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breathetheocean99 · 2 years ago

Note

if you like, would you do a snippet about the daughter of a vampire hunter who frees a captive vampire from her father?

The vampire looked only a little older than her. Seventeen, maybe. Eighteen. Myna knew that didn't count for much - you couldn't tell a vampire's age just by looking at them, but still.

She was beautiful too, of course, in the way that all vampires in some way were. Her bloody eyes were striking, ethereal things that tracked Myna's every movement into the room. They paused on the keys clutched tightly in Myna's hand and then flicked to her face. The vampire's head tilted.

Myna stopped in front of her, just out of reach.

"Will you attack me if I release you?" Myna asked.

"Would you believe me if I said promised no?"

It was a good question. Myna wet her lips, nervously, and the vampire's gaze darted to those next.

"No," the vampire said. "I have no desire to linger here, not even to hurt him."

But the vampire did want to hurt her father. That much was obvious, but also understandable. Maybe Myna was making a mistake. Maybe she was under a thrall that was simply masquerading itself as morality, because though desire was more insidious it was easier to resist. Maybe she would only know when the vampire was gone, and she could think clearly, or maybe she would always wonder.

Myna hesitated, shifting her grip on the keys.

"He hurts you."

"He does not like my kind."

"Your kind are monsters."

"And your father's behaviour is monstrous." The vampire shrugged, light and almost careless. Almost. She raised a delicate eyebrow. "But you know that or you wouldn't be thinking about doing what you're doing."

Myna gulped.

She'd been raised to believe that vampires were pure predator, unnatural and evil, but the more she had actually seen of them the less she could possibly believe that true. The less she saw of...her the less Myna could believe it.

Her father said that was how vampires operated. They mimicked passion, love, the human things to ensure their own safety.

Myna usually felt like she was faking it too, though.

Most of the other girls at school thought hunting was archaic, barbaric. It also felt an entirely different thing to kill a vampire and to keep one one captive for weeks on end in a converted wine cellar.

Most girls always seemed to know what to say, while Myna felt like her script had got lost somewhere and so she kept reading cues all long,.

If faking was the standard for being inhuman, for being evil, then what did that make her?

"How old are you?" It was a silly question, in the grand scheme of absolutely everything.

The vampire blinked. "Twenty three."

It felt ancient. It felt a world away. Twenty three meant life away from her father's house and no more school and the freedom to do whatever she wanted. She knew, though, that it wasn't very long at all. She knew what a human lifespan was supposed to be. She knew how old vampires could get.

"How old are you?" The vampire's tone was strangely soft.

"Sixteen."

"Sixteen," the vampire echoed. A wistful sort of smile curled her lips. "Sweet sixteen girl."

"I'm not sweet."

"No." The vampire said it almost musingly. "You're something much more enticing. More interesting."

Enticing. Interesting.

Myna cleared her throat. She felt heat rise, ridiculous and unbidden to her cheeks, and stepped closer. She was glad she didn't fumble the locks, but her heartbeat still picked up the second the metal hit the floor.

She scurried back swiftly, even as she was aware her swiftness was a snail compared to what the vampire was.

The vampire stood, slowly, even to Myna's human eyes, like she was trying not to scare her.

"Thank you." The vampire seemed a little unsure. She wet her lips, and Myna's gaze darted treacherously to them. "It gets better," she said. "I promise."

Myna looked down, because the words weren't what she'd expected and she didn't know what exactly she'd wanted. "You should go."

When she glanced up again, the vampire stood right in front of her, barely a breath away. Myna's breath caught.

"You could come with me," the vampire said. "Your father will be angry with you for freeing."

Myna's stomach churned, but she squared her shoulders. "He won't hurt me."

"Tell him I thralled you," the vampire said. She reached her hand up, pressing the pad of her thumb over Myna's bottom lip. "He'll believe it."

"Uhuh."

The vampire smiled; wicked and feral and everything that Myna thought she might be too, if she was only brave enough. The vampire pressed the sweetest of kisses to Myna's lips.

"All a vampire is," the vampire whispered, "is everything human with the volume turned up. Your father doesn't like what is reflected back when he thinks of us. Humans can be awful."

"And me?" Myna managed.

"You," the vampire said, "will be feral when you finally get around to unlocking your own cage. I look forward to it, sweet sixteen."

Then, she was gone.

And Myna could taste power on her tongue.

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breathetheocean99 · 2 years ago

Photo

Here’s the new 24 hour comic I drew this year! This one is called THE KING’S FOREST. cw: blood, violence

PS: if you liked this, there’s a whole book of these comics available now!

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breathetheocean99 · 2 years ago

Text

Half Sick of Shadows

For the kind people who asked :)

23:58

She hurtled through the trees, twigs and undergrowth crashing beneath her bare feet. Branches and bushes whipped cruelly at her arms, her legs, her cheek. She had a moment to be concerned that he would smell the coppery scent of her blood on the air. She had a larger moment to sincerely wish she’d thought to negotiate for a decent pair of running shoes – she’d just said running shoes, like an idiot, and he’d given her a smile and trainers that were four sizes too small.

Mostly, she did not have a moment at all. She needed as much of a head start as she could get.

She pushed her muscles to run faster still, burning through her adrenaline. Her heart slammed hard enough that she felt dizzy. Her breath came in quick, loud, ragged gasps.

The woods grew tall and thick and twisted in every direction around her; its canopy of leaves an impenetrable shield against the moonlight she had seen earlier. The darkness would have been absolute if not for the twinkling drops of silvery lights looped above her on black ropes, like someone had plucked all of the stars down for decoration.

At least she’d remembered to ask for lights. Good lights. She’d heard a story about a boy who forgot to ask for lights. He didn’t last even five minutes after midnight.

It was not, in the modern age, considered proper for fae to hunt unwilling mortals for sport. There were diplomatic relations to consider. The game, the challenge, which had been devised in response was a deceptively simple one.

Mortals could choose to enter themselves for the hunt. If considered, they would then be whisked to the fairy kingdom on the night of the full moon, and given the opportunity to negotiate their terms with any fae willing to strike the bargain with them. If none were, no harm, no foul. But if they were…at 23:30, the human would be released on the edge of the forest which made up the border between their two realms. They would run.

If the human managed to cross over to the mortal world by dawn they would be free to leave the immortal kingdom. They would return to life, to sanity, with all of the bounties they had come looking for in the first place. Some entered themselves into the hunt for a blessing, for enchanted wares, for a spell that might fix all their woes. Others still entered for power, for a precious herb that might save a loved one from great sickness, or great riches.

But, if they were caught…

Her mind flashed to the wicked-lovely eyes of her hunter, bright and hungry, and her stomach flipped.

The great clock struck twelve. The hunt began.

Well, if she was caught…to the victor, the spoils.

They were coming.

***

19:32

“I’ll take the deal,” the fae said. “I’ll take you.”

The laughter in the room cut silent, and she exhaled a shaky breath between her teeth. She steeled herself and turned to face the creature.

The room was filled with all different kinds of fairy; seelie and unseelie, summer court and winter; the monstrous and the beautiful, all wanting different things. He was beautiful. He was terrible. He was something sublime in the oldest sense of the word.

She swallowed hard, her mouth going a little dry. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end.

The fae looked her up and down, assessing, like he was figuring out exactly what he wanted. He seemed like he was taking her apart into a million different pieces in his brain and putting her back together all over again in the precise shape that he envisioned.

“Come, human” he said. His voice was velvet, singsong and amused. He flashed her a sharp, playful grin and beckoned her with a crook of his finger. “Tell me everything your heart desires.”

She’d never told anyone that before.

***

12:01

The woods had turned against her. If the branches had been in the way before, now they actively moved to stop her progress. They stretched to create barricades, cage walls, blocking her way and forcing her to stumble back.

Her eyes widened. She felt, abruptly and distinctly, herded. She swore under her breath, considering her options. Maybe she should stand still out of stubborn spite? At least deny him the chase? No. She couldn’t afford to wait. Every minute brought her closer to dawn, and further away from the possibility of winning her wish.

“Shit.” She dragged a hand through her dark hair and tried to think.

She’d agreed that it was only fair for him to be allowed use of his own abilities, providing that he didn’t come after her on horse-back. She couldn’t outrun a horse. She’d thought she’d be perfectly capable of outrunning a tree, given that they generally didn’t move anywhere near as easily as horses.

Making it five minutes past midnight seemed a far more impressive feat than she’d allowed for. She couldn’t even accuse him of cheating.

She drew a knife, ready to slash her way through if she had to. She squared her shoulders, set her jaw and went down with an undignified yelp as a tree root ensnared her by the ankle and yanked.

***

12:13

The fae sauntered towards her with a really quite unfair, leisurely, grace. His footsteps were light, barely making a sound as he moved through the trees.

He stopped in front of her, looking her up and down, as if he had all of the time in the world.

“Comfortable?” the fae asked.

She glared back him, suspended vertically in mid-air between two trees in a harness comprised of the lights that she had, personally, insisted on. They wound tight around her wrists, pinning her arms and legs behind her back. She gave another tug at her restraints and, much like the last few times she had tried that, it did nothing. She was, well and truly, stuck.

“You think this is funny, don’t you?” she growled. “Did you enchant them before you even set them out?”

He hummed. His eyes, when they met hers, were intent. Dark. Predatory.

The growl died out in her throat.

“I considered letting you run until you exhausted yourself,” he murmured. He reached out a hand, examining his trap. “Catching you when your knees finally buckled. Or, perhaps, letting you get close enough to the border to see it before I grabbed you.” His fingers moved off the rope, trailing up her chest and grazing along her throat. He left behind a blaze of heat everywhere he touched. “But after our talk earlier I knew it had to be this.”

Her face flushed – with mortification, with want, with far too many things, “You’re a bastard.”

“And you, like most mortals, are a liar.” He reached up with his other hand, and something snapped out of her line of vision. He brandished a stick from the trees in front of her, making her watch as it transformed into a leather crop before her eyes. She didn’t know if it was real or only an illusion. “Fae cannot lie,” he said, “so you can imagine we have grown rather accustomed to telling when somebody else is.”

She wrenched her gaze back up to his face. Her heart was pounding, far more now, than it had been at any point during her desperate bid for escape. Anticipation, dread, need, all shivered through her.

“I haven’t lied about anything,” she protested, a little hoarsely.

He brought the crop down hard on her right thigh in response.

Her brain went blank. She couldn’t have said if she made a sound. She couldn’t have said what the look on her face was, but he brought the crop up and caressed the edge along the curve of her cheek. She resisted the urge to squeeze her eyes shut.

He leaned into her ear, like he was sharing a secret. Her breath caught. “I detest liars,” he said. “Maybe I should have you gagged.”

“But I didn’t—”

The crop smacked down again, impossibly fast, stinging and bright in the exact same spot as before. She couldn’t keep from crying out.

“Do you remember what you asked me for?” The fae’s head tilted, almost curiously. “What you wanted so badly that you would risk one of my brethren literally eating your heart out to get it?”

Of course she remembered.

“Tell me again,” he said. His voice was soft and unmistakeably commanding, impossible to deny. It shot through her veins like electricity.

“I said,” she whispered, “that I wanted to be normal.”

***

19:40

“I don’t know.” She stared at her knees, trying to put it to words. “What is it that normal people fantasize about? I know it’s not—” she bit down hard on her lip.

The fae stared at her in silence. Waiting.

They sat some distance away from the main hall, where that year’s hunt was being fine-tuned. This was a quieter space, with a lush carpet of moss and wildflowers blooming every colour.

She steeled herself; she hadn’t come all this way to fall at the first hurdle, and he could hardly magic up a fix for her if she couldn’t tell him the problem.

“Normal people,” she said, “don’t go around thinking about how much they need someone to tie them up. To tell them what to do. Or make them do what they want. There’s enough chance of actually getting beat up and hurt that you don’t sit around thinking, hey, you know what I really want? Someone to take advantage of me.”

“…you are not the only mortal to ever be interested in that,” the fae said. He’d gone statuesque, unreadable, focused. There was no trace of a playful smile on his lips anymore.

The air around them was heady with some intoxicating scent, jasmine, or something else. Something not found in the mortal world. She couldn’t pin it down.

“I know, but…” She dug her nails into her palms. “What I am…it’s…always halfway between things. It’s never enough one way or the other. Just—” She closed her eyes. Her throat locked tight. “Just take it away. Take it all way. Please. Let me dream about, like, I don’t know. Something smaller. Something that I can actually have.”

Wanting, in the grand scheme of things, hurt too badly and in all the wrong ways. It would be easier not to. At least then she wouldn’t be stuck with the awful longing of it all.

“Something that you can actually have,” the fae echoed. “That is quite a blank check for someone who has been so careful with their words before. Something you can actually have may be death, or disease, or everything that you do not actually want.”

“A nice house,” she snapped. “A decent career. Something nice and comfortable. What do people normally ask you for? Whatever it is, that. I want to want that. I want to dream about something that people actually understand.”

“We’ll need to work out the finer details,” the fae said, after a long silence. “Are you prepared to pay the price, if you lose?”

She swallowed.

“Anything.”

***

12:14

“So,” the fae said. “What you want…is this. Or some version of it that actually feels like it belongs to you. Are you going to tell me that I’m wrong?”

She wanted to point out that this was, actually, the exact opposite of what she’d asked for thank you very much. This was handing over matchsticks and gasoline instead of water. He was very, very wrong.

He brought the crop down a third time, this time on her left thigh – measuring her reaction coolly as she jolted. She couldn’t find enough air. It betrayed the lie.

“Do not – mock me.”

“I’m not mocking you. You should know, human.” He looked at her with those wicked-lovely eyes and seemed to see straight through everything that she was and ever would be. “Normal is overrated. It won’t make you feel whole.”

She stared at him.

The fae snapped his fingers, and all of the twinkling lights went slack.

She flailed and fell, landing in a graceless heap in his waiting arms. His grip tightened. His lips were inches from hers. She froze.

“Once a fae knows a mortal’s name,” the fae murmured. “Their real name, they have absolute power over them. You know that, don’t you? You knew that when you promised to give me yours.”

“Only if I lost. It’s not dawn yet! You haven’t won yet.”

He set her down on her battered feet. She blinked up at him and swayed, uncertain.

“So run, human.” He made a show of stepping back, raising his hands in surrender, fingers waggling in the air. “Run back to what is ordinary. Or…” his hands dropped. “Stop lying, get on your knees, and give me your name right now.”

She spluttered. She scowled. She opened her mouth on three different occasions to tell him to fuck right off and said none of them. He didn’t say anything, he only looked at her, waited like he’d done when they first met.

She fell to her knees, in the tangled pool of light. They didn’t move now. Nothing in the entire forest seemed to move, nor make a sound, except her blood rushing in her ears.

She looked up at him and he took a step closer, so she looked up more.

“Kella,” she whispered. “My name is Kella Devereux.”

“Kella.” He purred her name, and it was as if she was hearing it for the first time, like someone was actually talking to her for the first time. It went all the way to her bones. The magic crackled in the air around them like a summer storm, full of promise and danger and release all at the same time. “Welcome to your new life, Kella Devereux. Don’t ever presume to lie to me again.”

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breathetheocean99 · 2 years ago

Text

Escapology

“The game,” Damien murmured against Lysander’s ear, “is simple. Are you paying attention? I’ll only say it once.”

Lysander twisted his head on the plush mattress, trying to get a good look at the other man behind him. He couldn’t. Damon’s grip was firm on Lysander’s wrists, and the weight of him kept Lysander easily pinned down to the bed. Lysander did his best to pretend he didn’t enjoy that as much as he did.

“I’m going to set the timer for one minute,” Damien said. “And, every time you fail to escape within those sixty seconds, I’m going to make the task more difficult for you.”

“I’m not going to fail,” Lysander said. “Do you seriously still think I don’t know how to get out of a pair of handcuffs?”

“We’ll find out, won’t we?” Damien’s voice was perfectly placid by contrast. “Remember, if you want out, all you have to do is say please.”

“Yeah? How about, ‘screw you?’

“Bit early in the night for that. Maybe I’ll let you if you win.”

“There’s no if!”

Lysander had been working with some variety of lock for almost as long as he’d had proper motor control in his fingers. He’d always had a weakness for locked things, for secrets, and for the physical and mental puzzle of untangling himself out of any situation he’d found himself in. He knew how to get out of something as simple as a pair of handcuffs! And if he did, perhaps, enjoy being restrained it was an enjoyment made greater by the inability to free himself.

He could always free himself.

Maybe, if he couldn’t, he wouldn’t have ended up in this room. With him.

The conversation, in short:

INT: BAR OUTSIDE OF LYSANDER’S SHOW - EVENING

Enter LYSANDER, daring and brilliant young escape artist, who crosses the room through a flurry of impressed fans and people begging to know just how he does it. He comes across a dashingly handsome man in the process of ordering a drink. This is DAMIEN. They look each other up and down, and strike a conversation. It escalates.

LYSANDER

You didn’t enjoy my show?

DAMIEN

Oh, I enjoyed it. But escape artistry is just a con - you always have a hidden way out. A trick.

LYSANDER

You think it’s a trick? I’d like to see you try and hold me!

DAMIEN

Alright.

LYSANDER

Excuse me?

DAMIEN

I said alright.

LYSANDER

You think you would be able to keep me, a professional escape artist, from escaping you? What, do you tie people up for a living or something?

DAMIEN

Yes.

Lysander stares at him.

DAMIEN

I work at Siren, down the road. The BDSM club. I’m a professional rigger.

Lysander continues to stare at him.

DAMIEN

Have I scared you?

LYSANDER

…So when should I come over?

“Do you have any more questions before we start?” Damien asked.

“You could at least cuff my feet for round one. This is just insulting.”

“That wasn’t a question. Do you have any questions?” Damien asked again, this time with an unmistakable amusement.

Lysander shook his head.

Damien pulled back from him and Lysander rolled onto his back. He propped himself up on his elbows and watched as Damien reached over and started the timer on his phone. He let the small silver key drop down on the bed.

“Are you not even going to try and hold onto it?”

“55 seconds left…”

Lysander lunged for the key. His hands were behind his back, but he snatched it off the sheets with his mouth and spat it back over his shoulder, only slightly showing off when he caught it deftly. He scraped the silver up against the lock in search of the small hole that would spring him free.

The cuffs clicked loose and he looked up towards Damien with a smirk, somewhere between cocky and disappointed all at once.

“I told you,” he said. “Honestly, after all your talk I thought you might last at least thirty seconds. They pay you for this?”

Damien hummed, not even watching. He was digging something out of his closet.

“You wouldn’t even have got them on in the first place if I didn’t let you,” Lysander added.

“Yes, yes, you’re very impressive. You did miss one detail though...”

Damien turned to face him, and his smirk back was that of a challenge matched.

Lysander’s spine straightened instinctively; a thrill shooting up him, though his brow furrowed with confusion.

“I said,” Damien set a bag down on the bed. “Escape.” He pounced, and Lysander went down again hard with a yelp and a tangle of limbs. He grappled with Damien’s hands, but was shoved down again, relentlessly. His wrists were yanked behind his back and the lock clicked into place. “I didn’t say, ‘get out of the cuffs,’ did I?”

Oh.

Lysander panted for breath, absorbing that new information in with interest. He tried to hold back a grin.

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re a bastard?”

“Usually around the same time they’re begging me for more.”

He still sounded so calm, so implacable. It made Lysander want to wind him up and up and up until he lost it; another puzzle to undo.

“So how am I supposed to win, then?” Lysander asked, musing. “Get off the bed? Get out of the room?”

“Now you’re getting it.” Damien’s hands were busy wrapping a thick belt around Lysander’s arms, clinching them together at the elbow. “Except, of course, for one small thing.” He stepped back, and re-set the timer, eyes full of a dark heady promise. “You’re not going to win.”

***

The alarm sounded.

Lysander was not winning.

Damien had bound his ankles after he lost round two, then his knees after round three. After a round four, he attached Lysander’s wrist cuffs to his ankles and left him in a hogtie.

Lysander had just lost round five.

He curled his fist around the key, not about to give it up without a fight. He didn’t have to. The only thing he’d been tasked to do was escape, not obey, or behave by any means. He scrambled back, keeping his gaze locked on Damien, his mind racing through his albeit limited options. Every time he’d managed to get himself free in time so far, he hadn’t managed to get past Damien.

Damien, who sauntered closer now with the sort of lethal grace more commonly seen in jungle cats.

Lysander swallowed.

“You’re looking tired,” Damien said. “Want to give up?”

“I want to point out that I’ve undone all of your ties.”

“And yet here you are, still helpless on my bed.”

Lysander swallowed a second time, but it didn’t make his mouth any less dry, especially when Damien went and said things like that. His back hit the headboard.

“I’m not helpless.”

“Not yet. We’ll get there, don’t worry.”

“I’m not – I don’t –” Lysander floundered. He didn’t know how to finish without lying and lying was not allowed for safety reasons.

Damien paused at the other end of the bed, considering him in turn.

Lysander realised after a beat that he was waiting for the end of the sentence. He exhaled, and squared his shoulders.

“Well,” he said instead. “I’m not going to just give you the key.”

“Of course not.” Damien said. He had that amusement in his voice again. He grabbed Lysander by the ankle cuffs and yanked him bodily down the bed. “Come here, then.”

It felt like Lysander should say ‘I don’t want to be helpless,’ but that wasn’t strictly true. He just didn’t want to let Damien do it. It was one thing during his shows when the various ties were complex spectacles, when he had to be conscious of nerve damage and height and a dozen different variables all at once. Damien wasn’t picking anything complicated that would be a particular mess to get out of. Perhaps that was the point.

Lysander kicked, all but throwing himself off the bed.

Damien reeled him back, working the key free from Lysander’s grip, before wrapping an arm around him.

“I’ll let you pick your forfeit,” Damien said, softly. “Would you like to be blindfolded, or would you prefer to be gagged?”

Neither concept was exactly new to him. None of this was exactly new to him, and yet it was different. He hadn’t expected how intimate it would feel, or the way that he couldn’t find the steady calm he usually found when he was working methodically free for practice. What he normally did was rote. It was him against something inanimate. Knots could be tricky but they were predictable.

It was impossible to think of Damien as something inanimate. Lysander’s heart raced, and he felt hyper-aware of his every movement, and the warmth of Damien’s hands and the scent of his cologne on the air. It was a little intoxicating.

For the first time, Lysander considered the possibility that he might actually lose this bet.

(He was fine with that.)

***

Lysander couldn’t see, couldn’t speak, and couldn’t move an inch. He was, well and truly, stuck.

Christ he couldn’t remember the last time that happened.

His chest rose and fell rapidly as he caught his breath, his muscles trembling with a peaceful sort of exhaustion. He couldn’t possibly get out of this anymore, could no longer fight, so it was okay to settle. His defiance had splintered. In the dark, he was a creature of sensation alone, world narrowed down, no audience to think of. It was overwhelming and…nice.

He didn’t think he’d get this feeling again.

Damien carded his fingers idly through Lysander’s hair, laying on the bed beside him. He seemed to be taking a moment to catch his breath too.

“Alright?” he asked.

Lysander made a sound of agreement.

Damien’s nail trailed down, curving along the edge of Lysander’s jaw, tipping his head up a fraction.

“I suppose,” he said, “that you are not a total con artist.”

Lysander huffed. He supposed he could say the same about Damien not being completely arrogant coming up to an escape artist and telling him he’d clearly never been properly tied up before.

“Ready to come out?”

Lysander was back the following week.

They both agreed it was simply excellent practice after all.

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