#series tag yhelm

[autumnbrambleagain]

Yhelm p14 - readmore for full

"We can never tell Afternoon Sale," Latti said firmly and in all seriousness.

The five of them were not gathered in Afternoon Sale's cafe. The absolute scandal of it had Yhelm, Latti, and Madrigal, her regulars, on edge. What punishment awaited them when the god of coffee discovered their infidelity?

But this was for Bodo and his boyfriend, Latyzell, so it made sense to have this in their home territory.

Which was a very nice sit-down restaurant-cafe in Upper Retlayn style. This meant no chairs, all thick sitting-pillows and low tables covered in dark-patterned cloth, beneath high vaulted ceilings that felt SO much more far away all the way down here on the ground. All the lighting was dimmed lanterns hanging from walls done in night-blue mosaics. It almost felt like being outside in nighttime.

It was a good aesthetic, Yhelm felt, settling into her pillow-seat. She'd forgotten how much more extra everything was in-city.

"It does me glad to welcome you here today," Latyzell said. He was maybe sixteen, seventeen, around Bodo's age, but tall and lanky to Bodo's short and stubby. Where Bodo was dressed in his universal lawclerk uniform, Latyzell's dress was distinctly ethnic, dark-patterned layers of mantles and skirts that made him look draped in carved stone. Where Bodo looked uneasy, defensive, on guard, Latyzell was absolutely delighted.

"Well!" Latti said, and she was dressed in her best too, lacey and tight-stitched, "it's wonderful to meet you, Lat--Latyzell?" She stumbled over the name just a little bit. "I'm Latti, I'm Bodo's oldest sister."

"Han," Latyzell agreed happily.

Oh, were they doing introductions? They were doing introductions. "Al mat myr svitch darit," Yhelm said, because she wasn't NOT going to Style over everyone and keep from using the Retlayn she'd learned in college. "We met outside the courthouse, I'm his other sister. Yhelm."

"Han," Latyzell nodded seriously. "You have very good Retlayn!" He looked down to Bodo, smiling. "She has very good Retlayn! You need to catch up!"

Bodo's face was caught in a terrible mixture of conflicted emotions that Yhelm wasn't even going to try to start figuring out right now.

"I'm Madrigal," Maddie said, with a little wave. "I'm Yhelm's partner."

"Han, it gives me delight of it," Latyzell said.

Bodo finally said something. "Look, none of you can tell mom and dad, okay?"

"Obviously," Yhelm agreed.

Latti looked between her siblings, having gotten somewhat lost between them. "Why not?"

The incredulous, grumpy little stare on Bodo's face sent Latti spiraling even further away from the page Bodo and Yhelm were sharing.

"W--what?" she asked.

"You remember when I started dating Maddie?" Yhelm said. "How excited mom was about that."

"Oh!" went Latti, with a little purse of her lips. "Well, that was because Madrigal is a phanteasel. She was still angry even after--you know--after Maddie became--I suppose became any gender they want? Is that the way to say it? She wasn't angry that you were both girls then, so, why should it matter if Bodo and Latyzell are both boys?"

"Yeah she was upset Maddie was a phanteasel because that meant I couldn't give her grandkids. Well no she was upset I wouldn't be punished with motherhood like she felt like she was, but hey you know same diff."

Bodo nodded along seriously. "If she finds out I'm in a relationship that won't--go anywhere--I don't like saying it like that but that's how she'll say it."

"Yeah," Yhelm said, "and it isn't like you're in a hurry to give her grandkids either, Latti, so, you know. She finds out about this and it's all, oh I'm being betrayed, oh nooo, you know how she gets. Hey Bodo look at us on the same team isn't this weird?"

All Bodo gave her for that was an annoyed sigh, from way deep in the lungs. You know what she'd take it.

Food came out, in the wounded downtime of conversation. In proper Retlayn fashion there were no menus to pick this-or-that from. Food came in endless plates, a dozen varieties, in spicy curries and cream-thick pastes and teardrop shaped rice and crunchy flatbreads waiting to have all of the above piled on them. It was delicious. Afternoon Sale forgive them for taking family time somewhere else today.

"So how did you meet?" Latti asked the all-important question.

"Ah--as it becomes," Latyzell said. "I was troubled by immigration paperwork at the courthouse. Bodo helped me fill it out!"

"I was just doing my job," Bodo said. "Someone needed help. It was just." He said it with this little mixture of self-depreciation and embarassment. It was adorable. Look at Yhelm's little brother, the stupid little nerd.

Madrigal asked, "How long ago was that?" before sealing their lips shut with a particularly sticky mass of rice.

"Autumn?" Latyzell asked.

"Almost a year ago," Bodo agreed.

"Wow! Congrats!" were the words Maddie was probably trying to say over the food gluing their mouth shut.

Bodo's face flirted with appreciation but decided to turn the other way and go into a grumpy little frown. Well, that wasn't surprising. This was the first time Bodo'd interacted with either Maddie or Yhelm without shouting five minutes into things. This was impressive, honestly. If this was a sample of the influence Latyzell was going to have on her little brother, well, no worries there, then, huh?

"What brought you to the City of Love?" Yhelm asked.

"Ah! Family all came over from Upper Retlay. My mother and father are both now at an Argent temple employed."

"What do they do?" Latti asked.

"They are priests. I am a priest, too."

Woops some hunk of food caught in Yhelm's throat at that. She had to rush some spiced fruit drink down her mouth to clear it out, and Latti beat her to asking, "Oh! An actual propitiant?"

"Of which interpretation?" Yhelm managed to add.

"Mercy. By the Night-Eye's grace we are honored to heal the sick and harmed."

"Dang. Impressive." Yhelm pinged Maddie over their Love connection. ♥Imagine mom finding out Bodo is dating an actual holy-doctor only for him to be the wrong gender.♥

♥Your mother would find something wrong with him anyway,♥ Maddie sent back.

"I have a great love for Argent," Latyzell continued. "She has accepted such a, a burden, to be so many things to people. There are many gods to worship, but of all, Ardent-Argent become visible daily. No one does not know her, and so she must contain so much patience and understanding for every interpretation. Ato, so many do not even think of her, she does so much but it is, it is, inherited freely?" He looked between Bodo and Yhelm for help with the idiom.

"Fraitif absolt?" Yhelm asked. "Uh, taken for granted."

Bodo's face darkened again. "Where did you even learn Retlayn?"

"I told you, in the Cazirizahd." Bodo kept staring so Yhelm kept talking. "Upper Retlay has a really strong magic culture. There were a few foreign language courses they offered and Retlayn magic theory was the one I hated the least, so I thought, well, might as well go with that. It's dialectally not super diverged from dead-point pupil, either, there's been a lot of idiomatic usurpations but outside of that most of the basic vocabulary shares the same etymology. Grammar's mostly the same too, but the structure's more specific where you can put the verb and it declines by case like, half the time and knowing when is annoying but still."

"Also you were dating someone from Retlay there," Madrigal added.

"Right, I was also dating someone from Retlay, so it was an easy cheat."

Latyzell's ears were all perked up curiously behind his fuzzy antlers. "Magic? Are you a wizard?"

"I'm a licensed academage," Yhelm said.

"She's a criminal," Bodo said.

Ah, there it was. There it went. Now the mood of the table died. Latti paused, flatbread dripping golden curry-slime onto the plate below, mouth half-open, breath held. Madrigal was shaking their head and on a neck as long as theirs it really stood out as a point too. Yhelm just crossed her arms, the leather of her jacket squeaking in the newly born silence.

"What?" Bodo asked. "Do you think I'm not going to tell him? Do you think I'm going to just forget? What happened to that gaitsbird you were taking away the last time we saw you?"

"I'm not talking Guild business here."

Bodo snuffed, with a little angry nod of his head, as if to say, well, there you go! to Latyzell. "The Guilds are professional criminal organizations. They've been around for millenia like a bad mold no one can get rid of. And my sister and her partner work for them. They're criminals."

"Ah yes!" Latyzell agreed happily. "I did not want to perform assumptions but I saw your religious dress."

"Oh?" Yhelm said. There was a definite dissonance between Latyzell's excitement and Bodo's glowering and Yhelm was not going to make any guesses as to what it was about just yet.

"Do you worship Bad Boy?" Latyzell asked.

Yhelm choked a laugh that tried to squeeze its way out of her throat, but she caught it, gave it a good throttling and sent it right back down into her stomach. "I'm the only adversary in a family of freepeople. So, yeah."

Latyzell nodded in a good red satisfaction. "I thought so I thought so. The leather jacket is the religious dress of Bad Boy, ato you said you were a greenlight. You are both! Very exciting!"

If Yhelm was a heartless monster she might have relished the delicious look on Bodo's face, that ear-fold of near betrayal he had going on right this moment. "Lotter, she's a criminal, though. She does--she does crimes! Probably bad ones! My parents spent so much money on her education and instead of doing anything she--she became a criminal!"

Latyzell's smile lost its excitement but remained in place with a gentler understanding. "Ah, yes, yes. But when the Heirs made the world, they decreed, everyone should have a place. This city is oversaw by the Heir of Love and Indulgence, so what is better place? The gods provide a space for everyone to be themselves. Farit, those without a place, Bad Boy and Blessed Fiddle said, let things be soft, that those with the will can their own place make, where they can find none already existing. Those words were in the first spoken into the world as it awoke."

Bodo snorted, that sort of angry stag snort inherited from the beginning of the world, and he looked down at his food and pouted.

Yhelm sent a nudge to Maddie. ♥Haha, I mean, I really like this kid but I hope they don't break up right here at the table over me.♥

♥I don't think it's likely,♥ Maddie sent back.

♥Why not?♥

♥They aren't talking, but look at the mood of the table. Look at Latti. She looks stuck in the awkward silence, but you and I, we're talking non-verbally. Now look at Bodo and Latyzell.♥

Yhelm did risk a long look, and oh, oh no. Neither was talking but the silent shifts of weight, the inconsistant eye-contact, the rare bite of food, oh no.

♥They're talking right now aren't they?♥ Yhelm sent. ♥They're doing what we're doing.♥

♥Which means their relationship is strong enough they can communicate along the Love element,♥ Maddie sent. ♥I mean, I could be wrong and this might be the breaking point, but…♥

♥… but you don't get to talk in someone else's head unless the relationship's strong on both ends, yeah. Wow. It's weird to see my little brother like this, you know?♥

♥Growing up?♥

♥Who said he gets to be grown up he's my little brother. Shoot, hey, Maddie if he's becoming an adult then what am I? Am I old? Please tell me I'm not old.♥

♥You're younger than Lils, aren't you?♥

♥Fuck now that Belham's on-board with plan 'Get Lils Out Of The House' I gotta actually introduce you don't I?♥

♥I'd love to see Afternoon Sale figure out a coffee a half-dead can enjoy.♥

♥She'd DO it, too, don't even mess with her.♥

♥She can never know we came to this restaurant.♥

♥Meadoe preserve it.♥

"Yhelm," Bodo said. He was looking up at Yhelm, now, and Latyzell was, too, and they were doing it together, with this sense of Together, and even if he was a little shit sometimes it made Yhelm's heart swell to see the dumb kid had someone he could make a team with, you know? "Have you ever killed anyone."

The immediate adversary instinct was to give a dismissive, cheeky answer, but no, this was a serious moment, wasn't it? Bodo and Latyzell had come to some kind of conclusion in their heads, hadn't they? "I haven't killed anyone, Bodo."

"Have you ever--raped--"

"Apat-in-Flyhh, seriously?" Yhelm said, maybe a tad too loudly.

"And," Bodo kept on going, Latyzell was probably feeding him the lines, encouraging him on, Yhelm thought, "have you ever mugged anyone or stolen anything?"

Shit. "Guild actually takes exception to mugging," she said, diplomatically. "It is literally my job to beat the shit out of people who go around mugging tourists in our territory." Guild-sanctioned pick-pockets were a different story she wasn't going to mention. "If you're asking if I break into people's houses to steal their life savings, no, I don't steal shit either. If you're asking me--as family only, and not as a lawclerk? Under redlight that this isn't under redlight? If I've ever stolen anything?" Yhelm tapped a chunk of flatbread on the table. Tappa tappa tappa. "There are situations where appropriation of possessions are sanctioned Guild responses to those recalcitrant of Guild Laws."

"So you've--"

"Yes if some idiot is ignoring Guild rules and not listening to warnings I'll take their shit, the same as you do in the courthouse. Look if someone's under Guild Law then they're under Guild Law, it's a Law element it's not even an Authority issue we have actual rules--" she stopped because Bodo had that distracted look that meant Latyzell was probably talking to him in his head.

Bodo sighed. It was the most reluctant, pouty sigh Yhelm had ever heard but it was a sigh. "I'm never going to be proud of your career but I can let it go as long as you don't become a villain."

"Not gonna do anything Bad Boy wouldn't approve of," Yhelm offered.

Bodo took a long moment of thought, or maybe silent conversation with Latyzell. "Deal."

"Deal!" She gave Bodo a little thumbs-up, and shared it around with Latyzell and Latti too. Latti looked like she'd been holding her breath this entire time and just now finally relaxed enough to take another.

"… haven't you been dating Madrigal for over a decade?" Bodo asked sullenly, and with a sense of 'I just remembered one last thing' even though it was too late, they already said deal on it, they already said it!

"Yeah?"

"So were you cheating on them when you were dating a Retlayn in college--"

Yhelm couldn't stop this laugh, no this one made it all the way out and all over the table.

"It was pretty hot," Madrigal said, over her laughter. "When you two develop your relationship more, you'll be able to share senses too."

Bodo squeezed his ears and groaned. "Aaah! No, no thank you ew nevermind!"

Latti risked a smile. "Well, welcome to the family, then, Latyzell. This is what it is."

"I am very glad," Latyzell said, smiling again.

#autumn draws things #autumn writes things #series tag yhelm #yhelm 14 #fiction #fantasy writing #how do you tag shit on tumblr

[autumnbrambleagain]

Yhelm p9 - readmore for full

Drizzle hadn't left Flyhhnemonia yet. This was day eleven of constant rain.

Rumors had it she'd gotten into a tiff with another god--most said Solid--and was hiding behind Flyhh until the fight was over. Others were saying she'd fallen in love with a mortal, who'd finally died, and she was taking comfort with the Heir of Love. Whatever the truth was, it was day eleven of her stay in Flyhhnemonia, and day eleven of constant rain. The Guild of Porters and Fishermen were already busy enough keeping things from washing away. Yhelm had to help dig a literal ditch last night to help with the run-off.

And now some idiot had gone and gotten herself arrested and now it was Yhelm's problem. Which was fun.

She was currently dripping in the entrance hall of the Cabdrydal courthouse. The ceiling was tall and arched, each marble beam decorated with little iron-work statues Yhelm couldn't even make out from all the way down here on the ground. But each drop of water from her soaked-through tail onto the colorful tiled floors echoed far deep back into the building and it made her feel just a bit self-conscious.

"Umbrella didn't do you much good did it?"

There was an adversary sitting at a little booth off to the side of the entrance. Of course Yhelm's umbrella wasn't going to protect her from the rain--using a narrative reassignment to turn umbrella into sword meant sword couldn't keep you dry. "I don't see why it should," Yhelm said. "I had to swim half the way here."

The security-dog laughed, but he also stood up and stepped out of the booth. "You ask me, Drizzle needs a good, hard dicking."

"Wow," Yhelm said. "In times like this, the world mourns our lost Apat."

The security-adversary checked Yhelm over for weapons, and found none, because her umbrella was a weapon but only for her, and so she was let through. At the end of the hall was a tall, rounded wooden desk, a single contiguous piece at least twenty feet long, very impressive and very expensive. Two clerks were seated there, their pen-scratchings echoing out into the vast cavern that separated them from Yhelm.

Hopefully one wasn't her little brother?

She started the long walk over. Why was it so long? Was it to facilitate lines? There were benches along the sides of the entranceway, and more statuework lining the walls. And there, hanging from the ceiling on heavy wires, a great iron-cast statue of Cabdrydal herself, some winged breacher lawyer of ages past. She was kinda hot. Yhelm wondered who would be in blamed the day the wires inevitably broke and the statue fell and crushed some poor person. Maybe it'd be a criminal and everyone would say Cabdrydal got one more.

She decided to not walk directly under it.

And. Well. Fuck.

The desk was divided into several booths for several lines, but Yhelm was the only person here. There were two clerks here, and that mean she could have her choice of which one she wanted, and one of them was some freeperson she'd never met, and the other was her little brother. Fuck. It'd be worse to go to the other one and ignore him, right? It would probably be worse.

"Heyyyyy baby brother," Yhelm purred.

Bodo looked up. There was a split-second of recognition in his face where he saw her as his sister first and that was a real nice second and after that he caught up to his own opinion on her and now he was looking at a criminal, a disappointment to the family. "How can I--what do you want, Yhelm."

Fine we can be business like Yhelm couldn't do business she was here for business. "A gaitsbird was arrested last night for assault and public what-have-yous."

"I'm not at liberty to discuss any on-going--"

"Yeah that's nice," Yhelm interrupted, and she clacked her umbrella-tip on the tiled floor and it echoed a good long second. She could be shitty to family too watch her go. "This is a Guild issue and I'm here to take her into our custody."

A demented smile broke over Bodo's face and even his coworker stopped and looked over in concern. "Haha. Hah! And you really think I'm just going to let a criminal go free because you asked nicely? Really?"

Yhelm sighed. "No, you're going to entrust the criminal into our custody so we can punish her by Guild laws."

"Guild laws!" Bodo looked over at his coworker. "Do you hear this? Criminal laws. Criminal courts. She wants me to believe that!"

Yhelm glared at the coworker. He'd obviously been working here much longer, because he said, carefully, "Ah, s’ent, I can send for the lawizard on duty for you?"

Bodo's face fell. Yhelm just smiled thinly. "Yes. That would be appreciated."

The clerk turned to what Yhelm had assumed was another sculpture, set up behind the desk, but oh, those great brass tubes were some kind of… instrument? Giant bells? The other clerk picked up a padded hammer and struck a few with slow, deliberate gongs. Everyone's ears flinched at it. Clearly no one liked this.

"The lawizard on duty will be with you as soon as he can, s'ent," the clerk said. "You can have a seat while you wait if you like."

Bodo huffed. "She's a criminal, we shouldn't be giving her what she wants."

"Dude, it's not our call," the freeperson said.

They slowly turned back to their work. Yhelm didn't sit. She stood right where she was dripping. "So," she tried. "How long do you have until you become a lawizard?"

Bodo's pen stopped scratching. "I'm at work, Yhelm."

"So am I."

"No, no you are not."

"Pfft. My boss told me to do this it’s work."

Bodo's coworker looked up from his paperwork with a sort of 'what is going on' expression.

"He's my brother," Yhelm whispered, which, no, whispers didn't work in this oversized hall they just echoed as loud as anything else.

Bodo didn't take the bait and the coworker went back to his work with a sort of 'wow okay not my business' expression. Yhelm contented herself to stand there right next to her baby brother and drip all over his floor. Bodo did an amazing job of ignoring her, though. It was sad. They used to get along really well? He'd been so happy when she'd come back home from the Cazirizahd. Of course now he resented her for it. That was neat. That. Was. Neat.

The lawizard finally arrived. Try not to laugh but he was an honest to goodness meadow deer. Tall antlers and red tie and black jacket and nothing else. The absolute stereotype. Yhelm was an adversary criminal, though. Meadoe wasn't a very original writer, Yhelm considered.

"Ah?" he announced into the room.

Bodo stood up--was he standing on his chair? He was kind of short. Or was there just a platform there for height-challenged races back there anyway? "Ah, Prim'ent Apples. This uh, adversary wanted to speak to you about a recent arrest." Look at him go, all business when the game was on. Yhelm was proud of the little bastard. He wasn't actually a bastard she was technically a bastard but like whatever.

The lawizard swung his head back to Yhelm.

"Dentsiles," she said. "I'm Guild of Porters and Fishermen. You have a gaitsbird, Lastsong, in your lock-up. She started a fight in a Guild of Brick Layers and Ditch Diggers bar and stabbed a Guild of Lamp Lighters and Wood Cutters member most-of-the-way-to-death. Which sounds like the lead-up to a joke but the punchline is she's in a lot of trouble."

"Ah, ah," the lawizard smiled. "We expected you much earlier you know. We almost had to start process on her ourselves."

"Yeah well so long as Drizzle keeps crying gopaf has our hands full keeping the docks from flooding out. I'm running on three hours of sleep." Which was normal for her, but don't tell anyone that.

The lawizard nodded and Yhelm had to take a step back to not get stabbed by his rack. Apat preserve he was actually kind of handsome. What deer didn't look good in a suit though? That was cheating, God was a deer in a suit, of course it was a good look. "I don't envy her," he said. "I need to confirm you before I can hand her over."

"Yep."

Red lights of Law sprang to life from the lawizard’s very body, twisting into a picture-frame that settled in front of Yhelm's face. The color bled and spilled out into neatly-written words floating mid-air, within biting distance. Someday Yhelm was going to bite a Law construct. "All right, S'ent Machato--hah! Machato! I wonder if there's any relation to our own S'ent Machato behind the desk there!"

The lawizard smiled but Bodo just looked up miserably.

"He's my brother," Yhelm said.

"Oh. Oh! Really! What wild things life holds for us all. I hope you two can still get along?"

"Of course," Yhelm said, and Bodo sat up like he wanted to say something but probably not in front of his boss. "We good though?"

"You check out," the lawizard said, dismissing the inquiry spell. "I'll go grab S'ent Lastsong and transfer custody."

"Wait!" It was Bodo, now fully standing on top of his seat, Yhelm could see it he was actually standing on it. "Wait, you're actually handing a criminal over to criminals?"

Bodo's coworker was giving him a look like 'holy shit dude stop' but he didn't say anything.

"Isn't that a bit of a rude thing to say to your sister? She hasn't been accused of anything. If she had been I would have seen it when I did the inquiry, you know."

"No--but--wait--I don't understand." Bodo was now scrambling over the desk to join them on the floor. Adorable. He was basically still twelve years old in Yhelm's head. "I'm sorry, Prim'ent, but, I don't understand how this is legal? Isn't it our duty to, to put her on trial and punish her for her crimes?" The way he was saying that, Yhelm thought, he was probably talking about Lastsong but she could feel an argument could be made he was talking about Yhelm herself. She wondered if Bodo realized that.

But the lawizard was just chuckling. "I'm sorry, S'ent Machato, he--well I don't have to apologize for your own brother do I? No, Bodo, the Guilds have a Legal Authority in their own prescribed jurisdictions, and their jurisdiction takes full precedence over ours here. Don't imagine she's getting off free. She'd probably prefer to be tried by us?"

"Ooh yeah," Yhelm agreed. "You'd put her in jail or proscribe behaviors or something right? Oooour boss is probably just gonna. I don't know. Break her arms? Pull out her teeth? I dunno. Criminal stuff." She winked at Bodo.

"This--this is Legal," Bodo said, dumbstruck. "This is actually Legal-legal?"

"Don't like, hold this against him," Yhelm said, gesturing to All Of Bodo. "He's still upset I used my college education to become a guild academage instead of, I don't know. Sitting in a tower writing self-congratulatory essays all day? What do wizards do. This apparently I'm a wizard and this is what this wizard is doing right now."

The lawizard was smiling but also clearly running out of patience. "If you'll excuse me then," he said, and he left Yhelm and Bodo there to deal with one another while he got Lastsong. Except Bodo just stood there staring up at her in confusion, and Yhelm just stared down at him with a little bit more smug satisfaction than she'd have liked but it wasn't like she could help every feeling she had all the time.

"I had hoped you wouldn't be working today," she finally said. "Like. I don't want to actually cause problems for you."

"You're doing a good job of it," Bodo huffed. "I, I just." He looked down at his wrist and little lines of Law flowed from his fingers and wrapped into a red wristwatch. "I have ten minutes before I'm done for the day anyway. Let me finish up my work."

"Wanna escort the prisoner with me?" Yhelm offered.

"No," Bodo said, clambering back over the desk and into his seat, "I want you to be gone before it's time for me to leave."

She'd tried. No one could blame her for trying, Yhelm thought.

Finally Lawizard Apples returned, leading a yellow gaitsbird on chains of Law. As custody was officially transferred--wow okay now the chains were on Yhelm's wrist and they felt really weird and warm--Bodo apparently finished up his work and he was already speeding down the hallway to the exit without even a goodbye to Yhelm. Sort of rude, but okay. Whatever.

"So like if she runs does this give me the power to like, do something to her?" Yhelm asked, holding up her end of the chain.

"Yhelm I swear to Aiax I'm not going to run!" Lastsong said, and everyone braced themselves because she'd done the dumbest thing and swore to Aiax and yep here was the sudden rush of pressure constricting everyone's chests and the light in the room for just a moment was blindingly red as the Heir of Law took special interest in the situation to make sure the oath was fulfilled. Yhelm snarled and bopped Lastsong on the head. Not especially gently.

The lawizard laughed. "I don't think that's going to be a problem now. Is Bodo already gone? Lucan? Did he already leave? I wanted to have a talk with him."

"Hey," Yhelm said. "Really don't hold it against him. Mom never let it go that I became a gangster-wizard and now all of the family's disappointments are his to fix. He does good work when I'm not here, right?"

"All the same," Lawizard Apples said. "Nice meeting you, S'ent Machato."

"Yup," Yhelm said. She gave an experimental tug on Lastsong's chain and the poor thing stumbled. "Seriously Song I can't get over how bad you fucked up why did you stab him?"

Yhelm started into a walk and Lastsong hopped to keep up. "We--Yhelm we were playing cards, okay, and--"

"And he cheated?"

"N-no. He. He was winning. A lot. So."

Gaitsbirds, Yhelm sighed. She was sure somewhere Bodo was sighing and thinking the same thing about adversaries, though. It didn't matter she had a job to do and even if Lastsong was a workplace friend Yhelm was an enforcer and she had to actually look intimidating when someone was in trouble and she could do that pretty well at least. She gave a nod to the adversary at the door and then they were back out into the rain.

Bodo was still here. Out in the rain, by the statue of Aiax. There was another freeperson with him, young looking, tall and in patterned clothes that weren't native and they were talking. Yhelm really, really didn't actually want to interfere in her little brother's life and she was literally in the middle of a job but she still slowed down to make sure things were cool and that's when the tall freeperson hugged Bodo?

Huh. "Huh," Yhelm said, not realizing she'd stopped walking.

Bodo spun around and his loafers couldn't make angry stomps like hooves could but they splashed at the puddles and got his pants even more wet all the same. "Yhelm! Are--can you--can you just leave!?"

"Yeah it took a bit to get--" Yhelm rattled the Law chains but they didn't rattle. Lastsong swung her arms to keep up with the movements. "This sorted out. Not even a good-bye for me? And I think your boss was kinda upset with you."

The tall freeperson, his hands holding themselves in front of his lap and trying to make himself look small despite being taller than Yhelm, whispered, "Lottle, war saet dar?"

Haha holy shit. And here was Yhelm in the pouring rain looking intimidating with her fucking leather jacket and umbrella that was secretly a sword, holding a gaistbird by a set of chains, staring down poor Bodo and this poor--poor fucking soul was here having no idea what he'd just gotten himself into.

"Ehs sesster," Yhelm answered, before Bodo could find the words himself. Holy shit. "Arest dayr et loozah at myrs bretter?"

The freeperson stammered. "Ah--sait."

Bodo sputtered. "How--how, how do you know, where did you even learn--"

"I went to magic fucking college, Bodo," Yhelm said. "Do you know how many theses come out of Upper Retlay? Traverse's sake I soft-dated a Retlayn while I was there. So."

Yhelm had intended to have a dramatic pause, but Lastsong whimpered, "It's, it's raining all over us can we not be standing out here please? I'm getting soaked…" Everyone ignored it, though, and Lastsong just warbled miserably to herself.

"… so. Do you want to introduce me to your boyfriend?" Yhelm asked.

Bodo groaned. "Yhelm this is Latyzell, Latyzell this is my sister Yhelm, okay, that's fine, we're done here?"

Latyzell leaned in again and whispered to Bodo, "Why are we angry?"

"It's--a family thing," Bodo huffed.

Don't be an adversary don't be an adversary don't be an adversary, "Does mom give you guff for being in a non-productive relationship?" fuck she fucked it up.

Bodo didn't answer right away, which was actually an answer.

"Oh no," Yhelm said. "Oh you haven't told her yet. Because you grew up seeing how much she hated me dating a phanteasel."

Bodo stared. Yhelm stared back.

Latyzell and Lastsong watched on helplessly, the rain pounding at their shoulders and heads. Roped in to a sibling-stare-down, prisoners to a conflict no one wanted to actually be a part of, especially the siblings forced to carry it out.

Bodo blinked first. "Don't tell her."

"She won't talk to me. And fuck her anyway. Mom can go up to Princess Flyhh and complain and see how far that gets her. You two look cute together. Don't let her ruin it for you."

Bodo huffed.

"Bring him next time we do coffee. We can welcome him into the family when we aren't standing out in the middle of a rainstorm."

"N--next time," Bodo started, but Yhelm didn't give him the chance to get around to declining.

"The forty-third. We'll see you then, kid. Latyzell, al mat myr svitch darit. Groop dayr carr ruber myrs bretter. C'mon Song."

Yhelm tugged Lastsong with her and started off, hooves splashing on the soaked stone walk. Behind her, Bodo stammered. "Wait--wait what did she say that was too fast for me to get it?" Yhelm glanced back just enough to see Latyzell kiss Bodo's forehead in answer. Freaking adorable.

"Your family's kind of messed up?" Lastsong offered.

"Haha yeah," Yhelm said, "you almost killed another guild, Song, you are so screwed."

"I knoooow! He was winning though!" she whined. "Do, do we have to go right to Prim'ent Pio? Can, can we get like, can we stop by Alzzard's Curry first? You know? Like a last meal? Before he plucks and cooks me?"

"Yeah that's fine, I could eat," Yhelm agreed. "Just a little bit though. I don't want to spoil my appetite. I hear we're having roast gaitsbird tonight?"

"Yheeeeeeelm that isn't funny! We're friends pleeaase!"

"Yeah but I'm not your friend when I'm working," Yhelm said. "What kind of sauce do you think you'd go best in?"

"Aaahahaaa someone save meeee!"

#autumn writes things #autumn draws things #series tag yhelm #yhelm 9 #fiction #writing #furry art #? #i don't know how to tag this so more than 3 people ever see it #i've been off tumblr too long

[autumnbrambleagain]

Yhelm P3 - readmore for full

"Let me guess… you… prefer it sweet but drink it as bitter as you can because it gives you a weird satisfaction in not giving yourself what you want!"

The tall, lace-decorated knicknack (Afternoon Sale) had sat down across from Yhelm with no warning and now this was happening.

"It, uh," Yhelm stuttered.

"Nononono," Afternoon Sale said. She leaned all the way across the table and took one of Yhelm's paws in her long, dainty, cotton fingers. "Not just black. One drop of smoke. Greant's wood. Yes? No. Two drops."

"Uhm, yes. Yes, that sounds, fine," Yhelm said. "Is this how you take everyone's orders?"

Afternoon Sale nodded very seriously, and stood up to make a better show of it. "Oh yes. Oh yes! Tell me, when you see a doctor, or physician, do you have them prescribe the treatment? Or do they look at you, and nod, and rub their faces, and say, ah, ah, here is the issue, and then they fill you with the tonics they pick out? When you go to a tailor, do you say, make my shirt such-a-size, or do they bring out the measuring tape, and say, ah, here are your dimensions?"

Yhelm hated, just, hated it when knicknack logic made sense.

"Maybe in an outdoor coffee cart, rolled around the ditches of the out-city, oh there you can pick your coffee! There you can get what drugs you like, too, and clothes in whatever poor fit your Traverse-abandoned mind thinks wise, but oh, oh this is a proper establishment! Am I not the picture of metropolitan style?"

There was nothing Yhelm could to do stop Afternoon Sale from raising her thin arms and twirling, sending the countless lace layers sewn into her body flaring and fluttering. It was midday but the windows in the place were thin and let in more air than light, and what light it allowed entered in long, golden spotlights that cast Afternoon Sale's shadows dancing behind her in complement. She had to have had practiced this.

"I've certainly seen knicknacks worse stitched," Yhelm said. If you play along, it usually goes faster. Or drags out forever. She wasn't sure. Honestly just not sure.

"So it is!" Afternoon Sale said, still twirling on her narrow little feet. "Is this cafe not the symbol of Flyhhnemonia's delights? Do you not marvel at my summer-killer?" She stopped without any regard for dizziness and pointed dramatically.

The dark cafe was an utterly chaotic place. A dozen small private nooks were built off of the main room, little half-things just big enough for undersized tables and backless chairs to squeeze out of the way. That's where Yhelm had sat, hoping to get some kind of privacy. The main floor had the bigger tables, the bigger chairs, but at the very center, fenced off by itself behind wooden railings, was a tall, wooden box.

It was definitely some kind of permanent ritual-piece. It was the height of summer but the entire room had a late-spring coolness to it, and the closer to the box Yhelm had walked, the colder it had been. "Well. I've seen things like it before," Yhelm started, "but that is how I know it is an especially good one."

"Yes! Yes so you see. In this place where I rule, it is I who make the orders, and you who receive them. Is it any different in the Princess' court? I feel like you understand, S'ent, and so you must swear to Aiax to become a regular customer this very instant!"

Yhelm frowned. "I haven't even tasted the coffee yet."

Afternoon Sale pointed at Yhelm very seriously and nodded. She skipped and twirled through the maze of tables and towards the bar. One of the few other customers--a shaved sgnowme hunched over in a seat far-too-small--gave her a little smile of sympathy from across the room. Yhelm raised her eyebrows and tilted her head at the knicknack, as if to say, is it always like this? The sgnowme shrugged, picked up its cup with its oversized hooves, took a sip, and shrugged again, smiling, as if to say, hey, the coffee is good at least!

Yhelm looked out her narrow slit of a window. There wasn't much to see. Even people watching was hard with how slim a view of the outside she got. It was better than inviting the knicknack back to the table through idleness. Hopefully Latti would show up soon. Hopefully she'd show up before the knicknack was finished making her drink. Oh Meadoe be kind.

Wait, reading. She could be reading. Afternoon Sale would never be rude enough to interrupt her reading! Yhelm unclasped her spellbook from her belt and opened it to a random thesis. It never hurt to refresh the memory of a spell, anyway. Let's see let's see. Oh, here was Examinations on the Conservation of Detail in Changes to Objects, Such that Small Changes may be Reverted (EXCODJECT). She had forgotten one of the proofs the writer had made in it. Where was the paragraph--here, the one where he started writing about sofas for half a page.

"Ah, what are we reading?" Afternoon Sale was back, now with a steaming mug in her hands. She was leaning over, trying to get a look over Yhelm's shoulder at the book, which was impossible, since the nook was so small the wall was directly behind Yhelm. The knicknack’s head just smushed on the wall and stared directly down at Yhelm’s crown.

"Thesis magic," Yhelm said. "Thank you for the coffee," she added, hopefully.

"Oh, are you an academage?" the knicknack whistled. "My my s'ent, that explains the smoke in your coffee, that explains it right there! Just goes to show the skill in my profession, don't you know?"

"Thank you," Yhelm said, again, this time raising her paw to take the cup.

Afternoon Sale didn't give up so easily. "You know, we have all sorts of biscuits, too, all made today. But something told me you didn't want that… not yet… no, you… you… you're waiting for something…"

"I'm waiting for my coffee," Yhelm tried.

"No, that's already here, see?" Afternoon Sale said, holding the cup even further out of Yhelm's reach. "No you are… you're meeting someone, aren't you!"

The cafe door opened and a sudden rush of summer heat rolled across everything, carrying the awful, sweaty, tingly feeling of outside with it. A free person hurried inside and closed the door behind her. She was a smooth coffee color, glasses highlighting blue eyes, a summer dress to match. She came in on all fours, but stood up on her hindlegs as soon as the door was shut.

"Latti!" Afternoon Sale called out. She abandoned Yhelm's coffee on the table and went shuffling over to greet her new guest. "What an odd time for you, welcome, welcome."

"Dentsile," Latti said. "I'm--"

"--meeting someone!" Afternoon Sale said with a little hop. "Ah, I've figured it out now, I've surely got it. You are meeting that dark colored adversary in the corner there, I know that you are, aren't you!"

Yhelm waved grimly from her nook. "Hey."

Latti smiled and tried to walk on over, but Afternoon Sale put herself directly in the way.

"I have deduced it, impeccable logic," the knicknack bragged. "A new customer and a repeat customer at an odd time, why what else could it mean," and Latti didn't bother to wait for any more of that before she hopped right up onto the table next to them, and got around Afternoon Sale that way. The knicknack followed after her babbling the whole time, but Latti did, at least, make it all the way over to Yhelm and even managed to sit down across from her.

"This is where you wanted to meet," Yhelm said.

"It's very good coffee," Latti said sheepishly. "And Afternoon isn't so bad once you're used to her."

Afternoon Sale was looming over the two of them, smiling her perpetual smile, and Yhelm decided that she was never going to allow herself to become used to this sort of service. "Latti! You will have your usual two-cream three-sugar Palleste-crystal cup with your two biscuits one-a-blueberry-soft and one-a-raspberry-filling and you also want… oh let me see… flakey eye-pastry, with butter, for your guest, who is, ah, ah, let me diagnose, let me diagnose! Your. Sister! No. No! Half-sister! Oh, mysterious!"

Yhelm and Latti both grimaced. "That'll be fine, Afternoon," Latti said. "A little bit of privacy, too, if you don't mind?"

"Only, only because I diagnose it as the necessary complement to your afternoon coffee," Afternoon Sale agreed. Thankfully, thankfully, she wandered back off into the cafe, leaving Yhelm and Latti alone. Finally.

And wow, look at Latti. In this light, she was starting to look so much like mom. The exact same feather-shaped ears, the way her neck grew gracefully from the blue summerdress. Yhelm couldn't see a single hint of gray fur on her, a single crease or discoloration in the cream rings around her mouth or eyes, though. How long had it been since she'd spoken to mom? Had mom aged as smoothly? This was a good start, at least? This was a good start.

It wasn't a good thing to focus on, anyway. To focus on how Latti and Bodo looked so much alike, how they both looked so much like mom and dad.

How Yhelm, her dark, wood colored fur, her deep red eyes, her fluffy ears, her long wedge face full of endless teeth, how Yhelm looked so little like anyone else in the family.

Half. Sister.

Yhelm sighed through her teeth. "You look good. I didn't get to say, when we met at the gambling-loop. But you look good."

"Thank you! You've really filled out, haven't you? Look at your arms, Yhelm, you look so strong now. Remember when you were little? You were the skinniest little thing, just, bones and fluff. Ah, look at you."

"Yeah. Yeah. How've you been? Are you still with Fairday?"

Latti smiled that very specific smile that is not a smile. "We aren't together anymore."

"Oh," Yhelm said. Was it bad, was it especially bad, if her first thought was pride? Pride that she and Madrigal were still a couple, despite all the things mother had said about them, that she and Madrigal were still together, but family-favorite Fairday was gone? Was it that bad? "What happened?"

"Well. What's the polite way to say it. He went from being a citizen of Flyhh to being a citizen of Apat-in-Flyhh."

"Oh. Oh dear."

"Mmm, it's not that I would have minded if he was, wandering afield. But when you come home and find two… sex-cultivar… prostitutes? In your bed? With your husband? And then he's the one angry at you?"

"Oh. Like, in your apartment? In the apartment you own and paid for?" Yhelm took a sip of her coffee. Oh. Oh no. Oh no, this was really, really good coffee. There was just a hint of smokey richness that balanced out the hard bitter burn. Oh no. Yhelm would have to become a regular here, wouldn't she?

"I was finding the whores' leaves in the bedroom for a week after I kicked him out."

"Yikes. Sorry, Latti. Do you have anyone else now?"

"No, no. I don't want to go back into a relationship just because I became used to it. There's a few people I was, considering? But, uh. The cliches exist for a reason, I've been learning to love myself."

Yhelm snorted.

"Not like that!"

"Swear to Aiax?"

"Oh you have not changed an inch Yhelm. Are you and Madrigal still together?"

Oh hey, she remembered their name. "Of course. We're sharing a place near the coast."

"Right, you work in the uh. What, uhm." Latti looked around the room conspiratorially. "What is your actual, job, now?"

"We do odd jobs."

"… odd jobs. Odd jobs. Yhelm. Like being a bouncer at a racing-loop. Like being a tough at a gambling den. Yhelm."

And here came Afternoon Sale again, this time with a wooden tray balanced at the very tip of one of her long fingers. Thankfully, oh thankfully she didn't stay to chat. She left it on the table and went off again. The creamier, sweeter smell of Latti's coffee mixed in the nook with the burnt, smokey flavor of Yhelm's. It made Yhelm a bit sad. She wasn’t sure why.

"The eye-pastry is yours," Latti said, taking a tiny sip of her coffee. "I'm not going to force you to tell me anything, Yhelm, but. I'd like to know what my little sister is up to? Do I get to know that? We haven't seen you in years."

Yhelm stared at the black surface of her coffee. "Uggggh. I'm Guild of Porters and Fishermen."

"Oh," Latti said, very quietly. "Uhm. So you work with uhm. Fish--"

"It's how things work, Latti," Yhelm said firmly. "I'm not, a thief or whatever you imagine. This is how the out-city works. The out-city has too many people, the city can't keep it under control, so, you get the guilds. They're what keep the order. I'm not a criminal." At least not a petty criminal.

Latti nodded. She nodded again, threw another one out there, just to be safe. She took a bite of her blueberry biscuit, too. Washed it down with some coffee. "So. Uhm. How is that. Going for. You."

"Guild academages are rare. It's, it's good. It's fine."

Somehow the eye-pastry was as good as the coffee. Oh no, it complimented the coffee with a sweeter flavor that was a relief to the harsher notes of the drink. Oh no. It was so bad when a knicknack was right.

"That's really what you're doing with it," Latti said.

Yhelm looked up from her plate. "Doing with what." If Latti wanted to do this, she could say it, say it with her own mouth and see how much she liked the taste of it. It probably wasn't as good as the coffee. This coffee was so good.

"I mean. You know mom spent a lot of money to send you to the--"

"If she wants me to pay her back--"

"It's not about the money--"

"Then I don't see the problem."

"How could you waste it!"

There it was.

"You, you got a chance no one else in the family got. I, I would have loved to go to the Cazirizahd! You had a gift, Yhelm, you have this, wonderful gift, and you got the opportunity to use it, and you threw it all away."

Yhelm leaned back into her seat. It was tight enough she could prop her elbow on the table, and lean her face on her paw. Settle in for the long haul. Here it came.

Latti was almost standing up out of her seat at this point too. She got like that when she was upset. She never noticed. A part of Yhelm thought, it was still adorable. Context aside. "They put, more love and care into you than the rest of us, they saved up so, so much money! And send you overseas to learn! And then you come back to, to, to, to go play at being a criminal. Meadoe's sake, Yhelm, you're throwing all of their love away so you can go be, go be an adversary!"

She was trembling now and standing fully, her ears twitching and flickering and her eyes wet. Yes, Yhelm told herself. This is exactly why you don't talk to family anymore. "Are you done?" she asked.

"Can you just--"

"Then it's my turn," Yhelm said, sharply, not moving from her recline. Cheek still on her paw. That was how you won these things. By being the only calm person in a family of dramatics. "I showed. A passing interest. In magic. And mother and father jumped at that, and decided that was my destiny. They insisted I went to Cazzhad. They insisted I become an academage. I wrote them so many letters begging to come home. I hated it. Latti. I. Hated. It."

"How could you hate, how could you hate an actual chance to become a wizard? To, to be--"

"I did not," Yhelm said, and her voice was getting a bit more loud and she wasn't sure if she could stop that, "I did not ask for it. I never wanted the pressure of having to do so good it made up for mom being raped."

There it was. Latti was staring, because it was a topic they had spoken on, once, ever, when Yhelm was just old enough to understand. They had spoken about once why Yhelm was different, and then it had gone back to being a taboo, and everyone had gone back to pretending it hadn’t happened. There it was, out and alive again. There was no taking any of it back now, so, there was no reason to stop there, either.

"I didn't ask to exist. I never wanted to have to spend my entire life, justifying my right to exist. They gave me more attention, spent all that money on me? Because they wanted it to be okay. They wanted to be able to look at me and not feel disgust and shame. They wanted me to do so well they could be proud I was their child. But like you said, Latti. I am an adversary. And I am not going to spend my life making up for a crime that isn't even mine."

Latti sat down, slowly, with her elbows on the table too, and her face hidden behind her eyes. There was such an awful tension in the little nook right now. Yhelm risked a look for Afternoon Sale. She was sitting at another table, telling--probably terrible--jokes to two other customers. She was being just loud enough no one noticed their fight. Wow. This really was a good cafe.

"They do love you," Latti finally managed to say.

Yhelm took another sip of coffee before anything else. "No. They don't. They wanted to. I know what Love feels like. Their end never solidified. You're eight years older than me, you were going to be their one and only child. Then I'm forced into the picture, and they tried to feel something for me, and when it became clear they were never going to, they gave up and had another child that's both of theirs, and that one they can love. I'm not dumb. Bodo was their do-over. They couldn’t stand their last child being a rape child, so they went and made a better one to make up for it."

That went and truly killed it. This was over. Either mouth only opened for coffee and bread. Afternoon Sale continued to dance and weave from customer to customer. A trio of victims with matching blue jelly bodies came in, claimed a table near the center of the cafe, and Afternoon Sale loudly asked to buy one of their ears to make a sweet tea. A bird nomad that had been hiding in the corner finished his business and left. The sgnowme that had gestured with Yhelm earlier stood up to leave, got their oversized body stuck on the table, and toppled onto the floor with a crash.

"Oh no," the sgnowme groaned. "Oops. Oops, oh no. Oh no."

"Ah! You clumsy fool!" Afternoon Sale hopped from table to table to reach the scene of the disaster faster. The table and chair were flipped over, and a coffee mug and two plates were scattered in pieces on the floor. "This isn't Solid's week, you aren't supposed to break the tablewear yet!"

"I got stuck in the chair. I'm still stuck in the chair!"

"Oh S'ent you fool! You Jaycene! Here! Let me get you up!"

Yhelm and Latti shared a glance with one another.

"I'm probably going to start giggling at this," Latti warned. "I think the things you said were, honestly, probably right. They were right, and I don't like that. And I don't want you to feel like I'm not taking it seriously. But."

"No, it's fine," Yhelm said. "You can laugh. Should we be helping?"

"I think she's got it? Afternoon Sale's pretty strong--"

Out popped the sgnowme from their chair and back flew Afternoon Sale into the table behind her.

"Okay no let's help," Latti agreed.

She helped the sngowme to their feet and righted the table, while Yhelm helped Afternoon Sale set the table and chairs she'd barreled over. It took just a few seconds, and all that was left were the ceramic shards on the floor. The trio of victims applauded politely.

"Is this normal, for this place?" Yhelm asked.

"Of course not!" Afternoon Sale said while Latti nodded seriously behind her back.

"Delightful. Does anyone have a cloth for the plates?"

"What we need is a broom, and a reminder to myself that from this moment onwards, dear S'ent Uligard will be exclusively using metal tablewear."

Yhelm was already using her hoof to push all the broken bits together. "Latti, do you have a cloth? A handkerchief or something?"

"I want it back?" she asked, passing over a white and blue checkered thing, with her initials monogrammed onto it too. Yhelm dropped it on the floor over the shards. "I actually want it back right now if you're just going to throw it on the floor?"

Yhelm ignored Latti for a moment. She ignored Afternoon Sale and Uligard the sgnowme and the smells of coffee and the coolness of the air and focused on the fact that something could be lost for years and show up suddenly beneath a couch completely unharmed, even if you'd already looked there, which only goes to show that when you're not able to see something--"Excodject."

The handkerchief gave a startle and a sudden pressure change made everyone but Yhelm wobble backwards in the shock of it.

"You're welcome," Yhelm said, returning to her seat. This was something Madrigal had taught her as siblings of the same element. Never pass up an opportunity to Style on people.

Latti picked her handkerchief back up. "Oh no way Yhelm."

Yhelm made a point of not looking at the mug and plates that were sitting on the floor, fine as could be, as if nothing had ever happened to them, because she'd decided they hadn't. She drank the last dregs of her coffee instead. She was actually stoked. Her heart was pounding. Excodject wasn't normally able to restore damage that severe, but that she'd pulled it off so Stylishly had given it the extra push. That was the adversary advantage. So long as she made it look cool she could do so much more. It was an advantage. She was proud of it.

It didn't matter why she was born an adversary. She liked it. She was proud. No one could tell her not to be proud.

"You have a plate-fixing spell!" Afternoon Sale shouted. "You will be my employee."

"I just want the bill," Yhelm said.

"No, as an employee you are entitled to a payment, not a debt."

"But as a customer, I still deserve my debt." Yhelm looked over at Afternoon. She kept her posture loose and lazy. It was the ultimate Style trick of not looking like you cared about anything despite your insides being red hot and full of everything and it was all bursting to explode constantly. "You don't give me my bill as a customer, then you can't be trusted to give me my pay as an employee, so if you don't charge me you can never pay me. If you never pay me, then I can never fix plates for you. The plates are already fixed, so you have to give me my bill. That's just how it is."

"That's cotton logic, that," Afternoon Sale agreed. "I'll be just a moment."

Latti slipped back into her seat. "You have a plate fixing spell, though. Really?"

"It's not just for plates. And a spell isn't kept just for its practical effects. Each spell is a literary essay on reality, you don't just read a spell to learn that spell, you read that spell so you can get a greater academic context. Like, look, that spell, that spell is actually a commentary on one section of an older spell, so when you get a good grip on that spell, the other spell makes a bit more sense, too. So they're not just essays on reality, they're essays on essays on reality, and, you're smiling."

"I don't want to be, you know, mean? But look at you. You like being an academage."

"Uuuugh I like being an academage but I hate other academages. They're all, the worst kind of people? They're so, so important? Latti honestly have you ever even spoken to a lamplighter?"

Latti ran a clawtip around the rim of her mug. "I don't want to be racist."

Yhelm leaned in. "Have you ever actually sat down and talked with a lamplighter?"

"Yes. Yes! Okay. Okay. Point taken. I'm sure there are lamplighters that aren't, like that?"

Afternoon Sale twirled back to the table with a little chalkboard in her grip. "Sooo that was. Two coffee, bespoke, crafted by a coffee expert, the veritable successor god of coffees, in fact, and I dare either of you to dispute my divinity in the field."

She was looking right at Yhelm, so Yhelm just sorta gave her a one-arm shrug. "No?"

"So you'll agree my prices are fair, yes, and that was two biscuits and an eye-pastry, made with expert skill and not by me but by a Dead who despite having no taste has excellent taste in taste, you won't eat anything as good for the rest of the day and come dinner time you will be deeply disappointed by whatever sad fare you find, and you will curse me, curse my very name but find yourselves with no choice left but to return here, and therefore, your total bill is forty wants, and I will not do the math for you if you wish to pay individually, your familial politics are yours to sort out."

"I'll get it," Latti said. "Afternoon, you can put it on my tab--"

Yhelm had already placed a half-need on the table. "It's fine."

"Yhelm, I'm an accountant, I make--"

"I'm a guild academage," Yhelm said, standing up, which was the universal sign for winning these sorts of things. "Do you want to meet again?"

"I do. What do you say to, uh, the seventh? Same time?"

"Same place?" Afternoon Sale asked hopefully.

"… same place," Yhelm agreed.

"And another one becomes mine," the knicknack cooed. "If you're all done then shoo away with you, let me clean your table, I have an ear to turn into a tea."

Stepping outside was a miserable thing. Latti and Yhelm had to push through a wall of solid heat and now they were standing in it. Ardent was high overhead, wide awake, and especially enthusiastic today. Yhelm could already feel her fur starting to stick to itself. No, no now she hated being an adversary. Why did she have to be this fluffy? She let her umbrella slide out of her inventory and out into her hand. No offense, Ardent, she thought, as she pulled a shadow over herself, never liked you as much.

"Well, I'm back to work," Latti said. "Yhelm, it was really good. No, it was actually really upsetting. But I feel like we're, like this was the first time we ever really, really got to talk. I think… I think being away from our parents was good for you. I think you did need it."

"Thank you--oh--" oh, a hug was happening now. Latti probably just wanted to steal some of her shade. Oh, this was weird. Family was weird. She was full of way too many feelings. But she was an adversary and fur be damned she was not going to stop being cool now. Latti had always been so cool when they were little. Look, look. Look at how grown-up I've become, Yhelm thought to herself. Oh wow did she have a lot of issues to work out didn't she.

"Ah, this is good. This is good, isn't it?" Latti asked, finally pulling out of the hug. "The seventh. Denstile, Yhelm."

"Gentsile." And back onto her fours there Latti was going, now once again a part of Yhelm's life. Family was weird.

… a half-need was so much money for coffee why the fuck did she do that.

#autumn writes things #series tag yhelm #yhelm 3

[autumnbrambleagain]

You know what, Yhelm's story is Good and it has lite enough sex-fucking that I can get away with it on Tumblr too. I'm gonna start cross-posting it.

Yhelm is the only adversary in a family of freepeople. She was trained professionally as an academage, but gave up the academic life to be a criminal with her partner, an enby sex-changing phanteasel named Madrigal.

I'm gonna upload the concept drawings from years back today and probably start uploading a chapter a day or something to prevent fatigue, until we're caught up to the present.

It's set in UWi, a ridiculous world made after the death of our own. 5,096 years ago a dozen deer fought and collaborated on a work of fiction to carry on the legacy of the last world, and now all of these idiots are stuck in it dealing with that.

Expect family drama, crime, the occasional murder, sex, angry sex, a cute talking corpse, and strictly consistent worldbuilding without a wiki because the plot is what actually matters. You'll figure shit out as you read along.

#autumn draws things #autumn writes things #series tag yhelm

[autumnbrambleagain]

Yhelm p11 - readmore for full

Day fourteen.

Day fourteen of Drizzle's stay in Flyhhnemonia, day fourteen of constant, non-stop rains. A few dozen degrees ago--not that anyone could even see Ardet-Argent to measure the angle of time anymore--but a few dozen degrees ago, Princess Flyhh, Heir of Love and Indulgence, one of the creators of reality itself, had finally acted.

Outside was wild, now. A once-in-a-lifetime thing. Princess Flyhh had exercised some great secret of her divine nature. The rain still fell, but in deference to Flyhh's mastery of the world, it did not land. Or more, the raindrops were missing everything they aimed at. They missed the people who walked dry through the sheets of downpour. They missed the buildings. They missed the ground. On her way here, as far as Yhelm could tell, the rain just sort of… disappeared, right when it was about to hit anything.

This was one of those rare moments that everyone, surely, would remember for the rest of their lives, and Yhelm was far too distracted to even enjoy it. She thought that was the worst part of it, really. Whenever, decades from now, whenever anyone talked about the time it never stopped raining, about the time Princess Flyhh changed how rain worked for a day, all she'd have was "Yeah I was going through some stuff then, kinda distracted."

Afternoon Sale, the tall, lace-draped knicknack, was teetering on a single stilt-like foot over Yhelm's head.

"Most people seem to be outside playing in the rain," Afternoon Sale said. "The silly things are merely observing the transient work of a god, when they could be in here, instead, savoring a god's sacred craft with every intimate crevasse of their tongue!"

"Can you actually taste coffee?" Yhelm asked.

"Prim'ent Machato, can I taste coffee! Can I taste coffee! I do not taste coffee, I experience it on levels the mortal mind would not even comprehend. I would need to invent six new words for my six coffee-specific senses that allow me to understand the true nuances of coffee in ways that poor mortals such as yourself can only percieve the shadows of! Taste it indeed!"

Yhelm bite a laugh trying to break out of her muzzle. "You're really leaning into the heir of coffee role today."

Afternoon Sale threw a dramatic, oversized hand to her dainty face and mock-swooned. "Well I must entertain myself somehow! We're practically dead today. As for you! You!" She pointed accusingly at Yhelm. Yhelm just leaned back in her seat and watched. "You are waiting for someone. But no, not one of your regular companions… you are waiting for… someone new, isn't it? You're bringing someone new to me! Ah! Tell me my prognostications are correct and I will develop even greater love for you!"

"Yeah," Yhelm said. "All devotees should turn new worshippers to their god, shouldn't they?"

"You Jayce, but speak red all the same," Afternoon Sale chortled. "Meadoe but provide they arrive timely."

Corbis was a guild miniboss, being summoned by one of his subordinates, of course he'd show up when he damn well pleased, which ended up being who-knows-how-late. In he finally strutted, not walked but outright strutted, wearing tightly buttoned layers of red and browns that clung sleek to his lean runner's body, on all fours with boots and sleeves that went all the way up.

He threw himself into the seat opposite Yhelm with his perfect graceful lack of grace. Tossed his elbow onto the table, and let his head fall onto his paw, making a show of being half asleep. "Sup," he said.

On Hartlight's Ribbon Yhelm wasn't letting this display of sheer Style go unchallenged. Hooking her hoof around the leg of the table, she leaned back in her chair, tottering at dangerous angles, arms crossed, eyelids lowered behind her glasses. "Hey." Don't ever try to out-Style a daughter of Bad Boy.

Corbis' eyes glanced around the dark coffee shop. "Weird place, but all right."

"You haven't met the weird yet," Yhelm said.

Afternoon Sale arrived immediately as Yhelm said that. "Well well well this is a new one! I am sensing: workplace acquaintance! But no, I taste a seedier undercurrent, something deeper beneath the surface… oh my, oh my how scandalous!" Afternoon Sale covered her little pointed face with her thick lace fingers, leaving only beady little glass eyes staring down. "You are more than just workplace acquaintances aren't you! Well it is not to me to judge! You are both young and in the primes of your lives! It is merely mine to provide you with the coffee your soul needs, not to judge it!"

Corbis' eyes slid from Afternoon Sale to Yhelm with a sort of "What the fuck" kind of look, his Stylish composure completely broken. Hah. Yhelm'd won. One of the reasons she had him come here. Second reason was that Afternoon Sale's coffee was so damn good.

"Corbis, Afternoon Sale. Afternoon Sale, this is my--boss, sure. Manager. Whatever he wants to call himself."

"Call myself Corbis most of the time," he said.

"You," Afternoon Sale pointed a finger down at Corbis, "will have, oh, let me guess, let me understand. Oh, really, a liquor-tea, this early in the day? And with a bravan leaf! You do not yet know that you want that minty flavor, but when you have your first sip you will understand the depths of my craft! And Yhelm! I believe… something less bitter than usual, isn't it? Yes, with sugar even, I can see it in how the skin around your eyes holds itself, you are in need of some relief from dark matters! Well! I will go prepare your prescriptions and leave you to your business!"

Corbis mouthed silent confusion as Afternoon Sale spun her way around tables and chairs and to the mass of coffee preparation devices that waited for her touch.

"Yeah she does that," Yhelm said. "I'm not sure if it's knicknack whimsy or if she has some actual Knowing-element power or something. I've honestly never had better coffee though."

"She's a knicknack, though," Corbis said. "What does she know about taste?"

"I'm to understand she has six coffee-specific senses that allow her to experience the nuances of coffee in ways we cannot understand. You'll get it when she brings it out."

Corbis lifted his head lazily off his paw, twisting his wrist with an audible pop. "Speaking of bringing out, why are you bringing me up here for? Is this a date? Normally people go on dates before they start fucking. We going backwards?"

Yhelm huffed. "This isn't a date. I wanted to talk, and I didn't want to do it in your bedroom."

"What's wrong with my bedroom?"

"There's no seats."

"There's a bed."

Yhelm sharpened her eyes. "Yes. Exactly. And I need your mind out of the bedroom."

"Pfft. You know I can have more than just Flyhh's ass on my mind right? What's up?"

She let her chair back down onto all fours. Resting her entire shoulder against the rough stucco wall. And sighed. "You've been in the business a long time, right?"

"You're doing it uh," Corbis paused to think, "roundabout," and twirled his finger in the air to give the words more context. "That's not what you really wanna ask. I've been inside you we don't gotta play coy."

Yhelm grimaced. It was a full tongue-out grimace, like she had a bad taste sensation come over her. "You don't gotta say it like that so bluntly."

"Yeah but I'm asking you to say what's on your mind bluntly."

Blunt. She could be blunt, fine. "Don't you think what happened with Lastsong was fucked up?"

Corbis shrugged. It wasn't even a very committal shrug, it was the laziest shrug Yhelm had ever seen. One of his shoulders barely moved. "I mean, gaitsbird, you know? You beat a gaitsbird at a game enough times sometimes they snap."

"I meant what happened to her. After."

Corbis' big, gold eyes stared at Yhelm, holding time in place for a long, suspended moment. "She almost killed a guy. She got almost-killed herself. That's not fucked up, that's fair. That's as fair as you can get."

"She was locked in a room--"

"Okay, I get it," Corbis said, that irreverent, cocky bravado dropping and a more reluctant maturity poking its head out, eyes blinking, so unaccustomed to the light. "That's why you're asking how long I've been in the business. Because college girl can't deal with the realities of guild life now that she's had to get her hands a bit dirty."

Yhelm's lips raised in a wordless growl that she directed away to the floor. She couldn't be that angry if he was right.

"So guess I can answer the first question then. You know who my dad is, right?"

Yhelm shook her head.

"That might as well be Belham Pio. I was given up real early. Pio took me in, raised me up in the life. So yeah, I'm the person to ask about this. Lemme guess. College girl is used to golden justice, criminal gets to sit in a cell eating dry bread for a year and then they're let out, problem solved right?"

"I guess?" Yhelm admitted.

"The guilds are old, Yhelm. And this is an ooooold city. All this, these lawizards, these courts, that's all extra stuff Aiax tossed on top of Law. You know that? Primal Law's a lot more simple. It's the reason the scale of justice is a sub-symbol of Law's antler. Direct balance. Catharsis." Yhelm hid her surprise Corbis knew that word and could pronounce it right. "The aggrieved party is tendered resolution directly upon the offending party." That was a lot more big words than she thought Corbis could use, wow. What was happening. "Big golden justice gives you, well, the system did its job, hurray for the system, which is great for people the system doesn't fuck. But most of us guild, we're poor-ass cobblepounders. Not even the Is give a damn when a background H-lights. We can't all afford the big lawizards. We can't afford the keys to the doors to get around golden justice. Gold's pricey, college girl, and red's the real color of Law anyway."

… this was all supremely more well thought-out than Yhelm had, had ever even expected Corbis of being capable of. Corbis was usually yelling or posturing and while he was sometimes right he was never articulately right.

"We throw Lastsong to gold justice and the people she hurt, they just sit there and assume price's paid. Trust in a system that ain't even theirs to do it for them? She comes out a year later a few actions proscribed and what, she's still walking around, you assume she got hers but do you know? Anger's still there. Clear it through tables, and now everyone's squared. It's a problem of abstraction, and we cut through it to the red, hard. Lastsong'll be fine in time. Pyrene, gallowc she fived on, she's quiet under Argent well knowing Lastsong got hers. Feud's done. Gold justice works if you let everyone be a rational actor, but you can rescue a princess if you think you'll keep her."

Yhelm shook her head. The basis of academagic was treating reality as a work of fiction. A spell was just a literary essay debating one aspect of it, manipulating it, reframing it. Academages by their very nature had to keep their minds open to new arguments, or their magic didn't work. As a professional academage Yhelm should allow Corbis' argument to stand on its own merits instead of just brushing it aside with a sweep of her emotions. "It's fucked up," but she did it anyway.

Corbis scratched at his chin thoughtfully. "Let's say someone kills Madrigal. Just, doesn't like them being a phanteasel, whatever. Stabs them in the streets, blood cold on the dirt. You find out about it, you're upset, you're angry. Rose Knights collect the killer. Give him a jail cell. Felicity and Falina lock him down so he can't attack anyone anymore. He's let out a year later. Harmless now, the officials say. Learned his lesson. You pass him in the street. Think he survives walking past you?"

"I--"

"Because you're still angry, you didn't get a single paw in on the deal. Someone else did it. You're taking it at someone else's word he's been punished. You didn't see it, you didn't know it, you're full Figments on it, does he survive walking past you."

This wasn't a fun thought experiment. "Probably not."

"Law can't just paint something red and call it red. You have to dye that cloth so it won't flake the moment Drizzle shows up, speak of the lunar," Corbis added a gesture out the window, where the rain fell silently on the dry city. "How long you been guild?"

"A few years?" Yhelm ventured. She hated when Corbis had the better footing than her. "It's hard to say when I exactly--"

"By the Captain I know I've sent you out to rough people up sometimes. You've stolen shit. You've gotten in a few fights. Why this one?"

"Because of how clinical it was!" Yhelm said, forcefully, finally having an actual opening! "Because when I rough people up it's drunks at the gambling loops or people stealing from the guild, or, or! We aren't--we're not the good guys but we're not the bad guys either. I--I thought we weren't the bad guys."

Corbis' eyebrows raised, slowly, showed no signs of stopping until they reached his antlers. "You're wearing a traditional Bad Boy jacket. You worship a literal god named Bad Boy."

"What do you know about adversaries," Yhelm growled.

"I know I might as well've been born one," Corbis growled back. "Freepeople weren't born with a destiny but we sure can inherit it. I inherited Bad Boy's. I try not to be a villain but if guild life's too rough for college girl Trackless built a big old world."

Afternoon Sale, at that exact moment, arrived with coffee. Yhelm's was a burnt, deep orange this time, rather than the usual Void-black. Corbis' was almost clear, faintly green-blue, with a single, multi-bladed leaf floating at the top. It was enough of a distraction the argument fell apart between them as they blew on their cups and sipped their drinks.

Yhelm's was sweet. Vaguely cinnamon. Hint of citrus aftertaste, more in the nose than the tongue. Bitterness and sweet fought in her mouth and neither was winning. Corbis looked suspicious of the leaf but after two sips he'd downed half his cup already.

"This isn't coffee," Corbis laughed. "This is like, a tea--"

Afternoon Sale Yhelm-swore-to-Aiax full-on teleported behind Corbis she moved so fast. "It is in fact made with a glass cultivar that has very little bitter flavor but retains ample caffiene quantities, mixed in equal measure with salaja imported from the Rebant colonies. The bravan leaf denies the more acidic taste of the salaja liquor and grants it a minty kick! It is a very sophisticated blend and also has an inordinately high alcohol content, mitigated by the small cup size. Tell me you do not like it, I challenge you to this very thing."

Corbis shook his head. "Dad taught me never take a bet you've already lost."

"A very wise man to have a very wise saying, and moreso wise are you to use it!" Afternoon Sale said. Satisfied in another conquest, she traipsed about to the next set of customers in need of her expertise.

"It's funny," Yhelm started over, "how it works like that. I was born into a freeperson's life. I choose adversary. I say 'chose,' I'd argue being yourself isn't a choice, but, all the same. You're a freeperson, but you were born adversary. It's a curious parallel. I think I should like you less than I do, but for it. You're an abrasive dick half the time--"

"Oh," Corbis interrupted, smiling, "oh you love that about me though. You choose every time to get into fights with me and goad me on. It feeds your duldge, Fig me not."

Yhelm rolled her eyes dramatically enough that Corbis could see it in the dimmer light.

Corbis' drink was already near-empty. The leaf sat at the bottom, a thin layer of green coffee swirling atop it as he gestured with his cup. "So what is all this, you're doubting your life in the guild now?"

"I've been reconnecting with my family lately. And I had--something of a talk with the Arbitrator. And she--I guess she made me feel bad about some of this? I guess?"

"… shit, okay, I see where this is," Corbis said. He drank the last of his coffee and ate the leaf right out of the cup, grimaced at the mint overload, and forced himself to finish it anyway. "You're not looking to go straight, are you? You got reminded some of the bad parts of the life you need me to remind you of the good, that's it, right? You want me to talk you out of quitting."

Yhelm answered with a drag of her coffee.

"Well, okay, here's the baculum of it. I'm gonna give it to you, nice and peeled."

"Ugh."

Corbis waved away her disgust. "If you really liked college you'd be there. Having your paper fights in the greenlight. But that's polite and fake and you know it. It's fake and you're an adversary. Guild is real. You don't have to fucking, wear six masks and swap 'em out depending on who you're talking to. You got a problem in the workplace you don't, I don't know, have to worry about your grant money and your advisors and whatever they have in college. You don't sit there and go, humdeedledee. Fuck I don't know how publishing works but you aren't arguing with your, what do you greenlights get, magic editors? Publishers? You're an adversary. You have a problem you fix it. Someone disrespects you they pay for it. People don't respect you 'cause a piece of paper you bought, they respect you because you have power. And you have power. And all of that is how an adversary wants to live. You can trust me in that, because with all the freedom Meadoe gave me I choose to be her boyfriend's child instead. And now here's the real good stuff, the top shelf I'm holding out on, I'm gonna reach on up and take it down just for you, okay?"

"Okay."

"Most of the guild is just poor people trying to fucking survive this mess Flyhh dumped us into. And we ain't Apat, we ain't building a party-dome to die in, when a guild in good standing's in trouble, needs something, we play the heroes the Rose Knights pretend they are. That's really why you're guild, cutie. Because you're a hardcore servant-in-the-biblical-sense. You don't have to play games with anyone. And now and then you get to do some good too. So. Dad has me go around to retired guilders who did enough guildshare for a lifetime. Drop off their pension. Make sure they're alive and healthy. Keep them from getting lonely. So you'll be taking that over for me for a bit. How's that sound?"

Yhelm finished the last of her coffee. There was a thin, too-sweet sludge at the bottom of the cup she licked up in a single slurp. It made her fur stand up and it was great. "You want me to go keep old people company."

"Aiax's folly Yhelm you're complaining you had to see something too rough to sleep through and I'm offering you some feel-good work. Take it."

"I will. Thank you. You're not the worst boss, Corbis."

"You're not the most useless enforcer I have to babysit," he said gracefully.

Yhelm spun her cup on its plate, by the handle, in counter-clockwise circles. "You know, I honestly didn't expect you to be so well thought-out."

"Pfft. I'm the boss. You think I can get away with just shouting a lot I have to know what things are." The smirky grin so well worn into Corbis' face eroded a moment. "You ever read Murmur's writings?"

"Murmur. You mean Figments' Servant, Murmur?"

"A person as a fixed crystal."

"Since when the fuck do you know phil--" Yhelm started, and then considered what Murmur, Servant of Figments and God of Philosophy, had actually written 5,000 years ago, and stopped. "We appear differently to different people because of the angle they approach us from and how their own structure reflects light onto us."

Corbis pointed at her with a 'I got you' look. "I have to be in charge. And you have to be full of stupid ideas and go around fucking up all the time. So I have to yell at you and be an ass. I don't think life's so complicated you have to spend your whole life sitting around thinking about it, but that doesn't mean I haven't done my thinking on it already either. Come at me from an angle other than bratty know-it-all college-girl-turned-thug I can give you other angles of me too."

Purely because it would be an appropriate and useful way to delay responding, Yhelm wished she had more coffee to sip. "That's fair. I think I prefer this angle over the Corbis who makes me wait for him to finish jerking off before he tells me what my job for the day is."

"Oh that's too bad, college girl, that Corbis you're gonna see from every angle. Can't help it. Just how your light reflects onto me, you know? That's my way of saying you're too hot to help it."

Yhelm sunk in her chair. "We've fucked already, dude. You can stop hitting on me."

"Unless I'm not trying to get you to fuck me," Corbis said, leaning over, "but just trying to make you miserable, 'cause it's funny to me."

"Sonofabitch."

"And you make it so easy, too!"

#series tag yhelm #yhelm 11 #autumn draws things #autumn writes things #fiction #something how do you tag shit on tumblr i'm too out of it

[autumnbrambleagain]

Yhelm p7 - readmore for full

"… can we talk about how last night was fucked up?" Madrigal asked.

Rain was coming scattered and gray on the rooftops of the out-city. Rivulets ran down the walls and left puddles that Yhelm was happily stomping through. "Huh?"

"… last night? With Corbis? You won't catch me saying it wasn't hot, sure, but it wasn't… healthy?"

Yhelm stopped under a wavy roof. A hundred little waterfalls fell in unison onto the cold stones below. And on Yhelm's face. She liked the rain. It wasn't a coincidence she'd reassigned umbrellas from 'keep rain off' to 'this is a weapon.' She had no problem getting wet. She felt like that was a metaphor, and then felt like that was the kind of thing college-Yhelm would have said trying to sound smart. College-Yhelm was supposed to be dead, which meant maybe something was actually wrong.

"Yeah. I don't know," she said. She caught some of the roof water in her mouth as she talked. It tasted like bitter metals. An acadamage had to see the world in metaphors and had to experience everything through literary theory because that was literally how magic worked. It was literally how reality worked. Reality was literature and magic was commentary. She'd chosen to think of that metaphor for a reason. Not point lying to yourself, right? "Yeah. Yeah I guess I'm not feeling great?"

"So, you know I'm not jealous," Madrigal started.

"You are unreasonably laid-back for a weasel," Yhelm agreed.

"This isn't a jealousy issue when I say this. It's not like, I don't want to come across as--"

"Yeah you think I probably shouldn't goad Corbis into uneven, usually angry sex anymore. Yeah."

Madrigal sighed. They didn't like rain like Yhelm did. Kog, Yhelm even looked good with splatters of Wet rolling down her long fur. Maddie just looked sad. Because of the rain. Which was another convenient metaphor. Because reality was created as a work of literature by 9 deer that existed before time on some level it was still a written work. She had gotten so good at not thinking like an acadamage. She wondered if it was trying to distance herself from herself. That seemed right. If she viewed reality like a story she didn't have to accept her place deep in the middle of it. It wasn't her life she was ruining. It was just some character.

Maddie took a few false starts and then asked, "How many times have you and him…"

Yhelm took off her glasses and wiped down a streak of Wet across her fluff. "This is like the third time we've actually, fucked? Ugh. Flyhh what an ugly word."

"Why did you start?"

"I mean he's always Apatted at me he's like that. You remember the time I jerked him off outta spite."

"Yeah. That was actually pretty funny, but."

"Yeah," Yhelm agreed. "Yeah but. I don't know." That was a lie. "So Trackless Gait built a web of little pathways into reality when the world was made."

Madrigal stared at her with their big ferrety eyes. "Aha. Is this, are you doing a thing?"

"Yeah hush. So birmads teleport by slipping into these little hidden roads. But there are other ways to teleport. They're usually, higher level spells? Because Magic is a separate base element from Travel, it's not accessible in all the same ways, so it's usually done in a more round-about approach."

"Right. Okay. I'm following beat so far."

"Right," Yhelm nodded. Right. "Right. So there was one I learned in the Cazirizahd--I don't remember it anymore, and I'd have to actually get it on order to remember it because it was really specific--like I can remember the gist but for magic just remembering the--"

Madrigal interrupted. "Sweetheart, it's great to see you excited about magic," which meant something, because usually Yhelm resented her involuntary education, "but this is kind of a serious conversation that we're having out here in the middle of one of Drizzle's visits."

"I know, I know, I'm deflecting because I don't want to deal with my own emotions," Yhelm said. "Anyway the spell teleported you by codifying this feeling of being without a personal anchor, and just, fucking. This sense of, just, letting go. Just. Throwing yourself out the window because hey there it is."

Madrigal tilted their head. It was kind of adorable. "I've lost the beat?"

Yhelm made this annoyed, miserable dog yawn sound. "Maybe it's Bad Boy's blood. I just. Spicy food. Got it. That's it. It's spicy food. This is me eating something too spicy. Sometimes you crave that. Sometimes you just want, uh, you want--"

"To be hurt?" Madrigal offered.

"Like we're doing all right. We have an apartment. We have steady work. It's, it's sometimes weird and difficult work because we're Guild, but it's work. We got each-other. This is where I want to be, right? Either it's some… adversary instinct to try to upset what I have, or… maybe I feel like I deserve to be doing worse? I don't know. And, I mean, come on. Yeah. Corbis is a jerk sometimes but it's usually when I've actually messed up. And you get a cute guy yelling at you enough times but also he's hitting on you you're just like, okay. I could do with something spicy. Maybe my lips burn. Get a few heat sores, can't taste the next day. I don't know. I'm an adversary, Maddie. I think a part of me is just, obliged to do shit like this. I mean I threw away my acadamage career so I could go be criminals with you."

Madrigal had this look on their face like they weren't sure what kind of look they should have on their face. "But… you didn't come back to be with me just to be self-destructive, though?"

"No, I mean, no. Flyhh's sake no."

"So is what you're doing with Corbis just to be self-destructive?"

It was terrible when Maddie was correct. Because they were always correct exactly when Yhelm felt like she'd come at the solution, had it right in her hand, and then they'd come up and point out she was holding a wad of dirt, and the real answer was like, over there, and she'd been digging in the wrong spot and it wasn't even buried but up on a thing she had to climb to.

Damn if this one wasn't really high up though? She wasn't sure she could reach? "I mean, I wouldn't date him. I don't think either of us could stand the other for long enough."

"Mmhmm."

"Like maybe I got some shape of feelings for him but they aren't enough to. Fuck. I dunno, Maddie. Does it really matter. He's our boss we're his underlings. It's. It's fine. It's how things are going between us and that's just, how it is."

There was that face, where Madrigal gave up but gave up with determination, where you knew they were going to come back to it eventually. "All right. Let's get out of the rain? We're just, sitting here, getting soaked."

"Yeah well we're spending all day in Dockrow in the rain getting honked at by waterfaces. At least here it's just you and me."

Madrigal looked around at the closed windows surrounding them. "And whoever lives here, listening in…"

"Fuck. Right. Okay. Let's go. Hey if anyone's listening to our fucked up life sorry hope you're entertained sorry you won't get to hear the conclusion to it--"

"Yhelm, please!"

"--small payment of 10-want sign up to our relationship newsletter--"

"Pleaaasseeee!"

"--adults only illustrated scenes every tenthday!"

#autumn writes things #autumn draws things #series tag yhelm #yhelm 7

[autumnbrambleagain]

Yhelm p5 - readmore for full story

"It is, a very nice. Generous Argent. She shARes it! The light goes everYwhere. But it is s oft. Soft soft. Lils could lie, in thE DIrt, to be there. And sEE it. And it is okAY."

"Night-noon is always my favorite too," Yhelm agreed. "The Cazirizahd has a lot of lamplighters, so you adjust to a day-noon night-noon schedule. And sleep during the lid-closes."

"Lils sees. Sees. Aiax. The Red EYE. He is WATCHING peepINg. Lils cannot see TravErse? Where is green?"

Yhelm stopped and scanned the sky. It was so impossibly huge and vast, if you looked up you lost all frame of reference to an infinity of eyes staring back at you. When she looked back down and could see the horizon again she was suddenly very dizzy. "I don't see him? He might not be out tonight."

"Aaa. Our EYE. It is sleepy. Even a god can make sleep. It is okay. Lils can sees Aiax. The RED eye. She makes a sight on. It be. To be an."

Lils started to walk again, her uneven, drunken gait weaving across the dirt road. Yhelm kept pace. "We have the summermotes out tonight, too. I don't think any lamplighters live near here, though. We're missing their lantern-strings."

"Yes, yes, string. A connection or entrapment of idea. A string makes a connection. To be make." Sometimes Lils slipped up, Yhelm was already figuring out. Sometimes a thought would do its own thing inside her head. She was already used to it.

"The junk-pile's just up ahead," Yhelm said, trying to reassert the present. "We might run into some other trashpickers but we're Guild, so--"

Lils stopped, suddenly, and Yhelm almost stumbled over her. The little half-dead was staring at a summermote that was floating just before her face, slowly flashing between blue and yellow. "Ah," Lils said.

"The summermote?"

"Summmot." Lils sat down and cupped her hands. The summermote landed in them, folding its wingframe and settling in. It slowly pulsed its colors into the wrappings that held her rotting fingers together, and Lils sat there, staring at it.

Yhelm sat down next to her. They weren't in a rush. This was for Lils. Who knew how long it'd been since she'd even left her shack? Lils apparently paid trashpickers to bring her junk in bulk. She didn't need to eat. She never had to leave. Yhelm understood, she could understand Belham's urge to protect her. But it was a lesson Yhelm had learned in Cazzhad. A life well-provided for, without any freedom, was nothing to love. It did nothing good for you. Princess Flyhh had answered for it publicly a thousand times. Why had she and the other heirs made a world with suffering in it? Because if they had given their children everything they would have ever wanted, the whole world would have suffocated in the stagnation.

Keeping her locked up wasn't healthy.

Belham was going to be so pissed when he found out.

The summermote fluttered out of Lils' hands and back into the patchy grass at the roadside. Lils pulled back her hood, and for the first time Yhelm saw her actual face. Ah, she wasn't entirely ready for it. She might have been cute, once, but now her skin was dry and mummifying on her yellowing skull. The eyes were gone, sunken pits framed in bone. The ears were shriveled and misshapen. Her mouth was stuck open, the edges melted into an unyielding, confused smile.

"Summot," Lils said. Her jaw barely twitched. The voice came scattered and tumbling from between her exposed teeth.

"Yeah," Yhelm agreed.

"A summot. It only is for SummER?" She looked back at Yhelm.

Yhelm tried not to show the discomfort she felt in making eye contact with a skull. "Yeah. Springmotes are pink and don't fly nearly as much. In fall--"

"Summot," Lils repeated. "It is. A night. A nigHT THing that happens. Lils remembers."

Yhelm nodded.

"Lils reMEMBERS!" she said, suddenly, standing up onto her fours, and sticking her face in Yhelm's. "Lils can REMEMBERS."

"What do you remember?" Yhelm asked, politely falling backwards.

"It was SUMMER. Lils wanted to see SUMMOT. Lils REMEMBERS it."

"That's good," Yhelm smiled.

"Lils remember. The last. Last THING Lils had made thOUGHT of. As Lils DIES."

"Oh," Yhelm frowned.

"It was a DaY. And Lils thOUGHT, becaUSE DeaTH isn'T GOOd and is BAD. ANd Lils had a THOUght: Not ever see SUMMOT again. Never. BecauSE was kill on DAY. Lils. Lils sees it. Again. LILS SEES IT AGAIN! Is night and Lils SEES IT. SEES IT."

Lils' head was pressed into Yhelm's chest and now they were hugging. Her body was so light and frail. It was the first time Yhelm had touched her. She was so fragile. She was an autumn leaf long off its branch. She understood why Belham could only think to protect her. She was making a sound like she was crying.

"Can remEmber. The last thought of Lils. NeveR see a summot again. Lils can see it. Lils saw it! Did it! Did it!" Her hollow frame shook with dusty sobbing and Yhelm couldn't think of anything to do but continue to hold her. Finally Lils pulled herself away and sat on her hinds in front of Yhelm.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"Whoever--Lils thought, to never see it. A summER night, as DIED, thought neveR to SEE again but it isn't. It isn't. Lils can SEE IT. Death was so Slow for Lils. And Lils knows there were a lOt of thoughts. TimE to THINk when dying. And couLD never remember. LiLs remembers! Was a sadness, to never seE summER NigHt again. And Lils is sEEINg it. Lils is."

Her tail, a bony scrap wrapped in rags, swished back and forth on the dirt path behind her, going potpotpotpotpotpot.

"It was try to KIll Lils. To not SEE thIs again. Lils can. Lils caN see it again. Summermotes. Lils held one! Yhelm knows: this means?"

Yhelm shook her head. "What does it mean?"

Lils lowered her head slightly, and oh, the way she did it gave her grin a frightful shape. "They FAIlED. Lils WINs. They only killed Lils a little while. Lils gets to see it again. Gets to sEe the night again. Lils wins. It's okay. It's okay to died. It's okay."

It was only that Yhelm was descended from the Heir of Style that she didn't need to wipe her eyes. That wouldn't be cool, so she didn't have to. Her inheritance. Instead, she stood up, slung the empty sack back over her shoulder, and looked at Lils out the corner of her eye. That was cool, and sometimes people need someone to be cool. Sometimes especially people needed someone to be cool for them. "Fuck yeah. It took you a while to get back here, but you made it. They couldn't take it from you."

"The night," Lils agreed. She pulled her hood back up over her face. "It is not forever. A night does not forever. We must get us our treASure."

"Fuck yeah, let's go dig in some trash."

#autumn draws things #autumn writes things #series tag yhelm #yhelm 5

[autumnbrambleagain]

Yhelm p4 - readmore for full story

"So what's in the box?" Yhelm asked. It was a risky question, always, especially when a box was locked, and especially when no one told you what was in the box. It was the sort of question you weren't supposed to ask if you wanted to be a good little hive-worker, but Yhelm was an adversary, and so she couldn't resist asking the stupid questions.

Belham laughed, and his ghostly fire rippled around his bare skull. "That's a secret."

"Right. And what am I telling the people who will stop me at the door because they don't know me and then they see a mystery box I can't explain nor fit into my bag?"

"Haha! They won't see the box. If they see the box you already failed."

"Prim'ent, I can't fit it into my Inventory, it isn't Mine. And I don't have any Mystery spe--"

Belham laughed again, which meant he was either in a good mood or a terrible one. "Go see my neice. Around the block. The little shack, half the roof gone, can't miss it. Tell her to shove it up Figments' pussy for me. Rub a coin on the door. Be nice to her or I'll skin ya."

"Riiight."

--

Yhelm had seen this shack before. A dilapidated former-house, attached to the back of the Guild headquarters. The street here was little more than an alleyway, and only a fishshop opened up into it. The whole stretch of dirt smelt terrible and people only ever used it as a shortcut. The shack, it was abandoned and maintained only as a buffer between the streets and the Guild's building. No one could sneak in through the back, if the back was a dangerous shack permanently threatening to collapse on your head. Yhelm had never even bothered going inside. No one ever had. The idea of going inside had never--

Wait a fucking minute, she thought. The idea of not going inside was still really persistent in her head. The more she stared at the rattly door, the rotting wood, the bending frame, the more she was convinced there was no reason to go inside. Except Belham had told her to come here? And as she thought about that, as she thought of a reason to go in, the urge to go get some coffee, instead, filled her, and she actually took several steps towards Afternoon Sale's cafe before she stopped.

"Son of a fuck that's magic," she said to herself. "This place is warded to the breacher-moon and back." As Yhelm realized that, she remembered she was supposed to meet Madrigal at--no. No, she was not. Although she was starting to wish she was, she was wanting to accept the house's excuses to leave, because this was not alleyway-level magic. This was professional-level. This was academage-level magic.

This was better-than-Yhelm-level magic.

Yhelm took out a ten-want coin and rubbed it on the door.

Oh wow the spell instantly passed by her and it was so THICK she could feel it squeeze tight against her face on its way by. Her glasses actually got knocked askew. But now the feeling that she had somewhere else to be was gone. She was clear to enter. Oh Bad Boy. Deep breath.

The door opened on a rattling hinge. She took a glance behind her and everyone who was walking this underused street seemed to not notice her, or the house, at all. In this part of the out-city you ALWAYS made sure you let everyone you could see KNOW you could see them. You made eye-contact with everyone you passed. That's how you signaled yourself as a hard target. No one was returning her looks. Yhelm could hardly imagine what sort of academage was waiting inside. She was imagining a powerful lamplighter, up to some Very Bad Business, if the wards were this strong. She was expecting the entire shack to just, open up into a fully furnished mansion.

It was absolutely not a mansion.

The inside of the house was stale and moldy smelling. Ardent-light filtered in from the ruined ceiling, forcing everything into a chiaroscuro of spotlight and shadow. It was an utter mess. The walls had collapsed in places and taken some of the ceiling with it. What space was still available had been turned into a hoarder's fantasy. Countless piles of boxes, drawers removed and lying naked and stacked, baskets and crates, everything filled to the absolute brim with junk. At a glance Yhelm could see and smell bits of old food and bone, scraps of cloth, pottery, candles, tools, strings, keys, marbles, paper, and plants, all dead.

A pile of rags in the corner suddenly stood up and began stumbling over to Yhelm. It had the gait and profile of a free person but the uncoordinated, wandering steps of a drunk. Yhelm kept herself very close to the door as they approached. This could not be Traversekin. Was this some homeless who had found their way in? There was an over-sweet smell of rot, thick and cloying, to the thing. Diseased? It was wrapped head to toe. Yhelm thought maybe, maybe leaving--

"Ah. He ll o." The figure stopped in front of her and tried so very hard to stay standing. It tilted its head, but the eyeslits in the sack it was wearing were so small Yhelm couldn't get a good--look--oh no the face. The bit of the face that was protruding was a mummified, shrunken muzzle. Oh no. A Half-Dead.

Not like Belham, who was born Dead naturally, but a poor thing that had been born alive, who had died, and had been forced back into existence. Only bits and pieces of who they once were remained, most of their Story had been taken up by Meadoe already. She had studied the concept in the Cazirizahd but they'd never made one. She'd seen them, but never had to, talk to one? Her teacher had compared them to dementia victims. It was considered Slightly Impolite to do this a person's corpse. That didn't stop acedamages creating them as servants. And she was apparently chatting with one.

In a collapsing shack, warded so well no one would probably hear her if she shouted.

"H-hello," Yhelm said. Her voice was Not Cool right now. Shameful. What would Bad Boy think! "I'm looking for, a, uhm. Is the, the owner of the,"

"Aaaah," the mummified dog rasped. "Aaah! You are for magic?? Lils HAS!!" Lils, that was her Name, she tilted her head the other way. "A a a h. Wait. Who sent ? ? Lils' shop is exclusiVE. Referral?"

Oh no, Yhelm thought. The Half-Dead wasn't the Traversekin's servant.

It was the Traversekin.

This shouldn't even be possible.

"How--how are you a--" Yhelm took a glance around the room. This wasn't junk. These were components. Some of the piles of junk were completed ritual installations. Some of the piles of junk were incredibly complex ritual installations. "Who are--"

"Yess, who?" the half-dead asked. "Refffferal. You need. Lils is only by referral. Lils. Lils makes a threat." And now a floating knife was pointing Yhelm right in the face.

"Gh--Belham Pio!"

Lils made a heart-stabbing squeal and the knife fell out of the air. "Unnncall! A good good. Good good. It is, come with." Lils started to lead Yhelm in, stumbling shakily but somehow managing to not knock into any of the piles of junk. She stopped suddenly to paw at one particular mass of Things--Yhelm could make out several mirrors, a tube, and a rabbit pelt? A ritual installation? "Ahh. Yhelm. Machato? Guild. Finisherman!" A Knowing installation, of course. She really was magic. "Very welL. What does Yhelm wanT?"

Yhelm followed Lils to a relatively clear spot, where the Ardentlight came in strong and dusty. The half-dead freeperson wobbled back and forth as she listened.

"Y-yeah. Uh. Belham wants, we have this box we need to deliver, but, and." Yhelm, okay, you're talking to a corpse but you're talking to Traversekin and a fellow criminal you can be cool. Can't you be cool? "Yeah. You make rep-forms? We need the box obfuscated so it can be smuggled past security. I imagine the same sort of thing you have for your house, scaled down? It's very impressive, by the way."

Lils was--this was smiling, right? Could she even really move her mouth? Maybe it was the angle she held it in the light? "Th ankyou! You speak lIKe TrAveRSekin. ArE you under his green eye too?"

That was maybe the most coherent sentence yet, Yhelm thought. Maybe the little bits of Identity that remained were all tied to magic? So talking about it allowed for more coherent speech? Maybe!? "I'm an acedamage. I trained in the Cazirizahd. My focus is on thesis magic, though."

Lils nodded her head--was it just having trouble staying upright?? "Rare. Other, other cuSTomer s, do not understand. They are AFraID of: Lils; Lils' Magic; her workSHOP. Lils SAW it. You arE afraid? But you Can see it. Her hard work. OTHer cuSTomERRs, they think it is, Messy junK. You complimented? Lils' magic? A pEER. You underSTAnd!"

Yhelm did. "Your customers don't treat you like the green-light you are, huh? Yeah. I understand that. Most people don't get the amount of effort that goes into learned magic. Or they see what you are and focus on that and not the skill you have. It's--it's probably not comparable to being half-dead, but I get a taste of it as an adversary. No one takes an adversary academage seriously. We're not 'supposed' to do magic. So you either get people who don't take you seriously no matter how good you are--"

"ORR peopLE who sAY, aAAH! YoU can, do this. EvEN thoUGh you should not be abLE to. AnD they are. Imm pressed? BuT it hurtS?"

"Because they're still looking at you as half-dead first, and judging your magic on that. It's, what, condescending? I hear it sometimes. Oh wow, an adversary academage? Good for you! As if we shouldn't be able to do it."

"Conpraschrending," Lils struggled to say. "Lils has the maGic for uncle. ShE will assemble. SymboliSM of: ignore. WANT to ignore is moST important Part? To hide it, yu cannot say to them, Do Not Notice me. OR they will. You say, yoU don't WANT to be boTHERed. The shooRtest distance."

Lils went to work straight away. Even her motor-controls seemed increasingly more stable as she worked. She dug out bits and bobs, here and there, chattering as she went. "Lost. Coins. BY nature, they hide. Are mIssed. Cloth from a beggAR. You do not want to notice such a man. You do not wanT they to sEe if you have. Mold scrappings. What is easier: to clean a mold. To ignore a mold. And pretend it won't be? GreEnlight will burn out as Ardent sleeps. Is time?"

"The device will last until night? That's enough time," Yhelm said. She followed Lils all about the workshop, watching her work. A small part of her still marveled at a half-dead being capable of magic. That shameful part of her still fell to that same condescending thought-pattern of 'good job, you did this even though I thought you shouldn't be able to.' Even having been on the receiving end she caught herself thinking it. But the majority of Yhelm was simply impressed. It was not by half-dead standards, it was by anyone's standards that Lils was a skilled witch. Yhelm didn't realize how much she missed watching other people do magic. Representational forms, too, to take the symbolism of objects and force them together so the symbolism became real, it was such a tactile thing. Why hadn't Yhelm taken more courses in it? This looked so innately satisfying.

"So you call Belham your uncle?" Yhelm asked, once the thinking part of the work was done and Lils was waiting for glues to set.

"Yess. Lils was once as. As one does to make a Lils. To take, unbury to make. To have, a slave. And then they died. Lils was plUndered and sOld. Unclle saw Lils at Dock to auctIon. And made purChase! Lils was boughT. And Lils remembered some smaLl, things. Such as greenlIght. And so Lils was useful! Lils is! But Uncle onlY wanted Lils SaFe! But. Not. Not. Not not a child? You see Lils? Not a child? Not. My own, Shoppe. Lils'. Lils can remember. It was like this. Not servanT or pet now. Lils. Magic."

Someone had probably created her to be a half-dead servant and died? And she was taken and sold in Flyhhnemonia? And Belham took pity on her (!?!) and bought her, but Lils didn't want to be a pet or servant anymore so she convinced him to let her open up a shop?? As far as Yhelm could follow it?

"How much of your--I'm sorry, that's, probably rude."

"Ask."

"How much of your life do you remember?"

Lils looked at Yhelm. This close, now, sitting next to one another, Yhelm could see through the tiny slits, and beneath the sleeve of her mask, that she absolutely did not have any sort of eyes at all anymore. Which was still, kinda creepy? But she was getting used to the smell faster than she'd thought she would. It smelled like a dry, late-fall forest. It was almost nice.

"Dying Lils remembers. Sllow. Off of a tree was for Lils. By rope. Slllow. Dyying is so bad. It is so feaRful. Lils remembers: thinking about, how Lils life, was ending. But Lils remembers thinking, but not the memories. Not the rest. Lils remembers the magic, but not to whEre come learn. And all thoughts, hard. It's. Hard. It's so hard. Were people Lils miss? People miss Lils? To unknown. WhYYY Lils had to hang? Who made Lils to die? dOn't know. Evennow. Lils forget? Forget customers. Forget days. SeasON. Unclle alwayS worry. WorrY someone will dO hurt to Lils. IT is why, a referral only. Only referrals. Why the wards."

Yhelm said the universal words of comfort, as first spoken by Bad Boy to Princess Flyhh endless time ago. "That sucks, man."

Lils rasped a wheezy laugh.

"I'm surprised though? I've never seen that side of Belham before."

"you liVe! And Uncal must feed on a fearful. And you. you uncLe sees, as person. Lils unCLE SEES only peT. pOOr Lils. ProtecT Lils. Indulge Lils. Lils has a MagiC! But not Uncle even. Uncle sees Poor LIls. But. But Lils needs a helping. All is too much. So Lils needS him for to helpINg. AlwayS helPing, so he cannoT see. OnlY evEr sees: Poor Lils. Not a magic."

"That really sucks, dude," Yhelm said, escalating it to the second highest level. Only 'That really freakin' blows, buddy' was more powerful. "I guess parents can be like that though. They saw you when you were at your weakest so how can they ever take you seriously as a person? My family barely speaks to me because I'm not doing what they think I should be doing." Which was a gross oversimplification but that wasn't important right now. "But you don't have the luxury of being able to survive on your own? So you can't get out of that shadow. It's something he can hold over you forever as proof that you really can't be, can't be looked at as an equal."

Lils just nodded along in agreement.

"He doesn't talk about you, either. With the security he had you put up on yourself, being referral only. I guess he's trying to protect you. That's fine, but." Something inside Yhelm was stirring that was ancient and primal. The element her kind had been wrought from was throbbing inside her, hot and yellow, and telling her to do the stupid thing. "We studied half-dead in the Cazirizahd. You aren't going to get better staying locked up. The more you do, the more chances you have to rediscover your Identity and become more stable. This isn't even helping you in the long term, being locked up. How about after I finish this job, another day, we go out somewhere?"

"Outside? Lils is a bad idea outside. Other people have a fraid. They are used to a Dead. Born Dead. A silly skelETon ghost. Lils isn'T that. Lils remINds you: you dIE. You become, Lils."

"Cool, but consider this. One, it's Flyhhnemonia, the City of Love, and even at its worst it's not bad. Two, your uncle is someone everyone around here is afraid of. Three, you'll be with me, and people know me. Four, it's Flyhhnemonia, there's weirdos on every corner. Five, it's your life, but only if you live it how you want to."

Lils tested the glue. Everything had set into place. She had created a sort of bag, woven through with scraps and bits and with little coins dangling off on strings. She slipped the box inside, closed the flap, and the spell went live. Yhelm had to force herself, immediately, to remember that the box was still right there. To remember she had to leave with it. To remember to drop it off. Remember. The box kept trying to slip away, to push her thoughts away from it and onto something else. Even knowing it was there she could barely think about it. Oh wow Lils was powerful.

"Yyhelm. Lils has poor memory? CannOT. But LilS knows. Old, old. AdverSARry, coaxEs freEperSON into trouble. IntO disobeDIence. The fIrst Story Meadoe toLd with Badd Boy."

"And look at how it worked out for them."

"Hah! Gods. Iiis. Iis worse than being God. Take box. No paYMent for uncle. Yhelm makes the deliVery. Later, another Day we go Outsidde. Togethe r. Lils will rememBer Yhelm. WillL not forgeT Yhelm. Will try. Lils will TRY so HaRD To remEMbeR YhelM. PleaSE do NoT be upSET. If Yhelm is bacK. Lils doeS not remEmbER. It is SO HARD. It is so hard. It is sO haRD to do."

Yhelm took the box. She almost immediately forgot she was holding it. "Don't worry. If I come back and you don't remember, I'll just convince you all over again. I'm an adversary. I wouldn't be doing my job if I was not creating delinquency."

"Yes! It is GooD. A good. To be and for gooD. ArGent SmILEs you, greensiSter."

"Gentsiles, gre'ster."

#autumn writes things #autumn draws things #series tag yhelm #yhelm 4

[autumnbrambleagain]

Today we're uploading all of the pre-story drawings of Yhelm worth putting up, so here's the lewdest I think we can get on Tumblr of Yhelm and Madrigal's relationship.

Narramorphic styles are created when you interface with a Thing so consistently that you alter how that Thing functions for You specifically. Madrigal's family has a narramorphic scarf style that allows them to turn all scarves into animate, weight-bearing snake-like Things, and, you know, in addition to using this as a guild enforcer, they use this to mess around sometimes.

#autumn draws things #series tag yhelm

[autumnbrambleagain]

Yhelm 13 - readmore for full

Drizzle was gone. Those who had been in-city at the time said Flyhh had gotten sick of her and had tossed her out of Flyhhnemonia. Physically. Bodily. Even in the out-city Yhelm had seen SOMEthing, a streak of gray shooting through the sky, sweeping the rainclouds away with it. In moments they were rolled up like some great carpet and lost to the horizon.

Green skies ruled again. Ardent, gold and glorious, was looking down on the pink city at last. His flying knights fluttered across the distant sky, trailing miles-long banners of rainbow this way and that. Disgruntled insects buzzed and sang in the trees. Birds chirped and honked in celebration.

Meadoe preserve, it was a nice day.

There was no way Yhelm was going to let Lils stay cooped and miss it.

They had gone shopping. Lils had always relied on trusted runners to collect things for her--mostly garbage-picking from the sumps? But Lils was smart enough she could force meaning out of trash and make magic out of it anyway. But this was Flyhhnemonia. No, this wasn't Cazzhad, it wasn't the Forbidden City, but it was still freaking Flyhhnemonia. There was an entire greenlight street full of nothing but magic stores.

Lils deserved a shopping trip, damnit.

It had been a good haul, too. A real good haul. Sacred brass fixtures, a new three-tube distiller, a spring-chisel, resin-ink from Tordabirr, stuff that would make rep-form magic a lot easier to construct. It hadn't even been Yhelm making the shopping list.

Lils had done it. Half the little odds and ends Lils had bought Yhelm didn't even recognize, Lils had just, done it. She'd done it. She didn't get lost or confused or wander off, nothing.

She'd even bought a branch of sunless wood to make a staff with. She was carrying it in her mouth like a dog getting real excited about a cool stick. It was kind of cute? And no one in the greenlight district had even looked twice at the fact that, you know.

That Lils was a hollow, dusty, walking, mummified corpse.

"You gotta call me when you make your staff," Yhelm said, as they rounded the corner to the shady alley Lils lived in. "The last staff I made was years ago and I don't even remember, like… at least three of the steps."

"There aRE three steps!" Lils sang happily around her new staff-base. "OR so it can be thusly. Lils remembers: different. IDEAS of a staff-make. Was. Was called? APA? ADA?"

"APA, MLA, and Traditional," Yhelm recited from a memory she didn't know she had.

Lils nodded seriously, nearly knocking Yhelm in the face with the staff-to-be. "The prOFFESional ways. YEs. Lils remembers such things as not adhering to. Style guides. Would say. Style guides. But this is. GREEN. Magic. Not yellow. STYLE. It was a joke Lils to make!"

Yhelm caught her laugh in her throat. "What if it's an adversary greenlight?" she teased.

"YellOW and greEN. Make. A green-yellOW. That is Creativity. Thus you are stuffed knack. Lils has sewing materials for you to use."

Yhelm had to stop and just, kinda stare at Lils for a moment.

Partially because they were at her house, the "collapsing" shack (Lils had magic installations that'd keep the thing standing in a hurricane, actually) where Belham hid her away from the world. Lils had locked the door magically. It took her a hot moment to undo the bindings.

But she also had to stop and stare at Lils because, wow, that was, that was a complex joke. When she had first been sent to Lils she could barely remember how a conversation had started by the time it had ended. Now she was keeping up with conversations consistently. Now she was making abstract jokes. She'd gone from a barely-there idea of a person to--to, well, Lils. She'd gone from this helpless bumbling thing Yhelm had to keep a close eye on to… Lils. Just Lils.

It's almost like Belham keeping her locked up for her "safety" was a terrible idea and she was doing so much better ever since Yhelm had started to sneak her out of the house. Who would have thought? Oh, Yhelm would have thought. Because she was a trained academage and had a fucking degree in this stuff.

It had been a summer. It had been a weird summer. Yhelm remembered first seeing Lils' dessicated, ruined face beneath that hood and trying real hard not to freak out. Now when Lils looked back with that little half-hidden corpse-grin and said "dOOR has been made open!" any sense of disgust was just, gone. That was the face of a peer, now. The face of her fellow guild wizard.

Haha. Haha wouldn't it be fucked up if Yhelm was getting a crush on a half-dead. Haha. Ha.

Fuck.

Yhelm swallowed that feeling right down and said "Let's get your loot unloaded," instead.

Stepping into the shack, the air was so perfectly humid, and full of the soft smell of dry wood after too much rain. Ardentlight leaking through holes in the roof held up the ceiling like gold pillars. Magical such-and-stuff filled out every corner of the shack, shelves and tables and installations all crowding around Yhelm and Lils as they entered.

"Welcome back," Belham Pio, Boss of the Guild of Porters and Fisherman, said.

"Ah fuck," Yhelm intoned quietly.

"Go ahead and close the door," Belham said, even though Yhelm had finished doing that by the time he was on word three.

Lils just trotted up to him happily, still acting like a dog who wanted to show off her neat stick. "HellO uncall! W e have done made the shopping. WaS there a magic yOu neeD?"

Belham looked down at Lils, then up at Yhelm, the cold, smokey ghostfire framing his head curling angrily. "So what's this? Why is, what is, I'm sorry Meadoe must not have given me the page where I told you to take Lils out stick-picking?"

Yhelm crossed her arms, letting her leather jacket get that real nice squeaking sound. "She needed magic supplies."

Belham nodded, clacking his jaw wordlessly. "Ah," he said, still nodding. "Ah. Maybe--now see this is on me, I thought her being in a house you couldn't even think about entering without a magic password, being hidden from public knowledge, referral only, see, I thought, and this is my fault, so we can all just stop and blame me, so don't even feel for a SECOND like you did something wrong, I thought you were smart enough to realize that meant she was supposed to be something of a secret, and not paraded around outside. I know! I know. Dumb old Belham! Silly old goat! I thought the academage who can't shut up about how smart she is was, you know, at least, in some way, not an idiot. My mistake. Won't make it again."

This was an attack. An attack of words, of Style, and for a moment Yhelm almost rose in counter-attack, but she stopped, with her tongue pressing into the roof of her mouth. The only move stronger than a counter-attack is to act like you weren't even hit in the first place. "That feel good? Got it out of your system yet?"

Lils looked back between Yhelm and Belham in confusion. "Is? Words?? has a something DONE to a-o-curr?"

"So that's all you really have to say?" Belham asked Yhelm.

"No, I'm just waiting until you're done being angry enough that I can tell you why you're wrong."

Dead were unpredictable. Those born dead, like Belham Pio, were descended from Hartlight, God of Graves, who, if anything on the Wall was even slightly accurate, had been the enemy of creation and tried to destroy the world before it had even existed. That dead existed as a race in the modern day was only due to the mercy of the original gods and the innocence of the core of their idea. But Belham Pio was a lifelong gangster, a guild boss, descended from the first villain in existence, a skeleton-ghost that ate fear, and right now, oh right now he looked really pissed.

But he always looked really pissed. And Yhelm? Yhelm was an adversary. The father of her race was born from the idea of getting into trouble and getting out of it unharmed. She could pull this off. She'd been thinking about this since the first night she'd taken Lils out garbage picking, been planning out her arguments and explanations and citations like it was a thesis defense. That was the trick. Turn the situation, whatever situation, into the kind you were meant to win. And adversaries? They were created to win the 'just got home from sneaking out with your daughter' situation.

Belham Pio broke the standoff first. "Okay, that sounds fun. Why don't you tell me exactly how I'm wrong--"

"Gladly," Yhelm interrupted. "You're looking at Lils as a sick version of herself who needs to be kept safe. Except half-dead are mimeographic resonances of their original lives; corpses are used as a base for creation because of Aescshler's Law that states it's easier to modify something than create something, and are created by exploiting the Law of Like-Must-Be-Is. The corpse syllepetically provides both a metaphorical framework and a physical framework for a continuity, and during Story-transference motive energies force, and are forced to, take the impression of the original identity. Except this is an exploit of like-must-be-is and shouldn't be counted as a revival but only a reincarnational possibility. Half-dead are reliant, and this is the important part, half-dead are reliant on the creating wizard providing continual referential context or else, just as the body decays, so will the resonance of continuity."

Nodding, Belham said, "Right, right, I understood none of that."

"I know you didn't, that was my point," Yhelm said. "The take-away is, half-dead aren't someone who died but they have dementia because being dead was rough. They're constructs that look so much like a person who used to be alive the world gets confused and starts thinking they are that person, so it fills in the gaps. Just enough to be a useful servant or fighter or whatever the wizard made it for. Bits of the person's memory and personality are just a side-effect of the process."

"Huh," Belham said. "And so you've been sneaking out with her because…"

"The wizard keeps the half-dead working through a ton of complex magic that I'm pretty sure isn't active for Lils anymore since her creator's, you know, dead. Without the wizard actively tricking the world into thinking Lils is who Lils used to be, she degenerates. And I can't replicate the magic, so the only way to keep her from becoming mindless and eventually actually-dead-dead, is to treat her like a person so hard the world is convinced she's that person and lets her keep existing."

Off to the side, Lils was nodding in unsteady, jerky agreement. "REM ember this principAL. A half-dead of LILS is: symbolism like a repform mAgic! And all magic inSTALLations do a crumble over time. CannoT sust ain! It is reaSONABlE that a Lils will also do a unsustaIn unless maintaIn! The principle of friend Yhelm is sound."

It was so hard to tell what a dead was thinking by facial expressions when the face was just a flaming skull, but Belham did a good show of crossing his arms and shifting his weight to the side and lowering his head so his eyes glowered down at Yhelm dramatically. "So you're telling me you're running around with her without permission to save her life."

"And she's my friend," Yhelm said. "It's a nice day out."

"I bet you expect I'm going to get real angry now! Give you something to be an adversary about. So you can go and be the leather-clad hero! Well. I'm going to be very boring instead and say, I'm only upset you didn't think to tell me about this beforehand. Because you are, as you are trying to prove, a licensed academage. So why didn't you think to tell me I was doing something dumb! This is what I pay you for! You saw I was doing something with negative results and didn't think, well, hey, maybe I should warn Belham this isn't what modern scientific consensus says you should do with half-dead you want to keep alive. I! Pay you to know these things! And instead of being angry that you are sneaking about like an adversary seducing my daughter I'm upset that you, as my employee, didn't do the thing that is supposed to be your job!"

Fuck, Yhelm thought. He kind of had her, there. "In my defense, prim'ent, you're a hard person to go up to and say, hey, you're wrong about something."

The fires curling around Belham's head fluttered out. "Okay, fair point. I am very scary."

#autumn writes things #autumn draws things #series tag yhelm #yhelm 13

[autumnbrambleagain]

Technically Yhelm p12

Yhelm taking Lils out to a magic shop to expand the half-dead's horizons and let her live less like a sick savant locked away and protected from the world and more like an actual witch.

Belham will be so delighted when he finds out!

--

"It's not really anything special, but we did have to make some staves to prove we knew the concept in the Cazirizahd. Funny story, I was actually just really annoyed at how serious my suitemates were taking it? But I was so annoyed with how seriously everyone in the towers took themselves. I kind of just smashed this together as an insult, but… well, it's the kind of insult an adversary with a graduate degree in magic creates. So it still works pretty well."

--

Magic staves, as a concept, are usually representational-form constructions with pattern-drawing additions meant not to cast spells specifically but to stand as a physical thesis statement of intent and established proofs, allowing acadamages to cast spells more clearly and strongly by their presence. They are popular in some magical cultures where collecting lengthy tables of citations and references is considered gauche and unwieldy, to say nothing of difficult to reference easily in the heat of the moment.

Yhelm's magic staff is a thesis statement about delinquency, and serves as a cited reference of magic-as-style, empowering her magic when it's used in a way that would make Bad Boy proud, which is essentially the only time she bothers using magic anyway.

#autumn draws things #series tag yhelm #yhelm 12

[autumnbrambleagain]

Yhelm P10 - readmore for full

It was Big Girl Serious Time. If only mom could see her now, standing in the parlor of one of the city's crime bosses, holding a prisoner on a chain of solid Law. A trusted enforcer! Aren't you proud, mom. Be proud, mom.

Belham Pio, Boss of the Guild of Porters and Fishermen, was a dead, which meant he was a spooky skeleton-ghost and was born that way. He'd leaned hard into the theme. His parlor was dimly-lit, lined with unsettling portraits, peeling wallpaper, and carefully-maintained cobwebs. Bookcases where if you actually leaned in to read them the titles were all like "100 Methods of Torture." The windows were clouded over and the rain drummed dully outside.

Dead don't eat food, they eat fear, and the parlor was built to give Belham a snack every time someone had to talk to him in it. Right now he was probably gorging on poor Lastsong. The gaitsbird had lost any sense of bravado, drawn up behind all her wings and just barely peeking out. Madrigal was on the opposite side of her, their scarf animate and coiled in the air like a serpent. Not that Lastsong needed to be threatened with decapitation-by-scarf to keep her frightened and entirely miserable.

To be fair. It was bad.

The room was packed. Besides Yhelm, Madrigal, and their prisoner/workfriend Lastsong, there was a cultivar in a neat little uniform hunched over a desk with a massive book and pen. The Minuteskeeper. Didn't belong to any specific guild, ultimately outranked everyone in the room. Actually a huge deal.

Standing off to the side, wearing a non-descript lawizard suit, the Arbitrator. Even more big a deal. A freeperson (??), rusty reds and yellows. No one in any of the guilds knew who she actually was. She wasn't even guild. She was hired on for things like this and disappeared when she was done. It was Yhelm's first time seeing her, and no one had ever told her about the eyes? The Arbitrator's eyes were wrong.

Several enforcers from other guilds, too, lined up behind Yhelm and helping to keep Lastsong from running and showing everyone how tough they were. Posturing. Yhelm and Madrigal were posturing the hardest, though, since this was their home turf. Yhelm had her rain-slicked leather jacket, standing on her hinds, umbrella point in the ground, shoulders squared. Barely moving. Very serious. Everyone behind her? Sloppy. No discipline. Thugs versus someone with a degree. She'd always win.

At Belham's desk, three guild bosses, in the same room, behind the same desk, crammed together in the same corner.

Belham Pio, in his red robe and ghostly flames. Yhelm's boss. Lastsong's boss. The one losing face from his underling attacking another guild member in a third guild's tavern.

"Right," Belham said. "I suppose we can get this formally started."

Jalis Salt-on-the-Shore Mondegreen was here, a tiny adversary with goat-fox stylings. She was short enough she had to stand on her chair to see over the desk, and she was standing on several books too, just to make sure she was taller than the other two. She was in layers of mantles and dresses that were apparently the fashion wherever she came from. Guild of Brick Layers and Ditch Diggers boss.

"Let's start! I'm not here for the decor! Or the refreshments. Are there refreshments?"

Graveflower 5054-13-LangberryFunerary had the third seat. He was a cultivar. His dour wooden face was framed in the petals of a massive black flower that grew out of his stem/chest like an oversized collar. Yhelm barely knew anything about him other than his being the boss of Guild of Lamp Lighters and Wood Cutters.

"… by the charter of 3497 we convene this trial to decide the punishment of gopaf Lastsong." The Minutekeeper's pen scratched as he spoke. "Does guild defending protest innocence?"

Belham laughed. Absolutely no one could beat him for evil laugh, Argent preserve. "No, Hartlight's ass no. The only reason I'm having you all drip rainwater on my parlor is so we all agree I'm punishing her squares and pairs."

"Very well," Graveflower said. "For the record," with a nod to the other cultivar, the Minutekeeper, "gopaf Lastong is accused of near-fatally injuring gollawc Pyrene and disrupting the business of gobladd tavern Betcher's Ales. Guilt is taken for, punishment pending. As aggrieved with priority, I place execution."

Lastsong ducked entirely behind the shields of her wings, as if that would save her. Fuck. Yhelm was starting to feel bad. Maybe this was a bad job. Maybe she didn't want mom to see her here. She pinged Madrigal through Love.

♥Hey I feel really bad about this,♥ she sent.

♥No kidding. They're always going to start high and bargain down though.♥

♥Right, sure,♥ Yhelm sent, ♥but do you ever get the feeling we're the bad guys?♥

Madrigal risked giving her a look over Lastsong's trembling head. ♥Your jacket says Trouble on the back.♥

♥Okay, sure, but--♥

Madrigal interrupted. ♥This is one of the unfun parts of the life. Meadoe's sake it's why my sisters are barely involved in guild.♥

♥Why are you? So involved in guild?♥ Yhelm sent. Outside of their Love, Belham and the other two bosses were debating Lastsong's life. Yhelm tried to not pay too close attention.

♥Money,♥ Madrigal sent. ♥It's not like I have a lot of skills.♥

♥That's not true.♥

♥Not a lot of legitimate skills. I have our family's martial style with the scarf, I have some Encore cred. I never learned something useful like they did. This is all I'm good for.♥

♥Don't listen to my mom. You're worth more than your marketability.♥

♥I'm dragging you down to bad places with me, Yhelm. You should really get out.♥

♥Uh. No. This is what your life is, Maddie, and I'm a part of your life. That's my choice. I'll fight you.♥

It was getting hard to focus on Maddie. The bosses' debate kept using terrible words and the other enforcers behind Yhelm were shuffling uncomfortably and the Minutekeeper's pen was zooming along at a speed the suggested he was using some kind of power. Lastsong was warbling. It was getting hard to pretend this away. This was happening. From what Yhelm could gather, the current sentence was torture, although undefined, and Jalis kept pressing for rape. Like, not even using a classy euphemism for it just outright saying someone should probably rape Lastsong.

Belham raised a bony hoof just as Jalis was describing cloacal tearing. "Arbitrator please."

The room went quiet and cold. The Arbitrator had just, been leaning on the wall, watching. Was she not blinking? Why did it feel like she wasn't blinking? Slowly, she stepped off the wall, and approached the desk. Her voice had a flavor like expensive but hard liquor. "There was no sexual assault in Lastsong's crime. Introducing sex in the punishment would require more expensive abstractive calculations. It's also disgusting."

Jalis snarled like she was going to say something but crossed her arms and huffed instead. Belham blew a raspberry with his weird ghost-fire tongue at her.

"You want balance restored," the Arbitrator continued, now owning the entire room with her quiet growl. "Pay her violence with violence."

Belham sighed. His entire body's flames flared like a bellows was in his chest. "Yes, we've got that much. The problem is how do you look at a beating and say 'Ah, now that's a good lawful beating.' How many times do I hit her with a tableleg to make up for it? Is her noggin off-limits? How many broken bones pays back someone trying to dig out your guts, yeah? What if I give her one a bit too hard am I in trouble now or can I sue these jerks for it?"

Okay the Arbitrator was definitely not blinking. Yhelm could feel the other enforcers around her deflate. "I'll quantify the harm caused to the victim and set her punishment to that value. Is anyone here a friend of the victim? Have them 'go at it.' That will be your emotional catharsis too. Feel the bad vibes fade away. All becomes… squares and pairs."

"Right right and what if when the friend has an accident and oops she's dead?" Belham asked.

"My Law will stop them from inflicting any harm in excess of what the victim suffered. They can 'let loose' without fear. When the limit's reached they'll be unable to harm her further."

Yhelm thought a second. <3Huh,<3 she sent to Madrigal. <3I wish Bodo was here now actually because I'd love to ask him if Law can do that?<3

♥Can it not?♥ Madrigal sent back.

♥Like, I'm not a lawizard. This is weird though. This all feels really weird. Doesn't her entire everything feel weird?♥

♥I guess?♥

♥… oh shoot is she a breacher? Because this is sounding like a fairy's idea of justice. What do you like, know about her?♥

♥Not much!? I've heard everything from people saying she secretly works for Flyhh to keep us in line, to she's a Law construct that went criminal. You know how guild likes to make stuff up.♥

"Yhelm," Belham Pio said, ordered, loudly. "That will be the deal then! What fun. Please take Lastsong and--who's doing the uh--"

Graveflower pointed to one of his enforcers. "Rebark."

An eager adversary who looked more like a rat than a dog skulked forward, shouldering into Yhelm as he passed.

Belham gave a 'sure whatever' wave of his bony hand. "Yhelm, go find a nice side room for Rebark to wail on Lastsong while the Arbitrator arbitrates non-arbitrarily. What good fun, justice is served."

♥Fuck,♥ Yhelm sent to Madrigal.

♥At least you're not Lastsong,♥ Madrigal sent back.

This sucked.

This probably sucked for Lastsong more than it did for Yhelm, but this still sucked.

Yhelm was now standing outside a heavy, closed door, with only the Arbitrator and Lastsong's crying for company. And the thuds. The dull, heavy thuds of someone taking their long, sweet, enjoyed pleasure in beating her. This was fucked up. Why was it taking so long? Was it taking so long? How much of a beating equalled being stabbed near-to-death?

Fuck. Yhelm couldn't lose her cool. She was ON and three guilds were watching. This wasn't even a pride thing, this was a the-example-of-what-happens-if-you-fuck-up-was-happening-in-the-room-behind-her thing. Fuck.

"So he can't accidentally kill her?" Yhelm asked, just to say something, just to make noise over the sound of Lastsong's crying.

The Arbitrator hadn't been paying attention to Yhelm. A Law-shaped scroll was burning in the air before her, flooding with writing that made Yhelm's eyes go funny when she looked at it. Apparently it was how she was keeping track of the quantifiable harm done to Lastsong. Which was weird. Which wasn't how Law ever worked from everything she'd read. This was closer to Authority? Maybe? She wished she could ask Bodo about this without telling him 'I know you think I'm some kind of villain, but I'm really not, but anyway my gang was beating someone up as punishment and--'

The Arbitrator was looking right at her now though. Her eyes. A freeperson should have round, maybe slightly horizontal, pupils. An adversary should have scattered, broken pupils. These were just. Narrow black slits, set in yellow. They weren't right.

"Ah," she said, her voice always hovering just below a growl. "Yes. My Law will stop s'ent Rebark from exceeding the established value of harm inflicted on s'ent Pyrene."

"Right," Yhelm agreed. She had to play up the role. She had to lose herself in the role. There was a terrible CRACK and Lastsong shrieked and no she couldn't stay cool how the fuck could she stay cool during this!? "What if he goes all out in one hit? Tries to kill her? Or what if he does something that isn't bad now but later she--"

"It cannot happen in any way other than how I allow it to happen."

"Right," Yhelm said, convinced in the way where you're sure the expert knows what they're talking about but you still can't imagine how it works like that.

It'd been anywhere from half a minute to three hours, so far, Yhelm guessed. The guilds were formed millenia ago as labor unions, as organizations to control the jobs staffed by the lowest classes, both to keep them from falling into true lawlessness and to allow them to bargain with power. They'd been an institution for millenia, in this city created the moment time began, they were an ancient tradition, thousands of perfectly normal people were guild and did zero crimes at all, and even the crimes the guild did were more navigating around loopholes, collective bargaining, smuggling, petty pickpocketing or theft, she knew the history and she kept telling herself it as she listened to someone she knew be beaten in increasingly deeper, wetter thuds that sounded so loud even with a door between her and it.

"Fuck," she groaned to herself. She couldn't keep her cool. She'd lost it completely. Bad Boy forgive her.

"You're really worried about her?" the Arbitrator asked.

Gah, fuck, she was staring right at Yhelm again. "Uh. She's. A work-friend. I know she fucked up big, but it's one thing to say that, and another to stand out here and listen to it."

The Arbitrator smiled. It was this, wrong, smile. She had too many teeth? "It is a shame. People can be very… thankless. 'The World was made in Love' the Rose Knights say? But here we are."

Yhelm took the risk. Anything was better than the noises behind them. "So. Do you, disapprove?”

The Arbitrator mm’d an agreement.

“Why do you do it then?"

The Arbitrator's smile widened. "Why do you do it then? Why do you put yourself through it? Why--with all the choices you have in life--did you choose this?"

"Fuck I mean that's…"

"Personal," the Arbitrator finished.

"I was gonna say the big question," Yhelm said. "My partner's guild. We were just talking about that. Ultimately, this is their life--it's mine too."

"Mm," the Arbitrator said. She turned back to the scroll.

No, no no, she couldn't go back to listening to hearing it. "Are you uh. So. You can stop me if I'm some dumb low-level enforcer overstepping my place, okay?"

"I'll hold you to that," the Arbitrator said quietly.

"… right. Okay. Yeah. So you're a breacher, right?"

The Arbitrator wasn't really doing anything, but she still froze up. She stopped breathing, and she actually, finally, blinked, which Yhelm realized she hadn't been doing at all. "You know. You aren't the first to think that. You're the first to say it to me? Directly?"

"Is it--" Yhelm juggled the words wrong and rude in her head and what came out was, "wrongde?"

The Arbitrator sighed. "The guilds summon me from the Moon when they have a case for me."

"Huh, all right. Is that, is that a secret you want me to keep?" Yhelm offered.

The Arbitrator smiled and this time it--it looked less wrong and just more kind of sad. "What was it that gave it away to you?"

"Uh. I mean. Well." Fuck. Maybe it would be better to listen to the sound of Lastsong--no, nevermind, she could hear it, nevermind. "Honestly it was your Law being weird."

"My Law…"

"Yeah. This… arrangement works well for what we need, I guess. But it's sort of. Do. Do you know how I mean? It's not something I could expect normal Law to do? Traditionally Law isn't just the enforcement of authority that's Authority they're both derived from Red Aiax but they're different, on an, elemental level. Laws differ in different countries and organizations but there's still primal Law and the only Law I know that is just, sheer enforcement of any kind of contract is, well, theoretically I don't have direct experience with it but I learned about it in college, is breacher Law."

The Arbitrator looked almost surprised, almost impressed, if any emotion at all could fit on her severe, mask-like face. "You aren't dumb. But was there really nothing else to hint at it?"

She couldn't really lie to a breacher that wasn't safe, right? "… well, your eyes are wrong. But if it wasn't for the Law… well, you could just have had weird eyes. So it's kind of both together that--"

"I don't," the Arbitrator started. She looked back to the scrolling Law in front of her. "I don't try very hard when the Flyhhnemonia guilds summon me. Everyone wants me to play the role of aloof… mysterious… powerful… dangerous stranger. I can lose myself in that role and… forget."

"I think I follow? When I’m back there with all the eyes on me it’s easy to be Guild Enforcer instead of, me. I guess for you if everyone's already expecting you're something weird, so it's easy to let your disguise--"

"No," the Arbitrator interrupted. "It's not letting a disguise slip. It's… forgetting to be myself. I don't always want to be a breacher. Sometimes I like to play pretend… and think I am a freeperson."

"Oh." What.

"You don't know how much I envy you. The world was made for you, Yhelm Machato," Yhelm scrambled to remember if her last name had been said or if the breacher had just pulled that out of the air, "and your gods are still living. We are an ill-fitting virus begot of a dead king who never lived to see the world's birth. The world was made in Love, for you, and for Lastsong, and all the rest of you. And look at how… frivolously you waste all of it. We breachers turn on one another because we were made to. Our Father is dead and he never secured a place for us but through deceit and spite, what else can we be? But you all. Your parents made this world out of Love for you and you summon invaders from before time to referee your torture of one another. Everywhere else on this world I pretend to be a freeperson and pretend--just, pretend as best as I can that I belong here. Because that's the real joke of it. All of you belong here--and you're just as bad as we are on the Moon. That's why I always come when the guilds summon me. It's so--hilarious!"

She said hilarious, but the Arbitrator's Very Wrong Eyes were wet with tears.

Oooh man, Yhelm thought. Smalltalk was a bad idea. Listening to Lastsong was probably better. "I--I don't think--"

"It's done," the Arbitrator said, suddenly, her voice falling back to that deeper, smoother, aloof, terrible thing it had been before. "That's the limit. He can't do anything else. S'ent Lastsong will want medical attention. There are some broken bones. Yhelm?"

"Y-yeah."

The Arbitrator's eyes were dry now, and they were--deeply wrong. There were too many of them. That was the problem. She had four—six—three—eyes. Had that always been the problem? They imposed over one another in a dizzying blur like Yhelm's glasses had gone real bad, real fast. "If you told anyone about this conversation, or my true nature, that would be a dumb low-level enforcer overstepping her place, and I will stop you."

Fuck. "Okay," Yhelm said quietly.

With a wave of her paw, the Arbitrator dismissed the Law construct hanging in the air. "I hope you figure out what you want from this world before it's too late for you. Please don't take it for granted."

"I'm--honestly doing my best," Yhelm said.

"Promise?" the Arbitrator asked.

You should probably never, ever promise anything to a breacher, Yhelm reflected, as she said, "Promise."

#autumn writes things #autumn draws things #series tag yhelm #yhelm 10 #fiction #writing #i still dont know how to tag this

[autumnbrambleagain]

Yhelm p8 - readmore for full

It was an especially busy day! It was an especially coffee-hungry day.

See, whenever it rained you could say Drizzle was visiting, because that was the god that was made of rain, it was a fair turn-of-phrase. Sometimes Drizzle actually was visiting, though. Especially here in Flyhhnemonia, where at least two gods lived full-time already, you sometimes had other gods stop in. Was good for business. Lots of people coming around to see who'd show up! But Drizzle, she was on day-3 of her visit. Meadoe knew what she and Flyhh were doing to enjoy one another's company so long but it had been raining the entire time.

But that cool dreary gray weather on an otherwise hot summer week? You know what was a good pick-me-up from that? Coffee. To be fair, Afternoon Sale thought coffee was the solution to nearly everything, which was a luxury of perspective afforded to her by being the unannounced god of coffees. So to be fair, there were three gods living in Flyhhnemonia at all times, and she was one of them, and she was a god of coffee, but she was not a god of customer service, and so she had done the unthinkable and hired on a little victim waitress for the duration of the rains.

Possibly longer. She was coffee colored and flavored and had the right head about her. Afternoon Sale's first Servant, in the prehistoric sense of a subordinate identity of a god formed back before time began. Still needed to be trained though. Still needed to be taught The Secret Arts. Like how to tell from a glance exactly what was going on with every party they were entertaining, how to tell what they all needed to drink (not what they wanted, irrelevant, useless factoids that). How to tell, with a mere look of her expert button eye, ah, how you could read the mood like a rabbit on the walk!

"See that group there," Afternoon Sale whispered down to Nel, "that's trouble."

"Oh!" Nel said, in her smart little voice. "How can you tell, Prim'ent?"

Afternoon Sale crossed her lace-drenched arms and lifted her mouthless face so the light played a smile across its fabric. "You see, Nel, you must always Know with a Glance-like surety why everyone has come in. Mostly everyone here today is looking for an excuse out of the rain. Those four! Look at the strong resemblance between the two freepeople, and how they sit on just one side, together. Note closely how the adversary looks just similar enough to the freepeople, but oh, oh you can see it can't you? Half. Siblings! And what's that? A phanteasel at her side? A stiffness to everyone's posture? This, Nel! This. This is a family reunion. And a rocky one at that. So we'll need to provide the best service possible. If their lives are ruined it's our fault, Nel! Entirely on us! The Rose Knights will come to take us away and by Attic Door I will fight my best but we mustn't let it come to that."

This was a family reunion. Seated as far from the asylum-seeking coffee-drinkers as possible, Yhelm was, for the first time in several years, seeing her younger brother. Family. It was Latti's insistance they do it. She and Yhelm had been meeting on the regular since summer'd started and she'd finally convinced Yhelm it was time to make amends with the family. To rebuild bridges.

So yeah okay. Here Yhelm was. She was in her leather jacket, because she needed to feel some kind of protection between her and everything else around her? And Madrigal was here, wearing very a respectable phanteasel-style mantle-and-skirt combo, patterned and adorned. And across from them, Latti, ever clean and pretty, wearing a heavier dust-blue mantle for the rain this time.

And Bodo.

The youngest sibling. The little brother.

The child Yhelm's parents had brought into the world as a do-over, because Yhelm was the consequence of mom being raped, and gosh, they sure couldn't let their last child be a rape-baby, could they? And an adversary at that. No, no. Better to have another freeperson child. Better to have another baby that was both of theirs. That was like them. Better to invent a reason to ignore Yhelm except also maybe Yhelm could go be super successful to justify her own existence? But we still get to ignore her because we have Bodo now? Both? Yes, both.

Yhelm sighed. They'd been sitting here for less than the count of an entire minute and she was already in a bad mood. That was the problem with families, the problem with family reunions. You could never have them alone. Your parents were always in the room even if they weren't. And their problems, their, massive, heavy palanquin of problems, all three siblings had borne their own corner of the weight and now by their struggles combined a lifetime of context had joined them for coffee and just, Flyhh preserve it had real shitty table manners.

Bodo was the same light color fur as Latti. The same blue eyes. The same fluffy leaf-ears. But he had changed too, in the years since Yhelm had seen him. He was taller now. He was, what? 16? Ten years younger than her? He had been a child last she'd seen him. He was an adult now. He was tall. He was still somewhat pudgy, but in that way dad--the dad that wasn't actually Yhelm's dad, but was Latti and Bodo's dad--in the way their dad wore it respectfully. Bodo had been a little goof. He'd been the baby.

He looked so serious. In a proper suit. A red bowtie. The little nubs of his antlers. The, the absolute displeasure he was looking at Madrigal and Yhelm with.

"So wow!" Latti said chipperly. "Isn't this amazing? The three of us in the same room? Almost four years?"

Bodo spoke, and his voice was so much deeper than Yhelm felt it should be. This was so bizarre. "It could have been less if Yhelm hadn't thrown us out of her life."

Latti grimaced. Yhelm kept her card face. Straight, angular, red eyes narrowed, relaxed. She wasn't sure if Latti had confirmed for Bodo the rumors that she was a professional criminal or not. He’d probably heard. He would probably assume it if he hadn’t. That was fine. She actually was a Guild enforcer. She dealt with actually dangerous people daily. She wasn't going to show a single crack in her armor to a 16 year old brat.

Fuck this was off to a bad start.

♥This is off to a real bad start,♥ Yhelm sent Madrigal across their shared Love connection.

♥Are you joking? No one's even yelling yet. This is going great.♥ Their wordless voice was a comfort.

♥Haha.♥

Afternoon Sale appeared at the table. She arrived like a late train, instantly becoming the center of attention, the center of frustration. She was not a god of customer service but she prided herself an expert at it all the same, even if, especially if, it meant interrupting tense moments and making them about her instead. "Helllooooo! Lattiiii, Yhelmmm, Maddie, so good to see you three again! Drizzle didn't give you too wet of a time out there? And you little mister, you're new! Let! Me guess. Little brother. And by your dress… law… clerk. Am I right? You must tell me!"

Law clerk? What? Afternoon Sale was on the nose almost always but what? Since when was he into Law?

Bodo looked up at the lace-soaked knicknack with the same annoyed face he'd been giving Yhelm and Madrigal. Maybe that was just how his face was now? "I am a junior law clerk of the out-city court Cabdrydal," he said, as if he were correcting her. Law? Since when was Bodo into Law!?

"Well hey isn't that fun!" Afternoon Sale said! "You have a lawizard, an acadamage, and a mathemagician all in the same family! Preeeeetty magical!" She had leaned in over the table, right in the way. Yhelm couldn't see Bodo now. This was the best cafe. "So I think for my usuals it's their usuals, although Yhelm needs hers a tad more bitter than normal, and Latti a tad more sweet, and Maddie, oh, honestly, raspberry in with the honey, what an ailment for you to need such a prescription! But you! My little law clerklet!"

Yhelm couldn't see through Afternoon Sale but Bodo made an annoyed noise. Yhelm could imagine his face, but she'd already forgotten what he looked like as an adult. He was still 12 years old in her head. She couldn't shake it. "It's not clerklet--" he tried.

"A very serious black coffee for a very serious little man, then. Oh, don't worry. I will not tell your sisters, not the oldest you're trying to impress nor the middle child you're here to get angry at, oh! Doctor-patient confidentiality, I will not tell them you want cinnamon and sugar in it because you can't handle the bitter! Which is the same as your sister Yhelm here, who also needs it bitter even though she'd much rather have it sweet. Well! That's settled, I'll be out of your way."

And with that, she was, and Bodo and Yhelm could see one another again. It had worked. Bodo looked like he was more confused and annoyed at Afternoon Sale than at Yhelm now. Yhelm wondered if he understood what the knicknack had said. Yhelm had.

Latti tried to excuse the coffee god. "Afternoon Sale has her own unique way of doing things, but she's always exactly on the mark for her orders! I don't think I've ever heard a single customer want to send a cup back. Oh, she does the most amazing blends. I hear she gets some of her coffee from as far out as the Sclera."

Yhelm needed to say something. Other than her hellos when they had come in she hadn't, she hadn't even said anything yet. She had to at least try, right? "Her coffee is unreasonably good. I didn't even especially like coffee before Latti showed me this place."

"Mmm," Bodo said helpfully.

Madrigal's thoughts vibrated at the edge of Yhelm. ♥I'm going to try to talk to Bodo.♥

♥Okay,♥ she answered. ♥Good luck.♥

"Law clerk, though, that's really good work," they said.

Bodo glared at them. Just, wow, that was a full on glare. That was the kind of look that'd start a bite-fight in less polite company. Yhelm had seen a guy get stabbed for making that face before. "Unfortunately for you, I'm not for sale."

Holy shit. Yhelm leaned forward just a little bit. "What does that mean?" She hadn't meant for her voice to be somewhat growly but here it was anyway.

Bodo gave her the same look. "I'm not stupid, Yhelm. Mother and father aren't stupid, either. We know what you do. We know where your money comes from."

"And where," Yhelm asked, "is that?"

"Crime." Bodo said the word with a grevious weight, as if it was a legal pronouncement that would draw Aiax down from the stars to pass judgement himself. "Maybe Latti can pretend to ignore it because you're ostensibly family, but you and your weasel are criminals. Or did you really think I wouldn't know? Do you really think you're that clever?" There was a mocking, triumphant little giggle to his words. It was a child winning an argument. He was still 12.

"Bodo!" Latti said. Scandalized. "They aren't trying to bribe you! We're family, Flyhh's love we can't be fighting like this!"

Bodo looked sideways, slyly, at Latti, like he was an actor broadcasting his actions so the people in the back could see them. "Is she our sister? Or is she just our half-sister?"

Madrigal pinged again. ♥Hey uh. Does Bodo know why you're an adversary and no one else in the family is?♥

♥I have no clue,♥ she sent back.

"Bodo!" Latti was actually looking fairly pissed off now. At least, Yhelm thought, she was on their side? That was neat? To have family defending her for once? "I honestly did not expect this from you--"

"Why?" Bodo said, and now he was done with the cool act and his ears were folded back and, honestly, he just looked like he was 12. "Do you think I'm stupid?" he laughed. "That only you two can be the smart ones? I figured it out years ago. I figured out why they never want to talk about where Yhelm came from. Go ahead and tell me it was just an affair! You know it, I know it, and I bet damn well she knows it! She's the issue of a crime. How fitting that she turns back to her birthright."

♥Welp,♥ Yhelm and Madrigal simultaneously sent to one another.

Bodo drew himself up all proud and delighted. Latti's face--well that was sure a mixture of devastated and frustrated all at once. She was half-standing up. She sat back down. She looked at the table and not at anyone else at all. She was muttering something Yhelm couldn't hear. Bodo, though, he smiled with just this, this look of supreme victory at Yhelm and Madrigal. Like he'd won. Oh no. Of course.

"Oh no," Yhelm said, and her voice was soft and not a growl now. "Oh no Bodo you're the same. That's what Afternoon Sale meant."

"You and I are nothing--"

"You have to showboat and show me up and humiliate and threaten me so you can justify to mom and dad that you're better than me so they can feel better about themselves. So they can feel like you were worth it. You want to be able to go back to them today and say, you saw Yhelm, and you really let her have it for being a disappointment. With the unspoken coda of, please love and respect me and tell me I deserve to exist. Yeah. No. Sorry, Bo. They're putting you through everything they put me through. It's your turn. They sent you to law school didn't they? That was their idea? Their plan for you?"

Bodo didn't answer verbally. Every individual fur on his body shouted yes though.

♥Good job mom and dad,♥ Yhelm sent to Madrigal. ♥That's two lives they basically fucked up in their mad dash to deal with their trauma.♥

♥This is real shitty,♥ Maddie agreed. ♥I'm also worried he's too young to really get the--♥

"They paid for my law apprenticeship," Bodo said, and Madrigal stopped messaging. He leaned over the table without any kind of proper lawizard dignity. 12 years old. "Do you know what I didn't do? I didn't throw all of it away so I could go waste my life on something," he gestured an angry paw at Madrigal, "trivial!"

Wow.

"Bodo--" Latti started,

and Yhelm finished, "--this is the City of Love. Our princess is literally made of Love, Bodo. Love is one of the twelve original elements that the world grew out of, Bodo. Don't act like you don't know this, I helped you walk the Wall when you were a child, Bodo. Nothing done for Love is trivial. You can talk whatever shit you want about me but you can leave my partner of eleven years out of it. Thanks."

"Honestly," Madrigal said, their voice soft and little, "I think you're just jealous Yhelm got away and is living how she wants."

At that exact moment Afternoon Sale arrived with everyone's drinks. Bodo tried to explode but oh, Afternoon Sale had so very much to say about the quality of her coffee and the specific location of the beans and by the time she was done everyone was quiet again.

Yhelm's was really bitter. Bodo's clearly was, too. He drank it angrily, like getting it all down would show them a thing or two, threw far too much money on the table, dropped out the chair onto his fours, and just like that he was pushing his way out the door and into the rain.

"Well fuck me," Yhelm said quietly.

"I am--so sorry, Yhelm!" Latti apologized superfluously. "I can't believe he would come just for a chance to yell you out."

"Mom and dad aren't great people, huh."

#autumn writes things #autumn draws things #series tag yhelm #yhelm 8

[autumnbrambleagain]

Yhelm p6 - readmore for full story

"--and you don't, ever, LEARN, to watch your mouth! Is that how it worked in college? Do you just say whatever stupid thing comes to your head the moment it's there!?"

"Actually," Yhelm said, painfully squeezing each word past Corbis' thumb, "that's kind of how college does w--" woop he was squeezing real tight now!

"You're! Still! DOING IT! Can you just be SERIOUS JUST ONCE!?"

Yhelm's brain raced for a clever comeback to this. The blood of Bad Boy burned in her veins with the demand, do it, keep doing it, keep digging that hole for yourself. Maybe it was the jug-fourth she'd already drank, maybe it was because she'd been awake since before last night, maybe it was because today had been really stressful, maybe it was because he was strangling her and she couldn't talk now anyway, or just MAYBE it was because Corbis was actually right, but,

she didn't say anything snarky.

He kept her pinned there, a hand clamped around her muzzle, a hand bearing down into the meat of her throat, her back against the cold concrete wall, his anger-boner throbbing furiously in the empty space between them. You know, Yhelm thought. Maybe don't antagonize him for jollies, just, like, once in a while.

"Okay?" Corbis asked. "Can you just. Be. Fucking? Inches more responsible than Apat in a creamery?"

Yhelm pointed at the hand on her throat and made a wheezing noise, which was the best she could do at this point.

Corbis huffed. "Right. Okay." Slowly his hands slipped off of her. He stepped back, enough space between them they could both catch their breath.

Yhelmopened her mouth, rolled her jaw a few times, made a few test noises. "Groawm. Yaang. Yeah. Okay. I fucked up today. I'm sorry. There. Rare Yhelm apology. Collector's edition. Only ten ever printed. Fuck. Does my voice sound weird to anyone else now?"

Madrigal, head propped up on their hands, gave a soft little whistle. "So I don't know how things usually are between you? Should I be worried? Or is this just foreplay?"

Yhelm looked at Corbis, standing there half-hunched over, still panting in anger, paws balling into fists, claws digging into his own skin, red, hot flesh dagger twitching threatening at her. "Yeah," Yhelm said. "Basically we can hate-fuck, and that's about it."

"Right," Madrigal said, clapping their paws together. "Okay. Not sure if that's healthy but who wants to live a good life when you can live an interesting one?"

"So did we kill the mood?" Yhelm asked. "Are we still down to--woop there we go--" yep he had her against the wall again yep there we go there it was!

Madrigal rolled onto their back. "Yeah I mean," they said, as Corbis just, went, fucking, wild on Yhelm right there, "okay. I can see how this is hot."

#autumn draws things #autumn writes things #series tag yhelm #yhelm 6

[autumnbrambleagain]

your writing is really riveting and id love to learn about the worlds, but i really dont know where to start.. can you help us??

If you're talking about UWi, part of it is, you aren't meant to read an entire wiki but pick things up as it goes along. the figuring out what parts are consistent and learning about it is part of the fun i think

but it also does assume some kind of foreknowledge from my other posts so,

here's the master gallery for all the UWi images. if you go to the far back you'll get to where it was a shortlived interactive game, but after that the world was created and you can start getting a feel for the setting by the images and writings in them

here's a mostly-up-to-date summary on a bunch of the races

and if none of that is enough and you absolutely have to have the wiki,

fine, here's the UWi wiki

#autumn says things #trans-otherkin-ace-clusterfuck #series tag yhelm #setting tag uwi

[autumnbrambleagain]

Yhelm p2 - readmore for full

"Corbis, you wanted--oh and you're jerking it."

"You're a degree late. I got bored."

"Had to go around a birmad market. I'm here now, you can put it away."

"No, this is happening now. I've already started. If you want to hurry it along, you could take off your shirt?"

"Argent witness me."

"Give us a look at those cute shoulders of yours. That big fluffy chest."

"So you said Belham had something he needed done? Something other than your dick?"

"It isn't anything hot. If you want this to take LONGER we can talk work while I do this. Do you want it to take longer, Yhelm? Want time to admire the view?"

"Princess Flyhh, there's another Apat. Hey. Hey, there's another Apat for you to eat."

"Don't act like you're not into this, college girl."

"Pfft, okay, you have a very specific idea of what happens in an academagery."

"I'm not talking about the, the Cazirizahd, I'm talking about you. C'mon you're f,fucking a phanteasel, I know you're into the weird shit."

"Oooh, we're being racist, too, huh? What kinda things do you even daydream about me, dude. You know fuckpiles are just a myth."

"Yeah you're--hh--t,telling me you wouldn't--ff--fuck you wouldn't like being just--su-surrounded…"

"Yeah c'mon get it out of your system."

"By… heheh… why, y, you really want me to believe you're chaste and innocent?"

"Wait what the fuck."

"What?"

"Why didn't--are you EDGING? motherFUCK are you edging? You're not allowed to edge!"

"I'm a lifetime gangster, Yhelm. I've come to appreciate the finer things in life. Wine, cigars, an orgasm you take hours to build towards…"

"Oh we are not standing around for hours while you play with your little Apat."

"It might go faster if you gave me a little inspiration… it's so hot today, how are you even wearing that much clothing?"

"Oh fuck this hold on."

Yhelm reached across her Love connection and pinged Maddie. ♥Hey, Maddie.♥

♥S'up, Yuh?♥

♥Corbis called me over for Guild stuff but he won't talk until he finishes jerking it.♥

♥Haha what. Like, what?♥

♥Borrow my eyes for a second.♥

♥Hah! Haha. Oh wow that's, that's Corbis. Is he drunk?♥

♥The fuck knows. My plan is to just reach over there and aggressively jerk him to finish so he tells me what I'm here for. Cool?♥

♥Isn't that giving him what he wants?♥

♥Ohoho no no he's not going to enjoy this orgasm at all.♥

♥Oh no okay I'm gonna watch this.♥

♥Kay.♥

"What's up Yhelm? Talking to your fuckweasel?"

"Yeah so I'm just gonna--"

"Hey--HEY--"

"Yeah gimme that, okay, here you go--"

"Ouch fuck you're tugging get off let go hey HEY HOW ARE YOU THIS STRONG"

"I'm an adversary, buppo, my muscles count for more."

"You're a nerd how--aa--fuck stop--wait--ohshitohshit--Yhelm wait imgonnacum--"

"C'mon I wanna get to work."

"Ah--ohfuck--a----a!"

"There we go, there we go. Get it allllllll out. Get it alllllllll over your shirt."

"---fuck---"

"Ugh, some on my paw. Here."

"Ah--not on my face--agh, why!?"

"Oh c'mon like you don't wanna do this to me. If you can't take it don't dish it out. That's common sense. So. You're all good and milked. What did you want?"

"… fuck it's all over. Ah. You slut bitch."

"Business."

"Guh. Helmity."

"Oh is that cheeky fucker being a buzz again? Does he need a talking to?"

"If you'd be so kind."

"Well I won't be kind but I'll go do something about it. You have fun with round two."

"I think you broke it. There won't ever be another round, ever."

"That so?"

"Mm."

"Not even with some inspiration? What if my skirt were to just… rise just a little bit more… oops, look at that."

"Apat."

"Pfft. Thought so. Have fun with round two, nerd."

#autumn draws things #autumn writes things #series tag yhelm #yhelm 2