Making the Future
Ao3
Masterpost
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CWs: Theft, Fantasy Racism, Accidental Misgendering, War Mentions
If you'd like to see the Content Warnings of the whole story, please go to that section in the masterpost!
Taglist: @cutebisexualmess @duck-in-a-spaceship @oatmeal-stans-the-trash-rat (tell me if you'd like to be added/removed)
Chapter 1
Fig was constantly checking their watch, knowing their mother would expect them home soon for dinner. Still, they weren’t quite ready to leave the scrapyard, as there were still so many marvelous finds to be had. Plus there weren’t that many risks, as the sentry that usually guarded this yard had switched over to the other one he was in charge of for the day. Still it was best to be cautious, because if they were caught it would be at least five years in jail. It was stupid, but that was the case with most laws.
Pulling something out of the rubble, Fig realized that they had discovered a whole robot. Their eyes started to widen a bit, they quickly stuffed it in their bag o’ junk as they called it, and started making their way to their hideout.
Fig had been walking for five minutes before the pin like pain in their legs became sharper. Pulling out their bag, they rummaged through it a bit, before pulling something that looked like a weird 3D cube out. Pressing a button a wonky, uneven, walker appeared, made out of mostly metal and each side was a bit uneven. However, the seat was made out of sanded down wood, as they didn't have leather to make it more comfortable yet. While it was still a work in progress, they used it when they could because it did make their life easier. Regretfully though, they couldn't use it often, as not even their family knew it existed, and Fig knew it would be an awkward conversation to have. So they had gotten used to using it on the tough forest terrain, still working on making it better to go over roots and other various obstacles.
Naking it to their hideout, Fig quickly looked over the robot; using the little magic they knew to look at any spots they couldn’t easily get to. They were looking for any alarms or trackers even though the sentries would’t notice nor think to track a discarded robot, because if Fig set off the alarm they would have to move their hideout again. Which was not ideal, especially with all the stuff this place held, and how long it had taken them to build it here.
Getting rid of the devices was easy enough, they would just go back to the junkyard and destroy them on their way home. The sentries would think that the rest of the scraps had destroyed the thing.
Sighing, Fig glazed longingly at their hideout, before they pressed a button and their walker became a cube again. They started heading back the way they came, putting on their gas mask, just in case the sentries spotted them on the way back. While they were part changeling and could therefore change some of their facial features, because they weren't a full changeling, they couldn't do much with it.
After disposing of the trackers, Fig went a bit away, taking off their gas mask and hid behind a tree to take a five minute walking break.
*************************
Fig ate silently as they listened to the chaos, that was their family, surround them. Getting back home had been a journey and a half without their walker, but it was important that they put it away for things, in order to stay safe. After all if the sentries found out about it, they would most certainly be screwed. Looking outside through a window, they realized it was sunset, and they couldn’t help but be amazed at how pretty it was, even though it came by every night. It was stunning, always changing, and yet its beauty never seemed to fade, and Fig was certain that they had the best sunsets in the kingdom. Jarolend, their friend that they talked to when they could, agreed.
Still, Fig wanted to explore, they wanted to see the world. But it wasn’t safe to, not since they’re a changeling. Changelings have been viewed as one of the worse races, since before the infamous war, however that war had just made things worse.
The official narrative was that, changelings, orcs, drow, goblins, and dragons rose up in opposition to the other races. That their greed and lust for money and power drove them to their demise, that they committed unspeakable crimes, that they were evil. And everyone was just supposed to accept that, even the races that this rhetoric effected.
However, Fig had been doing research of their own, looking through their ancestors’ journals to see what it was really like back then. They were grateful that their mother kept the journals, although they were slightly less grateful that these journals were on the top shelf of her bedroom. That made it harder for Fig to look through them, and they knew their mom didn't want them looking through the journals. But Fig had always been rather curious, and they just couldn't accept the narrative that they were bad. That they were here to take someone else's place and steal their livelihood, that they were evil like the textbooks said. It helped that the town was inhabited by other unprivliged races, it helped that the elders assured them when they were kids that it was the world that was wrong. But it sucked, the culture that was stripped from all of them, in fear that they would rise up, that they would revolt against unfair laws. So almost no one in town was allowed to practice magic. That didn’t stop Fig, though they practiced in secret. Still, they wished they were able to do more, and be more free. But they couldn’t, so in public they conformed to the rules set out for them. Have a set look, and don’t change it; hair stays the same, eyes stay the same, nails stay the same. Nothing changes. And they couldn’t help but feel that’s how society was anyways, stagnant, hopeless and resistant to change. And they hated it. But that’s what their tinkering was for, it was fun to do and a fuck you to the government. It wasn’t something that did something technically, but it felt good, especially when Fig felt helpless to do anything to change the world.
“-ig! Fig!” Their head snapped up to greet their mother’s voice.
“Yeah?”
“Are you okay honey? You’ve just been poking at your food all night.”
“Yeah mom, I'm alright, just wish I could visit Jarolend more often."
Fig hated lying, it always meant that it was just one more thing they couldn't share with their family. But if anyone knew that they were stealing from the scraps, well it wouldn't be pleasant if someone found out.
"I know. Maybe when you have your own money..."
"I've been trying to find someplace to work! But you know how hard it is!"
"I know, I know. Still, if you do manage to get the funds to visit your friend tell her I said hi!"
"I'll tell em."
Their mother might still be getting used to their friend’s new pronouns, as ey had come out close to when ey had left, but it still sucked that Fig had to be the one to correct her. That it felt like for all their mom’s trying, she never really got it. Despite being a changeling, and the concept of gender being fluid, that she thought the only options were girl and boy. Sometimes, it felt like while you could be either, you couldn’t be both at the same time or neither. Which isolated Fig even more as they were trying to figure themselves out. But they knew their mother didn’t mean to, and that she’s trying, so they tried not to hold it against her.
Still, they’d rather not have to correct their mother altogether, but it was how things went. So they started to eat a little bit, ignoring the looks from the rest of their family, and then went upstairs to their room, trying not to feel desperately hopeless at the state of everything. At least they’d have time to tinker and experiment with the robot tomorrow.
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No Context WIP Tag Game
soooooooo flattered @goblins-riddles-or-frocks tagged me for this, it's like Goethe going "hey can I see some of your work?" uhhhh YES FUCK YES????
"This is all...it's so beautiful."
"Of course it is. Do you think I would go through all this effort and not have be beautiful?" He turned and approached me, a bright orange blossom with red-edged petals twirling in his fingers.
He lifted the flower and carefully wove it in my hair, his fingers gently tugging at the strands. I felt my heart seize, as if he had reached into my breast and squeezed it, and even when he took his hands away it didn't relax.
"But of course, none of it is as beautiful as you," he said and smiled warmly.
I struggled to suppress the blushing raging in my cheeks but I could feel it glowing hotly, so instead I turned my face away and pretended to be enraptured by a grafted vine of orchids.
I could feel Koschei's eyes on me, like a string attached to my every aspect so my every breath and movement had a sense of pulling at him, tempting him. I had never thought myself tempting before; before Koschei wanted me because he wanted everything, not for any particular reason. But now I felt wanted for a reason, for myself, that I in and of myself with all my features and manners and essence was tempting to him.
It felt like a kind of power, to hold someone--someone like him--captive. I had before never understood what drove the women around him to act as they did, to be so loose and so giving, but now I saw what that kind of action could possibly wrought in a man. It was delicious in an intoxicatingly frighteningly way.
I felt him draw close behind me, too close for me to turn around. I felt his fingers touching the end of my hair, so gently it was as if the wind were breathing on it.
I couldn't breath. I wasn't aware of anything else except his fingers, too close and yet far. It was gripping the flower so tightly in my hands that I saw the blossom shivering.
Koschei leaned forward and I felt his body hovering just against mine, not pressing but within of breath of doing so. His face was drawn beside my ear and he whispered in it with breath so hot I almost flinched:
"May I kiss you, tsarina?"
I felt like the strings on an instrument--what sort I couldn't even think of at the moment--wound and wound until I was going to snap. "No," I breathed, I don't even know how I managed it.
"May I know why I am denied?"
"You know why."
There was a long pause and he leaned so his lips were brushed ever so slightly against my neck. My flesh erupted with an icy flame and I thought I was going to faint; my whole body was sent into mindless, seething wildness that I only barely contained, clasping the stem of the flower so I felt it cracking in my hands.
"I promise if you let me have this one kiss, I won't ask for anything more." His voice was low and rasped, it almost sounded desperate.
It was the closest to a true request I had ever heard from him. It was the first time I had something he truly wanted but could not wrest from me, something he had to beg me for, something I could withhold.
But I didn't want to. Or perhaps I did, perhaps that was his power, to make you want to give what he wanted. To make you think you had to give it, that you 'wanted' to give it.
"I don't believe you," I finally, miraculously, spoke.
"Is that the only reason, you don't trust me?" His voice was lilting, almost singing, I felt his body rocking almost inperceptively, towards me then away, again and again. I felt the pull, the urge to follow after him, to move to the music that seemed to be thrumming between us, made by us.
It was thrilling yet soothing all once, to be joined with someone in the creating of something so new and strange. It felt secure because it was with him, in unison with his will and his intent and his hope...but all of that also made it terribly, horribly perilous.
But no. It wasn't him alone that was making this perilous.
So again I said, "No."
"Why else then?"
'I don't trust myself.'
But I didn't say it, because if I gave it voice, a form, it would overtake me. So I stared at the flower in my hand and focused all my breathlessness and anticipation on it's luscious and tender blossom, imagining I could imbue it with all the heat of that moment and remove it from me. Like Koschei had done with his soul.
For the first time I thought of how 'useful' that could be, to have the ability to take all your weakness and vulnerability and sever it from yourself; to become steady and solid like a stone, untouchable.
Untouched was the last thing I felt now, even though he hand't laid a hand on me.
I could still feel his breath on my face, how terrifyingly, temptingly close he was, and I was locked in a terrible, desirous moment where I thought he 'might' touch me and I was certain, as certain as the breath I kept trapped in my lungs, I was about to be either swallowed by the sensation or driven raving mad by it.
But he pulled away suddenly and I was so overcome that I didn't even have enough presence of mind to be embarrassed by the gasp I gave. The world seemed to abruptly straighten and fall back into its customary place, the warmth and rosiness vanished, and I was frightened by how sorry I was for it.
"It's terribly warm in here," he was saying, staring causally down the path we had come up, his hands clasped behind his back. "There's a place here somewhere where we can cool down."
I already felt colder, but I didn't say that.
His voice was completely causal, but that suddenly seemed shockingly formal after the 'intimacy' of the moment before. If he had spoken to me with complete formality, restraint and distance, it would have made more sense to me. But he walked down the path almost lazily, leaning every now and then to eye a planet or bird that happened to catch his attention.
How could he do that, be on the verge, the precipice of something so momentous and then walk away as if he has forgotten, as if it were nothing.
It probably had been nothing, to him; how many times had he gotten exactly what he asked for from moments like these?
But then again, how could something like that ever grow meaningless, it couldn't divorce itself from the expectancy and that had to come from wanting, and to want is to risk being denied, and how can that not be eternally dreadful and wonderful?
I had denied it and I still felt the rush, the staggering extraordinariness of it, and for it to be satisfied--
I had to stop. I couldn't think about it, about that. It wasn't safe.
I followed slowly behind him, keeping a wide space between us that I kept expecting him to comment on but he never did. That made it worse, I was certain he understood exactly why, and I was possessed enough of my sense to now be ashamed of what I nearly allowed. And what I was still wishing had happened.
I wanted to leave this place and get as far away from him as I could manage; I would ask Natalya to set me to work in the kitchen, suffocate this longing with the heat of the oven and scalding of the dishwater, or to ask Peter if he would let me clean the floor of the ballroom, squash this yearning by scrubbing until my hands blistered and my knees ached.
But of course I couldn't find my way out on my own and I was afraid to speak to him, I did not trust my voice or my words. I kept envisioning myself opening my mouth only to ask him to come back, to kiss me, to touch me, to do whatever he could think of that I could not even imagine.
Oh God, I was going to be sick. Sick with wanting it; from the crave and the dread and the humiliation of it.
Oh God forgive me, God help me, deliver me, deliver me, deliver me from temptation...
"Here it is!" he exclaimed and I almost cried out I was so startled. "I knew it was around this place somewhere."
He stepped off the path and through a parting in the foliage. I stood where he had gone in and watched as he entered a small clearing made for a grand fountain of stone. It was carved with a beautiful woman clothed only in a long cloth that clung to her sumptuous figure; her long arms, appearing soft despite being carved of rock, embraced a large vase from which the water sprung.
He planted his foot on the edge of the fountain ringing the statue and bent to splash water in his face. He ran his dripping hand through his hair, causing his dark curls to tangle and fall carelessly out of place.
His chest rose and fell in a deep exhale and he unfastened the top buttons of his shirt, rubbing his neck so his skin glistened with water.
I couldn't see straight, I couldn't see anything but him. The whole world had fallen away and I felt my inhibitions, my wisdom and good sense, slipping after them. I felt like I was falling through some invisible hole with no end and no way to rise again.
Koschei turned to look at me and even with the distance between us, I saw his eyes, I 'felt' them, more clearly than anything else in that place.
"Come over, the water is lovely," he said. There was nothing suggested in his voice but I knew, 'I knew I knew I knew', that if I could see his eyes from my place he could see mine and perceive my state.
I was not so skilled in hiddenness as he, I couldn't even comprehend how anyone could hide what I held within, and he was mature and seasoned in divining and provoking such things.
"Maryushka," he said and held out his hand, the hand he had run through his hair and across his skin, still dripping with water.
And I saw in that exact moment, exactly because he spoke my name not as a request but as an affirmation, what would happen next.
And I dropped the flower, turned away, and ran.
I didn't get far before I heard him calling after me but now the momentum of the act, of putting my mind and body at work together to flee, gave me newfound strength. So I didn't hesitate but pushed myself faster, the garden whirling by in a dizzying, sickening blur of confused colors.
Suddenly, Koschei appeared into my path; or perhaps he materialized there with magic, I could not tell. I ran right into his arms, his hands taking hold of my shoulders.
"Where are you going--" he began but was interrupted as I began to struggle violently in his grasp and his fingers tightened, his hold became inextricable.
I felt panic rearing in me at having 'his hands on me' and sensations it sent spinning through my body. I felt my center beginning to melt; I could see myself falling into his embrace, I could imagine what it would feel like to have his arms drawn around me, pressing me to him, to his body, to his skin--
I so desperately, maddeningly 'wanted it', it was so irrational and frenzied, I couldn't think of a clear reason as to why here, why now. I felt I must be going insane.
"Let me go!" I cried and to wrench myself away, thrashing violently but I couldn't even pull an inch away from him.
He was looking down at me, frowning in confusion. "What is this--"
I began to kick at him, striking his shins, and scratching at his arms with my nails. He released me like I was something venomous, his expression one of utter astonishment.
"Maryushka--!"
"No!" I screamed and screamed it again, lashing at his hands with my arms as if I were fending off a wild beast. I wanted to hit him, I wanted him to disappear, I wanted him erased from my mind.
He didn't try to stop my blows or avoid them but rather simply stepped away and I didn't try to reach for him or step towards him.
For a moment we stood like that, apart, him staring and me shaking. I realized I was crying, I couldn't at first tell my gasping for breath apart from my sobs. He kept staring at me with a look of total bewilderment and finally he asked, "What is this?"
When I didn't answer, I was completely incapable of speech, he said, "Maryushka, what happened? We were having such a good time..."
"I want to leave!" I wrung my hands as if I could squeeze the hysteria out through them or break them off along with all this manic delirium. "I need to leave here!"
"Leave? Already? We haven't been here an hour!"
"Right now, right now!" My voice became overwhelmed with sobs and I covered my face with hands. I want to shrink until I was nothing, until I disappeared from everyone and everything and could never feel anything again.
I heard Koschei say gently, "You don't have to leave, I will go if you want me to."
'But I don't want to be here without you. I don't want to be anywhere but with you.'
"No, I want to back to my room. To my work."
There was silence for a moment then I heard the murmuring of an incantation and then felt myself caught in that familiar pulling spin before collapsing on the floor of my room.
Koschei then walked right past me and out my door, closing it behind him without a word. I rose shakily to my feet and threw myself on my bed, still wracked with weeping.
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