#she won’t get you flowers she will bring you military rations so you’ll have food when the apocalypse comes

[tellie-vision-art]

I’m gonna be honest I lowkey want to draw Axel or maybe her with Priya but I don’t normally draw fanart and I am scared 😭

And also I would hate if people followed me explicitly for that BC I don’t normally draw fanart and I know it would be disappointing to see my OCs all the time. Like would any attention I receive from it be worth it if no one’s interested in my actual art rather than just the characters in it. Like there’s no demand for my art would anyone who follows me even care if I drew fanart 😭 it’s a double-edged sword

And like interacting with fandoms always ends poorly for me (Scream Queens bc harassment, Squid Game bc lots of gross people) what if I draw it and post it and the TD fandom gets ruined for me too somehow, I would die 😩 I fear interaction outside my target audience (followers and my friends) I suppose

[splintersofabrokensun]

Sunstall

The sun lurched to a stop right above Den. He cursed, sweat bursting from his pores and skin already starting to heat, and adjusted his wide-brimmed hat in a futile attempt to curtail the sun’s fury. Maybe it would move on: sometimes a sunstall only lasted a few seconds.

No such luck today. Cursing more insistently now, he hustled to the door and threw it open, leaning his shears against the jamb and grabbing the long pole hook from the rack just inside. He snared the awning and pulled it all the way across the small, square yard allocated to his family. The grass was already too hot for his tastes by the time that was done, but at least it hadn’t caught fire or withered too drastically under the onslaught. Collapsing after that exertion, he closed his eyes and enjoyed the softness—if not the heat—of the earth below him. After a moment, he opened his eyes to look over at the yard next door. They didn't have grass to begin with—no one else in this quad did-- but the dusty clay swayed behind a veil of haze. The sun was still stuck. Den rolled over on the swiftly cooling grass to push himself up and returned to his chores, taking up the shears the trim the grass at the edges of the flower garden. His father liked to keep the flowers separated from the grass with a wavy border, and Den hummed mindlessly under his breath while he brought order to the rebellious plants. Den and his father took pride in their garden. The vegetables that grew along the sides helped when the prices shot up in the market—which happened all too often with the increasing difficulty of farming under a broken sun—and the green lawn and colourful flowers were a welcome respite from the encroaching desert just past the walls.

"And none shall reach for the heavens," he recited, snipping a green blade down to uniform size. "And none shall dig for the hells," he continued, firmly straightening a stooped flower. "All shall walk the middle path and strive to honour the Gov’s Gift with modesty and moderation." Den smiled as he surveyed the newly crisp border between the green yard and the chaos of colour in the flower garden. Nearly an hour had passed—or at least, it felt that way. The bells wouldn’t ring until the sun reached its next position, however long that took. All was well in his little patch of the world—and what was more, the sun had moved on. Grabbing the pole hook, he rolled the awning back, then returned the hook and shears to their rightful place on the rack inside. Den took one more moment to survey the garden, then closed the door and headed into the small, cramped, kitchen. He paused, more startled than he really should have been to see Lean at the table.

“I’m surprised you stopped with just that one passage,” she said, turning towards him. “Be ever vigilant for excess—“ she began, continuing where he left off. Clearly, she had heard him reciting from the Book of Law. His face heated, but he bit down on an angry retort. Instead, he simply glowered at Lean. It was bad enough he had to see her at his apprenticeship, and live next to her, but she was always over chatting with his father. Sharing their little heresies.

Lean rolled her eyes in response. “Oh, breach. You’re pious enough for the both of us, Den.” She waved her hand in a vague circle, as if to encompass the whole building. “Pious enough for the entire quad, really.”

Den didn’t think that one young man, fresh off his year of military service and just about to enter his trade, could be pious enough for all eight families in a quad. He knew Lean’s words were little more than a goad. He knew, and yet could not help himself from making the attempt once again.

“You need to stop with that heresy, Lean. The Gov hears all, and I don’t want to see you brought up against an Accountant—or worse, and Auditor!” He went to the sink to wash, pumping five times exactly to bring up the minimal allotment for a cleansing, then carefully began cleaning the dirt, sweat, and dust from his hands and face.

“Oh, please. The Accountants out here don’t even care if you miss the sacrament. They aren’t paying attention. And an Auditor? Come on. One would never come all the way out here.”

Den winced at the casual—no, deliberate—disrespect, and toweled himself dry. “Nevertheless. The next sacrament is in just two days, and I’d prefer if it you could keep yourself out of trouble until after our town’s Blessing. We could really use some extra food—Iala’s growing like a weed.”

Lean brushed that off like so much sand. “You know the blessing won’t go to us.” She turned back to whatever she was fiddling with on the table. “We all know it’ll just go to the Halberdons again, or the Chens. And they won’t have prayed for food, because they don’t need it.”

Den gritted his teeth, gripping the cloth in frustration. He walked around the table, forcing Lean to face him again, and clenched his fists, looming over her with a scowl. “Have you ever stopped to consider that we never get a blessing because people like you can’t stop blaspheming for even a day?” He leaned in closer, raising his voice to a shout, and throwing the damp, dirty cloth to the table in front of her. “Didn’t losing your mother teach you anything?”

He had thought it would feel good to hurt her. When her head snapped up, mouth and brows compressing, he knew he had been wrong. Den started to hold up his hands, but Lean cut him off.

"You know as well as I do that piety isn't even part of the equation!" she snapped. "The Halberdons and the Chens never even show up to Sacrament, and they still get some ridiculous Blessing every breached time!" Now it was her turn to clench her fists. "I swear, Denton Yang, you're as blind as a mole!" Her outburst had caused her scarf to fall out of place, and Den winced as much from seeing her stubbled scalp as from the rebuke.

Seeing the look on his face, Lean coloured and swiftly pulled the scarf back over her forehead. An awkward moment later, she stormed out of the yard and back to her own door, slamming it as she went inside.  

Den stood alone in the dimming kitchen for a time, then sighed and picked up the cloth. When he did, he finally saw what Lean had brought, and his heart sank.

It was a large clay bowl of food, pureed just how his baby sister liked it—and now, spattered all over the table. Ruined. Wasted. Because of him, and his damnable anger. The food must have come out of Lean’s own rations—not that she could spare it: she was growing into her name more and more every day.

“Oh, Lean,” he whispered, slumping into the chair. “Oh, I’m so sorry.”

As he sat wrestling with his guilt, the bell finally rang the hour. Better late than never. Den sighed again, lowing his head into his hands.

"Got in another fight with Lean, did you?" his father asked from the front hall. Den started, dropped the cloth, then snatched it from the air before it could hit the ground and pretended to be wiping down the table. When he looked up, it was into his father's crooked grin. "Hah! You wouldn't get so startled if you paid attention to your surroundings every once in a while, kid."

Den looked back down at the table. "You're early."

"They let us off early on account of the sunstall. Eyes up. Chin up." He pulled Den to his feet, gently but firmly pushing his son's head up as well. Den glowered. "That's better, kid. Keep the fire stoked. You won't survive the Bureau if you're running on ashes."

Den tried to hold his father's gaze, but after a few moments he had to look away. Den had plenty of fire at the Bureau, but facing his father was another matter entirely. "Just one more year until I can be Elected," he said, reaching up to push at his father's hands. They gripped his shoulders harder for a moment, then fell away. "Then I'll have to head to the Home Office at Bodhi." Den sighed, leaning over to grab his gloves from the floor, then pulling his hat from his head. He ran a hand through his sweat-slicked hair, and frowned. "Then I'll be rid of this useless hair, too."

His father laughed, secretly a welcome sound, and turned to cross the few steps back to the kitchen. "When you get to my age you'll miss the warmth. You wear a hat to protect your face from the sun. I have to wear a hat just to keep the heat in!" He ran a hand across his own hairless head, waggling his bushy eyebrows. "You don't have to be Elected to be bald, if that's all you want."

With a snort, Den dismissed his father's casual blasphemy and headed for his nook. "I have to get changed, but don't think I missed that one. I'm adding it to the list."

"You and your list. It's not winning you any favours."

"It's winning me favours with the Gov."

It was his father's turn to sigh, though the sound was considerably louder and more drawn out than it needed to be. "Get changed. I'll have dinner ready soon." He glanced down at the messy table. “I’ll see how much of this I can salvage before Iala gets home.” His tone was mild, but Den couldn’t fail to get the message. He was in trouble.

Den drew the curtain and began to peel off his clothes, despondent. He loved his father, but he couldn’t wait to finish his training at the Bureau and get Elected. Some day soon, he’d be an Accountant. And then, one day, an Auditor. That day couldn’t come soon enough.