#the animation reminds me of that just more papery

[citruslullabies]

The art style?? Oh my god???

my mouthwashing animation!

Tw: blood, gun, knife, suicide, Jimmy

[elodee]

HERMIT A DAY MAY - DAY 30

SmallishBeans x Mononoke

For Joel I chose the gorgeous anime mini series, Mononoke!

I chose this for Joel because Mononoke is the most beautiful anime I have ever seen. Others have come close, but Mononoke is number one for me. The bright colors, detail, and texture variation remind me a lot of Joel's base.

The show is animated with a paper texture and looks like a moving Edo era ukiyo-e woodblock print. Still images don't do the show justice, so please go watch it.

Do note, however, that the show is technically horror. The series is beautiful but very eerie and touches on dark topics. It also has a lot of surreal imagery that could be upsetting to some people, so discretion is advised.

To learn more about Mononoke and see my style references, go below the cut.

@hermitadaymay

(Gamers Outreach fundraiser)

Mononoke is the story of a nameless person known only as the Medicine Seller who wanders Edo era Japan. The enigmatic figure seeks out restless spirits called mononoke who bind themselves to negative emotion and haunt the living. The Medicine Seller finds ways to get close to the spirits and learns their purpose for lingering in the human world, then attempts to exorcise them. Every two to three episodes follows the story of an new exorcism.

The draw of the show, in addition to its beauty, comes from unravelling the mystery behind each mononoke, since the Medicine Seller can't perform an exorcism until he understands what happened to cause the spirit to become attached to a specific place or person.

The show feels almost like a detective story, but a really creepy one where you're not really sure what's going on half the time. Mononoke is unique, and definitely not everyone's cup of tea. However, even if the genre isn't your vibe, it's definitely worth watching at least some of it for the visuals alone.

Style references:

The show has a papery texture behind the animation, making even very simple shots look really detailed and beautiful.

Some episodes reach hyperpop levels of colors and patterns, though still using paper-like texture throughout. The results are stunning - I remember pausing episodes on my very first viewing just to take in some beautiful scenes.

The title design in a piece of art for Mononoke.

[sanctificetur]

nina is walking in the forest, light filtering down through the canopy. hap had left her by the side of the road to where the forest was right by, saying he had the fifth movement.

she hears the rustling sound of the trees, the trees whispering susurrous through her mind : arbores loqui latine. it was still quite disorientating being out in the open after years of being in a cellar, with her newly opened eyes having only seen the cellar in immediate reality.

so she navigates carefully, touching the brown peeling bark ( it felt like parchment ) in the dawn of the light. she hopes the others will escape captivity, including homer. her last near death experience ( NDE ), in which she got hit in the head with hap’s rifle, had made her envision khatun in a starry dimension. as well as homer helping with the movement of her spirit with jumping up and down, and expanding her arms outward like a bird’s wings.

as she concentrates on the whispering of the trees, breathing still a little shaky yet steadier than before — giggles bursting through her teeth ( which was a little vampirish canine on beginning and end ) — of good or bad? — she hears… she hears homer sing. ‘if heaven and hell decide they both are satisfied, illuminate the no’s on their vacancy signs… no blinding light or tunnels to gates of white, just our hands clasped so tight, waiting for a spark, I’ll follow you into the dark.’

homer is singing to her, leaning close to the river streaming across the adjacent rooms in the glass cellar. she knows he is a little apprehensive and scared of how her heart would be able to handle reuniting with him without only mere glass, having talked and touched through the — while, beautiful and clear and immersive — surface, had grown a mourning reminiscence.

the hesitancy threading through homer was because they were underground for a long time — even though she had times of lucidity with sunshine during, and is learning to search and swallow a soul animal ( hers was a bird ) to ease sensation of sinking. as she keeps listening, the leaves turn a little greener, reminding her of his eyes, a calming green — soothing her spirit. she sings something back to him, ‘I wish to have you next to me in the darkness — as long as you’re with me.’

the tree plant next to him, in which he had watered seeds onto the soil starts to grow, a stem moving upwards and leaves forming. it was a small sign, and he soon notices, head lifting up from his hands in his singing through endless days, the others — especially scott — had asked him ‘is there any response?’ ; he says sharp in both hope and annoyance in hearing homer whispering to himself every day.

homer knows throughout their time together in the glass prison that captivity was much harsher on her, since she was blind and more susceptible to darkness overwhelming her, even mere edges eliciting her to shake. he touches the soil, the grains of sand moving through his fingers, and then the leaves — to feel, to believe that the cinders were truly a spark, listening close. hastily placing finger to lips and saying ‘shh’ to scott, he soon also hears a faint rustle, and hears her words — understanding and feeling her.

he whispers, ‘OA’ to her, as he touches the stem to his face, cool to the touch. and the word turns into wings — away, away, OA — fluttering through the closely packed brown bark trees to nina’s shoulder. it startles the surrounding wildlife a little, they wondering where the bird emerged from. and she starts a little too, in the midst of eating her chicken katsu udon and white rice with light papery chopsticks whittled from the bark ; noodles and chicken swimming in golden soup in the forest, the word? bird? looking curiously to what she was doing. she briefly wonders if the bird was hungry, as it steps its tiny feet toward her, or if this was yet another vision of hers.

‘homer,’ she whispers, after studying the bird a little, and sees its brown plumage within its white encompassing it was shaped a football. her eyes start to swim with tears.

[jaewrotethis]

16- Trusting Dust...

Her P.O.V.

I wake on the floor, unable to recall going to bed last night. A mess of blankets supporting and covering me, the sun well in the sky, lighting my room. I have no sense of what time it could be, though it feels late as I remember that’s the first time I’ve slept since I woke in that canvas tent. A soft caterpillar crawls on the blanket beside me. I fling it away with the blanket piece while exploring my dirty mouth with my dirtier tongue, becoming more awake. I regret not washing out my mouth in the wash room when I had the chance. I sit up in the fluff and mess, trying hard to remember last night.

I recall winning the duel against the enormous blonde boy, Chris. I remember K coming to me in front of the fire and trying to get me to dance. It blurs after that. I can see imagines in my head of the hot fire, the dirt under my socks, boys leaping and dancing around me, the stars in the sky behind the smoke of the fire. I can remember how free it felt to dance with them, how much I didn’t care about a single thing. My raw throat reminds me of all the laughing I did, so much laughing.

I stand up, trying to remember more and more, my hand coming to my forehead, moving to sit on the bed. I remember the feeling as the music took over. The dancing, the laughing. Oh, the laughing. I had fun last night. Actual fun. I look up to the mirror across from the bed and realize that I am smiling. The memory of letting go, pouring out all problems for the fire to eat and burn away is making me smirk in a way that unsettles me. And yet, I want to do it again. Dance and forget everything at the fire.

My eyes drift downwards from my reflection to what sits atop the dresser. I blink, my head tilts and the smile nearly explodes over my face.

Is...is that...clothes?

Slowly, I stand and make my way to the dresser, pulling at the soft cloth. I touch them gently before picking anything up. I haven’t had real clothes since I was fourteen. All I’ve had for so long was the odd papery cloth used for the white sets of clothes given to us every month. Many different sets. I earned a few different colors of the sets but they were always the odd plastic cloth and I had said goodbye to real cloth long ago.

So excitement spreads as I strip off the paper clothes that were a curse of a label. I yank off my undergarments and pick out the new version of under garments I’ve been gifted; very small and very thin, silk-woven pair of shorts and the exact same very small tank top that stopped coverage at my top rib bones.

Wearing my new black underwear I stand before the pile of new clothes and mirror. Gazing at the soft fabric on my skin through the reflective glass, I like it. I like it a lot, I smile and my fingers take apart the rest of the pile, in a hungry anticipation of what I could look like now. A style, a statement of my personality or my new environment, anything other than looking like the fucking escaped patient that I’ve been.

In the pile of my new belongings I find a pair of deep brown cargo pants, dark enough to look black, decorated with pockets and loops, cavities and strings to adjust different areas. I discover a real tank top, one that actually covers my stomach, and plain shirt that’s been sewn together with jungle cord and green and brown fabrics or leathers. I find a leather vest, though it isn’t a type of skin of any animal that I may know. Under the thick vest, a black long-sleeved shirt, a fine silk though really long, as if to be crunched up over my wrists, holding a very light and thin corset inside its skin. At the bottom of the pile, just on top of a thick pair of black hunting boots, sits a cloak. A proud, warm garment that lifts with a satisfying weight. Inside the boots I pull out two cuffs to protect my forearms. Inmost of the right boot, scrunched into the toes, there is a rolled up hat.

One by one I put on my new belongings. The certain combination of, tank top, long sleeve, perfectly-fitted cargo pants. I had begun to question how any of it would fight just right until the fabrics touched my skin, evolving and shaping to a perfect fit at each curve, tension, and movement. Rolling my sleeves up passed my elbows I get to work and spend time figuring out how to pin my hair back. My hair washed and voluminous gets twisted, pulled, braided and brushed back into a thick and loose pony tail of a braid. And when it’s all out of my face and stuck together as one, messy, confusing, uncoordinated thing, I look in the mirror. I look good in the dark, tight clothes. I smile, another genuine smile. I look normal. I look in charge. I feel great. Great enough to kick my white clothes under the bed, never wishing to see them again.

Left on the dresser I have yet to try on are the arm cuffs and big black boots. I pull on the right cuff, struggling to tighten the laces to my fitting. I tie it sloppily and do the same to the left. I fish out a drawer from the bedding mess on the floor and put it back where it belongs into the dresser for my new clothes, that I did not put on, to live in.

The sun edging towards the middle of the sky I finally take a seat on the bed to feel grateful to discard my disgusting, crusty (once) white socks. I unlace the black boots and fit my feet into them, getting startled when they shift to fit my feet perfectly, comfortably. The magic impressing me all over again. I tie them tight and stand, testing them out. I hop and run to the wall to see how I like them. They are perfect.

I know accepting his clothes is a sign of submission. I know abandoning my old clothes makes a statement. I know putting that drawer back in the dresser for my other new clothes makes a decision. And I know he will know now, that I do not wish to leave back to London so soon. It couldn’t matter. Having the power he has is what matters, getting revenge and taking every last thing from his obnoxious hands is what matters. Killing the demon boy, that is what is important. Accepting his clothes and trying to blend in is all I have of a plan to get what I want. To show him he can trust me, to show cooperation and learn all I can.

I tied my hair back with determination this day, I fitted my shirt with a decision this morning, that I will be playing the long game to one day take all the delicious power I can.

I still don’t know if I truly want to go back to London after finding out what this place really is. I don’t know how I could. Pan offered to show me how to get off the island if I wished to yesterday, but I stayed another night. The offer is gone now. Deep in my bones, a ghost of panic pricks at the thought of not wanting to leave, I should want to leave. But it’s so easy to admit that never feeling that powerful magic again is simply hectic. I desire it too much to care about returning to the normal world.

I look over to the door, wondering if it’ll let me pass. I walk to it, jumping through, then smiling when I land in the hallway, on the other side. I celebrate for just one moment when I groan out, exhaling and drooping low. The endless hallways still have me trapped.

Shit.

Use the magic.

“Fuck!” I jump, hitting the wall when the twin appears next to me.

I glare at her, putting a hand to my heart from the scare. She breathes a laugh at me and repeats herself.

“What? How? No.” I cross my arms and walk away from her not wanting to comply to anything she tells me.

You need to realize I’m on your side.

“You think I would trust you?” I stop walking and face her. “After the things you’ve done in the past,”

It’s been years, you can’t keep living back there, she thumbs behind her shoulder.

I shake my head, “Understand, I don’t need you,” I spit through my teeth. “Not anymore,” I walk away from her again

You’re gonna be stuck in here again. She sings behind me

“We’re,” I correct her.

Here, I’ll do it.

My head buzzes with the dizziness I know now is magic. The hallway dissolves in front of me. I stare at the enormous front room of the tree house, it’s nearly empty.

“How did you do that?” I look at her, astonished.

“Jane!”

The call of my name came from down below where my head snaps to see K, waving his hand at me. My insides feel warm at the sight of him, comfort and no more loneliness lurking inside. I head down the stairs immediately where he meets me halfway.

“Look who’s fitting in,” he says about my outfit. “But, not these,” he laughs, tugging at the strings of my cuffs.

I let him pull my arm into his hands and retie my strings saying, “Thanks,”

I look behind me for the girl in my head, as he reties my cuffs, she’s disappeared for now.

“Well?” he says.

“Huh,” I look back to him my mouth open.

“I said we’re going through the Lurid,”

I blink at him.

“Do you wanna come?”

“The what?”

“The forest. Around us,” he finishes lacing my cuffs.

We begin walking down the stairs together. I hold my hands in front of my thighs, anxiety creeping up my spine like a spider.

“Why?”

A short air chuckle leaves his throat, “Why not?”

“It’s dangerous, it’s got...monsters, or creatures in it,”

“Where’s your sense of adventure?” he opens the door for me to walk outside, “It’ll be fun,”

I stare at him and he just smiles, guiding me through the tall roots and to the line of the forest. I can already hear the monster-like animals. A group of boys wait at the tree line, I recognize Slightly and W. I see a subtle yellow aura each of them are giving off, creating the lightest cloud around them. I stop walking and K notices, stopping as well.

“What?” he asks.

“Do you see that?” I point at the boys. He looks at them, “See what?”

I look at him again, then back at the yellow charge, “You don’t see that-that, yellow...ness?”

In response he laughs twice with a closed mouth, “Come on, they’re waiting on us,”

A look of puzzled on my face, I follow him. We start for the forest and the spider crawls higher, growing heavier, stepping louder and dripping an icy poison down my body until it reaches my tingly numbing fingertips. The forest is dark, almost pitch back. The only light coming from tiny cracks in the thick canopy. The loud animals thump around loudly, infesting, claiming the territory as their own, though I think the Lost Boys digress. The boys carry weapons of their own making, me feel vulnerable without one. Although, to my luck, someone stops us all. We turn around to see who called but I feel like the boys already knew.

“Come watch this,” Pan shouts, then disappears.

I hadn’t seen or heard the scene that was happening while we walked across the clearing. I follow K to and through the crowd until finding a spot in it, and a view of what’s going on. Once I do, my excitement of new clothes and friend is gone.

It’s the little boy, the tiny little T, on his knees, hands bound. Pan stands before him, feet parted, hands behind his back like a military stance. My heart stops beating for the little boy, every instinct tells me to run to him, to untie him, to shove Pan away and run with the little boy, run far, and run fast. But K must’ve seen me tense up to run at him because he traps my wrist in his fingers and shakes his head at me when I glare at him.

“Boys,” Pan begins his scene.

I yank my wrist from K’s grasp, planting myself still.

“Surely, you know by now,” he looks right at my eyes, where I can’t handle the striking green and I look down, “that rules are set for reason,” Pan’s stern voice echoes through the crowd, “and what happens when a disloyal breaks a rule? Hm?” he doesn’t give anyone a chance to answer, “well, an example must be made,” he looks down at poor little T who won’t even look up. I step forward, wanting to run to him but K steps when I do, and I know he will not let me intervene.

“Oh, but don’t hear it from me, I suppose I’m just strict.” that sick smirk plays on his mouth, “let us hear it from the guilty!” Pan shouts out, looking at T again. He’d circled him while he spoke and now stands behind him, kicking T’s boot.

T snaps his head up, and gets to his feet, “I spoke of sacredness...outside of ritual,” he admits.

I shake my head slightly, this is madness. This is ridiculous. This can’t be real.

Despite my shaking head, Pan nods his, circling T again and walking around him to stand in front of him, still facing the lot of us, “There you have it, boys...guilty!” then Pan whips around to face T, dispersing a bright red magic from his hand and lashing it out.

I watch the red magic leave Pan’s fingers. I feel a sense of warm heat just as the red is summoned and shaped in his fingers milliseconds before he throws it. I’m too focused on this closer feeling of magic, I don’t see the boy fall down. I’ve never been this close to it. I can almost feel how Pan does it, how he asks for magic and it obeys. I want to try.

When the magic retrieves back into Pan’s hand my sense come back to me. I burst from the crowd into the scene we watch.

“Pan! Stop it!” I yell at him as his hand winds back for another blow.

He does no such thing and summons more red magic in his palm.

“What the hell is wrong with you!” I reach him and yank his hand back, the hand he held the red pain in.

I’m even closer than I’ve ever been to magic and the red glow screams at me. I can feel how angry it is, how much is wants to hit someone. Pan shoves me off the second I yank him and I no longer feel the magic,

“This is your doing!” he shouts at my face.

I shrink away from his loud shout. Confused and afraid. Enough so that I don’t pull away from the hand coming behind me and tugging me back into the crowd. I look to see who retrieved me, staying quiet. Of course, it’s my baby sitter, K. K seems so used to what Pan is doing. I look around at the faces of other boys. They all seem used it. No one’s objecting or even flinching every time the magic rips into the little boys flesh. Questions raise more questions.

What does he mean ‘my doing’?

Why did he say that?

How could I have done this?

How can he claim to save these boys from their terrible lives, just to bring them here to kill them over a rule?

As disturbing as the scene is to my stomach I can’t stop watching Pan use the magic. Every time Pan’s magic strikes the boy his aura glows a bright red then fades to a sickening green that makes my stomach churn. I can’t comprehend how wrong this is, how much I despise Pan for hurting a little boy, how much I want to take that magic and let Pan have a real taste of his own cruel nightmare. My heart wants to break for the child being whipped and slashed, though a part of me tells me he is no normal child.

What rule did he break? Am I next?

Pan strikes into T twice more before halting and kneeling down to him. He puts his hand on T’s little shoulder and T looks up at him, his face twisted with pain though no sound of it ever came from him. He is so strong for being so little. Pan whispers something incoherent to the rest of us, only for T to hear and T nods, looking down. Pan stands again facing the rest of us.

“Wish your brother luck to finding his way back home. Should he make it back here alive by sunset, he is forgiven, pardoned, and never to be reminded of his crime again.” Pan tells us all.

The crowd simultaneously nods around me, adding to my shock and then Pan wipes his hand in the air over T’s little head. T disappears completely, my eyes only widening more. I stare at the bloody spot he left in the dirt. I feel Pan’s eyes right on me but all I can think about is the magic I was so close to. My eyes go to K who is speaking lowly to another boy. K has a tint of blue in his chest. I watch the blue morphing around his chest growing smaller and smaller. K takes a deep breath and the blue is dissolved.

The colors are emotions.

I look at Pan, a bright yellow aura, burning red in the outer parts. I watch the colors move around him like light waves, and follow him in every movement he makes. I look to his face and meet his eyes. I feel a pull on my arm and turn to see K trying to get my attention.

I hang from his grip, completely distracted, “What?”

“You ok?” He asks.

I’m focused on his yellow glow now, a bright source in his core, and as I look around, I see they all have it. K’s moves in slower waves, and his seems to have layers on top of layers of different shades of light.

“Jane,” he says again.

“What?” I say irritated of hearing my name, not even looking at his face.

I reach out to touch the waves. They swivel around and reach out to my touch.

“Intense, I know. Are you alright?”

I look back at Pan who’s still looking at me only now he’s smiling. He licks the back of his teeth turning his shoulders and walking away. My attention goes back to K.

“Hey,” he says more stressed.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” even to myself I sound distracted. Yet, again I return my gaze towards Pan’s direction, searching in the crowd of boys now departing. “Go on without me, I’m-” I spot Pan, “busy.” I walk away ignoring my name being called.

Pan looks back at me giving me a look to follow him. I do so, very aware of all the other boys’ eyes on me. I begin to think they all hate me now after what Pan shouted for everyone to hear. The win last night suddenly seems so far away, as if I never impressed them at all. Pan and I walk away from the scattering boys and into the woods. I can’t help but notice the woods gone quiet yet again.

“What rule did he break?” I shout at him, pretending that the very real fear of what he can do with just a thought isn’t clasping around my throat with every word that comes out of it.

He keeps walking, “Are you going to ask that every time someone gets punished?”

“I think I’d like to be safe in the case I break a rule unknowingly,”

He keeps walking. “What do you mean I did that?” I call out, trying to catch up.

He stops and faces me, wanting a good distance from him I halt, “What’s Talent?” he asks.

“What?”

“What. Is. Talent?”

I cross my arms, “You tell me,”

“What do you know?”

“I don’t know anything,”

His eyes glare, “Prove it,”

“How?”

His magic sends him right in front of me now in the quickest transport, the air between us nearly nonexistent and I step back from the startle but he grabs my hand, squishing my fingers together in his palm. I pull away at his touch, instantly, but he holds tight.

“What are you doing?” I grunt, trying to pull away.

“Show me you don’t know,”

Then his hand feels warm. I look at his hand over mine, more colors. Different colors, the magic kind. A warm orange coming from his hand, absorbing into mine. It’s the warm magic I craved, only it didn’t belong to me. It didn’t feel comforting and mine. It was listening to him, it was to his benefit. I clasp my free hand down on his fingers that grip me and pry them away, yanking my hand from his grasp, hard. The orange retrieving back to his palm. I look him in the eyes, angry.

“Do you want me to cooperate?”

“Please,”

“Then, do not use magic on me. Anymore.”

“Perhaps, you’d like to use it yourself,”

I pause, thrown off by his response. The second voice begins shouting at me to take the chance to begin the plan of letting him teach me so we can grow close.

He wants to teach you! This is your opportunity!

But, I remain unsure, especially after seeing what he does as punishment for being crossed.

“Agree to never and I’ll consider it,” I say.

“You want to?” he says, raising an eyebrow, challenging me to admit it.

“I-I don’t-”

“If you admit it, it can only benefit you, Miss Jane. I’ve said before, you could just be an asset to our home here,”

I take one more step closer, the plan becoming more realistic but I’m still unsure, “You want me to stay here and learn magic, don’t you?” As I say it, the wonder to find out why he wants me to admit it so badly pushes me to fight for what I want to know.

“I believe everyone should,”

“You want me to,” I say firmer, entirely sick of not having control of any conversation with him.

“Yes,”

“Why is that?”

“I’ve told you, you posses great power, be a shame to let it go to waste, wouldn’t it?”

I exhale so irritated at how calm and collected he is.

His smile never seems to leave his face, “I can tell you’re having difficulties believing you have such power, though I can’t see why, you defeated Chris last night.”

He makes me stammer my words with the memory, “I blacked out,”

“You made your way through the halls of Hideout this morning on your own,”

“How did you know-,”

“Tell me have you seen colors? In all of us? Have you felt the warmth of used magic?”

I ignore his query, with no intent at all of answering since what he just said is my only advantage, I could never let him know.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, and if I did I’d think you’re insane,”

“Alright, so you’d like to go home then,” he calls out my bullshit, “I can arrange that right now,”

“You’re offering to show me how to get off the island again?” again I’m dizzy with confusion at his roller coaster of angles to speak to me, I can’t seem to pin point what he will ever say next.

“If that’s what you want,”

“Since when is what I want priority?” I spit, desperate to stay undercover in any way.

“Stay then, learn to use our magic and be an addition to our society,”

I stutter on my words, thinking about going home, thinking about what he said to me and how quickly he changes his intentions that I might never know how to undermine him. There is nothing for me back home except starting a new life. I could thrive in a new life, but haunted with the knowledge that I never got revenge for what he did to me and never got to use the magic that called me so persistently. Although, staying here would be a hit to my ego as the boy who caused all of it is the only thing protecting me from whatever monsters are on this island. Undecided, I glare at him, hoping he would show me how to leave but not force me out just yet, not until I’ve gotten what I’m staying for.

“Do not use magic on me,”

“Use it yourself,”

Learn what our power is, learn how to kill him! All of this could be ours!

I flinch at the loud voice of my excited twin, but I listen to her and look around when she says I could have all of this around me. Ever lastingly so, the idea of him falling in love with me is too stupid to agree with or even comprehend.

“I-I, need to think about it,”

“What is there to think about? To be one of us is to be in paradise. Protected. Celebrated.”

“You think I’d want you as my teammate? You’ve killed and tortured two of your own since I’ve been here,”

“You misunderstand, Jane, I am no one’s teammate, I’m the leader here, and we have rules for a reason, we cannot thrive if we are not on the same page, besides” he steps closer to me, “you caused that,”

I breathe out, “How.”

He remains quiet as if speaking anymore of the subject would give me some type of information that he isn’t sure I have, and clearly doesn’t want me having. The silence lasts until I know he will not be telling me.

“What rule did he break?” I ask, hoping it answers both questions.

“He spoke of Talent,” he brushes passed me walking back the way we came.

He leaves me standing there in my thoughts of why such a thing could result to what it did. I bite my lip perhaps accepting that speaking of whatever Talent is, is dangerous. Though he doesn’t leave me there for long when the silence of the rabid monsters disappears as they grow louder, pulling my eyes from the dirt at my boots and to the woods around me. I don’t waste time scanning the jungle, I turn around and hurry behind him, confused and afraid. I rush up to him, feeling as if the faster I run, the louder they grow and the quicker my fright builds. The crescendo wakens my nerves and I can’t stop the rush of emotion that shoots from my fingers when I reach out to him.

“Wait,” comes from my mouth as reach for him.

The emotion comes from my fingers as an iridescent force, slapping him in the back. He doesn’t even stumble he just stops. I stop as well, afraid of what I’ve just done. He turns to face me. My eyes wide, I wait for his reaction. He suddenly smiles.

“Well, what do you know, she can use it after all,”

“I-I,” I can’t think of how to explain what I just did.

I simply stare at my fingers in complete fear of how easily I had absolutely no control of that iridescent power. I stutter at how quickly it happened and I before I could think to stop it, it was too late. He seems to watch me as I stare at my fingers, full of fear, until he exhales then walks towards me. I step back, unable to look away from my fingers. I did it. I had the magic, so suddenly, so strong, then so quickly gone.

“You can learn to wield it,” he says in that soft voice, the one that got me to follow him out of the big room yesterday.

I look up at him, actual fear of having no control of the magic making me believe him.

“I can show you,” he tells me.

The second voice begins shouting in excitement, This is your chance!

I finch but he went to grab my hand so he thought it was from the contact. I open my mouth to speak but I don’t know what to tell him. I want the power, it calls me so loudly. I crave the strength and the control. The fear only makes me want control even more. But I don’t trust him. And yet, still, the magic calls so loudly, the fear feels so cold that I almost don’t care that I don’t trust him. I just want the magic to listen to me to badly.

“Come on, where’s that sense of adventure?” he demonstrates that he will respect my space by backing up with a hand out for me to take if I want it.

Still I stare.

“What do ya say?” he lightens.

“I, I’m afraid,” I whisper with honestly. I’m overwhelmed.

He exhales then steps to me, “Here,”

He pulls a well-sized knife in a cover from the inside of his waistband at his right hip. It is black, with a loop on the end of the cover to fit through a belt. It’s got a deep purple gem on the edge of the handle, and the blade is a prime black when I pull it from its cover. Its leather cover, detailed with a royalty looking design. I look up at him, questioning if it’s a gift or if he’s showing me the weapon he’s going to use to kill me with.

“It’s for the Lurid,” he gestures to the forest around us, “Never walk through it without a weapon,”

“Why would I ever walk through it?”

“Because you’re going to let me show you something,”

“Show me what?”

He steps backwards, gesturing for me to follow. Then he takes another step, and another, trying to coax me into following him. Slowly, I do. Until he’s walking forward and I’m stepping quickly over the forest floor right behind him.

“Where are we going?” I ask him, his hideout tree staying put as we pass by it into more woods that, once again, fall silent of monsters.

“I told you I could show you how to use your magic, properly,” he keeps walking, “how to grow it,”

“And?”

“And since I know you have a dare to fulfill, I think you’d be wise to let me.”

“What are talking about?” “The treasure hunt, of course,”

I am astonished at how quickly everything went casual. A boy was just tortured after all, and here we are speaking of games. The magic I summoned seemed to move time forward and the scene Pan said I caused already seems so long ago. I can only care about how he says he will show me more magic, since that is the only reason I’m still here after all.

“So, we’re going somewhere where you can show me how to...use it?” I ask.

“You realize what you signed up for, don’t you?” he asks me.

I continue to stumble over logs and sticks, rocks and leaves, twisting my ankle twice while he swiftly navigates, almost stealthily prancing, through the forest, “Um, the Treasure Hunt,” I suggest.

He laughs.

“What, what is it?”

“That’s so interesting to me, how you can agree to something without having a clue of what it is,” he laughs again, “could get you killed one day,”

“Do you think not giving me information is going to make me want to listen to you?” I grow sick of his game.

He laughs another time, “In a game of Treasure Hunt, we board the Pirates’ captain’s ship. It’s a stealth mission, whoever gets the captains most prized possession, wins.”

“Wins what?”

“Guess you’ll have to win and find out,”

“You said, um, Pirates? As in, Pirates?”

“Grown ups. Old codfish with nothing left of their souls except to play a loosing game. We call them Ducks, for sitting on the water all day,”

My cheeks rise to laugh at the stupid name, but I stop them, “And we’re...stealing from them?”

“Playing Treasure Hunt,” he stops walking.

I catch up to him to see a cliff. Down below, far below, is a meadow with soft, tall grass for miles. Trees line the meadow, hiding it from everything else.

“Alright, go on,” he tells me.

I look at him, then back at the meadow below the blue sky.

He nods his head at the ground below.

“You want me to climb down there?” I ask looking at the steep cliff.

He breathes his laugh through his nose and shakes his head, “Jump,”

My eyes widen, “What?”

He pulls a small pouch from the side of his belt. The ties tied tightly.

“This is Pixie Dust,” he opens it and lets me look inside.

The glowing green and tinted blue dust inside screams at me the second my eyes land on it. The dust looks like liquid, changing color, shifting from a deep blue to a silk purple then a bright green. It looks alive. I can feel it pulsating with powerful life. I can hear it begging me to come closer. I have to stop myself from snatching at it and running with it as fast as I can.

“It’ll take you flying,” he says to me.

I look at his eyes, the entirety of my situation changing completely, “You’re going to show me how to fly?”

He grins wickedly, “Why not?”

“I-I’m supposed to, to jump?”

“If you trust it,”

“Trust. Trust what, the dust?”

“Yep,”

My eyes look to the cliff without moving my head then back at his eyes. “This is how you kill me,”

I see him hold in a really hard laugh, “This is how the Lost Boys fly, and if you want to come on that Treasure Hunt, you’re going to need to learn how to use it,”

“Alright,” I try not to sound incredibly eager to just look at the dust one more time.

“Go on, then,” he points to the cliff. “Jump, I know you’re no stranger to jumping,” his mean eyes flicker at the sentence, trying to provoke me.

“I didn’t-” I stop him again, exhaling harshly, dropping it.

I look at the cliff, then turn to it. I walk in front of him stepping towards the cliff, unprepared to jump off. The reality of actually jumping into the air from a 60 foot drop settles in very fast and the dust in the bag doesn’t seem so powerful anymore.

“What are you waiting for?”

I look back at him, “This is, I mean, this is crazy,”

“Isn’t that what you were in your old world?”

Hot anger gets sparked in my chest, “What did you say?”

“Is the dust not shouting at you?” he says at me, rushing close.

I’m taken off guard, anger turning to confusion and the violent shift making me emotional. My eyebrows knot as I think of how he could know that, how I could not know that he knew. I feel so in the unknown, lost and determined to search. I don’t know how to speak to him, he just knows more than me about everything. I don’t know what angle to take. I shut down completely.

“It’s ok to listen to it,” he brings it closer to me.

“And what if it’s not meant for people like me,”

“People like you aren’t here,”

I look at him, wanting to believe he means it nicely,

“Just jump,”

He is absolutely crazy. He wants me to take a literal leap of faith and just trust that I won’t die. No evidence, no experience, no for sure outcome, just do it. He has so much control over how I feel it only adds to the distrust, but in some sort of strange way it gives me me some sick reason to listen to him. As if obeying him will make this lost and alone feeling go away, and I could come out of this with the gift of flight. The gift I craved for such a long time. But still, as I look at the cliff, I cannot bring myself to step off of it.

“I’ve seen gravity work,”

“You want to come on the Treasure Hunt or not?” he asks me.

“You mean steal from adults?”

“If, you can’t trust me when I tell you you won’t fall, then trust the magic,” he steps to me, throwing the glowing green sparkles over my head, “Trust the dust,” he says.

And the moment all those little tiny specks of magic fly though the air above me, anything seemed possible. The dust touches my skin and all my thoughts become rational, encouraging, meaningful, trustworthy. I feel so comforted, so strong.

“Trust the dust,” I repeat so easily to myself.

The dust feels warm where it lands. The powerful magic feeling incredible, I smile. This is what I want, I want power. I feel ready to prove myself on that Treasure Hunt, I need this practice. All fear dissolves when the dust touches my skin. My mind is made up.

Trust it.

Trust the dust.

I see his smile curving as I sink into the high of the power. He steps aside, waiting for me to jump. He is too happy to see me ready. I don’t trust him. He wanted this, but I feel so strong from the dust that I don’t care. I know as long as I can gain this power, I can best him one day, I can kill him one day. I take a step back from the cliff, ready to run and jump.

“Think of something that makes you happy, that’s the only way it’ll work,”

I exhale, listening to him.

I think of what Tris must have thought when she opened the box door to find I wasn’t in there anymore. To let the door hang open and see an empty bed, an empty room. No explanation of where I went, just...gone. I feel real joy knowing she has no explanation and never will. I smile, then I sort of laugh.

“Trust it.” he says backing up so I can have room. “And if you fail, I’ll catch you,”

I roll my eyes to him, irritation threatening to take over the happy feeling.

“Done it before, haven’t I?” he throws the past at me again.

I exhale through my nose, holding onto the happy thought. I run forward, breathing to stay relaxed. Kicking the dirt up behind me, I watch the cliffs edge come closer until it’s behind me and I’ve leaped into the air, completely believing that the magic dust will have my back. I fall from the cliff, heading towards the ground, though no fear enters my heart. Instead, excitement floods my veins. And then my feet find air. I look to the sky choosing a destination to be in, an airy spot I’d like to reach and just like that, I defy gravity.

[cloudeling]

beep beep beep beepbeepbeepbeep <- tgats me. honking the car horn 🚘🚘 to say hi

HELLO i’m very sl eepy :}} i hope you had a good day 🦆 you remind me of party streamers like the tissue papery ones google calls crepe that’s not relvebt it just popped into my head 🎉

so sad they don’t have more plant and bird emojis so so sad 😞😞

beeeep beep beep beep beeeeepiam also sleepy ive had a vry good day though vry funfunfun AND YEAH its so sad whereis my dandelion emoji whereis my crow emoji.they should make more plant and bird emojis and more animals ingeneral andalso they should let me have the new emojis <- has an old phone 🐤🐧🦆

[succulentsunrise]

Where the Fire Lilies Grow

Content: SFW!

Sorry it took so long but I really wanted to amp the suspense!! I hope you like it 😁

Tag list: @thoughtfullyrainynightmare, @lyranova ❤️

< Previous | Next >

Chapter 9: The Dungeon

“I’ve fallen in love with adventures, so I begin to wonder, if that’s why I’ve fallen for you.”

E. Grin

The forest spanned a large area. To a certain point, it was like any other forest. Subtly, however, the vegetation changed: it was more vibrant, more invasive and much bigger in size. Large roots of tilted trees curled towards the surface, creating a difficult terrain to walk on. The grass and plants that had gathered on the ground cut off all natural paths from sight. The branches of the trees were intertwined together with large, beautiful leaves. The beauty of the forest was not lost on Tani. It was intriguing, too - she had never seen anything grow so large outside of the neutral zone. Some of the plants she couldn’t even recognize. She would occasionally, to the amusement of her teammates, stop and wonder at some of them. Either this side of Clover had plants that her books and adventures had failed to notice, or the dungeon had brought new plants with it. Whichever option it was, Tani was certain they’d know after they’d find the dungeon. That, however, was a little harder to accomplish. The entrances to dungeons were usually rather plainly visible. This one was not. No matter how much they circled around the forest, they couldn’t find a path, cavern or even a large enough hole to move through. It was as if there wasn’t a dungeon there.

“What the--what is going on here?” Icree asked, frustrated enough to almost curse.

“Dungeons aren’t meant to be sentient enough to hide, are they?” Tani questioned humorously.

“No!”

“If I had to make a guess, it has to be in the middle of this forest.”

“Luka--,” Icree started to turn towards the young man, but before she finished, he had already nodded to her.

Luka had always been good at reading Icree’s moods and acting upon them. He had worked long enough with her to know what she wanted. He muttered a few words underneath his breath and several sculpted birds sprung from his hands. In answer, Icree conjured a group of butterflies, guiding them to move towards the edges of the overgrowth. She closed her eyes, likely trying to sense the right positioning through the overflow of mana. She then moved her arms up, slowly. Tani knew that wherever they were, the butterflies were flying up to signal to Luka’s sculptures where the edges of the overgrowth were. Luka would then be able to see how far they were from the middle through the eyes of his sculpture and the mana that Icree was spending. It was a rather complicated combination of spells, but hardly the first time they did it. Tani kept one hand on her sword, making sure no one would surprise them.

“We are north of the center,” Luka said after a long pause. “Here, follow me.”

He began to lead the others carefully through the woods, ever so often closing his eyes and ascertaining they were coming closer and closer to the middle. Tani kept an eye out for trouble still. The forest was quiet and calm. She tried to listen for bird songs or the subtle steps of animals, but it was as if they were avoiding the area. Tani felt a small chill creeping up her back and she instinctively moved her shoulders to shake it off. It was a move she immediately regretted - her left shoulder painfully reminded her of still being in the process of healing. Tani let out a defeated sigh. It would take a while to recover. At least she could hear insects around her, if not other animals. A bee was buzzing somewhere close by. Her gaze scanned the area around her, concentrating on a plant that she didn’t quite know. Its white petals were papery and still in a bud - unless they were not meant to open. She peered at it a little closer. What had seemed like petals to her were not quite so. It was more likely that the sepals of the flower had grown to form a protective bubble around the flower’s fruit, whatever it was. Tani smiled a little bit. Perhaps whatever was causing this overgrowth was at least not harmful to the plants themselves. Not wanting to be left behind, Tani let her gaze travel up, deeper into the forest. Immediately, she recoiled with a jolt. In the blink of an eye, what she had seen had disappeared, and yet -

Tani was rather sure she had seen a form there. A form of a person with curly hair and intense, blue gaze. It had stared at her from between the trees, filled with an emotion that she wasn’t sure how to read. The more she thought about it, the more she was certain that it had almost been a hostile gaze - a cold, calculating one. Had it been a trick of sunlight that the hair had seemed so warmly orange? Tani searched the treeline with her gaze, uncertain. Whatever had been there, wasn’t there anymore. Perhaps the bush had made her see things. She glanced around herself. Yes, the way the bush swayed in the wind could be mistaken for hair. It was a bit of a reach, but perhaps. The sunlight and the slight twinkle of blue sky - she had simply seen things. Tani took hastily steps forward to follow Icree and Luka. The sight had made her jump, and it was hard to calm back down. She kept glancing backwards, as if to make sure the bush had not come back alive. It however stayed swaying in the wind, as if waving her goodbye.

“It’s here,” Luka stated, stopping suddenly.

Tani looked forward nervously. The central point didn’t look any different from the rest of the forest: it was filled with a haphazard collection of trees, roots and rocks.

“There has to be a way to find it,” Icree muttered, jumping over the roots with an ease to reach the moss-covered cliff. She examined it with a thoughtful eye.

“Let’s scrape the moss off these rocks. Maybe it’s underneath them,” she commented, already rolling back her sleeves to start.

“Don’t!” Tani said quickly.

She rushed to Icree’s side, gently placing herself between the moss and Icree.

“Why hurt them, when I can just ask them to move?” she lectured her friend with a hurt voice, ignoring Icree rolling her eyes.

“It’s moss, Tani.”

“Hey!” Tani reprimanded, turning to the covered cliff. “Don’t worry, I won’t let her hurt you.”

There was the gentle dark green glow of her magic, and the moss and the plants seemed to almost crawl away from her hands. At the same time, there was a rumble, as if from deep underground. Tani quickly pulled her hands off the stone, looking around. Icree and Luka were doing the same, taking out their grimoires. Everything around them was still calm and quiet. Unnaturally quiet, almost. Tani glanced back to the stone.

“Look - the entrance,” she gasped, pointing at it.

The peeled back moss had revealed chipped frames of a doorway, blocked by an enormous stone slab. The slab wasn’t even the right size for the entrance. It looked like it had intentionally been put in front of it to hide it.

“What was that rumbling?” Icree asked, still alarmed.

“Something reacted to your magic,” Luka said with a glance to Tani.

“Perhaps,” she considered slowly. “Nothing happened, though.”

“The entrance appeared.”

“Yee-ees, but--it’s not exactly a defense.”

“Maybe the wizard that made this place was a plant mage and it’s gone a little faulty during the years?” Icree suggested, scratching her head. “Either way, we have an entrance.”

“I’m not sure if that makes any more sense, but we don’t have enough to build on,” Luka sighed.

“Let’s keep it in mind and open the way for now,” Tani said, knocking lightly on the stone slab in their way.

The others nodded their assent, and the three of them gathered around the stone. Most of the pushing came from Tani. Out of the three, she was by far the strongest, thanks to her upbringing and her constant exercising. As soon as they had pushed the stone to the side, a burst of hot air emerged from inside. For Tani, it was as if someone had trapped a volcano inside the dungeon and this was the first chance the air had to escape. All three of them immediately backed away from the entrance. Fortunately for them, there was no fire or flame that would have followed. There was simply an unbearable heat as the burst of flame began to quell. The three of them peeked carefully in, uncertain what they might see. The corridor that opened before them was filled with ashes and charred remains of what had once been plants. They swayed and crumbled in the disappearing burst of heat. It seemed like the walls of the corridor had once been covered completely in plants and moss.

“What happened here?” Tani asked, looking at it all. “Was this--was this a trap?”

“I didn’t see any glyphs,” Icree replied quickly. “No, I think - either this place hides an incredible heat source inside of it or someone came here before us.”

“The entrance was hidden,” Luka chimed in, shaking his head. “If someone had found it, they would have left it visible.”

“A heat source like this - I don’t know. This stone was put here by someone, I don’t think it is this dungeon’s natural door. It’s--”

Icree sighed in frustration, staring at the charred entrance.

“It’s too big. It doesn’t fit. It would be logical to assume that someone didn’t want us to find the dungeon and hid it with the slab, but--but to make plants and moss grow over it, they’d have to have plant affinity like Tani--or--or illusion magic--?”

“They were real plants,” Tani interrupted her. “I--we would have noticed.”

“Would we have? There was that rumble.”

“I know that my magic affected something here, Icree.”

“This could have simply been a trap,” Luka insisted quietly. “Perhaps whoever came here triggered something. A trap near the entrance.”

“A trap near the entrance...yes, perhaps. Perhaps we are dealing with a mage, who didn’t notice it,” Icree agreed thoughtfully. “And this dungeon just has fire traps.”

Tani looked uneasily at the charred marks.

“I’ll be at a disadvantage, then,” she noted. “We should be careful. If the traps in this dungeon are of this caliber, we don’t want to trigger them.”

Icree nodded and began stepping into the corridor. She was the best at detecting magic and so had the highest chance of noticing if anything was wrong. She took out of her bag a magically infused lamp and created a little butterfly inside of it. Unlike a fire lamp, these types of lamps were unaffected by wind and brought better illumination all around them. Tani and Luka followed carefully, scanning the walls for hidden doors or glyphs. After the entrance, the burnt places became more like patches, revealing the extent of the overgrowth in the dungeon corridor. There was a galore of alluring greenery that had grown all over the wall and ceiling. Once more, Tani found her attention turning to the condition of the flowers. Most of their leaves were white. Some displayed other colours - a variation of red, yellow and even purple - but none of them were green. There was, in fact, a remarkable lack of green colour among them.

“Fire and plants,” Icree muttered, shaking her head. “If the creator of this dungeon was a plant mage, why would they put fire traps in?”

“It’s rather illogical,” Tani agreed. “Not only that, they didn’t leave any light source for these poor plants. Yet they are somehow alive.”

“Maybe the infiltrator - or rather, infiltrators since it would be weird for just one mage to come here - has fire magic?”

“Why would they have used so much magic just to the entrance, and then blocked it with a stone?”

“I don’t know,” Icree sighed. “But it’s the only thing that makes sense to me right now.”

“Maybe the plants are the infiltrators,” Luka suggested, half-jokingly.

Icree gave him a half-hearted glare and continued to move forward. Tani followed, wondering about the theory. What if there were no other infiltrators? Could she make the presence of fire and plants work? Perhaps it was meant as a counter - plant magic had understandable disadvantages with fire magic. If there had been traps with fire magic, it could have been to catch any fire mages unawares. Did the creators of this dungeon expect mages with fire affinity? If only they knew more about the dungeons and their creators. Tani sighed, directing her attention back to the corridor they were traversing. It was wide enough for two people to walk comfortably next to each other as it slowly began to slope downwards. She could see further away, illuminated by Icree’s light, the opening to a chamber of some sort. Perhaps there would be some answers there.

Tani’s hopes for answers were squashed immediately as they entered the chamber. Its walls were lined with variegated flowers and plants, and the ceiling had been conquered by hanging ivies. The chamber floor was strangely uneven, consisting of both small bumps and larger shapes, all hidden under the blanket of vegetation. If there was something in the room, it had been overtaken by the plants a long time ago. As Tani’s gaze travelled across the chamber, she noticed that only the western wall had been charred. Someone had very clearly burnt a door-sized hole into the wall of plants, revealing an actual door behind it. The wooden door bore signs of having been slightly burnt along with the plants. Slowly, as if realizing her gaze on it, the door began to move. A tortured, creaking sound emerged from its ancient hinges as it slowly began to open. Tani took a step back, alerting the others even though they had heard the sound as well. Icree swung the lamp in the direction to better illuminate the area. Nothing was there. Beyond the doorway lay a dark corridor, where the group could see giant thorny thickets on each side. The bushes climbed all the way up to the ceiling, seeming almost ghostly in their whiteness. The thickets were dense enough to block any sight beyond them.

“Hello?” Tani called out, but Icree shushed her.

Icree began to quietly approach the door, a finger on her lips. Tani frowned, but followed her lead. They moved silently, trying to peer through the door’s cracks to see anyone. The door kept opening, but no one seemed to be behind it.

“The magic is stronger here, but I can’t sense anyone,” Icree said finally, illuminating the pathway in front of them with her lamp.

“Someone has definitely passed through here,” Tani commented, glancing at the burnt doorway. “Maybe there’s enough wind for the door--well--for it to open?”

The three of them exchanged disbelieving glances. It was a little too convenient. None of them felt any kind of wind in the stale, hot air. As they stepped through the doorway, Tani put her hand on her sword. All her muscles were tensed, as she was prepared for an attack or an ambush of some kind. Nothing of that sort happened, however. The corridor seemed to simply continue forward. The plants were different here - they were thorned and difficult to see through. The three of them advanced through the corridor carefully. Icree walked in the front, the lamp showing the way, and magic occasionally flickering near her fingertips. Luka was more composed, not showing his tenseness as easily. Still, his eyes scanned the area constantly, and he kept rubbing his right hand’s fingers together - a sign of his nervousness. Tani kept her hand on the hilt of her sword, but her thoughts were almost fully on the plants. They had no sunlight here, yet there were so many of them. They thrived, despite the limitations. It was surprising and worrying. There were no insects or animals to harm or help the plants. In fact, the quiet of the forest continued in the dungeon. The only sounds that Tani could hear were their own footsteps.

The corridor in front of them divided into three different paths. It seemed like they had reached a crossroads of sorts. Despite Icree trying to bring the lamp closer to any of the corridors, it was difficult to say which way would lead them to answers.

“Any guesses?” Icree asked.

“I can’t sense anyone else here,” Luka admitted, shaking his head.

A small noise from their right caught their attention - a small crackle, like a branch or a twig snapping. They all froze still, gazes fixed to the rightmost corridor. Then they heard it: a gentle, muffled step, another. Someone was walking. Icree put a finger on her lips again and motioned towards the corridor. The butterfly in the lamp grew dimmer and darker, as Icree lessened the amount of mana she was channeling into it. The corridor turned in front of them. Instead of peeking, Icree motioned to Luka, who created a tiny sculpture of a ladybug. It crawled into the thicket, out of Tani’s sight. It was hard for her to stay still. The footsteps were quieter, but they had to be careful. Reconnaissance was more Luka’s thing than hers, but she craved to do something and not just stand there. Eventually Luka shook his head, signalling that no one was in the corridor, and they moved again. The path turned almost immediately again, but this time they didn’t stop. Luka had checked both corners. Instinctively, all three of them began moving quicker. They were all holding their breaths, trying to listen to the footsteps. With their own mixed in, it was more difficult to make them out. Another turn that they moved through quicker - just to be faced with a dead end. Tani looked down to the ground. There were subtle imprints there, big enough to belong to a human with boots. She raised her gaze from the ground to the white thicket. Icree and Luka were looking around as well, wearing as perplexed expressions as herself. The thickets still rose all the way to the ceiling. There was no way to go around, under or above. An idea struck Tani, and she moved closer to where the footsteps ended. She gently touched one of the flowers of the thicket, pressing her finger against it and pushing. It moved under the pressure, and then slid off, one of its thorns grazing her finger. It seemed like it wasn’t an illusion, after all.

“They can’t have passed through here,” Tani muttered, withdrawing from the thicket.

“Maybe they parted the plants,” Icree suggested, dissatisfied with their solutions. “Or they have magic that allows them to pass through certain death traps.”

“I could try parting it, but they are built rather densely. There’s not much space for them to move to, and the ground looks undisturbed here.”

“There’s not really anywhere else they could have gone.”

The three of them looked at the thickets again. They looked sharp and dangerous.

“I’ll try opening a path,” Tani sighed.

She hovered her hands over the thicket carefully, barely not touching them. She concentrated. These plants weren’t easy to manipulate out of the way. They resisted. Tani increased her magic a little, still trying to gently move them to the side. The thickets rustled their complaints, but slowly began to bend out of the way. Behind them, another path was revealed. It was identical to the one they had been traversing so far. Icree stepped into the new corridor, her lamp illuminating a turn ahead of them. Tani glanced at the ground. She couldn’t see any footsteps in it, but perhaps whoever had been there, had decided on a softer approach. They all stood silently still for a moment, trying to listen for footsteps. They shared glances, each of them shaking their heads. No one could anymore hear the steps. No one either wanted to break the silence that had fallen, as if to hear better everything that happened around them. They continued following the path, ever so often stopping to listen. The plants stayed as variegated as before. Tani could see some similar ones as those outside - the white, lantern-like flowers seemed to bloom at the lower levels of the thickets as well. She would have otherwise stopped to look at them, but she didn’t want to waste time right now. Perhaps later, when they would be coming out of the dungeon.

Suddenly, Tani felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned around instinctively, looking behind her. There was no one. A small shiver passed through her, but her gaze found a nearby branch with plump, white leaves. It had probably brushed against her shoulder. The thought calmed down her racing heart a bit, and she let out a small sigh of relief. There was something else as well: pieces of dark red fabric, tangled deep inside the thicket. Tani frowned. The light suddenly almost disappeared, so she turned to look back at her friends. The corridor in front of them had turned to the right, as well as she could see in the dark, and the light was being obstructed. They hadn’t noticed that she had stopped.

“Wait just a moment, Icree, Luka,” Tani shouted.

The light stopped moving, though it was surprisingly dim. Tani listened for a moment, but was satisfied as she couldn’t hear the other two moving. Gently, she began to coax open the thicket in front of her with her magic. The branches opened up easily, allowing her to extract the crimson fabric. It had definitely been ripped out of a cloth.

“What a naughty thicket you’ve been,” Tani muttered under her breath and turned to walk back to Icree and Luka.

As Tani’s steps echoed in the silence, the light seemed to start to move again. In fact, it left her almost in pitch darkness. She hurried along, trying to catch up with the other two. However, when she turned the corner, she found herself still in darkness.

“Icree?” she called out.

Tani couldn’t see any light anywhere. She had been suddenly thrust into pitch black, and her eyes had difficulty adjusting to it.

“Luka?”

There was still no answer.

Confused, Tani reached into her own bag and retrieved a similar lamp as Icree had. Instead of a butterfly, she filled hers with a tiny shining plant. It illuminated less area than Icree’s, but it was enough to see around.

“Guys?” she shouted a little louder.

The corridor in front of Tani seemed to only stretch forward. No matter how much she waved her lamp around or investigated, she couldn’t find a corner or bend where Icree and Luka would’ve gone to disappear from her so completely.

Tani was alone, separated from her friends, and without a clue where to go.

[nemophilistapurva]

The ubiquitous bougainvillea has such a fascinating history, family and structure. Personally, bougainvillea triggers memories of this part of our garden path that was always drenched pink. It also reminds me of the thick spread of orange bougainvillea on the wall of a hotel I once stayed in Spain and at sunrise, the angle just made the whole wall seem like an explosion of a new day! Bougainvillea grows effortlessly across Delhi, and lends a splash of color so fluidly to many parks and community gardens around our homes. Bougainville is a native of South America. How did it come to India? I don’t know, but I have seen some Mughal paintings which have a bougainville spread in the backsplash so my guess is that during the trade days of Europe – with the then sone ki chidia India – travelers traded more than just goods. They traded exotic animal and plant species which explains how potato and bougainville amongst other novelties, were introduced to our subcontinent and look how they flourished! Bougainville is part of a very very exciting family. The genus is called the Four o’ Clock family. So cute right!?!! This four o’ clock family, botanical name Nyctaginaceae is a family of 33 sub varieties of flowering plants and it gets its name from the fact that the flower opens in late afternoon. You might think, the bougainvillea papery pink flowers are there morning noon night, so why the contradiction? Missing the botany here – the pink petal like structure we see is actually the bracts. Bracts are like bodyguards to the delicate little white flower that grows inside! Yeah! These bracts are usually in attractive colors in the Four o’ clock family to attract pollinators, although some bougainvillea are cleistogamous (self pollinating). Everytime something in nature attracts me, my mind wants to know more. Even as I satiate my curiosity, the sheer magic of nature, the excellence of its execution and the magnanimity of its grand scheme played out sooooooo beautifully, leaves me awestruck! #nature #naturelovers #naturephotography #bouganvillea #natural #naturalbeauty #floraandfauna #pollination #pollinators #pollinatorgarden #nature_perfection #biology (at Osho Meditation Centre) https://www.instagram.com/p/CL94jIYllTZ/?igshid=1anpaoyl1933u

[feuilly-cakes]

New Moon - Review - 3*

The problem with first-person narration is that when the main character is in distress you can't have fun reading the book, because everything is coloured with that viewpoint. As a result, I was more annoyed by this than I needed to be, because of the way Bella changed and also Edward's actions. It did, however, do some cool things too, in the way of important messages and descriptions of poor mental health, and also what it's like to begin to recover from that. So this was less enjoyable than Twilight, but not less important to read. Spoilers beyond this point Bella starts off on a high note, with a new-ish job at the Newton's shop and a close relationship with Edward and Alice, who are both friendly or even besties with Charlie in Alice's case. She's living the dream, and then the birthday party happens, and it all goes downhill. Edward is acting strange and indifferent to Bella, Bella is freaking out about that because she's a smart cookie and thinks he's going to ask her to leave with him, and then suddenly she's dumped, depressed, and hallucinating Edward's voice. It's not a great time for Bella. This whole experience makes her change from a strong, funny, normal girl to a selfish, hypocritical girl with zero self esteem or self preservation. As character growth goes it's not nice but it is realistic and it needed to be that way to further the plot. Let me be clear: she is still all the Bella things of the first book, but it's hidden away behind the depression and desperation and the way she can't think rationally anymore. I want to talk about Edward now, because I now think he's trash and am firmly on #teamjacob for the first time in my life. Edward is so pitiful here that he literally dumps her on the trail to some woods like a moron and then runs away and never expects her to, I don't know, follow him? He didn't think she would be too hurt by him rejecting her either because "how could you let one word break your faith in me?" I don't know Edward, perhaps because it was you that said those words? Also that's very 'let's blame Bella for my actions' of you... but I digress. After he's back he even tells Bella he "was coming back anyway" and "it was only a matter of time." Sir, if you're going to abruptly dump your girlfriend of 6 months and not so much as check in on her, then at least have the willpower to stick to that, because if this were a normal story you'd have gotten punched in the face the minute you showed up. The only saving grace for his character in this book is when Bella uses logic on him to get him to see he has hope for his own soul after all, and he begins to really come around to changing her, so there may be hope for him after all. The Werewolves I'm not going to talk about Jacob much because nothing massive stood out to me, just know that I love him and he should've been with Bella. The way he let her know he was into her and then remained her friend without pushing unless she did something was lovely, and I truly believe that if Edward hadn't been come back it would've been a perfect sequel. I am already expecting that to change in Eclipse because of the thing that he's going to do. Anyway, I also love the pack and wish we got more time with them. They call each other "brothers" and I just wanted some found family goodness and got nothing. I also wish we had gotten more interactions between Bella and Emily, because Bella starts calling herself a "wolf girl" and hanging out with Emily but we don't see that and it's so frustrating. I need a whole book dedicated to what exactly she was doing when she was spending all of her time at La Push. The Vampires. The Volturi are finally named in the scene where Romeo and Juliet is used to foreshadow the whole book. They are also used to foreshadow the rest of the book. Later we discover that they are a family of 5, with 9 main guard members plus an unknown number that changes. This is the information I always wanted to know but never did. Aro has "clouded, milky" red eyes, and "papery" skin. It isn't clear if this is from age or something else, but it kind of creeped me out I'm not going to lie. He also goes on a little tangent about how it "pleases" him that Carlisle was successful in being a vegetarian. This could have been a lie, but remember that Edward is a mind reader and would have given some indication. I actually like him in this book, he's very friendly and as soon as he gets confirmation Bella will be changed he's content to leave them be, though is a bit wistful that they won't join him. Caius is the one who tells them they have a time limit. Onto the big differences from the film -The Romeo and Juliet scene takes place in Bella's living room instead of the English classroom. As does the second half of the Volturi explanation scene, the first half of which took place in the first book. -Bella knows something is going to happen with Edward before he takes her on the walk. -The motorbike scene in Port Angeles isn't a motorbike scene, it's a walking towards dangerous men then leaving scene. -Bella and Jacob go hiking together to find the meadow, and Bella finds it on her own after all that hiking practice. -The werewolf reveal scene where Bella smacks Paul doesn't happen. Bella and Jacob deliberately meet them somewhere, Bella doesn't smack anyone, and Paul loses it anyway. -Jacob gets a grounded Bella in further trouble by showing Charlie the motorbikes they rose together many times, not just once. Parts I actually liked, because it wasn't all bad. -Bella stands up to Edward about her truck stereo in the beginning. It was a good moment. -Bella says that the birthday incident wasn't Jasper's fault at all. -A funny moment: (when Sam Uley introduces himself less than a year after she met him on First Beach:) "There was nothing familiar about his name." (And yes, I checked and she definitely met him, age 19, never learned how to read...) - Chapter 6: Friends. The whole page where Jacob and Bella are giggling and tripping over themselves and each other had me beaming. Such a happy section. -"I wanted to be fierce and deadly. Someone no one would dare mess with. Someone who would scare Sam Uley silly. I wanted to be a vampire." -There's a part during the voting scene where Edward grabs Bella by the face and she's talking to Carlisle and hoping he will understand because it was hard to talk properly the way Edward was holding her face. The mental image I got... he was squeezing her cheeks to the point she was doing fish lips and it nearly had me in tears. -Also with the voting scene, Rosalie votes against Bella, but she has no aversion to being her sister, only a vampire. Bella then tells everyone she feels the same about them as they do as her, which hurts Rosalie, and Bella realises that could be taken the wrong way. She didn't mean it in a bad way and the fact that Rosalie got hurt shows how their relationship is already developing from the first book. I found this part interesting and lovely to see, as I used to see it as a very abrupt friendship in book 4. There was no outright offensive language in this book, however there were several instances of questionable and uncomfortable behaviour, so I'll be listing them below. -When telling her about the birthday arrangements Edward and Alice don't listen to her protests, and pretty much force her into going to a party she doesn't want. It's creepily reminiscent of the prom incident, only with much worse results. -The Port Angeles post-cinema scene. Bella endangers her own and Jessica's life just to hear a hallucination of Edward. She then decided they were "probably nice guys. Safe." and just walked away, after realising they weren't the same men who wanted to r*pe her in book 1. She then thinks that Jessica is upset because she "must have really offended her" and not because she risked her life and well-being on a whim. The whole mindset Bella is in here is obviously not a healthy one, and I think we as readers are supposed to understand that and empathise with Jessica, but I can't be sure, and either way it's really bad and reckless behaviour. -Bella describes Leah as "exotic" which is not only weird but incorrect. Leah is native american and therefore the opposite of exotic. Leah isn't an animal, she isn't unusual or from far away, she's a person living in the place she was born, and it's beyond weird to call a person 'exotic'. -Jacob is back at it with the weird hatred of his own tribe. Pre-werewolf anyway. Before I get into it, I'd like to remind you that Jacob is not a real Native American because he was written by a WHITE woman, and therefore anything he says is a reflection of Stephenie Meyer and not of an actual Native American person. Now that's out of the way, Jacob is telling Bella about Sam Uley's behaviour, and while doing so he says this: "They're all about our land, and tribe pride... it's getting ridiculous." In the context of the book only, he's talking about how Sam's pack (though he doesn't know it's a pack yet) have become "protectors" and he thinks it's weird. In the context of who the author is, however, it's a bit more complicated. This line makes it seems like Stephenie Meyer may believe having lots of pride in your tribe as a native american person is ridiculous, and it skirts a dangerous territory. Remember she is a white woman and who clearly hasn't done research into why native american people are protective of what little land they have left and what culture hasn't been taken from them through genocide. This is your reminder to seek out native american voices, and especially Quileute voices in this circumstance, and learn their opinions and views on these matters. -Quileute is described as "an unfamiliar, liquid language." I couldn't find any video or audio of this language except the alphabet, and so I very much doubt Stephenie Meyer found something 14 years ago. It's my opinion that just like with the legends, she made this up and slapped the Quileute name on it for exploitative reasons. From what research I've done no young person would've known the language fluently anyway because it was dying before 2000 and is barely being kept alive. It wasn't hard to find this out, and as someone who was set to make millions off this book she should have done her research. -Bella's attitude regarding Gianna. She's horrified by her desire to become one of the Volturi, to be surrounded by vampires, and it doesn't seem to click that Bella herself has that same desire with the Cullens. She looks down on Gianna just because the vampires she desires are human drinkers and not animal drinkers, and it's clear she doesn't think of them as the same. All of the Cullens have killed humans or drank from them, so Bella is extremely hypocritical here. -"I mean, 'Fine, I'll move out.'" Bella holds this ultimatum over Charlie's head when he doesn't want her seeing Edward. She's being selfish and childish here, not caring that he's trying to look after her. When Edward left she was ruined, and Charlie is trying to stop that from happening again. Her actions in this scene are horrible and show how little she cares for Charlie, the man who looked after her while she was broken, who is her father. This is where we truly see how selfish Bella has become over the course of the book, or perhaps since being in a relationship with Edward, as in Twilight she would have never said this to Charlie. She may be an adult but she is sure acting like a child. -Finally, the vote. After it takes place, Bella demands Alice turn her immediately, and refuses to listen to reason when Alice tells her she can't just do it right away. She then turns to Carlisle, putting him right on the spot, and demands the same. He agrees but it's not right or proper behaviour, but unfortunately it's behaviour we come to expect from Bella by the end of the book. The switch from vote to demanding she be changed was jarring, and it really rubbed me the wrong way.

[creativeskullcreations]

Outside chapter 4: Home at Last

Fourth chapter, once again from Scout's POV! Idk, I think I'm getting better at writing her. Also a little bit more of a look into Stacy’s life, and what her personality is like.

"So, you ready for another ride in the truck?" Stacy asked as she locked up Sammy's apartment. True to what he'd said, he was long gone by the time they'd woken up, much to Scout's disappointment. She'd wanted to at least say goodbye, though Stacy had assured her that she'd see him again at soon enough.

"He wants to keep an eye on the stitch wounds, make sure they're healing right. So we have to come back here next week." She'd said. "Also, he's my favorite cousin. He kind of has to deal with me coming over, anyways."

While that hadn't actually made the Puppet feel any better, she did appreciate the effort. It actually meant a lot to Scout that Stacy would at least try to be comforting.

"Ready as I'll ever be." Scout replied from her hiding place in her Host's hood. She was mostly behind Stacy's neck, with her head peeking around the side to better see what was going on. Yeah she was surrounded by and covered in hair, but it was better than the other option of hiding in the bag. At least this way she could see things.

And see things she did. What had been hidden from her the other night now held a strange beauty in the bluish light of predawn. Buildings with darkened windows, street lamps starting to dim down, trees just starting to grow leaves. To the Puppet, who had only ever viewed the world through a TV screen, everything looked new and beautiful.

The entire, short, walk to Stacy's truck, Scout had to fight the urge to launch herself from her hiding spot in order to see better. It was too risky, even with how early it was. Anyone could glance out their window and see her, and she wasn't ready for that just yet.

As they made it to the vehicle, it beeped  at them as the lights flashed, startling Scout. Stacy climbed into the truck and tossed her bag into the passenger seat. She then lowered her hood and gently dropped Scout on top of her bag. "You gotta ride over there. I need to concentrate on the road. Also I'm going to get us some Wendy's for the trip. What do you want to try from there?"

Scout didn't answer and instead climbed into Stacy's lap in order to plaster her face to the window. She ignored Stacy when her Host sighed, and watched as they pulled out of the lot and on to the road.

As they passed by the buildings, and occasional tree, Scout found herself getting more and more excited. 'The TV never told me just how big everything is out here. Or how many Hosts there are.' She thought as they turned into another parking lot and approached a  weird looking box with a speaker . '... I don't think I thought this through enough. What if they all react like Sammy did? Fuck, I want to go back.'

"Welcome to Wendy's, how may I help you?" Scout jerked at the strange voice, and turned to look up at Stacy, who wasn't staring at a box full of pictures of food. She glanced down and, seeing the Puppet staring, gave her a quick pat on the head.

"Yeah, I'd like a single cheeseburger combo with a coke and a kid's meal with chocolate milk." She told the box as she did this, ignoring Scout as the Puppet fixed her with a death glare for her antics.

"What kind of kid's meal would you like?" The box sounded rushed. In the background, beyond the static, Scout heard a loud crash.

"Uh..." Stacy turned and stared at the Puppet for a long moment, almost to the point of discomfort. "Chicken nuggets? No sauce please."

"That'll be $11.83 please pull forward to the first window." The box shut off with a click, and Stacy slowly started driving up to the first window while Scout just stared at her.

When they reached the window, the Host reached for her bag and dug out a small, flat rectangle. When the window opened, she handed it to the Host inside, who did something with it before handing it back. Said Host also ignored Scout completely, which was just fine with her.

"What was that?" The Puppet asked as they drove to the next window. Nothing like that had ever come up in the shows she'd watched, nor had any of the Puppets at HQ ever mentioned anything about it.

"Me paying for our food." Stacy responded. "Money is very important to, uh, Host society. Remind me to teach you more about it later, it's something you'll need to know." She handed Scout the small rectangle. "Here, you can look at it if you want. Just don't break it."

The window opened then, and the Host inside handed Stacy a white cup with a lid and a small bottle. She put these in the cup holders, and then grabbed the two bags that were handed out next. She thanked the Host inside, dropped the bags in the passenger seat, and drove away. She parked again a few feet later, though, and grabbed the bags.

"Okay, so this one is mine." She pulled the white bag closer to her, then picked Scout up and set her in front of the more colorful one. "And this one is for you. Don't worry if you make a mess, I'll clean it up later."

Scout stared at the bag for a moment, then pulled it over so she could reach inside and pull out the food that was supposedly in there. Underneath some brown papery things and a plastic bag, there were several long, skinny yellow sticks, and four fat brown things. She picked up a few of the yellow ones first and shoved them in her mouth, having to fold them up a bit to make them fit. She mashed them up, then tipped her head up to swallow as she glanced over at her Host, who was eating the large sandwich she'd ordered.

"These taste weird." Scout spoke up, shoving yet more into her mouth. It was certainly different than what they had eaten the night before. Less soft, for one, but not so hard she couldn't "chew" them.

"It's fast food. It's supposed to taste weird." Stacy told her. "What you're eating now is french fries, the brown things are chicken nuggets, and I have a cheese burger. And then we have coke and chocolate milk to drink."

"Hmm." Scout picked up a nugget and stuck it in her mouth, finding it chewier than the fries. It reminded her of the red things she'd had last night, and she wondered if it was something similar. She then grabbed the bottle and gave it a shake, scowling when she heard liquid inside.

'Noooo thank you...' She put the bottle back and picked up more fries. 'Stacy can have that.'

They continued to eat their food in silence, with Scout watching as they slowly left the buildings behind to only simple blue sky. Climbing back up she could see that it wasn't as empty as it seemed. Miles of green plains were all she could see, but there was the occasional house or grouping of trees. Sometimes there were also large, strange animals.

"It's so empty..." She hadn't realized she'd spoken out loud until Stacy answered her.

"Yeah, most of us like to live all clumped together, but we still have need for, like, farms and stuff. Most of what's out there now is fields for growing food. They should be planting them soon, actually, if they haven't already." She told her. "You might be able to see some of the machines if you look for them." Scout could see some odd looking cars in the fields, but wasn't entirely sure if that was what Stacy was talking about. Instead she rested her head on her folded arms and simply enjoyed the view.

Sitting there, watching trees and houses and other cars pass by, made the Puppet feel more relaxed than she'd ever been in her entire life. She sunk even deeper into that feeling when Stacy clicked the radio on and music filled the small space. Her Host started singing along to whatever song was on, and the Puppet gave a small sigh of contentment.

Life was good on the outside.

"Welp, here we are." Stacy finally announced as she pulled into another lot in front of a brick building. Scout jolted awake at the sound of her voice, having fallen asleep at some point in the journey. Shaking her head, she watched as Stacy gathered up the "fast food" trash and shoved it into the white bag. She then grabbed up her own bag and Scout before finally opening the door and stepping out into the open air.

As Scout quickly crawled into the hood, she was struck by how similar the building was to Sammy's home. If it weren't for the fact she knew they were somewhere completely different, Scout would be worried they'd gone in a circle. Stacy jogged up the steps and into the building, heading straight for the stairs. she paused only briefly to make sure her bag was settled properly and Scout was there before starting the long climb.

"We can't take the elevator?" Scout asked as they started the climb to the fourth floor. "The other place had one. And the TV said all buildings like this have one."

"Nope. Well, the building has one, but it's not for people to use." Scout blinked. Who used it then, if not people. Stacy continued to fast for her to question it, though. "And I live on the fourth floor, so that's... fun." Her grip on her bag tightened just a bit as she sped up a little. "But yeah, apartment thirteen on the fourth floor, in case you ever get lost. I'll try and get a key made for you next time I go to Home Depot."

Scout stayed silent on that. A key would be cool, but she was far too short to even use it. Still, it was nice that her Host was thinking of a detail like that, however useless it would be in reality.

When they reached the door, a shiny 413 sitting just above eye level, Stacy pulled a small key out of her bag and unlocked it. The door stuck a little, but Stacy managed to get it open and they ducked inside, with the Host locking it behind them.

"Welp, here we are. My own little home." Stacy said as she dropped her bag by the door. Scout took the chance to look around while she still had the height, before Stacy dropped her off somewhere.

Right away Scout could see a kitchen area with a larger table and four chairs around it. Behind them was a shelve filled with books, figurines, and stuffed animals. Against the far wall was a bigger couch than what Sammy had, along with a large TV. There was also a desk with two smaller TVs on it and a cool chair with wheels in front of it, and beside the shelf was another door. "Definitely looks cleaner than that other guy's place." She remarked as Stacy took her shoes off. Her Host bit back a laugh, shaking her head.

"Yeah, he's never really been all that clean." She said as she hung her hoodie over one of the chairs. She then started pulling her phone out of her pocket. "I've gotta make a couple of calls real quick. You can go watch Netflix or something until I'm done, okay?"

"Kay." Scout Jumped to the couch when Stacy looked down at her phone and started searching for the remote. It was easily found under a blanket, and she managed to get the bigger TV on while her Host started her call.

"Hey Will. I'm back from my most recent expedition!" She sounded perky, but the smile she had quickly faded as whoever Will was said something. "Uh, well, it kinda... didn't. Things got pretty bad in there. No, no I'm not... dead, anyways." She rubbed at the bandage on her left wrist. "And I did manage to bring home a souvenir. Kinda."

Scout looked up at that, staring openly at her Host, but was ignored. "No, she's not another pipe. I told you I wasn't bringing you any more of those. Nor a dog. Or a cat." She sounded exasperated, rolling her eyes while she started pacing behind the TV. "She's not an animal. My apartment doesn't allow pets anyways. You'll meet her when you come over tonight. No, Will, it's not an orphan child with magic powers. Well," She caught Scout's eye as she passed by again, "maybe yes on the powers part. No. Yes. Look, Babe, I still gotta call Carol about the article. Yeah, I called you first." The smile was back, but was different from the other times Scout had seen her Host smile. It sent a spike of something pleasant through her, and she quickly turned back to the screen. "Okay. Yeah, I'll see you tonight unless Carol kills me through the phone. Love you too. Bye."

"Who's Will?" Scout asked when she'd hung up the phone. She'd managed to get to Netflix, but hadn't yet selected something to watch. Not that she knew her choices, of course.

"Will's my boyfriend, you'll meet him tonight. He should be bringing pizza." She started messing with her phone again while Scout looked away, suddenly nervous. "Now just to call Carol..."

'<i>So there's going to be someone else who knows. Great...</i>' Scout shook her head, refocusing on the TV. 'Remember that you wanted this, Scout. You've made it this far, you can't back out.' Her thoughts were interrupted by Stacy, now talking to "Carol".

"Yeah, hey Carol. I survived my latest expedition. Barely." She fingered her bandages again. "Yeah, I'll get started on the article right away, I just had to stay with my cousin for a few days. I'll explain why when I come over with my piece tomorrow. Pfft, yeah, I can totally get the whole thing written tonight, this is what I do, remember?" Scout rolled her own eyes at the cocky tone.

'We almost died, dumbass.'

"Yeah, I got a souvenir. No, she's not a pipe. Why does everyone think I adopted a pet? My building doesn't even allow fish!" Stacy facepalmed, shaking her head. "Yeah. Okay. I'll see you tomorrow. Yeah, I'll bring her. I kind of need to so you'll believe me. You'll see tomorrow! I gotta go now. Bye." Stacy quickly hung up and let out a sigh.

"So was that one Carol?" Scout asked as she looked for The Good Place on Netflix. Unfortunately, the words all looked like gibberish to her, so she was trying to go by the pictures. It wasn't working so far, but she stayed determined.

"Yep. We gotta go talk to her tomorrow." Scout didn't miss that wording, but didn't protest it as Stacy walked over to the desk and sat in the cool chair. She leaned down fiddling with something underneath. "I gotta work on my article. Two articles, actually. I need a back-up one for tomorrow depending how Carol takes things."

While she messed with things, Scout Jumped on top of the TV, and then onto the back of the chair. She watched as Stacy did something with the small TVs, and then started making words appear. The Puppet was confused, having never seen anything like this before.

"Uh, what are you doing?" She asked, flopping onto her Host's head. Stacy paused her typing to steady the Puppet, but other than that didn't react. Scout took it as a good sign.

"Writing about what happened at the HQ. I've gotta write two separate pieces about this. What really happened, and then what Carol will probably want published after she reads the first one and meets you."

"Oh." Scout watched a bit more. "Can I help?"

Stacy paused, considering. "Actually, yes. You can tell me what happened between Mortimer casting the spell and when I woke up. I don't really remember, considering I was a zombie and all."

Her Host smiled, but Scout winced at hearing her own words thrown back at her like that. "Ummmm! You don't want to know about that. Like, at all!"

"Why not?" Stacy sounded genuinely curious, and Scout realized she probably didn't think anything had happened beyond the stitching. But there was a whole process to making a Host into, well, a Host. It was a process that Scout was far too familiar with, and that Riley had taken far too much pleasure in each time she'd had to do it.

"Look just... don't ask me that again. Riley... And..." The Puppet shook her head. "I went through it three times. I... Just, don't ask. Please." She didn't like begging., but this was the one thing she wasn't going to talk about. It was horrible, and she was glad Stacy didn't know or remember anything about it. Her Host didn't need or want that knowledge. It was bad enough that Scout had to live with it.

"Alright..." The Host focused back on the screen, and Scout gave a silent sigh in relief. "How about you make sure I get all the details right, instead? If I read it back to you when I'm done, you can make sure I got everything."

"Deal!" That was a much better option. Less telling of nightmares, and more of what Stacy already knew.

Together they worked on the first article, with Stacy reading each paragraph she wrote out loud, and Scout reminding her of anything she'd forgotten. Even with the extra work to it, together they finished it rather quickly. And when it was finally done, and Stacy had clicked on the save icon several times, the Host stood up and stretched.

"Okay, that's enough for right now. It's way past lunch time, and I gotta eat something before I take my pills." She made her way to the kitchen, Scout still on her head.

"Pills? Are ya sick?" The Puppet questioned.

"Eh, kinda?" She waved her hand in a so-so way before grabbing the ingredients for a sandwich out of the fridge. "It's mostly in the head, though." "What, like brain damage?" Scout was confused. She'd seen an episode of some medical show, and it had someone with brain damage in it. Stacy didn't act anything like that Host had in the show.

"Uuuuuuh, no." She put together her sandwich and then dumped a number pills onto the plate. "It's really complicated. I'll tell you later." She cut the sandwich into quarters, then added some small orange sticks from the fridge.

Scout didn't answer, still wondering what else Stacy could mean by "in the head". Her Host grabbed a bottle of water and went back to the computer. She set the plate and bottle down, then picked Scout up off her head and put her next to the plate. Puppet and food in place, she finally sat down herself.

"Okay, so this one has to make the HQ out to be both boring as hell and as dangerous as possible. We gotta make it absolutely not worth going in there." She told Scout through a bite of ham and cheese sandwich. "Like, I'm giving it a zero out of ten either way, but this has to hit home that nobody should go there while leaving out Mortimer's Fun Gang."

"Why? Shouldn't we tell the Host leaders so they can deal with it?" The Puppet asked, pausing in trying to chew through a "carrot stick". She was considering giving up on it as too hard for her plastic teeth.

"You mean the cops? Anthony tried that, remember? He got laughed out of the station. And even if they did believe us, the last thing we want those creeepos to have is guns and more Hosts." She swallowed another bite and started typing. "No, the best thing we can do is make it out to be so dangerous that nobody goes there and it dries up their supply line. They only had so many bodies in that freezer, they've gotta run out eventually."

"Hmm." Scout wasn't too sure. They had other ways of getting Hosts rather than waiting for them to stumble into the building. Riley in particular had made use of Scout's own "siblings" for those ways in the past. Waiting for people like Stacy was actually the least reliable way to get Hosts in the first place.

But Scout wasn't sure she should say so.

Instead she sat on the desk and watched as her Host typed away, stealing some ham and cheese out of one of the sandwiches. When she got tired of that, she Jumped her way back to the couch to find something to watch.

[theangrypokemaniac]

Since I rant enough about the wizening Ma and Pa received in Sinnoh it's only right to wreak bloody rhetorical vengeance elsewhere:

However harsh it may be, I'm glad Takeshi Shudo isn't alive to witness the hateful desecration of his legacy.

...

In a universe where no one's allowed to age, why are the modern Jessie and James so withered and decrepit?

Dragon Ball has been on for more than three decades. Its stars were permitted to grow up, because the head can cope with the opportunities this offers.

Yet Goku, Krillin, Bulma et al bear a greater similarity to their younger selves than these gurning invertebrates do to Team Rocket, wearing a papery approximation of their skin.

Akira Toriyama is actually concerned about his life's work, still coming up with interesting concepts, brand-new characters, and most importantly, values his audience by keeping to the established canon.

If a Dragon Ball fan reads this, I am so jealous of you.

Consider yourselves fortunate not to have seen the thing you loved the most pulverised and the resulting glutinous mass moulded back into makeshift sloppy cadavers.

Look at the state of that man! That's a good picture these days!

Why have the eyelid lines turned into upside down bags?

And why has she collected her lashes for this particular screen shot?

On eyes with a strangely feline slant...

Has she had a face lift?

Get yer money back on that one, love.

And why has he marks under his eyes and round his flapping gob to add the hint of exhaustion?

And why don't her lips reach the edge of her mouth anymore?

And why must he display Beaver Toof, as if he's only got six pegs left?

Giving it to him but not her implies she's lost the lot, needing to gum objects for a result.

And why do her low-slung ears consist only of lobe?

And why can you see his featureless lugs? Why does his barnet stand outwards in tentacles like he's taken to wearing a floppy Starmie?

What's that's meant to be, purple dreadlocks?

And why is her hairline curved and absolutely straight, like a bad wig, apart from the perfunctory bits to the side, which I guarantee won't alter their position throughout the run?

Hair used to move about, now by law there's a set pattern which cannot change. Stamp that life out immediately.

And what's that flaccid growth between his weary peepers? Is that meant to be fringe?

PFFFT!!!

And why are her digits just as thick and oblong as his?

It ain't fingers. It's trotters.

And why's he got a back to his throat, but she hasn't?

And why are we forced to witness it? You can see all the way to his dangler!

The great gaping pink cave looks like the end of Looney Tunes when Porky Pig pops up and stammers: "That's all folks!"

Remember a lack of Beaver Toof? And triangular mouths?

Remember when Meowth was a cheeky, spirited little cat, not a middle-aged human midget, an emaciated wreck bored of it all?

Remember when it wasn't deemed necessary to expose us to internal organs?

And when James was a handsome, hysterically camp dandy, not a creepy, snot-ridden science dweeb?

And when Jessie was a beautiful, stylish young girl, hot-tempered but loyal, not a sullen, cold, reptilian, Botoxed-to-the-gills gorgon?

Remember when Team Rocket were fun? And attractive?

Remember when they had joy in their hearts in spite of their poverty? And vim? And hope?

Remember them acting with flair and imagination?

Remember when their schemes had variety?

Remember when they had more than a single disguise per era?

Remember when they had many occupations? And were good at them?

Remember when they'd have a go at everything and weren't reduced to flipping condemned meat in a grotty burger van FOR THREE YEARS?!

Remember when those in charge didn't despise them, when they got happy endings?

Remember split screens? And face faults? And background tones? And purple streaks down your cheeks?

Remember big, bright open eyes, not shrunken, sagging and empty holes afflicted by glaucoma?

Remember when Jessie had eyelashes?

Remember when Pokémon was an anime?

And when James had a fringe, not a bent swelling like a balloon animal?

And when the artist could be arsed to draw Meowth's Charm properly?

Remember when the voices weren't nails down a blackboard?

When Meowth didn't sound like a wedge of coal grinding beneath an oil-deprived door?

When Jessie's dulcet tones had a wider range that just screechy, and weren't reminiscent of a cacophonous banshee clawing her way from a bog, using her own mug as a shovel?

When James speaking didn't suggest he was at best, suffering sinus difficulties, and at worst, constantly battling to swallow his own sick from looking at her?

Mind you, I'm grateful the 4Kids cast are no longer here. They deserve better, and their presence would only validate the crude bastardisations.

Every time the guttural howls reach my poor ears a chill runs through my system, and reminds me of The Pokémon Company sacking the real dub crew in preference for a job done on the cheap.

Remember speed lines? And Pokéball-throwing animation?

Remember a new motto performance in each installment, not the same stock footage reused again and again?

Remember when it rhymed?

It shows.

Remember remembering it?

Remember when Team Rocket would walk down the street in their uniforms and no one took a blind bit of notice despite the organisation operating there?

And they didn't fanny about in one scabby polyester costume every minute they were travelling, even when NO ONE KNOWS WHO THEY ARE?

Since Unova, whilst confronting Ash and this era's soon-to-be-forgotten companions, you get this exchange:

Moron-Of-The-Week: "Who are Team Rocket?"

Ash: "They're bad guys who steal other people's Pokémon."

EVERY SINGLE BLOODY TIME!!!

WORD-FOR-WORD IDENTICAL!!!

The writers have such deep appreciation for their work they're sending in cut-and-paste scripts.

Remember blasting off when something blew up, not an explosion from nowhere, or giving it the slip with a jet pack, or abduction by a Care Bear?

Remember when the eyebrows matched the hair?

Remember when he wore it long?

Remember blue shock? And sweat drop? And hammerspace? And comedy violence?

Remember her jagged hairline? And it being RED!!!

Remember proper highlights to it, rather than the odd white lump now and again, as if sweating like a pig, or their heads are infested with giant space ticks?

Remember when they were in all the episodes? And were main characters? And on the introduction sequence?

Remember when Jessie and James used to hug? And hold hands?

And bicker as only a couple can, but you knew they'd never cope alone?

Remember when they'd fly into each other's arms under the flimsiest pretext?

Remember when they meant more to one another than just being a pair of unconnected and disembodied wraiths coincidentally walking down the same road?

And they had more than civil interactions?

Remember when she loved him as much as he loved her?

And no one else could ever take his place?

And canon wasn't infected with the ruinous depiction of her as a hard, heartless bitch barely tolerating him until someone 'better' came along, at which point she'd fuck off without a backwards glance?

'Better', as in a scabby, satchel-mouthed, gormless cretin, just to add surly insult to merciless injury.

Never has such a life-long and hardcore defender of the faith flipped into an ardent Rumishipper as I did after that episode, once I'd swept up the fragments of my soul.

Remember when they were sympathetic?

Remember when they showed human warmth?

Remember when they cared about each other?

Remember when they weren't just a jangling, distorted mess of half-recollected traits?

Remember when they weren't really evil?

Remember Rocketshipping? That was a thing once, believe it or not.

Remember when they had a conscience?

Remember when actually wicked characters turned up, and Team Rocket ALWAYS sided with Ash, rather than the nauseating spectacle of suddenly being best buds with the Boss?

Remember when they had contact with the Twerps?

Remember when Team Rocket and the Twerps loved each other in secret and would endanger themselves to save their 'enemies'?

Everything that was once good and winning about them was sucked out, degree by degree, to leave the corpse, hollow and dead, strung up on wires as a grim marionette.

I'm sure most who see this will vehemently disagree, that I'm completely wrong, that THEY like them.

Yes, you like this three, but you don't like Team Rocket. This is not them. You have yours, and I have mine, but let's not pretend they are the same.

Why, if there is no difference, would I be so hostile, when they meant so much too me?

Did you ever wonder where the original fans went, why they all departed en masse? It's not because they 'moved on' or 'matured'.

They didn't leave Pokémon. Pokémon left them.

As the makers rely so heavily on repetition (sorry, nostalgia) they arrogantly expect us to still be here, having blithely welcomed our memories minced and our canon ripped up or ripped off, apparently.

We're intended to put up with watching them lay waste to ťhe series's body, clinging on for when a rotting bone is pulled up now and again and waved at us, before they chuck it aside to continue the dismemberment.

It's been eaten from the inside out, explaining the facial collapse. Behold the beauty on show:

You see what I mean, don't you?

Don't you? No, because otherwise you'd say the same.

How anyone feels able to describe three deformed freaks as 'hot' or 'cute' I will never comprehend.

The uniform collar protrudes like a solid pipe, emphasising the pencil necks.

It gives the impression of wrinkled, leathery tortoises peering out of their shells to secure a tasty lettuce treat.

Is that pretty? No.

Is it so surprising I don't care for my favourites to resemble melted waxwork skeletons of their own dæmonic counterparts?

S&M is a most fitting name, for this is torture.

In the film Death Becomes Her, Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn vie for the attention of Bruce Willis, both taking a serum giving everlasting youth and slimness.

The catch is it confers immortality, but not invulnerability, so when pushed down the stairs Meryl survives but is dead, her neck broken, thus she's zipped up in the morgue fridge.

When Goldie is shot with a canon she too rises, internal organs blown out.

The rest of the adventure involves the pair losing the war against time, patching up and painting over peeling grey skin, holding onto loose limbs as their bodies fall apart.

This obviously is the case here. The trio lapped the potion up at the close of Sinnoh, experienced a fatal accident and are now steadily crumbling to mush before us.

According to grave-diggers the head always goes first, so there you are then.

I have a suspicion that Giovanni lured all three to his crypt, experimenting on them to engineer his ultimate super soldier, which explains their flat, plastic appearance. Those since Unova began are the cyborgs, the real ones locked in his cellar.

You may notice I have about the lowest opinion possible of the current writing team, as they deserve.

Why should I have any respect for vindictive halfwits like this, who hate Team Rocket so much they're going out of their way to distort and uglify them, expressing the resentment in celluloid?

Jessie, James and Meowth lost their only defender in Takeshi Shudo. From that point they descended from loveable, hapless tragic figures to self-parodies (Hoenn) whiney, irritating divs dumping one another at every interval (Sinnoh), robotic, amoral scum (Unova and Kalos) and now physically repulsive minor additions (Alola and Galar). Is that trajectory all accidental?

It not that it's a new 'style' (for want of a better word), as were that the case, this hideousness would apply to the entire cast, but it's only done to Team Rocket. How could that be unless motivated by malice?

Given the sub thesps are obliged to prostrate themselves in the dust, begging fans to make their appreciation known, it smacks of desperation.

They wouldn't need to ask that were the trio treated as an integral component. They must sense the objections and are thus drumming up support to avoid the dole queue.

Are those in charge so resentful of their presence it manifests in mutilating them, keen to do anything that may alienate the fanbase, so at the first sign of a dip in popularity they can leap upon it as the perfect excuse to write Team Rocket out?

Why be surprised? These are imbeciles who reject their own canon at the close of every generation, so why care about someone else's?

If people have to harangue the writers with grovelling praise of their retcons, rehashes and all-round twatting about, butter 'em up sufficiently, with the implied threat of deserting the franchise should Team Rocket be ejected, taking their purses too, all so the smug, avaricious berks deign to put the trio in the next generation, that proves they don't want them, so how can what they write for their characters be objectively of any worth?

Team Rocket would've departed by now, were there not a palpable worry their absence might ring the death knell of the whole thing, turning off the financial tap, which is what matters.

Therefore they are retained, grudgingly, and only so long as the clamour continues at its current decibel level. If that drops it's over, and don't expect a romantic resolution. Why should pleasing you be a concern when you're to leave with them?

Ask yourself: how much of your devotion is based on what they are right now, and how much is from who they used to be?

How long can they live off past glories?

The offences done in Unova and Kalos were bad enough, but remarkably Game Freak found further depths to plumb, therefore it can only get worse.

I have of course retained the loveliest for last:

Be still, my beating heart.

No, really, be still. Stop infact. 

Planet of the Apes.

[sorin-sunchild]

Inktober/Writetober 2020 part 2

A continuing story that began here.  Prompts 7- 12: Fancy, Teeth, Throw, Hope, Disgusting, Slippery. It occurred to the child, far too late, that perhaps advancing upon the creature was not his best idea. He did not know how to use a dagger affectively. He did not know what he would do if the creature bit him, or scratched him, or simply evaded him. What he did know, however, was that the koi spirit had been leading him to the face down child who...Allister had to admit, was probably dead. 

Whether they were dead because of drowning or because of the rat, it did not matter. There was gore streaked around the muzzle of the rat. It had been feasting on this body. Allister had not been in the forest on a mere whim. When he were small, he had been visited every night by an old woman. The old woman would sit by his bed, or at the bottom of it and she would hum a soft and calming tune. Sometimes she would talk to him, tell him stories. Sometimes they were fairy tales and at other times, she told Allister about her life and how glad she was to find someone to listen to her. His mother had not been disturbed by his drawings of the old lady, or how well he retold her life. Not until they’d found the old ladies lost will, hidden under a lose floorboard during a renovation project. The will had been in a box with a few other trinkets. Photos, mostly. Photos that Allister had already recreated in childish scrawl. It only occurred to him years later, when they’d moved home for the second time, that the old lady had been a ghost. That perhaps it wasn’t the first time he’d spoken to ghosts. Was that dog who had come out of nowhere and chased him really a dog, or an angry spirit? Allister had started to question each person he’d ever talked to when nobody else were around. It had filled him with a great amount of doubt and the child had become incredibly withdrawn. Then the memory of the old lady had surfaced and he remembered how she had gone away after her will had been found. After she had been remembered again. Suddenly, he started to really inspect those around him and learnt that spirits appeared in many forms with various degrees of communicative ability. Usually, there wasn’t much he could do but listen.  Last year, he’d really started to study up on how to communicate with spirits, instead of just hoping they would come to him. It was this which had shown him his second ability - engineering. The woods had often called to him, and Allister’s skin would prickle from the energy of spirits in the area whenever he walked there alone.  He’d been filled with hope that he’d be able to find and rescue some lost spirits, just as unable to exit the forest as they’d been in life, but he’d never expected to find a spirit who was so...new. A body that was so fresh.  Now Allister was filled with fear. This was not an animal. This was an angry spirit, grown large and strong from so many years here. Allister didn’t know how he knew, he just did. His powers grew strong year after year. It was strong enough and angry enough to touch living things. That meant him as well. The rat was becoming bored of the koi, which threaded it’s way elegantly between it’s reaching fingers, too slippery to be caught in it’s gnashing jaws. Unfortunately, that meant the rat picked up the scent of living meat. Allister did not think. He only acted. The rat lunged and instead of slashing or stabbing, Allister threw the rusty dagger. The rat parted it’s terrier sized muzzle but it’s shriek was cut off suddenly and entirely as the dagger flew into it’s mouth and pierced the back of it’s throat. The rat gurgled and turned over onto it’s back in the water, flailing and clawing at it’s throat.  Allister scrambled back up onto the bank and away from it’s death throes. He plugged his ears with his fingers, trying to ignore the awful gurgling of blood filling the creatures throat. Adrenaline made his body shake as he crouched there in the mud and the dark. How much was real, physical? How much was just a spirit? Would there be a body in the morning, or was all of this happening only on Another Plain? He had thought he understood most, if not all, about how spirits worked. Yet here again he was presented with something so new and confusing that he dearly wished that he knew a living person who had the same powers he did. The power to see and touch and...kill spirits. Kill? Was that right? Allister unplugged his ears only when the creature was still. He started to edge his way towards the bridge when the rat started to break up into paper-like shreds of light. Beneath the beastly hide, the visage of a young man attire that reminded Allister of a wedding. It was a quality suit, old fashioned and ridiculously fancy. There was a story there, but one Allister would never know as he once more broke up into papery shreds which floated away into the wind... What...had he just done? And how? The koi had known what to do...somehow, it had known. Allister cautiously approached the body it was floating around. The stench was choking. Allister gagged, held in the urge to vomit, then remembered that he had a small torch in his pocket.  Steeling his nerves, he turned the light on, the swiftly off. The body was bloated from the water and ripped open from the rat. Allister had never seen such an epitome of the word ‘disgusting’.  “Is this your body?” The koi swayed it’s body to indicate a nod. “What do you want me to do?” 

[theotherbloodfart]

Token Part 2

This is part 2 to the request made by @craftygoateeprincess

WARNING: VIOLENCE

27 years later

Ellie clutches the small wooden box tightly. She hasn’t opened it in years. Only opens it when she’s very stressed or needs to remind herself that magic is real. That miracles are possible. And things have been going well enough. But ever since she’d returned to her childhood town, Derry Maine, she’d felt the old stress returning.

The town itself is in turmoil. Children had started going missing in the past few months. Just like they had when she’d been small. It was all so like it had been. But her case had been different. She’d been saved.

She opens the box and gazes at it’s contents. A shriveled, desiccated piece of rubber. An old deflated balloon. Papery and nearly faded to pink from it’s old rich color of vibrant red.

Ellie can remember the one who'd given this balloon to her. Her guardian angel, tho he’d claimed he wasn’t. “Angel of the sewers.” He’d said. She smiles as she gently closes the box, and slides it into the pocket of an errant shirt in her closet. To keep it hidden. To keep it safe. Then she turns to gaze at herself in the full length mirror upon the inside of the closet door. Studies herself before heading out.

Derry is hosting a large carnival and she is looking forward to it. It’ll be nice distraction from her hectic life. She chooses to ride a bike and, as she pedals, she can’t help but think about why she is here. She would have never wanted to return to this place yet, that childhood memory of being saved by……. Whoever Pennywise is……… holds her here.

The carnival is a grand time. She wins a stuffed clown. Carries it with her as she munches on a corndog and enjoys the sights. She is completely unaware of the violence being enacted on a young man not far away. Has no idea what she’s heading into as she leaves the carnival and heads down a dark street, pushing her bike along, the clown plush tucked into the basket of her bike, enjoying the night air. Doesn’t realize she’s on an intercepting course with the aggressors of this brutal act.

She hears them before she sees them. Once brutal beasts, now reduced to frightened children, they are running, shoving each other out of the way. Not far from splitting up to hide from their own implication. It is dark, and they are moving so fast, she has no time to react before the largest of them, a run down brutish male, knocks flat into her, causing her to flail the ground, the bike clattering atop her as he falls atop the bike. His weight causes the cold steel of the bike frame to bite into her flesh. The clown plush sails away and lands softly in the gutter. The other aggressors, not seeing their comrade fall, continue off.

“Get…… OFF…….. of me.” She gasps, pushing and clawing at him.

“HEY! FUCK YOU! YOU WERE IN MY WAY!” Her vision shatters into bright stars as his fist connects with her temple.

……………………………………………..

It moans with pleasure as It slurps the blood from It’s fingertips. As always, the salty sweet of human terror leaves It sated. Not fully satisfied. Never fully satisfied. But it dulls the aching hunger for some time.

Turning It’s slender hands, It uses the cleaner portions of It’s silken gloves to slowly wipe the gore from It’s lips and cheeks. Crouching there, near the sewer pipe, cleaning It’s face with It’s hands, the glowing orbs of It’s eyes flashing about and occasionally disappearing as It’s eyes close, It looks feral and cat like. It doesn’t need to do this, could easily will Itself clean, but It relishes in the wildness of this action. Of both dirtying and cleaning Itself. Enjoys the mockery of the actions of living things that this represents.

It crouches lower, leaning It’s weight onto It’s finger tips upon the ground, tilting It’s head, then becomes motionless. It’s pupils wander in opposite directions. The yellow light from a nearby street light reflects off of a thin line of saliva running from It’s drooping lower lip. It is listening.

It can hear a struggle, smell animal like fear. An inhuman fanged smile splits It’s face.

…………………………………………………

Ellie is still conscious, but almost wishes she isn’t. She registers the tickling warm sensation of liquid running from her nose. Blood. The vision of the male above her swims. The blurry figure pulls back his elbow, as if he intends to punch her again. She struggles to lift her face, her vision clearing, yet the weight of both man and bike crush the air from her lungs.

And suddenly, the weight is gone. The bike is still there, but the man is no longer upon it. His face is also no longer in her vision. She struggles up to support herself on one elbow.

When she sees where he’s gone, her entire body reacts. Freezes. Her eyes widen. Her mouth dries. It’s him! Her sewer angel!

The clown seems bigger than she remembers. And dirtier. The ruff around his neck is blood stained, as is the front of his suit and the orange poofs are sodden and limp from it. His chin and cheeks also have several obvious smears of blood upon them as well.

He’s holding the male by his neck by one hand, his glove appearing brown from dried blood. His fingers grasp so tightly that she can see the male’s flesh puckering around his fingers. He’s flailing and kicking, clawing uselessly at the silver clad arm. His actions make the strings of tiny bells here shimmer and tinkle. His face is turning purple, his tongue lolls out of his slack mouth. The whites of his eyes are visible as he gazes upon his aggressor in utter terror.

“Hello Webby.” The voice is just as she remembers as well, only he isn’t talking in the same sing song way. He’s gleefully snarling his words. Hungry.

“Whatcha runnin from?” The clown purses his lips playfully, his brows raising. He looks like an inquisitive painted child for the barest of moments before speaking again. “You afraid of a lil gay boy, Webby?” The clown makes a loud wet kissie face at the male before he throws his head back to roar laughter at the night sky.

Webby, or so Ellie now believes the male is called, chokes out, and reaches out a desperate hand to try to strike the face of the clown, but his arm doesn’t reach. The clown now stares at him mildly, before opening his mouth. Wide, wider. Webby makes bubbling noises, trying to scream, as the clown’s teeth lengthen and sharpen. His gums push past his lips, more teeth blossoming from the red flesh with wet popping sounds. He leans forward with comical slowness. He looks as if he’s about to bite directly onto the face of the man.

Ellie is in awe of him. He appears as some alien bipedal lion. She should be afraid. She SHOULD be. But she’s not. This Webby had HURT her. Had intended to hurt her even more. Yet here was her friend, rescuing her again. He was a lot dirtier and far more fearsome than she remembered. Vicious and terrifying and brutal. He is beautiful.

“Pennywise.” This is barely more than a whisper. She hasn’t even realized that she’s murmured it. But the clown freezes, his mouth splayed wide around Webby's face, a few of the longer teeth already puncturing his skin.

He slowly pulls his face away from the man’s, his gaping maw slowly retracting, before slinging it around to finally look at her. His lips are set in an irritated sneer, the rows of scalpel teeth still quite visible, his buck teeth apparent in the display, though longer and sharper. The dried blood on his chin is wet again from the deluge of saliva, which drizzles down onto his stained neck ruff. His eyes are a bloody red that she’s never seen before, and they glow like dirty neon.

Webby is still flailing miserably, still moving the clown’s bells in a desperate rhythm. Yet Pennywise doesn’t seem the least bit taxed from holding him suspended in one hand.

“You know ole Pennywise?” The tone of his voice is wicked and raspy and dark. His irises twitch and one drifts back to gaze at Webby as the other remains focused on Ellie. His nostrils flare and his head jerks. His mouth hangs slack and he’s making animal snuffing noises as he takes in her scent on the light breeze. Reads her thoughts.

Then his lips spread again, revealing impossible rows of teeth as he grins at her.

“Elliiiiiieeeeee.” It’s a low, drawn out hiss. Without moving the rest of his body, the clown tosses Webby carelessly away, both eyes now focused on her own eyes.

Webby splutters and struggles to stand.

“Better leave that light on in the hallway, Webby.” The clown’s eyes remain fixed on Ellie as he speaks. “I most certainly WILL be in your linen closet next time.” A low hiccuping growl leaks from his mouth. The most evil and quiet laughter ever imaginable. Webby’s face recoils in horror as he turns and runs soundlessly away.

Ellie is now completely alone with Pennywise for the first time in 27 years.

[pipesflowforeverandever]

Simply Second Nature

The lovely @ichaisme commissioned me to write a lyric fic about her and my Joey Drew interpretation, Gingie! The voice featured in the actual song is my voice canon for Gingie, and you can listen along here. 

Thank you so much for commissioning me! I’ve always had very vivid imagery for this song and it was wonderful to make it come to reality.

The young woman could hardly believe that she was standing here, upon the cusp of magnificence and unlimited opportunity for dreams to come true. Ginger Drew threw open his doors, and she- yes, somehow, she- had caught in the corner of his eye, captured his attention; but the visitor had no doubt that the magical one was the old redhead with a golden smile escorting her now by his side.

But still, arm in arm in a private tour of his studio, she couldn’t help but wonder…

“Sir…?” Maddie mumbled, eyes wide but stuck on his neat, polished shoes. The visitor refused speak until Gingie gave his hum, a hooded gaze flickering over and a touch down in a casual, waiting glance . She felt her breath hitch a moment, despite his casualness. “I- I was…wondering.” The last word was drawled as her chin tilted up, catching the essence of his work- the stray sketches, the rolls of film, the grinning cutouts- evidence of both his empire and of his more…personal creations.

“Why do you do all this, anyway…? Money?”

A brow underneath his top hat raised at the inquiry, and a flush burnt into her cheeks, immediately realizing that was perhaps the most impolite of first guesses. “No- Is it…to be famous?” Now, a higher pitch in the last question as she felt herself socially digging a hole. No, he didn’t respond to that either. Just the same curious look- although maybe she was missing precisely how amused he was beginning to be.

The ginger’s footsteps only gave a few more clicks along the wooden floorboards before he stopped in place, loosening his arm to fold it across his chest with the other. By now, her words were spoken with a grimace, a semi-desperate gaze for any sort of hint.

“…Fun?”

He was either the worst tease or most the dramatic planner as he remained silent in the room they happened to pause within. One shift of his stare gently fell upon the ticking Bendy clock hung high up above their heads, another, then, upon a projector quietly spurring in the corner as empty yellow film colored a square upon the wall. A final one, of course, fell upon her.

“You really don’t…see it, do you?”

The gal’s chestnut eyes softened as she finally noticed the sharpness of his own, glinting honey with a smile that reached at the way up to them. Something was about to happen, and she felt it shake in her bones even before it inexplicably, miraculously reached like a whisper in her ears, stealing her breath and raising the hairs on her neck. The first notes of a piano chimed low and sweet, but her twisting head couldn’t find the source. What she did see was the room- no, the whole world- turn white like a blank canvas.

A jump with a gasp as Mr. Drew reached to hold her wrist and wagged his finger, expression glinting in hardly contained enthusiasm. She had so much to learn.

“A painter needs no reason,” Gingie started to sing, “To make a thing of art! Yes, there’s no switch to stop and start the flow.” Having gotten her attention, the rosy hand in a ruffled sleeve gleefully let go, and a squint gestured for her to look as he stuck up his flexing thumb.

“A gardener has his season, his green thumb…and his heart!” He fluttered his fingers into a fist, shifting them like they were beating with his chest before uncurling to rhythmically, playfully pointing his index finger again. “Don’t ask a man, ‘Why does your garden grow’”

In imitation of such an ignorant person, the redheaded dandy shook his head before stepping away, coattails flapping. His movement was…ethereal.

Animated.

Maddie wondered if her stray hairs seemed to glow like his did against the heavenly pale backdrop.

“A poet sits for hours-” The woman lost her breath again as the man sang the next verse, running with an arm outstretched as she saw him trip-

…No!

It was on purpose, and with a shimmer of gold beneath him, he was seated with crossed legs upon a fluffy arm chair that could only have come from nowhere.

The mischievous old artist gave her a wink before looking away, as if performing for an audience.

“-With words upon his tongue.” A close of the eyes and a dramatic, slow shake of his head accompanied with a wide-armed shrug, feigning despondency. “He cannot help but rhyme his doom and gloom… But if you taste my flowers-!”

The woman gasped again, audibly this time, as his hands had spun masterfully in the air before something appeared in his grip like a baton, thrust right towards her face. Impossible! With a sheen of a papery yellow that glittered with the right tilt, he had materialized a flower with four petals and a perfectly round middle.

“You’ll see that I’m among- that…-”

It was then that she accepted Gingie was magical in more ways than one, as she hesitantly reached a trembling, awestricken hand to take what was offered… only for her body to lurch forward as he abruptly pulled it away to rub his chin and roll his eyes up in thought.

“…Certain group,” he decided, spoken as if he was trying out how each singular word sounded, “That…lucky troupe-” Petals tickling his nostrils, a look of someone so in love with his own mind went back to she who asked for a glimpse of it. As such, he drawled the next line for the grandiosity surely ahead. “For whom…it’s…-”

She saw his fingers gesture, and like paintbrushes were hidden in their tips, watercolors bled and stroked pastel red, blue, yellow across the white space with no clear idea how distant or close they were, or if it even mattered at all.

“Simply second nature, to wish away the grey…”

A lock of hair fell out of place as she jumped yet again, having stared so closely she didn’t notice Gingie was suddenly so distant, having painted himself the backdrop of his story. His wrist turned up, up, up, and suddenly there was a yellow trunk and leaves stained with the other two dyes.

“To make a licorice stick…and make a tree!” He gestured from floor to sky the entirety of his creation, proud of its wonder before curling his hand to his chest more pensively. “Yes, there’s no rhyme or reason.”

She blinked when that devilish grin turned her way again, the tips of his coattails held like a dress skirt and his knees bent in a courtesy.

“I was simply made this way!” And he nodded in such a way she couldn’t help but giggle. This being exactly what he was looking for, his eyes hooded and he straightened back up like a teacher in front of the class, seeking to share the wisdom of his years. “What’s strange to you is natural to me.”

But of course, it didn’t last, and soon he was sweeping across the space in front of her, a rainbow spotting the pale in the trail of his heels.

“It’s simply second nature! To paint outside the lines! It merely is the way that I was born!”

Fickle, the old man stopped yet again, a hand to his heart and a dreamy stare up to the heavens like he could see eternity waiting up ahead. “You see I’ve been selected,” the next words came much more tenderly, “To create the-” And his tongue was stuck again as he flicked his eyes to the other person in the room. She could feel him light up as something about her served as a proper reminder. “…Unexpected!”

The sound of clarinets hummed in tune, almost like they finally understood what he was saying. His gaze flicked to them, too, with a satisfied smirk towards a ceiling that wasn’t there.

“And make each day feel just like…- Christmas morn!”

Maddie heard a snap and suddenly to her left side was a portrait towering tall, realistic lips, nose, and eyes. Not a single strand of hair that didn’t look like it belonged hung over its forehead. It was so perfect, it didn’t take long for her to recognize it clearly as a painting.

“Picasso took a torso and turned it on it’s head!” She didn’t know whether to object or not as he bent to the ground to grab the ornate corner of the picture’s frame, but soon it was spun all the same.

It rotated so fast that it blurred, and when it finally stopped, body parts were shifted and the style was simplified into shapes. He really had made a Picasso!

At her amazed expression, he simply shrugged and inspected his creation. “It isn’t right or wrong; it’s what he felt!”

The instruments thumped like a man walking down stairs, and that was precisely what he seemed to be doing on air as the colors melted under her shoes- making her yelp- and swam to her left. There were clocks strung up and perfectly round, like the flower still flopping as it was tucked in his coat.

“And Dali, even more so, would positively DREAD!” The emphasized word was accompanied with both palms pressed to his chest as he feigned a heart attack, his heels tilting so far back they seemed to give way; even his hair seemed to stick out a bit more like he was electrified with shock. It was a shift that reverberated to the scene he had drawn, perhaps, as soon the edges of the clocks became less and less solid to the point they were dripping like ink.

“-Explaining why his hands of time should melt…!” Another twirl in the melody and like eggs cooked in the sun, the time ran runny and flopped over the surfaces they were laid.

Why did she keep losing her breath for the man that saw so much in her, saw himself in her, even? It happened again as a hand was placed on her shoulder and another pressed fingertips underneath her chin. She had asked him why he did what he did, and was yet continually surprised? This was his canvas, and she his apprentice. With all of his focus on making her feel as he did, he removed the touch from her face and plucked the flower from his coat. So close, it was undoubtedly not any ordinary blossom; it was a cartoon, not unlike the ones he made- like…he had drawn it himself, and now it simply existed.

Just like that.

And if she had looked, she would have been able to see more popping up one by one to place her in a whole field. If she had looked, she could see something not a color collecting around him like an aura. But she didn’t look, because that one flower and the unspoken reminiscence hidden upon a face so close was already so much to try to understand.

“And me, I take sweet honey and make a tasteful rose! What can I say? It’s simply what I do.”

The flower was finally hers to take, but his unbroken attention was short lived as the brim of his hat turned wistfully with a wind seen in the petals but not felt.

“Some men make pots of money… They're happy I suppose. But-”

He had walked a bit away to follow whatever he was looking for. Despite how certain she was that he didn’t do this for any financial benefit- although by all appearances he wasn’t without that sort of success either- he still seemed…distant.

Perhaps he himself didn’t even know why he did what he did, deep down.

“…Be grateful that for just a lucky few…its...”

The young woman and the old man knelt down together, pastels brushing at the cloth covering their knees. There were crimson little ladybugs and pollen-yellow bumblebees streaked across grass like sidewalk chalk. And as he offered his knuckles for a small, sapphire butterfly, she finally saw the black ink collecting in flecks on his skin and in the air about him.

“Simply second nature…to see what isn't there…the mind is such a wonder to explore…”

With concern brewing in her chest till it made her stomach hurt and a mouth open but unwilling to interrupt, her gaze trailed up his arm and realized he either saw something she couldn’t or that the growing black he seemed to manifest had begun to blind him from everything else.

“…And though some nights I dread-” She heard him choke, and his golden eyes widened in a flash, exactly as if he could feel how abruptly heavy these shadows had fallen on his shoulders like a halo of something secret, something wicked.

It could only hurt, and the labor of carrying the weight of darkness made him breathless instead, this time around.

“All the voices…” his labored voice managed to utter, “…In my head…-”

With a deep inhale and her supportive grip on his shoulder, he squeezed his eyes shut and his rainbow emanated again little by little with each and every word, stronger and braver in the face of what terrified him most.

“I’d rather be this way than be a bore...!”

Her hand held tight within his, they both stood up and took bold steps forward, the black fleeing him and swirling all around, its path mixing with the speckles of brightness like drops of paint from two different brushes held just above the paper. His free hand rose to in challenge and command to the onyx ink, and his voice was the loudest she had ever heard.

“It’s simply second nature!” Gingie shouted, “To dream of something new!”

He stopped his foot, the flowers beneath and around making a wave like throwing a rock in a puddle. They grew taller, their leaves and petals upturned, wild and overgrown in the face of uncertainty. He balled his fist like he was choking the malevolence he created.

“To wake on fire and try to sculpt each day!”

He threw his hand to his side.

“It’s no blessing- it’s a CURSE!”

And in his own passion, the crusade to convince himself so easily gave power to his own evils once again. The world itself stopped, and for a second Maddie believed she was the only thing moving in this living piece of art. In a split second it was all different; he had let go of her to bend over and hold both hands to his head, reaching into his hair and hiding his face as the ink stain grew and coated absolutely everything with its murk. The only flower left to be seen was between her fingertips.

…

Her chest rising and falling in silent panic, no music to tell her he was still alive, she was just about to try and shake him when she caught a glimpse of his honey irises once again, glimmering his magic as he recognized his curse.

“Wait…” Gingie hardly mumbled. His hand quivered as like this void before him was a person, he reached his hand out to the nothingness of his design that had consumed him. “No…!”

And as the darkness shrunk an inch at a time in response, its center right ahead, something else was created. A white gloved hand with smooth, thick black lines hesitantly twitched in tandem with his own.

But of course.

They were one in the same.

And so as Gingie pulled Bendy out of the puddle of ink, he soothed the devil, singing, “Strike that, and reverse.”

The cartoon was just like a small child, pie-cut eyes wide and innocent, unknowing what chaos he was born from, untainted by the very thing that could- and did- manifest a demon. He gave a blink to Maddie as the rest of the dark fog faded away, the aura about Gingie now being the proper red, yellow, blue he had always wanted others to find; they faded in and out like fairy dust, and she wasn’t sure if the pupils of Mr. Drew’s eyes symbolized something alongside their rings of magic- a circle of warmth around an abyss.

She stared for so long…that she didn’t see him staring back. His lips were slightly apart, and the expression he held was weary.

But…but…

The laugh lines that earned their scars bent again, and Gingie allowed her one last genuine grin as he reached into his soul and brought her a confession:

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

And with tears in his eyes, he held Bendy towards him with one hand and the woman with the other. She remembered the small gift between her fingers and offered it, in turn, to demon, and he gave her a perfect, eight-toothed smile.

The reason he created was, perhaps, in hopes to give away. It was no coincidence, after all, that it was she of all people he chose to take by the hand. She was a creator, too, and so it was time to pass the pencil before his hands couldn’t hold it anymore; Bendy would always need an artist, after all.

He would always need to know he passed his legacy on. And before the end of the day, Maddie would know this, too.

[xsvervn]

𝕯𝔬𝔩𝔩 𝔓𝔞𝔯𝔱𝔰 || 𝕾𝔢𝔩𝔣-𝔓𝔞𝔯𝔞

ａｓ ｐｅｒ ｕｓｕａｌ， ｈｅａｖｉｌｙ ｔｗ’ｄ ｂｅｃａｕｓｅ ｔｈｉｓ ｉｓ ｓａｅｒａｎ ａｎｄ ｉ ｃａｎｔ ｗｒｉｔｅ ｓｈｉｔ ｗｉｔｈｏｕｔ ｔｈｅｍ ｂｅｉｎｇ ｅｄｇｙ ａｓ ｈｅｌｌ ａｎｄ ｎｅｅｄｉｎｇ ａ ｍｉｌｌｉｏｎ ｔｗｓ． Ｋｅｅｐ ａｎ ｅｙｅ ｏｕｔ ｆｏｒ ｌｏｔｓ ｏｆ ｍｅｎｔｉｏｎｓ ｏｆ ｖｉｏｌｅｎｃｅ， ｂｏｄｉｌｙ ｉｎｊｕｒｙ， ｂｌｏｏｄ， ｇｒａｐｈｉｃ ｓｈｉｔ ｔｈａｔ ｖａｍｐｉｒｅｓ ｄｏ． Ｔｈａｔ ＳＯＲＴ ＯＦ ＴＨＩＮＧg

it’s also morbid as shit. sorry. 

Saeran didn’t remember how they got here. 

They didn’t understand the disoriented nature of the moment they were experiencing. 

One moment they had slid out the doors of HQ, a mask pulled snuggly over their exhausted features, curling dark locks hidden away beneath a hood despite the heat that had taken over the city. This was the norm for this young vampire, however. 

In their food-deprived state, their skin felt almost papery, blistering easily under the suns rays. 

Saeran was trying their hardest to do better, to not hurt anyone else. It was bad enough that Hoseok would need to vouch for their character, that Titan would have to put himself in an unsafe position to keep them out of trouble. Everyone was sticking their neck out for Saeran, and all they were doing was hiding-- that had been what was asked of them, though. To keep their head down, to lay low and not make any trouble. But they’d repaid that by sinking their teeth into the throat of another. 

They’d ended up here once again. 

Hands stained red, breathing hard as they sat beneath a tree, the sun setting behind them as the mask had been tossed away, head rested back against the trunk, and facing away from the body that they’d nearly torn to pieces in their desperation. 

Saeran had tried their hardest to keep to themselves. 

The plan had been to go to Titan. He had offered, after all, to let Saeran bite him if they really, really needed it. And though they did tend to have a rule about biting friends (was that even what Titan was to them?) this seemed to be the only way that they would get what they needed. 

Ange had seemed really serious in the group text, that was for sure. Saeran knew that they tended to exist on thin ice with their boss, especially when their attitude was the way it had been lately. The last thing they needed was to say something stupid and lose their spot. 

That’d already happened once. 

Saeran had never really made it to Titan, though. 

At some point they figured that nature had won out overall, leaving Saeran in the situation they were in presently. 

They had tried to wipe the evidence away on the black sweat pants, but that just served to leave dirt stuck in the red-stained trails. 

When would they ever be able to control this? 

They didn’t think so. There had been mention of eating animals, but memories of the cat they’d eaten that one time all those months ago seemed to be the only thing they could think of when the suggestion came to mind. That cat reminded them of Salem. 

They wondered if she was doing okay. Saeran had never been far away from their pet-- much like Hoseok, that was family. 

What if she forgot them? 

Thin fingers trembled as they typed out a message to Titan, panicked in nature but on the surface, they were so far removed from the situation that they looked as if they’d turned to stone. Colour had returned, the bruising had subsided. 

Their jaw was turned up, eyes fluttering closed. 

The stench of death was strong, though. It was making them sick. What were they supposed to do with this person? 

Murder wasn’t something that they weren’t used to, but they had tried to do better. They had tried to control themselves. 

No matter how much Saeran had tried to convince themselves that they were or were not supposed to be a member of the syndicate, the more they ended up running themselves into these tight circles. 

What the fuck where they supposed to do? 

Did they turn over a new leaf? Did they remain the same? Did they turn themselves in? This was the same shit every single time and no matter what they landed on, Saeran was still stuck. Frozen. 

Right then, it seemed, they just wanted a bath. To have someone wrap their arms around Saeran. To make them feel safe, if only for a moment. Because reality constantly set in. They never had a break from it. 

At twenty they knew that sadness wasn’t an excuse, that their depression did not absolve them. And vampire nature seemed to be an extension. They needed to find a resolve. At first they had believed that starvation had been the answer-- to eat as little and infrequently as possible-- but now they were realizing that that voice, the same one that nagged at them through their relationship with Hannibal, the same one that had bossed them around the first few months of their new life, had been the one that had taken over for those few moments that they had relished in ending another person's life. 

Saeran had killed another person, and there wasn’t anyone or anything that they could blame it on but themselves. 

“Fuck,” They mumbled, face pressing into their palms. “I’m sorry.” They spoke to the girl they’d killed. “And I know that’s not going to do anything, not for you anyway, but I’m going to… fix this. Me. Because All of this is really fucking empty cause… I can’t… bring back what’s dead. But You’re the last one, alright?” They mumbled. 

Of all the things that would haunt them in their life, they knew that this moment would be one of them. 

At sixteen they had taken responsibility for the drunk driving incident that had killed their boyfriend and since then it seemed that they settled blame on narrow shoulders time and time again. 

Blame for things that they hadn’t done or had no control over. And then didn’t take accountability for the things that mattered. But…

Saeran was going to change. 

An empty promise to a dead girl had to be more than that.

[dontcallmejoel]

Flash grenade and sucker punch aside, Jesse’s done well for himself.two down immediately, though non-lethally so more like out for the count for a minute, and three more on his tail. Their rifles were useless at close quarters so he kept them close, weaving and jabbing, every now and then tossing a flashbang in the fray and hiding behind one of the goons’ armored backs just in time to miss it. His ears haven’t stopped ringing since the first goon dropped her cover in his poker game, but he was fine with that. He spent a lifetime training to fight under all means of influences, after all.

They wear black kevlar. The spur of Peacekeeper tore through one layer just enough to reveal glinting steel plates under that. No patches to indicate name, nothing to suggest a department or accountability. Jesse’s no fool, he knows an extraction when he sees one. One of the men, the larger of the two remaining, sways once, his mouth clenched in determination, charges, too slow, too clumsy. He goes down with butt of Jesse’s gun. The remaing two, a man and woman, eyes him, the man panting, the woman red-faced in murderous, when all three still standing tense.

Someone’s clapping.

An Omnic steps into the doorway, a hair thinner than the standard model, an aesthetic choice that required expensive custom work and made them look like needle of a man. Their face is custom, too, the head chiseled just below the eye slits to form a proud cheek ridge, the chin sharp and temple sleek.

“McCree.” It states, voice treated with a slight reverb that makes Jesse think of the dying note of a pair of brass cymbals. 

Blood thrums under his skin, hot and alive even where it’s sticky and trickling from his nose and from the graze wound on his bicep, coursing through his seasoned and worn body like new life in the desert. He grins, the thick blood on his lips stretching with protest, not quite dry enough to crack.

Well would you look at that? He’s been found out.

Good.

~~~

He can’t remember if it was his grandmother that originally told him the story, just that she was ancient and had survived famine and war and had only one setting: there was always work to be done. He thinks maybe they shared blood, he has a few clear memories of times she’d lock eyes with him, and while he was a round-faced child and she was wind-browned and papery with age, their brown eyes reflected one another. But then, everyone around had brown eyes. And dark hair. And tan skin.

Even so, she’d put him to work helping the older kids with more complicated chores from the moment he could walk, but she’d also control when they stopped working, be it to eat or sleep, or, on special occasion, to talk the younger ones to sleep. Stories about animals, mostly, about Coyote who stole the sun, or Owl who muttered of things no one wanted to know, or the Lizard with his back to the sun, and Jackrabbit with his many children and tireless foraging.

And he could’ve sworn, while rocking one of his many infant cousins to sleep, that one day, she told him this story, only only told it to him.

Towards the beginning, the creatures of the earth took time to form. Some choose size, like Boar and Desert Cat, other made themselves small and easy to miss, like Mouse and Grasshopper. A few chose the air, and others fought over whether best way to roam the earth was with claws biting into the dirt or hooves to flatten it smooth. Fox, however, chose to walk among them, observing each without deciding himself, so he remained medium sized. Without knowing it, his weaving in and out of the debates of the others made him long and sleek. And when it was almost time for him to solidify his own form, he caught himself admiring Desert Cat, who had chosen definitively the shape of sharp teeth and claws. So Fox tried on sharp teeth, and tried to take up claws, but since he waited so long his teeth were smaller and his claws grew but never sharpened to a point.

A few days after the beginning, Mother walked among the animals with a basket of additional gifts. She gave the Desert Cat Power, Mouse Meekness, Rabbit Speed, and so on until the basket lightened, then emptied. Fox had chosen to wait at the end of the line and observe her give each gift, memorizing each gift, and almost missed that he wasn’t to receive a gift for this choice.

“I’m Sorry, Fox,” Mother said, when she realized her basket was empty.

“It’s okay, Mother,” Fox replied, “Because I know each gift you gave came with a curse. I may never receive a gift, but I’ll never bear a curse, either.”

Mother is great, but she is also terrible, and while she knew she had slighted Fox first, he wounded her with his truthtelling. So Mother reached up to her own head, and plucked a hair, then tied it around Fox’s neck. “For you, I give the gift of cunning.”

And the other animals watched on with jealousy and pity and awe, because Fox had, as he would from then onward, tricked his way into something from seemingly nothing, receiving perhaps the greatest gift of all the creatures. But he also invited the greatest curse, some of the more intelligent animals noted, because though cunning may be a great tool, its curse was curiosity, perhaps the most deadly curse of all.

~~~

Jesse had observed the Omnic for too long, and the woman had recovered and swung her rifle butt down on his knee, the explosive pain driving him to the ground. Hus arms come up, palms out, still grinning, still watching the omnic, even as the woman’s rifle barrel twitches against his temple in her adrenaline shaky grasp.

The omnic continues to walk into the room, but allows their attention to wander around the room, to the damage Jesse’s bar brawl caused. Where it human, perhaps Jesse would be able to follow the path of it’s irises as they traced the turned over tables and chairs, the bullet scars in the wall and the broken glass and splinters. But it’s not, and ll Jesse can see is a flat metal face, scanning the room with a wide sensor. The omnic pauses when it reaches an unconscious goon. For a moment, Jesse thinks they’re gonna nudge the man with their metal-capped foot. It doesn’t, though, just speaks up in their chiming, reverberating voice.

“Reyes always spoke highly of you. Pity he never mentioned how much you liked to make a mess of things.”

Ah. There it is. One of the few names that cut into Jesse’s chest and struck the cold iron splinter where his heart was. Pity, Jesse thinks, as the high and warmth retracts and his focus on the room becomes absolute. The side of his mind that reminds him he’s human is dangerously quiet in this new sharpened perspective. The woman’s breathing to his left hasn’t improved. He must’ve cracked her rib. To his right, the man lifts his rifle, but the motion is stuttered. injured gun arm.

“Means he didn’t like you much,” Jesse replies cheerfully. “He only gave warning labels to people he liked.”

“Is that why you’re here?” The omnic asks, matter of fact.

“You lost me, partner.”

The omnic meets his eyes now, head turned so the point of their chin is accentuated as they looks down their faceplate at Jesse. “Did Reaper send you?”

Jesse’s hands drop, his flesh hand slapping his thigh as he laughs, belly-deep. The woman and the man on either side flinch so hard their barrels nudge his temple. Jesse doesn’t care, though, his laughter echoing off the empty walls while his captors grow ever tenser. “Oh, buddy. Reaper don’t even return my calls. Can’t imagine him sending me orders on some podunk kingpin wannabe.” Laughter dies as soon as it started, eyes sharp on his mark. “Can you?”

~~~

Cunning and curiosity, a chaotic pair in the best of times. Fox goes off on many adventures, observing many great moments, adjusting each in his own spectacular fashion. He creates as many adventures as he disturbs, forming new rules as he shatters old.

After one such adventure, during which he convinces Desert Cat he caused the flood rain by killing a spider, Fox find himself running for his life once his old friend realizes the deception, cackling all the way. Owl follows him by air, until Fox tires and find a hiding place to rest.

“Desert Cat was your friend,” Owl says from where she’s perched on an old saguaro. Her gift from the Mother was Wisdom, and she more than anyone could read Fox’s deceptive patterns.

Fox rests his head on his tail, curled tight against the chill of a wet afternoon, his eyes glowing dimly in the darkness of his enclosure. “He still is. But his gift is Power, and that breeds arrogance. Humility is needed to keep him sane. Besides, what he did to the Rabbits required vengeance.”

Owl is quiet for a long time. “So you used your cunning for the good of others, “ she says, skeptical.

Fox grins. “I always try to.”

Owl is solemn, eyes flat and unseeing, voice weighted with the unseen. “And when you must be cunning, but for the good of no one?”

The curse of Wisdom is Prescience. But just as Owl could understand Fox’s cunning better than anyone, Fox could adopt and adapt to Owl’s forebodence. He licks his lips, and grins again. “Then I will use my gift anyway,” he says, simply, accepting what disaster he may cause as easily as he did the good, “And hope for the best.”

~~~

Omnics can’t narrow their eye slits, especially not if their face is frozen by design for effect. Jesse almost wishes they could, just so he could confirm that he got to the bastard. The Omnic says nothing. Just turns and exits the room, hand clasped behind his back, the epitome of a silent order to kill him if Jesse ever saw one.

Problem one: the man’s gun hand is broken and his wrist ligament overstrained. In his heavy tactical gloves, he can’t feel a fucking trigger much less squeeze one.

Problem two: the magazine on these particular rifles holds fifteen rounds. The woman to his right hasn’t been counting, but Jesse has been.

She pulls the trigger, and gets an empty click. Jesse’s grin never falters, and he dips back, flexing back until he’s out of range of both barrels. Lt. Slow and Injured finally manages to squeeze his trigger and fires, right into the barrel of his only standing teammate’s gun. Shrapnel flashes, and Jesse feels the telltale burn across one cheek, the resulting sound and burst of ricochet enough to throw both aims off. Jesse’s off his knees in an instant, Firing once at the woman, dropping her in a spray of blood from just under her helmet, then the man, who has the time and the audacity to shout NO, nostrils flared, eyes pinpricks, just before his brain matter, too, paints the wall behind him.

~~~

Man barrels into the order of things like, well, Fox, but worse. All of a sudden there’s a new order of Hunter and no one is safe. Not Desert Cat. Not anyone, not even Fox.

In fact, one day, Fox is pacing back and forth, trying his cunning on all sorts of things just to get his paw free from Man’s trap. Off to the side, Desert Cat watches, his tail flicking in both amusement and concern.

“You must be embarrassed,” Desert Cat practically purrs.

Fox stops his pacing, calming his own racing heart enough to feign a calm sitting pose. “Not at all. Man is more cunning, in this instance.”

Desert Cat’s tail stops flicking. His ears draw back. “Don’t say that.”

“It’s true.”

“No.” Desert Cat is practically spitting. “You’ve been given Cunning! Use it! Use it like you always do!”

Fox knows he’s no catch to Man. He has no meat to him, and his fur is hardly enough to decorate a Man’s child’s regalia, much less a tassel for a full grown Man. But Desert Cat? His pelt would decorate the best of Man’s clothing, his sharp claws and teeth a mark of honor among them. So Fox grins. “Oh I will. But I think I need Boar. Go and find him for me?”

They both know Boar, the Original Boar and none of his dumb children, is three days travel from here. And while Desert Cat could never compete in Fox’s Cunning, he was not stupid. They stare at one another for a long while, then Desert Cat blinks. Once. Twice. Thrice, a long, held blink. “Very well.”

Desert Cat leaves Fox, hesitant at first, then, as his commitment solidifies to this choice, faster as powerful muscles work him into a full gallop away.

Fox watches until he’s far enough, a speck in the distance, then turns his calculating gaze down to the paw trapped.

Wingbeats overhead, soft, a predator’s wing beats. Owl.

To be Cunning, but to the good of no one.

Fox bares his teeth at the trapped paw. “You are Man’s, now.”

He tells his own paw, and in the fashion of the wild, strikes at it with his own needle-sharp teeth.

~~~

Two bullets of Peacekeeper’s six used on the two standing goons back in the old bar.

One to graze the suit of the omnic walking off into his fancy car, said zinger ultimately burying itself in a starburst hole in the gold-plated door of the omnic’s expensive car door. Bullet four flies next, barely waiting for the omnic to turn and look at him, but also burying itself in the gold plate of the car, just in sight of the omnic’s gaze as they turn. Their eyes glow red under the slit of their faceplate once their meet his eyes.

“You can tell Reyes I-”

Jesse shoots to kill, based on where he judged the  main processor to be located. He’s close, the omnic almost flickers out entirely, clutching at the bullet wound to their chest. The reverb in their voice shakes even more. “Tell Reyes-”

Jesse shoots again, then immediately goes to reload, watching the second flicker in and out and in and out, so close to fatal for this being. He loads a single bullet. The omnic lets out a noise like aggravated radio static, almost like clearing a throat, then their eyes glow bright, one last time. “Tell Reyes I never agreed to his terms.”

Jesse freezes. The omnic’s eyes flicker. Once. twice. Then go dark, the chassis falling, vacant, to the ground.

~~~

When their gifts are new, Fox approaches Desert Cat with open admiration. Desert Cat’s pride is enough that he accepts the awe of the creature blessed with Mother’s personal gift.

Power’s curse is Arrogance, but among the gift she gave them, Mother did not mention one thing: they were all more complicated than the Gift, more complicated than their Gift’s Curse, because they all, ultimately, existed with choices before the Gift, and would continue to exist after.

So it wasn’t out of Power, or Arrogance, that Desert Cat lay on his back, belly to the stars, mimicking the pose his friend Fox used to a tee, that he says, “I’m not dumb, Fox. You were Gifted with Cunning, but none of us were Cursed with gullibility.”

Fox snuffles a bit, trying to lose himself in the dichotomy of Moonlight on his belly fur and the cool earth on his thicker back fur. But Desert Cat’s word was important to him, so he draws himself together and replies, “Of course not, great Desert Cat.”

Desert Cat growls to hide his preening at such a statement. “We know your nature, then, fiend. Who could trust you, ever?”

Fox stops his snuffling, listening to Desert Cat intently before side-eying him. Eyes meet, both their bellies to the full moon.

Fox says, “I admire your honesty. So accept this: I will use my cunning honestly. Fear only my cunning if you are dishonest. I can make that promise.”

Desert Cat rolls off his back, approaching, eye contact never wavering. “Promise it.”

Fox remains on his belly, but doesn’t blink once at the eye contact.

“I promise.

~~~

Jesse lights a cigarillo. Blood has caked and scabbed by this point, his lips cracking under the stretch, his arm achey and painful t flex where the scab dried.

His lead might’ve been a plant. Might’ve been one of Reaper’s plants, an unofficial invite for Jesse to wipe out one of Reaper’s problems.

Jesse lifts the cigarillo to his lips, and recounts the crimes in the area that were related to the dead omnic’s particular ring.

Jesse can’t bring himself to care.

The bourbon in his flask helps.

All just another day in the life of the Bounty Hunter, Jesse McCree.

[blackpaladindown]

BlackPaladinWeek: Day 2 Original/Divergent

Okay so I’ve given up trying to follow these with the days because of who I am as a person. Inexcusable.

For the ‘Original’ aspect of this prompt I wanted to stick to the original Shirogane Takashi death in GoLion with the Divergent being a couple darker elements because I figured why the heckles not?

Also can someone remind me that ‘Whump’ does not mean ‘Kill on sight’ Because all of these are killing this poor man. Lack of foresight on my part I guess.

Pretty sure this was not how @blackpaladinweek intended this week to go. But this isn’t a fluff blog so buckle up buckaroos!

Dude, my brain’s gonna melt.”

Keith, who was being surprisingly patient for guarding their exit while Lance and Shiro scoured the Galra ship, clicked in low and quiet. He was sneaking; “What is it? Did you guys find anything?

Anything. Anything would have been better than this. All brain power was set to figuring out what the fuck they were looking at, so he turned on the camera feature in his helmet and plugged the feed to the other paladins and the castle. “What the fuck is that?!”

“Language, Pidge,” he scorned dryly, stepping in to get a better look. “You got my back, Lance?”

“Copy.”

The ‘that’ was a tall, gangly looking… mess. Like someone took all the worst parts from all the ugliest animals and monster mashed them together with chewing gum and baked it. Legs like a swamp monster from Scooby-Doo, a bear-esque body, winged arms like a pterodactyl, scales everywhere that wasn’t covered in fur. The face… “That’s a human face,” Pidge noted cautiously.

Shiro had a sick feeling like she shouldn’t be seeing this-- hell no one should be seeing this! The closer he got the more Shiro trembled and quaked, his breathing feeding back to him deafeningly through the comms. It wasn’t just a face… “That’s my face.”

It was hard to see at first-- no one would be mistaking this guy for the real Shiro at least-- but the almond-shaped eyes, the shape of his jaw, even the slightly crooked eyetooth. It was him. At least in the way that your reflection is you. “Shiro… you okay, man?”

“We have to take him with us.”

Lance whirled on him with bulging eyes and his jaw dragging on the floor. “Um, yeah, are you insane? This is exactly what we came here for-- it’s a robeast, Shiro.”

Whatever Lance was prattling on about Shiro didn’t hear nor did he particularly care; he was too busy looking around for a lever or a button or even an ‘eject evil experiment’ option. “Exactly why we’re taking him with us. Who knows what plans the Galra have for him--”

A thousand voices at once flooded over the comms. Unsurprisingly, in the face of uncertainty and scary-scaley things, Hunk’s voice drowned the others’; “What if it’s dangero--”

“I’ll ready an extraction,” Keith cut in, a bit louder.”

“... would we even put it?!”

There wasn’t time to explain and there weren’t any words to justify his thoughts, or at least not in a way that made him sound like a psycho. All he knew was that this was a part of him-- it was him-- and he was going to be the hero he needed not a year ago. “It’s a robeast, Shiro, we can’t trust it on the ship. It’s probably got a tracker in it and everything!”

“No!” Shiro snapped, “He’s alive and I’m not leaving him behind. Lance watch the door.”

In the presence of occupied radio silence the comms beeped; they were all watching him figure this out on his own. Fine. “Found it.” Bringing his fist down on the Galran eject button he yelped and nearly crawled out of his skin at the chain of blaring alarms shooting off. But they were all drowned out when the pod began to open, wires and tubes disengaging with a hiss of steam as they flopped limply against slick furry-scaley skin. “Keith is that extraction ready?”

“I’m right over your location.”

“Okay man,” Lance began as the creature began to slump, Shiro already reaching up to catch it in his arms. “How are we gonna get him ont--”

The creature landed in his arms just as Lance’s screams ripped open the speaker in his helmet and he twisted them both awkwardly to search for Lance over broad leathery wings and a limp and lifeless body. Lance was on the ground and writhing and kicking under a blanket of bright pink wire hatching that sparked off over his armour and singed into the exposed skin of his cheek. A net?!

“I see you’ve been admiring my work, Champion.” Haggar. Lance’s screams broke off into shrill agonized cries when the mask of his helmet dropped and severed its contact with his skin; she yanked on the net and his kicking tangled body slid across the floor. “A conglomerate of only the greatest gladiators from the pit; a perfectly engineered fighter with a familiar face.”

“Why,” he breathed miserably. No. This was Haggar, she didn’t need a reason and he didn’t need her twisted answer. He activated his given hand and tossed the dead creature to the side, coiling back to break for the witch, namely the net dragging Lance closer and closer to hell. Any noise from the other paladins (as well as Lance’s filtered screams) were drowned out by the torrent of blood rushing through his ears. She wanted a champion? Well he hadn’t lost a battle yet.

Haggar had a way of turning men into monsters, Shiro knew this long before she started creating her demented robeasts.

His hand sliced through the net like it had never even existed and Lance flopped limp with a quiet groan. Haggar wouldn’t get a second chance at the Blue Paladin if it killed him; he made that very clear as he stood over him, an unyielding wall. “Lance… Lance get up.”

With a bit of hard nudging Lance eventually pushed up to his hands and knees, crawling back to the door closest to their exit.

Evil lunged, her and her hideous monster’s smile closing in on him and with it came the familiar feeling of caging, of being backed against a wall. “Stay away!” Gathering his balance he threw himself forward, hand clawing through piss-yellow soulless eyes and missing sorely in a ripple-- a flicker that had him seeing double.

Double didn’t go away. It split again and again and again…

Behind him Lance squawked and five more were creeping in from behind. “Team! Lance’s hurt and we’re surrounded--”

“I’m on my way!” Hunk replied.

“No one’s saving you this time, Champion. Not while you stand in the way of the Galra.” Behind him is the distinct sound of paladin armour on Galran steel; it’s a very distinct sound that they’ve all had plenty of experience with. Even more recognizable is Lance’s small pained whimper, quiet and tinny under the hoard of transmissions between five very frantic and equally pissed off Voltron fighters.

Something in him snapped. Animalistic and raging as he lunged for the set of hands digging into blue armour. Papery flesh and thin bone disappear like he’d passed an eraser over a chalkboard. An apparition. He lunges for the next closest, then the next closest, and the next. She’s in here somewhere and he was going to melt that grin off her face.

When he thought he’d found the right witch he lunged with everything he had, no fear for the sparking purple magic jumping off the tips of her fingers that once had him crawling to the back of his cell. But when he swiped it didn’t connect.

Instead of a splash of blood his face was flushed with light unimaginably bright; the kind of bright that shamed the suns he’d been stupid enough to look directly at. Spots bled out over his vision and he stumbled back with splitting shriek. The backs of his eyes throbbed with the threat of literally exploding in his skull, and when he blinked he saw nothing but blazing white-- pain white. “Shiro! Shiro what happened?!”

It’s Keith, scared shitless and panting hard-- the sound a thousand times raspier than he’d ever heard it before.

“Wha--no! NO! Let me go you fucking freak!”

Without sight half of his world was gone, so when he whirled and threw himself at Lance there really was no game plan aside from ���human shield’ and ‘slow them down.’ Keith and Hunk were coming for them. He could hold on.

Whatever had Lance let go and they both toppled over onto the ground in a heap of limbs.

The presence that loomed over him, that snatched him by the throat and lifted him clear off the ground, was not Haggar by any stretch of the imagination. Skin tight and leathery smoothed over his jaw. Fur tickled his chin for the briefest moment before he was airborne and crashing into the ground with his shoulder taking the full brunt of his weight with a sickening crunch. “Look how you’ve gone soft,” Haggar cackled over quiet piggish squeals.

“Shiro… oh my god, man…” Lance breathed, hard and fast and so *so* very scared. Shiro was used to fear in the younger paladins, but this was a new level of scared from Lance. More disturbed. “Not… not a robeast!”

“Lance! Lance I’m coming!” Keith. Keith was coming.

“You’re a fatal weakness,” Death speaks, hovering at his side with a smaller, spindly thin hand splayed over the back of his helmet. “I’m doing you a favour.”

He shakes off her hand to rise but something excessively like a club cracks over the exposed part of his mid-back where the paladin armour doesn’t quite reach. Everything above his belt ripped up in electric fire and his legs shut off.

Screams ripped out his chest, shocked and overwhelming and in the wake of a pain that shadowed losing a hand. His cries echoed in hideous melody with the creature’s as it clambers over his stunned body.

“How fitting that the new Champion overthrow his predecessor. A true Galra soldier.”

The comms had gone quiet, beeping with the occupied silence. It’s Lance who broke the devouring emptiness; “...Shiro?”

“Don’t be scared,” he gasped back, tugging his head free when his helmet was pulled off. Before Lance could scream he was blacking out to the sound of his neck crunching under a devastating blow.

At least he didn’t have to look himself in the eye this time.