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bookoramaenderteeth · 2 years

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The Gameboard was intimidating, on a first visit. It felt outdoors, until you looked closer at the horizon and the sky above, and saw the endlessly far walls and ceiling which enclosed you. The terrain was flat, far flatter than any natural terrain, broken up only by landmarks, the occasional pit or divot, and, of course, the walls around the border. Not the distant, unreachable, incredibly enormous walls on the horizon - the far more immediate, somewhat breachable walls which enclosed the Gameboard and kept things manageable.

The ground was sand and cacti and tumbleweeds, and a newcomer would be forgiven for thinking they’d stumbled into the Desert at first. But dig down half a foot or so and you’d find green felt in some areas, checkerboard squares in others. Snake Eye preferred it this way. He liked people having to dig to find out where they were. There was probably some metaphor he could make there, but Snake Eye wasn’t one for figures of speech.

Snake Eye was the crown inhabitant of this locale, the boss, the guy in charge. Had been for years, ever since he’d taken over from what’s-his-name, the card guy. When that joker had been in charge the place had been run more like a circus than a proper society, and Snake Eye had been glad to see the back of him. Now the place was organized, orderly, with folks keeping the peace and Snake Eye able to run things properly from the comfort of his tower.

Or at least, he could, if those damn interfering folk didn’t show up every few months.

It was almost always members of the same group. The old twins, that woman with the drugs, that guy with the gun, or Tiffany. They kept breaking into his domain, well armed, well informed, and messing with some aspect of his locale - talking to inhabitants, freeing other intruders, solving some of the weird puzzle shit which was around. He couldn’t stand it. Every time he gathered a posse to trap them, and every time they managed to escape under his nose.

It was humiliating.

This time though, he’d got’em. This time, Snake Eye would take them all down. See, last time they’d shown up, they’d left something behind - or someONE. A little kid, less than ten, currently crying her eyes out at the top of Snake Eye’s dice tower. Little brat, it’s not even like she’d been hurt, much. And those mice were full of healthy nutrients, call her ungrateful for not even tasting them.

So Snake Eye knew that someone would be back soon to try and pick her up. He’d be ready. He’d assembled three of his toughest and most loyal enforcers - Hazard, JC, and Ludus. They all looked nearly identical - golems made of giant dice, with snakes weaving in and out of the dots to hold them together, topped with cowboy hats. He’d created them a while ago.

“Now ssee here,” he told them, tongue flicking in and out of his mouth. “I don’t know who iss going to sshow up, it could be any of those annoying agentss. Sstay ready for gunfire, drugss, Tiffany, ssurprisse bureaucratic insspection, or just about anything elsse. The important thing iss we have the upper hand here, sso we can make our demandss.”

The three nodded. They didn’t know how to speak, but that was alright.

“Sssh! Here they come!”

Snake Eye straightened his hat and narrowed his one remaining eye as the group stepped out of the tunnel. Four of them - the gun guy, Tiffany, the old man, and-

Oh shoot.

“Snake Eye!”

“Card Guy.”

“Please, call me Rechard. Everyone does these days. Also nobody ever called me Card Guy unless they forgot my name, but surely you wouldn’t have forgotten that, right? That would just be lending insult to injury, forgetting my name after deposing me and sending me to do some Sisyphean punishment? Even you wouldn’t be THAT mean.”

Snake Eye shuffled his boot in the dirt.

“Enough of this,” the guy with the gun said angrily. “Where’s Tam?”

“Who?”

“My daughter, Tam. Where are you keeping her? I swear if you harmed one hair on her head-”

Snake Eye waved him down magnanimously. “We’ve kept her safe, don’t you worry. Safe and ready to be turned back over to you - once we’ve agreed on a few terms, of course.”

The old man pushed his way to the front. “Step aside Greg, this is my area of expertise. Are you more of a spit-and-handshake guy, or can I pull out my legal paper and get things cracking?”

Snake Eye squinted. “I’m not that dumb. I ain’t letting you anywhere near this agreement. It’ll be short and simple, no loopholes. I want all of you to clear out and stay out. Forever. No more interfering with my place here.”

Tiffany crossed her arms and Snake Eye’s enforcers lumbered forward protectively. “We can’t do that, and you know we can’t. We have jobs to do and sometimes that involves coming here.”

“No dice, eh? Well, guess one of those jobs is going to have to be rescuing a little girl, because I’m not prepared to accept a worse offer.”

The old man started to talk, but Snake Eye waved him down. “I said no, and I mean it. Shut up old man, you’re not getting any of your fancy bureaucracy in this. Gun guy, it’s your kid, what do you think?”

Gun guy fiddled with his rifle. “Tiff, we really have to cooperate here. Right? Like you always say.”

Tiffany nodded reluctantly.

Snake Eye caught a glimpse of Rechard, tossing something small and white up and down in his hand.

“My other eye!”

“Finally noticed, have you?”

Everyone else turned to Rechard in surprise.

“How did you get that?”

“Inherited it. Long story. It’s been an ace up my sleeve for a long time, and now I’m pulling it out. Would you trade for it, Snake Eye?”

His mouth was watering. He wiped it with a sleeve and tried to look serious.

“Could be. What’s your offer?”

“I give you the eye, as a sign of our good faith. You give us the girl, as a sign of yours. We negotiate more from there. Maybe we start asking permission before hunting bounties across your land, or maybe we bring you the occasional gift. What do you say?”

It was a good offer. Snake Eye considered.

“Or we can wreck you and your goons right here and now, go find Tam and save her ourselves.” Tiffany offered with a sickly sweet fake smile.

“Let’s see…” Snake Eyes stalled for time. “I’ll have to talk to some of the inhabitants here… Get the word out… Might be a controversial decision…”

“Cut the crap,” the old man butted in. “We all know that you’re the only one who has a problem with us. Let Tam go, or I’ll start bringing the rules into this. You don’t want me to pull out a rulebook.”

Snake Eye would have thrown his arms up, but he was a snake. He had none. He threw his empty shirt sleeves up instead. “Alright, we’ve got a deal. Hand over my eye and I’ll get the kid out here.”

“Finally,” gun guy said. “And if you’ve harmed one hair on her-”

“You said that already.”

Rechard reached across, a die in hand, and stared into Snake Eye’s one eye. “Are you ready to deal?”

Snake Eye’s heart sunk. He knew, there was no doubt about it. He’d made a fatal mistake.

“Ready to let the dice fall, Rechard.”

Rechard stuck the die into Snake Eye’s empty socket.

Searing pain erupted through his spine. His enforcers collapsed where they stood, snakes slithering panickedly away. Snake Eye collapsed onto the ground as he felt his grasp on his domain weaken.

This was it then. Rechard had won. The wheel had turned.

His last thoughts before everything went black were ‘Why am I not the only one screaming?’ and ‘Man, that Rechard is a jerk.’

#yeehawgust #writing #Mean as a Snake #Sorry about this one #Long story short it's set in a world I've been writing #Along with my best friend for over two years #So there's a lot of context missing #This is the first time I've made any part of that world public before #So that's cool #If we ever make it into a show like we planned then I'll post something here #But it probably won't happen #Definitely not in the near future #The world is called #Prism

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silverskye13 · 1 month

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Mind control tanguish?? (i was gunna offer time loop for the hell-raisers as another one, but ut canon is Basically a time loop aint it SO!! Make tanguish do something wild)

Helsknight hummed tunelessly under his breath as he cooked dinner, piling some chicken and mushrooms into a pan to fry. He didn't know when Tanguish would be home [every trip to Hermitcraft was a gamble, when it came to time] but he figured whenever the little pest came home, he would be hungry. Besides that, Helsknight was hungry, so he might as well do something about it. Worst case scenario, he would just reheat a plate for Tanguish on the furnace when he got here. Or threw away wasted food. The point was he was hungry, so it wasn't wasted time at least. He pulled some flour out from a cabinet, frowning down at it and wondering what his chances of making a decent gravy were.

[Gravy was the bane of cooking. It either turned out like wallpaper paste, or it turned out like soup. Rarely, when every god and saint turned their greatest blessings on Helsknight for a moment, and every star in every heaven aligned, and every angel and allay and fairy-dust creature held its breath and crossed it's fingers, he would make a passable gravy.]

Helsknight sighed, tossed a few spoonfuls of flour into a pan, and resigned to try his luck. He didn't feel very lucky today, but then again, any day he made gravy, he didn't feel lucky, even if it did taste good in the end.

"I should learn how to bake," he grumbled to himself, eyeing the little bag of flour dispassionately. Tanguish would certainly appreciate it, and it would be cheaper to make a batch of muffins from scratch, instead of buying them from a cart four times a week. Helsknight stirred his fledgling gravy absentmindedly, waiting for the flour to brown, and considering his chances of finding a half-decent cookbook the next time he went to the market. Behind him he heard a clatter of claws, the unmistakable noise of Tanguish stepping into hels. A soft breath of chill dampened the room like a breeze. Helsknight threw a glance over his shoulder.

"Hey, what's your opinion on homemade--?"

Instinct made Helsknight slam to the side as Tanguish propelled himself over the kitchen island, Helsknight's rondel dagger in his hand. The point dug itself into the wall over the stove at about chest-height, a very intentional, very lethal lunge. It missed him by a decent margin; Helsknight was quick, even when he was caught off-guard. That one look over his shoulder, and years of Colosseum training and instincts, had saved his life.

Anger, hot and baffled and electric, raced through Helsknight's chest. He backpedaled towards their little dining table as Tanguish yanked the dagger out of the wall. He needed distance, he needed room to move. [He needed a house that wasn't so saints-damned small.]

"Tanguish, what in hels--?!" Helsknight managed before Tanguish was lurching for him again, a sharp, quick, dagger-pointed shadow dappled in flickering stars. Helsknight snapped a hand out, trying to bat him aside, only for Tanguish to duck nimbly beneath his outstretched arm. The dagger stabbed in towards him again, and Helsknight barely twisted away in time.

"Tanguish! Stop!" Helsknight shouted, confusion and adrenaline crashing together in his chest, muddling up his instincts. His training, his impulse, his experience in the Colosseum, demanded he fight back. He was unarmed [why would he stay armed and armored in the safety of his own home, when he planned to stay in the rest of the day?] but that didn't mean he wasn't dangerous. He knew a few ways of disarming someone with his bare hands, and he knew how to punch, and kick, and break bones. But his louder, conscious mind screamed at him this is Tanguish! He can't break Tanguish.

Tanguish didn't give him long to be horrified by the thought. He was lunging again, arrow-quick, and this time when Helsknight jolted backwards the blade nicked his out-flung arm. He didn't know if he was proud, or if he regretted how sharp the blade was -- his training had come in handy.

[It was marvelous really, how deadly his little pest could be when he put his mind to it. Helsknight had always thought Tanguish learned more than he let on. He was simply too scared of causing harm to use it. But he wasn't scared of causing harm now. No, he seemed hels-bent on shredding Helsknight where he stood, and he didn't know why.]

"Could you at least tell me what the hels I did to bring this on?" Helsknight demanded, a grin writhing across his teeth. It was something he knew intimidated people, intimidated Tanguish. There was something about baring teeth while fighting that seemed dangerous. If Tanguish cared, it didn't show, and he didn't respond. He just crouched low and gazed back at him, eyes half-shut in something like concentration. It gave him the look of a sleepwalker, and Helsknight didn't like it. He was used to the wide, curious, cat-like gaze, glittering in dandelion yellow.

"Tanguish?" Helsknight breathed, taking advantage of the pause. "Look, I don't want to hurt you--"

Tanguish lunged again when he was mid-sentence, something that might have killed him, if he hadn't seen Martyn do it a thousand times. Even with that knowledge, he almost reacted too late, side-stepping and slamming a heavy palm into Tanguish's shoulder, tossing him off-balance. Helsknight let out a short breath through his nose when Tanguish regained his feet, undaunted.

"I'm not running away," Helsknight said witheringly, dashing for the door. He could feel Tanguish following like a wasp over his shoulder, more the impression of danger than a true knowledge of what he was doing. Helsknight ducked out the door and managed to yank it shut behind him before Tanguish could follow, and was treated to a heavy slam as Tanguish tried to follow. Helsknight held it shut for a second, trying to figure out -- trying to figure out anything.

[Would Tanguish try to break down the door? Surely he couldn't. Even as... weirdly determined as he was to harm Helsknight, that wasn't something he was strong enough to do, especially with Helsknight bracing the other side. But the house had windows. Would Tanguish care about glass? It would cut him to ribbons. He could seriously hurt himself if he -- why was he worried about Tanguish jumping through a window? If the little idiot wanted to deal with a face full of glass--]

Helsknight released the doorknob and stepped aside. He needed to get that knife away, pin him still, preferably without hurting him too badly. His guts gave an uncomfortable squirm.

[How bad is too bad? And why? Why was this happening? It wasn't just strange, it just wasn't Tanguish. He didn't have a dangerous bone in his body.]

The doorknob clicked. Helsknight pressed himself against the wall, hiding behind the door as it swung open. He just needed a few seconds. He was stronger -- that's all he needed. Tanguish stepped onto the street, and before he had the chance to look around, Helsknight lunged forward and wrapped his arms around him, pinning his arms to his sides. He lifted Tanguish off his feet, trying to keep the thrashing feet from kicking anything.

"Tanguish, I need you to--"

Tanguish's head snapped back suddenly, slamming into Helsknight's mouth and nose. He swore, and his grip loosened, and Tanguish's sharp elbow dug itself into his side hard enough wince away some of his breath. A clawed foot came down on his ankle, and then Tanguish was twisting, and Helsknight, whose only objective narrowed into [don't get stabbed you fucking idiot] drove a punch into Tanguish's sternum. Tanguish's breath left him in a whoosh, and he curled in on himself a little, some sense of self-preservation kicking in. But he didn't cry out in pain, and he didn't drop the knife.

A lancing, twisting feeling darted through Helsknight's guts. It was a feeling so unfamiliar it was nearly foreign, hard to place, and hesitant to name. Dread. Dread as Tanguish turned that sleepwalker's gaze on him again, re-positioned his dagger to continue fighting. His tail gave a contemplative lash, a cat figuring its best approach on a bird, and it had been a long, long time since Helsknight felt like prey. Dread made his mouth dry, closed his throat, blanked his already reeling thoughts.

[What should he do? What could he do?]

Helsknight took a hesitant step back. Tanguish's eyes narrowed, and glittered blue.

[Blue? Blue. A little ring of blue, like a clear, winter's morning, ringed his yellow iris. That hadn't always been there. He knew the color of Tanguish's eyes.]

"Tanguish, talk to me," Helsknight said, taking another hesitant step back. "What happened? Whatever it is, we can fix this. I promise."

Tanguish let out a slow breath, and the blue ring around his iris seemed to flicker, then flashed brighter. Helsknight swore again as Tanguish pounced. He caught Tanguish's wrist, and might have even considered breaking it, had Tanguish not twisted out of his grip in the second of hesitation he gave in to. Helsknight's perception narrowed to the point of the knife as he dodged it, sidestepped it, and then spun on his heel and ran.

Helsknight needed time to think, needed time to figure out what was, whatever was happening. And he was faster than Tanguish. Even if he couldn't fathom harming him, he would always be faster. And armor-less as he was, he felt unnaturally fleet, near to flying. He was down three blocks, into an alley, over a wall and two more blocks over before he stopped, panting, to check for pursuit.

"I'm not running away," he breathed again, to himself, to his Saint, to Tanguish. He wasn't. He just needed time. He just needed to pull himself together, to figure shit out, to stop shaking. To stop shaking? Helsknight looked down at his hands, at the tremor starting. He swallowed hard.

[Okay, he was a little freaked out. He was allowed to be a little freaked out. His best friend was trying to kill him, and he didn't know why, and apparently the veil between "Nice Normal Tanguish" and "Silent Death-Machine Tanguish" was unnervingly thin. And Helsknight wasn't used to someone trying to kill him assassination-style, through dogged pursuit and bloodless silence. He was used to arena fights, and occasional back-alley brawls, where things were loud and obvious and made fucking sense.]

"I'm going to kill him," Helsknight hissed, stealing down the alley as fast as he dared. He didn't know who he was going to kill. Whoever had done this, maybe. Certainly not Tanguish. He hadn't really tried, physically he thought he could, if he'd just commit. But he had no weapon, and his options for killing his best friend [one of a slim handful of people he would gladly die for] were all slow and grim and painful, and not something he would inflict on anyone willingly.

[He would just have to evade, and try to knock some sense into him? But head wounds were difficult. The margin between unconsciousness and death was illusive, and he was a knight for helssakes he didn't bludgeon people. He was so ill-equipped for something like this, it was staggering. But why would he be equipped for his best friend randomly trying to kill him?]

There was a sound. There must have been. The whisper of breathing. The slide of claws. The crackle of gathering frost. Something set Helsknight's hair prickling, the gooseflesh on his arms raised.

[The rooftops.]

Helsknight didn't have time to look up. Suddenly a weight fell on his shoulders, and he was slamming to the ground. Tanguish's hand dug claws into the back of his neck, his knees dug into his shoulders. Helsknight twisted his whole body as hard as he could, wrenching his elbow back to slam into Tanguish's side. He flipped over, throwing Tanguish off him for just a moment. He got an arm underneath himself, tried to scrabble backwards, boots digging into tiles. Tanguish lunged on top of him again, and Helsknight threw a hand between them. A noise escaped his throat as the knife slashed through the webbing between his thumb and his forefinger, but he managed to wrap his fist around the hilt.

Tanguish was on top of him, bearing his full weight down on the dagger, trying to drive it into his throat. Helsknight clenched his bleeding hand around it, while is other arm scrabbled at the cobblestones, and through the haze of half-panic finally found its way around one of Tanguish's wrists. They were too close. He couldn't make full use of his longer arms, his strength, his leverage, and while his feet scrabbled, Tanguish's long tail twisted out for balance, and he held firm.

There was a buzzing starting in the back of Helsknight's mind, a panic he wasn't used to. His hands shook. His hand was bleeding, and it had to be his hand, didn't it?

[Note to self, Tanguish had laughed once, Helsknight is weak to hand wounds.]

He couldn't pass out. Little sparks and stars crowded his peripheral vision, his awareness narrowed itself to the space between his hands, and the slickness of the dagger, and the tear in the webbing between his fingers, and how stupid that was. A Colosseum gladiator, a knight of Blood and Steel, laid low by a flesh wound.

"Tanguish, you don't want to do this," Helsknight grunted, his voice buried beneath the buzzing of panic and his heartbeat in his ears. "You don't want to hurt me."

Tanguish threw his shoulder forward, and the twist sent tearing pain through his hand, and his grip slipped dangerously. Every muscle in his body tightened in dread and desperation, and he screwed his eyes shut as he clenched his bloody fist tighter. An undignified wince of a noise squeezed its way out of his throat, but it was better than screaming.

"Okay! Maybe you want to hurt me. Fine." Helsknight grimaced. He could feel the blood from his hand dripping onto his neck. A dangerous foreshadowing of just where the blade was aimed. "Tell me why. Tell me anything."

He managed to crack an eye open, to blink away the blooming stars. He gripped the knife and a spinning world in his bloody hands, and clung to consciousness and life with equal fervor. And Tanguish watched him, impassive and cold, that little blue ring a persistent chain around his iris. It reminded Helsknight of something, something that made his stomach twist. It took a moment to place a coherent thought to the feelings, a long moment where he breathed and shook and bled, and Tanguish watched.

[Wels. The open sky blue of Wels's eyes. Ice dagger blue. He clawed at his memory for any way that made sense, and in his flailing finally remembered what Tanguish had said about those golden, inescapable commands. How far could they compel? Surely not this far. Surely--]

Helsknight swallowed hard.

[Right. He just needed to break the command. That was all. That was all.]

Helsknight reached into himself for any lie of calm, any ghost of reassurance. He tried to steady his voice. Tried to force command, and calm, and certainty into his words. Stilted and shaky, and hoarsely whispered, he half commanded, half pleaded.

"Tanguish, let go of the knife."

Above him, Tanguish blinked. The pressure on the knife didn't relent, nor did the blue ring around his iris.

"Please let go of the knife."

Tanguish's fist balled tighter, and as it did the knife twisted just barely. He felt the burning in his hand, and Helsknight lost his words behind pain that should have been insignificant, and stars and noise in his head.

"You're scaring me," Helsknight whimpered, and then managed more firmly. "You don't scare people. This isn't you. You don't want to do this to me."

He searched Tanguish's eyes again. Was that a flicker in the blue? He couldn't tell. He couldn't tell.

"Helssakes," he swore. His hand grasping Tanguish's wrist reached up to grab the back of Tanguish's head, fingers tangling in his hair. He wished he could force Tanguish to focus, to center that sleepwalker's stare on something other than his general direction. "If you're going to kill me, look at me."

Tanguish blinked again. There was a shimmer in his eyes, and Helsknight winced as a tear dropped onto his face. A grim smile worked its way onto his teeth. No, that blue ring hadn't flickered. Tanguish had simply started crying.

"You're not going to kill me." Helsknight whispered. He closed his eyes, and his voice was a prayer, and it was a command. "You're not going to kill me."

He couldn't tell how much of the shaking in his arm was from him, or from Tanguish. He couldn't tell if the pain in his hand was from pressure, or from the wound. But he knew this was hurting them both, and he needed it over with, one way or another.

"You're not going to kill me."

Helsknight had been killed by wounds to his neck before. The Colosseum was a terrible place to die sometimes. He told himself he could bear it. Told himself if the pain came, he would try to hide the terribleness of it. He wouldn't gasp, or scream, or any of the other horrible, dramatic thrashings a person could do when they bled. He would make himself small and silent. He would respawn, if he could, and he would find his way back here, and he would find a way to fix this. Helsknight released Tanguish, and, eyes closed, braced himself for whatever happened next.

He couldn't stop himself from flinching when a few more teardrops fell on his face. But the blade didn't come. Helsknight dared to crack an eye open.

"Tanguish?"

Tanguish moved, and Helsknight stiffened, only to relax again when the blade clattered to the ground beside them. Helsknight let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding, and before Tanguish could scramble away from him, or devolve into a blubbering mess, or shake apart or fall under some new spell, or any of a thousand other things Tanguish could probably do, Helsknight wrapped his arms around Tanguish's neck and dragged him into a hug.

"Helsknight--"

"You idiot," Helsknight snapped, crushing Tanguish against his chest. He had the grace to drag them over to the side, so he couldn't bleed quite so much on both of them, but when Tanguish squirmed he held him tighter and refused to let him go. "Don't scare me like that again."

"H-helsknight I'm s-"

"You're sorry," Helsknight interrupted him, screwing his eyes shut, suddenly scared he was going to start crying too. From relief. From the ridiculousness of whatever had happened. From the closeness to disaster. From how angry he was that Tanguish felt the need to apologize. "Gods. I thought I'd lost you."

Tanguish had the audacity to laugh, a miserable hiccup of a noise that tangled itself in growing sobs, and muffled itself against Helsknight's chest. "You thought you lost me?"

"You were so quiet," Helsknight said, feeling dread lance through his stomach like a knife wound. "It's like you weren't even there."

"I was there," Tanguish whispered, his fists balled into Helsknight's shirt, like he could somehow cling closer. "I was there."

"Of course you were," Helsknight murmured back. "Of course you were."

#Situation Asks #RnS asks #helsknight #tanguish #countthelions #you. you knew EXACTLY what you asked for you fiend #tw blood #tw fighting #tw wounds #gosh but it was amazing angsty fun to write #probably won't get to any more of the asks tonight this one took awhile #but feel free to send more #all terrible things happen in the kitchen jsyk #rns ficlet

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