#my personal faves are the two from bloodhounds :v felt like a slick combination of words

[muddshadow]

find the word —

words courtesy of @isherwoodj and @akindofmagictoo <3 tagging you back and also @faelanvance @pinespittinink @baroquesse @revenancy @the-void-writes @calicoy and anyone else who feels like it <3 to you i bestow the words ASH, ACHE, CLEAR, COLD.

RAISE // bloodhounds

...she’d been considering a possibility, one that emerged this past year with the slow, solemn recognition that accompanied all dreadful truths, and one that had been sufficiently judged with rejection, reluctance, and compromises. It’s not what I think. It couldn’t be that. It must be something similar. But Neve was raised to untangle puzzles, and how could she ignore the thousand knotted strings that wove together Rowan? She couldn’t. Not when she watched him share stories across the dinner table, not when they surrendered low-toned secrets around a fire-pit or a dawn-crested balcony or in the silent embrace of the pilot’s deck, and certainly not now, as she plucked through the tattered wires of his detached prosthetic. Rowan told a great many truths, and all of them were shadows. Pieces missing, unmentioned, momentous.

Rowan spoke suddenly. “What're you thinking?”

TALL // bloodhounds

Tulan smiled, and it was almost warm. “Look how you’ve grown, Nevelyn.”

When tears burned in her eyes, it felt wrong and overwhelming, and Neve retreated back into her arms. She still didn’t know what to think, but she felt, felt, felt, the bittersweet weight of old memories and a stolen future, the drawn-and-quartered quandary of a man devoted to violence who had loved her like a daughter.

“I never thought you’d end up so tall. That surprised me.”

It hurt to be present, but she had nowhere else to be. Meeting Tulan’s gaze still proved too challenging, so Neve stared at the table and wrangled her thoughts into words.

LOW // the inherited haunting of trystan song

“The universe fucking hates me today,” I say, mostly to myself.

Magdalena still graces me with an answer. “Don’t be rude, Trystan.” She wears a yellow dress and sunhat, coiled hair a black cloud beneath it. A cigarette fits between her fingers, nails perfectly manicured and nighttime blue. They’re always a different color. She bores quickly. I’m hoping I can bore her out of a conversation, since I already have a catastrophe planned.

Magdalena lowers her designer sunglasses and glimpses me over. “You look terrible.”

ROYAL // the inherited haunting of trystan song

“Is that a soda in there?”

“No. It’s a high nutrient fruit juice, made with–”

“Great. Hand it to me.”

He does without looking and continues sifting through the fridge drawers. I don’t catch any of his unintelligible mutters. I don’t try to. I’m already knocking back my first shot of Crown Royal and get straight to work on the second and third. Chasing it with high nutrient fruit juice isn’t as satisfying as Dr. Pepper, but it does make it interesting.

OVER // twice-dead scavengers

The evening before the triplets left, House Finch held a grand celebration. All twenty-seven Finches attended; not counting the married-in spouses and step children, who were never counted, and not counting Tatum, whose presence was no longer expected or desired anywhere near the Finch doorstep. Only special occasions brought the entire esteemed and estranged family together at one table. A special occasion to pry for information, confront old rivalries, and to discreetly glimpse over Grandmother Ruvilka and assess if she was anywhere closer to death.

Tonight, the conclusion didn’t waver from the previous decades. Grandmother remained at the head of the table and deathless.

RUGGED // twice-dead scavengers

Bright pain erupted in her shoulder, scathing and rendering her blind. Geneviere dreaded losing her other arm, released a short, husky shriek at the thought, but the knife was a quick dart and not a rugged hacking. The phantom tore the blade free of her trapezius. Geneviere collapsed forward. Blood wept down her arm, mixing with sweat and ink.

Several strides away, the mist collected into the distinctive shape of a person, hunched on their heels and watching her, this time with a voice.

“You’re the weakest,” the phantom said, tone hushed like dawn and roiled deep by storm, “because the others don’t care about you.”

“Ouch,” Geneviere mumbled. Mostly because of the stab wound.