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loyalflutist · 5 years

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Just a Dream - Part 1 (F!Byleth x Edelgard)

Rating: General Audiences Archive Warning: Major Character Death Words: 2,173 Summary: The war is finally over and it was the Adrestian Empire's win. Most everyone moved onward from the conflict at their own pace. For Edelgard, she has a surprise coming from Byleth one night.

A/N: Obviously due to Tumblr’s layout, I doubt I can leave my author’s note to the bottom like I intend to. Oh well. This is a fun side project I was working on! The second half should be out next week or so... depending on how my school load is going and, god forbid, if my PI isn’t a jerk. Hope you enjoy this! I enjoyed writing this fluffy piece, heh.

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The atrocious conflict that lasted for more than five years came to a roaring conclusion.

What should have been a magnificent creature in legends stayed as a legend, its real counterpart far crueler than any villain in history. Two brave leaders swung their relics at the formidable white dragon. In one strike, the beast pierced the fiery battlefield with its shriek. An axe and a sword plunged its sharp edges into its thick scales. Bloodied, battered, and bruised, the large monster wildly tossed its head left and right. Another inhumane squeal tore from its elongated throat as it dug its massive claws on the cracked pavement.

Byleth and Edelgard plopped back on the ground simultaneously. Sweat gleamed on their foreheads, their breaths bated, and eyes trained on the foul beast. Their weapons were deeply ensnared in its moist flesh. No matter how much the dragon shook, it won’t remove the powerful blades. Amidst the flames in the background, their surviving comrades and troops watched in awe.

“It’s… finally over,” the emperor breathed. “We won.”

Just as she uttered that confident statement, the white dragon collapsed to the side, its jaw jutted open. Black blood pooled underneath its large head as its last light flickered out. Everyone kept their limbs locked in place, their respiratory system temporarily paused. Byleth and Edelgard eventually straightened their posture. Although they were out of breath, they exchanged glances. Then, a worn smile broke out from their face.

“Thank you… Byleth.”

This war’s victor was none other than the Adrestian Empire.

Peace draped over the united land after five, long miserable years. Although there were plenty of sacrifices and regrets from Byleth and Edelgard, they marched forward with their heads held up high. After all, the emperor must reign over their new country and people with persistence and conviction. It was a worthy offering for the next chapter in Fodlan.

As for the leaders of the Black Eagle Strike Squad? Many of their comrades retired from the battlefield. Some of their comrades worked under or alongside with Edelgard.

Petra returned to Brigid with the songstress shortly after the final battle to build a diplomatic relationship between the two nation. Eventual news about a new theatrical show in Brigid starring none other than Dorothea spread across the sea. Its popularity skyrocketed as many nobles desperately scrambled onto the next boat to catch a glimpse of the beautiful opera singer. Lest to say, many were disappointed to hear that she was already taken. The Brigid queen made sure to make it clear.

Linhardt resumed his activity as a researcher, eager to chew on anything that perks his interest. Whenever Edelgard and Hubert visited the man’s estate, he would greet them with a piece of toast, their much-need answers, and a slam of a door. Hark, it was not from malice! Disturbance of a slumbering prince would present a predictable reaction. This led to a small stack of apologetic, handwritten letters from the green-haired to the emperor.

Bernadetta slithered back to her life as a noble— Well, it would have been more peaceful had it not been for Caspar. That young man made sure to take her out every month to sightsee a new scenery during his service with Edelgard. Safe to say, Bernadetta both did and did not appreciate his way of carrying her high up the mountains or through the fields in plain view. (How embarrassing!) Their laughter could be heard from miles away as the couple bloomed in the vast, green field.

Ferdinand and Hubert continue to maintain a close relationship with their new emperor’s activity at the castle. Of course, many of the guards and Byleth would spot them sharing a moment of tranquility over tea with each other. Suffice to say, they knew how to take care of each other in ways not even Edelgard knows.

Shamir and Catherine broke off from the group and traveled the country. No one knew where they were. The only clues they’ve left behind were the occasional, unaddressed letters delivered to Byleth at the castle. That didn’t include the rumors of famous fight scenes that broke out throughout Fodlan. (It appears they were mostly self-initiated by the troublesome duo.)

Overall, the turbulent times simmered down to a lazily, wafting steam. Those Who Slither in the Dark were still a danger to society, but Edelgard, Byleth, Caspar, Ferdinand, and Hubert were on top of their game. It was a lengthy session of chess, but so far, they’re nearing the endgame. Hubert, Ferdinand, and Byleth approximated about five more years until this evil is squashed for good. Five more years until Edelgard can retire.

“Edelgard?”

At the emperor’s patio of her grand bedroom late at night, the woman in bright red glanced over her shoulder. Edelgard released her hold on the concrete railings and approached the older female. The moon’s soft rays of light lit Byleth’s entrance into her vision. Her ex-professor had both hands behind her back, her hues sparkled like the stars. It would almost seem out of character had they not been dating!

Edelgard tried to resist an amusing chuckle as Byleth slowed her steps.

“Professor, what brings you here?”

Both females stood in front of each other. The close approximation allowed their breaths to tickle each other. They shyly giggled. Byleth soon leaned down to plant her lips on the shorter’s forehead. Pleasant warmth grew in the noble’s chest as she rested her hand on the other’s chest. She lowered her head and felt the corner of her lips curve upward.

“Okay, Byleth, what is it that you have to tell me?”

“You’re always straight to the point.”

“That’s just who I am.”

“Well… I have a surprise for you.”

Byleth began to back away from the emperor. The ex-mercenary got down on one knee. Her hands that were once behind her back were brought forward. There was a small object pinched between her thumb and index. It was a silver ring ornamented with bits of fine gemstones and diamonds; a precious gift that her father, Jeralt, had once given to her mother. He bestowed it upon his daughter before the incident that transpires afterward.

“Will you marry me, El?”

Her cheeks flushed. Those were the words Edelgard would never expect to hear from anyone in her life. Commitment to ending the Hresvelg line and isolating herself from politics once her duties were complete was all that filled her mind. She and Byleth had fallen in love, but they never exchanged anything more than a simple peck or tender embrace. Honestly, Edelgard held low expectations for their relationship to deepen. The fact that her partner in battle would become her lifelong partner increased her heartbeat’s pace.

' Is this a dream? It's too good to be true! '

The noble’s violet hues searched for an object other than Byleth to fixate. Happiness was an understatement. It was a complete understatement. No terminology in any living dictionary would be able to describe the euphoric sensation that threatens to burst from the seam of her epidermis. She failed to completely remove her gaze from Byleth as her reply tumbled out of her mouth like a rockslide.

“I— Wow, yes… Yes!” She finally diverted her attention back to the teal-haired. Hidden ears as rosy as her cheeks, she grinned from ear to ear. “Yes, I want to marry you, Byleth!”

No time was wasted in slipping the ring onto Edelgard’s finger. She cautiously removed the armored glove. Scars and permanent engravings from her surgical procedures were exposed to the open air. A shudder ran down Edelgard’s spine; she had to resist the temptation to rip her hand away. Besides, when her tactician inserted the precious band, all forms of negativity eroded away in a flash. The ring’s surface glimmered in the moonlight as Byleth brought her lips on her soon-to-be-official-wife’s knuckles. The sensitive flesh brushed upon the marked hand.

“We’ll always be together in spirit.”

“Just in spirit, though?”

Edelgard chuckled as her professor rose from the crouch. Hands now holding each other, they exchanged a kiss. At her lips’ touch, the vermillion girl blossomed like a flower. Sweet nectar dripped from her lover’s whispers as they went in for a second round. They repeatedly kissed, the one after another becoming briefer and more playful. Their eyes were closed as giggles emitted from their direction. From a distant, it would be to no one’s surprise if literal heart shapes sprouted from the couple.

“Once we finish ridding Those Who Slither in the Darkness, we shall find an appropriate person fit for the throne.”

“Mm… Five years is long, isn’t it?”

“We cannot help it. We have to stay focused on our goals.”

“It would be nice if five years were to hurry, don’t you think?”

“I agree.”

Edelgard placed a hand on her hip once their hold broke away. She looked downward, the smile lingering.

“Still, I have you by my side. To think that I would be walking down this path on my own… I was mistaken. I wouldn’t know what to do if you weren’t with me.”

“You should learn how to be independent without me, El.”

“Oh, hush! I doubt that would ever happen now that we’ve promised to be with each other.”

“…in spirit.”

“Why do you keep saying that? I hope you are misunderstanding the original phrase—”

A faint, but warm, yellow light glowed on Edelgard’s face. Stars. Tiny, little stars twinkled before the shorter female.

“?”

Particles of light began to grow brighter around the emperor. Edelgard raised her head; her violet eyes widen at the newfound sight.

“Byleth…?”

The older woman tilted her head, eyelids closed and smiled. Those particles grew in its number as Byleth became transparent. Their gentle nature floated near her face, almost as if they tried to hug her. Alas, these creations were not permanent. They were meant to fade away into nothingness… just like her Byleth.

“Byleth!”

She reached out towards her lover with the same hand that received the ring.

That was right… How could she have forgotten?

During the final battle, the two emerged victoriously… but at a heavy cost. Byleth had collapsed after the dragon’s death. Edelgard immediately dashed to her girlfriend; she ignored the throbbing aches from her bruises and stings from her cuts. The noble flipped over the instructor. A quick examination told her of the bad news. Confirmation was needed, and it was a confirmation Edelgard wished she had never done.

Byleth’s heart stopped beating. No matter how many times she pressed her ear against her chest, pressed her fingers upon her wrist, and shook the older woman, Byleth would not crack open her eyelids. Not a single peep came out of her mouth.

Did she die peacefully?

She didn’t know. She won’t know. She will never know.

“Are you leaving me again?”

Tears stained Edelgard’s cheeks as she witnessed her professor nod at her direction.

“This is farewell.”

Farewell? There was no need for farewell when the noble glanced down at her hand again. The ring… it was still there. Yes! It was still there! That same ring that she had slipped onto her ring finger! It… No— it has always been there. Byleth had given it to her and proclaimed her proposal right before the final mission. It was the last gift her girlfriend— her wife had given to her before the untimely demise.

She felt her throat become dry and lips tremble. Edelgard grabbed at the bright lights that encompassed her significant other. They went through her fingers. But she repeated her actions. It became frantic and wild as dizziness seeped into her skull. The tears continued to pour from her lacrimal glands as Edelgard shook her head with slanted eyes.

“No… NO!”

This isn’t right!

“Don’t you dare—!”

Her heart squeezed until it physically caused pain. Streams flowed down her face as her fingers curled inward at the golden clumps. Another outcry burst in-between her sharp exhales.

“I’ve already lost you once!”

No no no no no—!!!

Why can’t she grab her?!

Why?!

WHY?!

WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?!

“Don’t leave me again!” she wailed at the disappearing woman. “Please! I don’t know what to do anymore!”

Byleth reached her illuminated hand out. Though contact was not felt, she began to smooth the crying noble’s head. Particles from her legs began to dim as she tilted her head. Despite the anguish from her lover, she still smiles. How could she still smile…? No, that smile was only because she was an illusion. Edelgard’s blurred vision deluded her of a Byleth she finds solace in. Her lips trembled violently as another choking sob blubbered out of her.

Her professor, her friend, her lover, her only one closed her eyelids.

“Open your eyes, my dear Edelgard. This was only just a dream.”

This delusion has to end… and the first step to it is acceptance. As Byleth vanished, Edelgard crumpled to her knees. She cried hard into her hands, her weeping echoed into the lonesome night.

#loyalflutist #one shot #os #fan fiction #fan fic #edeleth #edelgard #edelgard von hresvelg #byleth #f!byleth #f!byleth x edelgard #just going to grab some armor just in case #fire emblem #fire emblem three houses

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cookiecutterwrites · 6 years

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Infinite/simal

Summary: Several years ago, immortality hit the market. A man struggles to piece together what happened next.

Genre: Spec fic. Apocalyptic elements.

Word count: 1660

Read more of my short fic here.

Infinite/simal

August the 16th, 2019. That’s the last date I remember. Everything after that… is a slip of the mind, a slip of the tongue, slipping away, like water between fingers.

I remember the pill, powder blue and lacquered. It arrived in a little opaque plastic cup.

The air was still. The facility, stuffy. But I couldn’t complain; I’d gone with my mates. It was a slow summer and we’d wheedled from place to place, like pack animals, bloodhounds, hot on the scent of a quick buck.

Our tablets were identical, but theirs were of sugar and water.

I had no such luck.

Initially, the pharmacists didn’t find anything. The drug was ineffective, the study, declared a failure and never published. They would catch the side-effects a decade later. When people started to notice. It was then, the formula was reclaimed and redistributed at an astronomical premium. To billionaires and likewise worldly men, it was a boon.

Life in a Pill!, they claimed, Just one dose and you too could be everlasting!

My friends grew weathered, lines etched at the corners of their eyes. (I can’t remember their names.) Soft hair turned brittle and grey. But we defied the passage of time. Away fell the shackles of the ticking clock; we could exist oblivious to such constraints.

For the first century or two, it was contagious. An industry emerged dedicated to bestowing eternal life to those who could pay. The packages were plastic back when such materials were legal. There were alternative syntheses, loyalty schemes, smugglers… We didn’t like the advertisements at the time, so gaudy, so bold. Insincere. They claimed the impossible, Eternal youth. The truth is, we did not feel young. Perhaps we looked to be so on the outside. Everything happened so quickly in those days. I miss the good old days. Before it all fell apart.

It didn’t take long for the reports to leak. We’d known the number of complaints doubled or tripled everyday, and that the cache was destined to burst eventually. When it did, it was a sweeping epidemic, indiscriminate. Every continent had its own share of horror stories. Everyday, anchors read from freshly decrypted files; meticulous documentation of yet another starry enterprising inventor, biologically only 45, chronologically much older, turning up in a hospital far from the prying eyes of relatives, having thrown back a cocktail of the most dangerous poisons known to man. He’d still be breathing. Still screaming. Required a round-the-clock team to hold him down. Always cognizant, never unconscious. Felt in minute detail, the walls of his veins dissolving a little more with every beat of his traitorous, hungry heart.

We do not know what it means to ‘succumb’. We have lost that ability.

Shortly thereafter, manufacture cracked down everywhere. The exposure spurred the boycotts. I do not like to say exposure. There is nothing to expose if it was never hidden. We had long suspected the dark trappings of this curse, and yet countless others failed to learn from our mistakes, failed to resist the pull of eternal life, of scorning death and knowing infinity. Some realized too late, they cried though they’d already spelled their doom in the stubborn droplets clinging to the bottom of a glass. Stranger still, is how folks continued to join our ranks long after the industry collapsed. Perhaps they had been waiting for the right moment to step outside of time. Perhaps there was a black market. I don’t know. I didn’t do much but sun in those days.

Today, there is no sun. Only black, stormy skies. From the volcanic ash. A thick, uninterrupted blanket of soot.

I wanted my great-great-granddaughter to have a dignified funeral --- she’s one of the few faces I remember -- but they don’t do that anymore. They leave the dead in mass unmarked graves because no one will care for them after they stop breathing. There is no one to dress the body, and no one will be left to remember them. At least, no one is supposed to be.

There are no priests now. Faith died with those lost in the rising tides and the earth-shattering quakes, their tombs sealed by tumulting pyroclasts and rivers of lava. What kind of God lets his people suffer so senselessly?

People revere us instead, they say, You’ll live through this, I wish I were you. I want to say, You’ll wish you weren’t. At least where you’re going, you’ll be with the people you love, but I mustn't. What kind of God decries the wishes of his people?

The few of us left sought each other out. I don’t know how long we’ve been wandering, but it helps to move, helps to ignore the broken hearts and broken promises. To run from what’s passed.

We’re all alike here, the only things alive on this dying rock.

We wish we still knew how to succumb.

The first one I met was a billionaire, round-faced, balding on top, and never without a winning smile. He’d wanted to be legend, to build an empire. He distrusted his young protege, and in a drunken stupor, vowed to never retire. He’s stayed true to his word to this very day.

The next was a hardened criminal, disillusioned. He’d lashed out unpredictably until we earned his trust.

(There had been a short window in an earlier century when the abolition of the death penalty and the introduction of the miracle pill overlapped. In that window, someone proposed something radical -- it was more cruel than what it replaced, but that was a time before the industry was looked down upon. It was a strange time, when people sought to incorporate the pill in all facets of life.)

He’d escaped a maximum-security prison when an earthquake tore down the walls of his cell. It took him another 4 days to crawl out of the rubble, dragging useless, broken legs behind him. He’d been 358 years into his sentence. He doesn’t even remember what he did.

Next, was a couple. The woman, scarred and frail, the years plain to see in her milky eyes, like scraped and ground glass. Entire lifetimes constantly brimmed and dripped down her cheeks. The man was decades her elder, but not chronologically. They grew up in a poor neighborhood and married young. Just a year after having their first child, she fell terribly ill; she said her goodbyes one morning, and that very afternoon, he gifted her with deathlessness. It had taken his life savings. It would be another 40 years before he’d scrounge up enough to afford just one other tablet for himself. To them, it was obvious they couldn’t live without one another. The pill was discontinued before they could buy one for their only daughter.

As for me, when they ask, I tell them about the sugar pills.

I so love these stories. There’s a thrill in recalling how we used to measure time, in years, weeks and days. When things had a start and an end. We’d reminisce on when time was tangible, concrete, something to interact with, something to contend with, when it slipped away between fingers. How delicious it was to be jettisoned forward through something, like rocks skipping across a lake. How we miss the airy rush of cessation.

Now, we talk about the inconsequential, focus on what we can still change. Though we slip often. The round-faced man reminds us we are mere specks in the vastness of space and insignificant in the all-encompassing span of history. We do not heed him much. We share in an unspoken understanding that we will still be here after this universe and the next is long gone. We don’t know how we know this. We just do. And it doesn’t scare us. After all, we’ve endured this much.

We sit around a fledgeling fire, nestled in the shadow of some ancient fallen metropolitan, breathing in rust and smoke. We listen to the strumming of a makeshift instrument and sing show tunes from childhood. (He’d rest his misshapen legs and insist the singing was necessary for his survival. Soon enough, it became necessary for all of ours.)

The round-faced man peers up at the dark skies, hoping to catch a glimpse of the sun, moon, stars, anything to tell night from day. He’s trying to give time meaning again, if only he could count the days. He’s been trying for as long as I’ve known him. But he hasn’t seen anything yet.

Sometimes the couple are silent. Sometimes, they chatter about the plants. How they miss such greenery. They declared life wouldn’t survive without sunlight, they knew it with such conviction. (Except for us. Never us. What we have must not be life.) Other times, they wept for their family, their friends, for their little girl. For the child who so reminded them of her, discovered her after the end -- sprightly, crooked teeth. They don’t talk about her much. I can only guess she never wanted to grow up. They’d tried to take her in but she was insatiably curious and wandered to the ocean ridge where the lava attacked the water. She couldn’t swim. So they wept for the little girl in the boiling sea, for scalding water burned her lungs. Her screams went unheard, mingling with the blasts of steam bursting from the surface. She drowned. Is drowning. Will continue to drown.

As for me, I busy myself recording. I am recording this right now, I record what I remember, what I see. And I hope that when you read this, it is a day when I am no more. When I do not exist, not in memory or name. Because only then, will I finally be able to rest.

Remembering is such pain, I try not to remember at all. I record in hopes that I won’t have to remember. Perhaps one day, I will remember it all. Perhaps in time -- I’m not in a rush.

#writeblr #writers on tumblr #creative writing #short story #short fiction #spec fic #dystopia #immortal #post apocalyptic #horror #scifi #cookie's stuff #cookie's writing #all tell and no show sorry bout that #way to take a break from my wip

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gaslightgallows · 7 years

Text

500 Prompts

I’m resurrecting an old chestnut from LJ/DW. Some of the best things I’ve ever written started as prompts from this list. Send me a character or a pairing and let’s see what I can do. (Or several! Multiple prompts are A-OK!)

The vacuum of time.

Terror in the night.

Flashes of euphoria.

Dancing with the devil.

Fatal accident.

Haunting melody.

Black ice.

Breathtaking reality.

Sensation of loss.

Shooting star.

Broken spirit.

Aurora Borealis.

Left behind.

Unguarded touch.

Last time.

Dying sun.

Devastating explosion.

Alone in a crowd.

Fragmented truths.

Gaping chasm.

Arise from the ashes.

The end of the beginning.

Remember me.

Flash of lightning.

Emergency evacuation.

Immortal laughter.

A whisper on the wind.

Electrifying sacrifice.

The calm before the storm.

A life of lies.

The winds of change.

The hand of fate.

Desperate plea.

Nightmare.

Whitewashed walls.

Caught in the act.

Wake up, the day is dying.

Close your eyes.

Beyond the horizon.

Finality.

Releasing the sparrow.

Something's out there.

Golden miracle.

I covet you.

The eye of the storm.

Screaming silence.

Her body was found...

I used to remember you.

Gasping confession.

Betrayal.

Uncontrollable wrath.

Dragon of shadow.

Natural disaster.

Leap of faith.

Faceless and nameless.

Harsh revelation.

A path to follow.

The power of goodbye.

Through a child's eyes.

One final look back.

Crumbling heart.

Ignored instinct.

Seductive danger.

Jumbled truths.

Shallow grave.

Why they call it falling.

Volcano.

Dying land.

A child's truth.

Antiseptic air.

Chained to mortality.

Dim as an ember.

Acid tears.

Unexpected emptiness.

Miraculous relief.

Letting go.

What Earth once was.

Frantic search.

Tragic moment.

Beneath the smiles.

Across the worlds.

In the still of the night.

Counting years.

Kidnapped innocence.

Tears of desire.

Ring of sunlight.

Trembling cold.

Missing planet.

Suffering rain.

Parched ego.

Toxic tease.

Horrific distortion.

Miracle ruin.

Wailing shadows.

Barren abyss.

Ravenous time.

Approaching doom.

Eternal danger.

Vacant arch.

Recoil.

Vehement grace.

Urban legend.

Gentle warmth.

Rippling tide.

Fallen haze.

That's all I ask of you.

Think of me.

Promise me.

A white rose.

Never let go.

Ghost of a rose.

Fire.

Enchanting surrender.

Cowering sunrise.

Deliverance.

Resisting temptation.

Leaves of amber.

I remember when she loved me.

Heart of a child.

Don't scream.

Bereft confusion.

Mysterious stranger.

Subconscious reality.

The truth about forever.

She's burning up.

You were supposed to be watching her!

Lost soul.

Wandering spirit.

Touched by an angel.

Shattered reflections.

Central power.

Lightning fast refusal.

Don't you dare.

Emerald eternity.

There will always be a monster.

Infinite embrace.

It's too late.

Cabin by the sea.

Guardian.

Amusingly inconsequential.

Ignited illusion.

Forsaken stealth.

Corrupted intrigue.

Kindle my soul.

Majestic memories.

Breathe, baby, breathe!

Resonating hunger.

Relinquished radiance.

Transcendent joy.

Silent watcher.

Her eyes believed in mysteries.

Last breath.

Sweet nothings.

Unfinished tale.

Endless darkness.

Suffocating darkness.

Passing warrior.

Shield maiden.

Old oak.

Ancient willow.

Off the map.

Deserted riverbank.

I never thought...

A walk along the shore.

The valley of echoes.

The family nobody wanted.

Dancing in the fountain.

Laughter from the flames.

A time for tenderness.

Sleeping storm.

Islands in the sky.

Unheeded warning.

Voices in his/her/my mind...

Spellbound.

It wasn't his/her/my/your fault...

Tempting enigma.

His/her/my/your compassion is like a shadow...

Even he/she/I have forgotten his/her/my name...

I hate love.

Irresistible coercion.

I offer no excuses...

Tumbling clouds.

Blue mists.

You think you have it bad?

His/her/my pain was like a desert...

Nothing could bleed that much.

Nothing lost, nothing gained.

Delicious tragedy.

The in between.

Into the river.

You're/He's/She's/I'm/They're only sleeping.

What can you see?

They're calling me/you/he/she/them home.

The end.

Somewhere out there.

Lamentation.

The moment…

Suddenly…

Childhood's end.

Broken weapon.

Gazing upon the sky with dampened eyes...

Vast horizons.

Entrapment.

Quaking need.

Memory of a dream.

Dangerous illusion.

Firestarter.

Enraged superstition.

Guilty morals.

Fragile as a dream.

An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

Portals of discovery.

Fall from grace.

Balance of power.

Out of sight, out of mind.

Diamond in the rough.

The essence of life.

Nostalgic numbness.

Desire, ask, believe, receive.

A fate worse than death.

The razor's edge.

Reach for the stars.

Touch me.

Unrequited accusation.

Tragic shadow.

Forbidden laughter.

Starved for affection.

Between a rock and a hard place.

No man is an island.

Critical vengeance.

Rough hands.

Mystery.

After tonight.

Farewell.

And the edges blur.

One thousand promises.

A broken sensitivity.

A curling shadow.

A darker pride.

A deluge of dancers.

A fallacy in your head.

A four leaf clover.

A golden shield.

A love remembered.

A lustful lie.

A magical time.

A perfect rainbow in Hell.

A queer sort of clockwork.

A secondhand heart.

A story never to tell.

All sorts of complicated.

All the tears of God.

Alone I break.

And that's when I stopped believing in gravity.

No one mourns the wicked.

Die alone.

Asleep at dawn.

Assassin for hire.

Based on a dream.

Once upon a December.

Before the next tear falls.

The beginning of goodbye.

A lonely tomorrow.

Beneath the blue.

Better left unsaid.

Between a rock and your mother.

Beyond the galaxy's walls.

Birthing black and white.

Blood and moon.

Blood wars.

Bribing the Devil.

Broken promises and broken hearts.

False gold.

By midnight's favor.

By the light of a million stars.

Castles in the sky.

Catastrophe in the making.

Crawling nightmare.

Crimson orchid.

Crown of ivy.

Call of the wild.

Darkness becomes me.

Dawn of night.

Dawning upon a crimson ruin.

Death becomes you.

Demon tongue.

Desolation row.

Destined jealousy.

Burning star.

Do you remember the end?

Don't look into its eyes.

Dragons in your eyes.

Make a wish and toss a penny to the moon.

Ecstatic pain.

Edge of sanity.

Elemental rain.

Equinox rising.

Ethereal blood.

Evening shadows.

Exquisite and unforgivable.

Face down I cry.

Fallen fae.

Light step.

Faery-eyed child.

Fail with honour.

A childhood dream.

Fields of dust.

Final breath.

Finding infinity.

Flame in the twilight.

For the child I will sing.

Foreign serenade.

Lost beginning.

Forgotten, not forgiven.

Fractured reality.

Fragile hearts and candy-coated dreams.

Angels among us.

Haunting lonely pools.

Portrait in black.

Approaching Flood.

Technological reality.

I am the night you die.

I believe in God. I can hear him laughing at me.

I appeared here to vanish there.

I close my eyes and you disappear.

I loved you mommy, the day I killed you.

I miss who you were...

I thought you were alive.

I was here two days from now.

I wish upon tonight.

I write sins, not tragedies.

If looks could kill...

Illuminated darkness.

Death by imagination.

Pierce the sky.

Unfathomable truth.

Shackles of the mind.

Growing fonder.

A time to grieve.

Fire in your eyes.

Tales of long ago.

Live on your toes, love on your knees, die on your feet.

Prisoner in her mind.

Hold still, I'm trying to kill you.

Breath of the devil.

The innocent can never last.

Too wide to cross.

Arrogance and beauty, painted in ugliness...

Falseness in acquaintance.

Beneath the shade of the Sycamore...

One summer's/autumn's/winter's/spring's eve.

In the shadow of Mount Gloom.

Intoxicating the mind.

Island of light.

It ends tonight.

Jilted dreams.

Night of fire.

Knowledge in death, wisdom in immortality.

Liberating release.

Life on white wings.

A beacon of hope.

Like shattered glass.

Listless winter.

Little girl's downfall.

Lonely by candlelight.

Silent angels.

Gazing out a broken window.

You cannot lose what you never had.

Blood and tears.

Love's pretty follies.

The gift of lucidity.

Mint and lilac.

Missing Heaven and roses.

Mother Earth's last stand.

How do I/we/you say goodbye?

Where does the sky end?

Breathtaking innocence.

Dangerous stranger.

Lost in dreams.

Found in reality.

Forgotten sanctuary.

Treacherous deceit.

Warped.

Disenchanted crystal.

Laughing at the moon.

Yesterday's tomorrow.

Future of the past.

Supernova.

Whispers in the dark.

Letters from nowhere.

The one no one sees.

Beautiful disaster.

Passionate desires.

Remnants of darkness.

The bitterness of mortality.

An exquisite extreme unknown.

More Heaven than a heart could hold.

Flames of disaster.

Miraculous discovery.

Trusting in a soul.

Twilight surrender.

When love turns to hate.

Lost and alone.

When the river runs dry.

Lapping at the shores of sleep.

Landing among the stars.

Reaching for the moon.

When stillness descends.

On the brink of forever.

Clinging to the edge of control.

Abandoned resistance.

Eyes within the Heart.

Heart within the eyes.

When forever fades away.

Grave acceptance.

Flying amidst a rainbow.

Falling from a cloud.

Alone with forever.

Sunrise upon a soul.

Prisms of a fragmented whole.

A glittering cavern.

Disembodied voices.

Dancing beneath the moon.

Dancing on the water.

Gliding over glass.

A tale rewritten.

Exiled child.

Letters and vowels, spinning and tiles.

I'll try violence.

Who named the stars?

Mysterious beyond.

Ocean tears.

Sleepy death.

Sea bed.

Whispering nightmare.

Bound by silence.

A twinkle in the night.

A waking slumber.

See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.

My lips are sealed.

Sometimes it is better not to follow your own destiny.

An invitation to Heaven.

Attacked by a dream.

Caressed by a nightmare.

The ravages of time.

Ancient tale.

Faces in the clouds.

Ripped apart.

The end of something better - The beginning of something worse.

The space between.

Look beyond.

Edge of the knife.

A human voice.

Dream the impossible.

Forgotten roads.

Flowers in the ashes.

A bitter pill.

Another fine mess.

The life inside.

Still crossroads.

Frozen bridges.

Fear of the fall.

Illusions of the darkness.

Sacrificial tension.

Path of a child.

Imitation of life.

Behind the mirror.

Through the fire.

Echoes of bondage.

Freedom in chains.

Parting regrets.

Something unheard of.

Hidden tales.

Laughter of the ages.

Frozen fire.

White shores.

Lights out.

Liquid sunset.

Silver glass.

When words fail.

A death of a thousand screams.

Those who do not remember the past.

When laughter's lost in peaceful silence.

The sands of time.

When death's lips left mine.

Cataclysm.

When Earth dies.

When worlds collide.

A mortal's forever.

Flight of disaster.

When tomorrows run out.

Kisses of a night terror.

Dashed against a rock.

Invisible defender.

The tattered, the torn.

A little happiness.

London by gaslight.

He sees the map back to her in the scars of his hands.

She never really leaves him...

And the thunder rolls.

#i have a prompt problem #prompt meeeeee #fan fiction #i love this prompt list so much y'all #make me happy #y'all know my fandoms #space vikings #valki #frostshield #crimson peak #star trek discovery #mfmm #prompt list

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01may1994 · 7 years

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i got so much soul inside my bones

this is a gift for @communistfireworks | read on ao3

words: 2,881

Chapter 1 (/2) - lovesick the beat inside my head

The first thing Ronan noticed about the new kid was how smart he was and frankly that pissed him off. A lot. Because it meant that from now on he had to actually put an effort to maintain his reputation as the scary, mysterious kid who also somehow spoke Latin like it was his mother language. He was a legend. But then this Adam guy shows up and Ronan’s throne starts shaking (his heart too if we want to be honest). But soon, Ronan realized that Adam wasn’t like everyone else in this shitty school.

People on Aglionby walked like they owned the world. They looked at you in the eyes because they wanted you to understand that they are important and you are not. They were the definition of white privilege, their whole existence shouted rich and dangerous, they were the people you are meant to be afraid of. Ronan hated this school and he hated himself for going there and most importantly for looking like them; rich and dangerous.

But Adam wasn’t like that. He lived in the shadows. He didn’t have any friends and he never talked about his life. Adam was a shadow. And because of that, Ronan almost managed to stop thinking about him all day, but the next day, the boy would say something really smart, not in an asshole-y way, but in a way that would make Ronan’s heart explode with awe and fondness.

The second thing Ronan noticed on Adam was his hands. They were calloused and rough. Many times his knuckles were split; proof that although he looked like he was made of sugar and spice and everything nice, he really wasn’t. He could tear you apart if he wanted.

Ronan loved Adam’s hands not only because they looked good, but because they meant something. They were the hands of a fighter, of someone who worked hard. Adam, Ronan concluded again, wasn’t a spoiled brat, like everyone else in this goddamn school, save Noah.

The third thing Ronan noticed about Adam was his anger. That boy was always angry and ready to punch something or someone. Of course he never got into fights inside Aglionby, because that would probably be the end of his scholarship. When people saw Adam they thought he was a shy, kind kid, the type teachers always loved, but Ronan saw the storm raging inside him. He saw it in the way he walked, in the way he moved, in how his jaw and shoulders were always tensed. He saw it in his eyes. But what Ronan couldn’t understand was the why.

Adam was indeed a riddle and Ronan was more than willing to solve it.

Ronan, Noah and Gansey were having lunch. Gansey was rambling about welsh kings and god knows what else. Ronan started spacing out. Then his phone buzzed. It was a message from Noah. Ronan raised his eyebrow at him and then opened the message.

Noah: youre starring again why don’t you go talk to him

He looked at Noah again and that asshole was smirking. He quickly typed an answer before flipping the bird to the boy and getting the hell out of there.

Ronan: fuck you that’s my business

Noah burst out laughing and Gansey, who was the most oblivious person alive, stopped talking mid-sentence, confused on what had actually just happened. Ronan slammed the cafeteria’s door behind him.

Just as he was getting into his car his phone buzzed again.

Noah: if you wont go talk to him I will

Noah: im tired of your pining shit

Ronan went straight to Monmouth. He wanted to go to the Barns but then he remembered he forgot to feed Chainsaw before he left in the morning. Not that she couldn't find food on her own, but Ronan had really strong feelings about feeding her. It was their bonding time, as he called it.

He was just outside the main entrance when he heard a loud bang behind him. He turned and shit, there Adam Parrish was in the middle of the road. He had obviously fallen off his bike for some reason. Ronan ran and kneeled down next to him.

"Hey are you okay? What happened?" he asked.

"Isn't it obvious? I fell off my bike?" Adam said.

Adam tried to stand up but he fell down again. Ronan tried to catch him so now they were half hugging and too close for Ronan not to freak out. For a second they just stared at each other's eyes. The sea fighting the sea. Then Adam sighed and looked away.

"I'm fine okay? I'm not hurt or anything." he said.

"Man you're not fine. You probably hit your head or something-"

Then a car stopped next to them. Both turned to see who it was. Shit, Ronan thought because it was a white Mitsubishi. Kavinsky was looking at them and at that moment he really looked like a wolf.

He said, "Hey Lynch, didn't know you hang out with trailer park trash now."

Ronan was suddenly on his feet, fists balled.

"Hey K, fuck off." he said.

"Too protective of your new boyfriend, aren't you? Wait. When did you and Dick broke up?"

Ronan took a step forward, ready to attack, but Adam stopped him by grabbing his hand. Kavinsky looked at their joined hands for a split second, his expression unreadable.

He wore his white sunglasses again and before he drove off he said, “See you around Lynch.”

After that Ronan was literally radiating anger. Adam thought that being next to Ronan when he was that angry felt like seeing a star burn and die. It was beautiful, yes, but it also made you feel this overwhelming sadness. It made your heart ache.

“Hey Ronan,” he said softly “are you alright?”

Ronan sighed. “Yeah I’m alright. He’s just a dickhead.”

Adam looked at him for a second. Ronan felt like his stare would set him on fire. He closed his eyes and when he opened them again he saw Parrish limping towards his bike.

"Hey hey hey," he shouted "I'm not letting you ride this bike when you're limping. What an irresponsible citizen would that make me."

"Ronan. We both know you already are an irresponsible citizen."

"Yea whatever if you have to be somewhere then I'll drive you there but if you don't shut up and come inside with me. I'll give you ice for that thing."

Adam shot him a questioning look, "Inside?"

Ronan pointed at Monmouth and said, “This is where I live.”

Adam could recognize a lost battle when he saw one. He sighed and followed Ronan inside.

Ronan passed the living room and went straight to the kitchen/bathroom. He opened the fridge, grabbed one of the many ice packs and gave it to Adam. Their hands brushed slightly and Ronan tried not to think about it much. He also grabbed some ice cream and they both went to sit on the couch.

“So why do you have so many ice packs?” Adam asked after a while.

“Because Gansey thinks we need them. Something about me getting into too many fights. Can you even believe this guy?”

“Oh yeah, I almost forgot you guys live together. I- I didn’t know you were- like- you know- boyfriends?” Adam said blushing.

Ronan literally choked. “What? No! We’re not? Gansey is the straightest person I’ve ever met! Jesus, Parrish.”

Adam blushed even harder. Of course Kavinsky was lying. But still, something bothered him about what Ronan said. Maybe it was the fact that Gansey didn’t seem that straight to him. I mean have you seen his boat shoes? Or maybe it was the fact that Ronan said Gansey’s not gay not I’m not gay. Adam decided he shouldn’t ask more and continued eating his ice cream.

He started thinking he must have sprained his ankle. Adam really hoped it was nothing, because he had a night shift on Boyd’s today. He also had to hide it from his parents because they’ll probably take his bike away.

”So how did you even fell off your bike?” Ronan asked.

Adam turned pink again. “I got distracted,” he said, because he couldn’t exactly say I was looking at you and I didn't see there was a fucking hole in front of me.

Ronan only hummed.

They continued eating ice cream and staring at each other. Ronan had the distant feeling they were looking at each other's eyes for far too long, but he didn't particularly mind. Oh, how much he loved the deep blue of Adam's eyes.

Then there was a loud bang on the door and both boys jumped as if they were electrocuted. The door opened and Matthew Lynch entered the room with the hugest smile Adam had ever seen.

"Why do you even bother to knock if you're going to just open it yourself one second later?" Ronan asked but he wasn't mad; his voice was soft and you could hear a smile in there.

"Joke's on you I wasn't knocking, I just tripped and fell on the door."

That cracked Adam up. Matthew turned to look at him.

"Hey I'm Matthew! And you are?"

"I'm Adam." he said in between laughs.

Matthew face went blank for a moment and then he smirked, "Ohh you're Adam?"

They both briefly looked at Ronan.

"Yea, have we- met before?"

"No? Sorry I was thinking of another Adam."

Adam shot him a questioning look, " You're not a very good liar, aren't you?" he said.

Matthew only shrugged and turned to Ronan, who had turned slightly pink. "Hey Ro, please tell me you didn't forget today is our pizza day."

Ronan got up and went to shuffle Matthew's hair. "Of course, I didn't forget about it kiddo," he said and then he turned to Adam, "Hey Adam wanna come with us at Nino's for pizza?"

"Yeah actually I have to go to Nino's, because I promised Blue but I can't stay sorry."

"Blue? Isn't that the short waitress? Wait, is she your girlfriend? Oh man can't wait for Gansey to find out."

"What? Blue? No, absolutely not. We're just friends. But what was that about Gansey?" Adam said smirking.

"Nothing. Just forget about it." Ronan said, smiling. "Can you walk?"

"Yes the ice helped thanks."

Matthew smiled again and that made Adam's heart ache. "Let's go then!" he said.

Adam: im not coming

Blue: Adam come on !!!

Blue: it will be fun and Henry and Noah came in person to invite us

Adam: us ??

Blue: yes they said

Blue: Blue we'd love you to come and please make Adam come too

Adam: Blue.

Adam: look I know your rules

Adam: since when do you hang out with raven boys? why don't you tell what's this really about??

Blue: okay

Blue: well

Blue: Gansey is going to be there too

Adam: ah Blue I get why you want to go but please dont make me come

Adam: first of all I dont have a costume

Blue: yes you do

Blue: I have three cousins in our age and you think I wouldn't find a costume for you? you're going as Spiderman

Adam: what the fuck

Blue: shut up

Adam: and you’re going as ??

Blue: eleven from stranger things

Blue: so that means you’re coming ?

Adam: yes

Blue: YES

Blue: oh and

Blue: I forgot to tell you

Blue: ronan’s gonna be there too

Blue: ;)

Ronan opened his bedroom door and froze. There was something absolutely hideous on his bed. A Halloween costume. Ronan could practically hear the distant echo of drums foreseeing his imminent doom.

"Noah!" he shouted.

Noah, as if he was waiting to hear his name, came out of his room wearing his best smirk.

That. Asshole.

"Yes Ronan," he said "Can I help you with something?"

Ronan was ready to punch him. "I told you I'm not coming to your stupid Halloween party" he snarled.

"But it's not my stupid Halloween party. It's Cheng's too!" Noah said laughing.

"Do I look like I fucking care? What even is this thing?" Ronan said, pointing at the costume.

"It's a vampire costume! I think it suits you. Have you seen how pale you are?"

"Yes, Noah, I know how fucking pale I am."

"Anyway Ronan I don't want to make you do anything you don't want to. But you know, everyone is gonna be there, me, Gansey, Henry, even Blue and Adam." he said and winked.

He. Fucking. Winked.

Ronan looked at him dead in the eye and then he slammed the door to his face. Gansey came out of the kitchen. He was eating yogurt and his eyebrow was raised.

"What was that?" he asked.

"Nothing, everything is under control" Noah said.

"You know, hearing 'everything is under control' from you is really making me think nothing is under control."

The party, as Ronan suspected, was terrible. And his costume was even worst. The fake teeth he was wearing made it hard for him to drink and Ronan didn't actually believe he could survive the night without getting wasted.

Somewhere between the third and fourth drink Kavinsky came and sat next to him. Ronan gave him his best angry glare.

"So where's your new boyfriend? Trouble in heaven?" Kavinsky said.

Ronan didn't answer. Not only because he didn't exactly know what to say, but also because if he opened his mouth he'd probably puke all over K. Now he was thinking about it, it wasn't a bad option really.

"What, now you're not talking to me? Did I hurt your feelings?" Kavinsky continued.

Ronan told him to fuck off. He got up and started heading outside. He slammed the door behind him.

Ronan then noticed there was someone else there, sitting on the pavement, a few feet away from the door. A Spiderman?

"Hey" the Spiderman said, taking off his mask.

It was Adam. In tights. His hair messier than ever, because of the mask. Ronan's heart skipped a beat. He went and sat down next to him. Maybe a little too close, but Adam didn't move away.

"Hey" he said.

Adam looked at him. At how his jaw was tense, his fists balled.

"So, what happened?" he asked.

Ronan sighed. "Kavinsky."

"Okaay, what's the deal with you two anyway? Are you friends or arch enemies?"

Ronan chuckled, "No, we're not friends. I don't know man, he is just obsessed with me. He hates me."

"Well, here's the thing, I don't believe he hates you." Adam said.

"Oh yeah? And why is he torturing me then?"

"I- I think- he's-um- hitting on you?"

Ronan flinched, "What? No! No way. What?"

Adam laughed a little, "Are you so freaked out right now because it is Kavinsky or because he is-like- a boy?"

"Obviously because it is Kavinsky," Ronan sighed and bit his lower lip, "Seriously Adam, I don't understand people that look at me and actually think I'm straight." he said slowly.

"You're not?" Adam said, his eyes wide.

"No I'm not. Don't look at me like that!" he said, blushing.

Adam turned slightly pink too, "Yeah that makes two of us I guess."

Ronan turned to look at the other boy, but he didn't know what to say. Frankly, he just wanted to kiss him and kiss him and kiss him. But instead he said, "So, do you have a boyfriend?"

Adam laughed, "Nah, I don't. Although I think Tad Carruthers would really much like to be my boyfriend."

Ronan laughed too, "Tad? You fucking kidding me? Did you see him today? He was dressed as a fucking zombie. It was terrible."

"Yeah," Adam said, "Besides I prefer vampire boys." he said and blushed even harder.

Ronan felt like the universe tilted and approximately five tons were lifted off his chest. Adam was looking at him, his eyes filled with uncertainty.

He cupped Adam's face and leaned in.

Their first kiss was quick, but Ronan felt like something erupted inside of him and the universe fell back into place.

Adam leaned in again. They kissed and kissed and only stopped to breath. Blue, green and red lights were dancing all around them. Ronan could only think of one word; beautiful.

Chapter 2 - and i got love falling like the rain

The first thing Adam noticed on Ronan that morning was how the freckles on his shoulders blend in with the sharp lines of his tattoo. They looked like tiny stars being sucked by a black hole. He was mesmerized by it. Adam, not for the first time, wondered how is it even possible for a person to be so beautiful and terrifying at the same time.

The second thing he noticed was Ronan's smile. He had only seen it once before, that day with Matthew. Back then, he was surprised by how true of a smile it was. Now, he was surprised by how it made his heart dance.

The third thing Adam noticed was Ronan's eyes. They looked even more magical from this close. It wasn't exactly ocean's blue nor sky's blue. It was something else entirely. It was Ronan's.

The boy sleeping next to him was made of light and magic and Adam loved it with every fibre of his being. Maybe for the first time in his life, he was happy.

#hello kk im your secret santa #i hope you like it #pynch #pynch secret santa 2017 #angst #fluff #swearing #getting together #fanfiction #ao3

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austinplaysrpgs-blog · 7 years

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Curse of Strahd, Part 1: Death House

Part 2 here

Cast of Characters

Rolen - Firbolg Paladin, Oath of the Ancients, Neutral Good (Played by me)

Rolen was the champion and protector of his clan for many years. They lived deep in the forests south of Waterdeep, keeping some distance between them and their giant cousins to the north. He has since left them behind for an unknown reason and is pursuing a green dragon. Rolen towers over smallfolk at over seven and a half feet tall, but he’s a gentle giant that is more interested in preserving the nature around him than in cracking skulls. He has blue-grey skin, and brown hair, with an impressive beard. He has the law of his people tattooed in white on his skin beneath his armor. He carries a small crystal on a string around his neck. It glows softly in moonlight. A gift from his daughter that she found in the caves near their home. It is his most cherished possession. He carries a large shield emblazoned with a green leaf, the symbol of his god, Silvanus.

Garfield Rosewater - Human Warlock, Celestial Patron, Lawful Good

To Garfield, life is black and white. He always grew up hearing about how his parents put an end to a civil war that claimed the lives of many, and wanted to be just like them. What Garfield doesn’t know is how they accomplished it: by making a deal with a forgotten elder god. They gave away the life of their firstborn to this god in exchange for peace, not intending to have children of their own. But fate had other plans. Now Garfield walks the land, hoping to discover why he has these powers, and why his dreams are plagued with dark thoughts.

Leo - Human Bard, College of Lore, Chaotic Good

Leo has always had aspirations for something bigger. Why be ordinary when you could be famous? Leo has a knack for words and feels at home on the stage. Capturing people in his stories and plays was easy and he rode this talent into the spotlight...until disaster struck. He never really goes into what happened, or why he is on the run, but it always seems to be the same story, Leo comes into a town, makes a great impression, and rises to fame. Then people start asking questions, and he disappears to the next town to keep his private life out of the spotlight. Now he looks to build his legend through adventure instead of the stage.

Frank - Wood Elf Monk, Way of the Drunken Master, Neutral Good

Frank’s clan was a small and isolated group within the High Forest. The wood elves had a tradition of picking one person every night to stand as Night Watch while the rest slept. One night, Frank got picked for the Night Watch. It was a pretty uneventful, mostly ceremonious position; nothing had happened in years on the Night Watch. Frank took his watch with little care and began to drink his favorite plum wine. During his drunken stupor, a pack of wolves made their way into the village and into an open hut. The screams that followed awoke the rest of the village, but by then it was too late. With a family dead, the villagers banished Frank. If they could not trust him, he could not stay with them. Frank is looking to perform a heroic feat and prove to his clan he can be trusted again.

Rolen waits in town for the return of his new companion, Frank. Rolen had stepped in and saved him from a likely death in the dense forest. Despite his wood elf heritage, Frank was often too drunk to really focus on his surroundings. Filled with admiration, Frank latches onto Rolen when he reveals that he’s pursuing a green dragon.

Frank and Rolen travel to the nearest town, where Frank sets off in search of “heroes” to aid Rolen in their quest. He stumbles across Leo and Garfield in town and they hit it off. Frank also runs into a man who is looking for help. He hands him a letter explaining that a woman has been visited by an evil curse, and asks for our help to save her. Frank obviously agrees to this without a second thought, and we set off to investigate.

While we are making camp, a mist settles over us. Upon waking, we notice that the woods around us has changed. We take a look around, and nothing seems familiar. We wander around for a bit before stumbling upon a gravel road. With few other options, we follow it.

The road leads to a large iron gate. A stone wall extends from either side as far as we can see. We pass through the gate into the forest beyond, and it creaks closed behind us.

A bit further down the path, we’re attacked by wolves. Leading the pack is a dire wolf with a rusty pelt. He watches while we dispatch the pack, and disappears into the mist, saying “Welcome to Barovia.”

After a short while, we find our way into a town. The place seems deserted. Buildings are boarded up; there doesn’t seem to be any activity. We hear the sound of whimpering children coming from around the corner. We go investigate and find two children cowering in the alley. They introduce themselves as Rose and Thorn. We ask them where their parents are, and they point us to the four story home at the edge of town. They tell us that their parents told them to stay here while they took on the monster in the basement. Without hesitation, we make our way directly to the house.

We make our way inside and poke around. There isn’t an obvious way down to the basement, so we head upstairs. On the third floor, Rolen hears the wails of a baby and goes to investigate the noise. The specter of a nursemaid appears in the next room, cries out “My baby!” and attacks. When the fight is over, Rolen notices eyes on the walls, watching the party, and swings his hammer, knocking a hole in the wall. The hole reveals a secret staircase leading up to the attic.

In the attic, the party finds the room of the children. Inside the room is a pair of small skeletons. Specters of the children we’d met outside, greet us, asking us to not leave them behind. There’s a dollhouse that looks exactly like the house we’re inside. Using the dollhouse, we find the secret staircase to the basement, and leave. Rolen has the foresight to bash holes in the wall to allow easy entry and exit from the staircase.

The crypt below the house appears to hold the entire family of the children. We find the children’s sarcophagi, and decide to go back up and retrieve their remains. We give them a proper burial, and the specters thank us as they proceed into the afterlife.

Rolen attempts to knock on a door, and is nearly consumed by what turns out to be a mimic. We hack it to pieces, but not before Rolen suffers some serious wounds. We find our way down to the next level. There’s weird cult shenanigans afoot. There’s a portcullis leading to a large chamber, from which we can hear chanting. We use mage hand to turn the wheel and open the portcullis from the inside, and when we enter, the chanting ceases.

There’s a raised platform in the center of a pool with a bloody stone. When Rolen and Frank climb the platform, shadowy figures emerge from the walls, and begin chanting “One must die!” Neither Rolen nor Frank are looking to end their lives just yet, and Rolen strikes the bloody stone with his hammer, cracking it. The chanting ceases once again, and a mound of refuse and vegetation emerges from the pool and attacks us.

In a highly improbable sequence of events, we manage to defeat the beast. Once we do, the structure begins to shake and crumble. We get the sense that the entire house and crypt may be coming down, so we book it for the exit. With ghouls in hot pursuit, we make it out of the basement and back to the first floor. The windows are all bricked up, the doors have been replaced with swinging blades, and the fireplaces are lit, spilling over into the rest of the rooms. With a couple of very close calls, we manage to leap and drag our way through the sets of doors between us and the exit.

Exhausted and beat up, we head to the inn and rest. The next day, we come across a fortune teller who has taken up shop in town. She greets us, and asks personal questions that reveal that she knows far more about each of us than we know about each other. Unsettled, but intrigued, we ask for a reading. She produces a deck of cards from out of nowhere and offers us to draw from it.

“This card tells of history. Knowledge of the ancient will help you better understand your enemy.” Rolen draws and reveals the 6 of Glyphs -- “The Anarchist, with this I see walls of bones, a chandelier of bones, and a table of bones - all that remains of enemies long forgotten.”

“This card tells of a powerful force for good and protection, a holy symbol of great hope.” Garfield draws the 3 of Coins -- “Ah the Trader, Look to the wizard of wines! In wood and sand the treasure does hide.”

“This is a card of power and strength. It tells of a weapon of vengeance: a sword of sunlight.” Frank draws the 7 of Stars -- “The illusionist, eh? A man is not what he seems. He comes here in a carnival wagon. Therein lies what you seek.”

“This card sheds light on one who will help you greatly in the battle against darkness.” Leo draws and reveals a card with a Ghost. “Oh so he’s back in the picture? I see a fallen paladin of a fallen order of knights. He lingers like a ghost in a dead dragon’s lair, convincing him won't be easy.”

“Now I see, your enemy is a creature of darkness, whose powers are beyond mortality. This card will show you where he can always be found.” She flips over the top card and shows The Tempter. “A secret place - a vault of temptation hidden behind a woman of great beauty. The evil waits atop his tower of treasure.”

#rpg #DnD 5e #Dungeons and Dragons #d&d #curse of strahd #gothic horror

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mogdaze-blog · 7 years

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Midnight Rendezvous - Short Story for Halloween

It’s hard to make a good living as an actor. Unless you’re an A-lister, chances are you’ve probably got a second job on the side to make ends meet while you try to live out your dreams. That used to be me, too: a plucky little kid eager to take on any role he could get. I was more than willing to bust my ass in the meantime if it meant getting to do what I love, knowing that all the long hours and back-breaking work would be worth it in the end. When I got my big break.

Life has done a great job of beating that enthusiasm out of me since then.

Now, I’m a graphic designer. The work is interesting, don’t get me wrong, and it puts bread on the table, but it was never my real passion. Ever since I was a little kid, all I ever wanted to do was play pretend, and it’d been my greatest goal since then to do it professionally - even though I hadn’t scored a real acting job since the Nineties.

That’s why, when in mid-October I was contacted by my old agent, Sean Harrell, for the first time in a decade, I didn’t hesitate to pick up the phone.

“Travis! You son of a bitch, you!” He said in the cheerful, endearing way only a talent agent could get away with calling someone a son of a bitch, “shit, what’s it been, eight years? God, it’s crazy how time flies.”

“What do you want, Sean? I didn’t even know I still had you on retainer.”

“Once your agent, always your agent, baby,” he said with a laugh, “if you’re wondering why I’m so chipper, it’s because I just got handed a big, juicy opportunity for you, my man.”

The last alleged “big, juicy opportunity” Sean had gotten me was a commercial for breath spray running on a few major networks back in the day. I couldn’t get a date for a few weeks afterwards, thanks to my newfound reputation as “Man With Halitosis Number 3.” Sean was one gift horse who was occasionally filled with bloodthirsty Trojan soldiers, so I’d learned to look at his offers with a healthy sense of scepticism.

“What’s this big opportunity?”

“You’ve been offered a guest spot on a major talk show,” he said, giddy as a kid on Christmas morning, “I’ve been speaking to the reps all morning, they’re practically begging to have you on.”

I scoffed and shook my head, though I knew Sean couldn’t see it. Even when I was acting, it was cult stuff - B-movies and little indie films where the work was varied but the pay was crap; none of them ever broke out of the indie circuit and made it big. In short, it was all nothing that Conan O'Brien or Jimmy Fallon would give two shits about.

“What talk show is this?” I asked.

“Midnight Rendezvous, with Julie Forrester. It goes out live to a few million people every week.”

“Never heard of it.”

“That’s funny,” he said, “because the reps told me that if I mentioned the name, you’d know it immediately.”

“Well,” I said, feeling irritated, “I guess they’ve got the wrong guy. Why would they want me, anyway? I don’t even act anymore, it’s not like I’ve got anything to promote.”

“Apparently,” Sean said, speaking uncharacteristically slowly, as though trying to choose his words extra carefully, “don’t get mad, but they want to talk about The Red Weekend.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah, I kinda figured you’d say that. They’re recording on the 31st.”

“Halloween? Oh, for fuck’s sakes, Sean. Could it get any tackier? Look, if they call again, tell them I don’t wanna talk about that stupid movie, and if that doesn’t get them to shut up, tell them they can take their offer, and shove it up their–”

“The pay, Travis. Let me tell you about the pay before you get all…heated.”

“What are they offering?” I grumbled.

“Fifteen thousand, for just a couple of hours on set. Still feeling crabby, Trav?”

Yes, I was, but I didn’t feel I could show it. Fifteen thousand for a few hours sitting on a couch in a studio, being asked questions about some stupid B-movie I starred in when I was in my twenties, seemed like a deal only a proud idiot would turn down. I may have been proud, perhaps unreasonably so, but I was no idiot.

“You sure these guys are legit?” I asked, not wanting to say yes right after hearing the number, “they’re not just gonna lure me out to some vacant lot, beat me over the head, and harvest my organs?”

Sean groaned into the phone. It was like we’d never stopped speaking. Truth be told, I’d missed the slimy bastard. At least he gave it all to you straight. When you spoke to Sean Harrell, you knew what you were in for.

“Look, Travis, there’s no way to ever really be sure they’re not organ traffickers - hell, I’m sure Kimmel fenced a kidney or two when he was starting out - but I can give you at least a strong 80% certainty that these guys are the real deal,” he said, “I spoke to the host for a little while, uh, Julie! She seems nice, you know, a personality. I’m sure you two will get along just fine.”

“You said the exact same thing about that Fairweather woman, but that fell through, too. How do I know this is gonna be any different to that?”

“Oh, come on, Trav, that’s not fair. You know the Fairweather thing couldn’t be helped. Besides, it was ten years ago. This? This is now, and now I’ve got this offer on the table for you and you only. Do you think I would have called if I thought this was just gonna be bullshit? Hell no. So, what’ll it be, buddy, you in or you out?”

I gave a reluctant sigh, before finally saying, “fuck it, why not. Sign me up.”

“Great! I’m so glad you said that, Travis, because truth be told I’d already said yes on your behalf.”

“Jesus Christ, Sean.”

“What? It’s my job to make decisions in the best interests of your career, even if you don’t. I’ll keep in touch and feed you the details in the next couple days. It’s shaping up to be a real happy Halloween, Mr. Norton.”

“Don’t push it. Speak to you later, Sean.”

“Later.”

He hung up after that, and I was left with nothing but silence and my thoughts.

The Red Weekend. It’d been a while since I’d heard that name, and that was no accident. It wasn’t an exaggeration to say that it was the movie that destroyed my credibility, and my acting career, so just thinking about it made my blood boil. Plot-wise, it was nothing special. Just a derivative 1985 monster movie cashing in on the slasher formula that was so popular at the time, with a few stolen shades of “Creature from The Black Lagoon.” A bunch of hapless teenagers decided to spend a weekend in a cabin on the edge of a lake, only to have their fun spoiled by a creature rising up and slaughtering all of them except one - who then goes on to turn the tables and slay the monster, avenging the fallen. Simple, cheap, and cheesy.

I played the creature from the lake, affectionately dubbed by the cast, crew, and all five-or-so fans of the movie as “The Bog Man.” If I took the role today (which, by the way, I wouldn’t) I’d have gone uncredited and collected my pay check, before moving on with my life. But I was star-struck, by the one person on the production team with what you might call genuine prestige.

Richard Upton Pavlović, the most iconic special effects artist you’ve never heard of. All the greats - Savini, Baker, Rambaldi, and a laundry list of others - all studied under Pavlović at one time or another, since he immigrated from Croatia in the forties. But he was a famously private man: nobody outside the business had ever heard of him; he was one of B-cinema’s best kept secrets. While the number of special effects artists who’d studied under him was vast, he only chose to work on a handful of different films personally: one of which, for reasons I doubt I’ll ever understand, was The Red Weekend.

The reason I took the role, and the reason I chose to be credited, was that in playing The Bog Man I’d be working one-on-one with Pavlović in the makeup room. It was my only chance to really interact with a living legend, before his death from a sudden heart attack back in 2007. Pavlović was a man with extraordinary vision. His one condition for working on a project was full creative control over creature designs, because he needed to be unstifled to truly work his magic. And it was magic: he could string together blood and gore with the best of them, sure, but when it came to monster design, Pavlović was the master.

When I met him in person for the first time, in a makeup trailer during a bitterly cold day in September, I was surprised by how small he was. Pavlović was a squat, wiry man with a silver horseshoe of hair and thick half-moon spectacles, looking like a cartoon shrew from a mid-30s Disney short. His design for The Bog Man was assembled in a thick stack of papers he carried in the crook of his arm, and started pinning around the makeup chair I was sitting on.

“Have you been under heavy prosthetics before?” He asked, with a soft, frail voice that still carried the echoes of a Croatian accent.

“No,” I said, “but I’m open to new experiences.”

Pavlović gave a quiet, good-hearted chuckle at my naïveté and continued pinning up his pictures. They were all hand-drawn pencil illustrations, some of parts of the creature, others of the entire thing. It was a huge amphibian, a little bigger than a human, with features somewhere between an axolotl and a triceratops, with the addition of a long, whipping tail. It was a hunched, slimy, pot-bellied creature with green skin and long arms ending in six thick claws. There was a strangely childlike nature to its head: wide and flat, largely smooth and featureless, with beady black eyes and three horns sprouting from either side of its head. In the illustrations with its mouth closed, it seemed more like a frog, with its lipless gob stretching from one set of horns to the other. When the mouth was open, it reminded me more of a shark, with multiple rows of switchblade fangs.

“What is this thing? I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”

“It is Rugoba,” Pavlović replied, gravely, “haunter of shadows, devourer of man.”

“Did you draw all these yourself?” I asked, “the detail is incredible.”

“Some I drew, yes,” he said, unpacking his equipment now, “others I inherited, from family members back in the old country. Creatures in the movies these days, they’re too tacky, too homogenised. I like to draw inspiration from older sources. It looks better, don’t you agree?”

I nodded in agreement, not knowing what else to do.

What followed was nothing short of gruelling. Seven hours in the makeup chair every morning and every night, and layer after layer of paint, putty, latex, slime, and false skin was packed onto me, until I felt like I’d been shrink-wrapped. Pavlović was a perfectionist, and I can’t imagine anyone ever felt that better than me. The head was a mixture of latex and animatronics that I wore like a helmet, with extremely limited visibility. My hands and feet were bound and fitted with claws, and a multi-jointed wire wrapped in latex became my whipping tail, that moved of its own accord.

For all the layers they’d packed onto me, it didn’t do anything to insulate. During the shoot - a lot of which I spent emerging from water and chasing down drunk, horny morons - it was a miracle I never came down with hypothermia. Day after day after day in Pavlović’s makeup chamber of horrors, all for a film I knew nobody was going to see. It was only when I got the chance to see the first proper cut of the film that I started to truly understand all the mythos behind Pavlović’s supposed mad genius: when I watched the film, waiting to see myself in a hokey monster costume, prancing through the woods, I never got what I wanted. When I was on screen, there was no recognising me, because I was not there. It was only the Rugoba, as if it’d been ripped straight from Pavlović’s nightmares and spat onto the screen, hunting its prey.

I remembered performing all the actions I’d see on screen, but I couldn’t - no matter how hard I tried - see myself doing it. Pavlović had turned me into his monster, and he’d done it flawlessly. The movie, as anticipated, was hot garbage, with plotting and characters as thin as wet toilet paper, unbearable dialogue, and thoroughly incompetent cinematography. But the Rugoba? That, I think I can say without a doubt, was the greatest, most realistic monster to ever grace the silver screen.

However, there was another element of the Pavlović legend which made him a little less desirable to work with. Actors, in one regard, are a lot like football players: they’re a superstitious bunch. The little superstition that Richard Pavlović carried around his neck was that he was cursed: any film he chose to work on was doomed to fail, and if you were unlucky, that failure would spread its tendrils out to the cast and crew as well.

Ian Barker, one of my co-stars, once told me in confidence that he felt the whole production just reeked of doom to him, like some invisible axe was hanging over all of our heads, just waiting for the right moment to drop. Thanks to being in full Rugoba makeup for almost my entire time on set, not many of the cast interacted with me - I was the amphibian social leper - but Ian was different. He was at least someone I felt like I could talk to, even if most of what we discussed was Pavlović’s curse.

To me, it was all stupid, baseless hokum, but towards the end of the shoot, I started getting worried. Maybe it was the fear that rattled me, but after The Red Weekend, I never nailed another audition: not for movies, not for TV, not for Broadway. Sean netted me a few commercials after that, but for all intents and purposes, my serious acting career was kaput. Looking back, I probably never had the nerve for stardom anyway, but just thinking about that movie had the power to leave a sour taste in my mouth.

And this Julie Forrester wanted me to talk about it on live TV. Part of me, honestly, was afraid of what I’d say, under pressure, and under the intensity of all those studio lights. My best guess for what they were trying to do was a Halloween retrospective on the life and work of Richard Pavlović, monster movie maestro, and seeing as I was the last actor to officially work with him, my experiences held some weight.

In the end, if I could take home fifteen grand for a talk show appearance a couple decades after my fifteen minutes of mild fame were up, who was I to complain?

Sean got back to me a few days later, saying a chauffeur paid by the studio would be taking me from my bungalow on the edge of L.A. to the studio. It all felt a little much, considering my credentials, but Sean just encouraged me to put my feet up and enjoy it. After all, I didn’t know when I’d get another experience like this, if I ever did. Might as well soak it in while I still could.

It was about eight at night, and trick-or-treaters were already prowling the streets, when a black BMW parked in front of my home and dimmed the lights. It felt less like a talk show valet and more like a mafia hitman, but I walked up to the car nonetheless, and the driver rolled down the window. It was a woman who looked to be in her mid-forties, wearing a classic chauffeur hat and a wide, inviting grin.

“You Travis Norton?” She asked.

I nodded.

“Hop on in, Sir. I’m Mary, I’m gonna drive you down to the studio.”

The car was comfortable, and there was a small bottle of champagne in a little icebox on the seat next to me, with a smiling jack-o-lantern painted onto it. The temptation was there, but I didn’t touch it - probably wasn’t wise to get loaded before a TV interview. Once I was belted up, Mary fired up the ignition and drove.

“Everything okay back there, Mr. Norton?” Mary said.

“Oh yeah,” I replied, “it’s wonderful. I feel bad for making you come out, I could have driven down myself.”

Mary laughed to herself in the front seat.

“Nonsense, Mr. Norton,” she said, “I’m honoured to have you in my car. I never thought that I’d be in the company of the star of The Red Weekend. If it’s not too unprofessional of me to ask, would I be able to have your autograph when we arrive? I’d just like to show my kids.”

“You let your kids watch The Red Weekend?” I asked, remembering its plethora of gory death scenes.

“Are you kidding?” Mary said with another hearty laugh, “it’s their favourite movie. They’re crazy for it.”

For the rest of the journey, I remained largely silent. Mary seemed nice at face value, but the more you spoke to her, the more you realised something was off about her. But it wasn’t just Mary that was a little odd: the car, upon closer, more sustained inspection, was strange too. The back windows were so tinted you could barely see out of them, and before I knew it, I was hopelessly lost. I’d lived in L.A. for most of my adult life, but the neighbourhoods Mary was driving us through felt totally alien to me.

The studio was like an anthill, pulsing with life, and dotted with more rictus pumpkins. Assistants and stagehands shuffled to and fro in steady streams, the pumping lifeblood of the whole big, complicated affair, as Mary pulled us into the parking lot. I got out of the car, gave a small, reluctant autograph in her pocket book - dedicated to her kids, of course - before being ushered away by another little detachment of stagehands. The place seemed to run with almost military efficiency, with everyone around me constantly checking their watches before moving at a quickened pace.

It was this aspect of a life in show-business that I never missed.

“Mr. Norton,” said a shrewd-looking studio rep who’d materialised from a crowd of scurrying assistants - he’d never be on camera, but his suit looked far nicer than mine, “I’m Michael. Splendid to see you accepted our offer. Please, follow me, I’ll see to it that you get to Miss Forrester.”

Ten years out of the media, and here, I was a babe in the woods. I blindly followed Michael further into the bowels of the studio, away from packed crowds of excited guests being corralled into queues. Most had won contests to be here, and the rest had probably paid their way in. They’d be the ones watching me, reminding me that I was being watched, not just by them, but by millions of others who’d all tune in to a show I’d never even heard of. It’d been a strange and eventful Halloween.

Before I knew it, in the haze of yelling directors and baking studio lights, I was backstage. They ushered me into a makeup room, where I was given the most minimal makeup job I’d ever seen, even more so considering my work on The Red Weekend for comparison. I was about half way through deciding whether it was a compliment when the door opened behind me, and a strange, kinetic energy seemed to fill the room, as though someone had just turned on a generator.

“Travis Norton,” said a shrill, excited voice coming from a shape I could only just catch in the corner of my mirror, “you have no idea how long I’ve waited for this. I feel like I need someone to pinch me.”

Julie Forrester, like most television hosts, was a font of untapped energy, constantly bubbling beneath the surface. She was a little shorter than me at about 5"8, decked out in a tasteful grey suit, with a broad smile that seemed to flash the majority of her paper-white, perfectly-aligned teeth. She’d been prepped and polished by countless stylists and makeup artists, because I couldn’t for the life of me tell you how old she was - you could peg me as a middle-aged bum at a glance, but Julie seemed to stand outside age, just looking in and smiling at the rest of us. Her hair - black, silky - was cut fashionably short.

“Hey Julie,” I said, with the awkward, feigned familiarity of meeting TV personalities, “thanks so much for having me on. I��m incredibly grateful for the opportunity.”

She gave an excited little squeak, like a teenager at a boyband concert. This was all feeling more and more like a big, sinister practical joke. Trick or god damn treat.

“Hearing you say my name is so surreal,” she said with a laugh - no, a giggle, “young me would have exploded at just the thought of it. You should know, I don’t normally do this, but with you I just couldn’t resist. You’ve been a hard man to track down, you know? Extraordinarily private, for a celebrity of your stature.”

I laughed back, acting like I was in on the gag.

“Yeah, well,” I said, “I have always been pretty low-key.”

“Are you a fan of the show?” She asked, clearly hoping the answer was yes. Julie reminded me of the kid in class who was always trying to impress the teacher - searching for some kind of validation from someone she perceived as an authority figure. You don’t get into this line of work unless validation is part of what drives you.

I’m ashamed to admit it, but I thought about lying, about humouring her. It was only when I realised there might be a follow-up question that I decided to give her my slightly-sanitised version of the truth.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “but I don’t really watch much TV. But Sean, my agent, he told me this show was excellent, so I jumped at the chance to be a guest.”

Julie’s face fell slightly, as though my words had wounded her, but she stayed positive. Outwardly, at least.

“In that case, Travis, you are in for a real treat tonight,” she said, “I’ve got some great questions lined up, there’ll be a brief Q&A with some audience members - don’t worry, it’s all screened, so there won’t be any curveballs - and we’ll have a few fun little segments mixed in to break stuff up. Is this your first time doing a live TV interview? My researchers couldn’t find much footage of you online.”

“No, uh, this is my first time. I’m a little nervous, actually.”

She gave a friendly, comforting chuckle and patted me on the shoulder.

“Don’t worry, you’ll be just fine. You can pretend it’s only you and me, if that helps, but everyone out there loves you, Travis. They’ll be hanging off your every word.”

“I never knew The Red Weekend had such an ardent fanbase.” I said, trying to play off all the uncomfortable praise that seemed to be bombarding me from every angle.

Julie laughed again, as though I’d said something funny and missed it.

“Don’t be so modest, Travis, everyone remembers their first time watching The Red Weekend, it’s a rite of passage,” she said, walking towards the door, “if you need to do any last-minute psyching yourself up, now’s the time. You’ll be on in ten.”

The sudden, strange realness of it all hit me like a haymaker as Julie closed the door behind her. What the hell was I doing? I wasn’t an actor, not anymore, I designed logos for small businesses and occasionally made a poster or two. The freakish contrast between the world I’d known for the last two decades and the world I was being pulled back into was jarring. It barely felt like I had time to blink, when Michael, the rep, was knocking on the dressing room door.

“We’re ready for you now, Mr. Norton, do come out and join me. Recording will begin soon.”

I gulped down my final misgivings like cheap scotch, and gave a long sigh. It was now or never, but truth be told, even for fifteen grand, “never” was looking more attractive.

The set was, in a word, generic. A large red couch sat across from a wide desk, bearing the title “MIDNIGHT RENDEZVOUS” in large but tasteful lettering. The background was the standard plywood fare covered in a large facsimile of the L.A. Skyline up in lights. Julie sat at her desk, beaming, while a skinny warmup comedian stood centre stage, making anodyne jokes about West Hollywood traffic to the softly-laughing studio audience. They sat in near-darkness, compared to the bleached whiteness of the set, but the longer you looked at them, the more you could make out all their shapes.

I took a seat across from Julie, not wanting to upstage the comedian, but the second I entered the view of the audience I felt a hundred pairs of eyes pierce me. For whatever reason, I was the centre of attention.

“This will be over soon, and we’ll get started,” Julie said with a wink, “this might be my most anticipated episode. No pressure, though, you’re gonna nail it.”

The warmup comedian was finishing his set, his brow now dotted with glistening beads of sweat, like the damp patches glaring through his cheap suit. None of his stuff was particularly funny - all broad observations and reheated takes, the TV dinner of comedy. Most of all, he just seemed surprised and giddy to be there.

“Thank you!” He said, “you’ve been a wonderful audience, but now I’m gonna hand you over to Julie and Travis, who I hear have got an excellent show for you tonight! Have a happy and safe Halloween, guys!”

He laughed as the crowd cheered, and then started to head for the exit, when Julie called to him.

“Josh!” She called, “you did a great job, really awesome stuff. Would you mind sticking around a few minutes longer? There’s a few last little things we need to do.”

Josh nodded politely and returned to centre stage, delivering a few more inoffensive little quips to the crowd, and receiving small bouts of friendly laughter in return. I didn’t notice at first, but Michael the rep had appeared at Julie’s side, and I caught the tail end of their conversation.

“Is the perimeter secure?” She asked him.

“Yes, ma'am,” he replied, “we should be all good to go, when you’re ready.”

She nodded, and Michael disappeared backstage. Seeming to just arbitrarily come and go was Michael’s whole thing, I gathered, but before I could think about it any longer, Julie stood up and joined Josh, centre stage.

“It’s looking like we have a beautiful audience tonight!” She said, with the practiced, theatrical flair of someone who’d said this a million times, “and how appropriate, because I think tonight we may have my favourite guest of all time. Do I even have to say his name, folks?”

There was a cheer from the crowd. I gave an awkward smile, and Josh just stood there dumbly, next to Julie.

“I have been informed by the producers that all the perimeters are secure now,” she said, “so, with that in mind, it’s time to change.”

It happened so quickly, but it felt like it took a million years. The hue of Julie’s skin began to change from a pale pink to a deep, murky green, as her shape began to shift, bloat, and elongate. But, it wasn’t just Julie: the camera men, the stagehands, and the audience began changing too, all slowly warping themselves out of humanity and into something else entirely. Six claws, those big amphibian faces, those long, whipping tails and terrible jaws full of thousands of teeth.

If I wasn’t almost entirely sure it was all fake to begin with, I would have screamed until my lungs burned up into prunes in my chest cavity, but as it was I couldn’t summon a single sound. The host, the crew, the studio audience: they weren’t human, not even close. They were Pavlović’s monster. They were the Rugoba.

All of them except Josh, who stood next to the seven-foot-tall monster that Julie had become - still somehow wearing that sleek grey suit over her freakish new body. He was quaking in terror, only letting out occasional whimpers of fear. Both were standing in front of me, so I couldn’t get a good look at their faces, but beyond them I saw a legion of grinning Rugoba filling the stands. All here to see me.

“But, before we get this show on the road,” Julie said, her voice startlingly similar to when she still seemed human, “some free concessions for the first few rows. Remember to share!”

With a huge, clawed hand, Julie gave the quaking Josh a push. He pitched forwards, screaming, into the midst of the studio audience, and they set upon him in an instant with claws and teeth. Ripping, tearing, devouring. Those panicked yells soon just become bloody gurgles, and then nothing but the sounds of feasting, and of Julie’s laughter. When Josh’s head came away from what was left of his body, several Rugoba seemed to fight over its contents.

Had I not have been desensitised by spending my young adult years working in crappy, exploitative horror movies, I’d have thrown up. Instead, I just sat and watched, feeling like someone was taking a weed whacker to my soul. Human beings weren’t meant to witness things like this, and now, I was the only one here.

“Settle down, folks,” Julie said with a good-natured chuckle, “we’ll have more snacks distributed throughout the show. Everyone ready to begin? If you are, give me a big cheer!”

And she got one. The creatures that’d eaten a man alive a few seconds before just took their places, all looking as excited as their inhuman faces seemed to allow. The better part of me knew that I should have tried to run - I wasn’t paralysed by fear or anything like that, no, I just knew that if they were eating Josh but sparing me, there had to be a reason.

A Rugoba director, wearing an abnormally large headset to fit around his horns, called lights, camera, action.

What I assumed must have been the theme tune began to play, as Julie turned to me, a look of confusion spread against her wide, froglike face.

“Why haven’t you changed, Travis?” She asked.

That’s when it all hit me: why I was here, what all this was about. Pavlović - that mad, genius son of a bitch - his makeup job wasn’t just good, it was utterly flawless, a perfect representation of a creature his family always knew truly existed. The costume was so good, it even fooled Julie and the others. For all these years, they genuinely thought I was one of them.

“I can’t.” I said, without thinking.

“Why?” She asked in a harsh whisper.

I could tell the theme song was drawing to a close, and I needed to spin good enough bullshit to not get eaten by a talk show host. It wasn’t my best work, in hindsight, but what I said was:

“I’m a method actor, and I’m playing a human in my next role. I don’t want to compromise the integrity of the character.”

What I expected was getting a face full of gnashing monster teeth, but no, Julie just laughed and smiled at me. As the theme song played its last few notes, I breathed a sigh of relief, knowing she’d bought it. And with the audience’s undivided attention, Julie began her little monologue.

“Welcome, welcome, welcome to the good people at home! You know me, I’m Julie Forrester, and this is Midnight Rendezvous - the most popular talk show on Rugoba TV!” She said, before presenting her middle claw to the camera, “so pogo on that, Morning Chitchat. And boy, do we have a special guest for you tonight, folks, a guest quite unlike any other. You know him, you love him, it’s the one and only Mr. Travis Norton!”

The studio audience exploded into deafening cheers and applause, like none I’d ever heard in my lifetime. The response was so overwhelming, I nearly forgot I’d just seen them all eat an innocent man alive.

Julie walked back and squeezed herself behind the desk, making it look comically child-sized now.

“Now, Travis, I’m thrilled to have you on.” She said, leaving a pause for me.

“I’m thrilled to be on,” I said, my voice quivering, “sorry, I’m not used to all this attention. It’s a little overwhelming.”

She laughed again, and said, “now, in many ways, you’re a guest that needs no introduction - but I’m gonna introduce you anyway, because that’s how I make my living.”

The crowd laughed, and I decided to join in. Slime was dripping in liberal dollops from Julie’s massive jaws, coating the top of the desk. It’s a miracle I didn’t relieve my bowels just looking at her.

“I know I’ve been a fan of you for a long, long time, Travis. Having a Rugoba celebrity on the show is nothing new, of course, we’ve had plenty here: Björk, Kanye West, Ryan Reynolds…but Travis, you, to this day, are the only Rugoba in living memory who’s had the guts to show their true form on film,” she said, a genuine note of pride in her voice, “and I think that deserves another round of applause, don’t you, folks?”

More applause, and I forced a smile. It was becoming clear to me that this whole thing was just a tightrope act: I was a folk hero to them for now, but the second they realised I wasn’t one of them, I’d be devoured, just like Josh. In that moment, I wished that Richard Upton Pavlović was alive again, so I could have a go at beating him to death myself.

“If you’re wondering why Travis is looking so tasty tonight, folks, it’s because - and this is a Midnight Rendezvous exclusive - he’s going to be starring in a new movie soon. How exciting?” Julie said, playing up every word for the eager crowd of monsters just beyond the edge of the set, “he’s a method actor, so he’s trying to stay in character. Can you tell us a little about the film, Travis?”

Great. I was on the spot again, one lie leading to another. A good piece of advice to take to heart is that when you’re already in a hole, it’s best to stop digging, but I was already half way to China.

“It’s called Mirrors: Reflecting,” I said, completely pulling it out of my ass, “it’s a comedy-drama about a has-been actor who ends up getting way in over his head in a situation he doesn’t understand. It’s in pre-production.”

“Oooooh,” Julie said, “sounds exciting. Now, I’ll start with the question I think we’ve all been thinking since we first saw The Red Weekend: how did you find the willpower to never eat any of your co-stars?”

The general rule seemed to be that anything I found morally repugnant would get a big laugh out of the crowd. The Rugoba sense of humour seemed to be mainly based around terrible things happening to humans, so I chose my words as carefully as I could, given the circumstances.

“It’s, uh, it’s all about self-control,” I said, “you’ve just gotta tell yourself to stay in the professional zone, and that you can’t eat any of them, because it’ll, uh, compromise the production.”

“God,” Julie said, “check out this guy here, making me feel like a slob. You’ve gotta give me the number of your dietician after this, Trav. I ate mine last week.”

I laughed out of politeness, but I genuinely wasn’t sure whether it was a joke or not. For my own sanity, I chose to believe the former. The crowd found it hilarious, either way.

“Did any of your co-stars know the truth? You know, about who you really are?” She asked.

“No,” I cut in, worrying that revealing the truth would be a secret death sentence, “those dumb humans believed it was all just makeup. You know what people are like, easy to trick.”

Julie slammed a claw down on the slimy desktop and gave an over-the-top laugh.

“So true, Travis, so true!” She cackled, “in fact, half of the folks at home are probably enjoying a trick or treater as we speak. Halloween, what a holiday, it’s like getting free home delivery - and they bring your dessert in a bag with them! So considerate - who says humans aren’t good for anything?”

How many of these things were there? How many facets of society had they invaded, if they had their own TV shows? Sean said this show went out live to millions of viewers, and surely not all of them would be watching. There must have been Rugoba everywhere.

“Now, a couple more serious questions, before we get to the fun stuff,” she said, licking the slobber off her fangs with a long, purple tongue, “your filmography has some strange gaps. You get plenty of work in the eighties, and a little going into the nineties, but then a huge episode of silence until now. Why the return to film?”

It probably shouldn’t have rattled me, given what was going on, but it did. Somehow, the fear of failure ran even deeper than the fear of monsters, and Julie had opened the floodgates.

“It’s not been for lack of trying,” I said with a laugh that undermined my sadness, “it’s hard to make a good living as an actor. Unless you’re an A-lister, chances are you’ve probably got a second job on the side to make ends meet while you try to live out your dreams. I’m a graphic designer in my spare time. Just lately, I got lucky, and was offered another big break. It wasn’t what I expected, but I’m trying to play it out as best I can.”

The crowd gave a sympathetic “awwww” that felt good in spite of them being a horde of carnivorous beasts. Julie seemed similarly sympathetic, looking at me with those big, black shark-eyes that somehow communicated a warm depth of compassion you couldn’t imagine coming from a creature like her.

“Well,” she said, trying to reclaim the room, “I’m sure I speak for everyone in this room when I say that we’re glad you’re getting work again, Travis, you’re a talent like no other. That’s why I thought I’d get you a fun little Halloween treat.”

All the lights around us began to dim, as several excited “oooooohs” issues forth from the crowd. I could hear sudden movement backstage, and the scraping of metal against metal.

“But,” Julie said with glee, standing up from her desk and trotting to centre stage, “one person’s treat is another person’s trick, quid pro quo, that’s the way the world goes. Travis isn’t the only special guest we’ve got tonight, courtesy of some fine work from our producers.”

A group of Rugoba in dark uniforms dragged a huddled, chained figure onto the stage. He’d been either beaten or drugged, but whatever the case, the guy was totally out of it. Half-naked, covered in scratches where his handlers had been too rough. It’d been so long, but after a moment or two, I recognised who it was.

Ian Barker, my old Red Weekend co-star.

“As you all know,” Julie said, addressing the crowd, “the one blemish marring the perfection of The Red Weekend is the downer ending. The rest of it is such an uplifting story of Rugoba conquering and devouring humankind, as nature intended, until the character played by our new guest Ian Barker here slays our champion!”

The crowd entered a state of vicious booing, all directed at Ian, who was too dazed to even respond. He remained on his knees, with a heavy metal collar bound around his neck.

“But, today, as a Midnight Rendezvous Halloween special, we’re going to right that wrong, folks!” She said with a laugh of shrill, sadistic excitement, “our dear friend of the show, Travis Norton, will devour Ian Barker live for you and the folks at home, and all the wrongs will be right again. Is everyone excited?”

As the volume of the cheering went up, my heart sank. Before I could even think to stop myself, or formulate a plan, I was up on my feet and charging towards Julie with an excuse.

“Julie, you don’t understand,” I pleaded, “I have to stay in character, I need to seem human.”

Julie scoffed and shook her head - more for the audience than me.

“What? Humans eat other humans all the time! Jeffrey Dahmer, Andrei Chikatilo, and a whole bunch of others,” she said, “you don’t even need to change back. The producers got you this handy little tool.”

A fourteen-pound framing hammer was forced into my hands, crushing my last attempt at an excuse. Everyone but Ian was looking at me, as I stood there with the hammer, all grinning and egging me on with their eyes.

“You only have to eat some of the brains, it’s the best part anyway,” Julie said, “I’d hate to break you too far from character.”

Then the chanting began: kill, kill, kill. I don’t know who started it, but now there was no stopping it, not until I’d made up my mind. I gripped the hammer, hard, and looked at the back of Ian’s head. If I fessed up, and told the truth, would they kill him and me anyway? Did it make more sense to just kill him and get it over with, then try to live with the guilt afterwards?

Maybe it did make more sense. But that’s not what I did.

“Stop! I yelled, the hammer clattering to the ground, "and please listen!”

The room fell silent, and Julie started looking at me like she knew something terrible was about to happen.

“I have a confession,” I said, “you’re not gonna like it, but you have to listen to me, and hear me out. I’m not one of you, okay? I’m not a Rugoba. I’m a human being, it was all a big god damn lie.”

Julie stared at me, devastated, and said “wait, Travis, what do you mean? The Red Weekend…”

“The Red Weekend is a shitty movie that ruined my life!” I blurted out without thinking, “it was all special effects makeup, none of it was real. The guy just knew about you, somehow, and you’re what he based his design on. I was never a Rugoba. I’m sorry for misleading you all like this, it’s just a huge misunderstanding.”

In an instant, the crowd devolved from low, worried murmurs to riotous shouting. Julie tried in vain to comfort the yelling crowd, to stop them baying for my blood, but it was too late. I’d taken one of their greatest living legends, and torn it apart in front of them. I’d gone from being a hero to the devil himself.

Running was the first thing on my mind, but before the thought even properly formed, something had struck the back of my head - and everything went black.

***

When I finally came to, I was staring out of thick, iron bars into the furious amphibian face of Julie Forrester. The room was dark, so I could barely see beyond her, staring into the cage and mugging at me. She’d lost her grey suit, and was wearing a white outfit with a skirt instead, her whipping tail protruding from the back, lashing at the air.

“I bet you feel really clever right now, Travis, well done,” she said, her voice devoid of the lightness and humour I’d known it for, “you made me look like an absolute clown on my own show. I trusted you, I invited you on, and you just humiliated me.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, my thoughts still returning in brief snatches, “I really am, Julie, I didn’t mean for it to happen like that. Aside from the whole ‘eating humans’ thing, I like you as a person. I wouldn’t want your credibility to take a hit.”

She ran her claws across the bars of the cage, and shook her head.

“Too little, too late, I’m afraid,” she said, “but you can still make it up to me, in other ways.”

“I want to, Julie, I really do.”

Julie pulled back from the bars a little and seemed to pace around the cage, her footsteps heavy and wet, but as regular as the ticking of a clock’s pendulum. It’d drive you mad if you listened for long enough.

“What you said earlier about the entertainment industry is true, Travis, even if the rest was all lies,” she said, her tone gravely seriously, “if you want to make a good living, one job won’t cut it. You need to be a real polymath to put bread on the table. Thankfully, I’m a Rugoba of all trades: Midnight Rendezvous is just one of the shows I host.”

“What’s the other one?” I asked, out of morbid curiosity.

She stopped, pressed her terrible amphibian face against the bars, and grinned.

“You’ll see,” she said, “you’ll see real soon, Travis. I’m gonna make you into something so much better…”

As Julie started to walk away from the cage, one by one the studio lights began to turn back on, cracking into life. The couch and L.A. backdrop was replaced by a homely-looking kitchen, fitted with a gorgeous array of utensils and hardware. Julie produced from the front pocket of the white apron she was wearing a long and magnificent chef’s hat, and placed it onto her huge, slimy head.

The words “COOKING WITH JULIE!” were emblazoned across the front of her kitchen unit.

My fear had already passed, all that remained now was that kind of dissonant, slaughterhouse calm that sets in when you already know you’re finished. All that’s left to do is wait. But, I took a strange comfort in knowing that this Halloween night The Red Weekend would finally be coming to an end.

I closed my eyes and exhaled, as the director called “lights, camera, action.”

#stories #horror #halloween #funny #monster girl

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hxlfsoul · 5 years

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@fragxr

ONCE SHOTO HAD LIVED LIFE AS A NORMAL MAN, unaware of the realm of immortals. There had been many gods, back then, but his chosen one, his patron, had been Katsuki, god of war and victors. It hadn’t been by choice, but by the coercian of his family, for his father had paid many a tribute to the war god and so, it was only natural for Shoto to follow suit, no matter how he detested the legends of the man with no mercy, of the trail of anger and flames that blazed through the country under the conflicts of such beings, no less that one.

Another quality about the war god was that he had never shown himself to one of his followers, regardless of how devoted to him they were, not even bothering to speak to them as if they were all below him. This was one of many reasons he did cater to the war god like he did others, quite often creating offerings of food or material possessions to others, such as Izuku, god of perseverance and joy, or Toshinori, god of strength and speed, the All Might, the head of the gods. At least, that was what his many followers claimed, as both of those gods typically took the time to show themselves to each, and Shoto had met both at some point, completing tasks they asked of him with good spirit.

All was well and peaceful until he turned 18, at which point he did meet the war god Katsuki, who had appeared to him of all people. Of course, it had been with tasks, challenges that Shoto prove himself to the god as someone he could rely on as a follower, of promises that should Shoto mention their meetings to another soul, Katsuki would destroy him, albeit he was sure that was an empty threat because it was spoken with fondness in his eyes.

( the fifteenth time they met, shoto presented to him a sword he’d forged himself as katsuki’s latest task. the blade was cleanly cut, sharp and shaped well, with a hilt made of various shiny metals, emblazoned with jewels in the shape of the kanji the other’s name used. the blade was named Victory, after the man it was made for, held out to him with shoto on his knees, head down, hands above his head. Katsuki has sneered and taken it anyway, inspecting it before throwing it down at Shoto’s feet, as if to reject it. He looked up, confused at the expression on his face, one that was thoughtful yet as feral as usual.

take it, dumbass. I had you make it for you so you can fucking fight me, he’d spoken, gruffly yet not as unkindly as usual. they’d fought that day and he’d lost spectacularly, but it was worth it to see the grin on katsuki’s face. )

The sixteenth time they met, Shoto found himself splayed across the ground, Katsuki’s sword as his throat and that same smile on his face, laughter bubbling from his throat as if it had been fun, and he wasn’t sure he’d ever heard a more pleasing sound. The next several times they met with each other were spent training, fighting each other over and over again, until Shoto finally won, although barely. He’d fallen, only keeping Katsuki down because he’d landed on him, his face close to his.

On the twenty-seventh time they met, Shoto won a fight for the first time and Katsuki had kissed him, intense and passionate, as Shoto would have expected from him. Chapped lips against his own softer ones, the smell of caramel wafting from the other’s hands as they moved to his cheeks, albeit he didn’t think much to ask why.

The twenty-seventh time they met, Shoto had stared into eyes the shade of blood and fallen in love with the war god, a man he’d once been sure he would despise.

( the hundredth time they met, katsuki had all but thrown a bouquet of flowers at him and spat out a wish for shoto to have a happy fucking birthday, half and half. shoto had nearly laughed, because it was so him and regardless of the phrasing, he’d hoped to see katsuki that day. his favourite gift was the kiss to his cheek and the quiet i love you, shared for the first time, and shoto had smiled that soft smile of his and returned them, i’ll love you for the rest of my life, katsuki. i’m forever yours. and he’d meant it, more than he’d ever meant anything. they’d parted ways with a hug, touches lingering far longer than those of friends, and shoto had walked back home from the forest to partake in the celebrations his family had organised, regardless of how he just wanted to be with katsuki.

the hundredth time they met, he walked away with an aching heart, yearning to be back in the arms of the man he loved. )

The hundred and first time they met, they greeted each other with a kiss, professing their love for the second time, and Shoto was sure even the stars could not be as bright as Katsuki’s eyes. For all they were soft, he knew the other wasn’t a soft person, he was rough around the edges and angry and sometimes unkind, sometimes even cruel, but he was still a good man regardless and days like that made him want to kiss the scowl right off his face.

❝Hey, Katsuki.❞ He had spoken the last time they met, laying in the grass with his head on the other’s chest, hands clasped together and interlocked fingers a sign of their union, of the adoration each of them held for each other, even if Shoto was simply a mortal and Katsuki would outlive him, time and time again, regardless of what happened. ❝What happens after people die, really? Everyone says so many things, but I never know who is right..❞

Of course, he was aware of the death gods, of the underworld ruler, the All For One, with no discernible name or past that anyone, even his most devout followers, had been given. Then, there was Tomura, the reaper, the one who took souls and trapped them in the underworld, few ever leaving to be reincarnated like the myths he’d so often hard would speak about.

He’d listened to every word Katsuki spoke, eyes closed and the other’s fingers running through his hair. That night, Shoto fell asleep to whispers of a promise not to let Shoto be trapped down there when he passed, to find some way to keep him by his side, regardless of how difficult it would be, for Shoto wasn’t cut out for the life that Katsuki lead, a life of watching the world rise and fall with his every breath. The guilt would crush him and he’d burn out, he’d fall and fall and he’d never be happy, not truly, if he had to watch most of what he loved die every few years. No, he couldn’t ever live like that, not as much as he wished to be with Katsuki.

However, not all good things could last forever and every book must come to a close, especially in times like this.

It was in the morning that they were found by one of the other gods and immediately it was raised with the others, the fact Katsuki was dating a mortal, a follower of his. It was frowned upon by many to be with a mortal, for few would take kindly to immortality and many refused to allow things such as this outside of short flings. Children with mortals were immensely helpful, hailed heroes, yet a god should never fall in love with a mortal, should never be with them like this, because many had faded before, left in the mortal realm, losing their godhood all for the sake of a pretty human who would sure enough die soon.

The last time Shoto and Katsuki meet is beneath a starry sky, promising their future to each other. The last time Katsuki sees him, Shoto is dead, killed by the reaper of death, a warning to all: gods should not grow attached to mortals, regardless of who they might be.

The first time Todoroki Shoto meets Bakugo Katsuki is in his creative writing class at university. There was a familiarity to the attitude of the boisterous blond than he couldn’t quite place, but it didn’t matter much to him, because Shoto never did recall many things, not of his childhood following an accident, not of most days. However, he remembers that face from dreams, ones he had never been sure were real and wonders if he’d simply seen him before, because he couldn’t quite tell, but it would explain the face in dreams far more than anything else.

( on the hundred and thirtieth time they met, shoto was sick with a fever and he couldn’t seem to put many things together, but he remembered red eyes and hugs, being taken care of for several days by the mysterious man, even if he wasn’t exactly sure who he was until he was better again, at which point he’d been flustered and attempted to explain why he’d not taken better care of himself. katsuki had cut him off and said it was fine, that he’d simply been worried.

on the hundred and thirtieth time they met, shoto fell in love all over again. )

He had watched him for a while, attempting to discern why Bakugo kept looking over at him as if Shoto were someone he knew well, despite the fact he’d never seen him before in his life. At the end of class, the other had grabbed his wrist and shoved a bouquet of red and white salvia into his hand, as if it mattered, and Shoto wasn’t sure where he’d gotten it but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Later that day, he placed them in a vase in the kitchen, paying no attention to their presence in his apartment. They’d wilt eventually and he’d replace them with roses instead.

It was an odd gift from someone he didn’t even know, but it was nice enough, and he couldn’t help wondering who Bakugo Katsuki really was.

( they told tales of a god, once, who fell in love with a beautiful mortal and couldn’t stay away. they’d talked of the god of victory, of war, the god of heartbreak and anger and revenge, of all they entailed. they spoke of the god who had loved and loved for the first time, only to have his lover ripped away.

they never spoke of the man he’d fallen for, simply that he was an ethereal beauty. they’d said he was quiet but strong, that he rarely talked to others. he spent many days in the forest, where he was thought to have met with the war god, where they would train together and be with each other, in the tranquillity of nature where no one would find them, or so they hoped. they spoke of the boy taken by the reaper for loving a god and for not being afraid to be with him and they spoke of the war god and how he’d never shown himself again.

and they spoke of red and white flowers blooming around the grave of the man, salvia, they’d called it. red and white salvia in honour of the war god’s only love, and they’d cultivated it, grown it, spread it across the world so that tribute would never be forgotten and perhaps one day, the war god’s love would see it and find his way back to him once more.

but stories were just stories and no matter how it wasn’t quite as outlandish as the rest, immortals weren’t real, they had never shown themselves to people, not ever since then they’d claimed. shoto had never believed it, didn’t want to, because the war god had never been a kind man in myths, so it was impossible for him to have ever loved, especially not a mortal, even if he were real.

he’d been told another variation, once, where the all might had promised to bring back the war god’s love someday, so long as the war god could make him fall in love within thirty days. )

#014. the entangled lines of fate — threads #019. notebooks & pressed flowers — no quirks / kadupul #041. the sirens sound / just before the walls break down — bakugo katsuki #191. & i live again forever yours — reincarnation (entangledheroes)#fragxr #here you go

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fate-ad2021 · 7 years

Text

Interlude: “Kindred Spirits“

Archer and Stella have a chat before the War begins.

Word count: 1,906 words

(Recommended soundtrack: “This Illusion -fate-”, Code ZTS Label)

Stella leans against the balcony railing and takes another long puff on the last cigar of the case. She breathes out the smoke in a slow steady stream, watching it get carried away on the crisp night breeze.

The last night of sanity, she thinks. Before the world comes tumbling down.

Behind her, the balcony door slides open and then closed again. She stiffens and glances over her shoulder, a force of habit from years of living alone, but relaxes again at the sight of her newest ally.

Archer approaches with soundless steps and settles a few feet away from her, folding his arms on the railing in a mirror to her lounging stance. He has exchanged his armor for the casual clothing she had left out for him; silver and black cuirass and leggings have been replaced by a white tunic and dark jeans, both just slightly too loose on his thin frame. She thinks about offering to take him shopping for something else, but dismisses the thought just as quickly. Starting tomorrow, nothing will be normal, but shopping for clothes for a Knight of the Round Table is a little too strange even for her.

Instead, she holds out the cigar to him. He glances over – or at least, she assumes he does, since his eyes never seem to fully open – and takes it politely. She watches as he examines it, raises it to his lips, breathes in… and immediately falls into a coughing fit.

Stella can’t help it: she laughs. She laughs so hard that she doesn’t even notice the cigar dropping from Archer’s hand until it’s too far out of reach to catch.

“Aww,” she moans, suddenly sober, watching as the spark falls away into the street below, “that was my last one!”

Coughing fit subsided, Archer’s mouth and brow tilt into a remorseful frown. “I’m sorry – I should have been more careful.”

Stella huffs and sticks out her bottom lip in an exaggerated pout. She can only hold it for a moment before forcing a smile again, a tinge of sadness to the expression. She leans back from the railing, stretching her back out. “Naw, it’s alright. I mean, it’s a damn shame, but it ain’t the end of the world.” She glances back down over the railing; the street is some twenty stories below, and even her sharp eyes can’t find the fallen cigar from that distance. “Those were a gift, that’s all.”

Archer studies her face and inquires innocently, “A gift from a lover?”

“Ha!” Stella’s laugh is loud, sharp. She spins away from the railing and marches back into the hotel, emerging a moment later with a bottle and two glasses. Sinking into one of the padded wooden chairs, she sets about opening the bottle and pouring two fingers of scotch into each glass.

After a moment, Archer joins her at the other chair and takes up one of the glasses. Stella half expects him to choke on the alcohol too, but this kind of burning seems more to his taste; he drinks it as easily as she does. They sit in silence for a few moments more, nursing their drinks, before she finally answers his question.

“Yeah, the cigars were from my… lover, I guess.”

She can feel his curiosity through their connection, but he says nothing, only offering an acknowledging nod in response.

After a moment more, she says, “I remember your story. It’s not one of the most popular ones, but I know it.” At the tilt of his eyebrow, she goes on, “I was always a sucker for tragic love stories.” And then, “Never thought I’d be in one.”

“Maybe that’s how you got me.” She thinks he might be joking, but his expression hasn’t changed.

“Maybe.” She makes up for his sobriety with another laugh. “Hell, though – losing a girlfriend to an arranged marriage sure is a shitty way to bond with somebody.”

That gets a smile out of him, sad and slow but present nonetheless. “I’ll drink to that.” He holds up his glass and she meets it halfway.

“To lost love!” Stella grins wryly and raises the glass to her lips.

“And hopefully not dying of poison this time.” Archer quips.

The unexpected morbid jest comes just as she takes a sip of the scotch. It prompts the slightest inhale of surprise from her and the next thing she knows, she’s doubled over in her own coughing fit. To her bewilderment, Archer actually chuckles. She swears at him in a jumble of Italian and Arabic, and he ducks his head in apology.

When she has caught her breath again, she shakes her head and smiles. “I deserved that.”

A quiet “Maybe” and a small smile are his only response.

Another few moments of silence go by before Archer says, “Tell me about her.”

Stella sinks a little bit further into her seat and sighs.

“If the wound isn't too fresh,” Archer amends, but she shakes her head and reaches for the bottle again. Satisfied with the amount of scotch in her glass, Stella settles back and resumes staring up at the stars.

“We met in college,” she explains. “We’re both from small-name families, decided to go out into the real world for a while before our parents locked us up in ivory towers. Lucky me, I managed to escape that altogether. Now granted, it’s because I lost my family, but by then I was in good with hers, so that wasn’t quite as hard as it could’ve been.”

She pauses to take a drink, and pointedly ignores Archer’s sympathetic expression. “We were close from the first time we met, and over time things just kind of… happened. By the time we got done with university, we were talking about getting married and where we could go and all the things we were gonna do with our lives…” She shakes her head. “And then her family revealed the arrangement. Some stupid lineage thing… They wanted her to marry well and have little powerful babies to carry on the line.” She swears in Italian again and takes another drink.

Archer’s brow furrows in a mix of sympathy and anger. “So they forced her to marry a man. Surely with modern technology you could have circumvented that problem.”

Stella huffs out a laugh. “No, thank God. They respect her more than to suggest something like that. Eh, no offense meant, of course.”

“Of course,” Archer replies in a perfectly unoffended tone.

“And yes, modern technology and even modern magic can – and will – make a viable pregnancy possible between two women. That wasn’t the problem.” She sighs again, frustration seeping into her tone. “The problem was me. I’m nobody. I mean, sure, my family is well-known in certain… circles. Of… crime, mostly. And she was—she is from a no-name family too, but her parents made a good arrangement with the daughter of a powerful family with a good long history of magecraft. They saw the chance to improve their line, and they took it. It just… happened at the expense of our happiness.”

“This might sound unwise coming from me, considering what happened, but could you not have carried on with her regardless? Even the greatest nobles throughout history have had mistresses.”

Stella smiles bitterly. “We did discuss that possibility. But I didn’t take the news well when I heard it, and then I didn’t exactly endear myself to her fiancée on our first meeting. A glass of beer to the face ain’t most people’s idea of a good introduction.”

Archer quirks a matching bitter smile. “I can’t imagine why not.”

Stella shakes her head. “So in the end I decided to leave. Left Cairo with whatever I could shove into a couple of carry-on bags, went to Alexandria. Stayed there for a couple months until I met Grigori and he pointed me to Atlas. The rest is history.” She casts another forlorn glance toward the edge of the balcony. “That case of cigars was the last thing Habiba gave me before I left.”

“I’m—”

“She hated that habit.” Stella continues over Archer’s attempted apology. “But she told me that if I was gonna leave, I better come back to her one day, and I better not have turned into a different person. So I saved ‘em, as much as I could.” She rubs her eyes, tries and fails to hide the thickness in her voice. “It’s kinda fitting, to have the last one fall off the side of a damn building on the last night that my life is any kind of normal.”

Archer’s tone is mild but tinged with amusement when he replies, “You’re sharing lamentations of lost love with a manifested man of legend… And you still count your life as normal?”

Stella laughs, quietly at first and then growing; she muses that the scotch might be affecting her a bit more than she expected. “Look, I got up to some weird shit at Atlas, okay? At least this time, I summoned someone who looks like a normal human and can carry on a conversation.”

“Thank God for small favors,” he returns. He glances at the last of his scotch and seems to be considering more of it, but settles for tossing back the rest in a swift gulp. “Will you see her again?”

Stella finishes off her own glass in the same manner and stares up at the stars for a moment before answering. “Hell, I dunno. If I make it out the other side of this alive, maybe I’ll go back. See how she’s doing. It’s been a good six years since I left.” Her face softens. “Maybe she’s had a kid by now. Bet I could show the little tyke some magic tricks.”

Beside her, Archer finds the reclining lever on the side of his chair and lays back, folding his hands on his stomach. He still looks sad, Stella thinks, but peaceful.

“I’m sure that Habiba is doing just fine,” he says after a minute. “And I swear to you, Stella di Presagio, on my honor as a knight, that I will do my utmost to see you safely through this war.”

Stella is quiet, stunned by the sudden solemnity of his tone. Even when she summoned him, he hadn’t sounded quite like that. She reaches over the side of her own chair and flaps around until she finds the lever to recline it. She lays back and folds her hands on her stomach as well, feeling fuzzy and contented.

After a long moment of consideration, she replies, “I accept your oath. And I swear to you, Tristan of Cornwall, that when we get out of this, I’ll go see my lady love again. In honor of you listening to my bullshit, if nothing else.”

A genuine smile spreads across the knight’s face at that. “Then our contract is sealed.”

Comfortable silence falls between them again, only the sound of the city below remaining as they stare up into the starry expanse of the sky. In the morning everything would be different; the Holy Grail War of Rome would be in full swing, and they would be fighting for their lives. They would need to work with Grigori’s plans as well as devising their own, but for now, they relax on the balcony of the hotel, two kindred spirits sharing in their sorrow and their hope.

#interlude post

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argorpg-blog · 6 years

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CONGRATULATIONS and welcome to the crew of the Argo II, KAEL! The Gods have spoken: welcome aboard ANASFALEIA, known as VIRGIL VELASCO, with a faceclaim of JAMES REID. Please take a look at our checklist, and send in your account in the next 24 hours.

ADMIN NOTES: Reading your app, Kael, you took us by surprise. Virgil is not how we ever pictured Anasfaleia - and yet, we like it better this way! Your writing is so beautiful, and he is heartbreaking in the best possible way. We were particularly in love with the way you wove temptation into your app, posing Gaea as a very real (and personal) threat. Your extra plot arcs have the potential to bring a lot of depth to this group and our future plot, and we’re excited to see what else Virgil can bring!

NAME/ALIAS: Kael

AGE, TIMEZONE, PRONOUNS: 20, GMT+8:00, He/him/his

ACTIVITY & EXTRAS: Between a thesis and my course, I might post around once to twice a week, as much as possible, but be real active on the Discord chat! Oh, and I’m down for all and any plots so you know,, ,, , , , wig.

IN CHARACTER

DESIRED SKELETON: Anasfaleia

CHARACTER NAME: Virgil Andres Velasco

AGE & GENDER: 22, Cisgender male

FACECLAIM: James Reid, Brandon Perea, Lee Jong-suk (Name subject to change)

BIOGRAPHY:

ACT I: MORTAL.

You are no demigod.

Demigods are cloaked in legend, their fame or infamy written across the night skies as a testament to their greatness. There are songs and hymns of their deeds, written in stone for time to weather and grow. But from the whispers that follow you, it feels like the ichor in your veins was nothing more than water, the godhead in you merely a wilting flower, doomed to die at an early age. ( Hear them: dulled blade, tarnished silver, unwanted son. )

From the moment you were placed at your father’s doorstep, you became a liability, a fissure in the perfect mold of a marriage that he strived to keep—the duct tape and hot glue of his efforts finally breaking as you were brought to your home. He left, not even giving you a second thought, the mistake that he’d made a year ago a sight too harsh to bear. So you lived with your step-mother, who took you in all the same, and a half-brother that loved you as if nothing had ever mattered. Love was all you had known, but you knew you were different, a problem child in the family, only destined to break everything you’d ever known.

You were sent to a private Catholic school, where you’d learned about God and his love for humanity, where you couldn’t understand the words on holy text, where you thought you’d been cursed with stupidity your whole life. It was a disaster, you think, as you sat, making doodles on notebooks and looking at words floating off pages, not even bothering to make an effort anymore. Viciousness was a language you quickly understood, their words cutting you down as you failed quiz after quiz, the doodles on your notebook erased just as fast as they had appeared. You were never picked for anything, not as a date, not as a friend, not as anything but the facade of a boy as a laughingstock. Virgin Mother and Holy Father above, you prayed, as all sinners were wont to do, for guidance with all your heart. The nuns said that the Lord never heard selfish prayers, that he only dabbled in altruism, but you know you had to try and They had to listen—They owed you that much.

Burning passion never worked, so maybe reverence did—you got on your knees and prayed, prayed for blessings, to not be a disappointment, chanted Hail Marys and Our Fathers until your throat went dry. God was supposed to look at all Their creation as if it was good, so maybe he wasn’t part of Their plan, maybe he was a smudge, an unholy stain that would leave if bleached far enough. But you wouldn’t, you won’t. You will shake the heavens, and make God hear him, if you had to.

ACT II: DIVINE.

It was October, you remembered, that you were being followed. You were sure it was a stalker, someone who saw you as an easy mark, ready to stab you and take you wallet. The gaping maw that greeted you told you that you were definitely wrong. Death was a sure thing, with the flurry of claws and fangs greeting you, but you pushed, and you found only yellow dust on the palms of your hands. You told your step-mother, when you came home limping, fear and worry in her eyes. You grinned and laughed it off, the nonchalance on your face standing firm, as if the claw marks on your arm hadn’t faded yet. ( Hear it: godling boy, divine morsel, golden blood. )

The next day, your father came home.

Maybe that wasn’t right. It was another man, with a crisp tie and a purpose when he walked, far from the sullen man and dead eyes that seemed to greet you during visitation. Pack your things, he said, we leave in an hour. You looked to your mother—step-mother, and she only could give you a smile, and a pat on your cheek. Be brave, bunso. You can do this.

It wasn’t long before you had your things: a leather jacket gifted to you on your fifteenth birthday, a pair of boots from your brother, a silver ring from your mother, a picture of your family during Christmas, baubles of no real value to anyone but you. Maybe the place where they’d stick you was going to be comfortable, with a padded cell instead of cold rock. Maybe you could call Dante, your brother, once in a while after you were all better. Maybe it was going to be a surprise family trip, somewhere warm and sunny with lounges and tanning lotion. The world was full of maybes, and it seemed like you were going to find out what they were.

You counted twelve hours, from the flight to the cab ride. You asked where the two of you were going. Long Island. A campgrounds full of people. Somewhere safe. So you thought of the two of you in a tent, living off s’mores and hot dogs, looking up at the stars. It was a childish dream, foolish for someone of your age, but you didn’t have many things left to you but your hope, and you were going to be damned if someone took that away from you.

In your dreams, there is a woman, as beautiful as the day is bright. She looks at you with curiosity, a cracked chalice in her hands. There is an eternity in her eyes that you cannot comprehend; maybe it was weariness, maybe it was sadness. She does not speak to you when you talk, nor can she hear you, her radiant form flickering in and out as you try and reach out to her. You can hear her voice almost, barely above a whisper, but clear. Be safe, Virgil. Be safe.

ACT III: DEMIGOD

You are a demigod. But you’re not so sure.

Greek myths walk the halls, children with divine blood walking down the campgrounds with bows and blades alike. You are nothing like them, with only perfect skin and wounds that knit faster than they open. They are your family, Chiron said, and you will grow to love them. But you walk into the Hermes cabin, with bodies packed into each other, and you can see no love, only desperation. Desperate voices crying out for parents, for a place to stay, for anyone to hear their prayers. ( Hear yourself: I am worth more than this. I am. I am. I am. )

The other campers laugh at you, the way a foot stumbles during practice, or the way arrows miss the mark in front of you, but you wipe your tears in secret and try again. You are born from divine blood, Olympian blood, and you are more than what they say. You learn the art of bravado and biting insults, accompanied by thick skin to defy their insults. For years, you burn your meals, giving reverence to the gods, and begging them to claim you. You talk to Eros, to Aphrodite, to every Charity and Season and Muse that they would choose you first and claim you in front of the camp. Maybe then, you would have the chance to prove yourself for all you’re worth, to prove them wrong with a triumphant smile on your face.

And you got your wish.

It wasn’t long before your mother claimed you, youthbringer to the gods, a flash of a wine-glass above your head and everyone thought they knew who you were. A child of a minor goddess, with no talents or traits to give him any notoriety, given too late when the best of them had fallen to the Titans. He was a Band-aid to a problem that the gods made themselves, only serving to further the interests of a dying goddess, and the immortals around her. He was cannon fodder, a fourteenth wheel. He was going to let them all down. He was a snake, a traitor in waiting for the Earth Mother. He was useless, unwanted, unworthy.

Did Achilles not beat his chest, nor did Atalanta call for men to best her? Demigods were called to rise above, so why shouldn’t you? This was a challenge in wait—your first quest, prophesied to bring greatness to all who partake in it, and you will master yourself and come out on top. The Earth Mother may look down upon you, as the Greek demigods do, but you will prove yourself, you will be better than any of them.

However, a voice creeps into your head as you board the Argo II: ruin, ruined, ruination. The worthless child of a worthless immortal, able to do not even the least of what his companions can do. The bravado you had built begins to give way, as you watch them all, heroes in their own right, embarking on a quest to save the world. A few days in, you turn into a silent observer, dealing with minor things: polishing Celestial bronze when you are wont to do, and leaving food for pegasi that return.

You will be better than any of them, the first of the Greeks, you whisper under your breath, a promise, a prayer.

But the voice whispers back: Perhaps. The first to turn. The first to leave. The first to fall to the Earth Mother.

FATAL FLAW/DEFINING CHARACTERISTIC: ανασφάλεια

The gripping insecurity at the back of his mind never stops, hounding him as he walks the Argo II. Virgil has always felt out of place, almost a beat behind other demigods in terms of his skill and experience, always striving to catch up, but always just a ways behind. Trying hard comes as second nature to him, and so does his hypercritical eye, whenever he fails at something spectacularly, his thoughts growing black as he tries to redo and replay scenes of failure over at his head as he hides behind his well-constructed facade. Perfection is an absolute that he’s learned to love and loathe, never being enough to reach it, but always tasting the slightest drop when he comes close every time.

EXTRAS:

POWER BREAKDOWN

THE GENERAL:

Virgil can alter appearances at will, but he can do it to himself better. For himself, it’s usually a few minutes of concentration to alter minor features, such as add or subtract crow’s feet or a few freckles on his face. It takes longer to alter important things, such as eye and hair color, or even the whole face on himself. For other people, he can do it as long as he focuses really hard, and thinks about it well. It takes around an hour to fully transform someone’s face to the exact specifications, but portraits or references significantly reduce

Changes usually are irreversible, which make it harder for him to maintain a semblance of identity, but are usually helped by using prior pictures of the subject.

Unknown to him, he can change the age of someone he comes into contact with, partially or fully, sapping or retrieving their youth. This is a sort of healing that being a child of Hebe does, but he adds a few hours, or years, depending on the length of contact, while shortening his own. This presents itself as mild to severe exhaustion, depending on the length of time he has with the afflicted.

THE PHYSICAL:

As a child of Hebe, the goddess of youth, Virgil is blessed with a wellspring of youth wherever he goes, being resistant to both sickness and the detriments of age, since his cells are in a state of perpetual health. While he does have the ability to heal faster than the average demigod, enough hits will send him to a state of rapid degeneration, deteriorating quicker than the average demigod. Sufficient ambrosia or nectar will always restart his systems and get him to rapidly heal, after some rest.

Whenever he “heals,” he actively shortens his lifespan, transferring whatever energy he has left into a certain body. This manifests in dark circles and a loss of pallor every time he transfers some of his youth to a patient. Massive transference of youth gives him a few wrinkles, and permanent loss of melanin in the hair, and may result in lasting long-term effects, though he’s never tried it, nor learned to do it before.

HEADCANONS

i. godhead

You have a brother. Mortal, vulnerable, but better than any demigod you’ve come across—Greek or otherwise. You would give your godhead up for him, the endless sheen on your skin, to protect the frayed edges of a grey sweater and the wrinkles on his godawful suit. It is a shame that he wasn’t a demigod, you think, that a flickering flame can have an immortal mother instead of a star burning bright, but there is no use in wondering. You know you will defend him, leave him the last burning vestiges of your godhood so that he will live far longer than you will. It will be your last wish, a final protection. You may prove to be useless to everyone else, but not to him. Not ever.

ii. prayers.

Once, you thought Aphrodite was your mother. It came up, a question during visitation, when you asked your father what your mother looked like. Beautiful, he said, like a model in one of those runways. So you prayed, and prayed, and prayed, until you came across doves that wouldn’t even look at your way and roses that seemed to close whenever you passed by. But you learned, through portents and prayer and a prophecy, that you were not the child of an Olympian, but rather a forgotten goddess, a cupbearer in the corner of the skies. You know your mother now, and you love her as a child does, but you could not help but think of what could have been if she weren’t.

iii. better.

There is an uncertainty in every demigod unclaimed in the Hermes cabin, unknown children and the children of esoteric gods that dot the halls, and you know them all. Children of Nemesis and the weighing of their scales, children of Thanatos and their peaceful eeriness, even the children of Deimos, with their shark grins and pointed teeth. You know their names and their stories, when the twelve cabins stay blind to all of you in the rafters of the Hermes cabin. There is a righteous anger sometimes, whenever shame does not come to visit, burning inside your chest. You hate the gods, your fellow campers, as you watch everyone scoff and laugh at the group—you are demigods too, and you all deserve better than scraps of acknowledgement and backhanded compliments.

TIDBITS: will kill for dark chocolate but has an itchy throat a lot because of it. knows all disney songs up until the new ones because he hasn’t learned them yet. has a pair of boots and a leather jacket as a present from his brother always on hand. knows english, tagalog, fifth grade mexican and some vague ilocano. good with his hands, but better with a shortsword or a dagger. hates long range fighting after being nailed overhead by a water balloon by an apollo camper. loves the word soliloquy, since it looks and sounds ridiculous to him. modeled once for some bulgarian line of clothing, but refuses to talk about it.

AESTHETIC: the greyness of rainy days hidden by lights in the living room. looking at the mirror, seeing only imperfections where there are none. lipstick stains on skin, rubbed off from a mistake you’d made. heat in a leather jacket, and the stubbornness of not taking it off. sweat pooling on your brow, from hard work and exhaustion. louder whispers in the back of your mind. the lingering heat of body warmth and the emptiness that comes with its absence. a promise, a prayer, a proposal. an eternal photograph, never fading.

TRAITS:

(+) thick-skinned, determined, amiable, observant

(-) guarded, deceptive, critical, blunt

CONNECTIONS

i. pthonos — the motivation

You are a lightning rod for their ire, more often than not and you bear it better than most. Perhaps it was the years of insults and mockery that helped you cope with their anger towards you, towards the world, towards Ares. Backing down was never an option back then, not from the way they laughed at you or their vicious tongue, and it sure wasn’t right now. You exchange words like sparring partners, and leave like embittered enemies. Their hate fuels you, and you just know that the first moment you get, you’re going to show them how wrong they are.

ii. amarus — the righteous

The anger that they feel towards the gods strikes true, and has caught your attention—no demigod would ever say it out loud, but you know that they are right. Between petty grievances, blood feuds, and the way that they treat others like pawns in their celestial games, it’s a wonder that the gods haven’t torn themselves asunder. You’re never one to discount a good idea, and you’re keen on hearing what they have to say, Roman or not.

iii. cynici — the question

Children of Aphrodite, or of Venus, always leave you with a copper taste in your mouth. They talk to you about beauty, about manipulation, about bending wills with the bat of an eye, and you could only wish you could have the power that they have. But they’re cut from a different cloth, all hard lines and cold gazes, as if love has done them a personal offense. Maybe it’s because they’re Roman, all about order and structure, but you want to ask them what’s made them so disenchanted.

PLOT POINTS

i. guidance of the earth mother.

I’d like an arc where the Earth Mother tries to wear him down by her whispers, telling him that all of their effort is futile, and to join her in bringing down the gods of Olympus. It would be fun to see, since the Greeks aren’t exactly on the best terms with the Romans, and to solidify the thoughts of him not being enough for this quest. The fallout would be amazing as well, since a fracture between the groups would be an unimaginable wrench in their plans.

ii. legacy of the legion.

Roman demigods put stock in work and dedication, he thinks, not the way your blood is made, not whose god you’re sired from, and to Virgil, that makes him envious of what they have in Camp Jupiter. From the lives they built inside New Rome to the praetors that walk the halls, he feels like there, he would be taken seriously. I’d like to see him try and connect with the Romans, in a way that would at least make him use his grit and dedication. Don’t trust Romans, but he’s sure he can make some exceptions.

PINTEREST BOARD

#accepted

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