#just still doing some printing tests for the nona prints

[puffywiz]

I was accepted to table at the Vancouver Comic & Arts Festival this year and I just booked my non refundable hotel lmao so I'm for sure going 🪦💝 It's May 18 & 19 if anyone local wants to come get some Tailwind goodies in person this spring ^^

[friendlylocalwhumper]

colby | colby released | desmond and kip | desmond and kip released | sonia | sonia released | major | major meets nona | state of affairs 1 | interviews | state of affairs 2 | state of self

content warning: explicit gore.

“Riiiiiiiiku,” He coos, patting her cheek. “Riku, darling. Don’t pass out on me now. Do that, and you’ll wake up to me breaking your collarbones. That would be scary, wouldn’t it? Look at me.”

Fluttering, black eyes that were falling closed with her soft, half-conscious sounds open at his command, glazed with pain.

“There you go. I know it hurts. And you know… that I’m going to make it… so much worse.” The Hunter smiles down at her fondly as he presses his palms to her ribs. Surely they’re crushing inward, surely they’ll pierce her lungs - but not soon enough, not nearly soon enough, because she’s scream-sobbing, and it’s getting worse, and she’s still somehow able to breathe in lungfuls of thumbtacks.

A cracking gasp is eked out of her as he digs his fingers into her skin, pressing in at a fractured rib. It devolves into a pitiful moan.

“Too bad I didn’t bring along your little camera when I grabbed you, hmm? Wouldn’t it just be wonderful to leave you with keepsakes of your time with me?”

Riku whimpers, chin wobbling.

“Answer me. Tell me you’d like that. Now.” His hands press down harder, forcing magic into her, and Riku screams with all her strength as new cracks carve their way through her ribs.

“I-I-I, hnnngg! Ple-ease! I’d li-i-ike that! Please, s-sto-, stop, nnh, ple-ease…”

A hand cups her cheek, wiping away tears that are replaced in seconds.

“Shh, shh, alright. Hands off, see? Look, darling.”

Riku lifts her head, desperate to do anything he says, to avoid another punishment for not obeying fast enough. His hands are lifted off her torso, he wasn’t lying - but he flicks his fingers, and magic wells there, taking the form of… the witch pales.

The Hunter grins, shifting his weight where he straddles her to focus on the camera. Thoughtfully, he clicks it on, then pulls a small lever to switch its mode to one that displays the camera’s view on the screen. “There. Now, Riku, darling - let me help you pose.”

Quick, panicked breaths huff from her nose as she lets her head fall back. The sharp, instant knowledge that she won’t delete any pictures he takes, that she can’t bear to lose a story recorded, chills her to her core. The more he records, the more she’ll have to live with, after.

The camera clicks and flashes. It startles a flinch out of Riku; she thought he’d cause her pain, take a picture of that. She was bracing herself. It takes her a moment to realize that that was how he posed her - building up her anticipation, making her think about how he’d get a reaction out of her. Frustration flickers across her face, and he tuts above her.

“You need some help. Don’t worry. I know exactly how to get the expression I want out of you.”

One hand leaves the camera to rest almost reassuringly on her shoulder. Terror and uncertainty flicker in her eyes.

“What’s that look for, witch?”

Riku takes a steadying breath, muscles at her jaw rippling as she clenches her teeth in stress. “You… you like shoulders.”

A wide grin spreads across his face. “Met my light, have you? Little Lux? Are there pictures of him on this camera? I’ll explore it when you’ve passed out screaming in a few hours.”

For the first time, absolute outrage twists Riku’s face. “Those aren’t for you. They, they trusted me, you can’t - hnn…” Her words dissolve into a whimper as he moves his hand from her shoulder to shove against her ribs, testing her resolve. She forces herself to come back. “You can’t watch them.”

“Watch them? Are there videos, too? Oh, have you been recording the ones I let go? Do they talk about what I did to them? Do they cry? Oh, Riku, you’re my new favorite.”

Panic is swallowing her whole. “No, no - please, don’t, you can’t, it’s - they’re private.”

“Not too private to let a stranger take a video of them and carry it around with her.”

“They were brave, they trusted - you don’t know what that means, how important that, that is, please don’t, I’ll beg, I - I know what you did to them, you can do it all to me, please hurt me instead, don’t hurt them.”

She’s got his full attention now, dragged painstakingly away from clicking buttons on the camera to find the treasure trove of recordings. “Hurt them? I’d only be watching something already done, my love. How about this. If I watch these, I’m a lot less likely to take them and hurt them again, hmm? Does that ease your conscience? I’ll get my fill just seeing how I ruined them.”

Riku’s chest heaves with pain and emotion, eyes flickering between his face and her camera. It flashes and clicks loudly - she flinches and yelps - he caught her pain, again, quick as lightning. He looks so pleased with himself.

She settles down, almost sated by the thought that she might be saving them from being dragged back down here.

“Then again… they may be so sweet and scared in these videos that I’ll just have to take them again, watch them break even worse under my hands. You just might be what makes them come undone, little witch!”

“N-no,” She whimpers, tears of distress falling, now, somehow more aching and heavy and too-hot than the ones from pure pain. She watches as he finds the button to see the last picture taken, and clicks through to see the videos, the ones he, of all people, should never get to see…

Quick as she can, holding her breath through the pain, Riku throws her arm, slamming her hand against the side of the camera. It slips from his hands and cracks against the floor.

Victory brings a smile to her face until his lip furls. Until he leans down, close, strong, furious.

“I’m going to fix that,” He growls. “I’m going to watch them all. I’m going to add to your collection, record you screaming and sobbing for mercy until there’s no room left for the videos. Poor little reporter, you’ve managed to stay objective so far, haven’t you? With your little projects, your little interviews? Let’s see if I can break you just enough to make that painfully hard to do, from now on.”

~

Magic, pain, flash. “Smile darling,” arching up off the floor, flash. The shutter of her camera clicking to capture precarious moments of agony held out so the image won’t blur, the sound of it, the anticipation as she’s held on the precipice of losing her mind to the pain, it’s overwhelming.

Not as bad, though, as the slower quieter moments where he’s paralyzed her with magic, and he’s cutting into her with a knife.

“Don’t worry, I’ll heal you back up. I just want you to know what it’s like to be suffocated by the smell of your own blood. It’s overwhelming, isn’t it? Do you want a look inside, darling?”

He grabs her by the hair, and pulls her head up. She can’t react, can’t speak or look away or mumble horrified slurred words, but she can see. Can feel as he reaches his hand in, exploring, to grab something that she didn’t even know had nerves. An awful, twisting, hollow feeling overcomes her as he pulls something out, something long and winding. With two hands and mild curiosity, he pulls out one of her intestines, letting it pool in a pile above the cut.

Riku stares at it, and feels like her mind is starting to drift away from her body. Bodies don’t look like this, they can’t. It’s not hers. The only thing that keeps her from drifting away entirely is the anchor at her very middle, right where she’s spilling out of herself.

He’s still digging around. Pulling something else out. Her vision is fading to black. This time, he doesn’t scold her, doesn’t keep her awake. She falls hard into unconsciousness with his hands still sliding in the spot where her organs should be.

~

When she wakes, she doesn’t feel that sickening hollowness anymore. She feels overstuffed, but a panicked glance at her stomach reveals no intestines, no blood. Just a big raised scar, as if she’s been here for months, not hours.

“Was it real, you might be wondering? Did that really happen, or was it just a slice of the knife, and passing out?”

His voice makes her want to crawl out of her skin. Riku shudders, powerless where she lies thanks to too many broken bones, and the lingering memory of being paralyzed.

“Well, I can help with that! Here, I captured it all for you.”

Her camera is held up, above her face, and Riku blinks at the image of her body torn open, blood spilling, insides outside.

Her face isn’t even in the picture. It looks like a crime scene photo from a drama show that would be on late enough that kids wouldn’t see it. He clicks through to the next picture, full-length, with her expressionless face. The next is a close-up that captures her eyes, full of tears and unseeing from the depth of the pain she couldn’t even process.

The camera is pulled away, and he comes into her line of sight. “I think I’ll have those ones printed. It’s not often you get to see yourself in that kind of state, I don’t want to send you away without some keepsakes. You wouldn’t survive that under anyone else’s hands, darling. Anyway. I think it’s time to try some stress positions. Those will make for some wonderful videos. Maybe I’ll keep you for another day, long enough for the real agony of a locked position to wear you down into tremors and tears. Broken bones help, too, of course! Let’s start on those first.”

The witch’s lip quakes. “Please, no… I can’t.”

“Oh. Well, if you can’t. I guess you’ve reached your limit. Is that it? You can’t handle any more pain?”

She shakes her head hesitantly, one ruined, shattered arm twitching uselessly.

“I guess you could beg me for mercy. Could you be sweet enough to make it worth stopping? Do you want to be healed, and held, and given a chance to rest?”

Little breaths slip out of her, despite how badly her ribs must hurt. As she tries to collect herself to answer, he glances at her torso, one finger twitching. Slowly, slowly putting invisible pressure on them. Pushing bruising into the bone, as if she was hit with a crowbar a day ago and it’s only forming now. Spreading thin fractures, deepening the aches. Searching for little ways to do damage that won’t ever heal right. Watch her ask her little interview questions with no breath, with ribs that feel like they won’t expand how she needs them to.

Her skin goes a sickly color, her breaths pitiful and shallow. She can’t know he’s doing it actively. They never do. Torture makes a mind slippery, and sometimes pain registers hours after the damage has been done. Poor hurting little witch.

“Please,” She wheezes faintly. “I, please… heal me? You want… me to be good? To, respect you? Be af-fraid?” The broken attempt to search for his motive crumbles around her. “I’ve nev-ver been so, so scared in, my life, please, an-nything, heal me, let me, make me pass out… please, ple-ease…”

The Hunter straddles her waist calmly, propping himself up as he leans over her with one hand on each side of her ribcage. The faintest, cutest strangled sound is pressed out of her like the last gasp of air left in a balloon.

“You poor, poor thing. Don’t you know, Riku Rose? I’m not nearly done with you. This isn’t the story of how you were killed, or how you were given mercy. You don’t get to escape the pain I give you. You’re going to live through it, heal slowly, whimper for my mercy when you’re half-asleep and lost to the pain. This is the story of how you lived.”

[colbiedicardius]

camp walden | mina

The thing about the sixth grade is that the last day of school wasn’t a celebration. Not how it used to be, at least. The last day of school meant that you were taking tests in the classes you hadn’t taken tests in yet and watching movies in the classes that you had. My mom checked me out early after I texted her that I finished my math test. I had a language arts test the day before and I gave my oral exam in Spanish on that Monday. The rest of my classes I turned in projects for, and so I knew the rest of my day was going to be documentaries, movies, and a gross school lunch. My mom had just bought the house across the street from my Nona’s, and while we were moving in, packing my lunch was now my responsibility... 

My name was called to the front office and my mom stood in the hall waiting for me. She didn’t have my baby brother, which I was a little sad about at first. She bent down and gave me a hug and a kiss on my cheek. She always greeted me the same way when she picked me up from school early, “Hey girlfriend!” I smiled and she ran her fingers through my hair and asked if I was ready to go. As we walked out through the front doors of the school, I let out a big sigh of relief. “Guess what?” Mom asked. I didn’t say anything, but I grabbed her hand and gave it a small squeeze. “I just found out that you and Lily and Rebel all got accepted to go to sleep-away camp this summer.” 

I stopped in my tracks and my jaw dropped. I had been begging to go to sleep away camp for YEARS, but my mom never let me. She said I “wasn’t ready” and that I’d be too scared. She was probably right, but still. This year, though, was my year. It was all of our years, actually. After having my first kiss with Jack back in the fall, i felt like a whole new woman. Well, girl, but you get the point. 

“So I figured I’d take you shopping for some new stuff. I have the packing list printed out and we can get you all ready to go.”

I jumped up and down and threw my arms around my mom. “Is that why you don’t have Moon?!” I exclaimed. 

“You know he can’t hang,” Mom joked but it was the truth. Moon wasn’t fussy, per se, but he was a handful to take anywhere. 

Mom and I got in the car, and she even let me sit in the front seat. I hadn’t quite met the height and weight requirement yet, but sometimes she let me up front anyways. Soren always did, but that was our little secret. Mom and I first went to Target. We LOVED Target. Sometimes, after a bad day at school, she would take us to Target, buy us Starbucks, and we’d smell every single candle and feel every single pillow and blanket. Because we were in the middle of moving, Mom and I were going to Target a lot more and actually buying stuff! 

Mom let me pick out my own toiletries. Shampoo, conditioner, body wash, face wash, lotions, moisturizers! She even let me buy a razor but made me promise i would be careful with it. She was going to teach me how to use it that night. She let me pick out a new hair brush and new hair accessories. She let me get headbands and scrunchies and even found a bandana. She even grabbed some hair ties and bobby pins. I was the only girl in my whole grade who knew how to braid hair, so I was expecting to do lots of braids at camp. 

Mom and I looked at bathing suits. She made me get a one-piece because that was what was required at camp. Mom called it bullshit, and I agreed. “That is bullshit,” I said. Mom just laughed. I was allowed to cuss around her and only her. But we found a cute one-piece. It was pink and white striped and had little frilly things on the shoulders. She found a cover up that I liked and threw it in the buggy. She got me my own sleeping bag and a set of sheets for the bed in my bunk. We had to bring our own, and I was thankful for that! Momma even let me pick out a new blanket, a new pillow, and a caddy for all of my shower things. 

“Oh wait,” Mom called. “We gotta get pads.”

“I thought you used tampons,” I said. 

Mom, without even blinking said, “Not for me. For you.”

Um... what?!

“Gross! Mom!” I yelled. 

“What?” She said back to me. “You’re going to be gone for two weeks, and I want to make sure you are prepared if anything happens and I’m not there.”

In the sixth grade, some girls had their periods and others didn’t. I didn’t. I didn’t have boobs either, but Mom still let me wear a training bra. I rolled my eyes and talked her into letting pick out a cute pouch to put them in. If I HAD to take them to camp, they’d be in a pouch that no one would be able to see them in. 

After we left Target (we had spent a lot of money already), Mom took us to the mall. She said we had a uniform to wear at camp. We got t-shirts, polos, and sweat shirts, but we needed to bring our own bottoms. Mom said I already had a few at home that would work, but that it would be nice to have new clothes too. I picked out a couple of pairs of shorts and even a pair of pants if it got cold. Mom let me pick out a new pair of hiking boots since i had outgrown my last ones, and I got to buy new pajamas too. Before we left the mall, I asked my mom if I could get something for me, Lily, and Rebel. I picked us out matching headbands - each in a different color. Pink for me, duh; blue for Lily, duh; and yellow for Rebel. 

And that was it. I had so much new stuff and I was ready for camp. 

Mom and I went to the new house that night while Soren and Moon stayed at Nona’s. Mom let me have a sip of her wine while she taught me how to shave my legs. She helped me pack my bag with my new clothes and toiletries. She even threw some things in that she must have grabbed while I was at school because I hadn’t seen them. Mom and I wrapped the head bands in little bags and wrote little cards to Lily and Rebel. We’d give them their gifts in the morning. 

Mom was tucking me into bed when she said, “I love you, my girl.”

“I love you too, Mommy,” I said. She put my teddy bear in my arms and pet my hair with her hand. “When do we get to leave for camp?”

“Not for another week, but I’m glad we got all of this stuff done today.” She said. 

“Mommy?” I said as I felt her start to stand up. “Will you sleep in here with me tonight?”

“Scared?” She asked. We hadn’t really gotten used to how quiet the new house was. 

“No,” I shook my head. “I’m just gonna miss you when I’m gone.”

Mom kissed the top of my head and agreed. She went to get us both a glass of water and her laptop. She wasn’t ready to go to bed, but I could barely keep my eyes open. When I woke up, Mom was curled up next to me. I smiled and closed my eyes again. And then I remembered - I was only six days away from going to sleep away camp. And there was so much more to do.