19 for the worldbuilding prompts + Torr?
the profound quiet of a small settlement at night
North Eastmarch is freezing cold all over, but it wears different outside the city than within.
Torr would never call Windhelm warm – not even in summer months, no matter how used to it they are – but what little heat it has it clings to with great determination. The walls huddle together, trapping the air so that it’s either still and muggy or a howling wind, like each close-knit house is breathing in tandem. The heat of the people run up and down its streets, blood through its knotted stone veins. The city is alive, an ecosystem unto itself; its snow, dark with footprints, runs sludgy down the roads; a fireplace is always burning somewhere.
Outside of the walls, surrounded by nothing but empty air and snow-laden trees, a slow-moving stream running with barely a burble – it feels dead, in contrast. Silent. Branches reach needle-sharp across the blue-black sky, the ground is gleaming white and undisturbed by anyone else’s footprints, and the nearest fire is the barely visible gleam of the Kynesgrove mining camp, up the hill and through the sporadic spindles of the trees. The breeze ghosts past Torr’s neck and whips the mud-stained snow into a flurry.
In the city, Torr’s comfortable sleeping almost anywhere – as comfortable as they ever get, anyway. Some of the buildings have great gaps under the porch where the snow can’t reach and no-one ever finds them; there’s places in the nooks of the walls, and sheds built into the side of the house that people don’t lock, and Torr knows a few people besides who don’t mind him kipping on their floor every now and again, as long as he doesn’t ask too often. The outside isn’t like that. There’s not many places to go. He’s lurking around Kynesgrove tonight – on his way back from a quick venture out to get some things done that pay better than running errands around the markets – and there aren’t many options. The inn, which he can’t afford – the mine, which would be warm but is very guarded – the miner’s encampment or someone’s house, both of which would most likely result in being chased off. Besides, there’s a performative element to meeting people, especially adults, in strange places, and Torr’s not in the mood to play to strangers. So much of his being is caught up in Windhelm’s grimy alleys, tangled in the hair and fingers of its discarded children; he doesn’t know how to be himself away from it all.
But they don’t have to, seeing as there’s the rickety old sawmill on the edge of a stream feeding into the harbour. It’s not bad, as shelter goes; no walls, so the wind rubs its fingers wraithlike down Torr’s cheeks and tangles them in his hair, but at least there’s a roof. It looks newly thatched, too, the floorboards free of rot, the water-wheel still chugging creakily along. There’s no wood to cut here, all the nearby surrounding trees too scraggy to be worth the bother. The only big ones are part of the grove up on the hill. There’s no point in keeping the mill running, but Torr is glad it is; he watches the distant firelight flickering through the scrub, and listens to the splashing of the wheel. It’s proof that people and the things they make do still exist – if not necessarily here.
It really feels dead, out in the cold, with the leafless trees and the wind that doesn’t even whisper. It always does. It’s a bit discomfiting, which is maybe why Torr doesn’t go on out-of-city endeavours as often as perhaps he could; but really, there’s not work out here enough to make it worth it. There’s always problems with bandits on the road, but Torr’s not a good enough fighter for bounty work; there’s collecting plants and things to sell Nurelion, but that’s easy enough to do on a day trip. (And, really, it’s more for Torr’s own enjoyment, besides. They never even venture far south enough to get to the sulphur pools, which is where the more interesting things grow.)
This trip, though, is an outlier. Unusually efficient. Just a quick job for Niranye, scouting a merchant’s cart on the road – almost definitely for something shady, but that’s not Torr’s business, and it was too much money too easy to turn down. And then – just earlier today, foraging out in the wilderness as best as Torr (a distinctly urban animal) knows how – they’d come across a giant’s corpse, stiff and white as the snow it lay in. Torr’s no master alchemist but they know the value of a cadaver when it comes to brewing alloys and admixtures, so they set to with their blunt-edged dagger and now they’ve got a sack full of what may as well be gold. (Long as it doesn’t start to rot before they can get Nurelion to preserve it, anyway.)
Torr’s going to be rolling in it when they get back to Windhelm. They could use that money for nearly anything – pay off a few things they borrowed, new warm things now that winter’s coming back strong, bedrolls, waterskins. Endless options – which, strangely, is more exciting than it is burdensome.
It’s all the sort of decision that would ordinarily feel life-or-death urgent but right now feels – not small. Not insignificant, not at all, but distant. A choice to be made at another time, by another person.
(Torr’s whole being belongs to Windhelm’s back streets. They’re someone else, away from it all.)
That’s the other thing about leaving the city, spending time in the discomfiting slow-paced ghost-world outside. It’s quiet. Torr sits surrounded by the wind in the trees, the lazy murmur of the stream, the creak of the water-wheel, and nothing else.
He’s been called a worrywart (mostly by Griss in a strop) but to tell the truth he doesn’t think that’s true. Torr doesn’t fuss for the sake of fussing, he just doesn’t like to leave things undone; can’t stop until he finds a solution. Out here, alone, in the empty cold, there are no solutions to find – same old problems back home, he knows, but no steps he can take at this time to right them. That’s never true while he’s in the city, so he can never stop thinking about it, every choice and action accompanied by a buzzing background chorus of everything else he really should be doing – that really should have been done by now – that should never have been left undone this long, what was he thinking? Everything is urgent when it’s doable. But here and now, there’s nothing to do.
So Torr sits hunched on the board floor of the ramshackle watermill, huddled among their heaps of bags and blankets, and thinks of nothing at all.
Not strictly true. They think of supper – haven’t eaten since an apple this morning, except for some snowberries they found around noon, and it’s been a long day. They nabbed some turnips from the garden of the Kynesgrove inn on their way to the mill. They’re fresh, if nothing else – also covered in dirt, so Torr rises reluctantly from their pile of stuff to crouch on the banks of the stream and dip the vegetables in to clean them off. It aches like hell, the frozen water turning their joints to ice – they almost drop the turnip they’re washing, so they scrub it as best they can with the frigid pad of their thumb and whip their hands out of the water soon as they’re able. They stick their fingers in their mouth to warm them back up.
Even after all that time spent warming up their hands, arraying all their belongings back around themself to conserve body heat, the turnips are still cold enough to hurt Torr’s teeth when he bites in. He eats them anyway, relishing a little in the unearthly silence and the aching of his lips and palms. They taste delicious.
With nothing else to do after, the gnawing of his stomach sated, he wraps himself in his shawl and stares up the hill at the camp’s fire until it goes out. The stars wink into brighter being. The wind whistles through the whip-thin branches of the trees. The water-wheel creaks.
Torr sleeps, but he feels like he hears it all – a silent observer, an echo, a beginning – until morning.
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Accursed Part #3
We’re back babyyyyy, Here is the third part to Accursed aka pure self indulgence. This part is a bit shorter than the Part 2, but thats ok cause because I’ve been sitting on this for a while and I just really want to get it out there after finally finishing it this morning. I hope ya’ll enjoy!
OH ALSO JUST TO NOTE, THE CHARCTERS HAVE NAMES NOW:
[Child] - Lucas
[Monster] - Æthane
[Doctor] - Dr. Foster
Tags: @sunflower-searching-light
Content Warning: Disturbing imagery, slight endangerment of an infant (It’s a memory and the child isn’t actually harmed)
First Previous
Word Count: 2317
"So I heard you talked to Alex during dinner tonight," Dr. Foster smiled patiently at Lucas, who tried his best not to frown and sulk at the questioning. When dinner had ended, Lucas thought for sure he would just be able to slip into his room and start planning with Æthane how to deal with the possible vent-lurker. But mere minutes after he settled down, Dr. Foster came tiptoeing in with her patient smile and gentle demeanor for more questions.
"Yeah," Lucas replied, ignoring the snort from Æthane at the same one-word response he gave last time.
"Did you two get along, ok?" Dr. Foster pressed on.
"I guess."
"What did you talk about?"
Ah, here it is. She wants to talk to Lucas about the whole 'there's a monster in the vents' incident.
"They said I was adorable." Lucas dodged the subject.
Dr. Foster smiled warmly at Lucas, "They aren't wrong. You are a very cute kid."
Lucas ducked his head down as his face flushed, Dr. Foster laughing fondly.
"But, did you talk about anything else?"
Lucas looked back at Dr. Foster and frowned. He guessed there was no getting out of this, "They said there's a monster in the vents."
Dr. Foster hummed and nodded.
"Lucas, I know you've been through a lot," Dr. Foster began, "And that you might be very concerned with everything changing so fast around you. But I just want to know that you are safe here. No monsters or bad people are coming to hurt you. You don't have to be scared. Trust me, we've made extra sure this place is monster-proof." Dr. Foster ended with her same reassuring smile.
"I'm not scared," Lucas said, surprised to find they were only half lying.
"That's very good, now..." Dr. Foster stood and slowly approached the bed Lucas, slinking backward as she delicately grabbed a small wire with a button attached to the headboard.
"This button is what we like to call the 'Help Button,'" she said as she showed it to Lucas. "When you press it, we'll be alerted that you need help for whatever reason, and a nurse will come to you right away. So use this button anytime and for any reason. We'd rather you call us for something small than not call us for something important. So whenever you need us for any reason, just press, and we'll come running."
"What if it's because there's a monster?" Lucas asked, side-eying the woman.
"Then we especially want you to press it so we can help you. But don't worry, there are no monsters here," she assured Lucas.
Lucas just nodded, and Dr. Foster smiled reassuringly at him.
"Your first session will be with me tomorrow, so for now, get some sleep, ok?"
"Ok," Lucas said as he flopped down under the covers and turned over, not even waiting for her to leave the room. He feels her hesitate for a moment, watching him, before quietly exiting the room, a soft click of the lock bouncing off the empty walls.
Lucas didn't move. He couldn't. The moonlight streaming in from the bared window cast harsh shadows where Lucas knew better than to assume nothing was lurking. He gripped his blanket tighter as he eyed the vent.
"What should we do?" Lucas finally whispered into the small gap between his face and the wall.
"You should get some sleep." Æthane's voice washed over his mind.
"But-"
"I have it covered. The thing in the vents is on the total other side of the complex and seems preoccupied. It's unlikely to come by here tonight, but I'm going to periodically check while you sleep."
"Can I really not do anything?" Lucas whispered as he curled in on himself.
"You're scared," Æthane stated. Lucas nodded.
"I understand. You've always been alone, no, worse than that, alone and powerless. But you aren't anymore. You have me with you, and I can protect us. But to do that, I need you at the top of your game. That means I need you to eat well and get a lot of sleep."
"Ok..." Lucas agreed, even as their reluctance to do so plainly colored their voice. Anxiety quietly tightened in his chest like a coil around his heart as he couldn't help but listen to every sound, still on alert despite themselves.
His grip on his blanket tightened even further as he curled into himself, desperately trying to calm the tides of fear and dread. But then it settled, all his worries swept away by a wall of fatigue crashing down upon him much heavier than the anxiety from before. So he allowed himself to be swept away in the gentle current as his awareness faded.
----------------------------------------------------
Lucas woke up sobbing. Tears streamed down his chubby cheeks as he clumsily kicked off his blanket. The night outside of Lucas' room was ordinary, the city thrumming with life even long after the sun had set. The flickering lamp post tingeing the moonlight yellow as it streamed through Lucas' cracked window.
Lucas continued to cry, unbothered by the humming of cars, as his light green eyes stared fearfully up at the creature perched on his crib. The pale creature smiled down at him, its grin wide and toothless, nearly splitting its elongated head in half. Its eyes were like pitch-black wells, sunken and lifeless, only a pinprick of light shining from their unknowable depths.
It cooed down at Lucas with a haunting voice. Lucas continued to thrash his stubby limbs as he reached for the bars of his cradle, desperate to escape.
"Hush baby," it soothed, its thin lips cracking as it spoke. "Come here."
Slowly and carefully, the creature lowered its pitch-black tendrils down into the cradle. Lucas screamed in terror as the only appendages brushed against his skin, slowly beginning to wrap around him.
The door burst open, blinding Lucas for a few moments as he brought his tiny hands up to shield his eyes from the bright yellow hall light.
"Get the fuck away from my baby, you freak!" his mother roared, brandishing a baseball bat.
The creature above him hissed with rage, countless rows of sharp teeth appearing as its mouth ripped its head apart. Tendrils pierced the bedding and shattered the wood around him as the creature launched itself at his mother. Cold terror flooded Lucas' body as his world devolved into rage and destruction. He screwed his eyes shut and continued to scream for his mother.
Suddenly, appendages wrapped around him, dragging him forward as he continued to scream. He brought his arms in front of him and desperately shoved at the unknowable wall in front of him.
His breathing grew hysterical as he beat his fists against the thing, and his tears streamed down his face as it refused to budge. It dragged Lucas even closer, pressing him against whatever was in front of him as he trembled.
Lucas wasn't sure how long it took for him to realize his cries were no longer that of a baby's. That his body was larger, his arms longer, and his fingers thinner.
That he was himself again.
His panicked screams transitioned into hiccuping sobs as he stopped struggling against what he now realized weren't oily tentacles, but strong arms. The arms embraced him, tight enough to stop his struggling but gentle enough not to harm him. They held him tenderly to their chest as their owner continued to soothe him.
Lucas bit back his tears as he looked up with watery eyes at the person embracing him, his weary green eyes meeting a pair of equally weary crimson ones.
"Relax, kid," Æthane spoke softly, "it's just a memory. It can't hurt you anymore."
Lucas' lip wobbled as he wormed himself impossibly closer into Æthane's embrace, desperate for comfort that had been unknown to him for such an impossibly long time. Tears leaked down his face and absorbed into the Æthane's shirt as the monster stroked his back and cooed at him.
Lucas wasn't sure how he would ever get back to sleep. Every nerve in his body electrified as he shook, and yet, exhaustion hit him like a wave, dragging him under the surface of the water and laying him flat against the seabed. His eyes slid shut as he felt himself go limp, unable to manage the strength to move or support himself any longer.
"Just sleep, kid," Æthane nuzzled the top of his head, his voice so soft and comforting that Lucas felt himself getting lost in it as everything began to fade around him, sinking deeper and deeper beneath the waves until there was nothing left.
----------------------------------
Lucas felt the warmth of the sun on his face as everything faded back into his awareness, his eyelids a warm red as he brought his hands up to rub them. He slowly cracked them open to find himself back in his plain white room in the mental hospital, the only thing out of place being Æthane sitting on the end of his bed.
"How're you feeling?" he asked, looking down at Lucas in the way adults did when they were trying to seem casual but were actually testing Lucas, trying to see if he would say the right thing.
"I'm ok," Lucas mumbled as he looked away. Æthane hummed, letting Lucas know he didn't believe him. Lucas flinched.
"It's ok if you're not ok. You know that, right?" Æthane asked before laughing at himself. "Of course, you don't know that, considering what your mom was like before she died."
Lucas didn't hear the creak of the bed, but he did hear the sound of Æthane's feet hitting the ground. It was strange, he knew logically Æthane wasn't really there, so his feet shouldn't make any noise, and he heard it as Æthane projected his image into Lucas' consciousness.
Æthane's face came into view as he knelt down in front of Lucas as he lay on his side. Lucas buried his face more into his pillow in an attempt to avoid the monster's gaze.
"Lucas, could you look at me, please?" Æthane asked, and Lucas buried his face into the pillow more. "I'm not upset or anything. Well, I am a bit upset in general, but not at you. I just want you to see me so you can believe me when I tell you that."
Lucas kept his head buried for a moment more before peeking with his eye, most of his face still buried in the pillow.
"Lucas," Æthane started, "It's ok if you aren't ok. Honestly, if you were ok after everything that's been going on, I'd be more than a little surprised. I just need you to know you can talk to me about anything, alright? I promise I'll never hurt you. I just need you to talk to me about stuff. We're in this together, remember?" Æthane gave him a small yet earnest smile as he tentatively began to stroke Lucas' hair.
Lucas hummed as he kept looking at Æthane. He seemed genuine, and Lucas felt himself melt into the affection Æthane was providing.
"Ok," Lucas mumbled.
Æthane smiled, "Good. Now, how are you feeling?"
"Bad."
"That's understandable considering the dream you had last night," Æthane reassured him.
Lucas curled in on himself slightly at the memory, "Was that real?"
"No, it was just a memory from when you were a baby," Æthane replied.
"No," Lucas shook his head as he unburied his face in order to properly look at Æthane, "the other part. When I was with you."
"Ah," Æthane slightly nodded, "that was a bit real but also wasn't. Remember the first time we met? When we went into that weird gray place that I told you was your own mind?"
"Yeah."
"I dragged you out of your dream and back into there."
"Oh…" Lucas averted his gaze, "thanks."
"It's no problem," Æthane replied, "you looked like you needed the help."
Lucas nodded as he closed his eyes, focusing on the feeling of Æthane stroking his hair. It wasn't real. He knew that. But it felt real, and that was all that mattered.
He wasn't alone anymore, and that was all that mattered.
"Breakfast is in ten minutes," Æthane hummed, "So it's time to get out of bed and change from your pure white pajamas into your pure white kinda pajamas."
Lucas scowled with his eyes closed, and Æthane laughed.
"God, even when you're mad, you're adorable, kid. I mean, seriously, it should be illegal for any creature to be as cute as human children."
Lucas grumbled as he sat up, Æthane's hand leaving his head, "Do monsters not have kids?"
"Oh, we do. They're just ugly as sin. Makes me glad I can't have any." Æthane chuckled.
"Well, we're stuck together now, so I guess you're kinda my parent now anyway." Lucas huffed as his feet hit the ground, waddling over to the closet as Æthane watched him go by.
"Does that mean you're going to start calling me your dad now?" Æthane piped up, his eyes glinting mischievously.
Lucas was really glad nobody else could hear Æthane as the monster roared with laughter at the dirty look Lucas sent him over his shoulder. It took by the time Lucas got done getting changed into his near-identical day clothes for the monster to wipe the last tears from his eyes.
"You're not my dad," Lucas pouted as he straightened out his white shirt.
"Awwww, why's that, sonny?" Æthane smirked as he squatted down to Lucas' level, the child ignoring him as he headed for the door. "Don't like the idea of having a big ol' monster daddy?"
"You aren't my dad because you're actually trying to help me," Lucas spat as he grabbed the doorknob. "Dads, don't do that."
Lucas left the room to head for the cafeteria, leaving Æthane in stunned silence as he left.
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