#she goes insane when she plays and will grip onto anything nearby with her claws for traction

[charcoalhell]

best part about cats is that they’ll jab their little teeny claws into your foot so hard they hit bone (callout post for my cat)

[yourdeepestfathoms]

Caged Birds Don’t Fly -Chapter Three-

Chapter Three

Birds Of a Feather Flock Together

When Joan turned on the tap, Bee instantly became interested in the bathtub. She hangs from the side of the wall so she can bat at the water, which caused Joan to laugh. She jumped at the sudden sound, but goes back to what she’s doing once she confirms her human was okay.

“Okay, I’m going to try and get that smock off of you.”

Joan grabbed the scissors that she had brought in and waved Bee over. Reluctantly, she climbs down and sat in front of her like a dog.

“Good monster.”

The dual blades slip under one of the laces. For a moment, the leather held, making Joan think they were indestructible, but then the scissors chewed through the binds.

White and blue veins were crawling across Bee’s back, starting from the base of her wings. They clear as day despite her dark skin tone. They seemed to glow a little, pulsating slightly. Joan looks over this new sight before continuing her work, removing the straps and metallic clasps and plates. When everything was off, Bee stretched out her wings and shook herself out.

“There we go. Now, go on, get in the bath!”

The monster eyes her crossly, chuffing softly under her breath. Joan puts her hands on her hips.

“Don’t give me that look, missy. I know you hear me.” She nudges her tail with her foot, “Go on.”

Bee grumbled and then crawled into the bathtub. She loved it almost instantly, purring as she relaxed in the hot water. She leans down and feels a cluster of bubbles with her antenna. The beast sneezes.

Joan grabbed a washcloth and douses it with soap. She starts with the creature’s back, scrubbing off layers of grime and dirt. Bee was very patient, sitting still for her, even when she took the time to clean each of her claws thoroughly.

“Tail.” Joan says and she obeys.

The rag shines the hook-like barb on the tip. Apparently it was supposed to inject a paralyzing nerve toxin or even spray boiling acid.

Right then, Joan realizes what she’s doing. She’s been treating Bee like a friend or pet; a benevolent mute companion. She was the same species as the thing that hurt her- that ruined her life. And yet...

Bee makes a confused noise. She turns around and Joan shrinks away, white-knuckling a rag that was covered in monster grime. She senses that she was probably going to climb out of the tub and touch her. Comfort her. She didn’t want that.

“You scare me.”

For a long time, girl and monster just stare at each other.

It didn’t feel real. The feeling was similar to when you do just about anything at 3AM but without the lucid, otherworldly touch. No, this was sitting inside a thin salt circle at witching hour, shrouded by shadows where something deadly lurks.

What was this? A paradox? A cycle of madness that left her questioning her protector? A wormhole that constantly repeats her meltdowns? A liberation from madness, or an episode? Was this desperately breaking free of something that was going to lull her into mindlessness, or was this a foolish denial of her only possible anchor? Was this hell?

Fear ached in Joan’s stomach. Nameless fear. Unexplained fear. Overwhelming fear. She had to run. She had to get out of the room. She had to get out of the house, away from this, away from this monster, away from this insanity, she needed to breathe, she needed-

The bathroom didn’t feel right anymore. Bee started to snarl. It wasn’t her harmless little growl- this sound was rabid. She gripped the edge of the tub with her front talons, cracking the plaster slightly with frightening amounts of strength. Her tail arches over her back, barb gleaming menacingly. Spines started to grow out of the lacy veins, sharp and quivering, creating a horrible buzzing sound. Those were new; Joan stared in utter horror.

“Bee, stop!” She cried, “Stop it, please!”

Bee rears up with a deafening screech that sends Joan collapsing into a cringing ball of pain. She pressed against the cabinets and writhed, clutching at her ears. From above, the monster continues to frenzy.

“Stop!”

Joan forced herself up onto her knees, flaring out her one wing wide open.

“You know what? Fuck you! If you want to tear up this bathroom, too, then fine. But if you disappear, if you leave me alone like this, if you abandon me, I won’t forgive you!”

Silence.

Bee twitches and then chuffs softly. Her quills retract and she settled back down in the water, gurgling softly. When Joan crawls towards her, she moved away and pressed against the wall. The girl stops and then held out her hand.

“Here Bee,” She called out softly, “Here Bumblebee. Come here. It’s okay. You won’t hurt me.”

Slowly, the monster inches closer and presses her head against Joan’s hand. Her arm looped over her neck and she welcomed the touch.

“I’m keeping you.” The owl murmured, “Let me keep you. I feel braver when you’re here with me.”

The monster purred and rubbed against her in an affectionate way. She was agreeing. She wanted to stay.

“Good monster,” Joan cooed, stroking the base of her wings, “Whatever I did to set you off, warn me next time, okay?”

A gurgle.

Once the two of them parted, Joan continued to wash off the WingEater. They were both a lot more relaxed and Bee ended up playing in the water again.

The bath water became murky grey as more and more soot was removed. It seemed like dirt collectively clung to the leathery flesh over time, making it horribly dirty. It took around ten minutes to just get the top layer off and the water was already blackened. Joan ended up filling up a bowl so she could wash off her rag.

The fledgling uses her nails to get off the tougher layers of grime, something that even she’s a little surprised about doing. Black dirt and ash gets underneath her fingernails, but she doesn’t care. She’s completely focused on cleaning up the monster.

While Bee’s wings were beautiful, some feathers had to be cut off because they were just too stiff and dry. It’s almost like they were rotten. They floated lazily in the water with other clumps of burned fringes or fallen down.

Various kinds of soap and shampoo were rubbed against dark pelt, making the bathroom smell pleasant, despite the burnt scent that tried to combat it. Suds and bubbles filled the surface of the water, making Bee sneeze when they get in her nose. Joan laughs.

Soon, the water became way too dirty to properly clean Bee, so Joan decided to pull the plug. The WingEater gave her a confused look.

“Brace yourself.”

She was so glad she warned the monster, because she was almost positive she would have attacked the shower head if she hadn’t. Hot water sprayed out from the spigot, causing Bee to jump backwards and stick to the wall. She looked completely startled, but slowly lowered herself back into the tub. She began twisting and turning under the streaming rain, purring happily. Joan let her do a little dance under the stream before turning the shower off. When Bee reached for her smock on the floor, Joan scowled and kicked it away.

“You can’t put that back on! It’s filthy!”

Bee chuffed. It’s not like it mattered if she wore anything or not- WingEaters didn’t have visible genitals.

“Let me clean it first, okay?”

When the monster agreed, Joan bundled both the smock and her stained sheets into the washing machine. Bee didn’t expect a stew of bleach, though, so she began to mope. She followed Joan around the house, bleating miserably. Repeatedly. For over an hour.

Joan ended up giving her a plate of leftovers, but she just stared at it unhappily. She yowled and fretted and whined, padding into the laundry room to check on the progress of her weird WingEater clothes. After a moment, she would always return, disgusted by the bleach. Once she took a few trips and tugged helplessly on Joan’s shirtsleeve without changing her situation, she flopped to the floor, huffing and grumbling. Finally, she began to eat.

Joan was actually a little surprised that she would even consume human food, but she seemed to be enjoying the spaghetti. She sat down, watching the monster. Her monster.

———

Was sneaking into a barn to show your pet monster farm animals considered trespassing? Maybe. But Bee’s reaction was worth it.

For once, it hadn’t been a nightmare that woke Joan up. She had plans to sneak out with Bee and just wander around, bonding with the beast. Night seemed to be the only time she could take her out, so naturally she chose to go to a small farm nearby.

Joan steps into the large barn, shutting the door quietly behind her and Bee. The farm animals made startled noises at the sight of the owl and the strange creature. After a minute, they settled slightly, unaware of what Bee really was.

Bee happily pet on the cows and sheep and goats, chirping happily and tail wagging. Joan watched her, smiling.

While she was having her fun, she began to think. Bee was very strange. She was so different compared to what other WingEaters are like, not to mention she can weirdly disappear and reappear at will. It didn’t seem like the rest of her kind could do that.

Joan turned around and opened the door to make sure the farmer was still asleep. That was the plan, but she ran into a problem.

A twisted monster was standing in her path.

It was almost skeletal due to how thin it was, dark red skin pulled tight over its bones. There were chunks missing from the arms and blue WingEater blood was crusted around the mouth. Hunger blazes in its eyes.

“BEE!” Joan screamed.

The beast lunged forward, chipped claws catching on the girl’s coat and ripping the fabric. She spasms in fear, kicking it in the shin and making it stagger backwards. This would have been the perfect chance to run, if the door hadn’t slammed on her wing. Joan’s spine arched and she hissed between her teeth. The WingEater has regained its balance.

“Bee!!”

There’s a roar, similar to the battle cry of a tiger or panther. Bee is perched on the roof of the barn, suspending the rabid WingEater upside down in the air by one of its legs. She growled lowly, seized the tail with her other hand, and ripped it out in one clean motion. The spine comes out with it, along with a gushing fountain of blue blood. Joan feels her stomach turn.

The lights in the farmer’s house flick on. Bee throws the body into the crops, jumps down, grabs Joan’s hand, and runs into the forest. Nestled in the bushes, they watch as a man steps out of the house with a gun and looked around.

Joan is still shaking. Her wing stung from when she was yanked out of the doorway. A few feathers were missing, but that was the least of her worries.

“Bee,” She croaked, “Why was it...?”

Bee wrapped her in her arms first, then her wings. Her claws rubbed soothingly against her back. It was like she was saying, “It’s okay. It was just a fluke. It wasn’t here for you.”

Joan clung to the monster, waiting until her fear quelled. It was easier than before, thanks to her beast.

[idreamofhazeleyes]

Ties in Blood

Well .... here it goes; chapter 1. Ties in Blood

Chapter 1

Aaliyah stood still as the young man adjusted her two layers of clothes. Behind him she watched the older man Aaliyah pegged to be the father finish the last of the traps. She hadn’t expected the elder to allow her on this part of the hunt. Yet after the werewolf caught her scent three days ago, there was little choice. Once the young man seemed satisfied with how Aaliyah’s jackets fit, he reached over to the trunk of the car, a black Impala, and brought out a knife. 

“Silver blade,” he told her. “Short of lobbing off the head, best way of dealing with werewolves.” With a slight flick of the wrist, he caught the blade and handed the knife handle first to Aaliyah.She accepted the blade, adjusting her hold, and nodded. 

“Any advice?”

“Yeah, don’t get killed.”

“Dean. We need to move,” his father instructed.

Aaliyah watched Dean’s father climb into the driver’s seat of the car before the engine rumbled to life. She watched the car move away as memories flashed of the past few days hearing the engine around the college campus. Turning back to Dean, Aaliyah blinked a couple times in a slight surprise to find he wasn’t there. 

With a couple stabilizing breaths, she stepped out into the open. The late summer breeze tugged at the top jacket and she swore she heard cheers from the football stadium. The thought that the werewolf would be drawn there passed through her mind. Then again, even a wild animal would avoid people. A howl carried on the wind. Aaliyah spun her head and shifted her grip on the knife. Leaves on nearby trees rustled, but there was no breeze.

She turned to see just out of the corner of her eye a lumbering werewolf in mid arm sweep at her. Full force sent Aaliyah into a sapling, snapping it and sending the wind from her lungs. Gasping for breath, she searched for the knife that laid a few feet away out of the creature’s path. Crawling for the weapon, Aaliyah’s neck hairs stood on end as the hot stank breath of the werewolf touched her. Her fingers just barely grabbed the knife as her back erupted in pain as if it was on fire. Screaming in pain, Aaliyah curled into a ball, her hand around the knife handle. Fighting through the pain, she rolled onto her back as the werewolf swiped at her again, cutting into her side. 

The muzzle of the werewolf was inches above her face, a large glop of saliva hanging down. Biting through that pain, she thrusted the knife up into the creature’s stomach, pulling the knife up to the rib cage. She didn’t fight the shutter that worked through her body as hot blood bathed her. Pushing the dead body up and off of her, Aaliyah laid there, regaining her breath, her mind blank. She fought the urge to close her eyes as her body reverted into survival mode.

“That took guts,” she heard a voice tell her. A slow turn of her head showed Dean coming up to her. “Think you can move?”

Testing her side with a deep breath, Aaliyah nodded. Holding up a hand and worked with Dean to get to her feet. Wrapping her free arm across her stomach, she didn’t fight when Dean put the arm he held around his shoulders and wrapped his arm around her, mindful of her back. Eased over to the car, Dean helped her onto the hood before going to the trunk. She flinched when John came up to her. 

“What were you thinking?” he demanded. “Letting the werewolf…”

“It’s dead,” Aaliyah cut in, eyes closed against the throbbing pain. “Bet you couldn’t do better.” 

A heavy thud on the hood reverberated through her body. With an eye cracked open, Aaliyah watched Dean start fishing through a duffel bag. From it appeared make shift medical supplies plus typical first aid items. Last item was a bottle of cheap looking alcohol any of the local party stores had in stock. She reached for the bottle as Dean found a needle and dental floss.

“Think you can shed the jackets and shirt?” Dean asked.

Aaliyah freed one jacket and struggled with the second. She ignored the feeling of serious judgement from Dean’s father. Unfit to be a hunter, the older Winchester said when she wanted to help three days ago. She wanted to show him he was fit when she heard that. 

Finally freeing the second jacket, Aaliyah dared to shed the shirt. A hiss from Dean was a clue on how bad it looked. A small shiver when a breeze passed by, Aaliyah hissed when a cold liquid washed over her open wounds. Adjusting herself on the hood, she folded her legs in front of her. Meeting Dean’s gaze, Aaliyah nodded. Holding herself still, she felt Dean’s hands working on stitching up her side and back. As he worked, Aaliyah started to drift off to sleep. A shake brought her back around.“Come on, I’ll take you back to your dorm,” Dean told her.

***

Unsure of what she was conscious of first, Aaliyah laid in bed and attempted to pick each noise out. Her roommate moving around doing something. Coffee dripping into the pot. Music playing just a little too loud Aaliyah swore would have affected her if she had been drinking. Shifting under her blanket, pain snagged on her dental floss stitched wounds.

“You look like you had a rough night,” her roommate told her, passing through to the bathroom.

“Yeah, I had one.” Aaliyah eased herself into a sitting position on her bed, the covers pooled in her lap. “Where you at the game, Amanda?”

“No, had a test to study for.” Amanda came out from the bathroom and gasped. “What happened to you? Have you been to the ER?”

Aaliyah looked down to her bandages had red spots on them and shook her head. “You wouldn’t believe me.” She didn’t fight when Amanda eased her forward.

“Try me.”

Closing her eyes as Amanda started peeling off the bandages, Aaliyah watched flashes of the previous night. The fresh wounds pulled at her muscles. “You remember the reports of a large wild dog and all that howling the past few weeks?”

“What about it?” Amanda continued unwrapping the bandages.Aaliyah heard her roommate half listening to what she was saying.

 “It was a full blown werewolf.”

“Werewolf, huh? Twilight or Harry Potter?”

“More like Underworld.” Aaliyah glanced to the bundled bandages speckled with red as Amanda stepped away and tossed it into the trash. “I’m … still trying to figure out how I really survived the fight.”

“You sound …”

“Insane? Like I need to be put up in a psych ward indefinitely?” Aaliyah took a deep breath and held it as she moved her body to the edge of the bed. Feet on the scrap of carpet that served as a rug and her hands white knuckled the mattress, she released the air from her lungs. The pain was still there, blood vessels, muscles, skin working still to knit themselves back together. Breathing through the pain flair until it died down to a mild throbbing. “Go ahead and say it, I won’t fight it.”

“That’s the thing, though, Lia.” Amanda sat down in the oversized chair that Aaliyah had. “I do believe you. I had gone out to the library yesterday …”

“Studying for the test,” Aaliyah remembered, gaining a nod from Amanda.

“Coming back here when the library closed, I swear I saw some sort of fight in the Diag,” Amanda told her. “One of the … fighters loomed over the other, howling and grunting like those wolves we had gone to see over the winter. It clawed at the smaller fighter, who cried out. The smaller reached for something before turning around and just as the larger was just over them.” She mimed being stabbed. “The one on the ground stabbed up at her attacker. After that, two men came out from wherever they were and took care of the scene. One took care of the dead attacker while the other helped …” Amanda gestured toward Aaliyah. “You, apparently.” 

Aaliyah worked what her friend told her, wondering why she so readily believed her tale of being attacked by a werewolf. “That whole time, you never thought to go get help or come help?”

“Oh, hell no. Too much trouble on my end.” Amanda pushed herself out of the chair. “Come on, I’ll help you wash up and get fresh bandages on those stitches of yours.”

Aaliyah couldn’t help smile a little as her roommate and good friend since freshmen year of college offered a hand up. In the couple years she had known Amanda, Aaliyah wondered how much remained hidden between them. Any time she brought up family or friends before college, Amanda deflected the conversation to another topic.

 “Whoever did those stitches knew what they were doing,” Amanda called from the bathroom. “Major props to ‘em.”

“Yeah, he knew what he was doing,” Aaliyah replied, trying to remember how it felt having her wounds being stitched with a deft and gentle hand. She half shuffled to the bathroom, using the furniture to help, where Amanda had water running. “A shame I didn’t get his number.”

“There’s a piece of paper on your desk.”Grateful she was holding onto it, Aaliyah reached for the paper. 

“You did great, Aaliyah. Your roommate helped getting you back in. Here’s my number if anything happens while you’re still here.”--Dean

Spotting the number under Dean’s name, Aaliyah made a mental note to call it later. Maybe after the shower and more rest.

***

Panting, Aaliyah came up to The Rock near the ZTA chapter house and braced herself against the rock. Early morning before the University of Michigan and the surrounding city buzzed with its daily workings was a good time to run. A month after killing the werewolf, Aaliyah was able to breath and not have the feeling her side and back were on fire. The talk of the day had gone from the random animal attacks to the varsity football team being able to reach the championship game. 

Aaliyah had no issue with the gossip changing from the werewolf to the team. It kept the attention off of her and her wounds. Her professors and classmates had been worried when she showed to class after the fight. Her wounds bleed a little through her bandages the first day or so when she returned to class. Amanda had offered to go around and collect assignments from all her professors in that first week, but Aaliyah refused. She didn’t want to put more stress on her roommate and friend than what she already had with her load. 

Once her breathing slowed, Aaliyah dared to head off toward the Quad where the fight with the werewolf had taken place. Speeding up to a light jog, she passed a few students on their way to a morning class. A few minutes and a quicken heart rate later, she came to a stop at the grass line. The late summer yellow grass still held onto the large brown spot where the werewolf had fallen a month ago. Word had spread about a large animal being killed when the landscapers showed the morning following Aaliyah’s kill. Rumors and guesses of what it was had circulated the University and surrounding parts of the city for the past month, and Aaliyah kept to herself during those conversations.

She stood there in the early morning silence as a strange sense of peace fell over her. Like something finally clicked in her mind that she, with some help, had not only learned of the supernatural but taken down one of the most popular creatures. If she could do that, what else couldn’t she do? Reaching for her phone, Aaliyah thumbed through the contacts until she reached Dean’s and paused. He never said anything about keeping in touch, but he might know a thing or two about maybe finding a missing person. Hitting the dial button, Aaliyah listened to the tone before the voicemail picked up.

“This is Dean’s other, other cell, so you must know what to do,” the greeted stated before the beep.

“Hey, um, Dean, it’s Aaliyah,” she started, her tongue tripping on her speed. “I was wondering if you knew anything about finding a missing person or two. Call me on this number.” Short and to the point. The thought of if he was going to return the call passed through her mind as she pocketed her cell and started a jog down the sidewalk back to her dorm building. @percussiongirl2017 @mrswhozeewhatsis