#Cobwebs draped over the side of the side of her face like a veil

[needlefail]

Some leafs 🍃🍂🍁

[shootybangbang]

[Talking Bird] 17: In which beans are ruined

[Ao3 Link]

At the mention of Trelawney, Arthur dimly recalls a scrap of half-remembered conversation from last year, when he’d idled with the man in a Lemoyne saloon while waiting for a mark to arrive. The first flicker of your existence, passing him by unknown. Like the brief touch of a licked finger through candle flame: deceptively benign, with just a whisper of the burn to follow.

Somewhere between his first and second glass of whiskey sours, Trelawney had mentioned the burgeoning demand for opium in Chinatown. A former contact of his had recently left the high stakes poker circuit to get in on the profit, and he’d lamented the loss.

“It’s a shame,” he’d said, absently swirling the ice cubes in his emptied glass and regarding the swirling wood grain of the countertop with a pensive, faraway look. And for once, the sentiment had sounded genuine. Knowing him, the man was grieving a lost business opportunity more than anything else, but it’d been a long time since Arthur had heard him even bother to feign emotion for a stranger. “She’s not suited for smuggling in the least. Can’t say I can see this ending well.”

Less Trelawney’s gift for prophecy and more stating the obvious, now that he knows exactly who he’d been talking about. Prickly disposition, clueless when it comes to violence, and far too trusting of strangers. The cavalier attitude of someone who’d never been exposed to serious conflict and who, having since been exposed, lacks even the conviction necessary to put a bullet in the man holding her hostage.

And far too delicate besides.

When you’d pulled the blanket down your shoulders to untie your braid, Arthur had tilted his head back just enough to catch an eyeful of your backside. A pretty thing to put to paper: the wet swathe of hair draped over your shoulder, the faint shadow of your spine a dark curve flickering with the shifting of firelight. Soft, dappled lines wrapped in the body of someone who’s caused him nothing but grief in the past weeks.

The view had confirmed something he’d already been suspecting: your lack of threat to anything larger than a rat terrier.

Judging by your physique, you’d probably struggle to lift anything more than fifteen pounds. Maybe twenty, on a good day. A veritably pathetic amount of muscle tone with none of the etchings that rough living leaves behind.

Some foreign high society girl fallen on hard times, he guessed. But oddly, none of the clumsy caution people of that strata have when confronted with any sort of real work. You’d fallen into the rhythm of whittling bark off the cottonwood branches too comfortably for someone unacquainted with physical labor, handled the knife with a deftness that comes only from rote repetition.

“I knew Trelawney had connections to some gang out west, but I never thought…” You shake your head slowly, dazed by the absurdity of this new development. “Did he know? When I sold them those bonds, did he realize they were yours? And why—”

“Nah, he wouldn’t have known. I, uh… wasn’t too keen on tellin’ folk I got robbed by a woman.” He rubs the back of his neck and lets out an embarrassed huff. “Told ‘em the whole thing was a bust.”

Looking back, he may as well have told them the truth. The lie hadn’t done much to salvage his pride, and had prompted weeks of jibes at his own expense. Snide little asides from Micah, overt ridicule from Bill, and the painful ordeal of Sean.

“Gettin’ sloppy in your old age,” he’d quipped. “I’ll tell you what you need, Morgan. You need to let someone else hold the reins for a change. Someone quick on the uptake, someone young and hot-blooded and—”

“Get back to me when you’re done complimentin’ yourself,” Arthur had replied, already walking away.

“Wait, Morgan — take me with you next time you ride out! I’ll scout somethin’ out, and we can…”

Sean had been insistent as a mosquito and twice as annoying, but ultimately bearable so long as he had a beer in his hand or a pillow over his head. His own head, though he’d been sorely tempted otherwise.

No, what had really driven him to leave camp had been Dutch.

Dutch and his put-upon fatherly air, all stern mouthed disapproval and downward sloping shoulders. His pointed observations of Jack’s tattered jacket, well on its way to becoming a patchwork Ship of Theseus. Pearson’s dwindling supply of seasonings, so scarce that the stews have become bland to the point of near inedibility. The stocks of medicine running low, bandages boiled so many times that their fibers have since frayed to a cobwebbed consistency.

“I know you’re doing your best, son,” Dutch had sighed, casting a weary eye over his threadbare kingdom. “God knows you’re the only man I can depend on to get anything done around here. But folks are… well. Folks are struggling.”

Arthur’s eyes had slid momentarily towards Dutch’s tent, resting on the golden gleam of the gramophone and the crisp cotton sheets laid across the bed. An unbroken sea of white, with not a stitch out of place. And not twenty feet away, Hosea’s shabby lean-to, the older man’s bedroll bearing the same disjointed array of colors as the rest of the camp’s accoutrements.

Dutch always did have a taste for the finer things in life. A level of refinement proportionate to the depth of his ambition, which in earlier days had been tempered by kinder, simpler ideals. Feed those that need feeding. Shoot those that need shooting. Robin Hood-esque, with a western (and occasionally lethal) twist. Evelyn Miller had been a fixture even then, but in those halcyon years Dutch had not yet twisted the author’s words to the tottering worldview that he’s since constructed.

The gang’s nascent success had bred standards and attracted new followers. A ragtag flock all too eager to nourish their leader’s growing, malignant appetite for grandeur.

“Just one last score, and we’ll be clear of all this… this manmade rot.” Dutch said, gesturing in the direction of Blackwater. “But for now, we’ve got to play their game. Get our hands dirty for the time being so we can wash ourselves clean of all this when we’ve finally got the means.”

Arthur had departed under the pretense of retrieving the missing bonds (impossible) or locating some cache of similar value (near impossible), but in truth he’d done so primarily for the preservation of his own sanity. More and more these days, he’s been seeing cracks in the foundation of the man who’d given him this life, dragged him out of the gutter and set him with a previously unwavering sense of purpose. And it feels treacherous — traitorous, even — to take any of it into question.

But as always, the open road and the unabiding sky of the prairie settled him into a different mindset altogether. The cycles of flora and fauna in untouched wilderness exist completely separate from the artifices of men, with the legacies of countless tiny lives encapsulated in the fine grit of the dust to which all things return. And in that certainty comes an overwhelming comfort. Everything else seems trifling in the wake of the vast perpetuity of nature.

A few days spent wandering would do him good, he’d decided. Spend some time away from all the trappings of civilization, then rob some poor sap on the side of the road so as not to return empty-handed.

And then you’d ruined his plans entirely by literally walking into him as he’d been passing through Strawberry.

“Well,” you say, offering up a small, nervous smile. “What now?”

What now, indeed. Arthur pinches the bridge of his nose and closes his eyes. “Guess we take a visit to Trelawney’s,” he replies, already dreading the inevitable embarrassment of explaining the whole sorry situation to the man. “And if it turns out you’re tellin’ the truth, I’ll give you a ride from Rhodes to St Denis.”

You frown and furrow your brow. “Rhodes?”

“Yeah, Rhodes. Trelawney’s got a caravan there on the outskirts of town. You didn’t know?”

“You can’t take me to Rhodes,” you say automatically, as if stating the obvious. “I mean… look at me.”

“You’re a woman?” he asks stupidly.

“I’m an Oriental, you moron. And Rhodes is a fucking… it’s a fucking Raider town.”

“You’d be with me. I’ll keep you safe.”

You shake your head and set your mouth into a grim, flat line. “That’s worse. They might think we’re together. And they don’t take kindly to miscegenation.”

Your words have to them the quality of a veil being drawn back, exposing a corner of this country’s ugliness he’s not often been privy to. A familiar knot of guilt tugs at his innards, accompanied by the unpleasant, impotent sensation that surfaces each time he catches the ungracious stares of the crowd when walking into town with Tilly by his side. Each time he hears the practiced courtesy in a shopkeep’s voice drop away when the man turns away from him to address Charles. Each time he watches Lenny reread for the thousandth time the letter from his dead father, the creases in its paper worn so deep that it would have long since fallen apart were it not for the boy’s careful, reverent handling.

“You know those big plantation houses just south of Rhodes? They hire Chinese sometimes to work the fields. Cheaper than sharecropping, apparently.” The look on your face is drawn and bitter. The bite in your voice suggests something personal, the sting of an injury not yet healed. “One of the boys got involved with a white housemaid. He’d saved up for train tickets to Philadelphia, and they were… he was going to marry her there. Wanted an August wedding. The number eight’s lucky for us, you see. So August 8th, 1898… he thought it was all very romantic. Used to make this stupid joke that he wished he’d met her ten years earlier. Raiders strung him up in an oak tree a couple weeks before they were set to leave.”

Arthur’s tongue lies silent and heavy in his mouth.

You take in a deep breath that rattles with the failing determination of someone struggling not to break their composure, then look to him with a desperation so absolute that it seems almost indecent to witness. “Why don’t you just leave me here? Keep me tied up if you have to. Come back for me when you’re done with Trelawney.”

In the short span of time that he’s known you, you’ve made enough of an impression to warrant several conclusive classifications. A haughty, pampered little thing. An ineffective liar. A self-destructive fool — but not stupid. Definitely not stupid.

The sheer idiocy of your suggestion indicates a fear so deep that it’s completely severed you from your senses. Just a frightened little bird caught in a trap, scratching and clawing for the narrowest possible opening for escape.

“You’re tellin’ me to tie up a woman and leave her in the middle of nowhere? May as well just hand-deliver you to the wolves. No,” he says firmly, trying to shake off the unwanted pang of sympathy. Dutch had been right about one thing — the gang did need money, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to let this opportunity for it slip away out of misguided compassion for a woman who’d literally robbed him as he’d bled out. “I’ll tell you what we’ll do. Soon as we near Rhodes, I’ll tie you to Boadicea the same way I did when we left Strawberry.”

You blink and utter a disbelieving, “Excuse me, what?”

“Reckon they’ll treat us both a hell of a lot nicer if they think you’re a bounty. Gives me plenty excuse for keepin’ you in one piece, too.”

Your face ventures on a quick journey through the five stages of grief. The grief in question being for the loss of your dignity. The blank look shifts to a glare. You open your mouth to spit out something no doubt acerbic and very rude, but a flash of uncertainty crosses your face and you quickly bite your tongue. Then you lower your head and squeeze your eyes shut. When you finally open them again, there is a defeated resignation in them that attests to a lost mental argument.

“You better ride slow if you don’t want a repeat of this morning,” you say wearily.

Arthur shrugs. “Can’t throw up if you got nothin’ in your stomach. We’ll just skip feeding you breakfast tomorrow.”

To his relief, the atmosphere lightens to blessed, familiar hostility. You tell him to go fuck himself. That you’ll literally fight him for the apples you know he has tucked away in his saddlebags. That maybe you’ll throw up anyway purely out of spite. That he’s a miserable piece of shit who you wish—

A sudden flash of lightning illuminates the outcrop for a fraction of a second, painting everything beneath it into harsh shades of white and black. It strikes as sudden and violent as a fiery whip crack, leaving behind it the bittersweet scent of burnt grass and a curl of grey smoke like a departing ghost. Its near-simultaneous clap of thunder drowns out your last sentence with an ear splitting boom so encompassing that the vibration of it seems to rattle down to the bone. The silence that follows has in it the anticipatory hush of the void prior to Genesis. You shatter it with a quiet but appropriately placed, “Jesus Christ.”

The land outside is hedged low in the horizon, and the vastness of its sky swallows all else. It crowns as its dominating feature the movement of its anvil-shaped clouds. They shift leaden and portentous, translucent bellied and lit up by the jagged tongues of lightning darting throughout quick and sporadic as pale dragonflies. Roiling violet like the murky blood of some vast organism, pulsing membranous over the prairie with a fury of near biblical proportions. And below, the buttes with their strange eroded shapes like scattered islands in a black sea of grass. In the torrential dark, their silhouettes flash ivory with every strike of lightning only to sink back into the hushed umbra of night.

There is a muted look of awe on your face, as if witnessing for the first time the true scale of a storm. Something that before now had been glimpsed only through the gaps between high-shuttered buildings. Tempests caught in concrete snares and, not unlike the men that build them, diminished until they are but a feeble whisper of their former selves.

“It’s beautiful,” you murmur. “I never knew rain could be like this.”

With a jolt of displeasure, he finds that the soft expression on your face renders you unexpectedly pretty in the fire’s flickering light, the amber reflection of it bright as copper in your eyes. A gentle chiaroscuro, the smooth line of your cheek and shadowed hollow of your throat the anchor points to which his eye is drawn.

You shuffle a little closer to the outlook’s rain-veiled edge. The roughspun blanket, still drawn tightly around your shoulders, shifts. Arthur quickly averts his eyes, but even so is met with a sliver of bare skin that runs neck to navel. The subtle outline of a breast, the mild fishbone curve of a rib.

And all at once he’s unbearably, disastrously hard, filled with a painful but directionless longing — not just for intimacy, but for the simple reassurance of another body pressed close, skin to skin and breath to breath. A kind of tenderness he’s been deprived of for so long that the memory of it brings not warmth but the brittle cold of hoarfrost. Absence like a thick pane of ice, the things he’s lost visible just underneath.

From the periphery of his line of sight, you’re but an indistinct blur in the vague shape of a woman. How appropriate then, that you should be the focus of this formless arousal. And how infuriatingly pathetic. He hadn’t lied when he’d said you weren’t his type, and yet here he is, his cock stiffer than it’s been in months at just the suggestion of a woman’s naked body.

In desperate search of both distraction and something to obscure himself with, Arthur pulls back the front flap of his satchel and fishes out your blue notebook. He glances briefly in your direction, already anticipating your angry shout of indignation — but you’re far too occupied with watching the progression of the storm to so much as glance in his direction.

The notebook’s contents are far more legible than he’d initially assumed. Most of the foreign characters seem to be either names or places, which makes it possible for him to pick out the main thread of most sentences.

Its first half consists of what looks like a ledger. Neatly organized columns with foreign characters and numbers that he hasn’t the slightest idea how to parse. When he flips past it, a slip of paper scrawled with the same strange, flowing text flutters from the pages and alights delicately into his lap. Arthur picks it up, and as he examines it, it occurs to him that he has no idea how to orient it.

Prior to this, he’d only ever seen Chinese characters painted on the roadside food stalls accompanying railroad workers on their long trek westwards. A strange, complex syllabary. He’d once read somewhere that each word of the language had its own unique character. A sort of pictograph that, when studied, relays its meaning to those who knew how to read it.

He scrutinizes the slip of paper in his hand, but finds himself unable to pick out even the vaguest of resemblances. The corner of the paper bears a square seal of red ink, inset with an intricate consortium of straight lines. Curiosity spent for the moment, Arthur slots the document back in place.

The rest of the notebook looks to be an odd mixture of field observations and long, ornate paragraphs about various landscapes. A few pressed wildflowers, field observations of city flora and fauna, crudely drawn animals reminiscent of the scattered petroglyphs he’s found carved in long-abandoned settlements. An earmarked passage describing the wetlands bordering St Denis, full of strikethroughs and hastily added phrases squeezed into the margins. Another describing what sounds like Cotorra Springs.

“The amber fields are dotted with sprigs of larkspurs and wild flax like blue-violet stars,” Arthur reads aloud.

You turn to face him so quickly that your wet hair arcs through the air like an ink-stained brush, scattering water droplets that sizzle and hiss when they fall into the fire. Wild-eyed as a spooked horse, but frozen into a horrified silence as he licks his finger and traces the rest of the line across the page, continuing, “And even further north, viridian-blue pools from which rise plumes of white smoke, the water still and clear as glass. Hills of black obsidian —”

You scramble towards him and, while clutching the blanket around your shoulders shut with one hand, slap the notebook out of his grip with the other. It lands perilously close to the fire, but you snatch it up without giving a second thought to the nearness of the flames.

“That’s private,” you hiss, hugging the notebook to your chest the way one might accidentally smother an infant.

“Thought it was fair turnaround, seein’ as you never extended that same courtesy to me,” he retorts.

The memory of that miserable morning after surfaces in him like a bloated corpse too persistent to stay hidden. His billfold emptied, ill-gotten gains vanished, and his journal speckled with smeared, bloodied thumbprints from beginning to end. Above a sketch of a mountain wildflower he’d drawn a question mark next to, the word “crocus ?” written in an angular, jagged scrawl.

“Yeah, because I thought you were going to die!” you argue back. “Figured you probably had your next of kin listed somewhere in there!”

Next of kin. The phrase pierces through like a stitch popped out of place, and Arthur nearly flinches. It’s an unintentional blow on your part, but nevertheless he deflects the only way he knows how. When bitten, bite back.

“Oh that’s real charitable, comin’ from the dope-peddler,” he jeers. “You save this compassion for everyone you fuck over, or just me?”

A clear and unguarded expression of hurt crosses your features. The same you’d worn when he’d had to pry his shotgun out of your hands. Forlorn, helpless as a wounded prey animal. But it passes quickly into a cold disdain, your head raised high again and your eyes hard as flint.

“Do you know,” you say quietly, lip curling with contempt. “I seriously considered cutting your throat when I finally realized who you were. I should have.”

Then you blink, forehead wrinkling as you sniff at the air. You glance at the fire, where his forgotten can of beans is beginning to burn.

Arthur curses. He hastily swipes one of his discarded riding gloves from the grass and pulls it on, then grabs the can and blows on its contents, fanning away its delicate wisp of black smoke.

You retreat to the far inner corner of the outcrop and frantically page through the notebook until you find the red-sealed paper sheafed inside. With a sigh of relief, you slump against the rough granite wall, the tense set of your shoulders loosening as though some secret string stretched taut through the frame of your body had suddenly been cut loose.

A sullen silence permeates the shelter, punctuated only by the grating scratch of metal as he scrapes burnt food off the edges of the can with a spoon.

“You forgot to mention that the whole place smells like shit,” Arthur says finally. He keeps his eyes on the can, attention focused squarely on the arduous task of excavating beans.

“What?”

“Cotorra Springs. Smells like week-old shit. Especially around the pools.”

The rustle of blankets. From the corner of his eye, he watches you tentatively scoot closer. “You’ve been there?” you ask. Your voice is still deeply reproachful, but touched with genuine curiosity.

“You haven’t?”

“No. I’ve just seen pictures. And notes from people who have.”

“Huh,” he says. He scrapes another carbonized mouthful from the can. “Could’ve fooled me, the way you wrote about it.”

You raise your eyebrows. “You think so?”

“Sure.

The corner of your mouth quirks upwards in a reluctant smile that unfolds like the breaking light of a clouded dawn. “Well, that’s… that’s good to know.”

“You writin’ a book or something?” he asks.

“That’d be nice, wouldn’t it?” The smile wilts slightly, and you drop your gaze down to the notebook on your lap. “No. Just a favor for an old friend’s husband. The man fancies himself an explorer, but can barely string a sentence together. He’s paying me to pretty up his notes for him. Half of which I think are made up. There’s some bullshit in there about an enormous rainbow colored pond full of boiling water.”

Arthur laughs. “Naw, that bit’s true. I’ve seen it. It’s a hell of a thing.”

You seem skeptical. He doesn’t blame you. Even after having walked the rust-banded edge of that craterous spring himself, his memory of it still carries with it the preternatural awe of a place half-dreamed. He tells you about the slow gradation of color leading inwards from the rim. Ochre to cadmium, to turquoise, to a deep cerulean with the unreal brilliance of a painted ocean. Steam hanging like a pungent fog. Entire stretches of ground covered in a thick, boiling mud, bubbling ominous as something out of Dante’s Inferno. A constant gurgling of earth and water, as if he were treading upon some living thing in the midst of an infernal digestion.

Halfway through his description, you flip the notebook to a clean page and ask him for a pencil, then begin scribbling down his words with an unceasing, determined hand. This bemuses him. That anyone might find his drivel meaningful enough to commit to paper is a new experience altogether. It’s an odd feeling, but not at all an unpleasant one.

That is, until you begin peppering his narrative with so many questions that it takes the better part of an hour to accommodate them.

What kind of plants grew there?

“Bunch of disgusting slippery shit around the edge. Algae or something. Other than that, can’t think of a single thing that’d lay roots in boiling water and sulfur.”

Did the mud boil like roiling water, or was it more the viscosity of a slow simmering stew?

“More like wet cement, really.”

Were there animals?

“No. Nothing there for ‘em.”

Birds?

“Didn’t see any.”

Insects?

“A shit ton of gnats, but not much else.”

How wide were the prismatic bands around the crater? What was the geology like? Did the surrounding forest taper off gradually in the vicinity of the spring, or was the loss of vegetation sudden and absolute as a drawn border?

“Give me your notebook.” he says, having finally reached the point of exasperation. “Easier if I just draw it for you.”

To his faint surprise, you hand it over without hesitation. He sketches out what he’s able to recall, all the while acutely aware of the madness of the situation. Fucking illustrating an account of his own wanderings for the woman who robbed him while they both sit in varying states of undress. Scribbling out a messy landscape in the same notebook whose contents he’d derided just a little while ago. Focusing all his attention on Cotorra Springs so as to ward away the unfortunate possibility of another inopportune erection.

The mediocre drawing he finally manages to scratch out would have disappointed him under any other occasion. Instead, he feels a warm flood of relief at its conclusion. If this doesn’t shut you up, then nothing will.

Nothing will, it seems. To his immense chagrin, the drawing sparks another round of questions. After silently admiring his work just long enough to spark hope of your satiety, you ask him about the species of the trees. Had he explored the nearby forest? Were there flowers? What season had he visited in? Was the acrid smell of sulfur present even here?

“Look,” Arthur says wearily. “You clearly come from money. Why don’t you just hire someone out to take you sometime?”

You snort at the suggestion. The corner of your mouth lifts upwards into something that’s only nominally a smile, and more the type of grimace that accompanies an old wound. “The only two men I’d trust enough to take me out into the middle of nowhere are dead. And with the money I owe, I can’t… I can’t just… you know what?” you say abruptly. “It’s getting late and I’m fucking exhausted. I’m going to sleep.”

And with that, you tug the blanket tight around your shoulders and huddle against the ground like a felled shrimp. You lay with your back to him, the words left unsaid hanging over you both like an unripe fruit of a question.

Arthur fetches his bedroll and unfurls it close to the fire. A battered pillow emerges from the worn tarp as he spreads it flat. After a moment of contemplation, he picks up the pillow and tosses it in your direction. It hits you square on the head.

Immediately, you sit up and snarl at him. “What the fuck is wrong with — oh.” You pick up the pillow and grasp it tight, as if at any moment he might change his mind and demand it back. Your small “thank you” is puzzled and uncertain.

“I’m gonna put out the fire,” he says. “You try to slit my throat in the dark, I’ll wring your neck.”

But the threat comes out empty and toothless, and judging by the renewed sarcasm in your voice when you tell him you’ll keep it in mind, you seem fully aware of it.

Arthur douses the flames by kicking dirt over the embers, which glow dim and vermillion for minutes afterwards, fading slow to dull, crumbling ash when the heat finally bleeds out of them. The pleasant smell of smoke lingers inside the shelter for a good while longer, but even that dissipates eventually, leaving just petrichor and the crisp, clean scent of early autumn rain.

The worst of the storm has shifted westwards. Water drips in a steady stream from the outer edge of the overhang, churning the ground below to a soup of mud. The cloud cover is still dense, but it’s thinned enough that moonlight gleams through the feathery underbelly in a pale and spattered mottle. With it, he can make out the dim outline of your body, the rise and fall of your chest in a slow, steady rhythm he sorely doubts you’d have the patience to feign.

He lies awake there in the dark for a long while, shuffling through a jumble of discordant emotion. It’s as if the pieces of several sets of puzzles have been mixed together and jammed into an incomprehensible mess, so hopelessly and thoroughly muddled that he can no longer tell where one thing starts and another ends. He sorts his way through it until the rain weakens to a grey drizzle and the drip of rainwater turns from the unbroken stream of a faucet to a series of droplets beating out an abstruse morse code against the ground.

In the end, he’s only able to definitively place a single solid sentiment. Pity.

———

Couple notes:

Arthur's understanding of Chinese is incorrect, but aligns with the assumptions a lot of Western scholars during that time period had regarding it. There was a big tendency to treat it like Japanese, which despite using some of the same characters, uses a completely different structure.

Cotorra Springs seems to be based off Yellowstone. The big boiling rainbow spring is actually real: it's called the Grand Prismatic Spring and seriously does look like something out of a fever dream. Yellowstone also does smell like sulfur in some places, but it’s not so much like week old shit as it is the potent fart of someone who’s eaten far too many deviled eggs.

No algae grows in the spring. It's actually cyanobacteria, but there's no reason Arthur would know this. It does look pretty gross up close.

[taelonsamada]

Going Home

The silvery moon hung full and bright over the village as the people in the small town ran about, children laughing and giggling while the adults trailed behind. The practices that the neighbouring towns and villages engaged in were heavily frowned upon here, not wanting to entice any of the ghosts and demons that craved their souls, but good, clean fun was still had.

Handmade gifts of protection were exchanged, blessed wine and food was consumed, and songs of light and purity carried on the air from the moment the sun had dimmed. A few of the youngest teenagers had attempted a rebellious act by dressing as monsters and scaring a small group of children. Those teenagers were currently seated in the closest house of worship, cradling their hands that had been beaten with canes and offering quiet comfort to each other.

The elders watched proudly as the events of the night seemed to carry on without further problem. They spotted one couple walking down the road, and the oldest of the elders walked over to greet them, offering both his apologies and his gratitude for ridding the village of the wretched, vile thing that had been masquerading as their daughter for over two decades.

Before either of them could respond, a scream echoed from the far end of the village. After a chilling moment past, several more screams rose up, the cheerful atmosphere of the village instantly changing to one of complete and utter terror.

At the gates where the wards had been etched and filled in with silver, a tall spectre cloaked in black, cobwebby shadows loomed over the wood. A thin, spindly arm extended from the figure, the shadows dripping from its arm catching and snagging on nearby shrubs and trees. Instantly, the branches and leaves decayed and crumbled to the ground.

A thin, skeletal hand clasped the top of the gate, pushing it open with ease as the wood under the fingers turned black and rotten. The silvery wards flared bright before dimming to a deep, foreboding purple. Instantly, the purple light rushed along the rest of the wards like the fuse on an explosive, contaminating their protections and causing a huge, black dome to snap overtop the entire village.

A second arm pulled away from the shape, bracing against both sides of the fence that connected to the gate and pulling the figure into the village, pushing through the wards with a snakelike grace. Straightening to its full seven foot height, the figure looked around, the veil that draped over its form snagging against the rotting gatepost.

The thin, cobweb like shadows lifted up off of the face as the figure strode forward, the veil left fluttering in the wind where it remained caught on the gate. Pitch black eyes leaking ichor over gaunt, withered cheeks cast across the frozen crowd. The bony, sunken jaw opened wide, letting out a rattling, wheezing scream that snapped the villagers out of their frozen terror and sent them running.

Cracked lips stained black from the dark blood they oozed curled in a snarl as the woman resumed walking forward, her blackened, clawed fingers trailing over the now abandoned festival stands as she walked past them. Wood and fabric alike split, rotted and crumbled under her touch. The ground under her bare, soot stained feet turned barren and lifeless as she walked across it. More and more of the cloak and veil she wore caught on things as she walked, exposing more and more of her decrepit, desiccated body. Her tangled, ratted black hair whipped about her sunken collarbone and shoulders.

Dozens of villagers were running down the main street of the village, screaming in terror as they found the doors to their homes locked and sealed. Others had reached the other end of the village, only to find the black dome that had snapped into place when the spectre entered was keeping them trapped. Anyone who beat at the barrier or attempted to break through it would find hands, arms and whatever else touched it immediately devoured by decay and rot. Aged limbs with grey, withered skin drawn tight over brittle bones replaced what had been healthy not seconds before they touched the flickering black wall.

Still the figure continued walking forward, eyes locked on the couple who had stood frozen in place since she had entered. Terror filled their faces as they stared up at her form, now standing ten feet tall as she came to a stop in front of them. The husband had shifted behind his wife, grasping her upper arms as if ready to shove her forward.

The spectre’s own arm shot forward before he could move, stretching a disturbingly long length in order to do. Long, pitch black dagger-like fingers sank into his shoulder, her thumb hooking under his collarbone as she lifted him off of his feet in order to hang directly in front of her face. The scream of terror and pain he let out as skin and muscle blackened and died under her touch only caused her bloody lips to crack and stretch into a wicked smile, a breathy, hissing laugh escaping her.

“Hello, Father…” She whispered in an echoing voice. His eyes widened further as recognition mixed with the fear rippling through him.

“Car-“ The bones she was holding him up by snapped as they rotted away, causing him to collapse to the ground in a heap, groaning and gasping as bones snapped and the rot continued to spread into his lungs.

The woman’s black stare shifted to the wife and stepped over her father without any concern. As the tattered train of her dress passed across him, it pulled away to reveal his entire body now putridly rotted, broken bones poking through fetid skin.

She tilted her head, staring down at the woman who had watched her husband die, paralyzed with shock at the sight. Once more, her hand snapped forward, though this time her fingers buried themselves into the woman’s stomach. Curling upwards and digging up into her ribcage. A soft, rattling hiss of satisfaction came from the spectre as a loud, echoing scream was ripped from the woman as she was lifted up off of her feet as well.

”Oh yeeessss… I knew you would find your voice eventually, Mother….” She wheezed, lifting her free hand to press her finger against the living woman’s throat. A rattling purr came from her as she watched her finger eat a hole into her mother’s neck, slowly sinking deeper into her throat until her knuckles brushed against the rotting skin.

Her smile shifted into a curling snarl as she listened to the scream break down to a gurgling wheeze as her mother’s vocal chords rotted. Eventually she was left slumped over her arm, the hand that was buried into her ribs steadily eating at her stomach and working towards her heart.

Her mother’s hands clawed at her shoulders, rattling and gasping as she tried to speak. “I went on a bit of a journey since you last saw me, Mother.” She hissed. “I admit, the last turn I took brought me some place a bit… darker… than I ever planned to go. However, as the one who set me on the journey in the first place, I thought it fitting to come show you what that trip turned me into.”

Lowering her arm slightly, she watched her mother slowly slide off of her hand and slump to the ground, coughing up bile and rot. Looking up at the rest of the village, staring at the people huddled behind buildings and stands, listening to them weep and shudder… She grit her teeth, clenched her hands into fists, feeling all the angry and fury over what had been done to her by these people welling up inside of her until it exploded.

A bloodcurdling, primal scream of rage and anguish ripped from her and echoed across the entire town, her form lifting up off the air as shadows burst from her in waves. Every plant within fifty feet of her immediately turned black and dead. Buildings shattered and broke apart to splinters. Rocks exploded into powder. She hung in the air as the scream carried on for nearly a full minute, dropping to the ground as it finally ended and standing tall and proud.

Her chest heaved as she glared at the villagers, all of them having been just far enough from the blast she let out to not be hurt. “Look what you brought upon yourselves! I am what you made me!! Your own fear has doomed you to this fate!” She raged, stalking forward with every intention of continuing her work.

Grabbing hold of the corner of a stand for candied apples, she flung it away into a nearby building with terrifying ease, and glared down at a woman clutching onto two young children, no older than seven or eight. The sight of them clinging to the woman and weeping openly in fear at the sight of her hit her like a bucket of icy water.

She stood in place for an agonizingly long time, the grass under her feet rotting in a slowly radiating circle. It had barely reached the feet of the children when she turned away. Her hands curled into fists at her sides as she strode away from the remaining villagers. “You all set me on this path…” She hissed as she walked for the rotted, collapsing gate. “But it is my path, my journey. My odyssey. And I choose where it takes me from now on.“

[bang-to-the-tan]

Stray Cat Strut

Chapter 7

Reader x OT7

► Faerie!AU

Fluff, Comfort

Warnings: Mention of Death, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Faerie Mischievous Bullshit

↳ Summary: When your grandmother passes away, she leaves her countryside house in your name. The longer you stay, the harder and harder it becomes to explain away the odd happenings. What kind of secrets does this sleepy town hold? And why do the local animals act so strangely around you?…

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The library is cool when you step inside, the breeze and the birds muted, lending to this veil of stillness that drapes over everything like a gossamer sheet. Enough to quiet without suffocating. Enough to mute without obscuring. It’s so peaceful in here, like it’s been untouched by the years and will remain for years to come. You take in a deep breath, inhaling the scent of polished wood, dust, and old tomes, your hand drifting to worry at the faded thread wrapped around your wrist. The bell on the bracelet clinks faintly, clear and bright, when you jostle it. Were you too harsh on that boy outside? As if he could be standing just past the doors, you turn, casting a glance at the entrance, recalling the way he held you. It was...kind of nice, you have to admit. The familiarity, the strength—protective. Protective…

‘You don’t remember me?...but I’m your—’

Your thumb slips in your worrying, and you brush the pearl wrapped in the center again. Something deep inside your chest aches suddenly, like a second heartbeat beating just beside you. Strong and insistent. Real. You’re missing something. Someone.

You shake your head, trying to clear your mind of these feelings and half-remembered things like cobwebs. You turn to ring the bell, but Namjoon is already standing there, leaning casually against the desk as he surveys you with a vaguely worried look. You don’t know how you missed him, walking in, but that seems to be a running theme with these people.

“...Are you okay?” he asks finally, breaking the silence. 

“I’m okay.” After a beat, you manage to reply, trying to gather your heartbeat from his sudden appearance. When you move to step forward into the light streaming from the topmost window, he doesn’t move away from you, only craning his head to better meet your eye. 

“Are you sure?” 

“Yeah. I just...yeah. Weird people in this town.” 

He snorts. “What do you mean?”

“A-a guy outside. Reached for me.” 

His face immediately drops. “What? Who?”

“No, no, I—looking back on it I’m not even sure he meant anything by it. I just...Forget it.”

He shifts, straightening, his lips curving into a frown as he furrows his brows out at the doors behind you. “What did he look like?” 

You have to stifle a laugh at how suddenly he’s ready to step to the plate in your name. Though the two of you have only spoken a couple times, and almost always ending with you frustrated at his mysterious act...there’s something friendly about being in his presence. Comfortable, like you’ve known each other for a very long time. There’s a lot in this town that feels that way.

“It’s fine, Namjoon. I promise I’m fine.” 

He stills, looking at you peculiarly, brows raising. “...I didn’t tell you my name.” he says, quiet.

“No, no. Um. Jin mentioned you. We’ve been helping each other out.”

“Oh.” 

A cloying silence threatens to settle between you and you have to break it before it becomes awkward.

“Yeah. A-anyways, I have something to trade,” you turn the conversation back on-course. “Something of value, for the book. Just like you said.”

Namjoon perks up noticeably at that, eyes bright when they flit to meet yours past lavender hair. He straightens, crossing his arms across his chest and shuffling his weight to the other foot, like he’s trying to be nonchalant despite obvious intrigue. 

“Okay,” he says, nodding once with a soft smile. “Okay, let’s see it.”

The bracelet jingles when you hold it up, demonstrative, feeling at least a little bit proud of yourself for solving his silly riddle. His gaze is blank when he looks to your arm so you point helpfully at your wrist. 

“I found this while Jin and I were cleaning my grandmother’s shed. It was mine when I was young. It meant a lot to me. It still does.” ...What did you just say? It was too easy, how that slipped from your lips, but now that you’ve said it, you find that it’s true. There’s an attachment that you can’t quite explain, even to yourself. You hesitate, struggling to put the feeling into words. “It...it’s important.”

He doesn’t speak. Your companion has frozen so completely that you have to crane a little ways to the side, watching his eyes follow you, before you can determine that he hasn’t just...stopped working. 

“Hello? Namj—”

“What is it?” he asks, quiet. Almost fearful. “Describe it to me.”

You frown. “What do you mean, describe it? It’s...look at it.” You shake your arm in his direction, appalled when he jerks backwards like you’re waving a weapon in his face, his expression wary.

“Humor me,” he breathes, looking back to you. “Just humor me for a minute.” 

“...It’s a little bracelet,” you begin, slow, eyeing him carefully. What has him so worked up?... “Tied with thick thread. There’s a bell and a pearl in the center of it.”

“What color is the thread?”

You blink at him. “...red…?”

A sigh, deep, heavy, leaves his lips and he slumps against the counter like a marionette with its strings cut, his hands coming up to thread through his own hair, hiding the upper part of his face, and you realize his fingers are shaking. You pause, scooting forward just a little to peer at him better. His mouth is pulled into a taut line, his brow furrowed.

“Namjoon?” 

“I..I can’t believe...” He sounds shaken. Worried; and you can’t for the life of you understand why. “…who...” His head shoots up before you have the chance to speak again. “When you were here last. You mentioned a dog was following you. What kind of dog?”

You try to think of dog breeds, but it’s difficult with the whiplash you’re getting from this strange conversation. “...fluffy? Small?” 

“Okay. Okay.” Namjoon takes several deep, calming breaths, sliding off the counter to begin pacing in front of it with long strides, his chin in his hand. “Okay.”

You allow him a few beats of quiet, waiting patiently for an explanation or perhaps another barrage of questions, but he’s so caught up in whatever thought process is currently possessing him that instead the library returns to its diligent silence. 

You clear your throat, tracking his anxious path back and forth. “...So?” 

“So?” he echoes, absent.

“So is that good enough? For the book?” 

“The book,” he repeats again, halting. He looks upset. Deeply upset. When he turns again, he steps to face you in two long strides, watching you carefully to see if you’ll pull away. You don’t. “I...you can’t...”

“You said,” you begin pointedly. “You said you would trade it for something that has value. This has value.Are you going back on your word?”

Something dark briefly flashes in his eyes and he shakes his head, sharp. “No. I am not.” He pauses again, takes a deep breath through his nose as he studies some indeterminate point to your left. His gaze flits back to you. “What I said was that I would trade it for something with equal importance to you as this book has to me.” 

“Yes.”

“That...bracelet...does not have equal importance to you.”

“You—” you bristle.

“Not to you,” Namjoon interrupts. He reaches out an unsteady hand, palm-up, taking another half-step closer, the closest you’ve ever been to him. From here, you can see the threads in his sweater, making up the bright, colorful patterns. You catch a whiff of his cologne when he moves and briefly, you reel at the strangely familiar scent. Bright, clean. Like a breeze from a mountain, untainted and free. At first you don’t move, but your senses return to you after a beat and, eventually, you press your hand into his. His palm is wide enough, long enough, to dwarf your own, warm and shockingly soft against your skin. When he flips your hand so that your wrist faces up, it’s with a delicate, feather-light touch. You’re spellbound, watching his thumb caress down your palm briefly, halting just where the bracelet begins. He sighs again, eye trained on your wrist, his expression turning almost determined. He blinks, looking back to you with the faintest of smiles, his other hand coming up as he folds your fingers over your own palm, like he’s entrusting something heavy to you, pressing your hand in gently. 

“I believe you. When you say you don’t remember. So I don’t think this is your fault,” he says, low, “But...promise me you won’t use it.”

“Use...use what?” 

“The book.” 

You frown at him doubtfully. “All this work for a book I can’t read…?”

“You can read it,” he clarifies hastily. “You can read it, and learn from it. I would encourage you to learn from it. But there are...there are things in there… things written, knowledge that could be used…”

“Used?” What the hell is he talking about??

“I can’t make you swear to anything,” he adds, his shoulders dropping. “But please. Just promise me you won’t use it.” 

You don’t get it. You don’t understand the significance. But he’s being so earnest, so incredibly heartfelt that you find yourself nodding along. “...Okay...I won’t use the book.”

He copies you, once, closing his eyes. When he opens them, he straightens, releasing your hand. As you draw it back into yourself, you find yourself missing his warmth, the softness of his hand.

“The...the bracelet,” he stumbles faintly over the word. “The importance isn’t yours. I believe you, that you cherish it, but it isn’t yours. Not entirely. Not all of it.”

Your mouth opens to interrupt, confused questions threatening to spill from your tongue, but he continues quickly. “I’ll accept it as collateral when you return what doesn’t belong to you.”

“What part of it doesn’t belong to me?” you balk.

“When you know the answer to that, then I know you can be trusted.” he explains, without explaining, eyes flickering. “It’s perfect. If Taehyung trusts you, so can I.” 

“T-Taehyung. The dog.” 

“Give what’s his back to him,” Namjoon nods, like he’s proud of himself. “Then I can trust you not to use the book.” 

“I’m going to give Taehyung—the dog—my childhood bracelet.” You clarify, slow, staring at him like he’s gone insane. “And then the shady librarian will give me a book that I promised I wouldn’t use. Namjoon, this all sounds crazy.”

He grins, leaning forward to grasp your shoulders, gentle and encouraging. When he beams like this, dimples carve themselves out of the sides of his cheeks, his eyes sparkling with latent mischief. 

“I believe in you.” 

You stare at him, but he only smiles wider, hands squeezing you gently.

You blink. 

He’s gone. 

You whirl around, jumping out of your skin, but the library is empty. You’re alone, standing in the light filtering through the topmost window, watching the shapes of dust trail through the golden air like small creatures of yore. 

“Namjoon?” you call, but there’s no answer. You blink again, staring at your hands. Your bracelet is still there, the bell still ringing plaintively when you wriggle your wrist. Did you imagine him?...

No. No, you couldn’t have. 

You wait for some kind of sign, in the stillness. A sign that he was real, or one that this is a dream. That you’re going crazy? But nothing else happens. Eventually, you decide to exit the library. 

So...okay. First thing’s first, then. You have to find Taehyung. Maybe wrap the bracelet around his paw? He’s small enough and the clasp is adjustable enough, you could probably slip it around his neck like a collar. It shouldn’t be hard to find him anyway—it’s been impossible to get rid of him since you met. And yet, when you step outside, into the fresh air and warm sunlight, you’re vaguely surprised to find that there’s no fluff ball sitting patiently at the steps. You cast a look to one of the lion statues protecting the entrance.

“Last I saw him, he was chasing that rabbit. Jungkook,” you correct yourself quickly. “So maybe he’s at home? What do you think?”

The lion offers no comment. You caress one of its paws anyway, feeling the sensation of heated stone under your palm. You think of the dark-haired boy and the lighter-haired boy you saw earlier, but even as you keep an eye out, you don’t see either of them on the way home.

To your further shock, there’s no shape pacing in front of your garden gate, either. No tiny madman announcing your approach with a howl. Your heart sinks a little. He’s alright, right? He hasn’t been hurt? You can’t imagine anyone in this town wishing any harm, not to something so small. You pause at your gate, frowning, and go to turn away, but a flash of brown on the inside of the garden, dashing to the side of the house, catches your attention and immediately your heart leaps into your throat. 

“Taetae!” you shout, grinning as you throw the gate aside and jump inside, running to catch up. The flowers in your path crunch under your feet, the dried soil hard and unforgiving against the soles of your feet. “Hey, buddy, wait up! Namjoon says I ha—” 

You round the corner, pulling up short when you realize you’ve lost sight of him. Seeing things again…? No. No, that can’t— 

Movement, again, a twitch of brown, and suddenly there’s something clambering up the side of the iron fence with nimble little fingers. It isn’t Taehyung. It’s a squirrel. Small, oddly sleek and soft-looking for a wild animal, its eyes are wide yet strangely intelligent as it regards you. 

“Squirrel.” you say. It doesn’t reply. Looking at it, you’re suddenly made aware of the state of your garden around you. It’s appalling. Seemingly since this morning, the flowers have begun shriveling in earnest, a dried brown claiming them from the stems and reaching down into the roots. Even the ground beneath you is becoming dusty, harsh and unforgiving to life. Your steps haven’t even made prints in the soil. The squirrel watches you with a steady gaze.

“Squirrel.” you say again, realization striking you dumb. The kepry under the stairs. The candy. 

“I-I’m so sorry!” you finally sputter, ducking your head in a bow before you even realize you’re doing it. “I completely forgot! But I bought candy for you, I swear! To replace the ones I took out. I’ll be right back.”

The creature gives no indication that it understands, or cares, but instead of bolting when you move to go back through the house, it only watches you steadily. No real squirrel would sit so still, so patiently, you’re sure.

You retrieve a handful of candy from the bag in the cupboard, making sure there’s enough to pass to the gardener, whenever he turns up, and head back outside. The squirrel hasn’t moved, and doesn’t move, even when you have to walk past it to the stairs around the back. You kneel on the ground, making quick work of the shoddy cover you’d put over the hole. It takes a few minutes to pull out all of the cotton and slip the candy inside piece by piece, tucking the discarded tape and cotton into your pocket to throw away later. 

Satisfied, you go to get up, jolting when you realize that the squirrel has scampered down from its perch on the fence closer to you, all the way down to the grass, alighting into your lap with all the deftness of a family pet. It’s light, but solid, heavier than you might think. You freeze, holding your breath as it pads across your thighs, inspecting the hole with a twitch of its whiskers, a crane of its tiny head. Its bushy tail waves in front of your face and you have to tamper the desire to pet it. Delicate little paws shaped like hands reach into the hole, grasping one of the candies and pulling it into its body with a curious look. Round and round it shuffles the sweet, eyeing it this way and that, before sliding it back into place with a peculiar chirp sound. It turns to you, straightening, whiskers twitching, and you’re spellbound in its wide, dark eyes. Slowly, deliberate, it leans forward in a bow. Automatically, your body is moving to replicate it as much as you can without dislodging it from its perch. It chirps again, almost a cheerful bark, suddenly dashing up your arm, round your shoulder, to the other side, clutching at your shirt fabric easily with tiny claws, and as it goes, brushing your nose with its tail, you can smell lavender, like its been rolling in it. Briefly, it nuzzles into your cheek and you can’t help but laugh a little. You’re aware of the sound of birds in the distance, the wind rustling through the trees, the sun warming your skin, and the scent of fresh lavender. 

“I’m glad you like them,” you say after a moment. When you go to stand, careful, the squirrels precise little claws dig a little deeper into your shirt, small body wavering to keep balance, though it doesn’t move to jump off of you. “I’m sorry for taking them out to begin with. I hope this makes us even.”

It chirps again, louder for being so close, and you burst into a fit of laughter when it snuffles against your ear, ticklish instinct moving your shoulder, but it leaps off you quickly, before you can squash its small body against your temple. It lands precisely near a patch of tulips. You rub at your ear absently, watching as it flicks its tail at you and suddenly scurries off, dashing again around the front of the house. You take a step to give chase, but hesitate when you’re distracted by a flash of color against the ground. Leaning forward, you brush a hand against the fading tulips to move them out of the way. A patch of grass, standing out against its dying kin for its bright, emerald color. You don’t remember seeing that before. 

Unbidden, Namjoon’s words rise in your head, all the way back from when you first spoke to him. 

‘I bet there was something in the house really well taken-care of when you got here.’ 

Granny’s garden. Of course. Granny was so old, she couldn’t have possibly gotten on her knees to tend this garden as often as would have given her the beautiful paradise you always remembered. Her hands shook so violently, how could she have pulled the weeds and watered the plants like they needed? And even after her death, it was beautiful. 

Until you took the candy. Then, the plants started dying. It all makes sense...

But wait. Then what about the man claiming to be her gardener? 

“You seem like a nice person.” You don’t have time to be confused, as a new voice pulls you from your musings and you look up to find a young man standing at your fence. His hair is a soft almond color, his eyes wide like a doe’s, as he stares at you with the slightest hint of a smile pulling at his lips. 

“...Thank you,” you reply finally, realizing a beat too late that you’re still smiling, trying to smooth it into something less creepy. He doesn’t seem to notice, his own smile growing, prominently showing his front teeth. 

“I didn’t get the chance to say that before,” he adds, shoving his hands into the pockets of his dark jacket and swaying a little. 

“Before?” You repeat, straightening. “Have we met?” 

“Sort of. You’re usually…” his head cocks briefly, pausing in his rocking to cast a thoughtful glance upwards. “...protected pretty closely.” 

“You mean Taehyung?”

“Yeah.” 

“He doesn’t mean anything by it,” you’re immediately defending the small animal, brushing the dirt off your knees. “He’s just…”

“Persistent.” 

You laugh a little at that. He sounds almost personally attacked by the tiny dog. “Are you afraid of dogs?”

“No,” he replies quickly, nose scrunching though he’s still grinning. “I’m not afraid of him, either.” 

“Well. You’re in luck, I guess.” You sober a little with a faint sigh. “I can’t seem to find him.” 

He hums, but quickly starts another conversation, seemingly uninterested with offering to help. “How did you get Yoongi’s totem?”

“Yoongi?” You blink, but your hand automatically flies to the small bag around your neck, wrapping your fingers around it and inhaling the slight scent of cinnamon. “Is that...the cat’s name?”

“He doesn’t just give those out, you know,” the young man says instead of answering. He moves to lean against your fence, and you catch a glimpse of his bright red sneakers when he bounces forward. He cradles his cheek in one long palm, watching you closely. “I’m curious.” 

“I took him into the house when it was raining the other day. Fed him, gave him a bed.” 

The youth grins wider. “I knew you were a nice person.”

“I...I couldn’t just leave him there.”

“Or me.” 

“Sorry?”

“I like you. I’ve decided.” He declares with a soft giggle, his nose scrunching again. “I want to pay you back.” You can’t help but smile with him, though you’re not sure what he means by that. 

“Oh. Okay? Thank you?” 

“Taehyung likes Eunju and Sungmin a lot. Maybe you can find him by their store?” 

Your eyes widen and your mouth drops open, your back straightening a little. “That’s a good idea! Thanks!” 

“Anytime,” he leans up off the railing and turns to start walking down the path. You start forward, suddenly worried that without your eye on him, he’ll disappear into nothing. 

“U-um!” 

He pauses, half-turning to raise his brows at you expectantly as you walk to the gate, unsure hands curling over the bars. 

“Do...do you want to come with?” you ask, hesitant. You’re not sure why, but you don’t...want him to leave. Just yet.

His grin grows wider. “I’d love to! Actually,” he cranes towards you, his expression conspiratorial. “Let’s make it a game.”

“A game?” you echo, stepping out of the gate and latching it behind yourself. 

“I’ll race you there.” 

You aren’t blind. You can see the toned muscles in his legs, bared by his shorts, especially now with the hedges and fence out of the way. You snort. “I don’t think—” 

“Readysetgo!” he cackles, eyes wide, suddenly diving headfirst into a sprint. 

A scandalized noise leaves your throat as he cuts you off, but your body is already in motion, launching you forward, heart pumping, indignant laughter surging from your chest. The two of you race down the hill, and for a moment, you’re afraid of losing your footing on the incline, tripping, head over heels, but he’s pulled so far ahead of you that it sparks a playful frenzy in your heart, spurring you onwards, faster, faster. Your feet grow wings, sure and light as you throw yourself mindlessly into the chase, over the terrain, past the trees, into town, following the trail blazed in your sights by the young man’s jacket flaring out behind him, the glaring color of his shoes, something pulled from the depths of your soul that makes your cheeks hurt with how hard you’re grinning, wind whipping at your hair, legs pumping as you give it your all. The two of you bank so hard around the corner that you almost fall over, an exhilarated whoop leaving your chest as you struggle to regain your footing, watching him disappear around the bend, but you’re so close to catching him now, like you could just reach out— 

You round the corner, bursting free of the intersection to come face to face with the convenience store. Your feet skid to a halt, suddenly heaving deep, heady breaths as you bend at the middle, panting, gasping. Your legs burn, your sight swims, but you’re laughing past your inhales and exhales, feeling energy in every limb, every inch of your being. Even as sore as you are already, you feel alive. Indisputably alive, fully alive. There is light and fire burning inside of you and if you wanted to, you feel like you could run the whole way back up the hill. You take in another gulp of oxygen, casting a glance around you, feeling the urge to roll your eyes when you realize the young man is gone. Disappeared entirely. Besides annoyance, at the apparently inherent ability of everybody in this town to just vanish on will, you feel…

You feel disappointed, you realize after a beat. 

Disappointed that he didn’t stay. 

The day is starting to grow long, the sunshine turning golden, the shadows turning violet. You can feel the slight drop in temperature as it cools, preparing to tuck the sun beneath the horizon. Today has really gotten out from under you. You might have to call it a night soon... And then you must remember to go and help Jin in the morning...it’s not his fault that you keep getting sent on these wild goose chases by the possibly-a-ghost librarian. 

Your breathing has calmed enough that you can walk now, and though you know you’re sweating up a storm, you decide to go into the store. At least before you start to smell.  You don’t see Taehyung anywhere outside of it, but maybe they’ll have seen him inside. 

The bell above you is light when you open the door, the air inside just as fragrant as ever with fresh fruit and vegetables, cooled from being sheltered from direct sunshine. It’s Eunju, this time, manning the counter, who gives you a warm smile when she spots you. She moves to say something, starting to circle around the side of the counter to greet you, but is interrupted entirely when an even older woman shuffles out from underneath the blanket hiding the back of the store. She’s bent over, old age curving her spine, claiming her thinning hair and turning it shock-white. She wears a soft-looking cardigan that all but hides her bone-thin fingers, the glasses perched on the end of her dainty nose as thick as bottle bottoms. She’s clutching something close to her chest, and after a moment you recognize it as a bear, reared up on its hind paws, mouth open in a silent roar, carved out of stone. 

“For the front of the store, Eunju,” she croaks as she walks past, her voice dry as bone. 

“No, mother, now, we’ve discussed this,” Miss Eunju tries to step in, chastising, but the woman won’t be budged, clutching the figure more resolutely to herself with a sharp glare that almost makes you laugh despite yourself. She ducks Eunju’s attempt to herd her back into the back of the store, waddling forward with the determination of a much younger woman. 

“It’s an eyesore,” Eunju complains, trying not to chuckle as she reaches again for the item in question. “The neighborhood children don’t like them.” 

“I don’t care what you think of it,” the older lady rasps loudly, still hurtling towards you with all the speed you imagine she can muster, “There is mischief about Spirit Lights.” 

As she comes closer, you can make out her nails, painted a modest brown, the pearls hanging from her lobes, the subdued but fine quality of her cardigan. She looks like a woman with power, even now. Reserved, but not likely to take any kind of nonsense. You can see where Miss Eunju must get it from. 

“Good evening,” she greets you politely, and out of respect, you immediately move out of her path, convinced that otherwise she’d mow you down just as surely as the tide comes in, hiding your grin with a nod. 

“Good evening,” you reply, but you doubt she can hear you. She shuffles past you, to the outside of the store. 

Eunju comes to an exhausted halt just by your side, watching her mother with an expression of mild despair as she props her hands on her ample waist. 

“Bah!” she calls, but you can hear the fondness in it. “Stubborn old bat. Only time you can count on her moving so quickly is when she’s being spiteful.” She sighs, shaking her head, but turns back to you with a fond look. “Hello again. What can I help you with? Was the candy alright? How is your handsome little chaperone?” 

“The candy was perfect, thank you,” you reply. “And actually, I was wondering if you’d seen him. I can’t seem to find him anywhere.”

“Oh,” she waves dismissively. “He’ll turn up. They always do, the rascals. I wouldn’t worry about it. This close to Spirit Lights, they always get a little squirrely.”

You blink. “...The strays?” 

“This town doesn’t have strays.” Her attention is quickly claimed by her mother appearing again, turning on her heel and trotting back in with the self-assured gait of a successful mission completed. “You know I’m going to take that back inside.”

“You do and I will put it right back where it belongs,” is her response. 

“They can’t come into private property, mother.”

“Well, you never know.”

“I do know! I have lived here nearly as long as you!” 

The older woman scoffs, waving an ancient hand as she scoots past. 

“There, now, see, Sungmin makes fun for my belief,” Eunju huffs, “but I am nothing compared to that absolute madwoman. Anyways.” She leans forward, putting a reassuring hand on your arm. “I’m sorry I haven’t seen your friend. But I’m sure he’s around here somewhere.” She starts with a soft gasp of delight, looking suddenly at your arm. “Ah, your bracelet! I love that.”

“Thank you! I found it in my grandmother’s shed. I think it was mine when I was young,” you beam. She nods, patting you once with a knowing crook of her eyebrow. 

“You know what it reminds me of,” she says. “Here. It looks like this town to me. I’ve seen designs like that before. Good luck charms made for children.” She pats you again, her eyes squinting when her smile grows. “It suits you. This town suits you, I think.” 

She turns with an air of finality. “Now!” she adds, determined. “I’m going to take that heinous thing inside before it scares off my poor customers.” 

You giggle, watching her grab it and cart it back into the store. 

“Ever since that fiasco,” she huffs balefully. “She’s been working overtime to try and keep the spirits out. I swear she gets this manic light in her eyes...”

“Fiasco?” 

“Oh.” She pauses before resuming her trek, still chattering away, “I wouldn’t worry about it. Just some fearful business some time ago. Quite a few years ago now. Nothing came of it, anyhow, last I heard everyone was quite alright.” She turns as she walks to wag a finger at you. “Just don’t forget to be careful on Spirit Lights, that’s all. Some of the children don’t know any better, you know.” 

“I’ll be sure to be careful,” you reassure her. “Thank you.”

“Of course. Anytime you need anything, you know where to find us.” 

The trek back home feels long. Lonely. 

You perk up at the half-hearted hope that maybe Taehyung will greet you at the gate again, but slowly realize you’re on your own. As you get ready for bed, aching from your run, tired from the strange things that have happened to you during the day, you find yourself missing the little dog at your feet. The bed seems smaller and less inviting without him on it, and as you tuck in for the night, you heave your own world-weary sigh in his place. 

Even if you don’t figure out what Namjoon wants you to do, you hope you find him. It was nice to have a friend. 

You slip quickly, silently, into dreams made of velvet skies and starry lights.

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[felassanis]

The Hunter - an Oblivion short.

Lucien Lachance fic I made, not really done as I sort of flicked through it editing it and trying to modify my rather wordy writing but also trying to figure out how to elaborate character’s feelings in scenes. 

Comments and likes would be appreciated

What was meant to be a quiet night lead the Hero of Kvatch to reminisce about something that has haunted her, something she has tried to quell deep within her mind. When the murderer seeps into her room like a bad omen, she is offered an opportunity...

My horse surrendered to a slow pace as we crossed the bridge, letting its sleepy head sink as it trudged against the ground with weighted hooves scraping against cobblestone. “Tired are we?” I mumbled leaning down and stroking his brown coat with my fingers. He snuffed snottily in what I took as validation. Somewhere up ahead, beckoning me through the leering orange hue of the late afternoon was a signpost standing slanted, riding closer my eyes pined for the carving of a tankard brimming with mead. Indeed, my eyes glinted and my ears perked with pricked interest. “We’ll reach Cloud Ruler Temple come tomorrow, I think you...and I, deserve some rest,” I spoke and steered my reigns in the direction the wooden sign lured me to.

About a half an hour later night had descended upon Cyrodil, blankets of shadows coveted the forested region like a black veil. The cool breeze fanned across my face reaching out to my heart, which pleaded for the warmth only a tavern fire could bring. At last, we reached a tavern that sat alone on the side of the dirt road. Lighting up as a beacon to weary travellers by the positioned lanterns that dotted the building’s outskirts, it worked on this weary traveller.

Securing my horse to a fence, I removed my hood and ventured inside. The door creaked open with a loud howl eliciting the attention of every patron dwelling inside. As Cyrodillic customs dictated each head tilted in curiosity; the type of curiosity that went hand in hand with scrutiny and light malice that seeped into squinted eyes filled with a lack of surety. And a suspiciousness weaved into their frowns and smouldering grimaces. Eyes lurched to my face, a clear peaked interest in the men but the flame of desire quickly dissipated with the dubious revelation of my sharp ears which suddenly burned the more they stared. Eventually, they went about their business once more. I knew that if I were to knock one of them it would surely result in a brawl like poking a slumbering bear.

Bearing this in mind, I avoided the patrons and went around the seating area straight to the bar. A small Imperial woman stood behind, cleaning out a glass. “Yes?” Said the patron, with a tone that assured me I had to be snappy with this interaction as she barely looked up from her chore to even acknowledge me. “Just a room please,” I responded to which she nodded and handed me a silver key in exchange for some coin.

Heading upstairs I was greeted by a long hallway, oddly encased in darkness. The hallway seemed to go on and on till the end was but a black spot. I was filled with a sudden sense of dread, my eyes getting lost down that dark and when I scanned my surroundings; I saw little but saw no presence, despite the poking feeling of one watching me. I scanned again doubting my senses, but alas all it appeared to be was a dark hall, still and unmoving with silvery wisps of cobwebs littering the corner of the ceiling. Of course, I had seen enough to know this wasn’t the case.

My feet carried me into my allotted room with haste, but the dreary feeling did not subside once I locked my door. I reached out slowly towards a candle hung on the wall by rusted metal, letting small trickles of fire crackle under my nails as I lit it. The room was now dimly lit in a charming way, making my room come alive in the light. Still, with each beat of my heart sounding off in my ears I didn’t feel comforted. More so like the warming light was false, trying to lure me into false security.

As the night drew on I eventually found myself under the bed covers, with eyes wide and ears pricked by each creak of the tavern, every gust of wind that swept across my window. I had sprung from my bed a few times, hand itching for my blade tucked under my pillow. Alas, nothing confirmed why I felt a watchful gaze course over my body. I considered getting on my horse and suffering through the night to return to Martin, to Cloud Ruler. And just as I was about to collect my cloak I saw a shimmer in the room, a wisp of colours moulding together someone had thrown dye into the waters. It moved slowly, stopped...then I saw it inch closer.

My hand flew to my dagger and in an instant, I threw it quickly in the direction of the wisp with a hearty growl. I heard a magical grumble pierce the still air before a tall man draped in black appeared before me, born from whisks of magical embers. His own hand is as quick as my own; for he had his pale fingers wrapped tightly around my blade before it struck his skull. His precision amazed me, his eyes stayed unto me as if he hadn’t even blinked at the assault. And he seemed to acknowledge my awe; under his hood was a long grin brimming with pride.

“Why does sleep evade you so, young one?” He speaks in a fruity voice, deep and low. It’s a numbing voice that makes me tremble as if tremors filtered out his mouth, flowing with an impeccable air of strength. His words slipped through that mischievous smile stemming from deep within his throat. A clarity so crystal clear it was as if he’d rehearsed the lines a thousand times. He speaks with purpose and with conviction, and I’m almost envious he can sound so strong and calm while holding the knife I pined for his eye. Again, I reach for a second dagger but he’s already evaded it by the time I’ve let it slip through my fingers, a slight lean and my aim proves worthless to him. The knife consequently, barrages against the wall of my room in a dull thud.

“Perhaps slumber fails you...because you’re riddled in guilt hmm? Plagued by nightmares of hands soaked in the blood of innocents?...your innocents?” He tries one again, each word is slow as he traces every inch of my face with his dark gaze. I feel it, like fingers caressing my skin. He walks towards me slowly and carefully and I feel small, caught out somehow like a mouse spotted among the cheese. He makes me want to confess, but with what I am not sure. The air is quiet, not a sound save for his edging steps and my unsteady breaths. I can feel the tension between us brewing, like a finger flicking a thin string that threatens to snap. Each twang is his footsteps poking and prodding further and further and I stand there anticipating the string to just snap, to break and release...something. I don’t know what...that unknowing, that petrifying and foreign anonymity exacts more unease. I expect him to surge at me, lunge with a quelled ferocity and yet he appears peaceful. I studied him, from what little I could see under his hood there was no trace of wrinkles; no lines against his pale features like cobwebs, not a slither of grey in his hair. He was clean-shaven, said hair whisked back neatly without a strand out of place, connoting he was particular like a young man might’ve been. Yet I sensed a great life in him. Perhaps not a long life, but one worth hundreds of them all the same.

I raise my hands, sure enough, he won’t speak slowly and with such immense patience were I to try again. I could feel he had somewhat of an unpredictable nature. I was sure he meant no harm, but I wanted to be careful still. “I felt eyes on me as soon I reached that hallway, didn’t your mother ever tell you it’s rude to stare? Especially when one is trying to sleep?” I respond just as slowly, to try and mock him. He chuckles darkly and tosses my first knife into my vacant hand. The act surprises me, and I fondle with the knife almost shamefully, daunted by his composure. “Ah, but you have not slept. Fair game no? Especially for one so guilty,” “No guilt plagues me, just the strange man who followed me into my room,” I add nonchalantly looking up. “Observant, and...dare I say...neglectful? Do you brush past takings of life so easily? Good, you’ll need a clear conscience for what I’m about to propose,” He counters. “Hold on there; strange man invading my room in the dead of night. Before you ‘propose’ anything, just who are you?”

He stares at me once more and then he begins to pace about the room. His long black robes made of the night itself trails behind him and he folds his arms behind him in a polite manner. I have not seen many dress as such, cloaked in long assortments such as he. I have seen elongated robes similar indeed, but they had always been etched in something identifiable, something that marked them as one small thing in something much bigger. Like the sun of the Mythic Dawn. He bore none, perhaps his group did not approve of grand statements? Whatever it was, whatever organisation claimed him as their own I couldn’t make out. It had to be something cult-like, and therefore something I wanted no part in.

“I am Lucien Lachance.” He greets, now coming to a stop. “A speaker for The Dark Brotherhood. And you, you are a killer,”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say with threats dripping from my tone. He senses this, as seen by his quirked brow. But it isn’t a vigilant caution that fuels his next words...it is intrigue. “Oh, how easily you have forgotten?” He purrs. I haven’t forgotten, could never forget. “Forgotten what? Speak quickly!” I quip defensively. “I feel it in the void, your work has pleased the Night Mother. And so, I come to you with an offering. An opportunity to join our rather...unique family,” He demurs and I feel my anger prick, feel it bubble like lava in my veins. “Your offering is likely something I won’t take kindly to, Mr Lachance,” I cautioned but he just nods.

“Listen close, On the Green Road north of Bravil lies the Inn of Ill Omen. There you will find a man named Rufio, kill him. Only then, will your initiation to the Dark Brotherhood be complete,” Lucien explains the offer, says it smoothly as if he asks little of me. His disregard of the life he wishes to be slain infuriates me, reveals the fury I had tried to quell like a boulder into the water before this obvious murderer. I unsheathe the knife, it leaves my belt in a slick metallic hiss piercing the air. “You think yourself bold? Claiming to be of the Dark Brotherhood? Think yourself clever? Careless is what I call it, messy most of all. Do you think I will throw myself at your feet? Kiss your boots in worship for your offer?! You sicken me,” I rattle and with each sharp and swift hit of my words that ring as loud as thunder I inch closer, I inch with fire in my feet and in my veins. “I won’t kill for you, Assassin,” I declare hotly, spit it like it’s a curse and I point the end of my weapon at him. The space between his chin and my tip is near non-existent. The lack of room I hoped would secure the message, drill into him and more importantly; myself a solid no.

To add fuel to my offence Lucien still fails to show a lick of surprise, shock or insult. As if possible, his smile grows wider, as if my refusal sparks excitement in him. For a moment I fear he sees that spark of interest I so desperately wish to hide, sees something in me I thought I had locked away. “I see, you have yet to face who you are,” He begins. “Not ready to satisfy that hidden thrill you feel when you see the life of your victims ebb away by your hands,” my frown intensifies and I can feel my wrist begin to shake. “You do feel it, I know you do,” He insists.

“You know nothing! Leave now! My next blade won’t miss!” I seeth.

“Indeed, you seem to have an endless supply,” Lucien bemuses huskily, eyes lingering down towards my belt. Lucien reaches into his cloak, I flinch ready to assault but he holds a hand up at me like I did before and he pulls out a knife. It’s dark and weaved from ebony, the blade is crooked and bends like a bolt of black lightning. It is oddly beautiful and soon I find it at my feet, it’s dark material like penumbral swirls drawing me in.

“Accept this token from the Dark Brotherhood. It is a virgin blade, and thirsts for blood. Should you find yourself lost of a family...of a purpose. May the blade serve you well in your endeavour. If you decide to take me up on it,” He says with a honeyed voice. He takes a step back and unlocks the door to my room without effort, and I realise he’s already picked the lock.

“And I know, one day...you will,” Is the last thing Lucien says before he vanishes before my intense gaze, a flash of purple unravels right then and I see a hint of the wisp trail behind him before it too has dissipated. I am left astonished, my heart palpitates wildly and I feel dizzy. The knife in my hand falls and I think of the Grey Champion; his sad eyes looking at me with so much appeal before he drives my own sword into his chest. I think of my horror, my hand on his bloody chest. The way regret seeped into my heart that felt black, how I wished I just burned that letter written by his father…

If I hadn’t wished weakness upon the Orc, hadn’t handed him the letter will full knowledge of what it would entail for him. If I had fought him bravely as an equal instead of stripping him down of his confidence and will to exist. Maybe being referred to as the Champion would not sound so bitter. No one saw his death as undeserving, while it wasn’t much in the way of a spectacular show everyone in Cyrodil accepted it. Only this shadowy group of killers saw it as an innocent life being stripped away...what did that say?

I slink into my bed from the weight of my budding sins. The weight of the blade Lucien gifted is evident, I hold it in my palms with immense effort and the weight pokes at me, ‘you lied’ a murderous voice in my head whispers. My consideration of his offer sickened me. I knew my righteous facade was thinning, that the way Martin saw me wasn’t real; just a veil I had enveloped myself in. But I was adamant, I chewed whatever inklings of ambition I had and swallowed it like a knife. The blade somehow ended up in my trunk back at Cloud Ruler, once I had returned. I wanted it gone and so I stowed it away. But I think, deep down I know I kept it for other purposes. Lucien inspired a spark, some kind of desire; a need I didn’t know I had. His smile, all-knowing...He was right, I did feel it. But for the time being, none at Cloud Ruler need to know, and I never told anyone...

[3000yearmonarch-archived]

All Hallow’s Theme: A Midnight Mystery

Participant: Pascale Devan Pokémon: Mawile (Dior), Pyroar (Tyson), Aegislash (Ansel), Bisharp (Jeanne) Category: Stage Decorating Music: Caplet- Masque of the Red Death

A few minutes before she was scheduled to take the stage, and Pascale was hurrying to put the final touches on her Pokémon’s costumes. Using a stiff brush, she was busy lightly applying a chartreuse hue to the coat her Pyroar, Tyson. Touches of gel had already been spread randomly across the fur, giving him a wet, matted appearance, and his face-especially around his eyes and mouth-were reddened with dye. As she worked, she tried to coach him.

“Remember-make sure you’re kind of shuffling about. Maybe shake every so often. You’re supposed to be sick, so if I don’t have you doing anything I want you to be laying down.” The Pokémon grunted.

There was a tug on her cloak, drawing the former monarch’s attention away. At her side was Dior, her Mawile, excited to show off to her trainer. Scraps of fur-like fabric dangled from the ‘teeth’ of her horn, and black make-up gave her face a gaunt and sunken-in look. But most significantly, she wore the ribcage of a plastic human skeleton around her torso- a bit big, but that only made her look even thinner. Pascale couldn’t help but grin as she looked over her, reaching out a hand to stroke her head.

“Well aren’t you the cutest Famine I’ve ever seen? Yes you are! And here come the other horsemen!”

Behind Dior, her Bisharp (Jeanne) and Aegislash (Ansel), hurried over. Jeanne’s armor was grimy and dusty, with fake scars and holes marring the normally pristine surface. Some places even looked dented. All of her blades, especially the one on her head, were red with fake blood. She walked with a staggering limp, and a pole attached to her back held a tattered, bloody pennant above her head.

Meanwhile, a black veil draped down from Ansel’s pommel to cover his eyes and handle, while his blade appeared rusted by age. His shield had been completely painted over to depict a skull on a black background.

Pascale admired all of them with unfamiliar anxiety. The centuries had taught her how to fake confidence, how to look like she had everything under control…but of all things, it was a showcase that was making her uneasy. Why was she so nervous? She didn’t have much time to think on it, as she was given a one-minute warning that her music would start soon. A quick glance in the mirror revealed her own costume-a heavy velvet cloak, the color of blood, so long that it trailed behind her as she walked. The sleeves nearly touched the ground. But the most important part was the mask sitting on the counter.

It was a white half-mask with gold trim. Evenly spaced across the bottom, a number of large, square beads dangled, somewhat resembling teeth. Although only dotted with a few splatters of red paint, bright red rhinestone decorated the cheekbone one side, with lines of smaller rhinestones dropping below it. Hopefully, if it could catch the right light under her heavy hood, like might create the illusion of blood dripping down as she worked.

No more time to adjust anything, however; a cue sounded, and the first notes of her music began to play. Pascale and her four Pokémon made their way onto the stage.

Her plan was a rather…grandiose one, if she were to be honest with herself, made more demanding by the fact that she didn’t know the full extent of her materials. And now that she saw what she had, her opinion was…mixed. All of it was ideal, but it wasn’t quite enough. She was going to have to get creative.

A deep breath. Start with the table. She turned to her Pokémon.

“Dior, Jeanne…could you give me a hand moving everything to one table? We’re going to need the space.” As the two Pokémon began to move the supplies, Pascale cut out a few lengths of the white and black fabrics she’d been given and addressed her Aegislash. “Ansel, I’m going to have you do some…distressing. Put this silk through Hell-have Tyson help you out, too. We’ll need a lot of damage.” The sword stared down at the fabric, then nodded, carrying it over to an empty spot on the stage and calling over the last member of the team. There, the two Pokémon took turns shredding the silk, Tyson using claws and fangs to tear jagged gashes while Ansel used Shadow Claw and Slash to make long tatters and cut uneven ends.

While her Pokémon went about their work, Pascale flagged down her assigned servant. She thought about writing down a list for them, but that might not be acceptable. They’d have to work from memory.

“Okay, I need…chairs. Maybe three? And a couple of wine glasses, too-one less than the chairs. If you could get some silverware and plates, those would be great, but they aren’t the most important thing. Start with those.”

Jeanne and Dior had finished clearing one of the tables by the time she finished giving orders. With their help, she carried it to the center of the stage, then grabbed one of the pieces of fabric her other Pokémon had finished tearing up and threw it over the table. It was a touch small, and didn’t cover it perfectly, revealing the very modern-looking furniture underneath, but it would have to do. Besides, she needed to get her Pokémon working; they only had so much time.

“Okay Dior, we’ve got to be careful with this one, but this stage is too pristine. Think you can make some rubble? I need at least two big columns, like the ones we had-I mean, saw-at the old castle. And Jeanne, once she has those up, you need to give them a touch of…former glory. Nice, but not too nice.” Her Pokémon were on it immediately. Using Rock Tomb, her Mawile summoned two towering pillars of stone towards the back of the stage, which her Bisharp began to shape and shine with a careful combination of Knock Off and Rock Polish.

Things were shaping up nicely. Oh, and look, there was the servant!

“Excellent! Set them on the table in the center there-I’ll arrange them in a minute. Ansel?” From the other side of the stage, the ripping stopped. Ansel looked to her. “Take four of the longer pieces of the black fabric, and I need you to hang them from the lighting-there, there, there, and there.” As instructed, the Aegislash floated towards the top of the stage and up into the rigging for the lights. He draped two of the long cuts of fabric over the rigging on each side of the stage (one near the front and one near the back) so that they hung down like dilapidated banners, torn and tattered with time.

Tyson, meanwhile, laid down on the stage on his side, breathing heavily to pretend to be sick as his trainer had told him earlier. He even let his tongue loll out, unprompted.

Pascale took to setting the table while all of this was happening, with one chair at each end and one in the center, facing the audience. She moved the chair that was stage left so that it was pushed outwards and away from the table. The wine glasses were set in front of two of the seats, one upright and one fallen on its side. Things were coming together nicely. With Dior having nothing to do, Pascale set her to work as she began to drag the fake skeleton to one of the seats with a wine glass.

“While Jeanne is finishing up, take some of those Chesnaught vines and spread them around-wrap them around the pillars, put them under the table, scatter them across the floor, you know what I mean. And Jeanne, you’re going to do the same with those fake cobwebs when you’re done. Ansel, you hang a few up there, too.”

The skeleton was place so that it was hunched over the table, face against the fabric. Under the table, any outwards so that it looked like they had fallen from the middle chair, she bunched up several of the branches into something…vaguely human shaped. Taking one of the skull props, she brought it over to Tyson on the floor and held it near his mouth.

“Hey buddy, care to eat a man?” The Pyroar eyed the skull, then his trainer, confused. Shoot. How could she be clearer? Grimacing, and hoping the audience and judge wouldn’t notice, she mouthed her command to him: “Crunch.” The Pokémon complied, leaving deep fang marks in the stryofoam.  Not wanting to let anyone linger on it too long, she hurried to place it on the table as a centerpiece.

With time beginning to run short, Pascale glanced around to check their progress. It looked nice, but not opulent enough. This was a castle, and even in ruin, it needed to give some hint of its former glory. But what…? Inspiration came, and she called the servant over.

“I need you to go look in the mansion for two large paintings-I’m sure I’ve seen a few around. Portraits, ideally, and the more of a dark, gothic vibe the better.”

“Madame, I don’t think you should-“ But Pascale cut him off.

“Please! Ursula said ‘anything’ in the mansion, right? And I’m not going to damage them, I promise! Hurry” The servant gave her a concerned look, then scurried off to fulfill her request.

There wasn’t much time left. Pascale grabbed two more pieces of the tattered black fabric and draped them over the skeleton and the ‘body’ under the table. Bodies were placed, banners were up, columns looked like they’d seen better days…and there was the servant, looking rushed and slightly disheveled and carrying a painting under each arm. She took them from him quickly, and with Dior’s help hung one (crooked) on one column. The other was rested on its side on the floor, at the foot of the second column.

“Okay, last step! Let’s set some atmosphere! Dior, what’s the midnight mystery without a little low-layin fog?” The Mawile nodded, and summoned an eerie (if slightly glittery) mist with her Misty Terrain attack. It hung close to the ground, wisping out at the edge of the stage. Then she called over her Pyroar.

“Tyson, we need a little mood lighting for this dinner, if you’d be so kind.” This order wasn’t nearly as enigmatic. Tyson’s mane glowed, and as he roared, a number of Will-O-Wisps appeared and scattered about the stage. The stage lights were set low, allowing the fire to be the primary illumination.

Just in time; the buzzer sounded not a second later. Pascale breathed a sigh of relief, and took a seat in the final chair-a prop in her own scene.

There was a bright flash and a peel of thunder as, for the presentation, Dior momentarily illuminated the stage with a surge from a Thunder Fang in a pre-planned reveal. In its absence, it served to make the stage look that much darker (and the flames that much brights), but the afterimages were hopefully still embedded in her viewer’s minds:

Two stone columns near the back of the stage served to imply the walls of a castle or manor, worn and misshapen with time and wrapped in vines. Branches were scattered about the floor. Portraits of the ‘former owners’ were in disarray, while tattered black banners hung beside cobwebs from a high ceiling. In the center of it all was a table, covered in a torn white tablecloth and with a broken skull as its centerpiece. Three human figures, draped in cloth, sat there-or, rather, had been sitting there.

One was hunched over the table, clutching a wine glass in a skeletal hand. To their right-in the center-the chair was empty, with a toppled wine glass on the table before it. The chair’s former resident lay a crumbled heap under the table. And in the third seat (furthest stage right), the figure sat tall, hands folded on the table before them but seemingly unfazed by the scene at the rest of the table.

Another burst of light from a Thunder Fang, and in the near-darkness that followed, the the figure slowly rose to their feet, turned, and walked offstage.

[glitchinthesystemspiderbyte]

[34] Glitch in the System - Self Control (Venganza pt. 5)

The final(?) chapter to Venganza, although realistically there will probably be a fair amount of followup. For those who missed it, here is Part One, Part Two, Part Three, and Part Four!

Gross old wine happens. _

“Sombra?”

Widow’s voice woke the hacker from her half-slumber, pulling her consciousness to the forefront of her mind.

“Yeah?”

“Why are you laying on the floor?”

Sombra frowned, palms feeling the cold wooden paneling, fingers stretching like spiders along the ground. Some part of her wasn’t surprised, but that wasn’t the part that was capable of speaking right then.

“The floor?” she asked, confused as she stared up at the ceiling. Somehow, she noticed every single cobweb draped against the shadows, and it bothered her more knowing that they must have been there for a long time to attain such an impressive shape. Does anyone even clean this place?

“Yes,” came the spider’s voice, more patient than the cogent part of her brain felt she probably deserved. “The floor. You are on it.”

“Oh.”

Groaning, she pushed herself up, sitting awkwardly on what she now agreed was the hard wood floor of the mansion livingroom. She wasn’t sure at what point she decided it was a good idea, but that was neither here nor there.

Widowmaker, looking much better after some time in recovery but still showing the wear and tear of her fall, reached down. “Come on,” she said, holding out her hand.

“Come on where?” Sombra asked, head spinning like a carousel, minus the horses. Mostly what she saw were vague shapes, many of which looked like her making the same mistake over and over again.

Ugh.

She took Widow’s hand, trying to ignore the comforting coolness it imparted in favor of just standing up, but in the end, she couldn’t make herself let go.

“Are you drunk?” Widow asked, her tone curious, not critical. She allowed Sombra to maintain her grip, fingers curled against her palm. It was a blessing on many fronts, as she was uncertain how adept she would have been at standing on her own right then.

“Probably,” Sombra replied miserably.

“Did you drink the whole thing?” Widow asked, looking at the empty wine bottle on the floor by the hacker’s feet. It was laying on its side, dry as a bone.

“No,” she replied, shaking her head.

Widowmaker raised an eyebrow.

“Honest. It was half empty already.”

“Come on,” Widow said, a reluctant sort of smile pulling at her lips as she slipped her arm under Sombra’s shoulders. “Let’s get you to bed.”

They stumbled up the stairs, mostly as a result of Sombra’s limited ability to find a straight line, but the spider - still strong even in her recovery - led her without incident to her bedroom. She helped the hacker into her pyjamas, despite her pitiful complaints, and tucked her into bed.

“Hey,” Sombra said, fighting as sleep gained a hold of her. She knew she’d regret drinking that wine, but she’d figured she’d at least have until the morning to deal with it. Now, with Widow watching over her when it should have been the other way around, she felt a blanket of guilt wash over her along with the down spread tucked under her chin, and wondered what had possessed her in the first place.

“Yes?” she spider asked, slipping Oso under the blankets alongside the hacker.

“I’m sorry.”

“I know,” Widow replied. Leaning over, she placed the lightest of kisses on the shaved side of Sombra’s head. “Now sleep.”

For once in her life, Sombra did as she was told.

When she woke up, she woke up confused and very dehydrated. The bed felt smaller; depressed somehow, and yet familiar at the same time. Groaning as she dragged herself to consciousness, she rolled over to find Widowmaker asleep beside her. It looked as though she’d passed out on top of the covers, fully dressed, hair pulled back into her usual tight ponytail. A part of her faintly remembered the spider stroking her hair and quietly singing her to sleep with some French lullabye, but it could just as easily have been a dream. In either case, she awoke with Alouette stuck in her head and thinking it only appropriate that Widowmaker would sing her a cute song about slowly dismembering a lark.

Sombra lay there, head pounding, watching her sleep for a long time. It had been two weeks since their incident in the warehouse, and as selfish as it sounded, sometimes she thought that Widowmaker was healing faster than she was. They hadn’t seen each other much, primarily because Widow was on bedrest up until very recently, but in part because Sombra wasn’t entirely sure how to express how desperately sorry she was. Nothing seemed adequate enough to make up for her actions, and every apology felt weaker than the one that came before. She was unpracticed in the art of atoning for her sins, mostly because she’d never been in a position to have to. Her slights were intentional; the victims never demanded an apology because they rarely knew who she even was.

As a result, she’d taken mostly to hiding in her room, diving into the endless trivial tasks foisted upon her as a thinly-veiled punishment for her actions by Akande, wondering how a person so savvy at communication could simultaneously be such a total idiot.

Sighing, she flopped on her back and stared at the ceiling.

“Good morning,” she spider said, waking up without fanfare. “How do you feel?”

“Like garbage.”

She didn’t look at Widowmaker as the sniper stood up from the bed, walking into the bathroom, figuring she’d grown tired of her already. A moment later, though, she returned, kneeling on the bed to offer Sombra a glass of water.

“You are dehydrated,” she said, holding it out. Sombra pushed herself to a seated position and took the glass of cool water, downing it in one go.

“Yeah, probably,” she said, almost instantly feeling the effects of the water on her system. Her head still ached, but the tightness in her jaw was starting to lighten up. Widowmaker held out her hand and Sombra returned the glass to her. “Thanks.”

The spider watched her out of those piercing golden eyes, holding a silence that was too long for comfort but one that Sombra was just too tired to break. Eventually Widow did it for her.

“Alcohol does not make things better,” she said, leaning against the pillow.

“No, but it makes you unconscious.” Widowmaker raised an eyebrow, and Sombra sighed. “I know. I just needed to get out of my head for a minute.”

“With a half a bottle of wine?”

“Don’t worry, it wasn’t your good wine,” she said, halfheartedly attempting a joke. She was starting to feel like she might need more than just water to stave off this hangover. “It was leftover from like a month ago.”

Widowmaker recoiled, wrinkling her nose. “You drank that?”

Sombra shrugged, offering her the barest smile. “I figured I was doing us a service by removing it from the shelf.”

“Do you want to talk?” Widowmaker asked. The change in topic was so abrupt that Sombra almost missed it and offered a joke instead of a serious response. The adrenaline from the conversational shift did help momentarily dull the pain of her headache, though.

“I’m sorry.”

“You’ve mentioned.”

Sombra winced, Widowmaker’s words feeling like a chastisement even though she didn’t think they were meant to be. She was turning this into a conversation about her, and despite her deep regret at what happened, she hadn’t been the one betrayed.

“How are you doing?” she asked, finally, eying the lingering bruises along the spider’s body, knowing that more lay just underneath the folds of her clothing. She had so few scars from her scrapes with disaster, and it cut to Sombra’s core that she was the reason for one of them.

“Physically healing. Otherwise, I am sad, I think,” Widowmaker replied thoughtfully after some hesitation, hand curled under her head as she rested on her elbow. “That is the word I have settled on: I am sad.”

Sombra swallowed another ‘I’m sorry’ and searched for something more constructive to reply with. “That’s fair,” she settled on. “I would feel the same.”

“I am sad but I would like not to be.” Widow said, fingers brushing lightly against Sombra’s across the bed. Sombra turned her hand palm up and the spider took it, her cold skin a balm against the scathing heat of her failure. “It is unpleasant. You are...not supposed to make me sad, mon coeur.”

Widow’s words cut into her the way only the truth can. “I just don’t know how to make it up to you,” Sombra said simply. It was the crux of the issue, really.

“You don’t. You cannot right what you did,” she said, eyes locked on Sombra’s. “You can only do better.”

Sombra considered this, willing herself to start letting go of the guilt she held inside that was preventing her from actually mending the bridge she had nearly burned. Maybe Widow was right - perhaps she was too focused on fixing her mistakes. Maybe she just had to stop making them.

“Okay,” she said, exhaling out her frustration and guilt. “I said I would do my best, and I will. I’m going to do better.” She looked over at her. “So where do we go from here?”

Widowmaker raised a thin eyebrow and leaned forward, one arm draped over Sombra’s body as she brought herself closer to the hacker. Sombra could feel her thigh pressing against her, and a familiar heat rose to her cheeks.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Sombra said, holding back from her touch, the feeling of trepidation unfamiliar to her.

Widowmaker’s smile turned into a smirk. “It’s a kiss, cherie, not a boxing match.”

Sombra laughed, more easily than she had in weeks, and willed herself to let go of her fear as she took the sniper’s cool face in her hands. As she pressed her lips against Widow’s, she felt her world begin, slowly, to right itself.

Things were not ok - but they would be in time.

*Read from the beginning or check out our intro post! All stories tagged under #glitchfic. Table of contents located here.

[kinetic-elaboration]

October 31: Jonty Haunted House Pt. 2

Continuation of this.

I can’t really write scary stuff lol sorry. Doing my best!

900 more words

*

The porch lights are on (so no one trips on the stairs and breaks their neck—it's a liability thing—because this is just an event, run by regular people with a business—that's all) but inside the only lights are a couple of lanterns on the front desk and a few stray (electric) candles on the side tables. Monty buys their tickets while Jasper examines the cobwebs strewn over the furniture. He tries not to look at the woman behind the desk. She's wearing ghoulish makeup and has spider webs in her hair and the effect, anywhere else, would barely register on the creepiness meter, but here, it's hard to remind himself that she's just a normal person. Not a force from beyond the grave, intent on his destruction.

She tells them they are welcome to "look around the establishment" to see if they might "want to check in," but the voice she uses clearly says they'd never check out if they did, and Monty has to pull at Jasper's arm to get him moving down the hall.

The house's decorative theme is obviously 'darkness and cobwebs with a dash of disorienting candlelight.' From above and around them, an eerie piano music plays, punctuated sometimes by the same plaintive wailing or random cackling he heard from outside. The dark is the worst part. He's absolutely convinced that something, he doesn't know what but something horrible, is just a moment away from jumping out of that blackness and whatever it is probably won't hurt him, but—it might—

The cackling is a close second, though. Some distant witch or demon taunting him. 

"It's pretty good," Monty murmurs to him. He's examining a grossly humungous hairy spider perched on a side table. Jasper isn't even afraid of spiders, but he still jumps when Monty touches one of its beady red eyes and it springs to life, eight mechanical limbs scurrying until it crashes right to the floor.

Monty jumps a little too, but he's smiling as he picks the thing up. "Cool," he notes. Then he puts the spider back, gestures to one of the doors, and asks, "Want to go in?"

"Nope. Not at all."

Obviously, though, they will. And do.

The door leads into a small dining room, where almost all of the chairs are occupied by identical, utterly still figures draped in white veils, each tilted forward, staring down at empty china plates. One of the chairs is left conspicuously empty.

"It's a ghost dinner," Monty breathes. He sounds impressed. Jasper was thinking the same thing, but in his head the observation was more like it's a fucking ghost dinner, time to run. 

That isn't to say he thinks it's real. He knows it isn't real. Just mannequins. Just props. But still there is an air of quiet foreboding, the sense that the stillness is a little too still, and it's seeping in under his skin with every extra second in the room.

Monty leans in over the shoulder of one, getting in close, and Jasper swears he sees something move out of the corner of his eye. Probably nothing. Probably nothing at all, just a candle flickering.

Then Monty pulls back the one empty chair—it makes a long, high screech that sets Jasper's hair on end—and sits down.

And as soon as he does one of the figures starts to move, starts to look up slowly, right at him. No figment of imagination this time, no chance of that. She stands up, moving with ghoulish, languid grace, and reaches out her hands—

At first Monty doesn't even seem to notice her. He's looking at the plates and silverware, as if that were the most interesting thing, but Jasper sees, and he would warn him except his voice is caught in his throat and this is worse, somehow, than the sudden adrenaline-punch of the spider jumping out at them—

He flails out an arm and grabs for Monty's shoulder, and finally he looks up, faces the ghost-woman, and startles back. He almost tips out of his chair entirely, but Jasper catches him before he loses the last of his balance, and in the same motion grabs him by the arm and pulls. Either fascination of fear or both will keep him rooted to the spot otherwise, and actor or no Jasper is NOT waiting around to see what the spirit-lady will do when she gets up close.

Only when they've tripped their way over the threshold does he finally manage to breathe normally again. He has his arm around Monty's shoulders, Monty's hands gripping his arms, and he's not the only one who's rattled, he can tell. Monty's grinning, yeah, but rattled.

He lets his fingers relax and drops his hands to Jasper's hips, pulls him in closer. Which is nice. Feels safe. "You okay?"

Jury's out.

"Yeah. Why shouldn't I be?" He manages a shaky smile. "She was coming after you. Idiot, why'd you have to sit down?"

Monty makes a face, possibly rolls his eyes, though it's hard to tell in the artificial gloom. "You up for seeing what's upstairs?"

Jasper sighs, exaggerated and long-suffering. For a long moment, he honestly has to think about, bouncing on the balls of his feet as he weighs the pros and cons and builds up his courage. "Okay. Fine,” he says, at last. “Consider this a testament to how much I love you."

"Oh, I do.”

[childrenofhypnos]

Chapter 27: The House on Fenhallow Hill

There was no Grandpa Al waiting for them when they returned to the surface, and Lana let Emery go without any fuss, too busy muttering over the empty eyedropper and Klaus’s waking water.

Emery ran back to Kirkland, where lights burned in the tall gothic windows, and Wes, Ridley, and the class eighteen student council sat around the TV in the lobby. Kris and Lewis were doing homework; Jacqueline was flipping through something on her phone; Wes and Ridley were watching the news, Wes as still and silent as a statue and Ridley bouncing up and down on the couch cushion beside him; and Joel was busy tying orange and purple Fenhalloween decoration streamers together until he looked up and saw her there, and then he tossed them away with a big smile.

Emery sat herself on Ridley’s other side and explained quickly and quietly what had just happened.

“So Uncle Ares hasn’t gotten him to say anything yet,” Wes said.

Ridley looked worried. “Is he not trying? Or…does he not really want the information? Uncle Ares is supposed to be really good at finding things out.”

“I don’t know how Klaus resisted him, but we can’t assume he’s going to be able to do it for much longer,” Emery said. “We need to find my doppelgänger before this gets out of hand. Joel, what do you have?”

“The perfect place.” He pulled out a sheet of orange paper. One of the many fliers for Fenhalloween that had been tacked up on the Crossing’s main bulletin board. On it was a creepy low-angle shot of Fenhallow Manor, and the date and time—Halloween, 9 PM—that Fenhalloween would begin. In all caps at the bottom, it said, COSTUMES MANDATORY.

Emery frowned. “Fenhallow Manor?”

Joel leaned forward. “Yes! Think about it: the class sixteen council just finished cleaning and decorating it for Fenhalloween, so we know it’s in good shape. It’s off-limits because it’s just been decorated, so no one will go there at night unless student council members are there to fix decorations or anything. And you’re technically not leaving campus, but it’s far enough away that no one is likely to hear us or walk in on us.”

He paused, then said, “And, you know, it’s haunted and stuff. Which is cool.”

“I guess this works,” Emery said. “As long as the Wilmark Fox doesn’t try to attack us inside the house.”

“Ver did some experiments with the Fox. It only attacks you if you look at it,” Jacqueline said.

“Why would Ver do experiments with it?”

“Why wouldn’t she? You have to observe your enemies in order to learn how to defeat them. Just because the rest of you don’t think before you leap…”

Emery let out the longest, most exaggerated sigh she could manage. Jacqueline glanced up, glaring. A moment passed. Her lip curled up at the corner.

“Well,” Emery said, “are we going tonight or what? We know Ares isn’t around; we might as well go now, even if it’s just to check the place out.”

Joel was already out of his seat and bounding toward the door; Jacqueline, Kris, and Ridley went next, leaving just Lewis and Wes to glance uncertainly at each other, then at Emery.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Wes asked. “Open a gateway? Go into the Dream again? It wasn’t great for us last time, and what if opening a gateway from the inside is different than opening it from the outside? We could get stuck in there.”

“You don’t have to go in,” Emery said.

A vein stood out in Wes’s forehead. “We’re not having this argument again.”

Lewis, slinging his backpack over his shoulders, slipped between them muttering, “It just seems like a bad idea to me.” Emery followed him out, Wes close on her heels.

~

The nighttime bustle of the Sleeping City had settled over campus. The horns and squeals of cars on the streets, the ethereal rush from distant highways. Sounds echoed off the skyscrapers. Van der Gelt tower loomed above all the rest, the lights that veined along its black architechture lit up in purple and azure as a nod to the dreamhunters who protected the city.

Fenhallow Woods stood against the soft din of mankind, its face unblinking, its silence complete. The last of the crickets had gone for the season; the only thing that disturbed the woods now was the wind. The dirt trail that wound its way through the sports fields curved up into the woods, disappearing between the trees.

Emery had seen pictures of the time when the campus was founded, when it was Fabian Fenhallow’s manor house sitting high on a hill, surrounded by a smattering of trees and looking down on the small population that would become the Sleeping City. The same picture taken now would show only Fenhallow’s campus and the thick crush of the woods. The manor had been swallowed.

Emery marched in the front of the group, guns drawn; Wes and Ridley brought up the rear. Joel, the only one who had known where they were going, had brought a flashlight.

“No one look directly ahead of us,” Emery said. “The Fox could show up in the middle of the path, and I’m not in the mood to fight it off. Keep your eyes down.”

But the Fox didn’t make an appearance. At least, not that Emery saw. She never looked to the sides, and she never looked back. She felt a faint buzz of the Dream around them, but they were in the woods, where the veil between the Dream and the waking world grew thin. Ares Montgomery could’ve come charging up behind them, and she wouldn’t have felt his approach. For moments at a time, Emery felt they were back in Klaus’s nightmare, following the trail to the ruined castle, and that Marcia might slide out in front of them in full armor and a battle axe.

At the top of the hill, the path flattened out into a wide stone-paved circle, and the trees broke apart, their branches scraping a star-dotted sky. Another statue rose from the bushes and tangles of dead vines in the center of the circular drive, a man on rearing horseback with a sword raised to the sky. Overgrown underbrush covered what had once been a sprawling lawn, and in the middle of the mess stood Fenhallow Manor.

The Fenhallow grounds crew had kept most of the plant life off of the long porch and tall walls of the manor, and every few years the school paid to have another part of its crumbling structure repaired and fortified. The porch columns straightened; the shattered windows replaced; the roof reshingled and the ornamental brass poppy plucked from the wild shrubs in the lawn and reset atop the peak of the east tower, where it curled against the moon. Yet for all that work it still felt like an abandoned place, gaunt and silent and watching them approach. Fenhalloween was held inside every year, but the exterior was never decorated. It didn’t need to be.

Joel raised his flashlight to the statue of the horse and its rider.

“Great-great-great-grandpa is lookin’ good, Em,” he said.

“Add a couple more greats. Everyone in my family was like twenty when they had kids.” Emery looked up into the statue’s face as they passed by. Eamon Ashworth had died fighting Fabian Fenhallow’s nightmares. Some stories about them said they were best friends; others said mortal enemies. Emery wasn’t entirely convinced Fabian would have made a statue to Eamon he could see from his bedroom window if they were enemies, but Fenhallows were weird like that. Jacqueline flipped the statue the casual bird as she strode past.

Joel’s light rippled over the manor’s siding and flashed off the windows. According to campus legend, the manor was haunted—not by ghosts, but by nightmares. Nightmares of the students about what might live there, trapped inside the manor’s walls by the gravity of the Dream.

The only nightmare Emery knew of that lurked around this area was the Wilmark Fox. No one had ever proven that anything lived in Fenhallow Manor, but it wouldn’t come as a surprise if someday, something did.

The stained glass in the double front doors depicted the closed eye of Hypnos on a background of blood-red poppies. They weren’t locked—the doors to Fenhallow Manor were never locked, for fear that someone would try to smash the stained glass to get in—and they led into a wide foyer dominated by two sets of stairs twisted into a double helix. Both were made of wood and expertly crafted. Inlaid into one balustrade were designs of gold; into the other, whorls of silver. The floor was a checkerboard and archways led into different wings of the house.

Here, the decorations were subtle enough that Emery couldn’t tell if the cobwebs along the ceiling were real or fake. Extra furniture had been brought in to make the house seem truly abandoned, though every piece lacked the layer of dust that covered the floors and windowsills. On the far side of the foyer was the door to the ballroom, and above its closed doors hung a long purple-and-white banner that said Happy Fenhalloween.

Jacqueline slapped Lewis’s hand away from a lamp switch on a nearby table. “No lights in the entryway,” she said. “If anyone sees a light on through the front of the house, they’ll come to investigate.”

“Right,” Joel said, “Which is why we’re going to the ballroom.”

He led the way past the double staircase, through the unlocked ballroom doors, made of oak and carved with Hypnos’s eye. Renovations had begun, stopped, and begun again at least three times on the ballroom alone; the intricacy of the flooring, the long windows lined along the north wall, and the chandelier that hung from the ceiling had all caused problems for the contractors the administration brought in to restore it. Despite their apparent hatred of dreamseekers, the State had declared Fenhallow Manor a landmark to be restored to historical accuracy. And that meant the entire floor of the ballroom had to be torn out and replaced, piece by painstaking wooden piece, into a closed Hypnos eye so large it looked like an inverted sunrise, surrounded by wreaths of dark poppies. The windows glinted in the night, framed by heavy red curtains that draped from the ceiling. Joel turned his flashlight up so the beam would shatter through the crystals of the grand chandelier above their heads. More furniture and refreshment tables had been brought in and set up along the east wall, along with two sets of speakers and cleared area with an amplifier.

Joel paused on the amplifier. “Are we actually getting a live band this year?”

“Yes, and you’d know that if you paid attention in any meetings,” Jacqueline said. She grabbed Joel’s backpack and yanked him backward, unzipping the largest pocket to rummage through his things. “What else did you bring for light? We can’t turn on the whole ballroom.”

Joel had brought a small camping lantern that usually sat on top of the television in his room.They set it up in the middle of the floor and gathered around it. Jacqueline reached back into Joel’s bag and pulled out a library book and her purple notebook. She flipped through the pages until she found the one she wanted, and shoved it close to the light.

“Here’s everything I have so far about opening gateways. It’s not much, but I compared with Wes’s notes from your dream theory class, and it’s more than Lenton has been teaching you.”

“Are we sure this is safe?” Kris said, looking at Emery. “Are you sure this is what you want to do? What if you get inside and something goes wrong again? We can’t come after you,” she motions between herself, Lewis, and Joel, “and even if we could, we wouldn’t know something was wrong.”

“I don’t see many other options at this point,” Emery said. “If we even manage to open a gateway, we can do one quick in and out just to make sure we know how it works, so we don’t get stuck. Then it’s just a recon mission. We’re trying to find out if this thing even exists, and if it does, then I have to decide if I’m going to try to kill it there, or try to get a little stronger and do it later.”

She wanted to kill it as soon as she saw it. Shoot it clean through the head, though she had an inkling it wouldn’t be as simple as that. But when she thought of it, of her dead doppelgänger and her Insanity Prime cleared, it wasn’t herself she saw relieved. It was Edgar.

Edgar wouldn’t have to worry. He already had anxiety problems, not to mention anything else that might be going on in his head; the sooner she got all this taken care of, the sooner she could make sure Edgar’s world was as stable and safe as possible. Nothing to disrupt him; nothing to send him toward a fiery trainwreck of an Insanity Prime.

“Let’s go back,” Emery said. “We have work to do.”

~

“So, I think it’s different for dreamseekers, right?” Jacqueline stood in the middle of the ballroom floor, not far from the light, hands held up in front of her. “We don’t have weapons, so we open gateways with our hands.”

“Klaus opened his gateway with his hands,” Emery said.

“I think his hands are his weapons,” Wes said, making claws with his fingers.

“Right, so,” Jacqueline went on, “I only found resources for dreamhunters, obviously, because they hate me here. For you all, it says you have to sense the veil of the Dream laying over the waking world. Like a layer of smog. You have to block out other sensations and distractions so that you feel only that.” She pushed her flattened hand into the air before her. “Then you pierce the veil. All the imagining and visualizing before this is so that you can actually mentally bring the Dream and the waking world closer in that one spot, I guess sort of like making a dreamform. But instead of pulling a piece of the Dream into the waking world, you just reel it in close and pierce through it so that you can tear a hole open between the two. Make sense?”

Emery felt the beginnings of a headache taking shape in her left temple. “If this is like making a dreamform, I’m already screwed.”

“And you’re going to keep being screwed if you don’t get up and try,” Jacqueline snapped. She had both hands pressed together in front of her stomach now, and she focused on the empty space before her.

Emery and Wes, weapons out, took up positions on either side of her to attempt the same while Joel, Lewis, and Kris looked through the book Jacqueline had brought for helpful tips. After a few minutes of flitting around the room and inspecting all the decorations, Ridley joined them in trying to open a gateway, though where they were still focusing on concentrating the Dream in one spot, Ridley kept thrusting her double icepick hammers out in the air before her and saying, “Maybe this time.”

Emery could feel the Dream around them like a heavy layer of atmosphere, but when she tried to draw it toward herself, the way she would to make a dreamform, the headache grew worse, first a squeezing discomfort and then, as she tried harder, a sharp needling pain. She felt Joel’s eyes on her but didn’t turn to look; looking at him would make her want to stop trying. It would make her feel like she was good enough just as she was, and right now that wasn’t true.

“Oh!”

Jacqueline froze. She’d thrust her hands out into the air and stopped, and though they were still pressed tightly together, her fingers now seemed to wave in the air, as if distorted. She pushed them a little farther forward, and the distortion crept up to her wrists.

“Open it!” said Joel.

With a deep breath and a snap of her arms, Jacqueline turned her hands away from each other and tore the air apart. It was like she’d drawn the curtains open on one of the ballroom’s windows. Reality split and pulled back with her hands, and when her arms were fully apart, it hung open on its own. Darkness and the clawing pressure of the Dream emanated from the opening, and on either side stood statues of rearing horses with wreaths of poppies hanging from their necks.

Jacqueline stepped back. Joel, Kris, and Lewis hesitantly got to their feet. The inside of the gateway wasn’t completely dark; at its heart undulated a strange purple light, like lightning inside a storm cloud.

“Damn, Jackie,” Emery said, “and they didn’t even teach you that.”

“No, they didn’t.” Vicious pride took over Jacqueline’s face. “Now, to close it…it’s sort of like…” She reached her arms out again and touched both statues with the tips of her fingers. Then, concentrating, she brought her hands back together. With a clap, the statues vanished and the dark portal of the gateway rushed into a center point between Jacqueline’s hands, disappearing.

Ridley began applauding. Kris and Joel joined in a moment later.

“How do you close it once you go through, though?” Emery said. “When we went through Klaus’s, we fell through the darkness for a while before we ended up in the Dream.”

“The book says the gateways close themselves once the person who makes them goes through to the other side.” Lewis was bent over the textbook again, squinting close at the lettering under the camping light.

“We should keep practicing,” Wes said. “I think I was close, and even if we can open it on this side, we don’t know if the process feels the same on the Dream side.”

Emery rubbed her forehead. The headache faded to a dull throb. She hadn’t been at all close; the Dream resisted being pulled closer to her, though she had sensed it coalescing in front of Jacqueline and Wes. The entire school would howl with laughter if they saw her right now. She couldn’t shoot things, she couldn’t dreamform, she couldn’t open gateways. Queen Emery, outshined by a non-dreamhunter and the lowest-ranked member of Class Eighteen.

As soon as Emery had the thought, she bit down on it. Their abilities weren’t mutually exclusive; just because Wes and Jacqueline were good at things and worked hard didn’t mean she wasn’t, or didn’t. And the two of them didn’t deserve to have their skills taken away just because she didn’t possess them, too. She was supposed to be good at things, and the fact it wasn’t true wasn’t their faults.

“Wes is right,” she said. “Keep try—”

A scream ripped through the night. They all jumped at the same time, turning toward the manor’s foyer.

“Some asshole—” Joel started.

“—what if it’s not?” Kris said. “No one’s supposed to come into the woods this late at night now, because the Fox wakes up the day division students!”

They all stopped and listened. One scream died into silence, only to be replaced with another scream, closer. Something crashed to the ground outside the ballroom doors.

Guns out, hair raised, Emery hissed, “Stay here!” to the others and crept into the foyer. Only Wes didn’t listen; hammer out, he stuck close on her heels. Their armor formed over their clothes, and Emery thanksed Hypnos that the armor, at least, she had spent so much time learning to form that it came without a headache.

They peeked through the ballroom doors. On the far side of the foyer’s twisted staircases, a shadowed figure huddled near the entrance, hissing under their breath.

At least as tall as Emery.

Definitely female.

And reeking of the Dream.

(Next time on The Children of Hypnos —> Is That The Top Of The Rollercoaster I See?)