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antropophagi · 1 month ago

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For @professionallydeadinside who requested Will Henry getting a hug! I was working on a WIP when I saw your request, and thought it would fit the bill nicely :)

The dream always begins in the same way.

–

''Will Henry,'' the monstrumologist said, holding me down as I buckled and thrashed, as a scream tore through my throat, ''It is just a dream. Snap to, boy, snap to!''

I opened my eyes; the world's light filled my vision, scorching, so terribly, heavenly bright. I screamed again, or I thought I did, but the sound that came out was feeble, childish, a fawn trying to walk for the first time only to stumble head first onto the ground. The doctor shushed me, applying wet compresses upon my eyes, but even then, even then the pain! Unspeakable pain, as I had never felt, although I had already gone through much in my young life.

''Enough, Will Henry, you will hurt yourself.'' His hand fell upon my forehead, blessingly cool. I pressed my face in his calloused palm; it smelled like blood – mine – and sweat. Indeed, his skin felt clammy. I wondered if he was frightened too. ''There, Will Henry. You are alright. It was a simple dream, a conjuration of your mind.''

''Where-''

''Do not speak. You will need all your strength to recover.''

I did as was bid, relieved that I was not to use my too loud voice. His, I noticed, was kept on a stable level. The monstrumologist knew perfectly well the symptoms affecting me, after all. The Oculus Dei, the augmented hearing, the numbness in my limbs. Did I look as monstruous as Kendall had appeared?

His fingers brushed back my hair. In the gesture, I found a terrible tenderness.

''You will be fine, Will Henry,'' he said. He shifted so I was laying my head on his lap. His hand kept combing my hair. I blessed the fact I could not see his face; I longed only to throw away the compresses and look deep into his eyes, to see to his very soul. ''The antidote will work. Then, you shall be up, as irritatingly dense as ever.''

My hands found his shirt. I pressed my face against his chest, where I could hear the blood rushing through his veins and arteries, where I could listen to the steady shifts of his lungs, to the song of his bones and marrow. I drowned my senses in the stimuli his body provided me: for a blissful second, the outside world ceased to exist and I became a part of Pellinore Warthrop, as integral as Eve had been to Adam.

''Sleep now, Will Henry,'' he ordered, and I did.

–

His father is sitting down at the kitchen. From his eyes fall thin worms, barely visible in the dim light; cursed tears from a doomed soul. He smiles at the boy facing him.

The boy is afraid. He has been in the kitchen for too long.

He cannot escape.

–

''He is doomed, Pellinore. Can't you see? I mean, even your unfathomable optimism must shed its wilful ignorance at one point. His skin is paper-like: we can both see his heart underneath the ribs, the pulsation of it. Do you think the change hasn't spread to his mind yet?''

''John, that is enough.''

''One of us has to face the truth. You claim to love her but you do not seem capable to withstand her presence, her véritable visage. The boy's dead already. Let him go.''

''He is not. He will live.''

''Good heavens.''

A hand grabbed my face. Fingers pressed into my cheeks; something thick and warm bursted out of my skin. A mighty roar and then the hand was gone. Dull pain throbbed in my face.

''Do not touch him!''

''Pellinore, he will be the death of us. Are you willing to sacrifice your life?''

''He will recover and he will live. Do you hear me? Will Henry will live a far longer life than the both of us ever will. He will grow old and he will die a hundred years from now, in his sleep, and certainly not here and now. Do you understand?''

A long silence.

''I think you are the one who does not understand, Pellinore. This fantasy of yours, it can never exist. You have taken him too far. He sees all. Everything you do not wish to see, everything you do not wish to think, is his. You can call it a burden or a gift. Sometimes one is indistinguishable from the other.''

''You are wrong.''

''You must know the line between naïveté and hopefulness is razor thin.''

''It is not naïveté! It is hope, I choose hope, John, something you have forgotten a long time ago. It is not too late for him. I know what I have taken, believe me, I am not so blinded by my egotism as you think me to be. I have taken more than one should take from another soul, and it will forever be my most regretted mistake, but there is still humanity in him. There is still something to save.''

The blessed hand fell upon my forehead. Gently, it wiped the tears of blood from my eyes.

''I will save him as he has saved me.''

His heartbeat, a steadfast rythm. The Earth turned, the stars sung and he held me, the monstrumologist, until I slipped back into a restless sleep.

–

His father leans down and say, Why did you leave me to burn?

Behind him, shadows shift and swell. One of them is the mother's boy. The others, he does not know: he recognizes only their eyes, blue, emerald, grey, glinting in the dark. He has failed them.

The kitchen is standing at the center of the world.

–

Curled upon the ground, I stared at the two silhouettes sitting together. They were talking quietly, a far cry from their earlier conversation. I could hear what they were saying but could not understand it; our languages did not overlap. I spoke in the tongue of the magnificum now. It called for me, upon its peak, whispering, come, my child, come, you have much to do, I will hold you in my breast until we become one.

I craved nothing more than to do so. I cried for it when I was conscious. It disturbed them, I think now, even Kearns, to see such desperation, such monstruous want in a body so small and weak. I could have killed them. I desired it too, if only to assuage the endless hunger torturing me.

It was his voice, as always, which brought me back, again and again.

''Drink, Will Henry.''

''Sleep, Will Henry.''

''Will Henry, I believe you are faring much better than you did yesterday.''

''Hold on, Will Henry. There, much better. Do you feel comfortable?''

''It is dawn now, Will Henry. You would like how beautiful it is.''

''A dream, Will Henry, just a dream.''

''Will Henry.''

''Please, Will Henry.''

A litany of meaningless words, strung together by a feeling he would not dare name. I listened to his voice, although I could not explain why. It was far greater than the thrumming of my newfound instinct to crawl towards the mountain. It was far greater than he and I: the faceless thing, the abundance in the desolation, you are the one thing that keeps me human.

I could have killed them. But I did not.

I only stared.

–

I could not save you, the boy cries.

His father's face twists and changes, bones cracking to reveal the pulsing bodies of the worms beneath his skin. Blood and pus cascade down onto the table.

What I am is what you are inside, his father screams, choked and wet.

–

''Mother, Mother,'' I whispered, eyes open, looking past Warthrop and Kearns, right into the heart of the past. Oculus Dei, the eyes that see all. I could see her, standing near our campfire. Her face seemed wistful, sharpened by the shadows the fire painted on her skin. She looked no older than the last time I had seen her. ''Mother, Mother-''

''Will he ever stop?'' Kearns asked, raising the stone he was playing with as though he wished to throw it on my face. ''Should I suffocate him in his sleep?''

Ignoring him entirely, Warthrop, brows furrowed, leaned directly between me and my mother's apparition. ''Will Henry, are you alright?''

The cold breeze made me shiver: in an effort to reduce my fever, Warthrop had undressed me, leaving me in my undergarments with only a thin blanket to cover my naked skin. A senseless effort, for it was only a matter of time before the magnificum took me. Wasn't that why Mother was here? To help me climb to the mountain's summit?

The stories say that in the final stages the victim experiences moments of intense euphoria, an overwhelming feeling of bliss.

What could be more blissful than the sun rising once again on the horizon, taking in its wake both my parents to bring them back to me?

''Will Henry.'' His hands delicately settled on each of my cheeks, forcing me to look at him. There was a strange fire in his expression, despite the weariness his body betrayed. ''Whatever you are seeing is but a trick of your sickened mind. There is nothing here but us three. Do you understand?''

''Mother-''

''Mary is not here,'' he repeated again, urgently. One of his hand took mine to press it against his throat, where I could feel the erratic pulse of his heart. A purely symbolic motion, given that I heard it always since my taking ill. ''There is only me and you, Will Henry.''

''And me,'' Kearns piped up, playfully.

I shifted, trying to crane my neck to look above the monstrumologist's shoulders. The shadow of my mother settled over us all, an almost physical darkness squeezing us between its outstreched arms. I could almost smell apple pies.

''She's here,'' I slurred, weakly gripping his collar. ''She's here. I need to go to her, sir. Please.''

Her voice carried through the wind, my little Will.

The monstrumologist stared at me for a long while, as though debating with himself on what should be his next course of action. At the very least, that is what my feeble mind thought at the time. Now, I know he was only trying to find me again, underneath the crazed eyes and hollow cheeks. What did he find? What did he see? Simply a lost child, to whom he would later say, I will not suffer you to drown.

''Listen to me, Will Henry,'' he said softly. How soft he had been, then, when he had thought I would not live to see another day! His eyes were open now, and he understood it all: that my unwavering devotion, my father's last gift to him, required an equal sacrifice, the lowering of all his defenses, a nakedness that matched my own. ''You are my apprentice, and as such, you shall do as I say.''

I looked at him, my master, my tormentor, waiting for his orders. A trained dog, who, despite the pain, still knows not to bite the feeding hand. Did the monstrumologist realize how much power he had over me that I would fight against every fiber of my being to be what he needed me to be? I think he did. He must have, for his eyes were shining when he beheld me, when he said, ''You are not allowed to leave me. Not even to find your parents again.''

My mother's specter, behind him, watching quietly; Kearns, on the side, studying us with cold curiosity, as the scientist observes his current specimens; the mountain's summit whence the magnificum gazed at me, waiting; the stars above us, ancient, timeless, casting their unseeing gaze upon us. I saw all. I saw nothing else but him and the anguish in his eyes and the prayer he mouthed when I nodded slightly.

''Good boy,'' he whispered, grimacing his Warthropian smile. His hands squeezed my shoulders, tight enough to hurt.

''I genuinely wonder what you have done to the boy that he would go to such lengths for you,'' Kearns said. He was leaning back on his hands. For once, he seemed entirely serious, his playful manners shed, replaced by the coldness which lay underneath. ''You have done nothing to deserve this, Pellinore. Some misguided loyalty, in memory of his father, perhaps. Or, you have starved him so much that he gobbles up anything you allow him to eat.''

You see, he understood more than he let on, the monstrumologist, for in the face of such unadulterated truth, he said nothing at all.

–

Please, the boy says.

The eyes flicker coldly. His father dissolves into nothing, leaving behind the worms. They slide across the table, towards the boy.

Please, he repeats.

Nobody will come.

–

''You need to eat, Will Henry,'' the monstrumologist said impatiently, waving the morsel of bread in front of my face. A confrontation that had been going on for far too long, which we repeated every day, our own boulder to push up the hill. ''You cannot think of recovering if you do not give your body sustenance.''

I had not the heart to tell him bread would neither sustain me nor satisfy me. What I craved was unattainable, protected by his skin, flesh and ribs, but beating loudly enough that it made me salivate whenever the monstrumologist came too close. His and Kearns', even mine, though the act of plucking it from my own chest repelled me as much as it attracted me. In those days, I knew not whether to feel human or monster.

I turned away, muttering, ''You need sustenance too, sir.''

''I believe I have told you once you were not here to provide for me.''

I am the eyes that see where you do not want to see, I almost said. I am the light you need in dark places. I have gone down to the darkness so you might live in the light. What exactly do you think you are providing?

''You are more important, sir,'' I said, in that obsequious tone he despised so much.

I felt more than I saw his turmoil. It was an almost physical thing, stretching taut the rope between us. Where did the rope wrap around in his body? My end was squeezing my skull ruthlessly, until it ached and throbbed, banishing any coherent thoughts from my mind. Had he wrapped it around his heart, which would explain the way his heart stuttered and whined? Had he tangled it delicately around his throat until he could speak no more? Or around his ribs, cracking them open and making him bleed senselessly?

''It is not true, Will Henry,'' he said quietly, after a moment spent composing himself. ''But I suppose our diverging perceptions on the matter is due to my own fault.'' The bread in his hands disappeared from my line of sight as he twirled it absently. I dared a glance at his face and found it unsurprinsingly somber. ''You do not require it, do you?''

I could not tell if he was speaking of the bread or something else, an abstraction Pellinore Warthrop was so fond of throwing into our conversations, only to later lay the blame on me for derailing the subject.

''You need it more than I do, sir,'' I said. It was only a matter of logic, was it not? ''We are not certain I am going to survive.''

His eyes snapped to me, fierce and dark. ''You are going to live through this, Will Henry.''

He was not trying to reassure me but himself. A self-soothing gesture, for he could not think of losing me. Like a child, I was to put his fears to bed, to acknowledge there was no monsters underneath the bed so he could sleep soundly, unaware that monsters did not simply wait beneath his bed to strike.

How could I think of survival when my body was losing its humanity hour after hour? I heard his heartbeat, and Kearns' who was hunting miles away from us, and the sea's song, and Awaale's voice, surrounded by other voices, and I heard the Earth turning on itself, the stars whirling above us, planets rushing through the emptiness of space. Can you understand what I am trying to say? In a place without sound, I heard their trajectories, as though I had reached the summit of existence, the limits of what one could perceive. One could think of it as a form of super-life, a connection to the whole world, stretching to infinity.

I knew it to be death.

''Eat, sir,'' I said, weakly.

The monstrumologist was still staring at me. ''We shall share then,'' he said, and it sounded like a plea. He broke the piece of bread in two and gave me the bigger one, putting it gently in my numb hands. ''Here, Will Henry.''

Why are you doing this to me, thought I, hysterically, looking down at what seemed as appetizing as a rock. What have I done to deserve such cruelty?

''Eat,'' he whispered, unable, perhaps, to hide the urgency in his tone. Seeing as I did not move, he wrapped his hand around mine and raised the bread to my lips. ''Go on, Will Henry. Snap to.''

I opened my mouth and bit into the bread, earning his approval and a surge of nausea. Mimicking him, I chewed, swallowed, and bit down again, while tears streamed down my face, while my stomach screamed and heaved in protest. The magnificum, on his summit, raged, calling me in its high, ethereal voice, not unlike my master's. But I was a prisoner to Warthrop's unwavering attention: in his dark eyes, I saw my face, gaunt and ashen, and I thought, am I really this?

So many times, the monstrumologist mistook cruelty for kindness. His free hand wiped away my tears, of his own making, while the other, a vice around my wrist, forced me to eat, again and again, until I thought my body would burst open, like those of my brothers and sisters. All the while, he stared at me, strained and frightened, as though he feared I would vanish here and then.

''Good,'' he said when my punishment was over. ''Do you not feel better now that your hunger has been satisfied?''

Poor Warthrop! To live so far in one's fantasies one can not understand the truth of reality anymore! They pitied me, the adults in my life, for living with a man such as the monstrumologist. An old man I find myself now, thinking they should have pitied him: the child stuck in the man, never to see the light of day.

I nodded, despite the agonizing twisting of my stomach. What else could I have done? I was the one thing that kept him human.

–

They are inside of him, now, the worms and the shadows and the eyes. It burns. He dies, again and again, without ever dying.

–

I did not feel the tears until his hands wiped them away. I did not feel fear until he brought me into his arms, and then it was an evil, vicious thing, pulsing achingly in my chest, that he could not soothe for me.

''Please,'' I begged, unable to voice what I craved, for it would shatter me.

I want to eat your heart, thought I, pressing my face into the crook of his neck, where his carotid called to me. The monstrumologist must have sensed it, for his arms tightened around me, a wordless invitation. Go on, Will Henry, he seemed to say, take your share.

''You will be alright, Will Henry,'' he whispered, sounding weary. Those days, he kept tinkering with his gun, sometimes staring down at the barrel for hours on end. I could almost hear the sound of his thoughts, crashing against each other. ''It stands to reason that you would already be dead by now. Or, at least, that your condition would have worsened. It has not.''

''It is too late, sir,'' I said. My lips brushed against his skin. He would not be able to react in time were I to sink my teeth into his flesh. Blood would spring on my tongue, made all the sweeter for it would be his. Blood of Christ. ''I can feel it. It has my face now. It has my soul.''

''It certainly does not.''

''You need to kill me, sir.'' His heart stuttered, a brief, agonizing silence. ''You need to put an end to it before I hurt you.''

A broken sound escaped him. ''Absolutely not, Will Henry. Are you mad?''

''It is you who are mad, sir,'' I said, shifting to look at him. An herculean effort it took me to move away from the blood whooshing through his arteries. I am saving him, I told myself, though I could not remember why I wanted to do so in the first place. Could we not share the gift of the magnificum? Could we not rise to the summit of the Isle of Blood together?

I want to go, Father. Will you take me there, to the Isle of Bliss?

It would free us both. How happy we would be, upon the clouds of bliss!

No, no, thought I, or some distant, buried part of me, he needs to live. He needs to live. I went to the center of world for him. He needs to live.

''If you do not, I will kill you,'' I cried, tears of blood trickling down my face, upon his hands. ''Do not make me do this, sir. I have done so much for you. I have labored in the dark so you might live in the light. You cannot follow me into the abyss. I do not want you there.''

''Will Henry-'' he began, then stopped, choked off. Warthrop pulled me against his chest again, brushing my hair while I listened to the erratic beating of his heart, the object of all my desire, the forbidden fruit in the garden. After a moment, he said, ''I cannot harm you in any way.''

''You have already harmed me,'' I whined, furious. Could he not understand? I was saving his life. ''You have abandoned me, thrown me into the wilderness' grip, cut off my fingers, killed my parents. You have carried me up to lay me down low. It is time to repent, sir, it is time for absolution.''

The magnificum's voice grew louder in my head. Could he not hear it? Could he not feel it vibrate in the air around us, slithering into our chests? Eat his heart, eat his heart, eat his heart-

Warthrop laughed. I was so startled it snapped me back into myself.

''I am a terrible man, Will Henry,'' he said around a bitter smile. ''I am selfish and vain. I care not for repentance or absolution. I will have you hurting if it means you are by my side.''

I was so weary, so terribly struck down by the exhausting weight of my indispensable services. ''Please, sir.''

''No,'' the monstrumologist said, tenderly. ''You will live. You have no other choice.''

–

The shadows do not lift until the voice appears. It is shrill but enticing, almost ethereal. It does not chase away the worms nor the eyes but it does not burn either. It is simply there. Around him.

Waiting, waiting, waiting.

–

Kearns' eyes, so close to mine I had to squint in order to see him. Something cold pressed against my throat. I did not need to look down to understand what was happening.

''Ah, my most sincere apologies, Will,'' he said, his warm breath tickling my cheeks. There was a glint of pity in his eyes. ''I wished to do this while you slept. I have no desire to hurt you more than what is necessary.''

I grabbed his wrist. In that brief moment, I heard only the heart in my chest, roaring in fear. Everything else had vanished or, perhaps, everything had simply shrunk down to the point of contact between the blade of his knife and my throat: the whole world reduced to the barely audible scrap the knife produced against my skin.

''Will you fight me, master Henry?'' He was smiling, his familiar Kearns-ish grin. Somehow, ridiculously, the sight of it brought a morsel of comfort to my panicked mind. I relaxed my grip; he raised an eyebrow in surprise. ''Really? Well, that's almost disappointing.''

''Where is Dr. Warthrop?'' I whispered. I dared not shift to look around our camp but I could not hear the doctor.

''Gone to piss somewhere. You know, I almost thought he would do it right here, but a few mocking comments made him flee. Turns out he despises being humiliated more than the idea of leaving you alone with me.''

I closed my eyes, relieved. ''Do it quickly then, sir. Before he comes back.''

''You will not fight it?'' he asked, after a moment, clearly skeptical.

''I am a threat to his well-being.''

Kearns snorted. ''Dear God, you really are just like him. So bloody noble.'' He sighed, then readjusted his grip. ''It is a pity, Will. I truly liked you. You could have become quite the interesting man.''

I heard the monstrumologist before Kearns did. Opening my eyes, I distinguished his shadow walking towards us. I met his gaze across our camp, witnessed the widening of his eyes as he took in the scene before him; never have I seen such fear on the face of a man, let alone the doctor. For a second, frozen, suspended in time, we beheld each other.

It is necessary, I wanted to say. I have done unspeakable things to save you. What is one more sin?

The click of his gun interrupted Kearns' knife.

''Think carefully, John, before you finish what you have started,'' Warthrop said evenly, though I could see the tremor in his fingers. Something surged within me, an overwhelming desire to crawl towards him and nestle at his feet, underneath the cover of his protection.

Kearns stiffened. ''Ah, Pellinore. You know we have no other choice if we wish to survive.''

''If you wish to survive, it is your business, not mine. Get away from Will Henry.''

''I am trying to help you, old chap,'' Kearns said, a touch of irritation coloring his calm tone. ''He won't survive.''

''He will. Get away from him, now.''

From so close, I was privy to Kearns' turmoil. Such seriousness from him disturbed me as much as if the sun were to rise blue the next morning. His eyes, sharp and intense, scrutinized my face, as though looking for the proof of my inhumanity. What he saw, I could not tell. A reflection of his own gaze, perhaps, or the finding of a hollowness that matched his own.

What inhumanity I possessed, he did too.

His hand fell away from my throat, taking the knife with it. ''Do not come crying to me when Will Henry tears out your throat, Pellinore,'' Kearns said, smiling. It was different from his usual grin, colder, angrier. The mask he wore, so close to falling and revealing the monstrous beneath. ''I shall not give either one of you a grave.''

''I don't doubt it,'' Warthrop replied, his gun still aimed at Kearns.

I cannot begin to explain what existed between the two men. For Kearns walked away without having killed me and the monstrumologist let him go unharmed. What bound them together? Esteem? Fear? Disdain? I suppose their relationship was of a similar nature as that of light and darkness, life and death, God and Satan: they existed in contradiction to each other while still gravitating in the same orbit.

As soon as Kearns was out of sight, the monstrumologist deflated, half-dashing, half-stumbling towards me. ''You foolish child,'' he moaned, throwing the gun away to grab my shoulders. I thought he would strike me. Instead, Warthrop stared at me, unblinking, as though trying to carve my image on his pupils. I folded, grabbing his wrists to anchor myself. ''You stupid, stupid boy.''

''I am sorry,'' I muttered.

''Do you remember what I told you in Aden, Will Henry? Not by numbers or force of arms.'' He sezied my left hand and squeezed hard enough that pain bursted into my phantom finger. ''By this... by this.''

I raised my eyes to his anguished face. ''I am sorry,'' I repeated, choked. Tears stung my eyes. The adrenaline, which had carried me forward since I awoke to Kearns' knife on my throat, finally faded away, leaving me trembling. ''I am frightened, sir.''

Only a few weeks ago, I had thought this particular admission would have sent him fleeing, far away from me. Now, I knew, I saw – and not with the Occulus Dei, but with the eyes that had beheld him, once, carrying his only friend across the wilderness – that he could no more leave me than I could leave him.

His face softened. ''I remember telling you once our enemy is fear, Will Henry. It poisons the mind and consumes the truth. Hard facts and logic are warped by our fears. It is not the truth we contemplate when we are afraid, but the hideous face of fear itself.'' Gently, he dislodged my grip on his wrists. ''Be not afraid, Will Henry, of what you perceive is the truth, for it is but a grotesque disguise. Your condition is stable.''

''Is it?'' I asked, looking for the truth in his eyes.

''Lying is the worst kind of buffoonery, is it not?''

I nodded. Warthrop helped me lay down. Flat on my back, I looked up at the twinkling stars, listening to their wordless melody. Would I forever remain in this condition? Half-transformed, able to see and hear everything?

Half-monster, half-human, thought I, pressing a hand against my heart. An unclean boy. If I die now, will God scorns me before the pearly gates of Heaven?

As though he could hear my thoughts, the doctor said, ''I am certain we will soon see your state improve in the following days. For now, you require rest, Will Henry.'' I rolled upon my side so he could be in my field of vision. ''Do not worry about Kearns. I know now what you two are capable of if left to your own devices. I shall not let him come near you.''

''I will not escape a proper chiding, sir, will I?'' I asked, yawning.

''No, Will Henry,'' he said severely, although I thought I could hear a smile in his voice. ''Once you are back on your feet, you shall be properly scolded.''

I closed my eyes. Softly, his hand brushed a strand of hair away from my face.

–

To the voice, the boy asks, Will you help me leave?

For a moment, he hears nothing but ringing silence. Perhaps he is simply doomed to remain here, in the burning kitchen.

I carry too many shadows to help you, the voice says. It echoes mightily around the room. A voice to protect, a voice to hurt. It will hurt more than it will protect.

The boy raises his hands, says, I do not care for anything would be better than this room.

The door opens. Behind, a suffocating darkness.

I am sorry, the voice says sadly, but you can carry the shadows while I cannot.

The boy hesitates on the doorway, asks, Will it hurt?

Yes.

I am tired of being alone in this burning kitchen.

I know.

Will you help me?

I will not. But I will be here with you until the very end.

The boy looks back one last time. Then, eyes open, he walks out.

#the monstrumologist #pellinore warthrop #will henry #john kearns #at this point i don't even know if any of it makes sense but i do not care #unhealthy dynamic between will and warthrop my beloved #they cannot live without each other and will do the most terrible things to remain together!!!#so much hugging here you would think it's fluff when it's not

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snazzy-writes-a-little · 16 days ago

Text

Carve, Snap, Break

The blade of my rage Howls, screams with a voice Of hoarse fury And boiling loathing.

I carve And I break And I bend, Bend it all Break it all Snap, twist, shatter, And cleave.

None remain whole Before the righteousness of my rage, For war is the language I have learned, She is mine mother, And from her breasts I have suckled Blood and marrow and salt.

Come, if you would, And taste the iron of my steel— Drink the blood of my rage, Feel the pulsating warmth of my still-beating heart As you rip it from my chest And chew it to pieces.

Let us dance Until our blades fall away And we must claw, Rage warping humanity, As we peel back our veils With the knives of our nails.

Break The bones in my body, Tear at my face, my ears, Rip the tongue from my mouth And still it shall not be done, and still We shall fight, again and again, Until we drown in rivers of blood.

Fight And let war make us beasts. Carve, snap, break— For we are Shackled slaves of war, Worth less than grains of sand.

Lil Tidbits

Hello again!!! Sorry about this one being posted a little later, work is exhausting and sometimes I just don't feel up to doing anything until late into the night. I still have some stuff to write today, so here's to hoping I can get it done instead of daydreaming about doing it while (conveniently, very conveniently) not doing any of it myself.

Anyway, this poem is connected to the AToSVerse again. More of the same; trying to find out how to describe/depict certain things, entertaining the thoughts, feelings, and emotions of a character deeply connected to the main narrative. This one is the feelings of vif'Fitaena shi Sol, the Eighth Keeper of the Allflame and the precursor to al'Finemalraen shi Sol (the protagonist!!) though there's a large time gap between the two of them.

But yes. She is angry, heartbroken, and consumed by a thirst for blood. She's a warrior, through-and-through, and her true face is hidden behind a veil of violence. She is bred for war, groomed from a young age into the perfect weapon by her own father. Her humanity is discarded and she throws it aside to make him happy, only he's never happy and always demands more of her. Seliel seeks a weapon, not a daughter, and so she is devastated. And because Empyreans regenerate endlessly (provided they are not killed, and swords are among the only things which can kill them, as they were created specifically for the purpose of taking a life) Fitaena is, essentially, both immortal and invincible. She is too powerful to be killed, even as her still-beating heart is torn out of her body.

As the Keepers must sacrifice every emotion until they are left with one in the end, Fitaena's burden to bear is Rage. Rage, wrath, anger--in the end, the thing she believed to be her greatest blessing becomes the worst curse of all. As she grapples with the fate of her sisters, she cannot even mourn their loss. She is broken from the inside out, only the fragments feel a sickening rage at having been broken and she cannot even begin to piece herself back together again--the glass, it cuts so deeply, down to the bone.

Anyway, have a good day/night everyone!!!

#creative writing #writers #original poem #writing #poetry #art #fantasy #new poets society #original quote #fantasy worldbuilding #oc lore #lore

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sheisjustoutofreach · 9 months ago

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Ink

I sit at my desk, the nib of my pen leaking ink like blood from a wound, my hand twitching, spasming as I press it to the page, my nails scraping deep into my skin, peeling it back like rotten fruit. The words drip out at first, an effortless hemorrhage of thought, dark liquid seeping into the whiteness of the paper. But soon, the ink curdles—thick, viscous, like congealed tar, glistening in the sickly glow of my lamp. It swells, festering beyond the lines, rupturing the margins, a slick stain oozing into the cracks of my skin, the blonde of my nails torn and bleeding, mingling with the ink.

I swipe at it, desperate, but it’s not just on my hands—it’s in my throat. A rancid, metallic tang fills my mouth, choking me, thick like bile. I retch, but what escapes my lips is not air, not vomit, but a sludgy torrent of ink, slick and pulsating. The ink spreads, creeping like a disease, pooling on the floor, slithering up my arms, wrapping itself around me, wet and alive, like some parasitic thing.

I wrench back, but my hand is welded to the pen, skin stretched taut, veins pulsing beneath the surface. My fingers are claws, twisted and rigid, forced to scratch out words, but they are not mine. The letters are sharp, jagged things, writhing and twisting, black tendrils coiling from the page, filling the air with a stench like decay. My wrist jerks uncontrollably, scrawling madness across the paper, words that throb and pulse like wounds. It’s not me—it’s something else, something foul and ancient, rising from the ink.

The ink claws into my lungs, thickening with every breath, choking me from within. I gag, swallowing it down, unable to stop, craving its vile touch. It’s inside me now, crawling through my veins, burrowing into my bones, tendrils of blackness sinking deep, twisting around my marrow. I can feel it feeding on me, a writhing, slithering thing, but I don’t fight. I welcome it.

I drown in the ink, suffocating on its putrid stench, my breaths wet and ragged. I no longer care. My body convulses, the ink surging through me, bloating me from the inside out. My skin splits, bleeding ink, my eyes blacken, dripping with thick, oily tears. I am dissolving, melting into the ink, my flesh sloughing away, replaced by the liquid void.

There is no more writing—only the ink. It seeps into my soul, filling every crevice, every hollow, until there is nothing left of me but darkness. I am consumed, devoured by the ink, my body rotting into its embrace. And still, I crave more. I crave the darkness that has always lurked in the corners of my mind, the ink that has waited patiently to claim me.

It does.

And I welcome it. The ink is everything now. It slithers through me, a tide of black despair, drowning all thought, all light. I am lost, swallowed by the ink, forever rotting in its cold, silent depths.

#writeblr #writers and poets #writers on tumblr #writing

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sepulchretide · 2 years ago

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Let me give you an idea of what my chronic pain is like. It lives in my bones. It's been memorized so much by my muscles sometimes I get lucky going numb.

It's like nails being driven through my nerves, my tendons, my marrow at the slightest provocation of sound or movement.

Over the course of a day, it does not settle down from rest or painkillers sometimes. It is a persistent, pulsating sensation.

#im going through it today

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voodoo-church · 1 year ago

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shadows across the cracked wallpaper, incantations through the marrow of the bone

a violent intrusion, seeping into the pores, the mirror reflects someone else

a ritual gone wrong, unseen hands, clawed at the seams of the flesh

who's awake when i sleep, the glass fell to the ground

who pushed it, the window opened

riverboat just rolled, wraps my skeleton, the frames swapped

the muscles rebel

hands reached backwards, cracked bones, wore my dress, the cup facing south

the blanket is wet, clothes stained, drawers half-opened, the door unlocked

the air, thick with an acrid stench, the stench of visceral, the soul has been tossed

inject the blood, betray my purpose, the intentions forgotten

the worm eating my reflection

a chaotic canvas, the mind, sand slipping through the fingers, the strings snapped

curled were the feet, twisted, the sound of dragging footsteps, absorb my anguish, the unseen chase

the voice spoke in cryptic tongues, syllables warped into an unholy rhythm, let me in let me in let me in let me in let me in let me in

my thoughts, alien and intrusive, a foreign stream, screams for consumption, let me eat the flesh, the guts, the skin

a vision unfolded, a knife plunged into the pregnant mother, a needle pierced an eye, the silhouette of the dead child, not mine not mine, the macabre fantasies, not mine

fingers like viper, coiled around the neck

a strangulation's trip, a plea for release

eyes, orbs of unrelenting white, a void, gaze not their own

wandered aimlessly, distorted shapes, windows fogged

i do not know these people, faces morphed into labyrinths

the mental sanctuaries, not mine, the mouth grasp for breath, the pulsating agony

to resist the pull, the hand reaches for the blade, cold steel to cut the throat, to sever the ties, a desperate gambit

whispers in my ears, intensified, mock your existence, the sweet tender veins

instead, the unseen hands reached for the face, the scratch cut through the air, bore the mark of the profane

the hollow thud of the fallen body, twitching hands, limbs trembling, the sweat dripping

bound to oppressive ground, to grasp something

hands clawed, scratched the floor, to lift the body, a shudder coursed through the form, eyes stared at the ceiling

the red river cascades from the broken nose, the blood drips from the visage, paints the ground, the hair

a tear that falls, the agony it bred

weep for me, a heart in tomb, the quiet room, the cold ground

the soul whispers, not mine, not yours, not mine, not yours, not mine, not yours

#poems on tumblr #original poem #poems and quotes #poemsbyme #poems and poetry #poetry

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crossover-enthusiast · 2 years ago

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It was open — wide, wide open — and I grew furious as I gazed upon it. I saw it with perfect distinctness — all a dull blue, with a hideous veil over it that chilled the very marrow in my bones; but I could see nothing else of the old man’s face or person: for I had directed the ray as if by instinct, precisely upon the damned spot.

And now have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over acuteness of the senses? — now, I say, there came to my ears a low, dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I knew that sound well, too. It was the beating of the old man’s heart. It increased my fury, as the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage.

But even yet I refrained and kept still. I scarcely breathed. I held the lantern motionless. I tried how steadily I could maintain the ray upon the eye. Meantime the hellish tattoo of the heart increased. It grew quicker and quicker, and louder and louder every instant. The old man’s terror must have been extreme! It grew louder, I say, louder every moment! — do you mark me well? I have told you that I am nervous: so I am. And now at the dead hour of the night, amid the dreadful silence of that old house, so strange a noise as this excited me to uncontrollable terror. Yet, for some minutes longer I refrained and stood still. But the beating grew louder, louder! I thought the heart must burst. And now a new anxiety seized me — the sound would be heard by a neighbor! The old man’s hour had come! With a loud yell, I threw open the lantern and leaped into the room. He shrieked once — once only. In an instant I dragged him to the floor, and pulled the heavy bed over him. I then smiled gaily, to find the deed so far done. But, for many minutes, the heart beat on with a muffled sound. This, however, did not vex me; it would not be heard through the wall. At length it ceased. The old man was dead. I removed the bed and examined the corpse. Yes, he was stone, stone dead. I placed my hand upon the heart and held it there many minutes. There was no pulsation. He was stone dead. His eye would trouble me no more.

(Stopping so ya can read)

Rip the old man

#Sunny Tag

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baarra · 3 months ago

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Like man looking upon woman’s hunger, your chest-gutter burns. The presiding slit on the lower left of your cage: above the coax of waist into flared hip; below the core rib-rack, securing lung to spinal accord. A mark of dissociation, unmaking you into a blessed appendage. Your final rib that moors you, sullenly, unto land you cannot value when without. You are an ode to mutual liminality. The credence is lichenous for the betrothal of serenity to an earthen braise. His reckoning comes after seven years of militant prowess. During late spring’s steady reach over its awning, lured to cascade, lavishly, into summer’s sheen. Ruddied dawns and empurpled dusks, improperly rhymed, like nightfall kneeling into rabbit’s trill. In that moment, you were already remembering. Bone-wet bark. How it drips from each shard like a tree leaking its morning sap. Paling whimpers. Protruding crimson spine: pushed through their right-angled neck. Ripped seat lazing in the wreckage. Your name, a mosaic of breath, and his kneecapped leg. A bone made mural. The arched meet, therein, of wing’s splay to tense back. It is easier to disembody within the heartwood of wilderness. Everything basks in the steel-shorn melody. It would take forty-five days to unwind this landscape from you. Bough-boned in your return to loose-knit tides. Sibilant, not unlike a dead man’s wheeze yawning into the river’s open gravel-tongue. You hear it now. Hedging closer to you, as it had in piercing your neck ten months ago, after chartless years.

Closed, but not gone. A wrongly healed wound must be reopened. Because of: its summit within the light-tunnel, meant for another. After this allotted amount of time, that can no longer count on your two hands.

With a sycamore point, you see why it wasn’t a moment for the present, but one for remembering. The shrapnel of a voice, embedded below your rib-cage. One could call it a testament, really, to memory’s fraught loyalty. Nick, over there. Nick, bring it here. Zero– Z– Nick, my– my leg. And they bid you, fetch, as if a dog wouldn’t return to the bedside, empty mouth and darting eye, at the scent of such a burgundy grail: divine de-boned sapwood, and the holier flesh it wrangles. He follows their finger, regardless, and will not return their gaze for a curated moment. ‘ You want the belly-up kind of devotion, huh? That’s how you’d prefer me, ’ he says, bordering on derisive. The doughy-grin crimps his moustache in place. A wider stretch, for the parry that couldn’t bear the name weak. Something deeper, instead. Something tantamount to sea-secreted decay. Sun-washed, marbled skin. Bloating further and further until its heavy spit nestles, reupholstered, in the dull ridges of your teeth. Genuflecting. That’s the word. An overfull body salivates once in view of wolven maw. ‘ Is your neck too sensitive for a dog-tooth—or does the light hit it improperly? You don’t like the glare. ’ Knife hewn from ivory tusk. Whittled weapon fit for the grave-blooded. He stands before the cabinet, offering the view of his back, and holds the box out for them to see, into a harsher half-light. ‘ Or maybe you just hate to be denied. Does it hurt to say Liebowitz? Instead of— ’ he waves his hand, dismissive, ‘ —whatever you could’ve been. ’ Finally, he turns. Hazel meets darker brown. Western sun / Eastern wind. He eyes their gnarled leg, once more. Sonorous begrudge pulsates down to the marrow. ‘ That could happen right now, doc. Your stand can’t be that ruffled yet. Come, fetch. It’ll be worth your while. ’

How Shaw floated now in their own gale of stillness now. They were no longer tense. There were enough disruptions already and more already survived. Nick would not rain over them as other torrents would. Shaw watched as he continued to survey them, gaze circling, the same way a wild animal might come to recognize another. Instinctual, but troublesome. Assessment as its own form of regard. Shaw would still not allow themselves to be gutted.

Nick surveyed perhaps as any living species would, and Shaw, by dint of mutuality, afforded him with that same sliver of scrutiny. He could be so skillful at elusiveness but their examination would neither be as frank nor damning. Simply the matter of fit. Braced against the headboard, Shaw folded their arms together and let the question settle before swatting it away. The thought of it provoked something raw, sputtered out as a chuckle. Caught between mirth and mockery. “No,” it came almost as an instant thing; the assessment was over. “I prefer a softer touch.”

How they had revealed themselves already. So readily. The regret at their frankness would come later. But who else would demand, and look? No one would dare force their footsteps further. This was the only invited self-examination. Nothing else to puncture their stillness but creaks and echoes and the slow healing of their bones. “I don’t think you’d ever be the right person for that.” No one else could. “Could you do that? Turn soft for just anyone.” They glanced out the window that had been nailed shut. A geography that they knew well: rise in the dark, sit at the table, write without light. The mistake had been letting the light in at all. Now the dark was just that. Nothing more than an absence that could finally be recognized. Bereft of any meaning and definition. Swallowed further by Nick’s shadow coursing through the half-light. He who demanded not to be known. Would not turn soft.

What Nick offered was no touch. Merely its specter. Still too close. The body betrayed them in its slight flinching. That for their bravado the touch of just anyone would be denied still. Rejected. Gusts of winter that ripped through bone and through their world that they had no choice but to pull further into themselves. “This is my break.” From a life they had thought they deserved and now left behind. No abrupt terrors to respond to, no heart to whom they should return. Only the familiar horrors of patients who were at least broken in an understandable way. Only the people invited to look.

The retraction of his touch was a welcomed thing. His next words only served to confuse but they welcomed it all the same. Startled out of their own thoughts, they responded, “Meryl?” The syllables held in them a curious lilt, provoked further by an arch of a lone brow. Not quite what they expected. “Why do you want to know? I am not their keeper.” The silent question, then, are you?

A pause of consideration. Some things would not be so readily traded. Not when they had revealed so much of themselves already. Something else, then, to act as a shallow comfort. Gesturing to their cabinet of pilfered things, they began, “The blue tin, Nick. Bring it over.” Their throat was ready to be bitten again. Smoke meant nothing to air already thick and a body aggravatingly slow in its healing. “I’ll make it worth your while.”

#PROSE.#solidgrovnd #body horror //#cannibalism allusion //#not this tag again #i am not their keeper was kinda insane #pretend this was timely teehee #shaw‚ 02.

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backstoriesandbackstabbings · 2 years ago

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Everwood

(The writing here is slanted and smudged as the previous entry. It does look hastily written, and there are several water damage spots on the pages.)

We traveled to Everwood after completing the trials for Aryndra and teaming up briefly with the Iron King and his team: Elder Banwynn & Maple (elder vampire brother to Cedar and Birch).

The Iron King agreed to meet us here -- a meeting which I proposed to assist Tobias and his studies. I never questioned why he was so interested in the world’s first immortal. Now though, I worry that I am too late to ask.

When we first arrived to Everwood, we took note of the giant tear in the sky and Cyrus came across a poster for a challenge that both he and Mullus were very interested in. I thought that we had more time, so I saw no harm in competing. We did a bit of shopping, I got my hair done and ran into a familiar face: Pseudoris. We caught up briefly, and discovered that she ran away from Emerald Harbor....again.

I saw Edan in the crowd that day and my heart felt lighter than it has in the last few weeks! Of course I should have followed the crowd and the gold, the easiest way to track my slippery brother. Booze, beautiful people, and gold. Is that sacrilegious to write now that he is a God? Presumably, Edan made some good coin off of us, and of course I bet through him. As Grandmother would say: Waste not, want not. Betting on my life is a safe enough gamble, if I lose, I will be too dead to mourn the loss of coin.

Of course, considering that I am writing this entry, we survived and won. The affair consisted of three challenges, the last of which was a draconic-hydra beast. After securing our earnings from an Orc named Biscuit, the party split up for a bit, with a plan to meet back here in this tavern; The Hero’s Hearth.

Cyrus and I went off to the library to finally meet up with Tobias. After speaking with the information desk, the elf informed me that he was sent on a mission with his tutor, Mistral. I scried on Tobias whilst in the Amerenthian Library. A spot I remember him showing me in the Dreams that we shared together. I had hoped to see him again -- in person this time. Or so I thought. I had thought I had more time. I didn’t realize he was in danger. Tobias -- (The writing here is too smudged and the paper is water damaged leaving dark splotches of puddled ink. The writing continues on a new page.)

My vision revealed to me a floating glowing ribcage atop a throne of flesh and bone. The Ribcage, Mul’s alit with an eerie pulsating red glow that cast dark shadows across the dark underground interior. The Ribcage humming, alive with this insatiable craving, wanting, a deep endless hunger. Behind me was the sound of flesh ripping, tearing from muscle and bone. The greedy mouths of the undead devouring and consuming down to the very marrow. The zombies huddled around the remains, and I was horrified to look. Scared of the face that may stare back at me. They were not Tobias. Thank the Gods and Goddesses. One male figure stood cloaked tall and imposing nearly ten feet away. I did not recognize his side-profile, he was a stranger to me. I will kill him and make him pay if he hurt my friend. I will raise him for the satisfaction of killing him again if I should discover that Tobias came to harm by his hand. I will make him crave the sweet release of a true death. (The letters here press deep into the paper, and the quill bled, ink dripping down slightly and there is a line break between the next paragraph.)

I told Edan what I saw, and even in his stupor I could sense his hesitation and fear. His heart raced under my cheek. Fearful for me, but too protective to allow me to go alone. I hope I don’t lead us all to such grave ends. But I fear -- I think Tobias may still be alive? How else would I be able to scry upon him? Perhaps his essence resides within the Ribcage? Please...forgive me, my friend. I never meant to fail you. If you are alive in there...I’m coming.

#the book of eli #eli's journal

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not-me-simping-for-blasty · 4 years ago

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I Melt With You - Bakugou Katsuki

All Parts

--/--

Part 1:

You’re not sure what you’re looking at.

He’s covered head to toe in soot, knocked out cold and hardly moving against the railing of your balcony. There’s an unsettling slump to him, and his costume creases as heaving, rattling breaths leave his lips. There’s blood soaking his clothes, dripping from his nose and onto the concrete. When you call out to him, his eyes flutter briefly beneath his eyelids, but other than that he’s entirely unresponsive.

You know who he is. Dynamite. Bakugou Katsuki. He’s a burgeoning pro-hero, just hardly starting out, but he’s already climbing the ranks. Anyone with a TV had been watching his highlights for years now.

What you don’t know, is what villian sent him hurtling onto your balcony; or if that villain was still hanging around- either way, you realize you’ve got to get him inside. The mid-winter cold was already biting at your skin, and you figured he couldn’t have been doing much better. 2 AM was certainly not a optimum time for finding yourself unconscious, after all.

Shivering slightly, you loop your arms under his and begin to tug him inside your apartment. You find very quickly that his dead-weight and ridiculous muscle mass make the job a lot harder than it needs to be. It feels like you’re deadlifting an elephant, and when you finally shut the door behind the both of you, your thighs burn from the effort.

A part of you wonders if all the exertion was even worth it, but that quickly fades with one look at his costume. You briefly wonder if you’ll get a medal for saving one of Japan’s beloved heroes- after all that heavy lifting, you sort of feel like you deserve it.

You begin adjusting his limbs, pressing him flat against the floor and tipping his head back. The bleeding in his nose seems to be slowing, but you don’t want to take any chances. You tip his head a little further to the side, hoping it’ll be enough to not let him choke on the blood. The nerves begin to settle in; you’re not sure what to do now. You were hoping he’d wake up on the way in and direct you from there, but hat didn’t happen.

As it looks now, Dynamite wouldn’t be directing a single thing any time soon.

Your fingers itch. The familiar burning begins, and you flex them in your gloves, wondering just how bad of an idea using your quirk would be.

Bakugou did look pretty hurt, and even without all your years studying medicine, anybody could tell several of his bones were broken. Not just that, but one of his ankles was lolling grotesquely. When you get a closer look, you find tiny bits of bone threatening to burst through the thin skin- his ankle has shattered completely and you’re sure he’s got to be in shock. Pain like that would take just about anyone out. Even a pro-hero.

You sign in frustration, kneeling next to him as you try to make a decision. The itch in your hands is telling you to use your quirk- to help him, but it’s not that easy. Your quirk is all encompassing, and exceedingly powerful, but it doesn’t discriminate. It will try to lessen all of his hurt, physical and mental, and you don’t want to pry into his business. If you try to help him now, you won’t only feel aftershocks of his broken bones, but you’ll get flashes of his memories too. It’s invasive, uncomfortable, and damn near uncontrollable; you really don’t want to have to resort to that.

Sighing once more, you slide your phone out of your pocket. You’re not really sure who to call, but you figure the Hero Public Safety Commission is a good start. You’ve barely been connected to the main line, before you feel a hand drop heavy onto your thigh.

“Fuckin’- stop. Fuckin’ phone. Stop.” He grunts, half-lucid and slurring. His face screws up in pain as he lifts his arm to bat at your phone. “That’s a- fuckin’ order.”

“It’s alright, I’m calling for help.” You soothe calmly, suddenly glad for all of your emergency aid training. You lean back, phone held out of his reach as the operator tells you to hold. “You’re alright. I’m getting you help. You’ll be okay.”

“No- fuckin’ stupid! You don’t get it! Stop. Don’t call them.”

Then he’s surging upwards, and all you can see is his pupils blown wide and his angry expression. His palms are cackling and you’re shrinking away instinctively, but he’s not after you. Bakugou grabs the phone out of your hands, running off of nothing but fumes and adrenaline, and chucks it across the room. Then he grunts in pain, coughing as he flops back, boneless onto the ground.

“Why- what the hell? Oh my god-”

“Shut the fuck up.” Bakugou bites out, his breath rattling in his chest. His voice is weak and raspy, but his eyes are steely and intense. He looks pissed. “Jesus fucking christ. I told you. So shut up, you fuckin’ dolt, it’s your own damn fault.”

You first instinct is to scream, to yell and screech and berate him for shattering your phone. The rage boils thickly under your skin, only boosted by his irritated sigh, but then you remember your training. People in shock were generally disoriented, and it wouldn’t necessarily be a stretch to assume they could be irrationally angry.

All it takes is one look at Bakugou’s blown pupils and rising goosebumps, and then you sigh. He’s in shock. You’ll decide to give him a pass.

“S-stop fuckin’ starin’. What the fuck, are you even-” He slurs suddenly, words hardly forming around teeth suddenly beginning to chatter. “Why the hell is it so cold? Hah?!”

“Not cold. You’re in shock.” You say calmly, doing your best not to make any sudden movements. “But it’s alright. I’m a nurse. I can help you.”

Your words seem to miss him completely, and he just tracks your movement with wide eyes and quick breaths. His legs are twitching and you watch him try to move his ankle, see the panic rise in his eyes when it’s unresponsive. He tries again, scrambling up on his forearms as his chest heaves. He’s spiraling, quick, and you need to help him calm down. Soon. Or he was going to pass out again.

With gentle hands, you press against his shoulders until he’s flat against the wood again. Bakugou tries to fight at first, gasping for air, but you’re stronger. He tips his head back to look up at you, near terror clouding his eyes.

“I’m not going to hurt you. You’re alright. I’m a nurse.” You reassure him once more, before slipping your jacket off your shoulders slowly. “This is just to keep you warm, alright? Just a jacket. I have to try stabilizing your temperature before anything else.”

“Can’t- I can’t,” His voice is rising, words bitten out and angry as his eyes dart around the room. “Where the fuck did you take me? This isn’t- let me go! I’ll fuckin’ blow you to hell, bitch!”

Bakugou’s words are scary and harsh, his palms crackling wildly at his sides. He’s very injured, nearly paralyzed by all his broken bones, but that doesn’t seem to be stopping his quirk. You didn’t want to use your own quirk, but at this point it’s seemingly the only option. You need to get him to calm down, to bring him out of his shock before he blows your entire place up.

Taking a deep breath, you close your eyes, allowing your hands to fall on his arm. Normally you’d try to activate your quirk directly on an injury, but as it stood now Bakugou was just one giant broken bone. You could feel him trying to shake you off, so you just hold on tighter as you focus.

You begin to shiver, all your bones vibrating in your skin as you take on his pain. It starts in your toes, an almost inconceivable pain that runs searing trails of lava through your marrow before it settles behind your temples. His physical pain manifests as a room-blurring, white-hot migraine, but his mental pain hits you a million times harder.

You’re seeing flashes behind your eyelids- flashes of yelling and screaming and bright orange-red explosions, every snap-shot moving so fast that it nearly rips the breath from your lungs. You screw your eyes shut, groaning in pain, as your head falls forward. There’s rage boiling your blood, and suddenly it feels like you’re on fire. Like you’ve always been on fire and all you can do is yell and scream and itch at your skin until it peels away. Until the broiling heat is released and your don’t ribs feel like a prison anymore. Until every breath stops feeling like it’s eating away at your throat.

The itch in your fingers starts again, but this time it’s different. It has you balling your hands into fists and shaking as the anger suffocates you. All you can see is red, red, red.

Then it stops. Everything stops and your fists uncurl, and suddenly you’re scared. You’re terrified like you’ve never been before, heart seizing in your chest. It skips a beat. Picks up. Skips a beat, picks up.

You’ve never felt anything like this before. This isn’t shock, you’ve felt that before, and it isn’t concussion fog either. It’s something dormant, pulsating strong and steady beneath all his current afflictions. The feeling is dark and smothering and intense like nothing you’ve ever known before. He’s miserable. Bakugou is utterly miserable and angry, and you’re sure you weren’t supposed to feel that.

You tear your hands away from Bakugou, falling backwards onto the floor without grace. Your heart hardly begins to slow, hardly begins to settle, before you hear him groaning next to you. When you look at him, his eyes are more alert and his teeth, thankfully, have stopped chattering. Unfortunately, his pupils are still blown and he looks just as freaked out as before. You’re starting to think that maybe he also has a concussion.

“What the fuck did ya do to me? Hah?” He gasps out. “What kinda fuckin’ quirk-“

“I call it Alleviate.”

“I don’t give a shit what you call it! Felt you in my fuckin’ head! Who the fuck said you could pull that-“

“I’m sorry.” You cringe at his yelling, rubbing at your temples as you sit up. The headache from earlier early fades, but it leaves bone-deep exhaustion behind. “My quirk targets and lessens all pain- physical and mental. I can’t choose which one. I was just trying to help.”

“I didn’t fuckin’ ask for your help!”

“I know. I’m sorry. Again.” You wince, scrunching your eyes shut. You felt woozy and weak, just like you always did after using your quirk. “It’s just- you were in shock. You were gonna blow my whole apartment up. I had to.”

You answer washes over Bakugou like a bucket of cold water. You watch him still where he lies, fingers twitching at his sides. A beat passes and then he’s shifting again, nostrils flaring in annoyance when he can hardly sit up.

You watch his face contort in pain once more, and suddenly you’re not tired anymore. The feeling reminds you of working at the hospital, and you find the urge to help him much outweighs your own exhaustion. You’d push through it- just like a graveyard shift at work.

“Now, I’m going to need you to take a deep breath for me, and try your best to relax.” You say in an even tone, holding steady eye contact. “You’ve got a lot of injuries, and you need to lay back down. You’ll just exacerbate them if you keep moving.”

“Don’t fuckin’ tell me what to do- I’m fine! I’ll be good, jus’ need a few fuckin’ minutes,” He huffs, but then he falls back again once more. You guide him with you hands gently, intent on making the impact as painless as possible. “Now get out of my fuckin’ face.”

“If I thought you would be fine by yourself, I would.” You snort, leaving his side to gather your phone and some pillows from your couch. You slide one pillow under his head and the other under his ankle gently, doing your best to be delicate. “But you aren’t, and you need help. I know what I’m doing. I’m a nurse, and I’ve done this many times, so trust me and try to relax, alright?”

“Relax? I can’t fuckin’ move!”

“I know. All I can do is help with the pain, I can’t heal you, but-”

“That’s a shitty fuckin’ quirk.”

“It actually isn’t; not in my line of work, at least.” You say indulgently, before pressing two fingers under his jaw. His heart is still beating wildly, way too quickly. “Now, did you crash land with a phone on you? Any identification?”

“You don’t know who I am? How stupid are you?”

“Not stupid. I know who you are- but all those things are important for when an ambulance gets here. You have way too many broken bones to walk it off, so I’m gonna call you an ambulance, alright?”

“You’re not calling shit!”

“I have to call somebody for you. I’ve done all I can.” You push on calmly, schooling your features even as exhaustion ebbs at your mind. “Now, if not the hero commission, who do you want me to call for you?”

He seems to resist for a moment, but then his eyebrows settle. He clenches a fist at his side, sighs, and begins to rattle off a number.

“Put it on fuckin’ speaker.” Bakugou demands, scrunching his face up as you type in the number.

You roll your eyes at his tone, but comply anyway. The phone rings four times before somebody picks up.

“Uh, hello?” The voice asks groggily, thick sleep clouding his voice. “Who’s, uh, who’s this?”

“Oi- Shitty Hair. Clear your fuckin’ throat. Sound disgusting as shit.” Bakugou grits out. “And wake the hell up, I need you to do something.”

“Are you asking me for help?”

“Yeah. Whatever. Shut up about it.”

“I didn’t-“

“Shut the fuck up.” Bakugou barks. Then he blinks, pauses a second before adding an afterthought. “Fuckin’ bitch.”

On the other side of the phone, the man sighs something existentially exhausted and put-upon. You think that’s probably an accurate description of what associating with Bakugou is like. At least, that’s what you’ve gathered from this first impression.

“Just- you’re gonna get an address texted to you. Go to it.” Bakugou orders, turning his head to look at you. He squints his eyes, daring you to put up a fuss about his plans. “And bring your fuckin’ car. Do not take the subway.”

“My car? Dude, you hurt or something?”

“Yeah. He is.” You say, holding a finger out to Bakugou so he doesn’t say otherwise. “Pretty badly, too. He doesn’t want me to call an ambulance, but he definitely won’t be able to walk out of here.”

“What? Oh my god. Is he-“

“He’s alright. Don’t worry.” You assure. “I’ve stabilized him, for now, but he definitely needs more help than I can give hi-“

“Yeah! Fuckin’ nurse, my ass, she didn’t do shit for me!” Bakugou interrupts, lips pulled back into a snarl. “Useless quirk bitch!”

You roll your eyes again. If he wasn’t in so much pain, and you hadn’t been used to hearing so much worse at the hospital, you’d kick his ass.

“Sorry. About him.” The man on the phone apologizes, as he sucks in a breath. “Send me the address, and I’ll get there as soon as possible. Alright?”

“Yep. You got it.”

The call cuts, and you send your location to him over text. When you look down at Bakugou, his face is screwed up once more, and he’s heaving shallow breaths all over again. Your quirk must be wearing off.

“Scale 1-10, how much pain are you in?” You ask him.

“Stupid- stupid fuckin’ question.” He seethes through teeth clenched shut. “Not funny. Shut the fuck up.”

“I’m not trying to be funny. It’s a question to gauge whether or not I should use my quirk on you. It won’t be good for either of us if you pass out from the pain again.”

“I won’t.”

“Okay. If you say so.” You say, leaning back on your hands. The exhaustion seeps in again, but you blink away the fog. “But seriously, if it gets unbearable, I need you to tell me.”

“I don’t want your fuckin’ help.”

“Maybe not, but this is pretty much my job, alright? I’m gonna try and make this as painless for you as I can.” You try to soothe, voice light and unassuming. “But, I will need you to keep talking, alright? You have to try and stay lucid.”

Bakugou glares at you, presses his mouth into a thin line. His defiance is written clear across his face, and you’re sure he’d be crossing his arms across his chest if he could. Maybe even stomping his foot if he could stand. All in all, he reminds you of the pouting children you so often give flu-shots to. The thought makes you smile a bit.

“Fuck you smiling about?” He grumbles suddenly, but his voice is off. When you look down at him, he’s clenching his teeth as his eyes flutter closed.

“No. Stop. You need to keep them open.” You wave a hand in front of his face. “I’m not sure, but you might have a concussion so I need you to stay awake just in case.”

He just wrenches his eyes shut again, before blinking them wide open. When he looks up at you, his eyes are mostly pupil and there’s something stuttered about the way he tracks your movements. You’re suddenly glad all the lights in your apartment are off, you’re almost entirely sure he has a concussion. And not just a mild one, either.

“Can you remember what happened? Before you were thrown onto my balcony?” You ask, trying your best to keep your voice quiet.

“Yes. Fuckin’ obviously. I-” His eyebrows lift, and his eyes flicker around the room. There’s a frustrated sigh from Bakugou, and then he just sinks his head further into the pillow. “No.”

“Okay. That’s okay. That’s just the concussion symptoms, no need to panic. Are you feeling okay, right now? Any nausea? Dizziness?”

“What the fuck are ya? Fuckin’ doctor or somethin’?”

You’re sure now. He’s concussed. Pretty badly too, considering he doesn’t remember the multiples times you’d already told him you were a nurse. You’re briefly impressed that he even managed to remember his friend’s number, but then again you reason, that could’ve been just an unexpected benefit from using your quirk.

“Nurse. I’m a nurse.” You repeat, before re-adjusting the jacket you had previously spread over him. You pull it up to his shoulders. “Now, I’m sure your friend’ll get here soon, so I need you to just sit tight, alright?”

“Not a fuckin’ kid. Don’t need to be babied.” He slurs, eyes once again shuttering. “Knock it- knock it off.”

You just ignore his comment, focusing instead on trying to keep his eyes open. There’s not much you could do without disturbing his injuries, so you take to patting his cheeks gently. Anything to keep him from falling asleep- you don’t have the equipment necessary to evaluate his brain injury, and you don’t want to be blindsided by a potential seizure.

“Don’t fall asleep. C’mon Bakugou, open your eyes. I know it hurts, and you’re probably really drowsy, but this is important.” You say again, a little louder this time. “I need you to stay awake.”

When he blinks his eyes open again, he’s hardly there. The effects of your quirk have seemingly completely worn off, and Bakugou’s feeling the full effects of his head injury. He looks confused and disoriented, and when he tries to lift a barely-sizzling palm towards you, his face seizes up in pain all over again.

“It’s okay. You’re good. No need to blow me up.” You smile gently, pressing his hand flat against the ground. Bakugou resists for a moment, before his arm goes slack. “All you need to do is keep your eyes open.”

Suddenly there’s a knock at the door, and you turn away from Bakugou. You watch him wince at the loud sound as you open the door.

The first thing you notice about Bakugou’s friend is his bright red hair, and his shark teeth. He’s Red Riot, Kirishima Eijiro, and you know exactly who he is too. You breathe a relieved sigh, thankful that you could hand him off to someone you knew was capable.

“Holy shit.” The man at the door says, suddenly gasping. “Bakugou!”

Scratch that. Kirishima just screamed bloody murder at a concussed person. Maybe not so capable.

“Be quiet!” You shush, ushering Kirishima in as you shut the door gently behind him. “I’m pretty sure he’s got a concussion, so I need you to be quiet. Too much noise is just gonna cause him more pain.”

“Yeah. Yeah. Okay, got it. I understand.”

“Thanks.” You whisper.

You lead him over to the sliding balcony door, and Bakugou is right where you left him. He’s almost completely still, looking up at the both of you through lidded eyes.

“Okay. So, I’m not sure where to send him, but he needs to go to a hospital. He’s got a shattered ankle, a severe concussion, probably a broken nose, and several broken bones, at least. Probably a few cracked ribs too.” You report tactfully. “The good news is, I haven’t seen any symptoms of internal bleeding. That’s great so far, but I can’t be entirely rule it out, so we need to get him to someone who can.”

Kirishima doesn’t say anything, just gulps nervously back at you.

“It’s alright.” You soothe. “He’ll be just fine, as long as we get him help soon. Now, I’m not sure where heroes go for treatment, and Bakugou isn’t in any position to tell me, so I need you to tell me. Can you do that?”

“Yeah. It’s- we’ve got a med-wing back at the hero complex.”

“Okay. Good. Do they have ambulances that can get here? We really shouldn’t be moving him without a stretcher to stabilize him, and I don’t have one.”

“Yeah. They do. I’ll give them a call.”

“Good.”

Kirishima takes his phone out, as you settle back on the floor next to Bakugou. Bakugou’s barely lucid, but he’s sniffing and then you realize his nose is bleeding again. Upon closer inspection, his nose is definitely broken. There’s nothing you could do about that for the time being, but the blood seeping onto your floors was fixable.

“Hey, can you make sure he keeps his eyes open for just a minute or so?” You ask Kirishima, nodding towards Bakugou. “I think he’ll probably be fine, but I need to be sure. I’m just gonna step away and get a wet rag. Try to clean up some of the blood as best as I can.”

Kirishima just nods, taking your spot and dialing a number on his phone. You can hear his voice as you move into your kitchen.

You fingers itch again. It’s irritating because you’re just tired, not spent, and you could be helping Bakugou a lot more if he’d let you. If he just let you, then you could alleviate his pain and his concussion symptoms all in one go, and waiting for the ambulance would be child’s play.

But you can’t. Your quirk was invasive enough as a surprise- you wouldn’t purposefully dig into someone’s mind against their wishes.

It felt a little useless to only be wiping away blood when you could be doing so much more, but you ignore the feeling. It takes only a minute or so before you’re walking back to your living room, a few damp dish towels in hand.

“Is he still okay?” Kirishima asks, and you can see the panic in his eyes.

You quickly come to the conclusion that Bakugou must not be someone who let’s himself get gravely injured a lot. Kirishima doesn’t seem to be used to seeing his friend hurt at all.

“Yeah. Well, just as okay as he was before I left.” You reassure, settling on your knees at Bakugou’s side. Red eyes lazily slide over to you, and you try to smile something reassuring at him. “Bakugou’ll be just fine. How long until an ambulance gets here?”

“Soon. Should be soon.”

“Okay.”

Quiet settles over the three of you, as you wad up a dish towel. You dab it over Bakugou’s face, rubbing away the dried blood that dripped down his mouth and neck. You hope it’ll make him a little more comfortable. As much of an asshole as he’d proven himself to be so far, you still wanted to help him. You’re sure he couldn’t be feeling anything other than absolutely miserable as he was.

“Stop.” Bakugou slurs with barely any heat, scrunching his eyes as you work at the blood that somehow dripped around his ear. “Don’t fuckin’ need it.”

“Shh. It’s okay. Just cleaning up some of the blood.” You say indulgently, smothering a crackling palm with another damp dish towel. “Just breathe, alright? Help’s almost here. You’re gonna be just fine.”

“Fuckin’ course I am. Bitch.”

You snort, dabbing at the bits of dried blood in his hair. Bakugou just blinks at you, confused and disoriented, but still blessedly awake. You press his hair back to get at the skin of his forehead, and you might be imagining it, but you think Bakugou leans into the light touch.

“He always like this?” You ask Kirishima, laughing slightly in pure disbelief. “He always so angry and prickly?”

“Only on his best days.”

“It’s- that was funny. Good one.”

Kirishima’s phone lights up suddenly, and then he’s walking to the other side of the room, taking the call quietly. He faces you with a wobbly smile when he turns back.

“They’ll be here in a minute or so. I told them to just walk up- shit, I probably should’ve asked, right?” He relays nervously, scratching at the back of his neck. “Is that okay? I gave them your apartment number.”

“Just fine. I don’t feel comfortable moving him, so I’m perfectly okay leaving it up to them. Thanks for your help.”

“No, thank you. I- well, I’m sure he wasn’t exactly cooperative for you.”

“He wasn’t.” You huff a sardonic laugh. “That’s alright though, he’s still far from the rudest patient I’ve ever had. Surprisingly.”

Kirishima just smiles at that, and then perks up at the sound of footsteps outside the door. He lets the paramedics in, and they’re crowding Bakugou as you step away.

It’s quick work, and Bakugou is stabilized on a stretcher in just a few minutes. A part of you wants to help, even more so when you see the blonde mumbling in pain, but you stay back.

Just as everyone is filing out the door, you suddenly find yourself grabbing a hold of Kirishima’s arm.

“If it’s not too much to ask, do you think you could give me an update on him? When he wakes up and is lucid, I mean.” You ask unsurely. “I’m sure he’ll be just fine, but the affirmation would be nice, you know?”

You’re not sure what compels you to ask, especially not when Bakugou had been so prickly to you earlier, but you ask anyway. You tell yourself that it’s just residual nurturing urges from caring for him, but even you’re not sure that feels right.

A part of you knows it’s because of what you felt in his head. How miserable he was and all the pain festering there- but an even larger part of you won’t admit it.

“Yeah. For sure. I’ve got your number.” Kirishima says, a small smile edging at his lips. “I’ll let you know in the morning. And thanks. Again.”

“Of course. Tell him I hope he feels better.”

Kirishima nods, and then leaves, closing the door behind him. Suddenly you’re alone in your apartment, and the silence is near deafening. You hadn’t realized just how loud a presence Bakugou was until he was gone.

Sighing, you finally let the tiredness seep into your bones. You feel it there, thick and suffocating, dragging your feet as you collapse on your couch. There’s still bloody rags sitting on the floor, and you’re sure you’ve got some on your clothes, but you can’t be bothered to get up.

You’re out before you know it, the memory of red eyes and white-hot anger playing behind your eyelids.

--/--

hope u enjoyed!!! yay!! new series!!

also, a few people have asked me to put a taglist together for my writing, and i’m planning on doing that. feel free to leave a comment if u’d like to be added to the list as well!!

#bakugou katsuki #katsuki bakugou #bnha bakugo #bnha bakugo katsuki #mha bakugo katsuki #mha bakugou ka #bakugou x reader #bakugou x self insert #bakugou x you #bakugou x y/n #bnha fic #mha fic #bakugou imagine #bakugou series #bakugou fic

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nuclearnerves · 4 years ago

Text

INCOMING VAMPIRE AU THOUGHTS

Don't mind me I'm finally getting the ideas I had on this shit out so I can actually go forward with developing it as an AU. It's my usual mixup of fps protags, Gordon Guy and John, but I'm starting with Gordon as the Vampire and Guy as the Vampire Hunter.

absolute beast of a wall of text under the cut

What If Being A Vampire Literally Sucks All The Time Forever like chronic pain sucks. like THAT level of sucks. Like Here's what I was thinking of. Being a vampire isn't just "being alive forever but you need to drink human blood" It's like Oh man I have some lore you look at vampires and their main thing is that they're blood suckers right so lets start with a corpse dead body. cadaver. no longer with us. just some rotting meat. The brain needs oxygen as fuel. The blood supplies the oxygen through blood. The blood is pumped through the heart. The blood is made by your bone marrow. You die. Your heart stops beating Blood stops pumping Brain no longer has oxygen to think marrow stops making blood thats standard! Now, becoming undead, as a vampire, is a little more complicated. The long and short of it is: your body is FIGHTING ACTIVELY to be alive against all odds and wins every time (immortality), but it hurts the whole way

I have the gist of it. It's like. Your heart stops. By all means, you should be dead. but the magic kicks in, and you're still thinking. Your brain is still sending signals to your muscles to move. But using what oxygen to move? whats burning in you? You don't know but you know it's just enough to get to your next meal. So you ferociously eat something, and then find you can't swallow. You can't make saliva. You barely have the energy to chew, and once you DO get something in your stomach, it immediately comes back up. Why can't you feel your pulse? What's going on? You're out of options so you figure you might as well just lie down and die. You're too tired to keep going anyway. So you do, you lie down, and you close your eyes, and you quietly hope that death is as peaceful as sleep. You realize you've actually been moving around without breathing, which makes sense because you can barely flex your diaphragm for more than a shaky wheeze. How are you thinking with such little oxygen? But as you fade from consciousness, you can feel something in you, and it's so upset, it's crying, it's filled with grief, and you instantly can tell it's your skeleton. It's your bones. You're distraught down to your marrow. You're dying. You're dying! Your heart stopped and you have no more blood! You need blood! You need blood to move! To breathe! To think! You try to breath deep again for the voices in your bones, trying to comfort them, to sooth them with the repetitive motion in your lungs, trying to fill yourself with anything but grief, but they keep wailing. We make the blood, our creation, our child, what we put all of our work into is gone! gone! gone! We need it back! Anything! All of it! Find it! Bring it back to us! We're hungry! WE'RE HUNGRY!

and once you find yourself too exhausted to listen, to think, how badly you wish just to die already to cease hearing this wailing, you find your body moving without you. And it's hungry and it's searching and it's crawling on all fours and it misses its beautiful red life that made it feel so full before and it needs it back, and the next thing you know you're desperately grabbing anything with blood in it and shoving it in your mouth in a desperate attempt to sooth this cry for life, you don't want to die, you don't want to die, you worked so hard to keep up this body and craft it and LIVE with it and you're not going to go, and even when you try, even when you try to lay down and die, your body refuses, it takes the reigns, and it keeps up the work itself with or without your help. And it's not until your stomach is full and your teeth are stained and you feel a pulsating burning in your bones that you snap back awake, completely conscious, just fine. You're lucid, you don't feel any more pain. Everything around you is dead and drained and messy and your heart still isn't beating. but you can breathe now and holy shit you guess you literally need to kill to survive and the less you eat and the more you starve yourself the worse it gets when your body finally decides to take recourse.

my idea was like. "the vampires curse is actually stored in the bones, thats why the teeth get so sharp and also theres a connection between blood and bones with the creation via bone marrow" its literally like i was sitting there thinking "no no no, whats it like to be a vampire. what neurosis would you develop. How would you panic? What are common mistakes beginner vampires make" which, by the way, gordon is a beginner vampire

so now you gotta factor, what blood lasts for how long? how long can you go between meals? not only that, but what creatures satisfy the urge? How long can you go avoiding human blood? Does it work like drugs where you develop a resistance to the high, or is it like food where it will keep you moving until you eat again? How the fuck are you gonna get your hands on blood? Can you just eat raw meat? Does that count? and thats where im at lol

OKAY now. now thoughts on beginning scenes of vampire au

So my idea was this Doomguy is a vampire hunter independent and one of his buds says that some freak scared and almost attacked his daughter when she got too close to his old abandoned laboratory up the hill and hes like “he might be… you know… a problem. if you needed a lead” and guys like yeah i fuckin hate the undead ill kill this dude so he busts into old lab space and sees so many dead animals its actually mostly Bones and pelt that hes seeing piles of feathers etc so hes like yeah this is all telltale signs of vampire uhhh hes introduced to gordon SOMEHOW im not totally sure of the details but the working idea i have is guy falls into a trap gordon devised that restrains him suspended in wire or something and gordon like. limps/stumbles into the room and this dude looks haggard he’s breathing heavy, his cheeks are hollow, he’s bug-eyed and shaking while looking at this massive wall of meat in his trap and he bares a bunch of hideous teeth and grits them and looks like hes really struggling with somethin... Like if these dudes don't know each other then Gordon might give in and try to drain Guy, and Guy would absolutely do anything in his power to turn this new vampire into ash, im thinking the inclusion if g-man as a coven leader can fix both issues.

i like the idea of guy falling into gordons trap and gordon thinking about what to do with him before gman shows up and whisks gordon away for a “meeting” while complimenting him on his good work catching the most feared vampire hunter in the country and gman just leaving guy suspended in wires that he has to fight his way out of. Instant situation defuser.

Guy ends up needing to take care of other monsters before going back to Gordon, and he DOES plan to go back to gordon, because no vampire is a good one, especially not one associated with the fucking head of a coven, but next time he sees Gordon, Gordon helps him out of a scrape by attacking and draining a combine who was going to take Guy out or something and escaping before Guy can catch him, or otherwise seeing Gordon do something good with his insane undead powers and like, the third time he meets up with him is when they can actually talk, and Gordons fuckin SO haggard, he’s not even fighting back and he’s even going as far as to say “just make sure theres nothing of me left when you’re done, I don’t want anyone else getting hurt”

Side Note: Guy has a bunch of scarring on his body from dealing with vampires, cops, ghosts, werewolves, anything violent that kills people. I'm playing with the inkling of an idea that he has Divine Blood in him, so that any time something undead bites him or tries to drink his blood, it burns. We'll see.

Side Note 2: now i really like the idea of the combine actually being an organized faction of vampire hunters that are WICKED crooked and exploit people for all their worth in exchange for their “safety” when they kill a vampire They’re essentially loansharks and Guy fucking hates them and hates the name theyve given to vampire hunting

Side Note 3: You've probably noticed that I haven't said anything about John yet! He's in this too. His species is a surprise but I need to get to him later I have an idea for where he came from (Cortana too)

I still need a good reason for Guy to not instantly kill this vampire, if not it's just gonna be "Gordon Freeman escapes the countrys best vampire hunter like a seventh time" every time they meet and they end up being rivals. And it gives Guy enough time to look past the whole "undead monster" thing and start looking at the "Oh this dude figured out how to fight his ridiculous craving for blood in a way more humane than most and is actually staying out of peoples way and keeping to himself. Guess he's not that big of a threat but I still need to keep an eye on him in case he loses it. Turns out he's got a family (Probably Alyx, Eli, Issac and Barney) who's been lookin for him and cares about him as well, don't wanna hurt them". I like the idea of them ending up needing to team up to take out undead together.

And that's what I got so far!!!

#freeguy #gordon freeman #doomguy #vampire au #freeguy117

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scapularius · 3 years ago

Text

Crimes Against the Amnion

If I run my hand through my hair my skin will come off white,

The hollow shell of my skull cracking open.

I take a piece off and peel it back;

I pull them all off, chipping apart my cranium piece by piece—

The protein, the membrane, the yoked condition.

The scales spread and I can’t smile,

Though maybe it would be worth the blood,

If only so she would have something to look back towards.

The caged fowl, packed tightly together,

Claws scrabbling in the hay, shit and saltwater in my hair.

The women above scream, those below cry.

And the bars pressing into my flanks prop me up,

Nice and pretty and hourglass shaped,

Ripe and ready to be taken,

For I have nothing to freely give.

I force it out of me, bleeding and sore,

Gaping and sweating and preening,

And they take it away, crack it.

Kill the eggs and the eggs in the eggs and the eggs in the eggs in the eggs.

And then thin my waist and skin;

I am so desirable, with my curves and my edges and my soft warm inviting body.

Nobody minds that I am a silver-boned husk,

For I am fresh, and that’s enough.

The lady next to me looks dully on as hers are stolen too,

and I rest my head on her thigh, weeping,

Until they beat me back upright.

They take my shelled head piece by piece,

Until my wet hot glistening pink insides are on display,

My quivering brain—

And, peeling down the trachea, the womb,

Porous and proud,

Exposed for you all.

The embryo with thumbs and eyelashes, I want it.

The tiny wrinkled foetus, I want it.

You can see her before I do—

Before I ever do.

Gluey and silver.

Quiet and cold.

I need to see everything, I beg

To hold her in my tree-shaped arms.

Please, please.

The leaves stretch into her ears,

Her tiny tiny eyes,

Her tiny tiny little womb,

With all its cysts and potential.

I tried so hard. I did my best.

but I am not a vineyard, nor a mother,

So I look down at my brain, my baby, my breakfast,

And I see it all.

Every terrible thought, every beautiful moment;

It’s all there, pulsating, weeping against my thigh,

Grieving for its girls.

And maybe if things got really terrible I could reach in.

Maybe one day, if I unlearned submission, I could stretch and reach in,

With my unsterilised, torn fingers,

Cross-contaminate the central echochamber with its rough myrmidons,

Its dirty nails,

And pick the worst parts out.

All my stupid questions are here, my faltering answers,

And now, a septic encephalon.

At night, in private, a lacerated cerebrum.

What I do in the dark, that’s between me and her.

I wrap what’s left in marrow and stomach lining—

The select portions, offered up in stolen fire.

Make amends for the fall of my species.

The quiet woman, too porcelain and curious,

Who opened the jar.

But my vessel is cracked and peeled already,

And the terrible violence doesn’t fly out.

Rather, I scoop it out,

A frenzied surgery,

The hippocampus, prefrontal cortex, and the amygdala.

Goodbye, my darlings!

Lost in the sweet autolobotomy

That comes with the whip and the light.

The flesh is gone, into the ground, into the air,

Burrowed beneath my fingernails.

I haven’t been clean since I left the sac,

I’ll never be clean again.

The brain, the body, the ovum, the embryo, the foetus, the curses, the women.

The white flakes spread around my wide, unseeing eyes.

And I am so happy.

#spilled ink #confessional poetry #poetry #creative writing #feminism #visceral #invective

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konmarkimageswords · 4 years ago

Audio

(Uradiance)

What the Ancestors Want

The ancestors want you to know, you are not required to carry their pain.

Your mother did not spin the web that nets you, you wove it from your own desire.

Yesterday’s rain won’t nourish this flower; the new sun drank last night’s tears.

Your grandmothers are singing for you to birth your own unbearable happiness.

Your grandfathers’ bones are praying for you to hunt the sweetness in your own marrow.

You think you must stand like a warrior in the withering crossfire of your father’s blood.

But what wounds you is the wavering blade of your mind, slashing the past and future.

If you insist on making reparations, plant a wild pine; let it be a tree of Presence.

You cannot pay them for the privilege of breathing, for awakening this solitude of beauty.

They need no libation, they thirst for no offering. They are not hungry ghosts,

But earthworms who luxuriate in loam, shards of sunlight lodged in magnolia blossoms.

Do not carry them; they do not carry you. They bear their own grief and laughter.

The past is vanishing smoke, the flame is now. Be christened with this breath; name yourself.

You sleep alone in the chamber of your ribs. No one else enters and leaves your lungs.

A mother kissed you, a father held you; you owe them nothing for this.

They did it for themselves; now let them be about the business of their next childhood.

Father your heart, Mother your body. Hold and kiss new sparkling babies.

Give them your grandmother’s name if you must, but not as a weight, not as a brand on the hip;

But as a prayer, a promise of astonishment for what has not yet been conceived.

Initiation

The true Word

is not a mantra

or an affirmation

that rattles in your skull,

but a pure pulsation

of silence,

a kiss of star-song

seducing your heart

deeper and deeper

into the flower

of emptiness.

The true Word is given

through the whisper

of one who has become

the breath of stillness

herself.

This breath contains

the swirl of every galaxy

and the fire

of every sun.

Bow to the giver

of the soundless song.

Master and Fool

The fool never gets tired of three things: drinking strong wine from his own heart, reaching the goal on the first step of an infinite journey, and running his fingers through the wise fur of a brown four-legged earthling. Now get good and lost until you find yourself beating at the door of this fool’s hut. Knock and he'll cry, 'Who's there?' 'It's me!' you'll reply. And he'll answer, 'There's no room in here for me!' So you'll spend a thousand more lifetimes praying, fasting, giving alms until one day, weary of all your goodness, you'll wander to that hut and knock again. 'Who's there?' he'll cry. 'Nobody,' you'll answer. Then he'll open the door and hug you with fierce joy, uncorking your heart so that you too can taste the dark vintage of wisdom that's been aging in your chest since the day before there was light.

Say Less

True listeners live in the heart. They love the gossip of raindrops, the breaking news of Spring peepers.

Say less than you mean. Grace is the gift of subtraction. The trembling crystal of a chickadee proclaims the whole Godspell.

Tell as little as a willow by a pond where the heron glides away on the first breath of twilight.

And if you must speak, leave a rippled stillness between yours words, the kind of mirror where that long-beaked huntress might pause

on one leg all the golden afternoon. Be more like the moon between clouds, until your silences say everything.

My Ancestry DNA results

My Ancestry DNA results came in. Just as I suspected, my great great grandfather was a monarch butterfly.

Much of who I am is still wriggling under a stone. I am part larva, but part hummingbird too.

There is dinosaur tar in my bone marrow.

My golden hair sprang out of a meadow in Palestine.

Genghis Khan is my fourth cousin, but I didn't get his dimples.

My loins are loaded with banyan seeds from Sri Lanka, but I descended from Ravanna, not Ram.

My uncle is a mastodon.

There are traces of white people in my saliva.

3.7 billion years ago I swirled in golden dust, dreaming of a planet overgrown with lingams and yonis.

More recently, say 60,000 B.C. I walked on hairy paws across a land bridge joining Sweden to Botswana.

I am the bastard of the sun and moon.

I can no longer hide my heritage of raindrops and cougar scat.

I am made of your grandmother's tears.

You conquered rival tribesmen of your own color, chained them together, marched them naked to the coast, and sold them to colonials from Savannah.

I was that brother you sold, I was the slave trader, I was the chain.

Admit it, you have wings, vast and golden, like mine, like mine.

You have sweat, black and salty, like mine, like mine.

You have secrets silently singing in your blood, like mine, like mine.

Don't pretend that earth is not one family. Don't pretend we never hung from the same branch. Don't pretend we don't ripen on each other's breath. Don't pretend we didn't come here to forgive.

(Alfred LaMotte)

Alfred LaMotte is an interfaith chaplain and college instructor in World Religions who loves to walk barefoot in wet grass at midnight, un-naming the stars. He also enjoys gathering folks in circles to explore poetry and meditation.

https://yourradiance.blogspot.com/

https://soundcloud.com/fred-lamotte-1

https://www.amazon.com/Alfred-K-LaMotte/e/B00XILNI1Q/

#SoundCloud #music #Uradiance #Poetry #Ancestors

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heartstelltales · 4 years ago

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Emma Durand Professor Shupe ENG 3803 April 16, 2020

The Tell-Tale Heart: Literary Criticism Full Text

The Tell-Tale Heart

TRUE! --nervous --very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses --not destroyed --not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily --how calmly[1] I can tell you the whole story.

It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night. Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye! yes, it was this! He had the eye of a vulture[2] --a pale blue eye, with a film over it.[3] Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees --very gradually --I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever.

Now this is the point. You fancy me mad. Madmen[4] know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded --with what caution --with what foresight --with what dissimulation I went to work! I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him. And every night, about midnight, I turned the latch of his door and opened it --oh so gently! And then, when I had made an opening sufficient for my head, I put in a dark lantern, all closed, closed, that no light shone out, and then I thrust in my head. Oh, you would have laughed to see how cunningly I thrust it in! I moved it slowly --very, very slowly, so that I might not disturb the old man's sleep. It took me an hour to place my whole head within the opening so far that I could see him as he lay upon his bed. Ha! would a madman have been so wise as this, And then, when my head was well in the room, I undid the lantern cautiously-oh, so cautiously --cautiously (for the hinges creaked) --I undid it just so much that a single thin ray fell upon the vulture eye. And this I did for seven long nights --every night just at midnight --but I found the eye always closed; and so it was impossible to do the work; for it was not the old man who vexed me, but his Evil Eye.[5] And every morning, when the day broke, I went boldly into the chamber, and spoke courageously to him, calling him by name in a hearty tone, and inquiring how he has passed the night. So you see he would have been a very profound old man, indeed, to suspect that every night, just at twelve, I looked in upon him while he slept.

Upon the eighth night I was more than usually cautious in opening the door. A watch's minute hand[6] moves more quickly than did mine. Never before that night had I felt the extent of my own powers --of my sagacity.[7] I could scarcely contain my feelings of triumph. To think that there I was, opening the door, little by little, and he not even to dream of my secret deeds or thoughts. I fairly chuckled at the idea; and perhaps he heard me; for he moved on the bed suddenly, as if startled. Now you may think that I drew back --but no. His room was as black as pitch with the thick darkness, (for the shutters were close fastened, through fear of robbers,) and so I knew that he could not see the opening of the door, and I kept pushing it on steadily, steadily.

I had my head in, and was about to open the lantern, when my thumb slipped upon the tin fastening, and the old man sprang up in bed, crying out --"Who's there?"

I kept quite still and said nothing. For a whole hour I did not move a muscle, and in the meantime I did not hear him lie down. He was still sitting up in the bed listening; --just as I have done, night after night, hearkening to the death watches in the wall.

Presently I heard a slight groan, and I knew it was the groan of mortal terror. It was not a groan of pain or of grief --oh, no! [8]--it was the low stifled sound that arises from the bottom of the soul when overcharged with awe. I knew the sound well. Many a night, just at midnight, when all the world slept, it has welled up from my own bosom, deepening, with its dreadful echo, the terrors that distracted me. I say I knew it well. I knew what the old man felt, and pitied him, although I chuckled at heart. I knew that he had been lying awake ever since the first slight noise, when he had turned in the bed. His fears had been ever since growing upon him. He had been trying to fancy them causeless, but could not. He had been saying to himself --"It is nothing but the wind in the chimney --it is only a mouse crossing the floor," or "It is merely a cricket which has made a single chirp." Yes, he had been trying to comfort himself with these suppositions: but he had found all in vain. All in vain; because Death, in approaching him had stalked with his black shadow before him, and enveloped the victim. And it was the mournful influence of the unperceived shadow that caused him to feel --although he neither saw nor heard --to feel the presence of my head within the room.

When I had waited a long time, very patiently, without hearing him lie down, I resolved to open a little --a very, very little crevice in the lantern. So I opened it --you cannot imagine how stealthily, stealthily --until, at length a simple dim ray, like the thread of the spider, shot from out the crevice and fell full upon the vulture eye.

It was open --wide, wide open --and I grew furious as I gazed upon it. I saw it with perfect distinctness --all a dull blue, with a hideous veil over it that chilled the very marrow in my bones; but I could see nothing else of the old man's face or person: for I had directed the ray as if by instinct, precisely upon the damned spot.

And have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the sense?[9] --now, I say, there came to my ears a low, dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I knew that sound well, too. It was the beating of the old man's heart. It increased my fury, as the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage.

But even yet I refrained and kept still. I scarcely breathed. I held the lantern motionless. I tried how steadily I could maintain the ray upon the eve. Meantime the hellish tattoo of the heart increased. It grew quicker and quicker, and louder and louder every instant. The old man's terror must have been extreme! It grew louder, I say, louder every moment! --do you mark me well I have told you that I am nervous: so I am. And now at the dead hour of the night, amid the dreadful silence of that old house, so strange a noise as this excited me to uncontrollable terror. Yet, for some minutes longer I refrained and stood still. But the beating grew louder, louder! I thought the heart must burst. And now a new anxiety seized me --the sound would be heard by a neighbour! The old man's hour had come! With a loud yell, I threw open the lantern and leaped into the room. He shrieked once --once only. In an instant I dragged him to the floor, and pulled the heavy bed over him. I then smiled gaily, to find the deed so far done. But, for many minutes, the heart beat on with a muffled sound. This, however, did not vex me; it would not be heard through the wall. At length it ceased. The old man was dead. I removed the bed and examined the corpse. Yes, he was stone, stone dead. I placed my hand upon the heart and held it there many minutes. There was no pulsation. He was stone dead. His eve[10] would trouble me no more.

If still you think me mad, you will think so no longer when I describe the wise precautions I took for the concealment of the body. The night waned, and I worked hastily, but in silence. First of all I dismembered the corpse. I cut off the head and the arms and the legs.

I then took up three planks from the flooring of the chamber, and deposited all between the scantlings.[11] I then replaced the boards so cleverly, so cunningly, that no human eye --not even his --could have detected any thing wrong. There was nothing to wash out --no stain of any kind --no blood-spot whatever. I had been too wary for that. A tub had caught all --ha! ha!

When I had made an end of these labors, it was four o'clock --still dark as midnight. As the bell sounded the hour, there came a knocking at the street door. I went down to open it with a light heart, --for what had I now to fear? There entered three men, who introduced themselves, with perfect suavity, as officers of the police. A shriek had been heard by a neighbour during the night; suspicion of foul play had been aroused; information had been lodged at the police office, and they (the officers) had been deputed to search the premises.

I smiled, --for what had I to fear?[12] I bade the gentlemen welcome. The shriek, I said, was my own in a dream. The old man, I mentioned, was absent in the country. I took my visitors all over the house. I bade them search --search well. I led them, at length, to his chamber. I showed them his treasures, secure, undisturbed. In the enthusiasm of my confidence, I brought chairs into the room, and desired them here to rest from their fatigues, while I myself, in the wild audacity of my perfect triumph, placed my own seat upon the very spot beneath which reposed the corpse of the victim.

The officers were satisfied. My manner had convinced them. I was singularly at ease. They sat, and while I answered cheerily, they chatted of familiar things. But, ere long, I felt myself getting pale and wished them gone. My head ached, and I fancied a ringing in my ears: but still they sat and still chatted. The ringing became more distinct: --It continued and became more distinct: I talked more freely to get rid of the feeling: but it continued and gained definiteness --until, at length, I found that the noise was not within my ears.[13]

No doubt I now grew very pale; --but I talked more fluently, and with a heightened voice. Yet the sound increased --and what could I do? It was a low, dull, quick sound --much such a sound as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I gasped for breath --and yet the officers heard it not. I talked more quickly --more vehemently; but the noise steadily increased. I arose and argued about trifles, in a high key and with violent gesticulations; but the noise steadily increased. Why would they not be gone? I paced the floor to and fro with heavy strides, as if excited to fury by the observations of the men --but the noise steadily increased. Oh God![14] What could I do? I foamed --I raved --I swore! I swung the chair upon which I had been sitting, and grated it upon the boards, but the noise arose over all and continually increased. It grew louder --louder --louder! And still the men chatted pleasantly, and smiled. Was it possible they heard not? Almighty God! --no, no! They heard! --they suspected! --they knew! --they were making a mockery of my horror!-this I thought, and this I think. But anything was better than this agony! Anything was more tolerable than this derision! I could bear those hypocritical smiles no longer! I felt that I must scream or die! and now --again! --hark! louder! louder! louder! louder!

"Villains!" I shrieked, "dissemble no more! I admit the deed! --tear up the planks! here, here! --It is the beating of his hideous heart!"

Works Cited

Dern, John A. “Poe's Public Speakers: Rhetorical Strategies in ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’ and ‘The Cask of Amontillado.’” The Edgar Allan Poe Review, vol. 2, no. 2, 2001, pp. 53–70. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41508405. Accessed 19 Apr. 2021.

Poe, Edgar Allen. The Tell-Tale Heart. I, James Russell Lowell, 1843.

Shen, Dan. “Edgar Allan Poe's Aesthetic Theory, the Insanity Debate, and the Ethically Oriented Dynamics of ‘The Tell-Tale Heart.’” Nineteenth-Century Literature, vol. 63, no. 3, 2008, pp. 321–345. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/ncl.2008.63.3.321. Accessed 19 Apr. 2021.

Tucker, B. D. “‘The Tell-Tale Heart’ and the ‘Evil Eye.’” The Southern Literary Journal, vol. 13, no. 2, 1981, pp. 92–98. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20077666. Accessed 19 Apr. 2021.

ZIMMERMAN, BRETT. “‘Moral Insanity’ or Paranoid Schizophrenia: Poe's ‘The Tell-Tale Heart.’” Mosaic: A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature, vol. 25, no. 2, 1992, pp. 39–48. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/24780617. Accessed 19 Apr. 2021.

________________ [1] The narrator suggests that the calmness with which he can narrate the story serves to represent proof of his sanity. [2] Vultures are creatures which feast on the dead. Here, Poe alludes to the tale’s heavy focus on death. The focus on the vulture’s eyes, which Poe historically used in tales like Ligeia and The Black Cat to represent power and moral authority, further suggests the narrator’s murderous coping mechanism as a reaction to his fear of being exposed. [3] The cloudiness of the symbolic eye suggests that the author believes the man’s sense of morality is blurred. [4] The only indication of the narrator’s gender suggests they are male. [5] The symbol of the Evil Eye dates back to Ancient Greece and is a stare that is believed to bring bad luck for the person at whom it is directed for cause of envy or dislike. [6] Here, and three times again afterwards, Poe uses references to watches to indicate time as a function of increased tension. [7] Meaning foresight, keen perception; the ability to make good judgments [8] Poe relies heavily on using dashes throughout this paragraph. The overuse of dashes within the depiction of the old man’s final moments encapsulates the sporadic and garbled thought processes of the fearful old man and contrasts them to the sporadic and garbled thought processes of his hysterical murderer. [9] The narrator is aware of the madness he is projecting, and thus, continuously aims to convince the reader otherwise. His need to quell the audience’s skepticism explains his obsessive attempts at getting readers to not only trust, but also revere him. [10] Meaning to breathe or to live. Derived from Hebrew. [11] The narrator’s decision to hide the body beneath the floorboards metaphorically suggests the guilt he is attempting to smother in his subconscious. [12] The narrator’s misconstrued perception of his own reality creates situational irony. [13] Here, Poe's narrator suffers from a paranoid misperception of reality, which is a trait characteristic of schizophrenia. [14] Throughout the text, Poe relies heavily on exclamation points as tools of conveying the narrator’s heightened emotions. In the final paragraph, the use of twenty five exclamatory statements is used to further depict the narrator’s increasing levels of guilt-induced hysteria.

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zafaria · 5 years ago

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Mythopoeia

She told them her school.

They had said “That’s fine, we guess, but be careful what you do there.”

They had said “We really trusted you would be a thaumaturge. We’d have even been okay if you were a pyromancer, like your uncle; or maybe a diviner... you have creative energy.”

They had said “Is it too late to change?”

Was it too late to change?

Was there an expiry date on learning? No, maybe not. She’d stick with it though, the test was adamant to her, it almost seemed to threaten what would happen (or, worse, what wouldn’t) if she didn’t submit to being a conjurer.

A tricky thing.

It was all fine and well those first few years at the school. Kind of boring, actually. Cyrus was a very mean professor, and she was a meek and restless child. So, maybe her disposition wasn’t great for Myth. She was flighty and subdued, not grand, not like a legend. She did daydream a lot, in a lost, wistful way, but the haze of it all made her think maybe she would’ve been better off curled behind the desk in the back of the Storm classroom. At least, maybe, Balestrom wouldn’t yell at her for it. Maybe he wouldn’t even say anything.

She did like her preliminary classes in the Fire school. She liked the flame and the heat, but she was absolutely miserable at casting, at focusing her attention and getting things to stay and materialize with enough magnitude to be meaningful. She’d have switched over to Fire, but she dreaded the idea of starting all the way from the bottom of the ladder, years and years and years behind, trying to overcome what appeared to be just an innate lack of a knack for it.

So, in the Myth class, she found her spot. Not quite at the bottom of the ladder, but low enough on it. Good enough in ability to pass, bad enough in her behavior to warrant lots of public ridicule in front of her classmates. Cyrus seemed to think that by calling on students, bad students, in front of everyone, he had embarrassed them or taught them a lesson or something, but the reality was that none of the other students really cared. There was no bullying or rumors or harassment for being called on, just a glance of well-meaning but undesirable pity after class. They all got it. They had all been the kids sitting disengaged at the back of the classroom once.

Her parents would write her once every week or so.

“How are you doing?” “Fine.” Occasionally, she’d add in one episode of her trip to the Shopping District and what she bought.

“What are you learning now?” “I’ve been stuck in the Library for three days writing essays.”

“Have you made any friends yet?” “I have a lot of friends, but they are all in different schools so I don’t get to see them during the school days because our schedules are different.” Signed. Stuffed in an envelope. Wax dripped over the fold. Stamped. Sent.

Her signature took on a different look every time. The top loop of the “J” got larger and wider, more grand, the little loop at the bottom got finer, more dagger-thin. In a few days, the return letter would arrive.

“Be smart with your money. Do you have a part-time job where you’re earning?” and,

“Work hard.” and,

“Do you think you would like to switch schools so you can be with your friends?”.

She would sit on the letter and let it expire, waiting instead for her parents to send another one that reverted back to the usual questions.

And it went on, for a couple of years. And then, it changed. And then there was the noise, the loud rumbling from all around the City during one of the afternoons she had detention.

She wanted things to change so badly, and everyone was distracted, and she was just finally fed up with wasting her afternoons continuing to be forcefully immersed in a subject she couldn’t bring herself to care for. She ran down Unicorn Way towards the sound to see what was amuck; when the guards asked her to show her badge, like a pass, to show she wasn’t a novice and would be safe, dutiful, thoughtful, she palmed her sister’s old adept’s badge from her pocket. The guards looked at it quickly and waved her along, not noticing the mismatch of the Ice symbol on the badge and the yellows and blues of her robes.

So it spiralled from there. The dead were undead, and then they were dead again. Had she really done that? With Myth magic?

The cards and spells were so different in battle than the practice duels that Cyrus would take them to in the Arena and the few seconds of spellcasting she and her classmates would do in the classroom before Cyrus entered in the morning and told them all to hurry to their seats, sit straight, and prepare for lecture. They rarely got to attempt magic, and then they'd have practicals where their nerves got to them and the spells came out wonky.

But there, in the streets she had once only been able to try and stare down, it was all so real, so vibrant. The magic pulsated through her, like a second heartbeat.

She had that same kind of enamor with it all the way through the worlds. In Krokotopia, her magic never made her feel bad. In fact, it was the fire that made her feel bad; when she burned the Ahnic mummies. That left her feeling like her hands were always covered in soot, grimy, guilty. The soot stains on her soul never faded.

Then in Marleybone, there was just a hint of a shudder running around her bones, a shiver within the marrow, when she beheld the faces--or lack thereof--of the agony wraiths in Big Ben. Where had they come from? Did they miss those places, those tombs or graves or mausoleums? Were they even of Marleybone, or were they far from the grounds of their homes?

She didn’t try to think much of it when she went for the duel. She was too busy thinking of giants dislodging the bones with a club, long hollow femurs clattering to the wooden floor; an earthquake following and swallowing up the center of the clocktower. When she left, her lungs felt blackened from spending too long in the city breathing in the smog.

In Mooshu, it sank in the most. She would summon earthquakes in spirit realms and feel the little chunk of earth she was on rattle, the chasm opening up from nowhere. The friction between the worlds and shifting dirt underneath would normally propel the earthquakes, but in those disconnected little places, where the grounds were thin and hammered out flat like saucer-plates, she wondered where they stemmed from. The chasm and the shadows within it seemed to plunge deeper than the earth actually was.

The onis that stared into her seemed to be looking deeper than they actually were. Her mind sweltered. The whole of the place was confusing and demented. And she thought that maybe it rubbed off on her too. Everything felt out of reach.

Her parents wrote a letter.

“How are you?” “I am tired. I have been travelling a lot. I am doing an externship as a part of my schoolwork, for Headmaster Ambrose. It is very busy.”

“What are you studying?” “High-level Myth magic. I have learned some new spells, but they required that I go collect some things from different worlds, that’s why I’ve been visiting so many places.” She’d include one of her sketches she did of the yellow windows of Marleybone or the endless fields of Mooshu in the envelope. Her parents would’ve liked her to travel, as long as they knew it was purposeful and being done in structured way, a safe way.

“How are your friends?” She didn’t address the question, and instead sent her parents a pressed flower. Sealed. Stamped. Sent.

Then, before Dragonspyre, Cyrus pulled her aside after class. He said “Malistaire is my brother,” like she wouldn’t have maybe guessed from appearances. And then that he wanted to duel her, to see if she was competent enough to handle the war-ravaged world alone.

She desperately wanted to prove she had attained something, she had learned, she was good at this. She desperately wanted to come close in the duel, to be on the precipice of winning, but just barely lose, and to sob, put her head down, beg for help. She wanted to prove she could, and also that she couldn’t do it alone.

But the flow of battle, the rhythm of that second heartbeat in her dictated in a way all its own. It was powerful in that duel in a way it never had been. It was totally engulfing, pounding in her ears and vibrating against the veins in her wrists, and she won and she had to. If she didn’t, maybe her skin would crawl and split from the overbeat of the magic that was left unfulfilled.

Oh, and that feeling rose up once more when she faced Malistaire, when she could smell a metallic and humble aura of death and lava all across the top of the volcano in Dragonspyre. The same feeling, rushing over her, her hands floating in the air like she was only watching the spectacle and not acting in it, like her hands weren’t even hers. She was acutely aware of all she was doing, how fast her mind was moving, though. Her actions were all her own. At least, she thought, these few things I own wholly, no matter what, and they were not left to fate, nor the headmaster or the Book of Secrets, or ancient warring tribes, or an old tree’s prophecy, or her professor or her parents.

She wondered if she became overzealous at the thought. If it made her too fierce. Cyrus sat back somewhere, afraid to intervene, maybe knowing he couldn’t. Maybe he didn’t want to have his brother meet an unfortunate end at his hands, so he made his student do it for him.

Or maybe she wanted to show Cyrus her unflinching worth, and that training and practicing across the worlds and in the streets taught her something he never could, that he never thought would emerge in her: a dauntless courage to face cruelty, sometimes with cruelty in turn.

But, deep down, both knew that the most important factor of why Malistaire died, why he lost the duel and didn’t manage to stand to his feet again after, was because he was an incredibly ambitious man with a gravely weakened soul. His magic truly had split out of his skin, creating the aura that permeated around them, and infusing with the rituals to raise the Dragon Titan. And the human, non-magic parts of his soul were broken all across too. His wife was gone, truly gone. And his brother couldn’t face him, and he was beating on…a child. A hopeful, brave child who had the whole world in their eyes. And he just had nothing left in him at all.

Returning home after that was difficult for her. She walked out of the volcano and into a portal, with Cyrus’s hand pressed against her shoulder. He was guiding her toward the foggy vision of the Headmaster’s office, urging her forward but also holding her down to the ground. Under his palm, she wasn’t going to float away in a confused mire, and she also knew she couldn’t slink from under his palm into a ball on the ground and cry. She could only move forward. She knew he was telling her she had done well, she had done the right thing.

How was she going to explain to her parents that this is what her “externship” was about? That she wasn’t being a student, not at all; she was being a hero. And though a hero seemed much grander and fancier, it was very, very different from what she had prepared for. It was thoroughly taxing in the most unpredictable, inexplicable, extraordinary ways. There was no training for how to be a hero.

And after she was emotionally spent and wasted away in her room for a few days, she packed her things and went home.

“Sabbatical, dear.” That’s what Greyrose said to her. “When you’re old and wizened like me, you take one every so often to remember to slow down.”

“You need one,” said Balestrom. “Very badly, you do need one. You look tired.” She was tired, and confused, and no longer hungry when all her life she had loved food, and she felt dirty and greasy.

She turned in a letter to Cyrus, who just stared down his nose at her, then nodded. His mouth stayed pressed shut through the entire process. She almost cried. She could feel her teeth pressing into each other, and they were so tightened in her jaw they felt soft, like little marshmellows. She thought she could maybe tell that Cyrus’s jaw was also more levelled out, more squared, like he was also clenching his teeth.

She walked out very quickly.

She walked into her home very quickly. Her parents hugged her, her father gave her a kind of firm pat on the back that made her shake a little. Like he was welcoming someone he didn’t particularly like into his home. Maybe she overthought, but her mother’s laughter was all wrong too. It used to fill the room, like a joyous thing, but now it filled the room in a suffocating way.

“We laugh to show our teeth, to show they’re still there,” she remembered from the readings for one of her essays, where she spent her time in the library for a day.

They sat together at the dinner table, a plate of mashed potatoes with a loaf of bread and turkey casserole before each one of them. She picked at some of the things, then had her elbows on the table as she tore the bread into tiny pieces and began to chew them slowly, one-by-one, like a mouse.

“Are you okay, honey?” they asked. “Do you want to talk with us about something?”

“No, it’s fine.”

“Oh. Okay. How are classes, by the way? Have you been doing well?”

“Yes. I actually, uh, I did some directed independent studies with Cyrus.”

“OH! Advancing so fast, are we? Are you the teacher’s pet, and that’s why you get to do higher-level work?”

“Uhm, kind of. I also just needed to do something different. For my learning. Sitting in the classroom all day wasn’t really working for me.”

“Oh, like a practical? You’ve been safe, haven’t you? Are you missing any classes?”

“No, I’m actually on a short break right now,” she said. The questions were sweltering.

“Listen, we received some post from Headmaster Ambrose, that you’d maybe have something you want to share with us? Maybe about the kinds of schoolwork you’ve been doing? That you’d have something to tell us?” The curtain was up. She stared blankly, with her mouth open, blinking a little.

“Well, yeah, I... uh, Ambrose had a special assignment for me, I guess. There was...Listen, it sounds mad, but you must’ve felt it, the disruptions, and all of the ash and stuff. Anyways, there was an unhinged necromancer trying to destroy the Spiral? So, Ambrose had me and a few other strong students help him out with getting rid of undead monsters on the streets.” Calling Malistaire “unhinged” felt wrong, like a spike was being driven across her mouth, through her cheeks. She added the bit about there being friends, thinking that maybe if other students had been a part of the picture, her parents would find it less dangerous.

“So he had students acting like dogs for him,” they said, sitting back in their chairs. Her mother crossed her arms. She could barely look to them, unable to balance one disapproving face and the other. “And Cyrus approved of this all and had this count as your study versus the schoolwork you should’ve been doing on-campus?”

“It wasn’t as bad as it seems.”

“You’ve went all over the Spiral, you could’ve been killed. And we are aware about the changes recently, from that necromancer. And we’re also aware that he was a Professor at Ravenwood once, a Professor Drake. Cyrus is a Drake too, yes?”

They sounded like they were accusing her, but she wasn’t sure of what. It wasn’t like it was up to her that Cyrus and Malistaire were brothers.

“So your professor had you meddling in his family affairs. Ambrose and Professor Drake had you engaging in some blood feud with Drake’s old family. That isn’t appropriate for a student,” her mother said, like she was going to try and create a case against the school and Ambrose. “You know, we didn’t like the idea of you being a conjurer,” she continued.

They all got into a yelling match over the schools, whether she was a disappointment, if she was cut out to continue on there. They blamed conjurery, endlessly. Always. Always, it was the fault of the Myth school and Myth magic.

Out of one of their mouths came “you killed someone,” or perhaps it was “I killed someone,” from her own mouth, owning it. Whoever said it, it greatly upset everyone at the table. Her parents talked to her, level again, and said “you can’t go back.” They would consider getting her an apprenticeship in something like bookkeeping or art.

“You could’ve listened to us. This wouldn’t have all happened if you had just studied under Professor Greyrose, like Katarin.”

Sitting at the table, she now could look her father in the eyes as he said those words. She was frowning, and crying furiously, a silent crying, and untempered one that showed no weakness, but instead infinite and defiant strength.

She had learned some things in Cyrus’s classes. Not magic, nor imagination. She had been ridiculed in front of her peers, she had known that her professor saw her as low and untrying. She learned an unending patience, and the grace to know when the fight was over.

“That’s fine,” she barely murmured. “That’s fine.” A tear dripped off her chin with the movement of her jaw as she spoke. She grabbed her plate off the table with both hands and walked it over to the sink, scraping the contents off in one motion, then walking to her old room.

She spent the night there, passed out after dinner with the door locked in a stupor that reminded her of what her past few years should’ve been like. And then, in the morning, she packed everything she cared for from that room, swiping things off the dressers and desk and putting them into every corner of her backpack until it was nearly splitting its seams and lumpy all around.

And then she left, waving goodbye to the silent dark house behind her as she opened the door. She knew that her parents were people so different from her and that, despite their words, they had sent letters every week, cared about whether she was lonely or not, invited her back home often though she didn’t visit every time she possibly could’ve. They didn’t understand. They might never have understood. And because they didn’t understand, they seemed to want to wash their hands of her, their restless, second, failed child. At least for the immediate future.

So she would let them. They acted like she might be a student of some promise, like her studies and advancements were making them proud. They let her throw out their follow-up letters and pretended like they never existed. She would let them pretend like she didn’t either.

But she understood. She would find them later, if they wanted to be found by her. They didn’t think she was doing things that a mere student should have been resigned to. She was a conjurer, roped into an unfortunate, yes, feud. And she had done one thing that was horrible, and many things that were wrong, and she would never rid herself of those things. She resolved to do the only thing that she could’ve done, and pressed onwards as a hero.

#w #j

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