#i had the thought to do those patreon or ko-fi things where i can put the full-length timelapses in it | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

adventures-of-the-creeping-bam · 11 months ago

Text

NEVER SPLIT THE PARTY: THE ADVENTURES OF THE CREEPING BAM, BOOK FOUR: THE HUNT - CHAPTER 17

If you’re new to the story, please go check out Book 1 first …

Boof 4 Chapter 1 is here …

IMPORTANT: Please note this story includes content that may be considered mature, such as moderate battle violence, some strong language and occasional mild sexual scenes.

If you want to support my writing, feel free to swing by my Patreon or Ko-fi.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: GAEL

As much as I feel deep shame about having to go into the corner to pee in the bucket that was finally provided for me after Tavarrat brought us some food and water, I must admit it feels a good deal better than just wetting myself because I couldn’t move. I spent a few extra minutes while I was squatting with my britches around my knees inspecting the state of my thighs, but thankfully while they’re still a little clammy they’re nowhere near as red as I expected, despite the chafing. Even so, as I hurriedly pull them back on after buttoning my drawers up, I find myself looking out around the room again, wary of being caught out even though I know we’re both alone in here. And da’s out again, hanging slumped where he was left before but now, at least, sitting a little more comfortably than before.

It’s another little mercy that Mallys came up with, while we were having our very guarded conversation about my friends, or at least what little I was willing to reveal. When Tavarrat returned with the food and water, she sent her off again to fetch the bucket and also the little stool he’s now perched on, taking at least a little of the weight from his arms now as he remains comprehensively lashed to the pipes. I couldn’t help it, I had to thank her for that too, it was a small gesture but it meant a lot.

We were almost becoming friendly, I think, even if I was working hard to keep it clear in my mind that this is not someone that I can trust in any capacity right now. And then she spoiled it by accidentally letting slip that one of her people might have killed Thelgaewynn during the fight after they took me captive … I blew up, I was so angry, but more than that I was horrified, this bare-faced reminder that she really is my enemy, that they all are, that they’ve been hired to murder every one of my friends, and that eventually they’ll murder me too, most likely. I called her a conceited, two-faced bitch who deserved to fry in a thousand hells for the rest of time for having any kind of part at all in that, and I’m sure I called her much worse things too, I can’t really be sure. After that it got a whole lot more fuzzy. She left soon after, but by that point I barely noticed.

No, I was curled up in the other corner, my arms wrapped around my head while I wept like a baby. Fuck … Thel … I mean I didn’t know her yet, not really, but … no, I think I knew her enough, at least. Enough to like her, I really did, and now … well no, once I got myself under control it was mostly through reminding myself that, honestly, she never actually said that they definitely killed her, she didn’t know herself, that they were already gone before her friend could know for sure, she was just really hurt. Enough to kill her, but still … no, I don’t believe it, that dwarf is too fucking tough to die like that, I know she is. Or maybe I’m just trying really hard to convince myself of the fact …

Buckling my belt, I let my tunic settle back over it and take a quick step away from the bucket, uncomfortably mindful that it smells no better than I did last night. Worse is that it was never actually made clear if anyone’s actually going to come and collect it at some point to empty it out, or if it’s just going to stink the place out further as I have to keep topping it up. Or perhaps Vandryss might devise something even worse for it when she comes back. Oh for the love of Minerva, Gael, why do you have to put those kinds of thoughts in your head in the first place?

Moving as far across the room as I can from the bucket now, I plant myself against the wall and take a long moment to stretch my arms, then each of my legs one at a time. Making the most of my relative freedom while I have it, uncomfortably aware of what they plan on doing with me, sooner of later. I’ve still got a whole lot of chains hanging from the shackles locked around my limbs and throat, but for now, at least, I’m otherwise largely unrestricted. Although with the door locked it doesn’t really mean a whole lot.

Like a glutton for punishment, the first thing I did once I was in a state to actually use my newfound good fortune, such as it is, was try to weave a sigil, hoping against hope that perhaps Tavarrat might have made a mistake with her work after all. A glyph inscribed wrong, perhaps, a small but important portion of spell-binding overlooked or fudged without being caught first. Tiny niggles, perhaps, but enough to create a chink that I could exploit, anything that might allow me to use just a sliver of my magic. Nothing happened. As if I really expected anything else.

Frustrated with that inevitability, I instead planted myself against the wall and closed my eyes, trying to send a message to Lady Sulin Naru instead. That didn’t get through, any more than my subsequent attempt to contact Tulen. I started crying again at that, but stopped myself quickly, growing quite furious with myself for getting so upset over something which is entirely out of my control. Fucking Vandryss and her pet witch put me in this position, and I have to find another way to get myself out of it.

So I spent the next ten minutes going over the room, checking everything I found. Not that there’s much here – stacked chairs and odd boxes, but they’re nailed shut too tight for me to be able to check the contents, and I doubt they’d leave me alone with them if there was any real chance I could actually use anything in here to escape. The only other things of any real note in here are the pipes da’s chained to, but while they’re broad and sturdy there doesn’t seem to be anything running through them, at least right now. None of them are warm to the touch, nothing’s leaking out of them, they’re just there. Cold and implacable. Waiting for me to join him, like an uncomfortable but inevitable promise …

I would have liked to at least talk with him, but since we’ve been left alone he’s just passed out again, still tired from his treatment, probably, and made all the more sleepy after finally being fed and watered. I haven’t the heart to wake him, I’d much rather just let him sleep, he needs it after what’s been done to him. To be honest I have half a mind to follow his example, catch up on my own rest while I can, but I’m wary to close my eyes right now, not while I have to do something, anything, whatever I can to get out of here, however futile.

Finally I push myself away from the wall and move to the other side, pulling one of the chairs down and carrying it close to my father before setting it down and dropping into it. I let the chains drop without ceremony and they’re a little louder than I’d like, but when I look to him he doesn’t stir. I breathe a sigh of relief and sit forward, letting my wrists rest across my knees as I turn to ponder the room in general, and that door in particular.

In spite of the restrictions, I still reach out with my senses, quieting my mind by smooth, subtle increments as I concentrate entirely on the door and whatever must be beyond. The corridor and the other cells and … whoever’s out there. My breathing slows, my limbs becoming strangely light despite the chains weighing them down, my body becoming increasingly insubstantial to me as the moments tick by, as I recede into my mind while still reaching out. My focus remains stubbornly fixed on the door, never leaving it, I let myself blink without consciously thinking about it but leave my lower mind to handle that business now as I let myself drift away through what I can see, what I can hear, what I can now feel.

But even though the drift begins, it fails to pierce the cold, solid barrier of the door. I become unnervingly aware of it, every inch of its surface, every nail and screw in the boards and banded iron, even of the many locks, although only the one slipped at this time. Locking me in, of course, but only so much as they need to prevent me from wandering, otherwise powerless as I am now. This door … I know everything about it already, where the weak spots are, that the top hinge is rusting some and that a particularly heavy boot could probably take it down with a single kick, that the locks have been changed three time since it was put in. That the latest collection are all very new, installed barely three months ago, and all in the same sitting. Not that I have to surmise why that was, of course …

And yet, no matter how hard I push, I just can’t get beyond it, either through my feelings or my hearing, no matter how much augmentation I might be able to scrape together from the pitiful dregs I actually have at my disposal. Presented with the first solid obstacle, any attempt at anything beyond the simplest, most pathetically simple cantrip falls down flat. Damn it … these fetters really are too bloody strong.

Letting out a frustrated grunt, I throw my arms a little and the chains give a louder clanking clatter, but I just let it happen this time, simply sitting back now so I can slouch into the chait, hands hanging between my legs while I just wallow. Damn it … fucking … gods, what the fuck am I supposed to do about any of this? I have no power, no weapons, I’m trapped in a place my enemies can gain uncomfortably easy access to, and my friends have no idea where the bloody hell I am. I can’t even hold out much of any hope that either Tulen or Lady Naru could get in contact with me, since I’m sure Tavarrat will have thought about that ahead of time and simply deadened the whole place. It wouldn’t even have been particularly difficult for her, I was learning to do spells like that in my first year at the Academy.

Besides, even if they could reach me, I doubt I could actually respond thanks to the collar. It’s all I can do now not to just reach up and start yanking at it, try to pull it off even though I know there’s not the slightest hope I could actually manage it. It’s not a matter of not being strong enough, this thing is far beyond mortal might. Only magic can break these bonds. So I just stay as I am, glaring daggers at absolutely nothing, my shameful, ineffectual fury wasted on empty air.

Then I hear da start to stir again, the subtle clinking of his chains announcing his shifting as he lets out a low, muddled grunt of his own and starts to sit up, his bonds producing even more noise now. Then he lets a coughing groan go, and then there’s a sudden clatter as he must jump, coming to himself now and realising he’s trapped, fuzzy for a few moments before he finally remembers what’s actually been going on. I sit up as soon as I hear this, turning enough to be able to turn sidelong to him, gripping both my hands together in my lap now as I watch him blink his one good eye while the other barely opens a slit under the swelling, and he turns his head my way. Even so, he takes long seconds to focus enough to actually see me, and then he almost sobs. Like he forgot.

“Oh … oh … I’m sorry, my dear. I’m … oh, my mind is just … I’m so much less than I should be, I don’t … I’m …”

“Da, it’s okay, don’t torment yourself, I understand. You’ve been through so much, I’m sure I would be the same after … I don’t even know how long you’ve been here. I can only just keep track of how long I’ve been here, and it’s been …” I falter as I go through in my head how long it might have been since I first work up in here. “Shit … a couple of days now, I think. Well, maybe more …”

“No, Gael, I’m … I really am sorry. I wish you weren’t here. I mean … no, I mean there’s a part of me that is glad you’re here, it is wonderful to see you again, despite the circumstances, but … no, I would rather you weren’t. at least not trapped here with me. I wish you were out there, with your friends …”

“So do I, believe me …” I mutter that, mostly just to myself, giving the door another dark, frustrated hard stare now. “But they’ll be looking for me. For both of us, like we were searching for you before. Kesla won’t give up, no matter what they throw at her. She’s the most stubborn person I’ve ever met, it’s one of her best qualities.”

“I remember …” He chuckles a little, and while his smile’s weak it still feels sincere. “You mentioned that, more than once … in your letters. You’re very fond of her.”

“You’d definitely like her. And the others. Even Art …” I falter at his name, I don’t know why but I do … something hurts inside me saying it, because it brings up something unbidden. Some dark, dread idea I’m so scared to admit, realising I might never get to see him again. That something horrible might already have happened to him and I wouldn’t know anything about it. But … no, wouldn’t I? Somehow I don’t think that would be so simple …

“You like him, too. The bakaneko. You haven’t written about him as much, but … I think there might be a reason for that.”

“What? I don’t …” I stop myself, just giving him a close look now, but he’s still smiling that sad little smile of his. There’s a wistfulness in his eye now, it’s a strange thing to see under present circumstances. I have no idea what that’s even about.

He doesn’t press, though, and after I remain silent for another moment he looks down again. He coughs a little, and I wish they’d actually left the water jug in here, or at least the cup, with some more water in it. For him, for later. Instead all I can do is just watch him suffer, and it hurts me deeply. “”Are you … oh shit … I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can –”

“No … I’m all right … enough, at least.” He clears his throat, taking a good long time doing it, and finally sits forward as much as he can before spitting onto the floor in front of him. The results are not pretty, it’s a thick, phlegmy wad that splatters onto the thin carpet, and there’s some blood in it too which distresses me even more, my throat tightening just seeing it. But he coughs again, a little wetter, and somehow it manages to sound almost relieved. “Oh … no, don’t worry about me. I’ve lived through …” He chuckles again, grim as before. “Fuck … no, I really can’t say I have actually been through worse than this, this would be my lowest point to date.”

“No, surely …” I sit forward now as I give him a sharp sidelong look, dr9opping my voice to a whisper. “I heard you died. Twice. This can’t be worse than that.”

His smile fades now, replaced with a much more curious look, and he studies me for a long beat. “But who could have … no-one at the Citadel would know about that, except perhaps Arrhetel. But she would never have told you about that …”

“There’s someone else with us now. Someone you know. Someone powerful.” Suddenly I’m uncomfortably aware that we’re in a hostile place, and I can’t put it past Tavarrat to have put some means of listening in on our conversations into operation in here. I don’t want to reveal anything that I haven’t already potentially let slip to Mallys.

“Another wizard? Or not …” He frowns, looking down as he must ponder the possibilities. The fact it takes him so long makes me think there must be a lot of acquaintances to go through. Finally when he looks up he just looks confused. “No, I can’t think who that might even be …”

“Someone close. You know her extremely well, and have done for a long time, I think. She’s … well, she’s very unusual. Perhaps unique. I’ve certainly never met anyone like her.”

Again he just watches me, still pondering, then something seems to dawn on him, and he looks away quickly, a very complicated expression crossing his face. I have no idea what to make of it, it seems almost … quilty? “Su? You met … is she here? In Untermer?”

I almost don’t answer him, I’m still desperately trying to work out what he could possibly actually mean by that look, the way he asked that question. It seems like I’ve shaken him to his core with this revelation, but I don’t understand why. “I don’t … I thought you were friends. She said you are. Very good friends.”

“We are. Of course we are. She’s one of my very best.” He lets a particularly heavy sigh go as he looks up at me again, and his face seems softer now, at least as much as it can in its current state. “I’m glad she’s here, that she’s helping. She’s … she’s like your friend Kesla, in some very particular ways. Certainly she’s every bit as stubborn. She won’t back down either.”

“She’s kind of amazing, actually.” I feel my face immediately start to flush as soon as I say it, I really didn’t intend to just blurt it out like that. But he just smiles, incredibly fondly, I realise.

“Minerva, yes. She is that …” He looks down, sighing, and doesn’t speak again for a while. Then, when he looks up again the smile’s gone, and suddenly he’s so serious I’m almost alarmed. “Yes, of course. Gael, there’s something I need to tell you, about her. About who she really is. She’s –”

That ratchetting sound in the lock stops him dead, his eyes instantly going wide as I feel my heart jump in my chest and my stomach clench, every inch of me going icy cold while my throat almost seems to close. The instant fear that grips me must hit him as hard as he also visibly stiffens, his twisted fingers twitching ineffectually as I’m sure he wishes he could curl them around the chains to pull himself a little more upright. Then the key finally turns in the lock, and again the door sticks for a moment before it’s roughly shoved open, and I’m sure that bad hinge must give just a little more in the process …

And she walks in. Hell, not even a walk, she’s stalking in, fast and powerful and dangerous, driven by dread purpose now as she makes a beeline right for me. She looks … oh fuck, I don’t think I’ve seen her looking this angry before. Her eyes are on fire now, I realise, the green genuinely glowing now, actually lighting the room a little brighter with an uncomfortably baleful flickering glow. I catch a glimpse of Tavarrat slipping into the room after her and pushing the door to, but not closing it entirely this time, and for just a second I wonder if maybe I could risk trying to run past Vandryss before she reaches me, if I could get past the rogue wizard too. Somehow escape while there’s just that tiniest sliver of a chance.

Except there’s no chance of that actually really working, I’ve seen how fast this … woman is, as well as how strong she is. I know I wouldn’t make it past her, and she might kill me right there, might not be able to stop herself. She feels like just the type who would chase down and murder someone just because they were running away.

But the look on her face … gods help me, she looks ready to kill right now. Maybe I should run anyway, maybe it wouldn’t actually make any real difference but this feels like death bearing right down on me.

Da certainly picks up on it, I hear him straining against the chains again as he snarls: “No! Stop it! I fucking told you! You leave them alone!”

Vandryss doesn’t even acknowledge him as she takes the last big, striding steps up to me, it’s like she doesn’t even hear him, she’s so focused on me. And she doesn’t stop once she’s close either, she comes right up to me, so I’ve already started to get up, actually falling a little over the chair in my haste as she reaches me.

Her expression doesn’t change at all as she shoots both hands out at once and clamps them around my throat, instantly starting to choke me as she lifts me up at least as much as our height difference can actually manage. In the end my toes are dangling bare inches above the floor, I think, and as I strangle they start kicking mostly of their own accord while my hands immediately go to her wrists, desperately grasping as I try to pull free. It's no more successful than trying to pry away the cold enchanted steel of my collar …

I can hear my father screaming at her now, and just about make out the words, but my head’s already filling with that white noise as I choke and twitch and claw for breath that just can’t come, the heat rising fast as I feel my brain starting to cook. Like before, I’m already losing focus on much of anything besides the woman strangling me and her baleful hot stare, but I can just make out Tavarrat walking up behind her, although she’s taking her damn time about it now. Like she’s not particularly bothered by what’s happening now. When I do finally get enough of a look at her face to actually see her expression it’s worrying enough, she seems almost as angry as Vandryss, I think, and I realise there won’t be any help there, not this time. She doesn’t care what this monstrous bitch does to me right now.

As it gets worse, I start thrashing more, my body burning more energy even as it’s starving for air, reacting largely on its own now as my survival instinct truly kicks in. I stop trying to pry her hands from my throat and just start battering at her arms, desperately trying to break her hold, but this doesn’t work so I become more wild with my swings, some just flailing wide as I start to lose focus but a few hitting home. One fist cracks her across the face but she barely even twitches, certainly it’s like she didn’t even notice I hit her, she just narrows her eyes a little more and tightens her grip even more, and I feel something start to crack a little, deep in my neck, I think. I let out a gasping shriek but it doesn’t reach my mouth because there’s no air left in my lungs, all I manage to get out is a wretched rattling gurgle. And now my vision’s narrowed to little more than a tight tunnel of thick, grasping lines of inky darkness, and all I can see in the light at the end of it is her face, seeming so far away now. Worse, it's been long indeed since I actually heard anything beside the great heavy throb of rushing noise in my head …

It's possible I genuinely black out for a moment or two, I can’t really be sure, but I think there must be a beat or more of empty darkness and nothing else before I crash down on the floor in a sprawling tangle of watery noodle limbs. There’s a beat where I just lie in something of a semi-twilit daze, but then the urge to breathe again becomes too great and I start coughing, great stabbing cold knives in my horribly tortured throat while I use ever inward breath to drag in any air at all. I go on like this for a long time, curling up into myself like a wilting flower while I just cough and gulp, over and over again, each breath coming with a painful whooping sound and a great spasm of my curling back. It takes me a long time to muster enough strength to just move my arms enough to bring my hands to my throat, and when I finally touch the skin above the collar it stings, the flesh is so sore, telling me she wrung me out like a wet towel.

After another minute or two I’m finally able to blink the tears out of my eyes enough to look up at her, hunched with her arms now hanging slack as she towers over me, her whole upper body seeming to roll as she breathes heavily, and she still looks completely furious. Still very ready to kill me, which makes it all the more unfathomable that she actually let go.

“Fuck …” I just barely manage to spit out, my voice even worse than it was when I finally got that bloody gag out of my mouth, just a dry, broken gravelly whisper now, and every word produces another stab of ice cold, razor sharp steel in my larynx. “What is it … with you … that you … have to keep … strangling me? Some kind of … kinky thing?”

Her whole face tightens into a snarl of pure rage now as she steps forward and, without any preamble at all, kicks me in the stomach. Fuck, it’s like I’ve just taken a broadside hit from a swinging battering ram in my midsection, it’s instant agony and I double over into full foetal position even as I feel myself slide a few feet across the floor from the force of it. Da starts screaming at her as loud as he can, but mostly I just hear her now, even though she’s speaking in a low, primed growl as she starts to approach me again.

“That’s it, make fucking jokes, it’s all so fucking funny. Your friends thing they’re so bloody special, don’t they? That they’re masters of their world, that they can do anything they please. It’s fucking hilarious, it really is.”

“What …” I cough immediately, losing the thread of my words as I spit up blood, a great dark glob of it right on the floor in front of me, while I’m gripping my stomach as tight as I dare even though it feels like it’s on fire, it feels like she’s burst my guts wide open. “What did … what did they do?”

“Your friends raided Orric’s tavern.” Tavarrat speaks up at last, her voice a low, bitter hiss now, as full of hatred as her face. “They just busted in and killed half of his people that were in there, took a few prisoners and chased the rest away. And they killed …” Her voice breaks now, a touch of grief reaching her face as her lip wobbles. “They killed Gran. Fucking murdered him, on the spot.”

Gran? I have to scramble for a long moment to remember, it’s all I can do to keep one thought in my head now with the pain blazing in the middle of me, even worse than my torn, splinter-filled throat now, so it takes me a good while to recall who that name even belongs to. The orc, the bloody huge one, I saw him last week, in the alley. That was his name, Granzun. He used to be Art’s friend, once upon a time. Before things went terribly wrong for him and he lost his way, ended up with these people. I remember now, he damn near killed me.

He got what was coming to him, surely. I know my friends better than that, there’s no way they would really have just killed him in cold blood, it had to have been in battle. He must have been quite the threat, I don’t doubt it took several of my friends to kill him. I wonder who did it, Kesla? Shay? Maybe Art? Gods … honestly, I hope it wasn’t him, that would surely have been a terrible thing for him to have to do, I can’t imagine what he’d be feeling after taking the life of his one-time friend …

But I can’t say any of this, they really would murder me on the spot. As it is I’m very scared they’re both going to kill me anyway, the way they’re looking at me right now. Tavarrat looks as fervent about it as Vandryss.

The only reason they haven’t is because there’s that slim little thing that’s keeping them both in check, the fact that they need me alive, just like da. They can’t kill me, at least not right now, not while there’s even the slightest chance I might still be useful to them. The moment that changes they’ll slit both our throats and make sure our bodies are never found, just to make damn sure it never gets back to the Silver Order how it happened, or by whose hands. Until then they have to keep me alive, and my father to. But that doesn’t mean they can’t still hurt me, and that fact gives me a cold, fearful feeling deep down just above where that horrible ruptured pain is settled in my stomach.

Before I could say anything anyway in my defence another spasming cough comes up and I spit out more fresh blood, and this time it scares me even more, there’s so much of it. The room gets very quiet after that, even da stops his tirade, I can’t even hear Vandryss’ angry panting any more as she stares at the splash of blood just short of her feet. Suddenly her face is a whole lot more complicated, much more wary, as if the realisation of what she’s just done finally hits, just a little too late. And then, just for a second, there’s something even more strange. She almost looks hungry, and that scares me worse than anything.

“What the fuck … oh you fucking BITCH!!!”

Vandryss has barely turned around to face the speaker when she’s actually picked bodily up off the floor in two powerfully strong, lithe arms and slammed hard into the wall with enough force to drive the air clean out of her in a bellow’s wheeze. Tavarrat’s so completely taken by surprise she just stands by, struck dumb, as Dramrath Mallys pins her colleague a clear two feet up off the floor.

“I fucking told you to cut that shit out! Leave her be, you’ve already half killed her, what the fuck is wrong with you?”

All Vandryss can do for the first few moments is stare back down at her, she’s as surprised as the wizard was. Her eyes are wide now, her face almost comically open, and perhaps there’s just the slightest trace of actual fear in her, at least for a split second, before she starts to claw her composure back. Her eyes narrow quick, her lips drawing back in a snarl, but while her fingers start to curl into claws she really can’t do much of anything given the way she’s been pinned by her outstretched upper arms. She may be a hell of a lot more powerful than she looks, but right now she’s weak as a kitten at the mercy of the much larger, far stronger dragonhalf.

“You best put me down now, before you make things much worse for yourself.” Her voice is almost indecently calm and level as she purrs her response.

Tavarrat finally gathers herself to start approaching Mallys now, but she freezes instantly when a very long blade indeed is put to her throat. Perhaps it was simply the pain still burning through me, or maybe just some pitifully small thrill from finally getting to see Vandryss made to look so very pathetic, but I entirely missed the arrival of the second person who must have followed the mercenary into the room. I don’t recognise her, but she’s striking enough I can’t help looking at her now.

The sword she’s holding out in one hand with unwavering steadiness is so ridiculously oversized I’m a little amazed she’s able to actually wield it so deftly, altogether it might be as long as she is tall. She’s a hobgoblin, I realise, but only half of one, like Shul Mivzida, of Minerva’s temple, although in truth they couldn’t be any more different. She’s a good deal younger, for one thing, from the look of her I doubt she’s any older than I am, and very pretty in a slightly feral way. She’s quite diminutive, but there seems to be some steel in her all the same, something about the ease of her stance tells me she’s as much of a warrior as her friend and can clearly handle herself.

In truth, now I’m looking at her I’m sure she’s a cleric, although a very different one from Krakka. She’s dressed all in black, and the mantle of her cloak, clearly made of black raven feathers, is all the indicator I need of her patron – she serves Corvina, the Raven Queen, the goddess of death. Honestly, she seems just the kind of holy woman I would have expected to find in the company of Dramrath Mallys, although in most every other way she’s not at all what I would have expected of one of the Queen’s clerics.

“Please, don’t. That would be most foolish.” Her accent is rich and thick, very exotic to my ears, but also alarmingly familiar, and almost immediately I recognise that it’s much the same as Thel’s. She’s from Abharet, probably the very same region.

“Stay out of this, Mallys. Both of you.” Vandryss continues to purr in her unsettlingly gentle tone, very much at odds with the cold, lethal look she’s giving the woman holding her up. “This is not your business, it’s between us and this little … wretch. Her friends have stirred up even more fucking trouble for us, and now one of ours is dead because of it. I promise you I won’t kill her, but once I’m through she’ll fucking well wish I had. Even her own father wouldn’t recognise her after, and he’ll see what I do to her.”

Mallys’ eyes narrow too, but she’s just cold now, her own fury very much under her control too. “I don’t care if her friends did do whatever has you so hot, this child has been here all this time, very much at your mercy, so they have had no hand at all in the death of your friend. You have no right to brutalise them, and I swear if you raise one finger to further harm them over this I will fucking end you right here and now. The pair of you.”

The demon woman’s eyes narrow further, barely slits now, and they almost seem brighter because of it. For the first time the anger returns to her voice as she growls, slow and steady: “Put … me … down.”

“Just get out of here, Vandryss. Right fucking now. I don’t care what arrangement there is between us, your employers, mine, any of it. I am not fucking playing right now.” Mallys stares her down for another long beat, then steps back and, before her captive quite realises what’s happening, tosses her roughly over her head to land hard and go sprawling. The surprise is so complete that she doesn’t catch herself until she stops rolling, only then finally managing to regain her feet.

She comes back right away, starting a charge while her hands go to her sword, one bracing the scabbard while the other grasps the hilt and starts to draw. But the dragonhalf’s already ahead of her, her blade out in a flash I don’t even see, it’s so swift, and Vandryss barely manages to stop herself in time to keep from getting impaled on the bastard sword’s point. Again her eyes are wide, but with quiet rage this time as she holds very still barely short of that wicked blade.

“Just give me a fucking excuse.” When the mercenary growls these words, little wisps of smoke spill out of her mouth, dancing with tiny hot embers. “Please.”

Vandryss watches her for a very long time with her face still boiling with hot rage even though there’s not so much as a smudge of colour in it. Mallys, meanwhile, just holds her perfect guard, her own sword not wavering any more than her companion’s, and every inch of her is a promise of brutal violence should she be tested. Finally her intended opponent just takes a long step back and takes both hands off her sword, backing towards the door now so she can keep her fixed in sight the whole way. When she speaks her voice is nothing but a feral hiss, full of such potent venom that it would kill if mere words could wound.

“Gran’s dead because you keep failing to do the job you and your band of useless idiots have been hired for. Just pull your fist out of this little bitch’s arse and get it done. I won’t remind you again.”

She’s gone without another word, and now, finally, the half-hob lets her sword relax, just an inch. Enough to let Tavarrat relax, and she follows her compatriot’s example now, backing away with big, exaggerated steps as she mostly feels her way to the door so she can keep close track of that unnervingly large blade. The cleric watches her go without moving, only relaxing when the door finally closes behind her without the lock turning this time, and turns to look at Mallys. “Are we good?”

Sheathing her sword, the dragonhalf just growls low under her breath. She’s still watching the door, a bitter frown on her face as she curls her now free hands into tight fists, but I can’t stop the new cough I’ve been fighting to hold in any longer, and as I vomit even more blood she finally turns to me. Her face changes instantly, and it surprises me. Honestly, I definitely got the impressive she was starting to like me when we talked before, but even so I’m a little taken aback to see her so alarmed and genuinely worried now as she drops into a low crouch beside me now. “Shit … get over here! Now!”

The cleric sheathes her sword with a scabbard she’s scraped up from where she must have tossed it onto the floor when she came in, and she comes immediately as she’s summoned. She has a much calmer look on her face, I notice, a cool businesslike expression I instantly recognise from Krakka and Shul both, which is no surprise at all to see as she reaches me in three big strides and immediately settles onto her knees. She keeps her sword tightly gripped in one hand as she reaches out for me, the other going straight to my belly as I shake and shudder on the floor.

“Help them …” I hear da croaking with his ruined voice, tired from yelling but desperate all the same. “Minerva, please … help them!”

“How is it?” Mallys asks the cleric, her tone similarly urgent.

The half-hob just gently probes, clearly mindful as I wince at the very careful contact she makes, and frowns a little now as she mutters something under her breath that I can’t catch. I doubt it was intended for anyone, anyway, more likely it was an entreaty to her own goddess, using her imbued sight as much as her training to inspect my wounds. Finally she sucks in a tight breath through her teeth, her frown darkening somewhat. “It’s not good. She hurt them very much. I don’t think her stomach’s quite ruptured, but there’s some very serious damage all the same. This will take some work.”

“Well do it. I won’t have this poor kid die because of that evil bitch.” Mallys sighs heavily as she grimaces, looking up over me now as I realise she must be regarding my father, but she looks down again quickly. Unable to meet his eyes, I think. She tries with me, and manages a little better this time, but still looks pretty guilty all the same. “I’m so sorry for that. This was entirely uncalled for. I swear, this was not my intention when …”

“When what …” I really have to fight to spit the words out, every one of them hurts now. “When you … gave me up to … her? You should have … thought about that … before.”

She rocks back onto her heels, looking away from me again, and brushes both her hands up through her loose hair in a gesture that reminds me very much of Kesla. She just looks so frustrated right now, I almost regret being so short with her. “Yes, well there’s nothing that can be done about that now, the damage is done. I’m just trying to make the best of a very bad situation here, I have my own people to look out for now.”

The cleric’s removed her hand from my stomach, now slipping off her fine kid leather gloves and carefully folding them up before stuffing them into her robe. Taking a deep breath, she starts to rub her now bare hands together in a gesture I immediately recognise from Krakka as she begins to mutter low under her breath just as I would have expected, calling on Corvina to grant her the power to heal me. I wonder how this magic will feel compared to that of Serena, or my own patron, Minerva. Each has its own flavour, I’ve found, so as much as this hurts I find myself somewhat curious to find out.

But right now … aside from the pain, mostly I’m just tired, I think. Fed up of all of this nonsense. I’m still in deep shit, whether I’ve suddenly found myself under the dubious protection of this strangely principled killer and her exceedingly odd friend or not. The beating Vandryss just gave me is indication enough that regardless of what she says right now, I’m clearly living on borrowed time.

So I just spit again, more purposeful this time, but it’s still bloody, and let my head settle on the floor, looking away from her now. “To hell with it, I say. Do what you will … it doesn’t really matter. You’re going to do … what you were hired to do … go back out and try to … hunt down and kill … my friends. Whether you succeed or not … I’m still stuck here … waiting on a … pretty fucking ugly fate. So If you don’t mind … I’d rather you just … left me alone.”

The silence that follows, with the exception of the cleric’s continued low prayer, is very loaded, Mallys surely troubled by my words, but I’m fully prepared to let them stand. I won’t let her off for this, not after what they’ve already done. Especially not for Thel.

Then she stands up again, grunting a little as she does so, but more from resigned frustration, I think, than any real effort. She starts to move off, but stops, and I can certainly feel her pondering long as she decides whether to speak after all or not. Finally she lets another heavy sigh go as she mutters: “For what little it’s worth, it turns out we were wrong before after all. Trouble didn’t kill your friend after all. From what we saw earlier she’s up and about again after all.” She takes a couple of steps away, then I hear her take one of the chairs down and walk some more before finally settling down.

When I finally raise my head enough to look I see she’s planted the chair near to the door, sitting so she’s mostly looking towards it now, almost as if she’s guarding it. That being said, I think she’s doing this as much so she doesn’t have to look at me right now.

I hold my tongue, even though I’m tempted to speak now, this news is … gods, it’s a small relief perhaps, but I’m bloody glad to hear it all the same. It’s a weight off my mind, at least. But even so, I’m still too angry to let this make me forget what has been done to me and mine since this started, so I stay silent, letting my head settle again as I wait for whatever’s next.

Finally the cleric finishes her litany and sits forward, placing one hand on my stomach while she rests the other one very gently on my throat. At first the contact of both stings as bad as ever, but almost immediately I feel something much stronger, radiating from her hands. Not a great, spreading warmth, like I would have expected from Krakka, this is more of a strangely soothing chill, like ice that somehow doesn’t freeze with its touch. It’s oddly comforting, but if it is working it’s doing it slowly, the pain still persisting strong enough for now.

Then again, she did say this would probably take a little while …

TO BE CONTINUED ...

#never split the party #The Creeping Bam #the adventures of the creeping bam #book 4 chapter 17 #original fiction #fantasy fiction #original fantasy fiction

0 notes

eruden-writes · 2 years ago

Text

The Unexpected Human Problem - Part 9 (Yautja x Human)

If you like what I create, please consider: ✨ patreon | ✨ ko-fi

You can get early chapter access on Patreon, btw!

Comments, tags and reblogs are real motivators for me, too!

---

Summary: The night her abductors die, Rayelle finds herself running for her life. She doesn’t know where she is, what is following her, where to go. All she knows is she’s not on Earth any longer and the thing chasing her has the capacity to kill.

Tai'dqei never anticipated finding a human when he took the job of tracking and subduing a small contingent of smugglers. It was only when the human attacked and fled fled, Tai'dqei - hopped up on the euphoria of a successful hunt - gave chase, instinct burning at his center.

Will sense return to Tai'dqei before he catches Rayelle? Or will Rayelle be subjected to the yautja’s natural inclinations?

And what happens afterwards?

---

CHAPTER CW: Mating ritual discussions.

Tag list: @ajarofpickledtears

---

With the human staring him down and no other feasible excuse to put it off, Tai'dqei grudgingly decided taking this confrontation head on was the best tactic. The longer he avoided it, the worst it'd be.

"I misinterpreted the situation," Tai'dqei admitted, his mandibles flexing awkwardly. He attempted to stifle the nervous tic as Rayelle glanced at the movement. Whatever she thought of his mandibles, he could only imagine. Non-yautja had told him before they were unsettling.

"How do you misinterpret that situation?" Rayelle felt the hysterical edge slice through her voice, making the edges of her words rough. Her attention was still transfixed to those pincers on Tai'dqei's face. They couldn't just be for show. A prickle crept up Rayelle's back, wondering if it was agitation that made his mandibles fidget or something else.

A muscle flexed in Tai'dqei's jaw as he considered how to answer her. A human with no experience or knowledge of aliens. How did one even begin? He wasn't even sure what a normal human mating ritual was like, so he couldn't even draw comparisons.

Which meant he should start with the basics, he decided.

"I am a yautja," Tai'dqei began after a breath to gather his thoughts. Judging from the annoyed expression that crimped Rayelle's face as she turned her eyes to his, Ah'ke had already introduced their species. He trudged on, before she could interrupt him and derail his minute progress. Doing his best to keep his tone level and non-condescending, he continued, "The instinct to hunt is strong in our blood. When a hunt goes well, like my bounty job that led me to you, the adrenaline and euphoria are high."

At that, she scoffed. This was beginning to sound like the plethora of other excuses she had heard in her lifetime. "It's not my fault, emotions were high!" "Can you really blame me for having fun?" "That wasn't me, that was the alcohol." And so on and so forth.

"So your sense of accomplishment makes it okay t-" Rayelle words abruptly halted as Tai'dqei grabbed her by the arm, pulling her closer to him and pressing his warm palm to her mouth. The movement had been so fast, Rayelle's heart barely had a chance to stutter. Her eyes flew wide with rage, instantly trying to pull away from his firm hold.

"Let me finish," he said quietly, hunched over her. The heat of her skin and her breath against his palm did little to still the sudden fire at his core. If she was going to interrupt him every other sentence with biting remarks, he'd never get through this. It didn't help that every confrontational word out of her mouth or action razed at his core. He didn't want his romp at the sex house to be completely undone as soon as he returned to his ship.

Rayelle's eyes flickered over his face, searching for something that was even a mystery to herself, but she stilled. Something, an unspoken sincerity maybe, gave her pause. Or maybe she was a fool, she didn't know.

Though she did squint in displeasure at him, hating how strong and warm his hold felt. It scraped at something raw inside her. It was only that sensation that kept her from planting her hands on his chest and shoving. Additional points of contact, she feared, would just further frustrate and confuse her.

As Tai'dqei spoke, he slowly lowered his hand from Rayelle's mouth. "In that state of mind, I had no intention to touch you like I did. Until you threw something and ran."

He paused experimentally, to see if she would cut in again. She remained quiet, her demanding gaze on him as she waited for further explanation. "One yautja mating ritual is meant to assess the capabilities of a mate by gaining their attention and then running. Challenging them to a different sort of hunt."

He remembered that moment so clearly. Approaching the small cage she was in, her eyes locked to the sight of him. The tang of blood in the air, the smears on his armor, the adrenaline still clawing delightfully through him.

Tai'dqei could only imagine what terror she felt when she saw him - with his blood-covered armor and intimidating stature - but his brain was pumped up on success from a job well done. Though he knew she was staring warily, part of him wondered if there was a bit of admiration in the look. She had to acknowledge his strength, his fearsomeness, if she was wary, right?

Then she threw that damn water bowl at him and he completely lost his sense.

When Rayelle next spoke, her tone only solidified Tai'dqei's own annoyance with himself. "Excuse me?"

Now, she writhed out of his hold, jerking herself out of the hand that had gone lax on her shoulder. It took all of Tai'dqei's discipline to not grab at her, clutch her tight, touch her. Heat bled into her face and down her body, embarrassed and angry. "You're saying because I stared and threw something at you and ran, you thought I wanted you to fuck me?"

Between the memories and the slowly kindling heat, it was easy for Tai'dqei to recall how he felt and thought during their first meeting. Even now, he could feel the burn of temptation gnawing at his hands. "Yes. I thought you were inviting me to pursue you, to catch you. As gratitude for helping you."

So taken aback by the straightforward answer, Rayelle took a step away from Tai'dqei. She stared, wide-eyed, up at him while her brain scrambled to understand. What was his play? He didn't sound remorseful, but he didn't sound agitated either.

"When I realized you were not enjoying yourself, I stopped." Tai'dqei's voice softened as he bowed his head. Rayelle watched as the tendrils that sprouted from his head shifted, catching the light in the ship. "I cannot apologize enough."

Words escaped her. She just could not find anything to respond to him with. The only thing Rayelle could do was stare at the alien - a yautja, she reminded herself - and attempt to process his words. She wasn't sure if she believed him. It would be so easy for him to lie to the naive little human, wouldn't it?

But part of her didn't think he was lying. If so, he could have come up with a million better excuses, couldn't he? She couldn't think of any at the moment, but, well, she was still trying to parse his straightforward attitude in answering her.

At the very least, he seemed sincere. There was no balking and no excuses, just an explanation why things had happened they way they had. Even if he could have hidden behind instincts, he didn't.

Tai'dqei knew he did wrong. Part of her internally wailed about how he was still doing wrong by keeping her captive and collaring her. If he truly wanted to do right by her, wouldn't he give her freedom? Another part of Rayelle reminded her this wasn't her home, her time, her planet. She managed to get into this trouble without playing an active role, beyond pursuing a divorce. What other trouble could she get into, out of ignorance? Tai'dqei already said the collar was for her safety. But was it really?

Though she knew he was waiting for a retort, her brain spat out static amid the chaos.

Instead of reacting, or replying, or doing anything to acknowledge his apology and explanation, Rayelle turned and walked away, a blank stare on her face. A million different thoughts tumbled around her head, but she couldn't make sense of a single one.

An alien took her vicious bid for freedom as a flirtatious invite. An alien that had, with daunting strength and precision, bloodily dispatched a whole squad of other aliens. And that same alien had bought her fidget toys and chocolate.

It was too much for Rayelle. Once more, she had to lay down as her sense of reality wobbled.

Tai'dqei let her go, watching as she ducked back into the guest quarters. It was for the best, he told himself, as he went to put his supplies in their appropriate places.

—

Over the course of the next couple days - or cycles, as Rayelle was learning, since there was no sun or 24-hour segmentation - she and Tai'dqei avoided one another. She did the bulk of the avoiding, though. He'd offer a greeting and small talk, letting her know they'd be staying docked until his employer came around, but on the whole she'd ignore him. She'd only take the food he offered or look at him when he spoke, but beyond that, their interaction was minimal.

Well, other than when she needed his help operating the shower. Whenever she thought about that moment, as short as it was, her face warmed with embarrassment. Which annoyed her. It was no different than asking how to operate the shower anywhere else! Except it was a little different.

She had asked someone who had taken her assault on him as a flirtation. Who pursued her and almost assaulted her due to misunderstanding, if that were to be believed. Who had, thus far, given her a way to communicate and provided her with food and new clothes and entertainment. Even if the damnable collar remained on her throat.

Thinking about Tai'dqei made her suspicions, hope, and logic fight, like dogs chasing cats. It was easier not to think about him.

For Tai'dqei's part, he felt like her efforts to ignore him were for the best. Especially after she asked how to work the shower. Just being in an enclosed space, knowing she'd soon be naked in said space, taunted his thoughts. He'd given her a straightforward rundown on how to use the shower and retreated as fast as he could to his training room.

He would have liked to say he was trying to redirect the energy elsewhere. In reality, he just chose to work up a sweat to excuse his need for the shower later on. And once in the shower, he'd get a little dirtier before getting clean.

On this day, however, something new transpired.

"I'll be heading out today. My employer finally came in to finish up our contract." Tai'dqei informed Rayelle on the third cycle. Rayelle was sitting up on her bed, alerted to Tai'dqei's entry seconds earlier by his knock. The antique paperback she had been reading rested on her lap, her finger marking her spot.

Her annoyance at his sudden entry was somewhat mollified by his announcement. Curiosity instantly lit up in her eyes when she registered his words and noticed his full black armor. Faint memories of that first night flickered in her head, although most of the first half had certainly been a blur.

"Is Ah'ke going to babysit me again?" Rayelle posited the question with a heaping dollop of sarcasm. Hopefully enough to get through any language or cultural barriers.

"No, she's too busy." Tai'dqei pointedly ignored her sharp tone. Ah'ke had reminded him enough, through their communiques, that Rayelle was still adjusting. Rising at her mere tone would accomplish nothing. He hefted a container, which held the bounties' heads, onto his hip and shot Rayelle a look, which she likely couldn't see beyond the mask he wore. "Just stay here until I come back."

"I don't have much choice," Rayelle retorted, tugging at her collar pointedly. She critically eyed Tai'dqei in his whole set-up, realizing portions of his arms and legs weren't entirely covered by the dark armor. Between plates of armor and under the mesh material, his rusty red-orange-to-pale-yellow colorations peeked through.

Tai'dqei stood still for a breath, watching Rayelle through his visor. She returned his steadfast leer with a raised eyebrow and a slightly mocking shake of her head. "Well?"

He pointed to the floor, emphasizing each word with a downward motion to the floor. "Stay. Put."

While Tai'dqei certainly worried about Rayelle's safety, another concern - were she to run away - sat with the hormones that had almost consistently remained simmering inside him. Tracking her down through the station would only whet that unwanted appetite.

Her frown deepened, her glare heating unhappily as she crossed her arms over her chest. She wasn't about to agree with his demand. Heaviness settled in the air between the two, growing heavier when she didn't respond.

After another moment to consider, Tai'dqei set the container down and input a command into his wrist gauntlet. Rayelle tilted her head curiously at him. When he retrieved the container, once more settling it on his hip, he turned to leave. Just before he moved beyond the limited visibility of her door, he said, "When I go, the ship is going on lockdown. Stay. Here."

With as much scorn as she could muster, Rayelle snorted. But Tai'dqei ignored her and continued down the hall, her door closing behind him. Rayelle sat back on her bed, returning to book. Or attempting to, at least.

No matter how she tried to force her eyes to the words, her mind was focused on listening. She heard Tai'dqei's heavily armored boots clomp down the hall, the sound gradually becoming softer. When it sounded as if he had exited the ship, additional things shuttered behind him. Rayelle could hear the extra security measures, whatever they were, clunking into place.

Setting her book down in her lap, she eyed her own door. Likely, her collar was tied to some sort of system or program that would alert Tai'dqei to movement outside of a certain range. Perhaps the ship. Perhaps the docking port. Rayelle's eyes narrowed, wondering how long she had until Tai'dqei returned.

Tai'dqei would presumably be too busy collecting his bounty to pay attention to all notifications. Which meant, if she timed her escape right, she could get out of the ship without him immediately realizing it. Gradually, swarming questions began to spin across her mind.

How far could she even get? Should she even bother trying to find someone to remove the collar? Or maybe just slumming it onto a ship, getting out of range, was a better option? If the Time Council, or whatever they were called, were such a big deal, Rayelle could probably find them on her own. She was capable.

Rayelle's gaze flicked back to the book in her possession. Her mind lolled over the other things Tai'dqei had gotten her, his concerns of her well-being, the lengths he'd gone to to get them capable of communicating.

Should she even try to leave? Her alien abductors had intended to do something with her. Maybe it had been extremely good luck to be found by Tai'dqei. Who knew how others would treat her? What if the temporal authorities weren't so easy to find?

And what if it all had been a lie? How'd she even know the difference? What if Tai'dqei had made it all up, just to keep her subservient? At least, as subservient as he could manage. Rayelle swallowed at that thought, considering how Ah'ke would be an accessory to the lies, if that was the case.

Her hands tightened on her book, until the spine creaked in her grasp.

She gave Tai'dqei thirty minutes of peace, while she haphazardly collected a bag's worth of supplies, before working on finding a way out.

102 notes · View notes

insomniac-dot-ink · 3 years ago

Text

Headlights Girl

Genre: Urban fantasy + wlw romance

Words: approx. 8k

Summary: The story of a girl with headlamps for eyes and the moth-girl she meets along the way.

My book 🌸 Ko-fi 🌸 Patreon

--------------------

Most humans carry the night with them. Even during daylight hours, they can shut out the sun, turn off the light, recede into themselves and into that soft secret place behind their eyes.

Did you know certain animals don’t have eyelids? Gecko’s have nothing between them and the violent sun which wishes to cook the colors of their world. They have to use their tongue. Dust and sand and rain, can you imagine? I was obsessed with lizards as a kid.

I stacked up books on snakes and lizards and skinks. I traced the way that sand snakes crested across the dunes, sideways and wrong. I put glue on the pads of my hand and tried to climb the walls of my room— I didn’t even get one handhold up. I went to the zoo and peered into their cages, up on my tiptoes, trying not to smudge the glass or breath too hard. I tried make out their triangle heads and slow tongue-flicks, but they each shrank away deep into nooks and crannies of their cages. Most things do when I look at them.

Most humans carry the night with them, right there behind their eyelids is an entire world of darkness. I have something else inside me, not quite, not soft, not secret. They called me “headlights girl” in the newspapers.

There were even stranger kids born in the Age of Spirits. I checked. Every morning of fifth grade, I scanned the papers for mentions of “oddities” growing into anomalies.

A boy who could breath fire. A girl with leaves sprouting from her head. A kid with antennae that could taste the wind. There are stranger things than me in the age of beasts and magic. My father called it the “Epoch of Bastards,” sons and daughters of flickering fire elementals and wind ghosts who seduced half-asleep ladies from their beds.

He didn’t look at me much growing up. And I knew what he meant. I knew what he was getting at by calling it the Epoch of Bastards. Growing up, I played in my little puddle of carpet on the floor as he blustered in and out of rooms like gale force winds. He’d be looking for his keys or a left shoe or wallet since he was going out, out, out. I think I missed him at first, in the way you miss strangers you’ve never met.

Later, still on my puddle of carpet, still on my island, I would glare at him with that sour, acid taste in the back of my throat. Acrid, smoky, I would barely blink as he passed; he’d jump when he turned too quickly and accidentally fell into my path. Later still, I would begin to wish they were both like that—blustery and calling people names, gone more often than not.

It sometimes felt better than hearing my mom weep to herself on the couch. I wish she’d do it in her room or outside or anywhere else than that theatrical sobbing in the middle of the house, a naked heartbeat to the place. She spoke to her friends on the phone in that same watery voice, handkerchief in hand and sniffling, she spoke to them more than me.

What else am I supposed to do? This isn’t how it was supposed to be. She’d wail, just a bit, and then find a new thing to wail over. They could barely afford to send me to That School. They could barely afford the special doctor’s appointments for my eyes. They barely knew what to do with me.

Sometimes, I wanted to shout right back: It’s not like I didn’t want to be here either!

But she wasn’t talking to me.

School wasn’t much better. We weren’t the same, not really. None of us were the same age or had the same affliction. Plus, most everyone else stayed in dorms where they bonded with secrets and whispers and hiding from matrons. It wasn’t the same.

They called me The Lighthouse and Car Face and Nightlight. Sometimes they’d give me a few bucks to close my eyes so they could see my face. I did it. They’d laugh and reassure me I was as ugly as you’d think. Or beautiful. Or perfectly average-looking or I had a pig-nose or unibrow. I’d never seen anything but the blinding light of my own eyes in the mirror so I could never contradict them.

A boy with antlers handed me a twenty for a kiss in the 6th grade. I closed my eyes for that too. It was chapped and dry and he ran away with a screaming laugh afterward. There are stranger kids than me, I reminded myself. So why do I feel so much stranger than the rest of them?

I was 16 when I heel-toed my way down the stairs toward the front door. A duffel bag slung over my shoulder stuffed with loose clothes, change, a bath towel, three books with broken spines, all the tampons in the house, and a Swiss-army knife.

I hoped to stuff as many cheddar-cheese sandwiches in my sack as possible before the midnight bus came, but he was at the kitchen table. I don’t think either of us expected it, like running into your teacher at the mart and you’re both buying the same brand of toilet cleaner. There was a beer in front of his idle hands and he still wore his rumpled work shirt. He glanced at the bag on my shoulder for a long minute.

Finally, he sighed like I cut him off in traffic.

“Gimme a moment.”

My father leafed through a wad of cash he kept in a safe. He handed me almost three hundred bucks and we nodded at each other. At the time, I thought there was a kind of satisfaction to that nod, an endnote.

I was out the door before the midnight bus arrived.

Only three people were at the terminal. None of them looked at me with my pack and my knife stuffed in one hand and my eyes glowing. They did look at the glow, but not for long.

Remote and empty like maybe the world had ended and the last bits of if were nothing but strangers not making eye contact.

Finally, I watched the headlights of the midnight bus approach through dense summer night. I was struck by the thought that it was like looking at like, the glow of my eyes against its eyes. Can a bus be your father? Can your father be a man after all this time? Will your mother come looking for you?

I got on the bus and kicked my feet up against the seat in front of me. Scrunched into a ball, crossed my arms over my chest, and watched the trees turn into flickering bodies of shadow with each passing mile. ------------- My feet moved like tides. They tossed me against nameless city streets and toward empty forested slices of land. I stumbled into the painted deserts toward the west. I dipped my toes into the neon districts of the east with lights brighter than my own. I slept on benches and in kid’s treehouses and hunched my shoulders against brick walls of back alleys.

No one touched me. Maybe they’d approach now and then, but I’d open my eyes and they’d see nothing but heaven or devils or an absent lightning-God father that would smite them. I was the daughter of spirits after all.

I found my way to the ocean; beaches where other stragglers gathered and it was easy to stretch out on empty pieces of warm sand. I didn’t talk much by then, I didn’t like to; people stared whether I was speaking or screaming and clamping down on my jaw so hard it ached. Sometimes I get yelled at: Turn that off! No phone lights in here. You’re blinding me, bitch!

I’d never seen a movie in any theatres, but I could imagine what it’s like.

It was crowded, but I liked that ocean city, despite myself. It had pale buildings built into cliffs, narrow winding sidewalks where cars couldn’t fit, reckless bikers, and crushed seashell parking lots. I liked the tang of salt in the air and the way my hair crinkled from the ocean water as it sun-dried. I camp out on beaches and bummed cigarettes and hotdogs off strangers. I was good at taking care of myself once I got into a rhythm.

I had a tent by then and even an enormous sun umbrella to keep any prying eyes away. I still liked to sleep under the stars most nights though.

I often dreamed of sinking to the bottom of the ocean. I dreamed of descending on pointed ballerina-feet to the silted black bottom. I’d be weighted down through the cold and the silence to where no human being had ever been. I’d open my eyes there, open them all the way, lightning-bright, and unflinching. In my dreams, the salt didn’t even sting. I lit up the world, the whole untouched world of whales and fish and terror and maybe I’d do something good then. Maybe I’d do something good and bring the sun to places that had forgotten it.

I hated those dreams.

I met Mags on the beach after one of those dreams. Mags had one eye and twelve teeth and carried around nothing but string and scissors everywhere. She smelled like seawater and burning kelp, dank and crusted over. Her clothes were neat despite her leather-cracked skin and arms and neck covered in tattoos of shipwrecks. We ran into each other at some bum gathering and she cackled and pulled me aside.

“What’s your name?” Her voice was old creaking wood. I didn’t answer. “I could give you one.” She offered with a grin that was more empty space than anything.

“Nana.” I gritted out. “You want something?”

“Not sure. What do you want, kid?”

I glared openly, my beam of light slanting. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Come here.”

I didn’t know why I was chosen.

Mags liked me more than I deserved. I pocketed her last pair of socks when she wasn’t looking. She never mentioned it and dragged me down to the community showers to get clean with soap and shampoo. She took me to the soup and salad restaurant for something that wasn’t burnt or freeze-dried or from a convenience store. She cackled, she spat when she talked, people shot her looks as well.

I thought she was normal, not touched by the spirits, but she liked me more than most people and I didn’t know why.

“You like art, kid?”

I snorted. “No.”

“Why not? You broken?” Yeah. Probably.

“How am I supposed to know?” I snapped back.

“Lippy squirt. Come on, I’ll show you something worth your forked tongue.”

She heated the needle before she used it, red hot and untouchable. She dipped it into deep black inks, only black and sometimes red, she called them the only colors that matter. She shows me how to prick the skin and clean it. She showed me how to slowly, painstakingly etch images. I wasn’t sure I liked it, there was something so permanent and intentional about the act.

I watched her lessons though: stick and poke to her right foot, all over those fine little bones that must hurt, in and out, a little bloody.

It took her six hours to make a tiny shipwreck right above her big toe. It was a narrow schooner going under and I was the only witness. She made the waves come to life and crash against its sides and sometimes I forgot to blink. She didn’t seem to mind.

She washed another needle. She heated it red-hot. She dipped it in ink and handed it to me.

I still wasn’t sure I liked the permanence of it, but I told myself I was bored and it was something to do. I decided quickly I did like the bite of it, I liked the focus it took, and the ability to pull something from nothing.

I practiced all over my thighs first, there was enough meat there and it was easy enough to reach: a lizard design that looked like nothing but squiggles, a TV set playing static, a tiny smudged skink with its tongue out. I practiced designs in the sand and then on paper when Mags splurged on pen and paper.

Mags took me to the museum on Sundays. They were always free on Sundays.

Something stirred in my chest, even as the guards yelled at us about how flash photography wasn’t allowed in the museum. Even as I was shooed out of exhibits for ruining the paint. Still, an ache so old it rotted roared to life in my chest.

I stabbed in and out, gentle, a collection of stars right above my right knee. A winding sand snake on my wrist, and then finally, something good, something that gave people pause and reason to stare. I made it in the mirror: a ghost on my collarbone. Shadowed and intricate and yet simple, I put a ghost right above my collarbone and it bleeds more than any of the others.

That was a good year or so; one of the best I could remember.

I didn’t want to leave the ocean city though and Mags said she had to keep moving. She had places to be. She gave me a sloppy kiss on the cheek.

“You're a gem, kid. You’ll knock ‘em all to the pavement.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat. “You’ll be back?”

She cackled. “Wouldn’t miss it. You know me.” She winked as she turns to the bus, my second father. “You think I’ll miss your great becoming, kid? I’ll be back.”

I wanted to make her pinky-promise like I was a kid again begging one of the others to tell me if I’m beautiful when I close my eyes. I couldn’t do that; I waved as she tottered up the steps of the bus and was taken away with the tides of her own feet.

A had a moment of thinking it was the end then; I was ready to get back to my real normal. I was ready to disappear again. But even shipwrecks with no witnesses leave things left to be found.

------------ I got an apprenticeship. Technically, Mags talked them into it and I just followed up when I had nothing better to do.

I didn’t think I’d like it much, but couch surfing and camping out was the pastime of the especially young. And I’d lost my giant umbrella.

It was a small shop that smelled like bleach and dried flowers. A tattoo parlor in one of the steep arts districts neighbored by food trucks and beaded necklace shops.

Penguin Davies and Bitch-Annie ran it together. Davies walked like he’d never encountered land before, and Bitch-Annie had a throw-pillow embroidered with “If you don’t have anything nice to say then come sit next to me.”

Davies was covered in nothing but birds and dizzying M. C. Escher house-designs up and down his chest and arms. Bitch-Annie had topless mermaids and pinup girls across her shoulders and legs. She’d been asked to leave a number of stores before the children started staring or thinking thoughts.

Neither of them had ever met someone like me. It was not that type of town. I rankled at most their questions, a cat meeting a steel brush. Where are you from? What’s your family name? What kind of school did you go to? Is your sight better than other people you think?

I brushed off anything more personal than my favorite type of soda. Bitch-Annie called me “Shadow” probably as a joke, probably. Davies said I must be possessed by the ghost of some dead star: a blackhole that takes everything in and lets nothing out.

Neither of them let me touch a needle in those first six months. They had me practice on pig skin and trace designs and stand by their shoulders as they worked. I felt like a dental assistant except I was the hanging light shining into open mouths instead of anything with a pulse. I stood at their shoulder as they drew thick lines and thin dots and made hearts and wolves and names of dead lovers come to life.

They asked me to stand still and stop wiggling the light. I almost walked out several to find a new cliff to crash against, almost.

No one had ever expected anything of me before. They never expected me to show up somewhere or do something well. No one really cared if I went to school or if I did my homework, if I dressed well or went to bed on time. And no one kept any tabs on me at all after I took that first bus. That’s how I liked it.

I should’ve left, tattooing didn’t mean anything to me, not really. But Bitch-Annie stomped up to my attic-apartment one morning and threw pants at me.

“Get up, Shadow,” she barked. She was sterner than Mags, no hint of humor in her eyes. “I told you 9am so I expect 9am.”

“The fuck!?” I was eloquent in the mornings.

“Pants, shirt, shoes, and bra if you don’t want that desk idiot staring at something other than your eyes all day.”

“Are you serious?”

“Serious as a root canal. Mags swore up and down about what you. Let’s see some of that, up, up!”

I grumbled. I put on everything but the bra. No one ever expected me to be anywhere before and 9am shouldn’t have even been a concept much less a real thing. I told myself I hated it. I’d leave the next week. Or maybe the week after that or in just one more month. I kept a bus ticket under my pillow but every time the date arrived I shrugged and made myself busy.

There’d be no harm in having a savings too and seeing what all the fuss was about with having a dishwasher and a kitchen.

I wasn’t an artist of course. I didn’t understand what everyone else was seeing when they looked at the “old masters” paintings of water or war or lovers pulled apart. I didn’t feel anything in front of stain-glass windows in churches or mosaics on walls. Maybe there really was something wrong with me, my eyes. I didn’t let up though. I put on pants for it after all.

Penguin Davies hovered by my shoulder when I made my first real design.

“Mm.” He rumbled deep in his chest. He’d gone grey at an early age, had tired eyes and quick hands. The desk kid said he’d been in medical school once, a surgeon. It was hard to tell. Davies muttered a lot, stared off into space too much, and laughed like it was always a painful surprise

“Perfectionist,” he muttered at me as I start over on a crappy unicorn design. “That line was barely off. You’re being a perfectionist, Nana.”

I scowled over my shoulder and let the full weight of my light hit him across the face. “Got a problem with it?” I challenged. He chuckled darkly. His grin was crooked like a broken door handle. I tried to hide my work from him with my shoulder. “It’s not done yet.”

“It’s late.” The rest of the street was dark. I knew that.

“I said I’m not done yet! You can go home.”

“Hmm.” He scratched his grey beard.

“What?”

“Look at you. You know who makes the best artists, Nana?” He was always a bit of a philosopher. Maybe he used to study that before medicine.

“Yeah, yeah, shut up. I’m working on it.”

He gave my shoulder a light push. “The ones that don’t quit.”

They let me touch a needle gun after that. I told myself I’d only sign my new apartment lease as an experiment. I didn’t have to actually stay. I’d just run from the ink on paper and hope no one chased after girls with eyes that glow.

I didn’t break my lease. I drew suns and moons, trees and fireflies, hunks in speedos on tipsy college girls who swore they were sober and erotic vampires on the chests of men getting their first divorce. I had to give two refunds for a duck that turned out lopsided and a tattoo of someone’s dog which I swore really was that ugly to begin with.

There was one at the end of that next year though, another college girl with perfectly white piano-key teeth. She asked for a stick and poke, that was what I was best at anyway, she asked for a butterfly. Butterflies were easy, I could do the little ones in my sleep. She wanted one all across her back, she said I could make it look however I wanted. So I did. Wings like fringed shawls and straight heavy lines combined with wispy swirling ones. It was dark, black ink with red highlights and gray shadows under each wing to give it movement and flight.

I hid my smile when I finished and showed her the results in the mirror. She went to my bosses and jumped up and down. She pointed and babbled, ohmyspirits, the best thing I’ve ever seen! Fuck. I should pay you double! Where did you get this girl?

I held myself perfectly still and studied the ceiling until my eyes dried out.

I took the long way home that night. I stopped once, at the corner where the midnight bus arrived, and watched the the passengers trudge off. I didn’t expect to see Mags again so soon, not really, but sometimes I wanted to show her: Hey, maybe your work wasn’t all wasted. Maybe I did start to become.

---------------- “I’m getting you chocolate.” Annie spat, her thick arms flexing as she cleaned off the spotless counter. “I’m getting you fucking chocolate, Shadow, ‘less you tell me what flavor you actually like.”

I hung at the back of the shop next to the narrow window that faced the road. I let the sun warm my face in thick strips and watched the bicycles pass. “It’s not my birthday.”

“Tell us what your actual birthday is then, you sugar-toasted tart.”

I shrugged. “Not today.”

“Well happy fucking birthday. You’re turning two. You came to work for us two years ago today, washed up from the beach like a deranged feral cat, so this is your birthday now.”

I rolled my eyes which served to look like a flashlight given a shake. Annie spent another minute splashing disinfectant on anything that might have had even a passing conversation with a germ.

“You talk to Birdie?” She asked, but mischievously this time. I responded by setting my mouth in a hard line. “You’re turning twenty-something and you’re not even talking to Birdie, are ya?”

“I’m not telling you what I’m turning. It’s still not my birthday.” I dodged inelegantly.

“Birdie will give you a proper go-around. Even shadows like you must need a little rub now and then.”

“Go dunk your head, Annie.” I huffed.

“Afraid you’ll blind her in bed?”

I turned with a snarl. “I’ll start with you.”

“I’ve seen you flipping through those poetry books, every word about hands or mouths or rosebuds.” She gave me flat a once-over. “You’ve got a sweet tooth in you.”

I dragged myself over to the desk to snarl at her some more, but Annie was already putting her hand up and going toward the backroom.

“I’m getting you a chocolate cake either way.”

There must have been a proper way to get her to never look at my little leather poetry books again, the ones with watermarked pages, the spines broken-in, and words that oozed. No one had to know that I could read, much less that I read that.

The door dinged instead.

“Excuse me.” She walked in. Her. “Is someone, um, named Nana here?” I turned before I could stop myself. That was still my name. And it was still my work.

Twenty-something, curtains of straight black hair falling in her face, pinched nose, thin energetic lips, shorts that gave way to milk-dipped legs that never seemed to end. A slight girl in a university t-shirt. College kids came in often during their breaks, but this one was a bit different. My eyes dragged up and fish-hooked there.

Feathered tendrils sprouted from her head and reached toward the ceiling. Long and searching, a pearly green color that reminded you of leaves or plumage.

I knew within a moment where I’d heard of this: Antennae Girl. The newspapers ran our stories close together along with the boy that breathed fire and the girl with roots growing from her head. We were all born in the same year during the epoch of monsters and bastards.

I think she recognized me too.

We stopped like heartbeats seizing up before the ambulance could make it. A confused, unnatural silence. I glanced at the door and considered making a run for it.

She cleared her throat first.

“Someone said that Misty’s butterfly tattoo came from here?” She blinked once and I noticed how her feathered antennae seemed to twitch. I averted my eyes so I wouldn’t blind her. She took a step forward. “So are you . . . Nana?”

The door was right there.

“What do you want?” I had been spending too much time with Bitch-Annie.

“A tattoo?”

“What kind?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Then why are you here?” I grunted. Footsteps came in from the back room. I was examining the smudged off-white tiles of the floor one by one.

“I wanted to . . . hey, you can look up if you want.” She said, curiously, softly. I didn’t look up. “I’m still figuring out the design.” She trudged on ahead.

“Fine.” I pivoted away. “But we’re busy. Come back later.”

A hand slapped across my shoulder. “This is Nana.” Annie stopped me from leaving. “Don’t let her eyes fool ya, it’s her personality that’s actually the problem. You saw her butterfly you said?”

“Yes!” She gushed. “It was gorgeous.”

“It was fine,” I corrected.

“It’s her birthday today.” Annie shared because she could and because she was a failed evil villain still trying to get her kicks in.

“Oh cool, happy Birthday.” A deep pause followed that could fill oceans. “You can look up. I don’t mind.” She repeated.

I opened my eyes wide and lifted my chin in one jerky motion. A beam of fluorescent headlights hit her across the face. “Is this what you want?” Venom dripped from my lips. This was why I tried not to talk too much.

The young woman squinted for a moment before covering her eyes and nodding. “I read about you,” she stated as if it was nothing. “I’m turning twenty-two this year . . . so I guess, you are too?”

“What?!” Delight filled Annie’s entire expression. “Hot damn! Twenty-two?” I groaned deeply. “Hey, you, girlie,” she addressed antennae-girl, “you want to come out for drinks tonight?”

I tried to protest as quickly as possible, but somehow didn’t summon the words quickly enough.

“Sure.” She agreed. ----------------------

The night was humid and clung to us like a second skin. I wandered through the hilly streets with Penguin Davies wobbling beside me. The desk kid—Daft Jeff, said Davies had some inner-ear problem that made it hard for him to keep his balance. Annie said he just didn’t belong on land— he couldn’t walk straight unless something was tilting and rolling under his feet.

Davies made his way up the hill, faltering and missing the musical beats of it. He refused to let me steady him and I refused to have him sing to me. It was apparently my birthday.

“Someone saw your design.” He noted on the downhill.

“Yeah. Some college girl.” I grumbled.

“What’d you think?” He asked in his usual mysterious way.

“She just wants a good look.” I returned in a neutral tone. “She read about me in the paper. All she wants to do is look.”

“She saw your design.” He paused. “And Jeff said she was like you.”

I blinked hard so the path ahead was eaten by shadow and Davies stumbled. “Not all of us have to be friends . . .” I said sourly and didn’t fill in the rest. “I’ve met kids with antlers and frog-hands before. I doesn’t mean anything.”

“Any of them come visit?”

“They’re smart enough not to.” I snark. “But the ones who manage to be pretty don’t have the brains to stay away.”

“Mm.” He made a soft sound. “What kind of tattoo do you think she’ll get?”

“How should I know? A heart or anchor or something dumb like that.” I walked on ahead. “Maybe I’ll give her a quote from some dead poet.”

“You like poetry.”

I huff dramatically, “Not what I mean. Girls like her don’t like my type of poetry, you know I’m saying.”

“What kind of girls?” Davies was patient. I hated that about him.

I stopped at the corner to let him catch up. “Don’t play dumb. Hot ones, college ones, getting a degree in money or music. They don’t watch over their shoulders enough or know when to stay away.” I scuffed my shoe on the ground. “Whatever.”

Davies was still thinking. I considered pushing him over. He finally spoke up again as we approach the bar, “That sea witch ever show up again?”

“Mags?” I snorted. “No. Why?”

“Cause I’m sure she’d like to see this.”

I didn’t say anything else as we reached the doorway. -------------------- The bar was loud. More people than I liked came to my “party.” I should have seen it coming. If the cliff city liked one thing it was an excuse to drink.

I crammed myself up against the bar and ordered a gin and tonic before the rest of the night crowd could arrive. Birdy was holding court at a corner table and waving at me. “There she is! Someone put a blanket over Nana, lights out, party up!”

Her puns usually left something to be desired. She sang “Blinded by the Light” every time she saw me for half a year.

I drank half my gin and tonic in the first gulp as a new stream of townies burst in. They arrived to buy me birthday beers and shout their opinions on the shitty new chain restaurant on 3rd street. I was almost tasting the bottom of my second glass when someone tapped on my shoulder.

I barely looked over.

The girl with sheets of black hair and a practiced-appearance stood before me—like she was at dress rehearsal and expected everyone else to know the lines as well. She carried a baby-blue bike helmet in one hand, and I noted there were two hand-drilled holes in the top.

“You.” I was tempted to shake her hand like I might make this a transactional hello and goodbye in short order.

“Hey.” She smiled, hesitant, like maybe the food on the fork might be too hot. “Nana, right?”

“Yep.” I sighed the word real long and heavy. “Listen, I really can’t give you a tattoo if you don’t know what you want.”

“No, no, I get it. But I want you to know . . . I didn’t know it was you.”

“Uh, okay. Though I’m pretty hard to miss over here.” I was looking at the dirty wine bottles stacked near the ceiling. Her antennae hang over both of us like fern fronds.

“No. I mean, when I saw the butterfly. That’s when I wanted to come here. Not after.”

“After what?” I was gonna make her say it.

“After I found that it was, well, you know, Headlights Girl.”

“Mm.” I was spending too much time with Davies. “You want something to drink?”

She sighed as well, real long and heavy. “Sure.” She took the seat next to me. “I’m Park by the way.”

“Park.” I rolled the name around in my mouth. “And you already know me.”

“I don’t think I do.” She laughed, sharp and bristly like something you can get cut on. “And I’ll have a beer. . . but only once you look up. Come on, I’m not like that.” I looked up. Her face was bright, round like the moon, her grin was sneaky and unearned. “There we go.”

She waved over the bartender Kipp and ordered her dark beer.

“It’s not really my birthday.” I informed her, dumbly. Every word felt dumb and clumsy all at once.

“Why not?” She was teasing. I knew that.

“That’s not how birthdays work.” I informed and wished I could backtrack into hostility again.

“Oh darn,” she winked. “And here I was about to make it my birthday too.”

“Uh, well,” I really should have left when I had the chance. “It’s not too late?”

“That’s the spirit!” She laughed, fuller this time and rounded. I looked her straight in the face and then quickly looked away again. Her grin was aimed at me, somehow, and seemed to reach high cupboards inside me you usually needed a stool for.

“Park,” I repeated the name and shifted in place. “So did you go to Haveryards or Simmons?” There were only two schools in the country for spirit bastards like us. Haveryards was close enough for me to get bussed to—an hour one way and then an hour home.

“Neither. I went to public and then Bakerville Uni.” She rapped on the counter. “Hey, you want another gin and tonic? Or I’ll mix you up something.” Her eyes flickered over everything. “I bartended my way through college so I can make a mean margarita.”

“Oh, Bakerville U., yeah. That ones close.” I stuttered a bit. She was leaning across the counter and trying to get Kipp’s attention a second time. My words were feeling dumber and dumber by the moment, perhaps losing all shape and meaning altogether. “That’s where you went?”

“How’d you guess?” She said playfully and pointed to her t-shirt. She finally got the bartender over. “Right, you want something hard? Vodka maybe? A mule?”

I scratched my chin. “ . . . I don’t care. I’m easy.”

She rolled her eyes and I knew she must feel me staring. “I can’t imagine shopping for you for today then.” She snickered and climbed over the counter. “Happy birthday, how about one chocolate mule for a free tattoo?”

“You wish.” I made a face. “You don’t even know what you want.”

“And you do?” She was still grinning, somehow. “I’ve decided I’m making you the equivalent of all the soda flavors mixed together at once. Close your eyes.”

I closed my eyes and I tried to turn off my thoughts. It was bright as knives inside my skull; I carry the daytime with me. Panic threatened to rise up (for no reason of course), but a soft hand brushed against mine, soft like sheets in fancy hotels and flower petals. I peaked and Park slid a full murky glass toward me.

“Drink up.”

It was sweet. It wasn’t even my birthday. I didn’t care. She called it a chocolate-mule-Park Special and maybe chocolate really was my favorite flavor. -------------- Park started coming around. She rode a sky-blue bike with a white basket and rusting hinges. I couldn’t imagine doing all the hills in the city without any gears, but she managed. She said she was figuring things out after graduating. She said she liked it here.

I grumbled when she came by. I complained like Annie when Wicker the cat visited: Get that thing away from me. I hate that. Smells awful. I’ve got allergies. Put that away, it’ll kill me.

I never said anything when Annie left fish heads out and bowls of milk of course.

Park smelled like sunscreen and breath mints. She had strong opinions on everything from street paving techniques to which sun hats went with which dresses. She invited me on walks. She invited me to help her change a flat tire. She invited me to the corner shop to help her pick out bottle can openers.

I said no. Sometimes I said no. I started to say yes.

“Look at this,” she liked to show me things. She liked to show me pictures of squirrels on her phone and weird pieces of glass she found. She liked to point out new restaurants (that I’d already been to) and play videos of funny traffic jams.

This time she held up a seashell. It was rounded and flat with a swirl in the center.

“I’m looking.” I said carefully.

“Watch how it catches light.” I shun my eyes on it and she moved it back and forth. There were bits of silver veins caught in the cracks of it.

“There’s tons of those.” At this point, I had valiantly refused to be impressed by even her cutest squirrel pictures.

“Ugh.” She pouted. “Are you kidding? I spent all morning looking for this.”

“They're right by the surf. I could find you five bigger ones than this before sunset.”

“Alright, hot-shot.” She jut her chin out and jabbed my shoulder. “Prove it.”

I said yes to that one. I left right after my shift ended with the sun setting in the waters like a stabbed orange bleeding out. I met Park by the parking lot with drooping palms trees lining the sides and lost flipflops everywhere.

“This is where you went wrong.” I announced. I couldn’t help it. “This is the tourist beach. You have to go somewhere real.”

“Alright, alright. You’ve already established you’re the hot-shot here. Lead the way.”

She followed me. I ignored how she lingered by my side. I ignored how her hand wrapped around my arm as she stopped us to look at a tiny horseshoe crab. Her hand was soft, like velvet, soft enough to smother something in my chest.

I found two seashells with streaks of silver and rainbow through them, both bigger than my palm. The sun was a flat line on the horizon before I could find a third and Park hooted.

“You said before sunset! It’s sunset, baby, pay up.” She called. “And you were so sure you were a better seashell hunter than me.” She tsked.

I scanned the ground more quickly. “It’s barely nighttime.” I pointed to the sky. “And I can keep looking. I have the built-in equipment for it.”

“Oh I know.” She planted herself on the soggy crusted sand and sat down in a heap. “But can you find why kids love the taste of not doing that? Take it easy. Take a seat.”

“So pushy.”

“You know me.” It was fond. It had only been a few months, but there was something fond there.

I ran a hand through my short choppy curls. “Fine.” I sat next to her, not too close. “It’s your loss.” We both looked out at the gently lapping waves, foaming and anemic. She let a long breath of air and for a moment I considered brushing her hair back. It was always in her face.

It was a quiet moment, bottled, and pitching toward something. Like the the moment where you miss a step on the stairs and the certainty of the fall was right there.

I was the one that scooted a little closer.

“I’m considering getting a storm cloud,” she commented off-handedly. “Can you do storm clouds?”

I made a sound of consideration. “Sure.” I glanced toward the opposite corner of the night sky. “I think I’ve seen one of those before. Big puffy wet things?”

“Kinda fluffy? You’re getting there.”

“I’ll see what I can do.” I’m smiling, which is alright since there’s no way she could see it. She’s silent for another moment longer.

“Or would you make fun of me if I got something like a butterfly? Like your other one.”

“A storm cloud butterfly?”

“No. The cloud would it’s own thing.” She chewed on her bottom lip, ragged and chapped. “I mean, I’ve been doodling some ideas. And tattoos should be personal, right? So I thought a storm cloud might be fitting. Kids used to pay me a couple dollars to predict the weather. It could be a memorial to childhood entrepreneurial spirit.”

I watched her speak and something beat inside my chest like a second animal. I wanted to be closer. I wanted to feel velvet again.

“Why?” I rasped after a moment.

“Uh, why did they pay me? It’s just something I can do. Whenever it's going to rain or storm or be sunny out. I dunno, I don’t know why the rest of you can’t sense it.”

“And you didn’t become a meteorologist?” I smiled a bit bitterly.

She made an indignant noise. “And you didn’t become a professional lighthouse?”

I choked on a laugh. “Not yet.” A quiet consumed us from both sides, I made sure my light didn’t crash into her. I made sure to look at anything but her. She’d have to squint if I did and cover her eyes and I’d be there, ready to run her over.

“Kids in my class paid me too.” I barely realized I started speaking. “They slipped me a couple bucks to close my eyes so they could see my face.”

“You got money for that?”

“There wasn’t always much to do. Teachers were quitting all the time and sometimes it was just the TV. I dunno, they paid me. Then they’d giggle and run away afterward.” My voice sounded automated like the announcer at an airport, informing travelers their flight was canceled. “They always said I had a pig nose or a unibrow or looked like the lead singer of that Minx girl band-- super hot, but you know, it didn’t matter.” The laugh that escaped was high, girlish in a grotesque way. “Since, you know, no one would ever see it.”

“Kids are fucked up.” Park contributed simply.

“Adults are too.” I sniffed. “Everyone wants a light show.”

“Oh.” She said slowly. “Is it . . . is it bad I wanted to meet you then? I mean, I wanted to see the art first, but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a factor.”

“No.” I said quickly. I lit up my own lap and empty hands. “Does it matter?”

“I never went to those schools,” she said hesitantly. “My parents fought them, said the schools were unfit. They shouldn’t be able to force us there. And that I wasn’t even dangerous since,” she gestured helplessly upward, “I just have these. So then, well, I never really met anyone else like me.”

“I mean, everyone’s different. It’s not . . . a big deal.”

“You’d think so,” she commented sardonically.

I folded up into myself like a complex origami piece. “Yeah, well, sometimes I wish I was dangerous. Actually dangerous.”

She giggled. “Didn’t you just say everyone’s different? I’d say everyone’s dangerous too. Just gotta find the niche.”

“Oh yeah,” I dared to turn toward her. “What’s yours then?”

“My danger niche? Hmm.” She was leaning now, pitching forward like a wave come to drown me. “I do have a few tricks up my sleeve I’ll admit.”

“You have a pair of wings hidden away?” I stopped breathing as her hand lifted up, strange and all at once. I wasn’t ready.

“Here.” Her skin was against mine. She cupped my cheek with one velvet-hand. It was heated cashmere, tiny feather-light hairs on her palm. “Feelers.” She whispered with a hesitancy there.

“Ah,” I was indulgent. I closed my eyes. I leaned in. “And you want to put a needle over these?” I put my hand over hers, loosely, so she could pull away if she wanted to. Tiny hairs pulsed there with some kind of life all their own.

“I wanted . . .” She paused and I peaked open my eyes. I could see every detail of her face, illuminated. “I dunno.” She finished. “I guess I just wanted whatever I saw there, before.”

“In the butterfly?”

“In the butterfly.” I turned toward the ocean, but my hand remained over hers. “I’m not sure how good it will be a second time. It’s not like I’m really an artist. . .”

“What did you want to be?” Soft.

“Who knows. I mean, I’m glad my parents didn’t try to fight the schools. Being there during the day was better than being home, listening to my mom crying all the time and my father exploding . . . They wouldn’t have wanted me home.”

Before the sunset, when I was walking over, I thought maybe we’d kiss that night. I thought I’d feel that first electric pulse and maybe we’d climb into the ocean and swim in circles, laugh until the moon rose. I thought maybe I’d get something out of my system and there wouldn’t be anything left to say or do.

I’d kiss Park, once, and she’d be satisfied. She’d understand. She’d go on her college path and I’d go on on mine.

But the words spilled out, unbidden. Park stayed in place, steady and unflinching. That made it worse, so much worse.

“My parents weren’t like yours.” There was an accusatory edge to it. Don’t you know? I wanted to shout. Don’t you know? Even without the eyes or the school bills or the bus.

“Hey,” she cradled my cheeks with both hands now and smeared the tears away from one eye. “Hey, listen, I know. Alright? I know.”

I scowled back at her feathered little feelers.

“It’s not about the damn antenna or head beams or anything else.” I tried to pull away. “Even the kid with the antler’s kissed me and I didn’t stop him. I ran away from home and my mom never came looking. It didn’t matter. It doesn’t matter! You wouldn’t even get it. You wouldn’t get it!” I squeeze my eyes closed. “You were wanted.”

Slowly, like an awkward animal burrowing into soft earth, she pressed her forehead to the crook of my neck. I could feel us both breathing in, strong and steady. She was lean and silky, and I swore I can feel her heartbeat hammering through my throat.

“I’m sorry.” She whispered. I inhaled her sunscreen scent. “I shouldn’t have said that. I don’t know. But I could.”

“Why are you here?” It was miserable and wet, I hated that my eyes were so different and yet still the same. Could still spill over like theirs. She took a long breath but didn’t move away.

“My last girlfriend broke up with me for being . . . sensitive and I thought maybe if I got a tattoo, I’d stop feeling so much. I’d prove something. I’d feel everything less, you know? It would hurt and then it wouldn’t.”

I took that in a parsec at time. “Are you,” I sniffed. “Are you alright?” Her legs and arms were plastered over mine. “You’re so soft, but, but I don’t want to,” I wipe at my face like it didn’t matter. “Hurt you.”

“I know.” Her face was still pressed to my neck and her lips fluttered across the hallow of my skin. “I didn’t want to hurt you either.”

A stillness settled into my bones. I glanced toward the moon, and it was like looking at like, a terrible moon to another moon. I gathered myself. I took a deep breath. I flattened.

“I shouldn’t have said all that.” My voice had dried up. “We led different lives.” It wasn’t her fault if she was wanted.

“No.”

“I wasn’t thinking . . .”

Her hand wrapped around my wrist. “I talk to Annie sometimes when you aren’t there.”

“Okay?”

“And Davies. And that front desk guy.”

“Daft Jeff. Yes.”

“They all say the same thing . . .” I blinked a couple times. “That I really should wait for you to give me the tattoo. You have a steady hand and an eye for detail.”

“Alright . . .”

“That someone taught you tattooing the right way. They wanted to show you the right way to do it.”

I snorted despite myself. “It’s not that hard. Mags was batty. Who knows why she showed me how to pick up a needle.”

“Don’t you see? They say they wouldn’t know what to do without you.” She was still there. She wasn’t moving, almost in my lap now. “You were wanted.”

“Park?” My voice cracked like a question.

“And you come with me to restaurants and help me buy bottle openers. You find shells for me and help me fix tires.” Her breath was hot and dragged across my cheek. “You are wanted.”

I blocked out her face, her voice, I turned on the sharp white sun inside and for a moment I imagine never opening my eyes back up again. Maybe I could make it night forever inside myself as well. Wouldn’t you rather have something quiet inside?

She wrapped herself around me, fully, one long arm at a time until it was cocoon. Soft. “Listen, sometimes the first people aren’t the right people. Sometimes your first relationship isn’t the right relationship. Sometimes you’re sure the world is one way, and like, always one way . . . and then it rains and the whole world is different again. You know? People pass.”

“My parents aren’t the weather.”

“But they’ll pass.” I should have pushed her off. But even against that, even those words— I liked being held, indulgent as chocolate and twice as guilty. “People sometimes feel forever, especially those kinds of people.” I was off again. “But it rains. And hey, I always know when it’s going to rain.”

I hiccupped; a smile found its way uninvited onto my face, unsure and just wobbly on its feet as Davies. I glanced down after a deep breath. Park grinned back at me and it reached the highest shelves of me all over again.

“So what happens when it rains again? Do you people like you pass?”

“Nah, not me. I don’t know how.” She winked. I didn’t notice that we’re lying flat now, stars and carpet of black above. “You can’t get rid of me. You haven’t given me that tattoo yet.”

The sound of shushing waves filled the midnight air and the moon looked down like that very first bus arriving to get me all those years ago. I wrapped my arms right back around her. She didn’t seem to mind that I was sticky or strange or sometimes kept tearing up all over again even after we’d stop saying anything worth tearing up over. ------------------

It happened. I felt like I should have been more prepared, brought flowers or poetry or earned it through honored warfare. But it happened. I was wearing ripped jeans, a spotty t-shirt and my breath smelled like coffee. We were looking for Park’s lost earring along an overgrown hill she usually biked along.

I found it, one shiny red dewdrop in all that green. Park pointed at some clouds that looked like my last “abstract” tattoo. We lay back in the grass and let the sky pass overhead. She giggled and touched my wrist, side by side. I let her.

“Summer’s almost over.” I mumbled it first.

“Yeah?”

“You find your next step then, college girl?” I tried to keep my tone light. She turned to be on her side.

“Maybe.”

“What do you want to do?”

“Oh, you know. This and that.”

“That does not sound like a college-girl plan.”

“Maybe I’ve got other plans. Maybe I’ve got other priorities, huh?”

“Ridiculous.” A playfully push her shoulder. “A lousy seaside town really isn’t priority material. There’s only one bookshop you know.”

“Two thank you very much. And that’s not my priority either.” Her voice wavered.

“Are you going to share with the class?”

“Is the class ready?” She whispered and I turned toward her as well now, taking in her perfect round face and question-mark mouth.

“I have been.” I matched her whisper. I tremor from my center outward and hopes she can’t tell.

“Do you know what they say about moths?”

“What?” I gave a breathy laugh. It wasn’t what I was expecting. “I’ve heard of them.”

“They tell your fortune.” She was grinning in that way that put out a stool and reached up. “I used to cry a lot growing up, because some kids said that moths are just evil butterflies. I was sensitive and ran all the way home. I threw myself at my mom’s feet and threw a fit about how moths were just evil butterflies. They were just ugly, wicked versions of a good thing.”

“Evil? Well, I suppose you are rather sinister when you haven’t eaten.”

“Shut up. I’m telling you something.” She put a hand on my shoulder. I inhaled deeply and turned over in place to face her. Only the shallow breeze kept us apart.

“I’m all ears . . . though maybe not as many as you.”

“You’re lucky you’re cute.”

“What can I say? The sun is adorable. I take after him.”

A finger ghosted over my cheek, tracing the arc of my cheekbone. “Well, you’re not so bad behind those headlights too. Some of us have good day vision you know. And good taste.”

I wished those words didn’t make my chest do funny things. “Thanks.”

“Do you want to hear what my mom said or not?”

“That you shouldn’t worry about evil butterflies?” I wiggled closer. “Because you’ll be really hot and funny and smart one day. So who cares if you’re evil?”

“Yeah, those were her exact words.”

“So?”

“So,” a firm hand took my chin. “Look at me.” I looked at her. I was glad she couldn’t see the flush in my cheeks in any way. “Moths show good fortunes she said.”

“Right. Lots and lots of good fortune.” I breathed, dumbly, of course. She was close and sweet and there was hair in her face. The fronds of her antennae tickle right past my ear.

“They can help you find good fortune. They’re good omens. You know why?” Park’s lips were barely moving as she spoke, hypnotic and unhurried.

“Why?”

“Because they follow the light.”

It happened all at once. Like every cheesy love poem or bad lyrics I wrote in my journals at night. It was every cracked-spine of a book using words like “rosebud lips” and every overdone song about people who find their way to each other.

I kissed her, leaning in with no life vest on or readied crash-landing position. She kissed me and my chest filled with her, breathless, drowning, soft as dreams and stranger than hope. I cradled her and she dragged me closer and closer until it was nothing but floods and brimming.

I’d been nothing before I think, I’d been an island that waits, a bus that leaves, a shadow that hides. And then I had been hers. ----------------- I was strolling home from work along the main road. The thin strip of sidewalk was streaked with bleached sunlight and the salt air was thick enough to burn throats. It was the long way home, but I was in the habit of going back to this corner.

The bus pulled up with little ceremony. It was an interstate one that crisscrossed over empty bellies of land. I stopped in place to watch, just in case, as I had many times before.

A silver head bobbed down the steps and planted herself on the concrete, unbelieving. She took an enormous noisy sniff of the air. “Not so bad!” She bellowed.

“Are you?” That wasn’t meant to be my first word. She was more stooped now and wearing shiny things on her wrist that clanked. She’d lost another tooth. “Mags.”

“Eh!” She yelled and waved frantically as if I hadn’t shot up another inch since I last saw her and started wearing clothes without holes in them. Her eyes sparkled as she tottered over. “So how’d you do, kid?”

“See for yourself.” I smiled. It was nice when the tides came back in. Mags gave me a thorough appraising. “Like this I guess.” I held up my hand. I wiggled my ring finger at her, heavy with a silver band and glittering opal.

“That’s my girl! Always knew you’d find your feet.” She cackled. “Am I too late to give you away, kid?”

I shook my head. She waddled over to me so I could take her hand. I took her home to show her my art and new tattoos, I showed her our terrible one-eyed kitten, Basket (Wicker’s son), and the little house we styled ourselves. I showed her our shoe closet and our queen bed, our messy kitchen and busted screen door. I showed her the moth tattoo over my heart, and Park showed her the matching lighthouse one over hers.

I tried to thank her, of course, I tried to say I owed her more than she knew for picking up an angry, dirty kid and seeing something in her. I owed her everything. But she just patted my hand and said that it’s not about our debts in life, kid. It’s about the becoming.

-----------

If you enjoyed the story please consider donating to my ko-fi or supporting me on patreon (even a dollar helps!), check out my Sapphic fantasy book as well!

#wlw #sapphic #found family #urban fantasy #writeblr #magical realism #fantasy stories #short story #writing #lesbian romance #patreon late release #femslash #f/f #8k #my work #long post #long post cw

413 notes · View notes

wordsnstuff · 4 years ago

Text

Guide to Creating Magic Systems

Patreon || Ko-Fi || Masterlist || Work In Progress

–

Decide What is “Good” and “Evil”

This is a big decision, because it’s going to impact the way your characters use magic, and the overall theme/tone of the story. You must decide where the moral limitations of magic stand, in addition to the practical limitations. You must also decide who can/does overstep those moral or societal boundaries. This is a great place where you can find conflict and establish the themes of your story.

Establish Clear Limits

All quality magic systems have clear limits in their reality. Sometimes time travel is possible, sometimes it isn’t. More “powerful” spells, or spells with greater physical implications, will require greater sacrifices, like death, loss, or pain. Deciding these limits are a key task you must accomplish early in the process of designing a magic system, because it can impact the conflict, plot points, character motivations, and more.

Establish Consequences

Arguably, magic systems aren’t interesting or engaging unless the reader is aware that any use of magic will have some consequence. Not always an epic consequence, because some magic systems are designed to be fun and full of wonder, and therefore some magic should be available to serve that purpose without being overshadowed by impending consequence. However, if magic plays a major part in your conflict or conflict resolution, it would benefit your story to establish a system of consequences or effects that come as a result of using various amounts or levels or types of magic that exist in your universe.

Diversity in Magic (Powers & Users)

One of the more contemporary grievances about magic systems is that it’s very one-size-fits-all, or bland in terms of who can/does use magic and how they do so. It’s worth your time to explore the idea of including multiple groups or species who can use magic and determining how the way they use it can differ. Regional characteristics of magic users and habits/idiosyncrasies that differ depending on class/race/social status/location. It can also be an interesting point of contention in your story/world to think about how different groups or individuals influence the methodology or views on magic. Do some view it as a sacred gift that is only to be used according to ancient tradition? Does this conflict with more modern views of younger users who view it as a tool that should be used whenever to make life easier?

Establish a Source & Theory

On a lot of occasions, this development is mostly for your own sake as the writer. However, it’s immensely helpful to know where magic came from or how it came to be available/wielded, and how that affects its value or role in your world. This is typically the kind of information authors put a lot of thought into and then end up stuffing as much of it into the preliminary drafts as possible, only to cut 90% of it out later, but even if it’s never explicitly stated in the text, writing the story with that context in mind can considerably enrich the story.

Common Struggles

~ How do I establish magic is a thematic element as well as a world building one?... Make your magic mean something. Using magic systems as a decoration is a staple of the fantasy genre, so you must establish the intrigue of your magic system through who uses it, and how they choose to do so. Use magic as a tool to explore the themes of the story. It doesn’t have to be a metaphor itself, but it can do wonders in delivering subtle nudges toward the overall point of the story. Think of it as a thematic tool, instead of a plot ornament.

~ How do I depict the use of magic in an engaging way?... Big magic and small magic. Sure, there will probably be some epic battles or intense displays of incredible power, but if this ability is widespread and considered typical, show the little things as well. Characters usually have “stage business”, or mundane actions they accomplish to break up dialogue or make scenes more dynamic, and this stage business is a great opportunity to show everyday magic. Doing laundry, getting coffee, catching a bus, sorting paperwork, etc. are all tasks that would be more convenient with magic, so show it. Use these little moments to periodically inform/remind the reader of the breadth/limitations of magic and the diversity in who uses it and how.

~ How do I convey the intricacies of the magic system without info-dumping periodically throughout my story?... Find places in scenes that you wouldn’t necessarily assume magic would be a necessary part of and ask yourself how a character who has magic (and perhaps always has) would live that moment differently from you (a person who does not and never has had that ability). If they’re doing the dishes in this scene, would they be doing it manually or directing the objects to move with magic because they don’t like getting their hands wet? A lot of the charm in magical stories is the escapism; the idea that life could be so different, and probably more convenient, if one had magic. So, lean into this, use opportunities you find to inject some context or information about the rules/limitations/history/etc., and the magic will naturally integrate itself.

~ How do I achieve a magic system that adds to a reader’s enjoyment, rather than simply acting as a story garnish?... A lot of writers try to recapture the fascination readers have with magic systems in stories like Harry Potter, and it’s important to denote that what sets that magic system apart from the others is that it was built using various source materials that weren’t inherently magical. If you try to build a magic system based on one in another story, it’s unlikely you’ll come up with any original ideas. The magic in Harry Potter was constructed using Latin roots, global mythology, and various references to popular tropes in literature about witches, wizards, fictional creatures, etc. Additionally, a lot of the conflict regarding magic was derived from real world issues, such as prejudice. Magic for the sake of magic does little to interest a reader who is well versed in the genre, but magic created from scratch to serve a unique purpose will intrigue and entertain them.

–

Masterlist | WIP Blog

If you enjoy my blog and wish for it to continue being updated frequently and for me to continue putting my energy toward answering your questions, please consider Buying Me A Coffee, or pledging your support on Patreon, where I offer early access and exclusive benefits for only $5/month.

Shoutout to my $15+ patron, Douglas S.!

#writing #writeblr #writing advice #writing tips #writing resources #resources for writers #writing reference #writing help #writespo #writing inspiration #writing motivation #inspiration #motivation #magic #magic systems

651 notes · View notes

yeenybeanies · 3 years ago

Text

Family Visits

damn i guess i never posted this from my patreon?? wild ocs | clayton hess, lake hess, & nathan o'rourke 2,244 words no significant warnings!! likes < reblogs!! thanks for reading!! patreon ✨ ko-fi

Clay’s ear swiveled slowly as he worked, tracking the sound of hooves thumping through the grass. Every so-often he would glance over his shoulder to check on the source of the noise: his nephew, Lake, gleefully frolicking about. After the train ride from the herd to Clay’s home, Clay didn’t blame the little centaur for needing to stretch his legs. He bucked and reared and rolled in the grass, giggling with unrestrained joy. Clay took a moment to watch him. Had he ever been that energetic in his youth? He didn’t think so. Lake’s reserves were boundless, it seemed.

“Hey, Uncle Clay!” Lake asked suddenly. He stood up from his roll and shook himself off, though blades of grass still clung to his wild hair. “There are humans that live nearby, right? Can we please go see them? I’ve never met a human before!”

Oh boy.

Clay rubbed the back of his neck and sucked a breath in through his teeth. He knew this question would come eventually. Lake was a curious boy; of course he’d want to meet the humans in the neighboring town. The idea made Clay nervous. It wasn’t that he thought that Lake would intentionally try to hurt anyone; quite the opposite. Lake didn’t have a mean bone in his body. What made Clay nervous was the fact that Lake was still very young. Like all other centaurs his age, he could be clumsy at times, not watching where he put his hooves, bumping into things, being too rough with his hands.

“Not today, kiddo,” he said. “I gotta let ‘em know you’re here first, so you don’t go scarin’ ‘em too much. You gotta be extra careful around ‘em, too.”

“What if I promise to be super duper careful?” Lake looked up at him with those big brown eyes, the spitting image of his mother. Unfortunately, though, Clay grew up with his mother. He was immune to her pleading looks, and, therefore, immune to Lake’s. He shook his head.

“Not today. You gotta practice.”

“Aw, come on, Uncle Clay! What do I have to practice for? Mom told me that you’d let me see them!”

Clay chuckled and shook his head. “Gotta practice just… bein’ near ‘em,” he said with a shrug. “I cannot overstate just how easy it can be to accidentally hurt ‘em.”

Lake huffed and jutted his lower lip out in a pout, but didn’t argue further.

“Cheer up, son!” Clay said. He ruffled the boy’s hair, shaking out some of the grass. Lake ducked away from his hand, giggling through his protests. “There’s still daylight. Hows about, when I finish sortin’ this fruit, I take you down to Joyelette’s River.”

That did the trick. All traces of Lake’s pout vanished. His excitement came back in full, manifesting in a few joyous bucks. He returned to his frolicking, and Clay resumed his work.

***

As was to be expected, their little adventure was a resounding success. They’d spent nearly two hours at Joyelette’s River and in the surrounding megaforest. Clay relished the cool waters a bit more than he’d thought he would. It got him thinking that maybe he was working a little too hard. Someone had to do it, though; it wasn’t like he had anyone else on his land to help him out. Who, if not him, was going to tend to the orchards and the bees and the megafauna? Who was going to help the humans with their tasks that a centaur could do with a fraction of the time and effort?

...Okay, maybe he did have a lot on his plate. Maybe he ought to have Lake over more often, if the young centaur showed any interest in Clay’s particular lifestyle.

But that was something to be discussed later, perhaps when Lake was older.

By the time Clay’s home came into view, the pair were still shaking off the last traces of river water from their manes and tails. Lake was somehow still brimming with energy. He bounced around, chattering and asking questions about the land, talking a mile a minute. His curiosity was endearing, if not a bit overwhelming. Clay tried his best to keep up, but any longer-winded answers––meaning more than a few words––he had were often cut off by another question, or by Lake bolting away.

“Uncle Clay!” Lake said suddenly. Clay turned his head to the boy, ears perked. Lake stood facing Clay, pawing at the dirt with one hoof. “Race ya to the big tree!” He declared. The tree in question stood tall in Clay’s front yard, hiding a portion of his home behind its massive canopy.

“Oh, I don’t think that’s a fair race,” he said with a wave of his hand. “You’d beat me easily. Go on ahead. I’ll catch up.”

He didn’t have to tell Lake twice. The little centaur spun around with a hop and sprinted off, leaving Clay to follow behind in a relaxed walk. Lake didn’t make it far, though, before he skidded to a halt. Clay didn’t pay it much mind at first, figuring the kid had seen an animal or an odd-looking mushroom––something to distract him from his initial goal. But then Lake pointed and shouted something that made Clay’s heart stop: “Look! Is that a car? Is there a human here?”

Before Clay could react, Lake sprinted off even faster than before, careening towards the vehicle in question. To make matters worse, he recognized the vehicle. It was O’Rourke’s truck.

“Wait––no!” Clay sprang forward, rushing after his runaway nephew. “Lake, stop!” But his words went either unheeded or unheard.

O’Rourke had only pulled up a few minutes ago. He was wandering about the pathway leading up to the house, looking for Clay. “Hess?” He called out. The old centaur was usually working still at this time, so he expected that Clay would be somewhere outside. The ground beneath him started to rumble, drawing O’Rourke’s confusion. He glanced down with furrowed brows, watching pebbles rattle with increasing intensity. Briefly he pondered if the shaking was from an earthquake (which was ridiculous; this part of the country didn’t get earthquakes) or from an approaching centaur. Clay’s distant shout answered that question for him. His head snapped up sharply, eyes wide and spotting not Clay, but another, unfamiliar centaur. This one looked smaller, though, of course, still far larger than any human. Behind him, O’Rourke spotted Clay. Both of them were running his way. It almost looked like Clay was chasing the smaller one…

“Oh shit…” the old man muttered to himself.

“Aw shit…!” Clay said through gritted teeth. Clay spotted O’Rourke. The human was directly in Lake’s path. Clay pushed harder, pumped his legs faster. He sent up huge clumps of dirt and grass with every step. “LAKE!” He tried again. He was nearly caught up to his nephew, but there was little time left.

The centaurs showed no signs of stopping, or even slowing down. O’Rourke, for the first time in a long time, felt a trickle of fear crawl up his spine.

Clay, with one final push, came up beside Lake and threw his arms around his secondary chest. He pitched his weight to the side, yanking Lake right off of his hooves. Unable to slow down so quickly, he used the extra momentum and threw himself to the ground, landing heavily on his side with Lake in his arms. The two of them rolled to a messy stop, stirring up a large dust cloud around everyone. Clay remained still as a statue for a long moment, holding onto a very shocked and startled Lake.

“You okay?” He mumbled quietly. “Nothing broken?”

“N-no, I’m fine, Uncle Clay…” The young centaur answered.

Clay released Lake and pushed himself to his belly. “O’Rourke?” The anxiety in his voice was palpable. Desperately Clay scanned the grass, dreading that he might see the old man reduced to a red mess. “O’Rourke,” he said, more forcefully.

A hand shot up from the grass. He leaned over and very gently took that hand between his thumb and forefinger, giving O’Rourke something to use to pull himself up. Once the old man was up on his feet again, Clay bowed his head in relief and let his arms drop to the ground (mindful of O’Rourke) with a dull thud. He sighed out a heavy “Thank the skies.”

“Skies above…” O’Rourke said. He leaned against Clay’s knuckles, his own head bowed, and took a few breaths to steady himself. “Hess, I’m not so young anymore; you’re gonna give me a damn heart attack…!”

Clay grimaced and glanced up at O’Rourke. “We didn’t hurt you, did we?” He wasn’t sure that he’d be able to forgive himself if he had.

“No, no,” the old man said. He gave Clay’s knuckle a few pats, then pushed himself off to stand on his own, albeit still a bit shaky. He brushed his hands down his clothing, trying to dust off the dirt he’d accumulated in the commotion. “Just gave me a bit of a fright. But I’m glad you said ‘we,’ ‘cos I thought I was goin’ crazy when I saw two of you.”

“Er, yeah. O’Rourke, this is Lake, my nephew,” Clay said. He leaned back a little, letting Lake peek around him. The young centaur stared down at O’Rourke with wide, curious eyes and alert ears. His cheeks were flushed, both from exertion and from embarrassment.

“H-hello, mister. Lake Hess. Sorry if I scared you… I’ve just never met a human before.”

O’Rourke chuckled. “Hello, Lake. I’m Nathan O’Rourke. Your uncle’s a good friend of mine, so I’ll let you off the hook this time.” He could tell that Lake was young, so he couldn’t hold any malice or ire, even if he wanted to. He looked between the two centaurs, noting the family resemblance. “You said that you’ve never met a human before, hm?”

“No, sir,” the young centaur answered. “The herd I’m from doesn’t really go near human towns very often, and when we do, it’s only ever a few of the older centaurs that’ll go talk to 'em.”

“Ah, the herd,” O’Rourke mused. He rubbed at his chin thoughtfully. “I’ve heard a little about them. Same one you’re from, I assume?” he asked Clay.

“Yes, that’s right,” Clay responded. “Left many years ago. Herd life wasn’t for me.”

“Right, so you’ve told me.” O’Rourke pondered this information for a moment, then clapped his hands together. “Well! It’s nice to meet you, Lake, even if you two did scare a few years out of me.” He winked and gave Clay a mirthful smile when he noticed the older centaur’s guilty grimace.

“Apologies again,” Clay said. “I was going to let you and the rest of the town know tomorrow that he was visiting.”

O’Rourke waved off the repeated apology. He pushed his way through the waist-high grass until he stood in front of the two centaurs, where he could better see Lake. “Well, I’ll be sure to pass the word along. How long are you going to be with us, young man?”

Lake blinked and gave his uncle a quick glance before answering. “A month or so, mister, i-if the townsfolk don’t mind. I’ll be careful, promise.”

“I’ll teach him to be careful,” Clay corrected, giving his nephew’s hair a hard ruffle.

“I’m sure you will,” O’rourke said with a chuckle. “Best one to do it, I reckon. I can probably convince a couple of the younger folk in town to help too.” Clay raised a brow in confusion, prompting him to continue, “How’s the boy supposed to learn if he’s not around any humans?”

“Er… I’m not so sure if that’s a good idea…” Clay said skeptically. Based on his first interaction with a human, having Lake around more so soon made him nervous.

“Sure it is!” O’Rourke said with a dismissive wave. “It’ll be fine. The boy said he’ll be careful, and you and I’ll both be there to guide him!” He beamed up at Clay, who seemed unconvinced. “‘Sides, some of the townsfolk need to get over their nervousness around your kind anyhow.”

Clay wasn’t so sure about that. It was understandable for humans to fear centaurs; the size disparity between the two species was immense. The possibility of a human getting caught underhoof was very real, even if such instances were incredibly rare. Centaurs were typically known to be gentle giants, though Clay still thought it smart for humans to keep their distance.

“I’d like that, Uncle Clay!” Lake exclaimed, dragging Clay from his thoughts. He looked between his nephew and O’Rourke, feeling helpless.

“I’ve never been able to stop O’Rourke from doing… anything,” Clay relented with a sigh. “Alright. I’m fine with it. But you––” he looked pointedly at Lake, “––are going to listen to me and do everything I say, understand?”

Lake nodded eagerly, grinning ear to ear. His excitement was palpable.

“Great!” O’Rourke said with a smile of his own. “I’ll see who I can round up, and coordinate with you from there. Until then, though, would ya give me a lift, Hess?”

Clay hesitated a moment, as he often did, then lowered his hands to the ground in front of O’Rourke. “Watch now, Lake,” he said. O’Rourke obliged with the demonstration and stepped over Clay’s fingers, to his palm. He settled down on his knees and gave the calloused skin beneath him a pat. “It’s important to keep steady,” Clay continued, “No sudden moves so you don’t drop ‘em.” His fingers curled in slightly as he lifted O’Rourke, bringing the old man up to chest height.

Lake watched with obvious fascination and awe, marveling at just how tiny O’Rourke looked in Clay’s hands. O’Rourke was perfectly at ease, comfortable right where he was.

“Like I said: best one to teach these things.” O’Rourke extended a thumbs up, then let his hand fall back to his side. “The young ‘un’s gonna be just as good as you in no time. Nothin’ to worry about.”

Clay… still felt uneasy about the whole thing, but he kept his concerns to himself. He knew his nephew. Lake had good intentions; he just needed to temper his excitement.

“Right,” he said with a sigh. “We’ll see how it goes. In the meantime, what can I do for you, O’Rourke?”

#g/t #g/t fiction #g/t writing #centaurs #clayton hess #lake hess #nathan o'rourke #almost had a whole Disaster there #hyena writes #hyena ocs

27 notes · View notes

kumoriyami-xiuzhen · 3 years ago

Text

Hakuoki Yuugiroku 2 - Hijikata Chapter 5

This is my last post of the month, so I’ll end by asking you to please support me if you can through my ko-fi, and paypal or patreon which provides access to my hakuoki blog translations and early access to my postings. Also, please let me know if you have any hakuoki drama cds that you’d be willing to share that are on my Lookout List since i either do not have audio for those cds or do not have audio that I can share…. and if you are able to remove watermarks from a video, please contact me.

For some very strange reason, I decided to watch the xxxHolic stage. i mean, i don’t even remember the plot of the manga (or the last time i even read it for that matter), and since my understanding of spoken Japanese is worse than abysmal, I didn’t really understand what was going on so it probably wasn’t a good idea to watch in the first place... though in fairness, i just had it played in the background as I was mostly focusing on something else at the time. lol. yeah, im weird.

anyway, enjoy!

Hakuoki Yuugiroku 2 - Hijikata Chapter 5

Translation by KumoriYami

Yukimura: Pickles, and freshly brewed tea for Hijikta-san...... Nn.

There was steam wafting from the tea that had been placed on the tray, and it tickled my nose [reword later].

After a trip to the kitchen to secure the pickles and tea, I headed straight towards Hijikata-san's room.

Yukimura: It would be nice if Hijikata-san could enjoy this.

I muttered quietly with anticipation, and stopped at the door in front of Hijikata-san's room.

Although it wasn't a bad idea to bring food, what if I got in the way of his work and he kicked me out?

While worrying about this, I took in a deep breath and opened my mouth to speak through the closed [im assuming it's "sliding". check later] doors.

Yukimura: Um, Hijikata-san. It's Yukimura.

…………

Yukimura: I'm sorry to disturb you while you're busy. I made you some tea...

…………

After asking several times, there was still no response/signs of movement from the other side of the door.

Yukimura: As expected, it wasn't good to bring tea over......

I was hoping this would make him happy/cheer him up, but the tea had now become cold/had cooled down.

As I listlessly hung my head as I looked down at the tea leaves floating in the teacup——

Hijikata: Hey.

The voice that I had been expecting to hear suddenly came from behind me for some reason.

Yukimura: Eh?

Hijikata: I was wondering who it was, and it turned out to be you, Chizuru. What are you doing standing in front of someone's room?

Yukimura: Hi-Hijikata-san!?

Being in such an unexpected situation, the tray almost fell out of my hands.

After reaching for the tray to keep it steady, Hijikata-san sighed.

Hijikata: Why are you so surprised. It looks like you've seen a ghost.

Yukimura: It, It's not that/N-No, I thought you'd be spending the entire day in your room working.... .!

Hijikata: Well, I was thinking about doing that earlier.

At the same he finished those meaningful words, Hijikata-san glanced at me and went into his room.

Seeing that I was still standing there dumbstruck, Hijikata-san glanced at me.

Hijikata: Weren't you looking for me? If so, don't just stand there and come in.

Yukimura: Ye-Yes!

As soon as I entered the room, the first thing that came into view were the documents and letters scattered all over the place.

After gathering up the things that had scattered to the floor, HIjikata-san sat down.

Hijikata: Well, I just wanted to ask you about what you're carrying in your hands right now...

Yukimura: Ah, yes. I was thinking that it was about time for you to take a break, so I prepared tea and some snacks for you.

Hijikata: You specifically prepared it for me? I'm sorry for troubling you.

After I put down the tray, Hijikata-san immediately reached for the pickles.

After he put the pickles into his mouth, he seemed to be chewing them carefully, as if to taste them slowly/slowly savour them.

Hijikata: Hm? This taste...

Yukimura: Yes. I heard these pickles were brought/sent over from Hino.

Hijikata: I see. No wonder why they taste familiar.

Hijikata:——Ah, these are really delicious. The taste from my hometown is really different/special.

As if he were thinking of his hometown, Hijikata-san looked off into the distance as he sipped his tea.

That's good... he seemed to be happy.

Yukimura: Where these pickles were delivered from——Hijikata-san's hometown is the same as Kondou-san's hometown right?

Hijikata: Yeah. Haven't I mentioned this/it before? I used to learn the sword at a run-down/poor [word i have is 'poor' but i think run-down makes more sense... though i also can't think of any other word at the moment] dojo in Tama with Kondou-san, Souji and Gen-san.

I've heard several stories about that time.

The dojo that Kondou-san was the dojo master of ——. [reword later? 'dojo' repeats twice]

It was where the other executives met.

Yukimura:...It must have been a friendly dojo.

Hijikata: That's because the owner of the dojo is/was a good person. Thanks to that/him, the number of freeloaders increased while it became more and more poor...

Hijikata: At the time, all you could eat for a meal were sliced pickles.

Hijikata: How about it, Chizuru, why don't you try a slice too?

Yukimura: Is that okay/Can I?

Like Hijikata-san suggested, I brought a slice to my mouth.

When I bit into it, a salty taste spread inside my mouth.

Yukimura: They're/It's delicious/Delicious......

Hijikata: Yeah. [So?] You also think that they're delicious......

Seeing how my eyes had widened, Hijikata-san smiled.

I couldn't help but feel fascinated by that smile.

Yukimura:…………

Hijikata: What/What is it? Is there something on my face?

Yukimura: N-No, that's not the case... but, I was thinking that Hijikata-san had a very tender/gentle expression just now...

Hijikata: Huh.... I couldn’t help it since you were praising the flavours of my hometown.

Hijikata-san looked away and whispered softly to himself.

...Perhaps he was feeling embarrassed.

Then/After, as I saw Hijikata-san stretch by lightly turning his neck, I nervously opened my mouth.

Yukimura: Um, speaking of which, Hijikata-san, you've been working all day... If it's alright with you, can I massage your shoulders?

Hijikata: No need to massage my shoulders. Rather, I wouldn't want such a sight to be seen by Souji [reword later? awkward].

Hijikata: If he saw that/you doing that, he would definitely say something to me about retiring/about how I should retire.

Yukimura: Yes/I see...

I lowered my head.

Perhaps it was because he couldn't bear to see my pitiful appearance, but Hijikata-san bitterly smiled and shook his head.

Hijikata:......I changed my mind. Well, in fact, my shoulders are [feeling] very stiff/sore.

As he spoke, Hijikata-san turned his back towards me.

Hijikata: Then..... I'll leave it to you.

Yukimura: Y-Yes! Excuse me then!

I tried to hide my nervousness as I put my hands onto Hijikata-san's shoulders.

When I touched him like this, I once again realized that he was a man again [????].

Hijikata-san's shoulders were much wider/broader than mine, and the muscles in his shoulders were as hard as rocks.

With what little strength I had, I worried that I wouldn't be able to do anything...

While I thought that, I used as much strength as I could as massaged his shoulders.

Yukimura: Is, Is this okay?

Hijikata:…………

Each time I pressed my palms into his shoulders, Hijikata-san's normally stern face seemed to loosen because of how comfortable/relaxing this was [to him].

Although he didn't answer my question, the sigh that escaped his lips was enough of a response.

I might be overstating it, but it seemed that he trusted me [???]....

Seeing his wholly relaxed/comfortable and defenceless expression, I couldn't believe that this was the same Demon Vice-Commander.

Yukimura; You seem really stiff. Thank you for all the hard work you do every day. So, will you be continuing to work after this?

Hijikata: Yeah. I was originally going to work all day today.... that's how it was supposed to be.

Yukimura: Supposed to be?

Hijikata-san glanced at me again with another meaningful look in his eyes/Hijikata-san glanced at me with the same meaningful eyes he had before.

As I blinked my eyes, not knowing what he meant, Hijikata-san's lips lifted into a smile.

Hijikata: In fact, I was going to ordering uniforms, estimating the cost of repairing the leak in the roof... But it seems like the work I was supposed to do was done by someone else.

Yukimura: Th-That/Th-Then...

I finally managed to figure out the situation.

Then, almost as if he were waiting for it, Hijikata-san gently put his hand on the top of my head.

Hijikata: I rarely have free time.... but it wouldn't be bad to go out.

Yukimura: Ye-Yes!

Hijikata: Tell/Call me when you want to go to the festival. If you like, I'll accompany you.

Seeing that Hijikata-san was cheerfully smiling/cheerfully laughed, I also smiled.

Since I could go to the festival with Hijikata-san, what should I/we go do now——

-end of chapter-

#hakuoki #hakuouki #hakuoki yuugiroku 2 #Hijikata Toshizou #Yukimura Chizuru #hakuoki game translation

22 notes · View notes

oops-prow-did-it-again · 3 years ago

Text

I’m back!

So, I kinda quit using this blog a while back. There are some notes about it in my old pinned post and probably on my fanfics, lol, but basically, I felt overwhelmed by fandom and everything going on irl and I crashed. I just withdrew from like, everything. I still logged in on Tumblr but I just liked things to later view them with the boyfriend or laugh at them again myself.

Honestly, it’s not that fun, just doing that, and not really that fair to people who put effort into their posts like art, music, writing, etc., or even just people who are very passionate about a subject and may want it to reach others that are the same. Because I know I’m like that!

But anyway, this is going to be my new pinned post. So! (More under the cut, please keep reading!)

About Me

You can call me Prowess, I’m a FtM transmasc (he/him please)! I use this space to elevate my personal works, such as art or writing, while also occasionally posting about topics I am passionate about. I realized I was trans in 2020 at the age of 19 years old, in the midst of a pandemic and college fallout, so as you can imagine, I’m still riding the rollercoaster of emotions that come with that. I’m also ADHD... so expect some posts about those sort of things.

But that is hardly the focus! I am big on art and writing. While I am mostly obsessed with Pokemon, I am a lover of stories, and so generally, I love most fiction, even the really bad stuff. Along with my Pokemon stuff, you can expect posts involving ARK: Survival Evolved, The Tales of Miraculous Ladybug & Cat Noir, animated movies (Luca, Toy Story, Spirit - you name it, I probably love it), and plenty of other stuff.

While I have too many older posts to go through and try to sort out the unclean tags, going forward, I am going to use these sort of tags: subject (whatever the post is about, for example, Pokemon), characters depicted, media (whether it’s art, writing, animation, or a mix), and any warnings that may need to go with it (for example, cussing when stronger language is involved, or racism if racism is getting discussed, etc). Memes or one-off posts will likely be tagged with simply “memes.” While this is pretty true for most any blog, this is so you know if you need to block certain tags! For example, if you hate Miraculous Ladybug, you’d just blacklist ‘Miraculous.’

I will also reblog a lot of posts asking for help or boosting awareness. I will try not to inundate the blog with these, but as I will likely have to make a post asking for help at some point myself due to unfortunate irl circumstances, I want to pay it forward in advance. These will be tagged with simply “help needed!”

Below are some projects I’m working on + what you can expect from this blog.

Pokemon Retold

By far, my biggest project to date, is Pokemon Retold.

This is an expansive written anthology of all the pokemon mainline games as far as generation 8. Red, Heart of Gold, Omega Ruby, Platinum, Black, Black 2, Y, Ultra Sun, and Sword are all intended to get rewritten and posted on both my FanFiction.Net and Archive of Our Own accounts. I may also post some chapters here, but I admit Tumblr makes that difficult sometimes.

These stories are very personal to me, as I started writing them when I was struggling in college with undiagnosed ADHD, and felt like my life was falling apart and I was alone. I started writing a retelling of Sword, but the more I wrote, the more disappointed in it I felt, so I started writing Black instead and scrapped Sword altogether.

I’ve had some rough road since, but Black is complete, Black 2 is also complete, and Ultra Sun is (mostly) complete (but with plans to be heavily altered), while Red is underway!

WARNING: These stories can get DARK, and I would rather my readers be over 18. They are not dark with the intent to squick out or upset people, however; they are dark with the intention of exploring thoughts and ideas I find too difficult to think about directly. There are more personalized warnings at the beginnings of each story. With that out of the way, please just try and move on if you find yourself disliking a specific story or part of a story of mine... If you want to give constructive criticism, you are more than welcome, but tearing into me and my writing just because you didn’t like something helps nobody. Keep in mind I write these for fun and as a form of self-therapy throughout some of the worst years of my life.

Furthermore, I edit them a lot. And I do mean a lot. My FFN profile acts as a “changelog” for what has changed in the stories over the course of the time they’ve been posted.

Pokemon Retold posts are tagged “Retold.”

My FFN Profile

My AO3 Profile

Pokemon Retold: Black has been added to TVTropes! I honestly don’t even care that this person digs into it a couple of times, I was so incredibly flattered they took the time to do that at all. (But be warned the page does have some spoilers!) I have no idea if you enjoyed the story or not upon reading over that page, kind stranger lol, but I really appreciate that you took the time to do that nonetheless! <3

Creatively Destructive

This incredibly well-titled story is an idea I have for a retelling of Miraculous Ladybug. I know, I know - absolutely never been done before /s

While I know there has got to be a thousand retellings of this show by now, based on just how.... terrible, the writing is, I want to try anyway. Because I genuinely love the premise of the show! I’m just constantly disappointed by how it seems to never go anywhere with its plot or characters.

So, Creatively Destructive will be a fanfic, and when I have more information on it, I’ll post it under the tag “creatively destructive.”

Roleplays

Me and my boyfriend love to RP a lot. From Monster Hunter to Pokemon, we do a lot of different stories. Sometimes, I really get inspired by what we come up together and I want to share it with others! Be it quick art based on a scene from the RP or a quick rundown of what occurred in an RP, you can catch these in the ‘Prow RP’ tags.

Currently, we are having a lot of fun with an RP based on the Hoenn pokemon games that I am sure I’ll be posting about!

I may also be open to RPs with others in the future :> Don’t be offended that I’m not open to them already... I’m just a very easily overstimulated person.

The Ballad of the ARK

ARK: Survival Evolved is a lot of things. It’s an amazing concept, an open-world game where you befriend dinos and fight alongside tribemates against other tribes, or work together to survive the hostile environment. But the true tragedy of this game goes so much deeper than that, and I want to explore that in writing, starting with my story, my experience, and then graduating to where I think the issue primarily stems from.

This strange memoir will be posted under the tags of “Ballad of ARK.”

Commissions

I hope to take commissions for art and writing in the future!

However, I need to figure out the parameters of what I’m willing to draw (and what I can feasibly draw), as well as what I can promise when it comes to writing, not to mention pricing.

That’s not to say I’m not open to ideas though! Feel free to message me/send me asks anyway and we’ll see if we can work something out. :)

Although I am not in a financial disaster just yet, I feel like I am not far from one. This is why I hope to try to build on commissions in the future. I know they will never support me, but I would still like to try to be useful and helpful to some. I currently live with my grandmother, having left my abusive home with my father, and although she generously allows me to live with her for the low cost of merely helping with some electricity and my own food, I struggle to remain abovewater financially due to difficulty finding work (thanks to issues with ADHD and physical problems following a bout with COVID in early January 2021).

If you would like to help anyway, feel free to subscribe to my Patreon, or make a one-time payment via PayPal. I promise no matter what or how much it is, your generosity is greatly appreciated!! <3

My Patreon

My PayPal

My Ko-fi

(Note that my Patreon is... very outdated and needs to be updated. I will do that soon!)

#new day new me!#undeadprowess #I will be changing my url #pokemon retold #retold #pin #creatively destructive #prow rps #ballad of ark #commissions #sketch #art #rb pls! :)#pokemon #pokemon trainer brendan #brendan #pokemon trainer brix #more info on those last tags soon lol

24 notes · View notes

janeaudron · 3 years ago

Text

Update: Electric Boogaloo 2 - Health and Other Updates

Sorry silly title, but need to cheer myself up. Putting a “read more” since this may be long.

For those concerned only about dice, just highlight “ Dice Time ” (minus quotes) and you should be in that section.

Also for the tl;dr folks - Health really sucks right now and is disabling me from living/doing just about everything.

So it’s been a rough for months to year(s) for me. I’m doing better from getting really sick a few months ago and then the sudden kidney infections a few weeks after getting better. But my main health issue right now is everything related to my back and the muscles associated with and around it. Kinda feel like it’s getting worse but that may be me letting it get to me...

I usually try not to bring up my health issues too much but this one is affecting just about everything I’m doing to a great degree and it’s been driving me nuts. Why I just have long breaks of inactivity now. Also family issues(MORE HEALTH) but I want to keep that private.

Don’t know what is wrong but something constantly has my left side tight and also sometimes my hips and rib cage get tight. Right around my left shoulder blade down to my mid back/lower ribcabe is constantly hurting, but mostly feels sore. So with this constant pain it makes it just about impossible for me to do things for short or long periods of time. Also it makes sleeping a pain. It’s just a pain that eats at you mentally and physically.

Oh added bonus, whatever is wrecking my back also wrecks my digestive track! I am just a ball of health issues right now.

I’m glad my job has been understanding and has allowed me to reduce my hours, but I feel like I’m still struggling to meet the reduced hours with how bad some days can get where I just can’t operate.

This pain is also holding me back from doing any art as I just can’t sit or stand comfortably to work for a few hours. It’s been disheartening to say the least. Depressing really as I’ve got a folder of wips I want to finish and my board game idea is just staring at me. Done more writing/mechanics progress to a point with that but no true art due to pain killing all motivation.

Which is extra annoying since I thought I was going to finally have time to get my Ko-Fi/Patreon going for the board game development and other stuff. But if I can’t produce art and other content at a decent pace, I don’t feel comfortable having those up. Just finished finalizing all the details and tiers too. >:(

Currently working with my doctors to try and figure out what is going on, but no luck so far. Back adjustments help but are so temporary it’s frustrating. I’m doing all sorts of stretches and especially try not to undo the adjustments but they barely last a week before the pain is back and occasionally it’s worse. Also trying to adjust how I currently work and that’s had little to mild results. May try to get a split keyboard sometime in the future.

-------------

Fan Blog

Yeah chapter updates and other content will be on hold for awhile. Have mild bouts were I can do some writing but still not a lot of writing.

I may have a few solo fics I may be posting soon-ish.

-------------

Dice Time - Rather short update here.

So dice production stopped when I got really sick a few months ago, but it’s back up and running. Though running slow when you take in account of all the info above about my health. For the tl;dr folks - Health really sucks and is disabling me from living/doing stuff.

Have some unfinished sets(matte and shiny) that I need to sand to a finished state but that’s going to take awhile.

If y’all don’t mind me posting raws for sale for some time just let me know.

Also have a bunch of unfinished misfits(fine just no full sets) and then mishaps/flawed dice that I need to figure out how I want to sell. Thinking of doing it mystery box or bag style for those.

And have to remake a few molds when I can get some more silicone(it will be awhile with everything going on.) Had some numbers tear and then some surfaces got a bit weird. Don’t know what happened to cause some weird surface textures. Funs of moldmaking.

#update #store update #when you have dreams of scifi tech healing you it just gets depressing #delete eventually

8 notes · View notes

adventures-of-the-creeping-bam · 1 year ago

Text

NEVER SPLIT THE PARTY: THE ADVENTURES OF THE CREEPING BAM, BOOK FOUR: THE HUNT - CHAPTER 4

If you’re new to the story, please go check out Book 1 first …

Boof 4 Chapter 1 is here …

IMPORTANT: Please note this story includes content that may be considered mature, such as moderate battle violence, some strong language and occasional mild sexual scenes.

If you want to support my writing, feel free to swing by my Patreon or Ko-fi.

CHAPTER FOUR: KESLA

Darwyn’s small enough Shay can carry her in cradled in the crook of one arm while she’s holding Ashsong’s sword low and wary in her other hand, not convinced we’re safe even though the young guard clearly looked human. The halfling’s in a hell of a lot o’ pain, wincing with every jog even though the half-orc’s definitely moving careful to make the ride smooth as possible for her, but ‘least she ain’t passing out instead. It’s a better sign, at least. But that wound … I seen ones like it before, and she’s in a bad way.

I lead the way through the doorway, crouching low with my own sword gripped tight in both hands, cuz I ain’t taking any more chances than my friend, even if I did recognise the girl. I just saw those nightmares ooze outta a near dead kid just outside this room, and it was only Krakka’s quick thinking made sure we didn’t all suffer the same fate as every other poor bastard we found so far in this place. Suddenly meeting a healthy live one in here don’t put me much at ease. I’m paranoid as hell right now, but that don’t mean I don’t have cause.

Leaning my shoulder to the door, I give it a gentle push to open it out the rest o’ the way, then step into the room beyond. It’s darker in here than it was outside, but I realise now that having Lady Naru’s fancy lights right now might actually have made us walk right on by without noticing candles burning under the door as we passed. Yes might’ve picked up on the new scents in time, but given the pervading stink of death in here that even I can’t miss I wouldn’t wanna place money on the outcome o’ that bet.

There’s a few individual candles burning round the room, but by and large it’s barely enough to pick much of anything out right now. Most of the illumination now we’re bringing in with us, my own sword in particular lighting things up a whole lot more, so as I step inside I just start to pick up on exactly what’s going on here. And where I actually am.

When I was a kid, growing up in our apartments over the training barracks in Tabaphic, I had my own room, and it was nice enough, I guess, but I was never really the homiest person if I’m honest. I spent so much o’ my time out in the world or training under da an’ the other sergeants, my room was really little more’n just the place my bed was. Even in my adolescence, when the moodiness started to kick in and I found it harder to get up in the morning, I still mostly thought of it more as a room than mine. Truth be told, don’t reckon I really got the whole idea of girls actually having their own personal bedroom as a haven, their safe little space apart from the rest of the world, until I became more’n just friends with Janna. First time she took me into her room it was genuinely like stepping into another world.

I catch something o’ that here but it’s a hell of a lot more extravagant. Then again, we’re dealing with rich girls here, never mind they’re the Hellcat’s daughters. It’s very … rich, and a whole bunch o’ fancy too, a good deal more o’ the kinda overblown foofaraw as da would’ve called it, the kind I try not to roll my eyes at when I do deal with rich folks, particularly the women. The bed alone … fucking hell, that thing is huge, it’s big as whole bedrooms I seen other people inhabit before, actually, and there’s just so much space. There’s bloody big posts supporting a canopy over the top of it, with big, thick velvet curtains hanging round it, while the mattress is almost alarmingly high off the floor, not enough to cause a nosebleed but enough to hurt if you fell out at night. And the bedclothes … it’s all satin, I swear, smooth and soft and … bloody hell, there’s fucking lace too. And it’s just some of the lace I see decorating this place, actually.

That being said, there are enough touches scattered about to tell me this girl ain’t entirely devoid of her mother’s martial character, even if I hadn’t already gotten a suggestion last time I met her. Instead o’ toys or whatever else I might expect a small child like Mara to prize, I see weapons hanging on racks or set on the vanity table in the back of the room alongside much more feminine accoutrements, which instantly mark this as Pela’s room. Certainly there’s no way I’d ever expect to find Thura standing a room like this for herself.

“Who’s there?” A very familiar voice breathes with fragile hope from just past the bed, and I see now that someone else is peeking up from behind a fancily decorated post. It’s the tone of her voice that shakes me, I never would’ve expected it – Lady Thura Vezrim, the Hellcat of Kumehn Valley, is scared out her mind right now. “Who …”

As her words peter out she squints in the relative gloom, although I suspect it might be more to do with the glowing blade I’m now moving to hold out to my side to redirect the light some. Then I notice her looking me over, some strange, oddly wistful kind of recognition in her eyes as she takes me in, and I’m bloody slow remembering I’m wearing da’s armour, right down to my own specially commissioned new helm.

Kesla, you fucking moron. You look just like a Rundao Regular right now. Poor woman prob’ly reckons she’s seeing a ghost.

“What … are you … who is that?”

“Shit!” I hiss under my breath, and before I even realise what I’m doing I stab Hefdred down so it pierces a good six inches into the floor like the boards are made of soft cheese, sticking up so I can let go. Only now realising I just jammed my sword through the carpet of her daughter’s bedroom, I’m already dragging my helmet off as I spit out a rather muddled: “Oh fuck … I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to –" while turning her way again.

But her eyes just widen as she must recognise me, ‘spite of my greased hair and the black strip painted across my eyes, and there’s the slightest touch of a smile that reaches her lips now. Fragile hope, kindled a little more brightly in her now. “Oh, wait … Mistress Shoon? Kesla! You’re here! But … oh, I’m a fool … of course, Sulin said you were coming for us …”

Her voice is breaking a little now, and I realise she’s crying, has clearly been crying for a while now, looks like, given how ruddy her cheeks have gotten, and the redness of her eyes. For a moment I’m reminded of when she started to weep when we met her in her office, remembering her men, in the Valley, but even so … no, this is just wrong, it’s so strange, the Hellcat crying like some small, scared child. I can’t fathom it at all.

Hooking my helmet onto my belt, I straighten up a bit as I yank my sword free again and take a few more steps into the room, looking round now. “Yeah, well … I mean ‘course we came. Are you okay? What’s –”

“Help me … oh gods please help me, Kesla …” Her breath’s hitching badly now as her voice cracks entirely, finally just dropping to her knees outta my sight, and I’m spurred on to follow her quicker now seeing it. Even though I’m almost scared of what I might find …

Thura ain’t so much ducked back down as simply collapsed onto her side behind the bed, and as I come round I finally see why. Okay, Mara’s all right, and Pela too, at least, the elder daughter hugging the younger tightly to her, while their younger brother Thadeon sits by with a deeply haunted look on his face, not really seeming to see anything right now. There’s a lot of blood on him, I see, but it’s clear it’s not his, most likely it came from some poor bastard who died protecting him whenever it was he was clearly traumatized.

Most likely it’s his brother’s, I realise now. Thura’s eldest child, Deriel Vezrim, virtually a man already but still so fucking young all the same, too young for this … Thura’s not really tending to him, mostly she’s just slumped at his side while she just holds onto his one remaining arm, gripping tight enough for her fingers to dig right in as she’s really starting to lose her fight to stop herself from just shattering right here. The young guard, stood by waiting now, whose name I now realise I never caught, is watching me like she’s almost pleading with her eyes for me to help him, but even as I look down at the boy I realise any care that could be offered likely won’t do any good by this point. His eyes are glassy, pupils wide, empty now as they just stare up at the ceiling, unblinking.

Gods … he was laid right open. Poor kid, clearly he barely had time to throw on a simple pair of britches over his nightshirt and grab his sword, so he was entirely unarmoured when … whatever happened to him. Then again, given what we’ve already seen, it’s not hard to work out. I suspect he did exactly what the son of Thura Vezrim would have done when his little brother was threatened, bearing the brunt of the horrible attack instead. I just hope he was dead before he even knew it had happened …

“Oh fuck …” I barely manage to breath it, both my arms going limp as I just slump into myself standing over ‘em all now, the weight of sudden, unbearable sorrow settling on me like hot lead.

“What is it?” Shay’s at my side now, I realise, her own blade bringing a little more illumination, and this just lights the whole awful scene up brighter. “Are they … shit. Oh my … oh fuck no … oh, Kesla, I’m so …” Her voice falters at that, but I still sort of feel her reaching up to grip my shoulder the best she can, the effect still largely lost with my pauldron.

Finally Thura just gives up trying to compose herself and just starts openly bawling, finally shattering as her grief just takes over. She’s realised as well as I have her son’s gone, maybe just while she was begging me for help, and her heart is breaking sure as her composure now.

When I try to take a breath I find it hitching a little too, my throat suddenly very thick, and I turn to look back towards the door, finding the others flooding in behind us now. Art’s already on his knees next to Darwyn, working to get her out of her now damaged armour as Yeslee’s settling on her other side, fishing through her modest field kit for anything she might use to patch her up. Krakka, meanwhile is almost entirely doubled over on his knees, hugging Bloodmoon while his glassy eyes really don’t seem much more focused than Deriel’s now. Fuck … even before I step forward to ask after him I know my plea’s gonna be pointless. “Fuck … is he … Krakka, are you with me? We need you right now –”

“It’s no good, Kesla.” Lady Naru’s dropping to one knee beside him now, hanging onto her staff while her free hand settles on his shoulder, but she looks up at me, solemn and contrite. “He’s burned himself out. We would be lucky to have him back on his feet by morning, certainly not anytime sooner. There’s nothing he can do.”

“No, I can …” He blinks as he tries to straighten up, but barely even manages to raise his hand off his hammer, his head still hanging while he completely fails to gain any more focus. “I can … you need … fuck …” Lady Naru doesn’t even need to try and hold him down, he’s so weak. Fuck … damn it, Krakka, why’d you have to be so effective getting us out of that mess? Now we’re stuck …

Taking a very clumsy step back, I don’t so much turn back as simply stumble round in a clumsy swing, and I guess it’s a miracle I’m still managing to hold onto my sword at all as I just sway along automatically now. I’m … fuck, the fact I can’t help Thura when she needs me the most, that’s … even though we’re here now I feel like a failure seeing this. I barely even realise I’m doing it as I push past Shay and stab Hefdred back into the floor before dropping to my own knees, very noisily I sort of realise but there’s nothing I can do now. Pela flinches at the metallic clanking and hugs her sister a little tighter, but there’s no reproach in her wet eyes as she watches me look over her brother and mother.

Finally I reach out, leaning forward as much as I can with careful gentleness to touch Thura’s shoulder, warily hesitant as I try hard not to spook her. Even so, when my heavy, gauntleted hand settles she stiffen instantly, a little sob escaping her as she jumps, and I freeze too, instantly regretting my action but knowing I gotta keep going all the same. So I lean in a little more and take another shaky breath, very carefully choosing my words now as I speak: “Thura? I … I’m sorry … we can’t … there’s nothing we can do … for Deriel, I mean … Krakka’s outta power …”

Slowly she raises her head, still sobbing, and I can tell she’s trying to get herself under control again, but it’s not working any better than before. When she finally looks up at me her face is enough to break my heart all over again, I’ve never seen grief quite like it before. There’s anger in there too, hot and fierce, but mostly it’s just pure, broken, jet black sorrow. I remember her telling me about how she lost her husband, the way he went, it was so ugly and unfair, and it’s clear to me now that she knows as well as I do that this is even worse, how her son’s gone before he even had a chance to really live.

“Kesla … what the fuck is going on … what are they … they took him … my boy … Deri … they took my boy … MY BOY …” The rest of her words disintegrate into a formless howl of pure anguish and she just falls into my arms as I lunge forward to catch her, pulling her close and hugging her as tight to me as I dare given how heavily armoured I am. I want to comfort her so badly but I’m painfully mindful that I’m covered virtually head to foot in hard, unyielding tempered steel …

In the end it don’t matter, she clings to me sure as if she’s drowning and I’m a pylon at the end of a dock. So I give up trying to be gentle and just crush her tight as I think I can get away with, and just hold her while she vents and rages and screams. And the whole time I’m unable to take my eyes off Deriel’s lifeless body as the guard crouches beside him and gently closes his eyes and lays his arms over his chest, finally reaching over to drag one of the quilts off the bed to snap it out the best she can to cover him. She’s crying hard too, I realise. Looks like this family means as much to her as it does to me. But at least she actually got to know them.

I’m crying myself now, I can’t help it, but at least I manage to hold onto myself enough that it’s just hot tears and a little hitch in my breathing, no sobs. I gotta be the strong one right now, even though I’m hating it.

“I’m sorry.” I whisper to her, my voice low and soothing as I can keep it with the hitching of my own breath, and rock her gently. “I’m so sorry, Thura. I’m so, so very sorry. There’s … fuck … there’s no words, I … I’m sorry …”

There’s no telling how long we stay like this. I suspect it probably ain’t more’n a matter o’ minutes, but it seems to be hours to me. She quiets by increments, not so much calming as just wearing herself out, the grief exhausting her as her wailing gives way to sobbing to shuddering and sniffing and low, keening moans. Finally she just slumps in my arms, becoming soft and limp and helpless while she just breathes into my shoulder, still hitching and shuddering all the way, but largely spent now. I tighten my grip a little more, keeping the crush gentle but hesitant, and take a breath of my own. It’s more than a little relieving that it comes in smooth this time …

So when I look up, turning my head enough I can take in what’s going on across the room again, I see the others still fussing over Darwyn, who’s been largely stripped of her leather now, a lot of bandages wrapping her shoulder, arm and much of her chest. She looks very unhappy, and I don’t blame her at all for that, even while I was tending to Thura I couldn’t miss the cries and whimpers behind me. She’s looking clearer than before, at least, but even paler too, wan and weak now. Art’s got her swaddled in his arms now as he sits behind her, while Yes finally rocks back in her heels, looking up with a particularly deep frown. She looks right at me now, almost on cue, and while it’s subtle her expression says everything it has to.

“That bad, huh?”

“If we don’t get her to a healer soon she’s going to die.” She shoots a cautious look to Art, whose own eyes perceptibly widen at that, then Darwyn hisses as he hugs her a little tighter without really meaning to. “We have to go. Now.”

Thura must have caught that, I feel her shift in my arms now. It’s still weak, and clumsy, but she’s with it enough all the same. I relax my grip a little as I subtly shift my position, making a little room for her to push herself up if she chooses, but for a few moments at least she don’t move again. “Um … Thura? I’m sorry, but … um … we need you to be with us now …”

“Oh …” It’s less of a moan than a grunt really, and when she starts to push against me now it’s with more strength, so I just let her, shifting back myself to let her now. Finally she reaches up and starts working her fingers up across the front of my armour, clumsily questing for the top of my cuirass. After a moment I just reach up and take hold of her hand, giving it a gentle squeeze, and now she looks up.

She’s … fuck, her face is a ruin, it’s flushed red and angry but streaked through the dirt where her tears have run, eyes raw and bleary and fighting for focus now, while her lip’s still wobbling even though her own breath is evening out a little more. Mostly she just looks haunted now, and I’m scared she ain’t even there enough to answer me.

“I …” Honestly, I ain’t got the first clue what to say now, my words have just completely dried up. Then she reaches up with her hand and grabs hold of my pauldron, dragging herself a little closer, and now I might be the only thing holding her up. “Thura, I …”

“What …” she croaks now, and her voice … fuck, she’s screamed herself hoarse. “What’s happening … how did … who did this …”

“Vandryss.” Lady Naru surprises me, seemingly to sweep in out of nowhere now with her little globe of light still hovering above her as she crouches at my side with her usual unfathomable graceful ease. She looks solemn but … still so composed all the same, even while her tone is as gentle as I’m trying to keep mine. “We believe it must be Vandryss. They’re making their move, it seems.”

“But …” Thura blinks up at her now, still struggling to focus, I see. “But why … how did she even know …”

Lady Naru’s eyes flicker to mine now, and there’s that worry again, deep down. She licks her lips before answering, seeming to be working hard to choose her words very carefully. “Darion … they must have broken him. He … he’s been compromised.”

It’s a long beat before Thura can answer, her brow furrowing deep as she looks back to me, then to Naru again, then down, just searching randomly now. Finally she mutters something low under her breath I can’t make out, before finally looking up at her friend again. “But … but how? He would never … I know him, he … no, it’s not possible –"

“They have Gael.” The words are out before I can help it, and I look down now, unable to face her. “His … Darion’s child. Our friend. They took ‘em when … it was a mess, and mistakes were made and …” Fuck. Honestly, I don’t know how I can make it sound any better than the shitshow it already is, now it’s made things so much worse.

Thura slips free from my armour with that first hand, and I have to look up as she drags me somewhat to the side as she reaches out for Lady Naru now, vaguely grasping like she still can’t quite make her out. “Oh … Sulin, I’m … I’m sorry …”

Naru takes hold of the proffered hand in both of hers, and I can see her face breaking a little now, her composure slipping. When she looks down she breathes a heavy sigh, her voice seeming thicker as she breathes: “We’ll get them back. I swear it. I will … I won’t rest until … until …”

“Got to go.” For a long beat I can’t identify the voice that rasps that loud little croak from the far side of the room, I’m so focused here now. Then I look up, and I see Brung’s moved into the room too, coming towards us, but being real cautious about it now. As he clears the bed and comes into view of the family I see how uncomfortable he is now, real reluctance in him, and he’s looking down as he steps very deliberately. “Something … can’t explain.”

First I actually realise others have seen him is the sharp intake of breath and the sudden flurry of movement as the guard starts fumbling for the sword hung at her hip. I reach out my hand quick as I can to check her, hissing a warning, but even so she’s already cleared a foot of steel before Lady Naru finally pipes in: “Uhra, it’s all right. He’s with us. Brung’s a friend.”

The young woman checks herself at that, at least, but even so she don’t relent yet, looking the goblin over for a long beat before finally letting her sword settle back in its scabbard. She stands ready too, still fiercely tense as she watches the little merc close. “Okay … if you insist, my lady, but …”

The children are looking him over with wide eyes too, I see, but then they likely never seen a real live goblin before in their lives. I wonder now what kinds of stories they actually been brought up on regarding ‘em, if they been filled with the same kind o’ cold, bone-deep prejudice as most o’ the big society types I met. Somehow … I dunno, I can’t imagine it, not with Thura. Not after how I’ve gotten to know her.

That said, this is all clearly too much for them right now, one more startling development on top of so much bad that’s already been piled on them this night … so I finally let go of Thura, who releases her own hold as I start to push back up onto my haunches, instead grabbing hold of Lady Naru, who wraps her up in her own close embrace. I’m already turning to the new arrival as I don’t bother standing up, instead just shifting my feet so I can face him while staying in my crouch. Keeping very much on his level now. “What is it?”

“Can’t explain.” He cocks his head towards the door, his eyes never leaving mine. “Easier to show. Quick.”

Frowning, I look back at Naru and Thura, who are still locked in their awkward hug, the sorcerer rocking the former warrior gently while she just stares at nothing in particular, more haunted than ever now. “Just wait. I’ll be back.”

Not waiting for a reply, I push myself up, already starting to move before I’ve straightened, and I’m even more careless yanking Hefdred free than I was planting it in the first place. Brung’s words are already gnawing at me, I really don’t have time for a mystery right now.

He leads me to the door, and Yeslee’s already stepping up as I pass, plucking her bow off the floor and falling into step with me without hesitation while giving me a particularly cool, sidelong look down. Sensing my own mood, I’m sure. I don’t say anything, just letting her make up her own mind about what we’re about now.

Shay’s already waiting for us, holding her own glowing sword off to the side and, now I’m actually paying attention, very much inside the room, so that, especially with the door barely open more’n a crack, it don’t really shine much light out into the corridor. She’s looking out into the darkness without, and even as I approach I can almost feel the tension coming off her. Something’s really rubbing her the wrong way.

I’ll admit, for a beat I’m struck enough by Shay’s sword to be a tad distracted. Given the blade’s strangely crystalline-seeming structure, the glow of the god-light in it seems to manifest in a different way to our steel. It almost seems to shift and ripple, subtly pulsing in lazy waves from hilt to point, while the blade itself seems almost hollow beneath it. It’s uncanny and quite beautiful, but in a slightly unnerving kind of way.

Brung stops a little short, and I pause with him, leaning somewhat now so I can get a little closer to his level again. “What’s up?” I breath in the lowest whisper I can manage.

“Out there.” He cocks a clawed thumb towards the door, and his expression remains as unchanged as ever. “Just look.”

Frowning deeper still, I ponder for a moment before sheathing Hefdred and stepping up to Shay’s side. I notice her tense a little more as I arrive, but only for a beat, as she must register that it’s me cuz she simply takes a step back and turns towards me. She looks somewhat shook, I notice, and that just worried me too. “You need to see this.”

Opening my mouth, I almost asks her what she means, but after Brung dodged the question twice I wonder if Shay might gimme the runaround too, so instead I just step up to lean into the crack between the door and frame. Then I realise that all I can see out there is varying levels of shadow, and I genuinely have to fight the urge to curse under my breath as I step back again and start fishing in the pouch on my belt. Finding my goggles. Unwrapping ‘em, I toss the cloth to Shay with greater irritation than I’d like to show and, while she jumps to catch it slip the gear onto my head, uncomfortably mindful now that I’m getting grease on the strap from my hair. Nuts …

Even so, when I finally take a breath and step to the crack again, suddenly I can actually see into the hallway again … and it’s enough to make me forget about anything else. Fuck … yeah, she was right, this is serious …

I mean sure, it takes me a moment or two to even make sense o’ what I’m actually looking at, to begin with it just looks like … well, something just shifting and growing out there, slowly seeming to increase in size and form as it staggers around out there in the gloom. More than one something, in fact, once I start to look. At least three definite shapes out there … no, four, or maybe five, another one seems to make itself known as I start to make some kinda sense o’ what I’m seeing. But not really. It’s still bloody strange and pretty disturbing looking at this.

Pieces of the bodies out here … they’re forming new bodies. But not the same bodies, no, the corpses themselves ain’t coming back to life, or whatever it is undead things do, Krakka’s got a fancy word for it, I remember … reanimating, that’s it. No, this is something else … honestly, it’s more like something else is just taking whatever’s immediately to hand and reforming in whatever way’s most convenient in order to create something that’s simply functional. Gods know, the first thing, which seems to be the most fully put-together and is already starting to slowly lurch towards us from some way down the corridor, don’t appear immediately recognisable as any specific form of … well, I sure hesitate to call any o’ this shit life. For one thing, it’s got too many limbs, with too many … I guess they’re joints, in the loosest sense. And no immediately discernible head, ‘least not that I can immediately pick out. ‘Course it’s still forming, but …

“Fuck me …” I growl with deep unease as I pull back, slipping the goggles off careful as I can so I don’t slather the lenses in grease too. Finally I flick ‘em to Shay, who again has to scramble some to catch ‘em, and take a few big steps back away from the door, my head still reeling bad from what I seen out there.

Frowning herself at my reaction, Yes steps up where I was and has a look for herself, and pulls back almost immediately, her eyes unusually wide now. She don’t swear like I did, but still lets out a deep, uncomfortable sharp hiss that says more than enough for her own opinion. When she looks my way she bares her teeth, looking about as wild as I ever seen her. “That … that is … just wrong.”

“You ever seen anything like that before?” I almost don’t ask, but reckon I have to.

She watches me for a long beat before growling: “Fuck no.”

“Great.” I mutter, turning back to Shay, who’s bundled my goggles up again, now holding ‘em out to me to collect. She don’t look any calmer now than before, I see. Reckon she’s thinking the same thing I am, that we are in deep shit right now.

Turning back to the room at large, I find Lady Naru’s on her feet again, still stood by the bed with her staff clutched close to her in both hands in such a way she looks strikingly like Gael in this moment. Her expression seems mostly expectant, but … maybe she’s just picking up on our bad vibes.

Stuffing the bundle back into the pouch, I step up to the cluster on the floor again, looking down at Darwyn as Art cranes up at me, looking like he’s picked up on my mood too. “How is she?”

“Bad.” He’s stroking her hair, keeping it out her face as he half-cradles her. She’s looking up at me too, but her eyes are heavily lidded, and she’s clearly having trouble focusing, her face the palest I ever seen it. “I … I can’t … we gotta do something –”

“Yeah, I know. We will.” I look down at Krakka now, finding the cleric’s finally sitting up without slumping, although he’s still cradling his hammer tighter than a child. He looks pretty miserable, but ‘least it seems like he can actually see me now. “Can you move?”

“I don’t know.” His croak is particularly raw, and it don’t make me feel any better than the look he’s giving me now. “Honestly, I’m really feeling my age right now.”

“Shit.” I mutter now, more to myself really, but it still prompts a little tightening frown from him too. Instead of replying to it I simply take a breath and turn away to move back towards the bed, unhooking my helmet from my belt again as I go. I can’t help squaring my shoulders as I walk, sucking in a deeper, heavier breath now as I try to prepare myself for what I know I gotta do now.

Lady Naru steps into my path as I approach and I give her a sharp look as I look her over. “Kesla –”

“I need you to get ‘em out. Right now. D’you reckon you can port ‘em all outta here at once, or is that gonna be too much? Cuz if not I need you to get Thura and her family back to the temple right now and then come straight back for Darwyn an’ Art. And I guess Krakka too, state he’s in right now he’s no good to anyone.”

For a long moment she don’t say anything, she just looks at me, and again I get that subtle sense that she’s grown so very tired, her veneer slipping now so it’s easier to pick up on, or maybe it’s just anxiety in the situation. Finally she leans into her staff again, letting a heavy sigh go as she looks down, licking her beautiful lips. “I … can’t.”

“What … what d’you mean? You have to, there’s no time, something’s –”

“I’m sorry, Kesla, but I can’t. I don’t know what it is, exactly, but …” Shaking her head, she looks back up, and gives me a more sheepish look now. “I suspect it might be something like the effect that Driver 8 seemed to be experiencing down below. There’s something here that … I can’t really explain it, but it’s blocking me. My senses, or at least my focus. I can still see, and hear, and feel, but I don’t have a sense of place like I normally have. I need two points of focus to achieve an effective portal spell. Firstly, I need a strong sense of where I’m going, either a specific location in my own mind or someone else’s, or at least a strong enough idea that I can take a blind jump on faith and hopefully luck out of ending up inside a wall. But I also need a sense of where I am, a solid fix in time and space. And here, now … I just can’t find one. I know where I am, I’ve been here enough times, but … somehow, that familiarity has been stripped from me.” She sighs again as she must catch the scepticism in my look, and it’s a weary thing. “I know, it must sound … ludicrous, but it’s simple fact.”

For another beat I hold my tongue, searching her face for any hint that she might at least suspect she’s wrong about this, but … no, she’s the expert here, she’d know what she’s talking about. “Fuck.” I turn away, clenching my empty fist while tightening my grip on the helm in my right, and it’s all I can do not to spit right here in Pela’s bedroom. “We just can’t catch a bloody break …”

“What is it that’s –”

Turning back, I just run right over her now. “It don’t matter, we can’t stay here. It ain’t safe. I need you to get ‘em out anyway. Any way you can. You with me?”

Her frown deepens as her eyes narrow. “What are you going to do?”

“Whatever I have to.” I look down at the helmet in my hand now, the one I commissioned special from Janna, made to measure but intentionally styled close as I could get to the one my da would’ve worn back in his day. “Yeah. Whatever it takes to give you time to get out. I just need you to promise me you’ll get all of ‘em out.”

Naru looks ready to argue, but she stops herself short, finally letting another weary sigh go as she must realise I ain’t backing down. Guess she’s gotten to know me enough since we met … gods, however long ago it was now. Feels like an age, the way things have gone lately. In the end she simply nods, frowning again, and there’s a little bit of a growl to her voice as she breathes: “All right. I promise. But you have to make sure you get out as well. You have to help me find Gael, remember?”

That makes me smile, I can’t help it, and I reach up with my free hand to touch her cheek before I’ve quite realised I’m doing it. She don’t shy away from my touch, and her own more subtle smile is brief and sad but … well, it’s warm enough at least.

Nodding, I step round her now and duck down behind the bed, dropping to my knees gentle as I can at Thura’s side. She’s slumped over her son now, head on his arm, and while she don’t seem to be sobbing she still looks pretty thoroughly out of it now. I look round at the others now, seeing her elder daughter still quietly weeping while the younger’s got her head buried in her sister’s side, but Thadeon’s just watching me with quiet intensity. Seems he must’ve cried himself out now, mostly he just looks angry.

Finally I turn to the guard, who I realise is watching me with more of a cold, calculating wariness now. She’s gripping the sword at her hip now, and while I don’t feel any actual threat from her right now, I still choose my tone real careful as I speak to her. “What’s your name, if I may?”

This just makes her blink, she clearly weren’t expecting it, and for a long beat I wonder if maybe she just won’t answer anyway, and I wouldn’t blame her, she don’t know me, not really. She’s seen me twice now, and the last time barely. But finally she lets a little sigh out and licks her lips, her eyes flickering up to, I imagine, Lady Naru for a moment before returning to mine. “Uhra. Uhra Sedrun. I’m … well shit … honestly, I’m scared I might be it for our security force, now.”

“Well I’m sure you’re capable enough to serve just fine.” When I say it, her brows prick right up high, but I don’t back-peddle. Time’s too short. “I need you to help me out here. Help us all out. It’s about to get proper scary up here, and you have to get her Ladyship and her children outta here fast. There some other way down outta here, besides the stairs? Any way at all?”

“I don’t …” Uhra looks down again, frowning more thoughtful now. “The east wing was burning before, an’ with all that shit going on I doubt anybody’s had a mind to fight it, if they even are still alive … so may be half the house is on fire by now. The garden balcony probably ain’t much good now …” Her frown deepens, and she pauses for a long moment, then looks up, to Lady Naru again, I’m sure. “The library? I forgot all about the Black Helix, nobody uses it anymore. Not since … um …” She turns awkward now, her eyes going to Thura.

“Since Terth … passed. Of course.” When I look up, Naru’s stood right over me, thoughtful now, but still wistful, likely from being reminded of the death of another person she cared deeply for. “It’s probably the surest way out. I can lead the way if you think we can get past those –”

“Oh, don’t worry about them.” I let a deep sigh out as I look back down. “They’ll be plenty busy, I can promise you that.” Leaning forward, I finally reach out and lay my hand, as gently as I can, on the grieving mother’s shoulder. “Thura? I’m so sorry, but I need you with me now.”

For a long beat she don’t stir, and I think maybe she really is just broken now, that the death of her eldest child has taken the last lick of strength she had, whatever she had left over after so many years without her husband. But finally she raises her head again, slow and faltering, seeming shaky but still responding, and while she looks every bit as broken as before, there’s … focus enough, at least. “What … what’s happening?” Her voice is still little better than a rasp, but she’s all cried out now, looks like. “Are you –”

“It’s time to go. I’m sorry, I know you don’t want to … I get it, I’d wanna just stay here and die, I felt the same when …” Fuck … I have to stop myself there, look down and take a deep breath, fighting the slight hitch in it as I feel my own past trauma starting to stir inside me, the old wounds pricking again. It really ain’t the time. “We’re in deep shit, Thura. You need to get your family out now. I’m sorry about Dery, but there ain’t nothing you can do for him now. You gotta look out for the rest o’ your kids now. So you gotta get up, and you gotta run. You might have to fight too. Probably have to fight.” I look her right in the eye now, deep and close as I can. “Can you?”

Blinking, Thura watches me for a long beat, then looks down at her son’s body again. Then at her daughters, and her remaining son. For a moment it seems like she might be fit to burst into tears again … then she sets her jaw, bearing her teeth a little, and with the subtlest frown her face hardens. Oh … that is a fierce look, it’s enough to give me chills, just looking at it. I wonder if that’s her war face? The deepest part o’ me gets the slightest thrill to see it, I swear.

Then she reaches over, behind her, and picks something up from the floor on her hidden side. It’s her sword, that beautiful bastard sword I remember from her office. The same blade she made such a name for herself with. “Lead on.”

Nodding with the subtlest smile, I roll back onto my heels and push myself up, flipping my helmet over as I do so to flare the cowl out. As I straighten up I slip the whole thing back into place over my head, taking a moment to adjust it until it’s perfectly comfortable in place, and turn back to Lady Naru. “I’m gonna need some light out there.”

That makes her frown. “But we already have light. This follows me, so of course it should be enough for you to –”

“I’m not gonna be with you, though. Somebody’s gotta keep those things distracted, cover your escape. I’m the best fighter here, ‘least after Thura, and she’s gonna be busy getting her family out. Which you’re gonna help her with.”

“What? But –”

“No arguments, Sulin.” Her brows rise at the sudden familiarity, but I don’t regret the slip. To be honest, reckon I’ve gotten used to her enough now it fits. “You’re leading ‘em out, and I’m trusting you with my friends as well as yours. You got me?”

I say that just as I’m sure she was gonna try and argue again, and for a moment she just stands there, watching me with her mouth open, before finally closing it with a particularly frustrated little frown. “Damn it … all right. But you remember your promise to me. I need you as much as you need me right now.”

Watching her for a beat, I finally just extend my hand, and after a loaded beat she reaches out and give it a healthy grip. Then she nods, lets go, and turns back to her friend.

Now I look at Uhra. “You up to this?”

“Of course … yes. I am.” She lays her hand on her sword as she steps to Thura’s side and gives me a stern look. “It’s my job. But I mean … I would anyway. They’re … y’know …”

“Yeah.” I nod in response. “I get it. Good.”

When I turn round this time I’m already starting to step away, but I’m stopped short when I find Shay’s stood less than three feet behind me, giving me a particularly dark look. “Don’t even think about telling me to abandon you too. If you’re staying, I’m staying.”

I almost argue with her, but I stop myself as I realise I don’t want to. To be honest, I know I could use the help. So I just nod as I sigh: “Yeah, all right.” Stepping forward, I give her shoulder a soft little slap. “I’ll be glad to have you.”

She just frowns at that, and clearly I surprised her since she must’ve been preparing to argue her case. Instead she gives a clipped nod and steps back out my way, and as she moves I see Krakka behind her, pushing himself to his feet. Still unsteady on ‘em, but smoother than before.

“Don’t start, you’re going with the others.”

Narrowing his eyes, he gives me a particularly stern look as he grabs hold of Bloodmoon’s shaft and gives it a hard yank that largely fails to pick it up off the floor, instead just pulling him over to lean at an angle. “Come off it, I’m … I’m getting better now. My Lady is … I think I have something in me again. Another few minutes of prayer and I might –”

“There’s no time, Krakka. Besides, if there is anything in your tank right now, they’re gonna need it more’n we are out there.” I let my hand settle on Hedred’s hilt now. “You already helped us, it’s up to us to give the rest o’ you a chance to get out. Then we’ll be right behind you.”

He watches me for a long, loaded moment, and I genuinely can’t tell if I’m winning him over or he might try to argue again. Then he lets a grunting, raspy sigh go and nods, or maybe it’s more like he just drops his head in clear exhaustion. “Shit … all right. But you’d better follow, as soon as you can. Otherwise I’m coming back in the moment the others are out.”

“Fair enough.” I step up to him now and grab hold of his shoulder by the pauldron, giving it a gentle but firm tug to drag him to his full height so he can finally pick his hammer up again. He blinks up at me in somewhat flustered surprise as I let go, but I’m already moving on.

Art looks up as I reach him, already picking Darwyn up in his arms as he gets one foot under him and straightens his back. Ready to lift. The halfling looks deeply uncomfortable, but I also get the sense that her clear pain is at least giving her focus as she blinks up at me, managing to focus now even if her eyes are still heavily lidded.

“Okay, I need you to –”

“Yeah, I got it already.” Art growls under his breath as he pushes himself upright, giving me a pretty scathing glare. ��I can read a room. I’ll be ready.”

“Fine. Well just go fast, and stay close to Krakka.” I reach out now and give his shoulder a little squeeze too. “And be careful.”

“You too. No stupid risks. Don’t do any more’n you got to to cover us, then haul your arse out. I mean it, I’m with Krakka. I’m gonna be pissed at you if you die in here. Gael needs you.”

Giving his mane a little ruffle before he can stop me, I drop him a nod. He don’t bat me away this time, just steps back, giving me a sharp look, but he’s smiling a little all the same. Finally I tip Darwyn a quick wink and she manages a tired half-smile of her own in response, and I turn for the door now.

Yeslee’s already stepping towards me, her bow still nocked as she keeps half-turned towards the door. Ready in case anything happens even as she regards me. “It’s getting ugly out there. We have minutes, and not many of those.”

“Yeah, I’m on it.”

“Do you want me to back you up, or …” She don’t finish, instead just frowning, looking round at the rest o’ the room, and I pick up on her reluctance immediately. It’s almost enough to make me take her up on the offer, but I can’t.

“No, you’re my best hope for ‘em all getting out good an’ fast. Brung too.” I look at the goblin now, who’s already turned away from this place at the door to look at me now as he catches his name. “You’re cool with that, right wee man?”

“Yes.” He turns away without another word, going straight back to his sharp-eyed vigil through the crack.

Cocking a brow, I turn back to Yes. “Guess that’s good. You okay with that?”

She quirks her own brow just a little even though I know there’s no way she could’ve actually caught my gesture with the helmet, then just shrugs. “If you think it’s best. You’re probably right. I’ll do my part.” She turns to Shay now, giving her a look over. “Watch over this one. I’m starting to like her.”

When I turn to the half-orc I see her own brows have shot right up, her eyes wide as she looks at the Fir Bolg with clear surprise, but there’s a little bit of a shy smile touching her mouth too. Then I spot Lady Naru making her way over, weaving something between her hands while Thadeon follows her with her staff grasped in his little hands, and I realise she’s making another one of those light globes. I step back towards her now as she arrives, already holding out her hands as it takes form between ‘em. “Great, just in time –”

”Here.” She thrusts it right at me without ceremony. “Hold your hands out. Quickly, please.”

Catching the slightly flustered urgency in her tone, I do as I’m told, and as I bring my hands together in front of me she essentially tosses the globe into ‘em. I scramble a touch to make sure I don’t drop it, but it don’t actually fall, as if it seems to sense my own intent, and simply floats above my palms. “Um … right, sure, what do I –”

“Blow on it.” She has a subtle smile of her own now as she gently plucks her staff from Thadeon’s grasp. “Gently.”

Frowning, I closely raise my hands, and the globe rises with ‘em. “Um … okay?” Leaning forward and feeling entirely ridiculous, I breathe a gentle puff of air onto the little ball of brilliant light, and I swear it brightens just a little when I do it. Then it starts to rise, and as I take a surprised step back it follows me. Oh … wow, that’s actually really cool.

“That’s it.” The sorcerer beams at me, already taking a step back. “You’re all set.”

“Great.” I take a deep breath, suddenly realising I’m actually committing to this plan now, and take another step back, opening room around me now as I reach for the back of’ my belt and unhook the other little something I picked up from Stormshield’s workshop in Bavat.

Taking a moment to strap it into place on my left wrist, I check the fit over for a couple o’ beats until I’m comfortable with it before giving the handle the little twisting squeeze that the Silver Order’s master weaponsmith explained to me. It feels a little rudimentary, I remember at the time I wondered if it might not be a little foolish since I’m just as likely to repeat the gesture without thinking about it in the middle of a battle, but he assured me it wouldn’t be a problem. The way he made it, the enchantment he wove into the mechanism means that it's designed to pick up on my intent when I do it, so once I twist it’ll activate and then lock until I intentionally close it up again. Even so, I don’t really believe it’s actually gonna work until I actually do it … and it activates just as it did back in the Academy.

Essentially it’s a shield, but it’s the fanciest one I ever seen. Not so much in its actual design, although I’ll admit it’s pretty sweet looking in a largely functional kind of way, built for practicality more’n style. Or maybe that’s just why I like it. It starts out as just a tightly folded block of thick, dark dwarven steel plate less’n a foot square, but with that simple motion the whole thing seems to uncurl, almost like a flower opening to the sun. Albeit a good deal louder, with a lot o’ clicking and metallic shunting, until it’s fully unfurled.

Now I got a subtly curved shield with a tilting diamond shape strapped to my arm, three feet tall and two and half across at its widest. Once again I’m a little surprised that it’s nowhere near as heavy as I expected it to be, but then Hurrig promised me that was very much taken into consideration when he made it in the first place. Even so, I find myself shifting my stance immediately to compensate for its simple bulk, years of deep-ingrained drilling and muscle memory taking over almost entirely without conscious thought. It’s been a few years since I actually used a shield, but it feels like I never stopped …

“Bloody hell …” Shay breathes beside me, which perks my attention a little, and I look up to find her eying my shield with surprise. “So that’s what it does?”

“Beats having to lug a regular one round all the time.” I mutter as I test its heft for a few moments, just getting a read on how it effects my balance. To be honest, it might’ve been better if I’d got a little practice in with it first, I’m usually pretty wary about jumping straight into a fight with an untried piece o’ kit, and like I said it’s been a little while since I actually fought with a shield. But this time round circumstances ain’t really been too conducive to opportunity. So I’m going with what I got.

“It’s very impressive.” Yes offers up, and while her face is completely straight and her tone entirely even, I can’t help feeling like she’s taking the piss a little bit. So I give her a sharp little glare that she likely misses thanks to the helmet anyway.

“Whatever.” I finally growl under my breath, reaching over now to draw my sword. If I’m gonna do this, might as well do it properly. Then, as the blade flares bright when I slide it free, I turn to Thura, who Lady Naru’s now helped to her feet, supporting her friend even as she holds her sword low at her side, preparing herself for … well, whatever. “You ready?”

“Enough.” Her reply’s honest, I’ll give her that, but then she’s still too worn out from just pure grief to really convince as a warrior right now. “Someone … can someone come back for Dery? I don’t want him to … burn ...”

“We’ll do what we can.” Shay surprises me, but she’s looking down at her sword when she says it, testing the edge of the strange crystalline blade as it glow in her hands. Like she’s preparing herself for what’s to come.

“Yeah.” I agree with a clipped nod. “We get done up here, I’ll bring ‘im down myself. We don’t manage it, it’ll be cuz we’re dead.”

Naru cocks a brow at that, while Yes narrows her eyes a little, but it’s Krakka who reacts most to my words, his own eyes widening considerably while he seems to be searching for an admonishment. But then Thura simply says: “Thank you.” her voice cracking a little, and it seems to smooth the mood somewhat.

I turn to give Yes one last look, and for the life o’ me I can’t think of anything to say in the moment, but she just nods at me, seeming to read me even with the helmet, and that’s enough for me. So I turn round without another word and start for the door, just trusting Shay to pick up on it as I go.

Brung’s already dragging the door open wide now, springing aside as I approach so he don’t trip me up, and he gives me a little nod of his own as I pass him by. I start to charge now, squaring up my shoulders as I tighten my form, bending my back so I can draw myself into a ready guard soon as I’ve cleared the door. Adjusting my grip on my father’s sword as I rush out into the corridor, taking a cautious breath and holding it in anticipation of what I’m about.

In the end I only look round with my eyes, and I keep the glance short and focused, taking in only what I need to right now. The first one of … whatever the fuck these things are, it’s almost right on top of us already, I reach it in three big, quick strides, and there’s ‘least half a dozen more behind it now, or maybe that’s just all I can make out in what seems to be an ugly growing jumble of … unpleasantness.

Soon as I’m close the smell hits me, stronger than before by a wide margin. It’s a truly nasty stink, not necessarily rotten meat, but it’s gone bad all the same, more like it’s been badly burned, but greasy too, a really fatty odour that catches in the back o’ my sinuses. But worse is the sound, these things seem to creak and crackle as they move, wet and sinewy as only raw meat can be, and it’s enough to give me chills on its own.

Their movements, now I can really see it, are jerky and somewhat … off, really. Now I’m really looking they don’t really seem like they’re actually alive, it’s just a trick o’ their animation, they remind me more of puppets, but they got something really wrong with ‘em, like the joints or strings or whatever it is making ‘em move don’t work right. Maybe there is something of the undead in ‘em, but … no, this is something else, something truly strange and unfathomably wrong.

At least my own instant revulsion helps to spur me to action, even if it’s just to get this thing outta my way quick as I can. So I swing the moment I’ve closed the distance, turning in a low cut to arc up to cleave it in half through what could generously be called its waist and up through its lower chest. Eldritch horror or not, this thing’s just meat, I don’t see it putting up much of a fight against my white hot blade.

Except that it reacts to my attack while I make it, and while my blade does cut a substantial gouge up through something resembling a ribcage, it still manages to dodge a full, cleaving stroke. And I suddenly realise it’s got a whole lot more limbs that it has any right to as it snaps something like a mix between a leg and a heavily segmented whip round towards my face as I reel aside, attempting to recover from my aborted cut. Intent on battering my down, or maybe worse. I saw what those shadow things did to Darwyn, I don’t wanna see what these things could do with whatever they got.

So I bring my shield up quick, planting my feet best I can as I turn my shoulder as much into the coming blow as I can … and it still hits me like a battering ram. The shield holds up magnificently, bearing the brunt of the strike, but I still fold under the force of it, and it knocks me hard into the wall before I bounce off again. Suddenly unbalanced …

Then Shay’s there, her sword flaring spectacularly as she spins it in a blazing flourish which sheers the offending appendage clean away with a hissing hot sizzle before following through with three cuts to the body which are so fast I have trouble tracking ‘em. Certainly this thing don’t have a chance to dodge this time, and as I start to topple now it’s already coming apart as it starts to sag. Then I’m falling and I got more immediate concerns.

Growing acutely aware that, comparatively light as it is, the shield’s definitely thrown off my balance from what I’m used to, I just throw that arm out to the side as I hurl myself forward into a hard roll, judging the coming tumble well as I can for the weight of my armour. ‘Least I manage to hold onto my sword as I just barely make it without throwing myself onto my face on the recovery, but I’m still clumsy regaining my feet. In the end I just chuck myself at the wall again, this time intentionally bouncing off it so I can come up ready on the other side. Just as another one comes at me with startling speed, jerky as the first and, now that I’m starting to get a read on ‘em, damn unpredictable.

When this one tries to take a swipe at me with one of its nasty feelers I don’t try to dodge this time, instead swinging my shield up in a wide, forceful arc fully intended to swat it away while I charge in to meet it. I hear the dull, wet, heavy thwack of meat and snapping, cracking bone but the check works, and I’m already turning my shoulder into its centre of mass, gritting my teeth as I hold my breath, trying hard not to breathe when I’m this close to the fucking thing. It's like barging into a chunk of solid oak, it’s got no right to be this bloody solid, but it ain’t rooted like a tree, so I still manage to knock it off balance. So I plant my feet and this time when I cut up my attack works without a hitch.

Thorin, it’s a beautiful stroke, actually. I don’t just shear clean through its main trunk in a near perfect forty-five degree angle, but I sever three more o’ those nasty dishevelled limbs in the process, all the pieces tumbling aside around me as I manage to step right through it without quite meaning too. Already planting my feet now as I see more of ‘em coming up fast beyond.

“Are they clear?” I call out without turning, reluctant to take my eyes off the threats as they present themselves. “Tell me they’re clear!”

“They’re gone!” Shay’s already coming in close on my left, bent low at the ready as she takes up a wary stance with her sword cocked high in both hands. “It’s just us! What do you want to do?”

Chancing the quickest sidelong glance at her, I shift my footing and adjust my grip on Hefdred, moving my shield now to cover me again as I prepare for the next attack. “Just hold the line. We can’t break yet, we gotta stand. You good?”

“Good enough.” she breathes, tightening up just a little more. “You?”

I almost grin at that. Honestly, now the fight’s on I almost feel good again. “Oh yeah. Don’t mind me.”

TO BE CONTINUED ...

#never split the party #the creeping bam #the adventures of the creeping bam #book 4 chapter 4 #original fiction #fantasy fiction #original fantasy fiction #to be continued

0 notes