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thetalesofno-one · 2 months

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Curse of Strahd, Act I: Pt. 1, Ch. IV -Deadman's Path-

D&D Campaign Retelling Part 1/? Chapter 4/5 ~4.8k words Content Warnings: Curse of Strahd typical content, Read at own risk

Summary At the fork in the road, the Deadman's Path is chosen. The messages of tallies and arrows followed like a promise into the mists where the land drinks of their spirits. Read Previous Chapters also available on AO3

Evie stares at the empty air where Roshan and Evrrot should be. Where any sane person would still be if they hadn’t fucked off into the crazy weird fog without a thought for how sound an idea that could possibly be. The fog is exactly what started this mess and she doesn’t think getting home will be as easy as walking right back into it.

She doesn’t so much as blink, searching that creepy slithering fog for any signs of the fools. There’s nothing there. Literally fucking nothing. No little angry swirls where they passed, no blurry shadow of their silhouettes being eaten alive. Nothing.

She hopes the bastards beyond are still alive to hear it if for no other reason than to let them know she will chew their ears off next she sees them. Who looks at a wall of churning, slithering fog that swallows all like a damn hydra and goes, ‘Let’s go this way’.

Evie catches the giant ponce looking at her with that long suffering look that’s becoming more and more common between them. She hates that she’s wearing it too.

A string of curses creative enough it would’ve raised her father’s brows from his grave face find their way to her lips, but under her breath because she’s still a temple girl even if she’s not exactly sure where she stands with that. To his credit, the tree of an elf beside her doesn’t so much as raise one of his immaculately sharp brows. She wonders a moment if he shapes them himself or if he’s just born that way. Probably the latter. Pure blood elves and their useless handsomeness. She hopes he can swing that broken glaive as well as he fondles it. She swears his hand never leaves the busted thing. Oh he hides it well enough beneath that dark cloak of his, the worn rag draped over one shoulder to hide his blade arm. But she’s short enough to catch a glimpse here and there when he walks and sure enough, his hand hasn’t left that thing since he strolled into the barn with his lifted chin and judgy eyes, looking down on them all.

He looks down on her now. Granted he’s about two feet taller than her, but that’s beside the point.

Evie sighs, “It’s not like we don’t both know we’re just going to follow them.”

He stares at the fog a moment, watching it writhe and swirl in strange patterns before their eyes. For a moment she thinks he’s going to turn back and abandon her—wouldn’t be the first person—but he seems to resign himself and steps into the fog without looking back at her readied glare. She expected him to put up a small resistance to walking ahead of her in his strange, quiet, if misguidedly protective way. Waste of a glare.

She follows in his shadow immediately, not taking any chances with fucky fog in weird forests. It swallows everything, even threatening to swallow each other despite their proximity. She moves closer and feels him tense as her arm brushes his gloved hand, but even right next to him, he is difficult to see through the thick haze, half gone from her sight. It is far too easy to lose each other in this mess and any sign of the others mere moments ahead of them is entirely impossible.

The mist paws at them, crawling over their skin, and sweeping through their hair. The more they breathe it in, the more it feels like something is being stolen away. Evie forces her lungs full, but the choked air only tightens her chest leaving her feeling more empty than before. The strength seeps from her bones like blood from a wound. Even Emet seems more slouched.

The air is too thin, her head growing heavier with each laboring breath. Exhaustion floods them and Evie is reminded of her early days in the temple. The first time she put on armor, it felt like she’d drown in it. The first time she carried a weighted casket, she thought she’d be in the grave herself if she had to take one more step. They made her carry that weight daily until she could bear it. And not just physically. But in this mist she feels like she’s back on that first day, fighting for her life to get the casket on her shoulder even with the aid of another, the familiar strain burning in her lungs and filling her legs with lead.

She and Emet—the moon elf bent and slouching, suffering quietly as he tries not to look like he cannot breathe either—trudge through for what cannot possibly be longer than a handful of minutes, and yet when they finally exit the blinding and sapping fog into the normal unending mist, they feel as though they’ve both run the length of a city in full plate armor.

She pants and catches her breath shamelessly. Emet finally gives up the ruse of not suffering and sinks his back against a tree, leaning far too heavy for someone who’s not dying with her. They both spare a lungful to curse out Mr. “I think I’m so sexy” tiefling and the crazy old man for abandoning them. But their misguided leaders are nowhere to be seen.

“This was a mistake,” Emet snarls, breathing in deep, trying to fill his lungs. It is taking too long for the burn to fade, “Never trust dead men.”

“It’s taken you that long to work that one out?”

“No. There simply wasn’t much other choice.”

Evie takes one more lungful, savoring the strange bitter sweetness of this air. Cemetery air. Air of cold stone and faint rot, sharp and empty with a lingering taste of sorrow, the same air she’s breathed since Daggerford fells into the mists hours ago. The same air that told her they were far, far away from home. But at least it isn’t choking away her every breath. Her strength slowly returns.

“There’s always another choice,” she whispers.

Somewhere else beyond the vampiric mist and lost in the forest, Evrrot and Roshan fight off the same drain on their body and spirit. The fog doesn’t so much as pull away from them as simply end between one step and the next. One moment consumed and blind with the air stolen from their lungs and the next beyond the slithering snakes of fog into the slightly less slithering fog of the deadwood forest.

Roshan quickly spins behind him to check on the others, his loose white robes swishing around his ankles. Evrrot pants heavily beside him with hands on his knees looking as though he just outran the guard. That seems like a thing the devil boy would do. He acts like someone who has outrun many a guard and not just because of the horns. His personality tells a story all its own.

Gulping in the mildly stale air like a parched man finding water in the sands of Calimshan, Roshan puts on his best grin for his next joke before realizing that Evrrot is the only one with him. He spins in a circle, searching along the fog wall’s edge.

“Where are the other two?”

“Probably lost in the mist,” Evrrot pants, gulping loudly.

He lifts his glowing staff, “But I shined a light for them to follow.”

“I don’t know.” Evrrot tosses up his hands and leaves down the path without a second thought for those missing. “I’m gonna keep going, you good to keep up?”

“I am not old,” he says by way of answer.

Roshan’s brow furrows, looking again to the place where the others should appear any moment if they are not lost. But they do not come and Evrrot is already walking away.

“Should we not try and find them?”

Evrrot’s steps end and he sighs.

“If they are in the mist, surely they will come out soon,” Roshan continues.

Though he is stopped, devil boy does not turn back. It is as though he hoped Roshan would simply forget about the people who were just with them and move on. The tiefling chews his lower lip with an air irritation, tail swishing as he impatiently settles his weight from one foot to the other. Roshan wonders if Evrrot must actively force his feet from walking away. As though waiting for others goes against his very nature. Devil boy stares pointedly ahead with the longing of a starving man restraining himself from a hot meal. It is like watching someone decide between cutting off their own hand or taking a slice of honeyed pastry. The choice is no choice at all. Roshan doesn’t need to be a seer to sense Evrrot’s struggle to find a reason to care about the others is a difficult one for him.

“Numbers are better in this sort of situation,” Roshan offers gently.

Evrrot continues to stare pointedly away from where they came. He bites his lip a bit more, devilish fangs worrying the edge before clicking his teeth together.

“Alright, fine.”

He clenches his jaw then loosens, shaking off the tension and grabbing hold of Roshan’s words to force himself back. At least the boy’s mind is capable of seeing the practical and logical value in having a few more bodies between them. It is a start.

Roshan pats Evrrot’s shoulder like a father does a son’s head, “Good lad.”

“Don’t touch me.”

“Why are you so angsty? Do you have a bad relationship with your father?”

“No, it was a pleasant one, but…” Evrrot glares, “Why are we even talking about this?”

Devil boy storms off to go find the missing people he’s been told he’s supposed to care about and Roshan sighs. It is a start, he reminds himself.

“Can’t believe those guys went off without us!”

Evie sets her fists on her hips and sneers as she mocks the assholes who left her with the giant ghost. If she can’t tear them a new one, then she’ll settle with complaining about them to Emet instead.

“I thought we were supposed to be sticking together! And yet I can already hear the sound of that damned Evrrot walking away and fucking off into the mist like a twat. Probably thinks he’d do just fine without any of us. Wankers.”

Evie chews a nail then stops herself, “We weren’t that far behind were we?”

She hates how she can hear the worry in her voice when the anger burns itself away. As if all there really is—all there’s really been—is worry. But worry is fear, so she sets it aflame and calls it rage. Because she doesn’t want to be afraid. She wants to be angry.

Emet runs a hand across his face, the metal gauntlet getting tangled in the loose strands of his long white hair a moment. He shakes them free, “No, a few seconds at most.”

“Maybe they’re hiding or some shit.”

“I swear, if one of them jumps out of the mist, I’ll stab them.”

She doesn’t think he’s joking and some part of her respects that. Evie begins calling out for ‘old guy’, making it very clear this isn’t very funny and daggers will be involved if they jump out at them.

She’s about to get more creative with her threats when a strange noise fills the space between her calls. Something like metal whirring and spinning wildly against glass. Evie turns to Emet first wondering if the towering bastard has gone and done something, but his eyes are cast down at her hips. She’s about to curse him out when he wordlessly points and her eyes follow the line of his finger to her pocket. The compass.

The strange sound grows louder as Evie removes the tarnished copper thing. The needle—once erratic and stubbornly refusing to point North—now whirls in a frenzy as though caught in a storm. The sharp red needle now a blur beneath the glass. Small scrapes cut the surface from underneath.

“Well, that’s great. It’s even more useless,” she says.

Evie shoves the broken thing back in her pocket and goes back to loudly and obnoxiously calling out for ‘old guy’, not quite wanting to say her nickname for sexy tiefling out loud since he’d probably ignore the sarcastic nuance and take it as a compliment. No one replies of course, but she and Emet wander aimlessly around the border of the sapping mist in the hopes the other two haven’t actually abandoned them.

She hopes not.

Expects so and yet still hopes not for some stupid reason.

One stolen glance at Emet and she can tell he’s already given up on the others—if he ever expected them to come back for them at all. Abandonment issues isn’t something she wants to have in common with him. It isn’t something she wants at all and yet believing they’ve been left behind is an easier pill to swallow than thinking anyone would come looking for her…them. Come looking for them.

“…get very irritated very quickly. Who hurt you?”

The sing-song melody of Roshan’s accent carries through the still air. Not close, but not far either. She glances up at Emet silently wondering if he hears it too, or if the mist is playing tricks again. But he’s staring off in the same direction she heard the voice. He heard it too then. They pick up their speed, Evie half trotting toward the sound of Roshan’ melodic voice, the human asking something about why Evrrot does not like authority figures as the tiefling trudges into view alongside Roshan. Evrrot wears the expression of someone deeply regretting a decision.

Relief floods Evie like a cool drink on a hot day. Warmth poured over her heart and bones in a brief flicker at seeing them. She almost smiles. Almost. And out of the corner of her eye she catches Emet’s mouth quirk up into a faint grin as though he’s about to make some sarcastic comment before he glances over to her and the smile falls into something else. Like remembering something lost.

She senses the softness on her face before he can say anything, her expression open and unhidden behind the sharp barbs she set in her heart to keep moments like this from happening. To keep people from realizing she still has one. Evie’s eyes sharpen into knives. She’s about to cut Emet first for that look before Evrrot finally spies them, offering a fake smile and an impatient tap of his foot saying, “Alright, we got everyone? Then let’s keep going.”

That’s it? Let’s just go like you’ve been keeping us waiting. No question of what happened or are you alright? Evie wants to snarl at Evrrot and give that tapping foot of his a trim with her short sword or maybe pry out a fang or two from that fake ass smile. She wants to scream and roar and cut something—anything to get away from that moment of letting her mask of steel slip.

Roshan halts his psychological analysis of Evrrot, “Where have you been for the past three minutes?”

Evie blinks, hearing the exact words she wanted to hear but her anger has gone too far already. “Where did you go? You just fucked off!” Evie bites back, venom sharp.

Evrrot’s fake smile turns into a frown matching her own offense as though he has any right to be offended at all.

“We’ve been here!” He yells loudly, “Waiting for you two.”

Evie is about to tell him exactly where he can wait for her booted foot before Roshan starts patting the air like he can put out the flames, “No, no, no. We walked around for a bit hoping to find you.”

“We were right behind you,” Emet gestures to the mist, a little irritated himself if Evie is hearing that faint sharpness in his tone correctly. “Barely a few steps between us.”

Something like concern crosses the holy man’s face, and at least when he wears it, Evie believes it.

“It was more than a few minutes for us,” Roshan answers, “We waited a few minutes and you were nowhere to be found.”

“Minutes?” Emet scoffs, “We were seconds behind you. How could you have had minutes to wait?”

A day and night’s weariness of travel and strangeness wears at the ends of Evie’s nerves with a faint building static. She’s tired. She’s hungry. And all of them are at the very edge of whatever hospitality they had to begin with, which wasn’t much. Roshan tries to explain how time went for them a little better, but his story and their just don’t add up and as tired as they all are, it probably never will. None of this does.

Emet runs a hand through his hair, resigned and looking twice as tired as the rest of them. She wonders if he always looks tired, but the thought is cut short as his eyes catch on something beyond them. Evie turns and spies an eerily familiar tree, with 43 tallies and an arrow. She isn’t sure if she should be glad or furious.

“Either we continue with these endless trees or we risk the fog again and try to find our way back. So which is it,” Emet says flatly, as though he knows that whatever he chooses the tiefling will likely decide the opposite for no other reason than spite. Or perhaps it’s some weird kink for control and this is how he flirts. She doesn’t know anymore and doesn’t care. At least for now, they need to stick together and preferably that will happen someplace away from all this damned fog.

Roshan shakes his head, “The fog is a bad, bad place.”

“All of this is a bad, bad place.”

Without anyone having really decided, they all trudge through the muddy path toward the tree with their feet heavy and minds burdened by the frustrations this day has brought upon them.

Evie’s fingers wander absently over the brooch about her neck, twisting it back and forth on its black velvet cord knowing she can never take it off. Can’t take it off. Her fingers trace the familiar shape of the smooth surface, the last time she’s seen it outside of a mirror or reflection being when her father put it on her. Before, she never cared to take it off. And the first time she tried only weeks ago, she couldn’t. No one could unlatch it or cut it. And soon after her father left, it started to tug at her. She might not know where this heirloom of her father’s is leading her, but she never would’ve guessed it would be to a barnful of strangers forced to rely on each other in some strange land. And without any kind of rest.

Tensions are high.

Sleep and food. That’s what they need. Something hot to fill their bellies, something warm and comfortable to wrap around their shoulders, and something soft to lay their heads upon. Maybe things will make a bit more sense after that. But for now they’re still lost on this cyclical path with heavy eyes and frayed nerves, teeth bared and ready to latch onto each other’s throats. Only the old man seems to have any sort of calm about him as though this is just a casual stroll through winter woods with friends and not a bunch of tired and angry strangers thrown into some kid’s messed up bedtime story.

Sexy tiefling and old man find their way to the tree first, though this one is slightly different than the rest they have encountered. Stabbed into the gnarled and cracked bark of the tree, an old dagger of a style unfamiliar to any kind Evie has seen rests above a crude carving of a man atop a horse. The phrase ‘The horseman rides, the Seer spoke true’ carved below, and once more another 43 tallies with another arrow.

“Well, that’s not ominous,” Emet growls.

“Do you think the horseman is that man we found dead?” Roshan studies the carving a bit closer, “Or that silhouette of the man with the flaming horse? And who is this Seer?”

Evie’s eyes widen, “Oh shit, do you think it’s the same guy? His horse wasn’t on fire though.”

“No, but horses are not usually on fire.”

Fair enough.

“Which one do you think it is then, old guy?”

“I think that man is dead. He is not the problem. He is probably the one who gave this message though. I think we should find this Seer and that we should follow the arrows.”

Evie eyes him. That’s a lot of ‘I think we should’ for someone she just met hours ago. All she wants is to get to some semblance of safety, figure out what part of Faerûn the damned mist spirited them off to, and then be on her way.

“I don’t see why any of this is any of our business.”

“We do not know where we are, any help would be grateful.” Roshan looks around the mist again, nodding to himself, “This place is bad. Bad, bad.”

“I’m with you there.”

The weariness of the day—days?—sets in. Roshan is the first to search the sky for any sign of what time it could possibly be since they entered the parasitic mist. Not like Evie expects anything. Since the air turned from the sweetness of Daggerford celebration to misty cemetery air, they’ve been wandering for what must have been five or more hours by Evie’s estimation, and yet the sky remains a stubborn endless dark grey somewhere between night and day. Only faint greyish light filtering through the tangled barren boughs of the gnarled trees indicates that it might be daylight somewhere above that low blanket of clouds.

“Surely the sun should have risen or set by now, no?” The holy man rubs the burnished metal sun hanging about his neck as though the action might summon the sun emblazoned on it. With no tangible response, he adjusts his robes and points after the next arrow.

“Right, come along children. Let’s go.”

Children?

Evie rolls her eyes. Being twenty-five doesn’t make her a child no matter how young she looks with her half-elven blood. And sexy tiefling has got to be in his thirties with the way he seems to still prize being an asshole. Too old to be smooth faced and full of lies and too young to have gained any maturity or wisdom, clearly. And poncy boy the seven foot giant elf? The man may look like an untouched by time young thirties, but he’s a pure blood elf. He could be 300 years old for all Evie knows and she’s only partially certain the old man doesn’t have quite so many years under his belt. Evie finds herself assessing Roshan once more, trying to determine his age.

“I thought you were 32?” Evie asks.

“Yes, but you keep calling me old one, so I might as well accept it.”

“There’s just something about you,” Emet adds, “You must have an old soul or something.”

“I have never heard that one, thank you,” Roshan says with such a deadpan expression, Evie can’t tell if that’s sarcasm.

The group, all wishing in their own way for a bed and some sort of hot meal continue along the muddy footpath with less and less motivation to bother. How many more trees with 43 tallies will they pass? How many more cryptic signs carved in bark with no sun or hint of where or when the hells any of them are?

Evie hangs her head with a dramatic sigh, groaning loudly incase anyone has any doubt about how done she is with this endless day, when she stops in her tracks. They’ve been walking this muddy foot path since Roshan decided with his magic feather that this was the way to go, but Evie never really gave the path any kind of investigation. Why would she? A path is a path right? Unless the path is worn by only one person.

She stares into the mud, hoping she is wrong. But whether she looks behind where they’ve walked or ahead where they’ve not yet trampled some of the tracks, it is the same.

“I’m starting to get a bad feeling, guys.”

“You are only starting?” Roshan asks.

“No, a new bad feeling.”

“Ohhh.”

“I mean I’m not the smartest but other than ours, I’m not seeing any tracks that were made by more than one person,” she points at the hoof prints, “and one horse.”

Evie squats down on her thick platform heels, fingers tracing above the footprints that came before theirs and the ones that lead further beyond, “This path was made by one man. Look, these are the same shoes over and over.” Her finger finds hoof prints next, “And this is the same horse. The horseshoe has that knick in the metal in every track.”

Emet seems to make the connection first as she lays out the points. The deadman and horse made this path, wore it into existence with endless repetition. Forty-three times, Evie would hazard to guess. Forty-three times through that draining patch of fog before they finally had nothing left.

Evie stands up from her squat, wiping the mud off her hands, “I don’t know, this seems wrong.”

“But it means we will likely make it back then, no? If it is a circle?” Roshan asks.

“I hope. We should have followed the other path.”

“When we make it back, we will go the other way.”

“If we make it back,” Evie bites back, but a little more gently, “The dead guy didn’t.”

Evrrot slings his bow across his back and steps up to one of the taller trees, kicking his boot into the trunk to test for any softness or give.

“I’m gonna see if I can get a better vantage point.”

Look who’s taking some initiative.

“Do not fall,” Roshan calls out as the tiefling swings himself up to the lowest dead branch and begins scaling the tree with familiarity. Evie half wishes it would break under his weight and drop his ass in the mud. It holds, to her disappointment.

It doesn’t take Evrrot long before he reaches the higher canopy, the tree full of easy branches to scale and most of them still strong enough to support his weight—unfortunately. A few close calls as weaker dead boughs snap beneath him, but always another branch not far from hand.

Balancing himself against the thinner and weaker boughs near the top of the tree, Evrrot carefully stands above the canopy.

“Well that’s fucked,” Evrrot calls down.

“What?” Evie calls up.

“There’s nothing. It’s just fucking fog everywhere.”

Evrrot calls out his view. All around him, a sea of endless tangled branches pierce the fog like thorns. And behind, where that wall of vampiric fog tried to sap them of what little energy they have left, a massive roiling pillar of white climbing endlessly into the overcast skies still stubbornly caught somewhere between night and day. Seems there is no escape from that impenetrable fog. Even from above.

He carefully, if a bit angrily, makes his way back to the ground. If there’s any sort of settlement in this place, the fog hides it well. They have no choice but to follow whatever damn path they can find. Roshan is quiet as Evrrot explains the situation, closing his eyes a moment as he grasps that burnished sun once more in his calloused hands and whispers something beneath his breath. Evie’s sharp ears only catch the last word, “Are you there?” Whatever he is seeking, Evie knows he did not find it. The old man’s shoulders droop almost imperceptibly.

“Does he typically answer?” Emet asks softly.

“I usually feel his warmth. Now there is only cold.”

He nods as though expecting as much, “That must be the way of gods.”

Roshan’s eyes are dawnsteel.

“Not this one.”

Emet quietly assesses him, perhaps seeking a weak point to exploit. Perhaps looking for any waver in his conviction, but finds none and keeps his silence.

With nowhere left to go, they press on to follow the arrows in the hopes that they will cross the abandoned wagon trail once more.

Several minutes and several more 43 tallied trees pass before all breathe a hesitant sigh of relief. There, ahead of them, the lonely wagon trail that started them in these misty lands cuts across the deadman’s path. But that relief is quickly overshadowed.

The deadman—once still and rotting, nothing more than a feast for crows—is gone.

#dark fantasy #gothic fantasy #gothic fiction #curse of strahd #barovia #d&d campaign #dnd campaign #vampire #vampire fiction #ongoing fic #fantasy fiction #creative writing #fiction writing #my fiction #adventure fiction #writers on tumblr #writeblr #my writing #Tales of No One

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justesurlapeau · 1 year

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Maya Stepper by Quentin De Briey for Rag Bone Icons 2022 Campaign

#maya stepper #quentin de briey #rag bone

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erosioni · 2 months

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Winona Ryder in Rag and Bone women's AW14 video campaigns, 2014.

#winona ryder #2010s aesthetic #2010s fashion #late 2010s #2010s nostalgia #2010s hollywood

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chaoticly-shy-dragon · 1 year

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After almost two years of war, Obi-Wan knew the chances of him making it out alive were low. He wasn't infallible, he wasn't unbeatable and with every campaign and every mission, bone-deep exhaustion plagued his every moment. That didn't mean Obi-Wan didn't hope. Hope that the war would end soon. Hope that he would be there when Ahsoka was knighted. Hope for a better future. Obi-Wan should have known those dreams weren't feasible. He had just never thought Anakin wouldn't be there with him as they fall apart. His padawan had so much to live for - Ahsoka, his men. Senator Amidala. He didn't deserve to have his life cut short so soon. None of them did. (His men were fighting for their lives on the ground; the whole mission had turned out to be an elaborate trap and oh Force, they were being slaughtered and where was Obi-Wan when they needed him–) Obi-Wan oft thought of himself as a realist, an idealist even. In actuality, he was a liar. And the person he lied most to was himself. As he crouched before his padawanchildbrother Anakin's fallen body, the Jedi Master couldn't help but wonder. Had there even been a future to look forward to? What was the point? The redhead shook off the intrusive thoughts, unwelcome and desolating as they were. This was not the time or place for such laments. As unfair and unwelcome as their situation was, Obi-Wan couldn't help but be grateful that they had left Ahsoka with the men on the ground. The thought both reassured him and very much did not. How similar to her Master, the Togruta turned out to be. (Obi-Wan hoped his men were fine, that his grand-padawan was fine. It was a pipe dream - they were at war after all - but it was one that didn't perish no matter how often it was proved wrong.) Obi-Wan heaved for breath, sweat running down his temple. One would wonder how they ended up here. In the middle of a battle, the two of them separated from their troops. They had successfully hijacked the Separatist dreadnought, which intelligence believed to be holding the captured diplomats when everything went sideways. And oh Force, how sideways it went. The information turned out to be a complete hoax. They had been ambushed by three squads of droids the moment they entered the prison brig. They had barely made it out before another squad joined the fray. After that, everything was a blur of running and fighting and even more running. And then - in the mids of it all - something had exploded. The strength of the explosion had sent them flying, the heat of the blast blistering the skin of his exposed neck. Obi-Wan's ears had rung and spots had invaded his vision as he skidded to a stop. The hall before them had filled with droids in the seconds it took him to regain his bearings. Anakin had had less luck than him. He had been by the corner when the blast reached him, throwing him into the nearby wall like a rag doll on stims. He was now lying a few feet away from Obi-Wan, unconscious, burnt and probably bleeding from the shrapnel wounds covering his body. The Force around him felt drowsy and his presence was threaded with a dull throbbing of pain. If Anakin was anything it was being frighteningly capable of hiding his pain. (Leftover from his past, a tiny part of his brain chanted as it always did when Anakin's mental stability was brought up. Shut up, he shushed it sternly. He didn't need any more distractions, his attention was already divided between the worry for his padawan and the droids that were trying to blast him to bits–) He twisted out of the way of a blaster bolt, raising his lightsaber just in time to stop another. They were forced into a literal corner and the droids didn't. stop. coming. There was no space for his usual acrobatics, no space to escape the deadly barrage. There was no space to simply breathe. Had Obi-Wan not been a master of compartmentalizing releasing his feelings into the Force, he would have been rendered completely useless by the bubbling panic in his gut. (He might have been a Jedi first but a liar came a close second.) Alarms rang through the air as the Jedi Master's eyes jumped from one advancing droid to another. His lightsaber thrummed in his hands, a blur of light creating an impenetrable barrier between the duo and their attackers. (No medevac would be spared even if Obi-Wan could call for one. And he couldn't. They were being swarmed before the droids received the orders for a suicide run. Before the kriffing pieces of scrap turned off the gravity and opened fire with the heavy artillery. They were on a ship outside atmo for Force's sake, there was no escaping this one–) Truth be told, Obi-Wan wasn't that better off than his former student. His energy was waning with every passing second and his muscles screamed in protest with every move. His guard was slipping; the only reason he hadn't dropped it completely was the dwindling warmth at the back of his head. (There was something truly terrifying in the fact he could tell it was dwindling. Not dimed, but dying-?!) Until the backlash of the broken bond hit him, Obi-Wan would hold the line. The redhead only wished the droids would stop coming. That way the task wouldn't appear so monumental. He didn't have the time to breathe, much less try and remove both Anakin and himself from this thrice-damned hallway. The less said about Anakin's state the better. (How Obi-Wan wished they could escape- that Anakin could escape, that his padawan would survive- but he had been prodding the bond every few seconds and all he could feel was the fuzziness of unconsciousness muddled with the pain, plaguing the younger man's body. It was a searing sensation, paralyzing any rational thought that might have traveled through the needle-wide bond. At one point even hope had to die in the face of reality.) Then something faded, something broke. A bolt passed through Obi-Wan's guard striking him between the ribs. Another followed. And another. There was a certain emptiness in his head. One less bright spot in the web of stars he was connected to. He felt like it should have been a nova - devastating in its destruction, but it wasn't. There were no black holes or white dwarfs left behind. The star was gone, taking with it the light that should have outlived him. ("Let go," whispered a voice almost as well-known to his psyche as his own. "Master, it's over, let go." And how Obi-Wan wished he could - but his padawan was lying behind him more dead than alive and he was not moving.) There was frantic energy humming beneath his skin, pushing him forward. He ignored it. ("I'm dead, old man," the voice choked around the words, the familiar fake smile obvious in his words. And the quirks he could hear, the expression Obi-Wan could imagine plastered on sun-kissed skin, almost brought the Jedi Master to his knees, because wasn't that the truth? "There is no saving me now. Let me go." The beloved voice was begging, where it had never done so before and wasn't that criminal? Obi-Wan Kenobi could bring despair even to those residing in the Force. He should put that in his file - it would surely endear him to the senators even more. If he lived to share the tale that is. "I'm dead. Let me go. Isn't that what you always tell me? Let go.") Obi-Wan's body took more bolts than the man deflected, and with every passing moment, the droids came closer to him them. The strange abundance of power dwindled as if muted by his own growing despair. There was something splintered in his mind. Obi-Wan decidedly didn't acknowledge it. (A small part of him did - his padawan was dead. He couldn't feel Anakin anymore. The last pieces of their bond were gone - erased from his mind as if the golden, unbreakable thread hadn't been Obi-Wan's lifeline. All that was left of it was ash and soul-wrenching pain.) (Everything was numb and distant. He was losing too much blood. And everything was too quiet. There was no blood-curdling scream, no never-ending cry of pure agony. The Force was silent. Obi-Wan wished he had the energy not to be.) And then, after several torturous moments, during which the Jedi's mind tried and failed to mitigate the psychic damage, Obi-Wan faltered. He failed to raise his lightsaber fast enough. Obi-Wan couldn't stop the blaster bolt before it hit him in the chest. Whatever power had been holding him upright vanished, leaving the Jedi Master to crumble to the floor. (It burned- oh, Force it burned- It was a moment and an eternity- An end, a definite end-) Obi-Wan Kenobi died. (That was how the 'great' Kenobi fell - not by the hand of another sentient being but to that of a droid programmed to advance until destruction- What a pity. It lacked a great deal of irony and had too little tragedy. What a pity indeed‐) He died. His body fell next to that of Anakin Skywalker, who had died mere minutes earlier. There would be no one to close their eyes seeing as the dreadnought they were on was already sailing nose down toward the ground. Days would have passed before their remains were found amidst the crash, buried among half-melted metal and twisted machinery. That was an end. Not the end perhaps, but an end nonetheless. It continued like this. Anakin Skywalker woke up.

this is the beginning of my force ghost au that I wanted to do; I am a sucker for whump and I wanted to see if I could write death scenes - the results are yet to be determined

Part 1 of hopefully more? we’ll see

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eatmythoughts · 1 year

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Winona Ryder for Rag & Bone's Fall campaign (2014)

#winona ryder #heathers #edward scissorhands #girl interrupted #stranger things

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forget-you-morelike-fuck-you · 2 years

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Metal Queen- E.M.

Eddie loves seeing you sit on his throne during Hellfire meetings, but what he loves more is what he gets to do to you after everyone is gone.

Masterlist

TW- 18+ Minors DNI, Fingering, oral (M and F receiving), cursing, protected sex, semi-public sex, pet names, royalty kink? (Eddie likes being called King), slight teasing, slight overstim

Pairing- Eddie x Reader

Word Count- 1,717

(Gif not mine, credit to owner!)

Eddie loves his throne. As DM of the Hellfire club, no one was allowed to even touch it. No one, that is, except you. As Eddie is the King, you are his Queen, and when you accompany him to Hellfire, his throne is your seat of honor as he directs the club through whatever campaign they’re working through. You like watching them play, cheering with them through victory and groaning sympathetically through defeat. You can’t imagine how anyone could think that this is anything other than innocent fun. What isn’t innocent, however, is what happens after everyone is gone but you and Eddie.

The thing about Eddie seeing you on his throne is that he has trouble seeing you sit there without getting himself so worked up with need that he has to jump your bones once all of the club members have dissipated. You’ve come to look forward to it, your wetness building of its own accord as the clock ticks closer to 9, and once everyone is gone, Eddie’s hands are on you, one hand sliding up under your skirt to your panties as his lips find yours. “You look so fucking pretty sitting there, baby.” He growls into the kiss, the hand under your skirt pulling your panties aside to find your clit. You let out a soft moan as his rough fingers flick over the sensitive bud. Your hands going to his hair, pulling gently as Eddie’s lips travel down your neck. His fingers dip to your entrance, collecting your wetness.

Eddie kisses down your body, his free hand pulling at your shirt to reveal one side of your bra, all the while, his fingers are working your clit in small fast circles. You let go of his hair briefly as you reach to unbuckle your bra, pulling it out of your shirt. You’ve learned that the Hellfire room’s door doesn’t lock, and you don’t want anyone but Eddie seeing you naked.

Eddie sinks to his knees and his hand pulls off of your pussy to pull your panties down, and you lift your hips to accommodate, shifting yourself forward so your ass is at the edge of the seat. Eddie chuckles, having trained you so well to do exactly what he wants. His hands run up and down your thighs as he presses hot, wet kisses here and there all the way up until his lips latch around your clit, making you let out a soft whine. “Fuck, Eddie, that feels so fucking good!” He hums into your pussy as he exchanges his lips for his tongue, licking fat stripes up and down your slit, one hand holding tight to your hip, the other spreading you open to get better access to your aching core.

“That’s good, baby, you gonna cum for your King?” The hand holding your hip comes down to rub at your clit again as his tongue fucks your aching hole, and you moan deeply as the coil in your abdomen begins to build.

“Fuck, yes, please, just don’t stop!” You grind your cunt to his face, needing more contact to get you where you want to be. Eddie licks up your slit again and sucks your clit hard into his mouth, his hand going down to slip two fingers into you. Your hands grip his hair and he curls his long, slender fingers up into your g-spot as he strokes you, and your breathing becomes ragged as he pulls you closer and closer to orgasm.

“Fucking cum for me, pretty. I can fucking feel how close you are.” He mutters. After a few more strokes, your walls clench around his fingers, a needy moan leaving your lips as Eddie laps at your juices. “That’s a good girl.” He laughs, kissing your thighs again as you come down from your high. Eddie gives you a hard pat on the thigh, making you yelp lightly. “Get up, princess, you know what I want.” You giggle as he leans back from your core and stands, a hand reaching to help you up. You take it and Eddie pulls you up, switching your places as your lips meet in a heated kiss, hands going to undo the button on Eddie’s jeans. You both moan as you stick your hand down his pants, fingers grasping at his cock through his underwear. He’s so fucking hard, and you can feel a wet spot from the precum dripping from his throbbing head.

After a couple of strokes, you pull your hand out and shimmy his pants down right below his ass, just enough so his cock springs free from his jeans. He sits, legs spread lightly, his swollen lips parted as you come closer, your hand going back to his cock. You squeeze his length as you stroke it, coaxing beads of precum from the slit of his cock head. Eddie lets out a needy moan, hands reaching for your breasts through your shirt, pinching and twisting your hardened nipples, eliciting a whine from your lips.

One hand goes and pushes into the pocket of his jeans, fingers grasping the foil packet he brings ritually to Hellfire meetings now. You pull it out and open it with your teeth, your other hand never leaving Eddie’s throbbing length. You drop to your knees then, and you tease him with a few kitten licks to the head, relishing in the salty-sweet taste of his precum. His hands go to your hair, cutting off your giggle with a soft moan as he pulls lightly. “Quit fucking teasing me, princess.” He says with a laugh. You look up at him, meeting his gaze as you give one more long, agonizingly slow lick from his balls all the way to the head, lips enclosing around it as you give a hard suck. He groans at the feeling, hands pulling at your hair again. You release his cock and give him an innocent smile.

“What are you talking about? I’d never tease my King,” You giggle. Eddie looks at you, his eyes filled with mischief.

“Mm, is that so?” You’re still stroking him in your hand, and he lets out a sharp breath as his hips buck into your fist.

“Cross my heart, baby.” You’re giving him those puppy dog eyes, and your ass is stuck out, wiggling lightly. There’s no way he can resist you. He pulls your hair so you’re sitting up on your heels a wide smile on your face as you bite your lip.

“Get your ass up here, princess.” He says. You stand yourself up, pushing on his knees for leverage, and you roll he condom down his length before straddling his hips, Eddie’s hands grazing down your body before settling on your ass, his fingertips pressing into the skin. You let out a breathy moan as his tongue goes to flick across your clothed nipple, and your hips grind down into his waiting cock, needing to feel him stretch you wide open. “That’s my good girl, so needy for her King, huh?” You whine as you bear your hips down again, feeling his cock head push past your folds and into your slick entrance. You feel his hands tighten on your ass as you push yourself down, steadying yourself on his shoulders. He lets out a groan as you circle your hips, pushing down onto him slowly. “Still not teasing me, are you?” You giggle as you moan, slowly working yourself up and down on him.

“’Course not, baby. Just getting myself started is all.” You decide to end his misery as you move faster, breasts bouncing, your breath comes in short pants, moans spilling from your lips as Eddie’s cock hits your g-spot every time you sink down onto him. One hand leaves Eddie’s shoulder as you come down to rub your clit, building your orgasm further and further as your walls start to tighten around him.

Eddie notices this and stills your hips, jackhammering his own up into yours. “Fuck baby, you gonna cum? Gonna fucking soak my cock, huh?” Your other hand has to cover your mouth to hold back the cries of pleasure as he sends you over the edge, your legs beginning to tremble as you clench around Eddie. You let your head fall forward into the crook of his neck pressing sloppy kisses into his skin as he continues fucking you, his breaths becoming more staggered as he nears his release.

Your fingers never let up on your clit, hoping to work yourself up one last time before Eddie finishes. “God, Eddie, fuck you feel so fucking good.” You whine into his ear. The overstimulation makes pinpricks of tears itch in the corners of your eyes as you get closer and closer to another orgasm.

“Fuck, baby, you almost there? I don’t think I’m gonna last,” Eddie grunts into your ear, his hands moving your ass up and down with this hips. You nod into him, letting out a sob when you feel Eddie’s cock twitch inside you. You’re so close when you feel him pulse inside of you, both of you moaning as he spills into you, but he doesn’t stop, pushing you past the edge as your cunt clenches around him, legs shaking as you bite his neck to keep from being too loud. You sit there for a couple of minutes, just breathing heavily with each other before pulling away from Eddie’s neck and kissing him deeply. You pull away with a laugh.

“Good meeting tonight, huh?” You giggle. Eddie gives a playful slap to your ass and laughs, helping you off of him.

“It’s always good when you’re here,” He says. You roll your eyes at his cheesiness as he pulls his pants up, and you two get yourselves together.

Eddie puts his arm around your shoulder and guides you to the door, both of you joking as you walk together, and as the door swings open, there stands Gareth, his face red as a tomato.

“I-I uh, I forgot my, uh, backpack in there.” Eddie gives him a pat on the shoulder as the two of you pass.

“All yours, buddy.” As you walk out of the building, both of you burst into laughter and make your way to Eddie’s van to go home.

#eddie munson fluff #eddie munson imagine #eddie munson x you #eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x reader fluff #eddie x reader #eddie stranger things #eddie munson smut #eddie munson x reader smut #stranger things #stranger things 4 #stranger thing s4 #stranger things fic #eddie x fem!reader

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