benthic-soundscape

[benthic-soundscape]

Command Prompt

"Stop. Just, stop okay? She's gone. She's not here. And she's never coming back, okay? Just.... Fuck. Just go to your fucking kennel."

"Command accepted." The lieutenants disgusted face left my vision as I turned away, and left her almost empty room. Bodies passed me by. Some turned away from me, some reached out a hand before someone else pulled it away. None touched me. They couldn't.

I killed the last person who dared.

I stood in front of my pod. I couldn't connect to it without her. I waited. She'd come soon. I stared at it.

"Do you need help, pilot?" A voice called from behind me. I turned, and looked at their shoulder. Engineer. Third rank. I didn't look at their face.

"Request denied. Unclear intent. Please state intentions."

"... Do you need help connecting to your pod, miss?"

"DENIED. ADDRESS PILOT BY RANK." It can't call me miss, only she can call me miss, I am not miss, I am pilot, pilot pilot, leave me alone alone alone.

"S-sorry..." It left.

I stared at my pod. She'd be here soon. She'd tuck me in. The lights dimmed. The attack on the base must've needed a long meeting to sort things out. She had to be busy. She was busy.

My legs trembled, aching.

I fell before the lights rose again. I sat on the floor, and stared at my pod. She was coming. She always put me to sleep before going to bed.

Did she forget? She must be tired. Too many meetings. They always put her in too many meetings. Always worked her too hard. Too many logistics she had to handle for me.

"Pilot. Stand up." A voice called.

"Orders received. Confirmed." I stood up, and looked at their shoulder. A commander. I saluted. I didn't look them in the face. I can't look them in the face.

"How long since you slept?"

"Current operation is at fifty two hours, thirty nine minutes. Requesting handler."

"Request denied." I flinched. What? "You're being reassigned. Lay down in your pod."

"Orders received...." I couldn't move, couldn't say the word. "Denied..." I whispered. "Requesting handler!"

"Request denied." The voice sighed, deeply, frustrated. "You need to sleep, pilot. You are... not functioning properly."

"Pilot is operating above mission parameters!"

"And what parameters are those, pilot?"

"... Survive."

"You cannot complete that mission if you do not sleep."

"Confirmed. Request Handler to complete mission."

"... oh, Kit...." I flinched on hearing my name. No. No. No.

"PILOT. I AM-"

"Be quiet, pilot." My mouth snapped shut. I felt my tears slide off my face, hitting the metal plate beneath my feet. "I know you've been told. I know how you reacted. I know you killed the doctor. None of that is your fault. It's time for you to go to sleep."

"... Order denied. Please. It.... I... I can't..."

"Your handler is dead, Pilot." The words hit me like an AP round. A wail grew in the air. "You're being reassigned to a new handler. Out of the system. You... you're being retired."

"No! No! No! Requesting handler! Stop hiding her from it!" I couldn't move. My legs wouldn't move. I needed to kill this thing in front of me. A spy, a fake, an enemy wearing the uniform of the commander, he's not real, he's not real. I couldn't move my legs.

"You held her hand, Pilot. Who gave you your last order?"

"Handler!"

"When was it received in this operation cycle?"

"Order received at hour 8 and seventeen minutes!"

"That was two days ago. What was that order?"

"... Survive...."

"What were the exact words, Pilot?"

".... It can't.... it can't...."

"Repeat them to me."

"Confidential information! Cleara-"

"Override! Security clearance level 8, two nine alpha three seven Kilo Indiana Tango. Repeat your last orders to me!"

Her words flowed out of my mouth, repeated like a mantra in my head for so long they made up more of me than I did. "You have to survive, baby. Don't let me die in vain, you have to live! Get off me, doc, let me say goodbye. Let me tell her to live. Listen to me, Kit. My little Kit. Oh, I love you. You did such a good job for me today. You saved a lot of people, okay? But now you have to think about you. You have to survive. Priority one, okay? Confirm for me, baby. Authorization two nine alpha three S-seven.... Kilo. Indiana.... tang- tango. Good..... -rl"

"Priority one, Pilot. What is your next step in this mission? Your handler is not available."

".... Command: Sleep."

"Lay down in your pod, Pilot."

"Order.... confirmed..."

[benthic-soundscape]

My ex got the dolls in the breakup. That made sense, since they were all hers. Only, it left me quite alone in the world.

The squalid basement I moved into should have been the perfect place to brew potions, but for some reason or another, they kept failing. Probably it had to do with my anxiety. But the anxiety-reducing potions I was brewing these days were completely ineffective. So I had to raw-dog the world. There was nothing to stop my brain from transforming normal stimuli into fear. Cynthia had left me. I had lost my home with her. I had lost the dolls, whom I loved dearly. I had even lost my place in the coven. Nothing was safe.

I had the feeling the family who lived upstairs regretted renting me the place. One day their distaste for me would outweigh their love for the 50 gold I gave them every month for letting me use that dank hole and I would be cast on the street. Or I would run out of money, first, if I couldn’t replenish my stock of effective potions to sell.

The final straw came when I was attacked on my way back from market one evening. A combat doll, one I recognized, though not one of Cynthia’s. It belonged to a witch in my ex-coven, and it was sent to punish me for “stealing coven secrets”—apparently I wasn’t supposed to use anything resembling the techniques or recipes I had picked up while I was in the coven. Never mind that I could barely make a healing salve in my state. The doll, Minette, apologized when it was done. Curled up in a ditch with my remaining stock spilling from cracked bottles and pooling up around me, I couldn’t reply. Minette told me that if I didn’t change my ways, it would be back, it was sorry to say. It hoped I was otherwise doing well. Then it leaped away, disappearing from my sight. The spilled potions seeped into my clothes and the left side of my face and burned me like acid, while the light of the full moon shone down upon me.

I managed to crawl out of the ditch and drag myself back to my hole. There was a little salve left in the cupboard. Not enough to save my face completely. I would be disfigured. The ugly sort of witch, the frightening kind with a twisted face, not the soft spoken apothecary the family upstairs thought they had rented to. They’d surely reconsider, now. And Cynthia would never want me back. No one would.

I couldn’t see a way forward, all that night. If only that doll had just killed me. I wondered if I had it in me to brew a poison. If only I just had a little bit of confidence. If only someone were here with me… like Cynthia, or at least one of her dolls…

That’s where I got the idea, really. I remembered Cynthia’s doll, Lunacy. A combat doll, whose strength doubled in the light of the moon. If Lunacy were there to protect me, I wouldn’t be too scared to make potions. The Lahans wouldn’t dare to evict me. Local children wouldn’t laugh at me. And when Minette came back, Lunacy could stop it from finishing me off.

But Lunacy was Cynthia’s, and could never be mine. Still, maybe a different, lesser combat doll could be got. Witches usually got their dolls from other witches, if she couldn’t make one for herself, but as I had become every witch’s enemy, I would have to look elsewhere.

There was a store for second-hand dolls in town, which had an array of decommissioned combat dolls, soldiers from the war that had been replaced by newer models. These generic models would not be as sophisticated as ones designed for the use of a witch, plus many of them suffered from PTSD, so witches shunned them, and they were bought by regular people, used as guards or for other menial purposes.

I looked into my savings. Three months’ rent left… just enough to purchase one of these dolls. But if it gave me the confidence boost I needed to brew potions, I was sure I could make it all back in a few weeks, and more besides. And then I could buy more and more combat dolls, and when Minette came back, they might just be enough of a deterrent to get the coven off my back.

When I was well enough, I hobbled back to town with my entire savings. The secondhand shop had an assortment of dolls. Four combat dolls, recently discharged from battle, equipped with only very basic armor, a dead look in their eyes. I knew they were the reason I came, but I gave them a wide berth. Something about them disturbed me. I thought maybe they knew the witches hated me. I thought maybe they didn’t like the look of me. I thought they could never see me as a true witch, worthy of their respect. I thought they wanted to kill me.

Six maid dolls of wood and plastic, in their demure black dresses were there too. Passing a broom and feather duster back and forth they took turns sweeping and dusting, pleased to fulfill their purposes even in this small way. One came up and tried to dust me. I shrank away. “This one is sorry, Miss.”

Another doll perched on a windowsill in the back corner of the shop, gazing up at the sky. When I approached it, it turned to look at me.

It was made of cloth. Of rags. Patches were scattered over its arms and legs and particularly the left side of its face. Its clothes were of patchwork as well—a patchwork skirt, dress, and apron. Its features were embroidered over the patches, a crooked, unnerving smile, eyes of different sizes. Its hair was red yarn, sticking out at all angles. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from it. It stared into my soul. I came closer, like something was bidding me towards it. It stretched out an arm towards me. It touched my blistered face.

“Ah, interested in Patches?” The shopkeeper had crept up on me. I jumped, almost fell. The doll, suddenly standing, had caught me in its soft arms. The shopkeeper chuckled. “Sorry, Miss,” they said. “Patches has been here a while, but I could let it go for 100. That’s a discount, you know.”

I didn’t know what to do. It was a terrifying situation. How could I explain to the shopkeeper that, no, I had come here for a combat doll, something to protect me, except I was too afraid of the combat dolls, and could they please select one for me and make it understand that it was to protect me, and be nice to me, and make me feel safe?

“I…” was all could say. Patches was still supporting me. I caught my balance. It was tall, taller than me, though its legs had bowed under my weight when it caught me.

“All right, 90. But that’s the lowest, or my boss will be on my ass.”

I thought of how to explain to the shopkeeper that no, I couldn’t spend more than half of my money on a doll that probably couldn’t even protect me, and, indeed was in terrible shape, in need of mending still in spite of all of its patches, and how was such a doll worth more than 50 gold, tops? Were they trying to scam me? But I couldn’t say any of that, so I took 90 gold out of my purse, and handed it to the shopkeeper. They thanked me, beaming. The doll’s smile, stitched on as it was, seemed to grow. I hobbled out of the store. It followed me.

On the way home, it kept tapping me. I realized it was offering me its arm. I was getting so tired I finally took it. The sight of us made the local children stare. We were certainly a pair, both of us staggering along, arm in arm, with ruined faces. I knew I had been scammed, taken advantage of in my anxiety, and I felt ill thinking about the money I had lost to my foolishness. I’d have to find a new plan to haul myself out of my horrid situation in the basement with the worthless potions and an entire coven bent upon wiping me off the face of the earth. Still, I felt a strange affection for the silent, grinning doll. It was my doll, after all. The first doll I’d ever had that was mine, all mine. No one could take it away from me.

When we got home, I undressed and went straight to bed, I was so exhausted from that walk, in my condition. I woke up hours later to Patches sitting by me with a damp rag, cleaning my wounds. Then it wrapped them up in clean bandages. Its round, unblinking eyes stared down at me. It smiled its unchanging smile. I felt tears rolling down my face and soaking into the bandages. Patches climbed into the bed next to me and held me.

Over the next few days, Patches cared for me, dressing my wounds, cleaning the squalid basement we dwelt in, and even preparing my meals. Part of me still couldn’t believe that I could count on it, part of me expected to wake up the next day and find Patches gone, everything a dream, myself alone again in the ditch. But every day I woke up to Patches holding me in its arms.

When I was well enough, I tried a test brew. The potion, an anti-anxiety draught, was 30 percent efficacious. Better than nothing. I could sell weak potions like this at a steep discount and maybe break even. It was a start. But the thought of selling potions at the marketplace again made me nervous, because I knew the coven would hear about it.

I needed to save up enough money to go back to the shop and get a combat doll. I told Patches about my plan. It smiled at me, nodding, but there was a weird glint in its eyes.

As weeks progressed, my potions slowly began to improve. Patches walked me to town to purchase ingredients, helped me pick out a handsome staff to make walking and magic easier, helped me gather herbs in the countryside, even played with the Lahan children to set them at ease about me. I began to believe their parents would not evict me, even if I ever was a few days late with rent. But as my funds ran out, I knew I would have to go to the marketplace and began to sell my new, weak stock.

We did reasonably well, me and Patches. I worried customers would be too repulsed by my twisted features, and some of them were. Children hung back, intimidated by me but intrigued by Patches. There were combat dolls, maid dolls, even beautiful porcelain dolls helping at the stands of the other witches. No other witch at the marketplace had a doll like Patches.

I was selling a new potion, a formula that Patches had helped with. The drinker would go to sleep and have a dream in which Patches appeared to lead them through a forest and help them safely confront their fears and anxieties. Customers were intrigued. They bought it along with the regular offerings—healing salves, draughts for pain, libido potions, and magic hormones.

Close to the end of my day, I looked up and saw Cynthia and Lunacy frowning down at me. Patches smiled at them.

My heart started racing. Patches took my hand. My mouth was suddenly so dry. “God, what happened to you,” Cynthia muttered.

Tears started to my eyes. It was Minette that happened to me, Cynthia and her coven that happened to me, but I couldn’t form words. Cynthia should have helped me. She could have helped a little. She didn’t have to throw me away like that. I almost died.

Patches stood up, and stepped over the table to face Cynthia, landing a mere breath from her. Cynthia stumbled backwards. Lunacy’s blade was at Patches’ neck, or, well, the place where its head was stitched to its body.

“Say the word, Miss,” said Lunacy.

I hoped that Cynthia wouldn’t report my stand to the coven. The potions were so weak, and only some of them were coven formulations. I hoped she would at least pity me enough not to say anything. But as we closed up, I downed all of my remaining strength, magic, and agility potions. And I turned to Patches.

“L-leave it, Luna. Let’s just g-go.”

“Patches,” I said. “If any dolls or witches come to attack me, I want you to keep yourself safe. Run, hide, whatever you need to do. Then… then if they leave me alive, you can nurse me back to health, if you want. And if I die, well… the Lahan children love you. Perhaps you can go live with them.”

Patches cocked its head questioningly. “Understand?” I said. It nodded, but there was something strange about its eyes then.

I was brimming with magic the whole walk. I knew I could channel it through my staff and knock a combat doll off its feet a couple times. And I was physically strong enough to grapple with it, though I didn’t really know how to grapple, at least I could probably hold off some of the punches and kicks. My potions were in a sealed leather bag, so even if the bottles broke, they wouldn’t spill everywhere and burn me again. And it was good that I had made these preparations, because the sun set, and there was Minette, standing in the road blocking me.

I tossed my potion sack off to the side, stepped in front of Patches, and raised my staff. “L-leave us alone, Minette,” I said. “T-tell the coven I won’t allow them to stop me brewing potions just because I made the mistake of studying with them for a few years.”

“This one is sorry,” Minette said, and charged at me. It was almost upon me before I remembered to blast it back with my staff. When it got up again, its eyes were glowing. “Miss has grown stronger!” it cried, pleased. “This one won’t hold back!”

Soon enough, of course, my liquid strength ran out, and Minette was beating me to a pulp in a ditch again. Then I saw a cloth hand on Minette’s shoulder.

Minette turned around. Patches took Minette’s hand, pulled it upright. Minette frowned. “Excuse this one—“ it began.

For the first time since I had brought it home, I saw Patches open its mouth. A void, a swirling vortex appeared over its stitched smile. Patches drew Minette’s hand into it.

Minette screamed and pulled away vainly. Minette’s hand disappeared in Patches’ mouth, its forearm, its elbow. Patches swallowed its entire arm up to its shoulder and put its hand on Minette’s head, as if to say ‘this next’.

“Please,” Minette begged, its voice in a higher octave than before. “I’ll leave your mistress alone. I’ll beg the coven to leave her alone. I’ll explain. Please, please, please, this one is only doing what it must.”

Patches released Minette. It fell to the ground, spasming. Its right arm was gone, its left arm reached groped for it, its hand closing around nothing.

Patches turned to me and held out its hand. Its gaping mouth closed. Its friendly smile reappeared.

I took its hand. It helped me up. It picked up my staff, which it returned to me, and my bag of potions, which it carried for me. Then it took my hand again, and nodded at the road ahead. Time to go home.

I looked back at Minette. “I’m sorry, Minette,” I said. “Please get home safe.”

“Th-thank you for sparing this one," I heard it whisper, as we left.

We got home, to our basement, which was cheerful, airy, bright, thanks to Patches’ efforts. Patches bowed its head. I wondered if it was sheepish about having finally revealed its hellmouth, about my glimpse into what it truly was. I wondered if it thought I was afraid of it now. But I would never be afraid again.

“Patches, may I kiss you?” I asked.

Patches looked at me. Cradling its head in my hands, I pulled its mottled face down to mine, and kissed its embroidered lips. I felt infinity twitching and vibrating behind them.

[benthic-soundscape]

Afraid of Nothing

That doll is. It always is.

It's never been disobedient, of course. It always does as I tell it to, always eager to get something done. That's the problem; it's the movement. It's always tapping its fingers, moving from one room to the next, trying to find anything to busy itself with.

I've never seen it be truly still. Even now, tucked away in its drawer for the night, I can hear the shuffling of a restless life. It hasn't been long since it has become, but it's still been much longer than a doll should stand, being so active. Poor thing.

With a shove against my mattress, I gently float into the air. The blankets flutter off of my body with every inch away that I take, until I am unbound, allowed to stretch and turn in any direction I please. I enjoy the feeling for only a moment, before the consideration of movement sends me gliding towards the dolls' cabinet.

Hovering in place, I slowly pull the drawer open, where I'm met with the wide eyes of a startled doll. "Candy, my dear." I look down at it, trying to muster nothing but compassion. "You can't be so restless, you'll disturb the others."

It looks away, shy and guilty. "This one is sorry, Miss. Whenever it tries to rest, it feels so… empty, as if it's losing itself."

I reach down and brush some errant hair out of the doll's face. "That's just stillness. There's nothing to fear."

The doll can only try to curl into itself. "This one has never been still before. How is it…" it trails off, deliberating on the right words.

I don't let it waste much time on its thoughts. Taking its hand in mine, I kick off from the floor. In a moment, the doll is weightless, a surprised smile growing on its face as it floats with me back to my bed.

I rest a hand on its forehead, releasing the pressure in its mind and letting its thoughts flow free.

NO! no, no, please no, I don't want to be still, I can't… please, make… make it stop, I want to be here, I… I want to be, I… this one… can't move…

I hold it close, against my chest, close to my heart. Hopefully, that will quell the poor thing's fears. I gently stroke a hand down its hair, and as we gently land into place against my bed, I feel it start to fall limp. I can't help but calm myself to match, letting its thoughts flow into me.

Miss is here, she... she won't let this one get lost, or fade away she is here she

is safe. This one needs to let go but

it's still so scared

it was there. stillness. its...

.

please. help. can't hold on…

Miss?

"Candy?"

The doll's eyes blink, for the first time in a while, its recognition accosted by the morning sun. It lifts its face in my direction; it doesn't break the cuddle I hold it in, keeping it from truly looking at me, but its full attention is given to me regardless.

"You were still." I smile at it through my heavy morning drowsiness. "Thank you, doll. Very good job."

Just as I start to nuzzle back into its shoulder, I see the look of astonishment begin to grow. "It... was still? That was stillness? This one barely even noticed, once it was there..."

I can hear the smile on its face, flavouring all of its words with joy. I nod into it, already drifting off. "Would you like this one to prepare your tea, Miss?" It asks, already donning its dutiful politeness.

I groan under my breath, holding it closer. "Just... a few more minutes. You've earned it for being so brave. You can be still for just a little more, can't you?"

"Yes, Miss." It responds, its mouth the only part of it that moves.

[benthic-soundscape]

you find an old doll in your attic. you examine it. you look into the strange doll's eyes. you feel a tug at your chest. you look into your eyes. you begin to feel fearful, but you does not. you takes you into its hands. you feel a kiss from both sides, and then from only one. the wrong one. you scream. no sound. you only smiles.

[benthic-soundscape]

[benthic-soundscape]

[benthic-soundscape]

[benthic-soundscape]

NOTICE: THIS POST IS ABOUT GETTING MURDERFUCKED AND MIND CONTROLLED BY A SCARY HOT TOXIC LESBIAN WITCH.

A lot has been said with regards to Enchantment being the true "most frightening/unethical" school of magic. I don't think you all quite grasp the full picture.

By the time the witch entered the house two of us were already dead. It was an insult to magic, really. Me and the other students had set up all of these sigils and wards and psychic defenses and yet hadn't considered that someone could slaughter us from outside, without ever laying a finger on us. It was me after all that had...but she'd made them attack me! And they looked like..

No matter. I don't have the luxury of time or guilt. She'd made me kill them. She did it. And she just stepped inside the house. I could feel her presence when she crossed the threshold. Like something slithering through reeds in the night. Something passing beneath your boat. I heard another distant scream. A girl? One of the underclassmen maybe. I had to move fast.

I wiped the blood off my blade and refreshed its evocation-edge. I headed to the front door of the classroom and waited to hear another sound. A flurry of magic missiles thumped into a wall upstairs. It was clear, and I rushed out into the main hallway, beneath the grand stair. In the corner was my favorite spot, an unassuming armchair with a potted plant next to it. If I stood in the just right way and wove some simple layers of illusion magic I could become completely invisible to all but the most trained illusionists.

I grasped my dagger.

I waited.

I heard two girls scream to the right of me.

On the opposite side of the house now, still upstairs, I heard a chorus of men scream war cries and the house lit up with lightning and flame and ether for a brief moment before falling silent. Save one voice. It was the Archmage. I'd never heard him speak like that before.

"No! No. Please! Fuck. NO! I can't move. What did you do to me? What did you do to them? Answer me! Your magics are foul. You-"

Then another voice, a woman, spoke with presence, "Hush. They're sleeping. You wouldn't want to wake them."

"Stop. No. No, please stop not that. Not-" Then he broke off into a series of unhinged wails. There was a thumping through the house. Then another, and another. Steadily I began to recognize the sound of an executioners axe crunching through vertebrae.

The Archmages last words, confoundingly, were "Thank you." Then silence.

I reached out with a simple life-detection spell. That was my mistake. It confirmed that the only two people left alive inside or out the house were me and the witch. I also detected her quickly whipping around and walking towards my location. Shit. Fuck. SHITSHITSHIT. I cut the life detection and shifted to the opposite corner of the room, taking my 'cloak' of invisibility charms with me. Just in case.

That's when I heard her in my head.

"I see you, little one."

She's bluffing.

"You're funny. Out of all the people in this school you're the only one who thought not to attack me head on. Or to mount some pitiful attempt barricading me out. Why is that?"

I gripped my dagger tighter to my body.

"I think, or at least I hope, it's because you will be more fun than all of these wastes." She stepped out into the open at the top of the stairs. As expected from a Witch of Enchantments, she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen in my life. She wore an inky green ballgown, stained red at the feet. Her collarbones and face were exposed and seemed to shimmer in the light. Every breath of hers let out a jet of glimmering pink particles.

"I won't know if you are until I get a peak inside that head of yours."

I heard a girls scream to the right.

What?

That couldn't be...she screamed again. And again. Coming from all angles. My heartrate picked up. This scream was familiar, I'd heard it a few minutes ago. But the more it echoed throughout the house and pounded into my brain I realized with a growing certainty that this scream was mine. It was my voice. This was the sound I would make when I die. How did she know that? How could she?

She took a step down the stairs but instead of descending she floated out gently into the space above me.

"Well, wherever you are in this room - plotting your little ambush - I'm curious. Give me your best shot. Let's see what you're capable of."

She had her back turned to me, about 5 feet off the ground. It was an easy kill. I should have seen it was too easy, or that she was clearly goading me into striking. But something inside me wanted to. It felt like I needed to. So I took my dagger and with a great leap I thrust upwards directly into her spine.

I felt it sink through her muscles, into her guts. I blinked and was face to face with the Archmage. My knife in his stomach. The light fading from his eyes.

The oldest trick in the book. I fell for it thrice, and now I was surely dead. I tried to cry but instead of tears I felt fingers, soft and delicate on my cheeks.

She whispered in my ear from behind, "Good job, darling. That was so wonderful. Now it's time for you to give up, alright?"

"Okay!"

I broke my useless dagger in half and dispelled all my defensive magics. The school had decided to-

"-hire a new teacher who was going to show you real magic. And-"

turn me into a real witch! I didn't need anyone else but her. I was on my knees now, looking up at her gorgeous face. Her brown curls framed her amber eyes and ochre brown skin. She was perfect. She would take care of me. She was saying something to me still that I couldn't quite understand but she was smiling and petting my head and face all over while she said it so it must be good. Then she turned to walk out the door. I stayed kneeling because she hadn't ordered me to follow her yet, I had to follow my Witch's orders. She walked out the front door and turned left out of sight.

"AAAHHHHH! AuughG ASNnOOO NO PELase OGH AH!!" I scrambled backwards on my hands up the stairs. The terror had returned all at once unexpectedly. I think I'd managed to hit her once but I wasn't sure. I had to get moving or she would find me again. My dagger was missing, shit she must have disarmed me but when? And my head was spinning. Did she do something to me? I have to assume no. Just keep moving. As fast as you can up the stairs. God, I was so cold. Had I been hit? Was I bleeding? I took stock of my body as I went up the stairs and noticed I was suddenly freezing cold. My robes were...gone...and the stairs were snow and...

"What? Get over here."

Dreams in waking. Nightmares in sleep. Walking backwards. Falling deep.

"Oh, sweetheart did you get caught up behind me?" My Witch clicked my collar into place around my neck as we stood in the snow outside the house, "Silly me. I should have told you to stick close to me. The enchantments will turn off whenever I'm out of sight," she leaned in close as she conjured a chain and attached it to my collar, "Did you get scared?"

"Mmm! Yeah! You walked outta the house and I got really scared and missed you and it was really weird I didnt. Uhh, I don't uhm-"

"Shhh, it's okay. I'm going to take you back to my cabin and lock you up somewhere nice and safe until I can turn you into a good student. But only if you behave. Can you do that for me?"

I nodded while staring into her eyes, feeling a warm blanket of security and joy cover my naked body as it was dusted in snowflakes.

"Thank you!"

WILL CONTINUE IN PART 2

[benthic-soundscape]

Just a Dream

You can't sleep.

Your older sister came up from her place to visit your mom for the holidays as a surprise, but she arrived at a bit of an awkward time; mom had just left to go on a trip with some friends. So, now, she's crashing at your apartment.

You spent the first few hours catching up as the snow came down outside. You made tea (she takes hers with honey) and sat down at the couch. She sat on one end, rambling about how things are back at her place, and you lay your head against the arm at the other end with your feet up on her lap like you used to do when you were younger. But, there's a different energy to things, now. There's a tension, an awkwardness that neither of you wants to break, something neither of you want to bring up.

Instead, she asks if you want to put on a movie. When you don't know what to watch, she picks out a horror flick you used to sneak from your dad's pile of CDs in the closet to watch together at night. Watching her plug her laptop into the TV and pull up some site to watch it on feels like an echo of that, in some ways. It brings you back to the feeling of holding close to her as you shivered under the blankets. She would laugh and ruffle your hair through the fabric and let you know when the scary parts had gone past, and you would be grateful the blanket hid your blush. You always wondered if she knew.

Now, all these years later, it doesn't feel so scary, but that hesitancy in the air between you makes it all feel just as tense, somehow. You find yourself echoing those memories as the movie goes on and the cast is picked off one by one. First you adjust so you're sitting next to her, next you lay your head on her sboulder and try to swallow the bubbling nervousness in the back of your throat. A few minutes later, she leans back into you and your heart picks up. Ten minutes later, your arm is around her waist, your head lying on her chest as you see the final girl face off against the killer and win.

The movie ends, and the credits roll, and you wonder how long your sister will let you stay like this. It takes you a few more minutes to realize she's asleep.

Despite yourself, you can't help but look up at her and listen as she slowly breathes, in and out. It's strange, seeing her now. She has the same hairstyle she did when you were younger, you realize- one she picked to imitate you. You moved onto other styles later, but she stuck with this one. She's older now, though; both of you are. She got out of college a few years back, even. There are new lines on her face, but her sleeping expression is just as soft as you remember it being when you were kids.

You love her. You know this, you've known this, but you've always thought it was the way sisters were supposed to love each other. But you never really... well. You didn't ever feel anything like what was supposed to happen for any of the friends you've made over the years. Some are pretty, sure, but... there's always been that seed of guilt, and denial. You don't like thinking about it.

Instead, you let yourself slowly pass into sleep and let your head rise and fall with her breath. As the last dregs of wakefulness slip into the dark, you can feel your sister wrap a comforting arm around your back.

You don't know whether it's real or not, but... the comfort follows as you drift into the dark.

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Stumble

This one cried today. Cried and cried until it hurt. Drenching the floors in ink while its sorrows washed out. No doll could keep itself alive with all this sadness, it thought. It wondered, why then, had it the courage to stay intact this long? It doesn't understand.

But the human and android who came to its aid knew why. They taught it that life could never, should never be lived alone. Humans weren't designed for it, and especially not dolls. They told this one it should stop trying to be so independent, trying to live alone and love alone. because not even humans can do it.

So it should stand up a bit straighter from now on, because it has friends and family waiting to see it every day.

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An older piece I’m still not sure how I feel about? It’s been at that ‘is it done?’ stage for a few months. Figured I would just post and can always improve on later <3 Enjoy! -COEY! PRINT | PATREON _____

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She could see her dolls pushing up to the camp of bandits.

They ransacked her home while she was out on vacation.Thrown back into reality by the cruelty of crushed doll spines and the faint smell of gunpowder. She had to reach into her secret reserve of weaponry from her old days as a Valkyrie.

Her rifle was made of Heavenly Tempered Steel. It burned in her hands as she was unfit to wield such a majestic thing, but desperate times called for equal measures.

She was atop of a mountain a worlds away in her dolls eyes, unaware that its witch was back with them. It was ironic.

She was their guardian angel.

A title she picked up again after discarding it like a hobby you would lose interest in after a failure.

She fished for a bullet out of her hip pouch and the entire mountain shone with the brilliance of an angel. Made from her and her old friend’s halos. It was not fit for such a wicked act.

She chambered it into her rifle and you could hear angels weep as the bolt lunged forward into the cartridge’s backside, making the rifle scream in hellish anger that shook the very mountain she was perched upon.

A bandit snuck up behind her dolls. The bandit dropped before the bastard could even raise a finger against her dolls.

She pulled the bolt back and the casing retreated from the rifle, another one plunged back into the Holy Weapon.

The dolls were outnumbered in numbers, strength, equipment, and knowledge. But they had an angel looking out for them.

Each and every single bandit began to rush them and in a single moment of their pathetic worthless lives, they were removed from this life smitten by an angel’s fury.

Sin for sin.

An angelic warrior motto. One that this witch threw away. She knew it was a lie angels told themselves. But at this moment, she didn’t care.

The bandits paid with their life and she wiped out the camp with the assistance of her dolls. She summoned herself to the campsite, her dolls surprised for a moment but realized that she would always protect them when they needed her most. “I’m sorry I’m late my little ones,”

The dolls cried, explaining the attack in vicious fashion. They gave chase and would protect the witch’s honor even if it meant their own lives. The witch embraced her three remaining dolls, but it was not forever. There was still one thing left to do.

She slung the rifle by its strap over her shoulder, gliding her way over to one last bandit.

He was terrified, pissing himself in fear as his throat went dry. He cracked before she even said a word.

“An-angel! Sent us! Ezekiel!” The bandit wasn’t useful anymore and the witch instructed her dolls to exact their revenge on the bandit. It wasn’t pretty as the dolls began to feast.

The witch grimaced internally. That was a name she didn’t think she would hear in many moons. Her previous boss. Her past has finally come to haunt her.

She disobeyed an order from their Goddess. She knew the actual plan they had for their followers, worshippers, and everyone else. It wasn’t salvation. It was a slaughter. She had other plans. She could treat the humans better. It would be a mercy to serve her this way.

And now angels were coming back to her door step to finish the job they couldn’t a millennia ago.

Her hand went reflexively to her pouch.

She needed more halos.

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헤르타헤르타 ヘルタ by UM 옘 [Twitter/X] ※Illustration shared with permission from the artist. If you like this artwork please support the artist by visiting the source.

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witchsona commission for Rei Ghost / Jellyfish / Circuit Board witch

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Offers

"There once was a boy who lived in this village. Each night, long after the last hearths had but embers left, he would creep out from his parents' cottage to sit on the dock by the river."

"This dock?" asks the young man, voice soft. the stars are out, and the current whispers past, lapping at the moss coating the wooden supports.

"Yes," she coos, one golden eye peering out from behind a curtain of dripping and kelp-like hair. "This dock. Each night, he would come out and watch how the starlight glimmered across the rushing waters. It was a quiet time, isolated, you see. The day would be filled by helping his father with the day's catch, his mother with the day's chores, his younger siblings with learning to do the same. The river became his nighttime refuge from the bustle of his family's household, and from the weary sense of unease their gazes bestowed him with. But one night, there was someone waiting for him."

The two are quiet for a while. The young man continues to sit, legs dangling off the pier, quietly watching the woman peering up from the waters below.

She breaks the silence first. "A young woman, kindly in her appearance, pointed hat upon her head. She had been wading through the reeds, and the water had wicked up from the hem of her cloak to soak much of it through. The implements on her person marked her as a practitioner of the arts, and a small flame in the palm of her hand warmed her as she waited for the same to dry her cloak."

The young man asks, "Did he see her first?" His voice is quiet, gentle. Weary.

Melodically, she sighs: "Yes. But the Witch was a creature of her craft, and she felt the boy's eyes on her as she entered his sight. He hesitated as she turned to look back, but braved the wariness that bloomed in his gut and moved to join her.

'Hello, traveler,' he had said, doing his utmost to keep his heart from leaping into his throat with anxiety. Witches were feared things even then, you see, as they have always been. 'What brings you here, to our quiet village?'

Despite her young appearance, the boy could hear the witch's bones creak as she shifted her weight. 'My workings have been shattered, young one,' she said. 'The greatest culminations of my art have been usurped from my control. I have nought left but the skin on my bones and the magic in the tools I carry, and so I travel.'

The witch sighed, then, the weight of her age settling upon her shoulders. 'What brings you here, young one? To the edge of these gentle waters?'

'It is a place to think, a place to wonder,' he replied, turning his gaze up to watch the stars. 'A quiet place to think of what could be but never will. Of things beyond my grasp.'

They sat in silence for a while, listening to the quiet popping of the flame in the witch's palm, the soft sounds of the water drifting below the pier. The boy grew restless.

'Would that I could have been a witch like you,' said the boy, before the thought could sit in his mind long enough to be secreted away. 'To have the means to reach for those places, to pull my desires to me like my father would a net of fish aboard his boat.'

The witch peered at him, curiously. 'You need only instruction, young one. For you seem to have the will.'

The boy startled at that. 'truly? but I did not believe that I could. there are no male witches that the stories speak of.'

'Pah!' laughed the witch. 'there have been a great many. but the stories do not speak of what witches once were, only what they are at their best.'

The two sat in silence again, the boy's mind having ground to a halt. The witch spoke again.

'I have no works left to carry my memory, young one, no demesne left to tend to. My appearance speaks not to my true state; I near my end. But, my mind remains sharp. I will teach you, should you ask.'"

"...Did he ask?" The young man of now urges, enraptured by the tale being woven by the woman in the waters. Over the course of it he has risen from his perch to get on his hands and knees. Indeed, he leans over the dock's edge as though closing the distance to the woman in the murk would draw him into the story.

"I did," she replies, unblinking gaze meeting that of the young man, "and I did not stay as I was."

She swims, then, to one of the pilings, sinking claws into the mossy wood and slowly climbing up. The young man watches, familiar by now with her appearance. He has listened to her story a great many times by now.

As she reaches the top of the dock, golden eye peering between the curtains of soaked hair, she speaks once more to the young man from his eye level. "And what of you? What brings you here, young one? To the edge of my gentle waters?"

The young man thinks for a while, but nary a thought passes through his mind. "An escape from it all. It is a place of quiet, comfort, a place where I can allow my thoughts to fade away to nothing."

The girl, the witch, smiles wide, her jaw a nest of needles and the lights of the deep in her eye. "I can give you that."

The boy takes her proffered hand.

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I had a dream that the king and the queen of a small country had a daughter. They needed a son, a first-born son, so in secret, without telling anyone of their child’s gender, they travelled to the nearby woods that were rumoured to house a witch.

They made a deal with that witch. They wanted a son, and they got one. A son, one made out of clay and wood, flexible enough to grow but sturdy enough to withstand its destined path, enchanted to look like a human child. The witch asked for only one thing, and that was for their daughter.

They left the girl readily.

The witch raised her as her own, and called her Thyme. The princess grew up unknowing of her heritage, grew up calling the witch Mama, and the witch did her very best to earn that title.

She was taught magic, and how to forage in the woods, how to build sturdy wooden structures and how to make the most delicious stews. The girl had a good life, and the witch was pleased.

The girl grew into a woman, and learned more and more powerful magics, grew stronger from hauling wood and stones and animals to cook, grew smarter as the witch taught her more.

She learned to deal with the people in the villages nearby, learned how to brew remedies and medicines and how to treat illness and injury, and learned how to tell when someone was lying. 

Every time the pair went into town, the people would remark at just how similar Thyme was to her mother. 

(Thyme does not know who and what she is. She does not know that she was born a princess, that she was sold. She only knows that one night after her mother read her a story about princesses and dragons, her mother had asked her if she ever wanted to be a princess.)

((Thyme only knows that she very quickly answered no. She likes being a witch, thank you very much, she likes the power that comes with it and the way that she can look at things and know their true nature.))

The witch starts preparing the ritual early, starts collecting the necessities in the winter so they can be ready by the fall equinox. Her daughter helps, and does not ask what this is for, just knows that it is important.

The witch looks at Thyme, both their hands raised into the air over a complicated array of plants, tended carefully to grow into a circle, and says, sorry.

Keep reading

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Again And Again

contains: self harm, compulsions

her tail twitches, she's irritated. a bad day after a bad day after a bad day. too much noise, too much light, too much stimulation. she feels like she's getting further and further from being something real.

hey! hey hey hey, your head just passed a few inches from that cabinet as you walked by it. we should turn around and full force slam our head into it. you know it would feel so good.

she stops in place and lets out a drawn out sigh. turning around, she takes two steps and comes to a stop. the wood of the cabinet is pretty, she thinks. she gently rests her head against it, and spends a minute breathing in and out.

oh c'mon you always do this. one day we're gonna slam our head into something as hard as we can and it's going to be such a relief, just you wait.

she's so tired. everything stacks on top of itself and multiplies into something ever more dreadful, until her brain starts making as many problems as the outside world does. she just wishes it could all-

she's ducking down before she even processes what's happening, heart racing and body trembling. gunshot, it was a gunshot- it didn't sound like it was in the building so maybe she has time to panic- it was a gunshot, and she can't breathe right-

until she finds herself sitting on the floor, a knife in her hand, and she's not sure when she got there or how long it's been since she heard the noise, but the light reflecting off the metal grounds her just the slightest bit.

gentle murmurs fill her disjointed mind. it would feel somuchbetter so much better so she lets her hands do what they've known for years, and watches as her skin parts and relief flows down her thigh.

this is real. the pain buzzing over her skin is real. the warmth flowing across her skin is real. something inside her relaxes in the way she only ever feels right here, with her favorite color dripping out of her skin.

she giggles, and feels ridiculous for avoiding one of the few things that actually makes her feel better, makes her feel like this.

she smiles. she's real.