Tumgik
#flesh. but she instead supplies others and dresses them and gives them means to indulge in little joys themselves.
robotpanties · 9 months
Text
ouu. elaborating on my idea from earlier a bit more
2 notes · View notes
risingsouls · 3 years
Text
Conversations: 2
[The next in this self-indulgent series I guess I’ve decided to go through with after all because I’m weak for them and their dynamic.
This actually took a turn that I didn’t expect that made it better so there’s that at least.
So, enjoy my bs if you’re so inclined! :D]
“Hold still, damn it!”
Nabooru scoffed and met his glare, shifting once more to find a comfortable position on the stool she perched on. “I barely moved! You want me to stop breathing?”
“Tch, it would help.” Vegeta dipped his fingers back into the salve she had provided him--some concoction the Gerudo healer had created in their assimilation on Earth and effective in speeding up the healing process according to Nabooru--and applied it to the nasty burn blistering on her side. “It would mean I didn’t have to deal with your ribs expanding, anyway.”
Nabooru bit her lip to stifle a hiss, the sudden cold and the sting of Zana’s ointment doubly uncomfortable on her wound. One she shouldn’t have sustained at all if she had just been strong enough to stave off Vegeta’s blast. Instead, she had to abandon that course and dart to the side to avoid taking the ki wave head on. She could still feel the sear of heat in her side as the cascade of purple blew by her. It crashed into the ground feet away and sent her flying, and she landed in a sprawl several meters away. At least he hadn’t refused to continue their spar after that. 
She draped her arm over her head as opposed to holding it out in front of her to give him room to work. “I told you I could handle this myself,” she huffed, picking at the loose bit of fabric on the roll of bandages with her free hand. “I’m used to dressing my own wounds.”
“What I saw looked incompetent.” He shot her another glare, though it was marred by the hint of a smirk. “Watching you try to do this yourself was painful.”
“I didn’t ask you to stick around and watch,” she snapped back. “You insisted on that and you insisted on doing it for me. I was fine.”
Vegeta’s retort was a silent one, a less than ginger press of his fingers at the center of the burn. The Gerudo flinched away and sucked in a breath. “Valaqi voe…” She muttered a few more choice curses and steeled herself, gaze fixed on the far wall rather than her less than tender healer.
The Saiyan grunted, his ears picking up the foriegn syllables but the long forgotten translator chip in his head supplied the meaning. “Are you calling me stubborn or an idiot?”
“It’s all the same in my nat--”
Nabooru cut herself off and whipped her head around to narrow her eyes at him. She ignored the growl she got in return and the pain that shot up her side from the sudden movement. “You understood that?” It was no secret between them that neither of them hailed from this planet. With how wide the universe was, though, and how she suspected their planets were likely not in remotely the same vicinity, she didn’t expect him to understand the Gerudo language. Or had he simply guessed using the not-so-subtle clues of her irritation with him?
He tapped the side of his head. “Translator chip. I’m as surprised as you are that it picked up on your language.” In all his expansive travels of the galaxy, he had never heard mention of a planet called Hyrule, even in the tedious charting and astronomy lessons he had to endure. Someone in the empire’s retinue had apparently been there or picked up the planet’s languages somehow. “But if it can pick up the languages on this backwater planet, I suppose I shouldn’t be.”
A glance back up from his work and he found her pondering his words in confused silence, brow furrowed. He rolled his eyes. “It’s a device they implanted in my brain through here,” he indicated the scar behind his left ear, “that can translate different languages across the universe for me. Makes communicating with other races more efficient. Everyone in the Cold Empire had them in case some fools couldn’t speak the galactic standard.”
His explanation only mildly helped her understand, but it was enough. She knew asking for more would be met with outright refusal or insult. “Sounds...invasive. Convenient, though. It means you wouldn’t have to spend months learning another language, anyway. It does get tedious.”
“Precisely.” He smeared a last bit around the lower edge of the burn near the curve of her hip. He held out a hand for the bandages. “We didn’t have time to sit and learn every known language in the universe to do our jobs effectively.”
Nabooru placed the bandages in his outstretched hand. “So, you did a lot of traveling, then? Back when you worked for Frieza?” she asked, raising her other arm to join the opposite and give him room to wrap the bandages around her waist. “What exactly did you guys do for him, anyway?”
“We were soldiers and worked as part of the Planetary Trade Organization under Frieza for his portion of the galaxy.” Vegeta unravelled the bandages, and when he noted Nabooru’s once more befuddled expression, he grumbled: “An organization that traded planets, which means deciding if planets are worth trading and preparing them for said trade.”
A crimson brow arched, and her lips curled downward. “So, a nice way of describing colonization? Taking over planets for gain?”
“Yes,” he affirmed, paying little mind to her distaste of the business. Nothing she could say would surprise him; he had heard it all before from those pleading their case to live another day. Those he subjugated in Frieza’s name. He held the end of the bandage against her abdomen and began wrapping it around her waist, releasing it to use both hands when the first wraparound had it secured in place. “The Cold family had an entire empire, much of it likely acquired by forcible means.”
The tossing of her stomach that wasn’t a side effect of his calloused fingers grazing across her flesh didn’t stop Nabooru from pressing the matter further. “What did you do, then? When you went to these planets?”
Dark gaze flickered up to her face, narrowed as his bandaging slowed. He regarded her verging on sour expression, how the bridge of her nose threatened to crinkle in distaste and the firmly set frown on her lips. “Hmpt. I’m not having this conversation if it’s going to end in a lecture.”
“That bad, huh?” She winced when he tugged a touch too hard on the bandage to secure it in place, squeezing her middle. “No, I won’t lecture you. It’s, what? A few decades too late for that? Besides, I’m not exactly squeaky clean enough to feel comfortable lecturing anyone about much of anything.”
Vegeta squinted, unsure if he believed her. She had proven herself a different breed than the rest around him. While not completely moralless, she didn’t reek of someone having the same idealistic and simplistic notions of good and evil, right and wrong, that Kakarot and his friends possessed. And, despite him giving her apt opportunity, her claim to an aversion to lecturing rang true. He could care less if she decided the cruelty in his past was too much; it was the insufferable chiding that would chafe his temper.
“It usually started with reconnaissance,” he began with a tone akin to the boredom of reading from a textbook. He completed another circulation around her waist and considered another for insurance in case it started bleeding again. “We were sent to a planet to scout its potential, whether that be in natural resources or people for either soldiers or a potentially useful skillset. Raditz took care of most of that part. We then sent our report back to base and some high-ranking blow hard or Frieza himself decided if the planet was useful or not. 
“If its people were deemed useful, we left the planet. We weren’t trusted to recruit soldiers or other personnel.” Vegeta tugged the bandage tight and secured it, a bitter smirk on his slips. “Probably thought we’d try to build our own army against him or something else equally paranoid, or he considered a trio of Saiyans too barbaric to handle it. Not that it mattered; I sure as hell didn’t want to deal with that.”
He tossed the spool of bandages in her lap and snorted when she scrambled to keep it there. Considering the glare she shot him, he was surprised she didn’t fire it back at him. “If only the resources were needed, nine times out of ten, the planet was purged of its people or they were kept around for labor. If the planet had no use to the empire in resources or any other marketable aspect, it would depend on what the empire did need. Sometimes that meant leaving the planet alone. Others it meant purging it anyway to build a base on it or outright destroying it. That part we were trusted with.”
Nabooru spun the bandages in her hands, considering the prince’s description of his previous career. While unsurprised, the weight in the pit of her stomach was unmistakable. She couldn’t imagine how many lives were expunged all for a tyrant’s gain. “I assume I don’t need to point out the irony in all that?” 
Vegeta’s jaw tightened and he cast her a withering glare. “Of course not.” He tugged his gloves back on and folded his arms over his chest. “I thought we agreed to no lecturing.”
Rising to her feet, Nabooru stretched her spine, gritting her teeth as the burnt flesh on her side pulled uncomfortably. “Mm, I guess that was a little lecture-y...it wasn’t meant to be.” She paused and picked up the jar of Zana’s remedy and twisted the cap on it. “I mean...I don't agree with murder, but I can’t really fault you for it and not because you were doing it under someone else’s orders. You said yourself Frieza would kill you if you didn’t follow orders. Morality isn’t exactly the first thing on your mind when you’re trying to survive.”
Once more, he had the sneaking suspicion she spoke from a place of experience than simply reason. He had never considered such a point of view, his mind blurred by his one-track-minded ambitions that fueled him. Back then, it was to kill Frieza. But that did mean surviving him and playing along as a loyal servant. A useful, obedient, planet-purging slave. Though it may not have occurred to him at the time or even years later, he could not deny her logic on the matter. For the longest time, his life had been a test of survival, of making it to the next day and closer to his goal. Another that he never realized outside of dreams, both waking and sleeping.
"Partially,” he rumbled. Gloved fingers dug into his biceps. “Make no mistake: I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the power, the fear I instilled. I didn’t care how many I killed, and I didn’t need Frieza’s orders to do it. If I wanted to kill the bastard and take his empire, I needed both of those things on my side.”
Another swath of silence stretched out between the two of them. Though the Saiyan’s callous words caused her stomach to perform another series of acrobatics and the tightening of her throat to intensify, it wasn’t out of surprise or her moral compass busting under the pressure of its true north being thrown completely off. She had heard such sentiments before. Witnessed it, been a part of it, acted it out herself despite her efforts to avoid it. Endeavors she found herself near alone in pursuing so actively, compared to her peers. She couldn’t be sure they didn’t enjoy it to an extent. They all hailed from a kill or be killed world, either way, most of them warriors, soldiers. Relishing in murder or not, killing was part of the job at some point.
And hadn’t she wondered how it would feel to use her newfound power to raze Hyrule to cinders in an act of vengeance? Destroy everyone and everything because, if they weren’t openly involved in the slow strangling and then outright attack on her people, they were complicit in it? To truly complete the path their disgraced king paved for himself alone and realize their idiotic fears?
She felt the jar crack in her hand and she forced herself back to reality, relaxing her grip. Vegeta quirked an eyebrow at her, opened his mouth to speak, but thought better of it. She returned to the moment before her distraction. His words. Another wise-crack. Anything but that night, Ganondorf, the past…
Then, something clicked. “ Wait. You killed Frieza though, so why did you stay--”
She felt the weight of her mistake before her mind truly understood in the brief but daunting surge in his energy, the twisting of his neutral expression into quiet anger so out of sorts with the ki spike. Every instinct in Nabooru told her to run, but she ignored every last one and stood her ground, gold eyes trained on him. Waiting for him to lash out in an attack that she would have to attempt to defend herself against. He remained still as stone, however, which only unnerved her more as the pressure in the room soared and begged to explode. She considered begging him to say something, attack her, walk out, anything at all.
And all at once the moment passed. Vegeta’s ki dropped back off to next to nothing, masked as seemed to be the common practice. Nabooru released the breath she held and leaned against the back of the couch. She chewed her lip, considering if she should continue that line of conversation and risk her house and life. Instead, she only managed a nod and an unintentionally croaked, “I understand.”
His anger boiled again, and had she been anyone else, any of the other fools that surrounded him, ashes would be all that was left of her. Not before potentially laughing in her face and explaining just why he thought she could never understand him, no matter the effort put forth. Perhaps it was the high amount of unknown still surrounding her, not enough information to make a solid assumption of her experiences, that cooled the rising inferno within him to a crackling flame. Until she proved him right, at least.
“Do you?” he hissed through clenched teeth, tone icy and condescending. 
Nabooru nodded again and held his gaze, expression unreadable. “Yes,” she responded, setting the cracked jar on the side table. “I didn’t get to kill my Frieza either.”
1 note · View note
xhannahbananax03 · 5 years
Text
The Boyfriend Diaries - Act I - Chapter 1
Tumblr media
Warnings: Implications of Sexual content, Extreme gore, violence. If you are easily trigged by any of these things, PLEASE DO NOT READ
Words: 1.9k
MASTERLIST
She was sat across from a cute boy in a small diner, wearing a big smile on her face. "So Dorothy, what's your favorite subject right now?" The boy asked, his name was Ben.
"Oh, I prefer biology and chem. lab." She smiled, of course it was her favorite subject. She got to learn about the chemicals she would steal when the teacher wasn't looking. Just little things like some chloroform here, some bleach there, the occasional disinfectant.
"I actually prefer literature..." Ben said a little awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck shyly.
"I have absolutely no pleasure in the stimulants in which I sometimes so madly indulge. It has not been in the pursuit of pleasure that I have periled life and reputation and reason. It has been the desperate attempt to escape from torturing memories, from a sense of insupportable loneliness and a dread of some strange impending doom." She spoke up staring at him intently, "Edgar Allen Poe." She finished softly.
"Oh..." He chuckled awkwardly, before casting his eyes up to the approaching waitress. She was dressed in a bright and annoying pink and blue outfit, the same one all the other female staff was wearing.
"What can I get for ya!" She said in a loud and cheery voice. Before "Dorothy" had a chance to speak up and tell the older woman to stop being so obnoxious, Ben told her his order.
"Can I get the chicken salad and the green shake?" He asked politely, smiling up at the woman who's name tag read, "Bethany".
Ugh.... Dorothy thought to herself, he's a healthy eater... "I'll just get some fries and a Sprite" she told Bethany with an annoyed smile.
The woman's face fell slightly before she huffed and frowned, "sure, it'll be out in 15." She said with a hint of anger in her voice before quickly turning around and walking off.
About an hour later Dorothy and Ben walked out of the diner hand in hand, even though she was annoyed and his hands were oddly clammy, she stuck with it. She had to. Only a little big longer. She kept telling herself.
"So where do you wanna go now?" Ben asked her, a smile on his face unaware of his impending doom.
She squeezed his hand tighter and took a deep breath before slapping a smile on her face. "It's a surprise, just follow me." She said walking down the sidewalk and towards the small dirt road back in the woods that led to an old shut down factory. The same place she'd been staying for almost a month.
"Ok if you say so." He laughed and walked beside her, still holding her hand. Now's your chance. She told herself.
After a bit of walking, the pair finally made it to the beginning of the path, where he stopped walking and just stood. She turned around a panic beginning to bubble inside her, "What's wrong?" She asked innocently, trying to keep her cool.
He chuckled lowly, looking down at the ground as one of his brown hiking boots kicked around a rock. "I know what your doing..." He said softly, not yet looking at her.
"What do you mean? Do you know this place?" Crap she thought, might have to do it right here... That's probably the last thing she wanted, but if it had to happen, it had to happen.
"Don't play coy with me sweetheart..." He smirked up at her before taking a step forward and wrapping an arm around her waist, "you're taking me to the old Mill to shack up, aren't you?" He asked a smile in his voice. But not a sweet, gentle smile, more like a predator lurking just beyond the surface, and it made her heart pound beneath her chest.
She giggled softly, trying to cover up her fear of getting caught and her fear of something much more dark happening. "You caught me..." She said flirtatiously looking up at him.
He leaned down to kiss her lips but she leaned back in response, "let's get there first, then you can kiss me." She giggled pushing away from him and turning back down the path.
She frowned to herself and let out a shaky breath. She heard the pounding of feet behind her and she wanted to run forward in return, but instead she put a fake smile on her face as she felt an arm wrap around her waist and pull her closer to the warm body of her date, Ben.
Eventually they made it to the run down Mill, inside she had everything set up, in one room a dusty old couch and in another closed off room, a clear tarp on the floor, chains hanging from the ceiling, and a table with things like cleaning supplies, gloves and, knifes. She wasn't too much into torture, but she would have to hack up the body and bury it in several locations. So even if the cops did go looking, they'd never find all of it.
Walking into the old and rusty front door, she led him towards the couch and he sat down, almost immediately reaching out for her, "you wait here while I go get ready ok?" She winked at him really trying to sell it.
He leaned back and spread his legs, "I'll be here." He said with a smirk, making her cringe, but it was dark so hopefully he didn't notice.
She smiled down at him and turned around walking to the closed door. Behind it, a crime waiting happen. She didn't just do the things she did for no reason, she always had a reason. She liked to think of it as justice.
Walking into the room, she closed the door and let out a heavy sigh before getting to work. First she stripped down into her underwear and put on a self-made hazmat suit of sorts. She put on a pair of black rubber gloves and a pair of socks.
She walked to the table to double check she had everything she needed when a loud bang came from the door, she jumped back and ran towards it, "just a minute!" She shouted, looking around the room one last time before standing behind the door and turning off the light.
"Come in!" She shouted loudly. The door slowly creaked open and in stepped Ben, his hand immediately flying out in search for a light switch, "don't!" She squeaked out not ready for everything to be seen. That would just make this that much harder.
His hand fell back to his side and he completely stepped into the room, closing the door behind him. "Dorothy?" He said quietly in a creepy manner. She shuddered but stayed still and quiet, she needed him just a few more steps into the room before she could jump him. "Where are ya?" He asked stepping further into the room.
This was her shot, probably her only shot and she had to take it, she unfolded the chloroform covered rag in her hand and moved quickly towards the light switch before flicking it on, "what the-" were the only two words he was able to get out before she was on him.
She jumped into his back and immediately shoved the rag over his mouth and nose, he screamed into it and reached his hands back grabbing for her hair only to pull off the dark black wig and hold it in his hands.
He struggled for a little while longer, before inevitably passing out, falling onto the old cracked pavement face first. She got off of him and stretched her back, "put up quite the fight there Benny..." She mumbled to his limp form.
She dragged his heavy body over to the chains and sat him in the chair below them, she huffed out a breath before tugging his arms above his head and wrapping and locking the chains tightly around his wrists.
In the corner of the room was a big metal barrel full of wood and old newspapers covered in gasoline, she lit a match and threw it in before throwing the wig, their clothes, and the rag into the flames. She quickly attached a hose to the old sink in the room and turned on the water before spraying Ben down.
After a few minutes he came to, he still was out of it, but he was awake and ready to be charged for his crimes, "Benjamin Dowle..." She said pacing in front of him with a folder in her hands, "I'm Riley... Lovely to meet you." She said not looking up at him.
"How do you know my real name?" He shivered, "I changed my last name after..." He trailed off a dark expression taking over his face as he stared down at the ground.
"After what Ben?" Riley asked staring up at him, "you know, if you can't talk about it, you shouldn't have done it." She said before turning back to the table and grabbing a knife, his eyes widened and he started pulling on the chains, "I wouldn't if I were you, you yank to hard and the rafters will come down on you. Giving you a more painful death than I will."
He started panting but was done moving, "You're gonna kill me!" He shouted out the panic finally hitting him, "You're crazy! You can't do that!" He shouted at her starting to scream.
"Go for it. Scream. No one can hear you Ben." She said loudly, talking over his cry's, "now, shall we start? You're originally from Oklahoma... Rich parents... Blah, blah, blah..." She stared intently at the page running her finger tip over the words written there, "ah, here it is!" She said gleefully, "a few months ago, a young girl in Tulsa, around your age, went missing around the time you and your family moved up here. Says here, she was last seen with you."
"What? I don't know what you're talking about! Now let me go!" He yelled at her almost accusingly. She tsked him and walked towards him with the knife, drawing a straight line up his leg and towards his thigh before she slightly dug it into the meaty flesh there.
He screamed out in pain, "Stop! Please God! Stop!" He screamed out. She did as he asked and stopped but left the knife there, he cried silently for a second before dropping his head, "I killed her... I wasn't meaning too... She just- she just made me so mad." He whimpered out.
"Where's her body Ben?" She asked softly looking at him, pulling out the knife. He gave her the address and hung there, "I'm gonna have to kill you now." She said almost sympathetically. He began screaming and begging for her to let him go, which she never enjoyed. It brought her back to the night where she was the victim. But she had to, this needed to happen.
She decided to make it quick, the sound of his pleas bouncing off the cement walls and giving her a headache, she pulled out her father's pistol before planting a bullet in the boys head. "Sorry Benny, today was the day you faced your judgement, and just like you, I'll face it one day too..." She whispered to his limp body hanging from the ceiling.
She didn't do what she did for no reason, for her it was justice for the poor girl that he murdered.
3 notes · View notes
rose-blossm-blog · 7 years
Text
“ ᶠʳᵒᶻᵉᶰ ʰᵉᵃʳᵗˢ ᶤᶰ ᵃ ˡᵒᵛᵉʳ'ˢ ᵍʳᵃᵛᵉˑ ”
PLACE: BARCELONA, SPAIN.
TIME PERIOD: 1742 A.D. 
‹ ᵗʷ → ᵇˡᵒᵒᵈ˒ ᵍᵒʳᵉˑ ›
 She knew they’d all be boisterously indulging on the delectable feast ahead of them. For as the woman who owned the estate beckoned them in with her warm invitation, giving them free passage of her property, they would laugh. Laugh loudly, she noted, with their carefree tone and polished wardrobe that only the finest seamstress could tailor so fittingly to their bodies. It was a display of wealth wherever they traveled, a high born's signature collared coat and their beautiful woman strapped underneath their arm.
“Boy, polish that silverware and prepare to pour the wine,” an old, battered woman who was obviously hypnotized to serve under the vampires’ every waking demand, shouted to the ‘boy’ who was spotlessly finishing the last touches on the silverware. Silverware.. It was a fairly new concept in that day, particularly geared for more mannerly folk in the courts and nobles ranging far and wide. In attendance to this party were the most well-off guests in Spain, traveling bureaucrats who collected shares and financial endeavors wherever they went. Oh, and the servant who was recruited by the woman, knew perfectly well their luxurious, comfortable lifestyle.
“The men upstairs have requested more wine,” another servant girl announces for the teeming wait staff to hear, and a noticeable gash on her neck goes seemingly unnoticed as she scurries out of the room again.
“Boy, didn’t ya hear ‘er?” the eldest woman who spoke before, now impatiently badgers her sole recipitator of her demands. The boy who keeps his head down and eyes trained on his silverware, doesn’t voice a response and instead scurries to handle the wine pitcher before the lead staff member can torment him with her God-awful screech once more. Hasty steps lead him to the stairway, in which the men of the party would be participating in their usual agenda. Fang-deep in some poor lass in a frilly dress, discussing politics and their promiscuity in the court’s halls. The servant boy could recite word for word the jargon they’d be exchanging by the fireplace, barely getting a full few sentences in without stopping to drain their pretty blood supply.
The door pushes open and the servant goes quietly unnoticed, such as most of the human population occupying the room. Girls giggling their innocent giggles as the rough men enjoy their playful natured banter, before said bright girl’s timely demise. It’s a cycle, rooted in the system of the clan and how utterly hard it was for the boy to contain himself when breezing past the displays.
“Only the finest wine will pour tonight, gentlemen!” a loud voice bellowed in the room, signaling a stream of ‘hoor-ahs’, closely followed by their clinking of glasses. The servant boy, who served each man their share of wine, did so in a manner that worked like clockwork. They would not drink immediately when served; drinks would flow as soon as the leader of the lot would announce a toast, thus everyone would drink their cup simultaneously. With swift steps, going unnoticed in the room, fingers softly click the door’s locked and his back presses against the door.
Watchful, keen gaze locked on the men as the glasses pressed to their lips, inspecting as the wine swam down until every last drop was ingested. Fists begin to tighten, knuckles turning white as sweaty palms are now grasping the wooden dagger that the servant hid effectively in their belt.
It’s a quick process, really. A fairly reliable source of poison would only take moments to ensue, and the entire jolly group of men from before were now hunched over, gasping and choking on the wine they so gluttonously lived on. Some were brought to their knees, while others would grip onto the edges of the walls, the fireplace, tables- anything to keep them upright. One man screamed out, in the midst of ensuing chaos.
“The wine- It was poisoned!” he croaked out, his lungs now certainly aflame from the herb now burning the walls of the organ as it traveled to their stomachs. Continuing to weaken them, and the burning of rage was evident in the way the same man jutted his index finger in the servant boy’s direction.
“You! Go find whoever is responsible, and bring them to me!”
The fiery words, threatening, a clear death sentence by all means- Yet.. the servant could not help but bite back a grin. As he watched the man so weakly drag his inhibited body from the ground, like his limbs had suddenly become numb- it brought a humored chuckle to the servant. Bewildered by the servant’s clear disobedience, the man’s face contorted in even more detestment.
“Even in such a pathetic state, you still bark orders.. Are you daft?” the servant’s voice was brought to light for the first time that entire evening. Some thought the boy was a mute, and by his status in the servant rank, no one questioned it. But as the ‘boy’ began to speak, other men in the room were tuned in, now trying to get themselves up to take on this intruder of their feast.
“The whole lot of you.. Crippled by a little witch’s brew. I’m rather embarrassed for you, to tell the truth,” the servant spoke again, and in the voice, there’s a clear distinction that is not entirely male.. No, it does not have the timbre of a standard male’s tune, nor follow the same octave. In fact, not male at all.
“When the witches heard of how I sought to bring hell on your little club of merry dead men, they practically rejoiced. You were the ones who were responsible for burning their aspiring youth, their elderly and such, so.. Suppose we shared a similar desire for revenge. How does the saying go..? ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend’.. Something like that,” it was now clear that the servant was responsible for the poisoning of the wine, and the men were either stunned, or trying to fling themselves from their spots to grasp at the intruder’s throat. Either way, they’d be weakened for a good half an hour or so.
“And.. you.” The servant propped themselves down on their knees in front of the man who spoke earlier, fisting the hair of him before bringing the blade to his throat. It was only moments in which the man laid his eyes upon the ‘servant boy’, that he, too, began to slowly recognize the identity of his enemy.
“Isabelle.. But you can’t..” he began to trail off with a dazed look of confusion, slowly morphing into spiteful anger- as one would expect. Isabelle simply lets out a dry, gruff laugh before inserting the blade all the way into his neck, watching the man howl and grimace as blood began to flow down his pristine whine, buttoned shirt.
“That is for Bartolomé.. Who you threw into your accusations of witchcraft and made me watch as the flames engulfed him.. Slowly..” she begins twisting the blade as her voice drips with animosity, the grief she had been stricken with- now rotting and turning into a form of classified insanity. “I loved him.. Oh, I loved him so. The other half of my heart, the one who was going to take me to the new world.. A gentle man, pure of heart, so much life in his eyes..” she hissed to him, voice breaking and trying to stay collected as the man’s painful expression continued to plead her with his eyes. “And you killed him,” she growled lastly, removing the knife and easily using her grasp of his hair to tear his head from the rest of the body.
The rest of the men were now twitching in their spot on the ground, groans of agony encompassing the atmosphere of the room as the fireplace continued to cackle in the distance. Isabelle stood upright, her short strands of hair now decorated with blood from the insertion of the blade hitting an artery, some splattered on her cheek and on the worn clothes she dressed in.
“You needn’t fear the poison, gentlemen,” she stood up and announced to the rest of the group, leisurely walking around the room and stepping over the limp bodies that scattered randomly across the room. “You have much greater things to tremble at in your near future,” she says with authority clear in her voice, gaze darkened from her masked expression. Nothing but bitterness.. The desire for revenge, for blood to flow for the unjust killing of her lover.
She sees one of the woman in a total fright, shock in her widened eyes and the color washed from her face. She can see her trying to push one of the weakened men awake, presumably in hopes of helping her escape this situation. Isabelle is quick to sink her claws into her hair and stretch her mouth to bare a set of carnal fangs, that of which disappear into her neck to draw out a long cry.  Wailing for her life until that same life is drained from her eyes. Throwing the body down to the ground when she disposes of it.
She sees the fireplace in the back of the room, her eyes peeled on the little sparks that’d erupt from the dance of the flames. Something in her stomach churned, and she had to- she simply had to - push her feelings aside. Taking a torch that she easily found from one of the stands in the room, collecting a flame atop it and trying to grip the handle tighter to stop the shakiness in her fingers. She hated fire, absolutely detested, abhorred it. But she had to make them suffer.
One by one, she lit each of them aflame- Already taking the liberty of compelling the maids to coat their rich fabric in a flammable tender cloth to ensure the flames would devour the body whole without any interruptions. High-pitched shrieks and cries of mercy were bouncing off the walls, as each of the vampires were sentenced to the cruel death they inflicted upon her love.
“How does it feel? To drown in the flames that eat at your flesh, to beg for your life as no one — NO ONE— comes to rescue you!?” she shouts in the rooms, her lips twitching as a sick grin starts to play at her lips as she watches the almost ravishing display of revenge in it’s most raw, just form. She stands at the doorway and watches their writhing corpses begin to die off, one by one.
“May God have mercy on your damned souls,” she says, voice bordering a near whisper as she throws the stake into the middle of the room. Watching the furniture and such catch fire in the process of the element beginning to spread, consuming everything in it’s path.
With that, her back turned, she opened the door to exit, and was out of sight before the sun came up again.
7 notes · View notes
asurabackuplogs · 6 years
Text
After months of radio silence, such a large reading was so unexpected Ruffik didn’t even consider its legitimacy. Bored and irritated, the genius had assumed a malfunction with his scanning equipment. It was only after several hard resets and the signal proved itself to be genuine that Ruffik was appropriately losing his mind.
So worried was the genius to miss the action he had knocked his rifle from his desk whilst fitting his holster and not bothered to pick it back up again. When he couldn’t fit his thick coat over his safety gloves and his DCR-Suit, the coat was discarded. So too were the snowshoes and the earmuffs. Barley dressed for the extreme conditions, Ruffik had prayed to the alchemy that just one sample would remain suitable for his uses by the time he arrived. Only seconds after disembarking his Golem malfunctioned and wouldn’t budge. Frustrated, he left it behind. Pushing through banks of stinging snow he desperately listened to make sure he wasn’t too late. And then he had arrived, and saw there was no need for concern.
The data was immense, excessive even.
Piles of it were haphazardly tossed into heaps. Hopeless and glassy white eyes aimed themselves to an impassive universe. Shades of pink and magenta stark and shiny against the ice. The stench of it all was enough to curl the eartips. Even to a professional, the sheer volume of data verged on the grotesque.
“Unfortunate.”
The between the weight of a frigid night’s sky and the vast expanse of snow and ice, Ruffik’s voice barely carried to the parameter of the settlement. It was lucky the withered asura spoke to no one in particular, as his words fell flat on the backs of frozen gore.
“Very unfortunate.”
In his optimal scenario Ruffik had wanted to find samples from a small variety, but it was difficult to tell the race of some specimens. Quaggan of course stood out by their shape and stature, but many of the norn had died mid transformation and their frozen silhouettes matched those of the Goliath and Kodan Icebrood. A sylvari scout must have had a very bad day indeed, for Ruffik swore he could see plant matter beneath a mauler’s corrupted ice. The smaller more portable samples were disembodied limbs, impossibly to classify.
Equipment Ruffik had brought along for the purpose of scouring the snow for flecks of corruption were repurposed, used instead to locate samples small enough to carry back to the lab. With his tiny scalpel, he was forced to saw off softer sections of flesh. His tweezers he pinched together like a pick to chisel out appropriate chunks of ice.
It was somewhere between prying off a toenail and accidentally shattering a brittle eyelid that Ruffik fancied himself a change of study.
Of course that’s not what he told the Lionguard upon their thunderous arrival to the scene. His golem was broken, the attack was too far from his lab to properly transport the specimens, what do you mean you crazy bookahs want me to give back the samples for a ‘burial’? Ruffik found all manner of things to complain about and still neglected to mention the fact he felt rather ill. The other things he dictated loudly to anyone who would listen, even fabricating a few just for flair. It didn’t quite matter that no one listened to his demands, Ruffik made sure to repeat them when explaining his involvement to their captain.
“I am a marine biologist, technically,” He said, “With a certain fascination with the icebrood’s effects on the local sea life.”
The captain, a grizzled old charr so scarred and ragged Ruffik couldn’t tell where his fur ended and coat began, growled out a warning before he spoke.
“I meant why are you here now.”
The accusatory glances were nothing new, almost welcome in their familiarity. One could not help but indulge in the performance.
“I got a signal from my radar,” he said, “I rushed over quickly, I was so sure your little brigade of moral Templars would sanitize the area before I reached it.”
Ruffik leveled his gaze at the construction of a pyre in the center of the site.
“And I was right.”
The metal gantlets of a soldier to the captain’s left clinked as the old norn made fists of his hands, the captain held up a claw before he could so much as step forward.
“So you’re just an opportunist here to pick at the dead like a vulture,” He growled.
“You say opportunist,” Ruffik said in a lazy drawl “I say scientist.”
“And you intercepted a distress signal,”
“-Actually, it was my own sensor and it only detected movements of draconic magic.”
“…and presumably forgot to pass this signal on to the nearest stronghold?”
That hung in the air for a time, longer than Ruffik had expected it to. When Ruffik realized time was indeed still ticking on without his response, he was mortified to hear his own voice crack on the first word. He cleared his throat to try again, and realized he had nothing. For a few terrifying moments, he had nothing.
He was saved by the accusing glances, or rather, the caricature they offered him.
“Like I said,” he managed to keep his voice from shaking, “I was afraid you’d destroy the contamination.”
Some ways away, the first of the funeral pyres went up in flames.
“And I was right.”
With that Ruffik pushed away. The captain would get nothing more out of him. The worst punishment he could receive would be a surprise inspection of his laboratory for shades of dark grey and the glow of red data crystals, of which he certainly had none. It seemed as though the asura didn’t even notice the small brigade that had amassed around the makeshift interrogation. In reality, the looks of disgust and anger awarded to his blatant disregard for the dead were more important to him than they could have known.
Just as Ruffik feared it would, the bodies of men, women, and children were cleared from the refugee encampment.
The grumpy asuran researcher who had been of no help at all lingered for some reason. He watched the soldiers as they sorted through scarce belongings and pitiful supplies. He might of offered his assistance in the equations to ease himself from the boredom.
Considering Icebrood had no use of things like grain and firewood the fact there was very little of both was an indication to the camp’s quality of life. A short walk around the perimeter gave Ruffik a rough estimate as to how many families could have reasonably been sheltered there. Just for reference, Ruffik speculated that he could have fit the entire camp within one of his subterranean warehouses.
Out of a casual interest he calculated how long a crowd of that size could stay there with the resources he currently had in supply. If Ruffik had chosen made himself useful, these calculates would be shared with the soldiers. He would have told them that had the need arose, his lab could have feasibly housed every family that now lay dead in the snow until spring at the very latest.
But Ruffik didn’t say that, he didn’t talk to anyone. After his walk and a fun little mental exercise there was no real reason to stick around. He needed to reclaim his supplies- he had dropped them in a heap when the Guard had arrived. Passing back through the camp in that direction another pyre sparked to flame. Ruffik watched it, watched the invaluable corrupted ice disappear in the flames.
Beneath his thick gloves, Ruffik’s fingers remembered how that eyelid had shattered beneath his scalpel.
For unrelated reasons, Ruffik very suddenly needed to be walking in a different direction. It wasn’t until the sun was going down that someone felt the need to address the fact that he was still here.
“I’ve lost my supplies.” He said, “And considering I lost them sometime after your captain demanded an interrogation, I demand to be compensated.”
“What?” It was a low ranking marksman who had evidently drawn the short straw, “No, you need to leave now.”
Indignation finally bubbled up in Ruffik’s chest, and he drank greedily from its warmth.
“I’m not asking,” he sneered, “I am demanding. I have lost my supplies, my livelihood, do you know how hard it is to receive equipment this far north? I could be set back for weeks due to your incompetence!”
A charr soldier hovered in the background, but Ruffik was too furious to be intimidated.
“I’ve lost my most valuable supplies! My scalpel, my test tubes, my gloves-“
The soldier blinked in confusion, her eyes glancing downwards.
“Sir, you’re wearing your gloves,” She said.
This caused Ruffik to pause. He looked down at his hands and indeed, there they were. That was some relief, he supposed. They were good gloves, nick and warm but still thin enough for his delicate work.
Thin enough that he had somehow felt each crack in the blistered skin beneath the leather.
Ruffik must have flinched, for when the soldier spoke it was with concern.
“Are you alright?”
Ruffik looked up at her through the haze, his hands bunching at his sides. Had he been wearing his gloves all this time? That was rather unhygienic, wasn’t it? He had just been handling raw dragon corruption, after all.
“I’m fine,” he spat, “All I want is for you imbeciles to return my-“
Ruffik, almost thoughtlessly, reached for his rifle. When his fingers passed through an empty space on his holster the feelings of rage and confusion finally met and ignited.
“My gun!” he cried whist being forcibly removed, “They stole my gun!”
Without the promise of his supply or dignity Ruffik was finally barred reentry to the camp under an unspoken threat of general unpleasantness. The last bit of patience for the grumpy old asura was the offer of an escort back to his lab, which was received about as well as any of them expected.
Ruffik marched away, unable to shake a sticky weight in his chest he hadn’t felt since his time as an apprentice. The chill cooled his rage, and in time humiliation curdled his fading adrenaline. The walk back over the tundra loomed in his mind, all Ruffik wanted to do was fall into a bed that lay across an impossible expanse of snow. He had lost his equipment, his dignity, and a good deal of his head to this debacle.
And when he had tried to pick it up the eyelid, it had all but disintegrated into a light dusting over that woman’s empty gaze.
“Hooo!”
Ruffik was all but ready to batter the next unfortunate twist of the night, and the Quaggan could see it on his face.
Fear flashed in those beady black eyes, before she scowled and stood firm. “Foo! How rude!”
Ruffik growled as he rubbed his temple, and would have moved on if not for her following behind him.
“Quaggan has the tadpoles!” She said, “Quaggan hid them away safe when she saw the Icebrood!”
“Good for Quaggan.” He said darkly.
“Noooo!” she cried, putting a webbed hand to her leathery cheek, “Quaggan knew a secret way out! Quaggan swam away with the tadpoles! Tadpoles are safe, where are the other survivors?”
“There aren’t any.” Ruffik said, a bit harder then perhaps was necessary.
The Quaggan recoiled, the cogs of her tiny mind clashing together until her face tilted upwards to see the smoke of funeral pyres curl in the sky.
“Fooooo…” she said, a sound more disappointed than mournful. Perhaps even a brainless Quaggan had understood the situation as dire.
They stood there together. The Quaggan did not address him directly, but there was a still a sense he was not yet excused. It was not uncommon for natives to the region to try and flag bystanders down for some impromptu meddling in their affairs. Quaggan especially seemed to have a cultural taboo against doing their own dirty work and relied entirely on the kindness of strangers. Unless he made a point to contest, Ruffik was trapped in the role of one such stranger.
The Lionguard had their hands full and likely did not want to see him again and there wouldn’t be anyone else running along to sort this out. Ruffik sighed, there was nothing for it.
“How many of these ‘tadpoles’ are there?”
“Two!” The Quaggan said, “Too small to fight, so Quaggan swam away!”
While he likely should have been a bit depressed to learn there were only two survivors, Ruffik couldn’t help but appreciate the convenience.
“Too young to fight,” Ruffik repeated, “How old would you say, can they survive without their mother?”
“Ooooo,” the Quaggan scratched her chin, as if calculating lifespans of other races in her mind, “I think so.”
Ruffik’s forehead fell into his palm briefly before he looked mournfully to the large peaks between him and his lab.  
“Fine, fine,” He said, “Let me take a look at them.”
He was a scientist with a special interest in extreme conditions and though his subject had little in common with anthropology he was surely a greater authority than those nincompoops on the Lionguard. Ruffik had no particular disdain for small children and bookah children at least knew to be seen and not heard. Following a broody Quaggan and a pair of dumb infants back to some refuge or other wouldn’t be a problem so long as she didn’t expect him to touch the squirmy things.
So Ruffik followed behind the Quaggan to the edge of the frosted lake and tried not to look mortified at the thought of her plunging a pair of infants into their icy depths. Luckily when she returned she was butting a cradle through the water, the passengers inside warm as dry as one could be this far north. Ruffik nearly threw out his back pulling them to shore, why was it that all Bookahs this far north insisted upon being so enormous?
Pushing the heaps of blankets and furs aside, Ruffik knelt to inspect the pair in their seemingly perfect state of health for two norn of their age.
They couldn’t have been much older than a year at the most, their sleeping faces too pale and plump for them to be newborns. From their mirrored features and the gentle tufts of white-blonde hair poking out from their swaddling they could have been siblings, perhaps twins. Tugging at the seams of their blankets showed tiny chests that rose and feel to Ruffik’s satisfaction, the tiny thud off of a pulse could be felt through their chubby necks. It wasn’t possible to do a full analysis for dragon corruption or even frostbite without exposing them to the cold, and whilst they likely would have been fine in a normal blizzard Ruffik knew the Bitterfrost’s teeth could sink into even a norn.
Still, he was able to wrestle a tiny hand free, and very suddenly was taken aback. There are many truths about the world one knows well, though still finds them startling to behold. Moose, for example, are larger than one imagines in their mind, dung beetles smell awful, and babies- even norn babies, had the most freakishly small fingernails Ruffik had ever seen.
For a moment Ruffik forgot what he was looking for. He was so transfixed by the familiar appendage scaled to miniscule he gently bent and turned the wrist in awe. He wasn’t even sure if he was endeared or disturbed, it merely shocked him that he had not considered this before. The trance ended when the infant mumbled, Ruffik blinked and tucked the arm back against the child’s face before covering them both in furs once again.
There wasn’t much Ruffik was able to see with them swaddled as they were, but the light pink of their cheeks and heat emanating from the basket told him neither was in any immediate danger. Whilst a further inspection could be advised, that was something for the healers and shamans of Sorrow’s Eclipse to discern.
Ruffik rose to say as much to his companion, but the words took a while to come.
The Quaggan stared at him expectantly, his silence obviously worrying her. Ruffik cleared his throat.
“They appear to be in decent enough shape,” he said, “I’m no pediatrician, but I believe they are old enough to travel without their mother.”
The Quaggan sighed in relief and waddled forward to reclaim the basket, but Ruffik did not stand aside.
“Coo?”
“Hold on a moment,” he said, almost without thinking, “I’d like to take a better look.”
They were huddled together, gently touching heads as if in comfort. Definitely twins, they gravitated to each other even in sleep. Ruffik removed his glove to tuck a stray lock of hair back into the swaddling. The child’s face twitched, Ruffik could just make out his downy eyebrows, a lip that briefly curled, and a nose that wriggled under his cold touch.
“Is something wrong?” The Quaggan’s said, worry evident in her voice.
Ruffik shook himself from his stupor to regard her.
“…I think so,” he said, then looked down again.
This time it was the eyes that caught his attention, even closed as they were. So impossibly small on an impossibly small face… He barely noticed the gossamer thin lashes until he looked for them.
And then his gaze fell onto the creases of two tiny perfect eyelids closed in a tiny person’s perfect sleep.
“Go to the santuary,” Ruffik said, “I need you to find a shaman.”
“Oooo!” The Quaggaon cried, and wasted no time flopping into the water. Ruffik watched her go, the inky black depths merging with her camouflage. It was cold and bleak and dark down there, up here, and anywhere in the Bitterfrost frontier. There were so many horrible ways to die in a place like this, even without the icebrood attacking. Slowly Ruffik turned back to the basket. He thought of those little hands and faces, unwittingly compared them to the corpses of the camp.
His shoulders seized, as though some unseen hand gripped his neck.
Landmarks were far and few between past the Bitterfrost Frontier. Even the slightest disturbance of snow cast long shadows across an otherwise bleak expanse. No cover, no shade, no shapes even remotely familiar to a native of the Maguuma Jungle. Only solemn towers of rock and ice obscured sunrise in the distance, the first droplets of morning light climbed and spilled from their impossible peaks as Ruffik followed his own footprints back to the lab. Somewhere along the journey Ruffik collided painfully with his busted golem, almost dropping one of his enormous bundles in the snow. The infant of that arm, the female, slept soundly even as Ruffik’s boot sloshed in his blood for the remainder of the journey.
The sun all but blinded by the time he made out the silhouette of his lab and he reasoned that this was a rather unambiguous kidnapping. It took him so long as to enter through his front door before he rationalized that it wasn’t as if there was anyone living for him to kidnap the twins from.
And what’s more- they were safer here than they would be in that circus of violence on the frontier. There was plenty of food and water and elixirs to guard against corruption. What’s more, his golem had failed him so often ever since beginning his residency. The children would grow to be twice the size as his golem each, and in payment for his food, water, and elixirs no doubt they’d be happy to help him carry his equipment every now and then.
He hadn’t made it half way to his bunk before one of the children woke up and began to screech, promptly waking and terrifying the other. Holding both infants as they screeched and squirmed and made it very clear they didn’t want to be held was difficult, he set them down on the floor. The twins looked around their new surroundings and filled the lab with their cries. The sound was piercing and painful to Ruffik’s ears, the peaceful sleeping expressions a distant memory.
As he watched them scream and fight their swaddling, Ruffik thought to himself that this was a rational and very good idea.
0 notes