#rivulet the necromancer

[slimey985]

Real and true

[nerdanel01]

rungs of gold (18+)

certain works of fan art have me thinking a little too hard about what piercings Emmrich may or may not have.

Emmrich x Gender Neutral Rook, lots of cock, genital piercings, jacob’s ladder piercing, smut implied at the end but not depicted

“That—that’s not—�� 

Rook’s tongue felt thick in their mouth; clumsy. The sight in front of them had rendered them inarticulate, and more than a little stupid, with a sudden, dizzy rush of heat and need. 

The lines around Emmrich’s eyes deepened with amusement, and his mouth slanted fetchingly to the side. 

“Yes, dear?”

The last two functioning brain cells in Rook’s head cast the incredulous words upon their tongue:

“That’s not part of your grave dowry.”

Because a grave dowry—as Rook understood it—was gold that Nevarrans took with them when they died. Rook had seen some of the undead thralls in the Necropolis, bangles of gold stacked along their wrists and ankles, just like the bracelets Emmrich wore nearly to his elbows.

But, with a shock that had nearly stopped Rook’s heart (but left other parts of their body clenching, deliciously, in anticipation)—when Emmrich had undressed in front of them for the first time, unfastened his trousers and pulled himself free, he had revealed certain jewelry that Rook could not possibly imagine any skeleton wearing from beyond the grave. 

Rook had no idea how they would attach it. 

“A keen observation,” Emmrich replied, his widening grin tugging crookedly at his words. “When I pass on, I won’t be able to take these particular adornments with me; they are exclusively for the admiration and stimulation of the living.”

Emmrich’s hand dropped between his slender hips, long fingers grasping loosely around his swollen arousal, already red and weeping. The ladder of golden barbells that ran along the underside of his shaft winked seductively at Rook as Emmrich ran his fingers over them. Really, Rook shouldn’t be surprised. Whyever should Emmrich not be dripping in gold from head to toe? Look at him: gorgeous, precious—perfect, even without the embellishments of the studs in his ears and the rings on his fingers (and the piercings along his cock, which Rook probably couldn’t pull their eyes away from if they tried.) But Rook still wants to layer him in golden pendants and ruby brooches until he shines exactly like the treasure he is.

That—and Rook would also very much like to climb naked into Emmrich’s lap, to feel all that gold pressing up against them.

Emmrich’s hazel eyes sparkled as he watched Rook’s gaze trace the movements of his hand. 

“Darling Rook, if you like them so much, I will have the gold melted down into a bracelet, and ensure it is bequeathed to you after I am gone.” The laugh lines around the necromancer’s mouth deepened, though Emmrich did not make a sound beyond the shallow huffing of his breath, unsteady with lust. “A small token to help you remember me fondly.”

‘Fond’ was perhaps not the word Rook would use the memories such a token might recall to mind. But the idea of Emmrich’s genital piercings living a second life as a bracelet on their wrist humiliated them with a burning they admittedly did not totally despise. Swallowing, Rook drank in the sight before them and imagined what Emmrich would look like after he came—milky rivulets of his spend trickling between the gold barbells like beads of dripping pearls—

“Dear,” Emmrich began, then, his voice wavering, less sultry and far less sure of himself, “you seem a bit shocked—forgive me, I ought to have said something, not left it til the moment to reveal it to you. If it is too much…”

A dull whine from the back of Rook’s throat answered. “Not too much,” Rook managed to reassure him after finding their tongue, tearing their gaze away from Emmrich’s waist to meet his eyes. “Definitely good, I just…”

Rook’s eyes sunk back to Emmrich’s waist. Color heated their cheeks, and they asked: 

“Can I touch?”

In the periphery of their vision, Rook saw Emmrich jerk his head—a sharp, emphatic nod of his head, yes—and Rook took a step forward, closing the space between them. 

Hesitant—not for any lack of desire on their part, but out of a profound reluctance to hurt Emmrich—Rook groped gently along his shaft, tugging loose-fistedly along the hot swollen length of it, carefully not to pull too roughly on his piercings. But even that gentle touch left Emmrich stifling a satisfied groan in the back of his throat—and Rook matched that groan in kind, feeling the smooth, golden ball-ends of the piercings glide across their fingers, imagining what all that metal would feel like, dragging mercilessly inside of them. 

Croaked, weakly, “Wow.”

Just like that, the crooked grin was back on Emmrich’s face—though now he surveyed Rook through eyes heavy lidded with desire, his breath catching unevenly as Rook continued to stroke him. 

“I’m pleased you like it. I must admit, some partners have found it off-putting, in the past.”

Rook choked out a laugh. Honestly, it was taking all of Rook’s self control not to rip off their clothes and jump on it this instant, but they gathered that such a move would neither be wise nor entirely welcome. Still,

“That’s insane. It’s a huge turn on.” 

Emmrich answered this declaration with a gasp of delighted disbelief. “Really?”

“Mm-hmm,” Rook affirmed with an emphatic nod of their head, swiping slow, firm and insistent at the weeping, red head of his shaft. Told him:

“Emmrich, you’re gorgeous.”

—and felt their stomach flip and clench in excitement at the way Emmrich’s cock jumped in their hand at the words, bloodflooded and thick. 

“How very fortunate I am that you think so.” Emmrich’s words came breathlessly, now; a faint blush was starting to spread across his cheeks. “Do you still want to…?”

Rook pulled on his cock, kissed his neck, kissed up to Emmrich’s ear. 

“Yes,” Rook swore, pressing the words and their hot breath against the barely-there evening stubble on Emmrich’s neck. They could feel their own cheeks burning at the thought of the dirty talk perched on their tongue, felt a little shudder of arousal run through them when their mouth shaped the words against Emmrich’s skin:

“Yes, you’d better—

“It’d be cruel of you to display yourself like this in front of me if you weren’t going to fill me up after.” Emmrich didn’t answer. And Rook shrank in on themselves, already ready to apologize for pushing things too far—Emmrich was such a gentleman, they should have realized he wouldn’t want to be spoken to like that—when they felt Emmrich’s long fingers on their chin, tilting their face up to his and pausing only to groan a low, “oh, darling…” between their lips before he was crushing their mouths together in a kiss so passionate it bordered on the obscene.

[boxofteethrpg-blog]

Built around a banshee's unhallowed skull, baintsi are thankfully rare constructs due to the rarity of this prime ingredient. Encased in enchanted crystal, the skull sits where the face would be in the foul bust. The profane brass construction has sculpted hair running down the back of the enclosure and pointed ears jutting from the locks. That statue's shoulders are dotted with honeycomb patterns, each with a polished onyx fixed inside. Below the shoulders, the baintsi is nothing more than a brazen urn containing dirt from its disturbed grave. A halo of crimson lightning floats above its head with regular rivulets of electricity cascading down its casing. Wailing Ward. Dark fey and elven necromancers have methods to divine where the corpse a banshee rose from lays but obtaining the accursed craniums is a different matter entirely. Even then, the crofter has to tightly bind the unholy energies saturating the corpse to both empower the baintsi and focus its undying hatred where the creator wants it. This warding creates a shielding that converts hostile spells into destructive shrieks directed back at the caster. https://boxofteeth.blogspot.com/2020/07/bainsti.html

[magnetar1]

Entrails of the Earth

From the bowels to the sky to the eclipsing wreck of the world, all devoured in the moment in an hour for necromancers and lepers.  In their minds they’ve seen the world ignite, reeking in their bones with evil pride.  They’ve raptured in their own mutations as well as those that have clawed their way to the surface.  

In a roiling tomb, slaughterhouse, bursting molecules, uncontrolled as the rest of humanity sinks.  No war, sacrifice, or silent prayer can save them from its plummeting depths, where spirits of men graze the surface.  Murky depths of a demon’s curse, eternal rot of temptation driving them forward.  Dead leading dead across ashen hills, nullified by howls from within as they are goaded by a new shore.  

***

Age of Extinction. Told by those who could not rise above this Bleak Exodus.  

Villages abandoned in favor of a slow death.  Insect mutations, carriers of disease and oily damnation, shredding the nerves of kings and priests alike.  All backed into their private quarters where the nightly shuddering begins.  

No one sleeps anymore due to the heat and those chittering voyeurs outside, reaching in as they watch fluttering silhouettes climb the walls, who tear out their throats as they scream.  

Wakefulness turns to paranoia as they pace empty halls of once shining temples and kingdoms.  Even as their loyalists advised them to abandon their posts.

Haggard, breathless tyrants muted into non-being.  Ghosts breathe in the sulphuric air, exhaling frozen whispers.  Under catacombs of some hoary dungeon, lair of honeycombed walls stuffed with the broken open sacs of recently departed hive masters: vein under the earth ripe with curdled blood and tumors.  

It is here they tortured any who refused to share their vision of paradise.  No longer the event of war to excuse imbalance between righteousness and fortitude, sanity or sainthood.  Until nature let Him in, engorging on His living fire, God unseen in the eyes of simple beasts, searing retinas down to their reptilian gaze.   

***

Ice fills the veins of remaining, mortal men.  Even kings become wrath-like, not unlike those necromancers who stare frozenly into space.  

         Demons rise and fall beneath the oaths of none.  Pockets of civilization survive under the pretense of future glories while haunted furies claim otherwise.  Even where the world is not rage-white with hot, needling death they are choking on its yellow fallout.  The world breaks as nature’s knees buckle, land becoming shrouded in the noxious mist of its charred carapace.  

Bending over in the dust while she takes it from behind, spreading herself even wider as she lets the evil out.  No prayer or law can tempt it away.  Earth quakes as seas boil and the sky becomes molten.  Only north in the Valley of Fugitivis does the Nilis still flow.  Instead, collapsed arteries of a junkie nympho as she bled from every orifice. 

Painfully satisfying  as when lepers peel back their wounds.  To feel it on her craggy skin below an ashen moon.  Still, the furnace of her sex flows into forgotten chasms, void-like cesspools of endless mutation, inseminating derelict chimeras with the code of an idea older than the earth itself.                

***

All comes from the Red King, glowering god of scorching ire, bile and hatred, seething in His fiery coat, blasting through layers of distinction.  

Skins fall away as the weather changes revealing the raw nerve beneath.  

Much has changed since they left their villages.  Pustulence is a daily occurrence and no longer fills them with dread.  So many bodies baking in the heat, draining off into freshly dug rivulets.  

Betrayed by mid-day as demons feed more urgently, guts strewn across the landscape like carrion nurturing lesser creatures who managed to survive – evolution of a nightmare bent under the will of a tyrant.

A father before this, like a golden ray penetrating the essence of those who lived Outside.  

There were tribes in His name, who, long since escaped into the earth, became cannibalistic heathens.  

They’ve not seen the open sky for longer than their youngest have been alive and are no longer servitors of the church.  Instead, a Black Sun radiating from within.

Like madmen that came before them they are driven by the obsolote.  

Fading ideas claim the age as they drift further away.  An ocean devoted to chaos and abysses where portents and interstices are ever changing.  A fluctuating star reflected in a watery, sorcerous, eye.  

***

What cannot be unseen.  Altering the itinerant, walking in circles, anticipating the end. 

Conditioned by fealty until the cruel hand wakes, whatever it takes to completely disappear. Turning to those who wear the same flesh and feeling only revulsion.  Skins rippling with bacteria and disease forming the opinions of those already dead. 

Visiting the tortured landscape by night, hotter still than olden days.  Reminiscing about open bazaars and cool breezes, villages thriving in the prime of spring as a budding earth proliferated.  To know the difference makes them want to kill.  

Eventually they’re called down below to unearth the Temple of Mot.  World is barren enough to summon a hundred such gods.  He, above the clouds on His fiery plane, reigning supreme until, parasitic, leech-like, infesting cavities of their decomposing brethren.

Hot winds lap the shores of a dying planet – corpse-piles like solitary giants, fallen. 

Same as the Beast who taunts the sky, oracles long ago erected to its bloating vein, sent down to earth to thrash among the recently dead.  

Desiccated memories placated by faith driven to the edges of space.  None mourn its station as it is flung wide and out of orbit.  Primal dyslogia riddles the wind as they become irradiated by the oily crude of their unholy thoughts.  Bursting under demonical rule as they join the pestilential fray. 

[talesofsorrowandofruin]

Seven Snippets, Seven People Tag

Thank for tagging me, @elizaellwrites​! :D

Rules: post seven excerpts from your WIP(s) and tag seven people. I’ll post some of my favourite excerpts from The Power and the Glory (I think it’s obvious who my favourite OC is, because he shows up in all of these excerpts):

1. 

"Both of you be quiet!" Abi shouted. "I am Abihira Hartannasvóeln of the Sinistrah clan. The granddaughter of the empress herself. My fiancé and I are here on official business. I order you to leave at once!"

The man gave her a thoroughly unimpressed look. "Well, I am Ilaran Illessilru, Prince of Tananerl, and I sincerely doubt her Majesty considers necromancy official business."

"I was being serious!" Abi protested.

"I know you were. So was I."

Oh. That made things... ever so slightly awkward.

2.

Ilaran asked, "What evidence does Haliran have?"

"Evidence?" Abihira repeated, sounding as if she'd never heard the word before.

"Did she personally witness you raising the dead? Did she force you to sign a written declaration about it?"

"Of course not," Abihira said.

"Then she has no proof."

Abihira frowned. "I don't see--"

Ilaran interrupted her before he lost his train of thought. "She claims a walking corpse interrupted the festival. Very well then, the empress will say, show me the corpse. Obviously she can't. The next question would be, Are you certain it was a corpse? Haliran will be in a predicament. If she insists it was one, she'll have to explain how she's so certain and why it didn't act like any of the other reanimated dead in the records. If she claims you raised it, with no evidence to support any of her story, she'll be laughed out of the palace."

3.

Dramatic gestures were very useful in moderation. They were also very tricky to get right. Performing one correctly relied on careful planning, careful timing, exploiting details other people were unaware of, and a great deal of luck. Ilaran tried not to use them too often. Over-indulging in drama came with a heightened risk of getting something wrong and making a fool of himself. Still, this was one time when a dramatic gesture was practically required. He thought of where he'd figured out Haliran was sitting. He kept that exact image in mind as he turned -- slowly enough for him to avoid a humiliating mistake if he was wrong.

He was right. He turned round and looked Haliran straight in the face.

4.

Until now Haliran hadn't played her trump card. Ilaran had wondered idly why that was, in the brief moments when he wasn't preoccupied by everything else that was happening. Now she finally decided to play it.

"Your Majesty, do you know your granddaughter is a necromancer?"

The audience burst out laughing. So did most of the guards. Even Raivíth herself cracked a smile. Everyone took it as a ludicrous non-sequitur. And they would have continued to take it that way if not for a sudden and unexpected turn of events.

Some invisible force yanked Haliran out of her chair. It tossed her around like a ragdoll. Then it hurled her to the floor with such force that her arm audibly snapped. Everyone froze. Their laughter died.

Only one person had jumped to their feet at the exact minute Haliran was thrown around. They were still standing, with one hand outstretched and pointed right at Haliran. Every eye turned towards them. Ilaran's stomach sank.

It was Abihira.

5.

Quick as lightning Ilaran pulled a knife out of his sleeve and aimed it at his half-brother's throat. The other man froze. So did Abi. She watched in horror as Ilaran stepped closer until the blade was touching the man's throat.

Conversationally Ilaran said, "Swear you aren't planning to kill me, Nuvildu. Right now. And if I'm not convinced..."

He trailed off. There was no need for him to continue. Nuvildu paled. For a second they stared at each other in silence. Then Nuvildu reached up and closed his hand over Ilaran's on the knife's hilt. With an air of calm indifference he pressed the blade even closer to his skin. A thin rivulet of blood trickled down to his collar.

Ilaran's eyes widened. A hint of panic showed in his voice when he spoke. "What are you--"

Nuvildu cut him off. "I swear I am not planning anything against you. I renounce all my rights to the throne and I swear to serve you loyally if you give me the chance. I swear I will do anything you ask of me."

Ilaran gawked at him. The look on his face would have been funny under any other circumstances. "What if I ask you to cut your own throat right now?"

"Then I will do it." Nuvildu's voice shook only slightly.

Minutes ticked by as the two of them stared at each other. Nuvildu still held the knife at his throat. His hand was over Ilaran's, so Ilaran couldn't draw back without the risk of jarring the knife and injuring him more.

"All right," Ilaran said at last. "Can you let go now?"

6.

It turned out there was something worse than being a prisoner in your own mind while someone else controlled your body. That was being a prisoner in your own mind and forced to watch as someone else controlled your body, while being unable to stop them. Ilaran stared in horror as the parasite tore open Abihira's leg. So much blood poured from the wound that for one horrible moment he thought it had hit an artery.

He watched with wide eyes as she climbed onto the staircase. Fortunately it seemed the wound wasn't as bad as it had looked. Abihira checked it and didn't seem too concerned.

Of course, there was also the possibility she was just a reckless idiot who didn't know anything about serious injuries.

The parasite was about to jump after her. Ilaran had had enough. He wasn't feeling very kindly disposed towards Abihira right now -- she'd gotten him killed and possessed in the space of a week, which made her more personally dangerous to him than Haliran -- but this was his body. If the parasite wanted to murder her it could get a body of its own.

He did the mental equivalent of grabbing the parasite by the neck and throttling it. Whether he did any actual damage was debatable, but he distracted it enough to make it stumble just as it jumped.

It missed the rails and plummeted to the grass below.

Oh no, was Ilaran's last thought before he hit the ground. This is going to hurt.

7.

Abi was so preoccupied by the shocking state of the palace that she didn't notice Ilaran get up and walk down the stairs. It took her a minute to notice him standing at the bottom of the stairs and giving her a very unimpressed look.

"What?" Abi asked defensively. "I saved you, didn't I?"

Ilaran scowled. "You were the one who put me in danger to begin with."

Unfortunately she couldn't argue with that. But surely he could show just a little bit more gratitude!

Apparently he thought the same thing. After a pause he said reluctantly, "Thank you."

The two of them stared silently at the damage for a while.

"I didn't mean to do all this," Abi said at last.

Ilaran muttered something under his breath. "I know you didn't. If you'd meant to do it, probably you wouldn't have succeeded in doing any of it. I have just one question." He stared at her as if she was a particularly strange insect under a microscope. "How have you managed to live for over a thousand years without destroying the entire planet?"

Tagging @drowsy-quill​, @boldnightmarishreverbs​, @writingamongther0ses​, @writingonesdreams​, @zmwrites​, @eowynnofrohan​, @inkspellangel​, and anyone else who wants to do this! :D

[signedandsealed]

She was a delitescent colubra, poised and reared beneath overgrown verdure, slithered from a slimy mudhole in the bottoms of a dark backcountry. Spade decapitation was the most humane dispatchment of this intrusive door darkener. She had roosted in the sides of creekbeds and glided w/ serpentine locomotion over murky ponds, assailing every passerby who'de stumbled upon her. Bolting from her coil, she'd flash to the tall grass, almost like a pseudoblepsis, and there she'd snake through w/ a susurrous trail swaying in her course. In the grisly woods, where the mind becomes a Satanic mill, and every limb is twined or hanging, and the floor laid trapped w/ scores of hissing, volatile serpentine apparitions, she laid wait as serpents do, calm, stealth and leering. Her jaws unloosed betrayed swelled sacs, and pinprick holes in her needle fangs that locked to victims injected rushing rivulets from the foremost arsenal beneath her slitted, violent eyes. Her ugly, squamulose body was covered w/ wet secretion, like clinging mucus cast off in her train. The psyche blanched from her intrusive entry, like the Grand Dame of some freaky, orgiastic rite, welcoming all comers w/ a burning lustfire which rose to rolling eyeballs. She was the eight-ball, the snake eyes, the laughing bones and every bad omen contrived from mudbank to plain, from flats to tableland. Her fissilingual flicking was the rapture of the country preacher, who clasped her dangling and writhing in his grip as he echoed a litany of machine gun razzmatazz in tongues, head thrown back in hallowed delirium to the skewed God he worshipped. His frenzied fervor brought the infernal tips flickering ever higher about him, and his devilish mistress surely concurred from her wellsprings of pandemonium. She'd guarded and hatched broods of squirming little nightmares-to-be, nurtured in her foul subterranean nest of dank earth. She was celebrated at covens and esbats, glorified by Satanists and necromancers, brujos and brujerias. She was rendered in scripture as the source of original sin, tempting all-too-gullible Woman w/ sly rhetoric. She darkened Earthly Paradise, sealed the doors, and made the disinherited couple to wander wayward under the edicts of an autocratic God, and has remained strangely fixed ever since as a symbol of velation and treachery.

[nixalegos]

"Nethermancer." He corrected her. "I didn't bargain away pieces of my soul to be a necromancer. I just happen to perform an excessive amount of necromancy lately." He added as he climbed out of the hole with the her magical assistance. "And yes, I talk while I work with others. I'm not so insensitive I can't tell you've been in a mild panic since we departed. Would you prefer I do this in silence, to let you do guess work and look at every move I make, every gesture of an unfamiliar somatic component to my spellcraft and get even more antsy about it?" He offered calmly as he dusted himself off above the graves lip. "Haste, makes waste. Necromancy isn't just a result of pushing magic into a corpse. It's a way of thinking. It is the school of 'waste not, want not. Compare it to conjuration, where the perfect tool for a job, can be in your hand. Or transmutation, where the tool you have can be made into the perfect tool. Necromancy is a practical field. Necromancy says 'it'll never be perfect, but it doesn't have to be. It just has to work." He explained as he waited for her to lower the corpse to the ground and already start thrumming with mana, with essence, whatever force they called the impossible made real in this realm. "And it'll work. Alright? You don't have to worry." He said with a surprising amount of reassurance for someone who dressed like a nightmarish goon. He came to lower himself to one knee close to the skull of the deceased, and held the chain of simple silver over their mouth as his other hand pried their jaw open once more. Immediately, the silver started to slip, not from his hand, but from the chain the bauble shaped like a skull leaked, as surely as quicksilver ran, it fell in droplets and rivulets into the dead mans mouth, coating their tongue. "Alright, here is how this works. We get two chances. Two. First chance, you get three questions. You can only ask it questions the BODY would know. Do not ask it things like 'what is your favorite color, or 'what is the combination to your safe', cause it won't know, and it'll pull the spirit to its corpse forcibly and blow the first set. We don't want to rip someone from the otherside if we don't need to. You'd ask it 'what color was the last dress you wore. You'd ask it how did it spin its most precious lock. You understand the distinction, right? Things it saw, felt, tasted. Stimuli and muscle memory. Sensorium first. If we can't get any viable answers, then and only then am I pulling them into their corpse with a mouthful of silver." He looked to her. "It's unpleasant, but alot better then tasting your own rot you understand. You think performing necromancy feels awful, try being a victim of it sometime. Makes a man very uncooperative, and theres little way we can guarantee they won't lie without leverage. Only the first set can I assure you of truth." He said as the last of the silver skull melted off the chain and the hooded man let go of the corpses jaw. "The dead can't lie, but the undead -can-." It was already moving on its own, the faint hiss pops of a dead mouth moving without a mind behind it. Its tongue, however, was pure, gleaming in silver. Ironic, trying to gain truth from such. "Do not ask me ANY questions until we've asked the corpse three." He stated. "It can hear you, and will try to answer anything you ask even if it can't." He explained. "Take your time and think before you ask." He edified. Then he gestured for her to begin. Compared to their magical effort in digging them up, his necromancy was seemingly plain and without much fanfare. Waste not, want not indeed.

@okruchlodu

The hooded man tilted his head just slightly at her insistence they'd go faster. "You know, you'd of made a wonderful warlock had you'd been born in my realm instead of this one. You've got the overreliance on magic and the impatience down pat." He said with a scoff. "Now relax Light-show. We've got time." Well, that wasn't entirely true. HE had all the time in the world as his strange gauntlets found the edge of the coffins lid, he tested the rotted wood for nails along the side. Little reason to waste more time by simply prying like a jackass and splintering the lid. It was not, after all, his first time looting a grave. "Strictly forbidden huh? By that brotherhood you swore about back in the inn?" A globe spanning organization of insular hypocrites and the magically powerful. He'd have to poke into their business after this. While a shovel had done most of the major lifting thus far, it was left at the graves edge, wreathed by the sorceresses conjured crimson mist light. Moving the rest of the dead earth was done with the very shadows of the grave battering it off the coffins top in a smooth concussive wave. As the lid was professionally and cleanly pried open a minute later, and its contents unveiled she'd notice two things. The first, was that the elven man she'd come to the graveyard with had not once complained about the smell of fetid rotting air. Nor had his chest moved even when the unveiling of the long dead was less then an arms reach away. As if his need for breathing had been utterly and totally suppressed. A handy cantrip he'd not offered her the kindness of it seemed. The second was what he held in his right hand. A simple length of silver chain, with a skull hanging as way of pendant. A ritual totem of sorts perhaps. "Hey hey! Looks like we've still got a throat and tongue." He said as with all the grace of a bull in a lords hall as he simply reached in and pried the dead's mouth open to double check. "Fantastic!" He said without a hint of sarcasm. "It's nice to have a lucky break like this."

@okruchlodu

[alexaplaysgames]

Request: “Could you write something in which the mc is starting to develop feelings for Felix but denies them constantly/tries not to confess or accept them as a reality because they fear what would follow if and when they happen to go back to earth later...?”

Here you are! I literally have to fight myself to keep from making every dramatic moment occur at sunset on a grassy plain. This time, I lost. Sorry for the wait, I’ve hated my writing recently. Thought I don’t love this, either, I hope you enjoy it :) I changed to first person for this cause my brain is Like That.

Title: Did you Really Mean it?

Pairing: Felix Escellun x GN!MC (Last Legacy)

Words: 2484

Tags: @demon-paradise @themohawkhelmet @cactus-hoodie @aomiyeon @piningmaybeanartist @another-confused-gay @uselessbeanies @nomnomcupcakesworld @druwuuwu @frozen-daydream @kirakiratears @margitartist @crowtrinkets @fanfic-about-fictif Please let me know if you would like to be added or removed.

The first time, he had been quick to dismiss it.

Felix had asked for your help reaching one of the taller shelves of the library. He claimed he needed access to one of the books, strictly for academic purposes, of course, but you’d judged by the sight of his rosy cheeks that he more so just wanted you to touch him.

Nonetheless, you had risen from your comfortable position on the sofa and accompanied him without complaint, teasing him all the while about his short stature. When you’d pinched his flushed cheek, he’d rolled his eyes with a groan, hoping you didn’t see the goosebumps that had spread across his skin at your touch.

Standing in front of the shelves, you’d wrapped your arms around his waist. This seemed most sensible, rather than vice versa, given how he knew which book to look for. You’d felt Felix’s breath leave him in a rush as your arms slid around him, his ribs contract as he exhaled. He’d shivered as your fingers brushed the bare skin near his hips where his shirt had ridden up.

Yet, he had leaned back into you as if he didn’t want you to let him go. You swallowed. That is what made this so difficult, you thought. You didn’t want to let him go, either. You simply knew that you would have to.

It was surprisingly effortless to lift him to reach one of the dust-covered titles a few shelves above your heads. As Felix had pulled the book off the shelf, a thick layer of dust had been dislodged with it. He’d sneezed, and the force of it made you stumble. 

You’d fallen back onto the cushy carpet below with a gasp, Felix landing slightly on top of you with a startled yelp.

“Ouch,” you’d mumbled, rubbing your head, and then burst into laughter at the ridiculousness of it all. 

“S-sorry,” Felix stammered. He looked quite abashed. You’d only shaken your head with a fond sigh and reached up to tuck his hair behind his ear.

Felix’s breath had hitched at that, his eyes going saucer wide. You dropped your hand as if he’d burnt you. Only now did you realize how close your faces were. You could count every one of his eyelashes, this close, feel the heat of his breath. His gaze briefly flitted towards your parted lips, laden with desire.

“We should get up, now.” Your smile had turned a little tense, which Felix noticed. You’d looked as if you wanted to push him off. 

He winced. “R-right. Yes, of course.”

When you’d stood and parted ways, he couldn’t help but feel the slight sting of rejection. He clutched the book to his chest as he watched you walk away. 

Perhaps he was over-thinking things.

✦✧✦✧

The next time, however, he was certain something was wrong. 

You’d been quite clearly avoiding him as of late, skirting around his company with flimsily construed excuses that you were much too busy to see him.

Felix didn’t mind. Being on his own was something he’d grown to find familiar, if not enjoyable. He told himself that it was reasonable for you to wish to spend some time apart from him, and while a part of him believed that, another part wondered why he wasn’t good enough to hold your attention. 

You used to adore him. He could still feel your fingers in his hair, your hands on his skin. At what point did he begin to bore you? Had all your comments of accepting him for who he was served only to pacify his childish, moody self? Did you mean none of it at all? 

It certainly felt that way.

Then, one evening, you’d told him you were going out to a tavern with Sage. Though you’d invited him to join you, he’d declined, partially due to his being a lightweight, but also the fact that he wasn’t certain whether you truly wished to see him at all.

Yet, hours later, when you still hadn’t returned, Felix’s stomach churned with worry. He was torn between going to you and offering you the space you so clearly craved. 

With a sigh, he’d wrapped a cloak around his shoulders and set off to find you. He simply wanted to make sure you were alright, that was all. It needn’t be more complicated than that.

You were seated in a booth in one of the local establishments, Sage at your side. He could smell the alcohol on your breath the moment you drew near. “Felix, my sweet!” you’d laughed as you saw him, wrapping your arms around his shoulders. Felix frowned at the pet name. He’d almost forgotten that you used to calm him that. 

He had closed his eyes at your touch, melted into the familiar warmth of it. Then you’d frozen, looked up at him with cloudy eyes, and proclaimed that you were leaving. 

Felix blinked at you in astonishment. “What?” 

You had offered him no reply. 

Felix had followed you as you stumbled slightly out the doors and into the darkened streets. He himself had often taken to midnight walks through the city, knowing that he had the means to protect himself. You, however, had no such training. 

You’d tripped over your feet as you walked, intoxicated, through the cobblestone streets. Felix grabbed you elbow and spun you to face him.

“Stop this- this tomfoolery,” he gasped. “You’re going to maim yourself!”

“Leave me be, Felix,” you’d pouted, your words dangerously slurred. “I can’t- I don’t want to see you right now.”

Felix’s breath caught; your words sunk through his skin and settled as an ache in his chest. Yet, before he could say anything in reply, you stumbled again. He pulled you against his side to keep you from falling over, slinging one of your arms over his thin shoulders. 

Felix is many things, but strong is not one of them- you nearly broke his slight frame with your weight, and he panted while he struggled to hold you. Nonetheless, he managed to guide you through the streets to the nearest inn, conscious of your breath by his ear all the while. 

You’d flopped down onto the worn sheets of the bed Felix rented, your hair haloed around your head. The young necromancer’s heart hurt as he watched you, until you’d grabbed his hand and pulled him onto the bed at your side.

“Kiss me,” you begged, the heady scent of brandy curling around the words, and conflict waged war across Felix’s delicate features. “Kiss me, Felix, this might be the last time you get the chance.”

Felix’s grey eyes welled with tears. “I- I can’t,” he choked, feverishly shaking his head against the sheets. Oh, he had wanted to, you knew it even through your haze. You saw how his eyes once more drew towards your lips before he tore them away.

“Then go,” you said simply, rolling away from him and onto your side. 

And he had. 

Felix wrapped his arms around himself as he walked home through the streets alone. 

✦✧✦✧

The third time hurt the most. 

“Are you two officially together, now?” Anisa had asked you one evening, and Felix had waited for your response with bated breath, tucked outside the doorway where he knew you couldn’t see him.

Until it finally came, and he wished he hadn’t. 

“No.” You said it with such finality, such certainty, he was sure you could hear his heart breaking, the sound of his panicked breaths. “Felix and I… I don’t think we’re a good fit.”

That was it, the final straw. He choked on a sob as he turned away, already feeling the hot rush of tears spilling from behind his closed eyelids. 

He had curled up in his study, face tucked into the worn couch, and cried into his elbows, cursing his own stupidly all the while. His tears soaked through the strands of his hair, ran down his face in rivulets, dripping off his chin. 

He was so delirious at that point that he allowed Stella to curl up next to him, even stroking his fingers through her soft, silky fur.

“W-why am I like this, Stella?” Felix mumbled, still sniffling around the remnants of his sobs. “It was idiotic of m-me, to think-” Felix flopped onto his back, wiping at his eyes. Then he groaned. “Goddess, and now here I am, conversing with you. A rather pitiful display.”

Stella, as expected, did not offer a reply, though her rumbling purr provided some comfort. 

Felix stared up at the ceiling until morning light streamed in through the windows, caught in a miserable state. He is accustomed to being alone- after all, his wasn’t the first time he had his heart broken by someone he was sure he was in love with.

This was the only time, however, that it cut him this deeply. Never had he felt such hurt before, not even in death. In fact, he was certain he preferred that dull, empty nothingness to this.

He sighed, tiredly letting his eyes flutter shut. Stella’s fur tickled his nose, and he whispered, “How you’ve ruined me, my dear barista.”

✦✧✦✧

Things were strained between the two of you from then on. Felix wouldn’t meet your eyes whenever you were near each other. You could tell, by the redness of his eyes, that he had been crying, though for what reason you couldn’t be sure.

He kept his distance, and you chastised yourself for missing him. This is what you wanted, wasn’t it? But you suddenly weren’t so certain. You stomach was slowly twisting into knots of guilt and longing.

You sat with Felix, sifting through more textbooks in an attempt to find a hint as to how to send you home. It served as a reminder, somewhat, as to why you had pushed him away, though as time passed the memory became fainter. You were instead focused on how Felix kept his eyes trained downwards, not once making a characteristically snide or snarky remark.

The silence and the tension stretched between the two of you until it snapped like a frayed string.

“Why?” Felix suddenly asked you, gasped it out as if it pained him. You’d met his eyes, though he still wouldn’t meet yours, his hands squeezed into fists in his lap.

“Why what?”

“Why did you turn me away?” he continued, his lower lip quivering. “I had hoped-” he trailed off, as if he couldn’t bring himself to finish the thought.

“I suppose it doesn’t matter,” Felix finished a moment later with a soft, self-deprecating laugh. “You deserve much better than m-me, of course. I was selfish to think otherwise.”

“Felix-”

But Felix was no longer listening, having slammed his textbooks shut and left your side with tears swimming in his stormy eyes, muttering under his breath about how stupid he had been, desperate to keep you from seeing what a mess he’d become.

You felt awful. You’d been so determined to quell the growth of your relationship that you’d disregarded Felix’s rather fragile sense of self worth. You’d absolutely crushed him, you thought regretfully, and for what? Perhaps what was between you couldn’t last, but you should’ve been grateful for the time with him you were given.

Hours passed. You’d searched the rest of the day for Felix, but you couldn’t find him. Not in his bedroom, his study, the library, not with Sage or Anisa- your necromancer had mysteriously vanished. 

Until you’d remembered one evening when he showed you one of his favourite places- a grassy hillside overlooking the sprawling city underneath. With the sun sinking over the horizon, you’d found him there, chin resting on his knees, pulled up to his chest. The wind whipped through his dark hair, cooling the streaks of tears on his reddened face. 

Felix looked back over his shoulder at your sudden appearance through one of his trademark portals, then buried his face in his arms with a low groan. 

“Felix, listen to me,” you whispered. Coming to sit beside him in the long grass, you gently wrapped your arms around his waist and pulled him into your side. You could feel him hiccup, feel him tremble against you.

You settled your chin on his shoulder as the both of you looked out over the world that had once been so foreign to you. The wind once more rippled through the sea of grass around you, the sun reflecting off each individual strand. As the sunlight slowly waned into a single strip, it touched the tips of the buildings below and lit them up like candles.

“I am so, so sorry, baby,” you said, “for making you feel that way. I was worried it would hurt, when I have to leave. I thought I was doing us both a favour by keeping us apart. You did nothing wrong, Felix, and you weren’t selfish.” You squeezed your eyes shut, feeling the dying sun warm your face. “I was.” 

“You weren’t-” came Felix’s muffled reply, quick to defend you as always. You shook your head, kissing the curve of his shoulder. 

“I was. I thought it would be best for both of us, but I was wrong. I missed you so much, you know. Every day, I always wanted to see you. But I didn’t, and I told myself that was for the best. It was stupid. I hurt us both.”

Felix exhaled. You could feel the tension melt off him in little waves as his shoulders slumped. “You will have to leave, one day,” he murmured. “It was only logical.”

“Then we’ll face that when it comes, okay?”

Felix sighed, closing his eyes, then leaned into you and settled his head on your shoulder. “Okay.” That one word was still rather wobbly, as if he didn’t believe you. His chest rattled with each of his shaky, uneven breaths. 

“Now, let me see you smile.”

You suspected you were pushing your luck with that, and your assumption had been proven correct when Felix rolled his eyes and sent you a rather unimpressed look. “No. That’s ridiculous,” he huffed. “I’m not an infant.”

You simply resorted to other means of achieving what you sought. Felix squeaked as you shifted to the side and rolled him onto your lap, laying down in the long grass in a similar position as you had in the library, long ago. This time, however, when his eyes went wide above you, you shot up and kissed him, merely a chaste peck on his plush lower lip.

His blush was more brilliant than the setting sun behind him, a bright, fiery red you couldn’t believe you ever thought to abandon. Though he groaned and stubbornly averted his eyes, Felix couldn’t help but smile- a mere quirk of his lips that was faint enough to miss.

And yet, it was good enough for you.

[thecreaturecodex]

Avatar of Atropus

Image © Wizards of the Coast, by Izzy.

[Commissioned by @tar-baphon. Atropus is the most powerful of the Elder Evils in the book of the same name, an entire planet that can only by fought by going up there and beating up this headless hulk. Very video gamey--I feel like Atropus owes a lot to Final Fantasies IV and V, and Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask. My version of the statistics borrows abilities from my earlier atropal conversion, and makes reference to the angel of decay I wrote up near this blog’s beginning.

Of note: Pathfinder canonically has in it a version of Atropos, one of the Three Fates, as a psychopomp usher. This may lead to confusion in your campaign. Maybe that’s intentional. The commissioner’s idea for Atropus’ origin is that it was created in Earthfall, by Avacna dying in steering the moon to absorb most of the meteorites. A bitter undead goddess who sacrificed herself and now hates those she died for is a cool concept, but I wanted to open it up to multiple possible interpretations/roles. I do assume a weird version of canon in these entries--I typically avoid references to Pathfinder’s canonical gods, but demigods like demon lords and archdevils are open season. I’m not really sure why; possibly as a relic of when I was trying to sell these in the 3pp market.]

Avatar of Atropus CR 25 NE Undead This headless giant is clearly dead, with rotting flesh and withered limbs. Its belly is swollen as with decay or pregnancy, or possibly both. Oily black fluid oozes from its surface, running down its body in rivulets.

Atropus, the Dead World, is a sapient evil planetoid. Some say that it is the castoff of creation, a force of Death to counterbalance the existence of Life. Others say that it is a fragment of a planet or moon destroyed through some magical cataclysm, infused with the mind of a dead god and forever enraged at its abandonment by the faithful. Still others claim that Atropus is a shard of the Negative Energy Plane given life and intelligence. Whatever its true origins, Atropus is a planet killer. It drifts through the space between worlds, and when it takes up orbit around a planet, it drains the life from it until all that are left on its surface are the walking dead.

Atropus itself cannot be fought, or slain, in any conventional manner. Those exploring the world find it truly lifeless. It is a low gravity, airless place with the minor negative dominant trait across its entire surface and the major negative dominant trait in fissures and cracks oozing profane ichor. This world is crawling with undead—angels of decay and atropals are the most notable, but not the only, denizens. Coordinating these monsters is the avatar of Atropus, its will concentrated into a perverse, corpse-like body.

The avatar of Atropus remains on the surface of its own planetoid, a final line of defense against anyone powerful or foolish enough to visit the Dead World. Its very presence drains life from creatures, creating an army of spectres wherever it goes. It can channel negative energy and cast deadly magic as surely as the strongest mortal necromancers and clerics, and has crushing physical force in order to pulverize creatures that resist necromantic magics. Only by slaying the avatar can Atropus be once again cast into interstellar space, but the means have not yet been discovered to forever end the threat of the Dead World.

Avatar of Atropus                  CR 25 XP 1,640,000 NE Gargantuan undead Init +5; Senses blind, blindsight 500 ft., Perception +42 Aura desecration (60 ft.), life suppression (60 ft.) Defense AC 43, touch 12, flat-footed 41 (-4 size, +1 Dex, +1 dodge, +4 profane, +31 natural) hp 583 (30d8+390 plus 60); fast healing 20 Fort +26, Ref +15, Will +30; channel resistance +5 DR 20/good and epic; Immune cold, gaze attacks, undead traits, visual spells and abilities; Resist acid 20, fire 20; SR 36 (40 vs. divination) Defensive Abilities freedom of movement, profane ichor, rejuvenation Offense Speed 50 ft.. air walk Melee 2 claws +40 (4d8+22 plus 2d6 unholy plus Constitution drain plus energy drain) Space 20 ft.; Reach 20 ft. Special Attacks call meteor shower, channel negative energy (10d6, 15/day, DC 43), create spawn, divine scourge, energy drain (3 negative levels, DC 37), profane channeling Spell-like Abilities CL 25th, concentration +37 Constant—air walk, freedom of movement, nondetection At will—control undead (DC 29), create greater undead, greater dispel magic, harm (DC 28), mass fester (DC 28), mass inflict serious wounds (DC 29) 3/day—quickened greater dispel magic, heart clutch (DC 30), empowered horrid wilting (DC 30), waves of exhaustion 1/day—overwhelming presence (DC 31), power word: kill, wail of the banshee (DC 31) Statistics Str 50, Dex 13, Con -, Int 25, Wis 28, Cha 35 Base Atk +22; CMB +46 (+50 bull rush, sunder); CMD 57 (59 vs. bull rush, sunder) Feats Combat Expertise, Combat Reflexes, Command Undead (B), Dodge, Empower SLA (horrid wilting), Greater Bull Rush, Greater Sunder, Improved Bull Rush, Improved Initiative, Improved Sunder, Mobility, Power Attack, Quicken SLA (greater dispel magic), Spring Attack, Toughness, Whirlwind Attack Skills Acrobatics +34 (+42 jumping), Climb +53, Intimidate +45, Knowledge (arcana, religion) +40, Knowledge (geography, planes) +37, Perception +42, Sense Motive +42, Spellcraft +40, Stealth +22 Languages Aboleth, Aklo, Azlanti, Draconic, Eoxian, Necril, truespeech, telepathy 500 ft. Ecology Environment any (Atropus) Organization unique Treasure standard Special Abilities Aura of Desecration (Su) The avatar of Atropus radiates an aura of evil energy as per the desecrate spell in a radius of 60 feet. It is treated as being an altar to an evil deity for determining the strength of the desecrate spell, and the bonuses for the spell are calculated into its statistics above. Call Meteor Shower (Su) As a standard action three times a day, the avatar of Atropus can cause meteors to fall in a 100 foot radius around itself. All creatures in the area take 15d6 points of bludgeoning and 15d6 points of fire damage (Reflex DC 37 halves). The area is treated as difficult terrain after the meteor shower. The save DC is Charisma based. Channel Negative Energy (Su) The avatar of Atropus can channel negative energy as a 20th level cleric. The save DC is Charisma based. Constitution Drain (Ex) A creature struck by the avatar of Atropus’s claw attack must succeed a DC 37 Fortitude save or take 2d4 points of Constitution drain. On each successful attack, the atropal gains 5 temporary hit points. The save DC is Charisma based. Create Spawn (Su) Any creature killed the avatar of Atropus’ life suppression aura rises as a free-willed spectre in 1d4 rounds. A humanoid with 15 or more HD rises instead as a free willed angel of decay in 1d4 rounds. Divine Scourge (Su) As a swift action once per day, the avatar of Atropus can cause all divine spellcasters and extraplanar outsiders within 100 miles to become sickened for 1d4 hours. Creatures affected must succeed a DC 37 Fortitude save or take damage equal to the avatar’s HD plus Charisma modifier (42 damage). The save DC is Charisma based. Life Suppression Aura (Su) All living creatures within 60 feet of the avatar of Atropus gain 5 negative levels. This never results in permanent negative levels, and these negative levels are removed when the creature leaves the aura, but creatures with 5 or fewer Hit Dice are automatically slain by this effect. A creature under protection from evil, death ward or any spell or ability that has a similar effect is immune to the life suppression aura. All undead in the area gain fast healing 5 and channel resistance +5 as long as they remain in the area. Profane Channeling (Su) Whenever the avatar of Atropus uses its channel negative energy, it can choose to do so as a swift action, to maximize the damage dealt (or healded), or double the area. The avatar of Atropus can choose only one of these enhancements at a time. Profane Ichor (Su) The avatar of Atropus gains a +4 profane bonus to its AC and saving throws. In addition, it deals an extra 2d6 damage with its natural attacks to any non-good creature, as if its natural attacks were unholy weapons. Rejuvenation (Ex) When the avatar of Atropus is slain, Atropus is launched into interstellar space, where it remains adrift for 1000 years before the avatar of Atropus can reconstitute itself. The planetoid Atropus can only be destroyed by powerful deific or mythic magic (subject to GM approval), and only when its avatar has been slain. Truespeech (Su) The avatar of Atropus can automatically communicate with all creatures that have a language, as per a tongues spell.

[kirnet]

For the micro story prompts: 12. candles 🕯 or 49. nightfall 🌃 with the necromancer☠️??? I love the voice you write for them!!!

1.5k words about the necromancer and henry bc they intrigue me

Los Angeles may be the City of Angels, but its summers were hotter than hell.

The heat was oppressive, burning the air and turning it stale even as the sun settled low near the horizon line. Everybody across the county, maybe even the whole lower part of the state, reacted the same way. Windows were pushed open as far as they could go in a desperate attempt to funnel any slightly cooler air through security bars and cut up bug screens. Shirts and pants were shed in favor of underwear and blankets were discarded on the floor as people settled into bed. If the nighttime air wasn’t enough, and it wasn’t, then AC units were pushed to their breaking point, with every device across every home and apartment building straining to keep up with the heat.

You were in a no different position. Nightfall brought little relief, but you dutifully opened every window and stripped to your undergarments as you tried to ignore the stench of sweat that had adhered itself to your skin. Running your head under the tiny kitchen sink of your studio apartment helped somewhat, leaving rivulets of water running down your back as readied yourself for bed. Your upstairs neighbors, most likely their young kids, were shaking the ceiling, rattling your collection of knickknacks as you pulled back the covers and reached for your deskside lamp.

You didn’t need to. The light flickered off before you could turn the knob.

A cacophony of sighs and obscenities permeated through your thin walls as every air conditioner in the complex switched off, the weight of their collective strain finally catching up to them. The darkness was no matter, however, you were going to bed anyways. You blinked your eyes closed and turned to get comfortable, doing your best to block out the screaming kid a few feet directly above your face. 

You should have remembered that you were you. After a few moments of strained silence, you sat up and pulled yourself out of bed. Blackouts like this happened often enough that you kept a few lighters and candles on hand. You brought a candle out of your stash, a small gardenia-scented one that you had snatched from your brief stint as a Bath & Body Works cashier. It did the job well enough, and a tiny amount of warm light illuminated your corner of the room.

Shit. You rubbed your neck, grimacing at the sticky residue it left on your hands. Insomnia was a curse, but insomnia without electricity to power your television or provide lighting for your increasingly growing pile of failed hobbies was a fresh hell. Maybe you could light a few more candles and pretend that you were some Regency-era romantic protagonist who had to read by candlelight for historical accuracy. The noise around your apartment didn’t lend well to that fantasy, however.

You picked up the candle and stumbled towards the kitchen. If you were lucky, the power would come on soon and the only headache would be resetting the time on your microwave. If it went on for too long, though, it would burn through everything perishable you had in your fridge. Better to get a head start on that coffee-flavored ice cream before it could meet that tragic fate.

A noise near your door stopped you in your tracks. It wasn’t like the steady complaining or fumbling you heard around you as everyone tried to find their collection of candles and flashlights. No, it was a scraping sound, one right at your door. One that you were familiar with.

You set the candle down on your small dining table and dropped into a crouch, inching towards the door with your hands balled into fists. Your pocket knife was somewhere else in the room, probably lost in your discarded jeans pockets, but you wouldn’t need it if you were quick.

The door creaked open, and the intruder entered, submerged in shadow as they stepped into the threshold of your home. You waited a few moments for them to close the door silently behind them before you lept out from your dark corner. You threw yourself straight into their torso, knocking them to the floor with a loud grunt. Within moments your arm was around their warm throat. 

You tried to squeeze, but a burst of electricity trailed from the base of your spine to your limbs, paralyzing you before you could move. The intruder pulled your arm off of them and let you drop to the floor. Pain shot up your shoulder as you hit the ground, but the muscles in charge of your mouth didn’t allow you to make a sound.

“Seriously, kid?” Henry pulled himself to his feet and straightened his jacket, because apparently demons weren’t affected by the heat like normal folk. You could only loosely trail your eyes after him as he strutted around your apartment. “Do we need to brush up on your self-defense skills?”

After a few moments of you not answering, Henry must have remembered that you were still in the room. He snapped, and the paralysis that held you fell away, causing you to flop against the floor as you tried to regain your fine motor skills. “You picked my lock?” you managed to shout after a few labored breaths.

“If I knocked on the door, would you have answered?” You ignored Henry’s outstretched hand and pulled yourself to your feet, the residual effects of his technique causing your muscles to twitch. Henry shrugged beelined to your kitchen. “Want something to drink?”

“Please, make yourself at home,” you scoffed as you stumbled to the table. Henry grabbed a cup from your cabinet and opened the freezer. He paused as he extracted the ice tray. “Why do you have a Ziploc bag of frozen mice in your freezer?”

“For reasons. Why do you care?” He should know to expect your necromantic eccentricities after all of these years. You plopped down on one of your mismatched dining chairs, arms crossed as you watched him struggle to pop an ice cube from the tray. “Whatever you want from me, the answer is no.”

Finally victorious against the ice cube, Henry filled the cup up with tap water. He let it fill for a few moments, watching the uninterrupted darkness outside. “There’s a job,” he eventually murmured. “I’ve been hired to steal a body from the police precinct. Pay’s good, if you’re behind on rent.”

“I just said I’m not interested.” The gall of this asshole. Apparently listening to your previous sarcastic statement, Henry pulled the chair opposite from you out and sat down, his legs spread fall apart. “Henry, I have a job now, ok? I’m going legit, and I’m not blindly walking into whatever deathtraps you’ve managed to get yourself hired for.” Not deathtraps for you, but for whoever had the misfortune of being Henry’s foe. He had taken advantage of your childhood naivety and eagerness for any familial relationship for far too long. If he wanted a lackey to clean up his messes, then he’d need to find somebody else. “Now, can you get the fuck out of my apartment?”

“Freezer looked pretty empty,” he said instead, dark eyes glimmering in the candlelight. “So what’s the job, huh? Or have you lost it already? Be honest with yourself, you can’t hold onto any job that doesn’t have you in combat or life-or-death situations.”

“I don’t know. Retail is basically combat.” You couldn’t meet his glowing eyes. Of course he had found his way right to the truth. Money was tight ever since you had put your foot down during your last blood-soaked mission and cut ties with him for the umpteenth time. Henry, as awful and neglectful as he was, never allowed you to starve, and no job had ever held your attention like exorcism and theft. A drop of sweat rolled down your temple to your cheek.

Henry leaned forward, causing the table to creak under his weight. “Job’ll be a hell of a lot more complicated if I do it alone. Your involvement would avoid any bloodshed, since you’re apparently so squeamish about that now.” The ice cubes jostled in the cup as he brought it to his lips. “Easiest route is to have that corpse walk itself right out of the door.”

You could ask him the details of who hired him and why, and hell, he might even tell you. Maybe it was some powerful sorcerer with skin chock-full of cursed energy, or maybe it was a John Doe who somebody wanted to keep unidentified. It could even be a case of organ harvesting. The more you thought about it, the less you wanted to do it, but the thought of replacing all of the groceries in your melted fridge was even more unappealing.

You reached across the table and snatched the cup from his hands before bringing it to your lips and taking a long drink. Henry’s face split into a wide grin, his coffee-stained teeth afire under the candlelight. “So,” you finally said after you wiped your mouth with the back of your hand, “what’s the pay?”

[slimey985]

[bikenuroyac]

Ok for anyone's knowledge if their interested or wanna talk to me here are my oc's (mostly wings of fire)

WINGS OF FIRE OC'S:

Owl - Skywing

Mahogany - Skywing

Pyrrhuloxia - Skywing

Bronze Aka 'Sabertooth' - Mudwing

Bayou - Mudwing

Bark - Mudwing

Locust - Mudwing

Fox - Mudwing

Daybreak - Nightwing

SilentTomb - Nightwing

Necromancer - Nightwing

Swordfish - Seawing

Rivulet - Seawing

Maelstrom - Seawing

Sage - Sandwing

Calor - Sandwing

Taipan - Sandwing

Paradise - Rainwing

Eminence - Rain-Sky Hybrid

Spectral - Rain-Hive Hybrid

Shimo - Icewing

Hoarfrost - Icewing

Northern Lights Aka 'North' - Icewing

Blizzard - Icewing

Black Widow - Hivewing

Executioner - Hivewing

Click - Hivewing

Violet - Silkwing

Midge - Silkwing

Glass Wing - Silkwing

Sycamore Aka 'Mushroom' or 'Envy' - Leafwing

Pistachio - Leafwing

Nutmeg - Leafwing

Parsnip - Leafwing

WARRIOR CATS OC'S:

Lioncatch - Loner

Wrencoat - Thunderclan

Ghostwish - Windclan

Ebonyrose - Riverclan

Duskmind - Shadowclan

Florence - Kittypet

Blossomswift - Windclan

Ironsky - Thunderclan

Turtledawn - Windclan

Brindledart - Shadowclan

Lostsnout - Riverclan

Sheepears - Skyclan

Freckleface - Loner

Firecloud - Rogue

Leafshine - Riverclan

Cryingmask - Rogue

KIRBY OC'S:

Celine - Dark Matter

LEGEND OF ZELDA OC'S:

Kuroshima - Sword Spirit

BNHA/BOKU NO HERO ACADEMIA OC'S:

Amearashi Yukireisu

POKEMON OC'S:

Yokomichi Kizawa

POKEMON MYSTERY DUNGEON OC'S:

Kono - Bulbasaur

Désiré - Meowth

Cui - Absol

MARIO OC'S:

Raelynn

(Ill add more if I forgot any or make new ones)

[innocentbi-stander]

just stumbled across your blog in my conquest to consume all feral and bamf Jaskier content within 24 hours, and i read your headcanons for necromancer Jaskier and was wondering if you had anymore, or if you had a small ficlet involving some sort of necromancer Jaskier?? (i also saw your demigod Jaskier, where he was a son of Hades, and LOVED IT) if you don't, or aren't into that trope, that's okay. i absolutely love what you've already written. god-tier writing, truly

Hi there! I’m so glad you’ve enjoyed my writing! I do have a small little ficlet that I wrote that I posted on ao3 featuring necromancer Jaskier, I’ll link it below! However I’m also never above writing more necromancer Jaskier content, so here you are:

Fic: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25272997

______________

Sometimes Jaskier cursed the day Death had made a pact with his unborn soul, tying him to the immortal life of a necromancer and all of the bizarre powers that came with it.

Today was not one of those days.

Because when you’ve been locked in a cage in the depths of some decrepit castle after being ambushed on the road with your witcher boyfriend and badass witch friend, those powers really come in handy. 

The bard pulled himself up into a sitting position on the cold stone floor, taking a look at his surroundings.

He was clearly in the dungeon of a long forgotten keep, by the look of the worn stone walls and rusted bars. The room was dark, and shadows flickered in the light of the few torches along the wall.

Jaskier cursed to himself as he felt the ache of his head, where he had been knocked unconscious during the attack.

The attack. The attack on the path that he had most certainly not been alone for.

A look around the cells confirmed the location of Geralt and Yennefer, each located in their own cells across the room. Clearly their attackers had deemed them the more worthy threat, as Geralt was weighed down in chains and Yennefer sported her own pair of silver cuffs decorated in runes. Magic suppressants. 

Jaskier scoffed. They hadn’t even bothered to use rope to bind his arms, too confident that the supposedly human bard would be little more than a nuisance. It was their mistake.

The pounding of his head moved into the background of his thoughts, and Jaskier became increasingly aware of a pain in his stomach. His fingers that caressed the area came away covered in blood. Shit.

Flashes of memory reminded him of the man who had run him through with his sword when one hit to the skull hadn’t stopped him from fighting back. On any other human this wound would have been fatal. For Jaskier, it meant a bothersome hole through his torso for a few days, and a very fussy witcher poking at his bandages and offering bowl and bowl of soup.

Yay necromancy powers. 

The bard lazily scanned the inside of his cell, looking for anything that might aid them in their mistake. Not that he necessarily needed any assistance, but Jaskier wasn’t fond of revealing the true depths of his powers to anyone, much less some low budget crew of hired bandits. He preferred to keep his abilities known to the few, better to be underestimated than overtaken.

He spared a glance over to the corner where Geralt and Yennefer lay. Jaskier sighed, a long and bothersome sound. For such a great witcher and even mightier witch couldn’t they wake up a little bit faster? He’d prefer being able to break them out when they could walk on their own, Jaskier didn’t think he could haul either of them back to their campsite. 

As if on cue a small moan sounded from the other side of the dungeon.

Jaskier glanced up to meet violet eyes blinking at him. 

“Ah, Yennefer, welcome to the land of the living! Or should I say ‘land of the living, also occupied by me’?” 

“Jaskier?” Yennefer’s brow furrowed, “What happened?”

“It appears as if we were attacked by bandits on the way back to the campsite, and not even clever ones at that. Hired men. Probably from that lordling Geralt and I pissed off a contract back. He seemed like the type for stupid baseless vengence.” Yennefer sat up, pulling herself to her feet to pace her cell. She jangled the cuffs on her wrists.

“Magic resistant cuffs. They must have been fairly well informed.” Jaskier laughed.

“Not well informed enough it seems. They haven’t bound me at all.” He flashed his unbound arms at her along with a smirk. A stupid mistake really, he had forgotten the blood that streaked his hands and forearms from his middle. Maybe Yen wouldn’t see.

Yennefer, clever witch that she is, noticed immediately. She crossed to the front of her cell, narrowing her eyes at him through the darkness.

“Jaskier, are you hurt?” 

“......no.” 

The look on Yennefer’s face had killed better men than he. 

“We’ve talked about not covering up injuries to look braver. That includes you too.” Jaskier had a will as strong as a limp noodle when it came to his witcher and his witcher. So he fessed up immediately.

“One of the men may have poked me a little with his sword when they nabbed us on the road.” 

“Jaskier” 

“Fine, he ran me through like he was intending to make the most musically inclined shish kebob known to mankind. Happy?”

“Ecstatic. Are you still bleeding?”

Jaskier sucked in a breath as he peeled up his blood-soaked shirt. Even though he wasn’t technically dying, that didn’t mean it didn’t still hurt like a bitch. He winced at the blood running down his stomach in little rivulets.

“Yeah, it’s still bleeding a little.” Yennefer cursed.

“Fuck. We need to get out of here as soon as possible or you’re going to have to end up taking one of my blood replenishing potions again.”

Jaskier resolved to leave immediately. Those potions were fucking disgusting. Luckily, Geralt seemed to sense the urgency and chose that moment to reawaken.

“The fuck?” Geralt threw himself to his feet at the ready as quick as one wrapped in chains possibly could. Yennefer clapped her hands together, drawing his attention to her.

“Fantastic Geralt, you’re finally up. It appears we’ve been kidnapped, you’re covered in chains, I’ve got magic suppressing cuffs, and Jaskier’s been run through with another man’s steel.”

Nothing got Geralt furious quicker than hearing of harm done to his bard.

“Jaskier?” The witcher pressed himself against the bars of his cell, eyes searching to meet Jaskier’s own. He raised his arm in an awkward wave, trying not to flinch at the steadily increasing pain.

“Hello Geralt. Lovely day to get stabbed, isn’t it?” Geralt wasn’t amused.

“Are you okay?’

“I’ll be better as soon as we get the fuck out of this awful, disgusting dungeon. I feel like I’m going to catch a disease just from brushing up the wall in here. Now how about I get us the hell out of here?”

The look on Geralt and Yennefer’s faces was one of intense worry as they watched Jaskier heave himself to his feet, almost gagging at the pain that flared throughout his stomach. Geralt barely stopped himself from reaching out to assist him, realizing that he’d never be able to help through the iron bars between them.

“You don’t have to Jaskier. You’re hurt, you need the energy to heal, not drain it summoning the undead. We can find another way.” Jaskier laughed.

“Another way? You’re covered in chains and Yen’s locked off from her magic. I can get us out of here, and then take a nice long nap.” 

He met Geralt and Yennefer’s eyes, waiting for each of them to nod their assent before his next actions.

The bard held out a hand in front of him, closing his eyes and letting his subconscious drag down into the earth below. He could feel his power begin to condense in his fingertips, creating a soft blue glow. His power sent a call out to the underworld, and a smile crossed his face when he felt something answer.

Jaskier opened his eyes to see a skeleton pulling itself from the earth in front of his cell. As soon as it stood in front of him, it swept into a low bow and hissed words in a language foreign to all living beings except those with a connection to Death. 

Masterrrrrrrrr……..

Jaskier grinned.

“Hello there! As you can see, we’re in a little bit of a predicament, if you wouldn’t mind it would be great if you could release us?”

The skeleton spared no second thought before enacting Jaskier’s wishes, ripping open the bars of his cell like they were made of paper, and proceeding to do the same for Yen and Geralt and their bonds. 

Just as the skeleton was finishing up with Geralt’s chains, a troop of bandits swarmed into the dungeon, a man dressed in red at the head.

He was no doubt the leader of the crew, and was understandably shocked to see all of his prisoners standing free. 

“I hate to interrupt the part of this whole ordeal where you’ve undoubtedly come down here to tell us all about your evil plan of capturing us, who hired you, and what’s going to become of us, but I’m afraid we simply must go. Places to be, and all that. Luckily you won’t have to go explaining to the lordling who hired you why we’ve gone missing, because you’ll be a little preoccupied dealing with some of my dear friends!” Jaskier performed a lazy wave of his hand, his fingertips resuming the familiar glowing blue hue. The bandit seemed to be having trouble processing what exactly was going on.

“What-how,” he sputtered, but was interrupted by the screams of his men in the halls behind him. The clickity clack of bone on the stone floors brought a smile to Jaskier’s face, and the tears of flesh and ligaments being torn away filled the dungeon. The men spun around, attention taken by the new imminent threat, swords raising in shaking hands. Too easy.

Jaskier felt a hand tug on his shoulder, and was pulled through a door into a forgotten corridor after Yen and Geralt. They traipsed down hallway after hallway, collecting Jaskier’s lute and Geralt’s confiscated swords. 

After a few minutes Jaskier’s steps became less steady, and his knees began to feel more like jelly. The third time the bard had to grab the wall for support Geralt lifted him into his arms seamlessly, making sure he was comfortable before ambling on. 

It wasn’t long until they reached sunlight, but by then the world had already begun to go hazy for Jaskier. He had used up too much of his energy summoning the undead and he had lost too much blood. 

Jaskier allowed the gentle rocking of Geralt’s pace to lull him to sleep, his eyelids drifting shut against the midday sun. He knew that when he woke he would be safe and the campsite, protected in his lover’s arms and soon to be met with his overbearing fussing. There would be a warm bowl of stew, a roaring fire, and plenty of blankets. There would be laughter as Yennefer told the tale of the most recent fool who had dared to cross her, and Geralt would bury his face in Jaskier’s hair to disguise his amused smile. It would be home.

Jaskier closed his eyes, and allowed himself to dream.

___________

Hope you enjoyed! Feel free to send more prompts!

[leviackermanscleaningbuddy]

BTS DRABBLE-Kim Namjoon 🎃

Halloween Series: Necromancer Kim Namjoon

You had thought that working for one of the world’s youngest, most successful businessmen would merit you nothing more than a few perks. However, it garners more than you ever bargained for-the absolute unwavering attention of said young man-and another dangerous chance at life, and maybe love. 

Tags: BTS, Bangtan Boys, Bangtan Seonyendan, Bulletproof Boy Scouts, Beyond the Scene, Halloween, Spooky Season, Kim namjoon, Namjoon, RM, Namjoon x you, Namjoon x reader, Necromancer Namjoon

Warning: Mentions of death and a car accident

Genre: Angst, a bit of Fluff

Title: Chances

(Image Credit: https://twitter.com/kanux4)

The first thing you’re aware of is the cold.

The second? The darkness.

And then, it all comes together-the dark, icy water cradling your body-and the panic sets in.

You’re struggling, flailing, trying to reach the surface-your lungs on fire, your body feeling as if it’s shutting down-and just when you think you won’t make it, that you’ll sink beneath the waves once more, you break through the watery prison.

Coughing, choking, the water dripping icy rivulets down your face and the bare skin of your body, leaving goosebumps in its wake, you flounder once more, mouth gaping, chest heaving, as you try to catch your lost breath. Your fingers curl over an edge-chilly, steel, beneath your touch-and you grip whatever it is you have discovered with your life-eyes still blurry and vision still hazy from the residue of the liquid still surrounding you.

Cold. It’s so damn cold.

But then, suddenly, someone is grabbing you, pulling you to them, crushing you against their chest-and as hands reach up to push dripping hair from your brow and eyes-there is warmth.

Finally.

“It’s okay, you’re okay.” A voice, low and serious, whispers in your ear, breath balmy and heated against your frigid skin, as the hands, large and warm, continue to stroke down the length of your wet hair.

And you realize, in that moment, that you know the voice.

You know him.

Confusion must sweep across your face as you pull back from him, because Kim Namjoon, hands still on your naked shoulders, suddenly seems worried-lips pulling into a thin line, brow furrowing as he stares at you. 

“What....What are you doing here?” You manage to get out between chattering teeth, your whole body convulsing from the cold that seems to be seeping into your bones. 

You look down at yourself-naked and wet and shivering in the middle of a large, steel tub, sloshing over with icy, frigid water-and then back up to the man before you, eyes wide with sudden fear, as your heart pounds against your ribs painfully. 

“Namjoon.” His name comes out strangled, and your mouth feels dry, as if you haven’t used your voice and it’s grown rusty with time. “What’s happening?” 

Instead of answering you, he reaches out, letting his fingers hover just barely above your mouth, and he remarks, with a tone bordering awe and curiosity, “Your lips are blue.” And then, as if just realizing that your body is racked with tremors, and the context of his discovery, he swears, eyes darkening, as he reaches for your hands beneath the water. “Shit. You’re freezing. Come on. Carefully.” 

He helps you stand, and your legs feel weak and shaky, as the water cascades into a puddle at your feet, as he guides you, delicately, and one step at a time, out of the chilly water of the tub. 

The ground feels unsure beneath your feet as he leads you from the room- bathroom?- and down the hall, pulling you behind him through an open doorway and to the the room beyond. 

“Here. Sit.” Namjoon pushes you gently down onto the large bed, and though you’re still shivering violently, the soft material of the comforter beneath your bare body is instantly more warming than the icy water you had come from. 

Namjoon returns, carrying a heavy looking, long veneer blanket in his arms, and crouching down in front of you, he wraps the fabric around your shoulders, tucking it down between your legs, as he cocoons you into the warmth. 

Pulling the blanket in tighter around you, fingers still numb and slightly useless, you glance around the room-a bedroom-the fire crackling loudly in the fireplace, the large four poster bed where you currently sit, and the man in front of you, crouched still, watching you carefully from behind guarded eyes. 

Your boss. Kim Namjoon. 

Why are you with Kim Namjoon? 

“Why...” You stumble over your words, and once more, your voice feels heavy, unused. You swallow hard, and avoid looking at the man who’s still watching you intently from his position on the floor. “What’s going on? Why am I here?” 

Namjoon sighs, a heavy sort of sound, and sinking down to sit on the floor, leaning back on his hands so he can still look up at you, he tilts his head slightly, one eyebrow raised, before he asks simply, “What do you remember?” 

“I......” You take in a shaky breath, reaching up to rub at one of your temples with your slightly warmer fingers. “I remember riding in your car.” 

Namjoon nods. “Yes. We were going to a meeting.” 

You nod slowly, computing his words. You remember that. You were asked to accompany Namjoon-your very hot and very rich boss-to an important meeting with a client. You had been surprised, not sure he even knew your name, having only been at his company for about a year. 

Surely your boss had never even noticed you-he had much bigger things to  be worrying about, and much prettier and more competent female employees to distract his time. 

But that hadn’t been the case. He had asked for you. 

“And then...” You stutter to a halt, biting your lip, as you finally dare to make eye contact with him once more, and you notice, for the briefest of moments, that Kim Namjoon has very kind and soft eyes when he’s not at work. “There was an accident.” 

Namjoon’s hands ball into fists behind him, digging into the carpet, and you wonder why he’s so upset at the memory. “Yes. A drunk driver ran a red light.” 

You are startled at his candid words, and the flash of a memory-of the sound of metal crunching and screaming and flashing sirens-flits painfully through your head. 

“Yes.” You nod in return, fingers gripping at the blanket surrounding you for some form of security as you continue. “And then I remember....” You hesitate again, closing your eyes momentarily as you try to picture the scene. “You had a gash. On your forehead. The blood was so red. And I....” You take in a deep breath and open your eyes to meet his gaze once more. “Everything hurt. And I couldn’t breathe. And you told me...” You stumble over the heavy feeling of your tongue in your suddenly cotton filled mouth. “You told me to hold on, because you’d get me to the hospital.” A sob threatens to choke its way from your throat, and the feel of salty, hot tears drip down your cheeks. “But then I looked down at myself, and, oh god, there was so much blood and I...” You take in a heaving breath. “I knew there wasn’t going to be time.” 

There is heavy silence in between the two of you for what feels like an eternity, and then Namjoon sighs once more, staring at the way his fingers dig into the carpet, before he says softly, “Yes. That’s right.” 

“I don’t understand.” You blurt out, before you can temper the words, and Namjoon looks up at you sharply, lips pulled into a thin serious line. 

“I didn’t take you to the hospital.” 

“So then.” You swallow hard, your heart pounding loudly in your ears. “Am I dead? Are we dead?” 

“No.” Namjoon shakes his head, and there is a slight bit of amusement that replaces the sadness on his features for just the briefest moment, before he kneels up, and reaching out, brushes his finger down your cheekbone, lighter than a feather. “No. You were dead. Now, you are very much alive, (Y/N).” 

You are caught off guard by his answer, and by the closeness of him, you can practically feel the warmth rolling off of him from beneath his crimson suit jacket, and it’s distracting, because right now, your body, like an animal, is seeking any source of warmth to get away from the cold in your bones that you can’t seem to shake. 

And then something else catches your eye. 

“Your head.” You breathe out, reaching up without thinking to finger the faint, pink scar that runs perpendicular to his eyebrow. “It’s better.” 

He tilts his head imperceptibly, but enough to press his cheek into your palm, and you swear, that his shoulders seem to relax slightly at your touch. “Yes. It’s better.” 

“And I’m,” You glance down into the folds of the blanket at your body, only to be met with perfect, flawless skin-not a blemish insight. Last time you had seen yourself, that skin was covered in red, sticky blood, oozing from torn skin, and garish clashes of white, gleaming bone. Now, there is not a hair out of place. “I’m fine.” You finish with amazement. 

What the hell is going on? 

You look up once more, and there is a slightly dangerous smile that pulls at the corner of Namjoon’s mouth, in such a way that gives you a shiver of fear and pleasant butterflies in your stomach all at the same time, a whirl of complicated emotions. 

“How did you do it?” You ask, voice subdued with the sheer weight of everything going on in your head at that moment. 

Namjoon arches a brow at you, and his fingers come up to take your chin in a firm grasp, as he slowly turns your head from side to side, inspecting his handiwork. “I gave you another chance.” He states calmly, eyes locking with yours-pupils blowing and darkening against swirling chocolate irises. His teeth flash in a smile that sends your heart racing in your chest. “I gave us another chance.” 

******

“Tell me the story again.” 

It is several days later, and you are lying in the big, four poster bed with Namjoon, curled up against his side, wearing only one of his overly large t-shirts, enjoying the way his bare chest warms your skin, even through the thin fabric. 

“Again?” Namjoon groans, rolling his eyes, but there is a slight tug of an amused smile at his lips, as you roll over to face him, resting your chin on his chest, as you send him a pleading look over your hands. “Fine.” He chuckles, reaching up to ruffle a hand through your hair, before he starts into the story you have heard a dozen times. “The first day I saw you at the company, I thought I was hallucinating.” 

You grin and settle against him, reveling in the cozy feeling of lying with him, skin to skin, beneath the heavy blankets. 

“You were wearing that outfit-you know, the one with the tight pencil skirt and the sweater-and I swore, I’d never seen someone look as pretty as you did with a pencil stuck behind her ear and a clipboard in her hands.” He laughs at the look you shoot him, the dimples in his cheeks-one of your favorite things about him-deepening with the action, and then continues, reaching up to twirl a finger into a lock of your hair as he talks. “I tried for months to get you to notice me. Like seriously, everything. When I heard you talking in the hall with Wheein about how I looked like a college frat boy with my multiple piercings, I showed up to work the next day without them. Still nothing.” He teases you, pinching your side, as you laugh and look up at said piercings, shining up the length of his left ear. 

“I still can’t believe you heard that.” You whine, covering your blush with your hands, as you bury your face back into his side in mortification. “I had no idea.” 

“And then.” Namjoon’s voice is a deep rumble in his chest, just beneath the sound of his heartbeat, and it makes you feel safe and comforted and at home. “They asked me to bring someone with me to my next client meeting. And I knew, it’d be the perfect time to spend some alone time with you, and maybe I could work up the nerve to tell you how I felt.” 

Sadness washes over Namjoon’s features as he halts the story, and you reach up, pushing thick silver hair back off his forehead, before you say quietly, “It’s okay.” 

He clears his throat, and forcing a small smile onto his lips, he dips his head to brush his mouth across yours, before he replies with wavering lightness, “Seriously though. You were the prettiest, most independent, driven, bossy woman I had ever laid eyes on.” He grins down at you, and this time, the expression reaches his eyes. “And I loved everything about you. Still do.” 

You sigh, turning over on your back, as you reach a hand up, splaying your fingers wide, so that you can see the canopy that stretches over the bed between the spaces, as you say heavily, thoughtfully, “I still don’t feel like myself. I don’t feel like me.” 

Namjoon reaches up, intertwining his fingers with yours above your heads, and you glance at him, as he lets out a heavy sigh of his own, before offering you a gentle smile, and a kiss to your forehead. “I know. But that will come. It will get better.” He reaches up to tap one long forefinger against the side of your temple. “I managed to save everything up here. You’re still you, baby.” 

“It will get better.” You repeat his words under your breath, and he nods, as you snuggling against him once more, shutting your eyes to the sound of his breathing and the incessant rhythm of his heart. 

*******

But as days pass, it does not get better. 

It gets worse. Much, much worse. 

It starts with the morning that you take a shower, and clumps of hair come out into your hands, washing and swirling down the drain around your feet like horrifying, damning tumbleweeds of terrible things to come. 

Then, it’s the aching of your bones, the pain so severe that you spend afternoons in bed while Namjoon is at work, just managing to paste on a smile and crawl from beneath the covers in time for him to walk through the door, worried that he will find out something is wrong. 

By the time patches of yellow and purple appear on your skin-covering your body like angry, unmistakable bruises-you feel as if even the slightest movement makes you exhausted, your tired body reacting to everything as if you have just run a marathon. 

But it is when the nightmares start, that you really feel as if death is inescapable this time. 

And tonight, when you wake up from sleep, gasping and panting for breath, your throat hoarse from screaming, your fingers bloody from clutching the sheets too tightly, you feel as if death might be the most merciful form of release. 

“Hey, hey, baby!” Namjoon is cradling your face between his hands, his features dark and pinched and worried in the light of the lamp that he has flipped on, fingertips digging into the sallow, sunken skin of your cheeks, and you know, as he looks at your face, and the dark circles under your eyes, and the cracked state of your parted, gasping lips, that he knows, just as you do. 

“Hey, baby.” Namjoon repeats, softer this time, as he crushes you to his chest, just as he had done the first day you saw him again, shivering and cold and afraid, just as you are now. “You’re okay. You’re okay.” 

Your fingers ball into the material of his shirt, and hot, salty tears drip across the cracked skin of your lips, as you begin to sob, because the nightmare had felt so real, and honestly, you’re just so tired. 

Every night-reliving the crash and the tearing of your body and the feeling of dying-over and over and over again, is more than you can take. 

“Please, Namjoon.” You whisper against him, and your voice is breathy and lacks strength, and sounds like it’s fading away with every word. You manage to tilt your head just enough to look at him, and you see, you see the look on his face. He knows what you’re about to say. 

“No.” He shakes his head violently, fingers digging into the skin of your back as if to keep you against him forever. “No.” 

“Namjoon.” You close your eyes, listening for a moment, to the comforting sound of his heartbeat beneath your ear. “Please. This isn’t living. This isn’t loving.” 

There is silence, and then you feel him shift beneath you, and without opening your eyes, you know he has given in. 

You sigh as his arms slide beneath your weak, frail body and he lifts you easily from the hold of the bed, cradling you carefully, gently, to his chest as he walks, as if he’s afraid you’ll fall to pieces in his arms. 

The trek to the tub lasts a lifetime, but when the cool, icy water envelops your limbs, you let out a sigh of relief. 

It is nice to be weightless once more. 

Finally, the pain is gone. 

Opening your eyes, you meet Namjoon’s gaze as he carefully holds you above the surface of the water, and lips pulling upward into the hint of a smile, all you can muster, you reach a hand from beneath the liquid, and cupping his cheek in your hand, you whisper hoarsely, “I love you, Kim Namjoon. Thank you for giving me a second chance.” 

A tear creeps to the corner of Namjoon’s eye, but he shakes his head, leaning his face into the palm of your hand, as he says fiercely, “I’ll bring you back. We’ll get another chance, and another, until there aren’t any left.” 

You close your eyes, the smile still on your lips. “I know you will, Joonie.” 

You feel him slip one hand, and then the other from behind your back, and then you are sinking into the water’s icy embrace, and all that’s left is silence and cold and darkness. 

*******

Breaking through the surface of the chilly water, your hands reach out blindly to grasp the side of the steel tub, as you open your eyes slowly, blinking several times to clear your vision, before you take in a deep breath of the air, and hold out a palm in front of you, glancing down and admiring the way the perfect skin shines in the moonlight. 

Someone steps forward into the light surrounding the tub where you float, and when your eyes meet Kim Namjoon’s, dark and warm and honeyed, his lips pull back into the faintest hint of a loving smile as he looks at you. 

“Welcome back, baby.” 

[itsbenedict]

Two-Faced Jewel: Session 7

A half-elf conwoman (and the moth tasked with keeping her out of trouble) travel the Jewel in search of, uh, whatever a fashionable accessory is pointing them at. [Campaign log]

Last time, Saelhen and Looseleaf continued their scouring of the evil torture wizard's evil torture tower for clues as to the identity of the murderer terrorizing the towns of Barley and Wheat. They found a bunch of mysterious documents of ominous character, but they've yet to check out the tower's hidden basement- and the ne'er-do-well lurking within...

The basement doesn't immediately contain any horrors, unless you're the type to get the jibblies from a messy room. There's dirty dishes (recently used), empty beer bottles from a Zeishus Brewery, and discarded clothes everywhere. It's very lived-in, and whoever lives-in here doesn't seem like they were expecting visitors.

Saelhen takes a look at the desk nearest the stairs, next to a well-used recliner and a recently-extinguished candle. She gets a nat 20 on her Investigation, and finds that the desk has been rotated to face the wall, concealing a drawer that doesn't look like it's been opened in some time, judging by the cobwebs.

What's inside is mainly more of the sort of thing they found on the sixth floor- technical notes on neurology and pain magic. With the critical success, she's able to piece together that the odd numbers on the abrasive letter found upstairs were some sort of pain measurements the letter-writer was providing to Lumiere.

They also find a less academic, more personal note, expressing frustration with his own research.

"Why would the Burnscreamer's rituals require Abyssal? Even a god like him shouldn't have any connection to the demons- what is he playing at?" "If I could just correct the sigil, I could bypass so much of this nonsense..."

Saelhen then gets a nat 1 on her Religion roll to know what that means, and assumes the Burnscreamer is the frontman for a metal band her dad likes.

As they search the rest of the room, they notice- at the bottom of the central shaft- a circular basin in the stone floor. It's stained red, but it's dry- not as much blood as you'd expect to see given the carnage on the sixth floor, so it seems like it's been recently emptied or cleaned out.

Oyobi, meanwhile, checks the locked door by the stairs, and finds it... cold? I wonder what that means vis-a-vis-

The extremely sneaky +9 Stealth person hiding braced against the walls of the central shaft fucks up right about then, and slips a little, letting out an involuntary "Gh- shit!", alerting the party to his presence.

Saelhen tries to chase after this person by parkouring off those same walls, gets a 9, and faceplants in the blood basin, leaving the issue to the party member who has wings. As the hider flees through one of the doors in the shaft, Looseleaf uses her darkvision and 24 Investigation roll to pick out the right door and give chase.

(Meanwhile, the rest of the party heads up the stairs normally- and Saelhen orders Orluthe to bust down the front door, so they can go outside and catch anyone trying to escape by rappelling down the side of the building. This turns out to be unnecessary, because when Looseleaf detected that the front door was magic and assumed it was a trap, this was incorrect.)

Benedict I. (GM): ("who knows what kind of trap could be on this magic door? better go up and through the window into the room full of traps, instead") (i was laughing so hard) (it's just an automatic door!) Looseleaf: Honestly, the people in town oversold this place. They made it sound like such a deathtrap and really it was just a bunch of spiky bots. And knives. And comfy pillows. Benedict I. (GM): Well, when they were there, there was a living evil torture wizard actively trying to take them prisoner and torture them.

Looseleaf botches her Investigation roll to search the torture lab she emerges in, but... that doesn't stop her from just checking each and every possible hiding place one by one, manually. She alights upon the correct solution swiftly- checking inside the broken remains of the iron maiden.

bBenedict I. (GM): Anyway, Looseleaf, inside the corpse of the iron maiden, you find. A rather heavy man, performing a downright heroic feat of contortionism to suspend himself inside the door without getting impaled on the spikes. Arnie: "Uh." "Can you pretend you never saw me?" Looseleaf: "That depends on what you're doing here, I guess. Who are you and what are you doing here?" Saelhen du Fishercrown: oh that is a nervous man Arnie: "No one. Nothing. I'm, uh, supposed to be like, dead, probably." "So I'm not here." "Yeah?"

Arnie Zeishus is the deadbeat husband of Cassie, the innkeeper from Barley, who fled town a while back. He explains that after fleeing his responsibilities in Barley, he tried to set up shop in Wheat running a brewery, but got in trouble flouting the brewing regulations of the Ecumene of Harmony. So after getting arrested there and breaking out of prison, he decided to sneak into the torture wizard's tower and lay low as a squatter in the guy's basement. He figured he might get caught and tortured, but it couldn't be worse than what the townspeople wanted to do to him.

Except, as luck would have it, the torture wizard was already dead when he arrived! So he's been making a home of the place with Lumiere's old animated housekeepers, using the torture wizard's fearsome reputation as a way to keep anyone from tracking him down and making him do stuff like clean up a distillery explosion or pay child support or what have you.

On the other hand, someone has been sneaking around his tower doing something sinister on the sixth floor that results in blood pouring down into the basin periodically, and he's stressed out of his mind wondering who the hell is doing that and how he's supposed to avoid getting caught and/or killed by them.

(He notes that the "KEEP SHOUTING" sign was his attempt to get intruders to at least give themselves away by making noise, after they were clearly ignoring the "KEEP OUT" sign he put up.)

Looseleaf also takes the time to ask if Arnie here knows anything about someone named Choss.

Arnie: He looks surprised. "You know Choss?" Looseleaf: "Let's say that Choss is a figure of importance in this investigation." "Anything you could tell us about how they arrived in town and what they did in town would be appreciated." Arnie: He shrugs. "Choss was there before I was- she's a real weirdo." "Knows how to party, but- gotta say, her stuff's a little too strong for me." "A crazy high at first, but it gets- whoof, intense." Looseleaf: "She's an apothecary of some kind?" Arnie: He laughs. "You could say that. She's got herself a little drug lab in town, always smells like burning. Don't know how she gets away with it- some of that stuff's gotta be illegal." Saelhen du Fishercrown: "And how old is she, approximately?" Arnie: "Eh? She's- hard to tell with lizardfolk, s'not like you can read the wrinkles..." Looseleaf: Ah, of course. Lizardfolk. Saelhen du Fishercrown: yep Arnie: "Seems youngish, though? Party girl through and through." "Just, uh, if she offers you a blend, don't take it unless you're ready to spend the next hour feelin' like fire ants are chewin' their way out of your skin." He shudders a little. Looseleaf: "Hm. Sounds painful." Arnie: "You have no idea," he laughs.

They also inquire about the locked freezer room- and why Arnie would hide out here, in dangerous torture tower, rather than just running off to a city, which is a little weird that he didn't do. Arnie claims there's just groceries in there, and no stolen wine bottles whatsoever, he certainly isn't a thief and he definitely hasn't been lying low out here because if he goes to a city some old pals from Thunderbrush might find him and want him dead, no sir! He would never ever commit a crime, ["wink wink" in hand-signed Thieves' Cant].

Saelhen du Fishercrown: "Of course. I can't imagine we have any thieves here." [Nudge nudge.] Looseleaf: "In the meantime, Mr. Zeishus, you mentioned having done something that.. makes going anywhere where you might meet someone from Thunderbrush a dangerous thing?" Arnie: He fidgets. "Uh, well..." "I, I try to leave all that behind me." "You just... don't want to get involved with the ghost dryad mafia. Just a tip."

He drops a little bit of exposition about something that may be coming up- apparently, Thunderbrush used to have these huge skyscraper-sized trees, but they got chopped down in some sort of war or raid a while back, and now the Stumps are ruled by the necromancer ghost dryads of those trees who used the last vestiges of their power to cheat death. Apparently Arnie was strongarmed into doing crimes for various ghost dryad mafiosos and made too many enemies, so he fled to Barley to shake the heat.

Looseleaf also comes to a realization regarding some hints dropped earlier in the townsfolks' tragic backstories:

Looseleaf: (actually, wait, i just realized: choss is probably chitch's daughter, the timelines there line up perfectly and maybe this whole dragonborn business is a total red herring we invented for ourselves) (what the shit, lumiere, you kidnap a guy's daughter and raise them as your own child? that's fucked.)

Looseleaf occupies this Arnie guy by interrogating him about these things, while Saelhen slips downstairs to try to pick the lock to the freezer room.

Eventually, after a bunch of failed rolls and more small talk from Looseleaf to keep Arnie occupied, Saelhen pops open the lock. Inside, she finds a fairly large and frigid room. There are meathooks hanging from the ceiling, empty. There are shelves lining the edges full of frozen food.

And to her right, there's another door- this one out of place with the rest of the construction, made of a strange stone shot through with rivulets of glowing orange. There's a symbol on a stone circle embedded in the door:

Before she checks that out, though, she checks the darkened back of the room- which contains some tubs filled with ice.

And those tubs have corpses in them, with the four-pointed wounds.

It is not especially likely that Arnie had no idea these were here, in a room he claims to use to store groceries and has the key to.

Looseleaf, meanwhile, attempts to read Arnie's spirit to determine his alignment and general intentions. His Deception beats her Insight, but what she does manage to get is...

Arnie is afraid. He is filled to bursting with terror and desperation more intense than you've ever felt from anyone before. And the fear does not seem directed at you.

Meanwhile, Saelhen tries to get that door open. What's the deal with that thing, huh? There's no handle, so... she has the bright idea of slapping her mysterious god icon bracer (the one that when previously slapped against a magic thing opened a pit to infinite bats) against it, see what happens. And I get very excited, because ohohoho, I didn't expect that, I had to think through the ramifications of doing that, and...

...then I work through those ramifications, and what I realize is that, as far as the players would know, the end result is just that the door slides open, and nothing else of note occurs.

Saelhen du Fishercrown: "Why am I even here I just wanted to help a nice little girl show up her dipshit inquisitor mom now I'm in a pain room investigating pain machines..." Looseleaf: (looseleaf warned you about getting involved in the case, she warned you dog)

There's also a bunch of weird machines, and more of Lumiere's notes, which Saelhen goes and nabs as many of as she can. Then she beats feet immediately, not wanting to spend any longer than necessary in the hell lab. The problem is, she doesn't want to leave any sign she was in there, so...

Saelhen du Fishercrown: Does tapping the exposed bit of stone with the bracer again close the secret hell door? Benedict I. (GM): Nope. Saelhen du Fishercrown: hmm. poking it with her finger? Benedict I. (GM): Ouch. Nope. Saelhen du Fishercrown: physically pulling the stone upwards while muttering "fuck fuck fuck ow ow ow"? Benedict I. (GM): Oh, hm, yeah, that would work. At first there's no effect, but as you continue to pull and the pain gets worse and worse... Roll me a Constitution save. Saelhen du Fishercrown: 16 CONSTITUTION SAVE (3) Benedict I. (GM): That'll do it! Your pain feeds the door, and, satisfied, the mouth closes. Looseleaf: How extremely concerning!

Cool!

So Saelhen goes back upstairs, the party secretly confers and exchanges information, and... something has to be done about Arnie.

His expression changes, suddenly.

Arnie: "You don't know what you're talking about." "This doesn't have to happen."

Looseleaf continues to try to offer help to this guy, inferring that he's being forced to do someone else's dirty work. She rolls a 20 on Persuasion! So... what happens following them cornering and exposing the culprit is not the rolling of initiative. Still, though...

Arnie: Arnie... backs up a step. "You're morons." "You have no idea." "You're talking like you can help me?" "That's impossible. No one can help me." "I- I'm fucking cursed, dammit!" Looseleaf: is he? i have magic sense, he is clearly not actually magically cursed, right Arnie: "What are you clowns going to do about it? Nothing!" "What are you going to do, kill a dragon?" Saelhen du Fishercrown: "You are entangled here. If Looseleaf says so, then I trust her intuition and her investigative prowess. This doesn't necessarily mean you're entangled in such a way that there is no way out for you." Saelhen shrugs. "Theoretically, the device on my arm is responsible for drowning a small city in vampiric monsters from beyond the stars. And yet there was a way out of that, and a genuine silver lining into the bargain." "I want you to understand that I am absolutely sincere when I say: There is always a way out." Arnie: "That's- there's no way! There's only one way out!" "He'll free me from the curse if I do what he says, and that's the only way!" Looseleaf: ...That is not how dragon-curses work at all. Benedict I. (GM): Not as far as you're aware, no. Doesn't seem like anyone's told Arnie.

They continue to try to convince him that there's hope, that he doesn't need to do what the dragon says, that they can help him. And Arnie just keeps pushing back, refusing to acknowledge any of it, weeping and shouting and doing whatever he can to avoid believing that he didn't have to do any of that, that there was any other way- because if there was, he'd be a monster, right?

Meanwhile, Vayen... is standing a ways away and staring at them all, as usual... but this time, he's smiling. No one here has ever seen Vayen smile before. He looks like his birthday came early. And as they're on the verge of a breakthrough...

Arnie: "Fucking- you don't think I know that?" "I know that! I know he's manipulating me!" "But what else do I do?" Vayen: "You could kill yourself," Vayen suggests. Looseleaf: "Vayen what the FUCK?" Arnie: "What the fuck- shut up, asshole!" "I'm not dying! Not here, not nowhere!" Saelhen du Fishercrown: "...Vayen, you are placing a remarkable number of ticks in the 'leave you at the side of the road' column." Vayen: Vayen shrugs. "It's the most reliable way to neutralize a dragon's curse." "It's the sensible thing to do, if you don't want to cause collateral damage."

It's as though he deliberately picked the one thing to say to ensure that this argument would keep happening, and not reach a friendly resolution. The hell is his problem?

Still, the party keeps trying to talk this guy down.

Saelhen du Fishercrown: "And -- Arnie, surely you don't think the dragon would hunt you down? Dragons don't go out of their way to punish us; they just use us to accomplish whatever it is they're planning. He'll make it someone else's problem." "I know the type. Arnie, it wouldn't care enough to hunt you down. What seems like a personal connection, like it caring about you -- if it tries that at all -- it's just an implement. It's a way of getting you to do what it wants. Go to ground effectively, and it won't bother to spare the effort." Arnie: "What are you, talking like some kinda dragonologist? The hell do you know about dragons?" Saelhen du Fishercrown: "...I am not a dragonologist, no," admits Saelhen. Looseleaf: "...Are you a dragonologist?" Arnie: "Of course it could hunt me down! Damn thing's got magic items out the ass and it flies faster than I can run!" "As soon as it saw me going somewhere it didn't tell me to, I'd get turned into a midnight snack!" "And then I go to ground, and the curse kicks in, and I end up dead or worse anyway. Sounds great." "Or, I stay here, gut a few self-righteous fucks who treated me like dirt for a while, and maybe the thing keeps its end of the bargain and lets me go!"

Yeah, that's a confession, and like, not one that makes him look great. Still, given this guy's weirdly high rolls on physical stuff, and his apparent aptitude for murdering people, they're not super sure they want to fight this guy- on top of just, not exactly wanting to fight this guy.

What are they going to do? They have to come up with a plan- and their plan has to take less than three weeks to pull off, since Arnie only has six corpses left in the bathtubs, and the dragon wants two corpses a week to prove he's still doing the job.

(And is it even worth going to all that trouble just to protect this guy from the consequences of his actions?)

Next time: a plan is hatched, and the party gets back on the road.

[legendary-assassin-stance]

With a bang, the door to Bryok’s office slammed open and Myrr strode into the room -- an irritated snarl was on his lips, but whatever he was going to shout died in his throat once his brain caught up with what he was seeing in front of him -- he stopped in his tracks, staring at the necromancer, who was lying forward on his desk, one arm pillowing his head while his other hand swirled a crystalline glass lazily.

The vividly green contents of the glass, along with the half-empty bottle resting next to Bryok, immediately clicked in Myrr’s mind. ‘Absinthe?’ he mused, followed up by, ‘Has he really drank the whole half of that bottle already?’ It had only been two hours or so since Myrr had last seen Bryok around the camp, and that did not bode well for the necromancer’s state of sobriety.

The sniper hesitantly moved forward, his actions slow and telegraphed; the fact that Bryok hadn’t even lifted his head to see who was breaking his door down (despite the fact that, honestly, only Myrr ever did) was concerning in itself, though Myrr was quick to smother that emotion. “Bryok?” Myrr questioned, keeping his volume neutrally low.

“Mmm…”

Myrr scowled slightly at the noncommittal noise he received, moving to splay his hands out on the desk. Leaning forward slightly, the sniper growled, “Bryok.”

“Mmmmh, yea?” The other still hadn’t raised his head up to meet Myrr’s gaze, but at this point the sniper would take slightly-slurred, but coherent, words over eye contact. The tip of Bryok’s ear twitched when Myrr’s nails curled against the desk, the sharpened tips carving small rivulets into the wood, and the necromancer finally raised his head up, dilated golden eyes barely able to focus on the sniper’s face.

“How much have you drank so far?”

“Jussst this, ‘n uhh… maybe a bit ‘f Orrian wine Cerise had.”

“You mean the ancient wine I brought back from my Orr mission?”

“Eh--” Bryok’s gaze slipped from Myrr’s face, and instead rested somewhere to the sniper’s right. “S’not like she was drinkin’ it.”

“That’s--” Myrr blustered out an irate noise; if his nails weren’t already digging into the desk, they would’ve been by that point. His lips pulled back to show his fangs, and that seemed to snap Bryok’s attention back onto his face, at least for the time being. “Do you know how strong that wine was?”

“M’still conscious, ain’t I?”

“That’s not the fucking point!”

The necromancer flinched slightly at the snarled words, and Myrr’s volume settled back into a low growl. “Cerise had wanted to meet with you, but that’s obviously not going to happen right now,” he snapped, pushing himself back into a proper standing posture so he could stride around the desk. Bryok’s gaze followed him as he moved, expression slightly wary because of how angry the sniper seemed to be, but he didn’t attempt to move away either.

“Up you get,” Myrr huffed, coming to a stop a foot away from Bryok’s chair; he gave the necromancer a minute to process that command, and when it seemed apparent that Bryok was not going to respond -- probably not for lack-of-trying, considering just how much alcohol he’d consumed in such a small amount of time -- Myrr exhaled slowly and leaned forward to wrap his fingers around the upper part of Bryok’s arm, hauling the other out of his seat while ignoring the indignant squawk he got in response. “I said, up you fuckin’ get.”

“‘ey, ‘ey! I can walk on m’own, y’know!” Bryok yelped, his tone of voice a whine that definitely wouldn’t have made itself apparent if he’d been in any state to stay upright and not topple over immediately, talons scrabbling slightly on the wooden floor as he regained his footing.

“I’m not about to let you bash your head in on your desk and die, so Cerise can blame me for it.” Myrr gave Bryok no chance to respond to that, nor any to prepare as the sniper dipped down slightly to scoop the necromancer into his arms in a bridal-style carry. Ignoring the continued squawks and halfhearted arguments that Bryok gave him, Myrr slipped around the desk and made his way towards the other’s connecting bedroom door.

Nudging that door open with his foot once he reached it, the sniper barely glanced around the room before making a beeline towards the bed that occupied the far corner. With very little fanfare, Myrr dropped the necromancer onto the bed with a growl. “Sleep it off, you stupid asshole. I’ll let Cerise know that she’ll have to reschedule whatever the fuck she wanted to talk to you about.”

Not waiting for a response, Myrr turned away from the bed, but paused at a particularly pathetic whine from the other behind him. “Myrr--”

“What?” Myrr growled, his irritation having already peaked at both being reduced to a messenger for Cerise, and having to babysit her drunken second-in-command. The sniper’s posture tensed when he felt a taloned hand brush against his wrist. He turned just enough to look over his shoulder at Bryok, freezing at the wide-eyed, inquisitive look that he was given.

“Stay?”

Bryok’s tone was a hair shy of pleading, and that was more than enough to cause the sniper’s breath to hitch slightly -- though he quickly hid that with a sharp, grumpy-sounding exhale of breath. “Fine, I guess. Cerise isn’t going to be happy.”

“Cerise can wait.” Bryok reached out to fully grasp the sniper’s wrist this time, giving him an impatient, but weak, tug back towards the bed. Myrr allowed himself to be manhandled just enough to walk back the two paces he needed to sit down on the edge of the mattress, scowling when Bryok instantly repositioned himself to curl around his waist not unlike a cat would.

The necromancer huffed, burying his face against Myrr’s thigh, and it slowly creeped into Myrr’s conscious just how inebriated Bryok was at that moment in time, despite his speech being relatively normal. “You do realize how easily I could… literally kill you while you’re like this, right? You definitely aren’t in any state to fight back.”

A slow, rumbling hum vibrated in Bryok’s chest as he nuzzled against the sniper’s leg, a lazy sleepiness to his motions now that he was laid out in an actual bed. “You won’t though.” His voice was muffled against Myrr’s skin, and Myrr shuddered slightly at the feeling of the necromancer’s breath ghosting across his leg. “You aren’t that kind of person.”

A lump settled itself in Myrr’s throat at those words, and he didn’t respond as Bryok’s breathing slowly evened itself out into a sleeping rhythm. Myrr sat there quietly, staring at the mess of feathers Bryok’s hair had descended into as the muted sounds of the necromancer’s exhaling filled the otherwise-silent room.

‘You aren’t that kind of person.’

Bryok believed that so completely that he felt comfortable allowing Myrr to be around when he was fully vulnerable... but could Myrr really believe that of himself?