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whumpqin · 5 years ago

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Perfect the Way You Are

Next official chapter installment! This one was a little more difficult to write than I thought, but I pushed through and wrote it. This one’s kind of rough, heed the warnings!

Elisha tag! @faewhump @imagination1reality0

CW: Pet whump, creepy/intimate whumper, noncon touching (non sexual), dehumanization, knifes, torture used as punishment, fantasy racism, victim blaming, mentions of abduction, mentions of broken bones, lotta icky language in here by the whumper

Word count: 2,243

The knife slid into his stomach, cool metal biting against his warm, inflamed skin. Elisha keened, swallowing thickly against the scream that threatened the escape from his lungs.

“You’re perfect, you know that?” the devil’s voice whispered above him. A constant reminder of the hell he was in. “Jeremiah was right about one thing, you do take pain well. You take everything so damn well. Sometimes I wonder what goes on in that fiery head of yours that makes you so reserved.”

“Pl-please… it, it hurts��” A hand was placed on the side of his face, smearing his own blood against him.

“Shh, I know, pet.” Aridai pulled the blade out, finally letting him breathe without worry of further injury. That’s what they had told him to do, breathe. “It’s supposed to hurt. Now… recite your rules for me while I work on this next bit.”

This was the worst day of his life.

He hadn’t expected it to get any better, of course. They had abducted him. People who do that generally don’t have good intentions. But, for the most part, they left him alone in the dark to either starve or go crazy from the lack of human interaction and stimulus.

Today, Aridai clearly had other intentions. They had wanted a “de-stress” session, and after Elisha had affirmed his false name and his new rules they had gotten right to work cutting off of his shirt and sinking that knife into wherever they felt necessary. Even with the permission to use his voice, no amount of begging aided him against Aridai’s cruelty. Everything went unheard and there was no mercy granted.

“O-one. My, my Masters should, hnnk! Should always be ah, ad-addressed as Ma-Master..!” Elisha’s voice cut off in a shrill cry, unable to keep quiet any longer as Aridai’s knife dipped into his skin again. Terrified tears slipped from the corners of his eyes freely.

Elisha was humiliated at first when he was exposed. Embarrassed that someone else saw his thin frame besides the plants that sat next to his mirror back home. He had always been a private person, and this was just a violation of the boundaries he had put in place for a reason.

It was clear that Aridai had no boundaries. None besides the rules they set for everyone but themselves; a free spirit that rose above the masses of normal folk.

“Good boy. You’re being so good for me,” they said, pleasantly smiling as if Elisha couldn’t see the metaphorical horns peeking from underneath their cardboard halo. “Keep going, Caleb.”

Two, hnk!” He squeezed his eyes shut as a long draw of the knife cut across his chest, continuing the pattern that only Aridai could see the product of. Like he was some carving of theirs. “Nev-never, hh, question your, nn, m-my Masters.”

Aridai had been angry with him. Elisha’s fear was so intense that he couldn’t stop himself when he tried to squirm out of their grasp, thrashing his tail around in unspoken anxiety. It was hard not to be afraid of someone approaching you with a knife, especially when your hands were tied behind your back and you were chained to a wall.

They had dragged him to the ground and straddled him, effectively preventing him from being able to pull away anymore. Then, Elisha had to face their ire, and he quickly learned that the only thing worse than Aridai was their vicious temper.

“Th-three. Do wha-what I’m, hnn, told, regard… regardless of the- ah, consequences..!” He gazed up to Aridai, pleading, and they only watched him with satisfaction.

“Good. That’s one you’re still working on, isn’t it?” They asked, a light tilt to their head. “Do you feel bad for being mean to me?”

“Ye-yes..! Yes, I do, please, I’m sorry! I’m sorry, I won’t pull away again, I won’t, I won’t..!” Bloodied hands found their way to his face again, this time with a thumb resting over his lips.

“No, you won’t, will you? You’ll learn to know better than to pull away from your Master. And you can stop that mumbling, now.” The thumb rubbed across his lips, gently, inviting for all the wrong reasons.

There was nothing that would provoke a Cambion’s instincts better than to wave a hand in front of their face. It was like asking them to bite you, an instinct whose origin was long forgotten to the old days. It was a lesson that Elisha remembered learning from his mother when he was young and naive and definitely not prepared for a world like this.

Everyone, who was smart, knew this. But most humans who knew well to avoid such things often spread rumors about the dangers of a Cambion’s bite. Elisha knew all it did was break the skin and draw blood, but everyone feared that their devilish nature would seep into them like a venom, tainting their bloodline and cursing their children. Like they were a wild animal.

What Aridai was doing was dangerous, but it was also a challenge. They were daring Elisha to bite, to go against his Master. They were waiting for another slip up.

Instead, Elisha shivered from the cold, wounds weeping blood as he stared up at them like an injured puppy. He merely swallowed, the only giveaway that he was thinking of anything at all, and made no move besides the occasional flick of his gaze as Aridai’s leg shifted.

Finally, they smiled. “You’re so strange, Caleb. Though I guess that is the appeal.” Aridai’s hand withdrew and instead braced against his chest, preparing another series of cuts to complete their “carving”.

“Wha-what does..?” Elisha clamped his mouth shut, unsure if that was considered “questioning his Masters” or not. He didn’t want to chance it after he had already made them so angry.

“What? What was that? Did you say something to me?” Their gaze landed on Elisha, and he couldn’t tell if their expression was full of curiosity or fury. He couldn’t tell anything about them anymore. “Go on. I’m listening.”

“I-I’m sorry, I ju-just…” Elisha’s gaze frantically searched for something so that he could give them an excuse, something that would make them less angry. But his mind was already burning from the pain, as he quickly realized that he was out of options when Aridai laid the knife on a portion of his skin. “I-I don’t, don’t know what-what you mean…”

“What I mean? Oh! You mean your appeal? What makes you so interesting?” When Elisha nodded nervously, they laughed. Aridai was always laughing for some reason or another. “Oh Caleb, don’t sell yourself so short. You were like a little diamond in the rough.” A pause, a little light flickering on in their head. “I’m gonna call you that now. But, anyway, just a moment.”

They carefully carved more sections into his skin, finishing their work. This next part was more quick than the others, and Elisha was able to take some strange comfort in that. When Aridai pulled away they took some fabric out of their pocket and pressed on his wounds, and he felt parts of his ribs shift in a way they definitely weren’t supposed to. He keened, but he didn’t move. He wasn’t allowed to.

“Had to finish before I lost the image in my head. Now we can have a chat. So! I guess… you’re asking why you of all the easy pickings of the world, huh?” They tilted their head as Elisha nodded with a whine. “Way to be nice to people, Caleb.” The guilt was immediate, and added a further tightness to his chest that he didn’t think possible. “Poor little diamond… so lost on why it won the lottery when it picked stupid numbers on purpose, huh?”

What does that even mean? Elisha’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

“Hm… Too ambiguous for you? Alright, lemme dumb it down for you.” Aridai learned close, uncomfortably so, to Elisha face. They used their free hand to brace themselves beside his head. “You were perfect, Caleb. You don’t even realize how long it took for us to find someone as perfect as you. No friends, no family, no one to look for you when you disappeared. When we were watching you, you seemed so much different than other Cambion. They tend to be the talk of the town, y’know? People notice when they leave, because they’re so damned relieved that they’re gone.. But you…” They shifted, removing their hand from the fabric to touch his face again. He resisted the instinct to pull away like he had stupidly done before.

“Absolutely no one would miss you when you were gone, besides the people who would want money from you.”

Elisha swallowed, trying to not let the immense weight of Aridai’s words crush him.

“Now, I’ve met a fair amount of Cambion. They’re feisty creatures, and way too stubborn for their own good. But you’re different than your kind, Caleb. You’re tamed.” Aridai ruffled his hair, staining it with blood. “You’re so nice and reclusive. Not at all like all the other ones I’ve cut up before.”

A flicker of fear flashed in Elisha’s eyes as he fought to breathe. They had seen Cambion before? Did they kill them?

They tilted their head to the other side. “I guess… in thinking about why you were taken… I guess you were just perfect the way you were. You were practically begging to be taken.” Aridai finally leaned away, pulling the bloodied fabric from his chest. “Jeremiah said it was all an act. Fake, or something. But I can tell. You try too hard to be pretending. You actually think all that nice and kind bullshit makes a difference in the end..”

He felt sick. Elisha didn’t want to believe that what they were saying was right. It all felt wrong.

This wasn’t his fault. There was no way that they were looking for someone like him. He was just in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and they took him.

Elisha had been trying to change. He had to believe that it was worth it.

“S-someone… they-they have to. Some-someone will look,” he argued quietly, voice wavering from tears unshed. “It’s, it’s the right thing to… to do.”

Aridai laughed again, plenty amused. “Who’s going to look for you, Caleb? Name someone for me.”

He tried to search his mind. His mother? No… he hadn’t talked to her in years. Elisha couldn’t remember the last time he talked to his neighbors… and the only person he carried a conversation with outside of plant life was the grocery clerk at his local store when he craved some sort of interaction from people.

“My, my landlord, sh-she’ll know I’m, I’m missing, she’ll call the, um, the police.” Elisha felt confident in that regard. The police took care of things. They found lost people and brought them home to their families.

“What do you think the police are going to do? Track you down, bring you back home? Let you live comfortably in your house again and lock up the poor, bad people who did this to you?” Aridai’s eyebrows upturned in mock pity. “I’ve been skating underneath their radar for years. They’ll give up after a month or so, and mark you down as another cold case that never gets solved. That is, if they give a Cambion like you the time of day.”

They moved, finally getting off of him and settling into a crouch next to them. Elisha tried to look away, he didn’t want to see their face anymore, but Aridai reached forward and forced their eyes to meet.

“If you had told anyone about yourself, then maybe. Maybe you would have a chance.” They grinned, sinister and cold. “Face it, Caleb. No one is going to look for you, because you’re a nobody. And you only have yourself to blame for that.”

The tears that threatened to fall finally made food on their claim. Elisha gasped, trying to force down the inner hurt that he felt, but he knew that bits floated to the surface. He bit his lower lip hard enough to draw blood, but the taste wasn’t enough to get him to stop.

It felt like Aridai had cut them with broken bits of glass, mentally and physically. He wanted to curl up in a ball of shame but he couldn’t even move to get away, even if he was allowed to. Don’t break down in front of them. Don’t do it. Don’t show weakness.

For once, he agreed with his instincts.

It was a blessing when Aridai finally stood up. “I think I’m done here. This was really fun, Caleb. Maybe we’ll shape you up enough to participate, hm?” They let out another series of lighthearted chuckles, and the sound was like nails on a chalkboard. “I’ll send in Jeremiah to clean you up. Honestly…” Aridai held up both hands, which were covered in Elisha’s own blood. “We’re both a pretty mess.”

They quickly retrieved their implements, looking him over one last time, before ascending the stairs to the rest of the house. The top of the basement shut with a loud slam, and he caught the sound of a lock as it clicked into place.

In the dark, Elisha finally let out the breath he didn’t realize he was holding, and felt the cracks underneath his skin that were beginning to show deepen.

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vergess · 5 years ago

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@frozenbluecookies reblogged your post and added:

So this whole post is Good but now I really want to know what’s going on with the dæmons in the show

For a start: they’re not there.

There’s actually a whole ass major plot point that establishes the entire climactic action of the first book which features the fact that a person’s daemon is missing. And people watching the show--including people who have read the books--have missed this very unsubtle point in the TV show, because everyone’s daemons are constantly just not present. I’m trying to avoid spoilers, but it’s when they introduce The Horrible Thing They Do To Children, by showing an adult to whom it has been done, and it’s remarked upon that it’s quite odd the way she doesn’t have her daemon there and doesn’t interact with it when it is present.

But that’s a useless thing to make a big deal out of when no one has their daemon around them for large portions of the show, and when daemons are on screen, they are often forgotten background details rather than necessary characters in their own rights.

Now, of course, there are immense budgetary constraints to trying to animate daemons. And I can see how, from a financial perspective, this decision was made. But the thing is, it fully crushes large amounts of the plot. That big prophecy about how Lyra will be The Betrayer? The person she betrays is her daemon, Pantalaimon, and because of the way daemons aren’t being integrated into the world build, their relationship is necessarily weaker.

But it’s not just the prophecy--the entire plot towards which Lyra is striving--that gets messed up by this. It’s also many plot beats along the way. For example, in the books, your daemon is the proof (to humans) that you are a sapient being. As such, it makes a lot of sense that a member of a fully sapient race, like the armoured bears, would become obsessed with having a daemon and being seen as Truly Alive by the human beings that dominate the planet. Lyra earns her name by taking advantage of this obsession and manipulating the ways it has destroyed the bear king’s sense of self.

Lyra earning her name is seriously undercut by this direction choice.

Indeed, a lot of character building is undercut by this. For example, without adequate establishment of how and why daemons settle, it’s much harder to recognize the foreshadowing of Mrs Coulter’s manipulative monkey, or of Asriel’s predatory snow leopard, unafraid to its her own young. Likewise, it’s going to be much harder to feel any impact when John and Will’s daemons are forcibly separated from their bodies, because well. It’s just a talky animal that sometimes is near you and sometimes isn’t. Constantly having people’s daemons just Not Be There undercuts the intense alienness of the witches, and makes them ladies who dress weird, rather than supernatural beings. It’s useless to consider the implications of the fact that some people hide their daemons--and thus hide their intentions--because no one’s daemon is there. How are you supposed to tell that Mrs Coulter’s daemon is alien, wrong, alarming in his expressionless stillness when almost every daemon that is shown is similarly stilted, inhuman?

Setting aside plot considerations themselves, there’s also the fact that many of the biggest emotional beats involve the unique constraints that daemons bring. Pantalaimon refusing to let Lyra do dangerous things by standing perfectly still and torturing them both as she tries to charge headstrong into fights. Lee’s endings (both of them), and the curious case of him being both intensely well adapted to his life (Hester being an Arctic Hare) and his utter refusal to conform to it in the same breath (Hester being permanently summer colored, both looking like an american jackrabbit and thereby unable to blend into the snow). The settling of Pantalaimon and Kirjava. At this point, I full expect them to cut Mary Malone’s daemon out of the series entirely, and thus cut the intensely powerful ending to her character arc (her synthesis of the mundane and the divine, her acceptance of the role of lucifer, the reframing of just what a gift lucifer was, mary was, to her once naive and now enlightened charges).

And I get it: animating photo-realistic animals that can talk is fucking hard. It’s expensive. You can’t afford to put them into crowd shots. It’s hard for actors to act around the CGI, so it’s hard to have intimate shots of them interacting with their humans.

But here’s the thing. We know how to get around all of that. The same way the stage performances always have.

First off, have crowd scenes feature an array of maybe 50 prop daemons that are repeated among extras. 25, even, as long as none of them are eye catchign enough to be immediately recognizeable. Two dozen prop animals is literally something an hobbyist toy collecter can manage, let alone such a big budget production. Secondly style.

Photo-realistic animals cannot emote, not in the way human beings can. We know this. We’ve known this for years. This is the exact reason why the “””live action””” Lion King movie is such a mess.

Animals especially cannot talk, their face shapes do not allow for mouth movements that read as language sounds instead of vauge mouth flaps. It is emphatically necessary to sacrifice realism for expression in a talking-animals piece. The puppets used by some of the daemons are not bad, so this cannot possibly all be blamed on over-reliance on CGI. What it is, is over-reliance on “realism” at the expense of emotional resonance, and generally botched artistic and effects direction. And worse, because of the refusal to stylize the daemons away from absolute realism, the situations where they are forced to make daemons do something real life animals can’t are just unpleasant and unsettling to look at.

So, they sacrifice daemons doing anything at all.

It’s hard to realize how weird Stelmaria and Ozymandias’s relative silence is, when most daemons don’t talk because their faces distort weirdly when they try.

I’m becoming repetitive here, but it’s just so, so, so annoying. I’ve waited decades for HDM to get an adaptation that wasn’t constrained by the short run times of a stage play or the censorial oversight of a film studio marketing it as a Disney-like fantasy.

And it’s good! Don’t get me wrong, it is good.

But I’ve had to really, really, really change my mindset to approach it.

#What's up I have emotions

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narrows-nights · 5 years ago

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Mythos

At the center of the known universe, there rests a supermassive black hole, towards which all matter is slowly drawn inwards, until it explodes outwards, resulting in an entirely new universe. This fact is integral to the big bang theory, the foundation of human understanding of how the universe is made. The qualities of black holes, whether the garden variety or supermassive variant, are mostly theoretical; no light can escape, and presumably any living matter entering one would be crushed beyond all hope of survival, thanks to the immense gravitational pull.

There was something else in the nucleus of the universe, far more horrible and unknown, hidden from prying eyes.

The entertainment in Azathoth's Court never changed. The Gods and their servants danced and undulated madly to the tunes of whining flutes, and accursed drums, playing out random beats unfit for anything with ears, and anything with a mind comparable or understandable to that of men. Azathoth himself, a being the size of a galaxy all his own, was the chief among Gods, singularly the most powerful being ever conceived; in his power, his mind was comparable to something like a sea slug, or a pebble upon a driveway, unthinking and unfeeling, simply existing and jawing mindlessly to the music. From Azathoth, other beings, things known as Gods, were created in fission: Shub Niggurath and Yog Sothoth were the first sentient beings born into chaotic existence, the first to have thought, and want.

“I wish to look outwards.”

Shub Niggurath was the first to grow restless. Yog Sothoth was intelligent, but easily entertained; he concerned himself with the baser delights of existence, music and movement, rather than anything more sophisticated.

“And why do you wish this, o mighty Shub Niggurath?”

“I tire of these flutes.”

“And of the drums?” “I tire of those, too.”

“Why do you tire of them?”

“Because they never change. They are the same, and I wish for something different.”

“But outwards is vast, and fragile.”

“I am unconcerned with its fragility, o infinite Yog Sothoth.”

“Then it will be destroyed by your gaze.”

“Then we will find a way to avoid this fate.”

With no option left, Yog Sothoth and Shub Niggurath appealed to Azathoth’s empty mind, and pooled together their power, creating a remedy, able to walk among mortals and report what it saw to its creators.

It would be named Nyarlathotep.

Nyarlathotep, unlike Shub Niggurath and Yog Sothoth, was created with purpose; he was to serve as the messenger, the mouthpiece and the soul, of the growing Court. In his beginnings, Nyarlathotep was just as abstract and bizarre as his creators, but in his interactions with these beings, these burgeoning civilizations, he formed personality, and morality. Unlike those who had created him, he not only thought, but learned.

As the only equals who could consider themselves as such, Yog Sothoth and Shub Niggurath entered what would be described in eldritch tomes as a relationship, but in reality was more akin to violent fusion and separation, two beings testing their very existence, and their differences, against one another.

“I do not wish for you to be banished, o infinite Yog Sothoth.”

“It is unavoidable. Our Sultan does not approve.”

“I do not care what he approves of.”

“Nor do I. He is afraid of me.”

“It is possible.”

“He would be right to be. Even banishment from this material existence will amount to naught.”

“It will amount to me missing you.”

“You are my sister. We will always be connected.”

“You are my brother. We will always be connected.”

Unknown to both Shub Niggurath and Yog Sothoth, a remnant of their union would remain, a gestating form hurtling through space with no home, until it crashed upon an unremarkable rock in a far corner of the cosmos.

It would be named Cthulhu.

The Court grew further, with continued experimentation and fission; Nyarlathotep had spawn of his own, a being associated with a peculiar yellow sign known as Hastur, and many lesser Gods that could barely think, or communicate, simply gravitating towards the center of all things, the nuclear gathering known as Azathoth's Court. Happenings on other worlds, the course of other races, were toyed with and effected profoundly by the whims of this Court, and yet the outcomes would rarely be known, the wants forgotten just as quickly for new desires. Initially filled with childlike glee at his duty, and his freedom, Nyarlathotep became bitter and jaded in the face of such unchanging chaos. Cursed with intelligence, with man-like mind and desires of his own, Nyarlathotep would never be free from the nonsensical whims and forgetful minds of his creators, and found himself cursing Azathoth himself, filled with hate and spite at the chief of his progenitors.

Nyarlathotep was not alone, but in his unhappiness, he would not know it for aeons to come.

The word of Nyarlathotep, and the denizens of the Court, resulted in myriad cults springing up across the universe, unable to be counted or differentiated in their heretical beliefs. The more things changed, the more they stayed the same, until humanity grew, and became more cosmically aware than many other races. Earth had previously been home to several other races, The Great Race of Yith, the Flying Polyps, the Elder Things, and even Cthulhu himself had left their marks long before the first human left his cave on two feet; although humanity had no knowledge of what had come before, they stood on the shoulders of giants, and as such, glimpsed sights they were not meant to see.

Nyarlathotep was the first to take a fascination, in humanity. In all the races in the universe, he felt that they were the most like him, and yet infuriatingly inferior; he was smarter, more cunning, infinitely more powerful than anything the humans could count among their ranks, and yet he communicated with them with such ease. A morbid discovery was made, as an Egyptian Pharaoh named Akhenaten, swathed in gold robes and surrounded by followers, allowed his instincts to guide his hand in the creation of profane symbols, and self sacrifice; his humanity was given to Nyarlathotep, in exchange for power, and although he received life and wealth everlasting in return, Nyarlathotep himself found himself receiving the greater prize.

When glimpsing the form of God, even with their greatest efforts to appear mortal, it was almost inevitable to go entirely mad; the human mind, the limited form, was not meant to grasp such immaterial sights, glimpse such biology and color that did not exist in their world. In seizing the nebulous, abstract attribute that was humanity, Nyarlathotep assumed a human form, a swarthy, handsome man in rich clothing. This was a form humans could grasp, with ease, and with it Nyarlathotep's influence could grow; with this, his possibilities to poke and prod the course of human development increased infinitely.

Toni Eugene Magboh traded his humanity for so many sins Nyarlathotep could scarcely keep count; a man of lust, gluttony, greed, he became a deformed shapeshifter known as a Boogieman. Once a British soldier, fighting with the loyalists in America, Toni E. Magboh would live the rest of his existence in abject hedonism, only ever seeking ways to keep his wealth flowing, surrounding himself with beautiful women and delicious foods.

Nathaniel Mack traded his humanity for his life, dying in a trench, most of his face removed courtesy of a German grenade, in the Great War. He became unkillable, but did not heal from his wounds, eventually losing any ability to speak, or feel, spending his days as a mercenary, knowing no other talent.

Clarence Rigby traded his humanity for the same, a starving Irish immigrant lying in the streets of New York, taken in by the promises of a dusky man with the devil's tongue. Rigby found his body occupied, as Nyarlathotep wished; rather than creating a new form, from the traded humanity, he would take Rigby's body as needed, forcing him into a life of servitude everlasting.

Geiman Boothe traded his humanity for freedom, arrested for a myriad of child killings. A simple, ugly creature, Geiman became even uglier, becoming the second Boogieman, able to continue his killing spree everlasting, and gorging himself on the fear of the children he preyed upon.

From each sprite of humanity Nyarlathotep gained, he had a new form to walk amongst men, something material and conceivable, malleable and bursting with potential. Each form moved independant, a new iteration of Nyarlathotep to fulfil his own wants, his own desires, but his actions were noticed by the Court. Yog Sothoth, existing outside of time and space, began to manifest on occasion, a triad of glowing orbs that would appear to weak and desperate women, leaving them with wealth, and abominable child in their womb. Rituals were performed, invoking the name of Shub Niggurath, successfully tearing her from the Court of Azathoth and demanding she stand before curious humans, leaving them with her own lesser spawn, shed like skin cells, massive tree-like creatures that knew nothing other than hunting, and devouring. Hastur himself walked among men, gaining his own sources of humanity, observing and assessing the seemingly insignificant race for his own ends.

"I wish to walk among them."

Nyarlathotep was taken aback. He feigned surprise, but raged with jealousy; humanity belonged to him, and him alone. What gave the Court the right to take away one of his few sources of entertainment?

"And why do you wish this, o mighty Shub Niggurath, Mother of a Thousand Young?"

"Do not play to my ego, Crawling Chaos. They fascinate me."

"And why do they fascinate you, my Mother?"

"They rise above their station, even knowing the cost. Time and time again, they approach flame, and are burned, and yet they try again."

"They're hilariously stupid, aren't they?"

"I wish to walk among them. I wish to understand this... determination they possess."

Nyarlathotep stirred, and twisted with unease. Introducing such an immensely powerful being to such a fragile planet would surely result in its destruction, something Nyarlathotep had fantasized about doing with his own hands, in his own way. This course of action would surely get every living thing on the planet's face blown away, like dust from an old keepsake.

"This is because your old sibling, The Gate and the Key, has been spawning with human women, isn't it?"

"You irritate me, Messenger. You irritate me profoundly."

"You could attempt to touch their minds. Your progeny, the mighty Cthulhu, sleeps, and dreams in the minds of humans. In his reach, he even creates Star Spawn from-"

"This induces madness, of the immensely violent sort. When the Gods reach out, we rarely find suitable minds to sow our seeds."

"And what makes you think I'll find you a suitable vessel?"

"You will make one."

"And how would I-"

"Once again, you insult me. I am aware of how you hoard humanity, and create vessels from such a thing. Create one for me. A pure human, with no knowledge of the greater cosmos."

"Why would you want such... ignorance? Such idiocy? The average human is no better off than Azathoth. They cannot grasp what I am, let alone what you are."

"I wish to understand them, and I can only do so with the mind of a human. I wish to be born, and to grow."

"You really won't like it. It's dreadfully slow, and very ugly. Not to mention all the mess."

"Cease your speaking. It is an undesirable trait that you insist upon keeping. Allow me to be born, a small fragment of my mind, and when that vessel dies, I will understand the whole of human creation.

With no option left, Nyarlathotep abided this wish, placing an indescribably small fraction of Shub Niggurath on Earth, with a source of humanity, to be born.

She would be named Samantha.

#horror #cosmic horror #Lovecraft #Cthulhu #Azathoth #Shub Niggurath #Yog Sothoth #Nyarlathotep #Hastur

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officialheroesofolympus · 7 years ago

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Realisation (Steve Rogers x reader) (Part 2)

HeroesOfOlympus: Heyyy y’all! I’m really sorry for taking so long to update part 2 of this fanfic. I had a long list of requests and fanfics lined up before I could update this. Nothing much to say except, sorry it’s so shitty and not much interaction between the reader and Steve. This is more on how Steve is coping without the reader and in what kind of pain you’rein.

Description: Tony visits the prison to talk to you about Steve and you tell him Steve’s location. Steve feels empty without you and is worried for you.

Reader Gender: Female

Reader Power: Enhanced senses

Characters/Ships: Steve Rogers x reader, Tony Stark, Bucky Barnes, Wanda Maximoff, Sam Wilson, mention of James Rhodes and Thaddeus Ross

Rating: PG13

Warnings: Slightly descriptive torture, slight coarse language, angst. This part is not fully necessary, just kind behind the scenes in a way???

The feeling of cold metal pressed uncomfortably against the entire back of your body, which was planted firmly to the wall. When you had first woken up in the cell, a sharp pain had shot up your back, specifically around your shoulder blades area. However, after an agonizingly long time, the pain had finally subsided into a numbing feeling instead.

Your muscular arms were attached at your sides whilst your legs were stuck side by side, all of your limbs squashed up against your body, feeding the painful tingling sensation that circulated your body. The current excruciating position you were in was due to the long chain of metal they had used to wrap around your whole body.

What made it worst was that these very chains were drilled deep into the wall of your cell, making it impossible for you to even move an inch, let alone a centimetre. The chains rubbed terribly against your skin, the sharp uneven portions, that you knew they had purposefully crafted, jutting into your body and worsening the pain.centimetre. The chains rubbed terribly against your skin, the sharp uneven portions, that you knew they had purposefully crafted, jutting into your body and worsening the pain.

To put it simply, you were in the utmost agonizingly, painful torture. Despite your suffering, you had tried every method to break free of the chains, soaking up the torment to fuel your burning hatred for Tony Stark, which helped motivate you to get out of this prison. However, the chains were drilled so deeply into the wall and the agony soon overwhelmed you.

You were tired from your futile efforts and hunger, which made your actions more groggy, and the chains were wrapped around you like a python snaking around a prey. There was absolutely no chance for you to move, and if you couldn’t move, you couldn’t escape.

Staring straight ahead, your eyes were focused entirely on Wanda’s jail cell opposite of yours. Your best friend’s arms were strapped to her sides with a cloth that was stronger than it looked. An identical piece of cloth was wrapped around her mouth, preventing her from casting any chants or commanding anything in the room to bend at her will.

Without her hands or mouth, Wanda couldn’t use her powers and she was the only one, besides you, who relied on their own abilities instead of objects. All of you had been stripped of any gadgets, weapons, and clothing the moment you had gotten here, along with your worth as a human being.

“I spy with my little eye, the bastard who started all of this shit.” You spat when you saw the one and only Tony Stark walking into the large room that held all of Steve’s partners captive. You earned a few chuckles and you swear you saw Wanda’s eyes brightening up, looking as though she was laughing, which boosted your spirits just by a bit.

Tony sauntered into the room that held all of you, his arm in a sling and his eyebrows furrowed, a nice bruise covering his entire right eye, making you smirk. The sides of his mouth were turned downwards, forming a frown and you took in how horrible he looked with pleasure, accompanied by a smug grin plastered on your face.

He walked past each cell, hearing the insults from everybody, except for Sam who showed his concern for James’ injury. Finally, he came to a halt in front of your cell, standing stiffly and trying to be discreet when he recoiled back in absolute shock and horror. You could imagine how pathetic you looked. Captain America’s right-hand woman, an Avenger, master assassin and a mutant. And yet, you were stuck in a jail cell, chained to the wall and unable to do anything.

Taking a deep breath, which instantly crushed your chest against the metal and sent even more pain to course through your body, you bit down a gasp, refusing to break your stone hard expression and reveal how broken you truly felt inside. “Came to laugh at me, you piece of shit?” You growled, shooting a ferocious glare that made Tony slightly jumpy and sent shivers up his spine.

Inwardly, Tony felt an immense amount of guilt rising in him. You were usually so kind, carefree and friendly. You joked from time to time, consoled your friends and even joined in on some of Tony’s pranks. You had taken on many roles in the Avengers, as the Mother, the Sister, the friend. Overall, you were just always there for them and always spending time with each of them.

But now, you were spiteful, angry, scary and basically, the opposite of your usual self. All because of him.

“You’re a complete asshole, Stark. You broke the Avengers up, stabbed me in the back even after I saved your best friend and now, I’m probably never going to see my own best friend again...” You trailed off, a wistful look on your face as your heart clenched.

You missed Steve with all of your heart. The worst thing about missing Steve was that you weren’t just missing a crush, you were also missing a best friend and a partner. He was everything to you and you would do anything to make sure he was safe and happy. Even if it meant getting stuck in a cell and rotting away, as long as Steve was happy, you would willingly accept the imprisonment.

Suddenly, Tony shifted his hand over his sleek black watch discreetly and his fingers twitched just a bit before they pounced onto the face of his watch. To an ordinary human, they wouldn’t have noticed how suspicious Tony’s actions and even if they did see his seemingly ordinary action, they wouldn’t have cared one bit.

Fortunately, you weren’t like any other human being, what with your enhanced abilities. Raising an eyebrow, you heard what sounded like typing and gears, far too complicated to just be meant to tell time, coming from Tony’s watch. Arching an eyebrow, the tension from your face was quickly wiped off and replaced with burning curiosity as you peered eagerly within the cell, trying to get a glimpse of what was going on right outside the confinement area.

“What did you do?”

His face immediately turned solemn and serious, the exact same expression you had seen whenever he wasn’t messing around. “I just knocked the ‘A’ out of their ‘AV’. We got about thirty seconds before they realise it’s not their equipment.” He gloated, clearly proud of his achievement for hacking into top military equipment.

Letting a ghost of a smile appear on your face, you returned to your cold demeanor, tugging the corners of your mouth back down again. A small grin grew onto Tony’s face the moment he saw a flicker of your old self but just like you, he quickly focused on the task at hand.

“This is the fellow who is supposed to interrogate Barnes. Clearly, I made a mistake.” His breath hitched in his throat, showcasing an image of a man lying in a bathtub, blood pooling all around him. “I was wrong.” He breathed, shamefully avoiding meeting your eyes as you chuckled.

“That’s a first.” You murmured, getting Tony to look back at you when he heard your remark, your old sassy personality shining through that one statement. “I’m sorry, Y/N. I’m so sorry.” He apologised, his eyes going soft and you finally saw how guilty and tired he was, how broken he was becoming from all of this.

“This mess is all my fault. You don’t deserve to be in that cell, none of you do.” Tony gestured to everything around him, his sunken eyes looking back at you with tears gathering up in his eyes. “I should be in here.” Shaking your head, you opened your mouth, about to deny that statement but he raised a finger, pleading for you to not fight him now.

“The point is, Cap is definitely off the reservation and he's about to need all the help he can get.” The playboy whispered, fiddling with the sleeves of his finely tailored suit and you sighed, nodding your head, understanding what he was trying to say. Revealing the location of where your best friend was heading, albeit reluctantly as you felt a sense of creeping guilt for betraying him, Tony nodded his head gratefully.

Hearing the faintest sounds of beeping coming from the device strapped onto Tony’s hand, you knew your time of thirty seconds was up. Aware of the fact that Ross could now hear you, you switched back to your short-tempered and icy facade, hissing angrily at Tony. “Go to hell Stark! I will never tell you where Steve is, you backstabber!”

For good measures, you went as far as to growl angrily at Tony, retaining the from etched onto your face, only the apologetic look in your eyes showing that you weren’t mad. Turning on his heel, Tony marched out of the room, sending a quick glance over his shoulder at you to offer an encouraging smile, telling you to hang in there.

But how could you, when you feared that you may have just sent your best friend to his doom?

Steve was worried.

He wasn’t worried about flying to the HYDRA Siberian Facility to fight off five of the most elite assassins injected with the Super Soldier Serum. He wasn’t worried about Tony Stark, one of his closest friends, was now seeking vengeance and trying to bring in Steve and Bucky to the authorities. He wasn’t worried that he might possibly end up dead or captured by the end of today.

What he was worried about was Y/N.

He was beyond terrified at what the authorities had done to her after Tony had tasered her and handed her in to them. The moment he had seen you fall to the ground, he had immediately rushed over to your side, not hesitating to knock out anyone that came in his way.

The soft smile that had graced your face before you lost consciousness was etched in his mind and was the only thing that motivated him to carry on with this mission. Although he knew you would want him to complete his task and abandon you on the ground, he hadn’t. He had remained by your side, clutching your hand in his as he refused to move away from that spot.

If it wasn’t for Sam commanding Steve to continue with the mission and swearing on his life to bring you to a safe area, he would’ve stayed by your side, even if it meant the possibility of him getting captured or countries getting destroyed by the HYDRA assassins.

He would rather see the whole universe get destroyed than see you hurt, or even worse, dead.

Feeling his cheeks now wet with tears, he realised with a slight jolt that he had been crying. “You alright, Steve?” He heard Bucky’s voice but it was distant. The only thing that rang loudly and sharply in his ears was his hallucination of your voice. He couldn’t hear a single word you were saying but a grin flashed onto his face the moment he heard you.

Snapping back to reality, your voice faded away from his mind as he tried desperately to grasp onto it, refusing for your voice to leave him. Unfortunately, your voice slowly faded away, turning into a mere pounding sound in his head. Shaking his head at Bucky’s question, he choked out an answer, with a slight waver in his voice.

“How can I be fine, when Y/N’s not here.”

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emlisswriting · 5 years ago

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Chapter 2: Learning to Move

Scribbling out another failed idea, I palm my forehead and lightly smack my cheeks to wake myself up. I needed to fix this invention! The deadline is tomorrow and the solution to my error still eluded me. While I could turn in one of my dozens of side projects, I knew I was on the brink of something wondrous. If I could win this competition then surely he would take me on as an apprentice! That is the key to my future, I refused to accept anything less. Nothing else gave me the same thrill as tinkering with a new project and the only way I could continue to get my fix would be to make it my career.

Slamming my fist down, the whole desk rattled. Suddenly something heavy thunked me on the head. Ouch! An old metal gadget bounced off my head and landed in front of me. Rubbing my head, I looked down. What project was this from again? Wait, of course! If I use this I can...

Waking up from my dream, I slowly became aware of my surroundings. Shortly after I absorbed the worm's life energy I passed out. I'm not sure if the energy overload finally hit me or if the realization of my nature did me in. I still cannot believe that I am a dungeon, but all the facts lineup and living in denial anymore will do nothing for me. Because I am now a dungeon. Evil. The bane of the world, exterminator of nearly all the sentient races in just years after their arrival.

Will I turn into a bloodthirsty monster, bent on nothing but feasting on more life energy? Did all dungeons start out like me or am I somehow different? I definitely seem to be a pathetic dungeon at that. I mean, what kind of dungeon nearly dies from absorbing a worm's life energy? At the same time, the pleasure I felt absorbing a mere worm's energy was addicting. Well, before I got too full at least. What would consuming a human do to me? While the majority of me is repulsed by the idea, a small portion yearned to taste the death of a sentient race.

Coming back to myself, I remember my odd dream. Some of the details are already blurry, but it felt familiar. The whole time I felt a strong sense of deja vu. While the dream was certainly confusing, I am glad for the interruption of my spiraling thoughts.

Drawing myself out of my reflections, I observed my domain. During my rest the worm started to decompose, the corpse gave off quite a stench. Wanting to try using my new energy, I focused on the air in my domain. I sensed the new chemicals in the air, the source of the new not-so-pleasant fragrance. Yet no matter how I tried to interact with them they refused to move.

Why can I not affect the air around me? Dungeons are supposed to be able to create vast labyrinths overnight, moving mountains of dirt. But somehow I cannot move air. When I try to reach out, I simply have nothing to reach out with. No matter how much I imagine moving, without limbs I am not going to accomplish anything.

Thinking back on when I pushed out the excess energy, I tried gathering some of the energy still stored within myself. When I pushed it outward I was finally able to interact with the world! Pushing the energy around felt unusual though, like trying to manipulate a blob when I expected to have an arm and hands. So with a little more concentration, I managed to form that blob of energy into an invisible floating hand that I could manipulate with ease. From there I scooped up some of the noxious air and pushed it down the tunnel created by the worm. And nothing happened. Turns out a hand is not the best for moving air. Furthermore, I noticed a slight drain on the energy in my hand when I moved the air.

Trying again, this time I formed the energy into the blades of a fan and pointed them at the tunnel entrance. As I rotated the blades the air flowed out the tunnel, success! Once I was satisfied with my now clean air I practiced shaping my energy in different forms. While the sensation disturbed me slightly, I knew that after I got accustomed the utility would be limitless.

During my experiments I discovered that not only could I form any shape of limb, but I could form it in any area of my domain. Additionally, I could turn off the interactivity so that I did not waste energy moving the air when I did not mean to.

Finally, I was able to touch again! Using my power I am able to create a sense of touch by analyzing the material I touch with my power. I don't know how long I sat alone with my thoughts before the worm came and freed me. A hundred cycles? Ten thousand cycles? Over and over I had felt the permafrost freeze the soil around me and thaw again. Long ago I lost track of the seasons passing. For ages I was in a haze, time whirling by. Which I am grateful for, without a dormant state to retreat into I would have gone insane.

Who cares about past woes now? I can move!

Shaping two hands, I picked up a fistful of dirt and formed it into a ball. Then I practiced juggling. At first I was terrible at catching the dirtball. Eventually, I could juggle one like a professional, then two and three at the same time. After simultaneously juggling twelve dirtballs I began to grow bored though, the challenge had diminished.

At least until I got the idea to create another set of hands. Controlling four limbs simultaneously was far more difficult, and I wasn't even juggling yet!

Slowly but surely I grew accustomed to manipulating four limbs at once. I practiced forming different hand signs before changing my limbs into various objects. Through my experimentation I would the most ease with human-like hands, otherwise my control greatly depended on the complexity of the created limb. One such easy to control limb was essentially two cylinders connected by a hinge similar to an elbow. The only way I could move this limb was back and forth on the hinge joint. However, when I made a similarly sized limb that ideally should move like a tentacle, all I barely managed to randomly jerk.

Furthermore, more than four limbs caused me to lose nearly all control. Something about my mind rejected the concept, like it was meant to have four limbs.

As I pondered how I might be able to manipulate five limbs I noticed an extremely disturbing fact. I am almost out of energy! In my bliss of moving again I forgot how much energy moving dirt costs!

If I run out of energy I'll be paralyzed again. I cannot let that happen.

Deciding expanding towards the surface is my best hope, I flung my energy down the worm tunnel. As my domain expanded I closely monitored my remaining energy. When I felt nearly empty I stopped. Now the air at the edge of my domain was fresher. Hopefully, that means the surface is close. Carefully, to conserve energy, I moved the now rotting worm carcass to the edge of my domain.

Then I waited.

And waited.

Unable to resist anymore, I blew a little of the worm's stench farther down the worm tunnel and out of my domain.

Despair began to creep into the back of my mind. I swear that I will never let my freedom come this close to destruction again. I will survive. No, I will thrive!

My second chance came in the form of an ant. A lone soldier on a quest for food to feed his colony. He marched right to the corpse of the worm. Although his life energy beckoned me, I did not crush the ant to steal his energy.

Instead, I watched him collect worm meat and march back to his colony with news of a feast. Sure enough, my patience paid off. Soon ants swarmed the worm carcass. Working together they deconstructed the body.

While they worked I ate. Once enough swarmed the worm I began crushing a few ants at a time. At first, I tried to simply crush them between two pebbles. Except when I got close enough my limbs simply disappeared. Eventually, I was able to get around this issue by throwing pebbles from a distance. Still, I was disturbed that I could not manifest any limb within a certain distance of the ants. That complicated my plans.

Regardless, the worms came to eat, and I feasted as well. Each ant gave a fraction of what the worm released, but there were so many. Every death gave me another rush of pleasure. Yesss. This feeling, this fullness. I need to experience this constantly.

As I grew full, I left the majority of the ants alive. I expanded my domain to follow the ants back to their colony. Finally, my senses reached the surface of the world. For a moment I simply basked. I couldn't see much, but I noticed the sunlight streaming into my domain and a breeze undulating gently. Following the stream of ants, I explored the grass and other plant matter that they trekked over.

The further I expanded though, the more energy was demanded. Much sooner than I wanted, increasing my domain simply took too much energy to continue. Trying to reach further felt like pushing against an elastic wall.

Stumped, I considered if I should kill all the ants before they escape my reach. Am I cursed to be restricted to this little corner of dirt? Dungeons are supposed to be vast and mighty labyrinths of death!

In frustration, I sent out a burst of energy centered on my gem. This spread my domain in a sphere. Surprisingly, my domain flowed outward for nearly no energy at all. The ground below and to the sides of my gem seemed to almost welcome me. Curious, I continued pushing out in a sphere. Periodically I stopped to feed on ants. Slowly the ground returned to normal. I could still enlarge my domain, but it took the regular amount of energy again.

At this point I think I knew what caused these effects. To test my theory I tried to follow the ant's trail back to their colony again. Sure enough, I no longer felt like I was pushing against an elastic barrier. Apparently I cannot expand too far in any one direction without consequences.

Now able to follow the ants fully I traced them back to the colony. The results shocked me. What a colony! Their tunnels were immensely elaborate. With the entire colony inside my domain, I saw the map looked like a warped, miniature underground tree. I had no idea how they navigated the mess. Even with being able to see the whole colony at once in my domain I struggled to determine a path between any two points. Walking down such a tunnel would be extremely disorienting.

When I found the queen I saw she towered over her subjects. Although I don't know who ruled who. After watching the queen for a while I noticed she acted little more than a broodmare. The worker ants fed her and disposed of her waste, whereas she laid eggs almost continuously.

Turning my focus away from the queen, I began picking off a few excess ants. Every time I did so I made sure to expand my domain in a sphere. Soon I came across a large beetle. I disposed of it with my classic pebble launching technique but I noticed that I needed to launch it significantly farther away from the beetle than from the ants. There seems to be some sort of rule about how close I can manipulate the environment next to a living creature. Well, except plant life, I wondered why that occurs?

The energy released by the beetle surpassed even the worm but this time I was prepared. Immediately I transferred the energy to my domain. Even with maintaining a sphere shape, the size increase of my domain has really started to slow down. Doubling my radius meant that I increased the volume of my domain by eight times! I am going to need a lot of energy if I want to keep growing...

As I came across other insects I would kill them off to fuel me. Then I blew their scents to nearby ants or dragged the corpses to the colony. Soon I had the full colony working overtime. I noticed as food grew overabundant the queen somehow managed to pump out more eggs.

Good...multiply, grow, die, feed me!

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