#lbtq fiction

[insomniac-dot-ink]

The Clockwork Princess

Genre: fairy tale, wlw original story

Words: 8k

Summary: A young woman is trapped in an hourglass that is hoarded by a dragon, a thief regularly breaks into the cave to take a few treasures.

The princess tries to convince the thief to break her out.

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The Thief

It’s half-past sunset when anything vaguely interesting happens. 6:32 to be exact, Caroline always knew the time, no matter how much she tried to forget it. It was tucked away in her head like a never-ending hum drumming rhythmically against her temples.

It would be impossible to forget the time in place like this anyway.

She isn’t expecting the change, she’s halfway between dreaming and drawing circles in the fog of her chamber. And then something moves in the corner of her eye.

Caroline shifts, the sand tumbles off her lap toward the cool golden bottom of her cage, freeing her to roll toward the edge of the glass. She squints out into the world.

It looks as it always does: rolling hills of gold, small jewels, coins, shining rings and priceless ivory teeth fillings. The whole cave filled to bursting with treasures and anything that sparkled, illuminated by a large skylight up above that allowed for small streams of faded sun or moonlight.

And of course, the clocks.

Caroline doesn’t know exactly what affinity Heratis had for time, perhaps nothing at all, perhaps he too was trapped by the constant ticking of forward motion, as immortals do. The clocks are endless, buried in the coins: grandfather clocks the size of two men, tiny coo-coo clocks that sang every hour. Brown leather wrist watches, sundials the size of dinner plates, fat white candles laying unlit, little mechanisms and gilded machines she had no name for.

Clocks, clocks, clocks, time keepers. Most of them had ceased working years ago, some ticked on despite themselves, all saying different unknown times from around the globe. But there are the few that Heratis kept neatly and routinely wound and polished.

A stately grandfather clock made of an entire oaktree, a tiny ornate pearl clock on a pedestal in the center of the room, a skeletal wristwatch that held a piece of the night sky, and, largest of all, a giant green jade clock stationed on the cave wall, inlaid finely in the grimy stone itself and the size of a carriage.

The oak, the pearl, the sky, the jade clock and then finally an enormous glass hourglass half-submerged in coins. She knows all about the last one.

All of them meticulously announced the time down to the second as the sun moved across the sky and forgot them, Caroline wished for the life of her she could forget as well. It is 6:38.

Nothing seems any different and Caroline is all but willing to sink low into her capsule again, but then comes another flit of movement, a single flurry of motion off to the side. Her eyes go wide, a shadow is dashing across the hills of gold, light as a feather and footsteps quiet as a ghost.

For a moment she’s not sure if she’s hallucinating it, if some dark reaper had finally come for her after all this time or if she had simply lost her mind. And then she sees a single coin rustle under the figures hasty steps, the thing was touching down, real.

“Hey,” her voice is raspy and aches from disuse, she presses her palms against the glass, “Hey! You!”

The shadow doesn’t stop, in fact it treads more quickly across the shimmering sea, Caroline scowls, she takes a deep breath and musters all her strength. “STOP!”

She isn’t sure if that would work.

The ghost, the shadow, the nothing, turns toward her, Caroline’s face goes slack, a jet-black cloak floats around what appears to be another person. The cloak dances in place, dark and moving as if plucked from the darkest storm clouds, wispy and strange. But there’s definitely a person within.

Caroline starts waving her arms wildly in the air, she is seconds away from weeping or self-combusting.

The face of a young woman appears curiously out the dimness of the cloak’s great hood. She has lank black hair ruffled around her face, like a frame of thick disheveled raven feathers. Her skin is a chalky grey, the color of a muted winter day or flat concrete road.

Her eyes are strikingly dark, inky black pools the color of her cloak and sharp as daggers. Her face is rather plane, unremarkable, thin-lipped and expressionless. Blank. As if you are meant to forget it right after looking at it. Caroline doesn’t care, she starts flailing more wildly.

“I’m over here!” She cries, “I’m here!”

The figure hesitates, she is several paces away, body poised for flight and a tangible confusion written across her face. She looks like she doesn’t know what to do with the vision of a bedraggled blonde princess stuck inside an enormous glass hourglass.

The figure doesn’t move as Caroline beckons for her.

Her face starts to cave in, “do you hear me?” She scowls, “I know you can see me.” Or at least, she hopes she can.

The figure takes a few measured steps forward, she looks the hourglass up and down, “Do you work for the dragon?” Her voice is flat and cool, like stagnant spring water.

Caroline cocks her head to the side, showering sand down her body as she does. “No, no,” she says quickly, “I’m hostage. The dragon Heratis took me long ago and used my life force to-”

“Okay.” She says bluntly, “Well don’t make too much noise.”

Caroline’s eyes go wide, “What?” She bares her teeth as her thoughts burn hot, “Let. Me. Out.” She gets to the point.

The woman frowns, looking her over again, and then she turns. Caroline waits for a moment, waiting for something, but the figure just bends over to look fastidiously over a few golden coins and a particularly large ruby.

“Did you hear me?” Caroline repeats, “I’ll start screaming.”

She looks up, “You can if you want, the dragon is out.”

Caroline opens and closes her mouth, blood slowly raising to boil in her veins, the stranger isn’t wrong. Heratis was out hunting and nowhere nearby.

Caroline’s scowl calcifies into a snarl, “Yes. He’s out.” She put her hands on her hips, “And do you not see this giant hourglass?” She gestured around her, the thick beautiful glass and heaps of sand she slept in surrounding her. “My family will reward you handsomely for returning me.”

The stranger blinks, “What’s your name? Kingdom?”

“Princess Caroline,” she says quickly, pressing herself up against the glass. “Of Timus. To the east!”

The stranger shrugs, “Never heard of it.”

Caroline’s face breaks out into an angry red, “What do you mean?” She bawls her fists up.

“Sounds fake,” the woman turns away.

“Why would I lie about this?” Caroline stomps her foot indignantly. “You will have more riches than this entire cave if you release me.”

The woman slipped several more coins into a satchel at her side, “I have heard of this.” She took a few soundless steps forward. Her hand was just as grey as her face, with blunt black nails and ringless long fingers. She tapped on the glass, “This is the hourglass of the Whistling Sea,” she nods, “It’s one of the dragon’s top prizes.”

“Yes, it’s priceless,” Caroline’s encourages, face lighting up again. “We could steal it and be rich beyond measure.” She tries to appeal to her.

The thief turns, “And be chased and eaten by Heratis?” She waves, “Sucks to be you.” She says simply and put the ruby in her pack.

Caroline screws her entire face up into an angry mess, “You can’t leave me here!”

“I am going now,” the woman starts to flit away, dark as shadow and fast as the breeze, just as she arrived.

“Thief!” Caroline bangs on the glass with her fists, “Devil!” She cries, “I’ll eat your bones and drink your blood if I ever get out of here!”

The last part might have been a little dramatic, but in her defense she had no other company except a dragon for the last century.

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

The Hourglass

Caroline hugs her knees to her chest, sitting bonelessly against the glass and half-submerged in fine white sands. She looks out unseeingly into her home. A cave of wealth, and death. It is 11:55 am, the 133th day of the year. A Monday.

Somehow she still hates Mondays.

The mounds of sand stir around her, tilting as the sea of coins dips and oscillates, she looks up. An enormous head struck a shadow above her, a face like stone and unmoving cliff faces stares back at her.

He has a long dirty-white beard and a long jagged face, colored pale brown and rimmed by aging whiskers. His features all plucked from a time no living creature could remember, a time of storms and boiling seas and bursting earth, the dragon breathed something ancient and bloody.

He has green eyes, acidic and deep set in his long face, she can’t see the rest of his enormous lizard body, but she knows it’s there: a weather-beaten pale hide and city-spanning wings, worn and pock-marked with small holes.

Caroline just sighs, her stomach had stopped turning at the sight of him a long time ago. She nods over to him in acknowledgement.

The hoard churns as he touches down, a perturbed ocean under his weight, Caroline flounders as everything tilts, but a clawed hand descends. She falls to her backside as her cell is plucked up by the golden top. Caroline scrambles to right herself just as the hourglass is turned over.

Marking another day.

She takes a deep breath, kicking back to the top of the heap and gathering at the edge of her glass prison as the sand starts draining toward the chamber below. She had learned long ago to simply huddle at the edge and ignore it, or she surely would have gone crazy decades ago from the constant dripping.

“Little bird,” a deep rumble of crashing ocean waves and earthquakes gashing across landscapes addresses her. “Why don’t you tell me a story? A new one.”

Caroline blows pieces of stray golden hair out of her eyes, “Can’t this be the day you eat me, father moon?” A name from a time when the people cowered from the lord of time and greed. He just grins down, letting out a wet and rolling laugh.

“Who else would give their life to my hourglass then?” He purrs and places his mighty head next to her chamber. “So much life to give, little princess.”

She rolls her eyes, “I have a story of a knight taking down a greedy lizard.”

He laughs, “No, a new one.” He licks his lips, “Or I will bury you again.”

She sighs unhappily, “Fine. Let’s have one of the maiden and the nightingale. With a song so lovely it boiled the oceans away and enchanted the night to never cease.”

She had been thinking of this one for a long time.

The dragon closes his eyes and begins to listen. Caroline’s heart sinks, she consoles herself that least she isn’t submerged under the ocean of riches this time.

-----------

The Bargain

Caroline is lulling in a restless sleep, strange shapes and colors run through her mind and her body is floating somewhere distant and cold. It’s 3:43 in the afternoon, it doesn’t matter when she sleeps, so it doesn’t matter when she wakes either, it’s just by chance that she rolls into consciousness in time. She blinks groggily and rubs at her face, eyes nearly missing the stranger above her.

A dark figure stands on the top of a golden hill, Caroline’s eyes go wide, she was once more overcome with a sense of an illusion haunting her. She gulps, “hey…” She speaks softly. It had been almost three weeks.

The figure doesn’t turn, but Caroline is sure the person is grey and looking over jewels in her hand. The same as before.

Caroline clenches her teeth, hard, this really wasn’t a knight. She takes a deep breath, drawing herself up and crawling to the side of the hourglass. “Hey!” No response, just a cold back turned to her.

Caroline widens her stance, a hot prickle flickering deep within her chest. She tosses her head back violently and takes a deep heaving breath.

“Aaaaah,” she let out a piercing, grating scream from deep in her chest. The sound quickly deflates like a pierced balloon from the effort, but she draws another breath to start again.

“You have to be kidding me,” coins cascade down in tiny trickles as the thief approaches her.

Caroline glances at her through slitted eyes, “Aaaah-”

“Come on,” the thief waves her hands, “There has to be knights around here for this sort of thing.”

Caroline put her hands on her hips and leers out, “Perhaps you could fetch one for me.” She juts her jaw out, “Or simply hand me a hammer?”

The thief looks her cage over, “How?” She seems momentarily confused.

Caroline grows a small smile, “Simple,” she leans forward, “Break the glass and hand it to me.”

The woman rolls her eyes, “Look, I get it, you’re stuck and that sucks.”

“Oh my God,” Caroline huffs, “Being consoled by a spineless thief. This is rock bottom.”

The woman growls, “You’re not making a good case for yourself.”

Caroline’s gestures for her, “Angry? Go ahead, try and hit me.”

The thief opens her mouth, and then closes it. A wry smile crosses her impassive face, “Very funny.” She shakes her head, “But I am spineless.” She says slowly, “And I’m sure someone mightier than me will come along for you.” She looks around, “Someday.”

Caroline groans and sits back in her mound of sand, it was halfway full by then. “Please?” She finally says, “Pretty please? Do me a favor. You’ll get a thousand favors back.”

The thief hums, “how do you even get trapped in an hourglass?” She squints, “how are you still…?”

“Alive?” She finishes her thought, “Magic.” Caroline explains simply. “Stupid, terrible magic.” She taps a blue vein on her arm, “Don’t be born with enchanted blood. First rule.”

She presents a smile again, “Noted.”

Caroline’s face softens and she tries to melt into something pleading and pitiful. “I haven’t seen another person in decades. The knights have… become scarce. And the dragon is fierce.”

“The dragon is very fierce,” the thief responds clippedly, “and not all of us have thick glass around us.”

Caroline put her head in her hands and let out another cry, “The first person to successfully break into the cave… and they’re an asshole!”

The thief gives a miffed noise, “bad luck then, princess.” She turns, “You wouldn’t happen to know the most expensive small item in here?”

Caroline just makes a rude gesture toward her and the thief chuckles and picks up a chipped emerald and golden necklace before hopping down the heaps of treasure once more.

Caroline refuses to watch her go, “First person in decades,” she continues to grumble, “And they’re just here to steal things. Typical.” And they weren’t there for her.

---------

The Wait

Caroline blows warm breath onto her glass case, painting designs with her fingertips in the mist that fogged up the inside. She draws an intricate bird with wings of fire, in her mind’s eye it burns up the whole world: one branch and building at a time, smoldering the whole land into nothing.

Lucy had once said she was afraid of fire, all witches were. Caroline wasn’t afraid of anything now, there was nothing left to touch her.

She closes her eyes and imagines sleeping again, floating into somewhere dark and soundless. But sleep doesn’t come. She opens her eyes again and writes a small word: S.O.S. She designs the letters, attaching swirls and delicate flowers sprouting from their backs as she had many times before.

She closes her eyes when she’s done, leaning against the cool walls and sighing.

Forgotten.

She bites down on the word like it’s a piece of moldy fruit in her mouth. They aren’t looking for you anymore.

They aren’t sending anyone.

Despair lodges so cleanly in Caroline’s chest she thinks she might choke on it or stab her straight through. She flops over and puts her head beneath the yellow sand that trickles from the tube above, closes her eyes and lets it wash over her.

She could go to sleep again. Let the dragon bury her and the sands to drag her deep down into the endless restless dreams, like the maiden before her had done.

Dream until her entire life force is spent and empty, ready to replaced by the next girl.

Forgotten.

Caroline takes her head out of the sand and crawls over to the side of the glass, she isn’t ready yet. It isn’t over yet.

Though she can’t explain why.

She continues to expand her small drawings, erasing, and breathing again, art that would never be seen or remembered. Her eyes glaze over.

It’s 8:40 at night, two weeks since she had last seen Heratis.

Caroline perks up as a slight movement dashes off to her right side. The coins shift.

She sits up in place, “Back so soon?” It had only been two days. Two days four hours, five minutes, 22 seconds.

The shadow pauses in place, her eyes flicking up and face briefly illuminated by the streaming moonlight. She has a bloody gash across her lip and molting purple bruises just below her right eye, turning yellow as sour candy.

Caroline peels her lips back, “Bandits?” She guesses, the thief just grunts, a wordless affirmation. “Let you do all the work and then take the treasure themselves.” Caroline tutts, “No honor these days.”

The thief draws her hood up to cover her bloody face, “No need to mock.”

Caroline dances in place, “Trust me when I say I have nothing left to lose,” she starts to make faces, “I have no pride left. Watch this.”

She squishes her face up to the glass, mashing her nose up and slobbering across the smooth surface, the thief makes a quick sound- it might’ve been a laugh.

“Please don’t distract me,” the thief bends down and starts inspecting priceless items again. “Some of us have jobs.”

“Do you want to switch?” Caroline offers hopefully, “I have no job. No worries,” she drags her hands through the loose sand, “Just sand, really quiet a lifestyle.”

The figure shakes her head, “I’ll pass,” she looks up with a quick grin, “And unfortunately I was not blessed with enchanted blood.”

Caroline could have started to cry, wild emotions surge through her, maybe it was just from communicating with someone for so long.

She opens her mouth to keep her talking, but both of their heads jerk up at a new sound. An approaching whooshing boom, caucus fills the space as winds as strong gail storms bluster through the vast cave, the thief’s hood flies back to reveal her horrified expression.

The whomping grows louder.

Caroline wrenches her head around, voice urgent as a lightning strike, “Hide.”

She isn’t sure if she’s loud enough, but the address seems to jolt the thief from her shock, she stumbles to the side. “Quickly,” Caroline gestures, “Behind me. Bury yourself.”

The woman moves like a corpse in the breeze: disjointedly and carried by something beyond herself. She falls toward Caroline, staggering for the hourglass and managing to dive behind it, “Dig!” Caroline commands as the woman crouches behind her. The thief starts desperately clawing her way into the treasures and covering herself.

She is just barely submerged when mighty claws touch down, shifting the ocean of treasure but luckily not sending Caroline capsizing.

She sits up in place, the dragon’s maw is bloody with a successful hunt. He must have gorged himself for those two weeks, he would be close to sleeping soon.

Heratis settles heavily, letting his limbs fold up under him and head bending down with a drooping grace. Caroline opens her mouth to distract him, but addressing him first would be suspicious after all this time and she stops.

Heratis gives her a long look, blinking slowly and consideringly, Caroline holds her breath. “Think of another tale Little Bird,” he finally says, “I will expect one when I wake.”

Caroline exhales in relief as he swings around and places his jagged pale head down far away from her. “Of course,” she replies softly, but his eyes are already closed.

Just as quickly as his eyes close she hears the shifting of coins behind her. “Wait.” She hisses between her teeth, “He’s not asleep yet.”

Wide black eyes stare back at her, the woman’s face and neck just visible underneath her shallow grave of treasures. The woman’s hood is torn down and Caroline notes the small twisting horns on her head and pointed ears, she must have been some sort of elf or even a tiefling.

Caroline tilts her head, perhaps a hybrid.

The thief looks away, ‘when?’ She mouths.

Caroline shrugs, “time is slow for him. Hours. Days. He’ll be completely asleep eventually though, that will bring luck on your side.” The thief’s eyes become dinner plates, her thoughts written all over her features: days?

“Don’t worry,” Caroline grins, “his hearing is bad,” she explains slowly, “it’s just movement he’ll notice. Wait.”

The dragon breaths out, they both jump but nothing else follows.

Caroline settles down, lying in the grains of sand and observing the situation. The thief shoots her an annoyed look and she just shrugs back.

“Wait,” she repeats, “What’s a prison after all?” She adds the last part bitterly and with at least a little sense of pointed irony.

----------

Questions

The thief’s eyes are screwed up into angry little blights on her face, ‘what are we waiting for?’ She mouths, making barely any noise at all from down below.

Caroline is lounging next to her, “Sounds of snoring.” She says simply, “Also, you can speak a little louder.”

“Ugh,” The thief groans, “Princess,” she growls, “I really don’t have time for this.”

“Why don’t you do that magic trick with your light steps then?” Caroline asks back, looking down at the black cloak tied neatly around the thief’s throat.

The woman opens her mouth, she glances over to the dragon, and then back. Small sweat droplets trail down her temple.

She was afraid. She wouldn’t risk running right now, Caroline smiles loosely.

She relaxes into the bottom of her chamber, “What’s your name then, great thief?”

The woman scowls back, “It’s ‘Great Thief.’ Capital G. You got it.”

Caroline snorts, “Well, I’m Caroline of Timus.” She repeats, “Princess, capital P.”

“I remember,” The thief huffs and turns slightly away. A full minute passes before the woman carefully clears her throat and catches her eye again. “I’m Vera.” She finally says, “not that it matters.”

“It’ll matter,” Caroline winks, “In the great epics written about this later. The Great Thief: in the dragon’s belly, but not forgotten. When she wouldn’t get help for the captured princess.”

Vera makes a small noise in the back of her throat, “Do you plan on getting me eaten?”

Caroline gives a heavy sigh, “Not yet.” She says assuredly, “I’m not actually an asshole. Like some people.” She lifts her eyebrows pointedly.

“Well you’re not making yourself a lot of friends right now.” Vera grumbles.

“Where are you from Vera?” She changes subjects.

Vera eyes her warily, “Nowhere,” she says bluntly, “The Northern country.”

Caroline nods, “I could have guessed that.” Very few people south of the equator had chalky grey skin, like the face of the moon.

Vera shakes her head, “And you, from the Kingdom I’ve never heard of.”

Caroline smiles, “Maybe you don’t have very good hearing.”

The other woman gives a small chuckle, “You sound rather clever, how do clever girls get captured by dragons?”

Caroline droops, unsuccessfully smothering her own pout. “It’s,” her mouth goes slightly dry, she sighs, “It’s as stupid as it sounds.”

Vera raises her eyebrows, “Oh?” She follows Caroline’s gaze, “You tripped and fell into a glass case?”

Caroline just groans, “I believed… someone I shouldn’t have.” She explains cryptically, “And they bargained with the dragon.” She peels her lips back in disgust, lamenting herself. “Never trust beautiful witches. It’s all warts from there.”

Vera studies her, “I’ll have that printed on my next saddle bag.” She smiles, “Consorting with witches though,” she almost leers, “Someone must have not been a very good human royal.”

“The worst,” Caroline says darkly, smiling back sourly, “But how else would I get in here?”

Vera just nods, “Understood,” her eyes trail down Caroline’s pink summer dress and the curve of her waist. “Second question,” she hums, “Does this thing make you immortal?” Her voice is even, deceivingly flat.

“Depends on your definition,” Caroline touches the sand, “It feeds off me. Keeps itself turning and stops me from aging, but not from dying.” She looks up at her ceiling. “It’s not the best deal quite honestly.”

Vera was quiet for a long moment, she frowns delicately. “What did you bargain for?”

Caroline didn’t reply for a long moment, thinking it all over blankly. What do I have to lose? She reflects briefly.

“No, not me,” She finally replies, glancing up crisply. “Do you want to steal my secrets as well thief?”

Their eyes meet and Vera raises her eyebrows, “If you wish.” She snorts, “It doesn’t appear that I’m going anywhere.”

Caroline rolls her eyes, “It’s just as I said: don’t trust beautiful witches… And don’t fall for them.” She looks down at her lap emptily, “Lucy wanted more time. More life. Keep the cruelty of ages off her.” She looks off into nowhere, murmuring. “And I wanted to make her happy.”

Vera looks away, averting her gaze off to the side. “Princess’s with problems. Ah.”

Caroline sniffs, “And thief’s with problems.” She retorts, “Such as getting beat up by bandits.”

Vera makes a face at her, “A job hazard. But one of us isn’t stuck in a glass coffin.”

“Not yet!” She shakes her fist.

They exchange a long look, and then, despite themselves, they start laughing, a sharp childish giggling that Caroline tries to cover with her hands. Prompted from the absurdity of the darkness, and the gold, and the slumbering dragon that had yet to snore.

Vera stays perfectly still but seems to really look at Caroline now, “tell me,” she asks slowly, “What have you been doing with the dragon all this time?”

So, Caroline tells her a story: of a foolish human princess who ran away with a witch. Of a witch who feared death and an hourglass. A bargain with a time dragon and everything else.

Vera slowly, carefully tells her snippets of information as well: she was hired by a great lord who planned to accumulate wealth for an army. Vera guessed that the army was for taking over the grand principality, but that really wasn’t her business, nothing seemed to be her business.

The moon crosses the sky like a perfectly round hole in the darkness, a falling silver coin, Caroline drinks in the sight of another person. Of a real conversation.

Finally, she touches the glass again, “So,” She asks softly, “How does one get into the business of thieving for lords?”

Vera purses her lips, “They run out of options. Among other things.”

Caroline raises her eyebrows, “Family?”

Vera shook her head with forlorn, “No.” She looks up at her own little horns on her head, “Unacknowledged,” she gives a thin smile, “You can call me a bastard if you like, that’ll at least be correct.”

Caroline’s studies her exposed moon-grey face, “Well, my family abandoned me too,” she sighs, “so maybe that’s how people like us end up together.”

Vera gives her a funny look, “I suppose.” She looks away, “You know I’m a,” she pauses, watching Caroline, “So you’ve guessed, I’m a hybrid.”

Caroline shrugs, “Sure,” she says and itches her nose, “How else would an elf walk like a shadow?” She smiles, “No one has done anything like this, you’re stronger than any of the other silly heroes who’ve came so far. It’s impressive, really.”

Caroline can’t help but catch the briefest surprised smile crossing Vera’s face at that, she tugs it back into something guarded. “Well I’m not a hero.” She replies quickly, “And you ran away from your whole life for someone, so that’s impressive too, really.”

Caroline laughs a bitter and light sound, “Now I’m being teased. It’s not all that, just stupid youth.” Their eyes meet and Caroline can’t explain it as her heart squeezes for a moment. “I get what I deserve.”

Another moment passes, the moonlight cascading over the cave from up above and their breaths catching in time with one another.

“I wouldn’t say that,” Vera’s voice was quiet, “It’s a terrible thing done, no one would deserves it.”

Caroline shivers from head to toe, their eyes meet again, and she doesn’t know how to place it. She wets her lips, waiting, a bubbling force rising in her chest.

Vera lifts up, shifting some of the coins and exposing her shoulders, then she stops, as if biting down on something too, holding it beneath her tongue and rolling it around. They stay breathlessly watching each other, perhaps something more might have come of it.

Instead, they both jump as booming guttural sound echoes around the cave. A deep snore.

Caroline and Vera exchange a look. Caroline tries not show her face fall, “Go,” she points, “Take as much gold as you can carry. He stopped counting this junk ages ago.”

Vera was still looking at her, mulling her over. She takes her time unburrying herself and then grabbing everything in arms reach.

“Caroline,” her face is flushed and Vera hunches over slightly, searching for something, and then she just nods. Caroline nods back.

“Go,” it’s a whisper this time. What else is there to do? She asks herself, Caroline waves her arms, “Quickly!”

Vera rises on her ghost feet, gathering the cloak around her and barely disturbing a thing as she darts away, into the night, into the nothingness.

I hope you got what you were looking for.

And she was alone again.

-----------

The Dream

Vera is gone. But what did Caroline expect?

She told herself to stop expecting things. Perhaps it was just the sign she should let herself sleep again, let it all go.

She hovers at the top of her chamber as the hourglass finishes filling, swimming in the sea of sand with just her upper body barely above the surface. She braces herself as the mechanism turns over again, forcing her to slip toward the bottom and then dig her way back to the air again.

Not that it mattered. She didn’t need air.

It takes another month for Heratis to wake again, Caroline already had her next story meticulously planned for him.

He blinks open his crusted, glossy eyes and she calls to him. “I’m ready.” He settles in expectantly, waiting before he needed to go out feeding again.

“How preparatory of you,” he puts his enormous head by her, blinking his acid green eyes and resting his soft leathery beige cheek by her cell. “Go on.”

She lifts her eyes up, “This one is about a tiefling and an elf who fell in love. And their daughter who rose above it all to become a star on the horizon.”

She begins again.

-----

Caroline is wavering between waking and sleeping, as she had been for days now, letting the drowsy sand wash over her, quietly, consumingly. She could be lost like this, she could dream again.

Her eyes are closed and head lulling down on her chest, thoughts floating in and out as she dreams of fresh buttery bread she keeps bringing to her lips only for it to disappear on contact. She turns in place, deep within the sand.

A sharp tap erupts besides her, insistent and sharp.

It’s 2:22 in the afternoon, a Thursday. Heratis was out- having left after she finished her last story.

Caroline blinks awake and turns, kicking her way out of the sand and pushing her way to the edge of the cage. She has to rub her gritty eyes when she sees someone next to her in the streaming daylight. A figure draped in a billowy black cloak.

Inky eyes capture hers, “Vera?” Caroline rasps, her throat tightening almost painfully.

Vera nods slowly, tugging at her fingers. “That ransom for you,” She begins awkwardly, swaying in place and looking somewhat lost. “Would it still be a lot?”

Caroline just shakes her head, “I lied.” She says carefully, “My parents did try to bargain for me at first, for posterity's sake, but,” she hesitates, “But what is a daughter who ran away?” She sinks down, “there is no longer a reward I’m afraid.”

The truth weighs heavily on her chest, forgotten. She slid quietly to the bottom of her cage, “I lied.”

“I know,” Vera says with a hard tone, hesitance written over her pinched expression. “Sorry, I already knew that. Caroline,” She looks up darkly, “There is no longer a kingdom of Timus.”

Caroline’s mouth falls open, thoughts thumping in her temples and heart racing. In the back of her mind she already knew that, deep down she had known that for a long time.

“Vera,” She swallows thickly, sorrow welling up from somewhere she didn’t know existed. She tries to focus, “Why are you here?”

Vera had never tapped on her glass before and her hands are empty of any treasures, in fact, instead of a satchel at her side there was the hilt of what looked like a heavy weapon. Something is different.

Vera looks down at her feet, as if she’s a small child suddenly caught taking cookies from a jar. She scuffs her foot on the coins and her mouth becomes a squiggle line across her face, strangely bashful.

“I just thought,” Vera put her palms up helplessly, “you know. It does, actually, really... suck. To be stuck somewhere.”

Caroline’s draws herself up, “Yes. We’ve been over this. It sucks.” She says dryly and fixes her with a steady look, “Is… that it?”

“I mean,” Vera rubs the back of her neck, “I’m not actually a hero or anything.” She mumbles, “Most people don’t want to think of me as anything at all, but,” her eyes dart up, bursting with something. “I dunno, I just kept thinking about your silly face stuck in all this sand…”

“Yes?” Caroline’s heart speeds up, eyes going wide.

“And I thought, well, I mean, maybe I had been wrong,” she fidgets in place, “and maybe I could steal something good for once.”

Caroline’s mouth falls open like a screw came loose in her jaw, “You won’t get a reward,” she says quickly, manically. “Obviously. I don’t even have a kingdom anymore.”

Vera speaks gently. “Yeah, I know.”

Caroline’s mouth is still hanging open, “I have nothing for you.”

“I know.”

Caroline crams herself up against the glass, “You don’t know what this means. I can’t, I mean, I can’t thank y-“

Vera’s tone is quick and halting, “Don’t think about it. Come on, before I change my mind.” Her eyes flit over to the mouth of the cave.

“We’d have to run.” Caroline speaks as if in a dream, Vera nods grimly back, “We’d have to be fast.”

Vera breaks into a broad grin, a real one. “I’m fast.”

Caroline steps away from the glass, hands shaking. “Can you break this damn thing?”

Vera’s grin turns wild and barbed, “You happen to be in luck,” she says gleefully, “For you have a thief at your service and she happened to be sent to the dwarf kingdom’s artillery last month.”

“No,” jitters course through Caroline’s system, “No way.”

Vera pulls out what appeared to be a golden hammer, the head is as big as the girl’s head and looks as heavy as a small cow. It’s covered in small brilliant symbols and built with the fineness of smart hands and a little magic.

A flutter surges through Caroline’s heart, it couldn’t be real. “Amazing,” she claps her hands, “Amazing Vera!” She wonders if this is what being high was like, or in love.

Vera lifts her chin up, “Step back.”

Caroline can’t move fast enough, retreating until her back hits the opposite wall of glass and her muscles tense all over. Vera lifts the hammer above her head, heavy and shining in her hands. Their eyes meet for a brief second, something stretches between them like a sunbeam across ice: blinding and fierce.

Caroline holds her breath, “I’m ready.”

The hammer swings down before Caroline finishes the sentence, Vera’s face is screwed up in red determination and she lets out a feral grunt as the weapon falls. It strikes with a terrifying crunch that must have shot tremors up Vera’s arms.

Heavy and solid it thunks against the glass and, to Caroline’s amazement, a jagged raw lightning strike crack bursts across the surface. Tears well up in her eyes despite herself, hot and stinging with feral trembling hope.

A second thought strikes her: the hourglass was one of Heratis’s most prized possessions, the dragon had meant to be away awhile and yet…

She tenses all over, “Quickly.”

Vera’s face screws up again, “Huh!” She grunts and brings the hammer down once more with deadly blunt force. This time Caroline’s entire chamber shakes, she steadies herself on either wall and gasps as more spiderweb-thin cracks spread.

“That’s it!” She whoops, “You are my hero you damn fool, keep going!”

Vera’s cheeks flush ashy-grey at that, but she heaves the hammer down again with a teeth-shattering crash. Another crack.

Then comes the roar. A roar like flood waters slamming down across canyon creeks, the sound of terrors in the night children dream up and bones crunching against cold stone. A roar erupting from somewhere so deep it might as well be from the earth itself.

Caroline jerks up, “Hurry, hurry!” She nearly breaks into tears again, “He’s sensed it. He’s coming."

Vera looks pale and almost sick to her stomach, ready to bolt at any second. For a moment Caroline expects her to turn and sail away on light feet into somewhere soundless and dark. Safe.

For a moment Caroline wants to tell her to do just that.

Vera clenches her teeth, “watch out.” She lifts the hammer with her entire body, solid and lurching from the effort, she struck a silhouette all young girls knew: a champion of old. Vera brings the hammer down with a terrifying crash, the glass dents inward, caving in.

“There,” Caroline staggers as the cage jostles, “Almost!” She can see the unfiltered light, she can taste the clear air.

Vera backs up, sweat streaming down her forehead, the effort obviously taking a toll on her trembling limbs. The roar comes again, but this time accompanied by the whump of massive wings.

Caroline burns with a heat that feels like it might incinerate her, she’s so close. “Ah!” She screams and rushes for the cracks in the glass, pushing on them with all her strength.

“Wait-” Vera barely gets a word out before a shadow with deviled horns and blooming fury descends. They both scream.

“Who is tampering with my hoard?” The beast roars with a raw vitriol, “I will crunch your bones and burn your whole family to dust.”

Vera snarls back, “My family already told me to shove off, so,” she grins daringly, stupidly. “Try again.”

A clawed hand shoots forward, grasping Vera’s small body and lifting her.

“No!” Caroline moves in that moment, she has to, she digs her heels into the shifting sands, braces herself, and then flings herself at the cracks in the glass. Everything shatters.

She gasps, her skin stinging with a thousand pinpricks and a shuddering burn. Her insides wash with what felt like frigid ice water, like sucking in artic wind in every sinew. The tumbling mix of hot and cold surges with a dizzying weight through her, time reclaims her with a vengeance.

Her eyes spot white, ears ringing and the taste of grit and soil bleeding through her taste buds. The world smells raw and vivid as a sucker punch.

Mortality singes every nerve in her, a stranglehold of life and promise of death all once. Caroline takes a second to look at her hands, pale and empty, she clenches and then unclenches them. She can feel the sticky pain in her shoulder from where she bashed it across the glass, she can feel the thrash of wind against her skin and an aching hunger throughout her body, aches and aches and aches.

She tingles, her thoughts heave, slipping through her fingers like burning ashes. She no longer knows what time it is.

“Aaahh!” Caroline looks up as a sharp cry fells the air, breaking her out of her brief reverence.

Heratis is holding Vera around her middle, lifting her through the air and bringing her up to his green cold gaze.

“And who are you?” He growls, “Who are you to touch my things?”

Vera shakes like a leaf, she looks ready to puke on the spot. She must have gathered something from deep within though, something Caroline can only guess at. “Who- who are you to make anyone a thing?” She says, just loud enough and then growls forcefully: “go eat your own tail.”

The dragon laughs, its voice filling the whole space. “Oh, I’m going to make this slow.”

“Hey!” Caroline screams, feeling the burn of her fledgling lungs. “Heratis!” She musters a battle cry, bursting with new and terrible life. Something that had been building in her for a very long time. “I have your things here.”

Heratis turns toward her with the sluggish movements of a beast older than the sky itself. “My little bird,” he sneers, “How ugly your wings are.”

Caroline draws herself up, she reaches for the sands cascading out of the hourglass like carnage out of a gut wound. “Stop me.” She scatters the sands, tossing it away to fall between the cracks of the treasures and disappear.

“Ugly, ungrateful,” he seems to forget Vera for a moment and comes rushing forward with the force of a small hurricane. “Small, petulant, creature.”

Caroline latches her hands around a giant piece of glass from her cage, gripping it between her tingling hands and yanking it loose, the sharp edges bite into her skin as she hefts it up. She grimaces as her palms split up, blood seeping down her wrists and across the smooth surface of the object.

She gives the hourglass beside her a savage kick, sending what’s left of it toppling down the golden hills and away. She lifts the shard of glass over her head just as the dragon’s dives to catch the hourglass, Caroline is faster. She leaps, soundlessly, ruthlessly, and thrusts the glass fragment deep into the side of the dragon’s face.

The shard pierces the dragons soft aged cheek, enchanted by her spilling blood and filled with the fury of a girl who had lost everything. His skin bursts with a sluggish red gash and Caroline tears downward.

She wedges it deep within his face before letting go, his eyes go wide for a moment, processing this new foreign horror. He reels back, head thrashing and body whipping about, shaking the entire cavern itself. Caroline falls to her knees and staggers in place.

A momentary glee balloons in her chest, but then the dragon releases Vera as he clutches at his ruined cheek- tossing the girl aside like a scrap. Vera’s body sails limply across the open space.

“No,” Caroline leaps toward her, feet flying and heart pounding so hard it might burst. A roar drums in her ears and her mouth tastes of copper and bile.

“No, no, no,” she put her hands out to catch the other girl, mind screeching, but she is still several paces away, not close enough. “No!”

Vera is falling, face stricken and body tossed like a boneless ragdoll, and then the next moment she is turning in midair, situating her feet toward the ground and decelerating. Her cloak flutters as she rights herself like a falling cat and softly lands.

Caroline tries to dig her heels in as Vera’s comes down feather-light.

She barely manages to slow before crashing into the other girl, running headlong into her body and almost sending them both sprawling. Vera grabs her around the waist instead and swings them both around. “Stupid girl!”

Caroline laughs in her arms, “Brilliant shadow!”

They hug for just a moment, though neither would ever admit that’s what it is. Then the thrashing of Heratis comes back to them. Coins spray around them and a growling screech resounds.

“It’s ruined!” He cries and lets out a growl of a thousand baited hound dogs.

Caroline turns toward the wall, thinking quick. “Can you get up there?” She points to the massive jade clock perched high above.

“What?” Vera grabs her arm, “We need to get out of here.”

“We should stall him first,” Caroline counters quickly, keeping her eyes on the dragon as he tries to turn, “he won’t rest until that clock is wound again. That will buy us time.”

Vera seems to open her mouth to argue, but then glances back at the dragon and only nods. They both start racing; Caroline’s veins are ice and she barely registers the endless light just outside the cave. She waves at Vera as the other woman crawls up the wall with the speed of a specter and grabs at the big hand of the giant clock.

“Turn it!” Caroline screeches and watches as the dragon’s prize is wrenched out of time.

Heratis roars, blood streaming down his chin and neck. “Don’t touch that!”

Vera lets go, the dragon grabs for his treasure, trying to restore the item back to the exact second. Vera darts away, landing on the ground lightly once more, Caroline takes her hand. “Come on.”

They grin with the bloody exhilaration of almost-victory, they turn, they run.

The sunlight is as bright and fierce as a first kiss, a first breath, a first forever. Caroline is skipping as they tumble down the mountain side, skidding and flinging themselves down and away, every scraped knee is a new promise.

She only stops once, “Thank you Vera!”

They approach the edge of a forest, just far enough away from the cave for the dragon cries to be muted. Caroline didn’t even know there was a forest outside, it was a young and bright thing, more oaks than it was pines and brimming with bird calls and rustling life.

Vera is panting and holding her sides where the dragon had squeezed her. “Me?” She wheezes, “You’re the one that stabbed him back there.”

Caroline turns to her, hair loose and wild, “You didn’t have to come for me. You didn’t have to do any of that.”

Vera looks away and huffs, “We have to keep running, he can fly you know.”

Caroline hadn’t stopped smiling since she’d come out, “Just one second,” she reaches for Vera’s hand once more, “One thing and then we can flee to the ends of the earth, or ends of the kingdom at least. He’s a lazy thing.”

Caroline glances back up toward the cave, roaring was still emitting from it, “Make it quick.”

Caroline gets on her tiptoes, Vera was too tall. “Ahem,” she clears her throat, “I am in your debt. And as a freed princess, you have my eternal gratitude.”

Vera turns to her, making faces, “What are you on about?”

Caroline takes Vera’s cheeks between her hands, “A legendary hero.” She reaches up, “Wresting me from the dragon’s clutches. I show my thanks.” It was a silly thing, but all story books are silly.

She lifts herself up, closes her eyes and softly presses her lips against the other girls. It tastes like blood and burning lungs, but Caroline is full to bursting with the whole entire world. She kisses delicately, tender against her raw skin and thumping heartbeat.

Her head swims with exuberance and she thinks she might never sleep again.

The kiss is chaste and careful, Caroline falls back again quickly, still smiling. “There.”

Vera looks blankly back at her, cheeks burning a vivid dark ash and eyes huge. “Oh,” she blinks, stammering, “I mean,” She holds her black feathery hair back, “That’s… Oh.”

Caroline laughs and leans into her, “that’s how it’s supposed to go.”

“Not my stories,” Vera appears thunderstruck.

“Then how do yours go?” Carolina’s face hovers inches from Vera’s, ready to press another shy kiss to her cheek.

Vera grabs her hand and pulls them forward as a howl bursts from far behind them. “I’ll tell you later.” She hurries them onward, “It’s a story of a silly trapped girl and a selfish thief.”

“Will I like this story?” They keep running as Vera begins a new tale.

“I hope so,” Vera’s face is aglow with a wide smile, her pointed white teeth stretching across her lips, a lovely shameless thing. “Hopefully if it’s not over yet.”

Caroline chases her steps, “Not yet!” She cackles, “If you’d like to see the rest that is.”

Vera squeezes her hand, “Lead the way.”

They laugh wildly and descend into the dappled thick woods.

The world settles and Caroline’s face is turned up, thick with sunshine and fury and a whole new world beyond her glass and sand. Her hands run bloody, and her body aches with bruises and a new licking hunger, and there is no time at all.

The End

[dearwriters]

An Author by any other name ... Should I use a Pen Name?

After about 6.5 years of working in the publishing industry, I encountered many reasons authors may use a Pseudonym pr pen name. Those can be very personal and individual, but if you are pondering this idea, maybe this will help:

First things first, there are actually two types of pseudonyms. Let's call it Open vs. Closed Pseudonyms.

An open pseudonym would be one everyone knows about. It's not a secret, that this author uses a pseudonym and with a quick google search, you can actually find their real name. They probably use the pseudonym as a branding device.

A closed pseudonym would be a tight kept secret. People may know it's a pseudonym, but the real name is very well hidden. The authors' vita may be fake, and you possibly don't even have a picture of them (I recommend reading up on Elena Ferrante, an Italian author, famous for her complete anonymity!).

It should be said, that the pseudonym mostly works in fiction because non-fiction is specifically legitimized by the authors' status as an expert on a topic, thus needing traceable qualification to their name.

Safety

Sometimes authors use closed pseudonyms for their personal safety or to protect themselves from professional consequences:

the problematic to cruel treatment of public figures (especially women, POC and the LBTQ+ community)

hiding from a stalker

risking a career

fear of outing themselves to their family and friends

This is just to say: being a person in the public eye can potentially have dangerous consequences.

Freedom in Anonymity

Disappearing in your work, not being part of its reception and not having to engage in the discourse about it, can be quite the dream for many authors, who don't feel able to participate in the celebrity-like culture the contemporary author needs to engage in.

Keep your writing and your day job separate (especially if you work in the public or even in the publishing industry itself)

Writing freely about identity, sexuality, experiences and feelings without fear of being discovered

Concentrating on writing instead of branding

Escaping racial/cultural prejudice

Branding

Michel Foucault taught us, that the author's name is used as a synonym for their work. It functions as a device of classification. If I ask someone "Did you read Kafka?" it's obvious that I didn't ask them if they've somehow read the person Kafka, but his texts. Thus, a pseudonym is as much of a brand as it is a name.

Need for an aesthetically better fitting or more recognizable name

Easier to spell

Using an English name to be more "palatable" for the global market (which is fucked up, but sadly true)

Leaning into your heritage and use it as a unique selling point

Using one name for several people, like ghostwriters or writing collectives (e.g. Jason Dark, Erin Hunter)

Real name is too similar to an already established author

Different pen names per genre, to keep audiences separate

Obscuring Gender (e.g. George Eliot, J.K. Rowling)

Literary device (e.g. Lemony Snicket, Darren Shan)

[ponytailzuko]

1. Why are people being so moralistic about marriage in your inbox? Like not everyone had to view marriage from a traditional Christian perspective? And to me personally the idea that you can’t make fun or light of an institution that historically and still in some ways today oppresses women and lbtq-people is just contrary to the idea of free speech and an open society (feel free to not publish just wanted to vent)

2. Also find it so comical that people get upset over a fictional couple getting divorced in a universe where their marriage most likely would have been a political one meant to promote the fire nation empire?? Like ??? Just good for them if they rejected that and like maybe just became great rebel friends (Again feel free to not publish)

THANK YOU, I FORGOT THE WORD SOCIAL INSTITUTION! that is the word i have been looking for this entire time! you think i would remember since im in a sociology class right now lol.

im not sure why people are being moralistic about it. i think it comes from personal experience. divorce can be messy and traumatic, so that may color some peoples views. not sure why its happening in my inbox, but stuff like marriage is fun to discuss though, so im having a good time at least.

i didnt even get into marriage in terms of how it relates to gender and queer identities, as well as other minorities, and how marriage is another social institution that can hold up oppression and class the same way all other social institutions can. it depends on a lot of factors how one defines marriage. what country do you live in? culture? ethnicity? what's your religion? social class? gender? etc. its a lot!

and i think that ties into what you mentioned about how this somehow spurred from how i mentioned divorce in the context of the avatar universe, which would define marriage and divorce differently than western society does as its based on asian and indigenous cultures.

i wasnt very specific about the exact situation behind the concept of iroh being divorced, mostly because i was being comedic about the fact that iroh does not fit what some people may think of when they think of divorcees (aka from my experience most takes assume irohs partner is dead). but i did imagine that if he was ever married, it would be for political reasons due to being royalty and in general high class. it would have to be approved by fire lord azulon, at the very least. divorce would probably be pretty rare, as marriage is less for love and more about your nation, your family, duty, etc... so doing so would probably be in defiance of those social norms... very different, at least, to divorce one might experience in a modern western and christian society and what morals you would apply there.

thanks for the ask btw!! i hope youre having a good day :)

[elliepassmore]

This Rebel Heart review

5/5 stars Recommended to people who like:

revolution, historical fiction, fantasy, magical realism, multiple POVs, rebellion, LBTQ+ characters

Big thanks to Netgalley, Random House, and Katherine Locke for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review!

They accepted all the truths and all the lies and weighed them equally against each other. But some lies outweighed some truths. Some lies were so egregious that refusing to acknowledge them was akin to committing the crime over and over again, every day.

This might actually be my favorite book of the year. It has revolution and change and social justice all wrapped up in a nice historical fantasy/magical realism bow with LGBTQ+ characters (yes, multiple) and set in a country that often doesn't get attention, particularly in YA fiction. Locke says so many good things about change and revolution in this book and I love it.

This book is set in Cold War Hungary, which has, like so many other European countries, not dealt with its role in WWII and the Holocaust. It's a haunting story to be telling, and so familiar to ones that come out of countries that are perhaps more familiar to people, like Poland and East Germany, but it is unique as well. I liked learning Hungary through Csilla's eyes, both its sins and its beauties. The AVH, or the secret police, has been tearing families apart and has played the active role of suppressing freedom of expression. Yet at the same time there is still this place where a revolution is possible. Where it was possible. Locke wrote the city well, I think, and that powder keg is a palpable undercurrent throughout the book, at times more obvious than others.

I also thought the metaphors and motifs Locke included were poignant. Truth vs. lies is a major part of the book. The Nazis utilized propaganda, the Soviets lie again and again, and everyone living under the fear of the AVH lies daily to protect themselves and to gloss over the things that happened. Because it's easier, because they're afraid, because it's what works. I like that we as readers get to work out with Csilla what the truth, or rather, truths, is. Another powerful metaphor running through the book is personal choice. People choose each day how they react to things, and sometimes that choice does include keeping your head down to keep yourself safe, and sometimes that means deciding to stand up because doing nothing hasn't gotten anyone anywhere. Csilla 100% starts out as a character who does nothing to protect herself and her aunt, and sometimes this means staying quiet, but she's also forced to reckon with this choice in the book and whether that's the choice she wants to be making when it means condemning others.

The way Locke deals with the Holocaust is important as well. I think in general there's this glossing over of what happened after. After the Allies won. After the concentration camps were liberated. After the Nazi officials were round up. The fact of the matter is, most Nazis were left free without reprimand or punishment. The people who informed on their neighbors or who guarded the ghettoes went on with their lives as if nothing had happened. In Eastern Europe, a lot of concentration camp guards and Nazi officials worked with the secret police in their respective countries. This book acknowledges that and really grapples with what that means for a country and for people personally.

The colorless city was a nice touch too. This is a bit where the magical realism comes into play, since I hadn't really thought Locke meant it literally when she said Budapest had turned gray. But, no, the city and its people have literally been painted in monochrome, with no color peeking through. Does it come from people's passivity or from the active acceptance of violence against others? That question isn't really answered in the book, but I can see it going either way, or both ways. I like that this was sort of left up for interpretation.

They were all important, the people who were disappeared and taken. They were all important to someone.

For the characters themselves, Csilla is definitely the main character. She gets the most POV chapters and most of the story centers around her and her story. Csilla survived the Holocaust, largely thanks to the Danube, which she and her parents jumped into when they were being deported. When the rubble settled, it was just the three of them and her aunt left. At the start of the story, her parents have been dead for four years and it is down to just two. Suffice to say, the crimes of the city have shaped Csilla into the person she is. Someone who is careful and keeps her head down, giving her party lines (literally) and doing her best not to attract more notice than necessary. Csilla essentially becomes another person over the course of this book. She becomes louder and more sure of herself, decides to fight for what she thinks is right and not just for survival. She comes into herself in other ways, too, not just with the revolution, but also with her parents and the legacy her father has left behind. Csilla's story, both past and present, directly ties into the major metaphors of this book, and it's interesting to see how she decides to tackle them. I, for one, very much love revolutionary!Csilla.

Azriel is the other main POV character, though there are a couple others sprinkled in in some places. Azriel is a bit of a mysterious character at first, though it's fairly easy to figure out why, to the point where I'm not sure if it's a spoiler or not, but I won't mention it in case it is. Azriel carries such a heavy burden, but he's also invested in what happens. He has a big heart for those around him and doesn't like to see suffering, though like Csilla, he's also seen plenty of it. His transformation in the book is less intense and involves preparing for what seems like the inevitable while also accepting that there are points where things can change depending on human action. Also, for those wondering where the LBGTQ+ comes in, Azriel is genderfluid or genderqueer, among other things.

Tamas is the final main character, though he doesn't get a POV, likely because he's often with Csilla and Azriel anyway and also likely because he can't be used to tell the same sorts of stories they can. Tamas is, in part, what kicks off this whole revolution and triggers Csilla's need to decide whether to continue on the road she's on or change course. He becomes somewhat of the face and leader of the revolution, being one of the first students to decide to stand up against the Soviets and the regime of terror. Tamas grows over the course of the book from someone who's wary of catching the AVH's eye, even for someone he cares about, to being someone equally happy being diplomatic as he is holding a gun and fighting for his freedoms.

Csilla, Azriel, and Tamas are in a polyamorous relationship, which starts right around the time the revolution begins. Considering the Hungarian Revolution/Uprising began Oct. 23rd and lasted until the beginning of November, the three have really only known each other for maybe three weeks, possibly a month, by the end of the book. While the numbers read like it's instalove, and there is certainly that connection between the three of them from the start, with the intensity of everything that happens in the book and the way war and shared trauma can bond people, it doesn't read or feel like instalove. Csilla, Azriel, and Tamas genuinely read like they care about and want to be with one another, no matter what comes. I'm really glad that Locke went with that triad since it's very clear on-page that there's romantic possibilities between the three main characters and so many authors just brush off what could be a perfectly good polyamorous relationship for a love triangle instead.

Aside from our three main characters, there is also Ilona, Csilla's aunt who survived the war. I liked Ilona for a couple of reasons. For one, she so clearly cares about Csilla. She's willing to do things that she might not otherwise want to do if it weren't for her, and her love also comes through in her worry for Csilla. I also like Ilona because she has some very clear markers of trauma that I liked that Locke explored. With Ilona there is no, 'oh it's over and I'm all good now and ignoring what happened,' instead it's 'that happened and it sucked and I will probably never collect the pieces of myself.'

There is also Zsu, Csilla's friend from her job. Zsu actually came across as pretty annoying to me at first and I kind of preferred their other friend, Aliz, but over the course of the book Zsu grows alongside Csilla and I ended up really liking the person she became. She showed a lot of grit and leadership in the book, and I liked that along with her ingenuity.

Marton is the final major side-character, and he also works with Csilla (are you catching a theme here?). He's a character that grows into the story as events unfold, though he is present from the beginning. Marton ends up having some interesting depths to him and I think his character, too, plays into the metaphors of lies and truths and history.

No one is held responsible. Not for that, not for the crimes that have come after. When are we going to talk about what happened? When are we going to deal in truth and not lies? When will people be held responsible for their choices?

The ending to the book is left open, able to be interpreted in whichever way the reader desires. If you read textually, or if you know the history behind the revolution, then the ending is perhaps obvious. But the fact of the matter is, Locke did create the possibility for more than one ending. I want to believe the positive one, even if the realist in me is pulling me the other way. There is so much hope and so much love, and I think the open ending is really the only way the book could have ended.

[wasteland--chronicles]

The time has come. I finally created my writeblr. So the proper introduction is required, right? Okay, let me mentally prepare myself...

Ahoy!

You can call me Drew, any pronouns. I'm a 22 years old Russian cryptid who studies at uni to be an English and German teacher. I usually write in Russian, but recently I've found writing in English extremely fun. So this blog will be dedicated to my English writings. I think my English is... Okay, but it definitely can be improved, so bare with me!

I've been writing for eight years or so. I love doing it and I think I'm not that bad at writing. However, ADHD, depression and anxiety spice up my life, so sometimes often it makes writing very difficult. I guess this is at least one of the reasons I decided to create this blog.

So what are the main goals of this blog?

To motivate myself to write, obviously!

To share my works and find my audience (hopefully).

To improve as a writer and as an English speaker by checking out different tips and tricks and YOUR wips. I'm in dire need of good examples of English writing.

To post my thoughts about my works, working process and writing in general, post or reblog things that have something to do with my wips or characters, different writing tips and memes, maybe some ask games, you get the point.

Find new writing friends! Because God knows I need some.

Yeah, that's cool and all, but what am I exactly interested in writing and what can i offer you here?

My favourite genres and themes (that I like to both read and write)

Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction;

Dystopian settings;

Cyberpunk;

Robots and artificial intelligence;

Horror, especially Lovecraftian, sci-fi and body-horror, but seriously, horror is my passion;

Religious themes and cults;

Satire on modern society;

LBTQ+ themes;

Good and fair representation of mental illnesses in literature;

Metafiction;

Also I'm a sucker for whump. Yeah.

At the moment I don't have finished works (which I'm ready to show off at least). I have a bunch of wips that exist only in my mind, but I'm working on something at the moment.

Baby Blues is a post-apocalyptic novel, where an incurable disease that kills most of the children at a very young age, ruined the society we all know and probably love. The main characters are two married couples venturing into terrifying and dangerous outside world to reach the semi-mythical Oasis, where the cure is presumably found.

I'm still in the process of planning mostly, and for now it's only written in Russian, but I'm dedicated to translate it in English while writing. I'm really dedicated to this work, so maybe I should create a sweet wip intro for that? Yeah, later, probably.

Sometimes I also try to write something short, usually horror stories. I would like to post them in their entirety here. If I ever finish one, of course.

So. I guess that's it for now. Wow, that was long. I'm definitely looking for writeblrs to follow, so please like/reblog so I can find you (I will follow you from my main though, @certified-wasteland-classic)! You can also come in and say hi!

[ladygrimdark]

what i dont get it why does sj/m try to push the narrative that she is the queen of writing diversity and sex positivity in fiction?? like just accept the fact u only know how to write about toxic cishet white people/relationships and dont know how to write abt poc and lbtq+ ppl and relationships respectfully and accurately. Stop trying to take credit for something you havent done in all of your 1000 page books

[insomniac-dot-ink]

The Breakdown Ch2

genre: supernatural gay ghost story

rated: M

words: 4.2K

summary: What do you get when you combine an urban legend turned real, a psychic hick, and bunch of ghost hunting Yankees? A bad time.

All Kevin Lampton wants to do with his summer is stop The Lady in White from killing anymore road trippers in the middle of nowhere Kentucky. Unfortunately, a group of ghost hunters looking for answers makes his job a lot more complicated.

Chapters: One, Two

Website⭐Ko-Fi ⭐Patreon ⭐ WordPress⭐Twitter

89 More Days

The sun was slowly leaking in through plastic blinds and striping the thin motel carpet with light and half the single bed in the center of the room. It was bare and rustic and cleaned with something quietly made of bleach and something more than bleach. Kevin flopped down on the bed without looking and reminded himself he had homework, milk to throw out, nails to cut, and a haircut to get.

It was sometime in the morning, a summer morning that didn’t need any definition or permission to exist. A time undomesticated by human concepts of time, it was just early and would be early for a while.

Kevin had homework to do.

He fell dreamlessly into deep musty sleep and didn’t wake again for 8 hours.

It was evening again when he blinked into consciousness, groaning and reaching for a half-filled water bottle and his laptop. He rolled onto his back and traced the ‘K’ on the ceiling with his eyes, written in cracks and imagination. He did the math in his head: he’d have approximately five hours of “Kevin-Time” now.

He indulged in several more moments of moping before stacking himself upright like a new game of jenga and unfolding. He forced himself to the shower, letting the lukewarm water work its way into his clenched muscles.

He closed his eyes, but not for long. There were hands in there, hands and eyes and a pale bruised gaze.

He sighed from deep inside himself and staggered to wipe the sleep out of his eyes and stand in front of the mirror. Kevin Lampton was lean, not tall, but the leanness gave the impression of at least a couple more inches of height.

He was springy in the way of wound-up corkscrews, sunburnt in an offhand way and long in a compact sort of way. He had a long face, almond-shaped, and a sloping jawline that was the opposite of the Hollywood box; those were his father’s features: soft and bordering on strange.

His nose was his own but only by way of being small and aligned with his ears.

His eyes were not his own, suspicious things with long dusty eyelashes and shifty movements, always breaking and starting and breaking again.

His teeth belonged to no one and he was lucky they weren’t more crooked, but they still overlapped here and there enough to dispel any wide smiles on his part in school pictures. His hair was the color of damp sand, not yellow, but a grainy brown that was lost to him in the way sand was. It was too long right now. It crept down his neck and hung over his eyes in wavy stiff tufts.

He’d have to get that taken care of, especially before class started again at the end of August. He sighed, August.

He was ready for August.

He gave himself another push and dug out his busted Lenovo computer and a Snickers bar from the back pocket of his other pair of pants. Four and a half hours.

He got to work and munched quietly.

89 more days on Sumpter Road, six more semesters of school, five if he got his shit together, one year at an internship, two years as any sort of underling and then… time spread out before him in a red jagged roadmap and he traced it with his eyes unblinkingly.

He looked back down at his online econ homework and typed as quickly as he could without his laptop limply falling backward in it’s continual over dramatic death throes. Bastard.

Four more hours.

A family pulled into the motel parking lot and he heard a shower turn on from somewhere beside him and rancorous yelling from somewhere above him. He imagined himself in a woody green forest, throwing up thick bark and leafy branches so the tiny waves didn’t hit from either location.

Someone was angry. Someone was having a very successful journey of self-exploration in a grungy motel shower. Kevin wasn’t really interested in either and frowned until the forest grew roots and blocked everything out.

The sun sank down in a bloody red bath outside and Kevin stuffed his pockets with more purified rock salt and packets of lamb's blood. He slipped his expression into something more than “tired and constantly terrified” for his cars sake and went out the door.

89 more monotonous days of trying to not let strangers die on a haunted road.

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

Kevin expected three things: that the elastic of his lucky boxers was probably going to snap soon. He was going to graduate college with full marks or die trying. He was going to meet a lot of strangers on Sumpter Road and then never see them again.

Some of the strangers may or may not piss themselves and it was his job to both stop them from being murdered and graciously look away from the aforementioned soiled pants.

He drove fifteen minutes from the highway motel back toward his night watch. His phone buzzed five times before he flipped it open.

“Hello?” He answered flatly, he was good at flat, he had a lot of practice.

“Kevin, me boy,” A smiling voice addressed him, Kevin glanced at the car visor and back down. “What do you want me to do with your shit?” Kevin twisted his mouth to the side, “Can I get someone to pick it up? I can get someone.” He lied easily and panicked quietly.

“Sure, sure,” Stevie said carelessly, “but you sure you don’t want us to keep it here? It’s only 3 months dude, don’t make us get a new roommate for next semester, I can already tell the Freshman are gonna fucking suck.” Kevin breathed out easily, “I’ll figure something out.” He said, which wasn’t really an answer. “Can’t do the summer though, I’ll get someone to get my things soon.” The ‘someone’ was whoever he could bribe to drive his few personal items from Lexington to his dad’s place in Frankfort.

“God, dude, please tell me you’re at least on some sort of vacation. Like, with a mimosa, a beach, and a girlfriend that isn’t your damn right hand.” Stevie tossed something across the room with a tin sound and gentle crash. Kevin rolled his eyes, “Yeah, she’s a real livewire, way more hands than me.” He said dryly. In fact, she had three more hands than him, five, six, seven sometimes.

“Whatever man, I’m telling you one of these days you’re gonna pop with that stick shoved so far up your stress hole that not eve-” Kevin paused, his eyes went wide, he approached the part of Sumpter road just outside of Reginald. “I have to call you back Stevie.” He cut off whatever new romantic metaphor his roommate was going to plunge into. “Somethings come up.”

“Fine, fine, avoid my damn point. But yeah, come get your shit.” “See you.” Stevie Johnson was a “friend,” but Kevin did not have friends that he couldn’t immediately hang up on. He hung up.

Kevin’s knuckles bleached on the steering wheel; the crickets chorused mockingly around him as he slowed down. The last bits of sun reflected, shiny and angry against the side of something very big and very black. A sore thumb in the dust, the type that wasn’t so much a bruise itself in this place but something about to bruise everything else.

Kevin’s nostrils flared; he wasn’t the type of psychic that could predict the future. He couldn’t pick out numbers from thin air or tell you the description of your true love. He couldn’t sell you your destiny or the identity of your true love for $4.99 a minute. 

He considered himself a pretty shitty psychic, but even he could tell this didn’t mean anything good. There was a big black van.

A big black van sat in the middle of the road, not off to the side, not in the grass, but on the very center ridge. Kevin narrowed his eyes so hard at it that he expected they might just become slitted peak holes. Officially, Sumpter didn’t have two lanes, but that didn’t mean sitting in the very center of it was not an absolute asshole move.

Kevin slowed to a stop in front of it to point out just how much of an asshole move it was. The windows were tinted completely black, the sides faceless, body high off the ground, and something was blinking green on the dashboard.

No, he swallowed thickly and wished he go back to dealing with that hippy couple who were convinced the ghost was an angel trying to contact them. They were babbling about that right up until the Lady on the Road started strangling them.

He would take the car of flower children smelling of skunk and rosemary over this any day.

He had a stare-off with the big black van and didn’t seem to be winning.

He glanced back at the blinking green light on the dashboard and Kevin parked close enough to recognize it as a black box and he had a feeling a little red arrow was on the other side. 

Both the driver and passenger seats were empty, but he could see the occasional movements behind the seats in the back. He knew what this was.

No, Kevin had a sudden sneaking suspicion this was retribution for his last job. He had watched, just watched, in his little visor and bright red shirt as a teenage girl had put ketchup in her milkshake. She put it directly in her milkshake without an ounce of shame. He just stood there and did nothing.

This was what happened to people who didn’t stop crimes, even after saving a considerable number of other drivers from a supernatural death.

He put his forehead on the center of his wheel and sighed, big and gusty and quite frankly one of his more impressive ones.

Maybe he should have expected this. People talked, online forums talked. The devil lived on the “Supernatural and Alien Experiences” reddit boards. Kevin watched the van until the sun succumb to a soft and hematic death on the horizon, and the black box blinked green.

He had found a new least favorite part his self-assigned job.

Kevin finished a burger he bought from a corner shop near his motel and his big gulp filled with shitty coffee he made himself. It tasted like dirt and grit, and he probably deserved that too.

The van looked new.

Kevin took his time checking his pockets, thinking about his homework, his hair, and then getting out of the car. The moon was a low half-coin in the sky, and he couldn’t put this off for any longer.

The night cast long shadows over everything like a paint brush that only knew two colors: silver and grey. Silver light licked up across the grass to the point you forgot they were ever yellow, and Kevin swore he saw more imaginary lightning bugs again.

A rusted white shack sat in the difference with small bent trees dotting the area around them; Kevin put his hands in his back-pockets and approached the big black van. His stomach sank as he saw his own reflection in the shiny surface.

His tank top was now upgraded to grey one instead of white, but his skin was still ruddy with summer heat and expression less than authoritative, mouth pinched and jawline obstinately soft. Throwing lambs blood was easier than this.

He trained his expression into something unflinching and private. He knocked on the side of the slide door with his knuckles and roved his brain for appropriate accompanying sentences. A stillness followed and he knocked again.

“Jesus,” a breathy voice said from within, “is that her?” The van shifted slightly, the sound of footsteps on metal, “Ghosts don’t knock.” Answered a much less breathy voice.

Kevin inhaled deeply, “Can I have a talk with you folks?” His voice sounded small and flat against the flat landscape.

Another thoughtful pause followed.

“Do ghosts usually ask to be let in?” “Smart ones do.” Kevin blew air out of his nose, “I’m not a ghost.” “That’s exactly what a ghost wo-” “Shut up Collie.” The door slid open and a blast of cool air rolled out and Kevin blinked into it for a moment. He looked up from two brown men’s oxford’s and confirmed his own worst fears.

There was a whole slew of wires and blinking lights and screens on the inside of the van. Electronics were stacked and piled and obviously not part of an FBI headquarters- or if it was FBI then the government was in far more trouble than anyone suspected.

Three people were inside. A girl was cross legged, another was stooped over a monitor, and one young man hung over Kevin like a loose bent tree. The whole group was dressed in black t-shirts and black pants, leather belts and heavy boots, a match set. Some sort of massive green goggles held one of the girl’s curly hair back and the young man had thick sunglasses with a similar green sheen to them. At night.

Kevin ran a hand through his hair and tried not to yank it, “Don’t mean to intrude.” He began, just as his grandma would have liked. “But I thought I should pay you a visit.” The three ghost-hunters exchanged a long look between them. The two young women had strikingly similar features, tan skin and darker brown hair tied up in wavy buns. They were both on the short side and had mouse-like noses in Kevin’s opinion.

Their eyes were similarly bright and curious, sisters? He didn’t have time to place it. 

Kevin was trying not to look directly at the young man in his terrible oxfords above him. 

“Well,” the man, boy? spoke first, breaking the silence, “We were just debating on the same thing when we saw you.” Kevin raised his eyebrows, “Oh?”

“That’s you, right man?” The guy pointed to his tiny hatchback and it somehow felt like a slight.

Kevin forced himself to look up, “Yeah.” The young man was broad-shouldered and annoyingly upright, the type of upright money could buy. He had a stretching expanse of neck, square jaw, and his face was easy in all regards. Roman straight nose, mouth that was far too satisfied with itself, and diamond shaped features. 

His hair was carefully curled at the top, a whip cream swirl on a professionally made cafe drink, brown and thick and very obviously never exposed to shampoo that stripped the roots.

Kevin employed a very small and very squiggly frown. The young man smiled, his teeth were straight, boxy, and streak-less, also the type money could buy. “Yeah, you should be careful,” he spoke with a flattened accentless-accent, not from here but from anywhere at all. “This road is haunted.” Kevin refused the temptation to roll his eyes. He cleared his throat instead and began carefully, briefly debating if he should shave off his local accent or soak his vowels in it like making backwoods rum pudding.

“Reckon everyone should stay away from it then,” he said pointedly, “must be dangerous.” He decided on rum pudding. The young man regarded Kevin through green-tinted glasses, unpolite and clearly not playing this game. He smiled with wicked delight, “Who are you?” It was asked in the way someone confirms a surprise purchase or family secret from a gossipy aunt. Unsurprised and yet ever so pleased about it.

Kevin took a deep breath and refused to duck down or look away, “Nobody. Just thought I should warn you as out-of-towners.” 

The young man took the time to squat, a quick and accusatory movement. “And what are you doing here, Nobody Man?” He was poking at something and Kevin thought a bit of lamb’s blood on his cheeks might improve his very smug appearance.

“Woah, woah, have you seen anything?” One of the girls asked, but the young man was still leering over him in a way that made him much more of a priority.

“Trying to stop anyone from getting hurt,” he said truthfully, “You should get out of here before,” he coughed into his hand, “Anything.” He didn’t need to give them any hints. The young man’s smile widened like a length of rope a magician kept pulling out of his sleeve. There just seemed to be more and more. “My name is Nathan Calvin,” he put his hand out to shake, “Those are the Alvarez sisters.” One of the sisters gave in a slight salute and the other one turned to him with an unhappy eyebrow twitch.

“How would you like to come up here, Nobody Man?” Nathan Calvin’s hand was still dangling in front of him, “You’re letting the cold air out here man and you came over to talk, right?”

The snake was wiggling its way in front of him in a very slick dance that meant very little to him.

Kevin hunched slightly, “I think it would be better if you considered hurrying on,” he gestured up the road, “this isn’t really a populated area. The highway is that way. And the nearest hospital is even further.” He stated without inflection. Nathan Calvin retracted his hand, but he didn’t seem any less pleased. “Come on up, come chat with us.” He boomed, “I’ll make it worth your while.” Kevin shoved his hand through his hair again, tired of this. “This isn’t the type of ghost you want to hunt.” You’re making my job harder.

Nathan cheered, “Somebody knows things!” He sang with a laugh, “what about some beer for your troubles? Money? Heck, Diana might give you kiss.” “That would take more beer than even you can afford Nathan.” Diana, the sharp-looking sister, said without looking up.

“Alright,” he chuckled, “no kisses, but I don’t think that’s what you’re here for anyway.” Kevin elegantly rolled his eyes this time, “If I talk to you will you leave?” Nathan Calvin just kept smiling. Kevin closed his eyes for a moment and then slipped his phone out to look at the time, 10:10.

“You have thirty minutes.” He climbed into the stupid shiny black van, “And then I’m escorting you out of here.”

Idiots.

They move aside and close the door behind him.

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

Belly of the Beast

Kevin was regularly uncomfortable- it was more of the jacket he wore for the possibility of rain and forgot to take off. His discomfort spiked as the light of the summer moon cut off as they shut the door, a pulled plug plunging him into a cavern of beeps and blinking things.

The sisters were curious, the boy was anticipatory, none of them were afraid in the slightest. Idiots.

Nathan Calvin took a seat cross-legged next to one of the sisters and patted the floor of the van in invitation. “Tell me your thoughts!” He yelled far too loudly in the echoey dark van.

Kevin narrowed his eyes at him, “Ghosts. Danger. Dying.” The boy laughed in answer. “Somebody take notes ladies.” One of the sisters, the one with the goggles looked up. “Have you seen her kill anyone?” Kevin’s frown became a tightening black hole on his face. Nathan put a hand up, “Hey now Collie,” he stopped her, “Let’s start with the small stuff.” He tilted his chin up, “Has she ever tried to kill you?” Collie, the goggles sister, was taking notes now. “No.” Kevin said truthfully, “But she will go after you,” he looked up at the ceiling, “It’s harder the more people there are.” Idiots.

Kevin discerned the groups feelings, not the fresh ones, but the dangling roots that burrowed deep and colored their every movement. There was a shimmering veil of glittering silver and gold guarding them. It was thick and glorious, their mothers had no doubt swaddled them in it from birth and let them walk out into the world armored, invincible, and foolish. It was the type money could buy. Nathan Calvin threw his arms in the arm, “Elaborate!” He was enjoying himself like a polo-shirted boy at a private swimming pool that was already two margarita's in.

“You’re making my job harder.” Kevin only had so much room in himself for elusiveness, “I’m trying to help, what will it take to leave this road, money? Beer?” He turned Nathan’s words on him brashly, “I’m sure we could find someone to kiss you.” Nathan Calvin became somehow more delighted.

The other sister, goggle-less, tilted her chin up proudly, “We’re prepared,” she said simply, “Though this is a nice confirmation that she’s really here.” Alright, well maybe it’s time to leave them to their fate, he could use some more sleep and less animal blood on his hands. Haircut, milk, homework.

He closed his eyes for a moment and let the fantasy wash over him- the one where he left here and sank into a nice long nap. Then he opened his eyes again, “Tell you what,” he spread out his own smile, more brittle, less careless, but fireproof all the same. “I’ll tell you everything I know, we could do it over a burger, there’s a 24-hour diner at least fifteen minutes away.” It was more like thirty, but they didn’t need to know that.

Nathan Calvin drenched his smile in lighter fluid, “When does she usually show up?” 

Kevin clenched his hands by his side and narrowed his eyes, “When your guard is down.” “Our guard won’t be down,” said the stony-faced sister.

“We could let it down,” Nathan Calvin contributed and for all of his easy smiles he was very difficult.

Kevin blew air out of his nose, “Fine.” He sat down heavily on the floor, “Damn yankees.” He muttered that last part to himself. Nathan leaned back, “you’re local then, right?” “Do you like, protect this road?” Collie asked quickly. “You’re not dead, right?” “We’d know if he was dead.” “Speak for yourself,” Collie waved a hand dismissively at her sister.

“How’d you find her?” Nathan asked next.

“And what should we expect?” The other Alvarez sister wasn’t looking directly at him, but she was looking all around the van anyway, alert. Alert was something at least.

Kevin waved a hand in front of his face; they were lucky Kevin didn’t only save people that he liked. Kevin growled, “I’m sure she’ll be here and answer your questions.” “Does she talk?” The goggles sister, Collie, buzzed. She had a heart-shaped face, soft round cheeks, and an exceptionally soft mouth; Kevin looked away. “That would be perfect.”

“No, no talking. And I’m Kevin,” he finally said. “Who are you?”

“She doesn’t talk?” The alert sister noted.

“What else does she do?” “Tries to murder you,” Kevin responded tartly.

Nathan shifted, putting his arms on his cross knees and leaning forward, “but not you.” Kevin looked up at the ceiling, “look, I don’t know what y’all are doing here but-” “Isn’t that obvious?” The alert sister said, who he was also now classifying as the ‘Mean Sister.’ “-but this isn’t a joyride,” he finished bitterly, “I don’t want anyone getting hurt on my watch.” He looked down at his phone clock, 10:31. It’s still early, he reminded himself with even breaths. “On your watch?” Nathan repeated his words with relish, “God, look at this Diana,” he looked back to Alert Mean sister, Diana. “And Misty said this would be a bust.” He laughed.

Collie crawled closer to Kevin, “What’s up then? Are you not a ghost hunter too? You’re just like, a grumpy guy on this road?” Kevin pinched his brow together, “No.” He said ruefully, “I’m not a ghost hunter.” Nathan stretched his long neck back, “This is going to be fucking amazing. Anything on the instruments, Di?” Diana checked the instruments, she rose one eyebrow and shook her head curtly.

“Do you want to die?” Kevin burst out, sitting up straight and trying to hold their leader’s gaze through his tinted sunglasses.

Nathan chuckled, “Tell me,” he clucked, “What do you do with this ghost then, Nobody Man?” Kevin groaned, he felt like he was having several conversations at once and no conversations at all. “Kevin.” Was all he said, a stony tone that hung in the air long enough to settle into burnt quiet.

“Well, I’m Colleen Alvarez. You can call me Collie,” Collie broke the silence, “That’s my sister Diana.” “Older,” Diana added as if to explain something. “Right, I’m Nathan and you can call me Nathan.”

“I know. You said,” Kevin glared at all of them, “and have you all ever met a ghost before, ghost hunters?” Nathan and the Alvarez sisters all exchanged a poignant look. And then something started beeping.

Diana turned on her heel, “The EMF is picking up on something.”

“Woah!” Collie chirped as well. “The digital thermometer is shitting itself.” The temperature in the van rapidly sank.

Kevin ignored them and checked his clock, 10:37, she was early, but ghosts were rarely reliable. “Shit.”

The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end and a growl rumbled through the small space like a rolling thunder storm.

Here she came.

<===== Previous Chapter                                                   Next Chapter =====>

————–

Hey! Being a writer is a tough business and I could use some help so if you enjoyed the story please consider donating to my ko-fi or subscribing to my website or patreon

[theblerdgurl]

#Repost @theradicalgeeks with @get_repost ・・・ MARK YOUR CALENDARS! Our next @thereadicalgeeks podcast LIVE recording will be at @anyonecomics on Sept. 26 at 6:30pm. Hosts @a_gelique and @theblerdgurl will be joined by scifi writer Carlos Hernandez @writeteachplay 👇🏾 Carlos Hernandez is the author of over 30 works of speculative fiction, poetry, and drama. His critically acclaimed collection of short stories,The Assimilated Cuban's Guide to Quantum Santeria, was published in 2016. Carlos is an associate professor of English of the City University of New York and is both a game designer and enthusiast. Catch his short fiction on episode 30 of the LeVar Burton Reads podcast, and pre-order his new novel for middle-school readers, Sal and Gabi Break the Universe, out March of 2019 by the Rick Riordan Presents imprint of Disney Hyperion. Cost of admission is $10 but you'll get a discount if you buy a comic in the store that day. And as always, everyone gets a free gift! . . . #theradicalgeeks #carloshernandez #theblerdgurl #angeliqueroche #comics #sciencefiction #author #podcast #latinx #latinauthors #hispanicheritagemonth #graphicnovels #podcasts #geek #nerd #blerd #womenincomics #writing #representationmatters #lbtq https://ift.tt/2MmphAv

[littleredchucks]

Do you ever just wish there was a queer bookstore even remotely in your local area? Like, in the same city? I’d call mine ‘Love is love is love is Books’ and I’d fill it with books on queer theory and our history, as well as every LBTQ+ focused fiction I could find. And I wouldn’t be able to realistically have a cafe in there but I’d have a little nook called the PANtry with tea and coffee making facilities and a small selection of cakes or biscuits. And the whole thing would be wheelchair friendly, obviously, and there’d be a kids section and a teen section because being something other than straight doesn’t make you R rated. And it’s not going to happen because of money and time, the usual things, but it’d be nice.

[liliesanthology]

illustration by @appleatti

Calling comic artists for Lilies Volume Five: Tiger Lily!

Lilies is an anthology of LBTQ women’s romance comics seeking submissions from comic artists for its 5th volume. Here’s what you need to know!

Volume Five’s theme is Self Love! Comics and illustrations submitted for Lilies Volume 5 should feature women in stories about self love, self-acceptance, self-confidence, and self-discovery. These stories can be about people standing up for themselves or finding themselves within their existing relationships, in their pursuit of a desired relationship, or outside of a relationship entirely—we would love to see artists exploring the romance of solitude, and the moments of joy and self-development we can find in total privacy.

Whether the story you choose to tell is about fictional characters or autobiographical, we encourage artists to draw inspiration from their own life experiences. We are open-submission and choose from among finished stories. Create your original work for Lilies and send it to us in its finished form, and we’ll decide which of the submissions we receive will be included in the final volume. Even unpublished works may be reblogged to the official Lilies tumblr! The submission deadline is February 14th, 2018 (Valentine’s Day). Feel the love and send us your finished comics by 11:59PM PST (UTC-08:00) on February 14th, 2018!

How to submit: We’ve written up a detailed submission instruction sheet here, which includes necessary file templates and forms. You can also read our more in-depth FAQ here.

We are also seeking artists to help us create countdown images for Volume 5! Email us if you’re interested.

Tumblr ✿ Twitter ✿ Gumroad ✿ Instagram  ✿Lulu

[bocher-daniel]

Game of Boys

Eine Kritik der New York Times verriss 2011 die Serie GAME OF THRONES als „Boy fiction“. Die Serie sei übersexualisiert und zeige meist nur nackte Frauen – was sogar stimmt für den Piloten und weitere Szenen im Verlauf der 8 Staffeln. Dieses Image konnte nie ganz abgelegt werden obwohl auch viel männliches Fleisch gezeigt wurde, starke Frauenfiguren die Serie zunehmend bestimmten und der Satz „Valar morghulis“ (Übersetzung: „all man must die“) geprägt wurde.

Der Mythos kann aber mit Zahlen schnell beigelegt werden, denn von den 4,8 Millionen Zuschauern pro Woche in der dritten Staffel sind 2 Millionen weiblich. Zwar sind die männlichen Zuschauer mit 58 Prozent in der Mehrheit, doch im Vergleich zu anderen Shows wie BREAKING BAD (36 % Weiblich) sind die Werte deutlich besser.

Auch in meinen Daten zeigt sich das zumindestens die Fan-Screentouristen nicht hauptsächlich Männer sind. Es ist ein wilder Mix aus Männern, Frauen, LBTQ*-Menschen aus allen Herren Ländern. Die Fans von GAME OF THRONES sind so bunt wie die Herkunft der Charackteren in den Büchern und der Serie.

[nerobombs]

Writing Oppression

(Want more? Check out my Writing tag!)

Hope you’re not sick of the Stormblood-induced rants yet, because here’s another one.

I’m sure there’s many Domans, Xaela, and Ala Mhigans getting ready to get back at those darn Garleans and settle into their newly liberated homes. So I’m sure a lot of the player stories that come out of Stormblood will be surrounding that: themes of oppression, of returning home with new experiences, the idea of institutionalised power and how it can be wielded, and so on.

Well, maybe, anyway.

To preface this, my demographic is not what you might call “disenfranchised”. None of the places I’ve lived in or visited are particularly rife with genuine oppression--which I suspect will change when my North Korean visa finally gets approved and America hits its third year of a Cheeto Benito presidency (ooh, spicy political commentary!)--so I’ll admit that I’m approaching this topic more in theory and from logical examination than from experience. 

I’ve definitely consumed media wherein oppression is depicted however, and more often than not such things end up depicted more cartoonishly than anything else. You know, really weird and unintuitive racial slurs, mustache-twirling commissars, goose stepping secret police, and so on. 

I’d like to avoid that. Oppression in fiction can be a fascinating topic and an environment that provides for a lot of intrigue.

And if you’re worried that this post is going to contain some ol’ SJW bullshit then, well, it’s not.

So if you’re looking to approach the topic of Garlemald’s occupation in your storyline, you may want to read further.

1). Internalisation is a genuine factor to consider.

In short, when you get told something often enough, you’ll probably start believing it regardless of whether or not you cognitively recognise it as false.

For a historical example, a “colonial mentality” is a form of internalised oppression where the colonised people feel themselves to be inferior to their imperialist colonisers. The nuances are complex--thoughts can range from “Well they managed to take over half the world and we didn’t so we must be worse people” or “our economy is so much better now with our new overlords”, and so on--but the principle is relatively simple. This sort of thing happened a lot with the spread of the Spanish Empire and the rule of the conquistadors, particularly with places like the Philippines.

It happens a lot in marketing too: women are told they’re not thin and beautiful enough, men are told they’re not manly and successful enough, and both of these things lead to self-esteem issues. Same mechanism, for the most part.

Weirdly enough, this is something I almost never see portrayed in fiction with oppressed societies. It’s a kind of society-level Stockholm Syndrome. Certainly there will be Domans or Ala Mhigans or Xaela who truly believe that they are inferior to Garleans and that Garlemald is something to aspire to, and breaking such an internalisation takes a lot of work, simply because the information is everywhere.

So when you’re considering why oppressed citizenry might side with their oppressors, consider internalisation. Consider the effect of seeing and hearing “Be grateful to your conquerors for they are better and wiser” day in, day out.

2). Bigotry and intelligence are not mutually exclusive.

Or to put it another way: people can genuinely believe racist shit regardless of their status, upbringing, or intellect.

Let’s write a character, Garlic McGarlemald the Garlean. For all intents and purposes he is kind, fair, and intelligent. He’s a university professor, donates to the poor, loves his wife and children, and also sincerely believes that all Xaela are savage horsefuckers who cut off their enemy’s heads in order to consume their soul.

Wait, what?

One of the pitfalls of writing an oppressive or racist society is the depiction. A lot of these stories depict all oppressive racists as universally dumb, drooling ignoramuses who spend all day teaching their children to play “Lynch the Minority” and “Spell the Slur”. And, well, okay, there are certainly people like that. 

But in a truly oppressive society, the dumb racists are not the dangerous ones: the really dangerous ones are people like Garlic McGarlemald who is, for the most part, an ordinary person perfectly capable of critical thinking, yet still inexplicably believes in this shit for reasons no party can really rationalise.

And if that doesn’t seem logical in the slightest, it’s not. But it’s certainly realistic.

People do actually believe in stuff like that. You had scientists in the 19th century seeking “natural, evolutionary” reasons as to why other races were inferior to whites. You had logicians, biologists, and anthropologists huddling around and wondering why whites were so much awesome-er than all those other dirtfarmer races. It was something that was just believed. Maybe it was because it was a cultural cornerstone or it was merely a result of internalisation, but people who by all rights could be considered intelligent and capable believed that stuff.

And while we’re on the subject...

“But my bigot character doesn’t really believe in that stuff, of course he’s smart enough to know that’s all bollocks,” you might say. Garlic McGarlemald is just under social pressure to pretend he believes this stuff, that’s all!

Well, that’s not really valid. For one, from a writing perspective, that kind of argument is a total cop-out; it’s a lazy way to keep your character “clean” for fear of being controversial. For two, lip service has absolutely zero value in this context: unless Garlic McGarlemald is actually willing to take action, he’s still a bigot. A passive and well-meaning bigot, perhaps, but still a bigot. Not only is he a bigot, but he is a hypocrite too, because he refuses to jeopardise the racist and bigoted system that he himself benefits from. 

And this is where the “with us or against us” mentality sort of comes from: if your character is part of the oppressors, then he/she is an oppressor unless they’re actively working against it. Being passively racist is still racist, so sayeth the oppressed, because institutionalised power is still power.

3). Prejudice can have layers.

Consider the “double jeopardy hypothesis” which proposes that, for example, a Asian-American woman is not only subject to racism and sexism, but to the combined effects of both simultaneously. And if she falls into the LBTQ camp (or however many letters that camp seems to have these days), then she’s going through triple jeopardy because heterosexism piles on like a big smelly heterosexist frog.

I say that it’s a hypothesis (and from a scientific standpoint it still is) but this isn’t particularly beyond the stretch of logic.

Let’s say your Xaela meets Garlic McGarlemald. Now obviously, Garlic McGarlemald hates your Xaela. But he doesn’t hate your Xaela just because your Xaela is a Xaela: Mr. Garlic hates your Xaela because they talk funny, dress in rags, have a weird pagan religion and because they’re bisexual. 

Would Garlic McGarlemald hate a Garlean who was the same thing? Well, we don’t know. But the point I’m trying to make here is that an oppressive society will use everything, and I mean everything it can weaponise against the people they’re trying to oppress.

To go further, Garleans might dislike that Domans speak a weird language, they also hate Domans because they eat raw fish (barbarians!), force their children to kneel on bamboo mats (monsters!), and refuse to export Mother 3 to the United States, in addition to taking eight years to finish a new Persona game (complete heathens, I say!). 

See what I mean?

 4). People who belong to the oppressor group can have nice qualities.

If you’ll harken back to my intro paragraph, I don’t like it when oppressors are depicted as universally revolting mustache-twirling Nazis with no redeeming qualities.

Like I said, Garlic McGarlemald can be considered a nice guy, excepting the racism. People who are among the oppressors in an oppressive society aren’t universally bad. After all, for a lot of them it’s not particularly their fault that they were raised in a society that encouraged such bigotry. And internalisation happens with things like racism too: even when they become educated, they seek new reasons to justify their bigotry because it’s all they were raised to know. 

There is a nauseating amount of self-righteousness that comes with depicting all racists and bigots as unrepentant monsters who hit so many branches of the stupid tree that they’re in danger of accidentally swallowing their own extra chromosome. 

So don’t do that. If you’re going to write your oppressors, at least write some of them as mostly well-meaning.

5). Avoid tokenism.

Or, to put it in a more wordy way: either judge every group within your story as a group, or judge every group within your story as individuals.

Let’s say that Garlic McGarlemald is actually not a nice man, and he drinks alcohol and beats his wife.

Edgy, isn’t it?

Now, when being written by a not-so-good writer, Garlic McGarlemald won’t place any stigma upon his group, because he is part of the oppressive Garleans. It’s not that all Garleans are drunken wifebeaters, it’s just that Garlic McGarlemald specifically has that problem.

Meanwhile, Xaela Xaelason accidentally trips and breaks a bottle, therefore all Xaela are clumsy!

No. That can’t fly. And the reason why that can’t fly is because it very quickly descends into becoming preachy.

This happens a lot with poorly written fantasy novels: there is a single named character who is gay or has dark skin, and that single character ends up representing the author’s entire views on gays or black people.

So when you’re writing something like an oppressive society, multiple characters are important. You have to be willing to do the work to portray each side--oppressors and the oppressed--as having complex people who aren’t easily categorised. 

Don’t insert a Token Doman or a Token Good Garlean or a Token Evil Xaela and then use that character to make blanket statements within your story. Because that’s just lazy writing.

6). Oppression is hard to escape.

Whether you’re one of the oppressors attempting to open your worldview or you’re one of the oppressed trying not to fall down the same slippery slope, oppression isn’t an easy thing to “win” against.

There’s no magic argument or book that suddenly allows one to instantly widen their acceptance of race, religion, language, sex, sexual orientation, etc. Similarly, there is no Garden of Eden free of prejudice.

If you’re planning to tackle oppression as a theme, be prepared to be conscious of it, for as long as the theme is relevant. You can’t have Xaela Xaelason make it to the land of his people and decide that Prejudice Doesn’t Exist. No, Xaela Xaelason would be judged based on the fact that he was born in a city and doesn’t know any Xaela customs or traditions. He’d be judged for not staunchly supporting the tribal religion. He’s among other Xaela, and there will be prejudice there, too.

It’s a double-sided magnet, and it has some powerful pull. Be aware of that.

[smackmellon]

Yehaw: Call for Indigenous Writing and Art Submissions

Application Deadline:

February 1, 2019

Eligibility

This call is open to all Indigenous people living in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Alaska, and British Columbia. This includes residents of those states belonging to Native communities outside of the Pacific Northwest, and outside of what is currently the United States. Everyone is encouraged to participate regardless of age, professional experience, media, or tribal affiliation.

About this Opportunity

Attention, all Indigenous writers and artists! As part of yəhaw̓, a very special literary and arts zine is being published – both online and a limited print run – in early 2019 to showcase and celebrate Indigenous voice, presence, continuance, and the remarkable generativity of Indigenous writers working across genres in sacred Salish territories. Visual artists are also warmly encouraged to submit work for publication in the zine. Associated readings and events will also feature yəhaw̓ zine writers and artists at Bellevue College and South Puget Sound Community College in early 2019.

We are now accepting submissions for the zine and welcome all current yəhaw̓ artists to submit as well as other Indigenous creatives across the Pacific Northwest. There is no set theme for this publication, but we encourage submitters to consider the Lifting the Sky story and overall yəhaw̓ project values when selecting work. Submissions of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, visual art, experimental work, and hybrids are all welcome. Submissions which include or are written in tribal languages, and submissions from Indigenous youth, women, Two Spirit/LBTQ writers and artists, and writers/artists with disabilities are particularly welcome. Work previously submitted to other publications is welcome. Regardless of genre or form, each submission should fit approximately on one page or a two page spread maximum - the zine will be risograph printed on 8.5 x 11 inch paper folded in half for an overall book size of 8.5 by 5.5 inches. All submissions received by February 1 will be considered. Selected contributors will receive a $75 honorarium and a free copy of the publication.

The publication will be edited by Acoma Pueblo writer Sara Marie Ortiz.

For more information, visit: https://yehawshow.com/zine/

[insomniac-dot-ink]

Believer

genre: sci-fi, wlw

words: 20k

summary: On an ice planet where the sun only rises every four years two girls try to make the long climb to see it. Something always seems to get in the way, but they grow closer as their wish for far-off stars seems farther away.

READ ON MY WEBSITE

please like and leave comments there! 😃

[insomniac-dot-ink]

The Maiden and the Bog Hag

Genre: fantasy, mythology, wlw

Words: 7k

Summary: A maiden betrothed to the crown prince frequents a bridge that a bog hag lives under

they begin to chat

WordPress ⭐Ko-Fi ⭐Patreon

warning: for injury and some disturbing imagery

-

I was a little over 400 years when she arrived. Young for the ages, old for what I used to be.

I felt the vibrations before I saw her: dainty feet, an uneven tilt to her steps, sloppy, like pancakes hitting the hot skillet and scattering. I bet my last five teeth that she was a late-walker, late to crawl, late to lumber across my path.

My lips curl back and I grin wildly, not like something like that would matter after this.

She takes five steps across the wooden planks, barefoot, like she was tempting me with a prayer, then stops. I wait for another minute for those prime pale ankles to come within my reach, but she just stands there.

I peak quietly out of the hole and scowl when I saw a head sticking down over the edge of the railing. Rivers of lank blonde hair cascade toward the water, a small face, frowning slightly, nose wrinkled and eyes sharp- like needle points or homing beacons.

They were pale green eyes under expressive eyebrows, thick and rounded for her small face.

Her mouth quirked to the side and her nose was too big for her small features, I snort loudly. She was wickedly beautiful, I would eat her now if she wasn’t looking at me with the directness only arrogance can summon.

I present my darkened teeth to her, spreading my long thin fingers out and leaning into the dim light, the muddy water parts around me.

“Well, well, well,” I flex my fingers and make the ripples dance, “they really do serve themselves up on a platter these days.” I lick my lips rapaciously.

The young woman just makes her hair flutter as she tilts her head, still observing me upside down. “I don’t think so.” She finally says and then flashes me her fine fingers, chubby and small to match her figure. One golden rose ring shines from her pointer finger, I hiss.

“Royal brat.” She shrugs and finally stands up to peer down at me, “come out.” I scowl, “you may have immunity, but I don’t take orders. You are all temporary,” I squat down into the sludge and pout, “I am the trees and wind. You will pass, I will not.” “Yeah, yeah,” she flicks her wrist, “I just wanna see.” I slit my eyes, “what the inside of my belly looks like? I’d be happy to accomodate.” She could only be around 18, young, blithe, angry about something I couldn’t guess at.

She cushions her chin on her folded arms and blinks down, “I wish I looked like you.” I make a face, more of one than usual, “The little girl wants the devil under her skin. How special.” The girl rolls her eyes in a magnificent circle, “I’m not little.” She says loudly, “and you know what I mean.” I am overtaken with a strange puzzlement with the girl, “what’s your name little bird?” She scowls, “Not. Little.” She repeats, “I’m almost 20 and I’m not dumb enough to give my name to a witch.” I shrug, “it seemed like you were.” “Ugh,” she leans over the railing, “I wish all I had to do was sit under a bridge and tease strangers. And my mom says I’m the ungrateful one.” “Tease and then eat them,” I say in a exasperated tone, “you’re leaving out the most important part. The fun one.”

She hums lowly, “what do people taste like?” I smack my lips together, “like juicy juicy pig meat, but more tender.” She laughs with a rich tin sound, “liar.” I frown at her, “don’t you have places to be? You are a royal.” She scrunches her face up and pushes her loose blonde hair back, “Why do you think I’m here? I’m trying not to have things to do.” I look her up and down, “I don’t remember being invited to the birth of such a brat. Is that Hessia family spurning me again?” She sighs loudly, “Nah.” The girl reaches into her pocket and shines another ring in my direction, “I’m not from here.” “Ah,” I mull that over for a second, “it’s good thing they already extended their immunity to you. Just remember to invite me to the wedding or I’ll-” “Or you’ll unleash the gale force winds and raise the water and curse our children. I’ve heard.”

My eyebrows buckle inward into a grimace, “do they not have manners where you’re from,” I ask mildly, “or are you simply in the mood to push your luck?” I wander further out of my tunnel, feeling the pale sun bathe my earthy hair, covered in twigs and dirt and the wiggling life of one bird pecking for earthworms.

I can feel the girl stiffen as she examines me, taking in the puffy green skin and wrecked knuckles, parched mouth, the hunch of my back and long mud-caked gown. I smile so wide I think I might crack my face in half.

She places her chin on her arms again, “I’m not here to have manners.” She says in a small voice, “you don’t have any, as I can tell. Why should I?” She sighs, “what’s this bargain with the devil again?” I shake my head, “too high a price.” I’m not sure if I say that part aloud or not. I turn my chin upward, eyes glowing ember yellow and long nose catching the light. I am now fully exposed in the swampy waters, “Are you sure you still want to look like me then lovely bird?” She raises her eyebrows, “Oh yes,” she says simply, “who wouldn’t?” She turns around, “Prince Jace will probably send out the dogs if I am gone any longer, but,” she pushes her hair aside and looks over her shoulder, “I’m Tuck.” “Tuck,” I roll the name around my tongue and try to consume the vowels and suck the life out of the rolling sound. I frown.

“Not my real name, obviously,” she says with a smirk, “but everyone calls me that. Or used to.” She shrugs again.

I’m still gnashing on something I can’t quit chew, “fascinating. Of course,” I give her a flat look, “Tuck.” She waves, “they told me there was a powerful Bog Hag in these parts,” she examines me, “it was nice to meet you.”

Now she has manners.

The strange girl turns around and starts walking. I grin after her and imagine sinking my teeth around her pale throat, letting the red droplets spill out and color my muddy brown waters. I blink a couple times and then grumble about the royals. They could always do more to me, apparently including being nuisances.

Tuck’s unsteady footsteps disappear without a trace and I close my eyes to sink into the warm earth again.

I was around 400 at the time, young for the steady trees and arching rivers, old for what I used to be.

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

“On a scale of one to ten, how clever do you actually find fairies?” Tuck was sitting on the edge of the water, skirt tucked under her and feet narrowly close to the lapping pond in front of her.

I want to sigh in exasperation, “go home little birdie,” I wave my hand in the air, “your presence isn’t requested here.” She hums loudly and glances up, “that isn’t even a proper answer. Are centaurs truly as health-obsessed as they say? My uncle met one and he said all the poor fellow could talk about is his kneecaps and the next plague. A right hypochondriac.” My left eyebrow twitches, “why don’t you go ask one?” Tuck leans her head up and looks up toward the dappled sunlight, “does it looks like I know many mythics?” She says loudly, “I’m asking you.”

I glower over at her, “you must have books.” I sneer, “rooms full of them I hear, houses full.” Tuck crosses her arms over her chest and frowns slightly, “and what would the court say? That’s what Matilda would remind me. The future queen burying herself in otherworldly material.” Tuck sighs noisily, “I would never get away with it.” “But you get away with conversing with a bog hag?” I remind her pointedly, mostly so I could return to my hunting. “How progressive.” She cracks an almost-smile, “oh yes, they call it a glorious new diplomatic mission.” She lifts her chin up, “for only the foreign queen of course. Taking up friendship with the local terrors.”

I hum loudly, “I take it they think you’re out riding.” She doesn’t look back at me, “they think I’m out weeping.” She takes a deep breath in and glances over at me, “a Kiliok tradition before a wedding.”

“Kiliok,” I roll that word around in my mouth, “A northern Queen, very well.” She doesn’t so much as nod as keep staring, “do you know of us?” I shrug, destabilizing clumps of dirt that roll down my shoulder tops, “I know of many things.” That same smile ghosts over her lips again, “cool.” I shake my head and my eyes pour of the warm waters, “you know, perhaps you are safe from me eating you, but there are other scarier things in this forest.” I hit her with a hard look, “it’s old. And the earth here is not as kind as me.” She looks nonplussed, “scarier than you?” She grins boldly, “I highly doubt it.” I huff shortly, “perhaps you should act like it.” I say hotly, “and leave. That’s what you do when you’re scared if you’d like to know.” “So touchy!” Tuck says boisterously, “it almost sounds like you like to be alone.” She winks and I feel for the nearest large fish.

“How did you guess?” I say in a flat tone and she laughs.

“Go on,” she says cheerily, “catch something.” My lips curl back again, “you’re already here.” “Oh come now, we already had this out.” She curls her legs up into her chest, reminding me of a child or a cat. “I want to be you and you want to eat me, neither of us can have what we want.” I give her one last placid look before plunging my hand into the water, my long nails pierce the fish before it can even twitch. It was larger, the largest one I had in months, I smile greedily.

I wrench the catfish from the waters and holding it’s flopping body in my hands, “watch carefully young queen,” my eyes gleam, “you may learn something.” I dig my teeth into it’s moist flesh and wait for it to stop squirming, tearing at it’s soft meat.

“Cool,” is the last soft word I hear before I dig in, I would be rolling my eyes all over again if I wasn’t preoccupied.

Tuck is still there when I finish, and asks me how I find Roc’s- were they slightly above dog intelligence or was it true you could hold a conversation with one? I try to fade back into the muddy waters and we bicker about which weather God’s were the most superior.

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

“I don’t suppose you ever leave this place.” I come to expect her weekly visit, I don’t turn around this time when she approaches.

“Not like you do princess,” I say soberly as I ooze my way back towards the mid-day sun, she always comes at mid-day.

“Ha, right.” She says with a slight grunt as she takes her usual seat by my waters. “You could go wherever you please though.” I raise my eyebrows, a stick falls down and bumps my cheek before making a silent ploop into the water. I trace patterns in the algae in front of me, “And where would I go?” Tuck makes a soft sound, “I dunno, another swamp? Triste? The coasts? You must have hobbies.” I fix her with an even look, “Between you and the fisherman I’m afraid I have no time for hobbies.” I say lightly and she lets out her little snorting laugh.

“I’m serious.” I shake my head, “I’m as bound to this swamp as you are bound to the land instead of sky.” I say slowly, “it’s how it is.” She just nods a little sardonically, “finally, straight answers.” I sigh loudly, “have you come to quiz me again about dwarven bathing habits?” She just smiles with a little shrug, “that and, unfortunately, it seems Jace will have me do all the work for him.” “The Hessia’s usually do,” I peer down at my long nails, “what is it?” Her large green eyes hold me for a second, “Are you free next friday?” I have the decency to grin widely, “let me check my calendar.”

Tuck returns the wicked smile, “I was told it was best to invite the local powerful mythics,” she winks, “wouldn’t want to snub anyone.” “After all the other visits?” I grumble, “I wouldn’t mind being snubbed at this point.” “Come now,” she says lightly, “Scare a few nobles, get a free meal, remind the world that’s it’s mortal and weak and easily eaten by strange green ladies. You must like being invited to these things for a reason.”

“It’s a matter of honor,” I say with pointed enunciation, “respect.”

She examines you again, “I see.” “No you don’t.” I snap back and she laughs once more.

“Always so prickly!” She tuts, “you’re lucky I like you or I wouldn’t invite you to my wedding.” “You just like oddities,” I say in a nasally voice, “bored nobles like yourself so easily lose their common sense,” I eye her, “but I’ll come.” I smile widely, “I do like to see the children’s faces when I arrive.” “That’s the spirit,” she beams. “Now,” she settles down, “do you think the God’s of night are better lovers than those of the sun? I’ve heard rumors going both ways.” “Of course the moon ones are better,” I say as I settle down deep into the silt of the pond bed, my head exposed, “the sun God’s are more self-centered than a Nymph discovering her complexion…” I wished so desperately for Tuck to leave, but I never was good at giving into myself either.

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

The day came, a sunny Friday in spring when all the flowers were in bloom, there were very few flowers by my bridge but I felt them. On the air, rejoicing in the soil, pecked by the distant din of birds that feared the dark woods.

I dragged myself up and ate, spending two days gorging and fuelling myself for the journey, casting protective circles around my limbs and throat. I even cake more mud into my hair and fashion branches into crooked wings off my hunched shoulders.

A bog hag had to play her part after all, show them what eternity looks like.

The actual exit is long and unnerving, the familiar suck of my life force, the shuddering of every nerve in my body. I heft myself slowly out of the water, groaning slightly like an oak tree against a typhoon.

The last push is always the hardest.

Solid ground is a cold kick to the teeth and I am very glad no one wanders the edges of my bog for any particular reason. I take several deep wincing breaths and straighten myself out.

“Alright,” I say calmly, “yes.” I summon my strength back to me with several dark heaving breaths and the color returns to my cheeks, it would be easy after that. I do not walk the streets, that would in many ways ruin the effect.

I arrive at the palace gates as a shadow and summon the northern winds to blow open the doors. The first set of people jerk toward me at the banging of the wood and whoosh of the breeze.

I spread my arms out wide and raise myself up high, “good morning.”

I take in the children’s face first, oh yes, their little bewildered stares, that is the cream to the cat’s tongue. Their mouths agape and eyes as wide as moons, I can only grin at the hisses and hushed whispers of the adults as I am witnessed.

I stride forward and watch their breathes seize up and noses turn toward the ceiling. I walk.

The halls are blood red, sheathed in gold trim and marble steps, I don’t bother to soften my steps or hold my dirt clumps to me. I let them fall to the castle floors and the earthworms to wiggle in my wake.

I make a beeline for the throne room, finding a tall graying man with steel grey eyes outside of it, waiting, I lift my chin up.

“Kind as ever to invite me King Gregory,” I says huskily as I reach near the throne room, I don’t have to look up to feel the king noticing me.

I feel every muscle in his body tighten, “it is an honor to host you Miss Lam.” Lam is the name of the bog I inhabit, they don’t know my real name, but that is how it’s supposed to be.

I turn my sharp chin up further, “a witch always remembers loyalties sire.” I remind him that witches both give and take, the diplomacy of the sword and bread as they call it.

They were offering me the bread so I won’t brandish my sword, I nod at their wisdom and exchange a tablet of blood with the king. I would never harm his bloodline as long as he honors me.

“If you’ll excuse me miss Lam.” He leaves as soon as the process is over, I turn back to the great hall. The crowds parts for me with enough room for a parade of horses between us. I grin, oh yes, this part I liked.

I show a nearby girl all five of my bare busted teeth, she makes a small simpering sound before hiding in her mother’s skirts. I cackle and turn back to the main room, the king is whispering to an advisor but makes no move to approach me again.

A smart man.

The Queen of the fairies arrives shortly after and is greeted in a similar fashion, Hessia is a large kingdom and I know quite a few powerful mythics could attend if they wanted to- but only a few will. I will admit that normally I might have foregone the trip, but I was still a little perplexed by the future queen.

I had been meeting her weekly after all.

I am unsurprised to read a different name on the parchment hung at the entrance of the church. The locals watch me carefully as I pass easily through the church doors with not so much as a twitch.

Like the devil works like that so easily little fools.

I shake my head and glance back at the welcoming sign. “To the Wedding of Prince Jace to his betrothed Princess Nadina.” I didn’t know what to make of ‘Nadina’ but perhaps we all come up with names for ourselves that are wildly different than ones we are given.

I sit on the closed off balcony and wait.

It reminds me of every other human wedding I’ve attended: stiff, formal, uncomfortable shoes and frivolous hats. There is a small boy who keeps unlacing his smock and throwing it off only to have mother tie it up all over again.

I almost want to give him a smile, a real one that wouldn’t haunt his dreams to come. But it was a fleeting thought.

The music begins and I almost regret attending, Queen Jinn of the fairies looks similarly bored but she holds her mouth in a taut line, dark skin glowing softly. Prince Jace arrives with his back straight and mouth an even straighter line.

He looks like every other young man this family had in line and I don’t bother to memorize his face, framed by licorice black locks and cool blue eyes. I don’t see any Tuck in him at all, but I’m not sure what I expected.

The music starts again with a silver jingle and I pause, stilling myself for the next familiar clumsy, uneven footsteps. She was wearing heels this time, white and pristine and high as the heavens.

Her gown trailed several people behind her and she had flowers braided into her shimmering blonde hair. Her dress was white and the jewels around her throat are blood red, it seemed to wear her more than she wore it.

“They caught her at the edges of the 13 Kingdoms,” Jinn was murmuring and they both glance at each other, “the Kingdom of Kiliok is not known for strength,” Jinn smiles with all of her teeth, “the Prince would bargain for beauty over the brawn of a nation it seems.” I frown slightly, of course, Jace’s family would choose someone from Kiliok. The country couldn’t leverage for her back or request much from them.

Tuck walks steadily down the aisle and I examine the pearls embroidered into the bodice of her dress and the curve of a fitted waist. She sets a steady pace up the steps and I forget to count the minutes.

She reaches the altar just as the minister begins his monologue outlying duty and country, heirs and gold.

“Are you going to curse them?” Jinn asks mildly as we watch on.

I shake my head, “they’ve paid their dues.” I say without blinking, “I have nothing to gain from it.” I look at her, “you?”

She shrugs, dark wings fluttering, “I considered a blessing even.” I glance at her, “oh?” Her eyes dart down, “Or a curse. I still haven’t decided, I’ll have to see my mood.” I give a rumbling chuckle and turn away, “do as you will.” “... and do you Nadina Josephine Tulip…” I wonder which name is actually hers as they wind down to the actual kiss. It doesn’t really matter of course, their lips meet in the end and the crowd erupts in applause.

A new Queen has just been welcomed into the family, however foreign she might be.

Tuck only pauses to give me a very curious look as she passes, arm and arm with Prince Jace, I give her a short nod and she smiles. I let it all pass and consider leaving then.

“Oh,” I look up as Jinn speaks.

I blink, “yes?” I prompt her and watch her crafted delicate features shift, her lips pull down and pale eyes expand. “Did you make up your mind?” I finally ask as she blinks.

Jinn flashes a look at me, she shrugs, “Humans make their own curses.” My mouth twitches, “ruins our business, doesn’t it?” She doesn’t laugh and I don’t like the feel of this. The wedding of Nadina of Kiliok and Jace of Hessia passes without note for that night.

I watch the first dance and eat my fill of chicken and all the little lambs in the kingdom, I only stop to tell one tale to the locals of blood eating giants and the ghosts of lost maidens in my bog. The maidens in white are banshees at the end of course, but the locals eyes always get so wide when I get to that part. It was worth it.

Tuck doesn’t spare me another glance.

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

I return, exhausted, to my bog and wait for the next week. It comes, she does not. I wait for the next one, but not horse hooves or little clumsy feet approach my bridge.

I try to let go of the strange Tuck girl and her brief fascination with oddities.

She was just another bored noble afterall.

The sun sets and raises and the days pass on.

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

I was older by then, still around 400, young for the ages, old for myself.

Her footsteps come on the night of the rains, heavy this time, mixed with rain fall  and a steady pace. The vibrations on the bridge are lumbering, the lightness of her step forgone for a thumping sturdy gait.

I raise my eyebrows, but it’s still her.

The water washes against the top of my bridge and I curiously stick my head out, feeling the pelting of the raindrops as someone stands directly above me. She hadn’t bothered to stay carefully in the neutral zone this time.

I observe a stout figure drooping slightly on the railing, like her limbs might fall apart at the seams at any moment, heavy, fit together with bolts and screws instead of feathers. I look up and feel the thunder crash in the distance.

I frown, “This isn’t really the time or place little bird.” I try to make her out, I notice the shape of her dress has changed, no, her body has changed. I try to remember how many years it had been, but out of the dark night I make out a distinct slope of her dress, outward, a belly extending down.

I draw myself up, “there is a storm. You should know-” “Help me.” My eyes finally drag up to her face and I see it, the swollen cheeks and hollow eyes, complexion pale as the blurry moon behind her. Some life was drained out of her.

I should turn her away, threaten her back into the castle.

I jut my chin to the nearest bog tree instead. “Curl up there,” I murmur, “close your eyes.” I cast the protection spell before I even know what I’m doing, I shouldn’t, I don’t want to. But the spot is soon dry and glossy as the water veers away from it and a young girl curls up underneath the branches.

The hours slip by as I watch Tuck fall into a troubled deep sleep in my wake.

I don’t let the rain touch her.

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

When she awakes the next morning I am peering down at her mid-drift.

“You’re with child,” I say dryly as lick my lips, “the heir.” I point easily downward and try to put together my next question. Tuck eyes go flickery and panicked, “it wasn’t a dream.” She looks in both directions and clutches her loose shawl around herself.

“Sshhh,” I hover closer, “you’ve simply had a bad night little bird.” She glances over at me and her eyes are as wide as sunken valleys and craters on the moon. “You,” she says breathlessly, “Lam.” I nod slowly, “among other names.” I watch carefully as Tuck’s eyes filled with a wet moisture and start to overflow, she curls up on herself and cradles her swollen belly, “I thought I dreamt you too.” I shake my head, “Tuck,” I say calmly and she looks up immediately, responding to what must be an old name. “You carry the heir. Someone must be looking for you by now.” And I don’t fancy being swamped by an angry mob right now.

She shivers from head to toe and I observe her thin wrists and inflamed joints. Something was wrong.

She looks up at me with a wobbly chin, “it doesn’t matter,” she says in a hiccuping voice, “let them look.” I frown deeply, “what is it?” I ask sharply, dragging my eyes over her sickly pale skin. “What is all this?”

She looks down at her lap, eyes burning, “Lam, this child feels as if it might kill me.” She says it faintly, with a bow to her head. I wait for a moment, accessing the waters, the vibrations, the steel in her eyes. I take a deep unhappy breath, “it is never easy.” She shakes her head and the tears keep overflowing, “he keeps moving. He’s… it’s not going right, it’s all wrong.” I just nod and hum deeply, “I can see the sickness on you.” She lets out a little sob, “did you do this?” Her eyes crinkle, “I don’t think you cursed me, but…” I just shake my head, “I am not the person you think I am.”

She looks down at her lap again and blinks a couple times, “I know.” She says in a small voice, “I told Jace it was me and not you.”

She sighs deeply and I hover ever closer, I only pause when her puffy red eyes drag themselves up. “Please,” she says in a voice I never heard her use, “can you help me?” I just nod, I don’t want to. I know I shouldn’t. Don’t let them in.

“Reed root,” I say simply, “Mandrake placed in warm milk,” I continue, “honey mixed with temple rot, not the mold kind, the roots.” Her brow was rumpled upward, “the doctors have been working around the clock, do you think, do you know,” she grasps at something and searches my face.

I slowly raise my thin gnarled hands from the water, “And one last thing.” She blinks a couple times, “yes?” “My blessing,” I whisper and suck the light dry from the air around me, “don’t tell anyone.” The light hovers, brave and new, twinkling in the air around us like stars, I hadn’t given one out in ages, not since I was fresh, young. The light scatters in all directions, sucked into her skin and pores, I say the words under my breath, welding them to her.

“Light, protection, breath,” I murmur, “light, protection, breath.” I weld her life line together so thick and golden that I think she might live forever after this.

I take a deep breath and open my eyes I hadn’t realized I closed, “that child is not going to kill you your majesty.” Tuck was still weeping, she was older somehow, so much older. “Thank you,” she says breathlessly, “Gods, thank you.” I take her hand and repeat, “mandrake soaked in warm milk, honey mixed with temple rot, reed root.” We share a look that I can’t describe and I want to shatter that too, gnash it up between my teeth and forget.

Her shoulders are thick and heavy looking, sloping down, she lets them relax. “They wouldn’t let me see you after we started trying for him.” She holds her belly again, I just nod.

“It’s for the best.” I respond tartly. She just shakes her head, “I don’t suppose bog hags have to give their lives for Duty and Country?” I give a sad smile, “go back little bird.” I say and close my eyes, “the grass is not greener in pastures you know not of.” She raises her eyebrows, “I always read bog witches were full of riddles, you’ve been holding out on me.” I give a soft chuckle, the old Tuck I remember shines through this new mature woman.

I reach, I know I shouldn’t either, but it’s too late now. I take her soft milky hands and I squeeze them, hard, not hard enough to hurt. But she needed to know.

“This child will not kill you your majesty,” I whisper with a hiss, “you have my blessing. Use it.” She cradles her belly protectively, “will he have it too?” I glance down and frown slightly, “you shouldn’t tell anyone.” She looks down and coos softly, “you hear that little one?” She gives a smile that glows at the edges, “you will be imbued with bog witch.” I shake my head, “you always were more daring than a box of feral cats.” She looks up, sadly this time, “thank you.” She says, face still swollen and eyes sunken, “I won’t forget this.” I start to shoo her, “go,” I say quickly, something stirring within me, “before I change my mind.” She rolls her eyes but manages to lumber to her feet, “this won’t be the last of me Lam.” She says softly, “not this time.” My eyes crease and watch her back, “it’s Clemency,” I say after her, “Lam is the name of the bog.” She was gone already and I have nothing but a sudden pain left in my gut. I close my eyes and extend the blessing once more.

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

Tuck returns twice, once to tell me that the mandrake screamed at her and to curse me for it, another time to laugh so hard she almost fell into the waters with me. Jace almost passed out when he saw her eating temple rot apparently.

She got better.

I heard from afar that the next prince was born, just as the old king Gregory died. Tuck really was a queen now.

It was a closed birth, a hard pregnancy and a hard birth. No one was invited to it.

I feel her footsteps far and distant from me, sometimes they come to the edge of the bog once more, but they don’t enter this time. I wait, I don’t dwell, I sleep as two winters pass.

I left once, into the city streets, disguised as a beggar woman, I hear that the new prince is strong, rambunctious, he has his father’s charcoal black hair and mother’s smile. I try not to catch his name, I do anyway.

Clement.

I don’t dwell on it.

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

I am steeped in the roots of a tree when I hear it again, something I thought I wouldn’t hear again.

“I can’t,” she speaks rapidly, quickly, “I tried to. But I can’t, not again.” I turn around slowly, easily, I straighten up and ooze down the roots and back toward my bridge, I raise my eyebrows, “And here I thought you were a smart girl and were done with me.” Tuck just shakes her head, dressed in an olive green gown and looking bright and full of life this time. “Never.” She says softly and I don’t know what to do with that.

“Huh,” I turn away again.

She takes a deep breath, “I tried to take him to meet you.” She says steadily, “again and again. But they watch him more carefully than a hawk on a field mouse.” I glance up and sink into the muddy waters, “as they should.” She frowns deeply, “they don’t trust me.” I nod again, “A foreign queen stays foreign for a land like Hessia,” I say grimly, “I know well of these people’s superstitions.” She gives a tight smile down at the ground, “I started reading all those books you told me about.” She says in a small voice, “they keep me sane.” “Did you ever figure out if fairies are actually clever or not?” Tuck looks up, “I did,” she says slowly, “they are. But not as clever as they think.” I give out a hearty laugh, a real one, “smart girl.” Tuck tightens her hands, “No,” she looks away, “I was foolish.” I shrug, “You were young.” I tilt my head, “Different, strange, and not sorry about it.” She grins, “still am.” She sighs, “but I made so many mistakes.” She rubs her knuckles together, “I never earned their trust.” I tilt my head to the side, “why are you telling me this?” My jaw tightens.

“I don’t know,” she sighs heavily, “I wanted one last confession, or maybe perhaps I thought it might change something. To go where it all began.” “What began?” She shrugs, “it doesn’t matter.” She says bitterly, “they want me to do it again.” I raise my eyebrows, “do what?” My lips quirk up, “wander into bogs again and bother ancient powerful beings?” She laughs, “I wish!” She takes a deep heaving breath, “they need more than just Clement. Hessia demands multiple heirs just in case the first one dies.” “Oh,” I should nod at that, I should affirm the truth I already knew, “don’t they know?” Don’t they know the first one was a hair away from killing Tuck.

She just frowns at her feet, “they don’t listen.” I nod again, “I can…” I take a deep breath, “I can do it again.” I should add ‘for a price,’ but I don’t.

She just shakes her head, “I don’t I have it in me. Not a second time.” She looks weary, eyes tired and hands still and open at her sides, “even with a powerful witches blessing.” I put my hand out, “you don’t know what I’m capable of.” I give an almost-smile, “you never did.” She hesitates, looking at my hand for a long second, my fingers tingle and I should pull back, but I don’t.

She takes it. Our skin touches and tingles like a wildfire, it wasn’t like the first time, like when I was trying to convey everything to her.

She holds the dust and the grime and my long gnarled fingertips, she brings them up to her lips. “Tell me,” she whispers, “how does a river nymph descend into a bog?”

I don’t meet her eye but I tighten my grip firmly, “with a bit of luck.” I say loosely and she chuckles.

“Of course.” She searches my face with her prickly green eyes, “what kind of luck?” I tilt my head to the side, “it goes like all stories go. Life gives and takes. Power and hunger mixed with men who want with a want that carves out your flesh and digs out spirit and soul. Then I was given a blessing.” I curl back my lips. “You already knew that secret though.” She nods and fingers reach up and ghost across my cracked skin, “I wanted it so badly.” Her eyes shimmer and meet mine, holding my gaze and passing something unnamable between us, I lean forward but don’t press anywhere closer.

We hold our breaths and wait for something that isn’t coming, wrapped in something we don’t understand.

I clutch her hand so tightly I know it hurts.

Tuck turns before I do and we say a soundless goodbye. I throw my blessing at her one last time.

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

Men, men are cruel. They fight and ruin each other, arguing and crying out and falling in love only to do it all over again. Men are cruel. So are the waves and the snow and biting wind and unforgiving earth, the earth is also cruel.

Though men can be bargained with, the earth on the other hand will eat you all without question. Perhaps that’s what I liked about it.

Her footsteps came heavy this time, fast and pounding the water bottom, feet sucking into the mud and struggling with each step. She was breathing hard and dashing forward with lurching hurried movement.

I wake with a start, dogs bray in the distance. She hadn’t been subtle, or perhaps the King had more eyes on her side then she knew of. Either way I can feel the pounding of men’s feet and the calling of distant voices.

I surge to my feet and move as fast as a roaring river.

“Tuck!” I call with the voice of a rumbling, mountain, “Tuck!”

I can feel someone else, cradled in her arms and squirming. “Mama,” I hear it now, clear as day. He is young and strong, as I knew he would be.

His eyes glow yellow in the dark as I whoosh forward, approaching quickly just as the soldiers do- also in pursuit of the mother and child.

I gnash my teeth as I turn on the soldiers, “I will grind your bones to dust and use your shin bones as my garden gate.” I roar and the men falter, but only for a moment.

“A witch!”

“I knew it! I knew the gregij Queen had allies on the Other Side.” My nostrils flare and I lift my hand, but so do the men, one young soldier raises a crossbow.

“Don’t hit the child!” The captain cries, the young soldier is jostled and it all happens in slow motion.

“Clemency!” Tuck’s voice rings out just as I reach for her, just as the arrow does too.

Her son’s eyes are huge and glowing yellow, shaking and frightened as the arrow pierces his mother’s back like a sapling pierces the soft earth as it grows. I see a silent gasp spread across her face and a shock of pain.

Red blossoms across the dark waters.

I give out an earthly scream as she falls, every inch of me tingling as I know these soldiers are dead. And eaten and discarded into the scraps of time and earth.

I scream and scream, but I’m not the only one listening, before the bog cats come bristling out of the waters, before the roaches come crawling out of the trees, before I summon hell. The earth is listening, the earth does not bargain, but it gives and it takes.

Much like a witch.

I feel it encompassing her before I see it, the vines and leaves and waters swishing around her, covering her, my eyes go wide. I needed to rip out the throats of these men, but I pick up her son instead.

He is weeping and wiping at his brilliant eyes, tearing at his dark hair, whimpering softly in an emotion I couldn’t fathom from one so young.

“Shhh,” I gather him to me, “it’s beginning.” The leaves twist and the waters ripples and the forest becomes so deathly quiet I’m afraid it might break. They call it the devil, but I don’t think I’ve seen the devil breath life back into someone as quickly as he takes it.

I see her skin fasten into a steady bark, her hair twist into streams of golden light, her face mix into something otherwordly and unknowable, rough and hard in all directions. Tuck raises once more and I am left breathless. She stands, bark and light and forest now, all forest.

She raises her head and smiles, smiles something brilliant and wicked, “I knew it,” she says softly and looks down at her hands. The soldiers had scattered by then, run for their lives to tell the King of the betrayal, terror would follow after horror. But that could wait, it all could wait, I shift young prince Clement in my arms and reach out on last time.

She takes my hand, “tell me,” she says lightly, “can a bog witch fall in love? I read they can’t.” I smile widely, “let’s find out.” We turn towards the deepest parts of the forest and start walking, creeping deep into unknown depths of a soft and distant world. The first kiss shifts everything inside me, and then the second one breaks it.

Very few new footsteps arrive after that, for who would face the two most powerful bog witches in their home? Two witches and the next and future King.

FIN

[insomniac-dot-ink]

The Peacock Prince pt 2

genre: fantasy, fairytale, mlm

words: 3k

Summary: A young man is banished to a vast garden to spend the rest of his days, cursed to grow peacock feathers from his skin and walk the grounds.

A wandering soldier is charged by the neighboring town to fetch three feathers: one for health, two for luck, and three for wealth. Unfortunately, plucking the feathers off a reluctant peacock-boy is not as easy as it sounds.

A love story of avian dimensions in 4 parts

PART 1 ~ PART 2 ~ PART 3 ~ PART 4

PART 2

Two for Luck

Daven looked into the sallow face of a woman well into her 80s, deep worry lines and valleys painted across her face, wrinkles that stretched in all directions and mapped her face like a geographic print of the past and future.

She smiles up with a guileless toothless grin, “but you got the other one so easily.” Daven’s shoulder slump and he has a bad feeling about this, “I fought several wild animals… And it was mostly luck I found the boy in the first place.” She shook her withered head, “I have a good feeling about you.” Then why is your town blackmailing me? He doesn’t bring that up.

“The one feather was very long,” he tries to say with his hands stuffed into his pockets. A young woman in an apron and long dark blue dress nodded. She had honey curls and a face that was round and sharp in all the right angles.

“And we ground it up and fed it to the sick,” she smiled prettily, “It was a heroic deed. A good one, all five were up and walking today.”

Daven opened and closed his mouth uselessly, “don’t mention it?” He tries instead with a slight wince.

“But now,” her face falls, “the fields are thirsty. Dry. You’ve seen them young soldier, they grow sick as well.” Daven felt like he was being backed into a corner, “it was a rough harvest, sure.”

Her eyes get large, like puppy dog eyes or black holes, old mother Henri makes a deep rumbling sound in her throat. “Two,” she says with a rough rasp, “for luck.” Daven frowns decidedly, “why… two?” Both the women tut at him, “two is the second most powerful number.” Mary Lee informs him with her hip jutted out. “It will be enough.” Daven gives a deep heaving sigh, “I can’t keep ripping feathers out of this guy. He’s got some dark magic on him, who knows what will happen if I piss him off again…” He trails off as he realizes he wasn’t making any headway.

The woman just smiles placidly again, “two for luck.”

Her daughter nods, “we can grind them up and sprinkle them over the soil.” Her eyes go soft again, “it would be another hero's deed.” Daven’s shoulders fall and he accepts the inevitable, “isn’t there…?” He takes a deep breath, “I mean, someone else must be able,” he struggles for the words.

“It’s you,” the old woman nods, “you were brought to us for a reason.” Was that reason a directionless horse?

He pushes his hair back and sighs, “Okay,” he looks between the village representatives, “I mean… I did it once, right?” He laughs weakly and watches the women share a small smile.

He grimaces slightly, Mary Lee reaches over and wraps something up for him. “Here,” she passes it to him, “for your troubles.” He holds a loaf of bread and feels suddenly more like an errand boy than any sort of soldier. But they were still looking at him Like That, so he has nothing else to but turn around and start walking.

The Garden was said to spread from the lakes of Dev all the way to the outer coast. Daven feels like he’s looking for trouble and eventually going to fall smack dab in the middle of it.

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

“Here birdie, birdie, birdie,” Daven throws some bread on the ground, “I have some good news for you.”

He throws the bread crumbs again, not without a sense of irony of course. “It’s only a little exchange.” He says loudly and wanders into the seven cherubs square (as he was calling it). He goes up to the great oak tree and rustles some of the branches with his sword before coming up empty.

“Here birdie!” He sings and tosses the breadcrumbs in the air again, some of them land in a puddle and start dissolving. He whistles and makes a kissy face at the trees. “I’ve got a treat for you.”

It’s quiet with the exception of distant sound of bird calls and the wind whipping through the numerous corridors of the garden. His skin crawls as it always did in this place, Daven had looked for the Hunter he found the first time just outside the walls, but hadn’t had any luck this time.

“Ellis!” He tries again, “I have both shoes and a better attitude for you!”

He hears nothing, keeping his eyes on the nearest wall to make sure it doesn’t grow spikes, “and more money, and hey, I finally thought of something you can do with it!”

He takes a left turn back into the endless open-air halls and starts whistling again, “here birdie, birdie.”

Daven is internally groaning and considering his chances of leaving the province of Tefle and running as far away as he possibly can. He hears a rustling behind him instead.

He reaches for his sword.

“Do you have a death wish?” Daven pauses as he recognizes the snide voice.

“Ah,” he stands up straight and places his own self-assured smile on, “knew you couldn’t stay away.”

A boy with large ornate feathers fanned out around him was standing on the wall above him, “one step closer and I’ll jump off the other side and you’ll never find me again.” He says coolly as he stands with his hands folded over his chest and stance wide on the wall ledge.

Daven lifts his chin and studies the boy’s sharp, curious features, they were small and crafted, like there was something purposeful or thought-out about them. A small nose with a pointed mouth that curved up or down on a whim it seemed, mapping and connecting all of his features.

Ellis narrows his green eyes, “well?” Daven stood up straight, “I’m not trying the magic words this time.” “Well thank god,” he says slowly, “I would have let you keep walking around here like an idiot you know.”

Daven frowns slightly, “what changed?” Ellis hums and looms over him as he stood on the wall, “bad decision making.” His shadow falls over his face, “and curiosity. You finally thought of something I can do with the money?” He gives an easy grin, “I’m intrigued.” Daven cleared his throat, “yes.” He grins back, “the question is, of course, if gold coins agree with your stomach.” Ellis rolls his eyes spectacularly, “I’m not a dragon.”

“I have bread then.” “Wow, of course,” he tuts, “you’re lucky I’m a forgiving man after that ‘birdie’ nonsense.”

Daven bounces his eyebrows up and down, “I thought you might like that.” He makes a face at him, “ah, am I that easy to read?” He puts a hand out, “if you gave me your feathers readily, for a good cause that is, it’d be a lot less easy.”

He blows a stray strand of white-blonde hair out of his face, “why's that?” Daven puts on a somber expression, “good people don’t get cursed.”

Ellis’s expression pinches, “you’re really winning yourself over with this one,” he seems to go to turn around, “I really don’t know why I bother.” “Wait,” Daven fumbles for his pack, “all in good fun, all in good fun. I have something for you.” “I don’t eat gold coins for God’s sake,” he waves his hand in the air, “but I am considering soldiers and their poor social graces right now.” He bares his shiny white teeth and Daven shakes his head.

“You are a gracious and good Peacock lord, I’m sure.” “Watch it,” the boy says carefully, “180s like that can make one dizzy.” He takes a deep breath in, “alright, so I’m not good at this,” he lifts something out of his pack, “but I do have these.” He unwraps a neat pair of shiny black buckled shoes as he held them up to the light, “they’re flexible so they’ll fit a lot of sizes.”

The boy examines him carefully before clearing his throat, “you really think I need shoes?” Daven frowns slightly, “there’s poison puddles everywhere.” He pauses, “So, yes?” Ellis shakes his head, “you are as sharp as a blunt sword I see,” the boy kicks the top of the wall lightly, “And I don’t want your bribery.”

“It’s for a good cause!” He hears himself almost whine, “the village people’s crops are dying.”

“Oh no,” Ellis places his hands on his cheeks, “not the village people’s crops.” Daven’s narrows his eyes, the sun frames the feathers of the strange boy, “spoken like a true peacock prince.” “Look,” Ellis dances his hand through the air, “there’s always going to be villages whose crops don’t come in right. And little old ladies who need wishes and young lads who steal your feathers for lasses they want to bang.” He takes a deep breath, “I’ve been here a long time little soldier. And there’s always more people who need things.” Daven almost went to clap sardonically, “Look, I’m not trying to appeal to your… humanity,” he says the word carefully, rolling it around and feeling out the syllables. “But there must be something you want.” Ellis looks him up and down, “you’re pretty cocky for a common soldier.” Daven opens his mouth with a stubborn jut of his jaw, “I’m not entirely common.” And I’m no longer entirely a soldier.

“Good then,” Ellis sprouts a rough smile that prickled across Daven’s skin like sandpaper, a manic energy bursting from it like a flood over a levy system. “Take your sword off.”

Daven hesitates for a long second, he holds his iron green gaze for a long moment, “and you’ll give me a feather? Or… I, uh,” he hesitates, “I need two this time.” Ellis gives a deep sigh, “I know.”

Daven reaches for his sword, holding it tentatively before lifting it carefully out of it’s hilt and holding it up. “Where do you want it?” Ellis cocks his head to the side, “place it at my feet.”

Daven scoffs slightly, “of course.” He approaches carefully, slowly, gently, placing the beat-up, aged thing just below his bare feet.

“Was it your father’s or anything?” Ellis asks slowly and Daven hums for a second.

“Yes,” he says, keeping hard eye contact with him.

Ellis’s face spreads wide open again, “liar.” He shrugs, “alright, it’s standard military issue. But does that really matter?” “It doesn’t,” Ellis leans forward, posing like a tense house cat on the brink of springing. He drops down to the ground and deftly picks the sword up, “I just wanted to know more about you.” “My name is Daven Porter,” he says carefully, “I’m 22, I have two sisters and a mum. I like pears and have never seen the ocean. And,” he pauses gently for a moment, “I would like two feathers. Please.”

Ellis was still observing him, balancing the sword in his hand and whooshing it just above his head, he gives him a cool look. “The rest of it.” Daven screws up his face, “the rest of what? That’s my only sword mate.”

Ellis pouts slightly, “the rest of it. I’ll take your belt first.” Daven’s eyes go wide and his cheeks flare up, “I beg your pardon?” “Your clothes.” He says the words slowly, mouthing around them and putting his hands on his hips, “honestly, it’s like I’m squawking up here instead of speaking.”

Daven might have smiled at that if his face wasn’t falling apart like cloth scraps a off a beggar, “you can’t be serious.” Ellis shrugs, “it’s only fair. You want to make me bare, it’s only fair you do the same first.” Daven makes a face at him and takes a step backward, “And then what?” He scowls, “you put on my trousers? Yours look fine.” “No,” he says slowly, “then I make a nice little fire and you walk home.”

Daven put his hands on his hips, “I’m not walking home naked. Who are you?” He laughs, “no feathers then!”

Daven takes a deep huffy breath, he turns around and takes a few angry steps, and then he turns back around again. He knew what would happen if he didn’t return with the feathers.

He groans and buries his face in his hands, “this is mad.” Ellis chuckles and sings, “An eye for an eye sir.” He scowls up between his fingers, “It’s not the same.” Ellis shrugs, “Well, looks like you’re going home empty h-”

“Alright, alright,” He takes one heavy breath that weighed him down like stones in a river bed, he hunches over slightly, “at least turn around.” He hears a sharp laugh, he imagined his white-blonde curls bouncing. “You watch my feathers fall out and stand there and gawk. It’s only fair.” “Ugh,” he reaches for his pants, “this is why you’re trapped here.” He says as starts unbuckling, “good people don’t get cursed.” Ellis waves a hand through the air, “but they do get naked, chop chop.” “You’re enjoying this,” He fumbles slightly with his belt loop and the end of his shirt for a long moment.

“It’s like drinking nectar,” he says with a smile, “I may even give you the feathers.” Daven scowls at him, “I will burn this place down if-” “It’s just a little embarrassment,” he tuts, “and feel free to try. I’d gladly watch this place go up in flames too.” He says the last part with hints of bright yellow bitterness around the edges.

Daven refuses to look away as he yanks his shirt over his head and then both of his socks off one by one. “Are you even going to wear these shoes?” He says as he puts the two pairs next to each other.

“Absolutely not,” the boy winks, “birdie.” “You’re the bird,” he grumbles, “and the bastard.” “I’ll take it,” he wags a finger in the air, “and feel free to put on a show for the last bit. A had a lass do the same for me in a tavern and it honestly almost got three feathers out of me.” Daven makes a face at him, “you go to taverns?” He squints, “Like that?” Ellis’s features become somehow more edged and perplexing, “No. Before I was like this. But I would still have given her anything if she asked, feathers included.” Daven rolled his eyes, “you’re impossible.” “And you’re not naked!” He lears over him, “What upsetting evident facts.” He makes a face at him, “You’re going to die alone.” “Or in a poison puddle, either one, I won’t complain.” Daven doesn’t know how to respond to that so he reaches for his pants, he takes a deep breath in and tries not to show the stiffness in his movements and tension building in his shoulders. Make it natural. Normal.

He can’t help it, he looks down at his feet as he wrenches his trousers down. Ellis at least has the decency not to laugh or jeer or some other bastardly behavior, he just nods. Daven feels the cool breeze whisk between his thighs and thinks a series of uncharitable thoughts toward this garden, all birds, and all bird boys.

He crosses his arms over his chest and widens his stance, “happy?” Ellis just shrugs and looks at his nails, “not really?” “Ugh,” he takes a series of deep breaths in through his nose, he thrusts his hand out, “I did what you asked.”

Ellis gives him a cool look, “sure.” Daven takes a dangerous step forward, “Look, I’d be unsurprised if you’re not a man of your word, but this whole village’s crop is dying and they expect me to-”

“Yes, yes,” Ellis clapped his hands, “give me a second.” He says the last part under his breath, Daven just opens and closes his mouth like an angry snapping turtle.

“I’ll give you ten.” He put his fingers up and started to count, “Ten seconds.” He says loudly, “One… two…” Ellis rolled his eyes, “I’m not as scared of a man with his trousers down as you might think… but.” He reaches behind him and seems to search around for something on his shoulder blade. He started to pull, “Uh,” he grunts, “There.”

Daven’s eyes go a little wide, Ellis flinched, brow furrowing and expression pinching, body bunching up as he yanks at something. The boy takes a deep breath and holds a single peacock feather out.

Daven just begrudgingly holds up two fingers, “alright. Thank you.” He clears his throat, “for two that is.” He says pointedly, Ellis just shakes his head. “Tell them not to plant these,” Ellis grumbles, eyes still strained and colored with something metallic and heated. He pinches something on his back and yanks. “And to sow the fields earlier in the season for God’s sake.” Daven cocks his head to the side, “Is that your official message?” Ellis gives a crooked smile as he slowly lifts a second feather in his hand, “no. My official message: ooh, look at this strange man’s willy. Please laugh and cheer at your own discretion.”

Daven huffs and continues to not deliberately think about the cool breeze against his backside. “You make this so much harder than it needs to be.” Ellis pushes his curled bangs back and examines him, a placid look on his face, “If only I willingly ripped out my own plumage for anyone that asked.” He tilts his head to the side, “it’s such a shame.” “Okay, okay,” Daven put his hands up, “I get it,” he grits his teeth and puts his hand out, “thank you.”

Ellis considers Daven’s hand for a long moment, a frown line consuming him like a mushroom cloud, ricocheting off taut muscles and frozen joints. He takes one step forward and neatly, tightly lets go of the two long feathers.

If Daven didn’t know any better he would have thought the boy’s hands were shaking. But then he retracts his hands, wipes them off and lifts his chin up. “They also work as aphrodisiacs, burn salves, table centerpieces, and a cure for blindness.” Daven lifts his eyebrows, quickly taking a step back and clutching the feathers to his body, “good to know.” Ellis’s eyes were flicking over him, “so yes, you could also skip town and sell them if that’s what you’re thinking.”

Daven’s shoulders rise, “I wasn’t thinking that.” Or, at least, not right at that second. He scowls and turns around, “if you’d excuse me, I have to go save a village.” He can feel Ellis’s sunburn of a smile blaze across as his back as he turns, “you are easy to read too little soldier.” He waves behind him, “enjoy my sweaty shirt and pants,” He keeps his back completely straight as he looks behind him, “they’re covered in grime. It’ll suit you.” Ellis scoffs, “if you come back I will take more than just your clothes next time Mr. Daven.” “‘Mr’?” He doesn’t turn around as he laughs, “come on now, you’ve seen me naked. No need for the formality.” He swears he hears a full golden laugh after that, just as he turns around the next corner and tries to disappear. He finally gives in and covers himself as he faces the next stretch of garden and the inevitable mess of walking home like this.

He takes steadying breathes and keeps his eyes off the light, soft plumage in his hands. They were warm, warm and thrumming like something was alive in them.

He doesn’t look back as he leaves the garden for the second time.

<====== PART 1   ~~~~~ PART 3=======>