unicyclehippo

[unicyclehippo]

I love Halloween.

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[unicyclehippo]

COSMOKNIGHTS VOLUME 2

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beach day 😘

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Moiraine Damodred & Lan Mandragoran in The Wheel of Time (2021 - present)

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fish_irl

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i love you, Two Catfish as Street Musicians in the Kashina district, ca 1855 of an unidentified artist, you go so hard

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having death on her knees... crazy stuff only agatha harkness could do

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"what's your dream job??" Uhh to have 17 weird little hobbies that I don't have to be good at and hang out with friends. I get money via being the world's specialist little princess

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[unicyclehippo]

WAUDNA WEDNESDAY. CLASS SWAP TIME.

[content warnings: animal death/butchery, intrusive thoughts]

I made this for you, Laudna says.

She must say it to Imogen a thousand times. Sometimes out loud, sometimes just in her head – no, no, I need to get this right, it’s for Imogen – and sometimes she doesn’t say it at all; sometimes Imogen will open her bag and find a little toy horse that neighs and whickers, or a glowing Catha that she can hold in the palm of her hand. She learns to fall asleep to Laudna’s vague muttering, the clicking of her tools, the clicking of her mind as it purrs along to itself. And in the morning Laudna will hand Imogen a wand made of chicken bones, a robe with embroidered red flowers, a pair of boots she has cobbled together out of scraps and nothing: I made this for you. I made this for you. I made this for you.

Tonight, Laudna is cooking them supper (I made this for you). Imogen has a hard time watching her take the rabbits apart – instead she’s leaving Laudna to her work, and lying on her back to watch the stars. She can still hear the sounds, but that’s more reasonable.

“Laudna?” she says.

A sudden, thrilled ringing from Laudna’s mind: she said my name! The dissection stops. “Imogen?”

“You’ve made me so many beautiful things,” Imogen says. “Don’t you ever...I mean, are you gonna make something for yourself?”

“I made Pâté,” Laudna says instantly. (“Hi,” Pâté says.) “And I don’t really need anything. I quite like this skirt. Do you think I need a new skirt?”

“No,” Imogen says; she swallows, smothers the feeling so she can say: “It’s lovely.”

“Do you really think so?”

“I do.”

Laudna makes a delighted little sound (which is beautiful) and then brings down the meat cleaver (which is not). Imogen winces despite herself. She could cover her ears, she could talk in their heads – but that’ll make Laudna so sad, and Imogen doesn’t want to make her sad. Besides, she should get real acquainted with that rabbit: its bones are going to end up in her bag soon, one way or another.

“I mean,” Imogen says, “it’s not about needing, right? Just...don’t you want pretty things? A moon? A—”

Laudna gasps hugely, like Imogen has just said the world’s most intelligent possible sentence. “I could make Ruidus!” she yelps in delight. “We could match!”

“No, come on,” Imogen says, “no one likes Ruidus, that’s the little shitty one. And that’s not what I—”

She sits up. For a moment, Laudna is Ruidus – then Imogen blinks, and it’s just that Laudna’s hands are red. She has the rabbits’ legs placed neatly next to each other on one side of the cutting board; at the other end, Pâté is chopping garlic. Then, belatedly, he freezes too.

“You should…” Imogen says. “Don’t you want, I don’t know, a...a forge? Gold? Nice boots? A wand? You keep – Laudna, I don’t – you don’t even have a bedroll!”

It isn’t working the way it’s supposed to: Laudna’s face just turns inwards, like a quick-rotting lemon. Her eyes get bigger and bigger and wetter and sadder.

“I don’t need a bedroll,” she says. (Her voice is very small.) “I don’t sleep, really. I just sit and stare for a few hours. I...do you not want me to…?” In the smallest voice imaginable: “Is it too much?”

Imogen can barely hear her. Laudna’s mind has been getting louder and harsher and more and more horrible to listen to – metal grating on metal, the contents of an armory being dropped from a great height over and over again. It’s impossible to hear anything but that sound: YOU’RE TOO MUCH! YOU’RE TOO MUCH! YOU’RE ALWAYS TOO MUCH! YOU ARE FRIGHTENING AND HORRID AND STRANGE, YOU WILL NEVER MAKE ANYONE HAPPY, NO ONE WANTS YOUR GIFTS, STOP GIVING THEM! YOU’VE SCARED HER! YOU’VE UPSET HER! YOU’VE RUINED IT AGAIN! YOU’VE RUINED EVERYTHING AGAI—

—and then the sound stops, because Imogen has stumbled around the campfire to hug her.

She buries her face in Laudna’s hair – in part to be close to her, to try and muffle that horrible sound, but in part so she doesn’t have to look at the rabbits. She holds Laudna impossibly tightly, like she wants to break her body down and put her in the stew. Maybe she does want that. Maybe she wants Laudna to feel the same way Imogen feels about her: impossibly, meltingly tender.

“It’s not too much,” Imogen says. “I love it. Do you know – gods, Laudna, do you know how long it’s been since someone gave me – since anyone—” Her throat is choked; she can’t talk about it, she can’t say another word about it; she has to say something else! Anything else! “I love that you make me things. I really do. I always – I wish you could make a thousand of them, and that they’d all stay magic forever. I want—”

That’s not better, Imogen! Don’t promise her the rest of your life!

“—I,” Imogen says, and stumbles, and recovers. “I just want. I. I want to be able to do that for you, but I can’t.” She tucks her face against the lethal edge of Laudna’s shoulder. “I can’t. I’m not good with – I don’t know how to do it. That’s not what my magic...it just breaks things. And it makes everything loud. I want – gods, I don’t know what I’m saying. I just want you to have beautiful things. Things that make you happy, the way all your gifts make me happy.”

Laudna’s mind burbles wordless confusion. She doesn’t understand? it mumbles eventually. Why do I but I don’t how could I she is my beautiful thing. Imogen, you are my beautiful thing. You’re my gift. You make me happy.

I should tell her that, Laudna thinks to herself. I should tell her! Why don’t I tell her! Oh, because she’d think I’m – I thought she knew. Maybe if I make her...what do I make her that says...and then her mind clicks into gear again, spinning happily along, building Imogen flowers from rabbit bones and stars from pebbles and dust. When Imogen sniffles, she realizes that she’s crying. Then she feels it: Laudna has reached up, and hugged her back.

“Never mind,” Imogen says. “I’m sorry. I l...I’m really, really happy to be traveling with you, you know that? I feel like...you’re my favorite person. In the world. And I just want you to feel special.”

And Laudna says quietly: “I do. You make me feel very special, you know. No one’s ever liked my presents before.”

“More for me, then.”

Laudna jolts. “Do you want more?”

Imogen leans back. She knuckles the tears out of her eyes, and then she reaches out and smears black gunk from Laudna’s cheekbones. “Anything you want to give me,” she says. “I just want it because you wanted to give it to me.”

“Oh,” Laudna says. She blinks a few times. “I...oh. Oh. Well. I—”

“I want dinner,” Pâté says. Both Imogen and Laudna startle badly; they shoot each other identical wide-eyed oh shit looks. And seeing her own shock on Laudna’s face makes Imogen laugh – she can’t help it – and then she’s laughing helplessly, tears back in her eyes, and Laudna is laughing with her, and Imogen can’t even remember what was so funny in the first place. Laudna’s weight is fully leaned against Imogen, dandelion-light and sharp and warm.

“Pâté,” Laudna wheezes, “Pâté, you don’t – Imogen, he doesn’t eat.”

“He doesn’t, he doesn’t have a mouth.”

“I didn’t make him a mouth!”

“Yeah,” Pâté mutters sulkily, “but I’ve chopped all the bloody garlic.”

“Oh,” Laudna sighs, the word a long extended sound. “Yes, you did. Good work, Pâté. Yes, right, I should make the stew. Oh! Imogen! Are you alright, I know you don’t like the—”

“It’s okay,” Imogen says. “I don’t mind it.”

“Still,” Laudna says. “Still, just – go lie back down, let me cook for you. Let us cook for you, sorry, Pâté—”

“Yeah, yeah, you were havin’ a moment.”

“Yes, but I wouldn’t forget you.”

“Bet you say that to all the homunculi.”

“I don’t have any other homunculi, Pâté, darling—”

Imogen lets their chattering fade back into background noise. She watches Laudna for another moment more – as Laudna goes to put up her hair, finds it’s already in its bun, and just sort of flutters around helplessly before clicking back into the task at hand. And then there she is again – Laudna – focused on making something beautiful. Imogen’s gift. Her beautiful thing. Her favorite person in the world.

Imogen lies back down again. She watches Laudna make her something beautiful.

[unicyclehippo]

nasty little mans all caked up for your birthday entertainment 🍰

silly little thing for @dadrielle!

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got distracted while going through my ds9 screencaps and had to draw this contemplative and sensitive sisko slay

bonus sketch version because i like him

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My Rook's evolution through the game and some images from his dreams (I put a magnifying glass to his big ass forehead and saw what he was dreaming about).

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A zillion hours of hammering, skiving, dyeing, and Angelus paint later, finally finished my rapier hanger.

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Obsessed with this year's grand prize winner of the Bulwer Lytton Fiction Contest

2022 Grand Prize Winner

"I knew she was trouble the second she walked into my 24-hour deli, laundromat, and detective agency, and after dropping a load of unmentionables in one of the heavy-duty machines (a mistake that would soon turn deadly) she turned to me, asking for two things: find her missing husband and make her a salami on rye with spicy mustard, breaking into tears when I told her I couldn't help—I was fresh out of salami."