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laurasimonsdaughter · 7 months ago

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The dragon – astonishingly – was a surprise. Even in his worst nightmares there hadn’t been a dragon. But the chains were too well fastened to fight and he supposed that getting eaten was at least quicker than starving to death on this damn mountain. He closed his eyes, but the thundering shake of the ground as the dragon landed was as bad as having seen the claws dig into the earth. He closed his eyes tighter.

“Are you the seventh son of the seventh son?” The voice was inhumanly low and it shook the fear in his bones loose.

“Yes!” he screamed. “Yes! Cursed, blighted, whatever you bloody want! Just get it over with.”

There was a short, tense silence.

“I have not come to kill you, human. I want to offer you a deal.”

His eyes opened in shock. “You what?”

The dragon was sitting a few paces away from him, its scaly claws crossed over one another and its massive, shimmering wings folded behind its hulking back. The look in its glittering eyes was intelligent and calculating, but not unkind, certainly not threatening. It waited.

“What—what kind of deal?” he stammered, heart racing with a wild, terrified hope.

“I understand that you have been left here to die by your fellow humans, because you are an extremely rare type of human, that they are afraid of. Is that correct?”

He studied the dragon’s interested expression for any trace of sarcasm, but there was none. “That’s one way of putting it.”

“Well then!” the dragon exclaimed. “I propose to you this: I will break your chains and save you from the humans, and in return you will join my hoard and live in my nest.”

“I’m sorry. Join your—what do you mean live in a nest. Humans don’t live in nests.”

The dragon gave a sideways movement of its massive head, scales glinting in the sun. “There is plenty of room. It used to be a cavern in a mountain, of very respectable depth and dimensions, but during one of my hibernation some humans built a castle on top of it, so it is very suitable for humans.”

He was almost baffled enough to no longer be scared. Almost. “What happened to the people who built it?”

The dragon, somehow, managed to arch a nonexistent eyebrow. “They live there,” it replied, slowly, as if it feared that he was rather slower on the uptake than expected. “That was the start of my hoard, you see.”

He hadn’t misheard it. It did say ‘hoard’. “But...dragons hoard gold, jewels, riches…”

“Uninspired amateurs,” the dragon sniffed. “All very well for one’s hatchling years, but honestly.” The glittering eyes squinted down at him. “Do you not want to join my hoard?”

“I…” Living in a castle with a dragon for a protector sure beat being chained to a rock by feral townsfolk, there was no doubt about that. And what other choice did he have? He swallowed. “I do.”

“Wonderful!” Joyful sparks snapped off the dragon’s jaw as it gracefully leapt upright. “I shall do away with those pesky chains.” And he came towards him with remarkably light steps.

“Do you live very far away?” he blurted out, nervously watching the dragon as it studied the iron rings hammered into the stone. “Will I be able to—I cannot just leave my brothers behind!”

The dragon, who had just crushed one end of the chain to warped bits of broken iron in its claw, looked up distractedly. “Whatever are you talking about? All your brothers are at my nest already. Who do you think told me where to find you?”

His heart leapt in his chest. He didn’t even notice the heavy weight of the chains fall away as they slid to the ground. “You...you’d want to keep my brothers too?”

The dragon made an indignant noise, bowing down low and motioning rather impatiently for him to climb on its back. “What kind of dragon do you take me for! I must have the whole set.”

#the brainfog lifted enough to write <3<3<3 #dragon #dragons #can I interest you in me and my sister's agenda: dragons should hoard people #fantasy #laura drabbles #seventh son #flash fiction

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caffeinewitchcraft · 3 months ago

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Secrets of the Bly

The canopy sailed over the horizon line.

The mother looked out the window, snapping the sheets as she folded them. Her clear gray eyes were the same color as the morning sky and just as gloomy.

“Closer,” she muttered. She seemed surprised she had spoken, and her hands slowed, fingers lingering on the fraying edge of her own bed sheet. She wet her lips. Said again, “Closer.”

“What’s closer?” the daughter asked.

The mother didn’t jump, but the air changed as if she did. Her shoulders stiffened. Her hands went back to work. “Nothing,” she said. Then, not being able to help herself, “The forest is growing quickly.”

“Teacher says that trees don’t grow fast. Only an inch or two a year.”

“You couldn’t see the Bly when you were a baby,” the mother said. Her heart stung. She knew her daughter wasn’t calling her foolish. Lately, when the little girl spoke of her teacher, something she never had, it makes something sour in her want to lash out. “Now look how tall it stands!”

The daughter came to the window. Her clothes were ill-fitting. She looked as if she tumbled in and then out of fresh laundry only to come up wearing a whole bedspread. The dress she wore used to be the mother’s from when she was young. Her eyes traced the horizon. “That’s faster than teacher said.”

“Not even a teacher knows everything,” the mother said. Her own mother’s voice rang through hers. That made her jump. She thrust the laundry away from her and finally looked at her daughter. “Some truths are only learned while living—”

The daughter stared at her bare feet. Shoulders rounded. Lip jutting out so far the mother could see it through her hanging, flaxen hair. The mother’s heart stung different.

“The Bly is…different,” the mother said. It’s her own voice this time. Softer and more yielding. She kneeled so that the daughter could see her right away when she chose to look up. “It’s a secret I’d like you to keep.”

The daughter’s eyes darted up, meeting the mother’s. Her lip contracted a centimeter. “A secret?”

“Just between us two,” the mother agreed. Was the little girl old enough? She would give anything to bring her daughter’s chin up again. “Your teacher is right that trees grow slow. The Bly is different here. Only here.”

“Only here?”

“On our land. You see, the Bly is home to another kind of creature. Like us, but not. They are mischievous and kind and cruel. More importantly, they’re magic.”

“Fairies,” the daughter said confidently.

“The Good Folk,” the mother said in her own mother’s voice. Then to soften it, “And that’s not the secret.”

The daughter reached out to put her hands on her mother’s shoulders. She jumped in excitement, using her mother to steady herself. “Tell me! Please, tell me.”

The mother smiled and placed her hands over her daughters. She tilted her head forward and was rewarded when her daughter stopped leaping about and pressed her own forehead against hers. She whispered, “The secret is that once, a long time ago, I stole something from them. That’s why the forest grows so quickly over the horizon. They’re looking for what I took.”

“What?!” The daughter was amazed. “You said never to steal.”

“I did. I needed it very badly, mustn’t I have?”

“Yes,” the daughter said. Her quick mind tumbled through her mother’s confession. “So you’ve been in the Bly? What was it like? Teacher says there are wolves in there. What did you steal?”

For a moment, the mother was not there. She raced through dense old growth with her feet cut to ribbons and her skirts sticking wetly to her legs. Her breath came in cold clouds in front of her and she ran through them just as quickly as they formed. She could use only one hand to shield her face from vines and branches. Her other arm was curled around the bundle in her arms.

“One day,” the mother said. She stood but wrapped her hands around her daughter’s so that she knew it was only a necessary retreat and not a complete one. “One day, when you’re older, I’ll tell you all the stories I have.”

The girl’s lower lip was out again. “How old?”

“When the Bly hits the edge of our land,” the mother said. She held out her pinky. “Promise.”

The girl was suspicious. “It grows fast?”

The mother’s heart stung differently again. “Very fast.”

“Deal!”

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(Patreon)

#my writing #flash fiction #the fae #fantasy #dailies #this is an example of soemthing I try to write daily! Though this one is a more definitive story than I usually get down on paper

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whereserpentswalk · 11 months ago

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Most interdimensional entities that humans consider horrifying demons and eldrich horrors actually consider humans pretty dangerous unless they're actively trained fighters. Your average extraplaner being isn't used to dealing with a species that evolved to hunt in groups, and developed to survive in violent scenarios.

Most final girl situations happen because young entities deeply underestimate that humans have such a strong will to live, and are willing to fight back agasint a stronger foe. Most older entities keep at bay for this very reason, which is why you just see them stranding around being creepy.

That pale long limbed cryptid you spotted in a subway station moved so quickly because it doesn't want to end up near you. That shadow person whose hovering over you in the woods is trying to observe you, but it will teleport away if anyone comes near it for a good reason.

And that doppelganger that's standing by your door at night just wants to observe you too. He was smart to try to copy your roommate's face, but he doesn't realize how good humans are at recognizing eachother's faces, and that his copy will be disturbing to any human who sees it. And he got way to reckless with his movements and bad attempts to imitate human speech. Trying to trick the human who he wants to study into coming to his dimensions is an even bigger mistake, especially since he didn't realize how quickly the human would catch on. He's soon going to learn things he should have read up on before hand: humans will try to attack things they're afraid of if they can't run away, humans can use almost any hard object as a weapon by holding it and swinging, and that those decorations on your wall are called 'swords' and were not originally designed as decorations...

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clockwayswrites · 5 months ago

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@cannedinternets @darkstarsapocalypse @idontcaboose Phantom + Young Justice, Heads, Blue cw for Miss Martian's mental manipulation

The hatch slammed behind Conner as he stormed out onto the roof.

She was—

She was going to—

He was so stupid! He really had though that love could be enough! Like life was some sort of fucking fairytale. Like life worked out like that. But that’s what Megan had sold him, wasn’t it?

Him and her, perfect together.

A teen romance like the movies.

Meant to be.

Conner clapped his hands over his mouth to cover the ugly laugh that bubbled free without his permission.

Meant to be as long as she could make him into what she wanted. As long as he didn’t disagree. As long as she didn’t have to be wrong.

He wasn’t, he couldn’t—is this what it was like to be out of breath?

He really didn’t like the feeling if it was.

His whole body felt weak. Black was creeping into the edges of his vision. His knees buckled under him.

But he didn’t hit the roof hard. He was lowered down gently. Someone was speaking to him.

“Con, hey man, breathe for me, okay?”

Gentle but almost impossibly firm hands actually managed to pry Conner’s hands away from his mouth. That narrowed the pool of who it could be down a lot, but Conner just couldn’t get his mind to work.

“Come on, like me.” His hands were pressed against a slight chest that took an exaggerate breath.

Conner did his best to follow along.

It still took what felt like ages for the black to recede.

“Sorry… I don’t know what…”

“Panic attack,” Phantom said. He was sitting (or floating) cross legged across from Conner. He still had his hands cradled gently. “Or that would be my guess. I think you had a panic attack.”

“Oh.”

Conner didn’t how to take that. He didn’t… he was Superboy. He wasn’t supposed to panic.

“Conner… you, um, you were talking while you paced. What did you…” Phantom closed his eyes and took a breath he didn’t need. His eyes were bright when he opened them. “What did you mean about Megan making you into what she wanted? Like, was she trying to tell you what to do or—”

“She tried to wipe my memory.” The words were out before Conner could take them back. But he… he didn’t want to keep them inside him like rot. “She was going to use her powers to wipe my memory about… something.”

The temperature on the roof drops so quickly that Conner felt it. Phantom’s power crackled through it like the coming storm.

Like reckoning.

“She did what?”

#dp x dc #flash fiction #prompalomp #how promptous #please don't come at me for inaccuracies lol trying my best

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insomniac-dot-ink · 2 months ago

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The Angel Wire

No one knows what to do with the angel tangled in the power lines. The poor thing’s body was wrapped around and around the sparking wires. A twisted-up ball of heavenly light. The face was obscured by a bent halo—a golden glow that sometimes oscillates like bad television signal. The wings float loosely in the air, all twelve feet of silken feathers, ragged and torn at the ends.

A storm had felled the trees and the poles and anything taller than a chicken coup in one swoop. Anyone who dared cross the puddles and debris had to risk being electrocuted by the live wires or blinded by the angel’s weakly pulsing light. Cooing sounds emerged from the angel, sad little calls for distant ears.

The creature would periodically make a break for it too—wings going taut and rising in a flurry of trumpets and frantic flapping. The electrical wires held fast, twisting against the angel’s soft flesh and pushing back. It fell, it always fell, back into the nest of wires and would make those weak cooing noises. I was an ornithologist before all this town, town, town and couldn’t help but think, pigeon.

The chaplain went first. He got down to pray under the angel’s bent body, close as he dared and in the mud. Everyone knew he wasn’t but a few weeks off the drink and his hands still shook when he lifted up the cross. The nun, she was retired but we still called her that, caught the 921 bus to the next town that same day.

Some said she was going to the next town over to get a proper priest. Others said she had crossed herself and high-tailed it out of there. What bad luck it was going to be to have a dead angel in our town electrical wires.

All this debris and only the birds can get close enough to it, flapping around the angel's head and perching on its mighty back. They call to each other.

Davie, who I had once loved, offered to fetch his shotgun and put it out of its misery. The youngest one there, a girl named Clara, cried so hard she had to be walked back and forth down the lane three times. We opted to put “shooting a messenger of above” on the back burner. We gathered up wire cutters, holy books, rubber boots, and a good tree-cutting ax from the mess of our homes and piled them up. We'd wait a day or so at least, watching the angel and all silently hoping it would make it out on its own.

I wasn’t a praying woman anymore. My house was a testament to a lot of broken things before it was ever leveled by the storm. But I didn’t have any little ones to walk up and down the lane and my car had survived just fine and I owned the best pair of binoculars out of anyone. So, I kept vigil–it was the least I could do.

I sat and watched and sometimes cooed back when the angel let out long melancholy ooo's. The relief trucks were late if they were even coming and I drank in small sips from my third water jug. The chaplain came at sundown and he passed me a better drink from his flask. I wasn’t a praying woman anymore so I took a long sip and passed it back.

“Think it’ll make it out?” I asked, nodding at the angel, and the chaplain took a longer drink. I gave him a small smile and elbowed the man. “Glad you stayed, at least.”

He nodded again and began to pray, never taking his eyes off the wires up above.

The girl came when the day tucked behind the trees into full dark. She was a darting, quiet thing and I nearly missed her rustling through the grass.

“You shouldn’t be out here,” I told her tiny form at the edge of the puddles. She drew her knees up under a big sweater.

“I have to make sure he doesn’t try anything . . .” she said and I knew she was talking about Davie, who I could no longer love.

“Does your mama know you’re out here?”

She mumbles from inside her oversized hoodie, “I can’t let ‘em do it.”

I sighed. “He won’t, not with me here,” I said and waved her over. I made the little girl climb into my lap to stop her shivering and the chaplain gave us all a blanket to huddle under. The angel flapped those dirty wings and cooed.

“Can I see?”

I let the little girl use my binoculars to make out that bent halo and loose curls. She got fingerprints all over the lens and I tried to ignore it.

“I want to be a meteorologist one day,” Clara said, unprompted. “So I can warn people about stuff like this.”

I snorted. “And I want to be a poet.”

“Hush,” Markus says to me and then to the little girl, “I’m sure you’ll make a great weather lady one day, Clara.” The chaplain gave a punished smile and it made me want to make fun of him just enough to stop it. Clara frowned.

“Did you always want to be a chaplain?” she asked in return, a bit meanly, and the chaplain didn't answer.

I cleared my throat. “Do you think that’s what it was trying to do? Trying to warn us?” “Or maybe it was just unlucky,” Markus says, rubbing a hand down his long face.

I snorted. “A bad day at work.”

“Does god allow for bad luck?” asked the little girl and the question hung limp and loose like those wings.

“Why don’t we ask it?” I say, and we laugh, weakly. We call out to the angel–questions and praise and hopes for tomorrow that we’ll get it out. Or maybe we'd have to get the shotgun tomorrow. The glow of the creature is so weak. Near midnight, the girl suggests we go looking for its trumpet. If it had been there to warn us, it might have carried a horn, and if it had a horn, we might be able to summon help from its friends.

We search, feebly, avoiding the sparking wires and the upturned wood and metal. We go around in the mud on our hands and knees until we match the trapped creature. Though, we never do figure out what to do with the angel tangled in the power line. The night was long and bitter and we didn’t have anywhere else to be, the drunken chaplain and family-less woman of the birds and that little girl.

Before dawn, I am asleep, we are all asleep, dead to the world like the day will never come. And in the morning, the wires are loose on the ground and quiet. The angel is gone and a relief trucks have come. A part of me hopes the creature made it out. The birds after all peck at the wires on the ground. A part of me is relieved to see that Davie is here and he has all his supplies in the back. The trucks arrived and the power company remembered us enough to cut off the power.

I have nowhere to be, and walk the little girl home. Gloria is happy to see her and offers me a place to stay the night. I tell her my car is just fine. Still, she says, just a night.

The window in the guest room faces the electrical wires. They’ll rebuild them one day because you can’t waste the material all the way out here. Clara will go off to college one day. The chaplain will leave the drink for good, he will, and the church in the same breath. I will write a poem one day and it won’t be any good.

The poem will be about the electrical wires outside my windows. How I don’t know if the angel made it out, but the birds still perch there. They preen and sing and fluff. I count them one by one in the pre-dawn light. Some are flesh and blood. They clean the feathers of the ones that aren’t. Pearly blue jays sing, barely visible, and letting out forgotten songs from yesteryear, and there are fewer ones in the proper light. The angel wire they call it. Year after year, the birds return with their bodies or without them, to sit one by one in a line. Pearly outlines preen their living grandchildren and sing to lost mates and fluff invisible wings, and I close my eyes and listen to the ghosts.

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#flash fiction #spilled ink #flash fic #urban fantasy #magical realism #my work #short story

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tobyisave · 2 months ago

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acting lessons

this is for my chapter 5 au... I tried to compose a toxic doomed yaoi saiouma essay in the tags just now but it went over the tag limit (mortifying) so I'm just going to paste it under the cut!!

////cw for suicide of course. also heads up my version of saiouma is almost completely one sided 👍🏼

#look.. in my mind there is no world where shuichi truly comes around on kokichi #but there is TOTALLY a world where he feels eternally fucked up and guilty about assisting in his suicide #and cant bring himself to hate anymore #cant bring himself to reject the casual but blatantly self-indulgent touches of the boy hes about to murder in the most excruciating way possible #just let him have his fun #let him squeeze your shoulder a little too long #its the least you can do when hes about to let his entire body be turned into an unrecognizable puddle of gore #you dont have to pretend you like it. he KNOWS you dont like it. just let it happen & soon enough itll be over and youll never have to see him again #youll never be *able* to see him again. nothing left of him to even call a body #fucking unidentifiable #god. #(to be clear i dont approve of that logic at all but i sure think shuichi would feel that way)

#its like oumota but worse because (to me) shuu has completely written him off by ch5 and doesnt even need the poison blackmailing to agree #its shuichis low point after all hes fully suicidal and thinks kokichi is the mastermind who destroyed humanity's last hope #he doesnt have time to recalculate his opinion before its too late #he agrees almost immediately #but the closer it gets the less he can justify it #like god this guy fills me with rage and we would never ever in a million years get along but hes also a warm breathing human being #and hes in love with me or something and i just agreed to kill him. EAGERLY! #to his FUCKING FACE #yes i openly hated him already. and yes he didnt even blink when i told him i could kill him #if anything he looked happy! #but god how could i just say that to someone? how did it get this bad? #and how is he still giving me finger hearts through the camera while we test out angles for his fucking DEATH VIDEO #maybe just maybe its because he really thinks this will save us. but maybe he just wants to die #and i dont even know if that makes a difference anymore #et cetera……..

#like i said im not a saiouma guy in the traditional sense but #i do like pathetic clingy kokichi x shuichi who hates himself for harboring genuine malice towards him #(justified malice) #but is too self doubting to take the reins and stop the horrible thing theyve already set in motion

#meeting the same fate as kaede because he THOUGHT he was agreeing to kill the mastermind #when in reality it was really just a cagey guy who was trying to do the EXACT same thing and made the mistake of going it alone #and now that guy who couldve been his ally is dead and he has to pretend hes ok and lie to his friends to derail this trial #for this stupid idiotic plan he let himself get blindly swept up in #that was never going to work in the first place #he knew it was full of holes he knew ouma was full of shit #he knew himself he knew he'd buckle under the pressure of the trial #but he didnt say a thing #it was so much easier to go with it. he just wanted it to be fucking over with #well its not over. the game continues and kokichi is dead and for what #didnt lift a fucking finger #fucking idiot coward bottom of the barrel piece of shit. GOD #i dont know man. it's just real kill yourself hours for shuichi after this one

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ruvviks · 3 months ago

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THE EVIL WITHIN 2 ➤ [10/?]

#the evil within 2 #tewedit #gamingedit #dailygaming #usermojaves #userrena #nucleargifs #*tew2 #flashing //#to a degree i'm always out here missing union #favorite fictional video game town...#first few chapters of the game are my favorites because the vibes in the first part of town are so good

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plushipaws · 1 year ago

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“Dragon, I am not sure that I am a prince.”

“Of course not, you are my beloved pet.” “No, I mean… gender-wise.”

“Oh. Are you a princess?”

“No, I don’t think so.” “Alright, dear. Then, what are you?” “I think- well I’m not sure I am allowed.”

“You can be anything you want to be, my darling.”

“Well- and please don’t laugh- I think I’d like to be a dragon. … Like you.”

The dragon purred and wrapped its long neck around the smaller being and nuzzled its nose on their head. “Then a dragon you are, my love.”

“But I’m worried I’m not qualified to be a dragon. I don’t have scales or wings.”

“Dragons come in all sorts of kinds. Many are scaleless or wingless.”

“And I’m rather small and weak for a dragon…” They sighed. “I mean, I am already fairly small and weak for a human.”

The dragon studied the being who was now a smaller dragon for a long time before speaking rather gently. “I am rather small and weak for a dragon too you know… It is something I never told you, and you couldn’t know because you have none other to compare me to.” “What? But you’re so big and strong! You fly ten miles a day to hunt for us and you defend me from nosey knights who try to ‘rescue’ me!”

The dragon nodded. “Yes, but other dragons can fly for a thousand miles a day and hunt for an army, and they could fight off an army too. After fighting a single knight I become quite tired… This is why I live alone in this cave, away from other dragons. They harass me for my weakness, and try to push me to do more… they say what I am is not enough.” With this, the dragon lowered it’s head, seeming to feel ashamed.

The smaller, human shaped dragon kissed the larger one on the snout. “Well, you are certainly enough for me. You might not be able to fight or feed an army, but your hunts keep us both full and your claws keep us both safe. And I always look forward to curling up under your wings at the end of the day. You don’t have to be alone anymore.” They frowned, their brow furrowing. “It makes me angry how you were treated.”

“It makes me angry how you were treated! That is what drew me to rescue you. I could see your society was treating you the same as mine was… Pushing you to do too much when you were tired, not appreciating you for who you are… but I appreciate you. You always know how to make me laugh, and all your little faces are so cute. I always look forward to feeling you press against my sides at the end of the day.” It nuzzled them. “You are dragon enough for me, better than any other dragon I have met. You are enough.”

The smaller dragon nodded. “We are our own sort of dragons. And that is enough.”

#otherkin #trans #disability #chronic fatigue #flash fiction #dragonkin #fantasy #my art #my writing #xenogender

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gothamite-rambler · 2 months ago

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That time Jason and Bruce swapped bodies

*this is the day after they swapped and Jason gave proof to the family that was doubtful*

Jason (Bruce gruff singing voice): Penelope, why? You know I’m too shy and terrified.

Jason brushed imaginary hair behind his ear like was done in the numerous animatics he saw with Stephanie. She was the first one to react.

Stephanie (pointing at Jason!Bruce): Oh my God, you actually swapped bodies!

Duke: Bruce can sing? Like I don't doubt the body swap... But he can sing?

Barbara cackled sliding out of the lounge chair.

Barbara: Do the... Do the ear tuck again!

Bruce (gripping Jason/his arm): Don't you dare.

Alfred: I have to excuse myself to laugh in private. My apologies this is just incredibly surreal to the point it's hilarious.

Alfred left but his British laughter was heard even in another part of the house.

Cass: This is surreal, will you be able to swap back soon?

Jason (covering Bruce's mouth): We're not sure yet. Me and the old slugger aren't complaining though.

Dick: Yeah, sorry again for not finding the puppet. It's difficult since he's small.

Jason: It's fine- Ow!

Bruce bite Jason/his hand angrily causing his son to uncover his mouth, but only laughed finding the entire switch hilarious over panicking or being stressed.

Stephanie: Cool, while we wait can I sing Scylla with 'Jason-Bruce'. No wait, a Chappell Roan song!

Bruce: No.

Jason: Maybe.

Jason laughed his amused chuckle making Bruce's usual dry rich person laugh sound completely different. Bruce groaned, covering his face. As the group continued talking Damian, recovering from a cold, entered the living room where the meeting was happening.

Damian: Good morning everyone. Father?

Bruce and Jason: Yes?

Stephanie (clasping her hands together): God, you finally gave me something that's mortifying Bruce. Thank you!

Damian: What did I miss?

Duke: Your dad and brother switched minds.

Damian (sniffling from leftover cold): Oh... I miss so much when I have the sniffles. Hm... I'll just call Jason father for the time being and ... Bruce for 'Bruce-Jason'. Yes, that seems fair.

Damian was doing this to mess with his father for the first time in a while and it worked. Bruce eyes widened in shock as he looked from his boy being controlled by Jason to Damian and then fainted backwards.

Jason: Please tell me someone recorded that!

Dick (holding up his phone): I got you covered.

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watercolorfreckles · 10 months ago

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Could you do a story where a guard of a Supermax prison befriends a supervillain, because he treats him like a genuine human being instead of an animal; and later, all the power-dampeners suddenly fail; and all these villains just revolt against the guards; but supervillain makes sure he’s safe since he was always kind to him?

I understand if you don’t want to!!❤️

Hello! This has been sittin in my inbox for many months during my huge writing rut, sorry about that! I know you also gave this prompt to @the-modern-typewriter and she's been making an incredible series with it on patreon! I changed some things around because I don't want to in any way attempt some sad copy of her interpretation, but I was still inspired by the prompt itself, so I've taken some fairly big liberties to avoid any significant similarities! Hope that's okay! Also, please manage your expectations, I do not compare to the magic that is TMT's writing 😆

TW: Brief depictions of body horror. Violence.

The power blew out in sections. The lights dissolved sector by sector with a sickening whine and click–one by one–in approach.

The commotion ripped Eloise from the fictional world she was lost in, aged page corners still pinched beneath her thumb. Her spirited storytelling abruptly died behind her teeth.

Somewhere in the distance, one person shouted. Two.

Her gaze flicked behind them to the door isolating herself and the bound supervillain from the other sectors of the Maximum Security Prison for Powered Individuals or, as everyone called it, The Max. Seeing nothing but black beyond the bullet-proof glass, her attention snapped forward again to the supervillain imprisoned across from her.

Was this the start of some elaborate escape plan on his part? Why did it have to happen on a day that she was stuck fulfilling her community service hours instead of being something she could safely gawk at in the newspaper from a distance in a few days? Her stomach did a nauseated flip.

“What are you doing?” she blurted, voice quivering only a little. Her fingers tightened around her book.

The villain made a show of looking pointedly at his restraints. Wrists strung taut and chained to either wall, he shrugged an innocent shoulder at her as if to say “clearly, nothing.” He was perched on the edge of his bed like a bird, tilting his head with a matching sort of probing curiosity.

For all the chaos outside of the room, Artisan had not a hair out of place. He appeared perfectly unconcerned, though as thoroughly trapped as ever: ankles shackled, arms stretched uselessly apart from each other. The power-dampening collar wrapped around his neck still blipped a faint red light, indicating it was active.

The prisoners were rioting. Surely they couldn’t get too far? Containing the most dangerous of powered individuals was, after all, the express purpose of the facility…

The lights above them flickered, dipping the room in and out of inky darkness before settling into a dimly lit haze. Eloise’s breath stalled. The imposing dark felt like a threat, as if the lights could keep the monsters at bay. It only made a little sense, in the way that a child feels safe from the monsters under their bed as long as their nightlight is plugged in.

Except that these monsters were real. The most dangerous in the country. And she was currently feet away from the monster that made even other monsters run.

He hadn’t seemed so bad in the time that she’d known him. Quiet, impassive, yet twisting her gut with pity any time she eyed his barbaric restraints. The least she could do–while crossing off her hours–was to read the supervillain a story every few days. She couldn’t change his fate. Couldn’t make him more comfortable. What she could do was rattle off, sheepishly, about fictional worlds and impactful characters in literature and the way that a well-crafted story could transport you somewhere better.

A crash, gunshots, a scream. Tension racketed through Eloise’s shoulders. More shouts chased thundering footsteps.

Things were going very, very, wrong. And she was very much out of her depth.

Eloise jolted as something struck the door, her special-edition copy of Mary Shelly's Frankenstein falling to the ground and skidding away.

Finally, the lights cut out. With it, every noticeable piece of tech died. All of the energy felt sucked out of the room as if vacuumed. The camera’s blinking light disappeared. Alarms that should have been wailing cut silent. Speakers, keypads, and security systems, all dead. The secondary generator hadn’t sprung to life yet. That meant that this was more than a simple power outage. This was a calculated revolt.

Eloise’s mind raced through a list of everything else that must have been failing. Coms. Sedative gas. Shock collars. Layers and layers of security locks…

Power dampeners.

Panic clamped vice-like and suffocating around her throat. Artisan’s collar was no longer blinking.

She froze in the eerie silence of the cell, afraid of shattering the fragile calm. Her heart thumped, rabid, against her ribs.

Chains rattled and clinked to the floor.

Eloise bolted blindly for the door, smacking her palm against the DNA scanner while frantically swiping her “Volunteer Staff” badge through the card reader. When neither miraculously came to life, she resorted to banging on the door.

“Let me out, let me out! Guard!”

The door could only be opened by one person inside the cell and one outside simultaneously unlocking the security checkpoints. Even if the power were on, if the guard on the other side was gone…

The emergency floodlights kicked on, bathing the building in startling fluorescence. Eloise flinched, briefly stunned.

Hands grabbed her firmly from behind, yanking her backward.

Eloise yelped. “No, please–!”

The spot that she had been standing in exploded, steel door and concrete chunks collapsing into the room in a barrage of shrapnel. Something–no, someone–landed, bones crunching, at her feet. The guard who had last been standing on the opposite side of the door lay motionless. His blood puddled the floor, staining the soles of her Converse sneakers.

A horrified sound choked in Eloise’s throat.

Another supervillain strode in, eyes alight with hatred and something more–power. His lip curled, waving a mocking hand–engulfed in green energy–at the guard’s corpse. “God. I’ve wanted to do that for far too long. That one always got on my nerves.”

Artisan looked unimpressed. “You’re making a mess in my cell.”

Eloise’s breath caught. Hearing the supervillain’s voice was jarring. Artisan rarely spoke. Not that any of the other staff had ever actually attempted conversation with him… But even in news clips and YouTube videos, he carried himself with the kind of self-assured quiet of someone who had absolutely nothing to prove. His lethal efficiency did more for his reputation than any words could.

The other man was a villain named William Frenzy, a telekinetic with a gleeful taste for violence.

Faced with Artisan’s startling calm, Frenzy… paused. Faltering on a tight rope he had moments before been strolling across.

“Yes, well. It won’t have to be your cell much longer, will it? They can’t stop all of us.” He smirked at the dead body on the floor. “Some of them can’t even stop one of us.”

Eloise shrank back toward the corner nearest the door, agonizingly slow, willing the ugly shadows from the artificial lighting to swallow her up while the supers focused on each other. She was the kind of person that people tended not to notice; a background character in the perimeter of a story that the protagonist would meet once and never spare a thought again. She wished, then, that invisibility really was her superpower.

Artisan said nothing, his steely gaze fixed upon Frenzy.

Frenzy floundered beneath the scrutiny. The smugness buffered on his face. Finally, he huffed, crossing his arms. “I made you a nice and easy door out. You’re welcome.” He flicked a hand toward the gaping hole in the wall.

Eloise inched further toward it.

Artisan tutted, and while it wasn’t aimed at her, it shot a cold thrill up her spine. She froze, briefly, before continuing her tantalizing escape. She listened to Artisan speak again.

“I did not need anything from you. I’ll be getting out regardless. You on the other hand…”

Eloise stared as Frenzy’s skin shrank taut against his bones, the frame of him creaking and groaning like an old tree in the wind. The air choked out of him, fingers grabbing at his jaw as it stretched open too wide. The corners of his lips tore, slitting his mouth into a gaping maw.

The faintest of smiles graced Artisan's lips as he continued, soft as ever. “Say sorry.”

Eloise didn’t wait to see the carnage through, slipping out into the hall and running.

The other sectors were washed in the same sterile glow as Artisan’s cell was, blue-tinged and horrible, like the lights in a dentist's office. She kept to the edge of things as best she could, clinging to the walls and dark corners.

There was brawling in every sector—guards with weapons drawn mowed to the ground by the creatures they had wardened for so long. A villain fell as shots rang out. Another grabbed the guard from behind, cracking his skull against their knee.

The smell of blood stung Eloise’s nostrils. She couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t breathe.

She turned to flee down another hall, but two fighting inmates crashed into the doorway in front of her.

Eloise squealed, jerking backward into the belly of the room's chaos.

Don't notice me, don't notice me, don't notice me.

Everyone was so occupied by their chosen prey, maybe she could fade into the background. Maybe she could–

Her heel caught on something and she tumbled, gracelessly, to the floor. It took her several moments to register the lake of blood seeping warm and sticky into her clothing.

Terror blurred her brain in a white flash bang.

Disappear, disappear, disappear…

“Mm. What do we have here?”

Eloise couldn’t bring herself to lift her head. She clamped her eyes shut, another child’s illusion of protection.

The villain opposite her chuckled. He ripped her volunteer badge off of its clip against her chest. Her eyes snapped open again. She recognized him as a ringleader among superpowered thieves. They called him Volt.

“Volunteer, eh? A pretty thing like you should know better than to willingly set foot in a prison full of men with nothing left to lose. It’s been a long sentence, darling. I could make excellent use of your volunteer services. Get up.”

Numbly, ears full of static, Eloise shook her head.

Volt frowned, electricity jumping to life in his palms. “No?” He reached for her, hand nearing her throat.

“Keep your hands to yourself or I will remove them.”

Artisan’s voice was calm. His eyes were not.

The room quieted.

Spatters of red decorated Artisan’s prison uniform. A few drops dotted his face and he brushed them away with his knuckles, smearing the crimson across his cheek. Almost lazily, he popped his neck and stretched his shoulders, no doubt sore from the strain his restraints kept him in.

The villain across from Eloise paused, sparks still dancing across his fingertips. He regarded Artisan with the same wary caution as Frenzy had.

Before he'd been… Before Artisan had…

Eloise swallowed back the nausea climbing her throat.

Finally, Volt’s hand lowered. “She's yours?”

“She's hers. Step away.”

The man hesitated a moment too long. Artisan didn't offer a second warning.

As if puppeted, the man's fingers raised to gauge at his own eyes. He screamed, the faint evidence of Artisan’s power shimmering over him. He clawed, next, at the skin on his face, peeling it back like wet wallpaper.

As promised, his wrists crunched and bent, wrenching all on their own at impossible angles.

Eloise covered her ears, unable to bear the screaming. She felt sick.

“Stop,” she whispered finally. “Please.”

It did. The man collapsed into a sobbing, bloodied heap.

When Eloise managed to look at Artisan, she startled to find his attention fixed on her.

They stared at each other for a stretch of silence that itched. She imagined being forced to choke on her own lungs, or her skull constricting in on itself until it squashed her brain into pulp. For being so bold as to run, he might snap her legs and reaffix them the wrong direction, or splinter her bones to poke, grotesque, out of her skin. They always did say that his victims were his personal works of art, bodies twisted into shells of monsters.

He crooked a finger, beckoning her.

The edges of her vision swooped fuzzy and vertiginous. She rose onto wobbly knees and pushed herself to her feet. When she swayed, Artisan caught her elbow, slipping an arm around her waist to lead her forward.

He did not look back at the others, with complete confidence that no one would challenge him.

No one did.

Eloise was barely aware of taking one step after another. When they arrived back in the villain’s cell, the bodies of Frenzy and the dead guard, thankfully, were gone, though the floor was streaked with the drag lines of their blood.

She wrenched her gaze away.

Artisan’s hand moved further down her arm to her wrist, gesturing that she sit on his bed. When she shifted to do so, his grip tightened, tugging her to a stop. She frozen and tried to read his face.

His dark brows were furrowed, suspicious eyes flicking from hers down to her hand.

He pulled down her sleeve and held her wrist up between them, revealing the power-blocking cuff clamped around it. His head cocked. He waited.

Eloise swallowed. “I’m not a super. I mean- not a super-super. Just a…..no one.”

“A no-one who volunteers at The Max? With a power-dampener?”

“They’re terms of my probation,” she blurted. “A thousand hours of community service here and a power-inhibitor for a year. I think they put me here to threaten me with where I could end up if I continue on like… Um…”

“Me.”

“A villain,” she clarified, as if that was better.

Her gaze flitted from the fingers wrapped around her wrist and up to the villain’s face again. The harsh lighting haloed him, dimly silhouetting his face. He looked haunting. He looked lovely. A beautiful house, old and creaking, wrapped in ghosts like a bride’s veil and left to rot.

“What did you do?”

“I…” Eloise felt very small. “I lied about being powered on my documents. So that they wouldn’t put me on the registry. When they found me out, I tried to run away.”

Artisan’s scrutiny burned her cheeks. He let go of her wrist.

“...What can you do?”

“Nothing special,” she said, cradling her wrist–wholly uninjured as it was–in her other hand. “It doesn’t even work most of the time. My power is sort of…blending in. Going unnoticed. When it’s working, I could stand in a the White House and people’s attention would glide over me as if I belonged there. Not quite invisible, but… It just tricks your brain into not thinking twice.”

Artisan’s eyes narrowed.

Eloise flinched back a step, stumbling back over her fallen book onto the bed. She stared at him.

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

Some of the tension eased from her shoulders, but she still waited for the catch. “Why aren’t you out there with the rest of them? Trying to escape?”

The villain considered her for a long moment. He sat down beside her, and the hard cot creaked beneath his weight. “Mm. That’s just it. No one inside the prison could have blown the power-dampeners. They require someone with powers to turn them off or on, and the security is impenetrable. My team has tried. Besides, if this was a simple power outage, the inhibitors would still be on. But they’re not. This was premeditated–and no one imprisoned here could have done it. No one on the outside could have done it. So. Process of elimination. Who’s left?”

That was the most Eloise had ever heard Artisan speak, and she could only sit and listen intently–As he had when she’d read him stories. Her brain whirred in a jumbled jigsaw of puzzle pieces.

“It… It could only be an inside job.” She wet her lips. “The heroes- The higher-ups- They want the prisoners to break out so that they can kill them. A clean massacre. Justified under the law. The world’s most dangerous criminals could never be allowed to escape…”

Artisan smiled and it swirled something in her insides. “A convenient way to get rid of all of the pesky criminals clogging up the system. I’d bet anything that there are 50 snipers surrounding the building, waiting to slaughter anyone who steps foot outside.”

“Oh.”

“Oh,” Artisan agreed, his smile easing into something softer; something with less feral teeth.

“Thank you for helping me,” Eloise whispered. “What do we do now?”

Artisan hummed. He bent down and swept up her book, dropping it into her lap. He laid back against his pillow and crossed his arms behind his head. The bloodspots on his skin and clothes glittered in the lowlight.

“Keep reading. I want to know how it ends.”

Part 2

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