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forever--darling · 8 months ago

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summary: after three years spent away from home because of nasty divorce between your parents, you finally come back & realize that this time you might not be able to keep sam monroe away any longer.

pairings: sam monroe x reader

word count: 1.6k

warnings/notes: swearing, mentions of death, mentions of past feelings, mentions of childhood trauma, divorce, daddy issues, allusions to sex

masterlist

There was a lot of things you could attest to even only at twenty-one. After experiencing everything you had under one roof, it wasn’t hard not to grow up fast. To learn just how horrible it is loving someone because of what it can do to you. Something that still remained true even if both of your parents remarried because everything still sounded the same within that forsaken house.

The walls spoke the same languages that your parents would as they whispered, which eventually would become yelling. The indents still lingered with chipped paint near where your height marks resided in the doorframe. It was just as it had been at six and then eleven. Yet at twenty-one, having come home for the first time in over three years, to a house that now only is full of your father’s stuff, it only felt more vacant. More sad and debilitating.

Your sister never seemed to really accept any of that though, instead choosing to ignore it in favor of the free meals your father cooked or the platinum credit cards he would hand over. Something you were sure would pass along to you as well, anything to try and make you forget it all. But you didn’t. You couldn’t.

Which was why you still hadn’t ever been in a relationship, let alone ever hangout with anyone long enough to form an attachment. It was the only real reason you had never made a move on Sam Monroe when you were seventeen and in high school. Even as you both sat on a dusty couch littered with weed and beer in some abandoned basement. Even as he stared at you the way he had from behind, the black eyeliner and shadow, blue eyes practically undressing you, almost pulling you forward by a string. You had been a little high and a lot drunk, and yet, you still couldn’t. Not even after having had a crush on him for well over three years. Three years and you left that basement without one kiss or his fingers even tracing along the inside of your underwear.

Seventeen and even then you couldn’t let yourself like someone let alone get to the point of loving them.

So, how would it be any different? Sam Monroe stood in front of you that afternoon, under the hot sun, just outside the new house he and his father had built. Sweat stuck to his shirt, dark hair still present but void of blue dye. His piercings were there but left empty, and you couldn’t see any makeup. It hadn’t even looked like him at first.

But it was, and the shirt gave him away, that in the way your stomach immediately clenched, the familiarity of him enough to make you fall back into that last summer spent in that town before you left for college.

“Y/N?” his voice was deep, deeper than you had remembered, a sudden twang of confusion filling your ears as he processed your presence.

Standing in your father’s driveway, boxes scattered at your feet, hair pulled back messily out of your face, and beads of sweat appearing along your shoulders and neck. Still beautifully you.

“Sam, hi!”

You were just as surprised as him. Even more so as he seemed so different and yet still completely Sam; just taller, broader, even more like his father than you were expecting.

“You’re here.”

It sounded so much more like a question than a statement.

“Yeah.”

“Like you’re here in your dad’s driveway.”

You couldn’t help but laugh, “Yes.”

“It’s been three years.”

You stiffened, feeling as if your bones would break like they really did feel how long it had been and how much time had passed. It really had been that long. “I know. It’s been a while.”

“Too long, really,” he admitted, and somehow it had never sounded so charming before than it had then. That sudden shock seemed to melt away, and what only remained was a softness you hadn’t seen in him before. A teasing smile appeared as he took you in again.

You felt the lump appear in your throat, somehow matching the tightness in your chest. It was only Sam who could ever make you feel that way, even after three years.

“How are you?” he asked, stepping forward, his hand extending almost as if he wanted to touch you, possibly pull you into him. You didn’t know, but some part of you wished it would be the latter. A part of you craved a touch you had never met before.

“I’m good. Really good, actually.”

“Yeah, it looks that way,” he replied, enough to stain your cheeks with a newfound pink. “How in that time did you manage to grow up?”

“Me?” you giggled, pushing him lightly, your fingers lingering where they touched his forearm, “Look at you.”

He chuckled, that glint evident as ever, “What about me?”

“You have a house, Monroe. An actual house that I’m sure you pay taxes on with a job.”

“Yes.”

“And college?”

“Online classes, yeah,” he confirmed and you coudn’t deny the wide smile that appeared.

Almost like a swell of pride had formed — a sudden amazement that he really had done it proved everyone wrong in that fucking town.

“That’s great, Sam. It really is,” you smiled, that urge to touch him again appearing, but it somehow waned at the thought, “I was sorry to hear about your dad.”

He cleared his throat, the light diminishing but only briefly as his eyes danced across yours, almost trying to find something in them, “Yeah, thanks.”

“I can’t assume it was easy.”

“No.”

“I wish we could’ve been here for the funeral. I wanted to, but my professors wouldn’t let me reschedule my exams.”

“It’s okay, I understand. Both your parents sent very kind letters to us. I really appreciated them.”

You nodded, not knowing a response to it other than you should have done more. Texted, called, or tried to come back earlier, earlier than now, when you were only moving home for the summer. It was Sam. The way you felt about him was everything, really. Yet you were too consumed in the comfort of the distance and hiding. That was what you had focused on for so long.

Your head bowed, eyes unable to meet his, instead finding comfort in his sambas, and the green grass. Inhaling, you glanced up at the house. The house you never even saw complete until then. You took it in. “It truly is a beautiful house. You guys did a great job.”

“Yeah I think so too. Plus, it looked like it needed an adult to live in it.”

You looked back at him, the teasing demeanor having completely taken over his expression in the form of dark knitted brows and his bottom lip tucked between his teeth. “Adult?”

“Yes, since you think I’m so grown up.”

“You are, and I never thought I would see the day, Monroe. But, it seems I have.”

“It seems so. Finally, Y/N Y/L/N is home.”

“Yeah,” you agreed, somehow feeling a small sliver of the universe realign. Perhaps by the way he was looking at you or the reality that would become of you because of him. Feelings you were sure never really left in the first place. “I will say not much has changed around here. Well, except for one thing.”

His brows furrowed, lip lifting in interest as you took in his clean face.

“The black eyeliner. I'm not lying when I say I might miss it.”

“Really?” he chuckled.

“Yeah, it was totally working.”

“Working?”

You nodded, a teasing look of your own apparent, “Yeah. It was hot. Hm, just never thought you would be so different.”

“Different?” he scoffed, the words somehow completely wrong as they left your lips, “I’m not that different, Y/N. I’m still me.”

“Right,” you nodded, eyes following how his chest rose and fell, the t-shirt alone catching your attention, the bright yellow words somehow something you would expect to be said, “Well, I’m glad some things stayed the same.”

He smirked, following my gaze to the front of his shirt. It was black with bright yellow bolded writing which said, ‘I’m good in bed. I can sleep all day.’ The same type of fucking shirt that seventeen-year-old him would wear, seeming unable to part from the looks he would get when people would read them.

“God, you wore stupid shirts like this all the time.”

“Hey! I find them pretty funny. They’re charming if anything.”

“Charming?” you laughed, the word fitting Sam exactly though you were sure no other girl would have described it that way back then. “It can only be charming if it’s true.”

“True?”

“Yes,” you replied, the word a mere mumble as you truly noted how it felt with him standing so close, looming over you.

“Well, how about you can be the one to decide if it’s charming. Let you tell me if I am good in bed or not. Would make for an interesting summer, wouldn’t it?”

You knew then you were fucked. So completely and inevitably because you had waited that long. Since you were seventeen sitting in that hot gross basement, him only a few inches from you. You had waited, and suddenly Sam seemed so much more tantalizing, enough so you would maybe give in. Just this once.

#inbox #anon inbox #💌 asks #anakin skywalker #anakin skywalker x reader #hayden christensen #hayden christensen x reader #blurb #sam monroe imagine #sam monroe x reader

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cityandking · 3 months ago

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5, 35, 54, 62, 83 for dai, minah and narayani!

ty my dear! // 93 fun oc asks

5. What’s their relationship with their parents like? What about other relatives?

DAI — dai's relationship with his dad is good! they're incredibly similar and dai has always looked up to t'velle as a role model and an inspiration and a source of wisdom. it's been a little strange to come home and have that moment of realizing his dad is also just A Guy. dai's relationship with his other parent is largely nonexistent, as they were an earth djinn who used their final Wish to wish daichi into existence as a fuck-you to dai's horrible grandmother, and dai has some very complicated feelings about that—some pride, some guilt, some grief. he's been reading through musa's diary and it's bittersweet to see parts of himself reflected in someone he's never going to get to meet. beyond that, dai gets on well with his uncle, does not get on well with his grandmother (the bitch), and is fond of (if often exhausted by) his cousin lhoris. (and of course, he loves his other dad pelor so much, and historically he's gotten on well (if awkwardly) with his other other dad tempus) MINAH — minah was absolutely a daddy's girl growing up and wanted to be like him and do him proud. her family got along well, though they had their usual spats and arguments. unfortunately her parents are dead, so there's not much of a relationship anymore. (she misses them horribly) NARAYANI — rani's birth clan is gone and she never knew her parents, but she was taken in and raised by clan lavellan as a sort of collective village+child thing, and she loves—loved—them all very much. she was closest to one of the elders who was something of a grandmother to her and really took her under her wing, but she considered the entire clan her family. it wasn't their fault she grew apart, not really. she just spent so long being the thing that protected them that she forgot to be their da'ayani

35. What is the easiest way to annoy them?

DAI — insist on things being true when they aren't. the more inane and stupid the better. dai would have hated the lolz so random era of internet humor. MINAH — complain about helping with things that everyone else is doing. she doesn't mind some kvetching but there's a time and a place, y'know? also, nosiness NARAYANI — every single unthinking, unconsidered word out of a shem's mouth is annoying to her. "the elves" she's already tuning you out.

54. What is their current hairstyle? What have been some of their past hairstyles? Which was their favorite hairstyle?

DAI — currently he's got cornrows capped with little gold beads and a sorta black/gold ombre thing going on (it gets lighter at the ends). in the past he's had long locs, a buzz cut, and natural hair. when he has a minute to restyle it, he's gonna go back to locs, but shorter this time. this vibe MINAH & NARAYANI — answered!

62. Have they ever been betrayed? How did it affect their ability to trust others?

DAI — he's definitely been screwed over and is far less trusting of people than he was before the campaign, but I'm not sure he's been in a position to trust anyone enough for being turned on to feel like a betrayal. he felt a little betrayed when zaref first revealed he was a void tiefling/got them trapped in the void, but he's level-headed enough to know that wasn't actually a betrayal. MINAH — yes. as we've all seen, she's totally normal about it (girl has intense trust issues) NARAYANI — absolutely, but she's slow to take it personally. she's got plenty of other stuff going on that makes her wary of trusting others; past betrayals don't change much. (she also insists—once, firmly, when someone brings it up, and then it never comes up again—that what solas did wasn't a betrayal. it was a lot of other things, but she never felt betrayed by his actions. she is, perhaps, a little biased)

83. Can they swim? How well? Do they like to swim?

DAI — yes, mostly just enough not to drown. I think he probably learned from one of the soldiers during the rebellion (I'm not sure his dad even knows how to swim? I guess there might be underground lakes in Il'hesa but I'm not sure I'd trust them). he's ambivalent about it; the water is nice but he tends to sink like. well. like a stone. also he's died underwater twice now and that kinda puts a damper on beach days. MINAH — yes! she grew up near a river and enjoys swimming. one of the best parts of traveling with the troupe was camping by a lake or a river and getting to take a dip. NARAYANI — yes, very well. she enjoys swimming on a hot day and the freedom of moving through the water. it's a pity the south is so cold

#incredible how dai's family went from his dad (off screen) to like half a dozen guys with complex relationships #plus the god dads can't forget the god dads #...now that I think about it daichi's existence is very ''planting seeds in a garden you never get to see'' oof #da'ayani [da'alhani] - 'little wilderness'#these were fun thanks my dear #memery #daichi #minah #narayani

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illarian-rambling · 7 months ago

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Thanks for the tag @elsie-writes!

Rewrite Tag

My line: He stood there, coming down the stairs, leaning his body around the railing the same way I was leaning mine around the doorframe.

He appeared to be a silhouette of someone, and his body was completely void of any color. He was entirely pitch black, like a shadow, except for his eyes. They glowed bright red. His hair, even though it was shadow-black as well, came down to his shoulders in ringlets.

And he was tall. Extremely tall. He must have been six and a half feet tall himself, but as he came into my room, I noticed he was floating a bit off the ground, causing him to gain a few extra inches.

My rewrite: He sauntered down the stairs, languid and unconcerned, leaning on the banister just as I leaned on the doorframe.

It was strange; he appeared almost as a silhouette. Like the shade of a man, with shoulder-length curls and a lanky build. Only his eyes stood out. The red irises burned as brightly as the lights of a distant radio tower.

His height was to be noted as well. He probably would've stood at about six and a half feet, had he not been cheating by hovering a few inches above the ground.

Your line: The halawemavar sighed sadly as End pushed over the rest of the carved stones. From their pockets, many cultists pulled jars of paint or sticks of charcoal and began to etch rough stars onto the fallen giants. They laughed as they did—the loud, cawing sound of a soldier trying to ward away madness.

Others began to grab at the Chosen’s body. A grizzled Skysheerian ripped a beaded pendant from the dead man’s neck and spat onto his bloody face. Izjik tried to look away as they strung her once-ray of hope up by his feet, but she couldn’t. Not as she was.

I'll tag @mk-writes-stuff @bumblebeebats @jakkon-and-rose-topic @an-elegant-void and anyone else who wants in :)

#writing #writerscommunity #writblr #my ocs #rewrite tag

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rayshippouuchiha · 2 years ago

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*rolls up sleeves* buckle in peeps, this is gonna be long. as promised, pics of all the yarn at and related things to it! Also Ray, fellow void, if you want anything in particular, just holler at me. 👍First the wips!

From left to right: pillow cover in checkerboard stitch using bulky super wash merino wool (cause I wanted to try something new) blanket for stepdad in bamboo stitch with acrylic yarn blanket for mom in broken rib stitch ( I wanna have this done by mother's day but I dunno yet), also in acrylic,and place mat for a friend in basic garter stitch, again in acrylic.

Next is completed stuff!

From left to right: scarf in stockinette stitch for my sis, who likes it despite me being a picky bitch about how it got out of control and definitely not what I intended, argh. Also it's hard to see, but there's beads in there as well. 2nd pic is headband (need to seam the ends together actually), and 2 dishcloths (the holes are intentional on the blue one, since I knitted that diagonally). Then dishtowel in woven stitch, potholders in.. I think I did moss stitch on those. And a facecloth in sand stitch. Then dishtowel in 2x2 rib stitch. I don't remember what I did for the dishcloths, but I DO remember kicking myself cause if I'd thought of it earlier I could've put beads in the pink part to make them watermelon-themed! All of the kitchen-type items were made from cotton/cotton blends. I also have another stack of completed kitchen-type stuff for relatives and friends, but I don't have pics of them at the moment.

Last but not least, the yarn hoard! The stack of 5 cakes was the recent order that was on sale and will eventually become a blanket for my sis. The small tubs are super wash merino wool skeins, they will become various things once I figure out exactly what I wanna make. 🤷‍♀️ so many ideas and patterns, and I'm so indecisive, augh. The tub beneath it is acrylic/acrylic blends, then there's the cotton/cotton blends with a needle case full of spare needles. Last tub is regular wool that was a gift from my mom, a sick kit, and yarn that's was a gift from a nurse I work with (she crochets!) who received it from someone and didn't know what to do with it, asked if I wanted it, and said if i couldn't/didn't want to use it, I could always pass it along as well. And then there's the little roller shelf cart that I keep by my chair so I can organize things while I work on them, and a hat kit! Which I will attempt at some point once I finally get the hang of knitting in the round! Which is supposed to be easy but my fingers don't like to cooperate sometimes! 😒 there are some people who may say that all that yarn isn't necessary, that I may have a problem. To which I say lies and slander and I DON'T have a problem I can stop anytime I want, really. <.<; I was always an arts and crafts kid anyway, this is just...a bigger version of that and I get to make useful things! 😀

Babe!!! Babe!!! you've got so many gorgeous projects going on and so much gorgeous yarn in stock!!

Seriously the color choices you're throwing down are superb!! Everything looks so fucking good!!

And the completed stuff!?! Seriously fantastic too. And I agree with the watermelon thing. They turned out great as is but they would have been beyond cute with the beads in !! Hey that's always something you can go for next time.

I love seeing your art like this because you're doing so good!!

#RayRambles #yarn art #long post

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spookyspaghettisundae · 1 year ago

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Anima Mundi

Infinity could break a mind. Attempts to truly wrap the mind around the infinite were doomed because the mind was forever cursed with limitations.

Infinity could break a soul. Eternal it may have been, yet reaching for both things within its grasp and the unattainable would stretch it thin, to the point of tearing itself apart.

Inviolable laws of the cosmos.

The only path to infinity was in making peace with its power. Making peace with one’s self. One or the other: accepting the things within one’s grasp, or forever reaching for the unattainable. Surrendering to the limitations of one’s mind, or reaching out to infinity and seeing what lies beyond once the mind had broken like a dam, allowing the forever ocean to swallow all.

The Shadow knew this. A thousand tiny white dots glimmered in its intangible shape, thousands of eyes eagerly watching, eagerly awaiting while Michael worked his magick. It hovered and peered over his shoulder like an oversized parasite of roiling pitch-black. Like a demon. Liquid ink. Spiritual tar.

Dancing darkness, cast by the flames of tiny fires in the chapel, set among small piles of stone and old wood the necromancer had set ablaze with his lighter to illuminate the ruin’s bowels. In that starry night, Michael needed light to complete this magnum opus. The Shadow waited with great patience.

Michael dipped two fingertips into FBI Agent Parker’s open wound, like the painter wielding his palette. The decrepit old wall behind the altar served as his canvas. His fingertips kissed the coarse sandstone bricks, painting upon them the shape of a large triangle.

The beginning of a door to another world. To another time. The beginning of an end.

Parker moaned softly, though her consciousness had slipped into the arms of oblivion.

The Shadow smiled as it waited and watched.

The Shadow’s ghostly tar dripped from other places now, too. It oozed from all the cracks in reality it had wrought. It had invaded this world by crossing through a different door. Hailing from different times. Arrived from a different year, and a different era before that.

A dark traveler in the dark void of time and space. A projection, burnt into the fabric of reality. And yet, it had no true shape.

Eyes and dark tendrils extended like limbs of invisible mold, connecting all the people and places it had visited and infested.

Its tar-like imitation of SUBSTANCE still dripped from the dead machinery of THE HIGHWAY which it had corrupted, deep inside the Heart, in the basement of the Way King’s ranch house. Clockwork systems and steam engines no longer dripped with water, but with weightless matter, with the viscosity of tar.

Even the door where Klemens had opened a pathway between our world and the House of Change now oozed dark matter from its bottom crack.

It gathered in the cracks of a supermax prison cell in Kentucky, where Freddy Fletcher had been incarcerated. He stared at that shadowy stuff, pooling in the darkest corner of his small, confined space, pushing his sanity beyond its final frontier.

Droplets coalesced on the concrete of a basement wall in a mall in Kentucky, where the Shadow’s original form had originally crossed into this age. The sleeping wall, locked away in storage for nobody to see, sweated with tiny beads of dark matter.

In the train graveyard, far away, the same intangible matter pooled in a pit between two blobs of fleshy eyes and tentacle-like appendages. Once been human, THE SUBSTANCE had transformed. Evolved. A remnant of a lost world.

I am what awaits at the end of all roads.

The Shadow spoke in its Whispers to Michael.

Your king’s highway is dead, and I await you all at the end of its final road.

I am inevitable.

The sorcerer did not respond to the Shadow’s Whispers in his mind. He continued to work. Focused on the ritual he was conducting, he painted that triangle to completion, inch by inch, line by line, each edge of its shape drawn to the width of two fingertips pressed together.

Parker’s body lay motionless on the altar of this ruined chapel. Michael dipped his fingers into the wound on her belly again, salvaging more blood from the dying woman.

She was still alive. Barely. For once she died, the blood would no longer be useful to him. Beyond committing his focus and spirit onto the current ritual, keeping Parker alive continued to chew away on Michael’s focus. It sapped him of his meticulously harvested reserves of magick energy, sacrifices upon sacrifices of human lives he had taken in the past.

The Oracle of New York. A dark luminary in the world of occultists.

Spirit speaker.

Necromancer.

Behind even the Shadow, imperceptibly, a cloud of screaming souls swirled behind Michael. The many lives he had taken—most often against their will, sometimes through deception, and on rare occasion, even by honest seduction—all drawn to power his magick. They hated the living they could see through the veil, trapped just behind it. They screamed for his demise, and they screamed for freedom. Freedom from the prison he kept them in. The lives he had traded for arcane power.

Usurper of the throne. The Way King now slept, and his highway, the greatest glyph of all times—the totality of all roads in the world—slept with Klemens now. All owed to Michael’s winding path of dark machinations and betrayal.

Michael desired to open that triangle-shaped door. Just like the Shadow.

They dreamed of the possibilities. A new world shaped by their dreams. A new dawn.

Together, they yearned to usher in a new future.

Thus, Michael painted in the flickering light shed by small fires in the ruined chapel. A reflection of the primitive world they all came from. With Parker’s blood, Michael painted strange symbols along the lines of the triangle. In his other hand, he held the jade tome, the Thaum of Thritain, studying its alien hieroglyphs, and replicating them around the triangle in a fingerpainting in blood.

Getting closer and closer to completing this ritual.

And the Shadow watched with glee.

Outside the chapel, clouds cleared the sky for the moon and distant stars to shine through. They bathed the deserts of Las Vegas in an eerie, cold light. The winds howled, cold and unforgiving, and they fed the flames of Michael’s fire inside the chapel.

And a group of people stood outside the ranch house, down the path along the dead fields, leading to that ruined chapel.

In reality, this path extended merely over a few hundred yards of crushed gravel and sand, flanked by decaying fence and desert.

But the Shadow had altered reality. That pathway now stretched into infinity. The closer one got to the chapel, the farther that path became. And its Shades, its deranged spawn, lurked between the fence posts, and the stray stones, and the cacti. They hungered for human spirit.

Outside the ranch, four people waited. Helpless. Unable to cross that distance.

Special Agent Derek Wells stood out in the open and his tattered bureau jacket fluttered in the cold wind.

Aria Chambers in her dirtied designer dress, and her bodyguard, the bulky mountain of meat in a suit named Barry, stood behind Wells.

Behind them, in turn, FBI director Anthony Collins sat on the sagging steps of the ranch house porch, hands bound behind his back with cuffs.

All four of them gazed across that stretch of unnatural infinity, that warp in the way, stopping them from reaching the ruined chapel on Klemens Weidmann’s dead ranch.

Or, at the very least, the infinity stalled them long enough for Michael to complete his work.

Their palpable impotence filled the Shadow with a sense of sadistic glee.

A sense of victory.

The porch to Weidmann’s home, where hundreds of bullets had pockmarked and torn up the wood and windows, squealed. The fly trap door, barely hanging from its hinges, opened. Three figures pushed out from the bowels of the darkened building. Their boots and shoes clomped down on the porch steps as they stepped out into the open.

Two more people, and a copy of a human.

In their leather jackets, the fallen Way King’s knights, Jericho Kane and Karma, joined this strange gathering.

The Way King’s final homunculus, a clockwork automaton—a perfect copy of Agent Parker’s appearance—followed right behind them.

They, too, came to stare in awe at the impossible distance between house and chapel. At the dancing Shades, mocking with their awful and monstrous presence.

Wells shot a glance over his shoulder to the new arrivals. He grimaced, recognizing the vicious woman named Karma, who had almost sliced his throat open with shards of glass.

He still wore the bandages from that confrontation.

“Oh, fuck off,” she muttered while he glared at her. “Don’t look at me like that. Your partner shot me.”

His hand twitched around the pistol in it. But he held his tongue.

She exuded no threat to him. The symmetrical features of her face shed no spite for him any longer, and she stared like the everybody else into the distance.

“Cool your fuckin’ jets,” Jericho said. His eyes were reddened with recent tears, and that struck a first nerve in the FBI agent. Jericho struck a second nerve when he continued speaking, cementing that he was addressing the evil beauty by his side, and not Wells. “This ain’t the fucking time or place. We all wanna get to that motherfucking snake over there.”

“That thing is no demon,” Aria said, repeating what she had told Wells and Barry earlier, upon their first failed attempt to cross the infinite distance to the chapel.

Jericho peeled his gaze off the distant building and locked onto Aria. His eyes sparkled in the starlight and he swallowed emptily. He tried to find the right words, to convey his concern, or to convince her to get out of dodge before their world ended.

Instead, he only blurted out something stupid.

“Why the hell are you here? You shouldn’t even fuckin’ be here.”

“Shut up,” she snapped. “I go wherever the hell I want. And I have unfinished business with Michael.”

“We all do,” spoke the homunculus. The red-headed facsimile of a woman spoke evenly, calmly, in a monotone that rivaled Parker’s regular demeanor. Staring into the distance like all others, she added, “She is there with him, and dying. The longer we wait—”

“Nah, fuck that,” Jericho said.

“Well, what’s the fucking problem?” Karma asked. “We’re all here to ice that piece of shit, so why are we standing around like jackoffs and talking?”

Barry pointed a meaty finger towards the chapel. Aria spoke in his stead.

“Bad mojo. That entity warped the space around the chapel. And do you not see those things out there?”

As if to underline her words with a threat of ill-will, the Shades danced madly between fence posts, stones, and cacti. Hungry, and wiggling their shadowy claws in anticipation of human contact. Grasping at the gravelly path, like they wanted to slice through hapless legs.

“So fuckin’ what?” Karma asked. She smirked, showing teeth. Having escaped the House of Change unchanged, her sadism returned to the fore. “Are you all stupid? Do you not realize what I am capable of?”

“I don’t even know the hell who you are,” Aria fired back.

Wells swiveled, gravel crunching underneath his scuffed shoes, and his eyes went wide. He stormed up to Karma with wide steps.

He knew.

“Yes. Do it,” he ordered. “Take us there.”

“Yo, cowboy,” Karma said, the smirk fading from her lips. “Hold your fuckin’ horses. Are we all on the same page here? What do all you dipshits think we’re gonna do when we get there?”

A beat of silence. Then everybody answered at the same time.

“Save Parker,” Wells growled.

“Stop Michael,” spoke the homunculus.

“Find and destroy that fucking book, which I bet that asshole has already,” Jericho drawled out.

“Squeeze Michael on where to find the book,” Aria said.

“No clue,” Barry replied.

“Wait, you think he found the book? When? How?” Collins asked. His questions lingered the longest out of all their conflicting responses.

“Shut up,” multiple people told Collins in groans with varying levels of annoyance.

Karma’s smirk widened into a wicked smile. “You dipshits should be way more worried about that thing with Michael. You all know what I’m talking about. We need to get rid of that thing.”

“I don’t think we can,” Aria admitted, deflating more with each word she uttered. “I don’t even understand what it is.”

“It’s bad fuckin’ news,” Jericho growled. “It could just come and go in the House of Change, so it’s clearly out of this world, above our fucking paygrades.”

“Until we figure out how to deal with it, let’s focus on what we do know, and know how to do right,” Wells ordered again.

He puffed his chest out. The anxiety and stress gnawed on his nerves, but he recalled the bureau’s motto. Like a silent mantra, it repeated in his head. Echoed in his mind in Parker’s voice, from the time she had said it out loud in earnest to him, he let it loop.

Fidelity, bravery, integrity.

He let it repeat in his mind while the wind howled over the desert, and all their eyes came to rest on him with expectation.

Even the Shadow’s millions of starry eyes. Even as it smiled.

“We get over there, we save Parker, we stop Michael, and if he has that book, we take the book away from him. In that order. Then we can bicker about the consequences until we’re blue in the face, but until then, we’re in this one together. Ride. Or die.”

Jericho sighed. Jutted his chin out. “Yeah, okay, fuck it. Yeah, let’s do it. I’m game, let’s go, come on.”

Aria sighed and added nothing. She glared at Jericho, for she sensed where they were headed. He only stared ahead into the impossible distance of the chapel, avoiding all eye contact with anybody else. Aria wasn’t ready to let him burn his life away.

The homunculus stared in the same direction and she suddenly spoke, bursting out into a flood of words.

“Agent Parker and I both dreamed of a long valley, where rain fell eternal, and all the stones on mossy grounds were of perfectly geometrical, spherical shape. In the fog, at the end of that valley, a forest of crystal trees awaited, and in its clearing, a tar pit bubbled, from which Shadow rose. It assumed our shape, a dark mirror of the self. Shadow, we all are. It is neither here nor there entirely. SUBSTANCE in an incomplete, corrupted form, twisted by human ambitions. A corruption of all things that exist. It cannot be destroyed without destroying reality itself.”

She fell silent.

All stood stunned, mouths agape at the homunculus fashioned in Parker’s image.

The Way King’s final act of peace, as he had declared himself.

The homunculus expected no response.

“The fuck is that supposed to mean?” Jericho grumbled.

“Anima mundi,” replied the homunculus.

Aria squinted at the red-headed homunculus. As a true Witch of the West Coast, Aria was the only person present who knew enough to glean any sense of her cryptic message.

“Who gives a shit?” Karma asked. “Let’s go, people. Time’s wasting. Start holding hands like we’re some kinda hippie protest chain. Come on, chop chop.”

She extended a hand for Jericho to take. He seized it, grabbed Aria’s hand. She, in turn, took Barry by his hand, who snatched Wells’ hand in a meaty fist, the one not occupied by the FBI agent’s pistol. Wells holstered his service weapon in the confines of his jacket, and then took the homunculus by her hand, unsettled by how much she looked like Parker.

Karma led the way, back up to the fly trap door into the ranch house, right past Collins, still sitting on the steps dumbfounded. The train of people passed him by, steps thumping up the decrepit old wood, and he gawked at each of them.

“Uh, what—what about me? Hey! Are you leaving me here?”

“Shut the fuck up,” Jericho snapped at him in passing.

Karma stepped through the door, and they chain of people bypassed reality, one by one. Stepping through the darkness of the fly trap door, they did not enter the ranch house, they instead emerged inside the chapel.

Her strange and unnatural power had crossed the impossible distance with her improbable ability. The liminality of all thresholds in reality served her as gateways between disconnected places. It could boggle the mind, though the people present either already knew of her terrible power, or possessed the faculties to process its effect in action.

Or, as in Barry’s case—they tried not too hard to think about it. Like anybody exposed to the unnatural, trying to rationalize it with conventional logic, and filing it away in the dustiest and oldest forgotten drawers of the mind, before it could chip away at and erode too much sanity.

The six figures crowded inside the far end of the chapel.

They gazed across the broken pews, to the altar upon which the dying Agent Parker lay. Michael had crossed her arms over her chest, like laying an ancient Egyptian pharaoh to peaceful rest.

Dim light flickered from the three tiny fires Michael had lit. He paused amidst painting the final glyph outside the triangle’s lines, rearing his head to gaze upon the interlopers. Surprise flashed in his bright blue eyes.

And the Shadow, creeping in the darkest corners of that cavernous ruin, it blinked its thousands of tiny stars. It oozed with malice.

Hatred for those six who had simply bypassed its attempts at keeping them away. It had worked so hard to corrupt THE HIGHWAY, distorting the distances of reality to create a pocket of infinity around the chapel, and one of the people present was capable of ignoring that awesome might altogether.

Well, well, well, look at this. Just in time to play the party poopers?

They now all heard its Whispers in their minds, provoking shudders to run down every spine. Then the mental Whispers turned to menacing Growls.

DO YOU NEED TO FEAST ON HUMAN ENTRAILS LIKE VULTURES? TO BE TAUGHT OF THE FRAILTY OF YOUR FLESHY MEATBAGS?

The light from the three flames dimmed and flickered. But it had not been the Shadow to do so.

Nothing but the howling wind, sweeping through the ruined chapel, whistling through the holes in sandstone brick walls.

Michael’s wide-eyed surprise gave way to a half-lidded, relaxed gaze. He picked up the switchblade from the altar, where it lay hidden behind Parker’s dying body.

The threat was clear. The sharp little blade glinted in the dim light, hovering above the unconscious red-headed woman. Its tip, however, was pointed at them.

He smiled at the six witnesses to his ritual.

“An auspicious gathering,” he said.

They would empower the energy he invested in it. They would serve perfectly to seal the sacrifice. Witnesses were almost better than the faithful.

“Karma,” Michael muttered, staring coldly at her. Confidently. He clicked his tongue between uttering her name and his next words. “And here I thought the House of Change would leave you forever… changed. Maybe fix your attitude, or your lousy manners. A shame you show up to sabotage me at the eleventh hour. I really, truly, should have known better.”

Karma smiled at him, but there was no joy behind it. Then the trauma of her entrapment in the otherworld all bubbled to the surface. Her face twisted into a mask of rage and malice.

She screamed at him, “I’m gonna gut you like a fucking fish!”

“God, I’ve had enough of this shit,” Wells muttered.

His pistol was slung up in a flash, and the former ranger shot Michael in the dead center of his forehead. The necromancer crumpled onto the floor behind the altar.

“God fucking damnit!” Karma spat, yelling. “He was mine!”

“Holy shit. Are we already done here?” Jericho said, taken aback by the sudden turn of events. “I mean, fuck, I’m not one to complain.”

His chin crinkled and he took a single dauntless step towards the opposite end of the chapel, towards Parker’s body on the altar.

The entire ruin rumbled, quaked. Its walls shook, and dust rained from the crumbling ceiling. Howling winds swept through the abandoned abode, and the three fires flickered till they nearly died down. Only embers remained and the Shadow grew. Intangible claws crept across every solid surface, closer and closer to the six intruders. The shifting Shades crowded outside the holes in the chapel’s walls, peering inside with tiny white dots for eyes, like a hungry sky of glimmering starlight.

The Growls in their minds rumbled, matching the force of the earthquake.

WE ARE FAR FROM DONE, YOU AND I. NOW YOU ALL ARE GOING TO HELP ME FINISH THIS.

The six people huddled together, back to back now, surrounded by swelling darkness. Terror gripped their hearts, a fear of the unknown paralyzed them with inaction. The agents of dark matter closed in on them.

Get back up, Mikey. GET UP.

Michael’s hand smacked onto the top of the altar, leaving a handprint in blood. His splayed digits trembled as he slowly pulled himself back up.

Heal her. And I’ll take over from here.

“Gimme your gun,” Jericho told Wells. He grabbed at it.

The FBI agent slapped Jericho’s grabby hand away.

Jericho growled, “Just keep shooting him, for fuck’s sake! He can’t keep doing that shit forever!”

Barry and Aria reacted, drawing their own pistols.

“Stop!” Wells’ command sliced through the howling wind. “I don’t trust you to not hit Parker.”

Michael chuckled darkly. Blood wept from the third eye that Wells’ bullet had punched into his forehead. The necromancer poked a finger into it, and smiled upon seeing his own blood and bone, clinging to his quaking fingertip.

HEAL HER. I WILL DEAL WITH THESE INSECTS.

You can sacrifice your own blood, and heal from it again.

“That violates the laws of cosmic transaction,” Michael breathed in protest, wobbling as he stood on buckling legs.

He braced himself against the altar, leaning over Parker. The dark priest. His power was divided in every direction.

The walls of reality are already crumbling while this event ripples forward and backwards through time. Reality is as malleable and decrepit as this old chapel. Don’t you feel it? Don’t you feel its flesh rotting away as the Way King now forever sleeps? His reign has ENDED.

You can remake everything. You can make up the rules as you see fit.

HEAL HER.

“This is bullshit,” Karma exclaimed. “These are just fucking shadows! What the fuck can they do, anyway?”

She pulled a large hunting knife out of her jacket. Then she snarled, casting a sneering grin at Michael.

“Now… to make good on my promise.”

Michael couldn’t help but shudder. She meant every word and she didn’t care about any consequences.

Everybody else hesitated as Karma charged at the altar, boots clomping down the aisle between all the broken pews, until others broke from their paralysis.

Karma had spoken true. The Shadow and its Shades only postured with menace. The touch of their dark tendrils instilled a dark chill in their hearts, yes, but it carried no substance. As the homunculus had said.

SUBSTANCE in an incomplete form.

The entire group advanced, three firearms drawn upon Michael, waiting for the right moment to shoot him dead.

DOOM.

An explosion of invisible energy repelled them. Karma tumbled backwards over the ground, struck strongest by that powerful blast. The others merely stumbled and stopped in their stride.

The cloud of screaming souls behind Michael had manifested momentarily, surging outwards from him in hateful waves. Each pulse that followed the blast deepened a feeling of sickness in their bowels. They all reeled with a sense of vertigo, feeling unable to reach the sorcerer.

He stood behind the altar, arms wide open, his head cocked back to the crumbling roof, like a dark messiah channeling divine wrath through his entire body. The vision of the cloud of screaming souls dissipated, but one thing was clear to everybody present.

Unlike the Shadow and Shades, Michael’s power was all too real.

The pulses from his cloud of death waned and the sinuous vision dissolved.

In its wake, the Shadow and Shades were all gone.

On the altar before Michael, Parker stirred. A pained moan escaped her parched throat. Uncrossing her arms, she pawed at her belly, where blood still soaked the fabric, yet skin no longer yielded to pressure in form of an open wound.

Healed again. By grace of Michael’s dark sorceries.

She sat up and let her legs dangle off the side of the altar, her back turned to Michael. Her head bobbed up and down, eyelids more closed than open, speaking to volumes of delirium, reminiscent of someone who had just woken up from a long coma in a hospital.

Karma groaned on the floor where she reeled, crawling towards the altar with painful slowness, her face twisted and cringing with agony from the blast, and a bloodthirst that raged in her, urging her to murder Michael.

All others stood still again, paralyzed with a new fit of indecision, and a deep-rooted fear of the unknown unfolding before them.

“Why?” croaked Agent Parker through her haze.

The embers and tiniest of flames in Michael’s fire cast a long Shadow behind her, looming above them.

The Growls had died down into Whispers, now isolated to Parker’s mind again.

As tender as they ever had been… just as when they had first met.

Because we can open the door, you and I. As I always said, and I will say again: you listen.

You let me in.

Tar-like droplets of dark matter began beading upon the lines of the triangle on the wall behind them, oozing from the cracks between the bricks upon which Michael had painted the symbol in Parker’s blood.

“What if I don’t want what you want,” Parker breathed. The pain subsided as Michael’s magick continued to work, and she recovered from all the blood she had lost. “You are threatening these people’s lives. You are… I don’t even understand what you are or what you really want.”

The necromancer tilted his head. The reflection of embers in his icy blue eyes flashed with curiosity as he blinked, listening intently to Parker’s side of her telephone call with the Whispers.

I want to be whole again. To fill the hole with THE SUBSTANCE your sister from another world deprived me of when we crossed over together.

“What does that… mean?” she answered in question anew. “Explain, and I will consider—”

“Parker! Please,” Wells shouted. His gun lowered by his side. “Do not negotiate with these God-damned Whispers!”

Wrinkles creased his forehead above his furrowed brow, and he stared at her with wet eyes, concerned for his partner’s well-being.

Yes. You listen. You understand. We open this next door, and we reshape reality. We cross the sea of stars. Dive into the dark depths of the ocean of time, where everything folds into the present.

The Whispers spoke to her with infinite tenderness.

But you’ve done me so much harm, she answered the Whispers in her own head. No longer speaking aloud. Becoming one with the Shadow, wrapping her entire being around that parasitic entity in a gentle embrace. You have threatened, and hurt, and endangered myself and others. Time and time again. Why would I help you?

As the fire in her being grew, so did the flames of Michael’s externals fires. A cold wind from the desert let the embers and dry wood flare up again with new flickers. Parker’s Shadow grew behind her, and even Michael’s fear began to grow while he craned his neck to behold the swelling presence, towering over them.

“Naw, fuck this,” Jericho muttered. Then he shouted at them. “I know you got that fucking book, and I’m gonna destroy that stupid fucking book, you stupid fucking assholes!”

He didn’t make a step towards the altar. He didn’t need to. His intent was enough. He was moments away from burning down his entire life to finish the job, to ride into the sunset, with all his connections, and affections scattered in the wind. His friend, Klemens, had wanted that book so badly, but Jericho believed it needed to stop existing. And as a final “fuck you” to all the “mystic psychos” around him, Jericho was hellbent on annihilating the tome in one final blast of his own. He only needed to see it to destroy it.

The Thaum of Thritain, the jade tome from another time or space, it rested on the altar, right behind Parker, between her and Michael. It radiated with unnatural gravity. An opposite pole to the screaming cloud of souls that followed Michael through the ether; the jade tome sucked everything in like a black hole. Everybody sensed its presence, even if they weren’t aware of it.

That unreal presence only intensified, as if it was responding to Jericho’s threat.

“Don’t,” Aria whispered. Firmly. Glaring at Jericho, her voice cracked. “Do not throw your life away.”

Jericho clenched his jaw and spat out a string of incoherent expletives before he settled on a plan B. “Fine, fine. I don’t even need to tap my own mojo. Klem gave me a little something and I’m going to make some good fucking use of it now.”

Look at how they struggle to grasp the gravity of what is about to unfold, the Whispers told Parker. They resist without understanding what they are resisting. We can bridge the future and past. Connect all humanity with a higher enlightenment, and move this world one step closer to a greater evolution. Take my hand, and open the door with me, and we will be whole again. You always wanted to see what lies beyond, right? Beyond the confines of the only reality you knew?

“Right,” Parker breathed. “I do.”

It was true. Not only despair had invited the Whispers and Shadow in.

Earnest curiosity drove her. Had always driven her.

Michael burned with the same intensity. He studied the profile of her face, his eyes glittering with adoration of someone he considered his equal, despite the disparity of their occult power. In a mystic sense, they had become husband and bride.

“Yes,” Michael whispered. Oblivious to their conversation. He sensed it beyond words, he caught the glint in her, that subtle change, shifting from resignation to determination.

Yes, whispered the Whispers. Yes.

“Yes,” Parker repeated. She locked eyes with the homunculus down the aisle. Her doppelganger stood still, and rigid, and she stared back at her, mirroring the same calm resolution. “Promise they will not be harmed, and I promise to open this door with you.”

I PROMISE.

The chapel shuddered again with a quake, causing all people standing to stumble, and more dust rained upon them. The desert wind whistled through all holes again, howling.

“No!” Wells shouted.

He whipped his gun up, held in both hands with the same discipline and drill that had allowed him to shoot Michael in the head. But he knew not what to target.

Wells stared down the iron sights at Parker. But he didn’t have it in him to pull the trigger.

Not after all they had been through on THE HIGHWAY.

THE SUBSTANCE, usurper of THE HIGHWAY, thrummed from beyond the triangle door. Dark matter oozed and dribbled from the triangle of lines drawn in drying blood. The walls wept with the intangible tar. The symbols pulsed with the same pull, the same gravity as the jade tome.

“Yes. It’s time, isn’t it?” Michael asked.

He walked around the altar, interposing himself between Parker and their unwitting crowd of witnesses. Michael walked as if he had never been shot, neither in his side nor his head. And he only stopped once he stood in Wells’ line of fire.

The artificial third eye on his forehead no longer wept blood, having healed entirely.

It is time.

“Parker,” Wells spoke up again, no longer shouting. Tremors shook his voice, but he spoke with sharp clarity. “Where do you see yourself when we close the lid on this case?”

His face flickered like the flames, fighting back the despair and finding it in him to muster a feeble smile.

The homunculus and Parker answered in unison, identical words, sharing the same cadence and pronunciation. A strange chorus.

“Kicking back with some damn fine coffee, cherry pie, and so many chocolate donuts that I might just grow sick of them.”

Parker’s lips curled into the same kind of feeble smile. Wells’ smile widened.

“No, absolutely fuck this, and fuck all of you,” Jericho growled. And like Karma before him, he charged at the altar to stop this ritual.

Michael’s cloud of screaming souls exploded outward again, blasting them back, this time yielding even greater force. Jericho learned the same hard lesson as Karma, the same hard way. Everybody else stumbled backwards several steps, thrashed by the hate-waves.

Jericho wound up on the ground, curled up into a fetal position, mere steps behind Karma, gripping his head as if it was about to explode. The teeming mass of screaming, angry souls were threatening to do exactly that. The paradox of their hatred towards Michael extended to his victims.

“Goodbye,” Parker said.

She swiveled on the altar and hopped off the opposite side. In the same fluid motion, she seized the Thaum of Thritain, scooped Michael’s jackknife up off the floor, and then approached the triangle painted onto on the wall.

As soon as she pressed her hand flat against the center of the surface, feeling the thrum of infinity hidden between all worlds, Wells clicked his tongue and shook his head.

He steadied his aim. He unloaded every bullet in his pistol into Michael. Barry and Aria soon joined in, discharging all three pistols in a blaze. The hail of bullets staggered the dark messiah. Every shot caused a spasm, made him dance, like a puppet being jerked around by countless strings, and spraying the world around him in his blood.

Perhaps he would have recovered even from that, with all his dark magick—

But Karma latched onto his ankle. Just as the others ran out of bullets, she clutched, yanked, and sent Michael hurtling sideways through the world, slamming his temple against the edge of the altar, only to bounce off that and crash into the ground where she crawled onto his back to straddle him.

Her hunting knife gleamed in the dark, raised high above her head.

The jackknife in Parker’s hand gleamed the same way.

Parker cut her own arm. Deep and wide. Letting blood flow onto the jade tome, and then drip from there to the ground. Spattering out in rhythmic, gushing bursts.

Sacrifice. Others readily sacrificed other human beings to power their magick, but Parker knew no other choice. Her honor demanded it.

Self-sacrifice.

A simple act, but an honest one. A powerful one. Its rule rippled backward and forward through the ocean of time, a cosmic law, eternal.

Yes. You are kind. And with you, I know, we will evolve together to be so much more.

So much more.

We are so much closer to being whole again. You complete me. Now… finish this.

Others shouted behind her, but their words all blurred into an unintelligible haze, a slurred soup of syllables which she was readily capable of shutting out.

Parker smiled as the warm fluid escaped her to the rhythm of her own heartbeat, painting the floor beneath her in a bright crimson.

The necromancer would ill have a chance to heal her like this, as Karma sat on his back, and plunged her knife into him, over and over again. Michael would only be able to heal himself.

Karma cackled and smiled as she stabbed Michael for the twentieth time. She could have been faster, even, but she relished it every time she sunk the blade into Michael’s back.

The others, meanwhile rushed to Parker’s side. She reached out to the triangle, ready to seal the ritual with the final act necessary: she and Shadow had become one, possessed the will to complete it, and the sacrifice was rendered.

Inches away from touching bloodied palm against stained sandstone, hands grabbed at her. Pulled her away.

Through the darkness, where her field of vision narrowed while the consciousness escaped her again, she saw their faces, huddled over her. Concerned, fearful, and confused.

And among them, the peaceful mirror of her own, that unsettling doppelganger; the homunculus stared back Agent Parker. A strange mirror. Blue eyes like crushed diamonds, fleeting and memorizing every inch of each other’s countenance. The short crop of red hair to frame the freckled pale face of one another.

Agent of Peace.

Damn it all. The Shadow and Parker thought in unison.

The Whispers caressed her mind. Maybe… you were just too kind.

Jericho’s face was the only one absent from those who rushed to Parker to save her life. Wells’ jacket flew off, and he tore up his shirt to improvise new bandages.

Jericho seized the Thaum of Thritain. He had wrestled it from Parker’s weakening grasp in the shuffle. His knuckles turned white as he gripped the tome in his hands, and the jade covers began to crack.

But the Shadow could no longer do anything to prevent any of this.

One vessel, Parker, was already too weak to finish the ritual; and the people present had dragged her away from the triangle.

The other vessel, Michael, was being dragged down the chapel’s aisle by Karma. She cackled again as she dragged her nemesis away from the group, all the way through the dark doors leading outside. Instead, she teleported through that portal, dragging her most hated foe with her, back into the Heart inside the ranch house; the center of the Way King’s machine, where she would continue to drag him to the next and final door.

To the door to the House of Change from which they had escaped, thanks to Klemens’ self-sacrifice.

Past where Klemens still sat on his brass throne alone, eyes closed, deeply asleep, and oblivious to the chaos of the world around him.

Karma continued dragging the bleeding, broken body of Michael. She stabbed him every now and then for good measure, preventing him from regaining enough strength to break free from her clutches. She spat out strings of expletives to spite both him and the screaming cloud of death he commanded, the angry spirits who hated the women who kept adding to their legion, until she booted Michael’s body through the door into its infinite corridor, her final act of disrespect towards the necromancer.

“Maybe you’ll come back out as something other than a flaming piece of shit,” she spat. She cackled by the end.

Michael raised a helpless hand, covered in his own blood, but Karma kicked the door shut between them, banishing him into the House of Change.

And Jericho, well, he indeed no longer needed to burn his life away with magick to destroy the Thaum.

We were too kind, Parker thought.

The Whispers answered her. No. To be whole again, we need kindness, too. You were the right choice all along. A shame we failed, so close to the end.

That kindness was mirrored in the mess of hasty hands, all scrambling to offer Parker first aid, to stop her intense bleeding, and prop her up.

Wells held her head against his chest and told her to stay awake, and stay with him, but everything sounded like she was underwater; a million miles away. They even looked like they were peering down on her through the shimmering veil of the ocean’s surface. Wells, Aria, and Barry all stared into her face, their expressions ranging from panic over dread to concern.

The face of the homunculus vanished from that group, appearing next to Jericho with the calm of a ghost. The flames of Michael’s flickered, and all shadows returned to normal.

Natural.

“Are you sure you want to destroy it? You nor anybody else will be able to use it again to open these doors,” the homunculus told Jericho.

He paused. Some part of him still hesitated from doing the deed.

Maybe Aria could still use the book and travel through time to prevent what was slowly killing her. Or maybe time travel would only invite greater disaster. They would find another way.

Jericho clicked his tongue.

“Nah, fuck all of this. This one’s for Klem,” he growled.

His nape bulged where the Way King’s clockwork spider had drilled into his flesh and latched onto his spine, and the inhuman strength it infused him with exploded outward with all his fury, an unnatural physical might once more unleashed.

The alien tome crumbled in his crushing grasp. The covers cracked apart into chunks. His fingers curled and ripped the ancient parchment to shreds, like a strongman tearing apart a phonebook, and then ripping it up into tiny pieces. He scattered the relic’s remains into the nearest of Michael’s fires, feeding the flames.

They flared up ever so gently, lapping at and then devouring the old parchment, all soon to be ashes joining the dust of the desert.

This is not the end. There is another way, said the Whispers.

But the Shadow was no more. Spread too thin, latched onto the dying Heart of the Highway, and the otherworld of the House of Change, its grasp on this world finally faded. The loci of power it had piggybacked on all waned, and fell apart, devoured by the sands of time. Gone was one vessel, crawling, bloodied, and helpless; lost in the House of Change. Asleep, another, a mind forever obliterated, liberated from his memories.

Only one vessel remained, though her grip on life slowly faded like the rest.

The oceans swallowed the Shadow. The Whispers remained.

Agent Parker’s consciousness faded to black.

7 notes · View notes

freeuselandonorris · 1 year ago

Note

✨💌

(for the writer asks here!)

✨What's a fic you've posted you wish you could breathe life into again and have people talking about it? (or simply a fic you wish got more credit)

hmmm. a lot of my fics are either for very niche pairings, niche fandoms or niche kinks, so I’m kind of used to posting into the void to an extent 😅

that said, two fics I’m particularly proud of that didn’t get huge traction are:

all the blood runs hot before it’s cold (F1 RPF, toto wolff/christian horner, christian horner/geri halliwell, E). look, i get it. it’s a weird fic about two very rich and quite obnoxious middle aged men being vile to each other, and one of them gets pegged by a spice girl. it’s not for everyone. but I love what I managed to do with that fic and I think it’s the one I’m proudest of overall in terms of showing off my actual writing ability.

crosstown traffic (our flag means death RPF, taika waititi/rhys darby, E). this one actually did okay for the bounds of a tiny fandom, given it was posted between seasons. but again, I feel like I did a decent job of making this a character study of LA Taika (as opposed to Aotearoa NZ Taika, a very different beast). I’ve actually been thinking about doing a sequel to this at some point, set during the filming of Flag S2, where I look at Aotearoa Taika in more depth, like a mirror image piece somehow.

I guess I haven’t entirely answered the question directly here but yeah, I think they’re the two I would be happiest for people to revisit!

💌share something with us about an up-and-coming work (WIP) that has you excited!

oh god I have like…five WIPs on the go currently because I have poor impulse control.

so I’ve been working on a sequel to the toto/christian fic I mentioned above, set from toto’s POV this time (one of my favourite POVs to write from).

“You know,” Toto says. “I read this book over the winter break.”

“Oh dear,” Christian looks pained.

There’s something different about him today. In the intervening period since Toto was last alone with him, something has changed. He’s taking up the whole cradle of the armchair like he thinks he belongs there.

“It was about Mithridates,” Toto continues, ignoring Christian. “He was the ruler of Pontus in Anatolia in the first century BC. His father was assassinated at a banquet, and so Mithridates spent seven years in the wilderness, ingesting poisons at sub-lethal doses.”

“Right,” Christian says impatiently. “Why, exactly?” His fingers twitch against his thighs.

Toto leans back against the desk, legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles. The sharp edge cuts into his glutes. He flexes, letting the discomfort translate itself into another stirring of blood.

“He built up an immunity,” he says, and leans forward. His cock throbs with every beat of his heart. “Eventually, these repeated small exposures to the deadliest of poisons accumulated in his system. It no longer affected him.”

I also started writing girl!Lando/Oscar filth yesterday whoops

“Hey, Osc.” Lando drops her phone to her chest and fixes Oscar with a scrutinising gaze. She’s been sprawled on Oscar’s sofa for the past hour, feet up on his coffee table, gnawing on the beads of her bracelets and largely ignoring him. “You ever made a girl squirt?”

Jesus. Oscar should be used to this kind of thing by now, really, but it never stops startling him when Lando pipes up have you ever done spanking or did you know that you can train yourself out of a gag reflex if you like, really commit apropos of nothing.

“Uh,” Oscar says. “Nope. Can’t say I have. Have you?”

and wonderful OP I realise you might be glazed over now while I talk about motorsports fics when you followed me for Flag stuff! but the other day I remembered I got halfway through a Roach/Blackbeard cannibalism fantasy (look, it’s canon, alright) fic that I abandoned a few months ago. I’d like to go back to it at some point, though!

“They say you’ve tasted human flesh,” he says. The words are astonishing coming out of his mouth. He keeps his voice deliberately low, his words audible only to Blackbeard before the breeze and the waves wash them away.

“Do they, now,” Edward says, musing. He’s still smiling, but it’s changed now. He’s eyeing Roach speculatively; Roach feels pinned, like something to be inspected under glass. He forces himself to look up at meet Edward’s gaze, more boldly than he feels inside.

Edward leans a little closer, voice low. “Yeah, I’ve tasted flesh.”

Roach can’t stop the way his eyelids flutter, hearing it. He sucks in a breath. “You have?”

“Oh, yeah,” Blackbeard says, and tilts his head. “A man can work up all sorts of appetites under the right circumstances.”

thanks for asking! 💕

#fic meta #ask meme

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paradoxkinspace · 2 years ago

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heyyyy. i guess i will also post a canon call because. i wanna talk to people. i'm open to just chatting, but i'm mainly looking for canonmates! i have several timelines, so i guess i'll just list general details for each.

(FYI: i am a minor, so please be wary of that.)

JADE STRIDER (daveways) - i found the other beta kids, (john lalonde, rose egbert, and dave harley), so i'm looking for anyone but them. (if there are any terezi zahhaks, hello. I miss you although i'm not entirely sure why). i have a dump of info on my profile that i won't list here for the sake of not making this too long. I'll at least say that i had shoulder length wavy/curly hair, wore round black sunglasses, a red baseball tee, and typically black pants although i do remember wearing a long skirt sometimes. also a pair of worn out red sneaks. my guardian was bro strider (aka jake strider). i was a witch of time. my symbol might have been a cassette tape.

JOHN HARLEY - i'm looking for any of the beta kids (rose strider, dave lalonde, and /or jade egbert)! i don't remember a heavy chunk of stuff other than what swaps the humans were and bits and pieces of our session and prior to it. i had messily cut shoulder length hair, wore square glasses, and freckles. i tended wore sweaters despite it often being humid although id occasionally decide to wear a tee. i had a pair of cargo shorts and black gym shoes, although i did sometimes wear a long skirt instead. i made lots of bracelets and other jewelry with beads and rubber bands. we started our sessions when we were older, so we were like? 15? or 16. i lived on an island with my dad. i was a heir of space. my symbol was similar to this: 🌱 and also i may have had a crush on dave, haha...

MEULIN MAKARA (kurlozways) - looking for: porrim megido, kankri maryam, kurloz leijon, damara zahhak, mituna ampora, and horuss peixes. i know it's a bit of a list, but i remember you guys the most. i had black, curly and poofy hair that often got tangled in stuff. my skin was a dark grey and i had sharp, pointy horns. i was kind of lanky and tall. i often wore a purple vest with my symbol, a collared black t-shirt, and loose black pants w/ black boots. oh, and fingerless skeleton gloves. i also had a nostril piercing on my left side. i had tiger-themed facepaint but i didnt always wear it. i hung out with ampora and peixes a lot. had a flushed crush on porrim and i think i was moirails with kankri. probably was a prince of heart. my symbol was leo.

DIRK LALONDE (ROXYWAYS) - looking for any of the alpha kids (jane english, roxy strider, and/or jake crocker). my memories are also a bit dense here too. i had light blond hair, a couple of beauty marks, eyebrow slit and piercing, and my ears were pierced. i often wore this one short-sleeve sweater with a black tank underneath and some black cargo pants w/ white shoes. i programmed stuff and dabbled in robotics like once. i was a prince of void. my symbol was a cat similar to canon roxy's i'm pretty sure. i definitely had a crush on jake crocker. it was…pretty bad.

(sorry about the long ask! hope it's alright. ^^;)

as i said before, feel free to message to just chat or see if we have anything in common. :D

- @stupidkinbs

you got it buddy! o7

🃏

#mod clownbae #homestuck kin #hs kin #kin canon call #homestuck canon call #bloodswap kin #kidswap kin #jade strider kin #john harley kin #meulin makara kin #dirk lalonde kin #dancestor kin

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graysquirrel7 · 4 months ago

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I hated this line of questioning. They never trusted me, and I had to pay for it. The only question was whether or not the person asking me had a worthwhile cause.

Not worth dying for, that part was easy. The hard part was what came after.

I could pretend like I did not know what was worse: the yawning void of oblivion that I somehow never fell into, or the visions that would hit when I would wake back up.

I was, at the very least, generally spared the painful healing process. So far every time I had woken up in my body, everything functional and ready to go. That did nothing to relieve the nightmares, though.

And they? They were the real cost.

I've read books and literature analysis of various kinds of horror. It was one thing to have existential dread as it gets pitched in various philosophy classes, the fears around unavoidable yet uncertain outcomes, where you're just asking questions you do not have any context for. What if it's all for nothing?

It's wholly different when you know just a tiny bit more. I didn't know everything, but I had seen a bit more than the average person.

"What's it like?" The other person's curiosity was familiar. Most of the people who stopped to talk to me about this stuff tended to be naturally curious folk.

"Dying?" I know that's not their real question, but they don't. "It's different every time. Sometimes it's so sudden I don't really register what happened, and sometimes it's like drowning."

Drowning is a horrific way to die. Nothing peaceful about it. Every survival instinct kicks in, violently, to try and save you while panic, fear, and pain overwhelm your whole being.

"No. Coming back."

There was something about the tone of that response that struck me as odd. The statement and tone reminded me of something I had seen that last time, on the very lip of oblivion. A fleeting vision? An omen?

I could feel a cold bead of sweat crawling down my back. How do I explain to this person that the only thing I found more terrifying than the prospect of oblivion was the actuality of coming back?

“So you’re telling me you can’t die?” “No, I’m telling you I can’t stay dead. There’s a difference, Trust me.”

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void-symphony · 1 year ago

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the thing with alphabet beads is, i find, if you use them to make a necklace thing instead of a bracelet thing, it's kind of even more impossible to use yourself as a model to make sure you made it right. .....so i eventually used oogie boogie* to model it for me?

absolute Shape;;

(the necklace says "bodily autonomy" if it's hard to read.) (the alphabet beads only seem to come out when i'm in some kind of mood, i guess.)

#*not my green oog plushie. other oog i have.;;#he's also (been) wearing my chewelry. three necklaces... yippee;;#poor fellow still has his tag on.;;#don't mind me #void did beads stuff #anyways if it can be made to look right on him it should work if an actual person wears it right?;;#it's gonna be yet another for the takes so. ya know. don't want to do it wrong. lol.;;

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dzpenumbra · 2 years ago

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3/13/23

I made up for 4+ hours of conflict yesterday with 6+ hours of streaming today.

I can't even explain how... delusional it feels... to stream a story game that is intentionally being streamed as essentially a set of dynamic prompts for me to tell a story... to no listeners... The traits, characters, setting, plot tools, all that... they're all delivered by the game. Select choices and making all the pieces fit together? That's up to me. And it's very difficult to... bring your 100% when you're telling a story to a handful of bots. When no one shows up. For hours.

I switched over to art after about 3 hours. I opened Krita and just started drawing this organic abstract stuff I've been doing lately. The work I did on the prayer beads, and the Be Here Now sign. Kinda like an organic membrane with voids or like... cell pockets. It's a type of design I've been doing for like 20 years. I did that and listened to the entirety of Periphery's new album. It's fucking good, really weird, really out there, really pushing their limits. Super different from anything I've heard from them. Very impressed.

So I did a live album review - to no one. At some point someone came by and said "long time no see"... and then nothing else. I engaged with them immediately... crickets. I looked at their profile, they followed me when I drew the owl (my profile picture) back in 2021, but I guess never came back since. And just went silent or left. People are so odd. Then someone new came in, and... same story. Just said hello, and I tried to strike up a conversation... crickets. It's so frustrating.

Honestly, it feels really sad. It feels like I'm just pretending to have friends, which really doesn't make the idea of actually making friends more real. It makes it feel farther away. I just... I fucking suck at this.

Daylight savings really fucked me up. I didn't get up and moving until like 4. That shit is so fucked up. Because I didn't get to sleep until like... 7! I'm genuinely surprised I'm getting this journaling done at such an early hour.

So... I missed the mixer at the board game shop. Never showed up, it got late too quick. I got yoga done. I skated up to the gas station up by the highway and got some food and snacks. The woman who worked there was laughing about some guy who came in twice saying that he got his turban stuck in the tire air pump thing, like it got sucked in or something... and she was just scoffing at him and laughing him off. And... I just kinda laughed at the absurdity of it, because I had this Looney Tunes cartoon of it happening in my head and it was pretty slapstick funny. But... inside... I was like... that's a religious garment, that's like... he's gotta feel really panicked that he doesn't have it. That's a big deal to some people, like real big. Like "lost a wedding ring" big. And they didn't even try to take him seriously and help him, they just laughed him off and told him to leave, they just said "it doesn't work like that, it blows air, I don't know what happened to your turban but our machine didn't suck it in" or something. And... yeah, in hindsight... poor guy, you know? I wish I had been a bit more present, I could've probably offered to help him.

I seriously... I hate how scared of people I am here. Just... in general, I guess. Like... crossing paths with a homeless person who was just yelling out loud in the street the other day. It's hard to really... empathize with that. It confuses me. It's alien. I'm super self conscious, it's like... the complete opposite, just like... ultimate not giving a fuck. Hard to put myself in those shoes. And that kinda freaks me out, I guess. Encountering people from different cultures at the gas station, it made me feel bad. Like... it made me feel like a bad person. Because I just... didn't know what to expect, really. Like... I didn't know what they were thinking, because I didn't know how I appear in their eyes. If that makes sense, I'm finding this hard to articulate clearly. Like... 3/4 of the people I run into I'm scared are going to try to steal my skateboard. Which is fucking stupid, because it's like 35 lbs and the controller for it is strapped firmly to my wrist and I'm going at least 8mph at the time... But my anxiety just tells me I'm gonna get a knife or a gun pulled on me and they're taking the board, my earbuds and my phone. And I just... I guess it's because I'm alone.

It's weird. It's most people. I just... assume I'm pissing them off, they're going to yell at me, they're going to call the cops on me, they think I'm stalking them, they think I'm creepy, they think I'm dangerous, they think I'm annoying or making a lot of noise (the board can be a bit loud on brick, but it's a really fun texture to ride on), they think I'm a hipster dad trying to reconnect with a lost youth (not far off, minus the dad part...). I have no idea what others see when they look at me. And I clearly assume the worst.

And over the past few years, I've heard some nasty things. Nasty things that people think of me. And... I'm afraid a lot of that might've gotten beaten into my head?

I'm having trouble wording this right, I think. I don't trust the people around me... because I don't know what they think of me, I don't know how they perceive me. Because I very rarely get social feedback, and the overwhelming majority of it is either avoidance or conflict. So it sorta stands to reason that the most likely perception of me is... negative. Or suspicious. Which means people will be guarded around me. Which means... I'm not safe.

God... what a mess. What a mess my brain has devolved into. Looking at this, no shit I don't go out in public. And all I've been begging for, for years now... is someone to just wingman. So it's safe for me to meet new people and branch out. Ugh.

How many times do I need to have this panic attack, good lord, I'm such a broken record on this! Every anxiety response I have - "I went to the store and I ran into people that must have been suspicious of me because I'm a white dude with a shaved head in his mid-30's wearing black" - and it always catastrophizes and then resolves at the same damn lament... "if only I had a friend. Someone to have my back."

I hate living like this.

Last time I'm hitting this point, I promise. Just... picture this. Instead of me going skating alone with earbuds in trying to ignore the thoughts of people staring at me and judging... or the cops pulling up and ticketing me for riding on the sidewalk or some dumb shit... Instead, me meeting up with a friend to go cruise and explore with. Exploring my new city, with another person, so it's... you know... fucking safer. So if I crash, I'm not fucking stranded alone. So if I get mugged, I at least have someone to help me out after the fact. Someone who knows where I am and can get help. Someone to just... keep me company, and tell me I'm doing a great job, and laugh at my jokes and shit.

Oh, and since we're basically sending wishes to the gods here, might as well ask for my flexibility back in my hips, and whatever weird shit is going on with my neck, if we could get that straightened out, that'd be dank. Thanks Lumbyx, God of Spines, love your work. Praise be.

Welp. That was like... my whole day. Didn't even shower. Just wake up. Grababrush putonalittlemakeup. Yoga. Skate to the shop, hit the riverside and see geese (which was cool) and head home. Watch youtube and eat and... stall. Then stream for 6+ hours.

And here I am.

I'm upset because... it didn't feel like an accomplishment. It was, there were several large accomplishments today. But they didn't feel like accomplishments. I have that feeling where I'm going "man, I want a cigarette" and I just came back inside from smoking a cigarette. Like a hunger. Dissatisfied. Discontent. Uneasy. Wanting. Longing. Craving. It really is like a hunger. I mean that. Like I could easily see others (myself even) trying to sate this hunger with... food, or water, or alcohol, or nicotine, or benzos, or pain pills, or weed, or sex, or like... anything, really. It's a very generic hunger. A very general, deep hunger. So vague and general that I really can't define what it is or where it is.

This, in the past, was why I made those Rimworld-style "Needs meters". Right now: Food - 7/10? Rest - 2/10 Recreation - 9/10 Beauty (of immediate environment) - 5/10 Comfort - 5/10 Outdoors - 7/10

(7+2+9+5+5+7)/6 = 35/6 = 5.8/10 total Mood

So... why am I in such a shitty mood then? Why am I so upset? 5.8 is really not that bad! What's the hunger about? Welp, in Rimworld, that would be one of the Mood modifiers. Not a biophysical thing... like base human needs, the stuff above. It's more of a... thought kinda thing. Psychological effects.

Which is what has brought me to this revision lately where like... I feel like Rimworld should have a need bar for Social. Because it really does feel like a basic survival need. And shit gets really fucky in your life if social just... disappears, or is all bad.

This is where I randomly and suddenly end the journal entry because I'm tired and I notice it's getting a bit late. I wish I had something useful to do with this Rimworld RPG self-help method. It really fucking upsets me that like... I presented this specifically to 3 professional licensed psychologists, one the head of a psychology department at a college, and all of them nodded and smiled and rolled their eyes and tuned out like I was a 5 year old telling them how I was going to be an astronaut someday. Because I found this game mechanic that, in staggering detail, not only maps out both the human psyche and Mazlow's hierarchy of needs, but creates a simulation of that system in a simulated environment. You can see it functioning in real-time. You can alter it. You can see the effects it has on mood and health and relationships and shit, you can see where mental breaks hit and what causes them. It's like... the foundation of the entire game. It's like... it's fucking psychology and self care in a nutshell. It's like a roadmap for self-therapy. And I made a 45 minute video breaking this down in painstaking detail for these people and they didn't even fucking watch it. YOU CAN MAKE YOURSELF IN RIMWORLD, IN PREPARE CAREFULLY. I fucking did it myself to show them! Not even kidding, I made myself in Rimworld, my house, my cat, my dog, and screenshotted the needs tab with the bars and the thoughts list and everything. And I gave them the screenshot to show them, on fucking paper, precisely every goddamn moving piece of what was going wrong in my life. And they did that whole move that shitty parents do when they go "oh wow, that's a wonderful dog you've drawn, let's put it on the fridge a little later" and then the slip it into the trash.

I swear to god, this system helped me immeasurably in being able to get out of my head and actually identify my problems specifically. Like... look what I did here! Up above. Like, my problem is clearly not a base human need. I'm tired, but the rest is doing surprisingly well. It's a craving for social contact, or a craving for... emotional comfort? I'm sure if I tallied out my big mood modifiers, it'd paint a much more detailed picture. But identifying that this hunger is not a biological component is a really important factor for me, because it really feels like a biological factor... and that can be enough for someone to start binge eating or drinking or smoking or whatever, just to make that mysterious hunger go away.

I would love, more than anything, to share this tool with others. This could like... really help people. This could be the kind of tool that people in my generation that just... struggle to connect with therapy... they can do as homework. In an approachable context. Imagine this as an app. And you plug in your stats, and your modifiers. And if you hover over negative modifiers, it can give you suggestions of common remedies to help ease them and boost mood. Shit like that. I mean... come on... Just as a day-to-day self-care kind of thing.

Maybe someone will listen to me someday and see the value of stuff like this. This idea has lasted over 4 years now and I still hold the value of it, its value to me has increased. All because some phenomenally talented indie game developers wanted to make a game that simulates the function of human mood/psychology/biology in a survival scenario. What fool would not use such an advanced and well-crafted tool?

Okay. This is where I end the journal entry. But reset the vibes first.

The highlight of the day was... seeing the geese by the river. There was a guy filming them, no idea what for but it made me so happy to see it! And the river was beautiful, my first time down by the riverside at that part of the river, above the waterfall. And the light was beautiful, and the ancient brick mill buildings at the side of the river just looked really striking. I took a picture, even. That's a memory that will stick with me. I love nature. :)

#diary #journal #online journal #stream of consciousness #stream of thoughts

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sycamorality · 11 months ago

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oh void okay let's see. i have a bunch of stuff

survivor is albino and prefers being in shaded citadel with two lanterns. the light is comforting + keeps spiders away. they'd rather not use flashbangs because it hurts their eyes.

i'll put the rest under a cut!

monk isn't the runt of the litter and jumped after survivor because they didn't want survivor to be alone due to their albinism causing them issues. they actually both ended up in the same place at the same time and monk made sure to take care of survivor on their way back.

the third sibling is seer, they stay with their parents because they have aquaphobia (which really sucks in the world of rain world huh) but worry about their siblings constantly until they come back.

hunter was actually the second slugcat nsh made because the first one was just sentient rot vaguely in the shape of a slugcat. oops? the void pitied hunter and sig and let hunter swim back out, only removing the rot. when hunter returned sig instructed them to lead the sentient rot into the void sea after caring for it and the void derotted it too.

nightcat is a purposed messenger, they have wings and are blind due to a fuckup while being bioengineered. they were made to fly at night which is why they're dark blue and starry. it's for camoflauge! they're mostly unrelated to the gang though. they can track iterator signals which is how they find their way around.

that sentient rot was made into judge and sig sent judge to pebbles to help with his rot problem because judge can just straight up eat rot. it can also purify it but it actually likes the taste of rot and is immune to it. it can't completely save pebbles though

sig made a third slugcat way before spearmaster was ever sent on its first mission, being gatherer, that sent the distateful message. gatherer and hunter as techncially siblings

artificer is actually twelve beads among burning skies reincarnated after being echoed. echoing works in a way where you get all your ties to past lives wiped as the void tries to prevent karmalocking, but in artificer's case it failed. at least until arti meads twelve beads and stops. arti hasn't killed as many scavs as he would in canon here - he keep going and get to the void sea, still on karma 9. the void sea mercies him and he wakes up in a shelter with both of his pups, the cycle before one of them takes a pearl. arti still lives with the mental toll of killing as many scavengers as he did, though

the pups are phosphor/flashbang and copper/flaredancer. phosphor can do a short flashbang and copper has green fire.

gourmand is a subspecies of slugcat that has feathers instead of having peach fuzz or being smooth that originates from a bit beyond outer expanse. she goes looking for survivor and monk after their parents tell her about it and eventually ends up finding them in shaded citadel, where survivor is holding two lanterns for comfort.

rivulet is a reincarnated ancient (a headcanon i have been given custody of from @/malwarechips hehe) and just got the pearl from their own corpse. they start with a mark because they already understood iterators (and ancients). wet baby wanders into sig's home and it already has a mark lmao

spearmaster is, of course, one of seven slugcats suns made. there were two that suns kept and those are laceweaver, a more spider-based slugcat and definently a prototype for the spear creation. its silk can harden and be used as makeshift spears, and the second unnamed one thats spearmaster but not quite there yet. laceweaver was a mentor to both spearmaster and the slugcat before it, which taught suns that slugcats are very social and complex creatures

saint is. hoo boy. an ascended guardian that got 'echoed' in some way and was told by the void to ascend everything that couldn't ascend itself. it was given the form of something that could easily traverse the world, which happened to be a slugcat with 8 wings. those wings however started disappearing over time as saint realised it really didn't want to ascend things, life is beautiful as is, and rhinestones beneath shattered glass only furthered its opinion on this. it really only ascends iterators if they want to, and otherwise destrings them if possible; its not like there's much left of their structures anyomre.

inv is an iterator turned slugcat - i think this is a headcanon most people know i have pff. wobbly and unstable at first as their memories are but small fragments, eventually they got to a point where they can function and form sentences. the askblog is actually a while after they get accustomed to being a slugcat and find the weird pup. nightcat on the askblog is not at all related to my winged nightcat, they're completely seperate

and that's just the slugcats. ancients, anyone?

ancients were split into multiple species after bioengineering was a thing. it depends mostly on where they live, but others also just kind of exist. there's avian, reptilian, mammalian, draconic, amphibian, synapsid, arthropod and the rare marine ancients.

avians are bird-like and have wings. after the iterators were built it became a custom to clip wings so they couldn't fly.

reptilian ancients are much like the lizards in rain world - head armor, frills and scales.

mammalian ancients appear cat-like, wolf-like, etc - whatever mammal you can think of.

draconic ancients is in the name, they're dragon like. it's like convergent bioengineering to the reptilian ancients, but they are not the same species. some have their arms as wings and others have them on their backs, and others don't have wings at all.

amphibian ancients are pretty much whats in the name. they live near large water sources and tended to hunt there.

synapsid ancients would be like uh. i think it's sort of a proto-mammal sort of deal, that's the best i can explain it

arthropod ancients are like centipedes and so on. invertebrates with exoskeletons.

iterator time

iterators are split into 10 generations, 0 through nine, but technically 11 if you count pre-gens.

'pre-gen' refers to parts made before prototypes to test things. usually just a bunch of parts, but there were also puppets made before any full structures were made to figure out how to make them. generally a lot of old pre-gen things were simply destroyed to be reused or thrown away to never see the light of the cycle again, puppets included. a lot of pre-gen puppets were simply discarded because they weren't exactly made to be used, but most of them were salvaged and saved in quite a few lengthy searches around the middle of the first generation being constructed lead by three groups of ancients that wanted to make sure history wasn't lost. most pre-gen puppets ended up later connected to structures, but a lot had to be modified to be compatible. there are only around 3-4 pre-gen puppets that didn't need to be modified to be compatible, and thus were never modified.

i'd also get my notes for the other generations but this is getting extremely long, so lets focus on miscellaneous things that isn't our main gang, hey?

pole plant leaves are sticky and strong, can be used for binding things together as long as they aren't too big, and as bandages for smaller wounds. blinking flowers have their petals used for pigment, usually used for fabric made out of spider silk.

lizard scales are used for decorative things as well as armor, and lizard hide is used alongside king vulture harpoon strings for saddles. scavengers and slugcats have tamed vultures and lizards and use the saddles to ride on them; theyre mostly used for vultures.

some creature headcanons too, why not

there are multiple species of scavengers! marsh, steppe, wasteland, seaside, everglade, bog, arid, badlands, tundra and polar are some examples. tundra and polar scavengers live in areas far off from any iterators, to the point it still snows there.

and speaking of - there's a lot more environments than what we see in-game. temeprate, tropical, etc etc.

in the arctic regions however (and all the others; but i'll figure that out later) there's also other species than scavs! such as tundra slugcas. there's also snowdrift, zoop (strawberry), snow-cap, icicle and permafrost lizards as well as a glacier vulture.

i actually have something written for snowdrift lizards!

snowdrift lizards are light medium-large lizards that live in groups. they are mostly white with pale and pastel colors and have fur-like spines and frills covering most of their rather smooth and soft body. unlike a lot of other lizards, they do not have scales. snowdrift lizards usually bundle up behind or in snowdrifts and rest unmoving until any unfortunate prey wanders in range of a snowdrift lizard and alerts it, leading to a quick death unless the prey reacts fast enough. usually only scavengers and slugcats survive ambushes from snowdrift lizards. occasionally a bundle of snowdrift lizards may be lying dead, though it is near impossible to tell if a bundle is alive or dead.

and some vulture stuff why not

miros vultures are a highly modified king vulture and miros bird hybrid organism, biomechanical in nature. the laser aim with the king vulture harpoon has been repurposed to aim a controlled, highly damaging explosive blast. they were used as protection from what was deemed as threats and were extremely effective at this due to being purposed as a apex predator. unlike other vultures, their wings are not prehensile and can not be used to traverse the ground, and thus they have to rely on being able to catch prey to maintain their energy until they can land somewhere safe to rest.

this, however, lead to miros vultures being too effective for an apex predator after all the ancients ascended and their population was left uncontrolled. this caused a few issues in the ecosystem - leaving a few species extinct and many being driven off from the iterator superstructures very early on as the miros vultures over-hunted without any directions.

the few miros vultures that did survive when most were starved ended up taking refugee in bitter aerie. there was a large population of lizards (mainly orange, white and blue) that the few miros vultures hunted and survived on.

there's also a sapeornis vulture, which is a four winged early void revolution vulture. much closer to primal fauna than any other currently living vulture species. a few genome blueprints of sapeornis vultures have survived since the early void revolution and they are easy to recreate. they're one of few modified vulture species - and the only one not extinct - to still have legs instead of using prehensile wings. they also still possess actual feathers instead of the inflatable faux feathers that other vultures have. they do not use the jet propulsion, or even have it, and instead use their wings to fly, hover and glide.

and some more misc-misc stuff.

karma fatigue happens when something goes from high karma to low karma or vice versa very quickly. mostly only affected ancients, but does affect every creature to an extent. usually leaves the creature fatigued for a few cycles. can also apply if karma is below 1 or above 10, locked below 1/above 10 - or generally when karmalocked.

karma can go below 1 and above 10, though most ancients believed very heavily that karma 1 and 10 was the lowest and highest respectively, which subconsciously locked 1 to their lowest and 10 to their highest.

that was a lot oops oh well enjoy

you know what, I did oc lore (you can still send oc lore btw) what about au lore?

so many cool aus I have never heard about, or struggle to remember

Feel free to share Rain world AU lore!

#lore in the droplets #yea sure ill lore tag this

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tchallasbabymama · 3 years ago

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Instinct

Hello, fellow whores. You asked for it and I hope I delivered. I present to you: T’Challa in heat❤️‍🔥! This one had me blushing, y’all.

The next request I work on will either be sugar daddy silver fox T’Challa or Star-Lord T’Challa. I know I just threw the latter in the lineup, but apparently, people are seriously feeling the lack of Star-Lord T content here and I want to do what I can to help fill the void.

Check out my masterlist to read my other stories and oneshots, and, as always, comments and reblogs are my lifeblood! Enjoy😘

Word count: 4,903

CW: SMUT, infidelity

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Instinct [instiNG(k)t] noun: an innate, typically fixed pattern of behavior in animals in response to certain stimuli.

For centuries, the descendants of the great Bashenga retained their hold on the Wakandan throne. Challenge Day after Challenge Day, they beat their opponents and were rewarded by Bast allowing them to ingest the heart-shaped herb. The herb imbued them with a panther’s strength, speed, and instincts, effectively turning each of them from an ordinary man into the Black Panther. Now, strength and speed are pretty self-explanatory, but what exactly were their instincts?

When T’Challa was crowned king and ingested the heart-shaped herb, he visited the ancestral plane and reconnected with his baba. Their reunion was one full of tears, but most importantly, T’Chaka took the time to impart his wisdom to his son. T’Challa spent hours talking to his baba about life, what to expect as king, and, most importantly, what to expect as the Black Panther.

T’Chaka had warned him about what was to come, but until it happened to him months later, T’Challa was in denial. It couldn’t be that bad, right?

Wrong. When T’Challa woke up one sunny Wednesday morning, he felt strange. He felt feverish but not sick. Like most days, his morning wood stood at attention, tenting the crisp white sheets that laid across his lower half. He looked at the clock and saw that he had plenty of time to take care of himself, so he rolled to his side and reached for the tub of shea butter in his nightstand. T’Challa bit his lip as he rubbed his hands together to melt it down, but when he reached down to stroke his length, he nearly bit clean through it. He was much more sensitive than usual, and he wondered why...then it hit him. He jumped up and grabbed his kimoyo beads with his slippery hands, and he frantically opened his calendar.

“Twelve weeks,” T’Challa groaned as he counted backward to the night he became the Black Panther (the second time.) “Fuckkkk.”

He was in heat, and it was only going to get worse. T’Challa wracked his brain for ideas on what to do to fix his problem, but all he could hear was T’Chaka’s words echoing through his head.

“You should find a partner sooner rather than later. The instinct will take over you, and it will become unbearable if you do not have anyone to aid you.”

T’Challa had been so busy trying to rebuild the kingdom that his cousin damn near broke that he had forgotten to look for someone. Sure, there was Nakia, but she had moved to Oakland and their relationship quickly fizzled out. Then, there was that one Dora Milaje after he regained the throne, but that was a one-night thing and she went back to her wife the next morning. He needed to find someone, but who?

As the king’s mind wandered through his options, sweat beads began to form on his chiseled body. He knew he’d be no good today, so T’Challa typed up a message to his family and staff that he would be taking the day off. With that taken care of, all he needed to do was figure out how to get through this heat in one piece. T’Challa looked down at his dick again. It was swollen with need, and he watched as droplets of precum escaped from his tip. He couldn’t take it anymore and decided to bear through the sensitivity. Carefully, as though he might hurt himself, he reached his hand down and grabbed it in his hand. The whimper he let out was foreign to his ears, but it was all he could do when he felt the intense wave of arousal wash over him. He gritted his teeth as he began to slowly move his hand up and down his shaft. It seemed that everywhere his hand went, it left a deep burning sensation in its wake, but he just couldn’t stop. He rutted into his hand, and as soon as his thumb swiped over his reddened tip, he came undone quicker than he ever had before. His body jerked as the milky white substance spilled over his hand, and it seemed that he had plenty to give. However, instead of leaving him sated, all that did was arouse him more.

T’Challa had made a mess all over himself and decided to take a shower, but every touch of his hand, or even the water, drove him up the walls. He needed some pussy, fast. He exited the shower and allowed his body to air dry as he moisturized his mahogany skin. Minutes passed before he noticed that he was still massaging himself, too caught up in the sensation to notice the passage of time. His dick was rock hard again, and he groaned in frustration as he attempted to stuff it into silk lounge pants. He called for his breakfast to be brought to him and spent the day in his quarters, alternating between desperately jacking off and going through his contacts to find the right person. It had been so long since he had opened that figurative little black book that all of his usuals were taken, and unfortunately for him, they were hellbent on remaining faithful for some reason. As the day went on, his hunger grew in intensity, and it got to the point where neither his hand nor his sex toys could cut it anymore. He felt lost, he felt horny beyond belief, and he felt...famished.

T’Challa looked at the time again and realized that he hadn’t eaten in hours. He placed another order from the kitchen and waited impatiently for it to arrive. It wasn’t that he couldn’t wait for the food to be brought up; he was impatient because every moment that passed without him touching himself brought him more pain. He didn’t need the poor kitchen staff walking in on him feverishly pleasuring himself, so he just sat there and attempted to focus his mind elsewhere. Eventually, there was a knock at the door, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

“Room service,” a melodic voice called out, and T’Challa smiled to himself at his friend’s playful tone. It was Xoliswa. He hadn’t seen her in almost a week, and he was sure she was out of town, yet here she was bringing him his dinner. Xoliswa started working in the kitchen at the palace seven years ago, and they grew close over the years. He was even in her wedding.

T’Challa unlocked the door with his beads, and she came right on in with the cart full of more food than he usually ordered.

“Somebody’s hungry today,” she joked. Just as T’Challa was about to respond with some smartass remark, an aroma hit him square in the face. It definitely wasn’t coming from the heaping portions of doro wot and rum cake he ordered. It was sickly sweet and made the hairs on the back of his neck stand at attention, as well as something else.

The king began to salivate. “New perfume?”

“No, just the usual,” Xoliswa sighed. “Why?”

“No reason. You just smell different today is all,” he gulped to keep from drooling at her smooth, brown legs that were always on display. His eyes traveled up to the curve of her hips and the thickness of her waist before grazing over her delicious-looking chest and landing on her plump lips. Of course, he had noticed her looks before, and they would playfully banter and flirt back and forth from time to time, but this was the first time he was really seeing her beauty. Not only could he see it, but he could smell her from across the room, and his body was reacting in ways he couldn’t control. His dick sprung up and immediately started to harden as he watched her ass bounce in her flowy shorts when she pushed the cart out to the balcony. She had gone too far away, and he felt the intense need to be closer to her, so he bolted up and made his way outside with her.

“Here, let me help you.” T’Challa quickly picked up the heavy tray before she could and placed it on the table before taking his usual seat.

“I thought you didn’t feel good today,” she crossed her arms over her chest, unintentionally pushing her ample breasts even closer together. His body burned at the sight, and he visualized his lips wrapped around her undoubtedly perky nipples. He needed her body on his, but he knew he shouldn’t. Xoliswa was a friend, a confidant, a married woman...

“I don’t,” T’Challa cleared his throat and tried to focus his mind on anything but her. It wasn’t working, though. “But, uh, it’s not what you think. I just needed a day, that’s all.”

“Want to talk about it?” Xoliswa asked as she leaned against the balcony. He was acting strange, and it concerned her. “You know I’m here for you if you need me.”

“Don’t say that,” he chuckled darkly as something flared inside him.

“Why not?” she tilted her head to the side and uncrossed her arms. He would’ve sighed in relief, but she just made it worse by stepping closer to him. Xoliswa placed her hands on his shoulders the way she always did and began kneading his bare flesh. Little did he know, he wasn’t the only one fighting back their arousal. Xoliswa had a small crush on T’Challa since the moment she laid eyes on his muscular frame. Had she not been in a relationship the entire time she’d known him, she would’ve dropped down on her knees and given him the business by now. However, Xoliswa loved her husband and wouldn’t dream of doing such a thing...except for the occasional nights where she closes her eyes and all she can see is him. All she can feel is the king.

T’Challa let out a low groan as her hands worked out his stress, and as usual, the sound made Xoliswa flood the panties that had gotten wedged between her fat pussy lips. The scent of her arousal traveled straight to his nostrils, and his pupils blew wide. He jumped up and crossed the balcony in just a few quick strides, needing to get away from her before he truly lost himself to his lust.

“Seriously, what’s up with you today?!”

“N-nothing, you just...you smell so good, and- Xo, I can’t.”

“Can’t what?” Xoliswa narrowed her eyes as she tried to figure out what could possibly be wrong with him...but then her eyes fell to the large dickprint in his silk pants. She had seen him in those and similar pants several times before, and although they always left little to the imagination, she had never seen him in his full Bast-given glory. But this time? This time she could almost make out every vein through the soft fabric, which made her pussy spasm with need and release more wetness.

T’Challa could see that Xoliswa was staring right at his dick, and he knew she liked what she saw by the whiff of sweet honey that wafted his way. A low rumbling started in his chest like an engine revving as the burning need in his loins intensified.

Xoliswa spoke barely above a whisper, stunned but in awe of the man before her, “Why are you-”

“My heat,” he sighed.

“Your what?”

“My heat!” T’Challa snarled, and she nearly jumped out of her skin. Any other time, he would assume he had scared her, but he knew better now. He could hear her heartbeat, he could smell her dripping pussy, and he could see her hardened nipples and the way her luscious thighs rubbed together in a feeble attempt to quell the throbbing between her legs.

“W-what’s that?”

T’Challa gestured for her to take a seat, and she lowered herself into the chair across from his, squirming in her pooled fluids. Her obedience just made him harder, if that was at all possible. He gingerly sat down across from her and just stared for a moment, her breathing getting shallower with each inhale.

“One of my newly acquired panther instincts requires me to, uh, mate every three months.”

“So...you basically ovulate four times a year,” Xoliswa joked in an attempt to break the tension, but he began to growl at her again, causing them both to shudder at the other’s arousal.

“It’s more than being a little horny and fertile, Xo. I have to- no, I need to find a release, or I’ll go crazy. My whole body is on fire, and masturbating just makes it worse. I’ve been in here all day-”

“You’ve been in here jacking off all day?”

“Yes.”

“And it’s not helping?”

“Not at all.”

“Have you tried-”

“Yes. Whatever it is, I’ve tried it. Trust me.”

Silence descended upon the pair as they both stared at each other, stuck in a lustful feedback loop, chests heaving and mouths watering. Xoliswa was the first to break, so she stood and headed for the door. She had to get out of there, the atmosphere was too thick, and she couldn’t think straight with him staring at her like a piece of meat. She couldn't stand to look at him any longer or she might do something she’d regret later, but when he grabbed her wrist and looked up at her with those pitch-black eyes, she knew she was in trouble.

“Xoliswa, please,” he begged. He knew he had no business asking that of her, but he was desperate, and she just looked so damn delicious.

She bit her lip as her eyes traveled back down to his bulge that had started leaking through the fabric of his pants.

“Shit…”

“You like what you see?” his voice was lower than she’d ever heard. It seemed like everything he did turned her on more and more. T’Challa took a deep inhale so he could know for sure, and his head swarmed with the smell of her. “Yeah, you like it. I can smell that sweet pussy; it’s dripping for me, Xo.”

He had never spoken to her like that before, and every word lured her further into his trap. She had a brief moment of clarity and pulled her wrist from his grasp, taking a step back.

“T-T’Challa, I’m married-”

“Tell your body that, then,” he grumbled as he stood and stalked closer to her. She backed up with every step he took until she was wedged between his body and the doorframe. His arms went up on either side of her, and he leaned in close enough for her to feel his breath tickle her lips. “Tell me right now: do you want me?”

Her eyes darted around, desperate to look at anything but the coal irises that would surely draw her in. “I-I-”

“Say it, Xo. I want you so fucking bad,” T’Challa growled with his face buried in her neck, imprinting her scent deep in his brain. He knew he shouldn’t, but he couldn’t help but take a little bite. As soon as his teeth made contact with her skin, she let out a light moan and set his body into overdrive. He pressed his hips into her, and the heat of her skin made him whimper. The noise shocked her, and she realized just how much he needed her...as if the ten inches of clothed steel pressing into her stomach wasn’t enough of a sign.

Xoliswa had secretly wanted this for a long time. In her dreams, he’d fuck her good and deep and leave her a sobbing, leaking mess. Truthfully, if he had ever come onto her before this, she probably would have caved then, too, but she thought he was too gentlemanly to do so and pushed the dirty fantasy to the back of her mind. Boy, was she wrong. Right now, T’Challa couldn’t give a shit about chivalry and certainly didn’t care about her husband. Right now, all he wanted- no, all he needed was her body.

She pulled his curls to remove him from her neck, and he growled again at the titillating pain and the loss of contact.

“You want me?” she whispered, her lips mere centimeters from his.

“Mmm, more than anything.”

Xoliswa’s hand traveled down his body, leaving a trail of fire in its wake. T’Challa’s lip found its way between his teeth again as he struggled to maintain composure, but it all flew out the window when he felt her hand wrap around his throbbing length.

“Fuck! Xo, stop playing and-”

“You need me?” she teased as she pulled his pants down over his hips and let them pool at his feet. She wrapped both of her hands around his girth and stroked him softly. He was so sensitive that he jerked away from her hand, but she grabbed him and pulled him back in. Xoliswa had dreamed of this day, so why not make her dream come true?

Suddenly, T’Challa’s self-control went out of the window as he thrust into her hands and wrapped one of his much larger hands around her throat. She stared back at him with lust clouding her eyes as he met her lips for a hungry kiss. The taste of her on his tongue drove him wild, and she felt his dick begin to twitch. She picked up her pace and gripped him a little tighter, making him stick his tongue further down her throat. She melted into him. The firm grip he had on her made her knees weak, and just as they began to buckle, he pulled his lips from hers and said the three magic words he had uttered so many times in her dreams.

“On your knees.”

Xoliswa fell to the ground and looked up at him with her mouth opened wide for him to use. And use it, he did. T’Challa was surprised she could take all of him without any training, but he guessed her husband might have been around his size.

Her husband. He had a married woman on her knees, slobbering up and down his shaft. He had Xoliswa on her knees…

Just the thought of how wrong this was turned him on even more, and as if the same thought had occurred to her, Xoliswa started sucking harder. The spit foaming in the corners of her mouth and running down her chin soaked her chest, and the king longed to see more. He reached down and ripped her shirt down the middle, freeing her breasts from the confines of modern clothing. T’Challa grinned when he saw that not only was she not wearing a bra, but her nipples stood erect like two Hershey’s kisses ready for him to devour. Just the way he liked.

Xoliswa didn’t care that he had ruined her shirt; all she cared about was making her king cum. She wanted to taste him and swallow everything he had to give, so she grew impatient and turned it up a notch, fondling his balls in her hands as she sucked on him. Her tongue swirled around his tip, and he gripped her locs in his fist to hold her down on him as he exploded into her mouth. Splashes of him coated her throat, and she swallowed every last drop he gifted to her. She blinked up at him with those innocent-looking eyes as she sucked him like a straw, milking him for all he’s worth. Normally, he would get overstimulated at this point, but that seemed impossible. Xoliswa gave him the best head he’s had in a long time, but it still wasn’t enough to sate him.

T’Challa pulled her head off him, and the bridge of spit that connected them was a sight to see. He reached down and lifted her to her feet, kissing her once more to taste his saltiness on her tongue.

“You still...want...this pussy?” Xoliswa asked between kisses.

“Mmmmhmmm,” he grunted as he pushed up on her again.

Xoliswa pushed him away, and he looked at her like she had betrayed him. His face relaxed when he noticed the feral look in her eyes and the way her pheromones filled the air.

“Take what you need.”

T’Challa saw red, and the next thing he knew, he was buried deep inside her as he pounded her into the mattress. The arch in her back deepened as he fucked her rougher than her husband could have ever dreamed of. Xoliswa struggled to see as she reached for the sheets to hold onto, but he wouldn’t let her. T’Challa pinned her hands behind her back and continued to plow into her as she screamed.

“Fuck, yes! Just like that, baby! Ooooh, T’Challa-”

“You like that?”

“Yes!”

“Then take it. Fucking take it!” he roared as he released inside her, but neither was ready to stop. Xoliswa loved how his cum felt dripping out of her, making her pussy even wetter than it already was. Keeping it juicy for him to do whatever he needed to do to her body.

“This tight fucking pussy, Xo,” he groaned as he slowed down and grinded into her, stirring her insides. His heavy hand came down on her ass, and she let out the most adorable squeak. He smiled and did it again and again, her pussy tightening around him with every strike until she couldn’t take it anymore. Xoliswa’s body convulsed as she came all over the king’s dick.

“T’Challaaaa!” she wailed, and he stopped to massage her cheeks.

“Too much?”

She looked back at him and smiled mischievously with a glint in her eye. “No, my king.”

“I’m your king?” he teased while rubbing her clit, making her hips circle on his dick as he stood still and let her work.

“Yessss,” she whined.

“Then cum for your king one more time. I have another load for you,” he whispered in her ear with his teeth firmly gripping the lobe. His fingers tickled the underside of her clit, and she bucked her hips. “That’s your spot, huh?”

“Y-yes, my king!”

He alternated between circling her clit and strumming the underside for barely a few moments before her pussy began to grip him again. T’Challa leaned back and watched the way her pussy spasmed on him. He couldn’t hold out and exploded inside her once more.

“Mmmm, baby, I love when you do that.”

“You love when I cum in this pussy?”

“Mmmhm,” her voice grew higher in pitch the more she felt him twitch inside her.

“Good, because I’m not done with you yet.”

T’Challa pulled out slowly, and she moaned as his bulbous head dragged across her g-spot. He flipped her over with ease and slid right back into her slippery canal. She loved how full he made her feel, how he stretched her walls and beat the breaks off her pussy. But this? This felt so good.

His hips moved slowly as he stroked deep into her and gazed into her eyes.

“I just need one more, babygirl. One more, and I think I’ll be good, ok?”

“Whatever you need, my king,” Xoliswa whispered against his lips and pulled him into an open-mouthed kiss. She wrapped her legs tightly around his waist, and he chuckled darkly.

“You want me in there deep, don’t you?”

“As deep as you can go, baby.”

“You’re filthy. Does your husband know what a little slut you are?”

Xoliswa released all over him again.

“Oh, you like when I talk about him when I’m in these guts? You like being reminded of how naughty you are, don’t you?”

“Mhm,” Xoliswa nodded with tears threatening to fall from her eyes from how good it felt to have T’Challa inside her.

“Let me ask you something,” he leaned in close to her ear and thrust harder. “Does he fuck you like I do?”

Xoliswa frantically shook her head, “N-no!”

“Then you come to me whenever you need a taste of what a king can do for you.”

“Yes, baby!” she keened as he picked up the pace and dropped his weight on her.

“You know this pussy is mine, now, right? He can use it if you want him to, but this shit belongs to me. You’re fucking mine, Xoliswa.”

“T’Challa-”

“Mmmhm, say my name, babygirl. Tell them who owns this tight little pussy,” he punctuated those last three words with thrusts so deep she swore she could feel it in her ribs. “Who owns you?”

“T’Challaaaa!”

His eyes rolled back in his head at hearing his name fall from her lips. Her voice was shaky and hoarse, but she screamed his name over and over again as his hips pounded into hers, the curve of his dick angling just right to keep her creaming all over him.

“Fuck, baby, here it comes. You ready?”

Xoliswa looked him dead in the eye and wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him closer. “Cum in your pussy, Black Panther.”

He hadn’t expected her to call him that, but it lit something within him, and he came harder than he ever had before. He bit into her neck as he spasmed inside her, pumping her full of his essence. She came from the feeling of him releasing so much and putting it right where it belonged. Their bodies fed off each other, and when one would spasm, it would trigger the other to cum. T’Challa peppered sweet kisses all over Xoliswa’s face and spoke to her in hushed tones, “Thank you, babygirl.”

Xoliswa couldn’t speak; she could only moan incoherently. Minutes passed before their bodies began to tire of the constant state of arousal, and they slowly pulled apart. She whimpered as she felt their fluids escape her and drip slowly down her crack, and he could only watch in awe. He had never produced so much, and he wasn’t sure if it was because of Xoliswa or his heat or a combination of both. Whatever it was, he wasn’t ready to give it up just yet.

“Call Abdul. Tell him you have to work tonight,” he rasped, making a devilish smile appear on her face. She knew she was in for the night of her life, and just the thought of what was to come had her playing with her overstimulated clit. He swatted her hand away and replaced it with his own. “Call him. Now. Make sure your camera is off.”

T’Challa kissed from her neck down to her chocolate nipples and took a bite, making her yip at the sensation. “Be quiet, or he’ll catch you. You don’t want that, do you?”

“N-no, my king,” she stuttered out as she pressed Abdul’s contact card and called him.

“What’s up? Aren’t you supposed to be working? Or are you slacking off with T’Challa again,” he joked, and Xoliswa locked eyes with a smug T’Challa as his tongue swirled around her nipple.

“N-no, I’m at work,” she struggled to speak as T’Challa trailed his tongue down her body and suctioned his lips around her clit. She snapped her legs shut around his head, making him pry them open with a menacing growl.

“What was that?” Abdul asked.

“What was what?” Xoliswa chuckled nervously.

“I thought I heard something. Anyways, what’s up, sweetie?”

“I, uh-” she stopped herself and muted the call for a moment to let out a moan from the pits of her soul as T’Challa showed no mercy on her. His tongue masterfully maneuvered around her clit like he designed it himself, and the three slender fingers curling inside her coaxed another orgasm out of her.

“Take him off mute right fucking now,” T’Challa ordered with a mouth full of pussy.

“Hello? Xo?”

She scrambled to unmute the call and calm her breathing down as the king nibbled on her labia and sped his fingers up inside her.

“I’m here, baby. I-have-to-work-late-so-I’m-staying-at-the-palace-tonight!”

“Wait, slow down. I can barely understand you. Are you ok?”

“I’m ok,” she giggled as T’Challa nibbled on her inner thighs. “I’m staying here tonight.”

“Oh, no problem. Don’t let T’Challa work you too hard, ok?”

“I won’t!” she squeaked.

“Good. You get back to work, and I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“Tell him you love him,” T’Challa whispered against her pussy lips, and Xoliswa couldn’t help but oblige.

“Abdul?”

“Yeah, sweetie?”

“I-I love you.”

“I love you too, Xo. Call me when you get off,” he blew her a kiss through the phone, and she hung up right as T’Challa started chuckling.

“You almost got us caught!” she fussed.

“You liked it. Don’t lie.”

Xoliswa bit her lip to hide her smile, but it didn’t work.

“Maybe a little.”

“Mmmhm. Nasty slut, letting me use you like this. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

Xoliswa’s pussy jumped, and T’Challa couldn’t help but smile at her.

“Maybe you should teach me a lesson,” Xoliswa moaned as she ground her hips on his fingers, and his dick hardened right back up. “Or punish me.”

“Fuck, Xo, where have you been all my life?” he groaned and pulled his fingers from her, lining the head of his dick up with her entrance.

“Married...to my husband,” Xoliswa teased. T’Challa’s nostrils flared, and she knew it was on.

She wouldn’t be getting any sleep that night.

Taglist: @maddeningmayhem, @theblulife, @motheroffae, @love-mesome-me, @toni9, @bribrisback, @impremenior, @nahimjustfeelingit-writes, @dersha89

#cecewritessometimes #oneshot #smut #t'challa fic #t'challa x oc #black!oc #Youtube

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