#it's another word for marsh or bog

[not-spiders]

tragic. bring it back

[kittyball23]

Neverglading (a Trolls fanfic)

Summary: John Dory meets an unexpected companion while trekking through the Neverglade Trail

A/N: Taking place before TBT; Makes references to my oneshot from Trolls 3.0 titled "Found" (ch 18) :)

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I guess there’s a reason they call it the NEVERglade Trail, John Dory thought, exhaustedly taking another step forward and forcing himself to look past the fatigue that plagued his body.

The marshland was not that deep underfoot, only coming up to his ankles, but it sure was thick. One could only go so long taking forcible steps before you got awfully tired out, and before the marsh started to feel like it was taking its grimy hands and holding you in place. But John Dory was not letting it deter him. He refused for it to. He had been the leader of BroZone, and there had been certain traits that a leader needed to have. A key one of those was determination, a strong drive to get done what one strived to get done, and, if it could helped, completing it in the best way possible (or, as John Dory liked to call it, in the most brodacious way possible!).

Come on, JD, he urged himself, you CAN do it! Hauling his knees up, he marched through the boggy trail, ignoring the burn in his muscles. FEEL the burn, he encouraged himself, using the same words he had on Spruce when the Troll had adamantly prepared for every show they’d performed with some workout exercises beforehand. And besides, he continued lecturing, why would I give up now? Just a few yards or so away, he could see the telltale green that indicated a smooth, solid patch of grass. The end of the trail! Knowing his victory was just a hop, skip, and jump away fueled the Troll, and he hauled himself forward some more. Yes! Almost there! Just gotta -

“Rrrwoaw !”

JD gasped at the sudden cry that pierced the air and, upon reflex, took a fighting stance. It was very unexpected, with the only sounds that had accompanied his trek thus far being the bubbling of the bog, a couple of bugs flitting by with a quick ZZZZT! , distant bird calls, and the sound of his own heaving grunts. The sound was foreign among the others, and did not give off the vibe of a creature who was in any way relaxed. And that made the green hair on the back of his neck rise in an unpleasant way. Was he being hunted? Was that the creature's cry of battle, ready to charge at the unsuspecting Troll and splatter what would become his remains across the land?

John Dory shuddered, suddenly feeling cold. Nobody deserved to go out like that!

“RRWOAW !”

He grimaced upon hearing the cry resound again, and not two seconds after that, again. That's when the Troll had to stop and think. For one, he was still standing there, the bottom hems of his white slacks a little muddied, but otherwise well off. If this creature had wanted to attack him, then surely it would have done so already. Or else, why make the ruckus? Any predator intelligent enough in the order of things in the food chain would know to keep quiet and not scare off their prey with any loud sounds. This creature, whatever it was, was not following that basic protocol. Which got JD thinking… perhaps it wasn't hunting. Perhaps it was…

“RRRRWOOOAW!!”

… distressed.

His head whirled around to his far left, in the direction the call had been coming from, somewhere off the bog's marked trail in the swampy woods. He sucked in a deep breath. There was a certain order to things. Just like in his band, for example. He was BroZone’s leader (a role that he believed his brothers could have shown him much more appreciation for taking). Spruce was the Heartthrob, Clay the Fun Boy, Floyd the Sensitive One, and Branch the Baby, all with their own reasons for being that way. And he was sure that there was a reason to why this trail was marked, why it didn't veer off to the left where the noises were coming from. What dangers were that way? They were dangers he didn't really have to find out about. But for the sake of the creature, he wanted to. There was a soft spot somewhere in JD for critters, even if Grandma had never let him have one of his own. He still loved playing with Pop Village's pets when time between band rehearsals and keeping his brothers in line permitted. Still, John Dory gazed longingly at the patch of green up ahead, where he could rest his aching feet and sore muscles.

He paused to reconsider. Maybe it was better to go there first, rest a second, regain some energy, have a snack or two, or…

“RRWOAW !”

… or not .

Before he could change his mind, John Dory stomped his way through the bog, away from his green and right to the source of the sound. The creature's cries were becoming far more frequent now, baying every couple seconds, perhaps even knowing that it had garnered someone's attention at last. John Dory dutifully followed, pushing aside throngs of bushy leaves and slinking through mossy undergrowth until, at last, he came to what he had been seeking. Just beyond a curtain of leaves he could see something thrashing, and the creature's cries were unbearably loud. JD gulped. He hadn't a clue what lay beyond that curtain. Whatever it was may not like him, trying to bite at him with its fangs or swipe at him with claws that may as well pass for daggers. Or, it could be injured, his sights to be met with a gruesome image of blood and gore from wherever it had been wounded.

Aw, no…

He didn't want to hurl, not when he'd just eaten some super delicious marshmallows not five minutes ago!

Regardless, it was no use turning back now. He bothered to trudge his way through the marsh, and he wasn't going to make it a pointless trip. Slowly, his hand went towards the leaves, and he braced himself as he dramatically thrust it aside with a great big swoosh!

"ACK!"

"RROO!"

Both he and the critter surprised each other with a shout. John Dory hid his face with his hands for a second while they both recovered, in case the creature reacted badly. But he didn't end up feeling any chomping on his fingers. Tentatively, he opened his eyes and put his hands down, coming face-to-face with a…

… Well, he didn't know what it was.

Wide, green eyes blinked back at him, pupils shrank some in fear. Its body was armadillo-like, with a shellish exterior that was pudgy-looking in texture. Four stubby green legs kicked around in midair, and just then did he notice that the creature was suspended, tied up among a whole mess of vines with no way to get out.

"Hey, girlie," John Dory whispered, finding his voice after a moment. "Oof… got yourself tied up pretty good, huh?" The critter whimpered, and he couldn’t help chuckling to himself a little at how cute it sounded. Then a thought occurred to him. "Wait a sec… you are a girl, right? Not a boy?" At the mention of the word "boy" and the suggestion of being one, the critter growled, and JD got his answer. "A'ight, girl it is. Need some help getting out?"

The critter seemed to somewhat understand what he was saying, and she gave a short bark in reply, wagging her small, stumpy tail.

"Alright, okay, we're gonna solve this right now, yeah?" Shifting, John Dory slipped out of his acorn backpack and leaned it against a tree, hurriedly searching for something, anything that could assist. He couldn’t imagine how the poor girl felt.

Wait a second… yes I CAN.

It suddenly hit John Dory that he had undergone this terrible scenario. It wasn’t too long ago that he had been strewn up in front of nearly all of the Troll Village, trussed alongside his brothers in an embarrassing display during what was their first and last show of the Family Harmony tour. He had known the frustration, the humiliation… and he did not want this little critter to endure that any longer.

Not on MY watch!

“HA!” he shouted, finding the switchblade stashed at the very bottom of his bag. He’d rarely used the item, so it was still in pristine condition. And it would prove useful in this scenario. “I gotcha, girlie!” JD assured, approaching her.

The little creature recoiled a little at the sight of the sharp object, and squirmed when he brought it up the closest vine she was entangled in.

“Relax,” JD whispered, “probably best if you don’t move, ‘kay?”

The critter whimpered a little, but seemed to understand, and stilled. He could still sense her trembling, but he worked quickly, sawing the vine and being extremely careful not to let it touch her in the process. As soon as the first knot was free, the rest was a breeze. The vines fell apart with ease, and he managed to pull her free, holding her firmly in his arms before she tumbled to the ground. She was heavier than she looked, and he grunted a little as he attempted to maintain his balance in the already unstable bog.

“There we go… that wasn’t too bad, was it?” he asked with a chuckle, trying for humor to lighten the mood.

Turns out it wasn't necessary. As soon as she was able to wiggle her arms and legs free, the critter trilled loudly, though this time, it was a trill of happiness, not sounding anything like the cry of desperation that she'd emitted before. In a flurry of gratitude, she leaned up and lapped at John Dory’s face in a series of doggy-like kisses.

“Okay, you’re welcome, you’re welcome!” he laughed. Once free of the critter’s tongue, he glanced around, not really wanting to go trudging through the boggy forest again. Luckily, he had another trick up his sleeve. He reached into his green hair and pulled out a grappling hook, shooting it out so it gripped the top of a tall tree above their heads.

“Hang on, tight, girl!”

The critter squeaked in surprise when John Dory swept them up into the air, using his stretchy Troll hair to swing them up and out on the tree limbs like monkey bars. Before he knew it, they were on that patch of grass and away from the swampy place.

The critter celebrated with a chirpy noise, snuggling up next to JD and wagging her tail.

In a fond gesture, JD bent down and patted her head. “Not a problemo, a’ight?” he cooed. “Now, I better scoot. Catch you later, small fry. I got another trail ta hike!”

John Dory began to head off, adjusting his backpack on his back a little better, when he suddenly became aware of the creature’s remaining presence, padding behind him. When he turned to look at her, she wagged her tail and panted.

"You're welcome, girly!" he chuckled, giving a thumbs up and hoping she'd get the message. But when he turned around to head off again, he could still hear her footsteps coming along behind him on the grass. That was when he realized what was going on, and after a couple seconds he called out to her. "Uh, you're kinda coming with me, aren'tcha?"

She barked affirmatively, and he bent down to her level, letting her rub affectionately against the hand that he held out to her. "What's a matter, girl, you don't got a family?" The mention of a family got the critter somber. She looked down, her green eyes giving off sadness in the way that rubbed off on JD.

"I don't either," JD admitted, "not anymore, at least..."

He paused for a second, silent, but then got happy at a new realization. "Say... WE got a family now!"

The critter liked the sound of that, and barked in agreement.

"So, if we're gonna be partners in rhyme, gotta kinda call you something other than 'girl' all the time." John Dory tapped his chin and thought. "Hmm... how are you digging 'Anna'?"

The way the pup almost seemed to scoff told him that she wasn't digging it.

"Err, alright... how about ‘Camila’?”

Another scoff.

"'Amy'?"

She grumbled.

"'Zoey'?"

She flopped to the ground.

JD sighed, then tentatively asked, "'Rhonda'?"

The pup sat up, like it had a nice ring to it, and she wagged her tail.

JD's eyes lit up. "'Rhonda'? Yeah? You like that?"

The pup barked and panted, running a few circles around him.

JD laughed and rubbed her head. "Rhonda it is. Now, let's get crackin'!" He whistled and waved a hand to get her to follow him, though that was not a problem. She trailed behind him obediently, occasionally coming to rub up against his legs and yip excitedly. It'd been only a few minutes meeting him, but she already loved his company!

And he loved hers. A friend was just what he needed, and a pet was what he'd always wanted. To get both at once felt great!

He bent down, scratching her behind the head and then bounding off with a pep in his step, having a feeling that hiking this new trail was going to be a whole lot more fun.

[fourraccoonsinacoat]

Head Full of Ghosts: Chapter 3

Pairing: Astarion x Dark Urge

Summary: Takes place during the events of Baldur's Gate 3 and explores the romance between Astarion and the Dark Urge, as well as the friendships and relationships she has with her companions. Plus, everyone gives shit to Gale about his cooking. Tags: Slow Burn, Angst, Pining, Humor, Violence, Friends to Lovers, Developing Friendships, Developing Romance, Spoilers for the Dark Urge and BG3 in general, Dark Urge as Original Female Character Rating: Mature (Will eventually be Explicit, just not there yet.) Current Chapter Count: 3/? Read on AO3 Current Word Count: 13,050

Author Notes: I'm finishing up the fourth chapter and realized I never uploaded this chapter to Tumblr. So here we are! Getting this fic back on track and should have the next chapter up soon.

Chapter 3: Monsters

“You know she is a hag, yes?” Lae’zel’s severe and even voice cut through the sticky swamp air like a hot knife through a wedge of Durinbold cheese. 

The bog was a foul place, both in atmosphere and in smell. The air was thick with humidity and an ever-present smell of wet rot. Trees sagged and bent at jagged angles, their tired limbs wilting in the gloom, and a thin fog seemed to permeate every corner of the swamp. A hazy light filtered through the tree canopy, casting blotchy shadows upon the muddy ground. 

The path the four companions were following sank into marsh every several yards, forcing the group to pick their way through mire and muck. The slog was slow, and there was much complaining. Especially from one particular high elf who no one had told not to wear freshly polished leather boots. 

“I am like…seventy percent sure she is a hag, yeah,” Eli answered as she carefully stepped over a rotted tree limb, half submerged in murky filth. “I mean, she’s entirely too eccentric to just be a normal human, right?” 

She looked over to Astarion for support, who was currently trying to rub some manner of sludge off his doublet.

“She certainly isn’t playing Three-Dragon Ante with a full deck, if that’s what you’re getting at,” Astarion replied coolly before throwing up his hands and huffing in irritation, the stain unyielding.

Lae’zel hummed for a moment, considering. “Gale is eccentric and a normal human, is he not?” she questioned, amber eyes fixing on their resident wizard who, at the moment, was trying to free the hem of his robe from the clawing grasp of a gnarled tree root.   

Eli sighed. “Gale has a magic bomb capable of leveling entire cities in his chest. I would not call that normal.”

“You wound me, Eli.” Gale responded in a good-natured tone as he tugged his robe free and the group began moving once more.

“You consumed an enchanted bracer yesterday at breakfast,” Eli quipped, recalling the morning fondly. Karlach had been fascinated, quickly trying to get Gale to absorb several other items from their camp hoard and asking him if he “took on their powers,” as she put it. 

Eli chuckled at the memory before concluding, “You’re as deranged as the rest of us and it’s not up for debate.”

Their little group really had become a hodgepodge of oddities over the past few days. Karlach was settling in well, because where else would she fit other than with their traveling sideshow which included a vampire who could walk in the sun, a warlock who was recently transformed into a part-devil by his patron, an amnesiac with the compulsion to murder anything that looked at her crossly, and all the rest of them. 

Eli was starting to wonder if she had a penchant for picking up emotionally constipated strays. They were all kind of outcasts in some way or another. People just trying to get along in a world that had kicked them in the teeth and tossed them out with the garbage. She still had no idea why they’d all just sort of accepted her as their group’s figurehead, but she was beginning to feel a certain affinity for their gang of misfits. They were all fighting battles both within and without, and Eli couldn’t help but feel a certain kinship with people who were struggling with their own personal demons, just as she was.

At least as the day wore on her constant headache had faded to a dull throb, rather than the brain splitting white-hot pain she’d been experiencing. Her memories were still lost, and whenever she tried to call upon them she was only met with flashes of red violence. Images of mangled bodies, ruptured limbs, stringy viscera…it all melted and jumbled together in a confusing blur of chaos. Her dreams were no better, and her nighttime raids on the camp’s supply of books and wine were no secret among the party. Both Shadowheart and Karlach had even joined her on separate occasions. Hells, she’d have a proper book club up and running soon.

“So,” Lae’zel’s stern voice brought Eli out of her musings. “You trust this hag?”

“No,” Eli nearly spat the word out in a laugh. Auntie Ethel, as she called herself, was a lot of things, and trustworthy was not one of them. Astarion’s assessment of Ethel as ‘positively demented’ was accurate, and hags were not known as an honest sort.

“Good,” said Lae’zel, slightly drawing out the word in approval. “Lest I remind you that the only way to remove a ghaik tadpole is a Zaith'isk.”

Eli could feel the gith’s eyes on her and she did her best not to bristle under what she was sure was a judgmental stare. “I am aware,” Eli said, trying to sound unfazed and relatively certain she was failing miserably.

Lae’zel continued to press. “And a Zaith'isk can only be found at a gith creche.” She laid emphasis on the last two words, as if she were pointing something obvious out to a very dimwitted child.

Eli felt the back of her neck and ears start to go warm as irritation stirred in her chest and tightened her shoulders. The throbbing headache at the back of her skull began to growl. 

“You don’t say…” Eli replied, quietly pleading to whatever deity she couldn’t remember worshipping to please just let her have the rest of the day without feeling like her brain was on fire. 

“I just did say.” Lae’zel shot back, drawing a sidelong glare from Eli.

Eli liked Lae’zel. For the most part. When she wasn’t threatening tiefling refugees or complaining about the lack of spice in Gale’s cooking. Though, to her credit, Gale’s food was kind of bland. 

The gith fighter was blunt, stubborn, opinionated, fierce and one hell of a talent when it came to steel and blade. Eli appreciated Lae’zel’s steadfast loyalty and belief in her people’s culture, and even felt a slight pang of jealousy for it. It grounded the warrior and gave her a perspective from which to view the world, something Eli did not have. Culture, family, heritage…they were the building blocks of a person. Even if a person rejected or outgrew those foundational aspects of themselves, they still provided guiderails – or at the very least an anchor for one’s identity. 

Without those things, Eli felt adrift and directionless in a vast and swirling ocean, constantly beaten upon the rocks before being dragged back down to drown.  

“Explain to me why we are seeking this hag who you do not trust and who cannot remove the tadpole,” Lae’zel said, driving at a point Eli knew was coming and one she wasn’t sure she had a decent argument against. “Instead, should we not be pursuing a more productive course of action?”

Eli sighed, rubbing at her temples as her headache began to mount. “I’m curious,” she responded rather lamely. 

“I see,” Lae’zel said with a tone that indicated the gith was wholly unimpressed by Eli’s reasoning. “So, the situation at Emerald Grove continues to escalate, goblins continue to terrorize the Sword Coast, the druid healer remains missing, and the tadpoles in our brains remain unremoved.” Eli internally cringed at the chiding way in which Lae’zel spoke. “But, let us humor your curiosity. What is the worst that could happen?”

The question hung in the air uneasily. The worst that could happen was…really fucking bad. Everyone could die. Eli and her merry band of misfits could all turn into mind flayers. The Grove could fall under the absolute rule of a tyrant and racist. And the Sword Coast could get fully and aggressively fucked. Why was this all her problem, again?

“Lae’zel, was that sarcasm I just heard?” Astarion chimed in, and Eli felt a pull of appreciation towards him. He probably hadn’t meant to run interference between Eli and her interrogator, but she was thankful for it all the same. 

Truth be told, there was a small part of her that hoped Auntie Ethel did have a solution for their tadpole troubles. While they weren’t the most honorable of sorts, hags were rather enterprising and shrewd. And given the nature of their unconventional problem, an unconventional solution would more than likely be required. Besides, if things went south, they could just kill her. That seemed to be a particular specialty of their group. 

“Sarcasm often accompanies truth,” Lae’zel said with a pointed tone. 

Astarion chuckled lightly and Eli felt something not unlike faint affection flutter in her chest. She very quickly shoved it down into the black hole within herself where all the things she didn’t want to deal with went. Nope. That wasn’t good. That was the very last thing she needed right now. 

It had been happening more and more since the night she’d made a complete fool of herself, drunkenly asking him if they were still friends. Still friends. Gods, she was such a loser, and Astarion surely thought she was a total basket case after that encounter. But, every now and then, he’d give her a smirk or say something that caused a laugh to bubble up, and then that weird and endearing feeling would creep up and holy shit was this not the time or the place! Besides, that man had more red flags than a circus, and it wasn’t like Eli was a bastion of sanity, so together they’d be about as functional as wet hot garbage. 

“How profound,” Astarion continued, oblivious to Eli’s distressing mental spiral. “This little jaunt in the swamp does seem to be a rather unhygienic deviation from more pressing concerns.” 

The appreciation she’d felt for him earlier poofed away, and Eli glared. “I will turn this whole party around if you all don’t stop your complaining!”

Astarion’s eyes lit up with delight. “Oh, please do! I worry the putrid scent of squalor and anguish is never coming out of my clothes.” He ran his hands down his doublet, trying to smooth out some wrinkles, and sighed in an overdramatic fashion.

“I, for one, am looking forward to seeing Ethel again,” Gale chimed in as they continued to trod down the muddy path. All of them would be washing muck off their clothes for days. “Fey and the like often have access to magic that even a wizard of my caliber cannot wield. This deviation - as you put it, Astarion - could prove very advantageous if we play our cards right.”

Eli resisted the urge to glance over her shoulder at Astarion, who had surely just rolled his eyes so hard he could see up into his own skull. She could practically feel the disdain radiating off of him and pointedly kept her eyes ahead, scanning the dreary bogland for any sign that they may be nearing Auntie Ethel’s dwelling.

It took Astarion all but two seconds to quip back at the wizard. “Gale, your opinion is like the filth on my boots. Unwanted and irritating,” he said with all the cheer of a muddy wet cat as he paused to kick some grime off the bottom of one of said boots.

“It is a wonder any of you have survived this long,” Lae’zel said, glowering at Astarion as he continued to preen. 

“We are a rather astonishing group, aren’t we?” Eli asked with a small smirk, glancing back at the gith.

Lae’zel just rolled her eyes.

Eli was glad for the banter, as it provided some distraction from the pulsating headache growing behind her eyes. However, as they rounded a bend in the path where the trail began to climb upwards towards the interior of the bog, snaking away from the swampy shoreline, Eli was struck with a surging agony that flashed white hot throughout her head. She doubled over, the heel of her hand pressing into the ridge of her brow as a hiss escaped from behind her clenched teeth. Her stomach churned angrily, a hunger rising from deep within that neither food nor drink would satiate. Her head felt as if it were shattering into fragments, her conscious self being pulled apart at the seams as something else tried to push its way to the surface. Something feral, and frenzied and starved.

From somewhere behind her, Eli thought she heard Gale muttering a question. She then felt a hand on her shoulder and wanted nothing more in the world than to seize it and dig her nails into the supple flesh. She wanted to smell the crisp metallic tang of blood in the air as her fingers peeled back skin as if she were pulling the rind off a particularly ripe fruit, bloody pulp exposed and raw. The thought of her fingers sliding between muscle and skin, slick with blood, feeling fibrous sinew tear away and hearing the wet squelch and pop as she degloved flesh from limb…   

Fist clenched, her nails dug into the palm of her hand as she fought to keep control. A pleasurable shiver ran down her spine as her mind entertained depraved thoughts, and for a moment she thought she may vomit where she knelt. She was not herself. Her mind was splintering with a hundred craven desires…she wanted to walk across fields of ruptured bodies and feel the viscera turn to jam between her toes. Her muscles tensed and she flinched away from the hand, standing in a near delirious state and muttering some nonsense about “needing a minute” before stumbling off into the fen. 

Eli needed to put distance between herself and her companions. At least for the moment. At least until her head cleared. She slogged through the wetland, unfocused on where she was going, until she felt a dampness seeping through her boots. She stopped and blinked, trying to wrench her consciousness back from the brink. As her sight cleared and the world around her came back into focus, Eli found herself standing ankle-deep in water near a riverbank, looking out over the vast and gloomy expanse of the Chionthar River - the opposite bank obscured by fog. 

Sloshing her way back to shore, Eli stepped back onto somewhat solid ground just as she heard a rustling in the thicket. Her eyes shot up to see Astarion picking through the snarl of brush and weeds that bordered the muddy shoreline. His expression was one of exasperated frustration, brow furrowed and mouth pulled into a grimace, as he tugged a booted foot free of the clinging bramble. 

“Gods below, this entire place needs to be tossed into Avernus,” he grumbled as he plucked a bur off his doublet and flicked it to the ground. Astarion then glanced up at her, crimson eyes guarded, although Eli thought she caught the glimmer of something else in his gaze…a flash of something softer. But it came and went like a spark catching alight then burning out just as quickly. “Are you…alright?” 

His tone was hesitant and uncertain, as if he were unused to the concept of asking after someone else. Astarion had an edge about him that never seemed to dull, as if he were always acting under the assumption that those around him would lash out at any given moment without warning. Eli wasn’t sure why, but she felt as if she recognized that particular brand of uneasiness. It was a tension that came from an impartial distrust of anyone and anything. A response to a life lived in a constant state of conflict, always ready for fight or flight. Something gnawed at the far recesses of her mind, tugging at a memory she couldn’t quite grasp. She understood that feeling, though she did not know why…

“I think I am. Now, at least," Eli said, rubbing at her eyes as her headache growled but remained tempered. Her mind seemed to be clearing and realigning itself to the present, no longer at risk of breaking and letting loose whatever atrocity lay coiled up inside herself. “You didn’t have to follow me out here. I just needed a moment to collect my thoughts.”

Astarion eyed her and raised a brow, disbelief apparent on his face. “My dear, whatever just happened in that pretty head of yours is not nearly as frivolous as you’re trying to make it seem.” 

Eli winced internally. He was right, of course, and it wasn’t as if she had been subtle when she’d walked off aimlessly into the bog after being doubled over and obviously in pain. Hell, given how she must have looked in that moment, he’d probably followed her to make sure she didn’t trod blindly into a sinkpit or end up ensnared by some flesh-eating swamp ficus.

She sighed and ran a hand absentmindedly through her silvery hair. “I just don’t want to worry people,” Eli conceded. “We have enough to deal with, without adding my violent mood swings and absconded memory to the mix.” She spread her hands out, as if the gesture could represent the absolute shitstorm they dealt with on a daily basis.

Astarion considered her for a moment, expression thoughtful and impassive, before he shook his head with a small smile. “I believe you were the one who pointed out earlier that everyone in our weird little group is ‘deranged,’ as you put it.” He emphasized her choice of wording with a gesture of his hands, pantomiming plucking the word out of thin air.

The action brought a soft smile to her lips. She enjoyed Astarion’s embellishments and dramatics. The elf had a flare for the extravagant that she found both endearingly silly and strangely alluring…

Nope. No. Stop it. She shoved that twinge of attraction back down into the deep dark hole within and refocused herself. “Yeah, well, one of us needs to at least act somewhat sensible,” Eli quipped with a smirk. “Can’t have Zevlor and his lot figuring out how truly unhinged we all are. We may not get paid,” she said the last bit with more than a little fake indignation. 

Astarion played along, pretending to be scandalized and clutching his nonexistent pearls. “Now that would be a tragedy. I have every intention of hiring a witch at the first opportunity to hex Gale’s cookpot so it will only produce boiled squid,” he said cheerily. “I’m assuming that won’t be cheap.” 

Amused with himself, Astarion tipped his chin up, smirking at Eli with all the wiliness of a fox. For her part, Eli just rolled her eyes but couldn’t stop a grin from spreading on her face as she imagined Gale, flustered and put out, ranting about the juvenile use of magic. 

A thought occurred to her, then. Something unbidden and completely inane, but one she latched onto desperately. It was a joke that had bubbled up from the deep recesses of her broken memory, and though she had no idea where she heard it or in what context, she was delighted at the prospect of finding something among the rubble of her ruined mind. It set the tiniest flicker of hope alight within her that maybe, eventually, she may be able to recover more. 

Eyes bright, and with a reserved sort of hopefulness stirring in her chest, she gave Astarion a genuinely dorky grin and blurted out with all the self-restraint of a toddler; “What do you call a magician who cooks?”

Surprise overtook the elf’s face, and he tilted his head curiously with a small laugh, thrown by the sudden and highly abrupt tangent. Before he could speak, however, a snap sounded in the brush behind the pair. Both Eli and Astarion turned to find a man, tall and well built with slicked back hair the color of burnt coffee. His mouth, framed by a neatly kept goatee, was turned down in a grimace, jaw clenched, and in his hands the man held a very large crossbow - loaded and aimed in their direction. 

“I’d think twice before you get much closer to him, miss,” the stranger warned, eyes darting from Eli to Astarion as if he expected the elf to set upon him any second. “He’s dangerous.”

Eli frowned at the stranger, fingers curling reflexively into the beginning gesture for her Eldritch Blast incantation. “And yet you’re the one with a crossbow pointed at me,” she said warily, watching the man’s fingers for any twitch or movement on the trigger. 

Next to her, she could feel Astarion stiffen defensively, but he remained quiet. Had the stranger not had a crossbow bolt aimed in her direction, Eli would have been more curious who he was and his connection to Astarion. Due to his comments, she assumed he was aware of Astarion’s vampirism, though she couldn’t be certain. Her curiosity, however, would have to simmer in the face of their current predicament. 

“Call it a precaution,” the stranger said before tipping the crossbow in the direction of Astarion. “You know what he is? Vampire spawn.” He said the last bit as if it was supposed to be some revelation, venom laced within his words. 

Eli studied the tip of the crossbow bolt, noting how the sharpened edge glimmered faintly in the hazy light. Silver? She glanced back and caught the man’s eyes with her own, a growing dislike darkening her expression. 

“Old news, my friend,” she said with more than a hint of antagonistic sarcasm. “Known that since I met him.” 

This drew a somewhat startled noise from Astarion, whose gaze she could suddenly feel turn to her. “You did?” he asked with a genuine note of surprise in his voice. 

Astarion had not admitted to being a vampire spawn until the night Eli caught him creeping in on her as she slept, hungry and poised to bite. Up until that point, though, he’d done a rather poor job of concealing his nature. What with the bite scars on his neck and his pale, almost pearlescent, complexion. The fact he could walk in sunlight was an oddity, of course, but given that she’d just flown through Avernus on a mind flayer ship after having an illithid tadpole inserted into her brain, a vampire traipsing about in the sun wasn’t even the weirdest thing she’d seen that day.   

She chanced a quick sidelong glance at Astarion and quirked an eyebrow. “Well, yeah. It was kind of the worst kept secret in Faerûn. Shadowheart and I even had a bet about who you’d try to bite first.” Eli still owed her a bottle of sweetwine, come to think of it.

She shook the thought from her head and turned her attention back to the stranger who still had his crossbow trained on them. “Mind introducing yourself before you start a fight you’ll regret?” she asked, watching his body language for any sign that he may back down now he knew Eli was fully aware of her companion’s condition.

The stranger glared at her, and Eli sighed. Another day, another fight with some ignorant douchecanoe who was wasting the last moments of their life antagonizing her. That darkness inside of her, the thing that craved slaughter and whose language was only violence, shifted restlessly like a dog in a cage, pressing at the barricades with a cruel need. She fought to push it back, but gods she could imagine her hands tearing into his gut, ripping dying organs from the yawning wound, warm and wet. The iron scent of blood in the air. The agony twisting his face as he writhed. It would be beautiful brutality. 

Her headache was mounting once again, and through the throbbing pressure she heard the man say; “You can call me monster hunter.”

He braced his crossbow, targeting Astarion, and Eli was moving faster than coherent thought. She felt a force collide with her left shoulder, nearly knocking her off balance, and then the world melted away into a manic savagery that was both achingly familiar and terrifyingly transcendent. 

Flesh would rend. Bone would snap. And her hunger would be sated. For now. 

The headache faded, and Eli was suddenly aware of a thick and deep pain radiating from her shoulder. Her mind swam dully, like a bobber struggling to stay above water as forces tried to pull it down. She felt…tired. Dazed. 

Why was she on the ground? Was that her blood spattered across her bracers? Why was Astarion yelling?

“Godsdamnit! Why would you do that!” 

Something jostled her, and the pain in her shoulder flared. She groaned and tried to turn her head towards Astarion’s voice only to find she was propped up against him. He was kneeling next to her, a hand braced against her back to keep her seated upright while his other hand pressed into her shoulder. She grimaced, trying to ignore the searing agony rocketing down her left side, but found herself unable to focus. 

She looked up into Astarion’s face, head bobbing to the side, and squinted at him. A range of emotions flitted across his face as he looked down at her. Anger, frustration, exasperation…all common day-to-day expressions for the snarky and uppity elf. But there was something else, too. Something in the clench of his jaw, the tightness of his lips and the way his sharp, clear eyes stayed fixed on her. Concern…

“Do…what?” she asked, confused. 

Eli continued to watch his face, thinking dully about when she’d ever seen him worried and coming up with nothing. Well, she wasn’t in a great state of mind at the moment and kind of just wanted to go to sleep. She was probably just forgetting…

Her mind drifted…eyes closing wearily…

Astarion shook her gingerly and she let out a noise somewhere between a hiss and a growl. “That bolt you idiotically decided to jump in front of was laced with poison! Do. Not. Fall. Asleep.” He pressed at the wound on her shoulder and her eyes wrenched back open, pain flooding her senses and slamming adrenaline into her system.

“Fucking rude!” she yelped. 

Then, the pain was fading and a slow numbness was creeping down from her shoulder. It felt cold and soothing, and she was so tempted to just relax into it and fade away. Her head dropped and came to rest against his chest, eyelids fluttering closed again. 

“I think I just like to annoy you…” she said weakly, then gave a hiccupping sort of laugh. 

Astarion was trying to jostle her out of the daze again, only this time there was no pain and she felt too content to open her eyes as her head rested against him. 

“Eli! Eli! Shit!” He sounded so far away. So far…far…away…

“What do you call a magician who cooks?” Astarion asked, a hint of panic coiling around his words. 

From somewhere very distant, Eli remembered she hadn’t finished telling him her joke. A small laugh caught in her throat as she thought about it…but she really didn’t feel like talking right now. Gods, she wanted to sleep…

Astarion was shaking her again. “What do you call a magician who cooks! Eli!”

Fucking hell, he was loud. 

Eli groaned and tried to lift her head. Too heavy… 

…she needed to finish the joke…

“A…saucerer…” she said lamely, then laughed, head still slumped against his chest. She’d have to tell Gale…

There was some muttering, then a feeling of being lifted. The ground was gone. Her arms sagged. 

“You will not die,” she heard Astarion say from miles away. “You will not die because that was just awful, and it will not be the last thing you ever say."

Eli smiled to herself. She was hilarious…

Everything went dark.

[caspercryptid]

Wyll telling Gale one of his monster hunting stories as the Blade of Frontiers and Gale is absolutely riveted and fascinated! :D

Thanks for this one <3 Wyll requests still open!

______ Wyll has realized several things about Gale. 

He was very intelligent 

That did not mean he was not very gullible.

Gale possessed a curiosity almost as voracious as his appetite, and in his eagerness to learn, from people who had things to teach, he sometimes...overestimated the reliability of his teachers. Perhaps, Wyll mused, that was the pitfall of the ivory tower. You tended to have to trust your teachers, because well— what did you see outside your walls? 

And Gale had seen less than most, as of late, his years spent agonizing as he tried not to starve and struggled with his appetites. Gale knew a lot— gale knew the weave, gale knew magic, how to summon it, how to call it like a friend or a lover, how to...well. Weave. Spin, perhaps, like fiber strands into thread, thread into cloth, cloth into a tapestry. And watching him do magic was an incredible thing. 

However. 

Wyll was going to have to give him a very practical lesson in misplaced trust.

“—So,” Wyll says, spreading his hands, “there I was, in the middle of the bog, when I came up on this house. Filthy, aged, rotten—”

It had been lovely, actually. All brick and stone with neat carvings in the walls and stained glass windows. Wyll thought Gale might like them. 

“Hags?” Gale guesses, wide-eyed and fascinated, and Wyll nods, solemnly. 

“The very same. And from inside the house, a child crying—” It had been crying. Wyll had been lost and starving because as it turned out, poison marshes tended to be difficult to hunt for food in. He’d followed the sound of a child crying, found the lovely house, assumed it an illusion—

“—So i kicked down the doors and i called— Unhand the innocents you’ve captured, Hag—”

He had been greeted with the sight of a very tired looking redhead, who had shoved the baby into his arms and marched him into the kitchen.

“—And she laughed, wicked— an awful sound, like rocks clashing together—” She had laughed at him. Mostly at the confused facial expression on his face. And then she’d given him a bottle for the baby. 

“And she said—” Wyll raises a finger to poke it into Gale’s face and mimes a creaky voice— “What have you to bargain for her?”

The redhead had actually told him in no uncertain terms that if he wanted to make sure the baby was safe and cared for he could give her the bottle and change her and in return he’d be fed and have a place to sleep. 

“And what did you say?” Gale asks, rapt.

“I said I don’t bargain with hags,” Wyll says, grandly. 

“Where did you say this happened again?” Astarion asks, from the other side of the fire, voice skeptical. “Ah, anyway,” Wyll says, barging along, “She laughed at me again and threw the baby at me! But when I caught it it turned out it had been a stone all along! Merely a trick!”

“Hags are devious,” Gale says, tone informative. “Indeed,” Wyll says, remembering being forced to fix the front door he’d broken down. 

“But it’s quite grand how your heroism saw you through, even though you were lured in by the illusion!” Gale says, enthusiastic, and Wyll is starting to actually feel a little bit bad about this, but Gale looks...well. Cute?

Cute doesn’t seem like it ought to be the word for a fully adult man, but he was so...enthusiastic. It was sweet. 

Wyll resolves to tell him the truth...another time.

“—Have I told you the tale of the time I fought a beholder?” “You haven’t!”

[bonefall]

are there words for marsh, bat and snake yet?

For bats, there's a whole bunch in the lexicon! Clan cats consider them Songbirds, with their sensitive hearing naturally picking up the sonorous melodies that our human ears cannot. They are never taken as prey.

Here's a really big intro to "Birds" in Clanmew, a cultural classification that includes bats

For Snakes, there are three types of "snakes" they encounter, one of which is cladistically NOT a snake but they do not know what science is. Snakes are part of a larger classification that includes worms.

Worm (Generic) = Pusa A long animal without legs, which typically moves through slithering and does not "pupate" into another form. Includes earthworms, leeches, intestinal parasites, and lampreys.

Serpent (Generic) = Sis Includes adders, grass snakes, and slowworms. A long, "scaled" worm.

Adder (Vipera berus) = Sipya From Serpent + Slab. The man, the myth, the legend, the ONLY venomous snake that they encounter! Known for their sunning behavior, adders are typically seen in the rockiest parts of ThunderClan and WindClan, but rarely in other territories. Their bites are notoriously deadly, but they're quite shy and won't attack unless provoked.

Grass Snake (Natrix helvetica) = Washsi From Shadow + Serpent. The most common snake in the territories, and most often seen in wetlands! Typically the word being used in RiverClan and ShadowClan prefixes, Washsi are notoriously 'showy.' Always trying to scare Clan cats into thinking they're dangerous, and playing dead if pushed too far. They primarily eat amphibians. This is the only snake that lays eggs here!

Slowworm (Anguis fragilis) = Mlemsi From Pathetic + Serpent. A Mlemsi's best defense mechanism is dropping its tail if pulled. It's considered a snake that's being doomed to some kind of religious punishment from StarClan. THIS is the word that's typically being used as a snake-related insult, this serpent's life is a cosmic joke to Clan cats. Though this animal is technically a legless lizard, if you tried to explain that to Clan cats, they would probably laugh and think that's probably why it's the most pathetic snake and ignore you completely.

And while I'm at it: Pathetic = Mlemwia

And for marsh, there are actually three terms here.

Wetland = Felpf This is everything that involves "marshy" terrain. Swamp, marsh, floodplain, bog, so on. You may think that these are all synonyms, but you are MISTAKEN. GOO FACTS TIME

Swamp = Kolpf A swamp is a WOODED WETLAND. It is a nutrient-rich part of the wetland where water-tolerant trees, such as birches and willows, provide shade for lichens. Marvelous.

Marsh = Wapf A marsh is a GRASSY WETLAND. It is an area that's too wet for anything but extremely water-resistant plants, like marshgrasses, to thrive. Sphagnum moss's natural habitat. Also marvelous.

[littlejuicebox]

Sunshine and midnight rain

---

Chapter number: Three Themes: BG3, slow burn, original female character x astarion, dialogue heavy, mostly canon behavior, the slightest of smuts, angst

Masterlist: Click here.

Song inspiration: “Midnight Rain” by Taylor Swift

Notes: Thanks to my few loyal consumers that have liked all of these so far! It got a little spicy. Just a little. ;)

---

Water droplets danced across the canvas of Wren’s tent, wet tendrils racing down the steep slope of waxed cotton. Talos’ wrath was strong tonight, his anger expressed in violent turrets of wind whipping around the bog and jagged flashes of lightening snapping at the tallest trees with deafening cracks. The constant pitter-patter poured relentlessly, accented by thunder rumbling its low, constant greeting in the distance. The storm provided the camp a simple sort of privacy; conversations couldn’t carry above the weather’s cacophonous symphony, and everyone turned in early that day, avoiding the worst of the storm god’s wrath.

This delay had been unanticipated; the party quickly tired of trekking through swamplands and sinking further and further into the marsh with every step. Wren knew that calling it an early night put them all behind schedule, but lightning searing the sky and rain bullets punishing their skin had deterred her campmates from moving forward. She had been outvoted, one to six.

“It’s just a little rain!” She’d moaned, the urgency of the parasite wriggling in her brain ever since they’d left the Emerald Grove. The blasted thing had remained dormant since they’d picked up Karlach, the last to join their party, but something must have triggered it after their pitstop. The wriggling had been nearly incessant since then.

Wren could tell by everyone’s faces and defeated morale that the matter was settled. Her own sense of urgency and influence as group leader (how did she even get that position, again?) proved useless in the face of Talos’ power. Her companions were not at home while enduring the volatile swings of nature like the ranger was; her hand had been forced to relent.

The little bird figured that if she couldn’t make it to the goblins, then at least she could take the time to learn those spells. And that’s what she set her heart on for the next several hours.

——-

Astarion and Wren sat face to face in her makeshift shelter, legs crossed, their knees just brushing one another’s in the confined space. They were surrounded by a nest of pillows and blankets, all nabbed from abandoned homes and long forgotten wagons they’d passed on the Risen Road.

“Well, dear, it’s clear you’re never one to pass up a bargain.” Astarion had mused, half-entertained, half-annoyed as he settled himself into the amalgamation of materials and patterns.

The pale-elf had the stolen spellbook perched in his lap as Wren sat, her honey eyes burning with intensity as he read the tome to her. He was reading the incantations and instructions aloud to the ranger-woman, for what felt like the millionth time, a long index finger running under the words as he pronounced them. Every now and then, she peered over to look at the diagrams and drawings of the hand motions associated with the word, her gaze occasionally drifting to admire his long, slender digits and perfectly manicured nails before returning to the lesson.

Astarion’s impatience surged through his veins. At this point he’d become so burdened by her signature aroma, unyieldingly close to him in that tiny tent, that he’d stopped inhaling. His mouth watered reflexively every time she leaned closer to get a better view of the tattered page. He was painfully aware of her neck just inches from his mouth. Fortunately, he’d caught a pair of rabbits earlier in the day and the two vermin had given him just enough blood to hold him over, but he’d underestimated how long he’d have to be in Wren’s tent just reading. His willpower was annihilated, and he felt the jagged edges of irritation claw at his psyche.

‘Surely she realizes what she’s doing. She is dangling this in front of me to punish me for something I did. Perhaps for the candy I snatched from the Mol girl at the grove or when I called Gale a bootlicker earlier. I never apologized for the blade I held to her neck when we met…’

It wasn’t like he needed to breathe, but exerting the effort to stop an over-200-year habit was exhausting. He was about done with the whole sordid affair. If she didn’t want him to drink from her, she didn’t have to offer and string him along. It was shockingly cruel. Wren tossed her braid from her neck, pushing her scent yet again in his direction, and vampire snapped the book closed. “You know, this little game—“

A small zap of blue light erupted from Wren’s palm. She beamed, repeating the incantation and methodical wave of her hand. On the third attempt, the woman succeeded in healing the few scrapes she'd gotten earlier today while foraging for food and her heart glimmered with pride. She watched as the scratches disappeared; vaguely remembering they had to find a shovel. Karlach had broken the other one when she used it to take out a Gnoll in a fit of rage sometime this week.

The half-elf’s honeyed eyes turned to Astarion. The glow from her palm fizzled and her look of excitement fractured into one of concern. The woman's eyebrows scrunched up in the center as she heaved a deep, sorrowful sigh. “Oh... You must be so hungry. Astarion, please, forgive me; I haven’t forgotten our deal. It’s been ages since I’ve had any practice with cleric spells and it turns out I forgot what I knew. I thought I would learn this faster.”

The pale elf tilted his head a fraction but remained silent, waiting for the little bird to go on. His anger still bubbled just beneath the surface at the thought she’d been toying with him.

“I just thought that if I learned to heal myself, then you could feed from me more frequently. I want to help you but I can’t risk losing my edge during battle. Plus, asking Shadowheart to heal me the first time was embarrassing enough; I can’t endure another judgement from her.”

The woman rubbed her thumb against that little slash in her lip and Astarion’s eyes flashed to her mouth. It was covered in remnants of a stain she’d fashioned from wild berries, her one brush of vanity on an otherwise natural face. Freckles splattered the bridge of her nose and sides of her cheeks, evidence of many years spent in the wilds, unsheltered from the sun… such a contrast to his pale and unblemished skin. Astarion could he smell the unbearable sweetness of berries on her lips, blending with the bouquet of her blood. ‘Gods, this better be worth the torture.’ Still he said nothing, the effort to avoid deep inhalation overtaking is usual penchant toward verbosity.

“But this must have been difficult for you. Sometimes I forget about your condition and... I’m sorry.”

The pale elf shook his head, fingers toying with the closed book still in his hands. He glanced down at the worn item, tracing his fingers slowly over the remnants of gold filigree that clung desperately to the cover. “I was beginning to think you were punishing me, you know.” His words came out in a hushed whisper.

Wren's eyes snapped towards her companion, brows once again knitted together. “For what?”

“Oh, any number of things, darling. Being too handsome, perhaps. Being an ass, I suppose.”

“Well… you are an ass. I wish you were a bit nicer to Gale but otherwise… it’s quite funny." She shrugged, a small but genuine smile stretching across her mouth.

He inhaled a deep breath of relief. She hadn’t yet been disillusioned by the glimpses she had seen of his selfish nature and tendency toward cruelty; he was still safe. This wasn’t a punishment. His inward celebration lasted ever so briefly before the intoxicating perfume of her scent claimed his senses again, and Astarion’s hands shook, clasped over the book, as his body vibrated with desperate waves of hunger. An impatient edge to his voice, the pale elf huffed, “I appreciate the apology, Wren, but if you don’t mind, let’s just get on with it.”

-----

The whole thing still seemed quite awkward. Wren had only been in close contact like this with two other beings in her lifetime… and neither of them had been aiming to drink her blood betwixt the sheets. After a few positional shuffles, the half-elf shrugged and suggested they repeat the same position as the first time --- she would lay down, and he would situate himself over her. After all, it had been effective, and why fix something that wasn't broken?

"Ready?" The vampire asked, and a small nod of assent from his female companion was all he needed. Fangs bared, he quickly pressed them into the crook of her neck. A burst of that beautiful bouquet coated his tongue; he didn't even register the guttural moan of pleasure and satisfaction that reverberated around his lips. He began to gulp with haste, the heat of her slithering down his throat in precious red streams, coating his tongue in ecstasy.

Wren tasted divine. His mouth flooded with cinnamon and dappled sunlight leaking through a canopy of fall foliage; she tasted like both the hearth of a home and the whisper of the wilds. She tasted like satisfaction and comfort, concepts he had nearly forgotten the feeling of until her blood crossed his lips.

'Komorebi.' He thought. It was word he'd learned long ago in a scroll one of his parents had brought home from a faraway land. What a strange, fuzzy thought he uncovered from the darkest depths of his memory as he took his fill.

A sudden, sharp jolt of electricity shot through the pale elf and his fangs instantly retracted. He ripped the hand he’d held to the back of Wren’s neck away instinctively, causing her head to drop the few inches on the pillow beneath her. 'What in the nine hells!'

“OH! Gods!" Wren winced, the final crackles of her shocking grasp fading from view. Her face flushed pink as a few drops of blood trickled from the new puncture marks in her neck. “I didn’t mean for that to happen. I don’t know why it did… gods, are you alright?”

Astarion brushed a pale, slender finger against his lips as the numbed, tingling sensation passed. An entertained chuckle escaped the pale elf as he leaned back to rest on his laurels. "Darling, I'm no stranger to rough play... but that... that was new."

Wren swatted at him, shifting herself into a seated position as she gave a wave of her hand, practicing her newly learned healing spell. "Not funny." She mumbled, her mouth taught, eyes serious, little scar stretched thin.

"You were my first, you know."

The confession is a whisper that Wren barely hears over the rain. She turns to look at the vampire and catches the briefest glimpse of his embarrassment as he turns his head, unable to face her directly as he speaks.

"Cazador... my old master. He didn't let me drink from thinking creatures. I was only ever allowed to lure them to him. In fact, he kept me starved on purpose, more often than not… his own unique form of torture. I lived off rats and insects if I was lucky enough to be given a meal at all. So, when I tell you this is a gift... I mean it.”

His rare glimpse of authenticity stuns her; the revelation a heavy weight shared between the two of them. The air is thick with tension, neither of them quite sure what to say next. Wren shifts her weight and exhales, slowly, gathering the courage she needed for her own bit of authenticity; a secret for a secret... that's the game they unwittingly played.

"Earlier today I told you my mother was a cleric. I was her only child, and also the product of an affair she’d had with a human... my father. She hid it from me, from her husband, her family, and everyone else besides her sister for nine years. She'd been casting illusions on me the entire time — on my ears — to make them appear full-elven instead of half-elven. But eventually, Varis put two and two together when he realized I was word-blind... the condition doesn't afflict full elves, apparently.”

Astarion eyed her, his expression fixed and imperceptible to Wren apart from the slightest furrow of his brow. A twinge of sadness plucked at his heartstrings, so small he didn’t notice it amongst the sorrow and fear that had made its home within his chest years ago.

"He killed my mother in a fit of rage. Would have killed me, too -- that's how I got this scar," She gestured to the cut on her lip with distaste, not noticing as the vampire's gaze softened and glossed over the slash as she spoke. "But my aunt managed to knock him out long enough to get me to safety. She took me to my father and I never saw my mom, her, or the place I'd called home for nine years ever again. I don't remember much else from that time, and I don’t know what happened to Varis or my Aunt Calanthe.”

Time crawled to an achingly slow pace when the thread that tethered them together began emphatically plucking itself in mid-air. The storm rumbled its lamentations, nature’s outward intensity matching the inward intensity of their shared shelter. Red eyes lifted to meet honey ones, and the thread between the pair snapped itself up, a bow shot from an arrow, crashing berry-stained lips to blood-stained ones. They were glued together; the moment burned into their minds, electricity firing between them as if Wren had sent it through her hands once more.

Astarion was the first to break away, his pale hands and long, thin fingers cupping her face. His thumb brushed lightly over her lip scar, and the vampire moved forward to kiss her once more, eager to feel the change in texture as he ran his tongue just against her upper lip.

Wren returned the second kiss, dizzy from the loss of blood and the slow building of her own desire. Her hands came to Astarion’s wrists, and she gripped him firmly, keeping his hands cupped to her cheeks and preventing him from exploring anywhere else on her body.

They stayed like this for a few minutes. Astarion was surprised to find that he rather enjoyed the kiss, but in the back of his mind, he was already preparing himself for things to progress. If this is the payment she wanted for her blood, then he had no choice at this point in their journey but to provide. It wasn't the first time he would us his body as a bargaining chip; in his expansive experience, this was the frustratingly predictable way of things. He would kiss his mark and then they would urgently tear at their clothes and his, desperate to advance the dance between their bodies into the clamorous cries of release. And how could he refuse? Literally. Cazador would compel him, regardless of his own wants… and perhaps a small sliver in Astarion's broken mind felt like he owed his victim one last glorious release before he sent them to their death.

But things didn’t progress as he expected. She kept her mouth on his as they continued to explore one another with their tongues. He felt the flush in her cheeks rise and heard the thud of her heart quicken; little tremors radiated up and down her spine, but she remained steadfastly with her hands on his wrists.

Astarion thought that perhaps she was shy or erring on the side of lady-like… he’d seen this before. But after he opened the door for those types, they always unleashed their true desires upon him. He attempted, twice, to encourage Wren to move things along, now growing eager to settle the score between them. But she thwarted his movements both times, her hands grasping at his with a gentle insistency he couldn’t quite read. ‘What is she playing at?’

The little bird finally broke away to breathe, her chest heaving as she pushed strands of hair away from her flushed face. “I— I think that’s enough for the night.” She stumbled across her words; her pulse had been beating so heavily in her neck that new streams of blood raced down her collar bone. Astarion’s eyes followed the thin red trail down to where it disappeared into her cleavage, hidden by the threadbare tunic she wore as a nightshirt. He desired to lick that sumptuous elixir off of her, but correctly judged that to be the wrong move.

The vampire was dumbfounded. His nights in Baldur’s Gate never ended like this… this was another first. The mind games this woman seemed to play with him knew no end… and admittedly, part of him was intrigued.

“As you wish, darling.” He murmured his acceptance, focusing once more on Wren’s honeycomb eyes, unable to read the thoughts rippling beneath the surface. “Thank you, again, for the gift. I will see you in the morning.” He shifted his weight, readying himself to leave.

“You can stay here.”

Her offer was hushed and tinged with a small stain of anxiety. But she continued on, softly. “Otherwise you’ll have to go out in that storm to get to your tent.”

For a moment, the vampire felt his own pulse quicken, strengthened by her blood flowing through his system. This, too, was a first. He found that he didn’t quite know what to make of the events from this whole strange, storm-riddled night. But, he knew Wren to be generally practical in her approach toward her campmates and considered it on-par with her save-the-earth-and-everyone-on-it act. Plus, venturing out in a storm that aimed to smite him where he stood didn’t sound appealing. So, the vampire shrugged his unease off, content to stay within the bird’s nest if only for the night. “Very well then.”

——-

The evening passed for Astarion rather restlessly. Wren had fallen asleep soon after they settled, side by side. They weren’t touching as they lay down, and apart from the occasional brush of skin on skin as one of them repositioned... the entire thing was rather chaste. There seemed to be some invisible boundary Wren had set, and touching in the middle of the night crossed that line.

For the first hour or so, Astarion lay waiting for things to advance, unable to keep his mind from anticipating what he thought was the inevitable. But still, they did not.

Curiosity got the better of him as his companion dozed. Not one to thwart such an easy advantage, Astarion used the ranger’s unconscious state to pry into her mind. It was easy, really. He only caught a few flashes of faces between a myriad of animals and scenery from her time in the wilds… her mind was practically a collection of landscape paintings like the ones he’d seen adorning nearly every tavern and inn around Baldur’s Gate.

Only two faces popped up more than once and with such clarity it was as if they were standing right in front of the rogue. The first visage was a human man with salt and pepper hair, laughing through a mustache, twinkling eyes the same color as Wren’s as he held a bow in his hands. ‘Must be her father.’ The second was a blood-splattered Wood Elf, all but dead on the floor of a barn, familiar freckled hands clasped around him. The wood-elf was screaming something Astarion couldn’t hear as his grey eyes drained of life and his body was left to rot.

The silver-haired elf winced at the vision and broke away from her mind then, brows stitched together. There had been so much rage in that memory; it was dagger wedged deep in her mind, such a sharp contrast to all the mundane moments he’d perused before then. All the vampire could think was that he had no intentions of becoming Wren’s next version of the wood elf. ‘What in the hells did she do to him?’

Astarion’s gut sank deeper and deeper as the night passed, his mind racing with anxiety through the night with nothing to distract him and the comfort of a trance unattainable. He was entangled in a web with a woman he still barely knew, with more secrets than she let in. She’d offered him the apple, and in his pitiful desperation, he’d taken a bite... never pausing to consider the consequences. ‘How are you going to wriggle your way out of this one, spawn?’

——-

The night passed; Talos' rage was quelled to a soft sprinkle of rain. Morning light broke through the remnants of overcast, and Wren stirred from what had been, for her, a peaceful slumber. Her eyes fluttered open as she stretched in the confined space, lengthening her arms above her head. Her lips still held the memory of last night’s kiss, and she focused on that feeling rather than the guilty, sinking one in her gut. The thick cloud of grief washed over her again... it seemed she would never escape the rain, because she carried it with her, even when mother nature had relented to the outside world.

Wren felt it was time to escape the awkwardness of the night and the embarrassment of her own impulses. The little bird thought she would shove it all down and get on with the journey. She didn't have the words to explain herself and her actions to the silver-haired elf. He'd attempted to advance their activities last night, and she'd stood on the precipice with him, never quite able to compel herself to jump over the ledge. She felt she kept leading him on, punishing him while she punished herself with her guilty conscience.

The ranger woman turned to face the vampire, her lips parted to bid him a good morning and break the tense silence between them.

“Oi! Who the HELL are you?” Karlach’s voice boomed towards some unknown threat. Scratch’s suspicious growls were quick to join the conversation, the rumbling of the dog's throat an echo of the thunder from last night.

Wren's eyes snapped to Astarion and they both jumped into action, a flurry of daggers and blankets as they burst out of her tent. The half-elf bolted into the daylight, partially blinded by the speckles of first light, eyes turning to focus on the stranger that stupidly dared to enter their camp.

Good morning and pleasantries would have to wait.

[ertrunkenerwassergeist]

Finally found one of our bioluminescent mushrooms! Giving huge fae vibes- made me think of you. Do the fihrie use them? To lure people astray, lay claim to things in a fairy ring, or lull wanderers to sleep? XD thank you! These are jack o lantern mushrooms btw xD

That is one damn cool mushroom!!

You know, maybe the fihrie use the mushrooms, but also the mushrooms could be fihrie. That would be fun.

They settle in the marshes and bogs. Maybe they're cousins to the Will-o'-the-Whisps. But instead of making you lose your way, the mushroom fihrie (never thought I'd type those two words in that order XD) make you hallucinate.

Or we could make it more body horror and they possess people. Maybe make them look a bit like the zombies from The Last of Us.

Fun thoughts, fun thoughts.

Another fun one!

These kind of mushrooms are a way for the fihrie to lay claim on things. Like a 'no touchie, that's mine!' type pf thing. They could be used to mark and devide territories and if viewed from a bird's-eye-view, they would form a map.

Or maybe they're both. Like a kind of watch dog fihrie in the form of a mushroom. Because why not? And they possess people as a form of punishment, when said people touched something under their protection.

[mareenavee]

Token Heroics

For my dearest friend, Jinumon, who threw me this prompt:

Marshes of Morthal First Person Omni Keep the narrator a mystery. Character makes a living in the bogs somehow. 500 words only, due at the end of the day.

without further ado,

Token Heroics

I’m sorry to say that if you’re looking for the kind of story with a happy ending, you won’t find it here. You can blame the nightshade, the deathbells or the utter incompetence of those who claim to be heroes. You can blame me, if it suits. In the end, it does nothing to point fingers. Time does not flow backwards, after all.

The Breton was a simple alchemist, armed only with a silver dagger. This place wasn’t his first choice—it wasn’t anyone’s—but where else do poisons flourish? He knew the dangers; he’d lived here long enough. Had he planned another route through the bogs, he might have avoided chaos, though I have my doubts. It is not for me to care.-> Read the rest on AO3!

[the-fiction-witch]

The Wedding in White Habor P2

Media Game Of Thrones

Character Jojen Reed

Couple Jojen X Reader

Rating Spooky

I woke up utterly alone the bed cold and empty, I forced my eyes open and sat up in the bed holding the covers close as I looked across the room I saw Jojen just finishing getting dressed into considerably less regal clothes then I saw yesterday in fact I was almost convinced they were rags the greyish green material wrapped around him hiding the impressive body I was last name. 

"Good morning" I smiled 

He glanced at me before turning away again "morning. Get dressed were already packed we're leaving in an hour" he says

"Leaving?" I asked

"For grey water" 

"Oh, I thought we'd -"

"weather's good. Surely you want to get settled" 

"Yes jojen" I nodded, I climbed out of bed onto the cold stone floor and began slipping off my nightie. In Front of the mirror as I did I noticed Jojen for a moment uncontrollably watching me having stopped short to do so "yes?" I asked slightly blushing

He looked away knowing he'd been caught "I'll be in the courtyard waiting for you." He snapped before heading out of the room leaving me alone.

I got changed into my traveling clothes making sure I would be comfortable given the long road ahead. I gathered my things and headed down to the courtyard where the carts were being loaded with all my things, jojens things and his father's things. Both Jojen and his father stood overlooking the process. 

"AHH good morning my dear" halon reed smiled to me taking my hand to give it a kiss 

"Hello my lord" I smiled slightly dipping my knees to curtsy 

"No no my dear your family now. No need to worry about pleasantries" he says "are you ready?"

"I think so" I nodded giving my horse tallia a soft pet on her soft brown nose

"Ahh my dear well" he began

"No horses in the marshes" Jojen snapped

"What?"

"I'm afraid so, once had to be quick and daglige living among the marshes we have no need for horses they would merely get bogged down in the mud. I'm afraid your horse could go to the neck and no further" 

"Oh. But I've had her since I was a girl" 

"I'm sorry but she's of no use in the marshes" 

"Well. I guess she'll just have to go back to the dreadfort with my father. I was so upset but I hid my tears I didn't want to leave little tallia but I didn't really have a choice. I didn't want to kick up about it especially given it was clear Jojen already didn't like me. We finished loading my things and jojen went to the front of the party without another word, his father helped me up onto one of the carts beside a small driver man and without further delay we were off heading out of the white harbor keep down its cobblestone roads with the bite to our side, I did take times to walk alongside whenever my legs began to feel numb, I had tried to hurry to the front and speak with Jojen and his father but I never could. So I simply watched the world go by watching trees, listening to bird song, watching the sun follow us across the sky. We didn't stop to rest just carried on through the mud and grass of the southern most areas of the northern kingdom past moar calin briefly following the road until we headed into the swampy marshes. It was now twilight on our second day since white harbor, the carts has to move single file along the small walkable areas until even those disappeared.

I had to walk along behind the cart it slowly being pushed thought the narrow walk ways until even then the carts has to take a different path then us leaving me to walk along these rickety shifting jettis. 

I honestly was frightened walking through the dense fog, the wooden walkways shifting and moving with the bog below often the swamp water coming up through holes in the wooden walkways, everything this merky green hue, the air thick, the sky blocked out, no bird songs or grass sounds all of it just this bubbling and belching of the swampy marshes. I could have sworn as I walked I saw faces in the marsh water looking up at me drowned men and women, I could see in the dark trees yellow eyes that seemed to watch me I wasn't sure of they were creatures of the earth or marshmen themselves. The whole place has a thick musky smell like black dirty water. I was about to ask how much further to the keep of greywater but I lost track of those infront of me in this thick fog “Hello?” I asked nervously unable to do anything but watch the jetti moving back and forth in the waters current I felt steps move the wooden walk until something emerged from the mists a large lizard lion two men tall, it crawled along jaw agape showing its six lines of razor teeth it snapped its long tail at me.

I screamed and tried to run the other way but it hit me with its tail knocking me off the jetti and into the marsh water. I was convinced it was coming after me and I’d be food in meer moments. 

I felt my body being dragged out and back onto the jetti, I looked and saw I was back safe on the jetti and the lizard lion angrily moving away back into the marshes angry at the denial of an easy meal, 

“Watch the fog. They move in the cover of the thick fog” Jojen told me as I saw it was him who had come after me to pull me out

“Right, Thank you” 

“I won’t do it again, symbol of my house. Bad luck to hurt them” 

“Of Course. I’m sorry”

“Come on or it’ll be dark before we get to greywater. Then you’ll really have to fight” He explained 

“Right, Okay” I nodded fixing my dress and headed down the walkways. 

[savior-of-humanity]

ꜱᴇɴꜱᴇꜱ ᴀɴᴅ ᴏᴛʜᴇʀ ꜱᴘᴇᴄɪꜰɪᴄ ʜᴇᴀᴅᴄᴀɴᴏɴꜱ: Swift-With-Arrows

WHAT DOES YOUR MUSE SMELL LIKE?  Given that Swift-With-Arrows is an Argonian and thus a reptile, she’s physically incapable of sweating - so you’re not going to be picking up any signs of that. As Swift spends a lot of her time out in the wilds, she’ll smell exactly like that - of forests, of rivers, and more often than not whatever animal she’s managed to hunt and prepare (for better or worse).

WHAT DO YOUR MUSE’S HANDS FEEL LIKE? Swift’s hands are similar in texture and feel to that of a typical human being - though naturally there’s also the texture of very small and fine scales. It’s not really that much different from touching snake skin, except if the scales were much smaller, rounded, and softer. She doesn’t exactly develop callouses but there are some scales that are firmer than others, which could be considered a reptilian equivalent.

WHAT DOES YOUR MUSE USUALLY EAT IN A DAY? Swift is a very resourceful girl - more often than not the majority of food she’s going to be eating is prepared by herself. Meats of various game animals and fishes, cheeses, wild herbs and plants, though it’s mixed in with whatever else she can afford when she stops by a town or city. Ultimately, she’s not super picky. In her homeland of Black Marsh, the cuisine of Argonians is very... exotic, to say the least. Among the less extreme dishes, she often enjoyed foods such as beetle puffs, fungus omelets, dragonfruit, roasted bog-eels, and swamp shrimp boils.

DOES YOUR MUSE HAVE A GOOD SINGING VOICE? Sort of. It’s not great, but it’s not terrible either - she certainly doesn’t have any plans on becoming a bard any time soon.

DOES YOUR MUSE HAVE ANY BAD HABITS OR NERVOUS TICKS? Not exactly. She knows how to keep her body calm when she’s under stress - her head-feathers, however, tend to rise and puff themselves out (or flatten themselves against her scalp) depending on her mood.

WHAT DOES YOUR MUSE USUALLY LOOK LIKE / WEAR? Usually, Swift will wear a hand-made armor that’s designed to both protect her body in the worst of combat and keep herself light and agile enough for both fighting and hunting. It’s made from a combination of dragonbone, treated leather and furs, and steel.

IS YOUR MUSE AFFECTIONATE? HOW SO?  She’s not a suuuper affectionate person, usually - but if you get close enough to her, she’ll open up to you in both body and spirit. Swift generally doesn’t like to get all touchy-feely with people unless she trusts them enough, whether they’re friend or something a little closer.

WHAT POSITION DOES YOUR MUSE SLEEP IN? Whatever’s the most comfortable. Considering that she often explores the world and ends up sleeping out in the wilds, there’s times where she’s had to make rather uncomfortable beds up in the branches of trees.

COULD YOU HEAR YOUR MUSE IN THE HALLWAY FROM ANOTHER ROOM? Under normal circumstances? Yes - but she tends to be a rather light walker. Naturally of course given her skill she knows how to tread lightly to make her steps all but totally silent. In other words, if she really wanted to, she can and will sneak up on you when you least expect it - pray that you aren’t some unlucky bandit about to have his throat slit open with a finely sharpened dagger... Tagged By: @irrfahrer​ Tagging: Whoever wants to do this!

[scarrow]

Non-Binary in Genesis

Twitter thread by Michaela Atencio@michaelaatencio

i'm nonbinary. 

how does this reconcile with the verse, "male and female he created them," you may ask?

the variety in God's creation emphasizes God's creativity as an artist. 

Genesis gives us several examples of this.God made "day and night." this sounds like a binary, similar to "male and female," right?

that isn't quite all we experience in 24 hours. sunrises and sunsets do not fit into the binary of day or night. yet God paints the skies with these too.

On the second day God separated the sky from water. seems like another binary. yet the clouds hold water for us in the sky, the condensation and rain cycle refreshing our earth constantly. the sky, separate from water, contains and releases water. 

God also said "Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear." that isn't the full story, either. consider marshes, swamps, bogs, and fens. not fully land, not fully waters. there is such glorious variety in God's creation.

We see another binary in the celestial bodies God made: "the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night." and then, almost as a footnote, "and the stars." there is more than just sun and moon in outer space. planets, asteroids, black holes, supernovae.

side note: these magnificent stars hundreds of times more massive than our sun, as simple as that to God. "and the stars." I marvel. Hallelujah.

God created the great sea monsters" and "every winged bird of every kind." a split again between water and sky. yet we see creatures like penguins that are definitely a "winged bird," but do not fly and instead walk and swim. 

and finally "male and female he created them."first off, intersex people exist. but, and perhaps more importantly, friends, look around. listen. do you have friends or family that say they don't fall under "male" or "female?" if so, honor that.

does all this variety invalidate God as creator? of course not! I believe that this instead is an example of how authors weave words to tell a story. we see the author in Genesis give examples of the extremes that God creates. It doesn't exclude the possibility of more.and so we worship the God of more. 

The God of the marsh, the penguin, the God of the sunrise, the cloud, the supernovae. The God of the nonbinary. 

you are loved.

[snappedsky]

Borderlands: Skies the Bodyguard 5

Skies searches for the Vault Key fragment.

*Links to previous and next chapters in reblog*

--

Chapter 12

           Skies drives across Floodmoor Basin in a bladed cyclone, scrolling through her ECHO device. She barely pays attention to the road as she runs over jabbers and small saurians, thinking about Wainwright’s words before everyone split off from Knottypeak Lodge.

           “I can only think the Oily Graveyard is the Ambermire,” he said, “older members of my family once filled it with oil rigs, but it has since been abandoned.”

           “Hence ‘oily graveyard’,” Skies muses and grins excitedly as she pockets her ECHO.

           She drives up to the entrance to the mire and stops to find a large, metal wall blocking her. She hops out of the vehicle and pounds on the wall.

           “Go away!” a gravelly voice barks from the other side.

           “Rude,” she huffs and looks around. The wall isn’t as tall as the nearby trees so she smirks and begins climbing.

           Her finger blades dig into the bark with ease and she scales the trunk like a cat, using the branches for footholds. She swiftly makes it to the top and leaps onto the wall.

           From here she’s got a nice view of the mire. It’s a large marsh with overgrown trees taking over abandoned crashed ships and old oil rigs. She can also see COV bandits milling about nearby and she scowls with disgust.

           “Looks like they got here before me,” she grunts and draws her pistol as she hops off the wall.

           She startles the nearby bandits as she lands on the ground and before they can react, she shoots a hole into all their heads except one. He tries to ready his gun to fire, but she punches him in the stomach with her bladed fist and holds his head up by his hair.

           “Where’s the key fragment?” she demands.

           “Urgh, I-I dunno,” the bandit croaks, blood dripping from the corners of his mouth. “We were just told to watch the gate.”

           “Well, who’s in charge then? Where are they?”

           “I’ll-guh- never sell out the God Queen. She will smite you and the other blasphemers for even attempting to-!”

           “Yeah, yeah,” Skies grunts and shoots him in the skull, letting his corpse flop to the ground.

           She faces the marshland and sighs heavily. “Oh, this is gonna be a long day.”

           Skies begins making her way through the marsh. Along the way, she checks out the crashed ships, most of which have sunken into the soft ground, hoping to find some long lost treasures. But if they did hold anything of value, it’s long been looted or ruined by nature.

           Her trip is far from a smooth one. She either runs into packs of jabbers or packs of COV, both of which she disposes of easily but not without aggravation.

           “No free treasure, and nothing but vermin to kill,” she grumbles after she puts another hole into a cultist’s head. “And I have no idea if I’m anywhere near the Key piece. None of these assholes are any help.”

           She sighs heavily and continues her trek. Eventually she makes it out of the bog and sees a large rig facility up ahead. She shrugs noncommittally and starts to head towards it when her ECHO communicator goes off.

           “Hey there, future fan.”            “I know that voice,” Skies grimaces, “I know it from all the unskippable propaganda videos I’ve been forced to watch on the ECHOnet for the last few months. And I’m not dealing with it.”

           She turns off her ECHO device and continues walking up to the rig.

           As soon as she enters the yard of the facility, she’s accosted by more cultists but a quick spray from her assault rifle takes them all out.

           “God, this is like being max level in a video game,” she groans, “but somehow less fun.”

           “Hey, future fan.” That voice comes through the ECHO device of one of the dead cultists. “I know you’re there. You can’t avoid us forever.”

           Skies scowls and picks up the device. “Why do you keep calling me that?”

           “Everyone’s a fan of me, or they will be eventually,” Tyreen Calypso replies.

           “Uh, I have fans too, Ty,” Troy Calypso says.

           “Yeah, whatever, Troy,” she grunts impatiently.

           Skies scoffs. “I am not your ‘future fan’. From the second I first saw your stupid little baby faces on the ECHOnet, I hated you. But since I got you on the horn here, where’s the Key fragment?”

           “It’s quite a show watching you mow down our cultists like grass,” Tyreen says, “so I’ll give you a hint. You’re getting warmer. But I’d suggest turning around now if you don’t want to get on my bad side.”

           Skies guffaws obnoxiously. “I’m not afraid of you. Look, you two seem to have your heads wedged high up your asses, so I wouldn’t expect you to know me. Plus I was kind of omitted from Hyperion’s history- freekin Blake- but suffice it to say I’m kind of a big deal. When it comes to surviving against Sirens, I’m like the best there is. Lilith couldn’t kill me; Maya couldn’t kill me; and those two are way scarier than you. So I’d suggest leaving the Crimson Raiders the hell alone or I can be a real pain in your ass.”

           “Sounds fun,” Tyreen remarks.

         “Yeah, I could go for some entertainment,” Troy adds, “being the best can get a little boring.”

           “Tell me about it,” Skies sighs.

           “Well, if you’re so bored, then we’ll spice things up for you,” Tyreen chimes, “Troy, why don’t you show her what’s behind door number 1?”

           “With pleasure,” he purrs.

           Skies looks up at a mechanical noise to see a large door opening on the other side of the yard. Out of curiosity, she approaches and finds a glass case holding a stone fragment.

           “What-?” she starts to question when she senses a presence behind her. She dives forward, nearly dodging a phase blast. She still doesn’t see the enemy until it grows back to normal size in front of her.

           He’s a tink with glowing purple skin. His voice sounds distorted as he shouts, “I’m going to kill you!” Then he grows to a massive size and begins unleashing a wave of phase blasts.

           Skies scrambles out of the way of the attack and ducks behind some machinery.

           “How do you like that?” Troy asks.

           “That…is…awesome!” Skies cheers.

           “I mean, I don’t wanna compliment you, rat boy,” she adds, “but this is just the excitement I’ve needed today. So thanks for that, and I’m sure I’ll be seeing you soon.”

           She attaches a sticky bomb to the ECHO device and throws it at the tink. He stares at it curiously as it sails towards him, then Skies hits her detonation button.

           The tink shouts in surprise as the bomb explodes in his face. Skies runs out of cover and fires at him with her rifle as he waves the smoke out of his face, but the bullets barely seem to affect him.

           The tink shrinks back down to tiny size. Skies zooms in on him with her robot eye and watches as he runs towards her. When he gets close enough, she scoops him up with her right hand but before she can crush him, he turns giant again, knocking her back.

           She slides across the dirt, groaning painfully. Over top of her, she spots a crane holding a large, metal storage container.

          She looks ahead and sees the giant tink charging her. As he reaches her, she flips backwards, kicking him in the jaw and knocking him onto his stomach. As she lands on her feet, she draws her pistol and fires at the crane’s cord, sending the container plummeting. It crashes right on top of the tink.

           When the dust clears, Skies sees the busted container, dented on the bottom where it would’ve landed on the tink. At the sound of creaking, Skies reaches into her coat.

           The top half of the giant tink bursts out of the top of the container, screaming. Skies leaps up to him and shoves a bomb down his throat then kicks off his stomach and flips away.

           “Bottoms up!” she shouts as she hits her detonator.

           The tink squeaks with surprise before his head explodes, sending bone and viscera flying everywhere.  Then the tink’s body freezes into purple crystal.

           Skies approaches the crystal and taps it. “Eridium. Can’t break that.”

          She hops off the container and stretches, sighing with satisfaction. “That was fun. Now then, back to business.”

           She walks up to the door where the Anointed tink came from and goes inside, up to the glass case. She smashes it and picks up the Key fragment.

           “Mission accomplished.”

[remmushound]

Curse of the clan Part 24! @scentedcandlecryptid @selfindulgenz

Raphael woke up. His muscles were tight from the hard stone, so the first thing he did was roll over onto his carapace so he could get the most leverage possible in order to stretch. He parted his maw in a long-lasting, pressure-relieving yawn. The nap couldn’t have lasted very long—Raphael could still see the artificial sun in the sky slowly making its way down. However long or short the nap had been, it was certainly refreshing! Raphael found himself able to breathe a lot easier! He was better off than when he had arrived, and the wounds sustained from his previous battle with the dragon had already started to heal! And they were healing fast, too; the scabs were starting to turn to scars.

He looked around at the surrounding mist. It hung heavy with the chill of approaching night and seemed to be thickening with every passing minute. Raphael certainly didn't want to be here after dark if that pattern continued. He still had a king to find, and a blessing to receive! So he started on his way— and immediately stopped.

“Hello?” He called to the silhouette in the mist. “Can you help me find my way back to the West part of the city?”

The figure was tall and incredibly skinny, almost like a bobblehead with oversized hands and feet. Raphael squinted to try and get a better idea of what the yokai could be, but he didn't have to look long before the yokai gladly revealed himself.

It was a frog. His skin was a greenish-gray color striped with streaks of black and vibrant green; bumps littered his skin, and on the end of each hand were four fingers, his feet having one extra digit. The yokai seemed to be almost wasting away, just like the frog Raphael had seen. His skin hung loosely around his bony frame, and the only parts of him that still seemed to store any fat were his thick, muscular thighs. His eyes, a dark murky brown color, were both unfocused and one of them was lazy and drifting to the right side no matter how often he corrected it.

“Hi. Little buddy…” Raphael said, crouching down and waving a hand at the yokai. The frog didn't react to the wave. “Hey— is there a town near here?”

The frog stared. His mouth fell open slightly, breathing in slow and lazy breaths.

“Where did you come from?” Raphael asked as slowly as he could manage, making motions to further serve his point, “Can you show me?”

The frog blinked impossibly slowly, like a video slowed down to the smallest possible framerate. Then the frog pointed back to where he had just come from.

“Uh. O’re there.” his voice slurred.

Raphael gave a patient attempt at a grin, gritting his teeth to avoid a violent interaction. “I mean before that.”

The frog narrowed his eyes. “How much before…?”

Raphael took a sharp intake of breath.

“Caaaaause I’ve just been watching you is all.” The frog went on.

Raphael fixed the frog with a wide-eyed stare. “You’re been watching me?”

“Yeah.” The frog nodded like a sloth.

“For… how long?”

The frog took a sudden deep breath. “Uh. Like… it was night when I started. Like… four nights ago…”

“WHAT?!”

The frog gave a dopey, drunken laugh. “Yyyyyyeeeeeaaaah…”

“How could I have been asleep for four days?!” Raphael had been tired when he went to sleep, sure, but not sleep for four days tired!

The frog laughed again and gave the barest effort needed to shrug. “The fog does weeeeiiird things to people who aren’t like, used to it.” Each word he spoke was slow, with a pause in between each one like he had to put actual thought toward the next. “Some people go to sleep and never wake up.”

“Never…?” Raphael gulped. He had a million different questions rushing through his mind at that moment, but he was finally able to settle on one. “W-what’s your name?”

The frog squinted his eyes and gave a deep, rumbling croak. “Errr… Napoleon…?” It sounded more like a question.

Raphael was half certain that the frog had just pulled out the first name he could think of from thin air, but he didn't bring it up. “Oh! That’s funny! I’m named after a famous guy too.”

Napoleon stared for a moment, and then turned and immediately started to leave. Raphael gasped and ran quickly after him; Napoleon didn't seem to care about either way, he was walking wether Raphael was following him or not.

“So— so you live around here?” Raphael tried, to no response. “Do you have like, a village? Or directions back to the main part of the city?”

Napoleon didn't seem to hear him. He was too busy weaving through the low hanging vines, letting them go so they would swing back and tangle Raphael. After the third time getting caught, Raphael learned to expect and avoid the scare. Going through the uneven terrain was difficult; one step would be planted firmly on stone, and the next he’d be ankle-deep in mud! Napoleon, however, seemed to expect and plan for these changes, using vines to cross over a bubbling bog and jumping a weird pattern to land on rocks hidden under soft quicksand. Raphael did his best to follow in the frogs footsteps, misteping countless times but managing to somehow keep pace with the swift yokai.

“Here.” Napoleon rumbled as he pushed aside a final clump of vines.

Raphael came up beside him, growling as vines got caught around his shell and tangled. He fought to rip them off and made a fool of himself in the process, like a dancer fighting off invisible attackers. He went too close to an embankment he hadn’t seen, stumbling as the soft mud collapsed under his weight and he fell into the shallows of a muddy swamp. There was a rush of several creatures fleeing at his disturbance and he sank in up to his waist in the mud; the mud was deeper than the water was, and much grosser.

Raphael gagged and struggled to pull free. The mud held him captive in its powerful grip, threatening to swallow him if he didn't get out soon. Was this quicksand? He sure hoped not. Whatever it was, he wanted it off of him! Napoleon waded into the water after him.

“Hey— little help, Napoleon?” Raphael asked, grunting with the strain of keeping his head above the water.

Napoleon drifted right on past him, as if the water was carrying him more than he was swimming. Raphael followed Napoleon’s path with his eyes and gawked at the sight he found. The marsh here was open and, with the fog, it looked almost endless. A large, swampy lake with houses in the middle, all build on docks just slightly higher than the water. And there were frogs. So. Many. frogs. More than Raphael could count, hopping lazily around the docks. Grown frogs similar to Napoleon, with starved bodies and empty eyes. Young tadpoles swimming around in the water, with arms and legs that were too weak to support them on land, so they were bound to the swamp. A few tiny frogs, identical to the grown frogs in all but stature, hopped about at their leisure equally between water and dock.

“You have to relax dude.” Napoleon nasaled. “Let the water take you.”

“Let the water take me—?!”

“Yeah…” Napoleon drifted circles around Raphael.

“Can’t you just tug me out?!”

“Errrrrrrrrr no. Listen man just… take a deep breath and the water will do the rest.” Napoleon started to drift away.

“Wait!” Raphael called after him, but the frog was already long gone with no intention of returning. Raphael tried again to yank himself free, but the sludge only pulled him down harder. He sucked in a gasp and whimpered as his head disappeared under for a moment before he was able to stretch out his neck to resurface. This thing was swallowing him! And he had no better idea than the one that Napoleon had offered.

He took as deep a breath as his shell allowed, and breathed it out slowly. An immediately relief washed over him; a calm that made the strain of his thoughts slow into easier to manage sections. The air tasted nice, and it made him feel warm in his chest and stomach. He was encouraged to take even more similarly deep breath to take advantage of the euphoric sensation that crashed over him.

The world changed between blinks. He was further out now, the shore getting more distant. Another blink, and his head bonked lightly against the wood of the dock. The pain didn't register. He wasn’t hungry anymore; his stomach felt pleasantly full of the warm air. That was all he needed; the warmth of this water could sustain him the rest of his life...

[walker-journal]

Extreme Noodling (Dave+Adam)

Timing: Near Winter’s end, before Dave got bit

Summary: Dave and Adam wrassle some giant catfish (the google searches for this chatzy changed us as people I’m pretty sure. I know too much) 

Content Warning: lots of fish gore

The frost-flecked marsh water sloshed around Adam’s boots as he waded through the mire. Feathery moss hung in pale sheets from old maples and gnarled gum trees. Vertical clumps of reeds and cattails marked where the sparse islands of solid ground gave way to sluggish swamp water. This particularly frigid winter had touched the murk with thin sheets of ice, the fragile pristine white breaking under the slightest pressure for brackish mulch to pour through the cracks.

Adam was out in the frigid marshland today at the behest of David Herring, a sailor whom Nell has possibly summoned from hell as a birthday stunt. Adam was trying to take his return to Hunting gradually. His powers were slowly returning day by day, although resurgent strength and sharpening senses hadn’t brought any answers along with them.

Even more grueling training and keeping busy at work would have to suffice now, resolved  Adam as he held his rifle dry across his shoulders and waded towards where Herring was waiting.

Dave had braced himself against a nearby tree, his bag hooked over some higher up branches. Despite the frigid early spring weather, he stood in shorts and watershoes, already water and mud logged, but like this he could feel everyone and everything coming, no matter how big or small.

It was always a smart idea to have your back braced against something when you weren’t sure exactly where you stood with the person you’d called for back up. Dave wasn’t the type to calculate who owed who after surviving something together, and you never knew exactly what flavour of hunter you were getting until they had their knife against your throat. Most of the time, it had been alright, but considering the blood that stained Dave’s hands, he wasn’t surprised when things went the other direction fast. But the water in the marshes was even more still than the lakes, so he felt the ripples of Adam wading through the water long before he saw the young hunter approaching, so he was ready and waiting by the time Adam had slogged close by.

“Walker,” he greeted, raising a hand in greeting. “You gone up against a prodigium catfish before?”

Adam had to give mad props to the titanium viking balls this dude must have to go all beachwear in an ice swamp. However, as Adam might still want to have kids someday, these waders were staying on. Manly bayou bonding would have to wait.

“Read about them, never hunted them before,” the young Hunter admitted, the hot hills of California and the holy land having been more alghoul country then noodling holes.  

Dave nodded, watching Adam intently - mostly to be able to read his lips to make sense of what he could hear. At least the swamp was quiet, in the harsh way that winters often were. He didn’t have any kind of teeth guards on this time, his long canines exposed as he talked.

“This’ll be my fourth,” he replied, “but most of the others were juveniles. Feels about… fifteen feet, at a guess. Right now it’s about sixty feet that way.” He pointed deeper into the marsh land. “Fortunately, they ain’t agile creatures at that size, but they’ll crush you if they can. If you’ve read about them, I'm figuring you know about the barbs and arms.” He shifted, unstrapping a machete from the bag he’d hung from some tree branches. “If you think you can land the perfect shot, take it. Otherwise I’m thinking it’ll be better to get it in shallow water and incapacitate its arms for an easier kill.”

“Gothya, watch out for the barbs and baby Kermit arms, we gotta beach it in the the shallows unless there's an opening,” Adam reiterated, looking out at the hushed landscape of frost and brackish silt.

“But before we start I gotta ask,” the Hunter insisted as he knelt on the soggy crust the snowy embankment. He leaned the nonessential gear against the grey trunk of a willow.

“So...are you like sensing the fish right now? Do aquaman powers come with the whole wereseal thing?”

“Selkie. Something like that,” Dave replied, with just one eyebrow raised at Adam, unsure if he was missing out on some youthful slang or that Adam was not as informed as some of the other hunters around. Wereseal. The damn nerve. Not that there was anything wrong with being a werewolf, but Dave didn’t lose control like he’d gotten rabies once a month. It was all this damn tv, now everyone thought that just because you could change forms you’d have to be some cheap knock off were-

Dave hmmphed. Tiny pulses of water against his skin warned him of the large, slow being stirring in its tunnel, its mouth resting nearby the surface, waiting for prey to come nearby. “Any other questions? Ain’t exactly your college classroom.”

Ok, wait...so like, could Dave sense fish? If he could, was that a Dave-Selkie thing or a Dave-Dave thing? A tinge of frigid heat flickered in the back of Adam’s skull as something grew near, farther and larger than the palpable “otherness” that radiated from Dave. The Hunter tensed, but wasn’t going to pass up his last chance here.

“One more question….did uh….a hot Turkish motorcycle chick call you from a Hell Dimension for her sister’s birthday?”

The frosty mire stirred with an upwelling of bubbles that brought the brackish scent of rotting things with them. The dirty ice cracked upwards as an enormous bulk  briefly surfaced fifty feet away.

“Its like..ok if its yes, just been bothering me.”

Dave just… stared at Adam.  Had he heard that right? The words were distinct on the lips, but the sentence made no sense, not even when Dave happened to know there was a Turkish spellcaster who summoned things from hell dimensions. He wasn’t sure if he should be offended or complimented by the idea. “A hell dimension?” Dave repeated, just to make sure he’d heard right.

“The fuck are they teaching hunters these days? No, Walker, unless you consider Texas a hell dimension.” He cocked his head, considering. “Guess that wouldn’t be too far from the truth.”

The turbulence of water under the surface against his ankle had Dave looking around suspiciously, but the giant catfish was just reasserting itself in the water bed much, much to the starting of many smaller fish nearby, that darted away, including in their direction. Whether or not Texas was a hell dimension would have to be debated another day, preferably over a chilled beer.  “If we steer it a little to the left, the water there’s pretty shallow, and lots of land for you to use.” Not sure he was prepared for whatever other questions Adam might have, Dave began to wade deeper into the water, looking to get much closer before he caught the catfish’s attention.

“Not gonna lie,” Adam began with cheerful candor as he parkored his way between the more solid clumps of sodden shallows. “Texas sounds like a rough time for anybody who likes water.”

Dark hazel eyes glanced again towards the breach of a large slick mass against the ice, glimpsing what might’ve been a piscine whisker, before they focused back to Dave, crinkling with suppressed mirth around the edges.

“Waaaaaait,” came the dire moment of revelation. “If you have magic skin...in Texas, did you like accessorize it?”

“Dave, my dude...did you wear sealskin chaps?”

Adam was just in the start of pantomiming the Dave sauntering around Huston in this deviant form of cowpoke asswear when bulky shape burst from the icy murk.

“Hell yeah!”

Dave’s eyebrows raised right into his hairline as he looked over  at Adam, deeply unimpressed at his realisation. For a brief second, he almost knocked Adam into the water to quiet the kid, before remembering what they were here for. Maybe later.

“You’re lucky that thing works better dry,” Dave retorted, looking down pointedly at Adam’s rifle, but the tiny quirk at the corners of his lips belied his grumpy demeanor.

It was one thing feeling it stirring in the muck, and another for the large form  to crash through the crackly thin layer of ice. Dave grinned, his canine teeth bared as the form surged through the water, its wide mouth gaping for prey, not realising that it was no longer the predator. In the water, Dave was the more obvious target, so he started backing into the shallower waters, letting it think it was hunting him.

Considering how big the damn thing was, Dave hadn’t really expected it to be able to grab a nearby tree and use that to propell itself at Dave, barely diving out of the way before its jaw shut around him. When it’s body crashed through the water again, it sent waves of water and mud flying, but in missing it had given Dave an opening to drive the machete into its back, hoping to slice through the spine. The catfish flailed in protest, grabbing Dave with an arm like a tree trunk and dragging him under water.

----

“Aw shit,” Adam laughed as he tried to get a hold on the slick flailing creature that was driving Dave down into the murk, “it's trying to send you back to Texas!”

The icey bog water stung Adam’s bare arms with a cold burn that was soon replaced with an oiliness that seeped between his fingers. Adam gritted his teeth and lips shut to try to to get any of the frigid brackishness in his mouth as the catfish bucked and flailed beneath him.

Adam plunged his combat knife into the creature’s side, grime mixing with pale blue blood and the sudden reek of raw damp chicken. Trying to keep hold, Adam yanked out the blade and brought it down again and again, attempting to get the catfish to favor its wounded side and hopefully roll Dave out of the water.

----

It was fortunate that Dave was both hard of hearing and currently being wrestled by an enormous catfish underwater, because if he had heard Adam’s comment, there might have been a sea creature versus hunter alliance. The heavy set slime on his skin kept the catfish’s hands sliding off him, but as he was knocked deeper and deeper into the dirt, the chance of dying from being crushed by catfish was increasingly looming.

Dave bared his teeth and bit into the scaled underside of the catfish with little success, unable to open his mouth enough to get any kind of hold, but the overhead action above the water seemed to have more of an effect. Dave kicked himself out from underneath the catfish as the catfish trashed and tried to reach for the human above it, more interested in a prey that it could actually drown.

It curled its other arm around Dave as it reached for Adam, distracted by the dagger slashing deeper and deeper into its side. It wasn’t watching as Dave opened his own maw and bit down on its arm, bone snapping under his canines.

When Dave emerged from the water, it was with one of the arms firmly between his teeth, torn off the body and dripping blood into the water, he grimaced, dropping it onto the roots of a nearby tree that had started to sink into the water as the soil beneath it had given way to watery mud.

----

“Holy shit,” Adam effused in admiration of such unmitigated badassery, a grin brightening the Hunter’s grime-covered face as he climbed up the side of the flailing catfish. He hoisted himself up with each deep stab of the knife into the catfish’s spongy flesh as if it were a rock-climber’s spike. “That was fucking ace….hey what’s it taste like? Bet you got like Marsh-Mono now or something…”

Adam’s preliminary diagnosis on what disease Dave had doubtless contracted was cut short as the Hunter accidentally stabbed too deeply and pierced an organ. Greenish black fluid hemorrhaged from the wound and Adam let out a stream of gagging curses as the slimy knife slipped from his fingers into the acrid effluvium.

That momentary loss of purchase was all the catfish needed. Adam plunged into the marshwater as the fish spun into a deathroll and opened its toothless maw wide.

Adam’s world became warm and damply dark.

----

“Ah, fucking hell,” Dave groaned, wading deeper into the water. He couldn’t see where Adam had gone, but he couldn’t feel anything human sized with flailing limbs moving around in the water. If he’d been knocked out, it was a matter of moments before the human risked drowning. You couldn’t heal an absence of oxygen in your lungs. Thick blue blood pumped out of the catfish’s side, murking up the water, but it was still kicking, moving towards him with its still remaining arm. This was going to be tough just by himself, and without Adam moving around in the water, Dave had no fucking idea how to find him.

The catfish swiped, and Dave dodged out of the way with a slash at its side, seeing where Adam had been hacking deep into it, where it was also bleeding and oozing viscous pus into the water, stinking up a storm. Still no sign of the wayward hunter. Shit, shit. Hoping that with its movement he might get a better feel of where Adam was. “WALKER!” He barked, watching the catfish and staying well away from its brutish arms.

Which was when he realised there was something else moving inside the catfish and he realised exactly where Walker was.

“Jesus Christ.” He drove his hand into the deep gash in the catfish’s side, causing it to spasm in pain, hoping he could distract the catfish long enough for one of them to think of a plan to get Adam out of the monsters without… risking killing him while fighting the catfish.

Adam’s silver knife appeared from the catfish’s belly, a brief protrusion of metal followed by an upwelling of dark blue ichor. The enormous fish thrashed as Dave’s hand in its wound exacerbated this new pain burrowing out from the inside. The catfish bucked in spine-twisting arcs on the frosty mire as it instinctively tried to get free of whatever invisible thing was tearing at it.

The knife blade surfaced again when the panicked  flailing no had briefly subsided, the incision growing into a long fleshly tear that spewed gummy stomach lining. Long strips of blue-tinged mucosa and yellowish subcutaneous tissue spurted from the wound each time the blade retreated, staining the marsh ice in a splots of organic dyes.

Adam’s gore-caked right arm snaked through the widened opening, trying to find some kind of grip outside as the fish’s frenzied motions turned his world into a dark barrel-roll hell of sloshing fluids and pythonic stomach muscles. It was a dicey business as the fish’s jostling and this cramped space made accidentally stabbing himself a real possibility. The Hunter had nearly opened up a vein when he’d had to fold into the fetal position to retrieve the spare silver knife.

It was times like these where being trained to abandon thought and focus only on each incremental steps of survival came in handy. The horrid smell, the acrid taste of bloody filth in his mouth, the vertigo of the fish’s thrashing, the burn on stomach acid in his skin and eyes, and the rip-popping compression of the catfish’s spasming stomach messes would’ve made it easy to just panic.

Luckily, Adam had spent enough time being taking  doses of ever-higher concentrations demonic Terevi venom as a teenager that being digested  was no longer an excuse to slack off. It’s really those salt of the earth family values that build character y’know?

Adam stuck out one leg through the widened opening and placed it again one fleshy end of the wound for leverage as he pressed the knife’s blade upward, sawing his way through sinews and fat as frigid marsh water poured in through the opening.

Something suddenly gave and the world spun. Adam hit the squishy sod with a groggy oof but convulsing to hack up catfish blood.

The first time the catfish tried to roll, Dave punched it in the eye. The second, he sliced off one of its barbs and it knocked him into the water with its remained arm. Dave’s head smacked into a tree branch and he briefly saw stars. He got out from under it, and saw a shape tearing through the scaled belly. A leg. Walker. He almost wanted to surge forward and grab him, but the bleeding hole wasn’t enough to fit a whole man through, and yanking Adam out of place might trap him and make him suffocate. Dave couldn’t let the catfish roll  again, or Adam’s leg would snap like a matchstick. Dave hacked at its back with the machete again, blood spewing his body with every swing, now he knew where the hunter was cutting his way out from, keeping the catfish from grabbing at Adam or rolling again. With a final hack and a burst of bloody flesh, its intestines spilled out into the water in large ropes and bobbing in the water like grotesque pool floats. Adam along with it. The catfish spasmed, and twitched, its gills trembling, before at last it became still.

“Jesus fuck,” Dave said, rushing over to Adam’s side. He paused, waiting for the worst of the convulsions to pass before bending down, picking up Adam’s arm and swinging it over his shoulder. If the kid passed out, Dave was worried he’d faceplant into the swamp and breathe water. “Easy does it. Easy does it now,” He muttered, lowering Adam to sit on some firmer ground. “Keep your eyes shut, I’m gonna get this crap off your off your face so you can breathe,” Dave said, not being precious as he wiped the acidic gunk from Adam’s face, pulling a flask of water out of his belt and using it to rinse Adam’s face. He held his hand so that the water wouldn’t go into Adam’s nose nor mouth. Wasn’t looking to waterboard the guy afterall, just make sure that the acid didn’t cause permanent injury to his eyes or anything.

Pressing the half-filled flask into Adam’s hand so that he could drink or wash himself as need be, Dave stepped back, giving Adam space to catch his breath and assess his own wounds. He leant against a worn out tree, feigning a casual demeanor so Adam didn’t feel as intensely scrutinised as he was being. The thick sludge of blood and grime covering Adam from head to toe was mixed with stomach acid, and the little skin that Dave could see was turning pink where it wasn’t battered blue. “Always thought hunters had a flair for the dramatic, but you really take the cake,” he joked with the hint of a smile on his features, but the worry was there. Adam’s injuries would heal faster, but Dave wasn’t the one who’d just been eaten. He just remembered the feeling. “When you’re ready, you’re gonna need to get back in the water to wash the rest of it off.”

He didn’t ask, are you alright. He didn’t ask whether it hurt. He didn’t need to. He knew how trauma was what each hunter collected by the armful, this just another harrowing near death experience out of dozens that Adam had walked away from. This one might not even leave a scar, just a story to tell over a beer. Tomorrow, Dave would feel like he’d been hit by a truck, and in a week his muscles would still give him hell. In a week, Walker would likely be right as rain. But healing hurt, both the mental and physical sort, so he waited for Adam’s cue before coming in to help him get on his feet again. His own legs began to protest under both their weights, his ribs creaking. For right now, the adrenaline rushing in his weathered veins made this just about bearable, but they needed to make a move before the tides turned against them.

“I’ll tell you what, Walker. Once we’re both patched up, I’ll buy you dinner and a beer just to celebrate you not being dinner.”

[calligraphist-artemisia]

16 | Will-o’-the-Wisp

Written for Kidgetober 2020. Week 2 Theme: Myths & Magic. Day 16: Will-o’-the-Wisp.

Summary: Set in the Harry Potter universe.  Pidge finds herself lost in the woods on a dark, moonless night. She'd given up hope on getting home before sunrise when suddenly a light appeared between the trees to lure her deeper into the forest. Luckily, a handsome stranger is around to save her.

Also posted on AO3 under the username Kishirokitsune. Titled as “Magic of the Season”.

- - - - -

16 | Will-o'-the-Wisp

Pidge trudged through the undergrowth, cursing herself for deciding to take a stroll through the woods on a dark, moonless night. Why did she think it was such a good idea? She hated the woods! And nature in general.

Yes, she was definitely the indoors-y type, best suited to viewing the world from a screen and the comfort of her home.

She shivered and hugged herself, rubbing her arms with the hope of creating enough friction to generate warmth. She glanced up to try and see the stars but the canopy of trees completely blocked her view and the only thing that greeted her was more darkness. Her breath came in tiny pants as she looked around, barely able to make out the thick trunks, and it sank in just how well and truly lost she was.

Someone once told her: “the best thing to do when you're lost is to stay where you are”. But did that really apply when no one knew she was out there?

Pidge stopped and took a deep breath to try and calm down. What she needed to do was take a moment to think logically about the situation, highlighting all of the details she knew, and then come up with a workable plan from there.

So.

She was lost in the woods and it was too dark to see anything past a few inches from her face.

Her cell phone was very dead, though she did have a charging cable if she could find a place to use it.

She had no real way of navigating her way back to civilization.

Pidge reached out until she felt the bark of the nearest tree and used it as a way to ground herself. She briefly considered climbing up as high as she could go and hope it would be enough to get a look at the stars, which she could then use to get her bearings, but dismissed the idea as being potentially too dangerous.

There was nothing she could do but wait out the night and find her way once the sun rose once again.

She leaned against the tree and tilted her head back, wishing she could see something. Even the smallest pinprick of light would give her hope.

Pidge wasn't sure how long she stood there, her mind whirling through all of the different possibilities of how and when she would make it back to civilization and even entertaining the idea of someone heroically swooping in with a flashlight to save her. It was fun to imagine, though she knew it wasn't something that was going to happen.

She lowered her eyes and that was when she saw it: something glowing in the distance, lighting up the trunks of trees around it. Pidge held her breath in surprise. Surely she was hallucinating, right?

“Hello?” she called out.

She didn't get a response, but the light bobbed around a bit, as though whoever was holding it was trying to draw her in closer.

Or lead her out of the forest.

Pidge pushed away from the tree and began walking towards the light, praying that she wouldn't snag her foot on the undergrowth. To her confusion, the closer she got, the farther away the light seemed to move, occasionally stopping to sway and let her get a little more caught up before moving away again.

“Who's there? Can you slow down a bit?” Pidge called out, frustration bleeding into her voice.

And just like that, the light stopped. It hovered there in place, growing larger and larger as she approached. It pulsed in a mesmerizing pattern as it appeared the drift in the air, but Pidge didn't take any notice of how odd the whole thing was as she continued to follow it even as she sank to her ankles in cold, muddy water.

She shivered but kept going, the light too entrancing to stop. It would lead her to safety. She knew it.

The water lapped at her calves as the mud clung tightly to her feet, making any movement difficult, but she had to keep going. She was going to get out of the woods and make it back to her safe and warm home before the sunrise and a little bit of water and mud wasn't going to stop her.

Nothing could stop her.

A jet of crackling red energy shot past her shoulder and collided with the bobbing light, which emitted an inhuman screech as it skipped backwards over the water. Pidge watched, dazed, as two additional red jets shot out from behind her, colliding twice more with the light until the screeching stopped.

And then, suddenly, the water moved away from her legs and Pidge swayed, thankfully prevented from falling over into the deep mud by a pair of hands on her shoulders.

There was someone there speaking to her, but their words were so muffled that she couldn't make out what they were saying. Nothing made much sense. Her thoughts were so discombobulated that she couldn't keep anything straight and when the heavy fog clouding her mind finally lifted enough for her to think straight, she was sitting on a soft couch in an unfamiliar room with a warm blanket wrapped around her and a man with dark hair kneeling in front of her, holding up a mug for her to take.

“Drink this. It should help clear the rest of your shock,” he told her gently.

Pidge's hands were shaking so badly that she wasn't sure if she'd be able to hold onto the mug without spilling the drink everywhere, but she gave it a try anyway, choosing to rest it on the top of her legs until she was sure she could lift it high enough to drink.

“W-what happened?” she asked.

There was a moment of silence that stretched on for long enough that she wondered if she needed to repeat herself.

“The forest around here is dangerous at night, but especially during the new moon. Usually it isn't a problem since most people stay away once night starts to fall. They find it unsettling,” he said. “That light you encountered was something most folks would call a 'will-o'-the-wisp'.”

Pidge's brow furrowed in confusion. “But that's... that's not real. That's just a fairytale.”

“They're real and very dangerous. Their only goal is to lead people astray, typically into bogs or marshes, and... Well, those people don't come back.”

Pidge shivered at the implication.

“You were trapped pretty deeply into its thrall when I showed up, but you'll be okay now,” he continued. “Drink that. I need to finish preparing the spare room for you.”

“Spare room?” Pidge questioned.

He shrugged a little and then stood up. “I thought you'd prefer the privacy while you sleep.”

A flash of alarm shot through Pidge and she fought not to spill her drink. “I'm staying here? But why? I mean, don't you have a car or something? You could take me back into town!”

“Any other night, maybe, but... not tonight. And not when the most important thing is you getting rest. An encounter with a will-o'-the-wisp is draining even for people who know what they're doing and I want to make sure you're really alright before I send you away,” he explained.

Pidge watched him walk away without another word and she sat there by herself for several long minutes before remembering she had a drink in her hands. She took a sip and was pleased by the rich taste of hot chocolate, which warmed her down to her core and helped chase away the last traces of fogginess in her head.

And that was when she noticed how exhausted she felt.

Maybe there was something to what the strange man said.

The strange man whose house she was expected to sleep in.

Pidge sat up a little straighter and took a suspicious look around. Wherever she was, it had the appearance of a cozy little cabin with hardwood floors and a real stone fireplace tucked away in the corner. If she craned her head a little she could see directly into the kitchen behind her. There were six other doors that she could see, three of which was closed. The other appeared to be a bathroom and the third was the room the stranger had gone into, so Pidge assumed that was the spare room he mentioned. The final two closed doors led out the front and the back.

It would be easy to get up and leave. There was nothing stopping her.

But... there was also no reason she shouldn't stay. It was still dark out and she had no idea which direction to go in order to get back to an area she recognized. Plus, the stranger (who still hadn't given her his name) didn't seem like a bad guy. Maybe he was a bit weird, going on about a creature that didn't exist as though it were a real thing that people worried about, but that seemed like more of a quirky character trait rather than something to be concerned about.

Okay, maybe she'd be locking the bedroom door before she went to sleep. And moving something in front of it so he couldn't get in until she was ready to get up. And double-checking the windows. Maybe there was a closet she could sleep in?

There was nothing wrong with erring on the side of caution.

Pidge drank more of the hot chocolate while she waited for the stranger to come back and when he did, she blurted out the biggest question on her mind: “Who are you?”

He paused, a look of surprise crossing his face. “Oh, uh, I'm Keith.”

“Pidge,” she responded, unwilling to give him her real name.

“Okay, well the room is ready for you. I found a shirt and some pants that should fit you, if you want to be more comfortable and you can use that bathroom over there to wash up,” Keith said, pointing to the bathroom Pidge noticed earlier. “If you need anything else, my room is right there. Just knock and I'll come out to help. And, uh, you can see the kitchen, so if you need anything from there just help yourself.”

Belatedly, she realized he was trying to give her a tour of the house.

Keith paused for a moment to give her time to speak, but when Pidge said nothing he shifted his feet and spoke again. “You can leave your cup in the sink and I'll take care of it in the morning. And that's pretty much it. Just... I don't recommend going back outside until the sun rises.”

“Because of your make-believe creatures?” Pidge couldn't help but ask.

“Because it's dangerous to be in unfamiliar woods in the dark,” he responded, a hint of challenge in his voice. “Look, I know you have no reason to trust me, but please listen to me on this and don't go outside. Even if you don't believe me about the will-o'-the-wisps there are other dangers, like wolves, that live out there.”

That was a good point.

Pidge quietly agreed to stay inside and watched as he relaxed, his relief completely obvious even to her. He offered a tiny smile and then said something about going to bed, leaving her completely alone on the couch.

She finished up her hot chocolate and put it in the sink like he said, though she did take the time to empty it and rinse it out first. Pidge debated for a moment whether or not she wanted to change her clothes before deciding she'd rather have something clean to wear, although...

Pidge glanced down at her jeans, which were surprisingly clean despite her vague memory of walking through mud.

Either way, jeans weren't comfortable to sleep in and she didn't see any harm in borrowing a shirt and pants, so she changed into those before going to check out the bathroom. The light clicked on by itself when she stepped inside and Pidge's gaze was automatically drawn to the round mirror over the sink.

She frowned and combed her fingers through her hair to try and tame the mess it had become, but there wasn't much she could do.

Apparently her reflection felt the same, because it shrugged at her once she was done and said: “Best rinse it out and try again, dear.”

Pidge blinked.

Then she opened her mouth and screamed as she backed away so quickly that her feet got tangled with each other and she toppled backwards. She felt pain and then blackness took over her vision.

The next time she opened her eyes, she was tucked beneath warm blankets and sunlight was streaming in through the windows. It took her a moment to remember everything that happened the night before, but as her brain started to fully wake up she jumped out of bed and set off to find Keith.

She needed answers and he was going to give them to her.

[gravelgirty]

Surprising Things...

Well, This was a surprise.

Inspired in not small way by the science posts by Bunjywunjy, I started making awareness blogs about a wetlands and rare oak prairie uplands my college stewards.

There are science blogs everywhere, but I thought, people don’t appreciate what’s in their own area simply because of PR imbalance. 

Some time ago, the local watershed council asked if they could use some of my photos for their upcoming meeting, so of course I said sure. Spread the awareness, spread the love. Let’s all gain in appreciation, because good heavens, when I first moved here I didn’t know a thing about this place. I started hearing back from guests attending the meetings that they loved my work and talked about it.

Then, early last week, I made another blog post. This one:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/marsh-rabbits-lake-cows-cptcs-muskrats-marcia-wilson/

I heard back from the watershed the very next day with an email titled, ‘We Love Your Work!’

Here is the content of the email (edited for privacy)

Hi, I've contacted you before to ask permission to use your pictures in our newsletter for the Watershed Council. As part of the Communication Committee, we have read your latest blog about Marsh Rabbits and Lake Cows. You now have a couple more fans! Would you consider joining the few of us volunteers on the Communications Committee? We have a FaceBook administrator, one member, me (the Chair) and two staff members from the County Surface Water Management agency. SWM is charged by law to facilitate citizen councils to advise them for each watershed. One of our current issues is the untreated stormwater outfall that goes directly into streams and lakes. We want to encourage people to take pictures of what they see in their stretch of water, or anywhere they have concerns and send it to the council. I'm not sure exactly how we are going to get participants, but I think with your fun writing style you can help us craft a message that could be motivating. Please let me know if you are interested. We can work with whatever your schedule is. Hope to hear from you soon! PS I did my graduate work in the wetlands of Idaho and currently run an aquatic weed removal service using SCUBA. I love "bog-slogging" and looking at things underwater!

So, is this the same as getting a job? No. Is it a career step? Absolutely. Does it recognize that I am meeting my goals? YES. Spreading the word in a positive, fun way (though I do use tragedy when it is called for, I don’t treat it like a monetizing agency!). Within the following days of this email I received congratulations from staff members of the City who go out and do this exhausting, often overlooked work.  The common theme is, ‘I laughed, I learned!’ Which is what I have always loved to do.