#the sapphics are taking over
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murderyourbeloved · 4 months ago
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I stumbled upon the ship Nina x Kate and I think it's very silly I also sketched Kate
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milk-ducts · 11 months ago
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late christmas drawing ,, was really torn between reposting this or not !! i feel like ive lost my edge n all but i liked how the faces turned out 🥲 its unrendered and unfinished in some places but my awesome moots convinced me 2 post it here !! so u have them to thank for … hehehej… i love them alot and have been writing sm drabbles of ambereve ..;
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shapelytimber · 7 months ago
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I'm in the mood to sketch rn :) so here is a recap of my star wars sapphic au <3
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And the lineup !
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[COMMISSIONS]
But now, I would love some opinions on who should I add next soooo
Little pitch for each potential new character below vvv
Lando : I think making her a high femme mayor/pilot can be hot af lfkgkfk
I love Lando's character and design, and even tho I don't plan on keeping the mustache (a tragedy I know), I do have some ideas for a feminine version.
She's living the high life until her kinda failure of an ex comes crawling back to her with demands and a new gf :) too bad she already made a deal with Vader
Piett : middle aged stressed navy woman in uniform (even tho it's the kinda ugly imperial uniform fifkfkfk).
Piett is one of my absolute favorite sw characters ! So thank you fanon, you made something really cool for this one <3
And I adore his friendship with Veers, so they might be a muscle woman also in uniform if you pick his option ;)
Boba Fett : post sarlacc digestion butch booba fett. She's old, she's bald, and she will break your jaw <3
Also dykes on (hover) bikes :)))
PS : as always, the Palpatine and Dooku designs were originally made by Stagbeetleboy, so these are his designs
PPS : I drew Padmé in my favorite outfit of hers, and even tho she wore it in star wars 1 she isn't 14 here itjkff hope I didn't have to specify that but better safe then sorry- she's in her late twenties early thirties
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danandfuckingjonlmao · 6 months ago
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give us emo yuri and we’re on board. it’s that simple.
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napping-sapphic · 1 year ago
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No but listen if we were dating i could inspire you to do your daily mental health walk when you don’t want to which would also force me to do MY daily mental health walk when i don’t want to it’s a win/win situation absolutely no downsides
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yeagrave · 5 months ago
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let them kiss !!
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clowningcrows · 1 month ago
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as a transmasc lesbian i am wishing all “men dni” blogs a VERY go fuck yourself today
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dkettchen · 2 years ago
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have more lesbian sanami brainrot
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nighttimenothings · 8 months ago
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it's so easy to find someone attractive, but it's harder to find someone who's in tune with their emotions and knows how to regulate it?? like finding someone emotionally stable, or at the very least, knows how to communicate what they need is so very difficult.
not saying i'm the perfect example of that, but just Trying is enough, you know? being unable to communicate or being mature about what you need and can give a partner is the quickest way to turn me off, honestly. it's just so simple and clear-cut to me, and when someone else can't meet me there, it's just immediately a no from me.
it's not my job to fix someone or change them. i mean, yeah, i can communicate how i feel with someone, but if they can't or won't address the issue, i just don't feel like it's worth sticking around. my mental health deserves better. *i* deserve better.
i think about this a lot actually, and it all comes back down to, like, the bare minimum. people settle for the bare minimum literally every single day. i hear "oh, but they're nice and funny" all the damn time. okay??? and??? so your partner is playing limbo with a bar in hell. good! great! but you deserve so much more than that?? why should you be settling for less??
every and all relationships are a two way street. it's a give and take system. you should be able to talk to each other, and if not, that's something to reflect on.
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altarofthedeep · 4 months ago
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wearing a necklace so that they have something to pull on when they’re buried inside me
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aroaessidhe · 2 months ago
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2024 reads / storygraph
The Sapling Cage
YA fantasy, start of a trilogy
a trans girl and her friend swap places so she can join the coven of witches who wander the land instead of becoming a knight
as they travel and she starts to learn from them, while hoping she’s not found out , they uncover a corrupt magical blight that threatens to become a civil war
bi demi MC
#The Sapling Cage#aroaessidhe 2024 reads#I enjoyed this! it’s a pretty classic fantasy setting out into the world#+ group of teens save the kingdom from power hungry adults from both factions kind of story.#There’s some very cool creatures and monsters and I hope we see a lot more of that as the series continues!#I like how it takes quite a classic fantasy setting/narrative but puts some weird and interesting details in there#I liked her journey of questioning whether she actually wants to change her body#or whether that’s just out of fear/pressure and she’s a girl either way.#I thought the prose was okay. sometimes it felt like things were glossed over and a lot of the character and relationship#(all kinds) development is a bit telling not showing - I didn’t get a really solid sense of the friendships or developing crush she has.#the bullying subplots especially felt a little underdeveloped? they’re just suddenly cool with each other.#also the adult saying she didn’t step in because that would escalate things is an odd choice#…..checking now this is not actually marketed as YA. I think if I read this thinking it was an adult book I would be a bit harsher.#I read it with a YA mindset and imo the teen characters; coming of age themes; the straightforward worldbuilding/narrative#and writing all feel very YA (not a bad thing!)#Overall though I liked a lot! I’ll continue the series#it’s sapphic (possible developing relationship though who knows where that will go) and also there’s an aroace side character#sapphic books#trans books#demisexual books#aroace books
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chronic-cynic · 7 months ago
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I know everyone wants a Solitaire movie (and so do I) but I honestly think they'd fuck it up beyond anyone's imagination.
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lavenderedhoney · 2 years ago
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God, yesterday was SO good. I picked her up from work and then she had me give her head in my car in a dark corner of the grocery store parking lot, which was an extremely good time. She got very hard and started pushing me all the way down on her cock till I was drooling uncontrollably and my eyes were starting to stream and she came twice. 😩
After we got back to her place she put on an amazing new strapless black dress, fixed my collar around my neck, and fucked the absolute life out of me till I couldn't talk anymore. Made me sit on her cock and held me to her chest SO tight and fucked me SO hard she was bouncing both of us off the bed and came harder than she ever had in me, so hard she was shaking for ages afterward. Then she got on top of me and fucked me until she came even harder, twice.
The second time she was working her cock so good with my cunt that she started babbling - "god it feels so good, I wanna cum so bad, god, please" - literally begging (begging herself, I guess, I was too fucked out do much besides keep squeezing), almost crying. The third time was the biggest load she'd EVER pumped into me and she could feel so much liquid coming out through her urethra so long that she was legitimately worried she was somehow peeing lmfao. Something about pressing on the topside of her cock at the base really hard is what did it - she didn't realize that that's what makes her shoot so much when she jacks off or that cumming like that felt so different than when she normally cums in me, where she says she usually shoots a lot less. It was so fucking hot and I need her to do it again (and luckily she says she thinks she knows how to 🥴). God, she was shaking and shaking and shaking forever. I was leaking her cum all over the place by the time she was done, it was GREAT!!
(This post is about lesbian sex. DNI if you: are a cishet man, are under 18, do not have your age on your blog, or post ageplay, rape play, dykebreaking, detrans kink, or midgendering kink)
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wrongcaitlyn · 6 months ago
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for pride month how abt we don't ignore the aro/ace rep that rick has given us with the hunters of artemis. this is a reminder that they are not allowed to date girls. and reyna's arc in toa is not of her realizing she is a lesbian, it is of her realizing that she is ace (very heavily implied aroace, even if rick hasn't said that exactly).
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fifthnailinstevesbat · 5 months ago
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oh hmmmmmm the other woman kinda au but it’s nancy being so disgustingly jealous of chrissy when she and robin start dating, but nancy had never told her feelings to robin, so she had no right, right? but she had only just come to the realisation that how she felt about robin was what it was, that it wasn’t resentment or hatred or really strong friendship… that she liked her, the same way she liked jonathan, and steve, all that time ago. she could maybe even love her, and wasn’t that just absolutely terrifying. it took nancy so long to realise that she could even be like this, that she could even feel that way towards robin, who was a girl, but when she finally did figure it out, it took her even longer internally to actually be ok with it. or at least, not as completely terrified by the concept. she accepted that the way she felt about robin was stronger than any feeling of disgust or fear she had about having the feelings at all. but she didn’t get the chance to tell her, because while nancy had been internally going through this journey of self discovery, robin and chrissy cunningham had gotten quite a lot closer than ever before. chrissy started getting invited to their hangouts, sleepovers, shopping trips and walks through town. and it was fun, chrissy was sweet and really a very kind person, she brought a great energy to their larger group over all, but then her and robin started doing more alone. and with steve, and eddie, and nancy could do nothing but sit by and watch as robin fell harder and harder for the strawberry blond cheerleader. nancy wasn’t even entirely sure whether robin was the same way as her before all this, but there was no doubt now since the two have made it official. robin is with chrissy. robin likes chrissy, she could maybe even love her, and nancy was devastated. she has to watch now as robin gives so so much love to another girl, wishing it could be her on the receiving end of robins affection, but no matter how hard she tries she can’t just hate chrissy about it. chrissy is so so… beautiful. inside and out. and robin is happy, chrissy makes her happy, chrissy is so perfect for her. nancy wishes she could’ve known sooner, that she didn’t wait so long, that she didn’t spend so much time in her head hating herself for feeling something she never thought was in the cards for her life. she wasn’t prepared for this, prepared to deal with this, to have her whole established perception of herself and who she was as a person be completely cracked open and shattered to the ground in tiny rigged pieces she didn’t even know we’re inside of her. nancy is overwhelmed with hurt, and longing, and jealousy, and confusion, as well as contentment for having actually come to terms with what she feels, slight acceptance, but mostly overall she is utterly heartbroken every second she must spend time with robin and seeing her arm slung around chrissy’s shoulders, or just hearing her talk so fondly of the girl. but how could nancy blame her? chrissy was picture perfect. nancy was always titled the “good girl”, even she got labeled as “miss perfect” in the early days of high school, because she was always trying so, so hard not to fall. not to crack. but she is not the same girl. she has seen too much now, she has had to change out of survival, adapting to the conditions she found herself subjected to. nancy isn’t that girl anymore, and she never can be again, and maybe deep down she never really was at all. but chrissy, chrissy is sweet, untarnished, content with herself in a way nancy fears she could never be, and chrissy isn’t always striving for something more, and always fighting and working herself to death to be more. to do more, to prove herself. chrissy doesn’t have the internal demons that nancy has, festering and growing and spreading and multiplying and consuming her for the last 4 years.
so nancy will watch. it’s ok, it’s fine. she has no choice. she wishes it could be her, but she will never be like chrissy and chrissy couldn’t be like nancy even if she tried. chrissy is perfect, she is beautiful, she makes so much sense. of course robin likes her, who doesn’t? how could anyone not? nancy gets it, which is the hard thing. because she can’t even get the satisfaction of hating chrissy, or seeing all the ways that she herself could be better if it were her instead. see all the ways nancy would do things differently for robin, to make it all that much better. because chrissy does it all right, she is perfect, nancy couldn’t compete. they aren’t on the same level. but nancy likes robin, a lot. she may even love her. and robin likes chrissy, a lot, and robin told nancy that she thinks she might love her, and it’s fine. nancy cant do anything about it but watch.
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maxdurden · 6 months ago
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but slowly the instinct takes root in her throat
read it on ao3 here!
Story: but slowly the instinct takes root in her throat
Chapter: 1/1
Characters: Kipperlilly Copperkettle, Ruben Hopclap, Porter Cliffbreaker, Jace Stardiamond, (mentions of other Rat Grinders)
Summary:
Kipperlilly has been chosen by a nascent god of rage. She's proud of that fact, excited by what it might mean for her future. In the meantime, she's stuck on night watch during her sophomore spring break with Ruben Hopclap, her least favorite party member. She's been told to worship her rage, to accept it in all its savage glory. What could go wrong? -- A one-shot about my head canons for how the Rat Grinders' first quest to the Mountains of Chaos went down.
“It’s cold out here.” 
The knife in Kipperlilly’s hand stuttered over a knot in the stick she was carving into a stake. Her motions were harsh and confident, but not well practiced. Woodcarving wasn’t a hobby of hers, but she would have done just about anything to dull the boredom in this moment—and to distract her from the incessant whining of her companion.
That she was being asked to keep watch at all was an insult. The thought sat under her skin like molten metal, but she pushed it away. Not only had she been chosen, she’d risen to the challenge. She could feel the symbol under the stiff, pressed fabric of her shirt, and the memory of the ritual was still fresh in her mind. Jace’s magic, the glittering red shatter star, the oath she had sworn to the god of rage. 
Jace had continually checked his notes as he administered the oath, and Porter had seethed at the indignity. “Maybe I’d remember this better if I’d had the chance to undergo it myself.” The sorcery teacher was cool and unbothered around most of his students, but Kipperlilly had come to know him as a perpetually exasperated presence in her life. “But, no, it wasn’t this easy for me.” He said as he traced a slender finger down the page of his notebook.
“An eye for opportunity is well rewarded.” Kipperlilly had chirped unhelpfully. She smiled smugly in the direction of the barbarian teacher who, in an official capacity, was not meant to be attached to this quest at all. Even the rest of her party didn’t know he was here with them in the Mountains of Chaos. But he had revealed himself to her for this ritual, because she was his chosen, because he trusted her—
“It’s cold and boring. And doesn’t it freak you out that things are so dangerous here that we need a nightwatch?” The drone of Ruben Hopclap’s incessant complaints pulled Kipperlilly back to the present moment. 
The stick in her hand snapped under the pressure of her knife. It was no real loss. She didn’t need a stake, just a distraction. She needed Ruben to shut up.
“It’s the Mountains of Chaos.” She responded curtly. “Of course it’s dangerous.” 
“I heard Yolen Harris’ party is going to Harroway Bay to fight a sea serpent or something.” As he spoke, Kipperlilly grabbed a new stick to resume her carving. Something about the steady motion helped to ground her, and she needed that more now than ever. “I bet the serpent won’t be fun, but think about it: Toes in the sand and crystal service! Now that’s a decent spring break.” 
Kipperlilly watched as the wood parted from itself in thin, curling layers and grit her teeth. “It’s also a monumental waste of time. People kill sea serpents all the time. No one’s gonna remember that quest in a month.” 
She shouldn’t humor him with responses. Of all the people in her party, Ruben was the most indolent. Not that he lacked ambition; He envied Figueroth Faeth in all her stardom. He just didn’t have the actual follow through to do anything about it. It made Kipperlilly sick, and it was the lesser of the two things she hated most about him.
Kipperlilly was proud to say that Lucy Frostblade was her best friend. But, since they had met Ruben in middle school, she’d suffered the slight of having to share the claim to being Lucy’s. 
“Who cares!” Ruben whined. He was always whining. She found herself wishing the high-pitched frequency of his voice would drive a nearby pack of wolves into a slavering bloodlust and they would come here to rend him limb from limb. As she turned the stick in her hand, and notched her knife into it once again, she imagined the violent scene in great detail. It brought her some solace. “I’m cold! I’d rather be at the beach! Who’s gonna remember us for coming to this empty, useless temple and looking for a dumb name, anyway? Even if we find it.”
He didn’t know the plan. He didn’t know they would change the world someday. That they’d create their own god, raise him from his mortality. That they would carve Elmville from its stubborn mundanity and reform it in the image of something worthy. They would be greater than the Bad Kids, or any adventurer who had ever graduated from Aguefort. Many alumni of the school had saved the world, but none of them had ever remade it. 
“You’re probably cold because you dressed for the beach. Like an idiot.” She snapped, pointing with her knife toward his sandaled feet. 
“Dress for the job you want!” 
Kipperlilly felt hot, buzzing rage rising in her throat. It was a familiar feeling, like boiling water overcoming all her senses.
Her grandmother had once tried to endear her to her family legacy. She’d taken her to the kitchen, and showed her the Copperkettle, the magical item from which her family got their name. Most halfling families got their names this way, from heirlooms that often harkened back to a time before they came to Elmville. The Copperkettle was barely magical. 
Newly immigrated to Elmville, the family had struggled to make ends meet, and the Copperkettle had kept them fed anyway, against all odds. This was the only version of the story worth telling, but her grandmother had embellished it with all kinds of details—the names of her ancestors, what kinds of stew the kettle had produced, the tale of their eventual agreement to share the stew. The story dragged on until there was nothing but a frustrating buzz in the back of Kipperlilly’s young head where the anger rose to meet it. She didn’t want to be standing in her kitchen, listening to a lecture about the history of the most boring family in Elmville—She didn’t want to be reminded that she was a part of that family. 
She tried to sit still and quiet, to listen politely like her parents had taught her, but the anger ballooned inside her until it was too big for her tiny body to contain. She had felt near tears with it by the time she admitted it to herself, and acted on it. In her anger, she had scurried forward and kicked her grandmother’s knee—anything to get her to shut up. 
She remembered being dragged away by her parents. They had sat her on the cold cement porch stairs outside their family home, wagged disapproving fingers in her face. And she’d known then that they were right—or thought that they were. Anger was something to ignore, to push down and suffocate. 
Gods forbid it have the ability to suffocate back. 
That night, with Ruben seemingly incapable of shutting his mouth, the same anger was starting to expand hot and fast in her chest. Her anger was always vicious and strong, oftentimes stronger than her, but there was something new this time too. 
With the feeling, the symbol on her chest burned steadily. For a moment it was a grounding feeling. She could honor this anger, just like Porter had taught her. She could feel it and savor it—The way her face burned and the way her focus on the world sharpened until there was nothing but Ruben’s voice, and the knife, and the wood. 
“And this job sucks. Even if it was memorable, we’ll always be remembered as the dumb kids who needed a chaperone on our sophomore project.” Ruben filled the silence when Kipperlilly didn’t respond. 
Her stick snapped again, but this time in the tightening grip of her hand rather than under the pressure of her knife. 
“And the solution to that is to resign ourselves to a lazy beach week?” She let the words claw their way from her throat, and seep through clenched teeth.
Her hand held tight to the pommel of her knife. Without the grounding repetition of sliding it along the wood, she started to think of other things she could do with it. She thought of nothing but wolves, and blood, and the heat of rage that clung to her every breath. 
Ruben’s sniveling answer fell on deaf ears. She wanted nothing more than silence. She wanted peace. She wanted to not have to endure his weakness and whining. 
The first plunge of the knife came without thought. It was a mindless thing that drove her to stand, approach and attack. It all happened in the flash of prickling anger that overtook her senses and mind. But the scream that came with it pulled her back to reality, made her angrier. 
Kipperlilly was often angry. She had felt the urge to destroy—to tear the world apart, ruin her friends’ moods, to see things burn because of the fire in her stomach and on her tongue. But she had always felt remorse, too. That destruction, the harsh words, the cruel actions had always stopped her before—she always ended up just the same as that kid on the porch stairs, crying as her parents wagged their fingers in her face.
But not this time. This time, she relished in the anger. She did just as she was told. She let it consume her. It was like falling away from herself and being more present than ever all at once. She viscerally felt the skin and muscle part under her knife, felt as the blade scraped and stuck into ribs. She heard every scream, felt Ruben’s hand clawing at the sleeve of her pristine, white blouse. She saw the terror in his eyes fade into glassy, distant nothingness. 
But the whole time she was wrapped in the resplendent ecstasy of wrath. It kept her distant and safe. It kept the fire in her belly roaring and hungry for more. It smoothed over the edges. It distracted her from the way her hand slipped on the blood slicked grip of her knife and the way the blade cut into the flesh of her own palm. It held her anxieties about being heard and her guilt at a distance. 
She sat back from the unmoving corpse underneath her, and stared at the shredded chest of a boy she’d known since middle school. With shaking hands, she set her knife down beside them, in the fast collecting pool of blood. There was a fist-sized bloodstain on her blouse where Ruben had clung to her, but he’d long since lost the strength for that. Her sweater vest was ruined. Warm, tacky blood adhered her tights to her knees. Everything smelled so strongly like blood that she could taste iron on her tongue. 
And then there were Ruben’s dark eyes, staring, staring, staring, and seeing nothing. 
Kipperlilly lurched to the side and retched, but nothing came up. The weight of what she’d done settled on her like the sky falling. Tears blurred her vision, and she was grateful because she didn’t want to see. Whether they were tears of contrition or self pity, she couldn’t say. 
Somewhere nearby her party was asleep, if they hadn’t already been awoken by the screams. Sometime soon, they would see what she’d done—or otherwise notice Ruben’s absence. And Lucy. What would Lucy think? How would she ever look at her again?
Sitting there over the dead body, for maybe the first time in her life, Kipperlilly couldn’t think of a plan. She could think only one thing: Porter. 
She’d done what he’d said. She’d given into her rage. He had to help her fix this. He was the only one who would understand—even if he couldn’t have possibly foreseen that it would come to this. 
She tried to stand and her polished bar shoes slipped in the blood, sending her tumbling downwards and face to blank, pallid face with the corpse. It was washed in the sickly green light of distant beacon fires, which only made the quickly paling skin look worse. She couldn’t leave it here. This time, she knew the thought was one of self-preservation. 
Pulling herself to her feet, Kipperlilly carefully sheathed her bloody knife. Then, she gathered the body in her arms, and pulled it up the stone stairs into the temple. She slinked through the shadows, past the alcove where the rest of her party slept. It was some distance away and, by then, her arms ached under the weight but she hoped that the distance meant there had been no disturbance here. The rock face that made up the temple echoed with every sound, but things were quiet. There was no sound of confusion, or people rushing to arms. 
She kept moving, past towering statues of proud warriors and their flaming horses, past the walls scrawled with words of prayer, until she reached the chamber where she knew Porter was staying. His presence was still unknown to the rest of the party and, at least as recently as the ritual, he wanted to keep it that way. This place, deep within the temple, was cavernous and massive. It was the place she had undergone her ritual earlier in the day but now, returning to it, she felt so far from the victorious spirit she’d clung to then. 
She stopped once inside, letting the corpse slump to the ground far from the giant altar at the other end of the chamber in front of which a bedroll was laid out. Porter wasn’t sleeping, though, he was standing on one of the staggered platforms, facing the iron brazier that dominated the center of the altar. 
Words failed Kipperlilly. She stood over the body and stared across the wide space between herself and the barbarian teacher—the soon-to-be god—who she’d worked so hard to impress, and couldn’t bring herself to speak. He had put so much faith in her, and surely this would be a grave disappointment. But in her panic, she didn't know where else to go.
“Kipperlilly?” He turned before she had to say anything at all, those dark eyes widening in shock. It must have been quite the sight. She was usually so well put together, but now she was disheveled and blood splattered. Not to mention the corpse at her feet. “What in the world have you done?”
“I—I didn’t mean to.” Now that she had found them again, words came tumbling out of her without her control. “He made me so mad. You said to lean into the anger! I pledged myself to it! It was supposed to be—You said it’d be holy, that it would be sacred, but I—” She got stuck on this word, stuttering it out too many times before the sentence died altogether in her throat. She couldn’t say it. 
She’d killed him. 
Porter jumped from the platform in one fluid motion and strode toward her. His features were pinched with a deep concern, but he didn’t seem panicked. Some small part of Kipperlilly wished that he did—maybe so she wouldn’t be alone with the suffocating feeling, or maybe because she thought it’d make her feel less small.
“Why didn’t you bring him to Lucy? She has diamonds, doesn’t she?” He demanded first, coming to stand in front of her and the corpse. She had to angle her face up to see him, always, but now she looked elsewhere. Anywhere but at him or the bloody mess at her feet. Her eyes fixed on the pictographs of war lining the temple walls. 
The thought of bringing the mangled body to Lucy made her throat close up. She thought of her gentle friend. She tried to imagine the way hate would contort her features but, for all the awful things she had done, all the ways she had failed Lucy in the past, she had no frame of reference. She knew that even now she was avoiding the full reality of what she’d done. Facing Lucy would mean facing this, and she couldn’t do either.
“I can’t…” 
Slowly, Porter nodded, “You’re right. She’d never forgive you.” He admitted callously. “None of them would ever look at you the same way again.” 
There was a pause. Wind whistled through the colossal, empty stone halls. “You were right to bring this to me.”
She was right. No one else would understand. She sniffled, trying to pull herself together. “There has to be something—” Something that didn’t involve a cleric. “Professor Stardiamond could summon something.” Just like their training in the woods. All the appearance of danger with none of its teeth.
“How would a monster have gotten here?” Porter asked, shaking his head. “No, that’s sloppy. You can do better.” He pressed. Then, “You wanted Ruben dead, didn’t you?” 
“No,” Kipperlilly said with so much conviction that she surprised even herself. She angled her face up to see the disbelieving expression looming over her. She allowed herself a glimmer of self-reflection, just a moment of honesty, to decipher her own meaning. “I wanted to kill him,” she admitted, “But I didn’t want him dead.”
“Those are the same thing.” 
They weren’t. Kipperlilly struggled against the fog of panic and misery in her head, trying to piece the words together. She had wanted the violence. She had relished sticking a knife between his ribs, but the consequences of those actions weren’t welcome. She hadn’t thought about them before they were real. But Porter was right; How could she have been so stupid? 
“I might be able to help.” Porter turned his eyes toward the still body between them. “But this wasn’t the plan. You were the one who agreed to the ritual. You were supposed to be my chosen.” He ground out the words in frustration. 
“What?” 
Some selfish dark thing seized in Kipperlilly’s gut. She remembered how she had felt special during the ritual. She had known that she would be relied upon. She would be great, with her name raised above the rest, when it came time for Porter to ascend. Despite the dead boy at her feet, she didn’t want to let that go. 
“The others will know something has happened, but they’ve already made their choice. That’ll need to be fixed.” 
“Fixed?”
“Go get Stardiamond.” Porter said, tone dismissive. “Bring him here and we’ll catch him up on the plan.”
“What do you mean fixed?” Kipperlilly had not asked for much. She obeyed dutifully. She paid her dues. She would follow Porter through the nine hells if it meant she got her shot at greatness; If she could be a legendary adventurer; If she could be better than the fucking Bad Kids. But, this once, she demanded an answer. 
“Even if we bring Ruben back, they’ll see you as a monster. We’ve got to get them on our side.” As if from nowhere, he produced a shatter star. It bathed the chamber in a low, pulsing red light, shifting as he examined it. It tore itself apart into fractal pieces and slammed back into itself. 
“How? They already made their choice.” 
Some more than others. Oisin, under the right circumstances, might have been convinced. He had a legacy to live up to; He understood ambition. Porter had talked about not giving up, about continuing to evangelize about rage, and the unnamed goddess. The others were never to know about Porter’s plan to ascend. But, they could be won over with stories about a plan to resurrect a dead goddess, with the promises of the glory that that would bring. But, these weren’t the right circumstances.
“We would have had time to change their minds.” Porter’s words were harsh, but grounding. It was Kipperlilly’s loss of control that had brought them here. Even if she couldn’t own up to the rest of it, she had to own up to that. “But there are other ways. Watch.” He instructed, and stepped forward to kneel over the corpse. 
The shatter star leapt forward from his hand, burrowing into the mutilated flesh in front of them. The forward motion was violent and eager, and the corpse thrashed disturbingly like a rag doll limp in the mouth of a vicious dog. Kipperlilly watched with wide eyes as blood splattered upward onto her already ruined clothes. 
The motion stopped and, for a fleeting moment and eerie peace settled on the room. Kipperlilly looked up, half panicked, to see the way Porter’s steady, focused eyes were fixed on the body between them. Before she could demand to know what was happening, a rasping breath shattered the silence and Ruben came flying upwards, sitting ramrod straight. 
An animalistic growl issued from somewhere deep in his chest. Kipperlilly stared—in horror or in awe she didn’t know—as Ruben’s wits returned to him and he turned on her with a murderous glare. 
“You fucking killed me!” He roared, launching toward her with a ferocious speed. She stumbled backwards in surprise, still not having fully processed that he was alive, and fumbled for her knife. 
Ruben’s hands were outstretched, his face contorted into a mask of animus and hostility. He was inches away from tackling her when he suddenly froze. He shook his head, and was left blinking in dazed confusion.
“We’ll have none of that.” Porter spoke, standing from where he’d been kneeling at eye level. “If you need to fight it out, let’s do it when there isn’t already a monumental mess to clean up.” He grumbled.
Ruben looked down at his bloody clothes, then back between Porter and Kipperlilly. “You killed me so I’d have to worship your stupid rage god?” His anger seemed more directionless, now, and that must have been just as well to Porter, who shrugged.
“You’d have to ask Kipperlilly why she killed you. My god and I just brought you back.” Porter brushed a speck of blood off his hands and onto his pants like it was a meer inconvenience, and added, “You’re welcome.”
“You’ll have to kill the rest of them?” Kipperlilly was slowly piecing it together.
Panic kicked at the inside of her ribcage. A tidal wave of thoughts came crashing down on her. This was her fault. Everyone could have had more time. She could have convinced them all eventually, the right way. But she had fucked it up. She had forced Porter’s hand. Ruben had chosen to worship rage rather than die. Everyone else would have to as well. But Lucy would never. 
Lucy would never. 
“Lucy’s stocked for revivify.” She blurted out, the words leaving her before she’d had time to process. “If she’s here while you’re killing the others—She can’t be here while you’re killing the others.” 
She could feel Ruben’s glare boring a hole in the side of her head, but she kept her eyes fixed on Porter. She would follow him through the nine hells. She would convince her friends to worship rage. She would kill them all, or let them die, if she must. But not Lucy. 
Lucy wouldn’t come back. Kipperlilly needed more time. She would have had it, if not for her own miserable wrath. 
Porter seemed to consider her words. “Get Stardiamond, tell him to bring the others to me. You keep Lucy busy. Tell her you don’t know where Ruben is, make her heal that cut on your hand. I don’t care, just handle it. You’ve made enough of a mess.”
Relief rushed over her, and Kipperlilly nodded, ever the dutiful soldier. “Right, of course.” Her eyes flickered briefly over to where Ruben’s burned into her like hot coals before she turned to carry out her marching orders. 
As she backtracked through the empty, echoing halls of the temple, she recalled slights against her and held them close to her chest like kindling for a fire. The way Oisin and Ivy would whisper behind their hands and snicker at her; Mary Ann’s brutal dismissal when she tried to bond with her; the betrayal of everyone when they changed their party name. The Rat Grinders could die. It was a price she was more than willing to pay for her own chance at greatness.  It was easier to take ownership of it all. To foster the anger inside and pretend that this was how she wanted things to go, rather than admit to losing control. The symbol of an unnamed god burned quietly against her chest.
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