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blueberrypossum · 4 years ago

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A Colorful Massacre Mickey x Reader

Hey guys!!! Yup, it’s Mickey’s turn to be placed in the love boat. This story is going to be a little different than my previous ones( sorry no making out and such). This story is based on one of the scenes from the movie Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey. I really like the action scenes, especially where Harley goes into the police station and I thought it would be a perfect fit( some scenes will be altered and so will dialogue). Hope you guys enjoy it! Also, I might’ve made the reader a little bit crazy, I try to change up the personalities with each reader to give each writing a difference.

Word Vocabulary:

(F/C)- Favorite color (these will be labeled 1 and 2 because you’ll need two signature colors, like Harley Quinn with red and blue)

(L/N)- Last name

⚠️WARNING⚠️: There are some cuss words and graphic content (such as fight scenes, gore, and even death.)

You rechecked the location on your phone before you headed over to one the many police stations in the Hidden City, your hands checking to make sure you had everything. Of course the Mud Dogz had to get caught on their last heist, their faces being plastered all over the city in the announcement of their capture. You huffed in a gust of air as the annoyance almost gave you a headache.

Of course those idiots had to get caught on your week off.

They all crossed your mind in a series of flashes, the picture of Mickey instantly stopping and staining your eyes. The eel somehow wrapped his long body around your heart, literally, if he could he would. You never thought you would go for the hippie type, but hey, in your opinion it was the best option.

You strapped your gloves on tighter as you finally made it to the police station they were being held at, the enormous building almost touching the dirt surface. Police officers walked around you as you made your way to the front door, not even taking notice of you or your long coat that covered you. You brushed your hand through your hair and waved your fingers at a passing guard, who couldn’t help but stare as you burst yourself through the front doors.

You were always the one to make a grand entrance.

The waiting area was almost completely empty, except for one yokai in one of the waiting chairs and the police officer behind the counter.

Oh this is too easy.

You casually walked over to the yokai that was sitting; a young woman who was casually reading a newspaper. She eyes you as you get closer and how lazily bent over, your lips barely hovering over her ear as you whisper unholy nothings into her ear. The woman slowly got up, terror crossing through her face as she left her newspaper and made her way out of the station. You waved goodbye to her and headed towards the cop at the front counter, the officer instantly took notice of your choice of outfit.

Even with the male officer seeing you coming, you rang the bell next to him anyways, giving him a bright smile as he looked up.

He let out a long sigh as he questioned, “Can I help you?”

You leaned your elbows onto the counter as you stated, “Yes, good ol’ officer, I’m here to report terrible crime.” You tipped your sunglasses down to show the sarcastic wink you gave him.

The officer took the wink as some kind of joke and relaxed his shoulders and leaned back in his chair.

“And what terrible crime is that?”

And with that you pulled your long coat back, revealing the multiple canisters of paint, confetti, hacky sacks, and smoke bombs strapped against your chest, along with a shotgun to use those canisters as ammo. You stripped yourself of your sunglasses as you pulled your shotgun off of your shoulder.

You aimed it at him as you stated, “This one.”

The male yokai quickly went for his gun, but you were just a little faster; you shot a red hacky sack right between his eyes, not only knocking him back but also breaking his glasses.

As he went slack against the wall, you took your coat off to give you more room to work as you rounded off to the side, letting yourself through the ringing metal detector.

“Alright, now let’s have some fun.”

You reloaded your shotgun with another hacky sack and headed over to two yokai’s, one being a bird and the other being a dog, both enjoying a cup of coffee. You cocked the weapon at the bird yokai and gave him a wicked smile.

“Hiya boys.” And shot the red footbag at the officer. The eagle went flying backwards as you went for the dog officer, you leg swinging the coffee out of his hands and then used the underside of the shotgun to knock him out.

You reloaded the weapon again with your (F/C 1) smoke bomb and aimed it to one of the closest meeting halls, shooting the beautiful color and then slammed the door shut, quickly sliding a door under the handle. The banging against the door filled your ears as cops started to realize what exactly was happening, a crazy yokai was storming through the police station and no one has stopped them yet. Two more yokai ran towards you and with a few swift moves you shot one with confetti and another with (F/C 2), sending a female yokai through one of the windows into an office. You looked at the chaos around you and let out a light chuckle.

Oh, this is going to be fun indeed.

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“Mick, I don’t think you can chew the bars off with your teeth.”

“Well, you don’t see Danny putting his teeth to work!”

“Hey! I ain’t ruinin’ these pearly whites.”

The Mud Dogs slid down against the bars as they, once again, ran out of ideas to bust out of jail. They had been stuck at the police station for over a few hours now, each one of their usual plans for busting out no longer worked due to them reusing those plans over and over.

The electric eel would twiddle his thumbs if he had any, so would create little sparks between his little nubs, the power reducing collar around his neck taking away most of his shocking abilities. They were in all separate cages as well and were with about a dozen other prisoners. With the police station being enormous, the three men had a clear view from the front entrance all the way out to the evidence locker.

The ogre rolled his eyes as he crossed his arms and Danny let out a low gust of air as he pulled his arms out of the bars and let them hang.

Mickey let out a bored sigh as a guard walked past, a ugly frown over her face as she eyed the members of the Mud Dogs. Leonard growled as she walked past and the officer quickly made her way to the next section, Mickey couldn’t help but let out a chuckle at the sight.

“Easy now, Double L, you might scare her off.”

Mickey let his mind start to wonder and he instantly thought of you. He would be hanging out with you if he wasn’t in jail, both of you either playing games or walking the streets and stealing other yokai’s wallets. Before you came along, the eel never thought that he would find someone like you, especially someone who has gotten the best of him. But, after you successfully saw right through one of his stealing tricks, he felt like it was love at first sight. Of course, it took a lot of trust, and the rule to not steal from each other after the 20th time of doing so, for the both of you to begin a friendship. Now, Mickey gave you anything he stole that he thought you would like.

A sudden scream came from the front entrance and almost every prisoner looked up, even some getting up and tried to look through the bars. Mickey didn’t pay much attention to it since it was the police station after all, it was probably someone’s first time getting arrested and they were just having a fit. Danny was trying to peek through the bars and a small gasp escaped this throat.

“Holy shit! Mick, is that your dame?”

Mickey was in awe as you reloaded your shotgun as officers from the opposite side of the holding area started to race out and you perfectly aimed for the first yokai that came up to you first, easily shooting a blue hacky sack into his right shoulder. As he went down, you effortlessly put in another bag and instantly headshot the cop behind him.

Both Leonard and Mickey hopped up from their spot as other prisoners got interested in the commotion. At the front of the entrance to the cages, (F/C 1 and F/C 2) pooled around the floor as an officer yokai was tossed into the middle of the row of cages. And within the clouds of colors popped out you, the colors ever so fading into your clothes and hair as a devilish smile spread across your face.

Both Danny and Leonard rolled their eyes at the eel’s starstruck expression, of course they were going to be saved by you, you were the only one crazy enough to come here and go up against several cops alone. They were just shocked that you had made it this far without getting shot.

The eel could feel his tail curl in content as he watched you take on another two guards, moving your hands to the middle of the gun to hit the one closest to you with the grip of the gun. You hit the wooden end against the yokai’s nose a few times before you turned your attention to the other cop, throwing the gun right between his legs.

As you made your way out of the colorful gas, the male yokai you shot in the shoulder got up, his fingers pulling out his plastic paton and raced towards you. You quickly ducked as he missed the target and then swung your shotgun over your shoulder, twirling it until it directly aimed at the officer, and a bust of confetti exploded against his face.

“Hahahahahaahah. Oh wow.”

You let out a cackle as he let out a cry and you swing your gun against his head, instantly knocking him out.

The prisoners were screaming your name now, not in cheer, but in hate. They knew who you were, they knew who you worked for, and they knew they would rather have you caught than their own freedom.

You reloaded your shotgun just in time as a female officer came down the stairs, her tail swishing back and forth in anger as she pulled out her gun. You used your longer gun to push her arm away, the bullet meant for your head busted into the ceiling, your strength barely being about to hold the woman’s arm against the wall. You kicked her behind her knee and twisted her arm as she came down, using her back as a stable place to aim as another officer came from the smoke behind you, the paint canister smashing into his head, two different colors blending into the walls.

You brought your shotgun down against the female yokai’s head and watched as her body went limp on the ground, a sweaty breath escaping your throat as you waited for more cops to come and stop you. When none showed up, you took in the room around you, smiling as you saw the Mud Dogz, and then finally heard the other criminals roaring at you in rage.

“You stole my life-savings!”

“Hiya, puddin,” you purred as your boyfriend stared at you, blush crossing his cheeks as took in your beaten and overworked body, how the colors you chose for your smoke bombs brighten the shine in your eyes.

“You’re the reason why I’m in here!”

You gave a polite wave to everyone as you made over to Mickey’s cage, blood staining your teeth as you smiled at him.

“Hey, lovebugs, we still need to get out of here,” he grumbled, his eyes swinging over to the furious yokai’s in the cages, trying to make as much racket as they could so that anyone could hear them.

“Just hold on for one second, sweethearts.” You said and then rammed the handle of your gun into the closest criminals throat, before he could even utter your name. The male yokai choked a few times as you repeatedly slammed the shotgun into his throat. You then crashed your gun into the side of his head and then into his leg, bringing him down. The next culprit charged towards you and you instantly got ready, your boyfriend immediately knowing what you were going to do.

“Right, just give a minute to find a key,” you said and was about to start the search for keys, until a pounding alarm came on, causing you and almost everyone else to cover their ears. One of the officers, too afraid to come and face you, went to the control room instead and got the brilliant idea to unlock all the cages, except for the Mud Dogz. When the ringing stopped, you looked up to see the prisoners crawl out of their cages, sinister smiles on their faces as you were outmatched from 12 to one. You rolled your shoulders and popped your neck as you looked back at the Mud Dogz with a smirk.

Oh how you were a walking masterpiece was all he could think in his mind until Leonard bursted inside his bubble.

“Batter up!” The eel warned, and your gun went straight into his mouth as you rocked the weapon as a baseball bat. The yokai went flying and the strength behind the blow made him flip over, barely missing his head as he landed on the floor. With you being out of ammo for your shotgun, you threw it across the room, hitting a female yokai in the stomach and then jumped her, your legs wrapping around her as you hands went for her throat.

“Hey! I’m going as fast as I can! I already dealt with the officers up front!” You hollered as a pair of hands went around your throat and slammed you against the prison bars, the cold metal drilling into your back. You spat the leftover blood in your mouth into his face and then slammed your elbow into his elbow pit and twisted his arm until he went limp in your arms.

“Ah, Mick, your doll is pretty, violent,” the rat said, his eyes growing wide as your fist made contact with someone’s face and then groin area.

“Yeah, isn't it amazing?” The ell cooed, both of the Mud Doz crew disgusted to see a little drool dripping out of his mouth.

You then slid under a female cat yokai and to one of the unconscious officers and dug through their pockets. Luck seemed to be on your side as you found the keycard, and then you found fingers digging into your arms as two prisoners pulled you back and tossed you across the room.

You blinked a few times to see a few figures coming towards you, barely being able to make out their faces. You quickly tried to make out the Mud Dogz and then slid the keycard over to the closest cage that they were in before a female hyena punched you in the gut. Danny was the closest and he used his tail to bring the card closer, working his fingers fast as the criminals got closer to you. The rat tossed the card to Mickey as he went over to help you, his claws already tearing into one of the prisoner's back that was closest to him. Mickey used the card to get the collar off and then to unlock the door, tossing the plastic card over to Leonard as he slithered over to the battle.

The ogre gripped the bars around him, “Yeah, but we are losing time. Y/N needs to get the keys and us out before more show up!”

A grunt escaped your lips as you rubbed your head from the impact. You could feel a hard headache start to form in the back of your skull as you tried to take in your surroundings, someone was yelling your name.

You were being choked out during all of this, red slowly starting to cover your face as you lost the will to breath. You kicked the female in the stomach but she didn’t budge.

The strong hands released you and you crawled away to see Mickey curl around the female hyena, instantly shocking her once her hands left your body. You took in a few gulps of air and watched as the Mud Dogz took care of the rest of the prisoners. You let out a breathy laugh and laid yourself back down, allowing yourself to take a break during all the chaos.

“Y/N! Y/N! Get up!”

“Come onnnn. Budge motherfucker,” you gasped out, and the hyena yokai let out a raspy cackle as her fingers dug deeper into your throat.

Mickey was beside you as you took the well-deserved break, his flippers fanning you as Leonard and Danny picked up the cops electric guns.

You looked around, the sprinkle of rainbow confetti, paint, and the smoke from the canisters. The floor was littered with bodies, both cops and criminals knocked out or were whining against the concrete. Your nose was bleeding and bruises painted your body, but the thrill that traveled through your body was an excellent adrenaline high.

“May I join?”

“Did I do good?” You rasped out and the eel helped you up.

“Huh, I guess you’re right. No one messes with Y/N fucking L/N!”

“Just take me to that new restaurant downtown and we’ll call it even.”

“Of course, babe! I mean, look at the mess!”

The teal eel planted a kiss on your cheek as he helped you stay steady on your feet, a laugh wheezing out of his throat at you cursing your own name.

“Pretty sure they’ll be waiting there, let’s go through the back.”

You both regrouped with Danny and Leonard and started to head over to where you came from, but Leonard stopped you all.

“We owe you big time for this.”

As the rat and ogre made their way towards the back, the long eel took a hold of your hand and pulled you close, a little giggle escaping your lips as you both enjoyed a tender kiss.

#rottmnt #tmnt #rottmnt malicious mickey #rottmnt mud dogs x reader #rottmnt mickey x reader #mickey x reader

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morwenna-crows · 4 years ago

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Apocalypse Kings - Two Preview Chapters

HarperCollins just released a new preview for Apocalypse Kings. It’s slightly longer than the earlier preview released by World Book Day, and elaborates on what the ‘three ancient gods’ mentioned in the summary are. Also, a chapter count for the whole book. Under the cut.

Adedayo was fourteen when he discovered that he was magic.

Up until then, he’d lived what he reckoned to be a normal life. He was on the school football team, which he enjoyed. He was on the school debating team, which he didn’t. He had his family, he had his friends, he liked dogs but was wary of cats, he didn’t like spiders, he hated rats and he ran away from wasps. All pretty normal. All pretty standard.

The magic thing happened over the course of a few weeks, when things started to come to him. Not answers, or knowledge, or insight, or anything like that – but actual things. Lamps, and bottles of water and big, heavy books. They’d fly at him as soon as he looked at them and he’d have to duck or jump back or run screaming from the room.

At first, Adedayo thought he was being haunted. Then he thought that he must have annoyed an invisible man at some point. One afternoon, after a teapot had collided with his face, he covered the kitchen floor in flour and waited for a footprint to appear. His mother appeared first, of course, and yelled at him, told him to clean it up. Adedayo was more scared of his mum than he was of an invisible man, so he did what he was told and wondered why he was being singled out for torment by this invisible gentleman when his two younger sisters were way more annoying than he ever managed to be.

Then his grandmother came to stay. She was a small Nigerian woman who didn’t speak much English, but her health wasn’t the best and she couldn’t stay on her own any more. Adedayo’s sisters were told they had to share a room and their grandmother – their beloved ìyá agba – moved in.

It took some time to adjust to a new person in the house, but she was lovely, so nobody minded, and a few weeks later she knocked on Adedayo’s door.

Adedayo didn’t speak much Yoruba, his grandmother’s language. His parents were both English speakers and, once they’d moved to Ireland to start a family, that’s how they’d raised him and his sisters. They’d tried to teach him a few words over the years, but he didn’t have much interest in learning, so, when his grandmother sat beside him on the bed, he prepared himself for a few long, long minutes of hesitations and the slow searching for words in English that always accompanied the rather pointless stories of her childhood. But she was his ìyá agba, and he loved her, so Adedayo smiled and pretended with all his heart to be interested in whatever she had to say.

She surprised him, then, by telling him something so brain-punchingly interesting that it changed his life forever.

She told him, in that hesitant way of hers, that magic was real, and that she was magic, and so was he.

At first, he thought she was just telling him a story to entertain him, but when she clicked her fingers and conjured a fireball into her hand it all started to make sense. The odd occurrences, the weird coincidences, the objects that moved on their own – that was magic. His grandmother explained that there were rules for people like them; there were styles of magic he could specialise in, other magical people – sorcerers, or mages – he could meet. She told him about the Sanctuaries around the world, and the wars that had been fought between the sorcerers who wanted to enslave ordinary people and the sorcerers who wanted to protect them.

He had such a life ahead of him, she said. Such wonders to uncover.

She taught him some things – how to move objects by manipulating the air around them; how to make strands of energy dance in the palms of his hands; how to click his fingers and generate sparks. She told him about the three names that sorcerers have – the name they’re given, the name they take, and their true name, the source of all their power.

But she was an old, old woman, and, a few weeks after his fifteenth birthday, her health deteriorated so much she had to be taken to hospital. Her energy dipped so that she lost all of her English and could only speak the language of her childhood. When Adedayo went in to sit with her, she woke, took his hand and said weakly, “Má şi àpótí.” Then she smiled, and closed her eyes.

Má şi àpótí, he repeated in his head. Má şi àpótí. He made a note to ask his folks what that meant, but it slipped his mind, and his grandmother passed away later that night, and Adedayo was left with a lifetime of questions, a heart full of grief and a polished wooden box.

His grandmother had insisted that it had to go to him, apparently. That only he would know what to do with it.

The box was the size of a biscuit tin. It had carvings across the lid and along the sides – carvings that looked like letters, that looked like words, but weren’t. There was no lock, no latch, no way to open it. There was nothing inside, though. Or there didn’t seem to be when Adedayo’s mum shook it. His dad tried prising the lid off with a screwdriver. Didn’t work.

The wooden box had been sitting on Adedayo’s desk, under a pile of pristine textbooks and dog-eared graphic novels, for weeks when Adedayo woke in the middle of the night, suddenly knowing how to open it.

He got out of bed, crossed the dark room and cleared the junk off the lid. He tapped the carvings on the box’s left and right sides, then pressed, then tapped again and moved his fingers in a swirling motion.

A dim blue light shone from between the carvings, travelling across the box in strange, swirling patterns. There were sounds from inside, like wooden cogs turning.

And then there was a click.

Suddenly apprehensive, and not a little nervous, Adedayo ever so slowly lifted the lid. Inside was dark. Inside was empty.

But something in that emptiness reached out and Adedayo went rigid, his fingers splayed, his legs locked straight, his head back and the muscles in his neck standing out. He felt a consciousness, more than one, poking through his mind, picking out his language, sorting through what he knew of the world, and then his knees wobbled and he went floppy and staggered back a few steps before collapsing.

A hand emerged from the box.

The hand became a forearm and then there was an elbow, and the elbow pressed down on the table for leverage and a shoulder appeared and then a head, a head with a black veil and horns poking out, a head far too big to be squeezing through a box the size of a biscuit tin.

This thing, this being, was called the Sathariel. Adedayo didn’t know how he knew that – he just did. It was like there was a swimming pool full of weird knowledge and he’d just cannonballed into it. He watched the Sathariel climb out of the box and stand by the table, his black robes long and ragged, his breathing heavy, his horns sharp.

He had mottled green hands tipped with black nails, and from his robes he drew a gnarled staff as tall as he was. The smell he brought with him was pungent and made Adedayo think of people screaming.

Something else came out of the box: a tentacle, wet and dripping. It probed the air, then found the table, and a second one came out to join it, then another. Then there were a dozen tentacles, some as thin as a cat’s tongue, some as thick as an elephant’s trunk, and once they’d gained purchase they lifted the Cythraul straight up out of the box.

The Cythraul, the Many-Tentacled One, hid most of his body beneath a robe of soiled crimson, but Adedayo caught a flash of pale, squirming flesh that made his stomach roil. The Cythraul had a wide, gaping mouth lined with small, sharp teeth, like a lamprey eel, and a single black, blinking eye. He looked down at Adedayo and then, thankfully, away.

There was another creature in the box. The last of the Apocalypse Kings unfurled himself from his confinement and stepped into the bedroom. Tall and thin, black-haired and pale, long-faced and red-eyed, the Deathless wore a robe of rags and filth that fitted him like kingly vestments.

He looked round Adedayo’s bedroom and breathed in, then smiled.

“Smells like feet,” he said, and all three of them vanished.

Adedayo got home and apologised for being so late. He told his parents he’d been out walking, thinking about his ìyá agba. They seemed to accept that, and let the matter drop.

His sisters arrived in the kitchen and announced that, even though Ìyá Agba was gone, and so a bedroom was suddenly available, they wanted to keep sharing. They announced this like they expected their request to be denied – his youngest sister’s eyes were already brimming with tears. When they were told that was fine, they shrieked and hugged and hugged their parents and even hugged Adedayo, and ran back to their room.

Adedayo’s dad chuckled and went into the living room.

“Mum,” said Adedayo.

She was making herself a cup of tea. “Yes, sweetie?”

“What was Ìyá Agba’s life like? Back in Nigeria?”

His mum paused. “I’m not too sure, actually. She never talked about it all that much. She was happy, though. I know that.” She smiled. “She used to tell me stories, when I was your youngest sister’s age. All kinds of stories she’d make up about people with amazing names all over Africa. People with magical powers. And in the stories she was always in the middle of the adventure. Always having fun. I miss her.”

“I miss her too.”

His mother’s smile turned sad, and she took a packet of biscuits down from the cupboard and held it out. “Take two,” she said, “and don’t tell your sisters.”

He took two, and she winked and carried her tea to the doorway.

“Mum,” said Adedayo, “what does má şi àpótí mean?”

She frowned. “What?”

“It’s just something Ìyá Agba said to me in hospital. What does it mean?”

“Are you sure that’s what she said?”

“I mean … I might not be remembering it exactly right, but I think so.”

His mum shrugged one shoulder. “It’s just it’s an odd thing to say, that’s all. It means don’t open the box.”

Adedayo looked at her, then nodded. “Yep,” he said. “Makes sense.”

#apocalypse kings #preview #spoilers #skulduggery pleasant

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koala-otter · 4 years ago

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Kataang Week Day 2: Soft

for @kataang-week day 2!

Prompt: Soft Summary: Katara’s got soft hands, Toph pointed out. Yes, it’s her special seaweed lotion, Aang agreed. But wait, how does Aang know about her lotion? Katara asked. Only Toph would find out. Words: 1k+

this will probably be my only submission for kataang week. takes place sometime during book 2!

“You know, Katara and I might fight a lot, but she is good for healing,” Toph said, slapping her newly-unbruised shin. “Her hands are so soft.”

Aang nodded from beside her, where he was waiting for his own turn for healing while Katara gathered more clean water from the stream only a few feet away. “They are. It’s her special seaweed lotion from the Southern Water Tribe.”

“How do you know about my special seaweed lotion?”

Aang looked up to find Katara watching him, her expression equal parts touched and bemused.

“I, uh—”

His mind went blank. Or, scratch that, it was suddenly full, and he was having trouble sorting through thoughts of “a great romance” and “a very powerful bender” to find any semblance of a coherent thought. Over and over, all he could picture was Katara disappearing behind Aunt Wu’s door, and himself eavesdropping as she had her fortune told. It should have been so easy, producing another story. Hadn’t she talked to literally anyone else about her lotion? Anyone where his presence wasn’t a major invasion of Katara’s privacy?

“Twinkletoes? Hello?”

He came back to himself to the sound—and feeling—of Toph knocking on his head with her fist.

“Ow, Toph,” he said, waving her off. He rubbed the back of his head and looked up to see Katara still watching him curiously. ��I guess I must have heard you talking to Sokka about it at some point,” he said with what he hoped was a convincing chuckle.

Katara smiled at him and shrugged. “Guess so,” she said.

But Sokka wasn’t so ready to move on.

“Are you kidding?” he asked from the bank where he was still trying to catch a fish. He waved his pole in the air. “I don’t talk about that kind of stuff.”

Katara paused as she knelt down next to Aang. “What kind of stuff, exactly?” she asked challengingly.

Sokka shrugged a full-body shrug, his shoulders rising exaggeratedly around his ears. “You know, creams, ointments, lotions. That kind of stuff.”

Katara’s hands landed on her hips. “This from the guy who wears makeup.”

“One could call it warrior paint,” Sokka said pointedly, “but yes, I did wear makeup on Kyoshi Island.” He held his index finger in the air. “So you know it’s true when I say you and I have never talked about your seaweed lotion.”

“I can’t even remember how we ended up talking about this,” Katara said by way of admitting defeat. She bent the clean water she had gathered out of its jug and began her healing work on Aang’s shoulder.

He exhaled with relief, both at her words, and at the sensation of the water relaxing his overworked muscles.

“I do,” Toph said, now sprawled out on the grass. “We were talking about how Aang knew about your seaweed lotion.”

Aang’s breath snagged on its inhale. “Thanks, Toph,” he said through gritted teeth.

“Oh, any chance to see you squirm, Twinkletoes,” she said, patting his hand assuredly.

“It’s just funny, because I ran out of it weeks ago,” Katara said absentmindedly, her glowing hands moving down Aang’s back. “Were you with me when I was looking for it at the Northern Water Tribe?”

“Probably,” Aang said noncommittally.

“Hmm, no, that doesn’t make sense,” Katara continued thoughtfully, “because you were training with Pakku.” She paused, and the only sound for a while was the light hum of the healing water. Then she laughed. “I don’t know why, but the only person I remember talking to about it is Aunt Wu, and I know you weren’t there for that.”

Aang’s eyes widened in response, and he forced out a laugh. “Yeah, I definitely wasn’t there.”

Toph grunted from her position in the grass.

Katara shrugged. “Weird I can’t remember.” She smiled and dropped her hands. “How does your shoulder feel?”

Aang tested it cautiously, rotating his arm first in a clockwise motion, then counter-clockwise. He beamed up at Katara. “Feels great!” he said brightly. “Thanks, Katara.”

Katara smiled back at him and nodded. “What about you, Toph?” she asked, rising from the ground. “Are you sure you don’t want me to take a look at your feet?”

Toph shook her head. “No, thanks.”

“And I can’t convince you to go easier on Aang?”

“This lily-liver?” Toph’s arm shot out and hit Aang squarely on the shoulder, the same one that had just been healed, sending him spilling onto the ground. “How else is he going to learn to be an earthbender?”

Katara winced at the sight. “Right,” she said slowly. “Well, I’ll be in the water if you need me.”

Toph waited for Katara to disappear over the bank of the stream before pulling Aang back up by his collar.

“Liar,” she said accusingly.

“Toph, you don’t understand,” Aang said in a rush.

“What I understand is that you lied about listening to Katara talk to this Wu lady,” Toph replied. She let him go, and Aang nearly dropped to the ground again but for his airbender reflexes.

“Can you please lower your voice?” Aang whispered hoarsely, looking over at Sokka to see whether he was listening. The other boy was still focused on his fishing pole.

“Sure,” Toph said, kicking at the ground. A low rumble traveled under the earth and stopped abruptly in front of Aang, a projection of rock shooting out from under his feet. He leapt into the air to avoid it. “As soon as you tell me why.”

Aang looked pained as he floated back down to the ground. “I wasn’t supposed to hear it,” he said guiltily. His head fell to face the earth. “I heard Katara getting her fortune told, and I heard some stuff that I thought was about me. That I thought meant we would be together one day.”

Toph stopped, the rock that had plunged through the grass suddenly sinking once more underground. The wind had gone quiet in her ears. “So?”

Aang turned away from her. He shuffled his feet. “She’d be upset if she knew I listened. And—” He sighed. “Aunt Wu said we shape our own destinies. All of that stuff she told Katara, it might not be true.”

The grass felt lush under Toph’s feet. She dug a toe into the dirt beneath it. “I knew you liked Katara,” she said, “but I didn’t know you liked her that much.”

“I love her,” Aang said simply.

Toph’s eyebrows rose beneath her bangs, though she quickly schooled her expression to something more neutral. She crossed her arms. Her feet told her that Sokka was still on the grassy bank, sitting as still as he ever did. Her ears told her that Katara was in the water, a series of regular splashes revealing she was practicing the same form she’d been teaching Aang the day before. She grinned.

“I wouldn’t worry about all that, if I were you.”

“What?”

Toph waited. The wind picked back up.

“Like I said before,” she started, listening for the shift that would tell her Aang had turned back around, “Katara and I fight a lot, but I know her.” She grinned when she knew she had his attention. “You know what she cares about more than anything else in the world?”

Aang shook his head, and then realized Toph couldn’t see him. “No.”

“You, Twinkletoes.”

Toph felt the uptick in his heartbeat.

“Really?” he asked happily. “You think so?”

“Now don’t get all soft on me,” Toph said, putting her hand out to stop him. “But I know so.” She smiled as she felt Aang rise from his sagging posture.

“Thanks, Toph,” he said, moving so quickly to hug her that she barely had a moment to react.

“All right, all right,” she said, letting his arms stay wrapped around her for a moment. “I think we’ve done enough rock-chucking for today.” She grabbed Aang’s arm and started pulling him behind her toward the bank. “I’m going to bug Sokka, and you probably have some more training to do.” Dropping Aang’s arm, she cupped her hands around her mouth and practically roared, “Katara! He’s all yours!”

“Toph! You’re scaring all the fish away!” Sokka wailed.

“Yeah, right, like they weren’t scared by your terrible skills already.”

Katara paused her bending to wave at them. “Come on, Aang! Let’s go over the eel sequence again.”

“Go on, Twinkletoes,” Toph said, pounding on his back one last time for good measure.

Sokka grumbled something about the quality of his bait.

Aang grinned. “I owe you one,” he said.

“Oh, don’t worry,” Toph said with a grin of her own, dropping down to sit next to Sokka, “you’ll more than make up for it in your training tomorrow.”

Aang’s smile faltered, but never one to dwell on the future, it took very little time for him to respond to Katara’s call, and soon enough he was racing down the side of the bank and into the water, Toph smiling and listening all along.

#kataang week 2020 #kataang week #kataang tag #kataang #toph and aang brotp #my writing

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belphegor1982 · 4 years ago

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C and N for the brothers-in-law. Bonus points if it's Rick who's hurt and Jonathan who's doing the rescuing. :-)

[C: concussion] + [N: getting injured person out of situation]

All right! I went for the bonus points ;o)

And Not a Drop to Drink

The first thing Rick does when consciousness returns is gasp.

The second thing is deeply regret it as muddy water floods his mouth and throat.

The third thing is acknowledge the searing pain in his head that almost makes him pass right out.

It’s the faint but persistent nausea growing in the pit of his stomach on top of everything else that clues him in. Okay, so he got hit on the head and now concussion is setting in. Unless he drowns first, because that’s definitely an option too, apparently.

Somewhere at the back of his mind, his self-preservation instincts are screaming that he should be making fewer idle comments about dying and more attempts to, well, not die. That’s generally what you do when your vision is growing white at the edges from the lack of air. But the thing is, he’s had concussions before, and he’s jumped, fallen, or been pushed into deep waters before, but never both at the same time.

This is not good.

Just as one last spark of life runs from his brain to his toes and makes him try to kick his way up – no way he’s going to die in such a stupid way – he feels a hand grasp his hair. Then his jacket. Then – thankfully – his shoulder, under the armpit.

When Rick breaks the surface he spouts up what feels like half his volume in water, and he has no idea whether he’s expelling it from his lungs or emptying the contents of his stomach.

“That’s right, keep doing that, better out than in”, says a shaky voice right beside his ear. It takes him an embarrassingly long time to recognise his brother-in-law.

What the hell happened?

Rick’s brain doesn’t provide him with an answer right away and he decides it’s a question for another time. Preferably when his head isn’t swimming better than he is and he feels like he would sink like a stone if not for Jonathan’s grip on him.

He noticed early on that both Carnahan siblings do well in water, that time they had to bail out of the burning barge. Evy later told him her childhood included the occasional dip in the Nile and swimming lesson. As for Jonathan, the next time they found themselves having to swim for their lives again – it says something about their lives, Rick supposes, that he can open this sentence with ‘the next time’ – and Rick asked where he learned to swim, he said, “The benefits of a classical education, old boy. Rowed a bit when I was in Oxford. Did you know the Cherwell is beastly cold at seven in the morning?”

Turns out so is the Thames at eight in the evening. Especially in November. Rick’s teeth would probably be chattering if he wasn’t so damn beat.

Ah, well. Jonathan is doing enough chattering for them both anyway.

“– did a splendid job laying out the bounder – anyone ever told you that you could give Jack Petersen a run for his money? Too bad his rotten little friend had the nerve to bring a bat to a fistfight, I mean to say, that bat may have been cricket but the move was absolutely not. Then again, what can you expect from this lot – running about in those ridiculous black polo shirts and idolising foreign dictators, spewing garbage about people who’ve done nothing to—I say, Rick, are you still there?”

“Yeah,” Rick gargles somehow. He still hasn’t opened his eyes. But hey, at least he knows he’s not drowning, so that’s not all bad, right?

“Jolly good.”

Jonathan doesn’t say much after that. Either he talked himself breathless or it takes concentration to lug them both along and not be swept up by the current Rick can feel pulling at his legs. Damn. And people really swim in there!? Only mad dogs and Englishmen, like the song says.

Thankfully it doesn’t take them long before they wash up on the wharf. Good thing they drifted downstream a bit. Rick wouldn’t have liked his chances if the first thing they’d reached had been a seven-feet-tall quay, slippery as an eel.

When Rick finally feels solid ground he rolls onto his back and blinks his eyes open despite the headache. For a second it’s like nothing changes whether his eyelids are up or down. He experiences a short sharp stab of fear before realising that he��s just staring up at a cloudy London night sky. The Thames, when he raises his head a fraction, looks even darker, except for the winks of light where the crests of ripples catch the meagre light dripping from a lamppost somewhere behind them.

The bank underneath him feels cold and slimy and he doesn’t even need to look to know his clothes are coated with sludge. But it’s way better than the alternative.

Beside him, Jonathan is also sprawled on the ground, staring straight up. His chest is rising and falling quickly and deeply as he pants open-mouthed. He actually must be dead tired; nothing but sheer exhaustion can make him shut up, Rick thinks with something like the fond exasperation Evy gets in her voice when she talks about her brother, which was so foreign to him when he met the siblings.

“You all right?” he asks, and almost throws up. His tongue, his mouth, his throat taste like murky, brackish river water.

Jonathan’s head pivots a little. His stare shifts from the sky to Rick.

“Peachy, clearly,” he rasps. “But I should be the one to ask you, really, not the other way around. I’m not the one who got conked on the head and fell into the river. How’s the head?”

“I’ll be fine if we both use small words. What happened to cricket bat guy?”

“Damned if I know. I kicked him in the fork and jumped in after you while he was, er, otherwise occupied. He probably collected his colleague and their nasty little posters and buggered off after a while.”

Rick suppresses a laugh, which would be a really bad idea with a splitting headache and a stomach whose contents are sloshing back and forth like whisky in a tumbler. At a glance Jonathan looks like your garden-variety upper-class twit with more manners than sense, but that impression only goes skin-deep. He has no qualm whatsoever about playing dirty, especially if it means getting out of a scrape.

Or getting someone he actually cares about out of a scrape. This kind of little detail makes all the difference between him and guys like Beni Gabor, as Rick found out over the years.

“You know,” he says, still waiting for the headache to subside and the world to stop spinning – or at least slow down, “when you said you wanted to ‘go out for a drink’ I didn’t think you meant it like that.”

Jonathan snorts. “Well, I don’t. I prefer my drinks with a little more flavour and a little less sewage, thank you very much.” He lifts himself up on his elbows and sits up with a groan. “I might help myself to a whisky or two after this, though. For medicinal purposes. Lots of germs to kill.”

“Go ahead,” says Rick, who still hasn’t moved and doesn’t feel like moving – even though he probably should by now. “I’ll join you.”

“Oh, I don’t think so. You, my good son, are going straight to the hospital. I wasn’t exactly looking at my watch but I know you blacked out for longer than is wise.”

“I’ve had worse.”

“I know that. But that doesn’t mean you get to go home to lick your wounds like a cantankerous bear.”

Both the inflections and the words themselves are so familiar it doesn’t take long for Rick to dredge the memory from the chaos that is his mind. That’s what Evy said last time he got banged up. Which – fair point, even if it kinda feels like cheating.

Most of the time Evy and Jonathan are so different that it’s easy to forget they’re siblings. But every now and then they’ll have the same piercing squint, the same crooked grin, the same quirky turn of phrase, and the similarities hit you like a ton of bricks.

That he doesn’t feel up to arguing more than this tells Rick that a detour to a hospital is probably a good idea. He’s had his fair share of knocks on the head in his life, but there are delicate things in brains that don’t like being disturbed. Judging by the queasy rocking of his stomach, like he’s on a rolling ship instead of slumped on the ground, some things have been disturbed that shouldn’t have been.

He slowly – very slowly – half-rolls on his side and sits up. Then has to stop for a bit. Yeah, his brain definitely shouldn’t feel like it’s leaking out his ears. Even the poor light from the gas lampposts in the distance is loud.

Man, I hate concussions.

“Smaller words, please,” Rick mutters, fighting the urge to rub his eyes. When he opens them – again – he meets Jonathan’s and nods. Slowly.

“All right. But I phone Evy first.”

“St Bart’s has a phone, I can do that from there. Besides, opening with ‘Rick punched a fascist and fell into the Thames’ has a lot more entertainment value for me than ‘Good news, I’m still alive! Bad news, my car is now wrapped around a lamppost because the bloke I play poker with on Thursdays doesn’t like to lose’—”

“Jonathan?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you.”

Jonathan throws him a startled look. For a second the fear that made his voice shake while they were treading water – plus delayed reaction, Rick thinks – shows in his eyes, plain as day. He looks drained, his face white underneath the mud dripping from his hair and into his eyes, and he’s shivering about as badly as Rick is. But then his shoulders slump a little and he gives a small smile.

“You’re welcome. You pulled me out of the soup so many times, I couldn’t not try to pull you out of the drink. Next time you’re picking a fight with those blighters in the black shirts I might bring a bat myself, though.”

“I didn’t pick a fight with them,” Rick points out. Jonathan’s deadpan look as he slowly pulls him to his feet makes him say, “I didn’t! I just laughed at their stupid poster. Didn’t even throw a punch until that guy started ranting about the Jews.”

“I know. I might have taken the opportunity to stuff the rest of the wretched posters into their bucket of glue while they were distracted.”

Rick snorts and immediately regrets it. Some of what he’s feeling must be showing on his face, because Jonathan throws one of his arms over his own shoulder and doesn’t start walking until Rick is certain he’s not going to hurl and looks it. When Rick’s eyelids start to droop he slows down again.

“Don’t fall asleep on me now, old boy.”

“I’m not,” Rick mutters. “Just resting my eyes.” It’s not even a lie. They just passed a lamppost, and while the light looked dim from the edge of the river, the pool of gaslight they walked in stabbed his brain through his eyes.

Sleep is tempting, though, which is why he muses out loud, “Wait, what was that about your car and poker? At that time you said that was an accident!”

Jonathan winces. “So I did. Not one of my finer moments, I’m afraid. It’s rather a long story.”

“Well, we got time. Unless you’re planning to dump me in a taxi and go for that drink.”

“Exactly who do you take me for? All right, so that was around the time I used to patronise a nice little club in Covent Garden…”

Rick ends up paying for the taxi to the hospital, but the story is entertaining enough to stay awake for, even though, he suspects, the storyteller is glossing over certain details to make himself look good… ish. Jonathan’s grip on him is warm, and if it’s shaking a little he shows no sign of letting go. Which is a good thing, because while Rick used to be pretty good at winning bar brawls ten years ago in Cairo and be in good enough shape to limp home afterwards, he’d be in trouble right now if it was just him. Oh, he’d survive. But he wouldn’t necessarily enjoy it.

“Rick? Still awake?”

“Yeah,” Rick mumbles, and does his best to look like it. “Keep going.”

As lousy as he feels, he’s actually looking forward to the end of the story, and – much, much later, probably – a drink to celebrate punching fascists and not ending up a part of the Thames riverbed.

All in all, he really has had worse evenings.

___________

The title is in reference to Samuel Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner:

Water, water, everywhere, And all the boards did shrink; Water, water, everywhere, Nor any drop to drink.

It’s not really important, but this story is set in November 1934. British Fascists/Nazis were a thing: look up Oswald Mosley (who created the British Union of Fascists) and the Battle of Cable Street.

Jack Petersen was a British heavyweight champion in the early 1930s.

Re. Rick saying “taxi” rather than “cab” – I know, I know, Americans use “cab” where the British generally use “taxi”. But Rick hasn’t lived in the US for almost two decades at this point, so I stand by the word :D

I’ll be reblogging this shortly with the link to the story on AO3!

#the mummy #the mummy series #Rick O'Connell #Jonathan Carnahan #fanfiction #my stuff #ask reply #tinydooms

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irrfahrer · 5 years ago

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@masterofthelivingforce started following you!

The Hangar of the Spacestation was full of people waiting for the next ship to leave, the murmur of their voices- talks, shouts, laughter, crying- turned into a heavy murmur that lay over the hangar like a thick blanket. It almost drowned the childs quiet hiss when Ziv poured vinegarwater over the deep cut on his leg. The kid who was sitting in his fathers lap squirmed like a eel and burried his little face in his fathers chest. Ziv ignored it and only held the childs leg a little harder with one paw while with her other paw she dabbed the lasts rests of dried blood off the childs leg. Instead The Tynnan only mumbled a quiet: “Hold your kid in place, I am working.” , as she grabbed for one of the jars she had sat beside her on the ground, pressed the sides of the deep cut together and dabbed a thick, sticky rasin over the wound and the skin beside the cut. For a few moments, while Ziv waited for the Rasin to dry there was only the childs quiet whimper and the fathers voice, gently humming a lullaby Ziv did not knew. It was no suprise, Ziv did not knew many lullabies beside the songs that had been sung by- The Tynnan shoved the thought so brutally at the back of her head like a dirty secret and instead leaned forward to take a deep sniff from the wound, searching for the stench of puss or the sharp scent of a coming infection.

A line as deep as a scar appeared between Zivs eyebrows and she leaned over again, taking another deep sniff. Between the heavy scent of Iron, between the wooden scent of the rasin that smelled fresh like the first sprouts of a young forest, between the scent of rusted metal that even after the cleaning lay still around the cut like a sillage and should be the best base for a bloodpoisoning, there was still another scent- so horrible sweet it stitched into Zivs muzzle uncomfortably. Automatically her tail flicked from one side to another, curiously, attentive. The kid tieredly turned his face from his fathers chest by Zivs question, there were still tearstains shimmering on his cheeks, but his eyes were dry and his small hands nolonger cramped in his parents vest.

“Kid, when you played in the lower deck had there something grown on the walls-” Red Mold grows on rests of skinflakes, fat and hair, something that usually covered the walls of old ships that had never been bothered to be cleaned, she repeated in her head : “- by the air shaft?” The Mold needed a permanent change of air, Ziv remembered: “Or Around a leaking waterpipe?” Or running water, she knew. With a flick of her small paw she pointed towards a humanoid woman sitting near them whos head of red hair looked in the low light like cinder: “ It looks like her head? Some red growing mess?”

The humanoid gave Ziv a sour look as if she had bitten on a foul fruit, but the Tynna ignored it. Instead her ears turned to the little boy sitting on his fathers lap, listening attentive with her head tilted to the side like a curious bird: “...Yeh.My friend Sasa found it and wanted to show it to me.”

“I see.”, the Tynnan slowly nodded and packed the jar of Rasin and the vinegarwater-bottle back into her plasticcontainer. Her tail wagged from one side to another while she was thinking: The child had had luck, with such a deep cut he could have been in danger of a infection in such a enviorment but the mold in the wound had cleaned it and the vinegarwater had done the rest. With the rasin covering the cut, no germs or dirt could enter now. If she would collect the mold, she could dry it and make a pulver out of it for later use. With a huff Ziv got on her feet, shouldering the container again whichs familiar weight lay like a protective shield on her back: “The cut is cleaned so there will be no infection. With the resin closing the wound and holding it together it should heal with just a little scar without any complications.” “But if the flesh around the cut turns hard or hot, you call me again.”, Zivs voice was more a stern order than a question, strict and demanding. There was a pause, the murmur from the other travlers around them hung thickly in the air like a heavy blanket and automatically Ziv massaged the webbing between her fingers with one hand as always when she felt uncomfortable: “..also watch out better if you go and play again or your Baba loses another meal to me, Kid. So-” Take good care of yourself, she wanted to say, but the words lay like stones on her tounge. That was not in her right to say for this was not her child, this was not even someone she knew, this was noone under her care, this was someone who did not knew her. The young woman shaked her head with a grim huff “..nevermind. Whatever.” Awakwardly the Tynnan pulled the hood of her parker down to her muzzle and went down to the lower deck a little too hasty to appear calm. A little, as if she was fleeing.

The webbing between her fingers had soon started to ache when the already dim light on the Spacestation turned even dimmer in the lower level. A little frustrated Ziv forcefully stopped her fingers from fiddling with the thin skin and instead closed her paws around the strap over her chest holding her plasticcontainer on her back. She really was not good talking with patients, the Tynnan noticed not for the first time and with a grimace as if she had bitten on a sour fruit she noticed once again, again and again that she was not good at talking with people in general. Ziv smelled the mold before she saw it, although she did not exactly saw it at all, not until she was standing before the wall by the leaking waterpipes where a steady small stream of water had drawn lines of red mold that looked like drawn with red chalk on the rusty wall of the lower level. Squinting her horrible myoptic eyes, the young woman leaned forward until she was almost pressing her muzzle against the wall and took a deep sniff: Sweet, like a rotting fruit mixed with the iron taste of the spacestation old metal. Not wasting a second Ziv sat the plasticcontainer down and fished a still empty evacuate- pack and her sickle out of it to carefully, almost gently, scratch the red mold off the wall and collect it in the pack.

She was alone on the lower level, the only sound was the quiet gurgling of the leaking waterpipe and the metal of her sickle scratching on the as soft as velvet mold. At least the Tynnan was alone at the lower level, until she nolonger was alone.

There was a strange feeling that made the thick pelt at her back rise, a feeling like a icecold finger running down her spine. Automatically Ziv stiffened, her pale ears jolted upwards and listened after something- a quiet step, a rustling of clothes, a shifting of weight- that could not be there and should not be heard. There was only the gurgling of the broken waterpipe and when Ziv turned around the blurred outlines of the corridor looked just the same as seconds before, even when she squinted her eyes to see better. But it felt differently, as if it had turned warmer, as if someone had walked towards her, as if she only had to reach out with a paw and touch the sleeve of someone she did not knew and could not be there.

The Tynnans arm never moved. Still, she reached out.

And then she the tips of her fingers that were not her fingers touched the side and sleeve of something -someone- that could not be there.

“..No.”, automatically the young woman stepped back and pulled back a hand she had never physically extended but was still throbbing from the sensation that had not happned. Not really. Not exactly. Not at all. “No, you are not there. You are not there.”

Her tail flicking as if she was a annoyed cat Ziv turned back to the mold that shimmered in the low light deep red like ruby. The mold smelled sweet and felt warm beneath the callouse skin of the inside of her paws. Her pale ears flicked restlessly after sounds that should not there, were not there, of course not. At the edge of the Tynnans mind she heard water drop slowly out of the leaking pipes. She had stopped scratching the mold off the rusty wall and had started to fiddle on the webbing between her fingers again. The icecold hand around her spine that was the feeling of something beeing there, something beeing not normal, never left but instead seemed to freeze, freeze, freeze in its place. With a frustrated grunt the young woman turned around, her sharp teeth bared: “Why are you here? Why now?!”

#Moin moin dear! thanks for following me! :D #Your forceghost verse with the ' you neve rget rid of him' made me chuckle so i thought I write you a starter ;#where ziv gets a visit ;D #Hope it works and if not I will write something else #V: Odyssee #Ziv Odiz' zee

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mylilbirbs · 4 years ago

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Chapter 2 of bubble buddies! Below the cut is the chapter (if you don’t want to read it on ao3) and some art for this chapter. I hope you like it!

Chapter Two: Encounter

When Connie ran into the ocean she thought that was the end, but somehow she was safely encased in, something?

A bubble, Connie was trapped in a pink bubble.

The eel slammed against the bubble repeatedly. Connie shook, hopefully whatever this was it would be able resist the monster’s strength.

The eel shrieked and hit the bubble with its tail, the bubble went flying with her trapped inside.

Connie’s vision lurched as the bubble flew through air. Her glasses fell off her face when the bubble landed deeper in the ocean and slammed against a boulder.Shortly after landing she scrambled to find her glasses, putting them back on she realized that they were cracked.

Connie ran her finger against the surface of the bubble, unlike her glasses the bubble was virtually undamaged.

The eel’s glowing yellow eyes appeared suddenly in the dark waters, it’s jaw open wide and shrieking even louder than before.

Connie screamed and leaned against the back of the bubble in an attempt to push the bubble away from the eel’s gaping maw. But her efforts were in vain as she barely moved in an inch.

A few feet away from her, the eel suddenly stopped. It looked to the left, like there was something there?

She saw three large figures? No not figures,fish, Connie could clearly see the silhouettes had long tails and fins. But she had never seen fish so large before.

The fish(?) quickly swam into the distance and the eel chased after them. They swam away into the inky depths, and Connie was alone.

Alone, trapped in a bubble at the bottom of the ocean. All alone.

Connie heard a slam on the back on the bubble she turned around to see two hands pressed against the bubble’s surface. Two webbed hands.

For what felt the millionth time that day, Connie screamed.

What was happening? She wanted to have a magical adventure, but not like this!

She closed her eyes and tried to calm herself down, the bubble would probably be strong enough to keep protecting her until this creature gave up.

Wait what if she couldn’t get out?

Don’t think about that right now!

She opened her eyes to see that the hands were no longer pressed against the bubble. Instead she could make a figure close to the bubble.

The top half was shaped like a human, with curly hair and fins sticking out the side of their head. The rest of their body was a long fish tail, with thin fins coming off the side and end of the tail.

A mermaid!

The mer tilted its head like to the side like it was asking a question, Connie didn’t move, all she could do was stare.

The mer slowly moved towards the bubble and Connie could fully see its features. Dark curly hair framed the mer’s face, it had translucent fins coming out of the side of its head like ears, constantly twitching. It’s oblong almost snake-like pupils were focused on her intently. It appeared to be a boy or at least her age.

The mer’s scaly, webbed hands began to move. Wait, was that sign language?

Connie only knew how to fingerspell, if this was even ASL at all.

It was worth a shot.

Connie held up her hands in clear view of the mer and tried to introduce herself.

She pointed to herself and slowly spelled out:

‘C-O-N-N-I-E’ ,

and then pointed to herself again, hoping the mer would understand.

The mer’s eyes widened and it did a small spin in the water. A small smile appeared on its face as it began to spell:

‘S-T-E-V-E-N’

And then, copying her, the mer pointed to itself himself

His signing was a lot more practiced and precise than her own Connie noticed. Before she could respond Steven began to spell out something else:

‘H-E-L-P Y-O-U ‘

He signed, once again pointing to himself before signing again:

‘P-U-S-H’

He spelled out, and then pushed the bubble, moving it a few feet towards the shore. Much more progress than what Connie would ever be able to achieve.

She spelled out ‘O-K’ and gave him a hesitant thumbs up.

Steven smiled and returned the gesture. And then he began to push.

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

Connie opened one of her eyes at the feeling of a bump. She saw that bubble was being pushed onto the sand.

The rolling suddenly came to stop and the bubble disappeared with a loud *pop!*and Connie was sitting in the sand, still very close to the ocean.

Now out of the bubble she could Steven’s actual colors. Like the bubbl, his fins and scales were all varying shades of pink.His fins were all a light almost clear pink, the scales on his tail all had differing shades which created a stunning pattern. He had patches of scales on other parts of his body like his hands, arms and chest, seemingly randomly spread out.

“Thank you.” Connie smiled at him, adjusting her now broken glasses and brushed her fingers through her sandy hair.

Steven gave her a sharp toothed smile before descending back into the ocean.

“No! Don’t go! I have so many quest-” She sighed, knowing it was already too late, he was already long gone.

Looking to the beach Connie was relieved to see her stuff right where she left it.

Picking up her phone, they screen flashed to live to show-

Crap!

(Dad: 4 missed calls)

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

“What happened? Covered in sand! Didn’t answer your phone! Your glasses are broken Connie!” Her mother paced back and forth frantically.

“Mom let me-”

“No! I thought you were more responsible than this Connie.”

“Dear, maybe we should hear what she has to say.”Connie’s dad placed his hand on his wife’s shoulder.

Her mother took a deep breath “Fine. But this better be good Connie.” She spoke cooly, a direct contrast to the searing anger she showed moments before.

“Well I, I wanted to sit closer to the ocean and I uh I didn’t want to get my stuff wet so I left there and that’s why I didn’t answer dad’s calls.” She lied threw her teeth

“Ok, and the sand? Your glasses?”

“The tide got really high really fast and I got knocked over by a wave.”

“Ok. Just. Just be more prepared next time Connie.”

“I will.” And she meant it,just not in the way her mother intended.

She will be more prepared next time, she promised herself as she pulled the sign language book off of the library shelf.

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#steven universe #connverse #connie maheswaran #steven quartz universe #SU #su fanfic #su fanart #mermay #mermay2020 #bubble buddies

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jbrentonparker · 6 years ago

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“A Wish” (A Fairy Tale Retold)

He went up the hill to the cliff overlooking the roiling sea with the intention of throwing himself off of it, but when he arrived, someone else was already there.

He stopped in his tracks, his arms full of crumpled letters, dog-eared books, and a pair of white cotton socks that the wild wind was threatening to tear from his grasp, and stared at the silhouetted figure that stood motionless at the cliff's edge. It was a woman, standing alone in the sea of heather that blanketed the rocky hillside for miles. Her hair whipped about her head in a tangled mass of gold, her dress straining and billowing against her legs like a sail about to catch the wind. She faced away from him, out over the ocean, and was so still and isolated that he might have thought her a specter if he had seen her in the gloom of night rather than the full light of day.

First incredulity, then hot anger rose in his chest, and his face flushed. Wrenches were thrown into plans he had spent the entire morning crafting, and he spluttered and swore to himself until he overcame his shock. With narrowed eyes and squared shoulders, he continued to wade through the dense heather up toward the woman, crushing the hardy little flowers underfoot.

The passion of the moment was somewhat spoiled when a crumpled sheet of hand written poetry escaped his grasp and was caught on the wind, tumbling end over end in mad cartwheels. With another oath, he chased it down, running awkwardly through knee high shrubs and struggling not to drop any of the other mementos he held. Finally, his heart pounding and his ears aching from the cold bite of the roaring wind, he pinned the paper beneath one foot and was able to squat down so he could just barely grab the edge of it with two fingers. Sweaty, red faced, and quite out of breath, he looked up and saw that his mad dash had brought him nearly back at the bottom of the hill―as opposed to at the bottom of the sea, which is where he had planned to be by now.

The passion and spontaneity of the thing had been thoroughly lost, and for a brief moment his determination wavered. He hadn't really thought much about the bottom of the ocean.

But the fire of pride wasn't so quick to burn out. He clung fiercely to that, and with grim determination to give that woman, whoever she was, a piece of his mind, he struggled all the way back up the hill for a second time.

"What,” he panted when he finally trudged up behind her, too short of breath to sound as fierce as he had intended, “are you doing here?”

The woman hadn't seemed to notice his approach until he spoke. She slowly turned her head toward him, as if reluctant to look away from the view of the endless, gray sea. She didn't seem startled to see him there, and only glanced at him briefly with pale eyes before turning back to the water.

“I'm going to jump into the sea,” she said in a soft, almost dreamy voice.

“You can't!” he snapped at her.

Now she did turn to look at him properly, her brow furrowing. “What? Why not?”

“Because, I'm jumping off the cliff today!” And he stomped his foot as he said it.

“Why?” the woman asked.

He swelled a little, adjusting his grip on the bundles of papers, books, and socks. “My lover left me.”

“So you're going to throw yourself off a cliff?”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “Do you see these here?” he said, jerking his chin at the treasures he clutched to his chest. “These are all the letters she wrote me, all the poems and songs and tender words that she put down on paper in her own hand for me to cherish. These are the books she used to read, the words of the authors she loved to quote, as if she understood what they meant. These are the socks she left behind that once covered the feet I would have dropped to my knees and kissed if she'd asked me to. These are the letters I wrote to her after she left, beseeching her to come back; begging to know why she did it; groveling and pleading and abandoning every scrap of dignity and self respect I ever had for myself because I couldn't stand to be without her. I never even sent them to her. I couldn't have if I wanted to. She's gone, and she took the man I used to be with her. I don't just have nothing left, I am nothing. I opened myself up to her in ways I didn't even know I was capable of, I laid myself naked and bare and exposed at her feet, and then she spit on me while I was down there. And now,” he drew himself up a little taller, his expression grew a little stonier, “I'm going to take all of these, everything that she has touched, every lovely lie she told me, and I'm going to let the sea take them, and me.”

“For a woman?”

His mouth dropped open, but he could only manage a few incoherent sputters. “I--you don't...” He trembled with barely suppressed emotion. “You don't understand! You don't know what it's like, to have everything taken away from you!”

“And this is her punishment, then?”

He didn't answer her.

“Would you rather she'd have stayed, even if it made her miserable? Even if it made you miserable? Would you have kept her forever, because she owed you, no matter what it cost you both?”

He only glared, but the woman wasn't looking at him any longer. The ocean below was gray and heaving, waves crashing with bone breaking force into the rocks that jutted out of the water like broken teeth.

“Why are you here?” he eventually asked her again.

“I told you,” she replied.

“No, I mean why are you going to kill yourself?”

“That is a sad story,” she said, the air wistfulness falling back over her. She fell quiet then, and he waited for her to continue.

A full minute passed, and then another. He gathered that she had no intention of elaborating, and with a huff of impotent frustration, he made to push past her for the edge of the cliff.

Then, quite abruptly, she began to tell him her story.

Our parents died when we were still quite young. My father was a fisherman, and one day the sea claimed him. My mother began to fade away after his death, as if she had lost her will to exist without him, until one day she was gone too and my brother and I were left alone in the world. As the eldest, it was my responsibility to look after my brother, but we struggled to feed ourselves from day to day. So my brother became a fisherman, like our father before him, and we were able to keep ourselves from starving. We were not prosperous. We were rarely even comfortable. But we got by. For years, we got by.

One day, my brother was fishing in his little boat on a part of the coast he had never been to before. He came by a small cove, hidden along the cliff side. It was difficult to get to, the waters were treacherous and full of crumbling rocks that threatened to dash his boat to pieces upon them. But what he found there was worth the danger, for though there were few fish, no other fishermen had discovered this hidden place, and the cove and tide pools on the shore were rich in the bounty of the sea. Almost every day he was able to bring back clams and mussels, eels, barnacles, sea cucumbers, crabs as big as your head, shrimp and scallops and star fish and once, even an octopus. It was thriving with life, and for the first time since our parents died, we did not go hungry, not even for one night.

Then, one day, he caught something different.

He was hauling up his net, and found it was heavier than it had ever been before. It was all he could do to keep the rope from being wrenched from his grasp and lost in the water. Inch by inch, he dragged it up, expecting to find the largest sea creature he had ever seen. But when he was finally able to haul it up over the side of the boat, all he saw was one solitary fish, no larger than a sea bass.

It was clear as soon as he laid eyes upon it that it was anything but ordinary, however. The fish glittered and gleamed in the sunlight, with scales of pure gold and eyes of silver. The weight of the thing threatened to capsize his boat as it flopped about, desperately caught up in the net. He stared at it in wonder, and realized he could sell a fish like that for enough money that he and I could live in comfort for the rest of our lives. But then, to his even greater surprise, it spoke to him.

“Please, dear fisherman,” it begged. “Please release me! I am an extraordinary fish, and if you do, I will grant you any wish you desire. The sun, the moon, the stars, they could all be yours, if you would but set me free.”

“Any wish?” my brother asked. “Wealth? Power? Happiness? You could grant me all that?”

“All that and more, good fisherman,” said the golden fish. “The only domain I have no power over is death, but the rest of the world is yours if you only give me back to the ocean. Take pity, I beg of you.”

My brother considered the fish's offer. He was never hasty. Neither of us ever acted in impulse. So measured, so careful. Look where it got us.

“I will release you,” he said finally, “but on one condition. I won't make my wish now. I have to consult my sister first, for she is all I have left in the world, and my fortune is her fortune as well. I will release you now and return home to ask her what we should wish for, if you swear that you will be waiting here for my return tomorrow.”

“I swear it,” said the fish, and my brother did as he promised and cut his net. It disappeared into the dark water, and my brother, hoping he had not made a mistake in trusting the golden fish, sailed back home.

As soon as he found me, he told me what had happened, about the fish and the wish it had promised him.

“Just one wish?” I asked.

“A wish for anything. The sun, the moon, the stars. Even happiness. Whatever we want, we can have--except for life. I know what you are thinking, I thought it too. But it cannot bring back the dead.”

“So we have a wish, but we cannot use it on the one thing we want? What else could we possibly wish for we would not come to regret? A wish is a dangerous thing to waste. Money can keep us fed and comfortable, but won't give us happiness. Happiness won't keep us fed. We could make ourselves a king and queen, and die in a bloody revolution when the land is stricken with famine. We could wish for a purse full of gold that never empties, but then be stricken by a disease for which there is no cure that money can buy. Just one wish, and a million ways to waste it.”

“Then what do you propose we do?” he asked me, and I thought long and hard about what the wisest course of action would be.

“I think,” I finally said to him, “that you should go back and catch the fish again. Bring it here, and we will put it in a bowl, and let people pay us to come and see a golden, talking fish. It sounds like a wondrous creature, I have no doubt that it will draw people from all over the world to see it. Right now our worst suffering is our impoverishment, but we need not use the wish to cure ourselves of that. We can keep the fish until we have become so rich that money is no longer any concern, and then we will decide what wish to make. When we have all the food and comfort that money can buy, when our minds are not clouded by constant hunger and the struggles of poverty, then we will make our wish. We can use for something wealth cannot give us, or better yet, save it for when we are in need of it most.”

My brother agreed with me that this was the wisest decision we could make. Having a wish a year ago could have saved our parents, and it seemed prudent to keep one on hand in case a similar need arose. So the next morning, before the sun had risen, he took to his sailing boat and made his way to the secluded little cove.

Waiting for him just as promised was the golden fish, the first rays of the morning sun glancing off its head that broke the surface of the water.

It swam up to my brother and asked, “What is your wish, good fisherman?”

And my brother threw his net over the animal. It fought, and was as heavy as it had been the first time my brother had struggled with it, but once again he managed to haul it up into the boat and dump it into a bucket of seawater.

“I apologize, my friend,” he said to it, “but we need the wealth and fame a creature like you can provide us with more than we need a wish right now.”

“I can give you wealth and fame if you wish for it!” the fish pleaded, but my brother only shook his head sadly and steered the boat for home.

“Your wish is too valuable to waste on instant pleasures or material wealth. We must save it for when we are in need of it most.”

The fish pleaded with him the entire way back, but my brother did not give in, though it pierced his heart to hear it beg so miserably.

It took the both of us to drag the bucket back to our house, and together we poured the fish and the seawater into a large glass bowl which we had placed in our back garden. We tried to make it comfortable, filling the bottom of the bowl with small pebbles and bits of seaweed. But even though it was the largest bowl we owned, the fish had barely enough room to swim in a circle. And it continued to entreat us to release it all the while, begging us to send it home to the ocean where it belonged, but we covered out ears and didn't listen.

Don't look at me like that. You don't know what it was like. We weren't heartless to the poor creature's plight, please understand. We weren't planning on keeping it like that forever, just long enough to make a comfortable living off its handsome scales and clever speech. And once we had decided the cleverest wish to ask of it. After that, we would have let it go again. We tried to explain that to the fish, but it only continued to plead and cry, big silver tears. Eventually we covered the bowl with a cloth, and we went back inside.

From then on, we spread the word to as many people that we could about our wondrous fish. First to come were our neighbors; then people from distant towns; then people from the other side of the country--people from miles and miles away who had heard about the golden, talking fish, and wanted to see it with their own eyes.

We weren't greedy and charged them only a small sum, but so many people came in those first few weeks that we had no doubt we would be able to live like kings in no time at all.

But the fish wouldn't cooperate.

We would lead people into our back garden and take the cloth off the bowl. The guests would gasp in delight, remarking how beautifully the fish's golden scales gleamed, how bright its silver eyes shone, and how it spoke just like a man. But when they fell quiet to listen to its speech, and they heard it pleading.

“Please please let me go, I beg of you! I am so unhappy in this little bowl, I long for the wide, open ocean. Staring out of the curved glass sides of this bowl is making me go blind. I can only swim in little circles, and my body is aching and twisted. And I'm so lonely. I miss the other fish, I miss the quiet of the deep water, I miss the darkness when I dive down deep. Here it is all too bright and loud, and the water in this little bowl grows so hot when the sun shines on it. I am going to die if you keep me like this, please have some kindness! What have I done to deserve this? Why are you doing this to me? Take some pity and let me go!”

On and on it went, and the people we brought to see it would grow uncomfortable and start muttering amongst themselves, casting us ugly looks as if we were torturing the creature預s if they hadn't paid good money to come and gawk at it themselves. You are looking at me the same way now, but you don't understand what it was like. We weren't trying to be cruel, we were just trying to secure our future. If the fish had only listened to us, if it had just cooperated, things might have been different. Like your lover, no? But people are so selfish. They only think about what they want.

Then, slowly at first, the crowds of people who came to see the creature began to dwindle. At the height of our fame we had a hundred visitors a day, and made money almost faster than we could spend it. We repaired the holes in the roof of our cottage, we mended the fences around our land, we patched holes and cracks in the wall and for the first time since our parents died the cold night air didn't seep into our home and make us shiver in our beds. We bought clothing that hadn't been frayed and darned a hundred times over. We ate until we thought our stomachs would burst every night, and were certain our troubles were over. But all those people who came, who helped make us rich, they never came again after they listened to the fish's words.

We went from bringing in a hundred people a day, to fifty, then twenty, ten. At the end, those few who did come only wanted to see if what they had heard about the fish's terrible condition was true, and they sneered and scolded us for how we were treating it. And then none at all would come. Word had spread about the unhappiness of the fish. Our neighbors turned their noses up at us. People in town wouldn't talk to us. We were shunned, even though we tried again and again to explain that we weren't going to keep the fish forever.

“Just let the poor thing go!” they would say to us in the streets.

“We will, we will,” we tried to assure them, “Once we've made a little more money, just a little more!”

“Greedy, greedy,” they said.

Sometimes one or two people would still show up, people who hadn't heard about the fish's sadness, or people who didn't care. We clung to the hope that we could convince the others to come again, and we kept trying, even as what money we had made in those first few weeks dwindled. We hadn't saved anything. We had spent everything we'd earned on making our lives more comfortable, always thinking that there would be more money later.

Two weeks after our last visitor, we spent our last penny. A week after that, we had eaten our last loaf of bread.

We were warm at night. Our clothes were clean and new. And yet again, we teetered on the brink of starvation.

We begged our neighbors for help, for a few spare coins, for a little meat or drink, like they had been kind enough to give us in the past when times were at their toughest.

“After the way you've exploited that poor creature?” they said. “You've only brought this upon yourselves.”

Intentions. Intentions don't matter to other people, do they? They only care about what they can see. Once you've jumped off this cliff, will your lover know what you meant by it? Or will she just see a silly, lovesick fool? How do you punish someone who doesn't understand what they've done wrong?

Where was I? Oh, yes. Selfishness. Of course.

My brother came to me once it was clear that our plans had gone irrevocably wrong.

“Perhaps we should make our wish now and set it free,” he tentatively suggested.

“No,” I disagreed. “We may need that wish yet. Let's not waste it until we have lost all hope.”

“All hope is lost,” he said. “Can't you see that? We're back where we started, only now we're miserable too. At least I'm miserable. We're hated and ostracized, and I don't even care about the wish any more. What we are doing to the fish hurts my soul. I never wanted to capture it in the first place. Can't we just make our wish and leave it in peace?

“We're not doing anything to the fish,” I replied angrily. “We're keeping it alive and fed, we're doing nothing to harm it.”

“We're making it miserable,” he said.

“We are miserable. We need to save our wish now more than ever. Do you remember what happened to our parents? We could have saved them if we'd had a wish then. You still have your boat. You can still fish, so we can still keep ourselves fed. All hope is not lost, not yet.”

So my brother returned to fishing to keep us fed. He refused to even go into the back garden any more, not wishing to see the golden fish in its bowl. I only went out there to feed it, running back into the house with my hands over my ears while it cried after me.

As the days stretched into weeks, my brother caught less and less in his nets when he went out fishing. The creatures of the ocean seemed to flee from him as he drew near, and even his secret cove where he had first discovered the golden fish grew barren. When he went out into deeper waters, storm clouds massed overhead and the waves roiled, threatening to drag his boat down. We had done something terrible by capturing the gift of the golden fish that had been given to us, and the ocean rejected us. Weeks passed. We became thin and stretched, and we laid awake at night while our stomachs twisted with hunger, driving the possibility sleep from our minds. We were driven to eating grass--we ate the leather off our own shoes just to make it feel like there was something in our stomachs. By then, even I realized we had no choice.

We went to the golden fish and drew back the cloth over the bowl.

“Have you finally come to set me free?” it asked us. It sounded so hopeful.

“We've come to make our wish,” we told it.

Have you ever been starving before? Have you ever spent so much of your life constantly, endlessly starving like we did? We were stupid with hunger, and we wished for an end to the one battle we were always fighting. We wished for enough food to keep us well fed for the rest of our lives, and thought that that was the wisest thing we could do.

And we got it. A mountain of good, rich food appeared right there in our back garden, filling every corner, crushing all the plants and almost our house under the weight of it all. The top of the teetering pile reached higher than the cottage's roof, it was the most incredible sight you've ever seen in your life. There were bundles of brightly colored carrots, in more colors than I even knew carrots came in. Did you know there are purple carrots? They're not as sweet as the orange kind, but they're so crisp when they're fresh. There were shiny tomatoes all on the vine, red and yellow and green. And apples, with rosy cheeks and sweet white flesh, and the juice dripped down your chin when you bit into them. Fat grapes were spilling over the other fruits like purple waterfalls; turnips and beets that could have been only just pulled up out of the earth; steaming piles of butchered meat so fresh it still bled; wicker baskets piled high with speckled brown and green eggs; huge metal milk cans at tall as my hip, full of warm, white milk with the cream still floating on top; and a thousand more things I didn't even know the names of. Overcome by wonder at the bounty, we quickly forgot about the little golden fish. We couldn't help but laugh, laugh and wonder why we hadn't done this right away.

As I said, we were stupid with hunger, and it didn't take us long to realize our mistake.

For one week, we ate as well as we ever had. The fish was somewhere out in the garden, surrounded by heaps of fruits and vegetables, and it was far from our minds. For by then, the rot had set in.

We brought as much as possible into the house, but there was just too much. We had nowhere to store it all, and before we knew it the meat was covered in flies and maggots, the vegetables dried out and withered in the summer sun, the eggs went rotten, the milk spoiled and congealed, and the fruit furred with mold and fungus. There was so much of the stuff, we couldn't even move it, we couldn't get rid of it all. The rot and mold in the air began to make us even sicker than before. It settled in our throats and lungs making our breath come in short gasps, making our heads spin, and we vomited up what few long lasting root vegetables we had managed to salvage. And once again--again, again, always again--we found ourselves starving. We were reduced to eating the rotting food in our garden, even though it only made us sicker. So please, try to understand why we did what we did. We never wanted to, we never planned to. We were wasting away to nothing, we had no other choice.

We found the fish again, eventually, once the mountain of food that had hidden it from view had rotted away to piles of sludge and slime that oozed into the earth. It too was thin and weak, but alive, just barely. It was floating on its side in the bowl, without even the energy to sink to the bottom. Its silver eyes rolled when it saw us, and somehow it managed to ask in a rasping voice, “have you come to set me free?”

And we were so very hungry.

It was barely enough to feed the two of us, and its beautiful scales broke nearly every knife I tried to use on it. We piled those scales up, hoping to use them as money since we had nothing else, but the next morning, we found their golden luster had dulled into flakes of lead. Even the little silver eyes crumbled away like so much dust.

My brother was forced to return to the sea yet again, but his luck was even worse than before. He didn't make a single catch, the sea was a desert for him. The ocean would grow dark and tumultuous when he set sail in his little boat, and he was afraid, afraid of what waited for him out there.

Even though all his attempts had been fruitless since we had betrayed the golden fish, he kept sailing out in his little boat, day after day, heading farther and farther out to sea, to deeper waters, in desperate attempts to catch anything at all. And then one day he didn't come back. His boat washed up on shore, shattered to broken bits of wood. I searched for him, walking up and down the shore, calling his name, hoping that I would find him half drowned but alive, hidden by a sand dune somewhere. But I never even got his body back. The ocean had claimed my brother, in payment for what we took. An eye for an eye, and I'm the only one left, blinded by what I thought was my own cleverness. We all think we're so clever, don't we? Now I have nothing left. I have nothing left to want. I have nothing left to wish for.

The woman fell silent, her thin, cracked lips pressed into a hard line. Her gray eyes were flat and dull, sunk deep into hollow sockets. Her golden hair, so thin and brittle, was being blown from her scalp by the wind.

The man watched her quietly for a long time, as she teetered there on the edge of nothingness. Then he glanced down at the things he held in his arms, the mementos and treasures of someone he had loved very much, the things he was prepared to die with. To die for.

“The fish wasn't yours to own,” he said, slowly. The woman's expression was blank, unfocused. She stared out at the sea without seeming to hear him speak. “It didn't owe you anything. You wasted a gift. And now you're here, because this is your punishment.” He paused, wrinkled his nose, and shook his head. “It wasn't even your wish. It was your brother's wish. It was his gift. You took it from him.”

He looked again at the love notes, the limp socks. They had a little lace cuff, whose stitching was just starting to come undone.

“I'm not like you,” he said.

Slowly, as if being drawn forward against his will, he began to edge toward the lip of the cliff, until the toes of his shoes hung barely an inch over the side. Beneath him, it was a hundred feet to the waves that crashed over the dark stones, the sea an angry, churning entity of white froth cresting on gray water. He opened his arms wide, releasing everything he held into the void. The books tumbled downwards, their covers spreading open, their pages fluttering like the wings of flailing baby birds tumbling from the nest. The unbound pages, the love letters and poems signed with kiss marks, were caught by the wind and whipped away, spiraling through the air on updrafts that could have carried them halfway around the world. A pair of white cotton socks spun, intertwined, in a spiraling descent into the sea foam below.

He watched the mementos of love lost disappear into the hungry waters, and took a deep breath of the chill, salty ocean air. Then he turned back to the woman. She was watching him, her eyes deep and uncertain.

“Are you really going to jump?” he asked her.

“You let it all go,” she replied so softly that the wind stole her words away as soon as they left her lips.

“It was never mine. Not really, I don't think.” He turned his face into the wind. It felt cool and good on his cheeks and brow. “I haven't forgiven her,” he said, as if he didn't want the woman to get the wrong idea. “I just... I'm not like you.” A beat of silence. “Do you think losing something can be a gift? Getting rid of something?”

“I've lost everything,” said the woman. “What do I do now? What else is there to do, except...” The waves thundered against the base of the cliff, churning and hungry. “I wish I knew what to do.”

He didn't answer her. He didn't have any answers for her. He just turned away from her, and started walking back down the hillside through the swaying purple heather, the cliff and the churning ocean and the woman with the golden hair behind him, teetering on the edge of possibilities.

#short story #writing #mywriting #writers on tumblr #fairy tales #my writing

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lcclements · 7 years ago

Text

Bonded Chapter 1

Author’s Note: This was a story or a premise that has been stuck in my head for a week while I was working on my manuscript. The story takes place post-Calamity Ganon. If you haven’t read around the Internet, there is a theory that Breath of the Wild converges the three timelines converge or this takes place in the Child timeline so, I’m taking advantage of it. Also, if you haven’t played Breath of the Wild, do so before reading.

Disclaimer: I don’t own any of the Legend of Zelda franchise. It belongs to Nintendo and Shigeru Miyamoto. Please don’t sue! I only create OOCs!

Guide:

[blah]: sign language

‘blah’: thoughts

<<blah>>: foreign language

Chapter 1: A Quiet Wail

To stay for once that Prince Sidon was perplexed by his situation was an understatement. One moment he was lounging near Van Ruta, the next minute, a black hole opens and something big and black falls from the sky. He, nor none of his soldiers knew what to do at first until the black figure stood, and tiny wail could be heard. “Your highness?” asked a solider

Prince Sidon nodded and got to his feet, grabbing his silver spear. If Bokoblins were using magic, it was his job to stop them. Still, after Calamity Ganon died, there should be no lingering dark magic, but this creature proved him and Princess Zelda. As the trio went to attack the creature, a Lizalfos appeared form the ground and began its attack. A shiver ran up Sidon’s spine as he saw the glowing yellow horn. “Fall back!” he yelled

The sharp pain that surged through his body made his scream as he and his men were attacked with lightning. A zora would die in a matter of seconds from a lightning attack, yet he and his men didn’t. Before he fell to unconsciousness, he saw something sharp and black in his field of vision.

“Highness!Higness!”

Prince Sidon took a deep breath and sat up quickly. Maybe, too quickly, considering the room spun for a moment. A blue, female Zora sighed as she sat down. He looked around, realizing he was in the healer’s den. “Elrora?”

“Thank Hylia. You were groaning in your sleep.” “Where am I? What happened?”

“When you didn’t come back after sunset, the King got worried and sent for more soldiers. You, Rivan, and Tottika are lucky to be alive.” “Did they mention a creature?” “There were remains of a lizalfos, but no other creature. But, there was a strange wall of flint between you and the dead creature.” “Flint?” “Yes, a very large wall. The cobblers are going to have a field day with this.”

“But did the soldiers mention anything else? “Nothing of value. The most important thing is that the three of you are alive. Your father would be devastated if something were to happen to you.” The prince sighed and then gave his usual grin. His body did still feel as if it were on fire, but he still wanted to find out what that creature was.

Link sighed as he looked at the bottom of Zora river. The blue lanterns lighting the way towards the kingdom. Unlike when he first was here, there were no monsters on the road, at least not now. There was no rain, and it seemed very peaceful. Epona huffed and he patted her mane. “Do you think they would be alright with us dropping by?”

Link gave small smile to Paya. His new wife worked hard after Calamity Ganon’s defeat to get rid of her stuttering. Now, they were married and all Link wanted to do was travel and show his new wife the world around her. Considering everything that happened, he wasn’t surprised that she never left Kakariko Village. Link gave a small smile and signed: [Prince Sidon is one of my dearest friends. He will be overjoyed to see us, and so will the king.]

Paya nodded but said nothing else as they headed up the trail. She could see why he was eager to come to this domain. It was very beautiful, and she could see the fish jumping in the water. The beautiful, purple coral swayed back and forth in the wind. Her thoughts ended, however, once she heard something whiz past her ear. An Octorok decided to rear it’s ugly head and began its attack. Link motioned for her to stay put as he pulled out an arrow. He had to time it carefully, considering how Otoroks always hid if they knew they were about to be attacked. When her husband destroyed the creature, she grimaced as he took the innards from the creature. No matter how she explained it, she would never get used to it. When the wind blew, she thought she heard the wail of a baby, but she shrugged it off as nothing.

As soon as they reached the summit, a few Zora guards waved at them. One Link quickly recognized was Bazz. “Champion Link, what brings you you this domain?”

[I’m showing my wife one of the many places I’ve visited on my adventures.] Paya blushed and looked down. Bazz gave an elated smile and chuckled. “I’m happy for you, my friend. Come, King Dorephan and Prince Sidon would be honored to have you.”

As they rode while Bazz swam, Link looked around curiously at all the soldiers that were standing at attention. [Did something happen?]

“Lizalfos. They’ve been attacking lately. I’m surprised you didn’t see any at the bottom of the summit.”

“We saw an Octoroc or two.” Said Paya

Bazz nodded and rubbed his chin. “First the weird black hole, then the surprise Lizalfos attack, and now this. Something doesn’t add up.”

[Weird black hole?] signed Link

“Right before Prince Sidon and I were attacked, there was strange thing…almost like a hole in the sky and this black creature appeared. Then we got attacked by a Lizalfos who could wield lightning. I don’t remember much afterwards.”

Paya looked at her husband and his lips were pursing and she sighed. She knew she was going to be staying in Zora’s Domain for longer than what he said a few days ago. She loved her husband, but she knew he would help anyone in need, no matter how long it takes. He was the hero, and she loved that about him. But, there were times when she wished he would allow others to do the heroics.

Prince Sidon gave a hug so tight that Link thought that his limbs would be crushed. “So excited to see you my friend!” He said, “And who is this?”

[This is my lovely wife Paya.]

Said woman squeaked as Prince Sidon gave his exited grin, sharp teeth gleaning. He was about to give her a hug when Link elbowed him. He caught himself doing something that he did to Princess Zelda, and needless to say, the woman wasn’t happy with him for a while. King Dorephan chuckled as he sat atop his throne. “It’s wonderful for you find some happiness, Link. Now if my own son would.” “Father.” Blushed Sido,”I told you I’ll find a wife-“

“When you’re ready. I understand. Though, I’m not going to get any younger, I would like see a grandchild before I die.” “Father!”

Link snickered at his friend, who seemed to be blushing as hard as his skin color. Paya giggled at the exchange and could notice for the corner of her eye a number of Zora women blushing as well. [I was hoping to give my wife a tour of the domain, maybe with your son.]Link signed

“A good idea.” Said King Dorephan, “Young lady, I would be honored to open our doors to the wife of such a great champion.”

Paya bowed and then looked around the throne room. It was enormous, large ceilings to fit the king, with intricate colors of silver, white, and blue. She wondered if this place could hold as much people as Hyrule Castle did.

Rumblings of thunder and lightning made the Zora freeze. They looked to the skies and began running inside the large structure that made up the domain. Link looked at the sky as it turned black and ash began floating outside. Link reached to touch the ash, and it crumbled by its touch. A mysterious black hole appeared, and a long hand came out of it. Soldiers readied their spears for an attack as the hand slammed down into the river. From there, blackened eels poured from the oozing skin into the water. As screams were heard, Link motioned for his young wife to stay put as he pulled out a traveler’s sword. She merely nodded as she stayed behind. “Don’t worry Lady Paya.” Started Muzu, “Your husband will come back safely.” “Just Paya, please.”

The girl still had to get used to having a title. Princess Zeld demanded the title, but she wondered if it was even necessary. She did nothing compared to her husband.

The waters of Zora’s River were saturated by black eel-like creatures that latched onto whatever seemed to be in their path, zora or non. Bazz could only watch in horror as the eels latched on and turned his men into a grotesque form of themselves. Bodies terribly elongated and claws longer than the King Dorephan’s. They snarled with green saliva that boiled on the ground. The creatures that were once his men growled and began chasing him with bright red eyes. Using non-lethal attcks, he pushed one back into the water while hitting another over the head with a non-lethal blow. However, this blow gave an opportunity to the eel-like creature to latch on his arm. He cried out as a burning sensation coursed through his veins. His arm painfully elongated and began to contort itself against his will. As he began to grotesquely transform, he could only think of his wife and child. “Bazz!” cried a voice

He looked at both Ling and Prince Sidon as they were fighting through hordes of enemies. Bazz tried to call to them, but only a roar came out. He tried to craw, limbs burnng as he did. Link was bitten on his neck and he fell quickly. Sidon didn’t fare much better as two latched onto him.

As the world began to turn black, he heard the chiming of bells. Bazz began breathing again as he saw the creature that was biting him writhe on the ground in agony. When he looked up, he could see the creatures receding from his men, as they looked disoriented. The eel-like creatures began to writhe and turn to stone as they detached. The hand, however, was still in the water, still slowly emitting a purple liquid. A younger soldier got close the water and began gasping for air causing another two to pull him out. As the poison began to spread, Bazz ordered all Zora soldiers out of the water and for to spread the word across the domain. Link pulled out his sword to dip in the water as lightning began to strike. Zorans began to shiver in fear at what this meant. The ground rumbled under them as bony hands emerged. Creatures long dead began to awaken. “How is this possible?” asked Prince Sidon, “Calamity Ganon has been destroyed!”

A cackling could be heard as lightning began to strike. Link pushed both Bazz and Sidon out the way as it struck the ground. Zoran soldiers began running for shelter. Some didn’t make it in time. Lighting in struck Link in the back, but he just curled up a bit. Sidon shook Link to try and awaken him, but the hero stayed curled. Lighting flashed again and Bazz looked up at the sky. He tried to shield his prince, but the lightning never came. Instead, a figure cloaked in black stood before the, silver staff jingling a bell. A shield engulfed them as the creature stood. “What?” he asked

<<Begone!>>yelled the creature

The silver staff’s bell chimed again as it shone brightly. It was then raised as it was stuck in the ground. Bazz had his hand on his staff and so did Sidon, but they then let go. The creature was a pale-skinned woman with red eyes. Prince Sidon felt something flutter in his gut as he looked at her. She wasn’t tall, she was shorter than Link, hair was a fiery red color, and her skin was a pale color, with splotches of black. Her attire wasn’t much, just a gray dress, and slung around her was a child. The black cloak had a strange symbol on it, chained with a silver chain. She kneeled down, carefully swaddling the baby slung on her. <<You have to light this deadly poison on fire before it spreads.>> she said

Both Sidon and Bazz looked at her strangely. She spoke again, but they didn’t understand her. Link struggled to sit up and her eyes widened at the slate on his hip. She touched Link’s hand <<Warrior of the Sheikah, please help me!>>

Link looked at her curiously and then at the two Zora. [I can’t understand you.] he signed

Her eyes widened and she sat back for a moment. [Can you understand me now?]she signed

Link nodded, and so did the two Zora. [There isn’t much time. You must light that purple poison on fire or it’ll spread. This is a deadly disease.]

[Who are you?]

[My identity is not a concern right now. Stand back.]

The three obeyed as she stared at the ground and extended her hand. Flint began to appear from the ground. She then gasped and fell to one knee. The shield began to diminish a bit as lightning struck. [Hurry. My magic is limited.]

Link carefully hacked off pieces of flint and threw it into the water. He wished that he brought fire arrows. Then again, this was supposed to be a relaxing trip. The thunder got worse as the hand tried to move. The woman jingled her bell again to keep it still, making her fall to her knees. Link worked quickly with the Zoras to put the flint in the water. Thanks to the lightning, it lit on fire quickly, causing the hand to squirm. It then receded back into the hole it came from as it solidified. The hole began to disappear, and the hole began to close up. Nobody celebrated the victory though, as there were casualties. Prince Sidon looked back at the woman, who was gasping and holding the child in her arms. Link walked over, handing her an elixir. She squinted her eyes and shook her head in a negative way. [My weakness will pass.]she signed

[This elixir will not harm you or your baby.]

[This child is not my son. He is Prince Lin, son of Queen Mana of the Twili. I am his bodyguard Warrior Priestess Saphira.]

#fanfic #fanfiction #legend of zelda #breath of the wild #prince sidon #twilight princess #zelda #twili #ooc

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smartcookie727 · 7 years ago

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Pirate’s Treasure

Hey peeps! I told ya I’d be back with lovefest, and boy is this one a doozy. This is the day 4 prompt - crossdressing cosplaying. NSFW. yep. This is one of my longer pieces and has a TON of signature cookie banter. I loved playing around with the pirate theme with these two. I hope yall enjoy. As always, leave me a comment, reblog, tag, whatever you want to interact so I know what yall like! I’ll be back later with the next prompt. Let’s hope this keeps ya satisfied til then ;)

Pairing: Gajevy

Prompt: Cosplaying

Length: 3.4k

Pirate’s Treasure

"Trust me it'll be fun," Levy yelled from the bed, playing with wide black belt that laid across her hip.

"You said that last time, and it took a while before we got to any fun." Gajeel hadn't thought the 'night of endless torture' as he liked to call it, was fun at first. Levy’d had a great time, and Gajeel had eventually gotten what he wanted.

"It was teasing, and you loved it," she chided. "You just don't get teased as much as you dish it out. Payback, honey." Levy fiddled with her black corset and the gold buttons running up her stomach. "Besides, that was the most intense time we'd had in awhile. You said so yourself." As she looked herself over one last time, she heard her husband groan from the bathroom. "Plus, you're the one who really likes the book, Gajeel. You said it always makes you hot." Levy wanted nothing more than for him to stop griping and come out of his little hiding spot.

"Yeah, cause we're reading about sex. How could it not get hot?" The closed door muffled his words, but Levy knew him well enough to understand.

She prompted him further. "It's lead to more than a few steamy nights. I really want do this." Her hands wandered over her black, skin tight-pants and puffy cream top. "We both agreed I'd be hot as a pirate." Gold jewelry studded her neck and ears, but her most treasured piece was the ring on her left hand. "Trust your wife. This will be fun."

"It could still be fun if only you dressed up. Yer cute in those little outfits," Gajeel retorted. Levy heard the distinct sound of a zipper clasping shut. Her husband really was wonderful, catering to her fantasies, albeit a bit begrudgingly. She knew she could change his mind about dressing up though.

Levy fingered the fake pistol at her hip and the knife tucked into a sheath between her thighs. She'd really done her best to look the part. "I know I'm cute. I want to see you."

A thump against the door startled her for a second. He was moping. Typical Gajeel. Levy knew he'd enjoy this if he could just be open to the idea a little more. "I just don't think it's necessary for me," he whined. "I'd rather be naked."

Sometimes it surprised Levy how unadventurous he was in bed. Well, he could be very adventurous, but occasionally he needed a little push. "Please, for me," she cooed.

Gajeel could never turn down that singsong voice of hers when she asked him like that, soft with just a touch of pleading. "Fine," he grumbled as he stepped out of the bathroom.

Levy's jaw dropped at the sight of him. His legs were muscled—clearly outlined under the tight white pants. Her eyes flicked down, and she could see that he'd refused to wear the tall, thin black boots, opting for his usual heavy, iron-studded pair instead. But she didn't mind; Levy had fallen in love with the bit of rebel inside him along with all the rest. Gajeel wore a dark blue coat embroidered in gold with shining buttons cascading down its length. His bare chest peeked out beneath a loose hanging white shirt. Gajeel was supposed to have them both fully closed, but Levy enjoyed her view too much to complain. The final touches were his navy cravat, pistol holster, and usually wild hair neatly tucked into a ponytail beneath his hat. He looked perfectly like a Gajeel born version of the character. A bare chest and sultry smirk made him even better than the original. Levy's eyes went wide, and she leaned forward onto all fours as he sauntered over. Gajeel noted the way she reacted, experiencing the largest ego boost of his life.

"Like what ya see?" he asked as looked down at her. Levy nodded furiously. It was like seeing one of her favorite characters jump off the page and into her life, and he was ready to slam her into the bed. Gajeel kissed her deeply, letting his tongue trace the crevices of her mouth. "Now, is this what you had in mind?"

"Almost." Levy turned her eyes away, blushing for a moment. "I want you to get into character."

"Huh? I thought we were just wearing costumes." It seemed like Levy had a few surprises tonight.

"No," she gulped, "I want to feel like it’s real." Levy looked up into his eyes, and her tone changed. "You can pick any scene you want." Suddenly, she grabbed his cravat, pulling him down into a fierce kiss. "Captains orders." Levy rolled his lower lip with her teeth; it puckered when she released him.

Gajeel sat there stunned and took a minute to look over his wife. Her legs were encased in knee length boots, and black leggings hugged her ass. Gold, scalloped clasps kept her corset shut, making a stark contrast to the black leather embossed with flowers. Her cream strapless blouse hung tight on her chest and loose at her wrists, ending in her signature three-quarter length sleeve. A burgundy vest covered her back down to her hips, held snug against her body with a wide black belt. Hanging from a gold loop on the belt was the holster for her pistol. Levy's ruby striped headband kept back any loose hair, completing her look. She was a stunning. Levy hardly ever put herself on display like this, opting for more subtle, comfortable clothes or better yet no clothes at all. Gajeel snickered, no clothes at all was definitely the best. Breath caught in his throat as he took in the look in her eyes; there was something sensual and almost dangerous there, and it thrilled him.

"That's quite the proposal, Lev."

Levy slapped his jaw with her foot. "That's captain to you." Gajeel's eyes widened. Levy wasn't usually so feisty or commanding. He wondered just how far she would go in this role.

"Well then, captain," he purred, reaching to grab the back of her head, "Remember that scene where I meet you again in the tavern?"

"Hmmm, which one?" Levy's head swam as he nibbled kisses up her neck.

"The third time, when we go to the room after."

Levy shivered at the memory of the scene, and wetness began to coat her folds. "Yes, that one."

Gajeel tugged at her earlobe with his teeth. "Well, Captain? Whaddaya say?" Levy shuddered at his hot breath then pushed back against him, feeling the toned muscles in his chest.

"I'd say a man of the Royal Navy should have better vocabulary," she murmured, untying his cravat.

"Ahhh but I used to be a sea dog or don't ya remember?" He licked his lips. "It's how I'm the best at catching pirates."

Levy felt herself slipping into character. Heat burned in her gut. "Hmmm I had forgotten, Officer Gajeel." Shivers swept through her skin. "I like the sound of that. Off-i-cer Gaj-eel." Her words fueled his lust, and he too fell into character. He was gonna fuck a pirate tonight. Royal Navy Officer Gajeel Redfox would finally catch his elusive pirate queen, Captain Levy McGarden.

"Well," he breathed against her shoulder, "if I remember correctly, it starts off with me holding you in my arms." He scooped her up, fingers digging into her thighs. "And slamming you against the door." Levy's back hit the wood, nearly knocking the breath from her lungs, but Gajeel took it a moment later in a passionate kiss.

"Yeah, that sounds about right," she sighed.

Gajeel's hands roamed her costume. "And I feel all over your clothes." He unhooked her belt, and it landed on the floor with a clink. "Finding a dagger right," his voice caught in his throat, fingers lingering on her thigh, "hmm that's dedication, Captain." Gajeel tossed the fake weapon across the room and held her against the door, pressing hot kisses into her lips.

"I seem to recall that you're supposed to have a gun here." Levy's hands reached down to feel around his pockets. "Oh, looks like we'll have to get you one, but you have some pretty intense machinery right there." She grabbed his cock, rubbing him through his pants. Gajeel groaned into Levy's shoulder and tore her from the door, sucking at her neck, before tossing her onto the bed.

"Ya know I should arrest you. Yer a pirate after all." His fingers glided over her body. "And I can't have ya running off on me like last time." He snickered and peeled off her boots slowly. "Maybe I should lock you to the bed."

Levy cocked her head to the side and gave him a wicked grin. "You could try, but I'm a fantastic lock pick." Her voice became smooth as satin, "Or have you forgotten how I like to do my dirty work?"

Gajeel swallowed the lump in his throat and kicked off his boots. "Oh I know you like it dirty. Pirate."

"Officer."

He lunged for her lips, pouring passion into his kiss. Their mouths begged for both attention and dominance. Gajeel tore off his hat, letting his jet black hair fall free around his shoulders. Hands palmed Levy's breasts, savoring how soft she was under his callused skin. Levy's head spun as he kissed her neck. She didn't even notice as he held her hands above her head and threaded her headband around her wrists into a makeshift bond. Now that she was secure, Gajeel ran his tongue down to her breasts, eliciting moan after moan.

"You're being very forward officer." He flicked her nipple, making Levy moan harder. "And making me much louder than I normally am." His hand rolled her bud again and she started panting. "Aren't you worried your fellow officers will find out? I'm sure there's some downstairs."

Gajeel lifted his lips and watched as her hardened nib wrinkled back into place. "I like the thrill, and you're worth the risk." His smile turned wicked, thoughts clear in his eyes, and he grabbed Levy’s thighs, pulling down her leggings with a sharp tug. "Plus, I'll be the only officer in your downstairs." An audible gulp went down his throat. "My, my, captain," he breathed, eyes widening as his thumb traced her hip. "Not wearing anything below deck?" Gajeel ran his finger slowly up and down her slit. Sweat glistened on his brow. "You're quite wet."

Levy licked her lips, gazing up at him. "Well I am a pirate. I live on a ship. On the sea. Things tend to get wet."

"Really?"

"All the time."

Her words sank into him like stones in the ocean, falling slowly until they disturbed the sand below, bringing them both to life. Gajeel grabbed her ass with a squeeze and swirled his tongue around her clit. Levy arched into him on contact. Heat burned through both of their veins, promising passion, desire, and a night that would end with flames. The binding on her hands made Levy’s need more intense as she fought to touch him back. Her body spasmed and jerked under his lips, but the fabric held her in place. Gajeel teased her sensitive skin, alternating between tongue and tooth, until Levy screamed with pleasure and broke free. Gasps rocked her chest, and she grabbed her head to quell the electricity shooting through her nerves. Gajeel fed off her noise, wanting desperately to hear more. Levy’s fingers dug into the edge of the bed as she squirmed and squealed. Finally, he released her, lungs begging for air.

"No wonder I've always liked this outfit on you,” he panted. “I was staring at more of your ass than I’d realized." Levy laughed—she loved his teasing banter—and hooked her feet under his arms, pulling him up to stare in his eyes.

"Make sure to watch for what's wet next time you see me bent over on my ship." She licked her lips, sending shivers through Gajeel's body. Her mouth crashed onto his, tasting her own wetness on his skin. Sitting up, Levy wrapped her hands around his neck and straddled him with her knees, easing up and down as she breathed. Gajeel swallowed hard, his wife was so hot, he didn't know where to touch her first.

Levy unbuttoned his shirt and tossed it on the floor. Her eyes and hands roamed his muscled chest for a solid minute, taking in his incredible physique. "You have the body of a sailor, officer. You'd be fantastic help on my ship." Gajeel moved to unclasp her corset, but she lightly slapped him away, teasing him in a light voice, "No, no, no." Awestruck, Gajeel lay under her, and let his captain lead. Levy directed one of his hands onto her ass and the other under her core. She squeezed his hand, then raised his finger up to trace her folds. Gajeel could barely breathe as Levy lined the finger up with her core and plunged it in, sighing. Her soft warmth coated his digit, and he moaned loudly as he brushed against her walls. She pumped his hand, encouraging him to do more.

"Have it your way, captain," he crooned, increasing the speed of his thrusting.

Levy bounced along the length of his finger, enjoying the way it felt to have him inside her. "Look at me, officer; don't take your eyes off me. I want you to see everything." Gajeel curled his finger, making Levy shudder and moan. Levy tossed her head back, she wanted more, needed more, and she would have it. Unlacing her blouse, she pulled it and the vest over her head, revealing a hidden dagger sheath against her ribs. Gajeel's free hand unhooked the belt and tossed the rubber knife on top of her clothes.

"Can't ever be too careful," he joked.

Their eyes locked as Levy's hand traced a line from her hair to her breasts. Her fingers ran circles around her nipples until they were taut and sensitive enough that a flick would send her keening. Gajeel did as she asked; he watched her. He watched as her tits bounced each time he pumped his finger, he watched as her face contorted in various shades of pleasure, and he watched as her body flushed with the heat of the moment.

"Like what you see, officer? This is what a captain looks like." He nodded his head 'yes', never breaking contact with her gaze. "Care to take a ride? Think you can handle it?"

"Now I've never seen anything like that before, Captain," he said, words soft and alluring against her ear. "Think this is enough to whether the storm?" Gajeel took her hand in his and moved it to the thin fabric covering his cock. He was completely hard, barely contained in his pants. Levy smiled wide and continued to bounce against him.

"Why don't you find out? Ship's gonna leave port soon. You better be inside."

Gajeel grabbed the back of her neck, kissing her deeply as his finger slipped out of her core. All he could think was holy crap his wife was amazing. He kicked off his pants at lightning speed. When Gajeel turned back around, his mouth dropped even further. Levy was facing away from him, popping her ass out as she held the headboard. He moved in behind her, tracing lines along her back down between her legs.

Levy looked up at him and ordered, "Make it rattle like I'm on my ship, officer."

"Oh I will, but first, I gotta make sure I'm wet. If I'm gonna be with a captain, I better have my sea legs." Gajeel rubbed his length along her core, coating himself in her wetness. Levy fingered his tip as their combined breathing grew heavier. His hands palmed at her breasts, grabbing her soft skin and tossing them both backwards against the mattress. She laid on top of him, rolling her hips as she stroked his cock. Gajeel's finger found her clit, rubbing circles that made her gasp his name. He slid her up his chest and pressed her forward until she hovered just above his length. "Captain, care to see if I'm up to standards?" he asked, voice dripping with desire. Levy laughed, surprised at how into their roleplay Gajeel had become.

"Aye," she whispered, taking him in her mouth. Her tongue rolled over his skin, making him squirm. Soft, wet lips sent shivers up his spine as she bobbed her head over his cock. It felt like his brain was short-circuiting, and all he could do was lay there, taking in every ounce of pleasure she dosed out. Levy flicked his head as she lifted up, arching her back for for his appreciation. Gajeel couldn't take his eyes off her every curve as she ground against his chest.

"Captain," he groaned, "I want you to have your way with me. Then when you're done, I'll lock ya up, and we can be together forever.

"In a cellar?" she mused, "Not my fancy. I need the open sea."

"I can make land very appealing," he whispered, flicking her breasts.

"Show me how," she demanded. Gajeel guided his cock to her core, enjoying how she shivered as his tip brushed her folds. "Bet I think I can convince you to betray the law and run away to the seas with me." Levy turned her head and kissed him deeply, their tongues crashing together like waves.

"Who will cave first, I wonder?" He fisted her hair and sucked on the space where her shoulder met her neck. "Let the games begin." Gajeel held Levy's hips above him, poised to lower her on to his cock, when her hand brushed his thigh, stopping him.

"This isn't a game, officer. It's a duel." She released her grip on his leg. "Winner chooses: land or sea." Levy let him fill her, both arching into the other as he did.

"Either way. I'm not losing you again. I won't leave your side." He felt her walls flutter and expand as she relaxed. Levy's sweet smile melted his heart; he would do anything she asked of him.

"Care to be a pirate's mate?" she mused, lips trailing his jaw.

"What if you're an officer's woman?" he countered, hands roaming every inch of her body.

"Either way, I won't let to go, but I think you'll see it my way." Levy started to move her legs, pumping herself along his length. "Kiss me."

Gajeel did, greedily. He snarled and nipped at her skin, taking her lips in his own. All he wanted to do was kiss her until they were both breathless and satisfied. He moaned her name in her ear.

"Lev, this is the best damn book in the world, and we're doing this again." Letting his head rest on her shoulder, he whispered, "But right now it's me and you, my wonderful wife."

Levy smiled and chuckled to herself. "Told ya you'd like it. I love you so much, Gajeel."

A hungry smile spread across his face. "And we're finishing that book this week."

Levy blushed, then gasped as he moved inside her. "I don't know if my body will be able to handle that." His kiss overwhelmed her senses, drowning out her ability to put words together. Every fiber of her being resonated with his voice. "Yes," she sighed.

"Trust me, Lev, you'll enjoy it," he teased.

Levy's laugh twinkled like stars. "Ok. Wanna know something you'll love?"

"You?" he crooned.

"I know that. No, I'm talking about the book," she paused, exhaling deeply and letting her voice take on a sultry tinge. "Pirate’s Treasure is just the first in the series."

Gajeel nearly came that moment at the thought of what was in store. He rocked her hips until they both groaned in delight. Sweat filled the bare space between them as skin slid over skin. He would put all his effort into the next costume. Mentally kicking himself for not trying more his time, Gajeel thrust harder, wanting to please her as much as possible for pushing him outside his box. Tomorrow, he was going to buy Levy every damn erotic book she wanted and maybe a few for himself. They were going to be busy.

#gajevy #gajevylovefest #gajevy fanfiction #ftfanfics #Levy McGarden #Gajeel Redfox #cookie writes #pirate's treasure #gajevylovefest17 #day 4: crossdressing/cosplaying #cookie queen of smut

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asongstress1422 · 7 years ago

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Chapter 3: Of Damsels and Beasts

Zutara fanfiction

Summary: Katara was taken to the Northern Water Tribe by her grandmother; she was to be protected at all cost, for she was the last of the Southern Water. Once they got there, the North refused to teach her trying to strip her of her worth and turn her into what they wanted, a calm biddable healer to birth the next generation.They failed. And so as punishment they sent her to be a political bride to the Fire Nation.

read from the beginning on ao3

Katara stepped into her suite of rooms, absentmindedly twirling the naked dan-da-line stem between her fingers. Exhaustion pulled at her after another sleepless night, her tension filled tea with the Fire Nation General and the near miss with the prince. The last thing she expected, or wanted, was to see Chief Arnook standing in her sitting area with a regal woman in the green and gold of the Earth Kingdom

“Ah, there you are, my dear,” he greeted cordially as she froze at the threshold. “I was just about to send one of the servants to find you.” There was a growled under bite to the words that told of his displeasure. Casting her a hard warning look he turned to the other intruder to her territory. “This is Lady Durjaya. Her daughter, Lady Mirri, is your age. She has graciously welcome you to take tea with them and several of the other candidates.”

When Katara did not immediately jump at the opportunity that had fallen in their lap he turned his arctic eyes back to her, clear warning in them. It did not matter that she had just taken tea, was feeling unwell, or even that she did not want to deal with the pack of husband hunters. She was to go, be on her best behavior, or would catch hell for it later.

After holding his gaze for a beat longer, she turned demurely to the woman with a soft bow. “Lady Durjaya, you honor me. I hope that your daughter and I will become close companions.”

The pinched face of the woman said that she would not be something she would permit. “Tea will be served at noon. Don’t be late.”

Before Katara could get out something biting, Arnook stepped forward, “if anything, she will be early.”

Again the woman looked her over with a slight grimace as she held her arm for Arnook to escort her out. “Not too early, I hope.”

Katara arrived outside the Durjaya’s doors at exactly five minutes til twelve. She attributed this promptness to one of the most fascinating bits of technology she had seen thus far in the fire nation; the clock. A small apparatus created in the Earth Kingdom but taken and refined by Fire Nation engineers and placed in every room as a symbol of the empire’s wealth. Katara ignored the asinine opulence, too enamored with the thing that told time down to the heart beat.

As she stood in front of the grand door, she wished the clock was not quite so accurate. It was hard to claim a loss of time with such devices constantly within sight. Unsure of how to proceed, Katara knocked on the door.

It was opened by a tall, thin, man with hard dark eyes that took her in from the hem of her robes to the hair hastily secured at the top of her head. “May I help you?”

“I was told to be at Lady Durjaya’s tea?” It came out more of a question then Katara meant it to.

“I see,” he looked her over again, his expression clearly stating he found her lacking. “Wait here,” he demanded shutting the door in her face.

A wave of humiliation rolling over her and Katara swallowed the unexpected tightness in her throat, hiding her shaking hands inside her robes. How dare he treat her like trash when she was an invited guest. She debated walking away, to the frozen tundra with whatever punishment the council would decree. But she just stood there, choking on her fury, until the door opened again.

“My apologies, Water Tribe Candidate, for keeping you waiting,” the words were said as if they made his teeth hurt. “If you would follow me?”

An insidious whisper tickled her left ear, begging her to teach this man a lesson. It would not take much, a simple twist of her finders and she could have him on his knees, keep him from looking down his snobbish nose at her…

A flash of bloody snow curled in her mind, morphing just enough to be blood on the polished wooden floors. To be blood soaking green silk instead of a blue parka.

No, she roared to herself. It scared her that even for a moment she was tempted to use her bending. She was stronger than that. Stronger than the anger burning through her veins and stronger than the whispers in her head.

She was not here for herself, Katara reminded herself, she was here for her people, and she would not let hurt feelings destroy what they were working towards.

Putting a tighter lock on her emotions and shoving that dark little voice down to where it would never see sunlight, she followed the haughty man. He led her through the front parlor and into a large dining area almost identical to the council’s suite of rooms.

Earth nation servants scurried around the table pouring tea and served small finger foods. The chatter of a dozen voices fell silent as she entered. Pinched looks of disapproval, mixed with wide eye fascination, filtered through the party as everyone tried not to be caught staring directly at her. Katara kept her eyes down and her voice silent like a good little northern water girl while inside her anger began to bubble again.

“Sit here,” the man directed her to a chair at the farthest end for the table. The two girls on either side leaned away from her as she sat.

The hostess did not even acknowledge her presences.

Slowly conversation built back up around the table. Not with her, of course. One did not talk to the entertainment and that is exactly what Durjaya, the two faced eel-crane, wanted. The Water Tribe Barbarian to attract guests to her tea to best get the measurements of the other candidates vying for the catch of the prince.

Based on the turn out it was a smashing success. Few, it seemed, could resist the allure of the mysterious water tribe candidate. No doubt they were waiting for her to shovel food in her mouth with her bare hands or rip off her clothes and dance naked on the table. Katara gritted her teeth.

The servant pouring tea over Katara’s shoulder shrieked and jumped back as the pot in her hand exploded drenching the table, and the ones sitting closest, in tea.

“You clumsy girl, look what you’ve done!” One of the women across the table scolded harshly dabbing at her gorgeous silk top. Lady Chou, eldest daughter of the Hotaru family had been pointed out to her by Ulva the previous day as the two groups passed in the courtyard. After the broken contract with the Miura House and the execution of the Fire Prince’s betrothed two years ago, she was the potential favorite for Fire Lady.

The servant girl apologised profusely, eyes wide, as she gathered up the shards of the porcelain teapot. Once her hands were full she looked around helplessly for where to put them. Katara subtly folded her napkin and stretched it in front of the girl, who shot her a grateful smile, so she could set the broken pieces down.

Several other servants swarmed the area mopping up the spilled liquid. With in seconds the table was back to rights and another girl came to finish serving the tea.

“You’re not really much to look at,” Lady Chou said loudly from her seat, chin delicately resting on her hand as she studied Katara. “Though I guess your eyes are pretty enough.”

“You are too kind,” Katara said with what she hoped was disinterest while tea inside her cup rippled. She took a hasty sip to before anyone could noticed and nearly spat it out.

Lady Chou laughed seeing her face screw up. “These Dirt-diggers wouldn’t know a good cup of tea if it was poured down their throat.” The woman made no attempt at modulating her voice and the earth kingdom girls looked on angerly. Lady Durjaya glanced their way with a pinched look but turned back to the conversation she was having with another Earth Kingdom woman at the head of the table.

If she had not such great tea earlier she would not have know any better but now it tasted like dirty rinse water. The only think it had going for it was that it was not spicy like the fire people tended to drink it. Katara forced herself to take another drink, keeping her face frozen, “it is fine,”

Chou laughed again, the sound like bells tinkering, turning away to talk to the fire nation girl on her left and Katara went back to being ignored. Even the side eyes stopped when it looked like she would do nothing untold. Instead of try and weasel her way into any of the surrounding conversions Katara set to eating her way through the food on the table. With the Fire Nation cuisine being so cursed spicy she had not been eating a lot and was making up for it now with the blander earth fare.

“Lady Katara?”

The group turned to see a man, maybe in his late thirties, in black robes with a red embroidered emblem on his chest that told he was a palace courier for a high ranking member of the Fire Court. Then the group turned back to stare accusingly at Katara.

What did this man want with her? Had she and the water tribes plan been found out? Katara swallowed the ‘finger sandwich’ and wiped her mouth to hide her sudden nervousness. “Yes?”

Locking eyes with her he made his way across the room to bow before her. “Lady Katara. Pardon the intrusion but I’ve been tasked with leading you to our library. If you are free now?”

There was only one person she had discussed this ‘library’ with. The General has seemed kindly enough but she was slightly wary that he had sent someone to take her to it so quickly.

“Of course,” Katara said setting down the napkin the servant girl had returned to her and standing.

The man bowed again and turned beginning to lead the way from the room. Katara did not immediately follow, instead she bowed to the room at general then to Lady Durjaya specifically. “Thank you for making me feel so welcomed. You have not idea what it felt like to be included in your tea.”

The Courier was waiting for her had the threshold, his face impassive, but he a gleam of what might have been respect in his eye as he followed her from the room. He held the door for her as they left the suite and turned left down the hall, back tracking a bit the way Katara had come before turning left again and deeper into the Palace.

“The Library is on the east side of the Fire Palace as the East Doors open up to the Scholar’s District. By the decree of Prince Zuko, students there has unrestricted access to any documents we house.”

“How magnanimous,” she quipped dryly before she could think better of it.

The courier's demeanor cooled. “It is actually. Several previous Fire Lord deemed library materials off limits to anyone outside of the twelve houses. Hundreds of the scrolls we have are the last surviving copies. Letting others read and copy them means that the knowledge wont be lost.”

The continued in silence. Katara knew she had spoken out of turn. Just because the fire prince had rubbed her the wrong way did not mean he was inherently a bad person. If nothing else, he had the loyalty of his subjects.

“I am sorry for belittling something I know nothing about,” Katara apologized, the words all the harder for their sincerity. “I do know the fear that a history may be lost. Any and all actions taken to defend that knowledge is to be commended.”

“I feel the same way.” He gave her another appraising look as they came to a stop in front of two grand doors. “This is the Fire Palace Library. Feel free to use it during your stay.” “This is where I leave you as I have other errands to run. So until we meet again, Lady Katara.” With a final bow he was gone.

Katara’s eyes roamed up the doors, solid pieces of burnished wood, to the gilded bronze owl carved above the door. She looked up at the owl and it almost seemed to be staring back at her. Standing in front of it felt very similar to the feeling she had when she entered the spirit oasis in the north. As if something old and not always benign watched her. So, as she did when entering the hidden grotto that was the water nation’s single more protected secret, she offered something of herself. Plucking a hair from her head she laid it down at the threshold, sending a silent pray for safe passage.

She gave a rye smile as she stood back up, dusting off the knees of her robes, as she thought about what those women from tea would think if they saw her now. They would definitely say she was a savage clinging to the ‘Old Ways’. But they could say whatever they wanted. Gran-Gran always told her to trust her instincts so she was not going to ignore that when the energy of a spirit was nearby.

With the impromptu ceremony complete she opened the door and stepped through.

The air was...different in here. Not quite stagnant, but it did had a comforting weight to it. And it was blessedly cooler in the dark. Blinking to get use to the dimness off the room compared to the bright openness of the palace hallways Katara saw them.

Books. Actual bound books. Hundreds of them. Thousands! More books then she had ever imagined could exist. Shelves upon shelves that rose over twice her height and were several arm lengths wide, all packed with books.

She walked down the isles entranced and shocked to find still more shelves and more books. An entire section dedicated to scrolls like the ones they had in the North. There she had not been aloud to touch the precious bits that housed the Water Nation history, but the courier had said she had free use of these, right?

Katara was reaching for a scroll, large and ornate like the ones of the North when a woman in the red robes of an upper servant appeared at her side.

“Is there anything I can help you with?”

Katara snatched her hand back quickly. “No. Thank you. I was just looking.”

“This is the ‘History of the Fire Lord’,” the woman informed proudly, hefted the large scroll onto the top of the squat shelf, unrolling the first few feet. It dates back some twelve-hundred years and names all the Fire Lords that ever lived. This is one of the oldest running list in the world and one of only three copies. Though the hundred year list is mandatory teaching in our schools.”

Katara reverently ran her hand over the scroll. Twelve-hundred years of recorded history. With the water nation’s oral tradition they had not true way knowing how old their stories were, or being able to tell the original truths of a story or what was omitted or embellished as it was passed on. But here they had the words locked down, where many times great grandchildren could look back and see what their ancestors created.

She was so preoccupied with the scroll in front of her that she did not notice the creature creeping up on her until it rubbed itself up against her leg.

“Oh, that’s Miyuki,” the woman glanced around the immediate area, “Seeker is around here somewhere but he’s more particular to whom he shows himself to. You give that one any attention,” she sent a pointed glare at the grey fluff ball twining around Katara’s legs, “and she wont leave you alone.”

“What is she?” Katara asked crouching down to get a better look at the thing.

The woman shrugged, “a cat.”

“A cat-what?” Katara offered her hand for the animal to sniff, which the feline did daintily before putting her head into Katara’s fingers for affection.

“I don’t know. She’s my grandmother’s cat, she just follows me to work most days,” she said placing the scroll back on its shelf. “You like animals? We have a whole section devoted to Zoology if you would like to take a look.”

Katara looked at the woman with a slight frown. For some reason her words had almost sounded like a dare. “Thank you but I think I will look on my own.”

Ruby set down her book, the latest novel by Joki Romeo, and stretched as she glance at the clock at the corner of the circulation desk. Fifteen minutes to five, perfect. Stacking aside her book and loose notes from the day she got up to lock up for the night.

Going along the pattern she established a year ago when she first got her position, she stated with locking the garden door. Once that was secure she went to the windows, double checking that each was closed before fastening the wooden shutters.

Moving down the line of windows that ran the east and south walls, Ruby’s thoughts turned to the water nation girl from earlier, one of the six customers that had used the library this Sunday. She questioned to herself how the girl had even know to look for the library when none of the other candidates had ferreted out that bit of information, not even the Fire ladies who no doubt already had their servants gathering gossip from their palace counterparts.

It wasn’t a secret the prince frequented his library but it also wasn’t well know; who would think the ruler would like to pick out his own book? Somehow the little water girl had and wasted little time in coming to lay a trap for his attention. Ruby wondered scornfully if the barbarian even knew how to read.

As if the universe decided to humble her by answering her question she turned the corner and saw the water girl curled up in one of the plush chairs pushed up against the line of windows to take full advantage of the light. She was engrossed in the book open on the table in front of her, three more in a stack beside it, and Miyuki curled up in her lap.

Ruby was instantly contrite for having thought bad of the girl. Chastising herself, she slowly made her way up to the girl not wanting to startle her. “I thought you left.”

She looked up, blue eyes steady but wary. “No.”

Ruby felt like a total heel about how she had treated this girl earlier.

“Well, I’m closing up for the night.” As the girl’s face closed off, Ruby tried for a friendlier tone. “Do you have anything I can check out for you?” she gestured the the four books in front on the table, “how about these?”

“Check out?” The water tribe girl shook her head, not understanding.

“Yeah, so you can take them home -- er -- to your rooms.”

“I can take these with me?” she asked something bright gleaming in her eyes as she laid her hand on the books.

“Well,” she answers with a small laugh, recognizing the look as one of her own when she found a new book, “you’ll have to return them after a while but, yeah, you can take them with you.”

The woman gently deposited Miyuki on the ground before standing, gathering up her books and formally presenting the stack to Ruby. “Can you show me?”

She accepted the books with a huge smile, seeing them as the new start that they were. “Of course.”

I would love to hear from you :)

#mine #zutara #zutara fanfiction #me #Bride of the Water Tribe #chapter 3 #ao3

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unsettlingshortstories · 4 years ago

Text

Sunbleached

Nathan Ballingrud (2011)

“You believe in God?” Joshua asked. The crawlspace beneath his house was close and hot; his body was coated in a dense sheen of sweat. A cockroach crawled over his fingers and he jerked his hand away. Late summer pressed onto this small Mississippi coastal town like the heel of a boot. The heat was an act of violence.

“I was raised Baptist. My thoughts on the matter are complicated.”

The crawlspace was contained partially by sheets of aluminum siding and partially by decaying wooden latticework. It was by this latter that Joshua crouched, hiding in the hot spears of sunlight which intruded into the shadows and made a protective cage around him.

“That’s why it’s so easy for us to seduce. God loves us, so the world does too. Seduction is your weapon, kid. You’re what—fifteen? You think seduction is pumping like a jackrabbit in your momma’s car. You don’t know anything. But you will soon enough.”

The vampire moved in the shadows, and abruptly the stink of burnt flesh and spoiled meat greased the air. It had opened a wound in itself, moving. Joshua knew that it tried to stay still as much as it could, to facilitate the healing, but the slowly shifting angles of the sunbeams made that impossible. He squinted his eyes, trying to make out a shape, but it was useless. He could sense it back there, though—a dark, fluttering presence. Something made of wings.

“Invite me in,” it said.

“Later,” Joshua said. “Not yet. After you finish changing me.”

The vampire coughed; it sounded like a snapping bone. Something wet hit the ground. “Well come here then, boy.” It moved again, this time closer to the amber light. Its face emerged from the shadows like something rising from deep water. It hunched on its hands and knees, swinging its head like a dog trying to catch a scent. Its face had been burnt off. Thin, parchment-strips of skin hung from blackened sinew and muscle. Its eyes were dark, hollow caves. Even in this wretched state, though, it seemed weirdly graceful. A dancer pretending to be a spider.

For the second time, Joshua laid himself on the soft earth, a-crawl with ants and cockroaches, centipedes and earthworms, positioning his upper body beyond the reach of the streaming sunlight. The light’s color was deepening, its angles rising until they were almost parallel to the ground. Evening was settling over the earth.

The vampire pressed the long fingers of one charred hand onto his chest, as delicately as a lover. Heat flushed Joshua’s body. Every nerve ending was a trembling candle flame. The vampire touched its lips to his throat; its tongue sought the jugular, the heavy river inside. It slid its teeth into his skin.

A sharp, lovely pain.

Joshua stared at the underside of his home: the rusted pipes, the duct tape, the yellow sheets of insulation. It looked so different from beneath. So ugly. He heard footsteps overhead as somebody he loved moved around inside it, attending to mysterious offices.

• • • •

Four days ago: he’d stood on the front porch of his home in the deep blue hollow of early morning, watching the waters of the Gulf roll onto the beach. It was his favorite time of the day: that sweet, lonesome hinge between darkness and daylight, when he could pretend he was alone in the world and free to take it on his own terms. In a few moments he would go inside and wake his five-year-old brother Michael, make him breakfast, and get them both ready for school, while their mother still slept in after her night shift at Red Lobster.

But this time belonged to him.

The vampire came from the direction of town, trailing black smoke and running hard across the no man’s land between his own house and the nearest standing building. There’d been a neighborhood there once, but the hurricane wiped it away a few years ago. What remained had looked like a mouthful of shattered teeth, until the state government came through and razed everything to the ground. Their own house had been badly damaged—the storm had scalped it of its top floor, depositing it somewhere out in the Gulf—but the rest had stood its ground, though it canted steeply to one side now, and on windy days you could feel it coming through the walls.

It was over that empty expanse the vampire fled, first billowing smoke like a diesel engine and then erupting into flame as the sun cracked the horizon.

The vampire ran directly for his house and launched itself at the opening to the crawlspace under the porch steps. Oily smoke eeled up through the wooden planks and dissipated into the lightening sky.

Joshua had remained frozen in place for the whole event, save the rising clamor in his heart.

• • • •

Their mother would be late getting home from work—and even later if she went out with that jackass Tyler again—so Joshua fed his little brother and directed him to his bedroom. They passed the stairwell on their way, which was capped now by sheets of plywood hammered over the place where it used to open onto the second floor.

“You want me to read you a story?” he asked, reaching for the copy of The Wind in the Willows by the bedside. Michael didn’t really understand the story, but he liked it when Joshua did the voices.

“No,” he said, leaping into his bed and pulling the covers over himself.

“No story? Are you sure?”

“I just wanna go to sleep tonight.”

“Okay,” Joshua said. He felt strangely bereft. He reached down and turned on Michael’s nightlight, then switched off the lamp.

“Will you cuddle with me, Josh?” he said.

“I won’t ‘cuddle’ with you, but I’ll lay down with you for a little bit.”

“Okay.”

Cuddle was a word their dad used before he moved away, and it embarrassed him that Michael held onto it. He eased back on top of the covers and let Michael rest his head in the crook of his arm.

“Are you scared of anything, Josh?”

“What, like monsters?”

“I don’t know, I guess.”

“No, I’m not scared of monsters. I’m not scared of anything.”

Michael thought for a minute, then said, “I’m scared of storms.”

“That’s silly. It’s just a bunch of wind and rain.”

“ . . . I know.”

Michael drifted into silence. Joshua felt vaguely guilty about shutting him down like that, but he really didn’t have it in him to have the storm talk again. That was something Michael was going to have to get over on his own, since logic didn’t seem to have any effect on his thinking.

As he monitored his brother’s breathing, waiting for him to fall asleep, he found himself wondering about how he would feel toward his family once the transformation was complete. He was worried that he would lose all feeling for them. Or, worse, that he’d think of them as prey. He didn’t think that would happen; everything he’d ever read about vampires seemed to indicate that they kept all their memories and emotions from life. But the thought troubled him nonetheless.

That was why he wouldn’t let the vampire into his house until he became one, too; he wanted to be sure it went after the right person. It couldn’t have his family.

The question of love was tricky, anyway. He felt protective of his brother and his mom, but he had a hard time aligning that feeling with a word like love. Maybe it was the same thing; he honestly didn’t know. He tried to imagine how he’d feel if they were gone, and he didn’t come up with much.

That thought troubled him even more.

Maybe he would think of Michael and his mother as pets. The notion brightened his mood.

People loved their pets.

• • • •

Michael pretended to be asleep until Joshua left the room. He loved his older brother in the strong, uncomplicated way children loved anything; but recently he’d had become an expert in negotiating the emotional weather in his home, and Joshua’s moods had become more turbulent than ever. He got mad at strange things, like when Michael wanted to hold hands, or when Mom brought Tyler home. Michael thought Tyler was weird because he wouldn’t talk to them, but he didn’t understand why Joshua got so mad about it.

He listened as his brother’s footsteps receded down the hallway. He waited a few more minutes just to be sure. Then he slid down and scooted under the bed on his stomach, pressing his ear to the floor. The house swayed and creaked around him, filling the night with bizarre noises. He hated living here since the storm happened. He felt like he was living in the stomach of a monster.

After a few minutes of careful listening, he heard the voice.

• • • •

Joshua opened his window and waited. He didn’t even try to sleep anymore, even though he was constantly tired. The night was clear and cool, with a soft breeze coming in from the sea. The palm trees across the street rustled quietly to themselves, shaggy-haired giants sharing secrets.

After about half an hour, the vampire crawled from an opening near the back of the house, emerging just a few feet from his window. Joshua’s heart started to gallop. He felt the familiar, instinctive fear: the reaction of the herd animal to the lion.

The vampire stood upright, facing the sea. Most of its flesh had burnt away; the white round curve of its skull reflected moonlight. Its clothes were dark rags in the wind.

A car pulled into the driveway around front, its engine idling for a few moments before chuckling to a halt. Mom was home.

The vampire’s body seemed to coil, every muscle drawing taut at once. It lifted its nose, making tiny jerking motions, looking for the scent.

He heard his mother’s laughter, and a man’s voice. Tyler was with her.

The vampire took a step toward the front of the house, its joints too loose, as if they were hinged with liquid instead of bone and ligament. Even in its broken, half-dead state, it moved quickly and fluidly. He thought again of a dancer. He imagined how it would look in full health, letting the night fill its body like a kite. Moving through the air like an eel through water.

“Take him,” Joshua whispered.

The vampire turned its eyeless face head toward him.

Joshua was smiling. “Take him,” he said again.

“You know I can’t,” it said, rage riding high in its voice. “Why the hell don’t you let me in!”

“That’s not the deal,” he said. “Afterwards. Then you can come in. And you can have Tyler.”

He heard the front door open, and the voices moved inside. Mom and Tyler were in the living room, giggling and whispering. Half drunk already.

“He’s all I’ll need,” the vampire said. “Big country boy like that. Do me right up.”

Someone knocked on his bedroom door. His mother’s voice came through. “Josh? Are you on the phone in there? You’re supposed to be asleep!”

“Sorry Mom,” he said over his shoulder.

He heard Tyler’s muffled voice, and his mother started laughing. “Shhh!”

It made Joshua’s stomach turn. When he looked back outside, the vampire had already slid back under the house.

He sighed and leaned his head out, feeling the cool wind on his face. The night was vast above him. He imagined rising into it, through clouds piled like snowdrifts and into a wash of ice crystal stars, waiting for its boundary but not finding one. Just rising higher and higher into the dark and the cold.

• • • •

The school day passed in a long, punishing haze. His ability to concentrate was fading steadily. His body felt like it was made of lead. He’d never been so exhausted in his life, but every time he closed his eyes he was overcome with a manic energy, making him fidget in his chair. It took the whole force of his will not to get up and start pacing the classroom.

A fever simmered in his brain. He touched the back of his hand to his forehead and was astonished by the heat. Sounds splintered in his ear, and the light coming through the windows was sharp-edged. His gaze roved over the classroom, over his classmates hunched over their desks or whispering carelessly in the back rows or staring like farm animals into the empty air. He’d never been one of them, and that was okay. It was just how things were. He used to feel smaller than them, less significant, as if he’d been born without some essential gene to make him acceptable to other people.

But now he assessed them anew. They seemed different, suddenly. They looked like victims. Like little pink pigs, waiting for someone to slash their throats and fulfill their potential. He imagined the room bathed in blood, himself striding through it, a raven amongst the carcasses. Strutting like any carrion king.

• • • •

He was halfway into the crawlspace when nausea overwhelmed him and he dry heaved into the dirt, the muscles in his sides seizing in pain. He curled into a fetal position and pressed his face into the cool earth until it subsided, leaving him gasping in exhaustion. His throat was swollen and dry.

“I can’t sleep,” the vampire said from the shadows.

Joshua blinked and lifted his gaze, still not raising his head from the ground. He didn’t think he could summon the strength for it, even if he’d wanted to.

The vampire was somewhere in the far corner beneath the house, somewhere behind the bars of sunlight slanting through the latticework. “The light moves around too much down here,” it said, apparently oblivious to Joshua’s pain. “I can’t rest. I need to rest.”

Joshua was silent. He didn’t know what he was expected to say.

“Invite me in,” it said. “I can make it dark inside.”

“What’s happening to me?” Joshua asked. He had to force the air out of his lungs to speak. He could barely hear himself.

“You’re changing. You’re almost there.”

“I feel like I’m dying.”

“Heh, that’s funny.”

Joshua turned his face into the soil. He felt a small tickling movement crawling up his pant leg.

“I remember when I died. I was terrified. It’s okay to be scared, Joshua.”

That seemed like a funny thing to say. He blinked, staring into the place where the voice was coming from.

“I was in this barn. I was a hand on this farm that grew sugar cane. Me and a few others slept out there in the loft. One day this young fella turned up missing. We didn’t think too much about it. Good natured boy, worked hard, but he was kinda touched in the head, and we figured it was always a matter of time before he went and got himself into some trouble. We thought we’d wait for the weekend and then go off and look for him.

“But he came back before the weekend. Sailed in through the second floor window of the barn one night. I about pissed myself. Seemed like he walked in on a cloud. Before we could think of anything to say he laid into us. Butchered most of the boys like hogs. Three of us he left though. Maybe ‘cause we were nicer to him, I don’t know. He decided to make us like him. Who knows why. But see, he was too stupid to tell us what was going on. Didn’t know himself, I guess. But he just kept us up there night after night, feeding on us a little bit at a time. Our dead friends around us the whole time, growing flies.”

“Why didn’t you run when the sun came up?” Joshua had forgotten his pain. He sat up, edging closer to the ribbons of light, his head hunched below the underside of the house.

“Son of a bitch spiked our legs to the floor of the loft. Wrapped barbed wire around our arms. He was determined, I’ll give him that. And no one came from the house. Didn’t take a genius to figure out why.” The vampire paused, seemingly lost in the memory. “Well anyway, before too long we got up and started our new lives. He went off god knows where. So did the other two. Never seen them since.”

Joshua took it all in, feeling the shakes come upon him again. “I’m worried about my family,” he said. “I’m worried they won’t understand.”

“You won’t feel so sentimental, afterwards.”

This was too much to process. He decided he needed to sleep for a while. Let the fever abate, then approach it all with a fresh mind. “I’m gonna lay down,” he said, turning back toward the opening. The light there was like a boiling cauldron, but the thought of lying in his own bed was enough to push through.

“Wait!” the vampire said. “I need to feed first.”

Joshua decided to ignore it. He was already crawling out, and he didn’t have the energy to turn around.

“BOY!”

He froze, and looked behind him. The vampire lunged forward, and its head passed into a sunbeam. The flesh hissed, emitting a thin coil of smoke. A candle flame flared around it, and the stench of ruined flesh rolled over him in a wave, as though a bag of rancid meat had been torn open.

The vampire pulled back, the blind sockets of his eyes seeming to float in the dim white bone. “Don’t play with me, boy.”

“I’m not,” Joshua said. “I’ll be back later.” And he crawled out into the jagged sunlight.

• • • •

He awoke to find his mother hovering over him. She was wearing her white Red Lobster shirt, with the nametag and the ridiculous tie. She had one hand on his forehead, simultaneously taking his temperature and pushing the hair out of his face.

“Hey honey,” she said.

“Mom?” He pulled his head away from her and passed a hand over his face. He was on the couch in the living room. Late afternoon light streamed in through the window. No more than an hour could have elapsed. “What are you doing home?”

“Mikey called me. He said you passed out.”

He noticed his brother sitting on the easy chair on the other side of the room. Michael regarded him solemnly, his little hands folded in his lap like he was in church.

“You’re white as a sheet,” his mother said. “How long have you been feeling bad?”

“I don’t know. Just today I guess.”

“I think we should get you to a hospital.”

“No!” He made an effort to sit up. “No, I’m fine. I just need to rest for a while.”

She straightened, and he could see her wrestling with the idea. He knew she didn’t want to go to the hospital any more than he did. They didn’t have any insurance, and here she was missing a shift at work besides.

“Really, I’m okay. Besides, we’d have to wait forever, and isn’t Tyler coming over tonight?”

His mother tensed. She looked at him searchingly, like she was trying the fathom his motive. She said, “Joshua, you’re more important to me than Tyler is. You do understand that, don’t you?”

He looked away. He felt his face flush, and he didn’t want her to see it. “I know,” he said.

“I know you don’t like him.”

“It’s not that,” he said, but of course it was that. Tyler had to be here so he could feed him to the vampire. He had a feeling that tonight was going to be the night. He didn’t know how he could go on much more, as weak as he was.

Michael piped up, his voice cautious yet hopeful: “It doesn’t matter anyway, ’cause Daddy’s coming back.”

His mother sighed and turned to look at him. Joshua could see all the years gathered in her face, and he felt a sudden and unexpected sympathy for her. “No, Mikey. He’s not.”

“Yes he is, Mom, he told me. He asked if it was okay.”

Her voice hardened, although she was obviously trying to hide it. “Has he been talking to you on the phone?” She looked to Joshua for confirmation.

“Not me,” Joshua said. It occurred to him that Dad may have been calling while he was under the house, talking to the vampire. He felt at once both guilty that he’d left his brother to deal with that alone, and outraged that he’d missed out on the calls.

“You tell him next time he calls that he can talk to me about that,” she said, not even bothering to hide her anger now. “In fact, don’t even talk to him. Hang up on him if he calls again. I’m going to get his number blocked, that son of a bitch.”

Tears piled in Michael’s eyes and he lowered his face. His body trembled as he tried to keep it all inside. A wild anger coursed through Joshua’s body, animating him despite the fever.

“Shut up!” he shouted. “Shut up about Dad! You think Tyler is better? He can’t even look at us! He’s a fucking retard!”

His mother looked at him in pained astonishment for a long moment. Then she put her hand over her mouth and stifled a sob. Aghast, Michael launched himself at her, a terrified little missile. He wrapped his arms around her and buried his face in her chest. “It’s okay, Mom, it’s okay!”

Joshua unfolded himself from the couch and walked down the hall to his room. His face was alight with shame and rage. He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know what to feel. He closed the door behind him, muffling the sounds of the others comforting each other. He threw himself onto his bed, pulling the pillow over his face. The only things he could hear now were the wooden groaning of the house as it shifted on its foundations, and the diminished sound of the blood pumping in his own head.

• • • •

Their father left right after the hurricane. He used to work on the oil rigs. He’d get on a helicopter and disappear for a few weeks, and money would show up in the bank account. Then he’d come home for a week, and they’d all have fun together. He’d fight with their mother sometimes, but he always went back out to sea before things had a chance to get bad.

After the hurricane, all that work dried up. The rigs were compromised and the Gulf Coast oil industry knocked back on its heels. Dad was stranded in the house. Suddenly there was no work to stop the fighting. He moved to California shortly thereafter, saying he’d send for them when he found another job. A week later their mother told them the truth.

Joshua still remembered the night of the storm. The four of them rode it out together in the house. It sounded like Hell itself had come unchained and was stalking the world right outside their window. But he felt safe inside. Even when the upper floor ripped away in a scream of metal and plaster and wood, revealing a black, twisting sky, he never felt like he was in any real danger. The unremarkable sky he’d always known had changed into something three dimensional and alive.

It was like watching the world break open, exposing its secret heart.

His father was crouched beside him. They stared at it together in amazement, grinning like a pair of blissed-out lunatics.

• • • •

Joshua heard a gentle rapping on his door.

“I’m going to the store,” his mother said. “I’m gonna get something for your fever. Is there anything you want for dinner?”

“I’m not hungry.”

He waited for her car to pull out of the driveway before he swung his legs out of bed and tried to stand. He could do it as long as he kept one hand on the wall. He couldn’t believe how tired he was. His whole body felt cold, and he couldn’t feel his fingers. It was coming tonight. The certainty of it inspired no excitement, no joy, no fear. His body was too numb to feel anything. He just wanted it to happen so he could get past this miserable stage.

He shuffled out of his room and down the hall. The vampire needed to feed on him once more, and he wanted to get down there before his mother got back.

As he passed by his brother’s door, though, he stopped short. Somebody was whispering on the other side.

He opened the door to find his little brother lying prone on the floor, half under the bed. Late afternoon shadows gathered in the corners. His face was a small moon in the dim light, one ear pressed to the hardwood. He was whispering urgently.

“Michael?”

His brother’s body jerked in alarm, and he sat up quickly, staring guiltily back. Joshua flipped the light switch on.

“What are you doing?” Something cold was growing inside him.

Michael shrugged.

“Tell me!”

“Talking to Daddy.”

“No.”

“He’s living under the house. He wants us to let him back in. I was afraid to because Mom might get mad at me.”

“ . . . oh, Mikey.” His voice quavered. “That’s not Dad. That’s not Dad.”

He found himself moving down the hall again, quickly now, fired with renewed energy. He felt like a passenger in his body: he experienced a mild curiosity as he saw himself rummaging through the kitchen drawer until he found the claw hammer his mother kept there; a sense of fearful anticipation as he pushed the front door open and stumbled down the porch steps in the failing light, not even pausing to gather his strength before he hooked the claw into the nearest latticework and wrenched it away from the wall in a long segment.

“We had a deal!” he screamed, getting to work on another segment. “You son of a bitch! We had a deal!” He worked fast, alternately smashing wooden latticework to pieces and prying aluminum panels free from the house. “You lied to me! You lied!” Nails squealed as they were wrenched from their moorings. The sun was too low for the light to intrude beneath the house now, but tomorrow the vampire would find the crawlspace uninhabitable.

He saw the vampire, once, just beneath the lip of the house. It said nothing, but its face tracked him as he worked.

The sun was sliding down the sky, leaking its light into the ground and into the sea. Darkness swarmed from the east, spreading stars in its wake.

Joshua hurried inside, dropping the hammer on the floor and collapsing onto the couch, utterly spent. A feeling of profound loss hovered somewhere on the edge of his awareness. He had turned his back on something, on some grand possibility. He knew the pain would come later.

• • • •

Soon his mother returned, and he took some of the medicine she’d bought for him, though he didn’t expect it to do any good. He made a cursory attempt to eat some of the pizza she’d brought too, but his appetite was gone. She sat beside him on the couch and brushed the hair away from his forehead. They watched some TV, and Joshua slipped in and out of sleep. At one point he stared through the window over the couch. The moon traced a glittering arc through the sky. Constellations rotated above him and the planets rolled through the heavens. He felt a yearning that nearly pulled him out of his body.

He could see for billions of miles.

• • • •

At some point his mother roused him from the couch and guided him to his room. He cast a glance into Michael’s room when he passed it, and saw his brother fast asleep.

“You know I love you, Josh,” his mother said at his door.

He nodded. “I know Mom. I love you too.”

His body was in agony. He was pretty sure he was going to die, but he was too tired to care.

• • • •

A scream woke him. The heavy sound of running footsteps, followed by a crash.

Then silence.

Joshua tried to rouse himself. He felt like he’d lost control of his body. His eyelids fluttered open. He saw his brother standing in the doorway, tears streaming down his face.

“Oh no, Josh, oh no, oh no . . .”

He lost consciousness.

• • • •

The next morning he was able to move again. The fever had broken sometime during the night; his sheets were soaked with sweat.

He found his mother on the kitchen table. She had kicked some plates and silverware onto the floor in what had apparently been a brief struggle. Her head was hanging backward off the edge of the table, and she had been sloppily drained. Blood splashed the floor beneath her. Her eyes were open and glassy.

His brother was suspended upside down in the living room, his feet tied with a belt to the ceiling fan, which had come partially free from its anchor. He’d been drained too. He was still wearing his pajamas. On the floor a few feet away from him, where it had fluttered to rest, was a welcome home card he had made for their father.

The plywood covering the open stairwell had been wrenched free. The vampire stood on the top stair, looking into deep blue sky of early morning. Joshua stopped at the bottom stair, gazing up at it. Its burnt skin was covered in a clear coating of pus and lymphatic fluid, as its body started to heal. White masses filled its eye sockets like spiders’ eggs. Tufts of black hair stubbled its peeled head.

“I waited for you,” the vampire said.

Joshua’s lower lip trembled. He tried to say something but he couldn’t get his voice to work.

The vampire extended a hand. “Come up here. The sun’s almost up.”

Almost against his will, he ascended the stairs into the open air. The vampire wrapped its fingers around the back of his head and drew him close. Its lips grazed his neck. It touched its tongue to his skin.

“Thank you for your family,” it said.

“ . . . no . . .”

It sank its teeth into Joshua’s neck and drew from him one more time. A gorgeous heat seeped through his body, and he found himself being lowered gently to the top of the stair.

“It’s okay to be afraid,” the vampire said.

His head rolled to one side; he looked over the area where the second story used to be. There was his old room. There was Michael’s. And that’s where his parents slept. Now it was all just open air.

“This is my house now,” the vampire said, standing over him and surveying the land around them. “At least for a few more days.” It looked down at Joshua with its pale new eyes. “I’d appreciate it if you stayed out.”

The vampire descended the stairs.

A few minutes later, the sun came up, first as a pink stain, then as gash of light on the edge of the world. Joshua felt the heat rising in him again: a fierce, purging radiance starting from his belly and working rapidly outward. He smelled himself cooking, watched the smoke begin to pour out of him, crawling skyward.

And then the day swung its heavy lid over the sky. The ground baked hard as an anvil in the heat, and the sun hammered the color out of everything.

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messymagician · 5 years ago

Text

The Devil’s due

Sarah (Arcana OC) X Julian (Arcana) Follows the main plot story, with changes. 3k words. ____________________________________________________________

Chapter 1 : Empathic accident

The pit in her stomach drops, eyeing the slow-moving red stream. What she would give to just snap her fingers and have it run cleanly… But that sort of magic wasn't quite within her reach. Not yet. The raven circling overhead let out impatient caws at her hesitation to move forward before quickly disappearing behind a tall building.

The water… it's corrupted colour is draining directly from the palace. Just as she squints down at it to think harder a surprised chirp jolts her attention. "...Sarah?"

She yelps; almost jumping out of her long-tailed jacket as the source of the vaguely familiar voice emerges from a dark corner. Features barely lit by a dim city lantern trying to turn everything a golden yellow.

Ruffled red hair, only a few shades off from the crimson aqueduct water beside them both, already gave away who he was. His pale skin did little to hide the surprise on his face under the brightness of the candle lamp. Julian. A doctor wanted for murder. THE doctor wanted for murder.

"Julian?!" They had met only twice before and both times were… conflicting. She tensed but did not flee, sensing no ill-will coming from him. No malice, no aggression, just an utter bemusement at her appearance here of all places.

He hesitates only briefly, fumbling with a long pale mask. Bird-like in structure, an unmistakable piece of clothing used by plague doctors. Turning it over in his slender palms with a furrowed and concentrated brow. "Fancy seeing you here… out for a midnight walk?" His talk felt idle. Delayed almost. As if trying to distract himself from something on his mind. Stooping down to crouch beside the water with a heavy sigh. His coat almost falling into the water at the ends as it splayed out across the cobble. Long and protective like a cape. Or a pair of folded bloodied wings.

Sarah dared not to reply. Watching him with a slowly easing posture as barely visible droplets of rain made the aqueduct ripple lightly. He tries a soft, if somewhat strained, smile while side-eyeing the pensive magician. Dropping her guard at the melancholy glint to his eye. A curiosity overcoming her defences as he started to speak again. "I was just uh… thinking. You know. Funny, fickle, thing isn't it? Life."

A deep-rooted concern creeps up her wrists like ivy. Watching him so close to the water, contemplating life's fragile state, was needless to say mildly alarming. "Are… you sure you should be so close to the edge?" She mumbles, a dreaded look crossing her freckled face.

"To this?" He gestures to the water, now turned at a 90-degree angle on one knee watching her eyes drift from his hand to the surface of the water. Huffing with slight amusement at her concern. "It's harmless, Sarah. Or as harmless as it can be to me anyway…" a snide smile cracks at the corner of his mouth. The comment sounding almost resentful. As if he wished the water was as dangerous as she considered it to be.

"It won't do much of anything anymore. Someone might get sick if they swim in it, but… isn't it a miracle? They went and figured it out. Or outlasted it. Not that it matters too much I suppose… life finds a way, doesn't it? The plague is over..." His expression flickers between a smile and a frown, rambling off on his own little tangent as Sarah's eager ears take in every tone change and word like she'd have to remember it for a test. Not even noticing the minor steps she had taken his way he continued, a reminiscent air hovering over his gloves. "And just like that… so is my career. Who needs a plague doctor when there is no plague?" He asks, rhetorically, while Sarah kneels gently down beside him looking into the water. "It's like…. A count with no city. Or a barkeep with no drinks." He grumbles bitterly before abruptly realising that his rant-victim had closed the gap between them.

Throwing his arms wide to push the intrusive cape away from his arms. Dramatically taking in a breath to kneel upright and grin. A fluffy curl of his messy hair unintentionally flitting down in front of his good eye. "So here I am! Throwing away the last piece of a past I can't reclaim. A pity isn't it. Ah well." His confident facade is sudden enough to make Sarah stand back up, dusting off her trousers as the place her knees had been on the cobbles had soaked up the damp rain. The outburst cracking gently as his hands roamed the mask one last time like trying to memorise its shape before he flicks it into the aqueduct and starts to stand as well.

She's too preoccupied exploring his expression to notice the water writhe unpleasantly as the mask dips below the surface. Long curling shapes slithering over it like tendrils dragging the now-vanished memento. She has so many questions. Too many, almost. The silence between them after his headfirst charge into philosophical grumbling feels almost smothering as she tries to sort out the many words in her head. "....Julian-"

CRRAWW

Alarmed screeching briskly cuts her thoughts short. The sound of distressed wings beating the air catches his attention in a heartbeat. The raven from before swerving wildly into their view and very almost hitting their heads in its frenzy. Though instead of being startled Julian seems to almost be smug as he quickly deciphers its noisy bleating.

"Guards afoot, Sarah!" He beams, the depressive undertone to his voice completely gone as a backdrop of light makes his ruffled hair look golden at the edges. "Come on, look lively, we'd best make tracks." He doesn't hesitate to split; though Sarah's much shorter legs aren't quite as capable at the mad sprint they set off at as he is.

"W-wait!" She squeaks, trying to keep a good grip on the slick rocks below her shoes as the street ahead comes into view. Desperately pushing a little harder to keep up- reaching forward to grasp at his coat-

It hits like lightning. His hand, swinging back to take hers, misses its mark, and just barely brushes across her fingertips. Magic surges through the narrow connection in a furious jolt, seizing Sarah's mind in a tight unforgiving grasp.

Loneliness, Anger, Fear, Regrets, it all crashes into her chest like a swift kick from a horse. It's too much too fast, like watching a movie at fifty times the regular speed, pictures flash before her hazed and confused brain but there's no time to look at any of them. The mental impact knocking her swiftly off balance, sending her thrashing unto the water below…

It barely feels like she's present. The water surrounds her, chilling and with an awful taste, but it's muddled and difficult to register. Having to mentally drag herself shard by shard back together as the sensation of burning lungs settles into her body. She kicks wildly, unsure of which way is up before something moves slippery and slimy up against her soaked trousers.

"Sarah?!" Julian croaks hoarsely as he skids to a halt after the sound of crashing, churning, water. Searching the surface in a panic before reaching in at the slightest flash of her golden-yellow hair. Grasping roughly around one of her small frozen wrists to haul up and out of the reservoir. She winced, but not from the fall, a sickly pale creature clamped onto her side writhing and coiling hisses in disgust as they're pulled from the water. Glass like teeth had pierced straight through the soggy clothes at her waist and it was drinking greedily from the wound. A thick dark red stream easily visible through its gross translucent skin.

Wasting no time Julian's hands shook steadily as he hovered one gloved hand behind the eels neck. "On the count of three…. One…. Two…" in a quick grunt his hand clamps down behind the beasts jaw, forcing its mouth open, as he yanks it away and throws it carelessly back into the aqueduct. "Three…" he sounds barely shaken, heaving the little woman up to her feet with an encouraging if not pained grin. "Easy now. Up you come, it's ok, I've got you-"

The movement was torture. Coughing and spitting up the gross water on top of the stabbing from the slowly oozing wound forced out a pained but stifled wail. Trying her best to stay upright on the uneven and slick cobbles as her drenched clothes left a trail of puddles in their wake. The pain scarily subsiding to just a feeling of sharp ice cold numbness as Julian all but drags her away from the edge and to a small barely lit alley. The candle lanterns from before flickering gently to illuminate the snail trail of diluted blood left in their wake.

"Can you stand?" It sounds more like a hope than a question, but regardless she cannot answer. Shivering from the waist up, unable to feel her feet, and only just managing to breathe clearly with the water out of her lungs. "Right, foolish question." He growls, watching her try her damnedest attempt at a reply come out as a small series of shaky breaths. His arm support dips for a moment, making her fear falling over, but is quickly recovered as he sweeps her limp legs out from beneath her. Trying not to touch the leaking bite as footsteps elsewhere force him to move onward.

It’s only a few quick turns until the only sound breaking the thin veil of silence are his boots on the cobbled floor and the gentle pattering of slowly intensifying rain. A scent not too dissimilar to wet mops clouding the air. "Here, let me see the bite-" Julian softly asks, lowering her to the floor in a dark corner, not really expecting an answer as Sarah's head lent back against the stone. "I'll have to take that as a yes." He mumbled, already pushing aside her jacket and gently lifting the shredded side to her blouse.

It's an unpleasant sight, though it doesn't seem to bother Julian too much outside of making him frown as he attempts to subdue the bleeding. Sarah making no attempts to stop him as she focused her energy on not passing out. The numbed pain was either freezing or burning and she couldn't tell. Julian's frown only knitting tighter as he pulls himself back with a hiss. "The bleeding won't stop…. Damn."

Mustering up what she could, Sarah eased one of her hands up to grab his wrist. Or place it on his wrist more like. Managing to twist and weave an uncomfortable smile. Comforting despite the situation, making his muscles ease.

"Alright… we're doing it my way then." He huffed, a new look of determination lighting behind his eye as he peels off the heavy gloves covering his hands. Sarah winces at the sight of the murderer’s mark, clear as day branded onto the back of his left hand, a permanent reminder of who he was. Though it disappeared again quickly as he lowered his hands to the wound. They were cold, making the pain seem hot in comparison, "hold still…"

She swallows, not showing any protest against the discomfort of his palm on her side. Catching a brief glimpse of his expression, no longer frustrated but in a supportive smile. "Deep breaths. This will only take a minute or two…"

The pain begins to ease and lessen as his left hand slides up and behind her head to keep it from hitting the wall, the blood that had been on it now mingling into her sunny hair. The jumbled mess of things in her head slowly clearing enough for her mouth to start making tangible sentences. "What did I do to deserve meeting you of all people." She grumbles, the wince in her clenched jaw turning to a sarcastic grin. A sharp crack of laughter breaking Julian from his concentration, lifting his pale hand to press against her forehead. Gingerly checking her temperature.

"If you're well enough to joke, you're well enough to sit." He replies, matter of factly with a tired and relieved smile. Helping her shuffle upright as dizziness still clutches and clings to her bones. "At least I wasn't caught hanging from a second-story window this time." He muses, watching her grin grow at the stupid memory. The first time they had met. Now that was a situation to find someone in… tied by the foot hanging from a curtain. He had looked ridiculous.

"I must say… I was surprised to see you in this district. You've got some kind of luck." He murmurs under a breath, glaring off into the distance. Her eyes following at a slight delay, catching a glimpse of the aqueduct's end through another back-alley. The water still a running river of red, dropping off into a slightly clearer ocean. She swallows again, watching the tumbling rapid with an awful visage of herself falling over the edge, shuddering while turning back to Julian as discomfort started to weave into his eyes.

A brightly shimmering mark dragged her attention down to his throat. White and pulsing it glowed with a magical force unmistakably strong and vaguely familiar. A sense of foreboding threatened her senses as Julian stopped idly staring into the distance and locked eyes. He knew what she was looking at, a swift shift in his demeanour letting her know she got caught.

A red tint quickly finds its way to her cheeks as she realises the pain from the bite is all but non existent anymore, watching a darker less joking expression fill his pale smile. "What. Recognise your master’s handiwork?" He asks sarcastically, moving away to sit against the opposing wall as the fresh bright red liquid begins seeping from his clothes. He grimaces, though it's well hidden behind spite, as a wound gradually tears itself open beneath his shirt and jacket. "It was his parting gift to me… a curse. I'm able to take away bodily wounds." He pauses, gesturing vaguely toward her side. "As you can see…"

Surely enough as he sits further up and checks the gaping holes from the eel attack are gone. Only tender angry bruises left in their wake. "And in turn I get to experience them for…. Myself, ugh." Julian wobbles and leans a little from the sudden hit of dizziness and waves of pain but quickly catches himself and blinks it away. Taking a heavy and shaky breath to stabilise.

"W-why would you do that? Will you be ok?" She squeaks frantically, adding the question of who this 'master' is to the back-burner as concern over the implications of him taking the injury away make her mildly fret. The fussing making him snicker in an all-knowing way that only worked to deepen her worry.

"It won't last, it never does. A curse from a witch who fears commitment." He spits unhappily, watching Sarah's soft blue eyes cloud with confusion. Like he could see little gears behind them ticking away trying to work. "Though, admittedly, I've never been bitten by a vampire eel so… this should be interesting." His hands and legs shake uncontrollably as he tries to force himself to stand up; only managing to rise the whole way after Sarah scrambles to her feet first and helps lift him.

She eyes the location of the wound and takes a deep, clear, breath of wet muggy air. "...Thank you, Julian. I wouldn't have wanted you to do it if I knew what would happen but… Thank you for this."

Her words are sweet, sincere, the water in her eyes are clearly not just from the rain. He stares down at her with raised brows, not blinking, before turning a dark shade of red and looking away. "Don't mention it." He grumbles, clearly uncomfortable from more than just the wound. "That is, well. Circumstances being as they were- I'm just glad you're alright." It looks like he'd rather be anywhere else, keeping his eyes roaming the floor for a while before Sarah's hands tense around his arm.

She stands bolt upright, staring ahead in silence, and only a moment later can Julian understand why. Heavily armoured footsteps are echoing down the street from their right. Julian stiffens before pushing the two of them further back into the alley, the walls get closer but thankfully so does the darkness. Thinking quickly Sarah shuffles in front of him and pulls the edges of his cloak up around her, hiding her bright blonde hair, much to Julian's very sudden surprise.

She faces him, only hoping the guards slide on past without seeing them, watching his face a crunch a little at the pain from his new injury. Eyes glaring out above the jacket's caped edges to watch the street. But, like feeling her stare, looks back down at her. They stare, wordless and uncomfortable for a while. "...Sarah-"

A thud stops his words, eyes darting back to the alley entrance before briskly taking her shaking hand. "Not the time, let's go…" Gently tugging her through a tight gap that leads the alley out to another street, breaking into a run once they escape the confined walls.

Houses and softly glowing lamps pass in a smear of colour and light. For every unsure step Sarah takes, Julian pulls her along two more, weaving through streets and gaps in buildings like navigating a maze he'd already solved. The rush making a few droplets of rain splatter harder against them, causing little cascading explosions of water.

Though she struggles to keep up the feeling of evading pursuers quickly provides a buzz to her system, a silly laugh escaping her as they take another wide turn, practically being pulled around like a kite. She doesn't need to worry about where to run given Julian is leading the mad dash and briefly catches him looking back at her giggly self with a solid smirk. Enough to tell her to quiet down if they want to actually escape. Though… she found herself not worrying. A strange sensation for her, like already knowing the outcome of the chase it was enjoyable despite the implications of being caught with a presumed murderer.

As both their breathing starts to get ragged and dragged through the dirt Julian's pace finally slows enough for Sarah to keep at least one foot on the ground at alI times. Panting, they approach an old, weather torn, house. On the outskirts of town, sitting quietly around a few others is a shack with a small bustling garden of chickens. Feathers ruffled and all huddled in a corner out of the rain. The walls were grey and had cracks and the ceiling was so low Sarah could already see he won't be able to stand up in there.

"In we go, Sarah." He barks with unrivalled confidence, letting go of her hand to hop the garden fence and approach a back window. She opens her mouth to protest, surely if someone was in there it would cause a problem, but he didn't wait for an answer. Hauling himself up through the already-open window in a not too graceful way. "Come on in before you get wetter. If that's even possible-"

She approaches nervously. The running adrenaline winding down slowly like a good dose of caffeine petering out. Looking through the window before hesitantly climbing in…

#Arcana #Arcana oc #Arcana Julian #The Devil's due #arcana fanfic

0 notes

zora-moyashi · 6 years ago

Text

First

<---Prev Next--->

"first of all, rude. secondly, don't underestimate me." she swings her arms back and forth warming up and waiting for shatter to make the first shot.

Core

Shatter jumped into the water, she seemed to know the area well, giving her an advantage.

"haha, I'm not fighting you in the water there shatter. i'm not THAT dumb."

Core

The island was actually floating, so the water was deep enough. A large mantis like claw dug into the sand, the claw alone had to be at least twenty feet in height. Chara then saw the head of a Sea Empress Leviathan. Her body was covered in think armor like plates, a knife was useless

"wow alright." she despons the knife gazing up. she shouts "now is this really fair? i'm like a 1000th of your size

Core

'I told you I wanted to see how many times I can kill you with only using one element.' Chara heard in her head. 'So, would you rather I start off easier? If you do 'kill' me, I can respawn here.'

she seems insulted "pffft! bring it!" she's getting ready for shatter to make a move that she takes a second to recoil from before she starts to attack her in anyway. she also steps back into the grassy area with trees just to see how good her aim is when she's not very visible.

Core

The Sea emperor had poor eyesight, but could sense Chara due to telepathy, a tentacle can form behind, slamming on Chara.

chara slams into the ground and she rolls to her side grabbing the tentacle before it could move. her grip isn't the strongest with it moving around as much as it is but she does manage to make coat her teeth in red magic and bite deep into the tentacle

Core

the tentacle sunk down into the water, there Chara should see the full size of the Sea Emperor, it had two claws like a mantis and the back half of an octopus or Squid. her large head contained a large set of toothless jaws.

she tries her best to get out of the water. she breaks the surface taking a deep breath swims as far back to the shore as she can before getting hit again. she's dunked under the water with the air hit out of her with the impact. she kicks another tentacle away but passes out from lack of air.

Core

Shatter leaves her to drown, knowing she will respawn on the island, since the portal was a savepoint. Shatter turned to her normal for and swam up, marking in the sand; s-1 c-0

chara reloads and shakes her head the water still in her hair. she spots the score chart shatter's making and just gets more mad. she let's out a growl before slamming into shatter before she has time to change forms and tries her best to go for her soul with her knife.

More undercut:

Core

Her soul was strange to say the least, it seemed more like a cluster of 18 different fractured parts. Shatter acted quickly, teleporting to some of the water off shore.

her knife hits the sand as she laughs to herself. "oh yeah. you can teleport just like good old sans. what a pain." she stands and heads to the water not caring anymore.

Core

"Well, not quite, Sans uses more of a ghost typing for or teleporting, I use ion energy to teleport. One never runs out of power." Shatter explained, not moving, for she knew what was near.

"If you want I chose forms with a cp of under 10k." Shatter said.

Chara looks at her confused "depends what cp is."

Core

"Combat power, a creature's ability to fight." Shatter explained. "It's quite ironic that both the highest and lowest are found in water." she added.

"huh, fine. tone it down I guess. no fun if you just demolish me every round"

Core

"Okay," Shatter said, turning into a four legged animal with a frill of fins, it was the size of a house cat.

"hello little vaporeon" she gives a little wave. "so this isn't gonna be easy either, seeing as you can literally melt into the water."

Core

'I will stay on land, since if you were to try to swim in these waters, you're as good as dead. I learned that the heard way a few years ago.' Shatter explained, shuddering at the memory of dying multiple times to the new creatures of this world.

"well good, but i'd like to know what's out there if you'd tell me"

She stands at the edge of the sand leaning in trying to see anything

Core

She heard a large roar, and saw a large red tail. Shatter still in the form of a vaporeon. "That's a reaper levithan, they grow to about 60 feet long, but to be completely honest a gasopod killed me first..."

"ooooo it's pretty" her eyes sparkle. "i wonder if it'll eat vaporeon(s). (i don't know if you put an s at the end of pokemon to make it plural) haha" she goes back to the middle of the beach. "okay enough of that. let's start this fight." she digs her feet into the sand. her feet glow a little along with the sand around them.

Core

Shatter turned around her eyes glowing. "Ready when you are."

with her feet leaving the sand they seem to emit an explosion that makes the sand cloud the area and chara be flung into the air as well. though the cloud of dust when chara makes her way back to the ground she covers her whole body in magic and impacts the area the vaporeon was in.

Core

Shatter had moved from that location, using her knowledge of the area to help her. She spit out boiling water at chara.

with the magic around her it didn't hurt her and it evaporated all the way before it could hit her. heat rolled off of her and she focuses the magic in her hands making an ax of sorts and swinging at shatter

Core

She landed the blow, winning this round as Shatter had to respawn. "Ow." she hissed

chara grins ear to ear and laughs a little trying to hold it in.

Core

"Yeah, haha." Shatter said sarcastically, not amused of her loss

she covers her face and snorts out a laugh. she gets over it and shakes off all the used magic around her. "you get the first move again~"

Core

"How about I let you try and fight a wild creature here?" Shatter said with a smirk.

"hmm?" she hums interested.

Core

Shatter grabs Chara's arm and teleports, to some shallow water, 30 at the deepest. the biggest creature had a bulbous tail and a head that looked like a gas-mask, all in all it looked similar to a manatee.

"it looks pretty chill. think it will actually want to fight me?"

Core

"Because the first time I died here it was one of them." Shatter said. "They are called gasopods. just try to pet it."

"huh..." chara's not a big fan of animals so she is a bit cautious. she puts a hand out to it slowly. "hey there...?

Core

The tail lit up and a toxic gas surrounded it, killing everything nearby instantly.

she respons and looks at shatter annoyed. "great" she goes back to the water area. "I'd happily take that little monster on again but green magic isn't my thing and i'm not sure how else i'm going to be able to take it out" she thinks for a moment frustrated.

Core

Shatter tossed her something. "chronicle made this, it's called a rebreather, it can filter out the toxins." Shatter explained, "Chronicle made after these things killed me

she catches it and shrugs she puts it around her mouth and instantly goes up to another gasopod. she thinks to herself how much she hates water and how much of a pain it is. she forms a knife and gets a grip on the gasopod and giving it a slash in the back. after that she's thrown off in a cloud of poison and loses the creature who ran.

Core

The creature sank, dead. Shatter seemed slightly impressed.

when the poison clears and she sees the dead animal she grins to shatter proudly "heyooo!! what's next shatter?!" she gets out of the water and somersaults on the sand happily.

Core

"Well, they are in much deeper water, and you can't breathe underwater last time I checked." Shatter said.

*sticks out tongue* "can't do anything about that hon."

Core

"I know, so I can just try and turn to them near the surface." Shatter shrugged.

"alright, i'll take it" she goes back to the water. " just so you know shatter, i really hate water" she laughs to herself. "in fact most of the time i use fire magic so it's that much worse for me." "but hey. challenge accepted."

Core

Shatter turned into an eel like creature, with prongs along it's body, sparks went in between these prongs. she was a dull grey in color.

chara watches shatter transform and then go under the water looking for the animals to lead to the surface.

Core

The eel charged, jaws full of needle like teeth

chara follows with her gaze as shatter goes deeper down. she lays on the sand and sticks her head under the water to see better.

Core

She got bit in the face, the teeth sending electric charges though her flesh.

chara passes out from the shock, her face ripped into and as she flops all the way onto the sand. she respons and begrudgingly puts a tally next to her name in the sand.

Core

Shatter turned back into a humanoid, "That was an ampeel, electric and water."

she shakes her head. "I officially accept that you're stronger than frisk's soul. but giving up isn't in neither of our nature" she puts a finger to her chin and thinks what she could do to trick and or get the better of shatter. she decides making her stick to one form would help her most.

Core

"Only one form?" Shatter seemed to have to think for a bit. (i so wanna choose a ditto)

(you little cheater haha ) chara waits for her to pick

Core

(I won't I won't, it was just a thought.)

"If I chose this form, you aren't allowed to freak out, understand?" Shatter said

"well gee, no promises"

Core

Shatter knew she wouldn't get a better answer, she revealed her soul as the parts separated, revealing 18 unique individuals. she was a fusion. One floated above the ground, she glowed a purple color and seemed like she defied gravity. 'I will be your opponent, Character.' Chara heard in her head.

(You are challenged by olympia!!)

she looks up at her in awe until she starts laughing hysterically. "fine fine fine fine" chara makes a arm shield and a sword that has heavy impact but she can throw it around like it's really light. "may i just say you're really cool" her eyes sparkle and she goes in to strike olympia at the legs.

Core

Olympia teleported away, her eyes had no pupil or iris. the other 17 watched. 'Thank you for the compliment, though I should warn you, that I am one of the best fighters.' She said via telepathy again,

"one of the best fighters in what? the multiverse? cause that's a bit excessive" she's trying to make her a little mad or react in anyway so that chara could sense olympia before she appears and gets the drop on her.

Core

"No, out of my siblings.' Chara was thrown into the water by some invisible force. it then made sense, Olypmia could use telekinesis.

she flings out of the water like a sling shot back to where she was back to a spot that she marked in the sand with magic. she struggles to get her balance. "pretty nifty right?" she smiles "that's a green/blue attribute. learned it from the person on the other end of the string. not good for attacking tho." she still can't find her and it's starting to annoy her.

Core

She felt herself get torn apart from the inside out.

she collapses on the floor dead. she reappears "okay lady what the hell was that?" her face is red embarrassed.

Core

'I made you implode, it's actually easy.' Olympia said via telepathy

"ffffff" she takes a big breath. she runs through her mind what she should do seeing as she's a close-range fighter with a long range and seemingly invisible opponent. she simply waits for another attack to come at her so she can try to find a weakness.

Core

Olympia teleported in front of her, 'you do realize I can read you mind, and you would win in close range,' she teleported away again

"yeah yeah i know" she sticks her tongue out. "stop taunting me" she decides she has to find olympia's hiding spots and put magic markers down so she can sling shot to them and hopefully catch her off guard.

Core

Olympia mental revealed her location to be in a cave system in the island.

"this is so boring..." A female with orange hair hissed.

Core

'Sorry that you do not approve of my style, Eunice." Olympia replied

she heads over to the cave and quietly hides in the bushes by them. she's trying her best to keep her mind completely blank to not give away her position.

Core

Olympia looked directly at her. 'if I'm not mistaken, this world actually had an update, maybe after our little sprawl we can go investigate.'

she stands up irritated she already found her. defeated she shakes her head "let's just go investigate this update now. it's better than getting my butt whooped for the 10th time"

Core

Olympia's eyes glowed as she made a portal to an arctic biome. Eunice backed up. "No way in the entire Multiverse am I going to check this update."

she shrugs to eunice "dragon type i assume?" and hops through the portal and starts rolling in some powder then hitting some ice and slipping around almost like she's ice skating.

Core

"No, Fire, Dusk can just fuse with Lapis and will be fine." She said.

There was small penguin like creatures, they were light blue with large yellow eyes, their beak pointed to the sky

chara picked a penguin that wasn't paying attention in the back of the group and slid on her stomach and caught one of them. she sits up and looks at her catch she holds in her lap. "well aren't you cute~ what you little guys looking at?" she looks up as well.

Core

The beak opened up and was full of sharp teeth, it looked like a horror movie monster

"aww you're even cuter now~" she cooed at it making sure to keep the beak away from her skin.

"what should i name you" she bounces it on her knee for a second thinking. "you are pinpen"

"do you like that little guy" she says smiling holding the penguin tight.

Core

One of the splits, looked at the bird. She had a pair of wings, flying type probably. "Haven't seen this thing before..."

chara holds it up to her proudly " look at 'em!!! " her eyes sparkle a little. "wanna hold em?"

Core

(i love it it's so cute ;sdofija;oeigja;weig)

(chara probably is holding a baby one)

Core

She picks it up. Feeling the small thin feathers, "they must be fast in the water.." Olympia looked at the strange bird, 'i don't think you would be able to turn into this Jay, since they can't be in more than two elements.

"well that's a real shame" she holds the penguin to her chest "can't two of you merge and then turn into it though?" the penguin nibbles at her bangs.

Core

"yeah, probably Glacia and Lapis though." Jay said. The ground started to shake slightly

stands up and gets on guard from the shaking. "what's that?" she looks around expecting something to come up from the ice or something.

Core

"I don't know!" Jay said flying into the air, a large creature breached through the ice, going after the quick flyer.

(supposed to be 95 meters long)

chara falls when it breaches the ice and the penguin goes back to their group who is running from the monster. the bottom of her chin is bleeding onto the ice noticing her friend is gone "noooo pinpen!!!!" she watches it leave and makes an angry sound towards the ice head

Core

Olympia teleported and got the bird, calming it as Jay lured the large creature away. 'Well, the creators didn't hold back this time,' She said.

she gets up and watches the bird blankly not really caring anymore just because she accepts she's not going to get the penguin back. she wipes her chin and follows on the ice under where the others are.

Core

Some were planning on going down into the water, while others would explore above. Eunice of course was staying above, as was jay and dusk

while following she decides to try to fling herself up to the creature when she gets a clear shot so she puts down some markers and glides around the ice waiting

Core

The worm had gone back under the ice. Jay was planning on going under the ice as well

Core

(((((((But i had also come up with some ideas, and want to upgrade my characters, and the upgrade may actually affect Chara. Since she is involved in it technically. ZM oh yeah? do tell, Core So, it has to do with Shatter's past, more in particular her 'purpose'. Prior her past was that her parents and brother were murdered and she was captured and forced to fight for entertainment. and she became so mentally unstable that, she shattered But what if she was made to kill 'true' stars, a weapon, that would explain her high cp, ZM ooo, fancy~ what kind of true stars? Core And what if Gaster made sure she couldn't die by cloning Chara's ability to respawn? like Chronicle, Ink (my version), Blood, Music, ZM gotcha sounds good! so about the whole tracker that is on her that's from gaster? Core Exactly So, if we continue the rp, I can actually test the update ))))))

chara scrapes the ice with her foot making it easier to see what's going on down there. it's super dark so she puts a hand on the ice lighting it up and threw the water so she can see a bit more

Core

The splits started to glitch before they formed together, back to Shatter, though that didn't stop the glitching. Shatter held her head, seemingly in pain.

with all shatter's parts disappearing she looks for shatter holding her head. she rushes over to her. "hey hey hey what happened?"

Core

The glitching soon stopped and Shatter looked at Chara with cold, empty eyes.

she shuffles her feet nervously. " you alright?"

Core

Shatter looked at her, "Must have been an update." She said

"well fine but what the hell does that mean?" she cocks her head still worried

Next--->

#shatter #chara #rp #first arc #coreink002 #friend's stuff

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andya-j · 6 years ago

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“We’re God’s beautiful creatures,” the vampire said, something like joy leaking into its voice for the first time since it had crawled under this house four days ago. “We’re the pinnacle of his art. If you believe in that kind of thing, anyway. That’s why the night is our time. He hangs jewels in the sky for us. People, they think we’re at some kinda disadvantage because we can’t go out in the sunlight. But who needs it. The day is small and cramped. You got your one lousy star.” “You believe in God?” Joshua asked. The crawlspace beneath his house was close and hot; his body was coated in a dense sheen of sweat. A cockroach crawled over his fingers and he jerked his hand away. Late summer pressed onto this small Mississippi coastal town like the heel of a boot. The heat was an act of violence. “I was raised Baptist. My thoughts on the matter are complicated.” The crawlspace was contained partially by sheets of aluminum siding and partially by decaying wooden latticework. It was by this latter that Joshua crouched, hiding in the hot spears of sunlight which intruded into the shadows and made a protective cage around him. “That’s why it’s so easy for us to seduce. God loves us, so the world does too. Seduction is your weapon, kid. You’re what—fifteen? You think seduction is pumping like a jackrabbit in your momma’s car. You don’t know anything. But you will soon enough.” The vampire moved in the shadows, and abruptly the stink of burnt flesh and spoiled meat greased the air. It had opened a wound in itself, moving. Joshua knew that it tried to stay still as much as it could, to facilitate the healing, but the slowly shifting angles of the sunbeams made that impossible. He squinted his eyes, trying to make out a shape, but it was useless. He could sense it back there, though—a dark, fluttering presence. Something made of wings. “Invite me in,” it said. “Later,” Joshua said. “Not yet. After you finish changing me.” The vampire coughed; it sounded like a snapping bone. Something wet hit the ground. “Well come here then, boy.” It moved again, this time closer to the amber light. Its face emerged from the shadows like something rising from deep water. It hunched on its hands and knees, swinging its head like a dog trying to catch a scent. Its face had been burnt off. Thin, parchment-strips of skin hung from blackened sinew and muscle. Its eyes were dark, hollow caves. Even in this wretched state, though, it seemed weirdly graceful. A dancer pretending to be a spider. For the second time, Joshua laid himself on the soft earth, a-crawl with ants and cockroaches, centipedes and earthworms, positioning his upper body beyond the reach of the streaming sunlight. The light’s color was deepening, its angles rising until they were almost parallel to the ground. Evening was settling over the earth. The vampire pressed the long fingers of one charred hand onto his chest, as delicately as a lover. Heat flushed Joshua’s body. Every nerve ending was a trembling candle flame. The vampire touched its lips to his throat; its tongue sought the jugular, the heavy river inside. It slid its teeth into his skin. A sharp, lovely pain. Joshua stared at the underside of his home: the rusted pipes, the duct tape, the yellow sheets of insulation. It looked so different from beneath. So ugly. He heard footsteps overhead as somebody he loved moved around inside it, attending to mysterious offices. • • • • Four days ago: he’d stood on the front porch of his home in the deep blue hollow of early morning, watching the waters of the Gulf roll onto the beach. It was his favorite time of the day: that sweet, lonesome hinge between darkness and daylight, when he could pretend he was alone in the world and free to take it on his own terms. In a few moments he would go inside and wake his five-year-old brother Michael, make him breakfast, and get them both ready for school, while their mother still slept in after her night shift at Red Lobster. But this time belonged to him. The vampire came from the direction of town, trailing black smoke and running hard across the no man’s land between his own house and the nearest standing building. There’d been a neighborhood there once, but the hurricane wiped it away a few years ago. What remained had looked like a mouthful of shattered teeth, until the state government came through and razed everything to the ground. Their own house had been badly damaged—the storm had scalped it of its top floor, depositing it somewhere out in the Gulf—but the rest had stood its ground, though it canted steeply to one side now, and on windy days you could feel it coming through the walls. It was over that empty expanse the vampire fled, first billowing smoke like a diesel engine and then erupting into flame as the sun cracked the horizon. The vampire ran directly for his house and launched itself at the opening to the crawlspace under the porch steps. Oily smoke eeled up through the wooden planks and dissipated into the lightening sky. Joshua had remained frozen in place for the whole event, save the rising clamor in his heart. • • • • Their mother would be late getting home from work—and even later if she went out with that jackass Tyler again—so Joshua fed his little brother and directed him to his bedroom. They passed the stairwell on their way, which was capped now by sheets of plywood hammered over the place where it used to open onto the second floor. “You want me to read you a story?” he asked, reaching for the copy of The Wind in the Willows by the bedside. Michael didn’t really understand the story, but he liked it when Joshua did the voices. “No,” he said, leaping into his bed and pulling the covers over himself. “No story? Are you sure?” “I just wanna go to sleep tonight.” “Okay,” Joshua said. He felt strangely bereft. He reached down and turned on Michael’s nightlight, then switched off the lamp. “Will you cuddle with me, Josh?” he said. “I won’t ‘cuddle’ with you, but I’ll lay down with you for a little bit.” “Okay.” Cuddle was a word their dad used before he moved away, and it embarrassed him that Michael held onto it. He eased back on top of the covers and let Michael rest his head in the crook of his arm. “Are you scared of anything, Josh?” “What, like monsters?” “I don’t know, I guess.” “No, I’m not scared of monsters. I’m not scared of anything.” Michael thought for a minute, then said, “I’m scared of storms.” “That’s silly. It’s just a bunch of wind and rain.” “ . . . I know.” Michael drifted into silence. Joshua felt vaguely guilty about shutting him down like that, but he really didn’t have it in him to have the storm talk again. That was something Michael was going to have to get over on his own, since logic didn’t seem to have any effect on his thinking. As he monitored his brother’s breathing, waiting for him to fall asleep, he found himself wondering about how he would feel toward his family once the transformation was complete. He was worried that he would lose all feeling for them. Or, worse, that he’d think of them as prey. He didn’t think that would happen; everything he’d ever read about vampires seemed to indicate that they kept all their memories and emotions from life. But the thought troubled him nonetheless. That was why he wouldn’t let the vampire into his house until he became one, too; he wanted to be sure it went after the right person. It couldn’t have his family. The question of love was tricky, anyway. He felt protective of his brother and his mom, but he had a hard time aligning that feeling with a word like love. Maybe it was the same thing; he honestly didn’t know. He tried to imagine how he’d feel if they were gone, and he didn’t come up with much. That thought troubled him even more. Maybe he would think of Michael and his mother as pets. The notion brightened his mood. People loved their pets. • • • • Michael pretended to be asleep until Joshua left the room. He loved his older brother in the strong, uncomplicated way children loved anything; but recently he’d had become an expert in negotiating the emotional weather in his home, and Joshua’s moods had become more turbulent than ever. He got mad at strange things, like when Michael wanted to hold hands, or when Mom brought Tyler home. Michael thought Tyler was weird because he wouldn’t talk to them, but he didn’t understand why Joshua got so mad about it. He listened as his brother’s footsteps receded down the hallway. He waited a few more minutes just to be sure. Then he slid down and scooted under the bed on his stomach, pressing his ear to the floor. The house swayed and creaked around him, filling the night with bizarre noises. He hated living here since the storm happened. He felt like he was living in the stomach of a monster. After a few minutes of careful listening, he heard the voice. • • • • Joshua opened his window and waited. He didn’t even try to sleep anymore, even though he was constantly tired. The night was clear and cool, with a soft breeze coming in from the sea. The palm trees across the street rustled quietly to themselves, shaggy-haired giants sharing secrets. After about half an hour, the vampire crawled from an opening near the back of the house, emerging just a few feet from his window. Joshua’s heart started to gallop. He felt the familiar, instinctive fear: the reaction of the herd animal to the lion. The vampire stood upright, facing the sea. Most of its flesh had burnt away; the white round curve of its skull reflected moonlight. Its clothes were dark rags in the wind. A car pulled into the driveway around front, its engine idling for a few moments before chuckling to a halt. Mom was home. The vampire’s body seemed to coil, every muscle drawing taut at once. It lifted its nose, making tiny jerking motions, looking for the scent. He heard his mother’s laughter, and a man’s voice. Tyler was with her. The vampire took a step toward the front of the house, its joints too loose, as if they were hinged with liquid instead of bone and ligament. Even in its broken, half-dead state, it moved quickly and fluidly. He thought again of a dancer. He imagined how it would look in full health, letting the night fill its body like a kite. Moving through the air like an eel through water. “Take him,” Joshua whispered. The vampire turned its eyeless face head toward him. Joshua was smiling. “Take him,” he said again. “You know I can’t,” it said, rage riding high in its voice. “Why the hell don’t you let me in!” “That’s not the deal,” he said. “Afterwards. Then you can come in. And you can have Tyler.” He heard the front door open, and the voices moved inside. Mom and Tyler were in the living room, giggling and whispering. Half drunk already. “He’s all I’ll need,” the vampire said. “Big country boy like that. Do me right up.” Someone knocked on his bedroom door. His mother’s voice came through. “Josh? Are you on the phone in there? You’re supposed to be asleep!” “Sorry Mom,” he said over his shoulder. He heard Tyler’s muffled voice, and his mother started laughing. “Shhh!” It made Joshua’s stomach turn. When he looked back outside, the vampire had already slid back under the house. He sighed and leaned his head out, feeling the cool wind on his face. The night was vast above him. He imagined rising into it, through clouds piled like snowdrifts and into a wash of ice crystal stars, waiting for its boundary but not finding one. Just rising higher and higher into the dark and the cold. • • • • The school day passed in a long, punishing haze. His ability to concentrate was fading steadily. His body felt like it was made of lead. He’d never been so exhausted in his life, but every time he closed his eyes he was overcome with a manic energy, making him fidget in his chair. It took the whole force of his will not to get up and start pacing the classroom. A fever simmered in his brain. He touched the back of his hand to his forehead and was astonished by the heat. Sounds splintered in his ear, and the light coming through the windows was sharp-edged. His gaze roved over the classroom, over his classmates hunched over their desks or whispering carelessly in the back rows or staring like farm animals into the empty air. He’d never been one of them, and that was okay. It was just how things were. He used to feel smaller than them, less significant, as if he’d been born without some essential gene to make him acceptable to other people. But now he assessed them anew. They seemed different, suddenly. They looked like victims. Like little pink pigs, waiting for someone to slash their throats and fulfill their potential. He imagined the room bathed in blood, himself striding through it, a raven amongst the carcasses. Strutting like any carrion king. • • • • He was halfway into the crawlspace when nausea overwhelmed him and he dry heaved into the dirt, the muscles in his sides seizing in pain. He curled into a fetal position and pressed his face into the cool earth until it subsided, leaving him gasping in exhaustion. His throat was swollen and dry. “I can’t sleep,” the vampire said from the shadows. Joshua blinked and lifted his gaze, still not raising his head from the ground. He didn’t think he could summon the strength for it, even if he’d wanted to. The vampire was somewhere in the far corner beneath the house, somewhere behind the bars of sunlight slanting through the latticework. “The light moves around too much down here,” it said, apparently oblivious to Joshua’s pain. “I can’t rest. I need to rest.” Joshua was silent. He didn’t know what he was expected to say. “Invite me in,” it said. “I can make it dark inside.” “What’s happening to me?” Joshua asked. He had to force the air out of his lungs to speak. He could barely hear himself. “You’re changing. You’re almost there.” “I feel like I’m dying.” “Heh, that’s funny.” Joshua turned his face into the soil. He felt a small tickling movement crawling up his pant leg. “I remember when I died. I was terrified. It’s okay to be scared, Joshua.” That seemed like a funny thing to say. He blinked, staring into the place where the voice was coming from. “I was in this barn. I was a hand on this farm that grew sugar cane. Me and a few others slept out there in the loft. One day this young fella turned up missing. We didn’t think too much about it. Good natured boy, worked hard, but he was kinda touched in the head, and we figured it was always a matter of time before he went and got himself into some trouble. We thought we’d wait for the weekend and then go off and look for him. “But he came back before the weekend. Sailed in through the second floor window of the barn one night. I about pissed myself. Seemed like he walked in on a cloud. Before we could think of anything to say he laid into us. Butchered most of the boys like hogs. Three of us he left though. Maybe ‘cause we were nicer to him, I don’t know. He decided to make us like him. Who knows why. But see, he was too stupid to tell us what was going on. Didn’t know himself, I guess. But he just kept us up there night after night, feeding on us a little bit at a time. Our dead friends around us the whole time, growing flies.” “Why didn’t you run when the sun came up?” Joshua had forgotten his pain. He sat up, edging closer to the ribbons of light, his head hunched below the underside of the house. “Son of a bitch spiked our legs to the floor of the loft. Wrapped barbed wire around our arms. He was determined, I’ll give him that. And no one came from the house. Didn’t take a genius to figure out why.” The vampire paused, seemingly lost in the memory. “Well anyway, before too long we got up and started our new lives. He went off god knows where. So did the other two. Never seen them since.” Joshua took it all in, feeling the shakes come upon him again. “I’m worried about my family,” he said. “I’m worried they won’t understand.” “You won’t feel so sentimental, afterwards.” This was too much to process. He decided he needed to sleep for a while. Let the fever abate, then approach it all with a fresh mind. “I’m gonna lay down,” he said, turning back toward the opening. The light there was like a boiling cauldron, but the thought of lying in his own bed was enough to push through. “Wait!” the vampire said. “I need to feed first.” Joshua decided to ignore it. He was already crawling out, and he didn’t have the energy to turn around. “BOY!” He froze, and looked behind him. The vampire lunged forward, and its head passed into a sunbeam. The flesh hissed, emitting a thin coil of smoke. A candle flame flared around it, and the stench of ruined flesh rolled over him in a wave, as though a bag of rancid meat had been torn open. The vampire pulled back, the blind sockets of his eyes seeming to float in the dim white bone. “Don’t play with me, boy.” “I’m not,” Joshua said. “I’ll be back later.” And he crawled out into the jagged sunlight. • • • • He awoke to find his mother hovering over him. She was wearing her white Red Lobster shirt, with the nametag and the ridiculous tie. She had one hand on his forehead, simultaneously taking his temperature and pushing the hair out of his face. “Hey honey,” she said. “Mom?” He pulled his head away from her and passed a hand over his face. He was on the couch in the living room. Late afternoon light streamed in through the window. No more than an hour could have elapsed. “What are you doing home?” “Mikey called me. He said you passed out.” He noticed his brother sitting on the easy chair on the other side of the room. Michael regarded him solemnly, his little hands folded in his lap like he was in church. “You’re white as a sheet,” his mother said. “How long have you been feeling bad?” “I don’t know. Just today I guess.” “I think we should get you to a hospital.” “No!” He made an effort to sit up. “No, I’m fine. I just need to rest for a while.” She straightened, and he could see her wrestling with the idea. He knew she didn’t want to go to the hospital any more than he did. They didn’t have any insurance, and here she was missing a shift at work besides. “Really, I’m okay. Besides, we’d have to wait forever, and isn’t Tyler coming over tonight?” His mother tensed. She looked at him searchingly, like she was trying the fathom his motive. She said, “Joshua, you’re more important to me than Tyler is. You do understand that, don’t you?” He looked away. He felt his face flush, and he didn’t want her to see it. “I know,” he said. “I know you don’t like him.” “It’s not that,” he said, but of course it was that. Tyler had to be here so he could feed him to the vampire. He had a feeling that tonight was going to be the night. He didn’t know how he could go on much more, as weak as he was. Michael piped up, his voice cautious yet hopeful: “It doesn’t matter anyway, ’cause Daddy’s coming back.” His mother sighed and turned to look at him. Joshua could see all the years gathered in her face, and he felt a sudden and unexpected sympathy for her. “No, Mikey. He’s not.” “Yes he is, Mom, he told me. He asked if it was okay.” Her voice hardened, although she was obviously trying to hide it. “Has he been talking to you on the phone?” She looked to Joshua for confirmation. “Not me,” Joshua said. It occurred to him that Dad may have been calling while he was under the house, talking to the vampire. He felt at once both guilty that he’d left his brother to deal with that alone, and outraged that he’d missed out on the calls. “You tell him next time he calls that he can talk to me about that,” she said, not even bothering to hide her anger now. “In fact, don’t even talk to him. Hang up on him if he calls again. I’m going to get his number blocked, that son of a bitch.” Tears piled in Michael’s eyes and he lowered his face. His body trembled as he tried to keep it all inside. A wild anger coursed through Joshua’s body, animating him despite the fever. “Shut up!” he shouted. “Shut up about Dad! You think Tyler is better? He can’t even look at us! He’s a fucking retard!” His mother looked at him in pained astonishment for a long moment. Then she put her hand over her mouth and stifled a sob. Aghast, Michael launched himself at her, a terrified little missile. He wrapped his arms around her and buried his face in her chest. “It’s okay, Mom, it’s okay!” Joshua unfolded himself from the couch and walked down the hall to his room. His face was alight with shame and rage. He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know what to feel. He closed the door behind him, muffling the sounds of the others comforting each other. He threw himself onto his bed, pulling the pillow over his face. The only things he could hear now were the wooden groaning of the house as it shifted on its foundations, and the diminished sound of the blood pumping in his own head. • • • • Their father left right after the hurricane. He used to work on the oil rigs. He’d get on a helicopter and disappear for a few weeks, and money would show up in the bank account. Then he’d come home for a week, and they’d all have fun together. He’d fight with their mother sometimes, but he always went back out to sea before things had a chance to get bad. After the hurricane, all that work dried up. The rigs were compromised and the Gulf Coast oil industry knocked back on its heels. Dad was stranded in the house. Suddenly there was no work to stop the fighting. He moved to California shortly thereafter, saying he’d send for them when he found another job. A week later their mother told them the truth. Joshua still remembered the night of the storm. The four of them rode it out together in the house. It sounded like Hell itself had come unchained and was stalking the world right outside their window. But he felt safe inside. Even when the upper floor ripped away in a scream of metal and plaster and wood, revealing a black, twisting sky, he never felt like he was in any real danger. The unremarkable sky he’d always known had changed into something three dimensional and alive. It was like watching the world break open, exposing its secret heart. His father was crouched beside him. They stared at it together in amazement, grinning like a pair of blissed-out lunatics. • • • • Joshua heard a gentle rapping on his door. “I’m going to the store,” his mother said. “I’m gonna get something for your fever. Is there anything you want for dinner?” “I’m not hungry.” He waited for her car to pull out of the driveway before he swung his legs out of bed and tried to stand. He could do it as long as he kept one hand on the wall. He couldn’t believe how tired he was. His whole body felt cold, and he couldn’t feel his fingers. It was coming tonight. The certainty of it inspired no excitement, no joy, no fear. His body was too numb to feel anything. He just wanted it to happen so he could get past this miserable stage. He shuffled out of his room and down the hall. The vampire needed to feed on him once more, and he wanted to get down there before his mother got back. As he passed by his brother’s door, though, he stopped short. Somebody was whispering on the other side. He opened the door to find his little brother lying prone on the floor, half under the bed. Late afternoon shadows gathered in the corners. His face was a small moon in the dim light, one ear pressed to the hardwood. He was whispering urgently. “Michael?” His brother’s body jerked in alarm, and he sat up quickly, staring guiltily back. Joshua flipped the light switch on. “What are you doing?” Something cold was growing inside him. Michael shrugged. “Tell me!” “Talking to Daddy.” “No.” “He’s living under the house. He wants us to let him back in. I was afraid to because Mom might get mad at me.” “ . . . oh, Mikey.” His voice quavered. “That’s not Dad. That’s not Dad.” He found himself moving down the hall again, quickly now, fired with renewed energy. He felt like a passenger in his body: he experienced a mild curiosity as he saw himself rummaging through the kitchen drawer until he found the claw hammer his mother kept there; a sense of fearful anticipation as he pushed the front door open and stumbled down the porch steps in the failing light, not even pausing to gather his strength before he hooked the claw into the nearest latticework and wrenched it away from the wall in a long segment. “We had a deal!” he screamed, getting to work on another segment. “You son of a bitch! We had a deal!” He worked fast, alternately smashing wooden latticework to pieces and prying aluminum panels free from the house. “You lied to me! You lied!” Nails squealed as they were wrenched from their moorings. The sun was too low for the light to intrude beneath the house now, but tomorrow the vampire would find the crawlspace uninhabitable. He saw the vampire, once, just beneath the lip of the house. It said nothing, but its face tracked him as he worked. The sun was sliding down the sky, leaking its light into the ground and into the sea. Darkness swarmed from the east, spreading stars in its wake. Joshua hurried inside, dropping the hammer on the floor and collapsing onto the couch, utterly spent. A feeling of profound loss hovered somewhere on the edge of his awareness. He had turned his back on something, on some grand possibility. He knew the pain would come later. • • • • Soon his mother returned, and he took some of the medicine she’d bought for him, though he didn’t expect it to do any good. He made a cursory attempt to eat some of the pizza she’d brought too, but his appetite was gone. She sat beside him on the couch and brushed the hair away from his forehead. They watched some TV, and Joshua slipped in and out of sleep. At one point he stared through the window over the couch. The moon traced a glittering arc through the sky. Constellations rotated above him and the planets rolled through the heavens. He felt a yearning that nearly pulled him out of his body. He could see for billions of miles. • • • • At some point his mother roused him from the couch and guided him to his room. He cast a glance into Michael’s room when he passed it, and saw his brother fast asleep. “You know I love you, Josh,” his mother said at his door. He nodded. “I know Mom. I love you too.” His body was in agony. He was pretty sure he was going to die, but he was too tired to care. • • • • A scream woke him. The heavy sound of running footsteps, followed by a crash. Then silence. Joshua tried to rouse himself. He felt like he’d lost control of his body. His eyelids fluttered open. He saw his brother standing in the doorway, tears streaming down his face. “Oh no, Josh, oh no, oh no . . .” He lost consciousness. • • • • The next morning he was able to move again. The fever had broken sometime during the night; his sheets were soaked with sweat. He found his mother on the kitchen table. She had kicked some plates and silverware onto the floor in what had apparently been a brief struggle. Her head was hanging backward off the edge of the table, and she had been sloppily drained. Blood splashed the floor beneath her. Her eyes were open and glassy. His brother was suspended upside down in the living room, his feet tied with a belt to the ceiling fan, which had come partially free from its anchor. He’d been drained too. He was still wearing his pajamas. On the floor a few feet away from him, where it had fluttered to rest, was a welcome home card he had made for their father. The plywood covering the open stairwell had been wrenched free. The vampire stood on the top stair, looking into deep blue sky of early morning. Joshua stopped at the bottom stair, gazing up at it. Its burnt skin was covered in a clear coating of pus and lymphatic fluid, as its body started to heal. White masses filled its eye sockets like spiders’ eggs. Tufts of black hair stubbled its peeled head. “I waited for you,” the vampire said. Joshua’s lower lip trembled. He tried to say something but he couldn’t get his voice to work. The vampire extended a hand. “Come up here. The sun’s almost up.” Almost against his will, he ascended the stairs into the open air. The vampire wrapped its fingers around the back of his head and drew him close. Its lips grazed his neck. It touched its tongue to his skin. “Thank you for your family,” it said. “ . . . no . . .” It sank its teeth into Joshua’s neck and drew from him one more time. A gorgeous heat seeped through his body, and he found himself being lowered gently to the top of the stair. “It’s okay to be afraid,” the vampire said. His head rolled to one side; he looked over the area where the second story used to be. There was his old room. There was Michael’s. And that’s where his parents slept. Now it was all just open air. “This is my house now,” the vampire said, standing over him and surveying the land around them. “At least for a few more days.” It looked down at Joshua with its pale new eyes. “I’d appreciate it if you stayed out.” The vampire descended the stairs. A few minutes later, the sun came up, first as a pink stain, then as gash of light on the edge of the world. Joshua felt the heat rising in him again: a fierce, purging radiance starting from his belly and working rapidly outward. He smelled himself cooking, watched the smoke begin to pour out of him, crawling skyward. And then the day swung its heavy lid over the sky. The ground baked hard as an anvil in the heat, and the sun hammered the color out of everything.

From Horror photos & videos June 10, 2018 at 08:00PM

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