#short original story

[and-corn]

[a-kind-of-merry-war]

A guy doing marine research into phytoplankton is far out to sea and waiting for the samples to be ready when he spots a fast-moving ripple in the water up ahead.

Fully aware that this spot is home to a migratory orca pod, he assumes he's stumbled across an orca hunting a seal and settles against the railing to watch, because it's not every day you get to see that.

The ripples get closer, the shadows in the water more defined, the water choppier, and suddenly the orca and its unfortunate prey are zooming directly towards the boat and he's waiting, breath held, for them to duck right underneath--

When the water breaks, the ocean sprays, and he's suddenly smacked fully in the face by a very wet, very confused, and very pretty merman, throwing them both down onto the deck while the boat rocks as a confused and now quite hungry orca dives beneath it.

The merman, it turns out, thought that the boat was an ice float and didn't realise his mistake until it was too late. But he's very thankful for the impromptu rescue, and wow don't you have nice arms, and holy shit you've got legs, can I touch them? Is that weird? Can I touch them anyway? And your hair--

So of course they get to talking because they're both utterly fascinated with the other, and soon the sun has set and the samples are long-since ready and the moonlight is making the ocean look black and they part with the knowledge that they'll never meet again, and a kiss, and a lingering look over the shoulder for all the things that can't be...

And the researcher gets back to land, moors his boat, readies his samples. He packs up his things, shoves them into his bags, and prepares to go home. He steps onto the jetty boards and thinks of the merman and the solid wood beneath his feet seems to sway for more than one reason.

There's a splash. He turns, pulled as if by the tide, and there's a ripple in the water. A face. A pair of eyes made black by the moonlight.

And this is how the researcher acquires a merman boyfriend who helps him find samples and the merman acquires a human boyfriend who rescues him from whales.

[yandere-writer-momo]

Yandere Short Stories:

Hell Fire

Yandere Priest x Herbalist Fem Reader

TW: abuse of power, yandere behavior, manipulation, and forced relationship

Pale hands affectionately cupped the soft cheeks of the sleeping maiden that rested on the bed in the dungeon. A bright smile on the young priest’s face as his fingers traced over her soft lips.

“You are finally here…” Aurel voice was as soft as a breeze. His blue eyes gentle and his lips pursed in thought. “You’re finally within my grasp.”

Aurel glanced around to make sure there were no other eyes watching before he crawled into the small bed beside (your name). His lanky arms wrapped around her vulnerable form in a vice like grip. Aurel buried his nose into her hair and deeply inhaled her sweet scent, a moan escaped his lips from how delectable (your name) smelled.

“I wonder if you’ll be happy to see me once you wake up.” Aurel thought aloud as his hands wandered her sleeping form. “We used to be so close when we were kids… we can get married just like we always wanted.”

Aurel brushed a few of his silver strands away from his blue eyes. His cheeks heated up at how beautiful (your name) had grown to be. “I’ve crawled my way to become a Cardinal, but I’m willing to bend the rules for you… so you just have to accept me.”

Aurel buried his face into her shoulders while he clutched her closer to his chest. His tongue clicked when he felt his she thinned out a bit. These heathens haven’t been feeding (your name) properly, have they? He’d punish them once he married her…

Aurel pressed a few stray kisses to her shoulders before he smiled to himself. He had destroyed her reputation as an herbalist by spreading rumors of her being a witch. It was a desperate and cowardly method, but she refused to be with him. What other choice did Aurel have? (Your name) had forced his hand for the last time and now she had the biggest choice to make.

Become his wife or burn at the pyre.

[wiltkingart]

skintight

[mermeladadepera]

dodo and fito

[golyadkin]

I cannot express enough that if your reaction, as a hobby artist, to not getting that many notes on your art is to say "maybe I should just stop doing art altogether" you need to stop posting art to tumblr

not necessarily forever, not even for long, but just stop putting your art on here and start doing it for you again, remember why you enjoyed doing art in the first place and stop relying on the attention of faceless people on the internet for your enjoyment of your hard work

believe me, I get it, nothing crushes the artistic soul quite like labouring for hours on a piece only for it to get like 10 notes, so you need to find your own source of joy in the act of creation and a lot of the time that means making art and not showing it to anybody

[the-modern-typewriter]

I love love all your writing and jealous villains / possessive villains always make me kick my feet!! Can I request a hero that’s been under appreciated by the city and getting hurt / almost killed by civilians they were meant to protect? And the villain finds the aftermath? ╰(*´︶`*)╯♡

"My god." The voice was strained. Familiar. Them.

It really wasn't the hero's day, was it? They released a slow, pained breath, pushing themselves gingerly off the grimy, rain-puddled street. "Enjoy the show?"

"What show? You could have taken them. You should have taken them."

The hero grunted. They straightened. They wobbled.

The villain appeared out of the shadows, at their side, in an instant. It took the hero a moment to realise that the villain had placed a steadying hand on their arm.

The villain's face was harsher in the streetlight; all firelit edges, beautifully demonic, orange pinpricks glinting almost red in their furious eyes. Rain spat down, soaking into the villain's hair and clothes. They didn't seem to care.

The hero did a double-take. The flippant comment they'd been about to make died in their mouth.

"How much did you see?" the hero asked.

The villain's jaw clenched. "I just got here."

It was an unexpected confession. On closer inspection, the rapid rise an fall of the villain's chest suggested they'd been running.

"Huh," the hero said.

The villain's gaze raked over them, taking in every bruise and scrape and bit of blood. "You didn't fight back. Why didn't you fight back? You could have pulverised them. Made them fear ever hurting someone again. That's what you do if I attacked you."

The hero shrugged, awkwardly. They eased their arm free of the villain's grip.

"That's not an answer," the villain snapped.

"I would have killed them. Normal people can't deal with my powers."

"So better to let them nearly kill you?"

The hero shrugged again. Everything ached; they weren't especially in the mood for hearing about how wrongly they'd handled getting the flying spit kicked out of them, they weren't in the mood to explain how the villain was different. Even at war, it was easier with them.

"You're in uniform," the villain said. "They knew who they attacked."

"Oh." The hero hadn't realised. The truth of it struck them like a low blow and their shoulders slumped, as if it wasn't already far too late to brace and curl into a foetal position to guard the heart of them. "Right. Yeah. Well, bold move on their part!"

They tried for chipper. They failed completely.

The whole time, they'd been so preoccupied, they'd thought the strangers had no idea. A wave of stupidity, prickling with humiliation, washed over them. Their eyes felt hot.

The hero swore under their threat.

"I'm going to kill them." Possessiveness threaded low and heated through the villain's voice.

"I don't need you to do that."

"I know. It will be my absolute pleasure." The villain grabbed the hero's arm again as the took a step and stumbled. "They shouldn't-"

The hero could feel themselves beginning to shake, a myriad emotions welling up inside them, threatening to explode, as they listened to the villain's insistence that really no one else should be allowed to touch what was theirs.

"I said, I don't fucking need you to do that."

The villain went quiet. Still.

The hero closed their eyes again, already regretting their sharpness. A treacherous tear rolled down their cheek. Christ. That was all they needed, wasn't it? Cherry, meet the top of the garbage pile. They swiped furiously at their face and didn't say sorry. They couldn't say sorry. They'd never stop, they were sure of it.

"What do you need?" the villain asked.

The hero glanced up at them, startled.

It wasn't that the possessiveness was gone from the villain's face, only that the burning of it had finally cleared enough for the hero to see what lay beneath it.

The care, the sincerity, in the villain's question felt like a knockout blow. They didn't know what to do with it. They had no armour for it, no shield.

"What do you need?" the villain asked again, softer, when the hero said nothing. Their other hand rose, cupping the hero's cheek. "You want me to get you home? Your leg's screwed. You can't walk."

"I can walk." The hero looked down at their leg. They could...well, it wouldn't be fun walking. They eyed the villain. "Seriously?"

"Well, I'd prefer to hunt the bastards down and kill them, but I also do an incredible taxi service, yeah."

"Thank you."

The villain looked almost as uncomfortable as the hero felt. They shrugged. Their jaw worked, eyes narrowing when they caught sight of the hero's injuries again. The hero could feel the villain's fingers flexing against their skin with barely leashed violence - and, yet. It was leashed.

The villain dropped their hand.

"My car is this way. Can you - can I - I can help you get there. If I'm allowed."

"You're asking permission to touch me?"

The villain glared at them.

Despite everything, the hero managed a weak smile back. "Yeah," they said. "You're allowed."

The villain nodded, wrapping an arm around the hero, before pulling them up into an unexpected bridal carry. They were strong. All lean muscle and warmth against the hero's frozen body.

"I'm going to get blood on you," the hero said.

"Because nobody has ever bled on me before ever."

The hero huffed.

They let the villain walk them out of the alleyway, brain still sluggishly working its way through all of the implications of the villain's sudden appearance.

They'd come running when - what? When they learned the hero was in trouble? When they learned that the hero wasn't fighting back to the full extent they were capable of?

Thoughts were hard and the villain's car was warm, the heating soon on full blast.

Thank you. It welled in their throat again. The hero choked on it.

They didn't think they'd ever been as well looked after as they were that week.

[codgod]

something wicked this way comes

[this is a redraw, here’s the original :p]

[bluebutter-art]

My designs for The Captive Prince Trilogy book covers and its short stories!!

This has been months in the making, and thus making it the longest project I’ve ever worked on! I’m so excited it’s finally out in the world.

Please be sure to click and see each image because tumblr as per usual has dropped the quality quite significantly.

EDIT: You can now find the HD images to print or use as personal book cover here

[dycefic]

The Hearthstone God

[The sequel to the God of Prophecy, and the Serpent God of Protection]

---

Fire is out of fashion, in this new age.

Some of my kind have found new homes, new names, in factories or forges, in the hearts of wildfires or crystals or volcanoes.

Most of us are simply forgotten.

I was a fire god, once. A god of gathering, a god of communion, a god of song and story. But there are no hearthstones now. No fires around which families gather to eat and talk and tell stories.

I am lucky. I am tied to a great flat stone near a lake. A lake that has survived all the wild exuberance of men, when they learned to change the world around them. Once, this was a place where travellers stopped to rest. At first they travelled on their feet, or on half-wild horses. Then there were carts, and a road. Much later, cars drove down the road. The road was paved.

But some things do not change. People need clean water to drink, and the spring here is good. They need to rest, when they are weary. And even now, when they come to camp in nylon tents, to fish in the lake, or to hunt the ducks, or drive camper-vans to the flat place, their ancient instincts wake, and they turn to fire once more. They light new fires atop my stone, so flat and safe, from which no log will roll to set the woods afire.

Not so many come now. Camping is less popular these days. But some still come. Some still light their fires, and settle around my stone, and talk, or listen to music, or tell stories. So I survive, just barely, on the edges of belief.

I feel it, when things begin to change. Something is happening. Something is drawing old gods back. Not the great ones, risen beyond mortal understanding, but the oldest gods, the small gods, those who rose when humankind were still learning what they were.

Far to the west of me, a god even more ancient than I wakes, and begins to hunt again. I remember the stories that were once told of that old serpent, and tell them over to myself in the long fireless nights.

A god of prophecy, not of this land, settles south and west, and I remember tales of ancient ravens, their wisdom and their guile and their sharp, sharp eyes. There was a raven clan once, who passed this way in the days of skin garments and stone tools, but I have forgotten their name. I only remember the symbol they wore, the black bird with its spread wings, marked in charcoal or charring on wooden talismans or leather garments.

I wait, to see who will awaken next.

To my great surprise, it is me.

The people who come this time aren’t like the campers. They come at night, a ragged family group with few blood ties between them, with a single tent and few possessions carried on devices I haven’t seen before. Bicycles, they’re called, slung over with bags the way ponies used to be. They come at night, and hide when cars pass on the road.

They light a fire on my stone, with wood scavenged from the forest, and huddle around its warmth. They don’t speak much, not at first, but they say enough. They have no home, I learn. They are travellers of a kind I have not known before, who are allowed to stop nowhere, but have no goal but a place to rest. They are thin, and worn, and so tired. So very tired.

They need a hearth.

I am only a weak shadow of a god, now, who once recorded the songs and stories of a thousand generations in my ancient stone, but I am still a god of fire. Their fire burns slow, their little fuel lasting well. The food they heat over it sustains them better. The water of that spring, my spring, puts a little life back in them. This stone has lain in this place since great monsters walked this world, since before humans spoke words to one another, and I came into being with the first fire that burned on it. I am old, old, and though weak, I am not powerless.

They stay.

I cannot speak to them. I am old, and weak, and they do not believe. But slowly, with the power of the fires they build every night, with the tiny offerings of scraps of food spilled into the flames, with their growing confidence in the safety of this place, I am able to do more. I give them dreams and they find the cave not far away, where they can hide. They dream of fish, and begin to try to catch some. A woman remembers that some of the local plants are safe to eat, when I slowly wake a long-forgotten memory of a camping trip from her childhood.

And then a child, a strange, quiet child who rarely speaks, a child without mother or father, in the care of an older brother who is exhausted to the very edge of death but cannot give up while she needs him… that child begins to hear.

She sits on my stone, sometimes for hours, not moving or speaking. It worries the others, but at least she is quiet, at least she is no trouble, and they are beginning to associate their hearth with safety. So they let her sit.

She is *listening*. She is listening to the sound of the water, to the sounds of the forest, to the wind blowing. And because she is listening, where no-one else has listened for so long, I sing to her. I sing to her the songs of thousands of years. From the wordless music of the earliest people, who sang what was in their hearts without words, to the songs I have learned from the fishermen with their radios and bluetooth speakers.

I do not know if she hears me, for some time. But then, one night, while they sit around their fire and eat food the oldest have almost certainly stolen, she sings one of my songs. “In a cavern… on a canyon… excavating for a mine…” she sings in a small voice. The others are startled, confused, for she has not spoken aloud since some bad thing they do not name happened, but one of the older ones knows the song and sings with her.

I have always liked ‘Clementine’. It’s been popular with campers for a long time.

The next day, while she sits on my stone, she sings along to one of the wordless songs the Raven People whose name I no longer remember once sang. It is a lullaby, a soft croon to soothe an infant, passed from mother to mother, and she seems to take pleasure in it.

She can hear me. She can even answer me, as the voice driven away by pain and fear begins to return. And so I grow stronger still. Strong enough to make the raven sign on the stone, one day, in the ashes of the fire of the night before.

She takes a half burned stick, and draws the sign on the stone. Pleased, I show her another sign, a leaping fish. She draws that too.

Soon, I need not shift the ashes. I can show her the pictures in her mind, and she draws them. She draws the wheel of a cart, and into her heart I whisper the stories the travellers in covered wagons once told over my stone. She draws a fish, and I make her laugh silently with the jests of fishermen who boast of fish who escaped them. She draws a horse, and I tell her about the wild horses who once drank at this lake, about the men and women who captured and tamed them and rode them through the forest when it was far greater than it is now. She draws a long-toothed cat, and I show her the great cat that once slept on my stone, and denned in the cave where her new found family sleep.

One night, when all the others are asleep and my fire has burned down to coals, she creeps back to the stone and looks into the coals. “Who are you?” she asks. “Are you real?”

She is afraid that the voice in her mind is the voice of madness, a lie created by a mind that does not work like other minds, that has endured great hardship. I do not want this child to be afraid. To instill fear runs counter to my very nature, save in whoever might threaten those my hearth protects.

I am a god of the hearth. I am a god of food, and communication, and peace, and safety. I am all the things that fire used to mean, before humans learned again to fear the thing they had tamed. I do not often take a form, for fire is my form, but for her I must try.

There was a wise woman once, who knew me, whose clan visited this lake several times every year. I watched her grow up, and grow old. I watched her learn of the god of the fire stone, and I watched her teach others. She slept beside me as a child, and as a woman. She sang her children to sleep beside me, and her grandchildren, and dozed beside me as an old, old woman. To her, I was represented by a sign of a flame in an oval, a fire and a stone.

I build a likeness of her out of the light of the coals and the shadows of smoke, a child with straight dark hair and a simple tunic, and in lines of light I draw the sign of the fire and the stone on the outlined chest. “I am the fire,” I tell her, “and the stone. I am all the fires that have ever burned here, all the stories told, all the songs sung, all the meals eaten. I am the traveler’s hearth, and the rest for the weary, and this is my place.”

“Piedra de fuego,” she says, tracing the symbol with her finger in the air. “The fire stone.”

“Yes. I am the god of this place.”

She frowns at this. “My brother says that God is in the sky.”

“Many gods are in the sky.” I cannot continue to hold the form of the girl, but the coals shift to make my sign. “I am not. I am here. I have always been here, since the first people built a fire on my stone, and warmed themselves.”

She nods slowly. “You are… a small god,” she says thoughtfully. “A place god. Like in movies.”

“Yes.” I’ve heard of movies, which are a new way of telling old, old stories. “Old places, important places, often have gods. And gods who are forgotten return to their old places and wait, until someone believes again.”

“Will you protect us?” she asks. “When the police come, to tell us to move on?”

“I am not strong,” I tell her sadly. “I cannot make men go away from here, if they are dangerous, or even call game here for you as I once did. But what I can do, I will do.”

She sits watching the coals for a long time, thinking. “Can we make you stronger?”

I think too, and she waits patiently. “You have already made me stronger. You listened. You believed. If you can convince the others to believe, that will make me stronger still.”

She sighed. “They don’t believe in anything, anymore. Not good things.”

It is a sad thing, that she knows that. They’ve been trying to hide it from her. “Then,” I tell her, “that means there is a place in their hearts that is ready for me. I am not hope. I am not a happy ending. I am not a god in the sky. I am a stone, and a fire, and a song. I am *real*. They can believe in what is real.”

The next night, she asks for a story, and one of the adults tells her an old fairy-tale from a country far away.

The next night, again, she asks for a story, and another adult tells a funny story about his childhood.

On the third night, she asks her brother to tell her a story. He tries, but he is so tired - not physically, but emotionally - that he runs out of words. So she lays her hand on his arm and offers to tell him a story, instead.

And she tells them all a story about a stone near a lake, flat and strong, that people wearing uncured skins and carrying flint weapons built a fire on. She tells of centuries passing, of people coming to the lake on their feet, on horses, in carts and wagons, in cars and motor-homes. Of thousands of years of fires, of people gathered around them, of the great continuity of humanity, and the Piedra De Fuego that has lain in this place since time began, listening to the stories and the songs and the voices of people long gone. Somewhere in the stone, she says, laying her hand on it, all those stories are remembered. All those songs are still sung. And it will remember us too.

I don’t know if it will work. But I was right. People need to believe in something. They need something to hold onto, when times are hard, when the ties of community and family are broken and they feel alone. And a stone thousands of years old, and a fire endlessly renewed on that stone, always new… that is real. They touch me, and think of those who came before, of thousands of years of history meeting them in this place, and they feel less alone.

It’s not much, not yet. But it is something. My nature, my existence, as explained to them by my small, strange priestess, is a slender lifeline flung to those who are adrift, a tiny certainty in a world they do not trust. And the more they believe in that lifeline, that certainty, then the more they believe in me. I *am* growing stronger.

When the police come, I will not be able to make them leave… but I think I am strong enough now to hide my people from unkind eyes. And if I can do that, then their faith will grow.

Tonight, three more people come. A mother and two children, weary and beaten down with hardship. My people welcome them, give them fish and greens grown by the lake, speak kindly to them. And when they have eaten, my little priestess sits between the two children and tells them a story of a stone, and a fire, and thousands of years of stories and songs, and she sings a wordless lullaby six thousand years forgotten, but living again in a child who draws the sign of the Raven in the dirt while she sings, and the sign of the fire on the stone.

And I grow a little stronger.

[perpetual-stories]

The Emotion Thesaurus: Adoration

Hello, everyone! I will be starting a new series that will help you the writers describe emotions.

This guide will be a writer’s tool to characters expression.

This section comes from The Emotional Thesaurus by Ackerman and Puglisi.

Adoration

Definition: the act of worship; to view as divine.

Note: the subject of adoration can be a person or thing

Physical Signs:

Lips parting

A slack or soft expression

Waking quickly to erase distance

Mimicking body language

Touching one’s mouth or face

Reaching out to brush, touch or grasp

Steady eye contact, large pupils

Leaning forward

Stroking one’s own neck or arm as a surrogate

Pointing one’s torsos and feet towards the subject

A flushed appearance

Nodding while the subject speaks

Smiling

Open body posture

Releasing an appreciative sigh

Laying hand over the heart

Frequently moistening lips

Pressing palms lightly against the cheeks

Skimming fingertips along the jaw lines

Eyes that are bright

Agreement

Speaking praise and compliments

Keeping trinkets, pictures of the subject

Constantly talking about the subject to others

Rapt attention, still posture

Becoming unaware of one’s environment

A radiant glow

Visible shakiness

Reduced blinking

Closing eyes to savor moment

Speak with a soft voice

A voice that cracks with emotion

Internal Sensations

Quickening heartbeat

Breathlessness

Feeling one’s pulse in throat

Mouth dry

Throat growing thick

Rising body temperature

Tingling nerve endings

Mental Responses

A desire to move closer or watch

Fixating one’s thoughts on the subject

Acute listening and observation

Ignoring distractions

An inability to see the subjects flaws or faults

Cues of Acute or Long-Term Adoration

Obsession

Fantasizing

Believing that the feelings are mutual

A sense of destiny

Stalking

Writing and sending letter, emails, and gifts

Taking risks or breaking laws to be near or with subject

Weight loss

Poor sleep patterns

Jealousy towards those interacting with the subject

Taking on traits or mannerisms of the subject

Carrying something that represents the subject

Possessiveness

May Escalate To:

Love

Desire

Frustration

Hurt

Cues of Suppressed Adoration:

Clenching or hiding one’s hands to hide sweating or shaking

Avoiding conversations about the subject

Watching or observing from afar

Staying out of subjects proximity

Blushing

Sneaking looks at subject

Creating chance run ins

Writing secret letters, keeping diary

Lying about one’s feelings regarding the subject

Writer’s Tip:

Body cues should create a strong mental picture. If the movement is too drawn out or complicated, the emotional meaning behind the gesture may be lost.

Please like, follow and reblog if you find this helpful!

[and-corn]

[agirlwiththoughtsandnegativity]

one of the hardest damn things in writing your own original work is coming up with names for characters. Maybe it’s just me, but it’s just SO HARD to come up with names that match the vibe of my book, that make sense, that are unique but aren’t cringy etc. etc.

(I reuse names for different writing projects 🤫🤫🤫)

[yandere-writer-momo]

Yandere Short Stories:

Knight in Shining Armor

Yandere Monster Knight x Princess Reader

TW: delusional Yandere, Yandere behavior, kidnapping (mentioned), etc.

Ajax had always been princess (your name)’s confidant and source of solace… so why did he have her cornered on the bed of the inn? His large, muscular frame towered over her as his body trembled.

“I can’t do it… I can’t let you marry some other man.” Ajax whispered, his metal mask hiding his expression. There was no doubt in (your name)’s mind that he was shaken up about something. She had no clue why he’d be so upset about her getting married…

“Ajax, it was bound to happen eventually. It’s my duty as the kingdom’s princess-“ (your name) gasped when he closed the distance between them. Ajax’s large palms pulled her into a tight hug. The force of the hug caused them both to land on the small bed with a soft plop.

“Ajax-“ Ajax placed a finger on (your name)’s lips to pause her words.

“I won’t allow it… I won’t allow some other man to sully you.” Ajax’s deep voice made her body anxiously shake. “Not when I’ve wanted you for so many years…”

“Ajax-“ (your name)’s eyes widened when he finally removed the mask that’s concealed his face for over a decade. Ajax was half orc? (Your name) hadn’t a clue and she had been with him for so many years…

“I’m half monster, I thought you knew.” Ajax chuckled as his crimson eyes flitted over (Your name)’s frozen form. She was now a helpless lamb trapped in the maw of the wolf. “It’s why the other knights have been so cruel to me… why the maids avoid me like the plague and your father wanted to send me to war.”

(Your name)’s eyes can only take on his scarred and burned face in shock. Why was half the skin on his mouth missing and his tusks filed down? Who had hurt him so much that he didn’t confide in her, his best friend? What atrocities had he faced while she remained none the wiser?

(Your name) were shocked when he bent down to show you his teeth. His tusks were clumsily filed down to almost look like teeth but they were still rather sharp. “I did the tusk work, but they grow back rather quickly. The skin on my face is still healing from when there was an assassination attempt on you from your future husband’s concubines. Bastard was going to pour acid on your face.”

(Your name) reached up to trace the scars on his face while Ajax gave her a soft smile. “Ajax…”

“You’re the only one who’s never treated me like a monster… you’re so wonderful and kind.” Ajax moved his large, gloved hands to hold her hands. “That old king doesn’t deserve you. No one does!”

(Your name) blushed when Ajax brought her hands up to his lips to press tender kisses over each of her knuckles. Despite how badly Ajax wished to ravish her, he must keep his composure.

“You took this amount of damage for me?” (Your name)’s voice was barely above a whisper, yet it made Ajax melt into a puddle.

“Of course I did. I will do anything for you.” Ajax moved himself to crouch on the corner of the bed, his head in a slight bow. Yet (your name) could feel the burning obsessed behind his crimson gaze. “I am in love with you. Madly, deeply, entirely devoted to you and only you.”

Ajax grasped (your name)’s bare foot and brought it up to his mouth to press tender kisses across the top of it. “I will love you until my skin rots off my body and I am nothing but bones. Yet even death could not separate me from you for I will be in every corner of your life like a permanent shadow of protection. I will protect you with my entire being and soul. I will haunt and dismember your enemies if you so much as give them a glance of distaste.”

(Your name) felt her blood run cold when Jax gave her a bright grin that reopened a few of the stitches across his cheeks. The blood dripped down his face and onto her foot, but he merely lapped it up with his longer tongue. “Now tell me… is what I feel not love? I may not be a handsome prince but I swear I’m your knight in shining armor.”

[whereserpentswalk]

People don't realize how liminal it is to be a time traveler. How you don't ever really feel like you're in the time you are. Even when you're in your own time, everything is off, your coat was something you bought in interwar France, the book you're reading on the train is from a bookstore you had to visit in Victorian London, even your necklace was given to you by a Neolithic shaman, from a culture the rest of the world can never know. You find yourself acting strange even when in the present, much less in the past you have to work in.

You remember meeting a eunuch in 10th century China, and having him be one of the only people smart and observant enough to realize you were from a diffrent time. You could talk honestly with him, though still you couldn't reveal too much about your time. And it was still so strange hearing him talk casually about work and mention plotting assassinations. You're not allowed to but you still visit him sometimes.

You remember that the few times you were allowed to tell someone everything it was tragic. You knew a young woman who lived in Pompeii, who you had gotten close to, a few days before she would inevitably die. On your last day there you looked into her eyes, knowing soon they'd be stone and ash, that the beauty of her hair would be washed away by burning magma. And you hugged her, and told her that you wanted her to be safe, and told her she was wonderful and that you wanted her to be comfortable and happy. And you let her tongue know the joy of 21st century chocolate, and her eyes see the beauty of animation, knowing she deserved to have those joys, knowing it wouldn't matter soon. And you hugged her the last time, and told her she deserved happiness. And when you left without taking her it was like you were killing her yourself.

You want to take home everyone you're attached to. There's a college student you befriended in eighteen fifties Boston. And you can't help but see him try to solve problems you know humanity is centuries away from solving. And you just want to tell him. And it's not just that, the way he talked about the books and plays he likes, his sense of humor. There's so many people you want him to meet.

You feel the same way about a young woman you met on a viking age longship. She tells stories to her fellow warriors and traders, stories that will never fully get written down, stories that she tells so uniquely and so well. She has so many great ideas. You want so dearly to take her to somewhere she can share her stories, or where she can take classes with other writers, where she can be somewhere safe instead of being out at sea. She'll talk about wanting to be able to do something, or meet people, and you know you're so close to being able to take her, but you never can, unless she accidently finds out way too much then you can't.

You remember the longship that you met that young storyteller on. You were there before, two years ago for you, ten years later for the people on it. The young woman who told you stories wasn't there ten years later, you had been told why then but you only realize now, her uncle, who ran the ship, had been one of the first people to convert to Christianity in his nation. He killed her, either for not converting or for sleeping with women, you're not sure, but he killed her, and bragged about it when you met him ten years later.

You talk to the storyteller on the longship, ask her about the myths you're there to ask her about, the myths that she loves to tell. You look into her eyes knowing it's probably less then a year until her uncle takes her life. You ask her if you think that those who die of murder go to Valhalla. She tells you she hopes not, she doesn't see Valhalla as a gift but as a duty, she hopes for herself to go to Hel, where she wouldn't have to fight anymore. You slip and admit you're talking about her, telling her that you hope that's where she goes when she's killed. You hope to yourself you'll be forced to take her to the twenty first century, you're tempted even to make it worse, you want to have ruined her enough to be able to save her.

[kittybricks]

Do You Love the Colour of the Sky? (Or: This Must be the Place)

(I apologize for the resolution in advance. Still troubleshooting.)