nikaxrootless

[nikaxrootless]

A Private War (2018)

[nikaxrootless]

Pregnancy did not suit her. While she was sure many women would have been over the moon at the miracle of life or whatever (especially since it appeared that her pregnancy had gestated through the first and second trimesters at an alarming rate) Nika grew increasingly bored by the thing leeching life from her. It had completely upended her lifestyle. Her diet had become… peculiar. A constant hunger rolled in her stomach, never satiated by the few things she could still swallow and let sit without heaving. Raw meat, the pulling of teeth against and through rabbit hide or whatever other animals could be hunted  —the fresher the better. When that had stopped having any effect on filling her, Nika had found the hunger could be dulled by a glass of fresh warm blood. Before bed was best, left her less likely to wander the halls of the settlement in search of something more substantial. The shift in what she sank her teeth into did wonders for her complexion —the countenance of her face was gaunt, the ivory skin pallid and sunken in to mold around sharp cheekbones. The bones of her brows cut through the top half of her face to accentuate the eyes, whose luster light had faded from deep river blue to a decaying grey like ash in the wind in the aftermath of a fire. This change stripped her limbs of meat too, slendered the digits of her hand, sharpened her nails into claws, pulled taut the skin of her stomach over the ballooning lump of living Death that incubated in her womb. 

For all the appearance of frailty, Nika had never felt stronger. Her grip was crushing and she felt light on her feet, glided sometimes soundlessly into rooms to her delight and to the fright of others. She could no longer stand the light, had draped thick fabric over the windows of her office to prevent the punishing rays of sun from bathing the walls upon its return. At the break of dawn she would lock the office door to prevent any entry of light into her chambers and she would remain there until the fall of dusk. Any light was irritating, burned at her eyes, stung in that layer between muscle and skin in a way that even the clawing of her sharp nails could not alleviate. When she wandered the halls or entered rooms it was always in stifling darkness.

The biggest change was that Nika did not sleep —had not slept since the night of the party. Retiring to bed now was a performance, one that ended with her laying propped up by pillows into a quasi-sitting position on the couch in her office. From there she would shut her eyes and listen to the internal humming sound in her mind, like electrical wires on a hot day or cicadas at the dusks of summer.  The thrum would have lulled her to sleep, if Nika ever found herself slumbrous. It wasn’t that she wasn’t tired, exhaustion had burrowed in the very marrow of her bones, but no amount willing her mind to quiet and rest to take place would make it so. Sometimes she would open her eyes to the dark, let the substance-induced visions fissure the walls with thick veiny strands that pulsated with every heartbeat. She had thought once, a few years ago, that being in this place was like being inside a living and breathing thing; that the trees moved like the alveolis of a lung; that the constant thump of creatures against the walls was no different than the battering of a heart against ribcage; and that blood here flowed so often it might as well have been oxygenating this town.

It was what she was thinking about when the distant and clear sound of glass shattering broke through the fog of thought. She stood and made her way down the stairs and into the main hall. There was immediate irritation from the overhead light and the hum of panic from the settlers who had been asleep in the hall as windows continued to be shattered by bricks. The light bounced against the shards of glass that littered the wooden floor, twinkling in a way that would have been beautiful if it did not make her stomach churn from nausea.

“Well don’t just stand there!” she all but barked. The settlers turned to look at her to acknowledge what had otherwise been a quiet entry. She crossed the hall towards the small entry hall that would lead to the main doors, gliding across glass with determination, exhilaration cutting through the sole of her feet as it crunched beneath her feet, and pressed orders spoken in a voice that resonated loudly throughout the high-ceiling room. “Board the windows up! Don’t let those things in! For goodness sake, why is everyone acting like this is their first day?”

She reached the front door to find the assigned guards peering out the windows to observe the threat. Roux. She had somehow wandered to the settlement in whatever rage induced death wish she was in. Feral mutts were always at risk of becoming rabid. 

“So we’re just going to stand here instead of going after her? Open it.” she snarled at them unimpressed. Nika pushed through the opening of the door to walk with weightless determination towards the younger woman, the white of her long dress flowing in the air behind her like the wave of a surrendering flag. The leader was not surrendering, and she had no intention of being peaceful.

She reached Roux in calculated strides, caught her wrist mid brick-swing with one hand while the other snatched through the air to curl around her throat and, using forward momentum and Roux’s off-kilter stance of an interrupted throw, pushed her hard down onto her back with enough force that it most likely would have winded her. Nika followed the movement with her own torso and knelt over Roux, hand tightening around the woman’s windpipe. “Enough!” she fulminated, “keel to me or be killed.”

📍 main streets, hell town ;  🌲 ft. ??? [ open starter ]

On a mission to kill or be killed, Roux had waited until the sun had vanished long enough to count to five thousand — twice, at least. A renewed reliance on something as antiquated as numerical order brought temporary comfort, neutralising opportunity to think of any tangible objects. It was precisely that maddening temptation she sought to expire, permanently. Time had lost effect. Grains of sandy ephemera replaced the value of lived experiences, each perception bleeding at the edges. Oversaturated watercolour puddles and bloodshot eyes and clotted wounds. Immediately after ( the haunt, the red, the carving, the homecoming, the burn, the gold, the fire extinguished ), she must have walked home. Warm. Cold. Warm. Cold. Her fingers had rekindled that familiar rigor mortis sensation in tracing the walls of the repaired radio station. A lasting imprint of fingerprints. Sweat. Salt. Blood. She had never said thank you. And she never would. A detached lull had cottoned her skull, like a fog or stubborn bruising. Through the cloud cover she could feel the sear of an unspeakable anguish, pressing closer to her skin with each moment spent suspended. In the place of numbed emptiness there would soon be clarity — memory, retracing, remembering. She would poison the ground before it could claim her body. They did not deserve more protest, nor fear, no curdling screams. They did not deserve an easy target. She understood now. There were never any decisions to be made, only different versions of departure. Acts of goodbyes. Indelible consequences.

Roux's shoulders throbbed in protest of the substantial weight slung around her body, bag strap taut and fraying. A physical mirror which resonated with the same incorporeal impatience gnawing at her insides. Visible through the gaps in the carrying vessel’s cordage, at least a dozen dirty bricks had been collected. Souvenirs from the radio station, still charred around the edges. Adamant the bounty had to be carried untouched until she reached the main street for maximum impact, from the empty building she’d once called home, Roux sauntered in total unafraid silence.

Last one dressed has to carry the kill back — a promise kept, now demanded its collateral casualty. Most nights, the strip of cement which defined downtown was transformed into the River Styx — haunted with misshapen bodies, borrowed faces, unhinging jaws, bloody entrails. Had Roux been paying attention to her surroundings beyond ensuring the ground stayed solid under her feet, she might have noticed how unusually quiet and awaiting it was. Her inscrutable expression would not betray any inkling of intent, her mind’s state only barely starting to visibly manifest in the shadowy impressions of gaunt cheeks and a pallid complexion. Only her eyes remained activated, occasionally catching moonlight; a chatoyant hardness. Two dark voids oil slicked by an untamed viciousness which shot an incendiary challenge in any direction aimed. An embodied dare, entrapment, and ticking time bomb all at once. The evening would end on her terms, in as much carnage as this godforsaken hell on earth deserved.

Eager to take matters into her own morbid hands, at the fringes of the central cluster of residential and faded storefronts, Roux finally snaked a hand into her bag. A potent cocktail of adrenaline and sleepless delirium contaminated her muscles with a taunting tremulousness, refusing to be willed into submission one last time. Tightly clenching her knuckles around the first rectangular stone, Roux’s wild eyes sought the closest house, only vaguely certain if it was occupied or not. As if it mattered either way. Lowering her arm, Roux swung the brick back then shot quickly forwards to lob a low throw in the building's direction. The first brick made contact with the porch, clattering dully, but only obliterating half a rotten bannister in the process. On her second swing, she had more success. The sound of glass shattering pierced through the stillness of the air with the effect of an electric crack. Emboldened by the hot flash of lightning it bestowed her aggravated nerves, the gunpowder of Roux's veins ignited and propelled her further. At a brisker pace, she continued ahead between intermittent throws, spraying glass, canvas, and splinters in her wake. Occasionally, she would retrieve the bricks, unblinking when destruction residue would leave gashes across skin. Unfeeling. Uninterrupted. Again and again, fury drove her relentlessly forwards until her lungs felt ragged with exertion and her voice ripped through a bellowed snarl: “COME ON, YOU FUCKERS! COME OUT!”

-ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

[nikaxrootless]

There was a lot to unpack about the temperment of young men, the aloofness of their needs, the straying of their gaze. It was the volatility in which they failed to communicate what it was that they wanted or who they wanted to be that Nika adored digging her nails into. Men, for all their flaws, had one constant and assured thing: they wanted to feel a measure of success in their life. They wanted to be the strongest man in the room. If they could not be that then they wanted to be the smartest. If they could not be that, then the kindest or funniest or a combination of both. Nevermind that there was more to a person than strength or intellect or kindness, that the emotions that men shied away from tended to be the one women wanted the most; vulnerability, sadness, passion. Nika wanted to make men cry with how much they wanted her. She wanted them to hurt with longing long after she’d departed them. And in the pit of her stomach, the area that growled and turned over from the hunger of wanting to be filled carnally, she wanted to devour them. Young men were easier to rip apart, had not yet learned not to put their hands to the fire. They could not as easily resist a woman who knew what she wanted.

Luckily for Joel, Nika wasn’t sure what she wanted at this very moment. She’d never believed the idea of women being ‘baby brain’ but her head was muddled by the constant whispering (which was more like a yell) of the dark thing that had ripped into the walls of her womb. It plagued every waking moment, desaturating the colours usually made so vivid by the substance. At night, Nika had the strangest dreams, prophecies of power spoken in tongue weaved into her visions. The thing (for she knew it was not human) inside her made promises of shared power, or being able to leave this town.

Unbeknownst to the creature, Nika did not want to be given power: she wanted to chew through flesh for it, wanted to feel the ache of fighting for it burn through her muscles. She had no pressing desire to leave hell town either, well aware that consequences of actions from a past life were waiting for her if she ever returned to the other world. No, this “baby” would die before it really got the chance to live. Hell, if she didn’t have an aversion to ruining a perfectly good coat hanger she might have tried scraping it out by now. She wasn’t sure how much the demon could feel her exhilaration whenever she fleetingly thought of how she would bring about its end crossed her mind, so she tried never to dwell too long on the anticipated satisfaction of consuming its flesh: it already drained life from her, a dangerous game to play would be to push who could kill the other first.

“Your guess would be correct,” she answered, her eyes wandering across the building crowd in the settlement hall. “As for you,” Her eyes landed back on him, “you’ve got all the energy of a pup in heat. I think if I don’t leash you, you’ll explore anything until you get your dick wet.” Even now she could see the stare of younger settlement girls, who stared at him like they were puritans who were waiting until marriage to have sex and he seemed like the perfect candidate (this of course could not be further from the truth, but outsiders always had that shiny new toy effect). “And personally I can’t handle the feigned heartbreak, gossip, and backstabbing that usually comes with a pretty young face. So, Joel, right? How about I give you a tour until the shine wears off.” It was a question posed more like a statement.

While he wasn’t sure exactly where or what he’d do for the remainder of the day - having already made his way through the building and met the gazes of a few potential entertainers - Joel found a spot against a wall to people watch. Get a good view and perspective of the people around him, many whom he’d yet to encounter despite his three months in this hell hole. Joel had been informed of the settlement's need for ‘privacy’ or whatever the hell it was, and after his little adventurous trip with Charlie, was only filled with more curiosity about them all. Why separate from everyone else? What was the need for such distance from the town? Segregating themselves to hide away with all their… secrets? Gate keeping their drugs? Joel wasn’t sure, but he was more than a little interested. 

Her voice found him, though with no surprise as Joel’s eyes were too focused to have missed her approach. He did a good job of ignoring her until she spoke though, wanting to gather the vision before him in case he decided to paint the party once he went back. “  What gave you that impression?  ” he asked, eyebrow raised in amusement but the moment he settled on her face he couldn’t help but swallow hard. Something about her felt… strange. Compulsive even, enough to shift his focus all together. “  You could say that. It’s interesting, that’s for sure. I think most of these people are only here to get a good glimpse of this place more than they care for the festivities. But I’m guessing-  ” Joel ran his gaze down her form before he met her eyes again, “  -you know your way around here perfectly.  ”

[nikaxrootless]

"Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence– whether much that is glorious– whether all that is profound– does not spring from disease of thought– from moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect."

–Edgar Allan Poe

[nikaxrootless]

Death has reared herself a throne.

Dagger unsheathed, sharp from whetstone.

It sits at sea, this chair of flesh,

upon the stern, with wind afresh.

Alone, but not, for there are two:

One that grows and one that endues.

Bred, not from the wet of sexes,

That which pulls pleasure and vexes,

But from the enmity of jaded lovers,

A baby propagated from screams of suffers.

The passage clear, pulled from dead reckoning

And he, flesh uncut, answers her beckoning.

A beast that drapes on leather hide,

He whimpers not, his language pride.

“A drink, deserved,” he taunts to her.

He knows no guest, no whisperer

which screams agony inside her mind:

Liquor now would be too kind.

The growth inside is bound to reject

any liquid which goes against the sect

of blood and bile and monstrous desire,

which permeates the womb with vengeful ire.

“Not for me, not right now,” she answers tight,

“Ask me later, after sunset I might.”

I might I might, indulge, in spite

And drink to split the soul; a rite.

This thing intends to be the death of me,

But at birth shall be no more than a memory.

The power drank, the meat consumed,

This vessel of evil from Reyna exhumed

From the grey matter of her troubled consciousness.

Its existence a torment, no more, no less.

It has not bound to mortal coil,

severed by a heated blade that makes blood boil.

Her talon rest upon his shoulder,

his heat, his want, makes her bolder.

“Shall I show you around, how about my room?” She had long fulfilled her oath.

“Come ‘morrow this dreadful evening shall be no more than a fading nightmare for us both.”

Despite his disadvantage,   he relaxes into the leather.     Moored into the machinations of her shape,   of her half-split creed with seam overlapping four-knuckled seam,   rooting back to this one enclave’s bulk:   the settlement.     Her wantless outpost,   bowing in exalt to a being more sheer than him.     A tree.     Thick only for its gossamer innards.     Webbed into place like a shadow.     The distinct shape of it,   lending to the even less tangible shadow of it.     Of I,   and you,   and it.     Graveward meld.     There is a familiarity here,   beyond the urge to glassily rend crimson from her argent face,   oscillating alongside this within and without.     Unconfessed.     Revered.     The bloodied spittle of their non-speak.     A dove sickened by its beak.     The cottoned coo perforates,   just as celestial in its feathered ribands,   in the way light slithers from crown to a handful of nape.     Flesh   /   Foreign.     She is there,   to be seen,   as certain as the horizon in your periphery.     Red sunset.     Redder lips.     The side-long stare borders on leering.     A raised brow.     ‘   I didn’t think it was,   Nika.     I don’t consider your spit poisonous,   like others might,   ’     he says,   unsmiling yet haughty.     A colder rendition of her lewd manner.     The promise of heat without its comfort.     Merely a collection of nerves huddled around a blossoming bruise.     Heated rim and cold centre.     Known without a bite.     ‘   Where’s yours?     You’d deserve it more,   wouldn’t you?     It’s your house,   after all.     And we both know you didn’t come here to be giving.   ’

[nikaxrootless]

With a hare lurch,   she tempers your vernal snout.     All of her leer centralised to a single point:   this muzzle.     By the reward she coils round your nape again,   coasting past your ear with asp-ish echo.     Sore for delight’s sake.     Fulvous.     Pure red sickened to sallow.     The dermal nature of colour,   reduced to a single dollop,   poppy-blush following the palette edge,   under the shadow of a preening scoop from her pointer finger.     Shape and man woven into one:   like ivy turned lunatic in a mudslide.     You,   her marionette.     Privy to a curd-string burrowed in her nail-bed,   unseen to even her skinned eye until it settles,   copper shavings,   astride knuckle-veins and -tendons.     A penny for your thoughts,   to seek refuge in her unposed question.     And in your silent answer.     There you are,   emulsified,   by your own ever-sick rind of need.     There,   merely,   to serve as an abyss to reflect her porcelain lull,   like an aureate moon rippling through the night-sea.     Yours and yours.     Nothing left to be mine.

She insists on this light hymn,   of you finding gospel in the angle of bone under her skin,   despite barely holding breath.     He lifts her hips just so   —   to make breadth in face of her command,   her clear over-line upon your silhouette   —   to nose down from tongue- to forehead-press.     A nuzzle to join,   glossily,   me to you.     ‘   I know.     Don’t worry.     My culprits never escape quickly.   ’     She couldn’t,   after all,   leave him yet.     The fresh-daub scene,   blushing like red-stemmed snowdrops,   wouldn’t take her.     For the tree provided you,   and nothing leaves you without an enrapt bite-mark.     Tangible and bloody.     By your mouth.     Your mortal,   deathless mouth.     A holier kiss that heats skin to wax,   and melts in rills down his throat.     Inside and out.     On her apex,   down to her knee.     The butcher cleaves;   the bark buckles.     A slough from her,   that belongs to him.     To ensure his return.     Again.     He lowers her to his tongue again.     The night folds into a whisper,   minnow-squirm,   heard only by your heart:   I WILL HAVE MORE.

[nikaxrootless]

Season 3, Episode 6 "The Shadow in the Night" THE WHEEL OF TIME (2021–)

[nikaxrootless]

Nika adored the sickening sound of someone pleading with her: voice always a little out of breath and thick with injudiciousness. The girl would have to learn quickly, Nika's patience had waned in the years she'd been here. Insolence could not be tolerated with the same grace it once has. A breath inhaled for composure gave her the time so summon a modicum of the leadership that had been seized with bloody hands nearly sixteen years ago now.

Nika reached forward and gently shooed Sera's hand out of the way to caress the girl's neck with her own hand. "Good girl," she murmured. "Smart to listen to me, this will sink in in due time." Nika pulled her hand away, resisted the urge to strike the woman again simply because she could, because broken things were averse to fighting back. It had been Nick's favourite game, when he had been alive, to see how far he could push his abuse without sacrificing loyalty. And that hadn't ended well for him. His skull still sat on her desk for her to talk to him whenever she wanted to.

Nika had to exert her power differently, but it could work. She could teach this feral dog manners and she could teach it to be loyal.

"Come, child." It was accompanied by a gesture as if to tell her to follow. "It's a short walk back to the settlement and if you're out after dark, I'll leave out there to die." She walked away then and found she did not care if the younger girl followed.

END THREAD.

The palm of a hand against her cheek wasn't unfamiliar to the blonde. The town she grew up in - the parental figures that had fended themselves over her had used skin on skin whenever she'd crossed a line. Metal on skin. Wood on skin. Anything that had her correcting her behavior. Until she was pushed, shoved, kneaded into the woman they wanted her to be. Sera had learned to behave like they wanted her to - had kept up the facade as long as she could. Until the day she snapped and had been brought to a new home where she had to learn a new way of behaving herself all over again.

Perhaps that's what this was. Another correction to what she was and wasn't supposed to do.

Her fingers clawed, out of self defense - out of the need to breath - out of aching for air, immediately at Nika's hand that was around her throat. Panic kicked in and made it hard to think, the heat flushed to her face. From the slap, from the lack of oxygen to her brain, and still that voice seeped into her skull deeper than she could've ever thought. That woman's voice held power. Those eyes she stared into, even though she was struggling and still weakly trying to fight back - a habit of a body to do when it was cornered and fighting for life, she could not deny how Nika's eyes were drilling into her. It made something in her tick. It got her to obey when she was let go and heaving for air.

''Please -'' she barely managed to say, the words right there on her tongue but hurting her throat with each syllable she spoke, ''- I'll be good, I'll be good ...'' Sera wept the tears from her eyes that made her vision blurry and caressed her throat. A whimper left her lips.

''... For you.''

[nikaxrootless]

It was the giving in that was the most satisfying part: the let down of guards to melt into Nika's embrace, to surrender her body when her mind resisted. Fighting it was pointless —the substance electrified every nerve ending until there was nearly nothing you wouldn't do to conciliate the desire to be touched. Nika had never tried as hard as Roux had, defiant even as she clung desperately to the blonde. The snarled fuck you was all the encouragement Nika needed to keep the furl and unfurl of her fingers, rewarded by the tensing of muscles and hitched breaths, warm against her cheek. Roux was her puppet and Nika was masterfully guiding her to her unwinding.

The next day, she would journal this encounter as follows:

Roux. Radio Station. 29. Such resilience to capitulation. She is anchored to radio station by loyalty to her heart —this she despises. There are cracks in her resolve that can be abused. With constant pressure she will shatter and give herself to the tree.

END THREAD.

That voice trickled into Roux with torturous precision; an icy rivulet frosting the edges of her mind and vision, cruelly narrating the fleshy void she openly stared into. Somewhere below her naval twitched and contracted, a stirring surface of quicksand and simmering oil converging into an all-consuming whirlpool. Any sense of tenseness only forged a deeper trap, burned a hotter flame. So she looked, could do nothing but look. There, she watched as rays of light emanated like haloes from the highlights of their cheekbones and shoulders and spines, rising and falling in a sensual synchronicity she inhabited much the same, somewhere on earth where she’d been left whilst her soul soared somewhere heavenly. She couldn’t stop, wouldn’t, shouldn’t — isn’t going to last. As much as Roux warred in vain against her hammering heart, her body was also the first to swallow each rippling sensation greedily through every bare surface; could only groan against the force it keeled her beneath, every unspent ounce of hatred and bliss passionately fucking their way through short fuses. A flickering clarity weakly threatened the pleasurable lair’s din, a beggar on her knees asking quietly for seconds: will this appetite wane or resurge? The pulsating thought hungered against the sleight of hand between her legs, ostensibly not her own but tenaciously claimed all the same. An inevitable yielding, a version of herself reacting far ahead. One whole decade of denial, undone.

An unsettled quake flexed the muscles of Roux's jaw, gasping for breath amidst the disembodied voice cascading over her. The air felt again too hazy, too salty, too thickened by body heat to fill her lungs without drowning her in the process. Charlie. Her chest hitched, eyelids fluttering as the dormant animal of her body latched onto the suggestible with bared teeth. Biting instead of retreating, her spine arched and her nails dug into the flare of something, someone, much softer. Linen. Skin. Sweat. Her slump descended further, losing her feathery grip on reality until she was nothing more than two splayed palms praying for mercy. Nothing more than a few grains of sand suspended in the current of a ferocious avalanche. “Fuck you,” an exhaled hiss, a barely enunciated threat, nothing more than steam escaping a vessel at boiling temperature. An unbridled giving over, wanton expletives whimpered into the void of two hard places.

Even as her clouded eyes sought to resist the altered perception of the naked trio devouring themselves, each ouroboros inch taken imperceptibly a part of her own undoing, returning her attention to the blurry smear of blonde at her threshold only enveloped her further within the trance’s folds. Roux could feel her everywhere, seen and unseen. Pale skin, blonde hair, disappearing fingers. A fantasy illustrated and actioned, finally. Colliding ideas made an impact all too convincing, gliding easily inwards and taking root. The projection continued still against the pinkness of her heavy eyelids, listening to the wetness of mouths and other openings spread wider still as ecstasy flooded hundreds of veins. Perhaps she tried to recoil before it was too late, though she would have failed. Discovered then that her pelvis had completely melted, insides too cavernous to be filled by solid matter, aching with each grip and drip; so near yet so far away. Where did she end? Felt the reverberation of echoes from every angle, radiant and searing. Entrapped by slowly ascending tendrils of hot tar, granted passage through a liminal realm where all that could be done was sink deeper into temptation's amorous embrace.

[nikaxrootless]

INT. NIKA'S OFFICE - EVENING

closed started for @solidgrovnd

Something was rotten in the state of Hell Town. Nika spent her days asleep and her nights awake. When she did sleep, she did not dream, spent her slumber in vast and infinite nothingness. There was never any rest bled from the stone of her dense sleep. Many times she found herself in places that she had no recollection traveling to. She would doze off unexpectedly and awaken hours later, hands soiled by dirt or blood or both.

She could not stomach the food she had once coveted, all trace of flavour turned to ashed bitterness. What she craved, what she could sink her teeth into and consume without consequence, was freshly butchered meat: raw and bleeding still (the bloodier the better). In her ingestion of the substance she communed with the tree, but her visions were putrescent, the roots of the tree curling into foul marl as the bark dried and groaned and died.

The cause of all this grew bigger and stronger everyday, holding Nika's body hostage, draining life from her like a parasite. Chosen by this town, bred by the volatile hatred that ensnared so many of them, the life in her womb threatened a sanctity of life that Nika had never prescribed to. Whatever evil Reyna's blood contained had fertilized Nika's substance-infused egg, cratering it in the lining of her uterus as a blastocyst that was as vengeful as it was miraculous. She would birth something atrociously evil, and devastatingly powerful, and she'd be damned if the thought of that didn't turn her on constantly. Her appetite for sex was as voracious as her thirst for blood: the combination of which was too explosive of a sensation for Nika to handle.

There was also a fear, though, that picked at the corner of her mind that the delivery of this creature, whatever it was, could be the death of her. Why should she create and give her time without reaping any of the rewards? The settlement midwife had been no help on the matter, but fuck had her warm blood tasted good, throat slashed at the open disgust and distrust she had shown Nika. Fresh out of any other option, Nika had sought out the help of perhaps the only other medical professional she trusted in Hell Town. What better place to discuss new life (no matter how corrupted it was) than a celebration of life. She sat now, opposite of Shaw, separated by her dark oak desk.

Pleasantries exchanged, Nika charted into difficult territory. She would be calm and composed, and she would not betray the level of fear that gestated alongside the child, growing more each day. "I'm expecting another dead baby, would you make it hurt less this time?"

[nikaxrootless]

INT. THE SETTLEMENT HALL - NIGHT

closed starter for @wickedsurrender

The lights were swirling again, the way they always did when she fell under the influence of the substance. Sometimes, if she pushed the limits a little bit, her vision would split and she would see double. Initially this is what she thought had occurred when the brothers walked into the room. She had heard rumours about Dayn's brother arriving into town, an unfortunate twist of fate for the both of them no doubt. But very very enticing for Nika. It wouldn't be the first pair of twins she would try to collect, nor would it be the last, of this she was certain. Dayn had been less than receptive of her approaches, she wondered if Joel would be any better. She observed him first, as he navigated the settlement hall with the confidence of someone that had been here before, and she waited until Dayn left his side to make her approach.

"You seem like the kind of man that's down for an experience," she stated as she all but glided next to him. Her eyes and body stayed facing the crowd, even if her attention was focused on Joel. "First time at the settlement?"

[nikaxrootless]

INT. THE SETTLEMENT HALL - NIGHT

closed starter for @baarra

She hadn't crossed path with Nick since theirs had crossed in the woodshed nearly two months ago now. Since that, quite a bit had developed in her personal life and she'd rarely afforded the brute of a man a single thought. She supposed that that was the benefit to this type of party —the unexpected surprise of running into familiar faces that you'd nearly but forgotten. Forgetting Nick would be a bit of stretch, there weren't that many men like him in Hell Town; strong, musky, the traditional type of men almost barely evolved from neanderthals. He had been talented enough for those hours that had seemed to stretch into days. It was hard to forget a man with Nick's apparent stamina and appetite.

Of course Nika would never offer him such compliments, or any for that matter. Still, if all he could think about now was fucking her instead of killing her, well, there was a small victory in that. Funny how thin the line between screwing and murdering was, both born of passion in many ways.

"Here," she said coolly as she slid in next to him on one of the couches, hand extended out with the offer of a drink. At his perceived hesitation to take it from her, she rolled her eyes. "Oh for Goodness' sake, Nicolas, it's not poisoned."

[nikaxrootless]

Her life before was very faint now, no more than a hazy memory that came to her in dreams and faded like smoke the moment she woke up. There was one thing that she could remember and feel and miss from her life before Hell Town, and that was a party with speakers blasting baselines so loudly that it was her to distinguish the music from her heartbeat. Even now, as she watched the party unfold in the settlement hall, she wished (perhaps aided on by the substance) that the festivities had more strobe lights and louder music instead of the settlement band. They were good enough as entertainment, but Nika often dreamed of stepping so far out of reality that she was dancing on drumbeats and coming undone with each flash of neon light, the way she last had twenty years ago now.

Still, people seemed to be enjoying themselves enough. She wouldn't stay here long, make short pleasantries with the townies and retire to her office once Shaw arrived to discuss the growing concern barely concealed by her flow-y white dress. She looked more like a cult leader than perhaps she ever had, and she got a kick out of that. Being knowing of everything meant she was well acquainted with the perception most people from the town had of her, and playing into that was always the little bit of entertainment she could drain from their otherwise mundane and uninteresting lives.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sudden pull of another person. It was a young boy that she barely registered as a new arrival to the settlement. It was in her books to meet with him and find out how he was faring with his new accomodation. Young and fresh blood could be dangerous in Hell Town, but she hadn't heard of any issues with him. It was clear from his line of questioning and general behaviour that he didn't know who she was. A fair conclusion to reach given that Nika had spent the last two weeks cooped up in her office, communing with the Tree about her miracle pregnancy and feeling the effects of it (read: hunched over a toilet bowl and puking her guts out).

"Would you like it to be one?" she asked, an eyebrow raised to accompany her question. She assessed him, could see he had dabbled in the substance tonight as much as she had. "No, my boy, this is a celebration. The day will come you will appreciate the need for it, this place can be trying. I supposed we are also here to remember those we've lost. But grief is a personal journey, I think, best to do it privately. Zane, was it?"

Open (0/4) - The Settlement

Oh, how Zale loved a good party! It was full of complete strangers, like that was ever a problem, but he was delighted to be welcomed in so quickly to the Settlement. Everyone he had spoken to were quite nice, unbothered by the shoeless young man that wandered through their halls, staring at everything with saucer-like eyes, drinking in the sights. He loved sitting outside in the grass - he was always moving before, or always moving about in the night, so that feeling the sun on his skin was luxury recently. He sat outside for hours that first day, until his skin was pink and raw - but some of the tea they had stored about in the big building shelved that pain to the back of his mind quick enough.

Trying to make conversation with those who stood at the door, the ones who didn't participate during the party, proved somewhat futile - he was offered the teeniest amount of brownish liquid to drop into his eyes, and that had made his head swim in the best way, giving him a comfortable edge with all these new people he was meeting, and those standing guard had firmly declined participation. Two weeks had gone by quickly - Zale missed the caravan, his family, but he would be a gracious host and a fine housemate in the meantime. He had offered to give tattoos to some (so long as they found the ink for him) and had shown off a few knife tricks throughout the evening, sharp enough for that still even with softer edges around him than normal. No fingers cut off this time - though all of his were still in tact, the same couldn't be said for others he'd been around before; he's gotten better.

When people had gotten settled as the night continued on, Zale pulled someone aside and cleared his throat, motioning for them to come even closer. Keep your hands to yourself, for just this once. Wandering fingers wouldn't roam into pockets, parting fabric and dipping in– "Is this a funeral?" he attempted a whisper, but it still came out far louder than anticipated. "I heard someone died?"

[nikaxrootless]

What did it mean to be claimed by another person? She was well acquainted with the reverse, had laid claims to bodies and souls that had crossed her path when they were not in their right mind to deny ownership. She herself had given up control to lovers, but she had never relinquished the hold she had on who she was, on who she belonged to, of what she belonged to. The Tree had made itself just as much a part of her as the blood that ran through her branch-like veins. If she was wounded now she would hardly be surprised if viscous sap seeped from her wound instead of blood. 

But the last twenty years were wearing on her. In this instant she felt the selfish pull of surrender, of giving in and being absorbed. Nika found herself desperately wanting to be consumed by something other than duty to the tree, she wanted Reyna to eat her (in more ways than one) and did not fight that desire. Whatever had control of the other woman bent the both of them to their knees. Any sane person should have been afraid, but Nika had never reconciled her consciousness with sanity. It was what she liked about herself, that she was not shackled to the conventions of rationality. Hell Town demanded that of her. She could give it, could look Reyna in the eyes now and know that she was taking on more than she should, that between them something would bloom so volatile that it would nearly ruin her. In exchange there would be violence and sex, in its most twisted form. 

She was greedy. Her gaze did not falter as she nodded to Reyna’s words and gave herself to the fire of their desires. If Hell Town burned as a result, well, that was an inevitability anyway. 

END THREAD.

it was satisfying enough to witness nika's unwravel from the tight form that gripped arcadia daily. reyna had never tread this far — never close enough to see what pleasure the settlement could reveal. her feet had always been cautious on this ground leaving her unsatisfied from a gift she'd been so unaware of. hips that pushed up to reyna's cupping hand had been pathetic. if reyna knew how easily she could fuck the life out of nika ...to release herself — this moment would have happened long ago. too much time had been spent outside of the settlement walls. clung to duty. clung to isolation. here, now — pressed into the melting snow cold beneath their heated bodies — reyna knew years had been wasted. "you're mine." firm to any further claim. two words that nearly growled out of reyna's throat. words that curled her and the voice together — both filling the greed to have the settlement leader. reyna wasn't feeling like a puppet, not in this moment. perhaps it was her intimate drive that was reeling the voice out of her. to wrap itself around her like a second skin for them both to indulge in this scene. reyna's hand slid out from between them to meet her other hand that traveled upwards. nika would melt with the snow beneath her. there needed to be a change. it was devious, the laughter that erupted from her. how nika sought after a goal to upset the woman. coerce the voice out of her. make her angry. "this is what you want ?" reyna slid from nika's body, standing with damp jeans wet from the winter, and excitement. there was little time before the brunette reached down for nika's hands, bound by the belt. reyna held onto the leather — gripping it tight before she began to pull — dragging nika in the snow like caught wild game. the trail of snow sunk in by the path, reyna stopped in front of a tree. the voice vibrated all around her — and reyna hadn't felt afraid of it. she grunted, reaching down and wrapping her fingers around the woman's throat. her pulse. the way it thumped against reyna's motion had conjured that strength she once used to thrash charlie across the diner with. like a lifeless deer, reyna used the length of the belt to wrap around a naked tree branch. nika's feet just brushing the ground.

[nikaxrootless]

The wood of the barn groaned. It always did when pushed by the outside wind. It had been around longer than Nika had, this barn, and certainly longer than the rancher who had brought life into it. It must have been made of acacia wood, to survive the elements of this place for so long; the onslaught of rain, the freeze of a colder morning thawed by the high noon sun —contracting and expanding. Monsters did not claw at doors but wood was porous in that in certain areas of the barn old deaths were painted into the foundation, no amount of scrubbing able to remove the entirety of a persons blood.

The wood never faltered. Over the year it had been bent to near snapping points, recoiled and recovered. The tin roof rusted but kept showers at bay, melodic when it rained but a frightful echo in a thunderstorm. This place swallowed sound and reverberated it, bouncing sharply from beam to beam, to land and dance in the cavernous roof and shower the inhabitant with confusing repetition.

In this barn, Nika would bend to the point of snapping. She would make noises that echoed long into the night, and she would be the onslaught of rain from the inside. She would give herself this one opportunity to be porous, to absorb Jude's touch and allow it to permanently stain her. She would be no better than the life that thrived here, but she would thrive still between the dirt and the haystacks. The swirls of pattern in the wood would ingrain themselves in her memories, would be sought in the morning in the fresh outline of bruises. There would be pain, she would be satisfied in that, and she would not find herself wanting anything more from Jude.

END THREAD.

It was too stark—the light. Too insistent as it bored into the skin unreached by the frost clung to glassed air. It burnt. In a winter unrelenting, something torched to ash. Flesh seared by the heat of aches, the opprobrium of being observed. The stares felt but not seen, spare a few animals with heads lifted for no more than fragmented time. The calf itself, as far as it could be taken on shaken legs—life nearly snatched and yet granted again with only indifference. Creatures startled by the stir of approaching desecration. It was not usual to flinch. So undisturbed by opinion, convention—the disdain that had ensued only to be flouted. Jude hesitated now, for prolonged seconds to dwell on the fragility of metamorphosis. She longed for the dark. To hide. It was there that she breathed. Or, less intrepidly, in a light different, gentler, when ceilings kept out the moon and trees did not splinter like bones. Lost now, she would have to exist as she always had, not what she might never have been. 

Give but not take. Not with any kindness. There was only service in the giving, not generous but for once to be unburdened with thought. The entrapment that was her own mind. Exchanges between them had been spiked and disparaging. A leader used to some esteem, the faithful at their feet—the untamable rancher who had never given in to authority or belief. Staggered long without scouring for crutch. Their words had only ever been barbarous, an ardour for all things that could be torn apart. 

“No?” A smirk, wicked and toothed. The question was no more than a taunt, the only thing that could be retained. Nika did not deserve it; neither of them did. Even this small sick derision of intimacy. There was no trust. No respect or carefulness. Only the hunger of a starved creature kicked and volatile, teeth bared as the walls closed in. Nothing would be lost or gained—there was nothing that would be theirs. The putrescence was not second skin that could be shed; it was coiled in blood and bone, lodged in a muscle that had long starved.  “Good.” Sated, Jude sank. Into her, into the dirt. A hand tighter still, nimble fingers lost in a hue just like the straw against the other’s curve, where her gaze stayed. It could be fast and strenuous or she could drag it out with more cruelty. The only victory would be in the fatigue that would find her before the regret. “Because you are going to beg.” She pushed at Nika again, at the slope of a delicate neck, to ensure she would not be seen again.

[nikaxrootless]

Later this evening, when she journaled of this encounter, she would write the following.

Dayn. Gas station. Late 20s. Year 15, day 147. The meeting was less fruitful than we had hoped. He will not be easily swayed to the intentions of the tree. He holds back. Something he fears more than this place. Not viable candidate for the trial, too many questions. Appeared otherwise in good health. Naive but not easily convinced. Must be given adequate time to feel the effects of this place before rapprochement to the tree. His heart is heavy, I presume this will not take long. He will care easily, and he will lose. The wound that bleeds still waters the tree. I continue to look outwards from inside. The tree provides.

But for now she stated, "try and make the best of the rest of it." She pulled the door open and paused. "Don't think I've forgotten those favours or questions. Bit thrilling isn't it? So much fun to be had still, walk back safely." The door shut behind her.

END THREAD.

The concept of being drunk or sober in a room full of horny strangers felt like something of a nightmare scenario for him. Dayn had gone clubbing before, and life had found himself in some strange situations in his days, finding himself in less-than-savory places than a normal person would probably enjoy, but he always remained sober. He could remember the detoxification that had to occur when he was fourteen, the way his body felt as doctors helped ween him off those toxins. He didn’t like passing judgement onto those who felt they needed it, but this felt like a strange circumstance. It did feel a bit Kool-Aid-esque to him.

But he wasn’t a total idiot, enough to voice it.

“Let ‘em know where to find me,” he smirked, thinking she fully wouldn’t - this felt like an on my turf sort of analogy. The face that she had stopped so suddenly right at the threshold of the door spoke volumes on that front enough for him to get the gist. He wasn’t welcome unless it was on her terms. He could live with that. Dayn untangled his arm from hers and put his hands in his pockets. “Oh, thanks for noticing,” he joked, elbows extending out as if to brag. He took a step down. “Thanks for the invitation.” I guess. “Interesting way to spend an afternoon.”