#lucifra writes

[lucifra-writes]

Oak Leaves in Autumn

Rose Wellwater did not, as a rule, move quickly.

Granted, at least part of that was a result of spending long enough to lose track of time in the service of a fae noble- even if the magic that had been built up around her life-bone and soul over so many years protected her from the normal aging process, she was still ultimately human, and being the de facto gofer for any fae, let alone Sevren the Oakroot, entailed more than a little disregard for mere human limitations and weaknesses.

As such, she had more than her fair share of scars and aches, just as she had her share of prides and joys. For one, despite how her hair was so raggedly kept as a result of his almost unending stream of tasks and errands for her to go on, it was still as sakura-pink as it had always been, no matter how much blood (either hers or others’) ever stained it.

This didn’t take away from the cane she’d been forced to use so that she could walk, or the untold horrors she’d been subjected and, indeed, forced to fight off, but it was the pride she took in her hair, and the opportunities that awaited her upon her final return to the mortal world, that drove her forward with the unyielding determination through everything Sevren could squeeze out of her. All the while she cursed her younger self for accepting a client while clearly struck by a glamour, and the Keepers of the Laws for ignoring her petitions for redress, and the Oakroot for casting the damn thing to begin with, but onward she continued, with all the implacable drive that any knight would be in envy of.

Still, when she finished her final mission for the Oakroot, one last coating of blood for her aching hands that were already too red for her tastes, she didn’t exactly move slowly on her way to report back to the man-shaped being.

His personal guards almost stopped her when she came to the room she could only think of as his throne room, but a five foot girl with pink hair, leaning heavily on a cane, didn’t exactly scream dangerous (purposefully so, at that), and while it was a façade, Rose didn’t rely on the glamours or shapeshifting that most of the fae did to achieve that. As such, between her not looking threatening and her having legitimate business with him (well, that and the fact that she didn’t have any intent to harm him), she was shown into his throne room in short order.

“Ah, little flower!” the man said, the oak tree he’d grown into a throne in all but name providing dappled shadow over his whole frame, which was more on display than normal since he’d forgone his standard bark-pattern jerkin to have all the oak-leaf-green flesh of his torso on display. “What have you for me today?”

“As ordered,” Rose replied, flourishing her hand to present the vial she’d been bade to claim for him. “One vial of Northerlandic steelblood.”

Sevren nodded, then rose from his throne, too-long limbs gangling as he strode down from the top of the grassy hill he’d crammed into the room. After he reached down and plucked it from her hand, he beheld her, eyes looking almost like the sun glinting through pearls of sap as he seemed to look at something deeper than mere flesh (and, given his fae nature, it was very possible that he was).

“This was to be your last task for me, was it not?”

Immediately, Rose found herself on edge. Something about the ancient entity’s tone set her instincts on edge, and his word choice tickled something in the back of her head as well. “It is, as per the contract that we both signed before I began my term of service for you.”

“Yes, yes,” he said, waving the hand that wasn’t tucking the vial she’d stolen for him into an extradimensional space. “The contract that you signed. The penalty clauses, as signed, declare that if you remain within my realm after the sunset after you complete my tasks, you forfeit a year and a day’s worth of time in service to me once more.”

“You bastard,” snarled Rose- she’d not be able to get to the nearest exit from his realm within the hour and a half until sunset, not unless she twisted time far enough to draw attention from the Pendulum.

“Not so, in fact,” he replied glibly. “My parents were quite happily married when I was born. Now, for that insult, I do believe… ah, yes, I believe I shall be extracting my price in the sharing of a memory. Please, don’t move too much…”

His hand reached out, and before Rose could gather the wherewithal to react somehow, his fingers were already pressed to her forehead, smooth in a way that no human could ever match, and time fell away as he reached into her mind for a memory to suit his tastes.

-----

It never got easier to watch yourself die.

Dying, that was easy- just an instant of “oh, damn” and then blinking five minutes or ten or however long in the past that it would take to sidestep whatever it was that would leave your innards outards, or however it was that the universe was conspiring to leave your body nothing more than just a chunk of cooling meat.

But seeing the light go out of your own eyes in third person, that was something that in all her deaths-that-weren’t, Rose Wellwater never got over.

Then again, she didn’t need to get over them, at least not now.

No, as long as she could ride out the rest of her term of service (inasmuch as one could call a quest that one had been enchanted into performing for a fae noble that they no longer were quite so moony-eyed over a term of service), she’d be able to retire to somewhere she could actually afford the time and space to process her own death countless times over, as long as she managed to escape the worst urges of the fae upon returning to them.

As it stood, though, she had a battle to fight, and the Carnellan combat squad, all well-worn armor, pale flesh, and hair to match that had just had their heavy knight hew her head from her shoulders wasn’t going to just line up for her to kill.

Drawing as much mystical energy into herself as she dared, Rose compressed it down into a spell matrix, broadening the targeting with the extra power, and then clenched her fist to seal the matrix and finish casting the spell, more than used to the brief spike of pain that came with using the magic that deflected the Old Potter’s grasp on her life-bone in such an unusual way.

The spell flashed out, all creeping mycelia and stench of rot, and in a visual effect that resembled nothing so much as a time-lapse of moss growing over a rock, the Carnellan combatants (who were, as a rule, in the prime of their physicality or at least close to it due to stringent fitness requirements for each combat role in the elite combat force) aged into wizened, almost stick-thin forms.

Naturally, their older forms were not capable of carrying the heavy combat kits that Carnel liked to issue to their combatants, dragging them to the ground (and snapping multiple suddenly-brittle bones), and the two who wobbled without falling under the weight of their practically plain armor were more likely than not magic users of some stripe who could use the supernatural forces at their fingertips to lighten the load in a very literal sense (either that or augmented in a way that didn’t degenerate as a result of age, as rare as that was outside of some of the Northerlandic countries). Either way, they were still working on a human physiological plan, and one (less complicated) spell matrix later, and both of them had been overbalanced by intensely localized gales. Another spell matrix had roots growing out of the path that they were standing in, and once these roots had bound the whole squad to the ground, she clambered up the rocky area next to the path to stand over the squad.

“What the fuck! I killed you,” snarled the heavy knight, held down at least as much by his armor and almost impractically large sword that was holding down his right arm.

“Evidently not,” replied Rose, a hint of a smirk making its way onto her face as she made the fact that she wasn’t looking at her body look natural (watching it rot into nothing in fast forward was, if anything, more unnerving than watching her own death). Interestingly, his piercing blue eyes, still bright despite the wrinkles and wrongly-bent limbs, flickered through sorrow and back into fury at the sight of her smirk. “Now then, people who could have been friends if you hadn’t done… that… I have questions that I would like answered before I undo what has been done to you.”

As Rose took in the various reactions to this (ranging from resignation to rage), she held back a sigh. One day, this would be over and she’d be free to live her life. Until then, she’d have to keep working towards the Oakroot’s goals, and doing his dirty work.

-----

“Ah,” he said, teeth glinting in the orange-yellow light of the setting sun. He inhaled strongly through his nose, as if smelling a flower garden, then turned to regard Rose with a gaze she couldn’t see as anything other than predatory. “I think I’ll keep you around as a memory bank for until I tire of the flavor of your emotions.”

“That’s not something you’re legally allowed to do, under the Compact of the Starsworn, even if it was something that I signed a contract for- hells, your little trick there was illegal too. Memory manipulation is-” she began.

“No one needs to know, my little flower, not even the Keepers of the Laws,” he said, and with how he loomed over Rose, the nickname took on a new, chilling subtext that set her teeth to grinding against one another. “No one will know, either- all of my guards and servants are sworn to secrecy, and as for after I’m done with you… well, we can handle that when it comes time. Who knows, I might even wipe your memory and set you free, just to see the despair on your face as you realize how much time you’ve truly lost before I tear your protection away and let the Potter claim your life-bone.” He reached out, his fingertips glowing with what would ordinarily be a soothing golden color but some magical sense told Rose should be setting every hair on her body on end as well as some not on her body.

“Don’t worry, your body is made for this. It won’t hurt one bit.”

Rose blinked, closing her eyes with his hand closing around her head and opening them from just in front of his tree-throne, watching her body collapse almost bonelessly into him, with slowly rising fury bubbling within her chest.

“I would not do that if I was you,” said Rose, feeding her fury into a spell matrix as the Oakroot turned, triumph leaching away in favor of confusion in his glowing eyes.

“What in the Eldest Tree- you were supposed to be alive, just dead to the world!”

“Dumbass,” she said, swinging her right arm (and, with it, the spell matrix) back to point at the tree-throne that had, subtly, been glowing in time with every time he used any form of magic. “You cannot kill me in a way that matters.”

The spell matrix detonated in a flash, the pain that twisting time into decay once carried with it long gone, and splotches of rot started appearing on the oaken throne’s bark.

“What have you done, foolish girl?” snarled the Oakroot, the deep green of his flesh starting to yellow around the edges for the first time she’d seen.

“Seized my freedom in both hands. Don’t worry,” she said, all sickly sweet mock sympathy, “I’ll be sure to preserve your realm after you die, at least for long enough to claim redress from the Keepers of the Laws.”

“You bitch!” He lunged for her, but it was too late- as the rot expanded, it drew more and more strength from the enchantments no doubt woven into every cell of the tree’s being, and expanded faster.

Before Sevren got even halfway to Rose, his legs crumbled away like so many leaves, dust blowing away in a breeze that failed to so much rustle the grass on the hill.

“I would say I hope you enjoy the Potter’s attentions,” she said, years of rage leaking into her voice, “but I would be lying more egregiously than anything you’ve ever done to me.”

He opened his mouth, glaring from between rotting eyelids, but before he could say anything, the tree finished crumbling, and the lights behind his eyes winked out, leaving two teardrops of amber to drop to the floor in a pile of leaf mulch.

Rose sighed, pushing her hair back, then limped down the hill and scooped up the amber and slipped it into a pouch. “Wherever what’s left of you is,” she said, “I hope you get exactly what you deserve.”

She said nothing else as the starry-armored knights of the Keepers of the Laws arrived and took her away through their swirling, star-dotted portal.

-----

And that's that!

Not a whole lot to say here.

If you want to support me as a writer, I got me a Ko-fi (https://ko-fi.com/lucifra) and a Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/Lucifra), and if you become a patron, you can see my chapters a week early.

Speaking of which, my thanks to NotableRonin and Ember for being patrons!

I have a discord sir ver for author stuff - if you have questions or comments that you’d like a more direct answer to, that’s another option: https://discord.gg/NHRUKz8jyy

That’s about it, so read, review, enjoy, and have a nice day!

[lucifra-writes]

“I mean. I didn’t poison any of the food, at least?”

All of the heads of the other guests swivel down to a diminutive Irishwoman with winter-wheat-red hair, ageless in the way that only the most ancient of fae and successful of children are.

“Elaborate on that, my dear,” says a man with scraggly gray hair that resembles nothing so much as the dust that gathers under a couch after years without being disturbed.

“I mean. Antivenoms are poisons in their own right, so…” she shrugs. “But I poisoned myself before entering this city, so I’m not sure that I count for your question.”

There is a good two or three seconds of pensive silence before the gravity of the situation crashes back down on the dinner party and concealed weapons make their appearance.

“….Okay, are any of the dishes not poisoned?! Is there anyone at this feast who did not poison anything?!”

[lucifra-writes]

Chapter! it's time for a face-off https://archiveofourown.org/works/59566519/chapters/172567660 https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/jedi-knight-of-the-empire.1190996/post-112837628 https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/jedi-knight-of-the-empire.135545/post-35478821 https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14400039/10/Jedi-Knight-of-the-Empire

[lucifra-writes]

chapter! say hi to dee https://archiveofourown.org/works/59566519/chapters/151919314 https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/jedi-knight-of-the-empire.1190996/post-112642748 https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/jedi-knight-of-the-empire.135545/post-35416931 https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14400039/9/Jedi-Knight-of-the-Empire

[lucifra-writes]

chapter! maeve what are you doing wait no get out of that dragon's territory https://archiveofourown.org/works/55906258/chapters/171186931 https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/glorious-interdiction.1163382/post-112449650 https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/glorious-interdiction.130854/post-35355128 https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14356154/29/Glorious-Interdiction

[lucifra-writes]

Hook, Line, and Kicker (Part 2)

Opening her mouth was a mistake.

Having tempted Murphy so much before, you’d think she’d have learned her lesson, but no, her freckly ass had to keep on giving the universe so many perfect openings to screw her over, some small part of her thought.

The rest of her was more preoccupied with trying to get out of the crossfire she was pinned down in, relying on an overturned table and a hastily scrawled reinforcement sigil, enhanced in potency to match a pre-prepared fortification’s durability by the judicious use of her own blood in the construction, as cover. Compounding her predicament was the fact that she only had a paltry handful of weapons on hand- a sword and a baton taken off of her original captor, a holdout grappling hook (which she was certainly going to be keeping around after today), a hand mirror taken from the guard’s station off of something more than a whim but not quite a premonition, and, if she got desperate, her boots. Not enough, especially not once they started bringing in the rifle guards from outside and not just relying on the pistols to chew through her cover, the bullets not being able to penetrate the wood of the table but still throwing splinters all over her when their angle wasn’t-

Wait.

Splinters.

She’d never tried her particular flavor of ballistics manipulation on anything that small before, but there was a time for long shots and if this wasn’t it then she didn’t know what was.

The first one exploded into wood shavings as she pushed too much power into it, as did the second, but by the third she’d gotten the hang of just how much energy she could afford to cram into something this small.

She didn’t have direct line of sight on her attackers, but that was at least something she could manage- a brush of her will against the mirror she slipped out of her pockets let her send it spinning over to embed itself in the wall with just a flick of her hand, granting her more than enough of a visual to scoop up the splinters on the floor, focus her will, and then flick them forwards, taking no small amount of amusement from the shift on the guards’ faces from bemusement to terror as the tiny projectiles abruptly reversed direction and shot directly towards them.

May made sure to avoid fatal injuries where she could, but joints and tendons made for good targets when the goal was incapacitation. She also made sure to nail as many of the guns as she could, although more with the intention to cause simple jams than more complex mechanical failures- until such time as she found her own weapons, she’d have to make do with theirs.

That said, that wouldn’t be too much of a hardship- they’d clearly gotten their hands on a dimensional import contract (or at least, some cargo) and she vaguely recognized their guns as a high end option, and the setup was close enough to her own revolvers that within a couple of minutes she could handle them nearly as well as the missing weapons.

“Thanks for the guns, y’all,” she drawled, purposefully adding a thick Southern accent to the words. “Don’t worry, I’ll give ‘em back when I’m done, assuming you’re… available to take delivery.”

That ignited a storm of furious comments, invective, and threats, but she didn’t hang around long enough to take any of it in, ghosting away around a corner with pockets stuffed and both hands holding a gun.

She should have better odds of getting to the command center (or at least out of the building) now, hopefully before Liz and her disproportionate sense of “reprisal” (such as she called it) arrived.

- - - - -

And that’s that!

Part 3 is in the works and should be out in a couple weeks- not sure if there’ll be a 4 or not.

I got me a Ko-fi (https://ko-fi.com/lucifra) and a Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/Lucifra), so if that tickles your fancy (or if you want to see some of my stuff a week in advance) then check it out!

Also, if you’re inch rested, I write fanfics too (https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lucifra/works), maybe take a peek?

That's it, so read, review, enjoy, and have a nice day!

"Any chance you'll turn against your leader and help me break out of here?"

"Nope."

"Rats."

"Has that ever actually worked for you before?"

"You'd be surprised."

[lucifra-writes]

chapter! the gods can have little a spotlight time, as a treat https://archiveofourown.org/works/55906258/chapters/170534995 https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/glorious-interdiction.1163382/post-112255775 https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/glorious-interdiction.130854/post-35294792 https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14356154/28/Glorious-Interdiction

[lucifra-writes]

chapter! book 1 of GI is over, timeskip interludes are next https://archiveofourown.org/works/55906258/chapters/169301698 https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/glorious-interdiction.1163382/post-111855956 https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/glorious-interdiction.130854/post-35179052 https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14356154/26/Glorious-Interdiction

[lucifra-writes]

chapter! everybody say hi to rashid (and point and laugh at the Merlin) https://archiveofourown.org/works/55906258/chapters/168699877 https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/glorious-interdiction.1163382/post-111660125 https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/glorious-interdiction.130854/post-35123744 https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14356154/25/Glorious-Interdiction

[lucifra-writes]

“Write what you know” doesn’t mean stagnate- it means learn, and keep learning, and let your writing grow as you learn things.

"what advice do you have for new writers?" well i could say the typical (but important!) "practice" "read books" but my PERSONAL advice as someone who's been writing since he was a toddler is as follows: feel every emotion u can & touch every texture u can & search for obscure facts or antiquated words or animal behavior or something you wouldn't normally think about. the most arbitrary things can bring inspiration. branch out! leave your comfort zone and seek things that are new & unknown to you. learn to find wonder and beauty in some aspect of the world, but hopefully many aspects. learn how to be patient tbh. fall in any kind of love with anything. most importantly treat yourself with kindness and care and forgiveness - i get wanting to write about pain, trust me, but also trust me, your writing will evolve as your perception of yourself softens. oh yeah and always have a pen on you

[lucifra-writes]

chapter! say hi to maddie (again) https://archiveofourown.org/works/54113632/chapters/168116332 https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/nothing-beside-remains.1147403/post-111461642 https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/nothing-beside-remains.128036/post-35062328 https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14332012/17/Nothing-Beside-Remains

[lucifra-writes]

chapter! something something arclight something something blast off speed https://archiveofourown.org/works/54113632/chapters/167472676 https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/nothing-beside-remains.1147403/post-111259802 https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/nothing-beside-remains.128036/post-35001350 https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14332012/16/Nothing-Beside-Remains

[lucifra-writes]

chapter! say hi to marcone, he's not a huge fan but we'll work him around https://archiveofourown.org/works/55906258/chapters/166921690 https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/glorious-interdiction.1163382/post-111055409 https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/glorious-interdiction.130854/post-34941464 https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14356154/24/Glorious-Interdiction

[lucifra-writes]

Recruitment

The kid (because that’s what he is, that’s what all the chosen ones they throw at her like so many raindrops trying to drown an ocean are, like she was too long and not long enough ago) stared openmouthed at her, perhaps the only one to ignore the freezing steel spliced onto her body since the start. “What the hell do you mean by that?”

She laughed bitterly. “They didn’t deign to tell you, o latest of chosen ones, what you were sent to kill? They didn’t tell you how they made me, and remade me, over the years, until I was no longer of use to them and I was discarded?”

He paled. “What- what are you saying?”

“I’m saying,” she sighed, almost mournfully, “that being a chosen one means that you fight someone else’s battles, again and again and again, until you can’t get up again. Then you’re left to the mercies of what passes for a social safety net here- not that back home was any better for that, but there at least I could have leaned on community support. Here, all there was for me was death and the struggle to survive.” The fire seemed to have gone out of her eyes now, leaving only exhausted bitterness.

“I- I didn’t know-” he sputtered.

“Of course you didn’t,” she snapped, the gears in her jaw grinding with a sensation that was as close to pain as her oldest prosthetics could feel- she’d have to do maintenance, soon. “They’d never let you, not when the could sweep someone like me under the rug at best or turn me into the latest dark lady at worst.”

“No, no, no, the League of Kingdoms wouldn’t do-” he gestured at her. “They wouldn’t do that!”

“Would, have, and will again, kid,” she replied, light glinting off the metal teeth her humorless smile revealed. “That’s fuckin’ showbiz, and pointing someone like us at their enemy so someone else can claim our victories is a time-honored tradition at this point.”

She paused for a moment, then sighed. “Look. If you want, you can go home.” She raised her silvery left hand and snapped her fingers, a hole in space appearing with some suburban neighborhood on the other side that looked just enough like her Earth to make her homesick. “As much as I hate this, you’re no more here by choice than I am, and you should at least have the option of leaving before you become- well.” She raised both her fleshy and metallic hands out, drawing attention to how difficult it would be for her to pass as anything resembling normal in anything short of a universe fully given over to transhumanism. “You can still get out.”

She could see him waffling, but the glint of resolve in his eyes resolved out fairly quickly, and her lips tightened, cold metal rubbing oddly against flesh. “I’m in, Metallica.”

She winced, both at having inadvertently dragged another victim into this and at the reminder of what she’d lost. “Please, don’t call me that. It was… a maudlin joke between me and my girlfriend that got out of hand, as well as a little bit of home that I couldn’t bring myself to give up. Call me Liz.”

“Nice to meet you, Liz, I’m Mark.” He offered his hand, which she shook firmly. “Okay, so, what’s first on the agenda?”

“First on the agenda is we get you a good shower and a good night’s sleep, kid. Then we can talk about next steps.” She closed the portal. “Off-ramp is an open offer- if you ever want to retire, I’ll get you home.”

He glared. “I’m not running.”

“Never said you were. I just think you should have the option I didn’t.”

After Mark had left, Liz let her head thump down onto her desk and remain there until May slipped in through a side door and nudged her with her shoulder. “Hey.”

“Every time I drag some other poor fuck into this shit it gets worse,” Liz said bitterly.

“You’re not the one doing the dragging, darling,” said May, tipping her stetson up to press a kiss to the side of Liz’s head.

“Maybe not, but it feels like it, a lot of the time,” Liz replied, exhaustion weighing down her words as she twined her fingers with May’s. “Can’t fucking wait until we get the chance to break that goddamn chosen one summoning machine and get them to stop sending off-brand assassins to scab for the Guild.”

“One day, we’ll be free to rest.” May tugged Liz to her feet. “Come on, you haven’t eaten since breakfast and you always get maudlin when you’re hungry and when you’re dealing with kids.”

“Can’t have that, now, can we.” Liz raised May’s hand to her lips momentarily, then dropped both their arms to dangle between them, taking pleasure in the warmth that spread through the enchanted metal of her arm from her partner’s grasp. “I don’t know where I’d be without you.”

“Ojala we never have to find out.”

“Ojala.”

- - - - -

And that’s that!

I have some plans for other stuff in this world (and another thing already written) but I think it’s mostly going to be jumping around from here on out.

We’ll see, I guess.

In other news I’ve got my patreon set up, at least a little- I’ve got all of one tier, and that lets you see things a week before I release them (including the thing that I have written for next week, and the chapter of Incense I have in the tube for the week after)

That’s it, so read, review, enjoy, and have a nice day!

“You are not a weapon!”

“… Heh. I can tell you actually believe that. Thank you.”

[lucifra-writes]

chapter! say hi to Nicodemus again, let's see if we can't ruin his day https://archiveofourown.org/works/55906258/chapters/166318228 https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/glorious-interdiction.1163382/post-110846141 https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/glorious-interdiction.130854/post-34879625 https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14356154/23/Glorious-Interdiction

[lucifra-writes]

chapter! Prepare to drop! https://archiveofourown.org/works/55906258/chapters/165747844 https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/glorious-interdiction.1163382/post-110636966 https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/glorious-interdiction.130854/post-34818476 https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14356154/22/Glorious-Interdiction