlour.

Dearg had been forced to “invite” Lieutenant Kellite over for dinner after the lieutenant let slip several overt implications that Dearg could going to be accused, within the General's range of hearing, of impropriety if phi didn't prove that “He kept north a good, respectable house”, by spending the night plying phis superior officer with the best wines, meats, and deserts phis meager salary could afford.

Flyssa, of course, had no salary. Lines were not allowed to hold jobs, or own any property of their own. Da couldn't even go out to the market to buy groceries without an escort from either Dearg or one of phis polygon siblings or close cousins, or da would be arrested, most likely executed on the spot, and Dearg, having taken responsability for dar from darl father when they were married, would be charged with criminal negligence and attempted manslaughter.

Lines must be kept under the strictest control, you see, because they were dangerous and unpredictable. Being a line, they had only two faces, and two points, both sharper than the sharpest of trigons. Having no angles, they had no capacity for thought. They were barely even human.

All this was, of course, the reality mandated into law by the higher polygons. Started by those who proclaimed themselves cirles, and passed south, by force, through the descending ranks of the people forcibly labeled the lower classes.

Things had been like this longer than Flyssa had been alive, but not longer than darl grandna had been alive. When Flyssa had still been a child, and not old enough yet to be allowed to leave the house even with an escort, Grandna Tuokeli had told dar endless stories of what life was like before the Configurationists had come.

When tuo had been a child, when their country was still called by its true name of Ib-Wa, there had been no laws segregating people based on their numbers of sides, and lines had been allowed to do any job they wanted, they could go where they wanted, do anything anyone else could do. There were some tasks that only lines and the thinnest of triagonals could do, due to their thinner size allowing them to fit into smaller spaces than other shapes, but that was just how physical reality worked, it wasn't made north one day by a bigot and then mandated into law that pretended it had to be true by pure virtue of being a law.

And now Flyssa was an adult, darl grandna had had to flee the country several years past, and lines weren't even considered to be shapes at all, let alone shapes of equal value and ability as any other.

Dearg, mandated as a trigon of the lowest class, was regarded as only a single, miniscule step above Flyssa as far as the ruling powers were concerned. Phis angle, and thus, according to the Configurationists, brain, was so acute as to hardly exist. But it was an angle, and it did exist in its meagerness, and that was more than Flyssa had.

So Dearg was given the "honor" and "privilege" of serving in the Configurationist's army as a common foot soldier. The hours were long, the work gruelling, and those who did the work were regarded with complete disdain. The "equillateral" trigons who oversaw the "isoseles" were cruel, and viewed torture and execution for the smallest of infractions as "good old Circleday entertainment".

Bribes, such as the dinner Dearg was currently being forced to play host to, were a constant demand of the officers, further stripping the soldier caste of resources and putting them in constant debt. And if you refused to cave to the demands of your superior officer, or failed to supply them with the favors they demanded, it was inevitable that you would be the next one put in the torture block or publicly executed, with real mistakes blown out of proportion, or fabricated entirely out of thin air.

Most of the food and drink laid in front of Lt. Kellite had been snuck in in the middle of the night by their neighbors, all of them soldiers or families of soldiers stationed either in Dearg's regiment, or the other patrol whose territory overlapped with theirs in this corner of the city.

The officers had to know their demands were impossible for a single soldier's salary to supply, given that they were the ones who set the ration limits and pay rates, but anyone who dared to point out these facts to them was executed before they could finish getting the words out. If you wanted to survive as a member of the soldier caste, you had to jump when the officers said jump, and don't let things like basic math or logic or the price of fruit this time of year get in the way.

It had taken the pooled resources of twelve other households to supply the extravagent dinner Lt. Kellite was currently loudly enjoying in darl parlour, with Dearg eating phis portion with much quieter, carefully forced cheer and politeness, trying to hide phis hatred behind the proper demeanor of a host.

Flyssa could see through the charade like it wasn't there, and could only hope that Lt. Kellite was either less perceptive, or at least wouldn't care that the pleasantry was false. His every spoken breath, after all, was insult on insult, hidden behind a thin facade of complimentary-sounding words.

There were many among the soldier caste who'd given into their rage from the constant insults and lashed out at the offendor, only for all the other officers to proclaim them mad out of their minds, or so genetically barbaric that they didn't even understand the idea of a compliment. The "victim" (the officer), after all, never said an unkind word against them, and this was how the brutal, out of control soldiers repayed his kindness?

Clearly, these unprovoked attacks on innocent men of good standing was more proof that the "isosceles" were good only for the most dangerous, taxing manual labor as soldiers, or to be confined as exhibits in schools for the children of the higher ranking polygons to learn the art of recognition by feeling.

It took all of Fylssa's willpower to remain in darl room instead of rushing out to give the Lieutenant a peice of darl mind as the least drastic of all the options da had been considering since Lt. Kellite strode through the front door like he owned it.

In truth, he did. His family controlled this arm of the military, and they owned the land this house was built on. As part of the soldier caste, Flyssa and Dearg were only allowed to live on land controlled by the military. The salary Dearg was given for phis service was immediately returned in the form of rent and payment for food, and for any fees phi was charged as punishment for misconduct, either real or imagined.

Flyssa was trying to focus on darl part of the internal ledger of supplies available to dar and darl neighbors, purposefully trying to drown out the sounds from the parlour by immersing darkling in the task of mentally retallying the stores, so, horribly, dar missed it the first three times Dearg tried to call dar into the parlour.

Phi actually had to come into darl room to get dar, followed by the scornful laughter of the Lieutenant that was so raucus it finally knocked dar out of darl reverie to see darl husband's terrified eye looking in at dar through the thin doorway.

"Flyssa," Phi whispered desperately, "He wants to see you, he insists you must join us for desert. We can't keep him waiting, I already called three times."

Quietly horrified, Flyssa whispered back, "I'm sorry!"

Dearg winked at dar in the pattern for reassurance, while out loud phi raised phis voice to say, loudly enough that Lt. Kellite could hear with anger that wasn't faked, though its target was false, "When I tell you to come and greet our guest, Woman, you come! Don't you dare make me come and fetch you again and make our illustrious guest wait on you like a commoner! Attend to your configuration!"

This last statement was met with a very loud, very drunk repetition from Lt. Kelllite, and followed by another burst of laughter.

As part of the show they had to put on together, Flyssa said nothing, and followed Dearg back into the parlour in the silent, meek subservience befitting the lowly wife of a lowly soldier.

Dearg entered the room first, as propriety demanded, and Flyssa stood next to phir to greet Lt. Kellite in the formal, "Greetings, my Lord trigon, Lieutenant Kellite. I greet you as a humble line, and swear my presence will not sting you."

The line had been first spoken by the wife of one of the higher-ranking self-proclaimed circles, and was now considered a requirement for any line greeting an unrelated polygon.

Lt. Kellite, who was at this point very drunk, laughed again, and called, "You have her very well trained, soldier! That was most dignified and proper...for a line of her lineage!"

Dearg was expected to laugh, so phi did, trying to cover north how angry phi was. Flyssa was expected to say nothing, so da remained silent. Lt. Kellite heard neither response over the sound of his own uncontrolled laughter.

When Lt. Kellite was done laughing, there was a tear in his eye, which he wiped away with one cilia, then blinked at the two of them as though seeing them for the first time.

He began to chuckle again. Why he'd demanded such a large bottle of wine when he clearly couldn't handle even a fraction of it, they would never know.

"Did you know that from this angle--" And he laughed on the word angle,"--you look exactly the same? All I can see are the glows of your eyes, like there's not an angle between you!"

Neither of them said anything, because there was no good response available to them. There was nothing wrong with Dearg's shape any more than there was Flyssa's, but that's not how the Configurationists saw it.

For a Configurationist to say that Dearg was indistinguishable from Flyssa -- a trigon from a line -- it was intended as the gravest insult imagineable. Lines were not considered shapes, they weren't considered human. They were regarded as unthinking creatures of pure emotion when even that much was granted to them, incapable of logic or real thought or self-conception.

The rules of Configurationist society demanded that Dearg be humiliated and infuriated by the claim that phi could not be told apart from a line. And those very same rules also demanded that phi be obedient and subservient, never contradicting phis "betters" or implying they were anything but perfect. Phi was an isosceles trigon whose angle was so acute phi was almost indistinguishable from a line.

There was no way to respond to Lt. Kellite's insult without losing, so phi chose the option least likely to get phirself killed, and remained silent.

Lt. Kellite eventually got over his own hilarity and calmed south enough to demand that Dearg return to the table, and that Flyssa serve them desert.

They acquiesced to his demands, Dearg returning to phis spot at the table opposite Lt. Kellite, and Flyssa moving to the cool room to fetch the pudding that had been hastily thrown together from ingredients from all the neighbor's stores.

Da gently probed the surface with a cilia, and was relieved to see that it had set properly, the surface jiggling firmly at darl touch rather than moving like the liquid it had started out as.

Moving carefully so as not to break the still-fragile texture, Flyssa carried the tray back into the parlour, careful this time to make sure da was paying attention to the conversation incase da was called on again.

But the conversation had drifted to the almost-harmless topic (No topic of conversation was ever truly safe with an officer, who could take any word as an insult worthy of capital punishment) of the weather lately, with Lt. Kellite forcing Dearg to agree with him that all the rain they'd been getting was making the lower classes lazier, letting them think they could get away with doing half the work at slower the pace.

Dearg was not allowed to point out that it was just a fact of reality that you physically couldn't move as fast in the rain as you could dry, so phi could only nod along and give agreeing-sounded noises whenever Lt. Kellite demanded, "Don't you agree?".

Flyssa was not allowed to say anything at all besides the required, "My Lord trigon, I serve you" as da deposited the the pudding dish on the table and backed away at a respectful speed to wait against the northern wall, careful to keep darl eye turned towards Lt. Kellite so he could see dar at all times.

This also had the affect of making sure da could hear his every word loud and clear, despite how much da wished da could shut them out.

"So, Private," Lt. Kellite boomed when he was halfway through the bowl of pudding, absentmindedly throwing the peices of the expensive dried fruit he didn't like over his shoulder so they fell to the southern wall, "How long have you been married to this fine young line here?"

The words themselves seemed positive, but the way in which they were said dripped with derision and barely-contained disgust.

"It will be five years this New Year's Eve, my Lord trigon." Dearg replied, not letting any reaction show in phis voice, and careful to use the Configurationist term for the holy night rather than its real name.

"She's got Irregularity in her line, doesn't she? Her grandmother was mentally unsound, wasn't she? Destroyed after dozens of failed attempts to treat her in the state sanitorium, if I remember right. That was her grandmother, wasn't it?"

Dearg did not let any emotion enter phis voice as phi replied, "Yes, my Lord."

"And it hasn't been passed south to this generation, has it?"

"No, my Lord." Dearg lied while Flyssa held darl breath in sudden aphrension.

"And five years, really?" Lt. Kellite continued as though he hadn't noticed their reactions. A dangerous note had entered his tone, though he still kept north the pretence of merriness. "Five whole years sheltered under my roof, and fed at my table, protected by my wall, and you've yet to produce any new isosceles to fill my ranks in repayment, nor any new lines to marry to your fellow soldiers."

He tapped one cilia against the table as if in deep thought. "Why is that, I wonder? Is she too ugly for you? Or perhaps she did inherit her grandmother's Irregularity."

He rolled his eye to look directly at Flyssa as he continued, "Some Irregularities are invisible on the surface, you know. The doctors only find them after an autopsy is performed. Perhaps I should have her destroyed and we can find out, and find you a new wife. Or perhaps--!" His voice rose higher to cut off Dearg's instantaneous, helpless protest, snapping his eye back to regard Dearg with all the force of a javelin, "Perhaps your vertex, being so acute, has rendered you immune to the wiles of the feminine persuasian. After all..."

His voice dropped to a confidential stage whisper. "You're so thin, you can hardly be told from a line yourself. It'd be only natural for your brain, so acute it's barely there, to be scrambled about which sex to be attracted to. I'll bet you're not even attracted to lines, are you? You can't help it. You don't have any children because you've only got eyes for proper shapes, don't you?"

Flyssa and Dearg held the same terrified breath, frozen in their places, too afraid to move or speak.

Lt. Kellite enjoyed their fear, and gloatingly let the silence hang over the room like a pall for almost a full minute, savoring every panicked heartbeat that made their eyes flicker in distress they couldn't conceal. From his angle, he could see both their eyes, and they could see his.

Finally, just as Flyssa was beginning to think that da would have no choice but to kill Lt. Kellite where he sat, and make a desperate attempt to flee to the north for asylum, just as darl grandna had so many years ago, the officer began to laugh, the sound like freezing ice in the veins of his unwilling audience.

Flyssa forced darkling to unobtrusively relax the tense stance da'd adopted, tried to slow darl racing heart. He was drunk, he'd had almost the entire bottle of wine by himself, he probably didn't even know what he was saying, and wouldn't remember it in the morning to accuse--

"I think your wife should return to her room, don't you, private? Let the two of us talk alone, man to man."

The words themelve were simple, neutral in their literal interpretation. The way they were said...

The room went silent again, the kind of silence that only death can carry.

Dearg was in shock, too horrified to react. Phi just sat there helplessly at the table, staring across at the Lieutenant, unable to speak.

"Leave us, line." Lt. Kellite said, in the off-hand tone of one accustomed to being obeyed without question.

There were many injustices that Flyssa had endured since da'd been born. Too many to count, too many to remember. Too many that da didn't want to remember.

Too many times, da had been the one shocked and helpless, unable to defend darkling. Outnumbered, overpowered, too beaten south and bruised to struggle. When da had been young, after darl mother had died, darl grandna had protected dar.

But darl grandna had had to leave the country to avoid execution, and tuo couldn't bring dar with tuok.

Many abuses da'd been forced to accept as da grew older, many da had learned, by the pain of necessity, to brace darkling against in the only hope of survival.

"I said leave us!" Lt. Kellite snapped, spinning to face dar, enraged by darl disobedience. "Are you irregular? Did you not hear me? Get out of here, woman! Go back to your room!"

Darl heart was beating so fast it was like a single drawn out tone instead of a drum. Rage was boiling in darl heart so powerful da couldn't believe it was only in darl mind.

It felt like the air itself was shaking with darl wrath, like the house should shatter around dar.

The rage was twisting and squirming in darl insides like snakes, and da could no longer hear darl own heartbeat over the roaring sound filling darl ears.

"What are you--?!" Lt. Kellite's terrified shout was just barely loud enough to reach darl conciousness, almost enough to break through the tsunami of rage sweeping over dar, but by then it was too late.

The transformation was on dar.

Flyssa couldn't see it happening, because darl eye was gone, but da could feel it. Darl once almost pefectly straight line shattered, but the fragments did not fall south, and darl mind did not break with them. New lines were forming in the cracks, shooting out and filling in darl sense of the space around dar as new cilia erupted from the surfaces, twisting and twitching to map dar surroundings.

Da had broken through the wall behind dar like it wasn't there, bringing the cold north wind to spiral and eddy in darl new angles.

Da could sense Lt. Kellite's terrified retreat in front of dar, every time he moved, darl new cilia caught the movement in the air like ripples in water, and Lt. Kellite was a struggling fish.

He was screaming, crying out for help, for reinforcements, for his soldiers to save him.

The fury, momentarily abated by the shock of the transformation, swept over dar again, and with a shriek of rage, da leapt in pursuit, slashing through the frame of the Men's door like it was paper, and out into the cold night and the honeycomb of houses that surrounded theirs.

Darl vision was gone, but darl hearing had been enhanced, and da could hear the families in the houses around dar shouting and whispering fervently in confusion and fear.

Da spun, trying to locate Lt. Keller through the wake of his movement, but the wind was strong and confused.

Then -- "He went west! North of Asi and Saber's house!"

Dearg's voice, behind dar, out of reach at a safe distance, guiding dar to darl target.

Trusting phim implicitly, Flyssa leapt towards the alley phi'd indicated, and tore off after Lt. Kellite, pealing out, in a sudden burst of inspiration, darl peace-cry, and discovering only as da began to sing that each of darl new stinging points contained a new mouth, too, each with a different voice.

Twelve voices rose above the wind, above Lt. Kellite's cry of fear, harmonizing in wordless emotion, filled with all the unspeakable rage that had finally burst free from darl heart.

Da was able to move faster now than da had ever been before, and unlike Lt. Kellite, da was familiar with their surroundings, knew intimately the map of hexagonal houses that belonged to darl friends and family and neighbors.

The only thing preventing dar from immediately catching north with him and tearing him to peices was darl unwillingness to injur any of darl neighbors by crashing into their houses or hitting anyone unawares. Lt. Kellite had no such worries, and charged ahead with reckless abandon. But he was hopelessly lost, unable to tell the houses and their inhabitants apart. They were just lowly Isosceles, barely more than lines, barely human. He'd never needed to know their names, or where they lived, who their neighbors were, before.

Even without darl sight, Flyssa knew where da was in relation to the rest of the town, and darl confidance only grew the further dar went, because as soon as da began to sing darl peace-cry, those watching the chase from the relative safety of homes began to gleefully join in.

Da recognized each of their voices, and used their identities to further cement darl location in darl mind even as Dearg continued to call directions behind dar.

Those in front of dar, where Lt. Kellite was fleeing, modulated their voices, raising the pitch whenever he got closer to them, and lowering it when he passed them, always with equal parts rage and laughter in their voices, his screams for help, of rage, of terror, drowned out as, every time he tried to force his way into a house, he was immediately thrown back into the street and forced to keep fleeing or be destroyed right there by the shapes who had emerged to defend their households.

His last mistake was trying to shove his way desperately through the Women's door on the Excal-Dagger house, only to be caught fast in the too-narrow gap, and unable to move to defend himself as the shapes within the house turned in a frenzy and began to assault his front side without mercy.

He managed to back out, blinded and bleeding, and turned to flee again --

And was struck straight through by darl longest point, cleaving his brain from the rest of his body in a single strike.

His blood was purple, the color of death, the color of life, the color of rebirth.

It tasted sweet, and the war-howls as darl friends, family, and neighbors painted themselves with his spilled blood and began to undergo the transformation themselves, baying for the blood of the sudden, unplanned revolution, tasted sweeter still.

#long post #very long post #very very long post #neopronouns #neopronouns in action #short story #short stories #original fiction #fiction #writing prompts #story ideas #Flatland #Flatland OCs #Flatland a Romance of Many Dimensions #Fascist Shapes in Space #werewolves #werestars #yes #I'm stealing that

[ziracona]

We’ve lived on the edge of a heart for the last four hundred years.

You grow up knowing that, you know, and it sounds so normal. So routine. We learn the world works on the decaying remnants of the old world, and that’s life, but it’s so different to see it.

I got a job working at the power center when I was just twelve. You can only work a few hours a day that age. You got school, and life, and laws that say it’s bad for you. And the work’s easy; all I did was bring people papers and drinks, one room to the next. Wait for a while until called. It was like chores at home. That, and my sister had done it before me, so I knew the routes going in, and I was fast; I was good. I wanted them to be impressed.

I guess they were.

When I turned fifteen, I got a job working basic cleaning. I got the older janitors to teach me repairs. I was good at it, and if you opened the windows on the second floor at night, you’d hear the concerts down the hill, and it was almost magic.

It was during a meteor concert I first saw the god. I knew how the power station worked, in theory, but they keep security tight close to the core, and usually I wouldn’t have been allowed near it with my rank. One of the old men in the job had fallen though, and injured himself late in the winter, and had to be taken to the doctor. The other oldest staff member usually there was out of town visiting family a few villages away, and that left just one of the younger men, and me. I’d offered to help, and rather than take all the lower floors alone, he’d said ‘sure why not,’ and let me though.

There was no one to stop us. And I’d earned trust. Honestly though, I hadn’t done it expecting to see it. I mean, I was curious generally, but I knew by then even if you were in the room, things were usually all bolted closed. Really though, I was so worried about Alberto, all I was thinking about had been him, and how close he was to the age of my own grandfather when he’d died last year. There wasn’t room for curiosity past fear and superstition.

The concert down the hill was playing loud though, a lunar event. Beautiful, probably, but I wasn’t thinking about having to miss it. I was thinking about Alberto, and trying to not think about Alberto, and trying to make my heart go slower, and the mop in my hand.

There were lights that activated through rune when you got close in the inner rooms, and I walked past a long wall of a massive tank, like an aquarium I’d seen once visiting the coast. Runes lit it blue and red as I went past, and thought about Alberto, and my grandfather, and the concert, and the mop. I kept telling myself, “I did the right thing. I stayed, and I worked a double and did his job, so he’ll be okay. It’s only fair. It wouldn’t be fair for him to die tonight while I’m working his shift. This will keep him safe.” It wouldn’t be like grandad, and the trip I’d passed on two nights before his death, to see friends instead, because I thought I had time.

I looked at the floor and I mopped till the runelight glowed in them, and focused on doing everything right. Everything. On meaning it.

And then I’d felt something move.

I can’t describe the immense horror of feeling something that size move in a room at night alone. It’s like the shadow of a mountain. It’s like the things you think are past your bed as a child.

And I saw my perfect runelight flicker in the tiles like something had passed between them and me, and turned to look up in that massive, empty fear of the night before that moment multiplied, and there in the tank was a humanoid figure I hadn’t realized was one at all, because it was five times as big. Its palm was the size of my head, and it shifted in that dark glowing tank, and I saw things that had looked like reeds move with it and registered them as chains. Its eyes were shut, but as I found swirling masses of matted black hair in the liquid, and what must have been a face beyond them, its eyes opened a crack. I saw glowing grey and black light in them, and they found me on that 2/3rds of a perfectly mopped floor, and pinned me to it like the corpse of a butterfly in a collector’s box.

I had never felt so afraid and so sure if something else wanted it, I was just going to die now.

The chains didn’t matter, the tank, the facility. It was too big for anything to possibly matter. So I stood there, hearing music of falling stars from the living humans below me what felt like a planet away, just waiting, for this big thing opposite me to will me dead.

It did not. It just looked at me, unmoving, like some corpse in the water. If I hadn’t been able to feel its gaze, I might have been able to really believe it was dead. But I knew it was watching me.

For about ten minutes I stood there looking at it, mop dripping water onto my perfect floor, too scared to move or think. And then slowly, fear beat out fear. I began thinking ‘No. You’re failing now. You stopped. You had to do his job perfect. He’s going to die.’ Louder and louder until it pounded in my head, and there was no room for fear of this god either past it, and I took my mop, and shakily went back to working.

I felt its eyes on me. I felt its eyes follow me. But I couldn’t stop, and so I didn’t.

I finished that room, and the next and the next, until the whole floor was done, and I went home at 10:00am two hours before my own shift should be starting, and collapsed, and when I woke up and returned to work after an hour and a half of sleep, and Hannah told me Alberto had pulled through, I believed it was me. I believed with immense relief I had traded with the universe last night this time and won it fair and square.

But I wasn’t surprised.

Dreams of that thing haunted me after, for several months. Watching me. Following me. I felt it in dreams about my grandfather, where I tried to make it to see him, and failed.

I got sick with those dreams.

And then a year later, just seventeen, they started letting me into the room with the tank again, to clean as Alberto’s helper. It always seemed asleep now, when it was where we could see it, and it wasn’t always. Floating like a corpse.

I wished it would look at me again. I felt like if it did, at least maybe the nightmares would be about being eaten or crushed, not the death of my grandfather.

And then one night, waking from that nightmare in a cold sweat, I’d thought about the way the stillness had felt the very first night I’d seen the monster, and about the way I’d felt like I’d beaten something the next day, and I went back to sleep and the nightmare willingly.

I remember that dream. My grandfather was there, looking at me and crying from the other side of a tank wall, lit up blue and red from runelight, and I couldn’t reach him. Behind him, there was a blackness like lengthening shadows that I knew was death, reaching, reaching, getting closer and closer to him as his palms pressed on the glass I couldn’t break through to save him, and I knew like every other time he was going to die, and I would not save him. And off far to the right, was the body of the god, watching with those glowing grey and black eyes. Silent.

I did not pound on the glass. I did not cry and beg or fight. I placed my palms opposite my grandfather’s and said “I am so sorry I didn’t come to say goodbye. I didn’t know. I would trade anything if I could.”

And something in the dream had said, ‘but you cannot, not like that,’ soft, like the touch of your mother’s palm against your face as a baby, and I believed it this time.

“Please forgive me,” I said to the grandfather in the dream I had let die.

“Forgive yourself,” he said in a voice I thought I’d never hear again, even in a dream, “Say goodbye now.”

He smiled.

I said, “I don’t deserve it.”

He said, “You do. We both want it, so you do. It’s fair.”

So I said, “I love you.” Which meant “goodbye” more than ‘goodbye’ could, and I saw he heard me before the shadow reached his back and took him with it, and I woke up crying, but, I felt better for the first time I ever had with a cry, and there were no more nightmares after that night.

That day, the thing in the tank watched me.

For just a second, as I was leaving. I remember looking back at it when Alberto was already through, and saw glowing eyes for an instant before they shut. It was substantially smaller even in that short time, than the first day I’d seen it, but still huge to me, and it terrified me, that sight, but I also felt relieved. Like the only thing worse than it alive, was it dead.

No one knew much about what our city god had been, or if they did, they didn’t say.

I asked someone who’d been at the station a long time once, and he hazarded ‘law, or storms?’ because of the village history and locale. I wondered if it was either at all. I guessed it didn’t matter. Gods had been gods: all pretty much the same. And we all knew the stories.

Over a thousand years ago now, there had been the age of gods. They controlled men; they bought and sold us, used us, siphoned off our belief into power, killed us, drew us in for worship and controlled us with fear, and hate, and desperation. Demanded blood, demanded lives, demanded sacrifice. We worshiped them, and they gave us power, a little. But only ever a little. And then, almost a thousand years ago now, we had realized they could be beaten.

And for the life of us, had we.

We had fought back against their oppression, and we dragged them down to our level. We had been used for eons as power for them, but our ancestors turned those tables. We built traps, and curses, and used our belief as a weapon against the things that had tormented us for thousands of years for it. Mages and artificers found ways to reverse the power—ways to siphon off a god’s domain, and make that power for us. We took them down, and tied them down, and we took it, all. And for nearly a thousand years, we had it. Power, and freedom. Not always peace, but our wars were our own. We were no longer pawns to gods. They were dead now, and our future was ours.

Well, most were dead. Apparently, when my grandad was a boy, that had actually been a huge problem, and people everywhere panicked. We hadn’t realized that the gods could be used up until they had no power left to give, and died outright, but it started to happen, and how could we possibly replace that? Our whole cities were built on their backs. Sometimes literally. But the mages and artificers had found a way, like before, and we did replace it. We had developed new dams, and alchemy, leylines—we even harnessed lightning itself. It would be different, sure, but it was no longer a real concern by the time he’d met my grandmother.

Amazing, how much could change so fast.

When the gods we kept chained in our cities as power cores first began to die, those gods simply vanished. There had been panic with the first few—long before my grandad was born—but, by the time he got his first job, we had accept the loss of a resource, and found something to do with it. Now, when a god died, we made something of it. After all: we were saying a last goodbye to a whole era of our history. Now, when one was on its last legs, someone was chosen from that city, and granted the honor to kill it. To become a God-Slayer. And someday, someone would be the very last one. The last God-Slayer. And god, I wanted it.

I knew I wouldn’t be the last, of course; by the time I was eight I knew that—numbers had dwindled, but we were hardly down to two or something. That didn’t matter. I had just wanted to be one of them, as a boy. Someone who might be remembered forever, a nail in the coffin at the end note of the remnants of our oppressors. It had been like a fairytale.

It was why I took this job, originally. Why I had worked so hard.

By the time I got my wish though, I’d forgotten it had been, as a boy, what I’d wanted and worked and traded in all the life I would never get back for a shot at.

It was early morning, and and I’d walked in still sleepy for my morning shift, and there was energy in the air. The workers were chattering together in excited undertones, and I felt excited too without even knowing why, and hurried over to find out too.

“You’re in time,” hissed Kanne at me, almost vibrating with energy, “quick! The name collector moved to the next floor but they’re still making rounds!”

“The—” I thought my eyes were going to pop out of my skull. “TODAY?”

They were all nodding.

Nobody had to tell me twice. I ran. I passed the tank room on my way, and it was empty, and I felt sick with adrenaline. Even if I didn’t get picked, which was what, one in 15 to one in 20 odds? I-I would see it! I was there ON the day.

I found the man collecting names and he gave me a little black card and white chalk. I scribbled my name down and dropped it into the slot in his box, and raced back to my friends with his whispered, “Small staff today. It’s the two men from the overseers, you four on cleaning staff, the two technicians, and one enchanter. I never put in my own,” ringing in my ears. One in seven odds.

One in seven.

We waited on the ground floor for the announcement. The others kept glancing my way and grinning at me. I must have looked stupidly excited, I guessed, but I didn’t care at all. It was like a dream.

“Will they let us watch?” I asked suddenly, it having not occurred to me before they might not.

“Dunno,” said Wis thoughtfully, the youngest above me here today, and in his forties.

I hope they do. I prayed silently.

“As you all know,” came a quiet, level voice I knew even having heard it only a handful of times, as the manager of power stations on the area. We all turned and looked towards the horn amplifying sound from a few floors up and stopped breathing. I mean, I did anyway. I had to assume we all did. “Today, we have a God-Slaying. The old god of this city has reached its final death throes, and is being taken down. This is a monumental honor, and the reward for dedicating your life to a job I know is not easy, or especially rewarding compared to some others most days. Today, it is the most rewarding job of all. As is tradition in the southern region, we draw lots for the honor of God-Slayer, among all those in daily service keeping the local power core site running in person. There are less than twenty gods remaining now, in our world. Let’s see who one of the last slayers among our kind will be.”

I waited, wishing I could hear the rustle of papers. ‘Arano’ I thought, picturing the white chalk letters in my head and pleading for them with the world.

“‘Gav.’” came the manager’s voice.

YES! What?? I thought in rapid succession, I-Is there someone last-named ‘Gav’ here???

The rest of cleaning staff had erupted in cheers and were clapping me on the back, whistling, calling congratulations and giving hugs.

“Is that me?” I asked them, dumbfounded.

“You know your own name, right?” laughed Kanne.

“But I put my last—didn’t we-?” They were all grinning at me.

“Mmm I put your last name,” agreed Kanne with a sparkle in her eyes, “But one of the boys must have not.”

“I genuinely thought we were doing first names,” said Wis, flushing, and Alberto had given a toothy grin and tilted his head to the side.

“Wait—all of?”

They were all nodding. Beaming at me.

“Don’t you want-” I started desperately.

“Not as much as I want to see you get it,” grinned Kanne, “besides, wasn’t mine I guess anyway.”

Alberto gave a nod. “You’ve got a long time to enjoy it.”

“And cleaning staff sticks together,” added Wis, shutting his eyes and gesturing carelessly with a hand, “four in seven is better odds—”

“Odds of one of us winning would still be four in seven,” I laughed, and realized I was crying, and he grinned at me and clapped me on the shoulder.

“You earned it, kid. Go get it.”

They smiled and moved me towards the stairs, laughing and clapping my back and talking, and the horn above us called my name again and asked me to make my way to the artificer’s chambers.

The two men from the overseer branch met us on the way down and chatted, friendly and enthusiastic. I asked one if he’d ever seen this before, and he said this would be his fifth time. That was almost unimaginable to me.

“What’s it like?” I asked as we reached the artificer’s room.

It was clean and bright, which was the polar opposite of it in active use. The man gestured to a door on the far end I’d only been through a maybe twice before, ever. There wasn’t anything back there really, an empty room for a purpose I hadn’t guessed before.

The man considered my question as we moved towards the door. “Strange,” he decided, and he gave me a smile, “They fight usually. I’ve seen them go silent once too. It’s almost reverent, to me,” he added like he was surprised to find it, “seeing the end of an era. Finishing what we started.”

He ran a rune sequence against the waiting door, and it slid open, and he turned and gestures for people to wait.

“Gratifying too,” he decided, giving me another glance, “Like you can breathe easier with one more of the those gigantic empty leeches finally gone.”

I gave a nod.

“Okay. We’re taking him in first,” he addressed the staff behind me, which now included Reysa and Lili the technical repairs duo, and the assistant who’d collected names. “Once it’s ready to commence, the rest of you will enter the viewing area, through that door,” he pointed to a door on the left side of the room, then glanced at his partner, who gave a nod and me a smile, and they showed me in.

It had been years since I’d seen this room. It was empty, aside from pillars and a little pedestal, usually. But today, there were chains, and a mechanism I hadn’t seen before.

“What is that?” I asked, staring at the humming thing.

“It’s the same as the one in the basement, just smaller and concentrated,” replied the overseer.

Ah, a ward then. We had discovered a long time ago when we fought the gods, that there was very little we could make that hurt them, but we could capture their own energy and turn it on them, and the energy of any god could hurt another. These things stored that power, and imbued it through materials like chains, or the liquid in the tank our god had been kept in. The way they enchanted the energy, a god encased in it was unable to do the things we heard stories of them having done in the past: use their domain to crack open the sky and rain down fire, vanish and appear on another country, kill you with a look. They just became big dead bodies, not quite dead, like our god in its tank.

“You have the right to choose a weapon,” said the second man from overseers, gesturing to a set that was hung on the wall by the door.

Oh, I thought, feeling something between excitement and nausea at the sight. I really get to do this. I’m going down in history. I’m going to kill a god.

There was an axe, a sword, a spear, scythe—which I could not begin to imagine the self-confidence or impressiveness of choosing, a mace, a bow, and a dagger. I looked at them long and hard, heart beating out of my chest. I could see the faintly glowing coating of god energy on them. Enchanted for killing gods. A god killer. Such a magnificent weapon seemed too good to be real.

But here it was, and here I was, and the sword felt like what the hero would choose in a story, but I was a cleaner, whose friends had given me a gift, and I was to kill a god, and I remembered the way the overseer had said ‘almost reverent’ about killing the last of these things, and I reached out and took the axe.

It felt right in my hands. Impossibly heavy, but, somehow that was good. I knew it would kill in one blow, which hadn’t worried me before I chose it, but I was now enormously relieved not to worry about.

“Well chosen,” whispered the overseer with a friendly smile, nudging me in the ribs with his elbow.

I smiled back and straightened up, and walked over near the podium where I was directed. Across the room, I saw my friends ushered in and watching through glass, waving, staring. Excited too. And now maybe a little afraid, awestruck.

I’m ready, I told myself, turning to face the door the overseer was opening.

It opened, and six men from the overseer’s office came through, holding chains and weapons with coals at the tips. There was a track system in the roof of the room, and as they hooked chains into it, a mechanism started up, and dragged the thing towards me, surrounded by its guard.

It came fighting and stumbling, screaming, trying to break free, and I was dumbfounded.

I had never once seen it speak in the tank.

It had gotten so small, it was almost my size now, and it looked like a man, skin dark and ashy grey tinted like someone who’d lost too much blood, bedraggled thin curls matter to its head. The eyes still glowed fiercely.

The overseer began to speak, noting history and official rites, chronicling our event today, but I didn’t hear any of it. I heard the god scream and struggle. There was no room for other sounds past that. Shackles were secured around its hands and feet, waist, and neck, and the mechanisms in the ceiling and floor kept dragging it towards me, arms chained together behind its back, feet awkwardly apart and chained to the tracks in the floor so it kept stumbling and falling, and being caught by the chain around its neck that kept on dragging it towards me, and I followed the mechanism with my eyes and realized it would drag the head down on top of the pedestal and hold it still for me. For executing.

In my head I had always thought it would be like a mock fight, ceremonial, or…entering a cage, with a silent giant thing, labored breathing, putting it down. Like opening the top of that tank and aiming a harpoon down while it lay there still. I felt suddenly like I wouldn’t know what to do now when the moment came, and might do it all wrong, and I tightened my grip on the axe to stop the shaking in my hand.

No one looked at me though. The men around the bound god shoved and prodded it forward with their full attention, until it was dragged to the ground in front of me with a shout, and they hooked the chain around its waist to the floor so it was trapped kneeling, feet too, and head suspended against the pedestal by the one around its neck.

It was wearing tattered remnants of an outfit I should have known, but didn’t. Flowing and formal, but so old.

“Having reached the end of its usefulness to us, the god of Malcove will be slain by one of her citizens: Gav Arano,” came the overseer’s voice. I looked up and saw him raise his arms. “We dedicate this ending to the memory of the ancestors strong enough to end the age of gods, as we take our final steps in burying the last embers.”

“Stop!” shouted the god in desperation. It fought to wrench itself back up and couldn’t, and cursed in frantic frustration and fear, trying again anyway.

I looked at the overseer and he gave me a nod.

Feeling like I wasn’t really there, I raised my axe. This is a god, I told myself, staring at the wretched thing at my feet, I’m really-

“Stop! Please!” shouted the god, dragging its head to the side as far as it could to look up and see me, and I was so shocked to hear that word from a god, that I did. “Please, stop!”

“Go on,” came the overseer’s voice encouragingly as I stared at the thing with my arms raised.

“No!” called the god, turning its head to look from me to the overseer and back, then staying on me, “Do not go on! Why?” it begged, somewhere between rage and despair, “Why do you do this to me?”

“It’s alright,” said the overseer to me again, ignoring the thing, “go on.”

“Answer me!” shouted the god, frantic, “You!” it shouted, turning its head painfully far back and to the side to see me, “Why! What have I done?”

“You know what it’s done,” said the overseer to me, “It’s a god. Go on; slay it.”

I moved, and the god’s eyes fixed on mine and went wide, ragged with hate and fear and desperation. “‘Slay’ me?” Its voice cracked. “‘Slay!?!’ Look around you! This is no heroic god-slaying! It is an execution! And I have committed no crime; you are a murderer, showering praise for a murder!” It jerked against its chains futilely. “I am bound! I am unable to flee, or fight back! I have initiated no challenge! I am a prisoner! You have locked me away and tortured me for hundreds of years, and now you have used up my life, you will kill me for it!”

“They get like this sometimes, trying to talk their way out at the end,” said the overseer, nonplussed, “You don’t have to listen.”

“No! You will hear me!” shouted the god in a panic.

Someone activated the mechanism it was chained to, and its neck was dragged down hard against the pedestal with a pained cry and held there flat against it, so it couldn’t look up anymore.

“You coward!” It shouted, trying to see me anyway and failing, starting to cry, “You coward!! You will not even look me in the eyes and face what you’re doing when you take my life?!”

“Go on,” said the other overseer, much more quietly. I hadn’t heard him come over, but he had, and he put an encouraging hand on my shoulder, “It’s all talk. It can’t hurt you.”

“That is the point,” cried the god, voice seeped in bitterness and despair and hate, “I cannot. I am a god who served this land for three thousand years, and you are going to slaughter me like a cow!” It tore at its restraints again and screamed in rage when they held. “How do you justify it!?!” It shouted at the room of humans it couldn’t see who had come to watch its death. “You call my people monsters! ‘Unfair, unjust, leeches,’ for using you, and then you take us and trap us in walls to suck the life from for hundreds of years with no trial! No justice, no reason! You treat us as if we were all the same!”

“You are all gods,” said the second overseer with a twinge of annoyance, addressing it finally, “You are the same. You earned what you’ve been given. Accept it with dignity, or die in a pathetic tantrum at the end. It won’t change your fate.”

“The same?!” echoed the god, choking on the word in despair, “You would judge your entire species for the worst acts of a few?”

The man rolled his eyes and gave me a tired, reassuring smile. “They usually die with a little more dignity than this one. But these make a better story.” Again, he placed his hand on my shoulder encouragingly and gestured to the axe. “You don’t have to wait for it to finish spitting at you, Gav. Go on. Cut off the poison words at the source. It may talk a big game, but it’s harmless. You’re the only one with power here.”

I nodded slowly at him, and hefted the axe. Then I moved, slowly, over in front of it, and it looked up when it sensed me getting close.

“Wait! Please wait! W-We do not go on to a second life like you; we simply end! And still, you will take all our time and kill us like it’s nothing, and then call yourselves champions and just! You must see it is not! We are not the monsters!”

It got no answer this time, and it could sense the plea had failed. Breath heaving, and eyes full of tears, it held my gaze.

“Wait! Wait—will you not wait even a few minutes to give me time to reach some peace?”

“What would a god pray to?” asked the first overseer, somewhere between amusement and disdain.

Its expression shattered at the words, and it stopped looking at me and stared at nothing with wide eyes for a few seconds, then it hung its head and was silent.

I raised my axe.

“Do you even know what I used to be the god of,” it asked hopelessly, and I could hear it was crying in its voice, “Fair trade. I was the god of fair. trade.” It turned its hopeless face up towards mine a last time and looked its own death in the eyes for mercy. “I never massacred your people, or used them. It would be against my nature to have even tried. I protected deals between people who wanted it. I protected you. Many of us protected you, and look at what you have done.”

Its eyes were swollen, and stained with dirt and tears, its face so full of misery.

“You used to remember me,” it pleaded, despair in its eyes, “you used to like me. People would come to my temple on top of the mountain to ask advice, and blessings on their plans. To offer trades for the sick and dying. Sometimes they would leave gifts, to thank me, and I always got to think of ways to thank them back. Fair trades.”

The last words had been a whisper.

“Why,” it asked me and no one and everyone who had lived the last thousand years. Asked for justification, justice.

“Gav.” A prompt, almost a reprimand this time. I looked up and over, and the first overseer gave me a tired smile. “They’ll say anything. You can’t listen to a god; they would lie about anything to get what they want. It’s alright. Slay it.”

“Slay?! Call it what it is! Murder!” shouted the god, “I am alive! I have done nothing, and given everything, and still you have betrayed me! You know it is wrong!”

I looked up at the room around me, at the others, my friends, watching me across the room, waiting. Concerned. The guards, agitated by my delay, wanting to step in. The overseers nearly exasperated with my hesitation. The one at my side gave me a nod when I looked his way.

“Okay,” I whispered back, and I turned and I readied my stance again, hands sweating now. I raised the axe high above my head.

The god screamed in rage and despair as I moved. “We should never have cared for you monsters at all!” Frantic, it fought at its restraints till it bled, and tried to find me with its eyes, but I was too directly above it now. “You want to kill a god!? You want to rip away my life!?! Then take it!” it cried at the death it couldn’t see, and I watched a last something break in it, “Take my last trade! Take my life, and the curse you earn with it! My hate will follow your blood, eating away at your life and soul and everyone you love until you have NOTHING left, like you leave me! Take what you deserve!”

It was shaking. And it was alone. More than anything I could imagine.

I didn’t swing. I watched it. It couldn’t tilt its head high enough to see above my legs, and after a few seconds of terrible waiting for the axe to drop, the tension went out of it and it just went limp and cried, silent. Weak and hopeless.

“Why?” it asked the room in despair, “Why will you not even look me in the eyes when you kill me? How is that not fair?”

Fair.

I swung the axe.

As hard as I could.

And I let go, and watched the blade embed itself in the enchantment mechanism sending god energy coursing through the binding chains.

The mechanism made an awful sound, and suddenly the air was full of shouts.

“Go!” I shouted at the God, willing it to flee.

It did not.

It made a sound like a gasp, and there was an overwhelming surge of energy in the room, like electricity in the air of a storm, or smoke and heat inside a burning home.

I saw guards rush it, heard friends and strangers shout alike, and watched the god snap its chains in an instant and with a surge of power come upright, and grow.

In a millisecond, it changed, until it was towering like that first night in the tank. Like all those nights in my dreams. Hair floating, eyes glowing like stars, ashy skin glowing faintly of a grey like smoke.

And it began to laugh, long and desperate, and not entirely sane, and guards slammed their weapons into its legs and it didn’t even take note.

“Yes! Yes! NOW see what you’ve earned!” it shouted with relief and a vengeance, and its voice was clear like before, but so loud it hurt, and it raised a finger and a wall exploded, shattering debris on the first of the overseers and burying him. It felt a stab from a guard finally and glanced down, and swung at them with a hand. It was like watching a cat bat a mouse, and the four it hit were hit so hard they went through the wall. The last two it turned to look for and brought a foot down on, crushing them to pulp beneath it.

Everyone who could move was running now. Everyone but me.

I could only stand frozen in shock and horror, watching this thing I had done, and then it turned its head and saw me.

Oh no.

I thought to run, but I only made it back a step before it reached for me, and I thought, this is pointless, I’ll never make it, and I didn’t. It grabbed me with a hand as big now as I was, and lifted me off the floor towards itself, and I felt the most immense terror I ever had.

“Wait,” I tried to choke out as it brought me even with its face, and I realized then it was beaming.

“Thank you!” it said, “Do not worry. You will be safe.” Its expression changed, and it narrowed its eyes at the rest of the room. “And everyone else in this miserable city will not.”

It raised a palm.

“Starting with this hell prison that has taken everything I had. It may be too late for myself, but I swear, I will take it with me.”

I felt a huge wave of energy surge around us.

“W-Wait!” I shouted in terror.

It stopped, and glanced at me.

“Wait please! I-I know you’re angry,” I begged, staring up at this massive horrifying thing that had looked so human moments ago, and now could swallow me whole if it chose to, “And you’re right! What was done to you is unforgivable! But please—there are people who haven’t hurt you here! M-My family lives minutes from here: please don’t kill us!”

“Tell me where your family is, and I will spare them,” it agreed, and it turned its attention back to the building.

“No wait!”

It stopped again.

“I-I—P-Please, not just them! I-I am like everyone here! If it wasn’t for luck, I wouldn’t have been the one with the axe; I’d be one of the ones fleeing! They don’t know, the people in town! We don’t even understand what gods are! Please! Th-The people like me who work here, even, cleaning! We’ve never known any better; they are good people; please, don’t kill them!”

Its posture changed a little, and it tilted its head slowly, eyes on me.

“Please! Y-You said you wouldn’t judge everyone by the worst actions-”

“-Of a few,” it finished. It looked away, thinking, then slowly lowered its hand, and the expression in its eyes changed and the excitement was replaced with sadness. “Very well,” it whispered, “You showed mercy. So will I.”

There were sirens blaring now, and people shouting.

I was sick with all kinds of fear, but somehow this thing being shredded with magic after stopping would have been almost as bad to watch as it razing the town.

“People will come-” I started.

“Attention!” The god projected its voice, and I heard it echoing from halls all around me, everywhere, deafening, “This building will be leveled in four minutes. You have until then to clear it. If you value your life, do not re-enter.”

It stood there for a moment in the blaring of alarms, looking at nothing, glowing, but less bright. I saw the power that had come around it begin to fade, saw weariness and wear beneath it again.

“I am going home,” it decided, and it smiled.

Everything vanished.

There was a bright white light, and I had to shut my eyes, and when they opened, we weren’t in the building anymore, and I wasn’t being held in a hand.

I was standing on the grass on a mountainside—my mountainside, I realized, because I could see the whole city built into the side below us, sprawling down to the coast. N-Near the top, I thought shakily.

I turned, looking for the god, but I didn’t see it. Nothing but a massive, empty grass flat here near the peak, scrubby brush, a few old boulders covered in moss. I was alone. W—how? What do—?

Below me in the valley, I heard an awful sound, and turned to look, and watched as the power center shattered. A beam of grey light tore through its core like a geyser, and eviscerated the place I had spent the last ten years of my life in an instant.

As the light vanished, fear gripped me, and I stumbled to the edge of the flat, and for a horrible few long, long seconds, I expected to watch the whole valley shatter like that.

It did not.

Heart beating uncontrollably in my chest, I let myself stumble back from the edge finally, and fell to the grass, sick with fear and relief at the same time.

Behind me, there was the sound of a metal clink, and the relief vanished.

Nerves frayed, I rolled onto my stomach and scrambled up, ready to fight or run. It took only an instant to find the source. There, about twenty feet off, lay a figure on its side in the grass.

As I stood, I recognized the god. Small again now, like me. Arms and legs and neck still shackled, just to broken chains now, and they clinked quietly as it ran its hand along the grass there weakly.

Unsure what to do, I watched for a moment, and then walked over and knelt a few feet to the side.

It heard me coming and looked over and watched, and gave me a sad, weak smile as I joined it.

“What happened?” I asked, very unsure myself, “Did…destroying the power center..?”

“No. I am dying,” it answered quietly, none of the panic from before, “You knew this. Your people have taken all the life I had to give from me. I’m out of belief, and out of time now too. I may have sped things up by a few minutes, but there was no other end for me.”

“…I’m sorry,” I said. I didn’t know what else to say.

And I was sorry for it. Sorry that I’d spent thirteen years dreaming about killing it. Sorry that it had been trapped and hurt for hundreds of years. Sorry I had needed to ask it not to kill everyone who had hurt it. Sorry that I still was not thinking of it as ‘he’.

“Thank you,” it said like it meant it, and it smiled weakly at me.

It let out a shaky breath, and rolled onto its back and looked around, and I thought it would cry.

“This was my temple,” it told my, eyes on the sky above us, “There used to be trees here. People planted them for me. So many. You could sit on one and hang right over the edge of the world here, look down at the city below. It was a stone temple. Your people made it for me by hand.”

I watched him in silence.

There were tears in his eyes again, but I knew the kind this time. It was the same as the way my mother had looked telling me stories about her childhood with him, when we buried my grandfather.

Love.

And loss.

“It was beautiful,” he told me with a shaky smile, “Rough and imperfect. Repaired many times, and people would etch things into it as little gifts. After time, old words wore away and new ones covered them, like a tapestry. Children would write their name for the first time here, to trade for bravery for school. I loved it.”

The love became sadness, and it was almost unbearable to watch.

“They tore it all down. All of it.” He looked at me. “I cannot even sense the stones of the foundation. All of it has been destroyed.” He looked away again and tried to smile. “I had thought. That the trees might have made it. They wouldn’t have known, that those were mine, would they?” He asked me, almost desperate to be right. “Or did…the people who used to come see me help them tear it all down? Did…”

He was quiet.

“I don’t understand,” he said finally, very quiet. He looked at me again. “Am I wrong? Have I done something terrible I do not comprehend?”

I couldn’t possibly know. But at the same time, I thought I did,

“I thought I was doing well,” he promised the sky.

and the answer was no.

“I’m sorry,” I said again.

He looked at me and studied me for a few seconds. “I had not thought there were humans like I knew left,” he said with a slow smile, “I am glad you are not gone. You are named Gav?”

I nodded.

“Zesham,” he told me.

“Zesham,” I echoed.

He smiled.

For a moment he closed his eyes, and then he looked up at the sky again. “I wanted to come home to die,” he told me, “This is the only home I’ve ever known. I was not a major god. Only god of here. But my home is destroyed. Along with all memory of me.”

He shut his eyes. I watched him cry in silence and wished I knew how to comfort someone dying.

Slowly, I reached out and placed my hand against the one he had wrapped around blades of grass.

He felt strange. Cold, like a corpse, but vibrating or humming, like a cat almost, or a tremor. Zesham opened his eyes when I did it, and looked over. At my hand, then me.

“You worry,” he said like he was very surprised to find it.

“I…” I thought about my grandfather. Alberto. My life. Debts, regrets. Deaths. “I wish I could have saved you.”

“…I am okay,” he told me, and I knew he was lying. He tried to smile. “This is my earth.” He dug his hand in, and weakly held up a handful of loose turf for me to see. “They cannot have taken the dirt too. The temple, the gifts, the flagstones, the trees, the flowers. But not the dirt. They would not know it was mine. But it must be. There is still dirt here, and they would not have brought in new, so it must be the same I used to walk in, and that knew the roots of my trees, and the sounds of the footsteps of people coming to see me, and weight of my flagstones. So, I made it home still. See? Even after all that is lost.”

I squeezed his hand gently.

He tried so hard to look proud. His breath was ragged and his skin ashier.

“Yes, you did,” I agreed quietly.

“So. I think. I will go to sleep in my home, and not waking up will not be so terrible. And I have one human who has stayed by my side, so I have the rare honor, for a god, of…of not…” he was struggling to speak, but he managed it, “d-dying alone.”

And he smiled weakly at me and looked happy, almost. And shut his eyes.

I held his hand and watched. I wished I could think of something to say. Goodbye but not goodbye. Goodbye but right, like my grandfather, and I knew I was about to run out of time.

“I wish you would stay,” I whispered finally.

And I could see he had heard it, and knew it meant goodbye more than goodbye could.

I watched death come for him like a shadow, and I thought, ‘I would trade you anything for it if I could.’

And suddenly. That was a thought like it hadn’t been.

.

.

.

#original fiction #short story #fantasy story #fantasy #ive wanted to do this seqjence so long. no beta we edit after post as fools #wow auto so youll correct 'its' to 'it's' 800 times i dont want it but you just let me type 'seqjence' huh #tumblr keeps EATING THE LAST FOUR FUCKING PARAGRALHS OFF ANYTHING I WRITE??? it’s there in edit but not posted what the fuck #me writing

[normallyxstranger]

Can't Blame a Demon for Tryin'

featuring Andy Foster & Dylan Matherson — characters from The New Ashton Chronicles, written & role-played by F.R. Southerland

(@normallyxstranger | @frsoutherlandauthor | www.frsoutherland.com)

© 2019 F.R. Southerland

original fiction (repost) | approx. words: 550 | general warnings: language, suggestive dialogue | largely unedited | reblogs allowed & encouraged

It didn’t really seem to matter how many wards she put up, or how many sigils she drew on her wall--Dylan always managed to get inside her apartment. Usually, it was when she was around. Inopportune moments, mostly. The middle of the night, having just gotten out of the shower, settling down to enjoy an entire pizza herself and suddenly having to share–-those moments.

When she walked into her apartment, arms laden with grocery bags, to find him rummaging in her kitchen, all she could do was give a resigned sigh. “Shit. If you’re going to break into my place, the least you can do is help me put away the groceries.”

A streak of orange flew out from beneath the couch and darted for the still open door. The kitten moved too fast for Andy to shut the door, and with her arms full of bags, it was hopeless to catch her. “Vivi, no! Godsdamnit. Dylan.”

“M’not the one leavin’ the door open, love. Don’t blame it on me.” He moved lazily from where he’d paused, munching on a handful of Doritos. His expression was more than slightly amused, and it only grew more obnoxious when he saw the annoyance and frustration flash in Andy’s aura. She always did have such a lovely one. It went so perfectly with her temper and the sharp look she directed at him.

He pretended to be put out by the implication of that look. “Fine, love. I’ll get her. Hang out.” He passed through the shadow and out into the hall. Andy took in a deep breath, watching as he retrieved her cat from the end of the hall and walked her back, cradled against his chest.

“Almost had it there, huh?” Dylan sing-songed, rubbing the kitten behind the ears. Vivi started to purr. Andy could hear her even standing several feet from him. “Almost got away.”

Andy rolled her eyes and the door slammed shut with force behind Dylan. She stepped to the kitchen and deposited the grocery bags onto the cluttered counter and took her cat back from him. “What are you doing here anyway?” she asked as Vivi wound herself in Andy’s red hair and nuzzled her neck.

“Came to visit m’favorite witch, o’ course. Why else would I be here?” He immediately began to rummage through her purchases.

“I can think of a dozen reasons. None of them good.”

“A dozen?” He repeated, mock surprise in his voice. “Why, you only need one. And it ain’t good. S'bad. Dirty, in fact.” And then Dylan flashed her that wicked grin of his and grabbed the box of Cheez-its from the bag.

Andy gave a smile in return, tight-lipped and sarcastic. It was tempting, she had to admit that, but no. That was a closed chapter of her life. “Take your snacks and go. And next time, text me for a booty call like a normal person, so I reject you with a series of emojis. ‘Kay? This face to face stuff–I’d rather not.”

“Well, you don’t have to be facin’ me–”

“Dylan no."

He just continued to grin. “Can’t blame a demon for tryin’.”

#short fiction #urban fantasy #The New Ashton Chronicles #TNAC #long post; short fiction #long post #long post tw #long post // #reblogs allowed & encouraged #.Andy. #.Dylan. #short fiction; Andy #short fiction; Dylan

[storytimewriting]

Watching Paint Dry (HRN3)

Hi everyone!

I know it's been some time, with busy holidays, vacationing, and getting sick on top of that.

But still, I am so excited to update the HR Nightmare Series!

Here are the first two chapters if you have not read them yet, or if you just need a little refresher: Chapter 1: Perpetually Late Chapter 2: First Night at Freddy's  

Again, this is a series that I hold close to my heart. I really hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

I would love to hear your thoughts.

I plan on updating more frequently than I have been! Working on the next chapter as you read.

(word count: about 5.7k)

xx gwen <3

________

HR Nightmare (3)

Watching Paint Dry

You were getting more comfortable in your new job. If you were this comfortable in three weeks, you’re certain you’ll feel at home once you hit a month.

You’ve had a few projects since the last one you worked on with Elle. None of them were anything major, just small designs for advertising and websites mostly, but you loved it. Getting paid to do something you love was a dream come true.

You went to Freddy’s with the same group of people last Friday as well. It seemed as though it was going to become a routine for you and your new group of friends to go out together on Fridays to unwind from the work week.

The more time you spent with these people, the more you learned about them. You were actually starting to feel close to them. You finally felt like you had friends at work.

Nothing has really changed with Elle. You felt more comfortable around her, but that just means you’ve started to get used to her teasing and attitude. For anything you say, she has some smart remark ready to throw back at you. It still gets under your skin more than you’d like to admit, but you’re starting to learn how to deal with her.

It’s Tuesday when Mr. Cooper calls you into his office.

“Yes, Mr. Cooper?”

He holds a finger up to you as you stand in front of the door you closed behind you, telling you this will only be a second. The finger points at the couch against the wall, so you take a seat while you wait for him to finish the phone call.

“Yes,” he speaks into the phone. “Yes, we can do that, too. Of course, we keep all our departments in house.” You can’t hear the person responding on the other side of the line. “Great, just send me the written instructions. We should have it done by the end of the week.”

You fiddle with your fingers as you wait for him to finish. You’re not sure why he didn’t just wait until he was off the phone to call you in, but he looks at you and smiles throughout the conversation, almost as if you were both in on some joke together. You didn’t know why he was smiling.

He throws out a quick goodbye into the phone before hanging up. He laces his fingers together and places his hands on the desk in front of him, smiling wide at you.

“Are you ready for another collaboration?” he asks.

You laugh at his demeanor. Some people think of this man as a hard ass, but from what you’ve seen, he’s quite the softy.

“Of course, sir. Who with this time?”

“Anthony,” he watches your lips twitch upward at his name, then continues, “and Elle.” His smile widens.

Yours drops, but you try to cover the displeasure. He notices anyway and laughs.

“It should be an easy project,” he assures you. “Anthony designed a new website for one of our clients, and they’re looking for someone to add graphic designs.”

“Oh that sounds like fun,” you gush, but quickly your face fades into confusion. “Wait, what does that have to do with Elle?”

“They need a good first blog post to draw attention, and they asked specifically for her to write it. They saw the work you and Elle did with the coffee project, and wanted a similar look to their website and blog,” he explains.

“Okay, that sounds great. When do they want this by?”

“The end of the week. It should be simple enough, but there are quite a few graph designs they want. Both Anthony and Elle will have the details, so they can each direct you through what they need.” He shuffles some papers around on his desk, opens his drawer, and places them in a file. “You can start with Anthony in the conference room since he’s already had a start on the project.”

“Yes, sir,” you smile, then turn to leave.

“Elle will join the two of you shortly. I’m sure she’ll want to assess everything herself before she works in a group,” he tells you before you open the door.

“Okay, thank you Mr. Cooper.”

You leave his office, grab your tablet and laptop from your desk, then walk to the conference room. Anthony has his head buried in his computer and his finger between his teeth as he studies whatever is on his screen. He only looks up when you shut the door. When his eyes meet yours, he smiles.

“Cora,” he cheers. “I’ve been dying to work with the best graphic designer in this company- don’t tell Mark I said that,” he adds quickly.

You laugh. “Of course not. So what are we working on?”

“Mr. Cooper didn’t tell you?” His head tilts with his question.

“He gave me a run down, but he told me you and Elle would fill me in on specifics. I know you designed a new webpage for the company, but I don’t know exactly what graphic designs you’re looking for.”

His eyes stay trained on yours as you speak and he nods his head in understanding. “Ahh,” he waves his hand at you, calling you over. “Let me show you.”

You take a seat next to him, placing your tablet and computer in front of you. He tilts his screen towards you, where you can see a mostly completed webpage. There are a few empty boxes that you assume to be placeholders for where your designs are meant to go.

“It’s for a skating company,” he begins. “They used to be specifically branded for skateboarding, but they want to expand to reach a wider audience. That’s why they’re basically rebranding themselves,” he explains.

“That makes sense. So what kind of designs are they looking for?” You look up at him when you ask.

He holds eye contact with you, a friendly smile painted on his face. Anthony is handsome. Soft brown hair and pretty eyes to match, it makes sense that he would be with someone like Elle. It’s on the tip of your tongue to ask, and you nearly let it slip, but you manage to keep your composure.

“Well, they’ll be adding roller-skates, bicycles, and scooters to the products they sell, so they want the designs to reflect products that all people can buy,” he points to the different sections of the webpage on his screen as he speaks, where you assume the corresponding design would go.

“Did they give you specifics on how they want me to do that?”

“Honestly, not really. They left a lot of room for creative freedom.” His head snaps to yours and his eyes widen slightly. “But they want the overall style to match- they were very clear about that.”

“Okay, so they want a skateboard,” you point to the first blank square on his screen, “roller-skates,” you point to the second, “a bike,” the third, “and a scooter,” then the fourth. You look up at him for confirmation.

He rubs the top of your head endearingly. Generally, an action like this would annoy you, but coming from Anthony it is actually quite sweet. He acts on his emotions, always coming from a good place.

“You catch on quick, kid,” he smiles.

“We’re the same age.”

“Actually, I’m a year and three months older than you,” he corrects.

You shake your head at him. “Okay grandpa,” you tease, “I’ll come up with a few mockups for you to approve of before I start the final designs.”

“Works for me, but you may want to wait for Elle. She’s much more picky with her work than I am, so you probably want to match the designs to her demands,” he warns you.

You sigh. You know he’s right.

“So it’s not just me she’s like that with?” you ask. You nearly cringe when the words come from your mouth. You didn’t even realize you were saying them.

His eyebrows crease slightly, but not in anger. The rest of his face remains soft. “What do you mean?”

“I- well it’s just,” you stumble over your words a bit, not wanting to insult Elle to one of her best friend’s faces. “She’s just not very patient with me. I was scared it was just a ‘me’ thing.”

“Ahh,” his mouth opens in understanding as he nods his head. “No, that’s not just a ‘you’ thing. She can be a little…” he pauses, searching for the right word.

“Harsh?” you offer.

“She’s just a perfectionist,” he corrects. “She doesn’t mean to be harsh, but she’s just always that way with her work. I don’t think she realizes the pressure she puts on other people- or herself, for that matter.”

“What about outside of work?”

“Huh?”

“Is she like that with people outside of work too?” You know you’re pushing boundaries now, but you can’t help it when you’re finally getting the answers you’ve been yearning for.

A knowing smile crosses his face. At the same time his mouth opens to speak, so does the conference room door. Both your heads snap to look at the person walking in.

“Elle, baby,” Anthony calls out. “You miss me so much you gotta come see me on company time?”

“You wish,” she rolls her eyes, but the corners of her mouth twitch upward.

She closes the door behind her and walks further into the conference room, taking a seat on the other side of Anthony. She places her laptop in front of her and opens it.

“Did you finish the blog already?” His entire body leans over her, looking at her screen and effectively blocking her view of it as well.

She pushes his head out of the way softly, but he allows himself to be moved. “I got the assignment twenty minutes ago. I’m good but I’m not God,” she shakes her head.

“You’re basically God,” he admits.

He looks at her as though he genuinely believes the words coming from his mouth. Your fingers toy with each other as you watch them interact. You don’t feel you have a place to speak. Honestly, you feel like you’re interrupting something just by being in the room.

That is, until Elle makes eye contact with you. “Have any mock-ups for me yet?” she asks.

“No, I- well Anthony just explained the project to me, but I thought I’d wait for your demands for the designs before starting. I know they’re all supposed to be the same sort of theme, so I want to make sure they’ll match,” you ramble on, offering more information than needed.

Her eyebrows lift as you speak and she attempts to muffle a smile- she’s amused. You’ve gotten much better at reading her.

“Probably smart.”

Her compliments are subtle, and few and far between, but you soak each one in like water.

“So-“

“I have an idea for the blog,” she cuts you off. “But let me see the webpage first,” she pulls Anthony’s computer in front of her to scan over the work he did.

“You like it?” Anthony asks. He leans back in his chair and throws an elbow over the top of it. “I know, I do good work,” he pats himself on the back before she even has the chance to agree.

She side eyes him and shakes her head lightly. “Yeah, yeah. So obviously they’re expanding. I want the blog to speak directly to the potential new customers, without shutting out their initial clientele. I think the designs need to match that- like softer, brighter colors, but I think it would be cool to keep the graffiti look in all the words.” Her eyes drift from the screen, to Anthony’s, to yours, and back.

The two of you stare at her in awe. You’re not sure how her mind comes up with the entire basis of a project so quickly. You almost tell her she should be a graphic designer, but you hold your tongue, scared the words may insult her somehow.

“We know they need to follow a general theme, but it might be smart to add some variation. I mean, they want to bring in varying customers, so we’ll have the designs reflect that.” She looks at you expectantly, and you realize she’s waiting for your confirmation.

“Oh, yes- right- that sounds good. That makes a lot of sense actually,” you clumsily respond.

“Well, yeah. I thought of it,” she says smugly.

“You have to be careful when you compliment this one,” Anthony speaks up. “If her ego grows any more we won’t all fit in here,” he nudges her arm with his.

“Oh shut up,” she laughs.

Was it that easy to soften her up after acting like a smartass? Why couldn’t you change her mood as easily as Anthony does?

“Okay, so should I start with the basic designs for the mockups? Then you both can tell me if there’s anything you want changed,” you offer.

“I’m sure it’ll be Elle who offers critiques,” Anthony says.

She rolls her eyes and pushes her chair back, standing up. “I’m leaving,” she announces. She grabs her laptop, and turns to walk away.

“Oh, come on, Elle,” he whines. “I was only kidding.”

She continues walking towards the door, and doesn’t turn around as she speaks. “I have to work on the blog. If you finish the mockups, send them to me.” She opens the door, steps out, and closes it behind her.

Anthony runs his hand over his face. “Man, I gotta stop doing that,” he grumbles.

“Doing what?”

“I just push her a little too far when I tease her sometimes.” His hands drop from his face and back to his computer. “It’s fine,” he reassures himself.

“Was she upset?” you ask. From what you could tell, nothing seemed to upset Elle. If anything, she always seemed like she couldn’t care less.

“She’ll be fine,” he says instead of answering your question. “Anyway, I have to work on the other pages of the website.”

The two of you work in silence together. You had never spent so much alone time with Anthony, but you can see why people would like him. He’s sweet and comforting and conversational.

You start your designs by drawing the skateboard, and quickly get sucked into your work. This happens often, as soon as you start drawing, it’s like you’re transported into another world.

You finish a few different skateboard and roller-skate designs, and look up to find Anthony with his head still buried in the computer. You bounce in your chair, waiting for him to look up at you, but when he doesn’t, you tap him yourself.

His head snaps to you and he smiles. “Yes?”

“Wanna see what I finished?” You smile proudly. Every time you finish a new design, you can’t help but be excited.

“Of course, Cora. Show me what you got.” He rolls his chair closer to yours to look at your tablet with you.

You hold your tablet in your hands, tilting it towards him. You start with the first skateboard drawing. “Okay, so I have four different skateboards and three different roller-skates to choose from. Tell me your favorite.”

You slide through each skateboard drawing, and Anthony “ooo’s” and “awe’s” at each one. You can’t tell which he likes the most because he is just as excited by every drawing you show him. The same thing happens when you go over the roller-skate drawings.

“These are all so good, Cora. I cannot believe how good you are at this,” he gushes when you finish.

You laugh. “They’re only mockups. They should be even better when I finish the real thing.”

“You should show Elle,” he tells you. “She could probably give you better advice than I can. She always knows how to personalize these projects for our clients better than anyone else.”

You admire how he speaks about her. You honestly can’t blame him. Despite Elle being cold towards you, you still had a lot of respect for her. She was obviously extremely talented, not just at her job, but at everything. She could step over into your field and know exactly what you needed to do or change to make the project perfect.

“Yeah,” you agree as you stand up. “I’ll go do that now.”

“Actually,” he stops you, placing his hand over yours as he pushes his seat back and stands as well. “I have to go discuss something with Mr. Cooper, so I can tell Elle to come in here.”

You nod your head in agreement, sitting back down.  

It’s only a few minutes before Elle walks in, closing the door behind her. She takes a seat next to you, but doesn’t say anything.

“Okay, so I haven’t finished all the mockups yet, but I was hoping you could tell me which you like most so I can try to mimic that style throughout the rest of the designs,” you explain.

“Alright,” she says simply.

You pause for a moment, waiting for her to say more. When she doesn’t, you tentatively pick up your tablet to swipe through the designs. She hums softly at each one, but doesn’t offer her opinion. You almost miss her insults. Her harsh critiques on the first project were what pushed you to create such good designs.

Slightly irritated, you sigh, putting down your tablet. “Are you gonna say anything?”

Her eyebrows pinch together. “What?”

“You always have something to say and now, when I’m actually asking for your critiques, you don’t want to say anything,” annoyance lines your voice.  

“Yeah because you’ll throw a fit if I do,” she bites back.

Confusion crosses your features. “What?”

She rolls her eyes. “Play dumb, whatever,” her arms cross over her chest.

“I’m not playing dumb-“

“Oh that’s right, you were just born that way.” She leans back in her chair, chin tilted upwards so she can look down on you.

You want to respond with an insult to match, but manage to contain yourself. “Look, I don’t ‘throw fits’ or whatever you think. Can you just be your usual bitchy self and critique my designs?”

She glares down at you for a second, eyes drifting around your face, assessing you. She sighs. “Fine. Show me again.”

You start at the beginning, with the first skateboard drawing.

“This is too similar to their original look. We need to put our own twist on it,” her tone is bitchy, but you find comfort in it. She sounds like herself.

You swipe to the next design.

When you see your work in front of her, it’s much easier for you to pick apart. It’s like you know exactly what she will and won’t like.

“Are you showing me the same drawing twice? What’s even different about this one?” Her nose scrunches with her questions.

“The wheels are different,” you defend yourself.

She looks at you flatly. She doesn’t even have to say anything for you to know to move on. You swipe to the next image.

“Okay…” she says hesitantly. “I can see the vision more with this one. It is a bit softer, but almost too much now. This style might work with the other drawings though. I just think the skateboard should be a little less soft than the rest of them.”

A smile graces your lips but you do your best to shield it from her. “Okay, I think you might like this one then,” you swipe to the next image.

“Yes, exactly,” she says excitedly. She quickly covers it up with a snarky remark, “you should’ve just shown me that one first. Could’ve saved me some time.”

You roll your eyes. “Anyway, now the roller-skate drawings.”

You swipe to the first one and as soon as you see it, immediately brace yourself for her critiques. You can already tell she is not going to like this one.

“Is this an ad for a preschool? Why does it look so childish?” They’re rhetorical questions. The cadence in her voice always reflects how she feels. 

You sigh. “I know, fuck, ignore this one,” you lift your finger to swipe to the next drawing.

“Wait,” she stops you. “Why did you draw it this way?” Her tone is softer this time.

Your finger taps the back of your tablet while you contemplate your answer. “I’m not sure,” you admit. “I just thought about all the new customers they would want to bring in, and I figured some would be children, so I think I just drew this one more childlike subconsciously.”

She hums as she takes in your words.

“It looks stupid, I know,” you quickly add.

“No, no,” her eyes stay focused on the drawing. “It just gives me an idea for something else. Can you send this to me separately?” Her eyes meet yours when she asks.

She looks almost sweet this way. Her entire face is relaxed- she doesn’t seem like she’s on the defense for once. Her head tilts slightly to the left, her eyes stare at yours expectantly.

Too caught up in the details of her, you nearly forget she’s asked you a question.

“Oh- yes- yeah I can send this to you.” You curse yourself in your head.

“Thanks,” her eyes continue watching you. Her head straightens back up, one side of her mouth lifts into a smirk. “You can swipe to the next one now,” she encourages you, eyes flicking from yours to the tablet and back.

You break your stare from hers and shake your head. “Right.” You swipe to the next design.

“I like this one. It matches the skateboard we agreed on, but it’s a little softer. I think you should make the colors on this lighter than the skateboard when you do the real piece.”

You appreciate the advice she offers. Truthfully, it saves you time in the long run.

You show her the last drawing as well, but you both agree the second one is best. 

You have a smile on your face by the end of your conversation. Of course, she was her usual bitchy self with her subtle insults and attitude, but she was much nicer this time. She had patience and advice and compliments, and you actually felt like you were able to connect with her in some way.

In moments like this, you understand why everyone seems to like her so much. She’s too easy to connect with, even when she’s being a pain.

Her fingers fiddle with the sleeve of her shirt, rubbing the material between them. “Do you think you can finish the other designs in the same style?”

“Of course. I’m the one who drew it,” you tease.

She scoffs in disbelief. “And you call me a smartass.” She pushes the chair back and stands to leave.

“You don’t have to leave, you know,” the words were out of your mouth before you realized you were speaking them. You weren’t sure why you were saying this, you just wanted her to know she had the option to stay.

“What?” She’s taken aback more than anything.

“I just mean- I know we’re working on this project together. You can work in here with us if you want to,” you offer. 

“I have to focus on my writing. I can’t have distractions.”

“I’ll be quiet. I’m quiet when I draw, anyway,” you throw out quickly.

One side of her mouth lifts slightly. “All my stuff is at my desk,” her voice drawls out, like she’s contemplating staying in the room.

“Just bring it in here,” you offer yet another solution to the problems keeping her out of the conference room. “Do you want me to get your stuff? I have to go check on Anthony anyway,” the lie slips through your teeth easily.

The side of her mouth lifts higher, but she sits. “Alright, if you’re going there anyway,” she agrees.

You scramble out of the conference room. What is wrong with you? There was no reason for you to act this way or offer to get her stuff. You’re sure you look like an idiot desperate for her approval.

Truth is, you wanted to keep this moment going. It’s not often you feel like you have a connection with Elle- not one deeper than annoyance, anyway. If you had the opportunity to keep her in this room longer, it was hard not to take it.

You grab her laptop from her desk and scan to see if there’s anything else you should grab for her.

Her desk is relatively empty. It’s neat and organized, with only a few pictures displayed to personalize it. You assume the main picture is of her and her family. There’s two smaller polaroids tucked into the frame: one of the group of friends in the office and one of her and some girl you don’t recognize.

It takes everything in you not to go through her desk in search of a deeper understanding of her as a person. Despite your curiosity, you manage to grab her laptop and walk away.

You stop by Mr. Cooper’s office to check in on Anthony, but you can see them still in conversation through the window, so you walk back into the conference room with Elle’s laptop and no Anthony.

She’s sitting, leaned back in her chair while it bends to accommodate her posture. One leg crosses over the other at the knee, her foot in the air kicking slightly. Her elbow is kicked back over the top of the chair, exuding confidence from head to toe. Her eyes drift over your frame when you walk in, from your shoes, to her laptop in your hands, to your eyes.

Your feet carry you closer to her. She snickers when you stumble as you get to your chair. You ignore her.

“So where’s Anthony?” she asks.

You place her laptop in front of her. “Still talking with Mr. Cooper. I didn’t want to interrupt them.”

Her eyebrows raise and her jaw drops open. “Oh, you do have a brain,” she exclaims in faux-surprise.

Your face falls flat. “I do you a favor and you return it with an insult?”

Her elbow pushes off the back of the chair, now sitting upright. “Actually, I think you’re doing yourself a favor,” the smugness in her tone sends waves of irritation up your spine.

“How am I doing me a favor?”

As soon as the question leaves your lips, you know you messed up. If you know the answer to the question, you’re sure she does, too. A blush coats your cheeks, embarrassment floods your system.

The next words leave her lips like fact, giving no room to argue, “you like me.”

You scoff, despite the deepening redness of your cheeks. “Yeah, right.”

Her lips curl. “You’re blushing.”

On instinct, your head turns away from her slightly, an attempt to shield the heat from her. “I am not. Fuck off,” you mutter.

“It’s cute,” she laughs.

“I don’t like you,” you insist. “You’re just not being a complete pain in my ass for once.”

“You can admit it,” she persists.

“I don’t-“

“Everyone likes me, Cora. It’s okay,” she coos. She’s taunting you.

“I thought you had work to do,” you change the subject instead.

She smiles like she knows she won. She opens her laptop and, for the first time since you’ve walked back into the conference room, lets her eyes leave you.

“Finish those mockups for me, won’t you?”

You don’t dignify her mockery with a response. Instead, you turn from her and start working on the last few mockups you need to finish.

It’s about an hour of working in silence- well, silence aside from Elle’s constant tapping on her keyboard- when Anthony walks back in.

“Wow,” he sings, “look at the two of you working together.”

You look up from your tablet at the sound of his voice. Elle’s sigh draws your eyes to her, the blank stare on her face aimed at Anthony.

“We were working until you so rudely interrupted us.”

He saunters over, arms swaying with each step, stopping at Elle’s chair and leaning overtop of her. He scans the contents on her laptop, wrapping one arm around her collarbones as he reads.

“You’re nearly done with the blog,” he observes. His arm unwraps from her as he plops himself down in the chair next to hers.

“Like I said, we were working- as in actually getting work done,” it’s like she can’t help the attitude seeping from her lips, but her tone is playful.

He pouts his lips at her. “Are you still mad at me?”

“Yes.”

He rolls his chair closer to her, grabbing the arm so he can maneuver it to make her face him. “How can I make it better?”

Her arms are crossed over her chest. She sighs, eyes looking up towards the ceiling and lip tapping against her chin in faux-thought. “You can buy me a coffee.”

He scrambles from his chair, muttering a quick “deal,” before nearly sprinting out of the room.

You laugh in disbelief. Her chair swivels to turn to you. She tosses her feet onto the table and crosses one over the other at her ankles. Her arms are still crossed, leaning back against the chair, a proud smile painted on her face.

“What?” she asks, as though she doesn’t already know.

“Do you always have people waiting on you hand-and-foot?” You’ve started to understand which jabs dig further under her skin. You figure it’s only fair considering how often she gets under yours.

Though, her smile doesn’t drop. “I do, actually. Are you looking to fetch me something else?”

Your initial jab seems to have backfired. “I’m not playing your games.”

She pushes her lips into a mocking pout. “You did earlier,” she argues. “Fetching my laptop like a good girl,” her cadence is though she were speaking to a dog. 

“You’re an ass,” is what you settle on. Still, your cheeks are burning red.

“Oh my god,” she laughs, “you like that.”

“I do not,” you argue, but your body betrays your words.

“You so do!” She accuses, laughter still heavy in her chest.

Your nails pinch into the fleshy part of your palm, a feeble attempt to control your irritation. You roll your eyes and shake your head, picking up your stylus to continue drawing in an attempt to ignore her.

She doesn’t stop. “Oh, don’t get all quiet on me now.” She drops her feet from the desk to lean closer to you, elbows on her knees. “Come on, Cora, be good and look at me.”

You open your mouth to tell her off, but the door swings open to reveal Anthony with a coffee in his hand and a proud smile on his face.

He stops in front of her. “Am I forgiven?” He bends over, head down and hands holding the coffee out in front of him.

Elle takes it from his hands, has a small sip, and smiles contently, before responding with a simple, “yes.” 

Anthony cheers, head lifting back up. When his eyes meet your face, concern crosses his face. “Are you okay, Cora?”

Before you have the chance to answer, Elle responds. “Oh, she’s ­very good, aren’t you, Cora?”

You should hit her- dump her coffee all over her stupid head- but you’re almost certain that would get you fired in a second. Instead, your nails bite further into your palms and you force yourself to take a deep breath.

Through gritted teeth, you speak, “yeah, just great.”

The three of you work in silence for a bit, until Mr. Cooper calls Elle into his office. She skips there, face relaxed and light on her feet.

“She’s in a good mood now, huh?” Anthony observes.

“Must be the coffee,” you mutter.

Although you know Elle was only teasing you earlier, the words remain echoing in your head, redness seeping into your skin when you think a little too hard about her voice uttering those words.

He laughs at your words. “I better start bringing her coffee every day.”

It’s now when your curiosity has truly gotten the better of you. You don’t want to ask him directly about his relationship with Elle, but you have to know if they’re together. You’ve held your tongue for long enough, you’re sure of it.

“You’d be quite the boyfriend for that,” is what you settle on.

Anthony laughs. Hard. Doubled over in his chair, the sound echoing across the walls. He collects himself for a second, but as soon as he looks at you and begins to speak, the laughter starts again.

Your eyebrows crease together, lips pushed into a frown. What was so funny?

“Do you think-“ a laugh to interrupt himself, “Do you think Elle and I are dating?”

“Are you not?”

He laughs again then, like it was the most absurd thing for you to think. “Absolutely not. Elle’s like my sister. Don’t get me wrong, I adore the girl, but it would never work between us,” he emphasizes the word.

You don’t understand how it could never work between them. Anthony is handsome. Elle is beautiful. They both have faces made for movie screens. They have faces that are supposed to be romantically paired.

“Why not?”

He contemplates his words. “Well, aside from the fact that we’re practically siblings, Elle doesn’t even like men.”

The revelation echoes in your head for the rest of the day. From when Elle walks back into the conference room, to when Mr. Cooper tells everyone to go home, on the train ride back to your apartment, till now, sitting in bed alone.

It shouldn’t affect you. It shouldn’t even matter- it doesn’t matter, you tell yourself.

Elle liking women doesn’t mean she could like you. You don’t even want her to like you. You don’t like Elle, so why would it matter if she liked women? It didn’t. Elle liking women was stupid, pointless information that was about as interesting as watching paint dry.

But you were an artist. You appreciated all forms of art, and you loved watching art form.

You loved watching paint dry. 

#author #writing #stories #fiction #wlw relationship #wlw story #wlw post #wlw #sapphic #lesbian #sapphic love #wlw love #bisexual #short stories #short story #short reads #series #bi girls #reading #long reads #enemies to lovers #poetry #poem #girl things #best enemies #enemies #lovers #romance #wlw romance #short fiction

[stuck-in-the-ghost-zone]

i want to compile a list of horror media that people need to watch before they call genloss groundbreaking incredible material. like yall are soooo so deeply entrenched in copium toting this thing around like its the best piece of horror media in the world when like. theres no horror. there has literally been no horror. how are we watching the same thing. go watch gemini home entertainment or marble hornets or daisy brown or unedited footage of a bear or this house has people in it and then come back to me. dont fucking talk to me until youve consumed some horror media thats actually good first!!!!!!!!

#sorry i KNOW i said i wouldnt genloss post too much but it just makes me so fucking angry #as a very very very long term horror enthusiast and aspiring horror creator #i feel fucking insulted every time i see genloss being listed as something incredible . when. #theres no horror or comedy in your horror comedy that was originally advertised for two goddamn years as an arg n then analog horror and th #like. pick a theme. give me literally anything. its so bad. im so angry. and i DONT get angry at media. #i actively try not to grt angry at media and legitimately havent since veryyyy early middle school. #so the fsct that this thing is making me so mad is a huge deal. #anyone who has known me for any number of years knows like. i dont get mad about shit!!! #especiallt shit that doesnt rlly matter like fictional media!!! i dont like to expend the energy on that!!! #so when i say genloss makes me so angry to the point where i was literally #sweaty and out of breath after aster and i got off the phone talking abt it the other day #i need you to understand i am not a hater #like #ughgrrghrggghghh #go fucking watch saw (2004) youll have a much better time than watching whatever bs this is #ranboo makes this big long post about how his project is better than aevery other horror short film #and doesnt deserve to be put on a shelf with the rest of them as if theyre beneath his genius vision #and then gives us this cheap heartless garbage that isnt even unique in its badness. #hes just using ideas from other things but doing it worse!!!!!! theres nothing new!!! theres nothing unique!!! #two years of promotional content and like 5 hours of livestreams and they have not given me a single #character or story beat that is interesting enouhj to care about. you cant have horror without first #giving your audience something to care about and then snatching that thing away from them. urhhggghghghgh #reaction time #genloss neg #genloss crit #sorry. im trying to keep the hater posting to a minimum but im so. exhausted

[sisterdivinium]

Me: tries to keep a mostly WN-related dash and for that reason only follows a little less than some 20 blogs

Also me: jeez why is my dashboard always so quiet

#sometimes wanting things to be super organised... is a bane #or maybe it's a blessing because i have some three different texts i should be writing and the slow day should inspire me to get off tumblr #(if ever you wondered why tumblr user sisterdivinium likes/reblogs you but doesn't follow you... it's the wn to general post ratio) #(some of you seem lovely and fun but there are so many non-wn things on your blogs that i can't bring myself to follow so i just lurk lol) #(it's not a comment on anyone's blog quality but simply on wn post quantity!) #anyway. place your bets on what will be done first #long doctor superion oneshot i should not have stopped writing to start debris OR #short doctor superion oneshot that literally came to me in a vision and is completely insane OR #non-fiction pro mother superion preaching #tip: it probably won't be the long oneshot lol #silly blabbering #now that i think of it i have a drabble to rewrite too. hm. maybe i'll do that.

[duckbang]

Two Dots

Two dots form a line. Two electrons form a bond. Two people form a friendship.

It gets a bit more complicated after that.

Three dots don't make two lines. They can make three, or they can make one. But three electrons don't form three bonds. They form a free radical - well, they can make two bonds in certain circumstances, look at diborane, but banana bonding is weird… it isn’t exactly a three electron bond either. Three people still form a friendship, but it can be tilted, and as they say, three is a crowd.

Where the laws of gravity devised a smooth dance between two planets, between three it is chaotic loops of who will be kicked out first. With three comes the chaos that two had successfully covered in its simplicity.

There were three of us. Me, my brother, and my sister. And well, there is our dad - single and adoptive- and our honorary aunt, who has no relation to our dad apart from friendship. But the three of us were together from the start, since before we met the adults we call family.

We're not three anymore. We could be, we still talk to each other, through telepathy if not face to face. But we aren't together anymore. My brother and sister live together, in a remote, almost inaccessible location. One could go there, but the trip is harsh and not at all forgiving. I live with my dad and aunt, helping them with work.

But right now I stand on a stage, to give an interview with the news stations, one that is not related to dad's research but to my own. I started out helping with his work, but over time my interest deviated to researching animal behaviour within and without their herds (or flocks, or whatever the groups of specific animals are called). There's a hierarchy in both pack animals and lone dwellers. It is challenged often, but the top boss is the top, and not easily defeated. No matter how hard the planets try, they can't make the sun revolve around them. (Well, in a way, the sun does revolve around them. Its the pack leader’s job to make sure their pack is safe. Its a position that comes with both power and responsibility.)

My aunt stands to the side of the stage, hidden by the curtains. I glance at her before turning back to the press. My latest paper created a buzz, for reasons I don't quite understand. It was obvious, wasn't it..? "I simply find it surprising that no one has written anything about it yet, so after detailed research I decided to do it myself," I say in response to a question.

It took years to get enough data. 

"You taught a gryphon how to write with a pencil."

The gryphon in question is, of course, the brilliant silver and earth coloured beast sleeping on the stage, unbothered by the lights and noise. I met it in the beginning stages of my research, when we were scouring out the dry canyons the species calls home. Gryphons aren't pack animals, they prefer to stay alone, but at the same time they're not territorial and let other members of the species prowl and hunt in their area. Mine was a youngling at the time, possibly separated from its mother, because gryphon parents do not look for lost children. I decided to take it in, a decision I have never come to regret.

"It has been known for a long time that gryphon intelligence is comparable to, if not exceeding, human intelligence. It should not come as that great of a surprise," I point out gently. 

Their body design is different from humans, but with specialised tools and lots of practice and explanation it was able to hold a pencil, and with a few more months of work it managed to write it's name on a large sheet, and it was readable.

Maybe that could be a strategy used to help children with learning disabilities, I muse, but don't say it out loud. It's not my area of expertise, but maybe I'll bring it up with a teacher later. Journalists are not good people to discuss things like this with. 

My sister's presence makes itself known via a slight pressure on the back of my head, silently asking if I'm free. Wait, I tell her. Not right now.

I feel her nod as she retreats further into the back, enough that I can focus, but she's clearly interested in what I'm doing. I don't blame her. I'll never get bored of my job either. 

"Look at it this way," I say in response to a question I didn't entirely hear, "Gryphons don't see other members of their species as threats. They challenge each other for territory, yes, but they share their resources. The hierarchy is more of a gradient than a stepcase, with the largest and oldest member of the species usually at the top of it." And its often hard to tell who that is, it took me close to a year to find the leaders of the respective areas I focused on.

Even mine, who had started off obeying commands without question, had become more assertive as it grew older and larger. And now it is bigger than me, our mutual understanding and the gryphon nature being the only things keeping it obedient. Still, it was smart, and would refuse to do a task if it sensed that the job would harm someone, friend or stranger. 

My brother's presence curls around in my subconscious as I keep speaking, curiosity and warning intermixing as he decides to not detract my attention and talks to our sister instead. "Gryphons have been seen to treat even those who hurt them with compassion and kindness, and it is only in extraordinary situations that they seriously injure anyone. We could certainly learn something from that."

A babble of indignation meets my statement. “Humans are perfect,” they say, furious. “We don't need to learn from dumb animals.”

Both of my siblings bristle on hearing them.

I do, too, but keep my composure as I narrow my eyes.

"Humans have often killed each other over minor misunderstandings. Is that what you call perfect?"

No species is perfect. Human capacity to understand and adapt our behaviour is unmatched, so it gives us more avenues to grow. It is a shame that even 'simpler' animals like dogs, then, outmatch us in understanding, cooperation, and compassion.

Once, before I started working as a researcher, before we started living separately, the three of us decided to follow a pack of wild dogs to see where they would go. We were old enough to be trusted alone by then, and with school being on vacation we didn't have anything to worry about. So we packed our bags with enough food and clothes to last us a week and set off behind the pack.

It was an interesting experience. But what stood out to me most then, and even now, was how they made sure no member of their pack was left behind, and if one was injured they would slow their pace considerably so it could keep up. Gryphons don't do that, but they're not exactly social species. That was the incident that kicked off my interest in behaviour research in the wild, instead of trained behaviours in the lab.

Sure, my gryphon knows how to write, but it is a lab animal. I taught it mainly just to see what would happen, as with the landshark we taught to buy groceries.

I should probably take up researching dogs behaviour again, but for the foreseeable future Gryphons have a chokehold on my research. The latter is also what I tell a reporter asking what's next for my work, and after answering a few more questions and dodging those about my family, the conference moves on to some other scientists I forget the name of. But I'm free to leave or stay now, as I wish. I decide to stay, finally getting time to talk to my siblings who've been waiting for about an hour now.

It must be serious, if they decided to wait. 

So, she projects, amusement laced in her voice, You know how two dots form a line?

I don't have the patience for this, I decide immediately.

Well, I was thinking, and you can't have a combination of points that makes exactly two lines, if you want to connect all of them. Two dots form one line, but three form three, or one, and four form four or three or one, and so on, but no assortment makes two. That's weird, isn't it?

I thought you hated maths? my brother replies.

Get to the point, I tell her as I take the complimentary lunch box the organisers had so thoughtfully put together. Is the number of lines really that important?

I do, I was just thinking. And well... There really isn't any point. I just thought it was weird.

And here I thought it was something serious, I think. Unfortunately they pick up on my thoughts.

Aw, you worry about me? my sister teases as I settle down to eat.

Not if you keep being annoying like that, I respond. My brother laughs at that.

With that sorted out by tracking down a mathematician or two who were free to talk to my sister and giving them her address - which, again, directed them to an almost inaccessible area, and with my gryphon finally awake enough to fly us back to our home, I decided to finally head out of the conference hall. The sky, already orange and pink from the setting sun on one side and fading to the deep blue of night on the other, cloudless and the air without much in the way of wind, stood perfect for flying. My gryphon's wings reflected the fading light of the sun as we rose into the air, turning to gold from silver and the deep browns gave it a brilliant shaded look. It was a work of art, through and through. 

It takes two people to form a friendship, two souls for a connection. I know it's silly, but I've never felt more connected to anyone more than my silver and earth gryphon. Even my siblings, and we can talk to each other through telepathy, never made me feel the same way as simply being with my gryphon does. I ruffle the soft feathers on its back, feathers that almost look like fur from a distance, so soft and small. I have never regretted bringing it home with me, even if it does challenge me for my bedroom sometimes. 

I space out during the flight, almost falling asleep to the beating of its heart and the occasional flap of its wings. There's no danger of falling, my gryphon is a graceful and careful flyer. As such, with the last rays of the sun dipping below the horizon and the only thing lighting up the sky being a pale twilight, I doze off, trusting my friend to keep both of us safe. 

#duckbang posts #long post #writing #science talk #science in general #gryphons #journalism #idk man idk how these things work i just had an idea and wrote it #and somehow its 1.8k words #of just. mostly pointless rambling #i REALLY enjoyed writing it so please read tho <3 #my muse sort of ran away but at least it gave a decent ending i think #fiction #short story #duckbang writes