platosshadowpuppet

[platosshadowpuppet]

Harebells hiding in the grass

[platosshadowpuppet]

filling one of these little fucks with blood to automate my summoning rituals

[platosshadowpuppet]

I feel like I need to address the misinformation and hate being spread about the Newington troll clan.

Despite what irresponsible journalists and some people on social media would have you believe, they're not in the habit of levying unofficial bridge taxes or eating unwary travellers.

The whole clan has actually retrained as software developers and are doing some really interesting things on UI for people with claws.

Now the trolls over in Leith on the other hand... they'll eat the face off you.

[platosshadowpuppet]

A peaceful stream

[platosshadowpuppet]

wizard that's fast - whizzarrd

wizard that's bad at fireball - wizcharred

wizard that can urinate while erect - whizhard

[platosshadowpuppet]

Tangled roots

[platosshadowpuppet]

My local clothes repair shop is run by Trows. They're normally pretty good at keeping up a disguise but it slips sometimes when they're busy.

Yesterday I dropped off some trousers. She came up to the counter to serve me and her needle went right on sowing without her.

I'm not going to say anything though - they work absolute miracles in there.

[platosshadowpuppet]

An interesting contrast

[platosshadowpuppet]

Does it counts as stealing, if you pick fruit hanging over a garden wall? What if you've already paid the price, before the flesh even touches your tongue?

I was walking past the big old houses on Lygon Road and a fruit tree with these incredible dark red leaves caught my eye.

The garden had a high wrought iron fence around it, but the tree was overhanging into the street. Getting closer, I saw that the escaped branch had one perfect plum hanging from it. It was so dark that it was almost black, with a gloss to it that glinted purple and blue in the light, like a raven's feathers.

No one else was around and the windows of the house were all dark. I grabbed the plum - it came away so easily in my hand - and I, with a surge of childish glee, ran around the corner to eat it.

I was lost from the first bite. It was incredible! The taut skin burst under my teeth and flooded my mouth with sweet, fragrant juice - as sweet as honey from a rock. The flesh was cool and soft as velvet, the same deep wine red as the leaves.

The plum was gone before I knew it, leaving me feeling oddly bereft. It must have been all the sugar that made my lips burn a little and left me so thirsty.

I wiped my mouth and carried on with my day.

I kept thinking about it, though. Over the next week, I tried buying plums from the market but none came close. I must have been around all the greengrocers in Edinburgh but everything I tried tasted like ash in comparison.

One night I couldn't sleep and decided to walk instead. I already knew I was going back to the garden, even though I wouldn't admit it to myself.

While I was away, the tree must have been cut back. The branches no longer hung out over the road and I couldn't reach them through the iron bars. The gate was ajar and all the windows of the house were still and dark.

I stood, paralysed under the streetlights, for what felt like an age. No cars past and all the houses around me were silent. I was just about to give up and walk home when a fox screamed somewhere behind me in the dark. The sudden burst of adrenaline must have given me courage, because I dashed through the gate and up to the hanging boughs of the fruit tree.

One plum was hanging over the path, gleaming in the electric lamplight. I snatched it and ran. This time I had to pull a little harder, before it came free. I dashed down the street, heart pounding, and sank down into the shadow of some bins to eat my prize.

It was even better than the first time and disappeared all the faster. Again, it left me with a raging thirst and a powerful desire to go back for more. I rocked on my heals, clutching my hands in my oxters, fighting the idea that I could steal another plum. Nothing had happened, had it? No one had noticed.

This time, it was the sudden shriek of a police siren in the distance that made me jump. Feeling guilty and ridiculous, I hurried home.

The next few days were torture. Nothing would quench my thirst and everything I ate tasted of dirt. I couldn't sleep at night and when I nodded off during the day I would wake with the sweet taste of the dark fruit in my mouth. I stopped going to work - I couldn't concentrate and didn't care.

It was late at night when I cracked. I rushed through silent streets back to the house and its garden.

The tree was bare. No leaves, no fruit, just skeletal branches. Grief stricken, I pushed open the gate, not caring this time about the wail of its rusty hinges.

I walked the path in a daze, reaching out to touch the dry bark. I stood there for a moment, before the faintest whiff of fruit reached my nose.

At first I thought it a cruel hallucination. I growled in frustration and punched the trunk. My knuckles split on contact with the rough wood. Blood the colour of my lost fruit instantly welled up and ran down my fingers. Where the drops landed on the tree they were greedily absorbed.

In pain and shame, I turned from the tree, licking blood from my stinging fist. When I had arrived I'd been sure that the front door was closed. Now it was wide open. I could see an entrance way, paved in white and black tiles and striped with harsh white light from the streetlights. Beyond that another internal door, with frosted and intricately patterned glass, also stood open.

And on a wooden table, just at the very edge of the light, a bowl of dark fruits.

I was rooted to the spot. Hunger, thirst, and fear warred inside of me. There was something wrong here. Taking from the tree was one thing, but entering the house and stealing the fruit? But the memory of the sweetness haunted me and my throat was so so dry.

I had crossed the threshold before my mind caught up with my body. Doubts rose again, as my hand hovered over the bowl. But now the scent was strong in my nose and my much abused willpower couldn't cope anymore.

My fingers touched the sable skin of the fruit and my mind fell into darkness.

But anyway, my master will have my skin if he catches me gabbing like this. Will you buy my orchard fruits? Sweet to tongue and sound to eye, come buy come buy...

[platosshadowpuppet]

I don't know what I've done to this gull but she's furious

[platosshadowpuppet]

living by the Interdicted Zone can be tough, but it's what makes rent so reasonable in Liberton (by Edinburgh standards).

Yes it's hard not being able to look at the Zone, or acknowledge the pleading of its Denizens, and yes, sometimes Intradiction Agents do come and forcibly examine your psyche for corruption.

But the alternative is living in Penicuik and commuting.

[platosshadowpuppet]

supplicant numbers at the oracle have been really down since ChapGPT launched

I guess people these days just don't have the attention span for a gruelling trudge through cursed forest to receive cryptic riddles from a blind priestess which only make sense in tragic hindsight

this kingdom is going to the dogs

[platosshadowpuppet]

unapologetically moody posting

[platosshadowpuppet]

Sun in the shallows

[platosshadowpuppet]

Elfthryth was one of those very few people in life who are truly sure of their purpose. She unfucked things.

Usually, these things involved one of the fae folk and a human who was a) too curious for their own good, b) in the wrong place at the wrong time, or c) terminally unlucky.

Elfthryth liked her role in life. She liked solving problems, she liked helping people, she liked things to be in their right place. If things would just stay like that, she probably would have been very happy.

But people are messy, complicated creatures - whether magical or mundane - and, in Elfthryth's experience, things rarely stayed unfucked for long.

That was why she was stood outside of Joel's house, at 10:00 on a drizzly Tuesday in July, with a belly swilling with cheap gin and a revolver in the waistband of her jeans.

In the list of reasons why things became fucked, Elfthryth supposed that Joel came under category b. Unfortunately for Joel, and everyone else, he had been born on the cusp of the chime hours. This had given him just enough Cunning to get into trouble but not enough to actually be accepted by Edinburgh's ethereal subculture.

Feeling rejected by two worlds, Joel had devoted himself to obtaining the power and recognition he felt he was owed. Unfortunately, along with magical prowess, life had also been stingy with Joel when handing out intelligence and morality. The grand plan he had hit upon was to catch and eat magical creatures until one finally did the trick.

He'd come to Elfthryth's attention six months ago. The he'd been catching will-o'-the-wisps in jars and blending them into smoothies. Unpleasant, but since the creatures were hardly more than insects Elfthryth had let him go with a slap on the wrist (well, actually two broken fingers and a promise that she'd make him eat his own killing jar if he didn't knock it off).

At the time she'd happily put Joel into the 'unfucked' side of her ledger and got on with her life. Since then, a trow child had gone missing in suspicious circumstances and Joel's employer had revealed that he hadn't been in for three days.

The magical community had no prisons, no parole boards, or reoffender rehabilitation schemes. If an individual was putting the rest at risk and couldn't be threatened into line, well then there was really only one option left.

That was what the gun was for. The gin was to make sure Elfthryth could pull the trigger.

She pulled the bottle from her jacket pocket and took a deep swig of the warm, astringent brew. It burned her throat and sat queasily in her empty stomach. She dry heaved once and stepped out into the street, towards Joel's front door.

It could have been such a nice life, if things would just stay where she put them.

Daily Sip 7/28

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[platosshadowpuppet]

What am I supposed to write under these? Splish splash

[platosshadowpuppet]

Mushi mushi...