#purgatory i am inside your skin why do you destroy everything i love all of the time

[inviouswriting]

Cruore

It literally means “flowing blood”

Half original. Half going on the recent story I wrote.

Mentioned characters - 

Meeps/Fae - @meepsthemiqo

Shuri - @maiden-born-in-snow

Yume @earthlystar 

Some warnings in here for touching on Kivera’s descent in Hell.

Kivera is use to the smell of blood, the world she is from is full of it. The underworld, the realm of the dead. Her world she has known after her death from the hands of Bathory. She knows the realm inside and out, from the deepest pits in Tartarus and Hell itself. To the highest peak in Purgatory where she watches those who come before her. Seeking passage to Paradise.

Her punishment as much as bestowment. Punishment for her sin, bestowment for her servitude. She is under Thanatos and Hades. She does their work without question, and never asks the Fates of their reasons.

Kivera is capable of seeing the world up to the earliest of her memories she remembers. In other times she has witnessed how civilization takes hold and grows over periods. Other worlds, she sees how far behind, or how they destroy themselves.

The smell she is use to is that of flowing blood. She is use to it so much it doesn’t phase her like her fledgling days. So Kivera stands over a sight she is accustomed to people pleading her for a difference. To be let into Paradise, on behalf of some good merit they did.

“You have not learned yet, and I cannot let you through.” Her voice echoed in the hall, softer as she addressed the face before her, another of many. One she’ll forget after a few days. She sees so many. Her mind constantly drifting back to her interactions in The Source.

She had let a few dozen through, and encountered only a few people who need to humble their hearts more. Still full of resentment.

“Why do you get to play as judgement here?” The words echo in her mind.

“That is just the way things are.. I just do.” She says automatically. Practiced words, ones she has said countless times. The faces change, her words remain the same as she gives these people their tasks and trials to complete. Till she grows tired of doing this, letting the realm do their part.

She retreats to her personal space, and replays the events that she had done. Her own hands burn from when she used her hell flames on Ardbert. She still feels their heat. She had marked three people to keep an eye on. Cid, G’raha, and Ardbert. She had tied their lives into her own spirit. She had to do something to keep them from meddling. 

Kivera recalls her encounter with Cid. He was busy with something he had worked on, barely even noticed her slipping in through a mirror. Before he had known, he felt something graze through his back and touch his very soul before searing heat engulfed him internally. When he had turned around, he was met with the blunt end of a scythe raising him up and pinning him to the wall nearby.

“You’re Shuri and Estinien’s lover?”

“That saves me time. I know you, and have watched you for a while now.” Kivera’s eyes were a bright green behind her mask, and he sees black surrounding them. He felt his limbs as if they were freezing in place.

“What is this about? Surely you are not?”

“Just be quiet and listen to me. You of all people should heed me. You are very much alive, and I am very much capable of ending that now. Right here. So I have a warning for you.”

“I don’t have much of a choice do I?”

“No you do not. Either you heed it or you rather not know what will happen. You have stepped into a world and realm you have no business in. One that WILL kill you. If you have any sort of devotion to your beloved, Yume. You will stay out of the time temporals. I let the events of The First slide, because I was meant to stay out. But I won’t have you setting foot where you shouldn’t now. Be with your lover.” Cid feels his arms returned to normal but his legs felt heavy as stone. 

“I can’t just abandoned my work.” He tries to bargain with her.

“I never said you didn’t have to stop. Just not mess with time. It does not lead to anything good.” She warns him. Her voice softer than he remembered, but in the empty room it was haunting as she is the border between two realms. He notes how with ease she lifts him, not even shaking in her hold bearing his weight at the end of her scythe. 

“I’ll try not to.” He is met with a glare behind the mask, irises flashing orange in her annoyance. He feels his body returned to normal in the way he doesn’t feel his body stone and the blood rushing back through him. Kivera turns and tosses him with her scythe across the room.

Kivera wanders to the door to the workshop and exits it, scaring Wedge with the sudden slam of the door. She stalks out and goes to stand in the center of Revenant’s Toll, she still had one more person to see within this place..

Kivera’s memories of what happened after replay, she had only intended to scare the miqo. 

“Maledetto! Ardbert! Why did you have to....“ She throws a fireball across the floor letting it race and fizzle out before it reaches her scrolls. She had lingered in a mirror when she spied on the meeting at Rising Stones. She saw the way her loved ones defended her name. How Shuri didn’t reveal everything about her, Divinity had to disclose, she doesn’t blame her for talking about her so much. Explaining her reason and resolve.

She sees how haunted G’raha Tia looks at how the Scions seem to just accept it, not wanting to make a further mess by targeting her as an enemy. They are wise in that choice. They know her power already with Amaurot. How she can raze a world, how she can destroy something without a thought. They see keeping her on their side more vital than a dispute.

Kivera felt guilty for how she treated G’raha, but she did not feel sorry for the way she went about her methods. He had to know the gravity of his meddling. That the lives he altered permanently, they have to deal with the repercussions. Meeps and Fae both have to come to terms with their feelings. How to raise a child without their parent they had spent.

“A parent is a god in the eyes of a child.” Her voice comes out in a whisper, she would never have that opportunity. Her life had been snuffed out decades ago. She regrets attacking Ardbert, he had just gained her trust. Then shattered it with careless words.

Antares’ orb reflects her eyes in a deep blue at that feeling. She cared, she knows their interaction is unavoidable. She feels the familiar pricks in her mind from Divinity searching for her. She quickly shuts her out, unable to really show the Libra spirit the sorrow she feels. 

Ardbert used it as a means to provoke her, and she let loose on him. To draw her attention off G’raha, and onto him full force. It worked, she had attacked him in pain, they had exchanged blows to the point she had invoked Pluto into her own body. A deity of destruction. If Divinity hadn’t intervened. She is certain Ardbert might not be around due to the magnitude of what she was about to unleash on him.

Kivera feels another prick into her link, and sighs as she curls into one of the beds she keeps to lounge on. 

“Te amo.. You and Shuri.” She gives Divinity what she seeks. Her response to ensure she would come back to them.

Her mind drifts to the time she spent in Hell. Wandering as a broken soul, stumbling blinded, and torn apart almost from the many who saw a pristine being and set about ruining her in every which way. She feels the hands still when they gouged skin or her eyes.

She resigns her thoughts to another thing, she needed to see Chiron. He helped her through the days following Damien’s death, then after when the conditions of his revival were placed on her. When she was asked when she would return. She answered after she visits the Sagittarius spirit. She needed tempering in her abilities, how to redirect her anger, her alignment had shifted in that fight to a little more chaotic than her neutral state. 

She’d have to summon G’raha when she returned. Any explanation she should give him, is best from herself. She didn’t need her loved ones apologizing on her behalf for losing herself.

Kivera ruffles the hair of Silvara, the sphinx raises her head to eye her.

“Tell me of a riddle.” Kivera asks her, and Silvara thinks about it.

“You are planning to see him?” A nod and she stretches herself across the reaper’s body.

“No.” Kivera snaps her attention to her.

“Why?” She was being denied entry.

“You know what must be done. A riddle nor Chiron will give you more answer than what you already know.” Silvara feels Kivera stir underneath her, and only presses down, grateful for her lion like body having some weight to pin the angel down.

“And what is that answer?!” She is met with a smirk.

“That would give away the answer.” Kivera tries to slip out from her grasp. Silvara keeps her there. Not inclined to move off and lets her frustrated curses be sound in her ears.

“Maledetto!!!!!” 

“Silenzio!” Silvara chirps back taunting her. Kivera blinks, and resigns herself.

She did know what needed to be done.

Apologies to those involved. She had let her own wrath speak for her. 

“Forgiveness right?” She says quietly.

“Bingo. Head scratches.” Silvara demands. Kivera sighs and gives the sphinx pets on her head. She won’t be allowed up unless she does.

“Don’t eat my books again in my absence.” Kivera reminds her.

“They were ones that you wouldn’t miss!”

“Silvara! Don’t eat my books! Eat Chirons! He has more than me.” Silvara gets off of her finally, and lets the reaper up.

“You’re going back right?” Silvara takes over Kivera’s spot.

“I need to. I did some things I shouldn’t have, and there is a few who miss me already.”

“Divinity always did worry when you up and leave. Even in Paradise.”

“I have a role to do, and I must see it through.” Kivera starts towards a mirror, to head back to the world she ran away from in pain.

“Don’t burn people too much again.”

“Aww... that is my specialty.” Kivera sees the grin on the sphinx, then promptly curls her wings around herself.

Kivera enters through her mirror, she had some atonements to make.

~~~~~

Translation note -

“Damn you!”

“Silence.”

[haught0pocket]

Ficwritersweek Day 5

Day 5: Verbatim - Share some of your favorite quotes from the fics you’ve read or written.

So, I’m going to attempt to get some peeps in here that I haven’t mentioned yet.

Once again, it’s going to be quite long. So, once again, just chopping it off right here.

First up is from Knowing, by BaggerHeda (not sure if they have a tumblr!)

Waverly had started tracing light sweeping lines over the bones of Nicole’s body, drawing circles around her joints with gentle hands. Her mind wandered, deep and easy, with Nicole the centerpoint of all the far-flung details passing through her thoughts. She was visualizing half-remembered pages of an old anatomy text, skeletal structures, ghosts of annotated diagrams floating under her fingertips, imagination projected onto flawless pale skin. Learning the complex layers of her lover. “Lie on your side,” she said. “Hold still.”

“Bossy,” smiled Nicole, rolling up.

Waverly continued her journey over the body, her lips moving as she traveled, silently naming each part as she arrived, each bone, each muscle. Nicole watched her, fascination shining plain on her face, asking, “What are you doing?”

“Looking at you,” she replied. So much pleasure in the knowing. The knowing of the names of things, the knowing of how Nicole responded to the touch.

Ohhh, this is so godamn romantic and real and beautiful! Waverly - just examining and admiring Nicole, all of her, is such an incredible idea. And written by BaggerHeda, it’s a work of art. It’s the Sistine Chapel on a page. It’s what artists of old mused over when they sculpted stunning figures out of marble.

It’s just ... it’s art.

Next is a piece by @tigerlo , who destroys me and puts me back together again with every word she writes. This one comes from inside, an echo:

Her eyes are soft and concerned, but she’s smiling at the sight of Waverly, too, and Waverly can’t help but smile back like her chest is full of stars.

It’s strange, their interaction this time. It feels different .

Something has changed .

Because Waverly often feels shy around Nicole, but this is something else, and Waverly thinks she knows why.

Because there’s something between them now and they both know it. Even if Nicole doesn’t know things with Champ are over for sure, although Waverly thinks she can feel it, especially now.

Things feel different.

Neither one has actually said anything, but Waverly knows that’s just a matter of time now, once she can work up the courage. It’s just a matter of time before something happens.

Because the wool blanket around her shoulders is keeping the chill off, but it’s Nicole’s smile across the freezing distance between them that’s keeping her warm.

She half draws Chrissy inside, but she glances back up at Nicole, blushing when she catches her watching still, and she gives Nicole a little wave. It’s hesitant and almost cripplingly shy, but it means more than the others have.

Nicole smiles back and Waverly looks down and she means to turn inside, but she can’t help looking for Nicole once more, like she needs one more breath of air before a descent underwater.

She looks up and that rope pulls and Nicole is watching her in a way that Waverly’s never seen before, but she thinks she knows what it means regardless, and it stops her heart.

Because she looks like she could be falling in love.

I know, that’s a really long quote. But if we’re being honest, I could copy and paste every. single. line. from tiger’s works. I am not exaggerating.

The special thing about this one is that it really enhances the canon wayhaught relationship. It adds so much to what we see on screen. That’s the beautiful thing about tiger - her works add to the canon world, so very much.

Last, but certainly not least, is a piece by @tinyvariations called missing time:

The noise is delicate, more suggestion than reality, like an apparition, a ghost that flits in and out of the periphery, lacking shape and substance and all manner of things. The kind of sound that makes one question whether or not they heard anything at all.

Except for Waverly Earp, that is.

It’s a testament to the human body, to the survival mechanisms inherent in the human brain that one can attune oneself, so to speak, to the environmental stimuli that matter, to turn the volume up or down, to fiddle with the world’s contrast or dim the brightness as needed.

Mothers - or sisters, as the case may be - who wake in the dead of night from a deep slumber, bolting upright in bed and holding their breaths until they hear it again, the sound of the baby girl down the hall crying softly in her bed, another nightmare taking its toll.

A girl living alone in a one-room apartment over the town’s watering hole, the railroad tracks visible through the dirt-streaked windows along the wall. Day after day, night after night the train click clacks its way through the deserted streets of Purgatory, its bellowing horn shattering the somnolent stillness, rattling the windows in their frames on its journey. But she sleeps on, her ears dismissing the familiar sound as neutral. As unimportant, unworthy of attention.

Or a father with the uncanny ability to suss out alcohol in the world around him, to hear the crack of a can or the plink of a bottle cap being removed at a mile away. And the weakness to chase after it every time.

And so it is that when her phone trills, the sprightly glissando signalling receipt of a new text message muffled and distorted under a veritable mountain of clothes, Waverly still hears it clearly, and her heartstrings echo, an instantaneous slide up the scale.

The noise repeats itself, and her heart jolts another octave.

Nicole.

Okay. OKAY. Listen. I really tried to choose something shorter. But. DID YOU READ THAT?!??? HOLY. SHIT.

Every time I read something from tinyvariations, I am blown. away. with the Shakespearean like knowledge of the English language and just how to use those words so effectively. It’s prose, all of it, every damn word. The descriptions always make me stop and go “this is what words were made for.”

I know... you want one more. I know it. So here it is. This is from valley; low by wrackwonder (who I don’t believe is on tumblr...)

“You went scuba diving?” All thoughts of the sky disappeared. The closest Waverly had been to scuba diving was a worn-out VHS copy of The Little Mermaid she had found in Willa’s closet. Nicole had seen and done so much. Waverly had barely left the front porch. “Yeah, saw sharks and turtles, it was incredible.”

Waverly was about to ask for more details when the last candle flickered out, casting the room in sudden, inky darkness. She gasped, surprised, and that’s when Nicole scooted forward, her side coming into contact with Waverly’s side. In the blackness, Waverly could just make out the shape of Nicole, her silhouette, the only light coming from the occasional flashes of lightening outside. For all she knew, she could be in bed with a stranger. For all she knew, she could be in bed with the love of her life. Her heart thumped loudly.

“At first it can be so scary,” Nicole’s breath brushed past Waverly’s shoulder, across her chest, and her skin erupted into gooseflesh.

“People really aren’t supposed to be underwater, we’re not made for it, so it takes a few seconds for the body to get used to the shock.”

There were fingers tracing patterns across Waverly’s ribcage, electric touches that went right to Waverly’s core.

“The first thing is your ears, because the water fills up everything, every crevice.” With her index finger, Nicole made a line across Waverly’s abdomen, from one hip to the other. Waverly’s fingers balled into the sheets.

Give me a minute. I’ll expand. Just hold on.

.....

Okay. WW pairs the imagery of scuba diving with the action of Nicole and Waverly making love, and it is so. powerful. Everything means more. Every word has a depth to it that it wouldn’t have without this incredible picture of being submerged in water. It’s magical, really. It’s just magic...

Writer

Not even doing it. There’s enough. If you really like something I wrote, and you feel compelled to let me know - awesome! But, I’m stopping (... for now ......)

[mycasandstarrs]

SPN 7x23: “Survival of the Fittest”

The Era of Sera Gamble comes to an end.

THE ROAD SO FAR: Kicking ass, taking names. Cas brought the Leviathans to Earth before disappearing. Dick turned Crowley down. He also killed Bobby, who’s back as a ghost, currently possessing a woman. Cas is back, and so is Meg. Kevin Tran, our new prophet., was taken by Edgar. The boys almost have all the ingredients to kill Dick, except for Crowley’s blood. Everything comes down to Crowley...who is in a meeting with Dick Roman.

(All set to our unofficial theme song.)

“America's ours. Your sales team stays out – period. That's not up for negotiation. We need America. They're so fat.” Can’t argue with that.

“The blood of one sadly unimpressive demon in New Jersey. All I ask is that you give it to Frick and Frack, tell them it's yours, stand back, and let them come to me.”

Contract time.

Time to find the righteous bone.

Why couldn’t we see that?

Professional legal jargon scrambles my brain.

“Sister Mary Constant, 83 years of quiet, humble nun-like goodness.” Our winner.

“Well...let’s bone this nun.”

*Sam makes a face.*

“Sorry.”

omg

I wonder how Crowley worded his contract so that he could betray Dick.

It’s Meg.

“I was laying low halfway across the world when emo boy pops up out of nowhere and zaps me right back here.”

“Why?”

“Go ask him. He was your boyfriend first.”

*studio audience oohhs*

“Vincent” by Don MacLean.  

Dean bracing himself to talk to Cas..

“Well, Dean, I've been thinking. Monkeys are so... clever, and they're sensible in that they leave the skins on the bananas that they eat. Is it really necessary to test cosmetics on them? I mean, how important is lipstick to you, Dean?” haha

The whole garrison’s dead, or in hiding.

Cas just wanted to dump responsibility on them. Oh, hon.

Enter, Crowley.

“I came here to help you. I find out you've been lying to me, harboring an angel, and not just any angel – the one angel I most want to crush between my teeth.”

“Oh,so you can crush angels now, huh?”

“You bore me. You know that? You have no sense of poetry.”

ha.

Crowley being incredibly confused by Cas’ new behavior, and also handing over his own blood for the spell.

“The boys need Cas to get Dick. Don't they, Cas?....Given the particulars of your enemy, sadly, you're vital.”

The Grand Clue.

Bobby, no! Leave the woman alone!!

“the arm”

Polly.

I always thought the blood should’ve been on the pointy side of the bone, as opposed to the handle.

Cas bought them lunch.

“So, none of this should cause you any ill effect. I went to a little farm in Normandy for the wheat and the lettuce and tomato and – and I thoroughly examined and comforted the pig before I... slaughtered it for the ham. Here. You need your strength.”

Real Dick Roman’s arm.

Huh, Kevin was vegan.

“Ohio: beta-testing. Wisconsin: processing. Florida: breeding program.” Texas would’ve been Livestock. Makes sense.

Multiple Dicks.

RIP Polly. Killed by Dick.

Bobby’s here. Sam and Dean need to stop him now.

“You got the weapon, and – and eyes on Dick, plural. I'll take care of Bobby.”

“Sam! Hey!”

SHUSH DEAN.

Just pick her up and run!

Or not, now that she’s choking Sam.

Bobby. :(

“Do we need a cat? Doesn't this place feel one species short?” Give Cas a pet 2k18.

“I can't help. You understand? I can't. I destroyed... everything, and I will destroy everything again. Can we please just leave it at that?”

“We can't leave it. You let these friggin' things in. So you don't get to make a sandwich. You don't get a damned cat.”  

That’s still one of the most hurtful, shittiest things Dean has said to Cas. I understand that he’s frustrated: they are so close to crossing the finish line and the one most important person to helping them finish is refusing to help. They’ve sacrificed so much, lost Bobby, for this mission. Dean’s in “nothing’s gonna stop me” mode.

And every other time Dean has reached out for help when he was “broken” he’s gotten a dose of tough love: Bobby told him to find a reason, ANY REASON, to keep hunting. Frank told him to do it with a smile or not do it at all, Eliot Ness flat out told him to stop whining like a baby about it. I am inclined to believe this was just Dean shelling out some of the tough love he’s been shown throughout this season. I get it, but I don’t like it.

“It occur to you every one of those things was in Cas? He knows them. He can see past the meat suits.”

“So, he'll be able to spot the real... fake Dick Roman.”

They could’ve just asked Meg instead of grilling Cas, jeez.

It’s time.

“Look... I'm done. Go get Dick. But don't do it 'cause you think it'll scratch the itch. Do it 'cause it's the job. And when it's your time... go.”

“Only...not too soon. All right?”

Let’s see:

S8: We get to see Bobby in Hell, where Sam bails him out to get him to Heaven.

S9: Bobby is in Sam’s mind when he is dying, and represents the part of Sam that wants to let go.

S10: Bobby is our inside man in Heaven, where he helps Cas bust out Metatron from jail.

S11: We revisit an old case of Bobby and Rufus’ where Dean even saw him for a brief moment in the monster’s nest.

S12: We meet AU!Bobby.

S13: More of AU!Bobby.

Technically speaking, we have been running into Bobby “on the other side”. How clever.

Goodbye OG Bobby.

Cas was witness to all that. Shame he didn’t have any final words for Bobby, and it’s a shame we never got to see the moment Cas found out about Bobby’s death. I’d have thought Bobby was important to Cas. (And yes, they’re my faves, blah blah blah.) (Also, Cas’ actions indirectly caused Bobby’s death. I’d have also thought that it might’ve been pointed out.)

Oh, it’s time!

“How about we run a little errand?”

Baby!

“If we attack Dick and fail, then you and Sam die heroically, correct?”

“I don’t know. I guess.”

“And at best, I die trying to fix my own stupid mistake. Or... I don't die – I'm brought back again. I see now. It's a punishment resurrection. It's worse every time.”

Cas trying to see if this is worth dying over. From what he can gather, if they fail, at least Sam and Dean die heroes and go to Heaven; they’re safe. Cas either redeems himself, or he continues to pay for his mistake. Either one seems okay to him.

“I'm not good luck, Dean.”

“ Yeah, but you know what? Bottom of the ninth, and you're the only guy left on the bench... Sorry, but I’d rather have you, cursed or not.”

“Well, I don't want to make you uncomfortable, but I detect a note of forgiveness.”

“Yeah, well, I'm probably gonna die tomorrow, so...”

“Well, I’ll go with you. And I’ll do my best.”

Cas has Dean’s forgiveness; Dean has Cas fighting by his side again. :’)

Hell fucking yeah!!! BABY’S BACK.

“Born to be Wild” by Steppenwolf.

Meg must’ve had so much fun driving Baby, and it must’ve been incredibly difficult for Dean to hand the keys over to her.

Meg looks annoyed at getting shot at, lol.

Meg deals with Levis, Dean and Cas go after Dick, Sam gets Kevin.

RIP Leviathans. Killed by Meg.

“The King of Hell will see you now.” Crap. Until next season, Meg.

Sam finds Kevin.

Kevin insists on blowing up the lab before leaving.

Oohh, that’s how Sam and Kevin are in the lab to see Dean and Cas disappear. Gotcha.

RIP Leviathan. Killed by Dean.

Cas protecting Dean. :’)

Crap.

“Did you really think you could trump me?” Dick’s last words.

“Honestly? No... Figured we'd have to catch you off guard.”

OHHH FAkE OUT.

RIP Dick Roman. Killed by Dean. Just as he promised.

Dean, Cas, and Dick are gone.

Crowley makes his move.

Kevin’s gone.

Everyone is gone. Sam’s on his own.

Welcome to Purgatory, Dean.

Cas is gone. Dean’s on his own.