#hungers voiced with wordless howls

[headlesssamurai]

‘‘What we are is no mistake,’’ she told him. ‘‘Every part of us is true and important. The divine and the mortal. The earnest and the silly. The cerebral and the carnal. The refined and the wanton.’’

[fantasmalforces]

Hanako's hands were gentle in the way they traced over the folds of Asriel's jacket, focused eyes following their path before rising to rest of his features. Painted lips quirked upward in a small smile, cheeks turning pink at the sight of his own lovely blush. She didn't say anything, nor did she feel the need to. Rather, everything on her mind was shared in the way she kissed him. It was tender and passionate, deep with an unspoken heat and hunger that caused her grip to tighten ever so slightly. When she withdrew, his name fell from her lips in the form of a shivered whisper. || @maximuses ♡, since ya asked for some Sinday material

💜 Spontaneous Sinday Meme // ACCEPTING ! 💜

Ever since that first kiss, Asriel hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the magical feeling of having her all to himself, even if for just a moment. The enchanting softness of her plush, painted lips on his, that intoxicating scent of her natural floral musk mixed with whatever perfume she’d been wearing, the taste of champagne lingering on her tongue, the soft sound she let out as she leaned into. The wolf in him howled in delight at the feeling. And the just like that, all too soon, the magic was gone. She pulled away and reiterated how they couldn’t do this - how they couldn’t be together, and his heart shattered at the idea that he’d gotten a taste of her only to realize he’d never be able to truly have her. It killed him inside.

But things were different now. After weeks of playing pretend, acting like it hadn’t happened, she was the one who brought up the kiss. She was the one who admitted to wanting more and his heart soared until she mentioned again how they simply could not be. And though his heart sank, he was quick to come up with an idea. A stupid one, a risky one, a desperate one - but desperate they were indeed. A secret relationship. And while she was hesitant and just as nervous as he was, that bubbling desire between them had them throwing caution to the wind; not the first time for him, but certainly the first time for her. He smiled, feeling his chest swell with barely contained joy at her acceptance, only to feel that heat flow somewhere southward as she approached him from where he leaned against the wall. Her fingers along the leather of his clothes made his breath hitch. The flush in her cheeks made him ache somewhere below the belt. But it was her kiss that awoke that beast inside him. Those primal instincts that shook themselves into a frenzy of hormones and instinct as the kiss grew deeper and hotter.

And then she breathed his name out all soft, looked at him with those big beautiful eyes. She looked so needy. He caved to it.

He kissed her again and again and again, groaning so pleased at how she moaned his name between stolen breaths. His hands wandered down her body over her dress, fingers feeling at her curves through the thin fabric. He murmured her name in her ear and listened as she gasped and leaned her head back. Her little hands pressed against his chest and paused, drawing back to look at her and make sure she was okay. She slipped her hand into his and pulled him from the wall, a wordless smile on her lips as she guided him towards her bed. No sooner had she laid back than her dress was pushed up over her hips. A flurry of kisses fell onto her neck and shoulder. She shivered as she felt his teeth graze her skin and gently gripped his chin to get his attention.

“There must be no marks left behind,” she ordered softly, a nervous edge to her voice. “If my father were to find out about this…”

“Don’t worry, he’ll never know.” He reassured, kissing her palm before helping her out of her clothing so he could continue kissing down her front. He lavished her with attention, panting out how good she tasted under his tongue. He watched the way her face contorted so beautifully when he teased her breasts, and chuckled at how he had to keep her legs spread as he gently played with her. The way she covered her mouth to stifle her moans as his fingers worked her brought him a sense of pride. Hanako Arasaka making such lewd sounds under the mercy of a lowly werewolf from the streets. What a headline that’d make. The way she flushed red had him laughing as he drew a shaking, shuddering orgasm from her and moved to give her a second with how he cleaned her up with his mouth.

He leaned over her as he licked the last of her from his lips, leaning down to kiss her. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, moaning into his mouth as ground himself against her. The feeling his throbbing shaft teasingly rubbing itself against her already over-sensitive clit had her shuddering as she struggled to mirror his passionate kisses with much less coordinated, much more sloppy ones. She’d just slipped out another quiet moan of his name, gasping to try and suppress herself from the throaty cry that threaten to escape her as he sheathed himself inside her, when the two of them heard a door opening somewhere beyond the room. They both froze, hearing Saburo call out for her. Hanako’s grip on Asriel’s back tightened as she realized the gravity of their situation. The color drained from her face even now as she only imagined the horror, humiliation, and shame she would feel if her father caught her in the act of mating with the very werewolf he’d been trying to kill for so long. And Asriel - by the gods, she almost felt like crying at the imagination of what horrible fate her father would have waiting for him if he discovered her sweet wolf in the act of defiling his little girl!

And yet, despite the terror they both most certainly felt, Hanako had to stifle a choked moan as Asriel shifted and slowly thrusted into her. She looked at him, shock and horror crossing her face as the deep flush of red returned. He made a shushing gesture as he slowly rocked his hips into hers. She wanted to protest but two things stopped her: firstly, the thought that any little noise from her might betray she was here getting fucked by her new secret boyfriend, and two… the strangely erotic sense of excitement that this secretive mating dance brought about. They were one small sound away from being caught and facing harsh consequences, and yet… they persisted. And something about that felt perverse and wrong, yet some greater part of it felt… so arousing.

Hanako rocked up into his thrusts, focusing on keeping herself quiet and trying to disregard the calls of her father to answer him. He approached the bedroom door at some point and she had to cover her mouth as Asriel sped up. She had no doubt in her mind- some small part of him - a small, spiteful rebellious part that she knew all too well by now - was thrilled by the idea that he was eagerly banging the daughter of a man that had had it out for him for the longest. Saburo Arasaka utterly despised him, and here he was, fucking the man’s daughter and stealing her heart. He had to be proud of that in some capacity. Hanako didn’t get too much time to think as she heard her father mumble something about how she must not be there. She listened between pants and quiet squelches as her father’s footsteps faded away. She heard the elevator door close and the soft ding of it descending to another floor somewhere. Then and only then, when she was certain no one else was listening, did she remove her hand from her mouth to grip at Asriel’s back with both hands. She wanted to scold him. She wanted to tell him off for such risky behavior but her mind went blank as he pounded harder and deeper into her, tearing a string of overwhelmed cries from her. Amidst it all, she could hear three words that made her stomach flip: “good girl, Hanny.~”

The words, paired with that erotic sound of skin slapping and the wet squelches of him rutting into her, brought her to the edge. But it was him breathing her name out desperately and bucking as deeply as he could, pressing his hips into hers firmly, that sent her over the edge. She heard him utter the words “cum for me, baby,” and she shuddered as she did. He bucked into her several more times as she trembled and moaned his name brokenly from underneath him several times before finally relaxing against her sweat-soaked sheets. She looked down, watching with another low, drawn out moan as he pulled out of her and stroked himself several times. She watched how he stuck his tongue out, hearing him whine and watching him stutter into his own hand as he pumped himself for several moments before unloading a flood of hot, thick cum onto her. The feeling had her pressing her head back into her pillow, hips rising to bask in the sensation of him claiming her in the only way he could. For now.

After several moment, he was finished and completely spent all over her. He shakily crawled into the bed beside her and the two laid together for several minutes. He kissed at her shoulder and cheek appreciatively, lazily tucking himself back into his pants as he cooled down. Hanako hummed at his softness, accepting the silent apology for his needy, bordering risky behavior earlier. She pressed a soft kiss to his lips. Finally, she sat up and moved to wipe herself off. Azzy whined as he watched her stand on shaky legs. “Where ya going?” He whimpered.

“To get cleaned up,” she commented calmly. “I must take care of this mess before my father should suspect anything.”

Azzy grinned, following her as she gathered her linens and dress up and placed them in a hamper to be washed before moving to the bathroom. “Hey, you know I could always help you get cleaned up.~”

Hanako smirked, looking at him over her shoulder. “Are you trying to seduce me into having a second wind?”

“Maybe,” her chirruped as he leaned against the doorway, already feeling his pants starting to grow tight again. He smirked wider as he saw her eyes flicker down towards it. “Depends. Is it working?”

Hanako shook her head, huffing out a small laugh, she turned on the shower water and stepped inside before turning back to look at him invitingly. “It is.~”

[elisende]

Wild Game (1/3)

Characters: Halsin/OFC, Halsin/OMC, Kagha Warnings: Dubcon, implied drug use Rated: E

Words: 1285

Part I

What no one understood about Halsin was that he was a man of great, if not inexhaustible, forbearance.

To the initiate convinced his master was secretly one of “the lizard folk” in a cunning disguise, Halsin proffered a barely raised eyebrow.

He merely sighed when Glinzel, a half-drow lay priestess, lobbied him for an idol of Silvanus for her bedchamber, and dismissed her with a terse wave when she suggested that his fine person might be a reasonable substitute to decorate it, if the idol was needed elsewhere.  Though he allowed that he had growled a bit when she added “preferably nude” to her request.

And when a minor riot broke out at breakfast between a halfling, two initiates, and a semi-crazed boar over a bowl of honeyed wheat berries, he hardly raised his voice--only enough to be heard over the din of hooves trampling over the halfling’s hammered breastplate.

But even his considerable patience was not without limits.  And that patience dried up all the faster when certain needs went unmet for too long.

Worse, the Druids could sense his hunger, and like lascivious Glinzel, many sought to offer themselves up as tribute to his desire.  But he’d walked down that road before--too many times--and had vowed never again.  What began as an innocent dalliance all too often ended ugly, creating disharmony in the Circle: accusations of favoritism, dinner-ruining recriminations, and general ill feeling that hung about like a persistent, swampy fug.

Kagha had been his last--and he swore to himself, final--mistake, nearly four decades ago.  Every time his needs threatened to overcome his judgment, he reminded himself of the sight of her jilted lover--a high elf he had been, and from a rather good family in Evermeet--running bare-arsed through the grove, covered in pseudo-mystical symbols and pig shit he’d mistaken for woad, howling some laboured rhyme about Kagha’s tits.  It was only by Silvanus’s sweet grace he longer recalled the words of that poem.  

Nearly a decade after that final incident and his self-imposed vow, the situation had seemed nigh intractable--for his needs, and the bear’s needs, were inescapable, yet discord, if not outright chaos, was sure to follow if he bedded another member of his Circle.

The answer was so obvious.

It came to him on a journey to High Forest.  The Wood Elves there were his people, though the kingdom where his kin once ranged was long, long abandoned.  Elves had left for Evermeet, goblins proliferated, humans pushed them back, then elves returned and reclaimed their lost land, as the centuries passed.  Much of what had been was lost, but some traditions remained, in the deep wild of southern reaches.

None more beloved to his people than Aerith Av’in.  The Wild Game.

In truth, he’d nearly forgotten the Wild Game of his youth.  He might have lost even those distant memories if he hadn’t stumbled onto the huntress that moonstruck night.

She wore her auburn hair in a long braid down her sinuous back; the tip just brushed the swell of her buttocks.  Naked, she was, and he only guessed she was a hunter because of the long, deadly bow she carried, its tips spiked in thorns.  

Her eyes, gold-ringed like a goshawk’s, scanned the shadowed pines of the grove, but he saw her long before she noticed him watching her.  He took her in, mystified: at once so defenseless in her nakedness, yet so alert, and armed.  And then he remembered the Aerith A’vin, the Wild Game of his boyhood.

It was consecrated to the Leaflord, though religion, per se, was the last thing on his mind when he hunted the Aerith A’vin as a youth.  As he watched the huntress thumb her bowstring, his loins twitched with the sudden, visceral memory: an arched back, a wordless moan, the first, sweet plunge into a woman’s wetness.  He gasped and there in the present, the huntress had spun and drawn her bow taut, eyes wide.  Her form was perfect in every way.

He didn’t lift his hands.  Didn’t trust himself even to breathe.  His eyes held hers, showing he understood.  

That look, the recognition exchanged between hunter and prey, was part of the ritual--of the immortal hunt, between elf and beast, and of the Wild Game.  Valatoth khalgith, the life-giving glance.  His life and body had been forfeited to the huntress, and were hers to command--in whatever way she wished.

She had taken him in the richness of the pine duff, and forever after the scent of pine pitch would call back the memory of the huntress, gold-ringed eyes fixing him to the ground as she rode him, hunting knife to his throat.  A trickle of blood as she lost control, pleasure overtaking her senses, and the strangled cry that escaped his throat had drawn others to them, others who claimed him in turn. 

The ritual was repeated, twice, thrice, and again, until the moon dipped low in the sky and left them all gasping, a raven haired warrior with tattooed snakes writhing up his forearms knelt over Halsin, gripping him around the shoulders like a wrestler, his final thrusts and Halsin’s pleasured groans punctuating the end of the night of worship.  

Never was the ritual spoken of beyond the night, always the waxing sixth moon of the year, and if he should chance upon the raven haired elf later in his journey, neither would speak of that night when Halsin had been prey under the hunter’s eager hands.

Now, when the six month approached and Halsin’s unslaked desire threatened the harmony he cherished, he undertook his journey.

“I don’t understand,” Kagha said, watching him pack a few necessaries.

Simple healing potions, a jar of lavender oil to help him relax into his evening meditation, some dried chamomile for his tea, a pinch of the greenleaf for recreation, and a pretty feather he liked, plucked from a sleeping lyrebird.  Kagha scowled at Halsin even as her eyes begged him not to leave.  

“It’s not required that you understand,” he answered, too sharply.  His patience was now worn to a brittle veneer that shattered at the slightest probing.  Her expression closed, but not so quickly that he missed the hurt that flashed across her features.

“You are the most talented Druid I’ve trained,” he said in a more measured tone.  “That is why I’m leaving the Circle in your care.”

Her eyes lit up--too eagerly, she was ever too ready to assume power, and he hoped that this brief taste of the trials of leadership would cure her of at least some of her overweening ambition.  

“I will keep the Circle strong,” she said, already standing straighter, lifting her chin.

“You will quickly learn that the best way to do that,” he said, “Is by keeping it in harmony.  And to listen more than you speak.”

She opened her mouth as though to launch into one of her tirades but stopped herself just in time, replying with a simple, “Yes, Master Druid.”  He winced, as though the words were a lash.  She’d called him that in fun, many years ago, with honey dripping from her fingers, her unbound hair, her breasts--

He turned abruptly to his pack, decided the thing was useless after all, and tossed it into one of the illimitable crates they left laying around the sanctum, as though it were a warehouse, not consecrated ground.  

“Well then, Treefather’s blessing to you,” he said, clapping her on the shoulder.  Anyone else in the Circle he might have hugged, but he couldn’t bear to see her pull away from him.

She bowed her head, and because he was already gone he didn’t see the tears that glistened in her eyes, unshed.

[crystallized-shadow]

Follow Up For: Day 25 Pairing: Madara/Hashirama/Tobirama/Itama/Kawarama Rating: E Word count: 1718 Original Prompt: “You're in trouble now." Warnings: Mind the rating, vampire Senju brothers, vampire hunter Madara, blood, blood drinking, dub-con

Follow the link or read it under the cut!

“Did you ever imagine yourself in a position like this Hunter?” Hashirama teases, his fist tightening around the wild spikes in his grasp. Pulling the hair out of the flushed human’s face, the eldest vampire smirks at the blissed out expression. Madara’s eyes are hazy with pleasure, his mouth stretched obscenely around the tips of Hashirama and Kawarama’s cocks.

“Anija, shut up,” Tobirama grumbles as he snaps his hips forward, filling Madara just as Itama pulls back.

“Your voice is rather grating,” Itama agrees from his place under the human, nibbling along the pale expanse of Madara’s chest.

“Rude,” Hashirama huffs, yanking Madara’s head back enough that both cocks slip free.

“Ah!” Madara whimpers, squirming uselessly in the vampires’ grasp as both Tobirama and Itama strike his prostate at the same time. He was too lost in the sensations to even comprehend the words being spoken around him.

“He is remarkably docile now,” Kawarama muses, slowly stroking himself as he watches Hashirama thrust into Madara’s mouth, the human taking it to the root with barely more than a whimper. The four vampires had quickly learned that Madara was one of the lucky humans that experienced great pleasure from being bit, he could actually come from just the four of them biting him alone. Of course the brothers had ruthlessly abused that fact until they had the human begging to be fucked.

“Having your brains repeatedly fucked out does that to a person,” Itama chuckles, falling into rhythm with his older brothers so Madara is never empty, “especially one as sexually starved as this one.”

“He was probably one of those hunters that focused too much on killing our kind,” Tobirama states, smirking at the needy keen his next brutal thrust gets him.

“It worked out in our favor,” Hashirama points out, knuckles turning white as he twists the hair around his fists tighter and forces the hunter to meet the next violent snap of his hips. The hunter just moans, swallowing down the vampire’s release with a practiced ease.

“My turn!” Kawarama grins, shoving Hashirama out of the way and thrusting into the now empty hole. The younger Senju barely lasts a few thrusts, too aroused from watching his brothers fuck their hunter.

“Enjoy your hunt!” Itama reminds them with a smirk, making his older brothers sigh. The two brunettes share a look before they slowly fix clothing and leave to fulfill their turn at catching dinner; as delicious as Madara was, there was no way he could feed all four vampires thus the brother has to take turns.

“I thought they’d never leave,” Tobirama grumbles as he carefully sits up, making sure neither his nor Itama’s cock slips free from the human.

“You’re just grumpy because you’re hungry,” Itama teases as he mimics Tobirama’s movements so Madara settles between them, the new angle letting them thrust that much deeper into the hunter and drawing more mewling whines from him.

Tobirama doesn’t even try to deny the statement, instead he just leans forward and buries his fangs in Madara’s neck. Seconds later Itama bites down on the other side of the human’s neck and Madara spasms violently around their cocks, the force of his orgasm tearing a wordless howl from him. The sudden vice grip around them combined with the heavenly taste of Madara’s blood has Itama and Tobirama crashing over the edge of their own climaxes. Barely clinging to consciousness, Madara passes out before either set of fangs leave his neck.

“Madara?” The barely audible whisper is what finally drags Madara back into the land of the living and he’s momentarily thrown by just how clear his head feels. He couldn’t remember the last time he wasn’t trying to think through a cloud of lust; damn those stupid bloodsuckers and their stupidly potent venom. Just knowing something is off is enough motivation for Madara to finally open his eyes. “Madara!” Getting past the white walls of what could only be the infirmary, Madara focuses on the only other occupant of the room.

“Izuna…?” He mutters, his voice cracking painfully as he starts coughing.

“Easy Aniki, you’re safe,” Izuna promises, carefully helping his older brother sit up enough to get a drink. “You’ve been unconscious for a week.”

“A week?” Madara repeats, unsure how to respond to that news.

“What do you remember?”

“Not much,” Madara mutters after a few seconds, “it’s all hazy. How long was I gone?”

“Nearly a month,” Izuna states, a dark look crossing his face as he continues, “I’ll never forgive those fanged fucks for what they did to you!!”

“What they did to me?”

“After we finally got a reliable lead, we found them balls deep inside you, fangs tearing out your throat!”

“Ah,” Madara mutters, unable to stop the flush from spreading across his face, he could have lived without his brother and fellow hunters seeing him like that. “So are they…” Madara trails off, his throat tightening painfully and preventing him from finishing even the thought of the Senju brothers being dead.

“Not yet,” Izuna promises with a bloodthirsty grin, “the two bastards we caught with you have been in the Sunning Room since we found you; the other two are still missing but we have no doubt they’ll show up soon.” After a beat of silence Izuna looks over at his brother and frowns. “Are you okay Aniki? You look pale, are your wounds bothering you?”

“I’m fi-” Marada clamps him mouth shut over the lie and sighs. “This is a lot to take in.”

“I understand,” Izuna says with a grim nod, “I’ll give you a few moments while I find one of the healers.”

“Thank you Izuna,” Madara mutters with a sincere smile that quickly disappears once he’s alone. The hunter wastes no time in throwing off the covers, briefly thanking his lucky stars that Izuna had thought to dress him in his regular clothes while he was unconscious, and bolts out of the room. The Sunning Room was a small cell on the far end of the compound designed to slowly expose vampires to the sun; depending on the weather a vampire’s death could be dragged on for weeks before they either combusted or starved to death.

Skidding to a halt outside the torture chamber, Madara can only stare at the two vampires bound in thick silver chains to opposite walls, forcing one to watch as the other slowly burns to death. He doesn’t even hesitant before throwing open the door and running to the vampire in the sun.

“Tobirama!” Madara exclaims, shoving his bare wrist in front of the wounded vampire’s mouth before the Senju even realizes there’s a shadow over him. The human doesn’t even wince as sharp fangs pierce his skin, but his panic does keep the usual arousal he feels at bay.

“Madara?” Tobirama questions once his hunger has ebbed enough for him to think straight and he can look up at the person currently protecting him from the sun.

“Thought you’d be gloating with the others,” Itama pants, his voice dry in a way that has nothing to do with his rather urgent need for blood. “Come to kill us yourself?”

“No.” The single word stuns both vampires almost as much as Madara quickly freeing Tobirama of the chains binding him.

“Explain, now!” Tobirama growls, tackling Madara into the shaded half of the cell and pinning him to the walk by his throat.

“You’ve never had as much control over me as you thought,” Madara states with a smirk, too at ease for being pinned by his natural predator, “your influence over me only lasted a week.”

“A week?” Itama repeats, greedily sinking his fangs into the wrist Madara casually offers him.

“That’s impossible,” Tobirama decides, narrowing his eyes as he squeezes the pale flesh tighter. “You would have left the second you were free of our control.”

“After a week I no longer felt compelled to listen to you,” Madara admits, “I stayed because I wanted to; I’m here because I want to be.”

“You, one of the best vampire hunters around, wanted to stay with 4 vampires?” Itama questions slowly, wondering if he’s already turned to ash.

“Yes.” With an easy grin, Madara brings the hand of the arm Itama isn’t licking clean up to stroke Tobirama’s cheek, “I find myself rather fond of you bloodsuckers.”

“Stockholm Syndrome,” Tobirama states, all but collapsing against Madara when the hunter drags him into a passionate kiss.

“Maybe,” Madara agrees with a shrug, carefully supporting the clearly weak vampire, “but do you really want to stick around here until someone tries to kill us so we can debate it?”

“I don’t think Tobirama has the strength to escape,” Itama grumbles as the hunter frees him. “He’s been in the sun longer than me and I think one of the other hunters stabbed him pretty good.”

“Can you escape?” Madara asks the youngest Senju once he’s free and the vampire nods. “Then go, I’ll get Tobirama out of here a different way.”

“If you are lying hunter, you will live to regret it,” Itama growls before he darts off faster than Madara can track.

“I need more blood than you can give me,” Tobirama rasps, his sudden burst of adrenaline wearing off now. Suddenly unable to support his own body weight, the vampire drags Madara to the ground with him.

“Take as much as you need,” Madara urges, grabbing a fistful of the vampire’s snow-white hair and pressing Tobirama into his neck. “I don’t care what happens to me, just drink.”

Tobirama tries to put up a fight, but the desire to feed is too strong and he sinks his fangs into Madara’s neck, dragging a startled gasp from the human. The vampire continues to drink, distantly noting that Madara has long since gone limp against him when he finally pulls his fangs free. Taking a moment to watch the shallow rise and fall of the strange hunter’s chest, Tobirama can’t help but smirk as he licks any lingering blood off his lips.

“You won’t leave us again,” Tobirama mutters to himself, cradling the human to his chest as he carefully stands up. Taking a moment to make sure he won’t collapse, Tobirama speeds off the second he hears Izuna approaching the cell.

[areiton]

the thing about tony stark - ironhusbands

Blame Don Cheadle’s nonsense twitter and Moth for this filth. 

This is just Rhodey and Tony fucking. That’s it. 

Read on AO3 

~*~ 

The thing about Tony Stark--

Rhodey comes off his dick with a wet pop, and stares down at Tony, all lean muscle and smooth skin, a hint of baby fat still on his round cheeks. His mouth is wet and red, kiss swollen and lips bitten and Rhodey feels a smug surge of satisfaction. 

Tony whines, this high sweet noise and wiggles across the bed, hands scrabbling ineffectually and Rhodey frowns. 

Right. 

This. This is the thing about Tony Stark. 

He’s so goddamn eager. 

“Easy, baby boy,” Rhodey rumbles, presses his lips to the thin skin of Tony’s hips and smears the words there and above him, Tony mewls. 

This is their fourth time tumblin’ into bed together and he’s a little surprised and a whole lot pleased that the kid hasn’t gone off yet. 

If he’s very careful and Tony can settle down, maybe he’ll even get to fuck him. 

Everyone at MIT is all aflutter with rumors of Tony Stark, genius prodigy and baby billionaire. 

No one saw this, though. No one saw Tony fucking gagging for it, his voice a wreck, begging for Rhodey’s mouth or fingers or cock. 

No one would, either. Rhodey wasn’t good at sharin’ and he sure as hell wasn’t gonna share this eager mess of a boy who looked at him like he’d hung the goddamn moon. 

“Please, please, pleeease,” Tony chants, a desperate litany above him, and Rhodey smirks, takes Tony’s cock back in his mouth and sucks. 

Like fuckin’ clockwork, his boy’s skinny hips punch up off the bed and Rhodey presses into it, swallows around the cock in his mouth, lets the muscles of his throat work around the head of Tony’s cock. 

Tony howls. 

Rhodey smirks and lets his teeth drag, delicate and teasing, over Tony’s cock as he comes back up. That vein he likes to tongue and tease until Tony is begging, tears in his pretty eyes,  is throbbing and Rhodey pulls away, all regret and a little bit of impatience. 

“You wanna take the edge off, baby boy?” 

Tony is gaping up at him, mouth open and soundless and Rhodey snorts. Dips down to kiss him, deep and filthy, tongue thrusting in the way he wants to do with his cock, and Tony’s whine is muffled, a shaky noise that tastes sweet as sugar when he eats it right outta Tony’s mouth. 

“Gonna fuck you, Tones,” Rhodey murmurs, and Tony shivers, a fine sweet tremble that makes Rhodey crazy. 

“Please,” Tony begs, and there’s this too. 

When Tony gets like this, hungry and desperate and right up on the edge of cumming--all that brilliance falls away and all that’s left is a boy too damn pretty, with a mouth made for fucking and desperate for Rhodey’s touch. 

It’s a heady thing, to strip away the iron that makes the man, to uncover the boy Tony is careful to never share with the greedy world. 

Rhodey shoves the thought away and reaches for the lube. “I’m gonna fuck you, baby boy. So you can come. But I’m not gonna stop til I’m balls deep in that pretty ass.” 

Tony hiccups, a noise that makes Rhodey smile, and he nuzzles against the boy’s sweat damp skin, noses at his jaw. “Gotta tell me, Tones.” 

“Please,” Tony whispers. “Please, please, want it. Want you.” 

Rhodey nods and bites him, just because. Tony shrieks and arches off the bed, an endless keen caught in his throat as Rhodey sucks hard, worries a livid bruise into his pale skin. 

His stomach is sticky and slippery with precum and Rhodey touches it, skates a finger through it all while Tony blinks at him, dazed and flushed and waiting. His skinny legs sprawl open, shameless in his hunger, and Rhodey presses that spunk slick finger to his lips. “Get me wet, baby,” Rhodey says. 

Tony, Rhodey learned the first time they fooled around, loves the taste of spunk, is fucking desperate for. 

He laps at Rhodey’s fingers, soaking them in spit, bright eyes fixed on Rhodey hopefully, and Rhodey smiles fondly. “Sweet boy.” 

Tony shudders, flushing, and Rhodey laughs, low, and pushes a finger into the tight heat of his ass. 

Tony screams and comes, messy and hot, spunk spread all over his heaving chest. 

“God, baby boy. You’re so damn hungry for it,” Rhodey breathes, and Tony sobs, wordless, hips humping frantic at the empty air. Rhodey twists his finger, and Tony hiccups, a broken noise, his cock blurting the last of his cum, and Rhodey--

Rhodey licks it off his sweat-slick skin, licks it all up and leans up to kiss Tony. 

Tony makes a hungry shocked noise, but he’s arching up into the kiss, licking it--licking himself greedily out of Rhodey’s mouth, his cock fattening up already between them as they kiss, filthy and messy, cum and spit smeared on their lips.  

Rhodey presses a second finger in, and breathes a curse into Tony’s mouth. 

He’s so goddamn tight. 

By the time Rhodey’s three fingers in and brushing teasing against Tony’s prostate, his baby boy is writhing against the sheets, keening and desperate, his hips chasing friction Rhodey refuses to give. 

And he’s still too goddamn tight. 

Rhodey huffs a curse, flips Tony onto his belly and drags his hips up, so his ass in in the air, gaping and pink and so damn pretty. “Fucking work of art, baby boy,” Rhodey mutters, too aware of Tony’s praise kink to miss the oppurtunity, and then he spreads him open with his fingers and fucks his tongue into that slick hot tight, and Tony screams. 

He’s shaking, shuddering and writhing, and his foot kicks, hard, catches Rhodey high in the thigh. 

Rhodey snarls, rips his mouth away and grabs Tony by the nape of the neck and shakes. “Stay still, puppy,” he snaps, “and if you’re a good boy, I’ll fuck you proper.” 

Tony’s reaction almost shocks him out of his boner--he goes limp, string cut puppet sprawled, held up only by Rhodey’s grip on his hip and his neck, and he comes, silent and still. 

Oh. Oh fuck. 

“Tony,” Rhodey says, carefully, and Tony whines. 

“I--m’ good. I’m bein’ good,” Tony whispers. 

Ok. Ok. Shit. 

Rhodey tests the slick looseness of Tony’s hole, and it’s not enough, not really, but it’s close, and he’s slick and--

He pushes in and Tony--Tony is still, passive and limp where Rhodey’s hand is still on his goddamn neck. 

He jerks back and Tony scrambles, desperate, catches that hand and shoves it hard back onto the nape of his neck, all vibrating tension that drains away when Rhodey doesn’t fight him. 

Oh christ. 

“Fuck, puppy,” he hisses and Tony sobs, a single solitary noise in the sudden quiet, and Rhodey’s grip--hip and nape both--tighten and he fucks Tony. 

It’s rough, just a little bit mean, and Tony’s shivering under him, these delicious hitching noises that Rhodey wants to eat out of his mouth but he can’t because Tony is hanging limp under his hands, the tiny press of his hips back, into the punishing thrusts of Rhodey’s cock the only thing that reassures him. 

That and Tony is hard again, or maybe he never did get soft, but he’s hard and sticky and every time he presses back, he humps forward, into nothing, desperate even in his still silence. 

He’s tight and hot and fucking perfect  and this isn’t gonna fuckin’ last, it’s too damn good--

“Tones,” Rhodey gasps and that sweet hot hole clenches and he whines, and tips his head to look at Rhodey, hungry happy puppy eyes, and Rhodey groans, thrusts going wild and fast and comes, spitting curses and dropping down to kiss Tony while he does. 

Tony is cuddly, pressing against him when Rhodey rolls off, and he whimpers, delicious and still so goddamn turned on it makes Rhodey smile, more fond than mean, now, when Rhodey presses at his swollen wet hole, pressing his spunk deep back into his boy. 

Tony’s cock is hard and wet, smearing against his thigh and Rhodey blinks down at it, where Tony is humping him almost absently. 

“You come, you’re licking it up, puppy,” he says and Tony makes this hoarse shocked noise and comes, messy and trembling. 

Rhodey grins. 

The thing about Tony is he’s fucking perfect. 

When he snuggles against Rhodey, after licking up his mess, Rhodey hums and kisses him, sleepy and sated, finally, and presses his lips at the bruise on his throat, and smears the words into it, just to feel Tony shiver. “Good boy.” 

[spinbitchzu]

lazarus | harumi

The elevator descends with sickening stagnance. All around her, the bodies tremble and sweat, fear pouring off of them in waves. Harumi has stopped being afraid; her skin is glass and everything underneath is missing, leaving only the terrible hollowness. Her heart beats slow in her head and chest and fingers, until she can hardly hear the whirr of the elevator car over the dull thud that feels like a countdown.

The shaft shakes with the commotion outside, and everyone moans in terror as one. Harumi is pressed against the cold doors as the inhabitants of the elevator seem to expand as if there’s anywhere to escape to. The walls seem to shrink down and the cold of the metal leeches into her skin. Another child whimpers and begins to sob, hidden somewhere in the crush of people.

“Honey, listen to me. Listen to me, everything will be okay,” a voice comes, shaking but tender. Harumi feels sick to her stomach.

The soft chime of the bell announces their arrival on the first floor, and as the doors crack, Harumi is shoved forward as the crowd flees in panic, scattering like ants. The woman, whose arms her parents had shoved her in, momentarily hesitates, a hand on her shoulder.

“Come on, kid, you need to get to safety!” she cries. The whites of her eyes are too big as her eyes roll like a spooked horse.

Harumi stays rooted in place, listening to the rumble in the distance that shakes her to her core. She’s completely paralyzed.

“My parents,” she manages to whisper, resisting the jostling. “They’re still in there.”

“Kid, they’re as good as dead, you need to leave with me,” the woman urges her, pulling more insistently.

Harumi shakes her head frantically, panic bubbling in her throat. “I need to wait for my parents!”

The woman stares at her for a moment, almost calculating, and then her head snaps up as she catches a glimpse of something over Harumi’s shoulder. She blanches, and when she looks back, any semblance of compassion in her eyes is replaced by the unflinching hunger of someone who’s survival hangs in the balance. The sword of Damocles whistles as it cuts through the air and the woman turns tail, leaving Harumi alone.

It’s a funny feeling, to be standing in the middle of the chaos as it erupts. Harumi turns, too slow, to see the source of the woman’s fear and watches in captivated horror as all hell breaches the earth. A colossal serpent explodes through the sky scrapers, sending debris in every direction, and blasts through the street, following a red blur. She stares at it, realizing it’s one of the ninja that protects the city.

Her heart lifts and her lips part to shout to him, shout that her parents need help, but he’s gone before the words come. Instead of rescue, she sees gleaming muscular coils constrict around her apartment building. The structure creaks and groans, cracks spiderwebbing up the stucco sides. Harumi’s breath catches.

And then the building just gives, shattering in every direction.

Plumes of dust billow into the air and all around her, the screaming swells, harmonizing in a dissonant chord with the wail of sirens and car alarms and something else. There’s a wild, almost animalistic shriek mixed in with the cacophony. It takes a moment before she connects it to the choked fire tearing up her throat, and she dimly realizes the scream is coming from her.

“Mom! Dad!” The words escape her in a wretched howl. Before she can even process, she’s kneeling in the wreckage, shards of glass digging into her knees. Her hands scrabble and scrape on the jagged edges as she digs through the pile, desperation coursing through her veins like rolling lava.

Unlike before, she’s no longer empty—rather the opposite. Every warring emotion seems to spill over the brim, every heightened sensation too overwhelming to process. She becomes aware of the hot tears spilling down her cheeks and tastes the salt mixing with acrid ash.

The sobs that escape her are huge and gulping as she furiously digs through the rubble. The yawning cavern that gapes in her chest feels like it’s swallowing her as her fists fall fruitlessly on the uncaring heap.

“Mommy!” she bawls, voice splintering. “Daddy, please come back! Please, where are you?”

Where are you?

She shoves what must have once been a table and keeps digging. Her fingers catch on a broken window pane and slick, hot blood courses down her palms.

I need you!

A fit of coughing descends upon her as dust motes float into the air. She blinks away the tears that mingle with the grime on her face and sniffles and keeps digging.

I don’t want to be alone...

The drywall she moves crumbles to reveal more rubble, endlessly heaped in every which way. But if she gives up, what will she have left? The all-consuming maw that threatens to finish her? Harumi grits her teeth, eyes stinging once more, and keeps digging. Every inch of her quivers with adrenaline and need.

I DON’T WANT TO BE ALONE!

The thought explodes across her like a wildfire and she flies into a frenzy of digging. Everything kind of whites out for the next few moments. Harumi tastes metallic copper with the salt in her mouth, and as her breath turns ragged, her spittle is dyed scarlet. It seems like a loop where as much as she digs, she only finds more debris.

Then suddenly, she heaves a fallen door over and her whole world freezes over. Time trickles to a stop. Even her heart seems to pause in its hammering rhythm. Her hands stiffen over what she’s uncovered.

The flesh under hers is cold and clammy, and does not give. It’s strange, almost grey, as if it isn’t human at all, but Harumi knows with annihilating certainty that it is.

And—

And it hurts unimaginably so. More than she thought it ever would. Pain seems to physically press against her heart as she lets out a strangled gasp, desperate for the inflation of her lungs to alleviate the pressure.

Her gut clenches, and she throws herself to the left as the contents of her stomach make a violent reappearance. She can’t help but weep even when her stomach settles and all the tension leaks from her body as she collapses into what used to be her home. She doesn’t stir from her position, eyes locked on the very thing that caused her nausea: a pair of intertwined hands that once stroked her hair and pinched her cheeks. Their wedding bands, though veiled in a thin layer of dirt, shine dimly in the light.

Harumi thinks, in an oddly abstracted way, that this is what it feels like to die.

Is this what damnation is? To have every little bit of you that loves be extinguished in one fell swoop? And if she lives still, what is left over? What survives the loss of everything that matters?

In the background, the sounds of the city carry on. The car alarms continue to rise and fall in their endless cry. The people continue to shout in fear. Even that forsaken snake continues to tear through the city, trailing destruction. But in Harumi’s head, everything has become eerily quiet.

Her eyes crack open as she senses something change. She opens her eyes to complete darkness, with just one beacon of light. Harumi’s eyes lock onto the tiny dark figure at the top of the building, sparkling with the golden weapons he raises. The crushing weight on her chest lifts for the briefest moment as Lord Garmadon’s mouth twists in a wordless scream as he plummets off the building. It should inspire terror or concern or satisfaction or something, but instead—

Instead, her mouth knifes up into a ruined little smile. And slowly, softly, Harumi’s heart begins to beat again.

…

Harumi waits for the rescue she knows will come. Soaked in the slimy aftermath of the Great Devourer’s defeat from head to toe, she sits cross-legged on the pile and makes up a little song in her head to pass the time.

The paramedic who puts a blanket around her shoulders has a gentle voice despite the exhaustion she must be fighting. Her tone is light as she remarks:

“My, my. Aren’t you the quiet one!”

... In the wake of the battle, Harumi is shepherded from place to place like a lost lamb. First, it’s a shelter full of cold strangers and burned-out volunteers. Then they drop her in an orphanage where the linoleum floors smell of lemon cleaners and the children cry all night.

Finally, she’s being chauffeured into the royal palace, feeling small and out of place to meet the royal family. The king and queen smile beatifically at her, but their painted masks ruin the effect. She shivers and pulls away from them, with their moon-white faces and blood-red lips, grotesquely beautiful. The cloying luxury of the palace, untouched despite the battle, disturbs her.

“This is your new home, Harumi,” the queen tells her, tucking her into bed. “Try to leave the past behind, okay? You’re a princess now.”

“And you should call us mom and dad,” the king adds kindly. “Good night, Harumi.”

She studies the happiness on their porcelain faces with detached curiosity and then imitates it. Like a little doll, she parrots back, “Goodnight, Mom, goodnight, Dad.”

That night she dreams of the elevator, of the doors that slide shut and seal her fate. Then four pairs of ink-black hands appear in the gap just before they close and pry the doors back open. In the darkness, a pair of glowing violet eyes appear, along with a razor-sharp smile.

Do not fear. I will protect you, daughter.

Harumi wakes up with something to believe in.

[chiseler]

VISAGE... VOICE... VITAPHONE

In Dimitri Kirsanoff's Menilmontant a destitute waif, betrayed and abandoned by the man who seduced her, sits on a park bench with her newborn infant. Beside her is an old man eating a sandwich. This wordless exchange is one of the greatest moments ever committed to film. Nadia Sibirskaia’s face reveals all of life’s cruel mysteries as she gazes upon a crust of bread.

The persistence of hope is the dark angel that underlies despair, and here it taunts her mercilessly. A whole series of fluctuations of expression and movement in reaction to anguish, physical pain involving hesitation, dignity, ravenous hunger, survival, self-contempt, modesty, boundless gratitude. All articulated with absolute clarity without hitting notes (without touching the keys). Chaplin could have played either the old man on the bench (his mustache is a sensory device!) or Nadia. And it would have been masterful and deeply affecting, but Nadia went beyond virtuosity and beyond naturalism.

She made it actual. And it was more than just a face. Sunlight travels across buildings at every second of the day; and the seasons change the incidence of light, too. Nothing stands still. Even déjà vu doesn’t attempt an exact rendition with the feel of a perfect replay.

***

Another face equates with pain—though a far more luxurious and decadent kind of pain, a visage summoning leftover ancient Roman excess or Florentine backstreets, the contortions of Art Nouveau with its flowers, prismatic walls and perennial themes of ripeness/rottenness, sadomasochism. While various directors have helped mold her naturally unsettling screen presence into nightmare visions, it’s Barbara Steele's vulnerability I tend to remember.

She is open and sensitive even as she materializes in the viewer’s mind as a kabuki demon one moment and a radioactive waxwork the next, a kind of alchemical transformation, an appeal to what Keats called negative capability—one’s ability to appreciate something without wholly understanding it; in fact, one’s ability to appreciate an object for its mystery.

“When did I ever deserve this dark mirror?” Barbara Steele asks me. “Clever you – I feel you’ve just twisted and wrung out an old bible to dry that’s been left somewhere outside lost in timeless years of…” She pauses. “…of rain.”

She made her Italian screen debut as a revenant.  And in so doing taught us all the eye is not a camera. It’s a projector.

Barbara Steele’s appearance in 1960’s Black Sunday is, even now, a shock of such febrile sexuality that it forces us to ask ourselves—why do we saddle her with diminishing monikers like “Scream Queen”? And, more fundamentally, why does her force of personality seem to trouble and vex every narrative she touches?

Of course, the answer is partly grounded in Steele’s unique physical equipment—and here I’ll risk repeating a clichéd word about those famous emerald eyes of hers: “Otherworldly.” As if sparked to life by silent-film magician Segundo de Chomón, the supreme master of hand-tinted illusionism. Peculiar even within the context of gothic tales on celluloid for the consumption of Mod audiences, flashing at us from well beyond their allotted time and place in history.

Barbara Steele is one of cinema’s true abominations—a light-repelling force that presents itself in an arrangement of shadows on the screen. No “luminary,”Steele is celluloid anti-matter; a slow burning black flame that devours every filament around it. Steele’s beauty is no accident of nature, even if she is, but in Black Sunday she gives a virtuoso performance by an artist in full command of her talent summoning and banishing it in equal measure in her dual role as mortal damsel in distress and undead predator released from her crypt. Filmmaking is the darkest and unholiest of arts (done right, that is), and for Mario Bava it becomes the invocation of beast and woman from the unconsecrated soil of nightmares. Steele remains the high priestess of the unlit and buried chambers of the imagination; the pure pleasure center of original sin and the murderous impulse buried just below the surface. She reminds us that existence itself is the highest form of betrayal and a continuing curse on us all.

Where Steele’s Italian films are concerned, we are watching silent movies of a sort. “The loss of voice for me has always been devastating…. It’s almost like some karmic debt…” Her sonic presence was eclipsed in a string of crudely, sadly dubbed horror vehicles, yes, including Black Sunday—no doubt aficionados of the great Mario Bava will object to my calling it a “vehicle.”  But whenever Steele appears, the storyline falls away. Anachronism rules. Not to mention the director’s exquisite sets, all keyed and subordinated to his ingénue’s stark loveliness (understood in black and white, molded by Italian cameramen into disquieting and sudden plasticity). Like a hot-blooded funerary sculpture made of alabaster, raven hair piled high, Steele’s already imposing height summons schizoid power, satanic sorcery—she’s Eros and Thanatos dynamically balanced. I’ve screened the film many times; and the famous opening sequence invariably leaves my otherwise jaded film students looking traumatized. (Just as a young Martin Scorsese was shattered by it once upon a time.) Barbara Steele’s defiant witch, spewing a final curse upon her mortal judges, pierces to the bone.

While Italian movies robbed Steele of her voice, they liberated her from what it had meant in Britain. Leading ladies in Brit films tended to be well brought-up young things, unless they were lusty and working-class like Diana Dors. Even at Hammer, where sexuality was unleashed regularly via bouts of vampirism, the erotically active roles usually went to continental lovelies (Polish immigrant Ingrid Pitt got her work permit based on Hammer’s claim that no native-born actress could exude such desire and desirability). Steele turns up all-too briefly in Basil Dearden’s Sapphire (1959) as an art school girl, the only kind of role that might allow for both intelligence and a certain liberated attitude. And Steele really was exactly that type. Her appearance is so arresting, you want the movie to simply abandon its plot and follow her into some fresh storyline: it wouldn’t really matter what.

In Italy, Steele suddenly became class-less and nation-less, devoid of associations beyond those conjured by the chiseled cheekbones and enormous eyes (convincingly replaced with poached eggs by Bava for a special effects shot). Her inescapable exoticism didn’t make sense in her native land, but that bone structure could suggest Latin, Slavic, or anything else. Omninational, omnisexual, but definitely carnivorous.

Generally remote with his actors, who were nothing more than compositional elements to him, Bava’s capricious move of selecting his female lead from a magazine photo-spread looks almost prescient in hindsight. Was it luck? Or, perhaps her now legendary eyes suggested a bizarre and beautiful leitmotif… to be destroyed, resurrected, and played endlessly on a register of emotions—extreme emotions, that is, tabooed delights.

Steele shares an anecdote about her director’s temperament and working methods on Black Sunday… “Everything was so meticulously planned that Bava rarely asked me for multiple takes. There was no sense of urgency or drama, which was rare for an Italian director…” I’m suddenly detecting deep ambivalence as she vacillates between little jabs at Bava (“He was a Jesuit priest on the set, somewhere far away”) and gratitude. “There was a tremendous feeling of respect, whereas in my earliest roles at Rank I always felt shoved around, practically negated by the pressure of production.

“Bava did go absolutely berserk once,” she goes on. “John Richardson, this gorgeous, sinewy creature, for some reason couldn’t carry me across the room. And I was like eleven pounds in those days. We had to do it over and over, twenty times or something, and whenever John stumbled or dropped me, the whole crew would be in hysterics. We were all howling with laughter, except for Bava – he went simply wild! Eventually, some poor grip had to get down on all fours, and I rode on his back in a chair with John pretending to carry me.”

If Black Sunday is a summation of spiritual and physical dread, it’s because Steele is everyone in this dream-bauble, everyone and everywhere, an all-consuming autumnal atmosphere. Which, of course, provides Mario Bava with something truly rare—a face and mien as unsettling as horror films always claim to be and almost never are. The devastation she leaves behind, her anarchic displacement, which has nothing to do with conventional notions of performance or “good acting,” is hard to describe. And here Bava earns his label of genius through compositional meaning—amid the groundswells of fog, lifeless trees and gloomy dungeons, Steele is an absence impossibly concretized in penumbras and voids. She is a force of nature never to be repeated.

Nightmare Castle (1965) starts off in Lady Chatterley mode as Steele cheats on her mad scientist husband (“At this rate you’ll wipe out every frog in the entire county,” is an opening line less pithy but more arresting than “Rosebud”) with the horny handyman. She’s soon murdered on an electrified bed, hubby preserving her heart for unexplained reasons while using her blood to rejuvenate his mistress. Then he marries her insipid blonde half sister (Steele again in a blonde wig) and tries to drive her mad. So we now have Gaslight merged with Poe and every revenge-from-the-grave story ever.

The identical twin half-sisters (?) bifurcate further: blonde Barbara goes schizoid, possessed it seems by her departed semi-sibling. Dark Barbara comes back as a very corporeal revenant, hair occluding one profile, like Phil Oakey of the Human League. Tossing the locks aside, she reveals… the horror!

Almost indescribable in terms of plot, character or dialogue, the film looks stunning, as chiaroscuro as Steele’s coal-black hair and snow-white skin. Apparently the product of monkey-typewriter improvisation, the story serves as a kind of post-modern dream-jumble of every Gothic narrative ever. You might get a story like this if you showed all of Steele’s horrors to a pissed-up grade-schooler and then asked them to describe the film they just saw. As a result, the movie really takes what Dario Argento likes to call the “non-Cartesian” qualities of Italian horror to the next dank, stone-buttressed level.

When I first met Barbara Steele about ten years ago, we somehow found ourselves sitting in front of a Brancusi sculpture here in New York City—I remember a filmmaker acquaintance joking afterwards: “Steele beats bronze!” Indeed, at 66 she was still stunningly beautiful, flirtatious, frighteningly aware of the power of her stare.

She was a painter in her youth, so it’s not surprising that, even as I visualize her in a voluptuous, cinematic world of castles and blighted landscapes, her own self-image is perennially absorbed by art—in the sense of André Malraux’s Museum Without Walls. She asks me to show her my paintings and when I dodge the subject out of shyness she offers:

A friend of mine just had a show of his art in a little cinema here – very small paintings, about 8 inches by 6 – and then they projected them onto one of their screens and they looked fantastic!  Size is everything!   Unless you were born in the Renaissance… then you were surrounded by silence and stone walls, shadows and glimmers of gold, and faces that are like spells they look so informed.

Steele speaks of her “old, suspicious Celtic soul,” her bitterness at having “flitted through movies par hazard,” and a newfound desire to make audio books (what colossal revenge!). It’s poetic really, this doppelganger, a ghost-like screen persona following her around. Whenever I think of the effect her movies have had on me, the following words by Charles Lamb leap to mind.

Gorgons and Hydras and Chimaeras – dire stories of Celaeno and the Harpies – may reproduce themselves in the brain of superstition – but they were there before. They are transcripts, types – the archetypes are in us, and eternal. How else should the recital of that which we know in a waking sense to be false come to effect us at all? Is it that we naturally conceive terror from such objects, considered in their capacity of being able to inflict upon us bodily injury? O, least of all! These terrors are of older standing. They date beyond body – or without the body, they would have been the same… That the kind of fear here treated is purely spiritual – that it is strong in proportion as it is objectless on earth, that it predominates in the period of our sinless infancy – are difficulties the solution of which may afford some probable insight into our ante-mundane condition, and a peep at least into the shadowland of pre-existence.

Even the wooliest metaphysics can be hard to separate from actual violence. Case in point: the night of September 22, 1796. Charles Lamb had his own brush with horror, when the future poet and author of children’s stories found himself removing a bloody knife from his sister’s hand. A spasm of matricidal rage that would land her in a mad house—and tending to prove, once again, the need for genres of terror and trepidation.  For a moment at least, Steele seems to agree, bowled over by the Lamb anecdote, literally screaming: “AND THAT NAME – LAMB – IT MAKES YOU THINK OF SUCH INNOCENT BRITISH LANDSCAPES!”  She’s a fairly solitary and introspective person on the one hand, capable of intense and unexpected eruptions of joy on the other, which may be why Italians have always embraced her—a shared gloomy zest for life, fatalism and pasta. There’s something intensely porous about her (as porous as film itself), which helps clarify her otherwise inscrutable tension with that shadow-self up on the screen, the one she so busily downgrades.

***

The thirties bustled with wise-cracking, fast-talking dames, probably not for any proto-feminist reason, but simply because the writers had a surplus of sassy talk to dispense onto the screen, and audiences liked looking at legs, so why not combine the two? Amid all the petite peroxide pretties, a few acerbic character actresses were allowed room, perhaps to make the cuties bloom all the more radiantly against them. Whatever the aesthetic logic, we can be grateful for it, since it gave us Ruth Donnelly and Winnie Lightner and Jean Dixon and a few other unforgettable shrews and wiseacres, adept as stage mothers, streetwise best pals of the leading lady, etc.

Aline MacMahon sort of fits into this category, but also destroys any category she sees with her laser vision. In Gold Diggers of 1933, she’s a Fanny Bryce type comedy showgirl, and in Heat Lightning (1934) she’s an ex-moll running a garage. In between, she played world-weary secretaries and put-upon mothers, taking any role and stealing the movie along with it. Rather than resist classification, she goes on the offensive, smashing down stereotypes and insisting on her own peculiar individuality.

Big and rangy in the body and hands, she had a strange, sculpted beauty, and was as luminous as Dietrich. Maybe more so: cameramen hit Marlene with brighter lights to make her shine out, whereas Aline was typically in the lead’s shadow. Her complexion is like the glass of milk in Suspicion in which Hitchcock planted a light bulb. That white. A sheet of paper passing before her face would appear as a dark eclipsing rectangle.

The law of photogenics insists that actresses hired to play the non-glamorous roles must be staggeringly lovely, but off-kilter and unconventional enough to fool the audience into thinking they’re seeing failed beauty. Aline’s unlikely photofit of attractive features resulted in a caricature of elegance and earthiness in precisely the wrong proportions, which makes her fascinating and alluring to watch.

The eyes are seriously big, saucers hooded by the heaviest lids since Karloff’s monster, resulting in long slits which strive to echo the even wider mouth, a perfectly straight line seemingly intent on decapitation. Like a horizon with lips. The chin cleft below catches the viewer by surprise. Were chin clefts on women more common then, or did studios screen in favor of them? The cheekbones have a graceful, yet powerful curve, so the face as a whole combines the qualities of an ice-cream baby and a crystal skull. All wrong, and alright with me.

Aline’s humor about her ill-assorted collection of perfect features was often played on in dialogue, so it’s pleasing when a role like the one in Heat Lightning admits that, for all her unlikeliness, she was indeed beautiful. More than a pretty face, too: her way with a snappy rejoinder distinguished her even in an era of exceptional wit and quicksilver delivery. And her essence, which radiated out whatever the role, was that of a philosophical, warm, smart, funny, sad woman: the essence of the age.

By Daniel Riccuito and David Cairns

[alphadrg]

   HOME

In a city familiar, coldness swept across each home wiggling its way deep beneath the stonework of a place that might have once been called ‘home’. Towering above, in a sea of white, stood the grey pillars of stone and heavenly bodies which glittered with glory; and below the dead walked with broken bones, disease, and frozen fingers. Black was the ground which the white nobles were raised, and death was the garden which kept her alive holy children living.

The wind did howl. Crying for the souls lost. And in this city of white did the land bleed red with eons upon eons of blood and vengeance. Lies unseen, and tears frozen. 

In Ishgard Distra stood stark against this backdrop. His steps coming to a slow halt as he paused staring upward at this beauty, and this curse. He could not speak, not could he move, frozen in time as those bodies surrounding him. Wide eyed, he stared. Face frozen upon walking across the bridge. Speckles of snow dusting off of he and his companions. From one exile he fled to another exile, and all he could do is gawk and the beautiful stones and death which hung below. How long had it been since he been here? That his eyes chanced upon these stones? And as those tears dared to fall, they never did as he steeled himself to it as he did to this bitter wind. A cry of a whisper escaped his lips as distant as the snow which fell: “Welcome home.”

And all assumed he was stunned at the beautiful city of Ishgard.

-

Slow was Distra and his party’s walk as they rounded the corners and climb the stairs to the city’s most highest point. Twas after most of the political jargon, the red tape cut, that the small group of outsiders had been adopted by the House Fortemps. Exiled. Punished for crimes not committed. This place now their home. And now a tour was in order for their most welcomed arrival, albeit unexpected. 

The Pillars which nobles lived and where religion breathed into the land. Coldness soaked into him deeper than below, and he shivered in in front of the delight of nobles as they gossiped and questioned Tataru, Alphinaud, and he about the exotics of the outside world. For they were ‘foreigners’. A title which Distra both welcomed and found a most profound sadness in. One which glinted upon his eyes wordlessly. A wordless visage caught upon a more seeing eyes as they left this circle of noblewomen and led elsewhere to another place upon their tour.

“What ails you, my friend?” Haurchefant spoke with words that so caressed the helpless soul.  “Hm?” Distra looked up from a lingering gaze from the towering stones towards Haurchefant. “What do you mean?”  Haurchefant stared, concerned almost. Mentally did Distra curse himself now for becoming so lost in his emotions, in the past, in a world now that was no longer his, and never be. “You seem sad.” The concerned, although in a right place, made Distra feel guilty. Guilty that the other was so overjoyed to show him around, to welcome him into his home, and all Distra saw was pain. As if a reflex, Distra shook his head with a smile upon his face. One that was only skin deep, of course, but one nonetheless. “It is nothing. I am.. still lost over what transpired.” He looked away. Not a lie, but not the truth. “I apologize.”

He left it at that. The other did not press him.

There were questions of course, ones Distra asked ever so often upon this tour. “What was this place?” “What is its purpose?” Question he asked time and time again as if completely unfamiliar with the city. Haurchefant responded in kind. Explaining the ins, the outs, the whats and whys. None the wiser. Like all those before. The truth was Distra knew the purposes of this and that building. At least most of it. Although he often played dumb to keep the every flimsy facade, there happened to be sometimes genuine questions asked. After all, twenty years was a long time. But it didn’t take long for many other memories to slowly fill the holes, and eventually those same questions turned into things merely said to keep that same facade playing.

He wondered what others would think of him should they know this truth. 

When the others looked away, a profound sadness graced his features. Emptiness which stilled his beating heart. A void that filled in his stomach. A dying gasp of the truth he wished to lay bare. 

Staring off into the distance, he wished things were different. He could see the blood upon the stone. Of those lost, of those of Ferndale.

-

From political offices, inns, to even wineries (”places,” stated Haurchefant, “that may aid you in your journey”), Distra’s legs eventually led him astray. Not that it mattered, really. Though lost as he might be, the being of lost was something that could not be in this place he knew so well. Ask a passing knight, gaze upon a particular name of a street, and he would know where to head to next. Where to go home to. Where to lose himself to. 

These streets were, perhaps, the most familiar of them all. Between manors and homes of smaller noble lines, simmering memories fell upon the ocean of snow as they frothed. His head was held high as he stared at the rooftops, the banners, and the people nestled inside. Bowing his head slight to passing noblewomen, and a ear almost twitching to the rumors which passed him. The childlike memory of not knowing, and now being old enough to understand what is was that they spoke. He walked almost like his father. Stood against the stone and watched with red eyes. For but a moment things felt... ok. 

It was as if he were almost Ishgardian. 

In this lost stroll he had no destination. Walking to walk, to escape, to allow himself to be at home so he might be able to quell the hungering desire to belong. Perhaps if he did this then he would be able to kill those inner desires and be free of the past which threw him into painful frenzies. Most of all, he found staring down into that white bottomless chasm to be a feeling most wonderful. And the thought did occur that should he cast himself off into the gaping maw to the lower end of Ishgard that he could release himself from this pain. That he might give himself unto his home as his body so begged. But even to a Dragoon, this fall would surely kill him. If not kill him, injure him beyond repair. 

Besides, he knew that the pain would not cease.

Mindless walks and thoughts which circled round and round did it never occur to him to where he walked. This turn and that turn, it felt almost natural that he did such. As if returning home from school to greet his family. To knock upon the door or await for the servants to open it for him so that he might be greeted. That is what his heart foretold, but he knew better. The worries of his friends and the worries of his wellbeing finally brought him to a halt. Biting his thumb and staring down at his feet, and at the small steps upward he began to murmur between teeth.

“I should return... they must be worried for me. For all they know I’m a stranger in a strange land.” He bit part of his nail off. Sighing and letting a hand rub through his hair. There was still air kept in his stomach as his gaze slowly lifted upward. Up to the manor he stood in front. A realization dawning upon him that the memories would not cease, and that his longing would ever prey upon him.

He knew this manor, he knew this manor well. Though decrepit and obviously unkempt it was the very same manor which he grew up in. At least somewhat. For it was this manor his father lived in, where the noble house was officially designated in, and where he would spend many weeks a winter and a summer within. Learning of Ishgard. Being with his father. The servants. The balls. The complaints of the chill air. Staring out his window to the opposing noble houses. Cooing at the stray kittens.

Twas a waterfall of memories. And he could not help but stare and stare and stare until a noblewoman gazed upon him with a fretful look. 

“Kind sir, are you well? You look pale. Shall I call a doctor?” she lifted her hand to touch his shoulder.  In a shock he practically jumped away. But breathed a sigh of relief. “Forgive me, madame.” He bowed his head. “I was merely... lost in thought.” Gaze looked back at the manor. Her eyes followed. “Ah, the house of Sauveterre.” Her voice was saddened now. “Such a shame, that house. Burned to the very bone from the ire of Nidhogg.” She shook her head. “I do remember the young boy from that house, yes I do. A sweet young lad. Always played with that girl across the way. Shame too, that girl. Died of disease. My, I thought they sweet on one another.”  Distra’s face soured.  Biting his tongue. Had he let it, it might have torn off. “THat is... a shame....” “Quite...” “Yet the house still stands.” He dug his hands into his pockets. Wanting nothing more than to escape. But he knew he could not. Could not reveal himself to the world what he really felt. “I should think it would have been given away.” “Tis only here as a poor reminder of a distant relative. The lady’s sister grieves. She is unwilling to let the assets go and give it unto the Fury.” The noblewoman shook her head. “Better spent on the war.” “Antonine still lives?” Distra practically flung his head towards the noblewoman. The shock in his voice almost resounding through the street. It left his lips before he was able to even collect himself. And upon speaking them he looked confused, almost angry with those words spoken. The noblewoman stared in confusion. “Oh, you know her?” “N-no. Not that. I have a friend.” He looked away embarrassed. “Forgive me for the outburst. H-he thought her dead. He is a friend of her.” Distra swallowed dryly. The noblewoman stared at him for a time, curious, but continued anyway. “Yes, she lives still. Grieving, but alive. She believes that her young niece still lives. A tragedy that life. Such misery.” She shook her head, and Distra stared on into the manor. “Do tell your friend to visit the mistress. The company would be well regarded.” “... Aye....”

As she sought to leave, Haurchefant rounded the corner. Half the mind Distra was to leap onto the rooftops to avoid him, whilst the other glued to his station fixated on his old home. There was no escape.

“My friend!” Haurchefant bounded towards the other. A smile on his face. “However did you become so lost? I was afraid something had happened!” “Ah.. well...” Distra rubbed a hand against his neck.  Before he could reply, the noblewoman did. “He is but a foreigner?” She looked quizzical towards Haurchefant who nodded in reply. “My, I would have thought him Ishgardian.” The dagger twisted in his heart. “No. Far from.” The reply from Distra came not too kind, but what else was he to say besides the sorrow that screamed. “I hail from Northern Gridania.” Haurchefant glanced him over. Distra almost surprised his hands could become so absolutely sweaty in this freezing air. The Elezen looked away, clearing his throat. “It is getting late, don’t you think? I beg your forgiveness for delaying your tour because I had gotten lost. Mayhap we can continue tomorrow?”  “Oh, yes. Yes of course.” The other smiled. “But we need not end the tour here. There is still much to see on the way back. Come.” With a bow, to the noblewoman, Haurchefant walked off with a smile with Distra in tow. 

But it wasn’t before Absalon’s eyes would look up to see his once home again, and wish that he never chanced it again. For the pain grew deeper. As too did his longing.

[inter-se-solus-blog]

Birthday Present for Vodka @kohkytus ♡~

          " I wonder, how long will it take for you to stir? "

                              Nothing but howling, how disappointing.

          " Or you do not care to have everything you accomplished fall to ruin~? "

          This pernicious show of one's ravenous hunger had, by the time echoing approach would lead him around, stretched as wide as the eye could only see in this dissonance of destruction and rebuilt; appearing so truly, so undeniably ineffective to even assert with power and might whose time will never come again. Should never come again. So, why even was he here right now? Searching in the depths for a 'forlorn' myth? This intricate yin and yang of brittle man-made stone and the last recluse of inhumanity’s own showing nought else but a madman's pursuit of mental egality. Still: drowned - devoured - destroyed; when not attaining the means of worship a broken soul does call for like his own.

          Searching inside a fairy tale told to the youths of his kin. Shall they not marvel at these wordless wonders, impossible to truly quite explain?

          Structures, bold and towering, turned into impenetrable walls in aching quarrels, winding themselves along the cities inner bowels like a snake to find a prey to snap at. To swallow it whole. It's a fitting explanation for what the mask maker's eyes could see and for what whispers of a language long gone do meddle that would, finally indeed, reach his ears.

          " Many had come after you. Taken up your reign with different goals in mind. "

                              Not a single stir, how frustrating.

          " Desired to be more and yet they were sure nothing at all. "

          Murmurs and breaths and the quietening down of the surrounding’s chilling fatality. Harm, nevertheless, has not come down upon them due to the incessant, unremitting words, syllable for syllable melting together, amounting to nothing quite at all. Merely had they scattered and hid once more. As the desire of his own to truly mingle - to truly engage - had been near to nought. Still, had they not tried desparingly desiring to make Uta's approach stop and turn, uttered claims of danger? Of peril? Of catastrophe? Shall he not return?

          This city had devoured so many with hair and bone. With tooth and nail. With heart and soul. Laughable; thoughts in the jokester's mind to ring out a chiming one of his own delight, drawling throughout the darkened surrounding, similar to a neverending night. Wondersome to be caught in such a reckless abandon.

          Perhaps in the very core of this place that never someone had been able to reach, repelled by force like from the fairy tales, thorns alike that had grown over stems and branches, like from a rosebushes' very curse [ a simple thought that had settled into lunatic’s mind ], there was something. Someone. Just worthwhile to claim.

          " That world above, would you like me to tell you how it looks? "

                              Tingling air around them, how promising.

          " Ah~ I know yet, you would not believe me. "

          Where hours would flow into one another, time does not matter anymore at all. The caustic desire to reach for a goal so closed off and so hidden away from the avariciousness of greed and a forlorn eternity. Had not his own friends laughed about the auctioneer's conation? The ceaseless dream to set out and pursue? Mocked and ridiculed in fashions of admirable attention; off still he went towards the depths of a stomach that had swallowed a civilization whole [ or so, the legends had told--- ].

          It feels like a heart that beats. It feels like the air was suddenly scarce to breathe and a pulse thrums and thrives around him. Unapologetic taking from the wanderer what nought else the reminders of inhabitants were so unwilling to give.

          How exhilarating. Choking out a laugh in sing-song voice was all he was willing to commit. Now then, a door creaks open [ in mind? in reality? ] towards widened, destroyed, endless void of this peaceful world. Finally [ how many days had truly passed? ] coming to face with something of a legend and yet? - how to awaken that beast at last?

          " Or maybe, you do. But want to breathe in the air above. Want to reclaim what all                 was taken from you. "

                              Roaring in his ears like a drum, how exhilarating.

          " Do I still need to help you to rise? "

          Comfortable was his position amongst the uproar of conflict and bloodshed. High above does he sit, the very leverage of the fallen monarch to be offered by the means and movements made so many years ago. So much time has passed that every bit of it could dissipate with the snap of fingers and fall to all but shimmering dust. He does sit and watch and wonder. Had spoken endlessly, eyes watched attentively, nothing at all that stirred. One may believe him to lose well-trained patience piece by piece. One tick of the time. Failing reactions coming to a maniacal mind. What does keep him from standing and brushing off centuries-old remains? From taking his leave towards a goal better gained? Find a mind better off swayed by ideals and the stories Uta had to tell.

           Unmoving still he does sit and watch and wonder. Legs crossed over one another towards the hidden power scarcely glancing up, yet outright listening to him - as he had felt it in the surrounding's air to shift and grow heavier - harsher - harder. A means to rise and nearly choke whoever would dare to come too close.

           Waits with his hands placed upon his knee, long fingers, telling stories of his own, intertwined with one another - may be that just with that? Mayhaps, he could rise the King from his hardened throne.

          " Does it disturb you not, that so many feel you all but a legend? "

                              Rumbling of the buildings abound, how devastating.

          " That parents tell these to their children, worth alone to make them behave? "

          With the very life to flash upon pale planes of skin. Further and further exposed with tilts and turns of his lithe form. Each shift of muscle beneath fine linen would drag the eyes upon stories uncountable to tell. Who would have thought? That the very man to climb into the monster's den - was a monster unlike any other and like the fable's legend very own? Oh, he would not wonder if that very someone spoken to in softened coos, would want to never dine, to surely deny, the essence of his very being.

          With sudden blinks. With startling gaze. Opening eyes and eyes and eyes to appear before the entertainer's very own. Such would the tales and stories go: the devourer of his own kind, ready to swallow him whole.

          No, that by all means and possibilities, just this once: Uta was so surely saved. To garner the one that could turn inside out this discardable earth; to offer them back laughter, as so tired they were of this dreadful future to behold. Let him see. Let him seek. Read each and every page so carefully and beautifully crafted upon white and unscathed skin. A mocking little invitation, spoken by the Cheshire's grin.

          " Now come, your Majesty. "

                              With life flooding all senses, how thrilling.

                   " The Kings are dead - so long live the King. "

[softersinned-arc]

december 1547.

She burns. She has been here nearly a year, she thinks—since shortly before the first thaw, if memory serves—and she has wondered more than once what dying would feel like. Her body is failing her, a fragile thing brought past its last desperate efforts, and she is only vaguely aware of anything beyond the sensation of that failure, but she hears their voices echoing around her and she catches a few words, utterly divorced from any context.

          “—use her still—”

          “—act quickly—”

          “—won’t be allowed—”

          “—think this is easy?”

          She hears another voice, less familiar than the two shouting back and forth: “Save her, please—!” Half pleading, half prayer. Astoria’s eyes flutter open for only a moment and then she feels herself being shoved onto her back, and if she had the strength for it she would let out a wordless noise of pain. Her head is spinning, vision clouded with pulsing waves of black, and she can feel the wound in her throat bleeding still.

          There’s something in front of her, mere inches away, something that smells divine. Part of her wants to refuse it, to let the saints and martyrs carry her heavenward or cast her into Hell. (Even the inferno can’t hurt this much.) There are a thousand reasons not to do this. She is in agony, and if she lets herself die then she won’t hurt anymore. She won’t become a monster, a parasite. She won’t damn herself, marking what little is left of her soul as undeserving of salvation every time she kills to survive. Most of all, it is rebellion: she is only useful to them alive. Dead, she wins.

          But Astoria lets her lips part, and when she’s too weak to grab for the wrist dripping blood into her mouth, it lowers until she can drink. Once she has the strength, she lifts her hands to grasp her maker’s arm and she devours, without question, without guilt, an animal driven by instincts beyond her understanding.

          Death is not a rebellion. She does not win by ceasing to exist. She wins when she endures. She wins when she survives.

          She shudders and howls when Elyssa withdraws her wrist, and when Evander murmurs low under his breath to strengthen the chains holding her, and when the dark-haired girl who begged for her life lets out a quiet gracias a Dios and begins to recite a prayer until Elyssa, irritated by the noise, stalks closer to her and backhands her across the face.

            They leave her like that, writhing in her chains to face her first sunrise. They find her two days later, half-mad from hunger and shaking, her body curled in on itself and one arm over her head, still in her chains, the other hanging at a sickening angle. They don’t want to know that she wept and screamed and prayed, that the light of the sun left her overwhelmed even in the earliest hours of morning, that she rebelled against her chains until she had torn her arm from its socket and couldn’t get it back, that she felt as though she might starve until she caught a rat scurrying across the floor, just a bit too close, and tore it open with her teeth.

          Evander sets her dislocated shoulder while Elyssa holds a girl, not much older than Astoria had been when she first arrived in England, in place, the open wound in her neck bleeding. She descends on the girl thoughtlessly, ravenously, and drains her dry, and she pulls at her chains until she’s broken her own wrist while they watch her. It, like her shoulder, heals quickly, too quickly, and she cannot understand why it distresses her as it does.

          That night she covers her ears with her hands and she lets out a low, keening cry to try and drown out the sounds of the church bells ringing to celebrate Christ’s birth. The dark-haired girl waits until she’s lowered her hands, face streaked with red from her tears, and she holds out her own hand until Astoria looks over at her.

          “Maristela,” she says softly. “My name is Maristela. We’re sisters, now.”

          Astoria stares at her for a moment, and the last shreds of her rationality wonder why this girl—beautiful despite the blood and grime that cover her like a shroud, and good, too good—would want to count such a wretched wailing thing as a sister. Slowly, she reaches out her own hand, and they both strain at their chains until their fingertips brush. Maristela beams the moment they make contact.

          “Tell me your name,” she urges, and after several long, silent moments, Astoria manages it, though her voice sounds hoarse and each syllable is pain. Her smile widens at that, and she nods, lowering her hand. “It was agony for me, too. What is it that hurts the most? Your body, or your mind?”

          With her hunger sated, it’s an obvious choice. “The noise,” she whispers. “The noise.”

          And with that the girl—Maristela, who will tell Astoria later that she’s only been a wearh for a few months now, who will tell Astoria that she was turned under cover of night while she begged for mercy and invoked every saint she could remember and Elyssa Vetri ignored her pleas—begins to pray, her Latin sure, her voice low and musical. Pater noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum.

          Astoria closes her eyes and tries to slow her breaths, the already-sluggish beat of her heart. Adveniat regnum tuum. Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra. She listens to Maristela’s voice, counts the seconds between each of her heartbeats. Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie, et dimitte nobis debita nostra sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris. She thinks of her sister and nothing else, the noise of the animals outside the monastery and the drip of water from melting snow near a broken window forgotten in favor of her voice. Et ne nos inducas in tentationem, sed libera nos a malo. Amen.

          “God abandoned us,” Astoria rasps when she’s finished, and Maristela lets out a quiet, sympathetic hum before she begins her prayer again.

          There’s no sleep to be found but Maristela stays awake with her all night, sings her hymns, recites the psalms, gives her an anchor, the only anchor she’ll know.

october 1669.

“When we can leave France, I want to find it.” Astoria’s fingers trace idly along the lines of his palm before she cups her hand beneath his. She bows her head, red curls drying unevenly after her bath, pale shoulders bare, and she presses a kiss to his palm. Her lips linger for a moment and when she meets his eyes again, her own are suspiciously wet.

          She doesn’t speak of this. Not with anyone else, at least—she only ever tells him.

          “Do you remember where it was?” His voice is as soft as her own, as if he doesn’t want to startle her, and not for the first time Astoria is filled with an impossible warmth to recognize all the little ways he lets his affection for her show: how he matches her tone, her volume, when she’s frightened to try and soothe her. How he catches her chin in his hand almost as soon as she’s lifted her lips from his palm, and strokes a thumb across her lips as if to remind her that now, she isn’t alone.

          Astoria shakes her head and Baldwin only nods. She thinks if she asked him, he’d raze the entirety of England to the ground. “Leo will remember, no doubt.” She frowns after a beat, then adds, voice tinged with some embarrassment, “I got out into the village the winter before I was saved. I must have killed twenty people before they got to me. There can’t have been that many monsters leaving that kind of devastation in their wake in a single night, that same winter. I don’t know if it’ll be enough, but—”

          She shrugs, a little helpless, certainly ashamed, and Baldwin surges forward to press his lips to hers. She thinks of the lives ended at his hands, those same hands gathering her closer to him, one splayed out against the small of her back and the other slipping into her hair. She thinks of the violence he has, in over a thousand years, meted out like divine justice. He is a killer, no doubt closer to a monster than most of the other wearh they know, a warrior above all else, and when he settles those hands against her skin she thinks she’s never been safer in her life.

may 1649.

"Do you remember who I am?”

          “Yes.” He looks different. Taller. Wider. His hair is longer. His beard is cleaner. But she knows those eyes. She knows those hands.

          “Do you know why I’m here?” she asks, gently, and Evander nods.

          “I told her you’d survive.”

          Astoria lets out a quiet laugh, and she raises an eyebrow. “Please don’t beg,” she says, rather sincerely. “I would like to remember you with some dignity.”

          They always understood one another better than his sister might have imagined. In those early days he tipped her chin up tenderly and he wiped the tears from her cheeks and he said you’re lucky, you know. You’re lucky that someone loves you enough to teach you how to survive. He fed her when Elyssa wouldn’t, in those early days of her transformation, and on the days she was too weak to fight he’d wash her the best he could, show her what semblance of humanity he could still afford to show. She learned later that he had urged Elyssa to save her. There are moments she almost forgives him—as much his sister’s victim as she had been, commanded to become a weapon in her service. Some piece of her, in those days, was grateful for the promise that she was loved because she knew he believed it to be true.

          Other days all she can remember is the withered husk of Maristela’s body, drained entirely of blood as a part of another of the siblings’ experiments on the limitations of a wearh’s power. Other days she all she can remember is her sister’s body and Evander’s knife sliding across her throat before he sat back to observe, taking note of the time it took her to heal and the blood lost before then. He opened the cut twice that day, once just before he hung her by her ankles to see if she could still survive it if she was bled like meat.

          He offers up a sad smile. “I won’t beg,” he promises. “You never did.”

          Perhaps in another world she could have loved him—her cousin, her godfather, her guardian. Perhaps in another world he stayed his hand.

          In this world she crouches beside him as he hangs from his ankles, nearly an hour later, and she presses a kiss to his forehead before she promises him that he’s lucky, really. Lucky that someone loves him enough to kill him.

          She thinks he might be proud of her in the moments before he dies. His worst failure and greatest achievement at once: a student who surpassed him, stroking his hair back while he’s bled dry.

june 1548.

They repeat their experiment for a third time: how long will it take for a vampire to bleed out?

          By some miracle she survives it. Twice. It’s enough to make her wonder if perhaps God hasn’t abandoned her, if perhaps He is punishing her now on earth.

          This seems more likely, she thinks, when she looks to where her sister should be and sees nothing. Even so, she’ll take it, if it means she sees tomorrow.

april 1548.

They bury Maristela in a shallow grave in the gardens on the other side of the monastery. Astoria still swears she can hear the insects and beasts that feed on what’s left of her sister.

november 1556.

“Leave her,” Elyssa insists, but Evander is less sure.

          “We need to kill her.” He’s adamant on that point, and Astoria—barely conscious though she is—is present enough to be at once offended and flattered by it. “The enchantment on the chains will fade faster now that I’m—” His voice falters, and he gestures towards himself. Dead. Wearh. He flounders for a moment before settling on “—different.”

          “She won’t survive that long. She’s half-starved and she’s weak. And if she does live, she will be so hungry that the second she breaks the chains she’ll kill what’s left of that village, and the Congregation will send someone to put her down. Matthew Roydon is in London. You think he won’t do it?”

          Astoria says nothing. Even if she had the strength to speak, she doubts she’d know what to say—what is there to say, after that? After Elyssa had sliced her open like she wanted to take stock of her organs, and left her to seize in a pool of her own blood and watch as they gathered the last of anything that could be used to identify them.

          “She’ll live.” Evander’s voice is dark and angry, and he casts her a suspicious glare. “And then she’ll come for us.”

          And here Elyssa laughs, and she reaches up to tip her brother’s chin down until he’s met her eyes. “Then we kill her then. What help will she have? Wearh are powerful only in a pack. They gain strength from their families. Where is hers? The witches will kill her if the Congregation does not. She’s an abomination in their eyes.”

          She prays and she hears no answer.

          If God hasn’t abandoned her, then He is crueler than she imagined—no loving Father would allow her to decay like this, surviving off the rats foolish enough to scurry within her reach and waiting for the day she no longer has the strength for even that. What little strength she has, she spends on screaming—at God, at herself, at everyone, at anyone. In the endless hours that stretch between her meager meals she counts her sins. Wrath, envy, greed, lust, pride, gluttony. Sloth, if only out of necessity. Nothing has ever been enough for her and now she’ll waste until she simply ceases to exist, erased from time and space so that it’s like she was never there. Her sins are countless; she always finds one or two more each time she returns to the question.

          Soon even the rats learn to avoid the monastery. She howls and wails and screams but no one comes, and she imagines that they must think it haunted, after what she did last winter. It is haunted, she supposes; she’s as good as a dead thing.

          Soon she forgets even the sound of her sister’s voice.

          When her savior finds her, nearly two months later and too weak to break the chains that hold her even though the enchantment has long since faded, she is more animal than woman and he says the same thing her tormentor had: that without a family she is powerless. That alone, she will not last much longer.

          She cannot think of him as family, but for now, he’ll have to do.

march 1763.

“My love,” she says, and the anger in her voice melts at the sight of him; he is unmoved by the macabre setting (an empty operating theater is, somehow, more disturbing than one filled to capacity) or the brutality to which he will bear witness. “My—mother—was fond of experiments. I feel the most incredible need to respect her inquisitive nature. And you have taught me everything all these years—perhaps you can be my student for now. Would you mind terribly?”

          Crucified to the operating table, thick iron nails holding her in place, Elyssa stares up at her in utter loathing, but it’s the hint of panic, the promise of real fear in her eyes that has Astoria half-desperate to see it through, eager to chase the euphoria of knowing that she is, for the first time in two hundred years, safe.

          “I would be honored,” Baldwin says, and Astoria’s heart swells with love for him. Not many men would watch her do what she’s about to do and love her more for it when it’s over. “Shall I take part or simply observe?”

          Astoria picks up one of the surgical instruments—some kind of blade—and she considers it for a moment. “Observation, I think, at least to begin. The subject of today’s lesson is how to kill a wearh. Shall we begin?”

          He is an apt pupil.

june 2019.

They’ve slipped past the guests, past Matthew and Diana and even Ysabeau and Marthe, all of them too caught up in the sheer joy of their family surviving so long to notice a couple of errant attendees making off with a couple of glasses and an unopened bottle of wine.

          As his gift to her, in honor of her marriage to his son, Philippe promised her secrets, and he delivered: a passageway here, a hidden staircase there, the panel in the wine cellar where he stored his favorite vintages so he wouldn’t have to share with anyone else, and in the case of Les Revenants, the information that the easternmost tower was just barely taller than the others, and had the best view of the moat at night when the stars and the moon reflected off its placid surface. It had been one of their precious few ties together—whenever she found herself somewhere new, in yet another of the de Clermonts’ infinite residences, he would slip an arm through hers and take her aside to give her a wonderfully abridged and otherwise useless tour, always swearing her to secrecy with everyone but Baldwin.

          He sits behind her, his back to the stone and her back against his chest, and they listen to the distant sound of laughter. Astoria is playing a private game tonight—every time she is overcome with anger or disgust at the family she refills her glass—and she’s not sure if she’s winning or losing, if the reprieve is so welcome. Unbidden, she reaches back to card her fingers through Baldwin’s hair, and he responds by tightening the arm around her waist.

          “I think we should congratulate Diana after this,” she hums, and she can imagine Baldwin raising his eyebrow at that, even though she’s not sitting in a position that allows her to see him. “After nearly two years of nonstop disruption, she’s finally getting our family together for a relatively normal time.”

          He lets out a snort of laughter, careful as he reaches around her to take another drink from his glass. The bottle they’d sneaked out is nearly empty, and they should be getting back, even if only for appearances, but neither one moves to stand, even if they both know they should.

          “I wouldn’t call things normal,” he says gruffly, but when she does maneuver just enough to sneak a look at him, there’s a smile playing at his lips. “A witch with our seat will take some getting used to.”

          “Is she still making you call her Dr. Bishop whenever you email back?”

          His only answer is to groan, and Astoria laughs at that, and she laughs louder when Baldwin squeezes her around the middle in feigned disapproval. “I have a greater appreciation for your—interactions—with Ysabeau, at the very least.”

          “Passive aggression is hard work, my love. You have your battlefield; I have mine.” He lets out another huff of laughter, and Astoria settles back against him, satisfied. “Never a dull moment, eh?”

          “Do the benefits of marrying into the family still outweigh the costs?” he teases, and Astoria turns around in his arms to face him, bright-eyed and warm.

          She curls one hand against the side of his neck, brushes her thumb back and forth against his jaw. “There have been some—obvious benefits. Marrying you. The life we’ve built. The dogs. Our children, even the ones that annoy me.” She hesitates, then, and she leans just a bit closer, lips curling into a wicked smile. “And there’s a comfort in knowing that whatever else, no one could accuse me of having daddy issues when the rest of our family is right there.”

          He rewards her with a laugh, near as loud as her own this time, and beautifully real, and she thinks she’s never loved him more.

[joyfullynervouscreator]

Furs and Scars

Chapter 1

Dwalin looked at the sky, scowling at the snow-heavy clouds far above him.

“It’ll snow soon,” Víli said, from where he was crouched, checking that his snare was placed correctly. They still had another five to go, but the two rabbits already strapped to Dwalin’s pack would be a welcome addition to their winter stores. He rumbled something not particularly polite aimed at whoever controlled the weather, but Víli simply smiled.

Sometimes, it vexed Dwalin no end how Víli was always so positive… but then he remembered that they both lived in a household of Royal Durins and felt quietly grateful that Dís’s One was not another dramatic romantic prone to violent outbursts – like Dís herself – or spending hours upon hours brooding on things he couldn’t change – like Thorin. Thorin had been meant to come along today, but he’d begged off in favour of a council meeting so Dwalin had been volunteered to help Víli. By which he meant Dís had made puppy eyes at him while Thorin was looking and that was why Dwalin found himself wandering the slopes with Víli. Thorin – having no older siblings on whom to practice using puppy eyes – was almost incapable of denying Dís when she used hers. On the whole, Dwalin thought, it was a good thing that Dís rarely used her powers for more nefarious agendas, really. He didn’t mind walking in the cold, and he was reasonably fond of Víli – aside from the fact that he was sleeping with Dwalin’s little sister, but both he and Thorin had decided never to think about that fact… ever. Not just because Dís would have killed anyone trying to stop her marrying her One, but also because there was not enough alcohol in the whole of Middle-Earth to make the thought palatable to her protective older brothers. The wee pebble was adorable, though, Dwalin had to admit.

Víli, miner and occasional hunter, was decent company, if a bit fond of stating the obvious, but then again, not every Dwarf had the misfortune of being raised by Lord Fundin, with a brother like Balin, who had drilled it into his head to think first and speak later.

 The next two traps were empty too, and Dwalin could tell that they’d have been better off turning back instead of keeping on, but the thought of leaving possible food to the scavengers did not sit well with either of them. They were not so poor as when they had first settled in Ered Luin, but not so prosperous as to turn away fresh meat, so Víli and Dwalin trudged on in spite of the knowledge that the snow would almost certainly begin to fall before they reached the last snare.

“At least the cold’ll keep the meat from spoiling,” Víli remarked philosophically when they found a third rabbit trapped in his second-to-last snare. Dwalin nodded a grunt in his direction. He was beginning to dream of his warm seat by the fire, a cup of Frís’s special tea in his hand while he waited for the rabbit stew Dís would certainly prepare for two cold hunters, when the first snowflake landed on his nose.

 Within ten minutes, the world was covered in a swiftly growing layer of white, and only Víli’s keen knowledge of the area allowed them to reach the last snare. A fox had been caught in it, but Dwalin hardly cared, killing it with a quick blow of the axe and tying the carcass to his collection. The pelt would make a nice gift for Frís, who had needed new winter gloves for the past two years. Not much meat on a fox, to be sure, but the fur was nice and warm.

  “Think the lads’ll make it back for supper, or should we leave theirs on the stove to keep warm?” Frís asked, startling Dís who had been staring out the window where the first flakes of snow had started to fall.

“It looks like a blizzard to me, Amad,” she sighed. “Hopefully they’re almost here or at least in a place where they can find shelter.”

“Dwalin not back yet?” Thorin echoed his amad’s question as he walked in the door, trailing grey-haired Balin, who was calmly reading a long scroll – probably the result of the day’s meetings, Dís thought with a sigh. The settlement was not rich, though at least they didn’t starve every winter anymore, but the mines were failing and Thorin had been approached about the possibility of opening a new mine further away.

“Nay, son,” Frís replied, tickling baby Fíli until he gave her a gummy smile. Dís smiled to see it. Ruffling Fíli’s still-sparse hair with a work-roughened hand, Thorin pecked his sister’s cheek in greeting. “But supper is almost ready.”

The announcement was greeted with smiles, and Dís collected her pebble from Frís’s secure hold, knowing that they were minutes away from wailing hunger. With Fíli suckling for his own supper, Thorin and Balin got the table set, while Frís walked round the house ensuring that all the shutters where closed and a few reinforced with wads of fabric to keep the cold out. Dís settled herself in the most comfortable chair by the fire, accepting a cup of tea from Balin with a wordless smile of thanks.

  Trudging through the snow was one thing; Dwalin had had worse. The darkness was no problem either, being a Dwarf with terrific Darksight, but the sudden howls they heard in the distance had him gripping his axe tightly. Víli, too, looked worried. The strong winds threw off their sound perception, sometimes making the howling sound close, sometimes far off. Wolves would rarely attack Dwarrow so early in the winter, but they had heard gossip from further north of a pack with a taste for Dwarf-flesh. Dwalin hadn’t given the rumour much credence… until now.

Dwalin shivered. The howls had changed, he could tell. Víli had paled beneath his blonde beard; he too knew the sound of a pack out hunting.

“We won’t reach home before they’re on us,” Víli admitted quietly. Dwalin nodded grimly.

“We need somewhere to stand properly, where they can’t circle us,” he snapped, feeling a twinge of guilty satisfaction at the way Víli jumped. Even after twenty years of knowing each other, Dwalin’s ‘I am in command and you will listen’-voice still startled the miner, who tended to forget that Dwalin had been trained almost since birth to be a general. Of course, he also tended to forget that his brother-in-law was a King, and his wife a Princess, a rare gift in the settlement, and probably one of the reasons Dís had liked him in the beginning.

 Dwalin was impressed with the place Víli had led him. The hunter had found a small cave, the opening only just wide enough that a Dwarf of Dwalin’s bulk could squeeze through. In front, there was a wide, perfectly flat plateau, and the mountain was sheer walls on either side of the cave. In short, it was defensible, and they’d be able to spend the night if the wolves did not find them. It wasn’t the first time the cave had been used by travellers either, evidenced by the small stack of dry kindling and firewood left behind in a far corner.

  They stayed up long into the night, pretending that they weren’t waiting for their missing loved ones. When the candle had burned down to a small puddle of melted wax, Frís gave up her sewing and went to bed. Balin had retreated earlier, still reading some paper or other. Dís had not put Fíli in his crib, instead holding his tiny warm body close, finding comfort in his soft breathing. Neither sibling had uttered a word for hours. Thorin was staring broodily at the slowly dying fire, but making no move to put another log on. Dís sighed.

“We should get some sleep, nadad,” she whispered, knowing that she would have to be the one to send Thorin to bed. Otherwise he’d still be sitting there in the morning. “I’m sure they’ve just found somewhere to bed down for the night.” Thorin didn’t answer. With another sigh, Dís got up, squeezing his shoulder as she walked past him to the bedroom she and Víli shared. Putting the pebble in his crib and stroking his downy cheek with a soft smile, Dís left the door open as she returned to the living room, carrying the blanket off Thorin’s bed from his and Dwalin’s room. “At least you’ll be warm, if you willnae sleep,” she mumbled, pinching Thorin’s ear lightly as she spread the furs over his shoulders. Pressing a kiss to his dark locks, she turned to make for her own bed once more.

“Thank you, nunel,” Thorin whispered, but Dís did not hear him.

  Dwalin always felt better with his axes in hand. Grasper and Keeper. The names they had been given after Azanulbizar, and for a moment Dwalin thought he saw Frerin’s ghostly face before him. Shaking his head, he set his attention firmly on keeping watch. They’d drawn straws, and Víli had won the right to a few hours of sleep. The wolves had been silent for a while, and the snow was still falling, the wind howling around the mountainside. Dwalin did not let the lack of signs make him incautious. His eyes kept scanning the quadrants he had assigned to the surroundings.

 The attack was a swift as it was silent. Dwalin had no more warning than the yellow light of a pair of eyes before the first wolf – who was too big for a wolf, but not quite as big as a warg – attacked him. Keeper bit into its skull, and the wolf fell down dead. Dwalin’s shout managed to wake Víli – if he’d been asleep at all – who joined the fight with alacrity. Though less experienced than Dwalin, Víli was a quick Dwarf, and he made up for his slighter build and lack of brute strength with speed of movement. Another wolf fell, but Dwalin knew that the bloodlust had only just begun to surge in his opponents; these were no ordinary wolves, and the warg that came out of the darkness, black as night and as tall as Víli, proved it.

Dwalin’s world narrowed to the next swing of his weapon, the next slash, dodge, move. He killed swiftly and efficiently when he could, though one of the beasts managed to take a bite of his arm when he was too slow to dodge two at once. Víli’s sword skewered it in the next moment, but the bite was large, and Dwalin roared in pain, the agony only increasing his rage as he fought.

  When morning came, Thorin was asleep in the chair by the hearth, the fur blanket half on the floor. Frís shook her head fondly, putting it back around his shoulders, smoothing the line that sleep had not removed from his brow. As she set to preparing breakfast, putting a kettle of water on the fire for tea, she found herself casting a glance out the window every now and again, looking for Dwalin’s rugged figure and Víli’s nimbler gait coming towards her.

 Thorin woke when Frís screamed.

Dís was half-dressed as she hurtled out of her bedroom, and Balin was still in his nightshirt and fur-lined slippers.

“Amad?” Thorin asked groggily. “You are well?” Frís nodded silently, pointing out the window, one hand covering her mouth and her eyes wide in fright. Stepping up behind her, Dís gaped, before bursting into laughter.

“Well?” Thorin demanded, easily lifting her away from the window so he could see too. The sight made him suck in a quick gasp of the crisp morning air.

Towards them, a mountain of fur was moving, topped by a grinning warg’s head. The four legs beneath the pile made him abandon the thoughts whirling in his head and leap to throw the door open.

“We found some new friends,” Dwalin said blandly, dropping the three wolf pelts he had been carrying on his back with obvious relief. Beside him, Víli dropped another two and embraced Dís with a firm squeeze and a hearty kiss that made her giggle like a newlywed. Dwalin swayed slightly on his feet. Thorin cursed, seeing that his entire side was covered in blood. “S’just me arm, Thorin,” Dwalin slurred, pitching forward into Thorin’s strong arms. With Víli bracketing his other side, they got Dwalin manoeuvred into a chair.

“I’ll go fetch Óin,” Balin murmured, having returned to his bedroom to get properly dressed when he realised that Frís wasn’t being attacked in the kitchen.

  “Blood loss, yes,” Óin mumbled to himself, his young apprentice staring at the grisly wound with obvious awe. Dwalin snored. Thorin scowled. “It’s bled freely, at least, and no teeth stuck in him either,” for a moment, the healer looked slightly disappointed; he usually got to keep the things he removed from his patients. “I’ll clean it and stitch him up, but Dwalin’s a braw Dwarf, he’ll heal in no time.” Nodding to himself, Óin set to work, cleaning the wound with distilled alcohol. Dwalin roared, but Thorin had anticipated that he’d come up swinging and held his arms tight. Dís’s strong hand pressed the warrior back into the chair and Óin commenced with the sewing deftly.

“Brought fur for you,” Dwalin mumbled into Thorin’s hair. Óin’s stitching wasn’t terribly painful, but he had no need to watch the needle pierce his flesh. Thorin chuckled weakly.

“As long as you brought you back too,” he replied, scratching his fingers through Dwalin’s beard the way he liked. “You need a bath, amrâlimê.” Dwalin was – in a word – pungent.

“Already got water heating,” Frís promised from somewhere over Thorin’s shoulder, which made the warrior grin toothily at her.

“Someone keep an eye on him if you put him in a tub,” Óin advised, “he’s going to be a little loopy for a few hours at least.” Wrapping his neat handiwork in a clean bandage, Óin washed his hands calmly. “No using that arm till it’s healed properly, Cousin Dwalin,” he said sternly. Dwalin was not known for his patience when it came to waiting for an injury to heal before he could start working again, although he was surprisingly firm about not allowing injured Dwarrow to walk their rounds without their healer’s permission. “Feed him plenty of fluids, and keep the bite clean.” With final admonishments and a small pot of salve given, Óin left, accepting a fat rabbit as payment for his services.

 Wrangling a sleepy Dwalin into the bath tub was a two-person job, but Víli had gone to take the pelts to the tannery, so Dís had to step in, helping Thorin, who ended up standing in the bath as Dwalin sat at his feet. Dís had laughed at the image they presented, but she had left with a fond peck on Dwalin’s cheek, abandoning Thorin to the task of washing off the sweat and gore that clung to his hair and skin. The tunic had been consigned to the pile of fabric they used for patching, the bloodied parts cut off. Along with the rest of his clothes, it had been put into the big washing kettle, awaiting Víli’s return so his equally dirty clothing could get the same treatment. Dís had calmly set to skinning and cutting up the rabbits, while Frís was making dough for a piecrust.

 “Am no dead, nor dyin,” Dwalin grumbled. “Dinnae fash yersel, Thorin.” Thorin just shook his head, moving the soapy rag slowly across Dwalin’s skin, surreptitiously checking that he really was fine. Dwalin hadn’t been wrong, however; aside from the gruesome – flesh wasn’t meant to dangle, in Thorin’s opinion, and certainly not Dwalin’s flesh – bite on his arm, Dwalin had suffered only minor scrapes and a few bruises.

“You’ve the Maker’s own luck, you do,” he mumbled, but received no more than a sleepy murmur in return. “Víli too.”

“Couldnae let the wee lad grow up without his Adad, could I?” Dwalin retorted, one eye opening to stare balefully at Thorin, who nodded. It was a point, and well-made, but he rather wished they hadn’t had to fight a pack of wargs at all. The vicious beasts were not easy to kill, and Thorin felt guilty for having abandoned the hunting trip the day before. “Hey,” Dwalin said, softly, wrapping his large palm around Thorin’s temple braid and pulling him closer. “Nowt you coulda prevented, kurkaruk, an’ ye know it.” Thorin nodded, pressing a kiss against Dwalin’s shaved head.

“Let’s get you to bed, aye?” he murmured, reaching for the towel Dís had kindly laid out for them. Getting Dwalin out of the tub was almost as much hassle as getting him into it in the first place, but Thorin managed. Picking up the warrior – Dwalin was stronger, but Thorin was by no means a weakling himself – Thorin carried him into their bedroom, laying him down on the mattress.

“I made a spot of broth for you Dwalin. Drink it before you sleep,” Frís said, her voice laced with a Queen’s command when Dwalin looked mulishly at the mug she held. Thorin had to crack a smile. If it had been him offering, Dwalin would have refused, just to be contrary, but Frís could get him to do anything with that combination of Amad-and-Queen she had. “C’mon, son, there you go,” she said, gently stroking his hair while he obediently drank the mug down.

Retrieving their fur blanket from where he had dropped it, Thorin draped the warm furs around Dwalin’s sleeping body. The bandage had a slight spot of red seeping through it, but he’d let Dwalin sleep a little more before changing it, Thorin decided. With a final kiss to Dwalin’s brow, he returned to the kitchen, his growling belly reminding him that he had skipped breakfast.

chapter 2

 @life-is-righteous @pandepirateprincess

[alleiradayne]

Reprisal

Summary: Natalie finds the perfect opportunity to get back at Sam for his last prank.

Word Count: 1,858

Pairing: Sam Winchester x Natalie Murphy (original character)

Warnings: Memory-smut, language, 

Prompt: This is for @deansdirtylittlesecretsblog​‘s RomCom Fluff Challenge. I chose #81, “I’ll have what she’s having” from When Harry Met Sally.

The orange haze of the dim tavern echoed a memory from her childhood, a simpler time long forgotten and buried in the recess of her past. Regulars dotted the bar, some chatting, other silent as they sipped their liquor, their beers, and stared their blank stares at nothing.

Natalie edged her way to the end of the bar, careful not to draw any attention. The last thing she needed was a guy old enough to be her father desperate for attention and seeing it from her. God, but that would be her luck. All she wanted was a drink while she waited.

She had hoped that the dive bar would prove profitable but as she scanned her surroundings, that notion was dead on arrival. There were no games she could bate someone into, not a deck of cards in sight – she scolded herself for not keeping one on her, but very few people were stupid enough to get hustled by a chick in a bar with her own deck of cards – and there was little else at which she was skilled enough to even attempt a hustle.

And then there was the pool table, isolated in the corner with its single overhead light. The felt was in abysmal shape and the cues looked as curved as timber curing for a ship hull. Even then, she could use all that to her advantage, but there wasn’t a soul in that bar dumb enough to hustle. No, these folks were hardened veterans and farmers, mechanics and construction workers. She couldn’t take their money.

But she could use the cash, her grumbling stomach reminding her of that fact. A bowl of popcorn slid to her hands as if summoned by her thoughts, and when Natalie looked up, an eyebrow quirked towards her hairline.

“What’ll it be?”

Natalie hesitated, baffled by the bartender. Beautiful, tall and blonde like Elizabeth, but thin instead of muscled. The tip bucket must be overflowing if her plunging tank top and two bras meant anything.

“You okay, hun?”

“Er …” she stuttered with a shake of her head, “Yeah, I'm good. I'll take a Balvenie, neat.”

The bartender smirked as she said, “My kinda girl. You in town long or just passin' through?”

Before Natalie could respond, the door of the bar swung wide with a dull ring of its bell hung from the ceiling, announcing a newcomer. Both women turned, the bartender with her careful eye and Natalie ready to run in a hot second. But when Sam appeared, she eased back in her seat, relief washing over her.

It was the bartender’s turn to stare, an eyebrow twitching skyward as she looked between Sam and Natalie. When Sam spotted her tucked in the far corner, a grin spread from ear to ear, and the bartender gaped. Natalie did her best to hide her smile; it wasn’t the first time a woman had read her flannel, jeans, boots, and scotch wrong.

And it won’t be the last, she thought.

In a few quick strides, Sam crossed the bar and took a seat beside Natalie. He dragged the chair to her side, so close his radiating warmth washed over her in a heady scent of gun oil and musty books.

“Sorry, I’m late,” he said as he gave her thigh a squeeze. “Dean needed a hand.”

She nodded as the bartender returned with her drink, then spoke to Sam. “What’ll it be, sweetie?”

You’d think a guy would get used to that sort of talk from a bartender, but not Sam. No sir, if a pretty woman smiled at him, his embarrassment was your best bet. Sure enough, a twitch flicked the corners his lips into a small smile as he averted his stare and hint of pink colored his nose. Natalie promised herself to give him shit for it later.

“Bottle of Margie, please,” he replied, cool and calm as ever.

The bartender left them once more and Natalie spoke in her absence.

“Everything okay?”

He nodded with a shrug, casual as always. “Dean’s fine. He didn’t really need my help, Liz was there,” he said with a dismissive flip of his hand. “Those two. Peas in a pod.”

An obnoxious bark of a laugh filled the bar, Natalie clamping her hand over her mouth at the outburst. “Sorry,” she muttered, though it wasn’t necessary. Sam’s smile returned, full as ever, and it sparked a fire in her belly, an ache only he could soothe. Son of a bitch, how did he do that with only a toothy grin?

When the bartender returned with his beer, he laid cash on the bar and thanked her, then took a long draw from the bottle. Natalie sipped from her scotch, wondering, an old thought from too many days passed returning to the surface.

“Do you think they know?”

Sam snorted into his beer, laughing. “I don’t think so. They’re far too occupied with each other lately. “

Another sip on her scotch put half the liquor in her belly, cheeks warm and hunger forgotten. “Really? You don’t think they … hear us?”

He glared at her, drawing another long pull from the bottle. “They better not. That’s … ugh, no, just … no, they don’t,” he said with a shudder.

“How do you know?” she pressed, alcohol encouraging her.

Another sarcastic roll of his eyes preceded his response. “What do you mean ‘how do you know?’, I know,” he muttered.

The bottle stopped half way his lips. Sam froze, taut as a drawn bow string at her touch. “But we …” she suggested, her hand slipping over his thigh.

A ragged breath pulled from his chest as he spoke. “Yes, we …”

“And I’m … vocal.”

He laughed then, tension fleeing as though it had never existed. When he continued to laugh, Natalie withdrew her hand with a shove of his leg, laughing with him. Their mirth lingered, drawing out until Sam said the stupidest thing possible.

“You’re not that vocal.”

While Natalie had learned plenty about Sam over the last year, it seemed he had failed to learn half as much about her. And although that was terribly unfortunate for him, it was the perfect opportunity for her to capitalize on his last prank. Never challenge a Murphy.

“Not that vocal, hm?” she asked, arms folding across her chest.

He shook his head with hint of a frown. “No, not really, no more than most,” he replied, taking the last pull from his bottle.

“Figures,” she snorted, leaving the thought hanging.

She had him then, hook, line, and sinker. His dower glare narrowed on her, suspicious eyes searching for a hint, a tell. “’Figures’ what?”

A final sip from her scotch was the last bit of courage she needed. “Figures you’d say bullshit like that, ‘no more than most’. Yeah, you’re a man, positive of everything.”

That sounded far surlier than she’d intended, but it was working. He stared at her with a sardonic curve to his lips and a quirk of one brow. “You don’t think I know what I’m talking about?”

Natalie shook her head as she said, “Nope.”

“Whatever,” he snorted as he turned back to the bar.

It was now or never. She shoved all-in on the river.

Her first moan snapped his head sideways as if he’d been slapped. And then the second, longer and louder, widened his eyes. By the third moan, Sam attempted to quiet her, but she resisted, leaning back in her chair and a hand running through her hair as a long, high moan ripped from her heaving chest.

If she ever thought to tell someone this story later, she’d say she was faking it. But that would be a lie. Thoughts bubbled up from a more recent memory – last night – and she was atop him again, riding him until her legs gave out. Sweaty bodies pressed together, her beasts against the hard expanse of his chest, and she rolled her hips in time with his, thrusting in perfect rhythm through a climax unlike any other.

Back in the bar, reality and fantasy mingled as Natalie writhed in her chair as she continued moaning, panting. Sam grabbed her knees to keep her still but to no avail. Natalie continued to moan, louder and louder with each cry, hands slapping the bar. With each second, her voice reached new heights, repeating mantras of, “Oh, God, yes!” and, “Yes, right there, yes! More! Fuck me, Sam, more, harder, more! YES!”

The final moment passed in a resounding, wordless keen, and then, as if nothing had happened at all, Natalie righted herself in her chair, returning to the dredges of her scotch. Every eye in the bar stared, shifting between her and Sam, but she paid them no mind.

A careful glance found Sam with a hand over his mouth as he held in his laughter, entire body shaking as he tried to contain himself. And then, from clear across the bar, the only other woman patron spoke.

“Bartender?”

The stunned bartender turned with an unsteady shuffle.

“I’ll have what she’s having!”

Natalie vowed then and there to make Sam laugh until he cried regularly, for there was no sound sweeter than his happiness. Cheeks red and gasping for breath, they cackled, and when the bartender told the woman she already was drinking the same thing as Natalie, she grimaced at the glass in her hand as if to curse it for not doing the same for her.

Howling with laughter, Natalie clenched her stomach. “Oh, God, it hurts. Stop laughing!”

Sam wiped at tears that streamed down his face. “I can’t! I can’t believe you did that!”

Natalie hiccupped, coughing and laughing as she tried to speak. “Me neither, but—I had to get you back!”

“Get me back?” he gasped as his laughter subsided. “For what?”

The bartender refilled her glass without asking, and Sam traded his empty bottle for a new one. “For what?! For your last bullshit prank, that’s what.”

“Pff,” he scoffed. “You think an exploding pie is bad?”

“Yes!” she exclaimed, “It took me fifteen minutes to get it all out of my hair!”

Sam’s chuckled, tickled by the memory. “Hah, yeah, that was great.”

“No, it wasn’t,” she spat, “it was a giant mess.”

“Yeah, and I cleaned it up,” he stated. “You could have asked for help with your hair.”

Her laughter clipped with a click of her teeth, the idea of herself and Sam in the shower far too alluring to let go. “As amazing as that sounds right now, a couple weeks ago we were still …” she floundered, words lost and she sought them in her drink. “You know.”

His small smile, the one he seemed to reserve for her, tugged at the corners of his lips. “We were still awkward dorks.”

“’Awkward dorks’ is one way to put it,” she started, “but I was thinking more like hunters that avoid relationships for a reason.”

Sam raised his beer to that, and Natalie met his toast. “To us,” he saluted.

Maybe there was hope for them after all.

“To us.”

[incalyscent-fr]

@fr-tangelojack @fr-blackiebelle

              When they breach the Highland Scrub, the land below is a swath of red and black.

              Iapetus draws to a halt, wings flaring to catch his body. Slowly, so slowly, he lets his claws set on the ground below.  The Carrion Canyon sprawls out in from of him, so precariously perched on its lip. His new clan peters off behind him, churning wings and scrabbling claws going silent in his wake.

              They were too late.  They were far too late.

              Iapetus turns his black eyes to the ground.  He places his nails in another set of claw marks and curls his fist until the fury dies down.

              Below, the black of the Shade runs like a river through the Canyon.  Blood splashes the grey rock turning it red, turning the whole area into a patchwork of colour.  The bodies are dense, laying on top of one another like they thought that if they died together they could be saved.  Some look as though they fell asleep and died.  Some barely look like a dragon anymore.

              “We need to go down,” Kronos whispers into Iapetus’ ears, in the voice he uses when he knows something.

              Iapetus nods, quickly motioning for his clan to follow. They are all nervous, for all of them except himself, Cybele and Kronos have every right to fear the Lightning.  Their magic clashes, but the Shade boils in his veins as he spreads his wings to glide down to the Canyon below.

              Closer, they can hear the Beasts.

              The screaming, animal howl that rips from their lungs.  The squelch of their footfalls.  The sounds of their teeth tearing through the flesh of their once comrades, using their flesh to stave off the hunger.

              Everyone is on high alert, tense muscles and raised hackles.  Even Clymene has her hand on her blade, her white eyes lit up with adrenaline.  But Iapetus looks to Kronos for everything these days, and his hands are lax, covered eyes far to their right.  His ears are up, listening.

              Which is why Iapetus is surprised when Kronos doesn’t even draw his blade when a Beast hurls itself through the spires, claws and teeth clanging against Cybele’s iron hide.  Iapetus lets out a wordless shout, his Hunters springing into action.

              Before any of them can even begin to make a blow, an arrow pierces the Beast’s neck, and it falls over dead.

              Iapetus stares at the fallen Beast, magic still palmed in his hands, before he follows the line of the arrow with his eyes. Standing with bow in hand is a Wildclaw. They are small, and while it looks like they’ve seen the sorrow of the world their shoulders are tall.

              “Have you come to help us?” they say, and it then that they show weakness, a tremble in their voice.

              They look so tired, but there isn’t a scratch of Shade on them.  Their eyes are electric, body caving in from where they haven’t eaten.  Cybele knows the look well; they know a former slave when they see one.

              “Yes,” they say, out of turn.

              Iapetus is surprised by their voice, for they rarely speak.  It is good of him to listen when they do, though, so he nods his head at this new Wildclaw.

              “Show us your camp,” he says, “and what is your name, child?”

              The Wildclaw stands a little straighter, sets their jaw and lets their eyes drift far, far into the forest of spires.

              “I don’t have one.”

-

              The rest of the travel was uneventful.  Nameless kept an arrow on their bowstring, but never needed to loose it.  The spires drip black and red, and have already begun to rust without their upkeep. The ground squishes underfoot, even though it hadn’t rained in years.

              “No offence kid, but,” Clymene says carefully, “why in the Eleven Flights are you still living here?”

              Nameless doesn’t answer, just ducks left under some broken wires and weaves further into the Canyon.  It is only a few more steps before most of the Order freezes.  Iapetus casts a look over his shoulder, before turning to his clan.

              “There’s…there’s a lot of lighting energy ahead,” Clymene says.

              She plants her feet, looking sideways at her clanmates.

              “Go.  Take Kronos and Cybele.  I’ll stay here with the others,” she says, and Iapetus nods before he darts through the metal forest to follow Nameless.

              The spires thin.  Great metal buildings loom in the distance, but right in front of him and huge spire towers up.  It holds a glass sphere spinning with copper loops, and when Nameless approaches it lights up and spits Lightning magic and Iapetus’ toes.

              “Hey!  They’re okay,” Nameless says, making Cybele give them a look.

              Nameless turns to them, suddenly bashful but determined.

              “I would just go with you,” they say, picking at their words, “but I need more help than that.  I can’t go without her.”

              The orb lights up again, making a mechanical hum. Nameless reaches up and touches their claws to the glass, letting the static crawl down their arm.

              On the other side of the glass, fingers press to mirror theirs. 

[thatboomerkid]

Evil Big Wind

Evil Big Wind

The swordsman called Seven Falling Black Feathers strode with a slow and confident swagger up through the wide and winding valleys of the Felldales, his heavy sky-steel great-blade glinting upon his bare back, his late father’s worn leather sandals strapped-tight upon his tanned feet, and a song thundering in his heart.

Today is good, the swordsman decided after a moment, breathing deep and closing his eyes.

Around his neck was a gift from his youngest daughter: tiny white snail shells -- polished, glimmering like little beads -- strung upon a knotted length of scavenged, lusterless grey rubber. He treasured it, and had sworn to wear it every day; his mother’s gift, a gnarled wineskin once half-full of fermented mushroom-tea, was already near empty. The violet mark of his wife’s savage love-bite at the right side of his throat – his favorite gift of all, in truth – ached, and the huge man’s pale, scarred face burned slightly to remember the mingled hunger and pride in her bright blue eyes as she sent him forth to go a-reaving.

Yes. It is a good day, the swordsman thought.

The braids of his long, ash-blonde hair caught at drifts of the cold breeze, ripe and raw and rippling on this early autumn afternoon ... and the swordsman laughed to himself.

Ash and aluminum were on the air.

It smelled like killing, and the killing was good.

original image from here

Seven Falling Black Feathers was a full high-man of the tribe, this day. He had bedded his wife, bested a horde of summoned slave-fiends, and recited the many names of his honored ancestors, each, all in full view of his family and of his Lady, Speaker of the Evil Big Wind. He had been proven a worthy warrior, a proper husband, and rightful heir to a legacy of blood and thunder.

Each hunter, demon-caller & flame-seer of the tribe had been offered the chance to challenge him -- one final time -- in single combat, to the death, for the rights to his name; not a one had stepped forward.

By their silence, they had made Seven Falling Black Feathers a full voice in the Speaker’s Choir.

The sky-steel blade on his back sung with him now, glowing; another strong baby grew in his wife’s belly, soon to be born with a fierce name blessed by the spirits. Today, he was the deadliest thing on the planet. That was enough to make any man smile.

From far above, the cry of his hawk signaled that more fools came to face Seven Falling Black Feathers … men clothed in bolts and iron, armed with sharp crossbows and their loud, black-smoke sorcery. A small force, moving his way swiftly upon horseback. Hunting. They would all be dead, soon. More souls for mighty Pazuzu, greater glory for the people of the Evil Big Wind tribe, heaps of treasure to be brought back for his wife and family.

The cruel smile deepened upon the face of Seven Falling Black Feathers; he palmed a jagged chakram to his throwing-hand and moved to conceal himself at high ground.

In the long shadows of the valley, the hulking swordsman was the most-lethal of predators.

These lands, in the long-ago years of his grandfather’s youth, had been contested. Claimed by many, conquered by none, and held for hunting only by the fabled Black Sovereign in his sick-man’s citadel far to the east at Sky Fall; there were giants here, twisted sorcerers and hunched scavengers, orc-blood raiders and metal things not born of this earth nor constructed under these stars.

Feh. Those were the before-times.

Then came the Speaker of the Evil Big Wind, striding down upon shining clouds from the Worldwound in the north, with the demon-spirits she could call-forth from the air. She alone now claimed these lands, and she challenged all to face her or to take her blessing.

Her magics were strong, indeed: a pass of her hand made the flesh of slain foes into the finest of feasts; by the pointing of her finger, fresh water sprung up from the desert; with her kiss, the hot blood of her chosen raged and burned like sky-fire. To behold her face was to invite nightmare and madness; to hear her voice was sheerest earthly ecstasy.

All before her bowed, or fled, or were slain.

Her many miracles unified even as they divided; with each passing year, the tribe now multiplied in strength. With each winter, their treasuries swelled and their ranks grew bolder. With each nightfall, their hunting improved.

The tribe of the Evil Big Wind was still small; their territory could be walked, in-full, in less that a ten-day, and they counted fewer than a thousand souls amongst their war-choirs. But they were swift, and sharp, and they possessed a boldness born from the blessing of wicked spirits.

His hawk cried again.

Seven Falling Black Feathers leapt up. And up. And then he crouched low upon a tall, sunset-colored stone, gauging his choke-point; his pale green eyes tracked the rust-strewn path he would follow to charge-upon the survivors of his first assault. Tuning his ears, breathing with measured calm, after a few minutes the huge swordsman caught the low, ominous sound of a half-dozen men riding his way.

He blew a sharp, high whistle; his hawk began to circle in tighter loops. She would strike for the eyes, trained-well to come crashing down like a bolt of thunder at her lord’s command.

Without looking, Seven Falling Black Feathers began to prepare an enchanted extract from the demon-bag that hung at the hip of his leather skirt. Once his sharp chakram and a volley of explosives had done their gruesome work, he decided, he would quaff down the fiend-potion.

Indeed, he would stride into the blaze and fight the last of the survivors in the shape of a cancer-titan.

Yes. He would challenge them then, and roar his name, and send the last of these fools screaming to their weak gods with the sound of the Evil Big Wind – and of the blazing title his daughters now bore – on their blood-foamed lips.

Then he would carry back corpses, to be welcomed by his Lady and by his ladies.

Before sunset, both this world and the spirit-world-to-come would speak tales of his power & his prowess. Tonight, he would dance around the blazing cook-fires with his hunting-kin, he would make love to his wife, and he would tell his precious little girls of his skill at arms as he tucked them into a warm bed.

He would pray, and boast, and Pazuzu would laugh with terrible delight.

The hulking man shrugged beneath the welcome weight of his glowing great-sword as the first of the armored men rounded the corner, oblivious to their foregone fate.

He let them get closer.

Closer.

There.

A single chakram sang through the cool & lonely air; the stench of raw explosives began to sizzle as Seven Falling Black Feathers -- without looking -- tossed a writhing demon-bag into the nimble fingers of his throwing-hand and gauged its weight.

It was perfect.

He moved, crouched low, and threw again.

One armor-man’s head came loose from his body then, as the shrill whine of the chakram became a wet and discordant clang; before the man even knew that he was dead, there was a twisting coil of sticky, slimy flame half-scattered among the iron-shod hooves beneath his companions.

The swordsman moved once more.

A sharp whistle; the scream of a hawk taking its prey. The helpless cries of men, filled with empty half-prayers; the wordless, panicked terror of horses: more honest, if not more useful. And then the dull, oppressive thunder-crack of gunfire, so loud in the canyon that it forced-back all other sounds, making even death-howls fall away like a fistful of fallen leaves before the flood of rainstorms.

Nothing but a panicked misfire.

Grinning broadly, Seven Falling Black Feathers moved again, and again, dropping ever lower; whisper-quiet rings of steel sang from his finger-tips, one after another, finding gaps in armor and exposed flesh to slice ... or simply crushing those bones beneath the steel, where the plate was too thick.

Bolts, shrieking, scattered off the stones around him.

Something hot -- stinging -- pinched at his shoulder. With a glance, the hulking swordsman discounted the crossbow’s wound as insignificant. It would bleed, and badly ... but it would not hamper him.

In truth, it would kill any normal man by daybreak ... yet with a touch, this very evening the Speaker of the Evil Big Wind could make him whole once more.

Laughing, the massive man dropped one last time, setting loose the last of his bombs just before he fell behind an outcropping of worn and ancient coral. Unwholesome fires swiftly bloomed upon the other side. Smoke rose, and now he stood tall upon the slaughterhouse floor.  

His missiles were exhausted; a gleaming great-blade fell into the swordsman’s hands.

The taste of demon-blood rushed down the hulking man’s throat as his stomach knotted; thorns coiled from his brows as thick fingers fused beneath new muscles and he flexed into a mountainside of alien bone.

Seven Falling Black Feathers thought, then, very briefly of his wife’s sly & knowing smile.

Yes. Yes, the killing was good today, indeed.

[alteredphoenix]

a tongue shriller than all the music (WIP)

A/N: I had an itch to read some Dragon Age fanfics last night. The problem, however, is that I’ve only played Origins and Awakening, and for me that limits how much I can experience the fandom as a whole (until I get around to playing DA2 and Inquisition, that is). In the end, I could not find a fic that held my interest; I am notoriously picky when it comes to uncovering a good yarn.

On the other hand, I did manage to locate the WIP of a one-shot (from December 25, 2017; Merry Christmas!) that adapted the Tamlen scenario a Mahariel Warden goes through via the former’s POV - at least until he’s put down by them.

This WIP utilizes the fem!Mahariel Warden (which I used in my playthroughs) and - though it isn’t necessary to the plot - hints of fem!Mahariel/Leliana. The title is inspired by quotes attributed to Uriel Septim VII from The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, when asked by the Hero of Kvatch where they are going once they leave the Imperial Prison: “I go to my grave. A tongue shriller than all the music calls me. You shall follow me yet for a while, then we must part.”

-

She’s gotten more meat on her since he last saw her. Mahariel has always been a skinny little thing—she still is, but she’s leaner, sculpted, not so bony anymore. Good, he thinks, licking his lips. It’ll make slaking the hunger all the more delectable.

He is both glad and disgusted for thinking such thoughts, but he can’t stop them. He and the taint are one now. It’s as normal as having blood run through his veins and bone keeping his muscles and innards aloft. He needs his strength, what cunning he can dredge forth from the bloodlust that grips him in its ironclad hold and shows him, in his eyes, and behind them, total darkness. He will need it in the days to come, when the Master calls for them to make one last push into the heartlands. They would not give, only take. They would break the mortality shackling their vessels and make so much more.

No! he wants to cry, wants to yell it in the face of the beautiful creature with all the force his shriveled, blackened lungs can muster. All he can manage is a croak from a mouth that parts and a tongue tasting air tainted by festering wounds, the sulfurous tang of unleashed magic, and the fresh, sharp copper-scent of honing oil. He slides his tongue back in, swallows and has to clench his teeth at the yodeling battle cries ringing clear, so damn clear, across the field and in his head; and he doubles over. He doubles over, knees buckling as if his shoulders bear the weight of a burden heavier than he is, and breathes through his nostrils. Breathe! he commands himself. Breathe! and among the garbled roars of the Shrieks, the clashing of claw against steel, flinging spells and whistling arrows, he can hear his Master. Buried, deep, pulled from the very edges of muted chaos into chaotic creation:

JOIN.

FEED.

REVEL.

NOURISH.

KILL.

KILL!

He swallows back bile, just barely, tosses his head back and howls.

Then he runs—away from the fighting, away from the Shrieks, away from the Master, the voices, the thirst, the hunger. Away from Mahariel. He ducks his head and runs.

YOU WILL NOT.

Yet he does, and though the song rises in a steady crescendo he is able to get as far as the edge of the camp before his feet compel him to stop and SUBMIT. He pants, one hand pressed to his chest, and there’s another ringing in his ears again. It has nothing to do with the darkspawn enunciating their death throes or the way the blades of their foes (NO!) punching through armor into sickly-soft flesh. It is wordless, formless, high as the ringing in one’s ears, but there’s a grinding machination lurking underneath: of fires roaring in blackened forges; of a tidal wave of corpses tumbling down, down, into the molten heart of the earth; the gentle, cavernous crooning of the Master, humming—scraping—at the very precipices of a mind that dictates what should be and what should not be.

JOIN.

FEED.

KILL.

LIVE, says the Master, and the scraping is now a tearing now a sundering. It drowns out the Shrieks and their death throes and fills his head with teeth and fire and by the gods he’s on fire he’s on fire everything HURTS—

He bends over again, and this time he lets the vomit flow, bloodied and full of ichor. Strands dangle and drip from his lips when he finishes, and each breath makes his chest constrict a little tighter and shakes him harder. He retches again, but nothing else remains, and he manages to straighten up, wiping his mouth with the back of a blistered, brown-splotched hand.

EAT, AND BE GLAD.

“N-No,” he mumbles, and even now isn’t sure if he said it aloud or in his thoughts. What does it matter? He is tired, he is aching, he wants no part in this—but I am so hungry, and if he had the strength and mental fortitude he would cry and scream for all he is worth.

EAT.

Yes. He has to eat. He must eat. This is who he is now, what he has been gifted with, and gifts must never go to waste.