#catch me laying in the foundations of decay

[creemstal-sage]

Writing Rambles, Setting pt. 1

I should really do something with this blog before it becomes another lurker acc for me, huh? Well, here's a shot:

Aldenbalm Marsh - Saltweller Remains An estuary marshland littered with mangroves and shallow sandbanks. vibrant mangrove trees hold fast in the sandy foundation they have, strengthening the sandbeds into formidable ground should anything try to wash it away. The shallows are teeming with salt water fish majorly, easy food if you know how to catch them. The canopies made are sparse but the rare respite you find offers a fantastic view. At least it once did.

Once a populated area, prominent habitation occuring in what was once known as Saltweller, a rivertown capitalising on the fish and forage, it now lays decaying and eroding from the washing tides. Once expansive boardwalks that made a grid of traffic from residential to commercial, all rooted in the mangrove reinforced sand, now lay buried and under the water, growing algae and kelp if not splintered and taken by the tides.

This change in population was sharp, a steep decline over the span of a year thanks to one underlying problem: the nymphs. Water nymphs had made a habit of occupying local rivers that ran through the inland traveling waters behind Saltweller, and thus were at a sort of natural competition with the residents of Saltweller for supplies and space. This competition was no stranger to ramping up, ultimately spilling into a nymph-led raid on the town, leaving no survivors from those who stood and fought.

What is seen now is salt-washed timbers, ruined plantations grown wild and uncouth, and only backed by the melancholic wash of the waves. The town was lost and destroyed, but still sits as a site of nymph infestation. Infestation is a strong word to be used, but its what they call it, the survivors.

If only they could have existed in peace...

[yandere-wishes]

💝My Obsession // Yandere! Leona Kingscholar x Reader// 💝

Someone, please explain to me how all my Leona fics end up being 2,500+ words?? Also props to whoever figures out which anime got inspired by to write the ending. Any way enjoy also thanks so much to @malleusthorns​ their game motivated me to write this.

Warning: Gore...I guess.

🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁

There was a throbbing that wouldn't seem to go away, reverberating through the young girl's skull. Bouncing from wall to wall of her cranium just like a bouncy ball. The pain caused her to close her eyes tighter, trying to lull herself back into the numb comatose that had started to crack under the weight of alertness. Tiny fracture sprinkled around the darkness, noting to fully break her dormant mind. That was until something icy and wet splashed over her face, jolting her from her slumber.

(Y/n)'s eyes shot open, tears forming at the sides ready to slip out. She was becoming cognizant of the hammering in her head. A shiver ran up her spin before creeping over her skin, laying cutis anserina in its wake. As her sense began to awaken one by one, (y/n) started to feel a tug on her shoulder. The poor girl tried pulling her humerus forward, only for her skin to scrape against a smooth, freezing surface. Something was bounding her arms...and her legs she noted as she tried to kick her feet. 

Nervously her bloodshot eyes scanned the room, it was dark and chilly. Something was causing every hair on her body to stand up on high alert, her guts where entwining amongst themselves screaming that something just wasn't right. Endless minutes flew by before a rollicking noise jarred silent darkness. A tapping soon followed, pittering across the floor. One second she could practically feel their presence less than a millimeter away from her. The next all she had was their even,never-changing noise where, she could only assume, was in front of her.

'Please talk' a  timid voice croaked inside her head. 'Please say something' the nervous noise was poking at her tolerance. 'Just talk!' she couldn't tell if she'd actually screamed out the words or only hollered them inside her head. Either way, it did not matter, the footsteps only continued on their way, ignoring her presence altogether. The steps were getting further and further...the footfalls ceased and were instead replaced by a ripping noise that echoed through the emptiness.

In moments the obscurity was pierced by thin feeble rays of silver light. Despite the lights infirm nature it's brightness (y/n) still shut her eyes in an attempt to stop the stinging that had sparked from the back of her eyeballs. Endless minutes passed before a heavy sigh filled the air accompanied by the mirthless voice of the mysterious kidnapper. "Life's not fair is it?"

That question, that signature rhetorical question that had all but engraved its self in the depths of (y/n)'s memory. There was only one person, one person in the entirety of the world that could state such an overlooked fact as if it was the foundation that life was built on, one person...

"Leona..." Her whisper was as light as the air itself, the name of her beloved childhood friend mingled with the air before it was carried off into oblivion. Craning her head to the right, (Y/n)'s eyes caught the ever so familiar frame of the Savanclaw dorm leader. His green eyes glowed in the eerie rays. His posture wasn't as lax like it always was. There was an eagerness to him, an unsteadiness engulfing him. His spin was stark straight, his gloved fingers dug into his hips, scrunching the fabric of his shirt. "Surprised kitten?" his voice rumbled from his chest, echoing through the room. "You really shouldn't be, you've had this coming for some time."

(y/n)'s brows knitted together, whatever had been spilled on her earlier was starting to dry over her face. Sticking to her visage like a second skin. "L-Leona..." her voice was brittle, wither away like a dying rose. "W-what are...are you talking about?" dread was wrapping it's decaying thin arms around her, hover above the doomed darling watching the spectacle. "Wh..why am I here?" questions where bubbling inside the girl, floating out of her mouth and lingering in the stale air. It did little to phase Leona, he just kept starring and starring. Almost like a predator hunting its prey.

Slowly the lion boy stalked forward, his tail swished from side to side, almost like he was nervous about something...When he was close enough he leaned over. With one hand he tilted the metal chair backward. With the motion (y/n)'s head tipped backward. Their faces were close, far too close, (y/n) could feel every breath that Leona took. There was malice and sadness hidden behind his emerald orbs. His face was twisted into a snarl, sharp teeth on full display. "Why do you always have to be so dame clueless?"

(y/n)'s nerves were starting to snap. If this was a sick joke, then it had lost its humor the moment she woke up. "Stop it!" her voice creaked like old floorboards. Her vocal cords strained almost on the verge of bleeding as she tried to morphed her tone into an intimidating one. "This..this isn't funny Leona!!" The older boy rolled his eyes. He tipped the chain back to its initial position. Before waling behind her and undoing the restraints. Just as (y/n) came to move her arms, Leona forcefully pushed the chair into the ground. (Y/n)'s face slammed against the dirty floor, bouncing upwards from the sheer force before falling down numbly once more.

Leon watched as the young girl tried to get up, balancing herself on her hands and knees. as she stretched her neck to look up at him, he noted that blood was pooling under a few areas on her face and left eye. Creating supple red bruises. Though he would never say it out loud, she looked pretty like this, she had always looked her best when she was bleeding of hurt in some manner, it caused a sort of glow to orbit around her. But her beauty did little to make up for her insolence. There was a storm brewing inside him of him the anger, danger, and a newly awoken darkness where entwining birthing the personification of his obsession.

"By the king of beasts," he grumbled as his fingers shot up to his temple, as they always did when the iteration of the situation was planting another neuralgia in his head  "I want you...no, you are mine, you have always been mine! You're just so stupidly dense that you never once realized it!"

(Y/n)'s eyes widen in disbelief, her heart was pounding against her rib cage practically breaking her ribs with each beat. Nervously she brought the back of her hand to her face, trying to distract herself. As she went to wipe the substance off her face. The substance cracked and peeled off the second her hand rubbed against it. As it fell it revealed a sticky layer underneath. Retracting her arm quickly (y/n) tried to see what it was that she had just touched...Another wave of shock rolled over her...

"B-blood?" Frantically her eyes ran up to Leona's begging for answers. The dark-skinned boy shrugged. "I didn't like your history project partner". (y/n) gulped, "How long?" her question silently floated between them, acting as a shield brightened by the dimly light. Leona only raised an eyebrow, he opened his mouth an inch but closed it once he heard the choked sobs and enraged shouts coming from his "lover". "How long?"... there was no reply. "How long have you felt this way!" It was a stupid question. (y/n) knew, if anything she had known for far too long, but she had been so happy in her hubris. So content with playing "sibling" with her childhood friend, she knew how he had felt for far too long. But everything had been so sweet, so pleasant, almost like a fairy tale. It was easier to look for a prince charming in other men and expect her "big brother" to be there and catch her once that prince inevitably broke her heart. 

A sharp pain in her scalp caused the girl to look up. Leona was kneeling in front of her, pulling her hair up to look her directly in the eyes.

"Stop being so selfish and just fuking be mine already! it's not that fucking hard!" His yells held a desperate undertone, the big strong king of Savanclaw was reduced to this? A lovesick boy? Angrily (y/n) took in a deep unsteady breath before bellowing: "I'm the selfish one? You kidnapped me and tied me to a chair! You broke that beautiful illusion we had! To want to throw away our friendship for what? So we can break each other's hearts?!"

Leona remained dumbfound, his grip on her hair strengthened. "Actually I ordered Ruggie to kidnap you so that on him" he tried to keep a haughty prideful tone, but her words had left a growing bruise on his ego.

"Doesn't matter! if anything that just further proves my point! You are the selfish one! Just fess up, you're the one at fault here!"

Leona's body had begun vibrating with rage. Lifting his free hand he struck (y/n)! His claws snipped at her flesh,  tearing apart skin tissue by skin tissue as if it was nothing more then silk fabric. Slashing at the muscles until there was a large enough opening for the blood to flow past. Trickling down her cheek the mood pushed away the rotten plasma caking her face, splattering on her clothes, leaving large messy circular like stains.

"No no! This! This whole fucked up mess we're in is all your fault! It's always been your fault!" Leona roared. His pupils had started to dilate, tears were forming in his eyes. Swiftly the older boy lifted his fist only to smash it onto (y/n)'s, again and again, and again...

Laughter, a sicking, and high pitch bordering on maniacal. Leona stopped his assault, his brows shot upwards, as his mouth twisted in a snarl, creases started forming on the bridge of his nose. How dare she laugh at him! How dare she mock him!

(Y/n) opened her eyes, they were harboring similar insanity as her kidnapper. Her mouth opened permitting her to cough up some blood that had pooled inside. "Why can't you just accept responsibility? You were always like this! Even when we were kids! Nothing was ever your fault because you were such a tragic little prince weren't you! If you really love me then own it! Don't blame me for your obsession! It wasn't my fault! I thought you...I thought you were happy with what we had!" Leona slowly pulled away. His green gaze never once leaving (y/n)'s damaged face. His fingers unlocked from her hair, which causes the young girl to immediately start rubbing the top of her head.

"I don't really care how you see this situation. My fault -which it isn't- Your fault -which it is- the point is...you're mine now and that's how it's going to be..." Leona's hand slithered over to (y/n)'s wrist, gripping it and pulling her into his arms. (y/n) buried her face in his shoulder, breathing in his nostalgic scent, as he calmly petted her head as if she was a pet cat.

Time had frozen, granting the two so-called lovers a break of sorts. For the endless moment. It wasn't until Leona had gotten bored of their little hug, that the two moved. Leona's hands dug into her shoulder, he leaned his head down just as (y/n) tilted her head up. Lips brushing against each other prepping for a kiss.

The quietness was disrupted by a loud banging noise from behind them followed by an airy sound that got louder and louder. Until it struck right past Leona. Cutting the fabric of his jeans and slicing through his flesh. The lion let out a hiss, jumping to his feet and pulling (y/n) up with him. He pushed her to his chest as he maneuvered his body into an attacking pose.

"Let go of (y/n)! You horrible beast!" "Ecoute a lui, roi des lions" "Don't touch (y/n) Onee-chan!"

Those voices, (y/n)'s mind rushed back to the situation. She had seemingly forgotten just what Leona had done to her. The kidnapping, the humiliation, the beating...somehow it had all ran away from her memory the moment her beloved Leona had embraced her. 

Behind the "couple" Rook shot arrow after arrow, aiming for the lion's limbs. One lucky arrow managed to strike Leona's left bicep. The lion boy let out a pained roar, his arm falling limp to his side as blood gushed downwards. "Rook, Ortho now!" Vil's voice boomed through the chamber. Rook nodded as Ortho replied with a "sure thing". The two raced forward, Rook switching his bow for a pocket knife and Ortho punching Leona with his metal fist. Leona tried to fight back but with his wound and the gang up he mostly ended up getting punched.

Sometime before the attack had fully commenced, Leona had shoved (y/n) to the side. Vil ran up to (y/n) grabbing her arm and pulling her towards the exit. Right before he left the "king" of Pomefiore snapped his fingers, causing both Ortho and Rook to leave a bruised and broken Leona. "How did you find me?" (Y/n) asked as she was directed through the maze of hallways and staircases. Vil turned his head to stare at her for a split second before running forward. The hallways were just as dark as the room she had been kept in, the numerous windows were covered by thick black curtains preventing the moon from sharing its light. However, thanks to Ortho's built-in flashlights the gang had a clear, illuminated view of a few feet in front of them. "Idia saw Ruggie knock you out and drag you to the catacombs" Vil explained, his grip on her wrist tightened. As the group ran to the Ignhyde dorm, (y/n) couldn't stop herself from peering over her shoulder. Expecting..no, hoping that her childhood friend would pounce out of the darkness at any moment and chase after them. It was a longing to see the boy she had known her whole life chase after her, the only difference was that this time if he did catch her, she would not object to his advances. But Leona never came...

and she was beginning to think he never would.

Days have a tendency to blend when together there is nothing left to look forward to. (y/n) couldn't remember how long it had been since that night in the NRC catacombs, how long it had been since that "confession"? Time had turned into a paradox, having simultaneously stooped and sped up. Idia and Ortho had taken the role of her caretaker. Bringing her food and checking up on her from time to time. Idia had even broken his shut-in nature just for her, every once in awhile he'd bring over some games to play. Ortho would pop in every day, trying his hardest to entertain the stoic girl. But no matter how hard either Shroud twin tried (y/n) would never smile, her face would never forme any real expression. She only ever spoke when necessary, conversations with her mostly consisted of nobs and grunts. Some days after school Vil or Rook would stop by the Ignihyde dorm with treats. Hoping to return (y/n) to her old, innocent self.

Deep down (y/n) was grateful for the efforts the boys put in. But it felt so meaningless go hollow. What was the point of it all? (y/n) could feel the threads of her sanity slowly ripping. Her days and nights -granted she'd lost track of which was when- where filled with constant pondering over guilty thoughts. Every single one of her waking moments was dedicated to envisioning that damned day, dreaming of just how it could have turned out. Why didn't she just kiss him? Why didn't she jump into his arms and scream that she was his? That she would always be his? That it didn't matter how they loved each other so long as the love was there.

Earlier that morning Vil had stopped by to tell (y/n) that  Leona had come back from the semester break. It had seemed like a warning after all Vil was only trying to look out for her. The thought that Leona was back had sent her heart aflutter. She may have not shown it but her nerves where a wreck, she was both excited and nervous. A nagging voice in the back of her mind kept screaming that he wouldn't care about her that she had lost her chance the night she let herself be rescued by Vil, Rook, and Ortho. But a small piece of her still begged that Leona would come for her, that he still loved her.

Sleep was something that came in waves, sometimes she would sleep for days on end, and other times she would spend weeks in an insomniac daze. Tonight was one of the later nights. (y/n)'s eyes refused to close, her brain resisted the urge to think about anything other than Leona. She spent so many nights with his face in her head, mulling over every little detail. As the hours ticked by, (y/n)'s eyes started to grow heavier and heavier. The final scene the moment he said he loved her or at least tried to was still so vibrant in her semi asleep head. She could still hear his voice, his shouts and cries....his voice why was it so clear?--

"You know~ in another life, we could have gotten married, you could have been my queen and I, your king. We could have been happy like all those other happy idiots of the world." 

(Y/n) bolted upright, her hands suffocating her blanket. Her window had been reduced to dirt. Leaning against the frame of where the windowpane had been was no other than the man that had plunged her thought for far too long. Standing on her bed and walking over to him, (y/n) couldn't help the larger than life smile that spread over her face or the tears of joy that just wouldn't seem to stop.

She came to a stop in front of him. Just like that night, the moon's rays of silver light cast a surreal glow over Leona's frame. He looked almost like an angel sent to free her from her suffering. "What..what makes you think we...we could ever be normal?" A tiny laugh escaped her mouth as she wiped the tears from her face. All Leona did was smirk, he extended his arm, his open palm beckoning her to take it. Eagerly (y/n) grabbed a hold of his arm, her grip was tight, too scared to let go always this all be some illusion fabricated by her tortured mind.

"Oi shut up already idiot...just stay quiet" He pulled her up, back into his arms, right where she belonged. His embrace was nothing short of bone-crushing. But (y/n) didn't mind, the pain proved just how real how was. With a final tug, Leona pulled her out of the window. As they began to fall to the ground, Leona smiled, a genuine smile that for once harbored no ill intent nor ulterior motive and said:

"You will always be my obsession (y/n) just as I have become yours..."

[darkmissionary]

[Just the massive flashback I started for @ritterblood originally, but this is kind of what I pictured their first meeting was like before Fray decided to take a wee Haurchefant with him.]

Smoke billowed from the rooftop, sending trails of thick, snake-like clouds into the forest air. Heat- the sharp smell of burning peat moss and straw- it was all around him, as were the shrill cries of those attempting to flee the latest voidsent attack. Most of the other children had gotten to safety thanks to the efforts of the lay sisters and templars stationed within Foundation, but Haurchefant was, sadly, easy to overlook. He was eight- much older than most and thus more independent and prone to misbehaving the lay sisters, unless he needed a bloody scrape from exploring the woods bandaged or his wild mane of unruly hair tamed back into submission. The standoffish boy often ventured on his own and in the ensuing chaos- remained trapped within the steadily burning building.

The young lad covered his mouth with his hands and forced away tears brought on by the stinging, cloying presence of thick smoke as he tried to vainly find a safe path outside, halted time and again by orange and red flames licking at his arms and legs. Just as the beams supporting the rapidly deteriorating roof began to creak, groan, and give way, thick, steel-like arms looped under his shoulders, hauling him bodily into the air. A dusky-skinned Paladin with a thick, dark beard grimaced as he managed to deftly dodge a falling pillar despite his massive size. He immediately began running and picking up speed towards the nearest open door his longer gait and improved reach could manage to bring them towards, the walls finally crumbling in on themselves in their wake.

Cradled tightly against the bear-like soldier’s chest, Haurchefant could tell that they weren’t free from danger just yet, even as the oppressive heat from the fire dwindled and open air greeted them. The smell of decaying flesh hung in the air, the twisted and permanent grimaces of several blackguard made his blood run like ice water in his veins.

Shifting all of the child’s weight into his left arm, the Roegadyn drew his sword and squeezed the boy’s shoulder reassuringly.

“Don’t look,” he advised with a deep growl more accustomed to an animal than a man, but Haurchefant couldn’t tear his eyes away from the advancing voidsent closing in.

An Elezen with steel blue hair suddenly leapt into the fray, the blade of his greatsword flashing in the firelight as he dashed forward and jammed the entirety of his weapon straight into the torso of one of the dark creatures. As he expertly whipped the massive sword back out, black, acidic blood gushed forth and fizzled against the ground and the dark knight’s armor, leaving smoking, inky trails against the joined steel and stone ground underfoot.

The Elezen was almost too quick to keep a bead on as he easily repositioned his body, swiftly kicking the sword-wielding wrist of another Blackguard out of stance before decapitating the monster right before the child’s eyes. Cursing and patting the still smoking, eaten away bits of his armor, the Elezen suddenly reeled upon Haurchefant and his rescuer with a grim expression.

“Are there any other survivors trapped inside?” he demanded rather than asked, glancing down with a reedy noise of surprise as his body continued to smoke. Gloved fingers quickly unbuckled the gorget from around his neck, the dark knight  throwing the now ruined piece of heavy armor to the ground and kicking it away with a disdainful sneer.

“Fray-” the larger man started, but instead shook his head curtly. “Just the boy. The lay sisters managed to get the rest on the path to a nearby farming plot. If voidsent caused this, we should catch up with the rest of the group. And quickly,” he added, taking the lead into the alleys beyond.

Haurchefant wriggled within thick arms to watch the Elezen as he was silently carried. Even in the darkness, Fray’ steely gaze made his heart beat a touch faster as it flickered to the trees around them, the dark knight tensing and inclining his head in a different direction when he heard a seemingly suspicious noise. Thankfully, they encountered no more voidsent and the busy chatter of other people was a welcome respite.

The boy was dropped off with the rest of the children at the nearby chirugeons, checked and double-checked for injuries, then fiercely hugged by a weepy sister. Haurchefant grimaced as he was embraced, now safe and no worse for wear, if incredibly sooty and slightly dazed from the events. The Roegadyn and the Elezen had wandered off to help the owners set up more space within the wings  for the survivors, laying out bedrolls and repositioning sickbeds to make more space on the floor. The head of the chirugeons kept them moving and busy while they set to make dinner for the weary group- a stew heavy with root vegetables and whatever lean meat they could spare from their larder.

Straying from the other kids, Haurchefant wandered towards the hulking soldier as he supped, drops of broth clinging to his wiry and thick beard. The man smiled and patted the wooden bench he was seated upon, offering a hunk of his own dry bread.

“Good to see you’re already about and abrim with curiosity,” he laughed. “I’m Aeyrstahl. And you, little one?”

“...Haurchefant,” the light haired boy answered, taking the bread gratefully and sopping up what was left in his own, smaller bowl. The dark knight was nowhere to be found, much to his disappointment. “And I’m not that little. I’m the tallest out of all the boys here, y’know.”

“My apologies, then Ser Haurchefant,” the bear man chuckled, bowing his head in jest. For a much older man (deeply set wrinkles at his brow, eyes, and mouth creased his broad face), there was something oddly childish about him. He seemed a different person entirely than the one who’d rushed to his rescue in the fire.

“If you’re wondering where my friend is, he’s scouting the perimeters of the city. Ever vigilant, that one,” Aeyrstahl sighed a bit ruefully. “Doesn’t know when to just sit down and relax. Or enjoy the hospitality of the good people here.” He slurped down his watery stew with a relish, patting his stomach in a satisfied manner.

“Telling stories again?” a far softer, colder tone cut through silence the boy’s heart nearly leapt into his windpipe. He hadn’t even heard the dark knight approach them before he’d emerged from the long shadows like a ghost gliding over the cobbled stones.

“Just entertaining the young one, I haven’t been telling any lies,” Aeyrstahl defended himself, gesturing at a lukewarm bowl of stew he’d saved for his companion. “I think young Haurchefant here’s taken a shine to you. He’s hardly asked about me at all!” He feigned a sullen looking pout and pursed his bottom lip in a manner that made the armored Elezen grimace and roll his eyes.

“I am not!” Haurchefant sputtered, folding his bony, coltish arms before his chest. “You aren’t with the Dutiful Sisters and know how to kill voidsent? It’s just fishy, is all... But you’re not Temple Knights, either. They don’t help out people like us.”

Fray eyed the kid for but a moment, before taking a seat on the ground, flanking the Roegadyn’s left side. He slipped a whetstone from his day pack and began to sharpen a wicked looking, curved dagger.

“Smart lad. We’re just passing through. Aeyrstahl here has been ill and I’ve been making sure the lay sisters haven’t convinced him to stay longer than needed. No reason to take what’s not ours from those who have so little,” he remarked a bit icily, not looking up from the steady work beneath his long fingers.

“Have you killed a lot of monsters?” Haurchefant piped up again, leaning forward on his knees as he kicked his feet. He was mesmerized by the impressive looking weapons these warriors carried and their mysterious air. “Warriors like The Company of Heroes know enough about voidsent to fight them like you did... did you ever travel with them?” he continued, hoping for a tenuous connection.

“Do we look like heroes to you, boy?” Fray replied curtly, causing Ayerstahl to place a gentle hand at his shoulder.

“Don’t snap at the young one, he just wants a little adventure in his life...” the large Paladin chided softly. Myste narrowed his eyes and shrugged his friend off, though the astriction to his neck and shoulders began to fade.

“If you ever encounter a voidsent, be wary of it’s blood. You want to aim for the vitals... what’s left of them anyway. If you can run and hide, take the opportunity to do so and do it well. They’re no more than animal instinct and cunning. They’ll not show mercy to even a child,” the dark knight warned, taking a smaller knife from sheath at the small of his back. He lifted his chin and made a slow motion through the air across the neck, then gestured towards his own chest.

“If you do stand to fight, then remember these areas. Don’t let any of it’s blood get in you. Never pull your weapon unless you intend to use it. When you strike, strike true and hard. Confirm the kill before daring to turn your back on it, even if it’s prone.” He turned the small blade over in his hands slowly, before offering the knife to Haurchefant, hilt-first.

“I... I can have it?” the boy asked, slowly grasping the dagger and marveling over how smooth the grip felt against his skin.

“It’s not a toy. As I said, if you’re going to take it out, then intend to use it. Which means no waving it around or threatening other kids just to show off. And if you happen to get in trouble with the sisters, then you didn’t get it from me. Understand?”

Fray levelled the boy with a stern look that made Haurchefant’s pulse skip a beat. Aeyrstahl said nothing, looking a touch reticent to be handing children weaponry- however, such times were still dangerous and unpredictable. There was a weariness to the Paladin’s eyes, but also a knowing sort of acceptance to what unfolded between them.

The child in question held Myste’ gaze and slowly nodded, feeling the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. His first real weapon... He understood the gravity of the gift and sheathed the knife, though he couldn’t hide the wide, toothy smile on his face.

“Never draw your weapon, unless you intend to use it... right?” he parroted, holding the hilt and sheath tightly between his small hands.

Fray shot him a wry, patient sort of quirk of the corner of his mouth that could have been a smile and nodded.

“There’s a good lad.”

[the-headbop-wraith]

2_23 Stray Far

The numerous gloomy windows were long boarded up, some still glittered with tiny teeth not yet decayed out of the many gaping maws of each flat side.  Tall trees shimmered under the moonlight, thin gray branches unruly and overgrown reached skyward; while across the cracked and gray layers of stone, vines tangle and wind up the walls of the separate levels of the buildings surface.  One could almost mistake then structure to have been grown from the earth, rather carved from brick and wood.  

A multitude of tall spires stick from the rooftops edge glint briefly under the sheen of moonlight, spilling down from behind a thick swell of clouds prowling patiently across the black sky.  The mellow wind crooned through crevices along cracked rock walls and wood fences, built between brick walls that divide the sections of the building, its sleek cement foundation ends on the edge of a weed infested lawn.

The hospital seemed to loom now in the night, larger; even inviting the unwise explorer into its endless interior.

“All right, let’s splint up!” Vivi announced, rather dramatically.  She brought the finger she had directed skyward, and turned to indicate Arthur at her shoulder.  “You and Mystery.”  The dog at her feet yapped at the decision, Mystery’s red eyes flashed behind his spectacles.  He fully agreed.  “And I’ll keep an eye on Lewis.”  Arthur glanced behind Vivi toward the taller figure, as Lewis removed his sunglasses and stuck them into the jackets breast pocket.

“Still don’t trust me on my own yet?” Lewis inquired.  He caught the sideways smirk Arthur sent him.

“That’s part of it,” Vivi responds.  She spun on heel and returned to the back of the van, the doors left open from earlier when Arthur had climbed out.  

The small camping lamp sat between two backpacks, one was left open and stuffed with electronics.  Vivi opened up the other bag and reevaluated the supplies set inside, nothing remarkable by her personal standards – the walkie-talkie, some sage bundles, an EKG reader, and a few other items that probably wouldn’t get used on this investigation.

For this particular ‘adventure,’ the van was parked in the back loading zone of the hospital where equipment and patients would be received. The hospital had been built in the budding new center of town, but its surrounding cousin buildings had been reduced to new structures, offices, and the hospital itself was abandoned in its bubble of time and forgotten setting.  Its entire acreage of property was surrounded by a broken and haphazard chain-link fence set up after vandals began to break into the condemned structure, which as of yet had not received a date for demolition.  The fence was more of a deterrent than a barrier and the group had no problem unbinding the metal twine that connected the two sections of the fence, and prying them open so the van could be moved through.  Currently, the van was parked under the archway that stretched over the back entrance, concealed by shadows and nothing more.

“We probably won’t find much,” Lewis explained to Arthur, while Vivi poked around the supply bags.  “But with hospitals, you never know.”

Arthur glanced to the wood plywood shoved into the main entrance doors, the dingy moist air from within hovered in the cold fresh air of the night.  “Never know,” Arthur murmured, under his breath.  “Hospitals always have bad energy,” he went on.  “Why couldn’t we just check out that haunted hotel?  At least we’d have an idea about what lurks there.”

Lewis smirked.  “How ‘bout tomorrow night?  Hey Vi, what about the Lakeview tomorrow?  Arthur’s down with that.”  Arthur scoffed at that and made his way over to the aged wood.  In the poor light, he could already discern that there was a gap between the doors frame and the plywood.  “I’m only joshin’ you.”  Lewis followed Arthur.

“I read that loud and clear,” Arthur retorts.  “Even in the daylight, hospitals are creepy.  No matter how long they’ve been left.”  He pressed his good hand against the wood and felt brittle splinters twist under his fingers.

“What’s your gear?” Vivi broke in.  The subdued glow of light flashed under their gaze as Mystery padded by, carrying the camping lamp.  She gave Lewis a mild glare as she stepped between him and Arthur, she held her bag low for the crouched Arthur to see into.  “We shouldn’t need much.  Better safe than sorry.”

Arthur takes his time answering as he ponders over the inventory. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small container of gum in the little tin packets and cuts two free. The flavor is rough and not very pleasant but it helps.  “The sage and my lock picks.  The chalk too,” Arthur says, half distracted as he tests the tension of the board with a slight push.  “And maybe an air freshener.”  Maybe Lewis didn’t want to understand a lot of things, but Arthur would bring it up later if he was up to it.  There was a lot of material they skipped over whenever they talked, a lot of it was too soon for Arthur.  Later. “Thanks Mystery.”  Arthur gave Mystery’s head a rub and took the lamp from his teeth.  “The dust right here’s been disturbed.  Looks recent.”

Vivi knelt beside Arthur and touched the greasy layer of muck left in the doorway.  “We’ll be extra cautious.  It could just be the homeless.”  She glanced back up at Lewis, and the silhouette with his bright eyes bobbed.  “I doubt there’s some sort of cult in there.”

Arthur chuckled.  “But I’m here, so anything can happen.”  Vivi took the lamp from Arthur and returned to the van, leaving him and Lewis in the dull gloom.

“Just holler and I’ll be there,” Lewis encouraged.

“What you always say,” Arthur said.  “It’s not like I never do.”  Lewis shifted beside him, and Arthur almost recognized the movement but the familiar touch didn’t come.  The odd gap in reflex caught Arthur off-guard, but he thought Lewis had nearly recoiled. Or had Arthur been the one to jerk away? He brushed the sensation off and merely reached over to rub at his bad shoulder.  “Look after Vivi if I fuck up.”

“Language,” Lewis rattled.  Despite himself, Arthur snickered.  That at last sounded like Lewis.

Hospitals had potential.  It was hard to find a hospital that didn’t have some amount of activity, unless it was brand new and not built upon some sacred burial ground. The rooms and halls were intended to receive the ill and dying, new life and soon lost life; they were built in response to a wide scale of accidents, tragedy.  The roof concealed joy and sorrow and the walls were filled with regrets and miracles, and back in the day before modern medicine, the ratio of those brought in to enlighten ‘revolutionary’ medical practice sped up the rate of destruction rather than make comfortable those beyond healing redemption.  They were built to organize the placement of the doomed, before they were constructed to heal.

For Arthur, they held different significance.  Warped and terrible memories, sensations, but he kept this to himself.  Endurance was his advantage, concealment was his strength.

“Don’t get separated from Mystery,” Lewis reminded, as the group divided.  “He’ll keep you from getting lost.”  It was more of an assurance rather than a reminder.

Arthur clicked on his flashlight and turned the soft yellow beam onto Mystery’s bright pelt.  “I got it,” he called back.  “I’ll catch up in a few.”  Mystery led the way, and took immediate interest in an open hall that ran beside the corroded set of steps across from the carved wood receptionists desk; or what Arthur took as the receptionists desk, he wasn’t sure.

The light from Vivi’s flashlight was already darting up the set of steps that Arthur had bypassed.  “We’ll hit the higher floors, and work our way down,” Vivi hailed down. She motioned to Lewis and was gone, hurrying up the steps and around a corner.  Lewis called after Vivi with exasperation as she raced away.

Arthur paused to listen to Vivi’s thudding steps and tracked their progress from below.  Mystery’s sudden yap caused Arthur to wince, and at the involuntary reaction, the dog brought his sounds back into softer whimpers.  He forgot how jumpy Arthur could be, though the hospital felt quiet enough.  Mystery couldn’t be too sure.  

“I’m a lil tense,” Arthur admitted.  The light cut over the dust coated floor and alit on his partner for the evening, still giving small grumbles of apology.  “I’ll be okay.  Once we get moving I’ll feel better.  It’s not like we’re gonna find anything, huh?”

Mystery stiffened and perked his ears up.  When Arthur’s light nearly reached his face, the mutt wrenched away and began padding further down the corridor.  He put his nose down and distracted himself with tracking, his concerns set at ease while Arthur’s flashlight draped around his shoulders and bleached out the old chipped wood.

“We’re not gonna run into anything here, are we?” Arthur pressed again.  

A low ‘urf’ was Mystery’s response.  Nothing dangerous.  The dog’s well-worn toenails clicked with each step in a steady rhythm, thick silt grit between his dark toes.  Arthur’s steps were barely audible, cautious. At the halls end a set of doors had been left pried open, one had snapped off its hinge and lay slanted beside the wall.

Yellow light made pale blues appear moldy and drab.  Maybe the doors had always been depressing, maybe the hospital didn’t rely on optimistic colors to raise the mood of those that rolled through them.  Arthur reached out and rests a gentle hand on the edge of the door.  A loud Rrrr! sent him stumbling back from the door when it skid over the floor, only a fraction.  The wall rumbled at Arthur’s collision and the entire building, from the foundation to the roof seemed to shudder in irritation at the sudden disruption of placid rot.  Arthur pants and pressed the torch against his chest, as his breath heaved.

Mystery sprang in place and performed a complete three-sixty to face Arthur, eyes wide and white fur bristled on his shoulders.  

“Sorry,” Arthur spat.  “Old door, rickety treacherous door.”  He peeled himself from the wall and gave the door a light kick on passing, yet this caused the door to snap off its last hinge fully and crash onto the floor. Arthur charged out into the open room and away from the treacherous door, nearly running over Mystery in the process. “Damnit!”

More barks and half snarls choked in Mystery’s throat as he hastened away from Arthur’s legs.  Are you trying to bring this place down?  Mystery trotted from his path and leapt upon the springs of a bed, half fallen sideways from a broken leg.

“I think something’s really out to get me!”  Arthur crept between the rows of beds, his light reached to the furthest side of the room.  Somehow this was good news, there was no constraining presence gnawing at the edges of the light he cast.  

Mystery just shook his head and dropped to the floor.  He padded up beside Arthur.  There is nothing here out to get you.  The dog snorted and bumped his shoulder beside Arthur’s leg. He did this again, this time without Arthur flinching from the touch.  I’m here for you.

“Thanks,” Arthur hummed.  “I got the heebie-jeebies something bad.  This place is just creepy, I don’t care if it is haunted or not, it’s flat out creepy.  You can’t change that about hospitals.  Even lived in ones.  I HATE hospitals, but here we are.  Why?  ‘Oh Arthur, c’mon,’” he gushed, with a not so feminine voice.  “‘We should at least use the equipment.  It’s been sitting for too long, and the schools so nice for providing it.’  As if they care about our research.”

Mystery barked, his voice echoing through the open and long room. He didn’t recall it happening that way.

It was a ward, a dozen or so beds lined the walls, some of the grungy metal frames were shoved across their path.  The tall canopy rods, curtain less and naked, stood around or crumpled to the walls in vague metal heaps.  The floor was littered with metal, decayed and melted cables, piles of moldering cloth. Mystery pulled a front paw back when his toes poked into something smelly, but the texture he could not place. He flinched when Arthur blew a bubble, and popped suddenly.

Arthur leaned low when they reached the next large set of doors that led out, into a short corridor with another set of doors at its end.  It was a dark and small intersection, unnaturally so, and very cold.  Arthur pushed the torch into his metal hand and reached his flesh knuckles up to his lips and breathed into them.  It had stopped raining at least, but it was still cold.

There wasn’t much of the connecting hall, aside from some graffiti and a crushed can of beer.  Arthur poked it with his foot but couldn’t read the labeling, but he judged it would be decades old, probably.  Mystery stayed closed as they reached the dark and imposing duo doors.  Light shimmered through the circular window where the glass had been shattered, a few murky shards still stuck within the frame like ragged teeth.  Arthur gulped, nearly swallowing his gum, as he shuffled forward and pressed one of the doors open ajar.

Mystery didn’t wait for Arthur to get a good look in.  Once the door was open a fraction, Mystery slipped on through and examined the expanse of the moonlight washed room.  Arthur hissed something at the dogs tail, before he too gave up and followed into the small room.

Ruble cluttered most of the floor with large portions of wood and some steel.  The ceiling was low and as Arthur moved his beam across the slanted pieces of timber, he came to the conclusion the shape reminded him of a straw hat sloping and twisting.  There were no windows in the room itself, the light came from the upper floor where the windows were lined, a few shattered but most had been boarded up long ago. Through the open window, the branches of a tree shuddered in a frail breeze.

Arthur froze when Mystery gave a warning snarl.  At the edge of the floor above, a dark face peered down. Before Mystery could bark a warning Arthur had taken off, feet hammering at the wood floors.  Mystery followed, a shrill bark clapped out in their retreat.

__

The rooms were filled with interesting shadows, old equipment and glass bottles, the kind once filled with fluid and blood; all of it now shattered and scattered.  Many of the doors that had once sheltered the rooms from disturbance were gone, torn off their hinges or removed completely to elsewhere doors go when buildings are abandoned to vandals.

Vivi coughed at the dust that scattered about as she moved quickly, to the next room then the one across from it.  She tested the doorknob and pressed the bent steel panel inward when it opened.  The EKG clicked dully as she passed it along the walls, one wall had been shattered and chunks of plaster lay around the broken bed frame it crumbled over.

“Should have ordered a warm tea to go,” she grumbled.  She was annoyed the device had not keyed in on anything interesting, not even a plug socket.  Briefly, she wondered how Arthur was fairing, if he had remembered to use his equipment at all.  But he was always weird about breaking the free stuff.  “Still no readings.”

Lewis passed his hand along the doorframe as he followed her in, at a distance.  “Are you sure you changed the batteries?” he asked, as if that would contribute in some way.  He jerked back when Vivi spun on him and raised the black box with its forked prongs facing him.  Lewis frowned at Vivi’s bright smirk.

“It works on you,” Vivi chimed.  As she whisked away, Lewis caught the bright lights flashing along its base before the reader flat lined, and resumed its default state.  “I couldn’t resist.”

“You lasted longer than I thought,” he mentioned.  Lewis followed her towards the lone window of the room and peered out, onto the courtyard in the hospitals center below.  “You know Art and I had this bet going.”

“Ooh?” she hummed, staring out the window at the dry fountain and the overgrown paths carving through the jungle of a garden.  “Lemme guess, Arthur won?”

Lewis scowled at the top of her head.  “Ouch, that hurt.”

There was no point in having the EKG reader on with Lewis right beside her, so Vivi shut it off and leaned against his arm.  “Was I right?” she posed.

“Nailed it.  I owe him a week’s worth of coffees.”  Lewis put his arm around Vivi’s shoulders and she looped her arm around his lower back. “Can I borrow a lot of money?”

“How ‘bout I just pay you what you’ve earned,” she suggests. “We’ll work out the details later, don’t worry about it.”

“I gotta worry,” Lewis groaned, his voice a little scratchy but not in a bad way.  “I think I went broke the moment you mentioned ‘pay.’”  Vivi laughed and pressed her face into the sleeve of his jacket. The conversation ended there, and Lewis just watched the soft tones of the foliage below while Vivi focused on a blank space of wall, where her light didn’t reach.  At length Lewis says, “This is nice.”

Vivi hums out a sound.  She untangles from his arm and turns the reader back on.  With a few steps between them she checks the dial face for change, a fluctuation.  “We won’t spend the whole night here, if we’re not finding anything,” she says. Vivi pulls her backpack from her backside and opens the side.  By the time she and Lewis exit the room, she’s located her walkie-talkie and has it exchanged for the paranormal seeking instrument.

“Hey Arthur—?  Damn.” It was sending but as usual, the other end was not receiving.  Vivi pulls the transmitter away from her ear, and she slips the straps of the backpack over one shoulder.  Some habits…. “He shut it off.”

Lewis grimaced.  “He still does that?”  He was only half surprised.

“He got better at not doing it.”  She’d keep the walkie-talkie in case Arthur needed to get in contact with them, but she doubted it.  Mystery was with him.  Vivi adjusted the backpacks straps over her shoulders as they resumed walking.  “He might’ve forgotten to turn it on in the first place,” Vivi said, and she kept muttering under her breath as she continued along the hall.  “I swear we need alphabet magnets to attach reminders onto his arm.”

That soft almost familiar laugh came from Lewis as he followed. “Won’t that mess up his arm?”  

“He’ll have to learn fast,” she grumbled.  They came to the end of the hall and Vivi raised her flashlight to examine the cracked plaster, the remains of a picture frame still clinging to a nail by its broken wire.  A hallway extended to the right and left, but from their poise she couldn’t judge where the stairs were located.  The air was clogged with chill and the murky reek of old books and the memory of alcohol.  “How do we get down to the lower floor?”

“To the right,” Lewis deduces.  He placed his chin between his fingers and followed Vivi’s light, down the left hall.  “Yeah. If my sense of direction hasn’t failed me, we head to the center of the hospital.  There’ll be stairs, or an empty elevator shaft?  Maybe.”  His feet had risen from the floor in anticipation, eager to move on or scout or something.

“Right it is then.  Right?” Vivi piped, and aimed her cool blue torch ahead for the path.  Lewis drifted a few feet, small flashes of magenta embers flare up at his heels after him. Vivi slowed her pace and watched, Lewis was probably not aware he was gliding.  In any case it was fun to watch, and she didn’t want to ruin it for Lewis.  He was so self-conscious of his spiritual manifestations, but Vivi had not come up with a method to consult Lewis over it.  The time would come but not now, not until—

She pulled up short and peered through a door opened part way, and movement – she was certain it was movement and not a trick of the light – as it ducked into a door.  “Lew, wait,” she hailed.  “I think I saw something.  It might be Art.”  She followed the small halo as it identified shapes and loose spaces in the floor.

“Hold on Vi!”  Lewis kicked off to the wall, intending to cut through and meet her, but recalls immediately his jacket wouldn’t allow this.  His voice grated as he cursed, and skipped beside the wall until he reached the corridor Vivi had disappeared into.  “Hey Vi?  Vivi?” He began trying the door handles along the way, most were unlocked but some rooms had no doors and no evidence of Vivi.  It upset and alarmed him, how could they get lost this fast?  His eyes had been off her for a half second, it didn’t make sense. “Vivi!  I lost track of you, where’d you go?”

Through his searching of every room available, he finally reached the end of the corridor.  But Lewis knew that Vivi would have come back once it was apparent she had lost him, and this conclusion only panicked him more.  How was it possible to lose track of someone in one long hall?

“Vivi!  Vii!?” Lewis set his feet upon the floor and looked between the left and right halls, and it occurred to him how similar the two halls looked, almost identical to the ones they had pondered over before electing the right hand direction.  Did he even leave those halls behind, or had he someone gotten turned around?  Lewis spun in place and stared into the long dark corridor he had sprinted through, the many doors shimmering with moonlight. One side of the rooms faced the courtyard, but the others didn’t.  Was there even a courtyard?  No, don’t get turned around.

“If you’re there and you’re watching,” Lewis hissed, bright flames crackling over his clenched fingertips.  “I want you to know that I will find you.”  He swept through the nearest doorway and slammed his arm across the half rusted steel.  The door thunked against his arm and cracked off its hinges, it skipped halfway across the ruble strewn floor before crashing into the shattered remains of a bed frame.  Lewis swooped through the room and alit before the window, peering through broken glass into a night saturated with gray and black.

__

The people walked with a slow, liquid pace.  Everything felt very blurry, there was something akin to dislocation about the hazy light and the sharp glisten of metal as it moved. Even the sounds were wrong.  A voice buzzed through the old microphone attached to the upper corner of the room.

“Dr. Fredrick.  Please report to Ward 9.  Dr. Fredrick….” The dull voice became garbled, as if the speaker had begun speaking through a hole in their throat.

Each room was filled with people, usually two or three.  Most the doors were kept closed but some were open, and she could see them in their beds covered with sheets.  It was very warm, almost unbearable.  A nurse exited one room, dressed in her skirt and hat. Vivi staggered back and pressed herself into the wall as the woman walked by, without a glance or any indication that she had detected Vivi.

“I should have the reader out,” Vivi thought, but she didn’t move to retrieve it.  In part in fear that whatever she was witnessing would dissolve, in part that she was too stunned to do more than stare and absorb.  She continued along the wall and examined the rooms that came up in turn.  The same scene in each, nothing about it struck her as odd or unusual.  A hospital, a hospital trapped in a time frame somewhere long distant and past, left behind in time.  A surreal place to be lost.

Near the corner of the halls end was one more door left open, and inside a man sat on a bed as another spoke to him.  What she identified as a doctor held a clipboard to his chest and nodded his head, but his expression could only be described as contemplative. ‘Treatment’ and ‘high risk’ floated to her, but much of his words were lost in the wavering, distortions of vaporous sight.

“I’ll leave you alone to consider your options.”  The doctor turned from the man seated on the bed and looked up, directly at Vivi.  She stared back, situated right in the center of the doorframe where she had stopped. Vivi frowned when the doctor made no further movement, through the people around them began to fade, melting away, trailing gooey mirages of color as they vanished.

“Good evening,” the doctor said.

“Hey,” Vivi answered.  She raised a hand to wave, but never dropped her eyes from his.  “Um….”

“Remain calm,” he says, and he peers at Vivi carefully.  “What are you doing on this side?”

Vivi chokes on her words.  Other side?  “I… uh, I got lost,” she sputtered, taking her eyes from the doctor as she backed away. Which way should she go? Where?  How did she get out of here?  “I was with a friend.”  She bumps into the wall behind her and jerks her head back to the doctor, as he steps out of the room after her.  “I… um, I….”

“A friend?” he asks.  He’s not as tall as Lewis, but she still stares up at him when he snatches at her wrist.  “Do you mind? You look rather pale.”  Vivi shakes her head.  He looks down to his own wrist and the watch there as he presses his thumb into the niche of her wrist.  “Just relax a bit.  You say you’re here with a friend?  Is he in the other ward?”

He looked human, but none of this is real.  Vivi shakes her head, he’s pressing too tightly on her wrist. “We were looking around.”

“I see,” he murmurs, still focused on his watch and silently counting.  “You shouldn’t do that.  The hospital is no place to get lost.”  He goes quiet, before he releases her wrist and steps back.  “You should come with me for a moment.”  Vivi doesn’t move, in fact she’s inching away.  “It won’t take long.  I’m concerned for your health.  You see, by law I’m not supposed to care after non-colored patients, but maybe if you don’t mind, an exception could be made?”  He motions the now empty room he had exited.

Vivi stares at him for a moment, before it registers in her mind. “Oh.  Oh, I’m sorry.  Uh… I can only stay for a little bit.”

“This won’t take long,” he assures, and steps into the open room. “I’m Dr. Salazar.  What can I call you, miss?”

“Vivi.  Just Vivi,” she says.  She goes to the other bed that had been empty upon first examination of the room, and plopped down on the stiff mattress.  She watches as the Dr. Salazar takes a notepad from his white coat pocket and sets it onto the clipboard.  “Have you been working here long?”

“Hmm,” he says.  Dr. Salazar takes a light from his coat pocket and shines it in front of her face. “Follow the light, please.  Not very long, give or take.  I’m gonna listen to your heart.”  He takes the stethoscope from around his neck and takes the circular piece and presses it to Vivi’s neck.  “Are you getting enough sun, miss Vivi?”

“Just Vivi,” she answers.  “And yes.  Plenty.” She rolls her eyes.  He is a classic doctor.

He moves the listening piece to her backside.  “Cough.”  Vivi coughs a few times, and he asks her to stop.  “What about your diet?  Eating plenty of veggies, fruits?  Protein.”

“Yes?”  Vivi tilts her head down and tries to sound convincing, but even she knows a questioning tone is not assuring.  Dr. Salazar writes down on his clipboard, or the notepad set there.

“Ah-huh,” he humphs.  “Do I need to show you a food pyramid?”  Dr. Salazar puts his hands to his hips and Vivi wrinkles her nose at him.

“I know what one looks like.”  She set the flashlight in her lap and fiddled with the edge of her skirt.

“Somehow I doubt that.  How many hours sleep do you get each night?”

Vivi groaned.  “Five.” She looks at the finger directed at her.

“No.  Double that,” Dr. Salazar enforces.  He resumes writing on the notepad.  “More variety in your diet, more sun….”

“I don’t like the sun,” Vivi grumbled.

“Well, you need it regardless your preference,” the doctor mutters, still writing.  “My abilities fall short of whether or not my patients are willing to cooperate.  Understand? But you’re young.  And don’t work so hard.”  Dr. Salazar paused to gesture around them.  “This isn’t good for you, all of this.”

This catches Vivi’s critical attention, and she frowns at the doctor.  “Wait. What?”

“Here.  Try and follow this list,” he answers, and hands over the page from his small notepad. Vivi scans over it briefly, and feels her pride is wounded in some rude way.  “And lay down, try to get some rest.”  Dr. Salazar steps away from Vivi and moves to the open door.  The intercom gurgles with another message, for a Dr. Hemmington, or someone with ‘Ing-on’ on the end of their name.

“Wait a second.”  Vivi leaps up from the bed and charges after the doctor, the little wad of paper clutched tightly in her hand.  “Hold on! I have some more—”

When Vivi reached out to touch his white coat, the hall was dark, the walls ugly and broken.  The foul wall of dust and mildew crashed into her sinuses, and she gagged a she stumbled from the open room.  Her mind reeled, what had happened?  Everything had decayed, she could scarcely recall what the hospital had been like in its prime.  The years and years melted away fresh plaster, and scorched the once finely polished wood of the floors.  It took a few seconds for her mind to reacquaint with the current, true, state of the hospital, and accept that the illusion or whatever it was, had faded completely.  Everything was gone, but not completely.  It was too dark to see, but in her hand she felt the brittle paper the doctor had given. No doubt it was scrawled with her prescription, but Vivi wondered what he had written precisely.

Once she had recovered from the transition, she raised the flashlight… the flashlight was completely drained and its plastic shell was icy in her palm.  Vivi sighed and crouched on the floor, she brought forth the backpack and dug through its pockets seeking out the spare batteries.  The paper she couldn’t examine it, and she really wanted to, but not by candle flame.  She elected one of her notebooks and pressed the note flat within it, and stashed it away safely.  The notebook wouldn’t be needed, this she was certain.

All the fresh batteries fell to the bottom of the bag.  This was the law of gravity and inconvenience.  To add onto this, none of the batteries worked in the flashlight.  One set after the next and Vivi was growing increasingly impatient when it became apparent, that all of the new batteries packed and even the EKG had been drained of power. She crouched and fumbled in the dark with the ends of the batteries, this was not a new task and she was certain the replacements were end to end and should work.

“That’s just great,” she hissed.  She raised back a fist to throw aside the last pair of drained cells, but decide better.  The hospital was trashed and she didn’t need to add to it.  She dumped the batteries into the backpack and hunted for a lighter but even that was a long shot, Vivi didn’t recall packing it this time.  “Who packs candles and forgets the lighter?” she muttered.  “Me, that’s who.  This is perfect, absolutely brilliant.  If Art finds out, he’ll never let me live this down.”  She slung the backpacks straps back over her shoulders and reached out, touched the wall to her side and teetered forward.  The only light that present was at the halls furthest end, in the vague outline of a doorway.  

“Lew!”  There was no answer, aside from the creak of the floorboards when she took a step.  She hesitates, Vivi couldn’t see at all and the building had been condemned for a half century, maybe longer ago.  Even during the day it would be dangerous exploring through without a reliable light source, the halls were too twisted, too deep. “Arthur?  Mystery?”  She shivered. “Is anyone…  Hello?”

A loud crunch came not far from where she stood, and Vivi backpedaled from it.  “Who’s there?” she croaked.  A dark shape shoved something across her path, it sounded like a door or part of the wall had been wrenched loose.  The only distinguishing bits were the glinting eyes and the bleached surface of the knuckles, its hands still raised.  “Lew?”

“Vivi,” Lewis gasped, as if a spirit could pant.  “Are you okay?  I couldn’t find you!  I got turned around, and you were just… Gone!”  Vivi went limp when he stooped forward and wrapped her up in his arms, she was almost certain they were suspended in midair.  “I couldn’t find you,” he repeated, voice trembling in her chest. “I thought you were lost.”

“I was,” she whispered.  “Not intentionally, I got tangled up in something.”  Vivi exhaled a heavy breath and closed her eyes.  A rest didn’t sound too bad.  “It wasn’t hostile.”

“It could’ve been,” Lewis rumbled.  She could see the flames flash along his neck and reflect over the drab walls.

“Don’t ruin your jacket,” she burbled.  Lewis dithered, calmed, and the flames fade from his shoulders. She would check for damage later. “We’re still looking for Arthur.”

Lewis was still tense, but he leans down and releases Vivi to stand on her own feet.  “Yeah. I can’t believe he didn’t hear the commotion I raised up here.”  This was another reason for Lewis’ agitation, Vivi knew.

“No time to waste, then.”  She spun around, but recalls the drained torch left her at a disadvantage.  “I can’t see.”  She scoots back, her heel skimming over some thin, slick bar on the floor and nearly caused her to fall.  Lewis had moved, the glimmer of his eyes descending low to her height.

“How about we not take the chance of getting separated again?” he offered.

It wasn’t difficult to make out where Lewis’ shoulders were in the dark, with his eyes gleaming right above them.  Vivi released her flashlight when he tugged it from her hand.  She touched the edge of his jacket, but paused. “You didn’t burn up the walls looking for me, did you?”  Lewis smelled smoky, but not like scorched leather.  Scorched leather wasn’t a pleasant smell, so it was unlikely he went blazing through a wall in a fit of rage. The sight of that would’ve been endearing, if not frightening in another setting.

“No,” he defended.  Lewis eyes vanished as he twisted his face away.  “I got a little warmed up, but I wasn’t planning on doing anything reckless unless I knew for sure you were actually hurt, or something.”

Vivi climbed onto his back and looped her arms around his collar. “I can take care of myself, thank you,” she said.  Lewis raised up, stood up or hovers up, she couldn’t tell.  “And don’t you dare deny that.”

“I won’t,” Lewis whimpered. On the contrary, it felt like she was the one protecting him when times turned rough.

[som3thingcr3ative]

By Her Blood 4

Wow! I’m alive under these piles of school work! Here’s a present for those who have been patiently waiting for more of these two :)

Synopsis: You’re not allowed to stay in a bubble with Ivar forever, so now it’s time for work. Thankfully your not-so-new abilities can help out. 

warnings for this chapter: anything that applies with Vikings applies here. 

Last time: “I get that.” You say eventually. “But it doesn’t change what happened. I can’t forget so easily.” Her face falls, a tear slipping down her cheek. Your father moves to comfort her, the armor forgotten. “We can start with you accepting that Ivar is part of my life now. We can move on, make things better from here on out.”

Your mom nods. She looks at Ivar, at the defined muscles of his chest and arms, the intimidating span of his shoulders. “You’ll protect my little girl?” She asks. Before you can protest that you’re not her little anything any more, Ivar nods. “With my life.” He vows. 

You’ll come to wish he’d never said that.

You should’ve known things wouldn’t be that easy for long. That same day, less than 24 hours after Ivar re-corporated, your parents have work. 

That means that you’re expected to be at the scene. 

Ivar refuses to leave your side, so he’s standing beside you, leaning on the crutch you’d bought at Goodwill just an hour ago, glaring wordlessly as the archaeologists dig. “What are they looking for?” He asks you, squinting against the light. You can just see your mother’s head over the lip of the ditch as she works, your father somewhere out of sight nearby. 

“Any relics from the past,” you answer, glancing over at the sleepy, bleary-eyed group of teenagers who’d just come onto the site with their parents. “Anything that’s in good shape is a bonus.”

“They’re looking in the wrong spot then.” Ivar grudgingly admits. He slides his eyes to the right, toward the base of a sloping hill. There’s a small stone ruin atop it, crumbling from hundreds of years of brutal weather. 

Laney is the first to spot you. Her gaze darts to Ivar, to the sweatpants that hide his leg braces, the dark t-shirt stretched over his chest and arms. His hair is still braided, but he looks vastly different than he had the night before. Not different enough, though. Her mouth drops open and she smacks the shoulder of the guy next to her- Lee turns on her, about to yell at her for hitting him when he sees you.

“Can I tell them?” You ask, knowing that it may be a sensitive topic for him. As it is, you don’t know that you’d be comfortable with someone poking around your burial site, or even somewhere you’d buried anything. 

His shoulders tense as he catches sight of the group of teens watching you. They’re whispering to each other and staring quite obviously, probably gossiping. “Let’s go over there.” He offers, reaching out to squeeze your hand. “I want to see how much it’s changed.”

The two of you walk over, your fingers drifting through the tall grasses of the field, his shoulder brushing yours with every other step. Thankfully your ex-friends don’t follow you. For a moment there’s nothing but the quiet brush of the tall grasses, the sigh of the wind until Ivar stops, looking around. 

“Here.” He says, lowering himself to the ground at the base of the hill. The grass here is shorter but darker, nutrient-rich. You pick a few blades idly, twisting them in your palm. “I want you to try something.”

Ivar holds out his hands, palm-up. You place yours over his, fingers against his wrist. “Now what?” 

“Close your eyes and call to the spirits.” As your eyes close, you can feel the warmth of him against your hands. The spirits surround you almost before you call, their voices louder and more demanding than usual. Just inside of the ring they make around you, Ivar’s spirit pulses with power and golden light, washing over you in waves. The warmth from his power makes your blood rush in your veins, thrumming through your body like an electric current. “Focus,” he calls to you, his voice distant. “Now go past the spirits, call to your blood, feel the earth beneath you.”

At first there’s nothing. How do you call to something you’d never given much thought to before? Ivar’s grip tightens on your hands, the squeeze close to painful as he centers you. “I don’t know how.” 

“Yes you do. Focus on the wind, on the solid ground beneath you. Feel the blades of grass, hear the insects. Open your mind and take it all in.”

You take a deep breath of the mountain air, letting your lungs open and your back stretch. Something nags on the edge of your senses, a little hint of untapped power. Another deep breath, an answering grip on Ivar’s hands and you reach out, consciousness going past the spirits to a deeper connection. 

All at once your senses are flooded with too much information. You can feel the pounding of your heart, the trace of your blood through your veins, the pulse of your muscles as they keep you upright. Beyond you, the earth hums with life; worms and grubs and tiny beetles in the soil, mice flitting through the tall grasses, ants gathering food and tending to their young, the slither of a snake tracking prey. The air is full of twisting currents and birds soaring high, refusing to be limited to the ground. It whips and whirls and twists, singing through your hearing and raising the hair on your arms. 

“Call to the earth,” Ivar says, his voice so distant it’s like a faded memory in the vivid new world you’ve discovered. “Feel what’s beneath you. Bring it to you, slowly.”

With a frown, you concentrate your energy on his words, searching down, down, down through new soil and ancient, past rocks and bones until you find what he was talking about. 

The Viking burial mound is vast and deep, buried so long that the earth has grown around it, accepting it into the embrace of decay. You cannot possibly bring everything up to you at once. There’s a skeleton lying near the top, a shield maiden whose sword was ritually killed when she was buried, her shield and the trinkets she was interred with still mostly intact. Your energy focuses on her, maneuvering her through the soil, drawing her towards you. 

Brunnhilde, the spirits murmur. You see flashes of a vibrant blonde, her long hair braided back, her clothes always suited for battle. She has stocky features, her shoulders broad and her arms toned, her hands calloused. Her death was honorable. The valkyries called to her and she went as a warrior should, sending her killer to meet his god.

Her sword breaches the ground first, bent metal shedding dirt as it lays at your feet. Next comes her shield, then the crown of her skull. Ivar is silent as her skeleton pieces itself together, lying the same way she was buried with her hands on the rusted handle of her sword, her shield over her legs. The trinkets rise faster, shooting out of the ground with little pops, tumbling through the air and falling beside her. 

Your eyes open to see the skeleton before you, the rush of power still in your body screaming that you can do more. Ivar’s brilliant blue eyes are on you, watching every little nuance in your expression. “Amazing.” he whispers. 

“I did that?”

“Yes.”

A giddy feeling steals over your body, raising the hairs on your arms. “I can summon skeletons,” you whisper, staring at the bones before you. The sword is completely rusted, the metal almost unrecognizable past the decay and oxidation, the leather of the hilt long gone, but it’s still beautiful. Her shield is petrified, the metal around the edge in a similar state to the sword, but you can remember the color is used to be; blue and white, streaked with blood. The memory isn’t yours; it belongs to Brunnhilde, a vision of the shield resting against the pole of her tent after a skirmish. Your eyes meet Ivar’s. “Can I tell my parents?”

His brows furrow. “Will they disturb the land?”

“I won’t let them. I can bring everything to the surface- or hide whatever you want me to.”

“Hide,” he murmurs, eyes losing focus. For a minute you just watch the subtle play of his thoughts across his features before he snaps back to himself, blue eyes vividly bright. “There is something I would ask of you.” He says, pushing himself to his feet with the crutch. You don’t help him; you know it would be an insult unless he asks for help. “Up there,” a nod toward the crumbling stone dwelling. 

You follow him up the hill and into the ring of stone that marks the foundation of the building. He sits down on one of the fallen stone bricks, making himself comfortable. “What am I looking for?” You ask him, settling on the ground with you palms against the soil. Now that you’ve reached out to nature around you, the persistent hum of life remains on the outside of your senses. 

“You’ll know when you feel it.” He replies.

With a sigh, you close your eyes and reach out, diving deep into the soil. Just like before, the life in the uppermost layers surprises you, but you move past it much easier than you did the first time. As you breach the lower layers, getting close to the level of the burial mound, something catches your attention: Saxon bones litter the ground, becoming more and more frequent until entire skeletons show themselves, each full body on its knees, bent forward over itself, bowing. Some have their heads cleaved from their spines, others have broken ribs. All of them carry an attached soul, bound to the bones and screaming for release. 

Their voices rise around you, calling and begging to be free. The Viking, they scream. He did this. He killed us. Their memories follow quickly: a barn with darkness all around. Six Saxon soldiers sit around a fire in the center of the barn’s floor, slaughtered animals around them. Three viking women and a child are bound hand and foot nearby, their eyes terrified, the youngest of the women naked with blood coating her thighs. The soldiers jump as something rustles in the darkness just outside the ring of light from their fire. They laugh as Ivar crawls toward them, twin axes on his hips, blades strapped to his arms and chest. His eyes scream murder, his lips set in a determined line. He doesn’t falter as he approaches the soldiers, doesn’t even flinch before he takes an ax from his belt and throws it at the nearest of the soldiers. 

The soldier dies before he knows what happened, his chest split open. Ivar kills the other five in quick succession, freeing the women and child who’d been abducted from the camp. 

You feel no pity for the soldiers; they’d kidnapped and tortured innocent women- wives of the raiding party, had nearly killed the young child. Being bound to their bones was the least of what they deserved- and you quickly realize it wasn’t all they got. Their bodies form a circle, all bowing to something in the center of their ring; a hollow rod of silver, enclosed at both ends, barely the length of your pinkie finger. The vial is as perfectly smooth and blemish-free as the day it was crafted, you realize, the energy radiating from it the same as the energy barely two feet from you. 

“Ivar,” You say, your eyes still closed. “What is it?”

His crutch shifts against the stone. A pebble falls somewhere on the outside of the ruin, clacking against stone as it tumbles toward the hill. “The last of my ashes.”

The vial comes easily toward you, parting the ground before it in a perfect circle. Magic. Magic has been keeping it in perfect condition, preserving the curse Ivar put on the saxons so long ago. So long as his ashes were in the earth, the saxons would be hard-pressed to live peacefully. With the last of the true saxons long dead, Ivar had no reason to maintain the curse. 

“What do you want with it?” You ask, finally opening your eyes once the vial has cleared the last layers of the earth and is safely in Ivar’s hand. He stares curiously at it, turning it over and over. 

“It’s a reminder.” He says. “A reminder that I’m mortal.”

“Is it still cursed?”

He laughs. “Yes, dove, the curse remains, but it is of no consequence to either of us.” You watch as he places the chain over his head, as the vial settles against his chest. The silver gleams in the light, the aura of the ashes mixing with Ivar’s aura; the same, but also different. “You can tell your parents about the burial ground- but they must respect the Viking dead; you have to be the one to remove them from their rest.”

“Deal.” You say, standing up and brushing off your legs. “Let’s go blow their minds!”

“Ivar?” you ask, a minute later as the two of you walk back to the dig site. “Modern medicine...well, it has therapies for people with osteogenesis imperfecta- they could help you. I completely understand if you don’t want to, but there’s no shame in it. They could at least help with the pain.”

He glances over at you, half-smiling. “I was wondering when you were going to bring that up. I’ve seen all of their advances, remember?”

“Oh.”

“It’s okay, dove.” He says. “I never had true hope of a cure when I was living before. I gave up on it after a while, and when I died, I didn’t feel the pain anymore. Now that I feel it again…” He sighs, glancing at his legs. “If it will make you happy, I’ll look into it.”

You twine your fingers with his, bumping playfully into his shoulder. “You don’t like doctors, do you?”

A laugh. “No, love. No, I don’t.”

“I don’t want you to be in pain, that’s all.”

He glances askance at you, eyes glittering oddly. “They don’t bother you?”

You yank him to a sudden stop. “Nothing about you bothers me, Ivar. I love your legs just as much as the rest of you- but they hurt you, and I hate that you have to live in constant pain. You don’t have to, that’s all I’m saying. I want this for you, but only if you want it too.”

He smiles at you, tugging you against his chest. For a second he just watches you, his eyes lingering on yours. Then he pulls you in, kissing you fiercely, his arm slipping around your waist. “I love you.” He murmurs against your lips, wisps of his hair tickling your cheeks. You hum, pressed against the firm lines of his chest, eyes still closed. Ivar kisses you again, just the soft pressure of his lips against yours. Your chest fills with warmth, stomach flipping, heart racing. 

“I love you too.” You tell him, finally opening your eyes. He’s so close you can see the tiny patterns in his irises. 

“I’ll see a doctor only if you go with me.”

“Whatever you want.”

“Okay.” He says, taking a deep breath. “Now let’s go tell your parents.”

Tagging (open): @tis-itheapplepie @pixievampira @demonhunter1616 @hexqueensupreme @thorins-queen-of-erebor @grippleback-galaxy​ @readsalot73​ @glassythoughts @youbloodymadgenius

[queenburd]

and in the end; chapter 1

This fic has been a year in the planning. It is 25k in totality, split into 6 chapters and an epilogue. It’s meant to be a sort of soft close on the last incomplete character arc(s) of Teslaverse. As such, I’m probably not going to be writing a lot more Teslaverse stuff after this. If I do, it won’t be to the lengths the past few fics for it have been.

It’s... really important to me, this fic. Teslaverse is too, which is why I tried so hard. There’s a ton of callbacks to earlier threads and fics laced through it, all of which are covered in the beginning of each chapter. But finishing this fic helped me figure some of my own stuff out and I really hope it’s as good as I wanted it to be. It will update once a day.

This fic will have some mild graphic descriptions in the final chapters. @mysteriie, who beta-read, said it was not too upsetting. There will still be an author’s note on said chapters.

chapter 1: i'd do it all again

callbacks and references: The “Get Out of Jail Free” Card, The Party

[INCOMING PREVIOUSLY RECORDED TRANSMISSION. RELAYING...]

[PLAYBACK]

The lot was in poor shape; long cracks in the concrete that had never seen sealant crisscrossed the faded painted parking lines. They looked like lightning bolts in the day, but now, in the black of early morning, they were nearly invisible. May's flashlight bounced off the concrete as she leaned against the decrepit link fence that Kass was making his way down. He leaped off it a couple feet away from the ground, and it rattled viciously from the impact, before halting abruptly as May grabbed and steadied the links.

They crossed the lot in relative quiet, the light a few feet ahead of them, bobbing unsteadily while May tried to match Kass's longer gait. “If I didn't know any better,” she said, speaking softly, “I'd think you were trying to ditch me.”

Her partner made some sort of noise that he hoped she would not discern for the mild irritation that it was. “I can't help how short your legs are, bird. Don't look further into it, you're doing me a disservice.”

“Okay,” was the simple answer he received, and that was that.

While originally startling at first, Kass had slowly become adjusted to being taken at face value. It was relieving, to not have to bicker constantly about his alleged intentions behind his actions. Very simply, May knew when Kass was intentionally being unpleasant, and when there were underlying reasons. In any case, it made conflicts short, and overall, communication was easier. Less stressful.

They approached the defunct glass factory that the lot surrounded quietly, though it seemed unnecessary. It had long been a site for vagrants and unruly teens, if the graffiti and dank tarps were to be believed. Yet, now, it was silent, save for the two quickly moving bodies.

“Point it out to me?” May requested. In response, he took her light, and directed it upward, to the small broken window above the large bolted door. “Right.” Rolling her shoulders, she shifted and took flight, taking a moment's pause to flutter and examine the crevice. And then she had slipped through, and he lost sight of her.

After the bailout, many months earlier, May had sat Kass down very seriously and said that she outright refused to let him do these harder “missions”, as she had called them, on his own. She had said, very shortly, that she respected his privacy, but if the next phone call she got from authorities was about a body, she would yank his spirit out of whatever afterlife it landed in and trap him in a bottle, simply to shout at him.

While that in itself was hardly intimidating, they had finally come to an agreement of sorts. It was easier to have back-up—to have someone to keep watch. So she had begun to accompany him on the more risky ventures, and in the process Kass had learned much more about his housemate and her abilities. There had been moments where, when he was certain he was down for the count from a nasty wound, she would glare hard at him and put her hands on his arm, and then he was back up and at it with whatever beast had tried its luck.

This was to say nothing for the moments where she had thrown up golden walls, shielding them both from incoming blows and falling debris. And certainly, when fighting creatures that prowled in the dead of night, it was particularly handy to keep around a creature of sunlight.

So Kass had come to accept, albeit begrudgingly, the second pair of hands. He wished more than anything she didn't have such a smart mouth for what seemed like every occasion, but that was par for the course with her. Besides, she had pointed out, he was the world's largest hypocrite, so he would have to deal with it.

There was a deep metallic thunk, and the door was pushed open from the inside slowly. Kass aimed the flashlight into the crack, and May grimaced, squinting. “Put the light down, asshole. This thing is heavy.”

“It's not, you've just got the physical capability of a nine-year-old. And it's a torch.” He pocketed the light momentarily to help her pry the door open enough for him to slip through, and then handed the thing back to her to aim at the interior of the building. As she took it, she scowled.

“We're in America, dipshit. It's a flashlight.”

“Britain came first, ya booby.”

“Do not.”

The glass factory was not a complicated structure from the outside. It was a long, somewhat tall building, with several chimneys that once released toxic black smoke but now lay dormant. Its roof was a shallow convex. By all accounts, it was simple like a child's play toy—four walls, a roof.

On the interior, however, the simplicity was cut through with complex machinery that lined the metal and stone walls. The light cut distorted shadows on the walls as it slipped through old pipes. They surveyed the many corners with suspicion. There were too many places for a creature to squeeze into and hide.

With hesitation, May took the lead, leading the light around each corner. “This feels like a disaster waiting to happen. Do you even know what we're tracking?”

“I've narrowed it down to a couple nasties,” was his short reply, “but no specifics. Whatever it is, it's solitary, and it seems right at home.”

“That's not comforting.” She continued forward anyway. “Even a hint of what it might be would be more helpful, dude. Do you smell that?”

He did. The scent of rot was thick in the back of the factory. Kass grabbed the back of May's hoodie when she stumbled, keeping her from falling onto the oldest of the remains. The body had been mostly stripped of flesh, though what remained clung tightly to the bone.

May shuddered, holding the light out to reveal what looked like a massacre. “God, that's a lot of people.”

“Different rates of decay,” Kass noted, breathing far more shallowly. “Likely one of our friendly neighborhood crackheads would wander in to get away from the cold, and the beastie would have its next meal.”

“Why go hunting when food walks into your lap, I guess.”

They carefully stepped over the splayed limbs and loose organs. May grimaced at a torso that looked torn open, the innards shredded. “These ones are newer.”

Kass unholstered his pistol and took the lead, his jaw tight. The smell was worsening, centered at the base of a large vial machine. He circled it silently as he could, and raised the firearm in time with May's light, falling onto the freshest corpse, and the creature that crouched over it.

He'd barely the time to register the moth-like wings before he fired. The thing screamed wildly, turning to shriek at the pair of them, and took off up into the rafters where chimney pipes and metal machinery made nightmarish noises as he fired after it.

“Fothermucker!” he swore, trying to track it in the dark. “Get the fuck back here, you overgrown luna moth! I'll tear your stupid eyebrows off and feed them to you!”

Beside him, May was squinting, trying to direct the light up to the ceiling. Every so often she'd catch a flutter, and then it was gone again.

“I'll track it! Just reload, maybe find higher ground!”

She covered his back while he turned back to the body at the base of the machine. Grimacing, he examined it. The face had been mostly mauled away, as had most of the chest. It was fresh, as fresh as tonight, possibly. The body was propped upright, dressed in dark clothes, a large emblem on the upper sleeve, still intact.

He froze.

“I got it!” came from behind him, and then May made a startled squeak as he turned and slapped his hand over her mouth and pulled her down to the ground. The flashlight fell out of her hand and clattered and rolled, the light illuminating the coiled phone cord that hung from the lapel of the jacket, and the silver and black patch that had no letters, but was simply a circle, with three arrows piercing into it.

Foundation.

He was suddenly deeply aware of the amount of noise they had made in the past two minutes. There had been no sign of units on their entrance, and May had been thorough in examining the building, but the body was new, which meant they had very little time. Seconds, maybe.

Kass grabbed her by the hand and pulled her up to her feet. He said nothing, pulling her hard deeper into the building until they hit the back wall. There were doors here, into offices. Despite her protests, he shoved May into one, slamming the door behind the pair of them. The slam seemed louder than it should have been—he realized, stomach dropping, that the large bolted front door had been rammed open.

“Kass, what's happening?” May pleaded, hushed. In the dark, he could just barely see the anxiety in her face, inches from his own.

He pushed her aside to examine the room quickly. “What do you think, Maybelline? We weren't the only ones tracking this thing!” Fuck, why weren't there any windows? Wasn't ventilation important in a factory that produced this much heat?

Ventilation. Venting. Pipes. Kass lined the walls, running his fingers against the chipping paint as high as he could reach. No good. “Where's the torch?”

“I....”

He swore again. “You dropped it?”

“You didn't give me time to grab it!” she hissed back, holding out her palm. He watched the outstretched hand turn golden, then near blinding white, and it painted the room in stark light and shadow.

“Fuck me, fuck me blind, where is it.”

The vent was over the chipped desk in the near center of the room. He clambered onto it, a sprawl of stick limbs, and stood upright. Like this, he could press his hands right onto the cover. He pushed hard against it.

It didn't give.

“Shit tits!”

The smash against it with his elbow was a desperate one that ended only in a splitting agony down his arm. He nearly keeled over there, grabbing the limb and holding it close.

God, this was it, wasn't it?

May was yanking out the desk drawers and file cabinets one-handed. There was the sound of gunfire outside the door, which masked her own climbing on the desk beside him. She put her hands on his shoulders, and the pain in his elbow turned into pleasant heat that he barely noticed because she was climbing him to grab the vent cover herself. Her smaller fingers fit into the slots.

“Move, move, let me see if I can use my weight to pull it out.”

“You're too light,” Kass said sharply, but he climbed off the desk to grab her by the torso. He pulled her, and the vent cover with her, down to earth. The thing popped free, and she crashed onto the desk. The impact was loud, louder than the pained gasp she made, but for now the door stayed closed.

Kass panted. The shouting outside the door was getting louder. Closer.

“Okay,” May said, pulling herself to her feet. “Move your skinny butt, get up there. I'll follow.”

There was the slam and crash of metal just outside the door that they both swiveled to face. Kass recovered first, but he stayed frozen in place anyway, because May's expression was one of a cornered animal.

He'd never seen her wear that expression.

Fuck, she had never actually faced the Foundation. They didn't know about her. She was a prize specimen, a never before seen scip, her hands glowing with natural light. She was an agent's dream come true. Did she know that? Was she realizing that?

His face felt cold. He crossed the room, hand in his pocket. When Kass pulled it out, it was to hand his partner the PDA he kept with him near constantly. “No, you first. That tin can looks like a stiff breeze could dent it, with my shit luck it won't even hold my weight. You get up, get out. I'll go through to lead them off.”

“What? No. We can both make it--”

“Do you think that vent's still in the condition it was in the day it was installed? It's cheap metal, and it's probably buckling in places. Can you imagine, I get in Mission Impossible style, get halfway through, and then it just collapses right in the middle of thirty already trigger-happy agents?”

She didn't have a retort to that, though he could see she was trying to form one. “Okay, then we'll both go through, I can cover you.”

“No,” Kass said sharply. His heart was thundering in his ears.

“We're not splitting up! I'm sticking to you, that was the deal!”

He hissed through his teeth, eyes flickering everywhere but her face. He looked up to the vent again. Back to the door. How much time did they have?

“....Fine,” he said finally. “Let's try the vent. Christ knows I've ended up in more idiotic places to die. Go on.”

The tone with which he spoke was a tired, almost annoyed one. It was more like him, so May nodded. She shifted into a smaller form, casting the room back into darkness, and flitted into the vent system, calling out through it. “There's a couple different splits, maybe to the neighboring room, but I think it will lead out the side.”

“Good,” Kass said softly after her. He tossed his gun into the vent after her, and pushed the vent cover back into place. “You'll have no trouble then.”

“Kass? Hey!”

Little talons scraped against the inside of the vent cover. Kass pushed it further into place, his smile grim.

“Listen, I will meet you outside. Whatever you do, whatever you hear, keep moving. Do not try to play fucking hero.”

“Kass, no, no no no, this is stupid, I can help!”

His eyes flicked back to the door. “You know, I knew you'd say something like that. You're a fucking idiot, of course you would.”

Whatever retort she had, he stopped listening, hopping off the desk and striding to the door. He bit into his tongue, cracked the thing open, and peeked through.

The noise was starting to die a bit. Units were cleaning up the remains of the deceased victims. He watched a small squad of four surround a door similar to his own—another office, like May had said. Silently, Kass counted the seconds as they slammed the door open and dived into the room. When the last body had disappeared through the door, he dived out his own, ducking between machinery and the wall.

The factory was filled with too much light, now. Any flying creature that crossed the open space in the rafters would have been spotted in seconds, and brought down just as fast.

Kass was faintly aware that he was trembling. He tried to focus. He used to be so good at focusing, hyper-focusing, hyper-fixating (words he hadn't really understood until more recently, a whole other language about mental health he'd put off learning) but now, in the moments he needed to focus most--

He could see it, you know. He could see her throwing up shields, trying to keep the gunfire off of them as they bolted through the factory. He could see them being blocked in at the door, could see her doing something drastic to get them out. And hell, maybe it would get them out, but then suddenly a thousand pairs of eyes would be looking for her.

And if the SCP Foundation looked for you, you'd eventually be found. This was evidence enough.

“They'll keep you under the tightest lock and key. They'll shove you into the tiniest cell and poke and prod at you until they know every little thing you can do and then they'll leave you there.”

How long ago, had Dib warned May? Kass didn't know, but of the few things he did know, it was that Dib, for once in his obnoxious irritating life, was right.

Barely breathing, Kass leaped from shadow to shadow, trying to force his twig-like body into crevices too small for him. The blood rushing in his ears was loud enough that he was almost certain they would hear it, would look his way just from the sound.

Nobody turned yet. He forced himself to keep moving.

God, why was he doing this. Why was he in the thick of it, knowing there was no chance in hell he'd make it through? There was a tiny angry voice in his head, the one that was his, that sounded most like him and had never stopped being there, despite the kinder months. It was mean, and it was paranoid, and it was screaming at him. He was an idiot, he could have gotten out, and instead he was running out the clock. Had he even considered the result? Had he already forgotten the promises of D-Class?

Had he really thought he could outrun the Foundation forever?

It wailed in his head, while he ducked behind a metal cabinet, away from the moving lights. He told it kindly to sod off.

He was never going to get away from the Foundation, but she could. It mattered more, that she could.

He was an idiot, it repeated, softer now. He was an actual moron, he'd given in, he'd turned into a bleeding heart, and it had doomed him.

Kass had no response to that. He elected instead to ignore it.

He made it almost halfway through the factory before his luck ran out. Up on a scaffolding, somebody shouted, and Kass ran. There was no point to it, really, but like some sort of wild animal, he ran instinctively. There was a burn in his legs as he leaped over a metal table and hit the floor hard, and he was almost blind with adrenaline when someone finally tackled him from the side and knocked him hard into another vial machine.

He didn't make it easy, despite the inevitability of it all. He clawed, kicked, swung without looking, and he knew from the impact that some of his blows hit. From that, at least, he could get a grim sort of satisfaction, even as his head finally made hard contact with the ground and his vision filled with nasty black and red spots.

No, this had always been inevitable. Kass has never truly believed he would have some sort of picturesque happy ending, away from the Foundation. It had, after all, shaped him. It was too big a part of who he was, and he, stupid Kass, had made too many enemies inside it for it to ever really let him go. It had shoved its claws into his ribs years and years ago.

The spots were spreading across his vision. He tried to get up—a boot, he thought, pushed him back down with almost no trouble.

It was never going to let him go. This was the last time it was going to get to dig its claws into him, because this time, Kass knew.

He knew, struggling to stay conscious for a few moments longer, that this time, the Foundation was not going to let him go alive.

[TRANSMISSION INTERRUPTED—RECONNECTING...]

[tysonrunningfox]

Ripped: Part 11

Why are they like this?  Why?  What is even their issue?  

Ao3

Astrid is a believer in hard work.

There are very few obstacles in life that can’t be overcome with determination, willingness to get her hands dirty, and dedication to the cause. However, deciphering her feelings while sitting across a dingy bar table from Hiccup’s sharp jaw and green eyes, holding a beer she got from her best friend’s cousin who now only owes her forty-seven dollars while said best friend and Hiccup’s cousin hook up might be one of those outlying obstacles.

And that’s not even unpacking the fact that she only met Hiccup because he was giving serial killer tours to her apartment, the past tense being because a new set of twin murders interrupted his route with the promise of further interruptions. And then that gets even more complicated because not only did she and Hiccup kiss while she was at work, but later that same night she was with him when they discovered the second murder victim, seconds after she accidentally called him sexy.

Or not him specifically, but something he did, and that’s almost worse.

And she might be able to scrape together some plan of attack for all of that, but adding the fact that he also happened to discover the first body after a middle of the night private serial killer tour he gave her where they were caught trespassing and practically hugging on camera pushes it over the edge.

She’s lost.

And there’s the whole thing he’s been in custody twice in as many weeks but she still can’t stop thinking about how he looked at her, like he absolutely couldn’t handle not kissing her for another second. Even though she was being stubborn and loud and forcing her opinion on him. Maybe even because of those things.

Neither of them knew what to say while they finished their drinks and their interaction devolved into silence occasionally punctuated by people watching commentary. He offered to walk her home, but she took an Uber because as safe as Berk’s new condo developments brag about being, she doesn’t live in one of those.

She lives in yet another Grimborn murder site, likely on a list to be revisited.

Yet another complication.

“You’re thinking about that ship roster really hard,” Fishlegs sits down at his desk, flicking through his meticulously maintained planner.

She half wonders what Fishlegs would say about her current conundrums. He’s got the kind of analytical approach she can really admire, but his opinion of Hiccup is clear and deserved. It was Hiccup who pushed her against the bookcase and threatened his precious encyclopedias, after all.

“It’s complicated.”

“Want to talk about it?”  

She thinks a minute, “no.”

Astrid doesn’t want to talk about it. She wants to do something about it, she just doesn’t know what to do.

Hiccup (4:23pm): hey are you at work?

She hates how the silent implication makes her cheeks burn.

Astrid (4:24pm): yeah

Hiccup (4:25pm): oh cool, would you mind if I dropped by and got a copy of that Al, I. Safe picture to laminate? The one you gave me is wearing out quick and it’s smeared not that you care I’m sure it smeared in your fervent quest to prove me wrong

Astrid hates how she can’t deny that her stomach flips. If Fishlegs repeated his concern right now, she’s not sure what she’d say, but he disappeared into the back room to organize new donations.

Astrid (4:27pm): sure

Hiccup (4:28pm): be there in like 5?

Her heart stutters and she tries not to care. She can’t help but hate how she left it at the bar, the weird backward walk towards the door, the insistence that she get a ride rather than walk. And now she has to deal with another random, instantaneous meeting? She needs time and planning and for it to occur away from Hiccup’s undeniable pull.

She tries to focus exclusively on her work but every time she hears the door open she jumps and has to reread at least a paragraph. The first is the mail, the second is someone lost and hoping for the library upstairs, but the third is Hiccup, determinedly faking casual as he trots down the stairs with uneven strides she still wants to ask about.

“Hey!” He says too brightly and Astrid purposefully takes a second too long to look up.

“Hi.”

He pauses a couple feet in front of her desk and swallows hard. He shaved recently, and he looks younger and sharper and somehow more likely to catch her off guard.

“Are you doing something super important for the future of Berk’s history’s maintenance or…”

She can’t quite stifle her smile, “not really.”

“Great,” he grins wider, all crooked teeth and genuine excitement and everything would be so much easier if Astrid’s heart didn’t skip like a turntable in a hurricane. “So, Al. I, safe message? If you don’t mind…”

“Right, sure,” she stands up too quickly, chair rolling back a few feet and smacking into a bookshelf.

“No rush,” Hiccup laughs, shoulders rigid and hands waving at her chair, “wouldn’t want you to break something in your excitement to help me copy something.”

“I haven’t put it away since last week, I still need to talk to Fishlegs about how we’d recategorize it as Grimborn-related,” she ignores his comment about breaking things and leaves her chair where it is, leading him down the familiar aisle between old yellowed papers to the table she set her findings out on.

“Does that mean there’s a special stack you send Grimborn-ologists to so that you don’t have to talk to us?”

“Well, that would be my solution,” she flips carefully through the paper to the picture, trying not to think about the vague wrinkles in the print from his hand clenching as he kissed her. “But currently Fishlegs’s solution is to just send them all my way.”

“Let me guess, it’s been busy?” He skirts around mentioning the recent murders, but it doesn’t matter. Sometimes it feels like all she talks about lately, as she leads curious, insensitive people to documents she then has to make sure they don’t take as a souvenir.  

She nods, “I hate to say you’re right, but you are pretty well adjusted, considering the crowd as a whole.”

“What makes you say that?” He cocks his head, reverently taking the paper from her and following towards the copier. The encyclopedias mock her when his hand brushes against her arm.

“You know, there was the guy who wanted his girlfriend to lay on the floor to pose like Elizabeth Smith,” she wrinkles her nose, “but I don’t know how even that compares to the guy who got angry at me because I didn’t magically produce modern crime scene photos to compare to vintage ones. He claimed this was a ‘decaying institution’ because I explained we obviously don’t have access to current police case documentation.”

“What an idiot,” Hiccup snorts, “this is a historical archive, there are obvious environmental controls to prevent decay.”

“That’s bad,” she doesn’t understand how he can melt more stiff tension than she can think through with a bad joke, it must go hand in hand with how he made her feel safe in dark alleys when logic and reality continually affirm she was anything but. “Come on, that was lame.”

“It got a smile,” he says, self-satisfied but not smug, and his eyes narrow when he sees the copier, “we meet again, old friend.”

“What?”

“The copier and I have history, remember? I tried to copy a comic book three years ago and jammed it up,” he sets the paper down picture up on the work table and pats the top of the copier with a careful hand, “the foundation of Fishlegs and my blood feud, as you put it.”

“Right,” she takes the paper and carefully folds it back to align the picture with the corner, “maybe I should press the buttons then, I wouldn’t want to involve myself in that drama.”

The copier is probably older than some of the archive’s collections and it takes a minute to turn on, its wheezing fan turning the silence awkward as Astrid’s worries whir back to life along with it. Hiccup is alternating between staring at his feet and the side of her face, brows furrowed.

“Thanks for letting me come by, by the way, and for the picture. And for finding the picture, in the first place, even though you were only doing it to prove me wrong, which you did, it clearly does have punctuation—but that’s not what I mean.” He doesn’t pause to breathe so much as to let the mental gears behind his eyes rotate fully so that he can pick back up where he got off track. “I uh…I guess I understand all the very real reasons you probably want nothing to do with me—”

“What?” She turns to face him, frowning.

“I’m just saying I get it, and I appreciate you being cool about it even as I’m…practically having a spasm over here trying to talk to you,” he laughs, high pitched and nasal, his arms flailing and smacking the copier. It coughs and she has to press the start button again. “And considering the size and scale of ass I made of myself at Gruff’s the other day, I get that other things that might have ummm…been said or occurred are likely voided, as it were—not that there was any kind of contract when you said and did them, I was just amazed someone as, you know, astounding as you seemed to be starting to like me, maybe—”

“Hiccup,” she reflexively puts her hand on his shoulder, sure that if she doesn’t hold him down he’ll vibrate into another dimension, “I let you give tours to my apartment, do you think I’d do that if I didn’t like you?”

“Oh,” he thinks on that for a second, eyes darting to her hand on his shoulder, and she carefully retracts it, flushing as he half smiles. She gets that bone deep feeling she’s going to regret what she just said as he opens his mouth to say something, but then thinks better of it and presses his lips together in a tight line.

The copier spits out a single, un-smeared picture and he reaches for it, already leaning away from her like he’s planning a great escape. That isn’t allowed and she grabs it before he can, setting it on the small table behind her and crossing her arms.

“What’s your problem, Hiccup?”

“Problem?” He blinks, long eyelashes adding to the innocent façade, “I wouldn’t say I have a problem, I think I just—the long and short of it is I met someone really…amazing, but I pissed her off before I even officially met her and for some reason she forgave me enough to go on a private tour with me and it felt—I don’t know, like we—but it doesn’t matter, probably, because then there was a murder. Except maybe it does matter because then we kissed and it was,” he’s so red he’s practically glowing but his frantic energy is dissipating with every word, like he’s exorcising himself of it, “and then we found another murder victim, together, which isn’t my ideal date or not date or…activity.”

“Mine either.”

“It’s not the association I really wanted, you know?” He winces but his chuckle is real, “but at the same time I don’t blame you if you look at me and see, you know, a modern times Grimborn murder re-enactment scene.”

“I don’t,” she looks at him a little too hard, taking in his open, nervous expression and the hope there that he’s trying and failing to put out. “You know, your problem sounds pretty similar to a problem I’m having right now.”

“Yeah?” He isn’t bad at pretending to relax, but his stiff upper body doesn’t fool her, “did me blurting it all out like an idiot help?”

“Maybe,” her small smile feels tired, “at least we’re on the same page.”

“That’s all I’ve been hoping for since you found this picture,” he points at his copy, “which is still amazing, by the way, I don’t think I’ve said that enough.”

“Just another thing wrapped up in Grimborn.” She shakes her head, “my apartment, my job, my…” She looks at him importantly, fumbling for a word that could encompass everything he just said and the way she feels when she looks at him. Excited and comfortable at all the wrong times.

“So we just don’t talk about Grimborn then,” Hiccup shrugs, shoulders forcefully easy as he leans back against the copier, knuckles white where his hands are gripping his upper arms.

“What else are we going to talk about?” Astrid pulls the original Enquirer out of the copier and folds it carefully on the table next to it, trying not to feel his eyes boring into the side of her head.

She knows he doesn’t ignore advantages and this time it makes her hold her breath.

“We could talk about the fact that you like me,” his voice dips at the end, conspiratorial, and Astrid can’t shake the feeling that the papers are listening, adding information to their tightly stacked volumes and storing it for later. “I’m kind of still wondering how I managed that.”

“Who says it’s not your Grimborn knowledge?” She wishes he was wearing the hat. The hat makes him bold and winking and silly, an act she can act back at. He’s vulnerable in an unzipped jacket and band tee-shirt she wants to ask him about and it’s an invitation to be vulnerable too.

She usually clicks tentative yes on those, hoping people get it means no.

“I thought we weren’t talking about him.”

Astrid can imagine all of those stories in all of those papers, all the people largely forgotten and lost in their own environmentally controlled, ink preserving worlds, turning away out of a well-deserved kind of respect. She keeps their secrets legible after all, the least they can do is keep her secret.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I can be a little intense,” she edges closer, finger messing with the copier buttons while she drags her eyes to his. Green even in the dingy corner of the room, soft and shy and locked on hers like he’s not going to let either of those things stop him.

“A little?” The corner of his mouth quirks into a quiet half smile, eyes squinting with that eternal curiosity that feels heavy and light and warm when directed at her. She could bring up Grimborn and re-direct it, but as convenient as that would be, she doesn’t want to.

“Most people want me to back off,” she tucks her hair behind her ear and watches him suppress a smile, “you don’t.”

“Back off? As in decrease the intensity?” He laughs, long arms flailing, hand brushing her arm and shrinking back, cautious and hopeful and jittery. “Never, why would—if anything increase it. More is better, right?”

She lets it hang long enough for him to get nervous, for the hope to condense into worry and indecision and the urge to open his mouth to keep convincing, “more intense then, is what you’re saying?”

“I umm,” he clears his throat, eyes scanning her face like he’s checking that she’s real and giving her reason to prove that she is, “wouldn’t mind. I welcome it, actually.”

Somehow, he still manages to be surprised when she grabs the back of his neck to pull him down to her, hands flailing and hitting the copier again when she kisses him.

Astrid will never admit to anyone, personalities trapped in hundred-year-old papers included, how many hours of sleep she lost not to thinking about murder, but to lamenting the fact that Hiccup kissed her before she kissed him. The cheek doesn’t count, that was impulsive and embarrassing and looking back with what she knows now, everything would be a lot less complicated if she’d acted on her full impulse then.

He wouldn’t have been stumbling on a body fifteen minutes later, for a start.

Kissing him first is better, she likes his shocked pause and sharp inhalation against her cheek before coming back to life with soft, careful lips.

It’s good for a lot of reasons that Hiccup recovers quickly from shock, but right now the only one that matters is his hands settling warm on her hips and pulling her closer. He kisses like he talks, meandering and endless, lips pressing trailing anecdotes along her jaw while she desperately wants him to get to the point.

The copier creaks and chimes when she leans harder against him, one hand in his hair and the other sliding under his jacket to feel the sharp lines of his shoulder blades. He feels stronger than he looks and his light grip on her hips feels teasing, half the story when she needs it all now. She nips at his lower lip to hurry him along and he manages to stumble while standing still, fingers digging into her sides for support at the sharp snap of breaking plastic behind him.

“Shit,” Astrid pulls back and Hiccup kisses down her neck, nose dragging along the collar of her shirt and making her shiver, “we’re breaking the copier.”

“I’ve fixed it before,” his breath is cool against the damp trail he left under her jaw and she closes her eyes, willing herself to pull back.

“Astrid is the one to talk about Grimborn with, it’s not really my specialty,” Fishlegs voice shatters the tension and she stands up too fast, straightening her shirt and wiping her mouth on the back of her hand.

Hiccup is not as quick, staring at her with a dazed, open expression, lips kiss swollen and hair sticking up on one side. She grabs his hand and pulls him away from the copier, swearing when one of the plastic trim pieces clatters to the floor, the clips on one side snapped off.

“Fix it fast,” she shoves it into his limp hands, trying and failing to pat down his hair as another voice joins Fishlegs’s.

“Ah yes, Astrid, I’ve been waiting to meet her,” it’s accented and polite, but something about it sends a chill up Astrid’s spine that has nothing to do with Hiccup struggling to make the trim piece stay in place.

“Oh?” Fishlegs is defensive, again, and she’s really going to have to talk to him about that.

“For the investigation.”

“Do you have duct tape?” Hiccup whispers, but it’s too late as Fishlegs is coming around the corner with a tall man in a gray uniform that matches the sinister undertone in his voice. Hiccup thinks fast and leans back against the copier again, holding the trim piece in place and waving at the newcomers.

“Hey Fishlegs,” he says brightly, despite Fishlegs’s scowl, and then his voice drops flat and unimpressed, “Mr. Grisly.”

“I should have expected to find you two together again,” the man in gray holds out his hand and when Astrid shakes it, it’s icy, not even vital enough to be clammy. “Mr. Grisly, head of the Neighborhood Watch Force, I’ve been invited to help investigate the recent murders and I understand you were unlucky enough to encounter a victim.”

“Yes,” she resists the urge to wipe her hand on her pants when he lets go, “I gave my statement to the police.”

“Of course, I’ve read it.” His grin is as dead as his touch, everything animated about him condensed in his eyes. “You have an interesting perspective on all of these unfortunate happenings.”

Saying luck and fortune too many times too close together makes them sound like badly veiled intention.

“I wouldn’t say I have much of a perspective at all,” Astrid shrugs, tucking her hands in her pockets, “all of it is in that statement.”

“You were hear to ask about Grimborn,” Fishlegs cuts into the conversation and Astrid is surprised that she doesn’t mind his protective tone for once, “I can actually help you with that.”

“Actually, I don’t think I’ll be needing your help, not with the real Hiccup Haddock expert right here.” Mr. Grisly gestures at Hiccup with those waxy fingers and he raises his eyebrows, shifting against the copier with a scrape of plastic that would be funny and awkward in any other tense situation. Here though, it just sounds like a pin dropping during a stealth mission, a weakness on display to someone looking out for one.

“I wouldn’t call myself a Hiccup Haddock expert,” Hiccup laughs, deflecting, “I know myself maybe a five out of ten at best, you might want to talk to Officer Jorgenson about that one.”

“I was speaking of the Viggo Grimborn suspect Admiral Hiccup Haddock,” Grisly’s chuckle is gravel thrown through a window, all solid malice and sharp edges, “although it does inform the current case to hear how clueless you are about your own actions.”

“Not my actions so much as my intentions,” Hiccup blanches, shrugging like there’s some hope of pulling this situation back towards the casual. “And my reasoning. Basically my trajectory in life, but I’m pretty solid on my own actions. What do you want to know about Admiral Haddock?”

“I’m just curious about the connection.”

“There’s no connection, the original book is fiction,” he elbows Astrid for corroboration, “right? You’ve read it.”

“Bad fiction,” she agrees and Mr. Grisly smiles.

“My favorite. Can you recommend me a version?”

“Uh,” Hiccup looks at Astrid out of the corner of his eye, realizing he’ll have to move, and she tries to look casual putting her hand on the piece of loose trim. Her fingers brush a little low on his back when she does and she can’t hide her blush with a stoic expression so she just tries to avoid Fishlegs’s eyeline. “Sure, I know where they are in the library upstairs.”

“How helpful,” Grisly’s approximation of delight is more menacing for his dedication to it.

“Anything for the investigation,” Hiccup steps carefully away from the copier and looks at Astrid seriously for a second, “talk to you later?”

“I’m sure you will,” Grisly and Fishlegs say in unison with exact opposite intonation, Fishlegs’s arms crossed as he purposefully stands in the way and forces Hiccup to walk around him on the way to the stairs.

Hiccup and Mr. Grisly are barely out of sight when the other side of the copier trim pops free, waving in mid-air.

“And he broke the copier, again.”

Astrid sighs, taking the trim piece off and setting it on top of the machine, “to be fair, we both had a part in that.”

“He broke the copier,” Fishlegs raises an eyebrow, “and I told you to check out a study room.”

“Nothing happened, we were just…arguing about Grimborn.” She rubs the back of her neck, willing the heat to dissipate from under her hair.

“Right, that always gives me a hickey,” he looks pointedly at her neck and she pulls her hair forward to cover it.

“It won’t happen again,” she nods, “and he said he can fix it.” She doesn’t mention the duct tape comment, there’s no way that would go over well. They don’t even have scotch tape at their desks because glue and old documents is such a bad combination.

“What do you see in that guy anyway?” Fishlegs oversteps, yet again, but Astrid’s almost glad that someone finally asked. “You used to be so determined to get him away from you, what changed? And why does he have to be here so often?”

The last question dents her last clinging scrap of resolve and she lets it go.

“Has anyone ever thought you were a little too academic, Fish?” She tries out the nickname, letting this feel like friendship even though that risks more awkward questions.

He snorts, “there was a time in elementary school that I legitimately thought my middle name was ‘get your nose out of that book, young man’.”

“One second it was something to be proud of that I was the first Hofferson to go to college,” she shrugs, faking noncommittal even though that word has never applied to her, “but when I came back having learned things, suddenly I was uppity, disrespectful. Hiccup…he seems to like it when I’m right. He doesn’t even mind when I’m loud about it.”

“Here I thought we were bonding,” Fishlegs smiles, “I thought you were finally going to admit you’re just fascinated with the top hat.”

“You caught me,” she punches him in the arm and he winces, “come on, that did not hurt.”

“I barely know you Astrid, and I’m as sure that you are freakishly strong as I am that you aren’t uppity or disrespectful,” he rubs his arm and weighs that, “well, disrespectful to priceless collections of Brittanicas, maybe—“

“Shut up about the encyclopedias or I’ll hit you again,” the threat is empty and friendly and final, getting Fishlegs off of her mind and letting her wonder about Mr. Grisly with her full attention. She doesn’t hesitate as much as she would have thought before texting Snotlout, hoping for a little illumination, as he doesn’t seem very good at keeping his mouth shut.

Astrid (5:02pm): some guy calling himself Mr. Grisly just came by my work

He doesn’t answer right away and she tries to focus on work, but documentation isn’t really holding her attention after all that happened in the last hour. Especially knowing Hiccup is just upstairs with ostensibly the creepiest man she’s ever met while her lips are still tingling from that kiss.

“So this is the glamorous job that lets you afford your own place,” Ruffnut interrupts, strolling down the stairs and perching on the edge of Astrid’s desk, wrinkling the corner of an old shipping manifesto.

Seeing Ruffnut hasn’t brought on so much relief since that first night in her apartment when someone downstairs started yelling murder.

“My job is to keep stuff like this safe,” Astrid pokes her friend’s butt until she scoots off of the paper and then sets a heavy book on it to press the creases flat.  “And my apartment is cheap.  What’s up?”

“Tuff needed to drop off a check upstairs so I thought I’d come say hi, like the thoughtful and attentive friend that I am.”  Ruffnut’s smile says otherwise and Astrid sighs, still ultimately glad for the distraction. Her eyes were starting to glaze over trying to find a reason to name a stupid shipping manifesto for thirty bushels of apples as important in any way, especially when so many other things obviously are.

“You’re here to brag.” Astrid doesn’t expect the flash of frustration, bordering on jealousy, given that she and Hiccup have been on however many not dates by now and Ruffnut is the smug one.

“I was going to say gloat but brag works too,” she laughs, “also, I did forget to get his number so if you could help me out with that…”

“You’re telling me you never found a moment of pause to get his number?”

“Nope.”

“Ok, gloat is a better fit, I see that now.” Astrid’s phone rings, Officer Snotlout Jorgenson flashing on the screen, “speak of the devil.”

“Wait, why’s he calling you?” Ruffnut tries to snatch the phone but Astrid beats her to it, “he should be calling me.”

“Then you should have given him your number,” she picks up, too aware of Ruffnut leaning down on the other side of the phone to listen, “what’s up?”

“I’m not actually a weirdo who calls people, I just don’t want a written record of bitching about Grisly as long as I have to see his stupid face at work every day,” Snotlout starts, “what was he doing talking to you?”

“Just asking about the investigation,” Astrid glares at Ruffnut, turning her office chair away so to try and minimize the eavesdropping. It seems smart given she can’t trust Ruffnut not to run around threatening disembowelment. “The investigation that you’re calling about, the one with the current murders and I happened to find one of the bodies, so it pertains to me.” She drives in the point.

“Duh, Astrid, keep up,” Snotlout laughs and she grits her teeth.

“Not having a problem with that, thanks, but who is this Grisly guy?”

“Thought you were all caught up,” he teases but apparently thinks better of it and continues, “no but it’s probably good you know because Hiccup won’t remember not to antagonize those NWF fucks—“

“NWF?”

“Again, since you’re so caught up, I’ll pause and explain that Grisly douche is the leader of these pseudo-police assholes acting like they own the place because a few condo developers are paying him out the ass to keep the streets clean, because apparently public cops aren’t good enough for rich people.”

Astrid groans internally, remembering Hiccup mouthing off while trying not to remember his mouth.

“Well, I wish I’d known that a minute ago because he left with Hiccup—“

“Shit,” Snotlout sighs, “I love the guy but keeping him out of jail is a full time job.”

“Ugh, you guys bonding over your boyfriend being an idiot is boring,” Ruffnut groans, “give me the phone, I’ll ask for his number.”

“No,” Astrid shushes her, but it’s too late.

“Is that Ruffnut? Is she there with you?”

“No.”

“Give her your phone, I have to tell her something,” he pushes and Astrid rubs her temple.

“Is it your number? Because then I could stop being your go-between.”

“Nah, it’s about last weekend—“

“No, I’m hanging up now,” Astrid doesn’t wait for an answer before doing exactly that and turning back to Ruffnut. “Are you done gloating?”

“Since I can tell you’re done listening to it, sure,” she shrugs, “the gloating was mostly just a bonus anyway, I was going to ask if you wanted a ride home.”

That’s almost sweet enough to mute her annoyance and she starts to thank her for the offer and decline, but then she thinks of what Snotlout said and the hollow, manic look in Grisly’s eyes. The idea of him being in command of people doesn’t scare her, but it makes her nervous. She’s never been less sure that this whole situation is only going to get worse and she hates it.

“Sure, I’ll take a ride, I was just about to pack up anyway.” Astrid declines an immediate call back from Snotlout and texts Hiccup instead.

Astrid (5:21pm): how’d that go?

“Sweet, more time to get that number out of you,” Ruffnut grabs Astrid’s bag for her.

“Not a chance.”

[zrtranscripts]

Season 8, Mission 8: Seal My Fate

Deck Shoes

~

[rain pours, boat engine rumbles]

SAM YAO: [shivers] It's been a long time since it's been just me and you, hasn't it, Five? It's nice. Well, I mean, it's not nice. It's raining buckets. But now and then, I like having you to myself. [laughs] At least it's not another storm today.

So this is Shipwreck Cove. Pretty amazing, isn't it? The ships rusting away, half sticking out of the water. They must have been running aground on the rocks here for years. Look, look, there's one over there that looks like something out of Captain Hornblower. Or you know, Pugwash. 

Tom was right. If we can make our way across them, we should be able to get to the small island unobserved. Although it doesn't look like it's going to be easy. But you'll give me a hand if I need it, won't you, Five? Yeah, of course you will. You haven't let me down yet.

Yeah, okay, we're getting a bit close to the shoals]. You'd better cut the engine. Tom reckons you can hitch a ride from the small island on the automated boat that takes supplies from there to the scientists on Dearg. He's getting to the rendezvous by scuba diving because... because that's the kind of thing he does. And I think he thought that the fewer people travel together, the better. But we need to keep that radio equipment you're carrying for me dry. And then hopefully you'll find something that will help Janine.

Did you see her this morning? [sighs] I mean, she's walking again, but you can see from the way she winces that every step hurts. Paula's analyzed her blood. She might have as little as two weeks left. But we're going to make her better, which means we need to catch that boat. Which means we need to jump over to that first hulk and run across it fast as we can. Come on Five, let's go!

~

[rain pours, waves splash, metal creaks]

SAM YAO: Bloody hell. This ship's more rust than metal. Oh, we'd better get across it quick as we can before it falls apart completely. What do you think it used to be? Fishing boat, I reckon. You can still smell that kind of salty, rotten whiff. There's so much stuff like this now, isn't there? So decayed, you can't even tell what it was meant to be for.

You know that building in [?]? The big red brick one that used to be a school? All these cheerful colored swings and this one wall where so many kids had chucked a ball against it, you could see the dent! Anyway, just before it all went pear-shaped with Sage, I sent Runner Fifteen on a mission down that way. And the school's just... crumbling away. There are trees growing up through the courtyard, and the wall with the dent's fallen down. In 10, 20 years, you won't know there used to be a building there at all.

I don't know. Stupid. With Janine so ill, and after... after Ellie, I keep thinking about it. What we leave behind when we're gone. I mean, there's Sara, and that's amazing. But I want to make a difference. Everything's decaying away, and then there's Abel. And I really feel like we're building something. Or maybe just laying the foundations for other people to build it. 

Well, that's good, isn't it? Nothing lasts long without good foundations. But I don't think we'll be able to get any of it done without Janine. [laughs] She'd raise an eyebrow and look all schoolmarmish if she heard this. But I think she's the heart of us. So we have to save her. We just have to.

[metal creaks] Crap. I think I jinxed it with all that talk about decay. The hull's cracking, can you see? We need to get off here, make for the next ship along. Run!

~

[metal creaks, water splashes]

SAM YAO: Oh wow, look at that, Five! We only just made it across in time! I've never seen a ship just - just fall apart before! At least this one's less rusty. Huge, too. And it's the last one before we get to land. Yeah, I can see the shoreline up ahead. And – oh my God, are those seals? They are, look! Lots of lovely fluffy seals with big sad eyes! Well, not that we can see the eyes from this distance. We've still got quite a lot of deck to cross. I think this was a cruise ship. See? Over there, Five. What used to be the swimming pool. Full of algae and frogs now, but the deck chairs are only a little bit rotten. Can't have been wrecked that long ago.

What was a cruise ship with a swimming pool doing north of Scotland? Do you think it came here during the apocalypse? Trying to find somewhere safe from the zoms? [laughs] I remember there were all sorts of stories flying around then. How there were no zoms at all on Hawaii, or how if you played a zom a recording of its own voice, it would turn back into a person. We were desperate to believe what was happening wouldn't be forever.

Maybe that's the sort of thing that got stuck in Jones' head. He thinks that if he's the king of the rocks, then everyone will like him again and he can go back to being a happy kid. Do you think it was the Edda that did that to him? Like, he read it and something in it sent him over the edge? I mean... well, you'd have to be an expert in Old Norse to read the original. On the other hand, he is very single-minded.

Did you ever read it? It does break off at that very tantalizing place. [deepens voice] "When that the circles shall grow upon the bay of five arches - " [returns to usual voice pitch] They reckon that might be a reference to [?] Bay near Exmoor, actually. The Far Hebrideans were big traders and they might have seen it. Anyway, yeah. [deepens voice] "When that the circles shall grow upon the bay of five arches, then the day is come and the only road to stop its progress is to - !" [returns to usual voice pitch] and then it breaks off. Well, that's where someone nicked the pages from the only surviving version before anyone had thought to make a good copy of it. Cliffhanger, eh? Like Netflix for the post-apocalypse age. What do you reckon?

Oh crap. See up ahead, Five? A life boat's fallen down and blocked the deck. Uh, yeah, we'll have to try and find a way below. Um, how about this door that says crew entry only? [door creaks open] Oh wow. That's a lot of tartan. Almost enough to cover up the bloodstains. It's creepy, isn't it? Yeah, it's the places that are meant to be fun that are the worst. All the gold trim, and the pinball machines. And look, over there. A ball pit for the kids. And all totally empty.

[zombies growl] Can you tell where that growl came from, Five? Was it ahead or behind? How many zoms do you think are down here? No, doesn't matter. We have to keep moving forward. We have to get to that island before the boat leaves. Look, here's a schematic on the wall. If we go through those double doors, we'll reach the dining room – [door opens, zombies moan] Oh crap! Crap, crap! Someone must have got infected during dinner. I've never seen so many zoms in black tie! Look, there's a door on the far end that leads back out onto the deck. If we run really, really fast, we might make it before they catch us. Let's go.

~

[rain pours, zombies moan, water splashes]

SAM YAO: Well, I said dry land. More like razor-sharp seaweed-covered rocks. And uh, oh yeah. The zoms are still coming. The rocks are actually going through their feet. Oh, it seems to be giving them a better grip! You know, I was having a chat with Morag Brown, the baker, the other day. I think she's the sort of me for these islands. She knows everyone. Everyone knows her. She's always telling everyone's business. Not that I'd tell anyone's business.

Anyway, sorry. What I meant to say was Morag says Chief Macallan's been keeping a tally of zombie sightings. They're still going up even though Jones doesn't have any way to make new attractors. Maybe you and Tom missed a few components. Or he's worked out some other way to do it.

[sighs] You know, Five, I really do try to see the best in everyone, but it's hard with Jones. I mean like, either he started out killing the Laird's brother here, or he didn't. Morag reckons the brother might have just slipped and fallen, and Jones was so weird, everyone blamed it on him. But either way, he has kind of leaned into that murder persona.

I really thought we were going to be here for a few days, you know. Find Jones, cure Janine, get the Edda, eat some porridge, go home. And it's not like it's not pretty here. I'm starting to think we're going to be here for ages. But I miss my home. I don't think I've ever gone this long without seeing Maxie and Sara. It's lovely talking to them, but it's not the same.

And I didn't like what Maxie said in her last message. They think someone might have got infected by the red fungus on the beaches. Like, not from a zombie bite. Turned zom from touching the fungus with a cut on their hand. It is new and weird and I don't like it and I want to be with my family! Oh God, those zoms are fast. Still, we're nearly at the beach now. Just one more push. Come on!

~

[rain pours, zombies moan, seals honk]

SAM YAO: Oh, we made it! Actual proper dry land. Also, seals! [laughs] Um... have they always been this big? Oh yeah, of course. They're elephant seals. Zoe told me about them once. It's amazing how much one woman can talk about animals. She said they can grow up to 20 feet long and weigh 8000 pounds! The zoms are giving them a wide berth.

Bloody hell, the seals are actually heading towards the zoms. Do you think they want to make friends with them? [zombies splatter] Oh my God. They're - the seals are just tearing those zoms to shreds. That seal over there headbutted one and it burst like a ripe melon! Go seals! [laughs] I don't believe it. They've wiped out every single zom that came ashore! The beach is basically just zom sushi!

Those seals are amazing! They're so strong, they're – oh crap. They're all looking at us. Um, why didn't Zoe told me they could move that fast? Oh. We need to get away from them, Five. And from the zoms that are still on the rocks. Come on, run!

~

[rain pours, seals honk]

SAM YAO: We made it! I mean, we're still being chased by huge angry seals and slightly smaller hungry zoms, but they're all behind us. Although they don't seem to be slowing down much.

TOM DE LUCA: Over here! Lead them towards me!

SAM YAO: Oh, thank goodness! It's Tom on the rock up ahead. He'll know what to do. I don't know what you and Tom are going to find on Dearg Island. So far, most of the scientists we've met have been either power-mad or homicidal or whatever the hell Moonchild was. But they can't be as dangerous as Jones. 

It's worrying how quiet he's been recently, right? He's plotting something, and we all know it's coming. And until we figure out what it is, there's nothing we can do to stop it. [sighs] I hate that feeling. [gunshots] Oh my God, Tom's shooting the seals. Tom! Stop shooting the cuddly animals!

TOM DE LUCA: Rubber bullets, Sam!

SAM YAO: Oh. Oh, oh, right, yeah. You've scared the seals off. Oh, and now they've turned back on the zoms. They're ripping into them with their - ! Ugh. Actually, I don't think I want to watch any longer.

TOM DE LUCA: You've arrived just in time. I can see the automated boat through my binoculars heading towards shore. Sam, if you set up shop there, you'll be close enough to remain in radio contact with us through the mission. Everything else is down to us. Are you ready to head off, Five? My sister's life could depend on the success of this mission!

~

[the-blind-geisha]

You Say It Best, When You Say Nothing at All - Chapter 9

A/N: 10 chapter commission for @blustersquall of her OC, Isla Octavia and Gladiolus Amicitia~. The entire thing will be NSFW but each chapter will be rated accordingly~.  

Pairing: OC x Canon / Isla Octavia x Gladiolus Amicitia     

Words: 4,267     

Rated: SFW     

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|| Commissions ||    

“We were told of the behemoth daemon just as you were,” Prompto explained to Gladiolus and Isla to catch the two up to speed as they all found themselves sitting about the campfire that endless night. “There have been reports that say it’s not a normal one—has like, uh…wings and things.” He leaned forwards on his knees a bit, shrugging. “Some have started calling it a Behemoth King.”

 “Larger than normal as well,” Ignis sighed, reluctant to depart with that information. “I’ve done a fair bit of research on it before Prompto’s and my arrival here and found it to be quite weak against broadswords and shields.” A smile could be seen in the golden glow of the firelight. “It was why I was hoping they would request you along.”

 “Yeah,” Prompto added with a nervous laugh. “You’re the only guy we know who uses those well.” His fingers tapped together for a second in somber thought. “Not many have been reported to make it back alive or even in one piece when going near that thing, so we have quite the hunt to expect ahead of us.”

 Gladiolus smirked at the compliment, his forearms finding comfort on his knees as well. He tapped his foot against the haven’s ground in thought. “I will do my best.” When he noticed Prompto kept looking towards Isla now and again, the Shield motioned towards her knowing that the gunman never truly got a good chance to know Isla beyond the title of ‘girlfriend’ for awhile when they were on the road. Even when she was in the hospital in Lestallum, Gladiolus preferred he visited her alone or with Iris and as the years had gone by, Isla was looking slightly different than from the old pictures the warrior kept on his phone. “Isla, this is Prompto,” Gladiolus introduced, motioning towards the brighter blond there in the group. “Prompto, Isla.”

 Isla smiled and laughed quietly to herself. “It’s a bit strange that out of everybody I never really got to see you and his Highness that much.”

 “Yeah, well, Gladio wouldn’t let me near you at all,” Prompto confessed with a joking tenor to his words. “Guess he didn’t want competition and all of that around.” Gladiolus merely scoffed over the campfire’s crackling melody at the idea. The gunman smiled, waving from across the flame of where he sat to Isla. “It’s nice to finally meet you, really. If it weren’t for Ignis assuring me you were real, I would have assumed he was lying to us that there was someone he was dating.”

 She laughed to herself, nodding in a sort of understanding. “It is good to know you are real too, Prompto. It is a delight to get to meet you at long last.”

 Prompto stalled for a moment, tapping his fingers on his leg he had folded across his other. “Maybe, uh…when Noct gets back you can meet him too.”

 The words sounded heavy and seemed to leave a harsh impact on those at the fire who suddenly went silent after the thought. Gladiolus himself shook his head free of whatever ideas were plaguing him in that regard, hoping to focus on the task at hand. “So, when do we set out?”

 “Whenever you’re ready to,” Ignis informed, wishing to change the subject as well. “It patrols, to our understanding, near the remains of the Costlemark Tower in the Fallgrove a bit south from here.”

 Gladiolus shrugged his brow, curious. “So that’s still standing, hu?”

 “Ever vigilant are the stones of our ancestors in comparison,” insisted Ignis poetically in the matter. “I will warn you that in the death and decay of this world the ground has withered, and it is best I advise you to be cautious where your footing lay in the surrounding area upon our arrival.”

 “Some of the foundation has been pretty unstable to say the least,” Prompto continued, gesturing a bit with his hands to get the point across. “When I was trying to take pictures of it myself two or so years ago, the ground gave way about the tower, and I fell underground.” Again, a nervous laugh sputtered past his lips as he rubbed the back of his head. “I was lucky Dave and Ignis were there or I might have been buried alive below ground in what remains of that place.”

 “So I guess the stones of our ancestors aren’t that sturdy, are they?” Isla asked with an apprehensive look about the fire as the very idea a giant behemoth could make the entire foundation collapse was a bit frightful.

 “Which reminds me—keeping up with your training, have you Isla?” Ignis inquired as his blank stare seemed to look in her direction from what she could make out with the firelight’s aid.

 Isla nodded as her eyes turned to Gladiolus nearby. “Yes, I’ve been training beside Gladio from time to time when not running the bar I’ve started to maintain in Lestallum. It’s been quite enjoyable.”

 “I’m sure your teamwork is immaculate,” Ignis complimented.

 “I say we get on the road then and put that to the test,” Isla insisted as she knew waiting around a campfire hearing horror stories about what they were to face was only going to make her nerves become weak.

 “I’m ready when you guys are,” Gladiolus said from the dark, causing Prompto and Ignis to take to their feet with Isla and prepare for their trek to the Costlemark Tower.

 Prompto stayed ahead with Isla, making Gladiolus himself feel a bit awkward in allowing someone like Prompto to go first but after the last few encounter with daemons they endured, he noted how much stronger and capable the gunman had become than when they last were all teamed up. The Shield was well aware of Isla’s abilities, and while he watched her closely he knew she could handle herself without fail.

 “Never would have imagined Prompto could actually became capable on his own,” Gladiolus confessed in private to Ignis as the two took up the rear.

 A small laugh emanated from the advisor. “As the Shield of our group you were always intent to protect him and Noct the most, seeming to be fearful they would fall without you.” Even in the darkness of his vision, Ignis could feel Gladiolus respond with a small breath at the comment. “It is all well and good to be cautious for those you feel are less likely to defend themselves properly but it is also wise to let them grow without your guidance or they will never find their footing.”

 “Yeah…” Gladiolus whispered, rubbing the back of his head at Ignis’ words that applied beyond just his views of Prompto. “About that…I’m…sorry for how I treated you back when you first lost your sight.”

 Ignis turned to the words, paying close attention to the other sounds about him as he needed to be alert always. “You were doing what you felt was right, Gladio, and I do not fault you for that.”

 “No, I was doing it the wrong way keeping you to where you couldn’t learn to overcome your disability,” Gladiolus insisted firmly on the matter. “I’m glad you were able to do it on your own, but I should have been aware you would with how long I’ve known you, Iggy.”

 The advisor smiled but changed the subject in time as he listened to the small banter between Prompto and Isla up ahead. “How have things with you and Isla been lately?”

 Gladiolus did have to admit he was impressed. Even as they walked in the darkness Ignis seemed to be mindful of the terrain without anybody’s help. Nobody would be the wiser that he was actually blind. “Just fine really. We have our moments but honestly our times together out fighting daemons and uncovering information about the former kings has been helpful in how we feel about one another.”

 Appeared Ignis caught something in his wording, making him raise a single brow to the comment. “Oh?”

 He chuckled to himself, shrugging as he knew his friend already probably had a general idea of what Gladiolus had in store. “It’ll come together in time—you’ll see.”

 Ignis was about to say something but stopped himself as his expression went from relaxed to firm and prepared. “Prompto, Isla—stop where you are!” he ordered in a low yet assertive tone. As he stood, the advisor could feel the ground trembling and the amount of force used to cause such distant tremors reminded him of a far heavier behemoth. “Get back to us this instant!”

 Prompto outstretched his arm to keep Isla from going another step further. He didn’t feel anything right away but given the small missions he ran with Ignis from time to time whenever the advisor dropped by Hammerhead, he knew when the blind man could sense something he could not. “What is it, Iggy?”

 Isla moved backward, standing beside Gladiolus in time as she fixed her gloves and taping about them to prevent her knuckles and bones from ever hurting too badly whenever they landed a blow. The Shield summoned his broadsword while Ignis took to his spear.

 “A faint trembling ahead,” Ignis confessed in a low whisper, unaware of how well the behemoth could truly hear. He fixed his visor upon the slope of his nose. “There’s quite the quiver of the earth, and I smell a faint bit of blood on the air…” A frown pricked at the corners of the man’s lips. “If that is our target it must have just killed…”

 Gladiolus turned towards his lover, his fingers curling in ready upon his weapon. “Isla, do you think you can patrol ahead for us? You’re the lighter of any of us on your feet, and you’ll be less likely to be spotted.”

 “Leave it to me,” Isla insisted, staying low and quiet as she hurried as fast as she could ahead of the group to find out if the king behemoth truly was just dead ahead. The terrain had rotted and changed no thanks to the endless nights and the constant patrol of daemons, leaving her at a loss of where they truly were at the moment. The grass was overgrown in some places, allowing it to be perfect for her to use for cover as she came upon the gentle slope of a hill and a few old relics of a structure long past near the area.

 Hands to the aged stone, Isla peeked out from beyond the old (supposed) archway to note that indeed the silhouette of a behemoth was there in the distance. Her eyes adjusted to the scene, allowing her to take in that it was larger than any other behemoth she had seen or been told about and the wings felt like the daemon was a mutation of frightful power.

 “Shit,” she swore to herself, backing up just a bit to try and get herself in view to wave the others over but insist on them being quiet in the process. Gladiolus and the others joined her, leaving the Shield to hiss in disapproval as well at the sight before them.

 “That thing is massive,” Prompto commented, hardly sounding afraid but more pointing out the obvious.

 “Do you see what it may have killed?” Ignis asked, the scent of blood stronger than before.

 Gladiolus shrugged as his eyes addressed the situation. “Not from here. I hope it was another daemon and not some hunter or civilian in the area. So…how do we plan on taking on this thing?”

 Isla chuckled to his minor worry of the situation she could just hear in his words. “You can still take a few hits, big guy. I can back you up if you need me to.”

 Ignis and Prompto were both quiet, unsure of what Isla was capable of, so they let that idea remain in Gladiolus’ hands. When the Shield said nothing of the sort (merely scoffing playfully) Ignis spoke, “Are you comfortable with that, Gladio?”

 “Yeah, she can handle her own just fine.”

 “Remember: the king behemoth is weak to broadswords and shields—you’re our man in this, Gladio,” Ignis continued in a whisper. “Prompto and I will do our best to support you both as you draw its focus.”

 Gladiolus turned to Isla. “Ready, sunshine?” He saw her nod in the darkness, getting into position as though she were going to start landing punches on the beast even with it being several feet away. Hooking his arm about hers, Gladiolus spun about with great force and launched Isla ahead into the fight before anybody else.

 Isla was ready—as much as her heart was pounding coming straight for this large and unpredictable beast—she knew she could do it with the guys there to assist her.

 Her feet landed on the muzzle of the daemon, giving her room to propel herself upward when the behemoth turned to look her way as Isla’s scent caught his attention. As she gave herself distance between her and the daemon, she heard Gladiolus shouting at her once more. She hardly even had to know what he was saying to open her nearest hand to catch the broadsword that was thrown in her direction.

 While she was able to grab his weapon with one hand, she needed both to use it as she wasn’t near as strong as Gladiolus was in terms of fighting with such weapons. With Prompto’s gun catching the attention of the daemon, Isla found her chance to move downward with great force to strike at the behemoth’s face, trying to crack at least one of the horns for the sake of trading later.

 The daemon roared angrily, swiping about in a mad rage as the horn chipped under the force but didn’t break right away.

 Isla prepped herself for landing, spying Gladiolus’ shield that he had raised above his head to give her the landing spot she needed where the two were able to exchange weapons—Isla granting the sword back to its owner as she summoned her daggers. “All you, big guy!”

 “Just watch my back,” Gladiolus insisted with a smirk. “I am sure this daemon will summon others if we’re not careful.”

 “I just really want that horn,” Isla confessed as she started to throw her own daggers at the face praying that she may blind it in the process too. “I am sure it will come in handy at the bar as a nice little decoration or be worth quite the bargain for more alcohol and food.”

 He rolled his eyes, using his swings wisely against the creature and raising his shield at the proper moments when the beast turned its attention fully on Gladiolus and Isla with the others able to attack it from the sides or behind. “We can use the entire body for whatever we need—you can saw the horn off later.” He was playing around with her as he knew Isla was aware of when to focus.

 “Watch yourself!” Ignis ordered to Prompto who he could hear nearby. The weight of the behemoth was huge but in every action, the advisor could sense the harsh cut in the air when it turned. Prompto was quick to respond, falling to one side to avoid being struck by the daemon’s tail as it swung his way while Ignis merely back-flipped out of the way before tossing his spear once more at the backside of the target.

 As the battle raged onward, the team was beginning to grow weary but they could tell the king behemoth was nearly on its last leg. “It’s nearly down! Just hang in there, everybody!” Prompto called, switching to his bazooka.

 Isla kept her injuries on the mend, watching Gladiolus as well to be certain he too didn’t fall. If Prompto and Ignis happened to be nearby in a critical state, she would see to them as well but at the time, she let those two pair off on their own during the fight. The behemoth was unpredictable in its movements, leaving them to guess where it would go. It had, in rage, knocked down part of the outer wall about the Costlemark Tower and was moving more inward much to their dismay with how unstable they knew the foundation was becoming in the years.

 As Isla kept to the outer ring it had created, she felt a warning tremor underneath her feet as the daemon continued to stomp about and snap its jaws angrily at Gladiolus. “This isn’t good…!” she whispered to herself in fear as she knew the more inward they went the more likely it would be the ground would give out from underneath them. “Gladio, back up!”

 With the loud snarls and the teeth inches from his face, Gladiolus was doing his best to keep himself alive than fully ingest what Isla was shouting at him. “What!” His blade swung, cutting one of the front canine teeth off of the daemon in the process of trying to deflect its incoming jaws. Right before he could feel triumph in the moment, he felt it then as the ground quivered an ungodly sensation and leaving him stunned in the moment.

 “It’s going to collapse!” Prompto panicked, not wishing to be buried alive again as he scurried away from the behemoth king to let the terrain finish the beast off for them.

 “Everyone, retreat to better ground! We cannot fight it here—!” Ignis halted in his words, feeling the ground quake once more followed by the sounds of the upper structures beginning to fall inward to break away the center piece that used to prevent outsiders from ever intruding inward during the day.

 “Gladio!” Isla shouted, running inward as the relics of the past were beginning to fall in on itself. He was so preoccupied with keeping the behemoth at bay he was hardly finding it within himself to escape.

 The behemoth had enough of the Shield, causing it to try and use its hind legs to pounce upon the man; but in the force of the act, the structure finally gave way underneath him and caused the mighty daemon to struggle with its talons to keep a steady foothold on the top. The stones fell one by one, prompting the king to yell one more time in rage filled anguish till it disappeared underground.

 Gladiolus dismissed his weapons and tried to turn and run for safety but the act of the gods was too swift for him and it was in the moment he felt himself falling backwards after the behemoth. His mind was racing a mile a minute so he hadn’t even thought to register what was truly going on till he felt Isla’s hand on his wrist, bringing him back to his senses in the act.

 She had tried to grab him in hopes to hoist him upward but in her feeble attempt she found herself falling with him. Isla knew she wouldn’t be able to pull him to safety but if he was going to be buried alive, she wouldn’t let him be so alone. There were too many times the gods tried to separate them, and each time she wouldn’t let them have their way.

 Not even having the moment to scold her, Gladiolus pulled Isla closer to his chest as the rubble fell all around them. His back facing the direction in which they would fall, he made sure that if there was any force to strike them he would take it completely.

 Darkness…

 Both were rendered unconscious as soon as the ground met them. Isla felt her fingers twitch ever so when she slowly came back to herself. Eyes fluttering open to the dim lighting of the former tower, she noted that the stones had nearly buried her had it not been for Gladiolus having moved after reaching the bottom of the relic of time. He was on top of her, doing his best to keep the stones from crushing her any worse than they probably already had on the way down.

 Seeing the Shield out cold with blood dripping from his head and mouth, Isla’s voice rose in a panic. “G-Gladio!” She tried to move but in her attempt to do so, she realized most of her body was pinned by him and the stone pieces of the tower that followed them under. “Potions…! I have to find…!” Her fingers finally graced what she was looking for, pulling the bottle out from where it was to heal the wounds Gladiolus had sustained and hopefully bring him back to himself.

 He stirred shortly after the use of the medicine, a moan rumbling in his throat as he shook himself awake. “I-Isla…?” he stammered in return, his amber eyes adjusting to the darkness around them to make certain it was indeed her. “Are you…alright?”

 “Yeah,” she confessed with a weary laugh. “But what about you? You’re the one pinned underneath all these stones.” She had to admit she was a bit worried he may have broken something.

 He turned, acknowledging what had him corralled in place before grabbing onto some of the stones to lift them up just a bit to test if his body was indeed alright after all of that. “I’ll be fine,” he insisted, pushing against the ground to give Isla the room she needed to escape from underneath him. Without much effort, she moved as he insisted without speaking a word before he followed behind her.

 Isla turned her eyes skyward, noting that the way up seemed like an impossible black hole of nothingness. “This place is a giant wreck. How are we going to get out of here?”

 Gladiolus had to be certain himself that his legs were okay after being buried as he was. Miraculously…he found his back was a bit stiff and hurt to move in certain ways but other than that he was just fine. Seemed the gods knew when to take pity on him after all. “I’ve been in here before,” Gladiolus confessed, shaking his head to try and bring himself fully back to his senses. “It’s been years but…when I was out with the guys before going to Altissia we were asked here a few times for things.”

 “The entire upper part of the building collapsed,” Isla felt need to remind him with worry. “Do you think that we’ll be able to get out of here with most of it destroyed now?”

 Gladiolus sighed through his nostrils. “The lower we go the better we’ll be.” He summoned his sword, using it as a crutch to push himself upward as his legs were beginning to hurt a bit too now that he was starting to apply more pressure to them. “We…there’s a device at the bottom we triggered that should teleport us to the top somewhere when we did this shit before.” He stabilized himself. “I hope it’s still active.”

 “And if it’s not active?”

 The Shield groaned at Isla’s pessimistic response. “Let’s cross that bridge when we get to it.” Though, to be fair, he wasn’t sure if the teleporting device would even have access to the upper part of the tower anymore. It all depended on what was destroyed on the way down.

 Isla turned and looked about in the dim lighting of the tower. “I don’t see the behemoth’s body.” While she knew the creature was near death and it would be silly to just leave it unfinished she was more concerned about the fact that was a lot of meat and other things to leave behind that they could bring back to Lestallum.

 “It couldn’t have fallen too far from us with all things considered,” Gladiolus said, looking about as well, finding it odd a creature that size just vanished. “But it does have wings…so there’s a fifty, fifty chance it’s above us right now giving Prompto and Ignis hell.”

 “Fantastic,” Isla sighed with a roll of her eyes. “Then we better get going as you were the only one dealing impressive damage to it.” She hurried to his side, trying to help him stand upright at the very least as she could see he was a bit wounded still in some ways from that fall. “Are you going to make it? How are you feeling…?”

 Gladiolus shrugged his brow as he walked ahead through the nearby corridor that was still very much standing. “Well, I was the one to fall on you, sunshine, so I should be asking you the same thing.”

 She laughed to herself, aiding Gladiolus through the maze like tower that he claimed he had been in before. “I don’t remember much. I guess if it did hurt, maybe I landed on one of my potions and it healed any injuries I had on accident.”

 The Shield couldn’t help but laugh himself at the thought of such dumb luck. “Wouldn’t that be a blessing?” Stepping out into the nearby passageway, Gladiolus tried to get his bearings straight as he nodded down the left of the connecting corridor. “This way—I think. We need to get to the bottom as quickly as possible, and it is quite a ways from here.”

[evolutionsvoid]

The Underworld is a fascinating place for a natural historian like me. Honestly, it should be fascinating to just about everyone! An entire world far below our roots, filled with all types of exotic flora and fauna. While many would be quick to see the Underworld as a place of rocks and barren stone, it is truly filled with a variety of ecosystems and habitats. While it remains miles below the surface, it shares some similarities with our world, but with an odd twist! They have forests, but they are made of fungi, not trees. They have rivers, but they run through flooded tunnels and stone tubes. They have a starry sky, but it is just glowing creatures that cling to the rocky ceilings. There are sometimes when you travel through the Underworld when you forget where you truly are! On the flipside, though, the Underworld faces some unique challenges. The lack of light is one of them, where many creatures have adapted to an eternal darkness. The demons and shades, though, have taken to using lightstones to illuminate their cities and aid in growing crops. Another is a multi-layered environment. Imagine what life would be like if us surface dwellers had to worry about the sky crashing down on us! Another, and this one is forgotten a lot, is that the Underworld is a closed system. While we have the sun and the open expanse of sky, the Underworld is restricted by its thick layers, many tunnels and intricate networks. While we can travel as the crow flies, demons and shades must navigate the hundreds of tubes and tunnels that connect everything together. That doesn't just apply to them either! Nutrients must follow these systems, as does water, air and, most importantly, waste. I do not mean to make this section seem gross or immature, but the subject of waste matter is incredibly important for the Underworld. The flow of nutrients is crucial for making its many ecosystems work. While we can rely on the plants to bring in new food and energy from the sun, those down below do not get these free lunches. All the food and nutrients they have down there is all they are ever going to get. So one cannot allow nutrients to go to waste or be forgotten. This applies directly to waste and any other excretions the fauna may create. Scavengers and coprophages are needed to consume these byproducts, so that the nutrients can be thrown back into the cycle. They also need to exist to keep the Underworld from being flooded by their own waste! Those who stick up their noses at those who feed on fecal matter should take a lesson from this entry, and see how important these creatures are to the ecosystem and world.

The reason I bring up this subject of waste and other nasty byproducts is because I wish to talk about Mound Roaches. These insects are the Underworlds 1# champ in waste cleanup and nutrient recycling. To even guess at how many of these insects exist in the Underworld is mind-boggling, as a single cavern may contain thousands of them at a time! While certainly plentiful, these heavy numbers are only seen in certain areas of the Underworld. Mainly where heavy numbers of bats, clingers and other ceiling dwellers live. From heavy populations comes heavy amounts of waste, and that is what Mound Roaches thrive on. In certain caves, the entire floor of the room may be covered in a lake of fecal matter, and the Mound Roaches are the fish who inhabit these foul ponds! Hundreds of them can be seen swarming across the surface, feeding on anything that is near their mandibles. The ones you see in such hordes are the males of the species. Male Mound Roaches only grow to the size of your thumb, staying at that size for the rest of their lives. The males make up most of their populations, as dozens of them can hatch from a single laying. The females are not as plentiful, but that is because of their impressive size! The ones I have seen have grown to the sizes of dogs! The large females dwarf the males, though the males have them beat by sheer numbers. The females primarily exist to lay eggs and spawn more brood. Since males live incredibly short lives, the female must churn out eggs constantly. They lay eggs pretty much every single day, releasing dozens of hungry larva each time! Though the Mound Roaches feed primarily on waste, they are opportunistic eaters who will devour anything that gets near them. Voracious in appetite, they will happily feed on fungus, plant matter, rotting matter and flesh. Though they can devour meat just as eagerly as fecal matter, they do not hunt. Instead, they merely wait for a meal to stumble into their feeding grounds and get bogged down by the filth. Ceiling dwellers who fall from their perches may survive the initial impact, but they must scramble out of the foul sea before they are devoured. When prey falls into their homes, the Mound Roaches swarm in an instant. The thrashing and flailing of the victim draws their attention, and they will come in droves. Sharp mandibles will slice through flesh, and a hungry horde can strip a full grown demon to the bone in just a few hours. Thankfully the victim won't live nearly that long! The one thing that is not consumed by the roaches is fresh bone. Bones are too tough for them to chew up, so they wait for other organisms to weaken it first. As the bone breaks down and decays, than they shall feast. Until then, Mound Roaches find these leftovers perfect for personal defense. Since the females are so few in numbers, they seek to protect themselves from predators. Building a mound of waste, the female shall perch herself on top, so that she can easily see everything around her. The pillar of waste is also great as an escape hatch, as she can dive into it to avoid the claws of a swooping predator. Adorning her mound will be bones of previous prey, which is waiting to be broken down. Until they rot, she shall use them as armor and deterrents, warding off predators with bony spikes and thick plates. These decorated mounds were once mistaken for a species of slime by surface dwellers a long time ago. Seeing a semi-liquid body with prey chunks sticking out of it, many assumed that they were related to the slimes. What further confused us was the fact that these mounds move! With the constant scrabbling of males, and the semi-solid state of fecal matter, the mounds of a female will slowly move its way around the area. The movements are quite subtle and slow, but with a sharp eye, you can see the columns slide about, as they are constantly forming and reforming. People didn't see the hiding female and assumed it was an actual slime! That is why you may see entries for the Ravenous Slime in certain ancient textbooks. It was a mistake by us silly surface dwellers! With their massive populations, Mound Roaches are a favorite food of many Underworld creatures. Predators who swoop from above or cling to the walls will pluck males from the muck and enjoy an endless buffet. Those who feed on them, though, should be careful! They could become food for the Mound Roaches instead if they fall in! Many have adapted ways to prey upon the roaches, who are practically infinite in their numbers. With that, the Mound Roaches sit as the foundation of the food web, bringing nutrients back into the cycle after it has been discarded.  

While many inhabitants feed upon the roaches, the demons and shades who live below do not. In fact, they are often the ones who feed the roaches! By that I do not mean that the roaches eat them, oh no no. They can, if given the chance. A clumsy demon or shade who falls in their hordes will be readily devoured without hesitation. It is not a pleasant way to go, and some clans have taken advantage of that. To disgrace their fallen enemies or captured warriors, kingdoms would throw their prisoners into pools of Mound Roaches. Not exactly a dignified way to go. This method of execution has mostly vanished (though some unwanted folk may seemingly "disappear" from time to time), and the demons feed the roaches in a completely different way. After all, when you live in a city made of rock and stone, where does all the waste go? Yes indeed, demons and shades use the Mound Roaches as waste disposal. 

Since dwellings are often stacked upon each other, personal latrines are not really a manageable thing. Instead, inhabitants dispose of their waste in specified pots. When these pots fill up, or when the scheduled emptying comes up, the inhabitant will take it to a "chute." "Chutes" are specially dug tunnels that are used to dispose of garbage and fecal matter. These small openings often lead downward, into a specially made cavern that is filled with Mound Roaches. Each chamber can have dozens of chutes leading into it, giving the Mound Roaches an endless rain of food! When cities are built, these chambers are the first to be made. No one wants to live in filth or catch diseases, so they make the "chutes" easily accessible and close by any major living areas. While most chutes are made solely for dumping chambers pots and throwing garbage out, some are turned into public latrines. These are usually found near marketplaces and public areas. They come in long rows, with many stalls being carved from the rock. Doors are fastened to these stalls, and inside is an elevated seat with a small hole that leads directly into a chute. If you were a demon or a shade, you would just park your tush on top and take care of business. The waste would fall away and that would be that! These stalls are quite convenient to have, though they aren't quite built for outsiders. The main thing is that demon and shade anatomy is greatly different from a dryads. I sure don't have legs that long! Also they don't do too much in sakes of decorating or personalizing. They do not have floor mats near the seats, which wouldn't be a problem if the ground wasn't solid rock. Really wears on the knees over time. Then again, how many times do you have a dryad visiting the Underworld? I guess I should bring my own mats if I find it so uncomfortable. The chutes are such a major staple of their homes and cities, that their name has cropped up in many different sayings. Doing a "chute run," is when you take your chamber pot out for dumping. Imps and young shades usually have "chute runs" on their chore list, something that they should perform every morning and night. The term "chute throat" is an insult for those who have bad breath, while "food for the chute" signifies worthlessness or that one is garbage. The word "chute" itself is synonymous for latrine or toilet. I have heard it dropped in casual conversation many times. "I gotta see a chute" is one I have heard a lot. "Time to run the chutes" is another. "I gotta take a chute," is not a common one, unless you are Valac. Heard that one a lot from him. You would think he would stop eating such big meals before excursions, but nope. I swear that by the time I get back to the surface, I am going to be saying that same phrase without thinking twice. Chlora Myron Dryad Natural Historian

[criminalmindscastandquotes]

Criminal Minds Opening and Closing Quotes: Season 4

Season 4 Episode 1 Mayhem

Hotch: Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime. – Ernest Hemingway.

Season 4 Episode 2 The Angel Maker

Hotch: “We all die.  The goal isn’t to live forever.  The goal is to create something that will.” Chuck Palahniuk.

Hotch: Wendell Berry said, “The past is our definition.  We may strive with good reason to escape it, or to escape what is bad in it.  But we will escape it only by adding something better to it.”

Season 4 Episode 3 Minimal Loss

Reid: “To follow by faith alone is to follow blindly.” Benjamin Franklin.

Prentiss: “Reason is not automatic.  Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it.” Ayn Rand.

Season 4 Episode 4 Paradise

Hotch: Thomas Fuller wrote, “A fool’s paradise is a wise man’s hell.”

Hotch: Roman poet Phaedrus wrote, “Things are not always what they seem; the first appearance deceives many.  The intelligence of a few, perceives what has been carefully hidden.”

Season 4 Episode 5 Catching Out

Prentiss: “Plenty sits still.  Hunger is a wanderer.” Zulu proverb.

Prentiss: “Beyond the East the sunrise, beyond the West the sea/ And the East and West the wander-thirst that will not let me be.” Gerald Gould.

Season 4 Episode 6 The Instincts

Hotch: “Who speaks to the instincts speaks to the deepest in mankind and finds the readiest response.” Amos Bronson Alcott.

Reid: “I think the truly natural things are dreams, which nature can’t touch with decay.” Bob Dylan.

Season 4 Episode 7 Memoriam

Reid: “What was silent in the father speaks in the son, and often I found in the son the unveiled secret of the father.” Friedrich Nietzsche.

Reid: “There is no refuge from memory and remorse in this world.  The spirits of our foolish deeds haunt us, with or without repentance.” Gilbert Parker.

Season 4 Episode 8 Masterpiece

Rossi: “Let us consider that we are all insane.  It will explain us to each other; it will unriddle many riddles…” Mark Twain.

Rossi: “Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation.  The foundation of such a method is love.” Martin Luther King, Jr.

Season 4 Episode 9 52 Pickup

Prentiss: Author Harlan Ellison wrote, “The minute people fall in love, they become liars.”

Rossi: P. J. O’Rourke wrote, “Cleanliness becomes more important when godliness is unlikely.”

Season 4 Episode 10 Brothers in Arms

Morgan: “We are all brothers under the skin, and I, for one, would be willing to skin humanity to prove it.” Ayn Rand.

Morgan: “… For he today who sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.” William Shakespeare.

Season 4 Episode 11 Normal

Hotchner: “Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats.” H. L. Mencken.

Rossi: “There’s no tragedy in life like the death of a child.  Things never get back to the way they were.” President Dwight Eisenhower.

Season 4 Episode 12 Soul Mates

Reid: “No mortal can keep a secret. If his lips are silent, he chatters with his fingertips; betrayal oozes out of him at every pore.” Sigmund Freud.

Morgan: British historian C. Northcote Parkinson said, “Delay is the deadliest form of denial.”

Season 4 Episode 13 Bloodline

Prentiss: Winston Churchill said, “There is no doubt that it is around the family and the home that all the greatest virtues, the most dominating virtues of human society, are created, strengthened and maintained.”

Hotchner: Mario Puzo wrote, “The strength of a family, like the strength of an army, is in its loyalty to each other.”

Season 4 Episode 14 Cold Comfort

JJ: “And so, all the night-tide, I lay down by the side/ Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride.  In the sepulchre there by the sea.  In her tomb by the sounding sea.” Edgar Allan Poe.

Rossi: “For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who don’t believe, no proof is possible.” Stuart Chase.

Season 4 Episode 15 Zoe’s Reprise

Rossi: “I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.” Albert Einstein.

Rossi: Austrian novelist Marie Von Ebner-Eschenbach wrote, “In youth we learn; in age we understand.”

Season 4 Episode 16 Pleasure is my Business

Hotchner: “The prostitute is not, as feminists claim, the victim of men, but rather their conqueror, an outlaw, who controls the sexual channels between nature and culture.” Camille Paglia.

Season 4 Episode 17 Demonology

Prentiss: “He who does not punish evil, commands it to be done.” Leonardo da Vinci.

Rossi: “There is no heresy or no philosophy which is so abhorrent to the church as a human being.” James Joyce.

Season 4 Episode 18 Omnivore

Hotchner: “Fate is not satisfied with inflicting one calamity.” Roman author Publilius Syrus.

Hotchner: “Men heap together the mistakes of their lives, and create a monster they call destiny.” John Hobbes.

Season 4 Episode 19 House On Fire

Hotchner: “We all live in a house on fire, no fire department to call; no way out.” Tennessee Williams.

Hotchner: “I have loved to the point of madness; That which is called madness, That which to me, is the only sensible way to love.” Françoise Sagan.

Season 4 Episode 20 Conflicted

Reid: “Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong.  No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.” Terry Pratchett.

Reid: “Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too.  They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.” Stephen King.

Season 4 Episode 21 A Shade of Gray

Rossi: Dr. Burton Grebin once said, “To lose a child is to lose a piece of yourself.”

Rossi: “Without a family, man, alone in the world, trembles with the cold.” Andre Maurois.

Season 4 Episode 22 The Big Wheel

Hotchner: “In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present.” Francis Bacon.

Morgan: “No matter how dark the moment, love and hope are always possible.” George Chakiris.

Season 4 Episode 23 Roadkill

Hotchner: “I’m not sure about automobiles.  With all their speed forward, they may be a step backward in civilization.” Booth Tarkington.

JJ: “The human voice can never reach the distance that is covered by the still, small voice of conscience.” Mahatma Gandhi.

Season 4 Episode 24 Amplification

Reid: “It will become fine dust over all the land of Egypt and it will become boils breaking out with sores on man and beast through all the land of Egypt.” Exodus 9:9.

Reid: “Security is mostly a superstition.  It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it.”  Helen Keller.

Season 4 Episode 25 – 26 To Hell…And Back

Hotchner: “If there were no hell, we would be like the animals.  No hell, no dignity.” Flannery O’Connor.

Hotchner: Sometimes there are no words, no clever quotes to neatly sum up what’s happened that day. Sometimes you do everything right, everything exactly right, and still you feel like you failed. Did it need to end that way? Could something have been done to prevent the tragedy in the first place? Eighty-nine murders at the pig farm, the deaths of Mason and Lucas Turner make 91 lives snuffed out. Kelly Shane will go home and try to recover, to reconnect with her family but she’ll never be a child again. William Hightower, who gave his leg for his country, gave the rest of himself to avenge his sister’s murder. That makes 93 lives forever altered, not counting family and friends in a small town in Sarnia, Ontario, who thought monsters didn’t exist until they learned that they spent their lives with one. And what about my team? How many more times will they be able to look into the abyss? How many more times before they won’t ever recover the pieces of themselves that this job takes? Like I said, sometimes there are no words or clever quotes to neatly sum up what’s happened that day. The Reaper: You should have made a deal. Hotchner: Sometimes, the day just… (Fade to black.  A gunshot is heard) Hotchner: … ends.

[istrys]

Memories of a Requiem Pt 4

A clench of the fingertips was all it took as he violently ripped his hand away, the sound of her pliable hyoid clacked several times as it hit the wall and floor. He left Istrys coughing and bleeding along the floor as he took his sweet time to meet the eyes of all the others. Syrahn, the Priestess, gasped desperately for air as the panic overwhelmed her, barely escaping the grasp of the undead he summoned. Rethandus was attempting to balance and recover his undead composure after being caused abrupt trauma by the former Spell-Breaker. At this point, the Hunter Ijiro was the most likely to be able to focus on his target- if it were not for the hyperventilating Priestess that held his heart captive. To sum up the situation, it was a clusterfuck.

He held the advantage and he knew it. More aberrations crawled into existence from the stone walls and floor as the structure began to give way around them. Much to Whistan’s pleasure, it was merely more stone behind the crumbling interior. A short burst of dark energy later, the door was slammed shut and trapped them all within the dim and grimly dark prison meant to contain him. The irony allowed him the slightest of grins. Unholy power sparked flashes of bright green as the bolts of energy cracked against the walls emanating from him. The power he gathered and held for decades unlocked with his true self being unleashed from his own mind. He was locked away no longer.

Tears stained the stone floor as Syrahn struggled to bring herself up. Her hands rested on the cold foundation of the room as she desperately looked to Whistan, wishing this was all a mistake- all a nightmarish dream. Within her broken heart, she knew that this was the direct result of her actions in wanting to help a broken man. She winced away from another bright green spark that flashed nearby as it burned her face. Istrys also remained on all fours as she attempted to focus on her newest enemy, taking advice from the Val’kyr spirit of Vesk bound to her. She stretched her right arm out as if casting an incantation but her words drowned from within her broken throat. Whatever she was attempting was interrupted with a swift kick to her teeth from Whitstan’s boot.

 “Annnnd let’s stop that right there.” he commented calmly as he looked about with a calculated gaze. “I said one of you all could walk away from this alive. But you’re still intent on fighting me. That wasn’t the point, if you hadn’t figured it out by now.” he explained void of agitation or emotion. “The point is… that all of you have a choice right now. I’d like to think I’ve evened the playing field for the most part, maybe not so much for my Death Knight brother and sister. Rethandus seems to still be intact, Istrys, has a well-deserved handicap. And I really, really truly do appreciate your help Lady Bloodfeather. Also, Ijiro, you’ve been such a true friend. I’ve left you both mostly intact. So… I suppose maybe… it’s the living against the dead at this point? I’ll let you figure it out.” he commented as he thrusted himself into a seated position on the stone table he was laying on not too long ago. “Now that the ground-rules are clear, do we understand each other?” he asked openly glancing to each of his opponents. “Hmmn?” he sounded out inquisitively. He wanted to ensure his guests were receptive.

 Syrahn refrained from speaking, letting her gaze drift toward the stone floor; her body trembled as images of her family at Whitstan’s mercy flashed through her mind. Fearing this man was a sensation she thought she had long forgotten, but such a dreadful sensation was flooding back to her all at once. Whitstan was once again a colossal threat, only this time she didn’t have Alucieus and an army of seasoned soldiers to defend her.

“You did this…” Rethandus hissed through his frozen teeth. “I told you this would happen, and you didn’t listen…” Syrahn slowly closed her eyes in a desperate attempt to hide her grief, but the stream of tears flowing freely down her cheeks told a different story. “Your precious family… all the friends you stabbed in the back… I hope you remember their faces well… when you die.” A light laugh escaped Whitstan’s grin, “Oh, don’t blame it all on her. Ijiro helped. But so did you and Istrys. Let’s not blame this all on the one person who was an altruist in all of this. At least she had good intentions. Blaming her for your misfortune… that’s not very fair… is it… Rethandus?”

 “Rethandus…” Ijiro slowly opened his eye to stare maliciously at the Harbinger. “... that’s enough.”

 “No…” Rethandus shot his glare at Istrys, who was still struggling to keep the weight of her head from snapping what was left of her throat. The ghouls seeping from the walls remained still, awaiting their master’s orders; it seems Whitstan was truly intending them to kill each other for his amusement. “If this black-haired bastard won’t bury you both… then I will!”

 The Harbinger shot forward toward Syrahn and Ijiro, crushing a ghoul’s head into the wall with his shoulder along the way. A sneer escaped Whistan’s visage as a spark of green lightning reanimated the destroyed ghoul. He wasn’t about to suffer a disadvantage masked by vengeance. He would hold his advantage regardless of anything. Ijiro leapt to his feet once Rethandus got close enough, putting all of his might into his left hook to smash against the Harbinger’s face. Rime showered Syrahn as a result of the forceful blow, but it was only enough to slow him down, not stop him.

 Rethandus slammed Ijiro into the wall, sending his knee upwards into his stomach. While the Hunter coughed out in pain, a frozen gauntlet connected with his face, splattering blood onto the Harbinger’s shoulder.

“STOP! STOP IT!” Syrahn wailed, too terrified of Rethandus’ wrath to come to Ijiro’s aid. With a bloodstained grimace the Hunter struck back, smashing their foreheads together in an attempt to give himself some room. His hand shot back for a hidden blade tucked behind his waist, and he thrust it forward with hopes of slicing Rethandus’ skull open like a coconut.

 Unfortunately he saw the blade coming from a mile away. Rethandus caught Ijiro’s thrust by his wrist, stopping it just before the tip of the blade pierced his ghostly pale skin. The Hunter struggled to finish the Death Knight off, but his wounds were starting to catch up to him; slowly Rethandus turned the blade toward the Hunter’s throat.

 “Oh… that’s not very fair.” Whistan commented as a ghoul protruding from the walls grasped at the dagger, then another joined in from nearby. They assisted Ijiro in turning the blade back. “I like you both. A little bit. But Ijiro is such an earnest fellow. Let’s not cut him short just yet.”

 “I’m sorry Reth…” Ijiro spoke, inadvertently spitting blood at him. “I can’t let you kill the Light of my Life.” With the assistance of the other two ghouls, the Hunter gained just enough strength to begin pushing the blade toward the Death Knight again. The Harbinger fell to one knee while he grabbed his own wrist to help stop the blade from piercing his eye, but he had to use all of his strength just to keep it at bay.

 Syrahn held her mouth in horror while they struggled to kill each other, but a faint hissing caused her gaze to fall to Istrys. Before she could speak, the rune beneath the Necromancer’s feet violently erupted in a blast of light, sending her flying up into the ceiling as the lesser undead trapped with them in this cell were instantly incinerated.

 Whitstan cradled his face as the blinding flash disintegrated his creations. He grit his teeth as more green lightning sparked along the walls with him as the epicenter. Several decaying and skeletal hands broke through the infrastructure as the shrieking voices of women and children joined the cacophony of noise within the room. He shook his head rapidly to rid himself of the influence that had smashed against his consciousness. “That’s not very nice… Istrys, I didn’t know you could still cast spells. Maybe I need something to fix that?” he continued as the arms of darkened spirits protruded from the walls to strangle her. “I thought I was giving Syrahn and Ijiro the advantage? But then again… if he won, he’d just try to fight me or kill himself to save her. This is somewhat interesting.”

 “You want interesting?” Ijiro barked, pausing to drive his blade into the head of the nearest ghoul. “Every guard in the Glade heard that explosion… you’re going to die down here with the rest of us…”

A boisterous laugh echoed throughout the room. “I’m already DEAD. If you think a few guards will stop me, then I will let you embrace that dream as your dying thought. Whether I live or die, I will win here. They will be too late. Worse comes to worst, I will murder all of them on my way out before setting the Amber Glade aflame. So… convince yourself of whatever you need to justify what you’re about to commit. I’m more than happy to wait here and hear the justifications. Just beg me for mercy if you need the help.” he commented before he offered a malicious wink.

 He continued to rasp out with a malevolent tone. “The only way you can walk away from this with any sort of victory… Ijiro… and I share this with you because I think you’re my friend… is that you kill all the others and let your lover survive. She will be able to rally a force against me. Maybe even save the Amber Glade. As I said, the winner of this fight… I will let live. Even if that means I must withdraw. But that offer comes with an expiration time. And that is tonight alone.”

 “W-Whitstan…” Syrahn finally spoke, slowly gazing up at the former Spell-Breaker. “Don’t do this… you are better than th-this… please… let us go…”

 The raging sapphire hue that existed in his eyes dimmed for just the slightest moment as he regarded Syrahn. “It’s… no longer up to me, my Lady, but your vassal. Let’s wait to see how it all plays out?” he responded with a smirk. With Istrys incapacitated from her rune, and Rethandus barely strong enough to stand, driving the knife through their heads would be easy; for a moment Ijiro genuinely considered it, if there was the slightest chance Syrahn would escape this nightmare.

 “Will you torture my family like this?” Syrahn asked, with her tears burning in her eyes. “We’re your friends!”

 He sighed. “And that’s where you misunderstand me so greatly… I’ve bent over backwards to give you all the chance to live… yet no one is embracing the opportunity. It almost breaks my heart…” he said as he looked to Syrahn again, with a somber expression. “But I need you all to make the choice. Who lives and who dies? It sounds difficult… but it’s really a simple decision.”

 “Alucieus will hunt you down to the ends of the earth for this.” Ijiro weakly spoke, collapsing to one knee; he tossed the dagger away as a final ‘fuck you’ to Whitstan. He would never dance to someone else’s tune, not now, not ever. “Before you grow tired of us and end our lives, tell me something, yeah? Will you have that smug look spread across your face when the Sun’raels avenge our deaths?  I hope it’s Kaevia that finishes you off, once and for all.”

 “I’ve survived the blades of both the Sun’rael brothers. You think invoking their names would cause even a moment of hesitation-.” His mind paused as it swam through a torrent of memories he refused to consider.

They ate venison by the fire and washed it down with whiskey. During each stitch she made into the tabard was coupled with sentences of stories and past mistakes laced with mishaps that he was keen on reciting to her. A dozen times she had prompted him during their walk through the woods to the manor house but only when they settled, did he finally give in.

 He cradled his head has he shook again, viciously, to wipe the thoughts from his mind. “As I said… You must…” he spoke out before he paused. His concentration was shattered while he continued to speak. The memory invoked by a single word seemed to affect him more than should be allowed.

 The longer she held it, the more she found herself looking to pry on how the Death Knight obtained it. Certainly it held some significance and furthermore, there might have been a strong chance that he didn’t remember. After all; Whitstan didn’t seem able to recollect many of her memories and in that, Kaevia had offered to assist him once the Legion had been dealt with. For all they knew or hoped for, was that neither of them would have fallen in battle before such things could be brought into light. Much of her pitied the Knight but furthermore just found an odd compassion within him as if though it never truly died with him when his lungs stopped reaching for air. The compassion and care was stale but it was that none the less.

“What is this… I… You must all die before… All of you will suffer my wrath.” he barely voiced out as he continued to eye his potential victims. “The deal still stands… one of you wi-” he began to shout before another memory triggered.

 After having sated her curious mind and trying to have Whitstan try every drink and nib of food she had in the manor – to test his taste buds – the Priestess was not long falling asleep within the chair and the fireplace crackled into cozy flames to time worn embers by the time the morning rolled around and still…still Whitstan remained as watchful as ever and far from the need of rest and recuperation.

 “I… could care less of your… glances at my memories, Syrahn.” he stood. “This is but a means to an end, And you all should simply embrace the end…”

Syrahn saw her moment and took action. She quickly shot up to her feet and pushed her lover away, pausing only for a split second to point the open palm of her right hand directly towards Whitstan’s face. She had to make this count. The threat of her family, all three of her sisters, and all of her nephews and nieces, fueled her with a righteous fury she had never felt before. Her penance shot forth from her hand with the intent of searing the flesh off his skull, sending a blisteringly white volley of Holy Light to purge Whitstan and cleanse him of his existence. Three seconds was all it took to fire four bolts of her wrath, filling the cell and the hallway of the dungeon with enough illumination to light Silvermoon City.

Both Ijiro and Rethandus charged at Whitstan, using their combined yet diminished strength to slam the former Spell-Breaker against the wall; the Harbinger used every ounce of his might to pin his left arm while the Hunter did his best to subdue his right. Syrahn rushed forward soon after, leaping over the table with both of her hands extended. The moment her fingers brushed against his temples, a burst of shadow magic danced along her fingernails, seeping into Whitstan’s chaotic mind once again.

[currents-you-create]

The Unnamed Feeling- Character Sketch

A silent corpse like boy lay on the bed of his dark room lit only by the afternoon sun. The black blankets were pulled up past his shoulders laying over the long hair that was draped over his neck. He had been awake long enough to hear his mother and father leave for work. His father claimed to work overtime at a factory, but it was quite obvious he spent a lot of time at bars. It was well past noon when he finally emerged from the depths where he slept. Cherry red hair fell like a waterfall past his shoulders and down his back, covering scars new and old. Ghastly white skin visibly hugged the bones of his frame, making him comparable to a holocaust survivor. Though he spent a majority of his days in bed, dark circles formed underneath his sunken violet eyes. He was a beautifully tragic entity. He made his way down to the kitchen to scan the cupboards for food that he knew he wouldn't eat. He consumed barely enough to survive, it was an abuse visible on every part of his body. The kitchen of his 1950’s home was a dumping ground for junk papers and unnecessary documents. Each person in the house knew how long a document had been sitting on the countertops by observing the amount of dust that accumulated. This morning there was something new; a note from his mother. “Harry,” it read: “mow the lawn and clean up the basement.” Harry left the kitchen to return to his cave, making his way up the stairs slowly, and weakly. His steps down the hallway were intoxicated and swerved between the parallel walls.     Unlike most houses in the bright suburban neighborhood, Harry’s house bear no photographs or decorations on the walls, and was furnished as if the residents would be moving out soon. Harry’s room was an exception, however, it smelled like misery and dirty laundry. The slate colored walls wore a few lazily applied band posters and illustrations. Scattered on the floor among piles of clothing lay disconsolate drawings that portrayed Harry’s melancholy. The drawings featured such gruesome torture,it seemed as if his parents brewed some kind of misanthropy in his conscience.     He picked up a red shirt from a pile of clothing of the same color, and cautiously pulled it over his skeletal arms laced in self harm. His long shirts and sweater vests were armour, protecting him against the stab wounds of his parents, who would never truly understand the things he did to himself. A sense of life came from razors, and knives, and ropes and prolonged starvation. They could never understand the pain he went through alone, a cold, numbing pain he felt every morning when he woke up disappointed having not died in his slumber. How could they understand when they are the cause of the pain? How could they, when the never wonder why their beautiful, once healthy son is now a skeleton. The wind, a gentle summer breeze nearly knocked the paper thin boy over when he stepped outside. His skin crawled at the exposure to the sun, and his body resisted movement,like a pile of bricks. Every movement exhausted his malnourished body as he tried to start the lawn mower. The object was like walking an anvil as if it were a dog. Droplets of sweat ran down his now reddened face, indicating ultimate defeat. He pulled out a lighter and lit the cigarette he had stolen from his mother.   After another lengthy fight with the stairs, Harry tore open the curtains in his bedroom. Dust floated among the rays of natural light like bubbles. At the bottom of his desk, he extinguished his cigarette, and arranged his tools for illustration. In a few short moments, Harry’s attention was shifted to a world of meticulous detail and somber imagery. Completely oblivious to the world around him, and attentive only to the thoughts in his head. Anger and helplessness became horrific masterpieces, imaginable by only one mind. Hours later Harry sat on his swivel chair with his feet propped up on his desk. He held a bottle of liquor, one of many he bootlegged into his bedroom. “I’ll kill you if I ever catch you drinking”,  his mother would say. She hadn't killed her husband for it yet, though. Bitter liquid ran down his throat and burned as if he had taken a bite out of a cinnamon stick. His head still throbbed from any amount of alcohol he consumed. The thought of his mother beating him for it didn't stop him from taking another sip of the whiskey he was currently drinking; in fact it encouraged him to drink more. He had taken one last swig of whiskey before screwing the cap back on and placing it behind his desk, in time to hear his mother’s heavy footsteps making their way up the stairs and to his bedroom. Harry resumed his relaxed position on the swivel chair, the dark walls of his bedroom stared back at him like a prison cell. “Why isn't that lawn done, boy?” His mother asked in annoyance. Her raspy voice that was infected by thirty years of smoking rang in his ears. The smell of Marlboros still took over her breath. “Evening, Phyllis, good day at work?” Harry sneered scornfully. “You little rat, you better get that shit d-” “Sorry, I was just on my way out.” He interrupted and stood to grab his jacket. “Your father will hear about this, you lazy bastard.” She raised voice and reached to grab her son. Harry observed the rotting teeth in her mouth, and the wrinkles on her angry face. He saluted his mother and nudged her out of his way. She followed him down the hall scolding him, “I ask you to do one thing and you never get your ass out of that damn room. Get back here you little rat!” Harry had made his way down the stairs and to the door ignoring his mother, “Give Frank my regards, won't you? And if it isn't too much trouble to ask, shut the bedroom door, I like to keep the heat in. Cheers!” After he shut the door, he was sure he could still hear his mother cursing.     Most of the trees in his neighborhood were bare, and every day got colder than the one before. The cold air made Harry sniffle and his finger tips turn a fleshy shade of purple. It wouldn't be long before snow would begin to fall.  Leaves on the dimly lit sidewalk crunched under his lonely footsteps. The houses were lined up like headstones, as if he were walking through a cemetery.     Harry entered the driveway of a large house with a neatly trimmed lawn. The plants that lined the foundation of the home began to decay with the cold weather, and the flowers fell to the cement. He knocked gently on a green door and opened it slowly.     “Harry, Harry!” a blue haired boy greeted him with a tight hug. The front room where the boy sat was dimly lit by the television and a bright light from another room.     “Hey, Manny, where’s Robin?” he greeted the blue haired boy.     Manny pointed to the bright light that flooded into the dark room, “Kitchen, Robin is in the kitchen. Harry I’m watching a movie, come watch a movie with me.”     “I have to talk to Robin. I’ll watch TV with you later, buddy.” Harry kicked off his shoes and hung his coat by the door.     “Robin is in the kitchen, Harry.” Manny repeated.     “Thanks, buddy.” Harry tousled Manny’s thick blue hair and disappeared into the light of the kitchen. “Hey, Rob, mind if I crash here tonight?” he asked and leaned against the refrigerator crossing his arms. “Not at all. You hungry? Dinner is in the fridge.” Robin stood a few feet away, scrubbing dishes in a metal sink. “I’m fine, thanks.” “What brings you here tonight? We don’t see much of you anymore.” Robin inquired without initiating eye contact. “Phyllis. And I can’t be bothered to deal with Frank either.” Harry pushed his red hair behind his ears. Robin tilted his head and took a sharp breath through his nose as if something was different about Harry, but quickly ignored it with good faith. “I thought I would be out of there by now, y’know?” he sighed. Robin took on a motherly tone, “You should-” he took another sharp breath, “Harry have you been drinking?” “I-” “Have you learned nothing from Frank? And Manny’s father too?” “Easy for you to say. You have perfect parents.” Harry straightened his position from the refrigerator and tightened his crossed arms. “Harry, my parents are dead. Both of them. If I didn’t know better I would do the same thing.” “You just don’t understand.” Harry said to the one person who had the cognitive ability to understand. “I understand perfectly. Don’t you care about Manny?” “Manny doesn’t get it either, he’ll never get it. And if he does he’ll do the same damn thing.” Harry snapped. “We raised Manny to know better. At least I did.” “Good for you, buddy.” Harry muttered under his breath, “He’ll probably end up just like his dad.” Robin was filled with rage. In a swift but powerful blow, his reddened fist struck Harry’s pale face. Taken back, Harry gripped his nose, catching drops of thin blood. “I raised Manny to know better, you know that. What is wrong with you lately?” Robin  yelled. “Robin? Harry?” Manny said gently. “Manny, I-” Manny examined Harry’s bloody nose in confused fright while the two men stared blankly at each other. The little boy turned to Robin, “Robin that hurts, punching hurts. Why did you punch Harry? You hurt Harry.” “Manny,” Robin stuttered. “Hitting is bad. Hitting is bad.” Manny repeated. “Look, kiddo, I’m okay. Just a little blood, I’m okay.” Harry tried reassuring the distressed boy who was now in tears.     “Hitting is bad. Hitting is bad, Robin, hitting is bad.”     Harry opened his arms and pulled Manny close to calm him down, “That’s right, Manny, hitting is bad. So you don’t hit others, right?”     “Hitting is bad.”     “That’s right, so what does Robin say?”     “Sorry. Robin says sorry for punching Harry. Robin says sorry.” the boy pointed at Robin.     “Harry, I’m sorry.”     “See? It’s okay. Everything is okay.” Harry consoled and wiped the remaining tears from the boys eyes. “You’re okay now, go give Robin a hug.”     Manny reluctantly walked over to where Robin stood and threw his arms around him.     “C’mon, buddy, time for bed.”     “Five more minutes, Robin, five more minutes.”     “Nope, you have school tomorrow.”     “Five more minutes.” The boy begged.     “You are going to bed.” Robin threw Manny over his shoulder and ran out of the kitchen. Manny shrieked all the way up the stairs.     Harry visited the mirror outside the kitchen

[rem102]

Twist of Fae

Ch. 1 

Summary: A seemingly normal human is thrown into an unfamiliar world. With the help of some friendly princes may help her discover her own magic, and the strength in her heart.

Rating: M for violence, blood, and language

Authors Note: I had to break this into two chapters, I was getting ahead of myself and wrote way too much for a intro chapter. I’ve had this sitting around for a while and I thought I might as well post it. 

I made this up on my own so I had to attempt to create a foundation. 

Running. The first thing I could remember after closing my eyes was running.

Why was I running? I kept asking myself turning behind me quickly before maneuvering through the dense trees. My clothes soaked from the dense fog and wet leaves I found myself awakening on. How long had I been laying in the forest? Was it hours or minutes? I grabbed onto the thin tree trunk catapulting myself forward to the next group of trees. The sound of my feet hitting the crunching decaying leaves beneath me. I reached for the next tree and suddenly falling short. My foot caught in a hidden tree root protruding from the ground. I braced myself for impact hitting the floor of the unfamiliar forest hard. I could feel warmth radiating from my knees as I tried to get up quickly. I reached for the tree just inches away from me to pull myself up. My leggings ripped open and blood running down my leg.

My mind yelling at me to keep going, to keep running, but from what I still did not know. I could feel the water pour off of my face and trail its way into my soggy shoes. Maybe I was kidnapped there wasn’t a dense forest this close to my apartment in the city for hundreds of miles. I paused trying to catch my breath as my lungs burned in my throat. I put my aching hands on my knees trying to fill the air back into my deprived lungs. I coughed trying to swallow whatever moisture I had left in my mouth to coat the back of my burning throat. I desperately needed water, and soon. There was a loud snap on a large branch just a few feet behind me. I immediately took off running in any direction.

There had to be a road close by here. A trail from hiking or a sign to point me out of the forest right?

I felt as if I was running for hours with no sign of any road or hiking trail in any direction I ran. This can’t be happening to me. The skin on the back of my arms raised, my pulse quickened frightened by the thought that something was chasing after me. I could feel the peering and glaring eyes drill into the back of my body. I looked up trying to get a sense of the time of day the seemingly unmoving as the lighting of the fog making visibility unclear. I could not even see the top of the trees. I stopped suddenly when my mind that was once overflowing with questions stopped. The entire forest that was once buzzing with noises of bugs, animals, and streams immediately ceased. My heart was pounding in my chest, the loud ringing in my ears from my elevated heart. I looked around me the fog still covering the ground and growing thicker the longer I looked at it. A shiver ran up my spine, and my feet dug into the ground ready to run at any sound.

Run. Run. Run you idiot. My mind was screaming urging me to run as far as my feet would carry me. I knew that I was stupid for standing there waiting and listening. I was smarter than that. I didn’t want to be the person in horror movies that just stood around when they felt something was wrong. I didn’t get a college education to let myself be killed by something chasing me a forest. I had to get help, and more importantly water before I got dehydrated. Far off in the distance the sound of a large wolf could be heard howling loudly.

My hands immediately covered my ears trying to block out the piercing sound. This wasn’t good, the wolf was more likely signaling to the others in the pack to move in on their prey. That prey was more than likely me. The ground suddenly gave away to a large river that cut through the forest. The water fortunately calm for the time being. There was no clear path across the calm river, but there was no other option than to cross at that very moment. I slid down the hill as dirt and mud kicked up from the gorund as I landed in the riverbed with a loud splash. I threw away any and all hesitation I had in attempting to cross the river with no regard to what could be lying underneath the surface of the water.

The cold freezing water stung against my skin against my open wounds and already numbed body. I kept walking as fast as I could into the water as it rose from my ankle height to the depth of my shoulders. I needed to get out of this water quickly or risk freezing to death. I clung to the grassy side of the river as I tried to blow warm air into my icy hands before digging them into the cold ground again in attempt to climb up the hill of the riverbed that cut into the forest. If the wolves didn’t know where I was then, they probably more than likely do now. I was relieved reaching the top of the hill on the opposite side as the landscape dipped down into a hill once again. My heart sunk when I saw that it looked the exact same with the dense fog and large trees I could vaguely see.  

I stumbled over rocks, and through every bush in my path as I tumbled down the side of the hill. My path stopped as I hit a hollowed out log downed for some time. I looked back at the top of the hill where I had fallen. I realized the seeming hill was a large rock formation and was much steeper than when I first began my descent. I wiped my hair out of my face looking at how far I had fallen.

That’s when I noticed that part of the rock formation was moving. I looked once again and the object had moved again. I crawled into the hollowed out log hiding within the deeper parts of the fallen tree where the core was still intact. Looking carefully sticking my head out where the hole I crawled into was I could make out a clearer image of the animals that were hunting me.

The wolf was covered in black hair, and its eyes red. It looked as if it was a moderately sized elephant. Their body towering over my own. I covered my mouth to avoid screaming as I made out the sound of four large paws near the log I was hiding within. The large wolf began sniffing at the ground. The force of its large paws making contact on the hollow log caused it to roll slightly. I choked down my screams trying not to give my safe position away. Its wet nose stuck inside the trunk of the tree, but unable to get its snout fully in the hole due to its large size. The river must have taken away my scent making it hard for them to track me once again. The wolf pulled its large snout out of the hole and I could hear the large feet getting more and more distant away from where I was hiding. The wolf howled loudly once again notifying the pack.

I waited in the tree trunk just a little longer, slowly making my way towards where I originally got into the tree. The wolf would have killed me right then if it had smelled my sent then. I had at least hoped that the wolf wasn’t just waiting outside of the tree just to kill me. I had to be quick about getting out of the tree or risk the wolves catching my scent again. I quickly squeezed through the hole and taking a minute to adjust to the foggy surroundings once again. This was the perfect opportunity to get away without being hunted down. I was cautious in case the wolves were still attempting to pick up on my scent.

I could feel one of my wounds on my leg break open once again, “Shit” I cursed myself as I urged my feet to start moving once again. I let my feet carry me as fast as they would take me. Under fallen trees into ditches, and valleys, across muddy streams, and mossy woods. I felt as if my lungs would collapse.

Just run a little further, I told my aching legs. The effects of running for such a long time causing my legs to start to go numb from the cold and pain. The burning sensation getting gradually more and more unpleasant as I became more and more dehydrated and fatigues. I have to keep running. I have to use whatever strength I have left in me to will my legs to continue going. This was not how I wanted to die.

If I keep running just a little further I can take a break I told myself. If you keep running a little further you can just rest. If you just push yourself a little further you might make it out of here alive. I promised my mind trying to make my legs cooperate just a little longer. I threw myself forward leaning onto a tree and pushing off with my hand to the right. It was as if someone had heard my pleas for help from above. The fog began to lift and I could see further, and the amount of trees between the next became fewer and fewer. Suddenly light began to trickle into the forest warming my skin as I pushed forward. I looked ahead trying to ignore the spottiness of my vision from exhaustion could almost make out a clearing, a way out of the forest.

I laughed as I ran just a little bit faster. I could see the tall yellow grass blowing in the wind just a few more yards ahead. Focus. If I just get to the clearing I will be safe, I told myself over and over again the air feeling like acid in my lungs. I was choking for any breath I could take, feeling my throat start to close off, and my legs trembling and lurch themselves into an uncontrollable spasm as they reached their limit.

I was almost there I just needed to reach my hand out and I would be safe. My legs slowed their pace as I dragged my feet inches forward just to feel the sunlight on my face and warm my body.

My vision began to go white, but I could feel the tall blades of grass tickle my hands as they touched my damp and aching body. I fell to my knees with a loud thud. My feet finally giving out on me just outside the clearing of forest. I could not tell if my eyes were closed or my vision completely gone but it felt as if I was supporting my body with my hands. I dragged myself away from the border where the trees met the clearing. The grass would at least hide me somewhat from whatever animals were trying to have me for their dinners. My arms gave out as I collapsed onto the soft warm grass. I missed my bed at my apartment and the warmth of my blankets wrapped around my head. My ears ringing loudly my lungs heaving to catch their breath.

I willed myself to close my blinded eyes letting my eye lids rest just for a little while. For the first time in a long time I prayed that this was all just a dream.

_______________________________________________ 

This was one of the longest trips I have ever taken visiting my brother in his lands to inspect the border. “I can’t believe you dragged me all the way out here. I don’t see anything.” I groaned loudly hoping my complained enough we would have to turn back around. I generously came at his request to see in person the damage caused on our borders. It wasn’t completely worthless however, noting many areas in which the Lycans attempted to cross over our lands, and destroy neighboring villages.  Important farming lands burned and small houses abandoned.

“Elrin please relax you barely get out of the capitol anyways,” my older and snarky brother snapped back at me annoyed. How unfortunate. I thought trying to not think about my 5 older brothers who find gratification in tormenting one another. Luckily the youngest brother isn’t as terribly influenced by their egos and bickering as much as I was subjected to.

I sighed looking at the back of his blonde head, and without even looking at him I could tell he had a smug smirk on his face. There was nothing but trees on our left where our border started and ended, and endless grassy fields and farm lands. It seemed to go on forever in the spring lands here. This was the first time I was seeing the border here with my own eyes.

One of my brother’s enchantments that protects the border was triggered by a creature. Per my brother he assured me that it was not one of our own people but something completely different but it was powerful enough to break the defensive barrier. Alaric kicked his horse to run at a faster pace, and I followed his lead doing the same with my own steed. Were his spells as powerful as he thinks they are in protecting the lands here? How the hell did he know where the border was breached? This was taking entirely too much of my time that could be spent talking to the other leaders in the area.

“Alaric you are sure that the border was breached around here?” I called out to him if his border spells were as strong as he claimed them to be. “We have to have passed it already” I shouted and we slowed down our speed once again and he turned around to look at me.

“Yes I’m sure of it. Some non-Lycan creature crossed the border I’m sure of it and made it past the protective barrier. The Lycans would have left a bigger hole in the spell if it was them. I fear that their people are getting stronger with each passing day.” Alaric replied a pained expression on his face of worry and concern. Maybe I should take this a little more seriously, we could be attacked out in the open like this and with no one around for miles to reach for help.  

“They probably chased the creature into our lands,” I mumbled thinking aloud examining the dark vast trees that no one dared enter unless you had a death wish. I got the sense that someone was watching us from the tree line. What if I saw something move? Or the peering red eyes of a wolf in the trees? The thought sent a child down my spine.

“You need to have a more serious conversation about this situation with the Lycan ambassador. Lucian, and Kasen are having the same problems with  in their territory as well. The people are beginning to worry.” He stated reaching over to touch the top of the tall yellow grass that brushed the bottom of shoes.

“I do constantly talk to the ambassador and my words fall on deaf ears. Their King is loose on his laws about Lycans crossing our borders. Their people are just itching to send our nation into disrepair” I quickly snapped back in frustration. The “alliance” between our two nations was beginning to fall apart between tensions of our people for the past 200 years. The restrictions placed on both of our nations was beginning to boil over. Tensions were always high since the last war we had with the Lycans.

All I know from my father is that it resolved by the previous king’s death. I was thankful that our family was spared from the atrocities the wolves inflicted upon our people. My brothers and I were fortunate to be helping civilians find shelter when the palace was invaded, killing everyone on the council and every advisor to the king. All but my father was killed in the aftermath, and my father never the same the kings death.

“What’s with that stupid look on your face?” Alaric asked with a smirk on his face as he turned around to look at me. “That face you are making looks just like the one you made when that Slavenen girl stuck her tongue down your throat,” he laughed holding his stomach and onto the horse to keep from falling off. I couldn’t help but smile at the comment. “You were a jumbled mess, the first girl to ever kiss you,” He continued laughed loudly drawing attention to himself as always. Siblings will never let you live things down.

“Shut it, I was thinking about father,” I spat at him even more annoyed at his comments than I was before. “This upcoming year will be what 4 years since his death?” Alaric questioned uncertain. What kind of child was he to forget the day his father died? I could remember it so clearly. “It was 18 years ago how could you forget?”

“Because it seems such a short time ago. We do live until we are hundreds of thousands of years old. 18 years seems such a short amount of time to one of our kind.” Alaric said in a quieter tone of voice. “Elrin, we all miss him. I know it has been harder on you the most but you are not alone.” He said looking ahead of him into the dense forest next to him. “Poor little Rhys was just a child then and has very few memories of father.” I couldn’t bring myself to look at my brother. They all were pining to have the throne to themselves as the next in line. They fought continuously with one another immediately after his death. They all were heartless, but my older brother more than anything. He didn’t even show up to the palace after father died. When he did a week later he just sat there quietly, showing no emotion at all on his face.

“You all began fighting for who the next king should be, not even paying respects to our own blood. Connell never seems to care about anything it seems.” I said hoping that Alaric didn’t hear me. “Connell handles things in his own way, have you tried talking to him about it?” he replied nudging my shoulder with his hand towards me causing me to shift on the horse, and I laughed in response. Connell never looked like anything interested him at all not even his own concern for his family. There was no way I was going to visit him in his dark realm. If I wanted to be surrounded by darkness than I would go jump through those trees just ahead.

Our horses became more and more restless the closer we got to where the suspected breach was located. My brother’s knuckles were white from his tight grasp on his sword. “Why do I have a bad feeling about this?” I asked worrying about the tense appearance my brother had. “You haven’t seen anything yet. You need to get out of the palace more little brother.” he said sternly and a hint of sarcasm in his voice. We stopped moving for a few minutes, listening for anything suspicious. “We should be here,” he whispered in a quiet voice his hand extended towards me to talk in hushed tone. Luckily the grass where we had stopped was lower than and not as tall as the grassy field around us. Alaric dismounted his horse and rubbed the nose of the animal comfortingly. “Stay with the horses,” he said and I got off of my own horse as well grabbing the reins to hold our horses. “Keep your knife close,” my brother said and ruffled my hair out of place. “Really? This isn’t the time for playing around!” I said to him fixing my hair that was displaced by his gesture. “You really need to find yourself a woman to take that frustration out on” Alaric said as he walked into the taller grass making it difficult to see him from afar.

 ____________________________________________________

I laughed to myself at my comment to Elrin. He was always so uptight and anxious about everything. I was convinced that there was not a fun bone in his body.  Out of all our brothers, he takes his duties the most serious and strictly. It would take a special kind of woman to get that boy to relax just a little bit. I took a deep breath trying to calm my own nerves and focus my thinking. Looking for any sign of an animal or creature using my tracking abilities.

I was not afraid to walk close to where the border was between the two nations. Elrin would have had a heart attack if he could see me from our horses. I walked along the edge of the border and peered into the forest to ensure that the Lycan would not come to finish the job or attack while we were tracking their prey as well. I reached the area where the spell was broken. I stood facing the trees to fix the enchantment. Holding my hands outwards drawing out the magic diagram to fix the broken area. With a flash of purple light the small opening was closed. I had to be even more careful to not use my magic in an event of an attack.

I turned once again my back to the trees to try and see where the creature went into the field. “Do you see anything?” Elrin called still scared stiff at coming off of his own horse. I closed my eyes my hand against my head shaking it in annoyance, there goes our cover.  “Whatever creature was near here is now more than likely gone if you keep yelling.” I called back to him there was no sense now in whispering and speaking in low voices.

“Hurry it up then,” Elrin said with agitation. I rolled my eyes at his impatience as I tried to look at the ground. I noticed that there was a path where the creature ran into the grass. The bowing of the grass getting larger as it went along. I walked closer to where it looked like the creature went into the field. I bent down to examine the ground. The tracks looked like a two legged creature and a foot shape similar to ours. I walked towards the field where the grass began to bow. If it was one of our kind I would know wouldn’t I?

“Blood” I murmured under my breath as I touched a blade of grass that had blood still on it. I rubbed it between my thumb and index finger meaning that it is still fresh and the creature wasn’t too far behind. Whatever it is, it left a trail of blood behind it to follow. “It’s here,” I called out to my brother who immediately unsheathed his blade from the sound of the metal against the leather casing. “Where is it I’ll kill it myself,” I laughed at his response.  “Relax it might already be dead, it’s lost a fair amount of blood.”

“I’ll be here to help you then.” He said as I heard him re-sheath his blade. I quietly followed the trail the animal left behind. I noticed the grass bent over significantly more in the area I was standing in. There were two divots where its knees must have hit the ground. It dragged itself on all fours through the field. I found myself almost in the middle of the field from the nearest path to the main farmhouse. I looked ahead as the bowing grass turned around an angled corner unable to see if it was directly ahead. I grabbed the hilt of my blade prepared to draw it at any moment. I hoped it was not Lycan bait testing our borders once again for weakness. As I walked around the last bend of the trail I noticed that in a few more feet the grass stowed bowing. The animal was still here just ahead. I proceeded with caution as I walked to see what exactly managed to break an enchantment as strong as that one and as small as it was.

I peered over the tall grass where the creature was lying. It did not move at the sound of my feet on the ground, or the yelling between my brother and I. I quietly crept closer and closer to get a better view. It looked like it had two feet with foreign shoes, with two legs sprawled out on the soft ground. There was hair covering where its face would be. I must be insane to reach out to try to touch this thing. My hands touched the dirty hair and moved it out of the creatures face. I gasped covering my mouth with my hand at the sudden noise I made losing my balance causing me to fall on my ass. I could not believe my eyes at what I was seeing. It was no Lycan, nor an animal for that matter. It was a girl.

Usually the Lycans would try to cross the border in their human forms but they still could not cross. What was she then? If she was not a wolf or one of our own people what was she exactly? Her clothes were not of this realm. Her clothes still, parts of her trousers were ripped and missing. Half of her sleeves were ripping at the seams. Her hair clumped with mud and blood. I looked for her hands that were clutching her sides tightly looking for the markings of our people. All children have a mark on their hands. She was covered in scratches on her face, and her arms. None compared to the large slice that was actively bleeding into the ground beneath her on her legs. I should have studied in healing magic I cursed myself. I couldn’t just leave her here to die, and the only way to get help is to bring her back to the palace. Would she survive such a journey?

“It-It’s a girl,” I yelled trying to have Elrin come over with our horses. “Lumos” I called sending a flicker of light into the air to indicate where I was. I leaned my head close to the girls mouth to listen. The girl was breathing shallow breaths catching in her throat.  I wiped away the dirt from her face as best as I could. The girl stirred on the ground and she let out a loud murmur at the touch against her skin. Thank the gods she was alive.

“Is it still alive?” I heard the close sound of my brothers voice and approaching hooves. I slid my hand underneath her head carefully. My other head turning her body to the side as I pulled her into my arms carefully trying to protect her head.

“It’s a girl not an animal,” I said walking over to my horse. My brothers eyes were wide with fear as he looked at the girl in my arms. “Are you sure I don’t sense any magic from her?” He put his blade away examining her closely. “Its hard to tell what she is with the dirt everywhere. This could be a trap set by those dogs.”

“Shes alive, but if we don’t get her help soon she is going to die,” I lowered her limp body to touch the ground I wrapped an arm around her waist as I adjusted my saddle.

“what is she?” he asked obviously not going to help me get her the help she needs. “I don’t know but if we don’t get out of this area by nightfall we could be in for a fight. I also know that the kind of wound she has is not one so easily fixed at my place, she needs medical attention at the palace.” I lifted the girl onto the horse so that she was straddling it and I leaned her against my horse’s neck.

“We can’t just take her back!” Elrin called, “That is a whole two days journey,” he protested grabbing my arm firmly. “You don’t suggest that-“ he paused as I grabbed the girl and swung myself onto the horse. I grabbed her shoulders and pulled her against my chest. “If we don’t use it she could die.”

“Good!” he called getting on his horse in protest. I started to bring my horse into a sprint before he immediately cut me off. “What do you think you are doing?” he yelled. “She could try to kill us! We could be very well be bringing back a spy.”

“Do you want to know the answers to your questions or do you not?” I yelled jeering the horse to the side around my fuming brother. “If you want them then we need to make sure she doesn’t die on us first.”

He looked as if he was weighing the options in his head. I didn’t have time to wait around for him to choose to make a decision. I started to bring my horse back into a sprint once again. “Alaric if you use that spell you could unintentionally splice yourself together,” he said yelling as he ran right beside me giving into reason. “Who said I’m doing the spell,” I smiled at him getting a good pace going for our horses. “You are kidding me right?” he asked and sped his horse up once again. “Ugh fine but we have to get to your home to draw the damn circle. You would probably screw it up anyways and I don’t want to get spliced together with that girl anyways.” He said looking at the small girl between my arms trying to keep her from falling off.

“Ah I know you would come to see that brother knows best!” I called out to him as he sped ahead. “Yea right” he said leading this time towards the main village. I should more than likely send mother word of our arrival and our new guest. At least mother won’t yell at me for bringing back a “woman with loose morals” at least this time. I looked down at the bobbing head of the girl leaning against my chest. She started to cough sending her lurching forward on the fast moving horse. I grabbed her tightly with an arm around her waist. Once the girl found her breath she relaxed once again. She is at least still alive. Her head returned to its original position as she moved her head closer against my chest.

She was at least comfortable between the uncomfortable horse and having to hold onto her to keep her from falling. The horses flew as hard as they could go as we passed through 3 small villages at a rapid pace. The girl slumped forwards and I fought to keep her upright. I placed my hand against her head, she was freezing cold. “She feels like ice.” I yelled at my brother who was still leading the way ahead. “Is she even still alive?” he asked slowing his pace next to my own. I placed my hand against her chest.

Her breaths were slower, and labored. “We need to get there soon, she might not make it.” I looked at her leg that was bleeding through the makeshift bandage I had applied to her earlier. “Keep her alive, and I’ll make sure we will get there in once piece.” He said pushing his horse once again moving quickly ahead of us. My hand still placed on her chest to make sure that she was still breathing. “Don’t you die on me girl” I said unknowing if she could even hear me. I noticed that my hand was angled as the bottom of my palm touched the top of her covered breasts. Maybe not a girl after all, besides she won’t remember this or my hand when she’s finally awake.

I had to make sure she was still breathing, as slow as it was. Horses still would have been faster than using wings. The village was just a few meters ahead I could see my home sticking out the cluster of pink trees blooming. The spring village was notorious for the most beautiful blossoms in the realm. “Hold on just a little longer.” I said to the limp woman in my arms.

The horse sped down the gravel road leading to my private residence. Elrin already scrambling to find chalk and clearing an area for each of us to stand. I got off the horse first to keep her from toppling over. “How much time you think we have” he asked visibly sweating.

She was much paler than before, her breaths were short and staggering. “We need to go now,”

“Prince Alaric,” a servant asked bowing taking the saddle off of my worn out horse. “Send a message to my mother immediately,” I said and the servant nodded scrambling to send a message using their magic. “Would it be better to hold her or to place her in the circle separately,” I asked noticing that one circle was already drawn. “Since she is unconscious, and unsure about magic receptiveness I’d say you are safe holding her.” He said working on the symbols around his own circle. “Prince Alaric, Prince Elrin anything you wish us to convey to the people here?”

“Tell them I apologize for missing the blossom festival I looked forward to the drinking and feasting every year,” I said and they nodded. “I won’t be gone too long as always,” the servant nodded again as they began swarming around the two of us and our unexpected arrival. The girls chest stopped moving as the girl in my arms let out a heavy breath of air lingering on her pale lips, “we need to go now she’s not breathing,”

“Alright, alright you want to get spliced I swear it sounds like you do if you rush this,” he said standing in the circle for himself.

“No girl no answers” I yelled at him and he closed his eyes, as he said the ancient words rarely ever spoken even by those who are well versed in old magic. I used mine for quick fighting and helping plants grow in the spring lands. The world around us began to glow a yellow bright light i shut my eyes closed in fear of what was to come next. 

The ability to transport into another location instantaneously was a high level skilled mastery that obviously someone like my little brother would be able to master. I was  warrior and relaxed demeanor and little to no self-discipline or patience to master such a skill. I closed my eyes in fear of getting spliced with the dying girl in my arms. “hey you sissy your home.” I heard my brother say and I opened my eyes. Elrin looked at himself making sure that he was still the same. Elrin opened his wings for inspection, “still perfect” he muttered quickly concealing them once again to finding a seat collapse into. He flopped himself in the chair resting his head against a desk. Where even were we? Why the hell did he bring us to a study?

“Elrin don’t fall asleep where the hell are we?” I asked looking for anyone to help. I noticed two large double doors just a few feet away. Someone should know where we are to get help.

“The library you idiot, you wouldn’t know that because you never pick up a book!” He said exhausted turning his head on the desk away from me and the girl in my arms. I started to run as fast as I could towards the large doors. Immediately the doors to the library were thrown open with an echoing bang and my mother a physician and a nurse ran to my side. “Thank the gods you are both alright,” my mother said looking at the woman I held in my arms.

“She’s not breathing, too much blood.”I managed to say the as i placed the woman on the cold marbled floor. 

“Prince Alaric we can handle this thank you,” the older woman said looking at the girl lying lifeless on the ground. The woman waved her hand over the girl and immediately she began to breathe once again. “She needs blood,” my mother said looking at her wound on her leg. 

“Has she spoken to either of you?” My mother asked searching my eyes for any clues as to who this person we just let into the secure capitol of our people. 

“No, she was like that when we found her.” I told my mother who was looking at Elrin. “You should not have risked your brother or your own life with that spell. Both of you could be dead right now, or worse spliced with the dying girl. You know better than exhausting all of your magic at once. There are reasons spells like that are forbidden.” She said looking at my face. The doctor lifted the now breathing girl in his arms and quickly left as quickly as we appeared.

“Call your brothers immediately,” my mother said as I grabbed Elrin and threw him on my back to carry him to his rooms. There was a crowd of onlookers peering into the library. “You never cease to draw a crowd,” my mother said with a laugh. Elrin was still snoozing soundly on my back noted by the drool on the back of my clothes. “You need to let him out of the palace more often, he was trembling with fear just looking at the border.” I said setting him down in his large bed with a plop and making my way over to the door.

“Alaric,” my mother said tucking my brother into bed as if he were a child. She looked out the large windows at the setting sun. “We need to summon your other brothers immediately.” She said with no hint of fear or apprehension in her voice. “I shall find all of you when she awakens,” my mother said closing the door behind in Elrin’s rooms. “What is it?” I asked confused as to why it was needed to summon all of the brothers together. The last time we were all summoned to one place was when father had died. “She is not from this realm. She is a human.”

“But that’s-”

“Impossible.” My mother finished for me as I walked behind her. “We will uncover the truth when the girl awakens, for now we let her heal and rest comfortably.” My mother smiled kindly at me as she continued going about her normal day as regent of the crown. I needed a drink, but much more desperately needed to change out of my bloody clothes.

I had to break this chapter into 2 because i realized that i had a lot going on all at once. We get to meet all our princes next and the MC finally wakes up.

Let me know if ya like it! 

[sarissophori]

Hither Yonder, Chapter 10

The Grayrim

The dawn was chilly with somber clouds, though by late morning the sun had risen above its cover to make the lands warm again. Halli and Noma found the Gatewater River, and traces of an old road that followed the river into the rising hills, snaking its way toward the mountains now just ahead. The banks reared into bluffs, turning sections of the Gatewater into small churning rapids separated by waterfalls. Passing a few mossy milestones, they stood before the opening of a mountain valley from which the Gatewater sprang, curving down from its source in the valley’s northern arm. The road was bent to the southern arm, where the flanks were bare, and ran along a narrow rocky vale tucked away under the mountain��s shadow. Thin trees, naked of most of their leaves, were staggered to the side.

      At the opening of this vale, on a foundation carved from a heel of stone, stood the figure of a Tarmarillian soldier, a centurion, three hundred feet to the crest of his weathered helmet, graven eyes peering through a visor drawn over his face, his body tucked behind a great shield riven with fissures. Pocked with moss and grayed by passing ages, he remained a grim if less glorious monument, protecting the first steps of a forgotten highway and guarding highlands once used for the mustering of armies on the eastward march, left now to memory; to a slow, quiet decay. Halli felt a strange sorrow for him, walking the crumbled stairs beside his foundation, gazing up at the hanging lines of ivy on his shoulder, and the grasses growing long at his knee. His spear, wrought of steel, had since fallen from his fractured grip and lay in pieces before the path, no longer catching the glint of sunlight. He no longer needed it. The Imperium he defended was gone, leaving him to stand against the ages alone, until the weight of time eroded him and the mountains strong into the dust of their bones, in a future no empire or kingdom of these days would survive to see.

      The path wound behind the centurion’s foundation and began its steeper ascent, broadening out into flat and shallow steps that hugged the southern spur and went with it to the mountains, steadily climbing. Halli and Noma took these steps, and entered the Grayrim.

 To speed the movement of their legions, Tarmaril’s laborers and architects carved a highway as wide as a city boulevard and kept it level through most of its length, polishing the steps and sections smooth, spacing it with landings for gradual ascents and descents as the terrain changed, for the ease of cavalry; but one side was always open to the brink, often sheer, giving a view of the ravines and gullies hundreds of feet below. The whole thing reminded Halli of the Mistgap, rehashing old feelings of lonesomeness and an unshakable voice telling her, despite the highway, she was going to get lost; but Noma’s presence reassured her, and they continued on.

      The highway held to the spur, still rising in this part of its course, until it came to the crest of the vale and ran mostly flat with the mountain flank, then began rising in a series of steps and landings like before, winding deeper into the range, stretching on as a slender gray track beside chasms more beautiful and daunting than the last.

      Moss grew on the steps, wearing them away, sustained by the cold damp that grips the Grayrim’s higher reaches in the autumn months. Slender trees poked through the cracks, fragile, bare of leaf, working their roots into the rock. Pale grasses grew in the bottom of gullies choked with sediment, taking whatever moisture they could from the roaming fog banks. Here and in other places the highway showed signs of its wear, but the skill of its builders ensured that, even after centuries of disrepair, it remained a viable course through the mountain wilderness, to be crossed in full confidence without fear of some break or drop, or some part collapsing under one unwary step, should such neglect ever befall it. The builders would have been proud, had they remained.

      Almost four leagues were gained by the first day, though it was a winding progress. Yet to the west, past the furthest peaks, could be faintly seen, for a moment, a sliver of the lands ahead and waiting, until the clouds settled in late in the afternoon. The fog thickened and surrounded Halli and Noma, reducing them to shuffling along the landings, crawling carefully over the stairs, and feeling for cracks. Night came and removed all visibility; Halli couldn’t even see her own hands grasping for the steps. They stopped and made camp against the cliffs cut out for the highway, eating a small cold supper.

      “I wish we had something to burn” Halli said, wrapped in her cloak and scarf.

      “Something worth burning, I mean. For light as well as warmth.”

      “I think we’re better off without” Noma said, resting but ever alert, listening for any suspicious noise in the dark.

      “Why say you that?”

      “These are strange lands, Halli. Even if only half the tales told of Tarmaril are true, that would be enough for caution. Wary things are known to lurk in the unexplored and forgotten places of the world. The Nosi say the Gallenwood’s innermost heart is home still to the fairies and nymphs who sprang from the Old Ages, and many other things besides.”

      “How do they know that?” Halli said.

      “They don’t” Noma said. “But that doesn’t stop them from telling the stories, or listening to them. It seems to be a love of bipeds. Did you not have similar stories back in Hanan?”

       Halli sat a little in thought.

       “Well, since I was born, I remember hearing tales of spirits that lived in the forests and orchards near my village, though I never saw any. I even snuck out one night, to finally catch sight of them.”

       “Did you?”

      “I was caught by my caretaker, and scolded for it.”

       Halli laughed at the memory, now so long ago. She scrunched her face, began waving her finger and said in a crotchety tone, “Wandrin’ off in the fields when you ought not to, when any ol’ wolf or bear or skin-changer can just come on up an’ snatch ye like a lamb, child!”

      Noma cocked her head. “Skin-changer?”

      “Evil spirits that took animal form at night, roaming the countryside for livestock to kill and children to carry away, never to be seen again…it was only a story to keep children in the village after sundown.”

      “A lot of good it did for you.”

      “I didn’t believe in them” Halli said. “I was too old by then.”

      Noma’s stare went off past Halli, as if she were trying to figure something out.

      “So, some stories are told for cautionary purposes, and aren’t actually based on real experiences?”

      “A friend of mine once said that every story has a kernel of truth” Halli said. “I remember hearing also about creatures that lived in the caverns of the Sheerim Mountains. I didn’t see any, but whenever I passed an opening, it made me wonder –and keep my distance.”

      The wind picked up, blowing in from the north. The sound of cascading stones reverberated loudly in the dark, sliding down some distant cliff and tumbling into a gully, catching their attention for a few tense moments. Halli breathed nervously.

       “Just the wind.”

      “Most likely” Noma said. “Or, perhaps, it was a Stone-golem.”

      “A what?”

      “A race of bygone folklore, made of living rock, large and strong, very ill-tempered, who hide in solitude. They take the form of boulders in the open, attacking travelers unlucky enough to find them, though the years have dwindled them. They are an ancient people.”

      “A leftover from the Old Ages, eh?” Halli said.

      “Older than that” Noma said. “They come from the Unwritten Years, when the world itself was young, and all else slept. How many there are now, if any, none can say with certainty. Enough, maybe, for that kernel of truth.”

      Halli looked off to where they heard the sound of falling stones, and shivered.

      “As long as we don’t find them tonight.”

 The next morning, if morning it could be called, was miserable and gray, though the fog had lifted. However, a low ceiling of clouds hung below the mountain peaks, embittering the wind. Halli’s body ached. The roll-kit weighed heavier on her shoulders despite lighter rations, and her limbs were stiff, making her sluggish as she trudged on in her boots, wrapped in her cloak and scarf, with her blanket thrown over. Noma, on the other hand, carried on briskly with her nose in the air, her ears pointed forward like a show dog at trot.

      “You’re enjoying this?”

      “My ancestors came from these climates” Noma said. “Chill-bite doesn’t bother me.”

      “Nor would it me, if the bite wasn’t so deep” Halli said, clenching her teeth to stop them from chattering.

       “Or if I had another scarf.”

      Noma glanced back at her. “Do you want to rest somewhere and wait for the wind to pass?”

      “No. That would only slow us down, and we’re already going slow enough as it is. I don’t think this will last much longer anyway.”

      “Very well” Noma said. “But if you have to stop, say so. Stubbornness is a poor substitute for endurance.”

      Late that morning a light snow began to fall, blown into the cracks of the steps and the corners of the stairs. Halli and Noma marched on, even as the weather worsened, until a full storm was whipping at them. Banks of sleet were piled on the landings, the long tracks of the highway slicked with ice. The winds, if not bad enough before, pierced Halli’s boots and wrappings more keenly, making her body feel numb. Her fingers and toes were burning. Noma fared little better; her fur was packed with snow, her ears were down, and her nose was to the ground, not quite enjoying the cold as before. Yet due to equal parts stubbornness and endurance from both, they were determined to cover at least as much of the highway as they did yesterday, and put as much of the Grayrim behind them as possible –or even be through it before night came on again if they hurried, slim chance as it was.

      By midday the snow was ankle-deep and rising, and only three arduous miles were gained. After a certain distance the highway disappeared entirely, lost in the storm almost to their very feet. The thin gray track was gone.

      “We need to find shelter, now!” Halli said.

      “That’s what I’ve been searching for” Noma said. “This dratted snow is blinding my sight, I smell nothing through it, and a road we cannot see wanders ever on amid it all.”

      “There has to be something” Halli said. “A cave, a crevice –did they not make way-points, rest stops, anything?”

      “Maybe Westerlanders were expected to cross these mountains without delay, and not late in the year at that.”

       Halli grabbed her arms and rubbed them furiously, just to make sure she could feel any kind of sensation in them; she had since given up on warmth. She sighed, tasting only the slightest heat from her covered breath.

      “There has to be…if not, we will—”

      “Freeze to death.” Noma said. “Yes, I know.”

      “We should have tried the marshes. I’m sorry, Noma. Really, really sorry.”

      “Spare the guilt, child. We are not dead yet.”

 Though the fear, and possibility, remained. The highway turned south, then curved in a little around the lip of a narrow valley, putting the wind to their backs. Studded on the sloping shoulders of this valley were dark, ancient trees, thin as fence posts, down into the snow-flecked mists. When Halli and Noma came to this part of the road they huddled immediately against the wall, resting for a moment. After looking through the mist, they noticed that this part of the highway ran beside a small plateau on the valley slopes. Nearby was an old outpost with a crumbled tower ringed by a fortified courtyard, enclosing a section of the highway within its protection. Halli stood up and pointed.

      “There, t-t-there! D-d-do you see it?”

      “I do” Noma said. “But after so long, in this weather, is it safe?”

      “W-wh-what choice have w-w-we otherwise?”

      “None, I suppose.”

      “Then I’m g-g-going.”

      Halli sprinted to the outpost, willing her legs to move faster than a hurried shuffle. Noma went after, overtaking her and slipping through a gap in the wall, sniffing for any predator that may or may not be lurking near. Satisfied they were alone, she tagged behind Halli as she ran up the steps to the outpost’s main structure; a long storehouse with only a few slant windows, built into the base of the tower. The door was ajar but fastly held by rusted hinges. A few swift kicks cracked it just enough, and they entered a cold, dark and empty room. Halli’s boots scoffed frosted dust on the floor, her hand grazed sagging cobwebs, and she smelled the centuries-old decay preserved by this bitter landscape. On the far side lay an overturned table braced against a fireplace yawning forlorn in the dim.

      “See or s-s-smell anyone?”

      Noma sniffed. “No.”

      “G-g-good.” Halli pushed the table aside and knelt by the fireplace. She brushed the snow off her cloak and splayed out her roll-kit, removing the flint strikes from their pocket in its inner fold. After breaking the table apart for kindling, she managed to light a pouch of dry brush with her trembling fingers and fed it steadily, graduating the fire from splinters to slivers to pieces of the legs, until she had it roaring. Gray walls once again wavered in a faint orange glow. Halli rubbed her hands and held them over the fire, laughing from a glad heart. Noma shook off the dampness and settled by the growing warmth.

      “We are definitely staying here till the storm passes” Halli said.

      “I second that” Noma said. She rolled on her side and stretched out.

       “At worst we are delayed an afternoon, or a day. In the meantime, let’s rest and conserve our strength.”

      “And eat.” Halli unwrapped strips of slated meat from their rations and spit them over the flames to cook them.

      “I didn’t know winter came so early to Tarmaril; that it could be so harsh, when other lands are still warm.”

      “We are high in the mountains” Noma said. “Where winter comes early and harsh more oft than not, I’m afraid, especially its feelers. Perhaps we should have taken that into consideration when deciding our route.”

        “It’s certainly different than morning frosts on the plains. I once shunned the cold of Hananin winters; I’ll never speak ill of them again.”

      Noma laughed softly to herself. “It rarely snowed in Meadow-home, even in the coldest months. It was such fun to run through, kicking it in the air, flipping it with my nose. One must be careful what one wishes for in the Westerlands, apparently.”

      “Or you could try wishing for something warm instead” Halli said. She pulled a piece of meat from the spit and gave it to Noma.

      “Here, I think we’ve earned it for today.”

 Halli and Noma lay curled by the fireplace, Halli snug in her cloak. The fire had since burned itself out, leaving only embers. The storm outside was calmed to a light snowfall, and some of the clouds had lifted. Even so, there was no telling how many hours passed them by, or if it was another day. They slept on, unheeding of the change.

      The overhead floorboards creaked. Noma perked her ears; it didn’t sound like a bump from the wind, which had died down. They creaked again, closer this time. Noma raised her head. Then, there were more.

      Halli woke to Noma growling softly. “What is it?”

      “Intruders.”

      “Who? Can you smell them?”

      Noma continued growling. There was scratching like claws on timber, and harsh sniffing –not a wolf, but still cautious, creak, creak, creaaak.

      Noma curled her lip. “We are in danger here.”

      Slowly, quietly, Halli packed her roll-kit and fastened her cloak, her bow at the ready. She waved for Noma to follow her, and she crept to the door. Noma suddenly barked and raised her heckles. Startled, Halli turned. In the shadow of the stairwell were two glinting eyes and a clawed hand reaching down the steps. It hissed at them, drooling from an open maw. Halli reflexively drew her bow and shot at the creature, sending her arrow ricocheting off the step. The eyes jumped back, the teeth snapping in anger. Halli pried open the door with such force, the hinges broke apart.

      “Noma, come!”

      They ran out to the courtyard, only to find that swarming over the wall and along the cliff were packs of monstrosities, human in shape but crawling like animals, honing in on the scent that had tantalized them for miles, ending here in this remote mountain cleft. All had blackened, haggard skin that clung to skeletal frames, their nails outgrown to claws, their teeth exposed from lipless mouths curled in hunger; their eyes were large and deep-sunken, black as pits, but still gleamed with a diseased and pitiless instinct.

      These were Homunculoi, wretched things birthed by Tarmarillian alchemy to swarm, and tear to pieces, the enemies of the Imperium afield, endlessly destroyed and reproduced during the war against Ahn. After Tarmaril’s downfall, the Homunculoi and their demon brethren turned on their masters in a long and bloody conflict known simply as Gadthi’a Ungarioi, the Demon Wars. That bitter end drove the remaining Homunculoi into the refuge of the Grayrim, directionless, to feed their hunger as best they could, even hunting each other.

       They shrieked and clambered down the cliff in madness, made reckless by starvation. Halli drew her bow and shot into the charging group, hitting one in the shoulder and dropping it. Others quickly descended on it and began to pull it apart from the stricken limb, biting into its awful flesh to eat warm, putrid sustenance. Noma leapt at them and attacked another, pinning it down and tearing out its throat as it thrashed. The rest scattered, leaving their half-torn meal to twitch in the snow. They hissed, and regrouped.

      “Go, Halli!” Noma said. “I’ll be right behind you –go, go!”

      “But—”

      The Homunculoi resurged, closing the gap Noma’s attack had opened. Noma stood her ground and snapped her jaws, barking and baying, keeping them away, until the fringes of the horde began to circle around, and swarm the sides of the storehouse.

      Halli ran through the courtyard and down the highway, going back the way they came. She heard more shrieking and looked up; more Homunculoi were closing in, crawling over the cliff face just ahead of her, moving swiftly. Halli skidded to a stop, then darted for the edge of the highway and fled down the valley slope. The Homunculoi screamed, and pursued her.

      Halli’s boots slipped on the snowy gravel as she weaved a haphazard way through the boulders and trees, driven by the fear of all prey; to be caught, and feel the ripping pain of fang and claw, to be devoured alive, without remorse. She brushed past branches and jumped over tumbled rocks, keeping her lead, if barely.

      The main horde of Homunculoi broke into smaller groups to better chase her, each racing off by its own way, spreading out to cover every possible escape or hiding place, anticipating where, in her fear, Halli would run. She was quick and desperate, but the Homunculoi closed in on her, forcing her further down the slope, into a ravine half-frozen with ice.

      Halli stumbled upon it, hesitating to cross. The ice appeared at glance thick enough to hold her, but it was fractured in many places, bobbing and gliding lazily down a mountain stream, some bunching up to form bergs buffed with slush. The streambed was wide, rock-strewn, and difficult enough to ford in the best of weather.

      Halli stepped on a sheet, and it held. She leapt on, sliding a little, balancing herself. Cracks started to form. She hurried carefully to another sheet, hopping the gap between. She slipped, knelt by the weight of her supplies. The ice began to tilt behind her. Halli threw her body forward and lay flat, righting it, then crawled her way to the next sheet.

      A group of Homunculoi went after her, dropping to all fours and crowding on the ice, slipping and bawling over each other in frenzy, growling and snapping. The ice collapsed underneath them, dropping most into the stream where they thrashed and bit at themselves for purchase, to no avail. Only three climbed out to resume their chase, cautiously this time, knowing that with fewer to feed, there would be more to go around.

      Halli was almost to the other side of the ravine when one of them risked jumping on her ice sheet, reaching out to grab her leg –the sheet tipped backward, sending it into the stream. As the sheet resettled the remaining two of the pack crouched forward, one burying its claws into the ice while the second lurched for Halli. It grabbed her boot and yanked her violently back, hissing sharply. Halli screamed and kicked at its face, knocking out a fang. It persisted, pulling her closer, tearing her cloak. She unsheathed her knife as it crawled atop her, spittle dripping from its long thin tongue. She slashed it across the hands and stabbed up into its chest, spilling black blood. It screeched and recoiled. Halli shoved it off of her and scrambled away as the last Homunculoi pounced on its wounded pack-mate, going for the easier meal. Halli scrambled over the last patches of ice to the opposite bank, exhausted and shaken, but with enough strength to stand, sheath her knife, notch an arrow, and shoot the feasting Homunculoi in its throat.

      Another group was gathered at the ravine, making ready to cross and join the pursuit. They scraped the ice with their claws, searching for strong and weak points, and, finding ways through, began their crossing.

      Then, running out from the trees and leaping at them, came Nomatakana of the Gallenwood, most faithful of companions, who dove upon them and tore at them without mercy, her fur already smeared with gore. She dispersed them, killing many outright in her wrath as a child of wolf-kin, proving more fell than their own craven flesh-hunger. They fled from her, doubled over by her attack, even as other groups were coming down the valley slopes, eager and fresh, to close their encirclement.

      Halli waved frantically from her side of the ravine. “Noma, Noma!”

      Noma turned, and seeing Halli, sprinted across the stream into her arms, panting heavily; Halli fell to her knees and kissed Noma’s nose.

      “Dearest friend indeed!”

      “I held off as many as I could” Noma said. “The slopes are crawling with them.”

      “Then we can’t fight our way through” Halli said. “We have to keep running.”

      “Where?”

      Halli looked around. The ravine was set between the shoulders of two mountains, but it had many dry inlets. One of the larger ones was just ahead, winding up and away.

      “There” Halli said. “They’ll run us down if we stay with the stream –I don’t know what else to do, Noma. I just don’t know.”

      “There is no time to second-guess, dear” Noma said.

      Halli nodded, and threw some of their supplies aside. They ran as warbling cries bellowed through the ravine, up and deeper into the hills. The sides closed in after a few turns, leaving only a slender water-carved path cramped by sheer, almost vertical walls. It bent eastward, then widened out into an oval-shaped delve where the course ended. In the middle sat a large black stone on a mound, smooth as obsidian, untouched by frost. Halli circled the mound, gazing up at the walls, searching for some way up and over, pleading for it, feeling for any hold in the rock. She struck it with her fist, shaking her head.

      “No…there’s no way out. We’re trapped!”

      Noma stood watching the opening. “They are coming, Halli.”

      Following scent and snow-trail, the Homunculoi spread out as they entered the delve, forty to fifty strong, with more moving in. Halli and Noma put their backs to the stone, Halli’s bow drawn, Noma tensed and crouched. The creatures’ hunger was barely blunted; tongues wagging the Homunculoi inched closer, step by step, goading the more impatient among them to make the first jump, to absorb the counterattack, so the rest could finally overwhelm their quarry at last.

      It was then the sound of howling rang from the walls, clear, piercing, and vigorous. The Homunculoi quailed and looked up, knowing it well. Standing on the ledge of the delve was a pack of White Wolves, their leader largest and foremost of all, his narrowed eyes like burning amber, his teeth bared at this intrusion into his lands.

      Baying a war cry he leapt down the slopes, followed by his brethren, charging down the ledge and rushing around the black stone like a tide, bringing battle and wrath to the Homunculoi as Halli and Noma stared on. The Homunculoi held their ground, but flinched at sight of the Wolves; they collided at full speed and weight, bowling the Homunculoi over, trampling them under paw, gouging them with fangs, the delve now a din of shrieks and barks and screams.

      The Homunculoi fought back, resurging, grasping with sinewy hands and broken nails; the Wolves pressed their attack, killing and scattering the horde into desperate pockets. Still, the Homunculoi would not relent. The largest group formed a prong and struck for the Wolf leader –if they could kill him, the others would try to escape and regroup, and then, pinned in by the walls, the Wolves would be slaughtered, and make a glorious feast.

      It was then a sudden fire took Halli’s and Noma’s hearts. Noma growled. “If ever there was a time to be the hero of one’s own story.”

      “Go” Halli said. “I’ll take the high ground.”

      Purpose sped them. Noma sprang into the fray, fighting her way quickly to the Wolf leader’s side as the Homunculoi made to surround and isolate him; with her help the White Wolves checked them, throwing them back in discord. Halli climbed to the top of the mound, and standing beside the black stone, sent her remaining arrows flying swiftly into their ranks, aiming for necks and faces, shouting in Dumbrian (for the mood was on her) dai dath, hí dath! (take that, and that!). Her mark keen, her hand steady, many Homunculoi fell to her bow.

      Noma and the White Wolves clove through their foundering attacks, driving the Homunculoi in rout from the delve, into the wandering branches of the ravine where they scurried like insects for any crevice they could find, for the safety of cramped, confined darkness, wailing as they did, until the faintest echo died away. The White Wolves and Noma howled in victory, their warning ringing clear over the mountain passes: never intrude upon this territory again.

 The battle won, the Wolves took account of their pack’s wounded, and then of their defeated foe. Out of nearly eighty Homunculoi, half lay dead and mangled in the softly falling snow.

      They took account also of their stumbled-upon allies, gritty and disheveled from the fight; this lost little human girl and her dog, both very out of place within the Grayrim, helpful though they were.

      “I know not who you are, nor why you are here” their leader said to Noma. “But you have my thanks for fighting by my side as one of my pack, sister-cousin. I am Chieftain of this clan, and these are my finest hunters. These mountains are our domain, and you are most welcome.”

      “You have our thanks in equal measure, Chieftain” Noma said, bowing her head to him.

      “I am Nomatakana of the Gallenwood, and she is Halli of Hanan.”

      “Nomatakana?” he said. “I’m not familiar with that pack-title.”

      “I was bred by humans, who named me and my kin as they do their children. They are sentimental like that.”

      “Bipeds, you mean?” he said.

      “Yes” Noma said. “Though I suppose you’ve not seen very many wandering these lands, if any at all.”

      “We see them, ever and anon” Chieftain said. “They sneak about our hunting grounds like the monsters of their make, thinking themselves stealthy; they are awkward in these mountains.”

      “There are Westerlanders who live?” Noma said. “I thought them lost to history long ago, destroyed by the gods.”

      “They live still” Chieftain said, curling a side of his lip. “Not as many as before, but they live.”

      He looked to Halli, who stood amid his pack with a torn cloak and hair matted over her face, skulking for her arrows amongst the slain Homunculoi. She noticed him watching her and, not knowing what to say, simply curtsied to him.

      “This biped is with you, then?”

      “I am who is with her” Noma said. “We have traveled many leagues, and must travel many more, for we seek the end of all lands.”

      “The Great Water?” Chieftain slowly shook his head. “You should go back whence you came, and your companion. These lands are unsafe for those unprepared for them. You are not.”

      “We’re not going back” Halli said, and the Wolves looked at her, for they understood her words. She wiped the hair from her face.

      “We didn’t come this far just to go back. We are more prepared than you think.”

      Chieftain gave a quick glance to Noma, then returned his attention to Halli.

      “Know you our tongue, biped?”

      “I do.”

      The Wolves muttered. Chieftain walked up to her and sniffed the air around her. He pulled his ears back, and narrowed his eyes.

       “You are a curse-blood.”

      “And a friend” Halli said. “I lent you my bow, and would do so again. Which carries more weight to you, my actions or my lineage? Pray tell, or let us be on our way. I’ve had enough of these cold, dark, barren, cheerless mountains.”

      Chieftain stood quiet, his eyes piercing hers, searching her thoughtfully. His face softened, and his ears perked. The Wolves and Noma relaxed.

      “I apologize for my harsh words” he said. “The Westerlanders were a cruel race, and our prejudice against them is a bitter one. You are indeed a friend, Halli of Hanan, and have earned a place amongst us. You and your companion may shelter with my clan, by my blessing; the storm won’t abate for much longer.”

      “We will” Noma said. “Thank you.”

      “I second that” Halli said. “I can already feel it getting colder.”

      “Then let us go” Chierfatin said. “We shall let the carrion birds pick clean these fowl carcasses, and make it sacred once more.”

      He looked to the black stone on the mound, and after a moment of regard motioned for his pack to move out. Halli also looked at the stone. “Sacred?”

      “Yes” Chieftain said. “This stone is where the old clans gathered in the days before the Westerlanders. Here, our grand-sires refused enslavement to them, and were slain for it in turn. We alone of all wolf-kind never fell under Westerland’s sway, resisting them to their unhappy end.  We come here still, if seldom, to honor old memories, and maintain vigilance. This is the first in many years blood has been spilled here.”

       “I see” Halli said. “May it be the last, then.”

      “It will not” Chieftain said, and leading his pack, took them out through the ravine.

      “Come now, wolf-friends. Your journey is postponed. You must suffer yet more days in these cold, dark, barren, cheerless mountains, I fear.”

      “We do so with good company, at least” Halli said, falling in behind him with Noma as the other wolves took guarding positions, going swiftly. The Homunculoi troubled them not.

[ahy1994confessions-blog]

Hurting so bad

Why am I like this?

Pretty sure I'm numb to myself and in denial about everything. Life isn't fun when your in this much pain. I feel so hopelessly terrible that I'm writing this on the internet seeking some sort of catharsis. But obviously it's not so simple.

I'm a piece of shit

The only thing I like about this post is that I can feel bad without worrying about people getting concerned or hurt by my thoughts. I don't have to unload this burden on anyone else because I never wanted to. I just wanted to express how I feel. Not even too anybody. I just wanted to express it for myself so that I can feel like I actually do know my thoughts. If I don't say or write it anywhere it just bottles up. But if I say it to people I regret it and can't make them un hear it.

It's like shouting on a rooftop but for someone more pathetic who doesn't have the ambition or energy to find a roof top. I'm sure it would feel better to say out loud than to just move my thumbs typing on my smart phone

Anyways

I think about killing myself all the time but I wouldn't actually kill myself. It's hard to explain. Like I never want to give up on life but sometimes I crave to just shoot my face as some form of payback for to myself for causing so much bullshit. It seems like it would somehow feel good.

My insides hurt and I feel feverish. I don't know what I want. I can't trust myself but I also go insane when I place too much trust in other people. So yeah it feels like I don't have trust. No foundation to lay on. Like walking around for an eternity looking for a bed. Not sleeping. Not resting. Not recovering. Not growing. Just slowly painfully decaying.

Don't feel bad for me I really deserve to be extinguished. I've been a piece of shit. My girlfriend said that the guy in the Doctor costume took a pic of her when she got topless at the party. I said I thought it was someone else. Did I? I feel like I saw a different guy in doctor costume when she told me that. But now I feel like I didn't. Why did I defend a stranger instead of being there for my girlfriend? Why have I acted like this before? Why did I think that made sense at the time. How many more times am I gonna fuck up? I want to tear down my life. All I ever do is disappoint. This is way to drawn out. I thought it would get better for sure as I get older but then Chester comited suicide to prove that even when your successful and famous and beloved and almost middle aged you can still be worn so thin. I dread the future because I no longer feel assured that it will work out. Now I feel like I'm going to be suffering and in pain for decades so far past the point of my pain tolerance that eventually I end it. And the worst part is that I'll probably regret it when I do. No matter how bad life gets I don't think I should end it but I don't trust myself to always be smart enough to remember that. I don't trust myself at all. I catch myself blatantly lying to myself. Because if I stopped lying to myself then I'd be succumbing to a terrible lifestyle. At least when I lie to myself and say I'll do better I still have a chance of making that lie true. It's when I give up and say I can't do better that i become truly shitty. When I tell myself I'll do better it occasionally comes true.