#and then hopefully move on to new things | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ninja-knox-ur-sox-off · 1 year

Text

Day 8: Mountain/Chains

Prompt List

Pt. 6 of The Empire of Samadhi AU

Pt. 1 | Pt. 2 | Pt. 3 | Pt. 4 | Pt. 5 | Pt. 6 (you are here) | Pt. 7 (coming sometime...)

(This is day 8 of the Monkie Destiny Challenge Prompt Month October 2023)

Wordcount: 2k

Summary: Red Son is the son of an old empire, Mei is the daughter of a new one. Red Son, consumed by fire, was put into an induced stasis sleep to stop the world from burning until his family can find a way to safely remove the fire. They find a way but he never wakes up. Hundreds of years later he awakes to discover his power resides within another as she stares at him with wide eyes on fire.

Split.

They reached the mountain at daybreak.

It wasn’t massive but it still counted as a mountain, albeit a small one. There were seals and spells lining the caverns on the inside of it, if nothing much had changed since Red Son had last visited the place. It was a little out of their way and put them a good half a day behind schedule to reach, but the mortals were insistent. Much to Red Son’s frustration.

Why they were taking this detour was simple.

Liú.

That little puppet Mk had tucked into his sash comfortably that morning, with his little puppet arms and face free of the fabric. He’d spent a needlessly long amount of time making sure he was comfortable, not being crushed. No matter how many times Red Son told him he likely couldn’t feel it, Mk wasn’t taking any chances.

“Just in case,” he had said that morning. “He might be conscious. It would be boring to look at the inside of a pocket all day.”

No matter how much Red Son scoffed at it, Mei chimed in that she thought it was a good idea so that was the end of it, and he could do nothing to convince him otherwise.

They were idiotic fools.

They were weird.

They chatted with the puppet all the way too, and on the way up the mountain, in-between complaints of sore feet and burning muscles from their upward decent. Red Son had to listen to their aggravating recap and their ‘Sifu Samadhi, he might look scary but he’s a softy,’ all the way up the mountain.

Red Son was not a softy.

He was going to kill them both the moment he had the fire just to prove that.

“He can’t hear you,” Red Son tried to tell them for the thousandth time.

“Maybe he can,” Mei said, sticking out her tongue like she did every time she replied.

Truly they were idiotic.

He had no doubt if Liú really was conscious as a little puppet, he would have rather been shoved into a pocket than listen to their whining. At least then the sounds would be muffled.

“Are we there yet?” Mei groaned. “We've been walking for ages.”

“Two hours,” Red Son said through gritted teeth, “is not ages.”

“It's dark out,” Mk complained, “I want to sleep.”

Red Son took a moment to breathe. If he pushed either of them off the mountain now he might never get his fire. “This little detour is costing us precious time. The sooner we reach the top the better. Unless you’d rather take a nap and watch the world burn from this vantage point?”

That at least shut them up for a while. Then there was nothing but annoyed noises and huffing and puffing.

Honestly they held up better than expected. Despite their complaining they were keeping up with Red Son’s, what would be considered, brutal pace for mortals.

They reached the top before sunrise.

Luckily the big open surface carved out remained which meant they wouldn’t need to clear anything. The last time Red Son had been here, there had been monuments and structures and even green life everywhere. He didn’t acknowledge the blackened empty state of it.

Red Son drew the circle in the ash and dirt himself, since he didn’t trust either of them to know what they were doing. It didn’t take very long, but it was long enough for Mei to complain again. Red Son ignored her. He scratched the letters into the dirt then snatched some of his fire from the rings and lit the spell. The fire filled the grooves quickly until every bit of lettering was illuminated.

“Now,” he said, dusting his hands off and turning to Mei. “First things first. This is going to cause quite a commotion in the middle of nowhere. Without any life disguising my power, we might as well be sending an invitation to that thing to come find us. So.” He stepped over to one of the edges of the flat space, purposefully not too far away from the circle, but not close enough to mess with the spell. “This is our escape route. If he comes, stand here, and it will take us out of here in a more permanent teleportation than I can currently provide.”

“Cool,” Mei said. “Where does it go?”

“Let me worry about that,” Red Son said, crossing his arms. “Now the spell. Not that I care but keep in mind that if you lose control at any point during the ritual, he will undoubtedly die.”

“What?” said Mk, shielding the puppet with his hand.

“No pressure or anything,” Mei muttered. She frowned at the spell.

“Hurry up, we don’t have all day,” Red Son snapped.

“You can do this, Mei,” Mk said. “I know you can.”

That made her crack a smile. They were both so strange. “Thanks Mk.” She seemed to brighten just a little bit. “Alright, let's do this.” She got into position and planted her feet.

Mk hurried forward and placed the puppet in the middle of the circle, gently brushing ash from the spot so there was a clear spot to place it down. He then scurried out of the ring, cursing as the hem of his hanfu caught fire. He stamped it out, giving a big bright smile when Red Son glared at him.

Mei took a breath, closing her eyes. She placed the palms of her hands together in a meditative movement, then her eyes snapped open and she stared with intense focus at the puppet on the ground. “Ready.”

Red Son nodded. He lifted his hand, breathed and released the puppet from the seal.

It was an awful twisting, crumpling moment, then there the puppet stood at its full size. Its one eye blinked.

“Now!” Red Son yelled.

Fire exploded over them.

Red Son thought just in time to yank Mk behind him to shield him from it. Red Son planted his feet, nearly slipping from the force of it.

“A bit of overkill,” he said through gritted teeth as he held the fire at bay. She likely didn’t hear him mutter it over the roar of the flames. That had been his intention. He wasn’t stupid enough to interrupt her focus on purpose.

The puppet cowered, shielding its face, but its feet remained glued to the ground, trapped by the spell. The flames washed over it. It wailed.

“Ignore it!” Red Son yelled to Mei before she could hesitate or ask. “Continue the ritual!”

The fire burned through layers of the curse.

“It's working!” Mk spoke like he could see it which was absurd.

Chains flickered into view. They connected to the puppets wrists and ankles, long and icy and blue. Deep churning gray ones wrapped around the rest of him as though they were holding him together. Those chains were much thinner and weaker than the blue, but both could be handled just fine. One part possession, one part curse. The seals on the chains lit up with light, exposed by the fire.

The fire flickered green. Red Son grit his teeth and said nothing.

“You almost got him! Keep going!” Mk yelled.

“I… am…” Mei grunted, straining and pushing the fire at the puppet, trying to keep it aimed at him. Some of it lashed out to the side, dangerously close to Mk.

“Focus, Dragon Girl,” Red Son barked.

“Both of you zip it!” Mei snapped back. “Stop yelling at me-”

One of the chains cracked.

“Keep going, you're doing it!” Mk cheered.

“I asked for quiet please!”

The puppets' eyes flickered from empty to wide and pained and human. The puppet-like designs on its skin seemed to start to burn off. Its screaming was muffled by the fire.

“This is really hard!” Mei yelled.

“Of course it is!” Red Son yelled back. “Keep going!”

A chain snapped.

“You’re doing it, Mei! You’re doing it!”

“Yeah!” Mei cheered. Her power surged and pressed firmer against the curse.

Red Son hadn’t sensed anything, perhaps due to the massive surge of power in front of him. But quite unexpectedly he exhaled and his breath was visible, even with the flames in front of him.

He snapped his head up to look at the sky to find frosty clouds looming above them and closing in. The air behind where the fire was not was growing cold.

Red Son hadn’t felt him coming.

They needed to leave. Now.

“Dragon girl! Stop the fire! We need to go-!”

He landed a short distance away at the edge of the space and the mountain shook with the impact.

Red Son stumbled, on his feet, some of the fire escaping past him and over to Mk.

The fire vanished.

“Mk, grab Liú,” Mei barked. If Red Son wasn’t distracted he might have been proud of her authoritative voice, clearly reminiscent of his own.

Mk jumped into action and ran forward, jumping over rocks. He scooped the puppet off the ground, and bolted back to Red Son.

The figure that filled Red Son with such dread started forward.

The fire blasted into existence again, all of it focused on the possessed creature.

“Leave it! We need to go!” Red Son yelled. He and Mk were already standing in the escape route, they just needed Mei.

Chains flickered.

Red Son realized that his uncle was walking into the circle they’d made for the puppet.

Chains, white freezing chains, thin and thick, wrapping around every limb, tight around every movement. There looked to be hundreds of them, some of them thicker than some tree trunks Red Son had seen, and only getting bigger, as they stretched out of sight. They wrapped around his wrists, his arms, his ankles, his legs, his tail, his throat, his torso, his head.

Every single chain link from big to small had a seal on it.

The horror that Red Son felt choked him for a moment.

“Wait!” Mei yelled. “Do you see that? Maybe I can-”

“YOU CAN’T!” Red Son roared. “LEAVE IT, MEI.”

He could see her hesitate. It was a split second of her really truly considering… Then she growled. With a frustrated yell, she hurled as much fire as she could at their pursuer before she abandoned the circle and sprinted towards where Red Son and Mk stood.

“Hurry!” Mk held out his arm to her. “He’s right behind you!”

Mei didn’t glance back, she just launched herself forward, leaping at them.

Red Son slammed his hand onto the ground on top of the spell to activate it seeing her trajectory. He didn’t pray that he’d timed it right, he knew he had.

That was the moment that everything went wrong.

Mei was jerked backward, the Possessed catching the back of her hanfu.

Mk lunged out of the circle and tackled him.

Mei was catapulted forward and bowled into Red Son, knocking him off his feet and partially out of the spell.

The possessed moved forward, Mei lunged for Mk, the spell activated just as she touched him and the mountaintop exploded.

The impact of Red Son hitting the ground face-first nearly knocked him out. It left him dizzy and disoriented for a moment.

He pushed himself up and staggered to his feet.

He looked for Mei first, expecting her to be a short distance away, buried by rubble or fighting his uncle, but very suddenly realized several things:

He wasn’t atop the mountain any longer. He was beside a running river, surrounded by trees. It was damp, not as dry, there was no ash or flame to be found.

He couldn’t feel the warmth of his fire at all, which meant it was no longer in close proximity with him.

His uncle, Mei and Mk were nowhere to be found.

His fire was gone.

Red Son punched a tree, splitting a fist-shaped hole into the wood.

Then he wordlessly screamed at the sky for more than a few reasons but mainly because that had really hurt.

Imbeciles.

| beginning | next (coming...sometime...) |

#KNOX WRITES (me)#Monkie Destiny Challenge (2023)#Monkie Kid the Empire of Samadhi AU #Monkie Kid #LEGO Monkie kid #Monkie Kid Mei #Monkie Kid Mk #have i just skipped day 7 entirely? m a y b e #not purposefully i just had the idea for a truth serum/curse fic thing and i was thinking about writing that just haven't had the time #this one was already partially written #I'VE HAD A VERY FULL WEEKEND OKAYGBS;FKLSMDF #hopefully i'll get todays prompt out too before the day is done #whew weeee #we shall see how this goes i don't have any ideas for it yet hG;LSKJF #REMEMBER TO HYDRATE #this one feels very short BUT ITS FINE MOVING ON #MY COMPUTER KEEPS OVERHEATING I NEED TO SPEED OFF HERE I'M JUST TRYING TO POST THIS WHEEZING #straight up i couldn't think of what they were going to do next so i did this to give my brain something new to consider mWAHHAHAHA #what will happen next... hm..?

32 notes · View notes

im-a-king-baby · 1 year

Note

Hiii i loved ELYN so much.

I was hoping for any other tidbits/stories/scenes about Simon carrying the frog in the sock. i just wondered if it was like his comfort object or like the orange sweater etc. .That was one of my favorite scenes when Wille finds it

And/or “i wanted to wake up with you” i dont think i will ever forget that line.

💜 thank youuuu

Okay so I'm sorry this is so very late. Life has been a Lot 😅 hopefully folks are still interested in my ramblings!

<3 <S <3

"I wanted to wake up with you."

Fun fact: I almost cut this line. It was originally in the first draft where Simon never made the late-night-call that led everyone to Bjarstad and I was worried that after I'd made that change this line would put people off Simon, because at this point (in theory) Simon knows that Wilhelm had to get up because of what Simon did during the night so it's a bit unfair to Wilhelm. But then I figured Simon's in withdrawal, he's going to be resentful and frustrated and just because intellectually he knows it's his fault that doesn't mean he's not still having those feelings.

As far as the wanting goes, Simon is just dragging himself through life at the moment. He had this whole spiral of failing to sleep, eventually managed it by basically promising himself a future where he'd wake up and things would still be like they were when they went to bed, just the two of them avoiding the world. Plus withdrawal emotions, plus Candace showing up, the bubble is fully burst and this line is Simon tired and resentful and having to face it.

In case you're interested in how things change in editing, this is the first draft version of this moment (in this version Candace showed up basically the moment the queen left which would have been one hell of a coincidence).

“People always leave before I wake up. Maybe they think I’ll be less fun sober, probably they’re right.” “I wasn’t trying to leave you.” “Okay.” It’s the same tone of voice, accepting but not believing. “Are you going back to Stockholm with her?” He pushes himself off the wall, crossing into the kitchen and opening cupboards at random. It’s Friday morning. Wilhelm is due on TV at six PM. He’s supposed to be attending multiple prep meetings, seeing a stylish and a make-up artist before that. Minou is no doubt already at full panic stations. “I can stay if you want me to.” He stands up as Simon emerges from a cupboard with a half full bottle of vodka. “I can help you look for a lawyer. Or we could go for a walk.” Simon unscrews the bottle. “If you want to go, you can go.” The roar of an engine surges outside. Simon is closer to the window, and Wilhelm sees the moment his face shuts down, the inevitability of it, a moment before he sees Candace emerge from a sleek white car. “I want to be here for you. If you’ll let me,” Wilhelm says, picking at a conversation that’s already died as Simon braces his shoulders like a solider going into battle and tilts the bottle up to take three long swallows. Candace raps three times on the door. “Simme! Open this door right the fuck now.” Simon looks at Wilhelm over the bottle. “I wanted to wake up with you.”

x🐸🐸🐸x THE FROG x🐸🐸🐸x

After six hours of meetings a car comes to drive him to the hotel. Rachel tells him to order whatever he likes from room service and to be in the lobby for seven thirty the next morning and then he’s letting himself into a luxury hotel room. There’s a lounge, a bedroom, a bathroom with a full size bath and a separate shower with six different heads.

He takes the frog out of his bag and places it on the bedside table overlooking the pillow then pulls out his phone. He’d messaged Wilhelm when he arrived (Landed! Hopefully someone comes to pick me up!) and now he sees Wilhelm has texted three times since.

Good luck! La doesnt know whats hit it! Everything okay? I’m awake, no plans today whenever you want to call

Simon texts back: Sorry! Dumped straight into meetings all day. I’m kind of exhausted, can we do tomorrow?

Wilhelm: Of course! Jet lags a bitch. Sleep well, I love you xxx

Simon picks up the menu off the side but his stomach is still protesting the bagel it thinks it had in the middle of the night and he kicks off his trainers and his jeans and crawls into the mega bed.

After a moment, he reaches over and picks up the frog again, runs his thumb across the nose, and settles back down with it’s weight firm in his palm as he types: Love you toox

x🐸x

Candace tells him they’re going to Sweden in the same matter-of-fact voice she uses to tell him anything. The label won’t approve a third single. We have to crowdfund plane tickets. We can’t afford to keep the whole band, who can you live without? I’ve booked us a week in Stockholm and put word out to local news sites and venues, we’ll be taking the buses up there after Paris.

Simon reaches for his backpack on instinct, touches the front pocket where Wilhelm’s frog has been nestled since they left L.A. “Should I… I should call Wilhelm, right? Let him know?”

Candace glances at him over her iPad. “Sure,” she says. “Let me know if you need me to put him on the List.”

Simon leaves the meeting, twisting his phone over and over between his hands. They’re going to Sweden. For the first time since he flew out and it’s - he glances at his phone again - it’s September.

Fuck, it’s September. It’s September 2024, somehow. It’s been over a year since he left Sweden, since he last saw Wilhelm. He scrolls through the contacts on his phone but Wilhelm isn’t in there, of course Wilhelm isn’t in there, Simon got this phone back in L.A. and he hadn’t had time to transfer anything across. That had been last Christmas. Ten months ago and god, where had that time gone?

He could ask Candace to get Wilhelm’s number. That’s what she does, she sorts things. Wilhelm doesn’t answer the phone to unknown numbers. Obviously. But Simon could write a text or something. Hi, this is Simon. I know you said there was no way we could make it work because I was so busy all the time but I’m going to be in Sweden and I’ll still be busy all the time and you’re probably off in the army somewhere but -

It sounds stupid. It is stupid. There is no ‘but’, they don’t work and that has always been abundantly clear.

He unzips his backpack and the frog is there in it’s tiny golden crown, glitter still clinging to the paint because glitter is a bitch that can never be removed.

There’s a scratch across it’s nose, deep enough that Simon’s nail can catch against it. Hi Wilhelm, this is Simon, I know we haven’t talked for a while but I need to give you your frog back because you trusted me to keep one thing safe and I couldn’t even -

He scrolls back up his contacts to Guitar, Kevan and types: drinks?

His suitcase is at the edge of the room, surrounded by a scattering of costume pieces and toiletries. He digs through chains and glitter to find a pair of probably-clean socks and tucks the frog inside, where it’ll be safe.

His phone buzzes: party in 267

He just needs something to calm his nerves, to settle his stomach.

He’ll ask Candace to get the number tomorrow. Or, there’s a show tomorrow, next time he has a free minute.

He tucks the bundle down into the case and heads out of the room.

x🐸x

His case is still on the floor of his bedroom half full from tour. Technically he’s been back in L.A. for two months but unpacking was one of those ‘I’ll do it later’ things that has now somehow come full circle. He tugs out clothes, nudging them into the ever growing laundry for the cleaners to pick up once he’s gone.

His hand finds something solid and he pulls it out. Socks, with something inside, and his throat catches as he remembers September, Sweden. Everyone talking to him in Swedish, fans screaming 'jag älskar dig!' like it wasn’t… like…

Candace promised the next tour could skip it. And if he’s not going to Sweden, he can’t give the frog back, so there’s no point having it. He doesn’t need it.

He folds the socks around it a little tighter, stands up to push it into the back of his sock drawer, underneath everything else. It’ll be safer there.

Two days later the taxi is honking it’s horn outside as he runs back into the room, upends the whole drawer on the floor and grabs the wrapped bundle, shoving it into his pocket on his way out the door.

x🐸x

There’s a fresh bruise forming on his collarbone, a faded one on the side of his neck, a man whose name he doesn’t know snoring face down on the cheap polyester pillows.

He runs his thumb back and forth across the nose of the tiny frog statue, lets his head thump back against the wall to stare up at the ceiling and count down the hours until dawn.

#elyn fic #elyn ficlet #commentary meme #I got a new job and I moved house and I have not done any writing in weeks #but hopefully I'll be more settled soon #tw: alcohol #tw: addiction #classic angst #what I learned from the wake up line is that I should never assume people will think bad things about simon #he is a precious angel

28 notes · View notes