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ratgrrrlgames · 2 days ago

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Skeles: The Bastards by Auto Guy and RatGrrrl

I am currently working with the rest of the Gherkin Collective on a supplement of Skeles for our GREAT SKELEJAM!

Previous Skeles

Emperor by Auto Guy and Ratgrrrl

The Ruby Skull by Auto Guy and Ratgrrrl

One-Winged Angel by Auto Guy and Ratgrrrl

Jawnathan by Auto Guy and Ratgrrrl

Objet by Auto Guy and Ratgrrrl

The Cadaver by inkysuns and Ratgrrrl

Revenant by Auto Guy and Ratgrrrl

Skelecrab by J.M. Dale and Ratgrrrl

Johnny Corkscrew by Unlawful Games and RatGrrrl

The Bastards

Art by Auto Guy

Words by RatGrrrl

CN. Misogyny, Child Death

I have taken to retiring to my chambers, all but drowning in my cups, sweating like a spitted boar from the hearth I implore, nay, demand my chamberlain keep raging and bright despite the unseasonable warmth. I will no longer attend my chambers without it bristling with light, no matter the hour.

I roil on my royal bed, basting in my own stinking juices, plagued by the same insane mummar’s farce night after night; a diminutive Danse Macabre. Every night it is the same maddening abortive parade, and every morning I stumble from my sodden, swaddling bedclothes weaker than the day before.

My curia regis thinks I am losing my head. It would do them better to think of their own if they wish to keep them. They tell me I am having nought but nightmares brought on by too much game and mead, as if I have not feasted and quaffed in my stately manner for decades in relative peace. Why now? I ask, and they have nothing to offer but miasmas spilling from their rancid jowels. The archbishop had the temerity to prescribe prayer. To me, the god-appointed monarch, ruler with divine right. Of course, I have demanded His intercession on this spiritual matter. All are confounding and useless to me, even my heavenly Father.

If this is a test, I will overcome, as I always do. Nothing can stop me! My spear strikes true wherever I thrust it. I claim anything my roving royal eye fixes upon, as is right and proper, whether boar, bitch, or brat that needs skewering. I am an apex predator of the forest, court, and bordel. If anything, I am too supreme a honter with seed as quick and sharp as my mind and bodekin; bastard gets and whelps positively boiling forth from any whore or maiden I annoint.

Alas, the illegitimate must be culled for the good of the realm. Better worthless babes and mewling infants meet the grave than risk the fidelity of my kingdom. The brats should be thankful to become lowly cherubim in the doubtless countless choirs proclaiming my providence.

The hour grows late and Grymesby, my latest groom of the stool, snores slovenly on a bench by the fireplace like a dog. My bejewelled hands tremble as I decant my own wine like a lowborn. The clinking of the chalice sounds like the rattling of bones–My breath catches, freezing in my chest despite the heat. I gasp, trying to call on Grymesby, but my tongue is lead in my throat, and too many nights have proven the buffoon to simple to truly see…

It begins as it always does, with a light pitter-patter, so easily ignored; explained away as rain, rats, or the other vermin that populate my keep. But, as always, I know better. Those are tiny finger bones drumming on the flagstones beneath this four-poster.

I am paralysed by unholy terror, but I know, were I to look beneath my royal bed, I would see those tiny finger bones dancing like phalangeous albino spiders. A scraping, chalky tattoo heralding their coming. A sick procession of diminutive skeletons; crawling and clattering on shaking, broken legs; listlessly limping, bulbous heads lolling on bent necks; crawling and climbing on crumbling, shattered knees; grasping and groping toward me with fractured fingers; an accusatory dirge grinding a moaning rattle from countless deciduous maws.

The shrunken dead seep from the stygian shadows beneath my transfixed form, an agonising wave of ivory from ebony. They pour forth from the frigid flagstones, dragging their shivered selves into the hearth’s lambent firelight. It plays about their eggshell skulls, glittering on pleading pearl fingers, even as Topheth pyres smoulder in their hollow sockets.

My body betrays me, and I feel the cold sweat from my stately brow run into the warm tears glistering my regal jowels become lost in the hot piss, darkening the fine damask that envelopes me. I long to know this as nought but a fleeting chimaera, some devilish caprice to confound my haggard mind, but Grymesby’s dire snoring is all too real.

At first, I feel nothing but creeping dread, so light are the first misbegotten they might be only ephemeral, but the gossamer geists give way to osseous orphans whose deadweight I feel pulling me down to perdition. They scrabble up my sodden bedclothes, chalky fingers creeping from memory to claw at my cadaverous form. Next come the bobbing skulls with clattering and clacking jaws, grinding fistfuls of milk teeth, blackened eyes limned with Limbo’s shade.

On previous nights, the abominable tableau remained as stuck as my bloated heart; filthy fingers leering from that fateful lacuna, stealing my rest, even as they implore and accuse. But this night, the brats are creeping further, crawling closer, chattering louder.

The bawling mass weighs down my chest, and I cannot draw breath. Stick-thin arms embrace me with sick affection. I scream so hard it tears my throat, but my useless manservant stirs not, and all I hear is a choir of raucous cackling.

My cherubs have come for me.

#Skeles #Skeleton #The Bastards #Writing #My Writing #Creatuve Writing #Short Story #Horror

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ratgrrrlgames · 3 days ago

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Wishing all a wonderful Monday and week ahead. I went to a local art centre session this morning. We drew over lithographs on carbon paper and then watercoloured them. Paint is usually my nemesis, but I had a fun time with it.

#birb

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ratgrrrlgames · 4 days ago

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Poetry: Went to My First VEX Collective Workshop!

On Thursday, I had the pleasure of joining a local creative group for my first workshop with the Vex Collective. The session was run by Ben with the Theme ‘Grab Bag’, which was a whole bunch of short prompts and five minute writing times, initially with a pinch of random words for inspiration and then for the majority of the session everyone putting in prompts to the eponymous Grab Bag and us all writing something for each prompt as they were pulled.

Ko-fi & Instagram posts with fancy images too big for tumblr

A Pinch of Words

Light a match and pick

The chocolate scab

Let thunder play

Through sleeping hardware

For the vile time is now

Play scab match for

Vile chocolate thunder hardware

Vile scab chocolate

Plays a thunder match

Through my faulty hardware

Grab Bag

A Drunken Goblins Song

The Maze Calls me

Down, out, left, right, up, in

And the forbidden direction

Stumbling from hegemony

Belly fat with mead

A golden goblin spiral

Unstoppable by oubliette

A sopping shantay

A small sop singing shanties

Two People One Bag Of Money 50 Vaults Which One Has The Gold

We venture across the land

She afront and me behind

Plundering fifty vaults

A horse of pantomime

I was always a sturdy ass

And always passed the share

Lost my head, now I’m alone

An ass without a mare

Watching The Leafcutter Bee Making Her Nest On My Balcony

I sit

Face pressed up against the window

Staring at nothing

As everything in entropy goes by

I see

A bee, so studiously

Crafting a family home

An effortless drive to eternity

I watch

The deft leafcutter

Dance about my balcony

And feel something I can’t place

I stand

Shaking off procrastination

Executive dysfunction

I know that I can be

Downfall

One small step for a hobbit

A tricksy slide of scree

Took a tumble down the chalkpit

While chasing a bumblebee

This little lass on the Denham Tracts

Means I’m covered, facts is facts

So the Tolkien estate can’t sue me!

Festival

Come one, come all

To our feastiuall!

A festive, feasting

Omnivorous carnival

The market goblins

With disco ball oranges and

Greedily delicious apples

Boast more Bognor than Butlins

Little cretins caper

From spring to fall

And back again

In the misty morning vapour

The Vampire Was Addicted to Garlic

Carmilla dear

You know I am happy

To Sheridan your Le Fanu

Believe me

I feel the Hungerstone

That only Dunn can do

But your breath…

No, not the tomb,

Not Blood, nor bone

It’s not the grave

That stops my lips

Darling

Your breath reeks of garlic!

Arranging Delivery of a Full-Sized Inflatable Double-Decker Bus

Life can be hard

For an arm-waving inflatable tube gal.

Only harder still

When you dream of a blow-up bus,

Had to be a double-decker;

Number 3

And only full-scale would do.

But the pump has burst

And they’ve sprung a leak

Let alone the lack of torque

Or so to speak

Whenever the wind blows through.

The Worst Meal Ever

(Important note: Ben exclaimed, “Oh, fantastic!” when this prompt was read out)

Oh, fantastic!

He exclaimed at the nightmare dish

Sat sloppily presented before him.

Verily, he prepared a litany;

Complaints alike a prayer.

Nothing so vile, disgusting, and gross

Has passed mine eyes,

Let alone my lips

I shall not, will not, dare!

Forlorn the chef watched on

Through the kitchen door

Sharpening daggers with their stare.

#poem #poetry #writing #my writing

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ratgrrrlgames · 6 days ago

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Skeles: Johnny Corkscrew by Unlawful Games and RatGrrrl

I am currently working with the rest of the Gherkin Collective on a supplement of Skeles for our GREAT SKELEJAM!

Previous Skeles

Emperor by Auto Guy and Ratgrrrl

The Ruby Skull by Auto Guy and Ratgrrrl

One-Winged Angel by Auto Guy and Ratgrrrl

Jawnathan by Auto Guy and Ratgrrrl

Objet by Auto Guy and Ratgrrrl

The Cadaver by inkysuns and Ratgrrrl

Revenant by Auto Guy and Ratgrrrl

Skelecrab by J.M. Dale and Ratgrrrl

Johnny Corkscrew

Feltwork by Unlawful Games

Words by Ratgrrrl

Johnny Corkscrew is our captain’s name,