#is this TOO orange and papery? perhaps | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

ironheartedfae · 2 years ago

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Timing: Current Location: Deersprings Feat: @lithium-argon-wo-l-f & @ironheartedfae Warnings: mild gore tw Summary: Ren is so small she steps in a puddle and it looks like she dove in the deep end.

Night had fallen, and with it the temperatures. Few folks roamed the streets at this hour, fewer in a place like Deersprings. Not where the respectable citizens of Wicked’s Rest made their homes. Where less things went wrong. Or at least less than everywhere else in this accursed place. Cozy streetlamps hummed with electricity. The few houses with inhabitants still awake lit up with their warm orange glow. Dispelling the gloom of the rain outside. Even the more built up areas of the neighborhood seemed to have a hush pulled over them. The streets themselves appeared to glisten with the dancing droplets of rain. Lulling everyone and everything into a false sense of security and comfort.

It would have been a picture perfect depiction of a cozy town in rural Maine, except– Except this was Wicked’s Rest. And nothing was ever as it seemed.

The silence broke like a brick through glass. A splash (far too big for the puddle it came from) erupted out of the nestled little pothole it sat in. Seemingly pouring out a pool's worth of liquid that did not want to stop. A scrawny arm braced itself on the ‘edge’ of the puddle, and tried in vain to pull itself from the depths. Something just underneath the surface was thrashing and trying its very best to keep whoever’s arm that belonged to from doing its job.

With as much grace as a turtle trying to right itself from its back, a second arm and a head appeared above the water. With one final push against something the tiny redhead was able to dive out of the water.

Ren gasped for air, greedily taking in anything her hoarse throat would allow. Anger was perhaps the only thing keeping her going, because it sure as hell wasn’t preparedness or well-restedness. Did she really ever stop to take care of herself? No. Did it matter? No. Of course it didn’t. She had a job to do, even if she wasn’t getting paid. If she wasn’t going to take care of the monstrous puddles and the disgusting creatures they housed, who would?

Another head…thing… bobbled up from the puddle. An ugly moss covered maw, hungry and wildeyed. Clearly just as displeased with the situation as the nymph. Though it was more on the ‘get this iron knife out of my side, and let me eat you’ side. Ren whipped around and screamed at the thing, not quite ready for another plunge into the frigid waters that still soaked her through to the bone. Maybe if she could just entice it out of the water, then she could do some real damage.

Rainy. It was certainly more wet here than Gael supposed he expected from a place in Maine which seemed kind of obvious the more he thought about it. Granted, it’s not as though he wasn’t used to rain; indeed, he remembered the knee-high mud of the wet seasons. Unlike then, however, he was thankful that he had his own place this time, located in the rather nice neighborhood of Deersprings - a normal place for a normal guy like him. It was evening now, and instead of frequenting one of the many bars in town or having a preexisting engagement with one of the many unique individuals he had met online, Gael was at home, curled up on an old couch in his highly minimalist (and only half-unpacked) living room, a lamp on the small table next to the arm as his only source of light. In his hands was a tattered old copy of one of the Star Wars books from the extended universe and a pair of reading glasses that he didn’t realize he hadn’t needed in several months rested on the bridge of his nose. Setting down his hot tea, steaming from a wide mug with a chemical equation pun on it, he started to turn another page of his book when his head turned so sharply it made his neck pop and he dropped the novel, where it landed on the hardwood floor with a papery smack. Gael, eyes wide, didn’t think twice as he leapt off the couch with unexpected agility, flying across the room and wrenching open the door as he heard a female scream pierce through the rain, through his walls, through his concentration. Out he stumbled into the chilled night air in a black t-shirt and gray sweatpants, quickly glancing around for the source of that noise. It didn’t come from a neighbor’s noisy movie, he was sure he would’ve been able to tell… Then he spotted something. At the far end of the stretch of road was what appeared to be the silhouette of a figure on the ground. Gael broke into a sprint, splashing in the puddles and blinking back the raindrops that caught in his eyes as he kept them on the figure on the ground. “Hey!” He called to the figure before clumsily coming to a skidding stop near what seemed to be a young adult and he dropped to a crouch. “Hey, are you okay?” He asked urgently, placing a hand on her shoulder. She was frigid to the touch but he didn’t recoil, though he did immediately notice it and put a pin in that. “Did someone hurt you?” He asked, before turning his head to regard the…. “What is THAT?”

Waterlogged and far too cold to function, Ren barely noticed the man racing up to her side. Instinct, and a stark lack of comforting gestures in her life still worked though, as she jumped when his hand found her shoulder. Scrambling to the side for a split second getting stupidly close to the puddle once again. The nymph didn’t respond. She didn’t have time to. The creature saw the opportunity just as plainly as the stranger had seen it.

A sturdy set of jaws opened wide, yawning hungrily as it came down on Ren’s leg. Grabbing just above the ankle and pulling. The vodnik could have just as easily snapped the limb right off, right then. It wasn’t like the bug was hard to break. It wanted to bring her back to the depths. Back underwater where she couldn’t breathe, could barely see, and it had all the advantage.

Wide eyes frantically searched for anything that would slow her descent into the frigid pool. One hand was able to use her remaining knife, drive it as far into a crack in the concrete as she could. The other reached out, a rare and desperate call for help. Even if her voice betrayed her, even if she couldn’t vocalize how scared she was. How she didn’t think she’d be able to really survive another plunge. And how she didn’t want this to be where her story ended. Ren’s terrified gaze shot up to the stranger.

Please. Please be able to do something.

The girl flinched, which Gael supposed was to be expected - she was shaken, frighteningly cold, and they were both staring down some… mutated snapping turtle or something that poked its ugly head out of the water. He had never seen anything like it and for a moment, he was frozen himself, tensing up as what was happening before him happened. She moved away and the creature took an opportunity to snap at her, ensnaring her ankle and starting to drag her into the murk of what he thought was a normal, shallow puddle. A knife went into the concrete and her hand reached out to him. Move. Her expression shredded through his animal fear and without a second thought, Gael pushed himself onto all fours for a second before one arm extended down the length of hers, wrapping his hand around her upper arm and starting to pull her towards him or, specifically, away from the puddle. Leaning forward on his knees, he reached forward, past her and attempted to grasp a handful of the slimy substance that was on the turtle-salamander thing. With a heave, he started to pull IT up too, with the shaken understanding that if he got both of them out of the water they could try to get it off her. “It’ll be okay,” He assured her, his voice urgent but strong and while Gael couldn’t be sure if that was true, he wasn’t about to let whatever this was go. “C’mon, you ugly–”

Just like that, the touch she’d run away from had become a lifeline. The stranger was pulling Ren away from the puddle. Using her as an anchor, he was able to wrench the vodnik from its watery den. He probably had no idea how good of an idea that was. Or maybe he did. Either way, the nymph wasted exactly no time to use the distraction (and the leverage) to add a little oomph to her kick. The beast’s jaws were still tight around her other leg, but now that it was out of the depths she could see her other knife. Still buried between a mound of rock like flesh, and algae coated shell. A flash of excitement washed over her. The tides had turned.

Cold as she was, the next few movements were quick. Far more so than anyone in her situation should have been, but slower than she’d like. Ren twisted, wrenching the bite in further, but giving herself access to more of the creature. The previously concrete-bound knife found its way into the thing’s jaw. It roared in pain, which gave the nymph a split second to remove her leg.

The moment she was free she was on top of the thing. Knives blurry, hitting any and every target that wasn’t completely sheltered by the creature’s thick moss covered carapace. Adrenaline was doing most of the work. If she slowed up, even for a moment, it would fight back. The pain in her leg would get to her. The frigid temperature shift would slow her to a crawl. Ren had to keep going. For both their sake. This stranger who pulled her from certain death didn’t deserve to follow her into that fate because she made a mistake. No. She’d keep going until the job was done. Possibly well after. It wasn’t like she was thinking clearly after all.

As Gael pulled the two of them further from the puddle, he noticed that she also thought quickly, much quicker than he would’ve if he was on the other side of his scenario. He felt her weight against him, using him as a support point as he was using hers to heave the monster. She kicked the creature and around the time he acknowledged that there was a knife lodged in the monster, she had pulled her other knife from the concrete and plunged it into the mass of moss, flesh and teeth. The creature cried in pain (or was it rage), Gael fell back with a splash as the sound reverberated in his ears and the girl, who was moments ago in the jaws of the mutant, now took her knives to it in a flurry of attacks, visceral stabbing sounds, blood being pulled from the body with the metal of the blades. And for a few moments he sat there wondering if maybe he– he definitely hadn’t made a mistake but from the way she moved, the way she had bitten back as soon as she was able, the man knew that he didn’t just help out a random stranger; she was trained, though he couldn’t be sure in what. But, despite her being a stranger and an efficient weapon-user, she still seemed so young. She persisted after the pained grunts of the mutant turtle-salamander stopped, effectively dead (or so he thought) and again, without thinking about the long-term, Gael reached for her and, placing his strong hands on her icy upper arms, started to pull her away from the monster. He wasn’t sure how she would react and he was ready to take a knife to the arm himself but he figured she was in fight-or-flight mode. He was familiar with the adrenaline pumping through him - he had to be pulled away from fights sometimes too. To feel someone else, to pull him up from the edge he’d stumbled from. “It’s okay,” He said, making himself heard clearly through the rain that fell on them. His tone was loud enough but carried a calm, even if he was still afraid about the situation, about what she could do to him. “It’s okay.” He repeated.

A rush of air was all Ren felt as she was pulled from the beast. Now still, dead as a doorknob, blood pooling around it as the wake of destruction and fury subsided. Its powers now gone, the puddle was just a puddle. And the kid was just a kid. Scared and frantic, being pulled off of the vodnik and into someone’s arms. Her mind was moving too quickly to process. Too panicked to stop and think about the reason she’d been so aggressive towards the creature was at least, in part, because of the stranger. Because she wasn’t the only one there, the only one who’d lose if she failed.

“Let me GO you stupid–” Her heartbeat was still raging against her chest. “–stupid turtle!!” Each thump grew a little more distant though, as the cold caught up with her. Ren’s struggles against the arms that held her were less like a trained soldier trying to escape, and more and more like a tired toddler vehemently disagreeing with bed time. That, and the puncture wounds in her legs. Draining life down into the sewers with the rest of the rain.

It took more than a few moments for the nymph to really tell what was going on. That the creature before her was already gone, and the only danger she was still in was from blood loss. Harsh ragged breaths slowed and calmed to a steady and even keel. Ren’s unblinking stare relented as she relaxed, if only a little. She turned, cocking her head to the side so she could see exactly who she was dealing with. Surprised that the face wasn’t as unfamiliar as she might expect. Gael. From the internet. The kind man who asked–

“Gre–eeen.” A strange first word to say, definitely not a thank you. And followed quickly by a slumping. As adrenaline crashed, shock came. Ren passed out.

Her pulse pounded in his ears, her low body temperature clashing with his, her thrashing against him was reminiscent of a child but at least she didn’t take her knives to him. Gael remained as sturdy as he could, the rock against her crashing waves of fear and primal response to survive and as she slowed down, no doubt because of both whatever hypothermic episode her body was going through coupled with the open puncture wounds in her leg freely flowing down into the gutter, he pulled her a little farther away from the corpse of the monster, a little closer to him. She didn’t want to hurt him, that much Gael was able to gather both from how she actually didn’t attack him and how her brain still raced with thoughts of the monster that lay in its blood before them. Her heart rate lowered, as did his and when she turned her head, he tilted his in kind, wanting to make eye contact with her, show her that he was there right now. ‘Green’. That was all she said before she fell unconscious and he adjusted quickly, catching her before she could hit the pavement. It didn’t take long for him to connect the dots. “I have you, little fern,” He said quietly, getting to his feet, cradling her close to him to share his body heat with her and, with one last look to the mossy abomination at the edge of the puddle, he turned and carried her to his house as fast as he could.

* * *

He wasn’t sure how much time passed, but in the span of it, Gael had taken the girl home, wrung out as much of her as possible, dried her the rest of the way and used one of his at-home kits to patch her up. He wasn’t sure how to fix her alarmingly-low body heat so he did what only made sense to him - he started a fire in his previously-unused fireplace and cranked up the heat. She was on his floor in front of the fireplace on a pallet of blankets, underneath his thickest comforter. Near her was a spare change of clothes - they would’ve been too big for her but dry clothes were better than none, or so he figured. Gael sat next to her on the floor, close to her, having since picked his book back up though he made sure to be positioned in a way that he could see and tend to her the second she responded. He checked her heart rate periodically - slow, but there.

In the time between falling and waking, there was a sense of peace that Ren didn’t often get to experience. Dreamless sleep, however short it stayed for, however it came to be, was preferable to the litany of nightmares and anxious imaginings of a troubled mind. Eventually, Ren’s eyes fluttered open. The crackling of a fire almost had her believing she was back at camp, but her camp had never been this warm. Not quite enough time had passed that she’d been able to fully heat through to her core, but the blankets on blankets on blankets did a number for her skin. For the strange tingling in her leg that still didn’t quite feel like it was there. A blessing in disguise, surely. If she could feel it, she’d feel the pain that came with.

Everything was like a foggy daydream. The kind of comfort that only existed in stories and only for princesses and those who were pure of heart. Ren wasn’t that. She couldn’t ever be. The nymph was only ever doing her best to be something she wasn’t. Doing her best to not be a monster like the vodnik outside. Memories filtered in like falling snow. Bits and pieces here, slowly coating everything and uniting into one big picture.

She had been hunting down the creatures. Reports of puddles, and people falling into them, had tipped her off to the possibility of the hulking fae puddle jackers. Ren followed her senses to one, and promptly started a battle she had no real hope of winning alone. Bitterly, she also remembered Emilio’s words. Ones that almost stung as much as the bruises and bumps that now littered her body. Even the poorly healed wound on her side had something to say about this endeavor. Opening up slightly, and weeping blood and fluid into the flannel that still stuck to her skin with the rain and sweat.

Clothes sat beside her. And beyond them, Gael. A concerned gaze drifted around the room, until she finally got the energy to speak up. “This is… your house?”

She stirred and after a brief coin toss in his mind, Gael opted to tilt his head from his book, regarding the girl with a gentle expression though he couldn’t keep the relief he held inside from tumbling out in a sigh. “It is,” He smiled softly. “It’s good to meet you in person,” He said, setting the book aside and starting to get to his feet, the bones in his knees and back popping like a symphony of twigs being snapped. “Ah, I’m getting too old to sit on the floor,” He scoffed lightly. “Stay there, let me get you some tea.” He made his way into the kitchen where he had a fresh kettle brewed, one of his mugs set aside. “I’m pleased that you’re awake,” He called briefly, pouring the tea and bringing it back before stooping to put it on the ground next to her. “I closed you up on your leg,” He explained. “But I didn’t change your clothes or force-feed you any medicine.” He assured before realizing that she might not even remember what happened before this moment in time. Or even if she knew his name. Gael supposed he was just… he wasn’t sure if it was his ability to quickly move on from events or the inevitability of what might happen if he lingered too much in the past but he needed to remember that she was attacked by some… mutated turtle, they were both in the rain, she killed it with such anger that he had to pull her off of the corpse. It was a lot and while he didn’t want to dredge the topic, he felt like maybe he needed to. “I’m not going to ask what that thing was out there,” Gael started slowly. “So instead I’ll ask if there’s anything else I can do to help you right now.” He gave her an earnest expression, not sitting down yet in case she did need something, whether it was painkillers, a bandage for that wound on her side that he didn’t dress or address, or an anchor to pull herself up so she could stand herself.

Coming in to a place she didn’t recognize would’ve been a lot more startling if she hadn’t talked to this not-quite-stranger for so long. The internet was odd. And Ren couldn’t fully understand most of what she saw there, but on the ‘social media’ thing, there were a few folks who’s steady influx of advice and dare she say friendship kept her going. Kept her focused enough to do her job. And maybe even helped her be better at it. Even if that wasn’t something she was ever going to share.

She should have been more nervous. Maybe blood loss and the chill that still bit at her bones kept her calmer than normal. Like a beehive in smoke, or any other bug during winter. Instead, the nymph took the time to take in her surroundings. Mentally writing things down so she could chart them later. Gael hadn’t made it to a file yet. After this though? Probably would earn more than a few pages. Silently, Ren thanked whatever divine force saw fit to inspire her to leave the journal at home for this particular hunt. If she had brought more than her knives, they either would have been lost to the dizzying abyss that the creature made out of the puddle, or they would have been soggy and useless.

A bit like she was feeling now. “You are very kind to do these things.” Ren tucked her legs up, strained as it was to do so, it felt better. Safer. Curled up in a tight ball with the blankets still surrounding her. “I should just go.” The house seemed bare, empty. Like he hadn’t been there very long. But it was warm and inviting all the same. Not to mention huge. Like one of the bigger buildings back at the compound, but most of them were brimming with activity. “Do you live here alone?”

“I’m happy that I heard you,” Gael responded before realizing what he said and he cleared his throat. “I mean, I’m not happy that… whatever happened happened but I’m glad that– Well…” He furrowed his brow as he thought about what he wanted to say that didn’t make it seem like this was a positive encounter. Granted, it probably would’ve gone worse had he NOT had his… strangely sensitive hearing. That wasn’t a conversation for now though and instead, he faltered for a moment before nodding at her first statement. “It’s no problem.” He settled on saying. The second one rolled around and the professor wanted to protest - she was still injured, chilled and the rain hadn’t subsided yet, which he didn’t think he wanted her out in. Not that she was Gael’s child, but his fatherly tendencies, the ones that admittedly sometimes misfired due to his inability to have children of his own, activated the second he saw her and it hadn’t subsided yet; he wouldn’t tell her but he found himself protective after their interaction online and what had just transpired. “I used to; recently I got a roommate and he’ll be moving in soon,” He explained, opting to sit next to her once more, slowly lowering himself with a grunt as he made sure not to move too quickly as she seemed like the type to be put on edge easily. Once he was on the floor again, he used the back of a knuckle to scoot the mug of tea closer to her, if only to let her know that it was okay for her to drink. As though to prove to her that it was safe, he gathered his own mug from the table behind him and held it up, propping his elbows on his knees as his legs were loosely crossed at the ankle. “And… I can’t tell you what to do but it’d give me peace of mind if I could at least drive you to wherever you live,” Gael added softly, taking a sip of the tea - ginger and lemon, one of his favorite combinations. “I also have a spare room if you don’t want to do that and you can wait until the rain is gone.” He offered, nodding behind him to the darkened hallway. “You can change your clothes, it’s on the ground floor so you can see the door.” He wanted to ask where she did live, if there was someone he could or should call to help her but he didn’t want to move too fast - she was the one in an unfamiliar environment after killing a monster, she was the one who had to adjust to a new location. She reminded him of his eldest sister. “What’s your name?”

Happy he heard…? Oh. The scream. A moment of anguish too loud to keep inside. Ren didn’t have the time to feel guilty about it then, but now? Well there was a list starting to compile. Was this what Emilio meant? Worrying about people you barely know. With Gael, even less than the detective. Only a few conversations, not even in person. Ren could see use in herself with the way she walked Perro for Emilio, but it wasn’t like she’d ever done anything for Gael. Nothing but be a stubborn little shit online. Slowly coming to senses on things she never really knew how to interact with.

She was an arrow, when she wasn’t pointed at a target, what good was she? Ren’s gaze flicked down to the cup. To yet another source of radiant heat. Why were people always trying to give her food, drinks, clothes, and a place to stay? Her mind tried to wrap itself around the mug and what it meant just as her hands physically did. As they curled around the warm ceramic her fingers actually started to come back to life. Breath was still an effort, but each rush of air that wasn’t icy cold was nothing short of miraculous.

The nymph was quiet. But that wasn’t surprising for her. She was always one who was better at listening than any hope she ever had at being a conversationalist. He wanted her to stay or at least wait out the rain. But Ren already felt like she was an imposition. Walking the line between grateful for the help, and still somehow feeling wrong for accepting it. The two conflicting feelings swirled in her stomach like a stormfront. All she could do was focus on what sensations surrounded her right then and there. Emotions and their ilk would have to come later. Would have to sit and fester for just a bit longer. Waiting out the rain didn’t seem like such a bad idea.

Each bit of speech came with another set of notations. The door, the clothes, the way the rain continued to beat against the windows. How every once in a while she heard a fat drop sizzle on the fire, having made its way down through the chimney. She noted boxes, either the new roommates or maybe from whenever Gael had made this place his own. There was the kitchen, a set of stairs, a couch with a strangely sparkling side, that seemed to drip down to the floor below. Dizzying and dazzling in the firelight. Ren hadn’t hit her head or anything like that, but she was still reeling from her unconscious stint. Still seeing long trails to every source of light. Almost made her want to kick back to the other kind of vision, mapping things out by heat rather than visible light. However, she wasn’t sure she had the energy for that effort.

“Til the rain ends.” Ren agreed. Though, it’d been raining the last few days. Maybe it’d rain forever. Maybe she could sit in this dreamlike fantasy and pretend it was normal. Pretend she was human. Pretend she could have family. Then when the rain washed away, dried up and opened the skies once again, she could vanish. Back to normal. To hunting and protecting. To learning and living on her own.

“You… you can call me Ren.”

She was quiet. Gael was also able to gather that online - English wasn’t her first language and if she was as similar to his sister as she seemed, it probably took her a while to compile her thoughts into sentence structures that were considered ‘passable’ to outsiders. So when she did speak, he made sure to pay close attention to the things she considered important enough to say. To his relief, she agreed on waiting for the rain to pass and he smiled, taking another sip as he noticed that she held the mug if only to get some of her lost body heat back. “‘Til the rain ends, you got it.” Things had calmed down, and now that the two of them weren’t actually in the cold, ceaseless rain, hearing it on the windows and roof brought a sense of peace with it. Although… should Gael have gone back out there to dispose of the body? Would it even still be there? Surely he could send it to the biology department or one of the labs in town, right? Maybe Dr. Kavanagh would like it– no, she dealt with people though she DID like taxidermy. What… what was he going on about. A thing was dead on the street, the girl had signs of hypothermia and Gael was just sitting on his floor like a fool thinking about whether or not a doctor would like to taxidermy it. “It’s nice to know your name, Ren.” He pulled himself out of his silly thoughts and gave her a smile. “I wish we met under better circumstances but that was clever, reminding me of your favorite color.” He gazed at the fire now. “You don’t… have to answer if you don’t want to but what are you doing out here? Do you live around here?” He was expecting her not to answer; she seemed like a private person, after all, and he didn’t want to make her uncomfortable by prying. Maybe he should’ve asked if she was hungry. “Ah, never mind. Are you hungry?” He asked instead. “I can make you some–” What did he have available. “Sandwiches.”

It was a toss up. Ren wasn’t even sure if she was going to answer. It was perhaps the least he deserved. Most people didn’t take it super well when you told them you were there to hunt creatures like that down. Unless they were also a hunter, which… Between the cozy environment of the less-than-filled house, the gentle nature, and the constant emotional support… Gael was probably not one of them. It was something she wasn’t sure what to make of. Be honest, open to conversation, as it were.

Silence won. For now. The concern that laced her brows together showed off the war going on inside. The nymph simply shook her head. “I cannot speak of this. Just… I am trained for it. Keep people from being hurt.” A compromise. Somewhere between honest and safe. “Creature was called Vodnik.” There were more in the area, that part was better to share. The more information Gael had, the less likely he was to fall into a deep puddle and never come out. “Makes small puddles big. Angry, territorial. Many arrive because of rain.” Didn’t really account for the cold though. Maybe the deepened water was just naturally chillier than what would have been seasonal. That didn’t fully explain why it felt almost icy. Magic never really made a whole lot of sense though did it?

“You are Gaheel, yes?” Not at all pronounced correctly, but Ren had only ever seen the name online. It didn’t fit on her tongue super well. Didn’t mix well into the strange accent she carried all her diction with. “I– It is– nice. To meet you in person too. You have many words, all of them are well thought out.” Strange, how someone who spoke so eloquently could pull that out of someone else, almost like he pulled her from that puddle. Around someone like Emilio it was easy to remain the quiet wallflower. Just watching and giving what amounted to a little more than grunts and affirmations every once in a while. With Gael, she felt like she had to give something back. Like it was unbalanced, somehow. With her quiet nature.

“Sandwiches…” It wasn’t unfamiliar. Ren had plenty of sandwiches before. Carbs, protein, it was a good way to keep herself going. Easy to make, and sometimes she could even find partial loaves of mostly not-moldy bread in the dumpster. If she was lucky, she even got to them before the mice did. “...Why are you doing all of this?”

Another pause. Gael took a drink of his warm tea, though he was starting to feel the effects of his heater turned up as well as the fire, combined with the fact that he chose sweatpants. It was fine, so long as she was comfortable, or rather less uncomfortable. When she started speaking, again, he took her words and put them into a mental notebook of his own - she wasn’t just studying flora and fauna, she was a hunter of beasts, which in his mind was compartmentalized of “mutations, possibly having escaped from a lab”. ‘Vodnik’, in his mind, was either a corrupted version of lizard or snapping turtle as it carried qualities of both. Then again, it was coated in so much moss and slime that it was hard to get a distinct shape of the creature, save its flapping maw and sharp teeth. Possibly a young alligator? As for the puddles, he was sure that the rain was just getting in his eyes and Gael was falling into the illusion that the puddle was deeper than it actually was. None of this was verbalized, and instead he shook his head with comprehension. “Okay. You’re a protector, and you heard about this… vodnik, so you came here to keep it from hurting anyone.” He summarized her explanation, keeping a note to mention that she was the important part of it, not the mutant. He didn’t want to think about what sort of nightmare camp she might’ve trained at - he knew people who were hunters, but she gave him the impression that hers was less of a familial hobby and more of… child soldier stuff. She then said his name and Gael recognized it even if it wasn’t correct, tilting his head ever-so-slightly. “I appreciate the compliment, Ren,” He bowed his head respectfully at her though he couldn’t keep himself from smiling slightly sheepishly. “I imagine a lot of people think I talk too much about too little so it’s nice to hear that sometimes maybe that’s not the case.” He raised one of his eyebrows and set the mug down. Sandwiches floated through the air, as did his recollection of what all he had in the house for her to eat, when she asked him a new question and brought him back down. “Well,” Gael reached up and tapped on his shadowed chin in thought. “I heard someone call for help, I went out there and saw someone getting attacked by a creature.” He walked through the series of events. “You said you keep people from getting hurt but you got hurt.” The chemist spoke mildly, keeping his tone from getting serious or dramatic. “So I couldn’t protect you from getting hurt but I can do my best to help any way that I can now.” He leaned forward slightly, giving her a soft expression. “I’ve had my share of accidents, my share of getting hurt on my own and sometimes I wished someone would be there to lend me a hand; so I lead by example. I wasn’t about to leave you outside, in the rain, injured and dying from exposure regardless of who you were or why you were here.” He shrugged. “I guess I just like helping people.”

All of this was a lot to consider. And considering her lack of practice in the act, it was a play on more than just words. Ren shifted, trying to find a better position to sit in. One where she could keep her head on a swivel, even if she didn’t need to right now. The open concept (though that wouldn’t be what Ren would call it) house was actually quite good for her state of mind. Being able to see almost all the doors and windows from one central point, whoever designed it must have been quite smart. Or so the nymph thought. Ren had a tendency of thinking most people were a lot more intelligent than her.

Gael was definitely among the top. Right up there with Nora and Emilio, though each possessed a different kind of intelligence. Emilio knew a lot about a plethora of supernatural things. Nora knew a lot about modern things, social media and other things teens and young adults would like. And Gael, well, it seemed he knew a whole lot about the heart. Cared more than maybe anyone Ren had ever met. Or at least, cared in a much softer way than most. In a way, the wounds covering her body were far more familiar than this shared comfort. Than soft voices and careful explanations.

She could tell (or at least thought she could) that he was being far more cautious around her than he might have been if it was someone else. Maybe that was a good thing. Ren knew well enough from the argument with the detective that going around and telling people who’ve already made the dumb decision to care about her that she was something worth derision more than gentleness, it didn’t really go over too well.

But he liked helping people. That’s what he said. Emilio couldn’t really verbalize it more than just the fact that Ren was a kid. An infuriating statement the nymph tried her best not to take poorly. It wasn’t untrue. And maybe that’s what made her more mad. Just like everything else, it was one more thing she was trying to pretend she wasn’t. Like she wasn’t a monster, she was a hunter. She wasn’t fae, she was human. She wasn’t a burden, she was accepting help. She wasn’t a kid, she was just… She didn’t know the alternative. Adult? Sure, but that carried weight she didn’t know if she could properly carry. Not alone.

“I try to protect people.” There was a long drawn pause. A breath and a release. Both the air in her lungs and the weight keeping her shoulders held up and tight. “I am beginning to think I am… not as good as I should be at it.” Not good at picking out right from wrong, not good at fighting things by herself. And where did that leave the fae hunter of fae? Ren didn’t know how to be a person. Not really. “It was–” Another pause. A risk. “Thank you for helping me. I did need it. I do not know what would have become of me or beast if not for intervention.”

“All any of us can do is try,” Gael replied gently after the newest pause; he wondered what she was thinking, what all was going on under the surface. He often wondered that about Ariana too but he had long since grown accustomed to waiting for answers, if they came at all. He also had gotten used to sometimes not receiving any. “Helping others is one of the most fulfilling things you can do, whether you’ve been trained for it or not.” He said mildly. “You protected me. Your knowledge and intuition, your skills and tenacity kept that… vodnik-thing from hurting anyone else here.” He gestured in the direction of the neighborhood. “These people, including me, had no idea there was anything out there. “You’re young and very skilled.” He continued. “I’ve been doing my job for 20 years and I still learn things, wish I did things differently.” The professor glanced at Ren. “But all we can do is try to be better, improve ourselves.” Gael licked his lower lip, picking up his mug and taking another drink of tea. As he did, Ren thanked him and his brow raised in evident surprise - he recalled when they last talked and she vehemently told him not to, to take it back and he heard from other people not to do that. She must’ve considered it at length if after the way she responded the first time, she thanked him now. It caught Gael off-guard but only for a moment before he shook his head. “Keep it; you don’t owe me anything.” He waved lightly. “I’d do it again.” He smiled before starting to stand again. “Now! You want a sandwich?” He asked, deciding to try to let her know with his actions and way of conversing that he wasn’t thinking hard on this, debating, judging her. She was here, he was here right now.

Ren hadn’t needed more proof of Gael’s kindness, but he kept supplying it all the same. Not accepting the thank you in the way that she learned was enough to release her. For the first time since she picked it up, the nymph sipped on her tea. Let the hot liquid soothe her frayed mind. Reminded her of the days Darya would bring soup to the shack in winter. Ren missed those days. When all that was expected of her was to survive the cold so she could learn more in the spring. Cons of bringing a bug into your family. Ren wasn’t much good to anyone when she was this chilled.

In her mind, the acts displayed were not even. Gael said he’d do it again. Said she was skilled and that she kept the neighborhood safe. But that was what Ren was supposed to do. To the not-warden warden, this was just like… breathing. It was a struggle sometimes, sure, but it was a part of her life. It was what gave her purpose. Patching people you barely knew up, after pulling them from the jaws of certain death?? That wasn’t his. It felt mismatched. Like she did still owe him something.

“Try to be better.” She repeated, quietly this time. More to herself than anything else. Settling into the phrase in more ways than one. Ren nodded and took another sip. Food would be welcome, might even make her start feeling more like herself. The clothes would probably do wonders too. One of her hands fell to the pile, while her eyes flicked over to the door that Gael had mentioned.

“I– will get these on. If you do not need help in the kitchen.”

After more creaking of his bones and a hand resting on his back for a moment, Gael had made it to his feet again and he shook his head. “No no, you can go wherever and do whatever; sandwiches are very easy to make.” Her muttering about ‘try to be better’ didn’t go by him unnoticed but he let it go as he tended to do that, as well. “Take your time.. And the bathroom is right next door in the hall.” He spoke clearly and pointed to let her know, not that he wanted her to stay in the parameters that he set but rather so she didn’t get mixed up or The professor headed into the kitchen as he assumed the young protector was going to change her clothes and he opened the fridge, holding it open for several long moments before realizing that he didn’t know what she’d want to eat. Instead of asking her, however, he just got a few different options out and he’d put them on a plate for her to pick for herself. Ham, turkey, a half loaf of bread… Cheese. Gael only had one type of cheese. He figured she wouldn’t be picky but still. He gathered all the ingredients, leaving the condiments put away for now - if she wanted them, he could get them. He got a serving platter and placed all the different options on it in a rather “By the way, I appreciate your help,” Gael called as he made the platter look as special as it possibly could considering it was a bunch of packages of processed meat and cheese. “It takes a special person to go out of their way to protect other people.” When it looked serviceable enough, he gathered the plate and made his way back into the living room.

With Gael in the kitchen, she had a little space. Enough room to decide that standing on her own was a good idea, even when it really really wasn’t. The weight on the limb, not all together that much but enough, sent a shiver of pain right through her whole body. The couch was enough of a crutch, the most Ren would accept right then at least. As if to mark her for being weak the strange scratchy and shimmery substance that coated the arm of the chair stuck to her still sweat-damp skin. Wouldn’t come off, even when she shook it vigorously. Her mouth opened to ask, but caught a piece of the plastic on her tongue instead.

“Ah- aaugck.” What followed was a bit of a dance. Uncoordinated and extra clumsy with the added injuries, but something to behold all the same. Ren rattled her head like a dog that had just licked a lemon, just as surprised and just as disgusted. The plague of glitter only spread, leaving almost a cloud about the girl like she’d just been sprinkled in fairy dust. Irony at its best. “Gaheel what– Why does your couch attack with glimmery dandruff??”

The man was already returning, a plate of something in his hands while hers were still battling with the tiny shards of plastic. Just the right amount of ridiculous, all things considered. Ren had gone toe to toe with the creature in the streets and yet a bit of glitter managed to throw her so far off her game she was acting like a puppy or a kitten testing out its new limbs. Afraid to touch anything, lest it spread more. It was remembering the vodnik though, that brought something out of her. A bark of laughter as the girl imagined what it would have looked like, dealing with the same predicament. Instead of moss, a thick coating of shiny…whatever this was. The laugh multiplied, as a spell of silliness slipped through the delirious state her mind was in.

It wasn’t often she was able to just be a kid, but something about this place felt comfortable enough to try.

Gael was on his way back, somehow not having seen her when he heard her call his name in her unique way of saying it and he glanced over to find her in a sporadic pseudo-dance, fine particles of– uh oh. Hurriedly placing the platter on the counter, he couldn’t stop himself from laughing as she did - it was a new sound, hearing her emote in such a positive manner. It was uplifting and even though he hated that damned glitter, he internally thanked it for creating this particular scenario which seemed like something she needed after the stiffness, the closed-off behavior, the frenzied stabbing of the monster. “Gah, I’m sor–” He cut himself off with a laugh, approaching her, braving the puffs of glitter once more to rescue her and Gael offered out an arm for her to take as support. “I forgot about your ankle!” He tried to sound worried but instead, he just kept smiling and it grew wider. He waved the glitter out of the air but of course the stupid stuff was so fine that he couldn’t keep himself from breathing more of it in and his laughter became mixed up with coughing. “It gets everywhere - you’ll be seeing it in your dreams,” He coughed out another laugh, gently leading her away from the couch where he gently tried to pat some of it off of her.

“Sorry, little fern,” Gael used the nickname without even realizing that he had, though he DID notice that she was warmer than before - still cold but it was more manageable than when he first found her. “It’s very… sensitive–” He barely finished his sentence before turning sharply, dipping into the shoulder opposite her to sneeze. “Aaagh it got up my nose again.” He still smiled though and regarded the girl who now shimmered in the light of the fire. “You can take a shower - most of it will come off. If you don’t want to do that, it won’t be the end of the world,” He shrugged casually, taking a step towards the room. “Would you like some assistance?” He asked once he got his own breathing under control though he stuck his tongue out, feeling the particles in his mouth - a curse. That’s what it was. But also somehow a blessing right now.

Just like that, they were both caught in a storm of shimmer. Of much needed levity to dispel the gloom. The rain had brought her here, for that she had to thank fate. Even if to do so meant stepping more towards the way the fae would think of things. That’s what they did, right? Listen to fate and nature as if they were the divine words the world turned by? If it meant moments like this, Ren could see how one might fall to its siren song.

Each time she tried to compose herself, more glitter got stuck. Either on herself, or on Gael. In a way that only made the fit of laughter worse. It was a breaking point, for better or worse. Everything that had happened up until then, everything that Wicked’s Rest had thrown her way, Ren had weathered. More or less. She had learned so much, almost none of which was what Darya had wanted her to. With each new day, each new face she greeted, each that she allowed to see her as a person, she was starting to feel a little more like one.

The dizzy smile faded back to the stoic stare, but maybe just maybe it was lighter. Warmer. Not just in temperature (thanks to the professor and his quick thinking) but like her soul had lifted something off of it. Like laughter was the medicine she had needed all along. It wasn’t a crime to smile. She didn’t have to feel guilt for finding glimmers of joy in moments of anguish. Ren did her job that night and she was able to be a person after. Didn’t have to be one or the other. It’d take some practice, but this town was pulling her in a new direction. Only time could say where it would lead next.

#wickedswriting #lithium argon wo l f #ironheartedfae #mild gore tw

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sempiternal-meridians · 2 years ago

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“Over the last decade, I have learned to appreciate the textures and rhythms of the later months of the year. Russet is the color of November in Maine. The color that emerges when all the more spectacular leaves have fallen: the yellow coins of the white birch, the big, hand-shaped crimson leaves of the red maple, the papery pumpkin-hued spears of the beech trees. The oaks are always the last to shed their plumage, and their leaves are the dullest color. They’re the darkest, the closest to brown. But if you pay attention, you’ll see that they’re actually quite pretty. Russet is a subtle color, complicated by undertones of orange and purple. Indeed, according to some color wheel systems, “russet” is the name given to the tertiary color created by mixing those two secondary colors. Its only companions in this category are slate (made from purple and green) and citron (made from green and yellow). Like russet, citron and slate occur often in the natural world. Our Earth is a blue marble if you get far enough away, but from up close, it’s so very brown, so often gray. This may explain why many cultures think of russet and similar dull reds as neutral hues, akin to the monochrome scale of white, black, and the innumerable shades between. True reds, the crimsons and vermilions and scarlets, have historically been associated with fire, blood, and power. In Red: The History of a Color, Michel Pastoureau explains that, for thousands of years, red was “the only true color.” He continues, “as much on the chronological as hierarchical level, it outstripped all others.” In ancient Greece, high priests and priestesses dressed in crimson, as did (they imagined) the gods themselves. In contrast, the dull reds, the brown reds, have been understood as “emblematic of peasantry and impoverishment,” claims Victoria Finlay in An Atlas of Rare & Familiar Colour. Finlay files red ocher among the browns—the ruddy pigment used in the caves of Lascaux—which is perhaps where it belongs. Perhaps that’s where russet belongs, too. […] It seems likely that russet, as a word, is an offshoot of red (Old French rousset from Latin russus, “reddish”). But russet means more than red-like, red-adjacent. Russet also means rustic, homely, rough. It also evokes mottled, textured, coarse. The word describes a quality of being that can affect people as well as vegetables. Apples can be russet, when they have brown patches on their skin. Potatoes famously are russet; their skin often has that strange texture that makes it impossible to tell where the earth ends and the root begins. There are russet birds and russet horses—it’s an earthy word that fits comfortably on many creatures. For Shakespeare, it was a color of poverty and prudence, mourning and morning. In Love’s Labour’s Lost, Biron imagines a life without the finer things, without silks and taffeta, a life of sacrifice undertaken to prove his love. The color of his penance? Russet. “and I here protest, By this white glove;—how white the hand, God knows!— Henceforth my wooing mind shall be express’d In russet yeas and honest kersey noes: And, to begin, wench,—so God help me, la!— My love to thee is sound, sans crack or flaw.” Just a few decades after this was written, in a country not too far away, Peter Paul Rubens was painting with brilliant crimson and shocking vermilion. Rubens was a devout Roman Catholic, a religion that embraced sumptuous fabrics and rich colors. A generation later, another northern painter would rise to prominence: Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn. While Catholic Rubens loved shocking reds, rich blues, and even sunny yellows, Protestant Rembrandt painted with a far more restrained palette. Many of his most famous paintings (including his self portraits) are predominantly brown and gray. And when he did use color, Rembrandt very often reached for russet, auburn, fulvous, and tawny. Reds that leaned brown, and browns that leaned red. Sometimes, he brought in a splash of crimson to tell the viewer where they should focus (the vibrant sash in Night Watch, the cloaks in Prodigal Son), and sometimes he let soft, misty yellow light bathe his bucolic landscapes. His work was earthy, imbued with the quiet chill of early November […]” — Katy Kelleher, “Russet, the Color of Peasants, Fox Fur, and Penance” from The Paris Review

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jaybug-jabbers · 2 years ago

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Flowering 'Weeds' in my Neighborhood Pt 3

Still studying the local flora. As time passes, I find new bloomers to report.

1.) Dock (Genus Rumex, probably crispus/Curly Dock) - Naturalized (some species in genus are native but unlikely)

Okay, calling these 'flowering' might be a bit of a stretch, but they DO flower; it's just very hard to catch, as the flowers are so tiny and pale. The docks belong to a large genus, some of them even native to California, but it's more likely the plants growing in large quantities in the marshy fields by my house are curly dock, originally from Europe and Asia. The fruits/seeds occur in these papery, spade-shaped sheaths in large clusters, either green or reddish. This plant is a relative of buckwheat, and acts as a host plant for some butterfly species (Lycaena rubidus). It is apparently quite edible for humans too, although you don't want livestock or pets grazing on the plant as too much can poison them, due to the oxalates.

2.) Bird's Foot Trefoil (Lotus corniculatus) - Invasive

Such a pretty yellow flower, in the pea family (Fabaceae), but it's native to Europe, Asia and Africa and was brought here as livestock forage. They are popular with bumblebees, apparently, and a host plant for some butterflies. The plant contains small amounts of hydrogen cyanide. The amount is quite small so it's unlikely to harm humans, but in large enough quantity could theroetically kill a person. While it has a history of use as a medicinal plant, but it's suggested to avoid for human consumption, to be on the safe side.

The name "Bird's Foot" refers to their seedpods, which seem to be arranged in a pattern that resembles a bird's foot. ('Trefoil' means three leaves). The flower also has some other weird common names, such as "eggs and bacon," which comes from Britain, its native home. Supposedly this name comes from the yellow and orange colors (the orange shows up as the flowers are older), although I don't think I've ever seen orange bacon before, personally.

3.) St. John's Wort (Hypericum perforatum) - Invasive

I had no idea that this was St. John's Wort until I looked it up. This plant has been used medicinally for centuries, and is still marketed today as an herbal antidepressant.

Please take note: this does not automatically mean it is effective or safe. All herbs should be researched thoroughly before you take them medicinally. Just because they are derived from plants does not mean they are 'safer' than manufactured drugs. St. John's Wort in particular requires extra caution; it is proven to interfere with the effects of many prescrption drugs (sometimes in a life-threatening way), including birth control pills. So you need to check for possible drug interactions. Also take note that in the United States, herbal 'dietary supplements' are not regulated by the FDC, and thus have no standardized manufacturing rules. The dosages from herbal pills can thus vary widely and can even be contaminated with impurities. So be careful.

This plant apparently is very invasive here, and it can poison livestock, if enough is eaten. I've only found a relatively small flowering patch out in a field I walk in, though.

4.) Common Chicory (Cichorium intybus) - Invasive

A beautiful lavander-blue flower on a tall, leggy plant, chicory is perhaps best known for its use as a tasty coffee sustitute or additive when its root is dried/ground and roasted. Chicory root is also processed into inulin powder, which people take as fiber supplements, as a prebiotic, and as a 'calorie-free' sweetner. Chicory's leaves are edible too, and it has been cultivated into French endive/radicchio for its greens. It belongs to the family Asteraceae, which includes asters, sunflowers, daisies, and dandelions.

5.) Elegant Cluster-Lily (Brodiaea elegans) - Native

I am so excited to say this plant is a California native!! It seems I have not been finding many of those lately. But when I went on a walk today (it's near the end of May, now), I found them blooming, as apparently they are late bloomers. They are said to be hardy and drought-tolerant, and are related to another native plant, the Blue-Dicks, which I covered in an earlier post. From what I can find online, Brodiaea elegans' starchy, potato-like bulbs (technically 'corms') are edible just like the Blue-Dicks. It is reportedly quite healthy, too, and valued by Native Americans. Of course, I am simply reporting information about these plants. I am not necessarily encouraging anyone to forage them. If they are native plants you find in the wild, I think it's better to leave them alone. You can sometimes buy these plants from nurseries, so if you'd like to try eating them, that's a much better idea!

6.) Wild Blackberry (Rubus ulmifolius) - Naturalized

An incredibly common sight in California. From what I can tell online, any berry in the Rubus genus is safe for humans to eat, so there are no toxic blackberry look-alikes. That is to say, any berry that grows in the berry 'clusters' you see in raspberries and blackberries, and grow on thorny bramble bushes, are in the Rubus genus. As such, I might actually attempt to forage some of these when they're ready. They really are everywhere around here, and I bet there will be plenty to pick for a pie. The thorns have to be navigated, of course, but all in all, they seem like the perfect canidate for 'baby's first forage food.'

7 - 8.) Cat's Ear (Hypochaeris radicata) or Smooth Hawks Beard (Crepis capillaris), or . . . something else oh god there's so many

Okay I was gonna throw these in at the end because I was like, "oh, dandelions, a nice common weed to mention." I had no idea there were so many dandelion look-alikes. I'm gonna need to go back and take more photos and study these closely to get a proper ID. There's thousands growing out there in the fields, but I didn't give them much thought, since I thought they were just dandelions. I suppose that just goes to show you shouldn't assume things, and there's still plenty to learn even from species you see commonly.

#long post #plants #wildflowers #nature hikes #my nature hikes

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sabrielfell · 2 years ago

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17 minutes to closing time. You glance at the man sitting by the window. You don't remember serving him but he holds the shop mug in his hands. His fingers are sickly grey against the pink and orange logo. He taps it, feather light like the probing antenae of a cockroach.

You shake your head and sweep the last chocolate bavarian into a zipperbag. Conen won't rat you out to the big corp and you'll be damned if you let it dump hours work worth of donuts after paying you a rat's ass amount in wages.

13 minutes to closing time. The man still sits by the window, staring out at the empty parking lot. You really should tell him to leave. He's an odd man with a black bowler hat. Perhaps he's old. You haven't seen his face. From this angle you can barely make out his reflection in the window. A pale blur. You think it twitches. You look away and wipe your hands on your apron. You'll just get out of this uniform first.

7 minutes to closing time. You take a deep breath, hold back your sigh and force your feet towards the table. The man doesn't move until you call out, "Excuse me sir, it's closing time. Would you like me to put your coffee in a takeout cup?"

The man slowly turns his head and a chill runs down your spine. His eyes -- you wouldn't call them eyes -- don't flit up to look at you. They stay dead center in their sockets until the man tilts his head, and the orbs roll to fix you with a stare. A performative stare. In that moment you're certain that he sees you through other means.

His slack jaw creaks at its hinges. You stand frozen. Part of you is screaming to run but doubt binds you to the spot. You don't want to be impolite by freaking out on a blind old man.

"Take... Take out? Sir..?"

His papery lips stretch wide over an array of too long, horse like teeth. His fingers spasm as he leans foward and you finally turn and run.

...

2 minutes to closing time. You never make it out the door.

Writing Challenge - Orbs 👁️✨

Challenge: Use "orbs" to refer to eyeballs without it looking like that one tumblr roleplay meme with the pepsi and coke (i.e. Like bad fanfiction).

#writing challenge #creative writing #writing #horror #short story #horror writing

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kendrene · 4 years ago

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“Kara, no. We don’t even know what it is!”

“He. And yeah we do!” Kara pauses, stares at the creature in her arms. Frowns. “He’s a, uhm, a dragon? A baby dragon?”

The creature wiggles, like he knows they’re talking about him, papery wings flapping ineffectually, and Lena’s gotta admit he definitely looks the part.

Great. Perfect. Amazing. Lena can already picture him full-scale as he rampages through downtown, setting people and cars on fire. Plus, where there’s a baby—

“What about his mother?”Lena asks, doing her best not to meet the dragonlet’s gaze. He stares at her with orange cat-like eyes, a little too intensely for her liking. It’s possible he’s simply zeroing in on a new voice, but perhaps he’s wondering how Lena is going to taste well done.

“I looked.” The dragonlet lets out a tiny noise and Kara coos, scratching the top of his head with her thumb. “He was all alone, poor thing. Weren’t you?” She talks to him like he’s a human baby, not a fucking fire-spitting lizard that can decide he wants to bite off both of their faces on a whim.

Speaking of. What if he’s a worse kind of dragon?

“He could be dangerous.” Lena takes a careful step back. Kara may be indestructible, but she isn’t taking any chances.

She moves slowly, and when the dragonlet doesn’t react, takes another bigger one. “Poisonous. Radioactive.” A lot of the things that come down to Earth from space tend to be. “For all we know if you scratch the wrong spot, he could explode.”

“I gave him a lot of scritches on the way here, so that would have already happened.” Kara counters surprisingly logical then, much to Lena’s horror, holds the dragonlet out in her direction. Clearly, she expects Lena to take him from her. “I’m sure if you just hold him a little, you’ll get over—”

“Kara, I don’t want to hold him.”

#supercorp #dragonlet au #animal shelter au #but it's canon #my writing #dren writes

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mesogeios · 4 years ago

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This may explain why many cultures think of russet and similar dull reds as neutral hues, akin to the monochrome scale of white, black, and the innumerable shades between. True reds, the crimsons and vermilions and scarlets, have historically been associated with fire, blood, and power. In Red: The History of a Color, Michel Pastoureau explains that, for thousands of years, red was “the only true color.” He continues, “as much on the chronological as hierarchical level, it outstripped all others.” In ancient Greece, high priests and priestesses dressed in crimson, as did (they imagined) the gods themselves. In contrast, the dull reds, the brown reds, have been understood as “emblematic of peasantry and impoverishment,” claims Victoria Finlay in An Atlas of Rare & Familiar Colour. Finlay files red ocher among the browns—the ruddy pigment used in the caves of Lascaux—which is perhaps where it belongs. Perhaps that’s where russet belongs, too. [...]

It seems likely that russet, as a word, is an offshoot of red (Old French rousset from Latin russus, “reddish”). But russet means more than red-like, red-adjacent. It also means rustic, homely, rough. It also evokes mottled, textured, coarse. The word describes a quality of being that can affect people as well as vegetables. Apples can be russet, when they have brown patches on their skin. Potatoes famously are russet; their skin often has that strange texture that makes it impossible to tell where the earth ends and the root begins. There are russet birds and russet horses—it’s an earthy word that fits comfortably on many creatures. For Shakespeare, it was a color of poverty and prudence, mourning and morning. In Love’s Labour’s Lost, Biron imagines a life without the finer things, without silks and taffeta, a life of sacrifice undertaken to prove his love. The color of his penance? Russet.

“and I here protest, By this white glove;—how white the hand, God knows!— Henceforth my wooing mind shall be express’d In russet yeas and honest kersey noes: And, to begin, wench,—so God help me, la!— My love to thee is sound, sans crack or flaw.”

Just a few decades after this was written, in a country not too far away, Peter Paul Rubens was painting with brilliant crimson and shocking vermilion. Rubens was a devout Roman Catholic, a religion that embraced sumptuous fabrics and rich colors. A generation later, another northern painter would rise to prominence: Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn. While Catholic Rubens loved shocking reds, rich blues, and even sunny yellows, Protestant Rembrandt painted with a far more restrained palette. Many of his most famous paintings (including his self portraits) are predominantly brown and gray. And when he did use color, Rembrandt very often reached for russet, auburn, fulvous, and tawny. Reds that leaned brown, and browns that leaned red. Sometimes, he brought in a splash of crimson to tell the viewer where they should focus (the vibrant sash in Night Watch, the cloaks in Prodigal Son), and sometimes he let soft, misty yellow light bathe his bucolic landscapes. His work was earthy, imbued with the quiet chill of early November [...]”

— Katy Kelleher, “Russet, the Color of Peasants, Fox Fur, and Penance” from The Paris Review

#Katy Kelleher #Paris Review #art criticism #on colour #Shakespeare #Rembrandt #Peter Paul Rubens

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vannahfanfics · 4 years ago

Text

Warm

Category: Fluff, Hurt/Comfort

Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender

Characters: Toph, Sokka

Hello, guys! I am happy to present the story that I wrote for the @tokkazine. It was super fun to write for this pair, so I hope you enjoy!

The warm summer night air crackled with the snapping of fire-lit braziers as Toph strolled out of the lofty gate of the Fire Nation palace. The guards only spared her a passing glance, neglecting to chide her for wandering about at this hour of the evening once they recognized her as one of the Fire Lord’s companions. Though they’d only been in the Fire Nation for a few months following the defeat of Fire Lord Ozai, most of the citizens had come to allow the foreigners to do as they wished— Toph especially, because it wasn’t as if anyone could tell her what to do anyway.

Perhaps it was too deep in the night for Toph to meander, but she neglected to ponder that as she gamboled down the steps leading to one of the many paths venturing into the city. Usually, she would be fast asleep right now, sleep evaded her tonight.

Though the decisive battle for the fate of the world ended months ago, she still found herself plagued with jitters. She supposed everyone who had faced death like that had restless nights from time to time; no human was completely infallible— even herself, as much as she liked to think. So many things had run through her mind at that moment, and were still running through her mind. It was funny, how many regrets one could think up while on the precipice— like how she’d never kissed anyone before, or never had anyone tell her they loved her before. Things she would never imagine thinking, but had galloped like stampeding horses through her whirling brain as she dangled into the open air.

Ever since then, as the watchful nights closed in, those thoughts would bubble back up to the surface when she least expected them. Thus here she was, wandering the night like a ghost.

The soles of Toph’s bare feet filled the quietude with rhythmic slaps, accenting the crackles and snaps of the small fires that lined the palace walkways. Toph had been told that fire cast a warm, yellow-orange glow; she wondered how it blended with the moonlight streaming down from the heavens, which Katara told her was white. Not that Toph necessarily knew what white or orange or any other color looked like, but she liked to think colors had a feel to them, too.

She could feel the light spreading warmth like honey over her bare arms as she strode down the causeway. It fluttered like butterflies over her skin, little papery-thin wings kissing just briefly to bloom warmth in their wake. If orange was warm like this, then maybe white was cold.

As Toph silently debated the philosophical characteristics of colors, her feet carried her of their own accord, wandering the labyrinthine arrangement of walled causeways with an unknown destination in mind. It was only when Toph’s feet met cold, fresh grass that she snapped out of her mindless conjecture. With a slight gasp, she hurriedly glanced around.

As the wind whistled through the area, it created just enough oscillations to cause the surrounding structures to flicker into being. Images of twisting, ornate bonsai trees and gilded gazebos overhanging small pools fuzzed in her mind’s eye, framed by distant blobs she surmised were the stone walls ringing the area. She could make out the spiky, flower-like iron braziers hanging on the bricks, chasing away the darkness with their warm firelight.

Gardens.

The small leaves clinging to the pretzeling limbs of the bonsai trees rippled in the wind, joining the crackling of the flames with ringing cadence. Crickets sang in the grasses. Somewhere in the depths of the gardens, an owl hooted greeting to the wanderer entering its domain. Toph listened to the symphony of night for several seconds, enjoying its humble melody until an errant noise bled into the tune. She strained her ears, eyebrows slowly scrunching as she recognized the sound as Sokka’s voice.

It was soft, only barely discernible above the warbling wind and chirping crickets. It rose and fell in pitch with his words, sometimes punctuated by a light laugh, but she couldn’t understand anything he was saying.

Toph’s eyes remained narrowed as she followed his voice through the garden, relying on her attuned senses to pinpoint his location within. The grass blades softly crunched beneath the calloused soles of her feet as she crept slowly through the gloom. His form sharpened into view, perched at the edge of one of the pools. He sat with his legs stretched out in front of him, reclining back on his hands with his gaze trained on the sky above.

Toph stopped a few paces behind him, bewildered as she listened to him speak animatedly to the abyss above their heads.

“Sokka?”

“Holy—!” he yelled, clumsily scrambling to his feet with his hand flying to the boomerang strapped to his back. He relaxed when his brain caught up with his body to realize who it was. “Don’t sneak up on me like that! You scared the crap outta me,” he grumbled as he slackened, deflating like a balloon.

Toph’s eyebrow had begun to inch up her forehead of its own accord. “Were you… talking to the sky?”

“The moon, thank you very much,” he corrected haughtily with a waggle of his finger. Once he realized what had come out of his mouth, he clapped both hands over it.

“Oh? The moon? Does it make good conversation?” She laughed, tossing back her head. Talking to the moon. Is he serious? What could Sokka even have to talk to the moon about? It was a big fat rock floating in space. Comet traffic? Space weather? As she considered one ridiculous topic of conversation after another, her laughter rose in volume until it was bouncing around the courtyard and drowning out the peaceful cadence of the evening.

“Stop it. Stop laughing at me.”

Toph typically was not one to obey orders, but something in his tone shut her right up. She stiffened and her mouth snapped shut. Sokka turned his back to her, and even with her fuzzy vibration-vision, she could see the tension lacing his hunched shoulders. Her mind reeled in confusion as he punished her with angry silence.

What had he expected, telling her something like that? She tried to justify herself, to convince herself that Sokka was just embarrassed, but as she picked up the tremors soaking into the soil with every quake of his body, she had to resign herself to the fact that maybe it was deeper than that.

“Sokka… I didn’t mean to…” she started lamely but couldn’t finish. She didn’t even know what she meant or didn’t mean to do, really.

Sokka finally relaxed with a heavy sigh. His hand rose to paw at the back of his neck. “No, I… It’s okay. You don’t know.”

I don’t know? The phrase echoed hollowly in her frazzled brain. Sokka eased himself back down to the water’s edge, tucking one of his knees up by his chest, and then patted the spot beside him. Her body reacted autonomously, carrying her to the edge of the pool. She sank into the grass to gawk at Sokka with parted lips.

“It happened… before we met,” he began slowly. His voice was strained like every word was labor, having to be dragged out of his vocal cords kicking and screaming before puffing out into the night air exhausted from the effort. “We went to the Northern Water Tribe to find a waterbending master… and that’s where I met her.”

Toph’s eyes widened. As soon as the word “her” passed his lips, a distinct fondness seeped into his voice; Toph could hear the smile blooming on his face.

After the initial moment of affection overtook his being, Sokka shifted uncomfortably. His voice became stiff again. “Her name was Yue. She was the daughter of the chief, in an arranged marriage with a soldier, and… I loved her.”

His voice broke with pain, and Toph’s heart broke for him. She’d only ever heard Sokka like this once— when she was dangling from the Fire Nation airship with only his hand keeping her tethered to the living world.

“She, uh… The Northern Water Tribe is the home of the moon and ocean spirits, Tui and La. Tui healed Yue when she was a baby, so they kinda had a spiritual link thing going on.” He gave a few unenthusiastic gestures with his hands.

Part of Toph wanted to stop Sokka, to keep him from delving into this obviously painful part of his past. However, part of her was also riveted, desperate to know this part of him, desperate to understand the hurt he hid behind the grins and laughs.

“The Fire Nation followed us and attacked us, and, um… killed Tui, the moon spirit, to take away their waterbending. Yue, she, um…” he trailed off with another sharp crack of his voice, looking away from Toph as his throat bobbed with the thick emotion nearly choking him. “She gave her life to bring the moon spirit back. So now, she’s… the moon,” he finished with a small wave at the celestial body above. “I just like to talk to her sometimes. Tell her how things are going.”

Toph swallowed as she allowed the story to sink in. It was hard to believe, even with all the spirit world nonsense she’d seen traveling with the Avatar— but she had no doubt that Sokka was telling the truth. The melancholy permeating the timbres of his voice was plenty evidence of that. She opened and closed her mouth as she struggled with what to say. How could she offer condolence for something like that? Turning into the moon aside, it’s not like Toph knew anything about love.

When words failed her, she settled for scooching closer and grabbing his hand to interlock their fingers. She gave it a tight squeeze, staring down at the rippling water that just looked like an empty gray expanse to her.

“I’m sorry,” she said lamely. “I don’t… I don’t know what to say.”

Sokka tilted his head to give her an amused smirk. “Don’t worry. When I first told Zuko, you know what he said? ‘That’s rough, buddy.’”

Toph snorted obscenely, lurching forward as a few giggles bubbled out of her. That sounded exactly like something Zuko would say.

Sokka continued to hold her hand absently, using his other to scratch at the side of his head. “Of course, I didn’t give him any context. I just told him that my first girlfriend turned into the moon.”

Toph laughed again at his bashful admission. Now that was a very Sokka thing to say.

“Yeah. Well, I guess it’s nice that you have been in love before. I don’t know what that’s like,” she hummed and tilted her head back to blink up at where the sky would be if she could see it. She wondered what the moon looked like. From what had been described to her, it was just a big white circle in the sky. She doubted that did the moon— or Yue— any justice. “What’s it like?”

“You? Wanting to know about love? I must be dreaming.”

“Hey!” she griped with a sharp jab of her elbow into his ribs.

Sokka wheezed and recoiled from her assault. He then laughed breathily to show that he wasn’t too injured.

“I may be a brute, but I still have a heart, ya know? Even I want someone to love me one day!” she huffed and wrenched her hand away from his. Though she loathed it, his words struck a nerve. Of course she wanted someone to love her, too— especially since she’d come so close to dying without never having experienced it. Now, it taunted her like an unscalable wall, an insurmountable mountain.

On long nights like this, she wondered if she was even lovable at all.

“Aw, no, Toph, I’m sorry! Come back!” Sokka protested while laughing. His hand chased hers in its retreat, grabbing it to yank it back and playfully hug it to his chest. The action chased away the doubts creeping up inside, almost effortlessly.

Toph pouted dourly at him, but given the shortage of hand-holding in her sheltered life, she sure wasn’t going to jerk it away again. His hand felt really warm; she hadn’t been able to appreciate it last time when she was too concerned about plummeting to her death.

Warm like the firelight bathing the gardens around them in gentle heat.

“So you want to know what love is like?” Sokka hummed thoughtfully. He still clutched Toph’s hand to his vest as he looked out to the surface of the pond to contemplate. “Well, it’s… It’s kinda like— You want to be around them all the time, and you don’t want anything bad to happen to them, and— Well, that can be any kind of love, I guess. How is romantic love different?”

A smile crept onto Toph’s lips as he fumbled over the explanation. Love must be a great thing, she supposed, if it was so powerful that no word in the human language could describe it effectively.

Sokka continued to hum and mumble as he struggled to define the complexity of human emotions. As she sat there, his body heat leaching into her arm as he continued to hold her hand against his chest, she began to smile.

“Hey, Sokka?”

“Eh? Hold on, Toph, I’ve almost— Grrr, why is this so hard?” he whined and hung his head. His chin nudged against the back of her hand.

“Is it warm?”

“What?”

“Love. Is it warm?”

He lifted his head to blink uncomprehendingly at her. After a few seconds, he tipped his head to the side with a small, appreciative “Huh.” He then smiled softly and nodded.

“Yeah. That’s it. Love is warm.”

“I thought so,” Toph said smugly. She dug her heels into the dirt as she leaned back a little, and she could almost feel the moonbeams spearing down to wash over the front of her shirt. Earlier, she had been contemplating whether moonlight was cold. Now she knew undoubtedly that it was a warm light, not unlike the firelight enveloping them in a circle of burning orange.

“Toph?”

“Hmm?”

“Don’t worry.” Sokka rolled his head on his neck to give her a reassuring smile. “You’re the greatest earthbender to ever live. Surely someone’s gonna fall in love with you someday.”

“You sure it won’t be you? I see you making googly eyes at me right now,” she teased while sticking out her tongue and wiggling her head.

Sokka laughed, and she was so glad to hear it, so relieved that there wasn’t a touch of that sadness that had been tainting him a short while ago. “Are you sure it’s not you who’s in love with me? I mean, I can’t blame you. I have a stunning personality and ravishing good looks,” he said while dramatically running a hand through his wolf-tail.

Toph cackled and elbowed him in the ribs again, with only enough force this time to be a little ticklish. He wiggled away from her, and that beautiful laughter reverberated through the gardens, sounding like windchimes sweetly tinkling in the breeze.

They sat there together, basking in the moonlight beside the rippling pond. As the night deepened, the chill furthered in the air, until Sokka shuddered violently with a displeased sound.

“Cold night,” he grunted. Toph looked down at her hand, which still glowed with that pleasant warmth of Sokka’s body heat.

“No… It’s not cold at all.”

Enjoy this oneshot? Feel free to peruse my Table of Contents!

#tokka #toph x sokka #sokka x toph #toph beifong #sokka #atla sokka #atla toph #atla #avatar the last airbender #avatar: the last airbender

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kettlequills · 3 years ago

Text

C3: waking dreams: master of fate

On A03 here. tw for grief/mourning, mentioned child death, and mild hallucinations. also miraak is high. you guys get to meet soskro and mirdein!

“Easy now,” the healer, Soskro, murmured, “Easy. Your body has had quite the shock.”

“Hmm,” another voice came, gravelly, rough with ash. “Just patch me up. I need to get back to guarding the temple doors. I don’t trust that those troublemakers have gone.”

Flame-soft light greeted Miraak’s eyes. It rippled warm orange over the curtains that had been pulled around his bed. A bed? It was warm against his body and held him like an embrace, like Mora had decided to dangle him over the ink-dark seas long enough that Miraak’s body heat started to warm the perpetually tepid rubberiness of his tentacles. There were no beds in Apocrypha, nor curtains, and vague notions of some distant past-dream warred with what Miraak knew – the only fabric was the ragged tatters of the seeker’s cloaks. A similar papery colour, these cloaks that wrapped around the world, but they had dried out, and there were no stains.

The healer and the patient were shadow puppets against the light, their bodies licked with slow-moving, peaceful tentacles that swayed back and forth like the sigh of the waves on the shore. Like the remote figures of lurkers, small as a scale on his gauntlet from the vantage point of his high tower, the bubbles they blew in the ink as they idled.

Miraak’s face itched, but gently, as if it was far away. His ear ached a little, as if he’d been laying on it for a very long time. His mask felt odd on one side, soft instead of hard, and the eyeslits were wider, he thought. All the added peripheral vision made him feel dizzy.

He wanted to close them, but he could not figure out how. Instead, he watched the flutter of the curtains in the soft breeze and felt the salt from the distant sea in his throat. The world seemed to inch past in honey-thick grains, each second languid, lugubrious, elongated as an endless rest among the murmuring pages wrapped in tame dragonwings. He did not need sleep, did not ever fully slip into the dark comfort of Vaermina’s realm, but it was… meditative, in a sense, to leave only one ear open for threats, and simply lie quietly for a time.

Sahrotaar was the best to sleep on if Mora did not have him within his curling knot of oil-dark tendrils, even though Sahrotaar was always a placid room temperature. Its scales were smooth and soft, circular, made for slipping like a knife between the skin of the water, and its finned wings would curl round Miraak with the most care, like he was a sea-pearl in the heart of a clam. The bones in Sahrotaar’s wings still jabbed him, and Sahrotaar would insist on sliding its big snout into the pocket of space it had made between its wings and its body, filling it all with the subtle reek of old fish and ink, but it was better than nesting among the ripped pages of books.

Miraak wondered where Sahrotaar was.

“Mirdein, you have a spear hole in your leg the size of a drake,” Soskro said with the firmness of an argument often repeated, “You’ll sit here til I tell you.”

Mirdein grunted. “Yes, muthsera.”

Miraak breathed on his own now, without the tube down his throat and blurry white mask-faces manning bellows to manually pump his lungs for him. The huffing of the bellows had marked his days in and out of silence, and though something had always felt faintly wrong, Miraak could sense the presence of another close by – one of his dragons, surely, keeping watch against the lurkers – that occasionally pressed into him with tender magics that made his muscles unknot and his body loose and limp. Reassuringly, it still hurt, and the insistent feeling of violation and vulnerability was soothing in its familiarity. Perhaps Mora was feeding him again, or taking from him, and that was why Soskro was there, solid as never before when they’d met in dreams, spoonfeeding him potions that left his mind dreamy.

Soskro had seemed proud when Miraak could breathe all by himself. He focused on it, sucking air into himself until he felt buoyant as a balloon, ready to drift away. Fly, all by himself, in windless Apocrypha, with no dragonwings to hold him up.

“Don’t be smart with me, wife.”

The gentle tones of Restoration magic chimed like the ringing of bells to call the priests to evensongs, and Miraak floated in the sense-memory and wondered vaguely if anyone would be mad if he didn’t go, because he didn’t think he had a mouth anymore, and he thought that was good for singing. He had eyes, more eye than he was used to – had there always been so much to see, to the left of him? – but dim memory told him that he didn’t need to see. Mora would be there, to see for him, see in him, see to him, and his voice oily-smooth would tell him what he needed to do.

The curtains were glowing faintly. He wondered if they were supposed to. It looked like dragonfire caught in glass, like the scales of a fire-drake steaming where it lay in the snow. Dragon eyes and dragon names slipped foglike through his memory, and though he tried to shape the words of forgiveness for forgetting the name of the beast whose hide watched him through the curtains, his tongue was busy holding in all his air.

“I need you alive,” Soskro continued, “not dead on the end of some Skaal blade.”

“It was just a training accident,” said Mirdein, dismissively. “Sulis got too close. Nothing serious.”

“Serious enough for you to be stabbed! Since when did training get so violent?” Soskro’s voice was loud. Miraak thought he might sing to calm the tensions so no one would get bitten or eaten, but there was no space around all the air in him.

“Tensions are rising, Soskro! No one likes being sealed in the temple and you know there’s been accusations-“

His vision was going grey at the edges. Miraak released all his breath in a wheezing exhale. The voices went quiet. He mourned them. Mora so rarely put on different voices to catch Miraak out anymore and send him hurtling down book-strewn paths chasing echoes of memories. It had been one of the games they played. Mora had laughed at it, but Miraak did not remember laughing.

He did not remember most things, these days.

“Is he awake?” Mirdein asked, eventually, and Soskro sighed.

“Higher than a netch in a skooma-barrel, but yes, I think so. He’s staying awake most of the time now, can’t get much out of him but nonsense and odd words, but I think he’s more or less lucid. Taking him off the illusions helped.”

The shadow puppets moved, and then the curtains parted like a wound. Furrowed brows like the iron trellises of Apocrypha’s bridges stared down at him, then a broad-shouldered shape nudged into the curtained off section where Miraak nested. Another shape on its heels, merging together and apart, then Soskro appeared like magic and pushed Mirdein into a chair.

“Serjo.” The voice of Mirdein was back, but closer now. Rough, and warm, like the scratch of Kruziikrel’s sleepy mumbles when Miraak stole a moment of rest on his flame-hot throat. There was a bandage wrapped around her thigh at Miraak’s eye-level, a bloody spot the size of a coin already soaking through. Mirdein was a big woman, big enough to make the chair creak when she leaned forward to get a good look at him.

Some impression that something was wrong tickled him, and his face began to itch unbearably. He tried to lift his hand to scratch it, but his arm was tied to his side, his hand immobilised in a thick swathe of bandages. While Miraak puzzled that out, Soskro leant into his vision and smiled at him.

Red, red eyes, like Laataazin’s blood over his hands, these elves had. He thought they were elves. Soskro’s left hand was golden, and clicked and whirred softly when moved, and Miraak knew that it felt cold and hard, like things that touched his face were supposed to. He did not move away when Soskro’s thin metal fingers touched his cheek.

“Here, Lord,” said Soskro, and then lightly draped a gentle kerchief of silk over his face. The itching soothed immediately, and Miraak sighed against the coolness on his skin. It was the wrong weight – he did not know how he knew, but he knew it was wrong – but it felt more right than before. More right than Mirdein looking at him.

Mirdein exhaled slowly. There was a weight in the shadow of her shape through the silk, a slump of tired shoulders.

“Have faith,” said Soskro, quietly, “He will recover when he recovers. We will hold out.”

“I am patient,” said Mirdein, dourly, but then her voice softened. “I – and my men – will keep you safe, serjo. Do not fear for my loyalty.”

“Geh, aam-hi,” Miraak heard himself say, as if through a very long tunnel. Yes, you serve me. The world shivered in response, and for a brief moment, he thought he heard the lonely cry of a dragon. Soskro’s soft intake of breath was one of awe.

Mora’s tentacles kissed Miraak’s nose on the inside of the silk kerchief, pulsed dizzyingly in his vision when Mirdein spoke again, firm as bedrock, “As you say, serjo.”

---

Frea clung to a jutting rock not far from the Tree Stone and squinted through the blinding snowfall. She had been crouched in the lee of the rock for some time now and her furs were dusted with snow, until she looked like nothing so much as a sleeping wolf taking refuge from the bitter winds.

Once, the animals had lived in the old ruin beyond the boneyard, wolfcubs whelping in the ancient rooms and birds nesting in the crumbling walls. There had been people, there had always been people in the temple, but only three or four at most, wary of outsiders but content to leave the Skaal well enough alone. As the Skaal had been happy to leave them; the cult of the Traitor could have their dusty ruin hidden behind the heaped skeletons of dragons fused together by time and the interminable movements of ice, no Skaal wanted to go near that wretched place. If the All-Maker did not move to kill them, it was certainly no business of the Skaal.

Of them all, only Frea had ever ventured inside. With the Last Dragonborn at her side, they’d carved a path through the temple with might and strength, to uncover the truth behind the disappearance of Frea’s people. The Traitor’s mind-snare was broken at the Tree Stone and the Skaal freed the night Laataazin had returned to read Herma Mora’s dark Book and confront Miraak – but the animals still had not returned to the temple, and Frea wanted to know why.

Frea pressed a far-seer to her eye and peered through it, hoping to catch a glimpse of swishing robes or patched armour along the top steps. Be they brigands, mostly, and honourless thieves, the cult of Miraak had grown hugely during the domination of the Stones. Yet, there was no sign of them, not even fat-bellied wolves slinking to their dens, or vultures drawn to the fresh carrion. Skorn had once cautioned the Skaal to stay away from the cultists and their dark magics, but Skorn was dead now to Herma Mora, and the burden of nurturing the Skaal’s spiritual connection to their land – and defending it – was Frea’s to shoulder.

And so Frea watched, and Frea waited, and the temple remained quiet.

Better that silence than the one in her father’s hall. The village was alive again, if weary and battered from months of gruelling work without their minds, and everyone felt Skorn’s loss deeply as their own wound. Their eyes were sunken when they looked at Frea for guidance, their hands thin and chapped with rough work when they touched her forehead, and though their hearts still were steady, Frea felt their grief and pain both as a stab of guilt to her own. Skorn would have served the Skaal better, but Frea did not know how to fix their nightmares for them or the days they had slaved that had been stolen from them, and though she could make tinctures for the rasping cough Oslaf had developed since a winter night at the Tree Stone she could not bring back the child that had died that night beside him, whose frozen body was found there still clutching his father’s leg.

Frea burned at the injustice of it. There was no guidance she could find meditating with the chants her father had taught her, well-worn as river stones in her mouth, no peace in trying to discern the will of the All-Maker in the dead that slept beneath the icy ground, but there was the fire of hatred in her heart, and that warmed her as she lay in the snow. Vengeance and safety in the knowledge that the temple was watched, and whatever scourge remained within unable to steal like shadows in the night to rob the minds of her people, she could bring the Skaal, if nothing else.

She dropped the far-seer to root in her belt for a pouch of cold-staying berries, her mitts awkward on the ties. Bags and bags of these she’d gone through travelling with Laataazin Dragonborn, whose southern blood chilled easily, and whose joints were worn with age and battle. It felt almost wrong to eat them by herself now, the tartness breaking on her tongue like a memory. But Frea was a practical person, and sentiment would not stop her freezing to death.

A shadow swept over the snow, and Frea blinked. A bird – perhaps, but no bird was so large – she fumbled with the far-seer, and jammed it to her eye just as the dragon passed over the temple of Miraak.

It was a frost one, it had to be, to fly so high, so fast, through the snow that Frea had not even heard the thunder of its wings. Laataazin had told her there were many different types of dragons, that they each favoured elements but it was best to assume all could flame and frost. Frea had seen them fight a dragon once, gripping her weapon tightly as she guarded the idle mage Neloth at Nchardak. Her heart had been in her throat as Laataazin taunted the great beast, evading its snarling and snapping jaws as it crowed slavishly about its master Miraak, and finally sent it to howling retreat with a final, bone-shattering blow to its leg.

The dragon circled over the temple, its head ducked like it was hunting for prey. It held something in its claws, she thought, for its right leg was oddly extended, not tucked close against its spiney body like the left. Unless – was this the same creature that Laataazin had chased off at Nchardak? It could not be. Had it returned to search the remains of the temple for its master?

Suddenly, from the temple another dragon rose on flapping wings, interrupting the lazy flight of the Nchardak dragon. This one was easier to see against the snow, the colour of a burnished ruby, and it spat fire a ship-length in front of it that the Nchardak dragon had to hastily dodge or risk charring. The two dragons circled each other, exchanging snapping forays too quickly for Frea to keep up with through her far-seer. They did not breathe flame or frost at each other, or clash fully, but instead danced around each other in the way Frea had seen wolves of the same pack play-fight – if a thousand times more deadly.

They tussled there in the sky for a while, but after a certain development that Frea could not spot from her position huddled in the snow some agreement was evidently reached, and the Nchardak dragon tucked its wings and dove into the darkness of the temple, presumably to land. As if flushed out like a hen from the sudden appearance of a fox, a third dragon, jade-green all over, rocketed out from the temple walls with a bitter screech. It was a horrible noise, and Frea’s far-seer tumbled from her hand as she hunched to protect her ears.

The screech cut off, suddenly, and through streaming eyes Frea squinted to see the two dragons left in the sky descending together, their blurry shapes quickly swallowed by the snow. Three dragons, solitary beasts one and all, roosting together in the temple, and one of them Frea knew had been loyal to Miraak once.

Tucking the far-seer back into her pocket, Frea rose stiffly, but cautiously, and crept away from the hollow she had made. She kept low until she reached the wooded line of the trees, then straightened, casting a last, perturbed look over her shoulder. Farani Strong-Voice would want to hear of this.

#inkwrites #my fic waking dreams: master of fate #miraak #frea #tes #skyrim #elder scrolls

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juno-dearborn · 3 years ago

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Nothing quite like a cemetery at the full moon.

She’d been searching for Dice, finally recovered-- or something akin to it-- after the morning’s mussels, and the aborted fight with Dani, rudely interrupted by Gamemaker intervention. She had her too (or so she told herself).

She hadn’t noticed she’d gone too far at first, but even after she had, curiosity had taken over. It seemed that houses in this area were in poorer shape, and certainly had fared worse than the more lavish ones she’d seen after the quake. She kicked around some rubble, investigated some of the teetering houses. She didn’t expect much, but as she reached the city wall, she was surprised to find a piece of it crumbled too-- exposing something on the other side. Pausing, her heart suddenly leaped into her throat. Unrealistically, her first thoughts jumped to the 125th Arena, the way Jeanine Twill had walked right out of it. Then sense returned, and she realized quickly that first, the Gamemakers would never make that mistake again, and second, that something like this must be intentional. She ducked through, nerves buzzing. Was she the first to find this? Was there another part to the Arena, undiscovered, lying in wait? On the other side, she was met with what, at first, reminded her of some of the large, public parks back in Two. There was a wide dirt road, flanked on either side with statues, benches, rotundas, small temples. She approached one, squinting at the inscription. She didn’t understand it, even tried and failed to sound it out, but realized quickly, recognizing the middle name as one of her classmates-- a name. These were dedications to the dead. Two always did like their Roman namesakes. For a while, she walked, drinking in the odd somberness of it. While Thetis had never been the type to enjoy cemeteries, there was an unexpected peace here. Perhaps it was the stillness in a place like the Arena, or it was the realization that in the next week it would either be her or dice underground like this, soaking in the eternal quiet she was now enjoying. Eventually, she stumbled across a temple-- a big one this time, unmistakable. Friezes were lit at either side, casting the inscription in a flickering orange light in jet black marble: Pluto. The God of the dead. She’d done okay with mythology in school, though in part it was the vanity of trying to find her own name among the tales of Achilles, despite her mythological counterpart not featuring as heavily as she would have desired. Carefully, she ascended the steps, approaching a bowl identical to the one in front of the Temple to Neptune. She knew the cost now-- she pricked her finger, flinching, on the tip of her spear, then turned it upside down over the altar. The blood pooled into a dark pearl at her fingertip, then fell, splashing into the center, For a second, it remained quiet. Then the temple shuddered as her own had, and Thetis took a step back, waiting for the doors swing open to reveal... Nothing? No, an empty, dark compartment, a few feet wide and deep, dark cement on all sides. With a frown, she approached, spear at the ready, prepared for another fight. No, not nothing, there was something on the floor, a papery white rectangle glowing in the moonlight.

Quickly, she scooped it up greedily, anticipating a clue, a note, something that would turn around the horrible start she’d had to these Games. Instead, a single, individually wrapped bandaid. Thetis’ mouth immediately turned into an angry, frustrated scowl. She turned to face the sky, holding up her middle finger to the moon and drawing in a deep breath to bellow: “What the FU--” The transmission cut to another tribute for viewers all across Panem.

#Receive a gift from Pluto’s Temple #Attempt to read the Latin names in the cemetery #WC: 641 #ruleandtask #self para #128 #evening day 2

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succulentsunrise · 4 years ago

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Where the Fire Lilies Grow

Content: SFW!

Sorry it took so long but I really wanted to amp the suspense!! I hope you like it 😁

Tag list: @thoughtfullyrainynightmare, @lyranova ❤️

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Chapter 9: The Dungeon

“I’ve fallen in love with adventures, so I begin to wonder, if that’s why I’ve fallen for you.”

E. Grin

The forest spanned a large area. To a certain point, it was like any other forest. Subtly, however, the vegetation changed: it was more vibrant, more invasive and much bigger in size. Large roots of tilted trees curled towards the surface, creating a difficult terrain to walk on. The grass and plants that had gathered on the ground cut off all natural paths from sight. The branches of the trees were intertwined together with large, beautiful leaves. The beauty of the forest was not lost on Tani. It was intriguing, too - she had never seen anything grow so large outside of the neutral zone. Some of the plants she couldn’t even recognize. She would occasionally, to the amusement of her teammates, stop and wonder at some of them. Either this side of Clover had plants that her books and adventures had failed to notice, or the dungeon had brought new plants with it. Whichever option it was, Tani was certain they’d know after they’d find the dungeon. That, however, was a little harder to accomplish. The entrances to dungeons were usually rather plainly visible. This one was not. No matter how much they circled around the forest, they couldn’t find a path, cavern or even a large enough hole to move through. It was as if there wasn’t a dungeon there.

“What the--what is going on here?” Icree asked, frustrated enough to almost curse.

“Dungeons aren’t meant to be sentient enough to hide, are they?” Tani questioned humorously.

“No!”

“If I had to make a guess, it has to be in the middle of this forest.”

“Luka--,” Icree started to turn towards the young man, but before she finished, he had already nodded to her.

Luka had always been good at reading Icree’s moods and acting upon them. He had worked long enough with her to know what she wanted. He muttered a few words underneath his breath and several sculpted birds sprung from his hands. In answer, Icree conjured a group of butterflies, guiding them to move towards the edges of the overgrowth. She closed her eyes, likely trying to sense the right positioning through the overflow of mana. She then moved her arms up, slowly. Tani knew that wherever they were, the butterflies were flying up to signal to Luka’s sculptures where the edges of the overgrowth were. Luka would then be able to see how far they were from the middle through the eyes of his sculpture and the mana that Icree was spending. It was a rather complicated combination of spells, but hardly the first time they did it. Tani kept one hand on her sword, making sure no one would surprise them.

“We are north of the center,” Luka said after a long pause. “Here, follow me.”

He began to lead the others carefully through the woods, ever so often closing his eyes and ascertaining they were coming closer and closer to the middle. Tani kept an eye out for trouble still. The forest was quiet and calm. She tried to listen for bird songs or the subtle steps of animals, but it was as if they were avoiding the area. Tani felt a small chill creeping up her back and she instinctively moved her shoulders to shake it off. It was a move she immediately regretted - her left shoulder painfully reminded her of still being in the process of healing. Tani let out a defeated sigh. It would take a while to recover. At least she could hear insects around her, if not other animals. A bee was buzzing somewhere close by. Her gaze scanned the area around her, concentrating on a plant that she didn’t quite know. Its white petals were papery and still in a bud - unless they were not meant to open. She peered at it a little closer. What had seemed like petals to her were not quite so. It was more likely that the sepals of the flower had grown to form a protective bubble around the flower’s fruit, whatever it was. Tani smiled a little bit. Perhaps whatever was causing this overgrowth was at least not harmful to the plants themselves. Not wanting to be left behind, Tani let her gaze travel up, deeper into the forest. Immediately, she recoiled with a jolt. In the blink of an eye, what she had seen had disappeared, and yet -

Tani was rather sure she had seen a form there. A form of a person with curly hair and intense, blue gaze. It had stared at her from between the trees, filled with an emotion that she wasn’t sure how to read. The more she thought about it, the more she was certain that it had almost been a hostile gaze - a cold, calculating one. Had it been a trick of sunlight that the hair had seemed so warmly orange? Tani searched the treeline with her gaze, uncertain. Whatever had been there, wasn’t there anymore. Perhaps the bush had made her see things. She glanced around herself. Yes, the way the bush swayed in the wind could be mistaken for hair. It was a bit of a reach, but perhaps. The sunlight and the slight twinkle of blue sky - she had simply seen things. Tani took hastily steps forward to follow Icree and Luka. The sight had made her jump, and it was hard to calm back down. She kept glancing backwards, as if to make sure the bush had not come back alive. It however stayed swaying in the wind, as if waving her goodbye.

“It’s here,” Luka stated, stopping suddenly.

Tani looked forward nervously. The central point didn’t look any different from the rest of the forest: it was filled with a haphazard collection of trees, roots and rocks.

“There has to be a way to find it,” Icree muttered, jumping over the roots with an ease to reach the moss-covered cliff. She examined it with a thoughtful eye.

“Let’s scrape the moss off these rocks. Maybe it’s underneath them,” she commented, already rolling back her sleeves to start.

“Don’t!” Tani said quickly.

She rushed to Icree’s side, gently placing herself between the moss and Icree.

“Why hurt them, when I can just ask them to move?” she lectured her friend with a hurt voice, ignoring Icree rolling her eyes.

“It’s moss, Tani.”

“Hey!” Tani reprimanded, turning to the covered cliff. “Don’t worry, I won’t let her hurt you.”

There was the gentle dark green glow of her magic, and the moss and the plants seemed to almost crawl away from her hands. At the same time, there was a rumble, as if from deep underground. Tani quickly pulled her hands off the stone, looking around. Icree and Luka were doing the same, taking out their grimoires. Everything around them was still calm and quiet. Unnaturally quiet, almost. Tani glanced back to the stone.

“Look - the entrance,” she gasped, pointing at it.

The peeled back moss had revealed chipped frames of a doorway, blocked by an enormous stone slab. The slab wasn’t even the right size for the entrance. It looked like it had intentionally been put in front of it to hide it.

“What was that rumbling?” Icree asked, still alarmed.

“Something reacted to your magic,” Luka said with a glance to Tani.

“Perhaps,” she considered slowly. “Nothing happened, though.”

“The entrance appeared.”

“Yee-ees, but--it’s not exactly a defense.”

“Maybe the wizard that made this place was a plant mage and it’s gone a little faulty during the years?” Icree suggested, scratching her head. “Either way, we have an entrance.”

“I’m not sure if that makes any more sense, but we don’t have enough to build on,” Luka sighed.

“Let’s keep it in mind and open the way for now,” Tani said, knocking lightly on the stone slab in their way.

The others nodded their assent, and the three of them gathered around the stone. Most of the pushing came from Tani. Out of the three, she was by far the strongest, thanks to her upbringing and her constant exercising. As soon as they had pushed the stone to the side, a burst of hot air emerged from inside. For Tani, it was as if someone had trapped a volcano inside the dungeon and this was the first chance the air had to escape. All three of them immediately backed away from the entrance. Fortunately for them, there was no fire or flame that would have followed. There was simply an unbearable heat as the burst of flame began to quell. The three of them peeked carefully in, uncertain what they might see. The corridor that opened before them was filled with ashes and charred remains of what had once been plants. They swayed and crumbled in the disappearing burst of heat. It seemed like the walls of the corridor had once been covered completely in plants and moss.

“What happened here?” Tani asked, looking at it all. “Was this--was this a trap?”

“I didn’t see any glyphs,” Icree replied quickly. “No, I think - either this place hides an incredible heat source inside of it or someone came here before us.”

“The entrance was hidden,” Luka chimed in, shaking his head. “If someone had found it, they would have left it visible.”

“A heat source like this - I don’t know. This stone was put here by someone, I don’t think it is this dungeon’s natural door. It’s--”

Icree sighed in frustration, staring at the charred entrance.

“It’s too big. It doesn’t fit. It would be logical to assume that someone didn’t want us to find the dungeon and hid it with the slab, but--but to make plants and moss grow over it, they’d have to have plant affinity like Tani--or--or illusion magic--?”

“They were real plants,” Tani interrupted her. “I--we would have noticed.”

“Would we have? There was that rumble.”

“I know that my magic affected something here, Icree.”

“This could have simply been a trap,” Luka insisted quietly. “Perhaps whoever came here triggered something. A trap near the entrance.”

“A trap near the entrance...yes, perhaps. Perhaps we are dealing with a mage, who didn’t notice it,” Icree agreed thoughtfully. “And this dungeon just has fire traps.”

Tani looked uneasily at the charred marks.

“I’ll be at a disadvantage, then,” she noted. “We should be careful. If the traps in this dungeon are of this caliber, we don’t want to trigger them.”

Icree nodded and began stepping into the corridor. She was the best at detecting magic and so had the highest chance of noticing if anything was wrong. She took out of her bag a magically infused lamp and created a little butterfly inside of it. Unlike a fire lamp, these types of lamps were unaffected by wind and brought better illumination all around them. Tani and Luka followed carefully, scanning the walls for hidden doors or glyphs. After the entrance, the burnt places became more like patches, revealing the extent of the overgrowth in the dungeon corridor. There was a galore of alluring greenery that had grown all over the wall and ceiling. Once more, Tani found her attention turning to the condition of the flowers. Most of their leaves were white. Some displayed other colours - a variation of red, yellow and even purple - but none of them were green. There was, in fact, a remarkable lack of green colour among them.

“Fire and plants,” Icree muttered, shaking her head. “If the creator of this dungeon was a plant mage, why would they put fire traps in?”

“It’s rather illogical,” Tani agreed. “Not only that, they didn’t leave any light source for these poor plants. Yet they are somehow alive.”

“Maybe the infiltrator - or rather, infiltrators since it would be weird for just one mage to come here - has fire magic?”

“Why would they have used so much magic just to the entrance, and then blocked it with a stone?”

“I don’t know,” Icree sighed. “But it’s the only thing that makes sense to me right now.”

“Maybe the plants are the infiltrators,” Luka suggested, half-jokingly.

Icree gave him a half-hearted glare and continued to move forward. Tani followed, wondering about the theory. What if there were no other infiltrators? Could she make the presence of fire and plants work? Perhaps it was meant as a counter - plant magic had understandable disadvantages with fire magic. If there had been traps with fire magic, it could have been to catch any fire mages unawares. Did the creators of this dungeon expect mages with fire affinity? If only they knew more about the dungeons and their creators. Tani sighed, directing her attention back to the corridor they were traversing. It was wide enough for two people to walk comfortably next to each other as it slowly began to slope downwards. She could see further away, illuminated by Icree’s light, the opening to a chamber of some sort. Perhaps there would be some answers there.

Tani’s hopes for answers were squashed immediately as they entered the chamber. Its walls were lined with variegated flowers and plants, and the ceiling had been conquered by hanging ivies. The chamber floor was strangely uneven, consisting of both small bumps and larger shapes, all hidden under the blanket of vegetation. If there was something in the room, it had been overtaken by the plants a long time ago. As Tani’s gaze travelled across the chamber, she noticed that only the western wall had been charred. Someone had very clearly burnt a door-sized hole into the wall of plants, revealing an actual door behind it. The wooden door bore signs of having been slightly burnt along with the plants. Slowly, as if realizing her gaze on it, the door began to move. A tortured, creaking sound emerged from its ancient hinges as it slowly began to open. Tani took a step back, alerting the others even though they had heard the sound as well. Icree swung the lamp in the direction to better illuminate the area. Nothing was there. Beyond the doorway lay a dark corridor, where the group could see giant thorny thickets on each side. The bushes climbed all the way up to the ceiling, seeming almost ghostly in their whiteness. The thickets were dense enough to block any sight beyond them.

“Hello?” Tani called out, but Icree shushed her.

Icree began to quietly approach the door, a finger on her lips. Tani frowned, but followed her lead. They moved silently, trying to peer through the door’s cracks to see anyone. The door kept opening, but no one seemed to be behind it.

“The magic is stronger here, but I can’t sense anyone,” Icree said finally, illuminating the pathway in front of them with her lamp.

“Someone has definitely passed through here,” Tani commented, glancing at the burnt doorway. “Maybe there’s enough wind for the door--well--for it to open?”

The three of them exchanged disbelieving glances. It was a little too convenient. None of them felt any kind of wind in the stale, hot air. As they stepped through the doorway, Tani put her hand on her sword. All her muscles were tensed, as she was prepared for an attack or an ambush of some kind. Nothing of that sort happened, however. The corridor seemed to simply continue forward. The plants were different here - they were thorned and difficult to see through. The three of them advanced through the corridor carefully. Icree walked in the front, the lamp showing the way, and magic occasionally flickering near her fingertips. Luka was more composed, not showing his tenseness as easily. Still, his eyes scanned the area constantly, and he kept rubbing his right hand’s fingers together - a sign of his nervousness. Tani kept her hand on the hilt of her sword, but her thoughts were almost fully on the plants. They had no sunlight here, yet there were so many of them. They thrived, despite the limitations. It was surprising and worrying. There were no insects or animals to harm or help the plants. In fact, the quiet of the forest continued in the dungeon. The only sounds that Tani could hear were their own footsteps.

The corridor in front of them divided into three different paths. It seemed like they had reached a crossroads of sorts. Despite Icree trying to bring the lamp closer to any of the corridors, it was difficult to say which way would lead them to answers.

“Any guesses?” Icree asked.

“I can’t sense anyone else here,” Luka admitted, shaking his head.

A small noise from their right caught their attention - a small crackle, like a branch or a twig snapping. They all froze still, gazes fixed to the rightmost corridor. Then they heard it: a gentle, muffled step, another. Someone was walking. Icree put a finger on her lips again and motioned towards the corridor. The butterfly in the lamp grew dimmer and darker, as Icree lessened the amount of mana she was channeling into it. The corridor turned in front of them. Instead of peeking, Icree motioned to Luka, who created a tiny sculpture of a ladybug. It crawled into the thicket, out of Tani’s sight. It was hard for her to stay still. The footsteps were quieter, but they had to be careful. Reconnaissance was more Luka’s thing than hers, but she craved to do something and not just stand there. Eventually Luka shook his head, signalling that no one was in the corridor, and they moved again. The path turned almost immediately again, but this time they didn’t stop. Luka had checked both corners. Instinctively, all three of them began moving quicker. They were all holding their breaths, trying to listen to the footsteps. With their own mixed in, it was more difficult to make them out. Another turn that they moved through quicker - just to be faced with a dead end. Tani looked down to the ground. There were subtle imprints there, big enough to belong to a human with boots. She raised her gaze from the ground to the white thicket. Icree and Luka were looking around as well, wearing as perplexed expressions as herself. The thickets still rose all the way to the ceiling. There was no way to go around, under or above. An idea struck Tani, and she moved closer to where the footsteps ended. She gently touched one of the flowers of the thicket, pressing her finger against it and pushing. It moved under the pressure, and then slid off, one of its thorns grazing her finger. It seemed like it wasn’t an illusion, after all.

“They can’t have passed through here,” Tani muttered, withdrawing from the thicket.

“Maybe they parted the plants,” Icree suggested, dissatisfied with their solutions. “Or they have magic that allows them to pass through certain death traps.”

“I could try parting it, but they are built rather densely. There’s not much space for them to move to, and the ground looks undisturbed here.”

“There’s not really anywhere else they could have gone.”

The three of them looked at the thickets again. They looked sharp and dangerous.

“I’ll try opening a path,” Tani sighed.

She hovered her hands over the thicket carefully, barely not touching them. She concentrated. These plants weren’t easy to manipulate out of the way. They resisted. Tani increased her magic a little, still trying to gently move them to the side. The thickets rustled their complaints, but slowly began to bend out of the way. Behind them, another path was revealed. It was identical to the one they had been traversing so far. Icree stepped into the new corridor, her lamp illuminating a turn ahead of them. Tani glanced at the ground. She couldn’t see any footsteps in it, but perhaps whoever had been there, had decided on a softer approach. They all stood silently still for a moment, trying to listen for footsteps. They shared glances, each of them shaking their heads. No one could anymore hear the steps. No one either wanted to break the silence that had fallen, as if to hear better everything that happened around them. They continued following the path, ever so often stopping to listen. The plants stayed as variegated as before. Tani could see some similar ones as those outside - the white, lantern-like flowers seemed to bloom at the lower levels of the thickets as well. She would have otherwise stopped to look at them, but she didn’t want to waste time right now. Perhaps later, when they would be coming out of the dungeon.

Suddenly, Tani felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned around instinctively, looking behind her. There was no one. A small shiver passed through her, but her gaze found a nearby branch with plump, white leaves. It had probably brushed against her shoulder. The thought calmed down her racing heart a bit, and she let out a small sigh of relief. There was something else as well: pieces of dark red fabric, tangled deep inside the thicket. Tani frowned. The light suddenly almost disappeared, so she turned to look back at her friends. The corridor in front of them had turned to the right, as well as she could see in the dark, and the light was being obstructed. They hadn’t noticed that she had stopped.

“Wait just a moment, Icree, Luka,” Tani shouted.

The light stopped moving, though it was surprisingly dim. Tani listened for a moment, but was satisfied as she couldn’t hear the other two moving. Gently, she began to coax open the thicket in front of her with her magic. The branches opened up easily, allowing her to extract the crimson fabric. It had definitely been ripped out of a cloth.

“What a naughty thicket you’ve been,” Tani muttered under her breath and turned to walk back to Icree and Luka.

As Tani’s steps echoed in the silence, the light seemed to start to move again. In fact, it left her almost in pitch darkness. She hurried along, trying to catch up with the other two. However, when she turned the corner, she found herself still in darkness.

“Icree?” she called out.

Tani couldn’t see any light anywhere. She had been suddenly thrust into pitch black, and her eyes had difficulty adjusting to it.

“Luka?”

There was still no answer.

Confused, Tani reached into her own bag and retrieved a similar lamp as Icree had. Instead of a butterfly, she filled hers with a tiny shining plant. It illuminated less area than Icree’s, but it was enough to see around.

“Guys?” she shouted a little louder.

The corridor in front of Tani seemed to only stretch forward. No matter how much she waved her lamp around or investigated, she couldn’t find a corner or bend where Icree and Luka would’ve gone to disappear from her so completely.

Tani was alone, separated from her friends, and without a clue where to go.

#Where the FIre Lilies Grow #black clover #black clover fanfiction #suspense time!!

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sparxwrites · 4 years ago

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To Die, To Sleep (to sleep, perchance to dream)

(i started writing this two and a half years ago, and only just now worked out what i actually wanted to do with it. true story. mad props to matt for providing me the lovecraftian kick in the pants i needed to get it done.)

cw unreality / nightmares, blood, spooky shit

[ao3]

When Caleb opens his eyes, he is sat at the kitchen table of his childhood home.

There is the familiar scratch of his initials in front of him, carved in to the solid, weathered wood with his first knife when he was nine. He’d been beaten for that, his father angry and his mother exasperated, but there his initials had stayed until they’d burned to ashes with everything else. There is a hot mug of weak tea in his hands, as scarred and calloused as they were when he closed his eyes mere moments ago.

And there is Mollymauk, sat across the table from him, healthy and well and resplendent in his carnival coat. Exactly the same as the day he had died.

“No,” says Caleb, quietly. His voice is the kind of steady that comes with shock. He cannot move. “No. You– you are dead. I saw you die, and this… I saw this place burn, too. What is this?”

Molly shrugs. Light glints yellow and orange and red off the rubies in his rings, off the gold of his jewellery. “It’s your dream, my friend,” he says, and his voice hits Caleb right beneath the ribs. “You’d know better than I. I’m just here to play my part, that’s all – and then I’ll be off. I wouldn’t worry about it.”

Dream. The word slides off Caleb’s mind like blood off a blade. “I am going mad,” he says. The hearth crackles softly behind him, making music of the wood that feeds it. “I must be. That… that must be it. I am going mad, again.”

“Ah, well,” says Molly, mildly. “That seems a little harsh on yourself there, Mister Caleb. But, it’s your dream, I suppose. You can be as mad as you want to be.”

Caleb wraps his hands tighter around the uneven earthenware mug, feels the heat of it seep down to his bones. It feels a little like the heat that fire-casting brings to bear on his palms, except safer – and then the walls catch his eye, the streaks of charcoal-soot creeping up their sides, and nothing feels safe any more. “I do not want to be mad at all.”

“And I don’t want to be dead.” Molly grins, a little manically, and swings his legs up to rest his boots on the table. They are caked in the thick, stagnant mud of Shady Creek Run, rimmed in a scarlet crust. “But we can’t always get what we want, now, can we?”

There is a spot of blood on his silk shirt. As Caleb watches, it unfurls, like a flower. Like an opening eye.

It starts to spread.

“I…” starts Caleb, and stops, sighing, grinding the heel of one palm into his eye socket. His head hurts. His head hurts. That seems unfair, somehow, for some reason he cannot quite grasp. “I did not want you to die, either. You should not have died.” There’s flickers at the corners of his vision when he pulls his hands away, red and orange.

“Like your parents shouldn’t have died?” asks Molly, pleasantly. There’s orange in the red of his eyes, too. Yellow sparks, in the centre, like dying stars. He folds his hands over his stomach, and grins wider, and doesn’t seem to notice the blood. “Pity, isn’t it, really. People dying. Seems to keep happening around you.”

Flames begin to lick at the base of the walls. There is smoke on the air. Fire on the horizon, all around.

Caleb swallows, hard, and feels the motion like a knife through his throat. “I do not want to do this,” he whispers, and his voice is scarcely audible over the increasingly hungry snap-crackle of the flames. The whitewash is turning black, the walls eaten through with fire like termites, racing up the supporting beams. The house turns into a cage around him, riddled with fire, glowing with heat. “Please, I– not here. Please. Not here. Not now. Not this.”

There is a woman in bed above him, he knows, and a man, too. They are asleep. They are in each others arms. They love each other very much, and their son, too, whom they are so, so proud of.

Caleb knows this, in the same way he knows which way is north, in the same way he knows when the sun will rise and set. In the same way he knows exactly how their screams will sound, when the hungry fire eats them alive, down to bones and ash.

“I don’t want to do this, either, and yet… here we are.” Molly spreads his hands in a half-shrug. There are eyes tattooed in the centres of his palms, in ink the same red as blood, as fire. As Caleb watches, they blink. They are watching him back. “Your dream, remember? All I’m doing is following the script.” He sighs, heavily. His shirt is full red, now, a deep and glistening ruby. His skin is pale, thin and papery, his tattoos jewel-bright against their bloodless canvas. “Wish I didn’t have to. I really, really do.”

He looks sad, but Caleb doesn’t know if he can trust that. Doesn’t know if he can trust anything, here. The fire is halfway up the walls. The house creaks around him. It’s groaning at the seams, ready to give.

“I don’t,” says Caleb, and there is pain through his head, through his eye, like a knife. He blinks, and when the blink is over, the world has been consumed by flames. It is hard to hear over the roaring. It is hard to think through the heat. “I don’t understand. Why– why are you here? Why are, why are your eyes–”

They blink at him, all nine of them, through the red of Molly’s shirt. He shouldn’t be able to see them, but he can. The peacock across Molly’s back trills, and fans its tail feathers, and Caleb feels the sharp, wicked pain of his skull being pried open. This cannot be happening. This cannot be real.

Dream. Mollymauk had said dream. The word has a meaning, but Caleb cannot reach for it through the flames. He cannot think, under the weight of all those eyes.

The house is on fire. The eyes are blinking. The house is burning. Molly’s silk shirt is soaked through with blood, so wet it’s dripping, and he’s still smiling. His skin is thin, so thin. There is something underneath it, thinks Caleb, in a moment of sudden and horrifying clarity. There is something under the skin, under the blood and the tattoos, and he does not know what it is.

“…My cue to leave, I think,” Mollymauk says, quietly, with a smile like the wicked edge of a glass scimitar. “Goodbye, Mister Caleb. Until we meet again.”

He pauses, and for a second– his eyes are not his own. They are red, yellow-orange with flame, and they are vast and ancient and distant and wrong. The thing beneath his skin is pressed close – close enough the Caleb can see its shadow, looming closer still through the blood.

“I hope,” says the shadow, in Mollymauk’s voice, with Mollymauk’s tongue and teeth and lips, “for your sake, that that’s a long, long time.”

A beam falls from the ceiling, charred black and laced through with glowing coals, bisecting the table. The soot it throws up obscures the scene, obscures Molly and his scarlet shirt and his technicolour coat. The red glow of his eyes is all that remains, blood red and brilliant, piercing through the smoke – and there are nine of them, each as real as the last. None of them are his own. All of them are watching Caleb.

“Mollymauk!” cries Caleb, and his voice is raw like he has been screaming. Perhaps he has been. There are screams ringing in his ears. Perhaps they are his. “Mollymauk, wait–”

Mollymauk does not wait.

Caleb wakes up.

#critfic #critical role #caleb widogast #mollymauk tealeaf #widomauk #if you squint lmao #critrole 2.0 #fic #TWO. YEARS. two years.......#two and a half tbqh #but anyways yeah the eyes of nine uhh gave me the Best direction to take this :3c

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wintersongstress · 6 years ago

Text

Do Not Touch the Artwork

Summary: Arthur draws you during a stolen moment–one in which he reflects on the feelings he keeps hidden inside in regards to you.

Pairing: Arthur Morgan (High Honor) x Female Reader

Word Count: 8.4k 🙇‍♀️

Tags: Mutual pining. Denial of feelings. Angst? Tending an injury. Stargazing. A dash of hurt/comfort. Some smoking and drinking. No major content warnings apply.

A/N: Its not perfect, but if I proofread this one more time I’m never gonna post it so

Tagging: @obsiidio // @veravia // @hindarsfjall // @deviantramblings // @dicax-asina // @thomasscresswell // @porkchop-ao3 // @sethrine-writes // @alistairsrosa // @a-shakespearean-in-paris // @honest-good // @shethenightwolf // @nordic-breeze // @0ik4wa // @miusmius // @lavenderstages // @mulanisms

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He often woke when the world did.

At the hour in which dreams fade and the cock crows, when the tide of easterly light sweeps away the stars with obligation, Arthur would blink at the receding border of night and allow himself to sit still; a silent witness to each dawn as it was destined to be.

He spent a thousand sunrises this way—pausing with his feet reluctant to touch the cool, damp Earth, and it became a cherished time, one of deep reflection. The brew of the sky offered a clarity for rumination, providing the moments in which he would think to himself about the horizon—the path his life had taken to see a new one each day, and, subliminally, if he would live to see the next.

This tradition never grew old, for no two sunrises were the same. Most days, the sun’s far arrival was a hopeful blush into the dark blue, while others were portent with shades of red that bled into the low, conspiring clouds. Nevertheless, his keen artist’s eyes would gratefully follow the lines of the landscape—the grasses jeweled with dew, drinking the sun’s honey, and the shafts of sunlight striking through the trees—all the while recognizing that the colors beyond were not a wonder to be captured by pencil.

On this day, as the dark came away, a rare and dreamlike shade welcomed him in his matutinal contemplation. A color he was patient for, one that fell his eyes shut in its presence—lightening to a pale in the space of that blink.

The sky was violet.

No dreadful red, no storms to come. Violet, to him, symbolized his deepest dreams of peace. Brief and surreal, yet lingering. Mornings of this color foretold brighter days.

Arthur sits up from his cot, soothing the aches in his neck as the yolk of the sun slides up from the horizon. The wind rises with the gold, rustling the gilded treetops, and within their emerald branches the songbirds awaken and impart their sweet music above to encourage the creatures below.

His consciousness blearily begins to return to him, reminders of his duties creeping back in. The quiet of his mind wanes and he gives one last lingering glance to the fire in the sky as it spreads across the landscape, glowing like the ends of his cigarette, orange and burning.

With a departing flick, he affixes his hat, withdrawing from the shade of his canopy with the comforting weight of his satchel and revolvers beside him.

The girls smile up at Arthur, soap suds caking their arms as they vigorously scrub at the laundry in the wash buckets and their brows sheened with sweat as they work under the sun’s glare. He tips his hat as they bid him good morning, and he continues to exchange polite greetings to the familiar faces that pass him by as he makes his way to the communal coffee percolator.

A flock of geese flies low through the early morning mist that still clings to the water of Flat Iron Lake. Hosea and Dutch stand before the placid surface, hands clasped behind their backs as they discuss something amongst themselves. The dull, rhythmic scrape of Charles’ sharpening his hunting knife drowns out their voices, and his gaze meanders around the perimeter of the camp. Between the cheerful whistles and the curls of wood smoke floating through the air, all is as it should be—the sun beaming bright. However, despite the passing faces, and the flick and swing of horsetails as they grazed, a noticeable absence strikes him and leaves his daily picture incomplete.

It was unlike you.

Most mornings he would listen for the papery scrape of onion skins across a cutting board and find you at Pearson's wagon, knife in hand dicing vegetables for the afternoon stew with precision. With a glance towards the water's edge, he finds the sunlit flaps of your tent undrawn, and his unease abates. He smiles to himself easily as he fixes a cup of coffee, pouring another to bring to you.

Chickens cluck past him as they squabble over scatterings of barley in the trampled grass. For the time being, he knows that this peace is temporary, that the day ahead was sure to be filled with hard riding and gun smoke that would ultimately leave him exhausted. The thought makes him grateful for the bitterness of the brew he swallows. Your presence alongside him would alleviate his doubts about the robbery tip you were both set to investigate—supposedly at first light. And so, he savors the calm of morning during the short walk to your tent; the untouched halcyon surrounding him instilled by the water with its gentle laps against the shore and the ribbit of frogs that dwell along it.

He inevitably reaches the canvas entrance, his eyes cast down to the clover grasses while he collects himself. As he steps inside, the familiarity of the outside world disappears and he is forgetful of all as the flaps close behind him.

The sound of fabric sliding against itself lures his eyes to the waves of your sheets and quilts. Feet glide along legs and he stills as his gaze and the sunlight falls upon the rest of you.

You were dreaming—and perhaps he is, too. Deep in a pleasant sleep, you lay in a nightgown of a feather-white, the gauzy sleeves unconsciously pulled down your shoulders to escape the nascent summer heat. The laces over your collarbone had loosened, and the first instinct he has is to avert his widened gaze at the realization that this is more of your skin than he has any privilege to see.

Arthur was no stranger to your sleeping form. Between the frequency of long journeys and the unavoidable togetherness that followed, the companionship he formed with you was organic; as natural and intrinsic together as the bond between a wolf and the moon.

However, he had another steadfast companion in his life. Uncertainty. The lingering presence of it was one of the reasons why he stole moments for himself to draw what he saw humbly. A desire dwelled within him whenever he observed the natural world around him. One to forget. To appreciate what might be taken for granted. His journal became his sacred place to find his words and to pen the hard truth of present circumstance—a circumstance that left no room for delusions, especially amorous ones. The reflective act highlighted the importance of trust and loyalty, why it mattered most to him in this life, and why family was what he fought for.

The family he surrounded himself with was bonded by something stronger and less accidental than blood—by choice. A choice not influenced by obligation, but by promise and principle. Those of which were no mild oaths to him.

Watching over another sleep—a time when one is most vulnerable—was different when all that existed between Arthur and you was that treasured trust and loyalty. He never anticipated the roots of your bond burgeoning as deep as it has, into something unspeakable, unthinkable—into a feeling far from easy friendship, and laying further in his subconscious than a dream. A dream that a man like Arthur, living the life that he led, was not meant to possess. The sight of you in such a deep sleep unearths a familiar pit of dread over something he thought he long accepted about himself.

Frozen in step, a deliberate breath fills his chest as he considers how awkward it would be to wake you in this state. He should leave. Find an excuse to busy himself with or—

He allows himself to look at you, and he softens at the sight. The honest and innocent nature of your face allays his hesitation into a longing to capture it.

Your honest values he appreciated daily, but he was only reminded of your innocence in quiet, untouchable moments like this one. Because, despite you good intentions and sweet nature, bad luck swept you into this life—as it did to many others, including himself. All of you survived under an irrevocable circumstance, one filled with gambles. You only had the power to change the way you played the hand, not the cards you were dealt. And in the swift game of chance, innocence lost in a cold roll of dice.

Luck seldom favored Arthur. Although, it was the bad kind that lead your paths to cross in the first place. A part of him is thankful for that.

With a resolved twitch in his fingers, he wanders away from this uncharted territory and decides to indulge you in a few more minutes of rest.

Careful not to disturb you, he eases himself onto the crate across from your cot and retrieves the worn leather journal from his satchel. The pages flutter past his thumb, a blur of cursive and penciled drawings—some of you, tucked safe in hidden corners—until his sketches of rare flowers flash by and he pauses.

The petal soft appearance of your eyelids resembles the graceful and soundless bloom of an orchid on the page before him. Deciding that this is where the image of you belongs, he smooths the parchment anew.

He rolls his sleeves past faded scars and a balmy breeze enters the enclosed space, rustling the dark hairs on his forearms. A perfect peace befalls in its wake, whistling through the trees and flapping the laundry on the line outside. Set adrift, he inhales the bliss deeply to fill his lungs, clearing his head before he deems himself ready to begin.

His steadied hand is mindful not to wrinkle the paper as he studies his subject in earnest. His thoughts, the outer dissonance of dishes and pots clattering, and Miss Grimshaw’s subsequent scolding—it all vanishes as he seeks the blessed stillness of his mind. The point of graphite meets the cream page, and the elegance that follows is a contradiction to the weathered hand that guides it.

The drawing begins as all drawings must: with thin, light lines that build off of one another. Through quick glances and sharp attention, the map of your frame comes into existence, and the lines of your proportions follow. It is unrefined at first, only a basic outline, a fact in which he is unconcerned. The time for details would come when he earned them, for the pursuit of art took practice and patience with one’s self, he learned.

The essential shape of you, the curves, the contours, are precisely measured with a hand driven by his concentrated gaze, and the further he draws, the farther he falls into the deeply thoughtful nature of himself he likes to be alone with.

He often found that sacred place when he drew you.

The first time it was a thoughtless sketch; an afterthought rippling in his memory like the creek water beneath your toes on that blistering afternoon.

He remembers it slowly; the noonday smell, the vibrant green stretches of grass spotted with yellow flowers, how the doves had departed from their perch on the power lines as you both rode past. That day had been filled with the radiant sunshine of spring. Butterfly wings had fluttered in the meadows as you crossed through vast fields and wildflowers, riding against the wind carried down from a cloudless sky wheeling with vultures.

The tall grasses had moved gently in the breeze and insects chittered loudly from the wavering stalks. As your steady hoof beats coincided, a trail of dust rose in his wake as you coasted through the Lemoyne countryside together.

His hands sweated into the leather of the reins and he eased up when the sun rose high, the dirt beginning to settle as you slowed your mare to a trot alongside him. She whickered and tossed her head, and you hunched over to console her with reassuring pats and murmurs.

“There looks to be a forest up there, might be a good place to stop and rest the horses for a while.” His announcement broke the comfortable silence between you.

“I had the same idea.” You replied, relief in your tone as you wiped your brow and glanced in the direction where he pointed. He shook his arms loose and followed behind you, rolling his neck and flexing his hand.

Hooves clomped softly in the dirt as you veered off the path and headed into the luxurious shade. The heavy, drooping branches of sumac brushed over your shoulder blades and you ducked low in your saddle, a sight that bemused him as he trampled through the undergrowth behind you.

Arthur remembered overhearing you talking with Kieran one night out by the hitching posts at Horseshoe Overlook. It was after dinner, and the horses toed the crabgrass whilst the moths fluttered around the buttery glow of the lanterns, looking for a place to settle.

You stood beneath the looming pines, fishing a shawl out from your saddlebag when Kieran had come up beside you and nervously asked if your saddle needed polishing. With a kind smile, you accepted his offer, and sat beside him on a log as he worked. Arthur eyed him with distrust from the poker table and lingered on you with a budding curiosity, taking a sip of his beer as a conversation began to flow between the two of you.

Kieran asked you about your horse beneath his hat; a comfortable question for him. You leisurely recalled a time when you were desperate, on the run, and in need of something fast to take you far away when you came across a herd of wild horses roaming through the plains of Dakota. Singling her out and taming her was no easy feat, and when you did, you had named her Nisha. When Kieran asked for the meaning behind her name, you told him it came from an ancient holy language in India, and that it meant “night”.

Arthur supposed it was as good a name as any for a black horse. Although, as time passed, he came to admire your choice more for its uniqueness, and, for a perplexing, unnamable reason, he wished he had been the one to ask you about it first instead of learning by eavesdropping.

Deeper within, a gurgling stream wound throughout the woods. With a click of your tongue you led your faithful mustang to its mossy edge on foot. The water ran pure as quartz, and the mica shimmer of the rocks beneath glinted iridescently, silver and twinkling like starlight in the sun. The horses dipped their heads to drink.

“Thank you for bringing me along with you today. I—“You had passed a brush over Nisha’s oil black coat, pausing your grooming to consider him and the day you spent together. “It was nice to get out for a bit.” You finished shyly, attention fixated on removing a leaf from your horse’s mane. He straightened from refilling his canteen and turned back to you.

“’Course.” He glanced at the prize pelts rolled up behind your sun-bleached saddlebags and gestured to them with his thumb. “You can come along anytime if you keep catching game like that. I ain’t one much for tracking but you sure have a knack for it.” They would fetch a fair price. A surprised hint of pride lightened his voice and your eyes lifted to find his encouraging smile.

“I appreciate that, Arthur. I think I’ll take you up on that offer sometime.”

With a nod, he took his distance to recline against a tree, respecting your privacy as you settled on a rock to tug off your shoes and dip your bare feet in the creek.

Overhead, the sunlight threaded its warmth through the foliage, dappling your skin with the shadows of leaves. Beneath the brim of his hat, he safely marveled at how they drifted over you darkly in the sway of the wind, his hands slowing as he cleaned the brass barrel of his hunting rifle.

With a book in your lap and an apple poised in hand, the hour passed idyllically, and you hummed to yourself as you admired the wild roses that grew along the embankment. The bristled branches stretched over the water, offering their beautiful dark magenta petals to the ripples, where diamonds of droplets beaded the blooms. Little yellow bees buzzed over them.

He decided he liked the sound of your voice, for you sang a song far sweeter than the water’s.

With mesmeric motions, you swilled your feet in the cool brook, mindlessly soaking the cuffed hems of your pants. And when you closed your eyes against the incoming wind, a grateful smile graced your face and Arthur looked away.

Later that night by his lantern’s light, a rigid hand recollected the image of you in the mirror of the water. He tried to capture the bliss on your face and the harmony of the Earth beside and above you, but his sketch was uncharacteristically restrained, as if reluctant to focus, lest he awaken the softer, slumbering animal of his body. Regardless of his ingrained abnegation, a dim flame flickered within thereafter.

Something began to change in him. Something ineffable that ignored the hard lessons he learned and tempered his reluctance to let it lay forgotten as he drew you presently. Light scratching sounds fill the quiet space of your tent as he devotes his focus absolutely, practicing the diligence he savors the occasion for.

The coffee beside him grows colder as the silver pocket watch on your side table ticks by; the only reminders of the passage of time.

Memories and the fondness they collected guide his hand as he begins to add shading to strengthen the realism. The image of you massaging your feet in the water that day lays in the back of his mind as he darkens the arch of your foot and suggests the subtlety of your ankles amidst the sheets.

With a delicate stroke, he follows the smooth curve of your calf before it disappears beneath your skirt.

It was an acquired skill to apply varying pressure to create a shadowed effect, especially in the folds of your clothing as he pronounces the edges of your knees through the material. He thinks on how your knees are a place often caked with dirt, and also a place you tapped nervously when crouched beside him with your rifle. In a brief exchange, your jittery fingers would brush over his whenever he passed his binoculars to you. The passage was smooth and brief, like the feather fletching of an arrow before it releases.

Your hands are relaxed, one against the cotton of your pillow and the other draped lazily over your waist. While he cannot capture their delicate warmth or the assurance they lent, he depicts their gentleness, the nimble curl of your fingers and the poetic spacing between them, and he faintly pencils the crescent tips of your nails. He uses the sides of the graphite instead of the tip to create a lighter, more discrete effect. The folds and creases of your underdress congregate around the curves of your hips and bring an unbidden tightness to his throat. Still, he pursues the soft shapes of you and the curvature of your form honestly.

Although, it is the lines of your arm, the bend of your elbow, the gentle swoop of your collarbone and the following curve of your shoulder that tarries his hand and awakens a deep wellspring of feeling within him. These parts of you stir a more intimate significance within him as he remembers that night.

One where the world’s existence and his responsibilities faded as you slept beside him, and the one in which he first began to lie to himself.

………….

“Hold still.”

“It’s just a scratch.”

“It’s a bite. At least let me look at it.”

With a relenting sigh, he settled back against a driftwood log and you had knelt beside him in the firelight. Aside from the incense of burning wood, the less fond but equally familiar tang of blood filled his nose and sharpened the twilight air.

The blood was his.

The tattered blue fabric of his sleeve came away wet and scarlet as he rolled it up for you, and the sight it unveiled firmed your mouth into a worried line.

Several rings of angry bite marks had scored his arm, and your curious, gentle hands held his wrist in a light hold as you examined the wounds while you sat beside him on the lakeside. Your fire-warmed fingertips traced over his skin, drifting over where his pulse thrummed and lulling his eyes to a close at the residual warmth that followed their dance.

“They don’t look too deep, but they should still be disinfected.” You had concluded after a few moments of study, your tone quieted by concentration. Arthur began to protest, but his words caught in his throat at how the color of your eyes softened with concern before they trailed away with your voice. It became clear to him that you needed something to do in order to get your mind off of what happened. So, he swallowed what he was about to say and agreed to let you get started on dinner and dress his injury.

The cry of coyotes bid the night to fall as they howled in the far off mountains, the pale pink of the sky deepening into rose and further on into a lasting crimson. As the sun slowly sank behind the snow-capped peaks, the teal glass of the lake was painted with the colors of a sanguine sunset, rippling and bleeding with the warmth left by the rays of fading sunlight.

Laps of water soothed the pebble shore and the summer wind had sang through the susurrus of cattails whispering along its edge. While he often drank in nature's tranquil reward for a long day, Arthur's eyes shifted to you, to your clothes—spattered grimly with wolf's blood and torn by claws and teeth, to the blank expression on your face as you basted the meat roasting on the spit over the fire.

You absently added salt to a pot of water set on the iron grill to boil.

It worried him; the slight tremble in your hands before you tucked them under your arms, the sightless look in your eyes as you stared out at nothing, thinking.

You were far, far away from him and this place.

The water pot began to bubble and your gaze cleared. Arthur stayed quiet, lost for the consoling words you needed to hear. He let the crackle of wood devour the absence of conversation.

You returned to him with the pot of cooling water, setting down a roll of gauze on the log behind him while keeping a bundle of clean cloths in your lap. Wordlessly, he held his arm out for you again and you angled it diagonally towards the ground. A tin cup scratched against the bottom of the pan as you dipped it inside.

While he had been in this position as your patient before, you had never been so quiet. You liked to talk while you worked. He tried to think of what he should say, what would take your mind off of everything, but he came up empty and frustrated with himself.

A strange, plaintive call echoed across the water, and another answered it. His curiosity spoke for him.

“You know,” he looked out to the edge of the lake, where the willow trees practiced their art of weeping and the night shadows crept out unseen like the ghosts of the land. “I always wondered what kind of bird makes those sounds.”

At the curve of your lips, he realized with no small amount of relief that he said the right thing, for your slight smile was one of fond remembrance.

“Those are loons. There’s a pair out there.”

Bloody water soaked the rocks as you began to irrigate his wounds, the water stinging about as pleasantly as soap in the eye as you poured the cup. He tensed and flexed his hand as you went on.

“There was a lake near where I grew up. It was one of my favorite places to go, actually.” With your head bowed and your eyes narrowed in concentration, you sensed his discomfort and asked if he was alright or if he needed anything.

“No, I’m fine. Go on.” He mumbled softly beneath your careful touch.

Shaking your head, you laughed through your nose. “More whiskey for me then.”

He pointedly stared into the sapphire heart of the fire as your breath fanned over his skin and you shifted imperceptibly closer, your knees brushing his thigh.

“Anyways.” You cleared your throat and bowed your head once more. “In the summertime, when the day was at its end and the lake water went absolutely still, you would hear them. I used to sit out on the porch and listen while I watched the sun go down and the bats come out. No other time was more peaceful to me.”

When the water began to run clear, you gingerly dabbed the violent edges of the teeth marks with a cloth. Katydids and crickets chattered in the lulls between your pauses and the sky began to darken in earnest.

He eagerly listened, drawn to the happiness recalling a simpler past brought you. More than that, he cherished you sharing this story with him. This was the facet of you that drew him in intractably and seized his heart the most.

The part of you that had so much to say, and no one to say it to.

“One day, I was at the general store and I picked up a field guide. The shopkeeper told me it was his mother’s, a gift from her father after they spent a summer camping together in the Adirondacks. I thought that explained why the pages smelled so wonderful, like oak trees and memories. But from it, I learned that a pair of loons mate for life, and every day before they can return to their nest, they have to find each other again. That’s what that sound is. A beacon to one another. I began to think of it as a call to a lost love,” You mused as you wrapped his forearm in gauze. “And I realized that the reason why it resonated with me so deeply was because it echoes with a fear we all share.”

His surroundings dissipated until all that was left were your words. Each syllable ensnared him, hooked him on their reminiscent edges precariously, and left his complete attention clinging to you. They carried him away from his great reluctance, left him helpless with longing, for he profoundly understood the nostalgia that laced your dulcet voice—regardless if it was for a foreign place to him.

“And what’s that?” He genuinely wondered aloud as he watched the firelight flicker over your face. Thoughtlessly, he leaned into the lovely shadows they cast. Your eyes lifted at his intimate tone, and the golden moment in which they met his open gaze and considered the diminishing distance between, something changed. Irrevocably.

The hairs on the back of his neck prickled. The same way as when he was caught in a thunderstorm and sensed the imminent crackle of lightning in the air.

Once more, that poignant, lonesome wail rung throughout a land that grew cold and dark beneath the mountains’ shadows, revealing the answer before you did.

“The fear of being alone.”

The tangent of that thought led you back to reality, interrupting your hands as they tied off the gauze for your fingers to curl over his wrist instead. The absence of words spoke more.

It was a strange, heady sensation, to be filled with the sight of each other and watch as eyes fall to lips, a tacit desire blooming to have them touch, each to each.

He realized that you were lost in thought, not him, as your eyes glistened with tears.

“Arthur, if you hadn’t—if you had—“

You closed your eyes against the unthinkable end to that sentence. In the dark of your thoughts of loneliness and death, one of your teardrops fell, gently and silently—as snow did, and Arthur went wordless at the sight.

An urgent wave swept over him, lifting his large, calloused hands to tip your face back into the luminance of the fire. Unimaginable, how soft-hearted his inured hands became as they cupped your cheeks to swipe away your needless tears. His thumbs passed over the pores of your skin to efface your uncharacteristic sadness raptly, concerned with the sad brightness of your downcast gaze.

“Hey,” he shushed you gently, his voice softened by a tone he seldom used. “It weren’t a big deal.”

“I was irrational and you got hurt because of it. I put both our lives in danger.” You argued. “All of this is my fault.” Bitter resentment and shame dipped your chin low and Arthur raised it once more.

“None of that was your fault.”

I’d do it again and again. In a heartbeat. Don’t you know that? Those were the words he meant to say, though he dared not to. They were too soft for his gruff voice, too foolish in their candor. But also, being the kind of man who kept hidden what mattered most to him, a steadfast principle held him back. Their unuttered echoes rippled within him all the same, holding the clear beginnings of a confession, and he lost track of himself as a new fear dawned upon him in their wake.

He was stricken by the cold terror of losing something he would never have.

The truth confined itself, yet his eyes implored you, the roughness of his thumbs caressing over the softness of your tearful skin.

Nothing to be heard and everything to be seen, all that lay unspoken between you was said in another way—with his hands cradling your face lovingly, and yours still curled over his wrists, clinging to him.

As you swayed in his grasp and in your despair, he ached for you. He sought to soothe the pain in your brow; the tips of his fingers trailing over your temple and the back of his knuckles following the curve of your cheekbones thoughtfully. You leaned into his reverent touch completely, and when the apples of your cheeks no longer gleamed with fresh tears, he was left with you and him and the open. Alone. Two forlorn souls holding one another while the stars flowered above.

The watery smile you gave him was true, and the feeling that fluttered within him was the same. It was not the first smile you graced him with, but it was the nearest.

In his careful hands he dispelled your previous sorrows as he had hoped, and an overwhelming gratitude took its place. One he shared. As much as the encounter rattled you, it frightened him far more. How fast it all happened. The distant gunfire. Your screams. Coming across your startled horse on the road and racing through the thicket to find you.

His relief came after you were safe. After he had finished the last of the pack off with a clean shot to the head, he pulled you up from the ground and you splayed a bloody hand over his heart in disbelief. He covered it with his own to keep its place. While you were profusely grateful to him for coming after you, he shushed your frantic apologies and set off to find a place to camp before nightfall.

You had been quiet while following him the rest of the way, troublingly so while you gathered the driftwood along the pebbled shore for the fire.

Your smile began to wane in the bronze glow of the firelight, your expression fading as neither of you intended to let go of one another, this closeness. The endearingly soft expectancy in your eyes drooped somberly as you awaited his decision to pull away. He realized with dismay that you knew he would.

A threshold stood before him.

A lifetime of his mistakes, misfortunes, bad decisions and bad luck blurred past him in an instant like the pages of his journal. Deep down, he knew the ending and where his fate would ultimately lead him. And yet, those hardships shaped him into the man who knelt before you.

An unfathomable sense of unworthiness washed over him at the fact that despite the route his life had taken…it lead him to you. In spite of everything he had done, he allowed himself to believe that perhaps his last chance of finding someplace safe with somebody good had yet to be squandered. The prospect of you sharing this dream loomed before him, and the more he looked, the more he wanted. Senselessly and without abandon.

One final revelation begged its divulgence before this became a pleasant memory to add to the few. He had to find a way to disclose what you meant to him, and not with his meager words.

His thumbs trailed down, paused on your lips—

Your life matters more to me than my own.

—and a man he would never be held his breath.

With a slow, dawning wonder, the seam of your mouth parted and beckoned him, the fan of your lashes lifting slow. All he wanted for you, of you, awakened a thirst for a goodness he would never possess, unfurling in his heart with the same forbiddance of a rose blooming in moonlight.

You blinked once and looked at him anew.

And this.

This was the reason why. This was the moment in time when he knew.

Arthur needed to pull away. He needed to end this before it began.

He was a fool when he bitterly convinced himself that Mary Linton was the type of woman he would never fall out of love with. He never prepared himself for the possibility that one day he would be less wishful of the past and more hopeful for a future that would never come to be. The consequences would cripple him if he was careless. It was better if this secret of himself was kept buried. In his dreams, his drawings, his journal, in all of the places where the unsung desires of his soul echoed.

Although, these truths….he found that they may hide in all except two places. In silence and in reflections.

The silence of fading twilight held it when he drew closer, his eyes unclosing, and the mirror of you held it as your graceful shadow moved to join his upon the Earth.

The tip of his nose brushed along yours.

And all was still.

Beneath the night blue, within the whispers of a breeze, his dreams called to him. The ones forgotten, too impractical to keep—however far in the dark of his sleep. A murmuring slinked through his thoughts, pleaded him to reach forth, aching for nothing be between. He listened, wavering as the leaves in the trees surrounding him did, and he leaned his brow against yours as a final restraint. Over and over again, the wish desperately returned to him each time he shunned it away.

He clung to the last of his hesitations; his sensibilities begging him to turn away and never learn if your mouth was as sunshine warm and honeysuckle sweet as he imagined it to be.

The fleeting space between lessened, filled with the wild leaping of his heart thudding in his ear and the blurred sight of you until his eyes no longer wished to see. He soaked in the moment long enough to realize what he was about to do, what he was about to ruin.

Your name, it burned as he whispered it breathlessly. It was the cold wind that threw open a door long shut in his mind. Thought dead, what lay within the shadows merely slumbered; a heap of ash gray embers protecting a glowing heart, one that the merest breath may stir awake and fan aflame.

At the plea in his voice, your hands fell to his collarbone, seeking the fact of his pulse as they curved along his neck, shyly slipping beneath the buttons undone on his collar.

Soft and divine, the glide of your fingertips found his chin and stilled, a helpless shudder leaving his lungs. You were lingering on his scar, acknowledging with an inquisitive stroke that he had earned it on his unimaginably harsh journey through life. A life lived beneath a merciless sky, yet had taken him down paths that strayed far from sunlight.

The delicate skip of your touch wandered warmly. You coaxed his bottom lip apart, and for an elusive instant, all of his doubts vanished, crumbling like shale and slipping away like sand when you looked at him in a way no one ever had. The caring tenderness you returned lifted the shadows of his doubts, eclipsed them with the luminous glow of your gaze. He believed, in that sliver of absolute peacefulness, that none of this unfolding intimacy had anything to do with worth. Only this once, he told himself. And at last, he relented.

Sharing your quiet sigh of elation, his brows softened, rose with his hopes, and the devotion swelling in his heart became a flood that rises. To be so near the thread of your pulse and the splendor of your eyes, to share your breath and breathe in the faint perfume of lavender enchanting your skin, it was all the closest to heaven he would ever be. Never before had he known such a nearness to another soul.

Lips began to press—

No—

At the last second before delirium claimed him, he rested his forehead against yours like a man seeking respite. He took your hands, each in his own, and tucked them back into your lap as if to deny the truth before him. You had a wide look to your eyes—as if you had done something wrong—as he made the shattering choice to pull away from your warmth.

It was the last thing Arthur wanted to do.

Offering you this hope and to kiss you with all of the promises he wished to make was cruel and unfair of him. He knew better than to indulge this fantasy. For it was the same as gnawing on an old bone with only a trace of meat left; it would only leave him hungrier than before, like all illusions. Especially ones involving you. Dwelling on it gave him the same tender ache as pressing on a bruise.

It was best if the sensation of kissing you would remain known only to a dream. After all, what choice did he have? It was too late for him. But for you…

His voice returned to him in a whisper. “Just don’t go running off by yourself like that again, okay?”

I don’t want to lose you more than I already will.

When all was said and done, you would find your way out from this life. Away from all of the robbing and killing and running. Away from him.

You nodded, tugging your earlobe self-consciously as you fixed your gaze to the ground.

“That scratch might scar, but it should be fine. Just keep it clean.” You mumbled before turning away in a rush.

The intimacy that transpired was lost as you quickly rose to your feet and walked back to the campfire.

After a hard swallow to muster his composure and subdue his guilt, he rolled his sleeves past the neat knots of the gauze you nimbly tied. “Now, didn’t you say something about whiskey?”

The corner of your mouth quirked up at his attempt to lighten the mood, followed by a renewed sparkle in your eye from across the fire. After dinner and with a grin around the lip of the bottle, the rest of the evening passed by in a blur.

Arthur rarely spoke much of himself. That changed when he was alone with you.

With you, he told stories he never shared with anyone. Not from a sense of shame or secrecy, but because you asked curious questions that required a deeper part of himself to answer; a part of himself left in the past. You unwittingly unearthed his stories from a time before he knew how to write the happenings of his life plainly for the sake of recollection in his journal. Events that were unimportant to him in the past, yet mattered the moment you smiled and laughed when he recalled them.

He had darker stories, too, and you listened well, letting him find the right words, your expression full of empathy as he talked about his father and the conditions he grew up in. A lump formed in his throat when he reminisced about his mother, and he welcomed the touch you spared to his shoulder when he told you about his son.

As the night continued on, his chest grew warm with something other than liquor as your arm aligned with his and your head rolled onto his shoulder contentedly.

You both looked to the sky, as dreamers often do, and together you admired the galaxy of stars above. Before those jeweled heavens of light, the embers of the fire danced through the eddy of smoke and moths to join the night. Arthur leaned back on the log with you curled up beside him, his jacket tucked underneath your chin.

Your arm reached forth to point out familiar constellations, and you explained to him how the Greeks believed their gods cast images in the stars so that the memory of their people and their mythos would persist for time immemorial. Hercules and Pegasus, Andromeda, the Chained Woman, and Perseus, the Gorgon Slayer. You told him all of their stories, ending with Orion, the Hunter, with his belt of three stars that served as a guide to many heroes on their journey home.

He followed your hand as it connected the imaginary lines between them all and he squinted at their obscurity. A natural wonderment quieted your voice as you observed the boundless magnificence of the sky. For a time, silence stretched. The wood from the fire crackled and you stayed at his side, gazing up above.

Before long, you began to maunder aimless thoughts aloud, signaling your descent into sleep. “I wonder if the stars know how fondly they are looked upon…” you yawned and Arthur watched the path the moonbeams made through the high branches. His inherent cynicism lay forgotten at your innocent rambling, for those words resonated within him the deepest.

He wondered the same as he looked back down to you.

“I’m sorry,” you laughed. “That was…” the fan of your lashes lowered with a smile. He was losing you and your unfinished conversation to exhaustion. “My train of thought seems to have hit a cow.” He withheld his laugh and smiled instead.

With your hand against his ribs and the soft of your cheek pressed over the beat of his heart, you dozed off and he began to follow. As his arms found their place around you, he looked up to a sky still blue despite the loss of light. Through a night so dark, fell a star. He made one wish upon it. To stay. His final, drifting thoughts were of how the moon found her place in the stars, watching over all, oblivious to the light she lent, and how the wolves in the distance still yearned for her brightness.

He rested his head against your crown, filled his lungs with the memory of how you smelled of petals in the night breeze.

Arthur fell into the first untroubled sleep he had known in years.

His dreams were moonlit and of you, as always. In the dawn, he woke with the robins and found your fingers threaded through his. He loosened them. You hummed in your sleep as he tugged off your boots and tucked you into your frayed bedroll, unbuckling your gun belt before he did.

As the sun first came and all was bathed in pink light, he sat before the dying whispers of the fire, his journal in his lap as the mountain wind whistled through the pages.

The calm of the water soothed him with their cold, golden ripples between the pond lily leaves, but the image that caught his eye that morning and guided his pencil was not one from nature.

He drew your hand in his.

………….

The sun has moved higher in the sky.

A ray of brightness warms your face as it slips between the cracks of your tent, interrupted briefly by the swoop of a bird’s wings, and you stir in the light.

Along the journey of his drawing, smudges of gray color Arthur’s hands as they have traveled over the page. A few details still remain. His eyes wander over his work, searching for the aspects he needs to add before he considers his portrayal of you thoroughly complete.

Through deep talks on a dark night, Arthur knows how perfectly the curve of your shoulder fits to his side, and he lightly scratches his pencil backwards and forwards to form a rounded effect. Inside a bed, inside a dream, he would trace the bare lines of your shoulders with his knuckles instead.

In the present, his pencil flicks replicate the ridges of the fabric of your nightshift down your arm, and he uses slight gaps to suggest the highlights of the translucent folds of the material. His shading carefully fades to nothing as he continues along.

The memory of your arms pressed against his, and the bend of your elbow as you leaned back to stargaze rests in the back of his mind and guides his hand, his attention deeply focused.

The bare skin of your collarbone glistens in the humidity, perspiration beading in the wells of your clavicle. He darkens the shallows that lead to the elegance of your neck, and he shadows the fragrant hollow of your throat where he knows the scent of lavender lays. The shell of your ear comes last before he reaches your face. The platonic press of it against his chest as you drifted to sleep is an idle thought he always holds on to.

That night by the lakeside, he memorized every detail of your face. How the moonlight left your softer. How the firelight left you warmer in the cup of his hands.

At the feather light brush of your lashes along his face, his heart stilled. He traced the slope of your nose with his after, and you closed your eyes.

No words captured the profoundness of that intimacy to him. He draws it instead—that softness of your eyelashes against your cheeks as you rest. The dreamlike way the light falls upon you. He draws, and draws, until one aspect of your visage remains. The one of most importance to Arthur, and the one he imagines to be the gentlest part of you.

The vulnerable, soft space between your lips where your breath ebbs and flows with sleep.

His familiarity comes not from the ghostly touch of your mouth against his—so soft, and so hesitant, he may have imagined it after he pulled away from you that night. But rather, he knows your smile. One often rare in genuine nature, given the current predicament of the lifestyle you adopted.

The memory that prompts him to finish the drawing is of the first time you smiled at him.

It was the time of spring when the lilacs were sweet and full of rain—the good kind that washed the bricks anew. As the gang settled in to the new camp, the warm showers the clouds spilled overhead were a welcome change from enduring the cold snow of the mountains for weeks on end.

Church bells rang as Arthur’s steps creaked off of the gunsmith’s porch and into the muddy main street of Valentine. He ran his thumb over the new snake carving on the pearl handle of his pistol, taking a moment to admire the craftsmanship before he tucked it away and looked up to wonder where you were.

You had offered to help him that morning on a supply run in town. The corner of his eyes had crinkled at your eagerness and Arthur agreed to bring Jack along to get him away from his parents’ arguing. Overall, it was an uneventful trip. He helped you load up the wagon with bales of hay and sacks of grain before you headed off to the store with a list Pearson gave you, insisting you would be able to handle everything yourself.

A peal of laughter drew his eyes to the churchyard, and he found you stooping down to meet little Jack Marston’s height in the damp grass. The boy presented you with a handful of flowers, giggling as he tucked a flimsy violet behind your ear. You accepted it graciously as Arthur approached.

At the clink of his spurs, you looked up, the light of thankfulness shining in your eyes as you gingerly touched the bloom. Dandelion seeds floated through the air on a wish-bound journey, and the crescent moon of your smile as it faded demurely plucked his heartstrings.

You were—

Something he was not ready to admit to himself, not yet.

That bundle of violets Jack picked for you lays dry and withered in an embroidered handkerchief on your side table. He stares at them, the pencil in his hand stilled with the shock of completion.

Arthur came to a realization long ago when it came to you; admiring you from afar was like observing art in a museum.

Meant for the eyes, unspoken and at a distance, not the hands. Not to touch, or hold, or keep.

He closes the cover of his journal. Drawing you was a mistake. The leather strap ties and binds everything back inside and he returns to his stoic self, rolling his sleeves back down over the bite mark scars. He leaves all of his thoughts of you behind in your tent as he steps out and searches out Charles to accompany him for the day rather than face this. The thought of spending time with you no longer eases his uncertainties.

He does what he can to survive, always has, and he has to do what is best for you, as well.

And so, Arthur buries his feelings for you with the same metaphorical dirt he used for his mother, hoping it would make everything easier if he stayed far away.

Inside, in that hidden heart of his, he knew the feelings he buried for you were only seeds.

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