#yes they are stacked vertically

[estonian-is-horrible]

you've all heard about (and got real tired of) kaksteist kuud, now get ready for

[going-to-ikea-for-the-fries]

Don't cry. || Nikto

[MASTERLIST]

Rating: E Words: 3K~ (this one got away from me) Pairing: rogue asset!Nikto x civilian!Reader cw: DEAD DOVE DO NOT EAT., bad/incorrect medical care, injuries (described), being held at gunpoint, verbal and physical threats, blood and gore. other tags: you/your pronouns. fat/chubby!reader, no russian. Summary: A stranger takes you hostage in your own home and demands medical care... But you might have gotten more than you can chew. a/n: YES, Nikto’s voice actor is only 5ft10 but he’s 6ft5 in my mind, and I’m in charge sooo.

It's cold as all fucking hell in your small town. No. Not as all hell. Because you're pretty sure hell is supposed to be boiling hot.

Why did your family have to come from this small town in bum-fuck-nowhere Russia? And more importantly why did you decide to move back here after college?

Oh, yeah. The house. The little home that your grandma lived in since she was a child, that was fully paid and required no rent, and had very low property taxes due to it being ancient… And was left to you in her will. 

Well, in days like these, you can't help but despise the stupid fucking house. 

The pipes are frozen, which means you've resorted to getting water from the local firehouse every morning, as do the rest of your neighbors. Plus, it's freezing even with multiple layers of clothes and socks and scarves on. You sleep in front of the fireplace all winter and still fear you'll be dead in the morning.

Every year it's the damn same.

Maybe going to study in Moscow and then doing your master's and doctorate abroad softened you up. But you didn't remember it being so fucking cold.

Having as much meat on your bones as you do, it really shouldn't be as difficult as it is to withstand the cold. Sometimes you wonder if all those damn studies about how fat helps preserve body heat didn't apply only when people had heat to preserve.

Those are the thoughts in your head as you throw your last log in the fireplace and realize you need to get more from the woodpile outside. "Mother fucker goddamn piece of shit..." You complained.

Throwing on a winter coat over your robe, you stuff your double-socked feet into your winter boots, cover your head with a beanie and wrap yourself in a scarf.

Then you venture outside with the flashlight from your junk drawer, to illuminate the way. The wind outside is biting and the snow is tall, causing you to almost trip over your own feet.

"Fuck... fuck... fuck... cold." You grumble under your breath.

Sticking the flashlight between your teeth, you grab a few logs of firewood and slip them vertically into a black milk crate at your feet, trying to hurry so you can go back inside.

As soon as the box is stacked as full as you can carry, you bend at the knees and hurl it up by the handles, gritting your teeth against the flashlight between your teeth.

That's when you feel something hard press against the back of your head... and you hear a muffled voice. "Don't scream. Don't look back. Just move." The command chills your spine more than the -17ºC weather outside.

Your eyes shoot wide open in a panic and you have to force yourself to resist trying to look back. Instead, you nod and wobble your way along to the backdoor while carrying the heavy crate of firewood.

Once you slip inside, you set the crate down in the kitchen floor and take the opportunity to look out of the corner of your eye at the the stranger that held you hostage. 

He slams the door shut behind you and deadbolts it shut, then he rushes to the window, ripping the curtains shut.

He's wearing a flight suit and military gear but it's all in a navy color that you don't recognize… Maybe the Navy? But what would a Navy soldier being doing here alone, in the middle of the woods in your land locked town? Plus, he's clearly armed, carrying a pistol in one hand. The other wraps around his midsection and he's leaving a trail of small blood droplets on your floor.

His face is covered by a mask that looks more like a bunch of denim patched together than anything, leaving only his eyes showing. It’s even bolted to itself to not be easily removable.

“Where?” He asks you, eyes and gun trained on you as you straighten up and show your hands in innocence.

“Where… Where what?” You ask in confusion. Your body trembles all over and you’re pretty sure that you’re going to piss your pants if he keeps staring at you like that and barking vague orders at you.

“WHERE?!” He insists, raising his voice in a growl that sounds more animal than human. “WHERE. ARE. WE?” He adds, his voice boiling with anger and condescension.

“P-Provrsk!” You shout the name of your town as you flinch away from his own raised voice. Your gaze is locked onto him, taking in his mask and the blue eyes that stare at you from behind them.

You’ve never had to worry about a masked intruder in your home, ever. This is a small town, this sort of thing doesn’t happen here. Especially not one that looks like he’s deserted from the FSB.

“DATE?” He shouts at you again, making you flinch once more as your whole body tenses and curls into itself in fear. 

“8th of February… Thursday.” You reply, your eyes beginning to well up in tears. “Please… don’t hurt me…”

You’ve never been the crybaby type, in fact, you’d say you’re pretty good at staying contained in your day-to-day life, even when life is beating you down… But something about a 2 meter tall man in your kitchen shouting at you while waving a pistol around terrifies you to your very core…

With a deep breath, he leans himself back against the kitchen counter and another animalistic growling escapes him as his left leg straightens and twitches under him, his knee likely weakened. He’s still clutching his side with his hand and more blood puddles at his feet, dripping between gloved fingers.

He looks like he’s immeasurable amounts of pain and considering he seems to have walked here with an injury that’s still bleeding, you can’t help but wonder if the adrenaline isn’t starting to wear off.

The sight of him is pitiful… And for a moment he’s not some terrifyingly “You need… a doctor?” You ask him, more in a tone of affirmation than of question. He needs a doctor and you know it.

“No doctor.” He replies sharply, showing he still has all his mental faculties in place… Somewhat.

“You’re hurt.” You remark softly. “Bleeding all over my floor.” You add. You’re trying your best not to shake and cry and you’re not quite sure you’re succeeding.

“No doctor.” He insists as he shifts his weight around on his legs and hisses. "Needle, thread and alcohol." He demands of you and you’re not stupid enough to disagree with the armed man.

“In the upper cabinet behind you… The metal tin.” You instruct while barely pointing your finger at the cabinet door on his left side for fear that any more sudden movements will cause him to take you as a threat.

He sets the gun very carefully on the edge of the counter so that his free hand can reach up and over, patting at the cabinet, throwing the door open and feeling around inside for the aforementioned metal tin.

He’s been smart enough to put your small kitchen table between you either way, preventing any sudden lunging activity from you.

He never once turns his back on you, not even his face. His eyes are still locked on you, sending shivers down your body, making sure you don’t try anything… Not that you’d be stupid enough to dare.

He finally grabs the repurposed butter cookie tin and sets it next to him on the counter before grabbing the pistol once more and aiming it at you. “Metal spoon.” He demands.

“Over there… second drawer from the left…” You point discreetly at the drawer by the stove. 

“Get one.” He demands again and so you do, hands raised, taking very tentative steps across the kitchen, your heavy snow boots thudding against the floor.

Carefully, you lower your hand and pull open the drawer. Before you can even try to grab a spoon, you hear him bark at you again. “Only a spoon. Don’t try to grab a knife.” He warns you. 

Nodding very slowly, you reach inside the drawer and retrieve a metal table spoon and show it to him. “Stove.” He orders you again.

“Heat it up?” You ask softly and he grunts in what you assume is confirmation as he nods curtly at you. “I need matches.” You point at the drawer again and very slowly fetch the box of matches before closing the drawer.

Turning very carefully toward the old stove, you turn one of the knobs and strike a match, lighting the burner before extinguishing the match. “Heat the handle.” He demands and you nod in understanding as you peek at him sheepishly.

Slowly, you grip the spoon by the bowl and hold the metal handle over the flame, moving it ever so slightly to ensure an even heating up of the tip, your eyes locked on the flame and the slowly reddening type of the metal spoon.

While your back is turned, you can hear some rustling and a heavy thud on the floor. You assume he’s getting rid of his heavy gear in order to patch himself up… “Hurry up.” He barks.

“I can’t speed up the fire.” You reply softly, too afraid to speak too loud. 

“Watch your tongue, or else I’ll cut it off.” He adds, his voice grunted through as you hear some more rustling. His threat was enough to send chills down your spine and sent you back into muteness. 

Another minute or so later, you can feel the heat spreading across the whole spoon and even the bowl is too hot to hold. “It’s ready.”

“Move, quick.” He demands and you turn to face him, finding him still in the same spot, across the kitchen, leaning against the wall. He’s shed his plate vest, and undone the zipper of his flight suit, removing the sleeves and leaving it to hang around his hip. That exposes his torso completely, per lack of any undershirts or other layers. You wonder how he hasn’t frozen out there in just a flight suit…

The sight of him is so shocking and… disgusting. You feel your stomach turning, the warm meal you had an hour ago threatening to come out the way it came. He’s covered in scars, his chest speckled in patches of red skin or pale, melaninless skin, something you can only assume are burn scars.

The right half of his torso is covered in dried blood, sporting a hapharzard, thick suture that you can only assume he did a few days ago considering how swollen and red the skin around it is… Infected.

And, of course, the pouring, wet, red blood that escapes from his left side… It looks like he took a gash on it… maybe a gunshot, maybe an explosion, who’s to say… But he’s definitely got a hole and he’s leaking like a faucet.

“MOVE!” He barks at you, causing you to jump, startled out of from your shock-induced trance and you quickly rush over. He grabs the spoon from you with more aggression than you expected and shoves you away with a swift elbow to your side, to force you away from him. You fall on your ass, grunting softly upon landing. 

When you were younger, kids used to joke that all your fat would serve as an airbag in the case of a car crash, but the truth is, as you landed on the floor, you ass and legs hurt… As did you side from the elbow you took to it.

Your eyes well up in tears at the soreness on your body, as well as the sound that escapes him and reverberates through your kitchen as he sticks the red-hot spoon handle onto his open wound, gritting his teeth behind his mask as he cauterizes the wound shut. The sound is terrifying, like a gurgle mixed with a shout and an animalistic growl. (find the scream inspo here) 

You don’t want to look. But he’s doing this inches away from your face. You can’t help but watch in horror.

HIs legs shake underneath him and he struggles to keep himself upright but succeeds by landing his elbow and forearm on the edge of the counter. The hand that’s holding the pistol, the left one, flexes around the handle, fingers trembling with the pain. He struggles to stay on his feet as his right hand keeps softly twisting the spoon handle in his wound before pulling it out.

He grunts as he lets the bloody spoon fall on the floor at his feet and his head falls back with a couple more grunts and huffs, resting on the upper cabinets, his right hand clutching the wound again for a moment. You’re sobbing on the floor. Something about the sight you just got broke your resolve for a moment. You’re afraid… Very much so.

Just as you’re trying to calm yourself down, crawling backward over to the table to use a table as support to stand up from the floor, the sewing supplies tin crashes onto the floor at your feet with a ruckus so loud you can’t help but squeal.

Looking up at him, you notice him glaring at you. “Suture.” He demands angrily.

“I-” You attempt to speak but you can’t. Too afraid and too choked up to succeed in more than a light stammer.

“SUTURE!” He repeats his demand, his voice loud and sending chills to the innermost part of you as he leans forward a bit to look at you.

“STOP YELLING AT ME!” You shout in return through whimpers and whines.

“Stop crying. You have no reason to cry yet.” He warns you, his voice bitter and mean.

Your whole body quakes as you sob and scramble up on all fours, to grab the tin of sewing supplies from the floor.  You pop it open with shaky hands and rummage inside, searching for your pink pin cushion and, upon finding it, you plucked out a needle.

“You’re scaring me…” You were able to get out through trembling lips as you grab a spool of black thread.

“We will do much worse than scare you if you don’t start moving faster.” He tells you. “Do not test my capacity for violence.” He adds. “Now move.”

Slowly, you crawl over to him and kneel between his parted legs. You’re so close, you can smell him… And he smells gross… He reeks of sweat and piss, which mixes with the metallic scent of his blood, and gunpowder that lingers on his flightsuit which he now wears as pants only.

Your trembling form makes you struggle to thread the needle but after a few attempts, you succeed and unfurl much more thread than you’d realistically need. While you do so, his pistol changes grips and his right hand holds it aimed right at your head.

Slowly, you push the needle through his skin, grimacing at the wet noise it makes as you drag it through and you hold back a gag and a sob as you try your best to suture him shut. 

You don’t know much about medicine… But you’re pretty sure you’re supposed to do a ladder stitch so you can pull the thread taut at the end and ensure the injury closes… So that’s what you start doing, trying your best to not tremble all the way through it.

He’s holding himself surprisingly calmly through it as you stab his skin/wound multiple times… You risk looking up at him, your eyes still teary, your lips trembling, your face red from holding back tears and a gag. 

All you find is a pair of soulless blue eyes staring down at you through the two holes of that mask. They seem as cold and unforgiving as the snow outside… They’re bloodshot and the pupils are dilated. And he seems to be looking at you with a predatory gaze that makes you feel small and insignificant.

"Who are you...?" You ask tentatively, surprising yourself at how small your voice sounded, how meek.

"Nobody." He reply  as he leaned the pistol against your temple. “Finish.” He demands. 

Gulping and nodding, you finish the stitching and pull it taut, which earns you a hiss from him. You tie off the thread and snip it off with a pair of little scissors from the sewing supply box.

Just as you’re about to pull away from him, the needle between your pointer and middle fingers and your hands raised in an act of peace, he pistol whips you across the temple.

You squeal in pain, and throw your hands on the floor to support yourself from fully falling on your side, losing the needle somewhere in the tile floor of the kitchen. Your eyes are cloudy with tears again as you whimper in pain, unaware of what caused that violence. 

Is he going to kill you? Steal from you? Make you prisoner in your own home?

“Don’t move.” He demands. “It’s not finished.” He warns you as you struggle to get back on your sore knees.

You watch in horror as he shifts position, to no longer be kneeling on his elbow on the counter, and instead straightens up. His right hand continues pointing the gun at you and, very slowly, the left inches his flight suit down some more.

Slowly, you’re exposed to the sight a large gash across his left thigh, that draws down diagonally to his left knee which is swollen red and bruised…

As well as an obvious lack of underwear and a semi-hardened cock laying against his right thigh, the hilt surrounded by bushy blonde pubes. Your eyes double in size and you have to once again contain yourself from gagging and crying in disgust.

“Get back to work.” He demands as he points at the wounds on his leg. “And don't you dare cry." He adds. "Or else I'll give you other reasons to cry about.” He warns as his hand glides over his cock.

This is fully inspired by the beautiful work written by @391780, gotta love all the nikto ficlets and all the fat!reader stuff! Also wrote this a bit as a request by @ms-rayray who asked me for fat!reader stuff, and also a shoutout to @xxshadowbabexx and her eternal love for nikto.

[agent-cupcake]

grimm

Pairing: Death (Puss in Boots: The Last Wish) x f!catgirl Reader

Synopsis: The series of unfortunate events and clichés that lead you to meeting a familiar nightmare in the middle of the woods beneath a full moon. It goes about as well as you'd expect.

Warnings: 18+, explicit smut w/ a nonhuman character (not a nonhuman cock though), noncon, death, violence

Tags: alternate universe, angst, size kink, object insertion, masochistic reader, praise (voice) kink, outdoor sex

Words: 18.5k

Notes: It's been a while, huh? Yes, today we are going to fuck the furry from a kids movie, I'm not sure if y'all are even surprised but. Anyway. On the one hand I'd say I feel shame but on the other they shouldn't have made him talk so sexy, which is not my fault. All the Spanish is from DeepL and context.reverso. Hopefully any mistakes aren't too bad and you don't find it too cringe, or you can manage to look past it for my sake.

Once upon a time there lived in an unassuming little corner of the world a man. A husband to a beautiful wife and a father of two lovely children. He was strange, perhaps, for the ears atop his head, and the vertical irises through which he looked, and the spry springiness of his limbs. Stranger too for his chosen lifestyle, a traveling merchant whose blood couldn’t get any lower. Ravi, sons and daughters of Bastet, relics of a bygone era. For all that he was strange, however, he was steadfast. Bolstered rather than weakened by the critical eye of other men, the unyielding cut of his silhouette and unshakable confidence made the man a lord in his own right. He had been here, and there, traveling wherever the wind called him, and always with certainty. If his chosen path was obstructed by a swath of trees, he would see the forest leveled before he so much as considered choosing a different route. A further measure of his determination, however, would prove that if he were told that those same obstructing trees were sacred, he would scorch the earth so thoroughly that not even ash dared remain beneath his boots when he trampled on the hallowed ground. 

One day, the man looked down to admire how far he had come throughout the years, to smile upon the many grand achievements he had stacked up along the way. But then, looking a little closer, he couldn’t help but notice how long his shadow had become. While he had been distracted, the sun made its arc above him, and now it was falling towards the horizon, casting him in ever dimming light. Taking with it, he thought, Ra’s blessing. He began to tally up all of the things he had been ignoring. A stiff back, sore joints, fatigue after a day of travel, a headache after a night of frivolity. He noticed that while his son had grown tall and strong, he had been shrinking. The lovely apple cheeks of his beloved wife had begun to dull, wrinkles forming around her eyes. This realization filled the man with a feeling he had never experienced before—uncertainty. And then, fear. 

Unable to face the dark, he vowed that he would not allow it, he would do whatever it took to escape such a terrible fate. Unbeknownst to him, this audacious belief invited the attention of a creature with a unique penchant for mischief and an appetite for fear. A wolf. He told the man that he could run, he could fight, he could rage, he could try to pull the sun back with all his might, but in his desperate frenzy to escape the night, he would only incur a great debt. An immeasurable bounty. One, perhaps, that would condemn not only him, but his family and the legacy he had created. A terrible fate.

“I do not fear you,” the man said. 

The wolf laughed. 

It was to be a chase, then. A hunt. The man ran, searching for something, anything, that would save him, traveling here and there with purpose, scouring the shadows, tracking down myth and rumor with a passion bordering mania. There had to be, he reasoned, a way to remain in Ra’s boundless glory. Circling ever nearer, the wolf harried his prey to the last. 

Until, on the lush outskirts of a certain small village, a small ravi family set up their wagon for the night. The woods swarmed with the sound of bugs, the early summer heat simmering back down into the cold dampness of spring nights. Haunting and dreamlike, echoing in the dark, signaling finality, a song. And then, a figure in the dark. A familiar face, a frightening foe. 

There, in the night, beneath the full moon, the hunt ended. Nowhere to go, nowhere to run, his obsession had taken him so completely that the only remaining recourse was a final fit of fury against the dying light. Perhaps, in those last moments, the man realized what a fool he had been. Too late. The wolf had grown bored of the game.

Horror of horrors, serendipity struck. A child who should have been tucked up tight in her bed, sheltered and safe from what lurked in the dark, grew bored of counting sheep. She hadn’t yet learned to fear the night, thinking her father to be playing a delightful trick. Creeping, quiet, curious, and ignorant to the cruelty of the dangerous unseen, she breached the forest’s uncanny shadows. Deeper, deeper, until she discovered the truth. Her father’s corpse hit the ground, his empty eyes never seeing her terror, his deaf ears never hearing her scream. 

The gray wolf bid her to run, and she did. It was inevitable that they should meet again. 

one chance.

Before that night, you never gave much thought to death, or luck, or malevolent forces, or tragedy. It was only when you were huffing, puffing, screaming for help, crying wolf, that true fear crept into your life. Once the door opened, it could not be closed. Although the monster was long gone, its shadow remained. 

And they said: you were lucky to have escaped. They said: ravi law, loose as it was, could not be counted on for satisfactory justice. They said: the murder could not have been committed by any of the simple townsfolk. They said: it would be a blight upon the poor ordinary people for the case to drag on and on. And so the crime was tried thus—your brother, suffering a fit of drunken rage, donned a mummer’s wolf mask and murdered your father. 

Not even a day passed before the so-called trial was held. The only building that could accommodate the gawkers and jury was the local barroom, a place that stank of old wood and fermentation. You didn't know the man acting as judge, you did not recognize any of the faces around you, only that they were indifferent, cold, and your brother's life rested in their callous hands. He sat near the front as the case was laid out for the gawkers, his face drawn and shadowed. Clapped in irons, his mouth covered to protect his jailors from his sharp ravi canines, ears as low as you’d ever seen them, looking not so much a man on trial than livestock on auction.

"You’re the daughter, are you not?” the judge called. It took you a moment to realize he meant you, his dull eyes signaling you out. 

Someone spat at your feet. 

“Filthy half breed."

"They’re incestuous, the father must have found them in the act."

“They’re both guilty.” 

“Go ahead. Run. No one escapes me.” 

The low whisper, practically a growl, made your ears twitch, your heartbeat racing as you scanned the faceless crowd with dry eyes, blinking fast to try and find the source of that terrible voice. But the faces were all human, drawn with cruelty and disgust, but human. 

The judge banged on the table, catching your attention. “Young lady! You witnessed the crime, yes?” 

You shook your head in rejection of the phantom voice and cleared your throat, breaking free of your mother’s grasp to stumble towards the judge. "Yessir," you said. "Yessir, I am… I-I did."

“Go on, then. We’ll hear your testimony.” 

It was difficult to breathe, the air was stuffy and hot, your skin too tight. You could feel the people watching you, the weight of their eyes.   

"You've got it all wrong, sir,” you said. “It-it wasn't him. He couldn't-"

"The facts only, if you please," the judge said, cutting you off. "Did you or did you not see the man who attacked you?”

Hot, heavy tears formed in your eyes, primed to travel the same salty tracks down your cheeks left by those before. Fear, pain, sadness, exhaustion, all of it compounded and ached within you. You didn’t want to remember. You didn’t want to think. But you had to.

"It was no man, sir," you said, your voice choked.

“Do you mean to tell me a woman killed your father?” 

“No sir, it was an… an evil spirit.” Behind you, people muttered and whispered with disbelief. Shock. Doubt. Anger. The judge's jaw tightened, his eyes narrowing. “He had the head of a jackal, or a-a a wolf. ” 

“A mask.” 

“No, sir. It was not a man.” You heard your mother’s scolding voice from behind you, and your brother raised his head to look at you with shock, but you ignored it all.

"I should hope I don’t need to remind you of the severity of these proceedings,” the judge said, his eyes narrowed into slits.

"I know what I saw,” you replied, your hands balled into tight fists at your side.

"Your testimony is that an evil spirit with the head of a wolf murdered your father and attacked you?" The judge clarified, not so much as pretending to believe you. The question pulled a bit of laughter from the crowd. Your mother grabbed at your arm to pull you back, but you refused to let her. Instead, you set your stance and jaw.

"Yessir." 

More laughter, as if there was anything humorous about this situation. 

“I know,” the judge said loudly, silencing the crowd with a wave of his hand. “I know that you’ve been through a terrible thing, and I am sorry about that. That’s no excuse, however, and I mean this, it is no excuse for you to lie. You might think you’re defending your brother, but anything less than the absolute truth only strengthens the case against him. And, if I’m to be completely honest, I find this behavior deeply troubling. Perhaps it is acceptable among your kind to believe in stories of evil spirits and the like, but it is not appropriate here. We’re a good, God fearing people.”

“This isn’t a story. I saw it,” you insisted, your throat swollen and the world blurring up with tears. “The beast might still be in the woods, if you just look-” 

“Look for the big bad wolf?” the judge asked, a bushy gray eyebrow rising high, inviting further discontent and disbelieving laughter from the people behind you. He sighed, once again calling for order and shaking his head. “It pains me greatly, you must understand, I want to be fair considering your circumstances, but this really is unacceptable. If you won’t testify against him, your father’s killer-” 

“I told you,” you insisted, a little louder.

“No, young lady. And I repeat—no. What you have done is insult me and the fine people of this town with your absurd heathen fiction,” he told you.

“That’s not-” 

“Your kind think you are above civilized law, but understand that we are giving your father the justice he, as a son of God, deserves by right. Your father brought fear and tragedy into the hearts of these people, and your scoundrel brother committed an unthinkable crime. There are those who don’t believe your brother is deserving of a trial at all, considering the substantial evidence against him. Indeed, this is a kindness I am extending to you and your mother. So, for the last time, I will not tolerate your pagan fiction. Do you understand?” 

“I do,” you said, although you could feel your confidence wavering, a shaky cold sweat beading up on the back of your neck, pooling acidically in your stomach. He wasn’t going to listen. He didn’t believe you. “But I haven’t lied, I know what I saw.” 

That caused an uproar, the people’s voices overlapping, a relentless and meaningless wave of noise. Demanding you be silenced, removed, executed. 

“That is enough,” the judge exclaimed, and you didn't know if he spoke to you or the people. “So far, I have disregarded accusations that you were complicit in your brother’s crime, but if you continue to behave in such a manner, I may have to reconsider. That is a charge of patricide, young lady. Do you not have enough decency to spare your mother the loss of another child?” 

You looked at him, really looked at him, overcome with a dizzyingly caustic rush of pain and disbelief at the injustice. He didn’t care if your brother was or was not guilty, or who had actually killed your father. To him, the death of a ravi man was meaningless, let alone two. Let alone three. He saw your eyes and ears and that was it. 

Trying to fight back the thick swell of fear and pain and anger, you breathed carefully in and out, staring straight up in an attempt to fight the tears.

“It wasn’t my brother,” you said, forcing the words from your mouth without inflection. "He would never, ever… he wouldn't."

“Did you,” the judge asked icily, bluntly, “or did you not see the face of the man who attacked you?” 

Red eyes, a long snout, a canine mouth full of deadly sharp teeth. A spirit attempting some approximation of the god of death with twin sickles in hand, trying to twist the kind shepherd’s image into one of terror, a creature wearing the face of evil itself. But the truth cowered away from something far more potent, shamefully grotesque. Self preservation.  

“No,” you said, realizing too late the damning significance of that answer, wanting to add more but not knowing what. When you looked your brother in the eye, you understood. And it didn’t matter what you said after that point. You were the girl who cried wolf.

 

two times questioned.

That night, a great storm blotted out the stars and made it impossible to see more than a few feet in front of yourself. You made off into the night with your meager possessions packed up in a sack and some vague idea of where to go in the back of your head, mostly memories of better times. Anywhere was better than the home for wayward girls you had been shuffled into, a place that was a charity in name only. 

Ultimately, you didn’t make it far, not even out of the city. There was no place in the world left for you, and you were afraid of the dark, and it was so, so cold. 

Falling to your knees at the side of the road, mud splattering you with the force of each raindrop, you cried. Sobbed, curling in on yourself, desperate to wish it all away, wailing louder than the winds could blow as if your misery would overcome nature itself. You tried not to cry much anymore, tried not to show your weakness, but now it all came flooding out. Agony deep enough to drown, heavy enough to crush. 

Until you heard a song beneath the gale. Impossible that it should reach you above the riotous storm, impossible that you should know its melody. Panic slushed through your veins in an instant, and you stumbled upright, ready to run from a danger you had so desperately tried to convince yourself didn’t exist. Red eyes and silver sickles and-

When you whirled around to run, you were not caught by a wolf, but by the man you could only think of as the prison warden. 

Caked with mud and soaked to the bone, he dragged you back to the home, and you let him, fearing what lurked in the darkness more than you feared the punishment your escape attempt would earn.

Although it wasn’t bright, the light blinded your glazed eyes. You slipped when he released you, but felt nothing when you fell, leaving a muddy smear upon the tiles. Your fingers, bleached of color, were numb to all sensation, slipping when you tried to support yourself. The cold burrowed into your very core. You shook. Violently, as if your soul itself trembled.  

Fear had kept it all locked up tight in your chest. Fear of your shame for crying wolf. Fear that if you gave breath to the creature that haunted your dreams, he would be made real. You told yourself that your father was murdered by a man in a mask, but the wolfman haunted you, the face of oblivion, that song and that laugh. 

Distantly, you became aware of a commotion, and then the headmistress appeared before you. A towel was forced into your clumsy hands by the same girl who helped you get to your ice-block feet, muttering something about drying off. You doubted a single towel would manage that feat, but you held fast onto the fabric with fingers you couldn’t feel. 

“Where in God’s name,” the headmistress demanded, haughty even in her dressing gown and curlers, “do you think you were going?” 

You hugged the towel to your chest, feeling the fluffy material grow heavy and limp from your embrace. Ruined by your touch. Shaking so hard your teeth clacked, the entire world jittered and hazed, your bones practically vibrating, tears and snot dripping down your face with the rainwater.

“I asked you a question,” she said, her tone a little more shrill. Anger smoldered in her voice, but your eyes found purchase only on the lacy hem of her nightcoat. Such fine lace would have been imported from the north, your father had sold more than his fair share of it. You owned several pretty dresses decorated with similar frills, once. A lifetime ago. A life that ended with one decisive slash of silver. “Where were you going? Running off with a boy?” 

Wide open fields of rippling golden wheat, smooth red cliff sides overlooking deep drops into the abyss, frothy blue waves licking pale sandy shores. Places you knew, places you had only heard about. Ravi weren’t meant to stay in one place, yours was a people of wanderlust and breeze. 

The lady stepped forward and slapped your cold, numb cheek. You stumbled, slipping back onto the floor. “You will answer when I ask you a question,” she said. “I will not repeat myself again.” 

“I wanted to see my mother,” you finally told her, your voice barely comprehensible from the way you were shaking, more tears welling up. The pain was there, was always there, and it burned hotter than the biting blue on your fingers and toes. 

“Oh, for the love of… you’re well on your way to joining her,” she said. “What in the world was I thinking, allowing you into my home…”

You stayed silent. There was no defense you could offer, no excuse you could provide. She sighed, annoyed. 

“I’ll decide your punishment in the morning. Assuming you don’t catch cold and die.” She laughed once, a short sound. “I should be so lucky.”

Die. Your sluggish brain was slow to process that word, churning it round and round in a swirl of equally unpleasant thoughts. When you breathed, the air rattled in your chest. Your mother made the same sound at the very end, as if death had already planted its seed in her body, slowly infecting her from the inside out. Fear had never come for her, not like with your father or brother. There was only vacuous ecstasy, the madman’s bliss of fever. When you pictured what she looked like, it was her hollow eyes staring into nothingness, her bones poking out beneath waxy skin in unnatural angles and blood bubbling upon dry lips. “I am going to see them soon,” she told you, smiling. It was the first time since your brother’s execution that she didn’t look at you with blame smoldering beneath her pained eyes. “We’ll be together, and it will be beautiful.” 

But it was not beautiful. 

Death was a hideous, terrible thing. Despair and empty eyes and rotting flesh without poetry or resolution. Blood dripping from curved blades, lives harvested without mercy, red eyes flashing with glee. A neck snapping and a body gone limp at the end of a rope. Agony in a small room that smelled of human waste and sickness. Death was not beautiful. 

three failures.

The other girls called you, among other things, murderer. 

“She pushed her.” 

“Her kind are all like that, thieves and murderers.” 

“Freaks.” 

The two of you were stuck cleaning windows, balanced precariously high up in the air. The platform got loose, teetering uncertainly two stories up. It could have just as easily been you rather than her, but it wasn’t. Of course you hadn’t pushed her, but who would believe the word of a ravi?  

And who would believe you when you told them of the shadow which greeted her down below? A monster you couldn’t believe in. The bastardized form of a benevolent god. The real murderer. 

They saw your fear as guilt. And that was that. Murderer. You hadn’t pushed her, that was a fact. But it was suspicious, wasn’t it? There was a pattern of death surrounding you. Punishment.  

Every night, you begged forgiveness, begged for freedom from the creature that haunted you. Bastet did not answer. Ra did not answer. Your prayers became pleas, and your pleas weakened into whimpers. Eventually, you stopped asking.

It followed you. Death, less an intangible concept than a lurking threat circling ever nearer, followed. Your father, your brother, your mother, other girls in the home. But not you, no matter how close you came. Accidents happened. Punishment became more and more brutal. Part of it was because of what you were, a belief that a beast could handle rougher treatment. Part of it was your attitude. Punishment. Live, but live in misery. Survive, but survive endless torment. And they said that you were lucky. The beatings were never deadly, although they should have been. The accidents were never fatal, although they could have been. You shouldn’t have survived, but you did. 

four minutes.

It was spring, then. The river beside the road gushed with newfound force, overeager after an especially snowy winter. Even the season of life and rebirth was ripe with violence and death. The scent of it seemed to cling permanently to your dirty clothes, cloying in the chill of night. You and three other girls from the charity house followed by the riverside on the way back to town, your faces dusty and feet heavy from a long day of work. There was, as it turned out, quite a bit of money in renting out orphans to satellite farm estates who could launder clothes, clean carpets, polish silver, and scrub cast iron. No money for you or the other girls, but money nonetheless. 

The three chatted as they walked in front of you, a conversation you tuned out. Long had you grown accustomed to walking behind them, ignored and withdrawn. Trailing behind like a shadow, an afterthought. In so-called polite society, that’s all ravi were. They—they with their round irises and human ears, with their unmarked faces and smooth canines—didn’t want you at their side. You understood things like that now, things you had been so blissfully unaware of in your childhood. 

You watched their worn-out shoes marching on in synchronized steps. Watched when they suddenly stopped, your eyes drawn up in confusion as they turned towards you with big smiles. 

"Those flowers are awfully nice, you should see if you can cross the river to pick some for us."

"I’d go myself, but your kind are more agile than real people, right?"

"The rocks make a perfect bridge for you to cross."

Requests from them, although you weren’t sure they could be called anything other than orders, weren’t abnormal. The only thing lower than an orphaned girl was an orphaned ravi girl. That was the way of it. Rather than forming a bond of solidarity, they emphasized what little status they had left by pushing you around. Surely there were similar flowers on this side of the river, but that wasn’t the point. 

Biting your lip, you looked at the rocks spanning the river’s violent course to the other side. It wasn’t much of a bridge. Attempting to cross was, at best, stupid. If you fell, you would be helplessly carried away by the water, thrashed about against the rocks. Dead, surely. But if you denied them, they would almost certainly do worse. Whisper words of your supposed misdeeds to the headmistress, spread lies that would earn you punishment. Malice gleamed in their empty, hollow eyes. 

"All right," you said, feigning indifference as you sized up the river. 

The girls smiled and tittered as you faced the river. The water roared. Nerves had your hands shaking, but you didn’t let them show.

With a big breath and a mental prayer to Bastet to steady your feet, you stepped onto the first rock. Beneath the worn sole of your boot, the rock was slippery. You set your jaw, going to take another step. 

Something knocked against your back. While it was a light touch, the surprise jolted your balance. 

Just like that, the rock slipped out from under you. An undignified squawk left your mouth, and your arms flailed around empty air desperately to regain your footing, but you couldn’t manage it. 

The water hit as hard as the ground might, immediately dragging you under. 

For a moment that seemed to consume forever entirely, animal panic. You inhaled a lungful of water, thrashing wildly. You tumbled sideways as the river dragged you along, hitting rocks on the way. You violently struggled against its unstoppable current in an attempt to get your head above the water. 

Unable to breathe, unable to orient yourself, you were as good as dead. 

Then you slammed against a rock. The agonizing impact gave you enough of a painful shock to find purchase against it, slicing your palms against the rough edges as you held fast against the water’s oppressive tow. Blindly, you managed to find which way was up and dragged yourself to it. And then you were vomiting river water, hacking it out of your lungs and desperately trying to suck in gasps of air.

Feeling as heavy and broken as a corpse, you managed to flop onto the bank, covering your entire front with mud, crawling through it to drag yourself out of the water completely. It was there that you came eye to eye with three familiar pairs of shoes.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bump into you.”

“I guess cats can swim after all.” 

“You’re lucky that rock was there, huh?” 

You coughed up more water, coughed until you were hacking up blood, wheezing and shuddering with bone-deep violence. There would be a terrible bruise on your stomach. But you were alive because of it. Pain, and life. Lucky you. 

five years.

Barely into your lanky teens and with nothing more than meager pocket change to live on, you made your final escape from the charity house and went west. The most recent beating was proof enough that if you stayed, you would die. The woman who stitched you up said you only narrowly avoided it this time. You knew a coffin was the sole eventuality waiting for you there. So you left. Despite the time spent there, you parted with no sentimentality for what you would be leaving behind, or excitement for what laid ahead. 

In a way, you were following your father’s example. His legacy. In his final days, you heard him muttering about the sun going down. Your brother whispered that he’d grown paranoid of his own death, that it was why your family never stayed in any place for too long. He was driven by a mean, feral fear and even aggression towards death, the cornered-rat instinct to defend your life at any cost, to protect the pitiful remains of existence as an animal would. You thought you understood. So you pressed against your bruises and exhaled slowly, accepting the pain as proof that you were still alive.

Dust kicked up a big cloud behind the wagon, baking beneath the heat of the sun. Although the world was alive with birds and bugs and the sound of hoofs on the road and wheels crunching over ground, you couldn’t empathize. Crusty from a night of fitful sleep, your eyes cringed away from the garish sunlight, your head pounding angrily. Pain and anxiety from your first night on your own kept you awake and, when you did manage a few hours of sleep, you had bad dreams. A fiction where your family was restored and you were all together again. Whole, untainted by horror and death. You woke up hollow and sick and empty, unalive but breathing. 

“Are those real?” the girl beside you asked, breaking you from your thoughts. She pointed at your ears, her eyes wide with curious innocence. You imagined that question had been building up for a while, ever since you hitched a ride on her father’s wagon to the nearest town, the two of you sitting in the back of the bed with your legs swinging over the passing road. She was very young, her round-cheeked smile missing a single tooth and bright colored ribbons in her hair. He was going to the next town over to sell goods from his farm.  

"Quinta!" her father scolded sharply. 

“It’s okay,” you said. It was better to be asked outright than to endure the side glances. “They’re real.” You tilted your head to show her. Quinta reached out to pet the fur, her chubby little hands cautious.

“What are you?” she asked, getting another stern look from her father over his shoulder. Not that you blamed her. He probably didn’t know either, ravi didn't often leave their small communities, and they were practically unheard of in this part of the world. Little wonder, some establishments wouldn’t so much as let you inside. It was a very positive mark on his character that he allowed you to ride on his wagon in the first place, most people wouldn’t. 

“I’m ravi.” 

She blinked. “Is that why you look like a cat?”

“I guess so.” 

Quinta considered that for a moment, staring at you unabashedly. It wasn’t just your ears that were different, otherwise you could have covered them up and avoided the scrutiny. With round eyes and vertical pupils, markings seemingly painted over your cheeks, you stood out regardless of what you did or where you went. Ravi were strangers to everyone, uprooted and adrift, low as the dust trailing beneath your feet. That fact hadn’t changed after you ran away from the charity house, you merely traded the title or orphan for that of vagrant. 

“My mom won’t let us keep cats, we only have a dog,” Quinta finally announced. “Do you like dogs?”  

You shrugged. 

“Are you afraid of them because of-” She put her hands over her head, mimicking your ears. 

“We are natural enemies,” you said, although the comment didn’t come across as the joke you intended. Perhaps because it wasn’t a joke. 

Quinta didn’t say anything, looking back at the passing road and her swinging feet. The warm air smelled like trees and dust and the stacks of straw piled up on the back of her father’s wagon. When the breeze blew, you got whiffs of the approaching town. Manure, cooking food, fire smoke, and that tangy, sweaty scent of so many people all crowded in one place. 

“Where are you going?” she asked. 

“Somewhere else.” 

“Oh.” 

You looked down, staring at the road. The sun beat down on your neck, sweat beading up on your hairline. You could hear the chorus of a small town’s buzzing crowds as the wagon pulled closer. 

“We’ll come back tomorrow,” Quinta said. “Will you come to our house? I bet you’ll like my dog, he’s really, really nice. My mom is there, you can meet her.” 

You smiled, feeling a sharp little pang at her sweet innocence. “Thank you, I’ll think about it.” 

“Oh, please say you will.” 

“Quinta, that’s enough,” her father chided. She frowned, but said nothing else. 

The wagon pulled to a stop where the animals could be hitched. You hopped off and stretched, looking around the town. You weren’t really sure where you would go next. Far away. As far as possible. 

“Thank you, sir,” you told the man, bowing politely.  

He nodded gruffly, and you knew you shouldn’t linger. Still, you couldn’t help but glance back at the sound of his heavy grunt. When he passed the wagon bed, Quinta jumped up onto his back, her arms wrapped tight around his neck. He was quick to rebuke her, scowling as he put her on the ground. That clearly hurt her feelings, turning away with a trembling lower lip and furrowed brows. You felt, for a terrible moment, a great pain in your chest. 

You wanted to tell her that he was just busy. Maybe he could be cold and stern, but that didn’t mean he didn’t love her. You wanted to tell her to love him while she could, that time was finite. Right then, you weren’t looking at a stranger and his daughter, but at a little girl with ears too big for her head and a man who waved at her from the driver’s seat with a sun-crinkled smile, a man who tweaked those fluffy ears with calloused fingers, and a man who kissed her forehead with paper-dry lips.

But then you blinked, sunblind and a little dizzy, and turned away from the scene. 

You thought of your father, love for him tender sweet and swelling in your chest, overwhelming. But quickly, always so quick, his smiling, twinkly eyes were emptied as his body fell to the ground, deprived of dignity in those final moments. And the monster turned from him to face you with a wild expression, a growl in its throat. He said you would meet again. The big bad wolf was not real, he was a masked madman, a creature of fiction. All the same, your anxious, cold gaze scanned the crowd of many faces around you. Haunted. Hunted. 

sixth sense.

Blisters covered your hands, and you couldn't stop coughing, your body seizing with fits of it. The tangy sour stench of smoke infected every pore of your body, saturated your lungs with its acrid excretions. Somehow, despite the horror of escaping a building as it burned down, you were alive. You had no idea what had woken you up, but it happened before anybody even noticed the fire. Others weren’t so lucky. The girl who slept every night two beds down from you, who was innocent, who had never done anything at all to you, was dead. 

"It's not your fault that you couldn’t get to her in time. You were lucky enough to get out with your life," you were told, an attempt at consolation. A lie. 

It was your fault. Your punishment. Your presence invited the flame to spark a blaze in the boarding house for working young women, and yet you had lived while someone else died. Above the sound of so many voices, of a chaos world attempting to fix such a tragedy, you could hear it. She screamed for as long as she was able, until her lungs were too coated in sooty black smoke to make a sound, until her flesh melted by the infernal heat. Other women boasted swaths of charred skin, blisters popping bright red and gruesome, bones broken from leaping out windows. Their lives would be ruined by this, by the sheer misfortune of being near you.

And as the flames licked the sky, you could have sworn you saw an inhuman face at the flickering orange edge where the light tapered into shadow, his eyes not so much reflecting the blaze as they were consuming the fire’s callous violence, soaking in the terror which mingled with the smoke. 

Then you blinked watery eyes, and the shadow was just a shadow. 

There was nothing for it, you left town as soon as you were well enough. Not soon enough, clearly. 

It was your fault, your punishment, but terribly, shamefully, you kept thinking, over and over and over, at least it wasn’t you. You breathed in air that still stank of the memory of murderous smoke and felt grateful that you would recover from this incident. 

That selfish drive was the crux of it all, the reason you could never allow yourself to move on. After so many years, most people would have found a way forward. They took their anguish in stride and did something with their life. But you didn’t. For you, there was no forgetting, and there was no moving on. You couldn’t be allowed happiness in a life others had been denied, a life that you hoarded so rabidly. Even cowards had to draw a line somewhere, didn’t they? No matter how miserable, you struggled to squeeze one more day out of the harsh world, to carve yourself another miserable hour, and then, crippled by pain and smoke and fear, felt a coward’s joy when facing tragedy because at least it wasn’t you.

Lucky, lucky, lucky you.

seven rainbow hues.

"Watch out!"

It happened so fast. That was the cliche, but the truth. Time did not wait for you to catch up in moments where survival came down to muscle memory. Panic and surprise cut up your perception in choppy little bits. One second you were walking down the road, you noticed a man beneath a falling beam and lunged, and then you were flat on your ass in the middle of a road, adrenaline spiking your heart rate and your entire body shaking with it. So little time had passed that the warning was still tangy in your mouth, the sound stifled by the echoing impact. 

Someone was shouting. Screaming.

Sitting up, little rocks grinding into your skinned palms, you looked at the fallen beam not even a foot away. Had you erred even a few inches to the right, you would have been, at the very least, catastrophically injured. Just like the man you tried to push out of the way. He was screaming. His leg was crushed.

But you were fine. Alive. 

People swarmed the man to free him from the beam while the world blurred extra bright, the colors of shock overloading your brain, dozens of different voices buzzing together. Someone asked if you were okay. You were. Of course you were. Alive. The carpenter jumped down from his ladder, finally getting the man out from under the beam. A gruesome mess had been made of his shin, bloody and broken. You only watched, a sort of cool numbness had taken the place of adrenaline. 

The man's leg was a ruin of flesh and bone, and your only injuries were a bruised tailbone and skinned palms. You should not have survived that. 

eight shots of moonshine. 

“He reared up real tall, howling like a beast, and that’s when I stuck him,” the hunter said, his expression animated as he recounted the story. It was, by your count, his ninth drink, and the fifth version of his story about how he fought, and escaped, the terrifying half-man-half-wolf beast—el hombre lobo, in the local dialect. It made sense that some cruel spark of fate would invite the subject matter wherever you happened to be, especially now. That’s the way these things always happened, wasn’t it? The world had a way of kicking you when you were down.

You listened to him with half an ear, staring at your chapped, cracked knuckles. Working as a laundress was not kind to your skin. Unfortunately, being ravi and having a limited skill set meant that simple labor was just about all you could get. So you did odd jobs and, once you had enough money, you would be on your way to the next place, and then the next, and the next. Passing through like a ghost, and then gone. Temporary. Just like this bar, this drink, this man and his story. Transient. 

“The sound he let out was deafening, and I mean that,” the hunter continued. “I’ve never heard anything like it, not in all my years.” 

“That’s not true,” you said loudly, pulling the story to a screeching halt before its predictable conclusion. You hadn’t meant to speak, but you did. If nothing else than to just make him stop. Details changed, but the ending was mostly the same each time. The creature put up a fight, but the hunter was stronger and smarter. Maybe he’d mention the bear trap again, how he watched the wolfman trying to gnaw off its own leg. And it wasn’t like you cared what some random drunk had to say. You didn’t, really. It was the alcohol, and the memories the alcohol was meant to be suppressing, and some misplaced well of fury crammed deep into your gut, unable to be reached or drained or expressed in any meaningful way. Or maybe it was something else, something less palatable. You had a way of testing people’s tempers. Pain was proof of purchase, after all. And you had paid more than your fair share. 

“What was that?” the hunter asked, glazed eyes surprisingly lucid when they landed on you, twinkling with an amused sort of incredulousness at being challenged. He had on a sweat stained red shirt and the ruddy complexion to match. Everyone around you was in similar states of drunken disrepair. So were you, for that matter—a shot of something hard and foul tasting past reasonable. Two shots away from having the energy to engage in this stupid argument, which was ridiculous considering you were the one to involve yourself in the first place. 

“That didn’t happen,” you said. The few people who had been paying attention in the first place laughed at you, but the hunter seemed intrigued, if irritated, by your attitude. 

“Are you calling me a liar?” he asked.

“Do you expect us to believe you fought the big bad wolf?” Those words were old and mean, that of a horrible old man without a shred of mercy in his heart. 

Red-shirt’s eyes narrowed. A couple of the men laughed again, sending a few drunken jibes in your direction. 

“Is that what you’re supposed to be?” One of his friends called, gesturing at your ears, which twitched under his attention. 

“No, no. She’s one of those cat people. The eastern savages,” the man sitting next to you responded, roughly tweaking your ear. He’d made a few friendly comments in your direction throughout the night. And then a few less friendly ones as the liquor loosened his tongue. You winced and ducked away, scowling at him. He grinned. “Have you got any wares to sell us, gata? Or maybe you’re here to put on a show.” 

Another laugh, a playful wolf whistle.

“Ah, I understand. I was mistaken,” red-shirt allowed, a mean grin spreading across his face. “It was no wolfman after all. You ought to tell your pa to keep away from these parts. Next time I see him, he won’t get off so easy.” 

That drew a bigger laugh from the few people bothering to pay attention. A part of you hated him a little bit, hated him with a riotous, evil sort of passion. His ignorance, his audacity. You hated yourself more for not holding your tongue. 

“No, it was her ma,” another man chimed in. “Must have been in heat if she was so focused on you.” You felt a red hot flush rise to your cheeks at that, some uncomfortable mixture of embarrassment and anger. 

Needing to calm the impulse of rage, and kicking yourself for having spoken at all, you took a deep breath. 

“Aw, pobre gata, don’t be upset,” the man next to you said. Poor cat? He drew out the condescending pet name with a sugary sweetness, going for your ears again. You scooted back to avoid him, nearly falling from the alcohol-induced sway of the world. The men laughed again. “Where’re you going?” he asked. “They’re just teasing.”  

You licked your dry lips. You needed to leave, it wasn’t the sort of place you should have been hanging out in the first place. Part of you worried that he might try something. He looked hungry. Worse, part of you wondered if he would, wanted to stick around and find out what kind of situation you’d dug yourself into. Curiosity didn’t come from desire or lust, but from something darker, the impulse of deserved violence. Alcohol made it worse, made you think that maybe you could want it, that you might enjoy being roughed up and used in a vulgar game of intimacy. 

“Let me buy you another drink,” he offered. “I promise not to tease you.” 

You pursed your lips, and knew you would hate yourself later, and decided that it didn’t matter all that much anyway. “Okay.”

Hours later, you were sweaty, sour with alcohol but no longer drunk enough to tolerate the discomfort, and ultimately dissatisfied with the interaction as you stumbled through the quiet town back to the room you had been renting. The unpleasant scent of sex was all you could smell, it clung to your rumpled dress and messy hair. Evidence of your mistake. Despite being so forward, he hadn’t been what you hoped. Whenever you pulled back, he thought to coax you further with sweet words rather than rough hands. You’d have been better off trying to antagonize the man in the red shirt to get what you really wanted, not a quick upright with a man who wanted to slobber on your neck and call you beautiful.

Disgust, shame—a sickening feeling of wrong had you ducking into an alley, vomiting up a stomach full of bile and alcohol like a homeless wretch, shaking hard enough that your teeth clattered. Snot, stomach acid, and tears smeared against the side of the building when you pressed your fevered cheek against it, the material rough on your skin. But it was cool, and solid, and you were breathing. Alive. 

Miserable. Beautiful. That was your mother’s word. An ugly, ugly word. Your shoulders heaved with half-hearted sobs, your skin crawling and stomach twisting. You were alive because the only thing you feared more than the hideous pain of living was beautiful death, and that was the ugliest feeling you could possibly imagine. 

Eventually, you collected yourself, wiping your mouth and eyes, and completed your walk of shame, your thoughts lingering on el hombre lobo and the furious hollow in your chest, and the sort of hatred which begged violence and cried for pity. 

nine lives.

Afternoon faded into sunset as you walked, and you weren’t too concerned. If anything, you felt the same relaxing sense of relief you always felt when you left one place for another. 

No, you didn’t worry at all until twilight gave way to the rise of the moon. That’s when you stopped, frowning up at the sky. Either you were lost or you had severely misjudged the distance. Unfortunately, there was nothing to be done other than continue on and hope that you reached civilization soon. You pulled your cloak a little closer to fight off the chill, adjusting your bag uncomfortably. Summer was coming, but the air retained the cold damp newness of deep spring. 

And so you trundled along, reminding yourself over and over that it was okay. While possible, it wasn’t likely that anything would happen to you. 

Your anxiety wasn’t helped by the full moon. A morbid coincidence, and a mixed blessing. It was full that night. Illuminating your father’s twisted expression of fear, haloing the impossible beast looming above you, lighting your way when you ran, dying your blood into the color of ink. As always, it was a bit of mischief the universe was having at your expense. It shone the same steady pale silver, bleaching the world in imitation sunshine just like it always had, always did. 

A gentle breeze shook the tree canopy, the leaves shivering. Above them, the perfect velvet blue veil of sky was mostly undisturbed by clouds. The stars twinkled and winked, dulled slightly by the radiance of the moon. Bugs wailed and frogs sang their nighttime dirge, an unsettlingly miserable sound. No matter how uncomfortable the sun could be, blinding and revealing, the night was worse. It was the place where nightmares lived, after all. And the woods, the place where the big bad wolf hid. 

Right. These were the woods where the hunter claimed to have seen the wolfman those few weeks ago. A chill slithered down your spine at that realization. While it was most certainly a lie, in the dark, it troubled you. It frightened you. There were many things in the deep, dark woods to be afraid of. Hiding, lurking. 

Huffing with annoyance at your paranoia, you vigorously shook your head and focused on the path instead. Everything was fine, you just had to keep going. 

Seemingly out of nowhere, the wind began to blow a lot harder, catching the hem of your cloak and loose strands of hair, crawling beneath your clothes to make you shiver. At the same time, a shadow slowly closed in around you, a stray cloud covering up the moon. The sudden lack of light made the shadows darken significantly. Goosebumps crawled across your entire body in response to the windy chill, hairs standing on end and visceral discomfort lurching in your gut like a hook behind your belly button. Surrounded on all sides by darkness, stranded in the woods, you were completely and utterly vulnerable. 

Then it all—bugs, the frogs, and the wind—everything died. Not slowly, tapering off naturally, but all at once, as if a great dampener was suddenly pressed into the air. And that was strange, that was eerie, that was cause for fear, but the first whistled note shot straight into your core.

Trees were hungry things. They, with their thick wood and big bodies, had an appetite for sound. Echoes, however, were mischievous. They would rather play tricks than be eaten. Back and forth, from everywhere and nowhere, a tune you knew all too well danced amidst the silent forest. The notes jumped from one to the next in a song that should have been cheerful but wasn’t. You didn’t move. You felt like you couldn’t. Standing there, ears perked and twitching in search of any noise aside from the whistling, heart racing, cold sweat gathering on the nape of your neck, you suddenly knew, with an alarming degree of certainty, that you weren’t alone. 

Slowly, eyes watering from the sudden burst and disappearance of the wind, you looked up. 

The whistler, seeming not to notice you, was no more than a dozen feet ahead, a darker shadow amidst the void, a little off the edge of the clearing. Jarring surprise shot like lightning down your spine at the sight, at how close you were to somebody you hadn’t noticed, so powerful that you stumbled backward on pure instinct. But your foot landed on a mossy rock and the squishy material slid out from under your boot. You tried to find your balance, but you wound up overcorrecting, sending you forward instead. With a yelp and a loud thump, you tumbled onto the ground, landing hard on your elbows and knees. 

The song ended.  

“¿Tan deseosa estás de ser engullida?” the man asked, amused. You looked up, terrified, but without any moonlight to help you see, the most you could make out was the vague shape of a hooded figure leaning against a tree. 

Fear made your hands shaky, your body unwieldy and awkward. Scrambling, unsure if you should have been embarrassed or scared, you got up to your feet. At least you weren’t hurt.

“I-I don’t… no entiendo,” you said, wondering, hoping, fearing, unsure. At least it was just a man. That shouldn’t have been the consolation it was. It shouldn’t have been any consolation at all. 

“I asked if you needed any help,” he clarified in an accented voice, amused in a way that made you think he was making fun of you. “I didn’t mean to scare you.” 

“I, um… I was just surprised, bu-but it’s okay,” you said, trying very hard to calm down. “I’m fine.” 

“Are you sure? I would hate for you to wind up like the last girl who got lost in the woods,” he said. You squinted into the dark, but you couldn’t see any details beyond a shadow. Covered moon or not, the dark was borderline unnatural. “She was gobbled up whole, her granny too. You’ve even got the red hood.” 

It took you a second to register that he was messing with you. Entertaining any sort of interaction was foolish, but you couldn’t help your nervous laugh, pulling your cloak closer. “Oh, yeah.” 

The stranger laughed in turn, forcefully friendly in a very uncomfortably stilted way. The sound sent a fresh shiver down your spine. “They don’t get very many people coming all the way out here to visit,” the man said. “Are you here to see family, gatita?”

Your ears twitched nervously. “Um… Excuse me?”

“Is that offensive? I can never remember what you beast types call yourselves. Ra… something.” 

“Ravi,” you said.

“That’s right. I’ve never been much of a cat person myself, but I can see the appeal. The big eyes, the fuzzy ears… Very cute.” He paused. “Hey, can you purr too?” 

You drew back, your awkward moment of uncertainty giving way to dread at the underlying danger of a question like that. While many people scorned you blindly, there were those with a particular taste for half-breeds. 

“I need to get going, it’s late,” you said slowly. You didn’t want to turn your back on him, and you had no idea how close you were to town, but anything was better than here. 

“Wait, before you go, I heard a story recently,” he said, unconcerned with your response. “It’s about your kind. Stop me if you’ve heard it before.”

“I don’t-” 

“Once upon a time,” he said, speaking as if you hadn’t, “a gato got it in his head that one life wasn’t enough for him. Even though he had everything he could ask for—a wife, two children, a successful career, he was proud. He didn’t see why he should have to abide by the same rules as everyone else. Of course, he was warned that it was a bad idea, but it became a… preoccupation of his. He traveled just about everywhere, certain that he could do what no one else had.”

The man paused, giving you a moment to register his words, to feel the slow drip of horror pooling in your stomach. 

“It didn’t work out for him, in the end. It never does.”

“Who are you?” you asked, although you had a feeling. A very strange, awful feeling. “How do you-”

“Do you know how it ends?” he asked, pushing away from the tree and standing up, stepping out of the shadows, only a few feet in front of you. Your eyes were better adjusted now, taking in as much light as possible. His hood fell back, letting you see the man in full. 

Only, he wasn’t a man. 

For a second, the ears on the top of his head made you think he was ravi too. But they were too small. Pointed. Distinctly canine.

Then the rest of it registered.  

He wasn’t a wolf standing on hind legs, or a person with wolf features, but some inhuman, impossible mix of the two. His long, toothy snout was distinct to a dolichocephalic skull. A beast. That’s what you would assume given all that thick gray fur, round eyes, and the pointy ears directly on top of the head. But somehow, despite all of that, something about his face registered as perfectly, sickeningly, uncannily human. 

And you knew him. You saw him in your nightmares, in the shadows, in the darkest places of your mind. No matter what resolve you had before that moment, all you wanted was to run. You needed to run. But fear, pure and distilled, paralyzed you.

“No? That’s fine, it’s just a story, after all,” he said, the words far too well articulated considering the wolf’s muzzle they were coming from, the shiny sharp teeth through which they were spoken. 

You opened your mouth to respond, and instead you whimpered as you exhaled.

“What’s the matter?” he asked. “You remember me, don’t you? I remember you. Although, you were a lot smaller back then. Who would’ve thought that you’d turn out to be such a looker?" He laughed at that, a stilted chuckle. When you didn’t respond, his demeanor dropped, darkened. “Your fear was intoxicating.”

 Leaning forward, he closed his eyes and sniffed at the air like a dog. You couldn’t do anything, your limbs refusing to move even though every cell in your body screamed at you to run. When he leaned back and exhaled, his lips pulled back in what was very distinctly a smile, an expression that should have been impossible for a wolf to make. 

“I’ve waited a long time to see you like this again, I worried that it would be disappointing,” he told you, red eyes opening. They were mad. His smile was mad. Dread overwhelmed your system. “But you smell even better than I remember.” 

He took a step forward. With a few unnerving exceptions, his body was human enough. Tall, broad shouldered, slightly hunched, wearing clothes like a person. His hands were almost like paws with pads and claws, but were articulated like your own—short one finger. He was no monster. He was a nightmare come to life. 

“What’s the matter?” he asked. “Surprised to see me?” 

“No,” you whispered, shaking your head. “No, you’re not… not real.”

You could see the excitement in his eyes as he licked his lips with a long tongue, another entirely animalistic motion. The perfect meld of human and wolf traits was fascinating. Sickening. Something that should not exist. 

You did nothing other than stare at him with wide eyes as he leaned in. And you did nothing as he raised his hand, dragging the claw in a butterfly kiss over your cheek. “You think?” he asked, the growl in his voice almost like a purr. 

That woke you out of your trance and you stumbled back, covering the skin which tingled from the very real touch.

He laughed and straightened out, but didn’t follow you. “It’s not safe to be out here so late. You never know what you’ll find lurking in the woods.”

You swallowed hard, your breathing picking up, the old well of fury cracking open just a little. There should have been more, but the fear was too intense, cold in your veins. “What are you?” you asked, barely audible. Frightened of the answer, but desperate to know. 

“Your father called me Anubis. That’s one of your gods, right?” 

“You are not a god,” you said, an objection because you couldn’t allow this nightmare, any degree of holy pedigree that you had feared for so long. There was doubt in your voice though, doubt you couldn’t stifle. 

“It depends on how you look at it,” he allowed. “But it’s true that I have no interest in being worshiped, and I certainly don’t want your faith. I prefer fear.” 

You swallowed hard, shaking your head in a hazy attempt to fight back the swelling tide of fear, to deny him that. “I'm not… not afraid of you, wolf."

That didn’t so much as make him blink. "You fear me more than you fear anything else."

"No! You killed my… my—I hate you."

“Sure you do."

“And because of you, my brother was…” You couldn’t finish the statement, your entire body nearly vibrating from the way you were shaking. “And then mm-my mother...” 

“Execution and, what was it, some kind of sickness?” The wolf clicked his tongue. “It’s a harsh world.” 

“You took them from me,” you said softly. “You took everything.” 

“Do you want revenge, gatita? You wouldn’t be the first.” 

The mocking tone of his voice was as bad as a slap across the face. Even if you wanted revenge, what fight could you possibly put up against an impossible creature like him? You flexed your hands and clasped them together, your breathing picking up with the confusion of old fury and sadness and fear. 

“I want to know why,” you finally said.

The wolf sighed, rolling his eyes in an exaggerated—and far too human—way as he continued to circle you. “Everybody thinks there’s a reason. There isn’t. Who lives, who dies, it’s all the same to me in the end. But there are those who… tempt fate. Although, I prefer to call it tempting death."

"You're saying that my father wanted to die? You're crazy,” you argued, your shoulders tensing in some form of defense. 

"He was especially tempting. His pride, his ego, his fear… I gave him several chances, and he chose to insult me over and over again.” He paused for a moment before continuing, “I may have gotten carried away. You can’t blame me for wanting some fun now and again."

Despite the relative warmth of the night, the air chilled whenever you inhaled, your skin raising with goosebumps. Something in your head clicked, the understanding you had been trying very hard not to acknowledge. 

"What are you?" you asked again, but you were thinking that you knew. Of course you knew, it was something you’d known for a long time. 

"You know who I am."

"Death," you whispered. 

“And you know all about tempting death, don't you? To be honest, I’m starting to lose my patience, gatita,” he practically whispered the pet name, leaning down behind you so the word brushed intimately against your ear, his breath disturbing the fine hairs and making them twitch. 

You yelped and jumped away, twisting around. All you could think about was how close all those teeth had been to your ears. Your neck. Death watched as you stumbled even further backwards, hitting a tree and falling against it. 

“Watching you survive things that would kill anybody else over and over, it’s unbearable. You throw yourself into danger like you’re trying to tease me.” Genuine irritation glowed in his eyes. Frustration. You shouldn’t have been able to see an emotion like that on such an inhuman face. 

You needed to run. Whether or not that was a good idea no longer mattered. Surely he wouldn’t follow you out of the woods, surely sanity would take his place once you were back among civilization, out of the moonlight’s pure lunacy. Your insides squeezed sickeningly. Your heart raced.

“Is it a cat thing? You inherited the ears, the eyes, and, what, the nine lives? I guess that skipped a generation,” Death mused, his demeanor shifting completely right back into amusement. “Or maybe it’s just dumb luck. What do you think, gatita—are you feeling lucky tonight?” 

Run. You needed to run. 

Death stepped forward. 

You had to run. 

Rather than get any closer to him to follow the trail, you rolled off of the tree to the side so you could escape into the trees, letting your pack drop to the ground to avail yourself of the extra weight. With your back to the wolf, you sprinted, not caring where it took you, only that it was as far away from him as possible.

Behind you, you heard him calling out to you. You heard him laughing. You gasped and choked for breath, your feet pounding against the forest floor, your streaming eyes blind to anything other than what was directly in front of you. Running, catching the sharp fingers of trees across your arms and face, stray logs and squishy moss and wet grass threatening to trip you with every step. All around, you could hear his laughter, echoing around amidst the trees and in your head. 

And for what? Your escape had been doomed from the start, nothing more than the animalistic instinct of prey. 

It really only made sense when you realized that Death stood directly in your path, a hulking shadow with red eyes. Your body jolted on instinct and you skittered into a hard stop, momentum pushing you forward while your feet tried to backtrack. 

“¿Dónde vas, gatita? Haven’t you heard that it’s dangerous to stray from the path?”

Thoughtlessly, you twisted around, but you were too slow. Or he was too fast. Grabbing a fistful of fabric from the back of your cloak, Death dragged you backwards. And then you were looking into a pair of bright red eyes, choking as your cloak’s tie tightened around your windpipe.

He growled as a wolf would, and you felt base terror in your very core. No matter how humanly he expressed emotion, his face was very decidedly that of a wolf, of a predator that you were naturally wired to fear. A rising surge of bile burned in your throat from running and all you could hear was your heartbeat, thundering ever faster. You choked out a yelp, lashing out however you could in a bid to get free. He easily avoided every attack you threw out, seemingly bored by the attempts, casually holding you at arms length. 

“What I really can’t stand,” he told you, his voice low and calm, “is how you waste it. Fighting so hard to stay alive, and for what? Nothing will be lost when I end it.”

“Shut up!” you cried, choking the words out through gritted teeth. You would live. Survive just like you always did. He considered that, licking his lips before irritation once more gave way to excitement.   

“Then again,” Death said, letting you down enough to stand on your toes, allowing you to take a breath. Oxygen hit you in a hard rush, you might have fallen over if he weren’t steadying you. “I’m in no rush.” 

“Let me go,” you demanded, your breathing ragged, your ears buzzing and ignorant of his words. 

Death smiled, his wolfish muzzle pulled back in an expression so human it bordered on obscene. His face was right to yours, you could practically count each of his deadly sharp teeth, see into the soulless depths of those evil eyes. 

“Your fear is positively mouthwatering. The poor little kitten is really terrified of el lobo feroz. That fear is the only thing that’s ever given your life purpose. If you think about it, I’m the only reason you keep going. It’s almost flattering.” He licked his lips again, considering you intently. “You don’t mind having some fun before I kill you, right?”

“No!” you screamed the word, but all it did was make his eyes flash with hunger. 

“I’m going to eat. You. Up.” 

Every muscle in your body went taut, seizing with a different sort of horror. That confounded curiosity to know what he intended, the disturbing impulse to tempt violence, was only heightened by the adrenaline in your system. You had no word for the dark feeling, for the disturbing impulse. Only disgust, swirling dark twisting up hot and low in your gut. With shaking hands, you finally managed to undo the tie around your neck, dropping out of your cloak and onto the ground. And then, before you could even stand up, you were running. 

This time, Death didn’t react. No laughter or jeering taunts followed your escape. Dampened beneath the rush of blood in your ears and your feet pounding on the forest floor, the woods were full of the normal sounds. Bugs and frogs and birds and the breeze. 

All the same, you knew that el lobo feroz wasn’t far behind. You knew that, and you knew you wouldn’t escape from  him. Not this time. But you couldn’t just stop. So you made your frantic flight through the trees, sprinting as fast as you could to escape a creature which existed in opposition to all that was sane or safe. Death himself. 

From behind you, in front of you, on both slides, all around, the lilting whistled tune finally began. Panic, bright red and raw, caused you to trip. There was a jolt when your foot caught on something, sending a little shockwave all up your body, then a lurch as gravity forced you down and momentum dragged you forward. For a moment, true weightlessness. And then you were skidding and somersaulting along the ground, skinning your hands and knees all over again before you collapsed, your chin painfully knocking against the ground when you completed your tumble. No pain registered, just numb confusion. You were breathing so hard your lungs burned, your tongue paper dry and sour. Despite the deafening sound of your heart beating and the wheezing rattle of air in your lungs, you could hear his song. 

Everything, everything hurt, but you forced yourself up, to shamble into the bushes, curling into a ball to wait. 

The song ended. 

Seconds—less than that, really—passed before anything happened. Then you heard him. He allowed you to hear him, your pursuer wasn’t concerned that you would manage to escape. He didn’t need to bother running after you, or disguise the noise of his approach. You squeezed your eyes shut until you heard heavy feet crunching through the grass and twigs right in front of you, peeking them open to watch a figure emerge from the darkness.

Death stopped to sniff the air like the predatory beast he appeared to be. You pressed both hands over your mouth and nose, your entire body shaking with the tension of staying stiffly still. For a moment, you hoped he would move on. You didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. 

“This has been fun,” he said conversationally, “but you’re not exactly the most challenging hunt. So, make this easier for yourself and come out, or make it more fun for me and stay put. Your choice, gatita.”  

Your sore, overworked body twitched, wanting to obey and spare yourself. But if he knew where you were, he wouldn’t be looking around randomly like he was, right? Unless this was another game and he was trying to trick you, to see how you’d respond to that threat. But he could be bluffing. You didn’t know, and that uncertainty kept you in place. 

Death chuckled ominously, leaving your line of sight. Somehow, that was worse than anything else, the nothingness of blind anticipation. 

For a fleeting moment, you hoped he had moved on after all.

“Did you really think you could hide from me?” Death asked. Behind you, above you. A short little scream ripped from your throat as he grabbed you by the hair, wrenching you upright so fast that your body went limp with dizziness, head spinning with terror and a fresh rush of energy. He kept you up by exchanging a fistful of hair for the front of your dress. “Me temo que no tiene suerte.”

Getting your bearings, you yelped, thrashing out of his grip. Death let you go too easily, causing you to stumble. You went down hard. This time, it did hurt. Your hands and knees were skinned raw. But still, you crawled. It wasn’t a choice, it was instinct.

“I’m going to enjoy this,” Death said, crouching down behind you. He laughed. “I’ve got a feeling that you will too.” 

“No—no.”

“You can’t lie to me. I can smell it. Fear mixed with desire… It's delicious. I can’t wait to have a taste.”

All you could do was grunt when he grabbed you by the waist, easily lifting you up and manhandling you onto your back. You fell with a heavy sound, dizzy all over again. 

“I’d say I was surprised, but… Well, I’m not,” Death said, straddling you. His legs were completely wrong. They bent like a man’s at the knee, but bent again with the backwards angle of a wolf’s legs, ending in a set of thick paws. His face was worse. He spoke with such vivid animation. It shouldn’t have been possible for a wolf’s face to emote like that, it shouldn’t have been possible that Death himself could look so gleeful, so excited. When you attempted to drag yourself away, he settled more of his weight on top of you. “This is how you like it, right? Rough. It makes you feel alive.” 

Even in your terrified panic, you knew what he was talking about. How long had he been watching you? How intently? Had you ever managed to escape from him, or were you just running around like a headless chicken, never knowing you were doomed? Furiously rejecting that, you bucked upward, bowing your back to throw him off. When that didn’t work, you grasped fistfuls of fabric from the front of his shirt to get leverage. 

Death growed low and grabbed your face, slamming your head against the ground, claws digging into the soft skin of your cheeks. He followed while you were still reeling, leaning down to talk directly into your ear. 

“Do you feel alive now, gatita?”

You whimpered, squeezing your eyes shut so you couldn’t see his frightening face. El lobo feroz. His nose was cold and leathery when it brushed your face as he pulled back, air ghosting across your cheek and making you whimper. Death laughed, sitting up. 

“The ears really are cute,” he told you, releasing your cheeks to take hold of your ear instead. The rough pads caught on the delicate skin, brushing the fur up in a way that made you shudder. He saw that, you could tell by the way his red eyes flashed, the way he licked his lips again. “Who knows, maybe you’ll change my mind about cats.”

“Stop it,” you said, covering your face in an attempt to find peace from this absurdity. He hadn’t broken skin with his claws, but your chin and palms were busted up, your cheeks latticed with shallow scrapes from the trees.

“I told you. You can’t hide from me,” Death said, his voice dragging with a growl. The threat was emphasized by the sudden cold edge dragging lightly against your neck. 

Stiffening, you lowered your hands, looking up at him with wet eyes—looking at the humanoid wolf claiming to be death, who had killed your father and ruined your life, who had haunted you every day since, whose mere shadow terrified you to your core, and once you came to grips with the unbelievability of what you saw, you had to contend with the knowledge that you were powerless to such a nightmare. Utterly, completely powerless.

Death groaned. Or hummed. Or growled. It was a happy sound, excited. “Está buena, gatita,” he told you, saying it like praise. “I don’t normally go for this sort of thing.” Casually, he nudged your chin upward before dragging the sickle down so the point caught beneath the neckline of your dress. “I shouldn’t. It’ll have to be our secret, hm?” 

Willful ignorance had done nothing for you thus far, but you still clung to it. He couldn’t be talking about what you thought he was. He couldn’t be that human. 

In a sharp movement, he pulled the sickle downward. Fabric ripped loudly in the quiet night. Yelping, you tried to pull the scraps back together, to cover yourself because that indignity was too far, wasn’t it? Nudity could mean nothing more than a prelude to violence to something like him, but it was different to you. 

Death growled in annoyance, pressing the weapon’s tip into the soft give of your stomach. 

“Hands off,” he told you. You didn’t move, and he pressed down. Not too much, just enough to break the skin, to draw blood. 

“Stop,” you said, clinging even more desperately to the front of your ruined bodice, “that hurts.”

 “I’ll keep going. To. The. Hilt.” Death drew out each word, pressing down with each word to make his point, the sickle’s edge disappearing into your skin. He meant it. Obey or suffer. 

Looking straight above at the uncaring night sky, you released your bodice. He chuckled as he pulled the weapon away. It might have been that sound, or the crushing disgust of being exposed. There was very little thought behind the way you lashed out, capitalizing on his moment of distraction as he readjusted himself. 

Your pathetic attempt at escaping the inevitable lacked any art or intelligence, only the final burst of energy that came from knowing you’d have no more chances after this. Death avoided your thrashing limbs, letting you wriggle your way upward, twisting around to try and crawl away. And then he drove the sickle into the ground right beside your hand, the blade only narrowly missing your fingers as he drove it into the dirt. You yelped, flinching away. Death used the moment to flip you around again, slamming the air out of your lungs.

"Delicious," he growled, curling over you to get at the exposed skin of your torso. Fabric that hadn’t been properly cut was torn away by his hands. Hands, paws. Human finger articulation and the thick pads of a dog’s feet, each tipped with dangerously long claws. They caught your skin, the rough pads like sandpaper on your sensitive flesh. Just as quickly as the fabric was out of the way, his nose replaced it, his hulking form hunching over your body. Each rapid inhale tickled your skin, pairing disturbingly with the cold of his nose. Unlike his hands, his tongue was soft, lapping up the blood he’d drawn on your stomach before he moved up. The uncanny mixture of sensations made you squirm. 

“Stop, stop now,” you said, jerking in uncoordinated little bursts beneath him more on instinct than rational thought. Fur filled the spaces between your fingers as you tried to push him off. He didn't react to you tugging on it, all it did was remind you of how bestial he was. The whole situation was terrifying, yes. But, more viscerally, it was gross. Deeply uncomfortable to feel his long, smooth tongue, to endure the threat of teeth as he moved up, to choke back disgust and terror as he passed over your nipples. “Stop,” you whined the word despite yourself, your eyes screwed shut in an attempt to separate from reality. Death chuckled, moving up across your flushed chest, to your neck, leaving you flushing bright red and slick with his saliva. 

“Impatient?” he asked, the words brushing over your fluttering pulse. “I’m not surprised. That’s fine.”

The waistband of your dress didn’t part as easily as the top. He worked from the other end instead, making a slit to tear the fabric up and expose your stockings and panties. Claws made short work of the thin, well worn cotton, carving shallow lines into your skin to strip you entirely. 

“Nn-no, what are you doing? Stop, st-” your words cut off with a heavy ‘umph’ when he pushed you back down. Death didn’t so much as look at you as he admired his handiwork, let alone respond to your plea.

“Just like I thought,” he said. “You’re a real piece of work, you know that?” 

“No,” you said, desperately shaking your head. All you could see was his sharp, sharp teeth, those deadly claws. And your body was electrified, covered with drool and chills and thrumming hot with blood. There was no way out of this, you couldn't even comprehend the pain he could cause. Out of options, you pushed down the remains of your skirt, attempting to close your legs. 

Claws dug into your thighs as Death forced them back open with a little growl, sparing you no indignity. The moon deprived you of the cover of darkness and it shouldn’t have been so embarrassing because he wasn’t a man, but it was. Just like he had with your torso, Death explored the exposed skin. The puffing brushes of air as he sniffed and licked along your thighs was humiliating and obscene on its own, nevermind when he nipped at the sensitive flesh to make you whimper, forcing you to contemplate the damage those teeth could do where you were most vulnerable. 

The thought of such agony had you try a final time to close your legs, only to have them spread even wider, giving you the perfect view of el lobo feroz with his muzzle pressed against your pussy, his long pink tongue lolling out to drag across your slit. It wasn’t the pain you anticipated, but it was just too strange, too surprising, too disturbing. Having the snout of a beast between your legs, regardless of the creature's perceived humanity, was enough to make you feel sick, twisted and filthy. 

“No, no, don’t,” you demanded shrilly, kicking in an attempt to displace him. Death growled, claws puncturing into your skin as he pushed your hips back down, peering up at you. His eyes didn’t reflect or catch the moonlight. They glowed. Empty. Evil.   

“Ten cuidado, gatita,” he warned. “Haven’t you ever been warned about getting in the way of a wolf and his meal?”

“Please,” you said, unable to comprehend that this could happen. That this would happen. “Please don’t… don’t. You can’t do this.”

“What are you going to do to stop me?” 

That was awful, too awful for words. Fight and risk more pain, or let it happen and… And what? What rational response could you possibly have to this other than disgust and despair? Maybe you should have been glad he wasn’t about to rip you to bloody shreds and feast on the remains, glad that you would be spared pain and immediate death, but that consolation felt terribly cheap when confronted with the equally unimaginable. 

“You can’t,” you said, your voice too high, terrified into a whine. “You’re not even… I mean it’s not like you can… like you’ll… you can…”

Death hummed in annoyance, you could feel the vibration of the sound. “Te voy a comer. Y luego te voy a coger,” he told you, the words easy like he was explaining something very simple which, considering you couldn’t understand them, only made it that much worse. “¿Está bien, gatita?”

“No,” you said. “No, I don’t…” Understand. Believe. Consent. 

Death laughed, arranging your legs into a more comfortable press towards your chest to make room for his hulking form. There was nothing you could do to make him stop. 

The pads of his fingers were painfully rough against your pussy’s outer lips, catching on the sensitive flesh as he parted them. His tongue, however, was softer than anything you’d ever felt, lapping at your entrance, up to your clit. You squirmed uncontrollably, locked in some limbo of disgust, discomfort, and embarrassment. 

You thought that if you just closed your eyes, if you just blocked it out, you could pretend that this wasn’t happening, but Death hummed out an animalistic growl, and his tongue was far too long and dexterous to be human, and his fur bristled against your thighs, and there was no way out. Already, your body was waking up to the stimulation. Responding. There was something wrong with you. You knew that, you’d known that for a long time, taking pleasure in beatings, wanting sex to be rougher and rougher, needing to be brutalized like it was an itch to be scratched. This was a new low, the grotesque indulgence of those most perverse.

Like you. 

“Please stop,” you whined, another plea to add to the string of ignored requests. Death made a sound you could feel more than hear. For reasons other than fear, you shuddered at the noise. 

With your clit acceptably swollen, your body twitching with every movement, his tongue slicked downward. Your hips jumped, legs closing and opening with surprise, but Death wasn’t deterred.

“No-oh,” you sounded so weak, your rejection coming out pathetic and breathy.  

Death made another growl-like sound, pushing you down flat with mean claws that poked fresh holes into your skin. You hadn’t been trying to escape, you just couldn’t stop from squirming as he tested the flinching muscles of your entrance. This was new, and different, and terrible, and foul. His tongue was soft and long and far too dexterous, pushing into you with a few hungry strokes. No human man could do that. It wasn’t physically possible. 

You whimpered, your head falling back in some vain attempt to block it all out. Escape wasn’t so easy. While his tongue lacked the pressure and weight of something solid, he attacked your g-spot with precision. Eating you out. Eating you. Given that long snout, it had to have been awkward, but that didn’t seem to deter him. And every time his head moved, his nose ground against your clit. He was probably watching you, watching you twitch and gasp and writhe helplessly, but you kept your eyes squeezed shut. The sight of a wolf’s head between your legs like this would kill you, surely it would. 

Unbidden, you remembered telling the child Quinta that dogs were your natural enemy, and your penchant for seeking the companionship of those who promised animosity, and the wicked sort of sense it made that you would find yourself here, and you could only laugh at it all but the hysterical sound came out like a sob, and then a low groan, and then a sharp whine when Death pressed the rough pad of one of his fingers against your clit instead, dragging small little circles against it while his tongue continued to torment you. 

“No, no, no, no-” 

Whatever you were denying, it was pointless. Noise for the sake of it, words getting all tangled up with your choked moans and sobs and hiccups. The little addition of pain from the too rough texture on your clit was enough to give you what you really wanted, what you always ached for. 

Pleasure lurched in your core, your hips bucking wildly. Death growled again and it was mean. Aggressive. You seized up, mouth open wide as if for a scream, your feet planted so you could tilt your hips up for more. More pleasure, more pain. Disgust, shame, fear, all of it became white hot and foul, agonizingly sexy in the few moments where the high of orgasm negated the living nightmare between your legs.

And then you were coming down, hips jerking into the tongue of a wolf monster, the creature that had killed your father, Death himself, and you actually sobbed, shying away from his touch as little sparks of overstimulation promised something worse. Unable to escape in any material way, you covered your face. Tears, dirt, and blood smeared together on the feverish, sweaty skin, nearly suffocating as you panted.  

Death let you be and sat up, laughing. Laughing at you.

“That was faster than I expected.” 

Peeking out from between your fingers, you saw the way his muzzle was glistening before his tongue swiped it away, saw the way he was smiling as he mocked you. “Ah. Unh-no, I-”

Death leaned over you. You flinched away, but he only grabbed the sickle he’d driven into the ground beside you. Casually, he flicked the blade out. The cool metal winked in the moonlight. Although you were still trembling with the aftershocks of orgasm, you weren’t too far gone to feel a fresh wave of fear. Immediately, you curled in on yourself, covering as much of your vulnerability as possible. 

“You cower in fear, but I can taste your desire,” Death said, licking his lips. “It’s not half bad.” 

“Please just… just stop.” 

“I’m doing you a favor. You’re too tight.” 

Death didn’t elaborate on that, positioning the weapon’s hilt between your legs, pushing the flared base between your folds before you could figure out what was happening. Everything was wet with a mixture of saliva and your own arousal, slick enough for the weapon to press against your entrance. You figured it out then, but he pinned you in place with a hand on your stomach, claws pressing against the flinching skin. There was nothing you could really do to avoid it, and you didn’t dare close your legs around the blade itself. 

“This might hurt.”

“Stop, please stop, you can’t—” 

Death didn’t say anything, watching your expression as he pushed the weapon’s grip into you. To see such a sharp blade between your legs in any capacity was dizzying, and that was without the intensely physical pressure of its grip rubbing against your inner walls.

“I told you, didn’t I?” he asked. “To. The. Hilt.” With every word, he drove the weapon deeper, your body jerking with each movement. 

“Stop, just stop, please, take it…take it out.” 

“I’d do it myself, but,” Death said, holding up his off-hand, “I’m not so sure you’d like that.” His claws practically gleamed in the moonlight, and you knew exactly how rough the pads were. The idea of those inside of you was enough to make your insides wither, although all that really amounted to was your cunt tightening around the weapon. You grunted at the feeling, shook your head fast, panicked. 

“No! No,” you told him as coherently as you could. Your tongue was dry as bone, you choked on the grit. 

“Thought so,” he replied, pulling the sickle back only to slam it back in. 

The textured grip felt disturbingly good in some mad, broken way. His tongue had been so smooth and soft, but this was solid and firm, forcing itself into you. He used it like a tool, not bothering to simulate sex, twisting it this way and that, forcing your pussy open. Making room. You couldn’t help but writhe with each movement, your cunt tightening around the grip, hips tilting up as you were consumed by a confusing twist of disgust and need. Violence and pain were things you knew and understood. Familiarity had you dripping around the weapon, you could hear how wet you were, and his harsh motions only emphasized the vulgar sound.

“Not bad,” Death said, amused by the sight. You shut your eyes. “This weapon killed your father. It’s only fair that you should die by it too—una pequeña muerte.”

“Don’t,” you said, body going painfully tense with disgust, with hate, with fear. Death pulled the sickle out, pushing it back in with an ugly squelch, dragging a pained yelp from your mouth, and then a distinctly less pained one when he twisted it slightly. “No, no, I…”

Little death. You belatedly realized the implication of that. You’d already come once, it wasn’t nearly as difficult to build you up again. Especially not when he was being more deliberate with each thrust, when the sandpaper-rough texture of his finger nudged at your clit again. 

Nothing in particular set you off, maybe it was just the acceptance of sensation, the acknowledgement that it would buy you a few moments of madness from this unthinkable situation. Gasping, flushing, writhing like a creature possessed, you seized up, pleasure flushing through your system with a white-hot sort of frenzy. You didn’t think it could be compared to death, not really. You felt distinctly alive for a few seconds of shivering, wet heat. 

Until it ended, abruptly dropping you back in the middle of an unfathomable predicament. 

Death hummed as he stopped, letting you wilt back onto the ground, trembling and hot. “I prefer a fight, but-” Without much ceremony and a disgustingly wet shlick, Death pulled the weapon out of your pussy. “You put on quite the show, gatita. This is going to be good.” 

“What are you doing?” you asked, drawing your legs in, wincing at the feeling. Some part of you still rejected what was happening, what he was capable of doing. Of course that got a little harder to believe when he pushed his pants down. Was it flattering that a monster would be turned on by torturing you? You wanted to think that it couldn’t be, that you weren’t that depraved, but the part of your deepest self that stirred in reaction to the sight frightened you. It seemed that the human shape and build of his body carried over to his primary sex characteristics. It was sick that the revelation should be relieving, but at least you would be spared the particular grotesque indignity of inhuman genitalia. Maybe if you shut your eyes, if you blocked it all out, you could pretend that it was just a man raping you. 

Because that was so much better.

You weren’t even aware that you were trying to crawl away until he clicked his tongue, grabbing your waist to pull you back into place. The pads on his fingers were so rough, claws threatening to rip the sensitive flesh. He licked his lips with wolfish excitement. Fur brushed your bare skin. There was no way out of this, to escape el lobo feroz. Not mentally, not physically. 

You pressed your thighs together as tightly as you could, ignoring how slick they were.

“It’s too late for that,” he said, easily prying them apart. Fur brushed against your skin, but you were more concerned with the sight of his cock as it bobbed up before settling against your abdomen. 

Heavy. That was your first thought, right before the comparison between your body and his cock really settled in your feverish brain. The head alone was thick enough that you couldn’t fathom it getting past your entrance, let alone that you’d be able to take the rest. 

“No, no, no, you-you can’t do this,” you said, staring at his dick with a crawling sense of fear that had nothing to do with his inhumanity—in all regards—and everything to do with the size. “It won’t fit.” 

“You can accommodate new life,” he said, a hand going under his cock to press against your abdomen, right above your womb. “Let alone Death. You’ll be fine.” He said it like a joke, like it was amusing. He was sick. You were sick. This was…

When he moved, the slap of his dick on your abdomen was audible, punctuating a joke that wasn’t funny to begin with. Death clearly wasn’t concerned as he rearranged you, pushing your legs up and apart until your thighs screamed, his body bearing down against you for leverage. The unyielding press of his cock between your legs made you panic, but he had you utterly pinned. You couldn’t do anything other than feel it slide across the sensitive flesh, settling right against your entrance. You couldn’t do anything to stop this. Death grunted as he readjusted you, claws digging fresh lines into your flesh, and began to rock his hips forward. When you yelped, bucking up against him, the sharp points broke skin. It would be easy for him to rip you up with nothing more than those claws. 

“Quédate quieto,” he growled. You didn’t need to understand to be still.

So close like this, you realized that you could smell him. Not the stench of a dog, of wet fur or a poorly maintained pelt. Not the scent of a man either, familiar and human. Death smelled like a cool summer night, and torrential rain, and a river’s violent rapids, and acrid smoke, and the dry dust of an old road. Although it wasn’t entirely unpleasant in the way you might have expected of a wolf man, it made your stomach churn, doing nothing to help you relax as he continued to press the thick head of his cock against your pussy.

For a moment, you thought that it really was impossible, that you would be spared. That single second of relief was all it took for the head to pop past the initial barrier of muscle. Your mouth dropped open at the feeling. Surprise, maybe. Your legs were spread wide enough to mitigate some of the dragging pain as he forced himself a little deeper, just past the ridge. Death made a sound low in his chest, but all you could manage was stiff, cold shock. Surprise at how surreal it all was. But reality marched on all the same, with or without your comprehension. You weren’t sure what you expected it to feel like, but you would have been wrong anyway. Stretching, aching, too much, too much, too-

Grunting, he rolled his hips, pulling back just enough before thrusting deeper. Little by little, letting you adjust and relax ever so slightly before pulling back to go further. You whined each time, back arching, your pussy tightening around him. It was probably a protective measure, trying to keep him out, but it hurt, pulling a rumbly growl out of his throat, his hips pushing forward despite the painful resistance. 

“No more,” you got out, the words tight, pained. 

Muttering something under his breath, Death leaned back to let drool drip from his long tongue. It landed heavily where the two of you were joined, splatting with an unattractive slap onto the place where you were joined, onto your swollen clit. He laughed at your girlish yelp of surprise. 

You let your head fall back, your hands covering your face. They smelled like dirt and blood. At least the extra lubrication helped, and you knew your body was responding to this. Whether to protect itself or out of some truly disturbing reciprocation, your pussy was soaking his cock, making way for him as he rolled his hips back and forth. 

Deeper, further. You were going to split apart. 

“Stop, please,” you finally broke enough to beg, pressing against his stomach, ignoring the sickening feeling of fur beneath your hand. You were almost surprised when Death stopped, huffing hard. Worse, you were grateful.  

“Too much, gatita? And you were doing so well.”

A pathetic little whine tore from your throat when you looked down at the remaining few inches of cock between your straining pussy lips and his grotesque inhuman body, despairing at the sight. “I can’t,” you whimpered. “No more.” 

Death growled in frustration, claws digging painfully into your skin as he shifted back and forth a few times, trying to ease himself deeper. You could see the shadow of distension shifting across your abdomen as he did, proof of how deep inside of you he already was. But no matter how he rolled his hips, or twisted you around, there was no more room. 

“Stop,” you said, the word getting caught in your swollen throat, your body desperately straining to get away for fear that he’d just force it in.

Death stilled, exhaling hard to steady himself. It sounded like a growl. Your pussy unintentionally clenched hard around him at the noise. It hurt, the muscles unable to adjust to his size. The reaction had his breath catching, and that became a throaty laugh.

“Fine,” he said, finally dragging his hips back. It was what you wanted, but it still hurt, the stretch worsened by the way your pussy squeezed and pulsed around his length. Death stopped when only the head remained inside of you. “You just need to be broken in. That’s fine.” 

You looked, stricken, from the dizzying sight of his cock—now, at least partially, glistening with your own arousal—to the sickening expression of manic glee he wore. How could a canine face express such viscerally human emotions? 

And then, in the back of your empty, dizzy head—why was this happening?

“No more,” you begged, squeezing your eyes shut, your pussy trying to push him out despite the discomfort of it. Claws ripped into your skin when his grip had to tighten to keep you in place, his hips chasing yours as you tried so desperately to escape. It hurt all over again. Maybe not as bad, but now you knew what to anticipate. 

“It's better like this.” He stopped when he was as deep as he could go and you were grateful that he didn’t push it further, grateful that he was taking it slow. The stretching, pinching ache wasn’t any better, but it wasn’t worse either. “What is this… Two? Three inches?” You looked down, realizing that he was referring to how much of his cock couldn’t fit inside of you. It had to be more than that, although you were stuck on the sight of your pussy stretched around him. “By the end of the night, there won’t be anything keeping us apart. That’ll be… poetic, don’t you think?” 

It wasn’t fair that his voice should be that of a man, should be low and dripping with a villain’s dangerous charisma. All you could do was groan weakly, your breathing shallow. Despite what he said, there was nothing poetic to the sound of it. Slick, filthy, disgustingly wet. Every thrust punched a sharp noise out of you, although most of them were nothing more than heavy breaths. Death wasn’t very quiet either, making noises that fluctuated seamlessly between that of a man and that of a beast. 

“Hurts,” you whimpered in protest, willing him to slow down. He didn’t. 

“Good.” 

The single word, the cruelty of it and the accompanying set of a harsher pace, hurt in more ways than the physical. You couldn’t help but wail in despair, writhing with pain you couldn’t escape, unable to get away as he fucked you. Deeper and deeper, forcing you to stretch out to accommodate him. 

“You like the pain, right?” Death asked mockingly, his voice low enough to nearly get missed beneath the filthy squelch of each thrust. And all you could do was whimper. Did you like the pain? No, but there was a perverse satisfaction of justified destruction. You had no idea how he knew that.

“I don’t,” you said, needing to reject him. To reject all of this because otherwise you were afraid it would end like before, that you would give in. That you’d enjoy this. But it was too late. You couldn’t help your hips from twitching of their own volition, and a particularly sharp thrust pulled a surprised gasp from your open mouth. 

“Buena gatita,” he said in a low voice, half growl. The sound, the language, the speaker, none of it mattered because your body knew praise, and the kind that came with cruelty was what you craved in the sickest part of your brain. “Muy buena.” Your cunt fluttered weakly around him, your hips rolling upward to meet his next thrust. It hurt, and it felt good. 

As soon as you admitted that to yourself in any way, you were lost. A few more thrusts and you had to bite your lip to keep from moaning. There wasn’t a single place within you that wasn’t full of him, not in your head or your pussy or your chest. Consumed entirely by Death. 

Gods help you, you could hear the fresh wave of wet arousal your body provided with that awful thought, so eager to submit to his dominion. As if sensing that, he stilled, his cock buried deep into you. Your eyes opened unintentionally, confused by the sudden break.

“Well, well, would you look at that,” Death said as a way of explanation, self satisfied. You followed his eyes, looking at where the two of you were joined. There was nothing between, his pelvis flush between your legs, the fur matting with how wet everything was. You opened your mouth to say something, but nothing came out. His hips shifted and you could see the bump of distension, more pronounced now. “Like I said—poetic. All you’ve done for years is tease me and now-” He laughed. “Now you’re mine.”  

Death pulled back slowly, letting you see how much of his cock he’d forced your body to accept. It looked about as impossible as it felt, you couldn’t really comprehend it on any level other than the most base—sickening satisfaction. Ensuring you were still watching, his hips snapped forward. Once, twice, three times, making sure each thrust was solid and steady, filling you up entirely, the thick head of his cock brutalizing your cunt in a way no human man ever could. The battering against your cervix hurt in a profound, electric way, a way nobody had ever managed to hurt you.  

And you took it. Your mouth open dumbly, your head tipping back into the dirt, your body rolling with each movement.    

Even suffering such intimate, awful pain, you couldn’t deny your feeling of pleasure. Sublime friction, pressure in every place you needed it. And, to a dreadful degree, Death seemed to be aware of your reactions. Aware enough, at least, to take note when you couldn’t help but moan aloud, to exploit the angle that had you seeing stars. He grabbed you off the ground, forcing you to throw your arms around his neck. Like that, you were even more at his mercy. Full enough to split, you could understand the indulgence of size, of craving excess. Beautiful. Your boiling brain pulled that word out from its scattered nothingness, and it was beautiful. Repulsive, disturbing, grotesque, and beautiful.

“That’s right,” Death practically purred into your ear. “Look at how well you take it, you’d think you were made for this.” 

“Oh, gods, oh—please, I can’t, I…” You weren’t even sure what you were begging for, it was too late from the second he praised you, sending you spiraling, coming hard, your pussy squeezing his cock so hard it hurt, your fingers pulling hard at the fur on his neck. Death laughed breathlessly, not slowing down for even a second. You didn’t care. If it hurt, it felt good, an endless feedback loop of madness. 

Holding so close to him, you were more aware than ever of how terrifyingly powerful his body was. He could easily destroy you if he wanted. 

This was Death at his gentlest. 

Dizzy, reeling, hardly able to scrape together any coherent thought beyond that, all you felt at the realization was the vague veil of fear. Letting yourself get fucked by the big bad wolf. Coming on his cock, moaning like a whore for a being that shouldn’t exist in the middle of the woods beneath a full moon. 

His hips stuttered then, a groan catching on a growl in his chest. 

“Delicious,” he said. “Your fear, I could just…” Death didn’t finish that thought, or maybe you couldn’t hear it as his thrusts became well and truly punishing. Seeking his end like a man would. That was what you expected, in a distant way, but you didn’t expect that a mystical—mythical?—creature would ejaculate, only that you’d had enough encounters with men to know you shouldn’t let it happen. Not inside. Never inside, that was way too dangerous. 

“Nn-no-”  

He didn’t listen. You couldn’t escape, and you stopped caring after a moment because the heavy, carnal weight of him coming inside of you was enough to make you squeal, your pussy squeezing his cock, your body straining in an arch against his. You didn’t know if you were coming again or if it was just a continuation of the onslaught of stimulation that your brain couldn’t make rational sense of, but there was a sort of lunatic’s bliss in the feeling, in the agonizingly hellish ecstasy of pleasure. Of complete and utter excess. You could feel the rumbling vibrations of his growl, it entwined with the human groans. The two shouldn’t have suited one another, but your broken mind accepted both gleefully, losing yourself in the sound.  

After a few jerky, halting movements, Death released you. 

He was slow to pull out, which was probably a mercy. Even softening, his cock was painfully big, you couldn’t hold back your pained whimper when he pulled out. The absence was immediate, cold, and hollow. You wilted when he let you fall limp onto the ground, defeated. Deflated. Breathing as if you’d run a marathon, it was all you could do to keep it together, the gravity of all that happened setting in.  

Something landed on your naked, sweaty body. Scared, you opened your eyes. But it was fabric. A second passed before you realized it was your red cloak. The one you left behind to escape from him before. It felt like a lifetime ago. You gratefully used it to cover your nudity, glad for the moment to catch your breath with some dignity. 

“Ah, that was good,” Death said, satisfied, rolling his neck and shoulders. He’d already fixed his pants and retrieved his weapons. “The fun’s over now. For you, at least.”

“I don’t know… how to get back to the trail…” you said, wincing as you sat up and looked around. His cum dripped out of your gaping, sore pussy, sticky on your thighs. Vaguely, you wondered what sort of monsters would come from such a coupling, but you disregarded that thought just as quickly. If he was done, you needed to get away. Then again, you weren’t even sure if you could walk. 

“I wouldn’t worry about it.” 

Death’s less than friendly tone rolled over you like ice water. Slowly looking over at him, you exhaled a big, shuddery lungful of cool night air. He stood high above you, his looming figure blotting out the moon. Right then, he looked no different than he had all those years ago. Brilliant red eyes, gray fur, silver sickles. The big bad wolf in all his glory. 

“What?” 

Those bright red eyes held a different sort of intensity than before. Swirling, passionate madness without any of the ravenous hunger. “You know, I’ve been watching you ever since that night. Every time you narrowly escape death, and every time you get other people killed. But you know that, you’ve seen me. That’s why you run, thinking you can escape the inevitable. For whatever reason—luck, fate, the blessing of those gods you claim to believe in—your life has been spared over and over. And yet, you do nothing with it.”

There was malice in those words, a visceral sort of disgust that reflected what you so often felt for yourself. You considered trying to stand up, trying to run again. Fear thundered in your chest, urged you to escape as you always did. But, honestly, you didn’t think your legs could support your weight. No. You couldn’t run. You never had really managed to escape him anyway. 

“So, I thought, why does it matter if you die now or later—your life has no meaning. If I finish it now, you won’t be able to keep teasing me, and we’ll both have some peace.” 

“I don’t want to die,” you said, your voice hushed to hide the tears. 

Death looked down at you, and you wondered if it was disgust or pity you saw on his inhuman face. But then you realized, it was neither. His jewel bright eyes gleamed with glee, passion of a type you couldn’t understand, that belonged to something beyond the realm of what you could possibly comprehend. A living nightmare. 

“Your fear,” Death said, inhaling deeply as he took a step forward, his sickles in hand, “has the most intoxicating smell. I might even miss it.” 

[seat-safety-switch]

I think that our civilization doesn't give enough credit to things that are stackable. If you're anything like me, and the court has taken specific actions to ensure that my particular contagion cannot spread, then you currently possess stuff thrown all over hither and yon. That's French for "on the fucking floor."

Most of this is simply because things like to be on the floor. Gravity pulls them there. Who am I to fight the whims of the universe, right? Another reason this happens is that many desirable things in life are not easy to stack.

If you look at your shelves right now, you will notice that there is tons of unused vertical space above many of your favourite objects. You could fit more stuff in those shelves, easy, if only you could pile them safely on top of each other. Sure, we've all done a precarious wedge-and-hope from time to time, but it always results in something expensive or irreplaceable taking a penguin slide to the floor anyway.

Society has designed a lot of little moulded-plastic "organizers" which are meant to help with this. The idea is that you will buy into their system, which is meant to all interoperate with each other, and then all of your things will go neatly into the boxes that you have purchased, which themselves are stacked neatly on the shelves. Your parole officer will be impressed. Don't be fooled by this fool's gold of a dream. None of your shit fits in those bins, and even if it did, you won't be able to agree on an organizational scheme.

So, is there a solution to this problem? Yes: it's called velcro. All you need to do is glue a bunch of velcro strips to the top and bottom of your favourite things, and then you can just stick them together. Nothing will fall out, because it's all held in place by the space-age miracle of the hook-and-loop fastener.

Sure, it makes an ungodly noise when you remove them from the stack, and the 3M Corporation will soon be trying to put poison into my morning coffee over having misused their trademark, but it's the only way to go. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go figure out why all my computers keep dying from static electricity.

[gold-rhine]

Nahida banner is going to run soon and i wanted to talk about her and her pros and cons if you're deciding to wish for her or not. i have both heavily invested c2 nahida who is top 8% on field builds on akasha and f2p no cons horrible support build nahida, so i can talk about different levels of investment.

her pros:

best dendro application in the game with 100% uptime.

sharing of up to 250 EM to on field character, which is very good buff to spread or aggravate carries.

she has insane AOE, you can tag entire room of enemies from far away and they will be dying passively, just from nahida's dot, which is very nice for single-target teams like hyperbloom or nilou teams that can't have grouping.

her less known pro is that she can have very good personal damage if well built, like alhaitham is called "top 3 dps" and my nahida does more damage than my alhaitham on field. the reason alhaitham is even viable is bc nahida is a tiny radish with short legs and is very clumsy to run, dash and attack.

but if you don't want her to do personal damage, she is perfectly functional with purely support build too, which is very easy and quick to get, and with 3 star weapon.

her cons are really good, and her c2 makes any dendro team insane

her banner will have xingqiu and kuki, and with nahida this is a ready made hyperbloom core that will clear one side of the abyss with minimum investment. or any content, to be clear, like if you dont care about abyss, this is a boss killer team.

overall, universal dendro support who can slot into almost any dendro team and has considerable to great personal damage.

her cons:

her insane dendro application is actually too thick and it will overrun other elements, which is very relevant for aggravate teams. you can't swirl electro thru nahida's E, so if enemy didn't die in one rotation, then on second rotation you're swirling leaf and your electro dps will not get damage buff.

another con is that she tags specific enemies, so if you kill a wave and the next wave appears, she needs to come back on field to tag them again. this is a problem for characters like cyno who do damage in long infusion state, he cannot switch to nahida without losing that infusion. characters like baizhu would be more comfortable for this.

as i already said, short child model is clumsy to use on field

her alternatives:

for kinich she doesn't do anything at all, he can be either solo dendro or work with emily

for dendro teams with furina, baizhu is preferred as a healer who can quickly stack fanfare

for nilou, she's still best in slot and tbh nilou with nahida and nilou without nahida is very much night and day, but even so, nilou has enough other option that she will be okay without nahida, with like, yao yao, baizhu, dendro traveler, kirara, tho AOE will tank significantly.

overall, in other dendro teams like spread, aggravate, hyperbloom, burgeon, you can use options like baizhu, yao yao, dendro traveler, kirara. they will have less application and AOE will drop to almost single target, but it will be functional

TLDR:

is nahida still meta? YES. she's still the most universal dendro support and the BEST, arguably only true consistent off field AOE dendro applicator who is not reliant on burst.

is she must pull? no, if you don't want to. when she just came out and there were almost no dendro characters, she was, but now we have enough options, both premium and 4 star, to slot into dendro teams instead of nahida and be functional.

get nahida if you like her and you want strongest AOE dendro support that you can use in almost any dendro teams, but don't feel pressured.

EDIT: if u want to vertically invest in nahida, get her cons, as i already said, her c2 is insane. do NOT get her weapon, its mid as fuck. for damage build yae's kagura is her best option, or any dmg oriented catalyst like widsith or lost prayer. for support, 4 star EM sac frags is about as good, and even 3 star magic guide will work.

EDIT2:

yes, you can use it as a support weapon, esp in nilou teams it'll be good. it's not bad support option if you happen to get it, its just not worth going for specifically. about nahida cons, i would advise to first trying your teams with c0 nahida bc this is more than enough. if nilou and nahida team doesnt feel like it doing damage, i would first look into rotations and if you have EM on the correct character, bc in bloom its crucial to know who will be the trigger

[dedalvs]

Was your Firish writing system used anywhere in Elemental? Most appearances of the written language seem to use an English cipher.

If you mean did the glyphs we created ever appear, yes, they did; we saw them all over the place. Now, were they ever used to write anything specific, as opposed to just being used for decoration in random ways? That I don't know. We did send them a list of some things spelled out correctly, but I don't know if they used them. It would've been nice to do some of the things that were in focus (like an open and closed sign), but we never had any communication with the art department.

You have to understand: It's a rare thing to get to even do a writing system. On many shows/films (Game of Thrones, Thor: The Dark World, Emerald City, Paper Girls) production finds the very notion of a language having a unique writing system somewhat comical. Others (The Shannara Chronicles, Raya and the Last Dragon, Halo) find the notion that the language creator(s) would create the writing system used in the show amusing. We weren't hired to create a writing system for Elemental. We told them we could do it and they said no. We did it anyway. And after they saw it, they decided they liked it and would use it. That doesn't happen often!

So yeah, the fact that they didn't use the writing system to spell things out accurately? Not a big deal. You think everything in the background of Defiance was spelled correctly? There were dozens of pill bottles in Doc Yewll's office with over 200 words of text on them each. That was just gibberish done in the Indogene font, because, frankly, no matter how much you zoom in on those Doc Yewll scenes, you will never be able to read that writing (nor will you be able to see that what filled the pill bottles were things like oyster crackers).

(I still don't get why the art department insisted on using this script vertically. I created a script where every character is a hexagon, meaning that every single character and every single line could interlock perfectly. And then they stack them?!)

[man-n-space]

Adventures in Conlanging #1

How it¹ started:

How it's going:

"It" being Classical Ngare n Tim Ar, the main focus language of my conworld/story setting Twin Aster. At top is the original writing system I devised fifteen-ish years ago. At bottom is some preliminary work on one of the current writing systems² I've devised for it, a hieroglyphic system à la, say, Egyptian in its heyday.

Yes, writing systems plural. There are four main ways to write CT (the "four modes", Höhsë ü gûrn Ahsaha), divisible into two pairs (eastalri, sg. gestalri): Gestalri n ḫisí (image-based) Sasaha n orón (color mode) – The OG system of Tim Ar writing, which saw a revival when Bleffys Údd came around and reëstablished the empire (though for everyday official purposes the sasaha n maḫneḫ was typically employed; see below). Sort of like Aztec hieroglyphs; color is meaningful and everything is little stylized drawings. Supplanted by other scripts and modes back in the day, it has seen a resurgence as a sort of blend of visual art, graphic design, calligraphy, and floriography. Sasaha n maḫneḫ (hieroglyphic mode) – Your bog-standard hieroglyphics, pictured in the lower two images above. Black-and-white (or, at least, color isn't usually a meaningful channel, unlike with the sasaha n orón). Essentially Egyptian with the serial glyphs filed off. Gestalri n oisog (cuneiform-based) Sasaha n Atki (Atskian mode) – Some upstart named Atki is credited with creating this in frustration after the eastalri n ḫisí were reserved for the upper crust. Originated from Monumental Khaya hieroglyphic phonetic complements. Sasaha n Lemhár (Levarian mode) – Sort of a calligraphic or stylized version of Atskian mode. No horizontal lines, and lines are canted by 30° from horizontal (left-to-upper-right diagonal), with individual blocks kind of sideways-stacked—think something like "////" for the layout, though each slash/block is much less vertical.

(cc @tzarina-alexandra because you seemed interested)

[lonestarbattleship]

August 24, 2024 Update from the Battleship Texas Foundation

"BATTLESHIP TEXAS UPDATE

Battleship Texas shifts to Pier A in Gulf Copper Shipyard on August 22, 2024.

The ship is currently moored at Pier A in Gulf Copper Shipyard where it will continue to undergo repairs and preparations to become a museum ship once again.

SHIFT TO PIER A: On August 22, 2024, Battleship Texas was moved from Pier D to Pier A within Gulf Copper Dry Dock & Rig Repair. The shift in piers was planned and allows for repairs to continue at a reduced daily rate.

Battleship Texas now resides at Pier A in Gulf Copper Shipyard.

PINE DECK REPAIRS: Workers are currently laying the pine deck on the ship's bow. Below is a breakdown of how this is done. Yes, Battleship Texas had a deck made up of mostly pine during the ship's service career.

The underlying steel deck has been repaired and made watertight with all existing studs removed and ground flush. Once welding has concluded in each area, the steel is properly coated.

4"x4" treated southern yellow pine deck planks are shaped and fitted to the deck then coated to protect against moisture. A Dolphinite Bedding Compound is applied to both the steel deck and bottom of the board prior to final installation. Boards are secured by studs which are welded to the steel deck during installation.

Plank and margin board seams are caulked using on strand of cotton caulking, three strands of oakum, and sealed with a marine sealant.

MEASURE 21: The ship is being painted in the Measure 21 camouflage scheme. All horizontal surfaces will be Deck Blue 20-B, and all vertical surfaces will be Navy Blue 5-N. Battleship Texas is only one of two battleships in a WWII camouflage scheme, and the ONLY ship in Measure 21.

Pictured is the ship's smoke stack.

Pictured is a black primer that has been applied to the ship's aft fire control tower.

MAIN MAST: Work on the ship's main mast has completed! The entire mast had several repairs made before being primed and painted in

The repairs and restoration to the ship's main mast are complete! 

The repairs and restoration to the ship's main mast are complete! Pictured is the latest antenna that was replaced. 

Navy Blue 5-N. Various antennas have been reproduced and replaced.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS:

WHAT’S NEXT? - Battleship Texas will remain at Gulf Copper Shipyard while the ship’s new home in Galveston, Texas, is prepared. Additional steel work, replacement of the ship’s deck, further restoration, and painting will be done during this time.

TOURING? - The Battleship Texas Foundation will be offering touring options while the ship is in the shipyard. Participants will be able to view ongoing work and restoration or learn all about how the ship operated during its service career. Tours are expected to begin in late 2024.

REOPENING? - There is a lot to be done before the ship is ready for touring at its new home in Galveston, Texas. Reopening is projected to happen in the later half of 2025.

MISSING GUNS? - The ship's anti-aircraft guns are currently undergoing restoration. The guns and gun directors will be replaced once their restoration is complete.

Barrel storage tubes for the 20mm anti-aircraft guns have been added to the splinter shields midship. Barrel storage tubes for the 20mm anti-aircraft guns have been added to the splinter shields near the stern

Come on Texas!

To donate to the preservation and operation of Battleship Texas, please visit: battleshiptexas.org/

Support Battleship Texas by making a purchase through the ship's store: https://store.battleshiptexas.org"

Posted on the Battleship Texas Foundation Facebook page: link, link

[illarian-rambling]

Thanks for the tag @theink-stainedfolk!

OC Deep Dive

I feel like answering for my best of bitches, Nyda Burningrock 🤘

Do they have any pet peeves:

Anything to do with authority, Nyda is not on-board with. She spits on obedience for obedience's sake and strongly dislikes those who refuse to question the current order.

What uncommon fears/ phobias do they have:

Nyda has a crippling fear of physical violence. She freezes the moment a punch is thrown, and though she's a certified shit-talker, she goes out of her way to make sure she's not actually gonna get hit for it. It's not the blood or pain, she's not squeamish, it's more the act of violence itself that terrifies her. A lot of this stems more from a fear of failure and her childhood as the daughter of a famous mercenary family, but we won't get into all that.

What are three items you can find in their bedroom:

None of the ghosts have an actual bedroom or belongings, but her corner of the cargo hold has a screw she uses as a fidget, a stack of notebooks full of calculations, and some shiny rocks she took from Lai'teh.

What do they notice first in people:

Probably if they're armed. Nabafyrians like her treat weapons as an essential part of an outfit, so not only is she judging if you could be dangerous, but she's judging the make and style of your weapon like she would an outfit.

What is their pain tolerance on a scale from 1 to 10:

Probably like a 2, ngl. Nyda is about as fond of pain as she is of fighting, even if she is already dead.

Do they go into fight or flight mode under pressure:

Freeze, to a disastrous degree. She'd stand and watch someone swing a sword at her neck, unable to move from pure fright.

What animal represents them best:

A gopher snake. It's a rattlesnake mimic, but while it shakes its tail like the rattler, it's non-venemous. Perfect for a loudmouth punk whose bark is worse than her bite.

What is a smell they dislike and like:

Nyda loves the scent of a forest. It reminds her of the more peaceful moments of her childhood and of long trips spent stargazing. A smell she dislikes is the oil and sweat mugginess of a training hall. That reminds her of the less peaceful moments.

Have they broken any bones:

I'd imagine she broke plenty when she was training to be a mercenary as a kid. Also, someone has absolutely broken her jaw at some point - she talks too much shit for that not to have happened.

How would a stranger describe them:

"Oh, honey, steer clear of that one. You see her over there, don't you? The elf with the green mowhawk and a face full of piercings. She's got the scars of a mercenary and she's wearing a dueling belt. I don't know what all those hair tufts on it symbolize, but I doubt it's prized pie baking. Ugh, what a nasty expression. And... is- is that a hole in her chest? Fuck, is she looking at us? Oh, oh gods, run!"

What is a flavor they hate and a flavor they love:

Nyda loves a good barbecued chicken and a beer. She doesn't have much of a taste for sweets, oddly enough. Her least favorite is custard of any kind.

Do they have any favorite hobbies:

Though it eventually became her career, Nyda has always had a passion for the stars. She loves stargazing and tracking the constellations, even taking long solo trips to remote areas in search of the best spot to set up her telescope. She also plays the accordion.

Boom! Surprise birthday party! How do they react to surprises:

She's not a fan of jumpscares, but otherwise, she'd be delighted for any excuse to party. Bring out the drinks! Bring out the presents! In exchange for her friends planning the event, she'll make sure to keep it popping as the life of the party.

Do they like to wear jewelry:

Yes! Nyda has lots of piercings, most notably a chain stretching from her nose to her ear, but also a pair of fanged angel bites, a vertical labret, two sets of eyebrow piercings, and a bridge, as well as a whole mess of ear piercings. Below the neck, she's got both nipples pierced, and a Prince Albert for those gals lucky enough to get there 😏

Do they have neat or messy handwriting:

Fully illegible. Awful. Makes you wonder how she graduated elementary school.

What are two emotions they feel the most:

Rowdy excitement and deep shame.

Do they have any favorite fabric:

I feel like Nyda is more knowledgeable about fabrics than she looks, given how much of her style is DIY. I'm gonna go with leather. She's quite skilled at working with it.

What kind of accent do they have:

Canonically, she has a vaguely Slavic accent, but in my head, she's from Chicago.

I'll tag @mk-writes-stuff @tragedycoded @finickyfelix @sergeantnarwhalwrites @mysticstarlightduck and anyone else who wants to play :)

(Questions under the cut)

Do they have any pet peeves:What uncommon fears/ phobias do they have:What are three items you can find in their bedroom:What do they notice first in people:What is their pain tolerance on a scale from 1 to 10:Do they go into fight or flight mode under pressure:What animal represents them best:What is a smell they dislike and like:Have they broken any bones:How would a stranger describe them:What is a flavor they hate and a flavor they love:Do they have any favorite hobbies:Boom! Surprise birthday party! How do they react to surprises:Do they like to wear Jewelry:Do they have neat or messy handwriting:What are two emotions they feel the most:Do they have any Favorite Fabric:What kind of accent do they have:

[whumpsoda]

Can I request a part 2 of the "Your Name is Villain" piece pls?

Yes ofc!! :)) Apologies if this took a little while and it’s not the greatest, I didn’t have many ideas for it. Part 1- Your Name is Villain

cw: implications of workplace abuse

—————————————————————

Gingerly, Sidekick bumped her sore knuckles against the hardwood door. “Come in!” A muffled voice invited from the other side.

Swinging open the intimidatingly humongous door, she was met with Leader’s piercing stare. Contrast to Sidekick, the other woman was always unsettlingly well put together, even under the most demanding of times. Judging from the dark circles forming under Leader’s eyes, it was easy to tell now was one of said times.

“Hey, um, we need to talk. Please.” She carefully shut the door behind her, mindful to keep the noise to a minimum. Leader was incredibly easy to irritate on a good day, and a bad day was unimaginable.

Leader rubbed her temple with calloused fingers, carelessly tossing asside a stack of papers. “Make it quick, Sidekick.” She huffed, bitterly.

“I- of course, ma’am.” Rigidly, she placed herself in the uncushioned chair vertical to Leader’s desk. Tightly intertwining the fabric of her sweater in her chubby finger’s, she watched Leader’s knife sharp nails tap impatiently against the wooden desk.

“Well?”

“I- I’m sorry,” The constant, quick tapping of Leader’s heels against the tile ran her throat dry. “I just… I’m getting really worried about hero-”

“I knew it!” Leader waved a hand her direction, practically shooing Sidekick away.

“This is the fourth time this week, Sidekick!” Pinching the bridge of her nose, Leader fell into the back of her office chair.

Sidekick almost jumped out of her seat. “Yes, Ma’am, I know, but it’s been two weeks he’s been gone! I’m getting scared, and I don’t know what to do, and it’s like you’re not listening to me-”

“Because I’m not!” Leader exclaimed, throwing her hands into the air. “Do you understand how many times Hero has been kidnapped by an enemy? How many times he has figured it out on his own? How many times he has returned basically unscathed?!” 

Sidekick’s heart beat out of her chest, the sound filling her ears. “I- well yes, but-”

Leader jumped, ready to interject once again. “If I was you, Sidekick, I think I’d be more aware of his patterns than anyone! I would honestly think he was getting himself captured on purpose!” Leader shook her head dissapointedly.

Sidekick felt an undeniable heat rise in her stomach. “Well, ma’am, if you’d let me speak, I’d like to bring to your attention that it often doesn’t take two weeks for Hero to get himself out of a predicament like this one! And, y’know, all those other times were familiar Villains! Ones easy to thwart!” 

“And what’s your point?”

“Well, I mean, we don’t know this Villain! We don’t even know what his power is! What if it’s something that Hero can’t defeat? What if he’s in pain right now, maybe being tortured, and you’re just brushing this all off!” Sidekick was almost yelling, the fact that Leader was the recipient not processing in her mind. 

“Hero is not helpless, Sidekick! I bet he’d be insulted over the way his mere sidekick, looks down on him!” She slammed her fists against the chill wood surface, spitting as she shouted into the face of her subordinate.

“I- that’s not what I said-!”

“Shush, Sidekick! I don’t have the time to deal with your feeble worries, I already have a headache as it is!” Leader plopped exhasbiratefly back into her seat.

“But-!”

“I already told you, Hero is more than capable of saving himself! The top hero in the city being captured by a small-name villain is the least of my concerns! Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must continue working on the speech for my ceremony next week!” Once again, she dismissed Sidekick with a frustrated flick of the wrist.

Sidekick sputtered, words halting on her tongue from the stabbing glare of the older woman. Begrudgingly, she turned to the door with nothing but a scowl and the fury rising up her throat.

…

“Oh, hey, sir!” Hero perked up, giving Supervillain a wide smile. Hero held a cracked, worn out broom in two hands.

Supervillain recoiled slightly. He still hadn’t gotten used to having a roommate. “Oh. Sorry. Hello, Villain.” He said, fiddling with his shirt awkwardly. Hero waved frantically back at him.

“No! No need to be sorry, sir! I didn’t mean to startle you! I forgot it takes you a little while to get situated after just waking up.” The man looked to Supervillain with a sheepish smile. 

Having only been residing with Supervillain two weeks, it seemed a bit worrying that Hero was picking up such things about him. Or, rather, unfamiliar. Supervillain hadn’t had someone notice things about him in a long time, namely from the lack of a social life. It was a bit uncomfortable how much Hero seemed to care.

“There’s, um, nothing to apologize for.” It was then that Supervillain took notice of the contents sprawled out on the foldable table behind Hero. Whatever it was, the heavenly smell wafted through Supervillain’s nostrils.

Hero must have noticed him staring, and cheerfully motioned Supervillain over. “I almost forgot! I hope it’s alright but I made you breakfast!” Supervillain caught the broom before it could fall to the chill concrete floor, Hero to eager to show off to even realize he har dropped it. “I… I noticed you don’t really eat a whole lot, cause you’re always working all the time, and, y’know, people always say breakfast is the most important meal!”

The subject of the delicious smell was a hearty platter of warm, freshly cooked stereotypical breakfast foods. Supervillain hadn’t seen such an angelic, large portion of food since he had been maybe ten. 

Before he could even thank the gifter, Supervillain came to a shaking realization.

“Hero.” Hero perked up, eyes wide from the stern tone of his voice. “Where did you get the things to make all this?” 

It was practically mind bending, the way the strongest hero in the city looked down at him with such fearful, gaping eyes. “I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to go against you. I-I know I wasn’t supposed to go out, I promise. I just wanted to do something nice, please, I swear, I promise.” 

Hero looked like a kicked puppy.

Supervillain, having no prolonged contact with anyone in maybe ten years, had unsurprisingly, no clue what his next step was. The realization of Hero’s rule breaking had quickly infuriated him, yet the look on the man’s face led guilt, an emotion he thought he’d rid long ago, to crawl out.

“N- it- Villain, it’s fine. Don’t look at me like that. Please.” Supervillain pressed a rigid hand to Hero’s shoulder, in a manner meant to be comforting, although not exactly following through.

“Sorry! Sorry, sir.” Hero straightened his back, holding his hands in front of himself.

It always unsettled Supervillain, the way he was so eager to please. While it made Supervillain’s plans of making him a villainous assistant far easier, his obedient nature was obviously unhealthy. 

“Just… don’t do that again. Ever. It’s too dangerous.”

“Of course not, sir. I don’t even know what I was thinking, breaking one of your rules.” Hero laugher nervously, eventually trailing off into uncomfortable silence.

After awkwardly patting Hero on the shoulder one time too many, Supervillain gracefully plucked a piece of bacon from the plate. Hero watched patiently, seemingly awaiting Supervillain’s approval.

Soon after Supervillain dug into the delectable meal, Hero took the opportunity to speak up. “So, sir, I have another surprise for you.” Supervillain met the man’s excited expression.

“I’m working on a plan. I know that you said we need to take it easy for a while, with you rescuing me and all, but I really want to get back at the agency. And I’ve worked it all out, I promise!” Hero grinned, a hint of wickedness tainting a smile that had been popularized as a symbol of heroism.

Supervillain gave him a small smile in return, his mouth stuffed to the brim with egg.

“I can’t wait to see the look on their faces when we show up. When they realize that you saved me, and I’m not just their little toy anymore.” Fiery rage slipped into his voice, so unsettling to hear in the man’s voice that Supervillain had stopped his eating entirely. 

The air in the room shifted with Hero’s strong emotions. “Revenge will feel so good. Can’t wait to see Sidekick’s face as we blow the building to pieces.”

A moment of strange silence followed as he calmed, just as quickly as he had riled up.

Sometimes Supervillain forgot how terrifying Hero could really be.

[chuckeroo777]

Frieren Liveblog- Chapters 9-12

Welcome back! Last time, we finally got our main mission! Let's see what meager progress they make this time!

This scene is sweet, even if I don't think Heiter can fulfill this promise.

Uh-oh. Fern is totally gonna fall for the monster's deception.

Have I mentioned how cute these two are?

So, what if instead of silly Amongus shenanigans, the shapeshifter inflicted pure psychic damage.

Heh, Himmel is such a goodie two shoes that his evil doppelganger surrendered immediately.

...Fern is frighteningly powerful. Frieren probably even more so.

):

There's no way this pans out the way they think. Right?

Naturally, as soon as I compliment their power, they run into a foe immune to the big'ol blast.

Ah. I'm guessing this will be the guy with the axe I briefly glimpsed when checking the timescale. I wonder if this will be a core cast of three, or if they'll gain any other companions?

With silence that pointed, Stark is either really good, or really bad.

Fern, please prevent Frieren from delving too deep into the forbidden magicks. That stuff can be used for great evil.

How very interesting. Gonna toss this theory out before the reveal: Stark didn't intimidate the dragon. The dragon is Stark's comrade. That's why he's upset to hear they attacked it.

Lmao, come back when you have a proper scar vertically bisecting your eye, like a real warrior.

Ah yes, I knew Frieren had good taste. Another Golem appreciator.

Ah, so not a secret dragoon. (Though with a little luck, that could still become true by the end of the chapter.) Hopefully he isn't too whiny if he's gonna stick around.

Fear not the man who learns 100 techniques, but the man who uses one technique so much he reshaped an entire cliff face, holy cow dude. Even if his gumption is low, his power is high. Hopefully that axe is adamant or something. Can't imagine how much repair a steel axe would need over three years of chopping solid rock.

Oh no. Don't tell me these two are going to have a romance arc. I can feel it in my gut. Maybe I'll warm up to it later, but for now, Fern is too good for you Stark.

Fern would rather not play tag with a dragon today.

I see you are approaching me. (That's another manga I've got to get around to reading eventually.)

Crit stacking builds are always fun. Reminds me of the last campain I was in, where our warrior was THE dps, laying down ridiculous damage with his two handed mattock. Alas, he had the weakness of dozing off before the session was over, leaving the rest of the party to fend for themselves.

God, I love this stoic little gremlin.

You could always just use booze. I'm sure Heiter would love it.

Noooo! Not you too! Turn away from the dark side Fern!

Unfortunately, in my experience, getting into trouble is practically all adventurers do. A little surprised Frieren isn't more of a troublemaker, but I suppose she is exceptionally patient.

Yep, they're totally flirting, whether they know it or not.

:/

Odds of you returning in time are... not amazing, considering the themes being explored. Then again, if this mission is successful, you could always talk to him in Aureole.

Curses! My slovenly plans have been foiled!

Another fun session. Stark seems like a good addition to the crew. With one companion from Hieter, and one from Eisen, I wonder if we will get someone connected to Himmel, or if that's just Frieren.

[unicyclehippo]

your werewoof, ocean + milkshake + quiet

it was quiet in the library. it was supposed to be quiet in the library but felix had brought some milk beverage with him and sucked at it obnoxiously.

the second time it caught their attention, lawrence looked up from the heavy tome and stared flatly at their companion.

‘what is that?’

‘what’s what?’ felix crowded in close—as if lawrence could possibly have been asking his opinion on their research project. ‘the gorge - gorgin ocean—‘

‘gorgian.’

‘i know! obviously. the gorgian ocean. huh. looks cool. wait, holy shit, is that water? all of it? who owns it? they must be crazy strong.’

lawrence ignored his questions. there was a drip of pink at the corner of felix’s mouth and his breath—the drink—smelled sickly sweet. the scent was artificial, almost chalky, and suddenly it was all that lawrence could smell; it hadn’t always been like this, they were sure. this was changing too. the thought sent a curl of anger through them and lawrence turned it quick on their companion.

digging a harsh finger into his shoulder, lawrence pushed felix back.

‘i don’t need help reading, mister coureset.’ as ever, the use of his proper address made the boy roll his eyes. or perhaps it was their tone, derisive as it was. ‘i’m enquiring after the nature of the beverage you’ve brought with you to what is, may i remind you, a clandestine operation.’

‘the drink?’ felix clarified, baffled. ‘what about it?’

‘whatever made you bring it? and why?’

he glanced down at the synthic cup—it was garish, dressed in vertical stripes of red and white, with a matching straw in horizontal blue and purple—and back up.

‘it…tastes good?’ when lawrence’s expression didn’t lighten, he widened his eyes, empeaching. ‘aw, come on, snoop. cut me some slack—i’ve been tailing that guy all night, i needed somethin’ to perk me up again!’

‘it’s energised?’

felix scrunched his nose. ‘ew, no. it’s sweet.’

not useful, then. lawrence’s interest in the beverage waned. they turned away with a final, mild scowl.

‘drink it if you must. but cease blowing bubbles and do not spill on anything.’

felix rolled his eyes. ‘i’m not a little kid,’ he said, immediately before fumbling with the cup. he caught it before the pink milk could splash across the shelf and grimaced an apology. ‘i’ll keep watch, shall i?’

‘yes. why don’t you.’

//

time crawled among the stacks and raced outside them. it felt like no time at all had passed before the itch began to build again in lawrence’s gut. they flinched, hand flying to their middle, and groaned quietly as the itch became a wet insistent scrape.

‘snoop?’ felix whispered. ‘you good?’

lawrence opened their mouth to respond—another scrape in their gut, the soft of them warping, twisting around something sharp and harsh. their mouth shut with a clack of teeth.

‘fine,’ they grunted. eyed the full shelf of books they hadn’t got to. they could hold out, maybe—something was clawing at their ribs—maybe not. ‘i - something has come to my attention, coureset. i need -‘ blood in the back of their throat. they cleared their throat quietly. swallowed. ‘i need these books. your bag—‘

‘i can only fit maybe five of ‘em.’

‘fine.’

‘which ones do you—‘

‘it doesn’t matter,’ lawrence bit. they shook their head. whatever this was, it wasn’t going to ruin their case. ‘wait. this one, these two,’ they grabbed the books off the shelf. ‘the - the blue binding, yes, very good. and this one. thank you.’

felix eyed them. ‘feeling alright?’ he chuckled. ‘don’t think you’ve ever thanked me before.’

lawrence froze around the feeling of their gut peeling open. ‘hm,’ they grunted. ‘head back to the fiveleaf. leave the books in my room—and get yourself one nearby. i’ll need the books re-ah. returned tomorrow.’ they pushed a coin purse into his hand and turned sharply on their heel, biting down down down onto the warp and crack of their jaw. not yet. not yet. not yet, you fucking beast. not yet. i’m not ready—

the door of the library opened slowly, heavy. lawrence moved carefully to the nearest alley, the slow walk of a man with nothing to hide save perhaps a bladder he needed to empty in the privacy of a dark street. they moved deeply into the alley. it twisted away from the Main Street, it was still too clean too bright but claws were shoving out of the meat of their fingers and their teeth wriggled, two score metal beetles wriggling in their jaw, and lawrence couldn’t hold it back anymore.

please. don’t let him see. their last thought before their body exploded into meat and blood, bones and a red wrecked rage.

[polarhorror]

@shaddy-bee

@uwu-scraptrappy

@viktheviking1

@adventures-in-mimesis

My board game!!

It's basically Risk but in grid form.

OBJECTIVE: you play as one of the colors and Take over all the other colors!

Explanation and rules: you play as a color, to win you need to take other players capitals.

Your capital is the star in your colored area, if you lose your capital in fighting you are disqualified!

How do I fight others?

You start with 1 unit, (square)

You have 2 different kinds of units that you can make, a strong unit, (circles) and weaker units. (Squares)

Stronger units take longer to make but do more damage.

What happens in fighting?

You have 2 sets of units that fight each other, the one with the higher strength number wins the battle. The loser of the battle will move back and lose their weakest unit.

Does that mean I can stack units?

yes! However, you can only stack up to 3 units in one grid square.

What is shown above is the different ways you can stack units (I'll probably change how the units look )

You can move units 4 squares vertical, horizontal and diagonally for each turn. If you are moving in a different player's territory then you move only 1 unit.

like pawns in chess, you can attack diagonally but not move diagonally in a player's territory.

Can I ally with others?

Yes! but only with 1 other player to prevent targeting.

Can I trade units with others?

Yes! and is very encouraged.

The game will start in a few days! It will be over the course of many days! (maybe even weeks!) If you have any questions about the game then please tell me!

The players are:

@shaddy-bee on the red team!

@adventures-in-mimesis on the blue team!

@uwu-scraptrappy on the yellow team!

@viktheviking1 on the green team!

Have fun playing!

[mangocoal]

Just a silly Blender and Photoshop thing I did today. Did the model posing for Jack-O', her minion, and Red Hood in Blender. Got the VFX for the hit green screening GGST and got the slash effect by cutting it out from an image on Dustloop. It was absolutely ridiculous ordeal to get the Jack-O' minion to look somewhat right. They stack ALL 3 FACES on the same model so I had to delete a couple layers of vertices and try not to get rid of anything important which took quite a while. And even then, I couldn't get it perfect because the pink blushes are too close to the mouth but I wasn't in the mood to fix that. Posing everyone else wasn't too hard, just time consuming. Since I wasn't doing anything complicated with the hair, it was thankfully not too hard to get it to somewhat look right. I tried to make it look like she's doing the Jotaro Kujo pose from JJBA Stardust Crusaders. Not really sure of what caption to put with this, if any. Would it have made more sense to put a Guilty Gear character getting hit in this scene? Yes. But I'm using the metaphorical toybox right now so I can put whoever I want together.

[mealvaan]

Two Heads are Better than One

Vahri'a's picatrix was lain amid the unwashed ceramics, a small stone keeping it spread flat. It hadn't been cleansed in a while, and some of the inkwork had worn with time and friction, for Vahri'a had stopped using it as a grimoire altogether last year. However, there was the occasional spell of use that remained within these pages and not yet on his skin. This was one of them.

He worked his fingers over the geometry, his own latent aether to the page. With the flick of his wrist, he pulled in a touch of the signature aether from atop the neighboring plates, funneling it into the equation — then the splay of his hand dissipated it in completion of the spell.

"Now it'll wash off easily," Vahri'a demonstrated. He lifted the plate vertically, picked up the basin, and ran the water over its surface. The once-stuck morsels were swept away in the current, leaving the ceramic plain and clean. He handed it to Mana.

"You can do this with ephemancy?"

"With arcanima, yes."

Mana took up the remaining plate and washed it off, then stacked the two parallel on the drying rack.

"Whew! Thank you. I'll need to learn that one some time," she said, then tapped her chin with a curious index finger. "I wonder if you could modify that spell so that it just removes the stuck-bits entirely…"

"Arcanist spells primarily work for non-living matter, save for spoken humors which we understand quite intimately. The once-living and the living are the realm of the thaumaturge and the conjurer respectively," Vahri'a was quick to answer in what Mana knew to be his 'teacher voice', though he cleared his throat out of it. "But, I don't see why it can't be done. All things are made from aether."

"Exactly," Mana said, brandishing a wooden spoon like a wand. "If I knew the alchemical composition of the food, surely I could factor that into the spell?"

Vahri'a had never thought of this key interaction between three seemingly adverse disciplines: alchemy, the culinary arts, and the magic of arcanima. Visorless, Mana was rewarded with the rare sight of her cousin… impressed. Speechless, even.

"Can I take a copy of this spell?" Mana asked, breaking the silence and picking up Vahri'a's picatrix.

"Ah, it's a little complex. Let me make a copy for you," Vahri'a offered, gently taking his book back.

"At least let me supply the aetherial ink, then. That's expensive."

"I have more than I would ever need. Consider it a gift."

"You've already done me enough favors."

The ambient sound of water crashing against bathroom tile occasionally interspersed their conversation, and had become welcome background noise at this point. What perked both their ears was a hum — coming from behind the thick washroom door, T'orii hummed a momentary ditty. Either she had forgotten entirely that the two were just outside, or she knew and didn't care.

"Our song of hope, she dances on the wind… higher, oh higher…"

Vahri'a's heart thumped and thawed.

"I know how I can pay you back," Mana chimed. She was looking at Vahri'a, who had been looking far away. He knew immediately what she meant and his ears braced to the top of his head, yet she spoke it all the same: "You've a brilliant mind, Vahri'a, but in the Goddess's name — let me help you with the matters of the heart."

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

Back in Everkeep, Ish'kirya thought he had the best bedroom setup achievable to man. It was a massive project he undertook when he turned twenty-one and finally started earning his own money (the True Vue way), when his first cashed check was lush.

Oddly, Ish'kirya was inspired by the luxury pod hotel he stayed at. It was a rare visit to the 4th Level, and he hadn't expected there to be amenities of any sort on the production floor, yet it seemed like those who worked in the factories stayed late oft enough to require such a thing.

By the time Ish'kirya had finished with his bedroom, it was the pod's concept taken to new levels of comfort and automation. Everything predicated on a pre-programmed 'morning time'.

Half a bell before the morning time, the room would gradually fill with natural ambient sounds — miscellaneous bird calls, the gentle rustle of wind through leaves, and a dash of white noise that helped everything blend together (and leave out unsightly audio blemishes).

A quarter of a bell after that, the room would slowly introduce a golden glow, starting from the gradiated strips he placed on the floor and slowly rising to the ceiling, until the whole room was bathed in faux-sunlight.

Once the scheduled time hit, the birdsong would hit its apex in a much more forgiving alarum, and a beam of sunlight would soak in over his face from a carefully placed electrope light. The upper half of the mattress floated up and forward, while the latter stayed steady; the bed would prop him up in a reclined sitting position, the perfectly placed eye-beam moving with it, and he'd wake to a synthetic sunrise.

By the time the project was done, his room was a holy sanctum, the comforts of which had never been achieved even by the Residential Sector commissioned for millions of credits by Praxis Park. He achieved it himself, and that was the beauty of Alexandrian society. Everything was by design. There were no gods. Only mankind could determine what was best for mankind.

Ish'kirya awoke in the Sheshenewezi Springs inn room. Sunlight filtered through the dilapidated window as distant, uncurated birds called — eagles, he thought. He still lay vertical, but the sun beam hit his eyes anyway. Rubbing stardust out of his eyes, he sat up, awake.

Huh.

He didn't like looking at his face in the morning light, ignoring the mirror entirely as he brushed his teeth and splashed his cheeks with lukewarm water. How he missed closets that would cycle outfits out for him, mists that tacitly applied his lotion, primer and foundation.

Truly, Ish'kirya couldn't be bothered with any of it, and he got right to the meat of the day. Straight from the sink, he sat at the bedside bureau. Little pieces of electrope were undergoing delicate engravings with a needle and pocket knife. He had a nice laser cutter that he used to hook up to his computer at home for electrope matters…

"You're up early," grunted Iron Lotus, who finally awoke. Ish'kirya turned around. He was still getting used to seeing her without her helmet, before her own morning ritual.

"Woke with the sunrise. What can I say?"

"You say a lot. Is the levin rod ready then?"

"Nope. A little bit of patience goes a long way, you know." It was taking longer than he expected, though he'd never admit it in so many words. Lotus stood and took a look at his workdesk. He looked up at her expectantly, hoping his return-fire gaze would deter her from watching over his shoulder.

"You're working with a pocket knife?"

"There's a needle here too, if you look with your eyes."

"Mm."

"What? Use your vocabulary," he scolded, turning his chair all the way around. "We're not fuckin' lush on tools, you know."

"There's probably something better to use."

Ish'kirya hated these vague sentiments. His mothers were big fans of them; nudging him in an indeterminate direction, expecting him to get it with the faintest 'suggestions' of advice and patting themselves on the back for words that barely counted as hints. He gave Lotus a withering look, but her back was turned. Great. He'd be passive aggressively nudged to success from—

"Here."

By the time he turned his back, Lotus had approached him. Between fur-lined digits was what Ish'kirya could only describe as a tiny spear (he had seen the like in RPGs); a thin implement with a bladed edge on the end, sharpened to a tight point. The whetting wasn't even, but the end was precise enough despite the more than apparent handmadeness to it.

"What's this?"

"Scalpel."

Ish'kirya took it into his own hands and twirled it. A scalpel, she said. He tested it on the side of the desk, watching it curl up a wood shaving in its wake.

"Cool."

Lotus said nothing. They weren't the type for please's and thank you's, between Ish'kirya's brash demeanour and Lotus's unapologetic silence. Despite how far behind Shaaloani was, it possessed of niches that Ish'kirya hated to admit he needed. Perhaps he would learn to find it enough.

"How long will it take?" Lotus broke the silence.

"I'm a getting tired of this 'are we there yet' routine, you know. It's giving three-year-old."

Lotus stared dead at Ish'kirya, then made her way downstairs for breakfast. Truly, the preferable means of communication between them was non-verbal.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

Red's night terrors, regrettably, had become a natural alarum for Imogen at this point. She awoke to his scream with a jolt still — that much hadn't been blunted and desensitised, yet — but she relaxed easier than she did the first time, her hands ghosting over Red like a shawl.

"Red. It's me," she said no louder than a whisper, and clinically shook him by the shoulders. It was a gentle jostle, like riding a chocobo carriage on an uneven road. She modulated her voice to rise slightly with every "Red", until she was speaking at normal volume (which, for Imogen, was anyone else's outdoor voice).

Eventually, he quieted awake.

"Sorry," he said. "I—"

Imogen cut him off. "I was having a weird nightmare, so cheers for that."

Red rubbed Althyk's sand from his lashes, turning his bleary blues to her. "What about?"

"I don't really wanna talk about it, honestly."

"Fair do's. Me neither."

Imogen kicked her way out of the blanket and cracked some fire crystals under the kettle, which had a permanent place on their stove. The Kugane estate that Yoki had rented was certainly intended for weddings, she thought; nowhere else would they offer a kitchenette next to the bedroom. She walked her fingers through the tea bag labels, flickering past the various citrus and ginger variants. She fished out two mild greens and dropped them into twin cups — the handleless, Hingan variant.

Red eventually got up and joined her, watching the kettle. He poured it out as she held out the ceramics. He insisted on doing the honey, too, and Imogen was particular about how squeezy 'one squeeze' was.

She wasn't used to seeing the moonlight against the grey of his hair, so she didn't look at it. She only ran her eyes along the fissures of his scars, relieved to still see most of them there.

"Kanpai," said Imogen.

"… Sure," snorted Red.

Imogen brought her tea to bed and took Red's once-place on the far side, where fear-wrought sweat still clung to the sheets. Her breath skid along the surface and turned to fog, then in her impatience, she scalded her tongue with a flinchless sip.

Red didn't drink his tea yet, and that was fine. Imogen was so easily offended by the star, but not him. She slipped a tome off the bedside table by her and waved it at him.

"We've still got a chapter of this pillowbook to devour," she said enticingly, and Red laughed. She didn't know what she'd do if that was taken away from her too, so she savoured every note, memorised the key.

"I thought ye hated th' last chapter."

"Yeah, that's why I want to read more of it. I need more kindling for my fireplace of ire. I'm a hatred-engine running out of steam."

"Or — 'ere's a wild idea — ye actually enjoy the story—"

"I would rather be devoured alive than admit such a thing."

T'was a strange metaphor, yet Red skated past it gracefully. "Right. I'll be Lord Aurumspire and you'll be Lady Bronzebosom?"

"No, let's mix it up this time. You read Lady Bronzebosom's lines."

"I'm flattered, dove. Y'think I've got the bosom to pull it off?"

"Bosom doesn't sound like a word anymore."

Red languidly held one side of the book from the top, and Imogen supported the other with a limp, lackadaiscal wrist. She thumbed the wearing pages, and noticed that they were almost through the novel entirely. Her breath hitched on something in her throat she didn't know was there. She had every temptation to just close the book on Red's fingers and try to read in silence.

Every temptation save one. One small voice in the back of her head, that she gave voice to quietly.

"Let's try and finish this tonight."

"Eager fer the climax?"

"Shut up."

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

The bead-woven entryway parted for a pair of chesnut brown ears, one bisecting the curtain and the other following quickly after. A'tari sat up straight on her sleeping mat, tail fraying at the ends.

It was just A'khadia.

"You should have knocked!"

"On fuckin' what?" A'khadia popped his head back and punched a fist through the curtain in its stead. A'tari chortled, her laughter its own little song, as she waved him in.

"Okay, you can come in now. Thank you for finally showing some decorum."

"Don't get used t' it." He cut a path through the generous space that they'd been given for the festivities, astral wind prickling in his wake. He wasted no time in sitting, cross legged, across his sister. He wasted even less getting to the point. Even the Warrior of Light couldn't dodge it.

"Ye alright? Y'left the council faster than I could blink."

"Of course! I just… had so many ideas, I needed to write them down."

There was no parchment in sight; they both stared at the empty space where it would've been. A'tari was a bad liar when it came to A'khadia specifically, for the sheer reason that she already knew he'd call her bullshit no matter what she said.

"Tari, s'kosher if yer overwhelmed. No one ever makes me do a speech 'cause they know I'd rather jump off'a cliff."

With a great, windy sigh, the Warrior of Light was toppled to her deathbed with mere sentiment.

"It's different for you. They ask me to do speeches wherever I go. Just because I'm a bard doesn't mean I'm good with words!" She pressed her palms into her eyes until she saw stars, the pressure staying her impending headache. "And I don't know anything about war tactics or intertribe politics. I'm not a leader! All I do is hit things until they die."

"Ye saved the star more'n once. Yer more right to be a leader than I am."

"Saving the world doesn't mean you're any good at leading it."

Only recently, she'd accepted the mantle of sage advisor, someone worth following. Past the stars in her eyes, she hears flashes of echo-embedded memories: a horrific wet gurgle parting wisened scales into soft palates of flesh — chalkboard screeches, manic and unyielding to metre, amid blinding gold — and not so far off in the distance, the full, swelling silence of Elene'shpya amid the fading twinkle of electrope.

"I don't know what I'm doing, Khade. Why does everyone think I know what I'm doing? Why does everyone think I'm you?"

A'khadia's hand was ilms from A'tari's shoulder before it retracted, fingers frozen mid-stretch. "Me?"

"You built all of this, palisade by palisade. You made every decision that kept these people alive. I gallivanted my way around Eorzea and fell into success."

A'khadia shook his head. "That ain't fair, Tari. Lizha designed the layout, the farms… I just helped hunt down th'seeds. Dusa stopped me makin' some stupid, headarse decisions n' took 'em into her own hands. And without yer help with the O'ghomoro, we'd all be tempered by now. It's never bin' just me."

A'tari breathed deep of her brother's words.

"I wish the Scions were here," she said, curling up into herself. She couldn't keep the secret from her twin for too much longer, but how she missed them. Alphinaud taking care of silk-spoken words, Alisaie having such a way with compelling ones — swooping in when A'tari suddenly forgot all the vocabulary in the star, Echo and all. Urianger and Y'shtola's thoughtful solutions to age-old problems, Thancred and Estinien's furtive efforts with people on the ground — where A'tari couldn't keep track of the small, moving parts, tunnel-visioned entirely on the monstrous threat in front of her. G'raha and Krile's innate senses for space and aether, concepts she could only dream of grasping, to see beyond what the barely-mage was capable of. And, though she never thought she'd miss it rather than fear it, Tataru's unstoppable sense for business — it encompassed everything she was struggling to do here today.

All these thoughts filled the silence between them. They fell into it often, the twin satellites.

"Let me help ye wit' the speech," A'khadia offered.

"No, you can't do it for me. I can't keep letting people do things for me because I can't. You've already done enough for our people, all because I was scared—"

"Never said I'd do it for ye. Lemme help."

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

It's been eleven years since Dalamud ravaged Eorzea. All those years ago… near everyone we knew was suddenly gone. We'd barely grown beyond cubhood, and now we had the weight of the Antelope's legacy on our shoulders.

It weren't easy. All the family we had was each other, y'see — our mother and Nunh were in Thal's hands — an' the options weren't plenty. We made the 'ard decision to part ways. But it wasn't 'cause we decided t' give up.

I had no idea how I was going to help other people, let alone a tribe. I wanted to figure out who I was, what I was good at. I travelled across Eorzea and threw myself at everything. I'm sure many of you know the habits I fell into, drinking deep of my cups, staying up until the Lover's Bell, living from paycheck to paycheck. A'khadia supported me despite all that.

An' I didn't know how t' live without people aroun' me. I wasn't built ind'pendent like that. I travelled 'tween the tribes and y'let me learn yer ways. Ye didn't have to, and some of ye couldn't — I was another mouth t' feed on top of everythin' that'd happened. But ye all humbled me. I learned so much about our people. A'tari kept me company on the suns that no one could spare a hand.

It was in finding my own way that I learned how to be strong for other people.

It was the strength a' other people tha' helped me find me own way.

The Rising always sits under the constellation of the Goddess, the Balance. Nald'thal presides over it too. They both call us to keep, well, balance — between the self and the people. Between each other. To give when you take, to help when you're helped. It's one of life's many cycles that the Traders preside over.

Thank ye all for comin' to our Risin' memorial celebration today. Ye've helped us all so much, an' we wanna return it. Tari and I'll be sittin' here all evenin'. If ye need advice, a lil' helpin' hand, or even jus' an ear to listen, we'll do our best. We ain't miracle workers — we ain't the Warden — but we're both better listeners than talkers, anyhow.

… That's it! We're gonna sit down now. Come one, come all!

Yeah, jus' lemme take a leak first.

— Khadia Nunh of the Windrunner Antelope Tribe, and the Warrior of Light of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn The Seventh Astral Era, Yr. 11

[autisticredhood]

*SCREAMS ABT YOUR DEATH ECHO POST* YES the parallels between DitF and UtRH!!!! I have no idea if it's on purpose on Winick's part but!!!!! the idea of recreating the event that ruined you, it's just you, your parent, and the fucking Joker. there's a gun, a crowbar, and a bomb in play but this time!! this time you're in control of all of it!! you are not the victim this time you have the power!-- and yet it ends the same way. A parent's betrayal and suffocation under a building. it wasn't supposed to end this way but how else could it have ended it is your story after all and the ending was already written years ago!!!!

guy who fights the narrative & loses & bleeds out saying i chose this. guy who says i won believing he broke off from the narrative pathway but we the viewer can see he's just gone in a circle and come back to the start-end. guy who breaks out of his genre but has the same ending regardless

ID under

[ID: two images.

First image is an edit of three panels stacked vertically from Under the Red Hood. The first panel is of Jason holding the Joker in a chokehold and pointing a gun at off-screen Batman. The edited caption is “You’re in control of all of it.” Next is a close up of Jason’s teary eye with the edited caption “You are not the victim.”. Finally, Jason lies in a pool of his blood next to a discarded gun with the back of the Joker’s head in the foreground. The edited caption is “This time you have the power.”.

Second image is an edit of three panels stacked vertically. The first panel is of Jason yelling a drawn out “Ugh!” from inside his coffin. He is in a black and white suit with his mouth wide open in a scream. Below his chest there is a celestial purple glow of the outside force that resurrected him. The edited caption is “You’re in control of all of it.”. Next is Robin Jason lying on the ground in a pool of his blood with the edited caption of “You are not the victim.”. Finally, Red Hood Jason lies on the ground in a pool of his blood with Batman’s cape in the background. A speech bubble from off-screen Joker says “And everybody still loses!!” The edited caption is “This time you have the power.” 

End ID.]