#if i take mercy on my gums my teeth suffer and if i take my teeth to school my gums hurty

[featherymainffins]

How is a person supposed to feel mentally well when the only constant is pain

[thesandsofelsweyr]

(Whumpy) WIP Wednesday

Here are 3 snippets from some stories I'm working on. If you see this post, consider yourself tagged (and be sure to tag me if you share your WIPs!)

From Chapter 3 of The Climb (ao3):

Jason stops dead, paralyzed by the fear that cuts through him like the Clown’s scalpel. That wasn’t the voice of another ghost. That was real. He’d been so lost in his delusions that he hadn’t heard the makeshift trap door creak open or the heavy boot-steps descending the unfinished concrete staircase, approaching him. The ringing in his ears grows louder, and his head hurts so much that he thinks he’s gonna pass out. Two bright beams of light pierce the darkness, falling on him, illuminating him like a deer in headlights, knocking the wind out of him like a punch to the gut.

“No…” His whimper catches in his throat. Any courage he had regained from facing certain death was sucked out of him and terror bubbled up in its place. How could he have been so careless? This is why I was left here to rot. This is why I was replaced. He should’ve known the Clown would never let him creep through these halls unprotected. He’d never let his prized plaything slip from his grip. You fucking dumbass. His partner would make him suffer for this.

He throws up a scrawny arm over his face to shield his stinging eyes from the flashlights that are pointed at him. His heart is galloping in his chest, racing toward that trap door that is now blocked by the pair of shadowy figures. He tightens his grip on the wall to keep himself from collapsing and begging these flesh-and-blood specters for mercy.

A really rough excerpt from probably the worst / most twisted moment of Jay's torture at the hands of Joker 🤡 (part of my Ruined series):

(cw: torture for the two snippets under the cut)

“Really, Jason. All this fuss over an ice pack?”

“Oh, the hammer? (chuckles) I just wanted to see your face.”

“Now you hold that there. Good. And let’s get these back on.”

“It’s ok, buddy. Your punishment is over. All is forgiven.”

“Calm down, little bird. Deep breaths. (Inhale , exhale.) Good. That’s my good boy.”

Strokes his sweat-soaked hair. 

“Kill me,” Jason begs through tears, through clenched teeth. “Kill me. Please. Sir. Kill me.”

“Nonsense. We still have work to do, partner.”

“Please,” he sobs, defeated. Can barely get the words out thru his clenched broken teeth. “It hurts so much.” (In a tiny voice)

“You’ll feel better soon, I promise. I’ll even let you rest for a few days before we resume our training. You’ll feel as good as new.”

He just sobs. There is nothing he can do or say. 

After the Clown leaves him: (eerie silence, like a tomb. Never felt so alone in his entire life.)

“Why?” He asks the man who he thought was his father. Sobs. “Why? It hurts. Please. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

From a ficlet tentatively titled "An Apple a Day" (another part of my Ruined series):

When the pliers clamp down around his front tooth, Jason shatters.

“Thank you sir! THANK YOU SIR!” he screams, a blood-sputtering scream, his words slurring around the cold, pitiless metal that’s shoved into his pried-open jaws. He prays that’s enough as he shakes like a puppy on the fourth of July. He gave the psycho what he wanted—he called the man “sir,” like some fucked up sex roleplay. 

Joker has been punishing him for running his mouth. Again. For laughing in his pasty white face when the Party City Clown informed him that he’d be calling the man “sir” from now on. “You can take your ‘sir’ and shove it up your fucking ass,” were his exact words. The old Jason may not have regretted those words. That boy probably would’ve thought this agony was worth it. But that boy’s gone now; murdered by a photo. Batman had bitched at him many times for running his mouth while on patrol. Probably yet another reason why Batman picked a new kid for the job, why the old, rejected kid now has eight throbbing holes in his swollen gums.

Warm, coppery blood dribbles from the corners of his mouth, coating his busted lower lip in crimson gore. His breath’s coming in frantic pants, on the edge of hyperventilating. His armored chest full of broken ribs heaves beneath the heavy braided ropes that bind him to the wooden chair, ropes that squeeze his lungs like a giant’s fist. Nailless fingers dig into the material of his gloved palms as he balls his fists behind his back. No more, he silently prays yet another useless prayer as tears roll down his scarred cheeks. Please no more…

He’s a dumbass for holding out so long. Ten teeth—at least—gone from his mouth now. Two from the fucking crowbar, eight from the Clown’s pliers. And for what? To impress the man who’d left him here to rot? The man he considered his father; his partner who picked a new kid rather than bother finding the old one.

The gloved fist twisted into his matted black hair tightens, tearing at his scalp, and wrenches his head back even further. “Be more specific,” Joker says casually, as if they were discussing the weather over a cup of coffee and not the eight bloody teeth scattered on the table in front of him.

“Thank you for…” His mind races in circles, groping through the immense pain for the right words. (through the pain that shattered his thoughts)

“I think the patient needs another extraction, Dr. J.”

Joker sighs. “Excellent diagnosis, Nurse.”

[nauseanotes]

the cigarettes i bought last march

twenty IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII

i cry, i rage and riot

i resent your eyelashes and listless eyes

i buy my first pack of cigarettes

the wind picks up and huffs through the embers

and puffs and puff

the long drag cut short

i picture revenge

the image comes out blurred

red

sticks disappear but the stake stays stuck

somewhere stiff

i stagger and

the story sours

twelve IIIII IIIII II

doors haunt me now

and their spaces within

detest and disgust

i wish they didn’t slam

i wish they held their sounds

i wish we weren’t a song at its curdling bridge

i wish for one last perfected cadence

hinge kissing hinge

a goodbye i don’t have to cry for

or write about

and write

and cry

eight IIIII III

you came back from new york with him

i come back from the back fridge

and i sip, spit, smoke

and suppose that

all miracles are to be feared

five IIIII

it’s almost march again and

you’re still a spectator of my story

you’re still a mile away

a line to go

a meter from my lips

light finds light

i find

i move beside myself these days

i wash my gums, teeth, lips,

and finally my hands

that cupped the burning flames and

dying embers same

tenderly, like a child

reverently, like a corpse

i wait to march

three III

a crowd peers on

and yet i ask:

look at me first!

i beg of you.

of all the things you’d become

it had to be a warlord

for me to crack the spine down the middle

and find his title scrawled laterally

the last cursive consonant

scratched, pulled

down the joint, past the abyss

i try not to feed the fanfare of my misery

which is to say

i won’t wait on it’s sequel

which is to say

i pinch the cigarette tighter this time

it has aged a year, i know this, for i remember a time when i coughed out the tar and grief from my lungs

before i learned the sweet satisfaction

of holding in

this penultimate enemy — to be exact:

the final three is

a crowd in silence, a bated breath you can

feel that ecstasy in

the closing space between palms

his little cry bellowing out amidst the applause

do you hear my hunger?

does it burn through your marrow?

i take a long drag

two II

how disgusting it is,

my endurance

this perpetuity when all i want is to

perish

in that world without you

where the smoke ebbs and flows

and i wait for my own blood to swallow me

it takes me two tastes for

my lips recall the scent —

you called me your honey once

and i spent a year wondering why

the ants linger.

one I

i implore:

pour me something stronger

the gravel grates below my tongue

something viscous rises behind

ruin and ransom would not suffice

i’d shoot the sun out of the sky

to feel justice again

to dive into the ocean

instead of digging into wave

after wave

and reconcile these

moving parts of different mettle

and finally find that point

until when i will call treason upon your name

until when i will admit i am a renegade myself

zero _

my love

my One,

i fear what i keep for you

folded within the pleats of this heart

behind the fond cotton

below the fickle stains

is a humming deft blow

it bears your name with

no address

a stamp adhered with

bile and tears

a spell of nothingness

belted in,

that i can only hope

you’ll be too quick to suffer 

that i can only pray

my mercy is strong enough to temper

my promise is this:

i will try to undo the years of steeling myself

until i look in the mirror

and recognise

the weapon that stares back

[whump-tr0pes]

WIJ: Hope

Content warning: food and water deprivation (self-inflicted), internal dehumanization, ‘it’ as a pronoun, theoretical broken bones, misunderstanding whump, metaphor of animals being hurt, thoughts of death, knives, past torture

~

The demon didn’t know how long it had been hiding at the bottom of the closet. Its bones ached from lying in a ball for so long. Its throat felt hot and raw, a familiar burn that it thought could mean it had gone without water for three or four days. Its hips were bruised where they had pressed into the hard floor, shifting endlessly, trying to find a position that hurt the least.

Truly, this was nothing. Sleeping on a cold, hard floor was nothing compared to what waited for it if it left the closet.

It had attacked a virtue. A virtue. It had snapped its vicious teeth at her hand and growled like an animal at her. It had tried to hurt a virtue. It knew that it deserved whatever punishment came to it. It knew that. But still, some small part of it wished it had chosen a hiding spot with windows, so it could have crawled through, perhaps dropped from the roof and broken a leg, crawled away to a dark hole somewhere and tried to mend itself before it was caught again.

It was better that it stayed. It deserved the punishment. But it could not bring itself to leave the closet to face it. The very thought of it made the creature’s gut go cold with terror.

There was the creak of a floorboard, out in the hall. The creature gasped and shifted against the floor, eyes wide in the dark, pupils huge and round and reflective. Its gums pricked and its mouth watered. Its neck strained and it caught the tail end of a conversation.

“…can’t keep doing this,” a woman’s voice sad.

Not a woman. Dara. The virtue the creature had attacked. Footsteps shifted against the floorboards.

The creature’s throat made a high-pitched whine, even as it shoved its hands over its mouth in a desperate attempt to be quiet. It curled tighter into itself and shivered against the floor. Tears pooled in its eyes and slid down its nose, smelling faintly of sulfur.

“But… Dara, wait…”

Ilya. Ilya’s voice. The creature bit down hard on its lip. Its stomach flipped and its heart ached. Of course they would take part. Of course. Of course.

The door to its bedroom creaked open. The creature’s whine only grew louder, higher, more desperate. The sounds it was making didn’t sound human.

It wasn’t human, and it must never, never forget.

“Dara,” Ilya said, their voice murmured behind the closet door. “Don’t… you’ll scare it…”

“Yeah, well,” Dara grumbled. The creature could smell the ozone coming off her from here. “It needs to learn.” The closet door swung open.

The creature flinched back so hard it banged its head against the wall behind it. It was no longer whining, but nearly shrieking, sounding like a dog being torn apart. It held out its hands in front of it, light filtering through the bent and broken fingers, eyes burning at the sight of the shining angel standing over it.

Mercy. Mercy.

“Ilya. Call it,” Dara murmured.

Ilya stepped out from behind Dara with a look of disgust on their face. The creature looked helplessly to them, eyes pleading, desperate. “It’s not a dog, Dara,” they said, crossing their arms over their chest. “I can’t just—”

Dara clenched her jaw. “Just… get it out here. Please. I don’t want it suffering like this.”

The creature squeezed its eyes shut. It had wondered when the others would kill it. It could almost feel grateful that it was time. No more pain. It would not return. It would not exist, not if they did it right. But she didn’t say exorcise. She didn’t say send it back.

She must mean kill.

The creature’s shrieks quieted and it pressed its forehead against the floor. Terror left it empty and shivering. It waited for Ilya’s call.

There was a shift, a slight change in the air. “Hey,” Ilya said softly, their voice closer to the ground now. “I don’t know your name, but… can you come here? Dara… she won’t hurt you.” The creature opened its eyes and looked out at Ilya. They were crouched in front of the closet, hand held out, empty. “She won’t hurt you.”

That was the best the demon could hope for: a quick and painless death. It whimpered as it struggled to its hands and knees, then crawled across the floor to Ilya’s side. It slumped to the floor at their feet and lay still, tears streaming, waiting for the final flash of pain, the nothing after.

Gentle fingers landed in the creature’s hair. It sobbed weakly, reaching out one hand, fingers splayed against the wood. Ilya was so kind. They were so kind.

“Hey,” Dara croaked. The creature flinched. “Hey, de— can you sit up, please?”

The creature nodded, not even considering disobeying. Its arms shook under it as it pushed itself upright, shuffled onto its knees in front of them both. It tilted its head back and forced itself to meet the virtue’s gaze. Her eyes glittered oddly, and she slowly sank to a crouch in front of it. Then she shifted onto her knees.

That wasn’t right.

“I need you to look at me,” she murmured, her golden-brown eyes hypnotic, entrancing. “Look at me, and trust me. I won’t hurt you.”

The creature swallowed hard, and obeyed. It held the virtue’s gaze, even as it wanted to shift its eyes away and cower at her feet. She was beautiful, devastating, unearthly… but it wanted to be looking at Ilya. It wanted to be looking at Ilya when it died.

As Dara brought her hand to her hip, the creature realized for the first time that she was wearing brown leather gloves – and the creature flinched back, frozen at the sight of the knife at her belt. Its voice broke as it started to whine softly again.

“No, shhh,” Dara murmured as she drew the knife. “I told you, I’m not going to hurt you. I keep my word. I’m not going to hurt you.”

The creature couldn’t tear its eyes away from the angel’s knife. It shimmered oddly in the light, seeming to give off a glow of its own. The blade itself was wickedly sharp. The creature knew – oh, it knew – that the blade was only a few atoms wide at its sharpest edge, capable of slicing through skin and flesh and sinew with a flick of the wrist. It knew.

At least its death would be quick.

“Hey,” Ilya soothed, reaching out and cupping the creature’s cheek. It blinked tears out of its eyes and pushed into the touch, finally bringing its gaze to Ilya’s. “She promised. She won’t hurt you. We don’t… d-do that here.” Ilya’s voice hitched. Their eyes swam with tears.

Out of the corner of the creature’s eye, the angel shifted. It flinched as her hand closed around its wrist, and cried out as she wrapped its hand around her knife – and forced the edge against her own throat.

The creature keened softly, trying desperately to yank its hand away so the blade would not be at the virtue’s throat. It was holding – the virtue was forcing it to hold the knife to her throat. It let out a shriek of distress, knowing somehow that this would only make the punishment worse.

It never wanted to hurt anyone. It never wanted to hurt the angel. It only wanted to protect its friend.

Through the ringing in the creature’s ears, it realized the angel was talking. “…listen to me, demon,” she said. “Be still. Listen.”

Its mouth was pulled wide with terror, eyes running tears as it scrabbled against the floor, desperate to pull away.

“Be still and listen, demon,” she commanded. The room shook with the brassy sound of trumpets, shuddering around the demon like an earthquake. It instantly went still, its eyes wide and staring right at her.

She wet her lips, and for the briefest moment, the creature swore she was trembling.

“I am not afraid of you,” she murmured, holding its gaze. It was powerless to look away. “I am not angry for what you did. I understand. I understand it was a mistake, and I understand why you reacted the way you did. You’ve been hurt. You’ve been wounded, demon. And I…” She took a slow breath in, blew it out between her lips. “I am sorry for that. My b-brethren should never have—”

She clenched her jaw shut, eyes blazing. Her hand felt warm, then hot against the demon’s skin. It whimpered softly, watching the blade tremble at her throat.

She blew out another slow breath and continued. “But you do not have to fear punishment in this house. Not ever. Not from Ilya. Not from their parents. Not from Evangeline. Not from me. Do you understand?”

It blinked, searching her face, looking for a sign that this was a test. A lie. Its dry throat clicked as it swallowed hard. It saw only light in her face. Only truth. It nodded slowly, trembling with disbelief.

“Good,” she huffed. She released its hand and tucked the knife back into the sheath at her belt. In one graceful movement, she got to her feet.

The creature shivered and looked to Ilya. They reached out and took the demon’s hand, fingers gently squeezing. It blinked and made a questioning sound.

Ilya lurched forward and pulled the creature into a hug. It melted into the embrace and sagged against its—

Its friend.

“Why don’t you come downstairs?” Dara murmured, holding out a hand towards the demon. “We’ve got lunch made. Let’s get you some food and water.”

The creature’s stomach rumbled. Ilya released it from their embrace and slowly, hesitantly, it took the virtue’s hand. The leather was so soft, and shielded it from the burn it knew her touch could bring. Her dark eyes were softened a smile.

The creature barely dared to hope as it looked to Ilya. Ilya – its friend – smiled at it, so wide that their eyes crinkled at the corners and their cheeks dimpled. They wound their arm around the demon’s waist and took its weight as the three of them headed downstairs. The creature’s head swam, near-delirious, as it leaned on its friend. It wasn’t bleeding. It wasn’t tied down, screaming, forced to confess its every sin.

It was free. It was breathing.

Maybe it was safe.

@whumpmasinjuly

[whumping-every-day]

oh fuck! that’s a tasty mental image 😋 ash clumsily, painstakingly, bandaging up callum & easing his pain as much as possible cause he can’t bear to see callum suffer but fully aware that there’s gonna be Consequences for disobeying callum’s explicit fear of his teeth. whatever you do, don’t imagine ash putting the muzzle on HIMSELF so callum groggily enters cell next day & ash immediately kneels at his feet, shaking, head touching stone, hands stretched flat at callum’s boots, anxious mess 😈

hhhHHHHHHH dude. Buddy. My pal. It is not often someone gives me whumperflies with my own characters. So, congratulations!!! This idea swept in and took me for everything I had. 

Warning for needles/stitches/blood/mild gore up ahead! It should also be noted, for those who haven’t followed the last few exchanges, that vampire venom in this universe (from a young vampire) doesn’t turn people, but has pain-numbing qualities! 

-

His hands are covered in blood. There are tears in Ash’s eyes, and an itching in his gums, as he tries again to get the needle through the hunter’s skin. Callum has stopped screaming; now he’s limp, ashen pale as Ash’s clumsy fingers grip the needle.

The hunter is lying on the cot in his room, the third of four renovated cells. Golden hair sticks to Callum’s cheeks and forehead as Ash works. It’s worse like this, when the human is limp and unconscious, because at least when he was conscious and hurting he could tell Ash what to do. 

“C-Callum?” Ash tries again, but there’s no answer, and the next time he blinks tears slip down his cheeks. “Callum, I’m, I’m s-sorry, I don’t - I don’t know how to do this-”  

He’s never given stitches before, only seen Callum do them himself. 

It’s more serious this time, Ash could tell that even without his nose informing him of just how much blood the human has lost. There’s so much of it, and with every second Ash wastes, more comes seeping out.

The panic is there, hot and tight behind his eyes. It’s like a weight, physically pressing down on him - the urge to crumple to the ground and curl up and sob. Callum has always been larger than life to him; a pillar of strength and stability. Whenever Ash is frightened, or hurting, he could come to Calluma and Callum would fix it. But this time it’s Callum on the table. This time, if Ash panics, Callum will die. 

The vampire’s hands are shaking, and every inch of him is terrified. But he grips the needle tighter, and reaches down to pull the edges of torn flesh together. 

The wound is a nasty one. It looks like talons, as far as Ash can tell; four long, wicked gashes with ragged edges and a messy finish. There’s a patch of flesh that’s been gouged out, hanging by a thread of sinew, and Ash retches as he carefully snips it away. He’s stitched the first of the four gashes, but the other three are considerably deeper. 

Callum wakes just as Ash is pouring alcohol over the crude line of stitches. It’s not a scream he lets out so much as a roar, loud enough to rattle the tiny cell, and to have Ash habitually scrambling out of range. But the hunter slumps back against the cot a moment later, and Ash watches with his heart pounding in his ears. 

Callum’s torso is already full of scars, although most of them are hidden under the new outpouring of blood. Even so, there are many; silver-white and rippled, in the shape of claws and teeth and violence. Ash presses the sopping red cloth against the last three gashes, and Callum moans, eyes moving listlessly behind half-closed lids. 

“Callum?” Ash tries again, but there’s still no response. The vampire whines softly, fearfully, and it’s distinctly inhuman. 

Callum’s not waking up. So Ash will have to do this. 

The hunter groans when the needle goes through his skin, and Ash jumps as one of his hands comes up, gropes blindly for the source of the pain. 

“G’ off… hhgn. Get offa me.” Callum’s bleary with pain and blood loss, and for the first time, Ash hesitates to obey an order. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, and he says it over and over as the needle goes in and through Callum’s flesh. The hunter snarls, twists on the bed, and the needle slips in Ash’s hand again. Callum is horribly pale, and the four lines of red scored against his hip look dark and dangerous in the dim light. He screams through gritted teeth when Ash does manage to hold him down, but it never lasts for long. 

It’s when one of his screams ends in a whimper that Ash can’t take it anymore. Ash knows screams like this, he’s been forced to make them often enough. 

Callum shouldn’t have to scream like this. Callum is kind, and good, and merciful, and Ash knows a way to stop his pain. 

Even if it will lead to swift retribution when the hunter is healed. 

“Callum?” It’s whispered this time, almost guilty. Ash bites his lip as he presses the cloth against the bleeding and takes one of Callum’s hands. 

He knows better than this. He does. The warning rings in his mind, one of those half-remembered commands he’d been given in his early days here. 

No biting. You bite me and I will put a stake in your chest. Understood? 

His chin wobbles as he takes Callum’s palm, gently uncurls those calloused, work-worn fingers. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I’m, I’m sorry, Callum.” He doesn’t ask the hunter not to be mad at him after. Ash knows the consequences. 

He has to be careful; Ash’s thirst for blood has been largely beaten out of him, but if he proceeds without caution… Ash holds Callum’s hand with one of his own, and reaches up to his own jaw with the other. Callum had been the one to teach him this trick; the vampire finds the spot behind his ear, just under the venom gland, and presses. 

His fangs drop instantly, and Ash whimpers at the feeling as venom start to pool behind them. His canines are still smaller than they should be, and Callum says that they probably won’t get much bigger. They’re like infant teeth, only instead of being young, they’d been yanked out and snapped off so many times that they refuse to grow any longer. 

They still feel plenty long enough when Ash raises Callum’s palm to his lips. 

He doesn’t let himself hesitate over placement; blood is still coming from Callum’s injuries, dampening the hunter’s bedsheets and spilling in rivets down his bare hip. There’s a deep-set terror in the vampire’s heart, but his resolve is set as he fits his teeth over Callum’s palm and bites. 

The human’s palm is salty against his tongue, and his skin gives way under the creature’s teeth like puncturing fruit. Ash does his very best not to taste the blood as venom comes flooding into his mouth. It’s slightly bitter, thicker than saliva and chalky in his mouth. Some of it gets pumped through his fangs and into the hunter’s bloodstream, but most of it spills over, collecting behind the vampire’s teeth.

As soon it stops coming, Ash pulls away. He’s shaking from the ground up, cold terror gripping his chest from the gravity of what he’s just done. The venom is pooling in his mouth still, and it’s entirely instinctual to nuzzle into Callum’s palm, lapping gently at the bite marks. The venom can be absorbed through the skin or through blood, Callum had said - so Ash cradles the man’s wrist and runs his tongue over the marks until the pressure behind his fangs eases. 

Then the hunter stirs. His eyes open just for a moment, colorless blue staring blearily into space. Then he fixates on what Ash is doing, and for a moment, it’s like the whole world holds still. Then, 

“You - hhnggn. You fucking…” He’s still bleary, still weak, but Ash can see the way Callum is struggling for consciousness. The hunter wants to be awake. 

Ash whimpers softly and drops his hand, and in that instant Callum lashes out and grabs his jaw. 

It’s nothing like being grabbed before; it hurts, fingers digging into the creature’s jaw with strength born of panic. Callum’s eyes are somehow both alert and distant; Ash whines against his palm, the same one he’d been lapping at like a mangy dog mere seconds ago. 

Somewhere in his mind, Ash knows that Callum is delirious. He’s lost so much blood, traveled for so long, dragged himself back to the lab leaking out of his side by luck and sheer stubbornness. It’s still ice down his spine when the hunter bares his teeth and says, low and dangerous,

“You fucking bit me.” 

It’s like one of Ash’s nightmares has evolved and come to life. 

The terror takes Ash’s knees from him, and the hunter’s hand comes with, still digging into his cheeks, the corners of his jaw.

“ ‘m sorry,” he whines past the hunter’s palm. “I’m sorry, Callum, S-Sir, please-” But Callum’s eyes are wild, unfocused. The man hisses in a breath through his teeth, glares up at the ceiling - he’s marshaling himself, it looks like, trying to get his bearings, trying to gain control of the situation. 

He might have been able to, Ash thinks - if anyone could, it would be Callum. Except that the flesh of his left side is mangled like raw meat, and he’s lost so much blood his fingers are cold where they grip the vampire’s jaw. 

He tries to get up anyway. Ash yelps a muffled protest as Callum tries to sit, then immediately goes grey. The hunter hangs there for a moment, feeling the gravity of his injuries, and then sinks back onto the cot with a little moan. The sheen of sweat on his skin has gotten shinier, and if he listens Ash can hear the human’s pulse; weak and quick, batting away in his chest like a caged bird. 

Callum’s eyes are open, but he’s started to shiver. 

It takes everything Ash has not to crumple to the floor and sob, cradling his throbbing jaw. He’s bitten Callum. Callum, the one person to ever be kind to him. Callum the hunter, who hadn’t needed to be kind, but had still taken him out of filth and despair and shown him a gentle hand. 

For a moment, Ash fears that Callum will try moving again, will try to get up and grab for a weapon. Instead, Ash sees the moment his venom starts to work. Callum’s pupils are already dilated, but there’s a visible change between one moment and the next; the hunter makes a startled little sound, and his fingers loosen from their fists. 

Ash’s vision is blurred with tears, and the terror that clogs his throat is both old and new. There will be repercussions from this, he knows - he doesn’t know what, doesn’t know how. 

He doesn’t know what Callum will do, now that Ash has crossed this line. 

He still pushes himself back to his feet and snatches up the needle. Callum’s pulse thrums in his ears as Ash douses his hands in alcohol again, then rethreads the needle. There are two gashes to stitch still, and he’s lost valuable time; the blood is coming slower now. 

“Please lie down,” he whispers as he pinches skin together with shaking fingers. “Please, Callum, just h-hold still. I’m almost done, I’m n-not going to-” He can’t even say the words. Ash sniffles, blinks, feels wetness on his cheek. 

His pleas are mostly unnecessary, though; at the first pass of the needle Ash winces, expects another scream. Instead Callum just grunts and frowns, as if he’s tasted something unpleasant. 

The man is distant while Ash stitches up the last two slices. There’s no reaction to the pain of the needle, and no response when Ash waves a hand in front of his face. It’s like the hunter is a shell, reduced to a limp, unfeeling body. 

Ash pours alcohol over all four messy lines of stitches, and all Callum does is wince. 

The bandages happen on autopilot; this Ash has done before, and he’s careful while he presses down gauze and winds linen around the hunter’s middle. 

Then, when he’s done, he stands there for a moment. Callum is pale, blonde hair a shock of color against his cheeks. His scar is more pronounced now, gnarled and warped down the left side of his face. 

Ash lifts a hand to his own face, where an iron muzzle had once sat. His fingers dig in where Callum’s had, holds the shape of his jaw. 

No biting, the man had said. It was the only thing he’d said; the first concrete command he’d been given, something Ash had clung to back in the very beginning, when obedience had meant being forgiven simply for existing. 

The world blurs before the vampire’s eyes as he goes to the tool room. 

Ash doesn’t like the tool room. Even now, over a year post rescue, the tool room fills him with dread. It’s not large - it’s an offshoot of the lab, about the size of a large closet, which Callum uses to store the tools of his trade. 

On the walls are things of iron; arrows, lances, chains, manacles. The muzzle sits, mounted proudly on the far wall. Ash comes to a stop in front of it and folds to his knees. 

He had started to believe Callum, at some point. He’d believed that the hunter wouldn’t hurt him, that he’d really let Ash stay in his home and keep him safe, even though Ash was something that shouldn’t exist in the first place. But now…

Tears spill down his cheeks as Ash retrieves the muzzle. It’s the leather one, the one with a steel bit that tasted like mercy. The smell is musty when Ash lifts it up to his face. It settles hard and cold against his cheeks, his jaw, and Ash whines as the memories surge. 

He’s been bad. He’s been so bad, the creature thinks; he deserves this, he deserves to be treated like an animal if that’s what he is. 

Ash makes it back to his cell (room, he thinks; Callum had made it into a room) and pulls the heavy door closed. He can’t lock it, not without the keys. But he folds down onto the cold floor, and he pulls the muzzle straps tight enough to dig into the corners of his mouth. It’s never tight enough, it doesn’t burn - in some corner of Ash’s mind, he knows that’s a good thing. But there’s a much larger part of him that is remembering, as if waking from a dream, how he deserves to be treated. 

The bit sits cold and hard against its tongue. The creature curls up on the cold floor, like it can’t even see the cot, and it cries. 

-

[END]

@wildfaewhump @pepperonyscience   @robinshouseofwhump  @angelsuperwholock @pennsss (both) @silver-sparrow-462  @silverinkgoldenquill @kestrelsparverius @learningtowhump @shameless-whumper  @latenightcupsofcoffee @thebluejayswhump  @what-huh-imconfused @lostbetweenvampiresandmusic  @pink-and-purple-flowers @gonna-feel-that-tomorrow-deacti @whump-em  @umniyah-s  @adventuresofacreesty @scarheart  @kyra-plays @lionhxartx @blue-flare10 @whumpywhumper @doityourselfbombs  @pastry-case @maybeawhumpblog   @httyd-chocolate @to-hurt-and-comfort @thingsthatgo-whump-inthenight @manip-loki @dungeons-and-dragons-and-whump @ariirenn @poetofswords86 @whumpity–whump–whump @swagjudgehandsdragon@oracle-of-maybe  @cuddlycryptid @the-potato-beeper @slam-whump @sweeterthanadonut @ffaerie-dustt @whump-in-the-night @elfo8792 @kinda-bad-poet @crackedskel @deluxewhump @this-zombie-will-eat-you @a-moment-to-write @stoic-whumpee @paradigmparadoxical @burtlederp @whump-with-wren @whimperwoods @winged-ace-whump @insanitywishes

[honeydewplaydough]

Childish Laughter & Bleeding Scars

Cross posted on AO3 !  Can you guys tell me that Nie Mingjue is my favorite character lol?

What an unfortunate sight he must be, thought Nie Mingjue as he sputtered out blood through fleeting breaths. Coughs shook his whole frame. Suspended by his wrist, he hung mere inches off the ground. If he had been just a couple of inches taller, maybe he would be able to at least rest some of his body weight on the tips of his toes. But for now, he hung bonelessly, arms pulled tight. The pain was a dull ache that spread through the entirety of his shoulders and down to the middle of his back.

Nie Mingjue figured he would have rather suffered the grueling sharp pains of a hundred stab wounds than what seemed like the slow tearing of muscles.

The man leaned his head against the cold of the wall, allowing for at least the merciful kiss of relief on the back of his head. For if the lavish Sun Palace were warmth, the warmth of alcohol, the warmth of bodies pressing together, and the warmth of blood splattering across the floors, then the dungeons were the depths of a winter raging sea.

Deadly. Cold. Merciless.

Another cough wrecked his Nie Mingjue’s body. He had, at one point, attempted to count the days however the only light sources were the unreliable brightness of the lanterns that somehow flickered out on their own free will and left him in periods of darkness that never seemed to end. To pour salt in the wound, the servants also did not feed him in a coherent and a time measurable manner.

To be fair, however, feeding him was a strong word. They brought him scraps of supposed food when they damned well pleased.

And besides, eating the food prepared by any Wen Dog’s hand was not a luxury Nie Mingjue was willing to extend to them.

Furthermore, with his Qi haphazardly sealed, he would not be able to fight off the poison they would inevitably force-feed him once it had entered his body. He would be forced to witness what it would do to his body in full force. Would it make him vomit his intense up? Would it make him lose his teeth and have his gums be raw and exposed? Cause unscratchable itches that would leave him howling like some sort of maddened animal?

He would not let them have a chance to bear witness to it.

The lurch of his body forward strained his muscles and for a moment made him forget about his thoughts. He felt the clot of blood forcing its way up to his throat and down to the ground to where all the blood had trickled down from his chin and accumulated there at his exposed feet.

Worse than that was the blood that laid at his feet did not come from his own turbulent inwards.

It was also so that his body was covered from head to toe in wounds. Slices of varying degrees tore from shoulders down. A particularly nasty one had stretched from belly button to naval. Hundreds of them littered over his body, some of them being calculated slices meant to remove the top layer of skin, skinning him as if he were some sort of vegetable. Others meant to cut down deep and not a single thought was spared to the carnage that the knife took with it when it was pulled from his skin.

He couldn’t say which he had preferred.

All Nie Mingjue could do was simply hang there in silence as various torturers used his body as their canvas. Each one of them probably hoped to be praised when their Sect Leader came back from the battle he had so leisurely attended.

Just thinking about the man-made and anger run through his veins. The man that had slain his father in such a meticulous way that no blame could ever be put on to him. The man that bought our mercenaries to come and hack away at his borders, causing him both inconvenience and weeks of little sleep.

The man that haunted his dreams starting from his youth to adulthood.

Let it be known, however, that if Nie Mingjue were to see that bastard face to face, he’d kill him. He wasn’t twelve anymore. He’d face him like the man that he was and would take his head back to QingHe. For himself. To prove to himself that his youth was not a waste. That Wen Ruohan could not harm him anymore.

He would show the head off to his people. To not only to inspire them, that it was possible to shoot down the sun and conquer evil, but that as long as he stood here alive on this earth, he would always protect them.

An offering for Lan Xichen. To show him that there was nothing to be afraid of. That Nie Mingjue would move mountains, conquer the sun, and show him that he was worthy.

Revenge for Nie Huaisang. Former Clan Leader Nie had been both their fathers. He had smiled down at them all the same, had picked up Nie Huaisang, and had held Nie Mingjue by the hand. He told them stories of ole underneath the starry nights.

Nie Huaisang had loved their dad too.

To bring him the head of the one who killed him, would show that Nie Mingjue would protect him and would make do on the promise he made when he was still just a youth.

He just hoped that his little useless brother wouldn’t try and turn into something it was not.

‘Oh, da-ge! Why must I work so tirelessly out on the field every day if one, the war is over, and two, you’ve already shot the son out of the sky! If anything, now is the perfect opportunity to laze around! Discover new hobbies, pick up an ancient craft! Who knows, maybe by the end of summer, I’ll become a talented flute player. One that will shake the entire cultivation world and seize them up by their necks!’

Nie Mingjue let out a snort, as he pictured his brother saying it. It sounded close enough to him and he couldn’t help but let out a small smile at the thought. The thought of his useless, no good, weak little brother being safe at night.

It was then, he heard a shuffling of feet from behind the entrance to his personal hellhole. He rolled his eyes, cursing the cowardice of the poor bastard. Was he not restrained? Were they transporting him somewhere? No, the last time they had tried that, he had needed at least seven Wen Dogs to drag him down the halls.

He tried to contain his snort at that memory.

It had caused Meng Yao to lose face, even if it was just other Wen Dogs of slightly lower rank, and that had made the beating he received earlier a bit more worth it.

But at the topic of hand, he was starting to get annoyed. What kind of grown man or woman shook like that? Did they not have the upper hand? Were they some poor servant here to dress his wounds?

Nie Mingjue was annoyed.

He had been slightly fevered and the ache in his shoulders and his back were only worsening. Whoever it was, Nie Mingjue couldn’t care less. Be it Wen Ruohan himself or a scrambling slave of a slave. They should at least have some face!

“I know you are there, you Wen Dog! Stop shuffling like a coward and face me,” Nie Mingjue snapped out.

The shuffling and rustling of robes paused for a moment. And a few steps were heard. For some reason, the more that Nie Mingjue paid attention to the noise, instead of it barely passing through his ears and onto his brain, he realized that the person had tiny feet. The pitter-patters of steps caused great confusion.

Had they sent down a small child to torture him? Had they sent a little servant boy to dress the wounds and toss down his scraps? What was he doing here?

“Doggie?” Came the small voice.

Nie Mingjue furrowed his eyebrows. The child did not sound over the age of three years old. What game were those bastards playing? What kind of monster sends down a child? Had it not been Nie Mingjue and the boy had come closer to another war criminal, he was still little enough that he could simply be kicked out of the way.

Suddenly, the boy was standing in front of him behind the bars. One hand was gripping the bars as he plastered himself against them.

“I… The Doggie?” He asked excitedly pointing to himself. He looked to be searching for something on Nie Mingjue’s face, “Woof Woof!”

[treytheyouthguy]

From the Journal of Craven

(I’ve recently gotten to be apart of a new D&D Group from the Geeks Under Grace Community, and one of our players wrote a summary of the first session from the perspective of her character, and it got me wanting to attempt it myself. So here goes nothing!)

Name: Craven

Race: Kalashtar

Class: Barbarian (Eventually Path of the Totem Spirit)

Age: 25

Alignment: Lawful Good

Appearance: 6' 1", Dark Brown Shaggy Faux-Hawk Hair, Medium Length Well Kept Beard, Glowing Cerulean Eyes, Pale Skin

Fun Facts: Often will speak telepathically to strangers before meeting them to scare them. Has been apart of civilized society, but is somewhat socially awkward and often described as "literal". Sometimes talks to himself, or at least seemingly to himself.

It seems my travels have brought me to a city known as Galandel.

Usarus has led me to believe that we will find the help we need here, though he is getting less and less helpful. I swear, sometimes I think he likes to watch me get into strange circumstances and awkward situations.

I stumbled upon a scuffle in an alley involving a devil girl and a hooded figure. I attempted to ask the devil girl if she needed assistance, but I don’t think she likes intrusions of the mind, because she screamed at me in devil tongue.

Then, almost out of nowhere, a man claiming to be a champion of a deity named Tier? Tyr? Tire? named Valzan. He honestly looked just like the heroes from the book of stories father would read to me. The stories seemed to become even more real when he began to interrogate a ruffian. I surmised that the evil-doer was there to apprehend the devil girl.

Valzan seemed eager to help these two alley dwellers for some reason. The Devil-Girl seemed even more uneasy, yelling and calling the villain a “Slavers Lapdog”, which I couldn’t help but chuckle at. I once again attempted to establish a telepathic connection, but to no avail; the naughty nair-do-weller ignored my plea and was bent on making things worse. Two more bad men came from out of the shadows, and it was clear that this group was in for a fight.

I drew the blade that father gifted me as I became a man. I couldn’t help but think that he and mother would be proud of me: though I didn’t know these individuals, I was upholding the virtues instilled in me as a child.

I pulled my first swing, merely attempting to show that I meant business, but as I missed, I could feel Usarus’ rage coming over me. Father always taught me that if there was a way to settle a score without shedding blood, then to do so. However, the Spirit of the Forest was not as honorable, or at least not since the injustices that has fallen upon the Forest back home. His anger and fury bubbled like the stew from Mother’s cauldron.

The Heroic Valzan and the Angry Devil-Girl aided in the fight, and the Hooded Mystery Woman made sure to stand her ground, protecting the devil girl at all cost.

I could feel my body tensing up and my eyes radiating even brighter. My hands clenched the hilt of my blade ever-so-tightly, and I grit my teeth so tightly my gums began to bleed. I raised my blade high above my head, and I could hear my own voice inter-mingling with my Usarus’ as I bellowed, “YOU HAVE ANGERED THE SPIRIT OF THE FOREST!” My blade cut into the man in front me as if Usarus’ own razor sharp claw was mawing him. His torso was cleft in twain, and his blood sprayed across the brick walls between us.

I stood there, panting. I turned to see the spiritual visage of Usarus; he looked at the carnage and snorted, and then looked at me and nodded. It was as if the bloodshed pleased him.

I know that Usarus isn’t evil; he’s a protector. He can be gentle and kindhearted. He can even be playful. But lately his anger has overcome him, and he is becoming vengeful and stoic.

The other dispatched the other foe, and only one assailant remained. I had finally calmed down and rejoined reality.

Valzan literally scared the piss out of the man. I know for sure it was piss, I could smell it. But the fool decided to run. The Champiom Valzan took off and I followed. I liked his style, and desperately wanted to see how this ended.

By the time I caught up to them, the fool-hearty thug had gone limp on the ground, defeated.

Valzan complimented me, and I him. He then asked if I would take the bow shell of a man to something called the Church of Tyr. I asked what a Tyr was, but he just looked at me puzzled. I mean, I’d heard of churches, but had never been to one. Valzan was heading back to find the girls from the alley. I even tried asking the criminal now in a headlock under my arm who Tyr was, but he didn’t bother to answer.

Upon reaching the church, I was greeted by an elven woman named Alyssia. I took the man down stairs to the basement as instructed by Valzan and found out from Alyssia that apparently Tyr was a deity that she and Valzan worshipped. I had no idea that people worshipped deities! The people of my village thanked and served the Spirits like Usarus. I turned to ask Usarus about the deities, but he still wasn’t very talkative. I’m beginning to be worried about him at how long these bouts of stoicism were lasting.

Eventually my fateful allies made it to the Church and Alyssia offered us food. FOOD! Glorious food. The Devil-Girl, who was acting suspiciously cat-like, clearly wanted to eat, but was extremely timid. I tried offering her my father’s jerky, but she wasn’t having it. In retrospect, I may have knelt down and gotten a little too close when I offered.

After some convincing, the Hooded Mystery Woman convinced the Devil-Girl to eat. Later Valzan, the Mystery Woman, and myself descended to the basement to question our “guest”. Valzan asked if I wanted to be a “good cop or bad cop”, but I had no idea what that meant. He then asked if I wanted to hurt the captured criminal, and I obliged. I’m not a bad guy, but this man clearly was, and I’m pretty decent at hurting things.

Valzan poured water on the unconscious fellow, so I poured the whole barrel. Apparently that was not the way to go. Valzan payed the man a compliment, so I called him beautiful. Again, that was wrong. I could hear Usarus laughing at me, so I decided to let Valzan take the lead. The Hooded Mystery Woman held back, just watching.

The man was hired to “bring the Tiefling back to his employee”, but she had fought back and escaped. Fiery, that one, which is funny, what with her being a Devil-Girl and all. The man pleaded with Valzan and had decided to repent of his crimes and wanted to serve his time and be turned over to the authorities. I was stunned, but held my tongue, when Valzan went along with this. I mean, in the Forest, justice is decided by the strong and able creatures, and those who were weak and in the wrong suffered. But, Valzan was showing mercy. It was refreshing, honestly. I had shed quite a bit of blood in the name of “Justice”. So Valzan took the man to the proper authorities.

Upon his returning, Valzan and Alyssia explained what this church was, a place for the wronged where they could find peace and justice. They offered to let the Devil-Girl a home there. They assured her that she would be safe, fed, clothed, and that she would have her justice. The Devil-Girl seemed uneasy, and then the Hooded Mystery Woman spoke up and approached her, and for the first time, I could see the Devil-Girl resting easy, or at least somewhat. This Hooded Mystery Woman was helping her feel more comfortable.

So for the next week we all stayed together.

The Hooded Mystery Woman, or Strive as I found out her name was, seemed to have an affinity for caring for this Devil-Girl, who we took to calling her Shadow since she was glued to Strive like she was her personal Shadow. Valzan and Alyssia continued to be hospitable and accomplidating to us, as well as patrolling the streets to find evidence of the wrong-doers who descended on our little Shadow.

As for me, I just rested. I had been on such a long journey and constantly on the move that it was nice to just sit and catch my breath. Usarus finally spoke again and told me to stay put. “This group will help you find answers.” At night I would sift through the memories of my ancestors with the aid of Usarus, searching for any answers there may be for the plague that is descending on my home.

We eventually decided to leave the church and spread our wings. Alyssia stayed at the church, but Valzan served as our guide. He led us to an axe throwing game that I technically won, but decided to be chivalrous and neglected to accept the prize.....

Valzan accepted the prize offered which came in the form of free drinks at a near by tavern, which apparently is where a woman works that Valzan desperately needs to speak with. Shadow also stumbled upon some shiny glass. She liked shiny things. She reached for the glass, but Strive stopped her and Valzan offered a shiny bauble instead.

We first went to a library, which was recommended to stop at by Strive. I was happy to go, actually. I was able to ask the librarian about plagues and magics that affect plant life, and found a book on the history of plagues. I over heard Strive ask about herbalism and curitive properties and turned to Usarus. I said that she could help us, and he agreed. Finally, something to go on!

I approached her and asked about her help with my quest, and told her that I felt she was key. I blushed as I realized this may sound like I was courting her. I then stumbled over my words and finally walked away. I turned and yelled Usarus, exclaiming that he could’ve stopped me. He laughed. She laughed. I walked and check out my book, hanging my head in embarrassments shame. There was something about that woman, and it left me with my words tangled and trampled on the ground.

We then found an exotic pet store, but soon left after finding out that the OWNER WAS AN EVIL MAN! No bears?! Fine. But hedge-hogs are bear like?? USE SQUIRRELS AS BAIT!?! What a monster! I turned to Shadow and said we should leave! It was traumatic for us all.

We finally made it to the tavern on the top of the hill. We entered and Shadow immediately went to a table. The rest of us followed and soon the very woman Valzan had saught after came to take our orders. I ordered all of the sweets they had in an attempt to win over Shadow, and after Valzan asking to speak to the woman alone, we had our food and Valzan was asked to wait until things weren’t as busy. We sat and began to enjoy our food, but suddenly an elderly unkept man burst through the door, exclaiming that his daughter had been taken. Our group began to ask for details, when the entire tavern erupted in laughter.

Things are getting strange.....

[artificialqueens]

Places Adore and Bianca Were Nearly Caught Having Sex (3/?) (Biadore) - Miss Alyssa Secret

Anon request from AQ - Roy goes into a lingerie store to buy thongs for Danny. Bonus he grabs a whip while at the counter for good measure.

All of the above with a Miss Alyssa twist ;)

A/N: Recognize the title? Anon, I finished writing this before seeing your airport request. Next time! -MAS

******** Victor’s Secret

The mall should be used as a torture device, Roy decided. The gaggles of teenagers (all genders, sexualities, and sizes) on their phones and generally causing mayhem were bad enough. Add to it people with what felt like dozens of misbehaving kids, and even his patience gave out.

It was incredibly tempting to go shop as Bianca if only to be able to yell, “Get the fuck outta the way!”. On second and third thought, getting into drag on a day off wasn’t terribly appealing, and if he did that there was no way he’d be able to get any actual shopping done at all.

Also? He wasn’t particularly interested in the legions of Drag Race fans knowing which socks he bought.

He kept a polite smile plastered on his face as he was jostled by the crowd, intent on getting out of there as fast as possible. There was gridlock on one of the pedestrian bridges, and he rolled his eyes. Roy was just about to attempt a detour when a very pink advertisement caught his eye.

Pivoting, he made his way into the store. His senses were immediately assaulted by the cloying smell of multiple perfumes in a small space and the music turned up to painful levels. He forged onwards, past the racks of overpriced negligees and robes. The corsets received a snort of professional disdain - the showy D-rings and ribbons would never hold up to actual wear, and most women he knew weren’t proportioned like anime characters.

At last, he reached a quieter area, ignoring the side eye he was getting from the teenage girls. Danny had an amazing ass, one he happily showcased with his collection of underwear. Roy considered and discarded the notion that he would consider receiving women’s lingerie an insult. His sometimes lover was secure enough in his self and sexuality that he’d probably be intrigued if presented with a bundle of lace and bows.

With that in mind, he surveyed the table whose sign proclaimed “6 for $32!”. He bought Bianca’s black panties online to avoid the hassle, and idly wondered if he ought to pick her up a couple of pairs.

The lacy boy shorts had some promise, as did the cheeky panties. Roy waited until a young couple moved out of the way (with the level of disinterest from the guy, he hoped she moved on to better prospects), and crouched to dig through the drawers of thongs. There were animal prints that Danny would likely love, and silky ones with tiny gold hearts. He held up a pair, trying to determine if it was the right size. Unfortunately, even the XLs probably didn’t have enough fabric left to contain a dick and balls, and he sighed in disappointment.

”Is there anything I can help you with, sir?”

Roy turned to find a black-clad twenty-something smiling cheerfully down at him.

“Oh, those are really cute!” She nodded at the panties he already held.

“Uhhh, thanks,” he muttered, thanking small mercies that she wasn’t a Drag Race fan.

”I’m sure she’ll love them,” she continued. “Any occasion you’re shopping for?”

If only she knew.

”Well, ummm, I just wanted to see if…”

Roy cringed internally, hoping he didn’t sound like a creepy straight guy.

”That’s totally fine. We have guys in here all the time shopping for their girlfriends.” She handed him a basket with a wink.

Telling her, “I’m trying to see if the thong would fit my drag queen unlabeled-but-important-relationship-person/lover,” probably wasn’t going to get her to go away any faster than lying.

“Errr, thank you. I think I’m just going to look at a few more…”

”Of course. My name’s Tina if you need any help.”

He breathed out a hefty sigh of relief, waited until she was busy with another customer, and put all of the panties he was holding back before making his escape.

********

As predicted, Danny was vastly amused when he described his adventure into Victoria’s Secret. He’d accompanied a few female friends in the past, but going solo was something else.

”You know,” Danny grinned and wiped a stray bit of cum off Roy’s lower lip, “I wouldn’t say no to going underwear shopping together.”

His attempt to answer was lost as Danny tugged him to his feet, pushed him onto the bed, and climbed on top. Roy forgot exactly what he’d been trying to say when a clever hand closed around his cock and started jerking him off with perfectly timed strokes.

There was something to be said about fucking your best friend, he mused as they laid together while the sweat cooled.

********

Roy thought he could be forgiven for not remembering their conversation a couple of weeks later. When he mentioned going to the toy store for more lube and condoms, Danny’s eyes lit up.

“Oh! Hey, what about going to one that sells underwear?”

”Underwear?”

”Yeah, you could help me pick some out.”

He concentrated on not spitting wine onto the couch, taking in Danny’s enthusiastic expression and his own arousal at the thought.

”Fine, but if I’m paying I get to decide if they’re worth it.”

The wineglass was removed from his hand, and he suddenly had a lapful of Danny.

”Cool. Can I suck your dick before we go?”

********

He had long since stopped being embarrassed or self-conscious about shopping for intimate items, but Danny brought an entirely new dimension to it. Whereas alone or with other friends it was a humorous and fun process, the filthy things Danny was whispering in his ear were making it increasingly difficult to conceal his growing erection.

They were standing in front of the wall of lube, and had been for the last several minutes while Danny described in graphic detail what they could do with each.

”…and then I’ll make you lick my ass, and-“

Roy squeezed his thighs together in a vain attempt to quell the throbbing in his balls.

”Angel,” he muttered through gritted teeth, “pick one and let’s go before I drag you into the fitting room and fuck you.”

In hindsight, he should have realized that it was the exact opposite of a threat, but he blamed it on most of the blood in his brain rapidly heading south.

“Okay!” Danny chirped happily, dropping three different bottles into the basket and pulling Roy by the hand towards the lingerie.

By the time they’d agreed on a half dozen thongs and jockstraps (“Do you ever think we’re a little too stereotypically gay?” “Fuck all the way off.”), Roy had managed to get his raging hard on mostly under control. He wasn’t paying enough attention, however, to realize that Danny wasn’t heading towards the register until a bored staff member reminded them that all lingerie must be tried on over existing undergarments.

He opened his mouth to protest, but Danny was already pulling him into one of the fitting rooms and sliding the curtain shut, pushing Roy down onto the single chair inside.

”Why are you trying them on? We could just head home and-“

Roy’s mouth fell open as Danny dropped his pants to reveal the skimpiest thong he’d ever seen before.

“You said you wanted to make sure you liked them before you paid,” he grinned wickedly, tongue peeking out from between his teeth.

Danny stepped into one of the jockstraps, pulling the bright purple elastic into place over his hips. He made a show of adjusting his package cupped by the fabric in front, then turned around and shook his ass.

He gave Roy an expectant look, eyes narrowing at the crossed arms and weak glare.

”Gonna tell me what you think?”

”Angel, if you don’t hurry up I’m going to get us kicked out of here for public indecency.”

He crossed his legs as well, refusing to give Danny the satisfaction of watching him nudge the renewed erection into a more comfortable position in his pants.

Instead of arguing, Danny surprised him by poking his head out past the curtain.

”Excuse me?” He was using his Adore voice, slightly breathy and flirty. Roy shifted the basket onto his lap as the tattooed clerk approached, shaking her neon dyed hair and generally giving the air of can’t be bothered.

”Yeah?” She sounded even less interested than she looked, which was impressive.

”I need an opinion and my friend is being dumb,” Danny shot a glance at Roy who gave them a tight smile. “Does this make my ass look good?”

The young woman took one look at Roy, taking in the way he was sitting and his expression of long-suffering frustration, and abruptly broke into a fit of giggles.

”Oh I bet he’s dumb right now. Yeah,” she snapped her gum and gave Danny’s ass a quick once-over, “I’d say you should buy those.”

”Thank you.” Danny was laying it on even thicker, and she shook her head before walking away still laughing.

”Hmmm…”

Danny prowled across the small space, pushing the basket aside to straddle his lap and rubbing the substantial bulge against Roy’s chest. The tip of his cock stretched the fabric upwards, nudging his chin, and Roy closed his eyes for a moment. He could smell Danny’s arousal, and it was rapidly degrading his sense of control.

Giving in, he met Danny’s challenging state before slipping one hand inside both layers of fabric and tugging out his half-hard cock. Still watching, he leaned forward and closed his lips around the head, giving it a few good sucks before letting it pop free.

”Fuck…”

Roy licked up the underside with teasing flicks of his tongue before dipping into the slit.

”…yeah…”

”You two still doing okay in there?”

They both froze as the clerk’s voice came from the other side of the curtain.

“Uhh, yeah, thanks!” Roy hoped he didn’t sound too panicked.

”Shit,” Danny muttered as her footsteps receded.

”Come on.” Roy pushed him back gently and stood, grabbing the basket. “Get dressed and lets get out of here.”

”Don’t you want to see the rest of them?”

He tossed the jockstrap in with the rest, and Roy stopped to stare at the thong stretched tight over Danny’s erection.

”I’m buying them all.”

At the register, the clerk gave them both a knowing and far too amused look before ringing them up. Danny squirmed against Roy’s side as he eyed the display of riding crops.

“No.”

”B…”

Accepting his card back, Roy shoved the bag into Danny’s hands and smiled at the clerk. She bid them a cheerful day, and turned to help someone else.

”If you behave,” Roy hissed into Danny’s ear, “I already have one at home.”

Danny practically dragged them out of the store.

”Party!”

[raven-n-tha-moonlight]

(2.0 of my scene from earlier today. I hope it flows more smoothly! Pronunciation guide for names is at the beginning of the first version.)

Calada’s throat was raw and burning from the crisp night air. The forest was quiet except for her panting. Squinting, she made out her sister’s small figure darting between trunks. Moonlight filtered through the dense foliage.

“Pioney,” Calada hissed. “You’re going too fast.”

“You said hurry,” Pioney complained, but she markedly slowed her pace.

“I know, but you haven’t been here before. I don’t want you to get lost.”

“I’ve heard you describe it enough. I know what it looks like.”

“Just stay close to me. We’re halfway there.”

They scrambled down the hill, sending a few small rocks thunking through the brush. A startled bird took flight. All was silent except for the night insects.

In the distance, her hypersensitive ears picked up the rough barking of canines. The dogs were his.

She pushed her sister forward. She kept her voice steady, not allowing her nerves to surface. “They’re onto us. Remember, Pioney, no matter what happens, keep running. Keep going until you reach that spot I told you about.”

Pioney grabbed her forearm, her sharp little nails digging into her flesh. “I won’t leave you, Ladi,” she insisted.

Calada shook her head. “Pie, I need you to keep yourself safe. Don’t stop for anything.” Gently, she pried open Pioney’s vice-like grip. “If I get caught, get yourself to the spot. There will be someone waiting for you. Follow them.”

“I won’t leave you,” repeated Pioney.

She almost replied, but there was a sharp sound. She craned her neck, listening with her keen ears. “The mutts are coming from behind, from the left and right.” There was a howl, and then a chorus of yips, and she breathed, “They’ve caught our scent.” Gods, have mercy.

They stumbled over roots and overturned stones in their haste. Time was not on their side.

She scanned their surroundings, searching. There. A tight huddle of tree trunks shone bright in the moonlight. Their reptilian bark stood out in the silver rays of the full moon. Almost there. A bit further.

They came to a sharp plunge. Far below was the rocky embankment of the creek. Just across the dry creekbed, then up the far slope, and they were there.

They shinnied down the rugged slope. Her neck craned as she took in the climb awaiting them on the opposite side, and then-

A menacing bark issued alarmingly close. “Go,” cried Calada. She broke into a sprint, Pioney close behind. She barely felt her feet touch the ground. Her heart beat like a drum in her chest. She looked back, and faltered.

A mutt was gaining on Pioney. Her sister seemed exhausted. Calada reversed her course and raced back toward her sister.

She bent to pick stones from the dry creek, not breaking her stride. Then she hurled them with all her might. She struck the creature’s shoulders and back. It whined and slowed. Her sister, confused, also hesitated.

“Keep going!” yelled Calada. “Get to the spot! Just keep running!”

She pulled out the knife she had stolen from a saddlebag earlier that day. From the edge of her vision, another mutt shot toward her.

Calada gave a yell and swung her knife at the mutt’s throat. It dodged her wild swing and bit down on her arm. She screamed as its teeth tore into her flesh, blood running down her arm. Frantically, she threw a punch, and it connected. The dog shook her roughly, jerking her around. White streaked through her vision as bolts of pain shot up her arm.

She clung to her arm, gasping. She cried out as the other dog chomped on her left foot, puncturing the leather. Tears ran down her face as she fought. It was no use. They were too strong.

Then her sister was there, screaming. She came from behind, choking it with the crook of her elbow. It bucked and released Calada’s arm, growling and whining. Pioney held tight. Finally, it slumped to the ground. Calada hurled a rock at the dog biting her boot. A flurry of blows knocked it senseless.

“Come on, Ladi!” urged Pioney. She grabbed Calada’s uninjured arm.

As Calada leaned on Pioney to lever herself up, she realized just how slow she was going to be. Blood dripped from her boot. If their whereabouts weren’t already obvious, now there would be a boot print of blood.

“Go on, Pie.” She gave her sister a push, but Pioney wouldn’t budge. “I won’t be fast enough. I’ll just slow you down.”

“I’m staying with you,” insisted Pioney stubbornly.

“No!” Calada said, nearly wailing. “There’s still a chance for you to make it! I’ll never forgive myself if you suffer because of me.”

“You’re not changing my mind, Ladi,” Pioney fired back, resolute. “Now be quiet and move!”

Stiffly, Calada limped away from the dogs she left on the ground. They were still, except for their rib cages expanding and deflating slowly. They would wake soon.

Tears streaming from pain, she hobbled closer and closer to the far side of the creek bed, where a steep climb awaited. Calada almost screamed in despair. It seemed higher every passing step.

From behind, she picked up the sound of something approaching hard and fast from the tree line above. It was a soft, four-legged rhythm.

She turned in time to see a shadow shoot out from the tree line, taking the sheer drop in one leap. It landed, not faltering, and galloped toward them.

Calada shrieked and staggered more urgently away. Then, she took her arm from around Pioney. “Run, run, run,” she breathed.

A look came over Pioney’s face as she took in the creature bearing down on them.

It was hulking and brutish-looking. Its muscles bulged under its black fur in places where there should be none. Saliva dripped from its mouth, gums pulled back to reveal ivory teeth as long as her fingers. Its pace held a ferocity that had been absent in the dogs.

Pioney whirled, fleeing. In no time, she had reached the top. Pioney looked back at her, her figure small and almost indistinguishable in the darkness. Then she was gone.

Calada turned, squaring herself to confront the terrifying creature barreling toward her. Intention gleamed in its beady eyes, a look far too cunning for any ordinary beast.

She picked up a rock and lobbed it. It arced in slow motion, heading for the monster. Almost too slowly, she watched it hit the beast’s shoulder. It kept racing for her. Her stone might have been water, for all the good it did.

It rose to its back feet, planting itself in a two-legged stance. It looked down its muzzle at her, blocking out the moon. She fell to the ground.

She screamed.

Then, it began to melt. No, its limbs began to shrink, molding and reshaping into a humanoid figure. The process was eerily silent.

In a matter of moments, the transition was complete. A man stood in the place of the monster.

His clothes were black and cut to fit his bulky frame. His biceps bulged as he unsheathed a long, elegant blade. His pants were loose, not hindering him in the slightest as he advanced toward her.

“Where do you think you’re going, girl?” He leveled the blade at her throat. His voice rasped quietly like the warning of a snake’s rattle. He did not demand attention. He promised retribution if it was not paid.

“It doesn’t matter, now, since you caught me,” Calada said, waveringly. She was frozen, not daring to move, not daring to break eye contact with the man brandishing the sword.

His boots crunched over stone on stone. She scrambled backward, finding herself pressed flat against the stones, panting.

“I want to know where you were heading,” he demanded, the edges of his tone sharpening. “Tell me, or I’ll cut it out of you.”

Pressing her hands into the creek bed to disguise their quaking, she replied, “I wanted to get away from all this.” She shook her head. “It makes you think death is preferable.” She glanced back at him to find his steel hovering a breath from her face.

“I don’t believe you,” he said, finally. “Your lies fool no one. Tell me the truth.”

“That is the truth!” Calada protested. She found her voice in that moment. In a flood, without thinking of consequences, she said, “Of course, you think I’m lying. You don’t see how our master treats us. You think he’s heaven sent, and maybe he is to you, but to us, he’s the one who bound us to him through that god-forsaken contract. If it weren’t for you, I’d rip that contract to shreds. You’re the prized one. You get treated well, the pet who chases after the runaways. You get the treats for turning us in. You have no conscience, no soul. You run around, performing tricks and tasks for our master, and you question nothing, and what’s worse, you enjoy it!”

Calada paused for breath. She met his eyes. There was something shining there that was a far cry from ferocity. In the dark and gloom, Calada might have said they were anguished. The light was poor, though. She must have dreamed it. His next words confirmed it. “You will pay for that later.” His feral snarl punctuated his sentence.

He whirled, placing two fingers in his mouth, and gave a piercing whistle. There was a clattering as another dog bounded down the slope. Slobbering, it gracelessly skidded to a halt a few paces away.

She inched backward as the dog sat docilely at the feet of the man. Unlike the other two, it wore a harness. There was a bag attached, from which the man drew a rope.

She scrabbled back as he curled the rope around his fingers. His black eyes were hard. Roughly, he seized her wrists. When she fought him, he dropped his knee onto her chest. The air whooshed from her lungs. In a matter of moments, he had knotted the rope, binding her hands tightly in front of her.

He whistled for the dog again, and it came loyally, mouth dripping wet. She cringed away. He sneered in derision. “What, can’t take a little dog breath, girl?” He stood, jerking her up by her bound hands.

He dragged her toward the dog. Every step was fire. “Get on.” His tone was an order, dipped in menace. “I’m not doing this for your comfort. I could care less. I want to be back by sunrise, and you won’t travel too fast in your condition.” She complied, trembling. The dog was uncomfortable and bony.

“You’d better hang on,” warned the man. He pointed to the harness strapped around the dog’s shoulders and chest. “Don’t fall off,” he advised without a note of concern. “Or else you are going to walk back on that bad foot.”

Calada didn’t respond. She had barely gripped the harness before the man whistled a third time, and the dog broke into a trot.

She squeezed her eyes shut. Her tears were whipped from her by the wind before they could fall on her cheeks. She felt the percussive beating of the dog’s paws resonate within her.

She thought of Pioney, and her terrified face before she fled. Something stirred in her chest, was it hope? Hope, that her sister would find a life without borders, without masters?

She clung to that warm feeling, fighting back the fear that chilled her to the bone.

They slowed. Calada opened her eyes. The iron gates were closed, as they always were before dawn. They slid to a stop.

Only hours ago, she and her sister had scaled them to escape. When they had left, Calada had believed she had put them behind her for good. Seeing the black metal again filled her with dread.

The beast halted beside them. She swiveled, in time to watch him shift, sleek and silent, to his human form. “Down,” he ordered. At first, she thought he was talking to her.

Before she could attempt what would surely end with her falling on her face, the dog lowered itself. The action almost unseated her. She grasped for its harness, clinging like a bug.

She met the man’s eyes. “Get off, girl!” He barked.

She clambered off the dog. Her foot throbbed. She clenched her teeth as she rested it on the ground, shifting her weight to her other leg.

He seized the ropes binding her hands and yanked her toward the gates. She staggered, unbalanced. Her foot pulsed white hot as she landed on it with her full weight. She dropped to a knee, holding in the scream.

The man looked back at her. He pivoted slowly, facing her. “Get up,” he snarled. “Or I will have you dragged through our master’s gates by a dog.”

Shuddering, her mouth dry, she pushed to her feet. He grabbed her ropes once again. He marched them up the path.

There was the familiar house, in all its nightly splendor. It glowed, ethereal, even at night. That beauty sent a cold thrill down her spine as the man led her across the grounds. The chilled wind carried the smell of woodsmoke and turned earth.

He directed their footsteps to the right. Her breaths quickened as she took in the humble building he walked them toward.

It was a small, unassuming stone structure. It posed no hint as to what punishment awaited her. Her palms grew sweaty. When it came to her master and his ideas, often simplicity hid terrible truths.

They stepped through the threshold. There was a disturbing lack of scent in the place that made it deathly empty. The interior was bare. A solitary lumistone threw its pulsing light against the windowless walls.

A lone door stood on the opposite side of the room. He led her toward it. Unease sunk into the pit of her stomach.

Whatever comes, she thought. For Pioney. For my sister’s freedom.

When the door swung out, he wrenched her forward. She landed on her bad foot. Pain. The world spun.

She found herself on the ground. The man was crouched beside her, his expression dark. “Stand up,” he growled.

Unsteadily, she got to her feet.

She peered into the darkness through the haze of agony. The lumistone’s glow could not illuminate what lay behind the doorway.

Calada glanced at the man. He crossed his arms. “Go in.”

She took a wobbling step. Gritting her teeth, hobbled forward. She crossed the threshold. The door slammed shut behind her.

Her skin prickled. There was a shift. She doubled over, coughing. Her bound hands went to her throat. She couldn’t breathe. She sank to the floor, gasping fruitlessly for air. In the blackness, she scrambled for the door.

He wasn’t with her. The door, he had closed behind him. Her lungs burned, her mind fogged. She was floating, and suddenly everything didn’t hurt so much.

In the dark, her last thought echoed. Pioney.

(Phew! Thanks for reading 2506 words! Most of what I cut down on were descriptions. I hope that made everything a little less slow in the second half! Also, let me know what else I can do to improve THIS version.)

[a-queer-seminarian]

a masterpost of all the sermons i’ve preached

just because i feel like having them all in one place!

all of these links lead to audio of me preaching and a transcipt of the sermon. i include an excerpt from each sermon, and i’ve put the titles of the sermons i’m proudest of in bold.

“The Neighbors Nobody Wants,” Luke 10:25-37

My first sermon! Preached at University Presbyterian Church (now called Grace Presbyterian Church) on July 20, 2016

How often have you put the word Christian in quotation marks when you’re talking about “those Christians”, you know the ones, who claim to serve God with one breath and oppress LGBT people with the next! Those “Christians,” who drive anyone different from them away from their churches and refuse to bake cakes for same sex couples — we put them in quotation marks because we all know they’re not really Christians, am I right? Wrong. Their perspectives may range from mildly dissimilar to fundamentally at odds with our own when it comes to various issues, and yet — we share a God with them. We share a Savior with them, and even more intimately, a Body. They may not like it any more than we do, but we are all part of the Body of Christ. This is even more intimate than being neighbors with them, which is pretty intimate in itself — this is a matter of beating as one heart, listening for the same voice with the same ears, walking the earth with the same feet. It’s hard to admit it, but these are neighbors we have turned away from, have given up on. And these are also neighbors who have been the robbers in our own stories, beating us and denouncing us for being LGBT or even just supporting those who are. And maybe we have good reason for calling them “false” Christians — maybe we do it because they first did it to us. But if any healing will ever happen in this beautiful, bruised, broken Body of Christ, both sides need to drop the quotation marks. No more Christians versus “Christians.” Because what right do we have to judge who is or isn’t really Christian?

“Silence,” Esther 8:9-14

Preached at Louisville Seminary chapel for its More Light (LGBT) service, October 2016

Listen. I know how your heart speeds up when you try to speak up— my heart does too. I know the lump that forms in your throat (that’s Silence, trying to stop you from speaking) and when you speak anyway, maybe people will be mad. Maybe you’ll have to fight. Maybe you’ll even lose. But speak anyway. And if you have to fight, then fight not with swords but with words, not with violence but with love and truth. If we speak, the scars of silences once carried will map themselves into a vision of a future where no one needs to bury themselves to stay alive.

“Called from Conformity into Renewal,” Romans 12 (only a transcript for this one)

Preached at Louisville Seminary chapel for its preach-in service in solidarity with Princeton Theological Seminary during their preach-in in protest of raising the voice of Tim Keller, who is against LGBT+ people and women being ordained, on their campus; April 2017

“Do not be conformed to this world,” they reminded me. “This world,” according to them, was one that was all too lax in terms of sexuality and gender. “This world” celebrated being LGBT to the point that it was practically a trend, so that everyone these days thought they were gay or bi or ace or trans. Wow, I would love to find “this world” these guys claimed to be living in.

“Taking Up the Cross and Finding Life,” Mark 8:27-36 (link leads to a video and transcript instead of audio)

Preached at Louisville Seminary chapel for its More Light (LGBT) service, October 2017

The world tells me these things — my gender, my love— are just my cross to bear – and to bury, that I need to suffer because somehow these things are sins, that’s right – my love, love! the pair of wings God fixed on my shoulders to help me fly to Them is actually a heavy weight, a sin, a sickness – but God knows I have seen far too many of my people nail themselves to that cross, bleed out as you watched to think for a moment that God is the one who placed that cross on our shoulders.

“Song in Babylon: Joy as Resistance,” Jeremiah 29

Preached at Covenant Community Church in Louisville on November 26, 2017

Maybe sometimes, resistance is not about big actions, about battles, about outright rebellion. Maybe sometimes, resistance is the simple decision to keep living, to not give those who would see you crushed the satisfaction. God is asking Their chosen to do the impossible -- to keep on farming and having families right there in exile -- because God knows this is what will enable them to survive. God tells the people to multiply in Babylon, and not to decrease – because choosing to waste away in their grief, to flicker and fade into nothing while they wait for God to lead them home, would be the act of surrender. To plant and grow, to celebrate marriages and births and the simple pleasures of daily life – that is the act of resistance.

“Talking to Strangers,” John 4:1-30, 39-42

Preached at Covenant Community Church in Louisville on January 28, 2018

I invite you to imagine the kind of person you would be shocked to be asked for something from. For me, it would be a certain brand of Christian. For an extreme version, think of a Westboro Baptist Christian, who literally wants people like me dead. For a less extreme version, I think of my girlfriend’s parents, who shudder at the mere mention of me. I can’t imagine them asking me for water, making me aware of their need. And besides, wouldn’t sharing a cup with me give them, like, queer cooties or something? Reverse the image, now. Whom would you never be caught dead asking for something from? Would I dare to ask one of those types of Christians for water? Or would I decide there’s no use asking, of course they’d never share with the likes of me. Why should I put myself at their mercy like that only to be turned down?

“ ‘Who Sinned?’ -- Re-thinking Disability and Centering the Marginalized in Their Own Stories,” John 9:1-38

Preached at Covenant Community Church in Louisville on February 11, 2018

One of the stranger conversations I’ve had in my life involved me mentioning to an acquaintance that I was autistic. I was not prepared for their response: “Oh no! What happened?”I had no clue what answer they were expecting. What happened? Um...I was born?

“I AM the Light of the World,” John 8:12-18

Preached at Covenant Community Church in Louisville on February 25, 2018

The light that Jesus brings is not always comfortable. It’s the dentist’s lamp that sears into your eyes, makes your pupils shrink in pain – but is necessary as something that can illuminate the dark recesses of your mouth. Without that light, the dentist won’t be able to identify the buildup of plaque, the wearing down of gums, the signs of cavity. It’s not about judging what you’ve done to your teeth – it’s about making things right. Are you ready to let that light into your life? Are you ready for the transformation it brings?

“I AM the Vine,” John 15

Preached at Covenant Community Church in Louisville on March 25, 2018

Saint Catherine of Siena, a nun from the fourteenth century, has a slightly different vision of what it means for Jesus and humanity to be joined as one plant; here are her words: “And you, high eternal Trinity, ...When you saw that this tree could bear no fruit but the fruit of death because it was cut off from you who are life, you came to its rescue with the same love with which you had created it: you engrafted your divinity into the dead tree of our humanity.” ...I appreciate Saint Catherine’s conception of grafting [because] grafting together plants of a different species is tricky business; often,the two prove to be incompatible. But in this story we find that, by some miracle, divinity and humanity are two compatible “plants,” that somehow, our created state can be joined to our Creator’s state. ...

"The Remorseful Cry,” 2 Samuel 18 (that link leads to the transcript; see here for a video recording)

Preached in my basic preaching class on April 1, 2018

We are called to an expansive love, a love that cares for our most distant neighbor as much as our closest friend, a love that extends even over our enemy. If we love in this way, things will get much more complicated, and much messier. After all, if we love the casual acquaintance at work and the stranger on the street as truly as we love our sibling or parent or partner, we’ll be compelled to look and notice how our individual decisions are affecting their lives. We will find that our tiny sphere of personal relationships creates ripples that spread much further out.

“The Wounds of Jesus: Goodness Embodied,” John 20

Preached at Covenant Community Church in Louisville on April 8, 2018

Christianity has been deeply influenced by the dualism of Greco-Roman thought, which claims that the spiritual is good and the physical is bad, that we are most godly when we can escape the “cage” of bodily desires. We strip all manner of physicality from our conceptions of heaven, letting it become some abstract realm in the clouds where spirits whiz around free of their bodies. And I totally get the appeal of this vision of heaven – there is a lot that I do not love about my own body. People gender me wrong because of it, for one thing; and it’s susceptible to pain; and my skin and eyes and ears are overly sensitive, often leading to distress; and I absolutely hate getting sick, who doesn’t? ...But this favoring of the spiritual over the physical, glorifying the former and demonizing the latter, cannot be the whole picture – not when God shaped those bodies in the Beginning and called them Good; not when Jesus rose from the dead not only spiritually but bodily.  

“Jesus Gets Schooled,” Mark 7:1-8, 15, 24-30

Preached at Covenant Community Church in Louisville on May 6, 2018

In this story the humanity of our divine-and-human Jesus is at the forefront. At first it shows us the ugliest parts of that humanity, the tendency towards prejudice that all of us have...but, thanks to his willingness to hear the woman out we will see this ugliness transform into one of the most beautiful parts of human nature: the ability to learn, to change our minds, to improve ourselves.

“When the Good News Feels Like Bad News,” Amos 7:7-15 and Mark 6:14-29

Preached at Grace Presbyterian Church in Tuscaloosa on July 15, 2008

Following in the footsteps of the prophets is no easy thing – it’s an often uncomfortable, sometimes dangerous or costly, frequently thankless task. People receive the good news like it is bad news – because from the perspective of the world, it is. God’s good news of social norms turned on their heads, of liberation of those who are dehumanized and exploited, demands major changes, changes that will come with losses. We may lose some friendships, some comforts, some unfair advantages in order to reach the new heaven and earth. We will all die a little before we are raised up utterly transformed.

“Radical Rest: The Fourth Commandment,” Exodus 20:1-11

Preached at Covenant Community Church in Louisville on August 19, 2018

It’s my favorite of the Ten Commandments, even though I cannot claim to follow it very well. Who can, these days? Who can say they take off a whole day every week just to rest? It’s impossible, for most of us. ...And that’s why I love the command to rest one day every week: I love it because it seems impossible. Because if we were to achieve it, it would be a radical thing. Because God does not instruct us to have this Sabbath rest only for ourselves, but for “you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns.” In the days of the Bible, children were subject to the whims of their father, livestock to their farmers, slaves to their masters–they could only rest if he said they could. ... For God to declare that these people must be allowed to rest alongside the people in power is a command for equity, for justice.

[jrt-fmp-year1]

Different shark and creature types:

Where are they found, discuss look/patterns and name.

Whale Shark:

As we all know, Whale Sharks are most notable for being by far the largest living nonmammalian vertebrate but they also have hearts of gold and are generally pretty chill. These sharks are found in tropical oceans around the world. The shark features a white dotted top and a white underneath. If I do various different shark models, I can re-use this pattern or miss and match it with another. 

The whale shark is a slow moving creatures that “sucks in” water and thus food. I can re-use this inhaling technique of the sharks as an attack that the sharks can use in my game. In the game, the shark could do this and it pull the player in. Also could have it so if the player fires something, the sharks move works against them and deals bonus damage or something similar to this as the shark inhales the players attack. I do like the longer tailfin as I think you could do a swipe attack with the tail. 

Hammerhead:

Hammerhead Sharks feature a uniquely shaped head.... Like a hammer I suppose. I don’t think I can draw anything from this to re-use or explore into my own game. Though this does give me the idea to play around with evolution, something like maybe a species of shark has evolved with a retractable dorsal fin due to its prey seeing the dorsal fin breaching the water, to avoid being seen they developed this retractable fin. 

Though, these being smaller sharks and making them scavengers, maybe the player can hunt these.

I am not super interested in the colours of these sharks and would settle for something darker and more ominous.  

Here's a cool 360° video 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rG4jSz_2HDY

Great White Shark: 

The Great White don’t look so great from the front, looks kinda dopey. Something that I do like is the fatness and the black eyes. I think the black eyes create a void of emotions. I also like the transition from the white underbelly to the bluish grey top half. Like a jagged line to differentiate between the two half's. 

I think I will take this jagged line and use it on my own shark. One thing I do not like and prefer the look of another (Bruce from Nemo) are the teeth of the great white, they are just not chaotic enough. 

Tiger Shark: 

The Tiger Shark has a tiger striped top half. I like the idea of using some sort of pattern to give variety to the sharks in my game. I don’t think however the tiger stripes would look right in my game world, I think it would stand out to much. 

Though similarly to the hammerhead, maybe the player can hunt these as I can make something similar to these, shrink them down a bit and it won’t look out of place to hunt these. 

Assassin’s Creed Black Flag (Shark)

Something I have mentioned in a previous blog post but that I will mention that idea here again. I like the idea of hunting creatures with something similar to spear fishing and how Black Flag did it. , these would be generally smaller creatures and not the bigger monsters that the player will face. Maybe like the “baby” version of some of the monsters. 

The Kraken (Giant Octopus/Squid)

The Kraken is a giant octopus, squid like creature that in folklore would approach a large ship from underneath and wrap its tentacles around the entire ship and pull the vessel down and apart. 

I think I can completely re-use the creature of a giant squid, octopus and use a similar attack that these creatures were said to have in folklore. I like, I think, the atmosphere and sort of the “oh sh*t” moment of being at the mercy and fighting of a creature like this and its size. Can also have the tentacles wrap around the players ship. 

The spiral-lipped shark

Something that I immediately think I can use is its jaw. A creature could have a attack where it “throws” out its jaw and swipes in a direction, using the teeth to deal damage. Another attack could be it sends it jaw under the water, so the player can not see it, and raises it jaw quickly where ever the player was or is. 

On looks, I like the scars and marks in this example of this creature. 

As I feel this is a lesser known dinosaur, it will not suffer Old Nessie’s fate. Where as with Nessie, its more of its own thing before its a sea monster, I feel this will fit into my game as this looks and feels more of a fictional creature. 

Cthulhu

The overall look and appeal around Cthulhu is very cool. It looks scary, it is big, its eyes glow red and its mysteriously ruthless looking with these combined with the whole tentacle face thing going on. Again the use of dark colours does promote a feeling of something un-nerving and doom approaching.

I do feel however that similarly to Old Nessie, Cthulhu is his own thing  and would not fit in with the other monsters featured and are going to be featured. Though maybe for variety I could design something similar, humanoid sea monster. 

Something I can re-purpose are the red glowing eyes. I think this will demonstrate to the player that this monster is of evil nature.

Loch Ness Monster

Old Nessie does not really have the menacing or something the player should be wary off. I think this is mainly do to the look of Nessie, long thin neck doesn’t scream “I am going to eat you now”. I also do not think it will fit into my game world and would standout, as I think Nessie is seen more of as a dinosaur first and monster second. 

Bruce (Nemo)

I really like the eyes, something about them is offsetting. I do not think I can re-purpose these as the player will not really be about to get a good clean look at the final model. I also really liked the red eyes of Cthulhu and the look this offers, and I think I will follow this idea through. 

I think I can get a better understanding of what I want the teeth to look like. Sort of like a chaotic mesh of white tooth with gums melting over the individual teeth.

Here are some other types of modern day sharks.

[austennerdita2533]

Day 5: Mythology and Creatures

A/N: I bring you a Hades and Persephone AU today, lovelies. It reads a little bit like a myth/fairy tale. Also, there was supposed to be a Klaus POV to this but I’m a writing sloth and ran out of time. Shhhh. If you’re interested in the part 2, let me know and I’ll finish it and post it at a later date. I hope you like it because I’m not sure how I feel about it. 

Anyway, happy reading! :)

(FF.net)

xx Ashlee Bree

Fill Me With Your Kissing Death

Long ago, back in the days when wolves still trotted and crouched low in her honeysuckle eyes, hungry for something with no name but afraid to prowl too close to the surface of desire, midnight rose like a chariot from a tomb to tickle the soles of Caroline’s feet. It tilled the earth. Exposed her lampshaded dreams like cartilage. Snapped denial against her two bony kneecaps until she screamed out the letters of her own fate. The rattle roar of ghosts she’d long refused to know stepped out from graves beneath her skin. They zipped into her throat with ease because they were no longer shunned for their shouts which demanded wicked mercy; they were no longer lonely. Cracking open the dual riot in her heart.

Midnight vined her through with darkness pronged in hush. All of that guileless power licking love into old scars until they felt jagged and whole again instead of split open and dripping red with shame. It happened at a time when hunting for blood was deemed wrong for any spring darling because ‘sunlight should be enough to fill up anyone who’s been blessed with a green raindrop touch’; but also in a moment when Caroline could no longer crush the wildness inside. That part of her desperate to grow thorns from her thumbs…that part dying to poison herself with the freedom to seethe.

She’d grown weary of lying. She’d grown so sick of pretending to flourish in a half-life where she spent all her time courted only by the warmth of the sun. For what of the moon? Or of the knifing feeling of night as it’s swallowed like ice through the lungs of the guilty?

What about the withering of seeds after August’s multitude of sins have sucked out all the colors except grey and black? How about the rickety quiet of branches swaying somberly because they’ve paid for their crimes in crumpled brown leaves? Why should it be so wrong, Caroline wondered, yet feel so right, to harness Nature’s brutal tools? Why should it be so terrible to bury the weediest of weeds back beneath the dirt where they belonged?

What if—what if it wasn’t?

Stunted, that’s how she felt. Stuck.

Her head spun and spun in clouds too bright. Her chest heaved, gasping for a squall that tasted of swords and teeth and sweat instead of a rain scented in pinks.

Deep down, Caroline craved transformation and piquancy because she knew she needed more room to cultivate the dueling extremes the gods had planted inside of her. She needed a different kind of garden. One that’d accommodate her bloom-wilting, shiver-burning, rain-droughting ways because the pleasure to shine wasn’t enough anymore.

The sun felt muted.

One-dimensional.

Uninspired.

Warmth was too tepid, too predictable…

It would never fill her up. It would never be enough.

Caroline needed nightfall, too. She needed fog and shadows and obscurity. She needed the enigma of the moon with its various phases and cratered multiplicity.

She required the chill of the wind’s tendrils scraping through her bones with a whistle which wakened to widen the marrow, fattening her full of vigor and vice. She wanted the heaviness of souls to press down and burden her shoulders with questions. With emotion. With finality. She wanted penance for sins to blister across skin like ivy because sometimes suffering was payment, because sometimes suffering was the only justice.

She craved the flavor of revenge sliding through her teeth, along her gums, and she longed for it to boil and bake and brew in her blood without guilt before erupting to penalize the deserving with pain.

She wanted everything—she was over feeling half-enough.

Done.

The time had come to seek sanctuary for the defiant aconite seeds which were frozen in her gut. Caroline needed to nourish them in deeper soil where both she, and they, could come into their own and thrive. The time had come for her fear to fall. For her fists to rise. For the hollowed-out roots of her spring-stasis life to be pruned and snipped away for good so only her punishing purple petals survived.

And so, as a flock of bluebird-ravens wreathed ‘round her head chirping a song about beautiful wraiths, the squishing grass between her toes sounding less and less like a place she yearned to call home, she approached the Forest of Forgotten Age with determined footsteps and ambition to claimed what she was owed.

“I know who I am,” she said, “and I choose power. I choose instinct. I choose to chase after the missing pieces I still need.”

Caroline followed the stars, the eerie wood before her sparkling with serendipity, with eventuality.

A horn sounded when she passed through a bouldered gate as if to confirm that she’d left spring behind for good and had finally found the leafless ground where she was meant to be. Lowering her head, kissing the bundled green stems she carried in her hands, she knelt before the enchanted Unseen Tree to plant her dandelion offering like a wish. She waited for Mr. Midnight himself to come. She waited to for him to convey her over the threshold and into the undulating world below, sweeping her into the black magic of moonlight like a bride.

“Touch me, I am ready to burn,” she recited in a whisper. “Take me, I am ready to turn. Teach me how to command my extremes, and I am yours to adore in the realm you rule beneath my earth-sodden feet.”

“Like a Sun Queen who falls to kiss the horizon each and every night, I want both light and dark in my life,” she went on. “I need a world where both blood and mercy collide, where love still wins but hate’s a battlecry.”

Her heartbeat was as percussive as a clang of bone on obsidian.

“It’s why only a hybrid home like the Deadlands can shelter me. It’s why only you can stop time to take me in—saving me, enriching me.”

Her narcissus soul was ablaze with hope, with hunger. Veins pulsated, thick and green and bulbous, in the whites of her eyes until they looked almost black.

“I appeal to you, King Klaus, Kindred of the Damned. Save me with your killing breath; fill me with your kissing death,” she said feelingly, her fingers clawing into the molten dirt like talons. “Please, free me from this half-lived hell!”

The ground cracked under Caroline’s muddy palms as she spoke.

Blades of grass parted like a greasy cowlick to reveal a black mouth where a blanket of green used to be. Through the cracked lips, a whisper of smoke snaked left then right before reaching up and out to handcuff her wrists in silk; thumbing a path up her arms, along her ivory neck, across her apple’d cheeks. It caressed her sweetly, possessively, tickling her skin as it encircled her head like a crown.

The smoke feathered across her forehead, its edges thinning until they were no wider than an eyelash that could prick its way inside softly and open her mind to a land of bone and snow, of flame and ghosts, and of thorns which curled and swooped to form dead rose bush thrones. It wove white lily skulls under her skin. It galloped images of cobalt castles made of glass, fire-breathing horses, silver chariots, and scepters stained in ichor, through her thoughts. It rolled mint under her tongue to give her a taste of the Deadlands’ crisp power.

Then slowly, smoothly, the smoke pulled back and let her go. Like a vanishing serpent, it sunk back beneath the chasmed ground from where it sprang, leaving her with nothing except memories of grandeur, yearning, and a small trifle which rested atop the dirt like a stone.

Round, thick, juicy, and rich with color, the object glistened at Caroline like a weeping ruby and hummed a kind of skeleton melody. The music called to her; it beckoned. And before she knew it, she’d plunged her arm into the center of the Unseen Tree’s trunk and closed her hand around it, squeezing.

“I’m all yours now. And you—you are all mine. But the Deadlands?” she said as she plucked the item loose with a tug and raised it into the air. “I’m afraid that you’ll have to learn how to share.”

Lowering Death’s forbidden fruit to her mouth, she then bit into it hard. Her canines pierced the frostbitten rind with a smile that sliced as she added, “Say hello to your new Queen of Midnight.”

In that one moment, and with that one bite where she was able to savor Free Will’s taste as it spilled across the blade of her tongue, dripping endless Time down her chin, Caroline not only swallowed an entire kingdom of riches and ruin, but also a destiny that’d open her pomegranate heart to the wonders of the dark. And to Klaus. For, in him, she found not a god, but a mate who filled her half-empty parts with a violent love that would never die.

And the rest, as they say, was history.

[docholligay]

Step Into My Parlor

How long has it been since I wrote some proper Widowtracer? Roughly a zillion years. I’ve had this story in my head forever, and finally got it all out. Just about 4100 words, my entire OW universe is here if you want to place this in order. 

The riding drum of the battlefield was never a thing Amelie understood. Her world was calm. Collected. Orderly. Above all, patient. So much of her life was simply waiting for on opportunity, the gift of time slipping through an hourglass until the perfect moment hit, and, like God himself, she could break death in one quiet moment.

It had been like that, at first. A flash of blue blinked her scope, and her finger did not wait to consult her brain, her sniper’s skill so refined that death was no longer a matter of thought, but of instinct. The world slowed, her eyes linking into Tracer’s, noticing the moment when they grew wide with realization, her mouth dropping open with a horrified surprise.

A small red dot on her right breast. Not a perfect shot, but good enough. She would accomplish what everyone else had failed, Tracer so far out from her team, so alone in the dark. The dot grew as Tracer stumbled into the alleyway, yanking off her goggles.

Widowmaker broke down her rifle quickly and strapped it to her back, not even really knowing why she was moving toward Tracer. It was essentially a confirmed kill. She had moments left.

And yet, she swung down into the dark alleyway, where Tracer knelt, coughing blood onto the cobblestones, giving a desperate gasp every so often.

She looked up to the sound of Widowmaker’s heels clacking on the ground. Her red-flecked lips moved to form the letters of Widowmaker’s name, the old one that time had forgotten, the one she must know from her file, a name human and wrong, but there was no breath behind it, no sound except the terrible rattle of her lungs.

Widowmaker knelt in front of her, a strange sickly feeling coming over her, and Tracer leaned against her shoulder. She was so warm. Like a tiny sun.

She put her arms around Tracer as she began to falter, holding her up until, she realized, she was cradling her in her arms.

“Tracer.” She could not break her gaze, drawn in by those terrible, deep brown eyes.

Tracer reached up and put a bloodied hand on her cheek, and softly, barely, mouthed ‘okay.’

“Lena.” It had broken from her mouth, fresh with a sorrow that disgusted her.

Tracer moved to take another shuddering breath, but nothing came, her eyes still locked with Widowmaker’s as they glazed over and the light in them died, as she grew heavy in Widowmaker’s arms.

The alley was cold again.

Widowmaker held her to her chest and shut her eyes tight, her teeth bared in anger at her own regret, at her own pain, at a life that had required her to take so much from herself, at Reaper’s order, at her willingness to take it, at her feeling, even now, that maybe it had been right, at the fact that right had always been her burden.

She still smelled of sunshine.

There was a furious roar behind her, and the last thing she saw was a giant black hand reaching toward her.

__

“This is stupid.” Tracer pouted as she sat on the couch.

“YOU are stupid.” Pharah glowered as she adjusted her gauntlet

Tracer stood up, fists balled. “Would you care to--”

“Fareeha. Lena. Enough.” Mercy touched their shoulders, the softness of her voice covering the room like a blanket. She looked over at Tracer. “She is only trying to protect you. You are still not well.”

“Says who?!”

Winston shook his head. “Pharah, I’m not sure I think you’re--I mean anyone, is capable of winning this--”

Pharah’s mouth hung open, agog with Tracer’s complete lack of reality in moments such as these, and her voice deepened in a growl. “You almost bled to death on a metal van floor less than a month ago. I realize your attention to detail is poor, but I would think--”

Tracer tossed her head and threw a hand in the air. “Not bleedin’ to death now!” She crossed her arms in front of her chest. “I can ‘elp. And besides, who died and made you dictator of this group? Because it surely wasn’t me.”

“Only because Mercy is exceptionally talented, is that true.” Pharah straightened up. “But you are right, Tracer.”

“Course I am.”

“This is a group founded on the principles of teamwork, and, where you and I disagree, the team should make a final decision.” She looked around the room, everyone in their battle gear save for Tracer, who was still wearing her plaid pajama pants, an oversize grey cardigan pulled over her West Ham shirt. “Everyone who believes that Overwatch Agent Lena Oxton, callsign Tracer,”

Lena sighed. “Can we skip your dramatics, this one time?” She held up a finger for emphasis.

Pharah extended a hand. “Who, only three weeks ago,”

“Three and a half.”

“Was nearly killed in the line of duty,”

“As if we ‘aven’t all done that!”

“And suffered from severe blood loss, requiring,” she turned around to look at Winston and Dva. “A minimum of six weeks before any strenuous physical activity, and is almost certain to weaken and collapse on the battlefield, causing either a dangerous rescue, or her death,”

“Listening to you’s the closest I’ve felt to death in me whole bloody life.”

“Should stay home from the mission, as the highly decorated and world renowned,” she winked at Mercy, “And beautiful, Dr. Angela Ziegler, recommends, raise your hand.” She raised her hand and smirked at Tracer.

“Are you through?” Tracer looked at Pharah incredulously, and then out at the group. “Counterpoint: I’m tip top, I’m a necessary part of the team, and I’ve a right to make me own decisions.”

D.va’s hand popped up first, and she popped her gum. “I mean, I don’t care, but you’re being dumb.”

Mercy raised her hand, and looked at Tracer apologetically. “You aren’t strong enough yet, Lena, I’m sorry.”

Winston slowly raised his hand.

“Win! You must be bloody joking!”

“It’s not a serious mission, and you’re tired, Lena. I can tell by looking at you.” He nodded frmly but looked at the ground. “And don’t tell me I don’t know, We both know I have no difficulty tellin--”

“Ugh!” Tracer flopped down dramatically on the couch.

“Take it easy, Mighty Mouse.” 76 reached down and patted her shoulder.

“Oh, get stuffed, Jack.” She picked up her cell phone. “Ordering an entire pizza, on Overwatch, and I won’t share one bite with the lot of you.” She glared at Mercy. “It’ll be all pork, as well, so don’t ‘old out ‘ope for leftovers.”

“Tracer” Pharah grinned.

“Yeah?”

Pharah winked at her. “Don’t wait up.”

“I ‘ate you.”

__

Widowmaker could not put the dream of last night from her mind, even as she quietly stirred her coffee, the light froth of cream making a web on the surface. These dreams had haunted her since the night on King’s Row, when she had first come face to face with Tracer, when she had beaten her, and yet Tracer had still claimed some small dominion in her head.

It was an unacceptable loss.

Much could be said of Widowmaker, and generally one of the first compliments given her was that she did not involve herself with her targets, emotionally or otherwise. Gabriel often praised her ruthless cold, different from Sombra’s smartass self-involvement. She prided herself on it. She could shake your hand one day and put a bullet through your head the next.

Why then, these dreams?

Tracer was nothing special--she had killed Overwatch agents she had known better before, with less thought. Even Gabriel had commented how odd it was for her to miss a target, particularly one that Talon found so very annoying. There was something in her eyes, maybe, something that looked past who Widowmaker was on paper.

She had called her Amelie. She had read Widowmaker’s file, too.

In a sense, she reasoned, it did not matter why she felt this way, it was a cancer she had to cut out, origin unknown and unimportant. But you can’t shoot her Amelie, the voice inside of her laughed, or you’d have done it as she lay in that hospital bed. No, no, another voice chimed in, Widow, you can certainly do it. You want her to see the face of the woman who kills her. That is all.

That must be it. There must need to be a sense of honor in it. That this had never been an issue before, and that she had happily shot many a soldier in the back from on high, did not enter her mind at the present moment, what was important was that she had discovered the whole of it, and Tracer would die.

She went to tell Gabriel her plan.

__

A strange feeling came over Tracer, and she didn’t think it was the breadsticks. Something palpable in the room, the she couldn’t quite place. Someone, something, was here with her. That, or her nightly dose of pain medication, which was not supposed to be mixed with alcohol, she thought, grimacing a little as she looked down at the brown bottle in front of her, freshly drained. She supposed it could be making her feel odd.

But she only had one. And she’d never been prone to a hallucination like this before.

The line between paranoid and cautious is always a difficult one for a soldier to walk, and Tracer tossed about in her mind the many possibilities in her head. She couldn’t well get into her battle gear--the idea of her team walking in and seeing her sitting on the couch in it, like a child who wasn’t picked to play, was too much for her to handle. But sitting here in her pjs, trusting on the ability of the room to hold her, was too nerve wracking, even knowing that Mercy would tell her it was very likely her mix of business and pleasure that was causing her nervousness.

Her casual accelerator, flatter and more comfortable, her only choice back before Winston had rigged up any of the rooms and still her general daily accelerator, sat on the hub in the corner, and Tracer clipped it on her body, slipping off her cardigan and putting the accelerator over her shirt.

“I’ve gone completely mad.” She slipped her cardigan back on, but sighed and forgave herself. “Feels better, though.”

It sometimes simply made her feel more secure to wear it, and, rather than tell herself she was being silly, she just gave in, and let herself feel safer. It wasn’t even uncomfortable to her, after all these years and so long wearing it even at home. For years, Win barely managed to keep her bedroom a free space. It was kind of him to do so much work to have a room or two here. 

She sat back down on the couch, temporarily relaxing. It was nothing. Just some old anxiety, crawling inside of her, and she was going to turn into a nightmare like Jack, sweeping the perimeter, if she didn’t control it.

She picked up a glob of fallen cheese, wrapped around a bit of sausage, and tipped her head back, mouth open in delight, as Sue and Giles debated the merits of mock everything.

When she was small, Tracer had once lost her airplane in a tree. It was her favorite airplane, and she had no intention of losing it to anything so foolish as a piece of greenery, and so she had climbed what must have been 20 feet into the air, balancing on the branch as she teetered out. Her father had come out the back door, his face horrified, and she heard his same voice in her head now.

LENA!!

It jarred her entire body, sending a searing pain through her middle, but she whipped her head around to see the barrel of a gun staring at her.

“Boujour, cherie.” Widowmaker gave her deep laugh.

Tracer’s eyes flicked up to her. “‘Fraid I don’t speak much frog, love.”

Widowmaker recoiled in annoyance for a moment, and Tracer took it, leaping off the couch, not entirely sure where she was going to go but imagining that anywhere was better than the end of Widowmaker’s gun. She whirled around and sprung off the coffee table, as Widowmaker pursued her. Widowmaker leapt over the couch after her, and Tracer upended the coffee table with a kick, sending pizza and breadsticks flying at Widowmaker and all over the couch. Tracer gave a small, solitary blink toward the back of the room, knocking over a picture of Pharah and Mercy at their wedding as she did so.

The trouble, Tracer considered as she ran around the back of the couch, is that whenever you miniaturize technology, something has to give. Winston’s early work had been to try and make Tracer’s life more normal and comfortable--that she could harness her abilities and blink at all was a happy accidental discovery, and the casual accelerator had never been designed for fights like this.

Which was wonderful most of the time, as she didn’t plan on being murdered on a daily basis, agent or no, but on this particular occasion, she wished she could blink a little more that the one second allotted to her.

She thought quickly, her mind reeling. There had to be something here. She couldn’t die like this. And then she saw it. One of Dva’s guns, left carelessly to the side of the armchair where she’d been cleaning it. Pharah would have her ass for that, normally, but Tracer figured she would make an exception for the fact that it had saved Tracer’s life. Maybe.

She summoned up as much strength as she could and blinked her tiny blink toward it, grabbing the gun narrowly. She turned around and pointed it straight at Widowmaker, whose gun was trained on her, and they stood still for a moment, staring.

And then it came over her like a wave, sheer pain and exhaustion, and the gun suddenly became very heavy in her hand, and her body suddenly became very heavy on her frame, and her arm shook with the sheer effort of keeping it trained on Widowmaker, who stood stock-still, a smile playing with delight across her face.

Tracer’s eyelids fluttered for a moment, and she fell to her knees, breathing hard as she stared down at the floor. Widowmaker placed her food on the gun and sent it skittering across the room uselessly, walking to Tracer.

Tracer  took a few deep breaths. “See as you don’t tell Pharah about this, she’d crow it over me grave for the rest of ‘er bloody life.” She gritted her teeth in frustration. “You’d never ‘ave bested me if I could blink properly.”

Widowmaker chuckled. “But you can’t”  She cocked her gun and pointed it at Tracer’s forehead. Only a moment now. “Do you have any last requests?”

Tracer looked down the barrel of the gun, more thoughtful than worried. She looked up at Widowmaker. “Can I ‘ave two?”

Widowmaker was taken aback for a moment, although she supposed she should have considered Tracer’s general bravado.

“And what would those be, cherie?”

She narrowed her eyes at Widowmaker. “Promise me I can ‘ave ‘em.”

“I suppose, unless you mean to prevent your own death, which, cherie, comes for you as it does for us all, than I can--”

“Now as you mention it, I’d like a beer.”

“A beer?”

She shrugged. “You asked, not me. No tricks or nothing, you’ve got me bang to rights.”

“If that is what you want…”

She kept her gun pointed at Tracer as they walked toward the kitchen, Tracer moving slowly and haltingly, her hand against the wall as they came into the kitchen. “Even considering I can’t blink, you’d never ‘ave got me if I ‘adn’t been shot naught but a few weeks ago.”

“But you were. And now...you will die, like your mother and father before you.”

“You gonna give me cancer and an ‘eart attack, love? Brilliant trick, you have. “ She giggled, and then held her stomach, “Ow bad is the intelligence back at Talon, I wonder?”

WIdowmaker suddenly realized she had simply registered that Tracer’s parents were dead, and they had both been RAF, and she had simply assumed. It flustered her, to see Tracer giggle at her misstep.

“Did you know Americans drink their beer near-frozen?” Tracer slowly lowered her body and took a bottle out of a tiny wine fridge at the edge of the kitchen. “Didn’t learn that meself until I joined up with Overwatch. Disgusting, it is.” She stood up and popped off the cap, taking a long drink. “Want one?”

“No, I do not.”

Tracer gave a half-hearted shrug and shuffled slowly back toward the living room. “I won’t drag it out, but I do intend to enjoy it, seeing as it’s me last.” She sat down slowly on the couch, sinking into the cushions, closing her eyes in a deep sigh and just resting there a moment.

Widowmaker watched her, careful not to lower the gun. She took a drink or two of her beer, but mostly she just sat there, like a child about to drift off to sleep, her face unmarred with worry. Widowmaker could not decide if it was alluring or offputting, but it was certainly unsatisfying.

Tracer opened her eyes. “And now, for me second request.”

Widowmaker smiled as she raised the gun again. "Do you intend to beg for mercy?"

Tracer looked at her, a mix of confusion and offense in her face. "Not ‘ardly." Widowmaker looked at her askance, and she continued, pointing her bottle at Widowmaker. "If I so much as thought of begging the bloody French for anything, me Dad would some'ow raise from the dead just to 'ave another 'eart attack,he would. ” she leaned toward Widowmaker, “Because, love, that is ‘ow he died, and you may want to change the records back at base. No," she shook her head. "I'll finish me ale and die like a proper Englishwoman. But,” she took a sip, “I need you to take me out be’ind the garage, and do it there.” Widowmaker paused, confused by the request, and Tracer narrowed her eyes, “You promised me you’d let me ‘ave two requests.”

“A waste. I should not be surprised.” She lowered her gun for a moment. “I will do it, cherie, but first...you must explain to me why you ask it.”

“That’s wasn’t a part of it.”

“How can it matter so much, this close to your death?”

“On account of you’ll go back on your word,” Her eyes were accusatory and judgemental.

Widowmaker was, for a moment, insulted. They may have been enemies, and she was anxious to get to the part where she finally removed the mold that had been growing over her mind, but she was still a woman of honor. “I swear to you, I will kill whereever your little heart desires. Allow me a moment of curiosity.”

Tracer looked at her, turning the bottle over in her hand, and nodded. “All right. I think, all things considered, 76’ll fare best with finding me. ‘E lives above the garage, out of the ‘ouse. Save on the cleaning bill, as well. ‘E’ll not be thrilled, mind, but ‘e’ll be the least bothered.” She took one last drink of her beer, draining it, and set it down on the coffee table. She drew her oversize grey cardigan tighter around her body, and nodded at Widowmaker, her chin high. “Ready.”

“Well then.” WIdowmaker rose, pointing her gun again. “Shall we dance?”

Tracer slowly pushed herself to her feet, and Widowmaker poked her with the end of her rifle.

“I’m not exactly savoring the moment, you know, I’m moving as fast I as bloody well can.” She shuffled toward the back door off the kitchen. “Mind that you put the bottle in the recycling after you kill me, Mercy’s very keen on all that.”

Widowmaker set the rifle against her back again. “Do you really think it is so important who finds you?”

“Yes. It’ll be bad enough, as is. Pharah’ll blame ‘erself, just as she always does. Mercy...I’ve know ‘er so long, and I remember ‘ow gutted she was about Jack and Gabriel and...everyone, really. D.Va ‘asn’t been with us but a month” she laughed. “Which I suppose means she won’t ‘ave much cause to miss me, and that’s a blessing, innit? And Winston,” her face grew sad, for seemingly the first time since she realized she was going to die, “E’ll take it so ‘ard.. “E’ll tell ‘imself ‘e should ‘ave stayed.”

“You have such an English arrogance about your own importance.”

“Do you really not understand? Nobody’d be worried if you didn’t come ‘ome tonight?” As soon as she asked it, the look on her face told Widowmaker she knew the truth, that there was no one waiting, that she was an operative and not a member of a strange and cobbled together family.

Widowmaker simply shoved her through the door into the backyard.

Tracer took a deep breath. “This is near about the lowest moment of me life, and I ‘ate every word that’s about to come from me. Don’t suppose you’d consider not?  Not for me own sake, but for Winston’s. He’s my best mate and all, and punch ‘im in the ‘eart, it will. If it’s just taking me out of the game that’s your aim, then,” she swallowed and looked back up at Widowmaker, “injure me bad enough, that I can’t be put right. Win’ll leave Overwatch so as not to remind me what I’ve lost, and we’ll ride off into the sunset, as they say.” She shook her head. “No, I ‘ate that. Just kill me.” she bit her lip and puzzled again. “Aw, Win…”

“I am prepared to take some begging from you.” She smiled with a dark delight.

“No,” she set her chin straight. “But don’t think I wouldn’t do it for Winston. I’d get down on me hands and knees and grovel, I would. But,” she continued, “Overwatch is more important than the both of us.” She continued to walk toward the garage.

“Do you feel the icy grip of death upon you, cherie? I will bathe tonight, lounging in your last moments.”

“That seems a bit gay, don’t you think? Thinking of me in the bath?”

“Your brave front is inspiring, even as you tremble.”

“I can’t ‘ardly walk, so you’ll have to mind the shakes. Kill me all you like, cherie,” she rolled her eyes, “ but you can’t make me afraid.”

Widowmaker looked into her eyes as she looked back, and saw, that it was true. She was not afraid, or broken, simply moving on with whatever came next, with her head held high.  

Tracer leaned against the back of the garage and grinned. “That’s what really ‘as you steaming, innit? You can’t make me anything other’n what I am?” She gave a huff “Better people’n you ‘ave tried, love.”

She dropped the gun to her side and moved into Tracer, who did not have a chance to react before Widowmaker’s mouth was on hers, kissing her deeply. Widowmaker felt that revulsion and confusion and desperate longing all combine in the taste of Tracer’s mouth, so different than she had imagined but somehow more magical for it, the reality of feeling something for someone after years blooming inside of her.

Tracer took a stumbling step back, and slid against the garage. “‘Ang on.” Her eyes were darting around, studying every inch of Widowmaker’s body, her face, taking notice of each movement. It captivated Widowmaker, the way Tracer moved, never sinuously like she did, but like a hummingbird, hovering and darting. Even weakened and slowed, Widowmaker could see what she wanted to do, how she wanted to move in bursts like a tiny firework.  

Widowmaker moved forward. “Do you object?”

“Yes! No. I’m not entirely sure. I--I--” She leaned heavily, almost falling.

Widowmaker kissed her again, and Tracer was there now, her lips closing around Widowmaker’s, her hand on Widowmaker’s hip, each fingertip warm and alive on her body. Widowmaker hand her hand along Tracer’s collarbone, feeling every muscle attached, ready to spring.

“You have a plane, yes?” She whispered into Tracer’s ear.

“A little Cessna, yeah.” She looked up at Widowmaker, still confused and aroused.

She kissed her again, and stroked her cheek. “Montreal. 7. Next Wednesday. Tell no one.” She stepped away. “I will be very disappointed, if you do not come.”

The words came out of her mouth before she could stop them. “Wouldn’t miss it.”

Widowmaker leapt into the night, and Tracer pulled the cardigan back over her shoulder, slowly moving back into the living room. Was that what she’d come for the entire time? To seduce her? IF so, she had a fairly terrible pick-up method, Tracer thought. Women didn’t generally like it when you attempted to murder them, but then again, maybe courtship was different in France.

She looked around at the mess in the living room, and sighed heavily. “Back to work.”

[vampireadamooc]

Lecture I: The Primitive Rite Itself

1.9 - Other Gleams of the Rite

In this last cited illustration, from Uarda, there would, at first glance, seem to be the covenant proffered, rather than the covenant entered into; the covenant all on one side, instead of the mutual covenant But this is, if it were possible, only a more unselfish and a more trustful mode than the other, of covenanting by blood; of pledging the life, by pledging the blood, to one who is already trusted absolutely. And this mode of proffering the covenant of blood, or of pledging one's self in devotedness by the giving of one's blood, is still a custom in the East ; as it has been, in both the East and the West, from time immemorial.

For example, in a series of illustrations of Oriental manners, prepared under the direction of the French ambassador to Turkey, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, there appears a Turkish lover gashing his arm in the presence of his lady-love, as a proof of his loving attachment to her ; and the accompanying statement is made, that the relative flow of blood thus devoted indicates the measure of affection or of affectionate devotedness.

A custom akin to this was found in Otaheite, when the South Sea Islands were first visited by English missionaries.

Femol's Recueil de cent Estampes representant differences Nations du Levant, Carte 43, and Explication, p. 16.

The measure of love, in time of joy or in time of grief, was indicated by the measure of blood drawn from the person of the loving one. Particularly was this the case with the women; perhaps because they, in Otaheite as elsewhere, are more loving in their nature, and readier to give of their very life in love.

"When a woman takes a husband," says a historian of the first missionary work in Otaheite," she immediately provides herself with a shark's tooth, which is fixed, with the bread-fruit gum, on an instrument that leaves about a quarter of an inch of the tooth bare, for the purpose of wounding the head, like a lancet. Some of these have two or three teeth, and struck forcibly they bring blood in copious streams; according to the love iltey bear the party, and the violence of their grief, the strokes are repeated on the head; and this has been known to bring on fever, and terminate in madness. If any accident happen to the husband, [to] his relations, or friends, or their child, the shark's tooth goes to work; and even if the child only fall down and hurt itself, the blood and tears mingle together.

. . . They have a very similar way of expressing their joy as well as sorrow ; for whether a relation dies, or a dear friend returns from a journey, the shark's tooth instrument ... is again employed, and the blood streams down. . . . When a person of eminence dies ... the relatives and friends . . . repeat before it [the corpse] some of the tender scenes which happened during their life time, and wiping the blood which the shark's teeth has drawn, deposit the cloth on the tupapow as the proof of their affection." 1

In illustration of this custom, the same writer says, in the course of his narrative: "When we had got within a short mile of the Isthmus, in passing a few houses, an aged woman, mother to the young man who carried my linen, met us, and to express her joy at seeing her son, struck herself several times on the head with a shark's tooth, till the blood flowed plentifully down her breast and shoulders, whilst the son beheld it with entire insensibility [he saw in it only the common proof of his mother's devoted love]. . . . The son seeing that I was not pleased with what was done, observed coolly, that it was the custom of Otaheite." 2

This custom is again referred to by Mr. Ellis, as observed by him, in the Georgian and the Society Islands, a generation later than the authority above cited. He speaks of the shark's tooth blood-letter as employed by men as well as by women; although more commonly by the latter. He adds another illustration of the truth, that it is the blood itself, and not any suffering caused by its flowing, that is counted the proof of affection, by its representing the out poured life, in pledge of covenant fidelity.

First Miss. Voyage to the So. Sea Islands, pp. 352-363.

Ibid., p. 196.

Describing the scenes of blood-giving grief over the dead bodies of the mourned loved ones, he says: "The females on these occasions sometimes put on a kind of short apron, of a particular sort of cloth; which they held up with one hand, while they cut themselves with the other. In this apron they caught the blood that flowed from these grief-inflicted wounds, until it [the apron] was almost saturated. It was then dried in the sun, and given to the nearest surviving relatives, as a proof of the affection of the donor, and was preserved by the bereaved family as a token of the estimation in which the departed had been held." 1 There is even more of vividness in this memorial than in that suggested by the Psalmist, when he says:

"Put thou my tears into thy bottle" 2 There would seem to be a suggestion of this same idea in one of Grimm's folk-lore fairy tales of the North. A queen's daughter is going away from her home, attended by a single servant Her loving mother would fain watch and guard her in her absence. Accordingly, "as soon as the hour of departure had arrived, the mother took her daughter into a chamber, and there, with a knife, she cut her [own] finger with it, so that it bled.

Ellis's Polynesian Researches, I., 529.

Psa. 56:8.

Then she held her napkin beneath, and let three drops of blood fall into it; which she gave to her daughter, saying: 'Dear child, preserve this well, and it will help you out of trouble.'" 1 That blood represented the mother's very life. It was accustomed to speak out in words of counsel and warning to the daughter. But by and by the napkin which held it was lost, and then the power of the young princess over her mother's servant was gone, and the poor princess was alone in the wide world, at the mercy of strangers.

Acting on the symbolism of this covenanting with another by the loving proffer of one's blood, men have reached out toward God, or toward the gods, in desire for a covenant of union, and in expression of fidelity of devotedness, by the giving of their blood God-ward. This, also, has been in the East and in the West, in ancient days and until to-day.

There was a gleam of this in the Canaanitish worship of Baal, in the contest between his priests and the prophet Elijah, before King Ahab, at Mount Carmel. First, those priests shed the blood of the substitute bullock, at the altar of their god, and "called on the name of Baal from morning even until noon, saying, O Baal, hear us ! But there was no voice, nor any that answered."

"The Goose Gill," in Gumm's Household Taks.

Then they grew more earnest in their supplications, and more demonstrative in their proofs of devotedness. "They leaped [or, limped] about the altar which was made. . . . And they cried aloud, and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lances, till the blood gushed out upon them." 1 Similar methods of showing love for God are in vogue among the natives of Armenia to-day. Describing a scene of worship by religious devotees in that region, Dr. Van Lennep says: "One of them cuts his forehead with a sword, so that 'the blood gushes out' He wears a sheet in front, to protect his clothes, and his face is covered with clots of blood." 2 Clearly, in this case, as in many others elsewhere, it is not as a means of self-torture, but as a proof of self-devotedness, that the blood is poured out the life is proffered - by the devotee, toward God.

Among the primitive peoples of North and of South America, it was the custom of priests and people to draw blood from their own bodies, from their tongues, their ears, their noses, their limbs and members, when they went into their temples to worship, and to anoint with that blood the images of their gods. 3

I Kings 18:26-28.

Van Lennep's Bible Lands, pp 767-769.

See Herrera's Gen. Hist. of Cont. and Isl of America, III., 209, 211, 216, 300 f.; Clavigero's Hist. o/Mex., Bk. VI., chaps. 22, 38 ; Montolinia's Hist. Ind. de Nueva Espana, p. 22 ; Landa's JRelat. Yucatan, XXXV.; Xunenez's Hist. Ind. Gautem., pp. 171-181; Palacio's San Sato. and Hond. (in Squier's Coll, I.) 65 ff, 106, 116; Simon's Ter. Not. Conq. Tier. Firm, en Nue Gran, (in Kingsborough's Antiq. of Mex VIII.) 208, 248 ; all cited in Spencer's Des. Soc. II., 20-26, 28, 33. See, also, Bancroft's Native Races of Pacif Coast, I., 665, 723 ; II., 259 36 708, 710.

The thorns of the maguey a species of aloe were, in many regions, kept ready at places of sacrifice, for convenient use in this covenant blood-letting. 1 A careful student of these early American customs has said of the obvious purpose of this yielding of one's blood in worship, that it "might be regarded as an act of individual devotion, a gift made to the gods by the worshiper himself, out of his own very substance [of his very life, as in the blood-covenant]. . . . The priests in particular owed it to their special character [in their covenant relation to the divinities], to draw their blood for the benefit of the gods [in renewed pledge to the gods]; and nothing could be stranger than the refined methods they adopted to accomplish this end. For instance, they would pass strings or splinters through their lips or ears, and so draw a little blood. But then a fresh string, or a fresh splinter, must be added every day, and so it might go on indefinitely; for the more there were, the more meritorious was the act;" 2 pre-ciscly as is the standard of love-showing by blood-letting among Turkish lovers and Otaheitan wives and mothers, in modern times.

Serving the purpose of the Otaheitan shaik's teeth. See page 86 f., supra

Reville's Native Religions of Mexico and Peru, p. 84 f.

A similar giving of blood, in proof of devotedness, and in outreaching for inter-communion with the gods through blood, is reported in India, in recent times. Bishop Caldwell, of Madras, referred to it, a generation ago, in his description of the "Devil Dance" among the Tinnevelly Shawars.1 The devotee, in this dance, "cuts and lacerates himself till the blood flows, lashes himself with a huge whip, presses a burning torch to his breast, drinks the blood which flows from his own wounds, or drains the blood of the sacrifice; putting the throat of a decapitated goat to his mouth." Hereby he has given of his own blood to the gods, or to the devils, and has drunk of the substitute blood of the divinities in the consecrated sacrifice; as if in consummation of the blood-covenant with the supernal powers. "Then as if he had acquired new life [through inter-union with the object of his worship], he begins to brandish his staff of bells, and to dance with a quick but wild unsteady step. Suddenly the afflatus descends; there is no mistaking that glare or those frantic leaps. He "snorts, he swears, he gyrates.

The demon has now taken bodily possession of him. [The twain are one. The two natures are inter-mingled]. . .

Cited in Adam's Curiosities of Superstition.

The devil-dancer is now worshiped as a present deity, and every bystander consults him respecting his diseases, his wants, the welfare of his absent relations, the offerings to be made for the accomplishment of his wishes, and in short everything for which superhuman knowledge is supposed to be available." In this instance, the mutual covenant is represented; the devotee both giving and receiving blood, as a means of union.

On this idea of giving one's self to another, by giving of one's blood, it is that the popular tradition was based, that witches and sorcerers covenanted with Satan by signing a compact in their own blood. And again it was in recognition of the idea that two natures were inter-united in such a covenant, that the compact was sometimes said to be signed in Satan's blood.

Among the many women charged with witchcraft in England by the famous Matthew Hopkins, the "witch-finder" in the middle of the seventeenth century, was one, at Yarmouth, of whom it is reported, that her first temptation came to her when she went home from her place of employment discouraged and exasperated by her trials. "That night when she was in bed, she heard a knock at the door, and going to her window, she saw (it being moonlight) a tall black man there: and asked what he would have? He told her that she was discontented, because she could not get work; and that he would put her into a way that she should never want anything.On this she let him in, and asked him what he had to say to her. He told her he must first see her hand; and taking out something like a penknife, he gave it a little scratch, so that a little blood followed; a scar being still visible when she told the story. Then he took some of the blood in a pen, and pulling a book out of his pocket, bid her write her name; and when she said she could not, he said he would guide her hand. When this was done, he bid her now ask what she would have." 1 In signing with her own blood, she had pledged her very life to the "tall black man."

Cotton Mather, in his "Wonders of the Invisible World," cites a Swedish trial for witchcraft, where the possessed children, who were witnesses, said that the witches, at the trysting-place where they were observed, were compelled "to give themselves unto the devil, and vow that they would serve him. Hereupon they cut their fingers, and with blood writ their names in his book." In some cases "the mark of the cut finger was [still] to be found." Moreover, the devil gave meat and drink both to the witches and to the children they brought with them. Again, Mather cites the testimony of a witness who had been invited to covenant with the Devil, by signing the Devil's book.

Cited in Benson's Remarkable Trials and Notorioits Characters, p. II.

"Once, with the book, there was a pen offered him, and an inkhorn with liquor in it that looked like blood." 1 Another New England writer on witchcraft says that "the witch as a slave binds herself by vow, to believe in the Devil, and to give him either body or soul, or both, under his handwriting, or some part of his blood." 2

It is, evidently, on this popular tradition, that Goethe's Faust covenants in blood with Mephistopheles.

MEPHISTOPHELES

"But one thing! accidents may happen; hence A line or two in writing grant, I pray."

FAUST

"Spirit of evil! what dost thou require t Biass, marble, parchment, paper, dost desire? Shall I with chisel, pen, or graver, write? Thy choice is free; to me 'Us all the same."

MEPHISTOPHELES.

"A scrap is for our compact good. Thou under-signest merely with a drop of blood. Blood is a juice of very special kind."

Cited in Brake's The Witchcraft Delusion in New England. I.,187 ; II., 214.

Ibid., I., xviii. See also Appendix, infra.

Faust, Swanwick's translation, Part I., lines 1360-1386.

Even "within modern memory in Europe," there have been traces of the primitive rite of covenanting with God by the proffer of one's blood. In the Russian province of Esthonia, he who would observe this rite, "had to draw drops of blood from his fore finger," and at the same time to pledge himself in solemn covenant with God. "I name thee [I invoke thee] with my blood, and [I] betroth thee [I entrust myself to thee] with my blood,' was the form of his covenanting. Then he who had given of his blood in self-surrendering devotedness, made 1 his confident supplications to God with whom he had thus covenanted; and his prayer in behalf of all his possessions was: "Let them be blessed through my blood and thy might" 1

Thus, in ancient Egypt, in ancient Canaan, in ancient Mexico, in modern Turkey, in modern Russia, in modern India, and in modern Otaheite; in Africa, in Asia, in America, in Europe, and in Oceanica: Blood-giving was life-giving. Life-giving was love-showing. Love-showing was a heart-yearning after union in love and in life and in blood and in very being. That was the primitive thought in the primitive religions of all the world.

See Tylor's Primitive Culture, II., 402; citing Boeder's Ehsten Abergldubischz Gebraitche, 4.

[r-29-blog]

A short gait

It’s Friday afternoon. My eyes gleam in the summer sunlight. It shakes me, tearing off my shirt

  Graceful gaits gaily walk down the crooked road; a gait of laughter strolls down the crooked road. As my sight remains fixed in the distance, I see the vibrant lights emanating from the insides of manufactured bliss. It shines so brightly through its transparent, glass windows. I see it gleaming in the distance as it slaps me in the face with its own incantation of laughter. It roars and howls to the tune of blues and microhouse, a hyper-minimalistic amalgamation of oppression and monotony. There, among the breeze, it subtly interlocks its fragile pale hands onto the spiked gloves of my head. Strings in the background begin to take place. I let the movement flow through my ears, upwards and toward the stimuli ridding itself of studs and dust.

           In the far distance, no longer than a short half-minute strut, I see the transparent barrier barring me from my destination. I make two strides closer and realize that it does not do anything but remain in front of myself. I make another two steps—this time without losing that lost third. Here, and among myself, I see the steps I once lost, remembering the instances in which my hair, with its rocks and steps flowing in the sky, eating its own carcasses and smiling along the way, grew. A dazzling three rattlesnakes long, with its slimy tips and steering-wheel eyes, the tips of my wavy mahogany locks reach upward my nipple. It is so soft and yet so malice with its gentle presence perfectly concurrent with the breast it lay upon. Shrieking, noting the moments that pass—one, two…two….two—, and realizing the ineptitude that surrounds me, I begin to think.

           To my left, resembling a monstrous white devil, a body continues its mechanical struts, dressed in mismatched colors, patterns clashing, the large sign of their logo shirt nearly repulses me more than the giant word that fills their chest. It shines brighter than the entire shirt, where eventually no shirt could actually be seen. Instantly, the shirt disappeared, leaving behind only the luminous language with its accented serif finishes carefully embracing the empty presence it harbors along with a calloused thumb attempting to subdue its naked kin. I chuckled to myself, realizing that the image that I had just described was nothing more than a pure hoax, a trick to play on you—my dear reader—an empty gasp that shrieks in your ears and erupts into laughter brief moments following your death. I dance on your grave for you are dead! Good day, good bye, no longer am I compelled to appease your pathetic existence. No longer do I have to live and hope that your wretched mouth gasps for its final breaths, “Help! Please do not do this to me. I have done nothing wrong. My son…He is no longer with me and I cannot do anything but make sure that he has his lunch in the morning. Kind stranger, would you not be so helpful as to give my son and her crimson red suitcase a ride to the airport. She is going home tomorrow afternoon, but he will lack the time that is absolutely needed for orientating themselves in the sky.” At last, with this final breath—one, that I may add, can only take more than a few seconds— you scream: Mon-SURE Koo-rtz, il VEE-re.

           I momentarily stopped. Before the end of this sentence the person will have continued walking forward, gaily strutting while whistling the tune of Kant’s third critique, and, at last, cross me so that I may continue toward my destination. There it is, the light that comes from the distance and crosses my sight and figures itself around the chilling days and the chilling nights. I hear a knife cutting cheese and garlic, the smoky scent of lemon chicken sautéing on a small portable stove—and let me tell you, I purchased this contraption for only sixty dollars on amazon.com. It’s refurbished, but who isn’t these days?

           Tangents seem to keep bringing me away from the actual point that I am attempting to make. However, now that I am done thinking, I will no longer be incoherent. My eyes will look forward, sternly march toward the distant fluorescent light, and ensure that we traverse the short space marking the threshold between my body and the concrete monolith. There—there—here—air—I wait. I see a light blinking. It is a red hand ordering me: HALT. It stares at me and continues blinking. I stare at it back realizing that the abyss that surrounds it is covered by “SKATE OR DIE” stickers. I scoff. Only then do I realize that it is I who stares back at the individual staring at the abyss. I have become the abyss and the nuisance it has caused various street-dwellers. The sanguine hate…halt symbol has stopped blinking. I stare and now a slim white palm faces me. I remember the instances of friends who carried bags with an open palm, its finger closely attached to one another, bearing a single dark eye in its center. It stared at me and I remembered a time even further behind, a time in which was not quite new to me as it happened in a time quite distant from here. Although, at this point, I am quite unsure as to exact direction this distance occupied. Was it left? Or up? Or possibly to the side? I could no longer tell.

           The large axe oscillates until a large cannon falls from the sky, its rigid dance with gravity, shooting as its descent further descends toward the dirty dirt that I stand upon. At last, the demons to my left, with their monumental size and inept control seem, and it is only this choice of words, to finally come to a complete stop. Allowed to continue, I cross the scorching hot earth and I feel the blazing red sun stab me with its pricked fingers, unshaven for no less than thirty-three days. Here, at last, I could finally see the very light that separated me and the object of my desire. I saw it. It looked at me. I saw the light that came between us. I moved forward, passing the signs that suggested that all of its interior organs—and do not forget its esophagus—were made in the U.S.A.

           Fuck the skies that turn bright as I valiantly march past the concrete painted lines under my feet. They walk further and faster and see how the other timid feet around me do nothing but gawk. They are squeamishly walking while thinking about jolly mundanity. They stand there, walking without motion and without thought. How is it that they can do so much, and manage to remain all the same, without thinking and wanting what it is that they are? The gleaming lights still emanate from the transparent glass. It is a window into my soul. My father used to tell me that eyes were the window into another’s soul. Too bad I did not have a father; he was castrated the moment I was born. I castrated him.

It was a glorious event. I remember distinctly seeing his face full of anguish followed by his butterfly screams. He pleaded for assistance, asking me to help him and to eradicate the pain. I stood there with his freshly cut testicles in my left hand and, in my right, I held the dull machete that I slit his balls with. Its sharp edges, now covered with a glorious halting glow, were no longer visible. He continued crying and begging for mercy. I continued standing there. I looked into his eyes and tried to find his soul. Alas, all I saw were the empty signs saying that he, too, was made in the U.S.A.

           After this sudden and quite anticlimactic realization I looked down at his bleeding groin, a gateway back into the same myth I was destined to fulfill. This thought enraged me. I did the only thing I could do at that point. I approached him. I embraced him and thanked him for all of the help he had hitherto provided me. He was always there, a positive paternal figure ensuring that I continued to abide by rigorous masculine standards, ensuring that his image would be reproduced so that I could carry on this inept last name. The shark teeth, now visible and still doused in an ornamental crimson, called me to do it. I sat there thinking of the conversations I would have with my interiority, only to realize that it would do nothing but fuel the additional anger I felt. So I lifted up my machete and with one small swipe I severed my father’s head. And the moment that my little tiny butter knife managed to separate a tablespoon of butter, his head began falling down toward the cement-colored floor.

           This severed head—although I cannot think that a head would retain its figure if it is no longer membered—rolled across the ossified gum and bits of crumbs. Eventually it managed to reach the pigeon a few miles to my right. With another short swoop, I picked up his head and stared into its now white eyes. Once again I tried to see if I could see his soul. I looked in, and after a few seconds, in its periphery, I saw it glow. I began panicking, regretting these actions and not wanting them to have occurred. I was on the verge of tears since I realized that I had fulfilled this carnal, oedipal destiny. I was troubled by the emptiness that filled me and the means by which I had killed the only one who was willing to push me forward into normalcy.

           My eyes blinked. I continue past the transparent windows, seeing the boxes bearing logos and homes. This place was going out of business, a fate suffered by so many others. Alas, what was I to do? I continued my gay gait down the feces-covered path, whistling the tunes of Tina Turner and Miles Davis, two prominent myths. I look down and my father’s head now in my right hand, with each of his testicles now in his eyes. My father always had piss-poor vision. His mouth suddenly opened. He began speaking to me: my child, you have forsaken me; you have disturbed order; you will no longer survive; you will no longer exist; Just remember this day; you will never bear the same pain as I do today. It is not in vain for I enjoy you as you enjoy cloudy skies. Following this bizarre sight and after the lips no longer gave words, I chuckled. Suddenly the chuckle grew, growing at an exponential rate, and it became a roar in less than three seconds. I raised the head, still in my left hand, up to my perfectly membered body, locked eyes with this Acephale-like head, and looked once more for the soul. After an hour, I looked for that small luminosity I once encountered, only to be immensely disappointed. I should mention that I did not stop laughing, or rather roaring this entire time. His lips began to move once more, but they did not create a sound. So I spoke for him: you are not my father, you never were. We lied to you and now your home is destroyed. So be free and become one with the earth, no longer needing to trouble me with your inane quotes. I threw his head back into the sea that I crossed, and rapid sharks shortly came, devouring this putrid skull.

           After this vexatious debacle, the headless body finally arose, professed its immense gratitude, and then proceeded to join me for a stroll.

             The chilling evening air whispered in my ears while the radiating lights, much like lighthouses, flashed in front of my face as I walked past storefronts and shoes. The eyes that stare and see me here only say hello to each other. They laugh. They gawk. They eat their processed meats and beans in-between diced spices folded together in a grand concoction of grand doctrine of American consumerism. How tragic that they pay so much for what, three hundred miles south, consider to be peasant food. Truly, when the wall arises, where will they be able to find a meal without spice? Oh well. I keep walking past the various storefront windows. On my left, there’s a restaurant that sells Mexican food. It’s a chain restaurant that is often considered to be healthy despite its past dealings with the largest and unhealthiest food conglomerate in the fast-food industry. “But you really have to love it,” I hear a voice say. I chuckle to myself realizing the irony in their statement. It is unite interesting knowing that others themselves can willingly transform an object and do so in such a short period of time. Yet, why should this even matter? Time is such an important thing for us, and yet we cannot seem to ever do without it. We are not slaves to capitalism! No we are slaves to time! Although who could ever tell the difference?

           While I kept walking forward, right in the middle of two different street corners, I begin to notice the vacancies. There were three glasses bearing ‘For Lease’ signs. I walked as I saw my reflection follow me as I traversed the road. It followed me and kept me company, for I was quite the recluse. I sat there looking inward, not just into the paper-covered windows, but also into my own mind. There, I saw the glass-windows lined with brown paper with three separate signs evenly separated from one another. They all bore the same message: FOR SALE. What did it mean? What was this sign trying to convey to me? Was it selling itself? How could it? It could not simply stand upright, shake my hand and say “DEAR FRIEND, how lovely you look, how amazing the wind blows alongside my hair. How I wish to sell myself to, allowing you to do all as you please to.” Immediately after, the building turns around, and begins running toward the snow-covered hills. As they move closer to the cliff’s apex, he suddenly stops and yells back “FOR SALE.”

           I walk past this first sign and I notice the second sign, a twin to the former. This one does not look back at me. It just stares into the nothingness that surrounds me. After making prolonged contact with this strange sign, it gets up, moves to the side and covers its sibling. It says: WHY CAN YOU NOT TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN YOU AND I? I was stunned. I stopped walking. I kept glaring at the brown-paper lined glass window with its signs, one sign now over the other. Imagine selling crack out of your grandmother’s room. It is truly a sight and a thought, one that seems nearly impossible but yet all too real. It is the reality in which some of exist. Those of us who often lose ourselves to the system. Or rather, are lost to the system. For how does anyone end up in such a wretched position, constantly subject to violence, discrimination, and instability without it being necessitated. There are often instances of tractors of time who merely mow lawns. These were the same lawns owned by the slave-masters. The slave-masters always ensured that their thoughts were cut nice and short, tailored to match everyone else in the community neighborhood. After all, they did not want to receive a citation for an unkempt lawn.  

           The last sign did not bear anything but a number combination: 930-293-7381.

[favouriteworstnightmarexo-blog]

Moonchild

「She held the moon the way she held her own heart, as if it was the only light that could guide her through the darkest hours. 」 As children, being the inquisitive and naive creatures that we are, we can't help ourselves but endure a vast range of explorations whether it be learning to stand and walk on our own two feet for the first time, learning to ride a bike without stabilisers, or even climbing trees. We have a yearning and a natural curiosity to learn more about the world us, and how can we be blamed for such desires when the world is such a fascinating and exquisite place? But in our naivety we ignore the warnings of those more experienced; we ignore the chance of risk and harm because we believe ourselves invincible and indestructible. It's no surprise then that the scrapes and bruises we succumb to as a result of our exuberant misadventures come as a nasty shock and it's as if the sudden, relentless amounts of pain that grip our tiny bodies will bring about the end of the world because the sting of a bee of or the pulsing to a bumped head is like nothing we've ever felt before. We wail and we cry and we panic, our chests grow tight with hyperventilation and our muscles spasm in shock but then comes along the soothing arms of a mother, a father or a grandparent. As if by magic our woes disappear and so returns our beautiful ignorance and consequently our rose tinted view of the world. For some it could be suggested that everyone experiences such an innocent and pure childhood, but that is simply a lie. My adolescent years were full of scrapes and breaks, though from far more sinister means than a simple tumble. With my parents vanishing into thin air, both myself and my brother were thrust into the care of our Aunt Agatha, though we soon found that her idea of 'caring' for us was far different to that which we had expected. Instead of enveloping us in a warm embrace of love and affection and providing us with a shelter within which we could be shielded from the realities of our lives as orphans, Agatha took to using us as a way of releasing her resentment and frustrations at being landed with two sulky teenagers to feed and provide for when she could barely afford to feed herself. That and she'd always considered children to be the slaves of the devil sent to earth to make lives a misery. At first it had started with sly comments and remarks, her snippy tones reminding us from day to day that the only real reason our parents had left was because they could no longer stand to be around Lucas and I. Unfortunately for Agatha, her attempts at emotional torment were not enough to break our spirits and, unfortunately for us, she had far more up her sleeve to make us suffer. I say 'us' but what I really mean is |me| - 16 year old me. There had been no way I would ever let that witch raise a hand to my little brother. I would sooner take the brunt of her outbursts than see him broken to a quivering, terrified wreck. That, of course, she did not like, for me to be intervening; for me to be interfering with her sick attempts to discover some semblance of power. The most severe punishment given to me had been a broken arm, the bone snapping clean in half once she'd purposely and brutishly slammed the door shut upon it in response to my back chat. I'd gritted my teeth so harshly to prevent myself from giving her the satisfaction of hearing me cry out that I'd half expected my teeth to break. My eyes had watered with tears, but no amount of tears could blur my vision enough to obstruct the view of her menacing grin as she watched me outwardly battling with my pain threshold. At the time I'd considered that to be the worst amount of pain that I could ever suffer with the dull and constant ache paralysing my arm, the throbbing as blood leaked from ruptured capillaries beneath the surface of my skin to form tender and untouchable bruises. That was the first time I'd witnessed the true extent to which my aunt had hated myself and Lucas and had wished to entrap us in a world full of suffering. It was the first time I'd ever really realised the true extent to which we were isolated and alone. Later that night I'd sat in my bed beside Lucas with my arm in a cast after my aunt had played the "she fell over while running" card with the doctors, gazing quietly out of the window towards the beacon of light in the sky. The sky itself was a midnight blue, like warm, deep, blue water and the moon seemed to lie upon it like a water lily, floating forward with an invisible current. With the softest, calmest voice I could muster, I whispered over the hushed breaths of my brother. I whispered the last thing my mother had ever said to me; "And if you're ever feeling lonely, just look at the moon. Someone, somewhere is looking right at it too." I'd always believed the moon was just a big, dull rock hanging in the sky where no one could reach it. Little did I know that it would come to be my saviour. I remember the first time I transitioned as clear as if it were only yesterday, the first time my body really became something supernatural though I couldn't quite comprehend that fact at the time. It had started with Lucas, doubling over and writhing upon the forest floor in agony as we'd sprinted away from the edge of town and it's chasing authorities. At first I thought he'd merely sprained his ankle as a consequence of the darkness making it so terribly difficult to find our footing across the uneven terrain, but that was until I heard the heart stopping, horrific crunching sound of bone snapping. Multiple of my brother's bones were snapping. His screams had grown louder and louder, deafening amidst the canopy as he'd scrambled and writhed amongst the leaves layering the forest's surface. "What's happening to me?" He'd cried, his newly broken voice wavering with fright and terror before another bought of torturous screaming had ensued. My heart had broken as my brain had gone into overdrive, my palms becoming sweaty with fear because, for the first time in my life, I couldn't give my brother the answers he's needed. I couldn't soothe his worries or take his pain away. The darkness had only added to the petrifying atmospherics of the situation, but I knew I needed to try. I had to try to help him. With a deep inhalation I'd moved to make my way forward, warily extending my leg out in front of me to make my way towards him... but then it began. My legs had buckled beneath me, my throat agonised with the outburst of an animalistic scream as I'd fell to the floor with a thud. Just like Lucas my bones had begun to break, each one fragmenting and splintering until they were able to twist and contort beneath the surface of my skin, my body becoming something altogether inhuman with each second that passed. Together Lucas and I had battled through the agony, our chests almost bursting and unable to cope with the rapid but short intakes of breath that had only momentarily paused our screams. Within my mouth had come a rush of blood, my gums quite literally splitting to make way for what I had envisaged to be teeth much like that of a canine after running the tip of my tongue around their perimeter. From the tips of my fingers had come talons like nothing you would ever see in a beauty pallor which clawed and raked through the dirt underfoot as I'd writhed uncontrollably with each new burst of pain. I have no recollection of what happened next, other than waking to the sun fighting it's way through the gaps in the trees and the dull ache that seemed to consume every muscle within my body. I was cold, so cold, with every inch of my skin pebbled with goosebumps. Slowly my eyes had begun to widen with a soft and altogether strange rocking motion that had had me at the mercy of drowsiness. At the time I'd had to question my surroundings, instinctively questioning whether the rocking motion had bee down to a boat of some sort but I quickly established that that wasn't the answer I was looking for. Instead, a sharp sniff of the air had resulted in the inhalation of an intoxicating musk, its heavy scent woody and dry. Like a man's cologne. It was then that I'd felt encapsulated by strong arms, noticing the fleece line flannel jacket wrapped tightly around my naked frame and, oddly, I'd felt safe. For the first time in my life. "You're one hell of a miracle. Few women survive the change." Said a deep, gruff voice as a warm breath trickled across the surface of my cheek. At that my brows had immediately furrowed in confusion, my brain entirely useless and unable to fathom what it was this strange protector had meant by his comment. In no time at all he'd sensed my confusion, his arms tightening to support my lolling head as he'd continued; "You're a wolf now. It's in your blood. You're one of us. You're part of the pack."