#trail of the flail snail

[snurtle]

At the risk of sounding predictable (I am), I fucking love it when people show me snails and snail shaped things!!!!

I love snails!

[johannestevans]

crying bc i just took my bins out and there was this poor woman with her two young kids, i'm guessing these boys were about 5 and 7, and she looked so tired, it's 10 30 at night, they obviously just got in, she's carrying all this shit under her arms

and these kids are. WAILING. and refusing to get out of the car, one of them is on his feet and like, star-fished to prevent himself from being physically removed from the car

so i come in a few minutes later and she's got her kids in the building, one of them is sniffling and softly crying as he trails behind her, the other is just in front of her with like, a tight grip on the tassels of her veil

and she's like, "honestly you guys, i don't understand, what are you so scared of snails for?"

because it was. a snail. they saw a snail. and they were so scared they both started sobbing

and one of them says something utterly unintelligible through his tears, and she's trying to be a good mother and not laugh as she says, "snails don't eat people," and then is flailing for something like, comforting or positive to say about snails and goes, "they eat rats"

fhskgshgshsg

[ange1sang]

snail shells

3.3k words, mickey-centric/gallavich

; canon compliant, milkovich family + growing up milkovich, domestic violence/childhood abuse, hurt/comfort, angst, domestic fluff, memories, boys in love, growing up + getting older, trauma, happy ending, puking mentioned in passing

summary: how mickey milkovich goes from crushing snails beneath his boots to peeling them off of his husband's tomato plants.

The earliest memory Mickey has is of his mother screaming. He doesn't remember why she was screaming (though it isn't too hard to guess why) and he barely remembers what her voice sounded like when she spoke anymore, but he remembers her screaming like he was born with the sound engraved in his brain. Something about it makes his skin crawl, because there was never any point in screaming in the Milkovich house – nobody was going to come to your aid, so you either fought back or locked yourself in the bathroom until whoever was after you gave up. Under their roof it was always fight or flight. Freeze would have you beaten half to death and fawn didn't work with people who would happily wear your blood like a glove. Then again, most of his early memories make his skin crawl.

His uncles beating each other till bone cracked, loud and sickening while white trash reality TV droned on in the background. Hiding from a drunk Terry under the bed at his aunt's house when he was a toddler. Holding Mandy in his lap when she was still tiny, sucking on her hair and crying silently for a mommy who wasn't planning on coming home any time soon. Looking at his ears in the mirror, swollen and bruised black and blue, and not understanding why none of the other kids in his class ever looked as dirty or hurt as him. There are few memories from his childhood that don't involve grime or alcohol or injury, almost everything from that period overshadowed by the primal need to survive in a world that could've cared less if he made it to his next birthday. And even the handful of memories that aren't smeared with blood are coated in something bitter and sour and ugly.

Like when he was six years old and staying at his aunt's with Mandy, courtesy of a broken nose he'd gotten when one of his older cousins had shoved him out of the way without looking and he'd landed face first on the kitchen table. He remembers being mean and sharp even back then, because he had to be. To be soft meant being crushed beneath other's heels, and he couldn't afford to be crushed. Not now that he had Mandy to look out for – Mandy who was just a year younger than him but still younger, still a girl with pudgy cheeks and a bottom lip that quivered when their dad yelled. Still his little sister, living in a house full of burly, drunk men.

At his aunt's, though, he could afford to lose some of his mean edge. He could giggle at the cartoons on the TV without being told to shut up and could tug on his aunt's sleeve when he was hungry or thirsty without recoiling in fear of being smacked upside the head. He didn't have to survive in the same way that he did at home, which is why he found himself sitting on the porch watching snails and slugs trail slime on the concrete while rain pitter-pattered onto the steps.

Back at home he liked to kill insects, liked to swat at them with his hands or drown them in the kitchen sink, thought it was funny how their spindly legs flailed and their bodies squished under his thumb. Here he liked to just watch them, grubby fingers curled around his throbbing nose while he absentmindedly picked at the thick scab on the bridge of it. He liked the pattern on the snails' shells, liked how their eyes stuck out of their heads and moved around in the air. He was fascinated by how slowly they moved. At home he was always running – running to get out, running to dodge a fist – and at school he was always running too, getting away from teachers before he got caught pulling another kid's hair or slamming their arm with a locker door. He never got to move as calmly as the snails did, drag on the pavement like he had all the time in the world. He sat for what felt like hours and watched the snails with wide, envious eyes, flicking bits of bloody scab and skin onto the ground below him.

There was one snail, smaller than the others with a pinkish brown shell, that was moving particularly slowly. While the others carried on on their paths to nowhere in particular this one stopped every now and then, eyes waving around like it was trying to talk to Mickey. He reached out to poke it with a bloody finger, giggling when its eyes curled back into its body. If he didn't know better he would've picked it up and taken it inside, put it on the living room floor and watched to see if it would eat any of their Pop-Tart and cornflake crumbs. But his aunt wouldn't like that, so he stayed outside with it, waiting patiently for it to reach the edge of the porch and disappear into the grass.

He was so focused on the snail and the trail of slime it was leaving behind that he didn't notice Iggy stomping up the steps towards him, at least not until he stepped right on the snail, crushing its patterned shell beneath his heavy hand-me-down boot, hanging from his foot like a clown shoe.

"Iggy!" he yelled, eyes filling with angry tears, but it was too late. The other boy lifted his shoe and the snail was nothing but a pancake of slime and smashed up shell. It was never going to reach the grass now.

"C'mon, Joey's gonna get us KitKats from the Kash 'n Grab," Iggy said, all toothy grin and snotty nose. He didn't notice that he'd just stepped on the snail that Mickey had been watching all afternoon. Mickey wanted to run back inside and sit with Mandy and cry, because she was the only one who didn't mind if he cried. But he knew better than to do something like that, knew better than to wear his heart on his sleeve even if he was too little to know what was making his heart was twist and ache in his chest. He punched Iggy in the shoulder, narrowly escaping a punch back.

"Fuck you," he barked, barely knowing the meaning of the words but knowing that they were always appropriate in their family. As they raced each other to the corner store, kicking rocks at each other and yelling curse words back and forth, he could've sworn with each footstep he felt a snail shell cracking beneath the soles of his busted up shoes.

The only real rays of sunshine that broke through the clouds of growing up Milkovich appeared when he turned fifteen years old. Smoking outside of the Kash and Grab, bruised and filthy thanks to Terry and their overdue water bills, he spotted a new face among the shelves of the cornerstore. The redheaded Gallagher kid was in there, stacking cans of soup, freckled face laughing at something a customer was telling him, and Mickey felt his heart swell in a dangerous, nauseating way.

He wanted to crush the Gallagher kid then and there, enraged by the warm feeling in his chest. At the same time he wanted to stand there and watch him until the store closed, wanted to watch him meandering about those shelves in no rush at all, moving slow like the snails did outside of his aunt's house years ago, when he was still small enough to run from home calling for help. In the end he did neither of those things. He threw his half-smoked cigarette to the ground and stomped it out, even though he'd never cared about doing anything like that before, if only to feel something give out beneath his foot. It didn't get rid of the mushy feeling in his chest at all.

He quickly learned that there was almost nothing he could do to get rid of that mushy feeling he got around the ginger Gallagher. It didn't help when he beat on Kash or stole things from the corner store when he knew Gallagher would see him. It didn't help when he stayed past closing and caught Gallagher on his tiptoes kissing his boss, and it certainly didn't help when Mandy came home crying that Ian Gallagher (the redhead had a first name now – Ian) had groped her. So Mickey did the only thing he knew how to do. He beat up Kash and he beat up Lip, every punch and kick bringing with it a fiery dissatisfaction. Nothing he did would get rid of the stupid somersaults his heart kept doing every time someone mentioned the Gallagher kid, every time he walked past the blue house on North Wallace, every time he and his cousins went down to the Kash and Grab to snatch something to eat before their stomachs started growling again.

And then he beat up Ian. Or at least, he tried to.

One second he'd been sleeping and the next Ian Gallagher's head was between his thighs, pressed down into his worn, soiled mattress. And Ian was blinking up at him, bracing himself for a crowbar to the head. He blinked slow, his eyes muddy green-blue like rain pitter-pattering on snail slime. He was breathing heavy. There was a bruise forming on his cheekbone already, underneath his freckles. He had a lot of freckles, Mickey thought to himself. Way more now that he could see him up close. And just like that the mushy feeling eased up, turned into something he could hold. Something more scary than it used to be, but also more tolerable.

Mickey liked Ian. He liked Ian a lot. Liked his sideways, crooked smile and how he saw the good in everybody all the time. He liked how good he was to Mandy, liked how he took cigarettes from between Mickey's fingers like it was nothing so that they could share, liked the way his muscles moved beneath his skin and how warm his blood ran, his touch always searing Mickey's skin like he was branding his palm print into the space between Mickey's shoulderblades. He was sweet like orange soda, sarcastic and quick like a butterfly knife. He was soft where Mickey was sharp, and while that would've scared Mickey when he was fifteen by the time he was seventeen all it did was make his heart jump and his cheeks burn. That might've been why he let his guard down.

Rays of sunshine turned to dark, thick clouds quicker than Mickey ever could've anticipated. All it took was one poorly timed afternoon, one unlocked door, Ian's hands on his shoulders and a Russian hooker who would come to know him better than most people he'd ever meet.

In that one afternoon it became clear that those soft edges he loved on Ian had rubbed off on him, and all they had done was make it easier for Terry to dig his teeth deeper into the parts of him that mattered. All of the things he liked about Ian translated to nothing more than vulnerability in the end. Mickey wanted to hate him for it. It would've made his life easier, to shut out the reason he'd turned so soft. But all he did was hate himself.

The years he'd spent growing out of his bony elbows and teary eyes were thrown out of the window like they meant nothing after that afternoon. He was just a kid again, locked out of the house and dizzy from a too-hard smack to the head, but now he couldn't run crying to his aunt or hide out in the bathroom until Terry forgot about him. Terry wasn't ever going to forget, and if Mickey wasn't careful he'd get himself killed. Or worse, he'd get Ian killed.

Ian, his sister's best friend who never knew when to shut up about his fucking feelings. Ian who always smiled at him like they'd never done anything wrong in their whole shitty, South Side lives. Ian, who still made his heart squeeze and flip-flop even after Terry tried to pistol-whip that feeling out of him. Ian, bruised and bleeding on the ground telling Mickey to admit he was gay. Pleading for him to admit it just this once, pleading even after taking a fist to the stomach.

"Feel better now?" he asked, bleeding where Mickey's fist had broken the skin on his forehead. "Feel like a man?"

Mickey wanted to scream. Scream because nothing was going to make him feel better. Scream because Terry was always going to ruin anything his kids could get their hands on, and because he was stupid to think he could've held Ian without hurting him in the process. He wasn't sure that those were the words that would come out if he opened his mouth though. He was terrified on his own tongue and lips, terrified that they'd tell Ian something else, something fleshy and fragile instead. Something that could bleed.

His boot made a nauseating sound when it hit the side of Ian's head, blood flying across the gravel beneath them. A sound Mickey knew well from the Milkovich house. All of the warmth in his chest turned sour, rising in his throat like acid.

"I feel better now," he taunted as he walked away, his throat straining around the lie. Thunder rumbled loud in Mickey's ears, sounding an awful lot like his own racing, mangled heart.

He didn't turn back to look at Ian, didn't want to see his lips slick with blood instead of spit, didn't want to see the damage he'd done and how similar it looked to the kind of damage his father was so good at leaving behind. He wasn't ten steps away when he felt the crush beneath one of his shoes, the same one he'd kicked Ian with. A snail shell, turned to mush beneath his muddy, bloody sole. Everything in him screamed to stop and look, look at the life he'd destroyed with just one step. But he didn't. He couldn't, not without seeing himself in the shiny, sharp shell fragments.

He kicked off his shoes when he got home and locked himself in his room with a bottle of vodka. It didn't help. He could still feel the snail stuck to the bottom of his foot, broken and dead. He swallowed a mouthful of liquor and puked it right back up into his laundry basket. Ian's blood was on his knuckles when wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He could taste it as he sucked on his bottom lip like a teething kid.

He was a Milkovich through and through. He was just like Terry.

That feeling stuck around for far longer than he'd expected it to. Even after Ian came back to him, Mickey could feel it beneath his skin, sick and unclean. Each time he and Ian bickered, each time the redhead's muddy eyes turned sad, Mickey felt that snail's shell giving way beneath his foot. He was going to crush him again. The only boy he'd ever liked, let alone loved. Whether or not he wanted to he was going to dig his teeth into his soft spots and draw blood and hurt him. He was sure of it. And yet, he never did.

When Ian cried now Mickey didn't make it worse. He didn't make him bleed or bruise. He dried his cheeks and kissed his forehead, thumbs always hesitant, always scared that he was going to do what he'd been raised to do. And all Ian did was lean his face further into Mickey's touch, trusting him over and over again not to pull him limb from limb. Love was made up of a lot of that, Mickey eventually learned. Trusting, again and again and again. Trusting Ian not to drop his hand when things went awry. Trusting himself not to aim for the jugular when he felt vulnerable. Trusting the Gallaghers not to turn into Milkoviches when they'd had one too many drinks. Trusting as many people as he could, as often as he could, because even if his first memory was of his mother screaming there were better memories to be made. Better memories to build his life out of now.

Like how the morning light fills his and Ian's bedroom in their apartment on the West Side. Orange and warm, filtering through the gaps through their curtains and illuminating the freckles on Ian's chest. Most days Ian is awake before him, but on the days that he isn't Mickey gets to watch his husband sleeping, count every breath and every freckle if he wants to.

The first thing Ian does when he wakes up is smile. He's always been smiley, even when they were fucking in the back of a corner store and Mickey smelled like cow shit, but Mickey still hasn't gotten used to the butterflies it gives him, the way it eases the weight of the world on his shoulders. Then he kisses Mickey, like it's the easiest thing in the world, like they didn't fight tooth and nail for ten years to be able to do it. Then, he goes out onto their balcony and checks on the plants he's been growing.

He's always been gentler than most people, vulnerable and trusting in a way that reminds Mickey of Mandy and in a way that he sees in Debbie everyday. Mickey's always known this, but seeing how Ian handles fragile leaves and stems between his big fingers reminds him again that he's married to somebody soft. Somebody fleshy, who bleeds just like him.

Most of the time Mickey just watches him garden from afar, not interfering with the plants he knows nothing about, but every now and then he spots a bug crawling along a stem and he kneels down beside Ian to flick it away, watching with a smile as it scrambles to find its footing again. On even rarer occasions, he spots a snail gliding along the leaves of one of the plants, usually after a night of rain. He's always confused as to how they get up to their balcony, especially with how slowly they move, and he's always fascinated by the glistening trail of slime they leave behind. He guesses he'll always be that hurt little kid sitting on his aunt's porch, cradling his broken nose and waiting for the small snail with the pinkish brown shell to make it to the safety of the tall, untended grass.

He also knows that he's older now, that he doesn't have to watch somebody crush the snail with their big hand-me-down boots and that he isn't going to misstep and kill it by mistake, leaving behind a pancake of shell and flesh and slime. Now he gets to reach out and pick up the snail by its shell, snorting when its eyes recoil into its body, and carefully set it aside onto the wall of their building. He waits to make sure its got a grip on the wall before he lets go, and watches it slowly (so, so slowly) begin to make its way to a different destination.

When he turns around Ian is watching him with a fond smile that makes Mickey's ears burn.

"What're you lookin' at?" he asks, all faux-defensiveness as the mushy feeling he's known since he was fifteen fills his chest. Ian nearly always replies in the same way, just as enamored every time.

"My husband," he says, grinning at Mickey.

It's a simple memory, one that's taken place enough times that it should be mundane by now. It's still one of Mickey's favourite memories, one that overshadows all of the bitter and sour and ugly ones from his childhood. He kisses Ian, like it's the easiest thing in the world. Like they didn't fight tooth and nail for ten years to be able to do it, because everything he's been through was worth it in the end.

[dm-paul-weber]

Trail of the Flail Snail Adventure! I created an adventure for use in Tomb of Annihilation. Check it out and download the entire adventure, free, with the link provided. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WG6oGEUYtnRfCoQek4tRt55DpGcslO9o/view?usp=drive_link

[cloudbattrolls]

Might Makes Wrong

Gliese Benral | Benral Hedge Maze | Present Night

Gliese, for all her tendency to snarl and slash at anything that threatened her, could be patient.

The blueblood could send her new necromantic constructs - far more hardy and mobile than her first ones, which had come apart with one good kick and and moved at a snail’s pace - out to patrol the corners of her hedge maze and report back to her. Creations of bone, magically improved dead flesh, and plants, they served her well.

She could have them trap a zombie, entangling her in thorny vines.

Gliese rode up to the struggling, flailing undead on her lusus, the psychic wearing a hard and satisfied grin.

“Well, well, well, look who we have here. The world’s shittiest undead. Any last words, chickie?”

Zeller looked at her with genuine fear in her mismatched eyes, her large ears pinned back.

“I don’t - I haven’t come close in weeks, love, what’s this about? I’ve hardly even seen Shedir lately…”

She sounded sad about it. Boo fucking hoo.

“Who cares?” Drawled the cuspy cerulean. “You’re here now, this is still my territory. I knew if I just waited a few weeks, your ugly mug would pop up again. Anyway, time to die, unless you do have some last words.”

“Wait!” said the woman, panicked. “I - I promise I was coming to tell you something helpful. About the mannequins.”

The hare troll’s eyebrows raised and she shifted her position on her lusus. The giant saber-toothed hare, despite his more limited expressions, looked just as dismissive as his charge. One lapine ear flicked idly as his daughter considered her captive’s words.

“Why?” Asked Gliese bluntly. “Why would you fucking bother? You know I want to kill you, and now I can, no matter what regeneration you have. As far as I’m concerned, I’m doing everyone a favor, especially me.” Her nose wrinkled as she recalled the undead’s attempts to flirt with her. Fucking gross.

“Please.” begged Zeller, some trace of an almost-familiar accent creeping back into her voice instead of the apparently false one she’d been using. What a dipshit poser.

“Please, the mannequins…you don’t understand how bad it is…you haven’t even been looking into it, have you? That other undead you were so busy with, oh my…I could feel him. Feel his power. A beacon…well, they’re like the hands of a beacon, but I scarce understand why or how.”

“Fuck’s sake, don’t be so cryptic.” Said the blueblood impatiently. “I don’t have all night. Really doing a shit job of convincing me to spare you.”

The plant zombies’ thorny vines gripped the lanky woman tighter and she cried out in pain.

“I’m not - not trying to be!” She said, almost sobbing. “It’s all terribly - augh - terribly tangled! I have trouble following it m-myself! P-please, just loosen…ack…l-loosen them a little…there’s a good girl…”

“Barf.” Said Gliese in disdain, but did so with a flick of her magic, a few blue lights swirling with the usual steady orange glow of her eyes.

“Thank you.” wheezed the zombie, her fancy clothing now mangled and shredded. “You really are…quite the stunner! Ha ha…I don’t mean that like I used to…no, you remind me of him…except better to look at, hahaha…”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re crazy, I get it, now get to the point.” Snapped the highblood. 

“Am I so daft? I guess I am…well, who wouldn’t be…I think I’ve earned a little daftness, for little old me. Little old Zeller had to see trolls dragged away…learned the hard way it was nearly her, for once it was lucky I got my kill stolen! Oh, they like suffering, I think…suffering without cause…screaming and struggling. They remind me of him too…” She trailed off, staring into the hedges.

“Maybe if I had been more like him, I’d have lived! Hm. Or maybe I’d have died…there must have been others who died, it’s been so long, and Tuuya is so much older than me, I hear…”

Zeller said the worm swarm’s name in a strange way; half longing, half jealousy, with a craving that had an ache to it. 

Gliese’s glowing eyes narrowed.

“Okay, I really shouldn’t give a fuck, and I will probably regret asking, but what the hell is your deal with them? You don’t seem to have met them but you’re fucking obsessed. Why?”

The stitched-up undead gave a strange and terrible sad needle smile broken only by a small pair of buckteeth. Her short wavy hair was all askew from her rough treatment.

“Well, dearie, you could say we’re connected.”

Wait. She had teeth like - ears like - hair like - regenerated from fire like -

“Oh holy fuck.” Breathed the blueblood. “No way.” 

Zeller nodded as enthusiastically as she could while trapped by vines.

“God.” Gliese groaned. “I knew I’d regret asking because now I want to know. Now I have to let your dumb ass live a little longer.”

“Ehehehehee…” Zeller laughed giddily and slightly hysterically. “Hooked, hm? Like a little fish? Yes, yes, you’re right…but don’t think I’m the first. No, not me. I was the second…worse luck. The first was him.” She said, and her voice became dead and grim. 

“Him…I won’t speak his name. Maybe Tuuya has said it…let it grime their lips and tongue…I never will again. I didn’t want the face he gave me either, so I changed it, changed the horns too…oh, it helped not an ounce, it didn’t…not when he came calling.” Her voice wobbled with fear and weariness.

“Yeah that’s super sad.” Drawled Gliese uncaringly. “I’m guessing that was your ancestor? Tuuya’s never mentioned anything about theirs, so I’m still in the dark.”

“Good.” Murmured the undead. “Good…let his name die, like he must have if they are free…yes, my ancestor and theirs. The Lifeweaver. Ha! Should have called him Deathbringer…but he failed after all, because I came back! I came back…” her voice trailed off and she scratched at her neck stitches.

“Yaaaaaaay.” Said Gliese in the most sarcastic deadpan. “Hey, question. How come you’re not worms like they are?”

“Because I was a failure, love.” Said Zeller with a croaky little laugh. “The genetics all wrong…the integration a cock-eyed mess…I lived! I ran away…I had never really wanted it.” She gave a hiccupy little laugh, then shivered.

“He dragged me back to finish it anyway…that’s when it happened. Slept so long, no one was left when I woke…no one except the empire nosing around my cavern. Well, they weren’t nosing for long.”

She had a gleeful, hungry look in her eyes that reminded Gliese why she had to kill this piece of trash.

“Cool story! You won’t get to tell it again.” Commented the blueblood, commanding her own zombies to crush the disgusting undead.

Zeller screamed and begged, but it wasn’t the jadeblood’s pleas that stopped the vines from further tearing her body apart.

Gliese simply hesitated to throw away a potentially useful tool.

Yes, she could make good constructs now, but she wasn’t quite at the level of making sapient ones. Plus, it would be shitty to ask someone alive, someone who actually mattered, to endanger themself trying to investigate this thing. 

If anything happened to Zeller, who gave a damn?

“Okay, here’s how it’s going to go, so listen the fuck up.” She said, intent. 

The zombie swallowed and nodded. Many of her stitches had burst or ripped and were oozing grayish jade blood, her limbs holding on by shreds that were slowly beginning to weave back together. 

Not nearly as fast as Tuuya could, the psychic noted. Zeller really was just a clumsy prototype. No wonder the flamethrower had stopped her for weeks, though sadly not killed her. 

“You’re going to only feed on whatever dead people you can find. No killing to eat. I’ll be putting a sensor on you so I’ll know if you do.” She said, eyes narrowed. 

“You’re going to find out as much as you can about these mannequins and report back to me. I want it written up, too. We’re keeping records, we’re doing this right. Put a single fucking toe out of line, say any more gross shit to me, and I’m going to find out just how good your regeneration is.” Said the hare troll, soft and deadly. 

“O-of course, miss.” Croaked the zombie, ears fully down and flattened against her head.

“Cool, glad we got that sorted out.” Said the psychic casually, almost pleasantly. 

The spiky vines slowly released the undead, retracting into the constructs who had captured and held her.

Gliese snorted in amusement at the bedraggled, woebegone zombie trying to put herself back together with shaking limbs as she hopped off her lusus. 

She took a few steps toward Zeller and prepared to cast the sensor spell.

The constructs’ vines reached in again with a cerulean haze of magic and the jadeblood flinched, but they didn’t wrap around her this time. Instead a pair of them wrapped around her mangled wrist, their ends weaving something together, and then withdrew.

A blue flower - a forget-me-not on its own slender vine - now circled the undead’s flesh.

“Don’t think you can destroy it.” Said Gliese with a dark chuckle. “Or take it off. That thing’s magic and it’ll outlast even you. It feeds on the remains of your own meals, that’s how I’ll know if you try any shit. And if you do…” 

She looked meaningfully at the zombie’s slowly regenerating arms, riddled with puncture wounds.

Zeller nodded, still shaky. 

Gliese didn’t bother with a final remark. The psychic merely climbed back on her lusus, and urged the saber-toothed hare to turn around and take her hive.

[feathery-dreamer]

imagine

a gasteropod delivery service

snail mail, if you will.

if they used semaphores it'd be flail mail if they delivered fragile items it'd be frail mail if they carried sacred items it'd be grail mail if they only went through dirt paths it'd be trail mail if they only used trains it'd be rail mail if they employed prisoners it'd be jail mail if they got you out of prison it'd be bail mail if they never found receipient it'd be fail mail if it rained packages from clouds it'd be hail mail if they displayed messages on ship sails it'd be sail mail if they sent messages by crying loudly it'd be wail mail if they only delivered furry content it'd be tail mail if they scratched paper to write letters it'd be nail mail

[artbytheriverblues]

She wears short skirts, I leave a slime trail

She's a cheer captain and I'm just a flail snail

[thepenultimateword]

Too Tall Part Four

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Neither human nor Ke'turian rested for long. How could they when there were casualties to number and chaos to be soothed? Hayes shivered slightly against Unai's arm, a newly arrived cold sweat pasting stray strands of hair to his temples, but he exchanged a determined look with her, and the two of them slowly pulled their aching limbs into an upright position.

Hayes trembled putting his feet back beneath him, stumbling at even the smallest amount of weight on the injured leg. Unai grabbed his shoulder before he could topple over, and the little commander clasped her wrist and bent his head forward to take a couple deep breaths.

"Alright," he said finally, dragging his leg a couple steps out of her grip. "I need to go to my quarters, but you should go check on your soldiers."

"I'm not leaving you like that," Unai said, waving at the burned and useless limb. She trailed at a snail's pace behind him as he stubbornly continued in the direction of the lift.

"I'm a low priority. What's important is finding anyone with critical injuries and getting them to the MedBay. Besides, I can barely keep ahead of your stride on a good day. I'll slow you down immensely now."

"Alright, then we'll just..." Unai finished the thought by scooping the human into her arms.

"Captain!" Hayes cried. He squirmed and pushed both hands uselessly against her shoulder.

Unai stilled him with a look, bearing her fangs a little so he could fully register her seriousness. "You're right. You slow me down." Her voice came out low and threatening, but how else was she supposed to react to such an idiotic request? He'd almost died! His leg was in shambles, he could barely stand, and now she was supposed to leave him? "But if you think I'm going to let the station commander limp around in a danger zone unattended, you're sorely mistaken. It's my responsibility to take care of this station, and that includes you. Now, I don't know if you think you're being efficient or if you're too proud to let a subordinate see you this way, but endangering what someone just risked their life to save isn't only careless, it's insulting. I don't save lives on a whim. Got that? Stop wasting time."

Hayes swallowed and nodded.

"Good. You said you need something from your quarters?"

Another nod.

"Then we'll go there first and the MedBay after."

With Unai at full speed, it only took a couple minutes to get to the first floor. It actually took Hayes longer to get whatever he needed in his quarters than for Unai to run there. When he finally reappeared, he was wearing a new pair of uniform pants. Blood splotched through the fresh linen, but with the mangled limb hidden, he looked considerably more put together. This time, as he walked toward her, he dragged the leg only slightly, mouth pulled tightly shut to hide the grit of his teeth. So this is what he needed. He was going to put on a front for his people.

"Shall we go?" he said, raising one arm to signal his readiness to be lifted again. He took it much more gracefully this time, steadying himself against her bicep instead of toppling back in a flail of limbs. However, he hid his face whenever anyone raced past them, and once they were within several ebbs of the MedBay he tapped her shoulder to return him to the ground.

A medic rushed to him as they entered, but he quickly waved her off, insisting that his injuries could wait. Unai lost track of him after that. Letting him out of her sight made her anxious, but he was safe now, and she had duties to attend to.

The station was full of casualties, so she and anyone else well enough spent the whole evening running people into the MedBay where every medic in the station was on call. The carnage was horrendous. There were so many injured that they had to extend the MedBay to the common area of the first floor. She kept an eye out for Hayes, but she didn't see him again except for in a station-wide message displayed on everyone's communicators. He spoke with calm and relayed instructions for seemingly every possible problem the station could be facing. The hologram only appeared from the chest up, keeping the injured leg from the public's view, but Unai wondered if he'd let anyone look at it yet.

Once things were calm enough to step away, Unai gathered a few things from the MedBay and made her way to Hayes's office, but rather than the spirited human she was met with a slim Xersian woman with large eyes and blushed skin.

"Where's the commander?" Unai asked, aware that she was staring dumbly at the woman in Hayes's seat, but unable to snap her mouth shut.

"Resting in his quarters," the woman said passionlessly, only sparing a glance from her touchpad where her long fingers typed rapid and mechanical. "I'm Lieutenant Zae, the station's second. The commander was having trouble focusing, so he placed me in charge until he feels well enough to continue. Is the Ke'turian military captain here because she needs something or because she'd like to apologize for her Platoon's failure?"

The unexpected attack hit her like a slap to the face. For a moment she could only stand there and clench her fists, fingertips blistered from tying so many bandages. Too many for her own people.

"No." Unai kept her collar flat but smiled with fangs. "She had some updates on her platoon, but she'd rather not disclose them to a petty, self-important counterfeit leader. She'll wait until someone capable is in that chair. Excuse me for interrupting your work."

Unai strode out of the office before she could receive a response. She wasn't in the mood to be scolded by a stuck-up stick with legs, even if she deserved it. She could admit her reaction had been unprofessional, especially in the aftermath of catastrophe, but what right did a Xersian have to criticize her Platoon's work? Xersa didn't even have a military. They'd never gone to war. They only knew how to judge on scales of perfection. Her people had put their lives on the line for this station, and she called them failures?

Unai was so caught up in her anger and worry, she didn't realize where she was heading until she was standing outside of Hayes's door.

What was the matter with her? Was she obsessed? Perhaps it was ok for her to drop off medical supplies at her commander's office, but visiting his room was definitely crossing a line. What would he think of her if he saw her here? Would he be annoyed? She had almost convinced herself to turn away when a countering thought crossed her mind. What if he needed help? His leg had too serious an injury to be ignored. This had nothing to do with her...feelings. This had to do with her being possibly the only one who knew anything about his wound. If he complained, she'd say so.

Her knock on the door echoed heavily in the room beyond, like the hollow inside of an iron coffin. Insides paralyzed, she knocked again, pressing her ear close to the door for any sounds of life. It was only because of this that she heard the ever-so-quiet groan, "Come in..."

That was all Unai needed. She pounded the entry button, the unlocked door whirred open, and she strode inside. Her head swiveled around the dark room rapidly, glimpsing over artifacts, glass decorations, and a messy closet with clothes spilling out of it until her eyes finally landed on the bed through the open gap in a wooden folding screen. Unai brushed her fingers lightly over the intricate carvings as she pushed the door farther open.

There wasn't much decoration on this side except for several twined strings of rose-colored crystal hanging over Hayes's bed, catching what little light glowed from the wall sconces and reflecting it in colorful swathes on the human's sweaty face. His fists were clamped tightly to his bedsheets, and his dark brown hair, usually neatly and elegantly knotted, fanned out over the edges of his pillow in loose, tangled curls. He was also dressed differently than normal. For some reason, Unai had never pictured him outside of his perfectly trimmed uniform. It had almost seemed a part of him as much as his height or his character. But now he wore nylon black shorts and a giant, blue jersey with an Udhun number printed on the front. The left leg of the shorts was rolled to the top of the thigh so that the fabric didn't brush against the angry, swollen skin around the burns. With the blood clear away it simultaneously looked better and so much worse.

"Unai?" Hayes croaked, lifting his eyelids halfway.

"I wanted to check on your leg," she responded somewhat dazed. "Has no one treated it yet?"

"I had it bandaged until a couple hours ago, but it hurt too much to keep them on."

"Did you put anything else on it?" Unai said crouching down alongside the bed for a better look. The entire limb was red and irritated, but the gashes themselves were darker and had begun leaking fluid. "Or ask a medic's opinion?"

Hayes shook his head weakly. "I don't want to take away medical attention from anyone else. There are too many people in critical condition right now."

"I brought some supplies with me," Unai said, lifting her sack of ointment and bandages. "But I really think you need a medic."

"No. I'm fine. Let them focus on the citizens. It hurts..." he grimaced, "...very much, but I won't die."

Unai's blood began to boil beneath her skin. Why was he being so stubborn? Was this a human thing or was he uniquely thick-headed?

"Do you know how many people I've seen die from putrid limbs?" she snapped before she could stop herself.

The commander's face furrowed a little at that.

"Excuse me, commander, but you're absolutely wrong. Your leg may not kill you today, and it may not kill you tomorrow, but given enough time you will die. Do you have any idea of the horror people face on the battlefield when their medical shipment never came in and they know if they had the right supplies they could easily save their friends' lives? Now you have that supplies right in front of you, and you won't take it? To lose your life simply out of neglect would be stupid, don't you think?"

"I..." Hayes trailed off. "I still don't want a medic, but I'll take the medicine."

"Then you'll have to settle for me."

"Shouldn't you be with your troops? I can do it on my own." He attempted to sit up but only was able to prop himself on his elbow before he lost strength and fell back.

Unai snorted. "Nice try. My troops were all accounted for an hour ago. Now, respectfully, shut up."

"Aren't I usually the one yelling at you?" Hayes said, a small smile creeping up one side of his jaw.

"You think you're the only one who yells? I'm a Ke'turian Captain. Yelling is a part of my job. You just get off easy because I respect my superiors." She stopped squeezing a large dollop of ointment on her fingertips and grimaced. "Well, most of the time. I did blow up at your lieutenant a little while ago."

"Zae?" Hayes's smile crashed down as Unai started working the antibiotic in his leg. He tilted his head back toward the ceiling and kicked the other leg against the crumple of blankets at the bed's foot.

"Yeah. Where did she come from?"

"We worked together on the Zenith." He gripped the bedsheets tighter to keep himself from twisting. "She was head of security. We both tired of the constant traveling, so when I received the commander position, I brought her with me."

Great, that meant she did have battle experience. And that she was close to Hayes. That was even more annoying.

"She prefers working behind the scene so its...its no surprise you haven't met her. Did she...ugh...say something to you?"

His skin felt feverish beneath her hands and blistering on the borders of the wounds--where the burns were more shallow--popped beneath the pressure. When Unai lifted her eyes back to Hayes's face, his cold sweat had grown heavier. She probably shouldn't add any other stressors to his load. Besides, even if she knew he wouldn't agree with the lieutenant's statement, he probably wouldn't be too impressed with her reaction either.

"It was nothing."

"Sure?" His usually burning eyes took on guise she'd never seen before, like soft, volcanic clay or smoothed river stones.

"If there was q problem, commander, I'd tell you." She finished with the antibiotic and opened the cooling salve next. This one must have been far less painful because Hayes allowed himself to loose his hands from the now-creased sheets and lay the back of one against his forehead.

"I think I've grown soft," he sighed quietly.

"Hm?"

"I apologize that you had to put your life on the line for me."

"A Ke'turian always put her life on the line for a comrade."

"Well, that's beautiful, but I wish..." he trailed off into silence. The squeeze tube gurgled and the salve squelched slightly between her fingers as she slicked it evenly over the gashes. Finally, Hayes said, "I just can't believe how scared and useless I was. Your people use titles after their names--kennings. To know each other's character, right?"

"Among other things," Unai said.

"And the ones I use are good. Lurk Slayer. Planet guardian. I did those things. But maybe that's not who I am anymore. I'm soft now."

"They destroyed your planet." Unai emphasized it like a counterargument. She knew battle, and one bad fight did not sum up a warrior's entire ability.

"I've never even seen my planet."

He didn't seem to be in a state of mind that desired comfort. He wanted to suffer in his bad feelings. And Unai knew of that too, so she didn't argue any further. She simply took the bandage roll and looped it loosely up his leg. When she reached his ankle, she tied a firm knot, fingers smarting from the day's many wraps previous to this one. She stood up and wiped her oily fingers on the front of her uniform. He still looked so small and weak, but at least the pain seemed to have lessened.

"Thank you," Hayes said.

Unai meant to say 'You're welcome, don't take off the bandages' but instead, she blurted out, "You're not soft. And if you were, I'd still battle beside you."

What was she saying?

She spun around before the pale parts of her face could color, pinning her quivering collar to her neck with her hands as she rushed for the exit. Her large, warrior's body didn't fit through the gap in the screen quite so nicely when she wasn't being careful, and she nearly broke the hinge on one of the folding sections in her haste. But her embarrassment wouldn't allow her to stop or apologize, so she kept barrelling onward until she reached the main door.

"I'll be back to check on you tomorrow!" she called over the whirring of the door and stepped into the safety of the hallway.

She pressed her forehead against the wall defeatedly. If someone could bleed herself clean of mortification like evisk venom, Unai would take a knife to herself right now. How could she say something so intimate to someone she hadn't even spoken romance to yet? Who she wasn't even friends with when she really thought about it.

She sighed and let her collar flap out and in a couple times until the strong emotions were out of her system. Fine. This was fine. Everything was just going to have to happen out of order. It's not as if anything she'd done here had been smooth from the start anyway.

...

I planned a completely different scene, but somehow this happened instead? And I ended up with a bunch of extra scenes and a new character? I don't know why I do this, but at least I'm having fun imagining more parts to write!

Part Five

[thicc-astronaut]

Ideas for Kaiju monsters:

A deep-sea snail that sends out electric shocks and thinks that the municipal power grid is a mating signal from another of its species

A living compost heap that leaves a trail of incredibly rich soil in its path

A cactus that was mutated by nuclear tests in Nevada and now grows 70 feet tall and is able to walk

One of those Wack Wavy Inflatable Arm-Flailing Tube Mans from the used car lots except a lot bigger

An incredibly elaborate robot that is also an aquarium full of sharks so if you damage him you risk flooding the city and also sharks

[supereffectivemoonblast]

Rise of the Lich Queen

Chapter 3: Burn it all

Last time, the party (mostly for Pogo's insectivorous cravings) followed a trail of fleeing creepy crawlies to a mysterious cave in the woods. This time the party ventured deeper into the cave to find the source of the bug's fear.

All enemies found so far had been bug-like in nature as well. Arachnid-man hybrids, wall climbing crustaceans, and now even iridescent snails. But thanks to the variety of talents in this party, none of these creepy crawlies had been any sort of hassle. Particularly Cadence and their signature summon, the Fire Elemental, which just stomped down every bug in the way.

Some of the enemies I pit against the party (D&D 5e Official Art - Not Mine), from left to right; Cave Fisher, Flail Snail, Meenlock

At the deepest part of the cavern the party found several larger bug monsters, including giant scorpions, and giant scorpion men called Tlincallli. One of the Tlincalli had a sinister looking Amulet around its neck, and its furious energy was warding all invertebrates from its presence. A hail of arrows, radiant, stormy, and firey magic wore down this final room of enemies quickly, and the enraged Tlincalli could hardly scratch the Fire Elemental.

(D&D Official Art) Left: Giant Scorpion, Right: Tlincalli

The party left the cave in a fairly healthy state, now in possession of an Amulet of Bug Bane, and a shiny Flail Snail Shell. And then back to their (now bug-free) inn, for a good night's sleep.

[amiplayingright]

Session 4: In Which Things Go Badly

- Turns out if you mug someone the town guard don’t like you

- Turns out tiny fishing villages don’t sell trail rations

  - And that when shopkeepers don’t believe you you probably shouldn’t just get really rude with them

   - And boats are expensive

- Sidequest time! Take this Highly Personal Object to Shrine

  - Oh dang what happened to the shrine

  - FLAIL SNAIL O’CLOCK

- Ok we made it to the capital I’m sure things will be fine now lots of people show up with owlbears right?

[flailsnailsmail]

Wizard Arcane Traditions Part 1

Hey! I’m officially caught up again. More importantly here are the first half the Wizard Arcane Traditions. I know. I know... ‘First half? Are you rippin’ me off ya damn flail snail.’ No! Of course not, I’ll have you know the trail of a flail snail is always worth your while!

We split ‘em up into two because there are so many Traditions! We’ve also included the traditions of Wildemout, this half includes Chronurgy, the other half includes Graviturgy. These are really neat additions to the game. I’d say the main issue with wizard is the fact that there are so many distinct Traditions that are fun. So... realistically unless you’re playing a lot of D&D, you prolly won’t get a chance to play em all. That being said, lemme know if you get the chance, or at least let me know your favorite!

All right. I’ll be back for our next release, mayhaps I’ll ramble, rant, or bring news for those of you who frequent our posts.

https://www.patreon.com/posts/wizard-arcane-1-40259210 https://ko-fi.com/flailsnailsmail https://www.patreon.com/flailsnailsmail

[mellifera38]

Mel’s Big Fantasy Place-Name Reference

So I’ve been doing lots of D&D world-building lately and I’ve kind of been putting together lists of words to help inspire new fantasy place names. I figured I’d share. These are helpful for naming towns, regions, landforms, roads, shops, and they’re also probably useful for coming up with surnames. This is LONG. There’s plenty more under the cut including a huge list of “fantasy sounding” word-parts. Enjoy!

Towns & Kingdoms

town, borough, city, hamlet, parish, township, village, villa, domain

kingdom, empire, nation, country, county, city-state, state, province, dominion

Town Name End Words (English flavored)

-ton, -ston, -caster, -dale, -den, -field, -gate, -glen, -ham, -holm, -hurst, -bar, -boro, -by, -cross, -kirk, -meade, -moore, -ville, -wich, -bee, -burg, -cester, -don, -lea, -mer, -rose, -wall, -worth, -berg, -burgh, -chase, -ly, -lin, -mor, -mere, -pool. -port, -stead, -stow, -strath, -side, -way, -berry, -bury, -chester, -haven, -mar, -mont, -ton, -wick, -meet, -heim, -hold, -hall, -point

Buildings & Places

castle, fort, palace, fortress, garrison, lodge, estate, hold, stronghold, tower, watchtower, palace, spire, citadel, bastion, court, manor, house

altar, chapel, abbey, shrine, temple, monastery, cathedral, sanctum, crypt, catacomb, tomb

orchard, arbor, vineyard, farm, farmstead, shire, garden, ranch

plaza, district, quarter, market, courtyard, inn, stables, tavern, blacksmith, forge, mine, mill, quarry, gallows, apothecary, college, bakery, clothier, library, guild house, bath house, pleasure house, brothel, jail, prison, dungeon, cellar, basement, attic, sewer, cistern

lookout, post, tradepost, camp, outpost, hovel, hideaway, lair, nook, watch, roost, respite, retreat, hostel, holdout, redoubt, perch, refuge, haven, alcove, haunt, knell, enclave, station, caravan, exchange, conclave

port, bridge, ferry, harbor, landing, jetty, wharf, berth, footbridge, dam, beacon, lighthouse, marina, dockyard, shipyard

road, street, way, row, lane, trail, corner, crossing, gate, junction, waygate, end, wall, crossroads,  barrier, bulwark, blockade, pavilion, avenue, promenade, alley, fork, route

Time & Direction

North, South, East, West, up, down, side, rise, fall, over, under

Winter, Spring, Summer, Autumn, solstice, equanox, vernal, ever, never

dusk, dawn, dawnrise, morning, night, nightfall, evening, sundown, sunbreak, sunset

lunar, solar, sun, moon, star, eclipse

Geographical Terms

Cave, cavern, cenote, precipice, crevasse, crater, maar, chasm, ravine, trench, rift, pit

Cliff, bluff, crag, scarp, outcrop, stack, tor, falls, run, eyrie, aerie

Hill, mountain, volcano, knoll, hillock, downs, barrow, plateau, mesa, butte, pike, peak, mount, summit, horn, knob, pass, ridge, terrace, gap, point, rise, rim, range, view, vista, canyon, hogback, ledge, stair, descent

Valley, gulch, gully, vale, dale, dell, glen, hollow, grotto, gorge, bottoms, basin, knoll, combe

Meadow, grassland, field, pasture, steppe, veld, sward, lea, mead, fell, moor, moorland, heath, croft, paddock, boondock, prairie, acre, strath, heights, mount, belt

Woodlands, woods, forest, bush, bower, arbor, grove, weald, timberland, thicket, bosk, copse, coppice, underbrush, hinterland, park, jungle, rainforest, wilds, frontier, outskirts

Desert, dunes, playa, arroyo, chaparral, karst, salt flats, salt pan, oasis, spring, seep, tar pit, hot springs, fissure, steam vent, geyser, waste, wasteland, badland, brushland, dustbowl, scrubland

Ocean, sea, lake, pond, spring, tarn, mere, sluice, pool, coast, gulf, bay

Lagoon, cay, key, reef, atoll, shoal, tideland, tide flat, swale, cove, sandspit, strand, beach

Snowdrift, snowbank, permafrost, floe, hoar, rime, tundra, fjord, glacier, iceberg

River, stream, creek, brook, tributary, watersmeet, headwater, ford, levee, delta, estuary, firth, strait, narrows, channel, eddy, inlet, rapids, mouth, falls

Wetland, marsh, bog, fen, moor, bayou, glade, swamp, banks, span, wash, march, shallows, mire, morass, quag, quagmire, everglade, slough, lowland, sump, reach

Island, isle, peninsula, isthmus, bight, headland, promontory, cape, pointe, cape

More under the cut including: Color words, Animal/Monster related words, Rocks/Metals/Gems list, Foliage, People groups/types, Weather/Environment/ Elemental words, Man-made Items, Body Parts, Mechanical sounding words, a huge list of both pleasant and unpleasant Atmospheric Descriptors, and a huge list of Fantasy Word-parts.

Color Descriptions

Warm: red, scarlet, crimson, rusty, cerise, carmine, cinnabar, orange, vermillion, ochre, peach, salmon, saffron, yellow, gold, lemon, amber, pink, magenta, maroon, brown, sepia, burgundy, beige, tan, fuchsia, taupe

Cool: green, beryl, jade, evergreen, chartreuse, olive, viridian, celadon, blue, azure, navy, cerulean, turquoise, teal, cyan, cobalt, periwinkle, beryl, purple, violet, indigo, mauve, plum

Neutral: gray, silver, ashy, charcoal, slate, white, pearly, alabaster, ivory, black, ebony, jet

dark, dusky, pale, bleached, blotchy, bold, dappled, lustrous, faded, drab, milky, mottled, opaque, pastel, stained, subtle, ruddy, waxen, tinted, tinged, painted

Animal / Monster-Related Words

Bear, eagle, wolf, serpent, hawk, horse, goat, sheep, bull, raven, crow, dog, stag, rat, boar, lion, hare, owl, crane, goose, swan, otter, frog, toad, moth, bee, wasp, beetle, spider, slug, snail, leech, dragonfly, fish, trout, salmon, bass, crab, shell, dolphin, whale, eel, cod, haddock

Dragon, goblin, giant, wyvern, ghast, siren, lich, hag, ogre, wyrm, kraken

Talon, scale, tusk, hoof, mane, horn, fur, feather, fang, wing, whisker, bristle, paw, tail, beak, claw, web, quill, paw, maw, pelt, haunch, gill, fin,

Hive, honey, nest, burrow, den, hole, wallow

Rocks / Metals / Minerals

Gold, silver, brass, bronze, copper, platinum, iron, steel, tin, mithril, electrum, adamantite, quicksilver, fool’s gold, titanium

Diamond, ruby, emerald, sapphire, topaz, opal, pearl, jade, jasper, onyx, citrine, aquamarine, turquoise, lapiz lazuli, amethyst, quartz, crystal, amber, jewel

Granite, shale, marble, limestone, sandstone, slate, diorite, basalt, rhyolite, obsidian, glass

Earth, stone, clay, sand, silt, salt, mote, lode, vein, ore, ingot, coal, boulder, bedrock, crust, rubble, pebble, gravel, cobble, dust, clod, peat, muck mud, slip, loam, dirt, grit, scree, shard, flint, stalactite/mite

Trees / Plants / Flowers

Tree, ash, aspen, pine, birch, alder, willow, dogwood, oak, maple, walnut,  chestnut, cedar, mahogany, palm, beech, hickory, hemlock, cottonwood, hawthorn, sycamore, poplar, cypress, mangrove, elm, fir, spruce, yew

Branch, bough, bramble, gnarl, burr, tangle, thistle, briar, thorn, moss, bark, shrub, undergrowth, overgrowth, root, vine, bracken, reed, driftwood, coral, fern, berry, bamboo, nectar, petal, leaf, seed, clover, grass, grain, trunk, twig, canopy, cactus, weed, mushroom, fungus

Apple, olive, apricot, elderberry, coconut, sugar, rice, wheat, cotton, flax, barley, hops, onion, carrot, turnip, cabbage, squash, pumpkin, pepper

Flower, rose, lavender, lilac, jasmine, jonquil, marigold, carnelian, carnation, goldenrod, sage, wisteria, dahlia, nightshade, lily, daisy, daffodil, columbine, amaranth, crocus, buttercup, foxglove, iris, holly, hydrangea, orchid, snowdrop, hyacinth, tulip, yarrow, magnolia, honeysuckle, belladonna, lily pad, magnolia

People

Settler, Pilgrim, Pioneer, Merchant, Prospector, Maker, Surveyor, Mason, Overseer, Apprentice, Widow, Sailor, Miner, Blacksmith, Butcher, Baker, Brewer, Barkeep, Ferryman, Hangman, Gambler, Fisherman, Adventurer, Hero, Seeker, Hiker, Traveler, Crone

Mage, Magician, Summoner, Sorcerer, Wizard, Conjurer, Necromancer, 

King, Queen, Lord, Count, Baron, Guard, Soldier, Knight, Vindicator, Merchant, Crusader, Imperator, Syndicate, Vanguard, Champion, Warden, Victor, Legionnaire, Master, Archer, Footman, Gladiator, Barbarian, Captain, Commodore, 

Beggar, Hunter, Ranger, Deadman, Smuggler, Robber, Swindler, Rebel, Bootlegger, Outlaw, Pirate, Brigand, Ruffian, Highwayman, Cutpurse, Thief, Assassin

God, Goddess, Exarch, Angel, Devil, Demon, Cultist, Prophet, Hermit, Seer

council, clergy, guild, militia, choir 

Climate, Environment, & The Elements

Cold, cool, brisk, frosty, chilly, icy, freezing, frozen, frigid, glacial, bitter, biting, bleak, arctic, polar, boreal, wintry, snowy, snow, blizzarding, blizzard, sleeting, sleet, chill, frost, ice, icebound, ice cap, floe, snowblind, frostbite, coldsnap, avalanche, snowflake

Hot, sunny, humid, sweltering, steaming, boiling, sizzling, blistering, scalding, smoking, caldescent, dry, parched, arid, fallow, thirsty, melting, molten, fiery, blazing, burning, charring, glowing, searing, scorching, blasted, sun, fire, heat, flame, wildfire, bonfire, inferno, coal, ash, cinder, ember, flare, pyre, tinder, kindling, aflame, alight, ablaze, lava, magma, slag,

Wet, damp, dank, soggy, sodden, soaked, drenched, dripping, sopping, briny, murky, rain, storm, hail, drizzle, sprinkle, downpour, deluge, squall, water, cloud, fog, mist, dew, puddle, pool, current, whirlpool, deep, depths, tide, waves, whitewater, waterfall, tidal wave, flow, flood, leak, drain

Wind, breeze, gust, billow, gail, draft, waft, zephyr, still, airy, clear, smokey, tempest, tempestuous, windswept, aerial, lofty, torrid, turbulent, nebulous, tradewind, thunder, lightning, spark, cyclone, tornado, whirlwind, hurricane, typhoon

Man-made Item Words

Furnace, forge, anvil, vault, strap, strip, whetstone, brick, sword, blade, axe, dagger, shield, buckler, morningstar, bow, quiver, arrow, polearm, flail, staff, stave, sheath, hilt, hammer, knife, helm, mantle, banner, pauldron, chainmail, mace, dart, cutlass, canon, needle, cowl, belt,  buckle, bandana, goggles, hood, boot, heel, spindle, spool, thread, sweater, skirt, bonnet, apron, leather, hide, plate, tunic, vest, satin, silk, wool, velvet, lace, corset, stocking, binding

Plow, scythe, (wheel) barrow, saddle, harrow, brand, collar, whip, leash, lead, bridle, stirrup, wheel, straw, stall, barn, hay, bale, pitchfork, well, log, saw, lumber, sod, thatch, mortar, brick, cement, concrete, pitch, pillar, window, fountain, door, cage, spoke, pole, table, bench, plank, board

Candle, torch, cradle, broom, lamp, lantern, clock, bell, lock, hook, trunk, looking glass, spyglass, bottle, vase, locket, locker, key, handle, rope, knot, sack, pocket, pouch, manacle, chain, stake, coffin, fan. cauldron, kettle, pot, bowl, pestle, oven, ladle, spoon, font, wand, potion, elixir, draught, portal, book, tome, scroll, word, manuscript, letter, message, grimoire, map, ink, quill, pen, cards, dice

Coin, coronet, crown, circlet, scepter, treasure, riches, scales, pie, tart, loaf, biscuit, custard, caramel, pudding, porridge, stew, bread, tea, gravy, gristle, spice, lute, lyre, harp, drum, rouge, powder, perfume, brush

bilge, stern, pier, sail, anchor, mast, dock, deck, flag, ship, boat, canoe, barge, wagon, sled, carriage, buggy, cart

Wine, brandy, whiskey, ale, moonshine, gin, cider, rum, grog, beer, brew, goblet, flagon, flask, cask, tankard, stein, mug, barrel, stock, wort, malt

Body Parts

Head, throat, finger, foot, hand, neck, shoulder, rib, jaw, eye, lips, bosom

Skull, spine, bone, tooth, heart, blood, tears, gut, beard

Mechanical-Sounding Words

cog, fuse, sprocket, wrench, screw, nail, bolt, lever, pulley, spanner, gear, spring, shaft, switch, button, cast, pipe, plug, dial, meter, nozzle, cord, brake, gauge, coil, oil, signal, wire, fluke, staple, clamp, bolt, nut, bulb, patch, pump, cable, socket

torque, force, sonic, spark, fizzle, thermal, beam, laser, steam, buzz, mega, mecha, electro, telsa, power, flicker, charge, current, flow, tinker

Atmospheric Words

Unpleasant, Dangerous, Threatening

(nouns) death, fury, battle, scar, shadow, razor, nightmare, wrath, bone, splinter, peril, war, riptide, strife, reckoning, sorrow, terror, deadwood, nether, venom, grime, rage, void, conquest, pain, folly, revenge, horrid, mirk, shear, fathom, frenzy, corpselight/marshlight, reaper, gloom, doom, torment, torture, spite, grizzled, sludge, refuse, spore, carrion, fear, pyre, funeral, shade, beast, witch, grip, legion, downfall, ruin, plague, woe, bane, horde, acid, fell, grief, corpse, mildew, mold, miter, dirge

(adjectives) dead, jagged, decrepit, fallen, darkened, blackened, dire, grim, feral, wild, broken, desolate, mad, lost, under, stagnant, blistered, derelict, forlorn, unbound, sunken, fallow, shriveled, wayward, bleak, low, weathered, fungal, last, brittle, sleepy, -strewn, dusky, deserted, empty, barren, vacant, forsaken, bare, bereft, stranded, solitary, abandoned, discarded, forgotten, deep, abysmal, bottomless, buried, fathomless,unfathomable, diseased, plagued, virulent, noxious, venomous, toxic, fetid, revolting, putrid, rancid, foul, squalid, sullied, vile, blighted, vicious, ferocious, dangerous, savage, cavernous, vast, yawning, chasmal, echoing, dim, dingy, gloomy, inky, lurid, shaded, shadowy, somber, sunless, tenebrous, unlit, veiled, hellish, accursed, sulfurous, damned, infernal, condemned, doomed, wicked, sinister, dread, unending, spectral, ghostly, haunted, eldritch, unknown, weary, silent, hungry, cloven, acidic

(verb/adverbs): wither (withering / withered), skulk (skulking), whisper, skitter, chitter, sting, slither, writhe, gape, screech, scream, howl, lurk, roil, twist, shift, swarm, spawn, fester, bleed, howl, shudder, shrivel, devour, swirl, maul, trip, smother, weep, shatter, ruin, curse, ravage, hush, rot, drown, sunder, blister, warp, fracture, die, shroud, fall, surge, shiver, roar, thunder, smolder, break, silt, slide, lash, mourn, crush, wail, decay, crumble, erode, decline, reek, lament, taint, corrupt, defile, poison, infect, shun, sigh, sever, crawl, starve, grind, cut, wound, bruise, maim, stab, bludgeon, rust, mutilate, tremble, stumble, fumble, clank, clang

Pleasant, Safe, Neutral

(nouns) spirit, luck, soul, oracle, song, sky, smile, rune, obelisk, cloud, timber, valor, triumph, rest, dream, thrall, might, valiance, glory, mirror, life, hope, oath, serenity, sojourn, god, hearth, crown, throne, crest, guard, rise, ascent, circle, ring, twin, vigil, breath, new, whistle, grasp, snap, fringe, threshold, arch, cleft, bend, home, fruit, wilds, echo, moonlight, sunlight, starlight, splendor, vigilance, honor, memory, fortune, aurora, paradise, caress

(adjectives) gentle, pleasant, prosperous, peaceful, sweet, good, great, mild, grand, topic, lush, wild, abundant, verdant, sylvan, vital, florid, bosky, callow, verdurous, lucious, fertile, spellbound, captivating, mystical, hidden, arcane, clandestine, esoteric, covert, cryptic, runic, otherworldly, touched, still, fair, deep, quiet, bright, sheer, tranquil, ancient, light, far, -wrought, tidal, royal, shaded, swift, true, free, high, vibrant, pure, argent, hibernal, ascendant, halcyon, silken, bountiful, gilded, colossal, massive, stout, elder, -bourne, furrowed, happy, merry, -bound, loud, lit, silk, quiet, bright, luminous, shining, burnished, glossy, brilliant, lambent, lucent, lustrous, radiant, resplendent, vivid, vibrant, illuminated, silvery, limpid, sunlit, divine, sacred, holy, eternal, celestial, spiritual, almighty, anointed, consecrated, exalted, hallowed, sanctified, ambrosial, beatific, blissful, demure, naked, bare, ample, coy,  deific, godly, omnipotent, omnipresent, rapturous, sacramental, sacrosanct, blessed, majestic, iridescent, glowing, overgrown, dense, hard, timeless, sly, scatter, everlasting, full, half, first, last

(verb/adverbs) arch (arching / arched), wink (winking), sing, nestle, graze, stroll, roll, flourish, bloom, bud, burgeon, live, dawn, hide, dawn, run, pray, wake, laugh, wake, glimmer, glitter, drift, sleep, tumble, bind, arch, blush, grin, glister, beam, meander, wind, widen, charm, bewitch, enthrall, entrance, enchant, allure, beguile, glitter, shimmer, sparkle twinkle, crest, quiver, slumber, herald, shelter, leap, click, climb, scuttle, dig, barter, chant, hum, chime, kiss, flirt, tempt, tease, play, seduce

Generic “Fantasy-Sounding” Word Parts

A - D

aaz, ada, adaer, adal, adar, adbar, adir, ae, ael, aer, aern, aeron, aeryeon, agar, agis, aglar, agron, ahar, akan, akyl, al, alam, alan, alaor, ald, alea, ali, alir, allyn, alm, alon, alor, altar, altum, aluar, alys, amar, amaz, ame, ammen, amir, amol, amn, amus, anar, andor, ang, ankh, ar, ara, aram, arc, arg, arian, arkh, arla, arlith, arn, arond, arthus, arum, arvien, ary, asha, ashyr, ask, assur, aster, astra, ath, athor, athra, athryn, atol, au, auga, aum, auroch, aven, az, azar, baal, bae, bael, bak, bal, balor, ban, bar, bara, barr, batol, batar, basir, basha, batyr, bel, belph, belu, ben, beo, bere, berren, berun, besil, bezan, bhaer, bhal, blask, blis, blod, bor, boraz, bos, bran, brath, braun, breon, bri, bry, bul, bur, byl, caer, cal, calan, cara, cassa, cath, cela, cen, cenar, cerul, chalar, cham, chion, cimar, clo, coram, corel, corman, crim, crom, daar, dach, dae, dago, dagol, dahar, dala, dalar, dalin, dam, danas, daneth, dannar, dar, darian,  darath, darm, darma, darro, das, dasa, dasha, dath, del, delia, delimm, dellyn, delmar, delo, den, dess, dever, dhaer, dhas, dhaz, dhed, dhin, din, dine, diar, dien, div, djer, dlyn, dol, dolan, doon, dora, doril, doun, dral, dranor, drasil, dren, drian, drien, drin, drov, druar, drud, duald, duatha, duir, dul, dulth, dun, durth, dyra, dyver,

E - H

ea, eber, eden, edluk, egan, eiel, eilean, ejen, elath, eld, eldor, eldra, elith emar, ellesar, eltar, eltaran, elth, eltur, elyth, emen, empra, emril, emvor, ena, endra, enthor, erad, erai, ere, eriel, erith, erl, eron, erre, eryn, esk, esmel, espar, estria, eta, ethel, eval, ezro, ezan, ezune, ezil, fael, faelar, faern, falk, falak, farak, faril, farla, fel, fen, fenris, fer, fet, fin, finar, forel, folgun, ful, fulk, fur, fyra, fallon, gael, gach, gabir, gadath, gal, galar, gana, gar, garth, garon, garok, garne, gath, geir, gelden, geren,  geron, ghal, ghallar, ghast, ghel, ghom, ghon, gith, glae, glander, glar, glym, gol, goll, gollo, goloth, gorot, gost, goth, graeve, gran, grimm, grist, grom, grosh, grun, grym, gual, guil, guir, gulth, gulur, gur, gurnth, gwaer, haa, hael, haer, hadar, hadel, hakla, hala, hald, halana, halid, hallar, halon, halrua, halus, halvan, hamar, hanar, hanyl, haor, hara, haren, haresk, harmun, harrokh, harrow, haspur, haza, hazuth, heber,  hela, helve, hem, hen, herath, hesper, heth, hethar, hind, hisari, hjaa, hlath, hlond, hluth, hoarth, holtar, horo, hotun, hrag, hrakh, hroth, hull, hyak, hyrza

I - M

iibra, ilth, ilus, ilira, iman, imar, imas, imb, imir, immer, immil, imne, impil, ingdal, innar, ir, iriae, iril, irith, irk, irul, isha, istis, isil, itala, ith, ithal, itka, jada, jae, jaeda, jahaka, jala, jarra, jaro, jath, jenda, jhaamm, jhothm, jinn, jinth, jyn, kado, kah, kal, kalif, kam, kana, kara, karg, kars, karth, kasp, katla, kaul, kazar, kazr, kela, kelem, kerym, keth, keva, kez, kezan, khaer, khal, khama, khaz, khara, khed, khel, khol, khur, kil, kor, korvan, koll, kos, kir, kra, kul, kulda, kund, kyne, lae, laen, lag, lan, lann, lanar, lantar, lapal, lar, laran, lareth, lark, lath, lauth, lav, lavur, lazar, leih, leshyr, leth, lhaza, lhuven, liad, liam, liard, lim, lin, lirn, lisk, listra, lith, liya, llair, llor, lok, lolth, loran, lorkh, lorn, loth, lothen, luen, luir, luk, lund, lur, luth, lyndus, lyra, lyth, maal, madrasm maera, maer, maerim, maes, mag, magra, mahand, mal, malar, mald, maldo, mar, mara, mark, marl, maru, maruk, meir, melish, memnon, mer, metar, methi, mhil, mina, mir, miram, mirk, mista, mith, moander, mok, modir, modan, mon, monn, mor, more, morel, moril, morn, moro, morrow, morth, mort, morum, morven, muar, mul, mydra, myr, myra, myst

N - S

naar, nadyra, naedyr, naga, najar, nal, naal, nalir, nar, naruk, narbond, narlith, narzul, nasaq, nashkel, natar, nath, natha, neir, neth, nether, nhall, nikh, nil, nilith, noan, nolvurm nonthal, norda, noro, novul, nul, nur, nus, nyan, nyth, ober, odra, oghr, okoth, olleth, olodel, omgar, ondath, onthril, ordul, orish, oroch, orgra, orlim, ormath, ornar, orntath, oroch, orth, orva, oryn, orzo, ostel, ostor, ostrav, othea, ovar, ozod, ozul, palan, palad, pae, peldan, pern, perris, perim, pele, pen, phail, phanda, phara, phen, phendra, pila, pinn, pora, puril, pur, pyra, qadim, quar, quel, ques, quil, raah, rael, ran, ranna, rassil, rak, rald, rassa, reddan, reith, relur, ren, rendril, resil, reska, reth, reven, revar, rhy, rhynn, ria, rian, rin, ris, rissian, rona, roch, rorn, rora, rotha, rual, ruar, ruhal, ruil, ruk, runn, rusk, ryn, saa, saar, saal, sabal, samar, samrin, sankh, sar, sarg, sarguth, sarin, sarlan, sel, seld, sember, semkh, sen, sendrin, septa, senta, seros, shaar, shad, shadra, shae, shaen, shaera, shak, shalan, sham, shamath, shan, shana, sharan, shayl, shemar, shere, shor, shul, shyll, shyr, sidur, sil, silvan, sim, sintar, sirem, skar, skell, skur, skyr, sokol, solan, sola, somra, sor, ssin, stel, strill, suldan, sulk, sunda, sur, surkh, suth, syl, sylph, sylune, syndra, syth

T - Z

taak, taar, taer, tah, tak, tala, talag, talar, talas, talath, tammar, tanar, tanil, tar, tara, taran, tarl, tarn, tasha, tath, tavil, telar, teld, telf, telos, tempe, tethy, tezir, thaar, thaer, thal, thalag, thalas, thalan, thalar, thamor, thander, thangol, thar, thay, thazal, theer, theim, thelon, thera, thendi, theril, thiir, thil, thild, thimir, thommar, thon, thoon, thor, thran, thrann, threl, thril, thrul, thryn, thuk, thultan, thume, thun, thy, thyn, thyr, tir, tiras, tirum, tohre, tol, tolar, tolir,  tolzrin, tor, tormel, tormir, traal, triel, trith, tsath, tsur, tul, tur, turiver, turth, tymor, tyr, uder, udar, ugoth, uhr, ukh, ukir, uker, usten, ulgarth, ulgoth, ultir, ulur, umar, umath, umber, unara, undro, undu, untha, upir, ur, ursa, ursol, uron, uth, uthen, uz, van, vaar, vaelan, vaer, vaern, val valan, valash, vali, valt, vandan, vanede, vanrak, var, varyth, vassa, vastar, vaunt, vay, vel, velar, velen, velius, vell, velta, ven, veren, vern, vesper, vilar, vilhon, vintor, vir, vira, virdin, volo, volun, von, voon, vor, voro, vos, vosir, vosal, vund, war, wara, whel, wol, wynn, wyr, wyrm, xer, xul, xen, xian, yad, yag, yal, yar, yath, yeon, yhal, yir, yirar, yuir, yul, yur, zail, zala, zalhar, zan, zanda, zar, zalar, zarach, zaru, zash, zashu, zemur, zhent, zim, ziram, zindala, zindar, zoun, zul, zurr, zuth, zuu, zym

A lot of places are named after historical events, battles, and people, so keep that in mind. God/Goddess names tied to your world also work well. Places are also often named after things that the area is known for, like Georgia being known for its peaches.

My brain was fried by the end of this so feel free to add more!

I hope you find this reference helpful and good luck world-building!

-Mel

[unpack-my-heart]

Above, Beneath, Betwixt, Between - Chapter Seven

@constantreaderfool @xandertheundead @violetreddie @tinyarmedtrex @mrs-vh @eds-trashmouth @annoyingtozier @burymestanding

Read on AO3 HERE

No sooner than Eddie had appeared in the doorway, he collapsed, body folding in on itself messily, a crumpled piece of paper abandoned on the deck.  Stan and Mike sprang into action immediately, loyal attendants to their fallen prize, scrambling over each other to get to Eddie first.

Richie didn’t move.

He watched them haul Eddie to his feet, he watched them tentatively let go of Eddie’s arm, encourage him to take a small step forward, and watched Eddie fall onto the deck once more, flailing arms and buckled knees. He watched Eddie’s face twist, shifting through distress, anger, frustration, a brief visit to joy before swinging straight back to distress and the cycle began again. They seem to have forgotten him, standing slack jawed on the grass below, as they haul Eddie back to his feet and usher him back inside, sheet still wrapped tightly around his torso.

Dazed and confused, Richie followed them inside, dragging his feet slightly, reluctant to break the spell, anxious that this had all been a fever dream, the imaginings of a sleep-drunk brain, and that he’ll walk into the house only to wake up in his frigid bedroom, the ghostly spectre he’d grown so fond of drifting on the moors. Spectral. Not flesh but air and heat and … longing.

But, when he walks inside the house, Eddie’s there, an image in soft pink skin and flushed cheeks, and Richie feels sick. His stomach churns, because it’s different now. Their dynamic, the Eddie he’d grown used to over these past sprawling months, has gone. He’s disappeared, a relic of the past. Now, sitting on his new couch, protective plastic sheeting crackling underneath him, is an Eddie reborn. A phoenix rising from the ashes of what once was. Ten hours ago, Eddie would have walked straight through that couch, drifted through it like smoke, leaving no trail, no indication he had ever passed through. Now, he’s sat there, with Stan holding his wrist, checking his pulse.

His pulse.

Richie wondered idly whether he’d notice the difference, whether he’d be able to hear the blood rushing through Eddie’s veins, whether he’d be able to hear each thump of his newly beating heart as screamed out, with voice anew, I am I am I am.

It’s different now. Eddie’s talking to Stan, voice shaky and unstable, answering Stan’s torrent of questions with his newly vibrating vocal chords and holy shit that’s Eddie’s voice. His real voice. His voice as it should have been, how it once was. It’s deeper than it was before, now it doesn’t melt and bleed into the air, syllables lost to the breeze, or whole words that floated skywards so that only the birds could hear.

“So, to address the elephant in the room, or … maybe the elephant that isn’t in the room, your arm,” Stan said.

The space where Eddie’s arm once was, where it should be, is empty. The socket is smooth, unblemished flesh, as if his body had never had any intention of sprouting another appendage. There is no indication that Eddie had ever had another arm, no indication that the recorporealisation process had gone wrong, and energy that should have manifested his left arm had been sucked away, absorbed into the reaction and lost forever.  Eddie looked vaguely concerned, and kept scratching absently at the armless shoulder-socket, as if trying to slough the skin away and allow the bone to extend and blossom like the trunk of a tree.

“Eds?” Richie said, voice tundra cold against the warm air, and it almost makes him jump.

“Richie?” Eddie replies, and it’s happy, so happy that Richie starts crying on the spot. Stupid fat tears fight their way out of his left eye and chase each other down his cheek, skating on the ice of his skin before pirouetting off his chin.

“Are ye crying, soft lad?” Mike asks, voice honey smooth, and it just makes Richie cry more.

Several minutes lost to Richie’s sobs later, and he’s crouched in front of Eddie, who’s still sat on the couch.

“How do you feel, Eds?”

“Honestly? Rather weird. My arm, my … my no arm itches and I can’t scratch it properly and it’s driving me insane”

“Oh, that’ll be energy residue. There will be some left over energy hanging around that area for a few days, maybe a few weeks, a few months at a push and definitely not more than a year. It’ll stop eventually,” Stan supplied over his shoulder, already knee-deep in plates of metal and large segments of complicated looking circuit board.

“Very reassuring,” Eddie replied sardonically, and they continued to bicker back-and-forth, playful stuff with no real bite, but Richie wasn’t listening.

From where he’s crouched, Richie realises with a jolt of excitement tinged with fear that he could reach out and touch Eddie. He could place his hand on Eddie’s knee, and it wouldn’t fall straight through to the couch. If only he were brave enough, he could reach out and feel Eddie’s skin, soft and warm and alive, under his fingertips for the first time. For the first time, he could pull Eddie to his chest and cradle him, he could poke him in the stomach when he’s being fussy, or he could grab his hand and close his eyes and breathe when they’re lying outside on the grass, listening to the grasshoppers.

“Rich? Are you listening?”

“Huh, wha’?”

Eddie pulls Richie out of his introspection with a dopy grin, all lopsided and too many teeth.

“Stan was asking where I was going to live now, y’know … I can live, and I was wondering whether you’d mind, and  if you do mind it’s certainly no problem, Mike’s agreed that --”

“Eddie”

“Yes, Rich?”

“If you leave me I’ll never forgive you”

– X –

The morning after, Eddie still can’t walk. Richie quickly realises that he must take it upon himself to teach Eddie to walk again. Like a mother hen teaching her chick to run, Richie stands at one end of the room and yells encouragement to Eddie, who shuffles, snail slow, towards him. More than once, Eddie trips over his own feet, or slips on a rogue corner of the carpet, and falls to the floor, comically slow, arms flailing, mouth caught in a surprised ‘O’. Richie always catches him, sweeping him up in his arms.

Sooner than Richie could have expected, Eddie manages it. He walks, unaided, with gritted teeth and a knotted brow, from one end of the living room to the other. He’s almost panting by the time he reaches Richie, but he’s done it. Richie hoots with joy, and wraps his arms around Eddie’s waist and hoists him up into the air, a trophy. Eddie squeals, and smacks at Richie with his one-arm but he’s grinning, a grin so wide Richie’s sure it’s going to split his face in two. Eddie still looks unstable, bambi legs wobbling slightly with each step, but he’s mobile. He stumbles around the small house, running his fingertips over every surface, touch-starved and greedy, he picks up seemingly random objects and holds them to his nose, smelling them, he eats more than his fair share of dinner every evening, and Richie’s punched in the stomach when he realises that what he feels for Eddie isn’t platonic. It isn’t anywhere close to platonic, having skated past that junction several hundred miles ago, and Richie watches Eddie as he walks purposefully into the kitchen, mug in hand, babbling something about learning to swim, and Richie knows it’s not platonic, it’s not anywhere close, because it’s love.

– X –

A loud crash comes from the kitchen, and Richie sits up in bed with a start. He hasn’t heard that kind of crash since Eddie became physical over a week ago. Eddie can walk almost normally now, occasionally tripping over but mostly he strides with determination. Sleep-drunk, Richie charges down the stairs two at a time, desperate to lay eyes on Eddie, the physical Eddie, to dispel any fears that the last week had been nothing but a cruel trick played on an impressionable mind. Luckily, when Richie skids into the kitchen, Eddie’s standing there, a vision in tartan pyjamas, staring at a mess of ceramic shards and honey-coloured liquid on the floor.

“What the fuck happened, butter-fingers?” Richie asked, grabbing the dustpan and brush out of the cupboard to sweep up the shards of mug.

“I -- you’ll laugh at me, I don’t want to tell you”

“Eds, I promise I would never laugh at you, ever never ever”

“Do you promise?”

“I promise”

“I … I tried to walk through the wall”

Richie released a bark of laughter, before clamping his hand over his mouth.

“Sorry! Sorry, I couldn’t help it. You tried to walk through the wall?”

Eddie nodded his head, morosely.

“I guess I was tired, I’m – I’m still not used to feeling tired, you know? It makes me feel rather odd. I guess I forgot I was … real”

Eddie looks so desperately sad that all the hilarious thoughts of Eddie walking full pelt at the wall evaporate from Richie’s mind.

“Oh, Eds. Oh sweetheart, I’m sorry”

The pet name falls out of Richie’s mouth before he can stop it and Eddie flinches.

“Shit, Eddie, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to, I just –”

“Rupert used to call me sweetheart,” Eddie replies in a reverent whisper and all the air gets punched out of Richie’s lungs. “I haven’t thought of Rupert for … I don’t know when I last thought of him”

“It’s okay to move on, you know?”

“Is it? Is it okay to move on when he never can?”

“Don’t you think he’d want you to be happy? To remember the fun you two had together, to remember and cherish your love but … to grieve it, and grieve him and …”

Richie’s words fail him, and he flails his arms, a useless attempt at expressing himself non-verbally. Eddie seems to be able to read him, though, as he hums thoughtfully. The mess on the floor glistens in the moonlight.

“I suppose he wouldn’t want me to be sad forever”

Neither of them speak, then. They clean up the mess, and Richie takes the shards of ceramic out to the outside bin, wrapped in a piece of kitchen roll. Eddie’s already upstairs when he comes back in, and Richie can hear the tap running, the sound of someone spitting toothpaste into the bowl of the sink, and then the door opens and it’s Eddie, Eddie who’s stood there in his stupid tartan pyjamas, and his old man slippers and his tousled hair and his tired eyes and he’s got toothpaste smeared on his chin and Richie can’t help it. He pulls a surprised and initially resistant Eddie into an embrace. Eddie’s stiff at first, but soon Richie can feel his muscles loosen and he becomes jellied and pliant in Richie’s grasp. They stand in the darkness of the upstairs hallway, Eddie’s face buried in Richie’s neck, with one Richie’s hands carding through Eddie’s hair, the other wrapped loosely around his shoulders.

“Thank you,” Eddie whispers, and it’s small, a mouse that crawls from Eddie’s mouth and squeaks in Richie’s ear.

“Whatcha thanking me for, Eddie Spaghetti?”

“For … for helping me. For being kind. I haven’t known much kindness in my life, or in my death I suppose,” Eddie laughs at himself, an ugly sort of hiccup snort that makes Richie bark out a surprised laugh, too, and then they’re laughing at themselves, and each other, but they’re still hugging, anchored to each other in the tempest of confusion that their lives have become in the past few months.

“I am so very lucky that you bought this house,” Eddie says, staring at Richie with glittering eyes and Richie tries to convince himself to kiss Eddie, caution be damned, but he can’t because he remembers.

He remembers the letter he got the day before, sat in his bedside drawers.

Instead, he presses a chaste kiss to Eddie’s forehead and pulls away.

“Goodnight, Eds”

– X –

Richie only manages three hours of pretending to sleep, of staring at the ceiling and watching the shadows dance, before he gets up. He tiptoes across the room, cringing slightly as the door groans open, and then shuffles across the landing to Eddie’s room. The door was wide open, so Richie pokes his head in only to discover the bed empty. It wasn’t made though, and when Richie presses his hand to the mattress he finds that it’s still warm.

He immediately knows where Eddie is.

He walks back to his room, less concerned about the groaning floorboards now, and opens the curtains. He spots Eddie immediately. He’s standing at the mouth of the lake, throwing stones into it, watching them skate across the surface and then disappear into the depths, never to be seen again. Richie crosses his arm, and leans against the support beam, and watches.

Eddie looks beautiful. His skin, solid but pale as marble slate, shines in the frosty light of the moon. Richie watches him walk towards the grass, and then, suddenly, he’s off, sprinting towards the trees in the distance that border the forest, the forest that Richie knows Eddie spent a lot of time in immediately after his death. Richie watches him, watches him sprint like a cheetah towards the darkness of the trees, before he skids on his heel, and sprints right back again. Right back to Richie. Right back to their home.

Richie stoops, and opens the bedside cabinet and pulls the letter out. The bright white paper practically glows in the moonlight.

Dear Mr Tozier,

I am writing to inform you that your visa (business - fixed term) is set to expire in less than three months. You will need to return to your home country before the given date, or risk criminal sentencing.

Please be advised that, should you wish to extend your residency in the United Kingdom, you must apply to do so from your home country (The United States of America).

Please do contact my office if you have any further questions,

Yours Sincerely,

James Brown

Immigration Officer

[bloglilyjoyce]

Performance writing (?) ‘Make it right’.

Middle space. T24 -B. Planned to take it up for 3 hours but only got to 1 hour and 45 minutes. The waiting was insufferable. I’m no Simone Weil. I don’t have the patience. 

Me. The empty room, squares of transient light flowing through the windows, sun crawling past. I scramble past them faster than the other sides. I’m already exerting too much energy. I’m already too hot as it is. For now, it’s only me, the sun, and a plastic container full of handmade charcoal - soon to be crumbling remnants. The same container loretta gave me to take the charcoal home, after we made them in her fireplace in brooklyn. 

I start from the door, like a 300 meter sprint, starting bold and not stopping. Getting to the first corner I quickly realise I can’t do what I originally planned; to write like I would on an A4 piece of paper - from left to right, left to right, and so on. I don’t have time to contemplate in between - crawling back to the other side each time. I round the corner before I can change my mind. I keep going. Picking up the pace now. Words, brain, moving faster than my body can take me. Soon, I realise I can’t sustain it. I collapse on the forth loop. Dramatic and heart pumping. A quick break (2? 20 seconds?) I’m too exhausted to understand. I’m still thinking about righting. I know the next sentence and it needs to come out. Up again. 

This goes on, taking intermittent breaks. Lying flat on the ground, I feel like a bug, my mind pulling strings like beetle legs might flail in the air, attempt to mount the body the right way up. Action and mind disconnect, fighting against each other. Write, rest, write, rest. A tug of war. I see black shoes, lanky shadows in the corner of my eyes.. I could be accused of falling out of the trance, for these milliseconds. I feel a presence, I wish it would leave. When it is gone, I miss it. Who is this for if not for you? I can’t do it on my own. 

The more I go on, the smaller the loops. I start to get tired. Sweat drips on the floor in front of me more than once. In moments of vanity, I picture my bright red face, and push it out as fast as it comes. I try to throw down my ego, but it’s faster than me. Always catching up. Loops getting smaller again, I feel dizzy. I’m past the point of knowing exhaustion, now it is like a third leg. Am I even close? I’m already dreaming of what it will be like to lie down in the middle. Will I feel the steam of energy rising up from my writing? Will it cover me with glory? 

The last words are pushed out of me, with all my mite. I break down, in a snow angel of charcoal and blue-grey floor. I’ve emptied myself of all the words. I didn’t know it was possible to ever feel this way. I thought I would fall asleep, but nothing feels further away than that. i feel like I could lift into the sky with this feeling. I am light with the release of my heavy heart, my heavy brain. My head is emptied of all the problems that were, at least for next ten, twenty, forty seconds? 

After minutes (?) I start to get restless, resisting looking around. The whole time I was writing I didn’t have a chance to, only able to focus on the endless string of pearls being pulled from my brain, trailing down through my hand, mind, charcoal - a vessel to be emptied. 

Now, making stagnant snow angels from the charcoal. Body probably shaking slightly, but also, who knows? I hear steps and whispers coming and going. Observing, reading (?) and leaving. Heart pulsating, plunging, soaring then coming back to me, slowly.

I let time fly past me, then like a snail, ‘traveling by muscular contractions’. Crawling slower or faster than ever. I’m done with this now, when will the timer go off? 

I get up, not waiting any longer. 1hr, 45 minutes. 1hr, 15 minutes earlier than planned. I will never forget the feeling of collapsing into a pool of my own leftovers, I may have sooner shat myself. Feeling so vulnerable, yet all the better to have let it all out. 

[lady-divine-writes]

Equitable Solutions

(AO3)

“You go too fast for me, Crowley,” Aziraphale says, bracing with his palms pressed against the Bentley’s leather seats as they fly down the street. “Actually, you go too fast for everyone! Speed limits are not suggestions, you know!”

“If people leave their homes, they need to accept a certain level of personal responsibility,” Crowley answers coolly, swerving and barely missing a man walking his dog just to jettison into the path of oncoming traffic.

“That’s not … that’s not how that works!” Aziraphale cries, arms flailing, searching for purchase where none exists.

“That’s what’s wrong with the world today,” Crowley continues in a low, irritated tone. “Lack of personal responsibility ...”

Aziraphale swallows hard, eyes glued to the road. He can’t help it. There’s a degree he feels that if he keeps his eyes open and focused on the pedestrians around them, he can ensure their safety simply by willing it, but logically he knows that’s not going to work. He can’t miracle each individual human out of the road. That’ll attract too much attention. He has to do something here and now to remedy this situation.

There’s only one thing he can think of, but he’s not too sure how effective it will be.

Crowley loves driving his car.

Scooching by inches, Aziraphale slides across the seat, wedges himself into Crowley’s side, and begins kissing his neck.

The gesture takes Crowley by surprise, but it doesn’t slow him down. He simply smirks.

“If you’re trying to get me to slow down, angel, I think you might be going about it the wrong way.”

Aziraphale crumbles a smidgen inside. He’d been hoping to tempt Crowley’s foot off the gas pedal, if only a hair, but as temptation has always been Crowley’s department, Aziraphale would settle for a hint of distraction. If he had been distraction enough, he could have persuaded Crowley to slow down, possibly pull over.

But as it seems they’ve sped up, he’s failed at that task.

Aziraphale sighs in defeat, ready to slink his way back to his seat and hold on for dear life (so to speak) when his gaze locks on a trickling stream of black and white further down the road, and his eyes become astronomical.

“Crowley, there’re nuns,” he points out.

“Yes, yes,” Crowley returns.

“Crowley, you’re going to hit them!”

“Not if they move out of the way.”

“Crowley …” Aziraphale counts down the line - one … two … eight … ten … fourteen nuns in all. The slowest of the bunch, bent over a walker, takes steps that can only be described as snail-esque in speed “… you need to stop now, please!”

“Not likely …”

“Crowley …” Aziraphale’s eyes bounce back and forth between the nuns and the demon driving the car. “Crowley … Crowley!!”

Aziraphale hears the nuns scream as they spot certain death approaching. Unprepared to watch over a dozen women of the cloth explode on impact with Crowley’s ballistic missile of a vehicle, he throws his arms over his eyes and squeezes them shut, vaguely aware of a bright light outside that appears to consume them.

A second later, the screaming stops. And the car stops.

It doesn’t skid to a stop. It simply ceases movement.

Cautiously, Aziraphale lowers his arms from his eyes.

The city, the streets, the garden they were heading to, the people in mortal danger, have all disappeared.

Aziraphale looks around them at the familiar expanse of white, cloudy nothingness.

They’ve been here before. Crowley has brought them here before. Aziraphale likes it here.

As much as he loves Earth, he loves it here, too.

It’s quiet here, and he can breathe.

Now if he could convince Crowley to miracle him a book and a cup of tea, it would be absolutely perfect.

“Did … did you hit …?”

“No, I didn’t hit the nuns,” Crowley grumbles, offended that Aziraphale has to ask. “Just gave them a bit of jolt. Got their old tickers going.”

“I see.” And though Aziraphale is glad to be here (especially with no evidence of carnage staining the windshield), he has to ask, “How is this a solution to your reckless driving?”

“We’ve stopped, haven’t we?” Crowley turns in his seat and puts his arm around his angel’s waist, pulling him close. “Now we can go as slow as you want,” he whispers, starting his own trail of kisses down Aziraphale’s neck. “Can take all the time in the world, actually ...”