#deck of cards microfiction

[wolfstargazer]

Jan 31st - Shuffle - @wolfstarmicrofic - word count: 597

cw - subtle smut

He'd found the pack of cards in his father's study. The drawer was usually kept locked. But Kreacher had been tasked with reorganising some papers and had left it open. It had taken only a moment for Sirius to slip inside the room, to consider quickly what to take, and to swipe the small box. It was light. Easy to conceal. The ornate and gilt lettering, embossed into the leather, had him intrigued.

The Ashmedain Deck.

He'd never heard of it. Although he was hardly surprised. Grimmauld Place was full of dark magical artefacts that his parents took little care to conceal.

So these cards must be different...dangerous...his father's secret...

Safe in his room, with a chair propped under the door handle for good measure, Sirius sat cross-legged on the floor and read the back of the box:

An enchanted deck that will reveal,

Dark desires best concealed.

Beware to those who do not know,

The fantasies the cards will show.

Sirius' curiosity momentarily wavered. Perhaps this wasn't such a good idea? But even as the thought had crossed his mind he had opened the box, tipped the cards into his hands, and had begun to shuffle.

There were no further instructions. Sirius acted on instinct. He fanned the cards out on the floor before him, the backs of the cards facing upwards. He closed his eyes and cleared his mind as though using them for divination. After a moment, Sirius moved his hand, hovering over the cards, waiting for the sensation to come. He paused when it felt right. He opened his eyes, reached down and flipped over the card.

Sirius felt an initial thrill of disappointment. The front of the card was blank. But as he inspected closer he noticed a shimmer ripple across the card. An image had begun to form, out of focus and unclear. Sirius wasn't certain, but it looked like the curve of someone's calf. The card's magic seemed to fix. The image froze.

Sirius growled in frustration and flipped another card.

This time the image was clearer; two legs intertwined. A sense of unease began to creep through him. But there was temptation, too...

Another card. More legs. Draped across a body. A body he recognised as his...

Sirius hesitated, his heart racing, his fingers pricking as he considered whether to continue...

... But he needed to see...

... Just one card more...

He swallowed hard and flipped another card.

This card revealed a torso, lean and scarred and naked. Sirius knew the torso well. He had seen it many times. But not like this...

... But he had wondered... and he had noticed... but he still wasn't sure what it meant...

The cards seemed to know.

He flipped another. The image rippled. Collar bones and shoulders. The back of his head, a mess of dark hair, tumbling across the skin of someone else...

He flipped another. A jaw. Lips parted in exaltation. A mouth flecked with scars.

Just one more card, a voice inside him seemed to whisper. He felt hot. His head swum. Guilt and shame and desire fluttered in his stomach. He knew that he should stop...

... But he had to know for sure...

Sirius flipped the card. The scene appeared. His breath caught as he watched the image, lips fusing, hot, and frantic. Familiar hands raked through his hair.

The picture froze. Whether it was temptation or the magic of the cards, Sirius did not know. He felt his hand reach out again as though he couldn't stop it...

... He had to know...

... He wanted to see...

... Just one more card...

Today was a free choice, so I gave @glassf1re the option of coming up with the word for today. The Ashmedain Deck is a device of my own creation.

[transhitman]

Trying again to write my microfiction card deck. Not going well.

[untethereddreams]

Personal goal for end of year

Finish the tarot research portion of the herbalism tarot deck so I can move on to more interesting bits, like writing my own interpretation blurbs, plant-specific research into occult and physical qualities, microfiction snippits for each card, and mocking up thumbnails for the cards

[whumpwillow]

deck of cards #1

numbers are just for organization, pieces do not have to be read in chronological order 

(though this one is still early on) 

warnings: captivity, chained up, talks about death and slavery

—

prompt from this list 

[ dialogue prompt: “people don’t just disappear. they have to go somewhere.” ]

The six convicts waited inside the van and avoided looking at each other. Despite being literally chained together, none of them had any connection to one another and all seemed perfectly content to not acknowledge that or the obvious tension weighing down the air. That is, except the small one with the pastel-pink hair, constantly fidgeting out of nerves. He finally spoke up, voice trembling, but obviously desperate to end the oppressive silence that pervaded the space.

“So…what’s everyone here for?” he asked.

The black-haired one, marked with clover symbol, gave him a side-eyed glance but without any malice. “In for. That’s how inmates talk.”

“Oh, sorry,” the pink-haired one, marked with a heart symbol, apologized and drew in on himself.

The silver-haired one sitting next to him scoffed. “You been arrested before?”

“I happen to have knowledge of the inner-workings of—”

“So that’s a no, then?” the silver haired man, marked with a spade symbol, smirked at him.

He cast his eyes around at the others sitting inside the van—all convicted criminals sentenced to death but spared and given the mercy of life by being sold into slavery instead. Bought by the gambling house, then offered up as prizes in a game, like nothing more than simple trinkets. Objects.

Spade himself was here for a variety of reasons and knew that Clover likely was too—sleazy scumbags like him were all too easy to recognize. Jack was infamous—everyone from this city to the next knew of the villain. He was a menace, a plague, and finally the general public was rid of him. No use asking what they’d caught him on—there was too much already.

The redhead—Ace—was still a mystery, but hadn’t said anything the entire short while Spade had known him. That left the scholarly-looking one, Diamond, and the pink-hair boy who’d spoken up first, Heart. Spade had no idea how they’d ended up on death row—they looked too upstanding to ever have committed even a slight misdemeanor in their entire lives.

“You, scholar boy,” Spade said, causing Diamond to lift his head. “What got you into this mess?”

Diamond worked his jaw, but tried to restrain the obvious anger that flared up within him. “I was a researcher. Apparently people don’t like it when you research too much of all the wrong things.”

Spade gave him a thin smile. “Ah, so you found out their secrets and they wanted to make you disappear.”

Diamond levelled him with a steady gaze. “People don’t just disappear. They have to go somewhere.”

“And here we are,” Spade replied bitterly. “Out of everyone’s way.”

—

[whumpwillow]

deck of cards #2

numbers are just for organization, pieces do not have to be read in chronological order

(though this one is still early on)

warnings: captivity, chained up

prompt from this list 

—

[ dialogue prompt: “i just don’t understand why.” ]

Heart sniffled, trying hold in the tears threatening to overflow. His chest filled with anxiety, accompanied by the rapid beat of his heart and unsteady breaths. The shackles on his wrists were too heavy, too cold, and he didn’t know what he had done wrong to deserve any of this.

“I just don’t understand why,” he said, voice much weaker than he expected it to come out. “I didn’t do anything!”

Diamond tightened his jaw and worked his hands in and out of fists, but forced a smile onto his face. “You did nothing wrong,” he said, peering at Heart sitting next to him.

“Then why was I taken! Why am I here, now, with all these criminals?”

He cast a nervous glance at the men sitting across from him, faces all sharp angles and eyes like cut crystal.

Diamond gave him a gentle smile and laid his hand over Heart’s own. Their shackles clinked together with the movement and sent a riot of fear through Heart’s stomach, but the casual contact of their hands was enough to override it.

“Listen to me,” Diamond said. “You did nothing wrong. This was simply a mistake.”

No, this was all my fault.

Heart looked up at him with eyes full of such fear and trust and hope. “You were at the university too…said they didn’t like your research. Is there anything more you know about why we were taken?”

Diamond shook his head, partly as an excuse to break away from the eye-contact. He couldn’t stomach his regret in the face of such open vulnerability.

“I don’t know.”

Yes I do. I was the reason you’re here.

I did this to you.

—

[whumpwillow]

Deck of Cards | intro

okay, it’s finally here! this is the intro piece to the Deck of Cards series, which is going to be very different from my other pieces as this will be short snippets of microfiction not done in chronological order. I just felt I needed to do a little something to set the scene, so here is the whumper, Lavinia Montrose, winning her six captives in a gambling tournament. 

warnings: captivity, gambling, dehumanization, noncon touch (nonsexual), collared, leashed, chained, implied future torture, lady whumper

—

Lavinia watched the cards as they were shuffled, once, twice, three times over. Turned from hand to hand, the flick of their edges parting and sifting in between one another. She had no ability to count them—gods no—but she didn’t need to cheat in order to win.

The cards were dealt and Lavinia stared evenly at her hand, then looked up over the top at her competitors. They were trying to keep their faces even, as was the way, but it was ever so amusing to see the subtle tick of a jaw, the flinch of muscle as they tried to contain their anger. Nostrils flared and eyes glared, all at her and her enormous winnings of the evening.

Not her first high-stakes poker game, but the most important. They weren’t betting with money but something that was almost more valuable—the Cards that stood behind her. People owned by the gambling house and used as prizes in tonight’s tournament. Beautiful things, truly, some already marked with scars and others not. It would be lovely to add more. They would be coming with her at the end of this, she would make sure of it. There was no way she’d lose now, not when she’d already collected five of the available six.

The others at the table were furious—they surely would have liked to have just one, or perhaps win the whole set themselves, but no, Lavinia was going to make sure she had them all. She placed down a card and sent the House into an uproar, her winning hand giving her the last beautiful Card left.

The gambling house employees had him collared and leashed yet he wrested away from their hands even if it meant nearly choking himself to death. His throat was already red and raw from the constant fighting.

Lavinia stood up and sashayed over to him, taking in his dazzling blue eyes giving her the fiercest glare he could muster. He had silver-white hair despite his young age—early twenties at the oldest estimation.

“I’ll never go with you!” he spat at her.

Oh, so defiant. She wondered how long that would last.

Lavinia canted her head to the side and raised a brow. “Are you sure? You don’t seem to have any other option. I just won you, fair and square.”

The silver-haired man bared his teeth at her. “You can’t win me! I’m not an object!”

Lavinia held a hand lightly over her cherry-red lips as she laughed. She glanced at the House employees who had their hands on the man’s leash, disregarding him altogether.

“He’s a feisty one, isn’t he?”

One of the House employees, dressed in a nice suit-jacket so presumably one of the higher-ups, stepped forward toward her. He held up his hands placatingly.

“I apologize, madame. We didn’t have any time to break them in before the tournament. Barely had time to get the identification on and everything.” His eyes flicked to the silver-haired captive. “I truly am sorry for this one’s behavior.”

Behavior she hoped wouldn’t be a problem in the long run. Oh well, she didn’t mind. He’d lose that insolent attitude after a while.

Lavinia gave him a gentle smile. “Don’t fret, I won’t fault you for it.”

She looked to the captive and put a hand to his cheek. He flinched back, snarling, but the employees holding his leash yanked on it, causing him to cough and stutter. Lavinia was able to settle her palm on his face them, running a thumb over the tiny spade symbol under his eye, no bigger than the size of a dime. The identification that marked him as property of the gambling house.

“Spade, huh.”

The captive glared at her and wrested away from the touch, and Lavinia drew her hand back and dropped it to her side.

“Not to worry, I’ll have him broken soon enough.” She smiled again. “I like to do my own work anyways.”

—

The House employees brought all the Cards—Lavinia’s six new captives and her collective winnings from the gambling tournament—out to the front of the building, where they stood chained together in a line. Gags had been placed in each of their mouths. Lavinia walked slowly down that line, inspecting each of them.

The silver-haired captive—her Spade—stood at the end, and next to him was a black-haired man with green eyes. He had a similar symbol branded just under his eye, a clover. The third was a heart, belonging to a young man with dyed hair, and the fourth had a diamond marking. The House employees pointed out the last two were the Ace and Jack, and thus had their corresponding letters instead of symbols as their identification marking.

Lavinia tapped a finger against her lips, humming. “I do like them,” she said, with a note that spoke of continuing the sentence, though she did not.

One of the House employees spoke up for her. “But…?”

The captives shifted uncomfortably, giving her a range of different expressions. Lavinia drank in each and every one, from the fear to the defiance to the resignation.

Lavinia cast a glance over her shoulder at him. “Well, they sure do need work, don’t they? I must make them my own of course—simply winning them is not enough.”

She’d definitely need to break them in if they were to be useful. Yes, that would do nicely.

—

The other pieces will be shorter than this one, I just wanted a slightly longer intro. The six cards displayed here are Ace, Jack, Spade, Clover, Heart, and Diamond, who will have a bad time. 

I’ll also occasionally post random info about them as I’m developing the characters. Hope you like it!

[transhitman]

idk if I posted this before but I had a really sick idea for a collection of flash/microfiction where I illustrate a playing card deck and each story correlates with a card. The stories are EXTREMELY short but somewhat interconnected and would be printed on the rules sheet instead of the game rules........ It could be cool : ]