#ic ➽; i'm not too good at talking.

[hawksblooded]

↣ @sunmad

It’s a massacre.

Corpses split open like red fruits. Their insides spilled haphazardly, torn, uneaten. Two men, one woman. Adults, one middle-aged. Unidentifiable, their faces clawed to ribbons. Unarmed - no, a dagger on the floor, bright crimson, wrapped in slashed intestine. A sword at the older man’s side, still sheathed. Paw prints on the blood-soaked floor, a wolf’s but too large, too wide, tarsals too long. The werewolf struck fast and hard. They always do. 

The hunter kneels before the woman’s body and puts a finger down the gaping wound left by a tooth. About eight inches. A maw that could bite a torso clean in half. She walks through the scene carefully, amber eyes studying the splatters of blood and gut. Not self defense, not likely. Poor buggers mustn’tve seen it coming. The pain would have sprung from nowhere like an arrow. 

And a girl in the corner of the cabin, shivering, curled into herself. A slash at her bicep, fresh, not deep, from the color. Alizebeth walks to her slowly, careful to avoid the slippery gore that paints the small house black and pink.  Her hand is on the axe at her right hip, armor clinking with every step. It’s echo and the girl’s sobbing are the only reminders of life in the dusty gloom. A pathetic little thing, brown hair darkened with sweat, pale as death. So small in the carnage. But not a survivor. 

“You did that, didn’t you?”

[hawksblooded]

SHE DOESN’T FLINCH AT the sudden change in Soot’s demeanor, doesn’t bother to grace his anger with a rebuttal of her own. She supposes he’ll berate her for snooping, for daring to touch his belongings, and he does - she doesn’t care. It’s not like she rummaged through his pockets for it. That’s what he gets, she figures, for inviting someone of her interests into this half-workshop, half-inn room. A genuine interest in his craft is left behind to return a cold shoulder. Though her curiosity is left unsated, it seems she’ll have to keep her hands to herself for now. Her questions, too, given how ready to bite he looks. It impresses her, somewhat, his fearlessness; she’s taken him for a much more pathetic breed of man, and though one couldn’t call her happily surprised, still she finds some appreciative measure of his character in it.

Then his thumb brushes her hand and she freezes. Too often, she finds herself clueless as to what goes on in other people’s minds. Too often she’s confused by their reactions, their thoughts. This is different. Yes, he changes, dog to wolf to dog, in the span it takes for her heart to beat again. Surely anyone would be puzzled by such a stark change of attitude, as sudden as the thunder that strikes outside the dusty window. And for a man so seemingly possessive, he’s awfully eager with his own ashen hands. His black-stained touch is gentle. She cannot fathom it’s intent. Alizebeth glares at him with eyes that could cut the soul, but says nothing. 

Soot himself looks like he’s about to speak, and lightning briefly flashes on his gaunt features. It looks unsettlingly at home in his eyes, the stark blue light of it. The rickety building shakes with the strength of the storm. 

It seems they’re done here. Whether her new employer is truly ready or just eager to get her and her wandering hands out of his room is a question she only asks herself for a moment. She nods with an affirmative hum, rubbing soot and the smell of black powder off her hand as she leads him in turn out into the dusty hall, questions unasked and unanswered burning on her tongue.

Her own living quarters are positively bare by comparison. Her greatsword rests on the shoddy desk, the blade glinting blue in the faint light that streams through the window, the glass rent by a thin crack through which the wind howls. She fastens it to her back with practiced efficiency, tests the bandolier that holds it steady. Alizebeth travels light, like most Hawksblood hunters do. One cannot hope to catch up to the likes of wargs or gnolls with too much on their back. Weapons, some rations, a bedroll when she’s off on long journeys through rugged wilderness make for all she owns. The bed is neatly made, a traveling pack placed at its foot. She won’t need it, by the looks of things, but opens it to produce a package tightly bound in parchment. The hunter unwraps it to reveal a handful of herbs, carefully dried and pressed into thick wafers. She hands the man one, keeps two for herself. “To chew on,” she explains briefly. “Keeps you focused. Heightens the senses. " She eyes him up, his frail stature, his bent shoulders. "Three grams should do.” The package is left on the bed as she rummages further through the bag. Two vials of a clear, oil-like substance placed in the leather pouch at the small of her back, and finally a length of rope, hung at her side by her hunting knife. A necessary precaution, if they’re to fight water-dwellers.

The hunter stands before her employer, a picture of death’s harbinger. 

“ Anything else? ”

Perhaps Soot has already grown accustomed to the stony silence of the hunter, even in the meager few minutes that had passed since his coarse proposal and their exchanging of gold coins. Perhaps the unkempt man is simply too preoccupied with the time-honored task of quickly but thoroughly examining each tool or implement those stained hands of his unerringly find and stow away to notice the object of her attentions. Whatever the case may be, Soot stiffens at the sudden breaching of the quiet done by her question, long fingers nearly wrapped around one of those very same bombs but stilling as he spares the hunter a confused and somewhat irritated look.

"What?" Those flinty eyes narrow in then on his bomb held now in her hands, and nearly a dozen different emotions smash the relative stone of his gaze as they widen. Half of them are variations of alarm and concern, but by the furrow of his brow and the sudden set of his jaw he's chosen instead to grasp for the other, more incendiary feelings that likewise lurk there. "Reckon ya might've knew better, not pickin' up any old thing lyin' around. Maybe ya ain't half so keen as I figured." Oh, but there's a fire seemingly stoked now in Soot's belly, and it seems as though the staggering difference in both stature and temperament are no longer a matter of concern given the way in which he stomps over and bares his teeth up at her for another remark.

Then that now cutting gaze flickers from her expression to her calloused hands, to the scars lining them, and whatever he might have intended to fling at her face is extinguished on his tongue. A stained thumb brushes over a small burn just on the outside of a pointer finger as though without thought as those now calmer eyes trace the similar shapes fire-etched into her darker skin, and Soot lets a rattling breath slip from between his teeth with a weary sigh.

"Aye, I do. Though ya might've asked first." There's no true bite to the remark compared to the fangs he'd seemed keen to sink into her moments prior. His gaze settles on just how carefully she's holding the bomb, his nose twitches as though recognizing a familiar scent, and the already thinning thunderhead of hostility is snuffed out entirely in favor of surprise, then blatant curiosity alighting on his gaunt features. "Thought I were th'only one. Strange chance, meeting someone who knows their way 'round black powder'n fuses."

In the light of this recognition, in the loosening of a tension to his person that seemed almost a permanent fixture, it's plain he has more than a single question in return for the hunter regarding their shared craft. Yet whatever Soot might've asked is silenced by a rolling peal of thunder so fierce it shakes the tavern, and when he blinks and shakes his head that cool composure has once more slipped back firmly into place.

"Should get a move on." Carefully, carefully, Soot plucks the bomb from her hand and places it back onto the makeshift workbench he's turned a once dull table into. "Got what I needed. Reckon now we go'n fetch them things o'yours."

[septimusmoonlight]

You doing ok?

hi

[missholoska]

So, in Water Under the Bridge (the underswap take by Moonster) Goner Kid is swapped with Ralsei. Is that also the case in your Underswap take?

ooh I'm not familiar with that take but that's a cool swap :0

it's not one I'm using though; an idea I had pretty recently (haven't properly thought it through yet, it is just an idea right now) is that since I leave Gaster unswapped (because there's so little character to work with while Deltarune is incomplete, so until then I'm avoiding committing to any designs or headcanons for him) and most of the fun value events are in some way connected to Gaster, it'd probably make more sense to leave those unswapped too? aside from minor differences like referring to Undyne as the next Royal Scientist instead of Alphys, of course

in this case Goner Kid would remain unchanged, which I like more than making a Goner version of Asriel just for the sake of it when I don't have any inspiration to do so. plus if Temmie had access to some of those events during their resets, the thought of them potentially having encountered Goner Kid is fun :] (for me. incredibly not fun for them)

[icewindandboringhorror]

Recent misc pictures

[hawksblooded]

Alone. Alizebeth is never alone. The dead follow her, cling to her broad back like shadows; those she couldn’t save in time, those she killed with her own hands. Theirs, long and skeletal, dig into her shoulders and drag through her night-sky hair. She is shrouded always in their cold embrace. The dead do not weigh her down. The dead make her strong. Could Anri understand this, sorrow-filled girl, who yet has tears to shed, too soft for the world that birthed her? The hunter doubts it.

So when she hears the metallic sound of the knight’s fidgeting, the trembling in her crystalline voice, Alizebeth feels a pang of remorse. She should have known, should have spoken more carefully, should have pretended to a concern that she didn’t believe was really there. She has always struggled to evoke her feelings, and often their untangling in her mind seemed an impossible task. Humans, in all their myriad ways, their hurts, their fleeting humors are strangers to her as though she were of a fully other species. So she had kept to herself, lonesome thing grown wild in the wilderness. 

She doesn’t know what to make of it, Anri’s pained plea, and so she thinks of what her sister may have done. Tender Natalia, with her spring-song voice, her soft eyes. She digs for memories of childhood like arrowheads from old wounds. 

Alizebeth sighs. She places her damaged axe with care in its holster at her left side, gets up with a groan to turn and face the knight. Even through the steel that conceals her she thinks she can see her pretty face darkened with sorrow. With easily betrayed hesitation her arm raises around Anri, tentatively brings her into unsure embrace.

“You are a fool to care.”

A beautiful, strong fool. To shed such precious tears for someone like her seems like sacrilege. Anri’s helmet presses into the hunter’s breastplate. Though the gesture is shy, it is not unwilling. In terrifying truth Alizebeth finds that she, too, cares for the knight. That is in part why she left alone this morning. She always finds it easier to settle her thoughts on her own, in the lonesome where she feels at ease. How could she know it would wreak such turmoil in her companion? She, who saw friendships as temporary alliances, who knew too well the impermanence of relationships and chose to sever herself from them. But of course, Anri was right. She wasn’t protecting herself, not just - the armor of the recluse keeps her from pain, but also from joy.

“It's what makes you strong. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’m not too good at talking,” Alizebeth whispers. A long inhale as she wrings the words from her throat, those rarely spoken words held back by their weight. “I… I’m sorry, Anri.”

⚘ @hawksblooded // cont.

Oh, but the words cut like sharp-edged stones, knocking the wind from her like the blunt end of a hammer.  Her gaze fell, a bluebird struck from the sky, to land on the churned dirt at her feet.  Bone ash and detritus of their long, brutal journey clung to her boots.  Childish.  The accusation lingered, a dead-eyed spectre, a paring knife in her side.  She could not say what stung more – the scorn veiled in the word, or the cold indifference of its delivery.  Both burned like fever.

Her hand tightened reflexively on the handle of her sword.  Its worn leather grip had steadied her through unspeakable horrors, serving as a reminder of purpose, of duty.  It should have been enough to anchor her now, but her chest ached with something not so easily assuaged.

Perhaps there was truth in Alizebeth’s rebuke.  Anri was a woman sprung from an arrested girlhood, still alight with dreams too delicate and fanciful for this ruinous world – they pricked her eyes like starlight, like the tears that now pooled and burned.

Horace had never given her grief like this.  Horace, who had moved through the world with quiet constancy, whose silent presence had long been her only solace.  Horace, who had been lost to these winding tunnels, with their pockets of bones, housing dead that never rested.  This ghastly place had swallowed him whole, and might yet be ravenous. 

Tear-heavy eyes trained themselves on Alizebeth, the hunter hunched over her axe as though it were a wounded creature in need of her care.  Comfort offered to a weapon over a person, her words barbed and delivered like a swift kick, but Anri could not blame her. 

“I know,” she murmured, her voice wet, her sadness palpable even when her skull – her sorrow-sick face – was encased in steel.  “But surely we are stronger together?”

Her supplication hung itself on the dust-choked air, fragile as spun sugar.  Anri stepped closer, cautiously closing the distance, as if physical proximity might breach the chasm she felt had opened between them.  She hesitated before speaking again, breath catching as she tried to steady the swell of emotions that swirled in her chest, fighting to keep them from surging into her throat.

“I feared for you,” she said at last, quietly, fervently.  “I awoke to find you gone, and my heart knew no peace until I found you again.  You can call it childish if you wish, but I will not stop caring.  I cannot.  If that makes me a fool, then so be it.”

Anri let her hands fall to her sides, gauntleted fingers brushing against the mail at her hips, her heart straining against her ribs.  Alizebeth’s solitude was laid bare before her now – a shield and a weight, armour that protected even as it imprisoned.  Closer still, her presence deliberate, her voice softened to a final plea:

“Do you so badly wish to be alone?”

[hekateinhell]

caught in between being desperate to have time to write fic and also doing my best to navigate adult responsibilities which this week alone look like: an assignment due, a lawyer meeting (everything is fine I just had some questions about stuff), an interview, and my bestie about to go into labor at quite literally any second and I have to be Available

[goblin-enjoyer]

I swear why are half the things i like/fandoms im in made of mostly younger people while the other half are mostly older people? what are the zoggin odds with that?

How it feels being 20 in a fandom with a bunch of 30-40 somethings.

VS how it feels being 20 in a fandom with a bunch of 14-17 somethings.

like am do i just have extremely odd luck with things i like or is this just what being 20 is like?

[einstetic]

i'm not tired, i'm exhausted

[cttncndyhrt]

Too shy to come off anon despite us literally being mutuals lmao

My character is 5'6. He's so short. But god if he's not still the cockiest thing in the world despite being way under 6'0.

"Well you still look pretty tall from where I'm standing!"

[byanyan]

ㅤat this point, they're beyond wasted and vibing out to music that's too loud with several substances on standby for when the buzz starts wearing off. happy new year!!

[hawksblooded]

"Gonna pull them stitches, keep movin' like that." He doesn't need to look up from sharpening one of her knives to know Liz is getting restless, what with their having been cooped up here now a few days longer than intended. A nasty, unwelcome combination of a gnoll's bite getting in through her shoulder and the local lord dragging his feet on coughing up her well earned coin for the pack's slaying meant cooling their heels inside for yet another muggy, rain-soaked evening. Propped up on the floor against the rickety bedrame, Sam admires the glint of the short blade's edge in the candlelight before sheathing it and leaning back with a tired huff. Glancing her way means seeing the set of her jaw against pain and mounting irritation, and he doesn't resist the urge to take her calloused hand into his own. Long, nimble fingers trace the small nicks and scrapes etched into her own fingers, trails of fine soot from his endeavors likewise ingrained into his skin left streaking her skin. "Should try'n sleep. Don't mind keepin' an eye on things." Here, with just the two of them behind closed doors, there's no need to resist the urge of interlacing his fingers in hers or to refrain from pressing a kiss or two against her palm.

Just a few more days, she tells herself. A few more days of endless pacing, of pain uneasy and unforgettable in idleness. Alizebeth has ruminated, cursed and befouled the name of the county’s lord a hundred times over. She has walked the length of their room like a caged animal, aching to feel grass under her boots, the wind on her scarred face. This kind of inertia does not befit her. The hunter is restless, agitation welling in her like a camp’s fire. She longs for the hunt.

But then Sam takes her hand, so gently. “Should try'n sleep. Don't mind keepin' an eye on things.” He takes it in his own without hesitation, without preamble, and dares to speak of her of sleep. She stares into his stormy eyes, hers razor-thin, gold-bright within the dark circles that always bruise them. Sleep, when everything in her body is begging for adrenaline, for the rush of battle, for an exertion that would at last help her forget the dull pain of torn muscle, silence the ceaseless onslaught of thoughts that overcomes her when she finds herself away from the wilds as if in dormancy. Yes, she wants to run, to fight, to feel her heart beat furiously, to feel her blood boil. 

She lays down behind him on the bed with a deep exhale that betrays her irritation as their fingers entwine, her strong arm wrapped about his shoulder. Her own aches terribly where the wretched coyote-thing had bitten her, hot with the remnants of infection. The slavering bites of these scavengers, hellish beasts bloated with the decayed flesh of men, count among those she fears most, and for good reason. In their bloodlust, gnolls go as far as to shatter their own jaws and beaks on the bones of their prey, and though being torn apart by the pack was a fate worse than death, rare survivors fared little better, as the wounds festered with a terrifying quickness. Though the pack had been small, the creatures still in the infancy of their loathsome curse, still one had managed to get its jaws around her shoulder. It was only through sheer instinct that she turned in time for that wicked maw not to close on her neck. She curses these monsters. She curses herself. She curses the local lord, too, for good measure, that equally bloated and greedy man that still wouldn’t give them their due.

Absentmindedly, she rests her head against the fisherman’s back, huffing in displeasure. Sam is right. She will need rest if she does not want the rot to take hold, rest and the attentions of a proper physician. There would be no such luxuries on the road where she longs to return. And so, reluctantly, she will do as he says. Her warm breathing at the nape of his neck slows as he kisses the palm of her now soot-stained hand. “Fine.” Alizebeth’s voice is sadly resolute, quiet as she shifts just enough to look at their entwined digits, at his lithe and skillful hands. She’ll stay in their room, in bed, an arm around him, face buried in the crook of his neck. Because she trusts that he’ll take care of everything. Because it’s him, asking. 

“Don’t think I can sleep. But I’ll stay here.” As long as you’re with me. She doesn’t say it. He must know that she does this for him. For whom else would she fight her very nature and lay down, obedient and vulnerable, and let herself be tended to? Another sigh escapes the hunter as she nuzzles Sam’s blonde hair. She is all scolded dog, all sad whines and reluctant indolence. But despite it all, she realizes - despite her aching for battle, despite her pain, despite her impatience - she is happy. Happy to be taken care of so gently, so tenderly, to be loved in a way she had long thought impossible. Happy to just be, in this small moment, with no one else but him, to breathe in his scent and feel his body, hold his hands. She finds that where once solitude had been her greatest solace, now being separated from him would tear at her more readily than any gnoll-beast’s fangs. She loves him, so much that it makes her afraid. Her scarred hand squeezes around his’. Where she has cursed every god, now she prays: let this moment never end. For this, for him, the wilds can wait.

“Tell me a story. Anything, just... stay a while longer.” Her lips brush against the tender skin below Sam's ear as she cranes her neck, leaning into him. “Please.”

[tj-crochets]

Crafting update: I did not craft anything sewn, knitted, crocheted, or embroidered today, but I did make dulce de leche! 

[hawksblooded]

The water is soothing in it’s frigidity, like Anri had said. Her dearest Mara was laid dutifully down on the shore, ears perked to the noises of the wind in the reeds, and the women speaking. Her tail wags gently as she takes in the sun. Still, this was the wilderness - at once somewhere Alizebeth felt at home, and somewhere she knew she was not. Amber eyes flit from the bank to the horizon, and her body insists on a certain tension of the muscles that she can only try to shake. The quick movement of a crawfish beneath the clear waves is enough to make her flinch.

She sighs, crouching down in the water and submerging her head for a moment, dutifully holding in the gasp that came with the cold. Alizebeth pats the riverbed with a wide hand, finds herself a suitably soft stone and sits down upon it, long limbs folded into herself. Without cease her gaze moves from Anri to the shore, to the reeds, to the tall oaks that border the river. Though she is tuned to the sounds of danger always, this time she begins to think maybe the knight is right, and nothing will reach them here but the rays of the sun and the song of birds. It is as though they have wandered in the fey realm, and are not mortal women but -

Alizebeth furrows her brow as water is splashed towards her. A heavy sigh as she sinks herself further into the river, bending her broad back. Her face only resurges to glare disapprovingly at Anri with a shake of her head.

“ Water sprites? Nokken, more like. ”

Really, the knight is too old to believe in such fairy tales. The hunter has never seen any river-women grant wishes, unless one wished for a swift death under the waves. But she can’t bring herself to say that. She sighs again and busies herself with rinsing her scalp. Specks of dirt and dried beast blood run down the clear river. Everywhere she goes Alizebeth brings the hallmarks of death and violence - even here, in this small idyll, this moment that could be a space, with the gentle knight she had for companion.

She looks up at Anri, skin colored rosy with cold, her blonde hair as bright as the sun. Maybe if she looked like that - like an escaped princess, or a pagan druidess - and hadn’t seen the things she had seen, she would believe in fairy tales too. She can’t help but wonder how that innocent girl has made it so far. In truth, she knows Anri’s skills are notable, has seen her fight, if briefly; can tell from the care she put into her armor and arms that she is no novice to the arts of war she herself has grown up with. But like this, bared to the sky and reveling in nature and the sunlight, she looks as though she has never even thought of the thing. As if she is to be protected, and loved, and not left to train with sharp things and wander with the rough, crude kind of the hunter’s. They had always made a strange looking pair, and beneath their armors they looked like they came from entirely different worlds. Perhaps they did.

Alizebeth speaks plainly, wide shoulders rolling as she unfolds herself to rest one elbow on the shallow riverbed: “ Play with the dog, if you must. I’m sure she’d like the attention. ”

⚘ @hawksblooded // cont.

Alizebeth was a figure cut from fairy-tale pages. A beach pebble polished by years of wind and wave, a dryad sprung from mossy, vine-riddled cracks. Weathered in beautiful ways, her roots ran deep into the soft belly of the earth, her flint tongue fluent in the language of seasons and storms and shifting light. Even her hound – a lithe, long-limbed creature of cream and shadow – seemed understood on some primal, unspoken level.

It was a beautiful exchange, Anri thought, even as unease curled like smoke in the corners of her mind. Once, she had seen a similar beast shake a small child dead, had watched in dark-eyed terror as its squabbling pack pulled him apart like a hare. Ever since, she had doubted even the most obedient of velvety, black-lipped maws.

But this was no space for old horrors. Not today, not here. Not while the sun was warm on their backs, the sky stretching bright and endless. Not while the river ran clear and cold, minnows darting around her knees in open-mouthed streaks of quicksilver.

Despite the unwelcome memories, despite Alizebeth’s grumbling participation, Anri smiled warmly. Hurt recognised hurt, and she wondered if, beneath the hunter’s brittle words and bristling weaponry, there was something raw – a bruised and tender spot, one wreathed in broken glass and steel-tipped pikes. Knowing that some wounds were best nursed in secret, healing only in the dark, she dared not ask.

Instead, she waded deeper, careful not to wander so far as to be snatched by the current. Mountain-birthed water rose, pressing frigid kisses to her thighs, then her waist, stealing the heat from her skin in a stinging rush that shocked the ache of travel from her bones. It was bracing and joyous – but Alizebeth moved as though the river might rise up and devour her whole. Restless hunter eyes trailed over the sodden stoop of the banks, cutting through curtains of reeds, ever cautious and wary.

“Perhaps,” Anri said softly, her voice lilting with its gentle cadence. “But even the diligent must rest – and play.”

With those words, she cupped her hands and splashed water toward Alizebeth, intending to draw her companion’s attention away from imagined dangers.

“Let the river bear the weight of your burdens for a time, hm?”

Anri was still smiling as she worked with wet fingers to remove her hair pins, honeyed waves tumbling from fraying plaits, kinked with the memory of their bondage. Pale, dappled light played across the damp-dark hair that fell to the tundra between her shoulder blades, across the rose-tipped breasts that perked with the cold. Among her own sex, there was little room for shame. The young acolytes of the cathedral had bathed and dressed together, flinching as a flock when the man-eating saint lunged. Her childhood had been one of crowded dormitories and wishful whispers, escape found only in dazzling flights of fancy. Unfortunately for Alizebeth, old habits died hard.

“I think we should stay here, you and I,” Anri continued gently, her cornflower eyes bright with a quiet, girlish mischief that she was sure her companion had already come to dread. “We can live as water sprites and grant wishes to weary travellers.”

[the-acid-pear]

Ohh babeyyy the loquats in my tree are turning green already ya know September 1 imma be sucking those outta da branch like a newborn sucks milk outta da titty ‼️

[cuntwrap--supreme]

Lol. Lmao even.