#stick with me on this one

[morihaus]

Hungry

The night is dark, as all nights have been for some time now. Distant constellations in the heaven and braziers burning along the walls of the city are the only spots of light now that the sun has departed from the lands called Akavir. Darkness laps hungrily at the periphery, claws scraping against the borders as the flames flicker and dance up above.

A cub named Oanir kneels in his mother's tent, poking his head out to look up in wonder at the void of the night sky. Little embers pass far over his head as the winds whip at the braziers, and while beautiful, they do little to answer his questions. "Mama?" Oanir pokes his head back inside to turn and look at her, his mentor in all matters of the world and living in it. "Where did the moons go?"

His mother is large and powerful, larger than most of the other women he's seen in the towns they stop at. Her face of orange and black fur is crossed by a patch of scar tissue that travels across her snout and eyebrow, a keepsake from an old hunt. She turns her amber eyes, bright even in the night, towards her student. "Who taught you about the moons?" The low growl of her voice is purely curious in tone, for there has been little need to teach him. "Folk in town." He answers simply, walking over to lay beside his mother as they talk. "They talked about the moonless nights, then told me when I asked what a moon was." "And you took them for their word?" She asks. Oanir makes a little face, bunching up his snout and shaking his head. "No! To your teachings only." He recites, then drops all pretense of seriousness. "So what were they? Where'd they go? Did they get knocked out of the sky?"

She closes her eyes and a laugh rumbles against her throat. "Precocious youth, pestering the Walled as you do. But if you want to hear the true story, then I shall tell you, but only once. Commit the lesson to your memory."

Once certain Oanir is focused, his mother begins the story of the moons and the tiger goddess.

"I have already taught you of Vetar. She is the mother of necessity whose first action created our world. She dwelt in the dark void behind the stars, in the shadows of heaven, and she stalked and killed her prey like us, but no other god understood her way, they drifted through endless lives of comfort, ignorant to challenge and victory. From the very beginning, they ostracized her, and her greatest enemy was Unul, who abhorred all change."

Well-preserved memories flash through the young cub's mind. He remembers his mother's lessons well, especially her tales of Vetar and her children; Sakoar, Krakar, Prunar, and of course triumphant Sotar, who first proved that tiger could prevail against nature. Tales of the gods were his favorite, but he has not yet heard the name Unul. His mother has decided it is time he know the face of their enemy.

"Unul claimed all lights and all touched by light for his Tun, his domain where his rule was law. He and his slaves brought light everywhere, so that no one could escape him. Only the void was free, yet at the same time, it was barely anything at all. So Vetar and Rakhan devised a Tun of their own… this story, I have told you before." He knows she will not repeat herself, for their time together as mother and child is to be short. No second can be wasted on repeated lectures. "At first, Unul ignored the two. It was a slow process of hunting, killing, and molding corpses into the earth, the sea, the plants, and the animals. But it could no longer escape his sight once Sotar achieved the mastery, and soon, many from Unul's Tun traveled to Vetar's, eager to take part in this glorious game and claim the rewards for themselves. So Unul did what he always did… he sent his armies of lights to steal this place for himself."

Oanir's mother stares straight ahead as she speaks, resting a massive paw on his head as if to physically hold his attention. He can almost see her laying with her own mother in a time long since past, listening as she explained the same story with the same posture, the same practiced tone, so that she could survive to carry it to him. "The lights he sent were his strongest, for only they could pass the field of darkness Vetar and Rakhan had planted around their world. The first was Surah the Great, the largest and most powerful light in Unul's army. But he is as great as he is lazy, and he can only do half the job himself, bathing the world in the light called 'day' to make it harder to stalk and hide."

Oanir is amazed to only learn the true name of Surah now, having seen him nearly every day. He and his mother prefer to rise for the hunt as he sets and rest as he rises, though the young cub never thought this was owed to any sort of enmity. To think, all this time, he has known the face of one enemy.

But now, his mother moves on to explain those he has never seen: the moons.

"To battle for the last bastion of darkness called Night, Unul sent the twins Nakra and Rilak. While not powerful enough to win the Night, they were masters of illusion and madness. "Nakra was the Furious Belief. She tempted us with images of the unreal world of Unul, of abundance and lazy revelry, to lure us back to that accursed plane. She sent us into fits of lunacy, making us careless and weak. Her brother Rilak was the Scolding Essence. He weathered our resolve with false visions and dreams of our death, twisting our instincts into terror and fear. He preached that our world was meaningless suffering and tried to make us submit. "Both yearned for our failure. They tempted us and beguiled us so that we would not survive, and then, they would try and snatch our souls away to Unul's world. But we were protected; every night, Rakhan's ghost would lead a hunt through the void, backed by the Shadows of our kin who failed to survive, and chase Nakra and Rilak across the sky. They were bitten and eaten by the Shadows, who are always hungry, and so their ill light would wane until there was nothing left, keeping us safe and letting our dead remain part of this world. However, the twins would always return, and on the rare nights they shone their brightest, our ancestors would be at their most guarded, for they had to hide not just from prey or predator, but from the heavens above."

Then, she looks down to Oanir. She closes her eyes and straightens her ears up, a smile rises in her tone. "But this all changed very recently. Let me tell you a new story… about how our hunger swallowed the moons."

The cub's eyes are wide and insistent that she continue.

"Long have the Children of Vetar wished to undo her enemies. We have always called our foolish kin back to the jungles where the hunt began, even as they plug their ears with dragon's tongue. So many now walk the path of Unul and Bornaka, we must remind them of the true way of living and put an end to their madness. "Madness is the work of the twins. The twins impose their order of ethereal light onto our perfect world of shadows, they thieve our dead and mock their hunger by refusing to lessen, always returning, never extinguishing. It was decided that they would be our example. They would be our prey, and the whole world would remember the hunger that birthed creation. "We gathered in the clouded forest to the east, our actions shielded from the foul light of the moons. Our grand hunt began, not for sport, not even for survival-- we were not hungry for flesh, only for destruction, for revenge. Hundreds of us died, but in their failure, there was still a job to be done and glory to be gained: to join Rakhan's heavenly hunt and devour the prey once and for all."

His mother's voice is loud now, and in her eyes he sees the hunter's thrill. A faint red glow that pierces through the night, guiding teeth and claw to one's prey.

"And they did it. Of course, I do not have to tell you this. You, my fortunate son, have never been subject to the foul glow of the twins, not a night in your life. Nakra and Rilak are dead, and you, you are alive, here to inherit the darker world. For this reason, you are favored by Vetar." She leans her neck down to plant a small kiss upon Oanir's head, wetting his fur with her tongue. "The lesson of this story is thus: it is inevitable that we Children of Vetar reclaim what is hers from light and its lazy worshipers. The Walled can ignore this truth no longer, for now, even in their cities and empires, they finally remember the old fear: the fear of prey."

Then, his mother stands, her body seeming to shift and change in the darkness of their tent. She's larger, even more hulking and bestial than she was before. Her fur isn't just thicker, it's darker, more stripes than orange. Her limbs stretch and warp, like those of a long shadow. It's time to hunt.

Oanir's wide eyes remain upon her as she walks to the exit of their tent. He will always remember the delight on her face, the lilt of her voice, and the fire behind her words. He will remember the story of Vetar and her enemies, and of the time he was born in, when the void reclaimed the night.

But he still has one question left. As he stands up to follow his mother, he asks her. "Even the Tiger Dragon?"

She turns to look down at him, now with long, dagger-like teeth. She bares them not in anger, but in excitement. "Yes," she purrs. "Even him."

[spookberry]

post trick or treating activity

[queerofthedagger]

I'd truly be the worst person to stick into a timeloop because I'd really just spend the first 5 years catching up on my book tbr, the next 7 on all the movies and shows that've Been On My List for ages, and then another decade on ao3. like sure nothing may stick but my memories will and i can just go into a supermarket to get snacks and wine each day, and i have art to indulge in. like thanks for the hints on how to get out but respectfully, I am busy

[zebratimw]

"All those empty rooms

We could have been anywhere, anywhere else

Instead, I made a bed with apathy

My heart knew the weight

Ten years worth of dust and neglect

We made our peace with weariness and let it be..."

(Song: The Moon will Sing by the Crane Wives)

[egophiliac]

I don’t think we’ve ever seen you draw knight of dawn before 🤔 what are your thoughts about him? Or take?

I've drawn him a couple of times, just really little/in the background. but I should draw him more, I love this guy a lot! I have many, many thoughts about him and the way he parallels Silver...and also I think it is extremely funny that his ghost is stuck in a ring. especially considering where that ring has been for the last 16-ish years.

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

real talk having the 2nd worst new years eve yet 🤢🤢🤢 (throat infection, twisted neck, banged-about-foot, ego AND the rest o' me all bruised like misjuggled peaches 🍑🍑🍑)

im bent outa shape and suspectin the universe owes me 8 buck if anyone wannsa chip in

[m00nbuggies]

theyre bffs guys

[lotrmusical]

poll time. yes this is just a ploy to get people to recommend me poems

if yes, let me know which poems/recite some for me in the tags!

[forgettable-au]

FORGETTABLE-AU (Page 40-43)

* I didn't know the lab could look so creepy...

[BEGINNING] [PREVIOUS] [CONTINUE]

[evilwizardcrab]

my main grievance with the tma fandom is that JonMartin is just, an Objectively Bad ship name. I'm sorry but in a world of Lonely Eyes, Door Keays and Terminal Velocities fucking Jonmartin? seriously?? Jon and Martin? yeah i sure hope it does. that is certainly the two main components of that ship. 10,000 people following the ship tag, 9900 fics on AO3, over 5 years of podcast and not a single person managed to popularise a ship name beyond literally just. smokshing their first names together. and don't get me started on "Jmart". that's not a ship name. that's a cornershop 12 year olds go to buy monster. wheres the magic? the ~spooky~? the "first date is essentially the apocalypse"? we are getting a bad grade in ship names, something that is both Normal To (Not) Want and Possible To Achieve.

[startheskelaton]

Through your eyes I see

A smile you bring to me

To your joy, I tether

Not a lot, just forever

Intertwined, sewn together

Like the rock bears the weather

Not a lot, just forever

[unrelatedsideblog]

bleping doodles idk

[a-scary-lack-of-common-sense]

Eldritch/not-entirely-human Grunkle Stan stories have been eating away at my brain, so I have a silly little concept of Mimic!Stan.

He and his Mystery Shack are both mimics that lure tourists in as a literal "tourist trap" to gather and devour them! Since the house is alive, it raises a few (read: several) child safety concerns that lead to a LOT of rules to be created for Dipper and Mabel to follow when they eventually arrive, such as:

Be careful not to get lost in the winding hallways! The Mystery Shack is bigger on the inside, and you don't want to end up in the wrong areas.

Don't go through randomly appearing doors, they may eat you.

If you think you feel the walls around you breathing and the floor beneath you shifting, no, you don't.

If you think the walls feel a bit damp, you're imagining it.

Watch your fingers around windowsills! You wouldn't want to lose any of them.

Don't linger too long under the doorframes; it may start feeling like they are slowly constricting around you.

[legayllyblonde]

on our way to steal your luminol supply

[egophiliac]

HAPPY HALLOWEEN here's some seasonal guys! 🎃

[doubledudeski]

hey you [cd's your sonic]