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[orioncomplex]

A Miracle In The Night

Sometimes, you get an idea for a lightly fucked up short story. TW: Death, mild gore, Plot Twist :)

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She travels through the night And listens

Some might call her home dark and cold and akin to the lowest levels of hell, But their heaven burns her eyes and skin and her very breath To her, The Endless Night is Paradise

The whole world was like this once, in the very beginning The Divine Darkness which contains the potential for every tragedy and miracle and everything in between, and she is blessed  to travel through the gardens of creation.

The Night created everything, even God, who lives in the burning world and blesses the sinless beings of the night with the very force of life.

But not even Paradise is free of suffering.

It should be this way, of course- nothing would ever happen otherwise. Everything that happens is a miracle. It’s just a question of who the Miracle is for.

There will be a Miracle tonight. She can feel it- the tension is electric across her skin, gut tightening, every sense on edge.

Starvation leads to such peculiar sensitivity.

She’s on the verge of death-  It should be this way, otherwise nothing could be alive. But she’s closer to the edge than usual.

It’s been so long since she felt the Burning Love of God within her. The delicious taste of good fortune in the night Chasing ecstasy with a racing heart and feeling her body fly The heat in her belly, seeping out through her until it filled her with the Divine Warmth of God’s Love.

It’s been so, so long since she’s eaten.

It’s been uneasy- the breathing of the world has been unsteady of late- too early and too late, out of time like it has become ill and all things suffer for it. There is nothing to partake of in her usual hunting grounds, so she has traveled far, far from home, into a brighter and hotter part of the night.

Here, the protective wall between her and the burning world exists only in scattered fragments, and strange and monstrous things traverse the thin veil between their worlds.

Here, the eternal night has been invaded by noxious, screaming beasts from the burning world above.  They race with their bodies straddling the barrier between their worlds, far faster than anything has the right to fly, howling with a deafening voice that can be heard for hundreds of miles.

It’s a problem because she cannot hear the songs of her prey.

Everything sings, if one will listen. The high, chiming pings of the smallest stars flashing with bioluminescence around her. The long, low songs of the fire-breathers, who hunt here in the abyss for one of her oldest brothers, but return to the barrier and briefly cross it to breathe before they return. Even the earth sings- the moan and crack of her body as she shifts her weight, the almost invisible inhale and exhale of her seasons. She even builds great musical instruments of ash and smoke and an even hotter burning than the world above, singing the tale of the first days of creation in honor of the endless night.

But the behemoths do not sing.

They scream and scream and scream and their piss reeks of vile poison and overexertion. Almost like the way an injured animal can put on a miraculous turn of speed to escape pursuit. What might be pursuing such behemoths is an awful but intriguing consideration. Perhaps the behemoths are the little darting beings of the burning world, and the thing they flee the equivalent of herself. She’s seen it before, when the moon is high and she travels up to the barrier, and the little dancing bodies leap across the barrier to avoid her.

To that end, she can only wish her counterpart good hunting- both in the sympathy between one apex predator and another, and the hope that maybe it will get better at catching the behemoths before they come into her world.

Still, Where there is disturbance, There is also opportunity.

There are rumors from those that live closer to the barrier that the behemoths piss poison but shit out bounties- the wastes of these things are food direct from the burning world, where God lives, and that waste is full of The Divine Warmth of Life. The direct waste is devoured by the smallest and fastest things first, but when they are clustered at their feast, they are easier for the larger beings to partake in, and so too larger things than they until even her most beautiful borderland sister with the belly pale as the moon is now as round as it, fat with the blessing of pups.

So she has ventured as close as she dares to the world of her sisters in hopes of finding the rumored prey so full of the Burning Love of God.

She needs it. She can’t live without it.

A Miracle will happen tonight.

Whether for her or the crawling lives of the deepest night remains to be seen.

She follows the terrible screaming song of the behemoth in silence and prays for a miracle. She does not sing praise when she prays. She preys when she prays.

The highest reverence to The Divine Night is to Listen. To travel in silence, and take in all the songs of The Night.

So she makes herself silent and listens and listens and listens to the screaming song, hoping that somewhere in the noise, she can hear the soft voice of God.

This time God answers with a voice like thunder.

It really is like being too close to a lightning strike, the way the noise viscerally passes through her and lights up every nerve, teeth gritting and body thrashing as she feels the voice of God the same way she feels the body of a lover against her own.

The scream of the behemoth changes. It sputters, then pitches wildly, low visceral injury and high keening pain, like the fire-breathers when they try to hunt the largest of her brothers and become prey themselves.

Oh, what a beautiful song to something like her.

She aches, weak and tired, but hope and joy surge through her and she forces herself to move at speed, even for all the energy it takes, because perhaps the miracle is for her tonight- 

She flies as fast as she can towards the dying behemoth, as does every brother and sister and ancestor and descendant, all as desperate to feast upon God’s Love as she- all of them race forward but then up, and up and up up to where the Behemoth is sinking into their world- It has run upon a fragment of the protective barrier hard enough to tear it's side and break it's back. There is the terrible acrid scent of it’s noxious  piss and if she were not on the verge of starvation it might be enough to put her off the feast.  

But she flies on and up- even weak with hunger she is one of the largest and fastest of her family when she needs to be, so she is the first to smell other strange things from the behemoth- burning flavors that sting her nose and mouth, as well as sweet things that confuse intrigue, and-

Oh. Oh, GOD!

It’s blood but nothing like any blood she’s tasted before- it’s actually HOT in the night, burning with the warmth of the other world even this far from it’s origin, rich and fatty and metallic like the flesh of a fallen fire-breather but even more so.  She spreads her wings and sways her hips and spine to fly as fast as she can, the way a lover pursues her- full of nothing but adoration and a desire to make their bodies as one.

Then in a beam of moonlight, she sees the first of the bodies from the burning world.

The frenzy at the behemoth is a feast for the ages, from the exultant chorus above, and the fact that even with every member of her family for a hundred miles around at the feast, there are so many bodies to feast upon that a body is falling past the festivities to her, uneaten and whole.

What a strange and beautiful body it is.

She pauses, circling it even as her mouth and gut ache for it, studying the being from the burning world.

It’s hot, hotter than any body she’s ever felt before, even though it is very definitely dead, as unsuited to breathe the night as she is to breathe fire. Its wings are long and twist strangely, like the tentacles of her brothers that are hunted by the fire-breathers. It’s awkwardly shaped, like the crawling five-winged creatures of the mud, but not quite.  There is an almost unsettling familiarity to its symmetry.

The fire-breathers say they used to live in the burning world, but returned to the night, and that all the beasts of the burning world had too once come from the night. It had sounded absurd, but looking upon the form of this being now, she wondered.

Well. Only the one thing to do, really.

Gently, she approaches the being, opens her mouth to embrace it, and welcomes it home to the night.

There is no love like the love the predator feels for its prey.  It is reverence made flesh- O holy being, oh virtue to pursue and make one’s own.It is the flesh made reverent- Please, little being of the burning world, let her love you as she loves her own children, the weight of your body deep within her own. 

There is no gratitude like the gratitude a predator feels for its prey. She owes you her life tonight, little being of the burning world. She lives from the mercy of your body alone. It is already a kindness she can never repay to live by your generosity, but oh, you made it so sweet-  Your blood intoxicates her senses, your body thrillingly warm- as agonizing as the fire of the burning world is to breathe in, it’s just as wonderful to swallow.

You are so sweet, so sweet, she will remember this favor forever.

There is no miracle like the divine connection between predator and prey. Oh child of the burning world, you who brings the Warmth of God into The Endless Night, You burning being of God’s Love. She is blessed by you, messenger of God.  Through you she receives the miracle of life.

Welcome, little burning being Welcome home to the night from whence you came Welcome inside her deepest self, and receive her hospitality.

She swallows the little burning being up with adoration, feeling it settle within her. Relief, ecstasy and satisfaction swirl but are interrupted by the appearance of another body. And another And another And another

The Behemoth itself falls, it’s body still curiously dynamic even torn in half- one end dives for the bottom of the night with somewhat alarming speed, where the other glides along to the depths on an angled path, the distant motion still visible with the bioluminescence it stirs up along it’s path. It is massive beyond anything she's seen before, more like a piece of geography than a living organism.

And all along its wake, hundreds of bodies spill forth from inside.

What a strange miracle this is. But she’s not one to refuse God’s Love. And if the beings of the burning world travel in huge schools with their behemoth, the peculiar notion that the little being within her might be lonely occurs to her. …Wow, she’s REALLY drunk.

Still, she eats three more of the burning beings before her guts are almost bursting with fullness, a bizarre sensation she’d only heard about from those who had been fortunate enough to feast on the fallen body of a fire-breather and had to leave the excess to the crawling beings of the bottom. So too, does she watch more bodies descend deep into the night as she returns to her world of darkness and song, the behemoth’s terrible screams now silent with rest, and the choir of the night rejoicing in this miracle.

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Two miles above the revelry of God’s Favorite Greenland Shark, the survivors of the Titanic prayed into the endless night for a miracle, unaware it had already been granted.

[orioncomplex]

In my dreams I am this fashionable

I’m not saying I killed a man for this ice cream but I came pretty close. #irishcrowdsstunnedbysun #noregrets #wouldkillforicecreamagain

[orioncomplex]

chicken shaming 

[orioncomplex]

Anahit: The Queen Who Made the King Get a Job (Armenian Folk Tale)

Full entry (with footnotes) here. Book here. Patreon here. Art notes and whatnot after the cut - but real quick:

Yes, she already has her own animated princess movie. It’s not in English. It was posted in full by the animation studio here, so I hope it’s okay to embed it:

This version seemingly takes some liberties. Her uncle is in league with some shadow demon, there’s a talking dog, and her horse turns into this fiery magic flying creature…? I don’t know.

Keep reading

[orioncomplex]

Dude

Artist Hank Schmidt travels to scenic locations only to paint the pattern on his own shirt.

[orioncomplex]

Seems leggit

One of my favorite thing I’ve learned about animals studies is that you should avoid using colorful leg bands when you’re banding birds because you can accidentally completely skew the data because female birds prefer males with colorful bands

Apparently if you put a red band on a male red wing blackbird his harem size can double

So like you can completely frick up the natural reproduction of a group of birds by giving a guy a bracelet so stylish that females CANNOT resist him

[orioncomplex]

Also this author? Is someone who writes books I will read in one go because I can't put them down. I finished The Fifth Season on Wednesday and had the next in the series on my table by Thursday. When I read The Killing Moon I carried it around work because even though I couldn't read it there I didn't want it more then a few feet away from me. Don't get me started on the Inheritance Trilogy, like we don't have time for that. She's amazing.

[orioncomplex]

This is a beautiful piece of writing from an author I love and I wish it didn’t exist. 

HOW I FOUND OUT

At the beginning of this year, my best friend and I drove down the Great Ocean Road. We went around a curve in the road and I drew in my breath because the forests were laid out before me in a startling contrast of gold lace against shadow. The next moment I realised, with another quieter shock, that the shining woods were burned land and the bright leaves were ashes.

It was my first time in Australia, and I loved it so much that I planned to go back this winter. But for a while before that, I was enjoying being in Ireland with Loved Ones, etc.

MUM: So you’re getting ready for Australia. SARAH: Yep, I bought ankle boots! MUM: Cool priorities. You might want to see the doctor before you go, just for a check-up about being so worn down and that cough.

I went in for a quick check-up. I wasn’t all that concerned. Writers are just sick a lot: we have an awesome job, but we also have a weird job where you often overwork and keep odd hours and do not take care of yourself. A guy I know worked so hard he got shingles and lost his hair. One of my close writer friends got pneumonia and broke her rib coughing. I got pneumonia from overwork four years ago, and since then have had recurring bouts of bronchitis or pneumonia, depending on my luck! So I went to the doctor and was like ‘Check me out, not to brag but I haven’t had bronchitis since February and it is September, but if you could do something about the persistent cough that would be great.’

Away I went. A few days later it was my birthday, and my phone rang. I was asleep, due to being a lazy toad who regularly wakes up at I’m-too-ashamed-to-tell-you o’clock. I flailed about in my bedsheets and seized the phone, assuming muzzily it was a Loved One with birthday wishes.

SARAH: Hey, sweetie! DOCTOR: Er, hello… this is your G.P… SARAH: Hey, er… doctor sweetie… I just feel very close to you since the thermometer incident… No. Uh, why are you calling? DOCTOR: So your haemoglobin is half the haemoglobin of a normal person’s. SARAH: Huh. DOCTOR: I would never have thought you were as sick as you are when I saw you! SARAH: I cannot say you have a soothing bedphoneside manner, doctor. DOCTOR: Go to the hospital. Soon. SARAH: Okay, I promise I will. Soon!

(Cut for super length and pictures, but I hope you read on!)

Keep reading

[orioncomplex]

This is a hug for everyone who is afraid to look away from the election coverage.

This is a hug for everyone who cannot stand to look at them at all.

This is a hug for everyone who has a stomach ache, or a headache, or an anxiety attack.

We’re going to get through this. 

[orioncomplex]

Honestly if you’re not watching this debate you might want to turn it on. Trump is talking so fast I’m starting to suspect he might be on something, he screamed at Anderson Cooper for not having brought up a topic he just brought up, he threatened to have Hillary Clinton arrested, and he’s refusing to apologize for his groping comments, he’s still pretending he was against the war in Iraq, and he just told a Muslim woman that his plan to protect Muslims from Islamophobia was to push Islam as the problem, it’s a trainwreck

[orioncomplex]

I need a cactus and a phases of the moon calendar

Collab post with @sketchshark. I wrote, she drew. Go follow her, she’s the best!

[orioncomplex]

Local bisexual scribbles angrily while waiting for friend, news at 11.

[orioncomplex]

Whoa

This is mesmerizing to watch.

[orioncomplex]

I don't even

Mainstream Monday - Jurassic Academy by Kobori Makoto. Seralized in Evening and scanlated by Hox.

[orioncomplex]

"Oh that's neat!" I thought. "Faith Erin Hicks drew her character as a rat!"

*looks at who created the post*

"Supermalmoworld has mystifying art powers"

Rat

[orioncomplex]

BREAKING NEWS

REFURB THE CAT IS GOING TO GET BOOPED ON THE NOSE THIS AFTERNOON

STAY TUNED FOR FURTHER UPDATES

[orioncomplex]

Become friends with talonzi at your own risk

@orioncomplex loves my puns