#And then I run off leaving a trail of snot rags in my wake

[candycryptids]

"He said NO PICKLES!" Aka Momma Ishi and her Husband's dynamic, kinda boiled into one image. He's a wife-guy, a doormat, and reliable, and just a bit pathetic. His motto is "Just do what your mother says," and tends to keep his head down.

[obscene-beans]

WIP Wednesday

tagged by @totally-not-deacon thank you :') I'm not sure who I'm following that does these so I did a lil research and I nominate @evilwriter37, @your-talos-is-problematic, and @friend-of-giants (sorry if this is not your thing, I'm new to this!)

Currently working on an ongoing novel that focuses on autism, war, and folk music, with a little supernatural fantasy and a steampunk element thrown into the mix. CW for descriptions of a meltdown, emotional and physical trauma, and You Are My Sunshine (lol). I like just wrote this.

I looked at the kid in my arms. His face was red and splotchy, snot running over his lips and chin. He was looking around between the four of us. “You’re looking for your parents, aren’t you?” I asked him.

He didn’t respond, of course, but that made it all the more easier to talk to him. “You’re not the only one, kiddo. I haven’t seen my Da in years. You’ll get used to it.”

The baby looked up at me. He’d stopped crying and instead was focusing on my voice. I paused, because I didn’t know what else to say, and his face crumpled at the silence. I felt my face crumple, too.

As he began to whimper again, I thought of Edet, bleeding, curled in the arms of a stranger. Then I thought of our father.

I opened my mouth and began to sing.

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine

You make me happy when skies are gray

You’ll never know dear how much I love you

Please don’t take that sunshine away

Truthfully, I hate that song. It’s a tragic heartache that’s been watered down to a lullaby for babies. In the earliest renditions, the song tells about a man begging his partner not to leave him for someone else, and most versions do not have a happy ending. Most songs don’t. 

Most lives don’t, either, it seems. In the darkest of times, one seeks comfort in mutual pain. I sang the heartache version to the baby, softly, hoping the others couldn’t hear me.

The other night, dear, as I lay sleeping

I dreamed I held you in my arms

But when I woke, dear, I was mistaken

And I hung my head and I cried

Some part of me found comfort in imagining that I was singing to my younger self in the wake of tragedy. And it hurt to realize that as abandoned as I’d felt in Sommerstad, I missed my father fiercely. In the aftermath, I longed for a voice to sing to me. His voice.

I’ll always love you, and make you happy

If you will only say the same

But if you leave me and love another

You’ll regret it all someday

The baby rested his head on my shoulder, hiccuping but no longer in tears. The terrain began to even out. When I looked up, I saw a house standing on chicken legs. I blinked and looked again. Indeed there was a structure that was more of a shack, but it was suspended off of the ground and built around the trunks of two firs. The roots of the trees were reminiscent of talons digging into the dirt. The frozen creek trailed underneath the house.

The shack was not alone. A ways up the incline there was a collection of houses, and a crowd of people bustling. A canopy had been set up and another was already being erected, underneath which very few spare cots were occupied by the injured. A man, a soldier with a bloody bandage wrapped over one of his eyes, jumped up from his cot and beckoned for the soldier carrying my sister. In an instant she was swept up in a flurry of rags and medics. Her skin was as pale as the frost, and she was dangerously still.

I couldn’t control my breaths. My lungs burned, my throat still acrid from the bile. The infant squealed unhappily in my arms, and I realized I had been squeezing him too tightly. I put him on the ground before I could drop him. I flexed my fingers to gain some semblance of control, but soon that became ineffective and instead I was pulling my hair. Edet, I swore. Oh, Edet. Now it was my turn to hiccup.I wept. I screamed. Someone had to tear me away from Edet’s cot, and the contact evoked something rabid in me. Something I hadn’t seen since I was a little kid, before I’d steeled myself from constant meltdowns. I cursed the person restraining me. I cursed God. I cursed myself for daring to consider a world without Edet, and now here I was staring in the face of it. No mother, no father, no Edet.

[thestoryden]

Savior

Aemond Targaryen x Targaryen!Reader

Warnings: Depictions of S.A., Somnophilia, Violence, Incest, Crying, References to Abuse

Word Count: 1k

A/N: This is my first time writing for HOTD. I wasn't sure if their was an interest for x reader fics for HOTD bc it has such dense lore that it can be difficult to deviate from the source material. I started to see a few fics pop up here and there on my timeline and figured I give it a shot. If you'd like to see more like this feel free to write a request. Hope you enjoy.

Masterlist / Taglist / Requests: Open

Part 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / ?

Savior

When you wake there is barely any light in your room, but a sliver of moon light that cuts through the drapery. You feel light hungry kisses on your cheek and jaw. You feel fingers softly touching your neck and the weight of another pressed into your body.

“You’re such a lovely creature,” A familiar voice purrs.

The kisses trail down your neck and deepen as he reaches the crock of your neck. Silvery hair glints in the faint light. You try to orient yourself as you wake fully. You screech and attempt to shove him off you. He pins your arms above your head.

“Do not spurn my love.” He whispers as he reaches up and brushes hair away from your neck.

He kisses your neck again and runs his free hand down your body. You flinch under his touch. Terrified.

“Dear sister, please, do not be scared. I only wish you to indulge me. I won’t hurt you.” Aegon whispers.

“Get. Off. Me.” You say through gritted teeth.

Aegon leans back a little and stares at you, dumbfounded. He knits together his eyebrows. He can’t fathom this rejection.

“You just looked so peaceful sleeping.” Aegon sputters

“Aemond!” You shout.

“I just, I wanted you.” Aegon reasserts.

“Aemond, please help me.” You scream.

Aemond rushes through the door. Sword drawn. He points it at the shadowy figure on your bed.

“Off her at once, or I will run you through.” He demands

He would have already run them through but worries he may strike you in the process.

“Is that anyway to speak to your future king?” Aegon questions.

Aemond sword does not falter as Aegon rises. He follows him with it as the blade glints in the low light. You reach to your bedside table and grasp around till you find a match. You strike it lighting the candle next to you.

“Your insatiable desires shall kill us all, Aegon.” Aemond says.

“You don’t know the hunger I face.” Aegon retorts.

“If you hunger so deeply surely you can do your duty and lay with Helena.” Aemond presses.

“She’d sooner bring her bugs into our bed.” Aegon laughs.

“You might as well be one of them.” Aemond says, “Now, leave us.”

Aemond points to his sword to the door. Aegon walks to the door with his hands up.

“Admit it, you just want her for yourself.” Aegon teases.

“Leave us.” Aemond demands.

You sit on your bed knees to your chest. Tears bubble over and spill down your cheeks. You rub the fabric of your nightgown between you thumb and index finger. Your braid has come loose and is frizzy. You look up through your tears as Aemond sits at the foot of your bed. He sets his sword on the bed. Your curl in tighter.

“Did he hurt you?” Aemond questions.

“No,” You say through gritted teeth, “I do not bleed anywhere.”

Aemond breathes a sigh of relief, and then opens his arms.

“Come.” He commands.

You crawl from your place over to him. Snot drips down your face. He takes a small rag from his pocket and wipes your face clean. You feel like a frail animal as you collapse into his grasp. He undoes your braid gently and smooths your hair back.

“I can ask for one of the serving girls to come and redo it if you’d like.” Aemond says quietly.

You shake your head in response. Usually, you’d meet him with a quip, but you can’t find it with in yourself right now. You can’t meet his gaze. You feel as though you might shrink away to nothing. He tenderly places his hand against your neck. There are deep bruises along it.

“At least let me bring you something for these wounds.” He begs.

It is not like him to plead and be tender, but he is for you. He always finds himself able to do you the service of caring for you.

You grip the hem of his shirt, “Please, don’t leave me. I do not wish to be alone.”

You sniff. Trying to be strong and stuff down the feelings. You feel like you may burst as you force the words past your throat and on to your lips.

“He is so cruel.” You sob.

Aemond holds you to his chest and lets your tears soak in to his shirt as he runs his hand through your hair.

“I can not deny that.” He confesses.

“What if when he is king…” You trail off.

You try so hard not to think about the power he will wield and what that will mean for you. You had attempted to confide in Helena about it in the past, but she would only repeat nonsense about a golden dragon with three heads. She had lost her self to her dreams long ago, and you wondered if there was anything left of her other than dreams.

Despite already having already having a bride. Aegon constantly chased you. He wanted you and he enjoyed tormenting you in ways that he said were his love. When he becomes king, you know you shall surely suffer.

“There will never be any end to this torment.” You whisper.

Aemond props you up his arms, “Allow me to do this service for you. I will ask mother for your hand.”

“Aemond, we are needed to be open for alliances, you know that as much as I.” You say quietly.

“None of that matters if Aegon destroys you in his pursuits.” Aemond says, “She will not deny both of us asking.”

“What about duty. We fail if we can not strengthen the crown with alliances.” You question.

“My duty is first to protect our family, and second to protect the crown.” He asserts.

Your head spins. You could finally be safe. You could be free from the suffering.

“Aemond, will you really plead my cause?” You ask.

He takes your hand in his, “I will not stop till we are betrothed and you are safe.”

[bindi-the-skunk]

Son of Frankenstein chapter 3

chapter: Accidents

Alright, now Henry knew something was obviously wrong with this picture, what is with THAT particular term of endearment?! Her offering him a spot next to her? Both her hands were visible so she did not have the idea to stab him and he was pretty sure that if she tried strangling him he could throw her off...

Frankenstein made another movement with her hand "Come on now, don't be shy, I don't bite" another smile.

Another shiver down Jekyll's spine

No, just hit people trying to help you in the face when you wake up...

Well might as well get it over with, like a shot, just get it over with, just get it over with and the pain is over and done.

Sitting on the bed, Jekyll offered another smile, this one he could feel was stretching his mouth to the point of pain "You never wanted to have a polite chat before, what is the occasion? Did I forget my birthday?" the chemist chuckled, expecting her to slap the back of his head or insult him for making cracks.

Frankenstein just sighed, not a good sign.

Oh Lord, was she DYING?

"I do believe Lavender already showed you the picture and got the..expected reaction, but, I think it is better if we do this again since you are undoubtedly confused," Frankenstein said and handed out the photo she retrieved from Lavender's possession.

Jekyll's head spun as he took in what he was looking at, not having the fortune to faint again or to have his previous experience just be a sleep deprivation caused nightmare, but here it was in front of him, a picture of an obvious Frankenstein in her youth with a boy who looked like the spitting image of him but with Hyde's grin plastered on his face.

Clerval was his father, there was no other explanation from how both Lavender and now Frankenstein were acting and the boy in the picture's appearance that...no...there was more to this, the way he snuggled Frankenstein in the photo, how Elizabeth, despite, supposedly, being the great lover who was lost, is off to the side, watching the other two in the picture, laughing at their show of affection.

"Jek-Henry- you're my son too, he and I, after Creature...wandered off...and I was healthy again, he and I just...it was just some fun, a good time between friends you see-"

Now she was touching him...why was she touching him...sounding so calm well telling him he was a bloody ACCIDENT! Made well she was trying and recover from her other accident!

"I was just-you also came a bit earlier than expected, you were so small and I-"

Her words seemed to muffle as thoughts stirred inside Jekyll's head, why did she...give him up? Because Creature was on her trail at the time? Because he, like Creature, did not turn out the way she wanted him to when he came out? It happened, mothers after giving birth just, did not have that instinct, did not have that instant bond, expecting their baby to look like the cooing bundles of sweetness they saw in the prams going down the street.

A mother, who expected a sweet little copy of her, and getting a wrinkled, too tiny from the sounds of it, little gremlin, who was possibly any shade that signaled bad news, ranging from a bruised purple to an angry red, squealing like an about to be gutted hog, if it cried at all without needing prompting to take their first air of the world.

"I couldn't watch you die, so I decided to-"

"To WHAT, dump me on the first doorstep you saw afterward!?" Henry yelled, the sudden surge of rage blasting through his veins like a bolt of lightning, like the rumored spark that brought his pseudo sibling to life, only this served to charge up his limbs to stand despite how every other instinct screamed at him to sit back down, talk it out, screaming that he was being an irrational child having a temper tantrum because he was not getting what he wanted.

But the other side won, the side that birthed Hyde, the side that wanted to run, to scream, to lash out at those that hurt it.

"Now! That is not fair! And no way to speak to your moth-"

"You are NOT my mother..." Jekyll snarled, feeling like his body had been set on fire from how hot he felt, blood pounding in his ears, something dripped down his face, tears, snot or some other substance, he did not care, he wanted to shout, throw something!

No, no, this is not who you are! Who you need to be! Leave well you still have a chance, before you do something else you will regret!

Jekyll ran

Ignoring the cries of his name that rang out behind him, he needed air, Henry wanted to run and run, not stop till his feet bled or his racing heart finally burst from the strain.

Twists and turns, too many hallways and dead ends made by lodgers to amuse themselves, bumping into random members of his crew, not even listening to their cries of shock as he ran past, in goodness knows what shape, or bowled them over in his dash to escape his own emotions as if they were a demon chasing him down to destroy whatever was left of him from the days of being broken down.

A door opened from the outside just as he dashed forward.

BAM

"Doctor Jekyll! Oh dear, your bleeding! Here let me help you up-" came a voice, from who he could not focus on their identity, nor feel the blood as it dripped from his nose like a leaky faucet and only focused on pushing whoever it was away and scuttling away on his hands and knees, feeling the back of his coat being grabbed in an attempt to keep him still so the person could tend to the injury despite his violent action against them.

"No! No! Let me go!" Henry squirmed and broke the grip of the lodger holding his clothes and managed to break into another run, taking a deep breath of air as he made it outside and into the street, not hearing any of the screams or warnings.

Till it was too late

"DOCTOR JEKYLL!!! LOOK OUT!!!! THE CARRIAGE!"

I think newborn babies are just as cute as the unwrinkled kind, Jekyll is just being pessimistic and is not around that many babies to be as baby-crazy as me. And I was 2 months early myself and mom said I was purple and like a limp rag in the doctor's hands, did not cry, scream, or anything, I was a code blue.

[alberteamllc]

Fancy That!

So there I was, your ever-humble narrator, enjoying a pint of something kind of fancy and minding my own business in one of the most chi-chi establishments on the Smallfellow main drag when who should blunder in one but one of those schmucks from the palace where I used to run that hobo operation. Of course he wasn’t in his dopey palace livery, he had on rags practically, which, like, was pretty racist-- this is a nice bar, wine and tapas and everything, look around you buddy, everybody in here but you is a halfling and nobody here has spent less than five silver pieces on their shoes alone, what, do you think all halflings walk around barefoot and eat ten breakfasts a day and live in pastoral squalor? Get real and try educating yourself for a change.

Anyhoo, he ambles up like he’s being sneaky and slips me this envelope. I guess after Prince Whoever had his big temper tantrum last time I went to collect what he owed me (it was embarrassing for him, but even more embarrassing for Ewer-- that moron got his adam’s apple turned to apple sauce that night!) they decided to try the “subtle” approach. Still pathetic. Strictly amateur hour. So I look him in the eye and loudly say “SORRY BUDDY I’M BY ENGAGEMENT ONLY THESE DAYS. IF YOU WANT THE FRANCIS FLIEG EXPERIMENT (my new nom du stage--like it?) I’VE GOT A SET AT THE BELL & WHISTLE FROM SEVEN TO NINE EVERY DAY THIS WEEK. NO ENCORES” but then just for the sake of appearances I take a little peak inside this envelope and holy st. merriwether dear reader did I like what I saw! Never let it be said I’m too stubborn to be receptive to a sudden change of heart. So I treat the bar to a round of the second cheapest champagne the place has and say hey look I’ve got this dry sense of humor sometimes, I really think we can work out a way to do business.

So I decide to indulge in some of that old-school Francis Flisk chicanery and dine and dash just to see what this stuffed shirt does about it. Squat. Good sign-- because I feel like his boss needs me for something illegal, and in most cases dirty money’s easier to get than clean money. Anyway we wind up at this apartment not far away, right on the edge of that human neighborhood, I forget the name, where all the hip young second sons and first daughters who can’t hack it in the dynasty game go to drink expensive coffee and become priests and priestesses of that tacky fucking bank. It’s one of those digs that you know the cops or the government keeps decorated in the most blandly tasteful and lifeless way possible to use for stake-outs and deniability stuff like this.

It turns out this job is my worst nightmare. It’s extremely hard work and barely illegal. Out of the shadows steps this cop. I know the guy. He’s crooked as the road to Schockonote, pardon a folksy halfling saying, the human audiences eat that shit up and it’s become a force of habit. Caowulf Cutty. A real bastard but he’d looked the other way for me plenty of times during my days with the Handsome Lads in exchange for modest kickbacks. But now-- what the hell?-- he’s acting like he’s never met me before and he’s got me pinned to the wall with his elbow at my throat and my feet dangling in the air, calling me criminal scum and this and that. Ok, sure, like he can talk. They make like they’ve got me in some kind of sting-- like, they caught me running tundra tar or something and if I don’t do what they say I’ll blah blah blah but I’m all like, yeah? Prove it. I’m clean, pigs (I’m not). After a while we work out a deal. I’ll keep 10% of the money in that envelope and they’ll stop hassling me about this alleged tundra tar business I did/didn’t do.

It’s like this-- once in awhile when I’m really hard up I’ll do a job for this guy Salomon Six-Fingers. He has a little tavern by the docks, slings this truly appalling sodfish stew but he’s a nice guy, honest, and somehow he’s managed to make a little name for himself running jobs under the nose of the Quiet Guild without getting killed despite being nice and honest. Mostly stuff the Guild couldn’t care about or fail to make overcomplicated because of course. And people work for him because obviously the guild doesn’t get a cut.. Or because they get off on pretending to have morals or professional ethics or whatever. Anyway one of the big things people go to him for is salvage jobs. Old ruins. Humans are too stupid to go into them because they think their precious mediators will pop out and say BOO at them and they’ll piss their britches so it’s good work for us halflings if we can get it.

All this time the dipshit from the palace hasn’t said who he’s working for. Like I don’t know. It rhymes with Rinse Cranselm Brinsatsi. But what they want me to do is they’re gonna leak Six-Fingers word of a ripe little abandoned mine called Sweetroll Hill and say the only thing keeping people out of that sweet ore is the fact that the place is overrun with the infamous Handsome Lads. Ok, yeah, “infamous,” big scary halflings running around with sticks and empty quivers. But I’ll get to that in a second. A little team is assembled-- including yours truly as the thief and the guy who knows the gang, knows the mine (which, I do and do, but again-- presumptuous and racist)-- and then we go and clear it out. But here’s the tricky part. All the way there I’m making little signals, leaving a little trail, and behind me, the fuzz. And on our way out, the triumphant heroes are caught red-handed with armfuls of stolen loot and a pile of dead halflings in their wake. I get off scot-free, the suckers who know about the place are in jail where they can’t blab about the location, and the “mysterious employer” gets to swoop in and take whatever he wants down there. Which sounds like a lot of work but again they wouldn’t drop this tundra tar thing. Oh well. The mine isn’t far and it’s run by a bunch of D-listers. Big-Stud Broly, who’s no Huge Hunk Haglund to say the least, and a snot-nosed little wannabe called Leander Hawthorne. If you want to know how vast and capacious the barrel they’re scraping the bottom of is, they’ve even got a goblin in their crew. I also get to help pick the team.

So obviously I’m presented with a moral quandary. I’m picking people for what’s essentially a suicide run. This is the end of the line for them one way or the other-- if they don’t die on the job (not impossible) or when the cops get rough with them (not unlikely), then they’re headed to prison for a long time. So I think and I think loooong about who I hate enough in this business to make this whole thing really hysterical and satisfying instead of just pretty hysterical and satisfying. I come up with a wish-list:

1. Davey Driftwood: This schmuck shot me with a crossbow once when he was guarding a caravan that me and the boys were trying to get our meat mitts on. He definitely doesn’t remember this but I know he kind of remembers my face because he always gives me this little nod and smile when we’re both at Salomon’s or that little place that gnome runs by the bazaar with the good bread. Couldn’t wait to wipe that goody two-shoes smirk off his face. He’s also some local celebrity upriver in the boonies because he knocked off some nobody bandit a few years ago. Occasionally some hick recognizes him at the bar and buys him one of those watery pee beers trash humans drink. I hate humble guys like that who don’t capitalize on a good thing. And I especially hate people who get famous for doing the cops’ jobs for them and then have the nerve to act like we can still be pals. DEFINITELY on the list.

2. Bloody Bonnie: B l o o d y  F u c k i n  B o n n i e. Ever meet someone who thinks they’re funny? That’s Bonnie. Some land pirate. Dumb term and anyway gnomes invented it. Yeah yeah, gnomes and halflings, different species, and I’d rather cut my own head off than kiss a gnome, but we little guys have to stick together and I hate it when humans bite our rackets. Speaking of which, right, she thinks she’s so funny. I’ve heard all the halfling jokes before and I’ve heard them all again another three dozen times from her. Wouldn’t kick her out of bed though. Had a brief idea about tipping her off before the bust and seeing how puny she thought I was after that.

3. Paolo the Exile: First off, what a joke. Who calls themselves “the Anything.” Can’t stand that bit. Second of all, I hate dwarves. I’ve only met the one but I hate stories about dwarves and I hate Paolo. Too quiet and I don’t like anybody who won’t show their face.

4. Roxan McClintock: People call her “Flinty” but she’s a Roxan through and through. You know these guys, these McClintocks? No, that’s McBEAM idiot, I mean the McCLINTOCKS. But don’t get me started on fucking McBeam. RIght, so-- I was born poor. My dad-- Moldew-- and my ma-- Instke-- they were both poor too. They grew up in tall grass over their heads and they worked until they died from it, because they were stupid. I’m smart. I knew I had to do whatever it took to have a roof over my head, with a chandelier on it, and a bed with eight pillows on it and a girl on each. And look, I’m young, and two out of four ain’t bad! The roof doesn’t leak and the pillows ain’t too shabby themselves! But yeah-- that’s why I degrade myself with these fucking jobs. Because I need to. That’s why I crawl through the dirt and show stupid tourist humans how to get through the swamps. For the money that I DON’T. HAVE. Roxan does all this shit because she “wants to.” Because “she ain’t no high class broad.” Yeah, stick a paintbrush down my throat already. She’s all “hey y’all” and “yeehaw” but Roooooooxaaaaaaaannnn is pure Smallfellow, get it? Her dad’s a university professor, her ugly brothers are university professors, they eat caviar and pear jelly with rich humans all day and wipe their asses with silk hankies. She should know her place and marry some rich tailor and cook fiddlehead fry every night and have a million dumbshit babies who marry rich tailors and so on and so on until they fucking choke on their gold pieces and die. If she wants to bark with the big dogs so much she can go bark in the kennel.

5. Huxley Swallowtail: This guy’s just awful. Just atrocious. Big hat with a feather on it. Pantaloons with stripes. Just the worst. The worst. Opposite problem as McClintock really. He acts like he’s some Seven Fingers of Sin gentleman thief but he’s really just alley trash who made his bones breaking arms for loan sharks and beating up younger kids for their lunch money. You can’t smother trash stink with fancy cologne.

But unfortunately I can’t pick all of these clowns so I write down DAVEY DRIFTWOOD in big block letters on the top of my little sheet of paper and then I roll a dice for the other two. Paolo and Roxan it is. To make a long story short the job goes fine. It gets dicey for a minute because I’m saddled with three incompetents. McClintock makes friends with some revolting hermit and comes back waving around some magic stick and later on they tip off the entire camp somehow and wind up cowering behind boulders. But it works out fine in the end. McClintock is shipped off to Fort Stolas to crack open rocks for the rest of her life-- priceless-- and Davey gets to have his precious reputation dragged through the muck. The best part is the dwarf-- he makes this pitiful “don’t worry about me, run, I’ll hold them off” martyr complex speech and just as they put a dozen windows in his stupid body he can see his friends getting hogtied and hauled away! God I wish he didn’t wear that fucking helmet so I could see his face when he realized he died for literally nothing. Exile, right, exile from reason maybe.

For a few days I’m walking on air. I have money in my pocket, shows booked, and I get to go to sleep dreaming of  McClintock and Driftwood toiling away in their cute little prison pajamas. But then that guy the Octopus shows up at my door. I’d heard stories but the first time I met him actually was the bust at the mine. He was in charge. I didn’t like him. His face didn’t change the entire time-- just straight lines. Before I know it I’m on the ground, can’t move a finger, and he’s telling me I’m coming with him. Well, not much I can do about it. So off we go and I realize we’re rolling up to the palace. I’m terrified. I mean, I’m cooking up a dozen escape plans but I’m a little scared, I’ll admit it. In we go and I’m trying to play it cool and he shoves me in this huge room with a fireplace and portraits of rich humans who look like they have permanent constipation and holy moley it’s the prince himself! Again. The first time I was kind of in awe of him. He knew how to run a good racket. But this time-- well…. I don’t know. On the one hand… I was scared. He didn’t… look right. Something lifeless about him. About his eyes. And that tiara or whatever, which, and I mean I didn’t get a good look, but looked like it was made for an elf head or an especially fat gnome head, it was… on him. Let me back up. It was on him but it shouldn’t have been. It shouldn’t have fit. It… there wasn’t blood but… I don’t… I can’t explain it. I… I was shaking, friend. But on the other hand it was kind of sad. This wasn’t the guy I’d seen knock the smirk right off of Elias Ewer’s face. This was somebody who didn’t know where he was going. You get a sense for that kind of thing in the circles I used to run in. People taking stupid risks and picking pointless fights because they’re just running out their time on this stupid planet and are trying to speed up the process. That was him. He looked exhausted.

But, you know, I tipped back over into scared pretty damn quick because-- oh, hey, this is off the record, right? Ok, good. Right. I tipped back over into scared pretty quick because he bares his teeth just like a dog and he’s on me with a fancy saber, just bludgeoning away with the pommel. I’m on my back with the first hit, because I’m fucking shocked, and then he’s got his legs on either side of me just going to town. I’m-- I’m blubbering like a baby, trying to wave my hands, say no no, get off me, and he’s got me by the lapels slamming me into the floor saying “Leave the McClintocks out of this, leave the McClintocks out of this, you filth, you worm, do not touch them, do not bring them into this” or something like that. Which-- what? Really? They’re well-off by halfling standards but what does he care about a pack of three foot tall hypernerds? But one way or the other he’s practically foaming. It takes that scrawny bodyguard of his to pull him off me. The guy dusts me off himself and walks me outside. He apologizes! He apologizes right to my face. I forget what I say. I don’t remember the rest of the night really. I got drunk. I got really really drunk.

But now he’s dead. Funny how that happens to people who cross me. And McClintock’s out of jail. Look, I can’t get revenge on the prince, because the idiot got to himself first. But when you mess with me and there’s something important to you, I’m going to do what I can to break that thing. And when you’re giving me a concussion while drooling some nobody poser’s name into my face, I don’t forget that name. And she’s not gonna forget mine.

[shirlleycoyle]

Still Life of a Death Broker

Today, Rich Larson, a modern master of speculative short story, considers the ultimate, far-flung conclusion of humanity’s never-ending quest for new extremes to stream. Enjoy. -the ed.

Yorick walked through the village while they waited to see the chief. There were bits of technology here and there — cracked-and-glued tablets plugged into ancient solar chargers, a sleek little hydrofarm no doubt smuggled off the Satellite by blackmarket dealers — but overall Manzu was deliciously raw and primitive and their streamers would eat it up.

Its warped mud brick had an organic feel to it, like termite mounds sprung up out of the dirt. The sand streets sloped inward and trash was strewn everywhere, nearly all of it plastic. Plastic, so much oily filthy plastic dancing through the dust, tumbling in the harmattan winds. It made Yorick shiver.

The people, the women in brightly-printed zani and ragged winter jackets, the men in flowing riga and threadbare scarves, seemed oblivious to it. Some of the wandering skeletal goats seemed to be eating it. Yorick made sure to capture that before walking on. A gaggle of parasite-riddled children trailed along in their wake; through a babel imp Yorick understood they were still daring each other to touch the back of Yorick’s vantablack coat or grab at Yorick’s dangling pale hands.

“Yanna da daman ganinka yansu. He’ll see you now.”

Yorick’s contact Ibrahim had come to fetch them. He was a nervous man, with sweat running down his pudgy cheeks in familiar rivulets, and Yorick’s modified olfactories could smell his sickly-sweet diabetes. Interesting, but not arresting.

“Na gode,” Yorick said, and followed him back toward the chief’s compound.

The children disappeared one by one, tugged away by their mothers, and when they arrived at the rusty iron door they were alone. The walls around the chief’s gida were etched with geometric patterns and the tops were adorned with shards of multi-colored glass.

The guard, who had been lounging on a woven mat in the shade, levered himself upright on wiry arms. His face was scarved against the dust with gaps only for eyes and for ancient wired earbuds, but he gave them a friendly nod before he wrenched the door open and motioned them through.

Inside the compound were a dozen more people: a woman fed thistles to a camel whose oversized feet and knobbly knees seemed to balloon from its skinny legs, others pounded some sort of grain in drum-like wooden mortars, a pair of boys were scrubbing out old plastic bottles in a plastic tub of foaming water, a small girl whirled a cackling baby on her hip, several children ate a red stew from a metal tray, passing the wide carved spoon in a circle. All of them stared, and Yorick was glad to not have come in costume.

Yorick had a variety of costumes: sometimes they wore an antique suit and top hat, evoking Baron Samedi. Sometimes they wore an elaborate flowing dress of red roses, for Santa Muerte. Sometimes a simple black body-glove and a dog skull mask, sometimes x-ray gear that exposed his entire skeleton in ghostly white. Their streamers were always eager for new costumes.

A man dragged two chairs up, both of them made of colorful plastic bands woven over a welded metal frame. Ibrahim sat in one, muttering unanswered thanks. Yorick sat in the other, disguising their reluctance, trying not to imagine the plastic seeping into the material of their coat. More men trickled in the door after them, all grave-faced, all watchful. The king’s court, Yorick thought.

They waited. Flies buzzed here and there; children chased each other in the sand. The sky overhead was choked gray with the thick harmattan dust Yorick had marveled at during their sub-orbital flight from the Satellite to the Sahara. The sun was a lemon-yellow blob, so dulled they could stare straight at it if they liked. Even so, Yorick felt their cell-knitters working to repair the UV damage every second they were exposed.

When the chief finally emerged from the central hut, mud brick roofed with corrugated sheets of tin, Yorick knew they had chosen well.

Tall and broad-shouldered and straight-spined, he had the gravity well of a small moon all on his own, walking with the slow graceful motion of someone who was used to being watched and did not care. He was clearly refusing to limp. His riga was bright yellow, his neat beard silvery-white, and his face beautiful in the jagged way of unaltered genes, jutting cheekbones and asymmetrical but piercing eyes.

Ibrahim sprang off his chair and Yorick followed suit. The chief offered his right hand. Ibrahim took it, using his left to clutch his right elbow, and kept his eyes down. Yorick’s babel imp was accustomed to the rapid avalanche of overlapping greetings, but this time was different. Ibrahim spoke softly and waited patiently; the chief’s hoarse replies were measured. When they had asked and answered of the sleep, the home, the family, the body, the chief extended his right hand to Yorick.

Yorick took it, thrilling at the feel of hot dirty skin. They could smell what they’d come for, strong enough to confirm the symptoms Ibrahim had described.

The chief looked him in the eye, betraying no emotion, then half-turned his head to Ibrahim. “Ya iya Hausa?” he asked.

“Hausa ta wiya,” Ibrahim said, miming the earpiece of an old-fashioned translator.

The chief sat gingerly on a carved wooden stool, adjusting his riga with one hand, then turned his full attention to Yorick. “So,” he said, speaking Hausa but enunciating for the babel imp’s sake. “You are the doctor from the Satellite.”

“May I inspect you?” Yorick asked, and it tumbled off their tongue in foreign syllables. “I can do it here. Or privately. I do not need to touch.”

“My family knows my sickness. It is no secret.” An odd buzzing came from his clothes; his hand darted into a pocket and came out holding an antiquated blockphone. He glanced at the screen and shook his head, putting it away again. “Inspect me here.”

Yorick stepped closer, retrieving the medroid from the folds of their coat. The tiny white capsule sprouted cilia legs and crawled to the edge of their palm, scanners linking to Yorick’s own augmented senses. They took a deep sniff and the medroid analyzed the composition of the chief’s bacterial cloud, his sweat and skin particles. Yorick recognized the metallic tang of old blood clotting in his urethra, a subtler smell layered underneath, the smell of their ancient nemesis.

The medroid snapped an ultrasound and the blurry grayscale image in their mind’s eye confirmed it: a massive tumor nestled in the chief’s bladder, expanding like a supernova. Yorick felt a quiver of excitement. Their streamers were sophisticated, tired of cheap shocks like immolation or dismemberment. The chief’s condition was perfect, an exquisite juxtaposition to his primal dignity.

“So?” said the chief.

“There is no medicine in this world that would save you,” Yorick said, and it became beautiful in the chief’s language: “ Cikin wannan dunia ba maganin da zai ceci renka.”

A little girl vaulted into his lap; he hissed and slapped her away, then pulled her back, keeping her to the outside of his knee but gently rubbing her head. The girl stared at Yorick with wide eyes. Her nostrils were crusted with snot.

“But you are not of this world,” the chief said, slow, pensive, but without the bitterness Yorick often saw from clients.

“No,” Yorick agreed. They knew that if they took the chief back with them to the Satellite, it would be child’s play to flense the cancer even from his unmodified body. But it would likely return, and Yorick was not in the business of saving lives in any case. “Even so. Your sickness can’t be treated.”

One of the men snuffled, holding back a sob. A few of the women cried out. The chief only blinked. “As Allah wills it,” he said, but his eyes went to one of the women in particular and stayed there. “Will you have anything to eat? To drink?”

Yorick shook their head. “A’a. But there is something else I would like to propose.”

The chief waved a permissive hand. His mouth was thin.

“Your sickness holds a particular fascination for many of us on the Satellite,” Yorick said. “It was the last to be conquered. With your permission, I would like to leave behind a camswarm to monitor your condition. I would also implant a nerve conduit to transmit your pain for my streamers to experience themselves.”

The speech took Yorick’s babel imp to its limit — they heard it mix Old African French into the Hausa — but the chief seemed to understand. He gave a rueful laugh. “I do not walk. I do not sleep. Five, six times in the night, I pass lumps of thick black blood of this size.” He mimed with a dusty knuckle. “It is agony. You want this for yourself?”

“Badly,” Yorick said, speaking for their streamers. “It’s been a hundred years since there was a natural death on the Satellite. Our telomeres reknit themselves. Our cells reproduce with zero-rate mutation. But still we have death inside of us. We crave it in the vicarious abstract.”

The chief’s face twisted, disgust mingled with mild disappointment, as if Yorick were one of his misbehaving children. “You want to watch while I die.”

One of the women clicked her tongue and murmured. Yorick’s babel imp heard wickedness, wickedness.

“The sights, the sounds, the smells and tastes, the sensations as your body betrays you and your mind finally slides into the dark,” Yorick said.

The chief looked at Ibrahim and shook his shaven head. “What is this that have you brought into my house?” he asked, and Ibrahim did not answer, but he flushed and trembled, eyes cast down. “You are not a human.”

“Not technically.”

“I do not speak of your modifications.” The chief rose from his stool and for a moment Yorick felt cowed by his size and fury. Then he sagged back down, face stretched with pain. “In exchange, you offer what?”

“A full hydrofarm. It will pull enough moisture to supply your village and the two closest to it with pure water.”

The chief shook his head. “Inoculation against the na-virus,” he said. “For our children. If they are dead they cannot drink the water.”

“That could be arranged,” Yorick said. They had almost forgotten the na-virus, a population control measure from the old days.

“A recycler, to eat the rubber and plastic,” the chief said. “And a printer, to make new equipment. And then the hydrofarm.”

Yorick pretended to consider. The chief was shrewd and tough and his descent would be riveting. Ten hydrofarms was a pittance compared to the streamer volume attracted by the war between his pride and his pain, his dignity and his duty.

“A good bargain,” Yorick said, and extended their bony white hand.

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