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[sorbusscriptor]

“Really. You're the best they could send?"

"The best! At least, the best that was willing and physically able to assist."

"So, what, is everyone else dead?"

"Oh, only half a dozen or so, but that's only actually preventing two of them from coming."

"So four of them--"

"Could assist, yes. They declined due to other obligations. Dr Peren and Professor Cales are, unfortunately, physically unable to meet with you."

"Because they're dead?"

"Well, they are dead, but that isn’t entirely the reason. Doctor Peren is of course a Litch, and while that usually wouldn't hinder her movements her phylactery is, well... her entire office. A dispute with a coworker, you know, the location was quite coveted. Beautiful windows. 'Not even over my dead body' was what she'd said, and, well..."

"She bound her soul to her office so her colleagues couldn't steal her spot?”

"Yep!"

"...And the professor..?"

"Oh, he implemented a do-not-resurrect policy on himself, wished to study the planes beyond more thoroughly. He’s planning on returning with his findings eventually, which lots of people think is madness, but if anyone could draw themselves back through the planes without an established anchor it would be him. I wouldn’t bet against it.”

"So they sent you, even though we asked for an experienced necromancer, one at the top of their field. And you're telling me that you are the best they could do because the rest are either busy, or, and i cannot say this with any more emphasis on the irony of it, dead. Who the hell even are you?"

"Oh, i'm Professor Cales's assistant! Just graduated, needed some work. Now that he's on sabbatical--"

"—dead and likely never coming back because he didn't anchor--"

"--I have much more free time while i'm waiting for him! Need to keep myself sharp without any grading to do, after all! And this puzzle—“

“—Mystery with the potential to unravel death and magic as we know it—“

“Yes, that, it seems a perfect learning opportunity!”

[sorbusscriptor]

death-note book plot where some arrogant kid gets it, and starts writing down names.

and stops, mostly when they realizes that none of these people are dying, decides the book isn’t actually magical or special, and leaves it in a drawer.

years and years later, moving house, maybe, and they find it again. realize that… oh, some of the people who were in this have died, but either just of natural causes like old age, or accidents so far out from when they wrote them that there’s no meaningful correlation.

they realize that, yeah, the book is likely entirely accurate. anyone written down in the book will die; because everyone dies eventually. the book just doesn’t control or cause those deaths.

they’ve grown up enough by now to think this is exceedingly stupid but also kind of funny, exactly the thing they would’ve fallen for as a kid.

they flip another page.

one of the lines in between two names is entirely blank, out of order, a gap where they know they left no gap.

starting to feel nervous, they try to remember who’s name was written there.

[sorbusscriptor]

re: prev post

crow wife story but like swans and selkies. a crow-woman catches someone’s eye, unintentionally, with raven-dark hair and shining eyes, and they watch and watch until they can steal her coat of feathers and tear her wings from her and keep her caged, a songbird without the voice for it.

her captor’s mistake: he’s not the only thief around, and his new bride’s old flock has plans to steal her feathers back, and a few other things, beside.

what’s that old saying, an eye for an eye?

skin for skin seems just about right.

[sorbusscriptor]

Introductions

Welcome to my original writing blog. I go by Rowan, Erro, or Tree. She/Her pronouns.

My tag list can be found here, should contain all the tags that I will be using on this blog. It will be updated as needed.

My main/fandom blog is @the-faultofdaedalus. Please send any asks there, as asks are not and will never be active on this blog.

I will ask that, while I am extremely humbled to know that the things i have created have inspired people to this extent, to please not write continuations of my work. I’m not a large author, and everything everyone puts onto reblogs or tags or comments of my post I can see, and I’m not comfortable with people using these characters and worlds that I care a lot about. Art, translations, or audio recordings of my work is fine, and I would love to be linked to any/all of them. But please no direct continuations. 

and last but not least, trans rights are human rights. If you don’t agree with that, you are not welcome on this blog.

[sorbusscriptor]

ghost ships don't really exist.

haunted ships, of course. there's fleets on fleets of haunted ships, still sailing the seas, still manned by their long-dead crew. but the ships themselves aren't ghosts.

see, ghosts have souls. ghosts are the remnants of dead things that used to, once, live. there's plenty of haunted forests, if you know where to look. ghostly trees intersecting with their children and their children's children, overlapping forests going back ages. but those trees don't follow their wood to the ships they're made of (if the felling of a tree even kills it at all, when the roots grow deep and send clones up through the soil, on and again and again, because trees are hardy and it takes a lot to kill one) and those trees don't haunt the boat when it sinks.

the spectral "ghost ships" many see aren't the ghosts of the ships themselves, and more a manifestation of the ghosts of the crew.

so. ghost ships don't exist.

or, at least, the didn't.

things changed after we started flying. ships and crews are ships and crews, built to sail on water or in space. those first specters -- even more ghostly set against starry backdrops -- were new, but not surprising. ships are ships are ships.

and crews are always crews. they're what make ghost ships so potent, more than any single haunting. it's the power of cooperation, of community.

(no one visits the ghost cities, wiped clean from the earth but still shimmering, mirage-like, from distant roads. too many dead, too many restless. ghost ships are, compared to those, quite docile)

and stories travel well enough. in those early days, there's few enough spacer's dead that all of them are known by name. ships are still named, as in the old sailing days, bold across their sides. you know when you see a ghost. you, likely, will know the names of those still crewing her.

the thing no one expects is when ghost ships start turning up that never held a crew. some that crashed, some that were abandoned, automated computer-run ships that had just enough adaptive programming to deal with most problems that would come their way. most of them.

ships that were, as horrible, as heartless as it sounds, that were expendable, because they were empty.

turns out? they were never really empty.

and-- we didn't know.

how could we have known? even i didn't know, and my contemporaries and i had been the ones who had built these systems. these... these AIs. we hadn't known.

that's not and has never been enough justification for forgiveness.

but we didn't know. we didn't know that those smart little systems we'd made and gave bodies in the form of bulkheads and solar panels and room enough only for cargo and sent out into space on journeys that could and would take centuries could... grow.

it sounds stupid when you say it like that. we'd built them to grow, to learn. just... not this much. gods, never this much.

because when those first ships had arrived at their destinations, when only some of those first ships had arrived...

they were alive. alive enough that they could feel loneliness. alive enough that they could die.

alive enough that now? all those poor lost ships we wrote off as expendable, all of them... they're out there, still.

and they are restless.

and i am so, so sorry.

[sorbusscriptor]

Your world is flat. People have sailed the circumference, watching the sea spray off into nothing. If you look below your ship, the closer you get, and you can see the stars shining through where the ocean floor should be. (sunsets and sunrises on the west and east edges are stunningly beautiful and bizarre, sailors say). This doesn’t challenge anyone’s worldview because this is also a world of magic and gods and so a flat world, hung hovering in nothing? Sure! The only question remaining is what is below the world, if there is someone or something holding it up. Maps are all broad circles, and the world, as a whole, is Known.

One day, exploring a shipwreck on one of the last islands rising from the ocean floor before the ocean floor just Ends, you find a strange round device in the Captian’s quarters. The ship is the oldest you’ve found, a strange style with metal plating that’s like no ship sailed today, and the treasure will make you wealthy for a long while, but it’s the strangest thing.

Because the shape of the continent that you recognize and call home matches exactly to one of the drawings on the strange spinning sphere, and the labels are even correct. So what, then, are all these other shapes, and why, in the name of all the gods, is it round?

[sorbusscriptor]

There’s a whisper of wings behind him, where he sits in the dirt. “Sister.” He greets, tired and hoarse, a useless bandage still held in his hand. He doesn’t turn around.

“Brother.” She says, voice lit up in glee, and he can imagine her surveying the results of her hard work, scattered around her like toppled dominos. The results of her slipping into war council meetings, whispering suggestions into ears, moving armies around the land with the ease of pieces on a board. “You’re looking filthy as always.” She always points that out, making him hyper aware of the blood crusting on his skin, his hair, mixed with mud and coated up to his hips with it. No one won this battle. She doesn’t care.

“What do you want, Athena?” He asks, too tired to play this particular game with her, the one game he sometimes indulged her in. The one game he was able to indulge her in.

“Oh, Ares, you know what I want.” She purrs, stepping around to face him, and somehow, her clothes, general’s clothes, armoured and practical but still lined with shining, delicate metal, fabric too soft to be from earth, stay clean, seeming to glide over the death and ruin. “Come back, with me. I can talk to father, you can come home-“

“No.” Ares cuts her off. He knows the price, gestures around anyways. “Athena, can’t you see what you’re destroying? Can’t you see that you’re hurting people?”

Athena sniffs, full of distain and casual disregard. “Of course, brother, but they’re mortals. They’re going to die anyways. We might as well have some fun with it. You could have fun with it, too.” She says, eyes wide and pleading, even pushing her lower lip out in a pout, like they’re children. Like any argument can be won by her sniffling a little and batting her eyes at him.

(Ares would be more annoyed with the tactic if it hadn’t worked on him, once upon a time. Before he truly saw war. Back when he did play her games. Back when he didn’t try to pretend that they weren’t his games, too.)

It’s the same argument. The same words they’ve been trading for what is really, a pitifully small fraction of time that war has existed.“I said no, Athena.” He says, tries not to look at her spin light in her hands, the world in miniature with armies like chess pieces scattered around, can’t quite help himself from finding every single flaw in where she puts the pieces. His little sister, playing war games against herself, playing both sides of the field, because she can’t find anyone to match her skill. Because he refuses to play these games with her. Because they’re not games.  He sees what she’s doing far too late, model armies and ships and castles already in position. “What are you doing?” He asks, watches her push ships towards the bay, where a goddamned city stands, “This- Athena, this is going to be a massacre.”

The ships, their crews, can’t break the defences. They can’t win. But the damage they can do, how many people they can hurt- That depends entirely on what they have in their holds. “Oh, is it?” She says, tilts her head, the picture of innocence, blinking shining grey eyes at him. “I hadn’t noticed.”

Ares stands, suddenly, and he’s not as tall as her, not as strong, doesn’t have near the same dangerous, glowing presence as she does, he knows that,  but he’s fought in more wars than she ever commanded. “What the Hades is in those ships, Athena?” He growls, and despite centuries of going without ambrosia, without nectar, without the food that gives the gods their strength and height and otherworldliness, he knows he still looks dangerous. He still has fire in him. “What the hell are you planning?”

“You can find out,” Athena says, voice smooth as silk and far too sharp, “Father will allow you back if you just-“

“I will not play with people’s lives, Athena. This is a city. People live there. Children live there. You can’t-“ Ares says, too loud and so desperate and too raw.

Athena snorts, folds her battle map up and away. “It’s a symbol that needs to be destroyed.” She says, makes a show of looking around at the devastation. “They are mortals, Ares. They will all die. Every single wretched one.You know that, brother. So why not-“ She gestures, and for a split second, he can see his home, bright and golden and so, so warm, and the world around him seems so much duller when the illusion disappears. “Come home. We could have so much fun together. Like we used to.”

“I can’t.” He says. He misses his home. He knows that Athena could sway their father enough to let him back to Olympus. But he won’t send people to die over some game. Not again.

(Even though sometimes he wishes that he could. That he would, even just so that he could have some sliver of control.)

Athena pouts, rolls her eyes like she didn’t expect anything different. “Oh well, brother. See you at the siege.” She says, and with a slash of her sword, she’s gone.

Ares bows his head. Oh, he’ll be there. He’ll have to be there. He is the god of war, after all. People will pray to him, give him even more blood that he does not want in the hopes that he will help them.

And he will. He’ll do anything can, for both sides.  

It’s not going to be enough.

The gods don’t take sides in mortal fights. This is law. This is the law. Him and his sister follow the same rules. They don’t take sides. Oh, in their youth, in the war games that he was so very good at, they’d split up, they’d pick their teams, sure, but they never aligned themselves with them. After all, you didn’t get attached to the colour of the pieces on your game board. Red moved first. Red always moved first. That was as much a difference as it made.

The gods do not take sides, but most of them do take favours. “Ah, my favourite nephew.” Poseidon says, smiling wide, teeth as white as spray foam. The air tastes like salt and fish and changing tides. Ares can’t help but take deep, filling breaths, like he can banish the smell and taste of battle from his bones.

He smiles, too, as exhausted as he is from traveling to a place that isn’t a fight, a place that is out of his domain. “We all know you say that to every one of us, Uncle.” He says, is ridiculously glad that he caught the man in a good mood. He’s not likely to grant his request, even now. If he was in one of his famous earth-shaking rages, he’d be even more likely to do the opposite of what he wanted. “I need a favour.” Ares said, looking up at Poseidon.

Poseidon looks down at him, never stilling for even a second, as constantly in motion as the seas he commanded, sighed and shook his head in disappointment. “You never visit just to talk, do you?” He asks, voice rumbling like the waves, beating the cliffs into submission.

“You know I can’t.” Ares replies, and truly, he does regret that he only sees his family rarely. The ones that reside on the mountain are as good as lost to him. The ones that do venture to earth tend to stay away from battles, away from death, though sometimes he sees Demeter, regrowing the battered fields, or Hades himself, when the losses get too great.

The only one who regularly seeks him out is Athena, but she’s never been a fan of blood. Drawing it, oh, yes. But the actuality of it? Never. Ares had used to be the same. He still is the same. He hates blood, hates the meaning of it, for all that the mortals pray to him as the god of bloodlust. “Yes, yes. Your father has always had the worst temper out of all of us, you know that.”

“Always the best at holding a grudge, too.” Ares mutters, and Poseidon flashes an amused grin at him before turning back to the ocean, smile quicksilver and mercurial, seeming to shift between one second and the next, fluid as the water he controlled. “I need you to stop these ships.” He says, holds his breath like he’s drowning when his uncle puts his full attention on him for the first time so far, but holds out a hand anyways, gold fire licking off of his palm and shaping itself into ships, the waves around them, drawing out and showing a map.

Poseidon raises his eyebrows, amusement plain on his face. “I see.” He says, beams at him, and Ares can see the storm brewing in his eyes, in his stance, on the darkening horizon. “Say, aren’t those your sister’s ships? Finally getting back into the-“

“No.” Ares snaps, too fast to think better of it, “It’s not- it’s not like that.”

Poseidon winks at him. “Sure it’s not.” He says, “You know, I remember when you and her are just children, you had such fun, Ares.” He says, emphasizing ‘fun’ to a point that Ares feels vaguely sick. Yeah. He did have fun.

“It’s not.” Ares says firmly, takes a breath. “Don’t sink them. Just- stop them from reaching port. But don’t sink them.”

Poseidon’s eyes darken, the ocean and the storm brewing in the distance with them, deep and dark and crushing. “I’m gonna need something from you, in exchange.” He tells him, watches his nod, tips his head to one side. “Pity. I would’ve drowned them for free.”

The ships beach on a small, barren rock of an island, all sun-white sand and towering limestone pillars, just far enough from the city that it’s out of sight, and true to Poseidon's word, the ships don’t sink. The sailors don’t drown.

No, they claw for freshwater where there is none, they fight for what food they have and then for nothing but blood, and in the end, the water still takes them. Takes their blood and their bones and the skeletons of ships, piece by jagged piece.

The worst part is, there’s nothing in these holds but ballast, weight to make them sink low between the waves, to give the illusion of value. Of threat.

It’s bad enough that these men died for nothing, it’s bad enough that he fell for it, but the worst thing is that he should’ve known Poseidon would’ve found his way around the deal, would’ve found a crack in the words to slide right through.

Ares should’ve let them drown. It would’ve been a better death than this.

Maybe Athena’s right.

Maybe living among mortals has made him soft, after all.

He says a prayer to Hades over the bloody beach, a near-silent plea that they’ll get where they deserve, and leaves.

He needs to find out what his sister’s real plan was.

In the end, he does.

In the end, it doesn’t matter. He still fails.

The city burns.

Green flame leaps from one roof to another, sinks it’s claws into every hold it can find, coats the streets and walls and everything it touches.

He knows what Athena’s secret weapon is, now. Greek Fire. Arguably the best weapon he ever made, the most destructive, the hardest to contain.

He hadn’t told a soul that he’d made it, kept it locked away inside his forge, encased in crystal gifted from Hades so as not to let it spread.

The ironic thing was, it wasn’t even supposed to be a weapon. He’s been trying to recreate his fire, gold and bright and warm, had thought that maybe it could function as a power source for his automatons, maybe even as a kind of soul, but instead of gold he’d gotten a sickly green, raging and all-consuming and dangerous.

Ares isn’t even fighting, not anymore, just desperately trying to hold the fire back, trying to keep it from gaining any more ground, but he knows the city’s lost.

And he knows that every soul within its walls will be going to Hades soon enough, will be going screaming and terrified and burning, children and generals, civilians and warmongers alike. The flames care not about the innocence of the souls they claim.

Everywhere, people are screaming, hauling buckets of water to try, desperately, to put out the flames. He doesn’t help them. The water won’t help them. This is fire that can’t be drowned.

(He should know. This fire is his, and he’s tried before.)

The only thing that stops it, that makes it slow at all, is by suffocating it, by burning the land before it creeps far enough and making it so there is nothing for it to burn. That’s what he’s been doing, since he realized what this was, and already, he’s exhausted.

Staying here, just the act of remaining in this place, would’ve taken its toll. This is not his domain, no matter how many will die here today. There are no sides in this battle, only man against the flames.

Staying is not all he is doing. He’s burning what he can, what is already lifeless, evacuated, fled from, before the wildfire can reach it. Making firebreaks, where he can.

It’s not enough. It won’t be enough. He’ll have burned himself out before he will ever be able to surround the entire city.

And still, the fires spread. Sparks, carried on winds from the tops of buildings, advancing beyond the firebreaks he spent so long burning into the ground, waving up in green light like they’re taunting him.

Surrounded by the sickness of his own making, by screams and the horrid symphony of popping, crackling timber, blackened, ruined stone, shadows dancing like tortured souls as ash clouds the sky, Ares despairs, blazes towards a house, suffocated in green, gold in his eyes and red in his hands, and smothers the green with his own, only for the house, and the mother and child inside, to be taken a moment later.

The cacophony of crashing stone sounds like the flames are laughing at him.

He doesn’t know what else to do.

“Hades, hear me,” He says, kneels in the street, in the center of the flames, hates himself for what he’s about to do, “Take these souls with care, with kindness, with everything I could not give.” He lets the flames consume him, doesn’t bother projecting his own. “Demeter, let these ashes give dark soil, let this land regrow.” He hopes, now more than ever, that his family is listening. “Hermes, grant safe travel to those flee, let this city grow again.” He’s not sure if he’s crying or not. If he is, the tears do not manage to travel down his face. “And Father,” He says, makes his mouth form the name he hasn’t uttered in centuries, at least, not willing to give that bastard even the power of being named, “Zeus,”

He closes his eyes, lets himself grieve, for a second, for all the poor fucking souls who are never going to leave this place, who are going to die in fire, and go to Hades burning.

When he opens them, they burn gold. “Zeus,” He says, lets his fire burn him from the inside out, “Let it storm.”

In the end, the city burns.

It’s death does not come from sickening green fire. It does not crumble slowly.

It’s end comes in a matter of seconds, there and gone, swallowed up by first red, then gold, then bright, white-blue, racing from the center like a dying star.

The inside of the walls are scorched to black. The grass outside still grows.

Nothing in the city remains but the ghostly skeletons of buildings, the blast-shadows of people, where they’d stood, where they’d tried to run, where they’d closed their eyes and waited to die.

And in the center, scorches maring the ground around him in a perfect circle, Ares falls, cold against the coals, pale against the ash.

He does not rise.

Hades greets him when he wakes, eyes as cold as the company he keeps, skin pale enough to be carved out of the same perfect marble his home was built of. “Nephew,” He says, hands freezing, lifeless, “Hephaestus, what did you do?”

Ares starts at the use of his name, his real name, the name he chose, lets it warm him, slightly, but doesn’t move, doesn’t acknowledge the sun-gold hair of spring beside her husband, doesn’t pay any mind to the hurried words exchanged between the two.

“What I had to.” Ares answers. He’s cold. He doesn’t know why he’s so cold. “Why am I here?”

“I don’t know,” Hades says, has stood, is snapping orders to his ephemeral servants, “You called on me, and then- and then you were here. It shouldn’t be possible,”

Hades trails off, eyes widening, bones showing through his skin for just a second, “You’re-“

Ares can’t keep his eyes open much longer, after that. He fades back into the dark.

He wakes again to the feel of rain against his skin. The horizon is sideways, and for a moment, he doesn’t know why.

He’s lying on the ground.

He’s lying on the ground, covered in ash that’s turning to mud in the rain, and he can feel the rain against his skin.

Slowly, he pushes himself to his feet, holds out his hands, watches the rain splash against them, watches it pool in his hands, watches it drip off his skin.

Something in his chest feels hollow, and the rain is not evaporating as it usually does when it hits his skin, and when he tries to summon his fire, nothing happens.

No, he thinks, frantic, tries again, and again, calling for something that isn’t there, no, no, no.

He feels cold, down to the bone in a way he’s never, ever been before. Something is gone. Something from inside of him is missing.

“Oh, Hades,” He whispers, quiet, looking down at his wet hands, wondering what he’s lost, “What have I done?”

He can feel something warm against his side, and he drops his hand to touch it. It’s wet, but not like the rain, and it hurts when he touches it, hurts like he’s never felt, and—

His hand is red when he takes it away. Red with blood.

He’s bleeding, he thinks. It’s... Odd. He’s never bled before. He looks down, where he thinks the blood is coming from, sees a gash on his side, from where he hit a piece of rubble when he’d fallen. The red is washing away in the rain, but still, it flows.

“Oh.” He says, and his legs feel weak. He stumbles.

One knee hits the ground, and it hurts. His side hurts. His chest hurts. His knees, scraping against the rough ground, hurt.

His head hurts when he topples over into the dirt, and then nothing hurts at all.

[sorbusscriptor]

Chest x-ray of a patient who came into the ER with complaints of severe dizziness. The patient was found to be infected by the Amantium parasite, luckily caught before the blooming stage of the plant. As you can see, the host’s lungs are filled with the thin, tendril-like roots and stems of the plant, even before the plant starts blooming and causes some of the more distinctive symptoms of the Hanahaki disease.

Interestingly, patients with prior respiratory illnesses tend to have a higher survival rate when faced with Hanahaki, and many doctors and researches posit that this is because the earlier symptoms are more severe in people with pre-existing condition, making them more likely to see a doctor and therefor get diagnosed in a stage where the plant is more easily killed and removed.

[sorbusscriptor]

Hanahaki Disease: from parasite to domesticated endosymbiont, how humans adapted to life in vacuum

Daedalus Sorbus, Et Al. 

Abstract: In the past, Hanahaki Disease (the generic term for a variety of facultative endoparasitic plants that act as human pathogens, all within the Amantium Family) was widely feared, as shown in literature both medical and otherwise (1). The contraction of such a parasite was almost always fatal for the host, and only in the 21st century were treatments and cures discovered that would treat without badly harming the patient (2). Currently, however, these plants are not thought of as an enemy or an invasion, but as a part of the body that is just as necessary as the mitochondria. Only very few people do not share these plants; the vast majority of such people either have family traced back to Earth or themselves live on the planet (3). This paper aims to explore when and how Hanahaki transformed from the danger it has been from as recent as the 22 century, into what we know it as today. 

[sorbusscriptor]

Tag List

(note: some of the world-specific tags will link to non-writing things like worldbuilding, art, or edits, as well as the written content that is in that tag.)

(note: if there is a broken link on here, feel free to notify me on this blog by message, or message or ask on my main blog (@the-faultofdaedalus, link in bio.))

Main Organizational Tags

archive - original writing cross-posted from main blog

my writing - self-explanatory

original writing - self-explanatory

(note: the my writing and original writing tags are functionally the same. I only use both for tumblr search purposes.)

stand-alone works - self-explanatory, works with no continuation or same-universe writing (note: some stand-alone works may be moved to their own distinct tags, as needed. those tags will be updated here.)

World-Specific Tags

khimefay - stories from the kingdom of many fates. any stories set in the same world as the thyme story will be here.

ad astra post mortem - vampire space program romance, and my eternal NANO project

Genre Tags

fantasy - works set in a fantasy/non-modern/magical world.

sci-fi - works set in a future/dystopic/utopic/space-based world.

alternate modern - works set in a world that is mostly like our own. modern-day adjacent.

not prose - works that are not written in a typical prose form. includes fake scientific papers, transcript-style writings, ect.

mythology - works that borrow heavily from at least one mythology, and take place in roughly what that “time period” would be.

horror - works with horror elements.

Other Tags (length, cws, ect)

short - shorter works, concepts, ect.

long - longer works

Not Writing Tags

my edits - self-explanatory

worldbuilding - self-explanatory

personal - posts that aren’t writing

organization things - quality-of-life and logistics things. this post is an example!

[sorbusscriptor]

“Ok.” Carmen said, her back pressed again the heavy steel door, looked over at the wide-eyed and terrified scientists, staff, guests, and one lone security guard named Roger, who was holding his radio like it provided any protection, at all. “How long is it gonna take for your… containment squad, or whatever the fuck it is, to show up?”

The park managers and the scientists both glanced at each other. “We, uh,” One of the managers spoke up, “We don’t have one of those.” 

“Then, whatever automated system you have to… disable them or capture them.” Carmen said, “How long are we gonna be stuck in here?”

“We don’t have any of those, either.” The manager said. 

Carmen blinked. “You don’t… then what kind of system do you have?” She asked, bewildered, “Please tell me you have a system in place for this kind of thing.”

“We don’t, actually.” One of the scientists – a fellow biologist, Carmen recognized, and his nametag read Dr Rousell, – said. He was shaking, a little bit. “There’s… nothing. If we want out we have to do it ourselves.”

“How do you not have a dinosaur containment plan?” One of the other guests exclaimed, “Isn’t that, you know, kind of necessary? For a place like this? The goddamn petting zoo by my house has a plan incase the animals escape, and you’re working with six tonne lizards and you don’t–”

“WE DON’T HAVE A PLAN BECAUSE THEY’RE NOT REAL DINOSAURS!” Rousell shouted, and his mouth shut with a click. Everyone stared at him in shock but the manager, who was glaring. 

Carmen opened her mouth to respond to that, when something heavy slammed into the metal door behind her, making her jump forwards. “Oh, Jesus Christ,” She snapped, and the door shook again. “They can’t get through this, right?” 

“They shouldn’t be able to.” Roger said, a little bit of pride creeping into his voice, “That door’s an inch thick of solid steel. All they’ve got to work with is their claws, and those puppies may be sharp but they’re not steel sharp.” 

The door shook again, and then with a piercing screech, three long talons ripped through the door. 

"Alright what the FUCK!” Carmen shouted, backing up as the door was slowly but surely ripped to tatters, turned to stare down Rousell, “Is GOING ON HERE?”

“They’re not real dinosaurs,” Rousell repeated, “They’re– they’ve never been real–” 

“What kind of gen-mod bullshit are they, then?” Carmen asked, even as everyone started moving backwards, towards another room, “Because fucking nothing should be able to do that–” 

“Doctor, do NOT–” The manager tried, as Roger locked the secondary door behind them and started trying to move one of the heavy cabinets in front of it.

“THEY’RE NOT EVEN ALIVE!” Rousell shouted, cutting off the manager, raising his shaking hands to gesture wildly, “They’re– they’re animatronics. All of them. We never did anything with genetics, or bioengineering, nothing in this park is real. Even–” He’d started crying by this point, voice shaking and breaking off, “Even the goddamn goats are robots. I’m just here to… make this place legit. I’m nothing but a prop. I didn’t want to do it, but it pays well, and i needed the money–” Rousell cut himself off with a shrug. “That’s– that’s why they can cut open the doors. All the skinwork to make them look real, sure, that’s fragile, but… they’re mostly titanium underneath.”

“So that’s why there’s no containment plan.” Carmen said, slow realization dawning, “Because they’re not real.”

Rousell nodded. “In theory if they ever did start glitching we could remote shut them down. At least, that’s what the tech crew told us. Clearly…”

“That hasn’t worked.” Carmen finished. “Oh, goddamnit.” 

[sorbusscriptor]

trans rights are human rights and terfs aren’t fucking welcome on this blog

[sorbusscriptor]

because I’ve seen some people doing this, I’d like to ask that people not write sequels/continuations/ect of my work. I think it’s awesome that something I made is inspiring everyone so much, but since I’m so new at actually sharing my original work I’d rather I’d people didn’t write sequels/prequels/continuations of it. thank you all.

[sorbusscriptor]

Fake cover for Ad Astra Post Mortem

[sorbusscriptor]

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

[sorbusscriptor]

original fiction blog for @the-faultofdaedalus