woodsmokepine - Tumblr blog

woodsmokepine · 5 months ago

Text

LeoDia Crime City Nightmare Excerpt

Pitch: Elixirs and horrors from beyond the fabric of space prowl the alleys of Valoran City. Leona is a private investigator wasting her days away, waiting for something to happen to her. A simple missing persons case turns out to run much deeper than she expected, and before she knows it, she's in over her head in a world of demons, alchemy, and magic.

Note: This is just an excerpt. It probably won't turn into anything substantial. I was just happy with how this passage turned out and thought I'd post it.

The end of the third shift blew in the drunks like a tropical storm over the Serpent Isles. Locusts, all of them. Descending upon the hapless dive bars and watering holes of Valoran City, ravaging the liquor supply until the sun struggled to rise over the skyline. They’d stumble along trashed streets, falling into gutters or the arms of nightmares.

It was nights like these where the more well adjusted had the sense to stay home. Kick back, watch the news talk about how bad it was right outside their front doors. Eat their processed food and imagine all the horrible things lurking in the alleys behind their apartments.

If Leona was anything close to well adjusted, she’d be right there with them. Maybe that could have been her, in another life. But she had a hole in her shoulder nine millimeters wide, and an even wider hole in her heart. The first had been her fault, the second might not have been.

But it probably was.

Smoke curled off the end of her cigarette, a gray specter lurking in the shadows of her office. Laughs outside her door, a knock. No one with any business with her knocked. She didn’t bother getting up. Scuffed leather creaked as she leaned back and put her dull black boots atop the dark, splintering wood of her desk. Cigarette dangling between two fingers, Leona loosened her tie and sighed. Another visit from the good doctor it was, then.

She uncorked the glass decanter on her desk, pouring the caramel-colored liquid into her only glass. Both had been a gift when she left the force. She couldn’t remember from who. Her suspenders pulled at her shoulders as she knocked back the shot, her gun knocked against her ribs as she set the glass back down.

Should have been another slow night of smoke and drink, another wasted opportunity for any way out of the hole she’d dug herself into. Should have been another few hours passed out at her desk, locked behind three deadbolts and a chain.

But those gutters and rain-soaked streets never forgot her name, and their calls never got quieter.

A knock at the door again. More insistent. Maybe even urgent, if she was feeling charitable. She should probably answer it. Money was low, her reasons for waking up every morning even lower. But another lost cat or cheating spouse and she’d wander out into the city and let the nightmares have her. She thought of grisly murders, scheming bureaucrats, and perilous gunfights. She thought of better days.

The knocks just wouldn’t quit. Couldn’t just be some other drunk.

But if they wanted her services, they’d have to call.

The rotary phone sat silent, dust collecting on the receiver. She’d almost forgotten what it sounded like. Business was slow. Not that she minded. More time to stew.

“Please.” The voice was so faint, muffled by the thick door and steady tap of rain on the window. Leona sighed and kicked her feet off the desk, pulling herself up by the coat rack next to her desk. She stuffed her hat on her head as she stumbled to the door, the night’s alcohol still swirling through her saturated veins.

One deadbolt. Two. Three. The chain rattled as she slid it across its housing and let it fall to the floor.

She took a breath, put her hand on her gun, and pulled the door open. The cracked blinds rattled against the glass window in the door, settling back into lopsided place. Rain came down in sheets, the trademark look of a dead city walking.

“D-Detective?” An older man stood in the downpour, khaki rain jacket drooping under the weight of a falling sky.

“Not anymore,” Leona said, reaching to close the door. “Police station’s that way.” She pointed to the right, but the man didn’t even follow her gesture. He stuck his foot in the door to stop her from closing it. Some nerve, but she had to respect it. Or at least, that’s what she thought she should feel. Her conscience was running on fumes these days.

“Please! Th-They turned me away!” the man said, clasping his hands together. They were covered in scars, the kind of scars from decades of craftsmanship. His coat wasn’t too bad, either. All the holes had been patched long ago. The single monocle was quite well made, and his hair must have been proper at some point, before the rain.

Papers rustled under her feet. She looked down, moving her shoe to reveal the pile of final notices collecting under the mail slot.

No odd features, no unnatural chill in the air. Her hair didn’t stand on end, her brain didn’t scream at her to run, to shoot, to scream. Someone who could pay then.

Leona let go of the door and stepped to the side, scarcely waiting until his feet crossed the threshold before slamming it shut and sliding the deadbolts back into place. It got harder every year to tell who was human in Valoran City. Well, rather, who didn’t have demon blood in their veins.

The man trudged into the office, leaving wet footprints in his wake. Leona was already making her way back to her desk before he could start talking.

“I-It’s my daughter, detective,” he said, pulling his hood back.

Leona lit another cigarette and leaned against her desk. “First of all, I’m not a detective anymore.” She gestured to the letters printed on her window. ‘Private Investigator’ they read. She continued. “Second, let me guess. Hanging out with the wrong crowd? Getting involved with this ‘elixirs’ business? Suddenly lost contact?”

“Well… yes. But-”

“She’s a good girl? Would never be caught dead with that kind of crowd?”

The man deflated. “It’s that common, then?” he asked.

“Common enough to recognize a pattern when I see one.” Leona picked up her glass and swirled it, staring at the dusty bookshelf to the right of her desk. Cases gone cold, names and photographs faded like her memory.

“I’ll pay,” the man said, futilely trying to wipe the rain out of his hair. “I have money saved up. A lot.”

“How much is a lot to you, Mr…?” She waited for the name.

The man looked over his shoulder, at the door. He lowered his voice to a whisper. “You can call me Eddison. And I’ve got at least five hundred saved up. Anything for my girl.”

Leona nearly choked on her drink. It burned all the way down. She picked up her cigarette and took a long drag. “Five hundred?” She tried her best to sound unimpressed. “That might just be my price.”

“Okay, okay. Thank you, thank you! I don’t know how to thank you enough!”

“You can start with half the money, in cash, tomorrow morning. And a picture, name, aliases, last seen location, any associates…” Leona sat down at her desk and pulled a drawer open. A puff of dust flew up as she withdrew her notebook and pen. She flipped past old cases. Bad memories.

“Here.” The man held out a worn photograph in a shaky hand. Leona took it and paperclipped it to the top of her notebook.

“Hair color? Eye color?” Leona asked.

“P-Pink,” the man said, but held his hands up. “Dyed, of course. You see, she’s a singer-”

“Natural color?” Leona interrupted, jotting down notes. Singer. Dyed hair. Diva.

“Brown. She has these bright blue eyes… Hair past her waist. She used to sing at the Cottonwood Lounge, you know the place?”

Leona nodded. “I do.” It was a shitty bar that tried to pretend it wasn’t. The perfect trap for aspirational musicians and actresses. She didn’t bother telling him about its reputation.

“Good… Good… That was the last place I saw her. She’d just left home to go perform. Kissed me goodbye, told me not to worry. Said… she’d be back…” The man stared off into space, wringing his hands.

Leona tapped her pen to her notebook. “Mr. Eddison. Her name?” Missing person cases usually went cold within 48 hours. She didn’t have time for theatrics.

“Seraphine. Please, tell me you’ll find her, right?” Mr. Eddison put his hands on the desk, tried to stop them from shaking.

The city had the tendency to chew girls like this up and spit them out once it had used them up. Leona was certain this case would end just like all the others.

“I’ll look. That’s all I can promise.”

#fanfiction #league of legends #crime city nightmare #excerpt #I'll probably never finish this #Leona #league of legends fanfic #neo noir #hardboiled #Seraphine is missing #Private Investigator Leona #I had to make up a name for Seraphine's dad #Valoran City #Diana would have been the femme fatale

0 notes

woodsmokepine · 11 months ago

Text

No More Distractions [Akko/Diana]

Rating: Explicit

Fandom: Little Witch Academia

Ship: Akko Kagari/Diana Cavendish

Important Tags: Lesbian Sex, Necktie Bondage, Underwear Gag, Aged-Up Characters

Akko bothers Diana while she tries to study. Diana decides to do what she must to get some peace and quiet.

“Soooooo, doing anything interesting today?” Akko poked her head around the bookshelf serving double duty as a privacy screen. Diana turned and glared at her. The way her tiny ponytail poked out the side of her head, those big brown eyes, the wide smile. She was oh so cute. And oh so distracting. Diana sighed, putting her elbow on the huge stack of papers and resting her head on her hand. “Nothing that would interest you. What are you doing here?” Akko pulled herself around the corner, sliding against the shelf. She kept casting glances over her shoulder, toward the other side of the bedroom. “Are the others…?” she whispered, pointing at the door. “Yes. They are in class for a while. I’ll ask one more time, what are you doing here?” “Well, I was trying to do the reading for class, but then I got hungry, so I went down to the kitchen. But the cook chased me out. So I started to head to the library, but then I saw someone who looked like you. But it turned out to not be you. But I still started thinking of you, and before I knew it, I was right here!” Diana opened her mouth, but Akko just kept going. “Anyway! What are you working on, huh?” Akko stepped closer, peering over her shoulder at the rows and rows of tidy script. “Notes for class? A new spell you’re working on? Something…” she narrowed her eyes and lowered her voice, “secret?” “Miss Kagari.” Akko froze at the words, warmth rising to her cheeks. “Y-Yes?” “You are being quite distracting.” ...

Read the whole thing on AO3!

Always open to constructive criticism, let me know what you think!

#diakko #little witch academia #smut #akko kagari #diana cavendish #fanfiction #ao3 fanfic #ao3 #diana x akko #constructive criticism welcome #NSFW #lwa #lwa fanfic #lwa fanfiction #fanfic #sapphic

0 notes